jools (also a beloved child) – Page 5

Category: jools (also a beloved child)

i me mine

Posted on May 18, 2010May 18, 2010 by wrekehavoc

this morning, i read an article in the washington post about the clashes between families and childless folks in urban areas. there has been a resurgence in the past five to ten years of people with children returning to the cities and taking over places that childless folks assumed were their domain; urban parks, stores, and restaurants are now places where people with children demand equal footing.

to be sure, some businesses are attempting to bridge the gap with family-friendly happy hours. (!) (wish they had had them when i had young children.) and i certainly think that public parks and public property are places where children ought to be able to share space with dogs and dogs with children. but i also think that parents these days have developed a sense of entitlement — that they are now parents, and so the world should bend to them — coupled with unrealistic expectations about life as mom or dad. don’t get bent if you are asked to fold up a stroller before getting on a bus. i’m sorry if you are upset that you’ve children in tow, groceries in hand, and a bus driver who requires you to take your $500 stroller and fold it. maybe you ought to reconsider how it’s all done– have someone watch your kids when you hit the grocery. use a grocery delivery service. buy a car. take a cab.

move to the ‘burbs.

i once got into a huge tussle on my favorite board, dc urban moms about this topic. a parent was upset because a local watering hole (a place which hosts poetry slams and which, at least at the time, was not meant to be a kid-friendly place, at least not at night) was somehow unable to accommodate her baby with a highchair when she was taking her baby out to dinner with her hubby at 9pm one weeknight. to me, there were all sorts of wrong in this concept. i’m sharing bits of it because it pretty much says it all.

if you sense that a restaurant isn’t family-friendly AND the proprietor is not really interested in making it family-friendly after you’ve
asked about making it so, it is the proprietor’s right to have his/her place of business as he/she feels it ought to be, and it is your right as a consumer to not patronize the place. if everything were family-friendly; if every neighborhood catered perfectly to people with families, well, i think we’d be living in some sort of perverse disneyworld-like situation. no, thanks. i like my world with grime, even if i have to shield my kids from it now and again.

i have two children (one who has always behaved perfectly everywhere and one who, well, to put it nicely, is working on it), lest anyone out there think i am someone who is not herself interested in child-friendly places. and child-friendly places do NOT mean you’re doomed to only chuck e cheese and mcdonalds (which, for the record, i abhore and don’t even allow my kids to eat
their chicken nuggets after watching “supersize me”). [snip] places that are noisy; places that have highchairs; places that welcome you and your business are the places you might consider supporting by bringing your families there. heck, my kids enjoy a variety of ethnic foods, so it isn’t like our life has been wildly limited by this idea.

but what burns my butt is this presumption that because we are in a new phase of life called parenthood, everyone must bend to our experience by having what we want in every venue we want it. face it — there are some places where kids ought to be left home, at least in the evening. as one poster noted, some places are not venues that are even ENJOYABLE to kids; maybe they’re too
fancy or too cool or too high-falutin.’ and while you might not consider your child’s spitup to be nuclear waste, some people might think that this is not the experience they signed up for when they sat down for a nice meal. (and believe me — it isn’t just the childless patrons out there — when i go out for a special evening meal sans mes enfants, i don’t want to see someone else’s kid barf, nor do i want to smell someone steaming in an overdue diaper change, either.) just because *you* have a glass of wine before you have your meal so that you are feeling good about your restaurant experience with your children doesn’t mean that the people next to you who have to listen to your kids shriek through dinner are going to be equally mellow (unless perhaps you buy your dining neighbors some wine, too.) in short, i don’t just get annoyed with the parents for how they manage their children in public; i am annoyed with them for even bringing their children into an inappropriate venue in the first place. and a glass of wine won’t make me feel any better about that.

i was brought up by people who taught me that i have rights, and they extend as far as where the next person’s start. i was also brought up to believe that there are others in the world whose needs and interests are just as important as mine — and sometimes, moreso — so consideration is always in order. that means everything from getting up and offering seats to elderly people,
pregnant women, or someone who clearly needs my seat more than i do. it also means, for me that even though i would like to go to some trendy place, i need to recognize that some venues are clearly better for my kids, for their comfort as well as for that of others. my kids “practice” their restaurant behavior in places where the restaurants are more prepared for little patrons who may not be ready for fancy or trendy places; and anyone who patronizes such family-friendly places knows what they are in for when they walk through the door. (highchairs are a dead giveaway.)

