How To Get Old

1. Have kids.

Bing! You're done.

Katie turned 18 today, which brings the number of legally adult children I've brought into this world to two.

Do you remember becoming legally an adult? It may be a ways back. Do you, nonetheless, secretly suspect there may have been some mistake?

Certainly I do; but what brings it home for me tonight is not the fact that my second-born is six days short of being able to vote straight Democratic in the upcoming midterm election, dammit. No, it's that her brother, my oldest, who is twenty, came by with his girlfriend to help with the cake.

I'd like it if my adult son had a job to go with the girlfriend, and a household that the two of them were maintaining on their own, but they are not. They are living with my first husband's mother. This is scary because my son is the age that I was when he was conceived, living under the very same roof, with the very same matriarch upon whom he and his girlfriend now depend. Plus ce change...

I talked to him about that a bit tonight, and he assured me no such thing is going to happen with him and Marty, although (as I did point out) nobody ever, ever, ever thinks it is going to happen to them, while much of the continuation of the human race is contingent upon the eternally unexpected.

But do your kids have to make you so old?! It had been a long day with Katie - I took her shopping at the outlet malls; and she was tired too, there's a lot of walking, not to mention the draining salesmanship of a couple of very young guys who are much more profoundly dedicated to the mission of selling you a pair of $165 Uggs than any human being should rightfully be.

But I'm tired, and Katie has gone off with my ex, and there I am with my son and his girlfriend, listening about how they perform in a shadow cast for an obscure movie whose title I won't bother to look up so I can type it out here, and they've eagerly disregarded a few gentle hints I've thrown out about how tired I am and how tomorrow is a work day and so on, until I finally say - and it's not rude, if you think of both of them as my kids: "Well, listen, guys, it's late, and I'm pretty wiped out. How about we all call it a night?"

The girlfriend says okay, and they make their way to the door - to go back, I guess I should add, to my ex-mother-in-law's house - and we all say goodnight. And I hug my son, because I love him. And I hug the girlfriend, not because I love her - I barely know her - but because she's a nice girl, isn't she, and my son loves her, and it's polite, and whyever shouldn't I? And I'm struck by how surprised she is, how unexpected the friendly gesture seems to be.

And this is selfish, but as they leave, I feel with renewed force how I am not twenty anymore. I know - without ever having become aware of learning - how to behave in a way that puts younger people more at ease, that assures someone else that socially, everything they've done is okay. When did I get THAT power?!? Last time I checked, it was all I could do to eat dinner in company without covering myself in spaghetti sauce. And now I am calling an end to an evening and easing the social awkwardness of uncertain youth?! Who the hell died and made me 41?!?!?

Which reminds me, I'd better track down my voter registration card soon.

The Other Side

Pet cats have a pretty good life, with certain caveats. You only live to be 16-20, and you have to eat cat food. I don't think I'd enjoy the litter box that much. Yowling at the neighbors at 3 a.m. is probably less pleasant than keeping an agreeable smile plastered to your face while avoiding eye contact, which is how I generally deal with them. Actually the worst part of being a cat - and I base this on the experience of my own well-treated and (ahem - take the hint, honey) amply-fed Peachy - is that of not really having much of any idea who your children are.

I say this, but I can think of ways in which it would be a distinct advantage. Have you ever watched "My Super Sweet Sixteen"? I admire this show greatly, inasmuch as it serves as a cautionary tale for my own sixteen-year-old, Katie, who otherwise might exhibit tendencies in that direction. But I digress. The point, assuming there was one, was that there are situations where it would be somewhat advantageous, emotionally speaking, to forget after a week or so without any contact that your offspring had ever existed.

The unfortunate corollary to this, and it would be fair in my book to call it a deal-breaker, is that a child (kitten) can be introduced to you, and within a fairly short span of time you've forgotten that it is not actually yours. Witness the kitten my abovementioned Katie brought home at the beginning of spring break this year. "My friend just needs us to watch her this week," Katie told me. "We'll take her back after break. "

If anyone on Earth knows how long break can last, you'd think, it really should be me.

Naturally, the kitten was nursing on Peachy within a few short weeks; naturally, the kitten, now nearly as large as her "mother," routinely knocks Peachy over to demand some nursies, or perhaps a tussle. Peach doesn't care. She purrs, but deep in her eyes is that long-suffering look known to all maternal creatures since time immemorial.

