Crime and Punishment

 

Thing1 is being punished.  He’s being really punished for the first time in recent memory.

For most of the last twelve years we’ve been pretty lucky.  For most of that time, he’s been good-natured and willing to follow the rules we set down.  Infractions occur of course, but for the most part, they’ve been small enough that an empty, humorous threat to send him to military school puts a stop to restaurant antics or begging.  When we do lay down the law, Thing1 usually plays the part of the gentle giant tolerating a well-meaning but misdirected mother and goes along.  He seems to understand that – even when he thinks we’re totally nuts – we’re on his side.

That all changed today, as the fallout from a less-than-stellar report card caused the first serious fissure in his faith in our good intentions.

All kids have an Achilles heel as individual as their personalities, and Thing1’s is his love of all things computer.  He has begun cracking open code on favorite games and spending hours Skyping with friends, gabbing about hardware and how to improve their favorite video game and which is the best OS for their purposes.  It is a hobby and avocation that could be come a vocation.  Now, however, it is bordering on addiction.  So, fifteen minutes after the Big Guy and I read the report card, we had an intervention and pulled the plug.

Our normally tolerant twelve-year-old reacted like any addict who was being cut off would.  He denied.  Then he rationalized – the report card, that is.  Then he protested.  And finally, grudgingly he accepted the reality that his computer time would be restricted to school work.

Grudging acceptance has now taken the form of the silent treatment.  He still obeys the easy rules without defiance.  Gone, however, is the good-natured demeanor.  Smiles are quickly extinguished when we make eye contact – even if we caused the smile.  From his room, we can occasionally hear muted muttering that tells us we hit that heel with perfect aim.

At first we did pat ourselves on the back for being such clever parents.  We felt guilty for about 10 seconds after we shutdown his favorite hobby, but, contrary to his belief, we’re not enjoying our victory.  I know he needs the consequences, but I hate seeing him unhappy.  I know there are things we can control in our own house and there things we can’t.  This is one of the things we’re supposed to control.  And while it hasn’t lead to happiness, it is giving me a bit of serenity in a way that I would never have thought possible when I was a teenager.

As the bearer of numerous crappy report cards, I was also the recipient of many groundings (pointless and redundant for Thing1 who lives in the middle of the woods) and privilege losses.  I remember the profound sense of betrayal when I lost a favorite social outlet.  Now, walking this mile in my parents’ moccasins, I’m finding yet another new understanding of their perspectives.  There’s no forgiveness, of course – there’s nothing to forgive when someone’s looking out for your future.  Instead, this is one of those moments when my mom and dad are getting a unexplained warm feeling in the back of their necks as their daughter writes that they were right about many things – even when it wasn’t fun to be right.

One Step Forward, One Look Back


Down time in the middle of a weekday is almost unheard of for me, but, thanks to the State of Vermont, I get it once a week for eight weeks every winter.

For the last seven years, Thing1 (and now Thing2) have been getting out of school at noon through most of the winter so that they can enjoy the winter sports that bring so many tourists to our area. The younger kids skate; older kids get to ski, and the ski resorts get to train a new generation of instructors and winter sport ambassadors. It’s popular with parents because it’s a cheap alternative to indoor phys-ed, but it’s also an almost iron-clad excuse to leave work or other responsibilities for a few hours each week.

Siting in the warm room at our local skating rink is social and relaxing. I love to reconnect with people I only wave to in the school parking lot as I watch Thing2 glide from wall to wall more steadily each week. But, as relaxing as it is, every week, it also reminds me that, as firmly planted in the Vermont lifestyle as I have become, I have not completely let go of the city girl that left Boston 13 years ago.

Today the rink is deserted except for the few families from the elementary school. The kids flow in and out of the warm room, eating between lessons as parents, unconcerned about stranger danger watch and read and chatter.

