“Paris! We’re Going to Paris!”

So it was time to query Joanna Leigh about the trip this summer.

(If the “so” at the beginning of the opening sentence is like fingernails scraping across the blackboard, go here. It’s simply the newest thing in words.)
 
Anyway, as I was saying, I needed to make sure she would not be afraid of a big airplane. Or flying over a big ocean. Or going where she might have to eat new food.  I waited until after I put her in the bathtub. I got started while she was a captive audience.
 
“Honey, I need to talk to you about a big trip. If you go some places, you have to fly in a really big plane for a lot of hours and you have to fly over an ocean and. . . .”
 

Figure 1, The Eiffel Tower, Paris

 
She jumped up in the bath water, waving her hands in the air and screaming, “Paris! We’re going to Paris! I just know it. Oh, I’ll get to see the Eiffel Tower. . . .”
 
I’m thinking, “What does she know about the Eiffel Tower? Or Paris?”
 
“I just LOVE their clothes,” she says.
 
I’m thinking, “Whose clothes?”
 

More here about COCO CHANEL. . .who put Paris couture on the map

 
 
My eyes are getting dangerously wide, like maybe they’ll pop out of the sockets.
 
“And their desserts! Oh I just love their desserts!”
 
At first I just stood there, speechless. Then I had to leave the bathroom, go into my bedroom, and silently scream, “Wwwhhhaaaatt? What the hell does she know about Parisian clothes and desserts??? What about wines? Has she been reading up on Burgundy, too?”
 
I had to break the news. I walked back into the bathroom, holding out Truth in my hands. “No, honey, not Paris this time (I’m thinking, ‘Like maybe there’ll be a next time?’).”
 
“Ooohh. Ok, where are we going?” she asked, sitting back down in the water.
 
“Well, we’re going to the country just past France. It’s Germany. I need to know if you want to go.” Then I ran through all the items that might be scary to her.
 
“I want to go. When can we go? Where is Germany? Do they have pizza and French toast? Will we fly over Paris?”
 

Figure 2, Neuschwantstein Castle, Bavaria

 
The questions were coming fast. We talked it out until I felt like it was safe to nail down airline tickets, reservations for side trips, like a tour to Mad Ludwig’s fantasy palaces in Neuschwantstein and Linderhof. I tried to imagine all the new stuff, like riding a train and a subway, crossing some really big mountains, not understanding the language, and on and on. She said she couldn’t wait to do it all.
 
We talked a while. I laid down the law on certain things, like how she would do what I say, when I say it. I started brushing my teeth.
 
Then she said, “Jo, here’s what we’re going to do.” She got out of the tub and got her towel.
 
She has this manner when she takes on the role of the Boss. She puts one hand on her hip and gesticulates with the other hand in a kind of Queen Elizabeth position. So there she stood, in the pose, making decisions, bossing.
 
“When we get on the airplane, here’s what you need to do. Tell the pilot. . . .’
 
I’m thinking, “What does she know about the pilot of a Delta Airbus???”
 
“. . . the pilot that when he flies over Paris, he needs to fly really low and go over the Eiffel Tower kind of slow, so I can see it.”
 
I nearly blew my toothpaste onto the mirror.
 
So as it stands, we walk down the covered walkway to the plane, enter, she spots one of the pilots greeting guests, and . . . .
 
I don’t know. She’ll decide.

Technorati Tags: Paris,The Eiffel Tower,Coco Chanel,Neuschwantstein Castle. summer vacation

A Tale of Anesthesia

Anesthesia Land is somewhere outside of our known Universe. 

In an early morning mental fog I walked through the automatic double doors at 6 a.m. into the Outpatient Surgery unit. The officials got all the info I own into the computer and sent me back to my cubby to get out of my clothes into the bozo “gown,” have the R.N. put needles into my hand, answer the doctor’s questions, and wait.
I was then rolled through more automatic double doors into the cold-as-a-coffin surgical room that was lit up like the Jack Nicolson’s house in The Shining, asked to roll off the bed and onto my stomach on a platform the size of a surf board for the imminent pain block. I was instructed to put my arms in these plastic wings jutting off the surf board but I had to ask where my head went. They brought a pillow, I put my head onto it, and the lights went out. Like being in Carlsbad Caverns when the ranger makes everyone sit down and she turns out the lights. Eeeegads.
I got the block, which I have no memory of, was wheeled back out the swinging doors to my cubby, which I have no memory of, got my clothes back on, which I have no memory of (but I don’t think it was romantic like in the movies), and was plopped into a wheelchair to wait for my husband to pick me up, which I have no memory of.
On the cusp of consciousness, I heard a nurse say to the R.N. in charge of me, “You need to talk to this woman. I asked her if she had someone at home to look after her, and she told me ‘the cat.’ What if she falls?”
Then the lights faded again. I slept most of the day and didn’t remember hearing the nurse’s comment until the feeling in my right leg began returning.
So, I spent the evening remembering what she said I said, which I have no memory of, and snickering.
I invite you to watch our new black cat, Pumpkin Pie, attacking Gaspard and Lisa on Disney Jr.

