Rox and Roll

On Finding Neverland

Yesterday, my kids and I snuggled together for a family movie night.  Our selection, Finding Neverland, won a whole bunch of awards and nods half a dozen or so years ago.  Since it was PG and Peter Pan-related, I figured it was child appropriate.  And, to some extent, it was -- a beautiful movie, one that you can't watch with dry eyes.  It's heartfelt and heart-capturing, the tale of J.M. Barrie's writing of Peter Pan and the life story of the family who inspired it.

But. 

[Spoiler alert ahead.  Stop now if you haven't seen this great movie and wish to watch it.]

But the mom dies.  Correction: the mom appears to have chest cold after chest cold, a cough that worsens and worsens and won't go away, a cough so bad that, at times, she can't breathe.  A cough that takes her life.  A cough that was just, as my youngest, Dash, pointed out, like the cough I used to have. 

"But yours went away, Mama," he said.  "She wasn't lucky," he noted, pointing at Kate Winslet.

Lucky.

I did what I had to do in that moment, and I held myself together.  We watched the rest of the movie, all wiped away a few tears -- for, as beautiful as it is, needless to say it does not have a happy ending -- and went upstairs for our bedtime routine: a couple of dozen Shel Silverstein poems, a lullaby or three (I love that they still want me to sing to them), and then I went out on my front porch and just sat on my ski bench.  It's been about a hundred degrees here, so it was surprising how pleasant it was outside.  I sat, looked out at my forest, listened to the bullfrogs croaking in my vernal pool, and took in the last few sounds of the birds on their way to sleep.  I had anticipated a good cry, but, instead, I found myself smiling.

Lucky. 

There's a great Tennessee Williams quote that reads: "Luck is believing that you're lucky."  For a couple of years, there, I had some quite bad luck.  And I do think that a large part of wellness is believing that you can be well.  It took a while for me to find that belief.  Luck may be believing oneself to be lucky.  Life is believing in one's ability to live it.  Before I got sick, I used to get so caught up in the little stuff of life, especially when it came to parenting: making sure I checked the right boxes, doing my best to get it right the first time, trying my damndest not to screw up.  And then, I screwed up, in many ways, because I got sick, and I couldn't check the boxes anymore; I filled myself with even more self-doubt, and, for a while, I even gave up.  I thought about the "last lecture"-type letters that I should write to my kids: one for when they hit 13, one for 16, one for high school graduation... college, graduate school, wedding, baby... thinking about how I should write these missives, make them meaningful, words by which to live.  And the advice I'd impart would have been grand and unexpected, things like "Fly by the seat of your pants every so often."  "Take risks.  If one doesn't pay off, try another."  "Welcome the blind turn." and "Above all, be a good person.  Nothing else matters."  I would've inspired them to think grander, to live bigger, to be better. 

I never wrote the letters.  But I mean the advice.

We all spend so much time caught up in the pursuit of things: the ever-elusive happiness, perfection, in the attainment of goals that will make us bigger, better, more right, more awesome.  We forget the here and now.  We forget that sometimes, we screw up -- we need to screw up -- in order to redirect our course.  We forget that life is as simple as we want it to be. And Neverland?  It's right outside our door, beckoning us to make the time just to be, just to play, forgetting about all of the crap that weighs us down, remembering that we can't please everyone but that we do owe ourselves pleasure.  We can't write an IOU to ourselves when it comes to being happy.  We can choose it, just like we can believe we're lucky.

I close this post from my front porch, deep in the woods of Vermont, likely my last dispatch from this Neverland for quite some time.  I've made a lot of mistakes over the last few years, and I've taken quite a few course-corrections, some forced on me by health and circumstances, some by my own hand.  And where I sit right now, I am healthy, I am strong, and, indeed, I think grander, I live bigger, I am better, and I am much, much happier.  And yes, Dash, I am one more thing:

Lucky.

What does an American look like?

Today, we're celebrating the 4th like many Americans do: with family, cramming in loads of fun, too much food, and some swimming to burn it off.  And based on a couple of conversations this long weekend, I have a burning question: on this day, when we celebrate what it is to be American, I wonder: what does an American look like?

Does she look like me, your typical WASP?

Do they look like my many friends and cousins in my native West Virginia, also WASPs, working hard in mines and mills and factories making "stuff," like steel, that is the backbone of America?

Does he look like my husband, first-generation American, descended from European immigrants?

Does he look like my friend, W., of Chinese descent, who's running for political office?

Does she look like my friend, S., a Muslim of Pakistani descent?

Or like my friend, B., a gay man who, finally, achieved civil rights in New York and can marry his partner -- yet not have that marriage recognized state-to-state?  (How American is that?)

As I travel this great country of ours, between two homes on coasts both West and East (Left and Right?), I'm struck by several hard truths -- among them, that I don't see a lot of people who make me wonder if, because they're different from me, are they somehow out to get me?  (I, certainly, was raised specifically not to think that way, which may have a big something to do with that.)  How much judgment do people continue to face because they're "different" in America, whether because they're women, gay, of a different ethnicity, from a different place ... And how odd is that, really, for a place in which I, myself, technically descended from illegal immigrants, since, after all, I'm not a Native American?

And what about those people?  The many undocumented people in America, what *are* they?  And what about their children, who were born here?  Aren't they American?  Aren't they the products of parents who, like my (legal and now naturalized) husband's immigrant parents, sought the American dream of a better life for their children?  What about the many people who bear another country's passport but who come here to work; can they claim America as their home?

Otherwise said, to whom do we -- almost all of us immigrants -- pay this debt we owe just by virtue of being here on this great, free soil?  Who gets to decide who gets to say they're American and -- gulp -- who doesn't? 

When I pass people on the street, I know that I'm not wondering who has a right to be here or not.  Especially because I live in places where I hear other languages frequently (in CA, Spanish, and in VT, French), I'm not wondering who's American and who's not because of what they speak.  If I see a hijab, or a turban, I'm not wondering if those people belong here, because I have friends who wear those vestements and who are American.  No matter what their ethnic group, their house of worship, their political leanings -- I'm not inclined to worry if they belong here or not.  Perhaps it's because I consider myself a liberal that I simply don't care.  If they're poor, huddled masses, yearning to breathe free, well, I say, come on in.  Abide by our laws, and live here if you wish.  I do think you should do so legally.  If that's a hurdle for some people, we should help them over that hurdle.  Isn't that the American way, helping our neighbors?

