Mid-CenturyModernMoms

The Blue Box VS The South

By Nina

The Blue Box.  What would we do without it?

Though their days of eating mostly yellow food (a basic rotation of pizza, potato puffs, chicken nuggets, mac and cheese) are over, my sons' love of the Blue Box endures.  They have learned make Kraft Mac and Cheese all by themselves, in one pot, and now that they're "men" they consider one box to be a single serving. 

Oh yes, when they were little I tried to get them to eat Annie's, but they never liked it.  (For a provocative comparison of the Blue Box VS. The Bunny click here.) I've made Mac and Cheese from scratch, seducing my sons with the richness of whole milk, sweet butter and good cheddar. No dice. My sons are still Kraft Mac and Cheese lovers and it kind of breaks my heart. 

Especially now that we live in the South where macaroni and cheese is not only considered a vegetable, but a sacrament. Homemade macaroni and cheese graces every holiday table.  It's at every pot luck.  Every cook has his/her special recipe. (Someone at my office uses whole cream in hers.)  Moreover, at any respectable southern Meat and Three restaurant -- where you get a meat dish as your main, and three sides -- macaroni and cheese joins up with a staggering array of vegetables and starches that round out your meal. For your edification, I present below, the list of sides at Mary Mac's Tea Room, Atlanta's most famous Meat and Three.  Sorry, y'all can only pick three.  My guys go for the cheese grits, cream corn and green beans. Yellow food dominating once again.  Personally, I'm partial to the collards, cabbage and butter peas.  You haven't lived until you've eaten fresh butter peas, not to be confused with green peas.

Mary Mac’s Famous Fresh Vegetables and Sides
Apple Sauce
Baked Potato
Black-eyed Peas
Brunswick Stew
Butter Peas
Carrot-Raisin Salad
Cheese Grits
Cole Slaw
Collard Greens with cracklin’ cornbread
Cornbread
Dressing & Gravy
Cream Corn
Dinner Salad
Dumplings
French Fries
Fresh Fruit
Fried GreenTomatoes
Fried Okra
Fruited Jell-O
Garden Salad
Green Beans
Hoppin’ John
Lima Beans
Macaroni and Cheese
Okra & Tomatoes
Pear Salad
Pickled Beets
Potato Cakes
Pot Likker
Rice and Gravy
Soufflé of the Day
Spiced Apples
Squash Soufflé
Steamed Cabbage
Vegetable
Medley
Sweet Potato
Soufflé
Turnip Greens
Vegetable Soup
Whipped Potatoes

With all this homemade goodness in our midst, are you beginning to understand how humiliating it is to have your sons reject your homemade mac and cheese in favor of the blue box? 

Nerds Rule!

By Nina

I saw it with my own eyes at every single HS reunion I've attended. The nerdiest most unlikely to "succeed" kids inevitably ended up being the coolest, realest and most interesting ones at the party.

Somehow the mean alpha girls just got meaner and smaller.  The cheerleaders got fat.  The grinds had been ground down by life.  But a lot of the nose picking, pocket protector, AV Squad boys and nerdy girls were the ones who'd cashed out their dot.com businesses and were now pursuing their bliss, sailing sloops around the world, taking on second careers, shepherding foundations, that sort of stuff. Even Marsha Miller, who was so horsey she practically whinnied, had turned into a way-cool art gallery owner in the Bay Area. 

No surprise learning that a high school A-lister like Robby Benjamin went to med school, made a lot of money, retired early to Florida and was proudly wearing his trophy 2nd wife on his arm.  But whoa, let's hear it for Geek-O-Rama Marty Tessler, who went to med school the hard way, after being a Physician's Assistant for 7 years and then chose Emergency Room medicine in a hospital in Queens.  Way to go dude!  You may not be making the big bucks, but you've earned my respect and I bet you feel good looking in the mirror every morning.

