Teetering on the Brink

     At the beginning of the week, I was dithering about what to write next… should I write about my great day trip with some friends to see Mary Poppins on Broadway?  (I don’t know, I forgot to ask my friends if I could post their pictures, and posts are always more fun with pictures) Should I write an update on the set design for the play at my school? Not too much progress there, except for the giant mushroom, which is still only a skin…

     And then my little 8^th grade friend, “Rose,” came into the office looking for an administrator.  She sat down and was more than willing to talk to me while we waited for the AP to arrive.  Was something going on with another student? No.  A teacher?    “No, I’m just so stressed out,” she said,  “I can’t take it.  I want to get switched out of school and get home tutored.  I’m tryin to do my homework, and come to class, and not talk back and it’s HARD when these teachers are gettin in my face, askin me stuff.”

     No one, it seems, ever taught her appropriate coping skills.

     And trust me, a lack of appropriate coping skills is the least of the problems she’s inherited from her home environment.  We talked about when she told off an adult a few weeks ago.  I suggested that there are times in life when you disagree with someone, but it just doesn’t serve your purpose to say anything about it, especially using your most colorful language.  She said she truly believes that, although she has been trying to keep her mouth shut when necessary, if she doesn’t speak her mind, then she’s not being “true.”

     I nodded.  I could see her point, but in this case, being “true” was working against her.  Something about her use of the word "true" bothered me… as if choosing not to speak in this case would make her “false,” as in, a liar.  It seems that she has much experience with liars.

     The AP came in, and she poured her heart out to him, too.  Ironically, all this from a girl who professes to not want to talk to anyone – not want to tell anyone anything about her life or her family.  He listened patiently, and validated what she was saying by summing it up every so often.  I could hear quite clearly through the door.   She was trying really hard to continue doing the right thing.  She said she never was in school this long before, but she was trying really hard because “you all are so nice to me, and you made my birthday the best ever” (a few of us gave her small gifts), “…and you don’t want to disappoint us,” he said.  She dissolved into tears.  I heard sniffling from my side of the door.  I could tell she was nodding.  He is a good listener.

     He told her to try being like a racehorse with blinders on… keep focused on the goal, and don’t look to the sides and get distracted.  She has a tough situation at home, but she can get there, she just has to stay focused.  He told her that he was there to help.  She came out of his office wiping her eyes.  I told her to come down at lunch time any day she wanted.  She went to class when the bell rang, but I couldn’t get her out of my mind for the next two days.

     If I could just WILL her to succeed, I would.  If I could explain to her that her life can be anything that she wants it to be, I would do it tomorrow, but in reality, all I can do is be there, watch, and wait.

    Rose, I’m rooting for you.          

Snow Day

     We had a snow day today.  I always think I'm going to get extraordinary things done when I'm home for a snow day, but I always forget that when it snows, much of your day is taken up with mopping up chunks of snow from the floor and drying everyone's wet clothes.  It was very picturesque outside, but over a foot is a lot of snow!  Just trudging from the back door to the chicken coop to feed the girls this morning was a leg work-out.  (It reminded me of some of those karate warm-ups.)

     So my grandiose plans for the day did not really work out.  I made the pot of tomato sauce minus the lasagna, and I also intended to sew at least one giant mushroom for the play today (please tell me, what was I thinking?), but since my compatriot, the set construction guy, did not yet construct the frame, I thought maybe I should hold off so I don't make my mushroom cap too small.  Last night, before the snow started, I DID finally buy some material.  Here's what I got:

     The red is for the mushroom.  The very light green is for spots on the mushroom and the beige (looks kinda white in this picture) is for the fins (flaps?  gills?) under the mushroom cap. The green was just barely a yard, and I got 10 yards each of the other two colors. With the elastic and the tax, it came to 21.00 and change.  Gotta love Wal-Mart for that!  Even so, I don't think I'm going to be able to make many mushrooms from this, since the mushroom I have in mind has to function something like a very large ottoman.  We'll see how it goes.  Hopefully, tomorrow afternoon I start sewing.    