For some reason, however, even surrounded by people I know, I still find myself falling into patterns of behavior that were once obligatory in the city and suburbs. I always keep my purse zipped and wrapped around me. When I go to the snack bar, I close any computers and bring things with me – and I can see the snack bar from my usual spot 15 feet away.

Some of my paranoia is founded in experience. A lack of vigilance at a Boston restaurant led to my wallet being stolen right out of my handbag and my guard being permanently alert from then on. Days like today, however, I have to stop my looking back from making me turn back.

I doubt that I will ever leave my door unlocked like many of our neighbors do, but today, surrounded by parents of schoolmates and kids that I know are (most of the time) well-behaved, I consciously made the decision to take a step forward. Thing1, now four inches taller than his mother (he keeps track) and a bottomless pit came in requesting a top-up for his snack. He had to run to his lesson, and, alone again, I got up. Without a backward glance I sauntered to the snack, leaving my fear on the table with my computer and my bag. As luck would have it, only one thing was missing when I got back, and it wasn’t the bag or the computer.

The Witching Hour

Witching Hour

Sometimes, after wrapping up the end of a day doing tech support while refereeing Thing1 and Thing2 as they try to avoid homework and chores by revving up for World War III, I take off.  It’s only a short escape, and in the summer, it’s still light, and I’ll drive along the Battenkill River, absorbing the sights and smells of Vermont as the pinkish-gold light of evening makes everything magical.  Now it’s winter, and my mini vacations tend to lead me to the local country store for an extended errand.

A few evenings ago I used a forgotten ingredient as my pretext for a quick break.  Most evenings the Mom of the Mom-and-Pop store is there, guiding her crew as they make closing preparations.  Traffic comes in fits and spurts, and I’ll usually grab my purchase and head to the large round, oil-cloth covered table at the back of the store by the deli to peruse one of the magazines strewn about and to chat with Mom who is also a close friend.

Most mornings this Round Table is surrounded by her Knights.  These (mostly) men of the town – retired or on their way to work – convene in shifts for a couple of hours every morning as they solve the world’s problems and discuss the deer population (which is just as heated as the politics).  The other night, however, the circle at the back of the store took on a distinctly less knightly aura.

At my bachelorette party umpteen years ago, an aunt told me, “It’s not the big things that’ll kill a marriage, it’s the little things that drive you crazy that will do it.”  It was one of those little things that had driven me to the store in search of potatoes that night.  It was my second ingredient trip in two hours and the third in two days, and when I sat down I was ready for some commiseration.  My friend took a break from her closing chores, and we began trading our anecdotes of marital merriment and madness.  We had just started to vent when a mutual friend joined us with her own war stories to share.  It wasn’t long before the chatting turned to laughter and the laughter to cackling, and I realized we’d become a coven.

As our laughter rose and my friend’s employees patiently waited out our hysteria till they could ask the boss for guidance, I remembered that gatherings like this might once been subversive enough to spark a witch trial or two.  A casual listener might have heard our conversation and thought we were plotting the downfall of men and marriage.  The reality is that, in seeking company for our momentary miseries, we each left our gathering actually appreciating our situations – married or not.  Our shrieks of laughter had fallen over me like stolen fairy dust, exorcising my exasperation over the little thing that had propelled me out of the house.  It was just the bit of magic I needed to get back and finish dinner with a smile.

Homework

Going Green

It’s 5:00 AM, and I’m just sitting down to work.  It’s going to snow today, so I opened the vents on our big black wood cookstove to get the embers from last night’s fire heating again.  The running of the stove has become a rhythm that’s as comforting as the heat itself, but it getting to this point has been an education.

A friend of mine is the co-owner of one of Vermont’s finest country stores.  On any given weekday morning, a thick circle of pickup trucks and cars surround it as contractors and carpoolers stop in for pastries, beverages and – if they have the time – some steaming hot politics.  Weekends are just as crowded, especially during ski and foliage seasons, and you can always hear the store’s owners giving directions as first time visitors absorb the atmosphere.  They chuckle at the jauntily decorated mannequin by the register and the plastic sign that reads, “If we don’t have it, you don’t need it.”  The owners manage to keep the place constantly smelling off fresh cookies or fried foods, and wide creaking wood floors complete the ambience.

