I'm Hawkeye, of course

"Crash"...or...Betty Becomes a Movie Critic

I saw “Crash” last night. What an amazing movie. I am still absorbing it. I make it a point, every year, to see all the movies nominated for best picture. I want to be an informed viewer of the Academy Awards. They never pick my favorite, but it doesn’t matter. At least, having seen the movies, I have an opinion. This Crash movie has got to be up there with the nominees this year. It was awesome. Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Matt Damon. I gasped in surprise more than once. I sat on the edge of my seat. I laughed out loud, recognizing my own irrational fears. I chanted quietly, “Do the right thing, do the right thing.” I cared deeply about the characters in the movie and was moved to tears at one point. The makers of this movie were exceptional in making the viewers love, hate, love and hate the different characters, vacillating our emotions from one scene to the next. How apropos for real life. Don’t we all go back and forth with our friends, our lovers, our children, our co-workers?

I will take my oldest two sons to see this movie. It examines prejudice in a way that I have never seen so effectively done. At one point, I turned to my date and said, “Makes me ashamed to be any color.” And it did. I was ashamed of the whites, I was ashamed of the blacks, I was ashamed of the Arabics, I was ashamed of the Asians….and by the time the movie was over, I was in love with the humanity that we all share, that the movie did such a beautiful job of portraying.

I saw Crash with a beautiful African American man. Ordinarily, it would seem superfluous to mention the color of my date, although, to be honest, it was my first real date with a man of color. Neither of us had any idea that racial prejudice was the theme of the first movie we would see together. It reminded me of my last road trip with my ex husband. We rented a book on tape for the drive…John Grisham’s “The Brethren”, neither of us knowing that it had a gay theme…the only John Grisham book to have a gay theme. Once we realized what we had done, we both looked at each other and burst out laughing. Neither of us laughed about the movie last night. We solemnly watched the credits, stealing furtive looks at the other and quickly deciding that we needed to go out for a drink to talk about the movie. By the time we got to Bahama Breeze we were both sufficiently recovered to participate in a very animated and enjoyable discussion of what we had both seen and experienced. I asked him questions about what its like to be black in our culture that I would have never had the nerve to ask him otherwise. I shared with him some of my own subconscious prejudices. It was one of the best dates I’ve ever had, the communication so open and honest and freeing.

I rank “Crash” right up there with Shindler’s List on the must see board for high school kids...and for kids of all ages. We can all learn something from it. I look forward to seeing it a second time, and for discussing the movie with my two teenage boys.

Man of the House

As noted in the description of my blog, I am the owner/manager of an all female accounting firm. To be more precise, seven out of the eight of us have children, school age children for the most part. One of my staff had a baby in October and is still breastfeeding. My office manager has a preschooler, the rest of us have children ranging from first grade through junior year of high school. The biggest mom of us all, of course, is the one with no children of her own. She fusses about the rest of us, concerned that we don’t get enough sleep, eager to take extra work to ease the burden for someone with a sick kid at home, massaging our shoulders and neck when we are obviously under more stress than usual.

Although we all work part time, there is nothing part time about our lives. All of our children are involved in a myriad of extra curricular activities, all of us do some volunteer work, whether for the school or a church or an arts organization. All except me have a husband to appease as well, and I make up for the lack of husband with an over active dating life, determined to kiss as many frogs as I must until I find my prince.

A friend of mine called me, out of the blue, about three weeks ago. She is the best kind of friend, one who was there in a heartbeat when my marriage fell apart five years ago, one who understood my confusion more than almost anyone else. We don’t talk every day, or every month, and sometimes I only see her when she comes in to get her taxes done. But every time we talk, its as if we just had coffee the day before.

Her phone call was not without a purpose. Her boyfriend’s son was a college student, just finishing his freshman year at St. Bonaventure, having been awarded a soccer scholarship. He was majoring in accounting and was looking for an internship. Did I have a place for him?

All female accounting firm…my staff ranges in age from 38 to 46…yes, I’m the oldest. Nineteen year old, biracial college boy…athletic, handsome, charming. I’d met him at one of Peg’s parties a couple years ago. Half the age of my oldest staff person. How would he feel about Laura breastfeeding in the office next to him? What would he think about our girlie staff meetings, with themed potlucks and matching napkins? Would I still be able to tell dirty jokes and regale my staff with anecdotes of my search for Mr. Right? Would I be subjecting myself to the possibility of a sexual harassment lawsuit!?

Ordinarily, we don’t make quick decisions at my accounting firm. We all have input, we discuss things thoroughly, we consider everyone’s opinion. We decide by concensus. I thought about the fiasco when I tried to hire a guy three years ago. All but one of my staff interviewed him, all concurred that he was the best choice. I made my most serious hiring blunder to date…and he wasn’t even cute! This guy was cute, and smart and related to a friend…a guaranteed recipe for disaster. My staff would be outraged to have not been consulted, would not be happy for the burden of trying to teach the tricks of the trade to this young pup. So I did what any 46 year old single woman would do in this situation. I hired him.

He showed up on Monday, bright and early, and I woke up to three sick kids. Surely not from something I cooked! I called the office, promising to be there shortly, but never made in. My office manager called me at noon, hissing into the phone.

“I can’t believe you hired this kid, Betty. No one wants to work with him, no one wants to babysit, no one is going to give him anything to do!”

“Relax, Alecia, it’ll be fine. Just give them a chance to warm up to him.”

On Tuesday morning, no one was speaking to me. At lunchtime, Angela came into my office. Angela came to the firm from Proctor and Gamble. Her work is meticulous and precise. I almost never find mistakes. She is a stickler for protocol, though, and struggled with the relaxed atmosphere in our office, finally settling in as she realized that flexibility stretches both ways. She’s been with me for six years.

“Betty, Jason is so sweet, so smart. Would it be okay if I gave him a project to work on?”

I smiled to myself. “Sure, just keep an eye on him. Don’t let him get too frustrated.”

Around two, Martha stopped by my office. “Hey, good call with this new kid. He’s bright and eager to work. I asked him to convert the homeowner’s associations from Lotus to the new Excel spreadsheet.”

Angela stopped by again on her way out the door, (she leaves at 2:30 so she can be home when her kids get home from school) “I signed him up for a CPE class on June 6th. We registered him as a student affiliate with the Ohio Society of CPAs, so he can attend the class for free. I hope that’s ok.”

I looked at her quizzically. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

“Oh, Betty, he was so thrilled to be signed up with the Ohio Society. I think it made him feel really good about himself.”

“I’m sure it did, Angela.” Thinking to myself, not half as much as the attention he’s getting from you, I’d bet.

Later in the afternoon, Donna stopped in. “Betty, I have a client who needs six months of bank reconciliations done. Do you think I could take Jason out with me to do that?”

“Sure, tell Alecia to bill him out at three times his pay rate. I’m sure Ray won’t complain about that, its still a third of what we usually charge him.”

The next day, I get into the office just in time for lunch. Jason has three lunches sitting in front of him, each one matching a lunch sitting in front of Martha, Angela and Donna. They are beaming at him. Donna asks if he got enough sleep last night. Martha wonders if he’s too warm with the long sleeve shirt he has on. Angela urges him to eat the broccoli casserole she brought.

Is there such a thing as maternal harassment?

I mean, how many wings can the boy fit under?

If one of them reaches over to cut up his chicken, I know I’m going to be in trouble.

