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Author: wrekehavoc

guilty pleasure monday: amsterdam (crowded house)

Posted on August 23, 2010October 13, 2010 by wrekehavoc

ok, not too old. and not very guilty. but very well-loved.

sometimes, what i miss most in a lot of modern rock are signs that there are thinking people behind the songs. don’t get me wrong; i’m not one of those cranky oldsters who thinks that nothing good has been written since the beatles broke up. and while i try to desperately steer my kids toward modern alternative that actually might speak to them, i often come up empty. so much sounds so derivative to me. so much sounds forced to me.

i feel often like i have heard that song before.

and that’s why i was so delighted to listen to crowded house’s new album. sure, the lineup is a bit different — drummer paul hester sadly took his own life a few years back, and neil finn is fronting it without his brother, tim, who was around for woodface, a stellar effort. but i sometimes think of neil finn as the energizer bunny of rock and roll — he just keeps at it. (his son liam, who we saw perform with him on this tour, is following steadily in dad’s footsteps, too — really well, i would add.)

while some of the new effort doesn’t do much for me, there are a few songs that stand out. and the best of the bunch, methinks, is the cerebral amsterdam. apparently, he had one strange, strange day in the netherlands; i’ll let you listen to it and make your own interpretation. i love the poetry of his words and how they fit, hand in glove, with the slow, moody music.

i know i need to give new bands more of a try, and i’ll continue to keep my ears and mind open about it all. but i must confess a certain delight when old faithfuls come out with new and intriguing stuff.

guilty pleasure monday: you do something to me (paul weller)

Posted on August 16, 2010July 9, 2013 by wrekehavoc

you can thank eastenders for this one.

first, the song.

and then, the explanation.

paul weller is not exactly a household name in america. but plenty of people have heard of the jam and even the style council, two bands in which weller was instrumental. (har de har har. i made a funny pun there, kids. wreke really needs to drink more coffee and stop being such a dork…but i digress.) weller has gone on to become a very respected and awarded artist in britain; pity he hasn’t gotten more attention here in the US.

anyway, what does paul weller have to do with eastenders?

we in the US are seven — yes, seven — years behind what people in the UK see on the long-running soap. people walk the streets on my TV who have since gone on to the end of their storyline. and some people, like my beloved kat and alfie, are actually making their return now (though they’re not gone yet from our storylines here.) kat, the proverbial eastend tart-with-a-heart, and alfie, a goofy but kind wide boy, are meant for each other. but the getting together part? a bit complicated, and it makes for one of the funniest, if not the funniest, eastenders episode ever.

but still, their passion is left, er, unconsummated, despite the insane lengths alfie goes through to try and get a condom in the middle of the night. yet when we realize that moment what a gentleman alfie truly is, paul weller’s song is playing in the background, a languid testament to those deep feelings of love.

i bet this one gets a lot of play at weddings in the UK.

guilty pleasure monday: rainbow high (from the musical “evita”)

Posted on August 9, 2010August 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

i want to be Rainbow High!

the other week, i settled in with BC (who was under the weather) and started to tuck into the film version of evita starring madonna and antonio banderas. �i attempted to explain the state of politics in argentina in the 1940s; the nature of eva duarte’s poverty-stricken and sad childhood and then subsequent attempts at sleeping her way to the top; and the actual reality of che guevera, who, while an important character in this play, isn’t actually historically present. girlfriend enjoys musicals, as i do, and so i impressed upon her how musicals can also be about serious subjects and not just singing for singing’s sake. and oh, by the way: evita is my absolute favorite musical of all time.

just as eva was meeting juan peron in the movie, girlfriend asked me to turn it off.

ah well. i was a little disappointed, but maybe evita is not a musical for the younger set. (at least, not until disney decides to take a crack at it and make it palatable for kiddies. what a laff riot that would be.) i saw it on broadway in 1981 when i was a few years older than BC. on the occasion of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, my parents, my brothers, my grandparents, and i drove to new york to see andrew lloyd webber’s masterpiece. i’m pretty sure i saw it when patti lupone starred in it, though i was more accustomed to elaine paige’s voice in the role thanks to the record Middlebro shared with me of the original cast production.

