Self Indulgent Bragging on My Son the Creative Genius

In the car on the way home from school last week Robespierre volunteered: "I just invented a new recipe. Wanna hear it?"

Robey's poems, stories and other narratives are frequently endless, convoluted and filled with blood, gore, lasers, rockets, colossal extinct reptiles and questionable bodily functions.

Me (not in the mood but game for anything that might not involve hitting, screaming, food spilling, pulling over to the shoulder of the road, tattling and general sibbling on the ride home): "Okay."

Robey: "Grind up an apple, a potato and an onion and fry it like a pancake."

Me (ears perking up at the mention of actual food and now paying attention): "Wow. That sounds good. Where did you see that?"

Robey: "I made it up."

Apparently he did make it up, as further interrogation turned up no evidence of eavesdropping, plagiarism or the influence of television, comics, classmates or the internet.

When we got home Robespierre took out the food processor and made potato apple latkes. They were delicious! Here's the recipe, as he wrote it:

ROBESPIERRE’S LATKES (POTATO PANCAKES)
Ingredients
3 potatoes
1 onion
1 cut up apple
2 spoons of soy flour
6 shakes of cinnamon
1 carrot
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 shakes of salt
How To Make
1. Process (grate) all ingredients in a food processor
2. Mix together with hands
3. fry
4. enjoy

He was so proud of his recipe that he submitted it to the school newspaper; in his deeply earnest way he's wondering how many of his friends ran home the day the paper came out and tried it.

Oh Yeah! I Can Blame It All on the Kids!

I swear my car's not even a year old! Here's my excuse: Mom My Ride

Character Shines Through

Two weeks ago one of the kindergarten teachers at our school was hospitalized for problems related to uncontrolled high blood pressure; he died of kidney failure two days later, at age 42. He had taught pre-k, junior-k and senior-k in his nine years on the faculty.

For the past two weeks the student body has been encouraged to write letters or draw pictures in Mr. L's memory. Last week's newsletter, filled with wonderful and touching reminiscences, was dedicated to him, and an enormous bulletin board at the entrance to the school has been filled to the edges with affectionate tributes. Some of the kids made remarkably lifelike drawings of him, complete with broad smile and dreadlocks pulled back into a ponytail, and decorated with math symbols. Classes created enormous wreaths, easily four feet wide, made from cut out handprints, memorial notes and tissue paper flowers in every color. Saturday's funeral, filled with joyous music and celebration of a life that touched so many, lasted nearly three hours.

Yesterday the entire school participated in a memorial service. When I arrived all the students and faculty were lined up neatly outside the entrances to the gym, standing perfectly still and completely silent. Nobody twitched, nobody moved, nobody even whispered. When I saw Robespierre I waved and he slowly put his finger to his lips to warn me not to speak. All the kids wore earnest and solemn expressions; clearly they'd been coached in appropriate behavior but not threatened, as the teachers stood quietly beside them showing no evidence of the hypervigilant severity you'd see on the faces of adults who expect troublemakers to erupt at any moment. We stood nearly ten minutes until every class had arrived and taken its place in the line; then the doors were opened and several hundred adults and children solemnly entered, starting with the youngest classes, and stood silently in the areas marked out for each grade with traffic cones. Mr. L's family were seated at the front of the room, to one side of the stage.

Once everyone had entered, the students and faculty sang a song that everyone learns from the youngest grades, with new lyrics added (at the suggestion of one of the students) to celebrate Mr. L. After a stirring gospel song called "If You Could See Me Now," and a poetry reading by one of the parents, all the kindergartners were given white helium balloons to release, which floated to the ceiling.

The entire time there was not one giggle, not one reprimand, not one inappropriate movement or comment from any of the children. Even children who had no reason to know Mr. L, who'd never had him as a teacher or who'd come to the school after kindergarten, and children with a limitless supply of ants in their pants, behaved more politely than some adults I've seen at funerals.

I see this sort of behavior all the time at my kids' school. Students hold doors for adults and each other, and if you hold a door for a child he or she will thank you pleasantly. Behavior at school assemblies and performances is much more civil than you might expect from kids so young. I love what this school does for my kids. We are so lucky to have landed there.

It's the Ides of March

Today is the Ides of March, which, in case you're interested, is the anniversary of Julius Caesar's assassination. I always remember and acknowledge esoteric and fundamentally useless dates, like the anniversary of Paul Revere's ride (April 18), Beethoven's birthday (December 16), Bastille Day (July 14), Mardi Gras (usually in February but I always have to look it up), Bill Clinton's birthday (the day my first dog was born, August 19), Princess Diana's birthday (July 1, also Canada Day), and day of death (August 31, my brother's birthday), Pearl Harbor Day (December 7), and All Saints Day (November 1; yes, I'm Jewish, but it's my birthday).