For if there's one thing I know, it's that there is no One America.  One can't assume that one person has a natural *right* to be American, and another doesn't.  This is a huge melting pot, and no one can assume that someone is or can be American, or not, just because of a look, or a zip code, or even a country of birth.  It's why I love it here.  I know people from everywhere.  And isn't that lucky? 

Isn't that the essence of America?

 

The Great Do-Over Begins

I'm officially giving myself a blogging time-out.  Not a time-out from blogging: rather, a time-out in which I have to blog.

Between looking for jobs, a couple of interviews (!!!), and preparing to spend a few days away with hubby, sans kids, while also preparing to decamp for much of the summer (maybe, possibly, depends on those interviews!) ... life has gotten a little crazy around here.  Throw in a couple of big, huge pizza parties, a handful of other big commitments, soccer, baseball, etc. etc. ... well, you know how they say "spring has sprung?"  Spring jumped me, Brooklyn-style.  And it beat me up, and, when I woke up from that coma, I was all like "what the heck just happened?"  And it was gone.  The?  Yeah.  That about sums it up.

So ... summer, FTW!  11 days of school left.  11 days until my "babies" are in 6th and 1st grades, respectively.  11 days left to be in school together, likely for the last time in their lives, as Petunia heads to an all-girls middle school while Dash continues his quest to be the next Derek Jeter.  ("Maybe they teach us how to be real shortstops in first grade!" he adds.)

And, of course ... 11 days to get all of the crap I've been meaning to donate all. freakin'. year. out of my house.  Wait!  Adding in weekends, it's more like 17 days -- that's found time!  17 days to find the guinea pig summer sitter ... 17 days to finish cleaning out my closet, and my office, and the basement (a trio also known as "the final frontier") ... 17 days to pack and repack ... 17 days to finish up everything and get the heck out of Dodge. 

I can do a lot in 17 days, and there's also a lot that I can't do.  I'm at the point in my reality where I have to take a deep breath, pour a glass of wine, and type out a blog post ending with the most important word in my vocabulary these days.  No matter what happens, no matter what doesn't happen, no matter the state of my closet, my basement, my office, or my guinea pig, I have 17 days.  No matter what the outcome, I'm leaving it all behind, even if only for a while: the stress, the stuff, the exciting but daunting job hunt.  In 17 days, even if only for a little while, I get to say: whatever.

On personal space

Recently, Petunia, Dash and I travelled to sunny Florida to visit their grandparents and aunt in their gorgeous home by the beach.  Flying coast-to-coast with them is increasingly easy as they age; just download a couple of new movies in their iPod Touch devices, give 'em a pack of Starburst each, and they forget they're cooped up in a 737 for six hours. It used to be that Dash would ride primarily on my lap, but, now, he sits by the window, Petunia between us, and I can veg out with my iPod or a good book.  Everybody wins!  A few rows ahead of us, a morbidly obese man had a quick but noticeable exchange with a flight attendant about the empty seat beside him; there was a long list of standby passengers, but the guy had bought two seats so that he could fly without encroaching on anyone else's personal space.  I found that thoughtful of him, 'cause some people aren't so kind.

You know the ones I'm talking about: the lady in line behind you in line at the pharmacy, literally breathing down your neck because she has absolutely no concept of personal space.  (This always happens to me at the pharmacy, for some reason.)  Recently, I asked one such lady to step back and give me some space, and do you know what she said?  "This is a line in CVS; this is how it works."  When I said, "I'm here to pick up medication for a highly contagious illness, so it's in your own interest to keep your distance," she didn't budge, though we were literally toe-to-toe.  So I used my best Simon-Says voice to ask the entire line to take several steps backward because those toward the front were getting squished.  Still ... no response.  Suckers learned that when you're a frequent flyer at CVS like I am, what this effort gets you is called to the front of the line to pick up your suddenly-ready script, even though it's been sitting there for days.  Pharmacy tech has my back, yo.

But what about when no one has your back?  Recently, we hosted several events at our house; and during those events, I close our dog in our master bathroom and post a sign on our master bedroom door reading: "Dog inside -- please do not open."   Well, once, I forgot.  I forgot during the party for which I had run out of time to tidy up the master -- which I usually do, even though no one ever opens the "dog, do not open" door.  Except I forgot the sign that time, so my bedroom, into which I threw all of the stuff I didn't have time to tidy up before the party, saw some traffic.  How much, I won't know ... but my dog even got loose from confinement, so that someone or someones even used my bathroom.

My problem with that?  I might have forgotten the sign on the door, but my bedroom door was c-l-o-s-e-d.  Do you ever enter a room at someone's house without permission?  I think not.  I felt like my personal space was violated, and I wonder if people now recognize me from that episode of Hoarders, 'cause my room was really that bad.  What can I say?  I have two kids and no household help, so I do the best I can and am steadily improving in that arena, but we still have too much stuff and not enough places to put it.  I'm working on that.  But I don't even know to whom I need to explain that because I don't even know who was in my private bedroom.

In any event, such as it is, I've realized that I have personal space "issues," as in, I don't like anyone in it -- not the pharmacy line-lady, not the stranger-in-my-bedroom, but, beyond that, not even my kids as much as before.  Our first night in Florida, my little guy wanted a Mama-snuggle, which I failed to read as code for "I don't want you to sleep a wink, oppressor."  Finally, I shoved the dude to the other side of the bed, put a pillow between us, and declared it to be the Berlin Wall of sleep.  There are some times and places where a person just needs her space.  I'm figuring in bed, in bedrooms, in bathrooms, and, yes, even in line at the pharmacy are reasonable claims.  It'd be nice to always have it on airplanes, too, but most people aren't as considerate as the guy in 11D and 11E -- like the 50-something lady in the handknit yellow sweater who, as she turned aside while waiting in the bathroom line to let someone pass, let rip a loud and pungent fart about two inches from my face, and then had the gall to lean in and tell me that The Fighter (which I was watching) is a terrific movie.  I briefly thought about giving her an example of exactly which type of blow I thought Micky Ward landed best, but, instead, I pulled my t-shirt up over my nose, turned to my son in the window seat, and asked if I could hold him for a little bit, at least until the Farting Lady could get to the bathroom and back. 

