Trouble right here in River City

...With a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for pool!

This was a landmark day. The Plano Senior High School's newly-formed Billiards Club had its very first regulation match against Richardson Berkner's well-established club. They did much better than at the scrimmage last week against the Rockwall club.

Mosaic-ing in Traffic

I'm part of the way through Broken For You, by Stephanie Kallos. It's delightful, with intriguing characters, and writing that creates wonderful mental pictures. The part that is disturbing to me is the book jacket. Inside the back cover is the requisite photo of the author. There is Ms. Kallos smiling wisely, just the way she did in 1973.

Authors and publishers often keep using the same photo book after book. Sue Grafton got halfway through the alphabet with the same photo, for example. You can't eat as many fresh baked cinnamon rolls and Hungarian dishes as Kinsey Milhone without putting on a pound or two. Let's be honest.

With Stephanie Kallos it is different. This is her first novel. It's unlikely that her publisher, Grove, would select a senior photo from the 1973 Lincoln East High School Epic yearbook.

The novel contains a lot of shattered pieces of porcelain and slivers of glassware. I am hoping the characters rearrange the broken pieces of their lives to create something beautiful in the rest of the book. I love the mosaic metaphor for each of our lives, as I love the collage metaphor for mine in particular.

Collage artists save images, broken parts from small appliances, bits of hardware, scraps of color and texture ripped from magazines, taken out of context. We are reluctant to let go and discard even the most mundane packaging of modern society. Stashed away in drawers, files, and boxes the bits get further disconnected from their origins. Sometimes their ancestry is magnified or illuminated, but usually it is lost forever. None of it is discarded.

At some point the collage artists open the drawers, when we feel brave and lucky. We view the pieces through a lens of personal history, and assign new meanings to them. We take the chance to formally introduce this bit to that odd piece plucked out of all chronology or region, and hope their encounter will form something new entirely. Each of us do that every single day of our lives with all our experiences and hurts, applying them to new circumstances. The gift of the writer, actor, and artist is to do it mindfully. So also, it is the gift of the cook who creates a soup that is part personal history comfort food, part salty tears, and part new sharp foreign flavors.

As you collect the pieces for your mosaic, collage, stew or novel, please be safe in traffic. About the time my marriage was shattering, my oldest son had to make a "special project" for his middle school Texas History class. He wanted to do something about the Alamo. We had rock and shell collections, old ceramic tiles, and a vague plan for making a mosaic of the famous mission facade. We broke the tiles by throwing them on the driveway. We researched the mysteries of grout. The trouble was the sky above the Alamo. That's when Divine Providence and bad teen driving brought us a fender bender just down our street. We rushed to the scene with empty sherbet and sour cream tubs to scoop up the broken glass from the shattered car windows.

Jeff turned in his history project. It weighed nearly as much as he did with all that stone, glass, wood frame, and grout. His team teachers graded it a B and wrote that it was "almost art". They preferred the cannons made out of t.p. tubes. A grade is one thing, but memories and "almost art" are another. I am looking at the Alamo car crash mosaic right now. It's really quite handsome, but like the baggage from our life all grouted together, it's heavy.

What would happen if CollageMama did a confetti dance in the parking lot on a windy night, and let go of all her long-saved scraps and bits? What if she let them swirl away without glue or grout?

Hovering Parents

The L.A. Times and many other newspapers printed a story this week about Hovering parents. Why do parents my age want to keep micromanaging and superhero rescuing their college kids? Are we creating into a new generation without self-sufficient adults? Didn't anybody read Laura Ingalls Wilder books like Farmer Boy and By the Banks of Plum Creek to their kids? Didn't the kids wish heartily to be the protagonist of My Side of the Mountain, living in a hollow tree and teaching his falcon to hunt?

I love my kids. I am enormously proud of the way they are planning and conducting their lives and even doing their own laundry. They are grown up. I don't get a rush from wiping their noses or paying their library fines.

My oldest will have to deal with Hovering and Swooping parents in his chosen field of higher ed. admin. My younger guys will NOT have to deal with a swooping mom of their own. I don't do it. They are big guys. I let them go hungry when they forgot their lunch boxes in fifth grade. I let them answer to teachers when they failed to study for middle school math tests. I let them be cold when they didn't take a coat to school in January. I worry now about my son who has moved to a northern Yankee state. I hope he will throw a coat in the backseat when he comes home for the holidays. I hope he will put a container of sand in his trunk, and an ice scraper in the glove box. Surprises and blizzards crop up in life, especially when you aren't expecting them. Still, I'm going to let him check Weather.com all by himself.

