Sad news from the Cranky house: I lost one of my aunts this weekend.
It was sudden and unexpected. She had not been ill, but apparently had a fall and died at home in her sleep after, probably from a blood clot that travelled to her heart.
It's the kind of thing that you almost can't believe when you hear. She was there, and then she wasn't. My mom, sister and I can barely wrap our heads around it.
This aunt lived alone and never married, and there was always something child-like and innocent about her. Her death has hit me pretty hard because it seems so very sad to me that she left this world so quietly and so alone.
This will be the third death in my extended Barbourville family in as many years; it's also the third that has happened in September. Wake me up when September ends, indeed.
For the third September in a row, I will be heading "down home" for a funeral of one more person who tied me to my family and to my birthplace. Like the other trips, I will be travelling under beautifully clear late-summer skies and get to see the leaves just starting to change color up in the mountains and hills. But I won't be enjoying the view; one more link to that world and that part of my life is gone. There aren't many left, and they are getting along in years.
Today I am feeling a healthy dose of guilt as a side dish to the usual grief and sadness over a lost life. I didn't go down to visit her often enough; Ainsley doesn't even remember which aunt she was; the last time I did see her, which was last year during a funeral, she asked me to come down some time and "just visit." I didn't, because in my mind I am always too busy to make the three-hour trek; now I find myself needing to make that trek to say goodbye to someone in death who I should have made that same time for when she was alive.
June was a special person, and she will be missed. She had just about the strongest faith in God I've ever seen. She loved the people in her life completely, absolutely, and without judgement. She loved to work crossword puzzles and could cook a Kentucky cornbread and a pot of pinto beans so good it'd make you want to slap yo' momma. And don't even get me started on her sweet tea, made in an ancient Mr. Coffee coffeemaker with just the right ratio of lemon juice and sugar. Try as I might, I can't get mine to taste like hers. It was rare to see her without a wide, gap-toothed smile, and once you got her laughing about something, she couldn't stop and eventually everyone in the room would be laughing with her.
A friend of mine recently told me that every family has a rock and a light. June was our light. Death won't be able to dim it; even as I write this, and my eyes feel full of tears, I can't help but smile thinking about how much joy she carried with her every day.
Surely, she carries that joy with her still.
Goodbye, June. We will miss you so.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Fine, Fresh, Fierce, I Got It On Lock
Show of hands: who gets really, really excited to hear "California Gurls" on the radio?
Anyone? Anyone?
It was kinda cute the first few hundred times, but like this summer's heat here in Kentucky, it wears on you after a while. Now when it comes on the radio, I find myself changing the station with a lightning speed previously reserved for any and all Nickelback songs.
While I appreciate Katy Perry's pride in her California girl assets, I feel other states have something to offer, too. We Kentucky girls may not be quite as glamorous as a California girl sipping gin and juice underneath a palm tree, but we can be quite charming drinking a bourbon and Coke from a Mason jar out on the trailer porch. (I kid because I love.)
I am no song writer, but here's my prose ode to Kentucky Gurls.
California girls may have sun-kissed skin so hot it'll melt your popsicle, but we Kentucky girls turn bronze, too. Especially around prom season when every girl between 15 and 18 buys a month of unlimited tanning from the local Fantastic Sam's.
Kentucky girls wear Daisy Dukes, too. Just instead of a bikini on top, we like to wear layered tanks from weekend sales at Old Navy, sweet little homegrown t-shirts with sayings like, "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky!", or perhaps a Hooters tee. "Tacky, yet unrefined" could really be our state fashion motto and not just the slogan on the ubiquitous Hooters shirt.
We may not have a coast line, but we've got water a-plenty. Kentucky girls aren't getting sand in their stilettos, but on any given summer Saturday you can find them tubing down a lazy river, drinking beer on a pontoon boat at Lake Cumberland, or reading a magazine while sprawled on a plastic lounge chair beside the neighborhood pool. We don't need a Pacific beach to be warm, wet, and wild.
And believe you me, California girls have not cornered the market on partying. Find a big backyard, get a few Kentucky girls, a bucket of Original Recipe, a cooler full of Coronas (or even a gallon jug of sweet iced tea; we don't always approve of the liquor), a cornhole set (it's a game; get your minds out of the gutter), and some country music on the radio, and you've got yourself a shindig.
We may not have west-coast sophistication. We may not have beaches and palm trees. But we're a whole lot of fun with nary an ounce of pretentiousness. Once you party with us (or at the very least, sit down and watch a basketball game or the Derby with us), you'll be falling in love... Oh, oh-oh-oh, Oh, oh-oh-oh....
(Oh, and while I'm singing the praises of my state, let me defend it, too. There's a Popeye's chicken ad out now where the main character says that Popeye's chicken is better than KFC because Louisiana is known for its cooking, whereas Kentucky is known for racing horses. Pshaw. Offends me to my core. Popeye's might have done better in a taste test, but that's still restaurant fried chicken. Don't tell me someone from the land of red beans and rice and jambalaya, wonderful though those dishes are, can compete with us in the fried bird arena. Fried chicken is the pride dish of many a Kentucky cook, and don't you forget it. We'll come down there with a chicken and some seasoned flour and totally kick your a$$. That is all.)
Some of you are neither from Cali nor from Kentucky...what do the Gurls in your state have going for them?
Anyone? Anyone?
It was kinda cute the first few hundred times, but like this summer's heat here in Kentucky, it wears on you after a while. Now when it comes on the radio, I find myself changing the station with a lightning speed previously reserved for any and all Nickelback songs.
