Jesus take the wheel

After they closed the Eisenhower tunnel on I-70 back to Denver, here are some things that, had I known them, would have spurred me to lean in the direction of getting a hotel room in Frisco for the night, rather than power through in a major snowstorm - at night - because I just wanted to get home:

• The alternate Breckenridge-to-Denver-via-Fairplay route is a high-elevation route along the Continental Divide that takes you over two mountain passes via a narrow two-lane road, with many switchbacks and steep grades.

• One of the mountain passes is Hoosier Pass, which rises to 11,542 feet and is one of the highest mountain passes in Colorado. Wikipedia informs me that it is "the highest point on the TransAmerica Trail, a transcontinental bicycle route that stretches from Yorktown, Virginia to Astoria, Oregon." Awesome.

• The other mountain pass is Kenosha Pass, which tops out at 10,000 feet (still very high). Fun fact: it goes near the town of South Park and has been featured in the show a few times!

• The entire route feels like a looooong, extended version of driving over Loveland Pass (albeit at slightly lower elevation), which I would never ever attempt in a snowstorm, at night, because I would be terrified of dying, and rightly so.

But alas, I didn't know any of these things. After living here for almost 9 years, it's kind of pathetic how little I know about Colorado, outside the confines of Denver and it's surrounding areas, plus the part of the mountains where I go to ski in the winter. I really need to broaden my horizons.

So that's how I ended up making my way back to Denver with my brother Sam and his wife Camille and their little dog, Walter, white-knuckling it for hours in the dark over snowy, icy, slippery roads, whose edges were barely visible to me so I couldn't see where I was coming from or where I was going. There were numerous points when I was scared of sliding off the side of the mountain because of the road conditions and steep grade. There were numerous points when the snow and wind were swirling so powerfully that I could not see anything beyond the car, so I simply had to stop in the road and wait for the visibility to improve because it felt like going backwards or forwards would surely end in our deaths.

Mercifully, Sam took over for the last two hours of the drive. He preserved my sanity.

By the time I got home, we had driven that day for over 9 hours in a snowstorm, over a total of five high mountain passes (before the really bad part of the drive, I had already driven over Vail Pass three times - long story, don't ask).  

After dropping Sam and his crew at their hotel, I was so fried and emotionally exhausted and worn out that I climbed into my bed, cried for 30 minutes, went to sleep, and basically didn't get out of bed until I picked them up at their hotel the next night so we could go out for dinner (which was lovely and delicious).  

When I closed my eyes, I had visions of sheets of snow blasted by the wind, illuminated only by the car's headlights. My body and my brain felt weighted down with a tiredness that overwhelmed me. 

I did not take this picture. I found it online. But this is what it looked like.

I was telling Kristin and Lisa about it the next day and Kristin asked how I got through it. The truth is, I don't really know. I just did. 

One thing that I am good at is pushing through pain, be it physical or emotional. I block out as much as I can so I can just focus on getting from one minute to the next. It's how I got through running a marathon with a herniated disc, Zeke's birth, climbing fourteeners, long plane rides with a crying baby when we were both sick. You just keep moving forward because there isn't another option. You can fall apart when you're done, but not before.

Sam and I distracted each other by playing music and harmonizing to songs we love - the Indigo Girls provide a nice challenge, with their vocal lines that swoop and swirl, trading off the melody and harmony. We did Bob Marley with Sam taking the bass line and me harmonizing on top of it. We told stories and tried to make each other laugh. 

Whoever wasn't driving would hold two phones, one with an altimeter and one with a map of our route, so we could call out the parts of the drive we couldn't quite see -- "the road is going to curve gently to the left coming up" "there is a series of switchbacks up ahead" "you've got a straight shot for a little while." 

I don't know what purpose the altimeter served, except to make me realize how crazy it was for us to be out in that weather with the bulk of the drive over 9500 feet. When we finally started to descend near Denver, there was something gratifying about seeing the altitude numbers drop.  Below 6000 feet, I joked, "we're practically at sea level!"

It's taken me a few days to recover from the experience, and I don't know that I'm fully over it. My chest still tightens when I think about it. 

I'm heading back up the mountains to take a ski lesson on Saturday, and the thought of the drive makes me nervous, which is not me at all. Plus the forecast is clear and the roads should be absolutely fine.

In any event, if something bad happens, I will deal with it. But here's hoping it doesn't come to that.

12 years ago today

I was scrolling through Facebook tonight and saw a friend's post referencing how warm it was for December 9th.

I thought to myself, "what is it about this date that rings a bell?" It seemed so familiar, but I couldn't quite place it.

Then I remembered it was my anniversary.

Even thought it's not a day I celebrate anymore, I was stunned that it had completely slipped my mind. I'm very calendar- and date-oriented. My sense of time is very visual - I see my days and weeks laid out on a grid. I keep a calendar with everything written down, but I also can see it in my head.

I can remember things like the date I first met an ex-boyfriend I dated years ago, or when I went to a particular football game a long time. I remember other peoples' birthdays and anniversaries. The dates others died.

And yet my own anniversary - a date that was obviously extremely significant in my life, as much as I look back on the event itself as a mistake - wasn't on my radar at all.

Sometimes the way my brain compartmentalizes amazes me. I look back on being married and I can barely remember what it was like.

Today I was taking Josie and Zeke and Josie's friend Annie to a jumping/parkour/gymnastics/ropes course place. It's seriously badass.

In the car on the way there, Annie said, "Wendy, are you ever going to get married again?"

She is not, shall we say, a shy girl.

"Probably not," I said.

"Why not?"

"Because I can't imagine why I would. I don't want to be married."

"But why?"

"I don't know. I don't like people in my face all the time. I don't want someone living in my house and spending my money and bothering me all the time. I like to see who I want to see when I want to see them, and then they can go home."

"Do you want a boyfriend?"

"I don't know. I guess. It's nice to date someone."

Josie said, "she dates lots of guys!"

I laughed. I wanted to clarify that I've been on lots of dates, but I doubt she would have cared about the distinction.

My kids are very encouraging in this regard.

A few weeks ago Josie said, "Mommy, I want a step-father."

"You're going to be waiting a while," I said. "Don't hold your breath."

I do know this, though - if I do meet someone and it turns into something, I will remember, years later, the date and day of the week we met.

Until my brain decides that it's better for me never to think of the entire episode altogether, and if I do think of it, it seems like it happened to someone else.

Peanuts! Popcorn! Get your red hots here!

We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and die. The storybooks are bullshit. Now I want you to come upstairs with me and get in my bed!

- Ronnie Cammareri, Moonstruck

We are doing the "ask a bunch of questions" thing, but not in a way that feels forced or awkward. More like fun questions that I like asking because it's way more interesting than, "so, do you have any brothers and sisters? where do they live?"

"Have you ever been arrested?"  "What kind of recurring anxiety dreams to you have?"  "If you wanted to run for public office, are there any incriminating photos or videos that would stand in your way?"  "How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

I love questions like that.  We chat in that vein for a while.

Then he asks, "so what are you looking for?"

Ah.

What do I want?  Which should really be, who do I want?  Who should I want?

It's the question that keeps me in a perpetual war with myself.

Because sometimes I wonder if the who is less important to me than the what.

The what being that particular feeling that is so rare.  The chemistry. The butterflies, the tingles, the charge in the air, the excitement, the sense that when you're together, you're in on a secret that no one else is in on. What my eloquent friend Lisa refers to as the "red hots."  It doesn't happen with many people, but when it does, oof.