"We could get another kitten," I mentioned to my kids, "and after a week or so, Peachy would never know. She'd just be sitting there, nursing it, thinking, 'Why did I go and do this again?'"

I shouldn't give them ideas. Eric, who lives with his grandmother now, recently adopted a new kitten. She's at least 10 times tinier than our kitten. He brought it over to visit. Our kitten gave it one sniff and promptly dashed off to hide behind the stove. She reacted the same way when my friend Robbie brought his young miniature Dachshund over in a crate so we could have movie night. The puppy was whining. My kitten hid from the sound of whining.

I make fun of it, but I'm pretty much the same way about the dentist.

Being a human ain't bad, but my gosh, you end up having to take care of so many cats.

Holy Fucking Shit! I'm 40!!!

Holy fucking shit! I'm the mother of a 19-year-old!!!!

Here's that model of maturity with his 16-year-old sister, taken last night:

On today's agenda:
1. Pick up new contacts
2. Shop - need some new earrings, an ankle bracelet or two and some toe rings
3. Spa! Full-body massage, manicure and pedicure. Thank you Jim and Katie!!
4. Happy hour with Robbie, Kevin, Thomas, Diane, and a bunch of my other most favoritest people in the whole entire world!
5. Party like a rockstar!
6. Corpus!! Party like a particularly immature rockstar!!!
7. Come home, go back to work and grow old.

Haha! Just kidding. I did want to mention that, seeing as how my twenties were way better than my teens, and my thirties were way better than my twenties, I'm feeling very optimistic about this new milestone.

Of course I couldn't resist taking a 40th birthday vanity shot in the bathroom. I got a few miles left in me yet!

oh noes!

Just look what the kid dragged in:


Katie swears she is only kittensitting for spring break, but I'm pretty sure I've heard that one before. Fortunately I'm very hardhearted and not at all fond of cats. So you can't pull anything over on me.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a parent, I've found, is to introduce your seven-year-old to icanhascheezburger.com. Not because it's in any way inappropriate for children - well, maybe, sometimes - but because your child will never let you near the computer again, and will drive you up the wall with her incessant LOLing. Also, she'll insist on reading the captions to you. After five or six of them your brain starts leaking out through your ears.

Today at work I had to send an email out to all our field offices. Normally, our agency is not allowed to accept any gifts, which is unfortunate as the travel industry is prone to bringing us cupcakes, cookies, and other forbidden delights without notice; but there are a few exceptions; our annual conference coming up is one of them. One of our sponsors is giving out something perishable, so they intend to send out their attendee gifts ahead of time instead of handing them out at the conference.

"This is just a heads-up that you'll be receiving something from our sponsor," I wrote. "I just wanted to let you know that it's been reviewed to ensure that it meets our policy and you are allowed to accept it."

"You can has!" I wanted to write (but didn't). "But you can not has cupcake!"

I mentioned the incident ruefully to one of my coworkers. "More road trips," he told me sternly. "Less internet."

This kitten's name is Lola (rhymes with cherry cola), and she's one of five or six small, adorable creatures Katie's friend brought to school today to find only-temporary, just-for-spring-break homes for. Right. Sure. It's embarrassing, what people will resort to, isn't it?

Good thing I'll never fall for it. Ooh! Oooooh! She just yawned! Ooooooooohhhhhh!

The Good Life

One, people who die should not talk to you after they're dead, because it freaks the shit out of you.

Not that they meant to. Today I called my ex-mother-in-law to tell her that I'll be picking up my son (who lives with her) from the airport tonight on his return from Manila. My ex-father-in-law, who passed away last April, answered the phone. "You have reached [their phone number]," he read off in a slow, measured, carefully-modulated tone (which, actually, he did use in real conversation during real life, because he was kind of weird that way). "Please leave your message after the tone."

My stepfather kept my mother's outgoing message on their voicemail for as long as he lived in their house. I guess I got used to it after a while, but it didn't sound like Mom: stiff, stilted, trying to speak clearly, professionally and coolly, since she ran her piano studio out of her home. In real life she was usually giggling.

Maybe she'd have laughed at the voicemail too, later. The first time I called and heard it, without warning, perhaps a month after she died, I took it like a punch to the gut, hung up the phone without leaving a message, and sobbed for an hour. There was no other recording of her voice, that I know of. Maybe four months ago my stepfather left the house and the phone number and moved on. It must have been erased now.

