Not so foreign

I saw “Karate Kid” when it first came out in movie theaters. Since that evening in 1984 I've encountered countless children dressed in tiny white pajamas, and yet the experience of a class filled with little Ralph Macchios seemed entirely foreign to me.

There my son was draped in a suit of white muslin, one trouser cuff folded up, the other catching under his heel as he sidestepped across a room-sized mat. The white sash that held his tunic closed could have wrapped around his waist three times. Twice was traditional, and he had no intention of breaking with tradition.

The boy who stepped onto that mat, fist pressed against palm and bending into a deep bow, looked exactly like the kid who bounced into my car, charged over the seats with his muddy sneakers and had to be cajoled into sitting quietly and snapping his own seatbelt into place.

He looked exactly like the kid who threw his glove up in the air as he waited for the baseball to make its way into his section of the outfield. The boy who routinely sat criss-cross-applesauce during every other play. Coach can holler “baseball ready” all he wants, the term floats into the air and drifts away meaningless as he dances and stretches and plucks up grass by the blade. “I love baseball,” he insists. “I play great on the Wii.”

But this kid was different. Focused and alert. Watching every one's move and keeping in step. This was another sport entirely. And somehow he seemed to understand the language.

“Hey, buddy,” I yelled to get his attention. “Your sash is dragging on the floor. Let me help you retie it.”

Even my son recognized I seemed lost and in need of a translator.

“It's not a sash, mom. It's a belt. And I know how to tie it.”

Since he started taking a martial arts class I stand corrected. A lot.

The teacher isn't a master or a sensei, he's just “sir.”

It's not just a uniform or a gi, it's a dobok.

It's also not karate … or kung fu or Aikido … it's tae kwon do.

It comes from Korea, not Japan or China.

He riddles me with fact after fact, which I try to sort out with help from a careful comparison of dozens of Wikipedia entries. The variations, however, are lost on me.

What isn't lost on me is the stick-straight body of my normally fidgety son, in rapt silence, as he listens to the instructions of his new mentor.

As I watch from my place on the folding chairs, I am sure I couldn't duplicate the dance. Each step has a name I can't even pronounce.

It's all about the form. He moves through some basic stances. Foot plant. Foot plant. Swivel. Punch. Punch. Punch.

My son moves through this script fluidly and with confidence, needing only small corrections here and there. Leveling of shoulders, aligning of arms, position of feet. He finds the alignment on his own through repetition.

For an hour, twice a week, he seems like a different child. Focused and engaged. A little of this new stance even stays on him for a while after his dobok is in the laundry and he is swimming around in the tub.

He bows deeply, saying, “Yes, sir” and “No, sir” gently and unprompted.

Meditation in movement.

His teacher asks questions:

“Win or lose, does it matter?”

He and his classmates chime in unison:

“No, sir.”

“What matters is that you do your absolute best. It might not be 100 percent every day, but it's your best for that moment.”

“Yes, sir.”

And in that moment, it didn't seem foreign in the least.

Dawn til dusk

The day ended with ample time for a “family movie.”

We knew it would, whether the kids went off to dreamland on time or an hour late. That's how we roll on a Sunday night.

With darkness drifting in later and later, it becomes more and more difficult to convince the kids bedtime isn't connected to the light in the sky. They just think we're actively trying to pull the wool over their eyes by pulling the drapes over their windows.

The schedule is as much about nothing as it seems like everything:

Wake up. Breakfast. School. Lunch. School. Bike ride. Baseball. Dance. Dinner. Homework. Movie. Bed.

One activity morphing into the next as if it were a rope bridge over a raging river. Sure, it's dangerous but it's also a lifesaver.

Our kids can't seem to face that last week of school without powering down, and we can't face bedtime with sad-faced, belligerent children who feel robbed of their screen time.

Yes, I guess that means we are wimps. … We can admit it. School teachers wishing for a little more sanity as the 2013-14 academic year comes to a close are going to be sadly disappointed by us. We're not doing our part.

We're certainly not the parents we set out to be.

I'm sure we're not alone.

Children all over these United States trudge into school a few weeks shy of summer freedom with their zombie-like gazes or frenetic movements, and we parents should probably apologize.

Mea culpa.

It doesn't mean anything is going to change.

We know we can't do it all, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.

What else is there? The more we do the more we get done.

We juggle work and play; baseball and dance recitals, science projects and field trips; not to mention running 5Ks in the morning and 4H meetings in the afternoon. We abandon the old when we start new things.

It's not as if it's all fun and games, though. Life keeps happening. And just as you think you have the juggling act down … the medical ball might bump up against the school ball and knock the work ball out of the rotation. Schedules have to be rearranged. Plans changed.

I have to keep telling myself that the change part is always the hardest.

That moment when you are heading in one direction and suddenly you find yourself turned around.

The job you didn't get. That test result you didn't anticipate. Going forward while looking back.

Some people just go with it … barely seeming to notice. But most people, I think, need at least a little while to adjust. They may just keep going in the direction they were heading until they run out of road.

I never cease to marvel at how we all seem to travel through this life on a path we think no one else has mapped. Not that their directions would have helped us much, seeing as how we don't all witness the same scenery flying past the windows of our souls.

It is all new to us, after all.

Such is life.

