Memorial Day Homecoming

I'd been out of town for a few days for a conference. When Todd and the girls picked me up at the airport yesterday afternoon, Anna was more excited than usual. But not to see me. Instead, she wanted to get back home--fast. She told me that Natalie and Mark, our next-door neighbors, were having a cookout and that all the neighbors were invited. "Hurry up," Anna said. "We have to get back to the party!"

When we pulled into the driveway on our return from the airport, Natalie yelled across the bushes: "We've got burgers hot off the grill. Come and get 'em!" I was tired and hungry from traveling. Picnic food sounded perfect.

The whole thing was an impromptu affair. Natalie said she'd been drinking iced-tea on her front porch in the late morning yesterday when she noticed that most of the neighbors were home. Within a couple of hours, a holiday get-together was in the works. Susan from across the street whipped up potato salad. Ann from a few houses down made her famous pecan chocolate-chip bar cookies. Cicely made homemade whipped cream for stawberry shortcake. Mark prepared the burgers and brats for the grill. My household got off easy: since I was out of town, Natalie told Todd to just bring watermelon and chips. And extra lawn chairs.

Many of us neighbors hadn't seen each other since last winter's dinner party. We picked up on conversations we'd started back in February, catching up on each other's jobs and retirements and children and home-maintenance projects. I was bone-tired and perhaps a little hungover from conference partying the night before, and nobody minded when I snuck back to my own house for a quick nap.

The kids' main activity was climbing a tree--the perfect climbing tree--in Marijo's backyard, perfectly visible from our host's house. Later in the evening, Kate and some of the younger neighbor girls put on a gymnastics show in the frontyard. My neighbor Kristen--who'd also just gotten off a plane before coming to the party--sat on the front stoop with me to watch the somersaults and roundoffs. We compared notes about our weekend trips and debated over which one of us was more worn out. Then we sauntered to the backyard and caught the tail end of a raunchy story (told in code for the sake of the little kids' ears).

At the end of the night, we all agreed that impromptu neighborhood parties are the best and that there'd be many more to follow this summer.

It's good to be home.

Race for the Cure

I finished the 5K Saturday. No problem. With the perfect weather and the crowds and the bands at every corner, it felt like the shortest 3.1 miles I've ever run.

I love Race for the Cure. It's so huge in my town (over 30,000 participants this year!). And it's so emotional. All those runners/walkers wearing "I race in memory of ____" or "I race in celebration of _____" signs on their backs. My mother-in-law died of breast cancer 5 years ago, so I wore her name on my sign.

And I thought of her often during the run. I miss you, Kath.

Big Deal

The big thing of the day week month at our house:

This comes out on DVD today.

On running

Shelly asked me to blog more about running. Glad to oblige.

I ran track and cross-country in high school. So long ago. It was a great sport for me: I'm not athletic or physically strong or coordinated. But those things don't matter (too) much in running, especially if you're a long-distance runner, like I was. The big thing is just endurance--having the will to keep moving. I was good at that.

After high school, I went long stretches--years, sometimes--without running at all. Then I'd get back into it and hate, hate, HATE it for a few weeks until my body adjusted. But I wouldn't keep at it for long: the weather would get too hot, I'd get too busy with work or kids or whatever. One thing that *would* motivate me: signing up for a race. But after the race was done, I'd go back to my old, sedentary ways.

Right now, I've got four things motivating me:

1. My faculty union put together a team for this weekend's Race for the Cure. My goal is simply to finish before the walkers finish.

2. I have high cholesterol, and my doctor's been on me to do more cardio work.

3. At 38, I'm realizing that, yes indeed, bodies really do change with age. I used to be able to lose weight just by *thinking* about it. Not the case now.

4. I really, really like that endorphin explosion you get from vigorous exercise.

That last item is the biggest for me: My head feels better after I run. Clearer. Whatever mind work I have to do the rest of the day--teaching, writing, grading--comes more easily and seems richer somehow.