While I appreciate Katy Perry's pride in her California girl assets, I feel other states have something to offer, too. We Kentucky girls may not be quite as glamorous as a California girl sipping gin and juice underneath a palm tree, but we can be quite charming drinking a bourbon and Coke from a Mason jar out on the trailer porch. (I kid because I love.)
I am no song writer, but here's my prose ode to Kentucky Gurls.
California girls may have sun-kissed skin so hot it'll melt your popsicle, but we Kentucky girls turn bronze, too. Especially around prom season when every girl between 15 and 18 buys a month of unlimited tanning from the local Fantastic Sam's.
Kentucky girls wear Daisy Dukes, too. Just instead of a bikini on top, we like to wear layered tanks from weekend sales at Old Navy, sweet little homegrown t-shirts with sayings like, "Gettin' Lucky in Kentucky!", or perhaps a Hooters tee. "Tacky, yet unrefined" could really be our state fashion motto and not just the slogan on the ubiquitous Hooters shirt.
We may not have a coast line, but we've got water a-plenty. Kentucky girls aren't getting sand in their stilettos, but on any given summer Saturday you can find them tubing down a lazy river, drinking beer on a pontoon boat at Lake Cumberland, or reading a magazine while sprawled on a plastic lounge chair beside the neighborhood pool. We don't need a Pacific beach to be warm, wet, and wild.
And believe you me, California girls have not cornered the market on partying. Find a big backyard, get a few Kentucky girls, a bucket of Original Recipe, a cooler full of Coronas (or even a gallon jug of sweet iced tea; we don't always approve of the liquor), a cornhole set (it's a game; get your minds out of the gutter), and some country music on the radio, and you've got yourself a shindig.
We may not have west-coast sophistication. We may not have beaches and palm trees. But we're a whole lot of fun with nary an ounce of pretentiousness. Once you party with us (or at the very least, sit down and watch a basketball game or the Derby with us), you'll be falling in love... Oh, oh-oh-oh, Oh, oh-oh-oh....
(Oh, and while I'm singing the praises of my state, let me defend it, too. There's a Popeye's chicken ad out now where the main character says that Popeye's chicken is better than KFC because Louisiana is known for its cooking, whereas Kentucky is known for racing horses. Pshaw. Offends me to my core. Popeye's might have done better in a taste test, but that's still restaurant fried chicken. Don't tell me someone from the land of red beans and rice and jambalaya, wonderful though those dishes are, can compete with us in the fried bird arena. Fried chicken is the pride dish of many a Kentucky cook, and don't you forget it. We'll come down there with a chicken and some seasoned flour and totally kick your a$$. That is all.)
Some of you are neither from Cali nor from Kentucky...what do the Gurls in your state have going for them?
Friday, September 3, 2010
The Heat! My God, the Heat.
Y'all remember the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is talking to Puddy about being afraid she's going to hell and says, "And the HEAT! My God, the heat!"
Our local newspaper had an article today that told us the summer of 2010 was a very hot one, historically speaking. File it under things that make you go, "No sh^%."
Jason and I quote Seinfeld a lot in general, but we've found ourselves throwing out Elaine's above line a lot this summer. If this June, July, and August had a theme for us, that theme would be, "I'm hot. And not in the good way."
With summer unofficially ending this weekend, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back on the long, hot summer of 2010. It was the summer when...
We discovered that our happy place, Hilton Head Island, is not so happy after all.
How could you have such an incredible time at a vacation destination one year, and then be so miserable the next time you go? The place we stayed this time was dirty and (remember the theme this summer?) hot, with air conditioning that only kinda sorta worked. The kid threw up the first night we were there after eating a bad shrimp, my rental bike got stolen even though I locked the darn thing up (there were cut locks littering the ground around where my and several other's bikes were taken), and the only beautiful day we had was, of course, the day we left. However...
We also discovered that, at least in Savannah, we really do believe in ghosts.
The night I found my bike had been stolen (and biking was the most fun thing we'd found to do on gray days) I wanted to get the heck off the island. So we drove to Savannah, got in for dinner at The Lady & Sons with no waiting, and went on a ghost tour. The most fun we had on our Hilton Head vacation wasn't actually in Hilton Head. Ains volunteered to take pictures after the guide told us to look for orbs in our photos, which could be spirits lurking in the dark. Sure enough, we found a perfect orb in one of our pictures, which the guide told Ainsley was definitely a ghost, much to her delight. When we got home, I found two more pictures with orbs. Jason thought they were water droplets until I showed him one picture in which the orb appeared right in front of his male parts, in which case he became totally convinced that it was a ghost. Like the guy in Ghost Adventures, female spirits are apparently drawn to him in a carnal sort of way.
Jason and I got addicted to True Blood.
Where do you go after the season finale of Lost? To a show that doesn't make you think and is pure escapism. We rented the first two seasons on DVD throughout the summer; right now we're using our free trial month of HBO to catch up on season 3 on-demand. No matter how hot it is outside, no matter how bad a day I've had (and there have been many bad days these first weeks of school), hearing Bill the vampire say, "Sookeh!" in that melodramatic rasp cracks me up. And Eric the vampire is so incredibly hot. In the good way.
We watched Inception, felt both awed and confused, and talked about it for days.
It's been a while since a summer movie made me exercise my brain. I know there's been a lot of backlash, but I loved every minute of the ride.
Jason built a 10-inch reflecting Dobsonian telescope that actually works, making an astronomy geek out of our child (and maybe me, too.)
I've never exactly seen Jason as "handy" (love you, anyway! mean it!), so I'm still a little shocked that he was able to build a real, honest-to-god working telescope. It's not a little bucket-scope like we made in Governor's Scholars out of a 5-gallon pickle bucket and some PVC pipe...it's big, freakin' scientific instrument, y'all. And through it Ainsley has seen the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (faintly), 4 of Jupiter's moons, and a host of double stars and clusters and what-not. I love watching her drop all the girly-girly stuff she got for her birthday in a red-hot minute on clear nights after her Daddy calls out, "Want to go look through the telescope?" It's good for a girly-girl to get her geek on sometimes, you know?