Pumpkin Pie attacks Gaspard and Lisa

Technorati Tags: anesthesia,outpatient surgery,Gaspard and Lisa

GrandParenting: The Case of the Pink Diarrhea

 

When I became the de facto parent to my then 18-month-old granddaughter and had intimations that it would be permanent, I dreaded, was scared of, one all-too-familiar, inevitable event: having to stay up all night long with a feverish, vomiting, diarrhea-o-rama sick child. I knew – and know now – I am simply too old to stay up all night changing sheets, toweling up the floor, and cloroxing the toilet every thirty minutes.

I would have to clorox the toilet for sure. Our lab Maggie drinks out of the toilets. Some things you can’t change; you pick your battles.

As most parents know, for infants and toddlers it’s all bugs all the time. Some kids, after many episodes, get enough used to the fever, vomiting, and diarrhea that it doesn’t much bother them. Parents never get used to it.

I became paranoid. Every time Joanna Leigh sneezed, I thought, “It’s tonight for sure. What am I going to do???”

 

A Long Day’s Journey into Diarrhea Night

It never happened. The worst things she ever got were these piddling runny noses, a few coughs here and there, but no fever, vomiting, or diarrhea. On the other hand, those piddling runny nose events turned into a near-pneumonia event or sinus meltdown events on me. I spent nearly two years sick with mega-colds until my aged immunities got a grip.

It just never happened.

So then I became paranoid over her off-the-charts good health. “Could something be wrong with nothing being wrong with her?” I would think.

So at her five-year check-up for shots, weight, height, and all the doo-dah details, I finally got up the nerve to talk with the doctor about her health, her off-the-charts great health.

Haltingly I said, “Doctor, I need to talk with you about something.” Naturally she, the pediatrician, shot her eyes toward me like I was about to tell her something really awful and scary.

“Joanna Leigh is never sick. She has never had a night of fever, vomiting, diarrhea. She’s only run fever, what, twice for about 15 minutes when she picked up strep throat. Do you think that’s normal, or do you think something might be wrong deep underneath all that good health?”

Her reaction to my telling her NOT about something awful and scary, but about some insane and stupid non-issue was to stand in front of me, speechless.

“Are you serious?” she finally said as she closed the door behind her.

A year later, after she turned six, a friend took her to the Birmingham Zoo. As they drove up the driveway when they got back, Joanna Leigh said, “I’m going to throw up.” The only reason she knew what “throw up” meant is because she once ate one of those boutique cupcakes piled high with pink icing, then came home and threw up the pink icing onto the carpet. She never asked for one of those cupcakes with the BIG icing again, to date.

They quickly got out of the car, and sure enough, she threw up in the driveway. I felt her. She was hot. It wasn’t long before she began having diarrhea. She really didn’t even know what she was having until I explained diarrhea to her.

She said, “I don’t like throwing up or having diarrhea.”

I said, “I don’t like it either,” remaining somewhat ambiguous: When I had it or when she had it? I’m not sure I can answer that even today.

 

The Mystery of the Pink Diarya

 

A few months later she went back to the Birmingham Zoo on a day-camp field trip. When I went to pick her up, she ran toward me shouting, “Look what I got! A diarrhea! A diarrhea!”

I thought, “Oh no! Not again! What’s in that zoo, anyway?”

She was waving it in the air. Pink. Like the cupcake vomit. It was a “diarya.” A pink diary. A pink diarya with keys and a pen. Diarya is the way she heard “diary.”

So she writes in it, even though she hasn’t really learned how to write. She shows me her diarya writings. I had a flash forward. “That’s what 13-year-olds’ musing are – diarya.”

I’ll bet she doesn’t show me when she’s 13, not that I would want to read it. And peeking into your child’s diary is a huge No-No.

So I won’t read her diarya when she’s 13. Maybe.

 

 

 

 

Technorati Tags: Grand Parenting,Parenting grandparent,childhood bugs,childhood diarrhea,children's diary,Birmingham Zoo

The 6th Birthday Party Balloons Caper

 

It was the day before Joanna Leigh’s 6^th birthday party, which these days is almost as bad as the day before Christmas, since six-year-olds think their birthday is bigger than Christmas. I don’t know how long that belief lasts, but just in case, to improve behavior, I’ll start invoking “your next birthday party” instead of Santa Claus.

 The planning and most of the execution was done. We would have it at our neighborhood pool, the bouncy castle would go outside the fenced-in pool area, and they could just run back and forth from one to the other. I dreamed that this plan would wear them all out. I had yet to go to Sam’s for the cake, the Dollar Store for the favors, and Food World for the balloons. So off I went, tearing around like a normal-aged parent instead of a 70-year-old parenting grandmother. Aaaarrrgghhhh.

