Aught Not to be Repeated

I have some mixed thoughts about what I'm about to write, but the fact is that I am happy to say goodbye to the aughts...by which I mean the years 2000-2009.  My feelings are mixed because the year 2000 saw the birth of my son; a day that is most surely the finest in my life.  2002 saw me start the job I have now, at a school I find enormously fulfilling, both personally and professionally.  2005 landed me the house I still call home.  On that May day when my family and I received the key, it was my dream house.  Today, if I recall that day's happiness, I feel like a fool.  But the home remains a house that I love, a place that I am enormously grateful to call my home.

The good events from the decade are not small things and on a daily basis I appreciate my blessings.  But in other ways, the aughts were years with some profound disappointments, a feeling that my life and I were broken, and a sadness and heartbreak that I wouldn't care to experience again.  Where I once felt that I led a charmed life, sometime in 2006 that charm broke into a million pieces.  I have yet to pull it together.

On balance, I am happy to welcome a new decade.  Good riddance to bad rubbish and all that.  I wouldn't say that I'm optimistic about the next ten years. But I have a plan.  Earlier this month, I received a small talisman reminding me to "believe in yourself." I plan to keep that reminder at hand in 2010.  And given the last few years of this life of mine, that's a pretty big step.

Happy New Year!

Noted

The end of the month is fast approaching and so it's time for December's most notable remarks. There aren't that many this month.  But though the trove is small, it is quite rich.

I have a class distinguished by its proclivity to bring take-out to class while we discuss the ins-and-outs of American government. So it is that our discussions of bureaucracy are accompanied by the smells of Thai food, or whatever constitutes the take-out du jour. From this group, two notable comments were delivered in the month of December:
"What I look for in a girl is the smell of bacon on her hands."
-and-
"Have you ever noticed that McDonald's has an aftertaste of shame?"

Come the new year, this class can expect that the bar is high.

At my school, most students are enrolled in a study hall. As a rule, that's a place where a student may sign out providing he or she has kept all of their course grades over C-. If you are staying in study hall, by definition, you don't fall into this category. The idea is that a student should use study hall to, ahem, study. But that version of reality seemed to be lost on Student X who signed in to study hall one afternoon and then promptly asked me: "Can I go get a pillow from the lounge? I need a nap."

I raised my eyebrow at this request and then let it go. The need for sleep is not to be trifled with. But I wanted to ask: "haven't you been sleeping through class?"

Garden Porn

Each year, November brings me garden catalogs from the small nursery companies that form the foundation of my garden planting.  This year was no exception and, as I have for the past few years, I set aside those catalogs for the quiet days between Christmas and New Year's Day.  Frequently, I pour myself a hot cup of tea and I look over those catalogs, dreaming of seeds for spring planting.  Winter has only just begun and a cold wind is blowing.  But I am planning for spring.

It's my collection of garden porn.

I will spend the next few weeks looking through the catalogs, marking potential favorites, and dreaming of garden abundance.  By the end of January, I will make my final selections.  My parents gave me some zinnia seeds for Christmas (carousel and candy cane...two of my absolute favorites). I've already stored them in my seed basket.  The rest of the seeds and bulbs will arrive in March, usually on a dreadful, cold, wet day.  I will set them aside and wait patiently for the promising signs of early spring: days getting just a tad longer, a breeze that feels a bit less icy, some chirping early morning birds.  By then, my much-reviewed catalogs will be looking a little dog-eared.  I'll tear out the pages with the details I need to know (are those the 8 inch stubby carrots or the longer, thinner ones?), draw up a plan,  fire up the garden tiller, and get ready for the pleasures of watching my plants flourish.

The Kindness of Strangers

Yesterday morning, listening to Morning Edition, I heard a story about the need to register more bone marrow donors, especially potential mixed-race donors.  The interview was with the mother of a little girl named Maya.  Maya is a four-year-old mixed race child (her mother is from her India; her father is of European ancestry).  This story about her need for a donor was a powerful reminder that the advances of the most amazing of sciences, in this case a bone marrow transplant to treat cancer, still rest upon the kindness of strangers.

