Hello!? Hello!? Hello?!

Talk about communication gaps!

My daughter is a college student. She has a smart phone, which she carries with her all the time, but keeps in her purse. The purse is often (allegedly) left in the car, in a bedroom, under the table, or someplace else inaccessible, so she does not always answer it (at least when one or the other parents call).  (I believe that, oh, yes I do.  I also believe in Santa Clause and the Tooth Fairy.)  She is generally available only by email or text message.  Occasionally she answers the phone, mainly in order to throw me off.  The key thing is that, while I can rarely actually talk to her when I want to, I can always leave a message in one of several ways, and she can tell how many times I tried to reach out to her.

When my mother lived in her own home, she had a portable phone with caller ID. She was usually home, but if she was out or on the phone, she could always tell when I called, so she, too, knew when I was thinking of her.  Sometimes she would even remember to turn on the damned answering machine so I could leave an actual voice message. (Not very often, but sometimes.)

My mother is now in a convalescent center where she is undergoing rehabilitation therapy. There are only certain hours of the day when she is in her room. She has a basic phone in her room, with no answering service and no caller ID. I spoke to her on Monday for a while, after trying several times and getting a busy signal (I hadn't heard a busy signal in so long, I thought there was something wrong with my phone). Tuesday she had company when I called, so we spoke for only a minute. Today I have tried five times to reach her and the line has been busy every time.  Now it is too late to call because it's almost her bedtime!

Lord, I may have to actually resort to writing letters and mailing them.... then again, maybe I'll try calling her early in the morning when I'm on my way to work! That's worth a try, anyway.

Anything to avoid printing out an actual letter and having to buy a postage stamp! What does a stamp cost these days, anyway? 

Aging Parents

We admitted my mother to a nursing home last week.  

It is hard for me to imagine my fierce and powerful mother as an old lady who submits to being diapered and bathed and having her meat cut up by others. Right now, we don't know if this is a permanent arrangement or if she will -- with physical and occupational therapy -- be able to go home at some point. Personally, I rather hope she decides not to even try to go home. I want her to be someplace where she is safe.

During my entire life, my mother had two desires:  she wanted to spend every possible moment of her life with my father (to the exclusion of all other desires) and she did not want to be a burden on her children.  

After more than 60 years of marriage, my father died a few years ago.  I frankly did not expect Mom to live long after that.  Neither did she, which is why she planned and paid for her funeral when they were arranging his.  

Turns out she's tougher than any of us gave her credit for, and she actually had a few good years, maintaining her independence, doing some things that Dad never would have wanted to do and muddling through her days in a world without the man who was the center of her universe.  

After Dad died we gently suggested that she divide her time between my sister's home and mine.  We each offered to build out mother-in-law apartments in our houses.  Mom wasn't ready to do that.  She didn't want to "burden" us, and she wanted to be independent.  It would have been no burden, but as a stubbornly independent-minded people (who got that from our parents) we respected her desire to live in her own home as long as possible.

Recently, Mom began to have more and more physical and mental "issues".   She fell several times -- three times that she has admitted to (I think there have been several falls she hasn't told us about).   This last time she ended up in the hospital with a whole array of mysterious and scary symptoms.   

It was abundantly clear that this time, she wasn't going home by herself. We found in a very nice place that is clean, and where they apparently do a good job of doing physical therapy to help their residents operate at the highest level they can, as well as keeping them busy and entertained.  We could not ask for more.....  

... other than for her to be young and strong, fierce and stubbornly proud again.... but, well, I'm not going to go there because I've cried enough for one week.

Blog Surfing Sunday

While procrastinating in order to avoid doing any actual creative writing of my own today, I wasted a couple of hours link hopping around the blogosphere. I found some potential kindred spirits (and a bunch of folks that left me scratching my head and wondering WTF?) ....

I just stumbled across this blog by Honey Pie Horse.  I might quibble a tad with her take on the Bible, but I totally agree with her take on religion in general.  I also agree with her take on The Devil Wears Prada (perhaps the only book/movie combo where I have liked the movie (much) better than the book. Of course how can you go wrong with Streep? [Leaving aside, The Bridges of Madison County, anyway. What was she thinking?])

The folks at BlogHer were a little lathered up about a recent episode of Oprah. Evidently a bunch of mommybloggers were on the show and the topic was mommy-angst. Here's an interesting post on that subject.  I should not comment because: (a) I did not see the show  [I think I may be the only person in America who has never watched an entire episode of Oprah.  Five minutes is probably the longest I have been able to stay tuned to her show.] and (b) I would not have continued watching it once the whining and sniveling started (see above on giving up on Oprah in less than five minutes). 

However, I am qualified to speak on the subject of motherhood from a blogger's perspective. I have been an at-home mom and I have been a working mom.  I am not exactly an Earth Mother, but I do the best I can.  

No doubt about it: Being a mom is not a Sunday picnic: Sleep deprivation during infancy; Establishing authority and consistency in toddler-hood;  The ups and downs of Elementary School; the horrors of Middle School, etc.  Being an at-home mom can be isolating, but it can also be seen as a blessed gift of alone-time to think and ponder and experience creativity from the inside out -- at least that was my experience.  Being a working mom can be exhausting, but it has its compensations as well; I like to think that it is good for my daughter to see me as a competent professional apart from being a mom.  

Motherhood. Marriage. Career. Life. It all involves juggling, making choices. Some days are better than others. Some days totally suck, in fact, but there are other days filled with love and wonder and glory.  Tell me that it is not worth everything when you kid or your husband gives you an unexpected hug and says, "I love you"!!

