New School

It just shouldn't be that hard to get 3 kids to look at a camera. Now that Steel has her posse of fashionistas, they've all told her that the earrings she wore on the first day of school were "hideous."

I was going to helicopter in and tell JP's advisor that I thought he might be being bullied at Penn Charter.  In reality, JP is adjusting just fine, and I'm starting to wonder whether HE is instigating issues with "the jocks." He likes to see himself as a the main character in a "Diary of a Wimpy kid"-esque film.  In his kind, patient way; Tim told me to back off, and he was right.  Tim has handled this move to a private school much better than I have.  

Instead of running to the school, I wrote the following soliloquy from the point of view of my comedic son and e-mailed it to him one day.  I think it was therapeutic for both of us

So my 7th grade entry into Penn Charter was a little rocky.  First of all, there's the JP/PJ issue; both of us are new kids.  I'm JP. I'm an 80lb not-super-coordinated 7th grader who would rather sculpt with polymer clay or play video games than pretty much anything else.  PJ is a big, handsome athletic 7th grader.  He's been a water polo goalie for 4 years.  How is that possible?  Kids play water polo when they are in 3rd grade????  It turns out Penn Charter is a super jocky school. People have been confusing JP and PJ.  Everyone thinks that I'm PJ.  I think I get it.  JP is a pretty common, acceptable acronym.  PJ is short for pajamas, and I'm, well, short for EVERYTHING.  Pajamas is kind of a "little kid" word.  I don't know of too many adults who wear pajamas.  My parents don't.  I actually wish they would, but that's another story.  I used to have this great pair of Lightening McQueen pajamas; I wore the hell out of those.  I'll bet they'd still fit me now.  Anyway perhaps my classmates look and me and think "pajamas." which makes them think that I'm PJ and he's JP.
At Penn Charter there's this thing called "intramurals."   It's everyone's favorite day because we get out of the classroom and run around doing sports all day.  It's my idea of hell.  So they put ME in the soccer goal.  I lost count after I let in 5 goals. It was demoralizing.  Memo to my fellow 7th graders: On our next "intramurals" day.  Put PJ in the goal and ask JP to do something like fill the water bottles. I'll crush that.
I wonder what PJ stands for.  Is it Patrick?  Why doesn't he just go by Patrick?  My uncle Pat was my favorite when I was a kid because I was obsessed with backhoes, and he drove one.  I actually was put to sleep every night for a few years by my parents singing this song they wrote about my Uncle Pat.  "Uncle Pat gets in the backhoe.  He gets in the backhoe and he turns it on, and he digs digs digs; he digs in the backhoe.  He digs digs digs till the sun is gone."  I can't believe the second line is "and he turns it on."  Couldn't they have come up with something better than that?  One Direction did get away with the line, "The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed," so the bar is low.  Maybe PJ is short for one of those incomprehensible names like "Poppasquash."  Now I'm feeling sorry for PJ.  Those kind of names only really work when you're in your 80's and you've just published a memoir about your conversations with Winston Churchill.  My little sister came home on one of the first days at Penn Charter.  She said, "Guys, there's a kid named Ridgeway in my class!"  Ridgeway sounds like a posh neighborhood in San Diego or a company that makes high end skis.
Poppasquash is actually an island off the coast of Rhode Island where my grandfather summered when he was a little kid.  He, too, was an 80-lb 7th grader.  Maybe there's hope for me. 

Meanwhile, Steel did not want to go to Penn Charter.  She preferred the school that separated the sexes.  She can barely tolerate boys.  We ran into one of her new classmates at the orthodontist.  I could tell he recognized her immediately when he walked in.  I whispered to her that a kid recognized her and was he in her class?  She said, I know he goes to Penn Charter, but I don't think he's in my grade.  There are only 14 kids in her CLASS, and he's one of them.  Boys just don't exist for her.  She was telling me how she hopes that she has a future boyfriend who comes out to her as gay.  Then she can "just be his beard for years and it will be so fun and perfect!"  She was not impressed by the girls at Penn Charter when she visited.  She thought they were mean.  The crazy thing is that she was right to detect some social issues. I'd heard of a mean girl from a few of the girl moms I'd talked to, but when the woman of 3 boys in front of whose home the bus stops said something, I knew it was a problem.  Those boys are the most stoic kids I've ever met.  When my kids wept and wailed for 10 minutes about the lack of air conditioning on the bus, her kids said nothing. On the fancy dress day, they walked out of their house, and it was a living, breathing page from a Land's End catalogue.  Both parents are doctors; all three boys are good looking, good students, polite and athletic, so hearing that one of them burst into tears at the thought of having this girl in his class shocked the hell out of me almost as much as the moment of intimacy required for the mother to divulge that to me.  

Perhaps our previous school had avoided petty mean girl stuff because they had bigger fish to fry. One of Steel's close friends succumbed to DIPG on a snow day in the middle of her 4th grade year.  The only thing I can say about Marlee's death is that I was so glad that I'd impulsively told my kids over the summer that she was probably not going to make it.  Her chances were 1 in 100, and she'd gone on a clinical trial over the summer, and it started out somewhat promising, and it had ended abysmally.  I had the impression that everyone was telling the kids: Marlee is strong. Marlee is a fighter. Marlee is going to beat it.  I didn't want my kids shocked at the outcome.  Moreover I didn't want them to think every time they hear the words, "he/she is strong; he/she is a fighter" that the person was destined to die.  Marlee's odds were terrible; that's not the case for everyone who gets sick. (Although a 39-year-old mother of one of JP's friends had died 3 months before Marlee had, so the Roxborough track record for conquering cancer has not been one of happy endings.)

I had a tough time at Marlee's funeral.  Steel and her friends were inconsolable.  They were also egging each other onto new heights of their histrionic, cinematic impression of what grieving should be.  It felt insincere, overly-dramatic and disruptive.  I, however, was not going to be that mother who shushes her grieving 10 year old at a funeral.  I held her close.  I told her and her friends to come to the studio after the service.  I wasn't going to make them return to school like that.  After a trip to Dunkin' Donuts, the three of them were gleeful little banshees.  I felt played.  The mom who had taken the girls to the viewing, the previous evening, had the same feeling about their weeping and wailing.  She said to me that they didn't know how to grieve, but acting the part was probably helping them process in some way.  That mom is 14 years younger than I am but far wiser.

Seeing the 3 different reactions to Marlee's death was heart-wrenching.  Toby with her hyper-rational mind went straight to question mode.  How old was she?  How could she be nine and die? Where is she now? Steel went straight down the rabbit hole.  "I hate life; it shouldn't have been Marlee."  Jack Peter looked at his weeping sisters and said, "Can we host DandD tomorrow?"  Steel went berserk.  "How can you ask about DandD NOW?"  JP fell apart and whimpered, "I just want to think about something fun!" 

My reaction? I probably went more deeply into whichever escapism method I normally choose: alcohol, gardening or compulsive crafting.  I still find myself bursting into tears over it on my bike ride to work or at some other baffling moment.  

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

My mom had us read Macbeth in her 9th grade English class.  Everyone had to memorize that quote.  I wouldn't call it uplifting, but chanting it as I pedaled helped in some way. Marlee's death is an incomprehensible vacuum looming around the periphery of all of our lives.  

In lieu of more about Toby, I'm putting an extra picture of her with Ava in...

Toby also wanted to go to the single-sex school, but one of her best friends was in her grade at Penn Charter.  Before visiting that other school, she'd longed to "go to Penn Charter with Ava." Whenever she complained I'd just remind her of that.  So Toby gets 2 lines of this blog, and the others get 200.  The 3rd kid really does get the shaft.

 Thank God they have Nanny around to get them new haircuts and new clothes.  If it were up to me, I'd be cutting their hair on the deck, and they'd be rummaging through hand-me-down bags for something to wear.  

Kensington got too cool

God I loved that bathroom.  I'll miss it!  Check out the reflection of the view; you could see the whole city from the shower.

Kensington was a dump when I moved there in 2004.  I’d regularly find human poop on my stoop. The police were using my roof to surveil drug deals-just like on The Wire.  After the birth of JP, my husband got arrested for attacking a pimp on the street with nunchaku.  Instead of crack, I can now get a kale smoothie anywhere within a 1/4 mile radius.  The pimps/prostitutes have been replaced by Millennials who smell like sandalwood.  Clearly it’s time for me to go.  

