Disappearing Ink

When people hear I play derby they assume I have tattoos.  In fact my skatey ladies have even turned and asked me "where's yours?" The truth is I'd love to get one, I just have never been able to decide on something I think I'd like to wear on my person forever.  I have a hard time keeping the same art on a wall for more than a year.  Lot's of times I've wished aloud for some ink that would fade fast and completely.  I'd have tons.  I'd have my derby number tattooed on my arms in big bold Helvetica "OO" so that I'd never have to scrub the marker smears off again.  I'd have some black star earrings put on my lobes and maybe some wings on my feet.  I'd have stars up the backs of my legs and maybe some cat eye eyeliner put on, I'd have my babies names across my chest in their scribbly handwriting and maybe Opus the penguin from Bloom County on my butt.  I also want one of the Sergio Aragones tiny-in-the-corner-cartoons that you find in the margins of MAD magazine hidden in my armpit.  

Uniform

Once you fall in love with roller derby it's hard to not want to put the uniform on every day.  Most skatey ladies I know would if they had the time.  I've been skating now for seven years and every where I've visited we all wear the same thing; skates, elbow pads, knee pads, wrist guards, mouth guard, helmet, the need for speed and the indelible habit of getting back up when knocked down.  That last part of the uniform most of us wear for the rest of our lives, right along with whatever ink we had poked into our skin and scars we earned from getting broken and the friendships we forged from the shared frustrations of it all.

***

Roller Girl 

You're all elbow 
 And hip 
 And heart 

 A blur and a 
 Bruise 
 And a booty 
 Block into 
 Love's suicide 
 Seats. 

 By - T.L. Vaultonburg

Trains

My son loves a train.  When he was about one I decided to give him one of Ella's old dollies for the sake of nurturing his pink toy-isle side and he promptly drove it down his toy train track.  Among his first twenty much anticipated words were "woo! woo!" and every time we cross the river near our house he's yelling "Train tracks!" as we we pass the yellow octagon sign with the big X.  I'm not sure how kids seem to be born loving a thing.  For Ella it was fashion and for Jack it is wheels and especially trains.  So this summer when the IL Railway Museum was doing their annual Thomas the Train Engine Party, I figure it was my duty to take this baby to see it.  The same way when I was little my Dad felt it was his duty to take out to Cottonwood airport and get us a ride in what I remember as a VW bug with wings.

We woke early and as we pulled into the museum this is what we saw.

Oh yeah, this was the right place for us.  As we walked in we saw a bazillion little boys in striped Osh-Gosh overalls and old fashioned conductor hats chased by doting parents pushing expensive strollers of gargantuan proportions.  It didn't matter, we were all so excited, I couldn't even get annoyed with all the privileged suburbanites.  I'd never really taken a proper train before, sure I'd ridden the El in Chicago and the trolley in New Orleans and some zoomy things at lots of airports, but wowzers this was the real deal.

Each train had that same machine shop metal and grease smell from my childhood, and the you could see where the patina of a million hands had rubbed off the enamel of the hand rails.  It was easy to get lost in time imagining commuters in the same seats with far more etiquette than I'll ever see on public trans.  

We spent the whole day riding grand old trains around in circles and smiling. We did do some of the the other activities; mini-putt, scavenger hunt, tattoo tent and half a magic show.  We must've stopped to eat at some point but really, it was so fun I don't even remember the snacks.    

We were almost the last kids to hobble back out to the parking lot at the end of the day and we'll certainly go back again next year. 

It has me thinking though, about summer vacations.  It would be nice to get to a place without having to drive, to enjoy the country side going by and the rocking of the tracks.  I've looked at the "family car" on Amtrack and it's a regular little cabin, much like I imagine they are on a cruise, though I don't really know.  The biggest ship I've ever been on was a ferry where the passengers only get their own car to sit in.  I think me and the kiddos could like hanging out in a little family car, politely playing cards and eating string cheese at night, wandering out to the riding car in the day and playing I-spy.  Funny how imagining us on a train naturally includes imagining us all being polite. 

Pivotal

I can't tell you if the most pivotal years in my life were the ones jammed packed with graduations and marriages and babies, or politics, roller derby, and moving homes.  Perhaps the most important year of my life was the year I spent sleeping in trying my hardest to avoid cleaning and making a renewed effort to chase butterflies.  Perhaps that was the year I staved off a nervous breakdown and lingered at the green light long enough to miss the deadly car wreck ahead.  It probably contained a day I lolled about in bed so long I imagined the most amazing masterpiece painting, the one that would hurtle me past fame and into history books, and allow me to never worry about money again.  But then I rolled over with a morning sun beam and forgot what it was instead choosing to scratch my butt and see what it would be like to snooze with one foot out from under the covers.  I'll have to consult angels to know if blowing on dandelions or finishing this post is better.

