Simply Sentenced

Winnie

2011-10-21T20:52:00.001-07:00

We lost our cat Winnie, aka Fuzz, this past Monday. After nearly sixteen years, our little hairball succumbed to old age and went peacefully to wherever beloved pets go. Heaven, I suppose. She deserves it after eight years of Gavin. If never fighting back despite having pacifiers and bottles jammed in her mouth, being chased with a kid wielding a kid-sized shovel, and running for her life when he had a bottle of hand lotion doesn't merit a reward, I'm not sure what can.

About three weeks ago, we noticed that she was barely eating and was becoming skin and bones. A two weeks she stopped using the steps. The last two days were spent in increasing confusion, and if she wasn't laying down, she was wandering as best she could as if she wasn't sure where she was.

Gav was wonderful with her, carrying her to her litter box and water bowl during her last days, speaking gently to her, and making sure she had her cat toys by her when she was sleeping. On Monday morning, when we left for school and work, he told me he was worried that she would die -- but he was more worried that she would be in pain while she died.

We can only hope she wasn't. When we got home that night, she was gone. She laid down and died. It looked like she was sleeping. Gav cried a little, as did I, and I held him while we looked at her body and while I wondered what to do next. Surely he would be too broken up to do more than cry.

How wrong I was.

Gav knelt next to her and picked her up. "I want to hold her," he said simply, taking her onto his lap and petting her one last time.

When we wrapped her in a small blanket, he helped. And, as we prepared to bury her, he insisted on putting her little wrapped body in the plastic bag. When we took her out to bury her (not on our property), he took the laundry basket that we put her in and carried it to the car. He helped dig her grave.

Not once did I see him shrink from the tasks he set for himself. He did what he had to do. But this was a had to do that he set for himself. He decided to see Winnie's burial through to the end. Gavin himself decided.

Once before I wrote about how I know that Gav is his own person, and that I am only allowed to borrow him for a while. Watching him lay Winnie's box in the grave and then take the shovel from his father so that he could bury her himself... I can only say I was humbled by his strength. My gentle little son, who fretted that morning not about her death so much as her being alone and in pain when she did pass away, knew what he needed to do to heal himself and face the loss. As he shoveled the dirt back into the grave, I swear that I caught a glimpse of the man he will grow into.

Like any parent, I worry about how life will treat my child. I worry about disappointments and successes. I worry about bullies and broken hearts. I dread the day when a mother's hug can't solve everything. As I tucked him into bed that night, I told Gav how proud I was of the way he helped us take care of Fuzz and helped us bury her. And he looked at me, a bit confused by the idea. "I was worried how you would react," I explained. "I was worried that you would scream and cry and run away." After all, previous to this, he'd buried only hermit crabs and an occasional goldfish.

And he looked at me, again a bit confused. "Why would I do that?"

The thought of not being a part of her burial, I realized, had never crossed his mind.

As I gave him one more hug good night, I kissed the top of his head and managed not to cry. Life won't be easy for him, it never is for any of us, but I'm a little more okay with that now. He'll be able to handle it.

Haven't forgotten.

2011-09-11T19:08:00.000-07:00

For several years now I have managed to dodge talk about September 11 with Gavin. For the last three school years, in fact, I've held my breath hoping that nothing would be said in front of him that would cause me to have to explain it in any way, shape, or form.

That changed May 2 with the death of Osama Bin Laden. Between the screaming headlines and the news media broadcasting alternating clips of celebrating Americans and raw footage from the compound, there wasn't much dodging possible.

"He looks like one of the thuggies in my Lego Indiana Jones, mom," he announced, looking at the front page of the Tribune-Review.

"I suppose he does," I said.

"Why did we kill him?"

"He's a bad guy," I replied, hoping that he would change the subject.

"What did he do?"

My throat tightened and I couldn't think of what to say to an eight-year-old to explain any of it. He convinced men to hijack four airplanes full of innocent people and slam them into buildings full of even more innocent people all in the name of his personal, twisted version of a jihad. He aimed at symbolic locations in effort to twist the knife as deeply as possible. He and his followers supposedly cheered when the towers fell.

"He had people steal airplanes and fly them into buildings."

Please stop asking questions, honey. I can't answer any more without wanting to cry because I remember it and I don't want you to know what I know about how horrible men can be when they...

"He looks like one of those thuggies on the Wii game."

Wii! Maybe he'll change the subject.

"How did he kill all those people?"

Oh God.

"There were people in the buildings that the planes hit."

Please stop, Gavin. Don't ask me about the airplanes and if there were people on them. Don't connect the fact that we're flying when we go on vacation this year.

"Oh. I thought maybe he had a big sword like the thuggies."

__________

In truth, Osama's death made September 11, 2011, a bit easier. Not much, but a bit.

We had "the September 11th talk" this past weekend. We watched a few televised specials together. We talked a little bit about what happened that day. His questions were basic, factual, and easy enough to answer. After watching the videos of the planes hitting the towers, Gavin was more interested in how the towers fell than anything. He was fascinated by the physics of it all, which was obvious as he talked about how the towers would fall when hit at different levels and how he thought they would fall more like dominoes.

They covered September 11th in class, and it was done well. Sterile. Basic. Non-emotionally scarring. Ten years after, it's easier to talk about -- particularly when the students weren't even alive at the time. Past history, things that happened before one was born, is much more elusive. Too abstract. Nine-eleven to Gavin is Pearl Harbor to me. We didn't live it, but we know we should be sad about it.

There's not much to say, ten years later. I still cry, or want to cry, when I talk about that day. I still remember the first words I heard as I tuned the radio in. I still don't understand a damn thing. I still don't know how to explain hatred to an eight-year-old.

Finally.

2011-04-27T18:55:00.001-07:00

I'm not very good at talking about myself in terms of accomplishments. I'm quite happy to let my actions speak for themselves and leave it at that. However, this time, it's all about me and the last three years.

From the moment I started at RMU, my life became papers, papers, and more papers. I wasn't allowed to have an opinion because, as we first-year students were told, we didn't know enough to have that right. I was to read and to write.

As you can see by the picture, by year three, papers ruled my life. I was even allowed to have an opinion. In fact, as of last Tuesday, I'm also allowed to be an expert.

You see, as of April 26, 2011, after 90 very long minutes of defense and deliberation, I earned the title of "Doctor of Science."

So what do I know? I know a lot. For the last two years, I've been studying the personas of typefaces used in e-mail and their influence on us, which is a fancy way of saying that I studied the fonts we use in our e-mails and how we emotionally react to them. I found out, in fact, that I was right -- we do react to typefaces in e-mails AND we use the typeface to determine the personality of the person sending the e-mail.

If I try, I can count the number of papers and presentations that I somehow managed to pull off over the last three years... but I'm really not up to it. Let's just say that I did enough to make an assignment of "8-10 pages, double-spaced" sound like a really good deal. And should I ever hear "PowerPoint presentation, no more than 20 minutes," I'll jump for joy at getting off so easy.

You see, despite my cavalier approach to education up until... oh... now, I am an over-achiever, academic Type-A personality. And so were my classmates. By year two, several professors had learned to give us maximum page counts, not minimum.

The hardest part of graduation (Friday!!!) will be leaving my friends. All of the sentimentality I never had before has been threatening to drown me since August. For three years now, Matt and Janusz and I spent just about all of our residency nights in the Iron City Grille.

With the free drink coupons, why go anywhere else?

We would drink just enough to have fun and not enough to have a headache the next morning.

What do doctoral students talk about? Everything. From Appalachian ways of life to rhetoric, from data warehousing to the brilliance of Phineas and Ferb. When were weren't being academic, we were catching up on slang in the Urban Dictionary and trying to figure out how to maximize our drink coupons. We never topped the day that Matt used our excess of 24 tickets to "buy" as case and bring it to class the next day. It apparently helped strengthen our class's reputation of being "difficult."

We didn't actually drink in class. We just gave a bottle to everyone to take home. In class we were too busy to drink. More than likely we were playing Tetris or Risk, instant messaging, posting Facebook editorials, or taking copious notes. I don't think we were difficult in the least. We were talkative and opinionated, that's all. Really, the only difficult thing about us was our (in)ability to count.

Why drink coupons, you ask? Why would a university give its students license to indulge? Take a look at the board to your left and imagine that for eight days straight for roughly eight hours a day.

If memory serves me correctly, that's from Dr. Grant's rhetoric class year one. I like the question he wrote on the board: "What's in your world?"

How does one even begin to answer that question? What's in my world? My world now is a new title, one earned with more effort than I knew possible. My world has been shaped by professors like Dr. Skovira, the mountain man who will threaten you with a two-by-four (though we don't have a picture of that) and who tells you to "write the sh*t down" because you never know what will be important later.

For Skovira, I wrote a paper on a math class at Seton Hill and -- because I wrote it all down -- discovered that the students in that class, in response to the 1970s paddle desks their classroom had, developed their own set of social behaviors to negotiate the limited personal space. Now I spend too much time watching others' behaviors. What's in my world? Where you put your coffee cup, believe it or not.

Our profs generally didn't put up with much, believe it or not. One or two were not against closing our laptops for us during class if we were unable to do so ourselves. But, when they weren't making us write and rewrite and defend out opinions, just about all of them knew how to have fun.

What's in my world? Dr. Stork. A prof who can not only shred chapters 3 through 5 in a single night, but will also send you corrections at 1 a.m. and sit with you for hours until you almost understand statistics. And who will karaoke with you.

When I tried to write my dissertation so that it was interesting, my committee showed me how to write it academically (trust me, interesting and academic are rarely the same). But without their taking their electronic red pens to my dissertation over and over (and over and over) again, and without Jay, my advisor, talking me down from the proverbial ledge during the last few weeks prior to my defense, I never would have finished and would have run off to live as an ABD (or so I threatened). When I sent my committee umpteen versions and twice as many questions, they answered. Patiently. Quickly.

What's in my world? At this point? Given the connections I've made, the knowledge I've gained, and the articles I've already published... well, everything is in my world. Everything.

Saturday.

2011-03-20T16:51:00.000-07:00

You think that you're able to handle anything -- or at least most of it -- and then the phone rings at 7 a.m. and you have to wake your husband up and tell him to go to the hospital because his mother, who just had surgery a few weeks ago, is suddenly hemorrhaging and they want the family there at once. And you have to get in touch with his siblings. And you have to call your mother to come and pick up your son.

And the phone rings again. You have to go to your mother-in-law's house to make sure that the door, which her brother kicked in when she didn't answer the door, at least looks like it's closed.

No, wait. Your husband is coming home to get you and the two of you will drive to Shadyside Hospital where she is being lifeflighted.

You can handle that, so far. This is old hat, really. You did this when Dad was sick. Besides, your mom has your son and he knows nothing except that he's going to spend the day with his cousin before going to a friend's birthday party that night.

So you drive to Shadyside while your husband sits beside you and tries not to cry, and you find the right waiting room, and you say all the right things to the family that's already gathered there. Her children, her brother and sister-in-law, her two sisters, her niece, and two friends of her daughters. You marvel at how close everyone is and, yes, even envy a little, too. How lucky she is to have them.

When the doctor tells the family that she's unable to clot and that he can't stop the bleeding yet, you stay calm because no one needs you falling apart.

And you sit. For nearly twelve hours in the dimly lit waiting room, and you go over how glad you are that they got to her in time, how glad you are that her hemoglobin is coming up -- from 4 to 7.5. You count blessings, like the fact that she was able to call for help and the fact that your son wasn't with her when it all started. You tell yourself a lot of truths.

You tell yourself a lot of lies, too. Big ones. Whoppers about how she's going to be okay. You think about her birthday in two months and wonder if you can talk her kids into buying her a new living room carpet. Somehow you almost convince yourself that she'll pull through, even though it's 7 p.m. and the doctor himself is on the verge of crying because he can't do anything more than slow the bleeding.

Even at 11:30 p.m. when you stand there and hear the doctor tell her children that nothing more can be done, you manage to keep it together. And so with the family's permission, he stops giving her fluids and, within minutes, she's gone.

You cry a little, holding your husband who is sobbing as is any son's right, but you can't really let go yet.

At home, some more tears. Just a few. Both of you are too worn out to do much more than that. Tomorrow you'll tell your son when your mother brings him home.

But the next morning you find a picture of her holding your son, a candid one someone took at his fourth birthday party, and they're looking at each other and you know that look.

And then you cry.

A Christmas Story

2010-12-24T19:00:00.000-08:00

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse... the children were nestled all snug in their beds, while visions of sugarplums danced through their heads...

Yeah. Right.

'Twas the night before Christmas and in the Louch house, Captain Chaos was stirring and much louder than a mouse... the child was not snuggled all warm in his bed, though visions of Legos were dancing in his head...

Preparing for Santa's visit tonight took some serious effort -- the sort that only a seven-year-old can swing.

"I cleared a space on the table for milk and cookies on the round table. Do you have the cookie plate? Can I leave him a chocolate bar? I'll unwrap it for him. I'm the first kid to leave him a candy bar. Should I put his name on it so he knows it's for him? How many cookies should we leave him?

"Can I leave my ferris wheel on for him to see? I bet he'll leave a note because it's so neat. Will he step on my Legos? Should we move them? I'll pour the milk for him. Here, Mom, put the cookies here. Is two enough? Should we put some of the chocolate chip out too? And we need a carrot for each reindeer! Do we have eight carrots? Rudolph doesn't need one because everyone leaves him one. I'll move my Legos so Santa doesn't step on them. Fuzz won't eat the cookies, will she? She doesn't eat chocolate.

"Hey, mom, does Santa make all the toys?"

What?

"Does Santa make all of the toys. You know, like Hex Bugs and electronics and stuff?"

"No. He hires out to companies in China and Japan and Taiwan. It's called division of labor. They help him out with the electronics."

"Oh. Okay."

At this point, however, my husband the chimed in to correct me. "It's outsourcing."

"What's that, dad?"

I shot the big guy an amused look. Show off! Thought you were so smart. Now you're doomed. You got yourself into this, you get yourself out of this.

For the next ten minutes, my child grilled his dad on "outsourcing" and why Santa used those companies and not his elves and how he picked those particular companies and why just electronics and if the people who made the electronics got to visit the North Pole. The husband had to do some fancy footwork to make it all make total sense in terms of Christmas magic, in terms of the North Pole, and in terms of a seven-year-old's absolute belief in jolly old St. Nick.

Finally, his interrogation wrapped up, Chaos looked at his dad and made one final announcement. "I know Santa makes the stuffed animals himself because that's just sewing."

I looked at the husband as I answered for both of us. "Absolutely."

This time, the big guy opted to leave it at that.

Merry Chrismas Eve

2010-12-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

For the first time since, my focus has been more on the holiday itself than on losing Dad five years ago. Perhaps this blog negates that statement, though. As I have for the previous four years, I tracked the day's events against those in 2005. Bring woken by my mom, getting ready, waiting for the hospice nurses to come, waiting for the funeral home to pick up the body... but for the first time, I'm not avoiding acknowledgement or feeling my usual Scrooge-like sentiment about "stupid holidays."

Instead, the iPod is playing a very wide variety of Christmas tunes, I made a few cookie trays, and I am even getting antsy about tomorrow morning. Sometimes I even sing along with the music.

I downloaded some new Christmas songs onto the iPod. Saucy, satiric ones that tickle my fancy. Osama got run over by a reindeer, for one. The Twelve Days of Christmas, as sung by Doug and Bob McKenzie. And then there is the less-than-conventional. I could have bought little Jackie Evancho's rendition of O Holy Night. But I opted for Weezer's version.

My guys are in the family room building a K'nex ferris wheel that my mom just gave Gav this afternoon. Well, the big guy is building. Gav is just watching and announcing that he's the supervisor.

I'm blogging while boiling the cavatelli. It's a peaceful holiday so far, which bodes well. So far the only "disaster" was the garbage disposal dying this morning. Not a big deal in the least.

A few times today I did think about that day. But five years gives one time to heal and, finally, I guess, things are a little less raw. And, you know what, though I often say it sarcastically, I do believe it -- Christmas comes regardless of us. Prepared or not, interested or not, fully decorated or not, it comes. The calender doesn't really care how you feel or what you think. So, honestly, may as well enjoy it.

I plan to. :)

Chef Chaos

2010-11-28T00:00:00.000-08:00

On my dresser is a small crystal bowl with a 15-watt light bulb in it.

I've kept it because I don't know why. I just have.

This past spring, I woke to smell of something burning. It was a thick, heavy smell and was coming from the hallway. Strike that. It was coming from Gavin's room. The realization immediately sent me into a panic. Not only was something burning, but it was IN MY SON'S ROOM.

So I woke the husband and we methodically searched the room, feeling walls for heat, checking outlets. We questioned Gavin endlessly, were you playing with matches, did you smell anything last night, did you jam something into the outlets? By the time Aunt Na arrived to get Gavin off to school, I had the husband in the attic checking the wiring by the ceiling fan in Gav's room.

The smell, however, kept getting stronger and stronger, but nothing -- and I mean nothing -- was burning. Nothing that we could find, anyway.

Then Aunt Na thought to check Gav's bedside lamp, the one he kept on during the night. There it was. The 15-watt bulb, burning sure and bright. Good quality those GE bulbs.

For Christmas, Gavin received an Easy Bake Oven and he learned that you could actually cook using a 100-watt bulb.

I bet you know where this is going, don't you?

Yep. Using his understanding of the Easy Bake, Gav decided to see if he could melt a foam sticker. On his light bulb.

So there's a 15-watt bulb on my dresser. Covered in melted foam. I'm still not sure what to do with it. All I know is that it makes me laugh every time I see it.

Pondering.

2010-11-27T00:00:00.000-08:00

Perhaps, if this makes you uncomfortable, you can blame the two glasses of wine. They made the words easier for me.

I've my iPod plugged in and am enjoying some golden oldies. The Skyliners are singing right now, but all I can think of is how Janet Vogel decided to turn start her car one day and leave the garage door closed. They lived just up the street from us, her youngest son is just a year older than me.

Morbid, no doubt. I'm good for that. My mind invariably goes to the process of dying, of what it's like to know your life is ebbing away. I think, too, of how I told my girl friend not to envy me the time had with my father. When Dad was first diagnosed, we were thankful for the time given. By the time he died, it was a curse. We didn't need that much time. We didn't want that much time. No one does. Twenty-odd months are too expensive, too high a price to pay for the chance to say good-bye.

We had time, in those long months, not to talk about the old days and say what needed said. We had time instead to smell death and hear its rattle. In the last month, I couldn't bear to walk into the same room, though I did, holding my breath, because he was already a corpse. But he just happened to be breathing. If that's what you wanted to call the gasp and hiss of air passing in and out of his lungs.

When you sit in the same room with the dying, it's a peaceful hell. There's a simplicity of the moment, for your task is just to be there. Helpless, but there nonetheless. I read, I wrote, sometimes I napped. At regular intervals, my mother or I would put on rubber gloves and rub morphine into the soft skin of his inner arm. We like to think it helped. And, though we each privately thought of it, we were never brave enough to give him more than the prescribed amount at the prescribed time.

The smell of dying goes away after you're in the same room for a few minutes. Olfactory fatigue, it's called. Your nose gets used to it and you begin to ignore it. So by the end of the chapter of the book you think you're reading, you can no longer scent the dying man.

You can still hear him, though. There's no fatigue of the ear strong enough to block out the inhaling gasp and the exhaling hiss, because, in the back of your mind, you're wondering if that gasp will be the last one you hear.

______

There's a box on my dresser. An antique copper box, probably a good 60 or 70 years old. In it are obituaries from the last 50 years. The fallen leaves from our family tree. My mother gave it to me some time ago. Her "Box o' Death," I jokingly called it. It's mine now, and my job is to keep the family obits in there. Someday, I suppose, it will be handed down to Gavin.

But that's a blog for another day.

Must I be so melancholy at the holidays? Yes. No. Perhaps. This Thanksgiving marked six years for my grandfather's death. This Christmas will mark five for Dad. As I said once before, any holiday without a trip to the funeral parlor or hospital is a good holiday.

It was a good holiday.

Daydreaming vs. reality

2010-09-19T16:37:00.000-07:00

So we've started second grade. Amazing. Wasn't it yesterday that I was prying him out of the car to go to preschool? Putting stickers on a chart for each day he didn't cry? And yet here we are, moving further and further away from all those "baby" things.

He doesn't hold my hand in public, clinging as if for life itself. Instead he ventures a few feet away, puffed up with his independence and swaggering just a little bit.

At restaurants, he orders for himself, his voice quiet but sure.

At home we argue sometimes. Two very similar personalities trying to get the final word. Because I said so just doesn't seem to work like it used to. He prefers explanations.

My mother says he's another me, whatwith his stubbornness and imagination. I'm okay with that. You need imagination. Without it, what is life but dry facts and numbing repetition?

But never let it be said that life is without bumps. Gav's challenge this year is his imagination. Apparently it's working overtime -- particularly at school. Seems that his mind wanders a bit too much and his teacher needs to constantly remind him to stay on task. We received our first note of the school year. His teacher wants to know how to help him focus during class.

The problem is that I haven't an answer for her.

I spent the vast majority of my elementary education in my own little world, emerging just often enough to do my schoolwork and look like I was paying attention. I didn't struggle academically, which made it all the easier to attend school in body much more than in mind. There seems little point to a lot of the work we did, and I was often corrected doing things my own way (in spite of their being correct). Gav's pretty much the same way. He claims boredom -- and given that he's getting straight-A's -- I believe him.

Actually, I do have an answer for her.

Challenge him. Teach him something that interests him. Teach him something that, to him, has meaning.

Ah, but there's the problem. She can't cater to my son at the cost of his peers. I'm not unreasonable enough to demand it, either. Truthfully, I really don't see his daydreaming as a "problem," except for the fact that he needs to time it a little better and play by the mundane rules of life once in a while. Gav already knows that we expect him to remain focused on his work until it's done (and done correctly). Then, we said, he can let his mind wander to his heart's content.

A parent-teacher phone call is scheduled for tomorrow to discuss this situation. By the tone of her note, his teacher sounds like she values imagination in children, so I'm hopeful that things will go well.

Of course, no matter what, this sure as heck beats another four-boy kicking contest...

Talks to Strangers (probably runs with scissors, too)

2010-06-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

I talk to strangers. A lot.

Thanks to that trait, I've closed a bar with a Russian history professor (as in from Russia), explored the Muhammad Ali Museum with a former Pittsburgh Steeler, experienced homemade Czechoslovakian food in Omaha, and danced the night away outside the Seelbach Hotel at Louisville's Fourth Street Live.

The older I get, the more adventurous I get.

Just two short weeks ago, I packed a bikini, sunscreen, my fountain pen, and a few steno pads and headed down to Destin, FL, for "Operation Girls Gone Writing." Carol and Heidi went with me. We met in person once. Two years ago. For just a few short hours in Indianapolis, IN, when I was there for an economics conference. The rest of the time has been spent "meeting" via e-mail and conference calls, as I've worked with and for both of them on numerous writing projects over the past three years.

Imagine if I hadn't talked to these strangers?

We wouldn't have lounged by the pool and talked about all those things women talk about: food, sex, and diets. We wouldn't have seen dolphins in the bay. We'd have missed the piano bar, the too-friendly old guy, and the taste of rum. We never would have known the sands of Destin, still free from oil at that point, and learned that swimming in algae is something like swimming in hair.

Who would have bought too much candy, too many presents for our boys back home, and too much rum?

I have a blog in the works to sum up the weekend. I'm still pondering what to say exactly, but it's on its way.

All I know is that I'm glad I talked to these strangers and can't wait to do it again.