Fortunately, the kid didn't mind a bit.

Stuff and such

So.  What's up?

Here's what's been up around here, in rambling, random order, since the best I can muster at this point is a list:

Home organization: The Guv bought an elliptical, so our "sleepover room" in the basement is now half an exercise room.  We may be adding a Pilates Reformer to it soon.  Because of these changes, we're purging loads and loads of stuff.  It feels so good to get rid of stuff!  Less is more, indeed, when it comes to home organization.  I asked Petunia what will come of her Barbie castle, and she didn't even suggest selling it; she asked if I'd contact Ronald McDonald House to see if they'd like it.  Best. Kid. Ever.

Exercise: I'm getting stronger by the day and in every way.  I'm in love with Pilates Reformer training, and I can now see my abs developing.  I'm really, really proud of that, and I'm doing daily Pilates exercises (series of 5, 100s, etc.) to make sure they keep developing so nicely.  The whole philosophy of Pilates -- core strength, internal and external balance, flexibility -- it's all great, but my favorite part is the pairing of physical and mental health.  The mind controls the body; and a fit body makes for a fit mind.  I feel like I worry less, walk taller, feel better about myself, and feel better about the world around me with this training supporting me.  I titled my college thesis "Stronger and Thus Saner" (after a Senda Berenson, the mother of women's basketball, quote).  I feel like that now.

Health: My lung disease is well-managed and steady-state, though still a bit worrisome as my doc thinks I have an underlying autoimmune or genetic issue.  Time will uncover whether or not there's more to deal with.  Meanwhile, Dash may need new ear tubes, so the focus can be on him for a while. (He's fine.  Ear tubing is really no big deal.)

Cooking: I'm trying to cook more, and I just made my friend Carmen's cream cheese chicken for the first time.  WOW.  It's amazing!  For the Superbowl, we're going to watch my Steelers trounce the Packers, and we're going to eat cheese in celebration (and not cheese from Wisconsin, either).  Fondue, cheesecake ... we'll have some fun with it!  For my book club on Monday, I'm making granola clusters from The Earthbound Cook.  And sometime next week, I'm going to whip out my huge new Lodge cast iron wok and start experimenting with stir-frys.  Hungry?

Coaching: I love my 5th/6th grade girls' basketball team.  With a roster of 14, my hands are full, but blessedly so.  They are an amazing group of girls who are teaching me as much as I'm teaching them!  Watching the shy one blossom into one of our best defenders ... watching the one who struggles with confidence own the ball for the first time ... heck, watching my own kid fearlessly play defense in a way that reminds me of John Starks (she uses that booty!) ... it's all good.  I feel so lucky to know these kids.  I hope that when they look back on our time together, they remember that it was about more than basketball, that it was about building confidence, connectedness, teamwork, self-reliance and team-reliance, friendships, and, yes, a bit of basketball skill too.  Go team!

Gratitude: It strikes me how much better 2011 has dawned for me compared to 2010.  I haven't spent enough time singing the Guv's praises, but I wish y'all could meet him and see what a great guy I have on my team.  To be loved so much, so deeply, and so richly every day is something that I do not take for granted and am very grateful for -- and do my best to return in kind.  He helps me to be my best self; and, together, we work hard with our kids so that they're becoming their best selves too: little people with a strong moral compass, a solid bedrock of faith, and a knowledge that brains, hard work, and a good attitude will yield a richness from life that can't be bought or attained any other way.  For their presence in my life, I am so blessed.  For the family that surrounds me with love and shaped me as I'm shaping my own kids, I am lucky.  For the friends who'd bury a body with me, bail me out of jail -- or, better yet, be sitting there with me planning an escape -- I am overwhelmed with good fortune.  May good things come to all who touch my life in such a special way, and may I have the opportunity this year to give more than I take from all of these amazing people. 

That's what's up around here.  Good things.  Isn't it nice to get an update like that after 2010?! 

May your year be off to as good of a start.

A Dispatch from the Land of Perpetual Summer

Driving the mom taxi service today, I found myself feeling something unexpected: hot.  Looking at the thermometer, it read 67, but the sun was shining brightly with nary a cloud in the sky.  My jeans-and-sweatshirt winter uniform felt quite out of place.  I rolled the windows down a bit and wished that I had my husband's convertible for the day, except that wouldn't have fit the playdate-soccer carpool-fest.  When we arrived at the field, I lingered for a moment, closed my eyes, and smelled flowers blooming.  This was yet another day -- one of hundreds each year -- where I pinched myself to make sure that really, truly, I was here, living the dream in Silicon Valley.

Oh, and what a dream it is!  I met my husband for lunch today and pitched him my lastest start-up idea: a life-improvement "ecosystem" akin to Google's campus, where families committed to education live, are employed, required to send their kids to school and to tutoring if minimum GPA requirements aren't met, offered the opportunity to attend parenting, nutrition, and other helpful classes, and, most importantly, prevented from ever viewing MTV.  After reading about the teen pregnancy epidemic in Memphis, frankly, I'm surprised that no one has had the sense to take Teen Mom (and the other, like shows) off of the air.  Gone are the days of "My So-Called Life" -- and here are the days of the glorification of the Bart Simpson "why try?" society.  I'd like to build these "ecosystems" in each of the poorest towns in America, maybe starting in Memphis.  Am I being extreme?  Of course!  But don't extreme times call for extreme measures?  Think about this: do you think that in Memphis, there are 100 families who want better for their kids than teen pregnancy and appalling high school drop-out rates?  I know there are!  Do you think they want better jobs, better access to healthcare, better education, and better results?  I know they do!  So why not try a social experiment -- a boarding school for families, of sorts?

