A wee heartbreak

The Peanut spent yesterday afternoon and evening digging through her bin of markers and drawing little orange pumpkin faces on pages from one of those pocket-sized spiral notebooks. Each one was different, and on each, she wrote one of her classmates' names. She counted carefully to be sure she hadn't forgotten anybody. Then she clipped them together and put them in her frog backpack, and today, she was going to hand them out to everyone.

When I met her bus after school, she waved to her friends as always, and as always on the walk back to the house, I said, "so Peanut! Tell me all about it! Did you learn anything today?" And she said "Yes, but Mommy, nobody wanted my pumpkin faces, Sienna drew all over hers, and I had to throw some of them away, because nobody wanted them! I worked so hard on them, and nobody wanted them!" And she cried and cried in my arms as I whispered "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," and fought back tears myself.

I hate other kids. I hate them.*

And I know that they just didn't understand that the Peanut was giving them a piece of her heart, and that it's a lot to expect of a kindergartner to say thank you when a friend gives them a little piece of paper that seems meaningless. But my heart breaks to think of the Peanut watching her classmates reject or wreck these little gifts, and bringing the rest of them to the trash.

Did you learn anything today, indeed.

It was, at least, good timing for something like this. Peanut's best friend Gina -- who kept her little paper pumpkin face -- is over to play. Her Mom brought her over just as Peanut and I were wiping our tears. The girls took off running immediately, and the pumpkin face fiasco is suddenly ancient history. As I write, they are zooming around the yard like maniacs in between bites of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (that'd be no-salt-no-sugar peanut butter and all fruit jelly on wheat bread, because I am That Mom) and sips of chocolate milk. We're going to make lemon cheese bars (they're better than they sound) and they can eat them at the top of the play gym and then scream their little heads off coming down the slide.

She'll forget about it, or get it in perspective, and bounce right back. Me? I'm still sad. Sad to see her realize that she can't just wear her love for everyone on her sleeve and receive it back in kind. My heart broke for the Bean when it happened to her in Kindergarten, and it's breaking for the Peanut now. It's a chip out of their innocence -- just a sad, sad feeling, for a parent who cares about that sort of thing in a world where plenty don't.


*no, not really. But still.

Things that are always around when you don't need them but are somehow hard to find when you do

pens or pencils
matches
shallots
Chap stick
nail files
massage therapists
scrap paper
backs of earrings
quarters
gas stations
receipts
sunglasses
offspring
vacuum cleaner bags
little packets of ketchup/mustard/mayo/relish
napkins, in the car
complete thoughts

This post is toned down a notch from what I wanted to say after it happened.

A kid on a playground grabbed my daughter so hard that he left gouges in her arm. Asked how this came about, the woman watching him said, "oh, Todd needs redirecting sometimes, he's a special needs child, so we redirected him, and it's fine now."

Well, no, actually. It is not fine now.

I don't give a rat's skinny ass how "special" this kid's "needs" are. My girls have the evidently not-so-special need not to be injured by other children on playgrounds, and I'm sorry, but that trumps whatever he's got. Insensitive? Hell yes. My sensitivity ends where my daughters' safety begins. Call it whatever you like, but keep your kid's hands off my girls, or you'll experience a "redirection" you will never forget.

Have a nice day now.

I don't get it.

Roman Polanski drugged and raped a child.

Why is anyone -- ANYone -- upset that this is a serious punishable offense?

We're not talking blow-job-from-consenting-adult, censure and move on.

He drugged. And raped. A child.

Harrison Ford? Whoopi Goldberg? I love you both, but STFU.

It's Mountain Day!

I went to college in western Massachusetts, on one of the most beautiful campuses you'll ever see. This time of year is so gorgeous, so exhilarating, there. Fall is the best time of year on Cape Cod, and in many places, but out in western Massachusetts, it's cranked up a notch. It goes to 11.

