My 11 year old is from Mars. September 13, 2011

Conversation between me and my 11 year old boy today on the way home from soccer practice:

Boy (holding a drippy Popsicle):  We got Popsicles today!  But this isn’t my first one.  My friend tried to punch me, so I had to use my first Popsicle to block the punch and it fell on the ground, so I got another one.

Me:  Why did he try to punch you? (slightly alarmed, ever vigilant for bully alerts).

Boy (tongue and mouth and Popsicle #2, distractingly, no color ever found in nature):  Oh, I don’t know.

Me:  Was he mad at you?  (sharp look in the rear-view mirror, concerned)

Boy (looking incredulous):  No!  Why would he be mad at me?

Me:  I don’t know.  Maybe it’s just a “boy thing”…the punching…

Boy:  Yeah, well, maybe it’s just a “girl thing,” assuming that what people do always has to have something to do with emotions.   Sheesh.

Vive la difference.

Because I Don’t Want My Children Living in My Basement in Their 30s… September 2, 2011

I suppose I will get used to this.

This empty chair at the dinner table.

This lack of depth in the after-school-activity-taxi-driver bench.

This sudden quieting of the constant humming and harmonizing that sometimes drove the siblings crazy.

This substantial chunk of my heart that feels like the (Mac) spinning wheel of rainbow doom or (PC) hourglass of eternal waiting, searching fruitlessly for that child that claimed me:  mind, body and spirit, 18 years ago, and now can’t be located. (file not found).

I think I can get used to about anything, so this will become the new normal.  That’s what I’m telling myself.

Once, my parents told me they were concerned that I would have a difficult time when my kids left home.  “Posh!”  I said (actually, I don’t say things like “Posh,” but I would if I’d thought of it).  “Me?!  The small business-owner, teacher, compulsive volunteer, wife, daughter, sister, neighbor, friend?  The busier-than-anyone, ultra-filled-calendar, new project-on-the-horizon, Me?  Ha!”  ( I was doing ok until I said “Ha!” to my parents.  That will come back to haunt you, no matter how old you are).

Let me now acknowledge that my parents were correct.  In more ways than this, but let’s start small:  I am having a difficult time.

My first-born went to college five hours away this week.  She is now residing in a small room with a stranger, with a hard and lumpy institutional mattress, shared bathroom down the hall.  She is studying Chemical Engineering in a Top Ten Engineering College, which places her firmly in the American Dream right there (to exceed that which my parents did…).  She is prepared, she is capable, she is ready.  Me, on the other hand…

Oh, I thought I was prepared, and capable, and ready.  That’s what we want, right?  To launch our children into the world, idealistic, smarter, and better than we were, to make a difference, to find their own way, to leave their mark.  It is.  That IS what we want.  But that means that we lose them, a lot of them.  Most of them, maybe, eventually.  We can’t realize, when we’re growing them, nine months in, nine months out, pasted to our selves, followed by 17 or so years of direction, and guidance, and loving, and letting go, that this is all leading to the absence of that child, that beloved.  As it should be.

So, I will get used to this.  I will.  And I will celebrate my child’s freedom.  And I will maybe, awkwardly, cling a little too much to my other children, for a while, even though I know they are preparing to leave, too.  And I will come to terms with this loss, which is, after all, nothing but a gain to the world.  And I will celebrate.  I will.

But for now, I will hang on every text, cherish each Skype, do a little more Facebook stalking than I should, and feel blessed that my daughter is exactly who she is:  18 years ago, now, and forever.  My prayers for her will be that thread of mothering that no distance can sever, and that part of my heart that she claimed just by existing will travel with her, wherever she goes.  And I can’t wait to see her path.

Without you, some of your kid’s friends won’t get to go on the field trip, there will be no “Meet-the-Orchestra” assembly, and there won’t be enough Nutmeg Nominee books to go around May 26, 2011

Last night was our PTO School Carnival and Silent Auction.  I have run this event for our local elementary school for many years, and, since my youngest has just one more year left at that school, my time with it is nearing the end.  I’m exhausted and exhilarated at the end of each carnival, and still learning new lessons every year.  For those of you planning to run such an event at your child’s school, I wanted to share some of my observations from this year:

Eye protection for the person behind the pond is recommended.