Twitter Trip

2010-06-28T15:41:00.000-07:00

I don't have a Twitter account anymore, but if I did, my Girls Gone Writing weekend in Destin, FL, would read like this:

FRIDAY:
5:30 a.m. --> @ airport, no line for security -- nice change!
8:31 a.m. --> boring flight, played solitaire, lost a lot
9:46 a.m. --> met Bobs @ ATL waiting for tram; Atl Bread Co out of bagels
ate choc chip cookies, Liv still in Indy, plane needs part, missed ATL flight w/ us :(
2: 45 p.m. --> @ hotel, @ pool w/ Bobs, Liv's phone off
3:20 p.m. --> Liv calls, drops f-bomb, 2nd time 2day; taxi $55 = 3rd bomb
6 p.m. --> dinner @ Village, seafood & rum
7:31 p.m. --> refuse to ride zipline due to wearing a dress, buy a daquari instead
8:27 p.m. --> karaoke bar overrun w/ kids, don't go in
8:30 p.m. --> @ piano bar, more rum, sing-a-long to Sweet Caroline

SATURDAY:
8 a.m --> big breakfast, Village for towels, then beach!
8:20 a.m. --> $30 beach towel? wtf?!
10:34 a.m. --> saw dolphins!!!!!!
10:55 a.m. --> shopping for dinner dresses "just because"
11:45 a.m. --> no luck w/ dresses, will eat dinner anyway
11:51 a.m. --> candy store = lunch
1:30 p.m. --> @ beach, no oil, just algie in water, like swimming in hair
2:05 p.m. --> took lots of pics, hope I look ok
4:50 p.m. --> leave beach via resort bus
5 p.m. --> bus driver confused, return to beach
5:05 p.m. --> circle parking lot while driver gets bearings
5:10 p.m. --> leave beach parking lot
6 p.m. --> return to hotel alive
7:30 p.m. --> board bus, new & better driver, off to Village for dinner
9:03 p.m. --> off to dance after delicious dinner... too smokey & expensive, return to piano bar
10:14 p.m. --> fifth bachlorette party @ bar, may hurt someone if have to sing "going to the chapel" again
10:19 p.m. --> leave piano bar in interest of sanity

SUNDAY:
8 a.m. --> breakfast, souvineer shopping
12:15 p.m. --> airport security insists on Ziploc baggie for glass jar of liquid foundation
12:16 p.m. --> baggie now required for airport-approved container of mouthwash
12:18 p.m. --> toothpaste and airport-approved container of powder blush go into third baggie
12:21 p.m. --> airport security detains me over 99-cent can of shaving cream
12:30 p.m. --> allowed to throw out 99-cent can of shaving cream
12:41 p.m. --> sternly told to keep all items in approved Ziploc baggies for remainder of trip
12:43 p.m. --> promise to keep all items in approved Ziploc baggies for remainder of trip
12:44 p.m. --> allowed into airport
1:30 p.m. --> board plane, stewardess announces that our pilot is Capt'n Jack Sparrow
3:30 p.m. --> uneventful flight home, played solitaire, lost a lot

MONDAY:
7 a.m. --> back at work...

To Tell The Tooth...

2010-05-27T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have nothing to say at the moment except that I should be working on research before the day's activities begin. However, work is a little difficult at the moment as we have "Pajama Pants Head" running around upstairs.

How can I do anything but laugh when I hear his tearing around upstairs and his father trying to (patiently) tell him to take his pajama pants off of his head and get dressed so that we can go out?

A few weekends ago, I attended a baby shower for one of my girl friend. While perusing the adorable baby blankets and onesies the night before, while trying to figure out whether of not a newborn really needed the so-cute-it-hurts sandals, I realized that I have no desire to return to those days. None. Na-dah. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

While she's dealing with the final months of pregnancy, I'm dealing with loose teeth and arranging playdates. She's about to hit the easy part of motherhood, while I'm looking at my kid and wondering how the hell I'll keep him from knocking his face off while he plays "stuntman!"

Speaking of teeth, the day before the baby shower, when I picked Gav up at my mother-in-law's, I asked what had become my usual greeting: "Do you still have your tooth?"

"Yep!"

"Let me see."

He opened wide, proud to show me the tooth that was hanging by a thread and would not, not for anything, fall out.

"Um, no." It wasn't there.

He didn't believe me, of course, and ran to check in the mirror. After all, for the last several weeks I'd been telling him it was turning purple, green, or whatever other color popped to mind. I'd also told him that the tooth fairy was going to start charging him for the tooth because he was keeping it too long. Why believe me now?

It was indeed gone. FINALLY gone.

Of course, the next mystery was where had it gone?

We ransacked the couch where he'd been sitting, sifted through his bowl of Cheeze-Its, looked under the couch, ran our hands over the carpet, checked his shoes that were next to the couch, shook out the afghan he'd sat on, checked his tumbler full of iced tea... nothing. Na-dah. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

You can probably put two and two together on this one and guess where the tooth disappeared to, given that he'd been snacking at the time it apparently fell out.

But, please, no more jokes about "this tooth shall pass." Really. I'm sure it did by now and, no, I didn't look.

2010-05-09T15:45:00.000-07:00

So much to say, yet nothing. I haven't posted since February, though a lot of nothing has happened.

I think.

I've four posts that I keep meaning to finish, but each time I start them... well... nothing seems to "work." And, perfectionist that I can be, I refuse to publish them just to publish them.

So I've the blog on February's snow storm and what it was like to be trapped in Moon Township in a hotel without power, water, or heat. Then there's one on my trip to Omaha at the end of April when I was -- once again! -- trapped in a hotel (with power, water, and heat). This time it was thanks to a three-hour flight delay that would have caused me to miss my connection in Chicago. I spent the night in Omaha at the Holiday Inn and went to bed at the gloriously decadent hour of 8:30 p.m. I've a third post about my tendency to talk to strangers and how much fun it can be.

Fourth is the unfinished post about Gavin turning seven.

Seven!

How can I say that nothing has happened when my little miracle is no longer that little? The little boy who came into this world two months early is in the family room right now, playing bowling on Wii and yelling "yeah baby!" each time he successfully knocks down the pins.

"Yeah baby!"

My son has his own catch-phrase. Everything is "yeah baby," though sometimes we alternate with "now that's what I'm talking about!"

When I choose clothes that he likes, he pronounces that I "know his style." When I read his mind and tell him that he can't ride his scooter down the sliding board and do other "mean mommy" things designed to keep him alive and in once piece, he sadly tells me that I always "foil his plans."

He has definite opinions that about what is cool and not cool, but don't think they always coincide with the rest of the world. He also has definite opinions about why things work, why they don't work, and why he should be allowed to test his theories. He will bargain and cajole and pester for everything. While it makes me insane sometimes to explain things umpteen times, I have to admit I like that side of him too much to change it. Give me an independent thinker who questions me over a well-behaved lemming any day.

At bedtime, we read books like Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing. When he reads on his own, he likes to peruse the two medical terminology books that he appropriated from my bookshelf. While I miss having a little boy who could comfortably fall asleep in my arms as I sang to him, I have more fun with the interactive boy who listens to the same music as I do and is not above dancing around the kitchen with him mom to the sounds of Lady Gaga and Pitbull. (American Pie, however, is his current favorite.)

How can I have nothing to write about?

Perhaps I have too much.
(Such a blessing. No?)

2010-02-20T00:00:00.000-08:00

I think it was the snow bank. His car must have glanced it, just enough as he came down the hill, to veer more to the right than the left. That's the only reason I can think of. It had to be the snow.

We were getting out of the car, ready to go to karate class, when a faded black car came tearing up the parking lot that connects a back road to Route 30. Gavin was still climbing out of the back seat, actually, as the punk roared past us. I looked at the driver, annoyed at his speed, but more interested in the beige 4 x 4 that was pulling out of the adjacent parking area and making sure that Gavin didn't run out in front of him.

He didn't. The driver saw us, paused, and I herded Gavin -- who is "almost seven" as opposed to "only six" -- to the passenger side of the car. He deals well with my eternal belief that parking lots are full of cars ready to careen out of control and slam into him.

The parking lot is a hill, so when you pull in it's easier to get out of the driver's side (which is the downhill side) than the passenger side. He'd left his bag with sparring gear in the backseat, as usual, so I got it out. Closing the doors on that side take a little extra umph depending on just where one parks on the slope, but the over-sized button on my coat caught on the frame and the umph was for naught. Gav was patiently waiting on the other side of the car.

I didn't hear the crash itself. It was the sound of something metal dragging along the pavement that made me look up as I made my way to my little guy to hand him his bag.

The faded black car was speeding down the hill. It's front end now smashed, the bumper barely attached.

I remember screaming Gavin's name as I ran to him, dragging him backwards, remember realizing that it was making a beeline for my car's back end, and remember watching -- just watching -- as the driver somehow managed to miss by inches.

And then he was gone.

And I was kneeling and holding my son, shaking, because I had dragged us towards the front of my car and, had that punk hit my bumper, the force very well could have turned the car around and slammed it into us.

"That front was really destroyed," Gav said. "It was totally destroyed!"

"Yes, it was." My voice sounded normal, for which I was thankful.

"It was totally destroyed, Mom!" He had no clue what could have happened. Small mercies.

We made it inside and class started and I sat there, just not quite able to focus on the economics paper I was supposed to be writing.

My mind was racing and I kept seeing the car coming down the hill. Sometimes I saw my button caught on the door frame and wondered what would have been different had it not caught. I went back outside and looked at the snow piled high next to the building and at the fresh mark where he must have hit it, walked up the hill to where the accident had happened. Only the bumper of the car he'd hit remained by now. A man was on the phone, and I told him that I saw where the driver had sped off to, pointed out the road, and said I'd be in the karate school if there were any questions once the police arrived. Then I went back inside. Then back outside.

A police car was quietly sitting at the entrance to the dead end road that I'd seen the black car head down once he'd left the parking lot.

I went back inside.

Eventually, the adrenaline rush ends and rational thought returns. By the end of class, I was able to focus much better and was, for the most part, done replaying it in my mind. Thoughts of what could have happened were replaced by white hot rage and what I wanted to do to that son of a bitch who could have killed my son. The enduring image is a meat grinder and his hands so that he never drives again.

(Just because rational thought returns, doesn't mean one has to be rational, you know.)

And when we left karate and walked through the parking lot once more, Gavin listed all of the karate kicks he would have used on the driver had I been hurt.

Maybe a meat grinder is too humane.

Captain Chaos and the Matchbox Cars

2010-02-07T18:11:00.000-08:00

Gav inherited a solid wooden box from my Dad. It's about 13" x 8", roughly, and was a Christmas gift to Dad years ago. A bucolic hunting scene is on the front. For those years that Dad was alive, it sat next to the fireplace at the cottage.

It's still next to a fireplace, but now it's our fireplace. The box used to hold matches for the fireplace. Now it holds Matchbox cars. It's a good little box, sturdy enough to survive the abuse even a six-year-old can dish out.

And the other night, well...

Chaos does not own just brand name, indestructible Matchbox cars. He also owns a few dozen cheaper ones from the local dollar store. Those cars break rather easily -- which he discovered that Friday night. The handle of a wrench can easily smash one of these cars.

Very easily.

Six cars later, the Big Guy told him that enough was enough, that his curiosity should be appeased, and to quit bashing cars on the kitchen table.

Always a good little man, Gav handed over the wrench. Reluctantly, I might add.

The Big Guy was wrong, however. Curiosity was not appeased.

Stripped of his wrench, he needed a new method to crush the cars. Preferably one that was a bit less noisy so as not to attract the notice of his parents (who have this crazy tendency to back each other up on things like this).

The next thing I knew, he was adjusting the kitchen chair, then sitting down rather hard, then adjusting the chair, then sitting down rather hard, then adjusting... well, you get the idea.

I'm not sure if I should take the science books off of him or not. Seems that we've moved from Rube Goldberg machines to simple machines. You see, he was putting the cars under the chair's leg then slamming all fifty pounds of himself onto the seat to effectively (quite effectively) crush them.

Wheels, fake glass, and cheap plastic were flying all over the place. While it was certainly quieter than the wrench, and certainly more thorough, it was much less controlled. I'm still finding occasional pieces of the wreckage in distant corners of the kitchen, leading me to think it wasn't so much a crushing but an explosion.

Chaos demolished two cars before I had to swoop in, hide my laughter, and make him stop.

He, again, was reluctant to obey, but he knew that it was the wiser course of action. Anything else would have resulted in the remaining cars residing on top of the fridge.

But he hadn't really stopped. He'd paused. It was now all a matter of determining what he would use next to accomplish his objective.

Ah, but bedtime has a way of hampering the best of plans, so he had to wait until morning to annihilate the remaining ten cars. So for the next nine hours, all was calm in the Louch house.

"Mom. Mom. Hey, Mom. Are you getting up yet? Mom. Mom..." When he was three, I would wake up and be eyeball-to-eyeball with him. Now that he's six, he has to lean over a bit, but we're still eyeball-to-eyeball when I open my eyes. "Mom, can we go downstairs yet?"

Gathering my wits, I got up and we did just that. He fussed with his cars while I made breakfast. I was curious that he hadn't started trying to smash them, but wasn't about to remind him.

Then I saw it. The wooden box, which is a good 15 pounds or so when filled with toy cars, sitting a bit a-tilt on the fireplace hearth. Underneath, a cheap plastic car, slowly... very slowly... being flattened...

Once upon a time...

2009-11-21T13:54:00.000-08:00

Right now, my boy is sitting beside me with a small whiteboard and a bajillion questions.

"How do you spell dinosaur in cursive?"
"How do you spell perfect in cursive?"
"Did I write that right?"
"Can you write my name in cursive?"
"Why does the G look like that?"
"I'm drawing a sandbox."

A little scattered, maybe disjointed to the casual observer, but not really. His mind is jumping all over the place, but I can follow.

"Look, Mom, the eraser got rid of everything. Now it's growing back. The ground. People. Plants. Street lights. Back came the grass."

He's telling me a story, from start to finish. It all started with a sandbox and a sand kicker who kicked so much sand that the whole world went away; but when the sand kicked died, the world came back. Gav's drawing the return of the world and narrating it.

"The sun came back. The sky."

The sun has spikes coming from it, they're "sunbeams." The sky is a scribble along the top of the page.

"Here's people."

Three stick figures appear. A tall one and two short ones.

"How do you spell family?"

I write it down, and he copies it along the top of the white board, right under the sky.

"This is a family. It's a dad and two kids."

"Where's the mom?"

"She went to Canada."

"Why did she go to Canada?"

"She's coming back December fourth."

Before I could pose my next question, he ran the eraser over the picture and wrote gone.

"They went to visit her. They didn't want to wait."

When Gav's taking things apart with a hammer, when he's laughing hysterically at Spongebob, or when he's giving me an innocent look and the words "I wasn't thinking," I glance at the husband and tell him that there's no doubt in my mind that he is that boy's father. When I go in to kiss Gav goodbye before going to work, I marvel at how much he looks like his dad -- from facial expression to sleeping position. There's not much about him, at first glance, that would suggest he was mine, unless you count athletic ability and his cute little nose. I'm okay with that.

But when he's creating, when he's making up stories complete with characters and plots, with beginnings and middles and ends, he's all mine. When he's building complex Lego creations of his own design and explaining the function of every tower and building, he's all mine. And when he's planing yet another Rube Goldberg machine, he's all mine.

What's really amazing to me is that I never taught him any of this.

The truth is that he's not really "mine," no more than he's his dad's.
He's his own little soul from his own little world. We're just lucky enough to borrow him for a while.

2009-11-11T00:00:00.000-08:00

Somewhere, tucked in my papers from my undergrad years, is a quote about how being killed because you are a writer is "the ultimate expression of respect."

Or something like that.

It means, of course, that you are killed because you are good at your craft. Too good. You are killed because the people listen to you and because you have become a voice that powerful cowards cannot bear to hear.

This past weekend, Cuban bloggers Yoani Sanchez, Claudia Cadelo, Orlando Luis Pardo, and Ciro Díaz.were picked up by thugs, thrown into a van, beaten, and thrown onto the street. The bloggers' crimes? Blogging about Cuba as it is today under castro. Telling the truth.

Yoani was voted one of the world's 100 most influential people by Time Magazine. You can find her blog here: Generacion Y. (Google offers a reasonable translation for those who aren't fluent in Spanish.)

Chantel's Yucababy blog provided a translation of Pardo's post, a recount of the experience:

Below, is my translation of an excerpt from Orlando Pardo's post at Penultimos Dias:

Within seconds, Yoani and I had our arms twisted in a car imported from our Stepmother Country: China

My head against the car's carpet, and Yoani with her feet in the air.I couldn't see her, identifying her only because she would not be quiet. I heard her scream with the vehemence of a being more free than the planet itself

She had a Cuban man's knee nailed against her chest, and still she rebuked him

From that energy I borrowed the strength to revive a bit my own voice.

They told me to tell Yoani to be quiet.

That phrase, pronounced by three unknowns in the name of the Cuban State, sums up the obsolescence and obscenity of this country.

Tell Yoani to be quiet.
Tell Yoani to be quiet.
Tell Yoani to be quiet.

Despotically, they deposited us in a corner that I confused with the patio of a barracks.
I was dizzy.I felt nauseous, felt like vomiting.
I could not move my neck.
I embraced Yoani (which I'd never done before).
She began to sob.

The greatest woman in Cuba seemed like an infant.

Because Yoani is such: the future of Cuba crystallized on a fragile and unstoppable body.

I kissed her head. Her hair pulled with such hate smelled like liberty.
Once.
Twice.
Ten.
Uncountable times I kissed her ageless head.

But I never told her to be quiet.
But I never told her to be quiet.
But I never told her to be quiet.

-- Orlando Luis Pardo

Nanowrimo 2009

2009-10-15T12:16:00.001-07:00

Once more, I'm taking up the challenge: 50,000 words in 30 days..

Ought to be interesting this year -- especially since I'm working on that doctorate, working full-time, and trying to get through the last (almost painful) edit of Killing Julie.

Thanks to Nano, I finished KJ. Perhaps this year, thanks to Nano, I'll get that next one rolling (as opposed to bouncing around in my brain).

The plot? Darned if I know.

A Hands-on Education

2009-08-15T08:25:00.000-07:00

To say that this past week has been "educational" is quite the understatement. Thanks to one boss being on vacation and the other deciding to snap his ankle in half, I've been holding down the fort at work.

It went quite well, if I do say so myself.

I have learned that I can keep track of the attendance records of 50+ new starts not only on paper but in my head. I found out that I actually make some program directors try not to cringe when I walk into their offices holding my list of students on extern or of possible re-enters for next term. I discovered that all I need is a white board to help me keep track of returning students for the next five months. I uncovered the administrator within and learned how to say things like "this is unacceptable" in a tactful yet firm manner -- and get results. I even managed to delegate once in a while, despite some odd genetic tendency to avoid it at all costs.

All in all, when the bosses come back next week, they'll find that the school is still standing and that the student population remains intact.

I also learned, this past Tuesday night, that I still can't figure out my left from my right when it comes to karate. "Form 1," which my six-year-old has mastered, still escapes me. Don't ask me what the Korean name for it is, for I can neither pronounce it not spell it. When I do manage to say it, it comes out sounding like young emu. I still can't count to ten in Korean. The ability to tell the difference between ahp cha ki (front kick) and yup cha ki (side kick) eludes me until someone shows me. Again. While I can write an entire course on medical terminology, remembering that mok is my neck and moo roop refers to my knee is apparently a challenge above and beyond my talents.

it is possible that this all goes back to my generally non-existent athletic abilities paired with a completely un-deserved sense skill. I always think I can do something. I think I can hit a golf ball. I think I can hit a softball. I think I can shoot hoops. You see, I have a tendency to watch others and then, unreasonably and illogically, think to myself "how hard can that be?"

As I invariably find out, it is much harder than I ever suspected.

However, I'm not totally hopeless... and perhaps that is where the sense of "I can do that" comes from. I am a very good at street hockey. Pucks stay on the ground (usually) and are easier to hit than softballs, which insist on being airborn when I'm supposed to hit them. My whole concept of hockey is "get the puck in the net," and I do that reasonably well.

Had we had volleyball in high school, I would have played. While the volleyball isn't on the ground like a puck, I don't have to worry about swinging a bat or about aiming at some impossibly small basketball hoop. All I have to do is aim at the large space above the volleyball net -- or, I admit it, the face of the person on the other side of the net.

But as for karate? Right up there with softball, baby. A total testament to my lack of coordination. It's a nice stress reliever, but I'll never be a contender. (And I'm okay with that!)

I'll stick to tracking 500+ students and 20+ teachers on a daily basis.
Much easier than that left v.s right stuff.

Don't Think

2009-08-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

There are things that I simply try not to think about, particularly when it comes to my son.

I try not to think about the night he was born and the fact that I made it to the hospital just in time. I don't like thoughts of what could have -- would have -- happened had we been just twenty minutes later.

I try not to think about the tetnus he didn't get after stepping on a rusted 40-year-old carpet nail last summer. The thin white scar on his neck -- compliments of a picket fence at Idlewild this summer -- still makes a cringe.

When he came home from a fishing trip with his dad, his nose and forehead showing evidence of a face-plant in the berber carpet (unintentional high dive off a chair in the living room), I tried not to think about his newly grown front teeth and almost knocking them out.

Last night, after he fell asleep, I went into his room and just sat on the side of his bed. For a good while, I sat there, just looking at my baby. His knee and right hand are all scraped up from (unwillingly, unintentionally) sliding along the pavement en route to the token machine at the zoo. He has a bandage on his knee, though he doesn't need it. We had a small battle over that, I admit. He likes Band-Aids, and I have the philosophy of "no blood, no bandage." Our compromise was one for his knee and none for his hand.

I feel silly now. It's just a Band-Aid. No big deal. You put them on, you take them off. Slap some antibiotic cream on whenever you have to. Everything heals and in a few days the bandage is gone. I don't know what the big deal is, really.

Social networking is wonderful for those of us who sit in the office all or most of the day. Facebook lets us "escape" just a little bit and chat with friends, post silly comments, or just send pokes back and forth. It let's the world in, too, sometimes a bit too much. A friend of mine is now watching his nephew battle an illness that no Band-Aid can cover. He's posting updates for us, drawing us into this world, showing us pictures.

I can't understand how the Fates roll their dice. I never will. But, because of those wicked mythical sisters and their whims, last night I just sat and marveled at my son. And tried very hard not to cry.

PFEW-less in 2009

2009-08-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

I missed PFEW Week III this year. Had to. Between my RMU class schedule, the amount of sick and vacation time accumulated, and the week that the students' summer break was scheduled, I just couldn't swing it.

For the record, it nearly killed me.

I did not get to make my usual drive to Williamsport, make my usual stops along the way, take the new route that I learned last year, wear my collection of PFEW polo shirts, hear the usual banter, or take the usual abuse about my inability to tell jokes.

I did not get to hang out with people that I have known, for over ten years. Or ten weeks, depending on how you count.

I did not get to drink responsibly in the hospitality room, stay up irresponsibly late, laugh until I could not breathe, or function on an average of six hours sleep per night for seven nights.

I did not get to tell my latest joke, one that is deliberately bad. (If I told a good one, well... my fellow CA's would probably not know what to do.)

Last but not least, I did not get to work with a team of teens who are among the best and the brightest. I did not get the privilege of seeing them grow from a group of total strangers to a team -- or from a group of not-always-so-certain kids to confident business folk.

That's okay.

After all, it's only 50 weeks until PFEW, Week III, 2010.

