Comfort, Connection, Community

I am not an only child, but I was one all my life

2008-06-25T02:09:00Z

I am an only child. And I have a sister. To be specific, a half-sister. Which means, on my dad's side side of my family I have a sister. And on my mom's side, I'm an only child. And as much as I like to think that I'm really a co-parent of a seventeen year-old half sister, really, we're sisters. And as soon as I can come to terms with that, the better. So say I and the self-shrinkage that is going on here, but hopefully this will help someone else to realize that it's ok to feel completely schizophrenic with regards to roles when generations are being blurred more and more, and there are half-things out there that feel whole sometimes, and nonexistent other times.

Let me start at the beginning of the story. My parents divorced about 18 years ago. My dad had a baby with the woman he walked out of "our" door and into the next house with. She is otherwise known as "the second wife" or "my sister's mom." Both terms left me feeling very angry for having to utter them. I, after all, did not leave anyone or hurt anyone. Why should I have to use such echhhy vocabulary? I left town soon-after. Book rights not for sale, I'm writing this one myself, but not here (ah yes, you're spared). But yes, this does go on in Shorewood, and men are truly a protected species as no one so much as bats an eye when ... organizational change is affected...as far as I'm concerned. In sum, I took the high road - embracing my dad's new rather large family (the new wife had four kids already), giving them advice for navigating the Shorewood Schools, taking care of baby, helping my mom readjust and move to another series of homes in Shorewood, and generally being emotionally and physically available to all the players.

So I did what any other self-respecting 21 year old would do....

I moved to Chicago.

But now I'm back, and part of being back in Shorewood is really facing my issues. First of all, it was hard to find a house that wasn't on the same block as a past home of either household. I think I have classmates who had similar family shifts and "change agents" affecting some new developments. It's hard stuff, but as a parent now, I realize it's imperative that I understand my most murky and painful issues, because really they are based on expectations that I will be a perfect mother, and that whatever I suffered as a child is irrevocably so horrid that can never be redressed. However. My parents have moved away, and that baby is now 17, here for a visit. When my sister holds my baby and at the same playgrounds I took her to as a baby, people ask HER how old her baby is, instead of when it was me holding her. I get seriously verklemmt (and hey, I was a German major, so I use the term still). And, just like I did, she shrugs, and says "Bout a year I think?" and people recoil in horror. And I can honestly say there, there is a glimmer of humor in this otherwise hard to digest emotional pill. So here's what I realized. She's not some constant reminder of my life as a "first marriage offspring" or That's-When-Life-Went-Nuts moment. She is my sister. At least as long as my mom and I aren't concerned. I didn't say I was done here, but I'm easing off a long-time hang-up about parenting my Dad's daughter instead of just hanging out with my sister.

She is finally old enough to tell me to stop calling him by his first name when we discuss him,...he is our DAD. And I'm able to now tell her that my children generally address me as MOM, and not Jenny. It's funny having to rearticulate what is a given in many families, but I think we're both, my sister and I, on the front lines now and realize that it's up to us to either fix this stuff or have insincere experiences, which we're too in need of real family times to do.

So here's a toast of stale yet chilled crappy white zinfandel - here's to you children of the first marriage, who've sucked it up and been there for parents who took you for granted, and you grew a bitter side that is darker than anyone would suspect. This is for you, in hopes that at some point, you can hang out with your "siblings" and you can tell them "You know, I really feel left out of Dad's life" and they can say "Oh PUHleeze, are you kidding? You know how he does this and that, and .." and suddenly, you have a sister, or a brother, and you can actually coexist without a giant lump in your throat. Happy Summer Wedding Season! I'm outta here - my sister's watching my kids for an hour.

Greetings from Wits' End

2008-06-15T13:52:39Z

Happy Father's Day, Happy How-am-I-supposed-to-properly-clean-up-water-from-the-basement-day, Happy This-Isn't-What-I-Was-Going-To-Do-Today, Happy I'm-So-Behind-In-My-Work day!