And so I find that I will endure quite a lot for the what.  Sometimes the who attached to the what - those elusive red hots - is, on an objective level, not the who you might have put yourself with, all things being equal.  The who might be a pain in the ass, or be persnickety in ways that annoy you, or be self-absorbed and infuriating.  Most of the time, it might feel like he's utterly wrong for you.

Except when it doesn't.  And when it doesn't, the feeling is intoxicating, and so hard to let go of.  He might make you miserable, but you can't get him out of your head.

Is it worth it?  Is the euphoria worth the pain?  At some point, do you need to give up the yearning for the red hots in order to achieve some emotional stability?

"What are you looking for?" he asks again.

I put on my best Mona Lisa smile and shrug.

"Let's just see what happens."

But deep down, I know.  I can't live without the red hots.  And it's always been my downfall.

We're boss at denial but best at forget

Yesterday I got a text message from the kids' dad, telling me that they had been on their way to the mountains to ski, but that in the bad weather bearing down on Colorado right now, the car they were in (a friend's truck) lost traction and slid off the road into a big pile of snow.  He wanted to let me know that it had happened, but also to let me know that everyone was fine.  Apparently Zeke's remark was, "that was scary but kinda fun."

I feel like I should have been more freaked out.  But the truth is, I wasn't remotely fazed or worried by the news.  Partly because I trust their dad to keep them safe, and I know he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize their safety - and hell, I've had my car slide around on those snowy mountain roads.  It happens.  But more fundamentally, because I am convinced that the forces of the Universe - forces that I don't know that I actually believe in, mind you - would not allow something as awful as the death of another grandchild to happen to my family again. That after losing Emma, it can't happen to us again.  It can't happen to my parents, to me, to my brothers, to any of us. It simply cannot happen.

It is the worst kind of magical thinking.  There is no logic to it whatsoever, especially because I am deeply, deeply ambivalent about the existence of a god or higher power or anything like that.  Plus, that kind of faith in some level of universal fairness didn't apply to Emma in any event, given that she was killed in a car crash four years after almost being killed in a car crash.  So I already know that it's bullshit.  The Universe doesn't give a fuck about fairness or justice.  My own experience makes my magical thinking more absurd than it already is, and I know it.

But nonetheless, every time I have been in the slightest bit of perceived danger, whether from icy roads, wicked turbulence, whatever, I'll have a moment of fear and then think, "no, it can't happen.  Everything will be fine."  "This plane won't crash if the children and I are on it.  Because it can't happen to my family."

Not that it shouldn't, or that it would be sad or unfair.  It can't.  It's an impossibility.

This insanity doesn't actually affect my behavior, which is the important thing.  I still put my kids in booster seats and make them buckle their seatbelts.  I drive carefully.  I make them wear helmets when they ski. I protect them as much as I should.

But I don't worry as much because in my mind, nothing bad can ever happen to them.  Which I guess isn't so terrible.  Whatever gets you through the night.

Model U.N.

Later, as we stood in the hallway with no adults to greet us, in a house that seemed to be devoid of furniture - except for a hair dryer in the living room - I had a better sense of her apprehension.  But at the time, after logging a "oh, so that's where they've been," I couldn't figure out what Josie's problem was.

The house in Virginia that my parents live in, and where we go for Thanksgiving every year, has been their home since I was 14.  Which may not seem like a big deal to people who grew up in one city and live in close proximity to their extended family, but with my peripatetic upbringing, having a single location that has been something of a home base for over 30 years is huge.  Even though I only actually lived there for a year and a half - the time after Israel and before India, when I attended Langley High School for 10th grade and half of 11th grade - it's as much of a "where I'm from" as I've got.

The house is in a quiet, wooded neighborhood and sits up at the end of a pipestem.  There's another house across the pipestem, and until last year, the same family lived in the house since we moved here.  They were a lovely family, with three kids close in age to Josh and Sam and me.  We chatted when we saw each other coming and going and kept up with each others' lives in a general sense.  We were friendly and neighborly, but not really friends.  Their daughter is around my age, but we never hung out - my natural reticence and introversion would never have allowed me to just approach her about getting together.  As much as I can be social and outgoing, it's always been an effort (particularly as a teenager), and I don't approach the world as if I assume that people have any interest in wanting to hang out with me.

My children are another story, however.  Zeke will introduce himself to anyone, and Josie, while slightly more reserved, isn't too far behind him.

The confusion started when Josie came downstairs yesterday morning and announced, "I want to have a playdate with Johnston and Winston."

I didn't have a fucking clue what she was talking about.  In my head, the associations those words brought up were first Brookstone (the gadget store) and then Masters and Johnson, neither of which made any sense.

"Who are Johnston and Winston?"  I asked.

"Our friends across the street."

I looked at my mother for help.

"There's a new family that moved in after Ann sold her house last year.  They've got two kids, I think they're around 7 and 9."

"Ah.  And their names are Johnston and Winston?"

"Justin and Wilson, actually.  The family is Chinese, grandmother lives with them and doesn't speak much English, the parents are both doctors, and the kids go to Spring Hill Elementary."

"Oh, OK.  And you and Zeke have met them?"  I asked Josie.

She looked at me as if I were demented.  "Noooo!  Not yet!  But we're going to."

Fairfax County Public Schools aren't closed all week (the way Denver's are), so Johnston and Winston were still in school, but the plan was to wait until they got home and go across the pipestem, say hello, and play.

Hours later, after we went and got mani-pedis, hiked at Great Falls, and the kids went to the park with my dad, Zeke, Josie and Hazel disappeared.  A while later, Josie came back looking very serious.

"Hi, honey.  Where have you been?  Are you ok?"

"We were at Justin's house.  But I don't want to stay because I don't speak Chinese."

"But Justin speaks English, right?"  I asked.

"Yeah, but nobody else does."

So she stayed with me and colored for a while, and then went to watch Tinkerbell and take a nap.

Zeke came over a while later.

"I had dinner there," he said.

"What did you have?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean you don't know?  Was it a sandwich?  A hot dog? Was there meat of some kind?  What did you have?"

"I don't know.  Anyway, I'm just getting my Kindle and I'm going back."

"Is Hazel still over there?"

"Yes.  We're playing."

He left.

My mother and I looked at each other.  "We should go over there and say hello and thank the parents," I said.

As we stepped outside, we saw Zeke walk up to their front door and just let himself in.

Interesting.

We walked across the way and knocked on the door.  Through the little side windows, we could see the kids hanging out on the floor right in front of the front door.  The downstairs seemed very bare - no discernible furniture, no rugs on the floor, no pictures on the walls.  Hazel was sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, and Zeke and another boy were inspecting a Rubik's cube.  There was a kids' plate of food sitting on a stool.

We knocked some more.  The kids looked blankly at us through the window, but didn't move to open the door.  We couldn't hear any footsteps or see any sign that there were adults interested in talking to us.

So I just turned the doorknob and we walked in.

A little Chinese boy who I assume was Justin looked at me.

"Hi," I said, offering my hand.  "I'm Wendy, Zeke's mom."

He held his hand out and limply shook mine, but appeared so painfully shy that it was as if his personality had been pulled into a black hole.

My mom and I stood there some more.  Nobody said anything.

I could hear some activity in the kitchen, so I just walked back there saying, "hellooooo??"

We found Justin's tiny little white-haired grandparents, bustling around and cooking at a wok.  They smiled when they saw us, said, "hello! hello!"  They gave my mother a huge hug, pointed at me and said in extremely broken English, "you daughter?"  When she said, "yes," they smiled and said, "very beautiful!"  Mom said, "thank you, are the little children behaving?"  They said, "oh, yes, very nice!"

There was some more back-and-forth which led me to believe that nobody really understood what the other was saying.  But it was all good.