Honestly I’m a cranky, sweaty mom after a day of potting and cycling the 14-mile commute.  I’m also terrible at being a landlord, and I hate it. I’ve never been OK with charging people to live in my filthy, old, gorgeous building, probably because I don’t physically do anything for the money.  I also made a bad decision when I got my kiln back in 2005, so I’m getting a new, fancy kiln with my new space. My brother in law bought the building from me. To illustrate my failure as a landlord, he raised the rent of my tenant upstairs by 14% and took away his parking place. I just don’t have that in me unless I’m pre-menstrual.  

I know I’m not supposed to admit that, but my menstrual cycle was my bargaining chip in my real estate negotiations with my brother in law.  He’s a professional haggler.  I’m not kidding.  He works in the marijuana industry making deals.  The guy who hired him wanted him because he’d experienced Mike on the opposite side of the negotiating table and wanted him on his side.  My mother in law and I both thought it unwise for me to sell my building to Mike.  However, Mike lives in the Bay Area; he is the only one of the brothers who isn’t part of the family business in Philly. He’s always wanted to partner with his brothers on something. The brothers are developing the factory floor portion of the building.  I owned the office/locker room portion and 1/7 of the factory floor.  The boys (spearheaded by my husband, Tim) wanted a neighbor to their development that they could control; Mike had the added incentive of needing to complete his 1031 exchange to escape a major tax bill on a sale he made in California.

That flower mural has been painted over by the unbelievably annoying Philadelphia anti-graffiti group.  In the process they've painted over my tenant's lock twice leaving her unable to get into her apartment. 

🙄🔫

In week one of the negotiations Mike was physically here and drunk.  Of course he was; he was hanging out with his brothers 3000 miles away from his wife and daughters.  We had a casual conversation about the sale.  He mentioned some improvements that needed to happen before he’d commit, and I told him that it was going to be an “as is” situation.  A couple weeks later Tim came into my studio while I was in my happy place, glazing.  He told me I needed to separate the units from a zoning perspective before the sale. I told him that I was selling the building because I didn’t want to run or pay for any construction projects.  I went back to glazing, and he wandered back into his office muttering that I didn’t understand how these things work, and I was going to need to make some compromises.  Finally Tim showed me an e-mail from Mike referring to me as “The Seller.”  There was a list of things that “The Seller” was going to do in order to make the sale go through.  I responded that “The Seller” wasn’t going to do a Goddamn thing, and if “The Buyer” didn’t want the building, that was fine with “The Seller.”  Tim threw up his hands and said, “You need to call Mike.”  I did call Mike.  My palms were sweating, and my heart was racing, but I re-iterated what The Seller was prepared to do, and he….APOLOGIZED!  I went to bed feeling bad but satisfied for having stuck to my guns.  When it comes to money I usually default to my dad’s advice when I was a kid: “De-ah (Dear) If you’re evah (ever) at a restaurant and people ah (are) bickering ovah (over) the bill, JUST PAY IT!  You don’t want to have to listen to that crap!”  With Mike I’d neither haggled nor picked up the tab.  I got my period the next morning.

So Mike bought the office/residential portion of my building.  The factory part I will sell to my husband and his partners for $1.  They are building me a beautiful studio 3 blocks from my home that they will sell to me for $1.  Let’s hope all of this happens without a divorce and a major family feud.  My new studio is nowhere near finished.  I just got the permits for the kiln room which means I just ordered the kiln, and it will take 3-6 months. We’ve already had a situation with one of the neighbors, and the guy upstairs, my new tenant, isn’t going to be eligible for his subsidized housing for a while. Yes, I know I said I didn’t want to be a landlord, but I’m hoping to make that apartment so nice that I don’t feel bad about taking money for it, and my best case scenario is that my dad moves into it.  Here’s another illustration of my failure as a landlord: after 1.5 months of no rent, I called the tenant of my new building.  He complained to me about stress and poverty, and I told him I was going to give him a SASE, and he could just pay what he felt he could comfortably pay.  The upshot: his rent has gone from $600/month to $250/month because he’s given me $500 for two months so far. All of this is to say I’m going to be writing a lot with my free time to justify not cleaning my house.

old photo of prolific me...I'll get back to it; I promise.

I'm going to miss that massive space as well, but I'm not cool enough to live there anymore.

My new place is the one in the middle. It definitely needs a makeover, but so do I.

Battle ax vs. Mass General

(A sweet image of me and my son before I ruined his life)

I got 11 inches of hair cut off on Sunday.  Brittany at the Hair Cuttery, outdid herself.  My son greeted me with, "You've ruined my life."  Tim pretended he liked it and overdid wondering out loud what JP's problem was.  In the 70's Tim's mom returned from the salon with a perm.  I've heard the traumatized retelling of this atrocity multiple times at family functions by Tim and all three of his brothers.  I reminded Tim of the perm.  He was unable to squelch the tsunami of empathy that welled up towards his son at that moment.  My girls were thrilled with the new doo, but couldn't help throwing in some snide comments about how dire my hair had been.  My brother in law looked at me and said, "Wow! you look really cool!" Without taking a breath, he turned to his wife and said, "Promise me you'll never do that!"

"Moms just can't win for trying" was my chiropractor's reaction to my mom-hair travails. Can't win for trying is a Charles M. Schulz-esque way of putting it, but he's right.  I was often embarrassed by the flamboyance of my beautiful mom.  She was not the understated Yankee mom that my friends had.  She wore Chanel No.5 and mini skirts.  Her lipstick color was an electric Revlon shade called, "Naked Pink." She always matched her eye shadow to her shoes.  I cringed when she laughed loudly and was mortified when she flew into a rage over something I deemed trivial.  My mom recently CRUSHED breast cancer.  It's as if she had a referee's whistle, and she blew it at every step of the process.  This formerly eye-rolling daughter is clear that our health system needs more Susie Kinders.


Mom took a month to tell us.  I'd detected something wasn't right for that month, but I'm a self-absorbed daughter, so I thought I was doing something to annoy her.  I remember musing to my silent, introverted employee that my mom didn't seem to like me anymore.  Perhaps I was going on and on about my life and kids, and I wasn't asking enough about her life?  It was the beginning of December when she told me.  I was trying to pin her down about holiday plans.

Scheduling her surgery had been difficult.  She wanted to get it done in time to see my kids sing the Evensong during Advent, but she'd fired her first doctor.  He made the mistake of telling her she was "really lucky."  My mom did not enjoy hearing how lucky she was to have breast cancer from a man who was essentially congratulating himself for catching it early.  She was also unimpressed to hear he was planning the same butchering she'd gone through in 1989 for a lumpectomy.  Had no progress had been made in 30 years to improve that procedure???

Doctor #2 was female and had a less-invasive method for the lumpectomy.  She assured mom that she would call me after her two procedures were complete.  When my mom arrived with her empty stomach for the early-morning anaesthesia and lumpectomy, she was told that the first part of her surgery would happen in the morning but that her part 2 had been moved to 3 pm.  That left my mother on a gurney, behind a curtain for 6 hours 1. starving 2. nervous and 3. LIVID.   I don't know if she was somewhere in a ball weeping with all of the other people who had dealt with Susie that day, but the surgeon did not call me when she had finished.  All I know is that the hospital's human resources department had to get involved, and Susie's third doctor was young, attractive, male and above all, obsequious.

Mom did make it to Philly to hear my kids sing Evensong.  After her Tuesday surgery, she'd planned to hop into the car and drive from Massachusetts to Philly on Thursday or Friday.  Because I'm a self-absorbed daughter, that seemed AOK to me.  My husband, who is not a self-absorbed daughter, bought me a plane ticket up to mom so I could drive her back to Philly.  I had an enormously pleasant time at the airport. "My mom always tells me how tired I look when I see her in the winter." was my opening line to the woman at the MAC counter after I'd had a few wine tastings.  With multiple brushes, swabs and sponges, and an almost-flight-missing amount of time, I emerged feeling very sticky.  I thought people would be staring at me when I boarded the plane because I looked like some kind of a freak in a mask.  Nothing happened.  As I hopped into my mom's car at Logan Airport, she looked at me and said, "You look nice!"


My mom loved Evensong, but she was pretty grumpy all weekend.  After the service when we were celebrating my birthday, Mom didn't come eat with us. Instead she sat in the dining room, drinking her rum and limeade, playing solitaire on her computer, and shushing my post-singing, euphoric children.  This birthday girl got annoyed and snapped at her mom.  Susie apologized after I'd put the kids down.  She said, "I've not been feeling well.  I've had an awful case of hemorrhoids since the surgery."  Happy Birthday to bratty, insensitive, wretched me.


