LemurandLou

Yes Virginia, Er Liam, I Do Believe...

2011-12-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

So, Liam hops into the car after his after school program and a long freaking day at school. He, the opposite if 50% of this family, gets more and more keyed up by expending energy with people all day long and getting tired. In fact, the more tired he gets, the more impossible it is to get him to a) make sense and b) shut up...a lovely combo at bed time, but I digress. This is not about his personality or sleep issues, nor mine, this is about something he said to me right as he hopped into the car after day care. Right, back to that...

"Mom, not everybody believes in Santa, right?" Says Liam, innocently probing his inveterate honest mother.

After thanking the baby Jesus for letting him ask me in such a way that there was an easy truthful answer, I slowly proceed, "Yes Liam. Not everybody believes in Santa..." Then, I wait...knowing he's tired and talkative, he will fill in the blanks without me saying a thing...I am just hoping he doesn't go there. You know where. To that no-man's land of white lies all parents dread. Yes, there is a Santa. Yes, I believe in him. I start panicking that he will indeed go there, so I head him off at the pass, "Do you believe in Santa guy?" (did I mention Elena was also in the vehicle?)

"YES!" They shout, the relief palpable in their voices.

Phew, I breathe a silent sigh of relief and head down a gleeful path with them, "Yes, you will find kiddos that in this world there are believers like us and skeptics. Do you know what a skeptic is?" They both shake their heads. I explain, "A skeptic is a doubter. One who has trouble believing. It's ok though, the world needs both believers and doubters. The doubters are the ones who question everything. They perform tests and do experiments and research. They search far and wide for answers. Sometimes they find they believers were right to have believed all along and sometimes they find the believers were not, but either way, they ask the questions, and that's ok. But, here, in this family, we are and have always been BELIEVERS, haven't we?"

"YES!!" They again are in complete agreement and completely happy to have their Santa intact and their beliefs safe and sound once again.

Happy Holidays.

Who Am I?

2011-11-15T05:27:00.000-08:00

Last week, I went to a new psychiatrist. I had been going to my old one for eight years and never wanted to leave him, but he was seeing me for free and that arrangement wasn't really working out for him anymore. He always told me I was one of his "investments in the future." In other words, by working to help people, even if they couldn't pay, he was ensure the future success of our world. (Well, that was how I chose to interpret it. I suppose, it could have also been seen as a his investment plan...someday in the future, when he called in his debts, I would owe him a substantial amount of money...but, I digress.) This isn't about the old experience, but instead about the new.

My new shrink decided within a short period of time that I was bipolar. He's not the first to give me this moniker, so it was not as shocking as it probably could have been, but it was still a bit of shock. I know that I am a person with a lot of energy. Heck, I have to hike straight uphill every day for a couple of miles to be able to sit at my desk job all day. I might even characterize my personality as "bipolar manic" when I am excited about something or somebody. When I am engaged, watch out! And this new doctor engaged me making the likelihood that he would see me as completely insane all the more destined. We ended up having a two and a half hour session. We talked about his life and mine. We shared stories and theories. It was an enjoyable time for him and for me.

At the end of the meeting, a couple of doctorly truths were determined and stated:
1) You are bipolar, but I don't know how you have managed to survive and thrive so incredibly all your life...I don't know how you have been able to "pull yourself back from the brink" (he meant from the brink of an extreme bipolar manic flight or psychosis.)
2) No changes are going to be made to your medication because the regimine you are on obviously seems to work.

This all left me reeling.

In response, I had many questions that formed in the primordial soup of my brain over the next few days:
1) Why tell a person that they are diseased, if you cannot figure out how they have managed to avoid all the negative aspects of that disease?
2) If a person has been able to thrive and not suffer due to their disease, are they diseased?
3) Since I am on medication for depression, is that what has kept me from the "brink" or is it something else? God?
4) If nothing is changed in my "treatment" and nothing is changed by this meeting, other than the label I affix to myself, how and why does it change me at all?

It shouldn't. I am who I have always been. Hiking my mania/high-energy/busy-ness away and grounding and centering myself so I can live in a world with people who are not like me. No one is like me anyway, so why should I care?

(This post is dedicated to all the left siders everywhere living outside of the bell curve)

Grandmommy's Guest Book

2011-05-30T17:52:00.000-07:00

Sometime back, I posted about Grandmommy's button box and how it used to entertain me for hours as a child. Equally entertaining to the adult me is her guest book (well, at this point really guest books since she has filled more than one). On the front hall table, which is a very traditional front hall table, there sits a very traditional, red guest leather guest book. The pages are onion skin thin and gold on the edges, and the book is completed filled, cover-to-cover with notes, quotes and well wishes from guest to my grandparents' houses over their lifetime.

Tonight, over my cousin's birthday, we got a little show and tell of some of the more exciting entries. Jim Lovell, who was the astronaut Tom Hanks played in Apollo 13, and others I can't seem to remember offhand. Tonight, the show and tell, was a note that was in the back of the guest book. I am posting a picture of the note and then below is the text transcribed in case you can't read it. It was from a friend of my parents' and a boyfriend of my aunt who wrote a letter for my grandfather so he could go down under the bridge in Paris and buy some weed. It was a letter "vouching" for his "coolness." It sets my imagination ablaze to imagine the conversations leading up to the writing of this letter and to wonder if the letter used...without further introduction:

This is XXXX X XXXX (my grandfather's name changed to protect the innocent). He'd like to get some dope off you (grass or hash only).

If you aren't paranoid about being approached by a straight looking, middle-aged guy trying to buy dope, you're a fool. But, he is your average IBM executive trying, and succeeding in bridging the generation gap.

This will be his first time, so give him at least a half an ounce of grass or two grams of hash. Just think if we can get all these guys turned on what a better place this would be.

Thanks alot (yes, he uses the dreaded ALOT). If you're ever in Boston, come out to Tufts University and look me up.

Peace,
XXXX XXXXXX

Strange Conditions...

2011-05-15T05:56:00.000-07:00

Recently, while I was getting my haircut, I heard a very funny story regarding a condition caused by iPods. Do you remember when you were a kiddo and had bouts of swimmer's ear all summer long? Well, it's making a rigorous comeback throughout the land. Apparently people of all ages, especially in cities where donning of headphones before one leaves their house is key to survival, are getting swimmer's ear from not fully drying their ear canals after their morning shower and before inserting their rubbery ear buds. Doctors are seeing swimmer's ear crop up EVERYWHERE, at all times of year, with alarming prevalence. A new disease for adults. A very modern disease. A very hip one.

And then there's my texting wrist. Oddly, when I had my BlackBerry devices for years, I had NO wrist pain, but the slightly slender Droid Pro has sent my wrist into a tizzy. Goodgle "Droid" and "wrist pain" and you will see how popular this pain is. It's carpal tunnel syndrome attacking the masses. No longer just reserved for those with jobs requiring repetitive strain, we now have hobbies and methods of communication that cause repetitive strain. This isn't even considering the strain texting causes on relationships...

There have to be a myriad of other of these modern diseases that I have yet to hear about...Facebook depression? Xbox seizures? TV vision? Who can come up with some? How else is our modern technology harming us?

Happy Birthday to Me

2011-05-14T17:01:00.000-07:00

It occurs to me that I am a special sort of bird. This thought occurs to me many times a day, but here, on my 41st birthday, it's again prevalent in my thoughts. Here's why...I am a person who usually throws my own birthday party. I don't plan it absurdly in advance, but at least weeks, and I usually throw it for a group of friends, family and family friends on the weekend closest to May 14th. Now maybe this isn't odd-bird behavior, but it's what I've always done. Perhaps it's because I want to make sure that the venue, food and company are exactly what I desire, or maybe it's because I am a control freak. Who knows? I just know that I almost always throw myself a party. This year, however, was an exception.

I'm not sure why, but I just didn't feel like celebrating. And, before you start supposing it's that the ripe old-bat age of 41 has got me down, think again. I have always believed birthdays are just a day to celebrate me and haven't really been hung up on the actual age since probably my 21st. Personally, I am only one day older than I was yesterday, when I would have called myself 40, so I am pretty sure it's not the trauma of turning 41.

And before you imagine me depressed and forlorn, sad and lonely, let me dash that imagine from your mind as well. Although I'm not feeling quite as upbeat and positive as usual, I am certainly not down in the dumps. I am just sort of low key. It's like I just eradicated any expectations for my birthday and then have been just sauntering through the day.

There's a part of myself that keeps checking in with myself to see if I am ok (those of you who are not as weirdly out of touch with your emotions, will not understand this statement, but those like me who need to literally "check in" with themselves to see what they are feeling, will totally get it), and my self seems to continue to say, "I am fine, just chilling, just calm. I am fine with spending the day with my kiddos doing family stuff. I'm ok with making my own birthday cupcakes. I'm even ok with cooking my own birthday dinner and doing loads of laundry and cleaning house on the auspicious occasion."

I wonder if this is what it's like to grow up completely? But then, one tiny little thought entered my brain and it's what drove me to write this blog. What if the only person who really wants to celebrate me IS me? What kind of a thought would that be? Depressing? Scary? Realistic? And, then I started to get kind of glum. Don't other people have friends who would be sure that they were not alone on their birthday night? Don't most people's friends throw them a party for their birthdays? Do mine not just becuase I always have done it myself?

But, my sisters both offered to come down and create a party around me. I declined.
A friend invited me over to have s'mores around her fire. I decided I would rather be home.

So, I sit here on the night before it (thankfully) is no longer my birthday and ponder, and being the ebullient optimist, I come to this conclusion:

I am an odd bird. I have always thrown my own parties with lots of friends of all walks and generations around me. Because I didn't do that this year, I am alone. No one is worried about me or concerned, because they know me. They all probably suspect I am having a wonderful dinner with friends, am being taken out, or am being treated like a queen. I would assume that as well. I'm the type to be out having a ball on my birthday. Oh well.

Happy birthday to me.

It's a Virtual Dinner Party

2011-05-02T04:33:00.000-07:00

I was just thinking about Facebook yesterday: why I love it so, why it suits my personality and how I use it. I came to the conclusion that it's like a big online party where all the conversations that are being had are visible at the same time, all my friend groups, from all walks of life are there and I can ask any question and get a response at almost any time of day.

This weekend I saw a movie and they previewed another movie while I was there. I decided I REALLY want to see it. I immediately thought about posting it on Facebook..."Anyone see this yet?" On Facebook, the responses would most likely be many within minutes. If I wanted to efficiently accomplish this same goal at a party, I would have to wait until a weekend day when I was invited to a party, wait until the subject comes up in conversation, and then repeat this process and infinitum until I had found at least one person who had seen the movie. Wait. Wait. Wait. Anyone who knows me knows this is not a strength of mind, that thing called patience.

Facebook is a world of online gratification that is absolutely perfect for a praise junkie like me. I love to show and tell about my life. It can be a bit much, this passion I have for reporting on the details of my life, and Facebook it turns out, is a oversharer's paradise. I photograph pictures of my food (hey, I grew up in an Italian family who orbited around their next meals) and people "like" them or post about them. Some even tell me how crazy I am for always posting pictures of my food (like I don't know this).

Facebook is an outlet for my overzealous self-centeredness. But, ironically, it has helped me to be less self-centered and more self-confident in my offline life. People exposing their idiosyncratic thoughts, passions and quirks online has helped me immensely to deal with a host of inner wackiness. It's also a great place to try out jokes and stories. If you post something and it gets fifteen likes and a bunch of comments, maybe it's something that has been beta-tested and can be pulled through the looking glass and into real life.

Local Streets

2011-04-29T05:19:00.000-07:00

When I was in high school, we had a talent show. One of the kid bands that performed was "Local Streets." I remember having no clue that that was a reference to the signs, as you are driving on the highway through the Bronx...instead of saying "bypass" and "business district," the signs that lead you off locally say "Local Streets" above them. Anyhow, this blog is not about bands, high school, or even New York City, it's about local streets.

Ever since I have started using GPS on my trips, I can stray. I am no longer prisoner to highways and easy routes. I can meander and get as lost as I want. I can explore and find little neighborhoods and town parks. I can feed my curiosity for finding out what an area is REALLY like. You probably suspect and maybe, if you travel a lot, know how similar the beltways, byways and suburbs of all US cities look from a fast moving car.

In a related post, I can also get myself into a completely dangerous neighborhood without having a clue beyond hearing gunshots and seeing women working the corners. There are both benefits and drawbacks to exploring the local color.

The Religion of Peeps

2011-04-25T18:10:00.000-07:00

Or...false idols? Which is it? Peeps. They come out at Easter. Their advent, tortuous during Lenten restraint and fasting, eventually hails the coming of our Lord. Their bright, neon colors herald Easter morning...in uniform, marshmallowy lines, they patiently await the risen Christ. Alleluia.

Pretty over the top, no? Not to Liam. Liam, who does inherit his mother's tendency toward the obsessive, was completely and utterly locked onto the concept of Peeps on Easter morning. We even had a little altercation which ended in a packet of Peeps finding themselves dramatically at the bottom of the trash can. Liam could not escape his muse. Not fewer than a hundred times, he spoke of his love...Singing, muttering, and conversing of nothing but the small marshmallow birds for HOURS.

My favorite of all his lines was after I tried to insert a lesson between his courtly love songs. I tried to tell him that the Easter Bunny, like Santa, comes to help us celebrate. In this case, he helps us celebrate Jesus rising from the dead. Liam, wove this beautifully into his dramatic fawning. "Peeps are the greatest ever! They are the best at helping us remember Jesus!"

Clever boy. Peeps for Jesus. Way to find a loophole.

Wishful Thinking

2011-04-19T04:20:00.001-07:00

Frederick Buechner, one of my all-time favorite religious writers, once changed my life with a little book called Wishful Thinking.

Today, this quote spoke to me...It reminded me of my gnawing hole theory from some time ago.

"Part of the inner world of everyone is this sense of emptiness, unease, incompleteness, and I believe that this in itself is a word from God, that this is the sound that God’s voice makes in a world that has explained him away. In such a world, I suspect that maybe God speaks to us most clearly through his silence, his absence, so that we know him best through our missing him."
— Frederick Buechner (Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons)

But, what I like about Buechner's quote is his absence makes the heart grow fonder supposition. This is not to say, "chuck God and all He is and you will find him." But, it is to say that there is a place in all of us that is empty and seeking. This drain hole, whirlpooling down, sucking into it all with which we would hope to fill it. Nothing fills it and it is precisely this that allows it to be filled so completely by God. Better contentment comes for having felt the panic and unease of that "gnawing hole" and its gnawing hold on us.

