Swimming Against the Tide

Do a mitzvah. Adopt a barnacle.

Earlier this month, a barnacle covered fishing boat set adrift by the tsunami in Japan washed ashore in California. A little more than a week ago, a young man laden with a back pack full of yen coins in small denominations and a few pairs of socks and underwear washed ashore in Chicago. This morning, that same young man wings his way back to the shores of Japan, while the barnacle covered fishing boat remains on this side of the planet. No fair.

Like the boat, the young man left in his wake a bit of rubble. As I stood amid the tossed articles of clothing and the half empty (half full?) Starbucks cups and soda cans in his room this morning, looking at the sheets that seemed to have been lifted and tossed and twisted and dropped again by some mysterious storm that left the rest of the house relatively intact, I decided the clean up could wait. I am not ready to set the debris adrift, to restore the room to a tranquility that erases all evidence of my son's brief and messy visit.

A friend sent me a video the other day, a tongue in cheek promotional ad seeking young men willing to adopt a Jewish mother, to spend a day here and there with a woman who has devoted her life to micromanaging her own son only to see him drift away and neglect her. "Hmm, what are you implying?" I asked my friend. Could I possibly be the woman caricatured in the video, the controlling desperate housewife who demands that girlfriends take a back seat to her, whose favorite pastime is reading about colleges and determining which ones might be worthy of educating her number one son?
My friend denied intending any such implication, claiming he simply thought I would find the spoof amusing. Liar.

I have to admit it was amusing, and really, I am so not like that. Pretending girlfriends don't exist is certainly not the same thing as demanding they take a back seat. I never picked out colleges for him -- mostly because, at the time he was applying, I was just happy he had decided to go. And the Jewish mothers in the video would never tolerate the whole Japan thing, even despite the bragging rights. No amount of telling people how fabulously brilliant and unique your son is because he is teaching English in Japan can substitute for the satisfaction a true Jewish mother gets when her grown son shows up for dinner on a regular basis and allows her to shove matzoh balls down his throat while she offers up suggestions about what he should wear and where he should work and why he should have gone to medical school, no matter how much he hates science.

A true Jewish mother would cover herself in barnacles and somehow make herself buoyant and figure out a way to drift against the tide and end up on the shores of Japan and whisk her son home. I would never do such a thing. The thought has never even crossed my mind.

By the way, does anyone know where you can buy some barnacles?

A Beautiful Mess

You can't fool all the people all the time, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to keep 'em guessing every once in a while.

I saw a teaser on line last night that got my attention, something about the surviving Boston Marathon bomber's EKG not registering so much as a minor blip when he was informed he might be subject to the death penalty. Naturally, I read the article, fascinated by the implication that this guy actually didn't have a heart, and was immediately crushed. The article pretty much told me how irrelevant an EKG would be in measuring an emotional reaction to such a statement, particularly when the guy is drugged up the wazoo. And particularly when the death penalty is thrown in at the end of the litany of possible penalties the way death is always tossed in as a possible side effect of even the most benign narcotic, right there after permanent maiming. Even the most emotional among us barely pay attention to that crap.

My EKG's, as far as I know, have always been quite normal, despite the fact that I tend to be a chronic worrier. I think I usually hide it pretty well, not just from the men in the white coats but from the mere mortals around me. It's important to keep that stuff under wraps; you don't want to make folks uncomfortable, particularly if they're your children. In fact, when they're your children, if you're a complete psycho the way I am, you are occasionally at risk of having an "episode" where you worry yourself into a complete frenzy about making sure everything is absolutely perfect for them and, at the same time, not letting them know you're on the verge of a complete mental break down. Note to self: don't try that again.

The key to not letting them see you sweat is to not try too hard. Worry all you want, but if you run yourself ragged thinking you have some control over how things turn out, you're headed for disaster. For example, your body can suddenly realize at an inopportune time -- say, when you're out to dinner with your three kids, a visiting French student, and your ex-husband, celebrating your daughter's birthday and your son's homecoming after a year -- that it's been running on pure adrenaline all day and needs to shut down and you end up spending the next half hour semi-conscious on the ladies room floor while your daughters take turns offering you water and blockading the door and your son and your ex and the French student sit at the table staring awkwardly at each other.

It was, to say the least, an inauspicious beginning to my week of having a rare house full of offspring, but I adjusted. It took a day or two, but I stopped panicking and started to relax a bit, enjoying the laptops and clothing and plates that seemed to be strewn everywhere, even relishing the constant sound and sensation of oreo crumbs crunching beneath my feet. There are piles of unfolded laundry everywhere, urgent requests for food and coffee and toilet paper throughout the day, an occasional suggestion that I drop whatever really important thing I happen to be doing so we can go somewhere together. A blind dog and one teenager can't even begin to match this kind of chaos. They both reacted as I did at first, with a bit of trepidation, maybe some confusion about how to behave. But, as the week draws to a close, tails are wagging and we're all smiling. It's been a beautiful mess.

I still slip into panic mode occasionally, striving for perfection when I know it will only lead to disaster. Which is why the home made Snickers brownies I had promised to bring to a mother daughter dinner last night where I really wanted to make a good impression ended up being made from a mix and not including any Snickers and being under baked and poorly cut and looking a bit like beef jerky. I assured them all I had other talents. They looked skeptical. At least I didn't pass out.

On my way to Starbucks this morning, I spotted the sneaky cop hiding in the school parking lot. My gas gauge is on "E," and I was afraid, for a moment, I'd see the heart sinking light show blinding me in my rear view mirror. But I remained calm, kept my hands at ten and two, and, as far as I can tell, the guy has no idea I was running on empty.

Going Cold Turkey

Over the counter or under the counter, I have discovered drugs are not the answer.

For over a year now, I've been taking these pills that are supposed to do what no other pill has done, i.e. make my anxiety go away. And, by the way, just in case I get depressed, they'll toss in a little bonus magic for that too. With a few short breaks when the anxiety of paying for them really got to me, I've stuck with them. I was brought up to believe you get what you pay for, so I've been figuring that even though I've noticed nothing other than a big dent in my wallet, the effect must be cumulative and very long term. Sometimes you just have to be patient.