So while I wish my own nearly 16-year-old geek in residence had a more robust social life and was feeling a little higher up on the high school food chain, I try to remember that being a tech nerd often means having the last laugh. 

My kid is a tech assistant this summer before he leaves for Israel.  He's helping to install new computers in the new building at his school . . . and he's getting paid for it!  He's enjoying the radical paradigm shift as he works with the school's resident technology staff who are (gasp) Republicans and Libertarians, unlike the mushy skwushy  liberals who teach at his crunchy granola private school.  This week his reputation as a nice reliable kid who knows his way around Macintosh computers landed him an off-site gig at the home of one of the school's two college advisers. There he successfully installed a Wi-Fi network and in the process got on the radar of the person who is going to help him navigate the rocky shoals of college applications.  And he got $100 smackeroos. 

Like I said.  Nerds rule.

Yes, I'm sending my son to Israel

By Nina

It never ceases to amaze me  -- the looks of horror I get when I tell people I'm sending my 16-year-old son to Israel for the summer.  Even from Jews. 

Well, I'm in the south now and down here people think nothing of asking you straight out, when they first meet you, "What church do y'all go to?"  And then when you tell them you're Jewish and you don't actually go to church, but you belong to Congregation Shearith Israel, three minutes later they say, "Now what was the name of that church you go to?"   OK, maybe it's hard to wrap your brain around the tangle of Hebrew that is Shearith (remnant) Israel (Israel).  This stuff doesn't even rattle me.  It's almost cute.

What I hate are the looks of grave concern when you say you're sending your child to Israel.  You'd think I was sending the kid to Baghdad.  In fact I'm sending him to his homeland, the most progressive, impressive and remarkable nation in modern history.  He will be touring with other teenagers from North America, under strict supervision in what is turning out to be one of the most robust summer tourism season in a few years.  Israel needs that badly. 

I don't want to preach here or get too political on you, but this I believe.  Israel is a brilliant democracy that sits in a very bad neighborhood.  It is surrounded by neighbors who would like it to disappear from the earth.  Egypt is digging tunnels to run guns and supplies to Hamas in Gaza.  Syria and Lebanon, it's puppet state,  have rockets aimed at the Golan Heights and Tel Aviv.  And let's face it, Iran's nukes, whether you believe they exist or not,  are intended for Israel. Only Jordan, ruled by a modern and educated King, understands the utility and potential of "making it work" with Israel.

My son will start his trip in Europe.  He'll tour Prague and visit Auschwitz and see the remnants (that Hebrew word Shearith again) of once thriving Jewish communities where his ancestors  lived, learned, taught, created and prospered.  Then he'll sail into Haifa Harbor, like the Ma'apilim (immigrants)  who survived the Holocaust and made new lives in the Jewish State. He'll see the good, the beautiful, the ugly.  He'll see the security wall and the checkpoints.  He'll see Jews and Arabs struggling to coexist in a complex shared destiny.  He'll hear Hebrew, a language resurrected from the pages of the bible, as a living, breathing modern tongue with its own unique street slang and poetry.  He'll see contradictions and complexities on every street corner. 

Israel isn't neat and tidy. It's loud and messy.  It is all at once western and eastern, orthodox and progressive, secular and religious.  It is our pride and our pain. These ads express our immense pride in what Israel has achieved amidst staggering challenges.

And that's the way I want it.  I cannot protect Grumble from everything.  In truth, I think life in Israel is safer than life in America. People are connected there in ways that can barely be expressed.  When you ride the bus and someone thinks your baby might be under-dressed and chilly, 5 surrogate mothers will step in and offer their sweater as an extra blanket.  Once in a restaurant where my 5 year old wailed for pizza, the proprietor sent a waiter across the street and got my kid a slice.  When Israeli soldiers were camped out in a field near Efrat during the 2nd Intifada, my friends cooked for them as if they were their own sons and daughters.  That's the kind of place I want my son to experience. 