"Whether you call on him or don't call on him, God will be present with you."
— Frederick Buechner

Pivoting

2011-04-16T07:17:00.000-07:00

This is my favorite week in the Christian calendar -- Holy Week. It holds on each side of it contrasts and marks our transition from death to rising, darkness to light, sin to grace. I love the wholesomeness of this week. You even get the bonus of a Passover seder supper thrown in in the middle quite often. It's like a round meal.

And of the entire week the precise pivot point that is my favorite is the Easter Vigil service. This is the moment when we await the moment of transition. The service is rich with symbolism. The lights are off, the altar is unseen, then, after the lessons are read, we celebrate the resurrection. Lights are flipped on, the music changes from solemn to ebulient. We walk away, basking in new life.

Matthew 28:1-10
Jesus Is Alive

After the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven, approached, rolled back the stone, and sat upon it.

His appearance was like lightning and his clothing was white as snow. The guards were shaken with fear of him and became like dead men. Then the angel said to the women in reply, "Do not be afraid! I know that you are seeking Jesus the crucified.

He is not here, for he has been raised just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

Then go quickly and tell his disciples, 'He has been raised from the dead, and he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him.' Behold, I have told you." Then they went away quickly from the tomb, fearful yet overjoyed, and ran to announce this to his disciples.

And behold, Jesus met them on their way and greeted them. They approached, embraced his feet, and did him homage.

Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me."

I CANNOT WAIT!

Gleeful Child

2011-04-15T18:28:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went out and bought myself a treat with a tiny bit of my winnings from my NCAA pool. I went out and purchased Glee Karaoke Revolution for my Wii. I got to play with it for exactly one day. It was very fun, but now it belongs to Elena. She's in Glee club, singing happily...ALL THE TIME CONSTANTLY. I've created a monster.

And now, in addition to joyful singing of the same ten songs all day long, we also have our first crush on a movie star. She's "in love with" and "wants to marry" the one who sings Defying Gravity and moves really fast to Push It. Chris Colfer, who plays the flamboyantly gay, Kurt. She doesn't even know his name, but today wanted to make sure that some day she could change her name if she were to someday marry "that guy from Glee who I'm obsessed with."

Today she scared me a little bit by telling me she really, really wants to kiss him everytime she sees him. Yikes. But, before I freaked out too much, I remembered Ricky Schroeder (for this was in the day of Silver Spoons, before he was too cool for Ricky and became just Rick). I just loved him. Posted a picture from the local newspaper TV Guide, in black and white on my wall (yup, no Tiger Beat for this gal). I used to kiss it every night and, to this day, I remember the LONGING, such incredible optimism that I would get to meet him and kiss him. Somehow, someway.

So, this is all normal, right? Right. Except, then I realized I was 12 when Silver Spoons came out. Oh. Gulp.

Recompensory Gifts (Alternative Title: Can't Buy Me Love)

2011-04-12T10:42:00.000-07:00

I've been left with a bitter taste in my mouth for days about the mommy debacle of last week...missing the Special Friends Breakfast. If you didn't see it, read back a few days and you'll see it. I have been wracking my brain to come up with something I could do that would make up for my actions. I toyed with the idea of eating lunch with her at school (MOM! Too embarassing). I was going to bring in a "Special Friends Snack" for her whole class, which she agreed to, but then didn't give the teach the note which informed her that I would be coming in....hmm...

So, I finally decided on donating some books to the classroom library with an inscription from Elena's special friends. I picked two of her favorite books and then one by one of my favorite authors.

Sunday Dinners

2011-04-11T05:20:00.000-07:00

When I was a little girl, I remember heading to my Grandma and Grandpa's every Sunday for Sunday Dinner. Sunday dinner occured at approximately three or four in the afternoon and in the winter was held around the giant expanse of dining room table. Whoever was in town was invited, there was always enough to go around. Grandma loved to cook and Grandpa loved to carve a roast. I would stand by as he carved a fresh ham or rib roast and beg for scraps like a puppy. The top of the fresh ham always had little squares scored in it, was rubbed with garlic and salted and peppered to perfection. Grandpa would flick a postage stamp of crispy crackling off and hand it to me dangerously on the end of the carving knife. As the square of fat melted on my tongue, I was in heaven.

But it wasn't just about the food. There were family walks and games in the yard. There were afternoon movies (one showing of The Blob with Steve McQueen left me night-paralyzed with fear for months after). In the summer, the meal was moved to the screened in porch. The glass top table had ironwork around it on which I always remember barking my knees when pulling my chair in. Summer fare, was fresh tomato and basil from Grandpa's garden with olive oil (always Pompeian). There was always dessert, often just ice cream, but we didn't have dessert at home, so this was another big deal.

I don't even know how many times we went to Sunday dinner, but in my memories, they were a fixture in my early childhood. I remember the Sunday we brought our new puppy, Samantha, in a box between my sister and me on the back seat, to show off to everybody.

And now, my kids are making these same memories, thanks to their auntie my sister, who is spearheading this revival of our childhood tradition. They go to their Grammy and Boppa's house for Sunday dinner each week. There are walks with Grammy, exploring the lake and hunting for treasures (rocks and sticks, mostly). There's a room that is mostly an attic that they call "Beantown" because it's where they go on rainy or cold days to get their beans out. Elena calls it "Beanstown" because she doesn't catch the reference to Boston and because she is way more literal, being only six. It's carpeted with an crib and twin mattress. There's a stool for launching from and at guardrail to stop them from rolling off. Sometimes there's a game or we bring our Wii.

Most often there are many generations present at Sunday Dinner. This can make for some politics, but every bit of political unrest is worth it for the traditions we are forging and the memories we are painting.

The School That Cried Wolf

2011-04-09T13:36:00.001-07:00

Does anyone else feel overwhelmed by the number of missiles, fliers, notices and booklets sent home from their elementary schools? I do. I have reached capacity. Plus, with me, her dad, and so many other caretakers always emptying the backpack, sometimes things get missed, and because of the sheer volume of incoming mail, things are bound to. Unfortunately, this week I missed something big.

Never mind that I had to work. Never mind that when I saw the notice that said "Special Friends Breakfast" I thought it had to do with special needs kids. Never mind, that I remember doing a quick read of the flier and thinking it had to do with signing your child up to outreach to incoming kindergartners. No never mind all that, I screwed up big time. It turns out the "Special Friend Breakfast" was a time for the kiddos to invite one special person from their life into have breakfast with them. Elena was one of only two in the class that didn't have a special friend present at the event.

How did I find this out? She just opened her folder and pulled out a beautiful little butterfly magnet she made at the breakfast, while sitting by herself. She wrote a sweet note to her special friend...it said:

April 8, 2011
Dear Friend,
Thank you for being the best friend in the world. I hope you like my letter and the breakfast. Also being kind to me.
Love, Elena

My heart hurts.

Scariest Thought Evah

2011-04-07T05:20:00.000-07:00

Last night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I had a really frightening thought. Let me set the scene a bit first. I was snuggled up in bed, reading. Right before picking up my book, I used my phone to check emails, Facebook and tomorrow's weather. Then, after reading, as a last activity before drifting off, I shut off the light and checked Facebook updates. I often can be seen hunkered down under the covers, hand, claw-like gripping the phone, blue glow on my face from the tiny screen.

Anyhow, this time, the question I posed myself was ridiculous. Of course I knew the answer, but I it literally panicked me to think about it. I asked myself to consider what if I was forced to choose between having a cell phone, having MY Droid Pro and my kids. Of course I would choose my kids!! What if I had to choose between Facebook and my kids. Again, of course, I would choose my kids. Computer, kids? Kids!

It wasn't that I didn't know the answer, but the panic I felt at the prospect of losing any of my connectivity. My gut reaction tells me this addiction I have to technology is serious. I decided to put this question in an imaginary jar on an imaginary shelf with other thoughts to be considered later. I pulled it down this morning and started this blog. In the light of morning, the thought is not threatening anymore, but it is still an interesting one to consider. I asked myself, why does it panic me so to think about losing this connectivity? And, how could I lessen this addiction?

The first question is pretty obvious as to why. Many of friends exist only in an online world. For a long time, I lived with a man who wasn't into socializing and suffered from depression. I cultivated online relationships as a way of connecting with the world around me. I have even met some of these people in person and found the friendships to be as true in person as they were in the virtuality of my computer screen.

As to how to lessen this attachment, that's a harder question to consider. The first thing that springs to mind is to cultivate more in-person friendships, but sometimes I just don't have time for in-person...I only have time for a five second status update and then the stream of responses that come in - conversations held over a day long period of time, instead of intensely over a lunch or dinner.

My second thought is to impose some time constraints on my usage. Do I need a timer to set? Should I turn off my phone at night when I get home so I can focus on time with my kids? Should I not use my computer until they kiddos are in bed? Probably. I think there are a lot of changes I can make on this front and today, with the opening of an imaginary jar, many ideas, like lightining bugs are buzzing around me.

Dr. Dylan, Er, Mooney....

2011-04-06T17:32:00.000-07:00

When I started up with new healthcare, I had to find a new dentist. I don't know about you, but I absolutely LOATHE finding new health practitioners. The only thing worse than trying to find a new dentist you like is finding a new therapist you like! But, I digress. I usually hit the AMA site and check out where my doctors went to school as some guide. This time, however, I tried something else. This dentist was different. He had a website.

It was the page about his dad that got me. I had to go see this guy. He's quirky, but he's wonderful. He's efficient, but yet makes you feel like he has all day to spend with you. He wears slippers in the office, it makes you feel like he's invited you over for dinner. He talks about interesting things: parenting, movies, pop culture and music, especially Bob Dylan.

Boy, does he love Bob Dylan. I have been to see him three times now and never has anything besides Bob Dylan been playing. Today, I had myself in chuckles trying to decide whether the whine of dental drill actually drilling my tooth, or the nasally, repetitive sound of Dylan whining over the speakers was more annoying. But then I thought about it, I wouldn't want him to play anything else. I love that when I come over to his place he wears his slippers, and that sometimes he doesn't have anyone working the front desk, so I hear my name being called out from the back room over the sound of a drill, "Kristen?"

Yup doc, it's me. I'm here and feel lucky to be able to come over and hang out for a half hour or so...even if you did find a cavity and have to drill it out.

Confidence Welcomes Contempt

2011-04-05T05:43:00.000-07:00

I am working on another crackpot theory, but it's not fully formulated yet. The crux of it is that people who move confidentally through the world, receive more criticism from their peers than those who are not as assured. The flip side of this equation is that those that are insecure and lacking in self-esteem and self-confidence, tend to be the arrow slingers of insults and put downs. Their discomfort of themselves so colors their view of the world, that they cannot see the positive attributes of others. They hone in on weaknesses. If the self-confident character has cultivated their ability to rise up above the miasma of negativity around them, the low-self-esteemer will find the one insecurity or Achilles heel of their target that will bring them down. Why is this?

The theory I am working on is not THAT this relationship exists between the two personality types, for I believe it does, but why. I have lots of thoughts that have not yet gelled. I would welcome your thoughts on the subject. Why do you think? Also, state what personality type you think you are in your answer. Thanks!

This Just In: Typewriters Are Hip?

2011-04-03T17:52:00.000-07:00

The New York Times reported this last week:

Why celebrate the humble typewriter? Devotees have many reasons. For one, old typewriters are built like battleships. They survive countless indignities and welcome repairs, unlike laptops and smartphones, which become obsolete almost the moment they hit the market. “It’s kind of like saying, ‘In your face, Microsoft!’ ” said Richard Polt, 46, a typewriter collector in Cincinnati. Mr. Polt teaches philosophy at Xavier University, where he’s given away about a dozen typewriters to enthusiastic students and colleagues.

Another virtue is simplicity. Typewriters are good at only one thing: putting words on paper. “If I’m on a computer, there’s no way I can concentrate on just writing, said Jon Roth, 23, a journalist who is writing a book on typewriters. “I’ll be checking my e-mail, my Twitter.” When he uses a typewriter, Mr. Roth said: “I can sit down and I know I’m writing. It sounds like I’m writing.”

And there’s something else about typewriters. In more than a dozen interviews, young typewriter aficionados raised a common theme. Though they grew up on computers, they enjoy prying at the seams of digital culture. Like urban beekeepers, hip knitters and other icons of the D.I.Y. renaissance, they appreciate tangibility, the object-ness of things. They chafe against digital doctrines that identify human “progress” as a ceaseless march toward greater efficiency, the search for a frictionless machine.

That doesn’t make them Luddites. For many younger typewriter users, the old technology rests comfortably beside the new. Matt Cidoni, 16, of East Brunswick, N.J., keeps a picture of his favorite machine, a Royal No. 10, on his iPod Touch so he can show it off to friends. Online, he is a proud member of the “typosphere,” a global community of typewriter geeks. Like many of them, he enjoys “typecasting,” or tapping out typewritten messages, which he scans and posts to his Web site, Adventures in Typewriterdom. One of his favorite typecasting blogs, Strikethru, is run by a Microsoft employee. In Mr. Cidoni’s world view, there’s nothing technologically inconsistent about such things.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Mr. Cidoni said. “I’ve got an iPod Touch. I’ve got a cellphone, obviously. I’ve got a computer.” He also owns about 10 typewriters, which he uses for homework and letter writing at — get this — speeds of up to 90 words a minute. “I love the tactile feedback, the sound, the feel of the keys underneath your fingers,” Mr. Cidoni said.

Tom Furrier, who owns the Cambridge Typewriter Company in Massachusetts, has sold several typewriters to Mr. Cidoni and said that high school and college students have become a staple of his business. “I kept asking, ‘What are you kids doing here?’ ” he said. “But it’s been this growing thing. Young people are coming in and getting in touch with manual typewriters.”

I am having trouble swallowing some of this. Not because I didn't used to love to drag out Dad's old typewriter from the basement to "play office." Certainly not because I don't like words, or even the objectness of things. No. It's this whole concept of "thinking better while using a typewriter" that is lost on me.