My mom returned home to an uplifting call from ex-doctor #2 that the lumpectomy had been successful.  After a biopsy the cancer was determined to be gone and have been slow-growing in the first place.  Susie opted to get two weeks of radiation to completely nail down the lid of her cancer coffin.  The day she went in for her radiation run-through, I'd had a challenging morning.  My godson had called me the night before from Nepal to ask that I accompany his 16-year-old sister on a mission to extricate their dad from a bad situation and put him on a bus back to Montana, where he is from.  It was not a fun morning.  I'd treated myself to a second cup of coffee before arriving at my studio.  My shaky self dumped the entire cup on my computer.  It was ruined.  A call to my irate mom was a welcome distraction from my own misery.

Apparently the nurse casually informed my mom that it was time for her tattoo.  Susie responded, "Tattoo?? How long will that last?"  "It's a permanent tattoo." was the concise, unapologetic response.  At that point my mom morphed into a combination of Cruella deVil and the ice princess from Frozen.  I have a clear mental picture of her intense blue eyes narrowing for a second before swirls form in her pupils and silver lightening bolts shoot out and shatter on the walls of the room.  A punk rock virtual version of "Let it go" came on while the woman endured the following tirade: DO YOU THINK I WANT TO LOOK AT MY BREAST FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND THINK THAT I HAD CANCER???? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???? WHY THE HELL CAN'T YOU USE A GODDAMNED SHARPIE????  ARE YOU INSANE, INCOMPETENT OR JUST STUPID??? I got so much pleasure picturing all of this at the expense of this poor nurse who made a futile attempt to proceed with a platitude about "our procedures."  Taking on Susie at that point was as bright as trying to rationalize with a tantrumming toddler or making a preemptive strike on Kim Jong Un.  Never-to-be-fired, obsequious Doctor #3 came sailing in to smooth things over and assure Susie that a Sharpie would suffice.

Kidding aside, I've since talked to multiple breast cancer survivors who despise the black dots tattooed onto their breasts.  Some of them incorporate the dots into a prettier tattoo to celebrate their triumph over cancer.  Many of them wish they'd not numbly agreed to a permanent tattoo on their bodies to help a hospital avoid a lawsuit.  I'm sure that doctor and that nurse will continue to tattoo radiation-bound women.  Perhaps, though, their tones might have a post-Susie, Pavlovian wobble when they deliver this information so a patient will detect some room for discussion.

For the radiation, they'd told Susie to put on a "hospital johnny" as she calls it.  She despises those things and refused, opting instead, for her own front-opening shirt.  Neither the lumpectomy nor the burning radiation had worried her.  The wrenching of her arthritic shoulders was her main concern.  She stopped the radiation and demanded props, padding and pillows to make the process manageable.  Her demands were met with resignation.  She had a conversation with a fellow patient with similar shoulder issues in the waiting room.  My mom told her that she has the right to ask for padding, and the woman looked at her incredulously and said, "You can DO that???"  "Yes you can, and you SHOULD!", said Susie.  (At this point in the mental film I've got going on, my mom, played by Judy Dench, fist bumps the other woman, played by Helen Mirren)


Susie was late to her final day of radiation.  Hurdling down 128 in her Audi probably going 92 mph, She was pulled over. 
"Mrs. Kinder, do you know why I've stopped you today?"
"Yes, of course I know, I was speeding because I'm late to my final day of radiation!"
"Mrs. Kinder, do you know that your license is expired?"
"That's impossible.  I'm sure I renewed it."
"No you didn't."
"Yes I did.  I put it in the mail."
"You know you can do it online with your smart phone, Mrs. Kinder."
"I most certainly can't.  Why don't YOU do it for me???"

It took the officer 3 tries.  Perhaps the Boston-bound traffic zooming by him as he leaned on my mother's car fiddling with her iPhone was distracting.  I know she inadvertently gave him an expired credit card number at one point, so he had to start over.  He sent her off with a warning for the speeding and a renewed driver's license.

I'm sure the teenage daughter version of me would shrink with humiliation at the tumult my mom created.  The life-ruining, short-haired mom version of me is so proud.  The way our healthcare system treats people, especially women, is appalling.  Maybe with a few more Susie Kinders, this will change.  And maybe at my next visit to the Hair Cuttery I won't go quite so Joan Jett in my desire to avoid mom hair.

(To celebrate the 100th day of school, Toby dressed up as a 100 year old.  Who knows who modeled this sweet, meek old lady for her.  It's not based on either of her grandmothers)

UPDATE: My mom had a HORRIBLE hip surgery after her bout with breast cancer.  As she had previously sailed through a double knee surgery and the other hip surgury, I blame her problematic 3rd joint replacement on the fact that she was told to get radiation (which she did not need) and her body was not ready to get a hip replaced 3 months later.  She ended up infecting, and when I say "infecting," I mean that her hip EXPLODED 10 feet-all over her hospital room.  She had 2 subsequent cleaning out surgeries bringing her total to 3 surgeries in a month.  She then had to deal with 9 months of antibiotics that stripped her energy, appetite and will to live.  The phrase, "the beginning of the end" kept floating through my head, and I was ENRAGED.  I still feel that she has a major case against the hospital.  She may be a battle ax, but she is not a litigious one.  I'm frustrated by this, but I'm also extremely proud of her.

And now this....She sent me this e-mail last week.  I was on the edge of my seat reading it.  It's such a testament to our TERRIBLE health care system and to my mom's maintaining her Battle ax status:

About a month ago, I noticed a bony lump on the top of my left shoulder. I thought it was probably a bone spur, but since I wanted to be sure, I made an appointment with someone in the office of my primary care physician, because she was booked up until September. I saw a pleasant male doctor who looked at my shoulder lump, called it a "mass," and told me that I needed to see a surgeon for a biopsy. The office suggested a local general surgeon, whom I had seen last year about my inguinal hernia, and made an appointment with Dr. Jhr (pronounced "Jar"). He too looked at my "mass" and declared that he wouldn't take his knife to it until I had an MRI.  We made an appointment for an MRI at Lahey Danvers, a local institution which does so many MRI's that they have a separate entrance for folks having the test. Three days before the MRI, Dr. Jhr's office called to request that I get blood work done asap because they wanted to do the MRI with and without contrast.  I did so that afternoon at Addison Gilbert, the medical facility in Gloucester where I was having lunch with part of my mystery book group.  The MRI came and went the following Monday, and I waited to hear the results. The 4th of July festivities intervened, so I didn't call Dr. Jhr's office until Monday. He was operating, so I asked that he call me back asap and that his office make a hard copy of both the MRI results and the blood work and drop it in the mail for me.  These arrived in sufficient time for me to make a copy to give to my "crew" Eric, a retired physician, who can decipher these sorts of things. He agreed with me that the radiologist's write up was confusing, since it seemed to be talking about the left shoulder and also the right one, which had not been included in the imaging.  The following day I called Dr. Jhr's office again to discuss the write-up only to find that he was on vacation until the end of July. His assistant tried to decipher the radiologist's write up for me without much success, and we concluded that the doctor really wanted me to see on Orthopedic surgeon about the "mass." I made an appointment with the shoulder specialist who had successfully replaced both shoulder joints for a fellow member of my church choir, Dr. Fehnal, at Sports Medicine North. Yesterday I had that appointment, which consumed about two hours of my time, and learned that my "mass" is a fairly common bone spur which often develops in a shoulder which does not have sufficient cartilage. Dr. Fehnal wanted to know if I was experiencing any pain in the joint and seemed surprised when I reported that I had none.  That's when he showed me a hard copy of a image from the MRI and pointed out the area where I should have cartilage and the space where most of the rotator cuff is missing in my left shoulder. Both he and his Physician's Assistant seemed amazed that when I held my left arm parallel to the floor and was told not to let him push it down, I had quite a bit of strength and no pain.  "Most people with torn rotator cuffs cannot do this," he remarked.  

Dr. Fehnal agreed with my opinion that if it isn't giving me any pain or trouble, we should leave my left shoulder alone for now, and that I can continue using the bone spur to help keep my purse where it belongs on the top of my left shoulder. 

I was so relieved that her story didn't end up in some oncology office.  The word, "mass" had me on tenterhooks.  I can hear her multi-tasking Virgo body talking up the limb it sprouted: "Not only does it help her use her arm; but also it's a handy purse hook!"

Susie recently cut her hair off too.  Although now I'm growing mine out.  It turns out that short hair needs to be maintained.  That's never going to happen for me.