i am certainly considerate to others when i see them bring their children into a restaurant or other venue which i don’t think is an appropriate choice for them — it isn’t like i storm out — but honestly, it does often detract from my enjoyment of the place, and it isn’t like i have a money tree in my backyard to even go out to such places all that often. when i do, i really wish people would think first before bringing the kids. (i mean, sheesh, 9pm is not an appropriate time in my book to be starting dinner out with a toddler –
not if you care at all about the kid being into solid sleep patterns. i feel sorry for the kids in that situation.)

there will be plenty of time for my family to go to nicer places when i think they won’t disturb other diners. if i really, truly want to go to more grownup places, i get a sitter. but right now, mostly i really prefer hanging with my kids. if that means that for a few years, we go to more relaxed, family-friendly places for the time being, so be it. it’s all about expectations. i think some people fall into parenthood and naively think that their life won’t change — they are just adding a child/children into their 20-something, 30-something, or 40-something regular routines. your life DOES change — and in ways for which you aren’t prepared, way beyond sleeplessness and all the other stuff 10,000 parenting books tell you. imo, you need to adjust your expectations a little – it is only temporary, after all.

i got a lot of private email cheering me on; i also received some slams over judging people who take babies out to dinner at 9pm. hey, you are the one with a burgeoning sleep problem looming on the horizon, i thought to myself. unless we were on vacation, we would never have taken our children out to dinner that late. (and even on vacation, that sort of start time is a nonstarter around here. we try to keep a semblance of a schedule in our lives, if only to keep everyone on an even keel.) to each his own, i suppose.

but seriously. people need to understand that children aren’t accessories to and for a life already in progress. children change the equation. as as a parent, you need to alter your expectations accordingly.

it is different; it is not worse.

guilty pleasure monday: put on your sunday clothes (from the musical “hello dolly”)

Posted on April 5, 2010April 3, 2010 by wrekehavoc

oh, don’t be a hater.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVA3jgpgIY8

this past week, BC, jools, and i spent our time visiting my parents, my mother in law, and various and assorted uncles, aunts, and cousins (plus my beloved old friend jen, who handed me a tea bag to throw into the potomac when i returned home.) we had a great time — eating, playing, shopping, painting pottery, eating, visiting a used book store, eating some more. i ran my annual speed seder, bringing the old girl in about an hour and a half (including the eating part.) hellboy even read the four questions — in english, but he read them just the same. a very big moment for me, as i have historically been the youngest at the table all my life. BC always refused to read the questions.

and now, the torch has been passed to a new generation.

anyway, speaking of passing torches, my dad taped a few musicals in case the kids wanted to watch something on TV. and while the boy seemed to be more excited about the offerings on discovery kids, BC was enthralled by the musicals. first, she watched gigi, a terrific lerner and loewe time piece featuring a gorgeous leslie caron. and, of course, this unforgettable guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSGM3ZTP2nw

(okay, okay. so there is something a little creepy about the leering old fella, but i like the song nonetheless.)

and then, one of my favorites: hello, dolly!

now, you may be disgusted surprised to know that i grew up on musicals. yes, i learned to love punk, metal, and all sorts of other musical enterprises as well; but i also experienced a steady diet of rogers and hammerstein, lerner and loewe, andrew lloyd webber, and so many others in my formative years.

and love or hate her politics, barbra sings like buttah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqPiJ0L7YmY

hello, dolly! is so much fun. barbra and walter matthau are well-suited; a young tommy tune towers over his ladyfriend; and a young michael crawford nearly steals the show as cornelius hackl. i especially love put on your sunday clothes. i actually think about it some days when i feel like crap and adopt it as a sort of mini philosophy. (in fact, years ago, i shared my office with a young lady who told me that she could always tell when i was feeling extra awful — i would actually put on makeup.)

so to see BC falling in love with the movie and the music?

it’s like buttah.

clean

Posted on March 31, 2010March 28, 2010 by wrekehavoc

it’s official: i am laundry-challenged.