Went for a walk Friday through my neighborhood and back home down the busy street past the Firestone, 7-11, Sonic Drive-In, and Calloway's Nursery. Slowly became aware of a blur of blue and orange each time I passed a power pole. A small bird with running mascara and a groovy retro outfit was moving from pole to pole along my route. I love it that we have the smallest North American falcon just down the street. I love it that the book says the Sparrow Hawk aka American Kestrel weighs the same as a McD quarter-pounder with cheese.


AMERICAN KESTREL (Falco Sparverius)

COMMON NAMES: Sparrow Hawk

RANGE: Most of North America, excluding the far north

HABITAT: Open savanna-like areas with a few trees, forest edges near open areas, farmsteads, suburbs, city parks, desert areas with cactus

SIZE:
LENGTH: 8-11 inches
WINGSPAN: 20-24 inches
WEIGHT: 3.4-5.3 ounces (equivalent to a quarter-pounder with cheese)

LIFE EXPECTANCY:
WILD: 3-5 years
CAPTIVITY: Up to 14 years


DIET:
WILD: Snakes, lizards, bats, smaller birds, mice, voles, and insects (beetles, grasshoppers, cicadas). Kestrels will feed mainly on mammals and birds during the early parts of the breeding season and lizards and invertebrates later in the breeding season. They concentrate on hunting invertebrates when readily available.
CAPTIVITY: Chicks, mice, and crickets

BEHAVIOR: Kestrels like exposed perches such as telephone poles, wires, fence posts, and dead branches on trees. They are swift, erratic fliers, and in a flat flight they may travel at up to 39 mph, and they can dive at speeds up to 60 mph. They pump their tails and bob their heads while perched, especially when agitated. Kestrels are capable of hovering when hunting, and this behavior is seen frequently over highway medians. They will dive feet first when hunting insects and usually capture them by pinning them to the ground rather than capturing them with their beak. They will dive for other prey items head first to gain additional speed and force.

REPRODUCTION: Kestrels prefer to nest in natural cavities found in trees, cactus, or cliffs, but they will use man-made nest boxes and building cavities. They are dominant over most cavity nesting birds (woodpeckers and flickers), chipmunks and squirrels. Kestrels compete intensely with screech owls for nest sites, and eggs of both species have been found in the same nest. They prefer to nest in sites that are protected from the weather, and in areas where storms come from the south and southwest they nest on east facing slopes with the entrance holes almost always facing east. Their average clutch size is of 5 eggs laid at 2 day intervals. The female is responsible for most of the incubating, but the male does 3-4 hours daily. The incubation period is of 29-31 days, and the fledging of the young occurs at 29-31 days. Because of efficient parental defense, there is a high survival rate for fledglings.

POINTS OF INTEREST: Kestrels are the daytime counterparts of screech owls, and the two species will compete heavily for resources like prey and nesting sites.

Kestrels are the only North American raptor with circular nostrils.



Falcon Characteristics: Kestrels are the smallest and most common falcon in North America and are often incorrectly called “sparrow hawks.” They have the long, swept back wings that are typical of falcons. This design is very special and allows the Kestrel to be very maneuverable in the air in pursuit of prey. The US Air Force designed fighters using the falcons' wing design to gain that same ability to maneuver quickly in the air. The upper mandible of the Kestrel also possesses a notch like other falcons. Called a “killing tooth,” it fits perfectly over the spine of vertebrate prey and allows the tiny falcon to quickly dispatch its catch.


Plumage: Kestrels are one of the few sexually dimorphic (males and females are different) raptors in North America. They are similarly marked, but males have slate blue wings while the females’ are brown and black barred. The dark hood on the Kestrel’s head is characteristic of a falcon, and it is believed to work in conjunction with the malar stripes beneath their eyes to reduce sun glare, much like the shoe polish that football players put under their eyes. The black spots on the nape of their neck are called "false eyes," and they are thought to be protective coloration. The "eyes" deter predators by making it appear that the Kestrel is watching them at all times.

Eyesight: If a Kestrel could read, it could read a newspaper lying on the ground from the top of the Empire State Building. To aid them in keeping their keen eyes on their prey, Kestrels are able to keep their head in practically the same position even while perching on a moving object, like a branch or power line.