I found out there's no joy quite like watching your kid work really, really hard to achieve something.
After a really fun season swimming for our pool's instructional summer team, Ains decided that she wants swimming to be her sport. We thought cheer leading had become her fave; turns out it takes a back seat to her love of being in the water (whew.) She found out she could try out for an advanced indoor team that makes its home at our family rec center, and during the try-outs I saw her push herself harder than I've ever seen before. She set her mind on a goal and focused on it and swam her absolute hardest in an attempt to kick some butt. Her breast stroke was weak so she's been asked to work on that and try out again mid-season, and I thought that might make her want to give up. But she has decided (without my prodding; I'm not one of those parents) to attend 3 practices a week this fall because she wants to be on the team so badly. It brings tears to my eyes to watch her push herself in the pool; every parent wants their kid to work hard for something they want, even more than they want them to be naturally great at something.
I read a very, very good book.
Librarians aren't supposed to say this, but I haven't been completely impressed with books this year. The best things I'd read had been young adult fiction, but it had been a while since I picked up an "adult" book and found it impossible to put down. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, got under my skin in a way a book hasn't in a long time. If you haven't read this one yet, do yourself a favor and get a copy. Don't be intimidated by its heft; you can rip through it fairly quickly because you won't be able to stop yourself. It's a page-turner, but it's also literary...it's just a darn good book.
Jason said goodbye to glasses and contacts forever (or at least until old-age-vision sets in.)
On the day that this post posts, I will be taking the hubby to get Lasik. I'm sure it will go well. No, really, I am. And if it goes well for him, then I will get it someday. Yeah, sure. I probably will. Maybe. If I can get past the thought of, you know, lasers burning away at my cornea.
That's it for me, folks. Here on the tail-end of one hot summer, tell me what you'll remember about this one.
Our local newspaper had an article today that told us the summer of 2010 was a very hot one, historically speaking. File it under things that make you go, "No sh^%."
Jason and I quote Seinfeld a lot in general, but we've found ourselves throwing out Elaine's above line a lot this summer. If this June, July, and August had a theme for us, that theme would be, "I'm hot. And not in the good way."
With summer unofficially ending this weekend, I thought it would be a good time to take a look back on the long, hot summer of 2010. It was the summer when...
We discovered that our happy place, Hilton Head Island, is not so happy after all.
How could you have such an incredible time at a vacation destination one year, and then be so miserable the next time you go? The place we stayed this time was dirty and (remember the theme this summer?) hot, with air conditioning that only kinda sorta worked. The kid threw up the first night we were there after eating a bad shrimp, my rental bike got stolen even though I locked the darn thing up (there were cut locks littering the ground around where my and several other's bikes were taken), and the only beautiful day we had was, of course, the day we left. However...
We also discovered that, at least in Savannah, we really do believe in ghosts.
The night I found my bike had been stolen (and biking was the most fun thing we'd found to do on gray days) I wanted to get the heck off the island. So we drove to Savannah, got in for dinner at The Lady & Sons with no waiting, and went on a ghost tour. The most fun we had on our Hilton Head vacation wasn't actually in Hilton Head. Ains volunteered to take pictures after the guide told us to look for orbs in our photos, which could be spirits lurking in the dark. Sure enough, we found a perfect orb in one of our pictures, which the guide told Ainsley was definitely a ghost, much to her delight. When we got home, I found two more pictures with orbs. Jason thought they were water droplets until I showed him one picture in which the orb appeared right in front of his male parts, in which case he became totally convinced that it was a ghost. Like the guy in Ghost Adventures, female spirits are apparently drawn to him in a carnal sort of way.
Jason and I got addicted to True Blood.
Where do you go after the season finale of Lost? To a show that doesn't make you think and is pure escapism. We rented the first two seasons on DVD throughout the summer; right now we're using our free trial month of HBO to catch up on season 3 on-demand. No matter how hot it is outside, no matter how bad a day I've had (and there have been many bad days these first weeks of school), hearing Bill the vampire say, "Sookeh!" in that melodramatic rasp cracks me up. And Eric the vampire is so incredibly hot. In the good way.
We watched Inception, felt both awed and confused, and talked about it for days.
It's been a while since a summer movie made me exercise my brain. I know there's been a lot of backlash, but I loved every minute of the ride.
Jason built a 10-inch reflecting Dobsonian telescope that actually works, making an astronomy geek out of our child (and maybe me, too.)
I've never exactly seen Jason as "handy" (love you, anyway! mean it!), so I'm still a little shocked that he was able to build a real, honest-to-god working telescope. It's not a little bucket-scope like we made in Governor's Scholars out of a 5-gallon pickle bucket and some PVC pipe...it's big, freakin' scientific instrument, y'all. And through it Ainsley has seen the rings of Saturn, the Ring Nebula (faintly), 4 of Jupiter's moons, and a host of double stars and clusters and what-not. I love watching her drop all the girly-girly stuff she got for her birthday in a red-hot minute on clear nights after her Daddy calls out, "Want to go look through the telescope?" It's good for a girly-girl to get her geek on sometimes, you know?
I found out there's no joy quite like watching your kid work really, really hard to achieve something.