Cat(no)nap

2009-08-05T12:00:00.000-07:00

4:31 a.m., cat wants fresh water in bowl, makes this known with pitter-patter of cat feet on my head

4:32 a.m., cat lands on the floor

4:33 a.m., cat jumps onto nightstand and begins to rub against lampshade to create annoying squeak-thump

4:35 a.m., cat lands on the floor again

4:40 a.m., cat begins to prowl around the bed, stalking prey (me)

4:43 a.m., cat's furry butt dragged into bathroom, tub faucet turned on, then off, cat happily drinks drips

5:01 a.m., wet cat feet squish across pillow as she demands more water

5:02 a.m., cat lands in hallway, bedroom door shuts

5:30 a.m., pitiful "mommy-why-do-you-hate-me" meowing begins, threatening to wake son

5:32 a.m., bedroom door opens, cat -- now dry -- jumps up on bed and curls up at the foot of the bed, where feet normally belong

5:40 a.m., cat lands on floor after attacking ankles as punishment for trying to get comfortable

5:41 a.m., cat back on bed, makes cautious peace with bumps under blanket that can send her back to the floor... by sleeping on them

6:17 a.m., cramp in calf forces movement for the first time since cat plopped on leg, movement causes cat to wake prematurely, retaliation comes in form of teeth

6:17 and 5 seconds, cat lands on floor again

6:18 a.m., cat returns to bed, sleeps on husband's side, continued snoring indicates that he's fine with that

7:01 a.m., cat having dream and begins meowing in sleep, waking me

7:05 a.m., cat wakes and decides it's time to start the day

7:07 a.m., jumps off bed and goes to window, pushes light-blocking curtains out of way -- admitting blinding morning sun

7:10 a.m., cat decides others must enjoy the morning and begins breathing in owner's face to wake her

7:11 a.m., owner discovers cat can't find her when she puts a pillow over her head

7:25 a.m., cover blown when son comes in wanting to play Legos

7:30 a.m., cat gets fresh water in bowl

Growing up, I had Molly, a plump little hairball of a cat who had the sweetest disposition ever. For years, she would wake up with my Dad when he got ready for work. He would feed and water her, and she would be as happy as a lark. There was always a misunderstanding, however, each weekend. He wanted to sleep past 6 a.m. and she wanted feed/watered at 6 a.m. As she got older, she got less patient. The last few years of her life were marked by a very specific pattern: on days when Daddy didn't get up at 6 a.m., she would simply prowl around the edge of the bed until he got up and did her bidding.

It's Dad's birthday today, so the fact that my cat is now (apparently) channeling Molly seems a good way to mark Dad's day.

Trust

2009-08-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Gav is hitting "that" age -- the one where I have to decide between sending him to the men's room alone or dragging him into the women's room with me. His six going on seven, meaning that I'm rational going on paranoid-obsessive.

Is there anyone lurking in there? Is some pervert waiting for a trusting mom to send her son in to him? Will Gavin know enough to scream and run? Or will he be just too frightened to act? How much trouble will I get in if I open the door to check on my son's safety?

Wait, do I really care about how much trouble I might get in? Not really.

I stand right outside the bathroom door, ready to leap to action and kill anyone who looks at my son "funny" and makes him nervous.

Well, really, they don't have to make him nervous. Making me nervous is about all it will take for me to push that door open and charge in. While I haven't yet, have no doubt about it, I will should I feel the need. (I've chased my son into men's dressing rooms at department stores when he was a curious toddler, so a men's restroom isn't particularly intimidating.)

It should be noted at this point that Gavin -- in spite of training by parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and teachers -- says that he "knows" what to do when approached by a stranger. He will hit him with a baseball bat. Throw him under a car. Run him over. Brake a table over his head. Throw the cat in his face. And, finally, feed him to monsters.

THEN he will run.

(No wonder I get nervous.)

Other mothers share their stories with me, which does not help. While I realize that it's good to be aware, why does every story seem to have an evil stranger haunting it?

Frankly, excluding this, I'm a pretty happy-go-lucky chick. I believe that people are generally good at heart and that more of them are likely to help than to hurt. I think that things tend to turn out right, even when it seems that they won't. I talk to strangers, and I smile at people on the street if we make eye contact. I am, probably, the sort who some would say is bound to end up on a milk carton someday.

When it comes to conferences, I hop on planes and head to big cities all by myself. Airports are adventures just waiting to happen -- so much so that I make it a point to change planes whenver possible and pick layovers in states I've yet to visit. When I drive to conferences, I seek out local mom-and-pop restaurants and invite other conference attendees. I've been known to close bars with my closest friends as well as those I met at meetings that morning. And if there's a club to be found, I'll be there.

Ah, and the stories! The culture! To be with people from other worlds who look at everything so very differently then you, whose economic systems were so defining in their lives (uh, yeah, I should probably mention that I meet the bulk of these folks at economics conferences)... it's really quite the drug to me.

I want Gavin to be like that, and he's showing signs of it already... well, that is, when he's not hiding behind me because he's shy around g-i-r-l-s. He, too, looks at everything as an adventure and won't hesistate to ask questions (unless it's a "do you want to come over and play" question, which is another blog for another day).

The trick is to teach him when to talk and when to run without terrifying him into avoiding all strangers, to teach him how to trust his gut in situtations without actually putting him in those situations to learn what a "gut feeeling" feels like.

In the meanwhile, I'll stand outside of the men's room, ready to charge at the first sign of danger. Real or imagined.

Prof. Gavin

2009-08-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

Gavin is the eternally adorable child. For starters, he is a stick -- all arms and legs, elbows and knees. He now wears a size 7 for length, but needs a 6 for his waist. And, wonderfully, his two front teeth are now M.I.A.

We spent our Fourth of July weekend in Williamsburg, VA. It was our second trip in two years, and -- given how well things went -- if the fates work with us, we'll head back for July 4, 2010.

This time around, Gav was even more "into" the whole experience... and I'm not talking about the kids' activities (which we didn't get to this year, to be honest). He was the one front-and-center at the cabinet maker's shop asking how wooden hinges worked and how they made animal glue and what a particular hammer was for. He learned how a lock worked at the blacksmith's (but was disappointed that they weren't making nails like last year). He tried to answer the questions posed during the lantern tour we took on Friday night (only got one right, but I'm more awed by the fact that he made the attempt). He dragged us through the gardens and the flowerbeds, asking a bajillion questions, identifying the ones he knew, and trying to pick as much as he could without us noticing.

The best moment, however, was Saturday afternoon.

Because I was still a bit miserable from a lingering cold, I sent my boys on without me on Saturday morning. Sleep was a necessity -- particularly if I was going to make it to the fireworks that night. When they returned at noon, we went to lunch and then began our walk back to Colonial Williamsburg (CW).

First, however, we had to stop at the Great Hope Plantation, which is next to the Visitor's Center and en route to CW. Gav wanted to show me the piglets they had seen that morning. My boys had spent the morning there, learning a good bit about a tobacco plantation.

So, what made it so wonderful? Professor Gavin, of course.

My little man gave me the grand tour, reciting everything he'd learned that morning. He showed me the barn, the tobacco, the dried tobacco, the tools used to farm the tobacco, the piglets, the chickens, the slave quarters, the well, the smoke house, the hams in the smoke house, the tools outside of the smoke house, the cows... you get the picture. It wasn't "what's this, mom?" it was "look at this, mom, and this is what it was used for."

I am, needless to say, proud as proud can be of my young historian... particularly since all of this is innate. The husband and I had nothing to do with his decision to give mom a spontaneous history lesson. Or perhaps we had everything. Nature or nurture? Don't know, to be honest. All I know is that he was having the time of his life teaching mom everything she ever needed to know about running a tobocca plantation. And, frankly, so was I.

Who are you and why did you "friend" me?

2009-07-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

To date, I have 58 friends on Facebook (FB).

On occassion, I get friend requests from people that, apparently, like to collect friends because -- as you all know -- he who friends the most wins... um... wins... wins what? To the best of my knowledge, no one wins anything for having 783 friends more then the next person. Actually, I'm often hard-pressed to keep track of my 58 friends. (I mean, OMG, one can only have so many BFFs, y/k.)

I haven't much time to "poke" and "superpoke." I sometimes "send a round" of various drinks, but rarely are they all imbibed, meaning that I don't get points enough to unlock more concoctions or to become cyber-drunk. I wonder what that feels like -- and should I have a designated typist for those times when I am virtually toasted?

There are days when I get the chance to send special on-line charms to friends for their on-line charm bracelets, but I can only send 15 each day -- meaning that friend #16 has to wait until the next day. And how am I supposed to determine who is important enough to get a charm today and who is not important enough, so thus must wait until tomorrow?

Also, when I send a round of hugs, what if I forget someone? And is it appropriate to "hug" my male friends? After all, not all of them are ones I'd hug in real life. Actually, ditto for some of the women I friend. Is there a "send a handshake" option?

Oh dear.

It's really quite interesting, all of this social contract stuff on FB. So much to worry about. Take, for example, the two friends who vanished from my friend list within days of each other and could not be found for anything. Being that I considered them good friends, I actually spent long minutes wondering why they un-friended me and trying to figure out what happened. Turns out, happy day, that they didn't un-friend me. They deleted their profiles. In essence, they un-friended themselves from everyone.

I felt so much better. It's nice to be part of a giant group of un-friends, that means that it's nothing personal.

In the realm of un-friending, I myself have committed that very action. It's true. To my knowledge, no one missed me. If someone un-friends up and you don't notice, were you ever friends? (That's much like my other question: if you blog and no one reads it, did you really blog?)

Given the apparently angst that comes to me with FB, it's obvious that I don't tweet. Twittering would probably put me over the cyber-edge. I have too much on my mind to keep it to under 140 characters and -- frankly! -- I'm not sure I'm interesting enough (or boring enough?!) to make tweeting titillating enough to merit followers. Maybe once I sell my novel, I'll send out vital tweets like "buying my venti tea at Starbucks right now" and "wow, that pizza was really good!"

Maybe.
But probably not.
(Tweet, that is. I've every intention of selling that novel once I finish killing off the dead first husband.)

All Stressed Out and No One to Choke

2009-07-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

At the risk of making several readers laugh hysterically: I am a calm person.

I don't yell, I don't scream, and I never lose my temper. In the face of others yelling and screaming, I serenely sit and wait, watching the show, until the performers tire and are ready to be sane. I live with the idea that I cannot change people's behaviors, only my reactions to them. How very zen. Very stoic. If I keep myself in check, I can avoid a lot of issues. I am quite the lady, in fact. It's something I work hard to be, because everyone likes women who are ladies. We're easier to handle, easier to deal with, and easier to control.

Until we break, anyway. Until our bodies scream that it's high time we knocked off the "good girl" shitck and moved into "real person (complete with emotions)" mode.

No, I'm not about to turn into a ranting anything. Sorry. Go watch some other sideshow. However, due to this calm nature of mine, I can now tally three ambulance rides in my life.

One, just a week prior to my tenth birthday, was due to some guy who lived at the top of the hill taking a spare tire out of his trunk and leaning it against his car. Seems he forgot that round objects roll... and moments later I was flattened by the maverick tire. No injuries of merit, though the sling that I was to wear for a few days was pretty cool.

The second, the winter before I got pregnant with Gav, was earned after I hit ice and then a wall. The backboard I was strapped to was not pretty cool. Neither was the whiplash.

Number three was just a few weeks ago, when my body made the decision that I needed to get a handle on a few things and get my stressors in order and staged a revolt in the form of an anxiety attack (rather like a heart attack, I learned, but without the pain). I suppose one could call it a tradition of sorts in that I was exceedingly calm the entire time -- just as I was when the tire hit me and when I hit the wall. (Can you even have a calm panic attack? Is that an oxymoron?)

So there I was, finding it impossible to take a deep breath and wondering at the odd tingling sensation in both of my hands. I suppose I would have panicked if there had been any pain. But there wasn't. I just, as I kept saying, "felt funny."

Obviously, everything checked out okay. I was given orders to relax and slow down -- which made me laugh rather heartily once the doctor left the room. You see, I did slow down recently. I'm between writing gigs, not adjuncting, and only working my day job. Essentially, I work my eight-hour day and go home to my son and make dinner and play with him a bit and go to bed. Any slower and I'd be in a coma.

However, doctor's orders is doctor's orders. Never let it be said that I don't know how to listen. In the quest to relax, I've since contracted three writing gigs, have taken on cleaning out the basement, and signed up for karate.

It's nice to be back to normal...

Myth Independent

2009-06-17T20:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I'm still thinking this one through... but sometimes thinking is overrated... so here we go:

I just finished The Purity Myth: How America's Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women and, for all intents and purposes, had a difficult time putting it down. The premise is a bit too close to what I've been pondering on my own as of late: that females are being sold a bogus bill of goods on what makes us valuable, namely:
Our bodies
Our virginity.
The number of men who have had us prior to marriage.

I grew up with the "good girl" notion that one was to "save herself" for marriage. So be it. There's no angst or anger or need to sit on a shrink's couch because of it. My mother is a product of the 50s. I came of age in the 80s. It's now 2009. Things change.

The problem today is that it's not what we females do so much as how we are taught to view ourselves after we do it. Once a male has a female, she is less of a person. She isn't as "good" as the girls who are not had.

I may be a Catholic school girl, but I am also the graduate of a Catholic women's college where men were nice to be around but far from paramount to our existence. Most of the time, we were too busy being human to worry much about batting our eyelashes and wiggling our hips. I learned that there are too many things I can do on my own to ever become the clinging, vapid young thing so idealized by MTV et al.

Still, though, as students, we divided ourselves subtly. The girls who had sex were quietly nicknamed and wondered at. My friends and I thought that you had to be in love to have sex, and we could not understand how those other girls could be so "easy." We were taught that men would not love us fully (read: marry us!) if they knew that we had a "reputation."

Like nearly all of my female cousins, I found my husband while in college and graduated not only magna cum laude but also engaged. Carrying on the tradition, I walked down the aisle in white, and -- upon return from the honeymoon -- began to plan for babies. What I didn't do was plan to quit working after said babies arrived, but that's another blog for another day. We're here to talk about what I did "right," not what I did for me.

*sigh*

I still find myself buying into the purity concept, to a degree. I don't believe is sex for the sake of sex. I cherish the idea of it being between two consenting, caring, loving adults. I'll tell my son to wait to have sex, and I'll be nervous when he brings home girls who have (real or imagined) reputations. I won't even try to deny any of that.

What I do believe is that intimacy is not about naked bodies tangled together in bed. Bodies are cheap and interchangeable, particularly when there is no intimacy. Intimacy is about language.

I look at it through my words -- what is said and unsaid, what is implied and what is screamed. Several months ago, I removed the link to my fictional blog, retitled [Insert Title Here], because it's about a woman who isn't exactly true to all of those social and religious ideals. Selina is not, to put it mildly, living the happily ever after promised to women who played by the rules.

I removed the link because I was worried about offending, a behavior -- I have to admit -- that offends me.

Wouldn't want Simply Sentenced readers to be offended, now would I? Wouldn't want them to think that I was a bad girl at heart, you know? Wouldn't want them to laugh at me, right? Wouldn't want to gain that reputation that everyone and her mother warned us about, would I?

Do you hear my sarcasm, readers? Or is it lost in translation?

The link is back. It won't be removed again. You're old enough to determine what you want to read.

Grin and bear it...

2009-05-25T18:25:00.000-07:00

'Twas a good weekend. Busy, but pleasant. There's something wonderful about being able to do you own thing on your own time.

We painted the family room and kitchen this Memorial Day weekend, we put new holes in the walls for a few pictures to hang, and we gave the basement a good airing-out. Grocery shopped, too. The pantry is now very well stocked -- which is obvious to all as the door has not yet been put back on.

Gavin's about to lose another tooth, top left this time. It's just hanging there, still too attached to fall out and just loose enough to give him a cute little snaggletooth. Being that all things dental are often paired with the word "phobic" in my life, that's where the comparison to "cute" ends for me. I'd rather deal with his getting a shot, with watching the docs put his feeding tube back in (from those crazy NICU days), or with just about any other small child trauma then with a loose tooth.

You see, loose teeth have to come out. If my luck holds, I will never be alone with Gav when that time comes. I will be -- preferably -- at work, at the store, or anywhere where he and the tooth are not. While I love my son more then life itself, I do not think that it is advisable for him to see his mother collapse in a dead faint due to the fact that she has either tried to or did manage to pull out the loose tooth.

So bent am I on not passing my phobia on to my boy, in fact, I refuse to take him to the dentist's office. That's his dad's or his grandma's job. Right now, he thinks it's fun to go to see Dr. Frank, and I'd like to keep it that way.

I can only hope that it will fall out tomorrow under his grandmother's watch and not mine.

THAT will make it a perfect weekend.

(By the way... I'm not exaggerating on the dead faint. Just watching him wiggle it makes me a bit lightheaded. Given that the one and only time I ever fainted was at the dentist's after a baby tooth was pulled, I'm not willing to find out if there will be a second time.)

Remember when?

2009-05-05T16:00:00.000-07:00

Chantel's lovely Penny inspired today's blog. Seems that the little one paused from her world domination plans to celebrate with her dolls. Fun Mom Chantel paused in her own right and helped Penny with the arrangements.

Those are the sweetest moments in a mom's world -- the ones where fun is fun. Period.

Days where Gavin and I could snuggle on the rocker are pretty much gone thanks to yet another growth spurt and the fact that he is now all elbows and knees. However, days where we can make up silly lyrics to all of those traditional childhood songs are just beginning. His sense of humor is still developing, but he's already showing promise.

Hey mom! Why did the cat sleep in the sink? 'Cause it wanted to!

We're getting there. The husband would tell you that Gav's jokes beat mine... but I simply remind him that he married me in spite of the three-hour-long brick-and-poodle joke, so he lacks room to talk.

I learned my lesson last spring about playing "spin until you fall down," but it hasn't stopped me from racing Gav up the steps when the mood strikes me. I still tackle and tickle, still hold my finger an inch from his ear and chant "I'm not touching you," and am now starting to punk him. He's gets me back, though, so don't worry about that.

One night, as we were getting ready to head to the store, I spritzed some perfume on. A few minutes later, Mr. Smarty-Pants innocently (ha!) announced that there was a skunk outside. Smart me fell for it.

"Really? Are you sure?"
"Yeah. It's wearing a pink sweater..."

Laugh all you want, readers. I sure am.

2009-04-30T00:00:00.000-07:00

So in the previous post I mentioned that Chaos still hurls himself to the floor when he doesn't want to do his homework. It's probably due in part to the fact that he doesn't like homework that he deems "preschool work."

Seriously. He thinks some of his homework is for babies. Especially the counting pages. He knows how to count, he tells me. Given his perfect papers, I trust him on that one.

Still make his do his homework though.

So what isn't "preschool work," you ask?

Well, um, medical terminology. You know, all those big words that doctors spout? Yeah. Those. Seems that Chaos comandeered my med term text (used for a writing gig, not for my own personal studies) about a year ago. Conversations now go something like this:

"See that, mom? That's a third-degree burn. That white stuff is the person's bone!"
"Uh-huh," I reply, trying to look like I'm looking at what I'd rather not look at.

"Ohhh... mom! Look at the skin graft!"
"Uh-huh. Sweetie, there's a reason your mom has sticky notes covering some pictures. Can you leave that there?"

"What's this say?"
"Pancreas. Do you know that that is?"
"What I pee from?"
"Um, not quite, honey..."

"How did the baby get inside the mommy's tummy?"
"Wow. Hey, look at the time, Gav! I think Spongebob's on!"

To date, he still loves the pics of burns and grafts, he now knows just what a pancreas is, and he still thinks babies grow in tummies because the mommy and daddy kiss.

(We're going to keep it that way for now, thank you.)

All Grown Up

2009-04-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

Every mom has that moment -- the one where she realizes her baby is no longer her baby, one to keep and cuddle all to her heart's content, but a distinct human being who's learning to navigate the world without her.

Mine came this past March with Gav's first trip to the eye doctor.

Gavin sat in the chair and confidently answered every questions the doctor asked. I was simply there to take up space. It was the first time a doctor didn't look to me for the answers, and the first time Gav didn't look to me for help. How odd it felt to not be needed. How odd to realize it, too. (I suppose you can say the moment was bittersweet, though I'm learning more towards sweet much more than bitter. How can I even begin to resent his independence when that has my goal since day one has been to raise an independent thinker?)

This Easter, just a few short weeks ago, while in church, I looked at all of the little girls in their Easter best and found myself longing for the days of new dresses, white straw hats, and pretty little purses with a fancy hankie tucked inside. None of that for this particular mom, though, whose little man was beside her in his Easter best: navy pants, button-down oxford, and clip-on necktie. His brand-new shoes, fresh out of the box that morning, were already scuffed thanks to a gravel parking lot and a little-boy urge to kick every single stone possible.

He chose that same outfit to wear to the funeral home just recently. "These are better clothes, mom," he announced with authority, placing them on the ironing board and negating my choice of khakis and a nice polo shirt.

We go out to eat after karate each Friday, and he orders his own meals. Most times he says please and thank you with little prompting. When we shop, he picks out his own clothes and thinks about what will match.

So he really is turning into a little man, but don't worry -- he's still Chaos. When he's not sending his mom into shock because he remembered his manners, he's busy tearing around the house pretending to be a dog, driving his Match Box cars up my walls, and trying to talk me into baking insanely complex cookies just before bedtime. He continues to fall off of the kitchen chair and fake sleep when we do homework.

Yeah, he's six. I could be all mushy and say "where did the time go" and get all teary-eyed, but that's really not me. I know where the time went and, being that every day is a new adventure, how can I waste time getting weepy? I'm having too much fun to spend time wishing he was a baby again.

Everything He Needs to Know...

2009-02-06T06:14:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of Facebook's "25 random things" and in the ancient Robert Fulgum wisdom of kindergarten, I offer you the wisdom of a boy and his reluctant cat.

10. Cats do not like pacifiers. Ever.

9. You cannot and should not make numbers lowercase by writing them backwards. All that does is make mom visit the teacher.

8. You can't get out of homework by throwing yourself on the kitchen floor and faking sleep.

7. Pruning Mommy's plants with safety scissors means a very early bedtime.

6. Fuzz the Cat will run at the first sign of a hair dryer.

5. Lunch ladies get upset when you and your friend hit each other with your lunch boxes.

4. Soft-sided lunch boxes are not to boxing gloves.

3. No one thinks that making (stuffed) "pets" fly down the steps is funny.

2. (Note to self: Don't make pets fly when someone is at the bottom of the steps.)

1. You won't get in trouble if you don't try to give Fuzz a bath.

Captain Chaos Strikes Again

2009-02-02T19:27:00.000-08:00

Chaos is moving into helpful mode as of late.

He likes to toss laundry into the washing machine. Likes to unload the dishwasher. Loves to run the vacuum. Loves. As part of this new mode, he has taken it upon himself to help care for Fuzz the Cat. It's a nice change from earlier this summer when he was chasing her with his Williamsburg, VA, authentic rifle. Being that Fuzz is going on 13, she likes this new version of Gavie much better. She like Gav 5.5 so much that she even lets him pet her on occassion -- without my having to hold her still. (Always a perk.)

Never a particularly bright cat, Fuzz is prone to eating and puking up my houseplants. The rubber tree is her favorite. Over the years, I've perfected the art of getting something -- such as newspaper -- under her before she actually spews.

Gavie has learned this art vicariously. The other day, I was upstairs trying to get ready for whatever event we were running late for, when I heard his small voice bellow: "Mom! Fuzz is making that puking meow again!"

"Just watch her for a moment, I'll be right down!"
"Okay!"

Thinking he'd simply corral her in the kitchen, which has a linoleum floor, I finished putting on my make-up before heading downstairs. Since he hadn't yelled since the original announcement, I started thinking that it might have been a false alarm. Those happen sometimes.

"Are you still keeping an eye on her?"
"Yes!"

Wouldn't it be a scream, I mused, if I went downstair to find that he covered the whole kitchen floor with newspaper? I smiled at the mental image and finished my make-up. I even went so far as to ponder how that might translate into a blog.