A brief outlook of Shorewood from the Jennycam today (shout out to all who are not in Shorewood at the moment):

The chicken barbeque was yesterday...looked to be a success...except that it ended in a severe thunderstorm warning and there were some viscious lightning bolts that hit metal things and we could hear it - like daggers seriously being hurled by an irate Zeus. NO MORE CHICKENS. Whatever, ours gave me a little stomach ache so I'm glad I didn't really have much. It's a beautiful sunny day here and the birds outside finally seem relaxed. They've been freaking out with all these pending storms..my guess is some of them are probably even hoarse! In bird-equivalent of course.

I'm determined to be positive today - my husband deserves it. Why is that so hard? Ya'd think now that we've "made it" and live in Shorewood, have a nice home for our kids that is full of life, I'd be able to act like that twenty-something sort of dating behavior that's always a little tipsy seeming when I encounter it on campus. But lo and behold, motherhood is deeply sobering and actually requires more on-the-spot reaction and delegation than that other, more attractive relaxed and mildly out-of-it personality affords.

Back to being positive. I'm going to list out all the projects due tomorrow and try to forget them for the time being. We have a brunch to find, and some hazmat materials to collect before tromping down to the basement to inhale some spores or something tasty.

What has suprised me with all this rain and having water be the new locust is the lack of warnings about dealing basement water of questionable origin. Still haven't been able to find a website that is not selling a product at the end, for tips on avoiding hepatitis among other things. We had a landlord in Chicago who, although a nutty buddy, always swore she got hep (A?B? those letters...they always play tricks on me) from cleaning a basement after water got in.

Granted, we didn't get much water, but we hardly have an empty basement either. It's all relative!

So speaking of relatives, have a happy father's day all you dads trying to smile through the drudgery of icky work, and wear gloves!

I have to run - baby is crying her head off, and I have some pants to wrap. No time like the present.

Gentle Souls, Take Note

2008-06-01T23:41:11Z

I have just recovered from the stomach flu. For some, that isn't a big deal. But for me, somehow, it was. As I watched my children getting out of control as I stood, bent over a torn Whole Foods bag losing yesterday's lunch, I thought, Oh God, I'm too Old and Decrepit already to be starting this breeding thing. Doesn't anyone care that mommy is sick? Huh? Hello? Tossing cookies here...oh well. Too young I guess. It will be a new milestone for me to mark in their respective baby/toddler books...the time when they will Care when mommy is down and try to do something. Hopefully it won't have to be at high school graduation (or college? Beyond?). Anyway, enough about me.

Now I'm better. Phew. But it reminded me, again, how fragile life is - not just the precious little ones who toddle too close to the steps or street or neighborhood schizophrenic man (sorry, John)...but Moms. And Dads. When that plane flew over so low I could touch it last Thursday apparently spraying for gypsy moths (WHAT?? by the way?? Could I just charter a plane and spray glitter if I wanted to?) it reminded me again that whoa, people are sensitive and we should take good care, all of us. When that guy attempted suicide by driving over the bluff here in Shorewood on Tuesday, and it made the hair on the back of many necks stand up for a sec, that was a reminder too. And it was freaky as all heck.

I have been getting down on myself for not being a better domestic caretaker. Granted, Henry and I made an awesome from-scratch board game today while Helen slept in her hommus, but my house, and my person, are not svelte or pretty. I had another sighting of a high school alumnus - Louisa Kamps - who had the telltale "Gate-Check" tag on her stroller and was walking With Purpose (isn't there a nice little French phrase for that?) up Capitol towards what I assumed was/is her parents house. She had on the same earrings I remember her wearing in high school, same tall skinnnnny legs, thick brown ponytail, and gaze that was both here and a million places. Her son looked about 3 and content yet in full discussion about things. I drove past, sliding down in my seat feeling like I was a changeling - a person having flashbacks and also who is very much in the present and is delayed in finishing her homework for the week. Yes, folks, I'm in grad school, and proud of it, some days, and taking three classes if I can get it together to even sign up (maybe that's a bad sign that I can't even get that accomplished) for all 3...but I'm no editor at Vogue or whatever. I am the one who gets accosted in my driveway about some group rummage sale in a week that is beyond my comprehension except that I could be ready for one at any moment. That is a reality TV show I would WIN.