Apparently I misunderstood the directions; I had the dosage and the delivery method all wrong. If I had wanted the pills to help rid me of anxiety I would have been better off taking all thirty of them at once, still hermetically sealed in the bottle, and throwing them directly at the source. Okay, it's a moving target, but at least I would have had a chance, and I might even have avoided a year of pesky side effects. The dizziness and increased appetite I could live with (I've always been a glutton and a bit off balance), but the fatigue was becoming a bit inconvenient. Falling asleep on my laptop in mid-sentence or even dozing in a movie were bad enough; constantly fighting the urge to suddenly slip into a coma while driving is another story. With the blessing of my doctor (affectionately known as Dr. Happy Pills), I am weaning myself off the little poison capsules. For a mere twelve dollars a minute (thankfully I'm only there for fifteen; we don't want my anxiety to become incapacitating), he flipped through the little manual and confirmed that the side effects I was experiencing are indeed at the top of the list. I think I could have told him that. Damn, I should have been a doctor.

The anxiety has already lifted as I fantasize about what I will do with the money I will save every month at the pharmacy drive thru, where, every month, the clerk appears to need some kind of electric shock therapy when he sees the price of my purchase. "It's cheaper than heroin," I once told him. He looked at me like I was nuts. I get that a lot.

Anyway, now that I'll have all this money left over, I'm thinking I want to go on vacation. But if I'm going to enjoy a vacation, I need to look good. You never know who you're going to meet. Which brings me to the problem of the purplish brown dark circles under my eyes, which have grown to look like bruises from a fist fight where one of us -- namely me -- had no fists.

No longer trusting narcotics of any kind sold in the drug store, I opted for a more holistic solution and ventured off to Whole Foods. After a few laps around the store, I managed to locate the "eye cream" aisle (the only section I'm familiar with is "prepared foods;" who knew they actually sold groceries?), and stood mesmerized by all the options before me. I read every label, assessing each "miracle" product by the extent to which the brand sounded appropriately clinical (pH should always appear somewhere in bold letters) and the extent to which the label design looked pharmaceutical as opposed to sartorial. Anything referred to as serum would be a front runner. Sale items were out; if folks aren't willing to spend their life savings on the stuff, it can't be good. No, I have not forgotten about the anxiety pills; I simply misused them. 

After careful study, I went with the stark looking tube of serum made from extract of green tea leaves and cucumbers and specifically billed as non-irritating. I was being particularly careful about reading labels given my year-long snafu with the prescription pills, and I didn't want to make any more mistakes. Non-irritating sounded good, but I suppose I still need a tutorial in label reading because, once again, I misunderstood. Apparently, what "non-irritating" really means is "this stuff isn't merely irritating; it is so caustic that it results in blazing redness on contact and causes a sting so painful you want to cut your head off." All this medical jargon is so confusing; maybe it's a good thing after all that I didn't become a doctor. I can be shitty at bedside, and I am definitely not smart enough to charge twelve dollars a minute. 

I'm not going to write off Whole Foods the way I've written off the drug store. I'd starve without their prepared foods section. But I'm expanding my horizons there a bit, venturing into produce to stock up on cucumbers. Get your minds out of the gutter kids, I know what you're thinking. Sometimes a cucumber is just a cucumber -- something to be sliced into little soothing circles to place on your aching eyes. And I suppose I can toss the rest in a salad, once my drug induced appetite decreases and I can tolerate a little light eating. 

Clear eyed and svelte, I'm gonna look good on that vacation I'm planning. And there will be no sunblock from any drug stores, no decision on whether to PABA or not to PABA. I'll just wear a hat. 

Seeded Players

My kids have it all figured out. No surprise there.

While I've been wasting a good bit of energy worrying that all three of them prefer their father to me, they have long known that we are the ones who are guilty of having favorites. It's okay though, because, apparently, my number one is his number three and we each have the same number two so it all averages out and between the two of us, they each get the same amount of love. Or whatever it is we have to offer.

When my youngest, the child who is the perennial runner-up told me about the hierarchy of affection, I was startled and, naturally, went off on a rant of complete denial. "You just don't get it, do you?" I snapped. She seemed amused, and strangely content. Who cares if you're always the bridesmaid, never the bride. She'll take the glory of omniscience any day, the rush of scooping me on my own inner thoughts. "Frankly I can't stand any of you," I muttered. If she heard, she seemed unfazed.

Word has it that my eldest is my third seed. The one I favor least, even though she is the only one whose laundry I did in Dreft. The only one whose first words are locked in my memory, the only one whose baby calendar is completely filled in. She breathed, I wrote it down. She grinned, I took a picture. She spoke and I kept a transcript. I can't say it ever gets old, but the first person who actually grows inside your body and emerges to change you into a person who is capable of loving somebody else so much it hurts always occupies a special place in your soul. Maybe she thinks she's third because she simply had farther to fall. It's hard to keep up the whole Dreft thing. There are two other incomparable places in my soul, but the occupants wouldn't believe me if I told them about it, so why bother.

I suppose it's good news that they have the pecking order figured out. At least I can stop worrying about which one hates me most. Or what I could have done better, since, from what I can tell, the rankings have been in place for years and are pretty much immutable. Maybe I'll be really lucky and the kid with a solid (and apparently permanent) grasp on the number one spot can muster up enough affection for me to balance the other two out. I can move on to worrying about more important things, like how I'm going to adjust to living in Japan, where the one least likely to toss me to the wolves lives. I like rice and noodles, but I am not a big raw fish fan. And my big peasant Jewish feet are about three full sizes larger than any shoes they sell there. Will I be spending my golden years with cold feet?

It's been kind of nice having a visitor from France, somebody else's ungrateful and all knowing child. She's a teenager, but she keeps her nastiness in check when she's around me, doesn't even act ashamed when her friends come around. She says hello in the morning, thanks me for doing her laundry, and doesn't roll her eyes when we appear to have no croissants (or any bread products, for that matter) in the bread drawer. And when I was dozing in the car at midnight waiting for her school bus to arrive from a field trip to a baseball game in Milwaukee, she pretended not to notice. She was still on the bus when I opened my eyes and looked up to see if I could spot her through the dark windows. Almost immediately, she broke into a huge smile and gave me an enthusiastic wave. Wow, that's something I haven't experienced in a while.