My Daughter

I had a daughter once. For four months, I folded her laundry, helped her with homework, cooked her meals, chauffeured her to the mall and to her friends’ houses, and worried about her. Her name was Izumi Iwanabe, one of 16 exchange students from Japan attending the language program at Xavier University, before heading off to high schools across the continent, with Izumi bound for Biggar, Saskatchewan, in Canada in August. In retrospect, she was my first taste of motherhood, as I was eight months pregnant with my first child when the stork (Delta Airlines) dropped her down our chimney. She was the fourth person in the world to hold Scott when he was born, waiting patiently in the hospital with my mother, who lived with us at the time.

Wednesday was Izumi’s birthday. How could I have forgotten? Izumi turned seventeen at my house. We had a big party for her with all of the other exchange students. I have a picture of a very pregnant Betty, standing next to Izumi holding a birthday cake, surrounded by 15 other Japanese teenagers in front of the mammoth sycamore tree that once shaded my front yard.

That was 17 years ago, half a lifetime for Izumi. She’s married now, has a little boy baby of her own…who will start kindergarten this fall in Tokyo.

I never had another exchange student, because it broke my heart to say good bye to her. I had her for four months and had to send her off on an airplane to live with a family I didn’t know, who had four teenage boys. Four teenage boys to tease and torment my innocent little darling. Now that I have teenage boys of my own, I know my fear was justified! I have never felt grief like I did when she left. I stood at the boarding gate, tears streaming down my face as she walked slowly towards the corridor leading to the plane. Just like in the movies, she turned around and ran back into my arms, a little girl not wanting to leave her mommy…because for four months, that is exactly what I was.

Biologically, I could have barely been her mother. She was twelve years and three days younger than me. She learned things from me that her mother couldn’t teach her, though. I taught her how to plant flowers and to plant grass seed. I taught her how to care for a newborn infant…while I learned myself. I taught her that a complete stranger can become embedded in your heart in a matter of weeks and that even scary situations can have a happy ending.

She came back to visit several times, bringing her husband, bringing her baby, bringing an oil painting she had made of Scott from a picture she took when he was just four weeks old. She hasn’t been back to visit since Rexford left, though. I think the shock of our Norman Rockwell family carrying our closeted secret was too much for her fragile understanding of Western culture.

She is older now than I was when I had her.

Why do I feel like I am even younger than that now?

Guy Friends

Since I was in second grade and Della Stout asked me if I’d be her best friend, I haven’t lived without one. Della was my best bud until she moved away in the fourth grade. Sheila Hite took her place until we had a slapping match on the playground in sixth grade. Sheila recorded a decisive victory, seeing as she was six inches taller than me, and simply had to put her hand on my forehead while I swung wildly in the vicinity of her chest. Through Junior High, Tina Moore shared her secrets with me and when I moved to a suburb of Chicago for my freshman year of high school, Candy Massheimer was my partner in crime. It was during my sojourn in McHenry that I also acquired a taste for male best friendmanship. Tom Lundelius was this beautiful Italian hunk of teenage heartthrob, a star of the football and wrestling teams, biceps like tree trunks, a sweet smile constantly gracing his face. He would call me every night, sometimes three and four times, much to the chagrin of my father. We never “went out”, and he only kissed me once, on Valentines’ Day in 1975. We would talk about everything and anything, but mostly about other boys and other girls. I was his Cyrano, advising him on various approaches to girls he adored, conveyor of sentiments he did not have the courage to parlay in person. We were a matchmaking team, always on the lookout for the likes of one another. I moved back to my hometown after my sophomore year when my parents split up and I never heard from him again.

While I was married, my ex was my best guy friend. I always had a female best friend, but I poured my heart out to my husband for the problems only a guy could solve. Even after he left because of our irreconciliable similarities, he was still the guy friend I turned to for my newfound issues relating to dating in my forties. In January of last year, he started dating a guy who simply did not like me, and the friendship between us ended.

It was also in January of that year that I began dating in earnest, posting a profile to Yahoo Personals and testing the pool of potential in cyber space. Robert sent me an email, we spoke for the first time by phone as I sat with my oldest son in the hospital while he was being tested for a sleeping disorder. We met for lunch a few days later, went out a couple times, but by that time, I’d met Mickey and had fallen head over heals in love…which was not reciprocal. Robert became my friend because my heart was not free to become his lover. Eventually, I came to accept that Mickey’s heart was not available to me, but by that time, my trust in Robert had grown so deep that I was no longer willing to risk involving my body in the equation. And in his heart of hearts, I believe that Robert feels the same. We need each other’s friendship far too much to risk jeopardizing it with romance.

Sunday was my birthday, Monday was Robert’s. We met for breakfast on Tuesday, each of us treating the other, each of us gifting a book for the other to enjoy, each of us celebrating the annual milestone of life, and toasting each other’s progress on our journeys. We have so much in common. We are both single parents, our respective spouses taking an irresponsibility break leaving us to cope with teenagers on our own. We love the same music, share a football field of common ground on religion and politics, like the same books and movies, cultivate a passion for growing things in our back yards. He quenches my thirst for laughter and conversation in a relaxed and easy way, but doesn’t let me get away with bullshit of any kind. He tells me when I’m being stupid, when my stubborn streak strains my parenting bounds. He soothes my heart when it breaks in shattered shards, and chastises me when I act irresponsibly towards those for whom I do not return affection.

He’s my guy best friend.

Every girl should have one.

Its funny. When he gets romantically involved with a woman, and he has on a couple of occasions since we met, my heart does a silly little gymnastic routine. I’ve explored those feelings, coming to the conclusion, that what I want more than anything else, is for Robert to find a woman who can love him down to his bones, who can feel the intensity of passion and adoration that I hope to find for myself…as long as that woman understands that I am Robert’s best friend.

Sigh.

I don’t think it works that way.

But Robert and I will cross that bridge when we come to it.

Radio Show-Sunday at 8:00pm, EDT, WVXU 91.7

I take a writing class, once a week, during the school year. The first semester, which was spring of 2004, I often would use writing prompts provided by the teacher. One week in March, the writing prompt was to write a piece about a hat. It just so happens that I keep a hat on the mirror over my dresser. This hat belonged to my paternal grandmother. Later in the year, I had the opportunity to read my story at the YWCA Week in the Arts. My writing group, Women Writing for (a) Change, has a radio show at 8:00pm on Sunday evenings on WVXU, 91.7 on your FM dial. Recently, the radio show decided they wanted the group who read at the Y, to read their stories on the radio. Last Monday, we taped the show, which will air on Sunday, May 29th at 8:00pm. I am in the last group, and get to participate in the discussion at the end. I encourage anyone reading my blog to tune into the radio to hear the other women as well. If you are out of range, you can hear it on your computer at:

http://www.wvxu.org/html/our_digital_audio.html

Here is the piece I read.

Women Writing for a Change
March 22, 2004
Elizabeth J. Winters Waite

My Inheritance From My Grandmother

A mink hat sits atop my dresser, an adornment to my very feminine, very Betty bedroom. The hat has a look of haute couture, although I have absolutely no idea what the fashions were for its time. Three ribs of fur, equidistant apart, fanning from identical dark peach colored bows on either side, sit primly on my head as I write, although it is hard to see the computer screen through the matching netting gracefully veiling my face. It’s the only fur I own, being a progressive liberal who would not kill animals for anything but food. I justify keeping the hat because it belonged to my paternal grandmother, who died thirty years ago, and I figure those minks would have been dead by now anyway.

Some people inherit trust funds from their grandmothers; some inherit vast collections of Wedgwood china and Waterford crystal. Some inherit decorating skills or precise penmanship or an appreciation for the arts. I inherited this hat and a red teapot, and a war chest of warm and wonderful memories, a talent for cooking and my laugh.

