Fingers crossed

My kids jumped around me as if on springs. “Did you see me cartwheel?” asked one. “Did you see me do a headstand?” the other interjected.

“I saw, I saw,” I promised, crossing my fingers behind my back.

Gymnastics is like that: A gaggle of kids twirling and bouncing as their parents “watch.”

“I'm surprised my daughter isn't attempting to do the flips,” said a woman sitting next to me. “She's always liked those.”

“I think that's my daughter,” I say, squinting my eyes. “... but I can't tell for sure. They're both wearing ponytails and turquoise pants.”

We laugh and go back to chatting about the “weather” or “things” or “nothing at all.”

Any time I actually witnessed “the headstand of perfection” during the 90-minute class it was sheer luck.

It's pretty much the same with dance class and soccer practice. I was pondering this when a question came out of left field.

“Are you homeschooling your kids?”

Had I been drinking milk at the time, the question would have undoubtedly caused a river of moo juice to gush through my nose.

But as it happened, my laughter and discomfort at the thought of such an insane notion, caused an equally painful reaction.

“Oh … I only asked because I was home-schooled,” she continued.

Then I felt like a knee-jerk, emphasis on jerk.

I didn't mean to denigrate homeschooling as a means of education, I just couldn't see myself as educator.

My children, who had already decided by age five and two respectively – before their own school careers had truly begun – that I knew very little about the greater workings of the world because I couldn't operate the car's GPS. How could I be trusted with reading and math and the inner workings their their expanding minds when I could not be trusted to get them home from a neighboring state without stopping to ask for directions?

They didn't even believe me when I told them today was a Sunday.

Can't say as I blame them.

Surely a day as rainy as this should be called a rain day.

Surely they know by now that when they ask me how it's even physically possible for milk to shoot out one's nose if one happens to be laughing and drinking at the same time, I will have to consult Dr. Google.

And even then I'd have to read from the entry verbatim.

“That flappy thing at the back of your throat lets stuff up when it should go down,” somehow doesn't feel quite adequate.

They certainly know from my lamentations over homework directions – having Googled some of those as well – that teaching isn't one of my strong points.

And even when I'm right, I'm wrong.

For instance, when Ittybit stacks three numbers for homework – 201, 54 and 5 – and comes up with a sum of 905, we both end up with big, old goose eggs.

She has ZERO interest in me telling her where she went wrong and I have ZERO interest in fighting with her over doing it correctly.

We might as well be standing on our heads.

At this point, however, I could probably have to do it with my arms tied behind my back.

Fingers crossed.

Forward

You hear it all the time: “People like him …” “Someone like her ...” I say it, too.

Generalizations.

It's how we organize our lives and form thoughts. We categorize the people we know in general terms. The nice guys. The sweethearts. The needlers. The drama queens. The friends. The acquaintances. The rivals. The folks we'd just as soon not see.

But then one of them dies. Unexpectedly.

Only it wasn't just Someone Like Him. It was him.

And everything changes.

Generalities are replaced by memories that are quite specific.

“You know … I don't have a single bad memory of Robert,” said a woman I recognized from happier times. She greeted me by smiling and joining her arm in mine. “Well, except this one.” We laughed at his funeral.

But it was true. Not a single bad memory. And not because we limited our exposure to the possibilities.

He was just that sort of person. The sort of person who looked on the bright side without negating the tarnish.

His encyclopedic knowledge of pop culture. His love of music and mirth. His ability to pinpoint a problem and separate it from the chatter of false fixes. His unwavering ability to be kind without ever losing his edge.

Bad news would always be followed by good news -- you just had to squint a little harder to see it.

As I stood with a roomful of his friends and family mourning his loss, the thing that struck me was how in all of the memories they shared I could picture him vividly. As if he were in the room. It was so much more comforting than I could have imagined.

And all the specifics came flooding back.

I remembered when we met ...

My friend's new boyfriend. Her fiance. Her husband.

In lockstep our lives seemed parallel. Marriage. Children. Career. Political affiliations. Hope. Setback. Hope. There were also long absences born of geography and obligation …. Our lives have a tendency to take us away from each other from time to time. Of course there were struggles, too.

But inevitably there was always a phone call that brought us back together. An appointed time and place, a new libation to share and something to celebrate. There is laughter and much preaching to the choir.

