Mid-CenturyModernMoms

Pansy Girl

One of the classic signs of real poverty is when you run out of something, you're out until you get your check at the beginning of the month. In our case, we were out of everything because poverty is a constant, we had to replace everything in our fridge and freezer that got ruined when the power was out, and that happened to come at the same time as being out of toilet paper, garbage bags, paper towels, and all cleaning supplies.

This means that we couldn't clean out the fridge until my check came, which it did on Friday. Being the red letter day we hit the market and filled up two shopping carts with everything we needed. Not only did it cost WAY more than we had to spend, it also was questionable whether it would fit in the Toymoter. But with some deft packing and a lot of swearing, we got it all in both the trunk and the entire back seat.

Once we got home, my son unloaded the car and then declared that he was done, having been the shopper and hauler. It was his sister's turn to help clean the fridge and freezer and then put all the food away. Only one problem. She wasn't home. So I called her and told her to get her butt home asap, which she did, and then I gave her the rundown on what needed doing,

Perhaps I'vc mentioned before that my precious little snowflake is a tad bit squeamish, no? Well, she is one freaking pansy, and she lets you know with freaky freak-out dancing and screaming and crying and she's gonna vomit no no no she can't handle it drama. Bette Davis couldn't beat this kid for the freak out act. Really.

So we fill up three huge bags, double bagged for your protection, of fridge and freezer crapola, and it's time to clean the machine. Here is where I admit that I do a thorough cleaning only a couple of times a year, at Passover and the High Holidays. Because it's hard, and because it's the worst damn job in the kitchen, in my opinion. It takes FOREVER to take out every drawer and bin and wash them, and then there are always the boy's leftovers that have glued themselves to containers, ewwww.

I pulled out the junk and then had my daughter wash the shelves and bins. The complaining! The angst! The back breaking labor she was unused to, why it was just wrong, she says, wrong!

And then she pulled out the right vegetable bin and went absolutely bonkers. Stark raving mad. A moment for reality television.

"THERE IS A SNAKE IN THE BOTTOM OF THE REFRIGERATOR" she screamed. And the freak out dancing commenced.

I toddle over from the freezer bags I'm packing with stuff for the freezer, and look. She's in tears and bending over swearing she's going to vomit. I peer into the fridge and there is a small, but impressive dessicated carrot perched on the very bottom of the fridge. Indeed, it looks like a lizard of sorts, all brown and shriveled. More like a giant gnute.

I tell her it's a carrot, but no... I'm a moron if I don't see it's a snake. Wah wah wah, much tearing at the flesh and renting the clothing ensues.

Seeing that there is no way she's going near that fridge until I clean it, I sit in my wheelchair and roll over with a long tongs in my hands and remove the carrot.

Still freaking out, she insists that I put it in a special plastic bag of it's own and then in the double plastic garbage bags. There goes our carbon footprint for the month!

I get the sponge and scrubber and try to erase any sign of the errant carrot, but she's still threating to vomit in the hallway.

Being the bitch I am, I make her go back to work cleaning the rest of the fridge, but she refuses to clean out under the other vegetable drawer. No way, no how.

I'll let her brother do it tomorrow. After all, I did the shopping, put the food away, cleaned out the fridge of the stuff that needed to be tossed, and cleaned the freezer. He can wash under one drawer, right?

Might I just mention that carrot was gross?

Feed Station

  Made a pot of turkey sausage with onions and mushrooms last night.  Nothing fancy.  It sat on the stove getting cold until I finally served myself a plate and ate standing up in front of the kitchen TV.  You would think I was home alone, but no. An almost 17 year old boy lives with me still. I called him to dinner several times but he was dug in deep, snuggling in his man cave playing video games. Eventually he lumbered into the kitchen, filled a plate and withdrew to his lair to eat.

Ugh.

School is over, and for the next few weeks until he leaves for camp to be a CIT, my manchild is working as a counselor at Improv Day Camp and doing sound and lights for the grownup shows three nights a week. I'm proud of all that.  But overnight, the civil routines of the school year have evaporated.  He and I actually like to cook together and have generally managed to eat a meal together several nights a week during the school year. 

Last night's dinner felt like animals at the trough.  

