Time magazine once featured phobias. Some are unbelievable (including fear of wax statues, laughter, and peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth) while others seem laughable, such as ablutophobia – the fear of bathing. Someone out there is going to say that I am very insensitive to laugh at those who are afraid to shower or bathe. I wonder who has more to fear: the one who suffers the phobia, or those who must suffer the phobe.
As absurd as many of the 530-some phobias compiled by Fredd Culbertson on the http://www.phobialist.com/ website (which Time referenced) may sound, I think caligynephobia, the fear of beautiful women, is the one to which most of us ordinary women can relate. Disclaimer: I do realize that this phobia refers to men who are afraid of beautiful women, but I just wanted to have a little fun with it.
When you are finally seated somewhere in a nice restaurant, the last thing you want is to be stuck next to some slinky gorgeous woman with hair that belongs in a shampoo commercial, if not on the heads of about three other women, if the world were a just and equitable place. Of course, we have these fears. They are very reasonable.
We are not usually evil-minded, we caligynephobics, but we can’t help but hope that Slinky’s next smile will be flashed with broccoli peppering her perfect teeth (of course she would be eating broccoli!), or that she somehow ends up laughing so hard that a noodle shoots out of her dainty little nostrils. (Flaw in this thinking: noodles = carbs = cannot be touched. Secondly, laughing might produce wrinkles, so it is not to be practiced too liberally by the Gorgeous Elite.)
These evil thoughts aren’t quite the same thing as skating up to Slinky and bashing her in the knee, but actions do get their start in thoughts, so one must be careful. It’s a sinful thought, just the same. And why waste your sinful thoughts on unlikely scenarios? Do you think these women even eat? They just go to restaurants to show off, ordering the most expensive, skimpiest-portioned plates. The real reason they are there is to torture the rest of us who order things according to price and net weight, seeking out that lowest per-unit price combo we are accustomed to finding under the barcodes in the grocery store.
I think restaurants should restrict the number of beautiful women allowed in at any one meal. Well, maybe that wouldn’t be fair. Even beautiful women have to pretend to eat, don’t they?
Or maybe they should separate patrons for maximum comfort – like in the old days of the smoking section. When you walk in, they might ask you, “Beautiful or Non-Beautiful?” Of course, the business-minded restaurateur will be too tactful to make a recommendation. Can you imagine, as you start lumbering into the Beautiful Section, you get a casual redirection of the elbow, “May we suggest you would feel more comfortable in the Non-Beautiful Section?”
Someone once told me that restaurants like to save their window seating to showcase the most attractive of their patrons to other would-be customers who may be ambling along the sidewalk. Somehow, I think the Subway (as much as we love that place!) storefront doesn’t count here. I’m not sure I’ve been to a restaurant fancy enough to have this strategic seating.
Does Faang Thai restaurant count? There’s plenty of window space there, but we are usually put into a long booth in the back, buffeted by an extra table and chairs. I have always consoled myself that it was due to our large family size for those special occasions when we do go out to eat. We love that place too. (Somebody, please, send me some freebie coupons!)
For me, or any other woman who has caligynephobia, this sort of window seating has an adverse effect. For example, you are happily strolling with your significant other (I don’t want to be narrow-minded here), dusting the last of the caramel corn crumbs off yourself from the latest festivity you just enjoyed. Coming across a restaurant, the aroma beckons, even though you aren’t hungry. (Remember all that junk food you just polished off at the last outdoor attraction? By the way, when food is free, I don’t count the calories, but it still does suppress the appetite all the same.) You check your watch, and discover – lo, and behold, it’s lunchtime! Of course, you must eat, because we live in America, and let it not be said that you had to skip a meal.
The aroma has practically embraced you and is enticing you in, when suddenly, to your horror, you discover a gorgeous woman, for all the world to see, laughing, posing with a platter of insubstantial, expensive food, and pretending not to be the focus of everyone’s attention. Your blood runs cold. How many other gorgeous women might be in there?
Then your significant other, checking out the menu prices (which are also in the window) is nervously calculating the damages to his wallet with all the other expenses incurred today. He’s hoping that you will remember those leftovers in the fridge, which can be consumed for free, but of course, he doesn’t dare suggest it. If you say it, that’s another matter.
It’s like when a parent bemoans the state of his or her child – that’s fine and perfectly acceptable. But let someone else add an opinion against the same loathsome child, and the very same suffering parent is guaranteed to give a self-righteous Look of Death. Was it Patrick Henry who said, “Give me Leftovers, but do not give me the Look of Death?” Your companion does not want that look from you.
In the meantime, he may or may not have even noticed this stunning creature, whose dress and shoe size you have already estimated, in addition to whether she uses depilatories, and whether the hair that is allowed to remain has been colored. “You want to eat in here?” he may innocently suggest.
Sure. You are fuming. He’s just checking out the babes. You are highly offended. You give him The Look. You suggest that there are leftovers back home anyway. He’s going to pay for this - boy, is he ever going to pay. Remember that this makes you a martyr, because it was you who bravely decided to forgo eating in a posh restaurant and suggested going home to eat microwaved leftovers of brown rice and yesterday’s stir-fry.
You are now officially entitled to have an Attitude, which means that he will have to make things up, and it’s going to cost a whole lot more than lunch. Hopefully, wherever you plan to go to compensate for this particular episode of martyrdom, there will not be any other gorgeous women to frighten (or enrage) you. And perhaps, by the time you get home, you’ll actually be hungry enough to eat those leftovers.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Happy 51+ Years, Mom & Dad
June 22nd marked the fifty-first anniversary of the day that my parents got married. One of the wonderful side benefits of having a column is that it makes gift giving so easy. I don't have to shop for people now; I can just write about them. This saves me the hassle of wandering around stores aimlessly. It also saves me money and increases the newspaper's circulation by one for the week. Hey, in this economy, that's saying something!
In the cash-strapped Indian economy of 1959, seventy-five cents would have meant something too. It's weird to think that in January of that year, Fidel Castro swept into power in Cuba, and a few months later, Mattel's Barbie Doll took the toy market by storm in the United States.
Back then, my parents were young and shy and rail-thin and awkward. My parents had the traditional, arranged Indian wedding. My mother would be turning twenty just eight days after the wedding. It seems odd to think that so soon after marriage, the stranger who is your husband will celebrate your birthday with you. But the bonds that are to be formed are with the extended family as well, not just between the individuals who are united. My mom was just nine years old when her mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 36. My grandfather never remarried, even though widowers usually did. Widows of that day, however, maintained a life of celibacy, and simplicity, almost as a form of penitence.
Perhaps one of the reasons arranged marriages have a reasonable record of survival when released into the wild is that people come into them with much fear and little expectation. It's hard to be disappointed when you expect the worst.
Like Tevye and Golde in “Fiddler on the Roof,” my parents met for the first time on their wedding day. Neither my mother nor my father had even seen photographs of each other prior to the marriage. My dad, who is seven years older than my mom, had a mustache, and my mom loathed facial hair. She says it's a good thing she hadn't seen a photo, after all.
My father is a perseverant individual who always takes things to the nth degree. He is, after all, a mathematician. For example, in school his ability to tackle math was ridiculed, so he slogged away at the subject, literally burning the midnight oil using the kerosene lamp. When he got sleepy, he would apply a little mustard oil near his eyes. (In a single generation, you can see the decline of mankind: I keep awake by eating; he kept awake by stinging his eyes.)
My father had not wanted to marry at all, but was finally persuaded because a priest had said the right girl would have a big mark of some sort. My mother had a huge scar on her arm where she had been dragged by a British Army Jeep in an accident as a child. Also, her name and his mom's names were the same: Tara. Again, you can see the decline of the human race in a single generation. When my husband and I wanted to get married, my husband told my parents that he, too, thought arranged marriages were the best, especially if he could do the arranging himself.
I'm not going to say anything here about how and when things happen in an arranged marriage. Coming from an Indian background, you have to remember that talking about sex (at least in the older, and purer generation) is taboo, even though India is home to the Kamasutra and the Khajuroa Temples.
