It's the deodorant that really gets to me.
As I've mentioned, both boys are home for the summer. I come home and every kitchen cabinet door is open, dirty dishes clutter the counter, greasy pots and pans crowd the stovetop, the toilet stands unflushed, impossibly gargantuan shoes litter all the rooms, wet towels wind their way through the hallway, and seed pods cover the sofa (Hugh is addicted to sunflower seeds; it's like living with a Really Big Squirrel).
I cope. Barely.
And then, there sits the deodorant stick. Atop the coffee table. Perched on my laptop. Nestled amidst the kitty bowls.
And I totally lose it.
I mean, who are these creatures? Why can't they perform their ablutions in the bathroom, like normal people? Why must they wander around the house with deodorant? Geez louise. Didn't their mother teach them anything?
Dang.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Laundry; or, Things Happen
I'm not proud of much in my parenting career, but I do feel quite chuffed about one achievement: I taught both boys, once they reached middle school, to do their own laundry. Lights versus darks, hot versus cold, gentle versus permanent press versus heavy duty. . . we covered the lot. There were a few blips along the way, like the time Owen ran out to stop me before I backed out of the driveway to ask if it was ok to put a shirt with buttons in the wash. (God, he was so adorable.) But, blips and all, I released them, to discover the woes of shrinkage and the mysteries of lost socks and the horror of dye seepage all on their own.
So now they're both home for the summer. And they continue to do their own laundry. And, to my horror, they do not Separate. Completely ignoring all my carefully inculcated lessons, they just throw all their whites and darks, towels and cotton shirts, jeans and undies, all together in one big undifferentiated mass. "What's the point?" they ask. "It all goes on cold--regular," they point out. "It's fine," they insist.
And it is fine. They're not walking around in pink undershirts or weirdly bleached jeans or horribly shrunk tee-shirts.
Except it's not fine. One cannot not Separate laundry. There are Rules. Whites do not float promiscuously with Darks; undies do not spin with dress shirts; sheets must not fraternize with khaki shorts. Consequences will ensue. Catastrophe looms. You start mixing socks with delicates and, well, Things Will Happen.
The thing is, my boys aren't afraid of Things Happening.
So much to learn. And, with my 52nd birthday lurking just ahead, so little time. I'm going to start tomorrow morning by throwing in my white blouse with my blue jeans. And so it begins. Laundry and a life where Things Happen.
So now they're both home for the summer. And they continue to do their own laundry. And, to my horror, they do not Separate. Completely ignoring all my carefully inculcated lessons, they just throw all their whites and darks, towels and cotton shirts, jeans and undies, all together in one big undifferentiated mass. "What's the point?" they ask. "It all goes on cold--regular," they point out. "It's fine," they insist.
And it is fine. They're not walking around in pink undershirts or weirdly bleached jeans or horribly shrunk tee-shirts.
Except it's not fine. One cannot not Separate laundry. There are Rules. Whites do not float promiscuously with Darks; undies do not spin with dress shirts; sheets must not fraternize with khaki shorts. Consequences will ensue. Catastrophe looms. You start mixing socks with delicates and, well, Things Will Happen.
The thing is, my boys aren't afraid of Things Happening.
So much to learn. And, with my 52nd birthday lurking just ahead, so little time. I'm going to start tomorrow morning by throwing in my white blouse with my blue jeans. And so it begins. Laundry and a life where Things Happen.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Jubilee
My apologies, blogovians. I have been bad. Blame my kids. (There's no actual reason to blame them, no empirical data, so to speak, but blaming the kids is my default mode. It works.)
Anyway, I'm back. A bit worn out, however, from celebrating the Queen's Jubilee yesterday. What Queen, you ask? As did the lovely little girl behind the counter at Baum's Bakery. "THE Queen," I replied. "You know, Queen Elizabeth. She's been on the throne for 60 years!" The little girl was so impressed. "That is so cool! So, how do you celebrate a Queen's Jubilee?"
Silly girl. You eat cake. A $40 Baum's Half Lemon/ Half Chocolate Dobasch Cake (http://www.baumspastries.com/index.php/cakes/specialty-cakes/dobasch-half-and-half.html) which, I'll admit, looks a bit wonky on the website photo but is ecstasy encapsulated in six layers of delicate, moist cake, enfolded by delectable lashings of buttercream and fondant. And then you get the star-struck, lovely, silly girl to write "God Save the Queen" on it. And you combine it with a sandwich and salad buffet and a very last-minute gathering of somewhat mystified Baton Rougeans, and you watch BBC-America with the sound turned off so that you can all shout out questions like, "Good lord, who is that woman?" and "Wait, who sucked who's toes?", and you mix in lots of champagne, and there you have it. A respectable Queen's Jubilee celebration.