We might all end up at the same place, but there's really no single way to get there. At least, that's what it looks like in this brighter light at the end of the day.

Aught Seven

Time has just flown by.

He was born, and now he's going to be seven.

S-E-V-E-N.

Sprawled on the floor, surrounded by markers and dog-eared colored paper, he was charting a plan for what he expected to be The Best Birthday Party Ever.

It was going to be …

“Mom! How do you spell epic?”

“E-P-I-C.”

It was also going to be a sleepover; he was going to invite no one we knew; and the stupid, inflatable water slide we stored in a garbage can in the garage would not make a single appearance at this soiree as it had at the other six.

So … it was also likely to be a disappointment.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, dear. Just continue your planning. Pay no attention to me.”

He made it clear: He was not a baby anymore.

And he didn't want my help, except to bake the cake and remind everyone when it was time for presents. And possibly to keep the dog out of the pillow fort, which I could help build if I were not too busy making pajamas for all of his friends.

As I peered over his shoulder at the crowded page, I could see he was serious.

In three, neat columns he'd carefully (mis)spelled (in his best handwriting) out every detail of this party to end all parties:

“My party is going to be a sleepover. We are going to play video games and watch movies and eat popcorn that has real fake butter. ... You know, the kind you get in movie theaters that always looks yellow? That kind of popcorn.”

He had a guest list, an itinerary and a three-meal-menu that included all the basic food groups birthday parties typically deliver: pizza, popsicles, brownies, cake, cupcakes and popcorn. There would also be fruit leather, chips, pretzels and cheese curls. And what kid wouldn't want Lunchables for breakfast?

Token protein.

They would play Minecraft and watch movies and sleep on the couches (head to head, so no one got stuck smelling feet).

Every second was accounted for. Even my role as Chief Cook and Bottle Washer had been punched into a clock.

“Oh … and in the morning, could you make those little panda bears out of oranges that you made for Ittybit's friends on her birthday?”

It's good to feel needed, I consoled myself, especially now that I have been demoted from party planner to citrus fruit sculptor.

It's also good, I muse, that party planning has also given him the impetus to practice his soon-to-be-forgotten first-grade writing skills.

“How do you spell 'Fireworks'?”

“Um … let's see: 'N-O'.”

“But … ”

“I-L-L-E-G-A-L.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means your mother would go to jail.”

“But … Amah has fireworks every year for Dad's birthday. She doesn't go to jail.”

“Amah lives in a state where fireworks are L-E-G-A-L.”

He shrugs his shoulders and starts to erase his misspelled sparklers and bottle rockets.

“Wait! I know how to fix this,” he says with a grin.

He scribbles with delight at his own brilliance.

“Moov to ware firewoks are leegle.”

No problem. We have three, whole weeks. That's plenty of time.

We're even

It was a crazy, messed up, beautiful day. The kind of day that begs you to go outside and do something, even if all you can muster is to sit on the porch and drink coffee.

Cursing the pollen.

It was a beautiful day despite the sudden rain shower. And the low drone of constant bickering. And forgetfulness that ebbs and flows from morning to night like a tidal creek.

It's the kind of day that has you rushing around in the middle of it, trying to pretend you hadn't forgotten today was the big game … or the dress rehearsal … or the day you volunteered to chaperone.

 

You are right, I am certainly not the boss of you, child. But I'm not your employee, either. I'm not the unpaid caretaker of your misplaced library books, or the scout who knows by intuition where your uniform has disappeared to in the dark and overgrown forest that is your room.

But go ahead, kids, keep assuming I'm clairvoyant.

I'll keep sending you on wild goose chases. It amuses me.

I'm pretty sure I saw the dog playing with your cleats under our bed. Bring a flashlight. … And a dust mop.

Oh, I kid. … the kids.

Like the time she called me into her room in a panic, certain the cat napping on her bed was a doppelganger – a look-alike imposter who came in through the dog door on a rainy day.

Well .. I didn't kid her too much. I had my hands full trying to compare iris markings with family photos.

Of course, beautiful days aren't perfect. They can be filled with confounding contradictions. Like the moment, you notice the tiny fist-like buds of your peonies raised to the sun. Until you bend down to breathe in the fragrance and the sight of an army of red ants – trying to pry open each pink, silken finger – punches you in the gut.

Maybe it was the promise extended by such a summer-coming day that had me thinking about all the oppositional forces at work. Summer dangles itself like a carrot for some and looms over others like a long procrastinated chore.

Scrubbing the toothpaste globs from the kids' bathroom sink, for instance.

Minor quibbles, really.

Well … except for the rainbow-colored wad of chewing gum one of my moon-faced cherubs used to cement the toothbrush holder to the counter of the vanity. That one wasn't such a minor quibble.

That one required chisels and a permanent moratorium on chewable (but not swallowable) confections.

Not that I can't handle the grossness that perpetually oozes out of childhood's every crevice.

I've had all the inoculations, and stamps in every page of this passport.

Of course, that could be why I've been walking around in a haze. The half-sleep that would make me think I was a new parent were it not for the reality I am an old parent, whose kids are becoming more independent.

Who can do things like reach the shelf with the glasses and pour their own milk … when I remind them – for the eightieth time today – they are not the boss of me.

