Seeds, Sentiment, Magic

Sorry to illustrate a post about seeds with a flower I grew from a bulb, but hey, this is what's blooming in my garden today. The photo shows my little rock iris.

Today I started to plant my garden. Well, that's the truth if you don't mind a little embroidery. My garden is entirely indoors, so far, and all I planted was a slew of impatiens seeds.

It's hard not to get, well, impatient while planting those little buggers. They're small. Very small. I have to take off my glasses to see them. I end up hunched over the seeds and the flats like a clumsy horticultural Mr. Magoo. And so they make me feel old. Planting tiny seeds relentlessly tracks my presbyopia from year to year. (If you clicked on that link, you're probably young enough not to worry about it yet.) One of these years I'm going to need bifocals. For now, I can get by without them, but only because I can leverage my nearsightedness, Magoo-like.

Anyway. There aren't a whole lot of smart reasons to grow impatiens from seed. They're readily available from any nursery - even Wal-Mart. It's true I want a lot of them (for my too-abundant shady beds) and I'll save a little money by starting them myself. That is the official rationale.

If I'm honest about it, though, I'll admit it's not really about economizing. Not at all. I just love seeds. And so I'll promiscuously start almost anything indoors, weeks before I can really garden outside. I keep watch on the seed coat as it softens and relents. I'm spellbound by the improbability of the seed leaf emerging from its harsh husk, sometimes after years of dormancy, wakened from sleep by the kiss of moisture. I hold my breath in fear of damping off (the plague of seedlings). I'll dab my own spit on any recalcitrant seed coat that threatens to trap the leaves, then coax out the tender greenery. So much wonder and anticipation even before the first true leaves, never mind the flower and fruit.

I'm no different from my son the Tiger, who planted beans in his kindergarten class last week. He doesn't know exactly what to expect. He just knows they're magic. And he's waiting for that magic beanstalk to emerge, leading places only he can imagine.

The Mother of All Long Weekends

My county and the neighboring one have been under a state of emergency for the past couple of days, following the ice storm. Many people in my town still don't have power; today is day four for them. Some are now out of water, too, presumably because the pumps won't run without electricity. The motels are full. The Red Cross has set up a shelter in the city's rec center.

My little family and our immediate neighbors luckily all still have power, water, heat, and plenty of food. Our only affliction is that my kids' school has now burned through every last snow day, plus all of their disposable three-day weekends. We were out of school all last week (and I'm betting the district now regrets calling off Monday for a mere smattering of flakes). If we have another snow day, they'll be going into summer.

But the kids live so fully in the present, they're unfazed. The Bear's comment: "Mama, we're having a nine-day weekend!"

Naturally, there's snow in the forecast for Monday.

"Reborn" Female?

I foolishly clicked on the "don't click ..." link at this post by Auguste at Pandagon ... and slid into a world of "reborn babies." In case you want to live a little crazy, too, here's where not to click.

If you're more prudent than I, maybe it's enough to know that reborn babies are ultrarealistic dolls weighted to flop like a newborn baby. They're sold on ebay, among other venues, for hundreds or even thousands of dollars. Some are sold to mothers who've suffered a stillbirth. It's easy to snark at these dolls, but it's not my place to judge any comfort a bereaved mother might find. However, most are marketed to women who'd like a baby but are too old to get pregnant or just don't want an infant that poops and burps and eventually talks back (according to this MSNBC feature).

About the reborn babies themselves I'm generally in agreement with Auguste. I, too, think they are uncanny. Freaky. Replicants among us. Then again, I'm spooked by clowns. Even as a little girl, I wouldn't play with baby dolls. I adored my stuffed animals. They were cuddly and didn't look like aliens.

But here's what surprised me when I explored the photo galleries at Reborn-Baby.com: Nearly all of the dolls were female. I saw just two boys out of roughly forty dolls! Not every dollmaker has such a skewed sex ratio, but girls seem to predominate across the board. For instance, at Destinys Reborn Babies (no, they don't believe in apostrophes), the ratio of girls to boys is about two to one.

Now, I'm not willing to argue that the purchasers of reborn babies constitute a representative cross-section of the population. But their behavior merges with what I've observed anecdotally: the historical preference for a boy may have shifted toward girl babies in the modern West.

This is a remarkable transformation. Just a century ago, the rural German women whose birth experiences I've researched hoped and prayed for boy babies. Never mind their own innate preferences. If they failed to bear sons and heirs, no matter how modest their situation, they were considered failures as women. The whole community knew they were deficient. Their husbands and in-laws treated them with contempt. Mothers-in-law were particularly harsh. Not surprisingly, those women desperately desired boys.

