mothers without borders

My previous post, about my declining health, while rich in detail and ripe with candor, barely elicited a nickel's worth of sympathy (read: comments) from you unfeeling bastards, so I hesitate to post again. However, having just survived an apocalypse of sorts, I couldn't suppress my primal need to scrawl my story along the cave walls for everyone to see.

Last week my mom forwarded an email from Borders advertising a kid party this Saturday (today), apparently to celebrate the new children's area. Immediately my stomach began churning, for joining inane revelry in large groups of strangers is pretty much a little slice of hell as far as I'm concerned. Unfortunately I have unwittingly passed this discomfort along to my kids, whom you will never find sitting Indian-style on a carpet with thirty other kids singing "If You're Happy and You Know It." Thus, I was quite surprised when Reilly asked if we could go. My initial response was to try and appeal to her judgmental side and tell her that it was going to be totally lame. She would have believed me. Alas, I have recently embarked upon a mission to reclaim some of the innocence my kids have lost due to my loud, cynical, and incessant views on life in general. Compounding the pressure in this particular case was the fact that I knew my mom would ask later if we had gone. While she is a truly amazing mother, grandmother, human being, and Democrat, she harbors a bit of doubt about my kids' education. Like many of us, she constantly applies a public school standard to what we're doing, and always calculates that my kids are coming up just a tad short, which she puts as nicely as possible. All in all, I knew I was destined for the "exciting games and prizes" today.

The celebration only ran from 2-4pm, so of course I was reminded of this at 2:13 while checking my email, dripping wet from a shower. All I wanted in the world today was to stretch out in comfy pants and finish my book, but my internal moral compass (mine's a miniature, which I'm sure surprises no one) led me to ask Reilly if she still wanted to go. I clung to the hope that just the magnanimous act of asking would be rewarded karmically, and that she would say no. So, I flinched a little when she said she did. Quinn was with Todd, and opted out, so I was left to slap on a little makeup and the aforementioned comfy pants, and make my daughter's day.

(By the way, one of the ways in which Murphy's Law applies to my particular life is that if I go to Borders in yoga pants, flip flops, unpainted toenails, and my hair half wet, the laws of nature guarantee that I will see one, if not all, of my mortal enemies. And I have more than you may think. So today's outfit redemption was my custom-made Obama shirt. My enemies are all Republicans, and they are all a great deal less intelligent than I, so I decided to flaunt my Democratic pride, and hope no one saw my toenails.)

Okay okay so Reilly and I made our way through Borders, anticipating a gleeful swarm of kids, moving from one age-appropriate activity to another (as promised in the email). What we saw, however, were twenty very young children seated on the floor singing a song about a lima bean. There was some sort of pun, like, "Where oh where has that lima been." I literally had to use my hand to wipe the scowl off my face, and then I looked down at Rei, hoping I'd succeeded in conjuring up an excited look. But, I could see instantly that Reilly was doing the exact same thing. So we stood, like wallflowers at a school dance (which my kids will never attend, take THAT Mom!), trying to figure out what to do. She would sooner have stripped naked than squeeze in amongst the gaggle of five year olds on the floor, to sing a song she doesn't know. (What can I say? Raffi didn't do the lima bean song.) Telepathically I knew that the whole scene was embarrassing for Reilly, and that we were both noting the disparity between the vibrant email, and what we saw before us. Just when we were beginning to slink away, the adult leading the singing announced that it was time for the scavenger hunt. Okay now this was promising. We took one of the sheets, gave it a quick glance, and scurried towards our first challenge. The paper asked who the Democratic Presidential candidate is, and instructed us to find a book about him, and to write the title and author's name. Easy enough. Reilly said, rather audibly, "That's easy, Barack Obama!" Oh the pride. The second question was about the Republican candidate, which Reilly also knows, so we were really cooking. It was a little troubling that the space in between each instruction was a little over a millimeter, so we started getting frustrated. My way of expressing frustration is to criticize my daughter's handwriting, and to shrink in pain, certain that everyone in Borders can see that she still begins a few of her letters from the bottom. The bottom! (Gasp! Maybe Mom is RIGHT!) Shortly thereafter we realized that our problems had only just begun, for squeezing letters into a space like this = for a child who is accustomed to regular lined paper, is nothing compared to the mind-numbing obscurity of the rest of the questions. Now, we love love love Borders, and we go there all the time. When we entered the other day, to pick out Todd's birthday presents, Quinn and Reilly knew exactly where to go. But today, after our initial rush of confidence, Rei and I were struck by the subsequent challenges. I mean, perhaps we haven't acquainted ourselves thoroughly enough with Borders' vast sea of titles, but how the hell am I supposed to find the sixth book written by the half brother of Lithuania's most popular author, let alone Reilly? When asked to find a "HISTORY" book "ALL ABOUT" your favorite state, Rei and I were nearly driven into comas scouring shelf after sodding shelf looking for anything about California. (Little traitor, ain't she?) Finally I blurted out, "What about the fucking gold rush?" Just when I was about to enlist in Al Qaida out of desperation, we saw a book about the San Francisco earthquake of 1906. Reilly's hands literally shook as she wrote, some from the top, some from the bottom. The best I could not to harass her was to sigh a lot and bite my lip until it bled. Next up we had to find a book about our favorite sport. Conveniently, the 3'x10' sign that said "Sports & Leisure" actually leads you to the health and wellness aisle. My sweet determined girl and I sifted through approximately 615 books on everything from cancer to diabetes to macrobiotic diets, before we realized their error. Then, once we found the sports aisle, we were dismayed that there was nothing about track. So Rei said how about cheerleading? Nada. Swimming? Zilch. In fact the only sports recognized by Borders at all are football, baseball, basketball, and golf. Luckily, we found a stowaway about bowling, which Rei has done. Must have been some errant Waldenbooks return...