i grew up in a family where my mom or dad pretty much did the laundry for everyone in the house; so when i got married, i figured that BS and i would just do giant loads of each other’s laundry and move on with life. after all, it doesn’t really bother me to do laundry; it’s not like i have to go down to the river and beat the clothes on rocks. at the time, i was usually too bothered to separate lights from whites from darks.

this offended his laundry sensibilities; BS told me he would do his own.

for about 30 seconds, my nose was out of joint about this until i realized, hell, i only have to do my own laundry.

and so it went. two kids later, i am the primary laundress around here — though BS still does his own laundry. i wash the kids’ clothes except for certain key moments. like when there’s barf all over them. or, better yet, a bucket of swallowed blood. then, my beloved spouse steps up to the plate and takes on the worst of the body fluids.

(which i sincerely appreciate, i would add.)

anyway, we have had our laundry-related mishaps. for example, there was the time when preschool aged jools left a red crayon in his pocket… a crayon which melted all over our clothes when it hit the dryer. BS was not amused. while several articles of clothing simply could not be rehabbed and thus had to go to the giant hamper in the sky, i still needed to clean out the drum of the dryer, which had lots of red streaks splayed around it.

eventually, after researching the issue (and getting at least 15 different dirty looks from my clean-minded spouse), i discovered that i could clean it all out with a substance called goo gone. the only problem, of course, was that the label indicated that if the goo gone ended up in contact with heat, hilarity would not ensue.

oh, how i fretted! i did not want my laundry machine to blow our family to kingdom come. but i also knew that BS needed to do a load of whites, and he was going to be most unhappy should his clothing end up candy-striped. so i said a little prayer, took a little dab and wiped down the drum. and lo and behold, it WORKED! and more importantly, WE DIDN’T END UP RIDING OUR HOUSE THROUGH THE SKIES TO VISIT THE WIZARD OF OZ!

joy!

so now, i’m careful to check pockets, though a stray piece of gum or penny often escapes my search.

but i’m still mystified: somehow, even though i separate whites from lights from darks; even though i measure my detergent and follow instructions — i cannot get hellboy’s socks clean! what do these kids DO in their socks? i have tried bleach. I have tried baking soda. i have tried drinking a glass of shiraz to try and not care about it.

but Jaysus! my kids walk around in the dirtiest, stinkiest socks on the planet. and short of buying new ones on a monthly basis, i am stumped as to what to do. i have clearly failed the laundry mom experience.

somewhere, my home economics teacher is laughing.

happy just to be nominated

Posted on March 25, 2010 by wrekehavoc

thanks so much for nominating two of my posts for the just posts of 2009 award!

peace train

and

guilty pleasure monday: millworker (james taylor)

voting is over now, and winners have not yet been announced. but check out the page — there are some really amazing thought-provoking posts up there.

it truly is an honor just to be nominated.

daylight again

Posted on March 16, 2010 by wrekehavoc

day two of daylight savings time, and we’re not faring so well.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1eLK2OlF6w

somehow, explaining daylight savings time to my two kids makes me feel like i’m trying to sell them sort of evil bill of goods. i mention how ben franklin was behind this — how bad could it be? i mean, this is mr. $50 bill you know, the inventor of:

lightning rods, glass armonica (a glass instrument, not to be confused with the metal harmonica), Franklin stove, bifocal glasses and the flexible urinary catheter.

(any guy behind the flexible urinary catheter can’t be all bad, right?)

well, old ben also devised the whole pay it forward phenomenon, too. so truly, how evil could this guy be?

according to my two kids, extremely.

two days in a row, getting people out of bed in time for school has been akin to asking them to walk across hot coals to a dinner of raw bear brains. they cannot fall asleep at night; they cannot wake up in the morning. it’s quite simple. and all the sleepytime tea in the world cannot change that.

but we do this for farmers — it gives them more sunlight to get things done, i might cheerfully remind them at some moment when they aren’t contemplating whether one pillow or two thrown directly at my head would get me to stop talking.

i guess farming doesn’t happen in our little exurb of washington, dc. at least, no one plans to plow at our house any time soon.

this seems to be the first time that daylight savings has hit these two kids quite so hard. part of me trembles, thinking how this might be shades of teenaged moments to come in the not-too-distant future. i used to bitch that my kids never slept.

