Hallowinning

People, it's barely halfway through the month, and I am proud to report that we have halfway decorated our home and have two complete Halloween costumes waiting to be worn.  They're being worn every day, as a matter of fact.  We have a witch and an Alice in Wonderland, and there will be No Changing of Minds.  Instead of changing their minds, our spooky duet is simply planning costumes for 2012 and '13. 

Mama was saved this year from the financial black hole which is Homemade Costumes.  I mean, I was proud of the mermaid costume I sewed in '09, but it wound up costing the equivalent of a prom dress (and I have enough leftover fabric to make one) and my relationship with the sewing machine.  Little Sis already owns a blue dress the perfect hue and style for Alice; however, when I researched "ruffled white apron" online, I found that the whole Alice costume shebang, which includes a plastic noggin-hurting headband, was cheaper than the apron.  And Big Sis can wear her black shirt, black skirt, and black boots post-Halloween.  Or tomorrow, which she is dying to do. 

Meanwhile, "krackle" nail polish is all the rage at high school.  I learn about the latest in accessories and hair styles at long work meetings when my observational skills sometimes shift to the characters in attendance.  A colleague was sporting this spooky lacquer combo, and I had to get me some.  You can layer any color underneath, and the "krackle" polish splinters upon application.  Check it out!



Not cracking under the pressure of Halloween planning



Insides, Out

There's a children's book I loved called The Man Who Took the Indoors Out.  "The Man" of the title, or "Bellwood Bouse," feels sorry for his belongings, who aren't free to frolic in the sun as he is.  So he beckons them outdoors.  I'm not sure what drew me to this book as a child, but I believe it was a combination of fascination with his parade of furniture and knickknacks and recognition that an opportunity to survey someone's entire catalog of material possessions is both rare and provides a voyeuristic thrill.

I recall walking by an apartment building in Washington D.C. when I lived and worked there in my twenties as a woman threw what I assumed were her ex-partner's belongings out of the window and onto the grassy front lawn below.  That was a rather cringe-worthy instance of perusing another's belongings, one flung boxer short and CD at a time.  Not to mention that there were tangible as well as emotional "insides" being turned out on this occasion.

Blogging, perhaps, is its own form of "open house"--the spilling outward of interior contents, with the aim that a reader may recognize she, too, owns those drapes, or that she may disagree altogether with the matching of sofa and chair but respect the writer's choice nonetheless. 

We had occasion last month to tear out the carpet in our hallway and bedrooms, the very carpet that has tormented me for the ten years we've owned this house, what with its exacerbation of Big Sis's allergies and its designation as the favored site of Dog's and Cat's gastrointestinal adventures.  We felt real fear of what lay beneath, imagining either unfinished hardwood floors or no hardwood floors at all, both requiring financial outlay which never felt like a priority, despite the fact I've whined here about our carpet not once, but twice. 

What we never did was pull up a corner of the carpet to, you know, just peek.  Not once in ten years until The Bathroom Flood.  The Bathroom Flood necessitated hiring a Restorations expert, who charged us a billion dollars to tear out a section of hallway carpet and leave us with mind-numbing dehydrating fans for four days.  But our prize?  The revelation of gleaming hardwood floors (with no refinishing required!) from beneath that area of stinky carpet.  Worth a billion dollars:  we had only to move all our furniture and tear out the rest. 

So we summoned out our two bedrooms' innards, and stacked and piled and heaped the contents in the living room, dining room, and kitchen.  I admired the bare floors, the clean empty rooms, and promised them more order.  Like Bellwood Bouse, I took stock of all we have, and vowed to use this boon--the rug pulled out from under us--to sift and sort.  To appraise and consider and prioritize and purge. 

Sometime amid this process--the slow return of things that matter to their place, the packing away of items in limbo--I discovered I was pregnant.  An earnest yearning of three years or more unexpectedly satisfied at the eleventh hour, the last month we were to try. 

Suddenly sorting and sifting had new objects.  Information:  sobering risks and statistics associated with pregnancy at 40.  Habits:  out with alcohol and caffeine, in with the low-carbohydrate diet.  I congratulated myself for having squired away the crib, car seat, highchair.  I resumed tidying with the aim of establishing order in the face of potential new chaos. 