There will be an armed guard on Grumble's bus.  He will not travel outside the so-called "Green Line" and security reports will determine when and where his group travels.  But there will also be songs and sights and stories I cannot give him in America. For 5 weeks he'll be in a danger zone.  I wouldn't have it any other way.

Crocs and Birks and Sneaks...Oh My!

By Nina Rubin
Today's topic is boys and footwear.  You know, those 7 pound missiles teenage boys fling off their feet and leave for you to trip over in the hallway, doorway, under the table, etc., and then cry out, "Mom, have you seen my shoes?" 

Shoe shopping, alas, isn't the retail thrill for guys that is it for girls.  We're not talking about stalking Manolos or cruising the Nordstroms sale rack here.  Both Jaws and Grumble, who are each over 6 feet tall,  have humongous slabs for feet. They wear 13.5 and 13 respectively and their slabs are still growing. I stay up nights worrying about this because style choices begin to fall off at size 13W, but my lads seem completely untroubled by this. Just keep them in Birks and Crocs and flip flops and Merrills and $85 sneakers and they are blissfully happy, the fools.

Have you noticed, by the way, that shoelaces are a thing of the past?  Even sneakers are elasticized. I know for a fact that Grumble doesn't know how to tie a shoelace and that Jaws only mastered it a few years ago.  He does it the two-loops way.  [If either boy reads this I'm dead meat.]

However, teenage feet are on my mind because we have a ritual on the last day of school, which is today.  When school gets out, we go get shoes. Shoeing my boys makes me indescribably happy. In the old days it was about taking them to the childrens' shoe store and getting lollipops and watching them take their practice walk in shiny new shoes.  These days I take them to Abbadabbas, Atlanta's funky shoe emporium which overflows with Keene, Merrill, Teva,  Dansco, and other high end comfort shoe brands sold by salespeople sporting tatoos and noserings.

Here's what happens. My sons walk into Abbadabbas,  ask for the two or three brands they like, try them on, and in like 5 minutes they are happy ready to roll.  Me? I am combing the sale rack, trying on orange climbing shoes and thinking that a pair of those cute Crocs "Mary Janes" in pink would make my life complete. Then, omigod, I see that Earth Shoes are back, and I wonder, "Gee, maybe I'll have less back pain if I start wearing negative heal shoes." This prompts a reverie about Fred Braun shoes.  Do you think they'll ever bring back Fred Braun shoes?  I still dream about them.

My name is Nina and, yes, I am a shoe-aholic, and the mother of sons who don't understand. I have an embarrassing, Imelda-esque quantity of shoes.  My personal theory about women and shoes is that we love 'em because while our dress and jeans size changes alarmingly, our shoe size (once we're done with birthing babies) stays about the same. I didn't need Carrie Bradshaw to teach me that there's nothing like a new pair of shoes to bring a whole new perspective to life.  And then there's the matter of toe cleavage ... which I must admit, I find incredibly sexy, but which is apparently unknown to my boys.  When I explained it they said, "Eeeuuuuwww."

Which is what I say when I see (or smell) their feet.

Where you really get burned with boys is on dress shoes.  Unless you're a stickler about appropriate footwear for church, synagogue, holidays and special occasions, or your kids go to a school that makes them wear closed-toe shoes, dress shoes are where you get soaked.  I recently broke down and bought Grumble a pair of black leather shoes for his brother's graduation and his own Confirmation and it set me back over $100.00.  If I'm lucky he'll wear them a total of five times and they probably won't even fit him in six months. 

Can I say one more thing about shoes?  And this is not a gender thing.  I don't approve of wearing flip flops to your college or high school graduation.  But at Jaws college graduation I saw literally hundreds of guys and girls wearing cap, gown and flip flops.  Where are their manners?  Where are their mothers?  Where is the nearest DSW? 