It was months before my mom and dad actually saw much of each other face to face, but my brother was born on my mom's twenty-first birthday. My sister arrived a couple of years later, my next sister when mom was 25, and I was born two years after that.
My mom tells me that the night I was born, she had eaten too many chappatis (four) and overeaten the eggplant and potato subji at dinner. She thought initially her discomfort was from overeating, but a few hours later, I was born. My mom and dad lived in a rural area after marriage, and all of us children were home births. When I asked my mom if she wasn't nervous close to the due date of her first childbirth, she said, “Due date? Kya (what) due date?” She hadn't a clue about anything.
Ten years into their marriage, in 1969, my father flew to the United States to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics. My mother stayed behind with the four of us kids, and taught and worked on her graduate degree. Their only form of communication for three years were those thin blue aerogrammes that took ten days to cross the ocean.
Again, I reflect on the time when my husband took his current position here while I stayed behind in Ohio for six months so that our youngest could be born, the kids could finish school, our house could get sold, and we could thaw out from winter. I don't know if it was the stress or the hormones, but I wept for days as I packed things for his little “bachelor” apartment. Of course, we emailed and talked daily by cell phone. We liberally used the web cams that he had set up, and still I felt an odd silence in our house. Only then did I think about what my mother and father must have endured.
In March of 1972, my father brought us over by purchasing our airline tickets on installments on his meager graduate student stipend. He paid for those tickets monthly for years and years. My brother and sister, then 11 and 9 years old, took on paper routes in the Kentucky winter that was harsh for our Indian blood. My mother babysat for children and somehow, my parents made ends meet. I really don't know how they did it.
My mother thought she was coming to a land where people rolled in wealth. Then, jetlagged and weary from the 24-hour plane ride, where my brother lifted his feet and threw up in the airsick bag, she walked up the four flights to our new home: my father's one bedroom apartment. She rolled out chappatis with a drinking glass that my father used in lieu of a rolling pin, and found nothing much to prepare but onions.
How they have scrimped and saved and struggled over these fifty years, and stuck it out together through storms of cancer and children who would not remain true to the old ways, and reams of immigration paperwork, I do not know. But I do know that I have benefited immensely from their sacrifices. While I appreciate all they have done, I know that I will never truly understand what all their sacrifices have cost them.
Mom and Dad, Happy 51+ Years. Love, Vineeta.
In the cash-strapped Indian economy of 1959, seventy-five cents would have meant something too. It's weird to think that in January of that year, Fidel Castro swept into power in Cuba, and a few months later, Mattel's Barbie Doll took the toy market by storm in the United States.
Back then, my parents were young and shy and rail-thin and awkward. My parents had the traditional, arranged Indian wedding. My mother would be turning twenty just eight days after the wedding. It seems odd to think that so soon after marriage, the stranger who is your husband will celebrate your birthday with you. But the bonds that are to be formed are with the extended family as well, not just between the individuals who are united. My mom was just nine years old when her mother died of tuberculosis at the age of 36. My grandfather never remarried, even though widowers usually did. Widows of that day, however, maintained a life of celibacy, and simplicity, almost as a form of penitence.
Perhaps one of the reasons arranged marriages have a reasonable record of survival when released into the wild is that people come into them with much fear and little expectation. It's hard to be disappointed when you expect the worst.
Like Tevye and Golde in “Fiddler on the Roof,” my parents met for the first time on their wedding day. Neither my mother nor my father had even seen photographs of each other prior to the marriage. My dad, who is seven years older than my mom, had a mustache, and my mom loathed facial hair. She says it's a good thing she hadn't seen a photo, after all.
My father is a perseverant individual who always takes things to the nth degree. He is, after all, a mathematician. For example, in school his ability to tackle math was ridiculed, so he slogged away at the subject, literally burning the midnight oil using the kerosene lamp. When he got sleepy, he would apply a little mustard oil near his eyes. (In a single generation, you can see the decline of mankind: I keep awake by eating; he kept awake by stinging his eyes.)
My father had not wanted to marry at all, but was finally persuaded because a priest had said the right girl would have a big mark of some sort. My mother had a huge scar on her arm where she had been dragged by a British Army Jeep in an accident as a child. Also, her name and his mom's names were the same: Tara. Again, you can see the decline of the human race in a single generation. When my husband and I wanted to get married, my husband told my parents that he, too, thought arranged marriages were the best, especially if he could do the arranging himself.
I'm not going to say anything here about how and when things happen in an arranged marriage. Coming from an Indian background, you have to remember that talking about sex (at least in the older, and purer generation) is taboo, even though India is home to the Kamasutra and the Khajuroa Temples.
It was months before my mom and dad actually saw much of each other face to face, but my brother was born on my mom's twenty-first birthday. My sister arrived a couple of years later, my next sister when mom was 25, and I was born two years after that.
My mom tells me that the night I was born, she had eaten too many chappatis (four) and overeaten the eggplant and potato subji at dinner. She thought initially her discomfort was from overeating, but a few hours later, I was born. My mom and dad lived in a rural area after marriage, and all of us children were home births. When I asked my mom if she wasn't nervous close to the due date of her first childbirth, she said, “Due date? Kya (what) due date?” She hadn't a clue about anything.
Ten years into their marriage, in 1969, my father flew to the United States to pursue a graduate degree in mathematics. My mother stayed behind with the four of us kids, and taught and worked on her graduate degree. Their only form of communication for three years were those thin blue aerogrammes that took ten days to cross the ocean.
Again, I reflect on the time when my husband took his current position here while I stayed behind in Ohio for six months so that our youngest could be born, the kids could finish school, our house could get sold, and we could thaw out from winter. I don't know if it was the stress or the hormones, but I wept for days as I packed things for his little “bachelor” apartment. Of course, we emailed and talked daily by cell phone. We liberally used the web cams that he had set up, and still I felt an odd silence in our house. Only then did I think about what my mother and father must have endured.
In March of 1972, my father brought us over by purchasing our airline tickets on installments on his meager graduate student stipend. He paid for those tickets monthly for years and years. My brother and sister, then 11 and 9 years old, took on paper routes in the Kentucky winter that was harsh for our Indian blood. My mother babysat for children and somehow, my parents made ends meet. I really don't know how they did it.
My mother thought she was coming to a land where people rolled in wealth. Then, jetlagged and weary from the 24-hour plane ride, where my brother lifted his feet and threw up in the airsick bag, she walked up the four flights to our new home: my father's one bedroom apartment. She rolled out chappatis with a drinking glass that my father used in lieu of a rolling pin, and found nothing much to prepare but onions.
How they have scrimped and saved and struggled over these fifty years, and stuck it out together through storms of cancer and children who would not remain true to the old ways, and reams of immigration paperwork, I do not know. But I do know that I have benefited immensely from their sacrifices. While I appreciate all they have done, I know that I will never truly understand what all their sacrifices have cost them.
Mom and Dad, Happy 51+ Years. Love, Vineeta.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Camping is like trekking to England – Part II
Last week’s column (of course, you read it), was about how we needed every gadget under the sun to take our family tent camping in Luray last summer. Our eldest was leaving for college in a couple of weeks, and this trip was supposed to be like the “going abroad experience,” just cheaper and with more family members hanging around.
To understand the trip, you first have to analyze how we end the trip. Most people come home from an activity and unpack or just relax. Not my husband. He is one of those painfully organized people who, all the way home, is dictating the list of things that would really have improved the current experience. Don’t think that by driving separate, stuffed vehicles, you are going to escape this discussion. No. That’s why we have cell phones, or even worse, those handheld walkie-talkies that are the bane of every outing.
We have to do this on the way home, because otherwise he might forget. Never mind that our next camping trip won’t be for another four years. When it finally does happen, at least it will be more efficient.