There is a new presence for Shorewood High School Alumni Group on Facebook. Join in. It's hilarious and completely nonlinear and getting bigger by the day.

The other news is I'm seriously contemplating a paper mache fruit and vegetable garden for this year, as I seem to have missed the deadline for raising my own crops from seed. As my husband pointed out, All things are raised from seed, just not by us, but still, it's the principal of the thing. So I may just make it a green/recycling project and papier-mache my way to full-blown, county-fair-winning sized melons and such Prematurely, just to reward onlookers with a farce. I would do this, but I'm hampered by the knowledge that the last time I made a bunch of animals to attach to my Madison cow (long story - you can google that if you are curious), the mice thought it was Old Country Buffet and wouldn't release them even when I picked 'em up and shook them. So now I hang my creations on the line (and, since laundry's at an impasse, I might as well), and let the squirrels and birds fight over my apparently tasty (and all-you-can-eat) concoctions!

See you round the village, in my nonseasonal but at least not fearing death nor or gypsy-moth-spraying orange!

Sources for Sitters: ethics and tribulations for finding a babysitter on craigslist, facebook, or the neighborhood

2008-05-25T15:09:16Z

Sources for Sitters: ethics and tribulations for finding a babysitter on craigslist, facebook, or the neighborhood

A lofty goal, this title, but I'm determined to find answers to my latest quest into interdependence in society.

Taking a class or going into an endeavor with a schedule requires an acceptance that Mom is going to be Away. This seems logical, simple even. I've tried to deny the fact that it takes resources outside of course fees or what's on paper to make this happen. And so, I'm going to have to embrace the fact that I will incur not only the expense of the class and books (which I deny up until the first assignment is due usually and then panic), but of the time to prep and write papers and midterms and finals (read=middle of the night=higher coffee and frozen pizza expense),(carryover effect=which makes for a tired mom who sits and eats handfuls of dry FrootLoops during Memorial Day Weekend instead of being plucky and planning a fun picnic or vigil or parade entry), and also of a babysitter to watch the kids when I ACTUALLY go to CLASS. Given that Steve gets home from work about 7:30pm weekdays, evening classes cost anywhere from $6-$10 an hour for childcare.

So I thought my babysitter was not coming back.. I figured, OH, this is IT, she's in Love, she's outtahere for the summer (she has one semester left, she has to come back in the fall, right??), I'm doomed. But then, she came back! And so 24 hours after I thought all was lost in that regard, all was back to normal, except now she has a real nursing job and is going to try to fit us in and such. So I'm a little concerned. Anyway, I put an ad on Craigslist to find a new sitter, for the early evenings, to cover my class (I mention this because the UWM Childcare option, would work, except for the fact they close at 6) .

And I got ten responses in an afternoon! WOW. Many qualified people, some nutty folks, ...people should just always be heavier on the spellcheck and lighter on the religious mumbojumbo in my book. So I interviewed two people and have another one scheduled next week.

And then I shot myself in the foot. (speaking of which, the new Cabela's circular in the Journal-Sentinel has pages of gun ads - from shotgun to purse-sized pistol. It isn't hunting season. It is Memorial Day Weekend. !? Mentally challenging connections there).

Background: I've been obsessing on Facebook this weekend (not so ridiculous - I think it's going to be the solution for alumni relations for Shorewood High School..at least for some! Check out the Shorewood High School Alumni Group on Facebook. It's a totally open cross-class platform for lively discussion and pics and probably some Scramble).