We chatted in my broken French and her broken English the whole way home, and my annoyance at having to stay up so late to retrieve her melted away. The friendly greeting was heartwarming. We had no trouble finding things to chat about, and we discovered that "Bloomingdales" is "Bloomingdales" in any language. She said good night to me, even shouted bon soir to Manny, who was already farting and snoring peacefully on my bed.

She leaves in a week, and we will be back to observing the strange code of silent disdain that is normally the governing playbook for our household. She will never make it into the ranking system developed by my kids because she is the fruit of someone else's labor. She exists for some other oblivious mother to love unconditionally even though she herself might not see it that way. In the universal language spoken by offspring everywhere, I am sure she and her own brother have things figured out back in France, are somehow at peace with their parents' perceived preferences.

My daughter told me that when she visited France last summer, the mom not only did her laundry but ironed her underwear. And I am sure my daughter offered up a heartfelt merci beaucoup and did not slam a bedroom door for two weeks and never shot maman a single look of disdain. After all, I pretty much never iron anything, and I certainly never did her laundry in Dreft.

And expectations are just blissfully low when you're not a seeded player.

Spinning My Wheels

I was barely awake in the line at Starbucks this morning when I sensed that somebody was speaking to me. I had already noticed him and he was already on my shit list for ordering a drink that needed some preparation when there was only one person working. "Man up," I wanted to tell him. Nobody needs a white mocha before sunrise.

"Are you good with computers?" he asked, apparently oblivious to the growling in my head. I glanced at the lap top I had placed down on the counter. (Why continue to hold it when you're in it for the long haul because some jerk had to order a bar drink?). Its exterior is speckled with dents from being dropped and a few diet coke stains from last week when I accidentally tossed it into the recycling bin during my overly zealous house cleaning frenzy. My laptop, like me, wears the telltale signs of stress on its outer sleeve, but it still functions. Most days.

"How good do you need?" I asked. The mocha drinker had a friendly face, so I decided to cut him some slack. It turned out he couldn't get his lap top to start up. I admitted that I wasn't very savvy, but he seemed certain I had to know more than he did. Funny, just because I was carrying one around. Maybe I'll start carrying around a big fat pay check so folks will automatically assume I'm worth something.

He seemed desperate, so I told him I'd be happy to push some buttons. It's how I deal with computers and remote controls and the random flashing lights on my dashboard. My car dashboard, the old fashioned kind. At work, I have my own special way of pushing a return through when the wheel of death on the screen starts spinning out of control and the customer looks as if she's going to throttle someone. An extra scan, a double click, one more scan and one more double click and I'm in. Nobody else is willing to try my carefully developed system, but I swear, it's foolproof. I am an accidental computer geek.

Anyway, I showed off a little bit and read the strange instructions on Mr. Mocha's computer screen as if I actually understood what the words meant, executed a few random pushes and clicks and, voila!, the screen changed and all of a sudden there were some different incomprehensible instructions up there. He thought making it to a new step indicated some progress. I puffed out my chest a little bit, happy that someone was recognizing my well hidden genius.

We stared together at the screen, which was assuring us in some convoluted terms that it was thinking deep thoughts. He looked amazed. I pretended to be engrossed in thoughts that were as deep as those of his lap top. We waited and stared. "Can you believe I used to be a successful salesman and now I'm driving a taxi?" I was taken aback, mostly because I cannot remember the last time I met a taxi driver who spoke English like a native. I thought about the three hours I had spent a day earlier navigating expressways and surface streets in a torrential downpour to get my daughter to school and friends to the airport and me to work at a location I had never been to before. Hmm, maybe I'm qualified to be a taxi driver. Why was he talking about it as if it were a bad thing?

Unfortunately, I didn't have my resume on me, that impressive piece of paper that starts out strong and fizzles out into a big sheet of white space. Maybe I could add something about my computer know-how, fill up some of the emptiness, and ask Mocha to pass it on to the people who hire taxi drivers. I glanced at his lap top screen. The wheel of death was still spinning, the promises of deep and highly evolved thought processes still blinked on and off. I wasn't feeling all that optimistic, but he still looked encouraged. At least something was happening. I know the feeling. Like yesterday when I got off the expressway just so I could experience the sensation of movement, even though it was in the wrong direction. Yes, I could definitely apply to be a taxi driver if my new career in computer repair fell through.

I encouraged Mocha Man to sit and relax, since "several minutes" in computer speak is a term of art that has nothing to do with time measurement as people of merely average intelligence would understand it. He trusted me; I had become his guru with my random pokes and prods. He sat and sipped. I scurried off to my couch.

"You did it!" he suddenly called out to me. He was beaming. His lap top was up and running, and he would be able to communicate with the taxi dispatcher and earn his keep for the day. As usual, I got paid nothing for my priceless service, but I am feeling confident and motivated as a result of my time spent making rain. Today I will work on my resume.

And though I don't know Mocha's name, I jotted down his cab number, just in case I need a reference.

Live Free or Die Laughing

Breaking news: earlier this week, a New Hampshire state representative used "vaginas" as a synonym for "women" in a mass email to fellow lawmakers. What a dick.

The email was sent in the context of a gun law debate, and I think the guy had good intentions, trying to protect and defend the weaker sex (kind of a "vaginas and children first" argument). Nevertheless, as is often the case, semantics get overblown and the guy, who no doubt believes "vagina" is a complimentary term, gets in trouble. If only he had chosen his words more carefully, perhaps gone with the more technical and Oprah-endorsed vajayjay, all those New Hampshire panties wouldn't be in a knot.

Dumb politicians notwithstanding, I am still proud to be an American. Frankly, I'll take news of moronic behavior by elected officials any day over reports of school house slaughters or marathon massacres or other real tragedies. Even though I certainly don't think of "vagina" as a complimentary term, I've been called far worse things. And thank goodness for stupid politicians; we all could use a good chuckle every now and then. I am perfectly content to let the best and the brightest remain behind the scenes, getting the important stuff done without boring the crap out of us.