We all have these experiences, and the existentialists would say that we are all here in some giant circle repeating a life already lived. The heaviness of our existence is the weight of history bearing down.

And maybe it is true that in general our experiences are identical. We are born. We live. We die. Except that it's all new to us.

That each person we meet is not exactly like the next. My friend was unique as are his wife and his children. And his loss is as tragic for them as tragic can be.

My eyes sting whenever I think about the epic sadness of this moment. The uncertainty of this certainty.

In church, during the mass, I found myself tilting my head back to keep tears from spilling over. I was doing just as I waited outside of the church waiting to hug my friend. And that's when I saw it. A word, written in brick, on a building across the street. “Forward.”

A direction and a sign. A moment of pure understanding that going forward doesn't mean letting go. It just means traveling onward. Because when a person Like Him gives the gift of friendship, that gift only lightens the load.

Sweets and savories … and politics

He came downstairs from his lair the morning after the elections and rubbed his eyes. Hair sticking up all over. It looked as if he'd been up all night (or slept on his head at the very least).

"Who won?"

I considered changing the subject.

"Cheerios? Banana bread? How about chocolate for breakfast?"

“Who won? Met Romney or Rock Obama?”

Such is life with a five-year-old boy who owns a "presidential blazer" the day after election day.

See, on November 5, the day before the 2012 presidential race, the child had decided he was betting the horse farm on the Republican hopeful.

There we were, comfortably ensconced in the living room: I was sitting on the couch, quietly inspecting the insides of my eyelids and basking in the warmth of the wood stove. He was building imaginary cities out of LEGOs on the coffee table.

"I frink I want Met Omni to win," he said, forcing my eyes open and into a cycle of rapid-fire blinking.

"What?" I stammer. "Why do you want Mitt Romney to win?"

He smiles his best Alex P. Keaton grin and lays out his logic:

"Well ... I think that Met Omni will be better for kids. I heard he's going to cut the school day, what would be good for me because I only want to go to school in the morning time and for gym."

I love that he's interpreting information and finding his opinion among the facts and soundbites, but it's not as if I can remain speechless. It reminds me of my own childhood introduction to politics.

Apparently (as the family lore goes) I had informed my father that I would be voting for Mr. Reagan over Mr. Carter because no Red-blooded American child would EVER pick peanuts over jelly beans. It would be an abomination.

And as any red-blooded Kennedy Democrat might, my dad explained in no uncertain terms why I was deluded.

He shook his head and then said something about unions and poverty, trickle-down economics and cavities. “Everyone wants the sweets, but all you get for it is holes in your teeth.”

I didn't care. All I cared about was the candy. Teeth, schmeeth.

“Fine, but if you want to vote for Reagan, you'll have to go and live with the neighbors.”

He laughed. I laughed. But we both knew he was serious.

My son could probably sense the same sincerity as I tried to explain to him about how candidates make all kinds of promises during elections they don't always intend to keep. And how sometimes they make promises that, if they were to uphold them, might be bad for us.

To my way of thinking, The Champ's shorter school day (with no-way-of-telling how many sugar-saturated snack breaks and lack of raising one's hand he'd added for good measure) would be detrimental to his education.

He didn't care. He'd rather have more free time and less math time.

“Fine, but if you want to vote for Romney, you'll have to go and live with the neighbors.”

Poor kid. His eyes did some quick calculating: If he added up all the free time he was going to have from a truncated school day; subtracted the area of his bedroom and all of the toys inside; and divided that by the number of friends he'd wouldn't be able to invite over for play dates …

He came up with a different candidate.

“I changed my mind. I'm voting for Rock Obama.”

I wasn't convinced. He'd had the night to “sleep on it.” His decision could have changed.

“Well? Who won?”

“Barack Obama,” I said hesitantly.

“Yeeeeesssssssss!” he punched the air as he shot past me toward the breakfast table.

“I won.”

“I know. It's great. … Now what do you want for breakfast?”

“I'll have a peanut-butter-samwich. Can I wear my presidential blazer to school?”

And then it hit me: He'll probably grow up to be just like his grandpa.