My grandmother, Sarah Ellen Weaver Winters, was a study in dichotomy; a bifurcation of male and female. She was logical and loving. She was gregarious and gracious. She was cruel and kind. She was a registered nurse and worked in the emergency room of the local hospital in the small, rural Indiana town where I spent the bulk of my childhood. Her husband died when she was the age that I am now. She never remarried, although she is rumored to have had several affairs after he died, just no one she wanted to be bossed around by. It would have been a challenge to boss around my grandmother, but it would have been fun to have watched some guy try. After all, she wore men’s underwear (because they were more comfortable) and she was almost six feet tall, and she had a big booming voice that she wasn’t afraid to use to get her point across. That voice served her well in the emergency room, but I don’t think it added much to her love life.

My family moved into my grandmother’s two bedroom house when I was six, bringing with us five children, an opinionated father, a mousy mother and covey of cockroaches from the low income housing project where I was born. The cockroaches lived happily with us for the next eight years. My father spent the money to exterminate as we were preparing to move. Go figure. We crowded into her life, climbing her apple trees, tearing across her flower beds, bickering, biking, begging to lick the beaters. She took it all in stride, emptying her attic, hiring two firemen to nail in plywood floors and walls and to lay linoleum so that the girls could actually sleep in beds. For Christmas, she bought us electric blankets and long flannel nightgowns because the attic wasn’t heated and North Central Indiana winters are quite cold. She taught us the concept of compounded interest by keeping a box of little change purses, one for each grandchild. If we added money to the little purses, magically even more would appear the next time we counted our change. If we spent all our money on candy and pop, the count stayed the same.

She was a gourmet cook, teaching us girls about measuring for baking, estimating and creating for everything else. A pinch of this, a touch of that, a splash of lemon juice or sherry. She taught us the secrets of pot roast and fried chicken and Hershey’s fudge and oatmeal cookies. She challenged us to create our own specialties. She moved into a trailer close to the hospital when I was ten, and would invite us, one at a time, to spend the night with her. She would make all kinds of wonderful delicacies for us to try…chicken with almonds, English toffee with chocolate and walnuts, flavored coffee long before it was in vogue. She could do an Elvis impersonation that made me laugh so hard, I peed my pants. She told me that I could do anything I wanted to do, be anyone I wanted to be, told me I was special, had special talents, was unique in this world. She told me this sometimes with words, but mostly with looks, and smiles and pats and hugs.

She had two sons, my uncle and my father, the two most important men in my life when I was growing up. My father was especially nasty, and my uncle was especially nice. I often wished my roles in their lives had been reversed. The two of them had a love/hate relationship, both of them convinced that my grandmother favored the other. Her dying wish was that they could find a way to be at peace with one another.

I’m not sure what she died from, I think it was cancer or maybe loneliness. We had moved away the year before, sold the house she had lived in for twenty years, the house her husband had died in, the house that she had paid off when we invaded her life. We had not been back to visit since we moved. As she was dying, she would move in and out of coherency. At one point, she sat up in her bed and shouted, “Bob, you little shit!” Bob was my father, and those were my sentiments exactly. I stood by her bed, and held her hand during my turn at the bedside vigil. She looked at me and smiled and said, “One of the true regrets I have right now is that I didn’t get to know you better and that I won’t get to see who you grow into.” I shushed her, told her she was going to get better, told her that I expected to see her at my high school graduation. She knew better. She died two days later.

I have a picture of my grandmother wearing this hat, otherwise, I couldn’t imagine my grandmother ever wanting anything so feminine and graceful adorning her head. I’m sure there is much about my grandmother I will never know, but I have to wonder….this picture with the lovely hat, in a silk dress…was she wearing men’s underwear??

Smolder

I had an exceptional birthday this year, thanks in part, no doubt, to my pouting skills, given a wide berth on Mother’s Day, and to the fact that two of my sons still have birthdays coming up in the next two weeks. Nonetheless, I am exceedingly grateful to the attention lavished on me by my three sons on Sunday. My youngest son baked me a chocolate cake, only asking once if he could use vanilla frosting instead of chocolate…he doesn’t care for chocolate, but still claims to be a son of mine. The two youngest made homemade cards, Kevin’s proclaiming May 22, 1959 to be the greatest day in history, because it was the birth date of the nicest Mom in history. Awwww. Greg’s card wished for me that this year’s birthday would be twice as nice as last year, and half as nice as next year. He’s obviously been listening to Stevie Wonder.  Of course, Scott, the oldest, was indignant that the other boys made cards…”Jeez, if I had known we were making cards, I’d have made one, too.” But all three of them spent their own allowance on a gift for me, nothing outrageous, but very obviously done with thought and affection, and all three of them sang happy birthday to me, in harmony, although I don’t think they meant for it to be. I was touched and pleased and thankful for the opportunity to love them, and be loved by them, so very much.

And then there was the date.

I don’t think I have looked forward to a date with such anticipation since I went to see Simon and Garfunkel with Mickey last June. Funny, that date was a Sunday evening, too. Steve had trouble finding the Basilica, but called to say he was going to be late and showed up soon thereafter. The performance was riveting, my best friend got to meet the “new man” and afterwards, we went to the Grande Finale for dessert, and to the Century Inn for a drink, foregoing dinner because it was too late, and no one would serve us anyway. It was fine. I didn’t need any food. I was basking in male attention and couldn’t have cared less about my stomach.

Steve checks off every single item on my list. No 70%, no 80%, 100% of the qualities that are important to me, this man possesses. We sat by my fishpond until two in the morning, the full moon better than scented candles, the soft water music more effective than Barry White. We talked for hours, and when he kissed me in the moonlight, all the normal alarms went off.

At some point though, perhaps when I looked up at a star and thought about someone else, someone far less suited for me than the man escorting me, at some point, I put on the brakes. I am usually not one to take things slow. When I like something, or someone, my heart hurtles forward at breakneck speed, splashing like a cannonball into the pool of the new person’s life. I am choosing a different path this time. Perhaps I’ve learned my lesson, having watched in dismay as this other person scrambled for cover when he felt the tidal wave hit. I am determined not to keep repeating that same mistake. When Steve hinted at sentiments too soon for this stage, I headed him off at the pass. Perhaps he was just wanting to get in my pants, but I think he probably cannonballs, too, which makes him even more suited for me. But just in case, just in case, this time, easy does it.

At our last staff meeting, I told the seven women I work with about a guy I met, who doesn’t seem to care much for me, but who has this quality about him which makes me glad to be single. Handsome men are a dime a dozen, even for a woman in her forties. Conversational men, kind and considerate, can be found in any bookstore, usually having coffee with the likes of someone like me. But this guy has a rare quality. He was not only handsome and intelligent, he smolders. And I kissed him. Who cares if I never kiss him again, and it looks like I probably won’t, at age 46, I still have the opportunity to kiss a man who smolders. The other women usually feel sorry for me in my single condition, knowing that I envy them their weekend constant companions and their bedtime buddies who’s bodies are as familiar as cotton underpants worn thin. When I described the smoldering man, (they all knew exactly what I was describing) and the rush I felt when I kissed him, fleeting though it was, I could feel, for the first time, that perhaps I had something to be grateful for, too. Perhaps this window of opportunity to be swept off my feet, even if just for an evening, should be savored instead of wished into the oblivion of commitment.

So for now, I’m playing it slow. Much safer that way. Besides, as long as I look at a star and think about someone else, its just the right thing to do.

On the other hand, I have another date with Steve on Friday. Who knows what will happen between now and then.

I’ll keep you posted.

Benediction

Go out into the world in peace.
Have courage.
Hold on to that which is good.
Return to no person evil for evil.
Strengthen the faint hearted.
Support the weak.
Help the suffering.
Honor all persons.