now, i bitch that they won’t wake up.

happy birthday to me

Posted on March 9, 2010March 8, 2010 by wrekehavoc

I say, “I remember you.
You drive like a PTA mother.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k00hFKgjsI

yep. today is my birthday. and, as your wildly narcissistic pal, i tend to really love the day because it’s all about me. (well, all about me and everyone else born on the same day… which, among my friends, includes three other people, particularly one high school friend born on the same day in the same year. i’ve never established who was born first. me, i was born just after lunch, so she has the greater likelihood of being born before, i suppose.) in fact, i love the whole week before and the whole week afterwards as well. life is short. 24 hours is too little time to feel delighted to be on the planet another year.

this year is a somewhat big (though not ending in a zero big) year for me. so, now that i’m 25 (oh, stop it — i’m doing inverse dog years), i thought i’d put some goals together and put them out there. hell, it may keep me honest. and maybe, it will inspire someone else to put their goals on the road, too. sure, it’s over two months since new year’s, but my new year always starts for me on my day of natality.

so, as we celebrate what one of my beloved pals from grad school would refer to as wrekehavoc awareness day (and yes, her tongue would be so firmly in cheek that it would indent), in no particular order, the list of goals:

1) improve my health. well, we all know my health has been a struggle, thanks to a genetic crapshoot i lost. but (and with apologies to those doing the 12-step boogie) if i can get some of that serenity to change all the things i can change, then i need to exercise and lose weight. consistently. one of my friends has lost over 30 pounds; she has inspired me to take charge. and while i’m not using any particular diet program, i am watching my calories, using an online tool she steered me to, myfitnesspal.com. (no, this isn’t an endorsement. this is just letting you know what i’m doing.)

another friend — the wife of my husband’s best friend, which sounds scandalous when it’s put like that — has inspired me in the exercise department. i have always attempted the all-or-nothing approach which has yielded me exactly that — nothing. unless all consists of injured, disgusted, and not fit. anyway, she has used her wii consistently and has lost 30 pounds over the course of a year. while it won’t make me the hottest bod in the land, it is certainly a great first motivational step toward bigger things. it gets me started in a way where i hopefully won’t kill myself in the first week.

as we all know goals don’t mean crap unless you operationalize them (thanks, grad school professors for that knowledge!). so the operationalization:

-work out three times a week

-write your food down at least 5 out of 7 days/week

2) institute a writing schedule. i blather, and i blather in a lot of places. this results in a lot of blather that isn’t really taking me where i want to be. if i make a schedule and stick to it, i might actually finish a new book by year’s end while continuing the quest to get the first book published.

yet i still love to blog; and after 8 years in the bloggy trenches, i am not about to give it up. but i think i ought to stick with a schedule for when i write to make sure that i contribute regularly there but not too much! that will be tough to stick to, i know. i love to blog. maybe i’ll only allow myself short bits on days when i am not scheduled to write…

(can you see me caving already?)

so. operationalization, please…

-work on new novel tuesdays and thursdays.

-blog mondays and wednesdays

-friday – open season! squee!

3) unplug the kids. since the snowpacalypse, my kids, especially my beloved son hellboy, have become much more plugged in. in fact, i fear one day that either the star wars video game or the wii lego batman will one day come alive and pull him into the tv to live forever, shooting at dog-knows-what. while i suspect my kids will not grow up to become serial killers (note to self: which parents think their kids WILL?), i need to make a concerted effort to find ways to occupy them — or, more to the point, get them to occupy themselves!

here’s the challenge. hellboy has no kids his age nearby. zero. zilch. nada. BC has one. of course, it’s easier to get BC out of the house and on her bike, especially since i am not as worried that she’ll be in the street when someone zooms up at 60 mph in a 25 zone. but what to do with hellboy? how do i get him into the backyard to play when he’s all by his lonesome? do i book up his weekends with playdates months in advance (since these kids all seem to have much busier schedules than mine do)? gone are the days when you could just run up to your neighbor’s door and ask him to come out and play. (and, in hellboy’s case, there’s no appropriate neighbor’s doorbell to ring.)

hmm. here goes nothin’.

1) look at the calendar at the beginning of the month and plan at least one playdate for the boy/girl.