But not the best we've done, actually. Ten years ago we were living in Manchester and 7-year-old Hugh's primary school marked the occasion of Elizabeth's 50-year anniversary on the throne with a "garden party." Completely bowled over by the event, Hugh came home from school that Friday afternoon and--unbeknownst to us--invited all our neighbors on the street to a Garden Party that evening. Somehow, we got wind of the plans and were able to convince him to walk round and change the invitations to Saturday afternoon. Keith and I figured most of the neighbors would not come; the few who did, we were sure, would show up, smile fondly at Hugh, eat a small piece of cake, wink at us, and head home five minutes later. So the next morning I toddled down to the local bake shop and picked up a couple of small "Jubilee" cakes--simple single layer sponge cakes with fondant icing and a picture of the queen. We chilled a bottle of wine and made a pot of tea, and set aside 30 minutes.
That afternoon the neighbors poured in, all of them thrilled to be invited and massively ashamed that it took "the Americans" to whip Grange Avenue into shape and make sure that we observed the Jubilee properly. Gobsmacked, Keith and I ransacked the cupboards and fridge for snacks, party food, anything edible, really, and after our embarrassingly substantial wine and beer collection was completely drained dry, the neighbors began making periodic forays to their own kitchens to restock the liquor supply. By the end of that long, glorious, sunny, booze-soaked, cake-filled, amazing afternoon, we felt like we were honorable members of the British tribe. We moved to the U.S. just a month later--and coming back to Louisiana, in many ways we felt like ex-pats, far from home.
So, Happy Jubilee, Liz, old gel. God save you, luv. You've been good to us.
Anyway, I'm back. A bit worn out, however, from celebrating the Queen's Jubilee yesterday. What Queen, you ask? As did the lovely little girl behind the counter at Baum's Bakery. "THE Queen," I replied. "You know, Queen Elizabeth. She's been on the throne for 60 years!" The little girl was so impressed. "That is so cool! So, how do you celebrate a Queen's Jubilee?"
Silly girl. You eat cake. A $40 Baum's Half Lemon/ Half Chocolate Dobasch Cake (http://www.baumspastries.com/index.php/cakes/specialty-cakes/dobasch-half-and-half.html) which, I'll admit, looks a bit wonky on the website photo but is ecstasy encapsulated in six layers of delicate, moist cake, enfolded by delectable lashings of buttercream and fondant. And then you get the star-struck, lovely, silly girl to write "God Save the Queen" on it. And you combine it with a sandwich and salad buffet and a very last-minute gathering of somewhat mystified Baton Rougeans, and you watch BBC-America with the sound turned off so that you can all shout out questions like, "Good lord, who is that woman?" and "Wait, who sucked who's toes?", and you mix in lots of champagne, and there you have it. A respectable Queen's Jubilee celebration.
But not the best we've done, actually. Ten years ago we were living in Manchester and 7-year-old Hugh's primary school marked the occasion of Elizabeth's 50-year anniversary on the throne with a "garden party." Completely bowled over by the event, Hugh came home from school that Friday afternoon and--unbeknownst to us--invited all our neighbors on the street to a Garden Party that evening. Somehow, we got wind of the plans and were able to convince him to walk round and change the invitations to Saturday afternoon. Keith and I figured most of the neighbors would not come; the few who did, we were sure, would show up, smile fondly at Hugh, eat a small piece of cake, wink at us, and head home five minutes later. So the next morning I toddled down to the local bake shop and picked up a couple of small "Jubilee" cakes--simple single layer sponge cakes with fondant icing and a picture of the queen. We chilled a bottle of wine and made a pot of tea, and set aside 30 minutes.
That afternoon the neighbors poured in, all of them thrilled to be invited and massively ashamed that it took "the Americans" to whip Grange Avenue into shape and make sure that we observed the Jubilee properly. Gobsmacked, Keith and I ransacked the cupboards and fridge for snacks, party food, anything edible, really, and after our embarrassingly substantial wine and beer collection was completely drained dry, the neighbors began making periodic forays to their own kitchens to restock the liquor supply. By the end of that long, glorious, sunny, booze-soaked, cake-filled, amazing afternoon, we felt like we were honorable members of the British tribe. We moved to the U.S. just a month later--and coming back to Louisiana, in many ways we felt like ex-pats, far from home.