Caching: Kestrels will cache food year round, unlike other falcons that only cache during breeding season. When incubating eggs, the cache of excess food ensures that the chicks can be fed even if the male does not return with food. After the breeding season, Kestrels may maintain several sites in places ranging from hollow trees to utility-pole switch boxes. Generally the food will be retrieved within a few hours or days. One female was seen killing and stashing twenty mice provided by scientists.


Pair Bonding and Courtship: Pair formation begins soon after the male has established a territory. Often, the same female will return to a male’s territory to mate, or she will otherwise “visit” males’ territories and eventually begin to associate with one worthy male. Courtship includes dive displays, curtseying, bowing, and courtship feeding. A male will climb 10 to 20 meters into the sky before diving down to swoop just above the female in a dive display. He will also often gather and offer food to the female while chittering during courtship feeding. Once a female associates exclusively with one male, the pairing is complete, and often is permanent. The pair will begin to search for a nest site; the male always leads the female, sometimes enticing her with calls or with food. Females will not seek out nest sites on their own.


STATUS: In general, the Kestrel is the most common North American raptor. There are an estimated 1.2 million pairs, not including the Neotropical component. However, the southeastern race paulus has been listed as "threatened" in Florida. Those populations have declined more than 80 percent since the early 1940's due to habitat loss.

Electricity Girl

Perfectly splendid fall day with bright leaves, sweaters tied around our waists, and hot air balloons in the thin blue sky--just right for an afternoon of mother-son bonding over home repairs! With the help of my youngest, let's call him Igor*, I have replaced both the front and back exterior light fixtures. I have also installed a cover over the electrical outlet outside the front door which is stupidly positioned next to the automatic sprinkler head. Now my twinkly Christmas lights will be happy, and we will all be able to see the keyhole to unlock the door. Once again I have used my superpowers to benefit humanity.
*

My superpowers were revealed when I was about ten years old and enjoyed our school science unit about electricity. For my birthday I received The How and Why Wonder Book of Electricity. This amazing paperback by Jerome J. Notkin, Ed. D., and Sidney Gulkin, M.S. in Ed. was copyrighted 1960, and cost fifty cents. It included a chapter of "Activities for Junior Electricians". I also received a birthday dry cell battery, a white porcelain miniature socket with a flashlight bulb, and a switch.

My dad was available to counsel and advise the Young Electricity Girl as she worked through the Junior Electricians activities, if necessary. Activity number eight was "How Can We Make a Quiz Board?" I still have the quiz board I constructed on a piece of masonite pegboard. My parents brought it down here the last time they visited, along with The How and Why Wonder Book of Electricity. Due to recent housekeeping lapses, the Amazing Electricity Girl doesn't know exactly where she put the quiz board, but it's here somewhere! Superheroes can't always be bothered with little details.

Dad also exhibited saintly patience while I earned a Camp Fire Girl bead for changing a faucet washer. He was my technical advisor and transportation provider for fossil hunts and rock-tumbling when I thought my future might be as Young Lapidary Girl. He was also instrumental in my development as a patient, philosophic Young Fishing Girl.


Catching butterflies was the science hobby that really engaged our entire family. My dad made the frames for our nets, and my mom sewed them. We all raced around getting a lot of exercise and fresh air, and eventually learned to catch butterflies in our nets. We studied the field guides to identify our catches, learned their habits, and searched for their caterpillars and cocoons. My mom perfected the technique for using a carbon tetrachloride kill jar with minimal damage to specimens. Her eye for detail and perfectionism inspired us to further efforts. We all fell in love with swallowtails and sphinx moths. The names were poetry, and the fragile scales glorious. Mom was a model for perservering to master technique as she became expert at mounting specimens for display. She was very good. A lab or museum would have respected her skill.

Although we were hunters during the few years this hobby captured our imaginations, we became more attuned to nature, more respectful or its gifts, and ultimately far more protective of our fragile environment.

I didn't grow up to be an electrical engineer, but I did have a sense of my ability to reason out solutions to practical problems thanks to being Young Electrical Girl. I learned to apply liberal doses of perserverance and patience to problems, and to even consult the owner's manuals and field guides of life.

Complete the circuit. Smell the honeysuckle. Enjoy the energy.