My alma mater has a clock tower with bells heard on the hour all over campus. Every fall semester, on one day chosen from all the impossibly gorgeous fall days, the bells would toll the seven o'clock morning hour... and then keep ringing, and ringing, and ringing for five minutes. This was the signal for Mountain Day -- a college tradition since 1838. On Mountain Day, classes and meetings of all kinds were called off. The idea was that everyone should spend that day climbing the nearby hills.

Many students really did climb a little mountain on Mountain Day. Others turned off their alarms and got some more sleep before using the day as a reprieve from too-pressing deadlines, maybe giving a nod to the tradition by doing some work outside on the green instead of in the library. Either way, Mountain Day was a gift -- a day of sanctioned hooky (if there can be such a thing), or one more day to finish that paper you should've finished yesterday (as a practical measure, though taking a bit away from the pure joy of things, experienced professors would include Mountain Day deadline contingencies in their syllabus).

Mountain Day is a different calendar day every year, and part of the fun of it was guessing when it would come. On especially lovely days, we'd listen carefully at 7:00, and if the bells stopped at 7, the suspense would continue. Too early and it doesn't seem like enough of a gift -- the pressures of the semester haven't piled up enough. But left too late, we might run out of gorgeous days. Autumn's stunning reds, golds and greens give way to chilly greys and browns all too soon.

I can't remember a year when they didn't find the perfect balance.

Now of course we're all older, with jobs and/or children and whatever other adult obligations make it harder to just ditch everything on short notice and head for the hills with a picnic for the day. But today, at a lovely little college in western Massachusetts, it is Mountain Day, and as they've done for 170 years, students are ditching the books for a few hours and scrambling up a hillside to get a good look at their little corner of the world from up top. Perfect.

Plenty of college traditions haven't stayed with me. I never got into the one involving prancing 'round the Maypole, for example. But declaring a Mountain Day from time to time is good for the soul.

Who the hell is Mitchell? I was writing to Pamela.

Lately, because I'm in charge of different stuff for different organizations, I've had to email a lot of people I don't know particularly well. I'm amazed at the number of women who use an email address with their husband's name on it, and not their own. For example say I'm writing to Daisy Popplebottom; her email addy won't be daisyp@___, or the gender-neutral dpopplebottom@____, or a family thing like CapeCodPopplebottoms@____, or even Daisy&Thirsty@____, or something completely unrelated to her name, say, naughtyzoot@___ (not that I have ever used "naughtyzoot" as a username for anything. Never you mind.) No, Daisy's email address is ThurstonQPopplebottom@_____. When she replies to my email, I have no idea who the hell this is or why he'd be writing to me, but I have to open it in case it's one of these women with their husband's email addresses.

Gah! Why would you do this? There's just no good reason not to have your own email address. Even if it's a "family" one, why attach only one person's name to it?

My own inclination to independence and not being thought of as adjunct to anyone else, particularly in business I'm conducting my own self, leads me to think of these women as somehow pathetic. But I'm obnoxious like that. Does it bother you the same way, or at all?

You know...

...seeing the occasional spider in my house does not really bother me.

What bothers me is that they are not starving to death.

As promised, the schlocky sentimental post in which the Peanut goes to kindergarten.

Well, my Peanut's off on the big yellow bus with her sister. Our bus driver's been looking forward to this almost as much as she has. The two of them are buds, as she's been chattering to him at the bus stop since she was three and the Bean started school. So the girls got on the bus, and the Peanut immediately began walking the aisle, greeting her public.

That's my Peanut. She's got it goin' on.

And yes, I'm feeling the heartache of watching her go, and walking home from the bus stop without her for the first time. But what I'm mostly feeling is grateful to her.

I'm grateful that she still folds up small in my arms and lets me count her toes like I did when she was two, pretending to get it wrong so she can correct me. When we first started playing this game she would really check to be sure she had five toes and not six. AGAIN! she'd say, and we'd do it again.

I'm grateful that she still says AGAIN! like a toddler sometimes. Not for the toe-counting game, she purely indulges me there. But she likes a tickling game in which my hand is a spider who's scared of her and runs all around trying to find a place to hide. "AGAIN, Mommy!" I love that she's holding on to some baby-ness, even as she feels the pure joy of growing up.