The roots of this preference go back to ancient times. It was sustained by the importance of brute strength in the pre-industrial age, especially on farms. But probably more decisive were rural inheritance practices that resulted in daughters carrying off part of the family property as a dowry when they married, whereas sons inherited directly and continued to provide for their parents in old age.

Here's one example from a midwife in rural Bavaria circa 1920 or 1930, who attended a farm wife who'd borne three girls in a row. When the expectant mother went the hospital (due to the threat of complications) the farmer told her not to bother phoning if the baby was another girl. Predictably enough, it was a girl. The farmer neither visited his wife in the hospital nor picked her up to bring her home. The midwife said that husbands normally didn't even bother to look at a baby girl for the first couple of months - and they blamed the midwife, too, for the baby being the wrong sex.

While I'm very glad for the shift in attitudes (not to mention the modern awareness that the father's X or Y determines sex), I'm not at all convinced that a general preference for girls would be a real improvement. For one thing, reversing sexism wouldn't end it. It would only flip the terms of the inequality. This is structurally the same as the question of whether matriarchy would be superior to patriarchy. As long as one group is lording it over another, it's not fair or just ... not that we're in any danger of living in a matriarchal society, mind you!

For another thing I suspect that all kinds of rigid assumptions about girls are wrapped around the growing preference for them. Girls are thought to be easier to manage. They're imagined to be more docile. How is this progress from the tired old stereotypes of female passivity?

Objectively speaking, there are lots more cute clothes for little girls. If you've ever taken a look at the Land's End girls section, you know what I mean. I totally get the pleasure mothers have in dressing their daughters; I've envied it, to be honest, while pawing through drab piles of camoflage T-shirts. But what does it mean that we start sending the message from birth forward that a girl's appearance matters more than a boy's? And how can we then hope girls will resist the pressure to crave "sexy" styles before they even dream of puberty?

Finally, mothers may hope for a "mini-me," much as fathers have long hoped for a Junior to carry on the family name and their personal legacy. Such hopes can only be dashed. The burden of a legacy is a heavy one for any baby, whether a boy-child or a girl-child.

I actually always pictured myself as the mother of a daughter, so I may well be part of this new wave. Instead, I got two boys. I'm just wise enough to realize that quite possibly I would've made more mistakes with a girl, projected too much of myself onto her, assumed she'd be too much like me.

My boys remind me continually of how much greater the human potential is than the old straitjacket of gender roles would suggest. They're capable of great empathy and gentleness. (Okay, every once in a while the Tiger wallops the Bear, but that's rare these days.) They're creative and funny. They're definitely boys, but they're not imprisoned by the role.

One thing my boys don't do? Play dolls. But like the little-girl version of me, they cuddle and love their stuffed animals. That seems just about right.

A Bear, A Tiger, and an Awesome Inauguration

I watched the inaugural festivities in the university's grand (i.e., scandalously expensive) new student center, surrounded by dozens of friends and colleagues and happy strangers. (Oh, and my husband, too.) We shared high-fives when Biden supplanted Darth Cheney. We cheered when the clock struck noon and made Barack Hussein Obama our 44th president. And I wasn't the only one who spent most of the hour teary-eyed. I am, as the Germans say, "built close to the water," but yesterday seemed to a high-water day for an awful lot of people.

My kids had a different take on it. The Bear thought the ceremony was "very cool," but his class had to do math worksheets while the TV droned in the background. Aaargh! History in the making, and the kids are cramming for those damn standardized tests! I have sympathy for the third-grade teachers, who are evidently feeling the crunch from all the snow closures; we've had five days with two-hour delays, plus three actual snow days. But still!

The Tiger watched the inauguration in the cafeteria at lunchtime. His take? "It was not awesome." (The Tiger currently divides his whole world into two categories: awesome and not awesome.) And why not? "There were only grow-mutts." Only adults. He was only slightly mollified when I told him about Sasha being close to his age - and apparently about as bored as he was.

Aside from those few miniature dissenters, it was an awesomely awesome day. We kept the kids up way too late at a party, where it was also awesome to see a bunch of fellow campaign volunteers for the first time since November 4. Catching up on things today ... well, that's been not awesome. But oh, so very worth it.

With all due respect to my dear little Tiger, I loved Obama's sober tone. I loved his call to collective responsibility. I loved his reference to "putting away childish things." I happen to think it's awesome that there's a grow-mutt in charge of the White House again.


This, by the way, is the poster I won in the end-of-campaign raffle for all the local canvassers and phone bankers. Look closely and you'll see where Biden signed it during his stopover in Athens. (My winning it was undeserved; lots of people put in way more hours than I.) The pic below gives you a better view of Biden's scrawl.

