Time To Move

Last September, I wrote a little post called "The Cheese Stands Alone." I'd link it for you, but apparently I do not know how to do that on an iMac. Why would it be any different than on a PC? Or perhaps I am really that much of a complete computer idiot that I cannot figure out how to do such a simple thing...in any case, "The Cheese..."was last year's Old Home Day post. This right here? This is this year's Old Home Day post. Feel free to go hunt down "The Cheese..." for a fun exercise in comparing and contrasting. I'll wait here.

Okay, so yesterday was Old Home Day. Given what an extraordinarily super fun time I had LAST year at Old Home Day, I wasn't much looking forward to it. However, since there was no way I was going to get out of taking the girls, I decided to head my boredom off at the pass and volunteer for something. True, standing at a bake sale table is not my idea of a good time. But at least there were people to talk to.

It turned out to be quite a shrewd move, actually, for two other reasons. First of all, it poured rain all the live long day. This did not slow the crowd at all - considering that a large majority of the crowd was wearing what I can only describe as "farm fashion", it's possible that they do not see coming in from the rain as a necessity of life - but luckily, it did mean that the bake sale was held under a tent. While I was absolutely freezing, at least I was dry. Second of all, manning the table gave me an ideal vantage point to spy on Sixth Grader and her friends, nestled up together at a picnic table and voluntarily arranged in boy-girl-boy-girl formation. Curious.

My shift was for two hours. Other than eyeballing those sixth graders, I spent most of my shift trying against all odds to avoid any contact with the cotton candy machine. I'm sure I came across as pretentious, but listen, nobody told me anything about any cotton candy machine. That crap is blue, people. And I was wearing a brand new white fall shirt. I sold the dickens out of those brownies and cookies - or at least tried to give the appearance that I had something to do with them flying off the table. Then my shift ended, by which time my Tornadoes had been swept away in a gaggle of girls to someone or another's house to dry off and hang out until the dreaded fireworks later that night, which meant that a certain yours truly did not have to go to them. Hello, boyfriend?

Boyfriend was much more sensible this year about the fact that we had a few stolen hours to ourselves. The cheese did not stand alone this year, blogosphere. The cheese was in very fine company.

But wait. The story doesn't end there. It can't end until I tell you the Big News. Remember that whole boy-girl formation I mentioned before? Well, it seems two of said boys-in-formation were vying for the attention of a certain girl. That girl being my daughter. (And no, by the way, these were not the same two boys of "hotter than the sun" infamy. Two other boys.) It also seems that these two boys accompanied the gaggle of girls to the fireworks. Which were ultimately cancelled, due to the fact that it was still raining. But this gave the two boys plenty of time to have a little tussle, so I hear, over my daughter. And the end result of this tussle, I am told, is that Sixth Grader made a selection, and upon coming home made her little sister inform me that she now has a boyfriend. They are "going out". Whatever that means when you are eleven years old and have no financial means or transportation and your parents get to monitor your phone calls and texting activity.

So basically my hair has gone stark white in a matter of two days - and that will be the last time that we attend Old Home Day. Clearly, it is nothing but trouble.

Butter Me

Because I. Am. Toast.

The pilot week of back to school has finally, painfully, come to a close. If it weren't for the part of me that is pathetically - but hopefully not in an overwhelming, annoying way - narcissistic, I would not even be able to summon the energy to recap this week. Much of it is a blur at this point anyway. Then again, I am writing this from the far side of several glasses of Sauvignon Blanc...so that might explain the blur...

What we had here this week was a preview, really. A true back to school week would involve Monday, which, if I take a quick look at my calendar, is actually going to be pretty much the worst of the days as far as buzzing around from one obligation to the next. We were spared the atrocity of Monday this week. But we still had Tuesday through Friday to contend with, which was no picnic.

Gymnastics is back. Oh, is it ever back. This year we have three hour practices times three nights per week. If this week is any indication of how well we are going to handle the practice schedule going forward, then I think I should go ahead and put up a Subway franchise right inside my car. Then, at least, while the Tornadoes are madly scarfing down their dinners in the back seat (because the idea of waiting another eleven minutes until we get home to put food in their mouths after three hours of gymnastics is just plain crazy talk), maybe I can make a few bucks on the other kids. Gymnasts are ravenous creatures, my friends. You'll want to keep a safe distance if you don't show up with food on hand.