His comments begin streaming, “We should buy a bigger shower bag. You can get them with double the insulation. We need better bungee cords to strap stuff down to the top of the car.” Or, we need to stock up on extra propane tanks. Also, there is advice on how to pack next time. “Make sure you store those picnic table clamps with the cover next time.” That was silly, how we had to waste eight minutes looking for the clamps with the tablecloth flapping our plates off. Or, he might say, “We should really buy the little shaker that combines the salt and the pepper, because that could cut down on the amount of stuff we are carrying by eliminating one shaker entirely.” There are eight of us, our dog, loads of food, tents, sleeping bags, and every gadget known to man crammed into two cars. We needed to drive both in order to haul all the specialized camping stuff. Now we need the combo shaker?
The only thing worse than getting these lists dictated to you along the way, is, God forbid, if you happen to be driving anywhere within view of a Wal-Mart or a sporting goods store. Then, we will have to stop on the way home and shop for the next, improved trip right there on the way back while the memory of what needs improvement is still raw in our minds.
The last time we had been camping, our family had had just six of us, and no dog. Immediately after that trip, we bought a ten-man tent to better accommodate us. By the time we actually opened the tent, our family had grown by 33%, not including the canine.
The ten-man tent is a bit of false advertising. It might be great for ten men, provided each one is built like a matchstick. Matchstick-Man also needs to be comfortable sleeping in an alternating head-toe pattern with the rest of the Matchstick Gang. Don’t bother mentioning foot odor, because if the Matchstick Gang has had beans and processed meat for dinner, foot odor is going to be by far the more pleasant of odors that might be wafting his way. Other issues will be far more volatile, if you get my drift. (Hopefully, when you go camping, you will not get my drift - or anyone else’s, for that matter.)
For a family of eight people, most of whom have padded proportions, however, the accommodations of the ten-man tent are a little snug. Consider that we, the padded ones, have recently been dining nonstop on hot dogs, marshmallows, and chocolate, and you will understand why the tent gets snugger as the trip goes on. By the end of our camping trip, I was beginning to wonder if our tent was missing the second level.
To my husband’s credit, he had had the sense to do a practice run on the tent in a controlled, low-pressure environment the day before. He is one of those rare individuals: prompt and organized, he thinks details through. It’s wonderful to have people like this organize an activity, unless you also happen to live with them. He had completely set up the tent in our front yard the day before our camping trip. (Fortunately, it fit there.) The younger kids, too young to be impacted by the stress of packing and preparations, squealed with delight and dashed in and out of the big, billowing tent. They reveled in its cavernous space. (Wait till we add people and pillows, Guys.)
When we rolled into the campground the next evening, the older kids spied the gigantic Yogi Bear statue (how could they not?), and looked at me and rolled their eyes. For some odd reason, I suspected they weren’t looking heavenward and thanking their lucky stars for such wonderful, family-fun loving, parents. They were praying they wouldn’t encounter anyone they knew.
As we maneuvered to our tent-site, I was relieved that my husband had taken the precautionary measure of setting up the tent at home, because we positioned our cars into the campsite just as daylight was donning her running shoes and preparing to flee. With dusk encroaching, a light but insistent drizzle began, eventually leaving us chilled-to-the-bone, even for August.
I wondered if this is what England felt like. Didn’t I say camping was almost like going to Europe?
To understand the trip, you first have to analyze how we end the trip. Most people come home from an activity and unpack or just relax. Not my husband. He is one of those painfully organized people who, all the way home, is dictating the list of things that would really have improved the current experience. Don’t think that by driving separate, stuffed vehicles, you are going to escape this discussion. No. That’s why we have cell phones, or even worse, those handheld walkie-talkies that are the bane of every outing.
We have to do this on the way home, because otherwise he might forget. Never mind that our next camping trip won’t be for another four years. When it finally does happen, at least it will be more efficient.
His comments begin streaming, “We should buy a bigger shower bag. You can get them with double the insulation. We need better bungee cords to strap stuff down to the top of the car.” Or, we need to stock up on extra propane tanks. Also, there is advice on how to pack next time. “Make sure you store those picnic table clamps with the cover next time.” That was silly, how we had to waste eight minutes looking for the clamps with the tablecloth flapping our plates off. Or, he might say, “We should really buy the little shaker that combines the salt and the pepper, because that could cut down on the amount of stuff we are carrying by eliminating one shaker entirely.” There are eight of us, our dog, loads of food, tents, sleeping bags, and every gadget known to man crammed into two cars. We needed to drive both in order to haul all the specialized camping stuff. Now we need the combo shaker?
The only thing worse than getting these lists dictated to you along the way, is, God forbid, if you happen to be driving anywhere within view of a Wal-Mart or a sporting goods store. Then, we will have to stop on the way home and shop for the next, improved trip right there on the way back while the memory of what needs improvement is still raw in our minds.
The last time we had been camping, our family had had just six of us, and no dog. Immediately after that trip, we bought a ten-man tent to better accommodate us. By the time we actually opened the tent, our family had grown by 33%, not including the canine.
The ten-man tent is a bit of false advertising. It might be great for ten men, provided each one is built like a matchstick. Matchstick-Man also needs to be comfortable sleeping in an alternating head-toe pattern with the rest of the Matchstick Gang. Don’t bother mentioning foot odor, because if the Matchstick Gang has had beans and processed meat for dinner, foot odor is going to be by far the more pleasant of odors that might be wafting his way. Other issues will be far more volatile, if you get my drift. (Hopefully, when you go camping, you will not get my drift - or anyone else’s, for that matter.)
For a family of eight people, most of whom have padded proportions, however, the accommodations of the ten-man tent are a little snug. Consider that we, the padded ones, have recently been dining nonstop on hot dogs, marshmallows, and chocolate, and you will understand why the tent gets snugger as the trip goes on. By the end of our camping trip, I was beginning to wonder if our tent was missing the second level.
To my husband’s credit, he had had the sense to do a practice run on the tent in a controlled, low-pressure environment the day before. He is one of those rare individuals: prompt and organized, he thinks details through. It’s wonderful to have people like this organize an activity, unless you also happen to live with them. He had completely set up the tent in our front yard the day before our camping trip. (Fortunately, it fit there.) The younger kids, too young to be impacted by the stress of packing and preparations, squealed with delight and dashed in and out of the big, billowing tent. They reveled in its cavernous space. (Wait till we add people and pillows, Guys.)
When we rolled into the campground the next evening, the older kids spied the gigantic Yogi Bear statue (how could they not?), and looked at me and rolled their eyes. For some odd reason, I suspected they weren’t looking heavenward and thanking their lucky stars for such wonderful, family-fun loving, parents. They were praying they wouldn’t encounter anyone they knew.
As we maneuvered to our tent-site, I was relieved that my husband had taken the precautionary measure of setting up the tent at home, because we positioned our cars into the campsite just as daylight was donning her running shoes and preparing to flee. With dusk encroaching, a light but insistent drizzle began, eventually leaving us chilled-to-the-bone, even for August.
I wondered if this is what England felt like. Didn’t I say camping was almost like going to Europe?
Monday, August 2, 2010
Camping in Luray or trekking to England – just add imagination
Most people think camping gets you close to nature and your loved ones, while allowing an escape from the daily rat race. Others see it as an expression of the pioneering American spirit. Whatever the reason, hordes of us are driven to temporarily trade hearth and home for the great, paved wilderness. We are guided by the intrinsic American urge to discover and conquer, as well as by the latest GPS navigational system. We gab away on our cell phones while the kids are surrounded by the glorious sights and sounds of nature, only it can’t penetrate their iPOD-stuffed ear canals or the latest animated “classic” DVD piped out in surround sound in the back.
Don’t be fooled by these superficially sublime reasons. The real reason anyone goes camping is to gorge on ridiculous “foods” that would never, under normal circumstances, pass for a meal. Think you can get away with serving canned pork-n-beans, roasted hot dogs, and toasted marshmallows for dinner at home? I thought not. Remove access to the refrigerator and kitchen, though, and food standards vanish. As chief cook, I love losing the standards.
Last summer, before our eldest left for college, we spent four nights camping. It was supposed to be a final all-of-us-as-a-family blast. It was somewhat like sending the new graduate to England for the summer, except you just needed to add a little imagination.
