Business or pleasure

Down to business

I'd been preparing for weeks. Mentally putting red slashes through my imaginary calendar, counting down the hours until Europe! A vacation of sorts; a 10-day, work-related excursion that my husband assured me would be anything but relaxing.

Of course, I wouldn't be going.

But unlike him, I would be relaxed.

I'd be at home with the kids, doing what we always do when business calls him away.

Which includes all manner of things we usually avoid so as not to evoke his raised eye-brow, wrinkled nose expression:

Like cooking fish for dinner or eating bowls of sugary cereal, whatever cravings bubble up to the lazy river surface; watching movies that don't feature explosions every seven-and-a-half seconds, and absolving ourselves of all manner of detritus of which the man of the house can't part. 

While the cat's away, the mice will take the opportunity to clear out junk the packrat left behind and donate it to Goodwill Industries.

Why do we have six bunt cake pans anyway? The last time anyone in this family had seen a bunt cake was when we watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" on Netflix during one of the previous business trips.

Those pans, a salad spinner, six slotted spoons, two comforters, forty-one fleeces, four vests, twelve winter sweaters (the scratchy kind) and seven picture puzzles (all the pieces included (god willing), will no longer insulate the back of our shared closet. Instead, these useful (albeit out-of-season items) will start their long journey toward a color-coordinated debut on a resale shelf near you, in scented over-"flex"-ed kitchen trash bags.

As soon as I drop them off, I feel lighter and freer. I drive home with the satisfaction of knowing fewer things mean more room to breathe. Less clutter somehow means less anxiety.

My only regret is that I left the two cold-brew coffee contraptions to gather dust a little longer. Their departure this soon after arrival would likely be noticed.

And no manner of magical thinking or dramatic waving of hands could make anyone think my standard response – “It must be around here somewhere” – would be, in any way, believable.

It may not be perfect, but I can move on a long list of things I'd been putting off until no one was watching, eager to give their two-cents but not willing to put any real investment toward elbow grease: the lawn, the garden, the garage.

This week-long separation feels like more of a holiday than our actual vacations.

I can tell, he's feeling it, too.

His Instagram feed is beginning to fill with the sights and sounds of his work as he makes his way to England, moving stuff around … first by cargo plane and then by ferry. Time-lapse sightseeing for the onlooker. 

His voice has a calm that defies the many million milligrams of caffeine he's ingested to combat jet lag and get through the long hours of travel.

He's in his element, and I am in mine. We are both seeing little corners of the world and solving problems, some of which are of our own making.

In a week I will miss him almost as much as he will miss that salad spinner … or this broken colander. 

Ode to rain

An alert from the weather service lights up my phone. A small crack of SMS lighting unleashes a torrent of worry.

Tornado?

Straight-line winds?

Flash flooding?

I reach for it on the nightstand and squint my eyes against the glare to bring what it says into focus:

"Rain will begin at 11:37 tonight and continue on and off for the next half hour."

I don't really understand it. Any of it. The notices of the rain, and the rain itself, its relentlessness mystify me.

But there are six of these messages lined up in the device's recent history. Usually arriving at once a night, they seem ill-timed and unnecessary.  

The rain had been tapping at the roof for some hours now. I had already felt its icy slash at my skin as I walked the dog earlier. It was a constant hum in the background.

It was beginning to seem familiar, like a piece of patio furniture.

The Saturday before, as we set out to the city farmers' market, the phone had even tried to assure me the weather was clear.

But the rain outside the car and the rapid movement of windshield wiper proved an alternative fact.

I wish it were so. 

The unpaved ground, everywhere I step, feels like moss underneath my feet.

Ten of the last 14 days have been sodden and gloomy. 

The pattern, at least according to local weathercasters, will continue.

As a result, everything feels damp and cold and dreary.

I joke with myself that I may have to build an arc to leave the comfort of the indoors and not be carried away into the wild. Although with my skills, the resulting vessel would be akin to a milk jug raft, held together by twine and duct tape, and not at all pond-worthy. I can't muster a smile, let alone a laugh even a maniacal one.

I used to love the rain. I loved the sound it made when it hit the leaves above. I loved the look of the drops that beads up on my umbrella, turning the world into a faceted prism as I trudge through lush and rapidly growing fields. The clear gumdrop-shaped dome, bought on a whim, offers joy and generous protection. 

Not that I mind getting caught in the weather. Even now, as "April Showers" bring "May Floods," and Who Knows What Hardship Come June." Some of my favorite memories flashback with puddle splashing, rain-soaked hair, and clothes from which I could wring a cup of water. 

I should knock on wood for all the luck I've been having. The rain was seeming to hold itself back from a deluge until I return to my car. Tapering off again when I've traveled some and parked.

This game it plays with the sun is the perfect foil.

The rain is impish and amusing for now, while the sun stands overhead and salutes, threatening oppression as it grows in strength.