No one likes a quitter

I know there are so many more problems in the world than as-it-happens news coverage of major natural disasters. But as large swathes of the East Coast tuned in last Monday for information about Hurricane Sandy as it slammed into lower Manhattan and wrecked havoc along the Eastern seaboard I had to ask, aloud … and to a room filled with husband and dog, (the kids had already gone to bed and were pretending to be asleep) if it's finally time for major news organizations such as CNN to get rid of (or at least diminish the presence of) people reporting live and on-camera from the storm surge.

I mean ...

!!!!

Every time one rain-coated anchor split screens with another rain-coated reporter who -- screaming against the wind –- was remarking about how eerily dark the city was or how high the waves were, I was almost angry.

On the edge of seething, even.

Houses on fire. A facade collapse. A hospital generator failure that was sending workers into the street with premature infants.

And in my living room a guy was clinging to a road sign and fighting gusts of wind for the limelight, all the while telling viewers that no one should be traveling around (like he was). I was slack-jawed as another reporter -- after I'd switched channels -- recounted how many injuries his crew had suffered. The result, he said, of blowing signs and debris -- even though they were "taking precautions" and being "safe".

The talking heads inside the relative safety of high-rise studios don't seem like much of an improvement with their oh-so-helpful banter: “Please tell that guy to bring his dog inside,” said one anchor to her storm chaser in Battery Park as a man walking a dog glided through the shot.

I shook my head, picturing Triumph, the Insult Comic Dog, delivering the disagreeable answer: “Yes... I would love to be back inside, on the hardwood floors, for me to poop on!!!”

I should learn to let this roll of my back. Like rain.

Arm-chair quarterbacking. Backseat driving. Why am I complaining?

It's not as if any of this is scripted. They're all just telling it as they see it and repeating an earpiece full of Googled facts, hoping for something new to report. Something -- anything -- that will shift the dialog to something more substantial.

I start flipping channels. Clicking screens. Scrolling through the all the new networks at my disposal.

"What about the hospitals?"

"What about the fires?"

"What about climate change?"

"Why is CNN wasting time with some guy in front of a casino on a mostly deserted street?"

"Do people REALLY want to see this person swept away?"

My husband just shook his head in abject disagreement with my indignant frustration … and chuckled:

"I'll tell you what I want to see. I want to see an alligator from the sewer swallow him up."

"Or a shark ... washed in from the river?" I offered in jest.

"Better yet."

“I'd just settle for the rain to stop.”

“No one likes a quitter.”

Scare tactics

Out after dark. On a school night. I can remember it like yesterday.

It was pitch black. Music was playing somewhere off in the distance, a tinny, eerie sound that added to the suspense.

A vacant building – maybe an old school or a warehouse – would be decorated for the season with a few boxes of garbage bags, a load of dry ice, and a few splashes of theatrical lighting. Not to mention spaghetti. Guts and gore required lots and lots of spaghetti.

A new haunted house would open its doors each October, usually a community-effort that sought to raise money for a cause. It didn't matter that they were always the same. I'd be there. As a teenager I couldn't wait to be scared.

Back then I never thought about the lengths to which folks had gone to get the desired effect.

I never fully appreciated the work it must have taken to transform some ordinary place into a maze of horror. Or how many people had actually dressed up to scare the bejeezus out of throngs of halloween guests. I'd never actually counted the number of psychopaths or the variety of undead looming in the shadows or hulking around in the glare of strobe lights. I just held my breath and waited for something to reach out and grab me.

I certainly never recognized any of these actors … though it wouldn't be a stretch to think one of the ghosts might have been my gym teacher or that one of the maniacal medical practitioners might have been a school nurse.

I just remember how intricate they always seemed.

Perhaps the years have colored my recollection of these low-budget efforts.

Or perhaps inertia has.

All. That. Work. Wrapping walls in plastic. Making costumes. Hanging spiders and webs. Cutting a hole in an old card table so that Mr. Smith from the bus garage could be a head on a platter. I can't hardly imagine being the person who had to paint all those cardboard tombstones or figure out the best way to color spaghetti intestines so they wouldn't stain … should you accidentally throw them at a tourist. You know … by mistake.

Sure, it might sound like fun when a person puts it that way, but I think the older one gets the more precipitously the ratio between effort and fright diminishes (which is why they make people my age sign waivers).

