The Midwest, Part 2

Michael's parents have an apartment on the top floor of a building that overlooks the Mississippi River. One night, Michael's dad said that if he stands at the window, he can see almost all of the places that have mattered to him over the course of his life. And he wasn't kidding. This is a family that is deeply tied, over generations, to a community.

Sometimes it seems like everyone knows everyone, and this six-degrees-of-separation quality cracks me up. Here's a version of a typical conversation when we visit Michael's family:

Family member: Do you know Peggy O'Flaherty?
Michael: No, but her brother Seamus was in my class.
Family member: Oh! Seamus married Maureen Flynn, and did you know that Maureen's aunt, Maeve, went to college with me?
Michael: I know Maeve. Her cousin, Patrick, and I were altar boys together.

But it's not just about knowing the neighbors. Tradition is at the heart of this culture. Some of those traditions are pretty funny, most notably the annual trip to the Minnesota State Fair. You should have heard Michael's dad wax poetic about his teenage years at the fair. Michael has his memories, too. So far be it from us to deny Blue and Green a chance to participate in this family custom.

When I was growing up in Michigan, I don't remember the state fair being any big deal. I think I went once, ate some junk food, rode some rides. But it wasn't a BIG THING that made me feel connected to my fellow state residents or turned into a ongoing family story. For Michael, though, it's different. When he talks about the fair, his eyes get this faraway look, as if he can taste a bucket of mini doughnuts in his memory.

Before we went, my friend, Sarah, gave me some advice: 1) Bring lots of money; 2) Bring lots of patience; and 3) Bring closed-toe shoes. "Closed-toe shoes?" I asked. "Yes," she answered. "For walking in the barns." I must have looked blankly, because she elaborated. "Poop," she said. "Poop is everywhere."

Well, isn't that fabulous? That's the kind of thing that keeps a person going back year after year. In the end, I did wear appropriate footwear, but we didn't even make it to the barns. We got stuck in the vast snack area. Streets and streets and streets full of food. And there were people dressed up as food! We were just minding our own business, and a guy walked by dressed as a giant ear of corn. Okey Dokey. I suppose it's difficult to pass up the opportunity to wear a good costume.

It was in this food extravaganza that I came to really understand the fair. Here is a place where the uncool becomes cool, where gluttony is celebrated rather than scorned, where you don't have to feel shame about your extra roomy rainbow stretch pants.



And of course, at the fair, even little men get to carry big sticks. Every imaginable food option seemed to be on a stick. It was a joke, but then again, not really a joke. You could get waffles on a stick:



Or spaghetti on a stick:



Or, if you're feeling hip and urban, you can order Puff Daddy on a stick:



Actually, what amuses me about the picture above is the small print in the lower left hand corner. It says, "Sausages made by special women." I love that! How do you get to be a special woman? Sign me up!

But what I enjoyed most about the food section wasn't for sale. Deep in the Dairy Barn, just past the House of Cheese, was a special revolving, glass-encased show room. Inside was the likeness of Princess Kay of the Milky Way. "Who?" you might be asking. "Is it another Barbie?" Nope. Princess Kay is the winner of a special Minnesota pageant. Every year, young maidens from across the state compete to become county dairy princesses. The lucky local winners then vie to become Princess Kay. They are judged on their communication skills, their personality and enthusiasm, and their knowledge of the dairy industry. Moo!

Don't get me wrong -- this is serious business. The St. Paul Pioneer Press claims that Princess Kay has "the equivalent of Queen Elizabeth's role as the physical embodiment of the British Empire." Well, then. If she's so important, why not carve a sculpture of her head out of a 90 pound block of butter?



And you know what's funny? Guess what Princess Kay gets as a reward for all her efforts? Do you think it's money? Scholarships? A new car? Nope. At the end of the fair, she gets to take the butter sculpture home (and presumably, she can butter her toast with that all year long).

When we arrived back at our house after our week in the Midwest, I sat down with Blue and asked him what his favorite part of the trip was. When he answered, he didn't mention the baseball game we went to, or our visit to the science museum. Instead, he said, "I liked the guy in the corn suit." Huh. Maybe on some deep, subconscious level, Blue is already part of the larger tradition. He might be a west coast boy, but Minnesota appears to be in his blood.

The Midwest, Part 1

Do you remember hearing about the heat wave that burned the Midwest this summer? You know, temperatures near 100 with humidity that could drown you? I certainly did, and I used that knowledge to guide my packing for our journey to see Michael's family. I brought the usual summer supplies: sunscreen, bathing suits, sandals, tank tops. But my challenge in that climate is always my hair. I may be a modern girl, but my thick, coarse hair is from the Old World, meant to be covered up by a babushka (Plus, ever since the kids were born, it's gone all curly on me. Has this happened to anyone else?). So I thought ahead, adding my flat iron and a range of straightening potions to our jumble of luggage so that I wouldn't scare all the farm animals.

And so we arrived. There was pouring rain. The temperature was 59 degrees.

This was bad news on a number of levels. The most pressing problem was that we were spending the first part of our trip at "the cabin" in rural Wisconsin, with seven other kids, six other adults, some dogs, three french hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. Now, I think it's pretty funny that they call their lake property a cabin, because that's not what it is. Cabins are made of logs and have no running water. Michael's family owns a big house on a lake, with several bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 2 televisions, and an air hockey table. (Oddly, I remember that the Michiganders that I grew up with called their large vacation homes "cottages." What's up with that?).

But still, that's an awful lot of people sitting inside watching the flood coverage on TV. Fortunately, efforts were underway to build the world's most delicious vegan Barbie cake. When time came to parcel out slices of Barbie's sugary skirt, the kids argued about who was going to lick the frosting off the now-naked doll. Party games have certainly become more exciting since I was young!