After a really fun season swimming for our pool's instructional summer team, Ains decided that she wants swimming to be her sport. We thought cheer leading had become her fave; turns out it takes a back seat to her love of being in the water (whew.) She found out she could try out for an advanced indoor team that makes its home at our family rec center, and during the try-outs I saw her push herself harder than I've ever seen before. She set her mind on a goal and focused on it and swam her absolute hardest in an attempt to kick some butt. Her breast stroke was weak so she's been asked to work on that and try out again mid-season, and I thought that might make her want to give up. But she has decided (without my prodding; I'm not one of those parents) to attend 3 practices a week this fall because she wants to be on the team so badly. It brings tears to my eyes to watch her push herself in the pool; every parent wants their kid to work hard for something they want, even more than they want them to be naturally great at something.
I read a very, very good book.
Librarians aren't supposed to say this, but I haven't been completely impressed with books this year. The best things I'd read had been young adult fiction, but it had been a while since I picked up an "adult" book and found it impossible to put down. The Passage, by Justin Cronin, got under my skin in a way a book hasn't in a long time. If you haven't read this one yet, do yourself a favor and get a copy. Don't be intimidated by its heft; you can rip through it fairly quickly because you won't be able to stop yourself. It's a page-turner, but it's also literary...it's just a darn good book.
Jason said goodbye to glasses and contacts forever (or at least until old-age-vision sets in.)
On the day that this post posts, I will be taking the hubby to get Lasik. I'm sure it will go well. No, really, I am. And if it goes well for him, then I will get it someday. Yeah, sure. I probably will. Maybe. If I can get past the thought of, you know, lasers burning away at my cornea.
That's it for me, folks. Here on the tail-end of one hot summer, tell me what you'll remember about this one.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Magic, Revisited
Ainsley came in from school Friday grinning like the cat who ate the canary. She threw open her backpack and held up a well-worn and well-known book.
"Look what I got at the library today!" she said in a sing-song tone usually reserved for "I told you so." And behold, there was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
I sighed. Not because I do not want her to read this book; on the contrary, because I want her to read it and love it as much as I do. She'd been lobbying to give the book a shot for several weeks and I had been urging her to maybe wait until she's a little older.
"Just wait a little while," I had said. "I know you're a great reader, but it's really meant for older elementary and middle-school kids. You might get frustrated and give up. That's one I think you will really, really love and I want you to be able to understand it and enjoy it."
So basically I made that book Forbidden Fruit. I've been working with young people for 14 years; you would think I'd know by now that the surest way of getting someone under the age of 21 to do something is to tell them not to do it.
I saw a bookmark in it, and it wasn't on the first page.
"Have you started it yet? Are you getting it?"
She beamed. "I am on the second chapter already."
So it begins. She's getting to know The Boy Who Lived.
Ainsley loves to read, but this summer she wouldn't read for longer than about 5 minutes at a time; the outside in general, and the pool in particular, were always calling. Knowing that we had weekend plans to go to the pool, I bet that I wouldn't see much of her coveted Mr. Potter that weekend.
I bet wrong.
The book went with her everywhere. She took it to the pool and cracked it open at every adult swim and sometimes beyond until we reminded her that it was 90 degrees outside and she might want to stay cool. She read in the car, she read while the television was on and trying to capture her attention, she read sitting outside while we waited for the space station to appear overhead. I've seen her get wrapped up in a book before, but I've never seen one hold her quite to tightly in its grip.
As a school librarian, this doesn't surprise me; the Harry Potter series truly is magical. As Ainsley's mom, I am a little surprised. We own the first movie, and one afternoon I decided to pop it in the player and test the waters; it's not a great movie on its own, but I wanted to see if Ains would take the bait and at least get interested in the story and characters. This has been a couple of years ago, well before I thought she'd be ready to read the books. I just wanted to see if there was any fan-girl potential there. And to get away from the terror of the Barbie movies.
"This is boring," she said about halfway through. "I don't like Harry Potter." And she walked out of the room to go play, leaving my librarian's heart in shreds inside my chest. How can I have a child who doesn't like the Potter?
I'm not sure why all of a sudden the interest in reading the books is there, but I am thrilled. Now that she has started the first one and seems to be loving it she's already asking about the others, and we have told her that reading one a year, so that she matures as Harry matures, might be the best way. As well as she's doing with Sorcerer's Stone, I still don't think she would quite understand the Dementors and why they're so terrifying, not to mention the various mildly gruesome deaths that occur in later books.
Besides, I had to endure long, suspenseful waits between the books...she should, too. Anticipation builds character.
It's been fun these last few days reliving the joy of Harry Potter through her eyes. I've re-read several over the years, mostly in anticipation of whatever movie was being released that year, but nothing quite captures the joy of the first time, does it? Watching Ains read, or listening to Jason read to her at bedtime, takes me back to the week I devoured the first three books. I was in my first library job, working in the education library of a university, fresh out of library school. I'd heard all the buzz surrounding the books, but they were so new (the third one not even published until the summer I graduated) they weren't yet required reading in my children's lit classes. I found myself under doctor's orders to stay away from work for three days due to a suspected case of "walking" pneumonia. To bide the time and to do something vaguely related to my job while recovering, I grabbed the first three books from the library's shelves.
I read one a day. And went into a kind of illness-assisted state of depression that I had to wait months for the fourth one.
When I closed the cover of the final book, I felt I was closing a door. Never again would I enter that world of magic, never again would I wonder if Harry, Ron, and Hermione would all three come out alive in the ultimate showdown of good versus evil, never again would I speculate whether He Who Must Not Be Named could be defeated in the end.
Now I'm getting to live the books again, this time through a different, younger set of eyes. Her excitement when it's time to read the next book, her joy every time she starts a new year at Hogwarts alongside Harry...I'll be right there with her, watching and listening. And being so glad that my kid loves Harry Potter, after all.