Overcast and Grey

The whole city a large, grey, well-used machine that never stops grinding and turning.  Cogs and wheels fueled with blue collar sweat and a nuclear plant whose base the city's dark navy river flows quietly past.  Yesterday's shop-grease hangs in the air, washing the vibrancy from the face of each home with it's thick blanket of white cloud, horizon to horizon.  When I think of Rockford, it is always overcast in my mind, the same way my little brother is forever fifteen and seafood is always decadent.

Photo by Lance Wells
NWI-NRHS Photographer of the Year 2012 

A Theme Song

My marriage fell apart on a Friday.  My dad begged me on the phone from three states away, not to drive anywhere for the weekend but I promised the children we'd go to the Bayou City Art Festival.  I didn't want to sit home a mushy mess letting the children have the run of the house.  I insisted we proceed as planned.  I packed a diaper bag; five diapers, wipes, three waters, a few gold fish snack bags, a couple of match box cars, sunglasses and sun screen and we left. It was 90° at ten in the morning when we parked the car at an outlying mall in the suburbs and got on the shuttle to the down-town festival.  I wrestled an umbrella stroller, a diaper bag and two children onto the bus filled with families and did my best stiff upper lip for the kids.

We walked among the arts and crafts and paintings and sculpts and pottery, the sun beat down on us, the stroller kept getting stuck in the cracks of the walkway, the baby kept trying to crawl out of it, the kids were simultaneously bored and wanting to touch everything. They were unhappy and I didn't have enough arms.  We were all thristy and hot and everyone was in our way and we didn't know which line was for tickets or how many we needed for ice creams and water and chips. Happy couples with no children in tow filled the walkway sipping wine and avoiding our stickiness, but not so much as to make an extra inch of room for us on a bench or a side-walk and certainly not in the shade. I reapplied sunscreen and forced myself to eat two bites of the sixteen ticket gourmet macaroni and cheese I bought for the kids, that they hated.

Then the children were doing crafts under a bustling tent with a hundred other children. I started to think of all the days ahead of me with not enough arms to hold the diaper bag and stroller and shaving cream on a paper plate, and waters and a toddler.  It was hot and I was hyperventilating and the children were glitter gluing things with some lady and I was was on the phone with a friend who was reminding me how to breath and then I realized I was in the middle of a crowd in the middle of the fourth largest city in the nation with my entire family standing inches from me and my best friend on the phone and I felt alone.  I wished I had listened to my dad and not driven anywhere.

I packed all the crabbiness and glitter up into the diaper bag and a random plastic bag I liberated from on of the craft booths and started towing the children back across the span of the festival back to the shuttle bus.  We had to pee.  There were only the squat, green, plastic boxes of portable outhouse to be found.  I slogged on to the least used box and parked the stroller along with everything I had, next to the outhouse.  I put the baby on my hip and went in to the small space with the kid while bellowing "Don't touch ANYTHING!" and "I know it stinks, but it's this or pee your pants!" and "Don't open the door now, my pants are down!" and "I know you're hot, I am too!" We made it out relieved and surely covered in a bazillion germs of hauty art patrons' piss. While I was trying to wash it all off with the trickle of portable sink water pumped by my foot, the baby stood up in the stroller and everything tipped over.  The bags emptied onto the pavement, the baby went face first into the back of the stroller the water bottle rolled down into a gully and people gasped and looked towards the horrible crash.

I grabbed everything in my arms, stroller, crying baby, child's hand, diaper bag, plastic bag, sparkly crafts, sunglasses, all of it.  I held it all together weaving through the crowd faster yet, towards the shuttle buses.  I was looking for a first aid tent.  The world was spinning, I was going to go down and be laying on the ground while my one year old ran crying into the sunset and my eight year old cried her legs hurt and the art lovers would drink their wine and discuss the merits of Mark Ryden's pop retro influence on the festival. I couldn't find any first aid tent.  I walked on.  We finally rounded the last mound of sculptures and tents and I saw the line for the bus snaking back and forth between long ropes.  The sign in my head said "Your wait is now 50 mins."  I just stood there, not knowing where I was going to get the energy wondering if we could even survive the wait.

From nowhere a man walked up to me and asked "are you going to the mall?" I nodded.  He held his hand out to me and said "Here take this over to the line on the left."  I took the small ticket and read it "fast pass."  I looked back up to thank nobody, he had already walked away.  We walked up to the line on the left where the bus driver swiftly folded up my stroller, stowed it and offered me an arm to steady myself as we quickly boarded the bus.  We plopped down; a glittery, sad, sweaty mess in the second seats just under the air conditioning vent.  I pulled the last bottle of water out of my bag and Alabama Shakes came on the radio.

 

It's a Tie!

My kid doesn't like to compete.  She hates the idea of pressure to win and the possibility of someone feeling bad because they lost.  She kicks butt at chess club, she's been asked to be a math-leet, and there are karate tournaments galore, she has signed up for none of them.  I understand not being able to enjoy something because someone you care about is having a crummy time.  And the kid is pals with everyone, but I hope she finds a way to be joyous about winning.   I want this for her for all sorts of reasons; selfish ones (inwardly I'd like to say "Yay! I knew my kid was the best kid in the history of ever!")  also winning is fun, plus trophies, and prize monies!  But really I cringe to think she'd hold herself back for fear of hurting someone's feelings.  I want her to be comfortable being the best kid in the history of ever (a title, of course, she will have to share with her brother.)

