Things I learned from someone I never met

Picking up the mail today, I noticed one envelope standing out from the rest. Rather than a bland white business-sized envelope holding my current bill - excuse me, "statement" - it was bright red and the size that would hold a greeting card. Except it appeared to be empty, light as a feather. I examined it carefully. My husband's and my name were hand-lettered over our address. No return address. A 32 cent stamp and two 3 cent stamps were adhered carefully in the corner. I turned it over. There was a shiny band across the envelope flap. It looked somehow familiar but out of place. I realized the envelope had been turned inside out and glued shut. A few years ago, I would have ripped it open and solved the mystery at once. Today, with all the suspicion surrounding the mail, I held it up to the light. There was indeed something inside, perhaps folded, as I could see two layers of printing. After much turning of the envelope and squinting, I discovered it was my car registration, together with a handwritten note. I opened the envelope carefully. No shower of ricin. I removed the contents. It was in fact my registration, together with this note:

I found this at
the library. Keep it in
your glove compartment
so you don't lose it.
You wouldn't want
to be in an accident
without it.
Sincerely,
Mary L.

I had received the registration in the mail a few weeks ago, and was at the library with the kids a few days after that. I had put it in my purse with the intent of putting it in the car. It could have slipped out, or more likely, I had let my 2 year old play with my wallet to keep him reasonably quiet while people went about their library business. Or I might have used it as a bookmark, who knows. I hadn't noticed it was missing, but I was touched by the kindness of someone who took the time to return it.

I looked again at the envelope. So thrifty, so resourceful, so environmentally conscious! I peeked inside. In large somewhat shaky block letters, the red envelope had read "DAD" before it was inverted to carry my wayward registration back home. It had been so carefully opened, and so carefully glued shut. And the stamps! How old must 32 cent stamps be? But Mary didn't throw them out, no, she was still using them, combining with the .03 centers you can buy from the machine at the post office. I love that machine, it's one of the only machines I can think of that still takes pennies! I bet Mary loves that machine too.

I looked again at the note, torn from a small yellow spiral pad, the neat handwriting, the sweet admonishment not to be so careless in the future. There are few people who would take the time to return someone's registration, and fewer still who would include a handwritten note. What would I have done? Turned it in to the library front desk, perhaps. Maybe, harried by the children, even done nothing and left there on the floor, or under the desk, or shut it back into the book. WWMD?

Mary L., I don't know you, and I am sorrowful to say I may never know you. But I thank you for the valuable lessons I learned from you today, about recycling, about saving money, about pure kindness. And, if I ever do meet you, I owe you 38 cents.

Unplugged

I read in the paper this weekend that our local basic cable was going up from $39 a month to $43. Basic cable! Now you know I am all for saving money, and even $39 a month for the crap that streams into our house via that box was bugging me. This latest increase was the last straw. I called Comcast this morning and cancelled our cable. Completely. Didn't take their offer to discount my bill by $10 for the next two months while I thought about it. (Hint for those of you continuing with cable - make a quick $20 by calling and threatening to cancel; feel free to forward 5 bucks to me for the hint.)
We didn't watch much TV anyway. MistErations and I watch Survivor when it's on, but we have found we can get CBS with rabbit ears. PreschoolErations and ToddlErations watch PBS and Nick Jr, but not without a heaping serving of guilt for me. (Plus we get a grainy, staticky version of PBS if needed. Don't worry honey, Elmo is just playing in the snow.)
NPR had a story earlier in the Spring about a study finding that for every hour of television a child watches per day, his or her likelihood of developing ADD increases by 10%. That adds up too quickly for my comfort. TurnOffYourTV.com has some excellent links to articles and information about the effects that television, and its abundant, incessant advertising, have on children.
I feel great about it. Liberated. Unplugged. So Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Darndest Things

My 3 year old likes to tell "apple jokes". Usually they go something like this: "Why did the monster eat the apple?" "Because it was hungry!" [uproarious laughter] or "How did the apple get in the monster?" "The monster ate it!" [snort snort giggle giggle]. But she actually told one the other day that made me laugh.

3 year old: "Apple!" (long pause)

Me: "Oh, is that an apple joke?"

