A City Mom

How Not to Cook a Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner

2011-11-24T10:06:00.001-06:00

The "chef" at Thanksgiving. See how easy?

Here are some easy steps to follow to guarantee your Thanksgiving dinner will raise your blood pressure and lower everyone else's expectations for next year:

1) Don’t make sure the turkey has defrosted the day before Thanksgiving (today!!). This will ensure that cool, refreshing iced-turkey taste your family will grow to love.

2) Leave the giblets, kidneys and heart and all that other gross nasty stuff inside the turkey when you put it in the oven. This is a nice touch when your judgmental mother-in-law is in the room distracting you with her judgmentalness while you’re so kindly trying to feed her hypocritical ass. Ask husband to distract said mother-in-law, diverting her attention to the bonfire he started down the street on the corner, so you can remove giblets, kidneys, heart and all that other gross nasty stuff before the plastic bag they’re in starts to melt, setting off smoke detectors.

3) Make giblet gravy with actual giblets.

4) When you remove canned cranberries from the can, slide it out onto a plate so it retains its perfect canned shape. This takes patience and years of practice (Secret Hint: puncturing the bottom of the can will help eliminate the vacuum allowing cranberries to slide out easily!) Whatever you do, don’t get a can of whole cranberries and stir them up and put them in a fancy bowl so people think you flew to a Massachusetts bog to hand pick them, then spent days simmering them over low heat using grandma’s secret cranberry sauce recipe, or anything like that. (Secret Hint: Ocean Spray!)

5) Every year, for fourteen years, panic when the turkey is taking too long to cook and you think you won’t be eating dinner until midnight.

6) Every year, for fourteen years, panic when the turkey’s temperature rapidly starts to rise in the last half-hour of cooking and your mashed potatoes are still raw, rock solid lumps.

7) Don’t let the turkey “rest” before carving. You’re tired, you’re hungry, you’ve been working all day and it’s the turkey that needs a rest? Forgetaboutit. Cut it up right away. This will guarantee nice, dry and possibly mealy-tasting breast meat.

8) When you finally sit down and start eating, just dig in. Don’t go around the table and make everybody say one thing (or more!) that they’re thankful for. This will make absolutely sure that the true meaning of Thanksgiving—Food, Football—is not lost on anyone!

A City Mom would like to wish everyone an absolutely wonderful and Happy Thanksgiving! And one thing you can be thankful for this year? You’re not eating at my house.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

Lockerless Schools? Not in Chicago.

2011-11-24T10:05:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 17, 2011 at 9:59 am

According to this article in the USA Today, USA Today: Lockerless Schools?, many schools are transitioning to lockerless because of the influx of ebooks and ereaders. While this trend bodes well for the backs and shoulders of our kids, I was saddened to hear the news. The schools cite cost savings and the fact there are less tardies and less opportunity to hide a weapon. But like the passing of vinyl, Bozo Circus and Dixie cups, it's just one more thing from my childhood that's going away.

I don't know how many people have fond memories of their school lockers, especially kids like David Peoples, who quite routinely got stuffed into one. There was the one time I was walking down a deserted junior high hallway, only to be startled to see a locker door open, from the inside, and watch Scotty Griffin walk out. "I just wanted to see if I would fit," was all he offered as explanation, but we shared a pretty good laugh that, without lockers, we otherwise wouldn't have.

For a short period, I harbored a secret crush on Tom Stringfellow, whose locker was always right next to mine, until he fell in love with Debbie Blaha and I turned my affections elsewhere. Today, with all the social media and the onset of texting as the primary means of teenaged communication, I think the social aspect of lockers may be missed. Being thrown, albeit alphabetically, next to kids from every different facet of the social sphere, you know, if a sphere had facets, was unique to the locker assignment. Where else would brains or the popular kids routinely be placed next to geeks or next to jocks or next to stoners?

But it occurs to me CPS will probably not be able to do away with the school locker until they find a way to do with another tardy-causing, costly annoyance: The Chicago Winter. (Most of the schools mentioned in the USA Today story were in more temperate climates.) A case in point: My son once forgot his coat on a chair in his high school cafeteria, only to remember it seconds later. He quickly ran back for it, but it was gone faster than you could say Columbia Crest, which doesn't make any sense because Columbia Crest makes Chardonnay, Mom, so where is your head at? Ahem. The new winter coat disappeared faster than you can say "Columbia Sportswear."

So, unless they expect our kids to wear their coats and gloves and scarves around all day along with their ebooks and ereaders and elunches (!?), I can take solace in knowing at least one less artifact from my childhood, the school locker, will disappear from my childrens’. I only wish I could have said the same thing about the resurgence of those bell-bottomed jeans.

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O'Hare World's Buzziest Airport: Sweet Beginnings aviation apiary raises bees and hope

2011-11-24T10:04:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 13, 2011 at 11:11 am

This article in Food Safety News: Food Safety News: When honey isn't honey came out just last week and personally, I find what it says about the quality of our honey supply startling, especially when you consider most people turn to honey as a healthier alternative to white sugar. But have no fear! A City Mom is here. And I'm going to tell you about a unique alternative to that questionable honey that comes out of that little bear's head and the local company that produces it: Sweet Beginnings.

In this difficult economy, it’s tough enough to find a job. Now imagine if you have “ex-convict” on your resume. Five years ago, the non-profit North Lawndale Employment Network (NLEN) founded Sweet Beginnings, a wholly owned (for profit) subsidiary designed to create jobs for formerly incarcerated individual and others with significant barriers to employment. Today, Sweet Beginnings, makers of Beeline products, employs seven to ten transitional employees and two semi-permanent Team Leaders at any given time.

This is no ordinary jobs program. You see, Sweet Beginnings runs apiaries. That’s right, beehives. And raising bees is not the only unusual thing about them. These beehives are located at the airport, the only airport apiaries in the country. So, does this make O’Hare the world’s buzziest airport, too? (sorry) I hereby officially declare, Yes, it does.

Holly Blackwell, General Manager of Sweet Beginnings, says they have three apiary sites in Chicago. Their first was in North Lawndale. A second, for education and honey purposes, was built at Wright College. The apiary at O'Hare came about, she says, when they were approached by several parties from the Chicago Department of Aviation, who had an interest in "urban" beekeeping, sustainability and in NLEN's social mission to create jobs. "We found the intersection of environmental consciousness, a way to expand our beekeeping capacities, strong partnerships with a world-class organization, and the potential for more jobs creation to be exceptionally compelling," Blackwell says, adding that although O'Hare is the first US airport to host an apiary, Germany has led the way in the practice, using the bee colonies onsite to test for air quality.

At Sweet Beginnings, employees learn to take care of the bees and harvest the honey, which is then either sold as is, or used in its all-natural line of skincare products called Beeline. The Beeline products include body creams, lotions and balms and body washes. They’re all made at their North Lawndale location on the city's west side and then packaged and shipped or delivered throughout Chicagoland and around the country. They've even placed orders as far away as Australia! Could Beeline Honey eventually replace vegemite!?! (Having tried vegemite, I personally think it should.)

Every potential Sweet Beginnings employees must first participate in the NLEN's U-Turn Permitted program , where they learn and sharpen skills they'll need to find, keep and perhaps even use to successfully leave a job. The U-Turn Permitted participants take a one-month workforce readiness class and prospective employees of Sweet Beginnings are taken from this pool for interviews.

One Sweet Beginnings employee said of the program, "I gained a lot of different experiences and gained knowledge of something I thought I would never be doing, but I know I will be able to take this experience and use (it) in other jobs and life. It's a great start for me to get back on my feet and begin working again and take a positive step forward towards my future. My family is very proud of me for getting this job, so thank you."

You can find Beeline products in fine shops, at the Peninsula Hotel, Whole Foods and, of course, at O’Hare airport. There’s some buzz (sorry) that Beeline is looking to possibly open another apiary at Midway Airport. I would even go so far as to suggest Northerly Island, so at least something would be flying at the site that was formerly Meigs Field.

The incidents of reoffending for ex-convicts is 65% nationally and 55% in Illinois, yet the rate of recidivism for employees of Sweet Beginnings is less than four percent. And as far as statistics for success go, that’s sweet.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

Lucky 1111

2011-11-24T10:03:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 11, 2011 at 11:11 am

11:11 11/11/11

1111 has been my lucky number for years [A City Mom 1/11/11 ] and so I feel compelled to post today at 11:11. Unfortunately, due to some pretty poor planning on my part, I will not be celebrating 11:11 11/11/11 holding hands with other robe-clad individuals in a field, but in a dentist's chair.
I will still consider 1111 my lucky number if tomorrow I can report, "No cavities."

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Psychoanalyzing Cats

2011-11-24T10:01:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 10, 2011 at 8:45 am

He's thinking "I like the window," or "I hate the window," or "Knock it off with that stupid baby-talk voice, you're killing me."

Last weekend I introduced myself to someone I knew only from a photo, but whom I sort of work with, (it's complicated) and when I did, I not only got the stink eye, but the cold shoulder as well. I mean ouch, right? I tried not to stew on it, but you know me; I did. Later when I told the husband about the whole thing, he responded with his canned answer to all situations similar: "You're psychoanalyzing cats."

I love this household saying of ours. Psychoanalyzing cats. And it did get me off my own case. If you have pets, you surely know what we mean by it. You’re doing it when you sit there trying to figure out what on earth is going on inside your cat's head when for some reason he decides to poop right next to the litter box and this behavior lasts for a week and it makes no difference whether the litter box is clean or dirty or if it's late at night or early in the morning or if there's a full moon in the sky. And then, just as suddenly as it started, the behavior stops. So you think, "Oh, he must have been mad about something" and it never occurs to you that it probably isn't healthy to be anthropomorphizing your pets and perhaps you're the one in need of psychoanalysis.

But my point, finally, is that you will never know what, if anything, is actually going through your cat's head and so the exercise of kitty psychoanalysis is pointless. Moot. A waste of time. Much like trying to figure out why someone you sort of work with, who publicly appears to be all outgoing and friendly, gave you the hairy eyeball when you introduced yourself.

But it doesn’t stop me from doing it all the time, reading motivation into things people say or do to me: “Maybe Susie doesn’t like me anymore!” “Maybe he’s mad at me.” “Maybe she disapproves of how I handled that.” Whatever. It’s ridiculous. Because, as with cats, you’ll never truly know what people are thinking, if anything. That is unless you ask them point blank. But I would consider this to be risky behavior in some social situations, because then you might find out the actual truth of what they think of you. I know! This is why I stick with random conjecture, projecting my fears and prejudices on others by imagining their personal behavior motivations. Even though I’m probably way off and not anywhere near the truth. It might just be better to be blissfully ignorant, I think. Better, and much more fun anyway, to be psychoanalyzing cats.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

Are Chicago Public School teachers overdeveloped?

2011-11-24T10:00:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 7, 2011 at 9:14 am

Today begins a three week stretch in which my sons will go to school for only three days a week. This week, Veteran’s Day is Friday the 11^th but the school added a “Professional Development Day” on Thursday. The first three-day week. Next week report card pick-up is on Thursday and traditionally on report card pick-up day there’s no school for the students. Fine. But they added yet another “Development Day” next Friday. The second three-day week. In a row. The following week is the Thanksgiving holiday, so I suppose that’s excused. But still. Three three-day weeks in a row? It prompted one of my sons to ask at dinner last week, “I worry our teachers will be overdeveloped!”

I don’t know where he gets it.

Adding ninety-minutes to the school day seems like an awful lot and as I stated previously I’m on the fence about it. What’s a card-carrying union member CPS parent to think? Although, I’m starting to lean in a new direction. What if instead of adding time to the school day, my kids just spent more days in school? It would mean they wouldn’t have to travel to and from school in the dark quite as often. They would have more time at home for homework or other extra-curricular activities. And it would have the added benefit of not having so many overdeveloped teachers, which , I don't know, kinda sounds like something there should be medication for.

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Take "do a barrel roll" out for a spin

2011-11-24T09:58:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, November 4, 2011 at 9:17 am

I’ve never particularly enjoyed doing aerobatics and therefore Google’s latest easter egg “do a barrel roll” didn’t hold a whole lot of interest for me. But still. I kinda wanted to see it. At least once. (Go to Google’s home page Google Home Page and type in “do a barrel roll.” The whole page flips around.) Watching that page rotate gave me horrible flashbacks to every time in my flying career that I’d ever been exposed to aerobatics.

But it did make me laugh out loud. Which is more than I can say for the spins I was forced to do as a flight student. In order to become a Certified Flight Instructor, which I needed to become in order to gain flight time, I had to learn spins. Spins. Not barrel rolls. Not split S’s or loops. Just spins. I hated spins. In order for the Beechcraft Sport I flew to do a spin, the fuel tanks could only be filled halfway as opposed to the full tanks we usually left with. When I would come in from my preflight inspection, after having noticed the half empty (yes, pessimistically half empty) tanks I would be three shades paler than when I’d left.

My instructor, one of the best pilots I’ve ever known, forced me to do spins over and over. And over. It was like he scared the fear of them out of me. In order for me to become certified as an instructor I had to do two solo spins, one to the left and one to the right. While the temptation when flying solo was to just say I’d done them, I did do them. Only once. One to the left and one to the right.

Eventually as an instructor, I had to start teaching spins to my students. Most of them seemed to enjoy rapidly spinning downward toward the earth at an unnatural angle in an airplane. I know! But what perhaps made me the proudest, was when a few other instructors began asking me to take their students up for the lesson on spins. Because they didn’t want to. Because they hated spins. And I did take their students up and I taught them to spin.

While they will never be one of my favorite things in terms of actually doing them in an airplane, spins are one of my favorite things in terms of doing something that I was afraid of and mastering it. The little flip my stomach did when I watched Google’s home page turn upside down reminded me of all that, something I hadn’t thought about in years, and so thanks Google, for your latest easter egg, which made this former spin-a-phobe smile.

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Don't be a pumpkin bumpkin! Keep them out of the landfill

2011-11-24T09:57:00.001-06:00

I stumbled upon a way to keep our carved pumpkins out of the landfill quite accidentally about five years ago. Not having enough time to bag them up, I just put them in the backyard garden. Then never got around to it. Thanks to the squirrels and a Chicago winter, they decomposed quite nicely. By the time spring flower planting time came around, the only trace of pumpkin remaining was the stem.

The pumpkins left in sunny spots decomposed more quickly. And they added some nice color until they, well, until they didn't.

Or, you could try what we did one year. Just ignore the giant pumpkin on the front porch in hopes that someone (Santa?) would carve it up and take it away. While it may be worth a few laughs, from personal experience with the gag reflex induced in disposing of said pumpkin, I cannot recommend this approach.

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

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On Halloween: Five things that scared me as a kid and the adult fears they morphed into.

2011-11-24T09:55:00.001-06:00

In honor of Halloween, I’ve gone back and opened up those scary childhood closets, looked under the bed to remind myself of all the things that used to make me afraid. And, as an added benefit (no charge) we’ll see how those childhood fears have morphed into the things that now scare me as a grown-up.

1) Childhood Fear:Vampires
I was terrified of vampires as a kid. I watched a scary vampire movie and afterwards, had to sleep on my back for a year, afraid to give any vampires lurking nearby the temptation of too much exposure to my sleeping neck.
Adult Fear: Upper Management
The way these guys unapologetically seem to relish sucking the life-blood out of companies and taking pay and benefits away from employees all in the name of profitability and responsibility to shareholders, then paying themselves big giant bonuses is terrifying. It’s even scarier when they drive their companies to the brink and then get big government bailouts. At my tax-payer expense. Yikes!

2) Childhood Fear: The open closet door at night
Even if it were open just a half-inch, my parents had to close it before I could sleep. I don’t know what I was afraid would come out of there, although those 1970’s fashions were pretty scary.
Adult Fear: The lack of transparency in our government
We really can’t see behind those closed doors. Until all politicians actually do start wearing NASCAR style patches from their campaign contributors on the outside of their suits, and until mayoral task forces designed to uncover abuses are free to delve into past abuses, then I see the closet door as firmly closed. Which begs the question, if it were open, what would come out of there? Boo!

3) Childhood Fear: Clowns
Whoever thought covering up a grown man’s face in white grease paint and sticking on a bright red nose would delight children was an ass clown. Which brings us to
Adult Fear: Ass Clowns
You work with them. They drive the streets (usually with a cellphone at their ear). They’re at the ballpark, on the El or at the grocery store, talking loudly about subjects they know little or nothing about, calling attention to themselves in any way they can. Shiver.

4) Childhood Fear: Lassie
There were episodes of Lassie I found so frightening it would bring me to tears and have my mom threatening to never let me watch the show again. That Timmy sure got himself in lots of trouble doing stupid things.
Adult Fear: Sara Palin
Someone so dumb should never, ever have gotten so close to the Presidency of our country. Her ignorance not only demonstrates what’s wrong with our country’s education system but also our political system: pretty people get votes when they spew the right catch phrases. Eek!

5) Childhood Fear: Flying Monkeys
I was incapable of watching the Wizard of Oz’s flying monkey scene without hiding under the couch. Now it seems unreasonable to me to be afraid of creatures I knew didn’t actually exist. Still, how could I know I would meet so many similar beings in my future career with the airlines? (see #3, Adult Fear, above)
Adult Fear: Interest Bearing Savings Accounts
Once again, I’m afraid of something that doesn’t actually exist. The Fed depressed interest rates to zero or almost zero, allowing big banks like Goldman Sachs to recapitalize on the backs of anyone with a regular old savings account, like retirees or people with kids going to college soon. (And just for the record, I want to say here that Goldman Sachs, the Federal Reserve Bank, quantitative easing and credit default swaps all scare me too.) Break into cold sweat now!

Happy Halloween!

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Please Make a Note of it

2011-11-24T09:54:00.001-06:00

By KimStrickland, October 28, 2011 at 8:17 am

When I was getting ready to leave town on my flight earlier this week, I suddenly remembered I'd forgotten to sign my daughter up for basketball. It seems there's always at least one "mouse that gets away," which is how I refer to a detail or errand or to-do item that needed to be accomplished before I left, but didn't. (At least this time, the mouse wasn't a big one. [Hungarian Home Alone] )

The basketball sign-up detail came to me right as I was dialing my husband, to tell him a quick good bye before we took off. So why not just pass the baton, and ask him to sign her up? Because that would be silly. He was in his car driving home and I knew between traffic and his KunstlerCast, by the time he got home, he would have forgotten as well. I thought about calling home and leaving myself a message, but all three of the kids were home and I was running out of time before I had to turn my phone off and didn't have time to talk to all of them again. (Because I can't talk to just one of them; it's not fair and balanced.) I didn't have time to boot up my iPad and send myself an email and I don't have a smart phone. I probably could have texted myself a reminder note, but at the speed at which I'm capable of texting it would have been faster to just go to the Park District and sign her up right then. I thought about calling my cell phone and leaving myself a message, which is when it occurred to me:

Write it on paper.

Why this thought occurred to me last, the woman whose calendar is still a large paper one hanging on the refrigerator [THE Cubs Calendar], I have no idea. It's just one more example of how electronic we're all becoming, that the idea of writing a quick note to myself and sticking it in my purse was almost the mouse that got away this time.

I know I’ll manage to get my daughter signed up this morning, so no harm no foul (and no basketball pun intended.) And if I ever come up with an actual point for this post, I'll grab a pen and paper, and be sure to make a note of it.

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This is why we hate the 1%

2011-11-24T09:51:00.001-06:00

The Golden Opulence Sundae. A New York Restaurant, Serendipity 3, sells this $1000 dessert, cited in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's most expensive dessert. $1000 Sundae at Serendipity 3, New York Sure it contains only the finest ingredients: the highest grade of vanilla and chocolate, edible gold leaf, a crystal goblet you can keep. But still. $1000 for dessert. During what could be the worst recession this country has ever seen. Seriously?

One of my dear Facebook friends is responsible for calling my attention to this dessert, denying me the opportunity to happily go to my grave never knowing it existed. He posted on his wall he's going there tonight, with a few friends and he'll be picking up the tab for all of them. $10,000 in total.

Granted, this Facebook friend is Jason Bateman, and he isn't actually my dear friend. I'd just heard he'd friend anyone on Facebook so I sent a request and he accepted. And now I'm repaying his kindness to the little people by taking him down. I'll admit, I'm star struck. The idea I could be "friends," albeit a virtual one, with an actual movie star! And the list of friends he says is accompanying him tonight doesn't disappoint-Paul Rudd, James Franco, Ryan Reynolds, Bradley Cooper.

All the comments on his wall post were mostly supportive of his excursion into culinary decadence, saying things like, Enjoy yourself and Everyone deserves to indulge, which lead me to believe that most of his FB friends are as idiotically starstruck as I was, afraid to take him down for being ridiculous, for eating the emperor's new dessert or something. Although there were a few comments on how many shoes that money could buy for poor people, or how many families it would feed.

At first, I tried not to judge him for it. I thought, sure, he's rich. He's earned it. It's a Hollywood thing. (Think how everyone would have hated on them if they were Wall Street Bankers instead of famous actors!) I tried to understand, putting it in context of my own life. Should I not go out to a nice restaurant with my husband when it's cheaper to go to Denny's? Should the world forgo luxury cars, have everyone start driving Kia's? We spent thousands of dollars to fix our dog's torn ACL (yes, her football career is over) while millions of people in this country can't afford healthcare for themselves. So, aren't I being two-faced? Aren't I being too judgmental? Maybe he gives thousands and thousands to charity. Maybe they all do.

I think I'd like the idea of this sundae a little better if they donated part of the proceeds to a food bank or something, but it doesn't mention anywhere (that I could see, anyway) on Serendipity 3's website that this is the case; although it does say that 10% of the Cookies and Scream Sundae's proceeds will go to WCS Serendipity 3 Cookies and Scream Sundae.

If someone offered to buy me a $1000 ice cream sundae, would I turn it down? As the husband can attest, probably only after I had, Just a little taste. Regardless, I keep coming back to the same conclusion about the Golden Opulence Sundae, no matter how hard I try to justify it. It's just wrong.

And I'm sorry Jason, you seem like a nice guy, but eating gold? Really? I suppose my bewilderment serves me right for thinking I could be "friends" with a rich movie star. But wait. I have an idea.
Maybe he could buy Golden Opulence Sundaes for all his Facebook friends! You know, like teacher said, bring enough for everybody. Share. No? Am I unfriended now?

I guess if some folks have enough money to go out and eat gold, who am I to criticize? But it reminds me a little of when Marie Antoinette supposedly said, "Let them eat cake, then," completely oblivious to the French people's struggle to put bread in their mouths. That was right before the French Revolution. I'm not trying to foment revolution here, but with our country's increasingly disparate gap in earnings, it seems the folks who are rich enough to go out to a restaurant to eat gold should at least have the courtesy not to brag about it during a recession.

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Transcendent Mom(?): We don't need technology to achieve Enlightenment, but maybe it couldn't hurt.

2011-11-24T09:49:00.001-06:00

My sons forced us to watch the documentary, "Transcendent Man," [transcendentman.com] about Ray Kurzweil, the inventor and futurist, which made we wonder; How can I get a job as a futurist? Do you have to be any good at it? I mean, just look at all those neon ESP signs in our storefronts. Somehow those "futurists" manage to pay their rent, no?
Okay, what the movie really made me wonder is if Ray Kurzweil is a spiritual man, because his ideas on technology's influence on the future and what it means for mankind, manage to sync-up astonishingly with most New Age thought. And I suppose I'm dating myself here, because apparently we don't call it New Age anymore, we call it Body Mind Spirit. (New Age is old hat!?)

The movie explains Kurzweil's belief that, at the rate technology is advancing in terms of robotics, genetic engineering and nanotechnology, humans will soon merge with machines, (Terminator, anyone?) creating a Utopian (critics say possibly dystopian--don't worry, I had to look it up, too) society in which death could be eliminated. It talks about the concept of Technological Singularity [wikipedia.org/Technological singularity] where humans, through advances in technology, become super-intelligent and will "transcend" biological mortality.

Hmmm. I'm no scientist but I am a New Ag--, uh, Body Mind Spirit kind of gal. All this talk of "super-intelligence," regardless if it involves machines or not, sounds an awful lot like what some would call Enlightenment to me. The fact that with it, we would defeat death--ditto. Isn't that the promise of every religion on the planet?

I'm a big fan of the Akashic Records and have been working with them for the past ten years. I learned about them from my mentor and friend, Linda Howe. To quote from her Center for Akashic Studies website:

The Akashic Records are a universal filing system which record every occurring thought, word, and action: a collection of mystical knowledge stored in the etheric levels. The vibrational records of each individual soul and its journey are contained here, making it a profound spiritual resource for consciousness development and expanded spiritual awareness. The Records have been recognized as a reservoir of useful insight, guidance, wisdom and healing information from the past, present and future.

Say whatever you want about my New Age woo-hoo beliefs, I know from personal experience, the Akashic Records are real. But being in and using the Akashic Records also sounds eerily familiar to Kurzweil's vision for super-human intelligence, because when you're in the Records, you do sort of transcend in a way, and the more you work in the Records, the more knowledge you can get from them.

Stay with me.

Have you ever been thinking about someone you haven't thought of in a while, only to have them call or email you? Of course you have. A hundred and fifty-years ago, no one would have believed we'd be able to pick up a phone and call someone across the country. Now, we do it wirelessly. When I think hard enough, my mother will call and vice versa. I know! Now you're wondering what could be the particular advantage of this? (Only kidding, Mom.) If Kurzweil is correct, in the future, will we even need phones or will we just communicate telepathically?