Alice in Wonderland

     I am the set designer for my school's musical production.  I'm totally into this task, but also, a little intimidated. I've done a few things of this sort when I worked at the preschool, but you know, there is only so much comparison to be drawn betwen things made for a preschool, and things made for a middle school musical production.  Not a Broadway play, but still, a bit more than preschoolers performing a sign-language version of  "New York, New York." 

     Also, I'm used to calling the shots in this kind of thing - telling people (nicely, I always try to play nicely with others) "we're doing it this way," and now, I have to listen to more suggestions from others. Also, since I've never worked on a real stage production, some of the points the director made were things that never even occurred to me before, so I have to take them into consideration.  I'm fine with that, but it did cause me to revamp my original plan.  Which was may be a good thing, because my original plan was quite a bit more complicated than what the director had in mind.

      They don't really seem to be able to picture what I have in mind, so yesterday I spent a few hours making a few parts of the set for one of the scenes. 

     I didn't go crazy on this mock-up and add all the details (and as you can see, I didn't even do the left side of the backdrops, but I think you can get the idea) - the trunks of the trees are not all going to be the same color brown, and they won't be totally straight.  the green bushes in front of the platforms will reverse to have rosebushes on the backs, and there will be LOTS more mushrooms.  I originally wanted a mushroom or two to have a battery operated light inside that would shine down on the ground through the pleated underside.  But I know when to call myself absolutely nuts, so I'm scratching that idea already. 

     I'm going to show it to the director tomorrow, and hopefully, she gets the general idea, and likes my vision. 

     Any suggestions? 

Overindulgence

     Sometimes, once you start eating snack, you have a hard time stopping.  We just experienced the holiday season, so you know I’m right. 

     With that thought in mind…  We came home today, and my 11 year-old son sat down in the den to play video games, when he noticed some odd fluttering by the bird feeder outside the den window.  

“MOM!!”  He yelled.  “There’s a bird stuck INSIDE the bird feeder!”

     Sure enough, there was a little guy stuck inside the feeder, trying to get out by pecking at the glass around him. My son ran outside immediately to rescue him. 

“WAIT!  DON’T LET HIM OUT YET!”  I had to get my camera. 

     I’m such an altruist.

     Apparently, the little guy had been enjoying his bird seed so much, that he just couldn’t deal with the fact that the feeder was pretty much empty.  He must have kept reaching in… just another millimeter… one more seed... just one more until…

     Thwop!  He was the star of his own little animated snow globe.

     It was just a little seasonal overindulgence. 

     We opened up the top and he flew out immediately, landing on a nearby branch and fluffing his feathers against the insult of it all. 

     And I believe that, my friends, is how New Year’s Resolutions were born.

Happy New Year!

Resolutions sound like such a good idea, but who really keeps them, anyway? I believe that people who make drastic changes in their lives do it when the mood strikes, you know, when the iron is hot. I can think of a few things I hope to do in 2011, but I didn't have an official list for midnight last night. 

Instead, today, I made a list of things I'm looking forward to in 2011.

1.  Playing more video games with my kids.  We played Wii (Sports, and Just Dance 2) today, and it was a lot of fun.  Why don't I do this more often?

2.  Going to see the play, Mary Poppins, in the city with some of the best buddies in the world.  Again, what took us so long?

3.  Drinking good coffee, and eating great chocolate.

4.  Starting a garden again.  Every year I think I'll have a terrific garden, but then other things get in the way.  In January, the dream is still waiting.  My perfect, deer un-chewed garden still beckons in my dreams...

5.  Irritating my dad at dinnertime.  When I say irritating, I mean it in only the finest, "I love you" sense of the word. Maybe "ranking on, with love" is a better description.

6.  Designing the set for Alice In Wonderland (the play at the school where I work), even though I've never done this before.  I have paper mache mushrooms in my head that just won't go away. 

7.  Tolerating stress better.  An everlasting challenge for me.

   which brings me me to...