So we said thank you, walked back to the door, told Zeke and Hazel to behave, and left.

As soon as the door closed behind us, we looked at each other and said at the same time, "what the hell was that?"

Whatever it was, I understood why Josie felt a little weird.  Nothing was wrong.  Everybody was very nice.  But it was just an odd scene.

Zeke, being Zeke, stayed for another hour.  Of course, this is the kid who can meet kids at a Passover seder in Reykjavik and become best friends with them without knowing their names or having a common language.

I don't understand it, but I admire it.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you

A friend and I were recently talking about friendships and love affairs, and whether you can ever truly know someone.  Oftentimes, when you hear on the news about heinous crimes being committed, there's that neighbor or even the family member who insists that there's no way the perpetrator could have done it - that they knew him and that it was impossible that he or she could have done something so heinous or evil.

But it most cases, they were conspicuously wrong.  People reveal what they want to reveal, and it's never everything.

It always makes me wonder what it even means to know someone.  Is it knowing about them, or knowing things that they've done?  I think that can be part of it, but there are also plenty of people who I think know me fairly well, but who will never know about certain events in my life because I will never tell them to anyone.  But that doesn't mean that they don't know me, have a good sense of me, or appreciate my good qualities and bad qualities.  It doesn't mean they can't predict, to a certain extent, how I will react to or feel about a certain situation, or read me when I'm not being particularly forthcoming.

My mother, for example, can start a conversation with me on the phone in which I will go through the  routine how-are-yous, and without me saying another word, she can immediately tell if there's something wrong or if I'm exuberantly happy or something in between. Of course, you would expect that if anyone knows you, it's going to be your mother.  But that's not the case for everyone.

Is knowing someone knowing how they grew up and what they like or dislike, and how those things shaped them? Knowing their strengths and weaknesses?  Knowing their approach to life?  Having a sense of their soul, if such a thing exists?

It's unanswerable questions like these that kept me from being a philosophy major in college.  I can't stand endless consideration of questions that ultimately have no resolution - it's just mental masturbation to me.  I like answers and certainty, or at least I can appreciate that a question has an answer, even if I don't personally know it.

There was a relatively recent article in the New York Times that someone sent me about an old psychological study in which strangers discussed a series of increasingly personal questions designed to foster closeness by having each person expose their vulnerabilities to the other.  According to the study and its characterization by various articles, going through the 36 questions can make total strangers fall in love, though the skeptic in me calls bullshit on that. 

It's still fascinating, though.  And suggests to me that truly getting to know someone is just a matter of timing, luck, wanting to know them, and making an effort.

Adventures in Online Dating: "Yikes" Edition; or, From the "How Not To Proceed" file

I've been writing quite a bit about this stuff, but it's on my mind, because suddenly I'm communicating with a bunch of guys and going out on a number of dates.

Setting aside the "isn't this a gas" aspect of having crazy or funny stories to tell, the communications I get increasingly remind me that for some people, online dating creates a scenario in which reading someone's dating profile leads to wish fulfillment fantasies that usually (if not always) bear no relationship to reality.  It can be a dangerous game - you interact with someone online and build them up in your mind before you've met them, filling in the gaps in what you know about them with what you want those gaps to be, and then you've become infatuated with a unicorn.  A phantom.  A reverie.  And it never ends well.

This is why I approach it extremely cautiously, assuming nothing, expecting the worst.  When I go on a first date, I'm hopeful, but I expect nothing.  That way I can be pleasantly surprised if he isn't a total troll.

It's also why, if I'm making the first move and reaching out to a guy after reading his profile, I am the embodiment of chill.  An initial message will never be any more provocative than, "Hey SoAndSo, you have an great profile. I dig your picture on the summit of Longs Peak. And I'm also a huge Michael Chabon fan - what's your favorite book of his?  Cheers, W."

Friendly, indicative that I've paid attention and actually read his profile, but casual and breezy enough that I don't come off like a crazy-ass stalker type.

Which is why it's a little bit alarming - and a lot sad - when I receive this message from a 61-year-old guy (well outside my stated age range).  I've excerpted portions of it, but beyond that, I've left the language and punctuation intact:

our words are defination of what is inside us , from your words i have a positive feelings about you, you will bring out the best in me, i see us together for ever , i dont speak when i am not sure, we have a lot of people who's words cant holds waters but for me my words are my bounds, we have to commit to each other and give in everything that we make us strike a spark and live happily.  ... I know what my heart tells me and I am not in a rush, i saw a lot of other people here but my instincts tells me you are a great, good hearted and the best woman any man can have as a mate. We're all human and not perfect but you appear to be different from the heart. Since i've spent the night dreaming about you, i want to spend the day cuddling up with you. 

A)  What. The. Fuck.

B)  Oh, honey.  No.  Just no.

Not that this is news.

The other day my coworker and I were on a bus taking us from our resort to get some dinner in downtown Disney* (a truly vile place), and, as women sometimes do, we started talking about hair.

She has this super-cute short cut that looks adorable on her, but said she gets bored with her hair and likes to change up her style from time to time.

That got us talking about this friend of hers who, growing up, had an unfortunate Jewfro that was not only massive, but bright red/orange.  We both lamented how awful it must have been for her.

"Afros are coming back, you know," she said.

"Jesus, please don't say that.  At least not as far as white women are concerned."

"I'm serious, I think they're coming back."

"Well, I think I've seen them in fashion editorials, but no normal person looks good in an afro.  Well, black women can rock them, but most white women definitely cannot."

"Remember when they used to be so popular?"

"Tell me about it.  Back in the early 80s, at some point my mother and her friends started getting perms that were defintely afro-inspired.  And then I followed suit.  I think it was about 1983."

"Really?  That's awesome.  Was it a true 'around your head' afro, or more of a Rosanne Rosannadanna type 'do?"

"Probably a combination of the two, but leaning more towards the 'around the head' deal.  After the hairdresser was done, I looked in the mirror and started to cry."

We laughed.

"It's crazy the way standards for attractiveness change," I said.  "But even under shifting standards, I look back at pictures of women from that time and think that there was some kind of collective cultural beauty-blindness going on.  Like no one could see how ugly it all was."

"It's just all fodder for Throwback Thursday at this point."

"Right?  And it really hammers something else home."

"What's that?" she asked.

I gave her a big smile.

"Men will fuck anything."

We both cracked up, but nodded in agreement.**

___________________________
*We were there for a legal conference.

**Guys, don't be offended.  We were joking around.  I kid because I love.

Free ranging right off the farm...

I definitely subscribe to the parenting school of thought referred to by my friend Lisa as "benign neglect."  I love my children, I care for them, I make sure they go to a good school, I feed them, I take them to museums and the zoo and the park and all that good stuff.  But I do not hover.  My kids can be upstairs when I am downstairs.  They can be in the bathtub without me in the room.  They can play in the back yard without my supervision. They can go to a friend's house or a birthday party without me staying.  When they are 6, they will be allowed to fly unaccompanied to go visit their grandparents.

But the prevailing parenting ethos these days is very much counter to this philosophy.  There seems to be a trend towards infantalizing children, insisting that every move they make be monitored and tracked and supervised, even for kids well into their teens. 

And then people wonder why kids get to college and are incapable of fending for themselves or taking any responsibility for their actions.

I follow a blog called Free Range Kids, and the more I read, the more I resolve to allow my kids appropriate levels of independence, the freedom to explore and make mistakes and learn from them.  It's how I was raised, and I firmly believe that it's the way to go.

I'm kind of bummed that I wasn't awake during a recent episode which might have tested my resolve.