You all know what they say about "family meals" as a civilizing influence. I so believe it.  And when our family was whole, the dinner table was where we flowered. I once gave a speech on that idea that made me mildly famous in Atlanta for about 15 minutes, called "Everything I Needed to Know I Learned At The Dining Room Table."  I'm all about the well-set table, the banter, the catching up, the connection and the conversation.

In my favorite book about foodways, Hungering for America, anthropologist Hasia Diner explores what happened to the Irish, the Italians and the Jews, when they left the Old Country and came to America. Rural Italians rarely had meat at the weekday table, but with a knack for turning the humblest of foods -- cornmeal, dandelion greens, wheat, and tomatoes -- into filling and nutritious meals, they developed a rich and varied food culture.  What we know today in America as Italian food -- lasagna, sausage, meatballs -- was festival food served only on Saints Days and major holidays.  European Jews, who also lived in poverty and subsistence, saved the chicken, the challah and the puddings for the sabbath when everything was holy. With sabbath blessings and rituals for everything from lighting candles to bread, and songs for wine and ending the meal, the Jewish table was the ultimate expression of family and finery, even if the weekday table was about cabbage and potatoes.  Like the Italians, American bounty turned the Jewish table into a groaning board where spepcpial sabbath foods became daily fare.

Which brings us to the Irish, and I hope I don't offend anybody here.  What Hasia Diner describes about Irish foodways in the Old Sod is not pretty.  She contends that there was no tradition of family meals,  that open pots of potatoes sat on the stove and people sort of speared a potato when they were hungry.  Communal tables were more often in the pub, not in the farmhouse kitchen.  Even more amazing, when the potato crop failed and people were truly starving, the Irish seemed oblivious to the fish in their streams and the wild greens by the roadside.  So they came to America hungry and found a food bounty there, but had not developed table rituals or family meal habits that could rival the lure of the pub.  A generalization to be sure, but compare Irish food to Italian and Jewish food and I think you'd agree, it's dismal by comparison.

I felt impoverished last night.  Sometimes standing at the stove and eating out of pots, or eating cold leftovers out of containers is just what I want to do.  With a big hungry boy in the house, snorting at the trough was NOT what I wanted for dinner. Wednesday is my CSA pickup day and you can be sure there will be a real meal on my table, with cloth napkins, the Blue Willow china, a hungry mom and a big hungry boy chowing down...together.

Note to future empty nest self

When I have days with seemingly endless hours to fill, remember the days when I thought I had half an hour to myself, poured myself a coffee, grabbed the weekend paper (now 3 days old) and plopped myself in a comfy chair; as I lifted the coffee to my lips remember the voice of a teenager saying "Mum, I'm really sorry, but I forgot about the Young Business Entrepeneurs meeting! I have to be at the Plaza in 5 minutes!"

When I feel sad about the small amount of use my refrigerator is put to, I must remember the hours of holiday time I spent cleaning the fridge from top to bottom.  Oh, how I scrubbed at all those mysterious sticky substances.  I should remember how awkward it was to take all the door shelves off  so I could  take every last shelf and the vegie crisper out to get at those sticky substances.  I should remember how I felt a little glow of pride the next time I opened the the refrigerator and basked in its sparklingness.  I should also remember that when I went to repeat that experience I spied red sticky stuff trickling down from the very top shelf to the very bottom and pooled underneath that hard to get out vegie crisper drawer.  I hope I remember the red sticky substance and enjoy the emptiness of my empty nest fridge.

When the silence is echoing through my house and I feel it is too quiet, I hope I remember the days when both my living areas were overrun with noisy teenagers, forcing me to retreat to my room so I could hear myself think.  I should also remember those times when the nightly news bulletin was about to inform me of something I really wanted to know and my teens burst into the room relegating all the newsreaders words to mime.

When it hardly seems worth running the washing machine for more than 1 load each week I should remember the days of endless washing and pegging out, bringing in and folding, only to have my teenage daughter demand to know why her favourite jeans have not been washed when they hadn't even made it to the laundry.

When my house feels souless I should remember the years when I couldn't walk in any family space without tripping over a pair or three of shoes baring their souls to my cranky gaze.