"Look what I got at the library today!" she said in a sing-song tone usually reserved for "I told you so." And behold, there was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
I sighed. Not because I do not want her to read this book; on the contrary, because I want her to read it and love it as much as I do. She'd been lobbying to give the book a shot for several weeks and I had been urging her to maybe wait until she's a little older.
"Just wait a little while," I had said. "I know you're a great reader, but it's really meant for older elementary and middle-school kids. You might get frustrated and give up. That's one I think you will really, really love and I want you to be able to understand it and enjoy it."
So basically I made that book Forbidden Fruit. I've been working with young people for 14 years; you would think I'd know by now that the surest way of getting someone under the age of 21 to do something is to tell them not to do it.
I saw a bookmark in it, and it wasn't on the first page.
"Have you started it yet? Are you getting it?"
She beamed. "I am on the second chapter already."
So it begins. She's getting to know The Boy Who Lived.
Ainsley loves to read, but this summer she wouldn't read for longer than about 5 minutes at a time; the outside in general, and the pool in particular, were always calling. Knowing that we had weekend plans to go to the pool, I bet that I wouldn't see much of her coveted Mr. Potter that weekend.
I bet wrong.
The book went with her everywhere. She took it to the pool and cracked it open at every adult swim and sometimes beyond until we reminded her that it was 90 degrees outside and she might want to stay cool. She read in the car, she read while the television was on and trying to capture her attention, she read sitting outside while we waited for the space station to appear overhead. I've seen her get wrapped up in a book before, but I've never seen one hold her quite to tightly in its grip.
As a school librarian, this doesn't surprise me; the Harry Potter series truly is magical. As Ainsley's mom, I am a little surprised. We own the first movie, and one afternoon I decided to pop it in the player and test the waters; it's not a great movie on its own, but I wanted to see if Ains would take the bait and at least get interested in the story and characters. This has been a couple of years ago, well before I thought she'd be ready to read the books. I just wanted to see if there was any fan-girl potential there. And to get away from the terror of the Barbie movies.
"This is boring," she said about halfway through. "I don't like Harry Potter." And she walked out of the room to go play, leaving my librarian's heart in shreds inside my chest. How can I have a child who doesn't like the Potter?
I'm not sure why all of a sudden the interest in reading the books is there, but I am thrilled. Now that she has started the first one and seems to be loving it she's already asking about the others, and we have told her that reading one a year, so that she matures as Harry matures, might be the best way. As well as she's doing with Sorcerer's Stone, I still don't think she would quite understand the Dementors and why they're so terrifying, not to mention the various mildly gruesome deaths that occur in later books.
Besides, I had to endure long, suspenseful waits between the books...she should, too. Anticipation builds character.
It's been fun these last few days reliving the joy of Harry Potter through her eyes. I've re-read several over the years, mostly in anticipation of whatever movie was being released that year, but nothing quite captures the joy of the first time, does it? Watching Ains read, or listening to Jason read to her at bedtime, takes me back to the week I devoured the first three books. I was in my first library job, working in the education library of a university, fresh out of library school. I'd heard all the buzz surrounding the books, but they were so new (the third one not even published until the summer I graduated) they weren't yet required reading in my children's lit classes. I found myself under doctor's orders to stay away from work for three days due to a suspected case of "walking" pneumonia. To bide the time and to do something vaguely related to my job while recovering, I grabbed the first three books from the library's shelves.
I read one a day. And went into a kind of illness-assisted state of depression that I had to wait months for the fourth one.
When I closed the cover of the final book, I felt I was closing a door. Never again would I enter that world of magic, never again would I wonder if Harry, Ron, and Hermione would all three come out alive in the ultimate showdown of good versus evil, never again would I speculate whether He Who Must Not Be Named could be defeated in the end.
Now I'm getting to live the books again, this time through a different, younger set of eyes. Her excitement when it's time to read the next book, her joy every time she starts a new year at Hogwarts alongside Harry...I'll be right there with her, watching and listening. And being so glad that my kid loves Harry Potter, after all.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Some Days You're the Dog, Some Days You're the Hydrant...And Some Days, You're A Squished Dead Possum In the Turn Lane
It was one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen.
Two fluffy, well-kept-looking white dogs were in the middle of a busy 5-lane highway I travel every day. I saw them a long way away; everyone was hitting their brakes, dodging them as they went from northbound to southbound and back to the middle.
Please, God, I thought, don't let one of these dogs get hit. I just don't know if I can see that today.
And as far as I know, I got my wish. No dogs died in the making of this blog entry.
The horrifying part was what these cute and collared dogs were doing and what had them running hither and yon and then sticking it out in the turn lane. A possum had been hit and then run over, repeatedly, in the middle lane. It was little more than a flattened mass of pulverized flesh and fur ground into the asphalt.
And yet for these dogs, it was apparently dinner. Though there wasn't much left to try to eat, the dogs were turning their fluffy white heads to the side and gnawing on the pavement, trying to extract something of substance from what used to be a living being. As I passed, I was shocked by the looks on their once-tamed faces and by the violent way they were trying to get something, anything, into their mouths and to their stomachs; these dogs, who were wearing collars and still looked clean and well-groomed, had been turned from man's best friend into the basest core of their own animal nature.
After feeling repulsion (this is an over-used phrase, but I did kinda throw up in my mouth a little bit) I started to feel sad. What had to have happened to those dogs for them to stoop to that level? They looked like they had very recently been loved and washed and given identification to wear. How bad does life have to get for a dog before squashed possum, eaten alongside cars honking and zooming along at 45mph, seems like a good idea?
A coworker stopped by and asked me how my year was going.
"Well, you know," I replied, "some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant."