Two, my son is returning home tonight from a one-week trip to the Philippines - Manila, where some six months or so ago, he met a girl online. She's 24. He's 18. Am I thrilled about this? Not so much. Nonetheless, he saved up his money for the trip, he doesn't live with me, he's - more or less - an adult, or at least working on becoming one, in his own particular way. I want him to be happy. She does seem like a nice girl, and teaches English to Koreans over the phone. Most importantly, he had a wonderful time, learned from an experience I've never had (I have never been overseas - never!!) and he's coming back, tonight. I'm picking him up at the airport a little after midnight. He left Manila at 7:40 p.m. yesterday, my time. He's likely to be a scoche on the tired side.

Three, I am a scoche on the tired side already. Life is easy: friends and kindness abound, I want for nothing, even this weird leprosy shit on my neck and arm seems to be finally clearing up. But I'm just not happy. I'm tired. I'm sorry, I'm just ready for things to be a bit better soon, please, please?

What's the World Coming To?

There is no escaping the affection of Slappy White.

Why doesn't anything I've ever written about my damn cat show up in Googlisms? I type in "Slappy White" and get the exact same results I got four years ago. Frankly, I don't think they're even trying.

Slappy is, though. I sit down at the kitchen table, and he comes up and jumps in my lap. Never mind that I'm crossing my legs and sticking out my feet and holding my hands palms-out in front of me and shouting, "No, Slappy, no, no, no!" He just jockeys for position, eyeing my outstretched hands to gauge his leap. Within moments he's curled up on my lap, purring loudly, bestowing his baleful yellow gaze, occasionally reaching out a paw to pull my hand down to his head and pet him. The paw has pointy bits sticking out. Slappy White is not screwing around.

Go on, check back in a year. I guarantee that sentence won't be there.

Small children are no better. Well, Anna is, if you don't mind the fact that you have to dress her and get breakfast into her and transport her to her second-grade classroom while she is still technically fast asleep. But she's a good-natured enough kid, and quite easygoing, as long as she gets her way. Aren't we all?

A coworker of mine told me a story this morning about how he took his six-year-old daughter shoe-shopping over the weekend. About the 58th pair of shoes, he said, he was starting to get a bit tired. "Can't we just get these?" he asked her. "These are cute."

She looked at him, my coworker's little six-year-old cherub. "Daddy," she said evenly. "Why don't you just hit me with a stick?"

Anna is particular about footwear too, though not at the store. No, she'll let you buy the shoes, she just refuses to wear them once they've been bought and paid for. This might be worse.

But she's learned her lesson, I think. Last week we were dancing to Stereolab in the as-yet-uncleaned living room. (They are of course an English band, fronted by a French lead singer.) Anna was showing me how she's learned to do an Irish jig, but she tripped and hurt her foot on her Dora the Explorer doll, which had been left lying on el piso. If that doesn't teach you not to go barefoot around the house, at least it demonstrates the perils of multiculturalism.

But those are nothing to the perils of Slappy White's unquenchable cat breath. Slappy White is muy malodoroso!

Bet you a new pair of shoes it'll never show up there.

Lessons from a 7-Year-Old

Your zoo is a pretty sorry excuse for a zoo if it only has one animal. Your seven-year-old visitor probably won't even want to pay admission, and will sneak in by wriggling through the ticket window, giggling. Then she will swipe your animal, which is actually just a four-inch-tall stuffed bunny, and convince you that the pillow she's thwacking you with is actually a sack full of much better animals, so you quit tickling her and allow her to escape, only to find out she's only given you a pillow! So your zoo has to close. Way to go.

I don't really know what you were thinking, trying to open up a zoo in the first place.

The Birthday Party

"Oh my," says Anna's friend's mother, standing in my front doorway, her eyes widening as she takes in the birthday-hat-wearing horde of seven-year-olds who are bounding over the furniture and chasing one another around the living room, squealing and giggling. "Aren't you brave!"

Here's a tip for any of you who are, or may someday become, the parents of young children: If your kid is popular at school, DO NOT INVITE THE WHOLE CLASS TO HER BIRTHDAY PARTY.

The birthday party drop-off is an awkward, but fairly precise pas de deux of etiquette. The guests' parents always offer to stay, realizing that, while the hosts probably didn't factor them into the cake and punch count, and might not relish having to make grown-up small talk in a 240 dB environment, a little additional crowd control would probably be helpful. But the hosts are obligated to give an offhand laugh and a carefree wave of the hand, saying, "Oh no - of course you're more than welcome, we'd love to have you; but if you'd like to drop him off and come back that's fine too!"