Saturday Silliness: Manamana

For about the past month, my kids have been utterly obsessed with the Muppet Show. They are turning into miniature YouTube addicts. (In contrast to the rest of us, who are full-blown addicts by now.) This is the clip that started it all - their gateway drug, you might say. I have to admit it is very funny, especially the cows' mouths, even though I've now heard it, oh, a hundred times or so.

The Year "Resolute" Went out of Style

One of the things I really, really hated about George Dubya Bush was his abuse of the word "resolute." It was just code for "I don't like to think anyway, and so I'm just gonna turn of my brain now, kthx bai."

Also, I've never been a New Year's resolutions kind of gal. So I'd like to proclaim 2009 a year for being irresolute.

Irresolute kitteh from I Can Has Cheezburger?

Then again, I've had the privilege of a pretty wonderful 2008. I've noticed that a lot of blogs are ringing out 2008 as if it were mostly a disaster. Yeah, the economy tanked, and I too am alarmed at how bad things still might become. But politically, 2008 marked the end of the Dubya era. For that, I think we can all be grateful, no matter how irresolute we may be.

And personally, I had a very good year indeed, after a string of years that were very hard on the people I love. My husband's health is improving rather than declining. Without going into TMI, good things have happened in my marriage over the past year. Myself, I'm actually in better shape, physically, than I was a year ago, thanks to time spent on my bike. I even lost some weight, though for all the wrong reasons.

My kids still quarrel, whine, and talk back too much, but it's improving month by month as the light of reason slowly dawns upon the Tiger. The Bear is almost always a pleasure to be around. The Tiger ... well, he's lucky he can still rely on little-kid cuteness.

Professionally, I don't know where I'll be in eight months, but for now I still have a "real" job with health insurance. A year ago, I couldn't have said that. The latest round of cuts to the Ohio state budget spared higher ed, giving reason to hope my job might be spared, contrary to what I'd heard over the past month.

Is this starting to sound like Thanksgiving minus the turkey?

So if resolutions are in order for me, it's to try to stay on the same path, however irresolutely, and to appreciate the goodness of Now. Here's wishing you an equal measure of blessings in the year ahead.

Is Blue's Clues Going Black?

Via image.fishpond, used under fair use provisions of copyright law for educational and critical purposes. Welcome message to Viacom spiders: We love Blue's Clues, so please consider this a free promo and don't make me take the pic down. :-)

I live very happily without MTV and VH1. I get most of my Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert online anyway. No one in my house is a big Spongebob fan. But losing Nick Jr. and Noggin? Blue's Clues and Dora the Explorer? That is a crisis.

The crisis is scheduled for midnight tonight. When the ball drops for the new year, my #%*&$ cable provider, Time Warner, will also drop all Viacom channels. A last-minute settlement is still possible but unlikely, since Viacom claims Time Warner is refusing to negotiate.

Why - instead of hearing this directly from Time Warner - did I get word of it instead from Skippy the Bush Kangaroo? (Thanks, Skippy and Jill!)

These are the fruits of media consolidation, folks. Time Warner and Viacom are mired in a spitting match to determine who's the more powerful player in their little oligopolous world. They don't give a damn about notifying their customers. Why, Time Warner isn't even reachable via their customer service number today! All I get is a recorded message claiming "technical difficulties."

These big media meanies don't even mind if they make my little Tiger cry. He loves Blue's Clues and Max and Ruby. He used to be passionate about Dora, though that has faded slightly. Gosh, the whole family likes the Wonder Pets. If Blue goes black, even for a few days, tears are sure to ensue.

Those tears might just be mine if I have to do without what a friend of mine calls "the bad parent machine." She means that in the most affectionate way possible, because she too relies on TV at strategic moments. Not constantly, not indiscriminately. In my house, the kids are allowed to watch TV mostly in the early mornings, and then mainly on weekend and vacation days.

Yes, I'm a slacker. I like to sleep in when I can. Blue lets me do that. So for the sake of us dedicated slacker parents, let's hope Viacom and Time Warner catch a clue.

A Tail of Two Tigers

What to do when the kids are burbling with post-Christmas energy and turning the house into a zoo? My little Tiger, in particular, has been bouncing off the walls, acting silly and obviously craving the company of his own kind. Frustratingly, nearly all of his friends are still out of town for the holiday.

And so yesterday we packed these bouncy, giggly kids into the car and drove to Columbus. If you're running a zoo, you might as well take it literally. If my Tiger couldn't be with his friends, at least he could visit his namesakes.


Here's the tiger's best pussycat imitation ...


... and proof he was just faking it.


"I can has cheezburger?" (Or is that a childburger? He was looking straight at us!)


Thanks to weirdly warm temperatures of almost 70 degrees, the flamingos made a rare winter appearance.