Snoring through 2017

I've jolted myself awake with a snore before, but I'm not a regular yet.  My husband snores about 30% of the time.  66% of those snores can be blamed on alcohol.  A subtle bed shake usually squelches the snore for long enough that I can get back to sleep.  If that doesn't work, I'll resort to shoulder pushing, kicking, or a Richter-scale-worthy mattress wobble. During the 33% of his snoring time that he's actually sick, I don't want to enact any of the nuclear options because I want him to get his sleep, get better, and stop SNIFFLING.  Most wives roll their eyes when their spouses are sick; that self-righteous daytime eye-roll devolves into seething "Why don't I just suffocate him?" fury at 2:32 am.  My sleep-deprived brain thinks, "He's already halfway there; it wouldn't take much."  The eye rolling continues the next morning when he tells me he's exhausted because he didn't sleep AT ALL.

I'm not exempt from over-dramatizing aches and pains.  I pulled a muscle in January on my bike; it was an "old/cold" issue.  I'm too old to go out in the cold on my bike without stretching first. My imagined downhill trajectory was: constant pain, inability to exercise or work, depression, paralysis, obesity, death.  I didn't tell anyone that I was thinking this way.  Tim would have made me go to a "real" doctor. Instead I went to the chiropractor; I took a bike break; I did acupuncture; I did yoga.  I had tennis balls by my bed to massage my ass, hip and thigh (I'm sure that was great for Tim's sleep.) I forgo Ibuprofen for the more-fun remedy of alcohol, but then I feel guilty. I was up at 3 am one night googling "hip gout." Now I have this irrational thought that if I can spread my legs on the floor and put my chest down the way Steel does, I'll pain free for the rest of my life.  (That goal is as attainable as Donald Trump's becoming Ghandi.)

As Ghandi-esque as Trump is, this photo is an apt representation of my kids' happily helping in the kitchen

Normally Tim is right about facts.  He's much better than I am at listening to an NPR story and re-telling it properly. My comprehension is vague.  I'm a pretty good potter; I'm great at knowing the contents of the fridge; my grammar is strong, and I'm pretty good at kid scheduling, but that's it. Saturday before the clocks went forward I told Tim I was looking forward to the light at the end of the day, (because we're boring, and that's what our conversations have come to)  Tim told me I had it wrong.  My friend, Erica, was with us. She's MUCH smarter than I am, and she's a scientist.  She agreed with him, (although in hindsight, she was probably not paying attention to such a boring conversation and nodding to be polite) so I let it go. However, on Sunday morning, I rolled over to Tim and said, "I really am happy that it won't get dark so early anymore.  The sun went down at 5:30 yesterday; today it will go down at 6:30."  He said, "Babe, I think it's so cute that you can't get your head around this!" I told him that was condescending. He responded, "I'm an architect.  I deal with a lot of solar issues.  If there's one thing I know about, it's the sun!"  I replied, "I am from New England, and I had an evening paper route.  If there's one thing I know about, it's Daylight Savings time!"  We decided to stop arguing and wait and see what happened.  I was fine with that.  It didn't stop me from texting quite a few of my friends. Chesley responded, "Tell Tim, I think HE'S cute!" Jen waited until the evening to text him and say, "Aren't you loving the extra hour of DAYLIGHT?????"  It's so rare that I'm right about something concrete.  It's also rare that he's condescending like that. The combination was better than finding a 4-leaf clover.

With all of my marriage griping, you'd think I'd be jumping back into the online dating world. I actually LOVED online dating.  It was so time-economical.  I could make a bunch of cups in my studio then go out and meet someone for a drink.  I'd know in 10 minutes whether or not there would be a second date.  I'd either pay for the drinks, and tell the guy "Good Luck; it was so nice to meet you!" Or I'd stay for another drink. Either way I could be back to the studio in time to put handles on those cups. It was the only time I felt completely comfortable rejecting someone. Nothing had been invested, and no one had to know. Two of my friends just embarked upon the online dating process. One is an artist.  She took artful, tasteful, gorgeous selfies.  She met a guy the first week, and they are still dating.  The only thing that bothered her about the process was that she felt she had to grow her hair longer because "guys only like women with long hair."

The other friend wouldn't let me style her at all.  I furtively followed her around as she gardened, walked the dog, and cooked. It's really hard to take good pictures of someone who won't cooperate at all. I finally got an amazing shot of her making hamburger patties. Her fingers are long, and her nails are perfect and unpolished. Her hair was cascading down in front of half of her face. She thought it was gross and wouldn't let me put it up.  The "guys need long hair" friend said, "Are you KIDDING me????  LONG CASCADING HAIR and HAMBURGER PATTIES?????? That's an internet dating slam dunk!!!!!" Hamburger patty nixer also deleted anyone who only wanted to date younger women. I found that smart, but self-defeating. She was too brutal for internet dating. In the end it's probably just as well nothing happened. I would be so maniacally self-congratulatory if I'd created her relationship from a profile concocted drunk during piano night with 5 kids running around. True love for her wouldn't be worth enduring my insufferable boasting.

Speaking of "insufferable boasting" my mom's pre-Superbowl "You hate us because you AIN'T us" comment has not been forgotten.

Who am I kidding? Kids weren't running around; they were glued to screens. Over the winter we had a major shift in our screen time policy. JP was lying and hiding away with the iPad or a computer constantly. I'd resorted to throwing every electronic into the trunk of the car if I went anywhere.  The lying was the most disturbing. We actually spoke to his teacher and the counselor at school about it. The upshot was that my mother was right.  We needed to turn screen time into our carrot. We'd run out of sticks. My sister in law instigated the CASH program one summer. They had to do something Creative, Active, Smart and Helpful before they could get screens. We've added a lot to the list, but if my kids hustle, they can earn screen time almost every evening. The girls like shows, so I had them watching FAME, the show about the performing arts school in NYC in the 80's. I would watch with them.

Totally destined for the show, "Fame!"

Not much has changed except that since then, small breasts have disappeared, and visible nipples must've become illegal. It took seeing those slim girls in leotards with their headlights on to make me remember that nipples used to be OK. To my daughters' chagrin, I've been liberating my tiny breasts and nipples. Padded bras are fine when it's cold, but I'm over it.

Eagles gear is the new lingerie.

Speaking of lingerie, I was feeding JP and Toby lunch before going to Fern's birthday party in February. As they ate I was going through a box of hand-me-downs for them. I came across a slinky pair of black undies with the tags still on them in MY size. My narration of the contents of the box turned into an all-out Hallelujah Chorus, but instead of singing "Hallelujah," I sang incredulously, "SEXY UNDIES! SEXY UNDIES! SEXYUNDIESSEXYUNDIES..." That pepped up their soggy quesadillas.  After lunch I was organizing the gift bag we were taking to the party. Toby asked what we'd gotten Fern for her birthday, and as I put my hand into the bag, both of them chorused in the exact same moment in soprano voices that would have made Handel proud, "SEXY UNDIES! SEXY UNDIES!"  It slayed me. Those weird Kinder genes bubbled up from the chickeny/cheesy depths of both of their souls at the exact same moment. It was that much more preposterous because Fern is the most innocent, wholesome 9 year old on the planet.


Fern is much more wholesome than my little vixens.

Valentine's day was exciting. JP actually asked a girl to the "Family Dance."  At some point during the dance someone told me that the girl had "dumped" JP in front of all of her friends. I'd been misinformed, but my heart ached for a minute which quickly turned into Hunger Games fantasies involving my expertly shooting all the little twats with my bow and arrow. The house was completely covered in glitter after our Valentine-making session. Because I'm a sham of an artist parent, it was the first year they'd actually made home-made ones instead of using the store-bought ones that Nanny would get them. The uncanny thing was that the kitten only decimated one of the 90 Valentines on the table, and it was the one belonging to the glitter-hating 4th grade teacher. The cat had removed almost every sparkle. We discovered at the end of Valentine's day that JP has achieved his Dork Diaries-inspired goal of being class clown; EVERY single one of the Valentines he received said, Jack Peter, you're so funny.

He is pretty funny, and look at him making a "mom's pottery still life!"


Steel and Toby are much more cagey about their romantic lives. I know Toby fancies a little boy named Harrison, but that's all I've gotten. Steel just likes to orchestrate other people's love lives. She's a liaison and a hammer. She'll set up a couple and then step in and tell her friend to break up with the boy if she deems his behavior inappropriate. She almost axed Lucas on behalf of Margaret because he was flirting with other girls.  She came home and asked, "Is it OK for a boy to flirt with other girls if he has a girlfriend?" I told her that it all depends on the relationship and that some couples like to flirt with other people, but they always come back to each other.  "Well, I'm not going to have a relationship like that." she replied.  No players for Steel!