3 year old: "No, it's a apple and peanut butter joke, only without the peanut butter!"

Yeah, and I used to have a shirt like that, only it was a different color and mine were pants.

Weigh out

Well, not doing so hot on the old SBD this time around. Weigh in this morning was 126.5, a whopping 2.5 pounds dropped after suffering a multitude of cheese sticks and turkey roll ups with no bread. I suppose pizza and wine Sunday night didn't help, but I'm just not very motivated. Food is just so darn good.

mashed potatoes crusty french bread frosted flakes chocolate chip cookies twix bar brownie new york superfudge chunk salt bagel dried pineapple fettucine alfredo french fries ketchup fudge sauce

Now I have that out of my system. Back to my lunch of chicken breast over lettuce with zero carb ranch dressing.

Weigh in #1

Well, 4 days of South Beach Diet under my (shrinking) belt, and though I never want to see another scrambled egg, I weighed in at 126.8 this morning. It's easier this time around, I am simply having eggs and a home-made turkey sausage patty for breakfast, salad and cheeses/deli meats for lunch and picking a vegetable-rich dinner from the SBD cookbook. Snacks are celery with soft cheese or a handful of almonds. A lot easier than gagging down that awful V-8 juice every morning like last time. I really do need to add in some exercise, I was mortified to find that I have cellulite on my thighs. I got some when I was pregnant but figured it would go away. I don't wear shorts much so I never noticed. Though I walk with the kids to the park from time to time, pushing the combined 60 pounds of child plus the weight of the double stroller, I am trying to get myself on the rowing machine each day. For me, that is a lot harder than changing my diet. I've never really enjoyed exercise and it takes up valuable napping time.

What I'm reading

In an effort to get back on the road to Swimsuit Shape, today I bought The South Beach Diet Cookbook. I've only had a chance to sit down with it long enough to make dinner, but so far, it's very motivational. Though we are not officially back on the diet, I'm making a Phase 2 Oven Fried Chicken with Almonds (still in the oven) and have roasted up a can of garbanzo beans per another recipe. The garbanzo beans smell great as they're cooking and are a good thing to have around instead of a handful of goldfish crackers. To fully embarrass myself into actually losing the weight, I'm reporting that I'm 129 pounds today, up from 119 in November. Ugh.

"Good Bye"

No, not my blog - I've finally said my goodbye, in a stilted, robot-like male voice, to AOL after nearly 10 years. I have no regrets, I've been meaning to cancel my account for a long time and just kept putting it off, making sure I had changed my email address with absolutely everyone. I've got a free Yahoo! account now and am perfectly happy with it, except for when some numbnut friend of mine sends me a gigantic MIME file internet joke (that I can't even read because I have a Mac) and it fills up my allotted MB, like an elephant in my little virtual apartment.

The customer service people at AOL, it's their job to convince you to stay when you call (yes, you have to call, you can't simply click a "cancel" button) to tell them you've had enough of them and their creepy "AO" logo, reminiscent of the spooky pyramid-topping eye on the back of a dollar bill. So poor Jason at AOL, it was his job to ask me why I was quitting after 9 years and 8 months of "You've Got Mail". I could have gone on about the spam, the cost, the speed or lack thereof, but I simply told him I didn't need it anymore. When I first encountered the Internet in 1994, I needed a little help interfacing, and AOL was a nice friendly ride to the great electronic void, like carpooling with your next-door neighbor. (I also used the short-lived eWorld for a while. Anyone remember eWorld? ...anyone?) I no longer need the help.

The funniest part of the farewell phonecall with Jason was that I was required to give the answer to my secret question in order to prove it was really my account I was closing. Nine years and 8 months ago, setting up my AOL account and my secret question, I apparently had quite a sense of humor, or perhaps had a few too many cheap beers in me. My secret question was "How fresh are you?" and the answer, which I had typed in as a younger, sillier me and never expected to be saying over the phone, to Jason or anyone else, is, of course, "Like having fresh panties every day." (Which was, once upon a time, the advertising catch phrase for Stayfree or Carefree or some other feminine product. Really.) I'm glad Jason got a good laugh over it, since he wasn't able to get his commission for keeping me on as an AOL member.