My parents live on a decent-sized plot of land set back from the road in a very quiet and safe neighborhood.  And the weather in DC last week was lovely -- a bit rainy and damp early on -- but perfectly suited to playing outside, especially if playing in the mud is your thing.  So the kids played outside and enjoyed accompanying us on walks around the neighborhood, including a very short loop that leaves via the front of my parents's house and then follows the sidewalk around to a quiet road that goes along the back of their property, where you can cut back into the yard.

Zeke was allowed to play outside by himself to his heart's content, with the caveat that he needed to tell us where he was and stay in the yard (which is huge, so this was not an onerous request).  But he was really enjoying being outside by himself and having all that woodsy space to roam in (we live in the city, so our yard is postage-stamp-sized and mostly covered with brick patio stones).  So knowing the little out-the-front-of-the-house-around-the-sidewalk-in-the-back-yard loop, he took a little stroll.

But didn't tell anyone where he was going.

I was taking a nap with Josie at the time, so I missed all the hubbub.  But J kind of freaked.  Zeke was home shortly thereafter, being "escorted" by a neighbor who was driving by -- the neighbor wisely didn't invite him into the car, but ascertained where he was going and then drove alongside of him as he walked.

Everyone told me about it afterwards when I woke up, and I guess they expected me to be all upset.  But I really wasn't.  I talked to Zeke and told him that he needed to tell a grownup before he goes outside, and definitely if he's going to go for a walk, but my immediate thought was that Zeke isn't stupid (and in fact, he's both incredibly smart AND very cautious and thoughtful with regard to his own safety).  The neighborhood is quiet and safe and there's virtually no traffic, and he knew where he was going and was never in any danger. 

Yes, four is a little young to be going off on walks alone, if only because he is not quite able to control his urge to throw things into the street (like rocks, which could hit cars, which could cause damage and piss off drivers).  But I was secretly kind of proud of his desire for, and enjoyment of, a little bit of independence.

When I was little, I walked to school by myself at the age of 6 (and was responsible for escorting my 5 year old little brother).  All my other friends did, too.  It was not a big deal at all.  I flew alone on an international flight when I was 5.  Throughout my childhood and my teens, I was given enormous freedom by my parents, who raised me to have common sense and then trusted me to use it. 

I would like to impart that same gift to my children, the judgment of the helicopter parents of my generation be damned.  The world is a much safer place than most people are willing to acknowledge.  And life is much more fun and enjoyable when you don't approach it with the assumption that there is evil and awfulness around every corner.

Are you a "free range" parent?  Do you think I'm nuts?  What were you allowed to do as a kid that you would never let your kids do today?

First we taught him to talk, now we teach him to be quiet

When angry, count to four.  When very angry, swear.

-- Mark Twain

Like most people, I yell at other drivers when I'm in the car.  And like most people, I do it with the windows up so they can't hear me.  I don't really suffer from road rage much - it's just a habit, a verbal way of blowing off steam, but it's rare that I'm ever truly angry with other people on the road.  It's just not worth the time and effort.

And when Zeke is in the car, if I do "talk" to other drivers, I generally limit myself to sarcasm rather than swearing, because he is a total sponge these days.  Everything he hears, he repeates.  Ad nauseum.

But every once in a while, something makes me so furious it takes me by surprise.  

Like this past weekend.

Saturday was a beautiful, glorious, sunny, warm day in Denver.  Spring was showing signs of definitely springing soon.  Of course, everyone was out, at the parks, running, playing at the playgrounds, you name it.

We had talked about going to the zoo.  But if you don't get there early on a nice day -- especially the first warm, sunny day in weeks -- you're totally fucked in terms of being able to find a parking space.

So of course, we didn't get organized early and by the time we got to the zoo it was a complete mob scene.  Within the parking lot itself, it was huge masses of cars circling and circling and not a lot of finding empty spaces.  We made our way down the ramps at the parking deck, searching in vain for a spot, any spot, but there was nothing to be found.  

Until we got to the very bottom level of the parking deck, and back in the corner, there was a woman standing next to the open door of a minivan, and next to her was an empty space, with a stroller in it.  The woman was fiddling around on her phone.

We pulled up to the spot.  We looked at her.  She looked at us.  I made a "nu?"* type of gesture and pointed to the spot.  And she said, "I'm saving it."

At this point, we had been crawling through the parking lot for at least 20 minutes.  Our kids were both being good, but Zeke was getting restless and was ready to get out of the car and do something.  And it wasn't just an affront to me; there was a long line of cars snaking throughout the parking deck, in both directions, full of families with children, trying to find a place to park.  So this woman was violating every rule of parking deck etiquette in the book, and was being a rude hag about it, to boot.

"No! You do not get to save spots!"  I yelled at her.  Both front passenger windows were open, so she definitely heard me.

She looked at me and shrugged and went back to fiddling with her phone, like one of those a-holes from the SNL sketch a few years back.

I totally blew a gasket.

"EXCUSE ME!  You can't save spots when people are waiting like this."

She refused to look at me.  I contemplated getting out of the car and moving the stroller (or throwing it against the wall), but retained at least a modicum of sanity and stayed where I was.  

But not without a parting shot.

"YOU'RE AN ASSHOLE!"  I screamed.  

"Fucking COW!"  Jason added.

Then we drove off.  And realized that Zeke was sitting back there, listening intently.

We looked at each other sheepishly, praying that Zeke wouldn't start repeating anything he had heard.  We strongly believe in not swearing in front of the children, and rarely, if ever, slip up.  We whispered to each other in the front seat.  "What is the matter with us??"

Thankfully, Zeke was quiet until we were inching back up the parking deck ramp, trying to get out, and I said, "I can't believe that woman.  Dammit!"

And Zeke said, "dammit!  dammit!  dammit!"

"Zeke, honey, that's not a nice word.  Mommy shouldn't have used it, and you shouldn't use it either."

"Let's get out of here," Jason said.  "We can go to the park."

"Yeah!" said Zeke.  "Let's get outta here!  Let's get outta here!  Let's get outta here!"

Dodged a bullet on that one.

*Yiddish for "well?"

He's got gaps, I got gaps, together we fill gaps.

Jason is an incredible "people person." He will chat anyone up, enjoys talking to strangers, and has a memory for faces like no one I've ever met. He knows the names of all of our neighbors, and their dogs. When we lived in Atlanta, he knew everyone on our block and around the corner. He can meet someone once, for 3 minutes, and totally remember everything about them when he randomly runs into them in a different location a year later.

"Hey, when I was at the store, I ran into Chris."

"Who is Chris?"

"You know, Chris. He lives over on Jackson. Has a kid named Ellis. We met him that one time last year."

"Nope, not ringing a bell."

As you may have surmised, I am not similarly talented, particularly if I meet someone in one location but run into them in another. I can't even count how many times in college I would be walking to class, and someone walking the other way would say "hi, Wendy," and I'd be all, "whaaaa...? Oh, hi!" And I'd have no idea who it was. Someone from the dorm? Someone I kissed at a party? It was all a big mystery.

Even a formal introduction, either made by someone else or self-initiated, is no guarantee. There are so many parents we see in the park across from our house, particularly during spring and summer when it's warm and it stays light longer and everyone is out running around with their kids. We stand around watching the kids climbing on the monkey bars or going down the slide and invariably the kids will start to interact and so the parents will start to chat and introduce themselves.

And then I'll see them the next time we're out, and they'll say, "hi, Wendy!" and I'll realize that they look vaguely familiar and I've met them before but I couldn't tell you their names if you held a gun to my head.

I don't know what this says about me, but I doubt it's good.