So, Happy Jubilee, Liz, old gel. God save you, luv. You've been good to us.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
Ebbs and Flows
The ebbs and flows of marriage fascinate me. You'd think, after almost 22 years of married life, that we'd settle into some sort of stasis, no more ebbing and flowing, just you know, a pond that sort of sits there, quiet, with barely a ripple on the surface--except without the algae and moldy odor that that implies. Or maybe that we would sort of drift along gently like the inner tubes in those quiet water park rides, the ones that carry you softly along a well-defined path, far from the screaming of the water slides and wave pool. But no, life keeps doing its thing and so we change and the marriage changes too. To demonstrate:
As a result of my botched foot operation two Christmases ago, I can now no longer walk very far without a certain amount of pain. Sometimes walking even just a wee bit, like the distance from the bedroom to the kitchen, poses great difficulties. Foot pain, I have discovered, makes a daily aerobics workout rather tough. Running, jogging, walking, and even doing the elliptical at the Y have all become distinctly problematic. And, because the pain slices through the ball of my foot, the exact region that presses down on the pedal of a bike, bicycling does not offer much of an option. I could swim, I suppose, that is, if I could swim as opposed to doggy paddling rather ineffectually.
Anyway, the point is, while I sit with dicey foot (and sit and sit and sit and. . . .), Keith continues to pursue his somewhat fanatical "dammit I may be about to turn 60 but that doesn't mean I have to be fat" program: vigorous basketball and tennis several times a week, supplemented by running, walking, and weight-lifting. He's never been in better shape. It's great--he's thin and hard and energetic. But it's the matter of timing. We both get home around 6 or so. He then goes off to do his sporty exercisey fitnessy stuff. I, tired and starving, pour a glass of wine and pull out a box of Triscuits. A couple hours later, he returns, all sweaty and virtuous and healthy, whereas I, by that point, well, I'm slightly (or, depending on the day, totally) looped, as well as saturated with salt.
It's not a winning combination. In the ebbs and flows of married life, it's definitely on the ebb side. One does not like feeling sloshed and salty and soft. One then tends to take one's feelings of inadequacy out on one's sweaty and virtuous husband. And then one has another glass of wine, followed by something involving saturated fat and sugar in vast quantities. And thus, in the ebb and flow of marriage, one ends up not only ebbing but in fact stuck in the noisome mud of a trash-strewn bank while scaly creatures bite and tear at one's limbs and large flying insects lay their eggs in one's eyeballs.
Maybe a return to yoga is in order.
As a result of my botched foot operation two Christmases ago, I can now no longer walk very far without a certain amount of pain. Sometimes walking even just a wee bit, like the distance from the bedroom to the kitchen, poses great difficulties. Foot pain, I have discovered, makes a daily aerobics workout rather tough. Running, jogging, walking, and even doing the elliptical at the Y have all become distinctly problematic. And, because the pain slices through the ball of my foot, the exact region that presses down on the pedal of a bike, bicycling does not offer much of an option. I could swim, I suppose, that is, if I could swim as opposed to doggy paddling rather ineffectually.
Anyway, the point is, while I sit with dicey foot (and sit and sit and sit and. . . .), Keith continues to pursue his somewhat fanatical "dammit I may be about to turn 60 but that doesn't mean I have to be fat" program: vigorous basketball and tennis several times a week, supplemented by running, walking, and weight-lifting. He's never been in better shape. It's great--he's thin and hard and energetic. But it's the matter of timing. We both get home around 6 or so. He then goes off to do his sporty exercisey fitnessy stuff. I, tired and starving, pour a glass of wine and pull out a box of Triscuits. A couple hours later, he returns, all sweaty and virtuous and healthy, whereas I, by that point, well, I'm slightly (or, depending on the day, totally) looped, as well as saturated with salt.
It's not a winning combination. In the ebbs and flows of married life, it's definitely on the ebb side. One does not like feeling sloshed and salty and soft. One then tends to take one's feelings of inadequacy out on one's sweaty and virtuous husband. And then one has another glass of wine, followed by something involving saturated fat and sugar in vast quantities. And thus, in the ebb and flow of marriage, one ends up not only ebbing but in fact stuck in the noisome mud of a trash-strewn bank while scaly creatures bite and tear at one's limbs and large flying insects lay their eggs in one's eyeballs.
Maybe a return to yoga is in order.
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Off the Recommended Path
Grades posted. Another semester finished. Done and dusted.
Another graduating senior failed. Sigh. She's no longer graduating, I'm afraid.