In the aftermath of the explosions at the Boston Marathon, the news is saturated with stories of unsung heroism and extraordinary gratitude for random acts of kindness. Victims and good Samaritans alike serve as examples to us all, not because they are perfect human beings who have never called a woman a vagina but because, in the most dire of situations, so many of them did the right thing, even said the right things. Might one or more of them have had an occasional slip of the tongue (or keyboard)? Of course. But when it counted, there was an amazing show of generosity and compassion and unadulterated humanity, and I'd like to think that's how most of us would have behaved under the circumstances, no matter how many stupid things we do and say in an ordinary day. Patriot's Day 2013 was anything but ordinary, but it showed us, once again, that Anne Frank was right, that despite blatant and unspeakable evil, people are, for the most part, good.

New Hampshire's motto is as American as apple pie: live free or die. I cherish our way of life here, all of our freedoms, including the freedom to elect buffoons who provide us with constant and relatively harmless entertainment. To the dick in New Hampshire who gave us all a good laugh and to the brave folks in Boston (and everywhere else) who continue to show us what really matters, I say keep up the good work.

Run for Your Life!

I saw my brother had tried to reach me several times. That's never good news.

Several missed calls and a text. "Need to ask you about Boston." Boston? There's not much to tell. I went to law school there, back in the day. Learned to drive like a maniac. Fell in love. Became a runner. All old news. Why was he suddenly asking me about Boston? I responded with a text: "??????" He called. I always talk on the phone in the bathroom at home, but I try to avoid it at work. People might wonder why I am not peeing alone.

I answered with an annoyed whisper. My brother has had years of practice when it comes to ignoring my bitchiness. He wanted to know if our friends, the ones who welcome all of us into their family to celebrate holidays, were in Boston watching their son run the marathon. There had been several explosions. My mind raced. A Monday in April. Patriot's Day. A state holiday in Massachusetts. The day of the Boston Marathon. Of course our friends would be there. If there was a marathon, their son would be running, and they would be watching.

Frantically, I tried reaching them. I reached my daughter, who had already tried reaching their daughter.  While we were on the phone, she finally heard back. They were all okay. Thankfully, her brother is fast, had crossed the finish line more than an hour before the blasts. He and his parents were on their way back to his apartment, on the subway, when it all happened, blissfully ignorant of the chaos at street level. It reminded me of the day in September so many years ago, the beautiful sunny day that had turned to shit, when New York came under attack and we could not locate my mom. She had been on the subway, probably not far from the World Trade Center, but blissfully ignorant of the chaos above, until she emerged several miles away and saw the tip of Manhattan smoking.

Back in 1983, when I stood in the still weak but very welcome New England sun watching my first marathon, my life was about to change. Impressed by the sheer determination (not to mention the fat free physiques) of the runners passing by, I decided not only that I would become a runner, but that one day I would run a marathon. The Boston Marathon, preferably. And I did become a runner. For years, I ran almost every day, no matter what the weather, and it saved me. Saved me from complete uncertainty, from a nagging ennui, and from a years long struggle with eating disorders. Maybe running didn't save me, but it helped. A lot.

 For years, running was my life line. I wrote lectures for work in my head, I conquered bulimia (or maybe I substituted one purge for another, but still), I resolved pesky issues that seemed to defy resolution when I was standing still.I have stopped running these days. Aching middle aged joints have made it difficult. Not being able to walk for days after a relatively short run has made me seek out more gentle forms of exercise, and I will probably never run that marathon. I will have to pass that torch to my daughters, and, possibly this year, to my ex-husband (which, I admit, will really piss me off)!

My friends' son discovered running when he was in high school. Running has saved him, too, or at least helped a lot. Running, he became somebody. He had always been somebody, but not so much in his own mind. Running helped him figure out who he is and it has propelled him forward. He is happy and thriving, and still running. Even more than running changed my life, running changed my friends' son's life. I wonder whether this Boston Marathon will change his running. It probably will, at least in some way.

It will change him and it will change all of us, just as 9/11 did, and just as all events that turn a good thing into a bad thing tend to do. Without warning, our illusions are as shattered as the charred limbs that littered the streets of Back Bay, and we are all left, for a moment, not knowing how to move forward. The lucky ones will just learn, again, to put one foot in front of the other. For others, it will be a bit more difficult.

But by next year, when the weak but welcome New England sun shines down on Boston on Patriot's Day, the runners and the dreamers and the survivors will be ready to move forward, because that's what we do.

Xenophobia (Peur des Etrangers)

Clara, our exchange student from France who arrived last night, does not seem overly impressed by my French. She's polite about it though. My daughter is a bit less generous. I expect that over the course of two weeks she'll get a lot more mileage out of my embarrassing language skills than she did from the big chocolate stain on the front of my shirt the other day.

Chocolat. A mon chemise. Mon Dieu! Ici, maintenant, je parle francais whenever I can. Hey, it's been beaucoup d'annees, but I'm trying. Je pense que Clara comprends. Peut-etre. Anyway, je ne care pas. Isn't everyone supposed to speak Anglais these days? Or maybe it's Chinese. Chinois. French is so yesterday. Hier. Oy, I'm exhausted from all this thinking. 

I have been put in charge of Clara this morning while my daughter is out taking the ACT. Why does she get to have all the fun? I am under strict instructions not to leave the house lest our guest awakes to find herself all alone. I am hoping jet lag keeps her in bed for a few more hours so I can avoid making conversation. Just in case, though, I am prepared to give her the day's first lesson in American culinary delights. I just wish I knew how to say "bagel" in French. She's going to be awfully disappointed when she bites into it and realizes it is not, not by a long shot, a donut (which is what she thought it was when we showed her one last night). 

We have wasted no time introducing her to some of our distinctly American cuisine. Dinner last night was pizza. Lunch today will be burritos from Chipotle. Tonight maybe Thai, maybe Indian. I haven't decided, but I'm thinking, no matter what, there will be curry. Bienvenue a les Etats Unis, Clara. A land of borrowers, a mosaic of cultures, a place where you can find a little bit of everything. If there's anything distinctively American, it's that we are so indistinct. Sure, we have our pockets of inbreeding, but, well, except for up here in deep dark Jewish suburbia where diversity means we welcome Jews (and an occasional Asian) from all walks of life, we are a mish mash of diluted cultures. I think it's the one thing that will always save us from self-destruction. 