As I am the repository of all this essential information (let me assure you, I get endless phone calls from friends and strangers who desperately need to be reminded of Beethoven's birthday so they can plan their parties), I have little space in my head for more mundane facts like Monday holidays or when tax estimates are due. Every Memorial Day, MLK Day and Veteran's Day I fretfully check the mailbox several times; for tax days I leave myself notes and alarms, and my sister and I call to remind each other. After a few years of chafing over our fiscal incompetence our father gave up and began calling and emailing reminders to both of us. There's no doubt she and I are related; if we didn't look like our dad I think he'd have his doubts we were related to him.

A few years ago, BC (that's before Cleo), Robey and I had just returned to town on New Year's Eve after a week away. The next morning I called a grocery store to find out when they opened. No answer. 8am, 8.30 am, 9 am, still no answer. Around 9.30 I began to suspect maybe they might not be open on New Year's Day. What to do? What to do?

I called the Ritz hotel, figuring hotels are open every day, and the operator confirmed that all grocery stores were closed. This presented quite a dilemma, since not only did we have no food in the house, but a major blizzard was on its way and we very likely would be socked in and have to resort to eating tree bark and dog chow, and maybe even the dogs eventually, and since they were mostly hair we'd probably starve to death anyway. The very helpful operator suggested that 7-11 was probably open, so I called a 7-11 and they said they had one carton of milk left but they wouldn't hold it for me. Robey and I threw sweatshirts over our pajamas and raced out the door; on the way I realized I had no idea where to find the 7-11, so we stopped at Walgreens instead, bought their last milk, eggs and canned peaches, then ran to the deli across the street where we waited 45 minutes to buy cold cuts, trying very hard not to be recognized by the many people there that we knew since neither of us had even brushed our teeth that morning.

As the snow was beginning to fall we stopped at one of the hospitals near our house, figuring people are sick and babies are born every day. There we picked up wilted lettuce, cottage cheese and nearly-expired yogurt from their salad bar.

And that's what we ate for four days until the driveway was cleared. The dogs were relieved.

Today is Pi Day!

Okay, without any hinting, how many of us know what "Pi Day" is? Anyone? Anyone? Put down your hands, math people -- let somebody else have a turn.

Nobody?

All right, I'll tell you.

Today is March 14, or 3/14, or Pi, that is, 3.1415 blah blah blah. Robespierre's fourth grade class is celebrating Pi Day with ... pies, of course (I love this school!) Parents were encouraged to bring in whole pies, which the class, who are studying fractions, will practice on and then eat; in other words, they'll divide and conquer (do you love the puns? I'm full of them! If you don't care for puns you might as well unsubscribe right now.)

We made a chocolate meringue pie. Before baking it I placed a Pi-shaped stencil made of parchment paper on top and sprinkled dark cocoa over it. Robey was completely mortified; I suppose I was toeing the line between cool and profoundly nerdy, but as soon as he walked in to class he regaled one of his teachers with a minutely detailed description of the Pi on his pie. A few other pies were similarly decorated, thank goodness.

Maybe we'll bring a pizza when Cleo reaches 4th grade. Meanwhile, the meshuggenah French teacher is planning a party for tomorrow in advance of Spring Break, so we've been asked to bring in French food for the class, and French fries don't count.

We Have Varmints

In the twelve years we've lived in our house I've kept a running list of the many critters that have come to visit, gnaw on the the siding, dig under the foundation and sometimes scare the living daylights out of me. When I bought a house surrounded by trees I guess I expected the occasional visitor from nature, but the extensiveness and variety of the list has left me scratching my head.

We've seen squirrels (for two years we had an albino), mice, moles, voles, rabbits, chipmunks, opossums, woodpeckers, hawks, coyotes (please help yourselves to some of the squirrels, guys) and crows.

An owl perches on the eaves occasionally and gazes at us sleepily. The first time we saw him he waited solemnly while the kids and I scrambled for some nature books in an attempt to identify him (a barn owl, we think).

A snake and a toad engaged in a fight to the death on our driveway. The snake had the toad by the leg and the toad kept trying to hop away. We watched for a while and then went inside for lunch; never did find out who won because they were gone when we came back out. Maybe the owl got both of them.

A group of raccoons had a "bachelor party" in our attic for a few nights; did you know you can catch them in a (humane) trap baited with marshmallows?

Every spring one or two nutty birds (maybe they're cuckoos?) hurl themselves repeatedly into our windows, leaving behind sticky deposits of feathers and poop.

Several colossal spiders have given us some detailed lessons in web-building and bug-catching.

We've had carpenter bees, carpenter ants, Karen and Richard Carpenter... no wait, that's not right.