Then there's homework. Have I ever told you that I hate homework? I never hated homework when it was actually MY homework, but their homework I can safely say: I hate it. No, Sixth Grader, I do not know the difference between a mean and a median. Well, I MIGHT have that information stored away somewhere, but seriously, I've been working all day, you know. Seriously, Fourth Grader, I cannot spell every three syllable word for you that you want to use in your writing journal. Well, I definitely CAN spell all those words, but I really just want to close up shop here. I love the idea of sitting at the table with the girls and helping them with their assignments, but oh, the reality is so much more taxing. Didn't I already pass all of these grades?

One of the highlights of the week turned out to be an activity I was not at all sure I was going to take to, and that was my first tennis lesson this morning. Yes, I am taking tennis lessons. Yes, I am completely overextended, and yet I have decided to learn from a starting point of ZERO how to play tennis. So there I was this morning, in my silly little tennis skirt, hoping I wouldn't be the only one to show up wearing a tennis skirt and not shorts and also that I wouldn't be the only beginner too reluctant to buy a racket yet and have to, therefore, borrow one from the tennis department. Not only was I the only one in both situations - I was the only one, period. Beginner class: party of me. Sweet! I spent my first lesson learning forehand and backhand, relishing the fact that I was going to basically get private instruction at a group rate, but also wondering, "Am I the only person alive who has never played tennis?"

Now, I have to say, I'm a little sore. And exhausted. And probably should get to bed, because tomorrow I get to work at the PTO bake sale at Old Home Day. And I KNOW you are jealous of that.

Things I Will Need For the New School Year: A Bubble and a Shotgun

Yesterday was the second day of school, so naturally I needed to take Fourth Grader to see a doctor.

It seems she made it all of ninety minutes on that first day before making her way to the nurse's office. She loves to go to the nurse's office. Her excuse, on this first journey, was that she had a cough. So the nurse gave her a cough drop and sent her back to class, refraining from calling me to report the visit until the end of the school day. "I'm sure you were expecting to hear from me today," she said, and she was right. I think out of 180 days of school last year, the nurse called me on about 150 of them for one reason or another. The majority of those reasons were comical. Fourth Grader is remarkably germ resistant and rarely gets sick. Can't walk a straight line without smacking her head on something, but remarkably germ resistant.

The Day Two call was a little less jovial. The nurse's concern over Fourth Grader's cough had escalated. She grilled me - in a friendly way - about the length of time I had noticed this cough going on and had neglected to rush her to the ER to be thoroughly sanitized. FINE, I said. I'll take her to see the doctor.

So last night we went to After Hours care to have her looked at. The After Hours care doctor concluded that it was most likely a ragweed allergy. To my comment that the school nurse practically insisted that I drag Fourth Grader in to have this cough checked out, the doctor said "I'm sure she just wanted to confirm that it isn't Swine Flu." I have never met this doctor before in my life, but somehow we managed to then perfectly synchronize the rolling of our eyes.

On the way home from the doctor's office, Fourth Grader exclaimed "Oh shoot!" It had dawned on her that she was supposed to pass a message along to her sister after school and had forgotten to do so.

"It's from (insert sixth grade boy's name here). He wanted me to tell her that she's hotter than the sun."

.........

"Oh?" I said.

"Yeah. And then (insert other sixth grade boy's name here) came over and said she's pretty much the hottest girl in school."

........

"What's wrong, mama? You seem upset."

And It Begins

So my laptop is still in the shop, and I have no real inkling of when I am going to get it back. I really miss my laptop.