Here's my point: I think technology is merely catching up to what the human body, mind and spirit is capable of, if only we'd believe it.

And I love that scientists are using the term Technological Singularity. Technological or not, its concept of Oneness is echoed everywhere in the spiritual world. We are all one. But if it's going to take nanotechnology, robotics and genetic engineering to have the scientists believing what all of us Body Mind Spirit folks already know, I suppose that's okay, too.

It's like the story about the blind men with their hands on different parts of the elephant. The movie Transcendent Man is just one more sign that as a species we are edging ever closer to seeing the whole "elephant" or truth.

All right, A City Mom is done waxing philosophical for today. Now, I'm going to go get my Tarot cards, and practice for my new career as a futurist.

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Topeka honors National Domestic Violence Awareness month with irony

2011-11-24T09:48:00.001-06:00

As regular readers of A City Mom know, she feels it's her civic duty to point out irony wherever and whenever she finds it, and today, during National Domestic Violence Awareness month, she came across this: Cash Strapped Topeka Stops Prosecuting Domestic Violence
Purple is the color to display to call attention to National Domestic Violence Awareness month. It's also the color of a bruise. It begs the question: will the only purple seen in Topeka be the bruises on the victims whose offenders have gone free?

C'mon Topeka, just about every city in the country is cash-strapped and looking for ways to save money. But this? It should make every Topeka citizen see red.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Bad blog going around

2011-11-24T09:47:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine, we'll call him "Jim," recently sent me the following direct message on Twitter: "Bad blog going around about you, heard or seen it yet? airtar(dot)ru." Jim's a pretty media savvy kind of guy and I'm a totally paranoid kind of gal, so naturally I clicked on the link. The site was shut down and immediately I realized my mistake was two-fold: Jim had been hacked and I was an idiot.
Though I have to admire the cleverness of the hackers, or phishers, as I later found out they were after doing a Twitter search. It makes me wonder how many people out there are like me, willing to believe someone wrote a bad blog about them. Maybe it's because I'm a blogger and all, I thought a reader might have taken issue with me or something I said and instead of sending me an email or just writing a hateful comment on my site, they wrote an entire hateful blog. This bad blog idea appeals to my vanity, the fact I would actually believe someone would spend the time to write an entire blog about me, bad or otherwise.

I quickly sent Jim an email, asking if he'd been hacked. He called me back just as quickly, perhaps more interested in my husband's technical expertise than commiserating. "Change your password," was Jeff's sage advice. It was mine, too, you know, just for the record.

Searching on Twitter I discovered a lot of chatter about the bad blog hack and a lot of people saying idiots like me who are stupid enough to click on such links deserve to be hacked. Maybe we do. Yet after all this, do I dare admit I'm relieved nobody wrote anything bad about me, an exposé, true or false, about skeletons in my closet or maybe even just that time I had one too many margarita's back in college? Of course I admit it. I even wrote a bad blog about it.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Comment Phishing: why bloggers should feel better about Internet trolls

2011-11-24T09:34:00.001-06:00

There's a group of us Chicago Now bloggers who participate in an online forum where we talk to each other about all things blogging. A lot of the time it's technical issues, or sometimes how our softball team did (really well until NPR trounced them in the finals) or our latest get-together. (A City Mom has never once been spotted dancing on the bar, most likely because I've never been able to attend; they wisely have conspired to hold them when I am out of town.) Lately however, the conversation has turned to blog comments. You know, the really mean kind made by Internet trolls.
For A City Mom (117 Facebook Likes) to listen to other bloggers (175,000 Facebook Likes, ahem.) complain about the one or two mean comments they received in their latest comment thread, which go on for miles btw (my all-time comment record is like 20), is a little like listening to the king complain he has too many subjects, or hearing the queen complain she has too many servants.

But lest you think I am heartless and only jealous of these other insanely popular bloggers, we shall get to my point, finally. Comment Phishing. And the fact that, unbeknownst to me, I was harboring two comment phishermen in my basement.

My sons first mentioned the term comment phishing to me and I don't know if they coined it or just heard it somewhere. I did know what phishing was and I immediately inferred what comment phishing is. Kyle helped: "Oh, you just know exactly who you're going to bait with each type of comment you post."

"Wait a minute," I thought. "I have trolls in my basement?"

My sons surf the net, sure. They're really smart and insightful. Great. They read CNN and other news websites and apparently, as I came to find out, enjoyed leaving comments. But not insightful, intelligent comments. No. They went comment phishing.

"If you write a really conservative comment, you know you're going to snag some irate liberal who'll rant at you. And if you phrase a liberal comment just the right way, you get all the conservatives down your throat."

Apparently, this is great fun for them. Or, at least it was until I put a stop to it. "You guys, us writers read those comments and we take them seriously! It's mean to anonymously take people down just for spite."

In the five-year history of A City Mom, I can count on one hand the mean or hateful comments I've received. Actually, I can practically count on one hand all the comments I've received. Yet, I feel fortunate for this: the first part, not the latter. Still, it doesn't take away the sting of having someone viciously attack me personally or my opinion or my humor. No, the only thing that was able to do that is--and this is what I want to share with all my fellow bloggers, with their high-class-too-many-commenter-problems, because I genuinely want them to never, ever again fret over any anonymous Internet troll's hate--is the fact that the angry commenter could be, and probably is, nothing more than a comment phisherman, a thirteen-year-old boy in his mother's basement.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Got Twins?

2011-11-24T09:32:00.001-06:00

My life is overrun with twins, so I found this article from Live Science fascinating. Seeing Double: Eight Fascinating facts about twins

How does one's life become overrun with multiples, you ask? When you marry an identical twin, whose mother was an identical twin and then you have identical twins. When you're father is a twin. When your mother had twin aunts. When your best friend from grade school has identical twins. Do you begin to understand why our third child is adopted?

As I already knew, the article says they still don't know what causes identical twinning and they swear it's not genetic. I'm fond of telling all my twins they're simply freaks of nature. I don't know if as a mom, as per the article, I'm any taller than average, or stronger, and although I swear at times my children are taking more years off my life than all the cigarettes I smoked in college, Live Science says by having twins, I'll live longer.

It's hard to say how nice my sons were to each other in utero, in terms of their "other directed actions" vs. "self-directed" ones. Let's just say, judging from all the kicking, there should be no doubt Taekwondo is their sport. As for dogs being able to tell identical twins apart, don't mention that to our nine-year old Lab. When I ask her to go wake up Ethan, she brings me a shoe.

Yeah, there's a certain caché to having twins, especially the more rare identical ones. It is cool. And while they've never played any tricks on me, so far as I know, it's fun to hear the stories of the tricks, intentional or otherwise, with which others have been victimized. (Like the time Kyle was home sick and Ethan got yelled at for cutting a class, by a teacher who didn't know Kyle was a twin. She was so convinced she was talking to Kyle, Ethan had to show her his school ID!)

So, I guess I don't care if I live any longer because of all my twins. I know I'm living funner! And maybe it's only that, that has me walking a little taller.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Here's where to pack your "lunch notes"

2011-11-24T09:30:00.001-06:00

As if mothers need anything more to do. Or one more thing to add to the list of things to make us feel inadequate. Wall Street Journal--To Pack an A-Plus Lunchbox

I mean, FFS. Did you read the article? You have to. Go ahead and read it now. I'll wait.

I know! Love notes every day? Gift-wrapped sandwiches? Are they out of their freakin' minds? Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous? Back when I made my kids' lunches every day, most of the time I was just happy I actually remembered to make them, then happy to remember to have my kids take it with them to school. Now, because of some over-the-top, type-A parents, we're all expected to compose daily lunch haikus? (Although, full disclosure, I did write down cute notes on those bananas that one time.)

And to make it worse, it's not enough to jot down an "I love you" or a "Remember: chew, chew, chew, swallow" on a Post-It or any old piece of scratch paper you have lying around. No! How embarrassing for your child! They will feel unloved and be mocked by their peers if their love note isn't written on Pottery freakin' Barn or Disney stationery.

What is the matter with you people? Yes it's a nice idea. Sure, it's cute. Hey, like I said, even I've been known to write on the occasional banana. But you've made it into a godamned contest! Lunch is hard enough for kids--worrying about where to sit and who to sit with and should you trade your Oreos for Fritos and actually eat that apple that's in there? Now you people need to complicate lunch further by upping the ante? My child is more loved than your child because I have too much free time in the morning (and apparently at other times, too, because you actually shopped for special stationary to write your lunch notes on!)

Tomorrow, I will pack a note for my childrens' lunches. Here's what it will say:

Dear Fill in your own damn name here,

I've failed you. Outside of that one smiley face I etched on those bananas that one day in the third grade, I've been remiss in the lunch notes department. I'm afraid I've shown what a horrible, distant and icy mother I truly am. You must feel terribly inadequate and unloved and are probably suffering from low self-esteem. Surely, you must have endured the smug grins of other, more-loved, students who tore the Sally Foster from their ham and swiss to reveal an endearing note inside, one that said something along the lines of, "Connor. You are so much better than everyone else."

I'm sorry. I will try to do better. Here is a special lunch haiku I wrote specially for today. I hope it will make up for all those lost years.

I am loser Mom
No notes, only healthy food
Be glad I am sane

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My sons dress like gangstas, and it's my bad

2011-11-24T09:28:00.001-06:00

My sons are wearing gangsta jeans. And it's my fault. Not because I didn't hold them enough when they were babies or screwed-up their potty training or anything. It was a shopping error, a miscalculation that led to a wardrobe malfunction to the Nth degree.
But this year, I played it smart, or so I thought. A couple of weeks before school started, I brought them to the store with me to get jeans. This was opposed to the usual trial and error system of buying a pair or two, taking them home and seeing if they fit, then going back to the store and either repeating the process or buying ten more pairs. I did this because, as we all know and as my friend and guest blogger, Rick Kaempfer, so eloquently states, "Taking a boy to a clothing store is the equivalent of poking him in the eye with a sharp stick."

At the store, they tried on every single pair of jeans. And they fit. Levi's 505, 32W 34L. In fact, on one son more so than on the other (no names here, please), the 32W was a bit snug and I contemplated going a size up, but finally decided against it, going home with 14 pairs of 32W 34L Levis jeans. Cha-ching.

What was the one egregious oversight in my planning, when I for once, finally, had planned ahead?

Cross-Country.

Practice started three weeks before school, about the time we bought the jeans. They ran, and still run, every day. For miles. Following a comparatively sedentary summer, after six weeks of Cross-Country my sons' jeans were hanging off their hips. Their boxers were showing.

"Oh my God," I thought. "They're gangstas."

And while I know the only weapon I might find in one of their baggy pants pockets would be a number two pencil or stale granola bar wrapper, I still worry at the message these jeans send, because my sons walk the city streets and take public transportation; I don't want any real gangstas messing with them.

Kyle begged me to go back to the store, to get new pants. From the other room my husband heard the "Cha-ching" of this solution and came into the kitchen with his own. "We call them belts."

"You really do want us to get beat up."

Usually my sons grow out of jeans by growing taller. In the past few years, I've been to the store for longer jeans so frequently they know me at Kohl's now.

"Back for the 30-Longs Mrs. Strickland?"

"Back for the 32-Longs Mrs. Strickland?"

Repeat every three months.

Going back to the store for smaller jeans? They might take away my Kohl's super-savings coupons!
I'm hoping this gangsta jeans issue will go away in the way it should; my sons will grow into their new jeans. In the meantime, I've come up with my own solution, to help the situation along. "Just eat more," I said.

I know, Honey. Cha-ching.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

The Tooth Hurts: dental surgery teaches A City Mom the truth about herself

2011-11-24T09:26:00.001-06:00

Friday afternoon I had a tooth pulled. And a gum graft. And a dental implant. And it hurt. A lot. It's still hurting today. But that's not my point. Closer to my point is the fact that when I made it home, I still wanted to take care of everybody else. It snuck up on me, this need to nurture. I had to force myself not to. And that, finally, is my point. For one entire day, I battled against taking care of anyone but myself.

Even though my dentist shot me up with Novacaine right before I left his office, traffic was horrible and by the time I made it through the front door I was in agony, dreaming only of painkillers and my bed. On Thursday, I'd even warned my daughter and sitter this would be the case. Yet, when I walked in my house, I felt the need to divert to the kitchen, to say "Hi" and "It went well" and "I'll be okay." To comfort them.

But I knew if I did, then I would end up hearing all their troubles and their complaints about their day and well, f%$# that. After I'd crawled into bed with my head throbbing, I thought, "I should call my mom." I knew she was worried about me and wanted to know how it went and– And there I was again. Trying to take care of the emotional needs of someone else.

For the next twenty-four hours I fought the urges of motherhood. I fought against asking what my kids had for dinner (As suspected, my daughter "forgot" to eat dinner on Friday, she says. Although I'm certain she probably filled-up with plenty of junk trolling the cupboards.) I fought against asking if they'd brushed their teeth or took a shower or had a lot of homework over the weekend. I'm a little surprised that no one thought to offer me food. I figure if I ever get really sick, I'll end up one of those neglect cases you read about in the paper, covered in bedsores and weighing in at 70 pounds or something.

I did come downstairs for a drink of Emergen-C on Saturday morning. I left my glass on the counter with every other glass and dish that had been left there since Friday afternoon. I struggled with leaving it there, too. But I forced myself to not clean up my glass, or anything else, for that matter.

I've never considered myself to be a terribly great caring-nurturer. It took a dental implant and two days of Vicodin for me to notice how much time I really do spend taking care of other people. I fill my days worrying about everyone else's needs being met and until now, I couldn't even see it; I couldn't even believe it about myself. Because my mother's guilt makes me believe that no matter what I do, I'm still not doing enough. Or doing it well enough. And I was astonished at how hard I had to fight to concentrate on taking care of only myself for 24 hours.

Soon, hopefully by tomorrow, I'll be back on my game: cooking, cleaning up, running errands, worrying, fussing, and asking all my motherly reminder questions, but tomorrow it will be different. Tomorrow, I will notice my caring-nurturer ways. Tomorrow, I will believe it about myself.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Dog Finds Happines at Found

2011-11-24T09:23:00.001-06:00

When you look at Magnum, the 150-pound bulldog mix pictured here, it’s hard to imagine anyone raising a hand against him; actually, it’s hard for me to imagine anyone abusing any dog, much less being dim enough to pick on one that’s their own size. Unfortunately, Magnum was regularly “beaten to a pulp” during the first year of his life, when he was puppy, according to Alicia Boemi, Executive Director of Found.

Fortunately for Magnum, he did find Found, a no-kill animal shelter located on Chicago’s northwest side. Found started as an unintentional offshoot of Stay, the dog hotel co-located at the northwest side location. People would sometimes abandon their dogs outside of Stay, and its proprietor, Michael Heltzer, began to take them in, letting them swim in Stay’s pool and socialize with the other dogs. Found became an official non-profit organization two-years ago. What makes Found so different from other shelters is not only its no-kill policy, but its animal rehabilitation program, or “re-homing” as they like to call it.

Found takes animals from Chicago’s Animal Care and Control almost exclusively. They choose the animals they take-in based on Found’s available space, funding, and the amount of dogs with certain behavioral issues they already have on the property. Each dog brought in is given a thorough evaluation, fifteen pages worth of steps, at the end of which, the handler really knows the dog and they’ve begun to establish a foundation and develop a relationship.

Before he was rescued, Magnum was severely and repeatedly beaten. A kind soul, a man named Cody, took him in, but couldn’t keep him due to financial restraints (Just imagine how much a 150-pound bulldog mix eats!) and other issues, which is when he was turned over to Found.

A fundraiser for Magnum is in the works and you can donate to Magnum’s cause, or any of the other worthy animals currently sheltered there, at www.FoundChicago.org The organization can always use volunteers (you must be at least 18 years of age, fill out a volunteer application, sign a waiver and take a training course). Learn all about how to volunteer at Found, here!

You can also help by coming to Day of the Dog (because every dog should have its day!) on October 16th. A fall festival for dogs, cats and their families, Day of the Dog raises money for Found Chicago. The fest will be held at Found, 4100 N. Rockwell, 11 a.m – 4 p.m. $5 suggested donation to enter.

Boemi says Magnum is not available for adoption and it’s unknown when he will be. He likes to run on the treadmill (Really!) and his trainers are working with him to build his confidence, introducing him to other dogs to socialize him. They’re also trying to expose him to as many things he may never have been exposed to (fireplugs?!) before. Boemi says the “re-homing” process can take anywhere from a month, to a year, to five years. She says for Magnum, it’s all about getting him over all the fear his early abuse induced. I’ll try to keep you posted on his progress.

Whether you volunteer, attend Day of the Dog or simply make a donation, know your kind action(s?!) will go a long way toward helping Magnum, and all the other animals at Found, experience something they may never have been exposed to before: happiness.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Call of (Jury) Duty 2

2011-11-24T09:20:00.001-06:00

My husband has jury duty today and he's looking forward to it. I know! He says he likes the opportunity to just sit and read while waiting to be called. He doesn't have to talk to anyone. There won't be any meetings. He told me with a straight face he might even be able to get some work done.

He's always getting called for jury duty. I'd say it happens at least once a year. He puts on a good show, getting all huffity about How come he always gets called to do his civic duty and no one else does? By no one else, he means me. I've never been called. Ever. And I vote. More than he does, if you must know. And don't they base the pool for juries on people who are registered to vote?

Not that I wouldn't welcome the opportunity. I'd get to stay home from work. No travelling. No jet lag. If I could bring my laptop, I might even get some writing done. You know, I'm beginning to see why he likes it.

In all the times he's been called, he's only been empanelled once. On a murder case. I remember it because we'd just received a photo of our future daughter, but at the time it was only a photo of our potential future daughter and I couldn't get hold of him all day. I thought we'd lose her and some other Bridge of Hope family would snap her up. As fate would have it, she was meant to be ours.

That one murder trial empanelment brought fears of a long drawn out trial and sequestration, but my husband needn't have worried. It lasted less than one day. The defendant's mother came to court in support of her son. But he pled guilty, struck a plea bargain or something – (Hey, if you want real legalese, check out Chicago's Real Law Blog. I'm just someone's mom.) – and the trial was over.

This is strong testimony to the power of motherhood everywhere, even among murderous gang-bangers. The judge explained to the soon-to-be-free jury, the bad guy didn't want his mother to hear in open court, all the details of all the horrible things he'd done. "This happens all the time," the judge said.

I find that absolutely amazing. His mom's presence in court ended the trial. Although it kind of begs the question: if she were mom enough to instill that kind of embarrassment at doing a crime into her son, shouldn't she have had the power to not raise him to be a murderer in the first place?

Uh-oh. Just got a call from my husband. He's been empanelled again. This time it's a civil case, so I'm guessing the chances of someone's mom showing up and putting an end to it are slim. He says the trial will last for almost two weeks, but at least he'll be done at four-thirty every day. Say, just think of all the work he'll get done.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Farewell to All My Children

2011-11-24T09:19:00.001-06:00

No, I'm not throwing all my kids out on the street. Of course I'm talking about the soap opera that goes off the air today. Well, off the air as we know it. Sure, All My Children will be picked up by some cable channel, and will start where ABC left off. But it won't have Susan Lucci and, c'mon. No Erica Kane? Sorry, no AMC in my book.
We used to watch AMC all the time back in college. When it came on at noon, the student union would fill up, because we all had to know, Who is the crazy person in Adam Chandler's attic? The student population was so addicted, a DJ at the radio station I worked for at the time used to do All My Children updates every weekday evening.

I stayed with the soap intermittently throughout my adult life, watching it mostly when my kids were little, then getting updates from my babysitter as they grew older. I can say in all seriousness that eventually, all my children are what ended up keeping me from All My Children.
Sometimes I'd catch a glimpse of the show at the salon where I get my nails done [Melancholy? You're soaking in it.], utterly astonished at how creepily all the actors were aging, and by that I mean, like TV news anchors: skin stretched taut with too much make-up and faces rendered nearly expressionless by botox, which of course meant, as far as the acting went, little or no difference whatsoever.

ABC said AMC and One Life to Live (which at one point I started following, too, because when you have twin babies sometimes you just can't make it to the TV to turn it off) were too expensive to justify anymore and is replacing them with a cooking show and some other show that sounded so interesting I've already forgotten what it was about in the three minutes it's been since I Googled it.

It's the end of an era. Another reminder that the only constant is change. I suppose I'm part of the reason the show's getting cancelled, representative of the population that just doesn't watch anymore, because after all, who does want to see Erica get married for a twelfth time? I was thinking about tuning in today, for old time's sake, but my daughter's home from school and I need to get to the grocery store and...Maybe I'll just call up that babysitter, or my DJ friend, and get an update. Or, maybe not. Life with all my children is soap opera enough.

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The 24-Hour No Complaining Challenge

2011-11-24T09:16:00.001-06:00

Go ahead, try it. I dare you. Try to go twenty-four hours without complaining. I am incapable. I've tried several times. And I don't consider myself a real, true complainer (you know the type). Although regular readers of my blog may beg to differ, seeing as how I can sometimes rant on for upwards of five hundred words. However, being a whiner is not the way I would, or want to, define myself.

We're raising our kids to not be complainers. Whining is not tolerated in our house. And we put-up with very little drama. This is not just because it's all so annoying. (But it is mostly because it's all so annoying.) It's about the power of attraction. Complaining is a form of attention-getting for all the negative things in your life. And who wants to attract more negatives into their lives?

It doesn't sound very hard, does it? Just stop complaining. Yet the dictionary defines the verb "complain" as:
1. to express dissatisfaction, pain, uneasiness, censure, resentment, or grief; find fault.
2. to tell of one's pains, ailments, etc.: to complain of a backache.
3. to make a formal accusation.

By this definition, it would mean most of us would have to cease all conversation completely. Just listen, the next time you're having a conversation. As a fiction writer, I know stories aren't interesting unless they involve conflict, and complaining is a form of describing conflict, I suppose, but maybe we should come up with a better way to make our stories interesting (colorful, fictitious names for the characters perhaps?).

As any good new age woo-hoo knows, the first step in fixing a problem is recognizing you have one and I began to notice how much complaining I was actually doing. I'd find myself dumping all the negative experiences I'd had during the day on my poor husband night after night. I don't know if it was even conscious or not, this need for me to vent as a way to release all the negativity, but recently it occurred to me: Maybe I am a complainer. Not wanting to attract any more negativity into my life, I decided it might be a good idea for me to stop complaining about stuff. (A great idea, says the husband.)

It didn't sound too hard. Until I tried it. When I was paying attention, I realized so much of what I said could be construed as a complaint. I found myself hacking my watch to restart my 24-hour-no-complaining-clock every fifteen-minutes. Finally, I just gave up, vowing simply to try to do better.

Of course I'm disappointed in my inability to stop completely, but I suppose I shouldn't complain about it.

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Dear Sons, Your carpeting is showing

2011-09-18T10:32:00.000-05:00

Dear Sons,

Welcome home. As soon as you’re finished eating (are you ever, really, finished eating?) you need to march right upstairs to your room. I mean, honestly. Have you seen it? The way you left it this morning? There appears to be some carpeting showing in the far corner, over by the window. I know!

I suggest you get up there right this minute and throw some laundry over it immediately before anyone sees what color it is, forever ruining your outstanding reputation for slovenliness.

Thank you.
Love,
Mom

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How to Become Fabulously Successful and Lose Ten Pounds in Only Nine Days

2011-09-18T10:30:00.000-05:00

Has anybody heard of a book or program like this? Because I need one. Stat. My (gulp) thirty-year high school reunion is coming up. I know it shouldn't be about impressing other people; it should be about getting back in touch with old friends, finding out what they're up to and reliving fond memories. I know! And doesn't that explain why everyone pulls up in a rented Mercedes Benz?

It’s true I shouldn't compete and overall, I do feel like I've been mostly successful. But it's during occasions like these I find myself getting defensive, realizing that even though I'm half-way through my life, by my own definition, I'm not where I'd wanted to be.

Inevitably I'll have to explain to someone why I'm still a co-pilot and that yes, I do land the plane and no they can't just land themselves. I'll have to explain why my second novel hasn't been published yet and accept the condolences that my first one wasn't on the New York Times bestseller list. And I will listen patiently while someone tells me how my airline lost their luggage back in 1989.

And while I can brag about my successful 22-year marriage and my three beautiful children and my nice house in the city, in my mind it would feel oh so much better if I could say I'm a wide-body captain (and not a wide-bodied captain) with several best-selling novels under her belt, a belt that's wrapped around a waist that's ten-pounds thinner.

At the ten-year reunion, no one had changed much. The assholes were still assholes and the cool crowd was still too cool to talk to me. By the 20-year, everyone had seemed to get-over themselves and it was really fun. I'm hoping this go round, everyone will be even more over themselves and like me, will just want to reconnect with old friends, find out what they're up to and relive old times. Because I'm not going to rent a Mercedes Benz and I'm not going to be able to lost ten-pounds by next Saturday. But I may just elect to suck my stomach in, and not exhale for three- hours.

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The Best is Yet to Come: a post 9/11 sign from Frank Sinatra

2011-09-18T10:28:00.000-05:00

Whenever our family moves, it’s tradition that the first song we play once our stereo is set up has some significance. For example, when my husband and I bought our first house, the song we played was, “Little Pink Houses” by John Mellencamp. This is because it was pink. And I suppose I can’t drop this without an explanatory digression. We’d only seen the house once. At night. In our defense, when we drove by the next morning and realized it was pink not tan, we lowered the offering price five-percent. So yes, we bought a little house with pink asphalt siding. Gorgeous.