The store’s welcoming atmosphere is why so many tourists, wandering the aisles, find themselves suddenly contemplating a move to Vermont.  They’ll start asking the locals and the proprietress about real estate or schools.  She always answers them honestly and good-naturedly, but she ends every Q&A with the same admonition, “Just do your homework.”

I was lucky enough to join a writing group with this woman and a few of her friends, and she and they became my first close friends in Vermont.  She was one of my many sounding boards as we began considering and then building an earth-sheltered, off-grid house.  She listened to our idea and my excitement, and, after encouraging me, put her hand on my arm and said very solemnly, “Just do your homework.”  So we did.

As we designed and planned and sub-contracted, I got to know every off-grid site on the web.  I acquired a three-foot high stack of magazines and books on everything from ‘High Thermal Mass Construction’ to ‘Heating Your Water with Your Woodstove.’  We had every issue of Back Home Magazine (a periodical for do-it-yourself off-gridders), and every time I met someone who was using solar hot water or solar panels, I ambushed them with a barrage of questions.

Almost a year after we broke ground, we moved in.  The walls were primer-ed and the rudimentary kitchen (which I later added to with tag sale cabinets) had only the bare necessities.  We had a pantry with no shelves, and were sweeping and mopping up dust for the first three weeks.  But the first day in the new house was a glorious, sunny June day, and we were overjoyed to see what we had hoped to see.  Our solar panels were charging the new batteries beautifully – even with our appliances plugged in.  We figured we had made our energy calculations accurately, and hugged each other.  Then the sun went down.

Suddenly the fridge we had brought from our old house made its presence known.  We watched the energy meter numbers plummet from the 30s to the minus 20s.  It didn’t take much calculating to realize that at this rate, our batteries would be sucked dry by morning.   We knew we didn’t want to keep our old fridge, but finances had kept us from buying the ultra-efficient one we wanted right away.  We also knew, however, the key to our success would be keeping our consumption low.  So it was off to the appliance store where we bought the least-consumptive fridge we could find. It was also the smallest fridge that could still be called a fridge, but it did the trick.

Again, we congratulated ourselves on our research and problem-solving, but we had just begun to scale the learning curve – and it was about to get steep.

One of the key components of our winter off-grid plan was our wood cookstove.  We had purchased it from a store that catered to the Amish community in Montana, and our plumber had installed water jackets in it for us.  These jackets would circulate water from our domestic tank to the stove using only the heat in the jacket water to propel it up and around the circuit.  The first day it was cold enough to have a fire without turning the house into a sauna, we lit one.  What we got was not a sauna, but a swimming pool.

About an hour into the first fire, we heard a roar from the back of the stove.  When the my husband (a.k.a the Big Guy) and I recovered from our shock, we went over to see what had happened and, as we stepped in a massive puddle, realized that the stove’s pressure safety valve had gone off, releasing the gallons of water that had heated to the boiling point.

This was not supposed to happen.  We had researched this thoroughly – we thought.  The Big Guy has an engineering background and, working with the plumber, quickly realized that our original calculations missed a variable when deciding where to put the stove.  Several weeks of cold showers later (we had to stop the water flowing to the stove) they re-installed the welded jackets and a small motor to propel the water.  The stove has given us a toasty house and piping hot showers for almost seven winters now.

Over the years, off-grid living has taught us a lot, but mostly it has taught us about ourselves.  Naturally, we have learned – as our friend still advises – to do our homework.  We have learned about the necessity of finding the delicate balance between principle and practicality.  We have learned how to make do and to do without.  We have learned patience.  But we have also learned that  the most fundamental education comes when you take the test, and while Life is pass or fail, as long as you’re still trying, you’re passing.  In any other venue we might be getting a strong C, but it’s a score we’re proud to post on our new super-efficient fridge.