I could go on, however, I should probably also pause to remember the years I spent making their teenage years as enriched as I could so they could fly the nest with confidence, and I should feel satisfied that they have.

I hope I get to feel the satisfaction of the last paragraph.

Mah Nishtana Ha-Leila Hazeh?

Whine... Margalit stole my idea.... 

Okay, instead of waxing poetic about how wonderful our seder was, I'll compare and contrast it to the expanded family dinner we had on Saturday night that hubbie attended. He's currently in a rehab hospital so this was a special night for him.

	Seder without Hubbie	Family dinner with Hubbie
Adults	4	8
Teenagers	4	2
Kids		2
Toddler		1
Sniping Remarks		yes
Participation (Conversation, readings)	everyone	yes
Staying at table through dessert	everyone	Teens & kids bailed out; most returned
Stress Level when Finished	Tired, but no stress	High stress

The seder was a totally enjoyable evening.

The family dinner was planned to see my brother, SIL, niece and nephew, cousins (including 3 year old), aunt and Dad.  I had a great time playing with the 3 yo, but Hubbie started freaking out because we were playing with a ball in the living room and might break something.  First of all- how hard can a 3 yo throw?  (Although he was tossing it upwards).  But aside from the fact that that really wasn't a lot of very fragile things around, I wouldn't have minded if something broke because I was having such fun playing with him!

Then during dinner, Hubbie wasn't in for normal give and take of conversation, but just kept talking over other conversations.  This was probably due to the cognitive impairment that he insists isn't happening. In addition to his interrupting, he had plenty of negative things to say, as usual. He brings stress to situations because everyone is just waiting for the next snipe to come out of his mouth. Since you never know what is going to set him off, it's like sitting with pins and needles in your legs... uncomfortable and annoying.

The teens bailed off in different directions right after dinner, as did the younger kids- mostly up to Wii- because they weren't involved in what was going on at the table- quite a change from the interactive seder. When Hubbie does the seder, he insists on reading the entire Haggadah in Hebrew, which most people not only don't understand, but can't follow. It makes no difference to him. When he got sick, he also got Religion, and he insists that everyone bend to his Orthodoxy whether or not they want to. Unfortunately, the Religion he got isn't really something he practices... he just learns about it in an abstract way. But he makes sure that you know that you're doing it wrong if you differ from his opinion in any way.

So a Seder with him is long, boring, and without any humor. My kids were brought up on seders like that, and to see them experience the fun seder we had with Margalit's family was great. They all participated, they laughed and made jokes and were interested in finding good readings to complement the Haggadah. It was relaxing and fun and so easy compared to last year, when Margalit actually had to separate me and Hubbie because of his sniping at me. So embarrassing! So necessary.

Next year, Hubbie most likely won't be with us, and we'll have seders filled with history, wonder and joy. Just the way they're supposed to be.  It was so enjoyable to see Abe and Rosie having so much fun at a family, religious occasion.  They didn't even know that they were so relieved not to have their Dad around.  The light in the distance is looking brighter.

Advice is cheap.

I always read the Employee Wellness Newsletter. Sometimes I skim it and roll my eyes, but once in a while there's an article that makes sense. There was dietary advice this time. Here are a few carefully selected quotes, with my responses in italics.

"Research shows that what you eat can significantly affect your mood."

Moods? I have a teenager and a twenty-something.Did you say MOODS?!

"For breakfast, try oatmeal or eggs. Both contain an amino acid that helps boost the levels
of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that makes you feel good."

They're in high school and college students. What makes you think they're actually awake enough to eat breakfast? 

 

"As for the blueberries, save those for lunch. The antioxidants in them will ward off... stress."

Stress? And just how do you think these kids will keep blueberries in their lunches? A brown paper bag? The small pocket of their backpack? Blueberry stains don't come out easily, y'know. Do blueberries even contain antioxidants after they've been trucked mega miles to get to the store in the frozen Midwest? Did you say STRESS?!

"Finish with a small piece of chocolate."

Now we're talkin'. I can deal with that advice. The only problem with this piece, though, is that I'd rather have the chocolate, the dark chocolate in particular, to myself.