 I soon found out it’s those damned balloons you have to watch out for.

The calendar said May 24; the north breeze said this is very weird for May in Alabama; I said “thank you!” I got the cake, a princessity creation in pink and dyed-crisco flowers. The unusually cool weather let me get it home without its melting into the seat.

The 6^th Birthday Party Princess Cake

 

I put off going for the balloons so that they still would be floating for the party. I got the favors.

 Finally I headed for Food World. I ordered 20 balloons of several colors and one mylar pink princesses creation to match the cake and went for all the other supplies are they were getting their shot of helium. I came back to the balloon niche and looped them around my wrist. In the checkout line I could see the other people smiling and laughing to themselves as I struggled with getting my wallet out, paying, keeping ahold of the balloons, and heading for the door. Out I went, not looking back.

 “Oh, man,” I said out loud when the door opened. The wind was trying to blow the balloons into the Universe, tightening the ribbons around my wrist. Thankfully, I had the parking place closest to the door. I pushed the buggy and pulled back the balloons, pushed the buggy and pulled back the balloons. I struggled to get the back of the SUV open and the 20 balloons stuffed into the car. Then it hit me.

I had let go of the buggy.

 “Oh, shit,” I said too loud as I watched the buggy rolling the 150-yard parking lot, all downhill, toward the curb butting up to the highway. I heard laughing behind me. I turned. A woman at the door was howling with laughter as she shouted between guffaws, “I really would help you if I could!” I just threw one free arm up in the air and shouted, “Don’t worry. I can’t even help my own self!” I managed to slam the back hatch shut, wondering in a flash how many balloons I’d popped.

I turned back to the buggy’s downhill event just as it hit the curb. It stopped and somehow stayed on the ground, but the groceries flew up into the air like firecrackers.

 “This is entirely refuctious,” I screamed. I hopped into the car and headed for the curb.

 I got there in time to see the yogurt from several tubs that had ejected into the air like the space shuttle all sprayed onto the grass. Liters of soda were spewing around on the ground like bottle rockets. The cantaloupe took out the cheese straws, smashing them to smithereens, as I later learned.

 I grabbed up what I could and laid rubber getting out of there. Somebody later said, “I’d have just left the stuff there and drove off.”

 

“But the party, it was about the 6^th birthday party,” I replied.

 

I had to go to the grocery store yesterday. I dreaded seeing someone who recognized me as the dodo involved in last week’s balloon caper. Being a 70-year-old parenting grandmother has its ups and downs, but this was as sideways as it gets.

Technorati Tags: 6th birthday party,birthday party balloons,parenting grandparent,balloon caper

Pi-Pies and Pi-Kues

Once upon a time, the U.S. House of Representatives really did something: they passed HR 224.

H. Res. 224

In the House of Representatives, U. S.,

March 12, 2009.

Whereas the Greek letter (Pi) is the symbol for the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter;
Whereas the ratio Pi is an irrational number, which will continue infinitely without repeating, and has been calculated to over one trillion digits;
Whereas Pi is a recurring constant that has been studied throughout history and is central in mathematics as well as science and engineering;
Whereas mathematics and science are a critical part of our children’s education, and children who perform better in math and science have higher graduation and college attendance rates;
Whereas aptitude in mathematics, science, and engineering is essential for a knowledge-based society;
Whereas, according to the 2007 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) survey done by the National Center for Education Statistics, American children in the 4th and 8th grade were outperformed by students in other countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Russia, England, South Korea, Latvia, and Japan;
Whereas since 1995 the United States has shown only minimal improvement in math and science test scores;

Whereas by the 8th grade, American males outperform females on the science portion of the TIMSS survey, especially in Biology, Physics, and Earth Science, and the lowest American scores in math and science are found in minority and impoverished school districts;
Whereas America needs to reinforce mathematics and science education for all students in order to better prepare our children for the future and in order to compete in a 21^st Century economy;
Whereas the National Science Foundation has been driving innovation in math and science education at all levels from elementary through graduate education since its creation 59 years ago;
Whereas mathematics and science can be a fun and interesting part of a child’s education, and learning about Pi can be an engaging way to teach children about geometry and attract them to study science and mathematics; and
Whereas Pi can be approximated as 3.14, and thus March 14, 2009, is an appropriate day for ‘‘National Pi Day’’:
Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives—
(1) supports the designation of a ‘‘Pi Day’’ and its celebration around the world;
(2) recognizes the continuing importance of National Science Foundation’s math and science education programs; and
(3) encourages schools and educators to observe the day with appropriate activities that teach students about Pi and engage them about the study of mathematics.
Attest:
Clerk.
Math Happens
It seems that they are telling me that pi is an “irrational constant”; that’s a great description of the House of Representatives, I think.
For example,  their Resolution doesn’t mention that March 14 is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. Duh.
Einstein’s 4-ton statue in front of the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.
Celebrate pi in so many ways: Five great ideas include composing a pi-ku. Or baking a pi-pie.
Instead of the traditional format of a Haiku (three lines of 5, 7, and 5 syllables each), a pi-ku is 3-1-4 (for March 14). So, here goes:
MATH is, so
Run!
Circle the pies.