It always cracked me up when gymnastics parents would ask me which Thundercat was mine.  (the Persian cat?)

That Katness Hunger Games impulse erupted in me at the beach the other day.  (wanting to whip out my bow and arrow to impale obstreperous children) I have my issues with predominately white, upper-class places in general, but this occurred in Manchester-by-the-Sea. When I was growing up there, I felt like a fish out of water, and I'm always on the lookout for the roots of those feelings when I return. Steel was sashaying around and singing while she carefully lay her towel down on the sand. Two little girls about JP's age were in front of us. I watched those spiteful little brats appraising Steel and whispering to each other with disapproving looks on their little, unimaginative faces. Steel was oblivious, but I wanted to scream at them, "You'll never go south of Boston or West of Worcester. You'll probably never leave this town, you small-minded little cunts!" Now I remember why I hated New England! You're not allowed to have fun.

 I'm glad my kids still embrace Halloween; speaking of "wacky and fun"

Tim has been working 24/7 on his current project.  It's a 25-unit 0-energy, passive house project in Northern Liberties. At some point he decided that it would be nice to have my hand-made tiles as backsplashes in all of the units. This meant that my green-haired, millennial employee, Shaina would still have work making tile this summer during the times that I was away with the kids, so I took it on. It was over 15,000 tiles. I had to hire a high-school girl to glaze them all (and I made the kids and various friends come in and help as well) 16-year-old Jasmine was an amazing worker.  She would be there before I showed up.  She never griped about having to clean. She was perfect except that her arriving before I did meant that she would already have turned on the radio. She listened to the Christian radio station...."positive and encouraging radio." All of the breaks in between songs would be people calling in to tell us how Jesus intervened and saved their great Aunt who was riddled with cancer and then survived. All I could think was why the hell is Jesus intervening with some old Christian Aunt and not with 38-year-old-mother-of-2 Rochelle and 9-year-old Marlee in Steel's class? Jesus sucks, and so does positive and encouraging Christian rock.

Shaina comes in at around 12 every day which meant that I was never alone in my studio.  I also had to drive the kids to camp before I went to work, so that meant I could never ride my bike. The combination of no alone time and feeling out-of-shape made for a grumpy me this summer. Tim had it worse.  He was working 14-hour days and not getting to do any of the "fun" summer stuff.  (He hates "fun" summer stuff, but I know he was missing us.) He actually came up to my mom's for 2 nights in August. We went to a play, and he surprised us at the intermission.  It made me cry.

The next day he suggested we "do something DIFFERENT!" We always just hang out in Manchester-by-the-Sea. We hatched a plan to go to Salem to see another part of the North Shore.  I'd just gone running. I said, "Let me take a quick shower, and then we'll go!" Mid-shower he came to the bungee-cord-secured-shower door in my mom's bathroom to inform me that water was pouring into the living room.  The trip to Salem was scrapped for some emergency plumbing. There's a part of me that believes that he was probably happier working on my mom's plumbing that he'd have been wandering around Salem, but it was still sort of sad.

Speaking of sad, I've not published a "throwing and tantrums" blog post in over a year. Since then all of the pictures I had to go with this post have disappeared in the coffee-saturated desktop of my previous computer. This new computer got baptized with a kid spewing gingerale from a straw 3 weeks after I'd bought it.  I will never not invest in the Apple care liquid accident insurance.  I'm also clear that I do not deserve to own anything that costs over $200. I'm also going to start writing again- sticky keyboard or not.

Disasters

We just visited my Dad in Florida.  He does the exact same thing with my kids as he did with my brother and me.  They do exactly what my brother and I did.  The beat goes on...
(If you don't see a video of my kids marching with my dad, then switch browsers.  Chrome works; Safari does not.)

The world according to Trump has transformed from "a disaster" to "tremendous" and  "beautiful." Who knew that the campaign slogan, "It's a disaster, and it's all HER fault" would be so successful?  The Woman's march was yesterday, and I didn't march because it conflicted with gymnastics and play dates.  Seeing the jubilant pussy posts on Facebook has made me remorseful and weepy.  Instead, I spent most of the day on my hands and knees scouring the girls' newly re-arranged room.  I found 11 single earrings, over 20 fake nails, and 65 legos; I also fed the hermit crab and changed the sludgy green water in the fish tank.  This did not fill me with hope, solidarity and inspiration.

On November 8, I went to bed at 9:23 confident that Hillary would win in a landslide.  At 2 am I woke up worried about the kiln I was firing.  Knowing I wouldn't sleep well, I got up to drive to the studio and check on the kiln.  I learned that Donald Trump was our President elect in the car. My kiln had turned off in the night.  I caught it before it cooled off enough to ruin the entire firing.  I'm wondering if the collective angst of everyone I love woke me up.  Do I have Donald to thank for a passable kiln load of work?

The extent to which I'm out of touch is my big issue.  It's especially wretched to talk to minority friends.  All of them, unlike me, were not surprised by the outcome of the election.  You'd think multiple cop shootings of unarmed black men might've hinted to me that all was not well.  I thought there were small pockets of racism and sexism.  I didn't realize that I'm in the pocket.  I've been wrestling with the whole issue of race. I've chosen to raise my kids in the city because I like a diverse, bustling environment. I hope that their exposure to different races, socioeconomic levels, and religions keeps them open-minded.

My Godchildren are at a public school outside of Philly in one of the best school districts in Pennsylvania.  Hope's best friend, Tula, is one of the few brown people in the school, and Cyros has one brown kid on his lacrosse team.  These kids are all from a similar socio-economic group, so there is no barrier to their relating to each other.  Is the urban choice backfiring?  My spoiled kids have very little in common with the 60,000 kids in Philadelphia who live in extreme poverty-most of whom are African American.  I was talking about this to another Philly parent who has 5 boys.  His kids go to a charter school down town. He was driving the kids to school, and a bunch of boys piled in front of and on his car when he was about to accelerate at a green light.  He narrowly missed hitting two of them, and he muttered "ANIMALS!" under his breath.  His eldest son said, "Yeah, they are like that in class as well."  Dad was referring to kids who ignore traffic lights and bounce on the hood of his car, he wasn't happy wondering what his son meant.  He closed our conversation with, "Fuck it, we might just head to Jersey!"  

(Every time I need to contact the mother of those 5, I lovingly call her "Dumb ass."  She was dropping 2 of the sons at daycare, and they didn't want to go.  They started calling her "Stupid dumb ass mommy!"  She blew them kisses as she walked away and said,  "That's not the way to get to spend the day with me instead of going to daycare, now is it?"  I love little vignettes that make me feel we aren't the only ones raising "spirited" children.)

My kids' school is not as diverse as Philly's population would have it be were the system to be fair. Open house was at a remote convention center in Lafayette Hill that was probably difficult to access by public transportation. I checked the website daily to see when this "open day" date would be.  I also had my mother in law watch the kids when I went to the open house. So, straight away I needed a car, daily internet access, and help with childcare. Someone blew the whistle on this process, so now it's a little easier to apply, but 80% of the successful applicants now have to come from the neighborhood around the school.  It is a predominately white neighborhood, so that idea isn't going to help with racial diversity.  There is not one brown teacher or administrator in the school except for the interim CEO who, sadly, doesn't want the job full time. I chose to send them there because it's free and it has a reputation of being a great school; I didn't think about diversity at all.

We went to our local pool over the summer.  After a few minutes of waiting in line to get in, JP said, "Everyone here is brown except for us!"  I just responded, "Yeah, and you really don't need to point that out; we all just want to swim." I have no idea what being the only white people means to him.  All I know is that there won't be those long clingy white girl hairs all over the pool as there are in Northern Liberties which makes me happy.  My dad keeps telling the same joke about how successful his cataract surgery was.  The punchline is:  "The only weird thing about it is that I was looking at an old picture album, and it turns out my ex-wife was black!"  Has he ever gotten a laugh from that one???? He tells it after the one about Monica Lewinsky getting a position in the mythical Hillary Clinton administration as the Head of Internal Affairs. My Dad also greeted my beautiful 15-year-old goddaughter at 8 in the morning with the words, "Hope! Don't you look SEXY!"  (I texted her mom and got a 1-word response, "GROSS!")  I don't understand his need to say things like that.  Are those jokes going to die with his generation?  Is it really possible that people voted for Donald Trump because they hated having a BLACK MAN at the helm? 
 