Friday Sandwich Fall Semester Plan

I call them "Gondola Oven Melts":

My Texas Tech son called last night to chat. It still astounds me that he calls to talk to his old mom voluntarily, and it always brightens any day. After the usual discussion about his brother's money pit Batmobile, his new culinary experiments with Hamburger Helper, and his efforts toward training his roommate's cat based on his class in abnormal psych, he mentioned that he popped by the International Studies office. He got everything arranged to study next fall in Paderno, Ity, through the Rawls School of Business at Tech, and worked it out so his scholarship will pay for it.

I was so inspired by his adventuresome yet pragmatic spirit that I concocted a plan for Italian sandwiches for the senior lunch gang tomorrow--wheat hoagie buns, Genoa hard salami, jack, provolone, and mozzarella cheese slices, Kraft "Zesty Italian" dressing, fresh tomatoes, and red pepper slices. Will put them under the oven broiler briefly. In these situations, timing is everything. I may need to make a practice sandwich right about now.


When my future world-travel son was a tiny toddler and preschooler I had horrible recurring nightmares that he would be washed down a storm sewer. We used to call him Danger Baby. A profound snapshot shows him dressed in a bright green crocodile costume, with big fireman boots and a cowboy hat. He is standing on the saddle of a wooden rocking horse playing "Stunt Rider". Wild Boy that he was, he was always remarkably conscientious about his imaginary alligators. These invisible alligators rode on the back of his tricycle. Whenever they would fall off, he would stop his trike and carefully help them get back on.

What's a liberal to do?

I'm not a big spending liberal. I'm really just a recycling liberal. I get really embarrassed about living in the most wasteful society that has ever existed on the planet. I worry that it will somehow get written on my personal Permanent Record.

Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, by E. F. Schumacher, is high on the list of books from college that influenced my life. I believe in simplicity and human-scale technologies. I believe we have to find creative alternate uses for discarded items to sustain life on this planet. I am the child of children of the Great Depression. I am thankful for the stories my parents shared as we were sitting around the dinner table, and for the perspective they provided.

And so, I come to the annual dilemma. To what lengths must I go to resuscitate a dead string of Christmas tree lights? How do I act on my conscience, and yet not lose my mind trying to replace teeny-tiny bulbs and fuses?

Ever since I was about four I have liked trees decorated with all blue lights. The Catholic bishop of Lincoln had all blue lights on the tall pines framing his house on Cotner Boulevard when I was a kid. It always looked very cool and special to me when we went on our snowy Christmas Eve Drive. A few years back I asked my kids, and they requested all blue lights, too. Try as I might, I couldn't salvage enough strings and bulbs of blue to do the whole tree this time. Rather than be wasteful, or actually have to walk across the street to Walgreens, I patched together some strings with multicolors and blinkers. I'm over it. I've let go. I'm breathing in and out. I'm watching the colored sillouhettes of fake needles on the cobweb-free ceiling.

Personal froofing

Got a perm just before Thanksgiving for the first time in about three years. My little students had varying reactions to my transformation. The most fun for me was going to my outreach school to teach Wednesday. The littlest student of all caught sight of me as I was driving the old Buick into my customary parking space. I waved, and it slowly dawned on him who that wild, curly person was. The smile that spread across his face was like a glorious sunrise. All through class he stared at me with this look of pleased wonderment. English isn't the first language in his home, I'm pretty sure, so we didn't discuss my hair. I bet if we all smiled like that every morning, no one would ever need Botox.

Having a perm requires more froofing with my hair than normal. It also requires "product".

While my hair was being rolled and permed, my Crazy Lady hairdresser was having a conversation with a teenage guy about his mom's hair:
It's still purple.
That's what she wanted. She had me special order that color.
I have to go work at [unnamed big box electronics store] after you cut my hair.
You'll be very busy.
Yeah, I have to work Black Friday.
When's that?
They're having it on Tuesday this year.
Did you come over to the dumpster yesterday?
No, why?
They put all the beer into it from the liquor store that was closed down for selling to minors.
Whoa.
Yeah, it was a big, big dumpster, like for a construction site. All day long people were driving up and diving into the dumpster. Then they would call all their friends.
Whoa.
Yeah, that's why I can't run the water.
Huh?
If I run the water it comes up in the nail salon next door. I'm not sure I should be giving you this perm.
Huh?
When the landlord shut off the water to the liquor store it goofed up the plumbing for the nail salon and the donut store.
Whoa?
They told me not to give shampoos or flush.
What!?
I'll just go see if they are still doing salon pedicures with the whirlpools. I loaned them all the buckets, you know.
But, like, whoa.
Why didn't you call me about the dumpster?