I explained to the family that hanging out in the house sure was fun, but that I had blog fans to entertain. I needed to experience some of the culture of this part of the country, to get a feel for the people and their interests. Michael's father wrinkled his brow and scratched his head, and Michael's sisters looked perplexed. But this is not a group that says no to a challenge. We put on some warm coats and headed out into the rain in search of something Wisconsin-y.

And here's where we ended up:

Now this is my kind of place. We don't really have an equivalent in our city. Sure, we have something that's called a flea market, but it's really a place where hip artists can sell their eco-friendly jewelry. At the Pea-Pickin flea market, you can buy old gas cans:

Or license plates:

Or plastic bull heads:

I asked one of the vendors how he came to sell these types of things. He said that he simply knows people. He scours garage sales and rummage sales and can always find stuff that people will purchase. And lucky for him, I'm not just an anthropologist; I'm also a shopper. Here's what I bought:

For 50 cents, I am now the proud owner of this 1980s vintage choose-your-own-ending teen romance novel (Don't confuse it with its sequel, "Boys! Boys! Boys!"). Here's the book jacket description:

Find your own boyfriends, your own adventures, your own romance -- it's up to you! Every few pages you can make new romance happen -- go back to the beginning and follow the directions until you find just the romance you want. You can spend a romantic year in Venice or move to the breathtaking Colorado mountains! Either way, you'll meet more boys than you've ever dreamed of! Will you go on a moonlight gondola ride with Marzio, a gorgeous Italian artist...climb a sky-high mountain with fun-loving Russell...or explore ancient Italian castles with dark, handsome Dario? No matter what you decide, that special boy is waiting for you. And you can always start a new story...until you find your own true love!

I haven't read it yet, but I think I'd go with Marzio. This book brings back memories of that Intro to Women's Studies class I took in college, where I wrote a research paper comparing teen romance novels to adult romance novels. Seriously. I even got an A minus (Thanks for all that tuition money, Mom and Dad!).

Anyway, the flea market filled my soul, but it didn't fill my stomach. So I asked, "Where does one go to combine wholesome recreation with good local food?" The answer: the bowling alley. The big gaggle of us (minus the dogs) headed out for a competitive game of bumper bowling and some hot plates of cheese curds:

In general, cheese curds baffle me. Who wants to eat something that's called a curd? But you know what, they really hit the spot when you embarrass yourself in front of a large crowd of people. Here's what happened. I was losing, and I thought that a lighter bowling ball might help improve my score. I decided to try out a kids' ball, which is about half the weight of the lightest adult ball. Smiling at my own genius, I put my thumb and fingers in. Then I got into position, whipped my arm back, and....spun around in a violent circle. The ball would not come off my fingers. It was completely stuck. I inspired a whole lot of laughing, and I suppose it was only fair that I could entertain Wisconsin after Wisconsin had given so much to me. But still, bring on those curds, man. I had some pride to mop up.

The next day, we headed back to the city to prepare ourselves for a trip to the Minnesota State Fair. I know you're on the edge of your seat to hear about that, but you'll have to come back next time. Part 2 is on its way.

Journey

We're heading off to Minnesota later this week, so you'll notice a little pause in my blogging. But I've decided to start a recurring feature called "Field Notes from the Midwest." Those of you who think that Minnesota is "back east" will learn a lot about the distinctive local culture of the middle part of the country. And those of you who, like me, grew up in the Midwest but set roots elsewhere can re-experience the joys of bugs, humidity, hot dish, and games of "duck, duck, grey duck." And for those of you who live in the Midwest now, I'll try to include some funny stories that feature my inlaws (But only the ones who admit that they don't read this. That's the rule -- if you don't read the blog, you might show up in it). So please come back -- I'll have something posted by Monday August 27.

Bad Saturday

I'm afraid I don't have any clever little stories for you today. I had hoped that we would have been able to do one of our family hikes yesterday, which would have generated some hearty outdoor anecdotes. But, no. The universe conspired against us.

First off, the kids woke up possessed by the devil. I don't know why. It all began when Michael tried to do some work on the computer instead of giving the kids his undivided 6 a.m. attention. Blue and Green are perfectly content to play by themselves, unless the supervising adult tries to get something done. Then they join forces to destroy the adult: hitting each other, jumping on the couch, farting loudly. It wasn't long before Michael put down his computer and was dragged into a game of ZINGO, which is bingo with pictures (Did I ever tell you the story about the time when Green sang the bingo song in the grocery store? You know, the one that goes "B-I-N-G-O, and Bingo was his name-O." Well, anyway, Green had the tune down, but not Bingo's name. At the top of his lungs, he bellowed, "B-I-M-B-O, B-I-M-B-O, B-I-M-B-O, and Bimbo was its name-O." I was very proud.)

Back to the Zingo board game. Michael was sleepily doing his job, trying to lose every time, when WHAM! He miscalculated and won a game. Green erupted in that special way that he has, weeping hysterically. Michael commenced his sportsmanship speech, the one that goes something like, "It's not important whether you win or lose. It's about having fun!" Yeah, right. Green is smarter than that. Winning is totally important, and losing sucks.

But the screaming. God. It was enough to drive me to get a cocktail before the sun came up. We needed to get out of the house, and fast. But there was still a problem -- we hadn't fully settled on what the day's activity was going to be. Should we go to the mountains? If so, which hike -- the waterfall or the water slide? Those of you who have been around us know how loooong it takes us to make decisions. The process goes something like this:

Me: So which hike should we do?
Michael: I don't know. What do you think?
Me: Well, there are pros and cons to each one. If the boys refuse to go in the water, the water slide will be a bust. But the waterfall one is awfully close to the freeway, so it might not be as pretty.
Michael: Will you do me a favor and just pick one?
Me: All week long I have to think up activities and make plans. I just don't think I can do it today.
Michael: OK, let's do the water slide one.
Me: I don't think that's a good choice.