Writing about the bad experiences is fun and cathartic for those of us who express ourselves with words.  We exaggerate and turn into humor what may have been initially a painful experience.  What we write often originates with a kernel of a true experience, but storytelling and writing techniques take over, and the end result is a "story", not necessarily a factually accurate account of what really happened, but it may [we hope] be entertaining as hell, perhaps because it's just a bit scandalous.

Were those women really just sitting around pissing and moaning about how excruciatingly difficult it is to be a mom and confessing to egregious behavior .... or were they a bunch of writer/storytellers sitting around trying to out-do each other with their tales.  I betcha half of those stories could have started with, "Oh, yeah?  Well, listen to this...."  I'm guessing those women were engaging in intentional hyperbole and outrageous storytelling: perhaps even satire.  It was probably all supposed to be funny.  The problem is those daytime talk shows don't understand satire. They are all about people crying and spilling their deepest, darkest secrets for the entertainment of the masses. 

These women go on TV and tell outrageous stories that are supposed to be funny in order to plug their blogs, and people take them seriously?  Sad.  So. Very. Sad. 

Erma Bombeck is probably spinning in her grave ... or maybe she's knocking back a few at St. Peter's Pub with Molly Ivins and talking about what a bunch of twits women can be.

And besides, don't people have anything better to do than sit around and watch Oprah?  Um... or read blogs, for that matter.  [NIW puts head in a paper bag....]

 

Special Days for Mom

This morning I had to attend a meeting in Orlando.  I was finished before noon.  My boss had already agreed that I would not need to go into the office in the afternoon.  My Daughter Dear is on spring break from college this week.  We live in Daytona Beach, the World's Capital of Spring Break. Naturally, she went to the beach every day... without leaving home.  How cool is that?! 

I arrived home from Orlando about 12:30 p.m. DD, her Wonderful BoyFriend and I had plans to go to the beach.  First, we stopped for lunch at my new favorite seafood place in New Smyrna Beach. I hadn't eaten anything yet today, and had developed a terrible headache. The blackened fish fixed me right up!  Golly, it was fantastic.

After that we went to the beach.  It was a little cool, with the wind blowing in off the water.  We so rarely have the opportunity to simply sit down and talk.  It was great.  I went for a short walk, but spent most of the afternoon sitting in a beach chair making small talk with DD. 

By late afternoon, the wind shifted and it got downright chilly, driving us off the beach.  When we got home, we went our separate ways.  Nevertheless, the afternoon was, for me, one of those special memories that moms tuck away in their hearts.

It Was a Total, Utter and Complete Fashion Meltdown

I know that I have had meltdowns in my life over things that, in retrospect, appeared to be blown out of proportion.  I know that those times occurred fairly frequently during the teen years (and daily -- or more often -- during pregnancy).  I still have a meltdown once or twice a year (usually once at work and once at home). [I hate melting down at work; it's so very undignified.]

But, I don't think I have ever in my life melted down with the drama and flair my Daughter Dear exhibits when she has a tantrum.  She can go ballistic over small things (takes after her father, she does). Slightly more significant problems can rival Chernobyl. Today we encountered a Really, Really Big Thing. I missed the worst of the drama, but it must have been really bad, given the way my Dear Husband and the Very Bad Dogs were behaving when I got home from work.

DD is going to a wedding tomorrow. A fancy wedding.  Wonderful BoyFriend's entire family will be there.  DD, of course, bought a new dress for the occasion. She paid way too much for it, even on sale. I know that because she bought it at the last minute (when you always pay too much).  Also, she won't tell me how much she paid for it...... on account of, if she did, she knows I would go ballistic, and one conniption fit at a time is sort of a good rule to follow.  

Anyway, she had a brand new dress, which was quite lovely. She was excited.  She was ready for her weekend of family festivities with The Most Wonderful Family on Earth (that is not an attempt at sarcasm: they really are a wonderful family).  She was all set.

However, late this afternoon disaster struck.  I am not sure exactly how it happened (I was afraid to ask) but somehow it came to pass that Wonderful BoyFriend accidentally broke the zipper on the fabulous new dress. Her outrageously expensive dress was equipped with one of those crappy plastic zippers that ought to be illegal.  Any company that would charge more than $20 for a dress with a side zipper made out of plastic should be ashamed.  Some of the older plastic zippers could be fixed. This was a cheesy, cheap, crappy new plastic zipper. It was hopeless. The dress was fit only for a dust cloth.

She called the store. They agreed take it back (even though it was on sale), but they did not have any other dresses like it at the sale price.  The hour was late. She probably would not have been able to get to the mall in Orlando before the store close, anyway.  We considered various options:  Pins; Sewing the side closed.  We decided that invasive procedures were not acceptable, because we want to return the dress and if we damaged it further our chances of getting the money back would be eliminated.

I decided the only option was wearing something she already has, and, to that end, I pulled a bunch of other dresses out of her closet. DD has enough clothes to start a freaking chain store! She has  some beautiful clothes.  I pulled out at least three outfits I thought would be lovely.  I pulled out a couple of dresses I didn't even know she had, and that I coveted immediately upon seeing them.  

Wearing something she already owned would not do, of course. (What was I thinking??) Ultimately she decided that, since it is very cold this weekend in Central Florida (relatively speaking) she will put a sweater over the dress and wear it with the side gaping open.  She will take an alternative dress to change into for the reception, if she feels uncomfortable.  That seemed like a reasonable compromise, I suppose. (Wearing something beautiful you have worn before would have been a better one, but I'm 54 and she's 19. That must make a difference.)