 

Centerstage

 

Thing1 bestowed his first real smile on me when he was about six weeks old, and it was the most intoxicating thing I’d ever seen (This isn’t just my maternal bias talking either… Maybe just a little).

It didn’t take Thing1 long to figure out that his toothless smile could illicit the most effusive displays of adoration from family or friends or little old ladies on the train.  “He’s such a sunny boy,” our German neighbor would tell us in heavily accented English.  I’ll admit it – having people fawn over my firstborn like that, went to my head.  So, wanting to share what we’d created with the world, I sent a photo of him and his toothless grin to a modeling agency.  A few weeks later I got a reply from an agency in Albany (we had moved to Vermont by then) saying he was very cute, and how did we feel about driving to Boston or New York for jobs?

The Big Guy and I already knew how we felt about driving with Thing1 for trips longer than an hour (the Big Guy was already an expert on brands of hearing protection), and Thing1’s showbiz career ended before it began.  Seeing the man that Thing1 is becoming tells me we made the right decision.  He’s still my sunny boy, but, at twelve, he balks at any clothing that isn’t first and foremost comfortable (clean is optional), and he’s currently working on his entry for the Guinness Book’s Most Reluctant Snapshot subject.

Thing2 is another story.  He is just as sunny but his photo isn’t at an agency.  The only theatre he’s been a part of was a children’s workshop at our local community theatre and arts center, Hubbard Hall.  And, even though I long ago decided my being a Stage Mom wouldn’t work for our family, Thing2 has turned me into one.  It was a point he made decidedly last night when he came home from school.

It was the end of a short week, thanks to MLK day, and a traveling children’s theatre company was visiting Thing2’s school.  They were recruiting actors for an upcoming workshop and performance and hoped to inspire the kids with a makeup demonstration.  The makeup artist scanned the audience for potential victims, but Thing2 had already volunteered.

He was picked to be the second model and had some time to think of what he wanted.  A recent trip to Boston has turned him in to a style maven, and he was already dressed up in a button down shirt, tie and vest.  He wanted the creation to work with his outfit, and when the makeup artist suggested giving him a black-eye, Thing2 latched on to it.  He was still struggling to contain his delighted wriggling when he came home, determined to trick me into thinking he was really hurt.

The joke was just about worn out by dinner – he had come to each of us saying Thing1 had given him the black-eye – and I thought he might be tiring of his schtick.  But by dessert he had recharged – his marred eye twinkling with devilish delight as he dove into his watermelon.  I grabbed a quick pick, hoping preserving the scar in photos would be enough to convince him the show was over, and he needed to wash his face.   When his nighttime bathroom routine was over, however, he came back to the table with clean teeth, clean hands, and a face that had been scrubbed hard almost everywhere.  But not quite everywhere.

Thing2 wanted to save his scar to show his friends at basketball practice, and, as thrilled as we were at the idea of our child flaunting a fake black-eye in front of a rightly suspicious world, we gave in.  Like most of his characters and costumes, this will run its course, and he’ll be on to the next act before the weekend is over.  And, while I’m sure there will be a few shocked whispers when we walk into Bob’s Diner this morning, I am okay with that.

His commitment to his craft is my daily reminder to not let the fear of those whispers govern whether or not we live or half-live out our lives.  Thing2 instinctively seems to understand that the world is a stage, and he is ready to play on it, exploring as many parts as he can.  So now, to my surprise, I have become a stage mom, and it’s turning out to be quite the education.

Uncovering the Universal

 

From the moment one of my grandmother sent me and my sister a boxed set of the Little House books (remember when you could get them in hard cover?), I’ve been a book addict.

Aside from the Big Guy and my kids, reading has been one of my few healthy addictions, and, even though now my schedule and energy level rarely align enough for much more than a quick novel here and there, I actually relish getting sucked into another world or era even more.