"The resourceful Captain, faced with the threat of Fuzz hurling, called upon all prior knowledge to defeat the evil tummy-upsetting plant that she'd ingested..." but I dismissed it in the end because, really, what were the odds that he would do that?

Um, well...
Pretty good, actually.

Knee-bees

2008-10-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

Gavin, as you know, spent 32 days in the neonatal intensive care unit. Thirty-two days of leaving the hospital with empty arms, comforted only by the knowledge that I at least had a son to someday take home.

Some days, though, I was able to carry home a quilt, made by some wonderful anonymous quilter who wanted to give some comfort to the moms and dads of those tiny babies. I have three, all of which were used liberally and are now packed away carefully. On those days, I felt less... adrift. I don't remember the first 32 days beyond traveling to the hospital, holding Gavie, coming home, going back to hold him some more.

Somehow the house was kept to a minimum of chaos and the cat was fed and the big guy and I functioned as normal humans, but I just don't remember how those things actually got accomplished. So adrift probably needs aimless in there, too.

I never met any of the women who made those wonderful quilts. I never will. But I got to meet one who does the same in her hometown, working with her fellow quilters to make not only quilts but also tiny funeral gowns.

Alice wasn't part of the rowdy four in the carriage, and I fear I lack a picture, but she and I met up in Indy as well and enjoyed an absolutely lovely time, having a late breakfast and then heading to the local museums, escorted through it all by her charming husband. Alice has edited my last three writing projects (God love her) and has put up with a good many of my quirks (again, God love her). She is the bee's knees, gang, not only because she's waded through what tallies to 800+ pages of my writing over the last six months but also (more importantly) because she's a quilter queen bee who gives NICU moms and dads something to hold on to when we can't hold our babies.

Sex and the City, the Next Generation

2008-09-06T14:09:00.001-07:00

Last fall I was invited -- INVITED! -- to attend a colloquium on economics, liberty, and freedom. What followed was an absolutely brain-exhausting trip to Indianapolis, IN, this past June. It was glorious.

The best part, even better than the intellectual over-stimulation and five-star hotel (complete with limo ride to and from the airport, thank you), was that I was finally able to meet Caron, Heidi, and Carol. These three women are amazing writers and astounding people. Despite never meeting face-to-face prior, I felt no compunction creating a scene in the hotel lobby with hugs and (in the case of Caron) hugging and jumping up and down.

I've been lucky enough to work with Caron and Heidi so far. Carol and I haven't teamed up yet, but if my writing keeps rolling... who knows?

Myself, Caron, Carol, and Heidi taking a buggy ride around Indy.

A Kickin' First Week...

2008-08-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

Gavie started kindergarten this week. He now possesses two very important pieces of information, guaranteed to help him through pretty much everything in life:

1) You can count to 100 by tens.
2) If you kick hard enough, you win.

Um, yeah. You read that second one right.

Four words: four-boy kicking match. They started it. He finished it. My tall, quiet son apparently has no tolerance for foolishness.

All I can say is thank God we haven't started karate lessons yet...

I Don't Know

2008-08-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

Don't ask me what I just did to myself, but I signed up for a three-year Doctor of Science program at Robert Morris University in Moon Township, PA.

After the thumping headache of terror passed Monday morning and we got into the meat of the program, I think I made the right decision. Aw, hell, no. I know I made the right decision.

Now, with seven days under the belt, eleven books to read, and a stack of handouts enough to fell a small forest, I'm counting the days until our next meeting... and hoping I can managed my time enough to get everything done before said meeting...

We are a group, I suspect, of quiet talents. We are understated when we speak of ourselves. Perhaps that is a paradox for a group of alphas, but perhaps not. We shall see, I suppose. There are twenty-two of us in Cohort 10. We are not particularly loud. Yet. We have not put holes in walls. Yet. We haven't gone around the mental bend, either. Yet.

Don't hold your breath on that last one.

We have now discovered several truths and we now live in anticipation of Fred's stories that seem to go with everything and wonder when (if?) we'll become a part of them, we now wonder if we're paying enough attention to the world and if Skovira has shirts that aren't blue, and we now live in horror of accidental plagiarism. (A dubious thank you to my profs for adding to my alpha-personality-induced neurosis.)

We have also discovered that this is a journey that we cannot take alone because, well, to paraphrase the wise philosopher Buffet: we don't know.

(First posted on the RMU Cohort 10 blog.)

Guest Post: Four Fingers Speaks

2008-08-06T07:11:00.000-07:00

After reading each posting in the past few days, from the sentimental to the irreverent, allow a rookie’s perspective…

Things I learned on my summer vacation:

The term “vacation” is used very broadly and is sadly misunderstood.
Weeks are counted as years.
Filters – mental, physical and verbal, are left at home for “The One True Week.”
Four fingers – I can’t remember, but it was a good night.
Polmounter is, in fact, a person -- and I feel personally responsible for her well being (rookie over-achiever though she be).
Golf is a lot more interesting than I would have imagined.
Much can be said with duck tape plastered on one’s face.
Plumbers can leverage ridiculous ads for profit.
RONA is not a person – but can be a nightmare for the ill-informed.
“Your worst nightmare” can be a teddy bear in disguise (thank you for your reassurance, Kevin).
Kids take their roles very seriously.
Vincent is wise and committed – or should be.
Sleep … um… I forget what that is so don’t count on it!
Nicknames are, usually, a compliment or accurate description.
Trial by fire is a mixed blessing and rookie is neither age nor gender specific.
Not taking oneself too seriously is a blessing – and necessity.
“Behind the scenes” means that the sunrise and sunset are possible!
Junk can be useful in its final hour.
The “real world” is disguised as a simulation.
Winning is not the prize it’s cracked up to be – it can be “the kiss of death” predictor of things to come.
For week III “The one true week,” one can be whomever they wish to be - and get away with it!

Thanks for the memories, the humor and the education and thanks for letting this “rookie” play.

“Stelle” a.k.a. Four Fingers

TOTW, explained... sorta

2008-08-02T21:02:00.001-07:00

Week III is known for its tendency towards volume, for its creative use of the English language, and for its absolute lack of comportment that makes lesser "weaks" cringe. We are as cohesive as any other "weak," but we have a longevity that surpasses.

We call ourselves "Week III, The One True Week."

We gather every night in the hospitality suite and drink a little and laugh a lot. On Friday night, some of us went to the Cell Block, as dance club two blocks away from the hotel. We danced a bit and drank a few. I officially doubled the number of shots that I've drank in my life. I'm up to four. Total.

Before leaving, two of us opted to have a slice of pizza and to watch the crowd from the third floor. (Let me tell you, after watching the hook-ups, the gyrations, and the preening, I was once again reminded of how glad I was not to be in the chaos of single-hood.)

We ate our pizza (which was rather good) and spent our time analyzing the dancing going on below.. and giving a running commentary of mating habits of the various human beings.

Todd and I were also wondering if we could run fast enough should he drop the "necklace" of neon glow-stix (made from the stix that were in the shots the lot of us downed) on some hapless soul below. It was pretty likely that a game of ring toss would not be appreciated.

It was a good end to a great week.

The e-mails are already flying from computer to computer as we rehash and remember the PFEW 2008's One True Week. We talk about how we really do have trouble articulating it. For that, I offer this public reply...

Dear Fellow Week III'ers:

Actually, gang, we CAN put it all into words... the problem is that it always sounds like a week of debauchery, creative profanity, and behavior which is so far from proper comportment that the Holiday Inn keeps moving us father and father away from the other paying guests.

And yet we keep coming back (and they keep LETTING us come back) for more... must have been the kool-aid.

I can't stop smiling down here. Even as I was greeted by seventeen binders on my desk, a stack of evaluations, and 30 term papers, I couldn't stop smiling. When I was told that I looked happy and relaxed, I said thank you. When asked where I was for the last week, I said econ camp. Man, does that end a conversation quickly! Gets you funny looks, too.

Econ camp and relaxing are not words that one would put together in the same sentence. Somehow, though, we manage it. To that end, we rock. No wonder we're the One True Week.

The One True Week

2008-08-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

Well, readers, just spent the last week at Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week. For the last few years, I've been trying to find just the right words to explain just why I give up a week of my life to go volunteer at what is essentially econ camp. If I stop to think about the vacation days, the drive, the money, and the time spent, I can't quite figure it out myself.

But that's logic speaking, and -- frankly -- logic doesn't seem to get me very far sometimes. Particularly when it comes to this week.

I could tell you about the friendships and how these men and women are some of the most amazing people that I've ever met, but it all sounds hollow because it doesn't do any of them justice.

I could tell you about the kids I had this year: seventeen teens that, just seven days ago, I never heard of let alone met. Those seventeen young adults are the best of the best in this state. They are the ones who don't need adults to guide them, not much anyway. These are the ones who just need the examples set and the occasional kick in the right direction. They'll go to college, they'll be successful. What they don't "get" now, more than likely will be "gotten" later as real life kicks in even further. But that sounds too teacher-ish, and "teacher" is certainly not what I'm aiming for.

I could even mention how this week centers me, grounds me, and reminds me of why I'm here. I could talk about how healing it was to return in '06 after I buried Dad. Somewhere, too, I could slip in mention of how Junior Achievement changed my life and that this is how I return the favor. But how might I do that without sounding maudlin or cliched?

Time after time, it's not enough.

You see, it's not about what is done. It's what is experienced. It's about being with people who are exactly what they are, no pretense.

On Wednesday night, we honored those volunteers, a.k.a. company advisers, who had reached their ten- and fifteen-year marks. I sat there and watched the crowd, taking in the old faces as well as the new. As always, I marvelled at everything that this week does for us, perhaps what it does to us.

It's the group, in truth. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but PFEW Week III by any other name simply isn't the same.

So this time, rather than try to sum it all up in quasi-brilliant prose, I'm going for truth: I have, I believe, grown up immeasurably since I first drove to Williamsport, PA, as a twenty-five-year-old first-year teacher fresh from the trenches of a public high school. At dinner this past Wednesday, Witmer joked that the Week III Company Advisers have watched me grow up emotionally. It gained a chuckle from the group and conversation moved on, but he was rather accurate. I think so anyway. For certain, readers, the nervous little girl I was a decade ago is no longer anywhere to be seen.

It was a remark that gave me pause, and I've been mulling it over ever since and turning it about in my head alongside the question of just why I am so illogical when it comes to PFEW Week III.

Then, finally, the so-called illogical reason that I come to PFEW finally hit me: I go to PFEW because I leave PFEW wanting to be a better person. I like the woman I am when I'm there.

It's something that I affectionately blame every single one of my fellow Week III'ers for that.

Did you hear the one about the missed deadline? (Part II)

2008-07-13T18:46:00.000-07:00

Okay, Caron, this Part II is so your fault.

And, for that, you are my hero.

So you all know from the previous post that I was promoted to Senior Lead Teacher at my current workplace. With a few months under my belt, I can safely say that I have a clue and am glad I made the jump when I did.

What you don't know is that Caron, a friend of mine from a long-ago writing job for Pittsburgh-based EDMC, is quite busy with her writing and found one job too many on her plate this past May. Enter moi. The end result is that I found myself writing an on-line course on medical terminology for a publishing company.

Well, that's not really the end, as I'm writing a second course for them now and -- if the gods are kind -- more in the future. It's actually rather enjoyable since I have this rabid need to learn everything.

Oh, yeah.... one more thing... Robert Morris University and I have joined forces. I'm in the August 2008 cohort for the Doctor of Science program in (hold onto your hats) Information Technology and Communication Systems.

Maybe I should be the one holding onto my hat. I just signed away three years of my life for that piece of paper!

As for Killing Julie, I found a new-and-improved ending and am (finally) writing that query letter.

For those wondering about my little Captain Chaos, rest assured: he's out and about and creating an amazing amount of chaos -- particularly with his new Colonial Williamsburg toy rifle. He keeps chasing the cat. (I'll leave the rest to your imagination.)

Tiny Kickers and tiny kickers

2008-06-10T15:54:00.000-07:00

I don't do rain. I don't do soggy fields. I don't do mud.

Not if I can help it, at least.

At 9:30 one Saturday morning this past May, I was delightedly watching the rain come down. "Looks like it isn't going to let up," I remarked (rather hopefully) to the big guy. "They might cancel soccer today."

"Only if there's thunder and lightening," came the reply.

I returned to the window and listened with all my heart for thunder. None came. Gavie joined me at the window.

"Raining, mom. Maybe they'll cancel soccer." He sounded as hopeful as I felt. Soccer was a great idea before he found out that there were rules involved and -- worse -- that you had to follow them.

No such luck for either of us. We were at the field, and he was sopping wet just 30 minutes later.

(Gavie doesn't do rain any more than his mother, just for the record.)

The final Saturday was worse -- yet heartening. 'Twas as soggy as could be and there we were: all three of us on a field with eight thousand other parents and Tiny Kickers, all ready to play in the mini-tournament.

Poor Gav. He's cursed with my genes when it comes to soccer. Three twenty-minutes games are very, very long. Especially when he's on a team with a bunch of really motivated teammates. Gav would rather find worms than practice. He just wasn't into the game of "clean your room," which was a euphemism for "keep the ball away from the goal." Practicing control by playing "sharks" wasn't much more interesting. Though he did like playing "kick the coach."

(No, it wasn't personal. I just like the irony of the name and Gav's lack of interest in the overall game. This practice was a free-for-all where the kids could kick the ball towards the coaches. Not at. Just towards.)

The heartening part of the last Saturday was seeing that my kid wasn't the only non-soccer fiend in the organization. While Gavie did get into the game for three nano-seconds and chased the ball in the right direction, he preferred the idea of gathering tadpoles in the giant puddles created by the park's watershed. Guess what? My kid wasn't the only Tiny Kicker distracted by the tadpoles. A good dozen or so from the teams immediately next to the puddles found these other tiny kickers much more interesting than a silly soccer ball.

At least I can take heart that he didn't abandon his goalie position for the sake of baby froggies.

As for me, the non-Soccer Mom, well.... I'm just a total let-down to this stereotype (yeah, like most of you didn't see that one coming). For starters, I don't own a minivan. Peg me a loser and give me the raspberries on this one, gang. I have to side with Gavie in this one: tadpoles are way cooler than soccer.

We'r going to try basketball this fall.

Did you hear the one about the missed deadline? (Part I)

2008-05-25T18:55:00.001-07:00

Well readers... it's time to confess.
I'm not making the May 30th deadline.

I've two reasons, one is below.

The second is Caron's wonderful fault and has everything to do with writing... well, writing everything but Killing Julie. (But that's Part II to this entry and coming later this week when I have a moment to breathe.)
________________________________________________

INTEROFFICE CORRESPONDENCE

Date: May 16, 2008

To: Western School of Health and Business Careers, Monroeville

From: Thomas Contrella

Subject: Organizational Announcement

I am pleased to announce that effective today Michelle Louch has been promoted to the position of Senior Instructor of our Monroeville Campus. Reporting to Mr. Butler, Michelle will be an integral part of the education team at our School. Two of the most important focus areas for Michelle will be that of Student Services and Academic/Faculty Development.

Michelle brings over 12 years of educational experience to this position. In addition to her work at Western, she is an adjunct instructor at Seton Hill University and a freelance writer.

Michelle is currently in process of selecting a Doctoral program at a local university. She earned her Masters of Science in Leadership and Business Ethics from Duquesne University, and a Bachelors of Art in History with secondary education certification from Seton Hill University.

Please join me in congratulating Michelle and supporting her in her new role.

Thank you,
Tom

Update

2008-04-16T12:47:00.000-07:00

Today, I finished the revisions. Today, I closed Killing Julie -- again. True, it was finished a month ago, but today I finished smoothing out the lumps and bumps. Today I finished cleaning up the small details, such as consistency and clarity.

The query letter is drafted, I 'm working on formatting details, and my readers are promising feedback by the end of the month. All that's left, then, is to edit in my own proofreading as well as their suggestions.

Whew.

New deadline: May 30.
New goal: boxed and ready to send to potential agents.

Wish me luck!

The Last Lecture

2008-04-09T13:34:00.000-07:00

"We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
--Randy Pausch

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to give a "last lecture," he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave — “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” — wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have... and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

-- from the Hyperion website for The Last Lecture.

Click here to read about The Last Lecture.

Dr. Pausch will be on ABC tonight, talking to Diane Sawyer about it all.

Happy Birthday, Gavie

2008-03-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Was it really five years ago that I went shopping and bought the wrong groceries? Went to the ice cream store and ordered a sugar cone, which I never have and never will like? Went home and remarked on how the cat was acting weirder then usual around me?

Was apparently going into labor and didn't even realize it?

Was it really five years ago that I woke up at 1 a.m. and said to the big guy that my back hurt? I remember laying in bed, looking at the clock, trying to figure out if I should worry about the strange, minor pains that were coming with odd irregularity: one minute, five minutes, three minutes, ten minutes...

If it hadn't been for the small dot of blood on the bed sheet, I might have rolled over and tried to go to sleep.

After all, I was only seven months pregnant!

But the small dot was enough for the big guy to put his foot down and drive me to Magee at 1:30 in the morning.

My water broke just fifteen minutes after our arrival. Gavin was born at 4:59 a.m.

One wonderful squall came from my son before his lungs collapsed, but I knew nothing save for the fact that he was alive and had screamed as babies are supposed to and that the doctors had him on the crash cart and were taking care of everything. My husband and mother were there and neither gave any indication that something might be wrong.

It might have been five minutes later or forty, I've no idea, but when he was stable again I got to hold him -- forever, my memory will be of the fact that the first thought into my mind was that he was wrapped up like a little bowling pin. I could only hold him for a moment and it wasn't enough, but at four pounds and only seven months a moment is dear.

Just this week I read, again, that premature babies face a larger number of health risks, developmental issues, learning delays, etc. etc.

Someone, very fortunately, forgot to tell my son about the article.

Just yesterday, for example, Captain Chaos climbed the hill in our backyard and began throwing rocks down it to... well, I'm not sure why really. Maybe he was testing the theory of gravity. Then, because he thought it would be interesting, he tried to pulverize a deer bone (found in our backyard, our property abuts state land) with an ancient gardening spade. After that, the rocks he tossed down the hill were moved to his new pile of dirt that is half-on and half-off of our stone patio: seven pots of dirt that once held vibrant annuals were sacrificed to make a nice pile for his Tonka trucks.

"Look how strong I am, Mommy," he called, lifting the rocks and moving them to his miniature construction site. "Look!"

Ferocious mother-love welled up, and it took all of my strength not to turn into a mess of tears right then and there. He has no idea how strong he is -- nor does he know how his simply being mine gives me strength to fight for what I need.

Loose ends

2008-03-19T11:21:00.000-07:00

I feel rather at odds, readers. With Killing Julie finished and in the hands of others, I wonder now what to do (intellectually).

The truth is that I always feel this way when I wrap up a project. Doesn't matter if it's my own novel or state exam questions for a high school competency test. It's all about the work and the high that comes from the act of creation.

So what now?

Return to writing Tigers, I assume. Begin to scrapbook again, perhaps. It's time to think about cleaning out the basement and setting up the workspace that my sister-in-law and I keep dreaming about -- space for my stamps and space for her clay. We can get ready for next Christmas and the craft shows we'd like to take part in.

I could work on ChickLit, which is Selina's story. I'm not quite interested in her anger/angst at the moment, though. Also, the more I think about it, the more I want a feminist bend to things -- and that demands a few refresher readings on woman and wolves. (Remember, I did go to Seton Hill when it was 96% female!)

A third tale is bouncing around in my brain, untitled but fully plotted: a small town and a few celebrated murders, a girl's coming of age, and a minister who fancies himself a successor to Father Karras (The Exorcist) and is quite -- shall we say? -- hellbent on proving it to his followers.

A fourth is beginning to take shape a well. A simple love story, one that is 180-degrees from everything I've ever written. No murders, no aliens (yes, I used to write sci-fi!), no mysteries beyond when the first kiss will take place. This is the murkiest idea right now -- which is ironic given my addiction to romance novels! I suppose the whole problem is what would make it different. Two leads who fall in love isn't the most exciting plot, you know.

Ah well, we shall see!

In the meanwhile, I guess I'll just turn up the iPod, open up my collection of Yeats, and go to the Lake Isle of Innisfree for a bit...

Frozen veggies, family, and a deadline met

2008-03-15T17:24:00.000-07:00

The nice thing about being with relatives is that you can spend their visit with a bag of frozen peas on the small of your back and not feel like some weirdo.

Earlier this week, in a fit of youthful exuberance, Gavie and I played "spin until you fall down." The game is played by picking up my son and spinning in circles until I'm about to fall down. Then we stop and let the world catch back up.

However, I'm not four. I'm not even twenty-four. I'm thirty-four. My body is thirty-four. My muscles are thirty-four. And, for the past few days, I've been reminded of that... rather painfully.

Thus, the bag of peas on the back. Actually, to be perfectly honest, there's a cloth bag of frozen buckwheat draped around my neck.

(Someday the muscle spasms will end... or so promises my chiropractor, who I saw yesterday and who I will see again come Monday.)

My back put a huge crimp in the weekend plans. We were to have neighbors and some family this eve, but as my back locked back up this morning, I had to call it quits. But family is family, and despite my cancellations, I soon found relatives in my living room. They weren't worried about my back or my being on the couch not wanting to move, they just slapped a fresh bag of frozen something on me and put a beer in my hand. They were going to celebrate regardless.

So why the gathering? My deadline has been met, readers.

I've finished my book.

So continues the novel adventure...

2008-03-08T06:38:00.000-08:00

First, the update: 380 pages, 76,845 words, and a dead antagonist. Life is good. I might just make that March 29th deadline!

Second, the spin-off: There's a new link to your left, w(or)d(p)(lay). Rory's best friend Selina Deitson came into being a bit over two years ago in a different blog. Recently, for those who don't know already, I took the entire blog down -- all 205 posts -- and redid the entire tale. Sorta. I'm using the 205 blogs, but I'm re-arranging them. I want to see what happens. True, there is some editing to make a few things make better sense re-ordered, but the bulk remains the same... that being that Selina is a bit too-free of a spirit, is awash in excessive self-doubt, and is tired of being a stewardess to the world. She is the angry everywoman who doesn't know what to do with her anger. (Be warned: there's a few Killing Julie spoilers in there, and it isn't exactly the sort of bedtime story you'd read to your kids.)

Third, the red herring: If you click on A Novel Adventure, there remains one post only. The current version looks nothing like it, particularly since Elizabeth no longer exists.

Lastly, the request: To those of you who have ventured into the publishing world, to those of you know know someone who has, etc. etc., I am looking for referrals for agents. If you have a name or any advice for me, please drop me an e-mail.

I am eternally in debt to you all for your support, patience, help, and continued readership! Thank you!

Getting it right

2008-03-06T11:53:00.001-08:00

Last night I slipped in late and left early; I sat in the back and sought attention from no one. Only a few knew I was there, and that was enough for me.

And in the car, heading home, I cried. Just a little, but cried nonetheless.

All that work, all those uphill battles, and all those days where I swore that I was insane to bother... worth it. Completely worth it.

I sat in the back of Soldiers and Sailors in Oakland and listened to Gloria give her graduation speech. I looked at the sea of caps and gowns and knew the battles nearly of of those students had endured. The program listed the names of those who made it through, who overcame issues that lesser men and women would have fallen before.

It's easy to disparage those who come from urban backgrounds, from the welfare rolls, and from cushy little suburban homes where the paved road was soft. It's easy to snort in contempt at the single mother who's pregnant -- again. It's tempting, too, to tell some students to pull their heads out of their posteriors and get a clue.

It's not easy to remember that they only know the lives they have. Some of them have always been single parents, they've always had someone telling them to give up when the road is bumpy, and they know nothing about a world where you don't have to sleep in the bathtub on nights when the gangs are particularly active.