Ordinary things scare me now: doctors' appointments; car repairs; going to the mailbox; waiting in line at the grocery store behind someone who says, “I vant to write a cheque.”

Seriously, I get a noticeable blood-pressure boost from remembering that I forgot my reusable tote bags as soon as I take the keys out of the ignition in the supermarket parking lot.

And the mere thought my kids will be asking for the car keys someday is enough to elicit a blood-curdling scream.

Which is why I'd like to propose a lower budget, low-budget house of horrors.

One that doesn't need costumes or props. It doesn't even need a venue, it could happen spontaneously anywhere.

All we'd need to do is have the narrator of our minds make announcements through the loudspeaker that is our mouths while trying to channel the voice of Vincent Price or the Wicked Witch of the West:

8 a.m. “Hoooooo ooooh … I think you missssssssssssssssed the busssssssssssssss.”

10 a.m.: “Attention: Gross-A-Rama customers … A repugnant shopper in Checkout Lane 9 will contaminate the environment with a raft of plastic bags and her lack of forethought. But in her negligence she's actually saved her family from certain death or at least a very real potential for gastric distress. The bags she forgot haven't been laundered and are teaming with chicken poisons.”

5: p.m.: “Whatsssss for dinner? Leffffffffffftovah Spaghhhhhetttiiiiiiiiii!”

Of course the worst part of such ordinary horror is realizing you'd even be afraid of your teenage self:

“Honestly, what IS she doing out so late on a school night?”

One ring y-dingy, two ding-a-lingys

The phone hadn't rung in a while. Possibly for weeks, but I hadn't noticed. Much.

Truth be told, the silence was a relief.

For months answering calls on the “landline” had felt like fielding fly balls on the moon. The ring would start and so would the race to find a handset, which might have been buried in the couch … or in a toy box … or left outside … in the rain. Even if I found one of the four handsets before the fourth ring switched the call to voicemail, the dang-gummed thing wasn't charged.

I would have let the calls go to voicemail and not worried, but then … Someone (not pointing fingers at THE KIDS) had unplugged the answering machine. And SOMEONE ELSE (yours truly) didn't bother to investigate the problem or at least try to plug it back into the outlet.

If it's really important, I told myself, they'll call the cell phone. Honestly all we're missing without the home phone are wrong numbers, robocalls … and …

Oh. Yeah ... doctors' offices.

Inertia has it's price.

Showing up for a “bumped” appointment wasn't that costly. Someone else in the practice could fit me without rescheduling, so it wasn't a total loss. But it did prompt me to move some heavy furniture, relocate a warren of gnarly dust pookas and try to solve the problem of the non-working answering machine once and for all.

Not that I was successful.

Someone (not pointing fingers at THE DOG) had chewed through the wire.

But even that wasn't the whole of the problem. One trip to a big box store, four new phones and one new answering machine later and someone (giving all the credit here to THE MAN) emerged from the basement, scratched his head and exclaimed:“There's no dial tone. Did you cancel the service?”

Wishful thinking.

Three days later … when he (VERY REASONABLY) asked if I'd called the phone company to sort the whole thing out … I looked at him, cocked my head to the left and growled.

More wishful thinking.

I will call. I will call. I will call.

Which I did -- two days after that – fully expecting to rearrange one day, five weeks from now, so I might wait for a technician to arrive somewhere between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m.

What I didn't expect was a return phone call – five minutes later – telling me the problem had been fixed from their office. At no charge.

Really?

Really.

Why did I ever want to get rid of the landline? I asked myself. How on Earth could I have seen it as a nuisance?

The home phone is communal. It's part of the family conversation. With it (and numerous extensions) I can be assured that at some point in my children's forthcoming teenage courtships I will know who's calling. I might even be able to glean what they're saying.

Cell phones don't tether as easily to apron strings.

And with that, my new love of the landline is rekindled.

“Oh, by the way,” I mention to my husband in passing. “The phone is fixed. The problem was on their end. They fixed it remotely.”

For a moment he is silently stunned, as I will be when words finally tumble out of his mouth.

“Perhaps we should just get rid of the landline,” he says as I wait for the punchline.

“Seriously? The easiest problem ever fixed in the history of things that need fixing around here and you want to get rid of it?”

More silence.

“Who said that? Wasn't me. Must have been the dog. I was over here just minding my own business, chewing on the telephone book.”