When I was younger, other worlds were my drug.  I loved fantasy and science fiction.  As I became a real aficionado, I found that it was not just the escape I loved, but – especially with the science fiction – it was the way other writers explored what it might mean to be human in a technological landscape.  The covers of my Tolkien collection turned to ash as I followed Baggins and Frodo on their journeys and finally realized that Tolkien wasn’t writing about elves and hobbits – he was writing about what it meant to be human and to make moral choices.

We didn’t get the classics at our high school much, but my grandmother and one of my aunts were also voracious readers, and most Christmases my sister and I found books we never would have chose under the tree.  I got a three inch thick encyclopedia of classical mythology one year.  I had plowed through everything else on my shelf, so I opened it, and found another realm to explore.  Another aunt sent a collection of mysteries along with the text of a speech on women in writing given by author Sarah Paretsky at her alma mater.

Paretsky’s speech discussed the challenges faced by female authors –  the Bronte’s and Jane Austen never married and wrote in a climate that told women it was unladylike – as well as the often deprecatory ways in which women are depicted in literature.  She exhorted her listeners to read for themselves and then go out and create – whether or not they could find rooms of their own.  It was my first ‘I could do that’ moment (I went to my graveyard shift with a pad and pen that night), and I got hooked on detective novels for a while – especially when they included three dimensional female characters – something that is sadly lacking in some of the otherwise wonderful classics of science fiction.  To be sure, there are many amazing female Sci-fi writers, and they have been fleshing out the female residents of that realm for some time now.

As my aunts and mother and grandmother continued their suggestions my way, I wanted to find characters that reminded me of them.  I wanted to find strong women.  I wanted to find people who were passionate about family but also ideas.  I wanted to find flawed women.  And I wanted to find their histories and the people in them.  And then I met Austen.

I don’t remember if it was watching one of the zillion remakes of Pride and Prejudice before heading to the used bookstore or if it was the now deceased copy of Sense and Sensibility that altered my addiction so profoundly.  For some reason I had finished Brit Lit in high school without reading her or the Brontes, but from the words “It is a truth universally acknowledged…,”  I was hooked.  I think it took two weeks to get through all of her bo

oks and then onto the Brontes.  Then I came back and read them again.  And again. And again.

 

At first I thought I loved the manners  (Doesn’t everyone say they love that first?).  Then I decided I loved the window into the way things were done once upon a time – I had always loved the how-to segments in the Little House books.  Then I thought the tortured romances were the attraction.  But as I’ve replaced copies of my Austen novels since I’ve become a wife and mother myself, I realized that I was attracted to a deeper universal truth.

 

Ultimately, Austen was writing about family and the ties that bind.  Their ties were stretched by the demands of making one’s fortune through marriage, but in the little circles of Bennets and Darcys and Dashwoods the knots were tight – despite the internal squabbles that all families have.  I’ve thought about those ties and those knots as I’ve gone back and re-read my favorite novels and discovered new favorites.  And I’ve discovered that even though the configuration of the circle may change from author to author or book to book, classics (regardless of age) are classics because they managed to uncover that universal, even if the pimply kid that was reading them didn’t know it.

 

Now I’ve got less pimples, and I’m hoping to be the author.  For the last eight months, I’ve been chasing the stories close to my life, and it’s helped me focus on what has brought the most meaning to my life.  I’ve just begun sifting through those stories, and while, at the beginning, I worried that the stories about my family and what often seems very drab life would be boring, I’m just now realizing that I haven’t enjoyed writing them in spite of the topic.  I’ve loved it because, like so many of my favorite writers, it’s the the pursuit of something universal.

 

The Next Course

I’m having a thirty-minute mini vacation at Bob’s Diner in Manchester today.  It’s our usual spot on Saturday mornings, but on a weekday without family in tow, it’s just unusual enough.  It’s five below and sunny right now, and I’m noting how much colder a diner is when it isn’t packed with skiers and a grill working overtime to feed that crowd.  The sun’s streaming in, though, and people don’t seem to mind the cold that much.