Then again, my friend Patrece sent me this picture of her tiny self on a massive chair.  My response was, "OMG!  you need to get yourself made into a doll and market yourself as the brown elf on the shelf!"  Is that any different from my Dad's dumb joke?  I just googled "brown elf on a shelf" and a very faintly tinted "boy scout elf" came up.  At first I thought, there's a real window here for a Patrece-like elf, but then it occurred to me that Pisces Patrece might be too conspiratorial to be a good elf on the shelf.  As a kid, you'd get the feeling that if you gave her a wink, she might not tell Santa ALL of the bad things.  The tattle-tailing, whistle-blowing boy scout elf would get the job done.

Is all of my anxiety about the issue because we are so WHITE, and so many white people seem to suck right now?  My attempts to combat racism feel hilarious.  Will knowing the names of the brown kids and chatting with the parents on my kids' sports teams ensure that my kids don't turn out to be bigoted assholes?  I have no idea, but it's all I can think of to do. It does seem that although Mt. Airy baseball is a bastion of diversity, the white families end up knowing the white kids and the black families know the black kids.  I'm embarrassed about how hard the names are for me: James and female Avery have JayLIN; Matthew has JayDEN, Gil and Lisa are grandparents to Jamir but they are parents to 4-year-old Adnan which is only memorable because the guy in prison in the "Serial" podcast is also named Adnan.  Jamir's mom is an "M" name that might be Malia but probably isn't because that's Obama's daughter, but now that we are into the "M's," Micah belongs to Miguel. Rashid has male Avery.  The white kids names are just as brutal, but they are so much easier for me.  Nikki, Nino, Nicholas, Max, Sam and JP are no problem. Dads are Joe, Jason, Dante and Tim. I wonder sometimes if my aggressive name-knowing has done nothing except make those brown kids wonder who the hell is that distracting, cheering white lady with the pink hair???  (JP actually complemented me the other day about how much he loves that I talk to people I don't know all the time.  He said it "makes things fun." :)

For the most part my conversations with people reveal that they are exactly like me, but I did have an interesting one with Jaylin's Dad, James.  I was recounting a conversation I'd had with one of the dads on Jaylin's spring ball team.  It was a particularly lousy game, and the dad was saying to me that he thought that kids who aren't really good and serious about baseball shouldn't be playing because they bring the level down for the kids who are.  That man was telling me that my kid shouldn't be playing.  James laughed and said, "Well that's Aaron.  He played pro ball, and he doesn't see another path for his boys. That's just his point of view."  "OH!!!"  I responded. "Maybe that's why he seemed to be thinking that I was hitting on him."  (because all professional athletes must think that way, right liz???)  James said, laughing, "yeah, that's Aaron!"  Aaron had made a point after talking for about 15 minutes of saying, "that woman over there is my WIFE!" to which I merrily/awkwardly responded, "Oh! great, and the assistant coach is my HUSBAND!"  I guess my attempts at inter-racial socializing went a little awry there.

My cute husband and Toby, the only beer-loving kid bottling his first batch of home brew.


All of our parenting choices end up setting us apart from other people or bringing us together with those who make similar choices.  Aaron prioritizes athleticism, discipline and seriousness. My brother's family puts intelligence above all.  They refer to the religious families in their communities as "thumpers,"  because they Bible thump.  The "trogs."  (troglodytes)  are the narrow-minded idiots.  They are big fans of the "Darwin Awards" (when dumb people get injured or killed doing stupid stuff.)  My Toby is constantly categorizing people based on their levels of health.  She'll come home horrified that a kid was eating a "lunchable" or she'll ask me with some trepidation, "Mom, is so-and-so healthy????"  I'm sure JP has "parents allow unlimited screen time" as a major delineation in his head.  I served a huge spiral-cut ham at my last open studio. That decision was made, on the fly, at Trader Joe's with the help of ham-loving Jennifer whose husband has never eaten a mammal.  She sees her time with me as an opportunity to catch up on lost pork.  The 4-year-old son of friends made a b-line for the ham the instant he walked in shouting "YUM!!!!  Ham!" to which the bewildered dad looked at us and said, "We're vegetarians!  What the hell does he know about ham???"  

This pair of overalls came from Santa to healthy Toby, the amazing worker.  She was bizarrely thrilled

Today I asked Steel's friend, Aurora's mom how she identifies herself and her children.  There are 7 kids and 2 grandkids in the mix.  She's Puerto Rican, Native American, Dutch and Irish.  One dad is Greek.  I'm not sure about the other.  Amani is pretty non-committal about race. She refers to the eldest kid as, "my black son" because he identifies as black.  She does it with irony, though, because he is the whitest of all 7 kids. When he was little, he asked her if she was his mom.  She said, "yes!"  He said, "You have color?" She said, "yes" He then asked, "So, is my color on the inside????"   Her main response to my questions was: "People are allowed to be transgender now, so I think we should be able to be trans-race as well, don't you?"  Her family looks like a Benetton ad, so it's just not an issue.  She actually responded to my question initially by saying, "Geez  I don't KNOW how the 3 middle ones identify.  I'll have to ask them!"

I was listening to an NPR thing about a professor at Westchester University who has been using genetic testing to "break boundaries and bring people together." The program depressed me because it highlighted how all of us have these ridiculous hierarchies in our minds about genes.  I know I am baselessly proud that I might have native american genes.  I like the Scandinavian ones too. Both of those cultures seem more egalitarian and socialist, so I can feel inherently lefty and liberal.  I'm not fond of the German genes because I've met so many Germans who laugh really loudly at things that aren't funny and then there's the Holocaust.  It had also never occurred to me that the African Americans have to process being the products of both rapees and rapers. I'd given the victim part some thought but never the aggressor part.  That was depressing a. because I'm so stupid to have not considered it and b. because that fact sucks.  Why can't we all be like Aurora's mom, Amani, and not give a shit!!! 

I was driving last week and listening to Jeff Bridges on Fresh Air.  They played the scene in "The Big Lebowski" where Bridges is talking to the other Lebowski demanding that he take responsibility for his urinated-on carpet.  The logic is flawed, but it didn't stop me from e-mailing Terry Gross and telling them that in the spirit of the interview, I should be reimbursed for the huge gash I sliced through the back third of my mini van when I side-swiped a utility vehicle because I was so engrossed in the interview (enGROSSED...gET IT?????) I took my car to Rafiq.  He's the guy with the garage who has helped me, not once, but twice with a flat on my bike.  I said I didn't want the gash fixed, but I wanted to make sure the panel didn't come flying off at some point. Rafiq's guy, Stan, just put a screw through it...perfect!  I'm pretty sure Stan thinks I've got a FEW screws loose, but oh well.  Rafiq and I are facebook friends.  He'd put a call out for everyone to pray for his brother.  There was no explanation just that he was in a bad way.  I asked Rafiq if his brother was better.  My assumption was that it was probably a drugs or alcohol because that's always what it seems to be when nothing is specified. Rafiq is MUSLIM... His brother has MS and has gotten to the point that he needs a feeding tube.  Did I assume drugs because he's black or because drugs and alcohol are usually the problem with MY friends?  I always want to invite Rafiq for dinner because I like him, and his son is JP's age, but then I wonder if that would be weird and if I'd do something stupid like put sherry in the soup or cook with bacon fat which is what I did when I first cooked for my Muslim boyfriend and his also-Muslim friends in San Francisco or if Rafiq would be horrified by how much wine I drink with dinner. I'm sure I wouldn't feel comfortable inviting Rafiq over yet if he were a white WASP.  A few more flat tires on my bike (I'm a flat-tire-making savant; it's my secret super power) and a few more fender benders, and Rafiq's family and ours will be vacationing together.

We had a car renting feud last weekend that maybe touched on race and definitely involved the other thing I hate about the Trump world...money.  A lot of voters assume that Donald Trump will help all of us become rich like him.  It's absurd on so many levels-not the least of which being how rich we have been living in the democracy that he is now dismantling.  