Or trying to figure out if Pi is capitalized or if pi is not. Go read a style manual.
Or go pi yourself: Get a tape measure; circle it around your waist; mark it and draw a circle of the circumference on a poster board; use the equation “circumference = (pi) x (diameter)”; remember that Pi is 3.14 and goes on to infinity. You figure it out. If your waist is, say, 36 inches, then you’ve been eating way too much pie.
Image from Wikipedia’s entry,  Irrational number. RUN!

Technorati Tags: House of Representatives,Pi Day,Pi-ku,3.14,March 14,Spittin' Grits,Einstein's statue

Miscellany

Joanna Leigh has been in costume most of the morning today. She put on her ballet-lessons digs and then put her nightgown on top of her head, hanging it down her back like the long flowing hair she yearns for.
She then says to me, “Mama Jo, look, I have long princess hair. Isn’t it beautiful? Do you like it?”
Well, it’s her Disney princesses nightgown, after all.
Then she announces that she will be doing this performance on the big stage at her recital. “Is that ok?” she asks.
Her ballet recital was a month ago, while I was cruising the Inside Passage. But in my defense, I had been to ALL the practices and dress rehearsals.
I turn my head in order to roll my eyes. Then I say, “Oh, certainly.” Then I have to watch the performance.
A four-year-old’s imagination: What a magical realm. I need to know more about this. Anyone have any ideas?
More Miscellany
At noon or thereabouts, I finally realized why Rocky Raccoon has been showing up at my door looking for food so early in the afternoon instead of sleeping in a tree like other normal nocturnal animals.

I first wrote about Rocky two years ago here.

Today was an eye-opener. Rocky is actually Rocketta, and she’s got babies somewhere nearby. She’s skinny and scruffy looking. So, as humans stay up all night with new babies, she’s having to stay up all day feeding herself in order to nurse her babies.
Sigh. Now I can’t trap and relocate Rocketta.
All the wry responses to my Facebook announcement of this discovery go something like this:
You had better relocate Rocketta AND her babies! What are you going to do when they ALL start knocking on your door?
And, You had better relocate all of them. Baby raccoons are cute.

Technorati Tags: Rocky Raccoon,raccoon,Spittin Grits

In Skagway, That Said. . .

So many ways to make a statement and so little space.
Except in Skagway, Alaska, one of my favorite places along the Inside Passage. As the entrance to the Yukon, Skagway makes lots of statements, but two I found special.
First, this, which tells me that the founder of Starbucks is indeed a genius.

Starbucks along the Inside Passage

The second one was the Statement Extreme. First, the disclaimer: The views expressed in less than 1,000 words are not necessarily the views of this writer and editor. Then again. . . .

Across from the Yukon White Pass train, this purveyor of bold statements was parked.
The Car.







The Hood.


The Trunk.

Notice the Starbucks icon on the right above. Clever.

The Fender.


Well, I didn’t say it.
By the way, there’s also a Starbucks in Seward, Alaska, the AHS Class of ‘61 classmates’ last stop of our heavenly Radiance of the Seas cruise of the Inside Passage, where we landed at an abominably early hour to catch the bus to Anchorage for our 50^th high school reunion.
I hope that Spittin’ Grits readers won’t tire too quickly of future statements about the Inside Passage cruise and my 50^th high school reunion in Anchorage.

Technorati Tags: Skagway Alaska,Starbucks,White Pass Yukon Route,political statement,Sarah Palin,Inside Passage cruise

Glittering Catastrophe

I knew I was in trouble before I got home from Anchorage, Alaska, after attending my 50^th high school reunion.

I talked to my four-year-old granddaughter, Joanna Leigh, two days before I would get on the plane for the long, long trip home. She said, in the sweetest voice, “Mama Jo, I have a special surprise for you when you get home.”

“You do-o-o-o?” I answered. “I’m so excited to see it. I’ll be home in two sleeps,” I said, trying to reassure her that I would indeed come home.

She needed reassurance. She has separation/abandonment issues from her mother’s disappearance from her life, and I left for Vancouver to pick up the cruise ship worried about how she would deal with my leaving.

So she made me a really special present.

My husband got back on the phone and said loudly, “This is really special.”

Then he whispered, “it’s glitter, not glitter glue,” which, of course, sticks to surfaces. Pure glitter, he meant.

Then he added in a lower whisper, “and it’s everywhere. I’ve tried to get some of it up.”

“Oh, ma gawd,” I thought.

I drug in at nearly midnight last Monday. She was awake and couldn’t wait to show me.

