Posts from — May 2011

When I walked into the room, I was quite nervous.  I felt like one of those little kids you see walking to school with their enormous instrument — like the instrument is walking them instead of the other way around.  I felt shut up inside myself, like a collapsible telescope — making everything feel very far away.

Before I left the house, Josh reminded me of the ChickieNob’s excellent advice to be the scariest thing in the room:

I once asked her how she was so brave.  She thought about it and said, “I try to be the scarier thing.  When I’m scared, I either scream to scare the other thing, or I try to freak the other thing out so that it isn’t the scariest thing in the room.  I am.”

I had to remind myself that the jam session was fairly low stakes.  Not seeing any recording equipment in plain sight, I had to assume that if I embarrassed myself, I embarrassed myself in front of these five other women and that was the end of it.  I could drop in once, and if I didn’t like it, never had to come back.

At least half of the women in the room were eons ahead of me, skill-wise.  But half were comfortably back where I was, just learning how to read tab, a little shaky on some chords.  They ended up changing around the song list and luckily I could roll with it because (1) I knew the new song and (2) it had fairly simple chords.

There was another song we covered which was currently outside my abilities, though I promised to learn it for next time.  Instead, I provided the vocals.  I will preface this by saying that the last time I  sung in front of anyone (beyond my current guitar teacher or Josh or the twins) was at my wedding, almost ten years ago.  Yes, I’ve sung “Happy Birthday” in a crowd, and I played Beatles RockBand once at Lindsay’s house, but the last time I got up and had eyes on me and sang was the night before my wedding (“They Can’t Take That Away From Me”).  That too felt fairly low stakes since we were all doped up on love and the people in the room were fairly forgiving of the bride making a fool of herself.

Which is not to say that I’m terrified to sing.  I may not have a fantastic voice, but I can generally stay on key and I enjoy singing.  I sang on the movies.  I’m fine with that because I don’t need to face you while you’re listening to it.  Whereas, if we’re in the same room, and I can see your eyes on me, I am massively self-conscious.

But I thought about being the scariest thing in the room.  Who knows when another opportunity will present itself where I can just have fun without any thought to how terrible I sound.

So I belted out that Anna Nalick song.  And for two hours in a shag-carpeted practice room, hanging out with five women I’ve never met before, I didn’t feel like a middle-aged writer with grey streaks in her hair.

I felt like a rock star.

I walked out, swinging my guitar case like I imagine Joan Jett does when she’s walking into the airport to board a flight to her next gig, feeling a bit like a rock star.

My friend gave the twins one of those battery-operated airplanes.  You place it in the charger, pull the trigger, and it can go — it claims — 100 feet.  When we left school, the Wolvog asked if we could play with it outside before the rain came.

I agreed, even though my gut told me that it was a terrible idea to play with it outside our house.  But we didn’t have time to go out to a field, and I didn’t think the thing would truly fly that far.  We’d just be careful, choosing a large lot of grass nearby in the neighbourhood.

The first few flights were unspectacular.  The plane took off and then made a sharp nose dive towards the ground.  The neighbourhood kids gathered around to watch — seven of them — and cheer the plane on.

Finally, after watching 3 or 4 times, the Wolvog felt confident enough to charge the plane and pull the trigger on his own.  He aimed it just as I had aimed it, but this time, it took off, soaring high above the fences, weaving in and out of yards, ducking through branches of nearby trees.  The kids ran after it, shrieking, and at one point, I lost sight of it.  My heart sank when I couldn’t find it, and I feared that it had gone into one of our neighbour’s yards.

One of the boys raced away to see if it was in his, and that’s when I saw it — our little red plane stuck on a roof.

I can’t even explain the rage I felt at myself in that moment; to watch the Wolvog’s face as he realized that he wasn’t getting back this plane; that his gift was for all intents and purposes gone forever.  And it was all.my.fault.  Because I didn’t listen to my gut and put my foot down as the adult, explaining that playing with the plane near houses was a terrible idea.  There would have been bitching and moaning, but at least we’d still have the toy.

I rang the neighbour’s doorbell and explained to the teenage boy who answered — 7 children sniffling behind me — that our plane was on their roof and if, by chance, it happened to fall by its own volition during the impending storm, could I come over and get it?  I knew that it would be worthless once wet, but I really needed to get that red plane back.

When we went inside for the day, I kept trekking out to see if the plane was still on the roof.  And it was; this forlorn red toy, perched propeller down against the shingles.  Every time I saw it, I hated myself more.  I spoke with my friend, Amy, explaining my regret, lamenting the lost plane.  The plane became the receptacle for all of my regrets — a long litany of them — all stuffed into this one stupid choice to go with my id instead of my superego.