Not that its absence has kept me away from the Internet. No. Much to the chagrin of Sixth Grader, I have spent the past few evenings basically hogging the brand spanking new iMac that I bought for the girls to share a few months ago. Admittedly, I have spent most of my Internet time on Facebook - I know, I know. I go through spurts. A week or two sometimes passes without so much as a glance, and then I become quite regimented about updating my "friends" on my doings. Except that I pay for my indifference, and that cost turns out to be the cumulative indifference of these same friends. Then I get a little cranky about being ignored, which eventually morphs into an attempt to woo my friends' attention back by generously sprinkling comments on their walls. Eventually they pay attention again, and I reach what can be reasonably considered equilibrium, and the whole cycle starts all over again. Just a big circle of feeling inadequate, that Facebook.

Anyway. School started today. The girls managed to get up on time, and get to the bus stop a full five minutes early. More than enough time for them to pose for a few pictures for me. Those eager, shiny faces with their summer-kissed smiles, and bright new first day of school clothes, and clean, bulging backpacks not yet scuffed or lousy with unruly papers and crumbling granola bars hastily half-eaten on the way up the driveway because they didn't get up on time and couldn't manage any actual breakfast. Yep, I got it all on record. Then I sent them off on the bus, rushed into the house to upload their pretty pictures to Facebook - seriously, I am in the throes of the obsession stage right now - and drove to the school for the big First Day Celebration.

First Day Celebration used to mean that the parents got to go into the kids' classrooms and help them settle in, stay for the pledge of allegiance, and then have coffee and donuts in the cafeteria. Now we are not allowed to enter the building. Now we basically gather around the front door of the school while our kids line up behind their new teachers, and we stand there while the principal plays Kool and the Gang on a boom box and announces each teacher's class, prompting them to begin marching into the building with their students looking really not as celebratory as the name would have you believe. Then we are dismissed. That's it. So I drove like a bat out of hell to get to the school in the opposite direction of my job to stand there for five minutes and watch kids walk into a building.

Now that they are home, I am riddled with papers to read and forms to fill out and decisions to make about how much I would like to volunteer this year. I'm thinking I would like to volunteer quite a bit more than I have in the past, so I have some choices to consider. Library assistant? Book Fair? Chaperone? I'm leaning toward Room Parent. Room Parent for Sixth Grader. Oh, she'll love that.

Seems she's also going to have to love homework, because it is, in fact, back in her life this year. According to her teacher's "Hi, I'm new here and I don't know why I chose sixth grade for my first year of teaching, holy crap there is going to be a lot of drama" letter, she can plan on 60 - 72 minutes per night. Per. Freaking. Night.

And Fourth Grader, now in the ranks of the upper grades, gets to enjoy book reports, science projects, the spelling bee, band, student council - um, I think it's time for a nice evening cocktail, don't you? Yes. I gotta go...

Pimp My Virus

I've been thinking for a while now that I should dress up this here blog. You know, pick out a jazzy new layout -something snappy and cougarette-ish - that might wake things up around here and inspire me. In fact, I was pretty determined to accomplish this very task over the past few days. Since I was kicking around the house anyway, and spending a disproportionate amount of that time sitting at the computer, bouncing back and forth between "work" activity and "leisure" activity...why not make a selection and give it a whirl?

So I spent some time perusing. There's a lot of very weird choices out there. One or two templates kinda sorta caught my eye, but nothing has really wowed me so far. After several days of looking, I pushed the project aside again to spend some time with the Tornadoes, and with Boyfriend, over the weekend, only to find myself a bit weepy and blue once Boyfriend headed back to his own crib on Sunday night. I needed something to do. So I perused some more.

Right in the middle of my perusal, my computer decided it was time for a nap.

Then it woke up and told me it was infected. Many, many failed reboot attempts later, I had to agree with it.

It was not a good night.

So my laptop is now at the laptop hospital, being tended to by the Geek Squad, who gave me a recovery prognosis of five to seven days. Harumph.

And my blog looks the same as always. Double Harumph.

Farewell, Sweet Summer, We Hardly Knew Ye

My mother is on her away to my house right now, and I have no idea why. It could entirely be a simple parental visit - which I hope it is - but those don't happen very often. Something else usually has to be stirring for her to make the trek out here to the woods on a Saturday morning.