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine you are writing a big proposal or paper or story...Now imagine you have to get it right the first time. You have to have an iron clad outline in your head. You have to think through every word before you write it down. There is no CTRL-C and CTRL-V. Even bolding has to be preconceived. Maybe it's the way I work, but the only thing I can imagine getting right "real time" is a journal entry where words can be less exact and the order of thoughts on the page isn't completely integral to their meaning.

Plus, typewriters are so heavy! Just when we've finally gotten laptops down to a reasonable weight why on earth would I want to lug a Smith-Corona with me? Reminds me of this old blog.

I think typewriters have their place. They are great toys for kindergarteners. They are great fun for playing office. The clicking sounds they make are great if you are trying to make a pretend news cast and want the sound of a news ticker in the background (yes, I have used them for that in the past, too). For now, I'll keep my Word and backspace and cutting and pasting. If that makes me unhip, it would not be the first, nor most likely the last, time.

Mooned Over My Happy Meal?

2011-04-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

I used to get a chuckle out of the Denny's meal "Moons Over My Hammy." But, today I got a chuckle over the real deal...as I was pulling into McDonald's, a teen (probably only about fourteen or fifteen) gave us a full moon. I was so taken aback, I annouced it to the car. "Oh my! We just got mooned!"

Of course, all the little people in the car wanted to know what a moon was and I had to explain (since I had been the only one visually privy to the sight). "It's when, as a prank, or just because they're being silly, someone pulls down their pants and sticks their fanny out, showing it to the world." I laughed, but then, realizing I probably wasn't setting the best example (I have many parenting moments like this), explained the concept of indecent exposure.

In my mind, I was picturing my children as pubescents and thinking that mooning the passing cars from McD's front lawn was fairly inocuous. There are so many things teens can do that are worse, vandalism, sex in someone's car, drinking, playing games of real bodily danger, or even just sulking miserably. These kids were being silly and light and the brave mooner was getting a real kick out of himself. It was all in good spirited fun.

As I was reflecting on this scene later, when the kids had gone to their dad's and I had time to rediscover the thinking part of my brain, I realized one of the reasons that my mind is so open to mooners. I grew up in a family where mooning was silly and good fun. I remember a caravan of cars going from the ice cream shop to home and my mom mooning out the slanted back window of the Pacer. I swear I even remember her father, my grandfather mooning someone!

No wonder, I thought to myself, I come from a long line of mooners.

Further Understanding of Momzilla

2011-04-02T06:11:00.000-07:00

I am reading the book The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell and am just basking in new information. I am apparently ten years late to this party, but appreciate it just as much as if I were reading it just off the press. The information in it is timeless, the thesis interesting and the examples absolutely riveting to me. The more I read, the more I realize I am a person who thrives on learning about how people and communities work. I bet I would have really enjoyed taking a Sociology class!

Anyhow, that long introduction is distracting me from my real mission here today. Something I read in this book, on pages 148-149 to be exact, has given me insight into my mother-in-law. In the past, I have written, incredulously I might add, about the actions of Momzilla in my life and marriage. Previous blogs can be found here and here and here and here.

One of Momzilla's pervasive characteristics is that she always wants to get to the bottom of things. By bottom, I mean BOTTOM. She doesn't just dig a little and let it drop, she digs and wheedles and needles until she breaks you. She breaks the people she loves. She breaks strangers. She breaks acquaintences. She breaks sales clerks, accounts receivable and customer service reps. Anyone who has to run counter to her. She tries to bring down the world around her to convert them to her viewpoint, persuade them to see things her way, or to pinch a penny.

I have long been perplexed by this behavior. First of all, it's so self-important. That YOUR opinion or YOUR belief or YOUR concept of what is right to be paid, eaten, worn, driven, etc. is the only way, shows such a narrow-minded viewpoint. But also, it cannot make Momzilla happy. It seems, in fact, to make her miserable. The complaining, the ire and the railing that are the outpourings of her incessant challenging of the world must be exhausting. But why? For a long time, I figured it was because she needed to make others unhappy because she was so fitfully unhappy. So uncomfortable in her own skin, she couldn't bear to see anyone else at rest. She needed attention, needed to mobilize the world to her end.

A concept I am going to transcribe from The Tipping Point below, pretty much agrees with my theory, but takes it a bit further. It's a quote about the Bernie Goetz, the man who, in the early 90's in NYC, shot four black youths on the subway fairly unprovoked, or at least his reaction of shooting them was a bit more extreme than the situation warranted. This is about where in NYC Bernie chose to live, in one of the seemliest neighborhoods in Manhattan. See if you can see what this passage revealed to me:

Bernie Goetz chose to live in a neighborhood that was falling apart...seductive to him because of its deficits and discomforts it "provided him with a comprehensible target for the rage that lives inside him. By focusing on the external world, he need not deal with his internal one."

Grupsuf

2011-03-28T16:29:00.000-07:00

Elena and I are having a thing. It's a math homework issue. She can't "get" money. And I can't "get" that she can't "get" money. It's so incredible frustrating for me, I hear my voice raising to fevered tone. I get all pitchy and whiny. I hate the way I sound. I find myself gesturing, very Italian-like with thumbs and fingers outstretched and spread emphatically to make their mathmatical point. JUST.DOESN'T.GET.IT.

Tonight, we had the frustrating exercise of doing the same problem a couple of times over to practice, repetition being the best way to perfect a skill. Every time was like the first. I could feel the tension rising up my scalp. I could sense the tears ready to spring forth from her ducts...and mine for that matter. And then, looking at her little upturned countenance, I had a flashback. The flashback was to me, in first grade, trying to understand the precursor to multiplication, groups of.

Mom was on her knees beside me on the rust (oh so Seventies) colored carpet of our downstairs playroom. She had the poker chips out and was making little piles of two or three or four. She was grouping chips in piles and then making multiple piles. She was using the term groups of. I did not hear groups of, I hear something else. Here is how it sounded to me...

Mom: "See Kristen, 4 little piles of 3 in each...4 grupsuf 3 equals....................."

Me, whilst staring at her completely blankly: "Um...3? 4? I don't know..."

Mom: No, no...see, pointing gently to the four little piles, "4 GRUPSUF 3"

Me: "What is GRUPSUF???"

I can literally remember the frustration and the knots I had in my stomach as she tried to teach me something I know she thought was simple. I could tell she thought I SHOULD be getting it. I wanted to get it. I was busy freaking out and constructing a large concrete mental block with the word GRUPSUF scribed across it.

Now I know why people hire tutors, so they don't have to have contentious relationships with their children over homework. So that these types of mental blocks are less apt to turn into family power struggles and so that parents can avoid completely freaking out that their kids are completely dense.

Ironically, my mother is now a tutor, dealing with everybody else's frustrated kids.
And, I am in sales and use math every day, although I still cannot say I use "grupsuf" all that often.

D-O-L-S

2011-03-27T17:44:00.000-07:00

Back when I was married, all those many years ago, Patrick and I used to play a little game we made up called DOLS. When we were driving behind a car that was driving ridiculously slowly or weaving or careening off the road, we would call it...
D - Drunk
O - Old
L - Lost
S - Stupid

Then, if at all possible, we would try to catch up to the driver of the car to have our bet confirmed...many a losing moan was followed by, "Shoot! Blue hairs! I really thought they were drunk."

As of late, I feel compelled to add a new letter to the game. It's now become DOLTS
D - Drunk
O - Old
L - Lost
T - Technology Device
S - Stupid

It has become a frequent occurence to pull up beside a person weaving while texting on their iPhone or driving 12 mph while they set their GPS. Tonight, I thought for sure I had a confirmed D or T sighting. The Subaru in front of me nearly glided into the guard rail while entering the highway. When I was able to catch up, I noticed it was a middlish-aged fellow with a bird cage on the seat beside him. Unless that is a new form of car seat with which I am unfamiliar, I am going to have to consider myself a loser of that bet...I'm calling him S for STUPID...ugh...drive safely people, there are DOLTS all around us.

What if Life had a Like Button

2011-03-27T10:54:00.001-07:00

Imagine if you will, a world where strangers randomly "liked" things each other were doing. When people stopped for you in a parking lot, or were patient in waiting for you to vacate a parking spot as you buckled two kids into car seats, LIKE. If someone drove by with one of your favorite songs blaring, LIKE. This simple action of liking each other, with no "dislike" button attached, could boost so many self-esteems each day. It reminds me of this old You Tube ditty I loved when it first came out...

My Message from God

2011-03-26T06:39:00.000-07:00

There is an app on Facebook that generates feel good messages "from God." Clearly, I don't believe God is speaking to me through Facebook, nor do I believe God speaks to us in words (outside of our own heads) except for the Bible...but, I did find my message today disappointing. In case you can't read it, it says the app is on pause...Apparently God stepped out for a coffee...If God were REALLY talking to us, would there ever be a system failure?

Mandies and Jennies

2011-03-18T18:13:00.001-07:00

Spring! 2011 055, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Close your eyes and go on a little trip with me...

It's 1982, early one morning and Sister Casey, who would've just turned 6 and I, 11 (almost 12, which is embarassing considering the story I am about to tell) would wake up and amuse ourselves, as we had done for the last four or so years playing together. During this time, we played with dolls.

"Wanna play Mandies and Jennies?" One of use would say and we would be off. Mandy, the blonde on the left, was mine. She and Jenny, the dark-haired sprite on the right were twins. Sasha, in the middle, also mine, was the "older teenage sister." (Of course I should have realized I was only a couple of years from being the "older teenage sister" myself and opted to play Intellivision instead, but oh well).

There were often pregnancies and births. There was a mom and a dad. They were weird cloth dolls that didn't "fit" exactly, but we made do. The mother was always having twins or triplets and often Sasha was pregnant at the same time. She was loose a teenager...just couldn't keep it in her pants. Little harlot!

Recently, I made mention of it to my mother and she told me how she used to hate that game...How it turned every room in the house upside. Now, my memories may be colored by many things, but I do remember how completely elaborate the scenery and sets for these guys were. Beds made out of fifteen washcloths wrapped in a pillowcase. Kitchens where we prepared "real" food products. Just to emphasize the scope of elaborate and why this game might have messed up every room, look closely in the picture above. See the socks Sasha is wearing? Yup. I sewed them for her.

Do We All Have SADS?

2011-03-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

I know I am prone to be a cantankerous wretch in the wintertime...my PMS gets worse, my interest in socializing, unless it's with the covers of my bed or my computer, drops to nil. However, I wasn't aware of how much this impacted all of us. Spring is in the air today and almost every Facebook status smacks of it:

"I saw the first crocus of the season. Wahoo spring!"

"Happy Friday!!! :) It feels like summer outside! So now it feels like I should be on summer vacation"

"feeling like I won the lottery today. gorgeous spring day"

"Didn't realize it was going to be this beautiful out!!!! Gotta get dressed and go out with the girls!!!!"

"What an awesome day! It's going to reach 70 degrees! Woohoo!"

"Oh, what a beautiful morning..."

What do you think?

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button?

2011-03-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

Tonight I told Grandmommy about my memories of the button box and Liam got his box out to show her how fun buttons could be (which of course she was old hat at!). "Let's play a game, Mommy, with these buttons!" "Look at this one! Isn't it so pretty!" Grandmommy, the sneak that she is, went and produced her button box. The one! The only! The star of this morning's blog.

It turns out it is a handpainted tin that was given to her Christmas of 1948 by her godmother, Tat. We know this because it has her name inscribed on the top and Tat's signature on the bottom with a little evergreen bough...all handpainted. There is also a hand-sewn liner made of lovely paisley fabric. The buttons still hold interest, to the youngest generations, to me, and to her.

Grandmommy's Button Box and Grandma's Trinkets

2011-03-17T06:30:00.000-07:00

When I was a little kid, I was full of energy. I should have probably even written that sentence like this...When I was a little kid, I had A LOT OF ENERGY! Anyhow, I remember spending a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandfathers would run me like a puppy...Grandfather let me ride in the little trailer behind his lawn mowing tractor letting me get showered by the grass confetti. Grandpa worked me in his garden, snapping peas, digging trenches...they treated me a bit like a grandson, but I loved every minute of it. I was calm when I was engaged in a project. Heck, I'm still like that! The grandmothers knew this trick as well, but their projects were different. They taught me to thread a needle, embroider at a young age using a burlap patch, sew on a sewing machine, and help hanging the laundry. But, at times when they wanted to shower or grab a tiny bit of down time, they each had a special little collection. I knew where it was. I could go and get it and play with it.

Grandma had a funny little white cardboard box, the kind a cheap bracelet might come in at Macy's, with two rubber bands crossed around it like a package. Inside was the most delightful collection of tiny little plastic animals. Tiny little monkeys, giraffes, and elephants in pink, orange and yellow translucent plastic. I thought they were treasures. Toys! Like Cracker Jack prizes! At the time, I had no way of knowing that they had been carefully saved from fruity drinks over the years. Each animal was once a drink marker, but now made one grandchild very, very quiet in play. I particularly remember these being the animals that would come out when Grandma needed a shower, which was perfect because my interest in them would last about the duration of one good, long hot relaxing shower. After five kids, Grandma must have learned a trick or two.

Grandmommy, my mom's mother, had a dusty, black tin full of buttons. She knew a trick or two, too. Just the miserly feeling of running my hands through the button piles made me feel rich. I would spend hours sorting and categorizing. Choosing some as favorites, casting others off as worthless...old shirt buttons in plain white for example. I bet, to this day, if I were to pick up this button box, I would be able to remember exactly which were my favorites and why. To be a really good button, you had to have some glitz, be bigger than the others, or look like candy.

Last weekend, on a lark, I picked up a wooden box and plastic bag of buttons at the craft store for my kids. As always, I spent way too much at the craft store. The buttons and button box totalled $7.00 at most. It is BY FAR the favorite purchase of that day. I got a bunch of projects to do, but we still haven't even cracked them. After days, the button box continues to amuse. I'm just glad the button box can hold a candle to the Wii and DS.

Blog from the Past

2011-03-10T05:52:00.000-08:00

I just found this "offline blog" I wrote on my computer while traveling. Funny, never actually blogged about any of these things I don't think.