I have been on the bone marrow registry for eleven years.  I got on the registry when a colleague's son was diagnosed with cancer and needed a bone marrow transplant.  When a child is diagnosed with cancer, there is a feeling of powerlessness that takes hold.  Parents, people devoted to the protection of their young, are suddenly faced with a threat well-beyond their ability to vanquish.  John's cancer diagnosis galvanized our small town; many of us waited in line for the blood draw that would place us on the registry. 

Every few months, I get a newsletter from the registry that confirms my address.  Without doubt, if I am ever called upon to donate, I will step forward to help.  There are 7 billion people in this world; 300 million of them in the United States.  The National Bone Marrow Donor Registry has just 13 million people on the list.  A few more kind strangers would certainly help. 

The Small Things

In my mind,  the happiness of Christmas is most underscored in the attention to details that make the holiday special.  In JT's world, that is the beauty of a Christmas stocking.  Earlier this year, he announced that his Christmas stocking is so terrific because Santa "just knows my mind" and leaves the perfect treats tucked into his stocking.  Among those treats this year was a tiny little cat, just the sort of treat that Santa knew would make my boy most happy.

My sister surprised me with a luxurious black cashmere sweater.  It's a bit more (!) valuable than a tiny little cat,  but like the cat the gift came from KO's attention to detail (she knew I longed for such a sweater) and will be that much more-cherished for that reason.  My mom sent me a copy of Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates, a book she knew I wanted because we heard an NPR interview with the author while my folks were visiting earlier this year.

For snacks before Christmas supper, I made fried pickles for my friend T, because she loves them.

And her partner S made carrot-ginger soup for our supper, because I love that.  And I love it so much that I lapped up my bowl before I remembered to take a photo. 

JT and I gave S a poetry book that I knew she would like because that's the beauty of the small things, they are a happy version of that old adage "what goes around, comes around."

Politically Incorrect Christmas

JT (and Tiger) got their first look at the Christmas booty at a very civilized 7:45 am.

Santa delivered the boy an impressive array of treats and the Egyptian section of the Playmobil catalog.  As I write, the boy is busily decoding his new pyramid and its many secret compartments. He's got a herd of camels, a substantial cache of weapons (including his first scimitar), any number of dangerous-looking swarthy characters, and his very own mummy. When Grandma and Grandpa phoned,  Grandpa suggested that JT have a look for Osama bin Laden, but as I recall it's Saudi Arabia and not Egypt who has unclean hands on that front.  In any case, we don't think that Homeland Security should be called in.  Yet.

In pursuit of my organic gardening ways, I scored a salad spinner and a warm yellow countertop composting bin for Christmas.  My sister, apparently fearful that I'm about to join a commune, countered the granola offerings with a six-pack of glittery lip gloss and a black cashmere cardigan sweater (the latter straight off my life list).  So I am all set for a variety of circumstances in 2010.

The cats scored some catnip and a heaping bowl of kibble.  There will be a formidable Christmas feast come the afternoon.  In the meantime, I feel that a bit of reading (I got Sarah Vowell's The Wordy Shipmates) and a nap are in order. 

Merry Christmas to all!

Real Life Conversations with JT: Empire Edition

The backstory: On Tuesday, JT and I set off to check out one more venue for the Prom (don't ask).  As we headed up the hill and through the lovely winter woods, in a particularly posh part of New Jersey, the houses got larger and larger.  Suddenly we came up on the house pictured below (photo by JT).  The house is enormous - can't see the other side for the curve of the earth enormous - and comes complete with its own gated entry and a brand-new fancy brick wall to keep the riff-raff out.

Mama:  Good Lord.  That's a big house.

JT: That's not just a house Mama.  It's an empire.

We spent the rest of the afternoon engaged in idle speculation about who would live in such a house.  For his part, JT feels a staff would be necessary, lest he get lost hiking to the kitchen in search of a snack.  As for myself, I'm wary of the number of toilets that must be cleaned. Word is that empires don't clean themselves.