I'd never seen the koala awake before yesterday (they sleep 22 hours a day), but apparently he too warmed up enough to scootch slowly, slowly toward his eucalyptus leaves.


The tree kangaroo was nearly as sleepy and slothful as the koala, and just as furry.


This gorilla was looking after a baby who made me very grateful for my own kids' comparatively good behavior. Her little charge was smearing something on the window that looked suspiciously like poop.


The Columbus Zoo does a holiday light show, Wildlights, which drew so many visitors yesterday that traffic was backed up for miles in both directions when we headed home. A photo can only hint at how many lights there were (millions, I think) and how beautiful they are when you see them "by real," as the Tiger would say.


On the drive home, the Tiger fell asleep, all his silliness and wildness now just a shimmer of a dream.

Merry Christmas Redux

The Brits have Boxing Day. The Germans have their Zweiter Weihnachtstag (second Christmas Day).

Here? The dang markets are open and so my poor little sister, who works for a major mutual fund company, has to go to work. That just seems wrong! I love the idea of a second Christmas Day and I think no one should have to go to work unless they provide a life-sustaining service. Heck, I'm in favor of all twelve days, even if that song really gnaws on my nerves.

So here's wishing you a very merry Second Christmas Day. In its honor, I give you two of my favorite holiday things: music (at least those songs that don't make me want to shoot someone) and cut-out cookies.

Thanks to my computer's built-in mike, the sound is pretty reminiscent of a music box. And the beginning sounds pretty wooden, since I was watching to see if the technology was cooperating, which only enhances the music-box effect. Otherwise it's a flawless performance (ha!) of Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song," arranged for piano by Philip Keveren. Listen at your own peril.

I can't claim the cookies are in any better taste. Still, the frosting does taste good (thanks to a generous splash of almond flavoring). There's probably enough dyes in them to preserve us for the next 80 years.

The Tiger, who made this one, hearts Christmas almost as much as he hearts sugar.


What's Christmas without a festive cat?


Or two?


And then there's the traditional Christmas rooster.


This guy might slide through as the Ghost of Christmas Past.


Apparently the Blue Man show has gone to the North Pole.


Here's our homage to Charlie Brown's tree.

I'd close by quoting Mel Torme's last line - "May all your Christmases be white" - but darn it, a thunderstorm just rolled into town. So instead, I'll just wish you love, kindness, joy, peace, compassion - and a glimpse of the holiday spirit where you might not expect it, whether in a torrential rainfall or a purple tree.

The Tragedy of the Elves

Today I have a horrible elf hangover. No, I didn't fall too deep into the egg nog last night. I was up until the wee hours doing the work of the elves.

As always, this wasn't how I'd planned it.

A few weeks back, the Bear mentioned that the one toy that caught his imagination in the Christmas catalogs was a puppet theater. I whispered to his dad that we could maybe build our own; the one in the catalog looked small and flimsy. By "we," I of course meant "he." The Bear didn't bring it up again - until a few days ago, with hope gleaming in his eyes. By then, his dad was under the weather and nothing was going to be built of wood and hardware.

But I started to fret that the Bear might be disappointed to not get the one and only toy he'd requested. So yesterday, I got the brilliant idea (and by "brilliant," I of course mean "harebrained") that I could sew a puppet theater. These Martha Stewart-ish fits strike me only about once a year. They always end in me feeling grateful that home ec was a required course during my long-ago North Dakotan girlhood - and foolish at not having learned my lesson during my last fit of craftiness.

4 p.m.: I'm in Wal-Mart, scouring the fabric department for supplies. (Please don't chide me for patronizing the evil empire; it's the only source for fabric within 40 miles.) Finally I find the only bolt of velvet in stock. Technically it's velveteen, but it'll do. It's lush and black. As for trimmings, I settle on sequined braid, ribbon, and tassels, all in a festive gold.

9:30 p.m.: I sneak the sewing machine out of the upstairs closet and past the kids as their dad gets them ready for bed. I discover that the prongs on the plug are badly warped. I unwarp them just enough to render them pluggable. Mercifully, the machine runs smoothly; I hadn't used it since I'd driven all the way to Zanesville for repairs after I'd broken the entire needle unit while sewing a Halloween costume. It dawns on me how stupid it is to engage in Christmas brinksmanship.

9:35 p.m.: The Bear appears downstairs. I bark at him - rather unmerrily - to get back to bed. I thank my stars that it wasn't the Tiger, who still believes.

11 p.m.: My husband slinks out to his woodshop in the garage, after all, to sand down a dowel to support the bottom of the stage's opening.