Pay no heed to the terror in their eyes, that look that says, please. Please, take me with you. You can't leave me like this.

At this point, 67.2% of birthday guest parents - after the mandatory "Are you quite sure it's all right to just leave her?" - will go ahead and leave, feeling slightly guilty, but heaving a huge internal sigh of relief that they don't have to sit through three hours of sugar-fueled Armageddon. The remaining 32.8% (I looked it up) will stay, compelled by social conscience, or concern for the well-being of their offspring - these are generally the parents of the shyer kids. Maybe they're worried that their children won't be able to handle a house full of rambunctious schoolmates. Or possibly they just have never imagined - who could? - quite how loud a small house crammed with second-graders can be.

Helpers are very good to have, preferably ones you know well. At my house there are two teenagers to assist with the festivities: talk about your forward thinking! Katie baked and decorated the birthday cake, to begin with. And she's great with the little kids, leading them in Duck-Duck-Goose, carrying plates and forks, serving punch, and ensuring that the destruction of the pinata doesn't result in massive head trauma. Well, for any of the party guests, at least. The pinata might not feel so great. Meanwhile, Eric chips in by making sure none of Anna's friends lack somebody to play with on her new Wii.

Still, you wouldn't believe how long just three hours can last. Last year, when Anna was in kindergarten, Katie volunteered to fill out the invitations. A born party girl, she filled in the time on several as "2pm - ???" before we caught and stopped her.

But the party was a grand success. Anna's eyes are shining and she declares this was the best birthday ever. And that alone makes it all worth it. Well, that, and that Katie plopped down next to me on the couch after the last party guest had left, and said, "You know, Mom, I'm not so sure I ever want kids."

Another triumphant moment in parenting!

A Day at the Spa: Now Without Vibrators

Have you ever wondered what a day spa staffed and operated entirely by first-graders would be like? You haven't, have you? Well, I'm going to tell you anyway.

Anna's class set up an hour-long spa experience for their mothers today. Their teacher was very proud, and rightly so: the kids planned and organized everything themselves, made lists of needed supplies, and pilfered a few small items from home. "If you've noticed a few of your things missing here and there," laughed the teacher, gesturing at the tables, "this is why! Don't worry, you'll get them back."

It's probably worth noting here that there was, indeed, a vibrating massage tool among the secretly borrowed items, but no, it wasn't that kind. You sort of have to wonder, though. That could have been a bit awkward, you think?

The kids set up stations at each classroom table: a chair massage station, a nail salon, a gift shop with bookmarks, pictures, and paper flowers the kids had made, a day care in the middle of the reading rug for the toddlers who accompanied a few of the moms, and best of all (because this one was Anna's), the Blue Table Restaurant, which served fruit salad, carrot sticks with your choice of salad dressing, and chocolate croissants that Anna had made herself, plus lemonade and water.

Most good day spas offer wine, but that would probably be asking a little much.

Most good day spas also don't offer quite the type of manicure I got at the nail salon, where I sacrificed a fresh Beverly Hills to allow one of Anna's classmates to lacquer all my fingertips, from the knuckle up, in powder pink. That's motherhood for you.

The kids were great, but after the first half-hour they had about reached their limit - bouncing around the room from station to station, jabbering excitedly, and scrounging for food, while one of the masseuses began chasing the waitress around the room with the aforementioned vibrating massage tool. The staff at most reputable day spas generally do not squeal and giggle quite so much.

As things drew to a close, the clever teacher suggested that, so late in the school day, the departing mothers might as well just take their energetic little ones home with them. I waited while Anna washed out the lemonade pitcher and swept up all the crumbs from the reading rug. Do you know, she never does this at home. I wonder if I could get her teacher to come live with us? There's not room, but that's okay. I'll just spend all my time at the spa.

Next To Godliness

Anna doesn't want to have a bath.

There's nothing at all unusual about this - she always puts up a fight, even though she has a pretty good time once she's in the tub. But Anna is a creature of routine (switched at birth, do you think? I did deliver this one in a hospital), and, for almost seven years now, she's been putting up a reasonably well-organized guerrilla resistance at bathtime. So why stop now?

Not the most fragrant of children, my youngest.

Tonight, bathtime came as her daddy and older sister were about to head to the store. Anna wanted to go with them. But this was completely out of the question: it's past bedtime, her hair looks as if a family of wyverns had built a nest in it, and - not to be crude, but there's really no getting around it - she kind of smells like butt.