We were sweating profusely, and swearing like sailors (well, one of us was). These questions were so confounding as to almost make my pituitary gland explode. Were all the other kids using this same list? Where were their parents? Did we accidentally get the MENSA scavenger hunt sheet? Find a book "ALL ABOUT" the ninth deepest fault line in Japan. So immersed were we in our quest for an excerpt from page 455 of the book written by the scientist who split the quark the second to the last time, that we actually began hyperventilating when we read the next question: Find a CD featuring three brothers. OMG. Could it be? We looked at each other. "The Jonas Brothers, right?" We said it aloud. We reread the sheet to make sure they weren't asking for their producer's blood type. Nope, just the Jonas Brothers. Reilly nearly collapsed from the lack of complexity of this question. Finally, we hunted down a Disney DVD about some sort of camp, and we were done. Ragged, limping, husks of ourselves, we returned to the children's area, which had become a ghost town. We found one of the employees who had sung the lima bean song, and we flung ourselves at her feet, as though we had just crossed the desert and she had the canteen. Her face lit up, she grabbed our sheet with gusto, and as marched over to what was, presumably, the prize shelf. She readily stuffed something into Reilly's hand, and as we walked away, blinking our eyes back into focus, we saw that in this demented, mind-altering game, Borders had bested us. For all our hard work, for all our valor and determination, we received a leaflet with a cupcake recipe on it. Seeing that Reilly was also dialing the recruiting officer for Al Qaida, I remembered the "free beverage and free cookie," and steered my shell-shocked daughter to the cafe. After watching a stream of about nine kids walk away with drinks, I asked confidently, "Hi, is this where they're handing out the refreshments for the kids' party?" Not even looking up, the employee said, "Oh, um, actually, the deal was that if you bought a large drink, you got a small one free." It was as though we had survived a war and then missed our ride home. I clutched her tiny, cramped-from-all-the-writing hand, and we left in silence. Everything we had been through (like kneeling in spilled chai to write down an answer), more tedium than a year at Harvard Law School, my baby's blistered fingers. For what? A recipe? I am so pissed. Never again will I stifle my lack of enthusiasm for these lima-bean-sing-a-long festivities, attended by children who look like they're auditioning to appear on an episode of Barney. I will wear my scorn proudly, along with my Obama shirt, and I will forevermore drill it into my kids that it is imperative to see the prize before you accept the challenge. And we'll try not to bake any dynamite into those motherfucking cupcakes.

strange bedfellows

Suffice it to say, my kids spend a great deal of their time at odds, and there are more Bigfoot sightings than there are those of Quinn and Reilly being affectionate with each other. Quinn is quite tender-hearted, and tries to reach out, but Rei's a pistol and pretty much only gets mushy with Mama. So imagine my surprise yesterday when I discovered that they had both crawled in bed with me, and after unwittingly squeezing me out into the cold harsh morning much too early, were left together, as though by choice. I got a little misty.

My sleeping beauties:


All that time sleeping next to each other must have altered their biorhythms or something, because after dinner I noticed Reilly giving Quinn a make-over, to which he was more amenable than I'd have expected. They were laughing and parting his hair on the wrong side, putting in ponytails, and even a sweet little pink bow.

I think maybe we need to cut back on Will & Grace...

same song, second verse

No, if I have to go to the (beeping) coast AGAIN, then you you have to read about it AGAIN. Seriously. I've never been one for stoicism. I'm dragging all your asses down with me.