in any event, my grandparents’ 50th wedding celebration was marked by two things: the first, the fact that i fell in love with this musical productions. the second: my brother’s car breaking down high in the parking deck…on that date, which happened to be easter sunday. try to find a tow truck willing to pull you down several stories on easter sunday in manhattan… anyway, let’s just say i have memories of my brothers and father pushing the car down and around the deck until it was low enough for them to work with. i’m pretty sure i ended up taking the Route 9 bus home with my grandparents and my mom while the boys figured things out with the car.

yep, nothing says happy 50th anniversary like an unexpected trip on NJ Transit.

the vocal acrobatics that the role of eva peron requires is astonishing. �it is not for the timid. and i was mighty surprised when i heard that madonna was taking the role in the film production. in fact, surprised is not really the word for it; i was disappointed. while i’m not exactly the biggest madonna fan around, i will give her props in several departments; however, her vocal skills would not be among those. �and while she wasn’t bad in the role, i felt her take on rainbow high was passionless.

this is a song to be BELTED out; and madonna is carefully working so hard to actually hit the notes that she doesn’t have a chance to infuse them with much emotion. the end of the song is even lowered a few notes, which is a bit jarring to anyone who loves this song.

i guess i should be thankful that a popular performer like madonna took an interest in this musical and shared it with the masses, who might not otherwise have encountered it.

and who knows: maybe one day, BC will watch it all the way through.

homeless

Posted on August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 by wrekehavoc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bHeD73YYyQ

every day, i drive through an area called seven corners. it’s a crazy confluence of roads, each sort of crashing wildly into the next. i have tried to count how many corners are actually there; but it takes too much concentration to simultaneously count and navigate through the area, so i’ve never actually figured out just how many corners there truly are in that intersection from hell.

this summer, there are two homeless men who work the streets here. an african-american man has the strip beside eastbound route 7; a caucasian man walks the strip on an access road that feeds into both 7 and ultimately route 50. both have signs that state that they are homeless vets. they have replaced the lady who walked this street last summer; i remember her vividly because not only did we give her money for her family, but BC insisted that we find help for this lady. (i called both social services and the nearest homeless shelter; of course neither could help her. indeed, despite the fact that she was on that narrow strip of land day in and day out, they said that they could not locate the woman if they wanted to. it was a difficult lesson for BC; that agencies are not prepared to go looking for specific people, like lost pets, to bring in from the heat.)

i only drive on the access road the one man has claimed as his turf. this morning, i dug into my purse and gave the man some change; as i held it out, his rough hand gently scooped it out of mine. he blessed me; and i wished i knew more about how he ended up on this narrow plot of land in the early morning heat.

i often wonder about the stories behind each homeless person i encounter. there was a man i befriended 20 years ago who was on my walk from union station to my office. he had a teenager and was not happy about living on the streets and what that did to his relationship with his son. i would often give him some of my lunch, as i didn’t have much money to spare back then. as the months wore on, my friend started showing up with flour all over his pants and shirt. a local group was teaching him to work in a kitchen, and he was very excited about his baking classes. i cheered him on each day until one day, he was not in his usual spot. i never saw him again; and i always hope that somehow, he was able to take the skills he was learning and get back on a solid path to a life of comfort and stability.

i fear this is not usually the case, though, with the people i see on the streets.

i have seen homeless people bathing in the fountain below the Capitol building, where only hours later, throngs of tourists will stick their hands and legs to cool off in the Washington heat. i was once chased, along with a friend of mine, by a homeless man who snapped and went from friendly to threatening; he chased us all the way into the ladies room at union station until somehow, he was mercifully diverted. i often remind myself that homeless people are people like any others; most people are okay, but there will always be the liars, cheats, and people with serious problems in the world. these folks just have the added problem of no safety net to catch them and no place of their own in which to lay their heads at day’s end.

but i still wonder. i don’t know what i would do if i were in that situation. and as the economy fails, i suspect increasing numbers of people find themselves in this position. friends who have come to visit DC often ask me whether there will be any of those people near their accommodations; they want to shield their kids, or they don’t want to be bothered by panhandling, which i certainly understand. but with the economy tanking, i wonder how many of those people will be coming to towns and villages which were formerly considered havens away from our big city distresses?

because in the end, couldn’t we all be those people?