How the other half lives

Dim lighting. A corner table. Secluded.

Somewhat secluded..

On the tenth anniversary of our wedding we are as alone as a couple can be in a trendy restaurant.

The place is hopping with young couples, older couples, people from the neighborhood just stopping in for a nightcap.

Hair done, make-up on, new clothes -- that have been hanging in my closet forever, waiting patiently for this moment -- all conspire to make me appear as if I belong.

Yet, I can't help but feel out of place.

Were the couples flanking our table to overhear our conversation, they'd have been treated to the following inanity:

“Is this the wood year?”

“Nope. That's the fifth anniversary. Ten is tin.”

“Aw, shucks. And here I am getting you new logs for the wood stove.”

“That's fine. I got you foil. I just had to eat the candy that was inside of it first.”

“That's love for you.”

To anyone who couldn't help but overhear that, or perhaps the one about a trefoil plant and an unfortunate skin reaction, let me be the first to apologize.

We need to work on controlling the volume of our voices. Also … we don't get out much.

It's not as if we are strangers to the pleasures of dinning out. But truth be told, we're more accustomed to places that offer crayons with their butcher paper table coverings … even when we have the luxury of a babysitter.

But special occasions warrant a certain amount of discomfort; a certain amount of mispronouncing menu items and over-indulging in high-caloric desserts.

They warrant something, anyway.

Ten years.

Ten years, two children, three dogs (two in dog heaven), countless fish (in fish heaven) and a cat with seven lives left.

Ten years, two houses, two kids to get onto the school bus each morning and off of the school bus each afternoon.

Ten years, no telling how many fights, and, luckily, an equal or greater number of well-meant apologies.

Ten years of recirculating ideas that ocassionally lead to a revelation but mostly lead to the feeling of brick wall meeting head.

Oddly, ten years feels like an accomplishment as equally as it feels like a stitch in time.

He pulls out a worn picture from his wallet. And there I am, dog-eared and faded, smiling the smile of someone who has yet to learn the true meaning of the term: “Sleeps Like a Baby.”

I don't have a picture to of him show. My purse is filled with plastic toys scooped off the floor in a last-minute, The-Babysitter's-Coming and We-Don't-Want-Her-To-Think-We're-Hopeless-Slobs kind of way. The wallet is jammed with cash receipts and plastic cards I've long stopped using.

There's no room for anything more.

Sometimes I think marriage feels like this.

As it goes on, you get the feeling that there's no room for anything more.

Not that you've outgrown it, just that maybe the fit is a little more snug than is comfortable.

The candle flickers as we look over the table at one another. We haven't really talked about us since we sat down. We haven't marveled at the life we've made together and that will be waiting for us when we get home. We don't really need to. Like a current, it's always there carrying us along.

In a moment someone will arrive at our table bearing drinks: A gooey blender variety for him, something pale and nondescript for me. The servers always try to put his pretty concoction at my place setting.

He'll take a sip. I'll take a sip.

And then we'll switch them.

It doesn't hurt to, once in a while, taste how the other half lives.

Clouds in my coffee

I can see my breath.

At least I think it's mine. All around me clouds of white mist -- a combining of exhalation and coffee-scented steam -- appear in thin puffs only to dissipate into the sky.

Honestly, I never thought I'd be here: Standing on a sideline, watching a child of mine (let alone two) in a too-long t-shirt and ill-fitting shin guards relentlessly following a pack of other similarly dressed children, all of them trying to kick a quilted ball.

The romantic in me might explain that the mere idea of raising children seemed itself like a distant hope … but the cynic in me would just beat the romantic over the head with rolled-up newspaper and yell: “Who are you trying to kid, Soccer Mom!?” They proceed to taunt me with the label.

Oh … “Soccer mom” … sounds so sardonic in my mind.

Would I need a mini-van now? Would I start yelling plays and words of dubious encouragement at the team? Would I berate the players and try to steal the coach's hat?

I try on the coat of encouragement first. I jump up and down, wave my arms and yell: “Good one,” as my daughter's teammate solidly kicks the ball. My husband leans in and whispers “It was offsides.”

“Perfect,” I think to myself. “Dubious Encouragement fits like a glove … I'm not going to even bother trying on any hats.”