Sled While the Snow Shines

This past weekend's snow was the first of the season and JT, apparently unwilling to believe that winter has only just begun, is determined to enjoy every last minute of the snow.  I'm amused by this development because past experience has shown me that sometime around the end of February, JT will declare that winter is OVER and he's ready for swimming weather.  Spring's primary utility for JT is the fact that it's the only highway to get to summer.

But it's not February yet and in the meantime JT is a sledding machine.  Wet snowy mittens, cold feet, and fading light be damned...JT will slide down the hill for as long as I will let him.

Monday, we went sledding at our school, skimming down the steep hill onto the glittering untouched field below. 

 

 It was a beautiful day and, tucked behind the field house at school, the wind didn't bother us a bit. We were the only people there and we sledded for two hours, until I declared that the jig was up (mostly because he had to get home in time to warm up and change into shorts for basketball camp).

On Tuesday, we headed south to scoop up JT's buddy D and sled down the long hills in his neck of the woods.   D's mama S talked me right through her busy town, and we ignored the warnings to park the seld transport vehicle at the edge of a most impressive hill.

 

These hills had to be shared with other similarly-minded kids, but the boys didn't mind, occasionally shouting "look out" as they whizzed down the well-trodden paths, sometimes edging a little too close to the icy creek for a mama's comfort. 

S took a few screaming runs down the hill. 

And as dusk descended, the boys paused for shorter and shorter periods at the top of the hill, knowing that the clock was ticking.

We got back to D's house to find that D's mom T had the hot cocoa and mulled cider ready.  As we wrapped our cold hands around the hot mugs the boys laughed and chattered, reviewing the best runs down the hill. I conclude from this that truncated runs and wipeouts are as much fun as sliding just to the edge of the icy creek (while your mama shouts "be careful").

Happy winter!

Wipeout

JT and I did some sledding today and tomorrow I will post lots and lots of photos of sledding success.  But the best sledding photos are the ones where JT and his sled part ways.  They are the best because, of course, the boy comes up from the snow laughing the sort of rolling laughter that makes being a parent worthwhile.

Without any further ado, may I present the major wipeout.  It began innocently enough, halfway down the hill when someone's slick nylon snowsuit proved more aerodynamic then his sled:

And it ended, as these things often do, with a face full of snow:

Though you needn't fear that he lost his mojo; seconds later our hero headed back up the hill:

Snow Report

If you paid any attention to the world in the last 24 hours, you likely heard a news report or two about the impending snow doom headed for the northeastern United States.  JT was ready for action and he climbed out of bed at 7:30 am yesterday morning, gunning for some snow.  Five hours later, when flakes had yet to materialize, he had aged into a bitter 9 year old, grousing about the tax dollars he tosses to those lame forecasters  at the National Weather Service.

I assured him that the snow was coming, but he stomped up to his playroom to work through his aggravation via some sort of pirate-cowboy--Indian-Viking-Romans home invasion.

At 2 pm, the flakes began to fall.  And for the next 16 hours they continued to fall.  Last night, when we went for our traditional evening walk in the snow, there was a bitter wind and 4-5 inches of snow already on the ground. 

Totals in the news vary but this morning's snow plower's confab on the front sidewalk in my neighborhood came to an agreement that we got somewhere between 8-10 inches of snow, with drifts up to two feet in some corners of the yard.

JT is in a snowy white heaven.  This morning, fortified by french toast, bacon, and a pot of coffee, I fired up the snow blower and joined my snow blowing neighbors in clearing the neighborhood sidewalks and driveways.  JT slid down the hill in the front yard, made countless snow angels, and then made snow balls for our epic backyard snow fight.  I swept snow off the front porch and enjoyed the picture perfect effects of the snowfall.

Then we came inside, stripped down to our long johns and drank some hot tea. Within the hour, I expect that a certain young man will head back outside for round II of snow play.   I have a feeling that the radiators will be looking like this for the next few days.