I Have a Date for My Birthday

On Sunday, I will turn 46. I still enjoy birthdays, especially my own, still enjoy taking one day out of the year to focus on how special I am. I don’t spend a great deal of energy focusing on other people’s birthdays during the year, except for my children’s which get a great deal of fanfare, so I am not at all offended if my birthday passes by without notice by others. Its really a day for me to smile at myself.

This year will be different. This year, my birthday falls in the middle of a gathering in Cincinnati of my support group, Straight Spouses, a group that saved my life when Jeff came out of the closet five years ago. I have not been active in that group for well over a year, but some of the old timers are coming to my house on Sunday for a brunch, and they all know its my birthday. I know it will not go unnoticed. And, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I have a date for my birthday.

I’m trying not to get too excited about it. I haven’t met him yet, and there is the possibility that the chemistry won’t work, but right now, the fantasy is intoxicating. We have talked on the phone twice a day for the last several days, sometimes talking for two hours and he hasn’t bored me for one minute. He makes me laugh, and he gets my jokes. We have almost identical philosophies on politics and religion, he might even be more liberal than me, and I know some of you shudder at that thought. He loves children, babysits his grandsons, has an incredible vocabulary, loves baseball, loves music, loves flowers and nature and get this….he’s 6’4” and you all know how much I like tall.

We are going to listen to the May Festival Chorus sing a Bach Cantata at the Basilica. My best friend will be singing and she gave me the tickets for my birthday. Our first date will be with me in a dress and high heels and he will be in a suit and tie. He says he looks at my picture four times a day and that he thinks I’m beautiful. He says my voice is lyrical and lovely and that he could listen to me talk all day. I think the same thing about him.

I’m a nervous wreck.

Actually, I’m not. Those of you who know me, know that nervous is not in my vocabulary, at least not so it shows. I’ll keep you posted about this guy. No, he doesn’t read my blog.  Nor will he, for some time to come. Lol

My two teenagers got into a fight last night. Scott was playing the piano, quite beautifully, I might add, but Greg was trying to watch tv. Greg turned the tv up really loud, and Scott came in to turn it back down. Greg, who is much smaller and is two years younger, hit Scott in the mouth. Scott’s lower lip got stuck on his braces, and the pain from that kept him from hitting Greg back. After everything was settled back into place, Scott was insistent that he should be allowed to punch Greg in the mouth. Greg also has braces. In fact, they both agreed that what should happen was that I should allow them to go outside to duke it out so that they wouldn’t break any furniture.

How considerate of them.

I explained to them both that I simply could not condone violence of any kind, and if they needed to hit each other, I would need to call the police. We sat on the couch and discussed it, like civilized human beings, and in the end, it was decided that Greg would do Scott’s chores for the evening and they would both call it quits. A peaceful resolution to an explosive situation.

I have to admit, I was at a loss for a few moments. I didn’t know what to do. I wished their dad was around, or at least available for a consultation. I wished someone was around for a consultation, and as it were, someone was. I called a friend, a man I once loved profoundly, who I greatly admire and respect, and sought his opinion. He advised me to be firm in my commitment to a nonviolent resolution, but open to suggestions of how to resolve it in another way. Thanks, Jim.  Alls well that ends well. Of course, Scott played the injured card this morning so that he could miss first bell…his lip was stuck to the gauze when he woke up.

It just seemed so apropos, especially if you knew Scott. 

Lustful does me in again

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Divine Comedy Inferno Test

More or Less

Have I ever loved you more
Than in this moment
When I realize
That you have never loved me less?

Your scent teasing my memory
To find its way back to the days
When it was okay to breathe.
The twilight drawing the dusk of the day
To an end while we sit by the pond
and smile at one another.

Your boyish antics bring laughter
Your twinkling mischief tugs and pulls
Me closer to the memories
Shelved with the medicinal books
On how to heal my heart.

Could I ever love you more
Than in this moment
When I know that you
Will never love me less?

Ok, so now that I got the wimpy ass, cry baby stuff out of the way, lets get on with the meatier parts of life, such as raising teenage boys. For you inquiring minds who want to know, yes, I had dinner with Mickey, yes it was absolutely delightful and fun, and yes, I kissed him, or he kissed me, or we kissed each other or whatever, and yes, I cried myself to sleep that night. Whatever.

As I was saying….

I borrowed Mickey’s truck the next day, and I drove Scott to May Fete after I had run my errands. He got in and then said incredulously, “Mom, you know how to drive a stick shift?”

“Of course.” I said, tossing my head. “I drove one for years before we bought the Sienna.”

“Wow. How to you know when to shift?”

“If you have a tackometer, which this truck doesn’t, but if you have one, you can read the gauge. With a truck like this (quickly and expertly shifting) you just have to be able to feel it.” I smiled knowingly at my son.

“How do you know where to shift the gear?”

“See these numbers? You just shift in that order, and besides, once you are used to it, you don’t even have to think about it. (shifting again, expertly, of course.)”

I impressed my son. Its been a loooonnnngggg time since I was able to do that.

We were stopped at a stop sign, in the truck, a tee intersection, with a grassy spot ahead of us. As we waited for the traffic to clear, Scott noticed two birds fluttering up and down in the grass.

"Mom, what are those birds doing?"

"Um, Scott, remember the story about the birds and the bees? That's the bird part."

"It is not!" he says, horrified to be having this conversation with his mother. He looks a little closer. "Is it?"

I asked Scott to mow the grass on Sunday, to which he readily agreed because he wanted me to take him to the movies in the afternoon. I was pulling weeds on the back patio when he sauntered back to ask for his money. I informed him that payment for services rendered would be gladly given once the job was done, and that he needed to mow the back yard as well. He threw a fit. Yelled and hollered and swore that he should not have to mow the back, that Greg should have to mow the back, that I owed him $20 for the front. I stayed pretty calm. I was proud of myself. I stood my ground…until he used his teenage boy radar to discern my most vulnerable spot, to calculate with amazing precision the words that would inflict the most damage. He’s very good at this, as are most teenage boys with half a brain and raging hormones. With his sonar activated he lowered his voice and scathingly said, “You are so hard to get along with, Mom, no man will ever love you.” Gasp. Cough. Choke. Fall to the ground, arrow protruding from my heart, blood everywhere. Well, tears anyway. I cried in front of him again. He apologized, said, “I’m sorry Mom, you know that’s not true, you have dates every weekend. You aren’t alone because you have to be, only because you are waiting for the right fit. I admire you for that.” He admires me for that. I sniffled and looked up at him. “Come to the movies with us, Mom, it would be fun.” Greg volunteered to mow the back yard. They divvied up the proceeds. I went to the movies. We saw Unleashed…a dick flick if there ever was one. But, I was with the three best men in my life, so it was good. We shared one large bag of popcorn, buttered of course and a bag of Starburst, silently passing them back and forth as I hid my face with each fight scene…which was half the movie of course.

