Excuses, Excuses

I don’t like getting those notices from my kid’s school about her not showing up to class. Must’ve missed the bus. Again. Sometimes it’s a mistake so I have to make a call or send an email to get it cleared up. Not my favorite thing to do.

I got another call yesterday, but it was expected. Well check appointment in the morning to affect first and second period attendance, orthodontist appointment during the last two periods of the day. I took care of the morning and hubster took care of the afternoon.

It was a long appointment. No time for breakfast so I promised to swing by Chick-fil-A on the way to drop her off at school. We got into the car, buckled in and were ready to go. Except for one thing. Despite the other piles of well-check advice sheets, I forgot to request a doctor’s note to submit to the attendance office. I blamed the blood work that was ordered and a death grip on my arm as the distraction.

Back into the office I go. Of course, I had to wait, but it wasn’t as long as I expected. With the proof of skipping school in hand, I exited the building. Taking a deep breath, I realized I could remove my mask again. As I pulled off one side of the mask, a wind gust snapped that paper right out of my hand. It went up and up and up, swirled a bit and kept climbing. I hoped it might get caught on a car’s tire or in a hedge or something.

Nope, it kept flying, like a paper airplane with a jet engine. It got caught high in a tree, flapping wildly like a mean little kid sticking out his tongue, waving his fingers on either side of his head singing “Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you can’t catch me!”

And I didn’t. Never mind. I know she wasn’t skipping.

Waiting

What do you do when you’re waiting? When you’re stuck between past and future? When you have to be in the moment, but you’re unsure about what to do while you’re there? Doom scroll. Start cleaning. Baking. Pour another cup of coffee and shake the coconut milk to oblivion to get it a little frothy, even though nothing will save the burned coffee taste? But you drink it anyway. Do you dare go upstairs? Stop thinking about what’s to come? Over think what’s about to come?

It isn’t bad. It’s bittersweet. I keep playing back all of my failures, but will myself to shove those out. I play back all of the successes. Setting up his room, soon after we moved in. Pale blues and purples with John Lennon themed nursery decor we found at Babies R Us. The nights I’d army crawl out of his room on my belly after putting him to sleep–this kid rarely slept–so he wouldn’t see me and start screaming. The itsy bitsy spider my hand puppeted every morning to wake him up, running up and down his arm and ending in a tickle fest. His Thomas the Tank Engine train table we scored on Craigslist and all of his trains. Then the Disney Cars. A stint with SpongeBob. Then the LEGO sets. So many LEGO sets.

A big boy bed. Birthday sleepovers. Stuffed animals. Foxy. Kisser, a red and white giraffe with heart shaped spots I bought him one Valentine’s day that got left behind at a department store. Some gentle soul took Kisser to the shoe department and we drove back to pick it up. Turtley, a plush sea turtle I bought him on a field trip. A bulletin board tacked with letters from Grandma and a few teachers, notes I’d leave in his lunch box. Pictures of K from across the street, friends since 5th grade. Prayer cards.

Later, I stopped going into his room. “I need my privacy.” A cello took up my space. Then a keyboard. Guitar. A desk with my old laptop. Pandemic learning when we rarely saw him, but there wasn’t much learning going on, or so I thought. Online senior year because that’s how it turned out. But I’m supposed to focus on successes. Despite the bumpy last few years, he composed a piece of music, played in a community orchestra for a year, found a job the week after graduation, saved money, made a plan to move out, researched apartments, asked questions, found a roommate, combed through an apartment lease, made deposits, and packed his room.

He’s on his way to pick up the key. My husband will help him load those first boxes, then his roommate will stop by to help. I can only watch because I can’t lift anything heavy right now (doctor’s orders). I don’t know how I’ll react yet. Make jokes. Laugh. Cry. Most likely, I’ll give lots of reminders.

The big LEGO sets will move into our living room for a few days until he can transport them. Since he enrolled in The University of Life (pandemic killed his quest for higher education for now), he’s been home. However, we didn’t see him often because of work and time with his friends. I should be ready for this. He’s ready for this.