These woods, by the way, are already starting to close in on me. Summer has drawn to a wet, cold end, and it's only four short days now until that yellow bus comes flying down the road at seven in the morning. I think I am supposed to feel sad about this. I guess I do feel a little bit sad about it. I have done my best to cram as much family activity as possible into the summer months and to savor the Tornadoes as they are at this moment in time. I do feel a twinge of something blue about them each starting yet another new grade. All this growing up business I am seeing really does conjure up a mixed bag of emotions. True all of that, yes, and yet the thing that I am feeling the most over the past few days? A bit claustrophobic.

The fact of the matter is that a big, fat, monotonous hamster wheel is looming over my head right now. And I am not ready for it. In a practical sense I guess I am ready, but mentally I'm screaming a little bit in my head. Because once that school bus comes flying by, and the homework starts, and the gymnastics practice schedule kicks off, and the birthday parties start lining up, it's Bye Bye, breezy world with your convenient restaurants and fun things to do and Hello, cluttered house in the woods. Hello, cooking dinner every night. Hello, inflexible routine. Hello, collapsing in the laundry pile at nine o'clock at night. Ugh, I am already exhausted.

So these are the kinds of things rattling around in my head today, as I sit here waiting for my mother to arrive. And I am telling you, blogosphere, because these are things that I cannot tell my mother, or at least if I tell her I cannot expect that she will understand. Because I didn't grow up this way. Did you? My parents were not slaves to my extra curricular life, or my social calendar. And yet every parent that I know is staring down the same barrel of hands-on parenting insanity right now. And every one that I have spoken to this week has made it a point to mention that their own parents did not put themselves through this. Did they start handing out crazy pills in the maternity ward or something? Why do we do this to ourselves?

I forgot to mention that last night I somehow got roped into allowing both of the Tornadoes to have sleepover guests, and that those guests are still here. I think there is a game of hide and seek going on at the moment. That's my guess as to why my closet door has opened and closed about four billion times while I wrote this, anyway. I wonder, if I joined in and volunteered to hide, could I pay them not to seek me?

Well, it IS Wednesday

When I first started this blog, I had hoped to incorporate an occasional book review into the mix. I'm quite bookish, you know.

I'm also quite sporadic with my attention to the blogosphere...but I didn't really have to spell that out for you, did I? I feel like I am forever - and I mean every single time I sit down to actually write something here, and to peruse other people's blogs - trying to renew my commitment to blogging, and writing in general, and even to networking within the blogosphere to maybe possibly draw a few more readers my way. Seriously. I want to write more often. I just so often run out of minutes in the day, until the very tippity tip end of it, at which point I just want my book and a soft pillow. Because I'm bookish. You know?

So I read quite a lot, and I write not nearly enough, and I'll be damned if I can ever figure out a way to even those two facets of my life out while also juggling all the balls that represent the other ninety-five percent of my life. I think that's a pretty accurate number, but I was never very good at math. I was always more...well, I've made my point about that. Anyway, by the time I get around to writing something new, about a bazillion writeable moments have come and gone. And I find myself caught in a kind of mad frenzy, desperate to grab one or two of those moments and hurl them under my fingers onto the keyboard before they disappear from memory, and turn them into something readable. Sometimes it works. But I never get around to those book reviews.

So we're not going to call this next paragraph a "book review" exactly. It's more of a call to action of sorts. The action I am calling you to is reading a book. And the book is The Wednesday Sisters by Meg Waite Clayton. If you are a woman, or a writer, or both, go read this book. If you have ever had a friend, or a group of friends, go read it. There are a hundred reasons why you should go read this book. What I'm saying is just pick one, and then go read it.

I'm not skilled at reviewing books, and I fear if I try to summarize the story or explain how exactly it affected me I am going to give it all away and you won't go read it on your own. All I can say is that I have not felt such a powerful sense of renewal to both my passion for writing and to my beloved friends in quite some time. But maybe that's just me. You'll have to see for yourselves. But that's only going to happen if you proceed immediately to your favorite book vendor, buy this book, and READ IT.

And then come back here and tell me what you thought, because I'd like to know if I'm getting overwrought in my advancing years. Plus, I may have written something new. I feel that's a good possibility. Really.

Now go!