The Sanctuary

I had such a good weekend, lots of laughter and fun and time doing the things I love. I worked in my gardens, making my back yard as spectacular as the front, spent some time with a good book, spent some time at a party singing harmony with a guitar, went to see a movie with my boys, all three of them and just me, had a little time to myself when they went off with their dad last night…but the best time was Saturday night. My writing group had a fundraiser, which is their annual talent show. Last year, I dressed up in black leather and a cowboy hat and sang “Passionate Kisses” which was ok, but only a few people commented to me afterwards. This year, I read a story I wrote, which you can read below, if you want. This year, fifty people came up to me afterwards to express their appreciation…and this was a group of writers. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. There was an audible “Awwww” at the end, which warmed my heart. The story is supposed to be funny, once you get past the first few paragraphs. There is a longer version, which I like even better, but the one I read is as follows:

The Sanctuary

She drew her plans, imagining her vision, seeing it, believing it. A beautiful pond, a cascading waterfall, sunshine streaming on a park bench, flowers and ferns and color and life and fish darting about in the murky mystery of the water. She grabbed her shovel. He returned from vacation and stopped by to admire her handiwork, bringing his truck to haul home the container for the water wonderland that was to be in her backyard. He took a vacation day to help her fashion the stones around the pond and mortar them in so they would last forever. With sweat and mosquito repellant and beer and laughter they sang and talked and grew closer. She found a boulder in her yard and placed it on top of the waterfall. Snuggly it fit, and on its face she engraved Mickey Falls, 2004. The waterfall would last long after she had gone, she knew. Others would come behind her and admire the falling water, the weathered vines with the purple flowers, the lichen covered stones. They would wonder at the name, no one they knew of was named Mickey who lived there. But the trees would know. They would chuckle at the question because they were there when Betty loved Mickey and they were pleased with the name.

Winter came and the pond froze over, save for the center circle where the fountain bubbled faithfully. His visits waned, then stopped. He didn’t love her, and never had and had been honest with her from the beginning. He had simply enjoyed her words and her touch and the sounds of the silence between them and at the time, that had been enough.

She grew flowers. They surrounded her house, crept up the hill in her back yard, stretched to the street in many directions. She could not pick them. She could not bear to cut them from their homes to bring inside her house, she thought it selfish. Her housekeeper had no such misgivings about the flowers, and once a week, cut just a few and placed them on the woman’s kitchen table. She smiled each Friday evening when she opened her door and saw the vase of flowers. It was ok for Candy to cut them, she just couldn’t do it herself.

By April, the flowers around the fish pond were spectacular, vibrant and bold, with unusually large pistons and stems. At some point, she had noticed the water level dropping, and had begun to periodically replace the water with the nearby hose. Candy noticed the profusion of flowers. She knew that the woman was especially fond of the purple iris and had forbid her from cutting them, so none of the iris greeted the woman that Friday. Nonetheless, not being much of an obedient woman, Candy cut three of them and took them to the woman’s ailing, elderly mother, who lived just a block up the street, for whom she also cleaned. And, truth be told, Candy took a few home with her as well.

Three days later, the woman answered a breathless call from her mother. Her mother’s tale included the elderly fireman who had checked in on her when she had fallen two month’s earlier and had ended in an evening of erotic delights that even the woman had to imagine, having never experienced them herself. On Friday, she headed home at noon, having a list of errands to run. She smiled at the vase of flowers gracing her table, and called for Candy, having seen that her car was still parked in the driveway. She could hear her whistling in the back of the house and headed towards the music. As she approached, Candy was lost in the reverie of a dance with an imaginary partner. The woman watched in amusement as Candy dipped and swayed seductively. Candy caught her eye mid twirl and jolted to a stop, laughing self consciously. At the woman’s questioning look, Candy recounted her tale of romantic adventure, her partner of seven years regaining passion of an unprecedented level, causing her to be late for work three times this week. The woman’s cheeks pinked at the imagined pleasures, making a mental note to ask her psychic friend if there was a special moon or arrangement of stars causing this frenzy of fun amongst these women in her life.

Tuesday was her writing class, comprised of 24 women, several of whom had become very close friends of hers. As she backed her car out of her garage, she caught a glimpse of the plethora of purple surrounding her pond. Stopping the car, without thinking or deliberating, she grabbed her clippers and a vase, scooping water from the pond, she cut five perfect stems and headed to class. When she returned that evening, she noticed, as impossible as it sounds, that the five flowers she had cut had been replaced with ten more blossoms. Her brow furrowed in thought. The next day, she cut five more flowers, taking the blossoms into work, for the enjoyment of the other eight women who worked with her.

Her phone was ringing before she even got her coat off. One of her writing friends, a fifty something woman, divorced for fifteen years, who had been too shy to date, but who was still hopeful of finding love, chatted excitedly about her next door neighbor who had appeared at her doorstep the evening before, professing his admiration and attraction to her, and who had ended up spending the night and keeping her in bed until well past noon. In confusion, she hung up the phone, only to have it ring again, another writing friend, another erotic encounter. These were not young people either. The average age of her writing class hovered around 50, with the youngest members teetering perilously close to forty. She pondered the coincidence of first her mother, then her housekeeper, now her writing friends and their romantic escapades. She stepped out of her office to get some water and her eyes widened as they fell on the vase of purple Iris….

She called her mother and asked what flowers Candy had brought her the past Friday. Her mother confirmed her suspicions and went on to describe in detail the previous evenings’ romantic adventures with the fireman, who was becoming a daily visitor, and had spent the night with her, experimenting with the varying positions available to them with the help of the electric bed that Medicare had purchased for her a year ago. The woman assumed that if Candy had cut some of the iris for her mother, that she had probably cut some for herself as well. She got up and went to look at the iris more closely. How lovely they were, vibrant and green, the petals curled back on extended pistons, stems waving their scented pollen in the air. She breathed deeply and then caught herself. What was she doing! The last thing she needed was to become extricated in a web of passion and carnal longing. She was done with that! She was focusing her energy on her children and her writing and her work! Really, she was! The door bell rang….there stood the UPS man, tall and lean and dressed in his brown uniform, wanting to deliver a package….

Thursday was a staff meeting and the conference room was atwitter with stories of marital bliss unsurpassed by any of their collective imaginations. Anita, the office manager noted in passing that she had taken the vase of iris to her mother in the nursing home and could the woman please bring more to the office as these flowers were lovelier than any she had ever seen before. As each woman shared the stories of the previous evenings’ adventures, the woman listened quietly. She had a bit of a dilemma. Drumming her nails lightly on the mahogany table, she held up a hand for silence. The room quieted and she explained the power of the flowers to her staff. She noted that the more flowers she cut, the more that grew, seemingly overnight, but if she didn’t cut them, they didn’t multiply. She noted her confusion as to what the ethical course was, not being one to mess with mother nature, but also, not being one to deny the indisputable medicinal effects of this particular flower, which ironically seemed to increase potency depending on your age…the older the recipient, the more powerful the medicinal affect.. As she was speaking, the phone rang for Anita. With a solemn face, she announced that it was the nursing home and that bedlam had broken out.

It made the papers, of course. No one could find the source of the newfound nubile characteristics of the nursing home nastys. The woman again pondered her dilemma over the weekend. She knew the source. She had felt first hand the power of the passion pull the flowers inspired. Her mother had a youthful vitality about her that had all but vanished in the past ten years since she had stopped working. She was walking without her cane, bouncing up and down the steps and venturing out to piddle in her own garden, long since neglected and weed infested. But she also knew that none of her writing friends had been able to stop thinking about sex long enough to write anything other than Penthouse letters, whose editors had never seen such well written and lyrically prosed pornography. And her staff was getting no work done, nor were any of their spouses, all of whom had used up every last day of their vacation and sick leave in order to continue the honeymoon started the day those flowers appeared on the front desk. Not to mention the clients who had visited who were now neglecting their businesses and not paying the woman for her auditing services.

Her backyard sanctuary had become a jungle of purple profusion. As word had spread about the effects of the flowers, people from all over were stopping to pick the flowers, and as more were picked, more grew. She stood beside the pond, admiring the flowers, being careful not to breathe too deeply. She noted that the water level in the pond was dangerously low, and she carefully refilled the pond from the nearby hose. She decided to give her dilemma a rest and instead, to fix the leak that had confounded her over the past six months. She began moving the rocks about, discovering that the liner under the waterfall had not been shored up at the sides allowing water seepage. She remedied the problem, hoping for the best. The next day, sure enough, no more leakage, the pond level appeared to be stable.