I haven’t looked in his room yet. I sit here and wait.

Blurred Images

Taking a picture of a teen is like taking a picture of Bigfoot. The Loch Ness monster. Chupacabra. Results are hard to decipher. You get a blur of hair or a running body. You get the back of one standing with others, a line-up of sorts, in reverse. They’re all dressed alike, same height, same hair.

Mine gets on a tire swing and for a split second, I see her little-hood oozing out in her smile. She sees the camera and immediately gets back into her grumpy character where everything about life is horrid, brows furrowed, braced teeth gritted, and a small grumble eking out “Mo-O-m! Ugh! I hate pictures!” because she also hates speaking.

I got what I could, sifted through a hundred photo bursts, and found a glimmer of hope, one capturing the essence of who she really is deep inside all of those defensive teen-aged layers–even if that first teen year is the only layer there. It’s tough and almost impenetrable. Almost.

“Get one of me with Dad.” We stand, stiffly posed along the bank of the San Gabriel river. The light is perfect. We’re both not grumbly middle-aged parents. We’ve shed our own layers for a while.

“Give us a warning, at least,” I remind her, because we know she’ll capture us mid-yawn. Eyes closed. Mouths opened.

Brows furrowed with a small grumble starts out a whiny “F-i-ah! You’re taking selfies! Take the picture so we can move on and let other people get a turn.”

Laughter ensues, she shows BFF the screen, pretends to run, but first returns the phone and then runs. We take a look and there we are. It’s a good one.

Even better are the selfies. There she is. They’re good ones.

All layers–the one layer–shed because she played. Dimples in their original location. Braced teeth. A sparkle in her eyes. She’s still there.

Cupcakes Beat the Sunday Blues

I have a planner. I use it. I set reminders on my phone. My watch buzzes those reminders and my phone zaps my rear end from my back pocket so I don’t forget. I write things down. I have three tabs open of the same chock full Google calendar because I can’t find it buried within countless other tabs. I was a week ahead of everything in my mind and I still can’t get it straight. Seems that this week is irrelevant as I look ahead to plan lessons, activities, book displays, contests, book clubs, maker space activities…

I enjoyed my weekend. I took teen and a friend to the Chalk Walk Art Festival. The laundry can wait, might as well enjoy the decent weather. Still hot, but not as hot as summer.

Sure enough, as Sundays always do, the day whizzed by, but I was determined not to subject myself to the Sunday Blues. I signed up to bake ancho chilli chocolate cupcakes for our potluck on Monday. Chilli themed. A contest, I think. I’ve been on this campus for a year. Still recovering from COVID, some traditions halted, but I’m not sure if this is one or not. No matter, I stopped at the grocery store after church to pick up a few ingredients which turned into full-on groceries.

I mixed up the batter and baked cupcakes between loads of laundry. I packed them up early. Before 10:00 p.m. early. Monday, a staff development day, allowed me to sleep in a little. No lunch prep for me because we’re having chilli. PTA is serving breakfast so double score there. We’re down to sharing a car because hubster’s is in the shop, which brings a whole other level of schedule juggling, or schudggling.

Monday morning, I put the two tubs of cupcakes in the back seat, grabbed my bag and got my ride to school.

“I brought my cupcakes,” I announced, only to learn the potluck is in two weeks. We had our first Monday PD two weeks ago. One was scheduled for October 10th. The next one is on October 24th.

I didn’t read the sign up sheet properly. Scroll reading. Exactly what I tell students not to do. I’m on autopilot with doing all of the things, I don’t know whether I’m coming or going. I was a week ahead of the actual calendar last week, trying to do what was planned for this week, but knowing it wasn’t because of book fair chaos.

This reminded me of the time I took my kids to dinner for Taco Tuesday. On a Wednesday. Another time I missed a parent-teacher conference because we went out for ice cream. Before he started middle school, I skipped my son’s orchestra instrument selection appointment and I don’t remember why.