My husband, who always thinks with convenience, comfort, and security in mind, suggested we rent a cabin with a kitchenette, bathroom, and climate control. If he wanted to suffer, he points out, why did he emigrate from India to the States?
Just like yours, our children are immune to parental wisdom. They can deflect and reject any advice we give. If we were smart parents, we would say the opposite of what we want the kids to do, but we’re not that smart.
“Your father thinks we ought to rent a cabin with a kitchenette at Jellystone Park in Luray,” I told them. That sealed our fate. Immediately the children turned on us, and were convinced that the only way to go camping was in tents. I must admit, that I also defected from the parental camp. (They outnumber us, plus they’ve got the cuteness factor.)
“What good is camping if we’re just going to open up a suitcase inside of a cabin,” they queried. I agreed and added, “And what’s the point of having half of our garage clogged with camping material if we don’t use it?”
I have this weird psychology. I feel we are “losing” money if we don’t use everything we have ever purchased, and this makes de-junking very difficult. Not de-junking makes finding all of our glorious purchases a challenge, too. Tent camping, in which we could employ the maximum number of gadgets that were clogging our garage, seemed to be the morally superior choice.
Want to see gadgets? Walk the camping aisle sometime. You can effectively furnish an entire household off those gadgets alone. We have so much camping stuff that we could camp out of our own garage if we ever needed, provided we could actually find the stuff in there.
We have the camp coffee percolator and the hot shower bag, which is an oversized hot-water bottle, just tougher and blacker. You leave it in a sunny spot and suspend it from a tree before use. (I hope it’s not too much of a stretch that there might be a tree or two where you are camping.) I warn you that “hot” is a relative term. If you are Inuit (notice my ethnic sensitivity precludes the use of the offensive term “Eskimo”) and don’t mind swimming with ice cubes, good. Otherwise, this “hot” means when the water hits any part of your body that you are foolish enough to expose, you will not shriek, shrivel, and die instantly. You will just shriek and shrivel. You will gasp for air. You will be glad you chose a campsite that has hot public showers, and you will stuff the black bladder back into the garage for another day…just in case.
Don’t be fooled by these superficially sublime reasons. The real reason anyone goes camping is to gorge on ridiculous “foods” that would never, under normal circumstances, pass for a meal. Think you can get away with serving canned pork-n-beans, roasted hot dogs, and toasted marshmallows for dinner at home? I thought not. Remove access to the refrigerator and kitchen, though, and food standards vanish. As chief cook, I love losing the standards.
Last summer, before our eldest left for college, we spent four nights camping. It was supposed to be a final all-of-us-as-a-family blast. It was somewhat like sending the new graduate to England for the summer, except you just needed to add a little imagination.
My husband, who always thinks with convenience, comfort, and security in mind, suggested we rent a cabin with a kitchenette, bathroom, and climate control. If he wanted to suffer, he points out, why did he emigrate from India to the States?
Just like yours, our children are immune to parental wisdom. They can deflect and reject any advice we give. If we were smart parents, we would say the opposite of what we want the kids to do, but we’re not that smart.
“Your father thinks we ought to rent a cabin with a kitchenette at Jellystone Park in Luray,” I told them. That sealed our fate. Immediately the children turned on us, and were convinced that the only way to go camping was in tents. I must admit, that I also defected from the parental camp. (They outnumber us, plus they’ve got the cuteness factor.)
“What good is camping if we’re just going to open up a suitcase inside of a cabin,” they queried. I agreed and added, “And what’s the point of having half of our garage clogged with camping material if we don’t use it?”
I have this weird psychology. I feel we are “losing” money if we don’t use everything we have ever purchased, and this makes de-junking very difficult. Not de-junking makes finding all of our glorious purchases a challenge, too. Tent camping, in which we could employ the maximum number of gadgets that were clogging our garage, seemed to be the morally superior choice.
Want to see gadgets? Walk the camping aisle sometime. You can effectively furnish an entire household off those gadgets alone. We have so much camping stuff that we could camp out of our own garage if we ever needed, provided we could actually find the stuff in there.
We have the camp coffee percolator and the hot shower bag, which is an oversized hot-water bottle, just tougher and blacker. You leave it in a sunny spot and suspend it from a tree before use. (I hope it’s not too much of a stretch that there might be a tree or two where you are camping.) I warn you that “hot” is a relative term. If you are Inuit (notice my ethnic sensitivity precludes the use of the offensive term “Eskimo”) and don’t mind swimming with ice cubes, good. Otherwise, this “hot” means when the water hits any part of your body that you are foolish enough to expose, you will not shriek, shrivel, and die instantly. You will just shriek and shrivel. You will gasp for air. You will be glad you chose a campsite that has hot public showers, and you will stuff the black bladder back into the garage for another day…just in case.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
The Great American Road Trip
Remember when gas was over $ 4.00 a gallon, and then the price had dropped? Didn’t you feel like you had just won the lottery? What were you going to do with all that extra cash? Windfalls like this could inspire you to do something reckless, like jump into your SUV, drive to the grocery store, and not reuse your plastic bags. Or perhaps you’d commute to work and not hover just above the energy-conserving 55 mph (traffic permitting you to actually get to 55 mph first, of course). Or, it could inspire a road trip – the all-American summertime tradition.
Growing up in the States in the 70’s and 80’s, we usually had summers free for traveling to visit old friends, since my father taught college mathematics. The six of us would squeeze into the miniature Mazda station wagon meant for five. The sixth person would sometimes ride in the back, slightly hunched to accommodate the low roof, crammed in with all of our belongings in the little hatchback. Here I’m showing my age, because in that day the use of seat belts was left to the individual’s discretion, and the individual rarely shows good discretion. For example, when my father had bought our first “new” new car, a spacious olive-green Ford LTD, we (and most of the neighborhood’s kids) rode standing up in the back, because we were so excited and the roof was so high.
Both my parents were heavy-set then, although my father, at age 75, now walks up to 12 miles a day to stay fit. All the young drivers fought to drive, as that coveted position was the only spot in the car that was squish-proof. Two people shared the front passenger bucket seat and its single seat belt. We sat like conjoined twins who shared one wide pelvis, our bottoms making the letter U. If night driving was involved, we either inoculated each other with chewing gum so as not to kill our twin with that foul sticky morning breath or we each stared intently in opposite directions, just as a matter of courtesy. If you rode squished between the parents in the backseat, you also had to bear the heat, since there were only vents for the front seats. Come to think of it, I don’t think that little white Mazda had air conditioning.
Whatever other discomforts we suffered, we never experienced even ten seconds of hunger, nor did we lust as we passed billboards proclaiming the gospel of the Golden Arches or Colonel Sanders’ hospitality along the way. My mother is an excellent cook, and she always prepared complete Indian meals and snacks for the way, as she still does when my parents travel. They typically consisted of “nimki” (the closest equivalent snack would be pita chips), bhunjia (spicy potatoes or cauliflower) that is eaten wrapped in a puri (fried bread). These were all lovingly packed into those empty margarine tubs that no true Indian can ever bear to throw away. Those little white square napkins that sandwiched the stack of puris were oil soaked and turned translucent yellow upon contact. It was best to avoid the first and last puri; they suffered traces of napkin that adhered like an edible form of Velcro®.
I still love long road trips, and possibly due to my scarred upbringing (just kidding, Mom and Dad), I love to grab the driver’s spot. It is the most relaxing way to spend hours and hours, provided there is no stressful driving like being lost or negotiating your way with maniacal drivers through New York City. It's also nice to give my commuting husband a break, I think. Perhaps you think I am a wonderful and selfless person for doing almost all of the driving on long road trips, and if you do, let me know the next time you see me, and I’ll see if I don’t have a quarter or a stick of gum with which to thank you.
But my motivation is entirely selfish. By being the driver, I can avoid all the other uncomfortable places in our eight passenger all-seatbelts-are-loaded Suburban. If I sit in the front passenger seat, it is because I am too tired to drive. I then tend to doze in fits and starts, and am usually awakened as we are approaching a bifurcation in the road, with my husband urgently hissing, “I-76...do I take East or West!” Being in the front passenger seat requires me to be just as focused on the road if any navigation is required, only I don’t have control of the vehicle.