Waiting For The World To Change

Posted on August 5, 2010August 5, 2010 by wrekehavoc

Have parents become the whiniest group ever?

I have witnessed mothers publicly flagellating their favorite hipster bar/restaurant because it has the audacity to not provide high chairs, even though these places they frequented prior to parenthood cater more to the childless set. I have heard parents chafe when their ginormous double strollers don’t fit on a city bus, cursing at the entire transit system because it requires parents to actually fold the monstrosity so that others have a fighting chance to get on and off the vehicle. I’m still marveling at parents who self-immolate and who consider litigation because their doctor decided to deliver a child by caesarian for the safety of mother and child, as that was not the birth the moms signed up for! Yes, I’ve heard America’s parents weeping.

And, in short, they are weeping for themselves.

Somehow, in this vast universe of possibilities, some people become parents, most in this nation by choice. And once you move away from the Pottery Barn Kids-decorated fantasy of sunny nurseries with clean sheets and sharp decor, you realize that parenthood is not a cakewalk.

Well, duh.

And many first-timers enter into this phase of their life expecting their life to be as it was…with a little addition who just sort of goes along with it all. Oh, how your life will be different! the grandmothers coo. But nothing’s going to alteryour world, nothing beyond having another mouth to feed and love and enjoy. Sure, you’ll change both health insurance levels and diapers, but it’s your world, and they are merely a part of it.

It stands to reason, then, that everything you enjoyed prior to parenthood should remain your entitlement. Of-the-moment restaurants and their patrons will welcome your babe with open arms, spit-up and cries be damned as your child’s cuteness will obviously render any disapproval moot. Your co-workers will surely be delighted when you announce that baby will be hanging out and squalling in your office each day. And of course, that museum filled with paying patrons, priceless antiquities, and art will gladly receive your stroller bearing your awesome offspring.

Would it be nice if the world bent a little bit more towards the needs of parents? Certainly, and what a laudable experience it is when accommodations are mutually agreed upon. But sometimes, they’re not. And sometimes, they shouldn’t be. Parenthood is not about the parents; it’s about raising a child in a society that is how it is. The world doesn’t need to be Disneyfied. Teach your child how to accept life as it is and also to peacefully work for change when situations merit that action. But stop cursing the world because it doesn’t bow to your every need.

In fact, perhaps parents should look inward and decide whether they need to alter their expectations. Maybe you can’t exist in the same ways that you did BC (Before Children.) But maybe there’s a new way to be found, one that works best for you, your child, and the world around you. For example, there’s no doubt that your baby’s adorable; but other concert-goers don’t want their date ruined by a bawling babe. So hit the kiddie concert circuit instead. Or rent a movie. They won’t be little forever, and your life will change yet again. Embrace the change in yourself and in your life; and when the world doesn’t change with you, you can still find those positives that made you decide to start a family.

Besides. Once everyone realizes that it’s actually all about me, the world will be a better place.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————————

(first published on smartly.com)

float on

Posted on August 3, 2010May 29, 2014 by wrekehavoc

rest in peace, psychofish.

this past weekend, jools’ pet beta, psychofish, went to the great big fishbowl in the sky. truth be told, he went into a deep hole in our backyard, in accordance with jools’ wishes. i gave the boy the choice, of course: a burial at sea [read: flushed down the toilet], where psycho would ultimately rejoin his fellow fish in the chesapeake bay; or a hole in our backyard. BC protested about the latter; she didn’t want psycho dug up and eaten by some cat. but it was jools’ fish and jools’ decision, so he asked BS to go out back and dig a deep, deep hole with him.

i never wanted a fish. we don’t have dogs or cats because of our allergies. and we never thought to have a fish, either, until jools’ preschool graduation a few years back. along with a diploma, the teachers thought it would be incredibly cute to give each child a beta fish. they neglected to consult with any parents as to whether this would be a good present for the kids.

i could hardly contain my joy.

suddenly, we were in the position to have to run out to a pet store and find a more suitable home for the fish (assuming the sandwich bag would hold for that long) as well as food. oh, and how about some cute little plastic foliage for the fish to enjoy while we’re at it? and considering that the recipient has an older sister? make that two of each plus another fish to go, please.