Our neighbors have a koi pond. They swear that the koi eat mosquito larvae and those are tadpoles floating on the surface, but I refuse to believe that tadpoles are making their way to our yard to bite us repeatedly.

Meanwhile, every dog within a one mile radius jumps its invisible fence to hang out in our yard. But so far we seem to have had no takers for our lovely, rent-free bat house.

My Dog Can Afford A Personal Trainer

We have a nine-month-old Tibetan Terrier puppy; we got her last summer a couple months after our Bichon Frise died. I thought I must be nuts for getting another dog so soon, as I'd had the entire summer to be gone all day without having to let anyone out to go to the bathroom. It took a while for her to grow on me, especially since she was so mouthy that I'd routinely wear her hanging from my arm like a bracelet; my neighbor commented that my forearms made me look like a cutter. Robespierre was pretty good with her but Cleopatra was terrified and with good reason -- the dog had an abiding fascination with our ankles and most of the time when we walked her we resembled a klutzy version of Riverdance.

When I got my first dog nearly twenty years ago I'd never had any pets other than fish, and except for when one of the fish jumped out of the tank and flopped around on the carpet, subtracting a good ten years from my mother's lifespan, they were about as exciting as actuarial tables. I was thrilled to have a dog, but I knew absolutely nothing about them; not only did I do everything in the book wrong, I even made up things to do wrong. Naturally, the Bichon and her younger half-sister were profoundly spoiled and ill-behaved. It's a good thing they were so cute and lovable or I'd have had to kill them. Bianca, the older one, never saw any meaning in housebreaking, and her tummy was so delicate that she threw up every morning, usually on my bed. It got to the point where I'd recognize her "hep hep hep" noises, and even in deep sleep I could grab her and run to the bathroom, where I'd put her front paws up on the toilet rim and she'd very cooperatively throw up in the toilet. To be fair, though, when I was pregnant with Roby and threw up at least once a day for thirty weeks, Bianca would camp out at the bathroom door with a worried expression; I told myself she was concerned about me, but actually she was probably just jealous that I got to lock myself in the bathroom and play with the roll of toilet paper.

So when Violet came along I swore I'd not make nearly as many mistakes, so I found her a personal trainer, Mr. Don't-You-Dare-Call-Me-Dog-Whisperer. He comes to the house and trains her to be a dog and me to be an owner. Now, instead of getting the "You Need to Exercise More" lecture from my own trainer, I get the "You Need To Exercise Her More" lecture from hers.

Will it work? Darn well better. I'm running out of shoes.

Am I Lazy, or Clever?

My mother threatens to cut me out of her will for oppressing her grandchildren when I require them to clean up the kitchen after dinner. It takes some management and encouragement: "We're done!" "Did you do everything?" "Oh, yeah." "Did you look at the kitchen with Mawmaw's eyes?" "Weellll..." "Go look again."

Occasionally their enthusiasm inspires them to take all the dirty dishes out of the dishwasher and wash them by hand, using lots of soap and enough water to fill a hot tub.

My kids are pretty self sufficient, for spoiled twenty-first century children. They make their own snacks, sometimes even choosing healthy foods, and they often make their own breakfast. What do I care if they want chicken noodle soup for breakfast -- it's food, isn't it? (Remember Bill Cosby's outstanding routine about serving his kids chocolate cake and grapefruit juice for breakfast?) So last week I engaged in a little experiment. I asked Cleo and Robey to make dinner for all of us; the only rules were that they had to make something I don't hate, and burning down the house would be discouraged. When they called me in to dinner they very proudly showed off one frozen pizza and two cans of peaches.

It's a start. I'm looking forward to the day they use ingredients.

What Job Would You Do For Free?

In a previous life I wrote resumes for hundreds of job seekers (someone once asked me what I did; when I said: "I write resumes," she responded: "What are you going to do with all the resumes after you've finished writing them?" Duh.) Clients told me what they were good at, what they liked and hated to do (never mention French fluency on your resume unless you can conduct the interview in French. Likewise, if you hated doing all the scheduling, accounting, typing or filing in your previous job, don't say it on your resume or your new employer will expect you to do all the scheduling, accounting, typing or filing.) I encouraged clients to look for jobs they loved so much that they'd work for free.

And what a great job I had!

My inner artist and editor got to compose, design and proofread. Even now I'm proofing over and over and over and over and over...

My inner kibbitzer met some real characters: a guy who played the bagpipes; a former model and fashion magazine editor whose list of references included nearly every major European clothing designer; the grandson of one of the Parker brothers, who recommended I buy my nephew a new toy called "Tickle Me Elmo," (what a coup that was! If I'd had the presence of mind to buy a few more I probably could have financed a year of college. Okay, maybe just a summer's worth of swim lessons, but still...)