But perfect timing, best efforts, and cautious optimism are no match for What Will Be.  And this would not.  Before hope could implant more than its gentlest of tenterhooks in me, Nature commenced her own sifting and sorting.  Engorged breasts turned numb.  Queasy fullness subsided to an empty ache.   My body knew first; my mind adapts. 

As my womb cleanses itself I shed layers of my own expectations, ways of thinking, imaginings.  Hope forgets the truth at times.  My body is turning its insides out, symptoms I can't ignore, but I examine more closely my reactions. 

I recall a favorite scene from the film A Fish Called Wanda, when Kevin Kline's character, expecting to unlock a safe full of diamonds, finds it empty.  "DISAPPOINTED!" he yells, in a moment of comedic anticlimax. 

Empty.  Disappointed.  A bit inappropriately angry, in a car-kicking kind-of way. 

I stake no claim to tragedy, lining up among the ranks of those who've had hopes dashed.  My happy, healthy, blissfully unaware daughters kiss me, hug me, pause to hold my hand. 

I write.  I resume the act of rearranging, resist the urge to throw it all out.  I take stock of all I have. 

My womb has bare floors, but my life is full of promise.

Lanyard Love

Big Sis went to summer camp and came home full of camp cliches--three-legged races, corny and nonsensical (still trying to solve the mystery of Princess Pat and her "ricka bamboo") songs, and lanyards.  Oh, the lanyards!  We invested in some plastic lanyard cord and metal clips for endless braiding and looping and weaving.  We have lanyards as "flair" on backpacks, in the hair-tie basket, and under the couch.  Alas, Little Sis's fine-motor skill development to date prevented her from much success with sophisticated lanyard-weaving. 

Enter the Creative Weavers' Guild.  We encountered them at a weekend art walk, where they were weaving as well as giving away kits for making cool yarn lanyard-y thingies.  The handy little craft was ingeniously simple and somewhat addicting:  my daughters and their friend spent the rest of the day weaving away.  To fashion the kits, a guild member cut a hole in the center of a foam square, and knotted seven strings of yarn and fed them up through the middle with the knot underneath.  Two slits were cut in each side of the foam square, and one string of yarn pulled through each notch, leaving one empty.  To weave the lanyard, one simply counts to the third string to the right (or left--it's only important to remain consistent with direction) of the empty slit, pull that third string out, and pop it back into the empty notch, leaving a new slit vacant.  And over and over again (it's important to run one's fingers through the strings on occasion to keep them from tangling).  A neato braid appears below the square.  We finished the yarn weavings and then made a few out of plastic cord, too.  I imagine these braids could be made from more than seven strands, too, by just cutting more slits in the square.  It's a perfect activity for long car or plane rides...a birthday party or holiday craft...add beads or bells...

Keeping Them Busy, One Braid at a Time

And what do you know?  I even stumbled upon a lovely poem, "The Lanyard," by one of my favorite poets, Billy Collins.  Enjoy. 

The Premiere of Our TV Drama

This new series brought to you by an obscure network on a channel you only happen upon in the middle of long sleepless nights has been reviewed by test audiences as presenting a realistic view of family life--with moments of comedy--but relying too heavily on the whiny kvetching of its protagonist, "Mom" (who is no Seinfeld).  The season premiere has a postmodern approach:  it's a TV episode about...TV, or lack thereof.  Despite the likability of "Dad," the pilot ultimately fails to capture its viewers, with the outcome of the episode's central dilemma elusive and an unsettling sense that no real lesson has been learned.   Critics wonder if this show will continue to revolve around appliance mishaps and misbehaving children, in a kind of Super Nanny meets Repo Man. 

The series is set in the suburban bungalow of a family which Still Does Not Own a Flat Screen TV.  In the pilot's opening scene, Dad is depicted changing (again) the batteries of the TV remote, which by now he should recognize is almost assuredly broken.  He waits to call the cable company during regular business hours and is promised a new remote by mail.

Coincidentally, the daughters' elementary school is celebrating TV "Turnoff Week" with a variety of activities, beginning with a family picnic on Monday evening.  Dad and girls attend; Mom stays home to watch TV.  Just kidding!  Though it does cross her mind, she admits to the viewing audience:  she always has the last fifteen or twenty minutes of some DVRed show to watch--the part she views with eyes closed, snoozing on the couch.  The parts best watched when no one else is around to register his impatience.