1.  The school carnival, an outdoor event, must be held on a beautiful day.  However, resist the urge to wear flip-flops.  If you do not resist this urge, there will be blood.

2.  If you forget to bring a hair clip, the back and sides of your neck will be uncomfortably hot during the carnival.  But at least they will not be uncomfortably red and raw afterward like the front of your neck because if you forgot your hair clip, you certainly will have forgotten to apply sunscreen.

3.  Duct tape is your carnival friend.

4. If  you do not duct tape the fishing booth to the table, the wind will catch it like a sail and it will become a flying fish booth.

5.  If you raise your children right, your teenagers will come directly from school bearing Dunkin’ Donuts skim milk coffee coolattas and they will work at your bidding.

Your alums can be your best volunteers.

6.  Get to know your children’s friends when they are in elementary school, because if you are still running the carnival when they are teenagers, they also will come shortly after school and haul heavy things around, paint children’s sticky faces with dinosaurs and kitties and such, and pick up 800 errantly tossed beanbags for three hours.

7.  Any booths involving water or competition between groups (classes, Red Sox vs. Yankees fans, etc.) will be the most popular.  Combine the two in one booth and you’ve just significantly increased your school library’s collection.

8.  Don’t even bother having a school carnival if you have no cakewalk.  Children and adults will spend more money trying to win a cake at the cakewalk, which was baked in a kitchen no health department would certify, than they would ever spend at a fancy bakery buying a cake.

9.  I’m pretty sure that the cakewalk is a gateway drug to gambling for kids.

It could be an All-Cake Walk Carnival and still be successful.

10.  Once the beautiful cakes, made with care and attention are gone, your cakewalk-winning kid will refuse to choose the store-bought cake and will instead pick one made from a box with a can of frosting on a paper plate.  You will shudder.

11.  Stalking your favorite item on the Silent Auction at closing time is encouraged or you will not win that desperately-needed massage or pedicure.

12.  A good DJ makes all the difference at the event.  Find a dad who used to DJ college parties and give him freedom to do his thing.  This provides for maximum child embarrassment opportunities when moms and dads bust their moves around the playground upon hearing favorite songs from their college days.

13.  If you are fortunate to have an officer from the local police come to use his radar gun to measure the speed of student’s softball pitches as a carnival activity, it is best to site him somewhere with easy egress.  That way, when an actual police emergency arises requiring his response, he won’t have to speed his cruiser through the sea o’ fun on the playground, children jumping out of the way in terror.

Water guns + Competing for a classroom pizza party = Best Booth Ever.

14.  Advil.  Before, during and after.

15.  On hot days, carnival-goers will purchase about 40% more soda and water than on cool days.  Plan accordingly or have a responsible volunteer who unilaterally solves the problem by making an emergency drink run.  When you hear the phrase “emergency drink run” at the school carnival, don’t get your hopes up.

16.  If you set the cupcakes for the kindergarten cupcake decorating booth on the school garden wall for 30 minutes, there will be small black creeping decorations on them.  These are not sprinkles.

17.  If, based on on guaranteed weather predictions, you postpone the carnival to the rain date and said bad weather never appears, you will be tempted to cry out to God “Is it too much to ask for just a small thunderstorm?”  during the beautiful weather when your carnival was supposed to take place.  Your answer will be that it is indeed, too much to ask, and the sunshine will mock you.  As will the sixth graders.

18.  Some people use $100 bills to purchase their carnival tickets.  With ticket prices at 25¢ each, you will wonder if they plan to play the Duck Pond 400 times.

Consider carefully where you will store your cupcakes.

19.  No one will have one dollar bills.  You can’t possibly have enough one dollar bills to prevent every cash box supervisor from frantically telling you “We need more ones!”  And yet, at the end of the night, you will have hundreds of one dollar bills in every cash box.  This will remain a mystery.

20.  Invite friends to attend who are EMT volunteers.  Memorize what they are wearing when they arrive so you can spot them quickly if needed.

21.  Wearing a bright color also helps volunteers find you, the carnival boss, in the crowd in case of emergency.  I recommend wearing  jeans and a blue shirt so you can remain as anonymous as possible.