The big challenge will be to keep up with the running after Saturday. I'm thinking that blogging my progress--maybe even blogging my mileage, like Addy does with her walking--might help.

It's a dog photo day.

If I had a dog, I'd definitely be posting its picture today.

Since I don't have one, here's one from Google images:









Nuff said.

Something I've been meaning to say...

...and I really should've said it on Mother's Day, but:

Thank you SO MUCH to all of you who commented a few weeks ago on this post about the difficult time I was having with Anna. It meant so much to get your perspective and encouragement.

Things have been better with Anna: I've used Billie's suggestion to hug her even when I don't feel like it, and that's helped. And I'm trying to be more patient with my own mother, thanks to Cate's advice.

Anyway, I thought about all of you blog friends on Mother's Day...so glad to have you!

On Mother's Day

Yesterday, our little family went to see a production by our city's Women's Chorus. Our friend Lee was in the show.



Lee and the rest of the chorus were terrific. They performed a bunch of classic broadway showtunes as a kind of backdrop to a story about a woman who's discovering feminism. For instance: early in the show, when the main character Rosie says feminists are "hairy man-haters," several of the chorus members (including Lee!) emerged to do an especially raucous version of "Cell Block Tango" from Chicago, followed by "Hair" from, of course, Hair.





The show was funny and smart and campy and raunchy all at the same time. (The raunchy parts went right over the girls' heads, though.) At the end, the cast came out to the audience and plastered on our chests pink stickers that read, "KISS ME--I'M A FEMINIST." Kate had four or five of them on her little dress.

Afterwards, we went to a German restaurant that I love. We had sausages and sauerkraut and beer and bavarian pretzels. And the girls behaved beautifully. A few tables away from us was an older couple who kept glancing over at Anna and Kate with these sort of loving, nostalgic looks. Todd and I imagined that the man and woman had daughters themselves--daughters now grown and long gone.

As we were leaving, the woman motioned me over to her table. "They're adorable," she said, pointing to the girls. "Squeeze them hard; they grow up so fast." I smiled.

And then the woman said, "We've been trying to figure out what those stickers on the little one's dress say."



I sort of hesitated. This was a much older couple, probably my grandparents' age. And my own grandparents would've rolled their eyes at the slogan on Kate's stickers. But when I said, "They say 'KISS ME, I'M A FEMINIST,'" the woman clapped her hands, and the man said, "Good for her! And good for you as her mom."

Later, in the car driving home, Anna said, "What's a feminist anyway?"

I tried to explain it the simplest way I could: "It's Rosie at the end of the show. It's somebody who thinks women can choose to do whatever they want to do."

"Oh," Anna said. "You mean like shake their bootie if they want?"

Um, yeah. Sure! You go, my precious girl.


Happy (belated) Mother's Day.

A few things I DO have

15 student papers responded to/graded. (Have lots more to do this weekend.)

4 runs logged this week. (Getting ready for Race for the Cure next Saturday. It's only a 5K, but at least it's getting me back into running.)

3 weeks left in our quarter. (Not including exam week.)

1 work friend who started a blog this week. (Hooray! Will link to her blog once she gets some kinks worked out.)

I got nothin'

I have a friend who sometimes calls on the phone and says, "Whatcha got? 'Cause I got nothin'."

That's how I feel right now about blogging: I got nothin'. Nothing to report. Nothing going on.

Sorry. (But I still like reading what YOU all got.)

Fleeting

(For Jackie.)

The last time we were house-hunting, we looked at a house with two huge lilac bushes in the back. It was mid-May, and the flowers were already spent, but I could imagine the heavenly scent that must've wafted into the house just a few weeks earlier. I knew I wanted that house.

It's our house now, and this is our third May in it. The lilacs are more beautiful than ever this year. Every vase and empty pickle jar I own is filled with cut lilacs. They're my absolute favorite.

I know, though, that their glory is fleeting, and I find myself feeling nostalgic for them before they're even gone.

Ghetto points?

I apparently scored points with some of my developmental comp students today. And I feel kind of weird about it.