I made an unwise decision to rent a car online without doing a search for reviews of "Economy rent a car" in Orlando. Such a search would have revealed 0 stars from multiple reviewers. We arrived with the 3 kids to a line out the door.  Two women huffed by telling us to not even bother and that it's a scam.  They were right.  The scam is to require people to buy the insurance provided by Economy rent a car for $140. The only way to avoid this is to have the declarations page from ones insurance policy in hand. We had time to get this emailed during the 2-hour wait. We did, however, have to give them $1000 hold on our credit card that would not be returned for 2 weeks.  If we didn't have that, we could pay $45 to get a $200 hold.  All of this information was delivered by beautiful women wearing really tight, short red dresses, impeccable jewelry, hair, and make-up, black stockings and very high heels. They all had the same, canned responses to the protestations that none of this was revealed on the internet, etc.  They did not have the car we ordered, but they had something that would do, and we'd waited too long to care.  It was pouring outside.  My bedraggled, not-bothering-to-google-reviews-on-this-way-too-cheap-rental-car friends were gathered under a flimsy awning to inspect, sign off and drive away in their crappy, temporary cars.

The kids were great at inspecting.  JP found dents and problems Tim and I wouldn't have noticed.  We signed off, and Tim shouted at the kids to pile in the back and buckle up.  They couldn't get in.  The back door opened neither from outside or inside the car.  I wanted the door flaw to be written on the initial papers, so I trotted back in. Tim, being smarter and more thoughtful than I, said, "No! if we get in an accident, our kids can't get out of the back of the car! Get us another car!"  We got a manager, and he said there was nothing he could do.  We could come back tomorrow morning and work out a discount and MAYBE get a new car.  He was not authorized to do anything, and there were no more cars.  I just wanted to get out of there.  I said, "Will you at least write this down on the original inspection of the car???" He said, "yes, I'll go write something up."  I sarcastically said, "Great, go do that!" I honestly did not think I was being that rude, but the guy turned on his heel and said, "I'm not doing anything for you!"  I was shocked and said, "I feel sorry for you; this is such a horrible, soul-crushing job!"  He looked me in the eye and said, "You wouldn't feel horrible for me if you saw my paycheck; it's a GREAT job!"  I don't meet people who are solely motivated by money in that way.  I was speechless. Tim said, "Fine, we'll just sit here then!"  "Let me know if you need sleeping bags!"  the guy muttered as he walked away.  At this point the kids have been shrieking in terror in the back of the car for 5 straight minutes, "Let me out!  Let's take an UBER!" "You're being mean!" Steel is spearheading the hysteria. I had to shout in my best Susie voice, "If you don't stop screaming this minute, you will not have a play date with ANYONE until the summer!"


So bad cop left and good cop came to tell us politely that we would have to move because we were creating a bottleneck.  Tim said, "I'm not going anywhere until you get me another car." and closed the window to the sheets of rain.  The guy left for another 5 minutes while we talked to the kids about standing up for yourself and the difference between rude and strong.  The guy came back and said, "OK, I'll get you another car; it's coming up next"  At this point, the whole place is in turmoil.  Cars are skidding around in the rain to get past us.  There's a headlight on the ground from a skirmish earlier in the day. You'd think people would be turning on us, but everyone was on our side.  We got our stuff out of the car and waited.  The next car was not for us; nor was the next.  Another guy came and asked Tim for the key to the car we'd left.  Tim said, "Oh no!  that's MY car!  I won't give you the key until you give me another car."  The manager said, "Sir, you can't do that!"  Tim replied, "Yes, I can.  It's called LEVERAGE!"  Tim is always up to fight the good fight.  It can sometimes seem like he's needlessly raising his blood pressure.  Other times it's just so sexy when he won't back down.  We got a car with functioning doors and drove away.  The return went smoothly, and hopefully the $1000 hold will end as it's supposed to. Our kids learned a good lesson about standing up for yourself and others in the face of unfairness.  

I, however, am still rattled.  Tim says the guy turned on me because when I said, "Go do that" what he heard was, "Go do that BOY!"  He was bald and light-skinned; he could have been any number of ethnicities.  I was furious with the whole situation, but race was nowhere on my radar, and I'm horrified that I could have been understood in that way.  I still can't get over the idea that all of those young, beautiful men and women can be content working at a place where taking advantage of people is in the business plan.  Donald Trump embodies this sort of abject greed.  Greed is the most shameful of the sins in my opinion, and Trump's election tells me that greed has become something to admire.  When did "me/America first" replace "liberty and justice for ALL?"

Another thing about Trump's election that drives me NUTS is that my friend Heather's bigoted brother in law WON.  I brought Theo and the kids to the shore for the day in the summer. Heather's nephews were Theo's age, so I thought it'd be fun for him to get some kid time and go to the boardwalk.  My kids were in front of a movie which left me hanging out with a bunch of Republicans.  I had noticed the wipe board in the kitchen said, "Life's a bitch; let's not have one for President."  This guy is from Fairfield, Connecticut.  I didn't know they HAD racist people in New England.  He, too, made fun of the handicapped reporter whom Trump mocked.  He actually clapped his hands at the prospect of "the wall," and at my brief explanation of the "black lives matter" movement, he responded that I just don't understand "where he's coming from."  He calmly explained to me that he's coming from the point of view that the "situation of the entire continent of Africa" is proof to him that people of African descent are inferior.  

The beat goes on... The first thing his son, a freshman at Boston College, asked Theo was, "So, you're from Montreal.  Are there a lot of colored people there?"  to which Theo slowly and deliberately replied, "It's very multi-cultural; which is how I like it."  Rene was so happy to have someone to witness the horror of his brother in law.  Rene asked the group if they would consider taking small a financial hit for the betterment of society.  All of these spoiled adults who are staying at their parents beautiful shore houses, replied, "No. The money will just get wasted."  I had long since been speechless.  Rene ended the conversation with, "Let's just get this straight: Hillary WILL be our next president, and, like Barak Obama, she WILL go down in history as one of our most successful presidents. :( 
I'm heartbroken.
   

Now in Trump fashion I'll list things that have happened in the past 6 months that were not disasters, but I'll call them disasters, so that this blog post feels cohesive.  Picture day: I anticipated 2 out of 3 being disasters; I was wrong.  First of all, a blind person could do a better job than the school photographers.  They are pretending that the world isn't digital.  If I took photograph of an incredibly cute kid that looked like the top right picture, I'd take another. Steel wore leggings, her t-shirt that said, "I woke up like this," and her wedge-heeled leopard-print ankle boots. I didn't allow her to put her little, tiny, spandex gymnastics shorts on top of the whole thing, but she still looked like a hooker.  (I know, she looks fine!) JP eschewed his normal, picture day, 3-piece suit for under armour, shorts, and dark grey socks.  (He's thrilled with his.  He thinks he looks really OLD-at least 12!) Toby risked missing the bus to run home for him and entreat that I find hairspray.  According to Steel, JP's Bad News Bears hair needed some expert Steel styling on picture day. Toby had no idea what to wear. I put out some dresses for her, and she picked one to match her sparkly butterfly top.  She asked for a french braid, and put a bow directly on top of her head; she did not look like a hooker. She's not too cool yet.  (Apparently my french braid was swiftly dismantled on the bus.) We recently opened a box of hand-me-downs.  Steel turned up her nose at all of them.  Toby gleefully grabbed these get ups and put them on.  I thought she'd need fake eyelashes, a huge up doo, or at least a vodka tonic to pull off that floral Ann Margaret number, but no.






Toby had her 7th birthday party in October.  7 is too old for bounce houses; she wanted an inflated slide. We went out and measured the lawn late one night (which is how we caught Rocky pooping by moonlight in the kale patch)  The fire truck was the only one that was narrow enough to fit.  Tall, narrow-based, inflatable slides are death traps.  This one was tethered to the house, so it didn't lean over and deposit the kids 2 stories down onto Idell Street.  Instead, when too many kids were up top, it would careen into the house to a deafening chorus of terrified children confronting their mortality. We had a stubbed toe gushing blood, a twisted ankle, skin burns, a fall from the loft of the tree house, quite a few battles over presents and who would be playing with whom.  The "make your own sundae" idea went over pretty well.  They are still able to hear their little bodies say, "ENOUGH." (unlike me with a bottle of wine)  "I will never force anyone finish a bowl of ice cream" was my response to their apologetic little faces as they handed over the half-eaten glop for me to discard. Tim spent the entire party outside monitoring the fire truck slide.   I just got up from writing and noticed that the floor is moving.  It's ants.  I wonder if there is a half-eaten sundae under the couch.  The "disaster" verdict is still out.

