How my life is like a fruit salad

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition on June 15, 2012

I headed to my middle son’s school with gladness (he was to get an award) and urgency in my heart (I was late). I wound up parking blocks away. Apparently, many other students would be getting awards, and obviously, their parents were more prompt. I had a minor complication in the back of my vehicle. I had three large fruit salads to be delivered at 9:00 am. The awards ceremony began at 8:00 am.


In the old days, parents gave their children names like Patience and Prudence or Felicity and Chastity. You don’t hear those names as much now, but parents still bestow names in recognition of what their children will bring: Joy, Hope, or Faith. We should have named our children Complication or Confusion or Conflict. Or we might have been more practical and less vague: DWT for Dropper of Wet Towels and the like. The problem with naming a child is that you have to do it before you really know the person. You are awed by the miracle of birth and overwhelmed by the profound wonder over the tiny being that is entrusted to your care. You are smitten by the cuteness factor. It’s a classic case of Bait and Switch. You don’t realize there is fine print involved. The cautions and contrary indications are cast in a small size and tossed a couple of years or decades away. Naturally, you’re not going to heed these warnings. Besides, the foreground of your immediate vision is so thoroughly occupied by the darned cuteness of Tiny Being that you will not consider what TB will (or will not) be doing a few years from now, when you have come to your senses and he or she, likely, has not.


So, Complication will always be a part of our lives. So will Confusion and Conflict.


About the fruit salads: When the request for dishes had made its way around the church circuit, I first adopted the Dodge and Duck technique. Surely, I was too busy, right? When the requests came around a second time, I tried the Wait and See method. You never know when other Duty Dodgers might be flushed out of their hiding places. Why risk exposure too soon? Once the need is met, you might realize you were never really required in the first place. Weren’t you supposed to sort out that bag of socks in the garage, anyway? On round three, the guilt is overwhelming. This is how parenting works. First, you try to dodge things. Then, you wait them out. Finally, you get guilted in.


On Round Three of the requests, I allowed Guilt and Compassion a seat next to me. Hadn’t so many people lent me a hand in my weeks of need? I could let Guilt climb aboard, but I wasn’t about it allow it to usurp control from Logic. I chose the easiest thing to make: Fruit salad. Fruit salad is great because nothing has to be cooked. You can simply take out your frustrations while chopping up fruit. You toss it all together, and voila! Fruit salad! If I were organized, I would have made and refrigerated this the night before. Instead, I was parking the car at 5:57 am to buy the fruit on the morning of.


Needless to say, it was a harrowing morning. The middle and high school bus leaves at 6:57 and the elementary bus at 8:03. Fortunately, my eldest son was home that morning to help with getting the youngest two out the door while I frantically peeled and chopped fruit.


By the time I loaded the fruit salads into the back of the car and changed so I would not be an embarrassment to self, to my child, or to civilized society in general, I had two minutes to get to the school. We only live a mile away, but there are limits to travel, even behind the wheel of a gargantuan vehicle. These come in the form of police cars, posted speed limits, and pedestrians in crosswalks.


As I approached the school, I knew I would need to park at the side of the street. There was no point in even turning in to the school parking lot. That much I have learned over the years. Other things, not so much.


I passed over an excellent parking spot, thinking that surely, there would be one closer. Ah, instant regret. Every slot thereafter was filled. Life is so much like that: There’s no backing up. It’s best to concentrate on what lies ahead, and not be so darned picky next time. I parked blocks away, but in the shade, and left my windows cracked a bit. I didn’t want those fruit salads to turn into stew, after all.


By the time I hustled myself into the auditorium, I felt like an asthmatic bag lady. The eighth graders were filing in, as they were announced. My son, along with the other band members, was on stage playing the processional. The chances I could slip in undetected were slimmer than any of the fruit I had sliced that morning.

The Code of Motherhood

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition, on 6/08/12

The Code of Motherhood, Section 5.42, states that a mother, (a truly good, loving mother, if such a creature exists) will, at all times, (barring death or dismemberment), “be there” for each and every performance of each and every child. I do not speak of the dramatic performances some children employ at home to register dissatisfaction or rage in order to get what they want. (People of an older and less astute generation and those who did not understand child psychology or the proper use of euphemisms, used to refer to these displays of independence and willpower as “throwing a temper tantrum” or “having a fit.”) These are not the performances I refer to. In fact, the Code of Motherhood specifically excuses, and possibly even forbids, you from having to witness such performances.

 

No, the performance to which I allude is the type in which you typically pay for your child to learn some amazing feat or skill and then pay again to attend a recital in which they perform these amazing feats or skills. By default, the Code requires you to photograph these furiously. If you are really a good mother, you will also buy the DVD or videotaped version of this performance for a mere $ 35. This will be a DVD that will sit on your shelf because you will never have time to dust it, much less to watch it. When you are in a mood or situation in which you are finally able to watch this, typically with a proud grandparent or a curious friend about, you will realize that your memories are warped. The DVD is inexplicably scratched. On replay, some sections are pixelated or slow down or tend to repeat like some sort of an electronic stutter. In other words, the DVD you never had time to dust has beaten you to the task and has bitten the dust.