Todd has taken the kids to the beach for several weekends in a row, with the big build-up being that on the 4th of July, Mama was coming too. While I did manage to get one corner of my mouth to lift a little, I noticed my kids were wearing pretty thin with this routine. I hate to say this, because Todd busts his ass to show us a good time, and if I do say so, forks out a pretty penny as well, but there are only so many things we can do there. We lived there for ten years, so the otters and sea lions on the bayfront aren't exactly evoking shrieks of delight, and we're surely not reducing ourselves to some touristy bullshit like Ripleys or a whale watching boat, whereupon one learns just how fucking stinky those lurky, terrifying creatures are. For $60. So we mostly hang at the beach until I whine that I'm getting emaciated and when is lunch? Then we trudge up this monstrous hill, which I'm almost certain was crafted by satan himself, and after I'm artificially revived, we head to Grand Central, where my kids are now convinced that I will be shat upon by another bird. (They know about my luck, as do some of you.) After lunch we hit Ray's Food Place and gather those goodies that are only permissible because A)someone else is paying and B) that person is not looking. Then we rent a movie at Chuck's, and go BACK down the devil hill, costing me what precious little meniscal tissue I have left in my knees. I sit on my ass pretending that the fire builds itself, and that I deserve bonus points for, well, being there, and making a good show. At one point I lay on my stomach to read, in my make-shift bedroom, and a furious gust of sand blew right down my back and deep (DEEP!) into my underwear. In case you're wondering, there is no discreet way to dislodge? scrape? remove? a sandstorm from your crack. So you just nod to yourself "I'm roughing it," and feel thankful that if anyone can distract your from your gritty dilemma, it's David Sedaris. The s'mores weren't as good this time, and I was reminded that I hate chocolate. Back up at the "bungalow." (read: 30-ft. travel trailer from the 60's, in all its original splendor, er, putrescence) After settling in for a movie, I became tired and went to bed on the only big, regular bed. This is no mystery. I'm fat and as such, have weak joints and a whole mess of shit that entitles me to the bed. But, entitled though I may have felt, I was appropriately chagrined to wake up alone and find out that no one wanted to sleep with my snoring. As it was they shut all the doors leading to the bedroom and slept together in a heap, in hopes of insulating themselves from the offensive guttural gasping.

I meant to take a picture of the shower in this place. It was torn out of a dollhouse and moved into this trailer. Anyway, yesterday morning, while T walked on the beach, I wanted there to be no doubt about our imminent departure so I rather shittily packed everything. I then decided to skip a shower (a first for me, ever in my life), and speed home. I must say that for all my incessant whining, my kids were so glad to be there with me, and we did capture some smiles, even mine, though I apologize now for the barnacles embedded in my teeth. Smiling kids is what it's all about...well, that and hitting Starbucks on the way out, even if they only had reduced fat cinnamon crumble cake.

My bedroom, with a well-stocked bedside stand:

Pyro-Papa:

Proof that I can crack a smile even when the nearest Old Navy is 100 miles away:

Mama's beach beauty:

Quinn, intent on starting the bonfire:

Some people look radiant on the beach. I look like a beached manatee. And this is Quinn's new "I-don't-want-my-picture-taken face:"

Possibly the only moment in which Reilly has been still her entire life. My sweet girl:

take my breath away. please.

OMG you guys, I live for these golden moments in parenthood:

While toiling away on the computer this morning, my Reilly appeared with a tin of Altoids and offered me some. I took one, and she put a few more on my desk before flitting away in her sunglasses.

A little while later she was back, picking up one of the mints she had left, trying to put it in my mouth.

"That's okay honey," I said. "I was going to have breakfast, and don't want the mints to make it taste funny."

To which she replied:

"Trust me mom, you need to." I feigned hurt feelings, sticking my lip out, and she was immediately sorry and said, in the most tender voice you've ever heard, "Mom, it's just that...I don't want someone else to tell you..."

(Picture me laughing, with my hand over my mouth of course!)

rose to the occasion

It is widely known that the depth of my nature appreciation extends to B's 20'x20' garden, whose occupants I am only just starting to remember. At last I can distinguish peas from swiss chard, which I insist on being proud of, even though peas are the least mysterious of all the plants, being that they grow in multitudes right before your eyes. My affection for this garden is rooted (no pun intended) solely in the delight it holds for B. I love, on her behalf, that all her roses have bloomed in the front yard, and I can definitely see the fruits of her labor (pun intended). Aside from this, and my occasional surprise twinge of happiness at seeing my mom's lovely little garden, I don't really give a shit about nature. Not photosynthesis, not the ozone layer, hell not even the weather. (B and Todd would have me beheaded for this.)