I'm grateful that she's been exceptionally affectionate lately, even by her standards, and she's a very demonstrative little girl. All those extra kisses and I-love-you-Mommys and sudden joyous squeezes for no reason -- I'll take 'em. Every one. (But don't think, Peanut, that I don't notice that some of these are timed perfectly for when the Bean's in trouble for something.)

Yesterday in the car on the way to kindergarten orientation... kind of a dress rehearsal for today's real First Day... she said, unprompted, "I'm READY, Mommy! I'm REALLY READY!" And she is, she really is. She embraces changes with open arms, and a smile she can't repress even when she wants to, and a love of everything, just everything.

Oh, my baby. Off you go into this wider world. It's all yours!

Movie Night catch-up

Holy crow! I haven't posted about a movie all summer long. Partly it's because nothing has really wowed me in a long time, but for better or worse, here's some of what's been showing in the Sandy Shoes Home Theater.

Transporter 3 (2008). We really liked The Transporter, and moderately liked Transporter 2. Now, I don't ask much of sidekick characters in action star vehicle films. I just want them not to annoy me. Sadly, Transporter 3 is intolerable due to the crazy shrieking giggling silly bitch character played by Natalya Rudakova, whom I truly hope never to see again in any context. Jason Statham still rocks, but not enough to overcome this mess. Just watch the original again.

Being There. I thought it would be interesting to revisit this 1979 Peter Sellers classic. Sellers plays a child-like gardner who gets mistaken for a political genius. Eh, whatever. I think maybe this was a child-like movie which got mistaken for genius political satire. But I'm probably just missing a lot of the references.

The DaVinci Code (2006) is a completely improbable, ludicrous movie, based on a completely improbable, ludicrous novel, and I loved them both. Murder, ancient secret societies, intrigue, evil Catholics, suspenseful clue-following escapades -- what more could you ask for? I can't wait to see the next one (Angels and Demons), although I hope Tom Hanks's character has had a haircut since his adventures in Paris. Quiz question: what does this movie have in common with the Transporter films?

The Matador (2005) One night in Mexico City, Pierce Brosnan's kooky hit-man-of-uncertain-motives character runs into Greg Kinnear's sad, boring, dorkish businessman character. The movie is an attempt at ensuing wackiness, but it misses. It's not terrible, but it's not great by far. It did remind me how unappealing Hope Davis is.

Religulous (2008). Religious + ridiculous = see what he did there? Ha! Ha! Yes, this is Bill Mahr skewering religious wingnuts. He makes valid, relevant, necessary points, i.e. separation of church and state is important; crazy people are trying to erase the line, and it's scary how close they get. Agreed on both counts, Bill. But after a while, the skewering gets tiresome. Yeah it's funny, but it's also like shooting fish in a barrel.

Greenfingers (2000) is a feel-good British comedy, "loosely based on a true story," that I missed when it came out. Clive Owen's character is in jail, and finds himself placed in a progressive, low-security work camp style prison. He's completely closed off to everyone and everything, then lo and behold finds he has real talent at making things grow. The supporting cast, including Helen Mirren, is terrific, and this is a really enjoyable little film. Its flaws -- sentimentality and predictability -- are forgivable. Trivia: it was produced by Trudie Styler, who's married to Sting. I didn't know she was in the movie biz, but she's done several good ones (including Guy Ritchie's Lock Stock... and Snatch).

Idiocracy (2006) -- in which yer Average Joe gets put into hibernation and wakes up in the future to find that humans are all so stupid and disgusting that he is the smartest person on the planet -- comes from Mike Judge, of Beavis and Butt-head and King of the Hill fame. I thought that was a good sign. Sadly though, it's merely revolting, and too dull to work as satire except in a couple of details (Costco-as-city, that kind of thing). I do think Mike Judge has strokes of comedic genius, but they're not in evidence here. And yes, I know many people would describe Beavis and Butt-head, which made me laugh, as "merely revolting, and too dull to work as satire..." So why is that funny and this not? I think its being a live action comedy was a huge turnoff. Judge's animated works were funnier from the get-go because of the drawing. Episode length vs. movie length plays a role -- the B&B movie wasn't as good as the shorts. Also, maybe, just maybe, I am turning into a humorless old fart. Whatever the reason, Idiocracy plain sucked, and I urge you not to lose the hour and a half to it that I did.