Launching Pad

By Nina Rubin
In an effort to save some dough (and because hotels were going for more than $300 a night) I recently spent two nights in my college son's D.C. "launching pad" over his graduation weekend.  My darling and personable first born (a.k.a. Jaws to MCMM readers)  has sublet a 2 bedroom apartment in a groovy Arlington, VA building that boasts a health club, party roof deck, a pool, and a concierge -- before he has actually landed job.

That's not intended to be a snarky comment.  Honestly.  Jaws is not a slacker and he will get a job.  I mean, he has to.  He's not being subsidized by his parents, his school loans are coming due and his savings are not endless.  He's a great kid -- a mensch as we Jewish parents like to say.  But I had to laugh when I compared his first digs with my first apartment after college.

My apartment:  $185 a month, divided by 2 roomates.
His apartment:  $800 a month...just for his room!
My apartment:  In an Italian neighborhood where old men played bocci ball and widows wore black for their entire lives.
His apartment:  Nobody over the age of 50 in evidence.

His apartment came with a flat screen tv and a refrigerator that makes ice.  Jaws and his roomate each have their own tv in their own private bedrooms.  They don't have a car and they don't have silverware.  But they have cable and TIVO. They have granite countertops.  I have formica.  They have stainless steel appliances.  And here's the real rub...they have a Harris Teeter supermarket and a dry cleaner in their complex.  Jealous?  Moi?

We were all back together again in New York over Memorial Day weekend celebrating Grandma Isabelle's 85th birthday. Hanging out in my mom's kitchen yesterday, Jaws asked lots of sweet cooking and grilling questions, having recently discovered that if one cooks, one has copious leftovers, and one saves money.  He asked his grandmother for a few of her recipes and she sent Jaws flying back to Washington  loaded up with a flank steak, flatware for 12, a box of home baked brownies, grilling tools and a bottle of teriyaki marinade.  As I've said elsewhere, they don't make 'em like my mother anymore. Her care packages are, legendary and eclectic.

When I got back to Atlanta last night, I was dying of curiosity so I called the launching pad.  I heard the sound of happy young people in the background and beer cans popping. "How was the steak?" I asked.  "Fabulous," Jaws said.  "But we kind of incinerated the burgers...the flames got a little out of control out on the balcony." 

Yup, it's happening.  He's out on his own.  With two interviews coming up this week.  You  live, you learn, you launch.

Thank You Note Season

By Nina Rubin

Thank you note season starts a little early down here in the south.  In Georgia, school is over by late May or the first days of June, so all the end-of-year honorifics get cranking the minute the buds appear on the trees, which in Atlanta is actually late April.  Spring unleashes not only pollen, but an avalanche of graduation parties, weddings, engagement and baby showers.

This year in our little family we have Jaws graduating from college and Grumble's Confirmation.  Graduation ... well, you know what that is.  Confirmation?  In the Reform Jewish tradition, which started in 19th century Germany, Confirmation is the culmination of one's formal Jewish studies...and it's big deal.  It's usually done at the end of 10th or 11th grade, coinciding with the Jewish holiday Shavuot which commemorates the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai and the so-called "first fruits" of the harvest.  The ritual has a deeply Lutheran high-church pomp and circumstance aesthetic -- the kids wear robes, sometimes the girls carry flowers, there is much speechifying and the kids write a "creative" service. In old historically German-Jewish congregations like The Temple, you'll hear the organ pumping out sturdy old Reform hymns.  All in all, it's the kind of "show" that prompts people to give gifts. 

But wait, this isn't about Confirmation, it's about thank you notes. See, I have a thing about hand written thank you notes.  Call me old fashioned, call me quaint, I like real thank you notes on real stationery. People have actually complimented me on my thank you notes. So I'm a major nag on the topic.  Silly me, I just don't think an e-mail thank you always cuts it.

