Tenses

Last week was Princess's birthday. For other parents out there, you know what this means. It is yet another event that you have to prepare for and really just hope you don't mess up. It means treats for her class, cake to be ordered, the kid choosing the menu for dinner, the birthday present, and planning for the party.

So my day went from busy to frenetic pdq. I started the day at 5am. I needed to get prepped for special birthday breakfast which Hubby thankfully woke up early to make. Turkey bacon, waffles, scrambled eggs with blue cheese, white cranberry peach juice, and milk: a feast fit for a Princess. After I got the family off to their places, Lil'T and I went to the grocery store to get a strawberry cake for dessert after dinner, and ice cream for Princess's class. Surprisingly, I was able to find the strawberry cake easily -- even in March with random acts of freezing weather happening outside. I couldn't find the orange vanilla cups she requested and settled for popsicles which had orange vanilla. I crossed my fingers that there wouldn't be too much disappointment. You never know what is going to set off the whining and much dreaded tears. Living with children is like living with crazy people. Add a birthday into the mix and the crazy only magnifies. Off to the school I went and dropped off the treats with the front office.

I only had until 2 pm to get the next big part of the day done. I was off to the sporting goods store to find a tetherball set. Princess had her heart set on one for her birthday. Then I went to Costco to get her favorite frozen lasagne. I try not to think of it as an insult to my cooking that she prefers frozen lasagne to my home cooking. I instead concentrated on how nice it was that I didn't have to cook on top of everything else.

Lil'T was starting to pumpkin out by the time we had checked out and asked to have a Costco slice of pizza for lunch. On a Thursday in the middle of the day, Costco is the busiest place on the planet. It was so crowded that we were stuck looking for some kind soul to share their table with us. I spotted a tata sitting by himself in the corner. He was wearing a baseball cap the way my dad always did, more like a hat than a cap. It was perched up there not fully pulled down, so he looked like his forehead must be at least 5 inches tall if the cap was touching the top of his head. I walked over to him and asked him if it would be okay for us to share his table. He kind of made an uncomfortable smile and pointed behind me where his wife was walking towards him with their drink cups. I said that it was just the two of us and his wife ultimately answered saying that it would be okay.

I sat down and could tell that Lil'T was not too sure about sitting with these strangers but somehow, that lady sure sounded familiar. I leaned over to T and said, "That lady sounds a lot like Lola, yeah?" That was all it took.

The woman asked me, "Pilipina?" I told her that I was and then it was all better.

We started talking about where we were from, what flavor of Filipino we were, and how at first the tata thought that I was Japanese. He actually tried to speak a little bit of Tagalog and Ilocano to me. Too bad I didn't know any.

And then it happened. The moment when I made a decision to lie a little bit.

Tata asked me, "Are your parents still in Hawaii?"

I sat there knowing that I could answer truthfully or in the way that I wish it were. I went with the latter.

"Yes, my parents live in Hawaii." Followed by all kinds of pronouncements in the wrong tense.

"No, my dad doesn't speak Tagalog, but he's learning Hawaiian."

"My dad's brothers and sister all live in Hawaii."

It was a nice chat. Maybe my kids' crazy is rubbing off on me. Just felt so natural to talk to them like my dad and my uncles who have died didn't. Why did these people need to know my private pain?

Then I jumped right back into the fast stream and raced Lil'T to school (about an hour late), went off to church to walk the kids to religious ed classes, delivered an order of cookies, and then raced off to Aikido where the dreaded whining and crying finally came because I couldn't find Princess' Aikido belt and she didn't want to walk into class without it, despite her sensei having dozens of white belts lying around because the kids test out of them all the time! Raced off to pick up Lil'T and then raced off to the ferry to pick up Hubby. Then it was back to Aikido where Princess had tested up to a yellow belt! Hurrah! Side benefit being that the lost white belt can stay lost. Then it was dinner, cake, ice cream, tetherball, birthday phone calls, and (praise God) bedtime.