12 midnight: We cross the Christmas dateline without any kids appearing again. Ribbon loops grace the top edge of the curtain, an arched opening has taken shape, and I'm about to hem the edges. I realize that the edges are really long - six foot along the floor and nearly five feet vertically. This theater is big enough to accommodate three or four puppeteers.

1 a.m.: Everything is finished except the trim. I reconsider my original plan of using the hot glue gun to attach it. What if it makes the curtain too stiff? What if it melts the sequins? If I wreck the theater, I've got no Plan B. How about if I sew the sequins on with the machine? No, no, no - that's how I broke the damn thing last time. (My machine is no match for the glue on sequined fabric and trims.) I google variations on "attaching sequins" and come up remarkably empty. Oh Martha, Martha, why hast thou forsaken me?

1:15 a.m.: I sigh and start sewing on the sequined braid by hand. It is two yards in length. I learn that black is a truly fiendish color in dim artificial light when your eyes are tired and you've refused to get bifocals despite advancing presbyopia. I take off my glasses and bring the fabric within a few inches of my face.

2:30 a.m.: I go through another round of dithering about how to attach the tassel trim. This time, I use the machine. The metallic gold thread breaks again and again.

3:00 a.m.: I hang the theater on the suspension rod. I can't believe it's finally done. I can't believe it actually worked and - as the Tiger loves to say - "it looks awesome." I'm so tickled, I have to take a picture.


I lay out a trail of animal puppets to lead the kids from the stairs to the theater. Santa's work is done, and not once did I use the seam ripper.

3:30 a.m.: I crawl into bed.

4:00 a.m.: The Bear crawls out of his bed.

6:15 a.m.: The Bear wakes me up to inform me that the motor for one of his toys just overheated.

I promised you a tragedy, so I'll tell you right now that nothing burned down from this incident. But as I groggily assured the Bear we'd figure it out later, I realized that yet again, the kids proved it's impossible to witness their pleasure when they discover Santa's goodies. Unless, of course, you stay up all night. Hey, I nearly did pull an all-nighter, and I still missed that mythical magical moment.

That's the tragedy of the elves, isn't it? Every year, they do Santa's bidding. And then, every year, Santa gets the credit and the elves - unless they're uncommonly early risers - miss the show.

I'm reminded of a story my mom still tells of how my dad once built a kid-sized tool bench for my brother. Santa got the glory. I'd always vowed that I wouldn't do the same; that I would refuse to let Santa be a free rider.

Except for this: The Bear is in on the secret. A few years ago, he dissected all the logical flaws in Santa's cover story. And so after I finally dragged my bones out of bed later this morning, he and I exchanged a few knowing, smiling glances. He knows. I know he knows. That's good enough. That, plus the excited gleam in his eye as he said, "I really love the puppet theater, Mama."

Christmas Wonder through My Little Bear's Eyes

So last night we're driving home from services, reflecting on the message of compassion and joy that we'd just heard. From the back seat, my little Bear asks:

Has the Earth existed for more than a googolplex seconds? Or less?

Let no one tell you that science and wonder are at odds.

(And don't ask me how big a googolplex is. That's what Google is good for.)

This picture of my forsythia in its holiday finery is totally cheating; I took it a few days ago before the snow got washed away. For Christmas Eve, we had warm rains.

When You're Up to Your Neck in Effluvia ...

I need some cheering up after yet another sewage backup (the fourth in a year, the second in ten days). Cleaning up puke and sewage within a six-hour span? What did I do to provoke such karma?!?

The city workers who came out tonight promised to dig up the street in search of the problem, and they went so far as to spray-paint a big fat X where the pavement will be breached. I'm hopeful that they'll find the problem. In the meantime, the water has receded and the house reeks blessedly of bleach. I'd trade in for a new epidermis if possible, after that cleaning job, but I'll settle for smelling like a mix of mango body wash and Chanel No. 5. Oh, and the methane appears to have blasted my sinuses clear. I wouldn't recommend it as a remedy; try saline first.

Anyway, back to cheering up. While home sick from school this week, my kids have been enjoying DVDs of the old Muppet Show. This was their new favorite today: a wacky vegetable chorus from an episode hosted by (a now very young) Steve Martin:

Two Pants Rants

One: Why did my little Bear - age 9 and smarter than both his parents put together - think it was a good idea to put sticky tack in his pants pockets??!! And how do I get it out? This stuff is like chewing gum!

Then again, I guess it could be worse ...

From I Can Has Cheezburger?

Two: Yesterday, with my two kids in school and me on break, I seized the chance to shopping for pants. It was an unmitigated disaster. For one thing, my town's solitary "mall" is actually a ghost mall. Only about every fifth store is occupied; the rest are empty, apparently because the mall's owners have overpriced the rents.