More anon, though maybe I'll do books next.

What have you been watching?

Who's walking by

Thirty years ago (yes) I walked home from school sometimes with a girl named Beth. When I'd first asked Beth where she lived, she told me the name of the street (Hugenot Court, I still remember). Figuring out where it was, I asked her "is it a dead end?" meaning only to determine whether there were there any other streets off of it. "NO," she said, turning up her pale, pinched little nose in her pale, pinched little face. "I HATE it when people call it a 'dead end.' It is a COURT." Hm. Maybe it was just the once that we walked home together.

If only she'd said it was a "cul-de-sac," which I could've told her meant "bottom of the bag." I was better at French than making friends, in those days.

Today, I live at the end of a CIRCLE. The street is named _____ Circle. So don't ask me if it's a DEAD END. 'Round these parts, the signs say "NO OUTLET," anyhow, much friendlier and less judgmental than "DEAD END." And streets that are named ____ Circle or _____ Court don't have those signs because most people are smart enough to know that that's what Circle and Court MEAN. Take THAT, 12-year-old self.

I digress. Before I've even started, I digress.

Some people live in places where passers-by are too many to count; for others, a single passer-by would be the news of the day. Our little circle falls in the suburban in-between. We're part of a large-ish neighborhood of mostly year-round residents (a lot of Cape Cod homes, particularly in outer Cape towns, stand empty most of the year). Lots of walkers and joggers make our street part of their loops. Through the window over my desk, I've gotten to recognize the regulars. Here are some of them:

There is a guy about my age, fit, with a head of thick dark brown hair that bounces as he runs. I have no idea who he is but I look forward to his runs. I have started calling him George Stephanopoulos and imagining that he is listening to political news on his ipod.

There's an older man, a wiry fellow, brisk walker. He carries a stick, but doesn't use it for walking support. He just swings it around as he goes. We have some flowers planted at the base of our mailbox at the end of the driveway. As he walks past, Stick Man swats at the flowers. It doesn't seem a malicious gesture, more that he's swinging the stick around and he just can't help trying to make contact. He pulls the punch at the last second and hasn't yet wrecked the flowers. It's the kind of thing I would do, if I walked around swinging a stick.

There are several walkers who always make the rounds in pairs. One pair is of an elderly woman, her back bent at a severe, improbable angle, and a younger one -- daughter? niece? neighbor, companion? They go at a good clip. Bent as she is, that old lady can go. She'll be all right.

There's a young woman, lycra-sporting, ponytailed, who power walks laps around the circle, all the while SHOUTING cheerfully into her phone. Really, shouting.

There's a husky guy with a curly mop of hair and a mustache who used to walk/run around the circle with his German Shepherd. His run seemed more of a play-run than an exercise run. He'd do it in workboots. The dog would be loose and romping around all the yards, and when I'd see him I'd say to myself, dude, if that dog shits on my lawn, you will regret it. (Because I'm just like that about dog shit. Whack my flowers if you must, and I'll probably say "well. That was odd." But do not under any circumstances let your dog crap on my grass.) But the dog never did; he'd just run around like a maniac, following his owner, who'd sometimes run backwards to laugh at him playing. Last time I saw them, the guy was with a young woman pushing a stroller, and the dog was leashed. Happens to the best of us, big dog.

Sometimes my neighbor across the street will stroll around, drink occasionally in hand, to see what Mr. Sandyshoes has been up to. Mr. Sandyshoes is always up to something; it usually involves intriguing noises from power tools, and it's hardly ever possible to tell from the front of the house what it is. I felt for this neighbor. I knew how curious he must be, watching lumber being unloaded, listening to various noises of major projects underway. I was glad when eventually he just came up the driveway and said "so what's all this then?" Sometimes he scares the crap out of me by appearing out of nowhere while I am in my lawn-mowing trance, but that's my own fault. Mr. Sandy startles me just by coming in the room sometimes, and I'll jump damn near out of my skin, and he'll say, "hello, yes, it's me... I live here, remember?"