It wasn't until later that I could process my conversation with the older Filipino couple at Costco. Somewhere in this world, there are 2 strangers who think that my dad and my uncles are still alive. I know that it is irrational and kind of strange. I'm not entirely sure why I didn't just speak truthfully. Maybe it was their familiar accented English that got me reminiscent and a little heart sick for home. There is a comfort that there are these strangers for whom I am a woman whose dad is still alive and he is still wondering about his next trip to visit the grand babies, still playing his uke and learning Hawaiian, still calling with his recipe for roast chicken. Still.

Sitcoms

My 12 year old boy made my jaw drop on the floor today. In modern terminology, what followed was a parenting epic fail.

We were having a perfectly lovely dinner. We were eating fish tacos made with soft tortillas. Hubby was trying to hand the boy one and apparently the boy wasn't catching on. So Hubby said, "Just take it and put it in your mouth."

To which the boy said, "That's what she said."

You might have heard that line on the sitcom, "The Office," as a crude punchline which turns the most innocent word or phrase instantly into something filthy. While certainly, a line like that delivered in my husband's office with a bunch of grown men around would have brought guffaws of laughter. But delivered out of the baby face of my child, it brought its own level of crazy.

My husband said, " I need you to know that was inappropriate. I have no more patience for you today."

I was shocked and tried not to lose my cool too much.

I started with being reasonable: "It is my fondest hope that you will grow up to be a good kind man. That you will be respectful and honest. That you won't be one of those guys who don't respect women and treat them like objects. That joke you told was crude and objectifying. As a guy with two sisters, I'd hope you'd be more respectful. I'd hope you'd be protective of your sisters and in turn be respectful to other girls and women."

Pretty good, right? I should have stopped there. But no, here comes the side of epic with that fail.

"I know you're going through a lot of changes right now and you're probably thinking about sex a lot. Here on the island, we hear of parties teens are having sex just for fun. Like instead of playing Playstation they're having sex. But it cheapens the experience and you end up objectifying yourself and others if you participate. You have my blessing to masturbate to your heart's content. Actually, save up your pennies and buy some good quality lube. I think it is more important to get rid of that frustration. Just j that stuff off. (okay, that might not have been my exact words but you get the drift.) I'd rather you jerk off than be a jerk."

The boy was completely mortified. He didn't even ask for seconds on his dinner. He just kind of left the table in a daze. My husband, for his part, was smirking in the kitchen while listening to my major tangent. Later, he told me that I was a freak because I have masturbation on the brain. He only says this because yesterday I had asked him to explain the punchline of a joke I heard on a podcast the other day. It went like this, "If God didn't want us to masturbate, why did He give us ziploc bags, warm grape jelly, and rubber bands?"

I still can't figure that one out.

We are not alone

After having a truly awful week with my eldest, I attended a seminar at the local middle school called, "Understanding the Disorganized Teenage Brain." I already knew that brain development is not truly done until age 25. But I didn't know what to do about that. How is knowing that the 12 year old's brain is not fully developed going to help me when he won't do his chores without a major confrontation? Too much drama in the house.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to me when I showed up a touch late and saw the room full of other perplexed parents -- many of whom I recognized from preschool years 9 years ago. OMG. I know that in the whole of human experience, raising a 12 year old boy is not something new. This earth has seen this countless times and people do survive. And the boys usually don't turn out to be serial killers or kinslayers. They turn out to be lovely charming men. Or douchebags. There are plenty of both. All men were 12 years old at one time in their lives.

This, too, shall pass.

So, predictably, the lecture started with a review of the science -- that human brains are not matured in the prefrontal cortex as late as the mid-twenties. There are significant changes happening in the brain starting at around 10 - 14 years old. These changes SEVERELY impair the child's ability to organize. See, that last little bit I thought was peculiar to my own child. But it turns out that organization and the neural pathways needed for that particular skill, are nonexistent in the disorganized mind with an immature prefrontal cortex. In fact, there was a statement on our handouts in bold lettering: "Teens DO have brains."

Yeah, right.