She stopped taking flowers to the office, needing to try and reestablish a sense of decorum, but offered the flowers on an individual basis to each of her staff, leaving them to decide their own course of action. Candy continued to take flowers up for the woman’s mother, and there was no disputing the positive contributions they were making to her life. Candy herself was singing while she worked, and was cleaning at lightening speed, giving her more time at home with her sweetie. The woman was careful not to get too close to the flowers, but continued to admire them from afar.

About a week later, her mother called to complain about the arthritis which appeared to be returning to her hips and knees, and at the next staff meeting, a general malaise seemed to have infected her staff. Gone were the stories of carnal delight, the ho hum of long term commitment returning in full force. Stories of stomach flu and science homework permeated the lunchtime conversation. The ladies of the woman’s accounting firm sadly asked her about the flowers, which were still lovely, but were no longer extraordinarily beautiful, and were no longer generating the lusty behavior they had so enjoyed. The woman shook her head in dismay, not understanding the phenomenon either, but secretly, a bit relieved to not have the ethical dilemma to consider.

Her writing friends were another story. The flowers she had taken to class were still very much alive and producing pollen. The vase with the pond water still sat at the center of the writing circle and the women of the class passed the vase, along with the candle, breathing deeply into the flowers at the close of each class. They were achieving national acclaim with the pornographic writings each of them had been able to produce. From sexual scenes for Hollywood, to swollen member snippets for Harlequin, each of the writers had published recounts of their respective responses to the flowers. Money was pouring in from the sales of these excerpts. The woman wondered at the difference of these flowers from the others cut from her garden sanctuary.

When she returned home that evening, she sat in the bench by the pond. On impulse, she scooped a cupful of water from the pond and poured it on the flowers growing closest to her bench. The next morning, she cut those flowers and took them to her mother. By evening, her mother was back to the youthful vigor of the previous week, and so was the fireman. Her suspicions confirmed, the woman debated her next step.

The next time she went to her writing class, she carefully, regretfully poured the pond water down the drain in the women’s restroom, replacing it with water from the tap. She’d give her writing friends one more week, but too much of a good thing will sap your strength, as she well knew. As much as the world enjoyed the riotous writing from her class, it was back to vivid journal entries about writing spaces and nature, ancestral memoirs, and stories of children and grandchildren. Pornographic passion was put in its place on the back burner of their lives. It was for their own good, the woman kept repeating to herself.

The nursing home was another story. So what if it killed them? Was not in the throes of passion at the top of the list of ways people would like to move to the next level? She made some phone calls and arranged for delivery of a few select sprigs to each of the nursing homes in her area, to be kept in vases of pond water. As it turned out, there was no increase in the death rates at any of the nursing homes, but the undertakers were concerned about the permanent smiles that graced the faces of the newly departed.

As for the woman, she kept an area watered for her mother on the far side of the pond away from her bench. People still stopped by, on occasion, to clip a few hopeful bouquets, but the magic came from the waterfall, and the woman shared that with no one. Magic comes in many forms, amongst the most powerful is love, especially unrequited love, having the force of the wish behind it. Eventually, the people stopped, and the woman sat on her bench by her pond, by herself once again.

Dreams

It didn’t rain after all. Not a drop. I came home from work to find my new guinea impatiens wilted and sad, despite having been watered thoroughly three days before when they were planted. I hurriedly got the sprinklers going for the half hour I had before I left for the baseball game. I’m sure that Mother Nature got in a few giggles this weekend. I had bustled about, getting the ground ready before the rain, getting the flowers in before the rain, getting the mulch spread before the rain, which never came. I watered everything again this morning, not believing the forecasts for rain tomorrow. I figured if I watered, then for sure it would rain.

It takes three hours to get everything watered in my yard. I have gardens everywhere, thirsty flowers and hungry weeds fighting through the mulch, determined not to succumb to my pied piper charms. It looks just beautiful right now, the mulch dark and pungent, the weeds held at bay for the moment, the hot house flowers still vibrant with their store bought clothes. In a few weeks, some of the showy beauty will fade, as the roots make themselves comfortable in my soil and the riotous blooms settle into the steady rhythm of the summer. I actually prefer the later look of my gardens, when the flowers have spread, the perennials get their moments in the sun and butterflies have found my bushes.

I took Kevin to the Reds game last night. Scott was too busy playing Paranoia with his friends. I enjoyed my youngest son’s company. I took a book to read in case I got bored, but with Kevin’s steady stream of questions and his running commentary of the game, I was having too much fun. I never even opened the book. We stayed for the whole game. I didn’t know the answers to most of his questions, and suggested that he ask Mickey. Kevin has his own game tonight. For his Daydream assignment at school, Kevin made a diorama of a baseball field with himself as a first baseman. I wonder what sort of fantasies fancied around his head last night, looking forward to his own game tonight. At school today, the parents were invited to a Daydream Museum. Each child had made something representing his daydream, with a museum type description of what they had made and how it represented their daydream. Along the wall were posters of a list of 50 things the kids daydream about and a newspaper article they wrote describing how their daydream came true. Kevin’s list was interesting, full of the typical stuff…professional baseball player, basketball player, football player, actor, singer, astronaut. Some were a surprise, become famous, make people laugh, invent hover shoes. One set got a giggle out of me...he wants to meet the president, unelect the president and become president… His whole future is ahead of him, a plethora of dreams that can still come true. I envy children.

Change

It’s going to rain today. The weather forecast predicts it, you can smell it in the air, and we are long overdue after April’s rain left us a couple weeks ago. I still have mulch to spread and I haven’t fertilized yet, but all of my plants are in the ground, so let it rain.

I sat sipping coffee on the bench beside my fish pond this morning. The birds were in rare form, serenading each other, celebrating the prospect of playful frolics when the rain comes. A sparrow has continued the generational tradition of nesting in the exhaust pipe of an old furnace a prior owner installed in our garage…when the garage was an office. I have lived in this house for nineteen years now, and sparrows have nested in that exhaust pipe every year, until a couple years ago when my two cats discovered that if they crouched on the fence two feet away from the exhaust pipe, they could catch fledglings as they made their first attempts to leave the nest. Last year, the sparrows found a different place to raise their family. When I readied the area for my fish pond last fall, I took down the fence next to the exhaust pipe and sure enough, those birds have found sanctuary there again this year.

Every morning, I survey my gardens for new surprises and I almost always find at least one new inhabitant. This morning, I found that the second dahlia I planted was finally spouting, her sister having made her entrance over a week ago. The fern, tightly wound into a ball last week, had slowly unfurled under the warmth of the sun and the gentle encouragement of my sprinkler, and had now spread her arms in wonder and appreciation of the beautiful setting in which she finds herself.

I have had a similar experience over the past few weeks. My ex husband left me almost five years ago and once I stopped wishing he would come home, I have spent the bulk of my energy trying to replace him. Theoretically, I knew that I needed to find peace with myself first, that I needed to be comfortable living a life with just me before adding a new person to it, but knowing that has to happen and it actually happening are two different things. I knew that peace in my heart would not happen overnight, that it would start happening long before I was even aware that something was changing. I woke up one morning about three weeks ago and I realized that the panic I used to feel, the panic about being without a mate, was gone, had simply vanished. It happened without any warning, probably very gradually, but that morning was the first morning that I actually noticed.

It felt good! This morning I woke up happier than I have been for years. That feeling, despite my Mother’s Day disappointment, has not wavered over the past couple weeks. I am even premenstrual and I feel good, which at 45, is really saying something.