Not controlling the vehicles leaves me in the delicate position of choosing between our safety and nagging my husband. Eyeing the eleven cars piled impatiently behind him in the leftmost lane, I say, “Honey, I think the speed limit here is 65.” (This means the minimum speed everyone is driving is 70 mph, everyone except my husband, who is diligently doing 58 mph.) I have to be very tactful in releasing how much I know, because, being the scientist, he always claims that my readings, made with a surreptitious neck crane and eye strain, are fraught with parallax error and are wholly unreliable. That’s when I say we have to rely on other indicators, such as cars bunching up behind us, then whizzing by us to the right and cutting dramatically back in front of us. “Didn’t you say we have to take an exit on the left?” he’ll remind me. “Yes, but that’s not for another five miles.” So he acquiesces and moves over to the right.
At least, with the availability of Google Maps and Mapquest, navigation is not the pain it once was. I have childhood memories (when my father was the only driver in the house) of my father being lost, and refusing to pull over at any gas station and or consult the map himself. He would demand that my brother or sister, map spread desperately out in front of them, invoke some sixth sense and come up with the next navigational move. (Any kids reading this should understand that this was in ancient times; no one could whip out a cell phone to say they were lost and going to be late and be rewarded with instant help-you-out directions. You had to be convinced enough in your mind that you were a confirmed lost traveler so you could search for the nearest blue pay telephone and hope you had enough change to use it to make a long distance call. You couldn’t just whip out a credit card to pay for unexpected expenses, nor would anyone outside your area take a non-local check. You had to plan ahead with whatever cash you were going to need.)
When we wound up in some obviously residential part of town that we had never intended to be in, my father would finally stop and accost the next headbanded jogger. The man, sweating and flush-faced, would continue jogging in place while he gave directions, repeatedly, as he peered and pointed up the street we were to take to help us get out. My father would nod and repeat the instructions in his heavily accented English, his arm pointing this way and that out of the window. “So, sure, sir. Go laft, than laft, than a right. Right?” Like every child brought up in the West, we dutifully avoided eye contact with the jogger lest we die of embarrassment on the spot. As soon as my father cranked up the car window, he seemed to undergo instant amnesia, and would snap at us in Hindi to repeat what the jogger’s instructions had been. He hadn’t the slightest clue of which way to go.
Enough reminiscing; let me get back to the other places in our car to avoid on long trips. You never want to ride in the backmost seat, because, according to the three who are relegated to ride there, it is a squished and cramped existence with people hogging blankets and poking elbows. Also, some mysterious person seems to visit the back row and leave deposits of chewed gum to harden in the cup holders, because it isn’t any of my kids. Also, this mystery-person is prone to flatulence of a toxic nature. Furthermore, being “all the way in the back” cuts people off from intelligent, adult-like conversation, and they must revert to an animal-like language called “Squeaker Language,” which consists of squeaks, squawks, and shrieks, all at a very soothing, high-pitched level.
I cannot ride in the middle row as I did on the last hour of our last trip. The three-year-old, who is usually a happy car traveler in his car seat directly behind the driver’s seat, now spots me near him and begins weeping and crying and demanding that I sit next to him. Like most young children, this little lad suffers from an acute case of “momallergy.” Momallergy is a condition that makes a child who was previously playing quite happily look up, spot the mother trying to leave or just returning from some place, and makes him begin to cry hysterically. Watch at a childcare drop-off area, and you will see many momallergic kids. (Law enforcement people: don’t read the next sentence.) My fifteen-year-old daughter and I actually had to swap seats in some weird, contorted, Mobius-strip fashion while the car was in motion. His momallergy got so bad that he next demanded that I hold him. (Law enforcement people: do read this part.) Being a law-abiding citizen, I said no, and laid my head next to his in the car seat.
This landed me in the center of the middle row of seats. This is undoubtedly the worst seat in the whole car. It is called the Chief Forager’s position because all the snacks, fruits, drinks, and labeled sandwiches are kept at the feet of the car seat. Because of this, there is almost no legroom here. In addition to passing up and back all food items for all who are weary, tired, hungry, bored, or possibly sleepy at the wheel, the Chief Forager is also in charge of keeping the Young Master happily fed and occupied. Not only that, the Chief Forager is responsible for sending up and back whatever audiotape or CD we are all listening to in the car.
Listening to stories in the car - that is the chief reason that I love long road trips. It allows me to sit back, relax, put on my heated seat, and listen to a wonderful story – sometimes fiction, sometimes nonfiction. Our whole family is trapped and encapsulated together with no distractions, and we can all be absorbed in listening to some story we have checked out of the library. I won’t list them here because I’d hate to be accused of being longwinded. I can’t imagine a long car trip without a good, long story. There is absolutely nothing else to do, as long as I’m the one that’s driving. Too bad summer is almost over.
Growing up in the States in the 70’s and 80’s, we usually had summers free for traveling to visit old friends, since my father taught college mathematics. The six of us would squeeze into the miniature Mazda station wagon meant for five. The sixth person would sometimes ride in the back, slightly hunched to accommodate the low roof, crammed in with all of our belongings in the little hatchback. Here I’m showing my age, because in that day the use of seat belts was left to the individual’s discretion, and the individual rarely shows good discretion. For example, when my father had bought our first “new” new car, a spacious olive-green Ford LTD, we (and most of the neighborhood’s kids) rode standing up in the back, because we were so excited and the roof was so high.
Both my parents were heavy-set then, although my father, at age 75, now walks up to 12 miles a day to stay fit. All the young drivers fought to drive, as that coveted position was the only spot in the car that was squish-proof. Two people shared the front passenger bucket seat and its single seat belt. We sat like conjoined twins who shared one wide pelvis, our bottoms making the letter U. If night driving was involved, we either inoculated each other with chewing gum so as not to kill our twin with that foul sticky morning breath or we each stared intently in opposite directions, just as a matter of courtesy. If you rode squished between the parents in the backseat, you also had to bear the heat, since there were only vents for the front seats. Come to think of it, I don’t think that little white Mazda had air conditioning.
Whatever other discomforts we suffered, we never experienced even ten seconds of hunger, nor did we lust as we passed billboards proclaiming the gospel of the Golden Arches or Colonel Sanders’ hospitality along the way. My mother is an excellent cook, and she always prepared complete Indian meals and snacks for the way, as she still does when my parents travel. They typically consisted of “nimki” (the closest equivalent snack would be pita chips), bhunjia (spicy potatoes or cauliflower) that is eaten wrapped in a puri (fried bread). These were all lovingly packed into those empty margarine tubs that no true Indian can ever bear to throw away. Those little white square napkins that sandwiched the stack of puris were oil soaked and turned translucent yellow upon contact. It was best to avoid the first and last puri; they suffered traces of napkin that adhered like an edible form of Velcro®.
I still love long road trips, and possibly due to my scarred upbringing (just kidding, Mom and Dad), I love to grab the driver’s spot. It is the most relaxing way to spend hours and hours, provided there is no stressful driving like being lost or negotiating your way with maniacal drivers through New York City. It's also nice to give my commuting husband a break, I think. Perhaps you think I am a wonderful and selfless person for doing almost all of the driving on long road trips, and if you do, let me know the next time you see me, and I’ll see if I don’t have a quarter or a stick of gum with which to thank you.
But my motivation is entirely selfish. By being the driver, I can avoid all the other uncomfortable places in our eight passenger all-seatbelts-are-loaded Suburban. If I sit in the front passenger seat, it is because I am too tired to drive. I then tend to doze in fits and starts, and am usually awakened as we are approaching a bifurcation in the road, with my husband urgently hissing, “I-76...do I take East or West!” Being in the front passenger seat requires me to be just as focused on the road if any navigation is required, only I don’t have control of the vehicle.