In my Neanderthal mind, Clara looks stereotypically French. She is small boned, with fine features. Her nose is thin and pointy, her mouth rounded and perpetually poised to utter the eu sound. Of course, had she come from Germany, I am pretty certain I would have found her appearance to be stereotypically German in some way. Amazing how we need to categorize. I wonder if she looks at me -- dark skinned with a long face and a substantial nose, with ancestors from Eastern Europe and Russia, and my daughter -- light skinned with a round face and two nostrils that barely protrude from her face, with ancestors from Eastern Europe and Russia and Ireland and Scotland, and finds us both to be stereotypically American. I'd be willing to bet on it. 

I admit I get intimidated by the richness of a distinct culture, no matter what that culture is. I thought about getting some chocolate croissants from Panera this morning, but I was so afraid they could not measure up, that they would somehow offend a true French person's palate, I stuck with bagels. They may not be flaky and sweet, but maybe Clara will find them exotic. At the very least, she will assume they are the real deal, not a feeble American attempt to stick chocolate inside some dough and call it pain chocolat. 

The last time we hosted a French student, we sent her home wearing something distinctly American: Uggs. Yes, the furry boots from Australia. I wonder what we will come up with for Clara. She was wearing Uggs, so that's out. Maybe a Burberry scarf. Or a Dior purse. 

Maybe we'll just give her a jar of peanut butter. She looked at it last night the way I might look at a plate filled with foie gras. Very foreign, and very scary.

Friday Morning Lights

It's been years since I've experienced the heart sinking feeling that accompanies the sight of a patrol car pulling up behind me and lighting itself up like a patriotic Christmas tree. So long, in fact, that I've become smug about that kind of thing. So smug that when I ride by some poor soul who's been stopped, I often go just a smidge slower than I need to so I can get a good look and see if it's someone I know.

Yes, there but for the grace of God (and my dogged determination to stay the heck out of traffic school) go I. Every morning, on my way to Starbucks with my laptop, when I see the darkened car with its darkness-defying P O L I C E insignia emblazoned on the side "hiding" in the school parking lot, I give myself a virtual pat on the back (virtual because both hands are placed firmly on the wheel in the "ten and two" position) for doing nothing wrong. My speedometer needle hovers just under thirty, my cell phone is out of reach, and I have had nothing to drink, not even coffee. Bring on the breathalyzer, Officer. Morning breath may be offensive, but it's not illegal.

So I was a little taken aback when the car hiding in plain sight actually pulled out and followed me this morning. Maybe it was a power thing; could he see, each morning, my defiant little wink? Maybe he was just taking a coffee break, but Dunkin Donuts was in the other direction, so that couldn't be it. Then came the heart sinking lights. I looked around. There was nobody else on the road. Why would there be at five o'clock in the morning? Had my luck run out?

The entire process is designed to be psychologically damaging. Interrogation 101 -- they start breaking you down immediately. As if the Christmas tree lights aren't enough, there's a ridiculously bright light pointed directly at your side view mirror so if you try to look back and see what the cop is doing you pretty much lose sight in your left eye. I sat, then, looking straight ahead, shielding my eyes with my left hand. Good thing I didn't need my right hand, which was clutching the two Excedrin I planned to wash down as soon as I got my coffee. Shit. Could this be a drug bust? I was being broken down already; a lifetime of minor and not so minor misdeeds flashed before my eyes.

As it turns out, one of my headlights was out. Did you know that, ma'am? Well, since I'm usually sitting behind the wheel when I drive, how the fuck would I know that? Goodness no, Officer, I had no idea! That's what I said out loud. Thanks for letting me know. Can I get my coffee now? I said that to myself. Which explains why he seemed to not have heard me, and asked me for my license and my insurance card so he could just write me up a warning, assuming the license and insurance were in order. I thought about asking him either to just give me a verbal warning or to at least turn off the light that was blinding my left eye while he wrote up my warning, but I'm just smart enough, occasionally, not to push my luck.

All I can say is it's a good thing the cops can't see everything that's not working in my house. If it took this long to write up a warning for one burnt out headlight, I'd probably be put away for life for all the stuff that's broken at home. Note to self: Have Cal the handyman install the ceiling fan in my older daughter's room, even though she doesn't live there anymore. I found the ceiling fan on the floor of her closet yesterday when I was cleaning things out. For all those years, my eldest child was sweating her ass off in the summer while the ceiling fan sat on the floor of her closet (and, if the three space heaters in the same closet were any indication, freezing her ass off in the winter). If DCFS only knew. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, but I'm keeping the rest to myself. You can never be too careful.

I have ten days to get the headlight fixed, and, if my promise to my realtor is to be taken seriously, just about ten days to get my house on the market. If I were a bettin' woman, I'd put my money on the headlight. It's manageable, and, frankly, I think I can afford it.

The house may never be ready. But in ten days, when I drive by that cop parked in plain sight in the school parking lot, you can be damn sure I'll have my hands at ten and two and my cell phone will be out of reach and my speedometer needle will be hovering just below thirty. And both headlights will be shining brightly, even if it's light out by then. And maybe I'll even slow down -- just so he can see me wink.

Fixer Uppers

Yesterday, before I left the shop, I finally took the plunge and tried on a pair of cropped jeans. It seemed only fair, since I had managed to convince no fewer than four people in the past two days that the very same jeans were well worth the exorbitant price on the tag.

Standing in front of the three way mirror with my thick mismatched socks looking clownishly large beneath what looked to be painted on denim, I was mortified. "They make me look short," I announced to my coworkers, ignoring their oohs and aahs.

"You are short," said the one who is six feet tall. She had a point.

"They make my butt look huge," I continued, forgetting I was not an average customer off the street and there was no real incentive to sell me a bill of goods, nothing in the employee manual that would prevent my audience from crushing me with brutal honesty.

The tall woman fell on the grenade for the rest of them. "So what's wrong with that?" Ouch. Never expect an African American woman to coddle you just because you are completely self absorbed in "white girls' problems." Not even if she's angling for a commission.

I did what I would encourage any short white woman with body image issues to do. I removed my puffy socks and replaced them with three inch wedges. Okay, I definitely looked taller, and if my ass still looked huge I hardly noticed because I was too busy concentrating on not breaking my ankle as I teetered back over to the mirror. "Ooh," said one of the white women. "Now you sort of look like Olivia Newton John in that scene in Grease when she comes out in the really tight leather pants!" Sort of, I suppose, if you ignore the wrinkles and the muffin top spilling out over the waistband. I took it as a compliment, as it was intended. I've always wanted to look like an aging hooker.