22.  You will not have enough room in your eight-passenger minivan for all the carnival stuff and your children.  Make other arrangements for them to get home.  They had fun at the carnival, but they will not want to spend the night on the playground.

23.  If the carnival happens on the same day as the school Field Day, it will be the best day ever to be a student at that school.  It will be the worst day ever to be a parent at that school.  Smart parents plan ahead for this and remember to put the pinot grigio in the refrigerator early in the day.

The bounce house always adds anxiety, terror, and that special je ne sais quoi to your carnival.

24.  The inflatable rental will be the most expensive part of your carnival.  It will be a source of terror for parents and a source of anxiety for the volunteers.  But you still must have one.

25.  Enjoy running the carnival.  You are funding cultural arts programming, scholarships for field trips, special enrichment programs, books for the school library and more,  and you are helping to create some of the best elementary school memories these kids will have.  Smile.  Breathe.  Relax.

Mayday! Mayday! May 21, 2011

Brilliant Forsythia in the Yard

May is such a lovely month.  The flowers are blooming, the weather gets warm, the garden is planted and after a winter of neglect, I get my toes in shape because I know they’ll start to be free on a much more regular basis.  At least that is how I used to feel before my kids got older.  Now it’s all that, plus sheer “May”-hem, with end-of-the year concerts, spring sports, AP Exam stress, recitals, school carnival, proms, not to mention that every organization feels the need to have a banquet, dinner, brunch, or some other celebration, often requiring the purchase of cards and small gifts and the production of special company foods.  When I see May come in, I feel sort of like Seinfeld used to when Newman would walk through the door.  A couple of years ago, I would have turned the calendar page and, clenching my fist, muttered, tight-lipped, “May!,” but now the month suddenly springs itself on me one day when I open my Google calendar and see it’s there.  The feeling is the same.  May!

One of May’s redeeming factors is the preponderance of birthday cake.  May is a big birthday month, mostly because August is a big vacation month.  May includes birthdays for my son, my sister-in-law, several aunts, and various and sundry of my other friends and relatives and students.  Plus me.  Public sharing of cake is guaranteed on at least a weekly basis in May, and it is a wrongful but oh so delightful respite from the constant calendar crises of May.

I guess the improving weather and my birthday are the “love” part of my love-hate relationship with  May.  What’s not to like about birthdays?  A birthday inspires public singing all day long, and really, what song is left for public singing other than “Happy Birthday to You?”  Even the National Anthem has been stolen from our collective voices by divas and divos and their vocal runs and stylings, but at least we can still all sing together for birthdays.  I already mentioned cake as a motivating factor.  And now that so many of my contemporaries have joined me on Facebook, all day my phone chirps out with notifications of birthday greetings.  I know you are mostly clicking on the birthday events and cursorily sending good wishes, but don’t. stop.  Every post this week was cause for me to linger and think of the person sending it, and reason to be grateful for those who loom large in my life now, and also those who have plugged back in, however tenuously, through Facebook.

I’d say the only downside to having a birthday is that I am now required to add that extra year to my age.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have the singing, the cake, the greetings, the gratefulness, and get to stay the same age?  Alas, we are all on a march forward through time, unable to stop or control it, unable to avoid noticing those crinkles at the edges of our eyes, the way most rap music makes our head feel, and the fact that foot comfort has become the overarching factor in our shoe purchasing decisions.  It comes upon us, and no singing, no cake, no frivolity can fully distract me from understanding that this month, the May of beauty and beginnings is also the month that brings me closer to that time when I will no longer have the mayhem of my childrens’ games and shows and banquets, and will instead click to see large swaths of white space on my calendar.  When that May comes, I will give a small sigh and smile my crinkly smile and plant some flowers and I will not miss the madness of May, but will riffle through the bathroom drawer that holds the things my daughters will have left behind when they move to their too-small apartments to find the brightest color there and I will paint my toenails and wiggle my feet in the grass, lifting my (appropriately sun-screened) face to the sun and I will sing.

Maybe.