Not controlling the vehicles leaves me in the delicate position of choosing between our safety and nagging my husband. Eyeing the eleven cars piled impatiently behind him in the leftmost lane, I say, “Honey, I think the speed limit here is 65.” (This means the minimum speed everyone is driving is 70 mph, everyone except my husband, who is diligently doing 58 mph.) I have to be very tactful in releasing how much I know, because, being the scientist, he always claims that my readings, made with a surreptitious neck crane and eye strain, are fraught with parallax error and are wholly unreliable. That’s when I say we have to rely on other indicators, such as cars bunching up behind us, then whizzing by us to the right and cutting dramatically back in front of us. “Didn’t you say we have to take an exit on the left?” he’ll remind me. “Yes, but that’s not for another five miles.” So he acquiesces and moves over to the right.
At least, with the availability of Google Maps and Mapquest, navigation is not the pain it once was. I have childhood memories (when my father was the only driver in the house) of my father being lost, and refusing to pull over at any gas station and or consult the map himself. He would demand that my brother or sister, map spread desperately out in front of them, invoke some sixth sense and come up with the next navigational move. (Any kids reading this should understand that this was in ancient times; no one could whip out a cell phone to say they were lost and going to be late and be rewarded with instant help-you-out directions. You had to be convinced enough in your mind that you were a confirmed lost traveler so you could search for the nearest blue pay telephone and hope you had enough change to use it to make a long distance call. You couldn’t just whip out a credit card to pay for unexpected expenses, nor would anyone outside your area take a non-local check. You had to plan ahead with whatever cash you were going to need.)
When we wound up in some obviously residential part of town that we had never intended to be in, my father would finally stop and accost the next headbanded jogger. The man, sweating and flush-faced, would continue jogging in place while he gave directions, repeatedly, as he peered and pointed up the street we were to take to help us get out. My father would nod and repeat the instructions in his heavily accented English, his arm pointing this way and that out of the window. “So, sure, sir. Go laft, than laft, than a right. Right?” Like every child brought up in the West, we dutifully avoided eye contact with the jogger lest we die of embarrassment on the spot. As soon as my father cranked up the car window, he seemed to undergo instant amnesia, and would snap at us in Hindi to repeat what the jogger’s instructions had been. He hadn’t the slightest clue of which way to go.
Enough reminiscing; let me get back to the other places in our car to avoid on long trips. You never want to ride in the backmost seat, because, according to the three who are relegated to ride there, it is a squished and cramped existence with people hogging blankets and poking elbows. Also, some mysterious person seems to visit the back row and leave deposits of chewed gum to harden in the cup holders, because it isn’t any of my kids. Also, this mystery-person is prone to flatulence of a toxic nature. Furthermore, being “all the way in the back” cuts people off from intelligent, adult-like conversation, and they must revert to an animal-like language called “Squeaker Language,” which consists of squeaks, squawks, and shrieks, all at a very soothing, high-pitched level.
I cannot ride in the middle row as I did on the last hour of our last trip. The three-year-old, who is usually a happy car traveler in his car seat directly behind the driver’s seat, now spots me near him and begins weeping and crying and demanding that I sit next to him. Like most young children, this little lad suffers from an acute case of “momallergy.” Momallergy is a condition that makes a child who was previously playing quite happily look up, spot the mother trying to leave or just returning from some place, and makes him begin to cry hysterically. Watch at a childcare drop-off area, and you will see many momallergic kids. (Law enforcement people: don’t read the next sentence.) My fifteen-year-old daughter and I actually had to swap seats in some weird, contorted, Mobius-strip fashion while the car was in motion. His momallergy got so bad that he next demanded that I hold him. (Law enforcement people: do read this part.) Being a law-abiding citizen, I said no, and laid my head next to his in the car seat.
This landed me in the center of the middle row of seats. This is undoubtedly the worst seat in the whole car. It is called the Chief Forager’s position because all the snacks, fruits, drinks, and labeled sandwiches are kept at the feet of the car seat. Because of this, there is almost no legroom here. In addition to passing up and back all food items for all who are weary, tired, hungry, bored, or possibly sleepy at the wheel, the Chief Forager is also in charge of keeping the Young Master happily fed and occupied. Not only that, the Chief Forager is responsible for sending up and back whatever audiotape or CD we are all listening to in the car.
Listening to stories in the car - that is the chief reason that I love long road trips. It allows me to sit back, relax, put on my heated seat, and listen to a wonderful story – sometimes fiction, sometimes nonfiction. Our whole family is trapped and encapsulated together with no distractions, and we can all be absorbed in listening to some story we have checked out of the library. I won’t list them here because I’d hate to be accused of being longwinded. I can’t imagine a long car trip without a good, long story. There is absolutely nothing else to do, as long as I’m the one that’s driving. Too bad summer is almost over.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Camp Ribeiro: Cure for "Those Lazy, Hazy, CrazyDays of Summer"
Nat King Cole, when he sang “Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy, days of summer…” must have meant us mothers with children out of school. My observations, made the first week of summer one year while shopping at the place that no one is supposed to admit to patronizing, but one that is mysteriously the largest retailer in the world – would concur, but in reverse order: Moms (like me) trying to get errands done – looking positively “crazy”; temperatures soaring outside (not to mention the tempers of associates besieged by numerous small shoppers inside) – definitely “hazy,” and sullen children, too old to be excited by “helping Mommy do the shopping” yet too young to be left home, listlessly dragging their feet, looking positively “lazy.”
By spring break, my kids really look forward to summer, but for some reason, when it gets here, they dread it. Summer can be a difficult time for working parents when school-aged kids are out of school. Okay, let’s admit it – it can be a difficult time for those of us who have the luxury of being at home too. When I homeschooled my children, I had little understanding of parents being overwhelmed by their own offspring in the absence of the school routine.
Suddenly, there is plenty of time opened up for kids and so many opportunities are available to them. Unfortunately, many of these “opportunities” require bussing your children about and having several loose Franklins around.
But I have a solution to your woes. It is “Camp Ribeiro” and will only cost you $50 a week per child. The class will run from whenever you would like to drop your child(ren) off and will last until you are ready to pick them up.
Here’s how it works: if you will entrust your children to me, I will help you train them to be helpful at home. But since they won’t be in your home, this learning will have to occur in mine. You won’t need to bring them anything: even their food will be included in the fee.
First thing in the morning, we start with Place Values by emptying the dishwasher. Then we walk about and pick up and put everything away. There is great Value in having everything put into Place. As mornings progress, your children will learn time management (because I myself have birthed a slackard or two who can drag this job out till midmorning), so I add a timer to ensure focused task completion and efficient use of time.
Right after the lesson on Place Values, there is a simultaneous seminar on Nourishment and the Declaration of Independence: that is, if your child can maneuver to and open the refrigerator, I Declare him/her to be Independent enough to get his/her own breakfast. Sorry, we are completely out of Pop-tarts and whatever Cookie-Candy-O’s cereal is being pushed on children’s television. Also, while your kid is at it, get something for the little ones who can’t fetch their own breakfast. That brings in our lesson on caring for others and serving one another.
Immediately following is my workshop on “Cleaning the Environment” also known as put your dishes in the sink and wipe up the table around you. Also, if you have spilled, go get the broom, gather your offerings in the dustpan, and place them in the trash. Like a game of musical chairs, if you are the one left with trash that just won’t fit into the liner, you get to empty it in the dumpster. One lucky child each morning will be chosen to do further studies by loading the beloved (but tiny) dishwasher.
Soon after come Horticulture and Early Child Development classes. For the younger ones, it translates to “time to play outside.” For others, it involves learning to identify weeds and carefully collecting these specimens by their roots, also known as weeding. Those interested in younger children can monitor their activity and possibly engage their attention with sidewalk chalk or other outdoor toys. There will be a quick Place Values refresher before we come indoors.
Then follows Hygiene, mostly having to do with washing of hands after playing outside, before eating, and after flushing. (Yes, there will be Remedial Flushing for those with severe attention deficiencies.) As a bonus, there will be Technology Training, but this will be reserved only for the keenest and most observant child(ren), and only those genetically endowed with mechanical aptitude. They will learn to put on a new roll of toilet paper when the existing supply is gone.