And in my mind's eye I saw those white dogs eating roadkill. Sometimes being the dog isn't such a stellar thing, either. I actually felt some sympathy for the possum, too, and found that I could relate; it sucks to not even be able to stop being pestered when you're dead. That's pretty much how I felt; like a mashed lump of flesh, fur, and bone being picked apart even after there wasn't much left to pick at.
I imagine I will, animal lover that I am, think of the dogs often. I hope that, if their owners are good people who just left a gate open, they're reunited and welcomed back into the home that used to feed them. I hope their owners never know their capacity for gnawing up roadkill (may their people never question too much the red stains around their little white mouths.) If they are strays, I hope they can find better (and safer) pickings.
My day got better yesterday, and by the end of work today I was (mostly) loving my job again and wondering what all the doom and gloom was about yesterday.
Sadly, for those animals, there may not be any more good days.
Couple that with the viral video of the woman who threw the kitten into a garbage bin, and my heart breaks for those animals who depend on us for everything, only to be harmed, neglected, mistreated. It may be true that every dog has its day; but sometimes that day is spent celebrating a score of fresh roadkill.
Two fluffy, well-kept-looking white dogs were in the middle of a busy 5-lane highway I travel every day. I saw them a long way away; everyone was hitting their brakes, dodging them as they went from northbound to southbound and back to the middle.
Please, God, I thought, don't let one of these dogs get hit. I just don't know if I can see that today.
And as far as I know, I got my wish. No dogs died in the making of this blog entry.
The horrifying part was what these cute and collared dogs were doing and what had them running hither and yon and then sticking it out in the turn lane. A possum had been hit and then run over, repeatedly, in the middle lane. It was little more than a flattened mass of pulverized flesh and fur ground into the asphalt.
And yet for these dogs, it was apparently dinner. Though there wasn't much left to try to eat, the dogs were turning their fluffy white heads to the side and gnawing on the pavement, trying to extract something of substance from what used to be a living being. As I passed, I was shocked by the looks on their once-tamed faces and by the violent way they were trying to get something, anything, into their mouths and to their stomachs; these dogs, who were wearing collars and still looked clean and well-groomed, had been turned from man's best friend into the basest core of their own animal nature.
After feeling repulsion (this is an over-used phrase, but I did kinda throw up in my mouth a little bit) I started to feel sad. What had to have happened to those dogs for them to stoop to that level? They looked like they had very recently been loved and washed and given identification to wear. How bad does life have to get for a dog before squashed possum, eaten alongside cars honking and zooming along at 45mph, seems like a good idea?
It's been days since I saw this, but I am having a hard time getting that image out of my head. Especially yesterday. Yesterday was a bad day for me; it was one of those times in my job when I really wasn't liking what I'm doing. I felt incredibly overwhelmed by all the things I've been asked to do and incredibly annoyed by how little work I end up getting done after a constant stream of questions and interruptions. We've all been there.
A coworker stopped by and asked me how my year was going.
"Well, you know," I replied, "some days you're the dog, some days you're the hydrant."
And in my mind's eye I saw those white dogs eating roadkill. Sometimes being the dog isn't such a stellar thing, either. I actually felt some sympathy for the possum, too, and found that I could relate; it sucks to not even be able to stop being pestered when you're dead. That's pretty much how I felt; like a mashed lump of flesh, fur, and bone being picked apart even after there wasn't much left to pick at.
I imagine I will, animal lover that I am, think of the dogs often. I hope that, if their owners are good people who just left a gate open, they're reunited and welcomed back into the home that used to feed them. I hope their owners never know their capacity for gnawing up roadkill (may their people never question too much the red stains around their little white mouths.) If they are strays, I hope they can find better (and safer) pickings.
My day got better yesterday, and by the end of work today I was (mostly) loving my job again and wondering what all the doom and gloom was about yesterday.
Sadly, for those animals, there may not be any more good days.
Couple that with the viral video of the woman who threw the kitten into a garbage bin, and my heart breaks for those animals who depend on us for everything, only to be harmed, neglected, mistreated. It may be true that every dog has its day; but sometimes that day is spent celebrating a score of fresh roadkill.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
It's My Party And I'll Fall Off the Diving Board If I Want To
I'm not one to turn down a party. Unless that party is for 20 children under the age of 10.
One of the rules for birthday parties at the kid's school is that if you invite one classmate to your big bash, you have to invite them all. No joke. We were told this at kindergarten orientation and people actually stick with this program. I've long been hoping for a revolt, but the closest I got was last year when one of Ainsley's BFFs invited just the girls in the class over for birthday princess makeovers. Apparently, this ticked off the boys (and even some of the boys' parents) because birthday parties are supposed to be "fair" and no one is supposed to feel left out.
You know what I say? Suck it up, kids. Life ain't fair. Get used to being left out now because the teenage years don't make you feel any more popular. And if it's your birthday, you should get to choose who comes over to your house and eats cake. If you don't want that weird kid who sits behind you in class and sneezes all over your ponytail to come sit behind you in your house and sneeze all over your ice cream cup, that's your right.
Even though Ainsley's class has dwindled some in number, inviting all her classmates to a birthday party for her would mean having the pitter-patter of about 18 pairs of 'tween feet in my little home. No amount of drugs could ever make that seem like a good idea, so I have put off the big class birthday party.
But we belong to a pool, and that means we can do a relatively affordable birthday party for a large crowd there. And by relatively affordable, I mean we only had to refinance the house once. It's not everyday your only child turns 8, though, and she's one of the last in her class to have a classmates party in the three years she's been in school, so we decided to take the plunge (literally) and have the big birthday bash at the pool.