“Oh, ma gawd,” I thought, for real this time.

Today I spent all morning scraping as much as I could into a bowl. Then I vacuumed and vacuumed and vacuumed, over and over. I vacuumed EVERYTHING: her art table, the crayons, the markers, the paper, the floor, her bed, the lamp, the bottoms of my shoes, my hands, and finally, my own rear end, which sat in the chair covered in glitter. I even vacuumed the ceiling fan for fear that any glitter on the paddles would just get slung, the next time it got turned on, to those few places I didn’t vacuum. 

No Bippity Boppity Boo

A glittering catastrophe. Now I’m nursing my back from vacuuming for two hours.

Life turns on dimes. How fast can you go from being a Queen catered to by everyone on a cruise ship for seven days to a household drudge? In a New York minute. Now I will turn to my pictures, videos, and memories before the whole trip sinks into the vast past and I forget I went.

Afraid that I would hurt her feelings by cleaning up the glitter mess, I took a picture.

 

Technorati Tags: glitter,glitter glue,drudge,Spittin' Grits

Senior Pictures, Pictures of Seniors

Summertime! Water fun, weddings, backyard cookouts, trips to the mountains, fireflies, even noctilucent clouds (which you can find out about at www.spaceweather.com). And graduation, which means U.S. high schools and colleges putting gazillions of seniors out on the streets.

It’s also the season for one of America’s great pastimes – no, not baseball. Reunions.

Reunions come in all kinds, sizes, and shapes -- like school classes, families, all kinds of military gatherings including fighter pilot aces, athletes celebrating a special win. Name a meaningful past event or cohorts; people will get together.

Reunions are also big business in America and generate tons of summertime spending; I’ll do my part in a few days to stimulate the economy by contributing more than my share to this business segment.

Yet, there’s a major reason to go, a reason based on some little-known research. That secret will be revealed at the end of the post.

AHS Senior Class of ‘61

I first heard the silly joke, “What’s the difference between senior pictures and pictures of seniors?” when my father told me he was going to his 50^th high school reunion. I thought it was way over the top back then. (The answer to that stupid joke will be at the bottom of this post.)

Some people would rather be shot at dawn than have to attend their class reunion.

Well, I’m risking it all and going to mine. In Anchorage. That’s Anchorage, Alaska. By way of the Inside Passage on Royal Caribbean’s Radiance of the Seas, a cruise put together by a few classmates. There will be about 30-plus of us on board. I haven’t seen these classmates in 20 years, since our 30^th reunion.

I leave Thursday to get on board. I’ve sent my money in. If I drop dead before next Thursday, well, I won’t live to regret it.

We will join lots of other classmates Friday, June 17, at (West) Anchorage High School, to begin our 50^th Reunion. Over the top, alright.

We’ve had a lot of fun working on this Reunion for two years, some of us communicating electronically with the core committee in Anchorage. The work shows in the Web page, at www.ahs61.com.

A few days ago with a temperature here in Tuscaloosa at 101 degrees and my AC merely chugging along, I went to Belk to continue my spending by getting a few things. I couldn’t find them.

“Where are the socks?” I asked a couple of salespeople.

They were speechless, looking at me like I was a mental case. “I’m going to Alaska!” I added.

“Oh! They’re over there,” they replied.

Gravity Happens

Why -- looking like I look, missing all the opportunities for success I’ve missed, feeling totally inferior, not remembering stuff I should remember, having just had “procedures” I don’t want to discuss – why would I put myself through a REUNION? Yes, there’s that secret reason to be revealed at the end. But what about the CONCERNS?

Here’s my take on the CONCERNS:

Many had a tough time in high school. Here’s what I say to that: Who didn’t! We were teenagers. Give me a teenager who didn’t have a tough time and I’ll give you a corpse. Teenagers and psychopaths and sociopaths probably share many personality traits.

Many grownups still feel the sting of real or perceived affronts to their esteem. Here’s what I say to that: Who doesn’t? And let me say right here: If I committed an affront to any of my high school peers, I am most sorry for it. My excuse is that like everyone in high school, I was insane and busy dealing with the affronts aimed at me.

Regarding having suffered from an inferiority complex. Ha! This is what I say to that: I still am. Descartes should have said, “I feel inferior; therefore, I am.”

Many seniors don’t recognize the person in the mirror. I don’t, and I’m sure no one will recognize me. It’s all about gravity, pounds, bad hair color, baldness, wrinkles, dysfunctional knees and sexual prowess, bags, walkers, and whatever else we’ve added to our lives. Here’s what I say to that: It’s true. Most people won’t recognize you anymore than you’ll recognize them.

Get over it; the name tags will be HUGE.

Some will fear scorn for their fuzzy or no “accomplishments.” Here’s what I say to that: As long as we’re breathing, we’ll all continue to have to re-start our lives – for the zillionth time. I just had to re-start mine three years ago when my husband (miraculously, of 40 years) and I petitioned for and adopted our 18-month-old granddaughter.