Catching up

Well, I'm back. A sincere thanks to the blog readers who kept checking up on me - both of you. ;-) I promise I won't give up blogging completely without notice, and I'm making an effort to update more often.

What has happened since I last blogged ... Well, I turned 35 over the weekend and had a great celebration. It had all the ingredients of a perfect birthday - massage, kid-free time with the hubby, and friends over for dinner (pizza). I'm not even going to brood over my age. So there.

We've had a really sick winter in our household, due, no doubt, to my daughter being in preschool and bringing us home all sorts of ooglie booglies from the other kids. It has been a constant stream of colds, sinus infections and coughing. I'm expecting an engraved Thank You note from the Kleenex company any moment now.


Ebay's been taking a lot of my free time, though I don't begrudge it a bit. I've gotten really good at spotting a bargain and being able to turn it into a good profit. Like the .50 SPCA-sale shoes now on eBay for for $42.50 and still going. By the way, if you have an ugly-as-heck big-headed Blythe doll from the 70's lying around, you know the one where you pull the cord on her back and her eyes change color ... you might want to ship her out in exchange for a nice wad of cash (alas, not my auction). Plus then your recurring nightmares might end.

EBay is a hobby for me, kind of a game, maybe even a little like gambling. I try to do my eBaying "in the cracks" of my day so I don't take away from family time, photographing and listing while the kids are napping, checking auctions and emailing buyers after the kids are in bed, wrapping and packing while the children are eating breakfast and hubby is in the shower.

I love eBay, not only the selling but the buying too. I am a saver and environmentalist at heart, and I love the idea of re-use. And then there's my well-documented obsession with vintage Fisher Price toys. I find a set from time to time at a garage sale or (even rarer) thrift shop, but eBay is the vintage toy store collectors only dreamt of in the pre-internet days.

If you love old stuff of any kind, you've got to love eBay. Antique glassware and china, vintage board games and dolls, '80s Izod Lacoste shirts, '20s bakelite jewelry ... you could spend a lifetime haunting antique and resale shops for that certain something or get it on eBay in a few clicks. You can get brand new designer clothes if you can't get to a mall or if they're not sold near you. You can buy used, indestructible plastic toys for a fraction of what they cost new. My kids don't mind used toys, if it's new to them, it's new, and a toy is a toy is a toy.

Besides being an convenient place to buy and sell, it's a fascinating window to the world. There's always something fun ("Addicted to Ebay Barbie"), appalling (a halted auction for 3 Vietnamese girls), controversial (Girl Scout cookies) or downright amazing being bought or sold.

Sure, you have to pay shipping. Sure, you have to look out for scammers. Yes, you can't turn an item over and examine it from every side. Still, it's truly a worldwide marketplace and with a savvy eye and good communication between yourself and a seller, you can avoid the pitfalls. I have been eBaying since 1998, and I have had one bad purchase, which I ended up settling with the seller for a partial refund. As a seller, I always recommend that a buyer purchase insurance if the item is over $15. If they don't buy it, I usually will, to cover my own behind. This paid off recently when I shipped an electronic toy that supposedly was working, but not working properly, when it reached the buyer. I had insured it at my expense and for $1.30 saved myself having to reimburse the buyer $35. Also, I purchase Delivery Confirmation for items I sell for over $25, or if I have a "gut feeling" about a buyer, to save me from the buyer claiming they didn't receive it.

I don't understand the anti-eBay sentiment I so often see. Is it viewed as a bunch of opportunists selling overpriced junk to idiots? Idiots unbeknowingly selling valuable attic treasures to opportunists? I don't talk much about my eBaying to my friends, which is probably why I write so much about it here - it's my outlet. I've brought it up a few times here and there in conversations - "hey, did you know the XYZ you are going to throw away sells well on eBay" or "Where did I get my Little People collection? Mostly on eBay" - and almost always get a little snort of disgust. When I mentioned to the owner of a failing antiques shop in our little town that she might try selling on eBay to capture a larger market, she gave eBay the blame for her still, dusty shelves. Not one person I have personally spoken to has been interested in hearing any more about it, and I'm baffled. If you hate eBay, let me know why.