The likelihood of this idea ever getting traction is about zero, but I'm just distraught these days: distraught, most significantly, over the death of one of my personal heroes, Sargent Shriver.  The dude lived to be 95, so, really, I should be less unsettled, but I heard him speak back in 1994 -- speak of how he wishes he were young with the world full of opporutunities that lay ahead.  He spoke of a world where peace was raged rather than war, and where kids believed in things so fiercely that we would do whatever we could to guard those beliefs 'til our own deaths.  And the sad thing is that the world Sargent Shriver envisioned then is so, so far from the world we're in almost 17 years later.  We're in the land of Real Housewives and Teen Moms and the Jersey Shore.  We're in the land of American Idol and The Apprentice.  In other words, we're in the land of Everyone Wants to Be Famous for Nothing.  Our schools suck yet more, which I didn't think was possible, and, instead of doing something about that, Republicans are focusing their efforts on repealing healthcare reform.

I think Republicans need to go to my "ecosystem" and learn a thing or two about what "normal" people want.  They want jobs.  They want healthcare (ahem).  They want better education.  They want a future for their kids that's better than what they have.  They want to be part of the American dream.  Repealing healthcare is a colossal waste of time since it's guaranteed to fail.  They'll spend weeks attempting to break something and lack the balls to actually fix what's broken.  Shame, shame, shame on the collective lot of our do-nothing politicians.

So anyway, I'm not pitching my idea to VCs or to angels or even to my friends.  They'll think I'm batsh*t crazy (and already, probably, do).  I realize that my "family boarding school" is but a pipe dream, but I do so wish that someone else could tell me how we're going to get communities to commit to education.  It can be done, but it is so very hard.  The worst schools are in the worst economic environments (but, as we saw in Waiting for Superman, many even in good neighborhoods kinda suck).  How do we make it better?  How do we stop more Memphises (which was Marbleheads just a few years ago)?

I'm not going to get discouraged.  I'm going to polish my rose-colored glasses and get back to the important task of scheduling my kids for summer camp.  I've signed Petunia up for one called "The Nature of Food," a camp in which she can study the localvore movement in agriculture.  She'll plant a raised vegetable garden, visit a large-scale farm, learn about cheesemaking, and bake some bread.  I've signed Dash up for three separate science camps, "Earth Explorations," one about habitats, and something else that involves hiking.  And I'm overwhelmed by the feeling that I am so lucky, and so are they.  I know how to scout out camps that are going to complement their education.  I'm going to invest in this enrichment with money that I'm lucky to have.  My kids attend top-notch schools, have amazing summer experiences, and are surrounded by a community that values education above much else.  And in the back of my mind, I think: what about the kids who don't?  Here in the land of perpetual summer, it's easy to be duped into thinking that everyone is living the dream.  I always will feel grateful, lucky and oh-so-happy to be here in this dream world, but I won't be fooled. 

To Sargent Shriver, and to myself, I made a commitment long ago, and that is to stand by a certain few of my beliefs until I die.  I believe that the War on Poverty needs to be waged again in America, and I believe that it will only be won through education.  I believe that education in Memphis should be as strong as it is in Palo Alto, that it should be as solid (and as funded) in West Virginia as it is in New York.  How I'll channel those beliefs into action, I have no idea, but I'm ready to try.

Resolved

In the past, I've blown off New Year's resolutions as easily as I've blown off Lent.  (Hey, I'm a good Christian, but I'm a mom, too, which means I've given up my life as I know it for decades -- really, giving up chocolate is going to matter to the Big Guy???)  Anyhoo, this year, I have some real commitments to make because last year was the year of High Drama in just about every respect.  My health was all out of whack, and so were a whole lotta other things that I just won't go into, and, well, suffice it to say, I just wasn't too thrilled with 2010 -- except for the way we ended it, with an absolutely breathtakingly beautiful family vacation in my beloved Green Mountains of Vermont.  Nothing says "start fresh" like freshly fallen snow, and lots of it, in a place that reeks of peace and self-determination.

So this year, I have some resolutions, and they're more like life resolutions -- not just for this year, but commitments that I make with intention to live better.  I would love to hear yours, too.

I resolve:

To let it go.  What does this mean to me?  It goes way beyond "don't sweat the small stuff."  It means that I'm not carrying any "baggage" this year, or ever again.  It means that I have to accept that there are situations I cannot change, despite my best efforts.  It means that I have to accept that there are people whom I just cannot be around.  It means that I will not beat myself up over every mistake, second-guess decisions made from my gut, and fret over every move I make that may not be in perfect accord with someone else's universe.   I will be me.  I will be decisive.  And no matter what happens, I will move on.

To achieve peak fitness.  My life depends on it.  (To some extent, everyone's life depends on it, actually.)  While I've always been a gym member and aerobics groupie, I took my body for granted until part of it stopped working; I'll never do that again.  I'm focusing on strenghtening my core most of all this year, as that's the area right around my busted lung, and it feels right to encase it in something strong and protective. 

To eat with intention.  I am not a dieter, nor will I ever be.  Frankly, I eat pretty healthfully as it is, and my BMI is normal, so diet is not a huge concern.  That said, I sure do end up eating a lot of crap that I don't want to eat.  Especially running from practice to practice with the kids, it's easy to fill the void with taquitos.  (I'm convinced Mexican food is my undoing.  Have you noticed how there are rarely any veggies in Mexican cuisine?)  This year, I eat with intention.  I will fuel my body with food that belongs there. (And yes, occasionally, with things I just want -- I'm a firm believer in "everything in moderation.")  This means that I have to pay more attention to meal planning and cooking, but I have family support for that; we all want to eat out less, especially since I cook a lot better than much of what we eat elsewhere.  So, this is the year of "homemade."  My sous-chef, Petunia, is pretty fired up about that!

To get out more often.  With two kids in school, the Guv and I are relishing breakfast and lunch dates, which require no babysitter.  But we still need to make more time for things we love: concerts, movies, dinners with friends that aren't hosted in our backyard.  Whether it's with the Guv or with girlfriends, I have some awesome dresses that I need to wear somewhere.  Let's make some plans!