I cross-checked my new sitter options on Facebook. I even invited them be Friends. And now, I can see all their pictures. And I'm afraid I'm going to have to make an ethical decision about one based on her self-representation in facebook. Never mind she's getting a degree in the right field and was very easy going and nice. I know I would just worry about an underage party girl with a taste for the visually unappealing drunkenness that goes with it...I may just wonder about things at home the way I wouldn't with someone who had the same pics at their disposal but maybe wasn't quite so proud of them and chose not to post them online? I don't know. This is me, the one who made a huge face at the tidy whitey mother of three last week who mentioned that there are a lot of "Nice Parochial Girls" in the neighborhood who love to babysit - it made me kind of throw up in my mouth. Now that I'm faced with a girl who probably does that with some frequency, I feel like I'm stuck in the middle.

My block doesn't exactly have a lot of teens at the ready for sitting. We have one tween, but she comes with considerable baggage. I think there is also something wrong (?) with me that I don't want so much attention right here at home -- would I have to clean extra hard? Yep. Someone who comes maybe from a little bit away would maybe not care if they know all of our business. Anyway, our block has some boys, boys I know at home have to be disciplined about their screen time just like Henry...and I think sure, they'd be fine probably, but what about Helen? It's more multimedia than it looks, having two, and our regular awesome sitter/friend person handles it well because unlike me, she is sporty. She walks, and they go to the park, and when Steve gets home the kids are both ready for bed and happy.

ahh.

That's all we want, right? A little touch of summer, some park fun, and no creepy pics online?

But I feel like I've unleashed the old people to invade the land of lost boys/girls to find their children drinking on Facebook..(omg and drinking with like some kind of tire part and a lot of tubing), and I am sorry! I never thought that'd be me..an employer not hiring someone because of her FaceBook offerings? But if I'm hiring for judgement, already I know there's some lacking there.

See you 'round the village!

So many blogs, so little time

2008-05-20T17:40:01Z

Consider these topics blogged:

Below is a fake Annotated Listing of Blogs composed in the Last Week by yours truly:

1. Great Graduation Gifts (this blog never occurred - it was big, funny, rather elastic, and now moot mostly. IN SUM: Best College Grad Gift is Lifetime Membership to School's Alumni Association or Union (like UW-Madison - only $55 to join the union while still recent, jumps to $135 then to $250 depending on how long you wait. Lets you drink ad infinitum in the union, go to concerts, stay at Memorial Union, etc)

2. A Complete Trip: I went to Chicago for two days to teach green green green, and came back refreshed and motivated by the potential of 3rd graders to participate in curriculum design, and for me to make more of community connections in schools. Highlights: waking up and having no idea where I was...no one needing a thing from me...I took the el before fully awake, remembered proximity of platform to track drop...enjoyed coffee and Chicagoans before onslaught of flip-flop Docker dads and grouchy skinny soy latte moms with killer strollers and blobby children. I was there sans kids as a singleton, and it was uniquely private and productive. Funny how that happens.

3. The Teacher Gift Phenomenon: it happened already and Henry is only 4. I'm not at liberty to discuss this one for fear of social repercussions. Might go down on my permanent record. I'm sure you understand. Suffice it to say that, teachers are people too, and have the same closet space as the rest of us.

4. Look, Smell and Feel SHS on the last days of school. Even though I live here, I can't go back in time. What I can do is convey the smell and feel of the school for you! Any places you want me to photograph or smell for you? I will write this blog June 1.

See you 'round the Village!

SHS Alumni Newsletter by any other bcc would smell as sweet?

2008-05-09T12:16:00Z

First, a bit of tech geeking because it's got me tied in knots.