Me?  I’m plotting.  Over home-fried potatoes I’m mulling past steps and next courses.

As I’ve written in the past, this blog is the result of an ongoing writer’s workshop at Hubbard Hall, a vibrant community theatre and arts center.  The workshop’s leader and mentor extraordinaire, Author Jon Katz, assigned the blogs on the first session.  They were to be a way to share out work (with each other and, hopefully, readers at large)  They would also become our progeny – labors of love that only grew and matured with regular care.  And, as our fearless leader has told us many times, they were an excellent first course at a literary buffet that has gone digital in a big way.

Over the last few months, our blogs have been everything he promised.  They have been conduits between group members and then between writers and readers.  They have called each of us to practice our craft with persistence – trying new flavors as we do.  They have helped me find my stories and sometimes my sanity, and I’ve enjoyed every bite of this feast so far.

But now, still gorging ourselves on the appetizers, we are each trying to decide on the next course, with our mentor encouraging us forward.  For one of our members, it’s becoming a research project.  Others are considering books.  I’m working on a play and along with my game plan to make the jump from writer to working author.

Now I’ll sift through the stories I’ve uncovered and search for the themes that dominate. We’ll all keep sampling the appetizers, though, knowing they’ve just been whetting our appetites for more.  The next course at the banquet looks delicious.  I just hope my eyes aren’t bigger than my stomach.

The Eternal Tourist

My parents weren’t hippies exactly, but I always thought that the social upheaval of the sixties was at least part of the wanderlust that infects both of them to this day. Intensely curious about cultures and socially conscious, my parents began roaming the world almost as soon as they said, “I do.” My dad finished his medical studies in Montreal. Later, the army would move them south to Texas, and while my dad served out his tour there, they became frequent visitors to Mexico and the surrounding states. Their curiosity took them on shoestring holidays to Europe and research-based stints as expats to Peru, and neither of them seemed to think parenthood was a good reason to slow down.

Riding in baby-backpacks and cars that would be condemned by modern child services agencies, we traveled across the country and out of it. We drove from the Eastern Seaboard to Central America. As we got older we started to fly to visit family in Europe. When we moved from the East Coast to the Midwest, my parents explored the heartland in earnest.

With all of that traveling and moving, it was inevitable that my sister and I would become infected with that same wanderlust that still takes my parents to the other side of the globe. I have fed the infection with multiple moves and travels of my own. And, while I am always eternally grateful to my parents for this affliction (I hope to pass it on to my kids someday) and these experiences, I think there was an unintended side effect.

When we moved to Peru, we knew we were visitors. Even when we learned the language, we spoke as foreigners and we were tourists as often as my Dad’s work schedule permitted. When we came home to the states the second time, though, I still felt a little like a visitor. We moved to the Midwest, and I felt even more like a visitor. We continued to travel, and I found I was happy visiting and observing and absorbing.

With one or two exceptions, I have loved most of the places we and I have visited and lived in, but looking back I realize I have spent most of my life feeling like a visitor. Even now, comfortably ensconced in the mountains of Vermont, I still wonder if we’ll be here for the long haul. I wonder what it would be like to live in Vancouver or Iceland or Italy – and if we will find out. There is always a sense of not completely belonging. For a long time, I lived as a witness, and that sense used to make me wonder if writers (as I wanted to be even then) or artists were supposed to be witnesses rather than full participants.

This question bothered me for years. After all, some of the greatest writers have been intense participants in the game of life.  One of my favorite exchanges in any movie was between Private Epstein and Jerome in Neil Simon’s Biloxi blues touches on this, and I think Simon was speaking to all artists when Private Epstein tells Jerome, “You have to take sides. You have to fight the good fight… Any fight. Until you do, you’ll never be a writer.”  It was a commentary that nagged at me for a while.