To be real, while Mom expects her family to take advantage of organized "Turnoff Week" activities she is not intending to actually exile the TV.  Husband is portrayed as a guy who likes to have the TV on when he folds laundry, when he's walking through the living room, when he's "turning his mind off," and when he's got a spare couple of minutes and the newspaper is read and the gardening is done.  There's hardly a sport not worthy of his attention.  Meanwhile, Mom grew up in a family in which TV Time was a rare, controlled commodity (a deprivation to which she attributes her weakness for The Bachelor series). 

It appears the kids are too busy for evening TV except on weekends.  In the mornings, however, because their school starts at 9 AM and they wake up somewhere between 6 and 7 o'clock, they are permitted to meander sleepily from their beds onto the living room couch to watch a show or two. They've been hoodwinked into thinking the DVRed list of PBS shows is the range of programming options, so viewers watch them choose between Electric Company, Word Girl, and Maya and Miguel.  Mom maintains that for the most part (her penchant for reality TV notwithstanding), TV and computer time are not issues worth tackling in the household.

Imagine Mom's surprise, then, when after picnic and baths and books and the girls are tucked away asleep on Monday evening, Husband grabs a book and heads into the bedroom to read.  Mom freezes on the couch, malfunctioning remote pointed at the TV. 

"Wha-?"

"It's 'No TV Week', Hon," he says over his shoulder. 

"Really?  We're doing that?" 

"I  am," he declares. 

Mom turns begrudgingly to her iPad and Words With Friends.

The next morning, as Dad slumbers and Mom prepares to leave for work, the girls shuffle off to the couch and their shows as usual.

Husband calls Mom at work a few hours later.

"In case you get home and wonder where the TV is, I put it in the garage."

"Okay...?"

"I had trouble getting the girls to follow through with their chores this morning, and I had to lay down the law."

Hmm, thinks Mom, applauding her partner's follow-through while noting internally that unplugging or hiding the unreliable remote were other strategies he could have employed, and then imagining the dramatic moments around Husband unplugging and lugging the not-a-flat-screen tube out the French doors as daughters stand by. 

"All righty then," mutters Mom, beginning to feel like collateral damage and recognizing that removal of the entire TV means she can't even set the DVR to record some series premieres this week.  Who planned TV Turnoff Week to coincide with Fall season premieres, anyway?  Humbug. 

Tuesday night is Mom's Book Club, and as she departs for her meeting, she half-jokingly suggests to Dad, "I won't be too disappointed if I come home and find the TV back where it was!"

She returns home to find the same empty space where the TV used to be and Husband curled up in bed, ear to the radio sports station.  I can't very well listen to The Daily Show, though, can I? she grumbles, pouting as she cracks the novel at her bedside. 

On Wednesday the new remote arrives in the mail, which Mom observes is just as impotent under the present circumstances as its predecessor.  That night she plops on the couch and wryly notes to Husband, "Look!  Still no TV!" to which he replies, "Uh huh.  I kind of like it." 

She raises her eyebrows and scrolls through Facebook, commenting on friends' updates about the Glee and Modern Family season premieres:  "Still.  No.  TV."  "What happened to it?" responds a friend and victim of Facebook's new feed.

On Thursday night:

Yep.  No TV.

Daughters kiss Mom goodnight and ask her to wake them if they're still asleep before she leaves for work so they have the maximum amount of time to draw and read before school, activities they've been enjoying in lieu of PBSKids.  Mom feels a little proud and little like she might vomit.

Dad, on his way to bed, suggests that the TV just might return to its regular slot in the network lineup on Friday.

Why now?  Mom mumbles, with the novel in hand that has gripped her attention and the unanswered question of whether or not this week's season premieres are available online...

The pilot ends with a preview of next week's episode, in which the family's ten-year-old laptop dies, and Mom considers sharing her iPad.

Snugglenesters

They were already fighting by the time they found me waiting outside school at the end of the day.  Third Grader had insulted Kindergartner outside her classroom.  Kindergartner had falsely accused Third Grader.  Kindergartner was crying and Third Grader was outraged.  19th grader, or Lifelong High School Student (as I seem to be), commenced the eye rolling and deep sighs. 

They stepped on each others' feet getting in the car, where they took more than their fair share of personal space and argued over grapes on the way to soccer practice.  Little Sis deliberately irritated Big Sis.  Big Sis overreacted.  Mom gripped the steering wheel.