Mea culpa, folks. I was in charge of sending out the .pdf with the brand spankin new Shorewood High School, Shorewood, Wisconsin Alumni Newsletter and I did so by protecting the names on the list by utilizing the well-known best-kept secret of the bcc, the blind carbon copy. And so, now I realize, many of the bounced back emails are not bad addresses, they just like to get first-class mail! So, what to do, what to do. In hindsight, I would wait a bit, create a "proper" csv and mailing group to send it which hopefully also hides the addresses. I'm sorry folks, I really just wanted to get it out to you asap, before yet another day went by! It is now available at the school site, too, please have a looksie. There have been a lot of GREAT responses, though, so let's move on!

This flurry of alumni contact got me to thinking. People email to find out about when, what, who, where's the reunion or goings-on site for each graduating alumni class. There are a lot of commercial websites out there that make things confusing, so soon there will be a website just for SHS Alumni to find pictures and news per class..it just isn't built yet. In the meantime, though, there will be a list of websites on the SHS Alumni Website for every class that has sent something in(send urls to shorewoodconnection@gmail.com) not just reunion year classes. Thought this would be kind of fun. It's all good, really. Friends of mine are getting in touch with me after years and years - this should be able to happen to everyone. It's exciting! I'm also thinking SHS should have some kind of set event in the summer to welcome back everyone - not just reunionites - and have kind of a low-key lunch on the lawn, open up the school, meet the principal and asst principal and superintendent..that kind of thing. It could be longer than the standard 50 minute lunch hour even! Or maybe the contact info of the Person with the Keys is all anyone needs, for those (like me) who like to believe they are spontaneous and happily random and would like to wander about, stop at Sendik's, pay a ridiculously high amount for tasty chicken salad and Gerolsteiner, and say Hmm, I wonder if the school is open? A note - check the rec dept. schedule - there are classes all summer during the day already, hint hint. As one friend put it, "I am going to bring my kids and walk around with rose-colored glasses" about Shorewood. Hurrah! Let me work on making sure that they get to see a Shorewood school (or two!). If you have alumni ideas or druthers, the SHS Alumni Association would really like to know (saves us the big $$ on a survey, right?): Email to shorewoodconnection@gmail.com.

Here is a resource list of web addresses about Shorewood:

Shorewood High School Alumni Newsletter:Shorewood High School, Shorewood, Wisconsin Alumni Newsletter

Shorewood School System Website that has everything from the lunch menu to the calendar to who's winning the scholarships and what awards the school is winning these days: www.shorewoodschools.org For a fact sheet and to see nostalgia-evoking simple photos of SHS, SIS, Atwater and Lake Bluff, check out http://www.walkshorewood.com/shoreSchoolsFacts.html.

Shorewood Walking Tour (Order your own snazzy packet through this site (see bottom left icon to order) and there is a detailed Shorewood Map there for your left brain to walk the right down memory lane): http://www.walkshorewood.com/home.html

Today I have to send some late Mother's Day cards. I had the best and coolest intentions about six months ago..If they only knew how busy I've been getting people connected! I guess that doesn't count for moms though. And it seems to be Birth Week amongst the pregger friends I have..happy birthday to all those May Babes and new and refreshed moms. Congrats getting it in before the end of school! Makes bdays easier up to about 6th grade.

Time for just a little more coffee..wish me luck on my 50-page final for Monday.

Yours in faithful keeping of the global delivery of the look/touch/feel of Shorewood Village.

Oh and Riverbrook is closed. !? I was not thinking it was happening so soon!

-See you 'round the village!