To be true to myself.  Wrapping up this list is something I lost a lot last year and need to regain: just plain being me.  I've always had self-confidence, but I had a heck of a lot of something new last year for the first time: self-doubt.  Part of this is fallout from the whole eff-up that was 2010, and part of this is where I am in life (in age, in friends, in income, in parenthood, in everything).  I got lost in who I was supposed to be versus who I am.  And that hasn't really changed much.  I'm a jeans-and-t-shirt gal who is never going to wear eyeliner and the perfect flats just to meet girlfriends for coffee.  Most of my girlfriends are okay with that.  I need to remember that I'm okay with that and get back to the things I love to do: wife-ing, mom-ing, writing, exercising, cooking, and, generally, living the dream.  (And maybe getting an out-of-home job one of these days...)

And that, my friends, is my wish for you in 2011: may you and yours live the dream this and every year. 

 

 

Glee! And ... not so much!

Where in the world is Rox this week?  Rox is in her minivan: goalie training 2x/week, practice 2x/week, games 2x/weekend.  Girl Scouts just about every week.  Newspaper on Fridays, followed by community service.  Guitar lessons.  And that's just the kids' stuff.  Then there's library duty x2, "centers," taking the dog in for Petunia's "VIP" presentation, taking Dash to the nutrition clinic, church, farmers' market ... cooking, cleaning, laundry, and more laundry.  This does not feel like the life of a Rox star.  This feels like the life of Cinderella pre-ball.  Rox is never home.  And Rox is tired.  But... it's like 80-and-sunny here in Silicon Valley every afternoon, and one of my flower bushes just decided to have a fall bloom, so Rox'll just stop complaining right now and get on with things.

Somewhere in between soccer and sleep, I had little fun on my other two sites, and I'll give you an I.O.U. for some heartwarming kids' stories in the near future, like Dash's letter to John Williams and Petunia's girl drama.  Wait, that's not heartwarming, that's claw-sharpening.

Anyhoo, here's what's up with me elsewhere:

On Good Stuff Rox, I have a Glee: Season One giveaway going.  I'm giving away Modern Family next, so stay tuned if that's your cup of tea.

On Rox on a Soapbox, I wrote a silly little ditty called "'Twas the Night before Election."  I'll be following that up soon with a piece on why Democrats need to abandon the teachers' unions.  Trust me, it'll be more gripping than a murder mystery, 'cause I just watched "Waiting for Superman," and I'm on a warpath.

And I'm reading one the best books I've ever read for my next book club, "The Good Daughters" by Joyce Maynard while I'm waiting in my minivan.

So y'all go and have some fun on my other sites, and I'm going to sleep, for tomorrow's another day of driving myself crazy kids around. 

My do-over/do-better year

During my first trip to NorCal in 1999, we attended one of my favorite weddings ever.  An absolutely breathtaking event from start to finish, a highlight involved the bride's brother's band playing the first dance song.  Brother was nervous, though, and totally flubbed the tune and the beat not even thirty seconds into the song.  The bride, one of the constantly-happiest people I've ever met, threw her head back laughing and announced, "Do over!  Do over!" -- and the song and the dance restarted.  It was a moment so full of love, love between the married couple and love between the siblings.  I bet that her brother never lived down that screw-up, but I also know that the bride didn't mind his mistake one bit.  If anything, that scene made the moment and the dance to follow all the more fun, enjoyable and memorable.  I've felt lucky for over eleven years to have shared that occasion, and that do-over, with them.

I think of that moment often because I've felt a lot like yelling "Do over!  Do over!" over the past year.  I screwed up a lot of things, including, especially, staying with the wrong doctor for too long before finding the courage to say, "No, that's not good enough!" -- and finding someone who cared to identify and manage my illnesses.  (Yes, illnesses is plural, and that's a boring medical subject into which I won't delve at this point.)  I also didn't readily accept help as early on as I should have.  I didn't make clear to friends and to family what I needed, because "needing" is "weakness," right?  I said "yes" to the wrong things and "no" to the wrong things, too.  I didn't stand up for myself enough and, when I did, stood up at the wrong times.  I felt like the star of "The Truman Show," part deux, but I wasn't nearly as funny as Jim Carrey.  In fact, nothing about life was funny last year.  Nothing's quite as unfunny as being unwell.

But now, I'm feeling much better, and, as my 37th year dawns, I'm realizing that there are a lot of things that I can, in fact, do over -- or, at least, do better.  For example, I can come back into my faith, which was all but lost last year.  I always thought that, if I were to face The End, my faith would empower me to embrace the change, knowing that greener pastures awaited me -- and who doesn't want to go to heaven anyway?  Well, I learned the answer to that question last year:  not me, yet.  But faith can give me a lot of tools to face what is shaping up to be an ongoing battle.  It can give me a place to turn when I'm feeling weak.  It can serve as a reminder of the goodness in the world that was and that is.  Most importantly, it can help me address the question of "what kind of person do I want to be?"  Goals do, indeed, change when you realize that you can have a lot of do-overs -- but only one life in which to do it.

There's a long to-do list ahead for me, and the first item in order is clearing away the wreckage of the past year.  Today, I feel that I've done that, as much as I can.  I have done a 180 on my life, choosing to view the time I have ahead as love-filled and positive, strengthening and empowering -- which is much better than the measuring out with coffee spoons that I was doing last year (with apologies to my favorite poet T.S. Eliot).  Kind of like the Ikea wine glass we broke into a million shards on our patio a few months ago, I'm well aware that jagged little pieces of the past year, health or otherwise, will occasionally come up and hurt me at the most inconvenient and annoying times; but I am ready to say, "I'm stronger than that."  And I am moving on from that time of darkness into a time of light.

This is my do-over, do-better year.  I am 37, happier indeed than I have ever been, and I am ready for even greater things to come. 

Things About Which I Do Not Care

So much for vacation brain ... My question tonight is: WTF is going on in the world when the most sweeping financial regulations since my grandparents were babies just passed Congress, an oil spill still is being mitigated, we're fighting two wars, and the headlines are about Sarah Palin's kid??? 