That was before the Big Guy came into my life.  His presence fed and nourished my wanderlust along with my heart, but I knew that, deep-down, I was still just a visitor in the places we lived. I was still an observer.

Then Thing1 came into our life, etching our family circle in stone. Thing1 was born on the road (we were living in Germany at the time), and at the time the Big Guy and I were long-term visitors together. But, thrown together on the endless adventure of parenthood, neither of us could remain casual observers – whether or not we would have wanted to be.

With the Big Guy’s help, Thing1 (and later Thing2) yanked me off the sidelines of life. I still wonder if I’ll ever belong to a place, but now I belong to a group of our own making.  Over the years it’s pull has grown stronger than any sense of place I’ve had, and because of it, I’m finding that Private Epstein was right. Fighting the good fight of growing our family – regardless of the theatre – has opened the door to becoming a real writer.

Pup Up with the Joneses

Most mornings when I drag myself out of bed for my 5AM display of writing discipline, I head to our study and shut the door.

Now that winter has finally arrived, however, something in me craves the company of the wood stove (it’s a want, not a need – our earth-sheltered house keeps the temps pretty steady), and I’ve been making my way out to my kitchen-study.  On these mornings, a soft jingle greets me as Katy, the wonder dog surreptitiously hops off the big green recliner in the family room, and I start the morning with a chuckle, amazed she still engages in the charade, if only once a day.

When I was a kid, my parents had a big black Lab named Rurik (my mom was studying Russian history then).  Their house was decidedly neater than ours – the neatness gene went to my sister – and there was never a question of whether dogs should be allowed on furniture.  Rurik was not.  Still, while he never openly challenged this rule or appeared to disobey at night, my mom would sometimes find a mass black fur on the burnt-umber sofa cushions after a day out.

We had this same pattern of rules and quiet, civil disobedience with our first dog after we moved to Vermont.  We acquired Josie, a Spoffordshire Terrier mix, from the local shelter while we were still under the influence of the German suburban sensibilities we had absorbed a couple years earlier while living just north of Frankfurt.  While our international experience hadn’t pumped up my cleaning mojo much, we did come back with certain ideas about how dogs should behave, and reserving furniture for humans was one of them.  Like Rurik, Josie had her ideas too, and she obeyed when we were there and left the telltale black-and-white fur on the sofa while we weren’t.

But the longer we lived in Vermont, the more suburban sensibilities we shed.  After the second year, we both abandoned any interest in restoring the front door of our then 200 year-old farmhouse and creating a formal entrance – the default entrance in Vermont is through the mudroom.  We both enthusiastically embraced the Vermont version of business casual (wearing your good jeans or newer Carhardts to work), and as we visited homes and got to know more of our neighbors, I unconsciously noticed that many people let dogs on furniture.

When we got Katy, we still stuck to our old ways – more out of habit than conviction now, but after a  year I found the evidence that she had taken up the dogs-on-furniture banner.  We caught her once or twice and shooed her off, but I clearly did not express my position well enough.  I wasn’t sure what my position was now.

She must have sensed a possible change in doggie fortunes in our house because soon after I brought home the green recliner from a tag sale, she staked it out as her spot.  The Big Guy shooed her off multiple times.  I did it a few times.  But each time she would return, soon not even waiting for us to leave before she slid one paw and then another onto the seat and then her body the rest of the way onto the chair.

I’ve chosen my big battles at this point.  The only ones I wage seriously now are to be sure Thing1 finishes seventh-grade English with as few psychological scars as necessarily and that Thing2 takes off the rainbow wig before school.  It might be because the Wonder Dog looks relatively cute sitting on that chair, but now, when I go over to give her a little petting, I realize that I’m getting almost too good at letting go of little battles.  Some people might call that laziness, and maybe I am lazy.  We’re not just not keeping’ up with the Joneses, we’ve given up on the whole race.  And while that may be a sign of our sloth, it does give us a chance to look around and enjoy the journey.