In our one lonely remaining department store I tried on about 30 pairs of pants. Not one fit me. I tried jeans, dress pants, cords - oh, I would've tried clown pants if they'd had any! I even ventured into the junior department with its distressed and ripped denims. Nada. Zip.

It comes down to this: For over a decade now, these $%*&@ low-rise pants have crowded nearly everything else out of the market. Even my slenderest students - the ones I suspect wear a size zero or less - often have a muffin top in these styles. As for me, they consistently gape in the back and even the "moderately" low-rise ones still stop miles below my belly-button.

Hey, I've done market research on this and the results are indisputable: There's not an overwhelming public demand to see me wearing a girly version of the plumber look.

I realize some women seem to fit just fine into "modern" pants (which frankly aren't all that new anymore). My sister is one of them. But are the rest of us all just a bunch of freaks? I have a waistline. I'm the same weight and height that I was 30 years ago in junior high. I'm not boasting; I was a few pounds heavier but lost them in last spring's minor medical tribulations when I was reduced to eating plain yogurt for a few weeks; and now my existing pants are all too large, and I can't find new ones. I honestly don't think I'm such an oddity. Yet it's been years since I could find pants that really fit me.

Men don't quite have this problem, do they? (Well, okay, there's the variety of older gent who wears his pants over his belly and under his armpits. I think that's a personal style choice, though.)

Anyone up for a revolt against the fashion industry's rigidity? If not, I guess I'm stuck waiting for spring - and better weather for skirts. And if anyone has a line on clown pants, do let me know.

It's a Jungle in Here

Even though the Bear's birthday was a whole week ago, his "kid party" was today. I'm so glad we waited. He wanted a rainforest theme, and if we'd done his party last week, we would've had banana chips and animal crackers and that would have been the end of it.

Instead, now that I've finished grading my mega-pile of essays, we actually had time to decorate and play with the idea. Here's the rainforest wall the boys created (with lots of involvement from their dad).


The closeup view is much lusher.


The cake was chocolate, courtesy of Betty Crocker, baked as 425 degrees because I'm still harried enough to be a total nitwit. The buttercream frosting was luscious enough to mostly mask the cake's slight dryness around the edges. The unnatural green hues were a pretty effective distraction, too.


The cake is supposed to represent a rainforest. Here's the Amazon as seen from the crocodile's perspective.


Discerning viewers may have already noted that the animals look suspiciously like the plastic critters in the Fischer-Price zoo set.

I know a mother who can create wonders from fondant. She could produce a cake like this without any plastic at all. Okay, so she's a professional cake maker. I honor her skills. I'm also perfectly satisfied with the creativity that my little family and I muster.

We played animal charades and had a "jaguar treasure hunt" through our neighborhood despite snow flurries. The parents had a glass of white wine or a cup of espresso (or both, as required to adjust their nerves). No presents (the Bear decided to instead collect food for our town's perpetually empty food pantry). No clowns. No Chuck E. Cheese. And still - everyone got what they came for.

I'll admit, though, that with thirteen rambunctious kids in the mix, the wine really didn't hurt.

Coming in for a Chaotic Landing

I've got a heap of essays to grade before my last classes of the quarter meet tomorrow. In the midst of my work chaos, here's the state of my living room floor:


It's covered with helipads, in case that wasn't abundantly clear. The Bear got a little remote controlled helicopter for his birthday. He created one paper landing pad for it. The Tiger decided that a dozen or so landing pads would be even cooler. (There are also locations in the dining room, the kitchen, at the foot of the stairs ...)

At least glitter glue is not a featured product in these helipads.

Most of the pads are pretty simple. Some feature an H, sometimes with a circle/slash around it, which I guess means that they're anti-landing pads.

Here are a few of the fancier ones.


This one bears some resemblance to an animal or maybe an egg.


I'm not entirely sure if these are teeth or mountains. Either way, as a landing pad it looks rather perilous. Note the abundance of Scotch tape, which at least ensures it won't slip as you touch down.


This one strikes me as pure Paul Klee.

Now it's back to my essays. It's going to be a very long and late night. But the academic quarter is mercifully close to its end, and however rough the ride, I am coming in for a landing.

A Bearish Birthday, and Nine Years of Parenthood

The Bear turned nine today. We celebrated by going to a concert where his choir performed. (Audio is here for anyone who's curious; if you're plugged into a real speaker you can actually hear some decent music behind the audience's rustling and coughing.)

Afterward, we got together with some dear friends and ate this cake:


Apart from the obvious model, the cake was patterned after some cookies at a post-election party that got devoured before the Bear had a chance to try them. This was my attempt to make amends for that little disappointment. (It was also a design that didn't require any cutting, and since I'm still semi-debilitated, I wanted to keep things simple.)