A little while ago, DD and WBF headed off for their weekend of celebration, exhausted and emotionally drained. 

DH had flown the coop earlier in the evening.  The dogs and I are here, traumatized and drained.  

I'm so grateful to be old and unfashionable! 

I Can't Resist Sharing This

The B&W photo is me when I was three years old; I was a flower girl in the wedding of some relative of my dad's. The color photo is my daughter when she was four. She wore the same dress for a Halloween costume; I think she was Cinderella, or maybe a fairy, what with the magic wand.

It rained and snowed that Halloween, and the dress was pretty much destroyed, but not before I got the photo. I wanted to combine these photos for years, but didn't have the appropriate scanning equipment or software. Now I do.

Thanksgiving Morning

I am enjoying the calm before the storm. Everybody but me is still in bed (a common occurrence). The house is absolutely silent but for the clacking of my fingernails on the computer keys. (That is also a common occurrence in our house.)

I just mapped out the cooking schedule for today. I grew up in a household where cooking and entertaining were almost the raison d'etre for my mother. She's a great cook and until recently she loved to entertain. She is also a great home economist: organized and amazingly frugal.

Thanksgiving in our house usually involved days of advanced preparation. There was not just one Mrs. Smith's frozen pie from Target. No. There were homemade pies: pumpkin, mince meat, apple (from our tree), and, usually, pecan (if we received the box of pecans from the Southern relatives in time). Depending on the size of the crowd and how many of the Southern relatives were coming, there might be several pumpkin pies or maybe some sweet potato pies as well.

Bread was my department. I baked homemade rolls and breads on Wednesday evening.

Mom always had snacks galore so people could load up all day. She worked on snacks and hors d'oeuvres for days.

Thanksgiving day was a frenzy in the kitchen. She normally cooked at least one very large turkey, plus a ham. There were always mashed potatoes (real ones not the boxed ones from WalMart that my family thinks is the only way you can get mashed potatoes) and sweet potato casserole. Due to a diversity of family tastes there were always three bowls of dressing: one with giblets (yuck!), one without giblets and not cooked inside the bird (that was my dish), and one cooked inside the bird (I don't know if that one had giblets or not; I never ate it). Sides included three different kinds of cranberries: smooth, chunky and a cranberry salad with nuts and citrus, plus an ambrosia salad to die for. Vegetables? You name it, she cooked it. Mostly I remember there were always Lima beans because they are my favorite vegetable. Other than that, I don't remember. Who eats the veggies on Thanksgiving anyway? She made gravy both with and without giblets. I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but it was always an amazing feast.

We also used the good dishes for Thanksgiving, whether it was just the family (which happened rarely) or whether we were feeding the masses. We did not have a dishwasher and I wasn't much help in the kitchen, so doing the dishes was my job. Mom was one of those wash-as-you-go cooks. Therefore, I was usually washing pots and pans and mixing bowls pretty soon after I dragged my ass out of bed. (Which tended to be hours after she had started cooking).

The kitchen looked like the aftermath of a hurricane all day long until about five minutes before we sat down at the table. At that point, it all came together like a magic spell in a movie. There were a few minutes of total chaos while we tried to get all the dishes on the table while they were still hot, then peace reigned by the time we said Grace.

It never ceased to amaze me, but it happened every year. She never forgot anything, and everything came out done at the same time. Her secret was not magic. It was hard work, done according to a rigid timetable. A week or so before Thanksgiving she would sit down and work her way backwards from the Zero Hour, scheduling every single task she had to do to make it come out. Making that schedule took a long time, but she always said if she stuck to the schedule, she knew she could pull it off. She stuck it to a cabinet door with a magnet, and it was her Bible and road map from the moment she hung it up until she sat down to eat.

The "timetable" was one of the many wonderful valuable lessons I have learned from my mother. I use it for every large meal I ever make (even though the largest and most elaborate meal I make today barely rises to the level of Mom's normal Sunday dinner). I use a "timetable" for packing for trips, and anything else where I have a deadline to finish multiple tasks.

This week I had conversations with two different people who said they would have absolutely no idea how to go about preparing a Thanksgiving dinner. I find that sad. I have eaten out for Thanksgiving and I have been a guest in other peoples' homes, and it's just not as good.... because you don't have the best part of the Thanksgiving dinner: THE LEFTOVERS.

So, I'm cooking this year, just as I have every year since we moved to Florida. My meal is much simpler than my mother's and I have done absolutely no advance preparation ... other than to make my timetable. I used my menu to generate the shopping list and also to generate my timetable. My Zero Hour is 5:00 p. m. According to my timetable, have until 10:30 a. m. to mess around, and get in a good long walk.

This year, Daughter Dear said she wants to help make the meal. I am not very good at sharing my kitchen, but I'm going to try to make the effort so she can learn how to manage the process. I don't want to think that someday she might stand around at work lamenting that her mother never taught her how to organize and cook a Thanksgiving meal.

Happy Thanksgiving! (I gotta go... I have two hours for a walk before I have to organize my ingredients and get out the pans...)

The Mother Letter Project

I mentioned this in my last post, but decided to bump it up in the chain to emphasize it.

I thought I had a wonderful husband (and I do). This guy may be the grand pooh-bah of great husbands. He's putting together a Christmas gift for his wife made up from letters to a mother from other mothers. See the mother letter project.

What a kind and wonderful idea. I'm in!