Froofing on a winter Friday night

I couldn't stand the holiday stress anymore, so I brought the Christmas tree downstairs from Mike's closet. I don't get stressed about whether we will have Christmas, or whether Santa will really deliver, or even whether the weather will be bad. I worry, starting about Halloween, where I will put the Christmas tree.

Every year since 1997, the year we moved to the condo, the tree has been in the same corner of the living room. Every year I go though anxious mental gyrations and aerobic cleaning and furniture-shoving before the tree gets into place.

This afternoon I decided I would rather get it over with than worry for another week. I wrote not very long ago about wanting to burn much of my furniture in a big bonfire out in the parking lot. Then I came up with a plan to feed the Friday lunch gang a really great meal of baked ham, twice-baked potatoes, and Klondikes, then beg them to carry the armchair to the dumpster and somehow boost it up and over the top. I explained my plan to my youngest, and he said, "But, Mommmmmmmmmm, I sit in that chair."

So, I was back to the furniture-shoving, dusting, cobweb-battling. What happened next is difficult to explain. I took the ceiling fan/light fixture over the dining table apart to wash off the "velour" of grease and dust. By comparison, putting up the tree is simple. The base opens. The three sections fit together. Then comes the labor intensive "froofing" of the branches into something vaguely reminiscent of a live tree after their long year squished in the box. Froofing requires hours of perserverance, an artist's eye, and a high tolerance for being poked and scratched. It also requires a lot of light for these old eyes. I know that when I look at the tree by the morning light, I will see that further froofing is required.

Then, and only then, I will put the lights on the tree. And that's a different dilemma. Stay tuned. If you drive, don't froof, and if you froof, froof sensibly.

One shoe off and one shoe on

I started writing last evening about our neighborhood production of "Cinderella" in Julie B.'s basement in 1965. This morning I opened my KERA/PBS email newsletter, and was astounded to see the lead item:

RODGERS & HAMMERSTEIN'S "Cinderella"

Among the classics of musical theater, one of the most cherished productions is one that was originally created for television: Rodgers & Hammerstein's "Cinderella," starring Julie Andrews and a cast including Kaye Ballard, Alice Ghostley, and Edie Adams. An enchanting musical adaptation of the classic fairy tale, it was watched by an astounding 107 million viewers during its 1957 network premiere, but amazingly the film has not been seen, or in fact available in any format, since that initial telecast. "Impossible things are happening every day," however, and now GREAT PERFORMANCES grants the wishes of musical theater fans everywhere, presenting the restored original film for the first time in nearly half a century. Cinderella herself, Julie Andrews, hosts the program, recalling fond memories and backstage stories from the landmark show that includes classic Rodgers & Hammerstein songs like "In My Own Little Corner," "Ten Minutes Ago," and "Do I Love You Because You're Beautiful?".

Collagemama is not really old enough to have seen the Julie Andrew's "Cinderella" on t.v. in 1957. My cherished memories are of the 1965 t.v. version starring Lesley Ann Warren, Ginger Rogers, Walter Pidgeon, Celest Holm, Jo Van Fleet, Stuart Damon, Pat Carroll, and Barbara Ruick. I mistakenly thought that version was not available in any format, or I would have gotten it when my little princes were young.

You must remember that the same little girls who played "Beatles stewardesses" staged our neighborhood play. Julie B., who was always Paul's stewardess girlfriend got to be Cinderella. It was her house and she was a blond, after all. John and Ringo's girlfriends (Nancy Joan and DeeDee) wouldn't even consider being the evil stepmother, so I was stuck with the role, and enjoyed it totally. It was a clear case of playing against type. We were all nine or ten at the time. This was our second major production. The first had been something to do with a duck who ate muffins, and was performed on our patio. Trouble was, our block didn't have any guys our age. We had to take the tallest six-year-old, Brent, and groom him for the part of Prince Charming, hoping he wouldn't be in an asthmatic oxygen tent on the day of performance. He did not really measure up to the appeal of Stuart Damon. My young siblings, Roger & Mary Jane, were the King and Queen. There were at least two more kids in the show, Jimmy and Janie, but I can't remember what parts they played. Maybe someone will remember who played the fairy godmother.