Since both hikes were in the same general direction, we decided to decide later. First, we needed to get ready to go, a process that included 2 showers, the boys' second breakfasts, getting the kids dressed (and the ongoing butts-on-pillows battle), and packing the backpack. Michael took the first shower, and I immediately had to give Green a time-out for smacking Blue (who had taunted him with an under-the-breath chant : "Mean, naughty Green won't get dessert at lunch! Mean, naughty Green gets NO TREATS!"). The time-out is supposed to involve 5 minutes of deep reflection about the error of one's ways, but usually it involves cataclysmic screaming that will someday generate a visit from Child Protective Services. Strangely, this time Green was quiet in his room. "Good for me," I thought. "I am a downright effective disciplinarian." But when I smugly went to get him after the time was up, I was in for a rather rude surprise: Green had disassembled the entire curtain/shade apparatus. Needless to say, I was the one who did the cataclysmic screaming this time.

Somehow, we all managed to get through the showering and second breakfasts. Afterwards, I presented Michael with another issue: where to find the required parking passes that you need to buy if you want to use one of the Forest Service trails. No information was available on the internet, and you can't buy single use passes online. Michael came up with the idea that we should stop by a ranger station to find out how to get one (remember how he loves a pretty ranger?).While we were figuring out how far the detour to the ranger station would be, Green came into the room with a smile on his face. "There's a problem with the toilet," he said. "What kind of problem?" Michael asked. "Well," Green answered, "everything that's supposed to be in the toilet is on the floor."

Oy. An overflow. Too much toilet paper stuffed into the bowl. What a mess.

I have to admit that I was beginning to lose my cool about the day's activities. As I was gathering up spare clothes for the boys (assuming we were to go to the water slide), Michael sat down to tell them about our plan. "Today we're going to do something really fun!" He said. "We're going on a hike where we get to play in the water!" Green said, "I'm not going. I don't like hiking." Michael resumed his pep talk. "It'll be fun!" he chirped. "You can bring your buckets!" "I'm not going," Green said.

At this point, I chucked the whole pile of clothes I was carrying across the living room. "I'm not going either!" I shrieked. I ran back to the bedroom and slammed the door. I heard Blue ask, "Why is Mama throwing things? We're not supposed to throw things in the house."

Soon thereafter, we were on our way to the beach. Who can argue with the beach? The boys can dig, the adults can read, the sun can shine and warm all of our hearts. But guess what? As we were about a mile away from our house, we could see big, dark clouds rolling in. No joke. But there was no turning back. We had finally decided what to do. We packed the bag. We gathered the toys. We were on our way. We were going to ENJOY OURSELVES, DAMMIT!

It didn't rain, but it sure was cloudy. I put on my jacket, and covered myself with a beach towel. "Go dig a hole," I told the boys. They wandered over to the water, half-heartedly tapped the sand with their shovels, and came back. "There's nothing fun here," Green said. "When can we go get ice cream?" I made a face like I was going to start throwing things again, so Michael came up with a new rule: No busy = No ice cream. The boys were required to be busy for one hour, and for the sake of a sugary treat, they obliged.

One hour. I had a book. Michael had a nap. Blue and Green had some busy.

And then we ate.

Aging

When Michael and I were out to dinner the other night, our waiter was this strapping young guy named Andrew. He was "taking time off" from college to, you know, figure stuff out. All that deep reflection was taking place while he hiked and kayaked his way around the Olympic Peninsula. By day, he was a figure-outer, and by night, he earned a little money to buy some great fleece outerwear.

When Andrew was safely out of ear shot, I leaned over to Michael and asked, "Do you remember that time in college when we stayed up all night to watch the sunrise?" Michael looked at me romantically and said, "Of course I do." "Well, guess what?" I said. "Andrew wasn't even born then."

That put a bit of a damper onto Michael's enjoyment of his seafood caesar salad. Getting older can be a beast. One day, you're at a party, talking about all the latest bands and the best clubs, and the next? You're at a potluck, sharing insights about the best kind of sod for your backyard with some guy in too-tight Dockers.

Some of the problems related to getting older are conceptual. You still feel like you should get carded at the grocery store, but then the 16-year-old checker says that you remind him of his mom. One time recently, I was driving our teenage babysitter home, and I asked her about her SAT's. She mumbled something about getting ready for them, and I launched into my own SAT tale, as if my important life experience in 1987 would be relevant to her. As I went on, blah, blah, blah, I could sense her eyes rolling. She was probably thinking to herself, "Did they even have No. 2 pencils back then?"

Of course, the rest of the problems related to getting older are literal. And physical. After a couple of kids, a couple of plates of nachos, and a couple of nights on the couch watching Weeds, suddenly things you expected to be high up are now down low. Ladies, you know what I mean. A doctor recently mentioned that I have a "half-moon shaped navel." Huh? I went home and checked out my stomach. Sure enough, the belly button that was once as perfectly round as...well...a button now looked like a frown. It's not fat, exactly. It's just sinking.

I've belonged to a gym for a while now. I love this gym, because most of its members are schlumpy. People wear their big old sweats, no makeup, and some even bring their oxygen tanks. I learned a few years ago that the payoff for going to the gym is that I get to read a lot of trashy magazines. 45 minutes on the elliptical trainer, and I get to find out if Britney really is a bad mom. Usually, gyms are places where people try to reclaim lost youth, but my gym seems to be filled with people just trying to get through the day. Need a break from your kids? Take them to the child care place, and sit with your head down in the locker room for a few minutes. Need to get away from the humdrum of your assisted living facility? Walk on the treadmill while watching Murder She Wrote reruns on the attached TV.