When we moved into the home we live in now, our first song was, “My Kind of Town (Chicago is)” because buying this house meant we’d made the decision to stay in the city and raise our children here. Moving day was September 7, 2001. The airline pilot and IT guy who worked for a Wall Street bank, stretching fiscally to buy their dream house. What could go wrong?

As Frank Sinatra crooned and my husband and I danced in the living room, our four year-old sons watched. It was a few days after 9/11. A time when I’d been spending most of my waking hours unpacking, all the while wondering if I should just be putting everything back in the boxes because surely, in light of recent events, we’d never be able to stay here. So when we danced our first dance to our first song, I started crying. Because it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

My husband tried to comfort me, saying that at the very least, we could always look back fondly on that one year we lived in a really cool old house. He got the laugh he wanted, but it wasn’t until Frank Sinatra spoke to me that I felt hope. I’m a pretty superstitious person and I love my signs. As we danced and talked, Frank started singing the next song on the CD and miraculously through my tears and our conversation, I heard him:

“Still it’s a real good bet, the best is yet to come.”

“Oh my God, listen!”

“I’m gonna teach you to fly. We’ve only tasted the wine. We’re gonna drain the cup dry.” Because after all, who doesn’t like a good drinking song when they’re upset?

Yet I knew in my heart this was my sign from the Universe that everything was going to be okay.

“You think you've seen the sun, but you ain't seen it shine.” I kept my job. My husband kept his.

“Wait ‘til you see that sunshine day. You ain’t seen nothing yet.” My novel was published. We adopted a daughter.

“You think you’ve flown before, but baby, you ain’t left the ground.” Ten years later, we’re still living in a really cool old house.

9/11 changed everything for everyone. The last ten years maybe have not been the best they could have been, but they were still very good years. (The CD we’d played was “Sinatra Reprise,” the subtitle of which is “The Very Good Years,” a sign I should have noticed in the first place.) And I know, because Frank told me so, The Best is yet to Come.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

9/11 Ten Years Later: an airline pilot's mostly unremarkable story

2011-09-18T10:25:00.001-05:00

Whenever I thought about what to write for the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, the only thing that kept coming to mind was that admonishment from The Onion that asked ballad singers to exercise restraint. I know I should chime in, being an airline pilot-blogger and all, but it just seems so, I don’t know, unrestrained.

Even though the attacks involved my airline, and airplanes I had flown, I didn’t know anyone who was killed. I wasn’t at work; I was at home. Considering it was the worst day of my entire life, my experience of it is rather unremarkable. I wrote a little about it back when Osama Bin Laden was killed this past May. [Bin Laden is Dead: A City Mom May 2, 2011] It was the first time I’d ever done so. I couldn’t bring myself to write about it before that, aside from a few glancing mentions, in a way that I suppose is not dissimilar to how my father never talked about World War II until recently.

Early on the morning of 9/11/2001, I looked out my kitchen window at that surreally gorgeous blue sky and said out loud “Today will be a better day.” That was the last time I’ve ever said that. My son had just been diagnosed with a hernia that required immediate surgery. Four days earlier we’d moved into our new house. The work being done on it still wasn’t finished and everything was covered in tarps and plaster and dust. The movers had broken a leg off of the most expensive piece of furniture we owned: my antique mahogany dining room table. I’d poked myself, drawing blood, on a TV antenna during the move. The same TV antenna the most HIV-positive looking mover had just poked himself on, drawing blood, and was going to start the HIV testing procedure that afternoon.
Needless to say, my day didn’t get better.

After the crashes, broken tables and minor surgical procedures seemed, well, minor. Everyone I knew called to check on me. I kept my kids home from school. I’ve never been happier to see my husband, who worked at the Board of Trade downtown at the time, walk through our front door. I wish I had a better story for you, but I don’t.

Perhaps more interesting than 9/11 itself, is what came afterward. It’s in the ways it changed my life so profoundly. It was going back to work on the 19^th, not wanting to go. Afraid. Were the terrorists still out there? As I shut the gate and looked up at my house, where my husband and young sons were still sleeping, I wondered in all seriousness if I would see them again. I’d written a note, just in case. To tell them how much I loved them and that I had to go. Because if I didn’t, then they’d already won. At work I saw a terminal empty of passengers and filled with flags and patriotic music. And one anonymous passenger who told me, “Bring it back.” Words I’ve never forgotten.

I have to ask permission to go to the bathroom now when I’m at work. Some of my friends carry guns. My salary was cut nearly in half and I lost my pension. I can’t listen to the national anthem at a Cubs game, or anywhere else for that matter, without having my eyes well up with tears. After our retaliatory war in Iraq started, we were treated so poorly in Europe—by people who would have been speaking German if it hadn’t been for men like my father and millions like him who’d died—that we began to say we were from Canada.

Ten years later, it’s better, but life will never be the same. Everyone was affected by the events of 9/11, which is why my story doesn’t stand out. It’s no different than anyone else’s. Unless someone you loved was killed. Unless you were there. Maybe this similarity is what binds us, why we tell our stories with such lack of restraint. We try to make sense of the event by talking and writing about it. To quote from some famous writer or teacher whose name I can’t remember, We are the sum of our stories. And 9/11 is a big one. So hang a flag tomorrow and let’s all tell our stories, so we can show the world how we brought it back.

NEVER FORGET:

     United Airlines Flight 175
     American Airlines Flight 77
     United Airlines Flight 93
     American Airlines Flight 11

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

What Do Women Want?

2011-09-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

Come and find out at the "What Women Want" Expo!! I am their "Headline Guest" (I know, right?) and will be there selling and signing copies of my novel, Wish Club and possibly my second novel, Down at the Golden Coin, too.

This very PINK Women’s Expo is all about Chocolate (!!), Pampering, Inspiration and Shopping. SO, COME AND BE PAMPERED, INSPIRED...and SHOP, TOO!

It's all happening WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28th 2011 - 10:00am-3:00pm

FIRST 250 ATTENDEES RECEIVE A PINK CLOTH BAG FILLED WITH GOODIES!!

Portion of the proceeds benefit American Cancer Society.

More info: info@carolstreamchamber.com

Click here for the Application to have a booth at this event.

WHERE:      Holiday Inn & Suites,150 S. Gary Avenue, Carol Stream
RSVP:        (630) 665-3325
ADMISSION:   $5 or $4 for Seniors

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Illinois Public High School Students don’t do as well in college as they did high school

2011-09-18T10:19:00.000-05:00

This is the insightful information gleaned from what I assume would be an expensive and taxpayer funded study of how high school seniors perform during their freshman year at college. I think they should have just called the study, “Duh.”

The Chicago Tribune reported on the new information, only recently made available to the public, last week. Public H.S. grads struggle at college Fortunately for you, ACityMom stumbled on the article yesterday, because no one in her house had managed to clean off the coffee table since August. At first I was worried, Are my kids not being prepared well for college? But wasn’t that the point of the article: to instill fear? Of course it was. Yet, as I read more closely, it occurred to me that this “phenomenon” isn’t a phenomenon at all. It’s normal.

The article stated that average GPA’s fell from high school levels during a student's freshman year in college, stating colleges liked to see an average GPA of 3.0 or higher that first year. Gee, do you think this is because college is harder? Do you think this is because colleges are selective? Do you think this could be because even though you were a shining star in high school, you are now surrounded by all the shining stars from all the other high schools? Of course it is.

And how about all the distractions that freshman year? The newness. The freedom. The beer. And let's not forget all the members of the opposite sex. Combine all this, and not necessarily in that order, and it looks like a recipe for failure, never mind lower grades. My two lowest college GPAs (identical at 3.75) occurred during the first semester of my freshman year and the final semester of my senior year. THIS IS NOT NEWS, PEOPLE. I asked my husband, one of the most intelligent people I know (with perhaps the exception of one glaring marital error) about his high school GPA vs. his college GPA. It had gone down, too.

Okay, so my husband and I do not a formal scientific study make, but if I had to guess this is the standard. A better expensive taxpayer-funded study would tell us how many of our high school grads go on to successfully complete college, once they get the hang of it, and really, isn’t getting the hang of it what freshman year is all about? According to the Tribune, “Educators say GPAs often improve following freshman year” and “The disconnect between high school and college performance isn’t unique to Illinois, ‘It’s a national issue,’” according to April Hansen, director of postsecondary services at the ACT company.

Like I said. They should have called the study, “Duh.” Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go clean off the rest of my coffee table.

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When your life's a rollercoaster, who needs an amusement park?

2011-09-18T10:17:00.000-05:00

It’s tradition in our family to take the kids to Six Flags the day before school starts. Tradition because, you know, we did it that one time three years ago. Personally, I would rather chew on broken glass than be dragged through an amusement park, but my daughter was begging to go. In fact, she’d been begging from the minute she found out what an amusement park is. She’s a twelve-year old girl who’d never been on a rollercoaster. It’s like we owed it to her.

First off, I have to say I was pretty shocked at the prices. $59.99 per person. Fortunately for us, my husband’s employer provided us with half-off passes. It’s like Six Flags was on sale! Since we were fresh out of broken glass, and I just can't pass up a sale, off we went.

I don’t like rides. Wait, that’s not strong enough. I. Hate. Rides. I did go on the teacups, yesterday. (That’s right. I said, “the teacups.”) And the bumper cars, but that was it. I’m a total ride wimp. The last time we were there, I went on some awful Cajun Crab ride thing. Worst two minutes of my entire adult life. And don’t even get me started on rollercoasters. My kids asked me why I hate rides so much. I honestly don’t know. I told them that “unexpected moderate CAT on the North Atlantic Tracks is all the ride I need,” which seemed to satisfy them in the way only fancily worded obfuscation can.

I spent a lot of time sitting on benches waiting for them while they went on their rides. And to think I used to say the airport was the best place to people watch. This place was almost worth the price of admission just for the spectacle. And I'm sorry, but no woman over the age of fifty should be wearing bright red hot-pants and cowboy boots. Ever.

Toward the end of the day, my daughter had had enough. Apparently her idea of a rollercoaster and the actual experience of one were very different. She liked them enough, but not so much that she wanted to go on every single one. Thank goodness. I mean, I see folks in line for rides like Vertical Velocity and I have to wonder, What’s wrong with you people? For a little girl with thrill-seeking tendencies, it’s good to know we found something that scared her.

This new tradition of ours will probably be expected to continue next year, which is fine by me. We all had a great time and it was good to do something fun together as a family, one last fling before school started today, which is when I get my reward: a house full of silence. Next year on the last day before school starts, if you hear screaming from Gurnee, you can bet it won't be me on a rollercoaster, but merely my reaction to an increase in the admission fee at the door, or maybe another pair of bright red hot-pants on a woman dangerously close to my age.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like my A City Mom fanpage on Facebook here.

A Two-Step Command Epic Fail

2011-09-04T10:08:00.000-05:00

In order to get into preschool, my sons were required to follow a two step command. At the age of fourteen now, I want to know what the hell happened.

Yesterday, I asked Kyle, “Hey, you going downstairs?”

“Yeah.”

“Can you bring this down and put it on the coffee table? Thanks.” And I handed him a red Netflix envelope. A two-step command, not any more complex than, “Pick up the blue truck and put it in the toybox next to the wall.”

Yet, less than twenty minutes later, I went downstairs to find the very same Netflix envelope not only on the floor, but on the floor under his desk with one leg of his chair resting on top of it.

That’s right, Netflix. We’re those people.

I mean, how is this possible? How did we become those people? How does a bright red envelope not only end up on the floor, but on the floor with a desk chair paperweight on top of it? Did Kyle think the envelope might try to escape? Fly away? Unionize the cats? (The movie was Norma Rae.)

I really don’t want to know what goes through the mind of a fourteen year-old boy, because I’m afraid it has way too much to do with fourteen year-old girls, although I do wish I could bottle that loping, unhurriedness with which they do everything. It’s as though they live their lives on the inside of a lava lamp. Perhaps that’s the trouble. It took him so long to get down to the basement he forgot his two-step command.

Fortunately, the DVD wasn’t damaged, but still, I’m wondering with some trepidation: Do colleges require two-step commands?

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What's a card-carrying union member CPS parent supposed to think?

2011-09-04T10:00:00.001-05:00

As both a CPS parent and card-carrying union member, I'm torn. I think my daughter should have a longer school day, and a real recess. But I also don't think teachers should be asked to work hours that are 29% more for a two-percent increase in pay. What's a card-carrying union member CPS parent supposed to think?

Before my daughter first started at her school, I was on the phone with the office gathering information. (For those of you who aren't regulars here, my adopted daughter just joined us two-and-half years ago.) I asked questions like, "She'll be starting mid-year, do I need to register her?" "Is there a dress code?" "What time does school start?"

"And school gets out at one-forty-five," said the cheerful voice on the other end of the line.

Of course, she was cheerful about it, but I began frantically beating my palm against the receiver of my phone. "I'm sorry," I said. "I think we must have a bad connection, because I swear you just said school gets out at one-forty-five?"

"That's right."

Golly. I'm no expert, but do you think five hours and forty-five minutes of actual classroom time (Wait! Take out twenty minutes for lunch!) might be a contributing factor in the abysmal percentage of high school seniors (7.9%) ready for college? For the low test scores? I don’t know when this short school day began. I doubt it was always this way and if I had to guess, it probably was the solution to somebody else’s budget shortfall.

The school day should be longer. It should include recess.

And yet, think what you want about unions, but it’s wrong for workers to always have to bear the brunt of mismanagement. Teachers work hard at one of the most important jobs there is: teaching our children. I do not begrudge them one nickel of their pay and benefits.

As an airline employee I know all too well that when it comes to the economy, we’re always on the leading edge of the downturn and trailing edge of the recovery. I took a nearly fifty-percent pay cut six years ago and have yet to recoup any of it. (Don’t worry! Management’s been getting nice bonuses!) The teachers union knows what every union member knows, once you give a concession, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail to get it back, if you ever do.

My property taxes are going up and I’m not pleased about that either. Times are tough. We all have to make sacrifices. Let’s hope they all can find an agreeable solution soon, so I don't have to make up my mind what to think, so that in this case the thing that’s sacrificed isn’t the CPS children.

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How Do I Tell Anne Tyler She Sucks?

2011-09-04T09:59:00.000-05:00

I’m afraid I did a bad thing. I passed off some of Anne Tyler's writing as my own. But I was curious and figured, what the heck? Everybody else is doing it. I hear plagiarism is really trendy these days. Okay, seriously now, here’s how it happened:

Recently, I took a writing class to give my fiction a bump. I’d never taken a writing class before, and had heard good stuff about this one. I knew for sure I’d learn some things and hopefully get inspired, so I gave it a shot. The teacher started out by railing against all the other writing courses and books and methods out there. He said he hated how they all taught that their way was the only way. Then guess what? Get ready for some literary irony here: he taught that his way was the only way. I know, right? He did pull me aside after the second class, when he’d had a chance to read some of my work. He knew right off I wasn’t a beginner, which was nice, but after the initial love-in, he proceeded to eviscerate every scrap of writing I turned in.

Now lest you think I’m overly sensitive to writing critique, I want to defend myself. I’ve been getting critique for many years and have developed a business-like approach. If it helps the story, I take it. If it doesn’t, then I don’t. Obviously every writer wants to be told how great their work is, that their words sing from the page. My philosophy on critique is, if it hurts, then it’s probably true. In other words, if the critique stings, then it must mean on some level, you agree with it. I’ve been telling this to my kids for years; the only way someone’s words can hurt you (and I believe words can hurt waaay more than sticks and stones) is if you believe them.

His critique of my writing didn’t hurt my feelings the way true criticism usually does, when I know I need to go back in and make the changes. Although he did make some valid points, most of it flat out didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and a lot of it centered on how I wasn’t following his formulaic method for writing fiction.

I pulled out copies of all my favorite novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Breathing Lessons, I Know This Much is True. I mean, Irving, Tyler, Lamb—these guys are the best. My idols. Surely they must be following his secret formula for literary success? It was then I got an idea. One of my wonderful, awful ideas. I copied word for word eight random pages from Anne Tyler’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Breathing Lessons, and handed it in. (Full disclosure: since he already knew my writing style, I changed the formatting of hers. She writes big, long paragraphs. I don’t. So I broke her paragraphs down. I also changed the character names and said it was “a few pages from another novel.”)

Yeah, I know. It was a bitchy thing to do. But I learned more from that exercise than the whole rest of the class. Copying her words, it felt like I was channeling her style, so different from mine and then simultaneously, weirdly, not so very different underneath it at all. I learned there’s no precise formula for writing a great story. Sure there are rules and guidelines and I suppose you have to know the rules before you can break them, but every great story is as individual as the writers that wrote them. And when Teacher eviscerated Pulitzer Prize winning Anne in the same way he had me, I felt vindicated. If in his eyes I'm such a terrible fiction writer, at least I'm in very good company.

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A broken chair small price to pay for trip down memory lane

2011-09-04T09:56:00.000-05:00

“Do you want us to sit on your lap now?”

This morning Ethan asked me this when he and Kyle had finished their Honey Nut Cheerios and I went all soft and teary-eyed, because I’d forgotten that was our after-breakfast routine for years. One boy on each knee for a hug and a cuddle before we’d get started on the rest of our day. At six-foot-plus each, if they’d tried it today, we would have broken the chair, and we already have one kitchen chair that’s broken, but that’s not why it made me cry.

These days my sons get themselves ready in the morning. While school hasn’t started for them yet, (Public Service Announcement: CPS start September 6^th!) they’ve had cross-country practice at 8 a.m. every day for the last couple of weeks. They wake up with their alarms, feed themselves breakfast and walk down to the bus stop to get themselves to school. I am dangerously close to becoming irrelevant. This morning I joined them at the table for the first time in a while and the reminder of how they both used to fit on my lap got me all verklempt. In fact, this ritual was so important to us, we had to know right away if we’d be able to incorporate Tanya into it. She’s pretty tiny, so it was kind of a slam-dunk, but a relief nonetheless when we were successful. I believe my words when we took this picture were, “I told you this would work,” and it did, literally following symbolically.

: She fits!

This morning I know Ethan felt bad he’d made me cry. I told him it was just me being ridiculous, but everyone tells me how fast high school goes and then they’re out the door. I told him we should all just be grateful I was shedding happy tears because my children were turning into such fine young people and that I wasn’t sniffing about how I have to go bail any one of them out of jail again. And I should knock on wood here, because I know the fat lady isn’t singing yet.
As I watched the two of them walk down the sidewalk away from me, I really did start crying. And even though it was for all the right reasons, it doesn’t make it any easier to take. One more broken kitchen chair seems a small price to pay, to make time stop moving so quickly forward, for a trip down memory lane.

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My sons are just an upscale accoutrement

2011-09-04T09:54:00.001-05:00

How do I explain to my sons, identical twins, that, according to Slate, they’re nothing more than an “upscale accoutrement”? No wait, I think a better take on this would be to ask my husband why my life isn’t more “upscale”!

Are Twins Taking over? Slate.com

Airline Pilot #1 Most Stressful Job in America

2011-09-04T09:52:00.003-05:00

No kidding. Being under so much pressure could be the reason I didn’t hear about this study until now. But actually, I think it’s results from non-scientific studies that stress me out the most

Airline Pilot America's #1 Most Stressful Job

Life Mirrors Comedy Routine

2011-08-23T10:04:00.000-05:00

Mirroring someone’s behavior is an important technique often employed by sales people, so I’ve learned. But the other day I was in a meeting with a woman whom I’d just met and she was trying to sell me a service. And she was mirroring me. Badly. I’m guessing when a good salesperson does this, it’s not supposed to be so painfully obvious. When I leaned forward and acted serious, so did she. When I threw a hand up in the air in the “What are you going to do?” gesture, so did she. It bordered on the ridiculous. I felt like I was in that I Love Lucy episode when Lucy does the Mirror Routine with Harpo Marx. It was almost creepy.

Now I’m no salesperson. I’ve often said if my family had to rely on my selling ability to survive we should just start the food strike immediately and get it over with. So maybe I’m not the best person to write about good or bad sales techniques. After all, I did end up buying her product (tutoring for my daughter). But seriously? When I shake my head in the Can you believe it? gesture, she shakes her head too? In the same exact way. It was as though we were in a joint audition for a Miss Clairol commercial.

I suppose no one likes having their idiosyncrasies pointed out, much less mimicked. Can I be the only one who’s ever gotten annoyed when a game of monkey-see, monkey-do goes out of control, meaning the kids won’t stop playing and start following me through the house making fun of—I mean imitating, every thing I do?

Maybe that’s why this woman’s mirroring behavior annoyed me. It felt like she was making fun of me. People that are good at it, I imagine, would do it imperceptibly. In a study I read about for this article, successful mirrorers were found to be more well-liked by their mirrorees. Regardless, acitymom was not going to just let this opportunity for comedy go without taking the opportunity to amuse myself. I decided to do my own scientific study on bad mirroring technique and gave this poor girl a workout. Leaning forward, leaning back, crossing my arms, crossing my legs, uncrossing and re-crossing, throwing my head back to laugh and gesturing with my hands as if I were channeling my inner Italian. Which is when it occurred to me, maybe she didn’t realize she was doing it. Maybe I was now the one making fun of her.

For the remainder of the discussion, I sat pretty still. And not surprisingly, so did she. I guess in the end mirroring, bad or good, isn’t anything to go ape over.

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Amish Encounters of the Third Kind

2011-08-23T09:58:00.001-05:00

A friend of mine told me a story at work the other day and it was so compelling, I asked if he'd mind writing it down for my blog. And he did.

An Amish Encounter
By Michael Overbeek

A year ago, a photographer friend of mine, Ken, invited me to join him on a trip to Breman, Indiana to photograph the Amish. He’s fascinated by the Amish culture and hopes to put together a “coffee table” book illustrating their lifestyle. Now, even with my limited knowledge of the Amish, I knew they would prefer not to be photographed. I just didn’t know why. We received a few nasty looks, but overall most would just ignore us. Some even waved. No, not what you’re thinking. They used all 5 fingers.

On the second day of our visit, a 16 year-old named Joe approached us on his bicycle curious about, well, everything. Joe asked us about our cameras, car, even asked if we had an iPhone. We spoke for over an hour and our conversation ended with an invitation to his home for dinner.

Last week, over a year later, I drove my two sons (13 and 14 years) to meet Ken back in Breman and have dinner with Joe’s family. As we began the drive my youngest son, Logan informed me that he had a new song on his iPod he’d like to share with us while I drove. Turns out he had downloaded Weird Al Yankovic’s Amish Paradise. The lyrics are sung to the melody of Coolio’s Gangster’s Paradise. While the song isn’t “disrespectful” of the Amish culture, it highlights the differences between their culture and ours in a very humorous way. Lyrics like “There’s no phone, no lights, no motorcars, not a single luxury. Like Robinson Crusoe, it’s as primitive as can be” and “Hitchin’ up the buggy, churnin’ lots of butter, raised a barn on Monday, soon I’ll raise a nutter. Think you’re really righteous? Think you’re pure in heart? Well, I know, I’m a million times as humble as thou art.” My boys’ belly laugh would have warmed Weird Al’s heart. I told them the song would seem even more amusing after the visit.

We were greeted by Joe and his entire family. They’d dressed for our arrival in what was probably close to their Sunday best. The children (all six, ages 1 to 16) were lined up to greet us. We all sat down in their living room and shared stories about how our cultures differ. They knew much more about our culture than I knew about theirs. I learned the primary reason the Amish don’t have their photo taken is their extreme distaste of vanity. To display a photograph is a form of honoring oneself. My, how different life outside the Amish community would be if vanity were shunned in a similar fashion as say, drunk driving is.

Joe’s father, Mark, apologized that his boys would be busy that afternoon. They’d hired a neighbor’s equipment to bale 6 acres of hay and it was the only time the equipment was available. I asked if my boys and I could help. While the beard covered most of his smirk, Mark placated us by inviting our assistance. So, we baled hay, were shown the livestock, and drove a horse drawn carriage. We also ate a fabulous meal of “fresh” chicken cooked over an open pit fire, vegetables from their garden, and homemade dessert.

I brought my sons in hopes they would not only recognize how well off they were, but how hard some children their age worked. When we left I wasn’t sure who was better off. The simplicity of the Amish life with the closeness of the families, or our tech savvy, “Cat's in the Cradle” inspired existence. I envy what the Amish have. I could never give up the technology that I’ve become so accustomed to, but neither could I criticize it.

We spent 9 hours with Joe’s family. We learned much about baling hay, and cooking chicken over an open pit. We also learned about the bond of a family who works together, prays together, and respects each other. As we drove away 9 hours after we had arrived, we realized we’d made some new friends.

On the way home, Logan played Weird Al’s Amish song again. This time none of us laughed.

Michael Overbeek is the owner of Overbeek Photography, www.overbeekphotography.com. Every time I look at his website, it makes me want to squish back into my wedding dress so he can do one of his amazing Trash the Dress photo shoots. He's also a pretty darn good writer. (Be sure to check out the photo gallery below to see pictures from his visit!)