No, I like LIKE you.

Standing in the front hallway of my parents house I threatened Chris Gravano "I am totally going to kiss you."  We were waiting for his mom to come pick him up.  We'd be going together for a whole week, which started with a carefully brokered agreement through our mutual agent Tim Raymer, who ultimately employed the time tested checking of a yes or no box as a legally binding contract.  This was followed by sitting together in the lunch room discussing our mutual love of AC/DC and hate of Mrs. Beard's Social Studies class, four ridiculously quiet phone calls, lots of blushing and one awkward afternoon sitting on the couch in my parents living room.  It was the perfect.  Finally his mom pulled up in front of my house.  I leaned in and kissed Chris so hard he fell off his crutches and into the hall tree.  I happily helped him back up and out to his mom's car.  Our mutual "like-LIKE" wouldn't last the length of his broken leg.

Gratitude

"Gratitude" came out in 1992 and was on heavy rotation in my truck. I took my boyfriend and my little brother to Lollapalooza 94 to see the Beastie Boys and when P-Funk rolled out on stage I couldn't dance hard enough to honor the joy in the music, but I tried.  I spent the whole decade trying to dance enough to honor myself and the music, and the people who didn't make it to the 90s.  The whole decade before I spent attending funerals. There were suicides and car accidents, illnesses and a murder.  When I finally reached my senior year, I'd been to six funerals.  These were people who were close to me. People who's middle names I knew, people who's front doors I no longer knocked on but just walked through while yelling out "It's me!" That was the 80s; frantic feelings, funerals and loss.

The 90s I spent living loud and knowing death is a moment away for any of us.  I went to Mardi Gras, I bought an old victorian church and lived in it, I got married and spent the bulk of the wedding budget on open bar inviting everyone we knew.  I worked back stage at the theatre.  I gave my husband a mowhawk.  I filled the house with friends and cooked dinners for twenty.  I quit jobs.  I went to concerts. I tried to do something good every day.  The 90s actually bled right into the next decade not really ending until 2004.  That was when Ella was born.

Having a child showed me a new quiet and patient gratitude.  The kind that isn't dramatic, that doesn't feel like Robin Williams standing on a desk yelling "Carpe diem."  The kind of thankfulness felt when a fussy baby finally falls asleep.  Or the kind of appreciation you have when you trip on your platform clogs while holding the baby, go down hard and but manage to hold her up in the air, unscathed, while you take the brunt of the side-walk to the knee-cap.  The kind of gratitude you have all at once for your parents and all that they do for you and how you feel like you will never be able to thank them enough for taking the bruise on the kneecap.  There just aren't strong enough words.  I think maybe the only way to thank parents is to live well; the same way I want my children to go out into the world and live happy, rich, full lives.

Though it never hurts to say thank you anyway, so;
Thank you Mom for cleaning up the kitchen that time me and my brother "made breakfast" by dumping the entire contents of the refrigerator on the floor of the kitchen.  Thank you Dad for teaching me how to handle driving on ice by letting me do doughnuts in a parking lot on a snowy night. Thank you Ron for being cool about me coming in for the evening at the same time you are getting up for work in the morning.  Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for always being a place to "escape to."  Thank you my children for showing me quiet gratitude.

Class

We sit behind the glass watching our hearts out on the smooth wooden floor moving in a choreographed blur. Holding our breaths with every feat, attempting to will perfection with our gaze, knowing we have no control over the lump-dove lump-dove of the shifting movements. We smile and nod through tight teeth at each missed beat, nearly the same way we smile and nod through tight eyes with every perfected measure.  Soon the wooden floor is empty and there is a whirlwind of children all around us, everyone talking at once, getting their shoes and coats, and asking about dinner. Our instructor smiles and waves us on, until next week.

My Ideal Place to Write

My favorite place to write is on a graffiti-ed bathroom wall.   In every purse I carry a black permanent marker, mostly for writing my number on my arm before a derby bout but secretly it's to draw Kilroy Was Here, or for a Good Time Call..., or to correct other defacers' spelling and punctuation errors, or just to tag an unsuspecting wall.  I've never shoplifted, I don't cheat at games, I'm that person who tells the bank teller she gave me too much change back, I've been accused of being a goody-two-skates on more than one occasion, I'm a middle aged mother of two with a bum-knee who likes historical fiction and the Home and Garden channel, and I am a vandal.  I've carved on public picnic tables, I've written on bathroom walls in at least six states in the last three years and once I even took a can of spray paint to a bridge.  I don't have a message, I don't have any reason, I just like to do it. Shhh!