I realize that with most growth, there are a few steps forward, and a step back, a few more steps forward, another step back, but I’m not worried. I feel like that fern, curled up in a ball for so long, slowly unfurling, embracing my world, just as it is.

Mother's Day-Part II

On Children

Kahil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them just like you.

Such a lovely poem, it was put to music and sung at the concert I enjoyed on Saturday night, putting me right in the mood for Mother’s Day.

My Mothers’ Day was not what I expected it to be. I am the mother of three sons, ages 15, almost 17 and almost 10. On Saturday, I gently reminded all three of them that Mother’s Day was the next day, and they should plan on being prepared. I had logically deduced that reminding them any sooner would be nagging, but not reminding them at all would be ignoring the fact that they are kids and no longer have their father around to take care of Mother’s Day for them.

Sunday morning dawned bright and clear and I bounded out of bed, humming to myself, sipping early morning coffee on the bench next to the pond, planning a wonderful day of gardening, mulching, fertilizing my now quite lovely gardens, having planted fifteen flats of flowers over the past three days. I got started outside, enjoying the time alone before the kids woke up, hoping for homemade cards, maybe a poem...my two older boys are awesome poets and have written poems for me in the past that made my heart thud in wonder that these boys sprang from my loins. For the first time in nearly a month, I had only my kids waking up on Sunday, no sleepovers last night. I considered going to church, but decided that nature was my sanctuary of choice this Sunday, and pressed on outside. Around noon, Scott’s best friend and another friend show up, unannounced. I called out to them, they wished me a Happy Mother’s Day. I stopped them before they went into the house.

“What’s up, boys?”

“We’re here to strategize with Scott on the game we are playing for school tomorrow.”

“Hahahaha. Sorry guys, Scott’s spending at least the early afternoon with me. He’s not even up yet. I’ll have him call you.”

They look at each other in confusion.

“No, seriously, he’s still asleep, we haven’t even done Mother’s Day yet, you can talk to him in a couple hours.”

“He just called us, Mrs. Waite, telling us to come over.”

A niggle of worry wiggled its way under my happy disposition, the premenstrual hormones raising their heads, anticipating an opportunity to run amok.

“Just wait here, I’ll go check.”

I went inside, Kevin was up, munching happily on a bowl of cereal, watching cartoons. Scott was sitting on the couch, pulling on shoes and socks, obviously readying for a romp with his buddies.

“Good morning boys. Scott, your friends are here, but you need to tell them to come back in a few hours. We haven’t done Mother’s Day yet.”

“Mom, I gotta go now. I didn’t get you anything for Mother’s Day, I thought I could just do a few chores for you instead.”

My breath caught in my throat. “You what? You didn’t get me anything for Mother’s Day? Not even a card?”

“Listen, I don’t know what the big deal is, I’ll do some chores, ok? I’ll be back in a few hours.”

I looked at Kevin, who looked guiltily away. My sweet youngest child, who still kisses me goodnight and hugs my neck. The only one of my children still shorter than me.

“Kevin?”

“Sorry, Mom, I made something, but I left it at school.”

I went to Greg’s room, knocking on the door. “Greg, you up? Scott wants to leave with his friends, but I thought we should do Mother’s Day first.”

“Hey Mom. Listen, I spent all my money on Amanda and didn’t have any left to buy you a present, so I thought I would just do a few chores today, or sometime.”

Hell hath no fury as a woman scorned.

I’m telling you, it wasn’t pretty.

I am not happy with myself, but you know those movies scenes where the mother throws a fit and cries and embarrasses her children…you know the scene from the movies where we dropped the bomb on Hiroshima? Ok, so maybe it wasn’t that bad, but it was bad. I cried, I yelled, I made all three of those boys haul rotting leaf mulch for three hours yesterday afternoon. I was right along side of them, sniffling periodically, quiet tears coursing down my cheeks whenever I caught one of them looking at me.

Jewish mothers ain’t got nothin’ on me.

My birthday is in two weeks, lord knows what I’ll do if they forget that.

Yesterday would be a hard act to follow.

Besides, I’m out of mulch.

Mothers' Day

On Children

Kahil Gibran


Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them just like you.

More on this tomorrow...I have to go visit my mother, then off to the baseball game!

Body Aches

Every where. Every time I move. In my usual over zealous, slightly compusive, typically over achieving way, I planted flowers today...and yesterday...and the day before. So far, I have fifteen flats of flowers planted. I have a system.

I started last Sunday, digging up the dirt, hauling leaf compost to my various gardens, digging in the compost, raking the clods, smashing them, actually with my rake. I started planting Thursday evening, having purchased my first load of flowers that day. I fill one cart with flowers on each trip. Then I plant them. I can't buy more flowers until I have all the ones I've already purchased planted. That way, the project doesn't seem so humonguous, and I don't waste any flowers. I've made three trips to the flower store so far. I have pansies, impatiens, dahlias, zinnias, vines, ferns, all in various colors and sizes. And they are all in the ground.

I have to fertilize and mulch tomorrow.

If I can get out of bed.

Right now, that doesn't seem likely.

Everything aches.

Drive by and see the beautiful wonder, though. I will sip coffee each morning, and survey the flowers, pulling weeds, snipping dead heads. It's my summer ritual. The dew clings to my bare feet, the birds serenade my progress, the flowers nod their heads in approval. I get great pleasure from my gardens.

But right now, I hurt.

Laughter at Work

I have been reading a few other blogs lately, and the ones that I like the best are the ones about work related laughter….ok, maybe its not funny to those who actually work there, but its funny to us who only have to read about it. I took a look around my office yesterday…I own an accounting firm, all 8 of us are female (hot babes, every one), all but one is a working mom. We certainly have our garden variety of problems, recalcitrant husbands, whiny kids, two of us are divorced and are reacting to it in polar opposites ways. I can’t stop shopping around, Rebecca can’t get started. She’s been divorced for nine years and hasn’t had one date. Hell, I haven’t gone for more than nine days without a date since Jeff left five years ago. I just can’t seem to find the right pair of shoes….

I’d like to fix her up with the guy I just dumped, they both like country music, they are both really sweet people, they both enjoy kids and simple things…like kids are so damn simple….they are about the same age and the same level of physical attractiveness, it just might work. But how does one go about doing that?

“Listen, Dave, I really can’t stand the thought of you touching me again, but how about door number three, here? Rebecca, turn around for Dave. Whaddya think, Dave? Rebecca? Now, be honest, Dave would be a great incentive to leave the convent that has been your life for the past nine years, come on!”

Like I said, I took a look around my office yesterday, trying to find some humor.

Yawn. I checked my watch, five minutes had passed. Nothing funny happened. I sighed and went back to work.

There aren’t even any really funny jokes about accountants. You can find lots of jokes about lawyers, about doctors, about dentists, about construction workers, about waiters, about business people as long as they are of certain ethnic groups, but how many jokes do you hear about accountants? Almost none! And yet, the group of women I work with are laughing all the time. One of our clients occupies the suite next door to us, and he will come in, bearing gifts of general ledgers for us to do copious amounts of tax preparation, and will shake his head in dismay at the level of merriment bouncing off the walls in our office. Of course, only other working moms would get our jokes about husbands who don’t know which comes first, the washer or the dryer, and children who at very tender ages demand answers to playground gossip. For instance, my oldest son had a friend with two older brothers. After his first week of kindergarten, he walked in after school, sat down on the couch looking all pissed off with his arms crossed over his chest and said, “Mom, Conner said that boys put their penis’s in girl’s vaginas. Is that true?” I looked wildly around for help with this question. I wanted to say “Oh, honey, you’re going to have to ask your father about that one” but I resisted. Instead, I looked him square in the eye, not wanting to be hypocritical, and said, “Yes, but not until they are twenty.” We laughed about that at work. True story.