talk about the gift that kept on giving.

anyway, BC and jools both named their respective fishes with normal, friendly names. however, as the lady who fed them and talked to them each day, i gave them different names, names that stuck. BC’s beta, who is terrified of his own shadow, was re-named scaredyfish. and jools’ fish? the fish that acted like a dog and actually sat on his tail and begged for food? the fish that came to the edge of the bowl and would look to me for conversation? what a mondo bizarro little dude. i dubbed him psychofish. and i’ll be damned if i didn’t get attached to the little guy. he even seemed to like it when i played the police really, really loud.

when he started to fall ill about three months ago, i started to fret. he began hanging out in his pink palm tree more than usual. (fish in a tree? how can that be?) after awhile, he just plunked down on the rocks on the bottom of his bowl and remained listless. i came to realize that something was keeping him from swimming, like a disease of some sort that affected his fin or fins. we tried cleaning his bowl a bit. i ran out to petsmart and found some fishy tetracycline. we tried this other stuff that was supposed to kill all the nasties in his water.

but nothing worked.

when i found him at the bottom, bloated and not moving, i cried. i knew i had to get it out mostly before the kids saw me or else they, too, would completely lose it. and when the kids came home from their swim, i said to BS: la poisson est morte. (we always speak french, albeit grammatically incorrect french, when we don’t want the kids to understand us. this plan will officially backfire next year, when BC has announced her plans to take the language in middle school.) he looked at me sympathetically; i then announced a family meeting where burial plans were decided and men were sent out to dig.

after covering ourselves in plenty of bug spray, we ventured out into the deepest, darkest corner of our yard, thick with vegetation (that probably is where jimmy hoffa currently resides.) there, BS, with jools’ help, had dug a final resting place for psychofish. BS had wrapped psychofish in the garment of ages, a paper lunch sack, and placed him gingerly in the hole. as BS started to shovel the dirt over our fishy friend, we all said a few words about the beta. then, as three of us are red sea pedestrians, BC and i said mourner’s kaddish, leading me to wonder whether G-d would strike me down for saying kaddish for a fish. (then again, that moment also made me smile because BC has been paying attention in services enough to know exactly when to say certain critical parts of the prayer.)

and then, jools started asking for a bigger fish.

guilty pleasure monday: seen the doctor (michael penn)

Posted on August 2, 2010July 29, 2010 by wrekehavoc

if any guy on the planet deserves to harbor an inferiority complex, it’s this guy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XEM6zNfIZc

check out the video. does the face look a little familiar? sure it does. it looks a little like this:

michael penn is the brother of famous actor and apparently chronically-perterbed person sean penn. (whose acting i enjoy, so don’t be a hater.) he is also the brother of the late actor chris penn (whom you may remember from footloose or reservoir dogs, among other movies.) his dad leo penn was an actor and director who courageously refused to point fingers at other actors and directors during the happy-go-lucky mccarthy era and was blacklisted (but certainly made a ton of contributions in spite of that.) his mom, eileen ryan, also an actor, has shown up in all sorts of films as well.

oh, and don’t forget his missus.

(but we won’t even begin to talk about how i worship at the altar for aimee mann…)

yep, michael penn is definitely surrounded by amazingly creative, principled people who aren’t afraid of taking stands on issues, whether one agrees with them or not. but penn has consistently held his own for years and years, a songwriter who crafts works carefully. he’s not necessarily the guy who will make that 3:05 hit radio-friendly single. but who the hell wants that when you can have literate, musical masterpieces?

anyway, i especially adore seen the doctor. it even has a killer hook: in fact, it sounds like one of those holy grail radio-friendly singles to me. but whatever. the lyrics are so clever (even though watch him get bleeped for the f-bomb.) seriously, how can you not love lines like:

You’re just a fucking bore
like Dorothy Lamour
dolled up in Singapore
to meet the Commodores
Don’t call me anymore

the imagery alone is worth the price of admission.

anyway, michael penn, while maybe not a household name like, say, ke$hia (Dog help us — gah), is a busy guy, making music for film and television. along with his wife and michael hausman, he is a founder of united musicians, a group formed to help musicians retain the ownership of their own music. which, to me, makes perfect sense.