Positive thinking. Positive thinking. Got to have positive thinking. …. This is going to be fun.

I shift from one foot to another as I try to watch both kids play in separate fields.

The waddle of children in The Champ's age group follow each other around like penguins, instinctually mimicking movements as they propel the ball from one goal to another. Their coaches are all smiles even as they try to herd the kids away from the nearby basketball court where the game has accidentally traveled. Their strategy is simplicity: “Run THAT way. Try to kick the ball.”

Ittybit's age group by contrast are each assigned positions, and, like jobs of yesteryear, each player stands in place, assembly-line style, waiting for the work to come their way. Ittybit's first occupation is “Maytag Repairman.” She stands inside a goal post, nothing much to do but wait. Soon she's rotated to another position and for it she fast-walks toward the ball.

I have no idea what's going on but I know she should be running.

I worry the lack of hustle is problematic and will affect her value to the team. Things are going to be different in the future, I think. But I stay quiet.

A mom standing next to me starts speaking in tongues to her daughter.

“Dribble to the defender. Cross in. Watch your center, watch your center! Go for clearance!”

I smile, thinking: Always go for clearance. But I resist the urge to tell her about the cleats we bought on sale at the sporting goods store.

No need to gloat.

The kids are having fun. They are out in the fresh air, learning about something that takes skill and teamwork wearing padded legs and pointy-bottomed shoes.

And then I realize what the game has to teach me I won't find in any rule books.

Neither of them are worried about winning or losing. They're not worried about the future even five minutes away. They're just playing in the moment. One all smiles and motion, the other all tongue-protruding concentration. It's just us. Here. Now. Together.

Soon enough the steam from my cup will stop rising, and this moment will be over.

Electric battles

The lights went out.

Awwww.

They came back on.

Hooray!

Then out they went again.

Awwwww.

For a while the dance studio flickered between light and dark in rapid fire, followed closely by jeers or cheers, until eventually the darkness won the electric battle.

But this was no disco. It was the wind and rain duking it out over encroaching fall. The class continued in the dusky light, without music, until even the dancers' shadows disappeared into the darkness.

“I'm sorry, girls. I'll have to cancel class,” says the teacher. “But don't worry … we'll make it up over vacation,” she soothes.

Such is the excitement of a new school year: Dance class and gymnastics, soccer and 4-H, parties and play dates. Not to mention, headaches.

“Homework comes first,” I scold, angry at myself for agreeing to this crazy schedule I slated.

“I will not hound you,” I hound her. “If you don't finish your homework there will be no dance class. There will be no gymnastics. There will be no soccer.”

She stares at me with the glare-y eyeball. But says nothing.

She finishes her homework and hands it over, disappearing into the mess she calls her room.

“I can't find my ballet shoes,” she hollers.

“I know where your dance shoes are but you need to redo questions 3, 7 and 12.”

“What's wrong with them?”

“You tell me,” I tap my finger on the offending worksheet.

She “harrumphs” and bonelessly collapses into the chair.

She's mad at me. She doesn't like to be wrong. She likes being called into question even less. I can understand, but her reaction irritates me all the same.

“I don't want to be the heavy, but you know homework comes first … and I'm not going to harangue you …

She scribbles over the answers and draws lines indicating where she should have placed the numbers.

“Not. Good. Enough. It's too confusing. Do it right.”

She hates me right now – I don't really blame her, I hate myself right now, too – but she erases the marks with a furiousness that threatens to tear the paper and starts again.

“There. It's fixed.”

Haranguing continues.

“... Just check your work.”

It's always about who gets the last, exasperated word.

She shrugs her shoulders.

“It's in the car. … your dance stuff is in the car, you didn't bring it in from last week. Let's go.”

“This is our future,” I think to myself as she quietly puts on her seatbelt and waits for me to turn on the radio. Right now she wants to hear “her songs,” but soon it will be the wall of noise between us so we can just hear ourselves think.

Once we arrive at the dance studio, she flits in as light as air. I lumber in behind her, still weighed down by the guilt of frustration and anger and knowing that I will stew in those juices for the next hour.

Until the lights went out.

And came back on.

And went out again.

And then she was standing before me, with her dance bag slung over her shoulder. Smiling.

“Aren't you glad I did my homework already?”

“More than you can imagine.”