It’s amazing how much less creative I am when I am offline blogging. I know I am a Praise Junkie (PJ), so maybe it’s the promise of connectivity that spurs me on? Maybe having a virtual audience makes me perform better? Who knows? All I know is that I am sitting here in Laguardia Airport, trying to find my writing mind. The thoughts are there, up there in the white space on my mind. I just seem to be having trouble getting them out. It’s kind of a constipating feeling.

So, instead of a well-formed, interesting blog, I will tell you all the ideas for blogs I have had in the last week. “But you have been blogging in the last week!” You interrupt to protest.

To that I would respond, “You’re right, my reader, I have been. But not BIG blogs. Big Sky thinking. No, just little stories of silly things the kids said or the digger I took where I ended up with mayonnaise on my face.”

In the last week, I have been thinking about blogging about:

1)Teenagers, the use of “like” and imprecision of speech at that age. Is it a mask behind which they hide? Do people actually get more and more precise with their descriptions and speech as they mature?
2)Boys who love trains, trucks and vehicles vs. those who love balls. Does the preference, as my mother predicts, mean something about their future personalities? Ball lovers being inclined towards extroversion and vehicle lovers being quieter, introspective types?
3)Overload of choice. I have been reading some articles recently about how overloaded we are as consumers by choices. Studies have shown that when the choices become too voluminous, we shut down. The complexity of choices overwhelm us and we rebel, deciding to not make a decision at all.
4)The ridiculousness of the word “green” and how it is woven into every ad campaign, new product development process, and pitch. People say 2008 will be known as the “green” year. This strikes me as completely inane. I believe strongly in the cause, but this beating a dead horse is getting so irritating. Yesterday, I saw a vodka advertised as green. I ask you, how is one vodka any greener than another? OK, sure, there are some corporate practices that could “help” one vodka to be greener, but this one had no good reason. How about financial institutions, banks and the like? Money is green. I think that’s where it ends.

Sometimes It's the Littlest Things...

2011-03-09T18:05:00.000-08:00

Knock, knock...there was a rap on the door at 7:00 tonight. In bounds a friendly dog who immediately starts sniffing the place out. I don't blame the young man who brought the dog up to our door step for thinking he had found the dog's family by the smiling, happy face on the dog. Even my children seemed in on the charade, scrubbing the dog behind the ears as if they had known him for years. Chasing him around with squeals of laughter. But no, I assured the 22 year-old looking guy now standing in my kitchen, this was not my lost dog.
Clearly, this was SOMEBODY'S dog though. He was well fed (fat) and had a nice collar and tag. He was certainly socialized...at one point he almost jumped into my arms while smiling. He was jubilant. He was a blessing. So what if it took the kids an hour to calm down. It was worth it. Every doggy hair on my sweater and every sweet lick on my face.

The Hedge Maze Theory of Parenting (a reprise)

2011-03-07T15:02:00.000-08:00

I recently read this FABULOUS Psychology Today article and am reprising an old blog on the same topic. Love that we use terms like "sanitized childhoods" and "helicopter parenting" to describe the latest parenting fad. Look at this brilliance:

Behold the wholly sanitized childhood, without skinned knees or the occasional C in history. "Kids need to feel badly sometimes," says child psychologist David Elkind, professor at Tufts University. "We learn through experience and we learn through bad experiences. Through failure we learn how to cope."

Messing up, however, even in the playground, is wildly out of style. Although error and experimentation are the true mothers of success, parents are taking pains to remove failure from the equation.

"Life is planned out for us," says Elise Kramer, a Cornell University junior. "But we don't know what to want." As Elkind puts it, "Parents and schools are no longer geared toward child development, they're geared to academic achievement."

And, then the KikiGill theory:
Imagine if you will, our lives like a maze - a very complex hedge maze (you know the kind where you might wander around for hours hitting dead end after dead end). Then imagine if you already have mapped a good part of the maze yourself. You know where there are dead ends and false starts. There are certain ways you just know won't work.

Now, imagine seeing someone we love, struggling with a part of the maze that we have often struggled with ourselves. Don't we want to shout at them, "Hey, that's a dead end down there!" or "Turn around, you're heading nowhere?" Of course we do, it is natural. We want them to know what we know and offer them shortcuts through their life. If we could, we might just take a big mower and mow a path right through the center of the maze for them so it will be easy for them to find the other side.

As parents, we have to remember that it is our children's job to learn that maze themselves. We have to keep them safe and clothed, fed and loved, but we cannot make them go or stop at will. In fact, part of that hedge maze for them is learning to escape their parents' grasp. When they are little, they might duck out of sight for just a moment and they might come running back to the beginning to kiss us or tell us about their day. However, as they grow up, they may hide for days in that maze. We have to let them go and trust that, when they come out the other side, they will be smarter and more adept at "life" for it!

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo

2011-03-04T15:52:00.000-08:00

Eeny Meeny Miney Mo...
Catch a tiger by the toe...

Remember when all the problems of your world could be solved by this rhyme? It was unquestioned by all involved. It was unequivocal. It was just easier then back in the day, when I was small. "Awww man! I am NOT it. BUMMER!"

Why do I bring this up? Tonight, I told the kids I had had enough of them going to bed in a sea of stuffed animals and they had to choose four stuffed animals with whom to sleep. As tough decisions came up, I heard Elena muttering softly..."If he hollers, let him go...Dolphin gets to sleep with us!"

Now, I am imagining if the great powers of the world used such a system. Millions of dollars in summits, accords, peace talks and treaties saved by Palestine and Israel and the USA. Hey, it works on playgrounds!

Can You Imagine What He's Imagining?

2011-03-01T05:08:00.000-08:00

In the car today after dropping sister off at school.

ME: "Liam, pretty soon you'll be coming to Elena's school for Kindergarten registration!"

Liam: "Yeah, I know! I heard kids at school talking about getting their registration packets in the mail."

ME: "Yup, and when you go, you get to take an assessment test"

Liam: "What's that?"

ME: "Well, you'll sit with a teacher and do some math and some reading and some..."

Liam: "...Talking?" (then muttering) talk talk talk, I can talk talk talk....

ME: "Well, yes, talking, too."

Liam: "OH GREAT! I LOVE TALKING!" Then it's quiet for a few seconds, followed by, "And I might have to jump over something really high and I might win?"

ME: "Well, maybe. I don't remember my Kindergarten registration."

We Haven't Always ALL Lived on Venus

2011-02-27T06:32:00.000-08:00

Further to yesterday's blog concept about us all being individuals and not from different planets, I have some more thoughts on what this means and what is happening in society right now that is both affected by it and affects it. So, assuming I am right that same sex couples everywhere struggle with being able to find apropos language that is not rooted in the archetypal male-female relationship, and that society has been moving towards more acceptance of same sex relationships, this leaves us with a new problem. The problem of same sex relationship equality, once accepted outside of our homes and individual relationships, then has to be integrated into our private lives.

Movements are like this. They start in a very public arena before moving inside our homes and lives and, lastly into our psyches and language. Think about the Women's movement. Women fought to build the legistlative platform to give them equal rights to men and won. The movement was a success. It took at least a generation of children growing up in this new order to be able to carry the concept into their homes and personal relationships. Think about it. Moms still struggled to work and make as much as dads. Women often still catered to their men inside the home. I would argue that, until recently, we hadn't really arrived as true equals. Equality inside the marriage and parenting relationships was the last to arrive. The role models afforded by society and our own families just didn't give us the tools, language and concepts we needed to enact this change.

This move toward acceptance by society of same sex relationships (which is still far from complete) is meeting with the same challenges. The role models we all have grown up with force us to bastardize and jury-rig (I had typed jerry-rig until I did a search on it and found out I meant jury-rig which I didn't know...imagine that) traditional relationship advice so it fits our unique situations. This is as simple as changing pronouns when reading a relationship-themed self-help book, or as complex as trying to eradicate entrenched values we were raised with from birth.

We have here a group of people questioning everything, re-considering stereotypes and seeking to apply new understanding to their relationships. No bad will come of this!

Women Are from Venus and Other Women Are Also from Venus

2011-02-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking lately about something. It's a little bit of a controversial topic, but I bet you'll humor me. I HOPE you will at least. So, this is the thing. As, you all know, I have dated both men and women in my life. I have recently been putting together a little theory about one of the challenges that women dating women face. See what you think.

When women date men, we say the women are from Venus and the men are from Mars. And here is where my theory begins. It's a very convenient construct, when you don't understand where someone is coming from or they don't "get" you, to think of them as from another planet. You don't have to work through every little disagreement, sometimes it's easier and healthier to say they just won't get it because they aren't from my planet...they're a "guy." In saying they're a guy, we forgive and forget many transgressions. We let slide, we acquiesce, we compromise.

When women date women, they think differently. Women are quite aware of the fact that they are from Venus...that they ALL are from Venus. They are very relationship oriented. A group of female friends, for instance, will say that all their friends "get" them. So, when we date women, we get very frustrated when our partners do things that we find confusing, or when they just don't seem to understand us. We get even more bent out of shape, "But you're a WOMAN! You're supposed to think like me! Be like me! GET me!"

Traditionally in relationships, because they have been mostly male-female in our society, it takes some work to extrapolate beyond the acceptance of a husband or a wife merely because they are from a different planet. It requires an active thought process changing thoughts of, "Oh, my partner doesn't get me because they are of the opposite sex", to instead, "Oh, you don't get me because I am me, and you are you and we are different."

We are different. We are not just male and female different, but individuals.

Matricidal Suspicions?

2011-02-21T11:55:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to get a complex. First, it was the book selection, Babar and Bambi...the mother is killed off in both stories. Slightly odd, since we only read two books a night, that the subject of both would be the death of the mother.

But then, I listened in on their game of stuffed animal play today. The theme? Duckie's mother had died. It was a sad, sad occasion. Poor duck, no mother anymore.

Should I take this all personally? As a warning? Sleep with one eye open?

The American Dream

2011-02-20T18:07:00.000-08:00

Rode with a cab driver in Fort Worth this morning to the airport. While at first I was annoyed by his chatty manner so early in the morning (it was barely 5 AM), I warmed to him. He told me, with great excitement, how happy he was to be here. In America. In Texas.

He told me a story of a time when his four friends from DC came to visit him. They were coming to Texas to play soccer, but he knew them from home. They kind of put down Ft. Worth as being too small, too disconnected from what they saw as "real America," big cities. These fellow countrymen were incredulous of his quality of life in Ft. Worth. He told me over and over that they just plain didn't believe him.

The four of them shared a single room apartment in DC. He encouraged them to move down South. They wouldn't dream of it. He said he encouraged them to remember where they were from. Then he told me of the quality of life in his village in Ethiopia (well, not Ethiopia, his country actually splintered off from Ethiopia, but I asked three times and couldn't catch the name of his country, so, let's just call it Ethiopia, ok?). Here's what he told me of his country...

"I lived in a two room place with a family of ten. Mother, Father and eight children!" He then peered at me, eyes wide, voice dramatic to be sure I understood the magnitude of his description. "Three of the boys slept in one bed, the rest on the floor."

Now this man drives a cab and makes enough to rent his own two room place. He lives, according to the standards by which he was raised, like a king. He recently drove a customer home and they were building a new house. He told me he realized that he would, in this country, be able to one day own a house.

"In this country, I live like a king. I will one day own a house. And, because I live here and work here, three of my brothers go to school! I buy them 'exercise' books and send them fresh packs of pencils that I buy for under a dollar." (I didn't ask, but later it occured to me that he meant "workbooks" when he said "exercise books."

My response to his continued exasperation about his friends who would never consider moving to little old Ft. Worth, who just didn't get it and wouldn't better their situation by moving somewhere where the cost of living was more affordable, was this...Maybe, when people dream of leaving their home, their country, for a better life, they sit and imagine how that new life will be. In their mind's eye, they see different visions. Some see monetary success and comfort in their living space, some see big cities with lights and opportunities.

Electric Heat Drains the Coffers!

2011-02-20T09:40:00.000-08:00

What does my reading public (all four of you) know about electric heat? I just sent this note to the electric company and would love to know any experiences/help you all have...

I need help. There is no way our heat and electric should cost over $550 a month given that 1) we are heating a place that is 600 square feet and 2) we are always cold and keep the baseboards set at medium to low.

Please help me figure out how to lower this cost. Is there a better rate I can get? Is there a state subsidized rate?

I have spoken to three friends who have electric heat and pay only $250 a month. Please help me get to the bottom of this as soon as possible.

I am going to have to talk to my landlord about putting in gas or oil heat at my own expense...at this rate it would pay back in a year!

We Salute you, Mr. PBR

2011-01-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

So, we recently moved down the street from our old house and never would have guessed we were moving into such a new unseemly neighborhood! Well, it's not really the neighborhood that's unseemly, just the one neighbor whose back porch overlooks our little side yard.

I call him Mr. PBR because the morning we were first introduced was day two of living in our new place and he had moved in across the way the night before. I was sitting peering out my favorite window in the house, which had yet to be donned with curtains. It should have felt like I was on display, but instead seemed he was. It was nary seven thirty am and this neighbor walked out, cracked a beer and lit a cigarette. The sight of it turned my stomach. I immediately named him Mr. PBR for the Pabst Blue Ribbon he was drinking.

There have been many Mr. PBR sightings since that first one, every morning in fact. Let's just say curtains were a real priority. This morning, there was not only the breakfast treat of beer and cigarettes, but a lovely porn magazine, as well. Nothing like a trifecta of seediness to kick off the day.

So, to you Mr. PBR drinking in the morning, Homer Simpson pajama, porn reading man, we salute you...and pray you are not a pedophile.

The Evolution of "Bwiends" to "Wii-maginary Friends"

2011-01-18T05:30:00.000-08:00

When Elena was a little baby, some might remember she had a collection of rubber bath toy animals that she called her "bwiends" (friends). They went everywhere with her and filled her life with comraderie. Her imaginary friendships were rich and every bit as real as if she were playing with real preschool peers.

She doesn't play with bath animal bwiends anymore. In fact, I recently asked her if she even remembered her bwiends and she was hard pressed to recall them. Like real past relationships, they have faded in focus over time. Now, there's a new relationship in Elena's life. Her relationship to her Wii-maginary friends.

When we got the Wii for Christmas, Elena went to town creating Mii's for her and all her friends. She often plays bowling against friends from her class. She has set up avatars for all those girls she hopes to have over for play dates and sleepovers. I thought this was incredibly creative and endearing. Until...