Say it with me: “I will not cry over spilt milk.” It's truly liberating.

“We're late,” I yell as I herd them out of the house. “Get in the car. Put on your seat belts. I'll be right there.” I scramble to find keys and wallet and gear we should probably just leave in the car. My mind is a blank as I grab items and stow them in a bag. A bat. A glove. A stuffed bear with a heart-shaped pillow.

No water bottle.

I run out the door and down the stairs.

It's cramped, the car is filled with things I should have donated yesterday, but I can just make out Ittybit's head in the center row. Seatbelt in place.

Good.

I start the car. Ease it backward out of the garage. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly.

My daughter laughs. …

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

“I don't think so ...”

“How about my brother?”

Doh!

She laughs and laughs. Giddy and eager to tell the story to anyone who will listen if we ever manage to make it to Little League.

“Just remember … I may have forgotten your brother, but you thought your cat was an imposter. I think we're even.”

Lost in the Weeds

Now that spring has finally sprung there is so much to do. The grass is overly tall, the garden is in need of tending, and the mulch huddled together in a pile (a zillion yards away from any landscaping) won't mosey on over to the hydrangeas and spread itself.

And though I really want to finish all these projects that someone else thought I should start (I hate pulling weeds), I am exhausted.

In fact, I think I might be sick.

Or maybe I just ate something that disagreed with me.

It is possible I am avoiding the world. ...

Whatever the reason for my after-the-kids-get-on-the-bus malaise – be it upset stomach or rainy day -- I find myself wanting to just lay on the couch and watch one more episode of Mad Men.

Before I know it, the bus returns with my children and I'm halfway through season two of “How I Met Your Mother.”

I'll just call it Netflix Syndrome. You tell yourself you'll watch just one show before you start your day and before long it's dark out and you've managed to plow though an entire season of 24 in less than a day.

It's embarrassing but true.

Ever since we made the executive decision to cut back on cable by finally embracing on-demand media streaming, I was spending every spare moment binge-watching all the situation dramadies I'd missed during the last decade.

Since 1999, if a show wasn't on HBO on Sunday nights between 9 and 11, I didn't see it.

So … beginning in March I've been making up for lost time.

I've seen every season of Mad Men, Breaking Bad, How I Met Your Mother, Orange Is The New Black, My Name Is Earl, Raising Hope, House of Cards and Lilyhammer.

Between spring cleaning and pool opening, I've tried to like a host of popular shows -- Arrested Development, The Office, Dexter and Parks and Recreation -- but I just couldn't do it. That's like nine-hours of TV hangover time I'll never get back.

It makes me afraid to even attempt Lost until the possibility exists that we might be snowed in.

And even though I've been mesmerized of late, I've also had my eyes opened to some stunning coincidences and the sad reality that I might have named my son after a television character I had no idea existed until yesterday.

It's quite the dilemma. We got rid of cable so we could save some money and get more done. The rationalization was that we'd stop wasting time watching the same old movies night after night, get more sleep and have energy to actually do something productive. Instead we were introduced to the cheaper drug of serial television on demand.

Now I have bags under my eyes, a garden of dandelions, and a lawn that is three inches taller than any of our neighbors' lawns.

I see it as a sign … If I could start the lawnmower I would mow the lawn. Luckily, however, there's a problem with a gas filter, and it looks like rain.

Of course I would feel guilty if I weren't at least somewhat productive. All the things I could be doing instead, I do during the shows … folding laundry, cleaning out the refrigerator, making the beds, sweeping the floors. The areas within eyeshot of a television are super orderly in my house.

I placate myself knowing that I am adding to my cultural understanding and enhancing social navigation as I pull old episodes of Weeds from the guide.

Eventually, the series will end and I will mosey on out into the world to pull the real episodes of weeds from my garden.

I might eventually get Lost in it.

Disarming

“Put your hands in the air,” he demanded, hands firmly clasped, fingers tightly intertwined, and pointers leveled directly at me.

He pulls the hammer back with the click of his tongue. The true danger revealed.

“I said: Put yer hands in the ai-yerrrr!”

My heart drops.

It's only been a moment, but I have already seen glimpses of where this will lead. His imaginary gun is loaded. The blast will echo like a holler into a canyon, and forever until bedtime he will jump out of dark corners shooting.

This moment magnifies almost every single insecurity I have harbored as a parent. The kids watch too much TV. Violence pervades every video game. And worst of all we only half-heartedly try to regulate any of this imaginary aggression.

I turn the thoughts over and over in my mind. Composting the sticky remnants of modern parenthood, hoping to make rich and fertile soil. We are hovering and absent. Cling-y and ineffective. We are distant and still controlling. We organize chaos because we are afraid of the consequences we have to mete out to our kids.

Oxymorons everywhere, and they call the shots. It all seems so hopeless.

More images of failure come at me now in rapid fire. Time seems suspended as I try to hone in on my options.

Do I act offended and explain the gravity of guns? How people should NEVER, under any circumstances, point a gun – even the literal hand gun -- at another human being?

Do I pretend to be an outlaw, surrender willingly, and suggest a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders to pass the time instead?

Or …

Do I ignore him in the hopes this will all go away and he'll forget he ever wanted to fake kill me? I can always search for a child psychologist later.

I can't decide.