So Very Thankful

I am back from my Continuing Education seminar. I think I passed my test, which will give me a professional designation, complete with a bunch of random alphabet soup letters behind my name. Aren't you impressed? I thought so. To be honest, I didn't do it for the letters behind my name, I did it for the money I was promised by way of additional compensation if I completed the program. To put it bluntly: I did it for the money.

It will be several weeks before my grades are posted and my completion of the program is official. We'll party then, but for now the important news is that I survived 100 hours of continuing education without murdering anybody or standing up in the middle of a lecture, tearing at my clothes and screaming obscenities. Not that I didn't consider it. Numerous times.

Anyway, one of the most important things I am thankful for this year is that I am FINISHED with this ordeal. Thanks be to God!

I just got off a two hour phone conversation with my mother. I usually talk to her over the weekend, but we missed connections this weekend and we apparently needed to catch up. Tonight, we mainly talked about politics. We agreed on some stuff. In fifty-four years that has never happened before!! At a very minimum, my mother and I haven't agreed on any thing political since before the Vietnam War ended. Turns out that, amazingly, these days my mother and I agree about a lot of things.

The number one thing we agree on is that we are willing embrace a president who seems to have a clue (and care about) civil liberties. We got there by seriously different routes. My mother is basically a Dixiecrat who could probably do a pretty good five minutes on the subject of States Rights, which is something I don't much give a hoot about. I, on the other hand, am a borderline socialist at least in the eyes of most of the people I know. We got there by different routes, but we agree that protecting and defending the Constitution and, in particular, the Bill of Rights is perhaps the most important issue facing our country today. All that other economic, environmental and military stuff is subordinate to the protection of the very most fundamental principals on which our nation was founded.

We had a wonderful conversation that lasted more than two hours. It only occurred to me AFTER we hung up that I didn't wait until after 9:00 p.m. (when our cell plan switched over to 'unlimited calling') to call her. I reckon I'll catch hell about that from DH when we get the next bill. Oh, well....

I tend to write blog posts and read blogs from other people at the same time, so while I was writing this I came across the Mother Letter Project. I am definitely in for that. I'll be working on that in a little while.

I gotta go. I have a letter to write to my mother......

Another Milestone

It seems to me that most of the mommy-bloggers have very small children. I guess that is because most of the mommy-bloggers are nearly a generation younger than me. Nevertheless, I have to mention it: My Daughter Dear starts college tomorrow.

She will continue to live at home for at least the next two years, but that does not change the fact that this is a watershed moment for her ... and for her parents.

I'm going to make like Scarlett O'Hara and "think about that tomorrow."

It's all just a little too much to deal with right now, but I wanted to at least mention it ... since I've spent the whole damned evening boo-hooing about it.

Graduation - Part 3 - The Nitty Gritty

I don't know how I managed to do it, but I got through today without a melt-down. Had a couple of really, really close calls, but I managed not to get into a fight with anybody or to sob uncontrollably, even though I wanted to do both at various times -- occasionally simultaneously.

My baby girl graduated from high school today.

On the one hand, that should not be such a big deal. She will continue to live at home while going to community college for a couple of years. She will continue to work in the same job she has had since she was fifteen. As a practical matter, nothing will change in the immediate future. In emotional terms, everything is different. I can't believe I managed to get through the day without an emotional outburst. [I saved it for now.]

• It seems like only yesterday I held her in my arms for the first time and she looked up at me with those huge blue eyes that seemed to belong to a very "old soul." After a terrible delivery that lasted more than 21 hours and ended in an emergency C-section, I held a baby in my arms who looked at me as though she were rather bored and irritated by the whole experience. I should have felt warned by that!
• It seems like only yesterday I wrapped her in the "blankie" that had been my security blanket in my early childhood and nursed her in my husband's rocking chair, listening (and crying) to lullaby's on tape while she regarded me with a mixture of curiosity and disdain.
• It seems like only yesterday I dropped her off at day care for the first time, and listened to her scream pathetically, "Mommy, don't leeeeeeeeeave me." I started smoking cigarettes again at the very thought.
• It seems like only yesterday she "graduated" from kindergarten telling the assembled parents and relatives that she wanted to be lifeguard when she grew up. That was when we lived in Ohio and "Baywatch" was her favorite show. Once we moved to Florida and she learned about rip currents, sharks, sting rays and other beach hazards, she changed her mind about that pretty quickly.
• It seems like only yesterday she went off to middle school, nervous and scared, but not half as scared as I was.
• It seems like only yesterday we went to orientation at Spruce Creek High School with its thousands of students. She thought it was exciting. I wanted to throw up at the very thought of her attending such a huge school.
• It seems like only yesterday she came home all a-twitter over the wonderful boy she met at work..... the wonderful boy who has been her boyfriend ever since then ....
• It seems like only yesterday she was a nervous wreck over graduation, worried mostly that her father and I would embarrass her in some way..... oh, no, wait a minute, that WAS only yesterday..... and she had great justification for her fears because both her dad and I were train wrecks waiting to happen.

Today, she marched into the Ocean Center and claimed her diploma. My baby's a Young Woman now.

I thought it was scary to hold a new-born baby in my arms and know I was responsible for her care and nurture. Letting her go eighteen years later is an even bigger hurdle!

Graduation - Part 2 - "another view"

Today's graduation ceremony was (notwithstanding the egregious behavior of certain of the guests) as close to perfection as such events can possibly be.