8.  Laughing with my husband.  Life really stinks sometimes, but it can be so much better when you can perform uneditted comedy in the privacy of your own home with your biggest fan.

9.  Making new friends.  When we're young in and in school, there are so many opportunities for making new friends, but as we get older, there are fewer opportunities for finding friends (you're no longer changing classes once a year) so when you do find a good one, it's like finding a gold coin in the sand.

10.  Seeing the last Harry Potter movie.  Sad for the story to be over, but I really just can't wait to the big finale in action. 

11.  Writing more.  It's fun, but slightly painful.  Like crunches.  No, more fun than crunches, but you get the idea.

12.  Becoming more efficient.  I don't know how I'm going to do that, but it sure seems like a good idea.

13.  Getting the kids to participate in the housecleaning.  This is really not a totally self-serving idea.  I want them to know how to clean house when they move out some day.  How are they going to know if I don't make them practice?  A lot.

14.  Ditch some unnecessary things.  Be they inanimate objects around the house or... not.

15.  Laugh, and make other people laugh.

16.  Spend a little less time playing Farmville.  Don't tell my husband I'm admitting to this one.  I take a lot of ribbing as it is.

17.  Listen to more books on CD or Playaways.  LOVE them!

18.  Take more, and better pictures.

19.  Scrapbook with my mom. 

20.  Always keep my glass half full.     

Present Perils

When you’re a child, let’s face it, Christmas is all about Santa and the gifts. What is he going to bring you?  Boys wondered if they were going to get that air-soft rifle they’d been dreaming of…No childhood could be complete until a boy’s mother worried that he’d shoot his eye out.  Ladies, I bet when each of you was a young girl, you didn’t hesitate to tell people what you wanted for Christmas when they asked you.  There was none of that, “Oh, I don’t know,” stuff. It was more like, “I don’t care that Barbie has the equivalent of a 13 inch wasp-waist, and I’ll probably break off one of her legs when I try to put on her ultra-suede cowboy pants so she can rustle up some cattle on her dusty mare, I’ll just DIE if I don’t get Cowgirl Barbie this year.” When you opened that last box and Cowgirl Barbie was inside, it was like you’d died and gone to heaven.

As soon as we leave the Santa stage, however, things change.  Maybe that’s because Santa just LOVES to buy us presents.  He LIVES for gift giving (It also doesn’t hurt that he lives in a compound fully stocked with free labor).  All he requires is that we are “good” each year. (His idea of good is pretty generous.)   Of course, he’ll always appreciate a few cookies and some milk, but he’ll still leave us presents even if we forget the cookies.  Other people… now that’s different.  Friends and relatives might buy us gifts, but they usually appreciate receiving a nice gift, too.  And let’s not even discuss the gifts that come with strings or messages attached, “I’m buying you this set of POTS so you can COOK more often.”  We might as well call these MESSAGE PRESENTS because actually, the gift giver is using Christmas as a vehicle to hit you over the head with some personal criticism that you’ve apparently not been able to absorb before. 

My mom frequently trots out the story of how my dad got her an electric can opener for Christmas one year.  The message was either, “Cook my dinner” or, “Hey, you might not like it, but I sure do like gadgets!” I don’t think that’s the only thing he got her, but really… an electric can opener? And oh, by the way, she already had one.     

Eons ago, when I was barely out of high school, my first boyfriend gave me a Message Present.  He was one of those annoying Scandinavians who says the weather is “great” when it’s barely touching the double digits on the Fahrenheit temperature scale.  I was (and still am) cold almost all the time.  He decided I needed a down coat.  Never mind that this is the least romantic gift you can give someone, it’s WARM, dammit, and when I got it, I could Stop Mentioning That I was Cold.  And maybe like winter.  Yeah, RIGHT. 