Imagine, will you, my excitement when Todd said all he wanted for Fathers Day was a long walk in the Oregon Garden, followed by lunch. Okay well we all know perfectly well that I am a faithful champion of lunch, but the garden part was reeeeaaaaallly a stretch. I didn't so much smile as not frown, for I was determined to grant T this one wish. I woke up in considerable pain, the source of which I think you all know, so I dutifully popped 95 Excedrin and off we went. En route, my apprehension enveloped me, with thoughts of tour guide teaching us to pronounce the latin names for the flowers, and asking us if we knew what coniferous meant. As we parked, I shot Todd a fraudulent smile and we headed for the gate. I was immediately impacted by the serenity of the garden. It was quiet in the perfect sense, the displays were bountiful but not obnoxious, there were no tour guides in sight, and best of all, the refreshment stand was mere feet ahead!

As a first-timer, I followed T and the kids, who knew just where to go, which winding paths to follow, and exactly where all the slug-shaped drinking fountains were. We ambled through luscious rose gardens, which even excited my inner garden grinch, as well as poppy fields, water falls, koi ponds, and a giant hill perfect for rolling down. (Note: Only those weighing under one ton were permitted to roll, so I took pictures.)

Ordinarily I would have seized up in such a place, so anxious to leave I might go so far as to "trip and fall" or try to hit my head on something. But this place is gorgeous, so lush and tranquil, and all the usual nature-loving clichees. I truly derived pleasure from the ambiance, and we were able to give T the experience he sought.

A fetching yellow (rose?):

My favorite rose, because it looks like it's made out of icing:

Happy Fathers Day:

Quinn and Rei on a waterfall:

The whole gang:

Quinn of the cacti:

israel: a statehood

As many of you know, all of Todd's friends are named Todd. This is by no means relevant to this post, but it has an anecdotal appeal I couldn't resist, especially since the principal character is the son of one of the Todds. Todd F. to be specific.

We used to hang out with the F's and their six kids all the time. This was especially fun for Quinn, since the youngest four F. kids are boys. But he has always been especially close with Israel. In 2004 I had the grave misfortune of discovering that Mama F. is a Bush voter. A lively debate ensued, wherein I basically left nothing but the bones. Well? I couldn't help it, single-issue voters infuriate me, particularly when the issue is abortion. And how was I to know she was completely ill-equipped to legitimize her position? I haven't seen them since. Todd still takes Quinn over to see Israel, but I haven't laid eyes on an F. child since 2003. Cut to two days ago. The Todds, Quinn and Israel had gone out to do manly things like shoot 22s in the mountains, and Rei and I were at home. I was crashed out in bed, and suddenly Todd was shaking me awake to say that Todd and Israel were here and dinner was almost ready. Wiping the crust from my eyes, I was certain he was mistaken. I have long held a dear place in my heart for the impish F. children, and I couldn't believe I was about to see Israel for the first time since 2003. He the cutest, wittiest, shortest little guy, and has been a great friend to Quinn. I tried really hard not to stare at him across the dinner table, and he averted his eyes with the shy smile of a vague familiarity. After dinner I remembered that I had a picture of the boys from when they were little, and I cajoled them into bashfully posing for another so I could compare. I can't believe the difference, though Israel isn't much bigger than he was, lol.

Time really flies when you tell a tongue-tied Bush supporter where she has gone wrong and then don't see her kids for fifty years. Yes yes, in case you're wondering, I learned my lesson, and I'm thankful my tyranny didn't cost the boys their friendship.

Ain't they sweet?

2003 (Israel 5, Quinn 4):


2008 (Israel 11, Quinn 9):

she slices, she dices, she juliennes...

When Mama got whacked, Quinn and Rei were on the case. They cleaned, they kept my rice pack hot and my water bottle full, and they tried to fight at a slightly less audible level than normal. (Operative word being slightly.) Reilly has always been much more capable than we've given her credit for, but this week she has blown me away with her ability to anticipate my needs, prepare my meals, and generally kick ass. She brings me a menu every three hours or so and leaves a blank section at the end for special requests. I'm not kidding. For instance, she'll offer soup, a frozen entree, or quesadillas, but I am welcome to request a pb&j. Kapeisch?

This kid. She makes me tear my hair out, but she also brings me to my knees, weeping with joy at the miracle of being her mom. It's the same with my Quinny. (More on him soon. Getting misty-eyed.)

Today she made me quesadillas with zucchini, four to be exact, a soda with the all-important pink straw, napkin, and the oh-so-essential mealtime accoutrement, my phone.

And, in case you're wondering, yes she can spell quesadilla.