So they left, and I undressed my screaming, fighting, clawing, three-and-a-half-foot high Antichrist and muscled her into the tub.

Have you ever bathed a yelling child in front of the family cat? Well, I'll tell you what: it freaks the cat out. Think about it. What could a cat find more terrifying than seeing someone else, higher in the family pecking order than he is, screaming like a banshee while the Big Meow pushes her into a tub of that nasty wet stuff that makes your fur all cold and sticky?!?

So my cat Bingo is racing around the house at high velocity, mewing piteously and knocking objects off the bookshelves. If he had opposable thumbs, he'd probably call 911.

Cats have no particular objection to smelling like butt.

Further Perspectives

We're watching Pirates of the Carribbean III: At World's End, or at least we're trying to. Katie can't find her nail polish. Anna spills her Kool-Aid. Eric walks in and out of the room past the TV screen. Mr. Bingo Kitten deposits part of a lizard on the arm of the sofa.

"Bingo!" I exclaim, exasperated, cleaning up the mess with paper towels. He scampers from the room and we resume watching the movie the best we can. Captain Jack and crew stumble upon a beached kraken on the shore. Bingo skitters sideways into the room and regurgitates a reptilian tail on the area rug. I sigh, exaggeratedly, though there's not much use trying to make cats feel guilty. I fetch more paper towels.

"Bingo would love that lizard!" laughs Anna, pointing at the monstrosity on the screen. "He would like to eat it. All up! And it would take years to clean up the pukey!"

Things could be a lot worse.

Embezzle My Shezzle

Somebody forgot to tell Anna's school that PTA meetings are, by definition, dull.

Not that most of it wasn't. In a brilliant marketing ploy, the school enforces parental participation by staging recitals in which your own adorable child (along with the adorable children of about seventy-five other eligible parents) stands up and sings five or six songs about arithmetic, reading, running and jumping, tunes and rhythm - you know, all the things your kid is doing all day while you're at work wondering what will really happen if you flush the hand towels down the commode.

The children must be dropped off early to warm up. They're terribly excited and you'd be the world's worst parent not to go see them. And while they're warming up, you're in the cafeteria, sitting at a table proportioned for an eight-year-old, participating, by God! in a PTA meeting. "Hey! Great turnout tonight!" enthuses the PTA president in her opening remarks.

The howls of pre-school-aged children echo through the room. The speaker's microphone cuts in and out. There's always a faint, omnipresent odor of burnt cheese. Raising our hands as directed, we elect a new PTA board consisting of parents and staff sitting in the room; there is one candidate for each position. And, incidentally, the PTA has just completed an audit and discovered they've lost over $3,000.

...Wait, what?

The PTA president introduces the treasurer, a really nice and relaxed guy I've sometimes seen wearing a kilt. "We completed our audit of the books for the fiscal year and there's a discrepancy of $3,000, and some change," he says somewhat diffidently.

The president takes the mic back and starts talking about what they're going to do, her voice becoming increasingly strident as she goes on. "From now on," she says, "we're going to start keeping an eye on the books and reconciling the bank statements! This is not going to happen again! Because this is your money! My money! The PTA's money!" she says, "and we're going to get that money back! We're going to do whatever it takes!"

She calls for a show of hands to support engaging an attorney and taking the matter to court, so we all raise our hands, though we're a bit confused as to what, exactly, has gone down. The PTA president mentions that a woman standing near me is with the state chapter and has come to witness the school's support for this action.

Any questions?

Another woman near me raises her hand tentatively. "We missed some of the beginning part, I think," she says. "What exactly happened?"

The president hands the mic back to the treasurer. "Well, basically, we're missing $3,000," he says. "But there's pending legal action, so I can't tell you any specifics."

This pretty much had to be a matter of embezzlement by a (hopefully) former board member, then, didn't it? Considering the anger in the president's voice, we figured they had to have a solid idea who the culprit was; and that, indeed, he or she was very likely sitting in the front row, grinning smugly and sporting a brand-new three-thousand-dollar tiara.

It was exciting, but not enough to take my mind off my small, adorable daughter's performance. Just like the ants, life goes marching on... and on...

You Can't Always Get What You Want

“What would you like to order?” Anna asks me, proffering an alarmingly-colored cheeseburger made of modeling clay.

Eric got the clay for Christmas, and the only reason we still have any is because our house isn’t carpeted. It’s not easy to grind modeling clay into a hardwood floor. Don’t think my kids haven’t tried.