My inner control freak got to tell people what to do and they did it.

Every day I'd gloat: "I can't believe someone pays me to do this!"

Then I had kids.

Just try to concentrate on interviewing and proofreading while children frantically wave cookies in your face for you to judge who got the biggest one. Just try to appear professional and trustworthy while typing with one hand and dishing out psketti with the other. Wasn't gonna happen.

Of course, being their mom is another job I love so much I'd do it for free. Good thing too, because in the ten years I've been at this company all my paychecks seem to have been lost in the mail.

Now I run a web site, for which I might actually get paid...someday. Turns out, it's another job I love. In prospecting for new merchandise I get to shop online all day. I get to dictate how the site looks, the tone of the promotional emails and the site itself. I get to put into play all the forty-plus years of customer service philosophy I grew up with as I watched my father build his company (thanks, Dad!). Now that the kids are in school all day I can actually put in a few productive and relatively uninterrupted hours.

Of course, not everybody is lucky enough to find work they'd do for free. But it sure helps if you do.

Remind me again why we spent all this money on law school tuition?

A very long time ago, when I was about to graduate from college as an English major, I contemplated my future. So many people inquired if I planned to teach or go to law school, I figured those were the two main choices, and I certainly didn't want to teach so I applied to law school in order to delay growing up a while longer. After three grueling years I graduated, took the bar, and went to work for a large firm, where I spent the next two years dozing in the library over -- zzzzzzzzz -- research. Occasionally I'd emerge into the light like Punxsutawney Phil, see my shadow and scurry back to the library or my office, where I'd close the door and watch with fascination as a thirty story office building was constructed across the street. I learned a lot about construction; about the law, not so much.

Lacking the killer instinct to be a lawyer (not so much a drive to kill as not to care when others are trying to kill you), I found my lawyer years to be less than satisfying. Let's face it: I just wanted people to like me and not yell. I'd lurk in corners looking at my feet in a desperate hope not to trip over them, and try very hard to achieve invisibility.

Sometimes it worked. Sometimes I even worked.

Sometimes I got it right; sometimes not. During a lecture concerning some long-forgotten error, the managing partner (the one with the permanent Maalox ring around his lips) declared: "You know, making a mistake like this is not the way to make partner at this firm," to which I replied (in my mind only): "I just want to make it through the first year without having cardiac arrest."

After two years I quit; now I'm a recovering attorney. When I balance spoons on my nose in restaurants my mother rolls her eyes and laments all the time I wasted going to college and law school. When I'm spray-painting pasta in the garage to make noodle menorahs, I have to remind myself that I do have an advanced degree. There are some advantages to having a law degree; when I had a business writing resumes, CVs and business correspondence, mentioning my legal education usually helped to attract new clients. The diplomas look nice on the wall; they remind me that I once had a brain -- I just wish I could remember where I left it.

My daughter is such a girl

My daughter, Cleopatra-Queen-of-the-Nile, is seven and in first grade. We just finished redecorating her room, and at just the right time. Both Cleo and her brother, Robespierre, were world-renowned nose-bleeders, and since he'd used the room before she moved into it, the carpet looked like we'd committed a murder there. In addition, the carpet bore scars from two elderly dogs who never quite saw the logic in housebreaking. On the other hand, I was able to hold out long enough to pass by her "everything has has HAS to be pink" stage, and decorate the room in purple and green. Now that she's moved back in and arranged all the Madame Alexander and American Girl dolls on a long shelf above her bed, she spends much of her time dancing around the room and belting Hannah Montana songs into a hairbrush. Her cousin gave her one of those tiny pink stuffed dogs you get for making a purchase at Victoria's Secret, and last night she took quite a long time arranging the dog in various positions on top of pillows and under blankets so she could sleep with it and make sure not to injure it by rolling over on it in the middle of the night. Have I mentioned this is a stuffed animal?

So I want to know: where does all this girliness come from? It's not as if I was a tomboy (I'd have had to be at least passably athletic to qualify) but I distinctly recall that my main activity with dolls as a child was piercing Barbie's ears by driving straight pins through her head. I also recall that one of my favorite pastimes was pretending to be Superman. And as an adult, I have just enough traces of testosterone in me to watch football and baseball with a modicum of interest, and never to ask for driving directions; I figure if I drive in concentric circles long enough I'm bound to get there eventually.

And yet, here she is, Miss Girly Girl, practicing cheerleading moves on the basketball court, completely oblivious to the game swirling around her. She draws fairies and mermaids, and lots of pink and red hearts. And that girly giggle puts me away every time. I'm trying to store all these memories in my data banks so I can revisit them when she hits adolescence and flames shoot out of her head.