 

The third type of performance is free, but don’t let that fool you. It is equally critical that you attend this as well. It is typically held at school or after school. If you are following the Code correctly, each child is supposed to participate in some sport (other than running his or her mouth) and some form of music (other than playing you like a fiddle). Drama, scholastic bowls, chess tournaments, and exploits with robotics may also be involved. According to the Code, so should you.

I have already failed entire sections of the Motherhood Code, but this is not the sort of test on which you can give up. You test daily, and your grade always hangs in the balance. You need to keep trying to pass. Even if you have passed in the past, you can’t get all smug and complacent about it. The standards will now be higher. You will be required to volunteer at these events by baking goods and raising funds and possibly shuttling children about. Don’t think you’re just going to get away with plain old showing up anymore.

Last week, I mentioned that I attended my daughter’s college graduation with no batteries in my camera. Smooth. This week, I pulled one that makes that stunt look like saintly behavior.

According to the Code, I would have to attend this event/function/performance. Also, because I am currently not teaching or commuting, and am always looking for any opportunity to flee from housework, I would gladly attend. By the way, did I tell you that I will be teaching middle school math in the County in the fall? I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be a secret, so I will be vague about what school.

I’m trying to be careful because we have recently seen that while the Principal of a school, via the County, can giveth an offer, the Principal can also taketh away. Even though I’m not coaching any sports this fall, I would like to be careful. And employed.

Next year, the Code may allow me to miss a performance or two. But for now, I have no escape clauses. Besides, what were my alternatives to attending: Studying for another exam, paying bills, de-junking or doing housework? I could wing the awards ceremony, even if it started at 8:00 am, and my younger children’s bus leaves at 8:03 am. Arrangements could and would have to be made. Don’t forget that the Code of Motherhood, Section 7.9 states that you will spend one-third of your time making arrangements (not the floral kind), so you can use the other two-thirds of your time in a neurotically efficient manner. More next week…

I had received a letter in the mail advising me to attend the 8th grade recognition ceremony because my son would be receiving an award. The letter was conspiratorial in nature: The students only knew about the ceremony, but no specifics of what they were to receive. Naturally, I can keep a secret. Just because I share numerous idiotic secrets in a county-wide column, does not mean I can’t keep one or two of them.

Whizzing by in a flash? Not without batteries...

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition, Fri. 6/1/12

Last month, my eldest daughter graduated from college. Both of us wondered when and where those eight semesters went. Everyone tells the student how quickly the education went, but if I recall clearly, that final semester seems interminable for the student herself.

 

By primary and secondary schooling standards, the time spent on courses in college is stripped to skeletal levels. All the fleshing of time is picked clean off the subject and the class is reduced to the bare bones of lecture, lab, clickers, and exams. In college, the student is expected to flesh out the subject by reading tomes every week. It helps to understand what is read, too, of course. So, no reading when sleep deprived or while intoxicated or while checking text messages and status updates.

 

Ever notice that the more a student pays for education, the less there seems to be of it? It’s like those fancy dinners that are served on plates with miniscule portions. Many colleges and universities have mind-boggling price tags, yet the students seem to be forever on break. They start school late, end by early December, it seems, and they don’t return to school until the end of January. There has to be the week off at Thanksgiving or in the spring, and by early May, they’re out.

For this, you need only go to school for a mere 16 weeks a semester to complete an entire course. For most classes, you won’t attend class daily, either. Perhaps, you will go to class every other day. Some cheeky students may not attend class at all if there is a liberal attendance policy. Public education at the elementary and middle and high school levels is free for the student, but the students are required to attend. Higher education, of course, is not free. Far from it. Light years away, in fact.

We were in Baltimore to attend the ceremony at Johns Hopkins University where my daughter graduated in electrical engineering. We and many more people than parking spaces flooded that part of the city. It was interesting to watch the procession that began at 8:40 AM from the point of view of the shoes that were donned beneath the uniform gowns. If I had taken the correct camera with me, I could have made a whole mini-commentary based on the shoes chosen for the event. It would have been similar to the ones that fashionable papers sport, showing the various hats chosen for events like Gold Cup. In addition to capturing the triumphant glow on my daughter’s face, her hair that had coiled itself in ringlets in response to the hot and humid morning, I wanted to track which students chose to march in flip-flops, and which ones were planning to spend the next four hours with their feet strapped into clogs or stilettoes.

Instead, when I whipped out “my” camera, I felt its odd lightness in my hands, indicating that it held none of the required AA batteries. I made vile mental commentaries to and about myself. While we could see and shout out at my daughter, I did not capture it with pictures. In this day and age, it practically means it didn’t happen. If you have no pictures, do you have the memories? We have a mile of videotape, the Super 8, but we did not have our stills. I considered befriending another, better prepared, parent to take a picture and then email it to me, but decided to restrain my usual chatty self.

My husband would probably resent this divulgence of improper planning. He would recoil at the breach of privacy this would entail. I had the argument with myself to save my husband the effort and decided that he was right.

 

Maybe when our eldest decides to do a graduate degree, I will double check my camera for batteries. It would just take a couple of years to do the degree and it would stave off the paying back of student loans for a little while. What’s a couple of years, anyway? It would, undoubtedly, fly by.