To hear her talk about the friends' performances in the games is a bit disturbing (esp. as you recall that she is playing for herself AND them). I hear things like:

"Oh man! Gillian beat me at bowling! She's so good, she got a turkey!"

"Abby F. is not as good as me at this game!"

"OH MY GOODNESS, Emma just beat the top tennis score. I cannot believe it! I never thought anyone would!"

:-/

A Little Bit Embarrassing...

2010-09-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

So, do you know what I do for a living? I work for a company that designs realistic wildlife toys. My particular business line? North American animals...our top species include deer, elk, turkeys, cougars, wolves, etc. Which leads me to the embarrassing moment.

As I was leaving my office today and navigating the circular complex, I passed the parking lot of an office building I pass everyday. There, menacingly staring at me from their front lawn patch, was a pair of yellow eyes. At first I thought I was staring at a rabid raccoon.

Shocked and curious, and slightly past the driveway once I really focused on the fact that there was a critter over there, I backed up and turned in only to come eye to eye with....a plastic coyote meant to scare away geese

...and apparently attract me. Nice spotting there, Doctor Doolittle.

Just in Case You're Ever Needing this Info...

2010-08-30T04:36:00.001-07:00

This weekend I updated my new computer with my all 14GB of my iPod's music. I had purchased a took called Copy Toy with which to do this and it failed me miserably. Not only did it never work, but when I emailed "support@" to try and get some help, I got nothing...not even an automated response stating that my email was received. Luckily, I had paid through PayPal, so I was able to open a dispute this morning to try and get my $25 back!

I wrote this note to Copy Toy (which you find by going to www.ipod2computer.com or www.copytoy.com). Please boycott them in my honor. Use Copypod, which I have used in the past and works instantly...or enable disk usage on your iPod and just grab the files, FOR FREE, which is what I ended up doing.

I downloaded your iPod copy tool which was supposed to help me copy songs from my iPod to my computer. I contacted your company to ask for help getting their product to work, it:
1) Never would activate using the activation key you gave me
2) Never would work (even on a trial basis) as it would not recognize that my iPod was plugged into my computer
3) Kept telling me I needed a more recent version of the software, which I emailed you about looking for and hunted for on your Website.

I never received any response from your company and due to lack of response and the fact that your product does not work for my iPod Classic, I was forced to find another solution.

Contact me via email with any questions at all.

I'll let you know what happens. Ay yi yi!

Let's Do the Time Warp....

2010-08-02T15:56:00.000-07:00

So, I fear I am giving my kids a really warped sense of time. If you're a mom or dad, you will probably know exactly what I am talking about, but if you aren't, you might think that I am twisting their realities into something ugly and tainted...well, here, follow with me on a few examples.

Example #1: Only for a FEW MINUTES
Liam gets in the bathtub, for some reason NOT amused. I don't know why I am surprised, since he is almost always, as of late, not amused to be getting into the tub. It's more like he's not interested in stopping what he's doing to be bothered to get clean. Anyhow, I digress. I promise he only has to stay in for a few minutes to get cleaned off and then he can get out and continue playing with his trains/cars/sister. He finally slides into the bath, succumbing to the bubbly warmth and starts to swim, splash and play. He's happy and contented. The "few minutes" stretch into about 45. It's the quietest Liam-awake time our little household has seen. By the time I get him out, he is one big prune...Time Warp "few minutes"=45 minutes.

Example #2: "We are leaving in FIVE MINUTES!"
In the morning, as I am rushing around in a torrential hurry to get three disorganized people out the door, I am bombarded by little people and their ridiculous demands. (I should mention that while my disorganization is a character trait, theirs is merely a factor of being 4 and 6 years old...so I can't really hold it against them). Eventually, I get them all buttoned up and send them out to play in the car. "Go out there and I will meet you in FIVE MINUTES!" Once they are gone, the hectic air clears and I can all of a sudden focus. No longer surrounded by a miasma of questions, misbehaviors and physical bodies, I am free to concentrate...ahhhhhh...Time Warp five minutes=at least 15 if not more and then late to camp.

Right now, as I blog, they have been outside for 11 minutes of a five minute stretch...I am grateful. I have stolen time from the jaws of motherhood. Damn, I'm good.

What Makes a Best Friend?

2010-07-31T05:43:00.000-07:00

On a more serious note, this is a question I have been pondering for some time. My kids have a book called Mouse and Elephant and it's about a mouse who goes out looking for a friend. He tries, to no avail, to find a friend in many animals of the forest. They all have reasons why they can't be friends with the mouse. Finally, the mouse meets an elephant who asks what being a friend means. The mouse answers and the elephant says, "Sure, that sounds great." That's the Reader's Digest version of a really very sweet book, but it leads into my question...What would you say makes a friend? What would you say makes a best friend?

I've come to the conclusion that the definition of a "best friend" varies wildly from person to person. The congruence seems to come between two friends who call each other friend. In other words, if you ask your friend how they define "best friend" you will find yourself nodding madly in agreement with them. Try it! You'll see!

How I define best friend is this...ENGAGEMENT

TIME: We have to both care to spend time together. I can't be chasing a best friend around begging them to come over or call me back. This is not to say we have to see each other everyday or anything that regimented like that. In fact, some of my best friends I talk to once a year or so by phone. A best friend is always thrilled to hear from you and makes time for you in person or by phone. Time to engage.

FIT: Our personalities have to jibe. Sometimes this means we both have a sense of humor and being together ignites both of our sense of humor. Sometimes, this means we are both interested in deep chats about certain topics. Sometimes, our strategizing around one or the other's problems, leads us to new solutions. Our collective personality seems to be greater than either of ours individually. Interest to engage.

INTERESTS: Of course, we have to be interested in doing the same things or going the same places. If someone is interested in haute culture and spending copious amounts of money and hates nature, for example, we're probably not going to become friends.

Some people I have asked say a best friend has to be there for you...you have to know they will come when you need them. That's probably a given, but it falls lower on my list because of this: loyalty and steadfastness aren't required, they are given and hopefully reciprocated...but given freely nonetheless.

Here is how the mouse and elephant define friendship...oddly, the mouse is named Nicole (don't let that throw you):

"Friend? Friend? What is a friend?"

The elephant asked. "I've never heard of such a thing."

"Well," Nicole replied, thinking hard,

"I think a friend is somebody you can count on. Friends tell each other their feelings. Friends stick together and help each other."

The elephant thought a while and said, "That sounds good. I don't have anyone like that."

Surprised by the elephant's answer, Nicole said, "But I'm not like you at all! I can't balance on a stand, and I'm not very strong. And I'm much smaller than you are. Aren't we too different to be friends?"

The elephant laughed. "You are silly mouse! Do friends have to be the same size or have the same strength? Do they have to be exactly the same? That's not what you told me a friend was all about."

Nicole smiled.

"Climb up my trunk now," the elephant said, "and we will tell each other our feelings and stick together."

Off they went and began to learn to be friends... And each day as they visited and talked, they became better and better friends, even though one of them was very small and the other very big.

Just Because Your Kid Likes Beavers

2010-07-31T05:40:00.000-07:00

...Doesn't mean you should accidentally pick up every shirt with said animal on it...

Look closely:

Kiki Does Neck Wallets

2010-07-31T05:18:00.000-07:00

I catch a lot of flack for my fashion choices, but none has initiated an open season quite like my adoption of the neck wallet. As indefatigable as this behavior may be to you, my chic reader, I would like a chance to defend my choice. Think of the practicality! I can hold my phone, iPod, money, license and bank card all right under my nose when I travel. This makes me less likely to misplace or forget an important document or to lose things. A big plus in Kiki-land.

Here's me trying on a Kipling neck wallet in the Minneapolis Airport:

I can use the neck wallet while hiking to hold all the aforementioned important stuff. This means if I peter out or get lost, I can call home for a pick-up. Or, if I need to pick up a water, I can. Or, if I get picked up by the police for some walking infraction, I have my "papers" on me...not that all of these things have happened, but hey, a girl's gotta be prepared, right?

And, reassuringly, I am not the only one who apparently buys these things!! (although, part of my lambasting comes from the fact that I didn't buy my neck wallet and instead wear a badge holder from a trade show).

Does it make it any better if the wallet is decorated with flowers?

Or if it's called a security pouch?

IT vs. The Blue Screen

2010-07-31T05:13:00.001-07:00

I love this photo. My IT guy and I scrutinize the screen as it performs the, ever frightening, "physical memory dump". It seems I get a smattering of these every time I do a Windows upgrade. The best solution seems to be to restart in safe mode, monkey around with it, and then reboot again...monkeying around being a technical term...

Doing the Man-Up

2010-06-08T04:17:00.000-07:00

We have been talking to Liam about "manning up" or getting up and brushing himself off and moving on. There's no reason to dwell on a little knock down or slip and fall, just get up and man up. That's our belief. It seems to be working and some previously upsetting falls are now opportunities to practice manning up.

The other day, the kids were having a pick-up soccer game in our back yard in the early morning before work. They were happily playing out there for an hour or so. When I came out to get everyone strapped in and loaded into their car seats, Liam looked at me earnestly and said, "Mom! We had a great soccer game! I fell down three times (and held up three spindly little fingers) and I did the man-up!"

Then, this weekend at Sandra's soccer game, Liam was intently watching Sandra in goal. It was a rainy, slippery day in goal and she went down. Liam looked disturbed and said, "Oh no! Sandra fell down! (and then watched her get up) Oh phew, Mommy, she manned up!"

Hee hee...

Another Reprise: Life Theories

2010-06-05T05:10:00.000-07:00

The Gnawing Hole Theory
It's time to pontificate. I have this ridiculous set of theories. Anyone who knows me, knows these theories as I came up with them years ago and I often use old material. But alas, to my secret blog fans, I now write them down. Crafted in an oral tradition...Kristen is a social butterfly. Born in a veritable soup of analogies and attempts to communicate abstract concepts...that Kristen is weird.

The Gnawing Hole Theory of Needs is really about growing up and wanting things and knowing that you need something, but not being able to figure out what that is. Everyone has one at some point in their life. Most of us struggle with them for years. This black hole of insecurity and emptiness is in each of us. For some of us, we fill it with drink or drugs or people or places.

Teens fill it with friends, boyfriends, clothes, and trendy things. Twenty-somethings look for it in love relationships, college grades, sex, career, friends, and material items. Thirty-somethings have a gnawing hole which is growing smaller as they age(thank goodness). We tend to stop stuffing things in there and acknowledge that there is a hole...et VOILA, it gets smaller. It's a beautiful thing to be 35.

Now, I am left thinking...does Elena have a gnawing hole yet? Is it created at birth? At weaning? Later? So many questions and things to observe in this child!

The Buckets Theory of Life Balance
Here's another kooky theory from that nutcase, Kristen. I have to admit to being a bit of a pompous ass. Imagine me thinking I can tell anyone anything about anything. After all, I know nothing myself. Most of my "theories" were just grasps at trying to explain to my therapist what the hell I was thinking. I think in analogies, so there you have it.

This is my Buckets Theory of Life Balance. I came up with it when I started dating my husband and wondered why my work life all of a sudden seemed empty. Why does it seem that when attention is paid to one area of our life, another area suffers a reign of disenchantment?

My answer to myself was this: life is a bunch of buckets. Your buckets can be anything you would like...But mine, mine are large crocks (not crocks of shit mind you, if that's where you think I am going). Teracotta crocks into which you cannot see. In these crocks is enough water to fill one crock fully. Or to fill each crock a bit.

Each crock stands for a different area of life: love, family, children, work, creativity, self, etc. It seems if one crock demands attention, and this can be for good or bad reasons, ALL the water, which symbolizes energy and thought and focus, gets poured into that ONE bucket. The other buckets are left desiccated...empty...abandoned. Oh, but like the arid ground embracing the return of the rainy season, their time will come again. They too have their day of being filled to the brim.

The Hedge Maze Theory of Parenting
Imagine if you will, our lives like a maze - a very complex hedge maze (you know the kind where you might wander around for hours hitting dead end after dead end). Then imagine if you already have mapped a good part of the maze yourself. You know where there are dead ends and false starts. There are certain ways you just know won't work.

Now, imagine seeing someone we love, struggling with a part of the maze that we have often struggled with ourselves. Don't we want to shout at them, "Hey, that's a dead end down there!" or "Turn around, you're heading nowhere?" Of course we do, it is natural. We want them to know what we know and offer them shortcuts through their life. If we could, we might just take a big mower and mow a path right through the center of the maze for them so it will be easy for them to find the other side.

As parents, we have to remember that it is our children's job to learn that maze themselves. We have to keep them safe and clothed, fed and loved, but we cannot make them go or stop at will. In fact, part of that hedge maze for them is learning to escape their parents' grasp. When they are little, they might duck out of sight for just a moment and they might come running back to the beginning to kiss us or tell us about their day. However, as they grow up, they may hide for days in that maze. We have to let them go and trust that, when they come out the other side, they will be smarter and more adept at "life" for it!

A Reprise...To Show You How Odd I Am

2010-06-05T04:34:00.000-07:00

REPOST FROM JULY 28, 2005

The Dwarf-Baby with Flippers vs. Christmas Ornaments Classification System
OK...All you imaginary Kiki and the Lou readers, hold onto your seats. I am about to go kooky-crazy on you! This is an idea I developed quite a few years ago. It's a doozy. See if you can follow.

Once, about three years ago, we met some people. All in the space of one week, we met two groups of new friends. One couple had been friends of my husband's for years, since childhood. They were a very offbeat and funny couple. They had me rolling on the floor with their skewed perceptions of the world. The wife was pregnant at the time and kept telling me she was convinced she was carrying a dwarf baby with flippers. She was neurotic and animated. Passionate and witty. Downright fun!

A few days later, my husband started playing guitar with a band. We went up to, what would henceforth be called Band Camp, on a Tuesday night. The wives of the band members would congregate on the front porch. We had wine and smokes and chatted the chit chat of new friends. We talked about our lives as wives and covered such mundane topics as what we all did for living, what was our favorite food, when were our birthdays...you get the picture.

At one point, the conversation took a turn for the worse. I was stuck listening to a description of every Christmas ornament one of the wives had bought for the other over the years. "Remember, that was the year I bought you the lighthouse one...wait, no, was it the barn that year?" "Oh, that sailboat was so cute. It had a tiny white sail!" A full half an hour of description of ornaments.