A case of the bloghs

Why haven't I dropped in to blog? Partly, been busy. Being a mother of 2 little ones, something simple like a dentist appointment can kill all the free time you have in an entire day. So last week, an extra work day at my daughter's co-operative preschool, a dentist appointment and being a little under the weather basically took up my entire week. Oh wait, during nap time one day, I peed, washed the lunch dishes and pushed back my cuticles before one child or the other woke up. Blogging while children are awake just isn't in the cards either. The little one fancies snapping the laptop shut with a bang, whether my hands are on the keyboard or not, and the older one, only 3, already knows to drone "this is booooo-ooooring" if she is left on her own for more than a few moments.
So, what's the other part of my bloglessness? Well, eBaying, selling everything that isn't nailed down and some things that were, nails and all. Been a little glum lately too, and I'm not sure why. Some days I feel that completely washed-out exhaustion as if I've been crying, but I haven't. I know I'm depressed over my cousin's partner, Kelly, the one with an inoperable lung tumor. I feel sad for my cousin, for Kelly, for their son; I feel somehow guilty. I'm looking forward to Spring because I am inconvenienced by Winter; Kelly is looking forward to Spring because if he is there to see it, he is still alive.

A Half-Day in the Life

I love reading blogs because they let me get in someone else's skin for a while. Jump on in mine for half a day. You might want to wear your grubby jeans and bring some hand wipes.

4:15 a.m. Wake up to baby crying. Cringe in bed with husband while baby "cries it out". We are determined to unspoil him, as we have created a bad habit of wee hour milk cocktail parties.
4:35 a.m. Baby goes back to sleep.
5:15 a.m. I go back to sleep.
6:22 a.m. Wake up to daughter calling for "Mama". Unprecedented late hour. If I hadn't lost that hour in the middle of the night, I might feel rested. Warm cup of milk for her, warm bottle for baby, who is now also awake, change night diapers and get children dressed for the day.
7:00 a.m. Breakfast, prepared by my husband. Coffee, blessed coffee, eggs and toast for us, Cheerios with yogurt for the shorter set. Eat while spoonfeeding my son.
7:10 a.m. Phone rings. Husband and I look at it with dread. Early hour phone calls, like late night phone calls, never bring good news. It's my cousin with bad news about her partner of 15+ years. Just past his 45th birthday, he went to the hospital with chest pain. The cause: a softball-sized lung tumor. Yesterday, he went for surgery to have it removed. Except that when they opened him up, after cutting 2 ribs and breaking another 2, they found the tumor wrapped around his aorta. Inoperable. They closed him back up. He does not yet know. My cousin is 36. Their son is 4. I don't mean for this to be the "all fatal illness, all the time" blog, but the world is screaming at me: LIFE IS SHORT! so I am screaming it back. Go hug someone you love.
8:00 a.m. Clean up breakfast dishes, fold laundry, shower, dress, do hair and makeup, kiss husband goodbye, do daughter's hair, compile 6 shoes, 6 socks, and 3 jackets and get them on respective owners' bodies.
8:45 a.m. Daughter, son and I rush out, late for preschool. Drop daughter off a few minutes late, chat with some parents, pick up gift card for school's fundraising auction, lend daughter's extra coat to child who forgot his.
9:10 a.m. Return home with son, stopping to mail package at post office on the way home.
9:30 a.m - 11:00 a.m. "Quiet" time with only 1 child. Fix snack, put baby on table while I check my running eBay auctions. Email high bidders, post 4 new auctions, wrap and address 2 sold items.
11:25 a.m. Pick daughter up from preschool, arriving 5 minutes early to make up for being late at the beginning of the day. Pick up collages, fingerpaintings, crayon drawings from cubby, load everyone back into car.
11:45 - 1:00 p.m. Pound pavement for school auction, son in stroller, daughter tagging behind scuffing her heels. Spend 15 minutes talking with owner of local coffee shop while taming children attempting to run amok, leave with $5 gift certificate. Drop by ice cream shop to pick up promised donation to find owner has "stepped out" for half an hour and has not left gift certificates. Talk with taqueria employees who suggest I leave my written information about the auction. I may as well leave it in the trash can, but I leave it with them anyway. Son is screaming bloody murder in the stroller, so we go home and I make a note to return to the ice cream place another time.
1:15 p.m. Return home for lunch. Prepare pizza for everybody, even though it's high carb and I feel like a bloated beast. Let the kids watch "Dora the Explorer" from 1:30 to 2:00 while I write this blog.
That's it up until now. Is it bedtime yet?