There aren't enough swear words even in my rather expansive lexicon for that.

Inspired by the media blitzkreig of Bristol Palin's engagement to her baby-daddy, I am writing a list of things and people about which I do not care.  And I mean, I do not care about these things and people at all.  No, I do not care that you do not care about whether or not I care about these things.  (Yeah... I don't know what I just wrote, either.)  Truth be told, I am outraged, and that's why I issue forth this list.  I do not wish to raise my children in a world in which more people know who Paris-Skanky-Ho-Hilton is than who their Congressman is.  It's disgusting, and it's shameful, and we must demand better from our media and from our educators; especially, we must demand better coverage of issues that impact our children's future, things like changes in education (did you know some school systems in California just had their school year shortened because of budget shortfalls?), agriculture (how have almost half a million dairy farmers gone out of business?), war (what the hell is going on with those?) etc.  I'm tired of having to dig too deep on these interwebs trying to find answers that I don't even know are true.  Truth is all relative, right? 

So here's what I know to be true: my sh*t list.  Please append to this list in comments if you wish.  Let's kick things off with the people (and their TV shows) about which I do not care:

• Sarah Palin or any of her progeny, or their progeny
• Lindsay Lohan
• Paris Hilton
• Mel Gibson or his wife
• The Osbournes
• Tiger Woods or any of the nasty skanks he screwed, or the details of his divorce settlement
• Kate Gosselin's hair, her self, her progeny, or her ex-husband
• Those people with 19 children
• Any "Real Housewives"
• The Jersey Shore
• Any other reality television personalities
• Any TV show that has anything to do with vampires or ghosts (I got over that at, like, age 12)
• Pretty much any movie or TV star, with rare exceptions, as you've probably already surmised
• Anybody who makes a living just by being famous
• Hillary Clinton (it's not that she's in the news or anything, I just never liked her)
• Al Gore and his divorce details
• John Edwards and his divorce details

I also don't like:

• Gay-bashers, Muslim-haters or any other kind of bigot
• People who insist that Obama isn't American
• Wall Street bashing by those who have no idea how this country's financial system actually works
• Horrorcore
• Blowhards
• Arrogance
• Envy
• Grudges
• Liars
• Whiners
• Judgment
• Fear
• People who fake food allergies in a misguided attempt at weight loss
• People who are rude to service people, especially restaurant waitstaff
• When people answer their phone and have a long conversation during a scheduled meeting (even if it's just two moms sharing coffee, it's rude!)
• Road rage
• Ear grommets
• Blogs that are funded by swag-pimping
• Anybody who makes my kids cry (doctors and nurses excepted; coaches aren't)
• The focus on the professionalization of childhood
• Ayelet Waldman's commentaries on motherhood
• Extremism
• Humidity
• The Big Lebowski (I fell asleep each of the seven times I tried to watch it...)
• Drama (no, not theater -- the kind of drama people manufacture to make themselves feel important)
• Gardening
• Fashion that hurts
• Cleaning

I'm sure that this list could grow and grow, and karma is probably angry with me for not balancing the negative with the positive.  Oh, but I will, I will ... and fortunately, the list of things about which I care is much, much longer.  But tonight: FTW, get that BS about Bristol Palin's engagement off of the news and move on to things that matter! 

[end rant]

A special kind of tired, but happy

There is a special kind of tired one gets when one is world-weary, which happens after days like today: days when all I want to do is go to church and find some peace on this (theoretical) day of rest, but, instead, I spend the morning cleaning my kitchen for the Girl Scouts, who will arrive at noon so that I can teach them to cook mystery ingredients over a roaring campfire built in my backyard hibachi.  Then, after the Girl Scouts leave, I help my daughter prepare for a school trip for what seems like hours.  (Wait, it was hours; have you ever tried to help a 9 year-old pack for what she's sure will be the greatest experience of her life to date?)  Then, I author my high school class notes, due last week (extension granted).  Finally, I attempt to polish a newsletter for my job on which I've spent hours, only to be thwarted by buggy software rendering me unable to finish.  Somewhere in there, the Guv whisked us out to dinner.  I can't even remember what I ate.

On the one hand, this is the stuff of life.  On the other hand, I'm tired... tired of being tired because I'm still not 100%, tired of not finding the balance in life, tired of never having enough time for anything I want to do anymore... things like reading the book for my book club on time for once.  (It's "Little Bee," and I'm 1/3 of the way through and enjoying it, a page at a time.)  I feel like I'm doing a whole lot of things for a whole lot of people -- things I value, perhaps, but they're of service to others and not, necessarily, for me.  Somewhere in there, despite successful attempts at scaling back earlier in the spring, I'm at it again.  I've overcommitted, and I've lost myself.  How do I return to that place that I knew two months ago, the one where I wasn't this out-of-whack?

But just as I'm feeling most sorry for myself (and really, I loathe self-pity, so it'll end with writing it down), I look in on the kids, who've been bunking together for a few weeks now after Petunia has decided she isn't such a fan of the loft bed, which she thinks has "seismic safety issues" among other things.  I look into Dash's room, and I find his sister lying next to him instead of in the top bunk.  Her arms are around him, and he's lying right on her heart.

This, I think, is why all of the other schlock in my life doesn't matter.   I've bitten off more than I can chew on too many occasions, over-promised and under-delivered at others, and yet: look.  Can you picture them?  He wears his favorite hand-me-down blue monkey PJ's while she sports her pink monkey nightgown (they don't plan to match, they just do); they hold on to each other, needing each other and loving each other so fiercely and protectively that, already, we fear the day when one will leave for boarding school or college.  His ear is to her heart; he needs the comfort of the sound, and she needs his nearness to her.  They can't get married someday, as Dash insists they will, but I do want to freeze this moment when he believes it, especially after a day when it seems like all they did was annoy the living daylights out of each other.  It all comes down to love, after all.