The ones who live such lives, who work hard, and who graduate into careers and into their futures have nothing but my deepest regard. They are amazing people.

Gloria's speech was simple. Two sentences stick with me the most, and they are ones I need to keep remembering:

If it's not good, make it good.
If it's not right, get it right.

Last night, sitting there, I realized that I had managed to "get it right" maybe just a bit more then I thought... and that I need to make a few more things in life "good" before I can count myself as the person I want to be.

And so I slipped out of the hall early, condemned to leave due to other's schedules. But it was better to slip out then fall apart in public, which I was perilously close to doing.

You see, readers, I was mentioned in her speech. Despite my no longer being a teacher there, despite my not having had her in class for what seems eons... I can only shake my head in wonder at it all.

Thank you, Gloria, and all of my students over the years, for giving me that chance to get it right and to make it good.

Too bad I don't live in North Carolina...

2008-02-19T10:56:00.000-08:00

I'm stealing 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame via friend Mike Munger who now has the required 100,000+ signatures to get him on the ballot for NC governor... and I'm promoting his campaign, of course. :)

I like his take on education and corporate welfare myself.

Click here for the article on Mike.
Click here for the News 13 interview.
Click here to learn about Locks of Love and Mike's own locks.

Ahhh... February

2008-02-12T04:35:00.000-08:00

Nothing better then waking up to several inches of snow and a myriad of school closures... assuming that you're under 18 and condemned to the student side of academia. For those of us in the "over" category, we are condemned to scraping our cars off at 6 a.m. and navigating streets that may or may not have been visited by the beloved Salt Truck or his brother the Snow Plow.

This morning I am proud to say that I am just about able to drive in questionable conditions without wishing for a stiff drink before and after. I hate, and I mean that in the fullest sense of the word, driving in the winter.

I hate it to the point of contemplating calling off and using a precious sick day. Hate it to the point of pondering a career change. Hate. Loathe. Abhor. You get the idea.

No doubt it has something to do with two ice-induced accidents that haunt my memories.

Ever see the opening of Death of a Salesman? A black screen and two headlights. That is the image engraved on my brain from Accident the First. There I was, driving home from a bountiful day of shopping and preparation for my upcoming Christmas open house when the wheels of my Ford Explorer hit a patch of black ice. Evil stuff that ice, as many of you no doubt know.

Being that I'd just hit my gas pedal as I hit the ice, control was not an option, and it was all I could to not to go over the hill to the right of the road. I remember looking up into the black night and seeing those two headlights before I hit the other driver head-on. Somehow I walked away from the accident, as did the other driver.

My phobia didn't kick in then, believe it or not. It took another year for that. It took a winter storm and another patch of ice, actually.

It was quite simple this time around: the car before me went into a skid, I reacted but it was too late, and went straight rather then made the bend.

This time my beloved Ford Explorer, which somehow survived the previous accident, went up against a cement barrier. Chantel and I both knew what was coming; we both screamed like the girls we are as the truck slid right into the wall. We both walked away, though this time I took a nasty case of whiplash with me, but the truck... alas.

Enter phobia.

So ponder the miracle as I drove to work today and didn't find my stomach churning in terror. It was pretty cool if you ask me. :)

Just a few things you might not know...

2008-02-01T06:42:00.000-08:00

In the spirit of a meme, I present a forward I recevied today (thanks goes to Chuck)... rather then send a mass e-mail out to EVERYONE, I'm taking this route.

Four Things You (probably) Don't Know About Me
Four things about me that you may or may not have known in any particular order.

Four jobs I have had in my life

American Greetings "card chick" (stocking cards in drug stores)
movie theater ticket seller and popcorn vendor
drugstore clerk
gopher at a doctor's office

Four Places I have lived:

Brentwood
Greensburg
Brentwood
Irwin

Four T.V. Shows that I watch:

Law & Order: SVU
Bunnytown (Disney Channel)
Drake & Josh (Nick)
Spongebob (Nick)

(I have a kid, what can I say?!)

Four places I have been:

Nova Scotia
Calgury
Louisville, KY
Williamsburg, VA

Four favorite foods:

pizza
chix parm
wings
raisins and spice oatmeal

Four Places I would like to visit:

wherever Caron is living at the time!
Rome, Italy
Paris, France -- to live the life of an expat for a few months
Auburn, AL

Four things I am looking forward to in the coming year:

finishing my novel and finding an agent
going to the Liberty Fund economics colloquium
working in my yard and growing roses
Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week

All Chaos, All the Time

2008-01-30T09:58:00.001-08:00

In twenty-four hours.... just one day... two-four hours.... actually, not even... more like two hours...

My kid is either incredibly precocious and darling or headed for a life of cleaning crime. Damned if I know. Who else has a four-year-old who wakes up and stacks the dishwasher, cleans the bathroom, and prunes mommy's plants?

Wouldn't you just love to know what goes on in their little minds?

Okay, the dishwasher is already stacked and running since Mommy started it before going to work, but there are still few things in the sink! Oh no! She forgot them! No problem. Open it up, stand back to avoid the steam, and stick the mugs that are still in the sink in the bottom rack. Plastic bowls go on the top, just like she stacks them. Tah-dah!

Granted, the bathroom doesn't really need cleaning... but going over everything with a sopping wet towel can't hurt. Can't it? Look, everything is shiny and glossy again.

And that rubber tree keeps getting bigger and bigger and snagging me every time I walk by! Time to call upon prior knowledge here! When tomato plants get too big and bushy at Guggie's, we prune them. But what to do about the shears? Hmmmm.... here we go! Safety scissors! Opps, I cut too much off. No problem! I'll just stick that extra branch in the dirt. It looks like a whole new tree. Who can tell?

Hey, look, the sun's coming up! Time to wake Daddy up (daylight's a-wastin'!) and show him the everything I did today! He'll be soooooo proud of me!

How in the world do you punish a child who is trying to help?! You can't, really. You lay down the law on what "help" is... and try to keep your expression stern. Save the laughter for when he's out of earshot. It ruins the whole effect otherwise, you know....

Keep on Counting

2008-01-22T07:18:00.001-08:00

I found a new counter, www.Statcounter.com seems to answer my tracking needs nicely. I like the detail it provides on visitors, return visits, length of visits, etc. Much more detailed. :)

Suggestions welcome

2008-01-20T19:56:00.000-08:00

After running a scan on my computer, I found a tracking cookie that had been installed by my site meter. I removed the meter from both this and Ferocious Tigers, but would like to put a new one in. Preferably one that doesn't install secret code.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Not-so-blah

2008-01-08T04:18:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday and I'm at work, waiting for the day to begin. I'm nearly always the first one here, even though there's no real reason for that. It's ten years of habit, ten years of waking at five every morning for a commute that no longer exists.

I've become a morning person. What can I say?

(Okay, to still the semi-hysterical laughter of those who know me too well, I'm not a social morning person.)

Anyway, I've my iPod plugged in and my laptop connected. My teaching-related work is pretty well caught-up, and I'm giving myself a little bit of downtime in the intellectual realm.

Seton Hill started this past weekend. One Saturday and one on-line class. Both Western Cultural Traditions I, both quite the challenge -- there's few things better in my career then interested students. It looks like I'll have to really stay on my toes this term... a prospect which has me quite thrilled, thank you.

Along the lines of intellectual, I just received in invitation to participate in a colloquium sponsored by the Liberty Fund. The Foundations of a Free Society "will examine the political economic foundations of a free society... explor[ing] the Anglo-American and French Enlightenment philosophical foundations of classical liberalism; the resulting adoption of common law in England and civil law in Western Europe; and the institutionalization of classical liberalism and French Enlightenment, via common law and civil code..."

Etc. Etc.
You know, basic dinner table discussion topics.

I have about 300 pages of readings from long-dead and not-yet-dead economists to conquer before June. Happy Birthday to me, readers! I'm going to turn 35 in Indianapolis, IN, a state I haven't been in for a good sixteen years -- since I was a Junior Achievement achiever attending the International Student Forum in Bloomington, IN, with roughly 2,000 of my closest friends from all over the world.

*laughing* You know, I must sound like the world's biggest nerd. Ah well, c'est la vie!

On days like today, how can anyone be remotely blah? The sun was shining yesterday, and today's scheduled to hit the 50s. I'm coming to the end of my first term at my new school, and it looks like they might keep me. Best yet, my cold broke and I can breathe again. :)

Blah

2008-01-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Tis a soggy, rainy, blah type of day outside. Inside is no better, not when you're floored with the Headcold from Hell. How floored? For the first time in who knows how long, I laid on the couch all morning and didn't move unless absolutely necessary.

Chaos turned on his CD player and listened to his kid-friendly music. He danced around the family room in his Power Ranger pjs wielding a plastic light saber. I laid there and wondered how many times a four-year-old could listen to Pots and Pans before getting tired of it. The answer has yet to be determined, but we're up to fifteen.

He played with his new cash register and stuffed his socks with the plastic coins. When he walked, they clicked together. That lasted until one coin worked its way to the bottom of his sock and "hurted" him. I laid there and offered sympathy in between my own sniffles.

He had a picnic in the living room with his plastic food, played with his clay, and drove his Matchbox trucks all over the first floor... then down the basement steps. I laid there listening to the clink clank clunk and made a mental note to clean them up before anyone broke his neck on them going downstairs to the basement. Later.

Then Handy Manny came on, followed by Bunnytown, and I pulled myself into a sitting position. Chaos snuggled up next to me while we ate the last of the Christmas cookies and drank hot tea. (Remind me to get sick more often, okay?)

Happy 2008

2007-12-31T08:07:00.001-08:00

Let's see what happens this year....

Time for a few new resolutions, readers. Please feel free to spend the next 12 months weighing in and kicking my butt if I falter at all.

Finish Killing Julie by March 29. I'm at 186 pages now and about 59,000 words. The two leads have fallen in love, the antagonist is about to go off the deep end, and Julie remains dead.
Get rolling on finding that "right" doctorate program... again!
Exercise. Not just think about it but actually do it.
Continue to eat more vegetables and drink good wine.
Experiment in the kitchen and move beyond the usual tried-and-true dishes.
Learn how to download the pics from our digital camera and... better yet, print them out!
Keep writing! I have two more novels in my brain now, one which is currently nameless and the other tentatively dubbed Courting Selina.
Go dancing again. And again. And again!

Hmmm.... not much this time around. I have other minor plans: grow my hair long again, finish cleaning out the basement, continue scrapbooking, and figure out how to play Second Life.

It looks like the year will be busy enough, really!

See "yunz" all soon!

Two and counting

2007-12-23T16:58:00.001-08:00

Chaos and I re-decorated his little tree today so that Santa could leave presents under it tomorrow night. Gavie's into minimalism this year: no ornaments, no garland, just lights. All ornaments that are put on his tree by others are removed by him within minutes. Since he's out with the big guy tonight, the tree has remained decorated for the last three hours.

We are now officially ready for Christmas.

Just in time, for tomorrow is December 24. The Day My Dad Died. Days like that deserve all caps, you know.

At the risk of sending some into conniptions, I'm going to stand by my original belief that his passing was a wonderful Christmas gift. He was done suffering, done "living" in that comatose state, done having morphine rubbed into his skin because he could no longer take it orally. A wonderful gift to see him at peace. A horrible gift to have that legacy on Christmas Eve, if I may be so selfish.

For the last month, since a bit before Thanksgiving actually, I've been bouncing between my usual child-like wide-eyed absolute love of the holidays and Scrooge-like hatred of all things merry. I said several times that Christmas couldn't come and go fast enough, dammit.

But now that it's just about here, I'm glad that my misery was ignored by the heavens.

The eight-foot-wonder is up and has remained decorated all month. Captain Chaos's own small tree is still standing. As of last night, all of the presents are wrapped. Cookies were made in a marathon bake-off yesterday; and my handmade Christmas cards, featuring Chaos himself, went out on time. I even managed to string lights on the front porch's swag this year.

All that remains, really, are for the stocking to be hung by the chimney with care tomorrow night.

Gavie's at that perfect age where everything is real, and I love it. How can I be remotely miserable when he's so excited about Santa coming? Yesterday, when Santa rode around the neighborhood on a firetruck and handed out stockings full of candy, Gavie was in heaven, and so was Mommy. His conviction that it really was Santa on that truck was what I needed today.

It will be a good Christmas.

Unsaid.

2007-12-14T15:25:00.000-08:00

When you write, you weight the words you use, as well as those your characters use. You possess the ability to create and destroy at will. You can build worlds or annihilate them. Share secrets or keep them.

Those letters on a page wield a frightening amount of power.

In history this term, we talked about the way that movable type and that the print press allowed ideas to spread with almost unchecked freedom. Now, the computer replicates that power. With the click of a mouse, this blog goes to scores of folk -- giving them the choice to read or delete at will.

But what do we say. Or not say?

The old cliche of least said, soonest mended comes to mind.

Goes against the computer age, doesn't it? This is, after all, the era of blogs like mine. Some better, some worse, but all of them published with an agenda on the writer's part. We say it all. We blurt it out. We engage is verbal exhibitionism. (Some of us, anyway.)

But what about the words we choose to speak? The ones we choose to withhold?

I think about my father often, especially as the second anniversary of his death. I think about what we never said. He was a quiet man, and -- despite my friends who will say otherwise -- I am a reserved woman. I play it close to the vest, to use another cliche.

Somewhere in my brain is the idea that losing a loved one means that I should change my behavior. Does that mean I should talk more? Share my feelings more? I'd rather not, thank you.

What my father and I never spoke of was death. We never found it necessary to examine our views on what that moment would be like for him, nor did we think it imperative to discuss what came after. What was the point? Neither of us saw one, so we opted for silence.

It was comfortable, that quiet. Lovely, actually.

Two years later, I'm about the same in that respect. If I have nothing to say, I say nothing. If I have something to say, I'm able to choose between speech and silence.

Not everything that I want to say has been said yet. Perhaps that's why I write, to get the words out of my head and make room for more. The older I get, the more words I find and the richer the thoughts and the more varied their contexts. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

With age comes wisdom. (Forgive my use of cliches, I find them ironically amusing for this blog's entry -- being that I'm talking about words themselves and the power behind them.)

So I'll say what I must and keep the rest for later. That way, when I say it, I mean it.

Easy

2007-12-09T05:49:00.001-08:00

Last night about 1 a.m., the big guy woke me up, asking what we needed to do. Our little one was in his room having a coughing fit that, if I wasn't used to his annual bout with croup, would have terrified me. A gagging, choking, miserable cough due to a sinus infection from hell is nothing in comparison to that awful barking cough we get to hear each January or February.

So I held Gavie as he cried, rubbed his back, and soothed him, while my husband set up the water vaporizer and plugged in the greatest invention of all: the Vicks Plug-In. Insert one vapor strip and fill the room with the thick scent of Vicks Vapor Rub. The cat loves it.

"Mommy, I want to sleep in your bed," he whimpered when I said I'd stay with him until he fell back to sleep. Who can argue with that? Not me. We moved operations into my room, and for the next seven hours I laid there half-asleep listening to Chaos alternate between sleeping quietly, snoring, and coughing.

And here I am now, in my kitchen, enjoying the silence while my two boys sleep upstairs.

And here I am now, thinking about how easy last night was. All I had to do was hold my baby boy and just be there. My back hurts from having a lanky four-year-old crowd me in bed, and I'm exhausted from hardly sleeping. I'm probably going to be a bit of a grouch today from the two. Gavie's going to be a bear himself; he always is when he's sick.

But someday, I know, he's going to come home crying because the girl he has a crush on crushed him. Someday he'll tell me that I can't do anything to help because I don't understand. Someday he's going to be too big for me to cuddle and soothe quite so easily.

Thus today we'll make some cookies from pre-made dough and drink some cocoa and watch a few Christmas specials on DVD. We'll enjoy being miserable because this is easy misery. Really. I can always take a nap later. I can get someone to crack my back into place. I can't turn back time, though.

Nearing the Finish Line

2007-12-07T18:42:00.001-08:00

Some days things just plain go right. Some days are so good that, despite the chaos that probably should make you a raving lunatic, you can't stop smiling and even what goes wrong seems right. I love days like this.

The Christmas decorations are still only 3/4 finished over here. I still have three big Martha Stewart-esque swags left to hang in the house. Tried to start tonight, but after the first one came crashing down thanks to the removable hook removing itself, I decided that tomorrow was just as good a day to decorate as today.

This evening, Captain Chaos was banned from touching the Christmas tree until he's ten after three (thankfully cheap) resin bears ended up in the garbage after "jumping" off of the top of a two-foot gingerbread house that no longer lights up because of the stuff he jammed through the windows when we weren't looking.

Actually, it wasn't until I found three breakable Keepsake ornaments in Chaos's toy box that the ban went into effect. (For the record, two of the ornaments suffered nary a scratch, but Bugs Bunny will require Super Glue surgery once I find his eas.)

Three of the four CD mixes that I burned the other day are duds, as I discovered this morning on the drive to work. For whatever reason, they just won't play. That was just plain irritating. After all, if I have to drive to work in snow -- surrounded by people who forget how to drive the moment the skies turn white -- at least I could have some music to soothe my nerves.

I scorched the rice while making dinner. Plum forgot about it for just five minutes too long. I think it'll be easier to buy a new pot then scrape out the old one.

Frankly, I'm okay with all of it.

You see, readers, nothing can faze me right now, not even the fact that I shrunk my favorite cotton sweater in the dryer, for the writing gods and my inspirational little muses have been kind to me this week, particularly today as -- on the ride home -- I finally got the final scene for my two leads figured out (they didn't make it easy, they're both rather hard-headed).

I have my entire novel fleshed out at last. The outline is no longer a skeleton. All I need now is the time to get what's scribbled on reams of paper onto the electronic page.

Thus I offer a glass of wine to the deities, perhaps I'll pour a bit onto the ground for them as I've been told that the ancient Greeks once did.

A toast, good readers, to the gods who give me reason to smile!

Even as I'm disentangling myself from the *&$%# swag that landed on my head...

44,373 words

2007-11-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

In just a few days, Nanowrimo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) will wrap up for another eleven months. For the last 30 days, as part of a worldwide writing "contest," I've been pounding out the novel that's been in my head for too long.

Third time is a charm, readers... I'm just a few thousand away from the 50,000 word challenge laid down by the Nanowrimo writing gods.

My novel Killing Julie is taking off. (finally!!!) I know who's alive, who's dead, and who's guilty. I know what direction each character needs to take and how to get there.

If you want a teaser, check out http://www.mkilouch.easyjournal.com/ while you can. It's the earliest version of the story that exists; and while things have changed a good bit since I started on-line, it's safe to say that the general storyline is still intact. I'm going to take the site down within the month, though, so read it while you can.

I'm going to start seeking an agent as soon as I finish, and I've chosen March 2008 as my deadline. Why March? Why not?

It's a good month for me: that's when my Gavie was born.

November 22, 2007

2007-11-22T06:08:00.000-08:00

Two years ago, on Thanksgiving, my father made his last trip to my house. He and mom came up for dinner, then spent the night. That night he gave her the Christmas presents we'd ordered for her over the Internet.

"I don't know if I'll be able to give this to you on Christmas," he told her. It was the only time I ever heard him talk of what he might not see.

As you know, he wasn't able to after all.

Today is the first holiday that my mother will host since his diagnosis in April 2003.

The holidays always lead one to think about what one has, is thankful for, and even what is wished for. This holiday I'm a bear, and I admit it. I don't want today, I don't want this weekend. I want it to be the weekend so that I can pretend Thanksgiving didn't consist of five of us around a table that used to hold ten or more.

The last time my mother had dinner at her house, my father and grandfather were alive and my brother was married. My aunt came over with her boyfriend-now-husband. Her daughter stopped over, as well. The house was noisy and rather chaotic as my then-two-year-old ran about getting into everything and the men watched football with the volume too high. The table was overloaded and everyone had to squeeze into their seats.

I know. Time marches on. New traditions need to be made, old ones need to be modified. I'm not going to fight the inevitable. It's really all just a matter of perspective.

I'm not the woman I was before Dad got sick. I'm going to start my new job on Monday and meet people who know me as I am today, not as who I was and who I became. Nursing a loved one towards death forces change, despite one's best efforts.

My brother changed, too, though I suspect much more subtly. While I was busy learning how to say "no" and learning how to trust myself, he was examining his life. A month ago he made the decision that he owed his son more then parents who happened to live in the same house. While divorces are never pleasant under any circumstance, I find myself hard-pressed to condemn anyone to live in a house where walking in the front door at the end of the day does not bring a sense of peace.

And here I am, a few hours away from going to my mother's and trying not to compare what was to what is. I'll do okay, I'm sure. I always manage, though I'm saying it without the same frustration that I once did.

I've often remarked to my students that we need to prepare them for a world where bosses won't always guide them through the rough spots and where employers will expect much more then teachers sometimes do. When they hit a wall, they need to find a way to get around it. Preferably intact.

And so it's Thanksgiving, and as I sit at my laptop in the kitchen and watch my son eat play with his toys and watch Playhouse Disney, I think about how tiny he was when he was born, just a bit over four pounds. Gavie came to us eight weeks early, and for 32 days we lived at the hospital and waited for him to outgrow his apnea and learn how to swallow.

I have a husband who lets me write at will, who encouraged me to go back to school, and who said "go ahead" when I took the FMLA to care for my father.

I've a beautiful house, a career with potential, and family and friends who I can count on.

There's much to be thankful for, obviously, and this is a tiny start to the list. I'd like to add one more, one that has often earned a few confused looks. I'm thankful for going through everything that I have gone through, both good and bad. I'm thankful, I once told my students, that I was able to be there for my father.

That's not the part where they ask if I lost my mind. That comes when I tell them that an experience which turns their world upside down is something I hope they have. It has nothing to do with wishing them difficulty, but everything to do with the way that one changes as a result.

Somewhere, in the boxes that I brought home from work, I have a wise little phrase, which I'll paraphrase until I can dig it out: our character is determined by how we respond to those challenges that rise to meet us.

Happy Thanksgiving, readers.

Being a Good Parent

2007-10-31T08:47:00.000-07:00

Perhaps you heard the screams of anger and frustration. Perhaps you wondered at the high-pitched wails. Perhaps not. They are, to a parent, rather common. You learn to turn them out eventually.

Captain Chaos might have finally mastered the arts of staying in his seat for the entire meal and washing his hands when told (without argument), but comprehending the cruelty of a mom who turns off cartoons deemed excessively violent.. well... we're still working on that one.

Four nights ago he was sent to bed without a story or song because, when I told him that Courage the Cowardly Dog was too violent, he went into hysterics and thought that things could be remedied by upending his container of wooden blocks.

The next night he again turned into a puddle of tears as I turned off The Simpsons when the mini-cartoon "Itchy and Scratchy" came on. I just don't believe that a four-almost-five-year-old can understand and appreciate social commentary. Call me crazy, but I think that he's missing the point of the excessive violence and why Bart and Lisa laugh so hysterically each time the cat is decapitated or tossed into the wood chipper.

In both cases, he screamed and cried and begged. In both cases, I held firm. The good news is that the second episode was both shorter and did not end in an early bedtime. (Apparently he learned from the previous night.)

Boundaries are interesting in my house. I tend to be quite permissive in many cases. Captain Chaos is allowed to jump on the family room couch, pile up the over-sized sofa cushions then leap into them, rearrange whatever unbreakable holiday decorations are up, and turn himself into a human mudball. When I come home to discover that he and Aunt Na have painted each other's faces with whatever Crayolas they could find, I laugh. There are designated shelves in the pantry and another in the fridge where Chaos can go help himself to any snack he wants at virtually any time of the day -- they are, however, chock full of healthy stuff.

You want to eat raw carrots fifteen minutes before dinner? Okay! How about some broccoli to go with it?