We ALL remember envying other classmates’ looks, brains, boobs or other endowments, status in the “in crowd,” athletic heroics, scores on the SAT test, and a zillion other things. Here’s what I say to that: I envied Teresa Hanson’s pink Ford Victoria convertible. And Ginger Harris’s confidence. And Tom Kelly’s SAT scores. There, I’ve said it. But I’m going to attend anyway.

No Regrets

So we will come together for our 50^th high school reunion – because we CAN. We’ve been given the gift of surviving long enough to have this opportunity. Seeing noctilucent clouds will just be gravy.

Those who will see their close friends, those who didn’t know each other, those who only knew each other as acquaintances – we all share this singular opportunity. All of us shared that one moment when the AHS door opened graduation night for us to begin our journey to adulthood. We all helped each other get to that point, for good or ill.

The AHS Senior Class Prom, 1961. Both the King and Queen, sitting in the chairs, will be at our 50th High School Reunion.

And finally, the main reason, a best kept secret revealed in a New York Times piece two years ago:

“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t terribly well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There is just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.”

ANSWER TO THE OPENING QUESTION:

As far as we, the AHS Class of ’61, are concerned, there’s NO DIFFERENCE between senior pictures and pictures of seniors.

Technorati Tags: Anchorage High School,Senior Class of '61,AHS Class of '61,50th high school reunion,reunions,Inside Passage cruise,senior pictures,Senior Class Prom,graduation 1961

Cinderella’s Plastic Slippers

Broken Up, Cracking Up

Tiresome. Insufferable.

Parent’s and grandparents’ droning, droning, droning, on and on, about their children’s/grandchildren’s every habit, look, interest, action, word. . . . It’s right up there with the dreaded Christmas letter from “friends.”

December 25

Dearest One of my Piles and Piles of Friends:

Once again I'm happy to report that we are all blissful, nothing has gone or can go wrong, we're all extremely sane and rich, and all my children have been inducted into Phi Beta Kappa.

The merriest of Christmases, love to all, and so sad about your lives.

Your close friend (remember, we met in South Dakota).

So, indulge me.

A couple of weeks ago I found myself completely incapacitated from a serious flare-up from a chronic back condition, which includes bulging disks. At first I lay in the bed crying, not so much from pain as from fear.

Becoming incapacitated and unable to tend to our four-year-old granddaughter Joanna Leigh is plainly one of my worst nightmares.

I called Martha, boo-hoo-hoo-ing. “Martha,” I cried, “what am I going to do????” Sob. “I know you don’t want to do this, but I have to get some help. Will you please come over?” Sob.

Martha has been helping me keep house, paint cabinets, steam clean rugs, trim shrubs, you name it, for a decade. She has been in Joanna Leigh’s life since the beginning, and Joanna Leigh loves her second only to Teddy.

She came.

On one of the days as I lay hurting, Joanna Leigh got some money off the table next to my bed. She pointed her finger at me and said, “Mama Jo, you need to share your money.”

I said, “Honey, it’s really Martha’s money. You need to go tell Martha that SHE needs to share her money.”

She turned on her heels. “Harumph.”

Suddenly, from the other side of the house I heard Martha laughing so hard, she was hollering. It got louder.

I called to her; she came into my room to tell me what was so funny.

“You won’t believe what this child has told me now. She came to tell me that I needed to share my money. I told her I can’t share my money. I patted my pockets and told her, ‘I’m broke!’ She looked at me, pointed her finger, and said. . . .”

She burst out laughing again.

“She said, ‘You are NOT broke. You are stuck together and you need to share your money’.”

 

The Pink Car Driver Performance

Some readers may remember the Christmas Confessional post, confessing that my husband and I totally caved on the Pink Car for Christmas.

Getting this video last weekend made it all ok.

 

Joanna Leigh, Easter weekend 2011

 

Technorati Tags: Spittin Grits,Pink car,Cinderella's Plastic Slippers

Conspiracy of Librals

Yes. It all became clear when I read a thought-filled, idea-provoked, brain-sated letter to the editor of the Tuscaloosa News, Monday, January 31, from copious writer Freddie Barrett.

He observed that librals (the Southern pronunciation of “liberals”) have conspired to spread speed bumps all over town on otherwise smooth roads in our city. His prescience illuminated the whole idea of conspiracy theories.

Yes. As he noted, “I cannot help but think that there must be some do-good liberal [sic] behind these monstrosities to safe driving. Only one of them [speed bumps] can bring stupidity to a perfectly smooth road.”

Suddenly I realized a sorrow-mired possibility: It’s those same librals – conspiratators -- who have snuck in during a dark and stormy night to trash the back seat of my car.