Step Right Up April 29, 2011

I’m surrounded with crap.  Crap made in China, so it’s possibly dangerous crap at that.  I don’t mean to be so scatological about it all, but my inner thesaurus can’t find a better match for that which lies about the room in brightly-colored piles than “crap.”  See, I run the local elementary school carnival every year.  This is my youngest child’s second-to-last year before he leaves the halcyon days of grammar school for the angst and vocal creakings of middle school, so that means I have two more school carnivals to crank out before I leave forever the era of my life when my kid wants me to be anywhere near his friends.  Trust me, I also have two teenagers, I know this time is short.  Life as a mother transitions so blindingly quickly from “That’s my mom.  She is the BOSS of the whole carnival!” to “You are NOT even THINKING about volunteering, right?  Because I would die.”

So today I brought up last year’s leftover carnival crap from my basement, carefully counted and noted and sorted, and I am tonight trolling websites like ustoy.com and orientaltrading.com and eGoodTimeAttractions.com trying to figure out how to get the most bang for our collective PTO buck.

We’ve committed to keeping the ticket prices for games at our school carnival at 25 cents.  That doesn’t leave a lot of wiggle room in choosing crap, er…prizes for games like “Duck Pond” and “Lollipop Tree.”  After all, we still do want to bring in more money that we spend so that we can buy new books for the school library, provide scholarships for field trips, present school-wide cultural programs and so on.  So I find myself pulling out the calculator and analyzing the qualities (tangible and in-) of Zip-a-Dee pops vs. Tootsie Pops (a $2.04 per 200 pop price difference); I’m pondering childhood zeitgeist to determine whether or not students will prefer jumping plastic frogs to straw finger traps, and I’m wondering why those rubbery sharks I ordered last year that I thought were so cool were not a huge hit — 77 of last year’s unwanted polymer fish spent the past year languishing on a shelf in my basement.

And, because I’m a mother and it’s in the contract, I’m feeling guilty.  I know perfectly well that it’s landfill fodder I’m clicking to purchase here.  I’ve hidden enough carnival crap and McDonald’s toys (shudder) in the garbage to know where this will all end up.  My Kevin Bacon degrees of connection put me about two steps away from people who are literally dying from lack of water or simple medical treatment in Africa.  They’d probably enjoy a malaria treatment this summer way more than 144 kids will enjoy a gross of Metallic Alien Paratroopers.

Then again, I think of the hundreds of kids who come to the carnival, having the best time of their school year shooting ping-pong balls off soda bottles with water guns, winning a treat in the cakewalk, turning over that plastic duck to find the prized star.  I think of my own school carnival at Dodge Elementary, the excitement of seeing my teachers off-duty, laughing and (gulp) eating, and looking very much like regular humans.  I remember landing on the right spot when the music stopped and bringing home a cake, of feeling the tug on the end of the clothespin fishing line that meant I was getting a prize.  Despite the mean girl who picked on me and the third-grade teacher who definitively stated that Santa was a myth, I loved everything about school that night.  Who’s to say that the camaraderie and joie de vivre brought about by the yearly school carnival won’t translate into a child making an unexpected connection with the school that leads to a real love of learning.   And who’s to say that the inspired and connected student won’t grow up to solve the problems of access to water and medical care in the developing world?

Who’s to say that we can’t talk ourselves into anything?

I have crap to buy.

!@#$%&……I mean Jesus. March 7, 2011

I have a peculiar fascination with Captain Chesley Sullenberger.  You might remember him as the the American Airline pilot who set his failing plane down gently in the Hudson River in January of 2009, coolly saving the lives of all 155 people on board.  I’m not sure why his story struck me so, but everyone in the house had to be quiet when the nightly news reported anything related to this event, and my kids made fun of me for about a year for my Sully-Crush.  My husband even gave me Sullenberger’s autobiography for Christmas that year, obviously confident and content with his husbandly role in my life, despite my fascination with anything Sully.

Sully’s final words before going into the river were  “We’re gonna be in the Hudson.”    He was just calmly covering his bases; making sure the certain legion of rescuers would know where to aim their efforts. *sigh*

News about plane crashes has always riveted my attention, but it is only in the last decade or so that travel by airplane has truly unnerved me.  As I grow older, I realize how fragile and temporal life is.  I’m not an idiot; I know I’m in much graver statistical danger behind the wheel of my minivan every day, but as a speed-limit-obeying, seat-belt-wearing driver, I take comfort motoring around town in knowing that at least I won’t fall 30,000 feet to the ground if my vehicle malfunctions.  Air travel is another thing entirely.  Every clunk of landing gear or engine and I think, “This really could be it for me,” even while rolling my eyes at my own irrationality.