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Chicago Wiener Wars

2011-08-23T09:56:00.002-05:00

The wiener wars are being held in Chicago. As if we needed anything more to be proud of in our great city. And no, I'm not talking about the age-old battle of what defines a Chicago dog, you know catsup vs. no catsup (and let’s just get this on the record, if you say catsup, acitymom thinks you should move.) We're talking about a battle between Oscar Meyer and Sarah Lee, between the Oscar Meyer Wiener and the Ball Park Frank. The question that hopes to be settled in court, at I'm sure no small expense to taxpayers, is which company has the better wiener? Personally, I think the question should be who is a bigger wiener?

Reading the USA Today article, Wiener Wars Lawsuit, I'm reminded of every playground argument I've ever had, "Am not." "Are so." "I know you are, but what am I?" "You don't make America's best hot dog." "Yes we do." "Our hot dogs are 100% pure beef." "No they aren't." "Yes they are." The documents filed in the lawsuit go on for thousands of pages in a case that's lasted three years. That's longer than any playground argument I've ever had, even including the ones with Bonnie Skulniki.

I suppose to these huge companies, defending their corporate honor is important, but the whole thing seems plain ridiculous to me. They're hot dogs, already. Lighten up.

At least the judge in the case seems to have a sense of humor about it. A little comic relief for your tax dollars. According to the USA Today, Judge Morton Denlow said at the beginning of the trial, "Let the wiener wars begin."

It's naive of me to take the common sense approach, that our country has so many more important things to worry about these days, like unemployment, or the deficit, than some pseudo brat-fight (sorry) that's only going to make the lawyers rich. Honestly, are you going to switch your favorite brand of hot dog because of the results of this court battle?

When I was growing up, my dad was unemployed for several years during the recessionary 70's. We ate hot dogs. A lot. I was far into adulthood before I could even look at a hot dog without gagging and I imagine a lot of folks out there struggling to make ends meet might feel the same way someday soon, if not already.

I know, I know, the tax money spent on courts and judges comes from a different pool than the money used for unemployment benefits or developing alternative energy sources or paying teachers' salaries. But I hope against hope someday we'll figure out a way as a country to put an end to expensive frivolities and focus our energies on what's important. Otherwise, I think we'll all be the hot dogs.

While we’re on the topic, if you still care about hot dogs and really don’t care who makes them, come to the North Center Street Fest this weekend. It has a hot dog theme, and not just because it’s happening frighteningly close to where I live. Northside Summerfest No Catsup! I might be watching.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Oh Mickey What a Pity: A City Mom in the Ring of Fire

2011-08-23T09:55:00.002-05:00

Saturday night I tried Karaoke for the very first time. Perhaps you noticed your dishware cracking? It would have been around seven p.m. Central Daylight Savings time.

Friends of ours were having a 25th anniversary party and to celebrate they had a huge bash replete with live band karaoke. The host went first, which I thought was well…thoughtful, because it helped break the ice—at least as much as the Mike’s Hard Lemonade.

I don’t know why I have this unnatural fear of Karaoke. Oh, wait. Now I remember. It has to do with making an ass of myself in public. But the saying about how you should Do one thing every day that scares you came to mind. I love that saying. But scare is one thing. Terrify is another.

When my husband and our sons took the stage to sing Johnny Cash’s, Ring of Fire, they were wonderful. I was so proud. Captured the whole thing on video.

“When are you going up there,” my husband asked.

“Hopefully never.”

My voice is not the worst, your busted-up stemware notwithstanding, but singing in the shower or screaming out the words to Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World while I clipped my young sons’ fingernails is one thing. Singing in front of a crowd is quite another. (The Jeremiah was a bullfrog technique really works. The boys would immediately stop squirming and become mesmerized, allowing me to clip their nails. Over time, this method became so useful in snapping any of us out of a negative state, we began to refer to it as “The Frog.” e.g. “Look at mommy being crabby. We need to give her ‘The Frog.’”)

On Saturday, my friend, we’ll call her “Lynée,” was very encouraging, though. She’d just tried Karaoke for the first time recently and said she’d sing a song with me, telling me she was afraid the first time, too, but then after that it was like, Hand me that mike. Uh oh.

We looked over the playlist. We picked Toni Basil’s Hey Mickey. Easy song, right? Wrong. Turns out there’s no background melody except during the chorus, which we nailed, if I must say, but we were totally lost during most of the rest of it. In our defense, there was no follow-along video screen but only written lyrics, with instructions in red ink that said stuff like “sing this four times” that I didn’t notice until we were almost finished. (I could NOT wear my reading glasses up there even though my friend Rick told me he was pretty sure all the rock stars do it.)

Ethan even put down his video game controller and found his way out of the basement to watch his mom make an a— I mean watch his mom try something that scared her and this more than anything else made me happy I’d done it. Honestly, I don’t think many people cared or judged or were even paying much attention to the fact we’d gotten lost with the lyrics. But I do know if I don’t get that video back from Ethan, he will be getting The Frog indefinitely and unmercifully.

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National Book Week, or Why I'm glad Claudia didn't eat a booger on page 56

2011-08-23T09:54:00.000-05:00

It’s National Book Week, at least according to Facebook, and in celebration, you’re supposed to reach for the closest book, go to page 56 and post the fifth sentence as your status, which really makes me happy the fifth sentence of my novel isn’t, “Claudia ate a booger,” or similar. And this is not because I carry it with me everywhere I go. I’m just saying.

When I did this earlier in the week, my sentence was “Beat in the brown sugar, oil and applesauce.” As you might imagine this was because I was in the kitchen and I grabbed the closest book, which happened to be a horror novel because don’t you think oil, brown sugar and applesauce just sound nasty together? Regardless, it’s a fun little exercise that happens around this approximate time every year. I haven’t been able to pin down the exact dates; it varies depending on where you search on the Internet. This is fine with me because personally I think every week should be National Book Week.

Just yesterday I was introduced to someone else as an author and the man said, “Oh, I don’t read books.” He seemed rather proud of this, which I think is along the same lines as being proud of not holding the door open for little old ladies. I mean really? You’re proud you don’t read books? Or perhaps he was just afraid I was going to try to sell him the copy of Wish Club I keep in my pocket.
Personally, I wish I could read more books. I wish I could spend my days lolling on the couch, or the beach or anywhere for that matter (who wouldn’t like to loll more?) reading massive quantities of books. When we were on vacation earlier this summer, we all brought our Kindles and we read, read, read. It was heaven to soak up so much literature. And nothing makes me more proud than to watch my kids immersed in books. It makes me feel that as a parent, I’ve done at least one thing right.

What I don’t like about the Kindle though, is you can’t see what people are reading because you can’t see the book cover. And this is not because I’m worried my kids are reading Harold Robbins. Listen, Ethan just finished Freakonomics. He’s fourteen. Scary enough, right? I just like checking out book covers when I’m at the airport or beach or on CTA, just to see what titles are hot right now without having them filtered though somebody else’s published list. Maybe those folks at Amazon could figure out a way to have covers display on the outside of the Kindle somehow. Or maybe they could just display the fifth sentence from page 56 on the cover of whatever book the reader is e-reading, because judging from what I’ve seen on Facebook, that can be enticing enough.

Happy National Book Week, everyone!

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

My Dog is a Poser

2011-08-23T09:50:00.000-05:00

At nine years old, my dog Wrigley has been my faithful running companion for almost eight years now. Most days she has more energy than I do, running out in front of me as if to say, “C’mon!”, pacing on anyone who passes us, which is just about everyone. Speed has never been my forte in the sport of running and I’m pretty sure my slow miles just annoy the hell out of her, judging from how when we come home after an hour or so on the streets, she’ll tear around the backyard at full speed, mostly just to piss me off, I think.
I worry about her in the heat, though, and so on days when the temperature tops 83 or so, I usually leave her home and this summer that’s been happening a lot. When I went out the door yesterday, the way she flattened her ears down on her head when she saw me taking off in my running togs without her broke my heart.

When the weather is on the warmer side and she does join me, I stop for water often and watch how she reacts. In cold weather, she’ll whine at my delay tactics, “Let’s get going!” Only during longer runs on warm days will she ever take a drink from a fountain herself, and if she ever sits down at a water stop, I know we need to, um, dog it for a while.

Last week we were running together on a warmer day. Although the morning had started out with temperatures below eighty, by the time we got to the lake and were halfway through our jog they were clearly inching up. I let her set the pace, and instead of running out in front of me, she remained at my side. Not a good sign. But suddenly in our last half mile, she got a burst of energy. Way out in front of me now, she changed her gait from her usual working dog, head to the ground stride to the heads up energetic trot of a Lipizzaner stallion. I was relieved. She’s fine! Look at her, tail wagging, trotting along out in front of me, full of energy in this heat. Look at—Doggie Beach, off to our right.

Why you little poser, I thought. Showing off for the other dogs!

I’d seen this transformation in her gait before. It happens whenever another dog is in sight. Usually it’s just any dog passing us, so her show-off trot shouldn’t have surprised me when we passed an entire beach full of dogs. It’s hilarious to me that a dog could be so much like a person. I wonder if she would wait to turn a corner before she stopped to walk, or would start running again just as she turns down the block for home. Not that I would ever do this, I’m just saying.

Regardless, I think it’s safe to say both my dog and I are looking forward to cooler weather, when we can consistently trot out to show off—I mean, go for nice, long, albeit rather slow, runs together.

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A City Mom is the D.B. Cooper Story Pooper

2011-08-07T10:03:00.000-05:00

Isn’t it exciting? The FBI seems to be on the verge of solving our country’s only unsolved hijacking! The D.B. Cooper story has been the subject of speculation and folklore ever since it happened in 1971. But wait a minute, folks. I hate to dump a big pile of acitymom skepticism onto the parade, but the woman coming forward with the new evidence is writing a book about it.

Gee, do you think this new evidence might help her sell a few books?

According to yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, Marla Cooper said, “she is working on a book about her uncle, but said that wasn’t her primary motivation for coming forward.” Really? I mean, because who wouldn’t want to read a book about Lynn Doyle Cooper, some obscure guy from nowhere that died back in 1999? I’m sure all those literary agents and publishers were beating down her door before she approached the FBI with her new evidence. Can’t you see them behind their big desks in their fancy New York offices: “The Lynn Doyle Cooper Story! I must have it at any price!”

Have we learned nothing from James Frey and Greg Mortensen? Will Marla Cooper be our third cup of deceit? She says she remembers all this stuff about her uncle, that he was plotting in the garage with another uncle. That he showed up all bloody and bruised after the hijacking happened. She didn’t remember any of this before now? She didn’t think the FBI would be interested in knowing earlier? Please.

As a person who has a foot in both worlds, flying and publishing, I can tell you the D.B. Cooper story is a fascinating and potentially lucrative one. If Marla Cooper really has new evidence, then shame on her for sitting on it all these years. If she really doesn’t have any new, hard physical evidence besides these “memories” from when she was a girl, well then, just shame on her.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

I LOVE Not Camping

2011-08-07T10:01:00.001-05:00

Every August around this time, my husband takes our children camping. All of them. This leaves me home alone for about five days. I LOVE not camping.

The tradition started about eight or so years ago as the Men’s Camping Trip. My husband and our sons, his brother and his son. Then my niece, at the age of four or so, decided she didn’t want to be left out. Apparently deciding my brother-in-law should not be left in the woods to care for a four year-old, my sister-in-law insisted on coming along, too. And then it became the camping trip for everyone except Kim.

How I’ve managed to get away with this for so long is a mystery to me. Wait. I know. Maybe it’s because I insist to everyone that I hate camping. I’ve been known to say, “My idea of camping is two stars.” Hey, I am ACityMom after all. But my disdain for sleeping in a tent in the great outdoors is fake. In fact, I often went camping with a childhood friend when I was growing up and loved it. I know there’s a big difference between being the grown-ups and being the kids when it comes to camping. The only preparation we had to do as kids was imagine how we wanted our marshmallows done. I still marvel at the bravery of Mr. and Mrs. G. They had three kids of their own and still didn’t seem to mind one more tagging along. Or maybe they were like me, once you have three you don’t even notice a few more.

“Who are you?” I ask the strange kid at our dinner table.

“Gracie. I live down the street.”

“Right. And you?”

“Trevor. I’m Ethan’s friend from school.”

“Fine. Eat your peas.”

Which is why having my entire house to myself for so long is like therapy for my soul. I feel like a sponge soaking up the solitude. The order. The quiet. When was the last time you had a day stretch before you in which you didn’t have to take care of anyone?

I write in big thirsty chunks of time. I go for a run whenever the hell I want. I eat when I’m hungry. I don’t cook. No meal planning, no chauffeuring. I won’t have to run the dishwasher until Sunday. When I put a piece of paper on a kitchen counter, it’s still there three days later!

As they were making their way out the door yesterday, my husband said, “You’re going to miss us.” I almost replied, “Whatever gets you out the door,” but he’s right. I will. I do. And I did almost start to run down the steps to get one last hug, one last peck on the cheek from each of them.

In no time they’ll be home and the noise and the mayhem and the chaos will return. All the wonderful things that make being a family so perfect. In the mean time, don’t hate me because I’m not camping.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

A City Mom raises a stink

2011-08-02T14:01:00.001-05:00

Remember the line from Avatar, “I see you.” The Navi would say that to each other and to the animals they killed and at first I thought, Hmmm. That’s kind of dumb. But the more I got to thinking about it, the more I realized, it’s the problem with all of Western society. We pretend we don’t see each other.

The cashier pretends we don’t exist. The customer pretends the cashier isn’t a real live human being and stands on his side of the counter talking on his phone to someone else. When that woman cut you off with her car, it wasn’t only that she didn’t see you, it was also that she thought you didn’t merit the space you were in. Do you begin to see (sorry) how things would change if we just saw each other? The whole world would be like Trader Joe’s, except maybe without all the Hawaiian shirts.

I don’t know when we all stopped treating each other like human beings. Maybe when the world population topped six billion. Perhaps it’s like city life. We’re all smushed so close together, we avert our eyes to afford each other some privacy. But how about giving each other some common decency instead. If we all saw each other as human beings or children of God or points of light or destined to be worm food, maybe we would be a little nicer to each other, kind of like how we all treated each other in the weeks after 9/11.

The other day I bought some fresh Alaskan Cod at a local grocery chain. The next day when I opened the fridge to start dinner, something stunk. Bad. Suspecting the fish, I brought it out. It smelled fishy, but not too strongly so I started washing it in the sink, which is when I gagged so hard I almost had to step outside. I quickly put it back in its packaging and wrapped it in a plastic grocery bag then wrapped it again in one of those sturdier Target bags and drove back to the store (windows open in 90 degree heat) to get my money back.

When I arrived at the service counter, there was nobody there. The store was crowded, but none of the cashiers or baggers or workers hustling around would look at me. So I stood waiting. And waiting. Five minutes. Six. Doesn’t seem too long writing it here, but it’s plenty long when you’re first in line at an empty counter holding a stinky bag of rotten fish and everyone that works in the store is pretending you don’t exist. That they don’t see you.

I put the bag down on the counter and waited some more. At around the ten-minute mark, a cashier did say someone would be right with me. But still I continued to wait. That is, until I got an idea. A wonderful, awful idea. I opened the Target bag and stepped back.

My refund followed swiftly.

All I’m saying is we should do what we teach our children: be nice to each other. And then no one would have to raise a stink about wanting to be seen.

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Forced Scrapbooking: Cruel and Unusual

2011-08-02T13:57:00.001-05:00

What's worse than waterboarding? More cruel than the rack?

Forced Scrapbooking.

Words can't express how grateful I am to never have been subjected to this most heinous of all forms of torture. When I received an email from one of my girlfriends, we'll call her "Sally," I was ready to fly to The Hague to report the crime to the United Nations myself. Here are some excerpts from Sally's email:

When my sons played high school soccer, we were expected to create a page for them to be included in the scrapbook, as well as attend weekly Scrapbooking sessions.

Weekly scrapbooking sessions? Add this to the soccer war crimes tribunal.

I declined this "opportunity" and was hounded by the scrapbook mom who was in charge. She said, "how disappointed my boys would be if they didn't have a personal page " in their book.

Really? Two teenage boys? Last time I checked, the only thing that could disappoint teenage boys in this manner was teenage girls.

The book was ridiculous. Over 100 pages long, to remember every single moment in a short soccer season of six weeks. "Look! My kids eating pizza!" Photos of parents sitting in the stands. And the best pages? Pictures of everyone's car driving them to practice. (Yep, mine was the dirtiest car, had not been washed in weeks.)

Now, my daughter's team just announced they wanted a scrapbook page by next week.

Next week? Cruel and unusual.

This is the team for which my daughter often played ten minutes out of an eighty-minute game. Should I just send her a picture of my daughter sitting on the bench, as that pretty much summarizes the season?

Any way to get out of this? Sam (Sally's husband) thinks I should just bite my lip and do it...but I do not want any memories of this soccer season (nor did I take any pictures and the season is now over.)

I don't scrapbook. My photos are in boxes, bags and in several different files on the computer. It is my major weakness that I haven't documented my children's lives in an artistic fashion and although I don't want to screw up the team's eighteen scrapbooks, (we're expected to make eighteen color copies), I could care less if my daughter is included. (She's trying out for a different team next year.) Or should I just go ballistic and say, "ARE YOU CRAZY? MY DAUGHTER BARELY EVER PLAYED AND WE ARE TRYING DESPERATELY TO FORGET THIS MISERABLE TEAM AND TYPE A PARENTS! "

OK, I feel better now. Just tell me I'm not crazy.

No my dear friend, Sally. You are not the crazy one. Can you imagine? Forced Scrapbooking. Eighteen color copies. All this after enduring an entire season of soccer, which in my experience, is its own form of torture.

I told Sally she should send Scrapbook Mom some stick figure drawings, or maybe just cut and paste words from magazines and newspapers, like a ransom note, with a thinly veiled threat, perhaps telling Scrapbook Mom her crime against humanity will not go unpunished.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

Parting is Sweet Sorrow

2011-07-25T14:30:00.001-05:00

Today we’re getting rid of the Easy Bake Cotton Candy Maker. I know! It’s a big day. I suppose it would be an even bigger day if we decided to get rid of the pasta maker, too, but we do manage to pull that contraption out about once every three years (the amount of time it takes me to forget what a pain in the ass it is to clean it) to make fresh pasta.

I bought the Cotton Candy Maker at Costco about eight years ago. I was there with the boys shortly before Christmas and when Kyle saw it, he decided right then and there he could not live without it. When I told him I would not get it for him, but that he could ask Santa for it, it led to the only full-blown, all-out, in-store tantrum I remember any of my kids ever having.

Up and down the aisles of Costco, I was the mom with the screaming, wailing, tantrumming child who wanted his cotton candy maker and wanted it NOW. I would not relent. And neither would he. I got snide looks, sympathetic looks, all sorts of looks, but I was not swayed. It took about twenty minutes, but Kyle eventually calmed down. It took me about four hours and a martini.

Afterward, however, I had a wonderful idea: I would buy Kyle the Easy Bake Cotton Candy maker for Christmas! It would be a lesson in delayed gratification! He will also have learned that a tantrum will not get you what you want, when you want it. Oh, what a parenting coup!

Flash forward to Christmas morning. I was so excited to see the joy on little Kyle’s face when he unwrapped the cotton candy maker. He tore at the paper. I envisioned rays of sun bursting through clouds. Angelic voices singing.

“What’s this?” He sounded almost disgusted.

“It’s the Easy Bake Cotton Candy Maker!” I said.

Blank stare.

“The one from Costco! The one you said you wanted. The one you lov—“ my voice trails off here as Kyle throws the gadget off to the side and tears into another unopened box. Probably one with clothes in it, just to twist the knife.

We did use it a couple of times. I seem to remember it required dumping a five-pound bag of “Special Cotton Candy” (read: expensive) sugar into the bowl, listening to that annoying motor whine for, like, a day and a half and then turning the hand crank to collect the teaspoon of cotton candy it had generated. Parting with it will not be difficult, or at least not as difficult as parting with that dumb pasta maker.

The Easy Bake Cotton Candy maker was a good lesson. It taught us that our desire for and fascination with things can sometimes be as ephemeral as, well, cotton candy.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

A City Mom Drives Readers to Suicide (Prevention!)

2011-07-25T14:27:00.000-05:00

As a ChicagoNow blogger, I receive a lot of press releases from public relations people trying to promote their causes. I ignore most of them, am amused by some of them, but the one I received earlier this week gave me pause: Why do they think readers of A City Mom need to know about suicide prevention?

Okay, I know. My bad. I shouldn’t make fun of such a serious topic. Not even by pretending to be paranoid. Or even just slightly neurotic (and please, will the Society for Slight Neuroses not put me on their mailing list.)

The amusing PR emails came from a woman who seemed very nice, albeit cloyingly persistent, who kept trying to get me to go to a new mom and kids coffee shop so I could blog about it. If only she read my blog. Then she would have known how much I would have given anything for their little café to have existed ten years ago. That was back when I would pay money to leave my kids with a sitter, so I could escape the chaos of my house and go to a coffee house, where I’d hoped to get some work done, only to find the coffee shop was just a budget version of Gymboree.

Her emails were more annoying than those moms at Starbucks who let little Finn and Emily run wild, while they talked loudly about how they'd invented motherhood. I finally got tired of the coffee shop lady's pestering emails and actually wrote her back. I told her I thought I would go to her coffee shop, that my fourteen year-old, six-foot tall sons would enjoy playing on the floor with all the other kids while my twelve year-old daughter did the barista’s hair. I never heard from her again.

And lest you reach for the phone to dial the suicide prevention hotline while waiting for me to get to my point, I found the press release from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention especially compelling. Compelling enough to write about, you know, after I made my few requisite jibes. (Hey, if they read acitymom...)

It said that in the Unites States a person dies by suicide every fifteen minutes. 34,000 people a year. As a member of a family that’s been touched by suicide, I know it's a serious topic that few are comfortable talking about and their message bears repeating. Here's a link to the home page for the Illinois Chapter of the AFSP. AFSP Greater Chicago/Illinois Chapter

The AFSP also organizes Out of the Darkness community walks, and there’s going to be one in Chicago September 24^th. Here’s the link: Out of the Darkness Community Walk Chicago
They’re trying to raise $365,000. So, if you can’t walk, you can always make a donation. Just, um, don’t kill yourself. (sorry)

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

The Future of Aviation at Stake

2011-07-25T14:24:00.002-05:00

It seems once again the fate of my alma mater, The University of Illinois Institute of Aviation, is up in the air (sorry). [Daily Illini: Board of Trustees to Consider Institute of Aviation Closure Thursday.] This is nothing new. When I attended school there, oh, (or do I say Gaaa!) twenty-five years ago, they were considering closing the Institute back then. The intellectual muckety-mucks higher up at the University have always considered learning to fly to be a trade as opposed to an academic persuasion. In this respect, they’d probably get along pretty well with airline management when it comes to deciding to pay us what we’re worth. Regardless, I wonder if this is truly how all of them feel when they, and their children, set foot on a 400,000 pound jet to go for a ride.
It’s no secret Air Traffic Controller errors are on the rise. Wonder why that is? In April I wrote the following letter to Senator Durbin. It sums up my take on both of these issues and why I think they’re related.

Dear Senator Durbin,
I would like to applaud your call for an investigation into the controller errors at O'Hare! [Durbin urges probe of O'Hare controller errors ] I would also like to ask for any help you can give in trying to prevent the University of Illinois from closing the Institute of Aviation, and I believe these two issues are similar.
The caliber of people in controller training now has changed. Here's a link to the government's ATC website [www.faa.gov] The way I read it, you can graduate high school, work at McDonald's for three years and then have the experience necessary to train with ATC. A four-year degree is no longer required. Is this the quality of people we want to entrust our lives with? I believe there's no mere coincidence between this standard and the increase in controller errors.
Since I was a student at The University of Illinois Institute of Aviation, the University has frowned upon the Institute, seeing it as a "trade school," as though it is somehow beneath them. And yet they love the Agriculture School. Isn't farming a trade as well? Although I imagine they know better where their bread is buttered in our agricultural state.
In thirty years of flying, every pilot I have flown with who has trained at the University of Illinois has been excellent. To a person. Every one. It didn't matter if they graduated years before or years after me, I knew when I climbed into a cockpit with an Institute grad, I would find a sharp, intelligent and superior pilot.
There are other flight schools out there, but the advantage of schools associated with a great University like the University of Illinois is in the caliber of the people it attracts and who can gain admission. If the University should choose to close the Institute of Aviation it will be to the detriment of the future of the flying profession. Where you train does make a difference. While flying a jet may or may not be a trade, it takes quite a bit of intelligence and skill. I would hate to see the standards slip in this sector in the same way it appears to be trending for ATC.
The closing of the University of Illinois Institute of Aviation and the trend it portends is something all future airline passengers have a stake in. Their safety, their very lives, depend on it.
Sincerely,
Kim Strickland

To back up my point, earlier this month, the Tribune ran this story, [Chicago Tribune: controller washouts], which states,

"They've (new controllers) been coming in hot and heavy for four years and we haven't had a completely successful one go all the way yet to full-performance level," said James Hall, a controller who is the union representative at the Terminal Radar Approach Control center, or TRACON, in Elgin.
The track record has been that about half of the experienced controllers who transferred to the TRACON and 80 percent of the new hires fail during initial training, officials said.