Sigh…

I put the cupcakes in the staff fridge. I co-facilitated a session for teachers with my ITS during sixth grade lunch today, a trial run of our first “Lunch and Learn” series integrating tech/library resources. We bribed some with dessert and drinks. Unknowingly, I made dessert.

The cupcakes and training were well received.

I learned that dunking dried chillies in dark chocolate and sprinkling them with sea salt takes them to a whole other level of sweet with zippy zing.

“Yes, I’m making another batch for the next potluck,” I smiled, as a teacher snagged two on her way out. I’ll garnish them with chocolate covered chillies.

Welcome to the $1.00 Pyramid!

This is a take on the popular game show, The $10,000 Pyramid, where one person gives clues to a partner. The answer is in the form of a category. 30 seconds are on the clock for each round. Can you figure out these categories?

Round 1: Time change. Rest. Cleaning. Sleeping. Trip. Fun. Friends. Reading. Long walks. Birds chirping.

Round 2: Writing. Revising. Posting. Commenting. Daily. Difficult. Topics. Meeting. Orange.

Round 3: Coffee. Water. Darkness. Sleep. Lavender. Eye pillow. Cold room. Advil.

Round 4: Kiddie gate. Petting. Blanket. Kennel. Outside. Carrot. Treat. Sniffing. Chunk of rawhide.

Round 5: Text thread. 1:00. Lunch. Where. Kids. No kids. Two kids. Hey! Chilling. Pop. Fizz. Cheers.

Round 6: Bike. 20 minutes. Okay. Safe. Dad. Need. Man. Hands. Take. Crystal. From. Ground. Must. Have. Crystal. Hungry. Crackers. Only crackers. Oh, by the way…

Round 7: Marshmallows. Cereal. Rainbows. Blue diamonds. Green. Fruit. Flavors. Shiny. Gold. Trap.

Round 8: Pineapples. Welsh. Corgi. Center. Not. Crazy. Pizza. About. Pastries. Pineapple. Pineapple. Pineapple.

Round 9: New. Friend. Visit. Conversation. Meeting. Parent. Bedroom tour. Snacks. Junk food. Reeses. Clue #4. Hi. Barking.

Round 10: Dread. Last hurrah. Catching up. Groceries. Laundry. Menus. Calendar. Next week. Count down. Summer. Sigh. Enjoy. One more day. Chill out.

How did you do? Get answers here.

Two Minutes Ago

The 'tween is helping with dinner
burgers
Hubster is cooking
I'm playing with a craft project
Clean-up is mine for tonight
A chunk of lettuce flies from
'tween's  hands
and the discussion quickly goes to
the three second rule
"I didn't see that"
I say,
"It's okay," 'tween says
"the wet pieces may or may not 
have been on the floor,
it's not like someone's feet were there
and we don't talk about Bruno..."
Noooo! not that song again!
I've had some bubbly today,
I don't care
dinner is cooked
it's spring break
I had friend time this afternoon
I'll skip the lettuce 
It's still spring break
and I'm trying not to care
too much
Life goes on
with or without lettuce
on a burger

Mall Shopping to Build a Frog

I stopped shopping at malls years ago. Too cumbersome. I got an Amazon Prime membership, so that’s where I’ve been since. My shopping trips usually consist of the grocery store, Target, Costco, occasionally Old Navy, and book stores. That’s about it. I hate shopping. My daughter gets lots of hand me downs from her older cousin and she isn’t into many of the current fashion trends. She prefers thrift stores.

A few weeks ago she requested a trip to Hot Topic to spend a gift card she received for her birthday last June. That’s how often we shop, almost a year later, and I haven’t taken her to use it. We browsed where she wanted to browse.

I knew better than to look for anything for myself, other than popping in to get my freebie from Bath & Body Works along with a scented candle. I bought her mall pretzels, stopped at a shop for a bag of crystals which will wind up strewn all over her desk, pairing up with the the other crystals of the same sort she already owns, and left.

I could use a new workdrobe, a new wardrobe I can wear to work. I’m getting tired of the same clothes. I look behind me and decide to come alone another time so I can have some peace and quiet while I dig into clearance racks.