2) research fun backyard things that the boy would enjoy doing. the girl is pretty good at occupying herself, but the boy will need more than a few slimy bugs to entice him away from luke skywalker.

okay. so three should be a start, right?

anyone out there have ideas to help me meet my goals? that goal three is a bear for me, and i know there are parents out there who do it all much better than i do. please enlighten me with ideas, websites, and hope.

and heck — share your goals if you have any. maybe new year’s came and went for you. so hell — you can say it’s your birthday today, too.

see, i’m 25 today, so i know how to share.

girls, girls, girls

Posted on January 28, 2010February 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

mommy’s six-year-old heartbreaker…

we’ve been horribly remiss in setting up playdates for jools for awhile now. part of this stems from the fact that our house has been a complete disaster from the ceiling caving in; but part of this has just been probably laziness on my part. see, back in my day (when dinos roamed the earth), you just went and knocked on a neighbor’s door to see whether they wanted to come out and play. sadly, there are not a ton of people jools’ age or temperament nearby, so the boy usually ends up home playing wii or trying to go and play with BC’s friends (which seldom ends well.)

this past weekend, i decided to get of f my ass and be proactive. as the weather was not going to be bone-freezing, i figured i would take jools, BC, and any friends they could find over to a nearby park to play for an hour or two. first, i called up jools’ main squeeze, mo. mo and jools were in the same kindergarten class last year and became fast friends. mo is lively, sweet, and absolutely adorable. best of all, she is a great friend to him. (once, mo tried to talk jools out of a meltdown he had at soccer practice when the other boys weren’t sharing the ball. if anyone was going to reach him, it was her.) i suspect when they are teens that jools will be lucky if mo is still talking to him, as she is going to be an absolute knockout when she’s older. in the meantime, though, both mo and jools have shared with their respective parents that they are going to get married when they grow up. it’s heart-meltingly sweet.

unfortunately, mo’s mom wasn’t answering the phone; and thanks to the short timeframe we had, i didn’t leave a message. instead, i asked him which friend i should call next, and he picked his newest best friend, a cute school newcomer named L. the previous evening at the school ice cream social, jools and L sat together at a table inhaling a few bowls of ice cream. when they were done, jools was a gentleman and took her bowls as well as his to the trash while BS and i looked on in shock. (i can barely get this kid to bring his dishes to the dishwasher some days without nagging him two or three times.) the two of them looked like they were on a date; it was a bit surreal.

i called L’s mom. sadly, they had plans for that saturday, but could jools come over and play monday after school? sure, i replied, wondering if i would be able to get the boy to do his homework once he came home. so jools was booked for another day, but we still had that afternoon to think about.

who to call next? jools had no hesitation. call P, mom! he announced. i figured if things didn’t work out with P, we were going to have to punt for the day. P, you should know, was also in jools’ kindergarten class. a bright and precocious little girl, P likes to sit on the schoolbus with BC, who is four grades ahead of her. BC, being good-natured, often lets this happen, even though there are kids her own age she’d rather be joining on the bus. last year, this worked to my parental advantage, as P would report on all of jools’ antics, good and bad, at school… which BC of course would then share with me. P kept me better informed than the teacher did. i missed that this year, now that P and jools were in different classes.

so i called P. it’s tax season, so i won’t be seeing her accountant mom for probably a few months, i suspect. but P’s dad gladly let her join us. so i picked up P and off we went to the park, where P and jools played beautifully together (my favorite moment: they decided they were on aircraft in an airfight: he was going to be luke skywalker, she was going to be hermione) while BC ended up practing her mother’s helper skills by befriending a toddler and her mom, then a preschooler and his mom. (she is still the baby and toddler whisperer, i swear. i wish i had her skills with young children. too late for me, of course.) afterwards, i took them for ice cream (it would have been hot chocolate, but all three kids said that dunkin donuts’ hot chocolate was awful, and when a kid passes up hot chocolate, you know it must not be very good) and then returned P home.

jools apparently prefers hanging with the girls in his world than with the boys for the most part, save for a few of the guys. i’m not entirely sure why this is, but at this age, i guess i’m glad he’s playing with anybody that isn’t in a video game. and i must say, the girls he has as friends are really all lovely people, so i’m just glad he has found some kindred spirits who love to play tag, pretend they are fighting evil-doers, and simply giggle a lot.