Roll over, boy

Last night we were getting ready to take the kids for ice cream after dinner when our across-the-street neighbor, Jon, dropped by with his energetic new puppy. They looked cute coming across the street, 6-foot-4 Jon and this tiny fuzzy puppy. It was hard to tell who was more excited, the children or the dog, as the kids were squealing and the puppy was jumping in circles and licking everything. At one point the child-dog love fest seemed to be getting out of control, and Jon leaned his large frame over and boomed "Sit!" My son took one look up at this man looming 4 feet above his head ... and sat.

Say anything

My husband reads my blog. Normally this is a good thing, it is always nice to have a reader. If a writer writes in the forest and no one is there to read it, should she really be folding laundry instead? Tonight he flipped his laptop shut with a snort - "You haven't updated your blog." Then he went to bed. So here I am, thinking of something, anything, to push that silly Quizilla entry down just a few inches.
Kids ... haven't done anything remarkably cute lately ... though the little one cracks me up because he shouts "BOB!" whenever he sees Bob the Builder and "DO-DA!" whenever he sees Dora the Explorer yet he still calls both my husband and me "Mama". Comes in handy at 3 a.m. - baby's crying "Mama!" and I just roll over and say "He means you, honey."
No news on my Mom, really, but she'll be starting her meds soon, though her disease is autoimmune and not cancer, she will still be on an anti-cancer drug, is likely to lose her hair, and will have a compromised immune system so that she might not be able to visit the grandchildren. There are a lot of unknowns, but she is a tough lady and I really do feel like it's all going to be ok.
eBay ... people are starting to get the first wave of tax rebates so it's a good time to start listing the junk you don't need. I found a thrift shop in town that is actually not totally disgusting and over the weekend I found 2 complete in the original box Fisher Price Little People sets from the '70s. I was beside myself.
Food news ... we haven't abandoned South Beach Diet but I haven't cracked the book in ages. I made a huge pot of albondigas based loosely on the linked recipe and Irish Soda Bread for dinner and let me tell you, it was carbolicious. Yeah, Mexican soup and Irish bread.
I guess that's it for now. Goodnight, dear, and everybody else too.

Raising the bar

Always striving for a higher level of nerdiness, I have outdone myself today by creating my own quiz at Quizilla, based on my strange infatuation with the Fisher Price Little People of my childhood, and yours, if you are say, between 25 and 40. I'm the Queen, but since I made the quiz, it should be obvious that I cheated.

Here are your results, your Majesty, and sorry to
keep you waiting - you're the Queen!


Which Little People figure are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

And they were Googled here ...

To the person(s) who occasionally stumble upon my site looking for a recipe for Praram Tofu: If you find one, please let me know. My peanut sauce addiction is costing us a small fortune and I can't seem to make it like our local Thai restaurant.

To the person searching for "blog Jen hand me down T-shirts": Huh?

Sorry for whining about the comments the other day. I wish I hadn't.

One hand clapping

Have you ever been at a party or a work function, in a little group 4 or 5 people you don't know and when you finally get up the nerve to say something, everyone falls silent? Or, you're stuck giving one of those get-up-in-front-of-the-class type speeches, the kind that make your heart race and your mouth go dry, and you start off with a joke - and nobody laughs?
That's kind of how it feels to have all these "Comment (0)" lines at the end of my blog entries. The sound of one hand clapping: mine, waving silently and searchingly in the air, trying to find that other hand that will let the sound ring out.