She requested another trip to the mall this week. She’s enjoying shopping now, but thrift stores are her favorite. This time she requested a trip not to Hot Topic, but to Build-a-Bear. Yes, the ‘tween wants to go to Build-a-Bear. To build a frog.

“Didn’t you get rid of that Disney princess pup you got when you were five? Didn’t you say that place is so lame and only for toddlers and kindergarteners? You’ll probably toss it into the Goodwill pile in a few weeks.”

“Well, they didn’t have frogs back then. Bears are lame. Frogs are cool. And I will not put it in the Goodwill pile. It will be my emotional support frog.”

Before I listed a million reasons why she has no need for another stuffed critter, I reconsidered. It’s spring break. She’s been working so hard the past two years. She missed out on her end of fifth grade field trip and end of year celebration. She started middle school without her friend group January of last year following a rough semester of trying to learn from home. There wasn’t much learning going on.

What’s one more stuffed critter? I invited her best friend since kindergarten. Both had already researched the frog. I thought it was only available online, but that’s the blue tie dyed version. The green spring frog is what they wanted. Apparently, these are a hot item with teens right now. Sure enough, we arrived and there was a pair of middle school aged friends watching their frogs get stitched.

“We can go to a thrift store to buy the clothes because these are overpriced,” she explains to her friend. I’m teaching her valuable life skills. We made our way to get pretzels and made a pit stop at Hot Topic. More 80’s style pins, but of Moth Man. I didn’t even ask. On the way home, we found a Savers tucked a few blocks away from the mall, a blink and you’ll miss it type of location. We stopped and she found newborn sized clothes for the frog.

And that’s day one of Spring Break ’22. I can handle one more stuffed frog. It’s the trip there with a friend that counts.

Twosday Slice

I know, everyone is “celebrating” this once in a lifetime palindrome of a day. And I like palindromes, so much so I was fascinated with one of the characters in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible, who spoke in palindromes. The character, one of the daughters in the story (her name escapes me-it’s been years since I’ve read it), renames Emily Dickinson no snikcidy lime, one of my favorite poets.

I found myself trying to make sense of today’s oddity. I like oddities. We tend to find each other frequently and sometimes, people find me, odd. Never mind them. It doesn’t bother me. Usually.

I had to walk back into the house twice this morning for forgotten items. My watch, oh grand teller of time. And my H20.

At work, we started day one of a two day testing session, the bane of my existence. No matter how far removed you are from the classroom, you still manage to get suckered in for testing.

During lunch, I messaged my husband and suggested we do something to celebrate. Maybe a dessert. Maybe something out of the ordinary for a weekday with the kids, but what, I wasn’t sure.

Later, I got a message. My husband and my nineteen year old suggested we go out for dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, Dos Salsas, where two different salsas accompany your chips before your meal. To top it off, it’s also National Margarita Day. Margarita is my signature color and if I were to choose a middle name (my parents didn’t give me one), it would be Margarita. Why the heck not, I’ll have a margarita today, three days before the weekend officially starts.

No one complained about the choice of restaurant. We didn’t argue about the possibility of sharing oversized meals and this time I ordered what I wanted without thinking twice about adding a margarita. I didn’t balk at a shared dessert of fried ice cream-we rarely order dessert. The kids didn’t fight over the last bite of it either. We all got along and genuinely enjoyed our meal together.

And that’s the point. Being together. This felt like the first normal restaurant meal we’ve had in two years. We’ve been back, but someone always stayed home, and usually for pandemic reasons. I know we’re not “back to normal” yet, if that’s even a possibility, but it felt like we were all back today. 2/22/22. Two years (mostly) later. Two long, hard, bitter years.

Do we always do this? No. Have our dinners always turned out this way B.C.-Before Covid? No. But it sure did feel good to have my family back for a few hours. It’s giving me hope that we’re at a place where we can move forward and take all the things that got thrown at all of us and actually process them. For us adults, we had to put on our business as usual attire for the sake of our kids. But I think it’s important for them to know that it was far from business as usual.