“Mmm-hmm,” I murmur, because I’m sort of engrossed in a computer game. But she’s insistent. “How many plops of mustard do you want on your hot dog?”

“Um. Two,” I tell her, distractedly, because the Snoods are about to turn into a bunch of skulls and crush me.

“I think I’ll give you three,” she says. “Here you go!” She hands me a mottled yellow, vaguely hot-dog-shaped object. I miss my shot and lose my game. “What would you like to order now?” she asks.

“Honestly, Anna!” I exclaim. “I’d just like to be left alone.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “I’m sorry,” she says politely. “We don’t offer that here.”

The Importance of Being Educated

The kids’ grades came in the mail yesterday, and I was thinking, did the school really have to send their grades to arrive during the holidays? Couldn't it have waited till a bit later? Like, when the kids are in their 40s?

I think it would go something like this.

SCENE: A handsomely appointed breakfast parlor, sometime in the future. Flying cars can be glimpsed occasionally through the French doors, as well as some construction work being carried on in the distance by a mixed robot/human crew in hard hats and safety vests. On the wall is an imposing formal portrait of an attractive middle-aged woman with an intelligent, determined, yet kindly face. At the table, a healthy, prosperous-looking elderly couple is eating breakfast.

A robot butler, which receives a living wage and full benefits as required by the Widget Treatment Fairness Act of 2019, glides into the room on its hoverpads, bearing the mail on a small silver tray. SYLVIA picks up the mail and glances idly through it, tossing a few pieces aside. Her eyes linger on one envelope and she opens it, her brow furrowing, and pores over its contents for several moments.

EDGAR: What’s that you’ve got there, honey?

SYLVIA: This is very strange. It’s Susie’s grades.

EDGAR: Her grades? Do you mean her latest polling numbers?

SYLVIA: No, no, I mean grades. From her sophomore year of high school, apparently.

EDGAR: Good lord. They’re a bit late, aren’t they?

SYLVIA: Somehow the school got our address wrong. This seems to have been sitting around in the dead letter office for a couple of decades.

EDGAR: I always wondered how she came through Algebra. I remember she was struggling a bit.

SYLVIA: She failed.

EDGAR: What?!

SYLVIA: And it wasn’t even close. She failed Algebra, and English, and World History, and -

EDGAR (interrupting): But – but – I always thought she was doing so well in school. She was such a promising kid, playing sports, studying piano, volunteering as a school office aide... hey, wait a minute. Let me see that envelope!

SYLVIA (handing him the papers): Well, she did end up President of the Federated States of Earth.

EDGAR (looking over them): My God. With these grades, I’m surprised she didn’t end up working for the Skyway Department.

SYLVIA glances out the window, where a robotic flagger’s ambiguous signaling has just caused a 15-car pileup, and smoking debris is raining down onto the concrete roadway with which the crew has paved over a creek for no readily apparent reason, seeing as how all traffic is airborne. Edgar! How can you say such a terrible thing about your own daughter?!

EDGAR: How the hell can anybody get a 14 in P.E.??

SYLVIA (wringing her hands): Well, I don’t know, you remember that bad stomachache she had…

EDGAR: For twelve weeks?! I don’t think so!

SYLVIA: But, dear, it’s been such a long time. Why get all worked up about it now?

EDGAR: Long time, my ass. I want her impeached! I’m calling the Secretary of Education.

The U.S. Healthcare System: Works Just Fine

Another reason never to go to the doctor is that you end up on a mailing list where they send you a whole bunch of incomprehensible paperwork.

Take what arrived in the mail today. "COVER SHEET," it says in big capital letters.

No, well, I understand what that means, although I'm not entirely clear why an otherwise blank piece of paper labeled "COVER SHEET" is necessary. It doesn't seem very environmentally friendly, but okay, I guess I get it. What confuses me is the following page, which says, "This letter is in response to a request for service(s)/procedure(s). The following service/procedure has been approved as medically necessary as defined by the member's Health Care Benefits booklet or Summary Plan Description." Then it says I can have an "ADMISSION" in a "PHYSICIAN'S OFFICE."

Whatever! I'm not admitting anything without an attorney present.

What this is presumably in regards to is that the doctor I went to see about my leg, who drew on years of highly specialized training and experience to arrive at the conclusion that I should maybe stretch before exercising, actually referred me to a physical therapist to show me how. It's hard to tell, but I think this is my insurance company's notice that they might not deny all the charges if I do.