(Cindy Loo Hoo is in white with the pencil in her mouth....adorable)

We had Steel's birthday party in the summer.  She wanted a slumber party, and I told her that October is too crazy for a slumber party, so we'd bump her birthday up to August.  It was looking manageable when a couple friends couldn't come.  Steel, then invited 3 friends from her old Northern Liberties life, and it became unmanageable again.  All of her friends are either Scorpios (like her) or Virgos (like her dad) or Sagittarians. (like me)  I take this as proof that she loves us and herself.  Steel wanted to give everyone make overs.  She also wanted to be the ONLY aesthetician.  She was a wreck.  Some kids were interested and felt she wasn't giving them enough time.  Some were bored and wanted to do something else.  Steel is addicted to fake nails.  They aren't cheap, and they involve super-toxic glue which "it's got to be organic" mom should not allow. They end up all over the house, but I can't control the fake-nail loving beast.  She took the "buy 2, get 1 free" sale on nails as a sign from the gods that she should buy fake nails for everyone.  

We thought we'd gotten them all to bed by 11, but by 12 one of the girls was in tears and insisting I call her mom.  I lay down with her on the bed, and she calmed down.  I dozed off and woke to the smallest guest hovering over Steel and shout-whispering Steel's name.  I jolted up.  Every minute that Steel was asleep was a minute without irrational melt downs in the next month, so I really didn't want this little girl waking her up.  I shriek-whispered, "What do you NEED?????"  to which this little one, who will forever be named "Cindy loo who" in my head, responded, "I need a drink of water!"  In the unlikely event that I allow another sleepover I will make sure everyone has a tiny little water bottle by her side.




Speaking of disasters, we had a rough visit to New England last summer.  First of all, it was 47 degrees and rainy for the first week.  We did sand candles, make-your-own marshmallow shooters out of plumbing supplies and a bunch of other projects.  I was in charge of my 3 and my brother's 2.  It seemed that my mom was much more easily annoyed with the noise and chaos.  No one agrees with me about this.  All kids said, "Grandma Susie is ALWAYS like that!"  Which means that I now can't handle my mom's annoyance with the noise and the chaos...(is this pre-menopausal thing?  I wonder that about EVERYTHING now) My answer was to load all 5 into the minivan and go visit my friend, Tanya, in Maine to give Susie a break.  The two problems with this solution were 1. my nephew, Owen gets violently car sick, and 2. Tanya has 4 kids and her chaos makes mine look tame.  Her second child, Bear,  wasn't there.  I had to be content with his school picture.  I will call him Bearrah Fawcett here forward. 






I now understand the hype about Maine.  It's like Massachusetts minus the Country Clubs and the annoying people with the addition of hot lobstermen with cool accents-one of whom is so in love with Tanya, he took ALL 8 kids and a kitten out on his boat.  Tanya had just let her oldest come home with a new kitten to add to the shoe-eating dog and blueberry-shitting bunny. Tanya makes me feel normal; this is rare.  Owen survived.  He popped out of the car and puked only once.  He is an "Olympic puker." When we went on the whale watch last summer, he never missed the trash can.  When his family arrived in Philly on their way back from Florida, he puked onto my neighbor's grass.  My only complaint is he chose the impeccable neighbor's grass to puke on; I've cringed whenever I've walked by the wee bald spot-singed by Owen's stomach acid, but at least it wasn't in the car.  

I just had insight on my mother's kid-tolerance levels.  We decided to have our post-Christmas family get-together in Philly.  Curt, puking Owen, Gillian, Jana, and Kellen drove 16 hours up the day after Christmas.  My mother was ecstatic.  She said, "Oh great! Now I don't have to drive to Florida, and when I get sick of everyone, I can just GO HOME."  See!  We are more annoying to her than we used to be.


We have spent the last 6 months fixing up a house to flip.  I use the word "we" pretty loosely.  I worked for 2 weeks in the summer scraping wallpaper from the ceilings in 97 degree weather.  Shaina, my lovely assistant, is 5'1, so she got the lower half of wallpaper stripping.  How to make someone appreciate her job?  Have them strip wallpaper for a month.  Yes, she kept at it 2 weeks longer than I.  We both would look like we just walked off of the set of "Les Miserables" every time we left.  That was my contribution to the project.  If we make money on the house, then I guess it won't be a disaster, but adding to Tim's already-full plate seems dim-witted at best.  The best thing about the project is that it allowed us to get rid of our food-freezing fridge.  We spent $91,000 on a house to justify buying a fridge.  I was also coveting the old wall-mounted pencil sharpener, but that seems to have disappeared. The annoying thing is that it has turned out so beautiful.  It has made me wish that we had a house with light streaming through it and beautiful floors and a brand new kitchen.  Hopefully the fridge will perform better in this new environment or the new owners will not be produce eaters, so they won't care about slightly frozen food.

I still don't have my shit together enough to have anything nice like that.  We trash everything.  Today I've watched the kitten whack the blooms off of the orchid, dump mail on the floor, and play the piano with sticky paws for longer than I would have thought would interest her. I had the kids all weekend while Tim was gone.  They each got to have a friend over.  Steel busted out the snow cone making machine she got for Christmas. There are blue rasberry, cherry and grape rings all over the place.  I'm sure soft scrub or bleach would get rid of them, but I can't be bothered.  Last time everyone had play dates over, I attempted making lye soap.  All of the caveats about soap making involve "respecting the lye."  They all say things like, just make sure you don't have pets and children running around when you're working with lye. I had just dumped my soap mixture into the molds which were volcanoing all over the place because I did something wrong.  There were 6 children running around, and then my neighbor stopped by with her Shitzu who took off after the cat.  It was textbook disastrous.  No one was blinded, and the soap is pretty nice if you don't care how it looks.  One of our friends is a hunter and shot a bear.  He said that more than half of the bear was fat.  He stripped the fat and left it because he couldn't carry it.  I've been obsessing about making bear fat soap ever since. 

How cute is Steel's first 24-hour boyfriend? and a Sagittarius to boot

So JP is spending most of his time looking forward to his 2-day 5th grade sex ed class this spring. He's got a lot to learn.  He suggested one evening that a stick covered with spider webs would make a great, in the woods, emergency tampon.  Steel had her first 1-day relationship with the cutest boy in her class.  At the end of the day she told him that she just isn't ready for a boyfriend.  He asked if they could still like each other, and they left it at that.  Toby got a drivable truck for Christmas that is black like her father's. Watching her careen around in it is worth every penny and every inch of garage space that her dad mourns.  Tim is building again which has him out at 5 every morning.  He's on fire, happy and invigorated.  This is great except that all of the morning yelling about getting up, eating, brushing teeth/hair, packing bags and missing the bus is on me.  I'm a wreck by 7:45.  I've upgraded my Pandora music account, so I don't have to listen to advertisements.  I put "Boston Baroque" on in the morning because I grew up listening to Robert J Lurzuma playing baroque music on NPR.  It's taken the edge off a little.  "Duke Ellington Radio" has made the evening routine a ton more enjoyable.




Thanks guys.  Honesty isn't always the best policy.

I realize I am both boob and race obsessed.  I fell into a Facebook hole about how few women wear bras that fit. You had to fill out a questionnaire about your bra problems.  Mine are: gathering because there's nothing there to fill the cup and straps falling off when I make pottery because the bras are trying to tell me that they are living an unfulfilled life.  I had to choose my breast shape from images.  I was going to pick "athletic." Steel and Tim calmly corrected my choice.  Apparently I'm in between "relaxed" and "east west."  I did end up with a bra that seems to like its job more. In yet another humbling moment about my appearance, I had to get my license renewed.  I was looking forward to it because my last picture was terrible.  I was pregnant with some poor, flawed fetus.  I'd waited with the kids for 2 hours, and I'd not bothered with a brush or make up.  This time I decided to get it done on a day that I was just too cold to make pots in the studio.  I primped, and headed to DMV on my bike in the rain.  In the 66 minutes between my arrival and my picture, I'd been scrolling through Facebook with my parka on in a room that was 104 degrees.  The picture looks like I'd just run a marathon in under 2 hours-drunk. That old license is now looking pretty good. 

I'm still making pottery, but I probably need to market my work a little more which I do not love.  I've been making pots that need assembly for Shaina to put together because I really don't have much for her to do at the moment.  I was reading an article about Heath Ceramics combining with Tartine Bakery in San Francisco to make this amazing store. The article said, "They wanted to do something humble, but in an elevated way"  Maybe it's sour grapes because I'm not in San Francisco anymore selling pottery, pastries and bear fat soap in a trendy venue, but "doing something humble in an elevated way" sounds as puke-worthy as blowing Donald Trump.