Or I could get around to shaving my legs

Next new episode of Queer Eye is February 17th???. What will I do Tuesday nights until then? Maybe this quiz to see which of the Fab 5 is my type. Results for me: Hottie
Kyan: Grooming Guru


Which Member from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is your type?
brought to you by Quizilla

I ♥ blogs

I have said it before - I love the way blogs let you get inside someone else's skin. I'm a Mom of 2 in California; today I made peanut butter sandwiches, changed 7 diapers and did a Princess jigsaw puzzle. But now I know what it's like to be an armored guard meeting the dumbest person in North Carolina.

Everybody's a comedian

I love Google's ads and "related searches" box above, that changes depending on whichever blog entry it has just spidered. Last week at bedtime, as I was about to go off to carb-starved sleep, I noticed the Box suggesting that those reading my blog might enjoy related searches for "pancakes" and "macaroni and cheese".
Et tu, Google?
Today, as I sit here in my $22 Old Navy jeans and $9.99 clearance Gap Favorite T, the Box suggests I might like to check out some Juicy Couture. $172 cashmere scarf, anyone?

The hardest part

We are still waiting for news about my mother. She finally got biopsy and blood test results back last week, and ... they were negative, which would indicate no disease. Good news? Well, maybe, if it could possibly be true. Given her symptoms, and circumstances surrounding the lab procedures, the doctors are not hopeful that the results are accurate. She goes back for more testing this week.
After I first got The Call from my Dad telling me about Mom's illness, though she had not been out of my mind for a second, I did not call her for a few days. I didn't know what to say. My husband and I were careful not to talk about it in front of my daughter, but when I said to my husband one night that I wanted to call my Mom but didn't know what to say, my daughter volunteered, "Mommy, you just say "Hello!"
So I called her. Said hello. Talked about eBay and the kids and the movie we watched last night. About being afraid and life being uncertain. I'm glad I called.

Fragments of my childhood

I have this obsession with remembering my childhood room. I have these spotty, dreamlike memories of it, the room I had from the time I was 4 until we moved when I was 9. Spring green wall-to-wall carpet, spring green walls. Pressed-wood dresser with avocado green drawers. Taller, mismatched chest of drawers, with my Cher doll on top, together with a carved egret with a broken beak that I bought at a flea market. The instructions that came with Cher said that her hair would sometimes get caught in her eyelashes, and to carefully unwind them. Goldfish bowl, sometimes with Goldfish of the Month, sometimes empty. That really stinky flaky fish food, yellow with a brown lid. Kids' record player, blue and red plastic. Really played 45s, with that yellow insert thing in the middle. I had "Band on the Run", "Dancing Queen" and "Aristocats". "Band on the Run" really intrigued me. That distant echoey sound, like they were singing the song in a cave. A cave while they were on the run, of course. "Well the rain exploded with a mighty crash as we fell into the sun/and the first one said to the second one there, "I hope you're having fun"./Band on the run/band on the run/and the jailer man and sailor sam were searching for everyone" Avon Pink & Pretty kitty cologne, the kitty's blue skirt held the cologne and the top was her waist and head. I found one on eBay recently and am thinking of buying it just to smell it again. Wooden fish with glued-on googly eye, a gift from someone forgotten. Think I still have it somewhere, along with the broken egret. The child's desk and chair, the heavy lamp I still have. Lots of stuffed animals, though I can't remember many in particular, except the red bear won at Skee Ball in Santa Cruz, smelled like baby powder and leaked styrofoam balls. Some sort of cartoonish animal print my mom got as a mail-away, had something to do with a coffee can. Will have to ask her, that one has escaped me.