This summer, I've taken up a new exercise hobby: spinning. I'm strangely addicted to this activity, because it makes me feel like a brute (of course, it also makes me want to go home and eat a tub of ice cream, which sort of defeats the purpose. Oh well). But, see, my gym is a cheap gym. Just $15 a month. So unlike fancy pants-y, expensive gyms, there's no big screen that entertains you with scenery as you ride your stationary bike at high speeds. Instead, you have to use your imagination while the instructor screams out, "Now we're going up Ravenna Boulevard! It's a big hill! Do you feel it?" Once we get to the top of the fake hill, she yells, "Are you effervescing yet? You should be effervescing by now." I think she's talking about sweating, which I usually do very effectively. And I wonder, if I effervesce a lot, will my belly button return to form?

Regardless of what happens to my stomach, my goal is to age gracefully. One of our friends, Shawn, is a master at aging well. His trick seems to be to reinvent himself. Sometimes, he's a professor. Sometimes, he's a famous novelist. Sometimes, he's a screenwriter. What's neat is that he does all this while masquerading at being a normal guy. If you saw him on the street, you might think he's just a regular dad with a gas grill and a van. He might seem to be a tired working fellow who falls asleep at 9:00 pm in front of the golf update on ESPN. But, no, look again. Doesn't he look kind of familiar? Yes! He does! You've seen him somewhere before...Was it on your Wells Fargo banking brochure? Yes! Yes! That's because Shawn, our scholarly famous friend, has chosen yet another career direction, this one designed to make him feel sexy and youthful no matter what the calendar says. He is...A MALE MODEL!!!

Now, I tried to get the actual photos to post here. But it seems like Getty Images is not so keen on parting with its stock footage just to entertain the masses. If you're interested, do a search for "Asian Real Estate" or "Mature Couple." These keywords bring up my favorites, especially the one where he is hauling what seems to be a very heavy carpet on his back. Who says that academics can't be macho, too?

(Shawn, I just checked the official America's Next Top Model website. There's a casting call for season 10 in our very own city on August 14. To be eligible, you have to be under 28 years old. That's how old you're turning this year, right? Lie a little. Tyra will never know. Happy birthday on Saturday, and many more).

Time Away

I love my kids. I really do. But I have to say -- 24 hours without them is heaven on earth. Blue and Green had their very first overnight with my parents this weekend, and Michael and I took off for the sunset (see above).

I was a bit nervous about leaving the kids, because I feared an epic scene at the departure. Green, in particular, has a few issues with independence. Well, to be frank, Green has a few issues in general. For instance, he has a bunch of random, unhelpful rules that he follows (e.g. he won't eat peanut butter on sunny days). And he has taken my inclination for the dramatic to a whole new level. Most of the time I compare him to a teenage girl (without the good parts, like having someone to shop with), because he gets irrationally upset over dumb things. When he can't find a pair of socks that is lighter in color than his brother's, he'll scream something like, "I'll never wear socks again! Never!" And then he'll throw himself down onto the bed and sob. Or if his shovel breaks at the beach, and I give him the spare purple shovel, he'll holler,"MAMA! I can't dig mud pits with anything that's purple! I'll never use purple! And I won't come to the beach with you ANYMORE!" What can I say? It's not easy being Green.

Anyway, in preparation for our getaway, I used an old trick I learned from Bill Clinton. If you don't say what IS is, then it's not a problem. Right? So last week I started saying stuff like, "We're going to Grandy and Grandpa's house this weekend, and guess what? Daddy and I are going hiking on Saturday. And then we'll see you on Sunday morning." I just kind of left out the part where we LEAVE THEM BEHIND. This seemed to work! HA! But really, it was my mom who saved the day. On Saturday morning, she started talking about all the presents she was going to give them once Michael and I left. After an hour or so of this, Blue said to me, "Mama, will you disappear now?" So much for grief about being separated from us.

Michael and I took off for Olympic National Park. Our plan was to go out to a groovy hike along the coast. But there were two problems. First was that it would have taken 4 hours of driving. And second was that those four hours of driving would have prevented us from finishing the hike before the tide came in and washed us out to sea. This was very disappointing to me, and I commenced whining. So we stopped at the ranger station, where Michael sized up trails with his favorite ranger. He loves this ranger, and I don't know why (Is it her tight, brown, polyester government pants? Or that sexy Smoky the Bear hat?). It seems like we talk to her every time we go hiking, and she always sends us to a steep trail that doesn't leave the trees. This time was no exception. It did end up at a little lake, and that was nice, but it wasn't a crystal clear alpine lake with huge snow-capped spires on top of it! I threw myself down on the ground and wailed, "I'm NEVER going to ask for help from that ranger again! NEVER!" (No, I didn't really do this. It's a joke. Ha.).

But then we went to Lake Crescent, where we stayed the night. And there were rowboats! Rowboats! This was terrific, because I love boating, and also because there are lots of ghost stories about this lake. Apparently, there are missing people buried in its depths. AND, if you drown in the lake, your body will supposedly turn into soap! Soap! (Think I'm kidding? Go read "The Lady of the Lake: Tale of the Corpse Turned to Soap Keeps Lake Crescent Bubbling with Intrigue," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, October 30, 1990). Anyway, Michael and I went rowboating (well, he rowed, and I took lots of close-ups of his head), and it was fabulous. We didn't see ghosts or corpses, however.