I think I'm doing okay. It's not easy, which is a given; but the results are worth it. He's a pleasant, well-mannered, intelligent little critter who never gives me much pause, even in public. Essentially, I try to let him be as much a kid as possible without disregarding those very necessary social conventions such as please and thank you and respecting other people's property.

We're working, however, on respecting his own property as today he was channeling his inner Pete Townsand-slash-Julius Sumner Miller: giving a wonderfully loud concert for me and the hermit crabs... then smashing his blue plastic guitar on the ground. Over and over and over.

He wanted to see what would happen, as the night before we were talking about how glass breaks more easily then plastic.

The Unexpected

2007-10-24T17:40:00.001-07:00

So about a year or so ago, I put my resume in for a position as a compliance officer for The Western School. Didn't get it. They filled it internally. No big deal.

I forgot about it, started to look for a doctorate that interested me, and decided to stay where I was at least until I earned my degree. Four years, probably five. Then, and only then, I'd decide what to do with my career.

Then at the end of September, just before I left for Louisville, KY, for one of the best econ conferences I ever attended, I got a phone call from friend Diane, who is the school's HR Goddess.

Send Tom your resume, she said. (Tom, incidentally, is my former boss from days gone by. We only parted employer-employee company due to the school itself going bankrupt.)

As soon as I get back, I'm leaving tomorrow for a conference, I told her. It needs some updating and I'm going to be on a plane in about 24 hours.

And so, the long and short of it: last week brought a "chat," not an interview in any traditional sense, and a job offer to teach English.

Having done my homework on the company (I admit it), accepting was an easy decision.

This past Monday, I gave my supervisor my resignation. I'll work until November 21, then begin my new job November 26.

Ever have one of those moments where you never see it coming?

Diane will tell you that I was -- for once -- shocked, speechless, and stunned. She laughed heartily at my inability to wrap my brain around the previous hours of that day.

A job? A new job? Leave my friends at work? Leave supervisors who have been nothing but fair, especially when it came to my dealing with my father's terminal cancer? Leave students that I know, whose lives I'm involved in?

The decision to leave my current job has nothing to do with any of them. What an incredible, fortunate thing to be able to say. It had nothing to do with them.

But the benefits offered, the room to grow professionally.... turning it down for the sake of social comfort? I haven't met a soul yet who said "stay for the sake of the people you like to hang out with." Friends, after all, are exactly that: friends. Geography is relative.

I've been a bit melancholy this week, now that the words have been said. Everything is final, now. The word is slowly spreading, though I haven't told my students yet. I will, of course. They deserve to hear it from me and not the grapevine.

You know, pardon the ego here, but this is the greatest feeling in the world. I apparently did something right seven years ago (seven!) when I originally worked for Tom. Seven years ago I made an impression, began my professional career in earnest. And now look at me: going back to work for the same man who gave me the chance to find my way in the classroom without fear of someone smacking me for approaching the lesson from a right-brained perspective.

Wow.

As I would say to my students, with a self-deprecating grin, guess all that professional behavior paid off. Huh?

UPDATE to Recommended viewing

2007-10-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

I just found this on-line:
CLICK HERE to watch Dr. Pausch's entire CMU speech.

The original post:

Dr. Randy Pausch will be on Oprah today.

You know, while I remarked in my previous post that I felt rather lost regarding the whole doctoral program change, I'm glad that I didn't let it knock me into inactivity.

The link that I included today takes you to the Post Gazette article which features a second article with Dr. Pausch. I happen to appreciate what his mother told him when he was getting rather upset over an exam:

"We know how you feel, honey, and remember, when your father was your age, he was fighting the Germans."

Puts things even further into perspective, doesn't it?

Square one

2007-10-11T19:07:00.000-07:00

Duquesne University put the ILEAD program on hold. But those who read Ferocious Tigers already know that.

The more I think about it, the more I feel like someone set adrift. All that time searching, all that time thinking... and now what?

I start over, I guess. Visit the schools again and look at their programs. Already I feel some internal rebellion thinking about attending a school already crossed off of my list. Attend THAT school? Get a K-12 certificate? Again?! Be a principal or superintendent?

The urge to chew my arm off returns each time I think about it.

Driving home from Seton Hill, I left the radio off and thought long and hard tonight. I'm not going to rush into a new program; I'm going to take my time. In the meanwhile, I'm going to take some writing courses. I've never had but one, you know.

It ought to be interesting. I'm rather looking forward to it, to be honest. Maybe I can (finally) do something with my novel adventure, Killing Julie.

Finding my way

2007-10-10T18:15:00.000-07:00

Since Dad died on Christmas Eve, this will -- technically -- be our third Christmas without him in two years. Numbers are odd, aren't they?

I've been thinking about language lately. Really, I should have said that Dad passed away, but that suggests peace to me. Death itself, I assume, was peaceful for him. For us, as you know, a relief.

We imbue words with so much power. Connotations trump denotations. When I write, I choose carefully and opts for those with the most emotion. When I teach, I aim for the same. To hell with neutrality.

I think I'm still angry.

I have that right. I claim that right, and I won't surrender it for the sake of being nice. Don't tell me that time makes it easier. It just makes it harder to remember events. Not emotions, however. Never emotions.

Since posting the article on CMU's Dr. Randy Pausch in September, I've been thinking more about the art of living. That's what it is, really. An art.

And so I flew to Louisville, talked boldly to strangers with the same interests, and dressed up because I wanted to. When I came home, I got rid of what I call my "thin" clothes -- classic, professional clothing that I wore pre-baby and kept because I plan to lose those last few pounds. (Let's face it, after four years, those pounds aren't going away. I'm going to finally dub them curves and go buy new slacks.)

If living is an art, then one needs to decorate. I tried new dishes in Louisville, and now find the processed meals at the local chain restaurants lacking more then ever. Love, Toni Morrison's latest in hardback, is on my bookshelf, just waiting for me to dive in; it's far from the usual romances I pick up.

Gavie and I are planning how we'll decorate the backyard with wildflowers and other fauna next summer. We're working on preserving seeds from his garden for the spring planting season. As we clean up the yard and prepare for the fall, we look for slugs and worms and are always very successful.

And I have my other blog, Ferocious Tigers, which is where I work on my roar.

Hello?

2007-10-06T20:51:00.001-07:00

Little Captain Chaos is learning how to talk on the phone. Like his mom, he walks around the house while he talks, chattering away about all sorts of things while doing something else. He picks up the phone, asks one of us the number, dials, and starts talking.

"Hello, Gwammy? It's me... Nothing... Fuzz is eating... Yes... Good..."

About ten minutes later, he'll say good-bye and hang up.

Uncle Mikey is next. He gets to hear all about Gavie's stuffed animals.

Third will be Aunt Nana. He'll give her a dissertation on the flowers on our front porch.

Finally, the phone will begin to beep. Or, actually, stop beeping, a sure sign that Chaos has drained all power from the mystical device.

He may take after me when it comes to phone-talking, but he's all his dad when it comes to screwdrivers and hammers. At four, he can already operate both. When the phone stops working, he knows that the batteries are dead.

Dead batteries are remedied with a screwdriver (thankfully NOT a hammer, though that might be because we keep the hammers out of reach).

At four, he's already all legs and moves fast. For kicks, this last time, I just watched. I do that sometimes, just watch him and see what happens. I like to see how he problem-solves.

Gavie went right for the utility drawer and nabbed the screwdriver and two double-A batteries. I kept watching. Within minutes he had the back of the phone removed and the triple-A batteries removed...

Oh, don't worry, readers. It was a toy phone.

Dying a Good Death

2007-09-19T12:22:00.000-07:00

Dr. Randy Pausch spoke at Carnegie Mellon University yesterday, addressing his life as he prepares for his death. Within a few months, readers, it is likely that pancreatic cancer will claim him, turning him into another forgettable statistic.

It is unlikely, however, that those who were fortunate enough to know him will ever feel he's just another number or will ever forget him. After reading the Post-Gazette article on his presentation to the standing-room-only crowd, I doubt he'll be that to me either.

I'm currently teaching a psychology class where they're being put through the paces of goal-setting. I keep asking them for more details about their goals, pushing for them to make things concrete... and thus more attainable. Today I read them the article about him, discounting the fact that he bears the title of "CMU professor" because I don't want to give anyone reason to use his profession as an explanation for his achieving his goals.

It isn't, I told them, about titles. They don't mean a thing when it comes to your behavior.

Reaching your goals takes a high degree of discipline, regardless of your title or station in life. It takes a willingness to put yourself out there, to open up and say "here's my heart," and risk having it trod upon. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I exploded today in my English class. Why do people have to live down to the expectations of society? Why do they have to say "this is where I come from" and think that it's reasonable to repeat the cycle? All I want is for them to realize that they can do more then they realize.

Dr. Pausch is dying as admirably as anyone can. I hope that, when I'm his age, a young 46, I can look back at my life and find that I can go on with the same integrity he has today.

Why?

2007-09-11T18:50:00.000-07:00

Site of the crash of Flight 93.

Shanksville, PA.

Six years later, a nation still mourns.

Six years later, we still find it incomprehensible.

Six years later, I look at my son and wonder when he'll ask:

Where were you, Mommy,

when they flew those planes into those buildings?

What was it like that day?

Were you with Daddy? Were you scared?

Those will be difficult to field, depending on his age, but I'll manage to answer.

I'll say something motherly and comforting

because that's my job

and I'm going to protect him for all I can,

for as long as I can.

It's that other question that will get me:

Why did they do that, Mommy?

Six-two-oh! Oh la la!

2007-09-05T19:19:00.000-07:00

620
Six-two-oh.
Six hundred and twenty points!

Glorious, glorious number! One step closer to fulfilling those admission requirements for Duquense University.

THAT number, by the way, is my math score on the GRE, which I took this past Saturday. I loathe those things, you know.

This was the celebratory e-mail sent to some:

OVER and DONE with. It took three long hours today. Somehow I did NOT get a headache, though I was so light-headed at one point I began to wonder about the policy on fainting at the keyboard.

For the record, I have never been this uptight in my life about academics and tests. Ever. I got a 620 on the math, if I remember correctly. Don't know what that means yet, to be honest.

As long as I don't have to square it, divide it, or find out what happens when it goes 50 mph in 20 minutes while my verbal score goes 49 kph in 30 minutes, I'm as happy as happy can be for now. Just wanted to let y'all know... and wanted to thank you for putting up with my nerves this week (some more then others).

Have a nice day! :)

(I know I will, now that I know it's an acceptable score for admission and that I needn't retake it!)

When I grow up...

2007-08-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

... I want to be a writer, a teacher.

Add one: a consultant.

Ponder this career: a teacher in the university, a writer whose focus is in education, and a consultant who works in the post-secondary world -- with emphasis in the world of for-profit education.

Golly, much better then my usual "everything" when asked what I want to do.

What am I going to write?
(The only answer to that, right now, is a shameless plug for Ferocious Tigers.)

Fifty-one weeks

2007-08-06T19:52:00.000-07:00

There are moments, snapshots if you will pardon the cliche, where life stills and you see exactly what you were meant to see. You sit and barely breathe and take in the reality and wonder just how you were so fortunate.

Right now, was the rain splatters on the roof, as I sit comfortably at my computer, I find myself unable -- again -- to really describe what is, in essence, a week a econ camp. A week where I hand over exactly half of my vacation days and a good bit of money to volunteer as a company advisor. It is, I admit, a job that makes little sense to me at times. The surrender of time and money earn me the opportunity to sit through speeches that I've just about memorized, exhaustion, and a huge workload waiting for me upon my return to reality. I get the chance to work with teenagers who may or may not want to hear what I have to say. I set my wake-up calls for 7 a.m., roll into the college at 7:45, and do not stop for the next ten hours or so.

Only 51 weeks until I get to go back.

When I go back, I'll walk into the hospitality suite and see the people I've grown to know and love. We'll talk about out children and, in some cases, grandchildren. We'll update each other on jobs and life in general. It will be as if we'd never left.

When I go back, we'll find new ways to make each other laugh. This year we passed around brown lunch bags, preparing to hyperventilate when Jim began his training on Saturday. We hazed new-to-week-III'ers John and Jeremy by putting them in the center of the Market Game and "forgetting" to mention the rush of 200 students (though we did take their eyeglasses and name tags off to avoid injury). Scott managed to keep his composure during his Monday presentation, despite most of us standing in the back of the auditorium imitating elevator doors with our hands (long story). Deb and I discovered new ways to answer the phone in our hotel room (but that's all I'm saying there).

When I go back, we'll sit in the Bell Foyer at some point and listen to Guido play the piano, and I'll look around at the people and marvel at it all. Twenty-four people who help each other because they are there for the kids and not the glory of a computer-generated certificate come Friday night. Several of us have remarked on the camaraderie of our group, on the "magic" that seems to happen when we gather. There are neither cliques nor squabbles, there's never a moment of cruelty for the sake of a cheap laugh, and competition between the us is non-existent. These are good people that I volunteer with, I tell my family.

That's the magic, by the way. The way that everyone gives without taking.

Captain Chaos Strikes Again!

2007-07-23T11:26:00.001-07:00

If you ask me just how tall little Chaos is, I can now tell you that he is exactly tall enough to begin dragging a kitchen chair over to the fridge and reach for whatever Forbidden Fruit sits atop it. Yesterday, it was Scotch Tape.

Eager to save a coloring book from the terror of a ripped page, he decided that tape was the answer. Eager to prove that "only four" is actually "already four" and that Mommy doesn't know what she is talking about when she says "no, I'll get it for you in a minute," Chaos took matters into his own hands.

The next thing I know, he is dragging a kitchen chair across the room and shoving it up against the fridge, climbing up, standing on tip-toe, stretching to reach...

He's just not quite tall enough, readers, to do more then curl his little hands around the top of the freezer door and pop the seal.

The next thing you see if my four-year-old hanging on, his little feet dangling, as the freezer door swings wide open.

It was, in his estimation, the coolest thing ever. When my heart starts beating again, I'll let you know if I second the motion.

Musings

2007-07-12T21:00:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania, Alabama, Italy, Oregon, San Francisco, Tennessee, and Maryland.

Parents who exchange stories and pictures and You Tube videos without ever holding their friends' children. Babies who will grow up knowing about but maybe meeting each other only once or twice -- until they are adults who can travel on their own. Best friends unseen for a decade who keep in touch, still able to talk about everything and laugh about how young we once were.

All only a click away.

God love the Internet. On-line we can share our lives. In blogs we can tell the world about exploits involving little pink dresses, college pranks, professional headaches and dreams, and our travels. We can go on about our children and their exploits as well, laughing at what was not exactly laughable at one point. A virtual gathering whenever and, thanks to wireless, wherever.

I can curl up on my couch with a cup of hot tea and a laptop, sending and receiving as I relax. No longer am I tied to a desktop computer and banished to the upstairs. It's not nearly as cozy as curling up with old-fashioned letter, such as my friend Vanessa still sends, but it's a close second.

Chantel's blog keeps me up-to-date on her lovely Penny, for whom I have a box of presents and will mail someday (just a little more space to fill first). Meanwhile, Jen sends photos of her darling Olivia, and I laugh when I see the undeniable family resemblance to the woman I started kindergarten with. Kirby kept me posted on his travels to China, while Josey sends e-mails guaranteed to earn a replay of WHAT?! Then she laughs and tells me it's the only way to get my attention. I retaliate, of course. That's what friends are for.

We make our own friends, but in truth we are really making new families. Few, if any, of us will have the luxury of raising our families and watching our children play with a gaggle of cousins. Not just on family vacations or when we have the time off to drive an hour or ten but whenever they want because the entire family lives within walking -- or shouting -- distance.

Gavie's growing up in a young neighborhood, with a dozen or so other children. On the Fourth he was able to run and play while we and the other parents sat and watched. It was all very picturesque.

I think, for the first time since moving here, I felt like we were home.

Another baby step.

2007-06-17T19:00:00.000-07:00

I gave away my white and green doll's house today. I loaded it into the car and trucked it to my mother's, the intent being to give it to her neighbor's seven-year-old daughter. Due to a few other errands, it ended up sitting in my backseat for a few hours, baking in the sun. Getting in the car to make the final leg of the trip, I inhaled one more time, taking in the scent of warm wood. My memories stirred then, ones I gave little thought to recently.

When I was twelve, I took $22 of my hard-earned newspaper delivery money and plunked it down on a four-room assembly-required pressed-wood dollhouse. Dad and I put it together at the dining room table. Over the next year, I poured my heart into it, painting and decorating it. Then re-painting and re-decorating. I learned how to wallpaper, how to wield an X-Acto knife without losing any fingers, and how to "kit-bash." Most of the furnishings were re-upholstered, re-painted, re-something. I never met a kit I couldn't redesign. I also learned how to use Sculpy and Fimo, and soon my dollhouse was teeming with people and toys. Eventually I started selling my clay toys at a local miniature shop.

When I exhibited my dollhouse at the shop's annual show and sale, the raffle prize was a seven-room one-of-a-kind white and green dollhouse. My little brother and his friend, who were in sixth grade and looking to kill time, stuffed the raffle box. We took the house home that night.

Between the night I took the house home and the day I married, I practiced the art of Martha Stewart in miniature. I took a break from the clay and moved to needlepoint and tiny flower arrangements. The house still needed something, so I learned how to measure and cut and stain. Soon enough, every room had baseboards and moulding. It was lovely by the time I was finished with it.

Surprisingly, packing it away, as I moved into married life wasn't that hard. I hadn't put the same love into it as I had with the one my father and I built together. That, with it's sandpaper shingles and die-cut gingerbread, was infinitely the favorite. The smaller one was the one I took with me to my new house. The large one was "too big." I'd learned on that one, true; but how many of us treasure the workbooks we used in grade school?

The Mother's Day after Dad was diagnosed with cancer, I convinced the big guy to buy The McKinley dollhouse kit for me as a gift. I wanted to build something again, not just win by default. And I wanted to build it with my father. I wanted to spend the time with him like I had fifteen years earlier.

The kit is half-assembled and in my basement. Dad simply didn't have it in him to build, so I started the shell myself. The directions were -- are -- easy enough. But I just don't want to do it anymore. I don't want it anymore.

I want another dollhouse though; I miss the challenge of working in such small spaces with delicate materials. However, building, to me, will always be a father-daughter event -- and perhaps someday mother and son. Tomorrow, Gavie and I are going to put all of my birthday money on the (pre-built) house I've chosen. He and I are going to work on it together, though I'm limiting his input and keeping the hammers out of his hands.

So when I pulled that old cumbersome dollhouse out of the backseat today and gave it away, it was without much feeling at all, unless you count my eagerness to make room for the new and the chance to spend time with my son.

Ferocious, precocious, and four

2007-06-16T19:32:00.000-07:00

The battle of bed continues. For some reason unbeknownst to us, the child has taken to loathing bedtime. Absolutely hating it. In his eyes, bedtime is overrated and useless. Something meant for the masses, the mortals... certainly not for him.

I know it's not fear. What make me so certain? Mainly because of the fact that, when he gets out of bed and runs into my bedroom (where I sit and write each night while waiting for him to fall asleep), he is trying very hard not to laugh. He's actually trying to look scared and upset.

The ear-to-ear grin kills the effect, of course.

Several parents I know close their children's door or put a gate up to keep the little critter contained. Since a gate would be nothing but a broken bone waiting to happen, we've opted for the closed door approach.

He hates that worse then he hates bedtime.

It's like kryptonite. Captain Chaos is rendered powerless in the face of the closed bedroom door. Before I even have the door closed, he has resorted to crocodile tears and promises that he'll stay in bed if I open the door. My favorite is when he starts to holler for me to open the door because he's asleep. (If he actually were asleep, I think all of his yelling would wake him -- don't you?)

Soft-heart that I am, I always open the door before he falls asleep, though never on his cue. Only on mine and only when I think he really means what he promises.

Each night is a new challenge. Each night brings a new opportunity for him to come up with excuses to stay awake and out of bed. Some nights he'll bellow for someone to tuck him in eight times. Other nights he'll insist that he can't reach the box of tissues on his nightstand. Sometimes he just insists that he's not tired.

Last night, though, we had a new one. It was a good bluff, and had I not gone through the whole pre-bedtime snack time song and dance, I would have bought it. But, alas for Gavie, I wasn't born under a rock last night.

"Mommy! I'm hungry!"

Wonder what tonight will bring?

Carving the niche

2007-06-12T19:14:00.001-07:00

We're getting there! Of Ferocious Tigers and Wild Strawberries is now titled, addressed, and ready for posting.

Methinks I hit a milestone.

Thus, time to set a new one: publish the first post! It's in the works -- believe it or not I'm writing a draft or two or ten before hitting that wonderful "publish post" key!

(Where did this side come from? Since when did I draft anything? Must've appeared in that personality blip I had, right about the same time I started typing my lecture notes and developing PowerPoint lectures.)

______________________

For the curious, two answers:

1. The "niche" is to put my left-handed view of the world, my tendency to liken teaching to the business world, and my refusal to be left-brained into reworking the classroom. The same brain that made a former principal insane (she was often heard to mutter that I "just didn't get it," usually after I did something horrible like sit on my desk while having a discussion with my students) is now going to put fingers to keyboard on the topic of education and see what happens.

Last week I (figuratively) "resigned" from teaching. I told them it was their turn, that I was through with all this lecturing stuff, and that I wanted to treat them as employees and not students. The vast majority like the idea, so I'm going to run with it. Ferocious Tigers is going to explore this brave new lecture-free world.

2. Part of this niche was inspired by two particularly uninspiring workshop presentations I encountered last week. Both made me think about pulling my teeth out with a spork -- it would've been less painful. Both were so blah that I had no choice but to begin questioning what passes for conventional wisdom in the post-secondary classroom. I walk in each day and look at up to three generations in the seats before me, women who are bruised from their latest encounter with the ex, men whose long pants hide the ankle bracelet, and fresh-faced young adults who had a few kids before they were old enough to legally drink.

Let me tell you, if one more "expert" tells me that ice breakers will pack the students in and make them feel like school is the most important thing in life, I'm going to start convulsing from the utter stupidity of it all. I fail to see how a "tell me two truths and one lie about yourself" getting-to-know-you guessing game will make school more important then working overtime when the landlord threatens eviction.

(Can anyone clue me in on that one, please?)
______________________

There you have it, readers. I'm carving that niche.
The next blog you read will be ferocious!

Today, in Cuba.

2007-06-04T16:52:00.000-07:00

I'm lifting this from Chantel's blog.
Yes, the capitalization is deliberate.

On Tuesday, June 5, TODAY’s Matt Lauer will take viewers on a special visit — to Cuba. Join Lauer as he reports live from Havana to discuss the current political and cultural climates of Cuba. The broadcast will include reports on Castro's health, a discussion about Castro's importance in the country, where its political future is headed, Cuba’s relations with the U.S. and how the U.S.- Cuba embargo affects both countries. It will a unique and exciting trip — it's one of the very few times an American TV show has broadcast live from Cuba, so don't miss it!

This is the write-up on the TODAY Show's website. I could rewrite it a thousand different ways. Instead of "special visit," I'd change the words to "sobering visit." I'd rewrite the line about "castro's importance in the country" to read, rather, "castro's oppressive hold on the country," and switch out the line about the embargo to read "how Cuba uses the embargo as an excuse to mask the freedoms in denies its people." But all that rewriting would assume a program that will reflect the realities in Cuba, and not the usual tropes about Cuba's health care, colorful people, and music. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Matt Lauer's "unique and exciting trip" is not only one of the "very few times an American TV show has broadcast live from Cuba," but also, the first time that any American TV show has gone there and told the truth. In the meantime, I've sent Matt Lauer a note, which follows. You can send one, too.