Even though I didn't have to do any decorating, and the food, paper products, goodie bags, and entertainment were all taken care of, I found myself at the end of the two-hour affair breathless, harried, and exhausted. How do elementary-school teachers do it? You get well over a dozen kids together, throw in some sugar and a few waterslides, and anyone over the age of 17 is going to get really tired, really quickly.
The party-planning packet I received from our recreation center advertised that a birthday party there creates "memories that last a lifetime." We probably did give Ainsley a day she'll never forget, but that may have more to do with the fall she took on the diving board ladder in the last 10 minutes of the party than the festivities themselves. Nothing kills a good party's buzz quite like the guest of honor saying her goodbyes through tears while blood trickles down her knee.
What I'll remember, though (aside from the fact that the boys didn't want to sit with the girls at pizza time; gosh, that starts early) is how tight-knit Ainsley's class is. So tight-knit that it's borderline intrusive; everybody wants to get in everybody else's business.
When you have a small class like that, a class that's been pretty intact going into their fourth year of school together, the kids know each other almost too well. Everyone's presents for Ainsley were pretty much spot-on; they showed that they know she loves to read, loves to be a girly-girl, loves to color, loves her Webkinz. Listening to their little conversations, though, you realize they're all about being up in each other's business. It's like Gossip Girl, elementary edition.
Everybody wants to know who's sliding with who, and who's talking to who at the diving board, and who's parents are doing playdates afterward, and who didn't finish their cupcake, and who all Ainsley's adults are, and on and on and on. When it was time to open presents the kids were inordinately interested in who got her what and what did they write on the card and so on--that just isn't normal. The gift-opening is supposed to be the least interesting part of the party for everybody but the birthday kid and the poor parent who's trying to keep track of it all.
It all adds up to this scary fact--these kids are going to be together, with perhaps just a few withdrawals and additions, all the way through 8th grade. Eventually the girls are going to see the boys in a new light and the boys are going to actually want to sit at the same table as the girls, and everyone is so wrapped up in everyone else that there's bound to be endless drama. Soap operas may be dying, but in about 3 years there will be such a daily saga at that school between the hours of 8 and 3 that anyone who still misses As The World Turns can totally get their fix.
Until then, I've at least given Ainsley that party to remember with friends she'll never forget...and yet another scar on her knee.
One of the rules for birthday parties at the kid's school is that if you invite one classmate to your big bash, you have to invite them all. No joke. We were told this at kindergarten orientation and people actually stick with this program. I've long been hoping for a revolt, but the closest I got was last year when one of Ainsley's BFFs invited just the girls in the class over for birthday princess makeovers. Apparently, this ticked off the boys (and even some of the boys' parents) because birthday parties are supposed to be "fair" and no one is supposed to feel left out.
You know what I say? Suck it up, kids. Life ain't fair. Get used to being left out now because the teenage years don't make you feel any more popular. And if it's your birthday, you should get to choose who comes over to your house and eats cake. If you don't want that weird kid who sits behind you in class and sneezes all over your ponytail to come sit behind you in your house and sneeze all over your ice cream cup, that's your right.
Even though Ainsley's class has dwindled some in number, inviting all her classmates to a birthday party for her would mean having the pitter-patter of about 18 pairs of 'tween feet in my little home. No amount of drugs could ever make that seem like a good idea, so I have put off the big class birthday party.
But we belong to a pool, and that means we can do a relatively affordable birthday party for a large crowd there. And by relatively affordable, I mean we only had to refinance the house once. It's not everyday your only child turns 8, though, and she's one of the last in her class to have a classmates party in the three years she's been in school, so we decided to take the plunge (literally) and have the big birthday bash at the pool.
Even though I didn't have to do any decorating, and the food, paper products, goodie bags, and entertainment were all taken care of, I found myself at the end of the two-hour affair breathless, harried, and exhausted. How do elementary-school teachers do it? You get well over a dozen kids together, throw in some sugar and a few waterslides, and anyone over the age of 17 is going to get really tired, really quickly.
The party-planning packet I received from our recreation center advertised that a birthday party there creates "memories that last a lifetime." We probably did give Ainsley a day she'll never forget, but that may have more to do with the fall she took on the diving board ladder in the last 10 minutes of the party than the festivities themselves. Nothing kills a good party's buzz quite like the guest of honor saying her goodbyes through tears while blood trickles down her knee.
What I'll remember, though (aside from the fact that the boys didn't want to sit with the girls at pizza time; gosh, that starts early) is how tight-knit Ainsley's class is. So tight-knit that it's borderline intrusive; everybody wants to get in everybody else's business.
When you have a small class like that, a class that's been pretty intact going into their fourth year of school together, the kids know each other almost too well. Everyone's presents for Ainsley were pretty much spot-on; they showed that they know she loves to read, loves to be a girly-girl, loves to color, loves her Webkinz. Listening to their little conversations, though, you realize they're all about being up in each other's business. It's like Gossip Girl, elementary edition.
Everybody wants to know who's sliding with who, and who's talking to who at the diving board, and who's parents are doing playdates afterward, and who didn't finish their cupcake, and who all Ainsley's adults are, and on and on and on. When it was time to open presents the kids were inordinately interested in who got her what and what did they write on the card and so on--that just isn't normal. The gift-opening is supposed to be the least interesting part of the party for everybody but the birthday kid and the poor parent who's trying to keep track of it all.
It all adds up to this scary fact--these kids are going to be together, with perhaps just a few withdrawals and additions, all the way through 8th grade. Eventually the girls are going to see the boys in a new light and the boys are going to actually want to sit at the same table as the girls, and everyone is so wrapped up in everyone else that there's bound to be endless drama. Soap operas may be dying, but in about 3 years there will be such a daily saga at that school between the hours of 8 and 3 that anyone who still misses As The World Turns can totally get their fix.