After I got off the phone, I went outside one last time to check.  It had been two hours since the plane first landed on the roof.  I couldn’t see anything red against the shingles, so I ran backwards, checking from all angles.  I went back in the house and told the twins not to move; I was going back to our neighbour’s place to ask him for the plane.

My poor neighbour, an elderly man who speaks no English, answered the door this time instead of his teenage grandson.  With much pantomiming, making my arms into airplane wings and pointing to red on my shirt, he was able to understand that I wanted the plane, and he lit up, excited to know the origins of the toy.

He led me through his house (and yes, my gut was kicking in again, wondering if this was a good idea to trek through a stranger’s house), and we went into the backyard.  I fully expected to see the plane on the ground beneath the spot on the roof, but it was gone.

He finally conveyed (again, with much pantomiming) that he didn’t know why there was a toy plane in his yard — his grandson, I assume, didn’t share this with him — so he had chucked it over the fence into another neighbour’s yard.  Except it hadn’t landed on the other person’s lawn.  It had become entangled in their satellite dish.

I am a poor judge of distance, but it looked as if I could reach it if I stood on his lawn chair, a fact that I first needed to convey to him via miming since I didn’t know how he felt about me climbing on his chair.  He was, judging by the look on his face, horrified but permissive, and he gasped when I not only climbed onto the chair, but balanced on the thin left arm, in my flip flops, stretching to reach the plane which was only inches from my fingertips.

So I did what any crazed, guilt-addled, regretful woman would do.

I jumped.

In flip flops.

And landed again on the thin, metal arm of the lawn chair.

The red plane in my hand.

After I got back the toy, I tried to introduce myself to this neighbour — he’s someone that I see, but have never spoken to prior to this point — but all he said to me was “you, go.”  Not angry.  Not annoyed.  Just this bemused, “please get the hell out of my house before you do something else dangerous such as run with my elderly wife’s scissors” look and tone.

So I went home with my prize, the little red plane.  No one greeted me like a hero at door.  They just continued to play with their other toys as if nothing miraculous had happened.  But all was right in the world again.

I’m telling this story today because it involves Amy.  And it’s our Bat Mitzvah-versary — the 24th anniversary from the day we both became women.  Oh, and because I was so very annoyed with myself, but it makes for a good story.

One year when I was a teacher, our Christmas gift from the PTA was a big wad of cash.  I know — right?  Sort of strange.  I mean, I get the idea of a Christmas bonus from a company, where they’re sharing the excess in profits with the staff who made it happen, but it was a little bizarre to get this envelope of money handed to me.  It sort of made me feel like a whore.

I didn’t really know what to do with it, so I threw it in a drawer years ago.  I always knew it was there, and Josh and I referred to it as the zombie money; the cash we’d use to get away when the zombie invasion starts and we can’t get to a bank because they’ve been taken over by the brain-eating undead.

I dipped into the zombie money this week, hoping beyond hope that I’ll have enough time to replenish the fund before the undead rise, rancid and mottling, from their graves.

I bought myself a bunch of games.  Like board games.  Like board games I can play by myself and pretend they’re for the kids.  But they’re really for me.

The game fixation started months ago when we got Solitaire Chess.  I was using it to teach the Wolvog how the pieces move in chess, but after he’d go to bed, I’d play it while I waited for websites to load.

( Sidenote: My computer is old and creaky and runs on Windows, which means that it often takes between three and five minutes for all of the error messages to clear so I can see that the website I just clicked on doesn’t have the information I need and the joyful surf across the Internet begins anew.  I like to think of my slowed down ability to Web surf as my version of the Endless Summer — less enjoyable, with fewer waves, but the wait times are often endless since my computer crashes at least once or twice a day.

So you see, I have a lot of spare minutes to fill.)

And I filled them playing Solitaire Chess.  I finished all the levels.  I felt pretty damn proud of myself, and I made the kids and Josh tell me over and over again how smart I was.

I had been eyeing the game Chocolate Fix (another logic puzzle), though I couldn’t quite figure out how to play until the rules clicked with me this week while I was standing in the store.  I tried to convince the twins that we needed it, but I was out-voted (damn you, family democracy!) and we went home with Tilt instead.

Tilt was fun, and I was quickly addicted, but this indignation also took root overnight.  I was an adult, damn it.  If I wanted Chocolate Fix, we were going to get Chocolate Fix.  And if I had to dip into the zombie fund to do it, so be it.