A few days later, I was struck by a funny thought. If there were to be a continuum of personalities from the mundane to the offbeat, we had just experienced both ends of that spectrum in one week. We went from one end of the range, Dwarf Baby with Flippers, to the other, Christmas Ornaments. Each was pushed further to its end of the scale by its proximity to the other.

So now, it is part of our family lexicon. If you say someone is Dwarf Baby or Christmas Ornaments, we all nod in agreement. We have had hours of fun sorting all the people we know using this system. We have come to one other conclusion. Dwarf Babies completely understand this system. Sadly, Christmas Ornaments do not. So, if you explain this to someone and they get it, they are a Dwarf Baby. If not, they are an Ornament. So, do you get it?

Momzilla Strikes Again...

2010-06-02T16:38:00.000-07:00

Wanna know what is kind of the most awkward phone call to have to make? It's this. About six months ago, my sister's friend had a baby. She had a baby very close in age to her first baby, so her first baby was still using their first crib. Luckily, (or unluckily as the case may be) Liam had recently vaulted the crib sides and escaped babyhood, leaving us up one crib. We lent the crib, so happy to be able to give away the crib and the new Sealy mattress we had bought to someone who was happy to receive it. It even matched the new baby's room!!!

So, today I get a call from my ex saying that Momzilla has been going on and on about where that crib is that she lent me when I had Liam. Darnit! I told him I gave it away...he told me he would talk to her and smooth it out.

Five minutes later, phone rings. It's P again. "You have to get it back. The crib. As soon as possible."

Oh Momzilla, Momzilla...next time I come over, you better be sleeping in that darn Jenny Lind crib!

Attacked by a Bird...

2010-06-01T18:28:00.000-07:00

My sister was going into the water to save an errant soccer ball...she accidentally put her hand about 6 inches from a swallow's nest. This bird was NOT happy...NOT happy at all. Of course, I had to get in on the action and go see if there were any eggs in the nest...this only added insult to injury for the poor swallow, who put on her most imposing wing span and attacked...I haven't laughed this hard in awhile. This was one honked off bird. Really. Pissed. Off.

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

In Our New Neighborhood: Putnam Park

2010-05-19T04:33:00.000-07:00

Turns out there is a pretty cool park, it's very much like Bunker Hill or Gettysburg. The kids and I had no idea what we were getting into and were quite pleasantly surprised.

The first visit to the park was with the girls I watch on Monday and Wednesday. We stayed, due to the driveway being first, on the non-military side of the park. We just walked around, what appeared to be a normal park. We ended up finding the memorial, statue of General Putnam, and the bullfrog pond (as we call it) at the end of that long hike.

So, then, I was intrigued and brought all the kids back another time...but, again we didn't make it past the bullfrog pond and the memorial (which Elena calls the "Memorial Day").

The last time I took just my kids and we were finally able to really explore the park, read the signs and take it all in...turns out that Putnam Park was the winter encampment of 8000-10,000 revolutionary soldiers. It was called Putnam's Valley Forge. There is not much left...some mounds that were the chimney stacks of all the company housing, some clearings and some graves. The signs are helpful in explaining what archeological digs have uncovered since 1779.

It's funny that a lot of the reconstructed buildings, which were built in 1860, are completed wrong. They have since been proven to have served completely different purposes than originally thought. For example, there is a little cabin at the far end of the site that was labeled as "Officer's Quarters", but later proven to be the fort magazine!

Here's a quote from "Connecticut - Off the Beaten Path" by David and Deborah Ritchie, 1992...today's history lesson:

"When Washington's Northern Army went into winter quarters at the end of November 1778, it was disposed in an arc from New Jersey to Connecticut, so as to ring the British garrison in New York. Three of the army's brigades had their winter encampment at Redding, when they could move east to defend the Hudson Heights or west to defend the Connecticut coast from British raiders. Their commander was Major General Israel ("Old Put") Putnam.

That winter was relatively mild, but the harvest had been poor, and supplies were scarce. The men, many of whom had been through the hell of Valley Forge the previous year, began to mutter about a similar privation winter in Connecticut. Then in December the state experienced one of the worst winter storms in New England history. Two days after it ended, the men of one brigade mutinied and prepared to march on the State Assembly in Hartford to demand overdue supplies and wages. Putnam was able to break up the affair only with the greatest of difficulty. Thus the winter encampment at Redding that came to be known as "Connecticut's Valley Forge."

The original encampment in now the site of Putnam Memorial State Park at the junction of Routes 58 and 107 in West Redding. The twelve-man huts are now just piles of stone where their chimneys stood, and the old magazine is only a stone-lined pit; but the officers' barracks has been rebuilt, and there is a museum on site containing exhibits dealing with the Redding encampment. There's also a great statue by the front gate showing Old Put riding his horse down a flight of stairs to escape capture during a British raid in February of 1779."

The Death of Chickens

2010-05-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

So, a rather unfortunate series of events happened today. First, we went to the library to pick out books and picked out not one, not two, but three books with chicken protagonists. We spent the whole ride to my mom's house in Ridgefield talking about the Adventurous Chicken, Louise (who both my children call Muh-weeze for no apparent reason). Anyhow, I digress.

On the way home from school, back to our house, we passed the farm we like to visit. The kids asked if they could go visit the chickies and I said sure. Why not? Not much else planned. Another side note, I have found that if you say "yes" to your kids, enthusiastically and excitedly to their requests a few times a day, the result is MUCH better behavior. Example, Them: "Mommy, can I have a popsicle?" Me: "Sure! Why not? What flavor did you want" Them: stunned and silent and happy for at least two hours.

Anyhow, back to it. We went to the farm. We had visited last week and seen the chicks. Liam absolutely adores hanging in the chicken coop for the young chicks. He picks them up and chases them around. As they get older and more adept at dodging his advances, he does more chasing. Today, I don't think he caught a single one. Last week, however, he caught several. And, as he almost choked the life out them in his little grip, Lenny-style, he noticed a dead chick on the ground. Many, many questions ensued about what happened to the little guy, how did he die? I told him I didn't really know, but it looked as if he was trampled or stepped on. I had to reassure him that the chick was not stepped on by him as it was already dead and squished there when we arrived. He was quite fascinated and had trouble letting the subject go.

I, for one, was glad to see that the carcass had been removed from the coop on this week's visit. Liam, however, immediately noted its absence. "Mommy, where is the dead bird? Where did that dead chick go?" I told him it went to be with God, but he knows better..."Yes, but where did its BODY go?" I told him the farmer probably took it away. He was perplexed and disturbed, but eventually let it go and romped with the baby chicks and visited the rest of the chickens with Elena and me.

At the end of our visit to the farm, we got back into the car. I tried to hurry them along..."Come on now, get into your seats, we have to go home so I can cook dinner. I have a big chicken to put in the oven." As soon as the words had left my mouth I regretted saying them...then Elena said to Liam in an excited voice, "Liam, chicken nuggets for dinner!! WHOO HOO!" That's when it happened. It was almost as if a visible light bulb popped above each child's head. Elena said, "Chicken nuggets! Yay!...Wait...chicken....hmmm...chicken." And then I walked around from securing Liam's seat praying the conversation would be ended by the time I got to the driver's seat. It was not.

Oh shit, it was escalating. Liam was at the helm and he held my heart in his hands. "Mommy," he said almost quivering, "Does the chicken in my nuggets come from the chickens on the farm???" "Is the chicken inside the nuggets from real chickens?"

OH MAN...

Next question: "Wait Mom....REAL chickens die so I can eat them?"

"Awwwww Mommy! I don't want chickens to die!"

Laney, God bless her, was in the back seat trying hard to assuage his fears: "No Liam, not THOSE chickens. Not THOSE ones."

Liam: "But how do they die? Who kills the chicken? Does that man? That farmer we met?"

Laney: "No, not THAT farmer! Another person whose job it is to kill chickens."

Oh help.

Fabric Store Heaven

2010-04-28T04:47:00.000-07:00

Stopped into the fabric store yesterday to poke around in the remnants and fat quarters. Visiting a fabric store, to me, is like visiting a museum. I am surrounded by cacophonous beauty. I have to hold myself back from buying everything I see...because the beauty is not derived from any one fabric, it's the juxtaposition of ALL of them. Consequently, I want to take them ALL home! I have to come up with specific projects to reign in my spending. Just look at yesterday's finds!

My Life in Facebook Statuses (Stati??)

2010-04-27T05:38:00.000-07:00

Here's what's been happening in the last few weeks in small, bite-sized, candy-coated chunks!

Kristen Sassano Gill And some days I am an inspired mother...and other days I am a cranky old woman who wonders where these urchins came from. My poor children.

Kristen Sassano Gill Liam just found an open can of spray paint at Joann's and sprayed himself in the face...It stings, Mommy...yeah, I bet it does, nimrod!

Kristen Sassano Gill What's your favorite Easter hymn???

Kristen Sassano Gill Did anyone else feel like the entire natural world was celebrating Easter today in all it's glory?

Kristen Sassano Gill For the record, my kids CANNOT have MILK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kristen Sassano Gill Heaven is a good walk at lunchtime

Kristen Sassano Gill Seriously, HOW HOT IS IT OUTSIDE

Kristen Sassano Gill GOODNESS, I KNEW I WAS HOT! ... Record high temperature set at LaGuardia NY... a record high temperature of 91 degrees was set at LaGuardia NY today at 354 PM. This breaks the old record of 86 set in 1991.

Kristen Sassano Gill Happy Thursday! (world's most boring and uninspired status)

Kristen Sassano Gill Wanna watch paint dry? Watch your almost six year old tracking time...minute by minute waiting for it to be time for the library to open.

Kristen Sassano Gill Why does painting always end in everybody and everything being paintED?

Kristen Sassano Gill Store bought pie crust is an invention of the gods....we have had homemade chicken pot pie two nights in a row...easy to make and delicious!!!

Kristen Sassano Gill GLEEEEEE!!!! WHEEEEEEEE!!

Kristen Sassano Gill The more I try to figure Lost out, the more tangled I get...well, not true...figuring out the plot is not hard, I twist my brain in knots when I start thinking "BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN???"

Kristen Sassano Gill Tonight, tapas is on the menu tonight....rice balls, turkey and spinach patties and roasted butternut squash

Kristen Sassano Gill "Did you know that dolphins are gay sharks?"

Kristen Sassano Gill http://mobile.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.xml

Kristen Sassano Gill L.M.F.A.O. - Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at Everything hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com

Kristen Sassano Gill Liam's first brain freeze....owwww...."Mommy! Ice cream makes me........HURT!" (while grabbing his forehead and trying to shove his hand down his throat to warm it up)

Kristen Sassano Gill I don't mean to seem like a buzz kill, but I H-A-T-E Wubzy and his band of LOUD friends...

Kristen Sassano Gill Elena Gill: "Dinosaurs aren't real anymore, Liam, they're DISTINCT!"

Kristen Sassano Gill ME: "Life is good...Life is good, Liam" LIAM: "Cause God made it good, Mommy!"

Kristen Sassano Gill Some days are better than others...some days, your son wakes up talking like a prophet and the next day, he disregards every single thing you say until he is kicking your computer and you are holding back from spanking.

Kristen Sassano Gill Why is it that kids don't pick up on PMS? I want you to stop throwing things, climbing on my car, messing up the house, spilling water on yourself, peeing yourself...just for a few days each month...is that too much to ask?

Kristen Sassano Gill Bedtime for the kiddos came in the exact nick of time...I made it by the skin of my teeth...I mean JUST barely.

Kristen Sassano Gill This is EXACTLY what is on my mind right now....
http://www.ritasice.com/uploads/images/gelati.jpg

Kristen Sassano Gill We are about to head out...the kids may not survive until we can actually leave the house. "Liam, please get off the table!!!!"

Kristen Sassano Gill Sometimes the sidebar advertisements are scarily on target...That's ALL I NEED to become part of the "Human Tetris Project" (as if Bejeweled hasn't already stolen enough of my life, time and sanity!)

A Tale of Childhood in Balloons

2010-04-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

JOY:
First, Liam had a balloon. He got it for Easter. It was a big yellow smiley face and he loved it. It made him have a smiley face, too....

DISAPPOINTMENT:
Until, he let it go into space. There was much sobbing...I felt like I was going to cry too...To make matters worse, it wasn't even in space, it was hanging from the high limbs of the elm tree in our driveway. He had much faith in his mommy, "Climb up and get it!!" Um...no...not possible.

SKEPTICISM:
"But Liam, it's great, we can admire it always up there and it will make us smile for a long, long time!" Liam squints and continues to cry.

FURTHER DISAPPOINTMENT:
While I am trying to convince Liam that the balloon will be a nice heralding presence in our driveway from now on, the balloon decided to detach from the tree, thumbing its nose a this line of logic. Imagine me with this face
:-S

REDEMPTION:
We walked to the market and I let him pick out a giant Thomas balloon almost as big as he was...

EVEN FURTHER DISAPPOINTMENT:
It popped within thirty minutes due to death by dragging. The look of indignation on Liam's face was priceless. How DARE you split in two on me! If you only knew the crap I've dealt with with balloons today!

MORE REDEMPTION:
He got a replacement after forcing me into the market to ask for a new one. The new one was small, tied to his hand and his underwear and is still with us...heck, will be with us for the next two months!

POSTSCRIPT:
Liam has moved on, cares nothing for the balloon now, and it merely floats around our house looking to alight on something that might pop it or dart out the door to make a vertical escape and start the whole process of childhood learning over again. Balloons are silly.

The Mystery of Popov

2010-04-21T06:10:00.000-07:00

As I go on my walks around the office complex, there are these Popov vodka bottles as pictured. Not sure where they came from, but I have developed some theories...

1) My suspicion is that they are all from the same person, since they are the exact same bottle, size, brand, etc.

2) They are tossed there from one of the people who works in my office complex.

3) I don't think they are from someone in our building due to the fact that they continue towards a dead end, past our entrance.

4) The bottles were not put there from some partying teens. Since when have you known kids to celebrate with a quart sized bottle of Popov vodka?

5) The bottles are jettisoned on a daily or frequent basis. There must be over 100 of the bottles and they are all in various stages of decomposition.