Only seconds have elapsed and yet it feels as if when I blink, I'll snap out of this daze and realize my boy is a grown man … with a real gun, facial hair and a tattoo of someone who doesn't look quite so matronly on his arm.

That moment passes, too.

I blink.

He's still staring at me, his pistol hands pointed just above my chin. His eyes are relaxed, despite his smile being so tightly drawn across his face. He looks happy: all smudge and spit and boy, for sure, but hints of his desire to cuddle and nap equally apparent through the rough and tumble. He is waiting for my response.

“Well …

“What's it gonna be, Pilgrim?

“Are ya gonna … Put. Yer. Hands. Up. In. Tha. Ayrrrrrrrr?”

That's when I decide. I am exhausted.

From fighting traffic to fighting the weeds in my unwanted garden, I have been battling things I love to hate all day. As I look into his giddy face now, all I can think is that if he were to shoot his imaginary bullet anywhere near my direction it would break my heart.

But I would survive.

I take a deep breath and hold it as I raise my arms overhead.

And just as I reach for the sky, he utters his final command:

“Now wave 'em like you just don't care!”

He drops his weapon and it floats this way and that as he joins me in celebration.

And for the next infinitely suspended moment, we wave them like we just don't care.

Cutting the cord

It's time for “The Talk.”

A part of me thought that we'd never get here. That somehow we would skip right over the milestone in our preteen's development.

But unfortunately, the need for a chat was clear as a bell. A telephone bell.

Honestly, I thought we'd have ditched the landline by now, so the only phone she'd have to answer was the one in her pocket, which we had given her – finally – when she turned 18 and was already a skilled and cautious driver.

But the fact is -- as children of the '80s ourselves, who's first cellular telephones (acquired well after graduating college) couldn't even fit in our pockets -- cutting the cord linking our house to the telephone company is easier said than done.

As it is now the only people who call the house phone are either telemarketers, or looking for someone who lives elsewhere:

“Is Charlotte there?”

“Sorry. You must have the wrong number.”

Or, increasingly, calls are from friends of Ittybit.

Just the idea that shrill summons of the telephone might be for her has her flying toward it at breakneck speed. “I'll get it,” she chirps with unbridled enthusiasm.

Oh sure, I patted myself on the back when – no thanks to me – Ittybit answered the phone on the first few occasions with professional flair.

The smile in her voice never wavered, even when the call turned out to be a wrong number or, more disappointingly, for her father.

But lately, her much-taken-for-granted expertise has shown a bright light on all the things she really doesn't know about dealing with disembodied voices.

(I'd call them perfect strangers, but we all know nobody's perfect.)

Before, when the voice on the line said something completely nonsensical in her estimation …something like: “Good afternoon Mrs. (mispronounces my name). We'd like to tell you about a special opportunity for people in your area. ...” she would simply look perplexed and hand over the handset to any adult who happened to be taking up space nearby.

Now, however, the strangers' words form a puzzle that her 10-year-old self feels bound and determined to solve:

“Hey, Ma! There's a guy on the phone who says he's not selling anything, so I thought he could be your brother … if you had one. I don't know. I thought it was fishy, but I told him who I was when he thought I was you.”

And so it has become quite apparent (in addition to the fact that she routinely tells people are mother is in the bathroom, and NEVER writes down messages anyone can understand) Ittybit really has no concept of “phoning it in.”

Of course, after the first lesson in Answering the Phone 101, it also became evident that she really isn't much interested in learning anything I have to teach her about the transfer of information – digital or analog – into the ether.

Ring-ring. Ring-ring.

Silence.

“Say 'Hello'.”

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Ask who it is ...”

“Who is this?”

Silence.

“Well. Who is it?”

“I don't know, it's a recording.”

“Hang up.”

“What if it's the school or something …”

“Well, is it the school or something?”

“I don't know, I wasn't listening.”

“Then hang up.”

 "But that seems rude."

Of course, on the occasions when telemarketers are actually on the line trying to adjust their scripts to accommodate the wild goose chase of a conversation my daughter has started, my heart just leaps into my throat.

“Why on Earth would you tell a total stranger your name? Never, ever, ever, ever give out information to anyone over the phone, especially if you don't know them. … On second thought … WHENEVER there is someone on the phone you don't know just hand the phone to an adult.”

"But what if you are in the bathroom?"

"Then take a message. But write down their name AND their number."

“But why would they give me any of that information? They don't even know me.”

Honestly … I didn't know what to say after that. It felt a little like we were playing a game of Who's On First.

Perhaps this is just a sign from the universe that we need to cut the cord.

The problem with encouragement

So … about a year ago I started running, right?

My kids made me do it. They were the ones who thought the idea of running club would be fun.

I had no grand illusions. I didn't expect to become a runner overnight … or ever. I didn't expect to look like I belonged in a Title Nine catalog (or even the Walmart sportswear flyer). I just wanted to try it and say: “Well, now that's over. Let's eat pie.”

Yeah. It's true. I expected to hate it. I expected to run (halfheartedly) during the hour-long running clinic with other non-athletic adults (who were also killing time) as we waited for our kids (who were simultaneously learning the proper way to hate running) in the children's version of the class.

Running turns out to be a love/hate pastime, which everyone and their eavesdropping mothers will tell you will ruin your body more effectively than methamphetamines.