I suppose controllers and pilots don’t need a college education to do what we do. Because, after all, how much education do I need to be an expert on aerodynamics, hydraulics, electronics, pneumatics, meteorology, or to know how many transmissometers I have to have operational in order to shoot a CAT IIIA approach? See, it’s all so simple. Anybody can do it. And if aviation education trends keep heading the way they are, anyone will.
Safe travels, y’all.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and/or Like me on Facebook here.

The University of Illinois Institute of Aviation is hosting an informational picket outside the Board of Trustees meeting this Thursday July 21 at 7:00 a.m., UIC Student Center West, Chicago Rooms B and C, 828 South Wolcott Avenue, Chicago

My letter to Senator Durbin was edited slightly for length.

Got Your E-Reader Yet?

2011-07-25T14:23:00.000-05:00

Konrath on Borders/Publishing

Urban Corn Detasselling

2011-07-25T14:21:00.002-05:00

Every summer around this time, in the middle of my kids' I'm bored doldrums, my husband trots out the story of how, When I was your age, I was outside in ninety-degree heat, standing on a tractor moving through central Illinois corn fields detasselling corn for ten hours a day. This, of course, causes said children to rightfully roll their eyes and exchange the Oh brother look the way my generation did when our parents told us they had to walk barefoot to school in the snow. Uphill. Both ways.

In his defense, when my husband tells his corn detasselling story, he's being facetious. It's become a favorite part of one of our frequent dinnertime amusements. If someone complains about something, anything, we try to outdo them with an "Oh yeah? Well you were lucky. I had to..." by filling in the blank with whatever worse misery our imagination can come up with. For example, if I complained traffic was terrible, someone would be obliged to tell me I was lucky to have a car. Good times, right?

This week, my husband managed to outdo his own corn detasselling biopic. After he'd once again told the heartwarming tale of his pastoral childhood's Midwestern work ethic, one of the boys smugly replied he'd be happy to detassel corn all summer long if only there were a way to do it in Chicago.

Considering the guy next door to us in the old neighborhood got so fed up with the weeds in his backyard he removed all his grass and planted corn, my son should be more careful what he says. That and the fact we have eight stalks of corn (popcorn!) growing in our backyard garden. This is probably what gave Jeff the idea for a job even more miserable than his childhood's: Urban Corn Detasseller.

Oh yeah? You we lucky. I was an Urban Corn Detasseller I had to go door to door looking for corn just so I could detassel it!

We immediately latched on to the idea as the story our kids could trot out to their own someday.

Oh sure corn detasselling is hard. But try being an Urban Corn Detasseller. We didn't get to ride on a nice tractor through fields where the corn already was. We had to hunt down the corn, too.

For the rest of this summer at least, the next time a child complains about having nothing to do, they're going right out to the backyard to detassel those eight ears of corn. Then maybe back to the old neighborhood for more of the same. Who knows, we might even send them door to door. There could be a great urban need for corn detassellers and we've only just discovered it. Of course they'll have to do it barefoot. Walking up hill both ways. If only we could provide some July snow.

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A Zamboni Run

2011-07-25T14:20:00.001-05:00

Our family has been known to go on family runs. All five of us barreling (Can you call it barreling if it happens slowly?) down the sidewalk. Four of us jogging, our daughter on her bike. Don’t call DCFS. We all like running. I’ve been at it for over twenty years now. Our boys run track and cross-country at their school. My husband used to run marathons. And my daughter begs to come along on her bike, which affords us the opportunity to all go together. See? Not as heinous as it sounds. But perhaps not nearly as heinous as we look. And, as you can imagine, we get a lot of looks.

Last weekend on Sunday, you know, the day it was really, really hot, things were not going well for our heroes. Tanya scraped the back of her foot turning around on her bike and was grumpy and emotional the whole way back. I thought I felt the evil grip of plantar fasciitis biting at my right heel again. My husband, feeling especially spry, kept sprinting ahead in the most annoying manner.

After pausing for about the third time to address the hostage situation my daughter had us in (The miniscule scrape on her heel wouldn’t allow her to wear her shoes. She simply must walk.), my son Kyle commented on our particularly miserable outing, “These Zamboni runs just never go well.”

I just about doubled-over laughing. We all did. I mean, “Zamboni Run?” I could not have picked a better way to describe it. It’s exactly what we were. This huge God-awful Zamboni family scraping our way slowly down the street. If only there’d been ice on a day as hot as last Sunday.

After our belly laugh, my husband patiently had Tanya take off her shoe, flatten its heel and then wear it like a clog. Voila. She could ride. My heel calmed down once I got warmed up. And best of all, my husband stopped pacing the pack in an outrageously speedy manner.

We all made it home and drank Gatorade on the front porch like we were part of a TV commercial. My heel was fine. Tanya’s heel felt fine and she even stopped acting so sullen. We all felt good. I just wish I could say the same thing for the dog. It was just too hot, so we hadn’t taken her with us. Talk about sullen. My favorite canine running partner was mad at us for the rest of the day.

But honestly, five people, one bike and a dog? I can’t think of a metaphor to exceed “Zamboni,” and lest you call the Humane Society, I don’t want to find one.

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Do-gooder Graffiti Artist Redux

2011-07-25T14:19:00.001-05:00

My Do-Gooder graffiti artist struck again. This time, he (or she?) really struck me. I mean, as regular readers of acitymom know, I’m a sucker for irony. And this time, my do-gooder topped himself (maybe even me!) He wrote, “Nothing is Permanent” on the wall of a cemetery. I think he even wrote in chalk. Thoughtful. You know, for a guy prone to defacing property. Regardless, when I drove down Irving Park Road on Friday and saw it on the side of the Graceland Cemetery, I had to pull over immediately to snap this photo. I knew it wouldn’t last forever.

Folk and Roots Fest Weirdo Watch

2011-07-25T14:12:00.002-05:00

Whenever you go to one of Chicago’s many festivals, like the Folk and Roots Festival we attended Saturday, you have to expect to encounter a few weirdoes, myself included. However this time, the weirdoes came in counterintuitive packages.

Saturday was a perfect day weather-wise for hanging out and listening to great music. The large crowd reflected that. Our newly CTA savvy boys met us there around dinnertime (food always being motivational if you’re a fourteen year-old boy.) after attending a friend's block party. As I see it, it’s never too early for them to learn another important life skill: finding people at a large festival, especially when they don’t have a big tie-dyed flag.

Shortly after they arrived, a huge bare-chested man in dreadlocks came by our blanket selling handmade bracelets. I must admit I was tempted, even though I know a beaded hemp ankle bracelet is the kind of thing I’d only wear for fifteen minutes at a street festival.

I told him, “No, thank you. They are beautiful, though.” And I smiled and made eye contact with him. I could tell from the body language in our little group, they thought I was nuts for potentially encouraging this guy. But the response he gave me! It’s like I gave him a bar of gold. He was so damned grateful. He said most people, “treat me like I’m an alien. But it’s beautiful people, nice people like you that make it all worthwhile.” He actually made me feel good for telling him "No."

A while later he was dancing with his beer and I heard another woman, pointing to him when she walked by, say, “And then there’s always that guy. You know, the weirdo with his shirt off dancing.”

Later, when the last band was playing, a pretty Asian woman in a large straw hat walked up to my friend. We’ll call him “Bill.” She had her hand out as if to shake his and was all enthusiastic to see him so, for a moment, I thought they knew each other. Soon it became clear he didn’t. What happened next is where it gets strange. Bill was standing next to my husband when she came up in between them. I was standing next to Jeff, with Bill’s wife was on the other side of me. She began stroking Bill’s hair and giving me and Bill’s wife a look like, What are you gonna do about it?

I told her I thought it was time she left. And she said, “I no go bye-bye. You go bye-bye. You ugly. You ugly, you go bye-bye,” smiling at me all the while. I told her I was going to walk over to the tent behind us and get security. She didn’t budge. So I walked over to the tent behind us, turning around a couple of times. She was watching me, but still she didn’t move.

A very nice Folk and Roots staff lady quickly followed me back with a walkie-talkie, calling for security after I told her what was going on, that a strange and probably drunk woman was harassing us and wouldn’t leave, even after we’d asked her to.

When we got back, I took my place next to my husband and waved at the little straw hat woman, saying, “Now you go bye-bye” as the staff lady approached. They had words, and it took a while, but the straw-hatted interloper eventually followed her away. I don’t know what happened next, but the last we saw of the tiny straw-hatted lady was her breaking into a run for the gate with the staff woman chasing her.

This is a lesson in using your intuition, I told my kids. The threatening looking weirdo was just that guy, having fun at a street fest and trying to make some cash to buy beer. The non-threatening looking little woman was actually a great threat that needed to be run off by security. I told them they should try to listen to that inner voice when they hear it, the way I had. Because ugliness, like beauty, often comes in unlikely packages.

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This Summer, CTA means "Children Travelling Autonomously"

2011-07-25T14:11:00.000-05:00

The words Independence Day carry a new meaning in our house this year. You see, my sons have discovered the CTA. Of course they’ve been using public transportation their entire urban lives, but now it’s different. Before, we used to go with them. And when we took them places on the El or the bus, I’m certain they never paid any attention to where we were or how we got there or how to get back home. It’s like when you’re a passenger in someone else’s car. Unless the driver specifically asks you to navigate (or you’re my mother), you just trust they’ll get you there.

Since they’re starting high school next year and a CTA bus will be the school bus, over the course of the last year or so we’ve forced them to pay attention to the public transportation process. I mean, these are the same two kids that used to get lost crossing the street to fetch a stray ball. Last spring, my husband took it upon himself to get them to a friend’s house across town via the El and a bus, telling them the next time they’d be expected to do it on their own.

The boys have never looked back. Now that they’ve realized the freedom and possibilities public transportation has opened up for them, they are all over it. This summer has been filled with get-togethers (can’t call them playdates anymore) with their friends all over town. They’ve even gone to pick-up a few pals whose parents couldn’t drive them over and who hadn’t received clearance for independent CTA travel yet. In fact, when going to meet some friends at the movies the first week of summer, they were mortified when our sitter offered to drive them. “No! We can get there!”

This is yet another reason we chose city life. Sure, they’ll learn to drive. But they won’t need to. And they may be especially motivated not to when they learn the car they’ll be sharing is going to look an awful lot like the beat-up ’99 Camry parked in the garage. Even if we fix the busted-out headlight, I doubt it will ever scream, “chick magnet.”

In the mean time, their newfound independence is especially fantastic for me, in that I no longer have to plan to pick them up and drop them off all over town. All I have to worry about is getting my daughter back and forth to the places she needs to be. In other words, their independence means more independence for me.

It's both fantastic and bittersweet.

I love that my boys are now CTA savvy Children Traveling Autonomously. But I miss having them around. Today they're on their way to school for a meeting then off to a friend's and with my daughter at camp, our house is weirdly quiet for a summer afternoon. Despite some mild concern when the boys headed out for the bus stop and Kyle turned left and Ethan turned right, I suppose I should just suck it up and relax, be happy and enjoy the quiet. And for those of you who'd give me a token (remember CTA tokens, eh?) for my thoughts, understand that independence has to be a part of the process if you're doing it right.

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Human Pincushion Learns to Just Say "No"

2011-07-21T18:11:00.001-05:00

The nurse had the syringe stuck in the inside of my arm and was rooting around, trying to find one of my veins, which, in her defense, I’ve been told are small. This hurt. (the rooting around, not the insult to the size of my veins.) And so I said, “Okay, we’re done.” She did one last little futile root as if she hadn’t really heard me, but then she pulled the needle out.

It’s taken me a lot of years to get to this point: being able to tell a nurse unable to draw blood from me to knock it off. I used to be so deferential and accommodating, returning from routine blood tests, like the one I had yesterday, looking like a member of the Confederate Army.

I’m not a big weenie about it either, as some of you might be suspecting. I mean, I don’t particularly care for the sight of blood, especially my own, but I know it only hurts for the split-second when the needle pierces the skin. Unless of course they start rooting. This change—going from being an accommodating pincushion to being the patient with no more patience—happened sometime after my sons were born. My high-risk pregnancy had me in for blood tests so often, I began to resent the abuse. The kiss-of-blood-drawing-death, in my book, was when after several nurses had tried and failed, they’d call the doctor in. Great. The guy who hasn’t drawn blood in twenty years. One day I finally asked them all to stop and to give me a prescription to go to a hospital for the blood draw. When I got there, the Phlebotomist asked me in horror, “Who did this to you?”

He told me my veins are indeed small, and they’re deep, but they’re there. My favorite part was when he said it’s not my fault when people can’t find them. (I’ve had nurses tell me my veins roll around, plotting, hiding from them. I’ve had them accuse me of being dehydrated. Me. The self-proclaimed Queen of Hydration!) Even though my arm looked like a bruised-up game of Twister, that guy somehow found a vein and nailed it. Virtually painlessly. First try.

I’d love to have some nurses comment, tell me what gives. I try to give them all the benefit of the doubt, but yesterday I knew I was in trouble when she gave me a glass of water, got out a hot pack and started looking at the veins on the back of my hand.

‘No. We’re not trying there,” I said.

She called in a supervisor to draw my blood. Great, I thought. But unlike a stereotypical supervisor, this guy was good. He got a vein first try. “You can’t look for the vein, you have to feel it,” he said.

Coming from me, the someone who feels it every time, I told him he was my hero for the day. And today, looking at the blue bruise on my arm where the first nurse was and the small dot where he drew blood, I'm pretty proud of my ability to just say, "No."

The Impromptu Social Life: How not to be psycho-hostess

2011-07-21T18:02:00.000-05:00

Recently I've fallen in love with last minute. Gone ape for impromptu.
Something about an "I'm so happy this worked out" social life, really
makes me happy.

In so many ways, it's just easier. When I have lunches and dinners and
get-together on the calendar, of course I look forward to them, but dare
I say it here (my friends have been known to read acitymom!) sometimes I
resent them, too. Those social obligations on my calendar get in the
way of my writing, or my workout schedule or errands and appointments I
can no longer oblige.

Last minute get-togethers feel easier to me. This must be because inviting someone over for dinner that very same day takes the pressure off. How can anyone expect my house to be totally straightened, much less spotless? How can anyone expect the food to be fantastic (or even home cooked!), much less perfect. It forces me to not be Psycho-Hostess during the preparation stage. You know, when you start cleaning the bathroom sink with a toothbrush, Q-tips and rubbing alcohol as if you were detailing a car instead of keeping your eye on the big picture, like just making sure everyone picks up their dirty underwear off the floor. Impromptu peels me off my own chase-perfection-while-entertaining case. I don't worry about matching napkin rings, just whether I have enough white wine chilling in the fridge.

And I love when I get a last minute invite, too. "Are you free for coffee, right now?" It's so cool when it works out. It makes me feel fun and spontaneous again. Younger, like a college student. My friends and I have talked about this phenomenon. With everyone so scheduled, we all feel better about not adding one more thing, even though fostering and maintaining friendships is a pretty important thing.

I just hope my kids don't read this one. More often than not, I say No to their last minute requests for sleepovers and playdates. (And to a request at 11:40 last night, I kid you not, to fill out a survey for English class.) Apparently I'm not so enamored with impromptu as it applies to my children. It's not very fair, I know, that I should deny them their spontaneity while I foster mine. But their lives are already way more spontaneous than ours are and I believe it's up to me to stomp that right out of them.

Oh, just kidding. What do you think? Am I being an over-scheduled Impromptu Ogre? Maybe we can get together and talk about this double standard of mine. Give me a call and we'll get something on the calendar. Last minute, of course.

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Unethical Cat Pees on Profesional Book

2011-07-21T17:59:00.000-05:00

So my husband is considering taking the CFA course to become, well, a
CFA, because after all, who wouldn't want a few more letters following
their name? (CFA stands for Chartered Financial Analyst.) But being a
pretty smart financial analyst already, he decided instead of jumping
right in and signing up for the expensive course, he would buy some used
course books on Amazon, to see what he'd be in for.

He had no idea what he was in for.

When he ordered the books, the seller , we'll call him "DoofusT25," said they were in good condition. However, when they arrived, one book had water damage. Jeff called me in to the office to take a look.
"I'd say it's in fair condition, not good," I told him. "I mean, you can still use it. And it was only like a hundred dollars instead of a couple thousand. Right?" And then, for some reason, I decided to smell the book. Oh, I know that smell. Cat pee.

This guy mailed a book to my husband that his cat (or maybe it wasn't his cat, but someone's cat) peed on. Here is the title of the book, "Ethical and Professional Standards and Quantitative Methods CFA Curriculum." Oh, how thick the irony! Acitymom could not pass this one up. Do you think the books were for sale because DoofusT25 didn't pass the course?

When Jeff wrote Doofus and said the book was damaged, with cat pee, he replied with one sentence, "It's water." Well. Doing her good due dilligence, it would be remiss of acitymom to not warn off anyone thinking of moving to Tarzana, California! The water there smells suspiciously like cat pee!
The sellers name, will of course be forthcoming, if he does not make this right. Because, you know, then I would be pissed.

Thank you for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

The Cubs Calendar

2011-07-21T17:55:00.000-05:00

If it isn't on The Kitchen Calendar, then it isn't happening in my
world."

I say this often and for better or worse, my family knows it's
true. If they don't tell me, and then sometimes stand there to
physically watch me write it down on THE calendar on the fridge, the
chances of "it" actually coming to pass are slim to none. And it doesn't
matter what "it" is: a track team celebration pizza party, their best
friend's birthday party, a school concert or their graduation ceremony.
If it's not on THE calendar, then chances are, it will get lost in the
detritus of my mental home-life-work juggling act, never to be heard
from or about again.

So what surprises me these days, is what has been showing up on our calendar. We have a 2011 Cubs season calendar, featuring some of our favorite Cubs players, like Mike Fontenot (February) and Ryan Theriot (March). I know! I guess you have to figure they're forced to prepare these calendars way ahead of time, but still. They traded Theriot a year ago in July and they traded Fontenot last August! I'm surprised the kids haven't picked up on this thin thread of irony: if our hallowed calendar says Carlos Silva is going to be pitching this August, then why the heck can't we go to the track team pizza party today?

I've often thought it would be magnificent if someone were to write, Spa day for Mom, on some random Tuesday. And then, as if by magic, when that Tuesday rolled around I'd be picked up by a limo at nine a.m. and swept away for a day of pampering. However, around here, I know it's more likely for someone to write, Bring old dead batteries to Walgreens for recycling. Sigh.

The 2011 Cubs Season Calendar on the fridge happens to feature Marlon Byrd for July. Who knows? A gal can dream. Maybe he'll come off the DL in time for me to watch him through my cucumber eye pads during my day at the spa.

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The Ionic Litterbox: Better than it was before?

2011-07-21T17:53:00.000-05:00

The electronic litter box we have for our cats has a clock on it. (Looks like I'm sticking with the scatological cat theme for this week!) [Unethical cat pees on professional book] The manufacturer of the litter box, LitterMaid, says it's so we can set the timer for the litter box, so we can put it "to sleep." Personally, I'm a bit relieved the clock isn't there for the cats to know when it's time to use it. And this is not because I'm afraid of cats telling time or being on a strict schedule but mostly because the light
has flashed 12:00, like our old VCR used to, ever since we bought it back in April.

We've been using electronic litter boxes for years and have had very good luck with them. The first one we ever owned lasted at least ten years. The one immediately following only made it about six months, and now this new one, this LitterMaid Elite Basic LME 5500 has been giving us no end of trouble. (We opted out of the Elite Mega, because we're not litterbox snobs or anything, even though the Elite Mega is a much cooler name, which kind of implies it should have rocket boosters or something. Although our basic old 5500 did come with the Kitty Kabana! )

The trouble is not just the clock. The thing keeps getting jammed. Earlier this week it stopped working altogether, so I called customer service. The guy was very helpful. He told me I needed to take apart my LitterMaid Elite Basic LME 5500 to find the reset switch, which I needed to turn on and off ten times. So I found myself on the floor, up to my elbows in litter box, trying to find this tiny little switch that is cleverly hidden out of sight underneath the right side rail track. The solution did work, but still. The whole purpose of an electronic litterbox is to not have to touch it too much. Even with its Ionic Air Cleaner (really), I just don't want to be that close to it.

And another thing. Who thought it was a good idea for a litterbox to go to sleep? I would have liked to have sat in on that meeting.

"How can we make our electronic litterboxes more green, more environmentally friendly?"

"I know! We'll let them go to sleep!"

The idea is so bad, I'm sure that guy is Vice President of the company by now. And considering cats are nocturnal, determining when a good time for their bathroom to sleep could be quite a conundrum.
I mean, personally, I don't ever want a bathroom that goes to sleep. I guess the folks over at LitterMaid are just trying to make their products better than they were before. Better, Faster Stronger. Ionic. But I don't think my cats should get a cabana before I do.

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D'oh. Duff Beer for Dad

2011-07-21T17:49:00.000-05:00

What on earth do you get the man in your life for Father's day? It seems to me it gets harder and harder each year. I mean, how many ties should one man own? But this year, oh yes, this year, I outdid myself. For my dear husband, nothing less than an actual, real, existing bottle of Duff Beer.

For those of you who aren't familiar, Duff is the beer preferred by esteemed father Homer Simpson. If you look it up on Wikipedia, the very first line says Duff is a "fictional brand of beer." [Wiki/Duff Beer]

Being a huge fan of fiction myself, I was quite excited when I was able to purchase said fictional beer during my recent trip to Germany.

This fictional beer is (not?!?) made by the Eschweger Klosterbrauerei, a brewery in Hessen, Germany and from what I was told by my friends who were with me, extremely hard to come by. I was unfamiliar with Duff Beer until the day I bought it, but when they explained it was Homer's favorite, I knew it was just the kind of fun, kitschy gift my beer connoisseur of a husband would love. They told me it even had the same label as the beer on the show.

Unfortunately, the store only sold it by the bottle and in hindsight, I should have bought my husband more than one. I'm reminded of the time I purchased his birthday present while in Amsterdam (It's a pilot-time-management thing. Not an I'm-a-snob-who-only-shops-in-Europe thing.) I got him some beer, cigars and a couple of dress shirts. When I told one of my friends, he said, "If you got him beer and cigars, what'd you need to buy him shirts for?" (To go with all those Father's Day ties?)

Of course, a solitary Duff Beer is not all I bought for him. I mean, one lonely twelve-ounce beer would be a little on the stingy side, so he'll be getting a few other presents as well. Because what man wouldn't love a pair of women size eight running shoes? Oh, just kidding, of course. (I got him a couple pair of his own personal running shorts and a singlet. Shh.)

Maybe he'll go for a Father's Day run and we can surprise him with an ice cold bottle of beer when he gets back. After all, the Duff should go hand in hand with his fitness program, not having any calories or carbs to worry about, it being fictional and all. D'oh.

Happy Father's Day!

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Really Sexy Men Clean House

2011-06-09T19:02:00.000-05:00

When I read my friend Rick's post yesterday, [The Best Time to Visit My House] about cleaning his house, my very first thought was, I'm surprise Bridget doesn't attack you. I mean in a good way. Have you read this article from the Washington Post, about what turns women on, Naked Man Parts? Not so sexy? As you can see, it's not naked man parts via Twitter. When I got to the part about putting the soon-to-expire food toward the front of the refrigerator, I was breathing heavily. I mean, talk about titillating. So, imagine my thought process when, the day after I Tweeted this article, my pal Rick writes about how he spends one day a week cleaning his entire house.

After reading all the news about men behaving badly (Weiner, Edwards, Schwarzenegger, to name a few), it's so nice to hear about a man behaving well. But I think I know what you're up to here, Rick old friend. Not very subtle timing either. But it all does makes me wish my husband followed your blog by RSS feed. Oh wait. He does. (That part about cleaning the fridge. I'm not kidding, honey.)

It is absolutely true that if some guy emailed or Twittered me some naked photos of his private body parts, I would totally not find it sexy, intriguing or even interesting. Honestly. On Monday, a co-worker of mine facetiously sent a photo of his (fully-clothed; I was sitting next to him) man-parts to his wife. I told him he'd be better off if he sent her a picture of him taking out the garbage. Because I know if my husband sent me a photo of himself cooking dinner or just picking his dirty drawers up off the floor, ooh, baby. I'm done for.

Bridget Kaempfer and I can count ourselves among the lucky ones. She's got Rick taking care of her house while she's at work and even though my husband works full time too, he runs the whole show while I jet off to Europe. He's even been known to cook the most amazing crockpot dinners on the weekends. (His potato bacon soup is to die for.)

Maybe Bridget and I can see right through your domestic tricks, you two, all the little ploys you're using to get what you really want. I say, so what? Use me, abuse me and fold that load of laundry. Mmmm. I'm all atwitter.

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Toys (or a Ghost) in the Attic?

2011-06-09T18:59:00.002-05:00

Our house was built in 1892 and because it's an old Victorian, people will often ask us if it's haunted. Although a poltergeist would be a perfect way to explain away the constant state of mess and chaos that exists between these walls, sadly (?!) it's not. At least, that's what we thought until recently.

The house has a walk-up attic. After we had some work done on the basement several years ago, and learned we needed a brand-new steel I-beam, ($urprise!) the door to the attic never stayed closed anymore. So we put a rock there. Because, you know, why fix the door when you can just put a rock there?

The rock has been working well for years and outside of one little slumber party where a group of seven screaming girls accused the poor rock of being a rat, we've never really thought much of it.