So, here are the stories I tell myself about the mysterious containers.

Story 1: There is an alcoholic man who lives with his wife and family. They all believe he has quit drinking. So, every day he brings a bottle of vodka to work with him, just enough to get him through the day, but keep him sober enough upon his return home. On his way out, he rolls down his window and tosses the evidence onto the roadside.

Story 2: There is a man who works keeping up the grounds around our building. My theory is that he, as part of his routine, sips at the vodka all day long and then pitches the evidence out onto the road. The wind easily takes the light, plastic container, dispersing it along about a mile stretch of the complex.

I have the weirdest of fantasy of one day bringing a giant garbage bag, collecting every bottle and having a count the bottles contest. I want to photograph them and make Dadaist art. I am intrigued. Like all good mysteries, the answer is not readily available and will continue to offer mind food for my walks for a good long time.

Hanging on the Line...Waiting to be Beat...

2010-04-20T04:37:00.000-07:00

Well, not really...but yesterday was laundry line day. First off, I want to preface this post by saying that although I try to lessen my carbon footprint on this earth, I did not switch to a laundry line to try to save electricity. I switched because, well, our dryer switch shit the bed.

The laundry has been piling up and I was just letting it until the mountain of laundry started scaring me. On Friday, I was at Wal-Mart and I had the hair-brained idea of buying some clothespins and a line. I picked out a cute little retractable 9 ft. line. I installed it yesterday and was surprised to see it held about two sweaters. The kids and I put on our walking shoes and headed off the the True Value. After buying 100 ft. of clothesline, I came back to hang it up.

It all went well. I hung the line, pinned up the first part of the first wet load and watched it flying in the breeze like a triumphant celebration. Soon I was low on clothespins and had to head back to the hardware store for another 50. I finished hanging the load and went to the basement to get the second load...a much heavier (it turns out) dark load.

Just moments later, I was in a tug-o-war with the clothesline which had slipped its knot and was threatening to dirty two loads of laundry. I was freaking out and shouting orders to the children, who at 3 and 5 were frankly more harm than help. Jeans and pjs dangled inches from a pile of dust as tugged and fought with the line, cussing and hemming under my breath. Elena said to me, "Mommy, if this project is going to be so frustrating that you're going to be so mad, maybe we should go inside?" Yikes. At one point, not my finest moment, I had the children holding the line precariously up while I followed the line to its midpoint to untwist it. Poor little dears, arms above heads, were not so pleased with helping Mommy.

Eventually, much yanking and ripping of hand skin later, the line was back up. The children, forgiving my outbursts, ran through the damp clothes, a cliche, reminding me of doing the same many times over as a child.

Sunlight Theory of God

2010-03-15T05:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I had a friend ask me some questions about my faith in God. This was not a contentious discussion, but instead a real honest conversation. The crux of the questioning was, "WHY do you believe in God?" which is one of the hardest questions to answer. I can tell the story of HOW I came to believe in God or WHEN or WHERE...but, WHY? My response, after trying to find stories and logic that would show him why, was to say that I think we are making a head discussion out of something that is really a heart pursuit. I don't ever feel God in my brain...well, I do now, but I certainly didn't feel Him first there. He first held my heart in his hand and healed me with love.

So, as is my way, I tried to think of an analogy to help elucidate this feeling. Here is what I believe. God is like sunlight, bright, warm, enveloping, engendering life and growth. Like the sun, He shines on everything and everybody. With this sunlight, there is no night, only the shadows we create by turning our backs or facing away. He is still there, shining on our backs, reaching for a connection, but we cannot see him. We are turned into our own, self-imposed shadows. We are in the dark and we feel in the dark. When we turn into His light, we are offered all the benefits of his light and love. We grow. We develop. We are able to see. We feel joyous.

Even those of us who spend the good portion of our lives, faces tipped up to God, have times when we turn our backs and live in the shadows. These are times when I try to find my way, on my own, in the dark. Eventually, I turn back into the light and experience the warm, loving touch of my God. I bathe in the sunlight and am warmed all the way through. I bask. I experience the purest joy. I promise I will never turn away again, but I am human and God gave me the freedom to turn away...and sometimes I do.

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SHOT Show #4: And the lights...go down in the city...

2010-01-26T17:53:00.000-08:00

OK Vegas, bone to pick with you. How is it that a city based on its lights and its flashing brightness could have so many burned out bulbs? Is this the city's version of SADS? Have tough economic times taken their toll on the letters and words spelled out on the sides of giant buildings and signs? You be the judge!

Even the convention center...expecting 50,000 hunters with automatic guns...

Let's get with it! Get some of those new-fangled fusili-shaped light bulbs that last 20 years...in your case, they will only last 10, but what the hey, it's going to be an improvement.

SHOT Show Post #3: The Naked Gun

2010-01-26T17:40:00.001-08:00

At one point during the SHOT Show, I looked over and noticed that our bison looked a little nervous...why was he a little nervous? Can you see between his legs? (NO! That's not why he's nervous, dirty mind!)

Here, I'll focus it for you...

Still can't really see it? Here, let me zoom in...

Yup...just your standard naked sniper, nothing really.

And then, staring down the barrel of the naked gun...not sure you can see that he is pointed RIGHT at our bison, but there he is...

Naked gunman. Definitely NOT what I expected to see at SHOT Show...AT ALL!

SHOT Show Post #2 - SHOT Show Cuisine

2010-01-26T05:21:00.001-08:00

Everything is better....
dehydrated?

Scrambled eggs...YUM!
From a can?

Buffalo...It's what's for dinner.

Caroline modeling the latest in cookbooks for our shelves...

At least there is a dessert section:

SHOT Show Post #1 - New Products

2010-01-26T04:51:00.000-08:00

Well, at least new to me!

1) Game Management Systems - aka deer feeders, molasses licks, vitamins syrups and apple and peanut butter flavored pellets. These feeders are touted as nutrient rich. My question was, does the hunter really care to nourish his game? My mistaken assumption about these feeders was that they were only for luring the deer to be shot. Well, actually they are feeding systems that start in the fall and keep the deer around for the spring hunt. Their main goal is to maximize antler growth. Bizarre and, to me, a little like cheating!

2) The Game Sled - When you have bagged your kill, you then can pull it home on a tarpaulin-fashioned sled. My favorite thing about this product, beside the lovely graphic pictures of dead animals being pulled home in slings, was the slogan. Tag it! Bag it! Drag it! (I have to admit it's catchy and sticks with you...it could be heard being uttered around the booth during moments of excitement and frustration).

3) Camo Diva - Yes, ladies, camo is not just for boys anymore. On the off chance that you would like a prom dress, wedding dress, lingerie or swimsuit in camo, check out Camo Diva. Well, even if not, check it out anyway! www.camodiva.com

4) Stag Arms - I have to admit, there is nothing at all special about this product, except that when I first encountered its name, I had no idea what it was. I seriously thought it had something to do with hanging the deer after the kill. My booth mate thought it had to do with the antlers (aren't those the stag arms after all?). Can you tell we are not hunters? Stag arms is merely a hunting gun maker. OHHHH! THAT kind of arm!

5) Burnham Brothers - While not the catchiest named business, the products they make were interesting to me because I never would have conceived of a market for them. They made calls. Not only the traditional duck and goose calls you would expect, but dying rabbit calls and hurt animal calls that would attract the predator to become prey.

Las Vegas...You are a strange bird...

2010-01-22T07:03:00.000-08:00

So, you want to have an out of body experience? Go to Vegas...It's unlike anything else in the world. Bring thousands of dollars, because buying even a caramel apple is $13.99 (yes, SERIOUSLY). Expect to be buzzed on lights, hopped up on smoke, mingled with the pure oxygen I am told they pump into the casinos. The overstimulation continues.

Now, when most people go to Vegas (which means meadows, I wikipedia-ed it), they are expecting to become night owls, nay, vampires. Up all night, exploring their dark sides and sleeping all day in small closed up caves. We are not among these people. We do not enjoy the lights and craziness and the hedonism, frankly makes us sick. But, more practically, we are forced to get up at 5:30, get ready to be on our feet all day at the trade show. This does not a night owl make. I may be the first person to visit Vegas, not do any of the traditional Vegas things and go to sleep before 10 every night.

Coming tomorrow...posts on the other strange bird...SHOT Show.

Kiki Does Vegas

2010-01-18T06:12:00.001-08:00

Vegas is definitely a place you can poke fun at. You can laugh at the two women who you are pretty sure are hookers (or is the modern accepted term escorts?) when you arrive in your hotel lobby. You can cringe at the signs vasectomy.com – It’s easier than you think…and Babes Delivered to your Door. Excess is everywhere. Rome called, they want their hedonistic culture back.

When you fly into Vegas, it is as if it has sprouted up out of the arid soil like some radioactive mushroom patch. As you get closer, you see the skyline of New York City, a pyramid with a column of light shining straight up from it, drilling into the clouds, a roller coaster spiraling through and around buildings, and everywhere lights…so many lights. I could say it looks like Christmas, but that would be to sanctify it too much…it’s more like a two-year-old’s Lite Bright play – clashing, cacophonous, and acidic. Overstimulation has a rapid onset. I imagine there aren’t many who can sleep here, like children on the night before a big event, but I do not have that problem. I am a bit out of place as a morning person, one who longs for trees, nature and blue skies. It’s a very interesting place to peep at, but I will be happy to head home and see Vegas in my rear-view mirror.

What Was Grammy-Nanny Thinking?

2009-12-09T14:24:00.000-08:00

It's a little disconcerting when you come home after a snow day when the family has been a little stir crazy with cabin fever and this is the page that is up on the computer when you pull it up. Not, necessarily a bad idea...I'm just sayin'!

I Want to Ask a Question

2009-12-07T04:48:00.001-08:00

120509 035, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

The other day, the same day as the great pup tent experiment, I came into the room to find Liam attempting to shove this Rare Earth 45 into a CD player annoucing, "I want to play some music!"

My question is this: how did he know that this was an archaic form of music media?

This picture brings me right back to a party my parents had when I was Elena's age and this was one of my hand-me-down records. The Wallin kids and I turned off the lights and played "cool" music on my little record player. This one, Black and White by Three Dog Night and Papa Was a Rolling Stone by the Temptations. There was that little, swastika-shaped yellow piece of plastic that fit into the center hole so it could be played on the tiny spindle. In retrospect, we were COOL, I think, as five-year-olds go!

Tis the Season for....Obsession

2009-12-07T04:44:00.001-08:00

120509 028, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Every year as the holiday season encroaches, I start my ornaments. This year it's felting. Felting acorns, little flowers, fiddlehead ferns in pots, fawns, dogs, cupcakes, and, of course, fried eggs!

Yesterday We Tried Something New

2009-12-07T04:39:00.001-08:00

120509 041, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I was trying to head off the game of "beaver dam" by setting up the pup tent, INSIDE. I had delusions of happy children playing neatly in the tent for days on end. An inspiring fort, with just enough rule breaking to be interesting, I had hoped it would rivet them to the playroom, buying me time to read and do my felting projects. Not so, I'm afraid.

First of all, the interest in the tent lasted only about as long as any other toy...forty minutes or so. Secondly, the tent, being in essence a giant receptacle, inspired what can only be called an unsorting game. A collection of all the toys of the playroom, the winter clothing housed up there and pieces of paper trash from near and far gathered inside the tent. This game was WORSE than beaver dam.

Couple that with my sense of false security thinking I had stumbled on the perfect entertainment...and you have disaster. Turns out we had upturned game boards, dumped out bins and, the piece de resistance, the twin bed sheet on the bed up there decorated Pollack-style with green marker. What is that saying about the word assume...

Sunday Dinners

2009-12-04T05:17:00.000-08:00

Looking in from the outside, there sits the family eating Sunday dinner at my aunt Pat's. For years and years, all my childhood (when we lived in the NY area), we had Sunday dinners at Grandma and Grandpa's. I remember bringing our new puppy to show them. Celebrating birthdays...and fresh hams...where I could pick the fat squares off the top while Grandpa carved the meat. Like this:

Halloween...Elena the Zebra

2009-12-04T05:15:00.000-08:00

Camisole with a No-Pantyline Promise??

2009-12-04T05:14:00.000-08:00

Explain to me how a cami would leave a panty-line anyway...

From the Cutting Room Floor...Brooklyn Trip

2009-12-04T05:08:00.000-08:00

More pictures that were taken and never blogged below...

There's just something about the light in Brooklyn:

A little tired on the way home:

I Am Abandoning Ship

2009-12-04T04:34:00.000-08:00

I made it to day 290 in my 365 project. I still take a picture a day, but have been so falling behind in my blogging about each picture, that I am putting an end to the guilt I feel. This does not mean I won't blog and this does not mean I will not post pictures. I will do both. It just means I am not beholden to telling you stories from damn near two months ago. Here are some of the pictures I have taken in the last two months that would have been blogs with captions underneath summarizing what I was going to write about...then I can move on from the guilt and get back to my good old-fashioned blog.

Mom and Dad's anniversary...40 years:

Tree Me! The arrival of the Christmas trees at Youngs the day before Thanksgiving. We put ours up the weekend after:

Flipping Off...this is a tree at our church. I cannot tell if it is a manufactured "sculpture" that is made to look like a hand giving the finger, or some sort of fungus that grew that way...

Uno! The WKC winner from last year memorialized in plush:

Gluten-Free candy cookies made with all the leftover Halloween mini-bars:

These eggs were from our friends' chickens! Aren't they beautiful!

"Blessed are the cracked, for they let in the light."

Running down Pin Pack, returning from the Casey Lane hike...I loved how they are in matching form:

A sign I spotted on my walk which made me think of times gone by:

Look at this dandy fellow:

Have you ever really stopped to look at how creepy this sign is? Perhaps the sign itself is effective as a deterrent to prowlers!

Let the felting begin! Felted acorns:

Squirrel nests...this one's for you, Robin and Tiff!

Sparkling stream, bubbling like seltzer in the morning sun:

This was going to be a good blog! When Liam went Brooklyn with his godfather, Doug, Doug came back announcing that it was very interesting to see Halloween decor through a 3-year-old's eyes. In Brooklyn, the big thing is to hang giant spider webs of stretchy polyester that reach from first to second story of your brownstone. Liam eyed then all trepidatiously and Doug said he could almost hear him thinking, "Um...how about this big 'pider problem you all have in Brooklyn? Can't you do something about it?"