Fun is all relative

It doesn't snow where I live. Ever. But one of the joys of California is that you are never very far from the snow, the beach, camping, or quality aromatherapy products. Today we drove a few hours up to the nearest Sno-Park ™ so my kids could see the snow for the first time. As we packed the snow saucers, I had visions of my husband and myself laughing as we glided down powdery hills, each holding a child squealing in delight. As we packed cozy mittens and tiny boots, I imagined the snowman we would build together. As I tucked my little girls' curls beneath her warm cap, I envisioned the snow angels she would make.
We arrived at the park around 10 a.m. In the parking lot, we dressed the children in turtlenecks and pants, socks and boots, snowbibs and hoodies, parkas and earmuffs, sunglasses and gloves. My son was particularly enchanting in his sister's hand-me-down powder blue snowpants and pink cherry-dappled boots. Forty five minutes later, we hiked to the snow play area in the glaring sun, shedding parkas and earmuffs, and stuffing our pockets with discarded sunglasses and unwanted gloves. When we arrived at the play area, my son was wearing only one boot. My husband backtracked, finding the bubble-gum hued boot immediately outside our car door. He caught up with us again, and found my daughter and I standing huddled together on the icy, extremely steep slopes, trying to avoid being hit by out-of-control saucers and sleds.
My husband and daughter scouted out a gentle slope amid the chaos, and plopping on their $6.99 blue saucer, immediately careened out of control down a pockmarked icy ravine, nearly missing a teenage girl. (OK, I am embellishing a little. They didn't miss her entirely. But she was ok.) At the same time, however, I looked up the steeper slope, keeping one hand on my son's parka hood to keep him in check. A woman on a sled came skidding down the hill at breakneck speed and I watched in horror as she neatly clipped the ankles of a woman in a gray sweater who stood with her back to the slope. Cartoon-like, the sled and rider slipped completely beneath the gray-sweatered woman as she fell, almost in slow motion, before falling flat on her back on the packed snow with a sickening "whump". She lay there a long while with people looking on and comforting her. When she finally rose, unsteadily and with the help of her husband and the apologetic sled rider, I noticed her rounded belly for the first time. She had to be 7 or 8 months pregnant. I am not the world's most religious person, but I prayed that she and her baby would be ok.
We regrouped as a family, and nervously eyeing the children whizzing past from every angle, decided that sledding was not for us. We found a clearing to build our snowman, or, at my daughter's insistence, a snow bear. After chipping at the ice first with our gloves and then with our bare hands, we finally managed to kick out a lump that looked somewhat bearlike, if you happen to be 3 years old. My daughter declared she was hungry. After less than half an hour in the snow, we headed home.
Tonight, with all the sincerity a 3-year-old can muster, my daughter told us what a great time she had today, sliding and building the bear, and seeing all the pretty snow. As I unpacked muddy mittens and damp parkas, I realized, that is all that matters.

Jenerations

When I started this blog, and named it "Jenerations", I was thinking, as you might infer from the logo, of being a mother, and of being a daughter; of being sandwiched between the generation of my children and that of my parents. Particularly, I was thinking of the female side of things, of being my mother's daughter, of being my daughter's mother. And also of being myself caught between childhood and old age.
I found out Thursday night that my Mom has been diagnosed with a serious, rare, and potentially fatal autoimmune disease. I would name it, but she, at 60, is internet savvy and in doing a search to find out what the future holds for her, would likely stumble upon my blog. It doesn't look good for her, or for all of us who love her. It is a progressive disease, and the treatment seems to cause more discomfort than the disease. She is scared and depressed. I hate thinking of her being scared. I hate thinking of her crying. I think of all the childhood tears of mine she dried, of all the monsters in the closet she chased away, and I am here helpless against this thing that is paining her.
I also think, morbidly perhaps, of all I don't know about her, of all the many talents of hers I have yet to acquire. There always seemed to be time to learn.
Last night, my son had trouble sleeping, and so between 3 and 4 a.m. I could be found holding him in the rocking chair in his room. It's actually a good time to think, 3 a.m. The house is quiet save the creaking of the rocking chair, and even if I wanted to get up and fold a load of laundry, call a friend I haven't spoken to in a while, or channel surf, my job is to hold the baby, to quietly rock and quietly think. I wondered what my Mom was doing at that moment. Sleeping, I hoped. But more likely, awake and fretting in the darkness of her room, wondering about her future. I closed my eyes, and as sleep started to overcome me, saw the baby in my arms not as my son but as my mother, and I rocked her, rocked her, rocked her.

Housebound

The kids aren't napping today, and I'm sitting here watching them jump on the 3-year-old's bed like a couple of maniacs. The screaming is so loud the windows are shaking. I wonder what will happen when the kids start screaming, too.
Good thing I found this hilarious blog to cheer myself up. Fart and bodily fluid jokes abound. Having spent the day with persons under 3 feet tall, it is just what I was in the mood for.