Three Names

I'm named after the floaty hippy song "Jennifer Juniper" by Donovan.  My Mom thought it sounded unique and fresh. It turned out to be neither that year.   The Melissas and Jennifers and Michelles of the world understand what it's like to have a single letter behind your name for twelve years of academia.  When I entered college I tried out "Jenna" instead of "Jenny" for a semester and it was a horrible catastrophe.  I wasn't used to it and so people would chase me down the hall yelling "Jenna!" at the back of my head while I meandered on to my next class.  I had to give it up.  I'm Jenny, that's the name they gave me.

The last decade I've been "Mom" a name also neither unique or fresh.  This time it doesn't bother me at all to be called the same as women all around the world, in every family, all the way forward and back through time.  It's a name I'll love forever even when it's howled from the sticky back seat of my car, during heavy traffic.  Call it out into a crowd and I along with all the other women who's children are near mine in age, will turn around and look.  I am Mom, that's the name I earned.

My first baby had an imaginary friend she used to call on the phone and blame things on.  Bombadee broke it, colored on it, cut that doll's hair and ate all the marshmallows.  Bombadee did whatever she wanted.  It's her garden we played in and her feral laughter we chased all those young summer days with my first baby.  It's her name I took when asked to pick a something for the back of my roller derby uniform. It's sometimes shortened to "Bomb" by my skatey sisters and thus never yelled in a crowded public place.  Now if you google Bombadee it is my own garden and feral laughter you'll hear.  I am Bombadee, that's the name I took.

Gardening

When you're getting a divorce after being married a very long time, all your memories, even the really good ones feel like walking through a cactus patch.  Though some have flowers and look beautiful, you don't examine them up close and breath in the sweet smell like you would with lilacs.  Some of them may even be nourishing, but most days it's safer to keep a distance lest you end up sitting on the floor trying to extract nettles from your skin and move on with the day.  It causes me to very carefully walk my path in life, never veering too deep into the thicket, never watching certain movies, or reading certain books, tossing out a whole decade of music and avoiding whole regions of my brain, only peering in slightly when the children ask.  It's a delicate and absurd dance living in a cactus patch.  It's why I returned to the lush grass lands of Illinois where the oaks have deep roots and the rich black dirt will nourish just about any seed you can plant.  I think eventually I'll have enough new growth to roll among the violets and keep my cacti in bell jars next to the pressed funeral flowers and childhood rock collection.

I Bought Ink

I never have printer ink.  When I need it, I call around and nobody else has it either and since whatever I need it for needs to be printed today it's useless to place an order.  I go to the copy shop all the time and have one sheet of paper printed out; a permission slip, a handbook, a coupon, a homework assignment.  I am the grasshopper of home office computing, never prepared for the long winter of needing ink, scrounging around at my friend the ant's house, with a  flash drive in my pocket, trying to mooch printer access "Would you mind if I just printed a page or two real quick?"  I've been known to hand draw a permission slip at eight fifteen in the morning on the day it is due back, my embarrassed nine year old asking "Are you sure this is ok?"

Chicago

The Aquarium was free on Sunday and the Art Museum on Monday.  Ella had the day off for Martin Luther King Day. I just had to find a hotel in between them both, one with a pool.  The Essex is right on Michigan Ave, and we could stay there for $80.00 so I booked it.  I find mid-January is the perfect time to take a mini-vacation to cheer everyone up.  I also find that standing in line for the aquarium on free day in mid-January with two Texans is very difficult.  They end up both trying to crawl into your coat with you and while that is very warm for everyone, it's also very unstable once they get past being cold and start tickling each other and blowing raspberries at each other while in your coat.  I had to kick them out periodically to remind them how cold it was.

The hotel pool was FREEZING.  Other kids were in there, everyone splashing and swimming and dunking like little porpoises all happy and squealing.  It's possible that it's just not the temperature we spoiled swimmers are used to, but our lips really did turn blue, so I don't think I'm just being wimpy.  When I finally talked my little blue lipped babies from the pool and back to the room, we ordered a delicious deep dish Chicago style pizza. I was glad to remember binoculars because the view was pretty awesome and while I got us all ready for the art museum on the second day Ella spent a good amount of time reporting on the gargoyles around town.

The aquarium was a hit save for the wait to get in and the art museum a bust save for the miniature hall.  Those children looked in every little room in a box in astonishment.  Ella inspired to go home and build her own doll house and Jack proudly naming everything in the little room.  But the rest of the time they were bored and nobody wanted to walk.  Next time, we'll go when it's warm.  Warm enough to walk to both attractions, warm enough to swim in the pool, and warm enough to stand on the lake front and stare out at the blue for a good long time while the kids run around the sculptures.

It Was Only 10 degrees This Morning

I found the best brush in the whole world while searching under the bed for the kid's shoes.  We'd been pining it's absence for about a week.  It's wooden handle is warm and the bristles forgive just enough while still untangling.  It's the perfect mixture of firm and warm and forgiving.

***

I'm on the second half of the lease in this house and looking forward to getting into a better place.  We need just a pinch more space and all three bedrooms on the same floor.  I have only lived one place where I didn't look forward to the end of the lease.