What's really neat about getting away from the kids is that our sense of time changes. I knew that we had been living on their schedule for years, but it's not until we had distance from it that I realized how little time has been our own. Even when we go out, there's still the tick, tick, tick of the babysitter's watch. And the mornings -- we live them in five and ten minute increments. Here's an example of our typical morning:

6 am: Kids wake up.

6:15: 2 bowls of Cheerios are consumed by each child.

6:20-7:30: Kids bug each other and whine at parents.

7:30: Arthur comes on PBS. Kids stare vacantly. I make sandwiches for lunch box (cheese if sunny, peanut butter if cloudy).

8:00: Curious George comes on PBS. Kids stare vacantly. I shower.

8:30: Kids eat second breakfast. I start screeching, "Put your yogurt cups in the trash! Put your spoons in the sink!"
8:35: Kids start getting dressed. I yell, "Don't put your naked butt on your brother's pillow!"

8:45: I yell at kids to put dirty underpants in the hamper.

8:47: Kids pack lunches in lunch boxes, leaving underpants on the floor.

8:50: I wrestle kids to the ground to get sunscreen on them.

8:53: I scream again about underpants.

8:55: Kids fight over whose lunchbox gets to sit in which position by the door. I scream, "We're going to be late for school!! Go! Go! Go!"

9:00: Drive to school, which starts RIGHT NOW.

9:03: Return to house to get forgotten lunch boxes.

Day after day, these same things happen, and the clock starts to become an oppressive tool. But this weekend -- no clock, no lunch boxes, no hamper. That was the biggest anniversary gift of all.

When we returned to my parents' house, the kids didn't even look up from what they were doing. My mom said there wasn't any crying, screaming, fighting, or dirty butts on pillows. There were also meals made up of brownies, lots of new toys, and constant attention. When we got into the car, Blue and Green waved goodbye cheerfully and were appropriately thankful. But once the car turned the corner, Green started to cry. "What's the matter?" I asked. His crying escalated. "What is it?" I repeated. He wailed, "I'm NEVER going home. NEVER! There's nothing fun there!" Sigh. It was time to watch the clock again. All I can say is that I'm counting the hours until we can drop them off again.

Eleven

Does anyone remember this? It was one of the classier moments of our wedding. I recall that the professional photographer was up too close, trying to capture the romance of the cake-cutting. And I thought to myself, "Why do we need a picture of this? This is not particularly exciting." Then it occurred to me that my mother smushed cake on my dad's face at their reception, so hmmm.....I smeared a little on Michael, just to keep the tradition alive.

What's interesting about this photo is that it came two seconds too late. If it had been couple of beats earlier, you would have been able to see the RAGE in Michael's eyes. And if it had been just one second earlier, you would have seen him crush a huge piece of cake onto my face, and then more of it down into the front of my expensive silk dress.

So here's the thing about wedding dresses from the 1990s. They weren't those light sheath things that women are wearing these days. Dresses in the 1990s were heavy. Plus, the ladies at bridal shops impressed upon vulnerable brides the need for "appropriate foundational garments," so in the end it was like wearing two whole outfits on the big day.

When Michael did his cake trick, he managed to wedge the cake underneath the fancy foundational garment, making it impossible for me to get it out without stripping off the whole ensemble in the hotel bathroom. So I didn't. The rest of the evening, I had to feel the squish, squish of buttercream every time I moved. The first dance? Squish! Throwing the bouquet? Squish! The Big Exit down the stairs to the getaway car? Squish!

Ah, love. I don't think our wedding was the first time that Michael realized that I can be really annoying, and I've certainly taken annoying to new levels since then. Who controls the clicker in our house? Me! That has meant that Michael has watched a lot of Celebrity Fit Club this summer (Come on, Marcia Brady was on it! That's hilarious!). Who won't go see any movies with violence, gore, or death-by-serious-illness storylines? Me! That's a lot of WhenHarryMetSally-esque films for the poor man. Who gets crazy cravings around 11 pm? Me! Our household conversation goes like this:

Me: I want french fries.
Michael: Now?
Me: I can't stop thinking about them.
Michael: (sigh) Do you want me to go get you some?
Me: No. It would be really bad of me to eat french fries this late.
Me: But I'm really hungry.
Michael: I'll go get you some.
Me: No! I'm not asking you to do anything. I'm just sharing my feelings with you.
Me: But I'm afraid I won't be able to sleep.
Michael: I'm going to get some.
Me: Can you find an organic kind?

But really, we've had so many good times, too. There was that week on the Redneck Riviera, when no one else was there. It was like we owned our own little piece of Alabama -- eating out at Bubba's and then drinking gin and tonics on our white sandy beach! Or how about that backroads trip across Spain, where we went looking for ruins (and skulls! So many skulls! We found one building that was made out of 1,245 of them). And then there was the day that we found out about Blue and Green, when we shared that combination of exhilaration and panic (Michael got pulled over leaving the doctor's office, and he showed the ultrasound pictures to the cop! No ticket that day.).

So Michael, we've known each other a long time. I remember when you wanted to be like the guy in the Strawberry Statement, and I remember when you grew your hair long so you could wear a ponytail. Today, even though you like to play fantasy baseball just a little too much, I still think you're the coolest cat around. Happy eleventh anniversary (tomorrow)!

Just Photos

Blue and Green with their career mentor


These are homemade "party hats." Notice the straws coming out of them? Presumably, liquid refreshments can come out of the hat and down through the straws. Blue and Green are preparing to become frat boys.


The Volcano


Green's new hobby: rolling down hills


Double Exposure

Boys and Girls

We have gone to great lengths to help our boys have access to as many creative play options as possible. I have found that this is a sizable effort in a society that wants to quickly divide kids into gender-specific consumer groups before they can even manage solid food. Before you start citing all those studies that show that little girls like to build warm enclosures while little boys like to build tall towers and then knock them down, I'll say upfront that the fact that there are biological differences between boys and girls is not the issue that rankles me. What gets me is how easily we claim those differences as unbendable, how we celebrate them, and then spend lots of money to make them stick.