It looks like it’s been rummaged by a band of possums or raccoons or ruffians. There’s melted Star Bursts, M&Ms, and lollipops, thousand of Nerds of all colors, Joanna Leigh’s school projects (including a paper doll George Washington, the Founder of our Country), Clorox wipes, extra clothes and panties, wrappers for all kinds of sugar-laden candy; it’s simply a grotesque heap back there. Plus, those same librals must’ve poured syrup or juice or something all over Joanna Leigh’s car seat.

 

As Barnett asks, “When is enough enough?”

 

“Let my backseat alone, librals!” I shout to the Heavens.

Wait.

Oh, no. As I typed that last sentence, it hit me. Barnett could very well be talking about Libras, those scales-of-justice-holding, trashy conspiratators born between September 23 and October 22. Not my dispatriotic compatriot librals.

Boy, is that a relief.

 

Technorati Tags: Liberals,letter to the editor,Tuscaloosa News,Libras,Southern pronunciation

Nuke the Tutu: Our Founding Fathers Speak

I pick up Joanna Leigh from pre-school, dash to the Ballet Academy in town, tear off school clothes, sling on her pink tutu, pink tights, pink ballet shoes – all from her pink Barbie clothes bag, and run her into the practice room with the one-way window pane.

A mom and dad are standing behind me. “You devastate them, Sugar Pie,” the father mutters out loud as the girls bend at the knees, arms over their head, and twirl in place. “You show ‘em, honey.”

The little girl behind the one-way mirror spent a lot of the class time looking out to see how mom and dad were reacting to her performance. Finally, they just kept pointing at the teacher to get Sugar Pie to pay attention. Sugar Pie was just shrugging, like she didn’t understand.

Mom and dad weren’t kidding.

After an hour of practice, practice, practice, we get home for bath, hair washing and styling, teeth brushing and whitening, and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.

“Mama Jo, I’m tired,” says Joanna Leigh.

“You’re WHAT!!! You must do those pas de deux and passés until you get them right. Then tomorrow you have gymnastics, and you’ve got to practice the tumbles.”

“But, . . .” she inserts.

“Don’t ‘but’ me, little girl (she’s 3-1/2, by the way). You don’t get busy now, I’ll put the tutu, tights, ballet shoes, AND TAP SHOES in a pile and NUKE them,” I scream.

Oh, my gawd, STOP. I’m KIDDING!

Kidding

“I was kidding” is what Amy Chua told Stephen Colbert on The Colbert Report. Yale professor and author of the recent and controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, said, “the book is a memoir; it’s supposed to be funny, a self-parody,” she argued, because it didn’t work with her 13-year-old daughter.

Chua explained to Time magazine that her first daughter was more compliant.

Then along came Lulu, says Time. “As a fetus, she kicked – hard. As an infant, she screamed for hours every night. And as a budding teenager she refused to get with her mother’s academic and extra-curricular program.”

Oh, ma gawd. Now they’re invoking Nature over Nurture. I’m confused!

Chua explained to Colbert that the values behind the Tiger Mother approach: “The values of hard work, don’t give up, and don’t blame others are fundamental American values, the ones championed by our Founding Fathers.”

Ok, now it’s our Founding Fathers who’d nuke the tutu. Totally bewildering.

The interview just got funnier, and I laughed a lot. Until I started thinking about it all.

Activities Activities Activities

I look at Joanna Leigh and see a gymnast waiting to happen, so she’s signed up for lessons at pre-school, along with a kiddie computer program. In the last year or so, I’ve tried to provoke her curiosity and look for interests – the moon, swimming, movies, lots of events and performances, including Children’s Theatre, The Nutcracker, Ringling Bros. Circus.

Guess who won. Clara! She wants to be Clara in the Nutcracker. So, off to ballet we went, to sign up, buy the outfits, pay for Recital expenses – way in advance.

Am I turning into the ballet Nazi????

Is there a book in this????

Next weekend we’ll go to a University of Alabama gymnastics meet. Our extremely talented and accomplished team is always a contender for a National Championship.

Ah ha! Now I can spend whatever is left of my daily life stuffing the gymnast template down her throat, raging, refusing to relent. That ought ‘a do it.

I’ll invoke the Founding Fathers when I like something and Nazis when I don’t like something. That makes sense.

I’ll make political statements though my granddaughter: The Chinese way is superior, because they own us.

Nuke me!

According to the Chinese horoscope, I am a Water Lamb (1943) and Joanna Leigh is a Fire Pig (2007).

A Water Lamb doesn’t stand much of a chance against a Fire Pig. Maybe that’s where Amy Chua went wrong; she didn’t check the Chinese horoscope.

 

Technorati Tags: Amy Chua,Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother,Stephen Colbert,Time,Founding Fathers,University of Alabama gymnastics,ballet Nazi,Chinese horoscope

A Christmas Confessional

Ok. We caved.

In June, Joanna Leigh found it in a flyer. I admit, I used her wish to get her to go to bed, to make potty training progress, to inspire good behavior. It was the Pink Car.