But on the details that affect or are involved in my daily life, my memory is impeccable, particularly when it comes to our children. And that is where Jason and I differ vastly.

I could list virtually every article of clothing in my children's drawers, what is in the laundry, the entire channel lineup on DirecTV and which children's show is on when, what children's books we own and how old Zeke was when he became interested in each one, how old each child was when they reached particular developmental milestones, who has been to the doctor and for which ailment, who had which shots and when, and every daycare teacher either of them has ever had.

Whereas Jason will go pick up the kids from daycare, and when he comes home, I'll ask how much Josie ate or what time Zeke took a nap, and he'll look at me blankly.

"Well, what did Theresa say about Zeke's behavior today?"

"Who is Theresa?"

"One of his teachers that he's had for at least 5 months."

"Yeah, I can't remember any of their names."

??

I don't understand this at all. Maybe it's a guy thing?

If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.

I come from a family of analyzers. We're all very think-y and into picking apart arguments.

When I was little, about 3 or 4, and we were living in Venezuela, I spoke both English and Spanish. And was apparently in the habit of switching back and forth between languages, depending upon the exigencies of a particular situation.

I had a little Peter Rabbit china bowl that was part of a set. And one day I accidentally dropped it and it broke. When asked about it, I instinctively responded in Spanish rather than in English, because that allowed me to say "se me cayó" -- "it fell from me" -- rather than, "I dropped it," which implied a greater degree of culpability on my part.

No wonder I became a lawyer.

My brother, Sam, is very much a Deep Thinker (check out his blog for proof). He has always been this way, and was particularly hilarious as a kid. Always coming up with bizarre analogies and looking into the details of any given situation far more than you would have expected from such a little monkey.

When he was in kindergarten or first grade (I forget which), we were living in Israel. My brothers and I went to the American school there.

Sam and his fellow classmates were in their room and were instructed not to go out the door while their teacher stepped out for a second to do something. Sam, being Sam, took the instruction quite literally. So he didn't exit via the door. He exited via the window (which was low to the ground and caused no injury).

And was quite righteously indignant when he got in trouble. After all, no one had told him he couldn't climb out the window.

His teachers humored him by preparing a list, just for Sam, of all of the things that he was and was not allowed to do, but which most children wouldn't require to be spelled out.

I'm seeing these tendencies in Zeke.

One of his typically two-year-old behaviors that we're trying to eliminate is hitting. He generally doesn't hit out of anger, but out of frustration. I know that as he matures, he'll learn to control his impulses, and the behavior will probably work itself out on it's own.

But it's still unacceptable. So we have house rules that he knows and that he is reminded of when he misbehaves.

The other day I popped downstairs to retrieve something from my bedroom. Josie was in her bouncy seat on the kitchen table, and Zeke was coloring or something. I came back up the stairs, rounded the corner to the kitchen, and saw that Zeke had climbed up on a chair and was bopping Josie on top of her head. Not particularly hard, but in a way that indicated he wasn't trying to give her an affectionate pat.

I picked him up from the chair, put him on the floor, and said, "Zeke, you cannot hit the baby. That is not acceptable. What's the rule?"

He thought about it for a second and said, "No hitting Mama."

That's true, but the rule is not limited to not hitting me, and he knows it.

Uh-oh.

F-ed up body issues start...now!

Josie had her 4-month checkup this week. She's perfectly healthy and doing all the things she's supposed to be doing -- playing with her hands, examining faces, cooing and gurgling, reaching for and grasping toys. She's eating and pooping and growing and making appropriate progress.

Except that she's a little bit on the skinny side. She's in the 60th percentile for height, but only the 10th for weight. She was long and thin to start off, so it's not unusual for her to maintain that trajectory, but she has fallen off the curve a little bit in the weight department.

And it's not cause for alarm or anything. She's bright-eyed and happy and alert and doing great, and it's not like she's malnourished. But the doctor wouldn't mind if she gained a little bit more weight relative to her height.

Except that when I heard her stats, I thought to myself, Sweet! If she can maintain that ratio, she'll be set. She could be a model or something.

Which is totally fucked up. I have no particular desire for my daughter to be a model, and of course I'll love her no matter what she looks like.

Though it doesn't hurt to go through life taller and skinnier rather than shorter and fatter, given one's druthers.

I just hate that my first thought was more along the lines of, "oooh, she'll be skinny and hot" rather than, "great! she's healthy!"*

______________________

*Of course, I also was happy that she is healthy and growing, and I thought so at the time. It just wasn't my very first thought.

My bad. But still, is he mentally impaired??

OK, I'm the asshole.

Because it turns out that Jason wasn't sniveling about some little cold. He's got pneumonia.

I called him today from work to see how he was doing. He said he almost didn't call me back because he felt too weak to get to the phone, but decided at the last minute to return the call.

"How're you doing, honey?" I asked.

"I feel like shit."

"Are you still having trouble breathing?"

"Yeah. And the coughing's getting worse. I'm coughing up blood."

"Did you say you're coughing up blood??"

"Yeah. But it's not a big deal. It's mixed with saliva."

"Jesus Christ, Jason. I'm coming home and I'm taking you to the emergency room."

"Oh, I don't think we need to do that. It's only a little bit of blood. It actually started last night."

"Are you fucking insane? Coughing up blood is bad. We're going to the hospital."

He was so weak when I got home, from the vomiting and the coughing and, oh, yeah, the fucking infected mass in his lung, that he could barely move. His abdomen hurt so much that it was painful for him to stand up, and when he did manage to stand up, he'd get stricken by a coughing fit.

When we got to the hospital, there were no parking spots in front of the ER.

"Honey, I'll drop you off at the door and go park."

"I'll just sit here on the sidewalk and wait for you."

I thought my head was going to explode.

"Have you lost your mind? You're not going to sit on the goddamned sidewalk. You're 10 feet from the ER check-in area. Just go in and tell them you need help, and I'll park the car and be in there to help you in 2 minutes."

So we went in, and they x-rayed and CT scanned his chest, and sure enough, it's pneumonia, and his oxygen saturation was marginal enough that they almost weren't going to let him go home, at least not without putting him on oxygen. But he's got his antibiotics and his Vicodin and his cough medicine, and I've got him bundled up in bed with juice and Gatorade. And he's not questioning me when I tell him to take his medicine or to lie down.

I feel horrible for him, because he's terribly uncomfortable and still coughing and weak. But I seriously think his illness - any any illness he gets, really - has spread to his brain.

We interrupt this program so that Wendy can totally harsh your buzz

I think about happiness alot.

Not so much whether I am happy or others around me are happy, but about our national obsession with happiness as the ultimate goal in life.

We are programmed to believe that happiness is our birthright. If you ask most parents what they want for their children, the response you will most likely get will fall along the lines of, "I want my kid to be happy." There's an assumption that happiness can be and should be achieved by anyone. That the solution to many problems is in positive thinking -- believing that you can and will be happy, that the default position is that things will turn out OK. After all, it's in the Declaration of Independence, right?? (Though I would point out that the Declaration identifies as an inalienable right not happiness per se, but rather the pursuit of happiness -- it's a big difference, though a subtle one.)

Not to rain on anyone's parade, but I think it's a lot of horseshit.

Because for the vast majority of humanity -- including the majority of Americans, especially these days -- life is not, has not, and never will be dominated by a overarching sense of happiness. I think, historically, if you asked most peasants struggling to put food on the table, and to avoid death by invading hordes of barbarians, if they were happy, they'd look at you like you were crazy. To them, the Hobbesian characterization of the natural state of the life of man as "solitary, poor, brutish, nasty and short," was undoubtedly more apt.