Whoever planned the ceremony should receive an enormous bonus. The challenge for that poor soul was to plan a lovely ceremony to usher nearly 700 students to the door of adulthood and get it over with in time for another 700+ students from a different high school to have their graduation ceremony four hours later. Think about that before you move on! And just to make it more interesting, the convention center where the event was held is under construction and there are very serious parking issues.

The person or committee managed to rise to the challenge in every possible way.

The stage was beautiful. The entire ceremony was projected on a huge screen behind the diaz so everyone could see very well. The sound was good (always an issue for me due to my poor hearing). The ceremony started right on time. The kids marched in without incident. The music was perfect. Most of the speeches were excellent: short, poignant and humorous. The Valedictory address included humor, inspiring words and something I don't think I have ever heard from a graduation speaker before: a healthy dose of humility.

Somehow -- don't ask me how -- they managed to give each student his/her special moment crossing the stage being greeted by dignitaries, accepting their diploma and having their picture taken without rushing anyone but without wasting one second.

The Class of 2008 flipped their tassels together as one. They threw golden streamers in the air (instead of their caps), which was lovely, and they marched out in straight lines. I was very proud of the kids, but I think I was just as proud of the teachers and administrators who managed to pull off such a dignified and yet unstuffy event in an hour and a half.

I expected to be there for at least two hours. We were home by 2:00 p.m.

I am so proud and happy for my Daughter today. (More on THAT in coming days, I am sure). I am grateful her school gave her class a sendoff comensurate with their efforts and worthy of the occasion.

Graduation - Part 1 - (MotherRant Alert!)

Since I am in enough trouble at home right now, I am going to get this off my chest here where I am less likely to make things worse. My Dear Daughter graduated from high school this afternoon. I am in trouble because I wore an ugly dress that did not pass inspection. I am in trouble because I am too opinionated and don't "get it." I am in trouble because I rushed everybody out this morning to get ahead of the traffic. I was in trouble in advance because I am a cry-baby and DD did not want me to cry. (More on my experience later, although I will say that I did manage to listen to Pomp & Circumstance without sobbing. It took a lot of teeth gritting and intense concentration on trying to hold the video camera still, but I did it.... I hope I get credit for that.)

Anyway, Graduations, like many milestone events, are emotional and nerve-wracking. I have said before that each person in my family processes stress in different (and highly incompatible) ways. I have learned that it is best if we avoid each other when we are under a lot of pressure. Oh, I am in trouble for that as well. DD likes to argue when she's stressing. Last night I refused to be goaded into an argument and persisted in reading a book. I am in big trouble for that.

So, in the interest of staying out of further trouble, I am going to get this crap off my chest to people who won't yell at me for being a bitch.

First of all, I know that things are less formal than they used to be, but a Graduation Ceremony is a serious occasion. It is a milestone in the lives of our children. Like weddings, funerals, baptisms and, I dunno, other important events.... Out of respect for the kids being honored by the event, their family and friends should dress appropriately. I was (and still am a little) mad at DD for criticizing my floral print dress with pearls. She said it looked like an "old lady" outfit. Maybe she was right about that, but I stand by my choice. It was matronly, but, hell, I'm a mom of a graduate and I'm over 50. I'm entitled to dress matronly if I want to, dammit. What is more, I believe that my selection of attire was appropriate for the occasion.

I started to fuss at my Dear Husband because he did not wear a suit. He wore dress pants and a dress shirt. In the interest of staying out of further trouble, I did not make an issue of his lack of a tie, but it took some major tongue biting to keep my mouth shut. Boy, am I am glad I did!

To say I was appalled at the appearance of the graduation guests is an understatement. I can't even guess how many people were wearing jeans and flip flops. I saw one lady in Capri's and a halter top. There were lots of khaki pants, Hawaiian shirts and canvas shoes (this is FLORIDA, people, not Hawaii!); is that get-up supposed to be "dressier" than jeans and flip flops? A lady in the next section was wearing jeans and a crop top -- and she was barefooted! (I assume she had shoes somewhere.) The graduates were required to adhere to a very stringent dress code, and most of them seemed to have cooperated. Perhaps the school should have sent home a dress code for the guests as well.

As appalling as their appearance was, their deportment was worse. It never ceases to amaze me that people cannot sit still and listen respectfully to speakers. I could not believe how many people continued to walk around during the speeches. A lady in the next section from us stood up in the stairway taking pictures for the entire first part of the program, blocking the view of a whole swath of us in our section. The couple directly behind me talked through the entire ceremony -- at least until the time when they got up and walked out (early) as soon as their child walked across the stage to receive his diploma. By the time they had finished handing out the diplomas (before the flipping of the tassels, the throwing of the caps and the recessional), the hall was half empty.

It has been a long time since I have been to a graduation ceremony (which is why I wore a floral print dress and pearls: that's what graduates' mothers used to wear -- and their fathers wore suits with TIES). [Sorry.] Every year in recent memory graduation month brings at least one scathing letter to the editor in the newspaper complaining about people screaming, yelling and using air horns during graduation ceremonies. I never totally believed that stuff. I always thought the writers were cranks. Well, now, call me a crank but the behavior I witnessed today was inexcusable in polite company. It is no wonder young people can so often be so ill-behaved if the example (ahem!) set their parents and families today is any indication. People yelled, screamed, stomped their feet and blew air horns while the diplomas were being handed out. I am still apoplectic thinking about it. How disrespectful and just plain ignorant! The graduates worked hard to achieve an important milestone in their lives and too many of their parents and families acted like a bunch of hicks who don't know how to behave in public.

It was a disgrace.

The saddest thing of all, my daughter's high school is one of the top 100 schools in the nation.

God help us......