anyway, i love his melty, earnest voice. i love his thoughtful lyrics. i love it even more when he and mann sing together.

but for today’s guilty pleasure monday, i wanted him to shine on his own.

betty lou’s gettin’ out tonight

Posted on July 28, 2010 by wrekehavoc

SQUEE!

i envy those people who have family nearby… the kind of family who will take your kids for a few hours so you can actually save your marriage and sanity… visit a restaurant that doesn’t feature kiddie menus… watch movies where the characters say fuck and other assorted potty words. what a life you people must lead! unfortunately, our family lives 200 miles away, so this sort of thing won’t work for us. so of course you say, get a sitter. sounds easy, right? but when you live in a place where you don’t actually know anyone of the appropriate sitter age or disposition, it gets a bit dicey. i once posted a sign at our neighborhood pool looking for a sitter; not much panned out. i also made a cute little flyer once and brought it to the university down the street; sadly, that one sitter only lasted for a time or two before her social life became overwhelming. anyway, as we live in the DC Metro, i was always a bit leery of anyone i might meet with no connection who would actually want to sit with my kids. without fingerprints and a background check, i would probably pass.

and i mostly did. FOR YEARS.

although i would point out the time when one of our kids’ preschool teachers came to sit for us. her 20-something daughter joined her mom at my house while the mom was babysitting one evening. not a big deal, of course. but then, the girl decided to wash her hair and managed to actually clog our drain. somehow, while the idea of visiting my friends who were babysitting occurred to me in my younger years, deciding to take a shower in a stranger’s bathroom…that’s even a little too quirky for me, and i put the irk in quirky.

but i digress. per usual.

anyway, BS and i have hardly gone out for years. (forget about the fact that we have actually been on a single overnight exactly once in our short but eventful careers as parents.) so when one of jools’ classmates’ moms mentioned her sitter, who i knew to be a daughter of a friend of mine, i gasped: could this finally be the time BS and i could go out and actually feel good about our babysitting choice? the young lady agreed to come over, so i bought tickets to see crowded house at wolf trap. i couldn’t believe my good fortune.

then came the phone call.

the young lady actually had a schedule conflict. of course! i knew the gods must be crazy to let BS and i go out for an evening. and now, i had tickets, expensive tickets, tickets to a show i reallyreallyREALLY wanted to see. (to be fair, i saw a grown-up concert last year when i took BC to her first real concert (i do not count the cheetah girls as a real concert), bruce springsteen. then again, i nearly murdered her when she had to go to the bathroom during rosalita. clearly, i love the girl.) but then, the save: the sitter had a friend who was very responsible, and she was available to sit that night. would that be ok?

i give that girl a ton of props.

the substitute sitter was the older sister of a boy in BC’s class, one of the boys she didn’t actually find repugnant. i took that as a good sign and called her up. and you know when you talk to someone on the phone and you just know in your gut that she’s a good person? i totally got that vibe. so i had a little faith, and i went forward with the new plans.

and you know what?

i had a little dinner with my husband. i had a conversation with him that didn’t revolve completely around one child or another. and we went to beautiful wolf trap in the summer evening and had a glass of wine (well, he had a beer) and giggled. and then, we sat up in a balcony and watched a great show.

and we came home, and the kids were asleep, and the sitter was studying — STUDYING IN THE SUMMER — for her SATs. later, the kids told me how they went and played around the cul-de-sac, painted their toenails (hellboy, too), made snow cones, played Life, and then listened to a book on tape before going to sleep. and oh, how nice the sitter is! can she come back?

i love the times when i can say yes to my kids and know that by saying yes, the result makes me just as happy as it makes them.

maybe moreso.

guilty pleasure monday: three little birds (bob marley and the wailers)