Well, everyone that is, except for my husband, who may, in fact, be trying to kill me with encouragement, who knows?

In short, I expected to be back on the couch BEFORE my first 5K.

Well, it didn't quite work out as I'd planned.

Oh sure, I injured a knee. … then an ankle … then the other knee … and then the same ankle again (only in a different place) … All of which I expected.

What I didn't count on was how much I missed running when I couldn't do it. Or how much I would envy all the hard-core runners I'd pass in my car as they braved the outdoors in a wintery mix.

Surprisingly, I didn't have to talk myself into pounding the pavement after recovery. During the downtime I had taken a crash course in running tips from the Google School of Sports Medicine and found exactly what I'd been doing wrong:

Too hard. Too fast. Wrong socks. Wrong shoes. You're injured, don't run.

During those sedentary weeks, I had learned the difference between Fartlek, Tempo and Interval runs. I could even define them dependent on a runner's ability to talk naturally, gasp for air, or have the urge to vomit during completion of the workout.

Yet, after learning all of that, what dolt would go racing back to potential re-injury?

Points. At. Self.

Oh sure, I ran in the snow and rain. I ran when it was 7 degrees, but I really did hold myself back. I listened to Dr. Google and went out slower and for shorter distances. I didn't chide myself for taking time off. I didn't even care that I had gained weight instead of losing it during my quest for faster miles and longer distances. Well, I pretended I didn't care, anyway.

And then, last month, my determination payed off: I ran 60 miles.

I can honestly say, staring at the number, I felt like a Viking.

The number on the scale, however, pointed to the fact that I might actually look like a Viking, too.

I blame my husband, of course. There I was, feeling like I had earned those extra helpings of chocolatey decadent desserts he'd been telling me were guilt free.

“Go ahead,” encouraged my husband. “You ran eight miles today while I took a nap. You deserve the dessert.”

Perhaps that's why the needle on my scale moved in the wrong direction.

Why else would the miles I was putting in and the calories my phone said I was burning off have the opposite affect on my weight?

“Muscle weighs more than fat,” chimed my helpful husband, as he skied in place. A smug smile settles on his face.

He'd been prescribed a gym membership by his doctor not more than two weeks ago, and opted for the mechanical whirring of an ancient NordicTrack device he'd pulled out from under a blanket of dust in the garage and set up in our bedroom.

“Swish, swoosh, swish, swoosh, swish swoosh,” goes the machine as he raised the volume on the television. “I've skied one mile every morning and I'm already down 10 pounds,” he shouts proudly over the din.

I resisted the urge to strangle him with arm cords and walked down to the kitchen instead.

Chocolate chip cookies are his favorite.

The road ahead

I guess I've always had a problem with finding my way in the world.

I like to think it was easier before the Internets, when all a person had to do was ask for directions. Invariably you'd be passed around until the person with the best skills for such a thing could be found.

That person would ask you if you had a pen, and wait for you to get one before taking you on a ride, in your mind, along a series of roads so perfectly clear you could almost see the destination before you even got behind the wheel.

It was a combination of familiarity and trust.

“Go about 55 miles East on the turnpike. Turn left at the last intersection. Travel until you see some road sign and bear right at the enormous chicken. We're the third house on the left. You can't miss us.”

The real ride, however, isn't usually the clear path you think it will be. There's always some important step (or several) that I trip over.

“Go about 55 miles East (which is East again). Turn left at the intersection (what exit?). Travel until you see some road sign (that was stolen by some undergrads last summer) and bear right at the enormous chicken (which bears a striking resemblance to a cow). We're the third house on the left. You can't miss us (if you are looking on your OTHER left).”

Maybe I'd just written it down wrong? No matter. It wasn't a big deal. Ordinarily, I'd arrive on time and without getting terribly lost. 

The return trip would always bedevil me, too.

Getting from Point B to Point A is never as straight backward as it seems. When backtracking, I usually meander around the alphabet for a while before I find the off ramp.

I find real life, like directions, is like that, too.

No matter how you prepare, you're never really ready for the roadblocks the universe (and spring construction) plunk down in your way.

You could be driving down a road you've driven down your entire adult life, merging into traffic with the same careful practice you've always used, only to become confused by a new sign and a dirt road that weren't there before.

In the millisecond your awareness of this change charges through the gentle fog of your thoughts -- which, up until that moment, had allowed you to drive most of the way on automatic pilot -- you panic.

There is a sign for my turn. Wait ... this doesn't look right. Is this a detour?

What do I do?

On the road ahead, the pickup truck takes the path less traveled.

Of course, I follow.

Almost immediately I know that I was mistaken.

Cars ahead of the truck keep going up the ramp and take the right I should have taken. They cross the bridge I should have crossed.

The road I'm on leads to a construction site, with bulldozers on either side of me making level ground. The truck I followed disappears into a cloud of dust and parks.

I can't stop myself from thinking about how stupid I am … how incredibly short-sighted and ineffective. How much I don't want to be here. Now … or ever.

And how much I want to cry.

The man on the bulldozer smiles as I roll down my window. He doesn't seem as surprised to see me as I am to see him.

He doesn't care that I am a fool.

He gives me simple directions:

“Just turn around and go out the way you came in. Then take a right.”