And does a guarantee of happiness and the reassurance that things will work out, somehow, have any real meaning to refugees in Darfur, who have seen their women raped and their families hacked to pieces in the name of ethnic cleansing? Or to people in North Korea, starving to death because of the whims of a dictatorial regime? Or to women smuggled over borders to be forced into prostitution and drug addiction?

I bring this up today because of the earthquake in Haiti, which is heaping death, destruction, poverty and misery on a country that has already been the victim of "piling on," in the karmic sense. Haiti is not a happy place, certainly not today.

Even setting aside people whose lives can only be characterized as overwhelmingly unhappy - groups beset by famine, victims of oppression and persecution, lepers begging in the streets of Calcutta and the like - for many people, life is basically muddling through, doing the best that you can under difficult circumstances, dealing with the stresses of trying to feed your family and keep your job and pay your bills and have enough time to take care of the mundane details that dominate our existence.

Which is not to say that even the most miserable life doesn't have snatches or glimpses of happiness -- celebrations, moments of joy with your children or your loved ones, playing a game.

But I have a hard time looking at the reality that is the conditions under which most people on this planet live (recognizing that, statistically, being a white, sort-of-upper-middle-class American in the 21st century basically means I and most of the people I know hit the genetic jackpot, and that's not even taking into consideration the fact that not only am I relatively prosperous, but my family is stable and healthy, both emotionally and physically) without feeling like all of the emphasis on life being an happy state is essentially meaningless.

Even for people like me, who don't know real suffering in any material sense -- I have a job, I'm healthy, my family is healthy, we live comfortably, etc. -- happiness is sort of an ephemeral thing. Most people I know spend much of their time stressed out, worrying about the husband who is out of work or dealing with divorce or heartbreak or trying to keep the house from going into foreclosure or grieving for sick or dying loved ones. We do things that are fun, have experiences that are pleasurable, but don't live in a state of consistent happiness. We wouldn't characterize our lives as unhappy, but not necessarily as happy, either. We get by. We endure. We might have moments of joy along the way. And that's about the best we can hope for.

____________________________________

As for the Haitian earthquake victims, help them out, to the extent you can. Click here for a list (with links) of reputable organizations assisting with relief efforts, or text "HAITI" to 90999 on your cell phone to make an immediate donation of $10 to the Red Cross's relief efforts (the $10 will show up on your cell phone bill). It probably won't make anyone truly happy, but it just might relieve some of the unhappiness.

Decisions, decisions. Also, I apparently haven't lost my sick sense of humor.

So, anyone who is a Facebook friend knows that I'm having my dog put to sleep. The decision-making process has been both incredibly difficult and incredibly illuminating, from a self-knowledge type of perspective.

I have never been one to dilly-dally when making a decision. I hate the feeling of being in limbo, so once I weigh the pros and cons, I make a decision and I go with it. My feeling is, if it's a bad decision, then I'll take another route, but short of committing murder, there are very few decisions in life that can't be fixed. When I decided I was ready to buy a house, I found a realtor and, armed with the knowledge of what my budget was and where I could afford to live, I found a house and put a contract on it within a weekend. When I didn't like my job, I found another one. When I decided to try my hand at the Baby Boot Camp franchise, I thought about it, talked to Jason, and pulled the trigger. It ended up being a failure, but whatever. Live and learn.

But the decision to euthanize a dog, like the commission of a murder, can't be undone. Which is why I think I've been waffling. And it's a foreign, uncomfortable feeling.

The truth is, my dog Max is 12 years old. He's been going blind for years, but the process is now complete. He spends his life bumping into walls, into furniture, stumbling down stairs, and tripping down curbs. He has a massive fatty cyst/tumor on his side that doesn't seem to be growing, but it's enormous. His legs shake constantly, and the shaking has gotten worse, particularly in his hind legs. He has difficulty getting up from a lying-down position, and lately seems disinclined to get up to go for a walk. In the past month, the weakness in his hind legs has gotten so bad that occasionally when he squats down to poop, he can't hold himself up and he collapses.

In other words, as Kathleen so astutely put it, he's not having alot of fun these days.

Jason has been talking about how we should put him down, but it's always been a "we should think about doing this" kind of thing, not a "call the vet tomorrow" kind of thing. And for all of his infirmities, he still wags his tail when I scratch his belly and has periods when he doesn't seem so uncomfortable.

But then yesterday, we went out for a couple of hours, and when we got home, Max had fallen down the stairs to the basement. He hadn't broken anything, but he was really shaken up, and when Jason tried to walk him, Max could barely hold himself up.

That's when I knew it was time.

Today, I called a vet. Max had his shots and got a health clearance before leaving Hawaii (which doesn't mean he's totally healthy, it just means he can fly on a plane without dying on the spot), so we hadn't taken him to the vet here. So I had to call a vet that Max had never seen before and basically say, "uh, I think my dog is on his last legs and has no quality of life, how do I make the decision as to whether to have him put to sleep or not?"

And the response was, "it's pretty much up to you."

Which is not the answer I wanted. I went into Kathleen's office in tears.

"I don't want somebody to put it all on me. I want someone to say to me, 'Wendy, you need to do this.'"

And Kathleen, bless her, looked me in the eye and said, "Wendy, you need to do this."

She was right. And once the decision was made, I was sad and crying, but I was back in familiar territory, because I knew it was the right decision. I called the vet back, and they put me on the schedule for 10:30 tomorrow, which was pretty much the only opening they had this week.

Jason expressed dismay at how quickly it's going to happen. "Can't I take some time to say good-bye?"

Um, no. We could put it off for a day or so, assuming that the vet had an opening (which they don't), but having made the decision, I can't put off the actual event for days on end. I'm emotionally and mentally there now, and I just want to get it over with.

I told Kathleen about Jason's reaction, and she tsk-tsked. "He's been urging you to do it for months, and now that you've decided to do it, he wants you to put it off? Doesn't he know that once you've made your decision, you're done?"

And I had to laugh, because she's so right. I find it both disconcerting and comforting that she knows me so well.

Another thing that made me laugh was a Facebook message I got from an old high school friend of mine. I have received a number of public comments offering condolences, but rather than add to them, he sent me a private message.

I was going to post 'how many dogs have to be put to sleep before facebook adds a don't like button" and have everyone you know hate me, but I figured I would make it a message and have only you hate me.

And you know what? I don't hate him. I fucking can't stop giggling. Does that make me a bad person?

Suicide is not painless

I had all kinds of things percolating in my head for a post today.

I could have written about how nice it was to go out for some grownup time on Friday night with Rich and Kathleen.  We left the kids with a sitter at their house, and walked down to a local music store to see Steve Earle do an in-store performance promoting his new album, Townes.*  We went out for a nice Italian dinner, and when we got back to Kathleen's house, Zeke was asleep, cuddled up in bed with Kathleen's 5-year-old daughter, who had an arm protectively draped over him.  It was seriously one of the cutest things I've ever seen.

Or I could have written about how much fun we had participating with some friends in a kids' pick-up soccer league at the local city park.  Pablo brought a big bag of soccer balls and some little collapsible goals, and showed the kids how to kick and pass.  When they scored a goal, there was the obligatory running around the field, arms held out like an airplane, yelling "GOOOOOOOOOAALL!!"  (Pablo is Argentine, after all).  The kids played and had fun and wore themselves out, and we made some new friends, and it was a beautiful day.  Afterwards we went to this awesome little Mexican dive of a restaurant to get tacos, served with the most delicious homemade tortilla chips I have ever eaten in my life.