After I had peeled off the jeans and replaced the tag that had been ripped off when it became hopelessly wedged somehow inside my twisted thong, I folded the pants that are worth their weight in gold and placed them back in their proper place in the pile. I muttered to myself about the price, though I had to admit they did look flattering, in a painful sort of way. I decided I would treat myself to a pair, as soon as the first royalty check for the great American novel I plan to write clears.

I consoled myself on the ride home with the knowledge that I am spending money on far more practical things, like fixing up my house so it will sell for almost as much as that pair of cropped jeans. I remain hopeful that a few coats of paint on the walls and some sanding and dark varnish on the wood floors will cover up the wear and tear and give the worn out old house enough of a face lift to sell. It is worn out. It is old. But if we sweep the fluffy mismatched socks under the bed and dress the old girl up to look real nice and we make sure people don't examine things too closely, it'll look as good as any aging hooker can look. Better, even, if that's possible.

When I arrived home later in the evening after a few hours of tutoring (always doing what I can to fill up the premium denim piggy bank), I could not get my car into the garage. Surprisingly, given how quickly and how often things seem to go south with the house, it wasn't a functional issue. My daughter and a few of her high school team members had used the garage as an a studio for an art project they need for some upcoming team celebration. (I'm not the mom who bakes cookies; the best I can do is offer up the house for an occasional royal mess.) The floor where my car usually sits and leaks fuel was littered with brightly colored and sparkly sheets of poster board, all looking as if they were glued there by the thick edges of spray paint outlining their borders. Later, after my daughter had lifted the dry (well, dry-ish) masterpieces into the house, the floor of the garage looked like a Picasso-esque painting of a house, colorfully edged windows placed at all sorts of odd angles, glitter everywhere creating odd shadows and configurations. Maybe the new decor would help sell the house; after all, one man's garbage is another man's art. Or something like that.

Actually, the house has a pretty good chance. I'm going deeper than the paint and the varnish, fixing up the plumbing and the heating and all the other essential life functions. As for me, I can paint on all the designer jeans I want but at the end of the day I'm still going to need to pee at odd hours and my trusty old thermostat is becoming increasingly unreliable. There's no hiding the muffin top when you suddenly feel as if someone could fry an egg on your face and the only way to restore some sort of natural color to your skin is to strip down to a bra and a paper thin camisole. I'm confident my house will yield a better return on all the money I'm throwing into it than I would looking like a worn out old half naked hooker strutting around in high heels and outrageously expensive jeans. If I'm wrong, look out suburbia; I'll be out there in the doorway, sweating my ass off and sucking in my muffin top, trying not to look too short.

As soon as I manage to wipe the thick layer of goo off my shoe from the puddle of paint I stepped into in the garage, I'll be able to assess things better.

Burned Books

War hit uncomfortably close to home this weekend. I tend to travel in circles where few young people enlist, and television reports about far away fighting touch us the way reports of gang violence on the south side of Chicago touch us. It's tragic, but it's happening to someone else.

I know only one soldier in Afghanistan, and when there is news of the occasional slain American, I immediately check to be sure he is not the one, knowing the odds are good he is not. In my life I have known very few soldiers. My father was a World War II veteran; dumb luck landed him in Panama, where he was wounded on the tennis court. I am only here because the war never made it to the Panama Canal.

This weekend, though, a young woman was killed, a young woman about whom I have heard a lot from a friend who taught her when she was in high school. She had made a lasting impression on him, and he still kept up with her, was proud that she had chosen a career in foreign service. Bright and idealistic, a girl who could have succeeded in anything, she decided to pursue her foreign service in Afghanistan last year. This weekend, she, along with several others, was slain while on the way to deliver books to children somewhere near Kabul. Twenty-five years old, a year older than my own daughter, whom I worry about constantly when she travels. When she drives to Indiana in the middle of a snow storm. When she flies to North Carolina while hurricanes strike the east coast. I cannot even imagine what daily life has been like for Anne Smedinghoff's parents, who released a statement saying they were consoled knowing Anne died doing what she loved. I admire their strength.

In the days after 9/11, my son, then eleven, told me he was going to join the air force. Like many folks back in those dark days, I was overcome with patriotism, and truly believed I would be thrilled if he were to make that decision years down the road. I fantasized about my son the fighter pilot, the kid who couldn't ride his bike for at least a year without heading into a tree. But there are no trees in the sky so why worry? And, he was, after all, only eleven. Ask me now how I would feel if he told me, at twenty-two, that he was going to join the air force. Come to think of it, don't bother asking.

The news reports refer to Anne as an American diplomat. Wikipedia (the gospel) defines diplomacy as the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states. Anne was delivering books to children who otherwise would not have them. Conducting negotiations? Maybe, down the road. But in my mind Anne was a beautiful and bright young woman, a daughter, a sister, an inspiration to friends and teachers and coworkers. Anne's tragic death should remind us all to pay more attention, to what is going on so far away, and to how lucky we are to have all that we have back here at home.

A Rose by Another Name and A Very Silly Goose

I've often marveled at how true it is that when you hit rock bottom (or at least sink pretty low) there's nowhere to go but up. And up you go, as if some force of nature has decided that you have indeed had more than your share of crap.

A good five days filled with bad news and just a pervasive feeling of abject yuckiness (pardon the technical term; I generally try not to intimidate with highfalutin vocabulary, but sometimes ya just gotta), culminated in a Thursday that could do no more than beckon me into the numbing oblivion of my canine scented bed. The glorious sunshine and an entire work-free day seemed incongruous with my mood. Other than slogging through what should have been an enjoyable hour and a half of tennis, I wallowed in my malaise, immersed myself in pillows, spider solitaire, chocolate, and the stinky companionship of my dog. News of teen suicides and toddlers drowning made worse (if that's possible) by my daughter's feelings of despair. A phone call from a best friend telling me that her father's illness had finally taken the inevitable downward turn. Consciousness was becoming less and less appealing.