But lately... Lately, we've been finding the door ajar. A lot. Like almost every day. And we're trying to figure out what's changed. Our first thoughts didn't go to "GHOST!" they went to "CATS!" because we have two and they, like any cats, enjoy mischief; so naturally we blamed them. We started wedging the rock in a little tighter. And still, the door would open. Could our cats really pull on the bottom of the door that hard? And even when it was open, they weren't up in the attic anyway. Since our cats never do anything for the exercise, perhaps it was all just to befuddle us. It was working.

About the same time the door started opening mysteriously, we began thinking it might be nice to finish out the attic, because we have two six-foot tall teenage boys sharing a bunk bed. We thought we could move the office up there, so one of them could take the bedroom it's in now (Because we're the parents and we need an office with a door that closes, that's why.) We brought a few contractors up to the attic to take a look, and a couple of architects, too. And that's when it hit us. Maybe we disturbed the ghost.

Maybe we had a nice friendly ghost that's been living in the attic all these years and he or she realized we were going to change the attic and this is his or her way of protesting. Maybe the ghost is upset and that's why it keeps tracking mud all over the kitchen floor, too and leaving crumbs on the countertop. No wait. I know that "ghost." That ghost has been active here for years. Regardless, it all put a pretty quick halt to any thoughts of finishing out our attic.

It wasn't until yesterday when I was standing in the hall outside the attic door and saw it move, all on it's own, pushing that rock out a half-inch, then a half-inch more, again and again, that I finally understood what made our ghost tick. Every time my daughter slammed the back door, as she ran out and then back in and then back out, the pressure change inched our attic door open a little further.

With the mystery solved, we may just put an office up in the attic. But we'll have to hope the only unexpected excitement it causes will not be the type that goes bump in the night, but merely the kind that goes cha-ching.

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Extreme Closet Cleaning: or How the Grinch Stole my Wardrobe

2011-06-09T18:58:00.000-05:00

Back when acitymom was achaperoning [acitymom chaperones], my daughter and her babysitter took it upon themselves to clean out her closet. Although, before I'd left I had told my daughter a good project for her while I was away would be to go through her summer clothes and set aside anything that didn't fit anymore or that she knew she wouldn't wear again. That way, we could shop for new summer clothes when I got back. So, when I was on that bus with all those kids and received the call telling me the task had been completed without any effort on my part, naturally I was elated.

"Cool," I remember thinking. "Now we can just run out to the store and buy clothes to fill in any gaps of what she needs. I know she could use some more shorts, maybe a bathing suit and some short-sleeved shirts." But at least the herculean and hateful job of closet clearing was done.

I wasn't even suspicious of my good fortune when I came home and saw the three large garbage bags of clothes on the floor of her room, all ready for the Salvation Army. "Fantastic," was all I could think. "I just get to go shopping." And as you know, acitymom loves shopping.

It wasn't until a few days later when I was putting away some laundry that I entered her closet. Perhaps you heard the screaming? It was empty. Nothing but wire hangars and dust bunnies. The Grinch empty.

I couldn't believe my eyes. Seriously? They seriously thought they could get away with this? Maybe I should try this one myself, I thought, see if I can get it past my husband. I'll just go into my closet right now and get rid of all my clothes by stuffing them into large plastic garbage bags and then I can lament to him, "I have nothing to wear!" with a heavy sigh and a boo-boo face pout. I know it will drive him mad, my pout always does. Except in this case I think the kind of mad I would drive him would cause me to have to duck flying objects, several epithets and an admonition that, "Money doesn't grow on trees, you know."

Who wouldn't like to get rid of all their old clothes, except for maybe a few favorite pairs of jeans and a well-worn sweatshirt? Who wouldn't like to head out to the stores for an entire brand new wardrobe? I didn't know what to admire more: my daughter's ability to purge a closet or her hutzpah. And that goes for my babysitter, too.

When she came home from school that day, I told her she had to go back through those garbage bags and put back anything that still fit, or that she thought she could possibly wear again, even if it were to just paint the front porch, because we were not going to go to the store and purchase an entire closet full of clothes. A few days later, she did.

It might have been Grinchy of me. But money doesn't grow on trees, you know.

Thanks for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

Keep your F*&%ing Dog on a Leash!

2011-06-09T18:56:00.003-05:00

Running with my dog Wrigley is one of my favorite things in life. Having a large dog to run with also has the added bonus of giving me that false sense of security that bad guys will leave me alone. I like to imagine if you're a bad guy in the park looking for a target you probably won't pick the chick with the big yellow Lab, unless you have Snausages in your pocket. Or maybe just threaten to make eye contact with her and talk in that baby-talk voice, which will have her telling you my Garmin watch is worth a lot of money and that I keep a spare twenty in the key pocket of my running shorts.

In all the years I've been running, I haven't run into much trouble with people. But other people's dogs. Those off leash dogs. The dogs whose owners let come barreling at us from out of nowhere with perhaps a wave and a shout from fifty yards away, "It's okay! Fluffy is really friendly." Don't get me started

Once on the cement pier at North Avenue Beach, Wrigley and I were cornered by two dogs that came at us with our backs up against the frigid water. I've asked people nicely to please leash their dog when we've gotten close. I've tried to avoid off leash dogs as best as we can. And still, I'm the recipient of the annoyed looks.

It's human nature, I suppose, to presume that everyone is like us. And therefore it would be human nature too, to assume that other people's dogs are like ours. My dog, always on a leash, will pass within a hair's breadth of your dog on a leash without so much as even turning her head. Yeah, she's that well trained. And it took a lot of effort on my part to get her there. But when your unleashed dog comes chasing after her, watch out. She will defend herself and there's not too much I can do to stop it if you can't pull your dog off of her. This is the part of running with my dog that I hate. The part that gets my heart rate up in a manner not of my choosing.

When I reply to the, "It's okay! Fluffy is really friendly!" with a fartlek and tug of Wrigley's leash in the opposite direction of their projectile canine and the words, "Yes, But my dog's not!" (which isn't entirely true, if both dogs were off-leash at a doggy park, they'd get along great) I get the hateful, angry stare, like, How can you bring your unfriendly dog out in public? It makes me want to scream. And so, sometimes, I do. Depending on the size of the oncoming dog, I will scream, "My dog. Will eat. Your dog." And if that doesn't solicit a reaction, like it didn't last Thursday to the owner of the little yippy Shih tzu that took-on Wrigley, I will sometimes add, "In one bite."

"Okay, okay," came the annoyed reply, in that I'm disgusted with you because I'm breaking the law tone of voice.

Seriously. Sometimes it all makes me want to scream. And just let my dog eat your dog. In one bite.

It's National Vegetarian Week: What's a Lapsed Vegetarian to do?

2011-06-09T18:55:00.000-05:00

It's National Vegetarian Week! I for one am celebrating because I am no longer a vegetarian, which means I no longer have to spend countless hours defending my vegetarianism. My husband and I were vegetarian for a period of about nine years that ended just over a decade ago. And just to dispel any stereotypes, making the change from omnivore to herbivore was his idea.

During the years we didn't eat meat, I was surprised by how defensively people would respond when we told them. Often they would attack. "Why do we have canine teeth, then? There's rennet in cheese, you still eat cheese, don't you?" Etc., etc. I wish I'd thought of the response one of my vegetarian friends gives now: "Would you eat a dog?" Most people are appropriately abhorred. "So that's where you draw your line when it comes to eating meat," he says. "I draw mine similarly, in that I will eat the cheese, but I stop at the cheeseburger."

Our foray into vegetarianism came about shortly after I had decided to give up red meat. My husband wouldn't even go along with that. But, being an engineer with a scientific mind, he did begin to read up on it. During his studies, he read Peter Singer's book In Defense of Animals. When he finished, he put the book down and announced he was vegetarian. He wouldn't even wear a leather coat. So, curious, I picked up the book to see what could reform a man who previously wouldn't even give-up his pastrami. When I finished, I was vegetarian, too.

People who used to tell me, "I'm mostly vegetarian," or "I'm sort of a vegetarian," used to annoy the crap out of me. (Actually, they still do.) You have no idea how much meat and animal by-products we consume on a daily basis and until you've stood in the grocery aisle reading the fine print on the labels of everything you put into your cart, you are not even close to being able to say you're "almost vegetarian." Yoplait yogurt? Gelatin. Fast food French fries? Beef fat. Vegetable soup? Chicken or beef stock. And on and on.

We fell off the wagon because of our pediatrician. I waddled into her office six-month pregnant with twins. We told her we were vegetarian and she said, "Oh that's so healthy!" Great, we thought. We've found our doctor. The vegetarian me gave birth to two six-pound babies. But when the boys were about one and a half, she insisted we introduce meat. "The kind of meat that grows on trees?" I thought, because that's the only kind we would eat. Well, long story short (er) I couldn't find a single study, book or bit of empirical evidence to bring back to the doctor. All I found were books written in the seventies that said things like, "Fern was raised vegetarian and see, she turned out okay." Hardly the scientific evidence I was looking for.

Even though I knew in my soul they would be okay without it, I found myself cooking chicken a couple of times a week, because the doctor had told me our "growing boys needed protein so they wouldn't be anemic." It didn't take too many times standing in the kitchen serving chicken to my sons with drool dribbling down my chin before I caved to the temptation myself. My husband tumbled shortly thereafter.

It's a shame really. Vegetarianism is probably healthier. It's definitely better for the planet. And I would have to guess the animals like it, too. It's just so damned hard. With three kids and two careers, I'll do whatever it takes to make life easier.

So perhaps instead of eating tofurkey in honor of National Vegetarian Week, I'll just point out, it's National Craft Brew Week this week, too.

iPassed on iRobot Roomba: Whew!

2011-06-09T18:52:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was feeling seriously sorry for myself because I came home to a sick dog that had left me several enormous and stinky presents to clean-up. For the most part she crapped on the hardwood floor but there was some on the rug, too. Nasty. The only way I could deal with the mess was to put peppermint extract on some Kleenex and shove it up my nose--and I still had a couple dry heaves. (It's been a long time since diapers in this house and apparently my endurance is gone.) I complained about it to my husband and he told me the story about a guy he'd heard about from someone, that had had the same trouble--the sick dog, the diarrhea in the living room. Unfortunately for this guy, he also had a Roomba, which methodically and dutifully spread his dog's crap all over the room.

Now that was just the belly laugh I needed.

And I've never been so happy to have chosen to pass on some technology. Ever.

Simplify: More advice from the do-gooder Graffitti artist

2011-06-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

If you're a graffiti artist like my Do-Gooder Graffiti artist, I imagine it would be easy to follow your own advice. Simplify.

I mean, what responsibilities could you have if you're a graffiti artist, right? But for fun, let's just say you do have responsibilities Mr. Do-Gooder (or maybe Ms. Do-Gooder!)--a family, a job, maybe a house or an apartment to take care of--and you're only just a graffiti artist on the side. Since you're a person pre-disposed to not follow the rules, how much can you really care about your obligations to all those things you're responsible for? So sure, I suppose it's real easy for you to go around saying things like "Simplify" and "Do Good" and "Love" if all you have to do all day is create graffiti.[Do-Gooder Graffiti?] [Sorry]

Alright, I know the chances of my do-gooder graffiti artist actually being only one person are pretty slim, since I've found all this uplifting defacement widely scattered throughout the city, but I sort of like the idea of one rogue, inspirational marauder canvasing the city with a can of spray paint and a dream. (and a stick for wet cement, too)

I routinely walk past this "Simplify" graffiti on my way to yoga. It's a good message for someone to see on their way to yoga, but it kind of makes me sad because yoga class is about the only time that my life is ever simple. And I wonder about the guitar. Would taking guitar lessons help simplify my life? I don't think so. My son takes guitar lessons, and judging from the looks of his desk, his life is far from simple.

Everyone probably wants to simplify their life in some way. Just look at the success of "Real Simple Magazine." I love their ideas and if I can ever afford to hire a staff, I might try some, but right now I somehow don't think having staff would simplify my life the same way liquidating all my assets and running off to a desert island would.

I want to

but it's not always that simple.

Thanks for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook here.

"Horizontal Loyalty" This is a BLogger/Writer Must-Read

2011-06-09T18:49:00.000-05:00

Ed Yong, writing for Discover online, shared in his May 12th blog Robert Krulwich's speech to the 2011 graduating class from Berkeley's School of Journalism. "'There are some people who don't wait.' Robert Krulwich on the future of journalism"

One of my mentors shared this blog with me and I feel it is so important, so encouraging and inspirational, I want to share it with you. You should read it if you are a blogger, a journalist, a want-to-be journalist, a novelist, a want-to-be novelist, a film-maker, etc. Anyone with a dream of having their writing reach an audience.

Let the "Horizontal Loyalty" begin.

A Cubs/Old Style Brew-ha-ha

2011-06-09T18:47:00.000-05:00

Because the high temperature today will be in the mid-forties with the wind gusting to thirty off the lake, it means it's my turn to go to the Cubs game this afternoon. Natch.

The only good thing about going to a game on a day like today is the beer stays cold. But acitymom foresees that in the near future she will have a bit of a dilemma in this area. You see, she's such a hard core Cub fan she refuses to drink a St. Louis beer (Budweiser) at Wrigley Field. She will drink Old Style instead, which sometimes causes the husband to sit far, far away from her.

But here's my impending dilemma; if the makers of Old Style move to Los Angeles, Old Style/Pabst HQ to move to LA does this mean acitymom can't drink any beer when the Cubs play the LA Dodgers?

It's Friday the 13th. Good Luck!

2011-05-13T17:46:00.000-05:00

Friday the 13th is considered unlucky by many superstitious people, of which I'm one. And by that I mean I'm superstitious, but, weirdly, not about Friday the 13th. The day just doesn't bother me anymore. I think it's because I wrote a novel about witchcraft a few years back [Wish Club, Three Rivers Press, June 2007] and while doing research for it, learned many of the unlucky connotations for the number thirteen come from some pretty misogynistic sources. Sorry Ancient Religious Guys, but I just don't buy into the whole women are evil thing, this is in spite of the fact I did go to Junior High.

On the other hand, I do love a nice good luck charm. I have a collection of four-leaf clovers, a lucky bamboo plant and a money tree.

Dead Money Tree

Actually, I've had several money trees. Seems I have a hard time keeping money trees alive, the irony of which is not lost on my husband. He on the other hand, is the opposite of superstitious. He's an engineer, so you know when we have the following conversation,

Him: "What's this?"
Me: "A dead money tree."
Him: "That's not a good sign."

It is based on the scientific fact I like to go shopping.

A few months ago, I bought a Tree of Enchantment, probably because I'd seen The Avatar one too many times. The tree is actually a Weeping Pussy Willow and legend has it, it has the power to grant wishes. Being a sucker for wish granting (Hey, I did write an entire book about it.) I went to my neighborhood Trader Joes and bought one. I should have known my wish was in trouble the minute those beautiful soft tufts of willow started going to seed and leaving bright yellow pollen flakes all over everything within three square feet of it. Then, when the branch I had looped into a circle to get my wish mysteriously became un-looped, I knew I would never achieve my dream for Buns of Steel. The Tree of Enchantment wasn't a total loss, however, the cats really seemed to like it as evidenced by the beautiful soft tufts of willow that showed up in their hairballs.

Tree of Enchantment not so enchanting when it's dead

Therefore, it is without trepidation that acitymom heads forth into this Friday the 13th. I know the numerology for the number thirteen contains mysticism that has more to do with the power of women than with their evil, and that it's a number that celebrates both the end and the beginning. Besides, it's just a number. But if my black cat walks under a ladder after breaking a mirror, I'm going upstairs to water my lucky bamboo.

Four Leaf Clover

Not so Lucky Bamboo

Lucky Bamboo

Recessionary Survivalist Money Tree

Let's Rewrite History! Newspaper Deletes Clinton from Photo

2011-05-13T17:33:00.000-05:00

Last week I wrote about the iconic photograph of our leaders in the situation room watching as Osama bin Laden was captured and killed A Mom in the War Room. My observations kicked up a bit of a stir. But nothing quite like this.CNN-Religious Paper Cuts Clinton from Photo A Hasidic newspaper, Di Tzeitung, based in Brooklyn, New York, decided to erase Hillary Clinton completely from the photo.

According to the CNN report, Di Tzeitung says their First Amendment rights to Freedom of Religion allow them to, you know, RE-WRITE HISTORY. I for one, vehemently disagree with their argument. I believe it is absolutely inexcusable for them to Photoshop out the truth. There were two women in the Situation Room. If they felt the presence of these women was immodest, well fine. So be it. That IS their right. Their option is: don't run the picture at all. Discuss the photo. Crop the photo--show only our President's face, but they don't get to hide behind their religious skirts claiming it's their right to lie, to alter the truth, because after all their paper's policies are guided by a "Rabbinical Board." That's outrage.

The White House told CNN it would not comment on this matter. Cool. I guess this gives us all the nod, free reign to alter history and the truth however we see fit. Acitymom for one, is very offended by iconic historical photographs of little naked girls like this one:

So here:

Oh, and she's also really upset with National Geographic for the immodest photo that shows the entire face of a beautiful Afghan girl.

I suppose I could have just expressed my opinions and exercised my religious beliefs without re-writing history, but I much prefer to tighten my corset and set a dangerous precedent.

The Mother's Day Road Not Taken

2011-05-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

Happy Mother's Day! What's that you say? It was yesterday? Well, of course I know it was yesterday, but since you're going to be such sticklers about it, Happy Belated Mother's Day, then. (I work for an airline and you expect me to be on time?)

A Carlton Card. Available at Target!

Yesterday, acitymom decided to give herself a little Mother's Day present--a day off. I knew all the other bloggers out there would be posting about Mother's Day and that a post from acitymom would be exactly what everyone would be expecting. And you know me, I live for the unexpected; the unforeseen hairball on the rug, the surprise track meet tonight (this is so common, I now refer to them as Mystery Meets) and the poor child of mine who threw-up in Multi-Cultural Studies at school this morning. (Yeah, Tanya's home sick today :-( )

Besides, did you read Jackie's Tithof Steere's So Not An Expert post 30 of the Best Quotes on Motherhood or Kirby's Cheaper Than Therapy post What Mom really wants for Mother's Day yesterday? Whew. Quite excellent. They, and so many others, did such a fine job, I figured the subject was covered. So, I decided to take my mom's advice, and not do what I knew everyone else would be doing.

The card pictured above is the card I gave my mom yesterday. Remember hearing that old saying? I certainly do. And I remember replying, "Well, no, I wouldn't jump of a bridge because that would just be stupid but I really, really do want to go to Janie Lundquist's slumber party."

So, as another little gift to my mom, I decided to not jump off the bridge yesterday with all the other bloggers blogging about Mother's Day, but to take the road less traveled, actually the Road Not Taken (if I'm going to quote from Frost correctly) and hang out here in the dog house with all the other knuckleheads who forgot about Mother's Day, or were late to Mother's Day, because they need representation too, and not just in probate court.

Yesterday on Mother's Day, I thoroughly enjoyed my day off. And I really mostly did have a whole day off. (Thanks Jeff and wonderful children!) I'm glad I took the time too, because today it's right back in the trenches with one kid home sick from school.

I hope everyone had a fantastic day yesterday and I would like to once again wish you all a Happy Belated Mother's Day! And let's just hope this works out better for me than Janie Nordquist's slumber party did.

What to do with your kids this summer? You're hired!

2011-05-13T17:29:00.000-05:00

Wondering what to do with your kids this summer? One of my friends has the perfect solution: put them to work for you! Her twin sons are just finishing their freshman year at college and her husband wrote them the following letter, which she posted on her Facebook page. I thought it was so funny, I'm going to share. Her husband is Jim Moeller, CEO of Devpeak Technologies, which he runs from his home office.

Congratulations! Your application for summer employment at Devpeak Technologies, LLC has been accepted.

We're looking forward to your arrival after your current college semester is over. Our working hours are 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday, but flex time can be arranged occasionally for special situations. We offer attractive health benefits with on-site fitness facilities and a self-serve/self-clean-up cafeteria. In addition, we offer a QUIET and attractive work environment that I'm sure you'll find conducive to extraordinary productivity. As a special incentive this summer we are also offering to cover your housing and transportation expenses as well. Your overall compensation will be in accordance with competitive industry wages that accurately value your contributions, but, of course, not to exceed the compensation of our CEO. Further compensation details can be discussed when you arrive.

We have a number of exciting projects on which you can contribute, including but not limited to the list below. We would encourage you to consider the list below and arrive with additional thoughts on how your knowledge, skills and interests might best be utilized in adding value to these projects. In addition to these projects, occasional manual labor, consisting mostly of working on the beautiful outdoor scenescapes surrounding Devpeak headquarters, will be required.

Again, thank you for your interest in Devpeak Technologies and we look forward to seeing you later in May.

Devpeak Technologies, LLC
http://www.Devpeak.com/

Project List (listed in priority order):
1. Mini Linux Server / Reverse Proxy Server.
2. Mini Microcontroller-based Web Server Application Programming (mostly, XHTML and Java).
3. Website programming utilizing PHP and MySQL.
4. Mobile Platform Programming - Android, iPod/iPad, and even RIM Playbook.
5. XNA Game Creator Programming utilizing MS Visual Studio and the XBOX platform.

I thought this was such a fantastic idea (and so fantastically written!) my sons might just find themselves working on the beautiful outdoor scenescapes surrounding acitymom's headquarters as well. And as per my friend's son's request in a comment on her Facebook page, we may even allow casual Fridays.

A Mom in the War Room

2011-05-13T17:27:00.000-05:00

By now just about everyone in America has seen this photo of our leaders in the White House Situation Room (more PC to call it "Situation Room" than "War Room" I suppose) watching the operation that got Osama bin Laden. While all of our leaders are expressing the appropriate amount of gravitas, the expression on Hillary Clinton's face strikes me the most. As someone's mother, I can totally relate to what her face suggests she was feeling at the time. I'm reminded of that old saying, the one that goes something like, "What would the world be like if there were no men? No war and lots of fat, happy women eating chocolate."

At the risk of perhaps being seen as sexist or overly political, from acitymom to a former First Lady Mom, I for one am grateful to have a woman like Hillary Clinton in the position of Secretary of State, someone who apparently will not take lightly a decision to put any one of our children in harms way.

Osama bin Laden is Dead

2011-05-13T17:26:00.002-05:00

This morning I put the flag out. Osama Bin Laden is dead. Never in my life did I think I would celebrate someone's death, but I am unapologetically happy he's gone. The events of 9/11 changed everyone's life, and although no one I knew personally died, my airline brothers and sisters lost their lives. And that bastard is to blame. Osama Bin Laden is responsible for killing a part of my way of life.

I can't compare my loss to the loss of a loved one, nor will I try, but because of Al Qaida and the plane crashes on 9/11, my job as an airline pilot suddenly became a job I didn't sign up for. Since that day, I've had to ask permission to use the bathroom. Can you imagine doing this at your workplace? Having to call someone and ask if they have time to guard the door to your office while you take a few minutes out to pee? Anyone who's been to an airport in the last ten years has seen and felt the changes brought about by those terrorist attacks, but I think I can safely say their effect on the airline industry has been the most profound.

On September 7, 2001, my family and I moved into a new home. The conservative couple--the airline pilot and the IT guy who worked for a Wall Street investment bank--finally took a little risk and stretched to buy that dream house. What could go wrong? As I stood unpacking a box in our master bedroom, watching the events on TV unfold, I wondered if I should just start packing all of our stuff back into the box, because surely after this we wouldn't be able to stay. After a nearly fifty-percent pay cut, the loss of my pension, and some serious, serious scrimping, ten-years later, we're still living in our old Victorian fixer-upper. Although it's not as fixed up as we'd like.

We're among the lucky ones. Many of my airline friends lost their jobs, some their homes and so many marriages couldn't survive the test of such severe financial difficulty, with many pilots losing up to eighty-percent of their income. (As furloughs increased, pilots got bumped out of seats on larger, higher paying equipment.)

One of the things that really torqued me was a news report I heard saying a couple of the 9/11 hijackers had been in a bar a few nights before the attacks, reportedly laughing and bragging to the bartender they were pilots. No, they weren't. Not even close.

On my first day back to work, September 19^th, 2001, I was walking through the mostly deserted terminal at O'Hare while patriotic music played in the background. A passenger from my flight, a businessman, asked if it had been my landing. "No," I replied. "I made the landing in Vegas earlier today. This one was the Captain's." "It was a nice one," he said. "Yeah," I agreed. "I probably should just take credit for it." After a little more chit-chat, he left me with parting words I've never forgotten, "Bring it back."

And we did. Every single one of us. We all stood together and brought it back.

Today, I think I've decided I'm flying the flag more in celebration of the American spirit and how we brought it back, and not so much in celebration of the death of one bad guy, because certainly, there will be more bad guys to take his place.

United Airlines Flight 175

American Airlines Flight 77

United Airlines Flight 93

American Airlines Flight 11

We have not forgotten. We will never forget. The Osama Bin Laden's of this world will not win their war of terror. We will not let them. No matter what they may try, we will bring it back.

Freedom is not Free: acitymom returns from Washington

2011-05-13T17:24:00.000-05:00

You probably thought acitymom didn't survive her chaperoning experience, or that perhaps she and the other chaperones (who were all very cool, btw; not a hoverer in the bunch) had been tied up and locked on a bus while one-hundred eighth graders proceeded to wreak havoc on our nation's Capitol, you know, kind of like Congress does.