By October, I knew it was serious. Maybe I had overused it or maybe she’s just persistent. Whatever. She would not let go of or forget about the Pink Car, a Barbie Ford Mustang convertible, no less. I knew I had to act fast. I jumped in our car – the real one – and headed for Wal-Mart, where she had seen it in person.

Oh, ma Gawd, they didn’t have one. They told me it was last season’s thingy, and said if I could find it, it would be on sale. This year’s thingy was a off-road jeep-type thing, totally no good for a princess.

I got home and called every Wal-Mart in central Alabama. No deal. By now my pulse had quickened.

I went on-line. There it was. But full price. I whipped out my MasterCard and read off the number. It would be shipped to the local store for no additional cost but at full price. When it got here, I had until the end of October to pick it up; it has been in our unfinished basement covered by a tarp for two months.

My husband is putting it together as I type. Two hours ago he said, “It’s not going to take too much to get this together.”

He’s cursing. “There’s no battery indicator light like it shows in the book,” he screamed up the stairs.

We have three days to get it together. Now he can’t find all the stickers that go on it. Bah Humbug.

I don’t regret the excess. Joanna Leigh is so sweet and anxious to have gifts for everyone. The night I was cutting up fruit for her school party and putting it all in storage bags, she came in the kitchen when I wasn’t looking, got handfuls of plastic bags, put a bunch of her toys and trinkets in them, zipped them up, and said they were for her friends at school.

There will be plenty of photos to come.

The Early Period: Photos by Joanna Leigh

No, the photos aren’t 3-1/2 years old, she is. Joanna Leigh got my point-and-shoot camera and took them herself. I can’t resist posting them. Catching me brushing my teeth made her howl with laughter.

I really can’t believe I’m putting all these on the Web. For posterior. Or is it posterity?

		Photos by Joanna Leigh VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Merry Christmas. I’ll be on holiday for a week or so. Please come back to Spittin’ Grits.

Technorati Tags: Pink Ford Mustang,Wal-Mart,Barbie Car,Merry Christmas,Spittin' Grits

Thanksgiving 2010: Resuscitation

As Thanksgiving memories recede, letting in the tidal wave of Christmas that swallows America, I have to express my thanks for two things: Teddy’s resuscitation and Joanna Leigh’s good report.

The Teddy thing is HUGE. He not only lives, he lives successfully washed. I was seriously concerned for his life. I thought he had coded.

I introduced Teddy about a year ago, here. He is what our counselor/child psychiatrist describes as a TO, a transitional object, important especially when a child is experiencing psychological separation anxiety.

He is important enough that Joanna Leigh would not allow me to keep him long enough to send him through the washer, and I became more and more frightened that he might be carrying the Bubonic Plague. At the least, I believed he was implicated in Joanna Leigh’s bouts with strep throat.

But the other day, she had on a new dress in several shades of pink, a purple plastic necklace, and a new bobbed haircut. Distracted by all this, she forgot and left him at home when she left for pre-school. I ran to the den to watch them actually leave the driveway. I gave them enough time to return for Teddy, but they didn’t. I hauled it upstairs and grabbed him with some throw pillows that needed washing, thinking they might cushion the blows from the agitator.

I checked him several times during the cycle to see if his guts were still intact.

He dries and lives.

And we have an appointment with our counselor this week – a good thing, as Joanna Leigh continues to suffer from this sorrowful grief from the loss of her mommy. And, by the way, I ain’t doing so hot either.

This weekend she had a rough time. Saturday morning she woke up fussy and whiny. Then she said, “I want my mommy.” She came over and got in my lap and I just held her for a while (and secretly cried).

Later we were driving through Holt, a partly scuddzy area known for drugs, when she said, “This is where my Mommy’s house is.” I said, “Honey, it’s not there anymore; your mommy had to move far away.” Then she said, “Then we have to go find her. I want to find her.”

We were on the way to a friend’s house, who invited her over to make a gingerbread house. What a treat! She invites some children over every year for their own special event for a few hours. She has some of the “building” done according to the child’s age and abilities. Joanna Leigh did well in decorating her house.

She wanted to adorn the gingerbread figure to be her mommy, rather than do two as Mamma Jo and Papa. As “mature” (HA!) as I am, it hurts my feelings, as well as makes me hurt for her.

That evening, I fussed at her for something, and she started crying. Then she started saying, “Mommy. Mommy,” through the tears. I said, “Your mommy is not here. You live with Mamma Jo and Papa, and you have to follow our rules. Mamma Jo is taking care of you because your mommy is far away.”

Yet the report last month from her counselor/psychiatrist was welcome news:

“Well, I’m giving you about as good news as I ever have. Joanna Leigh is doing well. Her development is on target and she’s bright,” said Dr. Margaret.

Enough said. There’s plenty of collateral damage with drug addiction.

Technorati Tags: Thanksgiving 2010,Spittin' Grits,childhood grief