Posted on July 19, 2010July 19, 2010 by wrekehavoc

when the going gets tough in this house, the tough get bob marley.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIjkW6iyXNo&feature=related

my go-to guy when i start to get a little loco en la cabeza is none other than rastaman himself, bob marley. his music has always hit me in a place that nearly always soothes me into nirvana (or a reasonable facsimile thereof.) and three little birds to me is just like my own personal prayer to the universe. yes, i was delusional enough to believe that i didn’t need meds when i was going into labor with BC; all i needed was my boombox loaded with legend and i was all set. (and yes; i really did try that. got special permission from the hospital to bring in a boombox and everything. only too bad for me, it turned out that i really, really, r e a l l y needed those meds. trust me, even bob himself showing up from the dead in my delivery room with a giant spliff in his hand would not have done anything except give me another man to yell at.) still, my kids are aware (or at least, BC is aware) that when i’m really stressed, i often turn this song on. it’s like a simple mantra on a never-ending loop. and for me, labor notwithstanding, it works.

i’ve been humming the damn song in my head for the past two weeks straight.

the week prior, BC took the train with her uncle middlebro to visit my parents. she wanted some time without me and without jools. sadly, not only was their train car without air conditioning on the 103F day (hey, thanks a lot, AMTRAK!), but my parents’ AC also died once she got there. long story short, i ended up driving with The Boy up to grandma’s house, where we proceeded to live like nomads for three days until PSE&G could come and fix their air. we had fun staying at uncle middlebro’s house and at hotels; but to put it very kindly, it was not the visit anyone had expected.

we then returned to our home, already a work in progress. we are in the last week or two of the renovation process. except for the day when i returned home to find a giant hole drilled through my concrete basement floor (and props to my good friend richard, who came over that day to borrow our laundry machines only to discover — at the same time i did — that people were busy unearthing jimmy hoffa all around the washer and dryer. to his credit, richard didn’t even murder me and still speaks to me, both plusses.), the process has gone relatively smoothly. sure, there are moments when i would have liked a little more lead time to purchase paints and other items, but it has worked out pretty well.

that being said, living in a few prescribed rooms is beginning to get old. the kids are hating camping out in the family room, BC on the couch, jools in a sleeping bag beside her on the floor. (well, in truth, BC and her back are hating it; i suspect jools loves the company every night.) BS is audibly mumbling about moving his office out of our bedroom and back into the tiny room where it belongs and where it has more sustained cable internet access. and me? because the kids are sleeping in the family room, home of the HDTV, i have stuff from netflix that i’ve been waiting to watch for going on four months now.

but we’re working it. BS and jools were to be off to cub scout CubWorld (6 and 7 year old boys running amuck! camping! BB Guns! clearly BS’s idea of paradise) on friday, leaving BC and me free reign in the house until sunday night. SQUEE! you would think, right? only we were left in a house that reeked horribly of floor refinishing fumes, leaving me to turn off the AC and open windows so that people could breathe. and oh, thursday night, there was this little matter of a gas smell in the basement, resulting in a call to washington gas to come and check things out. (glad it wasn’t a real urgent emergency; it took them about two hours to get here, by which time we could have been blown to kingdom come and come again.) the wash gas person kindly dealt with the little leak and explained that some of the smell were those lovely toxic floor fumes hitting the furnace and burning up.

yay?

so it was going to take some time for the gas smell to dissipate. (no way in hell i was turning on the stove this weekend.) meanwhile, i had then closed up the windows and turned on the air. sadly, the thermostat is currently in the basement, as it has been moved during the renovation. because i’m a little thick on such things, i now know that one must turn it down really low so that the rest of the house has a fighting chance to actually cool down. oops. i didn’t know that; so when BC and her pal were going to have a slumber party friday night, the house was pushing 80F and certifiably tropical. they ended up sleeping at her friend’s house (bless her mom!)

this left me alone FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN MY ENTIRE LIFE AS A MOM. (that’s nearly 12 years for those of you counting.) did i dance drunk and naked around the house? of course i didn’t. i was still worried about being blown the fuck-all out of here by the remaining gas in the basement. the house was hotter than a witch’s fart. oh, and the fumes were making me nauseous and giving me a stupendous headache. so what did i do? i painted a few colors on the walls with my home depot paint tester cans — because what’s a few more fumes, right? — then settled in to watch a 20-20 show about a murder that made me want to go to bed with a baseball bat beside me. and then, the lightning storm started, reminding me that i had moved everyone’s bike and scooter onto the lawn, getting them wet and making them sitting duck lightning rods. i ran outside in the pouring rain after midnight, took one look at the thundering light, and thought, crap, i’m not bringing that stuff in or else i will end up deep-fried.. move along, lightning, move along…

i laid there in bed for literally hours, unsure as to whether i was going to meet my Maker via heat stroke, asphyxiation, electrocution, murder, or simply explosion.