The Rodgers & Hammerstein "Cinderella" was shown on the Hallmark or Kraft showcase. In 1965 "a television special" still meant something worth seeing. It's amazing that we reconstructed the whole story and many of the songs from one t.v. viewing. We all watched on our home black & white t.v.s, and we memorized it start to finish. In the olden days before slo-mo replays, vcr and tivo, we had to have better attention, listening and memorization skills. Some of us went on to perform annual original take-offs of "Laugh In" and "The Smothers Brothers" on New Years Eves.

Great Performances airs December 13th, at 9:00 p.m. (check your local PBS listings). I am hoping for tutoring in VCR recording before then. During the PBS funddrive, you can receive a cd or dvd copy by pledging $65 or more. In a fun coincidence, the Dallas Opera's production of Rossini's "La Cenerentola" (Cinderella) is the same week. I may need to go shopping for glass slippers...the evil stepmother never gets to wear the sparkly dress-up shoes!

Inevitability

The big pot of turkey soup is on the front burner, so it must be the first Tuesday after Thanksgiving. No one much cares for more turkey in any fugue or variation, thank you very much, but I still have to make it. The soup may never be supped, but making it is my patriotic duty. I put in a lot of chopped zucchini, this year. We don't want to be overrun by those green veggie-terrorists.

And now I hear Tom Ridge has resigned. Late last Thursday afternoon I knew Tom's days were numbered. His agency had done absolutely nothing to stem the flow of matching Tupperware containers and lids from my kitchen cabinets. I live in Texas, so it is possible the containers were pulled across the border with a Ross Perot NAFTA sucking sound. Or they may have disappeared in a humongous Tupperware "burp".
'Scuse me!

Kindergarten Day One

Still musing about Miss Inez Baker, my elementary school principal, who passed away at the age of ninety-three. I dug out my earliest scrapbook from a box that smells like Mentholatum. What would I find to jog my memories of this influential figure in my life? I had already been through my earliest photo album, and was surprised to find no record of Miss Baker in the annual class photos. [I was always in the front row of short kids.]

Miss Baker did have a page in my scrapbook. There is a typed postcard dated September 2, 1960 informing us that I would be due at the morning session of kindergarten on Monday, September 12. It is stamped with Miss Baker's signature, and the name of my school, Eastridge. Imagine that! We didn't start school until September 12! My kids have started to school as early as August second. Did they learn more? No way.

There is an undated clipping from the Lincoln Journal with a photo of Miss Baker when she was elected president of the Nebraska State Elemntary School Principals Association. It is pasted in next to a Huckleberry Hound Happy Birthday napkin pierced with three animal cake decorations most likely from my sixth birthday. Turn the page to see my first corsage from a Dad-Daughter banquet at church all dried, pressed, and wrapped in Saran Wrap. (Neapolitan ice cream was served.)

Miss Baker was VERY OLD when I started kindergarten, forty-seven. Younger than I am now! She seemed to be carved of stone in a wise and benevolent way, like the statue inside the Lincoln Memorial in D.C. She seemed very tall and aloof, and I associated her with the Greek goddess Athena. To a small student, she seemed to have all the answers, in the way that a grown-up should. I was very disappointed to eventually become a grown-up myself and not have all the answers, to not feel the clarity of thought and action Miss Baker modeled.

When Miss Baker stood in the school foyer as students were arriving or dismissing, I never remember kids running up to hug her. I always had the sense that kids tried to be their Very Best Selves when they walked past her.

Because our birthdays were just a day apart, I shared a special bond with Miss Baker. I eventually learned that she had a lively sense of curiosity and humor. The statue became more human as I grew up. I do still try to be my Very Best Self whenever I think of her. When you consider the number of children who passed through the doors of Eastridge Elementary between 1955 and 1976, that is a lot of individuals striving to be the person Miss Baker believed they could be. What a wonderful gift she gave us!

Optional consumerism

As a very young Cornhusker football fan, just after the dinosaurs died out, I was impressed that the Kansas State fans had lavender toilet paper to toss down onto the football field at Memorial Stadium. Nowadays I am frustrated by the search required to find some plain white or recycled brown paper towels amid the tacky purple drawings of herbs and tea cups. It's just a paper towel for wiping up spills, not a personal aesthetic statement for heavens sake!