I could have also written about how lovely it was to play Magical Present Fairy to my son yesterday.  We had been at the park, and he was salivating over another little kid's wagon.  The kid's dad let him play with it, and Zeke was entertaining himself opening the door, stepping in, sitting down, standing up, opening the door, stepping out, closing the door.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  When it was time for the kid and his wagon to go home, Zeke seriously lost his shit.  Partly because he really wanted to continue playing with the wagon, and partly because it was nap-time and he was exhausted.  So we got him home and got him to sleep, and while he napped, I found the identical wagon on Craigslist, called the owner, went and picked it up, and brought it home, all before Zeke woke up from his nap.  We had been planning on getting one anyway -- they're so handy for going to the park with balls and snacks and water bottles, so it seemed like an opportune time.  When he woke up and saw the wagon, he was ecstatic.  We took a walk around the neighborhood, with Zeke riding in the wagon with a huge smile of joy on his face, stopping every 10 feet or so for Zeke to open the door, step out, close the door, open the door, step in, and sit down again.

I could have written about any of those things.  But instead, I feel compelled to focus on something else, something that is really none of my business and I probably shouldn't be writing about, at least not yet, but I can't help it.  I can't stop thinking about it.  

This past weekend, the father of a friend of mine committed suicide.  He's suffered from crushing depression for a long time and has made a number of suicide attempts over the past few years, including as recently as a month ago.  This time, he was successful.  And in addition to dealing with the general agony of losing a parent, my friend has to deal with the fact that her dad left willingly.   

To top it all off, she's 6 months pregnant.  

Dealing with suicide is so much different from dealing with other kinds of death.  When a person dies of disease, or in a car accident or something, there's shock and sadness and dismay and a terrible feeling of loss.  A reminder of the fragility of life, and the need to live to the fullest, to the extent that the mundane details of every day life allow you to do so.  But with suicide, there's the added knowledge that the person wanted to leave, that they couldn't stand to be in the world anymore.  And that maybe you could have done something to help them.

I remember when my friend Kristin killed herself a couple of years ago, how sad but also how betrayed and angry I and so many of our friends felt.  She was about to be married to a guy who adored her, and was developing a close relationship with her 8-year-old stepson-to-be.  She had friends and parents and siblings that loved and cared about her.  

And she gave it all up because she fucked something up at work and couldn't deal with the shame.  I'm still a little bit bitter about it, as are a number of my friends.

But Kristin wasn't my parent or my sister.  That just takes things to a whole new level.  With my friend's dad, the reality is, he was desperately unhappy for a long, long time, and so maybe now he's found the peace he so obviously needed and couldn't find on this earth.  And I know she doesn't feel any sense of responsibility, like there was something she could have done -- as she herself has said, if there was ever a situation in which someone could be kept alive by the sheer force of other peoples' will, this was it -- she and her mother have done their damndest to try to help him.  But when someone is determined to go, they will find a way.  

And the survivors are left to pick up the pieces and somehow go on with their lives.

Years ago, my mom's college roommate went out into her backyard, crawled under a bush, and blew her brains out with a gun.  She had been in an unhappy marriage, but she also had young children.  I was only about 9 or so at the time, but I remember my mom remarking at what an aggressive act it was.  How clearly, this was directed at the husband and was a giant "fuck you" that would stick with him for the rest of his life.  But all I could think about were the kids.  How do you deal with the fact that your mommy can't stand to stick around for you?

At least my friend is older and has the maturity and perspective to recognize that her dad wasn't trying to abandon her or the rest of his family.  Her dad loved her, I know she believes that.  But still.  How do you deal?

I tend to view most suicides with a jaundiced eye.  It's an act of supreme selfishness.  How dare they do that to their loved ones?  But I don't feel as harshly about my friend's dad.  He was obviously in so much pain.  I don't condone what he did, but I understand it just a little bit.

I've suffered from clinical depression.  In the depths of it, I've felt that cold heaviness in my gut, that physical manifestation that depression takes, when you feel pulled down into the depths of despair. When the idea of getting up and going through life feels so incredibly exhausting that the alternative -- that unspoken alternative -- seems so tempting.  I've been at the precipice and stared down into the abyss.  But thank goodness, something always pulled me back.  And I've been healthy and off the medication for over a year, and all is well.  But the knowledge that I could start another downward spiral is always in the back of my mind, so I'm incredibly vigilant in taking stock of my mental and emotional state, ready to head off to a doctor at the first sign of that sinking feeling.

I'm rambling, I know.  I don't know what point I'm trying to make.  But this is what's on my mind.  

I'm just so sad for my friend.

________________________________

*I love Steve Earle.  I was playing a lot of bluegrass in Atlanta around the time he released The Mountain, his bluegrass collaboration with The Del McCoury Band, and it's an album I still find captivating -- in my opinion, a bluegrass masterpiece.

The perception of power

I have a bizarre ability to scare people. Not in a "boo!" kind of sense, but more in a "do as I ask or there will be hell to pay" kind of way. It's not something I'm particularly proud of, largely because very rarely do I try to throw my weight around to try to get what I want. I don't see the point in being snide or sarcastic or mean to service people on the phone, for example, because A) I think it's rude and obnoxious, and B) it usually doesn't work. If you need someone's help, you're far more likely to get it by being nice or appealing to their sympathies.* When all else fails, I'll write a stern letter to management and casually mention that I'm a lawyer. That works too. But again, it's rare that I do that. "Kill them with kindness" is a much more effective strategy.

Which is why I find recent events curious.

I haven't been thrilled with Zeke's new daycare. Maybe I've been spoiled, because his daycare in Hawaii was so wonderful, from the organization to the warmth of the individual caregivers. I haven't felt the overwhelming love in the new place that I felt from the Cole Academy, and I've been disappointed in what has struck me as a lack of attention to detail in the level of care my baby receives.

For example, every day the parents are provided with a progress report at the end of the day, detailing their child's activity during the day: how much and when he ate, what his diaper changes revealed, how much he slept, what activities he preferred (so far, Zeke has almost exclusively preferred language or reading-based activities). And with the exception of one day, in the month that Zeke has been at his new school, his progress report has never been completely filled out. So I was often wondering whether Zeke napped or not (which definitely affects how the evening routine will go), or whether he ate all of his afternoon snack, or when was the last time he pooped.

And maybe that's because they've been pretty lackadaisical about changing his diaper. At Cole Academy, they changed his diaper every hour (which I thought was a bit of overkill, not to mention expensive). At the new school, they only do 4 changes a day, which is OK, but my expectation is that in any event, if a kid is clearly walking around with a load in his pants, the teachers will deviate from the schedule and change a diaper if change is obviously warranted.

But one day last week, Jason went to pick Zeke up, and Zeke was wandering around with one shoe on -- outside, in March -- with the other shoe buried somewhere in the sandbox. He had a ribbon of snot snaking up his face where someone had clearly done a half-assed job of wiping his nose. And you could smell the shit in his pants from 4 feet away. Yet, the two teachers outside "supervising" the kids were standing off in the corner, talking to each other and maybe glancing occasionally at their young charges.

Earlier this week, I went to pick Zeke up in the afternoon. The kids were outside on the playground. He was standing very listlessly against the fence, playing half-heartedly with an abacus-like bead thingy. The teacher reported that he had slept for over 3 hours during naptime -- an extraordinary nap for him -- and that during playtime, he didn't want to play and fell asleep on her shoulder when she picked him up.

"Ha ha!  Isn't that funny??"

And I'm thinking, "He must be ill.  What the fuck is wrong with her powers of observation?  Why did nobody call me??"

When I got to the car and put him in the carseat, I realized how bad it was.  He kind of collapsed in the seat, and I discovered that he had a fever and was not at all well.  As in, he was sitting with his head back, eyes at half-mast, his breathing labored, his forehead burning.