With teenagers one has to be flexible. Teenagers and thank you notes...yeah, it's a horror movie.  Especially when you were married to a rabbi for 22 years and congregants not only sent you stuff and expected to be thanked, but were secretly rating you (and your kids) on the promptness and quality of your thank you notes. 

Imagine your child's bar mitzvah where the whole congregation had been invited...and fed. Think 400 thank you notes.  You gotta feel for clergy kids.  It's a crushing number of thank yous.  So here's what we did for our kids:  Printed up 400 generic thank you notes in the own child's handwriting that said something like: 

"I am so pleased that you could be with me when I was called to the Torah.  Thank you for honoring me with your presence and your gift." 

Friends and family got real handwritten notes, but the rest of the pack got the pre-printed generic ones.  I'm reasonable and compassionate, but in the end, there will be thank you notes.

So now let's up the ante:  we're in the South where people are Southern, make eye contact, and talk slowly. Thank you notes?  Not optional, mandatory.  Roll the soundtrack:

Me:  Sweetie, you have another package.

Grumble:  Huh?

Me:  I think it's from one of the Temple ladies in Dad's torah class, Mrs. Hutzenplutzenreuther.

Grumble:  Who?

Me:  You know, Mrs. Hutzenplutzenreuther who invited us for dinner when we first moved here?  The one who brought me roses from her garden (thank you note written).

Grumble:  Whatever.  [OPENS PACKAGE]  Oh, cool!  A travel alarm clock.  [DROPS WRAPPING PAPER ON FLOOR AND RESUMES PLAYING GRAND THEFT AUTO].

Me:  Did you send a note to the Blumenthals?  They made a donation to the youth fund in honor of your Confirmation. [Teenager has no concept that even there is a youth fund.]

Grumble:  You didn't give me their address.

Mom:  Yeah, I did.  It's listed in the synagogue directory which is on the dining room table . . . with your stationery. 

Teenager:  [THROUGH CLENCHED TEETH] I said I'd do it.  Back off, Barbie!

At times like these, it's the shrill voice of you own mother you hear.  You have morphed a shrill Harpie, a relentless nag clinging to the opinion of others, as measured through the currency of thank you notes.  You are an enforcer, a bad cop, an evil cyborg grownup who sees the rolling of eyes behind closed doors.

But here's the thing: You also know you're doing the right thing.  By insisting on something as old fashioned and Luddite as a hand-written thank you note, you are making your stand for manners and the power of the pen.  I don't know about you, but most of the time I actually think it's worth it.

 

Independence Day

By Nina Rubin

A story in the New York Sun entitled "Why I Let My 9 Year Old Ride the Subway Alone" quickly shot to this paper's "most emailed" list, and also prompted a story on Slate.com.  It all reminded me of Jaws first independent subway trip when he was 12 and in 7th grade. 

In a provoking (in a good way) account in the New York Sun, writer Lenore Skenazy outs herself as a mother who let her 9-year-old son ride home by himself on a New York subway and bus. Yes, he transferred. She reports that her son arrived "ecstatic with independence." And also that half the people she has told "want to turn me in for child abuse." Only half?

Skenazy understands why other parents recoiled at a decision that wasn't all that daring, rationally speaking. It's not simply that parents think of every horrendous kidnapping story and so decide not to take any chance—however tiny—that something unspeakably awful will happen to our children.

So when did the notion of parent-as-bodyguard begin to prevail, and does it connect to the endless tug of war over where and how mothers should spend their time?

Unlike the Manhattan mother of the 9 year old, Jaws' blow for independence was completely unpremeditated and a tad defiant, but luckily for all of us, it had a happy ending. Now that he's 21 and alive and well, I still love telling about it.  It was a turning point for all of us.  A true Independence Day.