One of the problems with the all-news, all-the-time culture in which we live is that we hear far too much.  I think we can all agree that there ARE things better left to the imagination.  For example, I wish I’d never heard  cockpit recordings from doomed airplanes, but alas, they are played on the nightly news as soon as the NTSB makes the black box audio available.  Hearing them, (after shushing my kids and pausing the dinner prep, of course) I’ve been struck by how many pilots’ last words are expletives.

Last words are a funny thing.  We all hope to impart something wise, a gift and comfort to our survivors.  George Washington’s last words were  “I die hard but am not afraid to go.”  December 14, 1799.  How about “Now comes the mystery.” — from Henry Ward Beecher, March 8, 1887.   Nice.  No one wants to be remembered for a last statement that can best be transcribed by hitting the caps lock and typing the numerals row on the keyboard.

If I could orchestrate it in advance, I would like my last words to be these, from the book of Micah (and the only quotation listed on my Facebook page): “Seek justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”   I would whisper those words both as a summation of how I hoped I’d lived, and as an encouragement to those I leave.  Can you imagine the drama and beauty of that moment?  I can hear the swelling of the John Williams soundtrack now…

Unfortunately, I have clearly shown that in times of crisis, I can barely muster the simple articulation of repetitive phonemes.  Knowing this truth about myself, knowing this failing, I think the most I can hope for as I go down would be to call out the name of Jesus.  As the song goes, Jesus Loves Me.  This, I know.  And after a lifetime as a Jesus-loving, cradle-to-grave Episcopalian (except for that decade or so of lonely agnosticism midway), his name would flow easily from my lips, not as an expletive, but as a prayer, a plea, a cry, and an assurance.  And, anyway, who ever walked the earth that embodied more justice, mercy, and humility than he?

Jesus.  When it’s all over for me, whether in a airplane or a hospital bed, that’s what I shall aim to say.  And if I don’t, know that’s what I meant to say, and please speak it for me. Jesus.  Amen.

Make it simple, to last your whole life long. February 16, 2011

The news yesterday told us that Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords is singing.  Shot point-blank through the head on January 8, she is receiving rehabilitation, including music therapy, at a facility in Houston.  According to an email attributed to Giffords’ mom, the congresswoman has mouthed (or as we singers like to call it, “lip synced”) Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,  I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, and is even practicing Happy Birthday to You in preparation for her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly’s, upcoming celebration.  Giffords’ mother reportedly stated that the music therapy “really flipped the switch” for her daughter.

When I was five or six, I somehow came into the possession of a Sesame Street LP.  I don’t know who gave it to me, but I do know that it was mine.  While my parents had some New Christy Minstrels and Johnny Cash and such in their music collection, the Sesame Street album is the first LP I remember personally owning, so it was kind of a Big Deal.  I did, after all, become a preschool music teacher, so you could argue that this album was a tad formative.  I carefully penciled my name on the cover and vividly recall the way the scratchy fabric front of the sideboard-sized Record Console felt against my cheek when I leaned into it, listening to life-changing music like It’s Not Easy Being Green, One of These Things Doesn’t Belong Here, and the peppy but plaintive Somebody Come and Play.

A few years after I got that album, the fine musical folks at Sesame Street came out with a song I desperately wished was included on that one and only record I owned (up until I bought the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack). The new song was called  Sing (♪♫ …Sing a song….don’t worry that it’s not good enough for anyone else to hear, just sing!  Sing a song… ♪♫).  And sing it I did.  I loved that song.  I loved Karen Carpenter because I heard her voice singing that song on my transistor radio.  At some point in the mid-1970s, our elementary school class performed that song in concert in the school gymnatorium in front of adoring parents.  Today, eight-year-olds would be far too cool to sing from the Sesame Street repertoire, having long since moved on to Justin Bieber, but we all still had a TV with the clicking circular knob that could find maybe five or six channels on a clear day, so we weren’t quite so worldly.  We sang that song with gusto.