So anyway, the part that was most helpful was the strategies to help your child organize. It takes 21 days to form a new habit. So this is day 1 for me. One of the things I need to do is demonstrate organization. So when I do things that help me keep track of my stuff, I say it out loud. Like, "I am putting my keys on the key rack. I am putting my watch in the jewelry box. I am putting my hairbrush in the bathroom drawer." These are little things. But apparently, this is modeling meta-cognition, or thinking about thinking. So for the next 21 days, I am going to concentrate on saying out loud the things I do to get organized. The other thing the lecturer touched on is that I need to let the kids in on when I am planning a big event. She said that when you're a kid, your parents will announce that you'll be going on vacation and one morning, all you had to do to get ready was put on your shoes and go. But there is a lot of planning and organizing that goes into a vacation. That needs to be modeled so that they can see what the process is. How do you choose the budget? Location? Transportation? Lodging? Packing? Preparing the house? Care for pets? See, I'm exhausted just listing all those questions.

The other thing to do is adopt a flat affect. Turns out that the thrill seeking part of their brain is in high gear during these years. So if you're thinking that you might be paranoid because you think your kid is just trying to get a rise out of you, you're right. Not the being paranoid part but the latter. He is just trying to get a rise out of you. It activates the thrill seeking part of their brain and that's all good. So now, I need to act like I'm on massive doses of mood stabilizer and say things like, "I'm sorry that you've waited until 11pm on Sunday to let me know about this 20 page report due tomorrow. I'm sorry I won't be able to help you tonight. I need my sleep. I will help you with it tomorrow." All this said very quietly, calmly, and with a completely blank expression. We'll see if I'm even remotely capable of doing it. Scorpio, after all.

Sharon had accompanied me to the lecture. After, we talked about ideas to help us remember that these boys were our babies. Unconditional love is somewhere in us buried, we just need to access it. We talked about buttons with baby pictures on them that the boys could wear. Maybe custom t-shirts with images of the sweet baby boys so that every time we want to throttle them, we'd be stopped by the achingly cute cherubs on their chests. Sharon had the best idea. She suggested baby head masks. They'd have to be as big as their torsos to make it be in proper proportion to their teenage bodies, because how could you ever yell at a baby's face for not turning in his homework on time?

I talked to my mom at length this morning about all the things I learned at this lecture. She's been praying for me to gain patience, especially when I deal with my son. I guess those rosaries are finally paying off. Or maybe not. Only time will tell.

I'll let you know in 21 days.

St. Volkswagon

Those of you who have known us for a long time are familiar with Neighbor Bob. He was our neighbor at our old house. At the time, our eldest was very confused with there being an Uncle Bob on Hubby's side, and Uncle Bob on my side, and Bob who lived next door. So our nice older neighbor was dubbed Neighbor Bob by That. Neighbor Bob is still a good friend to us and we see him from time to time as we still own our first house and rent it out. In fact it was Neigbor Bob who found our new tenants when our old ones moved out. Even before we had the chance to list it! Neighbor Bob rocks!

Anyway, about 4 years ago, Neighbor Bob woke up one day with a belly that looked like he was 7 months pregnant. He went from being a very active, single, divorced guy to being infirm. His elderly mother moved in to take care of him. We saw Bob only rarely then, with his mom giving us the details of his condition. Things were so bad at one point that Bob ended up on the liver transplant list, wondering who was going to win the race: Death or a new liver.

It was truly a great surprise when we ran into Bob a couple of months ago at the library parking lot. Gone was the ashen pallor he had been wearing for the past few years. There was pink in his cheeks and his eyes had gone back to sparkling. Then he told us about the big dent in the door of his Volkswagon Euro Van that pretty much saved his life.

Bob had returned from his doctor's office pretty deflated. The internist had told him that his liver function tests were quite poor and that he had been moved up to first priority for a new liver. Things were looking grim and the doctor estimated that Bob only had a couple of weeks to a month to live. At that point he was walking with a cane and his nearly 90 year old mother was driving him around town. (I should add a pause here as you should all be realizing that riding around with his mom in the driver's seat was probably his best way of preventing his death from liver failure. Likely blunt force trauma would catch up with him first. But I digress...)