Before I became a professor, I thought that teachers/instructors/professors probably got a kick out of failing students. All that power, you know. The flick of the whip. The assertion of authority. But it's not like that. Listen, you slackers, we agonize; we really do. Why, I'm not sure. You don't show up for class for weeks on end, you blow off most of the reading response assignments, you don't hand in the major paper, you never come to my office hours, you score a 43/100 on your final exam. Did you really think you were going to pass this course? Why? GoodGodinHeaven, WHY? Because you're a graduating senior? Because you figured. . . what? See, here I am asking these questions, whereas you, well, you're not, are you? Although honestly, why should you? Success or failure in "20th-Century European History" won't determine your life's course, tho' it probably does mean that your mom will insist you send back those graduation checks. (Even if she doesn't, you should. Really.)
It amazes me that students can and do fail with monotonous regularity, given the incredible resources that the university pours into making sure that doesn't happen--counselors and special coaching sessions and free tutoring and vigilant R.A.s and streams of emails and legions of support services and a downright fascist approach to course scheduling that involves "Recommended Paths" ("Recommended" is a euphemism for "Absolutely Mandatory") and "critical courses" (woe betide the student who fails to take the "critical courses" demanded by the Recommended Path at the "recommended" times: such a failure results in [quoting from the catalog here] "mandatory removal from the program"). Nope, no chance for the aimless or curious or misguided or just plain independent student to fuck up without the university knowing about it and marshalling its resources to rope said student back on the Recommended Path. And yet, even with all these guideposts and Big Brother accommodations, students somehow fail.
A remarkable triumph of the will, when you think about it.
OK, hats off to you, you slackers. Go for it. Diverge from the Recommended Path; choose (dare one say it) the Road Less Traveled. Maybe by failing you're succeeding.
Just don't you dare complain to me about your grade.
Another graduating senior failed. Sigh. She's no longer graduating, I'm afraid.
Before I became a professor, I thought that teachers/instructors/professors probably got a kick out of failing students. All that power, you know. The flick of the whip. The assertion of authority. But it's not like that. Listen, you slackers, we agonize; we really do. Why, I'm not sure. You don't show up for class for weeks on end, you blow off most of the reading response assignments, you don't hand in the major paper, you never come to my office hours, you score a 43/100 on your final exam. Did you really think you were going to pass this course? Why? GoodGodinHeaven, WHY? Because you're a graduating senior? Because you figured. . . what? See, here I am asking these questions, whereas you, well, you're not, are you? Although honestly, why should you? Success or failure in "20th-Century European History" won't determine your life's course, tho' it probably does mean that your mom will insist you send back those graduation checks. (Even if she doesn't, you should. Really.)
It amazes me that students can and do fail with monotonous regularity, given the incredible resources that the university pours into making sure that doesn't happen--counselors and special coaching sessions and free tutoring and vigilant R.A.s and streams of emails and legions of support services and a downright fascist approach to course scheduling that involves "Recommended Paths" ("Recommended" is a euphemism for "Absolutely Mandatory") and "critical courses" (woe betide the student who fails to take the "critical courses" demanded by the Recommended Path at the "recommended" times: such a failure results in [quoting from the catalog here] "mandatory removal from the program"). Nope, no chance for the aimless or curious or misguided or just plain independent student to fuck up without the university knowing about it and marshalling its resources to rope said student back on the Recommended Path. And yet, even with all these guideposts and Big Brother accommodations, students somehow fail.
A remarkable triumph of the will, when you think about it.
OK, hats off to you, you slackers. Go for it. Diverge from the Recommended Path; choose (dare one say it) the Road Less Traveled. Maybe by failing you're succeeding.
Just don't you dare complain to me about your grade.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Ick
Marple the Kitty has tapeworms, Cleaning Sarah informed me when I got home today.
"They were all over the chair, you know, the rocking chair that he sits in."
I'm confused. "But, how in the world, I mean, I thought tapeworms showed up in poop."
Cleaning Sarah is embarrassed. She doesn't like discussing bodily functions. Too much cleaning of other folks' toilets, I imagine. "Well, yeah, but you know, they crawl out of, well, you know, down there. . ."
Oh good lord.
Ick.
So in less than one week we've got Kitty Wimsey crapping in our bed, Ol' Dog Rowan vomiting twelve times one morning before I left for work and another five times after, and now feline tapeworms.
I'm thinking maybe a goldfish.
Maybe not. I remember goldfishes. We had a series of them, plus beta fish, when the boys were little. You start with all that enthusiasm, a fresh bowl, a little filter, a couple of plastic plants and a castle, plus the fish. You end up with lots of slime, a horrible odor, and a dead fish. Which was the whole point of it all, from Hugh's perspective. He loved our fish funerals. He never actually actively killed a fish, but he certainly thought they were far more interesting dead than alive. Of course, he had a point.