For an example, take a visit to Pottery Barn Kids. Wanna decorate your child's room? Just click on "Boys' rooms" or "Girls' rooms." If you're a boy, you get sports and trains and trucks and airplanes and dinosaurs. If you're a girl, you get pink. Or you can go visit any Halloween costume website. The first thing you'll get to select is whether you want girls' costumes or boys' costumes. At one site I've visited, if you click on "classic boys' costumes," you'll get a choice of ninja avenger, aviator, astronaut, bandit, Buzz Lightyear, chef, confederate officer, cowboy, crusader, police officer, prisoner, mechanic, and doctor. A click on the "classic girls' costumes" will get you a choice of ballerina, Barbie, pink playboy bunny, cheerleader, flapper, mermaid, and bride. Isn't the fun of dressing up for Halloween that you get to be whatever you want to be? Does a girl today really have to cross the gender divide to pretend to be a doctor?

I recently read a really interesting essay about girl culture by Peggy Orenstein. What I like about this article is that Orenstein looks at the whole industry of toy production, how decisions are made about what gets to be a "girl toy." Have any of you been to Toys R Us lately? The place is so clearly separated by gender. Girls get roughly 30% of the store (it's the pink side!), while boys get the rest (not pink!). The girl section has Barbie and her slutty neighbors, the Bratz, mermaids, fairies, dollhouses, and kitchen stuff. Boys appear to get the rest (the vehicles, the sports stuff, the models, the bikes, the Legos), and this is all located across a wide aisle from the pink section. Are you looking for Dora the Explorer? She's in the girl section! Are you also looking for her cousin, Diego? He's in the boy section! And that's too bad, because he gets to do way cooler stuff than Dora does (Animal rescue expeditions! Trips to the arctic! Undersea adventure!).

Before you get the wrong impression, let me say that I loved Barbie when I was a kid. I had a whole assortment of them and their 1970s friends (Darcy Covergirl, complete with disco ball and stage; Marie Osmond in glittery green gown; Darth Vader, who acted as "the husband."). Do you remember, too, that there was a beauty salon and an apartment building? Well, check out what Barbie's up to these days! She's got a party bus! It has a hot tub! She has friends who are "scented" like suntan lotion. Then there's this one (don't you love the whip?!). And now, after her years as a drunken sorority girl and then as a dominatrix, Barbie gets married. And newsflash: she's white! Look at Barbie the Caucasian Bride.

Blue and Green aren't too interested in Barbies, but we've tried to keep the gender doors open when it comes to their toys. They have tons of trucks, but they also love their toy kitchen and their cleaning equipment.

(Blue, cooking with a bowl on his head, wearing a Home Depot apron)

The thing that's tricky with "boy toys" is navigating all the violence. Once you surpass the "I love you, you love me" toddler phase, suddenly boys are supposed to want to enter combat. Ninjas, Transformers, Star Wars, it's all about shooting. There were two rules in Blue and Green's boy-heavy preschool class last year: "no potty talk" and "no shooting noises." (Well, they also developed a third rule in response to the little kid who kept stripping off all his clothes. The rule was "no naked."). With Blue and Green, we just never brought up the idea of guns, and so they never wanted them. But despite our best efforts, Blue recently said to me, "Mama, can I have a water shotter that's shaped like a drill?" Oh well. Even without the language, the concept is still there. I know, I know, several of you are now saying, "See, it's all inborn!" Well, OK, maybe it is. Maybe Toys R US and Pottery Barn are just reflecting back to us our own primal desires. But I actually think we're smarter than that, that we can come up with new ways of talking about gender differences and similarities that don't box little kids into narrow roles before they learn to think for themselves.

The hardest thing to accept is that this issue is going to be increasingly out of my hands. Other kids will become much more of an influence on our boys' interests. Yesterday, we had this fabulous little kid -- I'll call him Jacob -- over to our place to make a volcano with us. He walked into the house and said, "I'm going to have a pirate birthday party, and all the pirates are going to blow up and DIE!" Alrighty. Anyway, we did this volcano, assembled the plaster strips, painted it, added the baking soda and vinegar and red food coloring, and it exploded and oozed just as we hoped it would. This little friend abruptly took some dinosaurs and shoved them into the volcano's crater, screaming, "The dinosaurs are blowing up! They're dead! Their blood is running down the mountain!" Blue and Green looked skeptical, but they joined in the carnage anyway, throwing their own dinosaurs into the mess.

Later, the three of them gathered in the living room to play with Blue and Green's Playmobil airports and airplanes (Some of Playmobil's boy toys; the girl toys come in pink boxes). These toys are pretty cool, if you can get over the fact that it takes ten hours for an adult to assemble them. Blue said to Jacob, "The woman (pronounced wooman) pilot gets to fly today." My heart skipped a beat, because the female figure in this set isn't a pilot. She's clearly a flight attendant, as she came in a bag with the cups and the orange juice cartons. Plus, the real pilot, a man, is wearing a pilot's hat. But Blue doesn't know this, and he has been perfectly happy to run an equal opportunity airline. A moment passed. I was so sure that Jacob would say something. Another moment passed. "OK, she can be the pilot," Jacob said. Then he added, "But my guy gets to be the hijacker."