of course, this comes at a price. on saturday night as we drove to a restaurant, jools was troubled. what am i gonna do? he mused out loud, shaking his head sorrowfully.

what’s the matter, honey? i asked, perplexed.

well, Mo is my girlfriend, and she’s gonna be mad at me because i played with P today and have a playdate with L on Monday.

i thought for a second. you know, honey, it’s okay to play with other friends, and you don’t really have to report about your playdates to Mo anyway if you don’t want to.

the boy looked alarmed. but mom, he protested, i’m her boyfriend. and boyfriends have to tell the truth to their girlfriends. i have to tell her!

BS, who was driving the car, looked at me for a second, probably mirroring the same confused expression that i offered back to him.

is this boy six or 16?

pablo picasso

Posted on January 12, 2010February 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

pablo picasso was never called an asshole.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dQ4owtKH3M

i have two children: one, BC, who will tell me anything and everything about her day from a minute-by-minute perspective; and jools, who may occasionally share a nugget or two beyond my day went okay if the sky is a certain shade of blue, the moon is in the seventh house, and jupiter might be somehow aligning with mars. i usually get my best info from jools while walking home from the school bus in the afternoon if he hasn’t decided to run ahead with other children or hang back, picking up sticks or plodding along with our neighbor’s mellow, slow-trudging lab.

it was one of those wonderful days when i just had to pick the boy up from the bus and he held my hand the whole way home. (well, almost. sometimes, the snow on the side of the road is too hard to resist.) as usual, i asked him about his day; whether classes went well, whether this one bully continued to torture him by telling him he had a small head, that sort of thing. he had had art that day; and i asked how that went.

well, he mused, i have decided that i am not going to get upset anymore whenever art teacher tells me that my work is scribble-scrabble. i’m going to like my work anyway.

hold the phone?

did art teacher actually tell you your work was ‘scribble scrabble’? in those words?

yes, the boy replied. he doesn’t like when people color outside the lines.

i have almost had enough of this art teacher. BC, who is creative and imaginative as the next kid, who normally LOVES art, especially when she has had art teacher #2, used to come home in tears last year because of this teacher. he would berate her for not drawing the way he wanted people to draw. he would criticize her every work. mom, she once told me, he only likes you and your work if you are an actual talented artist. i’m not.

i still remember his one line comment on her report card. and i quote: BC seems to like art.

yeah, well she did before she had you as a teacher.

so now, while BC has the nice art teacher, jools is stuck with the less-than-supportive art teacher. and he has been taking it on the chin for a few months now, trying his best.

i think this art teacher might be laboring under the impression that he is preparing these children for the sorbonne or something. maybe my thinking is a little too basic, but i like to think that an art teacher’s job is to try to get kids excited about art — to see art all around them, to provide them another way to communicate to the world their vision of what they see and how they feel. absolutely, there are technical ideas that they need to convey about colors and perspective and such.

but not every kid will be pablo picasso.

it doesn’t mean you have to make that child feel like an asshole.

world aids day 2009

Posted on December 1, 2009 by wrekehavoc

(no awful ’80s earworms today. promise.)

today is world AIDS day, a day started in 1988 to bring awareness and education to the plight of those living with HIV and AIDS. years ago, when i worked at the US Dept of Education, i had the privilege of putting together two years’ worth of WORLD AIDS Day commemorations plus helping to develop training materials for fellow employees so that they would understand how to deal with employees who were HIV+/AIDS patients. (in short: treat them as you would want to be treated. you won’t catch the disease from working with people.) i was proud to volunteer the Department’s building to house part of the AIDS Quilt, which was at the time laid out on the National Mall for all to see. while sadly, the quilt has gotten larger, we seem to be learning more about slowing the disease and helping those afflicted live longer.

i know people who have died of complications from AIDS. i also know people who are living with HIV/AIDS.

yesterday, i was talking with my kids about AIDS, which is not easy to do when the kids are 10 and 6. i explained that it stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. BC looked at me a little scared. don’t you have immunodeficiency, mom?