after four solid hours of sleep, i was annoyed to be awakened by the sounds of hammers on my neighbor’s renovation project. they weren’t in the wrong, of course, though i was surprised that they were doing that sort of work before 7 on a saturday morning. but wasn’t their fault i was up all night. but then again, i was also delighted to still be walking amongst the living, so i found my silver lining.

so, the weekend continued, a sleepy flurry of home depot visits, a walk in the mall with BC (who, along with me, got busted at Claires for trying to take a picture of each other wearing obnoxious sunglasses — apparently, it is verboten to do so), and moving things out of the way of the painters… i was completely strung out and overtired and overstressed. bob marley played feverishly through my brain: my own personal serenity now prayer. and then, as i dropped BC off at her buddy E’s house saturday evening for her second sleepover for the weekend, E’s mom, one of my dear friends, invited me to join them for dinner. her dad put a glass of wine in my hand. i helped my friend bake some chocolate chip cookies for church the next day. in short, i had a lovely evening with her family; it was absolutely what i needed.

in short, i am convinced that bob marley does answer all prayers.

Celling Your Kids

Posted on July 9, 2010August 5, 2010 by wrekehavoc

My daughter recently received a cell phone in honor of her elementary school graduation. It’s not fancy, but it does permit her to make calls (something tweens apparently never do) and to text (which she does with wild abandon.)

Girlfriend has been instructed as to when and where she may use the phone. At the dinner table? No way. In the car while someone else is driving? No problem. Will she take the phone to middle school in the fall? Probably not. The child realizes that the phone has to stay in her locker all day anyway, so why bother? And if she needs to call home, they have actual phones in the front office.

Several of my parent friends called me a traitor; somehow, the beloved spouse and I have completely sold our souls to Verizon and should be shipped out to a penal colony. Maybe there are no penal colonies available at present for bad parents like us (and if they don’t serve mojitos there, I’m not going anyway), but we thought long and hard before handing over a phone to the girl. After all, every day I see kids oblivious to the world, texting or chatting while crossing streets or in other dangerous situations. In fact, it isn’t just kids who act this way; I’m annoyed by all people not participating in life around them because they’re attached to a cellular teat. Did I want that for my daughter?

In the end, we considered the girl herself.

Firstly, the girl has her head on pretty darn straight. Sure, she’s addicted to TV programs where someone inevitably ends up in the emergency room with a misplaced axe in his head. But ask her to turn off the TV and tune into her life — and she does. She doesn’t have to be nagged to do her homework (mostly); she’s helpful; and frankly, she’s trustworthy.

I knew she’d follow cell phone rules pretty well.

Next, all these years of being the person who answered all her… ehhem… interesting questions emboldened me to converse with her about sexting. While she is still at an age where she believes most boys are repulsive (and I can’t say I mostly blame her), I wanted her to know about people sending improper materials to each other. I clarified TheWashington Post Rule: if you share an email or photo with someone else, it’d better be something that wouldn’t make you cringe if it ended up on the front page of our venerable daily paper.

I explained that sometimes, people assume that a photo they send — or an email or text — will be kept between the sender and the original recipient. This will bite her on the butt if she is the sender, whether she’s gossiping about some mean girl or receiving a nasty photo. And, if she is the recipient of something not-so-nice, she knows to tell me so that we can figure out the best way to handle things.

Together.

I’m feeling pretty good about our decision to let the girl have a cell phone. Sure, she texted her grandmother at Ungodly A.M. And maybe kids at this age don’t really need a cell phone; but I considered the particular child before making my decision.

Recently, girlfriend told me of her two slightly older friends, who walk around our cul-de-sac together but text other people. Why don’t they just talk to each other since they’re actually standing next to each other? she asked. Cells are great, but when I’m with somebody, I want to actually talk to them!

That pretty much cemented my decision.

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(first published on smartly.com)