We were talking about neighborhoods, and about writing about neighborhoods. I mentioned the neighborhood I used to live in (a cookie-cutter middle-class suburb) and the neighborhood I live in now, which is urban and older but still pretty solidly middle class.

None of the students in the class lives in either of those neighborhoods. One of them asked, "Ms. Deb [I don't tell them to call me that, but some of them do], have you ever been in a ghetto neighborhood?"

"Well, no. Except for Z. I've spent a little bit of time in Z, if that counts," I said.

Gasps all around. Strange looks on their faces, looks I couldn't quite interpret.

"What?" I said. (I was thinking that maybe Z didn't really qualify as "ghetto" in their minds.)

"That's like the WORST of the worst," someone said. "You've really been there?"

I gave them some background: Some of my colleagues and I work on a special project with GED students, and I've spent some time over the last couple of years in Z because of that project. Last summer I worked with some of the GED teachers and students to make a little video about the GED center and the neighborhood itself, so I got to see some of the high and low spots in Z.

My students were impressed. One of them, who lives in Z, said, "See, that's why you're cool. 'Cause you've been in the ghetto."

Then I felt like a fraud, like I was presenting my minimal experience with Z as though I'd been immersed in the neighborhood.

"Wait a minute, wait a minute." I said. "It's not like I lived there. I've never even been inside a house there. I can't claim to really know the neighborhood."

Right away, one of them asked, "Were you ever there at night?"

Yes, I told him. A couple of times. Not real late, but after dark.

"Well, you get ghetto points then," he said. And he smiled and high-fived the woman next to him.

Everybody laughed. And then we moved on to a discussion about other neighborhoods.

At the end of class, I usually have each student write an "inkshed," a brief anonymous comment about class or about what they learned or whatever. Today, one of them wrote:

My teacher has some ghetto points. You go, girl Deb.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all this. Part of me feels like I exploited this little bit of experience I have with Z in order to make a connection with my students. But then even after I tried to explain how much of an outsider I really was, my small foray into Z still seemed to count so much for them. And that saddens me somehow.

She's definitely got a way with clothes. And words.

I've blogged Kate's fashion choices before, but this one takes the cake: a pink-and-lime-green striped shirt with a red-and-hunter-green plaid skirt and red-white-and-blue flipflops!

Bonus:

Kate's holding a DIARY in the photo above. A few minutes after I took the photo, she and I left the house to walk to our favorite coffee shop, Scottie's, where I planned to do some work. (And yes, I let her wear that outfit outside the house!)

As we walked along, Kate said, "Mom, when we get to Scottie's, you can work on your computer, and I'll just draw in my diarrhea."

Oh.my.god. I busted a gut.

Just for fun

And because my new blog friend Adenostoma tagged me.

I am trying to gear myself up to see Curious George with Kate this afternoon at the 50-cent movie theater.

I want to see something other than Curious George at the 50-cent theater this afternoon.

I wish I'd taken a run this morning like I said I was going to last night.

I love when I arrive to pick up the girls from daycare and they drop everything and run over to me squealing, "MOM-MEEE!"

I fear my kids getting kidnapped (even more than I fear them getting a horrible disease).

I wonder if we'll end up sending Kate to kindergarten this fall after all.

I regret mostly things I *didn't* do, rather than things I *did* do.

I am not as patient/kind-hearted/accepting as I want to be.

I dance mostly at home with the girls.

I sing the songs on the High School Musical soundtrack (what can I say--I have to listen to it a gazillion times a day, thanks to the girls).

I cry not nearly as easily as I used to.

I am not always a very good daughter.

I make with my hands fancy homemade bows when I wrap presents (I learned to do this when I worked at a Hallmark store in high school).

I write every day.

I confuse "former" and "latter" every time I see/hear them.

I need to whittle down that panel proposal.

I should get dressed for the day.

I start my new "intense" 6-week session of yoga tonight.

I finish most everything I start (a *huge* thing with me).

I tag anybody who wants to do it.