***

Lunarbaboon

Whose Names are Unknown: A Novel by Sanora Babb

 Whose Names are Unknown: A Novel by Sanora Babb is appealing to me on a few levels.  I like to read about the dust-bowl and the depression.  I just watched the PBS show about the dust-bowl and it all was so catastrophic.  It's amazing to know we pulled our own butts out of an ecological disaster we created and it gives me hope in humans and what we can do.  I'm a union supporter and a Democrat.  Also, frankly it makes me feel very fortunate to live in this time of abundance, it reminds me to live simply and count my blessings.  And perhaps the most important reason I wanted to read this was this book was it was written by Ms. Babb at the same time the Grapes of Wrath was written.  The publisher told her the reading public couldn't support two books, though Steinbeck wrote the Grapes of Wrath after reading original pieces written by Babb.

"In 1938 she returned to California to work for the Farm Security Administration. While with FSA, she kept detailed notes on the tent camps of the Dust Bowl migrants to California that were loaned to John Steinbeck by her supervisor Tom Collins. She turned the stories she collected into her novel, Whose Names Are Unknown. Bennett Cerf planned to publish the novel with Random House, but the appearance of Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath caused publication to be shelved in 1939.  Her novel didn't get published until 2004." - Wikipedia 


Ain't that some crap? So since I have loved the Grapes of Wrath for such a long time, I felt I owed it to Ms. Babb to read her book, and it is magnificent.  I recommend it.  It's a smooth read, I wish I had more time to pour over it and at the same time I am trying very hard to savor it so it's not finished too quickly.

Jack Frost

It finally snowed.  It took all my might to wrestle Jack into a snow suit, yelling "Keep it on! Keep it on!" as he tore at the snow pants and hat and I quickly danced into snow boots.  He discovered snow packs together into little balls for throwing, in the front yard after his sister got off the bus and hence refused to come in the house.  Ella was squealing with glee and pelting me the first time I announced I was "too cold so you must be too", and on the ninety-ninth time I announced it, Jack was still working dilligently at packing snow into a small mound under his knees and smiling.  He told the neighbor kids how wonderful it all  was with a string of excited consonants and they nodded like they knew what he was saying.  I picked him up and wrestled him into the house all the while he was tearing at his snow suit trying to keep it all on.  While Ella made hot coco, he fell asleep.  That was what it was like for Jack to see real snow the first time.

12.12.12.12:12

Just wanted to mark it.

Flat Track Revolution

Dear Santa,

THIS in a large.

Love,
Jenny

Table Hammock

How to occupy a toddler for an hour with a cotton table cloth. 

Graffiti

Graffiti at the Grade School Gifted Academy

A Lot of Pop

"Infinite bottles of pop on the wall,
infinite bottles of pop,
take one down pass it around,
infinite bottles of pop on the wall."
-Ella

ten things

I looked inward to this small niche I've carved for my life to make a tidy little list of good things. Like every list of good things I ever post, coffee is at the top; burnt, bitter, life affirming, hot, morning coffee. Without it there would not be nine more things.

1 Coffee
2 Warm socks
3 Wood floors
4 Family and friends
5 Spell check
6 Internet
7 Thanksgiving stuffing
8 Roller derby
9 Leave in conditioning hair spritzer that smells like cake
10 Satire


 

Teeming Mass of Privileged Humanity Up Close

A very dear friend from Texas asked me to go over to the one book store we have in the third largest city in Illinois (yes one!) and get a book signed by the author for her. This pal came to my house and chased Jack for me when I had to put my newly reconstructed knee into the medieval knee bending machine for an hour,  three times a week. I figured the least I could do was take a trip to the bookstore for her. Besides, how many people could there possibly be in Rockford standing in line for a four time world champion WWF wrestler gone children's book author? Turns out, a whole bookstore full.

 The children and me walked towards the back of the bookstore to waste time at the train table play area and find the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid while figuring out what to do. I inquired about "how long these things usually take" and the line lady who had no idea. When we arrived at the children's area, there was another mob of people standing around in a large circle with cameras in hand holding them high and trying to listen intently. I figure it was the author of the book giving a little interview and these folks were mobbing him. I didn't even bother to try to see; we walked past the assemblage and went straight to the train table. Ella found her book and sat tableside reading intently. I found a seat and decided to people watch. Next, there was a great round of applause from the mob and like a football huddle, they broke, kids in purple shirts running everywhere and doting helicopter parents chasing. I realized it was some school event, where the kids sing or dance or something and it was the same night as the book signing. The place was a zoo.

A dozen preschoolers in purple shirts besieged Jack, attempting to play trains. He seemed slightly taken aback, I let him handle it. He was able to hang onto one train, driving it in the big squirrely loop around the table while others wined, snatched, played, cried and tantrummed. I saw worried parents standing over children demanding they say please and thank you, share, take turns, "play right" and "say cheese." I watched one girl in a tutu and tiara melt down completely because she couldn't play with a specific train. Then I watched her mother try to bargain with Jack so that her child could have the one toy she wanted (the one toy in Jack's hand.) Jack paid no attention. I did, but I didn't interfere at all. The girl had to be extracted kicking and screaming from the train play area where no doubt her mother bought the train she wanted to play with in the next aisle.