Dear Mr. Lauer,

Consider that the hotel you are staying in is one that is verboten to Cuban citizens, that the clean, decked-out beaches are only for tourists, and the three square meals you are getting while in Cuba are denied to ration-card carrying Cubans. Consider that the young girls you see loitering about in Havana may well be underaged jineteras, prostitutes trying to make ends meet and hoping against hope that you might call them tonight. Consider that a government that does not allow information access to its citizens is adept at hiding the truth from everyone.

Once you’ve considered all this, ask someone in the Cuban government why they feel the need to oppress their people this way. And Matt, don’t settle for anything other than a real answer, which has nothing to do with the embargo, or sacrifice for the common good. If you can be as ballsy as the Ladies in White, Cuban dissidents who weekly march to protest the unjust imprisonment of their husbands for political reasons, then you will have secured a place in history as the first American journalist not only to broadcast television from the island, but to take a pair to Cuba.

Sincerely,

Chantel Acevedo

=============================

'Nuff said, wouldn't you agree?

Niche

2007-06-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

It all comes down to finding my niche. I've decided that. What's my niche? Trashy romance? I'm working on it -- an average of 500+ readers a month can't be wrong. But what about the rest of me? What about the tens of thousands of dollars I spent, and will continue to spend, on my education?

In high school -- and this is indeed a cringe-worthy moment, Chantel! -- I wrote an editorial for the school paper and, being the editor, got it published without anyone (namely the advisor) reading it over. It was, um, an article on the merits of the NC-17 rating and how (and I quote!) a "whole new generation could experience" a particular flick that, until my college years, I thought was something entirely different. How was I, then still a prim little Catholic school girl, to know that someone would name a woman Emmanuel?! And film her in 3-D no less!

Yeah, how's that for cringing?
(I'm much wiser now. An all-women's Catholic college will do that to you, I suppose.)

My editorial on the senior class play was much better informed, polarizing the class and making our point known by having a good many seniors sign the editorial in protest to what we -- rightly or wrongly -- considered unfair.

The point is that once-upon-yesterday, I didn't shy from making my opinions known. I had a niche.

We're back to Guy again. I watched his presentation twice today, showing it to both of my management classes. Tomorrow the organizational business class gets to see it. Wednesday brings it to my economics class.

Make meaning, find a niche, write. My brain was on overdrive today.

Truthfully, this blog alone has a niche: keeping me in touch with family and friends. I'm keeping this niche. What I want to do is write something professional, something relevant. Methinks it's time for a third blog.

And, since conventional wisdom is "write what you know," I'm going to do that. I'm also going to go out on a few limbs and, while they'll be much better researched then that high school editorial, I'm going to see just what happens when I stop apologizing for or just flat-out avoiding having an opinion.

My topics? What else? Education, management, and ethics.

More to come! I'll keep you, eh, posted!

New Title, New Ideas, New Approach...

2007-06-01T08:05:00.001-07:00

... new reason to stress.

It's all Guy's fault. Not that I ever met him, mind you. Heck, until today I thought he was the fellow behind Kawasaki motorcycles. It's all a particular mentor's fault, too. If he hadn't mentioned Guy to me in a conversation, I wouldn't have clicked on the link to his blog, I wouldn't have read his remarks, and I wouldn't have watched the video for his Art of the Start presentation.

But, the Fates have their quirks, and now here I am... pondering the role of this blog in the great blogosphere out there.

I thought of e-mailing him with a pleasant little "thank you for changing my entire perspective on the world of management and this is how I'm going to use your ideas/blog/video in my classroom," but haven't been able to craft a note that doesn't sound like a burgeoning sycophant penned it. Yet. I have at least 45 minutes before my next class kicks in...

But what does this blog do? What is it's point? Is it really just a little vanity rag to showcase the mis-adventures of Gavie and talk about my life? I'd really rather not become one of those mindless bloggers who just rants.

If a blogger posts and no one reads it, does she really post?

Well, gang, the ego is kicking in right along with the realization that I need to write or else I will implode (explode?) due to the innumerable amount of opinions crowding my brain. Today's thought: why not write something with meaning?

(By the way, that's Guy's first rule: make meaning.)

What do I need to write?

Welcome, little one.

2007-05-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

Michelle!!!!!!!
So long time has gone since we exchanged words....

I have the great news!!
Edoardo is born at 2.29 am, on Monday, April 2nd. All is going well.

Now we have a good reason to meet: to make our children play together.

Take care,
Nick

Dear little Edoardo,

Welcome to the world! Welcome from your Aunt Michelle over here in Pittsburgh (which was, I might add, recently named the Most Livable City)! Your daddy and I met a long, long time ago, when we were teenagers and he was on a school trip to the U.S. His principal and my principal were somehow friends, or friendly (I never was too good on remembering some details), and the next thing I knew I was one of the "student ambassadors" chosen to lead a total stranger around for the day.

How do I describe it? Your dad and I hit it off and, twelve years later, here we are. We've kept in touch, fallen silent, and resumed our friendship as if only minutes had passed. I've a large box of his letters tucked safely in my closet. On my bookshelf, I've a three-ring binder with a year's worth of e-mails, all exchanged in the twelve months after 9-11. Your dad knew me before I met my husband, the "big guy," and long before I had my son Gavie. Of course, I can say the same. I knew him when -- when he was single, when he was in the military -- and I know him now, now that he's a proud papa, now that he's not sleeping much.

I hope you're keeping him on his toes!

The picture I've posted on this blog is the only one I have of your father and me. It was taken that day, when I was a senior in high school and dying to get out into the wide world of college. We were in "my" office, where the student newspaper, The Minaret, was produced. I had my own key and felt very, very important. By the way, I think you dad's finally taller then me. :)

Gavie is four now, just old enough to teach you a few tricks guaranteed to make both of your parents go grey. When we come to Italy someday, you two will no doubt have a very good time.

Take care, little one.

Love,

Aunt Michelle

P.S.

Tell your dad to send more pics!!!

Finished? So soon?

2007-04-28T19:53:00.000-07:00

Was it really four months ago that I drove up the winding drive and started what I had pledged oh-so-long ago? Find an adjunct position at my beloved alma mater, Seton Hill. A New Year's Resolution penned January 2, 2006, just a week after losing my father. Sometimes I wonder if he had a hand in it, if he gave a little nudge to someone down here.

We like to believe that the dead can do that. It helps make the absence less real.

But this post isn't to conjure anything but the amazing sense of accomplishment (for lack of a better word) felt today as I left the Hill. Natalie Merchant's song Wonder came on when I hit the CD play button.

When it was first released, I misheard the lyrics.... laughed as she came to my cradle, oh this child will be able... laughed as my body she lifted, oh this child will be gifted -- with love, with patience, and with pain... she'll make her way...

The muse that comes to bless this child doesn't promise the gift of pain, I realized after a few listenings. She promises the gift of faith.

I like the first, the misunderstood version, better.

Call it a survival tactic, a way to maintain sanity perhaps, but I think that there is a certain gift that comes with pain -- the gift of strength. The cliche "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" means that you do experience everything unhappy. You do have moments when it seems that the world is falling apart and that you are a powerless nothing. You have moments when you aren't riding a wave but tumbling within it, drowning.

It allows you to have other moments, ones like today, when I finished my first stint as an adjunct. They called me "professor," even though -- technically -- I'm not. (Yet. I'll know in January.) Seems that I accidentally put that title on my course website. I don't know quite how I did that. I don't know how to remove it, either. (Then again, I still have trouble with the copy machine's stapling function.)

I'm going to miss this group. They were incredible. Attentive, prepared, literate, well-mannered... a teacher's dream. Virtually every class ended the same way: four o'clock would come too soon, and I'd walk to my car feeling as if I could conquer the world, humbly astounded at myself. Was I the same one who, up until last December, questioned whether or not I should remain a teacher or pursue that writing career? Should I admit to that?

This August will mark my tenth year teaching. Ten years is nothing in many respects. In others, it's astounding. My classroom stories from those ten years range from nightmarish to healing, the worst closer to the beginning -- as I suspect would be the norm for any career's learning curve. After all, how I reacted at 24 is no longer how I'd react at 34. Older and wiser, the survivor of a few crash courses in administrative politics and student threats, I know better when to stare adversaries down and when to retreat gracefully.

Seton Hill brought healing I didn't know I still needed. It brought self-discipline, too, which I knew I needed but could never quite manage.

A confession: I was terrified the first day of WCT I. Knee-shaking, white-knuckled terrified. Who was I , fourteen years out of WCT itself, to teach this class? What if I forgot something? Mistaught something from the book? What if they took one look at me and demanded a real teacher? Ten years is a blink. Every ounce of credibility I felt I had went into hibernation mode.

But, as you know, my panic was apparently for naught. If anything, the fear allowed me to grow as a teacher. I am a PowerPoint queen now. My binder of typed notes is four inches thick -- and that's without the fifteen corresponding PPT presentations with thirty or so slides each. (Yeah, pass the pocket-protector. I'm a nerd.)

...people see me, I'm a challenge to your balance... I'm over your head now, I astound you and confound you too....

I'm not so arrogant to think that I strike awe in people. Myself, yes. Others? Give me another decade and ask again. I am, however, pretty damn sure that I've confounded quite a few of you out there. And, if my students could tell you, I'm good at pushing people off balance with my two (in)famous questions: Why? and What if we're wrong?

I have one more, which I didn't use enough this term: What if we're right?

You know, it's easy to think about being wrong. Being right though... man, that's terrifying. It means that we might know what we're doing. I'm up for the challenge though.

So what now? Teach some more, write some more, apply for that Ed.D to become a real professor.

And have more fun then I ever thought possible. You know what? I think that dreams are coming true.

Thanks, gang. Watch out for that plaque.
You know why.

Mindlessness at its best.

2007-04-26T07:38:00.000-07:00

That last post was pretty heavy, so methinks that lightness is in order this time around. And, I ask you, how much lighter can one get then Britney Spears?

(I can promise you that this blog involves no stress and, apparently, very little in terms of reality.)

Click here to find the MSNBC article: Turning the Tables. It's the second blurb down, the one after Paris being mocked by Prince.

In short, every tabloid's dreamgirl now wants her fans to sneak up on their friends at midnight and take candid, paparazzi-like photos of them. These pics are supposedly going to be used to promote her newest fragrance, Midnight Fantasy.

I don't know, readers. It sounds a bit stalker-ish to me.

Now, there are some rules, of course. Underwear must be worn, for example. Violence and nudity are discouraged, too.

Um... since she's telling her fans that midnight is the witching hour, well.... gee, how do I put this? If you're not doing something that involves nudity or violence at midnight, just what are you doing? Probably sleeping. Maybe, like me, staring at the computer and blogging away. There's an exciting pic: little old me sans make-up in old jeans and an even older t-shirt, sitting at the kitchen table with my laptop. There's a midnight fantasy for you. (Eeeek!)

Frankly, I feel sorry for the girl. She's screaming for someone to pay attention to her. Not to her money. Not to her fame. Not to her mistakes. To her. The person she is underneath all of that tabloid press. Most of us have been witness -- willing or unwilling due to the media -- to her rise and fall; and most of us probably watch with the same morbid fascination we have with train wrecks. It's not that we want to stare. It's just that we can't always help ourselves.

My question is this: who came up with this idea? Who actually thought it would be a good idea to suggest taking secret -- and no doubt un-flattering -- photos of friends for an ad campaign?

"Midnight Fantasy" is a perfume. Perfumes are to attract. Perfumes are sold by beautiful people. Perfumes are not sold by candid pics of my friend sleeping on the couch at midnight... and drooling. Pics like that are meant to be photocopies and hung up in the dorm. Perhaps given a clever caption and sent to a few others. But to sell a perfume whose very name suggests sex, desire, and perfection?

If I buy a new scent, I want to know that the idea being sold with it is one of attractiveness and happiness... not a few shots of some average joes or janes who were blindsided by their camera-wielding "buddies." This isn't the Dove Real Woman ad campaign, you know.

The truth is this: if I'm going to have a midnight fantasy, readers, I suspect there might be more to it then my tired friends chatting on-line.

Was this mindless enough? I think so... thought, somewhat ironically, I did come back and edit it twice since posting this afternoon...

Columbine revisitied

2007-04-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

I like to think that there is a special place in Hell for people who chain the exit doors and open fire. In truth, I think that Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the brains behind South Park, had something when they portrayed Hitler having a pineapple shoved up his a** on a regular basis. Come to think of it, perhaps a pineapple isn't enough. Perhaps those who leave their baby daughters out in the snow to freeze to death, who put dying babies into book bags and shove them under twin beds, and who emotionlessly slaughter their classmates need the whole f**king pineapple tree. One tree after another. Continuously.

Day in and day out, I teach my business communications students to write without emotion. I tell them time and time again that to calm down before they pen those professional missives.

I don't think I can do that today.

How lucky I am to not know anyone at Virginia Tech. How lucky I've been over the years to know nary a soul involved in any of the school shootings.

Each day I walk into my own classroom. Each day I stand before students who have book bags that I would never dare look into, believing that ignorance is bliss. I don't want to know who's packing and who's dealing. A stupid sentiment, I'm sure. But am I really any safer knowing what they carry? Or will it only make me more paranoid? Everyday at work, we teachers know exactly what we walk into. Last week a former student was shot by police after a brief foot chase. Had he not pulled his gun, they probably wouldn't have fired. Incidentally, he's considered a "person of interest" in his stepfather's murder. Two weeks ago a seventeen-year-old girl died from an apparent overdose. The woman whose baby was found under the bed... yep, had connections here. Each term, at least one student will have to drop out due to incarceration. Students who go m.i.a. are common.

We walk into that and we teach and we try so damn hard to pull those who want to learn up to where they want to be but don't quite have the coping skills to do on their own. We pester and cajole, bribe and bargain. Let me help you. Come to class. If you at least try, I can show you where you're right and where we can work to improve. I can't help you if you don't come to school. We call absent students every day. We try to live by the school's catchphrase: "Students First. We Care."

We pound our heads against the wall sometimes.

I don't yet know the story behind today's massacre. As I write this, they've yet to identify the gunman. It makes me think, though, about what must go on in such a person's mind. Is such an act really a last resort, as pop psychology and magazines tend to explain? Somehow I doubt it. Not this time.

It makes me think about my students, many of whom I know -- for the most part -- lack basic coping/problem-solving skills.

Tomorrow we have finals. Tomorrow I will have a student or two or six walk in and say: "I don't have a pencil. What do I do?" That person will honestly not know what to do when faced with a Scan-tron exam and no pencil. Bringing a pencil or asking a classmate to borrow one will not cross that student's mind. When you grow up in an environment that does not prepare you for the pressure that comes with an authority figure asking you where your pencil is, how will you deal with the student who attacks you, who perhaps accuses you of dating her man or sleeping with his woman?

We had a forum of student safety some time ago. I was mercifully absent that day. It wasn't, you see, a meeting on improving our physical safety on campus. It was to discuss creating a "safe" environment in the classroom -- one where the students would feel like they could raise their hands to answer questions and risk being wrong.

Oh the goodness of that migraine. I'm not sure that I could have handled that meeting. The next day a fellow teacher told me that a request for call buttons was denied because they "didn't want the students to think that [we] didn't trust them."

It is the consensus of several of us that we won't be a target. We'll just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Our students won't be the ones who chain the doors and plan; they'll be the ones who pull the gun out of a book bag and start to fire at whomever "wronged" them and God help the bystanders.

So why do I stay? Why don't I go work on some nice, safe little campus somewhere? Maybe because such a thing doesn't exist anymore. Maybe because I know that I'm as safe as my brother, who is an administrator in a very well-off school district. Wealthy kids snap just as easily as poor. My mother actually admitted that she feared for both of us, not just me. We know, from experience, that even "nice, safe schools" have students who might say the wrong thing and turn everyone's world upside-down.

But why stay? Why stay in education at all? To martyr myself someday on the alter of idealism? I suppose that's where it's heading. I suppose that this blog has turned into another ponderance on why I bother to teach grammar during the week when, on weekends, I can explore a myriad of ideas -- ranging from the role of women in the creation of early weaponry to the role of the church in current political ideologies. I can ask "why" and "what if we're wrong" and not worry about someone's mind liquefying because I went too high on Bloom's Taxonomy. I can take risks and ask students to examine their belief systems.

I answered that question before. I stay because, right now, I have a point and make a difference. When I stop having a point, making a difference, then I'll hand in my resignation. I love my students, the vast majority of which are no different from me. My coworkers make each day even more enjoyable. We laugh and talk, have happy hours, punk each other now and then, and find comfort in knowing that we're all in the same boat at work. While I'd love another job, one with more intellectual challenges, I'm content to take my time and find the "perfect" one. I'm still lucky, I don't have to rush and take the first one I come across.

For now, while I look for that perfect job, I'll watch Cartoon Network with Gavie and eat popcorn and laugh at Lazlo and Blue and all of those other lovely little blips of ink -- and, while he giggles at their antics, I'll try to figure out how to teach him how to cope.

The Ballad of Turtle Louch

2007-04-03T12:20:00.000-07:00

My kid is a great traveller. He didn't complain much -- for a near-four-year-old. He took the airport pat-down in stride (nothing beats taking your shoes off in public), didn't fuss overly much about sitting in the holding area before we boarded (actually, watching the luggage loading was pretty fascinating to the little fella), and loved the airplane bathroom (I probably don't have to explain how I know that little detail).

At Disney, he woke up each morning eager to get out to the day's adventures. Breakfast was a struggle, I admit, because -- after all -- why waste time eating when you can be riding Peter's Pan's Adventure or seeking out Captain Hook for that coveted autograph? For once, there was nary a protest when we said rise and shine.

Each evening, after a long day of sensory-overload, he'd fall asleep on the shuttle that took us back to our hotel, the Caribbean Beach Resort. We'd carry him to the room and tuck him in with Turtle, his current favorite "pet." Each morning, we'd leave Turtle behind. Safe in the confines of the room.

Or so we thought.

Turtle, we had told Gavie, was much better suited to the hotel. There were too many people and too many opportunities for him to get lost at the various parks. Gavie concurred.

So we went to MGM Studios, we visited the Animal Kingdom, and we explored the Magic Kingdom sans Turtle. That was okay, Gwammy bought him a few net "pets" to hold throughout the day. We ate at a dozen different restaurants, had too much cotton candy, and gorged on popcorn. All the while, Turtle sat at the hotel, guarding Gavie's daily acquisitions.

Or so we thought.

You see, one morning was a bit rushed and, well, we left Turtle in Gavie's bed. That night, returning with a sleeping child, we gave the toy little thought. We didn't, in fact, think about Turtle until the next night. It was then that we realized that it was gone.

While Gavie slept, we turned out hotel rooms upside-down. We found a few coins, but that was it. Turtle, we could only assume, had been accidentally bundled up with the sheets when the cleaning lady came through. We called home.

"Code red, code red, Louch homeland security is at elevated levels. Code red, all stations are on alert," the big guy told his younger sister when we called home the next day -- while Gavie was on a ride with Gwammy and out of earshot. He told her about Turtle. Na, as we call her, helped fill in the biggest blank we had: where Turtle came from. Seems that Kohl's was the answer to that. It was from a Kohl's Cares for Kids promotion some time ago.

Knowing the trauma that we'd run into once Gavie missed Turtle, Uncle Donn manned the computer station and hit E-Bay. Within minutes he found a replacement thanks to someone buying a few dozen and reselling them. He and Na re-assured us that all would be well. True, but until that new Turtle came through, we were still on alert. Gwammy bought Gavie a new turtle, Squirt from Finding Nemo. For the remainder of the trip, my son somehow remained none-the-wiser, blissfully unaware that his beloved Turtle was, probably at that very moment, in the spin cycle at Disney's gigantic laundry facility.

It wasn't until Monday night that he noticed. Can we say "heart-broken sobs"? Holding my little boy as he cried for his best friend made me swear that Turtle II would never leave our house. Ever.

Two long days later, the Turtle "came home from Disney," as we told Gavie. "He was staying to help Mickey Mouse a little bit," we lied.

As long as you don't look at Gavie's Christmas portrait (with the original Turtle lovingly clutched in his three-year-old grip) and the different pattern of spots on Turtle II's back, you'd never be the wiser.

A week later, a small padded envelope arrived from Disney. We'd filed a report with the Lost and Found Department, but knowing the size of the laundry facilities and the sheer number of hotels, we had little hope. Judging by the size of the envelope, it was too small to be Turtle anyway. It was probably some little stuffed Mickey, sent to console my son.

It was, instead, one well-washed Turtle. He not only went through the whole wash cycle but also the entire drying process. You know, I never knew that stuffed animals could shrink!

I can only hope that God forgives the white lies of mothers. "Gavie! Come here, honey! Mickey sent Turtle's little brother to you!"

The Magic Kindgom, part I

2007-03-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Hell hath no fury as a mother scorned... by Mickey Mouse.

Okay, I know that moms can go into all sorts of "that's my child" rages for all sorts of reasons -- playground bullies, unfair teachers, whatever. But Mickey Mouse? He's the icon of all that is warm and fuzzy! He's the personification of all that is happiness! Not Mickey Mouse!

Yep. Mickey Mouse. The Big Cheese himself.

We spent last week at Disney World. It was wonderful. Gavie was all eyes, overwhelmed by the sheer magic of Walt's dream. He's at that perfect age: the one where everything he sees is real. When he met Mary Poppins, Captain Hook, and Buzz Lightyear, he was nothing but ear-to-ear smiles. When we rode Peter Pan's Flight, he was entranced. It's a Small World was one of his favorites and being able to sit in Pinocchio's restaurant for lunch and overlook the Small World boats AND WAVE was almost as delightful. Especially when the merry boaters would wave back to him.

Gavie is the ultimate traveler. He took Sunday's 4 a.m. wake-up call in stride, loved the airplane, relished the ride on Disney's Magic Express to the Caribbean Beach hotel, and hit Epcot running. He didn't stop until late that afternoon when he fell asleep on Spaceship Earth (you know, the giant silver golf ball) while he and my mother, Gwammy, went through for the second time that day.

But where, you ask, does Mickey fit in? Monday night. The eight o'clock Spectromagic parade (a.k.a. Electrical Light Parade). We had front-row curbside seats for the event. It was going to be grand!

And it was.

Until that overgrown rodent didn't know my son was waving at him. Blasted parade choreography! That mouse was facing the wrong way when the float went past! He waved to someone else's kids! Nevermind that Gavie was apparently unphased. Nevermind that the much more important Captain Hook waved. That was Mickey, dammit! And my son waved! THEREFORE, the mouse should have turned immediately and waved back!

(Ahhhh, if only all of life's problems could be that simple, huh?)

I guess we can add one more irrational motherly behavior to my list.

They're rats with fluffy tails.

2007-03-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

So there I was, surfing the 'net when BAM! today's topic hit me. Squirrels! Seems that that fuzzy little beasts cause more power outages each year then lightening.

Here's the link: Suicide Squirrels

Here's my blog... an essay on why I hate squirrels.

Imagine, dear readers, a house of seventy-odd years. Character galore: hardwood floors and stained glass windows. A tiled fireplace. Professionally landscaped twenty years previous, meaning that what had been envisioned was well into fruition. Lovely, lovely, lovely.

And sitting next to said house, a tree. No doubt older then the house itself. The tree shades the front yard so completely that the living room and what became the nursery are comfortably cool all summer. The branches arch up, reaching to the sky and touching the clouds above. Each fall, it's an explosion of red and gold, so glorious that one almost doesn't mind raking.

And in said tree are squirrels. Furry little rotten bastards hell-bent on getting into my house. Brown rats with fluffy tails. One in particular, a ring-leader I'm convinced, knew how to slip in and curl up in my laundry basket. It's beady black eyes closed in repose as it enjoyed the warmth that's literally heaped on it, as shirts and pants and towels slide down to chute and land atop it's fat little carcass.