Daily Milestones

I have mentioned before, I think, that Daughter Dear is graduating from high school this month. Next week, in fact. If it weren't for mixed emotions right now, I probably wouldn't feel anything. On the one hand, I feel old and decrepit. What happened to that beautiful baby and fabulous little girl I have spent the last 18 years cherishing? This vivacious young woman is a stranger to me. She is lovely and funny and interesting, but she's too grown up to be my Darling Daughter. Where did she come from?

I also feel proud. I am proud of the wonderful young woman DD has become. I take no credit for that! The credit all goes to the grace of God and to DD herself for being such a level headed and perceptive person. She is kind (most of the time), compassionate and she would do anything for her friends. She is generous (to a fault) and squeezes an hour's worth of fun out of every fifteen minutes. I wish I could be more like her. She certainly is a great kid. I think I would like her a whole lot even if I didn't love her so much.

High school graduation is a milestone in our culture. It is perhaps less of a milestone for a kid who went to an enormous high school with thousands of students and who has held down a job working for a large corporation since she was fifteen than it was for me growing up in a small town where the high school was the center of the cultural [sic] life of the community. Nevertheless, moving from high school to college is a major stepping stone toward adulthood. I am happy for her, and I hope this is a special time in her life.

However, I am also cognizant of so much of the unfairness of the entire graduation "industry". The rich kids get all the biggest awards and scholarships. The graduation memorabilia that would probably mean the most to kids who are not going on to college is ridiculously priced and potentially out of reach for ordinary families. The cliquishness and pettiness of teenagers (and teachers) bursts forth in all its ugly meanness. Even thirty-five years (yikes!!!) after my own high school graduation, I walked into my daughter's awards banquet this evening and I could feel the under-currents of coolness-looking-down-on-geekiness and I wanted to crawl under the table and hide.

As a former geeky, smart, fat kid who wore thick glasses and had terrible acne, I thought the scars from my high school years were healed. I was wrong about that. Decades after my own graduation, I walked into a high school event this evening and, without knowing any of the people, spent most of the evening trying not to either puke or run away. My overriding concern during the entire event was that I would not do anything to humiliate or embarrass her. (As any parent of a teenager knows, humiliation and embarrassment can erupt at any moment with no apparent reason or warning.)

The most gratifying thing for me was that DD sat through the event without winning any awards or receiving any individual accolades and she still had fun. She was kind to her friends, giving patient and sweet advice and affirmation to a "geeky" friend. She made polite conversation with the parents of her friend with whom we shared a table. She even talked to her father and me. She ignored the snobs. She overlooked the teachers sucking up to the smart kids whose parents are rich and prominent. DD has goals and plans. She has places to go, things to do, things to accomplish and people to love. Graduation is swell and all, but it's not that big a deal for her.

Makes me wonder how she got so smart so young in life. Makes me wish I could have some of that wisdom even now.

To be continued ...

Roller Coaster Day

After the repeated episodes of vomiting last night Daughter Dear had a very hard time getting up this morning. She had a ticket on a 1:30 p.m. flight out of Orlando for a weekend in Southern California. She had not even started packing, and I could not get her out of bed this morning. She was no longer vomiting but she was running a low-grade fever. She had had virtually nothing to eat in 24 hours. After all that vomiting with so little fluid intake, she was probably dehydrated. What should I have done in that situation?


I found myself standing in the hall at 8:30 a.m. wondering what a Good Mom would do. What I wanted to do was to pull the plug on the whirlwind weekend trip to Disneyland. My baby was sick. She was not ready for the trip. Forget it. She would just have to reschedule the whole thing. Good moms probably would keep their kid at home and stay home from work to care for the Sick One.


DD is as stubborn as me; she was determined to go on her trip which was a graduation gift from her WBF's family. She was going by hook or by crook. By the time WBF arrived, she was clearly no longer nauseous or feverish, but she was weak and tired. She stayed in bed and issued orders to him regarding packing her suitcase. I decided the better part of valor would be to beat a hasty retreat, so I left for work. They seemed glad to have me leave, but it made me feel as though I really suck as a Mom. Part of me wonders what is the point of staying home with a sick kid if she is (a) no longer sick and (b) determined to go on a cross-country weekend trip regardless of sickness. I left them to their packing. I escaped to the world of work. (Another part of me says I suck as a Mom for not being here in case she needed me.)


For good or for ill, I decided to go to work. I received various text messages throughout the day: "We are in Houston;" "We are on the plane for LA;" "We just landed at LAX." I hate text messaging most of the time but I really love it when DD is traveling. She won't call but she will send me a series of text messages informing me of her whereabouts. Thank goodness for small favors.


After receiving the "Eagle has landed" message, I replied requesting a real honest-to-god phone call. I actually got one. She is feeling better. Tired, but better. Flights were swell. Her luggage (packed this morning by her boyfriend) arrived safely. His luggage is .... somewhere. The airline is supposed to deliver it whenever they find it. Poor kid. He may have to spend the entire weekend in the same outfit. I guess if it had to happen to one of them, better him than her. God help Southwest Airlines if they lost HER bag.


I was okay until I made the mistake of calling my mother tonight. She launched into a spiel about how she admired me for releasing the apron strings to the point I could let her go like that. I did not need to hear that from my mother. I was doing fine until she brought it up. Damn!


Now I have something else to put on my Worry Pile.