Jack was polite, focused on his fun and had a good time without me jumping in. I also witnessed an insane amount of booger eating perhaps even it was the most schnozberries consumed in one place ever. I couldn't believe with all the hovering and supervising of the play not one parent said "Gross! Don't eat that!" They just pretended they didn't see it. And here is where I need to say; if you are paying enough attention to praise your precious progeny for successfully getting the train through the tunnel, then you also saw that nose pick, and "Ew" on your parenting.

Next, I had to figure out how to get a book signed for my pal. I moved my caravan of children, stroller, winter coats and new books to the other side of the store to see if the long line of wrestling fans was moving. It wasn't. The angel on my shoulder whispered in my ear, "You came all this way, you're so close." the devil wined in the voice of my eldest "Are we done yet? I'm booored." conjuring pictures of me wrestling Jack back into the stroller.

I went to the front of the store to buy the books the kids picked and inquired about the price of the featured book. I also asked if I could buy one today, have it signed, and pick it up the next day. The cashier asked with surprise "Don't you want to meet him and have a photo taken?" to which I responded that I was sure the author was a fabulous guy but I didn't need a photo or to shake his hand I just wanted his signature on a book. She asked me to wait a moment while she stepped away and then she came back and said she found a nice young man near the front of the line that would get my book signed for me. Ah! The whole operation salvaged, I quickly agreed. The nice young man found me after about ten minutes and handed me a signed book. I thank him and we left, faith in booger eating humanity restored.

House Mouse

I had a cup of coffee after seven pm again and with daylight savings happening and my insomnia, I'm screwed.  So I sit here making lists of things I can't get off my mind.  I'm feeling like I don't want to let anything slip through the cracks when I hear a mouse in my stove.  He's not being very stealthy clomping around on the sheet metal and with all his echoing mouse yodels.  I got worried and thought maybe they squeak only when they're mating.  Then I got mad at the thought of mice humping in the place I make banana bread for my children.  But it turns out they are just squeaky when they're scared or excited and for a shiesty little house mouse that is pretty much all the time.  I stood in the doorway and watched him poke his little nose up through the burners looking for spilled macaroni and cheese or boiled over rice, but I've been making a large effort to keep the kitchen crumble free and so he didn't find anything good and he saw me seeing him and ran back into the stove.  I gave the side of it a good Timpani drum whack and now I have to add disinfecting one stove to the list of chores tomorrow.

from MousesHouses.blogspot.com

Wolf Pack

Wolf mask pattern

Frustration Smörgåsbord

You know what is a great way to not start a Monday morning? Get on the phone with your cable company and AT&T to sort out your bill and cancel some crap they put on there that you never asked for.  Then start a new phone call asking for a credit from Sprint because you cell phone doesn't work in your own house and then while you're having fun dancing to hold music go ahead and take a call from the hospital and entertain the idea that the two insurance companies that should be playing nice aren't.  Perhaps you could try to get all the insurance companies on the phone with yourself and the hospital and then when your phone is dropping the call you can just cha cha cha you way to the kitchen for a hot cup of coffee and a sink load of dishes.  Follow up with a healthy dose of correspondence with my soon to be ex-husband.  Yeah, that's pretty much how not to do it.

I'll Pick Up My Guitar and Play

Ella: I'm in a play and I'm a fern and I hate it.

Me: Why do you hate it?

Ella: Because I'm the only girl fern... They're all boys... and goofy boys.  Harumph!

Me: Why are the goofy?

Ella: We have to sing rock-n-roll and do air guitar and it's not my style.

I commenced to showing the kid videos of chicks that rock trying to sooth her.

We started with Tina doing Proud Mary, then Joan Jett, and then of course Le Tigre, Bikini Kill and Veruca Salt (ah the classics.)  Still Ella seemed unsure.  We watched my freinds daughter's band (below) and she liked it but nervously mentioned "that air guitar thing" again.



I realized the stupidity of air guitar and decided to find some people doing cool looking air guitar, or something close to it.  So it turns out, the air guitar championship for 2012 had two women in the top three contenders.  We watched the video.  Ella loved the first lady.

 

Spoiler alert!  At a minute forty five the lady smashes her air guitar on the stage.  In the next clip she gets it out again and Ella said "Oh yeah right! Where did she get ANOTHER air guitar?!" and I couldn't stop giggling.  Then she realized what she said and we were both laughing.

She concluded "So it's like miming but to music!" and I said "Exactly! It's mimming!" (she loves mimes.) I'm sure dude-bros all over this nation would just love to hear my eight year old say "I just loove mimes!" in response to their rockin' out to Rush in bars across the land.