The straw breaking the proverbial camel's back was later that week.  Jason dropped Zeke off in the morning, and when he got to the toddler classroom, there was not a single adult in the room.  A gaggle of 1-year-olds was wandering around or sitting on the floor, looking confused.  A teacher from another class wandered into the diaper-changing area to change a kid's diaper, and when Jason asked where the toddler teacher was, the woman said, very nonchalantly, "oh, she'll be back soon."

So I made an appointment to talk to the director of the school.  And sat down with her last Thursday afternoon, and explained in a calm, rational voice, the nature and basis for my concerns.  It was a very cordial conversation.  At no point did I yell or lecture or speak in a stern tone.  The director was very sympathetic and responsive to my concerns, and said she would investigate and remedy the situation immediately.  I left feeling somewhat better.

The next day, I got a call from one of Zeke's teachers, informing me that he seemed clammy and lethargic, and that he was crying a lot and having a hard time functioning without being held by an adult.  We had taken Zeke to the doctor's office earlier that week, and she had indicated that he had had an ear infection, but that it appeared to be on the mend.  She called in a prescription for antibiotics, but advised that we not fill it unless his symptoms appear to get worse again.  So I figured that Zeke was relapsing, thanked the teacher for letting me know what was going on, and left work to go pick him up and fill the prescription.

When I got to the school, Zeke was happy to see me, but didn't appear particularly sick or emotionally fragile.  I was all worried about taking him to the drug store and having him melt down while I waited for his prescription to be filled, but he was happy and chirpy and flirted with everyone in the pharmacy.

I mentioned to Jason that I thought that the teachers might have overreacted, and that Zeke had seemed OK when I got him.  

"They're probably scared shitless of you now," he responded.

"Why?  I didn't yell at anyone.  I didn't threaten or try to get anyone in trouble.  I was very calm in talking to the director."

"Baby, you have no idea how you come across.  You can be at your scariest when you're at your calmest."

"Huh."

I really don't try to scare anyone.  It's not my intention to come across as bitchy or mean.  

But I guess in this situation, let them be scared.

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* There are limited exceptions to this rule. When our movers finally delivered our stuff, the delivery guys declared that they would not be unpacking or reassembling any of the furniture, even though that's what I had paid for, and that they would not be removing any of the mountain of packing material that was piling up in the living room, even though that's what I paid for. I completely blew a gasket and yelled at them off and on for the entire 3 hours they were moving stuff into my house. It did not, however, persuade them to do what I wanted, which kind of proves my earlier point.

Too much information, but then again, not enough

A friend of mine who is pregnant called me the other night. She lives on the other side of the world from me and we don't get to chat very often, so it was really fun to catch up with her.

We talked alot about her pregnancy. She is about 7 weeks or so away from her due date, and getting nervous about the delivery.

"I've been doing all kinds of internet research. I've read so much about the experiences of other women. I just want to know what it's going to be like. What was it like for you?"

So I told her all about my labor and delivery. We talked about epidurals and pain and what it's like to push and all of that.

"But," I added, "it's different for everyone."

"I know, I know," she replied. "That's what's so frustrating. I don't want to hear that it's different for every woman. I just want to know."

"Honey, I can totally relate," I told her. "Believe me, when I was pregnant, I was on those pregnancy sites every day, reading article after article, thinking that somehow I would happen on the one that told me exactly what it would be like for me. But of course I didn't. There's no way of knowing. All you can do is prepare, take a child birth class or something. The one thing I kept reminding myself was that whatever it was like, it would be over eventually. It was an event with an end. And it was long and difficult and part of it was painful, but then it was over. So here's my advice to you: stop doing research. Stop reading articles. It's only going to make you crazy, and the answer you're looking for isn't out there."

And the truth is, that kind of uncertainty is rarer and rarer these days.

I am an internet addict. And a Google addict. As Kathleen can tell anyone who asks, I have this compulsion about knowing the answer. When she and I worked in adjacent offices, we would talk to each other through the wall. Occasionally, she would yell over a question -- about a word definition, a historical point, whatever. Sometimes I knew the answer. But sometimes I didn't, and it would be quiet for awhile.

"You're googling it, aren't you??"

Having a wealth of information at your fingertips is mostly a useful thing. Looking for a recipe? Try allrecipes.com. Need to print out postage to mail something, and you don't feel like going to the post office? Do it online. Basic medical question? Try WebMd. Look up words at dictionary.com or thesaurus.com. Need to shop? Everything you could possibly need, you can get online. Missed this week's episode of Friday Night Lights? (Fucking TiVo!) You can watch entire episodes online for free.

I look back on the days before I started using the internet regularly -- probably around 1995 or so -- and I honestly don't know how I functioned.

But there are downsides. One is that all of this information has made us into a nation of amateur diagnosticians and psychologists. The University of Google can make you feel like an instant expert in anything. And there is alot of valuable information out there. But there's also alot of crap.

And for me, the biggest downside is that having the universe of possible answers at your fingertips can make you think that every question does, in fact, have an answer. That if you look hard enough, you can figure everything out.

I learned this when I was pregnant. There are a million websites, like Babycenter.com, that provide information on everything from calendars helping you track the baby's development to tips on how to deal with swollen ankles or where to buy a great maternity pillow. You can do research about the different types of genetic screening, ways to alleviate morning sickness, whatever. And it's great. When I was having Zeke, I was on the website all the time. But like my friend, the real answer I was looking for -- i.e., exactly how would my labor go and would the baby be perfectly healthy and fine -- isn't out there to be found.

Like most people, I hate uncertainty under the best of circumstances. Being in between situations, or having to wait for something to determine your fate, without any way to know, is torture. And now that I'm so used to being able to find the answer to just about every question I could have, it's doubly so.

I'm supposed to hear this week from both of the firms I interviewed with in Denver. I'm so nervous, it's killing me. There's no amount of research I can do, no amount of checking my email over and over, that will provide me with the answer I want. So I just have to wait.

The Saga Continues

Remember Next Door Neighbor? You know, the one who, from the day we moved in, started lecturing me about the trees in my yard? The one involved in the Great Plant Massacre, in which she called the police after Jason cut down a little bush in our yard?

Yeah, her.

Well, in case you were wondering, she's still crazy.

The latest is that as far as we can tell, she's trying to destroy the plants on our side of the yard, all while falsely accusing us of trying to kill them. A couple of weeks ago, Jason caught her trying to coax her dog to pee on our bushes. Then one of the bushes in the little yard area between our houses mysteriously shriveled up and died within the span of a week, as if someone had poured bleach or gasoline on it.

Then other plants started looking all mangled, as if someone stepped on them.

Meanwhile, while we were away in DC for Thanksgiving, and thus physically incapable of doing her plants any harm (except maybe by telekenesis, a power that neither Jason nor I possess, as far as I know), she reported us to the community association manager, alleging that we were trying to sabotage her. She also bitched about us to neighbors, with whom we happen to be good friends.

Jason is furious, and makes a point of loudly disparaging her whenever we pass her house. I find the whole thing both baffling and slightly amusing. Honestly, who calls the police over...plants? Plants that, incidentally, aren't even hers. Technically, they belong to the condo association.

And moreover, who gives a fuck? I honestly don't care enough about this woman to go through the effort of messing with her plants. I've got enough shit going on in my life.

Plus, she's trying to sell her house. I don't like living next door to her. Ergo, it would be ridiculous of me to do anything that would jeopardize her ability to move away from here, and quickly.

Am I missing something? Is this how people behave? Are these the sagas that go on in other parts of the world? Who has time for this shit?