Tomorrow, I'll wake up and greet Monday with joy.  Most of my "work" is done for now, and, while I'll continue to do my various jobs, I won't raise my hand and take on anything else extra before the school year ends.  Not that it wasn't fun to try to teach a bunch of little girls to cook over a hibachi fire I had no idea how to build creating food I'd never before cooked ... but, yeah, I won't be doing that again.  My happy place is pretty far away from that, no matter how helpful I want to be.  My happy place is under the covers with my own sweet little kids, listening to their heartbeats, which echo, "love you, love you, love you." 

High-Fives from 2009

At first, I didn't want to remember 2009 at all; after my lung issues that started last June and are ongoing, it's a year I'd rather forget in some ways.  But I like to put a positive spin on things (plus geekymummy tagged me with this great meme) so here are my 2009 high-fives:

1. My kids gained independence

The one good thing that came from my being sick is that my kids learned to self-manage on an all new level.  At no point were they ever unsafe or unsupervised under my care, but, especially in Vermont over the summer, I wasn't bouncing around doing tons of things with them; I was lounging on a chair, couch or bed while they played.  And play, they did.  When I felt too tired to drive them to the pool or wherever, they grabbed fishing nets and caught frogs in our vernal pool.  They climbed trees.  They played tag and chase.  They did somersaults.  They drew pictures.  They laughed together, had a summer-long sleep-over and became the best of friends to each other -- not an easy feat for kids over four years apart in age.

In other words, for one brief summer, their childhood mirrored mine at Dash's age, when I was on a farm, surrounded by few toys but lots of nature and some other great kids (in my case, cousins) with whom I'd play.   I love that my childhood was so carefree, and I love that my kids had a taste of that this summer -- and love that we've kept our house in Vermont so that they have a direct contrast in lifestyle compared to their always-on Silicon Valley one.

2. BlogHer

I perked up this summer just long enough -- barely long enough -- to make it to my first BlogHer conference in Chicago.  I had seen a pulmonologist at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center who gave me some super-strong, amazing drugs that almost saw me through the whole conference, until I started reacting to them halfway through.  Yeah, that splotchy girl at BlogHer?  That was me. 

But oh, was it fun.  It was a giant party.  (I posted about it here, here and here.)  Yes, I learned some valuable things about blogging/writing; most valuable to me was a session on op-eds given by Katie Orenstein.  But mostly, I just had a blast, meeting bloggers from my Silicon Valley Moms Group sisterhood, a whole lot of funny ladies, and I slept (not much -- these gals party late!) in my own hotel room, totally on a vacation from my real life, for three whole nights.  It was heaven.  Next year: BlogHer in NYC!  Start spreading the news!

3. Unpacking the last box

In our seven years in NJ, we never unpacked all of the way ... perhaps a sign that we weren't meant to stay there.  (Of course, it could also be a sign that I had two kids and, at one point, a full-time job and full-time graduate school.)  In late-2009, we unpacked the last box in our Silicon Valley home.  I think it was our declaration that we're here to stay!  We all love it here ... the weather, our tons of friends, proximity to Stanford and to a great downtown, the Guv's five-minute bike commute ... Life is good here in CA!

4. Experiencing Tahoe

We are used to snow; after all, we live part-time in Vermont!  But I've never ever seen snow in my life like that in Tahoe.  Wow.  We spent a couple of nights there and, on one of those nights, slept through an eighteen-inch snowfall.  Unlike New England or New Jersey, it didn't shut down anything; you just put on your big-girl panties tire chains and deal.

The tire chain fiasco is worthy of a whole separate blog post, but, in short, we did it, and the kids skiied Sugar Bowl.  Dash could've cared less about skiing and, instead, wanted to throw snowballs all day, every day.  Petunia, however, could handle intermediate runs there.  Apparently, if one has learned to ski on "asphalt" (what Tahoe folks call Vermont's snow), one can ski rather well.  We watched our girl go over some light jumps at the end, reach the bottom, and pump her arms in the air.  I always wanted my kids to ski because it's something that I couldn't do and felt left out sometimes because of (those high school and college ski trips didn't accommodate non-skiers with fun stuff like tubing in my day).  Mission accomplished!

The bummer of it all was that I would have loved to snowboard in Tahoe.  Oh, how soft those landings would've been in all that fresh powder!  But, alas, I couldn't breathe.  2010 is the year my bum lung gets fixed, because I have to get back up to that mountain and ride. 

5. Last but definitely not least: the puppy

I never thought I'd be dog-less for as long as I've been, but the timing never seemed right.  When we decided that we're almost definitely positive that we weren't having any more kids, I started researching dog breeds (pretty much immediately after Dash's birth).  Criteria: small enough to ride inside the cabin of a plane with us, fun, kid-friendly, non-shedding, no-dander.  We ended up with our Havanese puppy Lola, and she is just the best dog ever.  She doesn't bark unless someone comes to the door.  She has ways to tell us when she needs to go outside.  She doesn't bite, and she loves to play.  Our favorite thing is to take her to the beach or to a park where the Guv chases her in circles; she runs super-fast.  We all love her to pieces, and she loves us right back -- and even the Guv, never a dog lover, will be caught letting her lick his face.  Lola's addition to our family was the highlight of 2009 for me.

Thanks again to geekymummy for tagging me with this meme!  It was lots of fun!  Have a great 2010 everyone!

In the Live Free or Die state

Rox: "I don't get it.  New Hampshire doesn't have a seatbelt law [for adults], but there are signs everywhere you get on and off the highway that turn signal use is required.  What gives?"

The Guv: "I totally get it."

Rox looks at the Guv quizzically.

The Guv: "It's like the saying 'your right to extend your fist ends at my nose.'  You can choose not to wear a seatbelt and might very well die because of it, but that only hurts yourself.  If you choose not to use your turn signal and take someone else out, well, that's just not right."

Rox: "I thought that this was the lawless state.  No cell phone/texting laws, no seatbelts... the turn signal thing seems kind of arbitrary."