My New Hair Scared the Baby

2008-05-06T20:55:00Z

I've been living la vida Whale-o lately - going under water for days without breathing in order to finish final papers and presentations...and then surfacing like a big beluuuuga, like today, lurching slowly to the surface and blinking with one big eye and blowing all that ole water out and taking a deeeeep breath. ahh. It's as if I've been away. In truth, I don't know where things are in my house or anywhere. I offered someone a ride home last night and it took forever to find my keys, ..they were actually embedded in a long-opened bag of expired Christmas jelly beans..that's not embarrassing. Anyway, I took the time to dash over to Robert Laurence in Shorewood yesterday to get a haircut...which was a good decision because it was relaxing though I worried the whole time that the car was unlocked or worse that I hadn't shut the car door even..and I didn't see my usual person but a rather new gal named Chanel who was not wearing enough (I sound like a frump, and AM by the way) who started wackily complaining that her texturizing shears had been broken by someone else and no one else had any that worked...as she tried out EACH PAIR on MY HAIR...a little irritating but I was so sleep deprived I just started laughing out loud and she's like "You have to stop moving your head, I can't get these to work" which just made me laugh harder for her idiocy...but the hair looked done, for better or worse, and that effort hopefully was translated into a decent presentation score later in class.I didn't see the kids afterwards - had to run straight to class -- the first they saw the hair was this morning.

Last night's hair: And the baby freaked out and didn't recognize me. !! Horrid!!! I had to hang out behind her and talk and do my normal wacky voices before she was laughing and let me hug her. NUTTY! So I changed my hair to match hers and it went better:

So while I was getting my hair cut, Sarah Rich's mom was getting hers cut (this is what I'm saying, in Shorewood there is one degree of separation), and it looked fabulous by the way, but she mentioned Sarah was IN TOWN and across the street! How cool! And then there she was, and she looks as you would expect...totally glamorous and friendly with that nightmarishly young dancer bod...(fyi she went to SHS and was in my class '86). She looks like a supermodel, is a professor of contemporary art history in State College, PA and has a 2.5 year old boy named Daschell. I should start an alumni sightings list! Let me just say to any alums reading this who don't live in the 53211 area, living here as an adult and parent doesn't feel like it does when you visit. I love running in to people who don't live here, because I can catch a little otherwhere from the interaction and it throws golden energy through my soul like a cleansing breath that feels like fresh Eucalyptus. "NO NO NO" I say, "it's NOT great here, DON'T feel nostalgic," I say. But I am not sure everyone shouldn't move back and we could have a community of people who know each other well, without having to say anything. Although I could do without the "You look great for being our age!" yi. I like a little more age diversity than that! I remember chuckling at a friend who has stayed here all along and she and her husband refer to people as being in "my class or your class" because the age range of friends and acquaintances in their lives is about the age of my baby...16 months...whom I feel I just recently gave birth to and who is my excuse for not being in babe shape, though I think the only time I was in that good a shape was when I was an exchange student in Germany doing pre-WWII exercise fuer Vernunft and jog/marching through the forest for gym class while Tchernobyl poured toxins into the ether and riding my one-speed with the ancient generator light on the front to get anywhere. But I digress. I guess the fact that there's a 12-year age difference between me and my husband gives me a little humor about the issue. But I think I was age-curious since long ago, so this is nothing startling. I just like to feel preternaturally young I guess. :)

So yes, if everyone who came back to visit thought, "Aww, life would be easy living in Harper Valley again", did it, it would be weird. Like with Sarah today...I walked away and almost turned back and asked her to do her silent dance to "Sound of Silence" that she did in 7th grade, with her (in my mind's eye) floor-length hair swooping around and her miming some kind of rope and cutting it. I remember the gold lame jumpsuit she wore to prom (?) and I thought she was SO cool. And here, now, she is, still cool, skinny, funny..and taking care of her mom. I forget that it's different for all the people I see who come back - they're coming back FOR someone in the family. I don't have anyone like family like that, though I hope to instill it in my own kids. I know the sacrifice it entails when I tell other people's parents about my own - off in different locations (divorced, yes, but that's old news), succeeding, living new lives. They're free! They don't have to worry about whether to sell the old house, or go condo, or have me pick up my stuff. I picked it up years ago, along with a lot of theirs, and I store it offsite and pay dearly for it but can't really deal with the fact that those pieces of me that aren't of age yet for that are floating around. I need to know where they are still. It makes me want to go on one of those "Get Rid of It" shows and win them over to keep the stuff. :)