in fact, when i was first diagnosed with CVID, some people thought i had AIDS. i do, honey, i replied, but that’s different from AIDS. the A in AIDS means “acquired” which means doing something to get the virus. i didn’t do anything to get this immunodeficiency; i just was born with these particular genes. and you can’t catch it from me unless you have the same genes, too.

hellboy wasn’t getting this, really, but girlfriend was. and she continued. so what do you have to do to get AIDS? she asked.

well, basically, you can get it from other people’s body fluids.

she crushed up her nose. you mean, like pee?

once again, i am the one with the fun topical conversations, not BS. well, things like blood, for example. before they knew more about HIV, they didn’t know much about the blood supply, so people who were hemophiliacs who got transfusions sadly ended up dying of AIDS.

what are hemophiliacs?

people whose blood doesn’t have the stuff in it to help them stop bleeding. a little cut could kill a hemophiliac if not treated properly.

girlfriend was connecting dots again. you mean, like when you had no platelets and were bruising? she looked sad.

that’s a different problem, and i’m better now. but sort of. (time to divert the attention in order to get her away from the thought of my demise.) anyway, people who share needles when they shoot up their drugs can give it to each other. so don’t do drugs and that’s one problem solved.

ewww! who would do that!!!! she exclaimed.

not anyone with any sense, i said. anyway, another way of getting HIV is… i looked over at the boy, who was probably busy thinking about star wars and continued cautiously…through sex.

girlfriend’s eyes now got HUGE.

we can talk about that part away from your brother right now since i don’t think he understands this the way you do. but know that there are things you can do to keep yourself as healthy as you can be.

girlfriend seemed satisfied with that answer, only stopping to note: mommy, isn’t that guy on EastEnders a guy with AIDS? (we’re so far behind in our episodes here in the US that Mark Fowler is still alive.)

yes, honey. and he still is living like everyone else on the show.

i got a nod from her, and then we moved on.

it’s never easy talking with your kids about AIDS, but i figure if i start early at ages when they can understand and in words that they can comprehend, maybe i’ll help them out somewhere down the road.

then again, maybe somewhere down the road, there will be a cure for this scourge and moms won’t have to have these sorts of conversations.

san francisco (be sure to wear flowers in your hair) : part one

Posted on October 7, 2009February 9, 2010 by wrekehavoc

it was 1998 when i last went anywhere just as me, myself, and i, rather than as somebody’s wife or mother. this idea gnawed at my soul for a long, long time, until finally, my best bud murph and i figured out that this would be the year we would go away somewhere. since she had moved away, we never got to spend much time together anyway, so why not? besides, murph had some frequent flyer credits to kill, so as long as we selected a place where her plane would take her, we were golden.

we settled on san francisco. san francisco is home to many, many things, some less printable than others. for our purposes, it would be home to the free hardly strictly bluegrass festival in golden gate park. now many of you faithful readers (and i know you are out there, you people besides my dad) are familiar with the fact that i am not exactly the biggest country fan on the face of the earth. this, as we all know, is true. however, i have an appreciation for classics, like emmylou harris, who, i think displays a startling beauty in her work. i also took note of the hardly strictly part of the title. i saw names i adored on the list of performers, like aimee mann and nick lowe. and, in short, i was sold. besides, one of my other dearest friends, m2k, lives there, a lucky strike extra indeed.

now, you might think that that would be that, and i could simply say i got on a plane and off i’d go. but nothing in my life ever goes quite like that. for starters, i am a bit frightened of flying, a la isadora wing. sure, i have flown plenty in my life; i’ve been overseas and i was a regular in the 80s on people express to florida. but somehow, since i’ve become a parent, flying freaks me out. i guess the thought of potentially not being there to see my kids grow up makes me freeze. but i have also learned in life that i have to step up to the plate and just face the things or people i fear and get past them.

so i do.

i was slated to leave on friday, october 2 at 5:15 in order to catch a plane at 6:40 a.m. i packed during the week during fleeting free minutes. by wednesday, i was nearly ready, putting final touches together while BS and jools were out at a cub scout meeting in the evening. they returned home late, 9ish, so i stopped my packing and put jools to bed. then, as he was standing by the sink, rehashing the evening’s events to me while drinking a glass of water, BS suddenly grabbed his throat, then his side, then toppled to the ground, hitting his head on the hard kitchen tile floor. i ran over to him immediately, patting his cheeks and calling his name. no one was home. then, his eyes opened and went back into his head. this is not really happening, i thought. (you bet your life it is, a little voice sang.)