Who's walking around where you live?

This is why my life goes down the intertubes

You know, I try to be an informed citizen. I do. Television news being what it is, I do this through teh interwebz. However, this has its own hazards. Who has the discipline to read Real News Stories when the headline "MAN STRIPS FOR GEORGE CLOONEY" is staring them down? So yeah, I click, I click. And then I share, so, you're welcome.

For your (mild, safe for work - sorry) amusement:

Well, dang. CNN's embed code isn't working. But I'm too far into the post to quit now, so here's the link to the video I was hoping to put here.

I bet George Clooney gets a lot of that.

In which I resume blogging, with no promises not to start all my posts with "in which."

I am back.

Thanks for the touching inquiries after my health and safety, as well as for amusing speculations that I might have ditched my lovely family on vacation and run off to parts unknown, never to be heard from again.

I am fine, and ditched nobody. Vacation went well; a nice mix of sightseeing and friend visiting. We had heavy rain and bad traffic on the way down and back, but otherwise perfect weather and smooth travels. Observations from Amish country and (sigh) Sesame Place possibly to be shared later.

Since our return, my online time has been sucked up with noodling around on Facebook, and other stuff well-suited to a low attention span. Hard to write with people asking you things every fifteen seconds - go figure.

But now! Labor Day took most of the excess traffic off our fair peninsula for another nine blissful months. The Bean is an hour or so into her first day of 2nd grade as I type, Mr. Sandyshoes is back to the lab and classroom as another semester takes off for him as well, Peanut starts kindergarten next Monday, and I am happily getting back into the general scheduled-ness of things.

Stay tuned for the obligatory sentimental, schlocky post after the Peanut boards the school bus with her sister next week, because her home with Mommy days are really, really, really All Done, and I'm going to miss her. But for now, I'm opening the windows wide to the cool, crisp September air, fine-tuning the school day routine, and savoring another new beginning.

In which I am a spoiled brat about going on vacation.

It's hella hot and humid here, so guess what? We're leaving on "vacation" to somewhere hotter and more humid.

We'll be in the car for hours, along with everyone else on the eastern seaboard who isn't smart enough to stay the hell home and/or lucky enough to live somewhere not worth fleeing.

But wait, we DO live somewhere not worth fleeing. Everywhere is worse than Cape Cod, in the summertime. Everywhere. Why can't we go away in February? Huh? HUH?

Grrrr.

Things I would've done at home:

• picked more awesome cherry tomatoes from the garden, which is going gangbusters;
• maybe taken a drive to the outer Cape to check out the Hurricane Bill surf, which looks like it could be really cool.
  

Oh well. The New Jersey Turnpike seems like much more fun than either of those things.

On the up side, I do love license plate games. And the people we're going to see are as totally cool as the weather won't be.

I take it all back...

...about the swimming lessons.

The last few times I've been down to the lake with the girls, the Bean in particular has really impressed me with her comfort level and eagerness to "swim." She has her head in the water and her arms and legs moving around, and somehow makes forward progress for several seconds at a time. I can't call it swimming, exactly, and Lord help her if she were to discover she was in over her head during the attempt. But still: progress, when I thought there had been none. So, yay Bean!

The Peanut? She still prefers to just roll around in the wet sand, shake her paws off, and have people call her "Simba." But she'll get there.

Sweden looks fun

Food for thought (to be chewed with our mouths closed)

I saw this months and months ago, but it keeps coming back to mind, so I thought I'd share it here.

This is Dan Savage, presumably at a forum or workshop somewhere, answering relationship questions from the audience:



This answer of his clarified something I've observed over the years, in both my own and friends' romantic relationships: that in dealing with the inevitable bumps in the road, it can be useful -- critical, even -- to distinguish between "roommate" issues and "relationship" issues.