So maybe hamsters. We had a successful run of hamsters when we lived in England. Cute, containable, fairly cheap. You put the little guy in a ball and watch him run around--a couple of glasses of wine and hey, it's like you're at the Olympics. But you have to remember to put him back in his cage, or you'll find one really traumatized hamster and a plastic ball filled with hamster pee and little hamster feces, stuck behind the sofa late one Saturday afternoon.
So maybe not hamsters. Can't remember basic things these days, let alone hamster balls.
Maybe menopausal women and pets are a bad combo. Like menopausal women and teenaged sons. And menopausal women and husbands. And menopausal women and work colleagues. And menopausal women and neighbors. And menopausal women and telephone survey takers. And menopausal women and pizza delivery guys. And menopausal women and supermarket checkout clerks. . . .
Maybe the isolation ward. I hear the drugs are really good.
"They were all over the chair, you know, the rocking chair that he sits in."
I'm confused. "But, how in the world, I mean, I thought tapeworms showed up in poop."
Cleaning Sarah is embarrassed. She doesn't like discussing bodily functions. Too much cleaning of other folks' toilets, I imagine. "Well, yeah, but you know, they crawl out of, well, you know, down there. . ."
Oh good lord.
Ick.
So in less than one week we've got Kitty Wimsey crapping in our bed, Ol' Dog Rowan vomiting twelve times one morning before I left for work and another five times after, and now feline tapeworms.
I'm thinking maybe a goldfish.
Maybe not. I remember goldfishes. We had a series of them, plus beta fish, when the boys were little. You start with all that enthusiasm, a fresh bowl, a little filter, a couple of plastic plants and a castle, plus the fish. You end up with lots of slime, a horrible odor, and a dead fish. Which was the whole point of it all, from Hugh's perspective. He loved our fish funerals. He never actually actively killed a fish, but he certainly thought they were far more interesting dead than alive. Of course, he had a point.
So maybe hamsters. We had a successful run of hamsters when we lived in England. Cute, containable, fairly cheap. You put the little guy in a ball and watch him run around--a couple of glasses of wine and hey, it's like you're at the Olympics. But you have to remember to put him back in his cage, or you'll find one really traumatized hamster and a plastic ball filled with hamster pee and little hamster feces, stuck behind the sofa late one Saturday afternoon.
So maybe not hamsters. Can't remember basic things these days, let alone hamster balls.
Maybe menopausal women and pets are a bad combo. Like menopausal women and teenaged sons. And menopausal women and husbands. And menopausal women and work colleagues. And menopausal women and neighbors. And menopausal women and telephone survey takers. And menopausal women and pizza delivery guys. And menopausal women and supermarket checkout clerks. . . .
Maybe the isolation ward. I hear the drugs are really good.
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Revenge
In the chaos following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, looters specifically targeted Royal Street in the French Quarter. Although just a quick walk from the drunken frat boys, sad strip shows, and tacky bars of Bourbon Street, Royal's high-end antique shops epitomize a world of luxury and elegance and privilege that most of us can only gawp at. After Lake Pontchartrain overtopped the levees, then, and before the National Guard descended to restore a highly racialized version of "law and order," looters descended on Royal Street. They broke the plate-glass windows, smashed all those Regency chairs and Louis Quinze tables and Delft china sets, spray-painted the walls, and then, in shop after shop after shop, defecated in the cash registers.
I had thought that out of all the animal species, only human beings were capable of actions of such symbolic and substantive fury.
I underestimated my cats.
We've had friends from Britain come to stay, and because one of the group has severe cat allergies, we boarded out the kitties. When I picked up our two cats from Petz Plaza yesterday morning, I knew they were miffed, but by the evening, they seemed happy; I assumed all was forgiven. Until the wee hours of this morning, when one of the cats (aided and abetted, I am sure, by the other), jumped on the bed--our bed, the bed containing both of us, the bed in which we were sleeping--and left us a steaming pile of shit.
Message received.
I had thought that out of all the animal species, only human beings were capable of actions of such symbolic and substantive fury.
I underestimated my cats.
We've had friends from Britain come to stay, and because one of the group has severe cat allergies, we boarded out the kitties. When I picked up our two cats from Petz Plaza yesterday morning, I knew they were miffed, but by the evening, they seemed happy; I assumed all was forgiven. Until the wee hours of this morning, when one of the cats (aided and abetted, I am sure, by the other), jumped on the bed--our bed, the bed containing both of us, the bed in which we were sleeping--and left us a steaming pile of shit.
Message received.
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