But wait...they didn't mention coffee. Uh-oh. Where does my daily cuppa fit into this picture? Please tell me I don't have to deal with my know-it-all kids without my cup o' joe. Please.

 

(For another variation on this "advice," check out Compost Happens.)

Vacationing at Home: Part 1

Like everyone else in the world, we're feeling the pinch of the economy.  But not as badly as many people (yet).  Since hubbie is terminally ill and I doubt that he'll make it another year, I convinced his sister (such a wonderful SIL) to visit with her family.

The original plan was to have the 5 of them stay with us.  We certainly have the space to fit people into lots of places, but SIL asked her old college roommate- who lives on the other side of the town- if they could stay there, and that was much better.  It allowed hubbie to decompress each night and not blow his top.  In other words, it was a hectic few days, but I felt like my mom in kvelling over all of the kids getting along so nicely.

(Linguistic note: kvell is a Yiddish word that essentially means to take great pride in.)

Abe had already had a few days at home to veg out on playing video games on the computer, so he was in a good mood.  Also, Rose had a day off from school to start relaxing before the family descended upon us.

SIL, BIL, A (boy, almost 10), N (boy twin, 8) and T (girl twin, 8)- oh is was so good to see them.  It had been 2 years since I last gave my niece and nephews a hug and oh, how they've grown!  And oy, are these kids smart, or what?  They had just gotten a Wii for Chanukah, and of course, we have one, so all of the kids headed for that when they hit town. 

Then the dads and then the moms got involved and it was a real family experience with lots of laughing and giggling!  The 5th night of Chanukah and now we're lighting 7 chanukiyot (Chanukah menorahs).  And presents all around!

The next day we went for family pictures.  N says to me "Why do we always take formal pictures when we visit you?"  But the kids were all great and there are going to be wonderful pictures of the combined families.  Supposedly the pictures are the Chanukah present for the kids' grandma, but I certainly wanted them too!!  Then off to the Science Musuem for the day.  And home for a family dinner for 11 (because grandma brought her boyfriend along).  Slight issues arose while cooking dinner- but not from the kids!!  (Hubbie and his mom and then he yelled at me, of course, because it's ALWAYS MY fault.)  More Chanukah candles and more presents!!

We had planned an outdoor day at Old Sturbridge Village.  It's a recreation of what rural life was like in New England in the 1830s, with costumed people living the parts. 

We went anyway and got wet walking from place to place until the rain stopped and even was fairly warm!  But we all had a great time.  There was almost no one there, so the kids got to ask as many questions to the crafts people or other workers as they wanted and certainly they could see everything that anyone was doing!  Dinner at an Italian restaurant and back to the house for more Chanukah candles and more presents!!!

They had to leave on Sunday morning (boo hoo).  The rest of their vacation was going to be in New York City, staying at the boyfriend's apartment.  So they gave the suitcases to grandma and the boyfriend who were driving back to NYC and we said good bye to them as they went to the train.  I miss them already! 

It's back to work for me now for a few days while everyone else gets to laze around at home.  But it definitely was a successful first week of school vacation!!

It's Party Time!!

'Tis the season for parties, and putting on pounds. The other night, we drove down to Abe's residential school for a party put on by his house.  About half of the parents came, including one family who drove up from New York City and another from Hartford.  We felt positively close since we only had to drive 45 minutes!

The food for the main course was fair with nothing much that we could eat and still keep kosher-style but the desserts, oh the desserts.  They are always my downfall. 

Chocolate covered pretzels, strawberry mousse pie, another pie with coconut and yet another with chocolate!  Apple crumble helped us think that we were staying on the healthy side, but of course, there was the egg nog, too!

And this is only the start!  Chanukah means potatoes and oil and families all getting together to eat. 

It's the holiday season now.  We went to a Chanukah party and started eating all of the stuff fried in oil- the latkes, and also "sufganiyot"- which are essentially fried dough balls with a little bit of sugar on them.  Many times they are made similar to jelly donuts, but when you eat them hot out of the oil.... yum, yum, yum.  They don't need any filling.

At this party, the whole house filled up with the scent and smoke of the smoking oil.  It took hours for my eyes to recover.  But it will be longer til the oil gets off of my hips!