Roommate issues include differences of opinion on what constitutes ideal summer and winter room temperature; who leaves too much stuff lying around; when the garage is going to be cleaned out; who squeezes the toothpaste tube where; whether it's OK to bring the car home running on fumes and not mention it to the other person who needs to drive it; whether a single hall light can be left on throughout the evening or whether every single bulb in the house must be extinguished if there isn't a sentient being doing something productive directly beneath it; and whether the cucumber turning to mush in the crisper is just a cucumber that didn't make it this week, or an indicator of an unacceptable and shameful pattern of food waste in the household. Just some examples, you know, from thin air.

Relationship issues are the tougher ones -- questions of trust, power, sex, communication, philosophies of life, personalities, and tons more. I'm not nearly so fluent in any of that, because I Don't Want To Talk About It. In many ways, I'm ill-suited to being half of a pair; it can be very hard for me to get into any of this, even when something's fairly begging to be discussed.

And sure, there's overlap between these broad categories. I've just noticed that the distinction can be helpful, as "roommate" stuff can easily obscure "relationship" stuff. Sometimes what seems to be the problem is immaterial, and the problem itself is buried somewhere underneath aggravation over the way the dishwasher's being loaded, or whatever.

ANYway. I think "the price of admission" is a great concept -- such a helpful way to think about those roommate issues that can annoy us to death, or not, as ultimately we choose. It's a nice mental box to put that stuff in, clearing room to think about the hard stuff, which is where there's relationship paydirt to be hit in bringing out each other's best self, or, as Dan says, in willfully ignoring that that person doesn't really exist.

UPS Next Day Air: You're Welcome.

I just lined up everything I needed for today's errands (a check for the bank; the shopping list and tote bags for a Trader Joe's run; a couple items and their receipt to make a return at AC Moore; money and empty egg cartons for the family from whom we buy fresh eggs), and...

...after a (mercifully brief) search, realized that I'd left my keys in my brother's car, which...

...is now in New Jersey, where he returned last night after a weekend visit up here.

That's a wee bit out of range of the beeping key finder device I had a while back, which, though it did help locate my keys if they were on my desk or in a coat pocket instead of on their hook, turned into something of an embarrassment when it wouldn't stop beeping, unprompted, no matter which battery got replaced or how often.

So I had to call my egg-selling friend back and say I wouldn't be coming after all, because I had no keys. She must think I'm losing my mind. The last time I bought eggs, I was $3 short because I'd left my wallet at home and didn't realize it until I was in her doorway. She was very cheerful about that, and very cheerful about this. I think it must be something of a relief to see there's someone who has her shit less together than you. I guess I don't mind being that person once in a while.

However, a firm Note To Self: Don't take critical items out of their usual places. Just don't. Even if it means bringing the whole handbag when all you need with you is a single key -- bring it. Also: saying out loud, "I AM PUTTING MY KEYS HERE," is not a reliable safeguard against forgetting to pick them back up, though it will help you remember where you left them, once it's too late.

Sigh.

Pangs

I'm watching out the window as the Bean and her friend J., who's moving away tomorrow, play on their scooters around the circle at the end of our street. The Peanut is on her scooter too -- a littler one, with two wheels in the back instead of just the one -- and she just can't keep up with the bigger girls zooming around. They're only a year and a half apart, but sometimes it really shows. Peanut, left in the proverbial dust at the end of the driveway, is watching for them to come around again. Her helmet makes her appear all top-heavy, and her legs are so skinny, sticking out the bottom of her skirt. She looks like a cartoon.

Oh, my little Peanut.

In a month and a bit, she'll get on the school bus with her sister for the first time. What am I going to do, with nobody to walk home with from the bus stop?

Cry like a baby, is what.

"Invalidating legitimate presidencies since 2009!"

Now you, too, can be fantasized by crackpots to have been born in Kenya.

Get yer proof right here! Make it accessible, but not too easily accessible -- maybe a bribe should come into play -- and they're sure to fall for it, and possibly submit it as evidence in a lawsuit!

Good times.