Those alerts are coming. But right now it looks like rain will begin again at 5:11.

Codes and conduct

The teen slammed the door and groaned.  An outburst that is not unusual.

She dropped an armload of books on the table before heading into the kitchen to forage for snacks. Also, not unusual. 

She sighed again. Louder. More of the same.

But … 

"Today was an unusual awful," she complained, with a hint of theatrical animation. In addition to the usual burden of juggling the delicate peer and performance pressures in education, "The nurse dress-coded me."

Now "a dress code" - used as a verb - is when a teacher or faculty member formally announces to a student (usually publicly and within earshot of other students) that their attire is somehow in violation of a set of rules the school lists in a handbook that are intended to promote decorum and prevent disruption of the learning environment.

And as a parent I have lived in fear of the dress code's random and arbitrary enforcement - not only by teachers but also peers, neither of whom seem to have any qualms about telling a person their person has been determined to be inappropriate.

These rules include (but are not limited to) restrictions that police boys for T-shirt slogans or sloppiness, while policing girls for showing off any part of the female form.  In my daughter's case, the offending area was about that inch and a half of flesh between the top of her high-waisted shorts and the knot where she had tied her oversized t-shirt. 

"I had to walk around all day looking like I wasn't even wearing shorts."

Of course, this isn't her first run-in with public school dress code enforcement. There was the I-shouldn't-be-able-to-see-your-shoulders incident in seventh grade and a vexing visible bra-strap saga in eighth grade.

Now, apparently, girls putting knots in their shirts is problematic.

Luckily she has always gotten away with wearing short shorts and leggings as pants - styles that have become ubiquitous  – as well as the occasional wearing-your-pajamas-to class thing, which at times has been sanctioned by teachers in the guise of "school spirit."

Maybe it's the sheer number of coed students dressed in identical "uniforms" tumbling out of school after the bell rings. In their hole-y jean shorts and cropped sweaters, it's difficult to tell them apart. 

I imagine having a line of them standing outside the nurse's office waiting to have the distance between cuff and kneecap measured with a ruler would take up a significant portion of the educational day for no real purpose other than exercising control that authority figures could more uniformly apply if they required actual uniforms.

Now I am enraged.

The news on any given day doesn't help.

Our dumpster fire of a country where kids murder other kids in schools because guns are as ubiquitous as midriffs but eminently more deadly.

I want to take my ruler and measure those discrepancies, as well as other examples of specific adults around these parts who have, without sanction, behaved inappropriately. But somehow pointing in their direction would be rude ... not to mention mortifying to the teenager.

So I'll say nothing.

"Keep your eyes on your own page," seems like a necessary lesson we should all try to learn.

The long and the short of it

She couldn't believe the question was serious, let alone playing any part in producing her final average: "What makes tall people better?"

The boy smirking at my daughter as he relayed the high school social studies assignment was understandably giddy. He towers over her, and she's made no secret of her sensitivity about being short.

"Let me guess ... they don't have a comparing or contrasting essay topic on the befits of being small?" she asks wearily.

"Nope," he says, pronouncing the P with a deep-cheek pop for emphasis.

I could only sigh when she retold the story after she'd plunked down in the car and grabbed for the seatbelt.

These assignments, it seems, haven't really changed much.

When I was her age, I had a teacher who once separated students into groups by eye color and hair color  ... making the brunettes among us suppose (as if we hadn't already) that the blue-eyed blondes were more likable ... more intelligent ... more likely to get the office with a good view and window and just about everything a person could want out of life.

The rest of us, she said quite theatrically, "might not amount to much at all." Her only solace for us was "Just be glad you're not a ginger … those reds are mentally unstable and more likely to wind up institutionalized."

I don't need to ask why some still teach this way. But I often wonder.

Our differences make for interesting discussions, and the anecdotes seem to stay with us even as we pull off the bandage, hair and all, and admit that we all feel the same pain of being outside looking in.

I used to they think they showed us these things to alert us to our own prejudices, but I've come to wonder if we haven't merely reinforced them. 

All one needs to do is Google from their phone to get the essay started: 

A 2014 University of Edinburgh study finds a small correlation between height and higher IQ. The Scottish university also noted that shorter women had a higher risk for dementia and diabetes than taller women … though shorter women tend to live the longest.

The Atlantic reports that tall people earn on average about $800 a year more than short-statured people.

Few US presidents have been short, and the average hight for CEOs is about six feet.

And who gets picked last for teams?

My short kid raises her hand.

I tell her she should reject the premise. Cross-examine how all these correlations are linked to causation? Remind them how the studies might be small … or on mice … or not replicated … or intrinsically biased.

You can ask them whether they think it is fair? Ask them how do we change it?

She's looking at me with that specific look that most teens give their parents … the one that says "You must be new here."

"Well … the long and the short of it is this: Maybe if I were taller they'd listen."