Two Thumbs Up for The Bissell House, new restaurant in the Ridge:

Long-limbed Italian greyhound, Milo...belonging to a friend.

Goodwill find as I was setting up a 60's table for Mom's birthday party:

Business meeting in New York City completed, waiting for my car at the parking garage...killing time:

Looking East and West at the same time:

Um...maybe Scientology IS the path to Heaven? ;)

Times Square security camera:

The 80's called and they want their flourescent, splatter paint embellishment BACK:

When you get change from the Metro-North train machines, you get gold coins...And I love them...

Liam does too:

A Church Glows in Brooklyn:

OCTOBER 17th: New Obsession

2009-11-08T05:14:00.001-08:00

Cooking Calendar Spine, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

What do I need when the days get shorter and the weather colder? A new obsession, of course. In November and December, it will Christmas readying, but in October, it's books. I have started haunting book sales to find little gems, like this cookbook from the 60's. I bought $45.00 worth of books at the Ridgefield book sale and sold 8 books on ebay for over $150.00. CHA-CHING! I'm sold...and a new obsession is born.

OCTOBER 14th: It's Getting Dark Earlier

2009-11-08T05:09:00.001-08:00

IMG00138.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Six-thirty and the sun is going down. The autumnal equinox nearly a month behind us and the days are getting shorter and the nights are stretching into the days, licking them away early and making me sleepy. At 6:30 in the summer I remember still swimming, trying to drag the kids out of the lake. At 6:30 in the fall, I am huddled in a down coat in the car, chilly, waiting for the kids to come in off the playground so we can go home. I feel ready for the half-hibernation I will embark on once we fall back, but scared for the slowing of my exercise routine and quieting of my social life. I withdraw. It happens every year. I should be used to it by now.

OCTOBER 11th: Bissell House

2009-11-08T05:01:00.001-08:00

IMG00128.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

There's a new restaurant in town. One weekend, when I had no kiddos, I was actually able to get to church and afterward stopped by Bissel House to get brunch. The golden, autumn sun warmed us as we sat and ate wonderful food. I highly recommend, if you live in the Ridgefield area, partaking of the Bissell House fare!

OCTOBER 8th: Milo

2009-11-08T04:59:00.001-08:00

IMG00111.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I met a new friend. She has a dog, two of them to be precise. This is Milo, the Italian Greyhound. He loves to stand up at the window stretching his elegant tallness to its fullest. Isn't he gorgeous?

OCTOBER 12th: Halloween Approacheth

2009-11-08T04:57:00.001-08:00

Scary Sign, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

When Halloween starts to come into season, scary things crop up. I am not a fan. I am not a fan of dark costumes, deathly themes and the supernatural. I have never been a fan of anything but the creativity of Halloween (oh, and the candy). Anyhow, October 12, we went to eat at the local Mexican restaurant and they had the whole place decked out. Day of the Dead had just passed, so they had a lot of skulls and skeletons around, but they also had this sign.

Liam noticed it about halfway through the meal. He jumped out of his chair and was about run amuck through the restaurant, as he so often does...I'm such a good mother! Anyhow, he saw it and stopped dead in his tracks. The curiosity in his eyes was palpable. Surely, this sign must be announcing that someone had just died on this spot or something horrible. I could almost see the chill run up his spine. He turned to me and asked, "Mommy, WHAT does that sign say and WHY does it wook wike it's written in blood??" Halloween is an enigma if you don't remember ever experiencing it before.

OCTOBER 13th: Fire Chief's Funeral

2009-11-07T04:58:00.001-08:00

Fire Chief Funeral 044, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

It all started when I was driving Liam to school and we got behind a fire truck from about 1930. Odd to see this truck, shined up and driving on the road at 9AM. Odder still to see a fireman, dressed in full regalia with white gloves and a hat on driving it. I felt I had stepped back in time!

I dropped Liam off at school and went for my walk. I saw firemen in their finest hanging about the firestation. I was curious, I asked one of them. He told me that Richard McGlynn, the town's first paid fire chief had died and that they were all coming out to honor him. I continued my walk and got some random shots of clusters of firemen standing by polished rigs:

I walked by St. Mary's Catholic Church as everyone was gathering there with bagpipers and police cars:

I felt I was spying, gawking, at something very sacred, so I walked on and went home.

When I came back with Elena to pick Liam up from school, the funeral was just getting out. Throngs of the firemen were hurrying back to the fire station. I brough the children over and we sat across the way, quietly, and watched stock still. The firemen put out a table with a chief's hat and uniform and all lined up behind it. They stood at ease for some time.

As the funeral procession left the church and approached the fire station, the chief called out to the ranks to stand at attention...

The hearse approached and they all saluted in unison:

The hearse then pulled in front of the station, led by all the old and glorious machines and paused:

The station blew a three whistle salute and the old chief moved on to his final resting place. It was one of the most moving experiences of my life.

OCTOBER 9th: Photo Hike

2009-11-07T04:37:00.001-08:00

Lovers Leap 101009 038, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

One of my favorite things to do when I drop my kiddos off at their dad's, is to stop at Lover's Leap State Park and go for a hike. On this particular hike, I brought my camera and photographed the turning leaves and beginnings of autumn. The best thing about Lover's Leap is that there are still trails I haven't conquered, so I chose one of those this day. I found all kinds of interesting things:

First off, that's a steep cliff down to water that you walk along the whole time you are hiking...I was so grateful I didn't have Master Liam with me!

I found this really neat yellow fungus:

and this weird, almost roiling red fungus:

Cool moss:

Beautful pink quartz:

Weird blue wood...*what the heck is that?*

And then, a little outbuilding I was especially drawn to:

I poked around outside it:

And inside:

I wanted to hop inside it, but saw that water was running through the little house, and figured I better go around back to investigate. When I tried to peer around the backside, I realized about a third of the house was hanging over the cliff's edge! Good thing I didn't go inside!

OCTOBER 7th: Soccer Walk

2009-11-07T04:22:00.001-08:00

Soccer Walk, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

On my walk today, I played kick the hickory nuts. I think I must have looked quite uncoordinated, but joyous as I skipped along, alone, kicking nature's balls as if I were Pele. I got some good exercise and was grateful for this time of year and its myriad gifts from the trees!

OCTOBER 6th: Beautiful Sky at Dusk

2009-11-07T04:20:00.001-08:00

IMG00106.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I love the undulating puffs of clouds. It looks like I am lying underwater, in a river and someone dropped a dump truck load of shipping peanuts on the skin of the water. There is a sense of motion and stillness at the same time. This picture does not do the real thing justice.

OCTOBER 5th: Notice if You Will

2009-11-07T04:16:00.001-08:00

Good Morning Liam, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Ni Hao Kai Lan is on at 6:30AM. Notice how DARK it is at 6:30? Notice that window in the background that is pitch black? Notice how awake Liam is, he's already dumping cars in piles on the floor (his M.O.)? Yup...he's my morning boy. I don't mind it, as long as I go to bed at nine. So, being a mom really does eat up the entirety of your social life, or at least mine! Anyone for breakfast?

OCTOBER 1st: It's called marketing...

2009-11-07T04:07:00.001-08:00

Oct 1 Work Project, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Elena says she's heard that word before. When I asked her what she thought it meant, she said, "Giving stuff away to people" Pretty good! Although, it's giving stuff away to people with the hope that they will return to you to buy something...I guess. Or, it can be just getting your name out.

Anyhow, big work project done. 28 boxes off to the post office.

September 30th - Give Us A Call

2009-11-07T04:03:00.001-08:00

Oct 1 wolf in a box, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Spent the day boxing up stuffed animals for a marketing project. This was the culmination of weeks of work. Each box has a "calling card" an informational card, an invitation to call us, and a stuffed animal (our product). Fun, fun, fun....

I'm a Little Behind!

2009-11-07T03:53:00.000-08:00

I am going to do my best to catch up, but my computer has that wonderful problem that computers so often have where the female portion of the power adapter has separated from the motherboard so it cannot be powered up. I hate that our world builds disposability into things, such as laptops. I hate that I have had this happen to several laptops over the years. I hate that I can't take the top off and repair it like I would do with a toaster or toilet. So, I am relegated to stealing time on my daughter's or mother's computer. Can't blog at work, so here I am weeks and weeks behind.

SEPTEMBER 29th: I Feel Better for Five Minutes!!

2009-10-21T06:40:00.001-07:00

Sept 29 003, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I felt better on Tuesday evening. Better enough to leave the house, go to the knitting store, buy colored roving, and gather rocks to felt. Weird? Yes. I have always sprung out of bed with energy and a project in mind. All that lounging around had left me itching, positively yearning to do something productive! So, off I went to my friend Amy's house where I made dinner and felted rocks. Sure, I came home after an hour and a half of exertion and collapsed, but it was well worth it!

SEPTEMEBER 28th: Feed a Cold, er, Sinus Infection Cream Puffs!!

2009-10-21T06:37:00.001-07:00

IMG00086.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Being sick for so long, I wasn't able to get out and do much. So, when Ketra was heading to the Big E, I begged her to bring me a cream puff. Even though, I really couldn't taste and probably enjoyed the thing only fractionally compared to last year's that I ate at the sunny fair venue itself, I was most grateful to have a bit of the festivities brought to me!

SEPTEMBER 25: The Lost Weekend

2009-10-21T06:33:00.001-07:00

Sept 28 Still Sick, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

This is me for days. Boring? Yes. Relaxing? Yes. Sick? Yes. Hello Z-pack!!!!

SEPTEMBER 24th: Beginning of the End!

2009-10-21T06:30:00.001-07:00

Sept 25 Not Well, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

My family jests that the way you can tell you have a sinus infection is that you no longer want to go on. You are content to image death stealing up behind you and snatching you while you sleep or moan quietly. Sound dramatic? Well, I'm telling you, it was! I slept and remained in bed for at least four days before going to the doctor on Monday the 26th...let's just say these won't be the most exciting blog days!

SEPTEMBER 23: Hugh Heffner and Potty Training

2009-10-21T06:26:00.001-07:00

SEPTEMBER 23: Hugh Heffner and Potty Training, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Liam is spending a lot of his time naked as of late. Apparently, it's one of the only ways to remind him that he needs to sit on the potty when he has to go. It works pretty well, too. The family is getting a little sick of seeing his "junk" hanging out all over the place, though.

SEPTEMBER 22nd: Elena Getting Off the Bus

2009-10-21T06:22:00.001-07:00

IMG00055.jpg, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I love seeing my kids' artistic eyes developing. This is a picture Elena drew of her bus. There she is getting off the bus (or on, hard to know). Some family member is waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, no doubt her beloved Grammy! I love the detail and I love the way you can see the entire bodies of the people on the bus as if she has X-ray vision...do you think she does?

SEPTEMBER 21st: International Peace Day

2009-10-21T06:17:00.001-07:00

Pinwheels for Peace 002, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

And then we planted them on UN Peace Day. I was so proud. They looked beautiful. My children, angels that they are, were taught about peace. I was such a good mother!

And then, along came Liam walking softly with a big stick. "I smash-ded them, Mommy"

SEPTEMBER 20th: Getting Ready for International Peace Day

2009-10-21T06:16:00.001-07:00

Sept 20 094, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Apparently, every year people all over the world create pinwheels for peace. Last year, I missed the boat and was quite disappointed by that! So, this year, I prepared ahead of time. For days prior, as a family, we made peace pinwheels. What a great family project! We talked about what peace means. We did art together on the kitchen floor. We put ourselves on the map at www.pinwheelsforpeace.com. I even printed out fifty blank pinwheels and had them taken to church so the whole congregation could participate! Here are some pictures from our experience:

SEPTEMBER 19th: Sometimes I Get it Right!

2009-10-21T06:08:00.001-07:00

Sept 20 052, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

This was the snack I made for Elena one day after school. She LOVED it. It made me think about "Love Languages" and where they come from. Do we instill a particular love language in our kids by how we love them or are they born "hearing" a certain way? It seems to me that Elena is one who appreciates gifts and works. When I do things for her or with her, I get the "You're the best mommy in the world!!" kind of accolades. Liam, it would appear is all about closeness and touch.

How about your kids? Have you read the Five Love Languages? It's fascinating! I recommend skimming it! It's a neat concept.

SEPTEMBER 17th: In all Seriousness

2009-10-21T06:04:00.001-07:00

Sept 20 034, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Are these the prettiest eyes? Sometimes they remind me of my eyes:

SEPTEMBER 16th: Bear, Bear, Lambie et al

2009-10-21T05:57:00.001-07:00

Sept 20 041, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

Somedays, my little boy seems littler. Days like this day, when he lugs all his bed-friends to the bus stop to put his sister on the Kindergarten bus, the age difference between the two of them seems monstrous...much larger an abyss than usual.

This leads me to my most recent favorite story of Liam and his bed buddy, Lambie.

Liam: Doesn't Wambie have the cutest ears, Mommy?
Me: Yes, they are adorable.
Liam: I want to have cute ears wike Wambie.
Me: But, you have adorable ears, Liam!
Liam: (pauses to think for a moment and who knows what path his brain takes) I don't want to grow up to be an old lady!!!!!!!!

SEPTEMBER 15: Mountain Climbers

2009-10-02T18:25:00.001-07:00

Sept 15 Mountain Climbers, originally uploaded by Kikigill.

I came across this Jack-in-the-Pulpit while I was walking. It immediately took me back to being an eight-year-old in Brookfield, playing Mountain Climbers. We used to play this game for days on end. There was stack of firewood that had all sort of organically shaped nooks for storing items. We used to pretend we were pioneers gearing up for the winter. We would store various items in the various cubbies. We would prepare meals and salads of all the items we found. Somehow, we always knew not to eat them...thank goodness. We had cubbies that served as ovens, cubbies that served as refrigerators and cubbies that served as pure dry storage. We would forage all over the neighborhood, traveling blocks and blocks to pick deep eggplant colored sumac flowers (which, in case you haven't noticed smell like raspberries), Queen Anne's Lace roots plucked out, sliced with stone knives like carrots, or these Jack-in-the-Pulpits, which we called corn. It all involved creativity. It all involved fake food...hmmmm...