Well, have no fear; acitymom is back. Exhausted, but back. What a fantastic trip! If anyone asked me now if I would do it again, I would say yes, not in a heartbeat, but after a few long hours of reflective contemplation. Quiet, reflective contemplation. Speaking of which, I did learn quite a bit on our trip. I learned that I do not do so well anymore after four consecutive nights with less than five hours of sleep, that most long-haul bus drivers are really, really cranky and that Freedom is not Free.

I should pause here and apologize to CNN. [BIte Me CNN] I ranted against their advertising/ propaganda (and I learned about propaganda at the Holocaust Museum!) filled article, and while I stand by most of what I said, I have to agree that every kid in the United States needs to see Washington DC, although not necessarily before they're fifteen.

With few exceptions, every war we've ever fought has been about freedom. Freedom from England or slavery or the Third Reich or communism or high oil prices (a little citymom sarcasm on that last one). And in terms of human life, the cost of those wars has been high. It's hard not to be moved by this when you're in Washington, because there are monuments and memorials and cemeteries dedicated to our military and its troops' ultimate sacrifice wherever you turn. Every time one of us complains about a President or gathers in a group or votes in an election in which you do have an actual choice, no matter how lame we may think that choice is, we should remember these rights came at a price. A high price, and they should never be taken for granted. And that's something you won't learn at Disney World.

We were walking through the Smithsonian, checking out all the of the First Ladies' inaugural ball gowns and we decided we didn't like the belt on Hillary Clinton's. "I won't have a belt on my dress when I'm First Lady," I said. "Don't you mean when you're President?" one of my girls replied.

That's what I'm talking about. (Cue patriotic music here.)

I hope our current wars and conflicts will end soon and that these eighth graders will live in a future where our ultimate goals of Freedom and Peace for everyone will prevail.

In the mean time, acitymom is off to exercise her right to Freedom of Sleep.

acitymom chaperones

2011-05-13T17:22:00.002-05:00

Originally posted on April 27, 2011 at http://chicagonow.com/acitymom

Out of twenty plus kids' rooms at the hotel, only one oversleeps. Of course, it's my son's. After numerous wake-up calls (in their defense, the phones were out) and door pounding, it takes a chaperone a spare key and some dynamite, oh just kidding, and some yelling through the security lock to wake them.

My son comes running downstairs to meet the bus, shirt untucked, hair just as you would imagine, wearing his black Dockers, dress shoes (it's our "fancy" day) and brand new, bright white athletic socks.

One of the bus drivers is standing next to me. "That's the future of our country," he says as my son runs by.

"That's my son," I tell him proudly. And I am proud. Because I know he won't be a bus driver when he grows up. At least not a nasty one, but only a nice one like all the nice bus drivers who may be a fan of acitymom.

Yesterday was jam-packed. Vietnam Veterans, Korean, Lincoln and WWII Memorials, National Archives (where a little kid outside complained, "Why do I have to go? I don't even know what the Constitution is." The Ford Theater, souvenir shopping (I got some genuine Washington DC Dolce and Gabbana knock-off sunglasses. Very patriotic.) and the National Portrait Gallery where we saw a painting of great American, LL Cool Jay.

Posting from the bus (under the bus?) today, so please excuse typos, spelling and all other errors of judgement. I'm Tweeting, too, so if you don't want to miss a minute, you can follow me there, too.

Thanks for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook!

acitymom chaperones

2011-05-13T17:21:00.000-05:00

Originally posted on April 26, 2011 at http://chicagonow.com/acitymom

We found morning. In Frederick County, Maryland. I actually managed to get some sleep on the bus, and due to the many contortions that it took, am relieved to report I can forgo my Yoga practice for the remainder of the week.

And I even do the hot Yoga, so it was useful that the air-conditioning broke on the bus. Thankfully, it was fixed at this last stop. If I had to guess, a mechanic came out and cleaned the canon plug . (That one was for my airline friends.)

We’ll be arriving in DC soon, where we’ll have breakfast and then start our sightseeing. Unfortunately, hotel check-in won’t happen until tonight. As you can imagine, I’m very much looking forward to that shower, but for now am simply grateful I was able to retrieve my toothbrush from the luggage bin under the bus. Pretty sure everyone within five feet of me is grateful, too.

Even though I’ve been to Washington many times, I’m looking forward to the tour. There’s a lot of stuff there I haven’t seen. As embarrassing as it is to admit, I’ve never been to the Smithsonian, or the Capitol. I’ve never been to a turtle race either, and so, if Congress happens to be in session, am thinking I might be able to knock two things off the bucket list.

Thanks for reading A City Mom! You can follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook

acitymom chaperones

2011-05-13T17:19:00.000-05:00

Originally posted on April 26th, 2011 at http://chicagonow.com/acitymom

My son says I haven't embarrassed him once. We're only a few hours in. I still got time.

I was very tense at the beginning of all this. I didn't know any of the parents personally, only by sight and it's a whole lot different when you know you're going to be spending a week with them. Same with the teachers. I mean, I know them and what they teach and from the stories they boys tell, but that's about it. So, I was nervous. But, after a stop at a rest area (one Sudafed and two Motrin) the mood seems a lot more relaxed when we got back on the bus. Whew,

The bus has no seat-back pockets, and without one I'm realizing now just how handy they are. The next time you're on a jet, perhaps we should all be grateful we haven't decided to charge you for those.

I've been tweeting (@acitymom) some brief updates. Among them:

99 bottles of beer on the wall got shot down after one verse. Woot!

Thank The Universe for small favors. And I also have my own row of two seats to myself. (chaperone cooties?) Plus, as an added bonus, I got a free chaperone T-shirt.

I'm cautiously optimistic I'll get to keep it.

Thanks for reading A City Mom! Follow me on Twitter @acitymom or on Facebook

acitymom chaperones

2011-05-13T17:17:00.000-05:00

Originally posted on April 25, 2011 at http://chicagonow.com/acitymom

It was a dark and stormy night…

I still can’t believe it’s me here on this bus. The only thing betterr than starting out a fourteen (I think it’s fourteen, they won’t really tell us the truth.) hour bus ride with forty kids is starting out a fourteen hour bus ride with forty kids feeling like you’re coming down with a cold. Sigh.

The movie we brought to share? (There’s a bus-wide DVD player)

Speed.

A Fixed-Wing Parent in a Helicopter World? acitymom chaperones

2011-04-25T10:02:00.000-05:00

Somehow, I don't recall how it happened exactly, maybe I blocked it, but I've been cornered into chaperoning my sons' eighth grade field trip to Washington DC. We leave tonight. By bus.

Gaaaa

I tried to see if I could, you know, just fly out there and meet them. No dice. Apparently, the school feels the chaperones should be on the bus as well. Kill joys. I'm trying to be positive about a fifteen hour overnight bus ride with forty fourteen year-olds. Really. I am. But I'm open to suggestions. And I don't think Chardonnay can be one of them.

I remember telling the boys it sounded like a fun trip and that I wished I could go. I thought I said it in an off-handed enough manner that...well, anyway, you see how that turned out. They needed more chaperones; the "whole trip was in peril!"

But I'm not the chaperone type. Helicopter parents are the chaperone type. I'm a fixed wing girl. (And I don't think the 1.5 hours of helicopter time I have in my logbook should count. That was a long time ago.) As an added bonus, I'll have a roommate at the hotel. I don't know her, but she's another parent. I kind of feel that, when you get to be my age, you shouldn't have to be roommates with some stranger you've never met. Weird personal habits and other oddities like snoring or talking in your sleep are things no one should have to put up with, so naturally I feel sorry for her. I hope she's a sound sleeper.

However, when acitymom is given a task, no matter if she likes it or not, she's determined to do it well. So, I went to Merriam-Webster's for help. They define chaperone as follows:

CHAPERONE
1: a person (as a matron) who for propriety accompanies one or more young unmarried women in public or in mixed company
2: an older person who accompanies young people at a social gathering to ensure proper behavior; broadly : one delegated to ensure proper behavior
3: any of a class of proteins that facilitate the proper folding of proteins by binding to and stabilizing unfolded or partially folded proteins --called also molecular chaperone

1. "A matron!" Excuse me. I almost called and told them I couldn't go because of a terrible case of the vapors.

2. Okay, that's better. I can ensure proper behavior, even if this little social gathering is going to last for five whole days.

3. There will be absolutely no folding of proteins on my bus.

I will try to post as often as I can while away; they have us on a pretty tight schedule. Mostly, I just please want you all to send as much positive energy my way as you can. And if that doesn't help, some Chardonnay waiting upon my return just might stave off any languishing cases of the vapors.

Thank you for reading A City Mom. Follow me on Twitter @acitymom and on Facebook here.

Who Takes Their Kids to London on a Lark?

2011-04-25T09:59:00.000-05:00

Apparently, we do. Deciding to listen to our own "advice" [Bite Me CNN] the part about how we've never regretted any money we've spent taking our kids on vacation, we took a crow bar to the savings account (read: put it on a credit card) and saddled up for a five day trip to Europe. (Because I work for an airline, this sort of insanity actually seems logical to us.)

It was supposed to be a surprise, you know, like "Wake-up, kids and pack your bags, cuz we're going on vacation!"

"Where?"

"Don't know yet."

Because that's how it is with standby travel. But mysteriously, several days beforehand the boys somehow became suspicious. I don't know how. Oh yeah, I remember now. It happened when my husband told them.

However, due to a snafu with my daughter's passport, which didn't arrive until one day before we wanted to leave, and which I cleverly intercepted from the mailman, none of the kids thought we'd be able to go, leaving the surprise in tact for everyone. And with thanks to the US Department of State, even my husband and me.

London was a logical (airline logical) choice in that it had three daily non-stop flights and the loads there and back looked good. So off we went.

Unfortunately, some of the best comedic material can come from vacation mishaps. And unfortunately for this blog, we didn't have any. At least not any serious ones, unless you count the irony of arriving two minutes late at the Greenwich Observatory, just in time to see it close. And the jet-lag factor. (see Photo Exhibits A and B)

I explained to my kids that I considered this trip "traveling," which differs from pure vacation (the beach!) in that inevitably you're way more exhausted when you return than when you left. Several times they tried talking us into going back to the hotel to sleep or watch a movie, and as appealing as that idea sounded to our fatigued fivesome, I argued we can watch movies and sleep anytime. In life, you never know when your next opportunity to see London at night from a four-hundred foot tall Ferris Wheel will come around again. (Photo Exhibit C)

The lines were insane everywhere. It felt like all of Europe decided it was Go to London week (I suspect it was their spring break, too.) but the weather could not have been better, so standing "on line" or, if you prefer "queuing," only served to provide more fun family time. (Photo D)

We had our share of quibbles and tiffs, but I was thrilled to see how well we travelled together as a family. My husband and I have both been to London many times for our jobs, so we were comfortable there, but all three of the kids were on unfamiliar ground, and therefore, as a rarity, on much more even ground. To watch them bonding as a threesome as they talked and grumbled and laughed when they walked along behind us brings a verklempt tear to acitymom's eye.

The memories and family time we had with children that will be out of the house before we know it have a value that far outweighs the poor exchange rate the dollar has against the pound. I won't say its worth is priceless, mostly because that's a bad writing cliche, but also because when those bills start rolling in you'll probably be able to hear my screams no matter where you are. I'm not an advocate for deficit spending by any stretch, but this one time I'll take that crowbar to our savings account with joy.

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Do Not Disturb?

2011-04-25T09:55:00.000-05:00

Four girls sat around our kitchen table eating (and eating and eating) snacks and talking. I was in there as well, partaking of my favorite hobby, cleaning the kitchen. (For those of you new to acitymom, I like to say cleaning the kitchen is my hobby because then I feel better about getting to do it every day.) It was fun to eavesdrop on the girls as they chatted, which is a relatively new experience for me since my daughter's only been with us for a couple of years. All the girls at the table were from our block and they ranged in age from nine to twelve.

One of the twelve-year-olds said, "Whenever I get mad or sad, I just go to my room and close the door."

"Wow," I remember thinking. "Thirty-five years later and I'm still a twelve-year-old girl."

It was hilarious to me and comforting, too. Hilarious in that this aspect of me hadn't changed much in all those years and comforting for me to know this behavior appears to be such an inherently female trait. I mean, I can't remember the last time my husband or one of my sons, when they got mad or sad, ever stormed off to their room and closed (read: slammed) the door.

My daughter on the other hand...For about a year or so after she got here, we would begin to wonder if she'd been replaced by an alien robot if a week had gone by without her stomping off to her room. When it would happen, we'd let her cool down for a little bit, then one of us would go in and talk to her. And that's the trick, isn't it? Knowing when someone (a female) who's stormed off to their (her) room, wants someone to knock on the door a few minutes later to talk about what's wrong. Hint to males: the answer is Yes, we do.

I'm sorry if I'm giving away any female secrets here. Or if perhaps I don't speak for all of us and there really are women out there who storm off and don't secretly want their men to come talk to them to figure out what's wrong. I don't know why we do this, either, storm off. Maybe we need to remove ourselves from the situation for a minute, to take a breath or stop the overflow of emotion. Maybe it's about the drama. I'd hate to think it's the latter, because I'm not big on drama. And yet I do this too. But hey I'm just acitymom and not a psychologist. Maybe I should write it's one of the things they tell us to do when they pull us aside in the fifth grade, just to befuddle men. (That is when they tell us it's best to go to the bathroom together.)

It makes me sad, to think I may never know the answer or solution to this puzzling female phenomenon, so acitymom will be off to her room. Knock at your own risk.

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Hungarian Home Alone

2011-04-25T09:53:00.000-05:00

We were getting close to coasting out over the Atlantic Ocean when we heard the following radio call on the frequency:

"London Center this is Airline X Flight 123." (I forgot the actual name of airline and flight number. Really.)

"Airline X Flight 123, go ahead."

"Yeah, is there any way you can send a fax or get a message back to Hungarian Airlines, to Budapest Operations. We, uh, have a mom onboard, who, uh, says she forgot to arrange to have someone pick up her kids at school and uh (we pilots say 'uh' a lot. I don't know why.), we have a phone number for the grandmother. Is there any way you can pass along the message?"
OMG. All I could think was, "Thank God that's never happened to me," because, as you know, London Center isn't known for granting favors.

Seriously though, I was thinking it would be all too easy for that to happen to me and there but for the grace of the Universe go I. With all the juggling and plate spinning and mixing of metaphors that I do, a school pick-up could very well be the mouse that got away. At least this mom remembered before her kids were left standing outside their school for hours. (It would have been around eight o'clock in the morning in Budapest when we heard the radio call.)

Yet the Captain I was flying with was outraged. "That is just irresponsible," he said. This from a guy who gets to come home from his trip and go down into the basement into his man-cave for an hour. The impossible dream for me. Mostly because I don't have a man-cave, but also because I've tried to get my family to agree to something similar to that and it just never, ever works out. [ No Talking Dogs Allowed]

"Oh no," I said. "I will not judge her."

It takes no imagination for me to understand a mom preparing for a trip overseas, arranging via a trail of Post-it notes for playdates to happen and for permission slips to arrive at school and reminding everyone there's no music lessons this Tuesday and could someone please pick-up the cat's prescription meds at the pharmacy on Clark and Dickens? As a woman who completely forgot her own dentist appointment, I can see how getting the kids picked up from school and to whomever they would be staying with while she was gone could easily be the one detail that got away. I'm giving our Budapest mom the benefit of the doubt in assuming she'd at least arranged for her kids to be staying with someone and she'd only forgotten this one logistical detail.

London Center was amazingly helpful and cooperative in what could possibly turn out to be one of the most expansive games of Telephone on the planet. (Frantic mom to Flight Attendant, Flight Attendant to Pilot, Pilot to London Center, London Center to Hungarian Airlines' Budapest Operations, Hungarian Airlines' Budapest Operations to Hungarian Grandmother.) By the time the confused message got to the grandmother, it could have asked her to drop the pickles off at the pool. And why couldn't Macaulay Culken's movie mom have thought of this route? I guess if she had, we wouldn't have had Home Alone and one of my favorite movie quotes from John Candy, when he said the bit about how Kids are resilient and how his son finally started talking to him again five or six weeks after having been left alone overnight in a funeral home.

We never did find out how our airborne drama played out, if the grandmother was notified or if those kids ended up waiting outside their school for hours, forced to fend off some sort of Hungarian version of the Wet Bandits with broken Christmas tree ornaments and a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Michael Jordan.

Post-it Note to Self: If forgetting to have your kids picked up at school ever becomes the detail that got away, don't announce it over the frequency, at least not when some blogger is listening.

Post Post-it Note to Self: Maybe take back every nasty you've said about London Center.

Why I Go Bananas

2011-04-11T12:35:00.000-05:00

Bananas on the countertop.

That's how I knew my husband had been to Costco. It's a workout in and of itself, that place is. I try repeatedly to explain this to him and the kids, but I think they just don't get it. Those cases of Pepsi and Gatorade and Progresso and large rafts of paper products are heavy. Piling them into your cart and then out of your cart and into your car and out of your car and into your house and onto the shelves or into the freezer can work up a sweat and then, when everyone else gets home the only evidence of all your effort, other than perhaps your slightly more toned biceps, is bananas on the countertop.

I was astonished yesterday at how mostly invisible my husband's efforts had been, and I know he'd made an effort, because usually it's me making the same effort at least once a month if not more. Don't get me wrong; I love Costco. I try to save my husband money there as often as I can. But is this all anyone sees as a result of all my hard labor? Bananas?

A girlfriend and I were talking a while back at how transparent some of our mom duties are. All the things we do to keep a house running and everyone in it healthy and happy only get noticed when they don't happen: "We're out of toothpaste;" "Where's the birthday present for Connor's party?" "Mrs. Jones won't let me play at their house because none of my shots are up to date;" "Didn't we used to have two cats around here?"

The trouble with grocery shopping, especially at one of those big box-type stores, is that it is such a large amount of physical effort and the only time it gets noticed is when it either doesn't get done or gets done wrong.

"Those aren't the right kind of socks," I complained to the husband, at great risk of having him never shop for us at Costco again. I couldn't resist, though. I wanted him to know how it feels. He made a snide reference to how I could write about this, "but no, wait! Rick already did! "Incredibly Specific Shopping Lists

Later, he admitted it had been a huge amount of work and he could understand now how I sometimes felt unappreciated for it. Aww. An understanding husband who went grocery shopping. What more could a woman ask?

"Thanks for getting bananas," I said.

That reminds me of a story of why I'm better than you. Listen up.

2011-04-11T12:33:00.000-05:00

Have you ever met that person? The person who doesn't really hear anything you say, but only uses your words as an opportunity to say something about themselves. Something competitive.

I firmly believe in the New Age theory that the traits we find most annoying in others are things we do ourselves and don't realize or do ourselves and really, really dislike. I'm sorry, were you thinking something? Something else? Can we please try to stay focused on me here?

So when I recently spent a day with a person like the one above, it made me wonder, am I really, really listening to others? Maybe not so well. And I know when my kids come into the kitchen while I'm cooking dinner and talking on the phone with my husband to find out just how late he'll be today, I'm so distracted they could ask me for the keys to the car and I might just say "yes," even though none of them is even old enough for a driver's permit.

Once I did an exercise where, for two weeks, I was required to listen, really listen to others when they talked, to not use the time they were speaking to formulate what I would say next. I don't know where I read about this, or if it was part of one of my New Age ("Woo Hoo," says the husband) classes, but it was really quite enlightening. And much much easier than the exercise where I wasn't allowed to give anyone advice for two weeks.

Perhaps we're all a little guilty of not listening to others as intently as we should. This is probably due in part to the fact that some people just aren't interesting, which makes me wish I had my husband's skill of being able to read the paper or work on the computer while I'm talking. When he appears to not be listening, sometimes I'll say, just to check, "So I kissed him," to which he'll reply without hesitation, "Oh, you did not."

It reminds me of a T-shirt I used to have from a bar in Tucson called Bob Dobbs. It said, "I drink to make other people interesting. Bob, realization 1973." (This is actually a paraphrase of a WC Fields quote) I wish I'd had that T-shirt when I spent the day with my verbose "friend" who took every word I'd said and used it as an opportunity to one-up me. Actually, I would have just settled for a drink. Maybe two.

You've been so patient reading and listening to my rant, so enough about me. What do you think of me? (That line just never gets old.) Well, acitymom hereby pledges to not become that person by becoming a better listener. But if you're out and about some night around dinnertime and you see a twelve-year-old girl driving a '99 Camry, you'll know exactly what happened.

An Evil Game of Musical Chair

2011-04-11T12:31:00.000-05:00

"You broke my five-dollar chair."

Kyle looked at me then at his brother. "No. This is how it happened."

I didn't really care about the chair. I'd bought it twenty years ago at Betty's Resale Shop or The Ark, one of those secondhand stores that used to be on North Lincoln Avenue. I'm surprised it lasted this long.

"You see," Kyle continued, "Ethan sat in the chair. Leaned back and broke it."

Anyone with a boy can work the visual here. Actually seeing them in a chair with four legs on the floor is anomaly. I've repeated the phrase, "Four on the floor," so often at dinnertime my family thinks it's part of my meditation practice. Sometimes they get mathematically uppity and say, "I do have four on the floor." Their two legs and two chair legs. Knyuck, Knyuck. "Six on the floor, then," I say, which, as far as mantras go, just doesn't have the same ring to it.
"But," Kyle continued again. "Ethan meticulously put the chair back together and left it sitting here in front of my desk. Then, when I sat down and the whole thing crumbled, Ethan says, 'You broke the chair!'"

"Kyle," I said. "You really need to be more careful with the furniture. I mean, especially after your brother took the time to so carefully repair the chair."

Fortunately for me, Kyle got my sarcasm. Fortunately for Ethan, Kyle didn't get hurt when he sat down on the chair. And Fortunately for Tanya I got there before Kyle could rebuild the chair yet again and put it in front of her desk.

20 Boys Run Through Loop Carrying Poultry Preparation Product

2011-04-02T17:06:00.000-05:00

Perhaps only once in the entire history of the Sears Tower (Okay, I know it's the Willis Tower, but that's still too weird for me to say.), have twenty adolescent boys, led by one completely bald track coach, run through its lobby carrying chicken cooking cream.

I wish I could have seen the spectacle. During my sons' track practice last week, they left their school's campus for a run through downtown. It must have been quite a sight when they decided to take a shortcut through Union Station, which is where they picked up the chicken cooking cream. (And you should know, I only refer to it as chicken cooking cream because that's what my son called it, so I guess technically it's "so-called chicken cooking cream.")

Apparently, there was a promotion on chicken cooking cream that day. The company that makes it had set up a stand with free samples. Why twenty adolescent boys would want free samples of chicken cooking cream is beyond me, because the adolescent boys I know can only cook peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but then again, it's a rare adolescent boy that can pass up food in any form. Since the chicken cooking cream never made it home, which is why I'm still uncertain as to what, exactly, it is, I'm guessing it had the same fate as every other form of food that's come within five yards of my sons in the last ten years.

While I've never run anywhere carrying chicken cooking cream, so-called or otherwise, I have found myself in plenty of similarly ridiculous and what I imagine would be head-turning situations. My favorite is me trying to unlock the front door of my house with a rhinoceros between my legs. No, it's not what you think. At least I don't think it's what you think. Maybe I just hope it's not what you think.

My son asked for and received a large stuffed rhinoceros for Christmas one year. (And good luck finding one of those at your neighborhood Toys R Us.) After dropping him off at school, I noticed he'd left the rhino in the back seat of the car, so I dutifully carried it up to the front door, with my purse and my keys and my coffee cup. Not wanting to set the rhino down on the dirty porch...well you get the picture. I'm just hoping none of the neighbors did.

When my kids grow up, I hope they'll look back fondly on their urban childhood, full of fun memories of driving past Wrigley Field on their way to school each day and jogging around and through famous Chicago landmarks like Union Station and, okay, the Willis Tower, regardless of whether or not they turned any heads with their giant stuffed rhinoceros or little tubs of chicken cooking cream.

Butt-Dialed by your Child? Blackmail!

2011-04-01T09:32:00.000-05:00

"So, who was telling all the dead baby jokes on the bus?"

I asked my son this question and the look on his face was priceless. The proverbial Deer in the headlights expression. My query received this response, I'm sure, because he'd thought his mother had suddenly developed over-the-top psychic skills: skills way more powerful than the typical, run-of-the-mill all-knowing mom power of being able to say without turning around, "Please don't drink orange juice right from the carton."

You see, my son's phone had butt-dialed me (I love this term, which is new to me, yet it's a phenomenon I'm familiar with.) He'd unintentionally left me a twenty-minute voicemail, a recording of him and his friends on the bus on his way home from school. And of course I listened to all of it. Twice. It was a priceless insight into his private world.

When I heard the first few seconds of the recording, I knew immediately what had happened, because my husband's cell phone used to do this all the time when he rode the El. I'd hear the loud background noise, then a CTA voice unclearly (natch) announcing, "Armitage," or some other stop. And when this happened, the children and I would circle around the phone in the kitchen and dutifully try to get his attention, to try to stop this atrocity, this violation of his privacy, by yelling as loud as we could, "Jeff. This is God. Bring your wife flowers." Of course it never worked, because inevitably he would sit on his phone again and shut it off before he heard us.

I didn't have the opportunity to shout at my son, because it was all a voicemail. But still, I thoroughly enjoyed messing with him later.

"I'm pretty sure the kid I heard swearing wasn't you," I said. (Pretty sure it was, actually.)