But I'm pretty sure it's a trap.

It's not the first incomprehensible mailing I've received, either, since my office visit not two weeks ago. There was another procedure approved - I think - and there was a notification that my co-pay was adequate to meet my financial responsibility for the office visit itself. I think.

Frankly, I'm glad I can figure out stretching on my own, because I can't afford any more pre-approved procedures. Earlier this year, Katie went to the doctor for recurring stomach-aches that were causing her to miss a lot of school. The doctor recommended a battery of tests, and some weeks later, we received a $279 bill (somehow, the invoices are never quite so difficult to make out as the approval notices). Katie - on my friends list on MySpace - posted a response to a survey bulletin a bit later. "When was the last time you were sick?" read the question. "I fake sick all the time, but I can't remember the last time I was really sick," responded Katie, serving as an object lesson in the dangers of an active Internet presence.

She's not in traction; that would cost a fortune.

Party!

Another weekend, another first-grader's birthday party.

It's at Little Stacy Park, maybe half a mile from my house; but Anna doesn't want to walk. There's nothing more volatile than a six-year-old's temper in 90-degree heat. So we drive. At least we drive the flowery froggy Flying Spaghetti Monster-mobile, so we can still pass ourselves off as real Travis Heights residents.

The other moms look a lot like me: some older, some younger, but pretty much dressed about the same, only most of them have tattoos. These are the middle class of Travis Heights. Many of them have known each other for years, and most are actively involved with the PTA, which I'm not. They welcome me very politely, but I'm a stranger in their midst. They split up into small conversational groups, none of which I join, and chitchat about their kids, about early childhood learning patterns, about preschools, about waiting lists, about where to get the best coffee (Jo's), about their yoga classes and how to take a holistic approach to mental and physical wellness, and the challenge of finding inner peace when you have a house full of screaming toddlers.

Twenty small children line up to play Pin* the Tail on the Donkey, and all but three or four of them hit exactly the right spot. "I swear I blindfolded them," says the hostess mom, defensively, but I don't believe it. She's very cute. You can tell she's crazy about kids.

The destruction of the pinata was unusually orderly. This is a ritual which almost always involves a few near concussions. But these Travis Heights moms, I tell you what, they're on the ball, monitoring and controlling the line of kids and herding them back when they got too close. Cleverly, the hostess mom had put only a symbolic amount of candy in the actual pinata, and instead passed out pre-filled goody bags once the pinata was broken. These people know what they're doing.

Still, small children are small children, and towards the end of the hour-and-a-half party time, a few of the littler ones were melting down in fairly socially unpleasant ways, seizing toys, hitting each other, and generally behaving like nasty little sniveling brats. Kids do that, which is why most sane people try to avoid having more than two or three, tops. And I'm once again reminded of one of my favorite stories. It was Anna's fifth birthday, and Katie volunteered to fill out the invitations. She's fifteen now, and a born party animal. She filled out five or six invitations with "Time: 2PM 'til ???" before we caught and stopped her.

I got home before 5pm, thank God. I don't do well even with Austin small talk. ("So where do you work?" asked one of the moms at one point. "Oh, I'd really rather not say," I responded. She probably thought I was in marketing.) There are probably another sixteen kids at least in Anna's class. I hope most of them had their birthdays over the summer.

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*Tape

The Lost Berliner

Most people's kids bring home an abandoned baby bird or puppy or squirrel at some point. Leave it to Eric to bring home a German.

This poor kid is an exchange student at Eric and Katie's school, and today was his first day. He's in Eric's Algebra II class. There was some miscommunication with his host mother, so he tried to find a bus home, but of course he's in an unfamiliar city and an unfamiliar country. So he walked here with Eric and Katie, who couldn't find a bus either (they're transfer students).

It's not an unmanageable walk, but it's not short. "How far is that, anyway?" I asked Eric. "About four miles?"

"Maybe two," he said.

"Oh, I'm sure it's more than that," I insisted. "It's got to be nearly four, anyway."

"I don't think it's more than three," he said.

"Three and a half," I told him, "and that's my final offer."

We shook on it.

Anyway, three and a half miles, in Texas late summer heat, can't be pleasant for an uninitiated Northern European, so of course I offered to drive the kid the rest of the way home. He wasn't sure where the house is - he just got here two days ago - but remembered the address, so we google-mapped it, and good grief, it's halfway to Dripping Springs. I'm not sure why he's going to my kids' school at all.