I hate to admit it, but I did cry after I took that right and merged back into traffic.

It occurred to me that life can be a lot like my unfortunate detour. The road ahead isn't nearly as complicated at it seems, but that doesn't make our travels any easier.

Dangerous love

I know our cat loves us. Or at least, I think she does.

She watches our every move. She has a sixth sense that alerts her the moment we awaken, or the instant we step foot in the kitchen.

She is there. Watching.

It's not as creepy as it sounds. Or maybe it is, who am I kidding?

It's a love, I must admit, that feels a little dangerous.

She's always one step ahead. Literally. A step slower and she'd trip me on the stairs. Every. Time.

It's like she's programmed to overlap my territory.

Instead of lazing in the sun, or curling up in a cardboard box like other cats are reported to do, our cat seems to only bask in the warmth of my immediate departure.

For instance:

Any given dinner time I'll get up from my place setting, walk into the kitchen, grab the milk from the fridge and walk back into the dining room and my chair will be filled with cat.

It takes exactly 8.50 seconds. (I know because the boy pick-pocketed my iPhone and timed me.)

But I can only guess that it takes the cat just a fraction of My-Own-Dinner-Is-Getting-Cold speed to commandeer my chair at the table.

And there she'll sit, a black shadow, low on her haunches, not disturbed in the least by my return.

Nary a sound will she make as I unknowingly move to sit down, only to ricochet back to standing with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop.

“Jump in my grave, why don't you,” I holler, just as my mother would have given the circumstances. The room explodes in giggles as the show begins. Of course, the cat won't budge.

My family can barely contain their amusement as I try everything from tipping to telepathy to get the cat to vamoose and let me eat in peace. Eventually, I have no choice but to pick up her small-dog-sized frame and move her to another piece of recently vacated furniture. Maybe the dog bed is still warm. ...

I'm not complaining, really.

She's a good pet for an animal who can't be trained, won't be contained and doesn't answer to her name.

She's friendly and affectionate. Loving, even when it's probably not in her best interest. If I were her I would have sliced the resident ambushing dog to ribbons by now, but she just waits out the dopey affection and walks away with drool-covered fur. Not even a hiss.

I would have mapped out hiding spots and been in them whenever the stampeding of little feet headed my way. She doesn't even blink when the bag of doll clothes gets up-zipped. Maybe she thinks she looks pretty in a bonnet, who knows? You'd think she was declawed.

At least that's what people tell me when they visit. (They usually tell their kids: “Don't go trying this on your cat at home.”)

Of course, she's not totally an alien creature.

She'll play with string, chase her tail, and, in springtime, she'll bring us the catch of the day. Leaving some poor, hapless rodent gutted on the porch for us to find.

New theories of cat fancy tell me this garish morsel is not the thoughtful gift we accepted it to be. She is not repaying our kind offerings of Fancy Feast with a headless mole or an eviscerated snake. She is the mother huntress and we are her idiot kittens, albeit huge and relatively hairless ones. She's training us to hunt.

And that kneading business? Turns out her obsessive need to knead me in the middle of the night, circle around and sleep in the middle of my back, may have nothing to do with her vague memory of kittenhood or the pleasures of a warm mommy. She's just marking her territory with the scent glands on the bottoms of her paws.

But I can hear in the velvet flutter of her purr that I am more than just her pillow.

“Try not to wake me when you lose all feeling in your lower extremities, human. Unless you are getting my breakfast. … Then do be careful on the stairs.”

From parity to parody, and the inside joke

No matter which statistic you'd like to take as fact, the gender wage gap is shrinking. The only question is when, if ever, will it achieve parity?

The White House says for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 77 cents.

According to Pew Research Center, women earn about 84 percent of what their male counterparts make and younger women are expected to earn 93 percent.

If you can believe that.

For sure, it's a difficult concept to wrap one's head around. Since 1963, when President John F. Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act, which stipulates employers cannot discriminate between employees based on gender, folks have been trying to figure out what – exactly – parity should look like.

Some will argue that we're not really tabulating comparable jobs. How can we ever find fairness if we have to take into account that women suspend their careers an average of three years to tend to the business of life and family.

It has been estimated that women generally earn $400,000 less than their male counterparts during the course of their careers. But are we really comparing apples and apples or are we comparing astronauts and airline attendants?

That's so sexist, you say. I just shrug my shoulders.

I know what it's like to go to college, work for a few years, gain experience, earn a couple of dollars in raises and then find out, over after-work drinks that newly hired male coworker, without any experience or college education earned .50 less per hour than I did, and $2 more than the college-educated, non-experienced woman I had recommended for hire three months earlier.

And the kicker? When I asked my boss about the disparity, It was I who had broken the sacred trust of wage secrecy.

Which, in my opinion, was the kiss of death to any hope of equal pay for equal work.

“The world is crazy,” my mom would say. “People talk about sex until they're blue in the face, but money? It's taboo.”

In the late 1960s, when my parents were starting down their separate career paths – mom a registered nurse, and dad a craftsman for AT&T Long Lines – they made the exact same salary. For a time their wages even stayed in lock-step.

Before they married, my mom had bought her mother a house, her brother a car, and she had helped her sister pay for college. She was a genius at finance. She could save a fortune without seeming to have pinched a penny.