i wedged BS on his side against the dishwasher, jumped up and ran to the phone. only too bad for me (as my heroine junie b would say), that glass of water BS had been holding had spilled all over the floor. i slid and fell on my ass. that hard tile floor contact seared along my legs and backside, but as my ass has plenty of cushion on it, i knew the floor had probably hurt BS’s head a lot more, so i struggled up and grabbed the phone, dialed 911, and slid back to BS, cradling his head in my arm while keeping him on his side.

911 operators, for those of you who have never spoken with them, are rather tough cookies. calm down now, ma’am the lady kept saying to me. i am not one of those people who likes to be told to calm down; it makes me more frantic. but i looked at my husband’s face and knew i had to keep myself together. so i described what had happened, where we were, that sort of thing. as i looked at him, my husband’s eyes opened again, and this time, i saw a glimmer of recognition. i’m fine, he said to me, over and over. i’m fine. i had the feeling that he did not want to trouble the EMTs; that’s the sort of guy he is.

too bad, i thought. i don’t take direction from people who have been unconscious in the past five minutes. the EMTs are coming.

he looked like he was coming to for good; and when i heard the firetruck, i ran to the door to open it, then ran back to my husband. EMTs and firefighters filed in. one took me aside while several hung with BS, asking him all the usual questions to ensure his noggin was still in working order. after lots of questions, the EMTs decided that he probably somehow messed with his vagus nerve and gave himself a brain freeze to remember (or not). he was probably ok for now. fabulous.

i spent the night watching him sleep, as i was afraid whether he’d have a problem again due to whatever happened or perhaps even a concussion from whacking his head on the floor.

the next day, i tried to calm down and finish packing. by the evening, though, i was terrified of the impending flight. i was upset by the idea of leaving my formerly unconscious spouse alone, especially with two kids to look after. in short, i was afraid. i went to bed that night, unable to sleep.

now everyone occasionally hears things that go bump in the night. and, as little miss non-sleeper 2009, i heard two knocks in the night, pounding sounds like when water goes through the upstairs pipes. curious, i thought to myself: no one is running the tub. but i sat there, and i pondered. that is, until i heard the sound to end all sounds.

BOOM!

at around 3 am, a thunderous noise literally pushed my husband and i up into the air (it seemed.) ohmyG-d, ohmyG-d, ohmyG-D! was all i could mutter as i ran down the stairs to find out what the hell had happened. i didn’t have to run far. the ceiling of the living room, AKA the room beneath my bedroom, had fallen. the 60 year old plaster and drywall concoction had finally breathed its last and decided to fall atop a table the kids use to do crafts and play games on. amazingly, all of the toys that were underneath the heavy ceiling were relatively undamaged, though the ceiling did rip a hole in my pullout couch. but no one was injured. (after all, no one else was awake save for insane jane moi.) i checked on the kids, who had no idea what the hell had happened.

and then, i proceeded to stay awake and fret. after all, i had to wake up at 4:15 in order to get myself together for my 5:15 cab. how the hell can i leave you? i shrieked at BS. this is like a sign from G-d — i should not be going anywhere!!! BS told me i should get on that plane and not worry about signs — i needed to go and besides, murph would be very upset with me if i blew her off.

by this point, BC was up for the duration. in between telling me what i needed to wear (you’ll be cold if you don’t wear this jacket, she told me, handing me a windbreaker. she was right, incidentally. glad i listened to the 60 year old in the 10 year old suit.), girlfriend was crying her eyes out. don’t gooooooooooooooo, mommy!!!! oh, i didn’t want to. i really didn’t want to.

but i got in that cab, blew a kiss to the little girl who was sobbing at the window, and was off to the airport.

once there, i stood outside northwest airlines’ entrance. and i sobbed. i called BS. i don’t want to go, i cried. what kind of wife and mother leaves her family after these things have happened?

BS, who by this time was probably one step away from a one-way trip to whothehellami land, very calmly uttered: just GO!

so i did.