Heck, my boys still kid me about that. They have revised it to eighteen. I keep rebutting them, saying, no, no, not until you are twenty. Their logic is if they are mature enough to vote, they are mature enough to have sex.

Hell, I’ve met some forty something men who weren’t mature enough to have sex.

Sometimes I doubt if I am mature enough to have sex.

Apparently, the universe agrees with that statement….

Birthday Month

Yesterday began birthday month at the Waite household in Cincinnati, Ohio. When my ex and I got married, a lifetime ago it seems, but was actually in September of 1984, we wrote in our thank you notes that we were expecting our first child in June of 1988. We wanted a house in two years and a baby in four. I am a CPA, and by nature, am fairly organized and am somewhat of a planner. My gardens are planted symmetrically, my kitchen utensils organized by function, my bed is always made and my kitchen counters are clear…at least once a day. I wanted my kids to be born in June because I wanted to take the summers off to be home with them, and because busy season would fall during the second trimester, when a pregnant woman has an excess of energy, but without the clumsiness that comes with carrying a basketball around in your belly. My first child was born on May 29th.

With the second child, I decided it was presumptuous to think that I could plan all of my children to the month, so being modest, I decided that a month before June or a month after June would fit into my schedule nicely and adjusted my “activities” accordingly. Greg was born on May 3rd….

With the third child, who was supposed to be born in 1993, but because I gave birth to my accounting firm on May 1, 1992, was postponed until the business turned a profit, I had no such concerns about planning. Kevin was born on June 1st.

I come from a long line of fertility. My mother had five children in seven years. Her mother had five children, my father’s brother had eight, and my father, having five with my mother, impregnated his second wife, who was a good catholic, had never practiced birth control, had been married twice before, and who got pregnant for the first time at age 40 within four months of being married to my father. Obviously, fertility is in my genes…or jeans, so to speak.

There’s no secret to making babies. Inherit good genes and have sex every night…

Ah, yes, those were the days.

On the other hand, don't ever think you have any control over what's coming around the corner. A house in two, a baby in four, an amazing discovery in the proverbial closet in 17...couldn't plan for that.

And so, birthday month begins, with Mother’s Day and my birthday thrown in for good measure. Add to that, a long awaited spring, my first with the fish pond I build in my back yard last fall, a feeling of freedom and goodwill about myself, my kids and my life that I have long been lacking, and the beauty that greets me outside my windows each morning. Flower season has begun and life indeed looks good.

What is Love?

I had an interesting weekend, doing a little bit of just about everything I love to do, except writing, and I’m doing that now. Friday, I hung out with my kids, watched a movie on HBO, ordered pizza, laughed with my boys and their buds, went to bed early. Saturday, I pulled two wheelbarrow loads of weeds, carting them across my lawn to the tiny section behind the fence where I hope to compost garden refuse. Sunday, I hauled mulch for several hours, making the sanctuary around my fish pond spectacular, with the hosta, the fading tulips, the chrysanthemums. Mickey’s sweet peas are growing, almost all of the seeds seem to have sprouted. I look forward to watching them climb my fence, their fragrance perfuming my summer nights. Until then, every muscle in my body aches. I have muscles in places I never knew I had. Even my buttocks hurt. I workout 3-5 times a week, lifting weights, the works. Why am I so sore from hauling mulch!?

I had a date Saturday night. It was the third Saturday in a row, with the same guy. That hasn’t happened since 2002. Love seems to be rather evasive for me. I’ve done some statistics…I go out once with any guy who meets a basic set of criteria. I try not to judge on looks too much, or even education, but try instead to discern those men with a kind heart and an inquisitive mind. I have lots of first dates, usually coffee, sometimes a beer, rarely anything that lasts more than two hours. I have fewer second dates and an occasional third date. According to my statistics, I like only one out seven men that I meet for coffee. Of those seven, only two out of three like me back. Out of those two out of three, only one out of five is able to keep my attention past the third date, and of those, I usually find a way to offend them in some way. Sigh. The odds don’t look good.

I very sadly told my Saturday date that I wasn’t falling in love with him. It wasn’t that he asked, but it was obvious that his feelings for me were growing at a rapid rate, and it just wasn’t happening on my end…in fact, and even more sadly, the feelings that had been budding, were fading faster than my tulips. I owed him the honesty. He told me lovely things, told me I was beautiful, was uncomplicated and warm, was earthy and sensual, was understanding and easy to talk to. My eyes misted over when he said those things, because they are the characteristics I most value in myself and it was reassuring that he was able to see them. He would have fit nicely in my life, would have been a good father figure for my boys. But cupid chose to shoot the arrow only at his heart, and not at mine, so I reluctantly waved goodbye as his car pulled out of my driveway.

As I hauled mulch around my fishpond, a fishpond built with love in the company of a man who could not love me back, I thought about love and attraction, and the complications of them both. I wondered how it ever works. I wondered if what I am looking for is such a statistical anomaly that I should just accept the ones who come close. Several of those have crossed my path, but my hopefully romantic heart has held out for the perfect fit. I have discussed this topic with my two best friends, one male, one female. Both of them are logical thinkers, and have presented comparable philosophies on the science of love and attraction. They (independently) portend that love is a combination of intellectual stimulation, physical attraction, emotional wants/needs and spiritual connection. They both have said that 100% compatibility on all four of these levels is almost impossible, and that 50% or higher is probably worth pursuing. In almost every case where I reject a guy, I can pinpoint which factor fell below the 50% mark. Of course, my logical and neurotic mind immediately questions which factor played a part in those who rejected me. But I digress….

I had an interesting conversation with my best girlfriend’s sixteen year old daughter. We were commiserating about how difficult it was to find a guy who you liked, and how frustrating it was because so often, if you like them, they don’t like you. I suggested an invention, where, upon mutual consent, two people could display their attraction levels on their foreheads. You could see immediately if you were a 4 or a 9, and could limit your interactions with those for whom you displayed a 9 and who also displayed a 9 for you. How much time that would save! How guilt free that would be! You wouldn’t have to worry about hurting someone’s feelings, because feelings are just feelings, not a judgment. If I could see, right up front, that the guy just wasn’t into me, and he could see, right up front, that I just wasn’t into him, wouldn’t that narrow the playing field? Wouldn’t that make for a more efficient search for Mr./Ms. Right? Shoe shopping would be so much easier…

Of course, falling in love is only the tip of the iceberg. Staying in love is even more of a challenge than finding someone to love, who loves you back. Based on my extensive research (being married once for 17 years, so much for extensive research) a long term, committed relationship needs four basic areas of compatibility…similar housekeeping habits, similar spending habits, similar communication styles, and similar sexual drives. With all these statistics to monitor, how does one ever live happily ever after?

All three of my boys helped with yard work yesterday. Scott blustered about a bit, as he always does, but in the end, even he was laughing and enjoying the easy camaraderie of his brothers and his mom. Afterwards, I took them out to Outback for dinner (no worries, mate, I love that phrase!) and got back just in time for Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. When it was time to make my nighttime rounds, I kissed sleeping Kevin, and covered him up, smiled my goodnight to Greg, still awake watching tv, and touseled the head of my sixteen year old, Scott. I closed his door and he called to me. I opened it back up and he said, “oh, its nothing, Mom.” I closed it again, and he called out, “I love you, Mom.”

Huh. That’s nothing? From a sixteen year old? I don’t think so. If this isn’t a happily ever after, then I guess I don’t know what is.