And then there's New Year's Eve and more to eat and to drink.

That's why so many New Year's resolutions are about losing weight!  But on the serious side.  I am worried that all of this will destroy (or set back) Abe's great work on losing weight (he lost 30 pounds in 6 months!) and getting his cholesterol and triglycerides under control.  He had done so well that the doctor took him off of those meds- with a re-test of the blood work just after New Year's.  Mom isn't the only one who needs to practice some self-control; but Abe didn't do badly at the party at his school.  But worry is a mom's life.

Happy Holidays from my family to yours!

Where school seems to go on forever

Unlike most of the rest of the country, my kids are still in school. I know... it seems to last forever and yet it's never long enough! We've got one more week before they're out for the summer. This is the week of final exams. They go in at weird times, and leave at weird times. I have no clue when they should be where. I figure that it's their responsibility to get to their final exams on their own.  Once the exams are over, they're both going to be home all summer long. Yup, all summer long. Gulp!

I'm of mixed emotions. I have to admit, I love tossing the alarm clock and knowing that I won't have to see 6:30 am again until September.  Sleep is very important to teenagers and for a couple of months they'll get enough to keep them on a fairly even keel. I hope.

I also love having them around much of the time. Despite what you might have heard, I like my kids and I enjoy their personalities and their wit. Most of the time. I like doing things together with them, I like when their friends come over and I can eavesdrop on conversations and find out what the heck is going on in their lives. I like when they come up with bizarre ways to entertain themselves.

However, they eat like starving grizzly bears, they are the messiest human beings on earth, and they tend to argue. A lot. It's never nice and peaceful for very long around here. My son tends to entertain his friends here more than he ever goes anywhere else. There will be 2 or 3 day marathons of video games, shouting, eating the shelves bare, and taking over my house. I think it's better that they are here than if they were unsupervised someplace else. But OMG, the noise, the mess!

My daughter leaves school and the second she is off the property, every single thing she has learned all year empties out of her head. I've never seen anything like it. It's as if she does this brain dump in the parking lot. As summer progresses she gets dumber and dumber. By the end of summer I'm ready to scream in frustration. I must say "THINK" about 3 million times a day. She totally loses the ability to think, read, or write come summer.

Additionally, the school still have no clue of what they are going to do with her next year. It's her junior year. They want her to transfer to the other high school so they can wash their hands of her and not spend a penny on her special education needs. She has refused the transfer. I have refused the transfer. The school has no alternative. She is not registered anywhere for next year. Legally, the school has to follow her last signed IEP, which says she's enrolled in their school. So far they're refusing to do that. Which is against the law. To make matters worse? The social worker who has been working with her, and who we both like, just lost her job due to budget cuts. Today was her last day. So my kid doesn't have anyone to represent her best interests. She gave me the name of some other person whom I've never met and is male, who will be taking over for the social worker. I'm so unhappy about this.

Thus this will be, for me, the summer of lawyers and lawsuits. So looking forward to this. Not. But it has to be done. She has to be in school. We've been homeschooling and it's not the best option for my ultra-social kid. If we have to, we'll continue to do so, but I'm going to make the school let her do math and science there. I can't teach either math or science at home.

Summer is also the time when I become a professional chauffer for my kids. "Mom, take me here." "Mom, I need it NOW". This will be the last summer, because they'll finally turn 16 at the end of August and then the fun really begins.

Driving lessons.

Oh lord, kill me  now.

So maybe I shouldn't be so anxious for school to be over after all. I can't even imagine what kind of hell it will be once they learn to drive.

I really miss sippy cups

My son, for all his faults, is a great kid. Smart, funny, fairly cooperative, and very loving. However, the child is not graceful. Oh, that would be putting it mildly. This is a kid that not only trips on anything in his way, he trips on absolutely nothing. He's the kid that walks into furniture, and occasionally walls. Clumsy would be his middle name.

He don't seem to have an idea of his physical space, I think. He's growing so fast that he doesn't realize how big he is. Big plus clumsy equals disaster.

He is a spiller. I used to say, "Never a meal without a spill." but he seemed to outgrow spilling all day every day. Even when he used sippy cups, he spilled, but then the spills weren't so catastrophic.