When the second air guitar guy comes on, he's pretty good and Ella asks "Why do they keep jumping around on stage?" and I realize the key piece to this whole lesson is that my kid has NEVER seen a lead ax man go nutty on stage.  She has never sat in front of MTV hoping to see Eddie Van Halen or Angus or Slash, she has no idea why anyone is even smashing an air guitar, and there's no context for wanting to  twiddle your fingers near your crotch and to the left of your body while making crazy grunty faces.  She has never experienced the worship of a guitarist.

Yes, we spent the next half an hour watching crazy solos while I explained "No that's not a woman that's a man dressed up like that because he thinks it's tough," and "Yes, the band IS named after him," "His body is shiny and sparkly because he's been sweating all night and jumping all over in velvet school boy short pants," and finally  "You're right, the heavy metal look really never went away, it did just turn into Goth."

While Ella forgot her homework in her desk today, I feel fully satisfied with what she learned at home.

I leave you with this:

How to Scare the Hell Out of a Mother

We went to the buffet Saturday night and had a wonderful time eating everything we liked up until Jack fell backwards off of his chair and whacked the back of his head on the leg of the table next to us.  Like all head wounds it bled, a lot.  I immediately put my filthy, I've been at a buffet on a Saturday night, hand on his wound to insure the most possible germs get a chance at his head but despite my efforts the doctor said he was fine.  No cracked skull, all swelling on the outside, no stitches just some antibiotic ointment and a gauze wrap around his head to keep him from bleeding on things. As you can see, it didn't slow him down at all.   When we finally made it home from the doc, to my horror, there was still at least an hour of couch jumping to be done.  

Butter

also: THIS

Chavez Real Quick

After the hockey game last Thursday, the one that went into overtime and then a shootout, the one that lasted longer than any hockey game I've ever been to, the one that got us into the car and on our way home at 10:15pm on a school night, after that hockey game; Ella announced she had homework, a report on Cesar Chavez.  Luckily third grade reports aren't exactly 100 word essay double spaced with a  bibliography yet.  So she managed to get a good ten sentences on paper before breakfast and it turns out she needed to finish it over the four day weekend... which I just found out at eight pm tonight. So she's slaving and sweating over assembling the notes and facts she gathered last week, meticulously scribbling a number two pencil onto a sheet of blue lined notebook paper.  The erasing is furious and the caterwauling is sublime.  I made hot coco to ease the tension.  I bought good coco yesterday, dark 100% cocoa it says on the side.  I used whole milk and and a teaspoon of sugar.  As I stirred the milk didn't turn brown, it went lavender.  The report is still not finished.  The cocoa is. 

Feminist Walking

                   www.guerrillagirls.com

Have you ever been walking in a crowd and been faced with a daring game of pedestrian chicken; both people walking straight at each other?  In high school it was the stuff of teenage boy fights.  Two boys would shoulder check each other and then one would yell, "bring it!" and they'd be off and rolling around on the hallway floor while people formed a circle and chanted "FIGHT!"

In adult life, polite society, and even not so polite society, this crazy game of pedestrian chicken happens all the time.  Think about being in the grocery and people with their carts.  Think about a festival you may have been to and what it was like to walk through a crowd.

At some point in the last few years I stopped moving out of the way.  I think it was around the time I had Ella.  The fact was; I was exhausted most of the time and carrying baby on one hip and a diaper bag and purse on the other side.  Making those extra three steps to move for a grown-ass-man, in a crowd, was a concession I just didn't have the energy to make.  You would be surprised how many times I've been shoulder checked with a baby in my arms.  Because  not only do I not move, but I refuse to be the one to shrink out of the way, to contort my whole being around someone not carrying another human in their arms.

When my extra human was big enough to walk, we'd hold hands through a crowd and people would automatically make way for us. You see there is a hierarchy.  People get out of the way for little kids, bleeding people, old people, someone who looks like they're about to barf and people with guns.  Otherwise you're on your own and in my experience it's often the women who are shrinking out of the way or expected to move.  In fact once I started paying attention I realized how often women apologize for what seems like just taking up space on the planet.  This is about the time I joined roller derby and was learning how to purposefully take up space on the track.  I was learning how to be wide and plant my feet, how to have a presence and not only claim my spot, but defend it.

I learned from roller derby and catching beads at many a Mardi Gras parade, if you shrink and don't own your space, people will muscle in and take it from you, get past you on the track, or catch those beads right in front of your face.  You have to stand wide and think large.  You have to be ready to not shrink back when people bump into you.  You have to hold your head high, look people in the eye, be present and say "Excuse me" when you want people to move out of your way.

Since this new attitude, I have been in more than one argument with the man I was walking with, about my refusal to yield.  My stance is, given all things equal, why should it be my responsibility to move.  Especially now that I am again carrying a small human on my hip and sometime limping (when it gets cold my knee gets creaky.)  It's a hard thing to explain to someone.  I've been called aggressive, rude and selfish.  While I understand if you're seeing this crazy dance for the first time; the one where I walk with purpose and a teenage boy or grown man is caught off guard by me not getting out of his way, and then suddenly he's doing an awkward dance to get around me.  It seems harsh and startling, and you might turn and ask me  "Why didn't you just move?!" And if it were only on occasion this happened, I probably would have, but you have to understand, it's often.  So often I'm tired of it.  So no, I won't move nor will I feel bad about it.