My young students often come to blows just to get the pairs of hot pink Fiskars scissors. "Scissors are a tool," I say. "It doesn't matter what color they are. It matters how you use them." I tell my high school senior son that it doesn't matter where he goes to college. It matters how he applies his abilities when he gets there.

We are overwhelmed with choices that are so often insignificant. In my spells of depression I've been unable to choose between cans of stewed tomatoes or Milton Bradley games for birthday party gifts. I've been sucked into panic attacks when I had to order from a menu. The first time I saw a "designer" switchplate cover I felt a jolt of future shock. We are so caught up in choices for meaningless items that we accomplish nothing. Go to a mall, and you will see the buzzards of meaningless choice soaring on the hot air up-drafts above the asphalt parking lot watching for dead meat.

I wasted time today searching out personal checks that reflect the real me. I have been reflecting the real me with Audubon bird checks for several boxes now, but they were a luxury I can't really justify. Just for one day it would be interesting to work the check-out lane at the grocery store to see what checks people buy----Sponge Bob with Bible verses. Most of the choices look like the cheapo kitchen towels at the Dollar Store. I ended up with some dragonfly checks that don't contribute any money to a nonprofit cause. I couldn't find any checks with perimenopausal women peering over their bifocals telling the baggers to carry the $108 of groceries out to the Buick. I'd like to mail my gas bill off with a check proclaiming "Hot flashes save energy", but I can't even find checks that Shave the Whale.

What I really wish is that all checks would remind us that we vote our conscience with every dollar we spend. Choose wisely.

Political fall-out

Spent time at AskJeeves finding info suitable for eight-year-olds about the mystery of the Bermuda Triangle. I asked the kids to find out all about it before our class on Wednesday, and they are pumped. We are going to use the Bermuda Triangle idea as an introduction to positive/negative flip-flops (cutting a bite out of a triangle piece of paper along its edge, then pivoting the bite out into the negative space). For the last forty years I've always heard and called these art projects "flip-flops", but now Karl Rove and the Swift Boat guys have ruined that term forever. I don't know what to call those cheap rubber beach sandals formerly known as "flip-flops" either. When I was a kid we called them "thongs", but that is a pretty scary term these days, too.

This wouldn't be an issue, except that I spend a lot of time asking students to refrain from wearing cheap rubber beach sandals (CRBS) and other shoes that won't stay on during rehearsals and shows. It's a safety issue when kids are wearing costumes and climbing up and down the steps to the stage. I get a lot of mileage telling how my son broke his arm falling off the stage in summer school once, even though that accident didn't actually involve CRBS.

My elementary school principal passed away recently at the age of ninety-three. Miss Baker was a very sensible person, and I wish she could have been cloned. We learned so much at Eastridge Elementary in the Sixties, partly because she didn't allow time to be wasted with shoes that fall off, Valentine cards with candy, or the silly "incentives" (stickers, candy, and toys) thought to be essential in teaching today. We knew from Day One of kindergarten that if we brought toys in our pockets to school, they would be confiscated as "nuisance items". Our parents understood from Day One of kindergarten that learning is a child's job, and that school clothes should reflect that on-the-job attitude. "School clothes" were changed for "play clothes" when we got home. We understood that different behaviors and wardrobes were needed for different activities. It wasn't a torture chamber. We just knew that the fun of school was derived from learning and applying what we learned. I wonder what Miss Baker thought about the changes she saw in schools after her retirement in 1976.

Hot time in the old town

Emerged from turkey-induced inertia to a restlessness this afternoon. There had to be a way to scratch this itch without going to the mall. My sons were all doing a late Thanksgiving at their dad's. The sun was shining, so I hit the open road up to the county seat, McKinney, Texas.

McKinney is a lovely old town with hills and many historic homes, unlike my city of Plano. The town started in 1841. I walked around the old courthouse square, as opposed to the new and already-outdated courthouse where I got my divorce. I'm kind of fond of both!

It was McKinney's annual Dickens of a Christmas tree-lighting festival, but I didn't even need a jacket. In fact, I walked around eating a butter pecan ice cream cone. Bet I haven't eaten an ice cream cone in ten years! Popped in and out of some cute antique stores, but I'm not really a cute antique mama. Got into a narrow aisle gridlock with a platoon of Red Hat ladies in one shop, and nearly swooneded from extended exposure to potpourri fumes.