Finding a Job

I finished Field Notes from a Catastrophe last night. It was, as I mentioned, about global warming. I'm pleased to report that I found numerous funny things in this book (even though I'm pretty sure that funny wasn't what the author was intending). For instance, there's a whole section about frog mating habits. She quotes a special frog scientist, who describes "writhing masses of toad balls." (p.81). Now that's hilarious to me, proving that I haven't really progressed much since middle school. There's also a funny section where the author (Kolbert) writes out her interview with Bush's Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs just after the Kyoto Protocol took effect. This section is funny in a Daily Show kind of way, where you're laughing out loud to mask how depressed you're becoming.

But the thing that I found most interesting about this book had nothing to do with global warming at all. Those of you who have talked with me recently know that I'm struggling with the work/life balance question. Can you have a job you love and also not be stressed out all the time? Is it possible to feel ambition and passion for your work life, but still be done by 3 pm every day to pick up your kids and do your scrapbook? This book raised an entirely new question for me. Has my decades-long struggle with the "what am I going to do with my life" issue been merely a lack of imagination about what is possible?

What I noticed as I was reading was how many weird careers there are out there. Here's an example. In a chapter about bugs, Kolbert describes G. Russell Coope, who is, apparently, "one of the world's leading authorities on ancient beetles" (p84). Huh. Beetles. I can't say I've ever given a thought to beetles (except the VW kind). I wonder if he announced to his preschool teacher when he was four years old that he was going to grow up and be a beetle expert. An ANCIENT beetle expert, no cheap contemporary knock-offs for this guy. Has he always known that beetles were IT for him? Then there's Kolbert's description of two evolutionary biologists who "have shared an interest in mosquitoes for as long as they have been interested in each other" (p.74). Sounds romantic! This couple cemented their marriage and their careers by "driving across the country in a van equipped with a makeshift bed for their daughter and a miniature lab for sorting, labeling, and storing the thousands of specimens they would gather" (p.78). They managed to find a way to navigate their professional and family lives, so why can't I?

When I think back to college, it seemed like choosing a career was like choosing a snack from a vending machine. The choices were all there for you to select, pre-packaged and ready to eat. You could major in economics and become someone who sells things or counts things. You could major in English and become an editor or a professor. You could major in theater and become a coffee barista. Et cetera. What I didn't acknowledge at the time was that I'm not so crazy about vending machine snacks, so it's not all that surprising that building a rewarding work life, in my case, has been a bit more complicated.

I know that others of you are dealing with these things, too (how many of you out there have several bachelor's degrees, or two master's degrees, or are trying to do your own thing by being self-employed? How many of you have built a career doing something you didn't mean to do? How many of you work part-time at three different jobs, or are waiting until "the kids get older" to answer these questions?). I'd love to hear what you think.

I'll end with a bit of wisdom I've learned from our neighborhood ice cream man. His name is Paris, and he has a frozen treat monopoly on the whole northeast side of the city. For three months, he drives around in a jeep, blaring his jingly-tinkly music, causing waves of kids to levitate out of the pool or the lake and run at break-neck speeds across busy streets and parking lots to buy 25 cent bomb pops for $3 a piece. Come September, he has enough money to travel for the remaining nine months of the year. Genius. Why didn't I think of that?

Nature

It's a good thing I'm reading that book about global warming, because something is definitely wrong with our climate. There are two rules those of us who live in this city swear by: a) it doesn't get too hot in the summers and b) it doesn't rain in July. And wouldn't you know it -- so far this month, we've had nearly a week of temperatures over 90 (with no air conditioning anywhere but the grocery store) and nearly a week of solid, downpouring, crazy, monsoon-like rain. Combine that with the hurricane force windstorm we had last winter, and the SEVEN snow days we endured (winter rule: it doesn't snow here), it's about time we pay attention.

Anyway, rain. Rain. Rain. Rain. It's the top story on the news (BREAKING NEWS!!!! IT'S RAINING IN JULY!!), and it's the top story in our house (IS IT STILL RAINING, MAMA? WHY? DOES THE ICE CREAM TRUCK STILL COME IF IT'S RAINING? WHY NOT? HOW WILL WE GET OUR ICE CREAM??!). It's particularly bad when it rains on the weekends, because it wrecks our plans to get the whole family into the great outdoors.

There's a lot of writing and talking going on about how little contact kids have with the natural world, and some of it is pretty compelling. We even live in an urban area with a ton of green space, and it still feels like the boys aren't really experiencing the freedom of the outdoors all that much. So, we've identified two kid-friendly, easy hikes with good payoffs (i.e. natural water slides, waterfall you can swim in) that we want to do this summer, and we have several planned trips to a nearby organic farm for vegetable picking (they won't eat the vegetables, but whatever. That's another issue).

But of course, rain. By yesterday we had exhausted our indoor options (dropping them off at the grocery store playroom -- yes, free childcare while you shop! woo!; going to the library; making cookies; crafts; fighting), and I was sorely tempted to push that "continuous play" button on their Franklin the Turtle DVD. But no, that would be bad parenting. So what did we do??? Can you guess? We went to.....

Funtasia.

Yes, Funtasia. We jumped in the car and headed twenty minutes into the suburbs to check out what was billed as "over 25,000 square feet of fun." OK, so this is what it was like: combine the carpeting, smell, neon lights, and vibe of a 1970s roller rink with the video game nirvana of Chuck E. Cheese (minus the chuck and the cheese). Then add in some of the tackier elements of a rural amusement park (bumper boats, miniature golf, pimply teenaged ride operators). There. You have Funtasia. Oh yeah, there was also the thing that drew us to this pleasure palace in the first place: a huge climbing structure for the kiddie set. This thing included a bouncy house, an obstacle course, a big twisty slide, and a winding habitrail tunnel system that connected all the pieces together. All this for $6.95.

We were there for hours. HOURS. The rain poured down, the kids jumped and ran, and Michael and I sat on a bench, so grateful for the reprieve.