Bob was resting in the living room when his mother came home. She said that the van was making a funny noise and she thought she may have run over something. Could he please take a look. So Bob got out his cane and dutifully walked over to the still running van. Gripping the driver's front door, he leaned over and noticed that Mom had driven over a tomato cage which had wrapped around the front axle. He tried to dislodge it by poking it with his cane but was unsuccessful. So while he held the driver's front door, he laid down his cane and reached under the van with his other hand. He gave the tomato cage a mighty yank and somehow popped the car out of park and into neutral. It started to roll. Bob was caught under the van which rolled over his abdomen and over his legs. And because it was parked on a slope, the van started to roll back the way it had come, again over Bob's legs and his head. At this point, he knew that if he didn't get up, there was no way he was going to survive the day. So he caught the front door of the van which was still open and swinging freely. Somehow, he pulled on the door, wrenching it backwards and almost off of the car, but that move got him out from under the moving vehicle. As you can imagine, blood was streaming down his face from the headband shaped cut across his scalp. He calmly got on his cell phone and called his mother. He told her not to panic and to just turn the shower on as cold as possible. Told her that he had a little cut on his head but it was not a big deal. He was just going to clean himself up and no worries.

My thought is that he couldn't see saddling his mother with an emergency room visit since he only had 4 more weeks to live. So anyway, he walked up to the door probably looking like the Night of the Living Dead, except in real life, telling his mom not to panic and don't bother calling an ambulance. It was only a flesh wound. When he washed up and lay down with a red towel wrapped around his head, his mother did the only sane thing and called for an ambulance.

Bob was airlifted to the nearest trauma center where his head was stitched up and he was told to meet with a surgeon to assess if he had any other damage to his internal organs from the accident. That surgeon did an exploratory surgery on Bob, and like an expert Christmas Elf putting away a string of lights, the surgeon pulled out Bob's innards and replaced them back in the original packaging good as new.

After recovery, Bob was coming up close to his 4th and theoretically last week of life. He went to his regular doctor and they did the usual liver function tests. When the results came in, his doctor was flabbergasted. He said, "I don't know how you did it, Bob, but you've got the liver function of a 20 year old."

Now Bob's being asked by the University of Washington Medical Center to come in so they can figure out exactly how he's still alive. He hasn't fixed the damage he caused to the driver's side door of his van but it is a great lead in for a great story so I wouldn't fix it either.
When I tell this story, I laugh all the way through it -- only because I know it ends well. I mean, Bob told us the story after all. Either way, I am certain that that van was instrumental in a miracle. My husband likes to joke that the van only needs to cure one more person of a terminal illness and it can be canonized a saint.

Anybody out there game?

Linus & Lucy

Did you ever notice that the song that opens the Charlie Brown Christmas Special is in a minor key? Charlie Brown starts off with the line, "I think there must be something wrong with me Linus. Christmas is coming but I'm not happy. I don't feel the way I'm supposed to feel...I always end up feeling depressed." I never understood it as a kid. WTF was wrong with Charlie Brown?

But having started this Christmas season with my own anxiety attack, with a sense of impending dread, I get it Charlie Brown. I totally get it.

In recent history, very bad things happen at Christmastime for me. I've jokingly considered becoming a Jehovah's witness or maybe Buddhist. Anything that will get me out of Christmas. But I suspect, the only way to avoid the season all together is to move out of the country to maybe Turkey. Eh, Hubby likes Turkey. I'll think about it. Supposed to be pretty out there.

Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Uncle Nofre's death. In keeping with the whole keep-busy-to-avoid-grief thing, I took Princess on a shopping trip for Girl Scout meeting supplies. On the drive over, I guess it was too quiet and I got to thinking about the day I got the news. How the phone call came at 2am and I knew it was disaster. How I went to sleep sobbing even though he hadn't died yet. How I woke up with a vague sense of unease only to have everything rush back in crystal clarity. How every time the phone rang, I braced myself for the worst. I remembered the exact spot I stood when I got the news. And when my eyes started to well up with tears, I realized that crying while driving was absolute folly and I must move on to other topics and fast. Thank goodness my girl was in the back seat with all kinds of plans and schemes for Christmas surprises. She is a font of joy.