The Guv, shaking his head: "Not to me.  Thank God this isn't another Nanny State [blah blah blah blah blah blah blah]."  [end rant]*

*Apologies; the Guv's rants against the Nanny State are so frequent these days that I just tune them out.  He probably said something worth repeating, but he has his own blog for that audience.  LOL

Greetings from our 54 hours in the Green Mountains

At long last, we arrived in Vermont at 3 am on Friday; but, by 9 am on Sunday, we'll be headed south to New Jersey via a visit with the Brooklyn in-laws.  We will have had 54 hours in verdant Vermont before heading back to a place to which I have mixed feelings returning.

On the one hand, I am excited to see our former NJ neighbors and friends, and I am extra-excited for Petunia to see her old schoolmates.  But on the other hand, I really don't want to see how the new owners of our fomer home have completely bastardized our house.  For the first year we lived in it, I called it the Stein's house, because we bought it from the Stein family -- but then I brought baby Dash home to it, and it became our house forever.  Yet, of course, it's not our house anymore, and some people who were a real hassle to deal with bought it and changed it immensely.  I think that Dash is probably going to have a world-class freak-out, but I probably won't notice because I'll be having my own while Petunia bitches in my ear about those awful people who ruined our house.

And then there's the matter of health -- which is a funny thing for me to chirp about while I'm recovering from pneumonia.  (Did I mention that I have pneumonia?  Yeah... probably should've posted about that diagnosis, but I've been too damned tired.)  Aside from my horrific illness at present, a lot of my memories of NJ are of Dash's 3+ years of ill health.  Coupled with the multiple bouts of bronchitis I had there and Petunia's and my asthma that totally disappeared in California, I'll confess: I'm scared of the air in our former home state.  I have a bag full of inhalers, and we'll be using them as a precaution.  In all fairness, I've heard from plenty of people that their health/allergies/asthma is worse in California; but for us, well, we're well.  (OK, we're all well except for me, right now, but that's my own running-myself-into-the-ground fault.)  Dash gained seven pounds within five months of living in California; a year before that, he'd been failure-to-thrive.  Hence, California is good for our health; New Jersey was not.  And we're going back, and I'm a little scared.

But I have so many happy memories there, too, that I'm going to have to focus on those.  Worry won't make me well any faster, but I'm thinking that a five-day stay in a super-nice Westin might help me along.  No cooking, no cleaning... a vacation from vacation!  I like it.  I can do it.  And I can also take my kids to their former favorite Vito's pizza, and to Sumo Sushi, and to climb on the tigers at Princeton... we can play on Petunia's former school playground, and, best of all, we can visit our old friends, some of whom we've missed terribly. 

So tomorrow, we're off, for a wonderful visit with grandparents and a very special aunt and cousin, and then with good old friends.  I wish I had more than 54 hours in Vermont to sort out all of these mixed feelings, but it is what it is.  It's been a long and wonderful year away, but it's time to see our old home again -- and to accept that places change, but friends remain.  See you soon, NJ.

On karma

For me, this new year has dawned full of happiness and exciting possibilities.  I am acutely aware of how lucky I am to be here in California, enjoying a high-quality of family life with healthy children -- things that eluded us during our New Jersey years.  I feel a joy so deep that the little things that used to wreck my days (such as still being awakened every night by a toddler) don't matter so much anymore, as the big things are under control.  And the big things -- having healthy kids, the Guv being happy in his working world, my fulfillment through hobbies and friends -- those are what matter.  We've found some good karma here in CA, and I'd like to keep it coming.

To that end, every single day I stop in my tracks at some point to hear the message of Luke 12:48: "For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required."  Sometimes, when I think of that phrase, it is hard not to crumple to the ground and cry for joy because of how happy and well we all are right now -- much has been given to us, indeed.  I am close enough to the time in my life when things weren't this way -- those endless drives to and from Children's Hospital of Philadelphia to figure out why Dash was so sick and so little, for example -- when it strikes my heart keenly and sharply that we have emerged victorious from a very dark time.  And every time I have that realization, I also realize that not everyone is so fortunate. 

So how, then, can I put my good karma to use to balance out some of the bad karma in the world?  Especially now, when the economy has hit so many so hard, there must be a way for me to reach out my hand to someone who is not in the same, good place and say, "I can help."  Our family has long supported domestic charities like Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army, but I find that writing a check -- even to a fabulous organization -- isn't the same as giving a little of myself to a cause.  And here in Silicon Valley, the causes of homelessness and hunger, at least, are very much in my face every day.  I remain shocked, in the land of Jobs/Page/Brin, that the homeless have to be on the streets at all.  Nine churches in Palo Alto spend nine months of each year in rotation, each opening their parish halls in the evenings for homeless meals and night sleeping for one month -- so, aside from summer, there is a relatively safe space for these folks, but they are still here and in increasing numbers.  I'm one of those strange folks that doesn't isn't afraid of or disgusted by the homeless, though; I just feel sad for them.  Perhaps some of these folks need medical or psychiatric treatment that they're not getting.  Perhaps some of these folks served our country and, as vets, are due something greater than an itinerant, uncertain life.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.  At the end of the day, just because I am educated and live in a house doesn't mean that I am more American or more a child of God than someone who has no home; indeed, the lesson of the Christ in whom I believe is that the "least of his brethren" should be cared for as we would care for Him.

It would be highly unacceptable to me for my children to grow up here in this Golden State (and believe me, here in Silicon Valley, sometimes it does indeed feel like the streets are paved with gold!) without being sensitive to the haves and have-nots of this world.  I want them to know how good they have it.  No, I don't want them to feel bad about having a home or "stuff" or food -- but I don't want them thinking that those who lack those things are somehow "less than."  Above all, I want them to have empathy, and I want that empathy to be bias for action.  And If I want that for them, then I had better set a darned good example. 

To that end, the Guv and I are hatching a project to do something about the many needs our own backyard on a larger scale; we plan to answer Obama's call to national service (though, lest anyone should worry, from within the confines of our current jobs and life).  Until then, we're doing some smaller scale things.  We just signed up to sponsor a family living in rural poverty through The Box Project.  Family to family, we can make a difference.

At the end of the day, I hope that someone someday can say about me that I gave more to this world than I took from it.   And hey, maybe by giving, I can keep the good karma coming; indeed, if "to whom much is given, much is required" is not karma, I don't know what is.