No doubt the dislike I possess comes from the moment I pulled a shirt from the basket and found him rolled up and ready to hibernate. No doubt his desire to torment me came from my ear-splitting, high-pitched scream of fright -- a scream apparently so harsh to his ears that he actually froze. Unmoving. Not even blinking, so terror-ridden was he. He gave nary a protest when the Big Guy came down and threw a rug over the basket, effectively trapping him inside.

Apparently, though, being ousted from my warm abode did not sit well with the creature.

There's something very disturbing about walking up to your front porch and looking up... to see three squirrels watching you and chirping. Rather macabre and Hitchcock-ish, if you will. I was waiting for the beasts to leap upon me much like one of Alfred's birds attacked Tippi a half-century ago.

Thankfully, they decided that menacing chatter was enough.

A little over a year later, they'd no doubt been waiting for the perfect opportunity, I was in the laundry room when I heard scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch. I thought it was my cat playing around the furnace. Perhaps she was chasing a bug.

Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch.

I was several months pregnant by this point and too tired to really investigate, so I just stood there and waited for her to come into view.

Scritch.

No. Not the cat. The squirrel. The glorified rodent. AND FRIEND. Playing about my furnace.

No screams this time, just good old-fashioned legwork. I tore up the steps and, in my least-ladylike vocabulary, told my husband and neighbor that we had, to put it politely this time, "guests."

Two of the four-footed overgrown vermin came back just weeks before we were to move. This time they dove down the chimney.

The joke was on them.

You see, the fireplace had been sealed. They landed underneath it where the ashes would have gathered. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. One apparently broke its neck (it wasn't in there long enough to starve), so we only had to deal with one live one. My brother grabbed him about his neck and literally threw him out of the garage.

Did you know that squirrels bounce?

(Disclaimer: no squirrels were harmed in the writing of this post.)

Luck

2007-02-13T14:19:00.000-08:00

Well, yeah... it's about 20 degrees out, tops... and, yeah, there's icy snow out there... but after last week's sub-zero temperatures, I'm thinking we're enjoying a little Indian summer. Yesterday, for example, we hit a high of 32 degrees. Break out the t-shirts and fire up the grill for some kielbasa, fellow Pittsbughers! I boldly went sans hat while leaving work yesterday! And my ears were NOT frozen right off of my head. Good thing, eh?

Coming home today would have been nerve-wracking, to be honest, had we been in the car. Luckily, we bus. Feeling a bus skid, even a few short feet, is not a pleasant sensation -- mainly because I have one single thought: "if this huge thing skids, what will my Saturn do?" Luck was on our side, though, because we made it to the park-n-ride and home before the sleet/ice/snow really kicked in.

I think that pretty much every kid and teacher in the affected areas are praying for a snow. I know I am. Truth be told, I'm torn! If I go in, assuming school is open, it will be a ghost town. Translation: no classes due to a lack of students! (I have the "one-student rule," which means that I do not teach when there is only one other body in the classroom. There has to be two for me to do anything. It used to be the "50% rule," but that was too often to be feasible. Too many of my adult students have outside issues that keep them from attending regularly; e.g., kids, court, difficult bosses, court dates, or even incarceration.)

If we have school but lack students, I can spend my hours getting paperwork caught up, writing my Saturday lecture (three hours of lecture and a killer PPT presentation, I rock thank you very much!), kibbitzing with coworkers, and probably ordering a pizza around noon.

Then again, if I stay home, I can play in the snow with Gavie. That doesn't even need an explanation as to why that would be attractive! With a hill in the backyard, a sled, and six or more inches of snow....

My fingers are crossed.

Um... a title? Got me.

2007-02-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

Sometimes one can be too awake.

Today's class was too short. We're covering the Middle Ages -- the Dark Ages, if you will. The era of Charlemagne, of the Treaty of Verdun, and of the Vikings. We're talking about the rise of an empire and of its fall. We're looking at the way in which weak kings and strong aristocrats manipulated a system and how traditional inheritance systems can destroy a whole kingdom. We looked at original documents, discussed the universitae of the day, and laughed heartily at a bit of artwork left over from the day -- the stone relief of a medieval classroom you see at your left. Even back then, students pondered the deepest question of life: is class over yet?

But my brain, I fear, was racing. Fascinated by the thought of the invention of the horseshoe and a different style of horse collar. Add the twin ideas windmills and watermills, and you have yourself an agricultural evolution that freed the serfs and eventually made need for castles a thing of the past and you have the makings of a lecture that I was chomping at the bit (pardon the pun) to get to today.

Imagine! Being able to grow more food then you need! We can sell it! Eureka! The men can go back to school! Learning can be renewed, trades can be pursued, and specializations can begin. Again! (Maslow would be proud! We're once-again on our way to self-actualization! It's pretty hard to self-actualize when you're busy carrying that pocketful of posies to ward off the plague.)

Then again, with the return of the luxury of thoughts beyond survival, people went back to the Roman insanity of seeking happiness while on earth. Which, of course, brought up a whole host of problems as people tried to be happy AND obey the church's edicts. That one about sex only for procreation was a tricky one, I understand. Did you know that s-e-x was just plain b-a-d in the early church's eyes? Marriage wasn't that great either. But, if you had to -- you know -- do it, it was best done within the confines of marriage. Divorce was illegal, of course. No matter how ugly, quarrelsome, or barren the woman may be. The church was a bit different back then. For example, St. Thomas of Aquinas remarked that women were only good for procreation. Meanwhile, the Germanic influence on the church itself resulted in the idea of religious freedom -- provided that your were Christian. Otherwise, well, you found yourself on the wrong side of the sword.

Kinda ironic given that just a bit earlier the Christians were the ones lighting Nero's garden parties. Literally.

Ah well. No one ever said we learned from history. Besides, it's all about pots and pans now. That's literally, too. Captain Chaos is jumping on my couch to the song Pots and Pans, which comes to us from the latest Kohl's for Kids book, Dog Train by Sandra Boynton.

Perhaps I sound like the biggest nerd out there -- one with attention issues, today. Perhaps I am! But even you can probably appreciate this line from the text: "One Germanic professor was finally dismissed from his position after stabbing one too many of his colleagues at faculty meetings."

One too many?

Fellow teachers, can you imagine? Think about all of those lovely meetings we've been to... the ones where people talk and talk and talk and talk and yet say nothing. Think about the ones where the powers-that-are bring in "authorities" on topics such as classroom safety and engaging the learners. Remember all those helpful chats? My favorite was the one where I was told that simply invading a disruptive student's space will cause him or her to immediately quiet down and behave.

That's about the time I get told to "f**k off" by the kid.

That same speaker played The Rose for us and told us that we, the teachers, could inspire a student to be anything. Hell, half the time I'm just hoping to inspire them to stay conscious.

So anyway, back to faculty meeting homicides and my favorite question: can you imagine?

Well, such fantasies aside...! Oh, yeah, he's still jumping. Got the song on "repeat." I think this is the fifteenth playing. (In case you're wondering, I gave Chaos permission to jump. I also give him permission to get really, really muddy in the summer and we had a blast leaping into freshly raked leaves this past fall. It was worth the blisters.)

Sometimes one can be too awake. That's where I came in. Feudalism, universities, and serfs. Economic emancipation. All thanks to being able to shoe a horse and harness the wind! Remember the poem For the Want of a Nail? Economic emancipation thanks to a nail! Does this mean I might someday emancipate myself thanks to a pencil? Dunno. Anyone want a copywriter who specializes in educational and business-related topics? On-line and PowerPoint lectures my speciality.

Now what do I say? Hmmm.... being that this blog is proof of what I'm claiming, perhaps the best thing to say - for now at least! -- is:

Blender solo!

Time marches on

2007-01-20T19:29:00.000-08:00

Tonight friend of ours came over, bringing their two sons. How amazing two watch their oldest and Gavie share the oversized sketch book and make blue circles on their respective pages. How fun to hold their youngest, who will be one on Gavie's fourth birthday. The seven of us sat around the kitchen table and shared pizza. Us adults talked about the excitingly mundane: insurance, taxes, work. We joked, too, of course, she and I playing "I knew you when."

She knew me just as the big guy and I were buying our first house and just starting a three-year road to conceiving. I knew her when she and her big guy were just starting to date, just taking those first steps into committment. Naturally, I teased the hell out of her.

We both started at VADU the same year. I left the following June, fleeing to higher education. I've had three jobs since. She'd still there. (Believe me, I'm saying that with admiration!)

Time marches on. Eight... or is it nine?... years now and our little boys are making friends.

When they left, we happily picked up the chaos that a three and two-year-old leave in their wake. We love washable crayons and berber carpets, for they let boys be boys. Plastic bins let us toss trucks and Fisher-Price Little People in haphazardly and with ease. In all, it was a whopping five minutes. I've never been a particularly fussy woman when it comes to Gavie. True, I have issues with letting him out in public in mismatched outfits or his favorite but well-worn sweats (never!!), but I've yet to flinch when it comes to messes made in the pursuit of fun.

Growing up, dreaming about families and kids, I never really knew how much I'd love these nights. They aren't exactly the most exciting -- no dancing, no crowds, no late nights. Stumbling in at 3 a.m. was never my way, I don't think I've ever done that. The last time my friends and I went dancing, in fact, I left at midnight and didn't drink a thing beyond a Pepsi. Living the wild life, which according to the media is the way to go for someone of my youth, was never quite my thing. Still, sitting around talking about insurance was not something I ever gave much thought to.

I'm looking forward to doing it again.

We're watching Cars right now. I'm sitting on the couch, and Gavie is bundled under an afghan. He's falling asleep, slowly. Louch that he is, he's fighting it. Like his father, he doesn't seem to require much sleep. In about a half hour, after he's completely out, I'll carry him upstairs and relish holding my baby. He's getting so tall, too soon I won't be able to carry him. Even now it's getting tricky. When I read to him, he's too lanky to hold on my lap. Balancing him and a book no longer happens. Actually, just cuddling on my lap is becoming a challenge because he's all arms and legs.

In pictures he looks older then almost-four. My baby boy now tells me he can do things all by himself. He wants to do everything by himself. "By myself, mom! All by myself!"

We finally got our family portrait taken. It's hanging over the fireplace to the left of the wedding portrait. To the right is Gavie's third birthday portrait. He's standing there with a smile on his face, unguarded. I can see his dad's features in his small face. He's his dad all over again -- though he inherited my nose.

"All by myself," he announces daily. By the minute, it sometimes seems. When he tries to prove that he can do things by himself we often have to run interference between him and a number of everyday household items that almost-four-year-olds aren't quite capable of handling alone. You know, like emptying the Dustbuster. Operating a screwdriver. Putting hand lotion on the cat. (Well, trying to anyway!)

"All by myself." My baby's growing up. It's going to be a heck of a ride, I suspect, whatwith his tendency to have an answer for everything. He may look like his dad, but he sounds like his mom.

Welcome, daughter, home returning

2007-01-08T17:54:00.000-08:00

Welcome, daughter.

As I wound my way up the hill, taking that familiar turns with ease, I couldn't help but smile. Little Michelle, who used to be scared of her own shadow, was driving to orientation so that come Saturday, January 6, she could stand before a room of countless strangers and talk about long-dead cultures and political bodies.

One resolution realized: return to Seton Hill to teach.

The phrase that I titled this blog with was the welcoming phrase for alum weekend over a decade ago, when SHU was SHC and the population was "predominantly female." The welcome stuck with me all these years, then came to mind as I made that final turn and Admin came into view.

I felt as if I truly were coming home. The Hill where I spent my post-secondary years was indeed my home, where I came into my own.

I thought of my room Brownlee Hall -- one of the "infamous" triples, where three women were crammed into a space meant for two. I had the loft. That year I was a typist on the Setonian, and I had a won a role in a one-act play. I met boys and men and played an awful lot of pool.

Life on Fourth Admin, short as it was, a learning experience. I'll say no more on those two months save that I learned how to get up, shower, grab some toast and juice, then roll into class in under a half-hour. I became the Setonian's Production Editor and ate too many Eat-n-Park Smiley Cookies.

My one-and-a-half years in Havey Hall, the one with a woman exactly like me but completely different. I drove her crazy with my procrastination, being the antithesis of her organized and proactive self. We had a sink in the room and thought it the lap of luxury. The Setonian became my life as I was named Editor -- so much so that the big guy bet me that I couldn't go a week without talking about it. I think I nearly bit my tongue in half to do it, but I somehow won the bet. The pool table was still a looming figure in my social life, which was easy to understand being that it was in the Havey lounge.

My final year in my then-boyfriend-now-husband's old room: 526 Canevin Hall. My own room, nary a single roommate, but neighbors who made life quite pleasant. Another year as Editor. Peace was made with the former perfectionist roommate, which was easy once we weren't living together. During Senior Week, a number of us women sharked at the bars we went to. Not too many men thought that a bunch of giggly college girls knew which end of the cue to use, let alone how to sink those solids and stripes just so. We got a lot of free food and drinks that week.

I student taught that year, taking over a ninth grade history class where a young girl threw her books out the window, brought in her pet newts in her purse, and set her desk on fire. (No wonder I'm so calm in the classroom when someone tells me she just got out of jail for trying to murder her stepmother. I don't panic. I just ask if she's planning to do that to me.)

Four too-short years for this Setonian girl.

Welcome, daughter. Welcome back to your window seat in third Maura solarium, where you would sit and wait for the big guy to get out of Spanish class. Welcome back to Lowe Dining Hall where your mother-in-law works and where your son is known by everyone there. Welcome to where you learned to define yourself by yourself -- rather then by others' ideals.

Come Saturday I'd be the teacher, standing before the class... not sitting in the ancient wooden paddle desks where Lori carved her love for Blaine. Those desks, by the way, are just about gone. Replaced by tables and cushioned chairs. The few podiums we had are now sleek black ones that house an amazing amount of technology.

Western Cultural Traditions, WCT for short, is no longer a survey course taught to the entire sophmore class at once. The auditorium-style lecture that I remembered has been replaced by small groups. There are no longer different lecturers each week -- just the teacher. That, incidentally, would be me.

Did I ever mention that my first degree was history?

It's a testament to my education at SHC that I am able to walk into a room and teach history for nearly four hours, despite being out of the history classroom for eight years. As I prepared for the class, it all came back to me. Dead kings and ancient maps were as fresh in my memory as they were fourteen years ago when I was sitting in those blasted paddle desks and reading the graffiti'd history of generations of Hill girls. Somehow I retained much more then I thought I had.

It's a testament, too, to that same education that I've been able to make the transition from high school to business college, and now to the university, classroom with little difficulty. You see, Saturday went swimmingly. Over-prepared and quite confident, I managed to hide my nerves and come across (I think!) as if I'd been standing before a room of undergrads for years.

Standing in 228 Maura, in a room that was once tiered and now not, in a room where I watched student government elections and dogged the student reps with questions on accuracy and ethics, I did it. I stood and lectured and oversaw groupwork. I fielded questions without blinking or breaking a sweat. I made them think.

Wow.

Me, doing that. Wow.

One year

2006-12-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

One year ago today we buried my Dad, still feeling relief that his suffering was over. I wasn't quite feeling emotions such as sad. How could I? Just three, four, days earlier I was praying for him to die. How could I not? How could I even consider being selfish enough to want him to live just one more day?

So we stood at the gravesite as family tradition dictated. My brother and I were presented with American flags in honor of Dad's service in the Coast Guard. How surreal to hold the perfect triangle and stare out over the grey box before us and see the faces of everyone who mourned with us. My knees felt weak, and for the second time in my life I felt as if they would buckle. The first time was just days earlier when they took his body to the funeral home. And I stood in the door and watched them wheel him away, and I felt the new emptiness of the living room for the first time.

I didn't fall then, nor did I fall this time. I leaned back against my husband and used his strength until my own returned. I don't remember ever crying, just wanting to.

We watched them lower the casket, incapable of leaving until it was completely over. Another family tradition.

Relief has since faded. Am I angry? A little. Resentful? A little. I'm too human not to feel those emotions. But you persevere, you still go on. Wake up each morning, go to work, raise your family, and make new plans for the future. And you forgive. Though I'm not sure who needs to be forgiven. It's not like Dad asked to get cancer. Raging at the fates doesn't do much. They never answer.

What a blessing to have my son.

Captain Chaos and the Eight-Foot Wonder

2006-12-08T19:47:00.000-08:00

I plan to make my own Christmas cards this year. I have the stamps, the ink, and the paper. I even have glitter and some fancy-smancy markers to boot. They're going to be lovely red, green, and white creations. A wallet-sized picture of Master Gavie will be featured on the front. It will be wonderful.

First, however, I need to save the cat from the toddler of terror. He's taken it into his head that he needs to save her from herself because she keeps chewing on my Christmas tree, the Eight-Foot Artificial Wonder. She's been gnawing on that thing for years, and she's still alive. I'm not particularly worried about her. I am, however, worried that he'll give both her and me a nervous breakdown with his attempts to protect her as they usually involve shrill scoldings and an attempt to chase her out from under the tree.

(Note to my fellow young mothers: never -- ever -- think you can just pull a three-year-old out from under a tree once he knows you're there. He can take the whole tree with him once his little hands are wrapped around the base. Don't ask, just trust me on this one.)

The inner Martha Stewart will emerge soon after I rescue the cat. Wait, no... sorry. The entire manger population went a.w.o.l. again. The Ghost of Christmas Chaos apparently decided to hide all of them, from Baby Jesus himself to the oxen and the lamb, in the tree. Ever try to find a 1/2" tall statue of an infant in an eight-foot tall, five-foot wide artificial wonder?

(By the way, the tree is also a great hiding place for pacificers, favored toy frogs, and other important items that you can't afford to lose or that your child wants to keep "safe.")

Chistmas simplicity, in the form of cards... excuse me. I have to go find out why the musical ornaments are playing. We hung those a minimum of five feet up on the Eight-Foot Wonder.

Yep, there he is. Gotta love stepstools. (Note to self: hide it in the basement tonight.)

I'm going to make those cards tonight, as soon as I find all of the blue plastic Christmas bulbs. They're gone. Opps, nevermind. They're all on the far left of the tree in one big blue cluster.

"All blue, Mom!" He sounds so proud of himself as I stare at the latest design. "All blue!"

I tell him it's lovely and give him a hug. Our Eight-Foot Wonder -- or at least the bottom three feet -- has been continually re-arranged and re-organized by Captain Chaos from the day we first put it up. The part he can't reach, so long as the stepstool is out of sight anyway, is decorated with the breakable, sentimental ornaments. (I can't wait until Gavie comes home with a felt snowman decorated with Froot Loop buttons, or the little cardboard tree covered in poster paint and sequins that says Merry Christmas in childish handwriting. Those will have places on honor on the Eight-Foot Wonder)

Okay. I think it's time. Let's the creating begin! A red card with white and green accents, some glitter on the snowman. Time for the picture. Damn, I'm good. This looks professional! Martha, eat your little felon's heart out!

"Mom!"

Last week Santa came to "inspect" our Christmas tree and put the rest of the ornaments on it. Since Gavie was such a big help to us, Santa left him a present: Tinkertoys!

"Mommy!"

He comes running in with a handful of the little wooden toys. Apparently he's having trouble getting some of the sticks to connect, or at least that's what I innocently think. He takes my hand and pulls me into the living room to see his handiwork.

The Tinkertoy tin has been emptied of its contents and shoved into the tree. It's roughly four feet of the ground, eye-level with Captain Chaos. It's laying on its side, the open end facing out. The entire nativity set, including a few little froggies, now lives in a Tinkertoy container-turned-treehouse.

(Is "The-Eight-Foot-It's-A-Wonder-It-Hasn't-Fallen-Over-Yet Tree" too long?)

Perfectly browned turkey and pink eyes

2006-11-24T20:15:00.000-08:00

The table was resplendent, set with my mother's antique china and my silver. Dinner was served in matching bowls and, when I ran out of those, served bowls and on platters that were from my grandmother's wedding set. My great-grandmother made the crocheted tablecloth. I like the ties to the past, they keep me grounded.

Around the table sat three generations, from the grandbabies to the grandmothers.

Dinner didn't come from the over this year, hours weren't spent slaving over a hot stove. Over a microwave, yes; but a stove, no. My mother-in-law's co-workers, wonderful women that the big guy and I know well from our college years, bought us our dinner from Seton Hill, where she works and we went to college.

La's cancer is gone, but we need six months of chemo since it was beginning to enter her lymph nodes. She's getting a port, just like my father had.

But dinner that night was not focused on cancer. It was about being together, eleven of us surrounding the table, wrangling the children and trying to get them to actually eat something healthy. My mother's companion was with us this year, filling my father's empty chair but certainly not replacing him.

So we survived our first major holiday without Dad. Last Christmas doesn't count, not when he died on the Christmas Eve. This year, I might dryly joke, I'm sober... but last year I was, too. I remember everything, despite probably drinking more in two days then the entire year previous. Then again, six or seven bottles of Zima probably isn't that much in the grand scheme of things.

(I think it's safe to say that I'm in no danger of becoming an alcoholic, eh?)

One year is creeping up quickly. December 24. My family does have a knack for death and holidays and other special occasions. Dad died only five days short of my mother's mother, almost ten years to the day. Grandpap left us right before Thanksgiving two years ago. My uncle died on my wedding anniversary. Of course, we can also mention my grandfather's minor stroke a week prior to my wedding and my father's diagnosis of bladder cancer two weeks later, but neither of those were fatal.

No wonder I'm so calm when holidays roll around -- so long as we haven't a funeral, I'm counting things a success.

(Did I ever mention my tendency toward irony and sarcasm?)

In all seriousness, Thanksgiving was a success. Dinner was divine, almost as good as the company. Serving dinner to family is indeed a blessing, you know. This year, though we thought about Dad, missing him didn't stop our lives, which is how it should be.

Things did stop this morning though, when I looked at my darling son's face and said, "What's wrong with his eye?"

A tiny bit more on labels...

2006-11-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

Interestingly enough, an unplanned coincidence to my previous post, my friend (and author of Love and Ghost Letters) Chantel, just penned a post on nicknames, a whole other sort of label.

Check her writing out at www.yucababy.easyjournal.com; check her writer's site out at www.chantelacevedo.com.

Ladies and Gentleman, we have a LABEL

2006-11-18T19:31:00.000-08:00

Well, my kid got labeled. Got an IEP, too, so I'm not too distraught. It's all good, really. Love that educational stuff.

Okay, enough with the tone, as my mother would call it.

The same kid who reads Go, Dog, Go! to me has his very own individualized education plan so that he can learn how to make the right sounds in the right way so that people can actually understand him. He counts to thirteen, spells about a dozen words by memory, and can read most three-to-four-letter words, but can't make an r sound. Or a w. Or, actually, quite a few.He just "drops" those sounds when he speaks.

I can't tell you what the label is because I don't remember. I'm not blocking it out, and I'm not in denial. I just don't think that a label is particularly important since he's simply working on pronounciation. If we were dealing with dyslexia or some other issue of major concern, I'd remember the words. We're dealing with a pronounciation issue, a developmental delay, and that's that.

I won't be the sort of parent who defines her child by his label. That's all. I've known a few parents like that and, frankly, haven't seen many positive things come out of that approach.

Then again, I won't be the parent so determined to prove that a label is only a cluster of words that I end up inadvertently sabatoging his progress.

The approach is this: we do what we need to do in terms of practice at home, we support the team that's working with him, and we stay very, very involved.

We actually wanted a label, believe it or not. While we can teach Gavie how to read, count, find bugs, and jump into a pile of leaves, we haven't much experience in teaching proper pronounciation, not when it comes to teeth and tongue and declension and whatnot. We need the experts, it's that simple.

So don't mind me, the sarcastic cynic, one with an intense dislike for labels in general. I think that, while usually applied with the best of intentions, often end up overshadowing and haunting the person in the long run.