Contrary to appearances, I'm totally not trying to indoctrinate my kids. I do think that being a parent means you get to try to pass on your values. Very, very high in my firmament of values - ranking just behind kindness and empathy - is critical, independent thinking.

So I've told the Bear he may well vote contrary to me someday. (Secretly I tend to think he probably won't; if I teach him to ask tough questions, he's virtually immunized against voting for the next G.W. Bush.) Way back during the primaries, I asked him why he thought Obama would be a good president. Ending the war in Iraq topped his list. Education was way up there, too.

The Tiger, for his part, just likes to jump up and down and say "Obama winnded! Obama winnded!" He still has a ways to go with both his political consciousness and his past-tense verbs.

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Earlier today, I mentioned to the Tiger's father that we've now been parents for nine years. His response? "Ha ha ha ha ha!" That captured my incredulity, too.

I laugh at all the moments of absurdity. Just yesterday, the Tiger turned up with ball-point ink crisscrossing his face, resembling a psycho Spiderman. He steadfastly denied applying any ink to himself.

I marvel at how the time could go so slowly and so swiftly all at once. Those near-sleepless nights and endless tantrums seemed to expand into eternity. And yet, looking back, I wonder what happened to the mini-Bear who'd throw his beloved stuffed animal, Mama Bear, out of his crib, and then bellow with fury that she was no longer snuggled up against him. Wasn't that just a few weeks ago?

I still wonder why I thought I was qualified for this job. No one really is, are they? It's all on-the-job learning, and if you screw up, there's a whole world hanging in the balance. Hmmm ... it's not so unlike the presidency, in miniature, when you think about it.

The Bear has extremely keen hearing unless he's being asked to clean his room. Predictably, he overheard my comment about nine years of parenthood. His response: "What does that have to do with anything?"

What, indeed, my darling little Bear? Nothing, of course, from the center of a world in which I've always been his mama, in which I'm as taken for granted as oxygen and his still-beloved Mama Bear.

And yet everything - more than he can possibly know unless he too someday becomes a parent.

My Blue Heaven

Who knew it could be such fun to feel so blue?

In the whole state of Ohio, only one county went more heavily than mine for Barack Obama: Cuyahoga County, at 68.5%. Athens County came in second, with 66.5% for Obama, and that despite our heavily white population. (The New York Times shows county results if you click on the states.) My friend and candidate for state representative, Debbie Phillips, also won, helping regain the Ohio State House for the Democrats after many years of Republican control. (I got to hug her at school pickup today; I'm still waiting for my hug from Obama.)

I was watching the returns at home last night when the networks called Ohio for Obama. I did the electoral math and realized the election was over. We hauled the Bear out of his bed and whooped and hollered and shed a few tears. We put the Bear back to bed and opened a bottle of white wine (I'd been too busy to even buy deodorant, never mind champagne). My sister, who'd supported John McCain, called from California to congratulate me on singlehandedly tipping Ohio for Obama. She was as gracious as McCain in his concession speech but a whole lot funnier. I do love my little sis.

Of course, my part in the campaign was minuscule. I didn't stop out of school to work full-time for the campaign, like my former student Rence. Nor did I practically move into the local headquarters like my friend Vicky. I didn't get a mere half hour of sleep on Election Eve, as did my student Meredith, who helped lead the on-campus campaign.

I'm stunned by the dedication and sacrifice that went into Obama's victory. I'd love to know how many people volunteered for the campaign. It must be in the hundreds of thousands. It has been a thrill to bathe in the spirit of common purpose - to indulge in hope and make it real.

My part was small indeed. Okay, so I did face down a man with black teeth. I braved vicious dogs. (And by "braved" I mean "cowered before them.") Everyone who's heard about my adventures canvassing in Pine Aire Village thinks that Mr. Blacktooth was definitely a meth head and maybe had a lab of his own hidden in one of those decrepit trailers. I'm no expert on meth (and thank goodness for that), but I remember similar scenes from a Donna Tartt novel, The Little Friend, which featured a character with a serious meth habit and nasty teeth. Now I have a vivid visual to go with the book when I re-read it someday. The irony is that my encounter with Mr. Blacktooth did nothing to advance Obama's win, since he was a non-voter and apparently a nasty racist to boot.

My impression is that most volunteers gave the time they could afford - and then a bunch more. Maybe that explains why so many of us are about to collapse today, even those of use whose contributions were modest; we're almost too tired to feel the joy. Our families gave of their time, too. My husband ferried the four of us through the woods on Sunday, navigating ridges, hollows, and perilously steep driveways while I dropped literature. He tended the kids during most of my outings. But my boys also went out canvassing with me a couple of times, including the final round of get-out-the-vote door knocking yesterday evening.