Driving around looking at old Victorian and Queen Anne homes is my favorite thing about McKinney, divorce aside. McKinney's not big enough to get really lost, so I just wander. Tonight I finally found this historic neighborhood driving guide too late.

In my occasional fantasy of owning a very small older home, it is always a frame house with a front porch. I've imagined it being painted yellow with black and white trim for at least thirty years. The porch floor is light gray, of course, but lately I've been seeing the porch ceiling painted a sunset coral. The back porch off the kitchen should be screened. After cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner, the cook should be able to sit out there in a green metal lawn chair to cool off, protected from the late November Texas mosquitos and moths.

Parental failure

Ack! I have failed as a parent! It's all because I had to move to Oklahoma and then Texas with my children when they were in their impressionable Wonder Bread years. They were born in Omaha where people know what is what and how to say so. There is only so much a mom can do in the battle against peer pressure in a clearly misguided, and perhaps dilusional state like Texas.

I can accept that the national beverage of Texas is Dr. Pepper. Any Yankee knows that Dr. Pepper is really fizzy prune juice, but some people unaccountably seem to enjoy it. You offer them a pop, and they request a DeePee. I'm not a Pepper, (Don't you want to be a Pepper, too?), but I support the Constitutional right of any American to be a Pepper. That's what makes this country great.

My grown sons have lived too long in this silly Lone Star state. Against my wishes and advice, they have taken to calling all non-alcoholic carbonated beverages "Coke", even when they are referring to the Anti-Coke, Dr. Pepper. I could almost stand it when they stopped saying "pop" and started saying "soda". Their father tended to use unnecessarily formal terms for common items, so I blamed it all on him and assumed I could correct the situation over time. It would be a fight, I knew, since the Plano school district and the Dr. Pepper corporate headquarters were more than just kissing cousins. Plano school concession stands can only sell Dr. Pepper-bottled soft drinks.

Trouble is , nobody in this red state even knows about soft drinks and sodas. Even though they all mean Dr. Pepper, they ask for a "Coke". Would I ask for an iced tea if I really wanted lemonade? Would I ask for a "Bud" if I wanted a Shiner Bock? This is the fuzzy kind of thinking and intelligence that landed us in a new "Viet Nam" called Iraq.

My sons argue that all facial tissues are "Kleenex". Okay, maybe. They say, therefore, furthermore, and ergo, all sodas are "Cokes". That is SO WRONG! How can we turn our country over to a new generation that can't even discriminate and differentiate between pops? Never mind the No Seven-Up Left Behind exit exams and Nehi school vouchers. Get these kids competent to order from the carhop at the A&W drive-in. I'm going to say "curly fries" when I really mean brains!

Naming conventions
Pop vs. soda vs. coke in North America
In North America
North America is the third largest continent in area and the fourth ranked in population. It is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the North Pacific Ocean. It covers an area of 9,355,000 square miles (24,230,000 square kilometres). In 2001 its population was estimated at 454,225,000.
..... Click the link for more information. , "soft drink" commonly refers to cold, non-alcoholic beverages. Carbonated beverages are regionally known in the Midwest
The Midwest is a common name for a region of the United States of America. The term originated in the 20th century, along with 'Middle West' and 'Heartland', and referred to generally the same areas and states in the middle of the country. The heart of the Midwest is bounded by the Great Lakes and the Ohio and Mississippi River Valleys, the 'Old Northwest' (or the 'West') referring to the states..... Click the link for more information. and most of Canada as "pop." In Quebec Québec(In Detail) (In Detail)National Motto: Je me souviens (I remember)
CapitalLargest city Quebec CityMontrealArea - Total - % fresh water 2nd largest(1st lgst prov.)1 542 056 km²11,5%Population - Total (2004) - Density Ranked 2nd..... Click the link for more information. they are called soft drinks. In the Northeast, parts of the South (near Florida) and Midwest (near St. Louis), and California, they are known as "soda." In Atlanta and some other parts of the South, they are generically called "coke". (Atlanta is home to the Coca-Cola Corporation). The Pacific Northwest, being a melting pot of America, uses both "pop" and "soda," however, for most people, "pop" comes in a bottle, and "soda" comes from a fountain or can. Elsewhere they are called "soda pop." See The Great Pop vs. Soda Controversy for maps and geographical trends.
Internally, the Coca-Cola Company (and probably other such corporations) uses the term "non-alcoholic carbonated beverage".