Which probably explains why both my daughter and I woke on Friday feeling as if things were starting to look up. That mysterious force of nature had lulled us into deep, long, and restful sleep, and even she was smiling and optimistic. She even spoke to me. At dawn on a school day. Mysterious forces of nature had gone above and beyond.

Inspired by a small burst of energy (and an instinctive avoidance of all the things that needed doing around the house), I decided to make a quick trip to a little boutique I had discovered a few days earlier, just to return a pair of shoes I had thought would change my life for the better but as it turned out were a bit too tight. (That kind of thing happens when you convince yourself that you will fit into shoes that are two sizes too small just because they are the cutest things you've ever seen.) The mysterious force of nature that propelled me there was so strong I left an entire bag of groceries sitting on the table in the kitchen, frozen stuff and all.

When I arrived at the store, it was complete chaos. The owner and one employee were doing their best to take care of a gazillion customers who seemed to have descended upon them. I felt kind of bad, bothering them for an exchange. We chatted for a moment, and, as only Jewish women can do with great speed and efficiency, learned everything about each other and became fast friends. Which meant I was invited to wander into the back room and help myself to the mountains of new merchandise that was still packed up in boxes on the floor. And, come to think of it, I was invited to be an employee for an hour or two and unpack all the boxes and sort through the merchandise which, as people who know me know, is my idea of an orgasm because it means I get to try everything on. And while I was trying things on I met someone else in this magical back room and we exchanged business cards and are both certain we will establish a mutually beneficial and lucrative relationship. What a difference a day makes. From hell to nirvana in twenty-four hours.

I called my friend from the store phone, the friend whose dad just got the really bad news, and she somehow knew that it had to be me calling from Payton Rose, the little boutique I had dragged her into days earlier. I told her lunch would be delayed, and encouraged her to come shop -- maybe have her own little orgasm. She was skeptical, but took a ride on her own mysterious force of nature (which included my begging and pleading) and showed up. Which brings me to the part about the very silly goose. With grim news about her father weighing heavily on her, and with the logistics of trying to get her father to see his brother, who is laid up with some bizarre contagious illness of his own, enhancing the emotional burden, she couldn't help but smile after a bit of back room shopping. Which made her laugh about her mother, who was throwing a wrench into the reunion of the brothers because there happened to be a goose in her freezer, which she suddenly absolutely had to cook. Who the hell has a goose in the freezer, and why the hell would anybody suddenly need to cook it? But sometimes, when things really turn to shit, silly things become very important and one just simply must cook ones goose.

So, yesterday evening, my friend and her mom and dad and the goose packed themselves into the car to visit the contagious brother (against the oncologist's strict instructions) and, in the process, throw themselves into some other family dysfunction that goes well beyond the goose but I won't get into that here, and though I haven't spoken to my friend yet, I just have to assume it all went well. And I have made some great new friends and found a wonderful new store to add to my retail therapy itinerary. Added bonus -- my favorite tortilla soup is just one doorway down.

Life can throw curves sometimes, but sometimes it tosses one right into your wheelhouse, and, if you're open to it, you can hit one out of the park.

Nightmares on Main Street

One teen suicide in the area is one too many. Four, if my information is correct (or even two, which is confirmed) is unspeakable. It leaves kids -- and their parents -- wondering when suicide became contagious, when a seemingly rash decision to take ones own life could trigger an epidemic.

The letter from our high school principal, though well intentioned, made me nervous. Not the part about encouraging our children -- our children who are supposed to know they can talk to us about anything -- to seek out the school counselors. I have been at a loss for words this past week when my sixteen year old daughter looks at me. She stays in the same room but she says very little. I try to talk about it without really talking about it. I'm accustomed to one word answers (or no answers at all) to my stupid questions, but usually she cannot wait to escape my presence entirely. This week, she stays in the room, furiously messaging friends on her phone, occasionally grunting in my general direction. I, finally, am the one who leaves.

The part of the letter that made me nervous was the line that carefully -- or carelessly, I think -- reassured us, as parents, that suicide is often caused by mental illness. Mental illness, a thing that happens to other folks, not to us. Mental illness, like depression, the letter explains. I can count on one hand the people in my life who are not being treated with medication for depression. Depression, more accurately, in my mind at least, a disorder rather than an illness, a slight chemical imbalance treated with tiny little pills that take the edge off with barely a side effect. I know it's just semantics, but I'd like to think the kind of depression most of us endure hardly rises to the level of  acute "illness," hardly even causes most of us to miss a day or two of school or work here and there.

I suppose the real question, then, is how do we know the difference? Were these teens who took their own lives markedly more moody, more sullen, more irritable than their peers? Were there signs somebody could have noticed while they were locked in their bedrooms like all the other teens in the neighborhood. Were they not on Facebook chatting with friends, real and virtual? Are our kids not really on Facebook chatting with friends, real and virtual, as we assume they are? Is the perpetual look of disdain on their faces something deeper and more sinister, directed less at their parents than at the whole damn concept of life itself? How on earth do we know?

The tragic drowning death of a three year old child who attended day care at our high school (and was known to many of our kids who have taken a child development class) topped off the gruesome week. An unspeakable accident juxtaposed onto a frightening tableau of unspeakable intentional acts. A community of parents grieves for the parents of the three year old, many of us knowing how lucky we are to have avoided what we think of as a young parent's worst nightmare. A community of parents grieves for the parents of the teenagers, knowing that there but for the grace of God go we. But we also grieve for the children, not just the ones who were so desperate they felt they had no other options but for the ones who are left behind, the survivors who seem to understand on some frightening level how the ones who took their own lives felt. We can promise ourselves that we will always be vigilant when a toddler is near a pool (even though the most vigilant of parents is still at risk), but we have far less control over our teenagers. How vigilant can you be when, most of the time, there is a closed door between you. Even when you are in the same room.

Children aren't the only ones with monsters under their beds. For us parents, the monster is always there. When our children are babies and we watch over them almost every second, and when they get older and we have to grab a second here and there when we can and we just need to take a leap of faith every day and hope that they will be safe.

I grieve for those parents this week, and for the children, and I try to keep my own monsters at bay, under the bed where they belong.

Old Faithful

My son had been tagged in a picture yesterday on Facebook, so I gave it a thumbs up. I like this, I felt compelled to tell him, just making conversation. Really, what I wanted to say was okay, sweetie, I like this, but I'd really like to see you in person, on this side of the world, soon. But that wasn't one of the options.