Traffic's always a bitch, so I didn't get the poor guy home until nearly seven. His host mother came running out of the house, out of breath. "He should never have tried to get on a bus," she said. "He doesn't have my phone number. He doesn't have anybody's phone number. The police are on their way. - I mean, thank you. But he is in so much trouble!"

Her dog, concerned with matters of more immediate material interest, calmly jumped into my car.

I hope the kid gets a break. I remember how huge Austin was when I first moved here in 1986 to go to UT - at the age Eric is now, actually - and it's a hell of a lot huger now. I came here from Madison, Alabama; whether this is more or less of a foreign country than Germany is probably open for debate.

At least everyone is now safely back where they belong, because I did not, in fact, bring the dog home.

Small Austin!

Last night, on my way to the wastelands of the north to check in on Robbie's kitten, I got a call from my sister Margie, who had locked herself out of the house where she's temporarily staying. "It's off North Loop, near Guadalupe," she told me.

I know the area well. I lived in a little house right off North Loop many years ago, and then my then-future-now-ex-husband and I moved to the house on North Loop where our son was born in 1990. We drove past it on the way to pick up Margie. "Look!" I said to Eric. "That's it, right there. You were born in that house."

"That one?" he said. "Eeugggh."

Kids.

It was a really cute little house: two bedrooms, one bath, a nice-enough-sized living room and a big open kitchen. It didn't have central air, just one large window unit in the living room, which we ran as little as possible because of the expense. The only phone jack was at the end of the short hallway, which had a little alcove with a shelf for the phone. Below the phone shelf was another one for the phone book, which wouldn't fit because it was too thick.

The yard was huge and really nice, except that every ten minutes or so, an airplane would scream thundering overhead, momentarily blacking out the whole sky, so close you felt like you could reach up and touch its belly. The noise was absolutely deafening. You got used to it. The rent was $350 a month.

After picking up Margie we passed the other house where I had lived, before, a three-bedroom I had shared with two roommates. "I lived there when I met my ex-husband," I remarked.

"Oh, wow, I'm friends with the girl who lives there now!" said Margie. "One of her roommates is moving out. I've been thinking about moving in there."

Funny, isn't it, what a small town Austin can be sometimes? The airport's gone, the area is now considered to be central, and I expect rents have gone up a smidge. But the neighborhood still looks pretty much the same as I remember. Many of the houses still sport window units. And it's still cute.

Eric piped up from the backseat. "Just try not to marry my dad," he told Margie.

Kids!

Teenagers!

Can't live with 'em, and divorcing your kids is generally frowned upon by society.

Stuck-up prigs! (Society, I mean, not teenagers, who frankly could benefit from being a little more stuck-up and a little less the way they normally are, which is not particularly stuck-up, not that teenagers can't from time to time be stuck-up, but they're generally more likely to be massively emotional, hormonal, and drama-laden, than with which being stuck-up is infinitely easier to deal, inasmuch as being stuck-up does not generally engage innocent bystanders, i.e. parents who have just gotten home from work and only wanted to check email and chill for a little bit, in full-blown screamfests, which are not, contrary to what reality TV may have led you to believe, fun.)

We're all better now and have had a nice talk and I still love Katie very much, but if everyone else would be so kind as to refrain from being mad at me for at least a couple of days, I'd really appreciate it.

And if somebody would pat me gently on the shoulder and perhaps say kind things like "there, there" and "poor baby," it would be just heavenly. Because - not always, of course, but sometimes - there's nothing else like having a teenager to make you really want your mommy.

Lucky

I'm on a roll,
I'm on a roll this time,
I feel my luck could change...

That's actually a photo of a cardinal, perched in the live oak in the backyard on Sunday. For some reason I always think cardinals are really good luck, so I followed it around for several minutes taking pictures, and this is the best one I was able to get; which might give the lie to my theory.

Today seemed like an excellent day to stay home and pamper the bum leg. They say to ice muscle sprains, which just seems sadistic. Hasn't my poor leg been through enough? I've been putting a heat pad on it and it feels wonderful, though I keep having to fight the cats for it (the heat pad, not my leg). I'll go back to work tomorrow, but I guess I'm driving, for a little while, at least.

Anna made me a birthday card. It says,

Deear mommy
Happy
birthday i love
you so much
you to yes you do
so much yes
yes yes as
much as
a hipo

She's a nice baby. I might actually love her even more than a hippo.