I hope my sons look back on this someday and feel like I do now: privileged to have played a bit part in overcoming the scars of American history.

I hope they'll look back and say, with pride and pleasure: Yes we did.

(Although I do have a few pansies blooming right now, this one is from a few months ago; it just happened to have the right color.)

Song of Three Concerts

However superstitious your mood this close to Halloween: It's not just bad things that come in threes. I got to hear three concerts this weekend - a triplet, a triad, a trio, so to speak.

Saturday evening, friends took me to hear David Bromberg play with Jorma Kaukonen at Jorma's Fur Peace Ranch. The Fur Peace is a haven of latter-day hippiedom in Appalachia (we knew we'd found the turnoff when we saw the Obama/Biden sign) and a guitar camp for musicians who are already pretty darn good. Oh, and luckily for me, it's only about a 15 minute drive from my house.

The Fur Peace has a small, rustic performance hall that seats maybe a couple hundred guests. I'd heard Jorma play a Hot Tuna set out there with Jack Casady. But I'd never heard David Bromberg play before now, and boy was that an oversight. He was wonderful! He wasn't just a guitar virtuoso; he was also a rousing blues singer with a wry sense of humor. Somehow he managed to play the blues seriously and yet poke fond fun at their woman-done-me-wrong clichés. He and Jorma played for nearly three hours - all acoustic, often half-improvised - and at the end no one was ready to go home.

But don't just take my word. Listen to his sly self-deprecation on "This Month," which I heard on Saturday (this clip comes from a 2007 show in Philadelphia, with his band rather than with Jorma). The lyrics made me laugh. They also made me wince at the times when I've been as much a fool in love (or lust) as the poor fellow in the song.



David and Jorma also played a treat for me and all the other Deadheads in the audience: "I Know You Rider." This clip of a similar version from the mid-1980s features David with Hot Tuna:


And no, none of us looks quite the same as we did half a lifetime ago. Jorma is downright unrecognizable - except for his voice and his playing.

I don't have any cool video for the other two concerts, and they weren't quite as professional, but each was a pleasure in its own way.

Saturday afternoon was my little Bear's debut performance with the Athens Children's Chorus. They sang outdoors, which is never easy when it's gusty and the music tends to be borne away on the breeze. They did a nice job anyway. I got a little misty-eyed but am saving my serious sentimentality for when the acoustics are good.

The last concert (actually the first, chronologically) was Octubafest at the university. You haven't experienced real absurdity until you've heard both Tchaikovsky and "The Wabash Cannonball" played by a dozen tubas and six euphoniums. As my husband said afterwards, violins and other treble instruments were invented for a very good reason.

Photo by Flickr user celesteh, used under a Creative Commons license.

But tuba players do need to go wild once a year. If you always have to play the "oom" part in oom-pah music, a complex melody involving sixteenth notes is pretty sexy. I used to play French horn, and we got stuck playing "pah" to the tubas' "oom." So I can totally relate.

The great thing about hearing all this music is that even though a performance is transient and ephemeral, it sticks with me for a while afterward. It's like someone has pressed the reset button. It's as though I got a little taste of equanimity, and the memory of that is helping keep stress at bay. With the election looming a scant week away, the economy collapsing like elephantine dominoes, and my back trouble migrating southward, a whiff of equanimity is no small gift.

The Most Unexpected Pleasures of Parenting

I should have posted this over the weekend, when this was fresh and the Tiger was in a brilliant mood - not today, when he was testily ignoring anything that any adult said to him. But maybe today's the perfect time to remind myself that I don't just love him, I actually enjoy his company when he's not so cranky.

Upon becoming a parent, you expect certain pleasures. You know you'll melt when your child says he loves you, not suspecting it'll be his favorite topic-changer whenever he's about to get in trouble. You look forward to that first "Mama," even if it comes weeks or months after he cooks up a name for Grey Kitty (aka "Mau"). You realize you'll get teary at the first day of kindergarten and school plays and really any milestone, no matter how trivial.

What you could never anticipate is this. The Tiger recorded his first song this weekend, written and performed by his silly self, at the callow age of five. I think it could be a big hit among the three-year-old set.

Here are the lyrics:

I love chickety poop
chickety poop chickety poop
I love chickety poop
all day long.

If you figure out what "chickety poop" is, let me know.

Breaking the Banks

My kids don't have piggybanks. The Bear has a kittybank, which he painted himself. The Tiger has a duckiebank that was a gift upon his birth.

Enjoy their cuteness now, because with the $700 billion bailout package that cleared the House today, they've just been smashed to smithereens.

Photo by Sungold.