Not even when he had that 105 fever when he was three do I ever remember seeing him that pale.

At this point I had to tell him what had happened, that his phone had unintentionally dialed me and left a long and detailed insight into his school-bus-riding life. I also told him that, in the future he should really be careful, not about just butt-dialing, but about all of his life in general. He's growing up in a different age. Everything he says, all the dead-baby jokes, every foolish misstep could be recorded. Everything. Just look at what happened to Michael Phelps. Miley Cyrus. Need I go on?

It's a brave new world out there. I was able to make all my dumb teenage and college mistakes without the benefit of surreptitious recording devices and the Internet, Facebook and YouTube. My kids will not have that luxury. And as much as I would like to know the ending of what it was he says someone told them about taking steroids (this is where the voicemail recording finally cut-out), I have to say, there are just some things in the personal life of a mother's son that she just truly, honestly, doesn't want to know.

Bite me CNN: 15 Places you can put your list of family vacations

2011-03-29T11:18:00.000-05:00

Hey CNN and Budget Travel. Bite me. I just read your article, 15 Places Kids should see by age 15. You forgot the subtitle, if you're really, really rich and have a lot of free time. According to my calculations, you'd need over fifty-thousand dollars, minimum, to get your family of five from Chicago to all those places (see my footnote) for just two nights, and that doesn't even include tickets to a Red Sox game at Fenway.

$1707.25 is the total for the admission fees alone. It would cost $200 for our family of five just to enter the San Diego Zoo. And don't even get me started on Disney World, where staying at a Disney property provides the added benefit of being allowed to wake up extra early on your vacation to get in line before the other guests. Seriously.

I ran a couple of these destinations past my kids, two of whom are fourteen. Oooh. I guess we'd better get going, because they haven't been to any of them. Not one.

"What do you think of a trip to Monticello, Ethan?" He gave me "the look." If you have a teenager, you know the one: it conveys in an instant that any suggestion you could possibly make will be met with scorn and disdain. "Really?" he said. "The place where they keep the replicas of our third president's clothes?" He'd read the article before I did. And, he'd thought it was as stupid as I did. This time (just this once, so don't get any ideas Ethan) I agree with "the look."

"Hey Tanya, what would you say about a trip to Alcatraz?" Since she's from out of town, she hopefully asked if there'd be shopping there, so I had to explain to her it was a prison on an island and they used to jail really, really, bad guys there. "An island? Can we go to the beach?" That's my girl.

"Kyle, how would you like to go to Independence Hall in Pennsylvania?" He replied, "Oh, is that from the CNN article? Yeah, I saw it and I already posted a comment online." He wrote, "15 places that rich white kids can go." I don't know where he gets it.

Okay, all sarcasm aside, there are a few places on the list I think we wouldn't mind seeing, even if there aren't beaches there. The Grand Canyon is number one on our list, too. But as Ethan pointed out, most little kids would be afraid of heights like that, which brings up another issue I have with all this besides the cost. To get to fifteen places in fifteen years, you'd have to go on one vacation every year, (Okay, you could combine the Redwood Forest trip with the Alcatraz trip, and the Monticello trip with the National Mall, etc.) but you'd still have to start early because who but a select few has enough vacation time to go on more than one vacation a year? So probably the best thing would be to bring your baby to the Grand Canyon so he couldn't see how high up he was and your one-year-old to Alcatraz. Or maybe you should bring your baby to Monticello, since, no matter what his age, he's going to sleep through it anyway.

Maybe the 15 Places list just strikes a chord with my nasty-bone because it reminds me we should do more traveling with our children.

We are so fortunate to be able to take a vacation with them each year, but we like beach vacations, hence the reason we haven't been on too many educational or touristy ones. With the economy being what it is, we've been saving our money instead of spending it on travel, but as I asked my husband a couple years ago when we were talking about canceling a vacation altogether, have we ever once uttered a sentence like, "Gee I wish we hadn't taken the kids to the beach in 2003."?

No, we've never once regretted spending money on a vacation, on the privilege of spending uninterrupted time with our kids. I wish we had the time and money to take our kids to all fifteen of those places before the boys turn fifteen later this year.

So, I think what torques me the most about CNN's article from Budget Travel and their little list of "shoulds" is that it makes you feel guilty, like a bad parent, if you haven't taken your children to all these fabulous and educational and fun places and it doesn't address the issue of how an average family of five is supposed to afford to drop all this money and find the time to do so. Their list pretends to be informative, but it's really just elitist. But perhaps even worse, it's advertising/propaganda disguised as news/parenting advice.

(Footnote: I created my rough estimate using Orbitz and based it on travel by air using the lowest fare, this June 4-6, with a two-night stay at a Holiday Inn, including a rental car, for a family of five. Your results may differ!)

The Unexpected Human Voice

2011-03-29T11:08:00.000-05:00

"Do we have any blueberry muffins left?"

It seems an innocuous enough question. Mostly harmless. Yet, when I heard it, I let out a yelp and jumped, completely startled. Because the voice came from behind me and it was no longer the voice of my fourteen-year old son, Kyle, but the voice of a strange man who'd just entered my kitchen.

Both of my sons' voices have changed. Are changing. They're getting deeper and deeper by the day. At times I've heard them talking and I've wondered, "Who's here?" or "What's my husband doing home so early?" (This alone would make me yelp and jump, completely startled.) The change has been happening so gradually, you'd think it wouldn't startle me. And I know the theory of "the unexpected human voice" and all, the fight or flight response ingrained in our nature, causing us to start when we think we're alone and suddenly discover we're not. It makes good Darwinian sense, but I'd still rather not encounter this phenomenon when I'm cleaning out my refrigerator.

It made me feel horribly guilty, too, that I didn't even recognize my own son's voice. Like all those times at the playground when I heard some kid scream, "Mom!" and snapped my head to look thinking it was one of mine, then just pretended I'd encountered a flying bug, or forgotten my medication or something.

I suppose I should be grateful the boys aren't going through some horrible voice-cracking rite of puberty passage, the way Peter did in that one Brady Bunch episode with the band. But it seems like their voices keep getting deeper by the day and I fear at some point mere humans will not be able to hear them and our only indication that they're speaking will be when the dog does that weird, I don't get it, head-tilt-thing and all the woodland animals start to flee the forest.

Regardless, the scare was good for my heart. This sidelined runner thinks she probably hit target in about half of a second, which although it's not my preferred method of cardio, was still effective. And it beat the crap out of those dumb elliptical machines. It's just unfortunate how much my own son's voice scared the crap out of me, which is ironic because he's such a nice kid.

But I think I'll be keeping plenty of blueberry muffins around, just in case.

Uncle John's Blam: When there's danger at your door

2011-03-29T11:05:00.002-05:00

Sunday morning was picture perfect. My husband woke me up with coffee and the paper, and we sat in bed and read and drank our coffee and surfed the net on our portable electronic devices with the dog sleeping peacefully between us, while all the children were entertaining themselves far, far away downstairs, watching TV and playing video games. It was a rare, blissful and relaxing Sunday morning. Until the dog threw up.

The vomit came with little warning. She let out a small cough, then, BLAM. Right there on the bed. Our little slice of paradise was ruined. Not to mention what she'd done to the comforter. Yuck. The smell was so vile I had dry heaves. Me. The woman who dealt with countless stinky diapers. In stereo. I pride myself on my cast iron stomach.

Before the vomit, I'd been sitting in that idyllic state of coffee and quiet, and I think I had just allowed that little internal voice inside my head to say something along the lines of, Isn't this just perfect? And then that self-congratulatory moment was immediately followed up with a BLAM. How did the Grateful Dead put it? When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door. I don't think they were referring to vomit, but I guess danger can come in many forms. And I believe one of us, as we fled screaming from the bed, did yell, "Save yourself!"

But life is like this when you have pets. And it's even more like this with kids. How many times have you carved out a pocket of time, secretly setting it aside for a personal, me-time treat of your choice (like a manicure or yoga or a hot cup of tea in complete and total silence) only to have it, after you spent even more time viciously protecting this little pocket against all interlopers (like errands or appointments) go BLAM!, when school calls because someone got hurt or a kid wakes up sick. And then it's gone. Poof. Just like that.

So instead of yoga or a run, you find yourself running to a doctor's office or just sitting in the kitchen playing Uno or Scrabble for hours on end. But when the day is over, you realize you did have a pretty special treat, some one-on-one time with a kid you don't normally get to spend a whole lot of one-on-one time with, at least not without even greater time-carving shenanigans than it takes to get your yoga in.

Sometimes an unexpected BLAM can remind us of what's really important. And it's even better if afterward, you don't have to wash a comforter.

Pizza Pi: For the Value-Driven Engineer

2011-03-20T11:43:00.000-05:00

I found this slip of paper on the kitchen counter.

Thinking it was a remnant from one of my sons' geometry problems, I started to throw it away (if you leave your garbage lying on my kitchen counter, you run that risk) but then I had a change of heart.

"Does this belong to either of you guys?"

"No."
And the mystery deepened. Because it certainly wasn't mine. And my daughter's not at r-squared in math yet.

"Jeff? Is this yours?"

"Yeah."

I stare at the yellow Post-it, the mystery still squarely in place.

"I was trying to find out which size pizza would be a better value."

That's the beauty of living with an engineer; the potential for comedy is always just a Post-it note away.

Only that kind of mathematical mind would think to use pi on a pie. I wish I'd found the note on pi day (3.14), then I would have had a triple pie, which I think would be something along the lines of a hat trick in the geometry/engineering world.

"So, what did you find out?" I asked him, because I'm a value-minded shopper as well.

Well, it turns out the bargain is the two medium pizzas vs. one large. Who knew? Apparently only engineers who determine the surface areas of a pizzas in the interest of smart consumerism. Or fun. I imagine engineers would do this for fun.

The whole situation reminds me of a YouTube video,

which I think is hilarious. At least I'm hoping they made the video for fun, because I'd hate to think of anyone being truly serious about wanting to know the aspect ratio of a jumping cat. The idea they weren't being facetious brings to mind a caution my father gave me when I headed off to college, "Don't marry an engineer. They're boring." He has an engineering degree, so I suppose he should know, but I think the real caution lies in being cautious in what you caution your children about. Throughout college I almost exclusively dated engineers.

Although, of course, I managed to marry the most interesting of those engineers :-)

Little did I know at the time, how handy it would be to be married to an engineer, as one of their most charming characteristics is to point out the flaw (or flaws) in every plan or idea you ever have, which is useful if your plan or idea is truly flawed. Merely annoying if you still want to go forward anyway.

I suppose now might be a good time to point out, when considering food, that weight or volume would be a more accurate measure than area in determining value, but he would probably come back at me with some noise about how he would assume the volume of the pizza would remain constant across all pizzas for an equal measure of area. See how interesting this is?

At least he's never measured the aspect ratios of our cats. As far as I know.

It's Doctor Season

2011-03-20T11:38:00.000-05:00

We've sprung forward, there's a bit less chill in the air and I know that soon I will be spending most all of my valuable free time in waiting rooms reading six-month-old issues of Golf Digest. You see, it's Doctor Season, which is how we refer to the phenomenon that occurs semi-annually when it seems as though every single person in our family is due for a check-up, or dentist visit, or orthodontist appointment or needs to see a doctor for some reason or another, all around the same time. I suppose I should rejoice in my health insurance plan and the availability of excellent medical care, but as anyone who's been to a doctor's office lately surely knows, it 's just way more fun to complain about it.

Every six months I need an FAA medical exam for my job. I also go to my OB-GYN every six months. Same with the dentist. All three children see the dentist every six months and since they all have birthdays in December, they all need their annual check-ups around the same time. This month, all of these appointments fell in March (Yes. It takes three months between the time I actually call and when I get the appointment. [Two-Do List] Usually, Doctor Season gets spread out over a couple months. Even by combining all three of the kids' wellness checks into one visit this year, we had seven appointments in March. Seven. Do you understand now why I'm cranky?

The voicemail reminders the doctors' offices leave are indeed handy and I imagine they save the doctors a lot of frustration (And although I did received one, I still somehow managed to forget to go to my dentist the next day, but that was in December. Have I mentioned in this paragraph that all three of my children have birthdays in December?) I prefer the automated reminders to the "real" ones, because I'm pretty sure all the nice ladies who leave them took their voice training with the CTA. With the volume up full blast and my calendar in front of me, they still have me questioning the name of the doctor, the time of the appointment, even the names of my own children.

And another thing. They now tell us to arrive fifteen minutes early, "to fill out paperwork" or some such. Do they think they're tricking us? Does this really change the behavior of those people who are always, always late? Those of us who make it a point to be on time to these things are really very annoyed by this type of antic.

To add more insult, now some of the offices are starting to say threatening things in their voicemails, like, if you cancel without giving twenty-four hours notice they're going to charge you fifty-dollars. I would love that opportunity. Along with my remittance, I would send them a bill for every wasted minute I spent in their waiting room.

As we were getting ready to leave for one of our appointments earlier this month, my son Ethan asked, "Why do we have to be there fifteen minutes early?"

"So we can wait forty-five minutes, instead of thirty," came my reply. But what I was really thinking, was "So I'll have the opportunity to get through last October's issue of Men's Health, as well."

Charlie Sheen vs. Soldiers in Afghanistan

2011-03-14T08:22:00.000-05:00

When it comes to Charlie Sheen vs. Soldiers in Afghanistan, apparently, there are people out there wondering why Charlie Sheen is winning the media monopoly. Viral Facebook post pits coverage of Sheen, fallen soldiers Well, acitymom thinks she knows why. And it's not pretty.

When we read about soldiers dying in Afghanistan, we feel bad. We feel guilty that we sit here in our nice houses worried about stupid s*&t, like do we have enough toothpaste. Then we drive our large cars to the grocery store where we can buy strawberries in February and we worry about the price of oil and all the while these young men, who look frighteningly similar to every single one of our handsome sons, are giving their lives every single day for our freedoms that we take for granted.

When we read about Charlie Sheen, poor little rich boy gone bad, we feel good. Look at the highest paid TV actor screwing up his life. He has everything: (everything we may not have) looks, legacy, lineage, talent. Look how he throws it away! "More money than sense," as some people might say. People who despise anyone with anything more than they have, anyway. As my babysitter puts it, "I don't like these kind of stupid people."

Why such hatred toward those who've succeeded? Because when you haven't succeeded yourself, in the same way, or in a way that you've wanted or makes you happy, it's oh so hard to be happy for someone else. So when we see people who seemingly have everything throw it all away, it makes us feel better about ourselves. It gives us uber schadenfreude. I mean, look at them, those celebrities screwing up. They had everything and they f*&^Ed-it up. But wheee! What this means for me is I don't have to feel bad about never having had it at all. Hurray for me.

Everyone is pointing fingers at the media, at the poor coverage of the war. But I think the media is just giving us what we want, even though we may not even realize it consciously. Does anyone remember Chicago's big experiment with Carol Marin's newscast on CBS? When I heard the concept, oh my God, I had so much hope. No more pseudo-journalists adding commentary on stories they were reporting on, or telling me to bring a jacket like they're my mom. Finally, I thought. Nightly news for smart people! But even I didn't like it. I was bored. It made me depressed. Like watching so many anchovies washing up on a California beach.

No, Carol Marin's in-depth news for smart people didn't last very long. And it wasn't because audiences weren't intelligent, it was because sometimes--no, most of the time--the news, the real news, feels bad. And no one wants to feel bad. So when we read about Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Charlie Sheen, or, you fill in the blank here, we feel better about ourselves and our mundane little middle class lives. Don't blame the media or TV. Blame our own human nature.

Now, acitymom needs to get back to Farmville, while monitoring Twitter, to see when Justin Bieber is going to implode

The Do Gooder Graffiti Artist Strikes Again, and other acitymom loose ends

2011-03-14T08:20:00.000-05:00

Sorry Graffiti. It seems my do-gooder graffiti artist [ Do-Gooder Graffiti? ] has struck again, this time with a message of "Sorry." As most everyone over the age of three knows, it's always a good idea to apologize when you've done something wrong. Like spray painting on the side of someone else's building.

Wagnerian Opera, the de-brief: Our marriage was not even remotely challenged by five hours of Lohengrin. In fact, we had so much fun on our night out we debated whether or not we wanted to go back home to all those kids. We are not opera aficionados by any stretch of the imagination, but we've been to the opera often enough to have spotted a few differences between a German opera and, well, all the others. In Wagner's Lohengrin, there wasn't a whole lot of moving around. The performers basically stood in one place, or, maybe moved slowly, a few steps here and there. (Considering the size of the two leads, I doubt very highly that moving quickly was an option. I'm not trying to be mean, just doing my journalistic duty as observant blogger.)

In most operas, especially Italian ones, it seems like everyone's moving and dancing and flitting all about the place. Even the set was staid compared to the other operas we've seen. And I can only remember one part that made us laugh out loud. In others, there usually are several, if not more, funny bits. But as my anomalistically funny German friend Rick Kaempfer says, "Germans are efficient, punctual and practical, but let's face it; they aren't funny."

I'd love to hear some insight on any of our musings from a real opera aficionado!

The box suppers were a huge success, despite the fact it took us half the intermission just to find them. You see, they were available for pick up in the lobby or on the third floor. Since our seats were, um, higher up, we opted to pick them up on the third floor. But that was the trick. Because they don't call it the third floor, and it isn't three flights up. They call it the First Upper Balcony or something like that and on your way up you don't pass floors called "First" and "Second", you pass floors called "Dress Circle" and "Mezzanine," which made it fun, in a weird House of Mirrors kind of way.

However, once we finally had our suppers, we found a nice quiet place to sit and eat them. The stairs. With all the other folks in their fancy clothes. Although I did see, as expected, an unusually large amount of women wearing slacks. Apparently when you're facing down five hours of opera, you leave the ball gown at home.

One final note: Something I've noticed in our years of going to opera at the Lyric, is when it comes to behavior, e.g. waiting in line, general courtesy, etc., I've found people to be much more considerate at Wrigley Field.

r.e. Geezer Parenting: When I read Rick's blog, [Tips for Geezer Parents], it reminded me of Birdie, the game I used to play with my sons when they were little. My husband's take on the game? "Only you could invent a game you play while sitting on the couch." You see, I was the Mama Bird and I had to stay in the nest (the couch.) The baby birds would learn to fly with my encouragement, and when they did, then they were in "training" to go get food. Sometimes, we'd have to fight off evil predators, like an owl perhaps. Regardless, it was alway very important for this geezer parent, er Mama Bird, to stay in the nest.

Although these days, without even realizing it, I've become an even bigger fan of a game Rick recommends; the one called "Hide."

Lohengrin: Will Five Hours of Wagner Test a Marriage?

2011-03-05T10:13:00.000-06:00

I always thought my husband loved me. But now, I'm not so sure. Not because he bought me opera tickets for Christmas, which is sweet. Not because we're going to the Lyric on Saturday night to see a romantic opera, which is, well, romantic. But because he bought me tickets to Lohengrin. Which is Wagner. And it's nearly five hours long.

Mark Twain's famous words on Richard Wagner's music, "It's not as bad as it sounds," have come to mind repeatedly this week. They gives me hope. What takes this hope away is that the Lyric is going to be serving Box Suppers at intermission. Lohengrin starts at six. (This could possibly be the first time we've ever left on a date at four-thirty in the afternoon.) So I supposed the Box Suppers are a good idea, but if they really want to bribe people to sit through the whole thing, I would recommend cash. Although admittedly the Box Suppers sound fun, in that they conjure up the image of elderly women in ball gowns balancing cardboard boxes on their knees.

We've decided we're going to go for the Box Supper program, which costs an additional $15.00 and must be purchased before the performance in the Daniel F. and Ada L. Rice Grand Foyer. I've never purchased a boxed supper in a Grand Foyer before, at least I don't think so, but at least now I can cross that off the bucket list. And the suppers include one non-alcoholic beverage. My hope is espresso.

Lohengrin itself is supposed to be epic. Great music. Beautiful damsel in distress. Handsome knight in shining armour sailing to her rescue, on a ship pulled by a swan. (Note to US Department of Energy: look into Swan Power.) It has an evil witch who's married to an evil count, a murder mystery and a dove that takes the place of the swan, who turns back into a man and therefore can't keep his job as ship-puller. (Note to US Department of Energy: If the whole swan thing doesn't work out, look into doves.)

I really do love opera and, all kidding aside, I'm very much looking forward to tomorrow night. When it comes to opera, there's nothing quite like a great one. Unfortunately, the inverse is also true. But Lohengrin at the Lyric is getting great reviews, so I'm not worried. And I'll get to spend a night (a long night) out with my husband. I should be thankful I'm married to such a thoughtful man who gets me tickets to the opera because he knows how much I enjoy it.

However, if Wagner's Ring Cycle ever rotates through town again, I may once again find myself questioning his devotion.

What's Wrong with this Picture?

2011-03-05T10:11:00.002-06:00

Do you ever look around your house and wonder, when did it come to this? Most every single day, no matter where I look, I find ridiculous things that crack me up and the whole reason is because we have all these kids. Like the other day when I woke up and looked out my window to see, not a beautiful songbird, but a soccer ball in my tree. Funny Family Photos-The Un-Contest

That very same day I found this: an actual banana peel on the floor of the kitchen. I mean, at what point did my life become a sit-com? Are Larry, Curly and Moe lurking in the dining room, just waiting for their first opportunity at slapstick? And how is it that a child eating a banana doesn't notice an entire peel fall to the floor? You'd think one of the two American Girl dolls who've been sitting at the kitchen island counter for the past week and a half, because someone has ignored us when we asked her to bring them back to her room (A-hem), would have had the common decency to say something to prevent a potential trip to the emergency room.

And what about the guitar pick in the dish rack? How does a guitar pick end up in a dish rack? A particularly virulent riff? A go at the intro to Rush's Limelight gone bad? Does anyone else's house have flying guitar picks in the kitchen?

I still hadn't even left the kitchen when I noticed this: My cats eating dinner on our Crate and Barrel sushi plates. Perhaps with most of the dishes getting washed in the dishwasher, there was a dearth of plates left in the cupboard. And perhaps there is some sort of degustative symmetry to cats eating their Friskies Classic Pate Salmon Dinner on a plate made for fish, but the sushi plates? Really?

What I want to know is, am I alone in this insanity? Please tell me there are other moms out there who have the same sort of craziness in their houses. Because, unfortunately for me, I've befriended quite a few moms whose homes are so pristine and seem so un-touched by life, it appears no one lives there at all. I like to imagine living in a house like that. Maybe new construction where everything is perfect and in order and there's no dirt. Anywhere. Sigh. Although I suspect this kind of order and control is its own sort of insanity. And I do eye their drawers and closets with suspicion.

So help acitymom out here. Send me a photo, a sign, a lifeline. (kim(@)kimstrickland.com) Or, if you don't want any photographic evidence out there, then just a short description of something crazy in your house. Anything to let me know I'm not alone here.

Skecher Shape-ups Help My Plantar Fasciitis. Unfortunately.

2011-03-01T08:32:00.000-06:00

A runner who can't run is a person whom no one else wants to be around. Take it from me, a recently sidelined runner. It's been 35 days (3 hours and thirteen minutes) since my last run. But my brand new pair of Skecher Shape-ups seems to be changing all that.

I've been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, an evil debilitating affliction that eats away at the tendons on the bottom of your foot like hydrochloric acid on speed. Okay, I just made that up. But that's what it feels like. And it hurts. A lot. My particular case is strange (natch) in that stretching doesn't make it feel better and the pain gets worse as the day wears on. Of course rest, you know, spending a day with my feet up, is the impossible dream at my house, so I had to find a way to be on my feet. Fortunately, a friend of mine who also has plantar fasciitis told me about the Skecher Shape-ups. "The way the arches are padded," he told me, "you never put much weight on your heels," which is where, for me anyway, my pain is located.

I went out right away and bought a pair. Thankfully, my friend also told me to try DSW, where I found a pair for 70% off. With my ten-dollar savings certificate, that brought the total to $20. Is acitymom a smart shopper, or what? But when I took my first steps in the store, I would have paid any price for them. I almost burst into tears. They were the first pain-free steps I'd taken on my right foot in three weeks.

The thing about these shoes, though. I mean, have you seen them? They're just not that good-looking and acitymom has her standards. My husband hasn't stopped making fun of me when I wear them and then, when my mom told me how much she liked the looks of them, that's when I knew I couldn't be seen in them outside of the house, at least not without my housedress on.

Apparently these shoes are also supposed to, according to their website: 1. Tone your muscles 2. Promote healthy weight loss 3. Make it easy to get in shape!, which would be an added side benefit, right? But to someone who considers herself an athlete, I find the whole concept of "fitness shoes" ridiculous. After several days of wearing them around (the house. Only the house) my son, Ethan, asked me if I noticed any difference, you know, like the muscle burn you feel after a particularly tough work-out. "No," I told him. "Nothing."

"If you walk thirty miles in our shoes every day," he said, " you'll end up in fantastic shape."

One of my favorite things in all of life is having one of my children say something so viciously dry it gives me a belly laugh.

Between finally being able to walk pain-free in my Skecher Shape-ups, my new orthopedist and the physical therapy I just started, I'm hoping I can get back to my running soon, and therefore have some semblance of a social life again. As I said, I've been a little cranky lately. (A whole lot cranky, says the husband.) When I do become social again, I look forward to showing-off my toned muscles and the healthy weight loss I'll surely have after walking 30 miles every day in my brand-new pair of fitness shoes.