Synchronicity and Sickness

It happens so regularly, I have now come to expect it. Every time I say something like this I think of that stupid book "The Celestine Prophecy" that was such a rage a while back; it sounds so corny and far-fetched but I'm going to say it anyway because it is true: Whenever I find myself in a bad patch Life itself hands me a gift as if to remind me that this too shall pass. I have almost begun to expect phone calls, emails or other contacts from long-lost friends whenever I am in the dumps. In the last week I have had phone calls and emails from no less than four people I have not heard from in months or even years. Every one of the messages included at least one reference to an issue I am dealing with right now. Talk about affirmation and consolation!

I am almost willing to start feeling a little better. Maybe.



After work, I went for a walk. I planned to make dinner for the gang. It was to be a sort of celebration, farewell dinner because DD and her Wonderful Boyfriend are off for a weekend adventure with his family, leaving tomorrow after school. The celebration turned out to be a bust.

DH called me on the cell to ask me to come home. DD came home from work sick. She has inherited my propensity for stomach ailments when stressed, sad, excited or happy. She is excited about the weekend. For some of us vomiting is a sort of natural side-effect of excitement. She spent the evening alternating between throwing up and sleeping.

Dinner time was weird. She dozed in her room while I made dinner for DH and WBF. DH was called away from the table by the phone, so WBF and I had dinner together and talked. Lord, he's a nice boy!

DD was too sick to pack, so that job is being left until the last minute tomorrow. Fortunately, I taught her the fine art of list-making. With a packing list in hand, the actual packing should not be too stressful. Double fortunately, if she is better in the morning I will be long gone and at work before the last minute panic packing begins.

I am keeping my fingers crossed she feels better tomorrow. I would hate for her to be sick on the plane. I can't even let myself think about her missing out on the trip altogether.

Mothers will appreciate this. During her last (I hope) bout of vomiting I heard her go into the bathroom and I kicked into my regular sick-kid routine. I followed her into the bathroom and held her hair back with one hand while wetting cold cloths with the other and applying them to the back of her neck. I have no earthly idea if cold compresses have any effect on quelling nausea, but it is what my mother used to do for me when I threw up, and so I do it too. It may not really help the sick kid, but it makes an otherwise helpless mom feel like she is doing "something". I don't know whether or not DD appreciates my being in the bathroom when she is sick, but she's never asked me to leave ... and I've never really given her a choice.

She may be 18 and about to fly the nest, but as long as she's under my roof, when she's sick, she's my precious little one and I will suffer along with her.

That is what Mom's do.

My own mother keeps telling me that it never gets any better, even after the kids have left home. There's another thing for me to put on my list of things to worry and obsess about.

Return to top......

A Trip to Orlando

It is Spring Break in our school district. Daughter Dear (DD) went on her class trip last week, so we did not plan a family vacation. Since the Medusa of mother's-guilt has been rearing its head over the fact that I have been way too busy lately, I took a couple of days off to hang out with her. I am not 100% sure she was thrilled about the prospect, but she agreed to be a good sport about it.

Yesterday, DD and her Wonderful Boyfriend (WBF) took me on an outing to Orlando. The plan was to visit IKEA and then have a late lunch. They love to shop and eat out in fancy restaurants. I hate to shop. I am cheap and I consider a restaurant expensive if my husband and I can't eat for under $25.00 -- both of us, including tax and tip. Do you see where this is heading?

The kids thought even I might like IKEA. They were right. I loved the layout. I loved the look of the merchandise. I especially liked the idea that the stuff was all designed for really small spaces. I was crazy about the $0.75 coffee with free-refills. I went there with the intention of getting ideas to spiff up the Old Homestead. I knew full well after about five minutes that I like the idea of redecorating the house, but I will probably not actually do anything about it.

The fact of the matter is that as long as my home is reasonably clean and all rooms other than DD's bedroom are picked up and reasonably straight, I don't really give a damn what it looks like. Lately I've been talking about actually doing some redecorating because, well, it has sort of deteriorated to the point that even I can't ignore it. It's all just talk, though.

We wandered around IKEA for hours, and bought a few things for DD's room. Damn if I know where she's going to put it. I got some ideas. I may someday go back with my dear huband to look at lighting for the living room. I'm getting old. My eyes are bad. I need better light to read by. They have cool lighting. That's not "decorating" it is a matter of necessity.

For lunch the kids wanted to go to a restaurant at the Mall at Millenia. Mind you, IKEA is probably a little upscale for my tastes. Most of the stuff I buy comes from thrift stores and WalMart; when I really want to put on the dog, I visit Target. People like me should not be allowed in places like the Mall at Millenia.

For anyone who may possibly read this who is fortunate enough not to have visited Orlando, Florida, recently, let me explain. The Mall at Millenia was apparently built in an effort to overcome some of Central Florida's reputation as a shopping haven for people who like overpriced tacky souvenir shop crap. The Mall was built as a sort of one-stop shopping location for rich people or people who spend money like they are rich. They sell Gucci bags (real ones), Ferragamo and Jimmy Choo shoes, Cartier jewelry and a bunch of other overpriced stuff in fancy stores I've never heard of. The first time I went to the Mall, I walked into the Jimmy Choo shoe store because I wanted to make sure that DD (who was drooling on the counter tops) did not even think about buying anything. The employees who were standing around pointedly ignoring us made it clear that we were not buying anything there because they would die before they would wait on us. I was sort of grateful for that because it meant that I didn't have to be the bad guy dragging DD out of the store, but I still wanted to scratch the bitches' eyes out.

A few minutes later I walked into Cartier just to see what would happen. The guy behind the counter looked like he was ready to call security. I simply smiled what I think of as my best "Bless Your Heart" smile and walked on.