867-5309

jennifer
n. a collective or quantitative noun for friends.
"Kelly, that's a whole jennifer of friends!"
(Source:The Infinite Teen Slang Dictionary)

So my name's Jen. You might have guessed that, or maybe you just figured spelling wasn't my strong point. Born in 1969, and, unlike the scads of just-younger Jennifers named after the heroine of Love Story, was named after Jennifer Grant, the daughter of Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon.
At different times in my life, I've gone by Jenny, Jennifer, Jen, and even Ginger. Met a lot of Jens along the way. In college, I lived in a 3 bedroom apartment with 5 other roommates - 3 of us named Jen.

Phone rings. "Hello?"
"Hello, may I speak with Jen?"
Sigh.

I've been reading a number of blogs lately, and noticing several good ones written by Jens. I even found a Jenblog webring. I've added a short list of the favorites I've stumbled on lately, I'll continue to add to it. We live all across the country, and beyond. We're moms, we're daughters, wives and girlfriends. We're conservative and liberal, straight and gay. We're sassy, we're shy; we're having midlife crises, we are full of teen angst. We are joined together by the white wave - we are Jen.

Self-indulgent cute kid post

Last night my 3-year-old daughter and I were doing a jigsaw puzzle in her room before bed. Perhaps impressed with my skills at putting Caillou's face and shirt together in a matter of minutes, she stopped her work, looked at me, and said "Mommy, I want to be you when I grow up." I said "Thanks, Honey," and then, perhaps privately congratulating myself on my decision to trade my career for motherhood, I said "I want to be a Mommy when I grow up." She again stopped her puzzling. "But Mama - you're already up!"

Foiled again

Too much aluminum foil, and too much time on your hands? This guy came home to find his houseguests had aluminum-foiled his entire apartment. With friends like this ...

Jenerations

A little over a week ago, we were invited to join some friends on the last day of Hannukah for a cocktail party and candle lighting. It was a fun, loud, festive event, attended by lots of famlies with small children and infants. I really enjoyed seeing the holiday first-hand, and was honored to have been invited. The hostess actually helped us decorate our Christmas tree last year, so I suppose it was partially return for the show-and-tell.
We got home late, for us anyway, past the wee hour of 8:00 p.m., and the kids were wired from being up past their bedtime. My husband and I both went upstairs to team-change the baby for bed, as he can be the Screaming Child With 900 Flailing Arms and Legs when he is overtired. Midway through the change, we heard my daughter crying downstairs, really wailing, which is unlike her. My husband ran down and found her bleeding from her lip. She had been jumping off her sugar-cookie-past-bedtime high on the sofa and hit the window sill. She is 3 years old. I think this was the third time I have seen her bleed.
We did fairly well, my husband and I, getting her calmed down and sucking on an ice cube in a cloth. I ventured to look at it - eeeyew. I am not big on blood. Fortunately for me, my mom was a nurse, and is used to calls like this from me:
"Hello?"
"Mom. She fell and hit her lip and it's really bleeding and I don't know whether to take her to the emergency room and there's all this blood and she's crying and - "
"How long ago?"
"Two minutes."
Seemingly interminable pause. "Is she crying now?"
I listen. "No."
"Is it still bleeding?"
I look. "No."
"Is the lip hanging in two pieces?"
"No."
"Then she doesn't need stitches, don't take her to the emergency room, she will only pick up something there and get sick for real."


"Thanks Mom."


She was right, the lip was fine. My mom is always right. When will my daughter's mom always be right?

Phase 1, Day 1 ... again

I put on a few pounds over the holidays, really less than 2, but certainly threw my South-Beach pure blood out of whack with candy, cookies and - yesterday, as a sort of Mardi Gras last gasp - a short stack of buttermilk pancakes with syrup at iHop. Today, it is V-8, eggs and vegetarian "ham" for breakfast. In a few short hours I will indulge on a stick of string cheese, then chicken on romaine for lunch with sugar-free Jello. Afternoon snack is celery with Laughing Cow, a soft spreadable cheese. Dinner will be Grilled Rosemary Salmon and cauliflower whipped into "South Beach Surprise Mashed Potatoes". Mouth watering yet? Mine neither. But it works.