The scenery behind him looked vaguely familiar. Behind him a stone wall partially concealed by deep green branches, whitish pink flowers growing sideways and clinging to any open space. It could have been a spot along the banks of the Hudson River, way north of the clusters of skyscrapers in midtown Manhattan on the far more scenic upper west side across from the New Jersey Palisades, except for the bright white pagoda style turret rising above the wall, cartoonishly immaculate and stark against the clear blue sky. That reminded me he was still in Japan, as if I need reminding.

I asked him where it was, exactly. "By the castle in Himeji," he responded, asking me why I was awake at such an ungodly hour. (He's much better than I am at doing the math across the International Date Line.) Not wanting to remind him that I just don't sleep, I pursued the Himeji castle component of the conversation. I recalled standing along the banks of a tiny river and looking up to see an almost identical view this summer. I told my son I knew exactly where he was standing, thinking he would be impressed. By the river, across from all those cute, medieval looking houses.

"Different stone wall," he replied. "It happens." Of all the castles and pagodas and stone walls I'd seen in Japan last summer, I thought I knew this one at least. Especially since I had spent the better part of my ten day visit right there in Himeji, where there was not much to do other than wander through the grounds of its storybook castle.

"Asshole," I responded, right there for all to see on Facebook. I felt kind of bad about it, particularly since he didn't bother to respond. Not even in Japanese.

Only a few hours later I doused myself with gasoline. To say that I did this because I was upset about the Facebook exchange with my son would be a gross exaggeration. I did it because, as he and his sisters well know, I am an idiot. Not only can I not distinguish among the various stone walls of a castle I practically moved into for a few days last summer, but I also cannot distinguish between the sound of somebody else's gas pump shutting off and the quite distinct noise of my own gas pump still whirring with the sound of fuel racing through it into my tank.

Note to self: always check that the pump has shut off before you pull it out, even if you think you heard it shut off. Otherwise, you end up standing there with a hand held geyser that is spewing flammable liquid at an astonishing and turbulent rate, and, if you are truly an idiot, you turn the thing in all directions trying to figure out how to stop the madness and end up coating yourself and everything you're wearing with a thick coat of gasoline. Which would not be all that tragic if you were not on your way to work and could throw your clothes in the wash and take a shower, but naturally, I was on my way to work. And when you work in a clothing store, particularly one that pipes in its own signature aroma just so its merchandise will smell good and remind customers of the store when they bring it home, it is not a good thing to overwhelm that signature aroma with the stench of gasoline. Or to stand too close to the candles that promise to fill people's homes with that wonderful scent when it finally dissipates from their clothing. One strike of a match and I was toast.

I have long abandoned hope of convincing my children that I am anything more than a bungling moron who has, by some miracle, made it through life this far. And, to tell you the truth, I feel kind of warm and fuzzy that my son, despite the thousands of miles and many months that have separated us, has not changed his view. That he is still able to mock me, to be an asshole, as if he had never flown so far from the nest.

He's coming home in a few weeks, at least for a while. I cannot wait to tell him the gasoline story in person, just to see him roll his eyes at me and hear him remind me, as only he can, how moronic I can be. Different stone wall, mom. Wrong gas pump, mom. It happens. Asshole! I am counting the days.

February Fools Day

Sometimes things aren't as they seem. Well, come to think of it, things usually are not as they seem.

And so it was, when I assumed the newly opened restaurant called Twin Peaks not far from my Stepford-style neighborhood would be the kind of place with mass appeal eats and an exotic destination theme. "Great Food!" read the polished graffiti on the window. "Enjoy the Views!" What could be bad.   Lots of fried appetizers and floor to ceiling vistas of snowy mountains in Alaska, a juicy burger and some disgustingly rich chocolate dessert. I was salivating as we approached the entrance. It seemed fortuitous that the other end of the parking lot, the one near our intended destination, had been packed and we found ourselves so tantalizingly close to this new establishment.

I should have known something was a amiss when the hostess who greeted us looked dressed to give lap dances in a back room just in case traffic got a bit slow out front. (Okay, I probably should have known something was amiss when there were so many parking spaces, but it was freezing outside and my brain wasn't firing on all cylinders.) Wondering where the young hostess's parents had been when she left the house in the dead of winter with her butt cheeks poking out of her super tight shorts on one side and her breasts squeezed together and protruding from a skimpy tied up flannel shirt like a giant udder on the other, I soon realized she was not alone in her bizarre choice of mid February professional attire. Waitresses began to slink out of the woodwork, all revealing substantial chunks of body parts most of us only see in the shower, all bejeweled in identical belly button rings and decked out in, if not identical, similar tattoos. I couldn't quite make out the design nuances in the dim lighting. Ahh. Twin Peaks, idiot. I felt like a bit of a fool, particularly when I looked around and noticed I was practically the only female there. Except for staff, of course, many of whom sat perched on stools at little bar tables so they could better offer peeks at the peaks while scribbling down orders.

The food at Twin Peaks was edible but certainly nothing to drool about, though there was certainly an inordinate amount of drooling going on. My date looked as happy as I'd seen him in a long time, though, come to think of it, he did not seem to be looking in my direction. There was not a hint of exasperation on his face when our waitress continued to appear without his beer, and only a slight flash of annoyance when she forgot my water for the third time, but come to think of it at that point he did seem to be looking in my direction. Oops, my bad. I told the naked waitress not to worry, I'd just suck on my saliva if I got thirsty. And I offered her my down coat.

Truth be told, the food wasn't bad, the staff was, um, very friendly, and dinner was very pleasant. Attention from a scantily clad perky nymph can put even the most curmudgeonly among us in a decent mood on a cruel and cold Midwestern evening. No faux Alaskan vistas for me to gaze at, but then again who really needs an Alaska fantasy in February in Chicago?

Next time I'll know better, and I'll head down the road a piece to the more demographically appropriate hot dog joint with the dancing, smiling wiener on the roof. Not today, mind you. It's April Fool's Day, and this is one day I refuse to make any assumptions about anything. But sometimes, probably on most days except for today, a hot dog joint is just a hot dog joint and the dancing, smiling wiener on the roof is just a dancing, smiling wiener.