My dad's money, on the other hand, burned a hole in his pocket.

By the time they married, she had paid his (minor) debts, taken over the family finances and everyone was happy.

By the late 1970s, her wages had stagnated while his had risen steadily. She ended up staying home with the kids, working only sporadically and always part-time.

Yet, if someone were analyzing how mom's stewardship of the bank accounts contributed to the family's overall wealth, they'd likely find she was the engine that not only could, but did.

My mom was always more of a Suze Ormon type than a Gloria Steinem, though.

She didn't see herself as the victim of a gender gap, certainly not in the same way my generation views this divide.

She made wage parity. We've made wage parodies.

Without being able to talk about money, what we end up with is an inside joke.

An exhibition at the exhibition

Taking kids on a family outing to an art museum is fun.

No. Strike that. It's more than fun, it's an adventure.

But there are a few things you should know.

First, be aware that when you make an executive decision to forgo the usual tennis match of fun activities you could be doing today (but won't be doing because, as it turns out, the argument IS the activity) and tell the kids WE'RE GOING TO AN ART MUSEUM, there will be tears.

Big, fat, you-might-as-well-have-shipped-our-dog-to-A FARM IN THE COUNTRY-type tears.

They might even go boneless and refuse to put on pants. Who knows?

Persevere. Culture and broadened horizons are worth the donning of pants.

You might get around this little road block by offering to let your kids each take a friend with them to the museum.

Don't think of it as your children having partners in crime, think of it as them having moral support.

They will each have a compadre with whom they can explore contemporary expressions of existentialism as well as play hide-and-seek in the coat room.

Note to future self: It may be a good idea to steer clear of the coin-operated lockers, or at least demand to be the holder of the dayglow orange key. You will thank me for avoiding that frantic (and ultimately fruitless) end-of-adventure key hunt, not to mention having to explain to two different sets of families how it was you managed to lose their children's jackets.

It may be also comforting to know that security professionals LOVE children.

They follow their every move.

Nothing gets their attention faster than a first-grader running at breakneck speed toward an irreplaceable piece of art or history.

And we are the careful parents.

Aside from wrapping our kids in padding and attaching them to harnesses with bungee cords, we've prepped them for every manner of temptation.

Do not run. Do not jump.

Do not touch. Anything.

Don't even think about touching. Anything.

Even if they tell you you can touch something, pretend it will give you a shock. ...

And don't pick your nose. Even if you think no one is looking.

Note to future musem-going self: There is a reason children give you the stink-eye when you tell them they will have fun at the museum despite the fact that they can't act like children there.

Moving on.

If you can manage it, you might want to follow a tour.

I'm telling you it will be a hoot when your guide walks you through the complexities of German Fluxist Joseph Beuy's “Lightning with Stag in its Glare,” describing in detail the features of the piece and how they relate to the artist's obsession with the primal, elemental world … with the exception of the one (and only) detail my son was so eager to point out:

“It looks like poop.”

Moving on …

But not too far … because when you turn around to clamp your hand over your kid's mouth, the docent will notice something peculiar about you.

Something the ticket seller … and the bathroom attendant … and dozen or so security guards prior to this very moment had somehow overlooked.

“Is that a backpack?”

“Uh … I suppose it is,” I answered thinking about the nylon drawstring bag containing all my worldly possessions: a credit card, wet wipes and a package of fruit snacks.

“How did you get that in here? You can't have a backpack in the gallery. Handbags only.”

She was kindly, though, and her words were not in any way as accusing as the voice in my head was translating.

I turn, red-faced, to notice all the gentile women gliding about the gallery encumbered with briefcase-sized shoulder bags but unencumbered by knee-high sprogs, but I said nothing.

All I could think about was how was I going to corral the cats without stepping foot into the space where they had dispersed.

“I'll tell you what … I'll carry the bag over one shoulder and we'll call it a shoulder bag.”

What were they going to say? “Go stow the bag in a locker, I'll herd your cats?”

Nope … it's more like:

“How about you get the kids and go stow the bag in a locker.”

Moving on ...

Of course, there are things you can do to alleviate your embarrassment.

You can drink.

Oh, settle down. I'm kidding.

You can't drink. You have to drive later … that is if you can find the locker key your son insisted on keeping in sweaty, art destroying hands.

Common discord

I understood the words printed on the torn newsprint worksheet that came home from my son's first-grade classroom, but compiled into directions they confounded me:

“Put the items into a number sentence with the longest item first.”

Under the words -- which were growing more meaningless by the minute -- there were three line drawings of various tools. Pictured were a screwdriver; a pencil; and a tube of lipgloss, which had the words “glue stick” printed on its side.

And then there was this:

A. ____________________________

B. ____________________________

C. ____________________________

I was lost.

Were they being literal? Did they want us to cut out the pictures and paste them onto a line?

Maybe they wanted us to measure the pictures and incorporate the measurements into a haiku.

Perhaps we are supposed to get a real screwdriver, measure it and then sharpen a pencil until it is smaller than our screwdriver but longer than a lipgloss (as it so happens, we are fresh out of glue sticks) and then write all of those figures down in alphabetical order.

No. They didn't say we'd need a ruler for this exercise.