They do not seem to make sippy cups for clumsy teens. More's the pity, I say.

Today it was a big class of Kosher for Passover Coke. This is a very valuable commodity because it's made with real cane sugar and not corn syrup. It tastes really good, and I hate Coke. Hate it. So spilling and entire glass on the coffee table and over the side onto the oriental rug, well, not a good thing. He got really upset because he had to clean it up and he lost a whole glass of the special Coke. A double whammy. And of course, Coke is really sticky so just wiping it up isn't enough. Poor kid.

He's blotting and wiping and mopping and he looks up at me and says, "I really need a sippy cup."

I  agreed. He does. But they just don't make them. That's a shame, isn't it?

At Least I Wasn't Buying Preparation H...

Well, today I learned yet another reason why getting old stinks. (And I’m not just talking about the fact that you start to appreciate the comfort and holding power of a pair of underpants that reach up to your armpits.)

If you’ve lived long enough in one area — as I have — and your children have worked their way up the school system, Kindergarten through high school, you’re bound to have a couple of unpleasant youth-related experiences. Our first occurred a couple of years ago, when my husband and I were at a local restaurant having a nice dinner. We even looked forward to imbibing, just a little.

Imagine our horror, then, when the waitress arrived to take our orders — including martinis — and we realized that she was the little girl across the street who used to beg us to let her babysit our boys but she was too little. Only now she wasn’t so little. She was suddenly very big, wearing lots of makeup, and asking us what kind of vodka we wanted in our martinis.

Well. My husband and I were a little taken aback. And though we recovered — and gave her our order, which she had to have someone else bring out because, thank GOD! She was still too young to carry alcohol herself — we felt vaguely criminal while sipping our martinis. And we wondered what she would tell her parents — who, after all, were our neighbors — when she got home. “OMG! You won’t believe what lushes the Hausers are! And do you have any idea how much food they ate?? They each ordered dessert!”

That was bad, but it wasn’t horrible. Because the girl in question wasn't in the same grade as either of our sons, so it was just horrible in a "well, now the neighbors know we like to kick back a martini or two" kind of way.   

But then there's what happened on Saturday.  That was horrible.

I was at the grocery store, unloading an entire week’s worth of groceries, including alcohol, assorted embarrassing items you usually keep hidden away in your medicine cabinet, and guilty snack foods I only eat when I think nobody else is around. 

All of a sudden I heard a cheery, "Oh, hello, Mrs. Hauser!  How are you?"  And I looked up, only to find that the cashier in my check out lane was a girl who is in my son's high school class.  A girl whom I’ve known since first grade, chaperoned on many field trips, watched from the sidelines as my husband coached in soccer, and from whom I've bought far too many Girl Scout cookies over the years. 

And as I watched the contents of my grocery cart roll down the conveyor belt toward this girl who’s known me as an upstanding member of the PTA for her entire life, I had a dilemma.

Did I want her to think that my son — the one with whom she goes to high school, and who has, thus far, displayed a remarkable clumsiness when it comes to conversing with the opposite sex — has a condition that requires deodorizing foot powder? No.

But did I want her to think that the extra strengh powder in question was mine?  NO.

Did I really want her to know that I needed two bottles of wine to get me through the week?  No.

But did I want to snatch the bottles and dump them in the cart of the unsuspecting stranger behind me, thus going without?  NO!

Did I really want her to know that I have, on occasion, a need to use Jolene lip bleach? No.

Did I want her to assume my husband was the one who needed it, instead?  Well....Why not?  He wasn't with me; might as well throw him under the bus.

But really, I had no choice.  All I could do was blush and stammer as I paid for all my embarrassing necessities.  Thank goodness she didn’t then add, “And would you like your wine in paper, or in plastic?”

This is just not something you think about, when your kids and their friends are all tiny and cute and playing together; you just do not look at them, holding hands on the playground, and think to yourself, “Wow. I can’t wait until I can start asking them what the drink special is tonight!”

I don’t know what to do now. I guess I’ll have to start buying groceries — and ordering martinis — in the next town or two over. Darn these kids and their pesky habit of growing up.

They’re really putting a cramp on my life.