I went online to see what other logic puzzles ThinkFun (the company that makes all these games) made, and found out that they had two iPad apps and more on the way.  So first and foremost, I downloaded Solitaire Chess and Rush Hour onto the iPad.

My thoughts: I like having Solitaire Chess on the iPad because it makes it even more portable (though it was already pretty damn portable), though I like playing it more with the plastic pieces.  On the other hand, I enjoy Rush Hour a lot more on the iPad vs. the plastic pieces.

Then I played their online version of What’s Gnu, which teaches reading/spelling skills and added that to the shopping list.  We don’t play it right now as they list in the rules.  Here’s how we use it:

• Find the 14 word-ending cards.  If you’ve ever taught phonics, these are the word family cards (ig, an, at, ow, etc).
• Sit across from one another and spread out your 7 cards in front of you.
• Click the machine to spit out two letters.  The one closest to you is “your” letter.
• Use it to form a word… if you can.  For the first round or two, you can usually use any letter.  But it gets harder once you have fewer cards.  For instance, let’s say that you’re down to “an” and “at” and the letter you get is “J” — that can’t be used to form a common word.  So you lose that turn.
• Whoever fills all 7 cards first wins.
• I have lost consistently every single time we’ve played.
• The ChickieNob has no clue that she is practicing reading/spelling skills.

In the future, we’ll play the right way (and it has multiple levels).  It’s sort of like Zingo… with forming words instead of recognizing pictures. (By the way, ThinkFun also makes Zingo, if you’re familiar with that game.)

So armed with the zombie fund money, I went to the store and blew it on Chocolate Fix (which is exactly as good as I thought it would be.  I’m up to level 19.  Nothing will prepare you more for the GRE than playing Chocolate Fix), What’s Gnu, and another game called “Spot It” which I liked because it can be kept in my purse (it’s the only one not made by ThinkFun).

Why am I telling you all of this?

Because I wanted to counterbalance the words I said about Crayola’s coloured bubbles of evil (to be fair to Crayola, their Colour Wonder markers have been a lifesaver on long car trips.  We always get the twins a new one each trip).  Because I want to talk about how I spent the zombie fund.  And because I’m usually squeamish about purchasing toys from an unfamiliar company, and I wanted to spread word that we’ve had a good experience with every ThinkFun game — both the kids playing them and then the adults playing them after the twins have gone to sleep.  And we’ve really enjoyed both iPad/iPhone apps (and you can try them first for free).  So I’m using my words for good — to write a favourable review of all the games we currently have scattered across the living room floor in various stages of play.

Since, you know, we can never take out one game at a time and put it away.

To continue this love fest, please share your favourite game — either from your childhood or a current one that you like to play.

I used to have a friend in college who annoyed the ever-loving crap out of me by leaving his used tea bags (the actual kind, not the urban dictionary kind) on plates in his kitchen so he could reuse the bags several times.

I always felt terrible accepting a cup of tea because the saving of the tea bag signaled to me that this was an expense that worried him, a treat that needed to be rationed.  But even if I bought him tea, he would still save the tea bags, insisting that it was wasteful to throw them out until they had been used many times.  This annoyed me because it meant the dishes were never finished because there were always one or two more holding tea bags.  Sometimes the counter was littered with a multitude of little plates and wilted tea bags.

I bought a box of vanilla rooibos to try from the local organic market this week, and I liked the first cup so much that I left the tea bag on a plate so I could make another cup in a moment without having to grab the step stool to reach the cabinet again.  Every time I passed the plate, I thought of him and his annoying plated tea bag collection.  I almost took a picture and mailed it to him.  I wonder if he still saves his tea bags.

Do you?  Do you save your tea bag and use it a second time?  What about third?  At what point do you toss it?

I am also curious about your teapinions — which teas you like that I might like.  Here’s what I’m looking for — decaf or mostly decaf.  Nothing that falls under the category of “weird ass shit.”  I think you know exactly what I mean by this.  It’s when you’re reading the ingredients list and it has something like dried placenta as one of the items.  And while you may think I am making this up, go peruse the tea section at your local organic market and you’ll find some things that will shock and amuse you, making you do that laughing/crying thing simultaneously while dropping the box.

Beyond that, I don’t do things like beet juice.  I just don’t.  If you list dried beets as an ingredient, you have lost me.  It also took me a long time to move onto drinking rooibos, just to give you a sense of how squeamish I am about trying new things.  I still have not tried Yerba Mate.  I don’t do ginseng.