Until then, I've at least given Ainsley that party to remember with friends she'll never forget...and yet another scar on her knee.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Black Leather Leggings (In A Youth Size 7/8)
I came this close to buying my 7-year-old a pair of black faux-leather leggings.
We were in Target looking for the perfect little hip outfit for her to wear to tonight's Jonas Brothers concert. We found a black tunic with a big, screen-printed red rose surrounded by sparkly things; it looked so like something I would have worn as a tween in imitation of Cyndi Lauper or Madonna that I felt Ains just had to have it. A pair of leggings were in order to make the outfit complete and ready to go for the kid's first ever concert. I picked up a pair of black ones in a girls' size medium and noticed they were made of something shiny and slick and clearly meant to imitate leather.
Black leather leggings...well, that's kind of "rock star", isn't it? I thought to myself. Ainsley oohed and ahhed and I was on my way to the register until I found myself returning to logical thinking and realizing that black leather-ish leggings are maybe, just maybe, a little too sexy for a child.
"I changed my mind, Ains. These leggings are just a little too hootchie-mama for you."
Sometimes I say really dumb things out loud to my kid. I waited with held breath for Miss Curious to ask what a hootchie-mama is, and I just don't know that I have a really good age-appropriate answer for that one.
She didn't ask, though I had questions of my own. Namely, why in the hell a store would sell black leather leggings in the young girls' department when it's not Halloween. Can we just try to keep our little girls as little girls until their age has entered double digits? Please?
We chose a pair of simple cotton capri-length leggings instead and the kid's first pair of Converse low-top Chuck Taylors. People I work with have been telling me she's my mini-me; I would have picked out a very similar outfit had I been going to a concert in, say, 1987. And I, like her, would have looked trendy and kinda cool while not at all crossing that fine line into hootchie-mama.
Of course, it's going to be in the mid-90s tonight for this outdoor concert, so she's probably going to have to save this very retro-chic rocker ensemble for some other big event this fall and sing along with the Jo-Bros in a sundress. But at least I can live with putting the clothes aside and saving them for, say, some school-related function; had I bought the leather leggings, that might have clashed with traditional Catholic-school values.
Clothing choices aside, Ains is stoked for her first concert experience. A good friend scored two tickets for free and knew Ainsley would go nuts when she saw them. (After 30 minutes of flipping out, she looked at me and said, "I never thought anything like this would happen to me!")
I haven't heard from y'all in a while; chime in below with memories of your first concert. How old were you, and who did you see, and where? And did your mom dress you in age-appropriate separates?
(I'll start--believe it or not, my first concert wasn't until I was 18 years old. It was a week before I left for Centre, and I saw the B-52s with the Violent Femmes in the same outdoor venue we're going to tonight. Knowing me at the time, I probably dressed too old, though not in a slutty way--I seem to remember a pair of Mom-jean rolled-up cutoffs and some hiking boots. Sexy, right? Now THERE was a girl in desperate need of some fake black leather.)
We were in Target looking for the perfect little hip outfit for her to wear to tonight's Jonas Brothers concert. We found a black tunic with a big, screen-printed red rose surrounded by sparkly things; it looked so like something I would have worn as a tween in imitation of Cyndi Lauper or Madonna that I felt Ains just had to have it. A pair of leggings were in order to make the outfit complete and ready to go for the kid's first ever concert. I picked up a pair of black ones in a girls' size medium and noticed they were made of something shiny and slick and clearly meant to imitate leather.
Black leather leggings...well, that's kind of "rock star", isn't it? I thought to myself. Ainsley oohed and ahhed and I was on my way to the register until I found myself returning to logical thinking and realizing that black leather-ish leggings are maybe, just maybe, a little too sexy for a child.
"I changed my mind, Ains. These leggings are just a little too hootchie-mama for you."
Sometimes I say really dumb things out loud to my kid. I waited with held breath for Miss Curious to ask what a hootchie-mama is, and I just don't know that I have a really good age-appropriate answer for that one.
She didn't ask, though I had questions of my own. Namely, why in the hell a store would sell black leather leggings in the young girls' department when it's not Halloween. Can we just try to keep our little girls as little girls until their age has entered double digits? Please?
We chose a pair of simple cotton capri-length leggings instead and the kid's first pair of Converse low-top Chuck Taylors. People I work with have been telling me she's my mini-me; I would have picked out a very similar outfit had I been going to a concert in, say, 1987. And I, like her, would have looked trendy and kinda cool while not at all crossing that fine line into hootchie-mama.
Of course, it's going to be in the mid-90s tonight for this outdoor concert, so she's probably going to have to save this very retro-chic rocker ensemble for some other big event this fall and sing along with the Jo-Bros in a sundress. But at least I can live with putting the clothes aside and saving them for, say, some school-related function; had I bought the leather leggings, that might have clashed with traditional Catholic-school values.
Clothing choices aside, Ains is stoked for her first concert experience. A good friend scored two tickets for free and knew Ainsley would go nuts when she saw them. (After 30 minutes of flipping out, she looked at me and said, "I never thought anything like this would happen to me!")
I haven't heard from y'all in a while; chime in below with memories of your first concert. How old were you, and who did you see, and where? And did your mom dress you in age-appropriate separates?
(I'll start--believe it or not, my first concert wasn't until I was 18 years old. It was a week before I left for Centre, and I saw the B-52s with the Violent Femmes in the same outdoor venue we're going to tonight. Knowing me at the time, I probably dressed too old, though not in a slutty way--I seem to remember a pair of Mom-jean rolled-up cutoffs and some hiking boots. Sexy, right? Now THERE was a girl in desperate need of some fake black leather.)
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