After we were done with our shopping trip, I turned the car radio on to the Christmas station. One of the radio stations here plays non-stop Christmas music, even during its super saccharine Delilah show. If you're not familiar with her, she's a nationally syndicated radio host. Her program has people call in to request a song for somebody special. Delilah has a knack for picking the *perfect* song for the situation. But during the holidays, her hands are a little tied because it needs to be Holiday music. And I suspect, my uncle's hands were too. But still, he was able to communicate with me through this most unlikely radio station. When I turned the music on, it was Linus & Lucy, from Charlie Brown. You know, that Vince Guaraldi piano piece that appeared in a lot of the Peanuts animated specials. I was surprised because it is one of my favorite songs. My first reaction was a happy one -- that kind you get when you have a moment of serendipity. And then I remembered.

In October of last year, I had visited Uncle's house and saw the jewel case on the coffee table. It was a Vince Guaraldi collection. On it was a picture of the composer fashioned into a Peanuts character. I picked it up and told Uncle Nofre that I loved that one song, Linus & Lucy. He told me to go ahead and take the CD if I wanted it but when I opened the jewel case, it was empty. Plus, the jewel case itself was broken. So I left it there. After Uncle died, my brother Dwight asked me if there was anything that I wanted of Uncle's things before the garage sale. I told Dwight that there was a CD that I had bought for Uncle the previous Christmas and also that Vince Guaraldi one if it was there.

By the time Dwight got to the garage sale, the box of Uncle's CD's had sold. Dwight was totally freaked out that I'd be upset that they were gone, but I told him it really was no big deal.

When Dwight came to visit us this past spring, he had four CDs of Uncle's that hadn't gotten sold, and surprisingly, the Vince Guaraldi one was in the collection. He gave them to me and I was thrilled to see that the CD had been restored to its broken jewel case. I wonder if that was why it didn't get sold.

So take that story however you wish. Coincidence, yeah. But I haven't gotten rid of my sense of wonder and magic just yet. And if there is a chance that Uncle has more to tell me, that I'll be sure to listen. Maybe that song was just to remind me that my first reaction, whenever I think of Uncle, should always be joy and happiness.

Midlife crisis

There is nothing quite as effective in making you feel older than organizing old pictures. I finally got to that box in the back of the closet with packets and packets of pictures in it. Some of those pictures were 12 years old. When I look at myself in the mirror, I don't really think I look all that different than I did 10 years ago or 12 years ago, but when faced with the evidence...

So in a rare moment of feeling my age and the insecurity that comes with it, I looked to my husband for reassurance.

Me: You're not going to trade me in for a younger, prettier model, are you?

Him: No, of course not.

At that point he put his arm around me and kissed me on the forehead. He should have stopped there.

Him: I mean, it doesn't mean I won't try. I just don't think it likely I'll succeed.

Dork.

My goal for my 40th year

I've been reflecting a lot on envelopes. I think that a lot of the best ideas that people have are often scribbled on the backs of envelopes or napkins. These are scraps of paper that are always at hand and can give a flash of inspiration a home in the world. I mean, how many stories have we read about some hit song scribbled on a cocktail napkin, the seed for a great work of art sketched on the back of the water bill. Stuff like that happens all the time.

So I say that it behooves (love that word because it is so hoity toity) all of us to pick up a pen, paper and an envelope and write a letter to everybody we know and care about. That way, your envelope can be there at hand to catch whatever inspiration strikes your loved one.

This is my fortieth year. I heard on the radio yesterday that Sesame Street made its 40th year anniversary too. I don't know what Bert & Ernie have planned for their 40th -- maybe they'll finally get the right to marry. But it is my goal to write my loved ones and friends this year. It will probably take all year and if you don't get a letter from me, I must not love you very much. jk. I was just thinking that celebrating my 40th birthday with a party would be fun, but I don't think I need a bunch of cake and presents. I'd much rather give presents of my thanks to the people who have enriched my life. The thank-you for being the person who held me while I cried when my husband got on the plane to leave for Seattle. The thank-you for the person who made me dinner when I brought my third child home. The thank-you for the gifts from her garden the summer that my husband had lost his job. The thank-you for the months taken away from her home to stay with me to watch my kids. The thank-you for the arms around me as I grieved my father's death. The thank-you for the first laugh I had during that terrible dark time. And countless other kindnesses I've been blessed to receive. Those are the moments and interactions that have formed me in these past 40 years. And the enormous gratitude of debts that I know I cannot repay except with a thanks and an envelope.

An envelope that can catch inspiration and can bloom into something marvelous.