If it is too hot outdoors, we will stay indoors and progress to “Treasure Hunting.” This might involve emptying out the kitchen/junk drawer, wiping it down and sorting items into correct piles. As a reward, loose change can be counted and divided amongst the hunters. (See that math lesson sneaking in there?) For older children, there will be “Exploration and the Value of Open Space.” Basically, this entails opening up boxes that we still haven’t unpacked, eleven months after our move here.
Then there is my Creative Cooking class – how can we use rice/pasta/potatoes to form yet another quick but healthy lunch for a number of hungry children? We can’t figure out a new dish? This is where we combine Thankfulness with Nutrition. Whoever said “hunger is the best sauce” was not only hungry, but also never had probably never had Sriracha Hot Sauce. No, you cannot have a cookie right before lunch, and yes that will help you to be thankful when you do get lunch. A few children will be chosen for this task while others help set the table, straight out of the dutiful dishwasher, and so on and so forth.
After lunch, we rotate tasks so others have a chance to Care for the Environment while readers take small children along to read them a story. There might be a chance after that to play with toys, color or draw while we listen to a story on tape.
Who knows, if there is free time before starting supper, we might combine Apparel Care (known as folding laundry) while we (gasp) watch a TV show or movie. Just as the entertainment ends, we apply Place Values to Apparel – put away the hanging and folding.
Before you know it, the day is gone, and your children will be amazed at how little time they have had to be bored. Who knows? If this concept takes off, I might expand my services to adults. But I’m afraid that will have to wait till the end of summer. And, I might be wrong, but don’t they already have something like that…in state prison?
By spring break, my kids really look forward to summer, but for some reason, when it gets here, they dread it. Summer can be a difficult time for working parents when school-aged kids are out of school. Okay, let’s admit it – it can be a difficult time for those of us who have the luxury of being at home too. When I homeschooled my children, I had little understanding of parents being overwhelmed by their own offspring in the absence of the school routine.
Suddenly, there is plenty of time opened up for kids and so many opportunities are available to them. Unfortunately, many of these “opportunities” require bussing your children about and having several loose Franklins around.
But I have a solution to your woes. It is “Camp Ribeiro” and will only cost you $50 a week per child. The class will run from whenever you would like to drop your child(ren) off and will last until you are ready to pick them up.
Here’s how it works: if you will entrust your children to me, I will help you train them to be helpful at home. But since they won’t be in your home, this learning will have to occur in mine. You won’t need to bring them anything: even their food will be included in the fee.
First thing in the morning, we start with Place Values by emptying the dishwasher. Then we walk about and pick up and put everything away. There is great Value in having everything put into Place. As mornings progress, your children will learn time management (because I myself have birthed a slackard or two who can drag this job out till midmorning), so I add a timer to ensure focused task completion and efficient use of time.
Right after the lesson on Place Values, there is a simultaneous seminar on Nourishment and the Declaration of Independence: that is, if your child can maneuver to and open the refrigerator, I Declare him/her to be Independent enough to get his/her own breakfast. Sorry, we are completely out of Pop-tarts and whatever Cookie-Candy-O’s cereal is being pushed on children’s television. Also, while your kid is at it, get something for the little ones who can’t fetch their own breakfast. That brings in our lesson on caring for others and serving one another.
Immediately following is my workshop on “Cleaning the Environment” also known as put your dishes in the sink and wipe up the table around you. Also, if you have spilled, go get the broom, gather your offerings in the dustpan, and place them in the trash. Like a game of musical chairs, if you are the one left with trash that just won’t fit into the liner, you get to empty it in the dumpster. One lucky child each morning will be chosen to do further studies by loading the beloved (but tiny) dishwasher.
Soon after come Horticulture and Early Child Development classes. For the younger ones, it translates to “time to play outside.” For others, it involves learning to identify weeds and carefully collecting these specimens by their roots, also known as weeding. Those interested in younger children can monitor their activity and possibly engage their attention with sidewalk chalk or other outdoor toys. There will be a quick Place Values refresher before we come indoors.
Then follows Hygiene, mostly having to do with washing of hands after playing outside, before eating, and after flushing. (Yes, there will be Remedial Flushing for those with severe attention deficiencies.) As a bonus, there will be Technology Training, but this will be reserved only for the keenest and most observant child(ren), and only those genetically endowed with mechanical aptitude. They will learn to put on a new roll of toilet paper when the existing supply is gone.
If it is too hot outdoors, we will stay indoors and progress to “Treasure Hunting.” This might involve emptying out the kitchen/junk drawer, wiping it down and sorting items into correct piles. As a reward, loose change can be counted and divided amongst the hunters. (See that math lesson sneaking in there?) For older children, there will be “Exploration and the Value of Open Space.” Basically, this entails opening up boxes that we still haven’t unpacked, eleven months after our move here.
Then there is my Creative Cooking class – how can we use rice/pasta/potatoes to form yet another quick but healthy lunch for a number of hungry children? We can’t figure out a new dish? This is where we combine Thankfulness with Nutrition. Whoever said “hunger is the best sauce” was not only hungry, but also never had probably never had Sriracha Hot Sauce. No, you cannot have a cookie right before lunch, and yes that will help you to be thankful when you do get lunch. A few children will be chosen for this task while others help set the table, straight out of the dutiful dishwasher, and so on and so forth.
After lunch, we rotate tasks so others have a chance to Care for the Environment while readers take small children along to read them a story. There might be a chance after that to play with toys, color or draw while we listen to a story on tape.
Who knows, if there is free time before starting supper, we might combine Apparel Care (known as folding laundry) while we (gasp) watch a TV show or movie. Just as the entertainment ends, we apply Place Values to Apparel – put away the hanging and folding.
Before you know it, the day is gone, and your children will be amazed at how little time they have had to be bored. Who knows? If this concept takes off, I might expand my services to adults. But I’m afraid that will have to wait till the end of summer. And, I might be wrong, but don’t they already have something like that…in state prison?
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Grandma Strikes Back
“I see you finally found your mommy,” the lady cooed to my youngest when she saw me washing his hands in the restroom. He had been crying for me earlier on the campus where I was checking on some things. My friend was entertaining him, and although he is so fond of her that he plans to “marry Miss Rose,” he still suffered (or made me suffer) from separation anxiety. The lady in the restroom now recognized him as the owner of the wailing lungs. Then she paused to re-examine my face.
Whenever strangers stop to look at me, I become fearful or vain. Self-conscious that I might have spinach (or realistically, candy) lodged somewhere in my teeth, I shut off my crooked-teeth exposing smile and looked down to discreetly perform the tongue-as-a-toothpick probe. Feeling safe in this regard, I allowed a small and sad thought to enter my small and sad mind. Dare I think it? Did this lady recognize me from this column? Sometimes people do, and are kind enough to stop me and say so.
But I had little to fear here. The main advantage of being published in a family hometown newspaper is that you can continue to be just as anonymous as you might have ever hoped to be. The cooing lady halted and checked herself after conducting her facial cross-examination. She addressed my son again, “Oh, or is it Grandma that you found?”
Grandma? Grandma??!!! Too bad “Grandma” wasn’t equipped with her walking stick, or she might have executed a few deft, eyesight-improving maneuvers. Too bad Grandma was showing additional signs of aging and was too slow to retort with, “Oh, I’m not his grandmother, but thank you for the compliment. I’m actually his great-great-great-grandmother, arrived here fresh from the crypt.”
I realize that at 42 then, it is conceivable (pun intended) that I might be a grandmother. A young mom of 21 whose child repeats the feat, could very easily be a grandmother. And being an “older mom,” I should be used to comments like this.
I was 23 when my eldest was born, but after all, I was 38 when my last child was born. A few years before that, when I was 35 and expecting my fifth child, I had noticed an “AMA” stamp on my chart at the ob-gyn office. I might have been flattered to be included in the American Medical Association by virtue of being an experienced mother. Remember those old cough-syrup commercials that had taught us to appreciate the value of “Dr. Mom” with her maternal, medical wisdom and her keen ability to select the appropriate cough syrup?