It's not like I'm trampling people trying to get through the doors to Walmart on Black Friday, or hip checking people in walkers to get through a door first, I still have manners.  I'm just un-apologetically existing in my own personal space and refusing to yield just because someone else is oblivious.  When you lean into my space on a train or while standing in line, I will widen my stance in an effort to tell you to back off.  And should you decide to play pedestrian chicken with me, you should know I spend several hours a week seriously training for a shoulder or hip check...  and I'm even talented enough to do it on wheels.

Also know that if it's just me walking and I'm approaching a man carrying a kid and a diaper bag etc, I step out of the way.  And recently, I know a guy who was rammed in the back of the legs with a shopping cart because he was walking slow.  So I know it's not just women this happens to, but I think a most of the time it is gender specific.  In fact, I read another blog about this same subject a few months ago and I wish I could find it again, I'd link (I'll keep looking.) Do you have a story? Do you find yourself moving? Apologizing often for being in the way? Or perhaps you are a ground stander? Have read this same topic somewhere? I'd like to hear about it.

The Great Sauce Off 2012

This is my recipe for sugo

What you need:

1. Stew pot
2. Two cans tomato sauce
3. Brown sugar
4. Parmesean cheese
5. Garlic
6. Red meat
7. Salt 
8. Pepper
9. Time

Brown the meat (can be burger or cubed steak or stew meat) with garlic and salt and pepper in the bottom of the stew pot.  Do not drain the fat.  Add the tomato sauce and some good fat shakes of parmesean cheese and salt and pepper.  Put the lid on and turn it down to a slow simmer and let it sit.  The longer it cooks the better it will be.  I like to simmer for at least two hours and usually the rule in my house is if you walk through the kitchen, stop and stir the sauce.  

Cook your pasta in a different pan. Any pasta will do, sauce makes enough to cover 8 servings which is the amount in most boxes of dry pasta, but feel free to use the sauce on what you like.  I like a penne pasta and when it's all put together and on the table it's mostaccioli or as the kids call is "monster choli" 

Sometimes I add mushrooms or basil or a little onion but they aren't needed. Oh! And sometimes if I have a little merlot, I put some in with the meat when it's browning and then I put some in me while I'm cooking.  

This is a great meal if you have big eating guests.  I used to make it for firefighters and construction dudes along with a salad and some italian bread and those guys never left hungry.  

But because we almost never eat eight servings, unless we have guests, I always make a baked pasta the next day.  I put the left overs in a casserole dish and top it with shredded mozzarella.  Throw that in the oven for a half hour at 350 and it's almost better than the day before.    

Also see I Still Hate Pickles for the rest of the Great Sauce Off 2012.

I Jammed

Whole 09.15.12 Flickr set HERE  

This was my first game with the Rockford Rage.  It was the Ragdolls vs IL Valley Vixens, a non-sanctioned WFTDA bout.  We lost by two points in the last three jams 116-114.  Not bad for our first time all playing together.  We have a bunch of new skaters from other leagues this season, so it's been super fun making all new pals. This was also my first game back since my knee surgery.  I wore the DonJoy knee brace and it worked pretty well.  I think I did all right.  I remember getting lead a few times and I remember knocking the other jammer down, but I also remember getting stuck behind blocker number 5 and her cohort for most of a jam and getting a major for cutting.  So, this season I will concentrate on jamming and all the many things that requires.

Photos by KORfan

I've been having dreams that I am getting ready to play, but I don't have all my pads, or I lost my favorite socks and I'm not ready.  I think it's the same dream as when you find yourself at work or school without pants, but in derby if you find yourself without pants chances are that's on purpose.  Next month's bout is October 13th.  It's a mixer, meaning teams from everywhere are invited and all scrambled up and split down the middle.  Mixers are pretty fun, you get to play next to people you normally don't and soak up new plays and knowledge as well as just have a fun time.  Usually there is a theme and some crazy outfits... yes even more crazy than no-pants.  You should come and watch.  You should also cheer for the team I am on.

Found!

Children's dirty socks appear
Like spores in the crannies of our living room
Small and musty wads of colorful stink
Folded onto themselves ready to explode into forty more
If your child is missing a sock, I bet it's at my house

photo from 12/22/2005

It's the Little Things

Every time we got in the car there was this smell.  I was thinking it was my derby gear in the trunk. Then there was the rash of fruit flies and the beginning of every drive required two blocks of windows down.  While I was rooting through the toy box in the back seat today, looking for a missing library book, I found an old banana peel and a dozen fruit flies hanging out with spider man and a hot wheel car.  I'm glad I was able to solve at least one problem today.