Music, just like that song says, does last your whole life long.  Listening to my mom play the piano as I drifted to sleep, singing up the aisle in my white youth choir cotta, deciphering the mysteries of musical notation on the bench with my gifted and intimidating piano teacher, creating harmonies upon harmonies with my family as we drove home from grandma’s with the great plains’ bowl of stars all around our car — that all has a way of sticking.  Gabrielle Giffords is shot through the brain and she sings, she sings; in fact the music might be the key to reconnecting all the dots and bringing her back.

Over the past five years, my own dear mother-in-law lost most of who she was due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s disease before she went to be with the Lord last summer.  And there was so much that was lost from this brilliant, accomplished, valedictorian educator.  But even when almost everything else was gone into the drifting mists of forgetting, she still sang the songs from her girlhood summer camp, she hummed hymns, and nodded in time to the old standards.  She was finally at the end left with just this:  her love for her husband of 56 years, her love of family and her Lord, and the songs that accompanied her life.

Love and music alone endured and remained.  Is it any wonder that the two are so closely intertwined?

There is so much fascinating science that can tell you why music is important to your brain, but in the end, what more do you need to know than music is somehow soaked into your neurons and becomes a part of who you are?  Be diligent and purposeful about laying that soundtrack, you may someday need it to bring you back to life, or gently usher you out.

Science Fair February 12, 2011

Bending Light with Water

I attended my son’s grade school science fair this week.  We’ve all heard the dire reports of how America’s children lag so woefully behind the world’s children in science study, but no one in the school cafeteria that night would have believed it.  Clearly science is fun!  What’s not to like about science?  (Well, other than all that math and actual hard work involved; but perhaps we can outsource that overseas).

I most enjoyed seeing the variety of projects.  At one station, fair go-ers could sample and rate home-made lip balms vs. store-bought.  I was an observer-only at that display; I don’t trust elementary students to obey the “no fingers — Q-tip only” rule any better than I do the customers at Sephora, where I would never allow those petri-dish sample products to touch my face either.  At another table, students could write with invisible ink (lemon juice) and then bake the paper in an Easy-Bake oven to see the message appear.  The thought of all the aspiring special agents going home to cram spy messages into their Easy-Bakes gave me pause, but we have a very responsive volunteer fire department in our town, so I’m sure there won’t be too much damage.  Nothing says “Science Fair” like a tabletop volcano, and this fair did not disappoint.  There was a veritable mountain range of volcanoes, spewing glitter and lava of varying colors throughout the room.  A few competing solar systems hung here and there.  Children were making a silly-putty-like polymer in one corner.  One family ground up their breakfast cereals and used a magnet to extract the iron to show which cereal was the best source.  I couldn’t help but hear in my head Brian Regan’s comedy bit about Science Fairs (largely because I overheard a few children delivering the routine on their way around the fair).

When my son first got the flyer about the upcoming science fair, he said, “I want to do a project with lasers!”  Even though I do love science and tend toward the over-achiever end of the momscale, I just didn’t see that happening.  For a couple of years, my son has talked about someday inventing weapons for warfare that use light and sound instead of the usual ammunition (this will be linked to a future post which I will entitle “Should I Be Concerned?”) and he has become interested in laser technology.  My lack of access to lasers was an obvious barrier to such a project, but I couldn’t imagine that lasers in the crowded elementary school cafeteria would be encouraged either.  Weapons in the school can only lead to opportunities for Breaking News.   We poked around on the web a bit and found www.GeekMom.com, which had a project using a laser pointer — bending light with water.  It was a hit — laser “lite” is evidently close enough to the real thing, plus the added element of danger (“Don’t let that laser pointer beam touch anyone’s eyes or they could be blinded!”) made it extra appealing.  So my son and his friend set to work over a few days to create the project, learn about light refraction and electromagnetic radiation and such, create a display (which, to my credit, I did not “fix” in any way), and they had a blast, so to speak.  I’m pleased to report that no one lost their sight during the project or the science fair as a result.  It was a perfect project for young scientists.  They got to use fire (a candle) to heat up a skewer to poke a hole in the 2 liter bottle, there was duct tape involved, and perhaps best of all, the anthropomorphized water bottle emitting the stream of water containing the bent beam of light looked just like it was relieving itself.  They might be scientists, but they’re still boys.