It was a Saturday in early spring, and Jaws and a pack of 7th grade friends (boys and girls) had tickets to a Mets game.  Back then we lived in a suburb of Long Island on the same train line that stops at Shea Stadium where the Mets play.  Not every parent was comfortable sending kids alone on the train to Shea Stadium, but having grown up with parents who rode the subways and allowed me age-appropriate opportunities to strike out on my own, I was fine with it.  Going to the ball game with a group of friends seemed to me like the perfect way to give middle school kids some rope and and have a lot of fun.  Jaws and his friends would take the train. They'd get off at Flushing Meadow, walk across the pedestrian bridge to the stadium, watch the game, rinse and reverse.

However, it rained buckets that Saturday.  And as I dropped Jaws off at the train station, the bedraggled group was debating whether or not to bag the game and wondering if it would be "called" and rescheduled. I was certain the game would be called, but I suggested that they all go for pizza downtown and call me when they figured out Plan "B."  So imagine my surprise when Jaws called and hour and a half later and said, "Hi Mom. We're in Times Square."  That's 42nd Street and Broadway...the heart of New York City.

When I recovered from this startling news, stopped yelling that nobody had given anybody permission to embark on this kind of freelance adventure, and made him promise swear in blood to be home on the 5:44 train, I hung up and actually laughed. 

I had to give them credit.  They came up with quite a cool Plan "B."  And they had cell phones.

Despite its legacy as a den of iniquity and a gritty urban crossroads, Times Square circa 2000 was hardly a scary neighborhood anymore.  I should know.  I worked at 44th and Broadway for 7 years at the only major advertising agency west of Madison and north of 23rd street. I'd seen Times Square morph into a respectable commercial crossroads where rising rents had driven out most of the peep shows, the Tads $4.99 steakhouses the Cuban-Chinese restaurants and even Papaya King.  (Poor suburban kids, they'll never have the Papaya King experience.) Increasingly, hotels and chain stores like Disney, Nike and Urban Outfitters had moved in, turning the once tawdry landmark intersection into, well, a suburban mall without a roof. 

The kids had a swell time, stuck together in their little rat pack, and were indeed on the 5:44 which chugged into the Port Washington station at 6:50.  From that day onward, New York City was fair game.  Jaws took some more group forays into the city to see movies, go to museums, and just "hang."  By 10th grade he got active in the Reform Jewish youth movement, and luckily for me, once independent suburban chapters on Long Island and Westchester couldn't afford youth advisors anymore and the NY region merged.  Hallelujah!  Now there were meetings at the denominational HQ's in midtown Manhattan, and "cool" kids from NYC private schools and elite public schools like Stuyvesant and Hunter were on my kid's radar. Even better . . . no more 11:00 pm pick-ups in godforsaken Long Island suburbs like Massapequa and Plainview.  Eventually I didn't have to drive anybody anywhere but the Long Island RR train station.  Some parents were horrified, but not me.  By 10th grade my kid had the subways down pat and had bright, committed Jewish friends in Brooklyn, Queens and Riverdale, the fancy part of the Bronx. 

My kids was worldly.  A subway maven.  He pored over the subway maps as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. Once, when I was trying to figure out how to avoid Penn station and take the subway from midtown to Woodside, Queens where the Long Island Railroad kicks in, I called Jaws on my cell phone.  "Oh yeah Mom, it's easy," he said. "Take the Shuttle to Grand Central and then the #7 to Woodside." 

We never looked back, none of us, from that Independence Day. Riding public transportation and figuring it out, has made my kids stronger, more curious and far less "flappable."  If only Atlanta had more public transportation...well, we're working on it.  Meanwhile, Grumble is an airport pro...he's been flying to NY, Washington and Florida on his own for years and will be doing a rather daring little maneuver over Memorial Day weekend, going from L.I. to Manhattan and then taking the subway to Brooklyn.  Are you impressed?  I am.

 

Things That Go Crunch In The Morning

By Nina

One of the most pungent smells of Mommy-dom, at least to me, was the singular odor of soggy Cheerios.  One whiff of a swollen O floating in a sea of milk and like Marcel Proust, I'm time-machined back to the diaper years with visions of chubby toddler fingers putting Cheerios to mouth. 