Wait! What's the mathematical equation for “screwdriver” again?

I scratch my head and start to hyperventilate as my son looks on, unperturbed.

He hasn't mastered reading directions in the same way the test prep people haven't mastered writing directions, so it seems they are evenly matched.

Or more likely, it's his teacher who has helped him interpret this strange new choreography.

“I'm just going to draw pictures. Longest first ... Shortest last,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Everyone has to have standards, I suppose.

At least that's what I tell myself every time my social network lights up with 140-character assassinations of this latest education reform we all know as Common Core.

I don't disagree, but I don't agree completely either.

Not that I'm a scientist. Or a sociologist. Or a teacher. Or an expert on anything, with the exception of the face my kid makes when I give him the elbow-kind of noodles instead of the shell-shaped ones in his macaroni and cheese.

I am an expert on that expression.

Which may explain why I haven't gotten too worked up over the latest incarnation of Education ReformTM.

I'm certain Scott Foresman and his descendants have been irritating parents, one torn-out worksheet at a time, since the late 1800s.

And I'm sure my father wasn't the first person in the history of education to complain to a third grade teacher that creative spelling isn't going to make human communication any easier in the long run.

The experts are always changing their minds.

It's a slippery slope.

I don't want to roll my eyes every time someone I love comes and tells me the latest research on coffee and apple cider vinegar being the cure for whatever ails. Or that Singapore math is better than any other methodology.

Not that I don't want to believe the scientific double-blind study of 164 randomly sampled people from Scandinavia.

I know being skeptical of science is likely to spin out of control. Who's to know which among us will end up on a Fox news camera talking about how Global Warming isn't really a thing or that Intelligent Design is definitely a thing …

You know …

Because winter is persisting. … 

And humans can't be happenstance. … 

And kids shouldn't be ready for college right out of kindergarten. 

… Or what happens to the kids who will never be ready for college?

It all boils down to the fear of the unknown, I think.

Fear that we aren't prepared for the future. Fear that we can't prepare for the future. Fear that our children will be the ones left behind because everything is different now.

But I can't help thinking things are always going to be different. And school is the textbook equivalent of a single page torn from the workbook of life. We can only prepare so much for a future that is always changing. Eventually we just have to react or adapt.

Maybe we should be taking great comfort in knowing that even if our kids can't string a few words together into a cogent math sentence, they won't be precluded from shaping the next great educational reform.

Top dog

He came loping into the backyard as if he owned the place. Perhaps in another life he had.

His coat -- a silvery-gray -- blended seamlessly with the blue cast of the morning sky. His feet pressed against the lingering hard-packed snow and lifted off again without leaving a print.

Sipping coffee in the living room and warming ourselves by a fireplace, we stood in disbelief, silent and safe behind triple-paned glass as he trotted straight for us.

A coyote in the suburbs.

We watched in awe as the animal turned suddenly -- head lowered, body arrow straight -- and made his way into the woods.

In a moment, he was gone. The only evidence of his existence, a photo on a cell phone we passed around the room to late risers and disbelievers.

He was here.

For a time we were elated to have witnessed such sharp and ferocious beauty up close. Relieved that something – a sixth sense, laziness, gluttony, whatever – had stopped us from taking care of the dog's needs before our own. If it weren't for coffee and company, we may have been out there beyond the fishbowl's protection when wildlife came sauntering up.

But the reality of this chance encounter is the unmistakable sadness of what is likely to come. He is probably not just a vagabond passing through, but a creature on a familiar path. And if the past is any indication, his path will eventually cross ours in some unhappy way. We can not live together in peace. Not for long, anyway.

Nature coming too close to nurture usually means trouble.

A part of us wants to marvel at the beauty of his existence in this realm, but eventually, we fear, he will bite the hand that feeds him.

The reaction we have is understandable, our brains trying to tie together some loose ends. Better to be safe than sorry.

And we are already sorry.

We have guilt. We know in some way, indirectly perhaps, this is all our fault. Something we did caused this conflict and perpetuated it.

Natural fears diminished. We took his plains and his natural predators. We've fed him at our compost piles, our bird feeders and our garbage cans. He's not picky.

Still … He is not a guest we can harbor. Or can we?

Better engage the professionals. They'll know what to do.

But it seems, even the professionals are at a loss.

Some say we should have rushed out there. Made noise. Shown that he has things to fear here. That it won't be easy to get sustenance.

Show him who's really top dog and he will move along.

But that's risky, too.

Others say removal of the nuisance is the only way.

Find, trap, destroy.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

It never ends.

Kill programs may have brought wolves to the brink of extinction – not an envious result -- but they've not touched the coyote population one bit.

Coyotes are opportunists, resourceful and adaptable, not unlike ourselves. Happily or unhappily, they will survive if not flourish.

Surveillance cameras have even picked up sightings of coyotes and their pups in New York City parks.

In fact, it seems according to recent research, coyotes have migrated from their native plains habitat to inhabit nearly every state in the nation. And they could prove to be the first wave of larger carnivores – bears, cougars and wolves – moving into urban landscapes, following the smaller woodland prey that have already come to forage for our leftovers.

I think of the wide open spaces that are no more and I wonder what place is left for him now.

It seems quite evident that they know how to live with us, perhaps it's time we learn how to live with them.