Anyway, so Sarah, whose mom is still in Shorewood and is one of the loving faces who makes me almost weep with happiness to think someone from "old Shorewood" remembers me and is happy for me and my little brood here now...remembers Helen's name...is happy to see her, etc. And Sarah...I remember a birthday party of hers...probably 16...and the movie Harold and Maude was playing and I'd never seen it before and I was deeply disturbed and it quickly thereafter became my favorite movie. So next time I see her maybe you'll already have asked her about that stuff and I'll be issued some kind of blog restraining order by the alumni association, but I think it's kind of cool and required by me to report about things like this. I am seeing it as a little bit of a requirement for tenancy in the Village, just like volunteering and starting to raise money for the schools is as well. Hell, I might have some kind of psychic crossing (or one of us might get a job in a place that actually has a job market) and might move away. So for now, I'm the one who writes what I'd want to read if I were elsewhere and just wanted a little snapshot of Shorewood every once in a while. I don't write much about those of us alumni who live here. Should I? I would like to write about some famous people who live in Shorewood but no one knows live here. Lois Ehlert, for instance! Others? Let me know!

Otherwise, see you 'round the village!

A blog of thanks!

2008-05-02T16:09:10Z

Here is a shout out to my mom peeps at milwaukeemoms.com who sponsored a lovely night of appetizers, comaraderie and a Real Play at the Rep this week. ! It was so obvious moms are so not used to being honored that I realized we were all kind of blinking, looking around, our minds racing for something to catch or hold us there. We weren't being needed for anything, we weren't on call. Highly disorienting, I felt like this was the one time in my life that moms were not assembled in order to not only watch our kids and run a fundraiser but check in with each other on registrations, library story hour tips and kid days at the bookstore. Nope, it was just for chatting, having a nice time, and watching a play. I am grateful for the disorientation! I hadn't realized how function-first I'd become, that somehow being with moms is channeled in my brain that it's a work session. I don't think I've parked the car in a "fancy" lot alone since I've had kids. It's like the husband is the ticket to dropping my shoulders and saying "Ok, now we're having a time together, and I'm Off Duty."

Despite the similarity to German cleaning ladies being recognized at a party (myself mostly resembling that remark), the thrill of going on a kind of guided field trip without any parts of our families attached to us was unique. I could tell different synapses were firing in my brain that would have been otherwise. Examining the staircases in the Milwaukee Center, heck just figuring out which is the Pabst and which the Rep from inside was helpful for future trips. It's like we were a company of bus drivers brought in to learn the route. I appreciate the Rep reaching out to moms - they even have a babysitting rebate program that covers part (about an hour) of your sitter at home while you come to a play! I encourage you to check it out - the whole experience is really nice, and not snooty, or old. And when there aren't moms in a whole section, it's probably quiet too! :)

The play we saw was Armadale, which was heavier on plot than acting, it seemed, to a humorous level. Seeing this production with my mom-glassess as such defined my guest-ness to the rep and was seated with all moms also feeling same (I mean, we're all different, have different careers, interests, etc. but for this night were unified for our responsilibities and forte's as moms), the play's treatment of motherhood and children was ironically chaff and irreverent. At one point (and if I'm giving anything away here, Spoiler Alert!) the two mothers of the sons of the same name were looking at their pretend infants adoringly, and the next moment the narrator moved them ahead 20 years and the mom actresses blew open the pretend babies into shawls and put them on. Voom, just like that. GASP time in Section Mom!

It was a lovely time, and clearly this is a group that appreciates being treated to some of the nice things that seem so de rigouer to people without kids. Thank you!