And this leads right into another kind of present:  The Even Trade

I found out I was getting The Coat that year, because my thoughtful boyfriend decided he wanted me to go shopping for, and purchase this coat for myself.  He thought I should pick it out, but why did he have to go with me?  I should go and pick it out, buy it, and then tell him how much it was, and he would give me the money for it.  Oh, and wrap it for myself, and bring it over his house when we celebrated Christmas Eve with his family. 

So I got myself a coat, and then I thought, Jeez, this thing is 100.00 – what am I going to get him?  I sewed a lot at the time, so I decided to make him a wool shirt.  I bought the materials and made the shirt (which came out rather nice, if I do say so myself) but I couldn’t bring myself to give him just that because I knew he had spent more on me. (Actually, I had spent more on me.)  I had to Make it an Even Trade.  I dragged my mom with me to the mall on Christmas Eve so I could buy a few more things.  I almost didn’t care what I bought, as long as I bought enough.  And you know, I didn’t really want to see him anymore, but how could I tell him?  It was Christmas, for God’s sake.  Just make it an even trade. 

There are presents that make you squirm with guilt, such as my Corsage Story.  Although it wasn’t a Christmas present, I think this story is worthy of inclusion here.  When I was in high school, my mom made me a GIANT corsage for my 16^th birthday.  Corsages had been THE thing when I was 6, 7, and 8 years old. Girls walked around sporting corsages loaded with various candies, a different candy for whatever age you were turning.  But by the time I was 16, that fad was looooonnng gone.  Unfortunately, my mom must have remembered me mentioning it years before because on the morning of my birthday, she presented me with this corsage.  It was about as big as a grapefruit, and loaded with white peppermint life saver candies springing out through the loops of blue and white checked ribbon.  It really was cute, but it was BIG.   And she wanted me to wear it to school.  Why hadn’t she made this for me YEARS ago?  I would have loved it then.  I was embarrassed to wear it.  We had an argument about it that morning before I got on the bus, and that corsage hung on a hook in my closet for years before I could bring myself to throw it out.  Years.  I talked to my mom about this recently.  She claims she doesn’t remember the episode, but I do, and I’ll remember it till I die.  My wish for you is that you never receive a gift that makes you squirm that much.   

Of course, it’s entirely possible that you will GIVE a gift that makes you squirm, such as when I gave my cousin a puzzle car when he was about 5 years old.  Here we were, cousins, grandparents, etc assembled for the holiday, and he opened this present, took one look at it, and his lip started to quiver.  Someone asked, “What’s the matter, don’t you like it?” and he yelled, “I HATE it.” “You hate it? Why?” and he said, “LOOK at it!”  I suspect he hated it because he was a bit too old for that sort of present, and he thought I was making a statement that he was a “baby.” In reality, at that time, I just had no idea what to get for a boy that age.  We still haven’t lived it down, though.  Just mention the words “I HATE it, LOOK at it!” in my family and everyone knows EXACTLY what we’re talking about.

I know everyone had present horror stories, so please, I invite you to share them! 

Here’s a quick story to end this on a positive note: Today, is Friday.  My little friend at school had a good week.  She did not get written up or sent to the office all week, so in the morning, I told her that if she had another good day today, I wanted to give her a little present at the end of the day.  Well, she came down to the office at the end of the day, and I gave her two Mint Ghiradelli Chocolate squares.  She said, “Thank you SOOOOOO much,” and stuffed them in her pocket.   That present trumps all of the above.

Merry Christmas to me...

"I always like to start Christmas shopping with a generous round of personal shopping first," a relative and friend said to me years ago.  "What a riot!" I thought at the time, but she had such a great point.  I buy things for myself now and then, but I am not a huge shopper.  Still, at Christmas time, it's hard to go out and buy large quantities of stuff without slipping in a little self-serving purchases, too. Who better than me will know EXACTLY what I want this year?  WOW, and in just the right color, too!  Even better, everything is on sale!  Best (or worst?) of all, I don't even have to leave the house to shop.  So, Merry Christmas, everyone! And uh, Merry   Christmas to me, too.  



(my new Tignanello handbag in "brass" - a Today's Special Value from QVC - isn't it nice?)