I bring this up, because I was just reading that the National Wildlife Federation has started the "Green Hour" program, which is supposed to combat the "nature deficit" that kids today face. When you go to their website (greenhour.org), you find that outdoor play makes kids smarter, more creative, less stressed, and more respectful. Huh. Well, do me a favor, OK? Call up Mother Nature and tell her to turn off the giant faucet in the sky, or else I'm going to drag my kids to this syrupy, plastic, capitalistic, indoor fun factory every single day. Who can argue with this:

Leaving Comments

I've had several of you ask how to post comments to the blog. At the bottom of each entry, you can click on the word "comments." If you already have a google or a blogger account, you can use that to post. If you don't, that page shows you how to get one.

Blocked

Don't start a blog if you can't handle criticism. I've already received a few complaints (mom, Erin) that my writing is too kid-focused, too cutsie.

So you want deep? Dark? Scandalous? Scholarly?

Well, dang. I don't have any of that right now. I spent most of yesterday cleaning the grout in the bathroom. Now that's sexy, isn't it?

I'm just starting to read Field Notes From a Catastrophe by Elizabeth Kolbert (http://www.washington.edu/uaa/commonbook/about_elizabeth_kolbert.html), which is the University of Washington's "freshman book." They have all the freshman on all the campuses read the same thing, presumably to generate conversation and connection around a common topic. I'm reading it because I'm always up for good conversation, and also because a little piece of me wants to be a freshman again. When I see my own students, I'm envious of their freedom to try new things (e.g. "I'm double majoring in sculpture and astronomy!" or "I'm interested in combining my love of breakdancing with forestry management!"). That "everything is possible, all at the same time" mentality is something that has ebbed for me, and I miss it.


I don't, however, miss waking up to my freshman roommate's posters of naked men holding babies. Do any of you remember these? She had three of them.

OK, there. A whole paragraph about something un-cute. Now I'm going to spoil it:




(Blue, 2002)





(Green, 2002)

Science

I remember being a little kid, just six or seven or so, and telling people that I was going to go to Harvard and become a scientist. But even as I said it, I knew it wasn't true. Could I have recognized, even at such an early age, that the world would honor me, or at least pay me well, if I focused my enthusiasm on chemistry instead of, well, all the things I was really interested in doing? I said I was going to be a scientist, but then I went ahead and played orphanage with all my stuffed animals and wrote rhyming poems about social problems.

I'm not a scientist. This is not a shock to most of you, but what you probably don't know is that I've worked really hard at not being a scientist. Take, for example, my sophomore year in high school. In biology class, we were supposed to dissect fetal pigs. I can't even tell you how much this task repulsed me. Do you remember doing this? It took a week to fully dissect the animal, and each day you had to put the carcass in a drawer for storage. By the fifth day, the thing was grey and flabby and oozing. Anyway, somehow I managed to convince my lab partner that since she wanted to become a doctor, it would make sense for her to do all the actual work. I, on the other hand, would do all the recording, in practice for my future career as an administrative assistant.

The reason why I'm mentioning this is because Blue and Green are REALLY into science. They particularly like science that causes smells (my guess is that they would love the whole fetal pig thing). So I've checked out tons of books from the library with kiddie experiments in them, but the boys really just want to do their own thing.

So here is the boys' scientific question of the day:


What happens when you mix:

soggy leftover cereal and milk from the morning and
water and
ketchup and
mustard and
onion powder and
garlic powder and
oregano and
wheat germ and
red pepper flakes and
sea salt and
regular salt and
pepper and
chili powder and
blue food coloring and
green food coloring and
olive oil spray and
Pam spray and
peanut butter and
flour and
sugar and
English breakfast tea and
Mexican hot sauce and
chocolate sauce and
dillweed?

The answer:




Because the results to every experiment must be properly documented, Green whips out his science notebook and says, "Mama, how do you write, 'This is more disgusting than farts?'"

Two Good Reasons To Visit Us

Reason #1: We have great beaches.

There are several ultra-low tide days this summer, and we went cruising for critters last weekend. Blue and Green brought their "science notebooks," and we investigated (read: tormented) star fish, crabs, sea slugs, and other sticky creatures.





Here's a picture of the boys in a tidepool:





A picture of Blue:




Reason #2: We have great baseball

We have gone to the stadium twice this summer. The boys would say that the best parts are the seventh-inning stretch, ice-cream, french fries, and asking "who's winning?" over and over.



A cheaper and even more exciting option is going to the boys' T-ball practices. This is T-ball anarchy -- rules don't apply. Wanna tag a player out even if you don't have the ball? Sure, why not? Feel like sitting down on the third base line to play with the dirt? OK! The boys' favorite part of practice is seeing Liz, their coach. I've noticed that there are an awful lot of dads in the bleachers appreciating Liz, too.

Here's a warm-up:




Here's Green at bat:



And here's Blue:



Beaches and baseball, what more do you need?

Howdy

We used to be very good at keeping in touch. Then we had kids, and we thought, "Oh, we'll get back into our groove soon." And then 5 years passed us by, and I think it's time that we reconnect. This blog is one way we plan to share what we're doing with all of you.

Sometimes I will share stories about our twin boys, Blue and Green. I'll leave it to you to figure out which kid is Blue and which kid is Green. I know you can do it.

Other times I might talk about academia, or career angst, or teaching, or writing, or pop culture, or the books I'm reading, or how many plants I've killed this summer. I do kill a lot of plants, but I'm happy to say that the two pumpkins I planted as part of our neighborhood pumpkin growing contest are thriving. Maybe I'll even take a picture of them and show you, because it might be the most exciting thing that's going on around here. Really.

So that's it. Welcome to the blog.