But alas, AMA is no compliment. It is a red flag to alert medical personnel that the woman this chart represents is risking childbirth in spite of her Advanced Maternal Age. My nurse-midwife, in the initial interview, had asked, “Have you had a change of sexual partners?” No. “Are you now, or have you recently been using drugs or other illegal substances?” No. “Alcohol?” Again, the answer is no.
I’m sorry to disappoint people, but my life is just not that exciting. If I go to the grocery store and can actually find and use a coupon to save a dollar, that’s excitement. Getting a “real” handwritten piece of mail in the daily deluge of bills that pepper our junk mail, that’s excitement. If someone else changes a roll of toilet paper in the house, then that’s excitement, bordering on delirium. Getting my 3-½-year-old (who still wears 2T clothing) to actually eat a complete meal – that’s just about as giddy as my life ever gets.
Whether I seem young or middle-aged or incredibly old to you will depend on your vantage point on the great number line of life by which we define our time-strapped selves. It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me what my age is, because as long as you’re in circulation on Earth, I figure, you have to land somewhere on the number line. I must admit to paying closer attention to obituaries nowadays. If I may borrow the words of Arundhati Roy, the 1997 Booker Prize-winning Indian author of The God of Small Things, being 42 is like “Thirty-one. Not old. Not young. But a viable, die-able age.”
There are people whose every hope for happiness hangs on a number. What’s my age? What’s my salary? What’s my GPA and class rank? What’s my weight? What’s my car’s mileage? What’s my SAT score? What’s my credit score? How many kids do I have? How much money is (oops, was) my retirement account worth? I would like to pretend that numbers don’t really matter that much to me, because I know the One who holds my life in His hands. But in spite of that, I haven’t been able to achieve that state of sublime philosophical detachment from the numbers that shape and quantify my life.
So the other day, when I stepped out of my car and caught sight of a puffy-faced, middle-aged woman, it bothered me to recognize it as my own reflection. I don’t mind being 42, but I don’t necessarily want to be instantly pegged as being 42, if not older, as Ms. Grandma-Detector seemed to have done.
Fear and vanity are not only the pathetic plight of the middle-aged woman, they are the basis of a booming, billion-dollar industry of make-up, weight loss, tooth-whitening, de-wrinkling and cellulite-defeating agents. According to James M. Rubenstein in An Introduction to Human Geography (the textbook for an online course that I took through NOVA- Northern Virginia Community College), the United Nations reported that “Americans spend more per year on cosmetics ($8 billion) than the cost of providing schools for the 2 billion in the world in need of them ($6 billion), and Europeans spend more on ice cream ($11 billion) than the cost of providing a working toilet to the 2 billion people currently without one at home ($9 billion).” A sad and sobering thought, is it not?
So what’s the lesson in all this? To rise above self-absorption and not worry what I look like? At this age, apparently, the three B’s of basic hygiene (bathing, brushing teeth, and brushing hair) just don’t seem to cut it. Or is it to never venture out in public without eye make-up? On any given day, it depends on my resolve and my mood. Either way, though, I’m definitely going to look into that walking stick.
Whenever strangers stop to look at me, I become fearful or vain. Self-conscious that I might have spinach (or realistically, candy) lodged somewhere in my teeth, I shut off my crooked-teeth exposing smile and looked down to discreetly perform the tongue-as-a-toothpick probe. Feeling safe in this regard, I allowed a small and sad thought to enter my small and sad mind. Dare I think it? Did this lady recognize me from this column? Sometimes people do, and are kind enough to stop me and say so.
But I had little to fear here. The main advantage of being published in a family hometown newspaper is that you can continue to be just as anonymous as you might have ever hoped to be. The cooing lady halted and checked herself after conducting her facial cross-examination. She addressed my son again, “Oh, or is it Grandma that you found?”
Grandma? Grandma??!!! Too bad “Grandma” wasn’t equipped with her walking stick, or she might have executed a few deft, eyesight-improving maneuvers. Too bad Grandma was showing additional signs of aging and was too slow to retort with, “Oh, I’m not his grandmother, but thank you for the compliment. I’m actually his great-great-great-grandmother, arrived here fresh from the crypt.”
I realize that at 42 then, it is conceivable (pun intended) that I might be a grandmother. A young mom of 21 whose child repeats the feat, could very easily be a grandmother. And being an “older mom,” I should be used to comments like this.
I was 23 when my eldest was born, but after all, I was 38 when my last child was born. A few years before that, when I was 35 and expecting my fifth child, I had noticed an “AMA” stamp on my chart at the ob-gyn office. I might have been flattered to be included in the American Medical Association by virtue of being an experienced mother. Remember those old cough-syrup commercials that had taught us to appreciate the value of “Dr. Mom” with her maternal, medical wisdom and her keen ability to select the appropriate cough syrup?
But alas, AMA is no compliment. It is a red flag to alert medical personnel that the woman this chart represents is risking childbirth in spite of her Advanced Maternal Age. My nurse-midwife, in the initial interview, had asked, “Have you had a change of sexual partners?” No. “Are you now, or have you recently been using drugs or other illegal substances?” No. “Alcohol?” Again, the answer is no.
I’m sorry to disappoint people, but my life is just not that exciting. If I go to the grocery store and can actually find and use a coupon to save a dollar, that’s excitement. Getting a “real” handwritten piece of mail in the daily deluge of bills that pepper our junk mail, that’s excitement. If someone else changes a roll of toilet paper in the house, then that’s excitement, bordering on delirium. Getting my 3-½-year-old (who still wears 2T clothing) to actually eat a complete meal – that’s just about as giddy as my life ever gets.
Whether I seem young or middle-aged or incredibly old to you will depend on your vantage point on the great number line of life by which we define our time-strapped selves. It doesn’t matter one way or the other to me what my age is, because as long as you’re in circulation on Earth, I figure, you have to land somewhere on the number line. I must admit to paying closer attention to obituaries nowadays. If I may borrow the words of Arundhati Roy, the 1997 Booker Prize-winning Indian author of The God of Small Things, being 42 is like “Thirty-one. Not old. Not young. But a viable, die-able age.”
There are people whose every hope for happiness hangs on a number. What’s my age? What’s my salary? What’s my GPA and class rank? What’s my weight? What’s my car’s mileage? What’s my SAT score? What’s my credit score? How many kids do I have? How much money is (oops, was) my retirement account worth? I would like to pretend that numbers don’t really matter that much to me, because I know the One who holds my life in His hands. But in spite of that, I haven’t been able to achieve that state of sublime philosophical detachment from the numbers that shape and quantify my life.
So the other day, when I stepped out of my car and caught sight of a puffy-faced, middle-aged woman, it bothered me to recognize it as my own reflection. I don’t mind being 42, but I don’t necessarily want to be instantly pegged as being 42, if not older, as Ms. Grandma-Detector seemed to have done.
Fear and vanity are not only the pathetic plight of the middle-aged woman, they are the basis of a booming, billion-dollar industry of make-up, weight loss, tooth-whitening, de-wrinkling and cellulite-defeating agents. According to James M. Rubenstein in An Introduction to Human Geography (the textbook for an online course that I took through NOVA- Northern Virginia Community College), the United Nations reported that “Americans spend more per year on cosmetics ($8 billion) than the cost of providing schools for the 2 billion in the world in need of them ($6 billion), and Europeans spend more on ice cream ($11 billion) than the cost of providing a working toilet to the 2 billion people currently without one at home ($9 billion).” A sad and sobering thought, is it not?
So what’s the lesson in all this? To rise above self-absorption and not worry what I look like? At this age, apparently, the three B’s of basic hygiene (bathing, brushing teeth, and brushing hair) just don’t seem to cut it. Or is it to never venture out in public without eye make-up? On any given day, it depends on my resolve and my mood. Either way, though, I’m definitely going to look into that walking stick.
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