I think today is a perfect day to use as a turning point. We can fully come out of where we have been and reflect on everything we’ve learned. We can share our gratitude about how it wasn’t worse even though it got rough. We can show how much we’ve changed and how much we’ve stayed the same.

Dos Salsas is still there. Mom still likes a good margarita. It’s okay not to split a meal, but totally okay to order dessert. Celebrate odd days such as these because they only come around once in a lifetime.

We only come around once in a lifetime.

Which Story Do I Tell?

Of all the tiny stories that make up a day
a week, a month?

Do I tell the one about being unable
to make it to my cousin's funeral,
the one who was like a sister when we were kids
but somehow we grew up and drifted
our separate ways like a dandelion seed
puffed out of someone's wish?

Do I tell the one about how I missed 
first day of school pictures?
The one my husband took that wasn't full
of smiles and eager tween bubbles giddy to meet
friends in person once again?
The one with one less in the picture because
that one is enrolled in the University of Life?

Of all the tiny stories, which one do I tell?

Do I tell the one about the caterpillar in its
terrarium?
The one I caught wriggling and undulating,
pumping its whole body,
hard,
to shake itself loose 
of its old skin for good,
embracing its metamorphosis
instead of fighting it?

Do I tell the one of all the ordinary things
that add up to a melting pot 
of emotions
and reflection 
and trudging along,
embracing changes but dreading them 
at the same time?

Of all the tiny stories, which one gets to fly?

Summer Solstice at Stonehenge II-Texas Style

Father’s Day, 2019. My husband’s “gift” was a weekend trip to Kerrville, Tx. Nostalgic for the hot summers in the Texas Hill Country where he spent some of his summers as a camp counselor, he wanted to share some his favorite places with us.

As our trips tend to go, there was bickering on the way there. I wanted to stop in Fredericksburg to stroll into the shops on the way there. I packed sandwiches and drinks so we’d have a nice picnic lunch at a park. We get there, the kids are hangry, we unpack our lunches, the flies start annoying us and everyone is grumpy. I mange to snap a few selfies because no one wants pictures.

However, we popped into Dooley’s, a legit five and dime store. I swear I stepped back into my childhood. This is a place where you can still buy polyester day robes, the kind my grandma used to wore way before yoga pants and stretchy bands were a thing. Even the store fixtures time warped to their original tasks. I’m not sure if they were there in the 70s or earlier. My kids found souvenir keychains. And candy cigarettes. The kind I used to “smoke” when I was a kid that didn’t ever turn me into a real smoker. They each got a pack, the grumpy lunch experience soon forgotten. Word of advice if you go: Take cash or write a check. They don’t accept cards.

While on the road, we realized we departed for our weekend adventure on June 21st, the Summer Solstice. We also had no idea Ingram, near Kerrville, housed an art installation perfect for the occasion–Stonehenge II, along with Easter Island statue replicas.

Finding quirky roadside attractions is my favorite part of a road trip. I don’t remember how I found it. I think we were discussing the solstice. I must have searched it on my phone to read about its history and found information about all the people who travel to Stonehenge each year. It popped up on my search results and we added it to our itinerary. We were the only people there that late afternoon and ran into Chet of The Daytripper, who happened to be filming an episode for his PBS show. My son was more interested in the show and the video equipment than the replica of Stonehenge during the Summer Solstice. Sigh…

A volunteer community theater performs along the Guadalupe River. That summer they performed Madagascar-A Musical Adventure. The kids enjoyed it more than we expected. Buy the kids popcorn and soft drinks and it elevates their experience. Buy Mamma a mini bottle of wine and everyone’s happy. Like the ups and downs of the hills we travel, such is the way of a road trip. We find gems along the way, forget the grumpy parts, and take the good memories with us.

	Alice on This One Isn’t Hand…
	Alice on This One Isn’t Hand…
	Alice on Not Today
	Alice on Whimsical Spring
	Alice on Blank Canvas, Blank Page