I myself have never been much of a cold cereal eater. I don't like things that go crunch in the morning. Perhaps when in dieting mode I'll pour milk on some fibrous flake and call it breakfast, but generally I like my carbos steaming hot -- as in a nice big bowl of Cream of Wheat, oatmeal, or mashed potatoes.  And I like 'em with a pat of butter and a sprinkle of salt -- hold the sugar please.

But Grumble and Jaws, whoa! -- these boys consume cold cereal by the boxful. Always have. Grumble, I fear, is a walking Frosted Mini-Wheat. He drinks skim milk by the gallonful.  Both kids gave up the breast at 9 months and never looked back, working their way down from whole milk to 2% to skim.  They now declare whole milk "disgusting," "undrinkable."  Miraculously neither one got hooked on chocolate milk.

Nope, just hooked on Honey Nut Cheerios, Frosted Flakes, Capn' Crunch, Cheerios, Cookie Crisp, and (gag me) Reese's cereal. The sugar content of these brands is hideous.  But I have always drawn my maternal line in the sand at Lucky Charms.

Not just because the Lucky Charms package is ghastly, and not just because of the sugar content. Newsflash: The nutrition stats for Lucky Charms are actually "better" than those for Frosted Mini Wheats. No, Lucky Charms are verboten in my house because of the green, pink, and blue marshmallow bits which turn milk into billious pastel swamp water. What kind of mother allows marshmallow bits for breakfast? Well, actually the same mother who allows cold pizza, Capn' Crunch, and Wal-Mart banana muffins, loaded with trans fat to be called breakfast.

So imagine my surprise when I found Grumble eating handfuls of dry Kashi 7 grain puffs right out of the box one day. I always have serious cereals like Kashi, Raisin Bran and organic granolas on hand for my bed and breakfast guests, who are often academics visiting Emory University.  "This is good," Grumble crunched. I think the stuff tastes like packing material.

As his 10th grade year moves into the final lap and our mornings grow even more hectic and rushed, Grumble and I are eating breakfast on the fly -- grabbing a banana to eat in the car, or stopping at Panera on the way to school.  It just doesn't feel good.  In fact, it kinda makes me yearn for a bowl of heart healthy Cheerios.

 

 

Show Daily Values

 

Curfews

Grumble, a 10th grader, doesn't have a robust social life and doesn't drive yet so curfews have not been an issue.  But then last weekend, on closing night of the play, came the cast party.  The curtain falls, the kids wipe off their makeup, strike the set, then everyone goes to The Majestic (a 24 hour diner) to eat, and after that there's a cast party.

G was actually pre-worrying about the cast party when I dropped him off for his 5:30 cast call.  In his mind it was going to be heavy with seniors, and there might be drinking and he wasn't sure he wanted to go.

Fortunately, while serving refreshments during intermission I met the parents who were hosting the post-Majestic party -- really nice, responsible, grounded folks. They assured me there would be no alcohol and lots of supervision, and they even promised to snag him a ride home with one of the seniors. I gave Grumble the green light to go. 

Then I crawled home to bed and fell asleep anxiously, with the light on, while watching Trading Spaces.  Such is my robust social life.

Grumble walked in at 1:00 am happy and singing.  Now 1:00 am seems awfully late for a 10th grader, but the happy and singing part, well that made my heart swell.  We talked a bit before he went to bed, though I have no idea what either of us said.

Question to all you wise and worldly Mid-Century Moms:  How and when does one establish a curfew for a non-driving 10th grader who will not have a car in 11th grade.  Can you set a curfew without having to be the actual person who will have to don a bathrobe at midnight and fetch the child from some remote zip code?  I don't remember this being a problem with older son Jaws, because when he was in 10th grade we lived in a nice little compact town of 18,000 where nothing was terribly far away.  Advice please!