So, for a squeamish pussy tea-drinker like me, what do you have?  Especially stuff that’s decaf because do you honestly think I need more caffeine in my diet?

In case you are wondering about my teapinions, mostly so you don’t have to shell out $10 a box to try a tea you’ve never had, here are my thoughts on some recent purchases:

• Strawberry Chocolate (The Republic of Tea): uh… okay?  It’s sort of growing on me.  It’s one of those teas where I will finish the case, but I don’t know if I’ll buy again.  If you like berry teas, you’ll probably love this one, but I’m not a huge fan of berry teas, so it’s so-so for me.
• Organic Vanilla Rooibos (Equal Exchange): excellent.  I purchased a second box when I was only a few bags into the first box because I could tell that I’d want more in the future.  Liked that it was simple, sweet enough to not need sugar, and didn’t contain weird ass shit such as dried human fingernail clippings.
• Decaffeinated Chai (Twinings): I’ve tried a lot of chais, and this is probably my favourite so far.  Again, I can recognize every ingredient on the list and my tongue can recognize every ingredient as well.

So, your teapinions?

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Family Act of 2011 was introduced into Congress last week by Senator Gillibrand, which is a tax credit to cover out-of-pocket costs for infertility.  Interested in seeing this become a law?  Click over to Resolve to get involved.

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I am going to an all-ladies open jam session this weekend, which is a night that a bunch of thirty-something and forty-something women get together, drink beer, and play music.  The songs were picked a week or two ago, and they told me what to learn when I signed up to be part of the group.  They meet about once a month.  Not sure what to expect — how far behind skill-wise I am from the rest of the group, whether I learned the correct chords for the songs, whether I’m going to look like an ass, whether I’m going to meet some really cool women to hang out with once a month.  Will let you know how it turns out.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Envy, Atheism, and Neil Gaiman” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “My ‘Expressing Motherhood’ Story” (Life Without Baby)
• “And Yet” (An Unwanted Path)
• “Out-Grieve Me” (The Mompetition)
• “Just Relax” (Are You Listening?)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Hairy Farmer’s Family about Turbo squeezed at my heart; not just because it is a difficult situation, a sea of suck, a tenuous time period, but because despite all of that, the post is so beautifully written.  And below the words is this undercurrent, this understanding of a mother’s love.

You too will find yourself singing Still Life with Circle’s song: “she is strong / she is brave / she can do anything she waaaaaaaaaants to do.”  And your breath will catch with this line: “It seems a strange habit to try to control the passage of time by sheer will.”  Aaaah, but this is the thought that killed me: “Ironically, the only permanent thing I know in my life is that Lucy is dead. Everything else I can hold in my arms is a lesson in impermanence and that scares the shit out of me.”  Can you believe how beautiful this post is?

I love Tales of a Batty Nurse’s post about attending the Prince concert.  It contains this thought: “Yes, it would have been more fun with someone but if I’ve learned nothing else from my life, I’ve learned that I can sit home thinking about what I would like to be doing and wishing I had someone to do things with or I can just go do them myself.”  I love her differentiation between “alone” and “independent.”  It’s a lovely post.

Lastly, I like this post about having a second child at Unwellness.  I really liked the beginning — the contrast of the wet walk to holding a baby chick.  And then it enters the well-trod territory of trying to make sense of family building; of how do you know and what if you can’t make it happen and what are you willing to try.  There are never simple answers for anyone; with someone infertile, there are added layers.  It’s not about finding the perfect  answer; it’s about finding peace of heart.

The roundup to the Roundup: What tea do you like?  Support the Family Act of 2011.  Wish me luck at the open jam.  And lots of great blog posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between May 13 and May 20) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Interesting article on Health.com about a new gene discovery:

A gene variation that causes faulty cholesterol regulation also appears to affect production of the pregnancy hormone progesterone and may be a reason why some women can’t get pregnant, researchers say.

I looked up information about the gene online, and walked away still not quite understanding it except that this gene regulates cholesterol in the blood stream.  Mentally bookmarked it to read more about it in the future.

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Jezebel has reported that the Kate Middleton is infertile rumours have ALREADY STARTED.  I want to repeat that: ALREADY STARTED.  As in, I don’t even think they’re back from their honeymoon yet, and the stories have already started running in the tabloids.

Do you think this is the part about being royalty that little girls think about when they dream about becoming a princess?  That they’ll wear pink and have a tiara and have their uterus scrutinized in the tabloids?

Just scroll on down to their coverage of “In Touch” magazine.

Cheers!