Cursing the Disco



A few sleepless mornings ago, my gloom was closing in on me so tightly that if I had started lighting candles to keep from cursing my darkness, I could have burned down our house – no small achievement when you consider it’s mostly concrete.

We’d come home late from a sad trip the night before.  I knew the upcoming work day would likely go long, to be capped off with an evening session of  ‘Are You Smarter than a Seventh Grader’ with Thing1 (complete with commentary by Thing2).  I was exhausted before I even got the kids up for school.

But the insomnia that was the door prize that came with my depression turned out to be a blessing (or a curse if you ask Thing1).  As I tossed and turned counting the minutes of sleep I wasn’t getting I suddenly remembered that there was a pile of new, unplayed songs on my iPod.  As I  had mapped out our trip a few nights before, I’d clicked back-and-forth between iTunes and the map site, absentmindedly clicking the ‘Download’ button here and there.

The thing I love and hate about iTunes is that it’s so dang easy to engage in a little retail therapy without wondering where to hide the bags or if I want a song badly enough to be willing to dust it later.  That’s how I ended up with 30 new songs in the time it took to print my maps and reserve a hotel (I think that’ll hold up in court).

So with an hour to myself before I needed to get the kids up, I hopped out of bed and pulled my purchases into a new playlist, hoping the songs would be safer than using fire to fight off my funk.

I find that when I’m in a bad mood, I tend to get a little nostalgic about my music choices, and my indulgence in retail therapy a few nights before was not a sign of a good mood.  And, when I saw that bunch of Earth, Wind & Fire tunes for $2.99, I clicked on it.  I love those songs because they evoke memories of my dad’s mix tapes painstakingly recorded on reel-to-reel, as well as images of the god-awful clothes of that era that are still preserved in photographs for eternity and future blackmail.  But, as anyone who’s heard the songs knows, they’re also killer dance tunes as Thing1, my twelve-year-old (much to his horror) was about to discover shortly.

I got my playlist loaded and synced just in time to push the kids out the door.  Most mornings Thing1 is the arbiter of musical taste in the car.  He’s currently in a two-year Beatles and Stones phase, and when Boogie Wonderland came on, his hand automatically moved to the forward button.  But I was ready for this and intercepted him.

“Leave it,”I ordered with the mock seriousness it takes to command his obedience.

“Okay, Mom,” he laughed, pretending to be in awe of my display of authority.  My mood brightened as we jokingly argued about my musical choices.  I turned up the volume, and, in the rearview mirror, I could see six-year-old Thing2 in his carseat bopping his head happily to the beat.  It was infectious, and I started dancing a little too.  I knew I might have lit one too many candles at that point.

Real fear crept into Thing1’s eyes, and I knew what was going through his mind.  Would the song end before we hit the school parking lot?  Would Mom hit the rewind button?  Would Mom still be drive-seat-dancing when we arrived?

We got closer to town and the song switched, but to Thing1’s chagrin, there were no Beatles tunes in the on-deck circle.  Thing2 and I continued to dance, though I restrained myself a bit as we got closer to town and the traffic got thicker.

“Mom.”  Thing1 murmured as we turned onto the school street.  “Mom.” He grew insistent as we got closer.  A stalled line of cars came into view ahead of us as we approached the school, and my own dancing ceased.  Thing1’s confirmed belief is that his authority over my behavior is in direct proportion to his proximity to middle school, but in reality, I just remember how much middle school sucked, and the threat of my dancing or singing in public is an empty one.  Today, though, it would have been fun to keep that fire burning a little longer.

I drove him up to the door and wished him a good day.  I told him I loved him, and as he climbed out of the car, shaking his head, he muttered what so many young people climbing out of Pintos and Pontiacs shaking under the weights of dancing middle-aged moms with too many choices on the eight track or cassette must have muttered before him: “I hate Disco.”