They do actually have some cool stores where normal people could buy stuff if they were so inclined. They have an Apple store. We played with the I-phones and the new Macs. I managed to keep DD out of Ferragamo. She managed to keep me out of Williams Sonoma because my weakness for cool kitchen gadgets sometimes manages to overcome my cheapness but I always end up with buyer's remorse. There is evidently some kind of electronic gadget store that DD would not let us go near because she figured (probably rightly) that WBF and I would want to stay too long and it was time to eat.

I like the music they play in the Mall. It is quiet by mall standards. For a mall it has a nice atmosphere. I'm trying to say something nice, here....

I give up! The place gives me the creeps. Do people really not have anything better to do with their money then spending it on ostentatious, expensive shit? Do rich ladies have to wear so much makeup, such ugly clothes and such god-awful stinky perfume you can smell half a block away?

Looking at the stores and the shoppers I was reminded of a conversation I overheard on a city bus years ago. An older lady was talking to a young woman who worked in the most upscale dress shop in Cincinnati at the time. The older lady, who not only did not shop in that store but had apparently never visited it, asked what the clothes were like. The younger woman thought about it for a while and said, "I have come to the conclusion that the uglier the clothes and the more expensive they are, the better our customers like them." That describes a lot of what I saw yesterday. Hideous jewelry. Clothes that would have embarrassed a hooker. And let's not even talk about those disgusting stiletto heeled shoes that look pornographic (not to mention painful). I would not have believed people would buy any of that but all day long I saw people walking around the mall actually wearing it.

Since DD and WBF invited me to go with them, I was determined to be on my best behavior. I managed to make it through the entire day without throwing one fit or complaining very much. I even paid for a truly delicious late lunch and proclaimed the cost "not bad". Our lunch cost approximately twice what my husband and I ordinarily spend when we go out for dinner, and I didn't even have a glass of wine (... or the double vodka martini I actually needed after six hours of shopping).

On the way home we got stuck for nearly an hour in Orlando traffic. I kept my mouth shut.

I pretty much hated everything we did all day long, but the opportunity to spend an entire day with the kids was worth the aching back, the tongue-biting and the cost. (I'll worry about the fit DH is gonna throw when he gets the credit card bills some other time.) The kids had fun. I enjoyed spending the time with them.

To top the whole thing off, I even got another hug from DD. I am on a roll!

Traveling Teen Returns to the Nest

It seems that most of the women's blogs I read are written by mothers of small children. I haven't run across too many blogs by old boomers like me whose kids are (almost) grown. (I'm sure they are there, but I just haven't found them.) This morning I checked in with my new fave, Rita Arens at Surrender Dorothy. Her post on a very busy day with a small child brought tears to my eyes. I am not exactly sure if they were sentimental tears or regular tears brought on by remembering the exhaustion of those years -- probably both.

I loved the babyhood and toddler phases. I really did. I was a lot younger then. Now, it makes me tired looking at mothers with young children. DH asks me often if I miss having little kids around the house. Answer is: NO! Not for a minute. Hardly ever. Not really. Well, only occasionally.

Anyway, I love reading the mommybloggers. It brings back delicious memories I can carry around and savor. Some days I really need those sweet memories to remind myself of how much I adored everything about DD from the moment I first looked into her eyes on her Birth Day. I still love her just as much. I really do. But, she's 18. She's a Senior. I'd describe that more fully but the moms who've been there already know and the ones who aren't there yet won't believe that it can happen to them. (I didn't.)

This week DD was away for several days on a class trip. She never called home but she did send text messages a few times a day. She reserved her limited telephone time for truly significant people like her wonderful boyfriend (WBF). I missed her. I didn't miss the drama. I didn't miss that moment of holding my breath when she walks in the door from work, waiting to see if we are in the presence of the Lovely Young Woman or the Hormonal Post-Adolescent. That makes a big difference how a poor mom is to respond to an entrance. When she's in a good mood, it is okay to say, "Hey. Sweetie, how was your day?" When in the presence of The Other One it is better simply to hide.

Anyway, I did miss her. The house is not the same without her. It was quiet and peaceful. We did not have one episode of drama all week. I could do what I wanted when I wanted. I was kind of a wreck. I would be okay for five minutes or so after I got a text message and then I'd start worrying again. I was excited to have her come home. I couldn't wait to hear the blow-by-blow descriptions of her experiences. Her take on travel is usually fascinating.... often incomprehensible but always utterly gripping.

We went to the airport to pick her up last night. I actually got a hug. A real one. These days usually the best I get is a tilted head to kiss the top of in order not to mess up make-up. In fact I got two hugs during the course of the evening. Could it be she was glad to see me? Perhaps I should not get carried away.

While she and WBF were stowing her suitcase (does one really need a suitcase the size of a steamer trunk for a three day trip??) in the car, one of her teachers came over to me and said, "Your daughter is such a lovely child." Whereupon, I beamed and agreed with her. Then she added, "It is so nice to be around a teenager who is that easy going, with never any drama and always so laid back."

I laughed and said, "Must be. I'd like to meet that kid." Teacher seemed confused. (Teacher is apparently not a parent.)

Hmmmm. What is the meaning?

A) Teacher exaggerated a bit to make mother feel good, and it worked.
B) DD actually does know how to behave without drama when necessary (typically this is not necessary when in the presence of parents) and was on her best behavior during this trip.
C) Mom was happy.
D) All of the above.

One thing is clear: DD got way too little rest this week and will be very tired today. I plan to make myself scarce.