Sibling Nonsense.  It's the parenting challenge du jour. 

And yet, every night for the past few months, after quite possibly another long day of quibbling and quarreling, they crawl into the same bed together to sleep, Big Sis's empty bunk above them.

They giggle, scheme, roll around, read aloud, shriek, tickle, confide, sing, confess, kick, snuggle, and snore in there, in tandem. They talk in their silly voices, doing "The Frank and Toaster Show" or "Hairy Joe," their own homegrown shticks, cracking each other up. Most often, Little Sis succumbs to sleep first, and Big Sis reads on beneath the star lights.

One day they'll abandon this practice, with or without fanfare, but I will never forget it and I hope they won't, either.  Despite the demons outside their doors, despite their mean and nagging parents, despite their own differences and disagreements, they have each other.


Sweet dreams, sisters



Blackout Notes

Southern California experienced an unprecedented and unexpected 12-hour blackout on Thursday and it seems everyone's talking about what they learned.  For example, we learned blackouts can be fun if they're not associated with hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, or terrorist attacks.  Our fun was tempered by the knowledge that Grandma was in the ICU in a hospital running on a generator, and the awareness that there were likely many elderly people alone in the dark and late summer heat.  There are more than enough reasons right now to appreciate first responders as well as the medical personnel who stayed at work long past their shifts were over to help our loved ones.

The blackout was over soon enough for most danger to be averted, but lasted long enough for folks to come out of their homes and bond with neighbors over resources, barbecues, bright shiny stars, and the eerie sense of calm and quiet in the absence of electrical hum.

It helps to be a camping family, we learned.  We have a propane stove and several LED lanterns, as well as flashlights in various stages of battery readiness.  Funny how the brain works; husband and I were so preoccupied with battery, lantern, and flashlight inventory that it was a good thirty minutes before I remembered hey, we have candles all over this house.  Duh.

I figured we'd better grill the chicken in the freezer, which was still frozen solid with no microwave or hot water to assist with defrosting.  In retrospect we were probably better off eating leftovers from the fridge.

I noticed folks outside in their cars, reading, listening to the radio...and here's where I will admit it would have taken me a long time to figure out I could charge my phone in the car.

Kids are only slightly less enlightened than adults in a blackout, thinking of plugged-in activities and then recalling that they're out of the question.  My favorite moment was when Little Sis excitedly announced, "I know!  It's super dark; let's play with Lite Brite!"

We ended our evening in the girls' room, huddled under the bunk bed reading Harry Potter by lantern light.  Power returned around three o'clock in the morning, but much to the dismay of Big Sis, schools remained closed.  The high schoolers I work with?  Not so sad about that.

Beans 'n' Rice Night

We are going to lighten things up around here with some dinner dialogue. Specifically (and all "paleo" diets aside), we've been eating a lot of beans lately.  Because beans are good!  How about them white beans--Great Northern beans?  Cannellini?  My goodness, those are yummy.  Saute them in oil with some greens and garlic and pour over pasta.  Or mash them into hummus.  Make soup!
 
My kids love beans, too, which has encouraged me to keep the cupboard stocked with pintos, chick peas, black and white beans (I'm not a fan of the kidney bean, a result of too much exposure to yucky three-bean salad in my youth).  One of our daughters' favorite dinners is Rice 'n' Beans Night.  I wish I could recall which friend's friend inaugurated this tradition so I could give credit where it's due, but we adopted the idea ourselves, with rave reviews from the Peanut Gallery every time. 
 
Beans 'n' Rice Night is the perfect solution for evenings when the fridge stores are running low; for when you need to feed 'em, fast (as fast as rice cooks); for when you're tempted by take-out but want to save some cash; for when a hearty or warm meal is in order; for when you're in charge of a crowd.  Here's what you do:  cook some rice.  Warm up some beans.  I like to mix pintos with black beans and add a tablespoon of salsa and some cumin to give the beans a little more dimension.  The rest of the excitement is in the condiments.  Depending on what's available, and the extent of your planning ahead, you can top your bowl o' rice 'n' beans with shredded cheese, salsa, diced green chilis, scallions, sour cream, chopped tomatoes, avocado, shredded lettuce, olives, crunched tortilla chips (or serve with warm tortillas). 

Easy, peasy, crowd pleasy!