Dognitive Therapy February 9, 2011

If my dog was on Facebook, I would designate my relationship with him as “it’s complicated.”  Actually, I’ve heard that there is some kind of Facebook for dogs out there, but I’m pretty confident that my dog won’t be networking on it anytime soon.  For dogs, socializing can only be a multisensory experience and so far I’m grateful to say that we do not have the technology to transmit dog smell over the internet, so I doubt he’d be interested.  Besides, my participation in dog social networking would bring me dangerously close to joining the ranks of that kibble-filled-fannypack-wearing club of dog owners companions, and I’m just not ready for that level of commitment.  As I said, it’s complicated.

One thing I do know is that the other people in my house love the dog.   (Well, one of my daughters would like him better if he fit into a sparkly handbag, but for the most part, he is adored around here).  And what’s not to love?  As dogs go, he’s pretty close to perfect.  He doesn’t shed, he follows the rules, he stays off the furniture, he rarely commits social errors.  He smiles at us.  He hugs those who are willing to have his smelly dog arms around their neck.  He’ll dance with any visiting child who wants to cut a rug, and he doesn’t try to lead.  He placidly agrees to wear his Superman costume each Halloween.  He even says hello in the morning to my son.  I’m not kidding, the dog is conversant in Scooby Doospeak and calls “Reh-ro!” up the stairs while my son descends each day.  I read Marley & Me; I know our dog is enviable.  Another thing I know is that I love the people in the house, and they are distressed when I diss the dog.

The only problem is, I’m not a dog person.  I’m really really not a dog person.  Really.  Really really.  I fully admit that this is a character flaw.  Don’t get me wrong, in theory, I’m totally on board with that cross-species human/dog bond and all, but in reality I find them smelly and inconvenient.  sigh.

But I do love my family, and so I’ve been practicing cognitive therapy with myself in regards to the dog.  Cognitive therapy can most easily be simplified as “fake it ’til you make it,” or “act as if” and the feelings will follow.  So I tell the dog he’s a good boy.  I tell him I think he’s handsome.  When my son asks if I love our dog, I have changed my answer from the evasive but honest “I’m glad that our family has a dog” to the attitude-changing though mendacious “Yes, I love him.”  And I can almost keep the curl out of my lip when I say it.  My hopes are high that I will never find this poem posted in the Notes tab of my dog’s Facebook page…

The Revenant
by Billy Collins
I am the dog you put to sleep,
as you like to call the needle of oblivion,
come back to tell you this simple thing:
I never liked you – not one bit.

When I licked your face,
I thought of biting off your nose.
When I watched you toweling yourself dry,
I wanted to leap and unman you with a snap.

I resented the way you moved,
your lack of animal grace,
the way you would sit in a chair and eat,
a napkin on your lap, knife in your hand.

I would have run away,
but I was too weak, a trick you taught me
while I was learning to sit and heel,
and – greatest of insults – shake hands without a hand.

I admit the sight of the leash
would excite me
but only because it meant I was about
to smell things you had never touched.

You do not want to believe this,
but I have no reason to lie.
I hated the car, the rubber toys,
disliked your friends and, worse, your relatives.

The jingling of my tags drove me mad.
You always scratched me in the wrong place.
All I ever wanted from you
was food and fresh water in my metal bowls.

While you slept, I watched you breathe
as the moon rose in the sky.
It took all my strength
not to raise my head and howl.

Now I am free of the collar,
the yellow raincoat, monogrammed sweater,
the absurdity of your lawn,
and that is all you need to know about this place

except what you already supposed
and are glad it did not happen sooner -
that everyone here can read and write,
the dogs in poetry, the cats and the others in prose.

Why 4? February 8, 2011

I am so perplexed by the use of the digit 4 in this sign.  Was it copy edited by a 13 year old on Take Our Daughters to Work day?  Why didn’t it thank us 4 our cooperation at the bottom of the sign?  There clearly is enough room to add the additional letters the three-letter word for would require.  Please, ShopRite, stop confusing me, I just want to get my groceries without these nagging questions.