Boomerang, Toomerang, Zoomerang: The Dent and the Check and the Karma

2008-04-30T01:35:49Z

Boomerang, Toomerang, Zoomerang: The Dent and the Check and the Karma

What goes around comes around. You can't make this stuff up. Both phrases apply to what I'm about to tell you. I am not even sure how to react, except to think wow, I'm wiser and I no longer feel bad about not being mean or tough or thick-skinned.

Today, the mean dent lady called and left a message. In doing so, she heard my machine, which says the names of the kids (note to self, take that off). Well, this made her kind of snippy... It seems we have kids with identical names (except for 13-yr old Hunter the door-basher, kid's probably from a 1st marriage poor sop)! She recovered, albeit slowly, and went on to explain that she'd put the check in an envelope and left it sticking out of her mailbox, leaving it for the mailman to pick up. Today, much to her chagrin, "one of the landscapers" (!? to think I bought the poor-me story!) brought in the envelope from a neighbor's yard, and lo and behold the envelope had been torn open and the check stolen. (I'm sure it was missing the gift card from Neroli for the neck massage, too, but I don't think she put that in there in the first place.) She now has a stolen check situation. Is that not bizarre?? So she's writing me a new one, should be here soon. And now she has to follow-up on the check fraud procedures that I did last week.

So here I stand, ready to defend the person who weighs the options, goes with the gut, and tries not to upset people for sport. And if you are the kind of person who does not think about leaving people in a happier state than where you found them, I suggest you brace yourself, as it seems your own actions or attitudes may just come around and knock you down.

Hrnghh.

In other news, I so wish there were drive-throughs for nice things. I got all the way to Bayshore today, for example, and realized my passengers were sleeping. So I went home. There is strength, and then there is the kind of this-better-be-the-last-day-of-that-sale that gets a sleeping 42.5 pound boy out of a carseat in the way back of a minivan while the other one wakes up and starts shrieking.

Needless to say, I let them sleep and came home. But it got me to thinking about my errands that I had to leave undone because even though I had the time and the wherewithall to go to the P.O. and mail a happy package to my dear cousin, I couldn't do it. Now that P.O. at Bayshore comes close to accommodating moms with kids in the car...they have those automated package shipping stations that the one can be within eyeshot and running distance from the car. However, since it is I believe a federal offense to leave your kids in the car (? Help me out on this?), at what risk does one do that? I have been in the P.O., I'll admit it, and run out to find a crowd around my vehicle with more than one cell phone drawn and ready. Anyone who starts offering milk in the drivethrough ("Hello, Walgreen's Drive Thru Pharmacy? It's your business model, I'd like a sex-change operation please") could get me to pay WAY more for it, especially if it came with bread, peanut butter (creamy), a banana with no spots, one Miller Light and a 10 for $10.00 powerbar OR $1 package of Twizzlers. Heaven.

As it is, the only places with drive-thrus are kind of tacky, or not so healthy for eating. I will give McDonald's props for the dollar menu though. The dollar menu salad can come with this kicky ginger dressing and fancy almonds in a separate package (on my first attempt most ended up under the pedals in the car but I'm getting the hang of it). The $1 hot fudge sundae has nuts on the side. Luxus. It's nice when Citibank calls to make sure someone hasn't stolen my card in order to charge $1.06.

Also, it would be so cool to have the Bayshore Will-Call area for phoned-in requests (a USB cord at Apple Store, a pair of black pants from Boston Store, and maybe the prints from Kiddo Potraits or whatever they're called that are ready for pickup..) get some "ambassadors" on seques to come to my car window and here is a TIP my friend....or even someone at Trader Joe's posted during one hour outside where they will just keep an eye on the kids while you run in for that one odd thing that the middle child (or your own inner child) has to have. Like the staples: purple box mac 'n cheese, bag of those organic small apples that keep forever, a bottle of red wine, brie, multigrain crackers, and those mini beef tacos. Boom, if you count the time to pee (nice bathrooms), have a taste of whatever's cookin, and slug down a coffee sample, that is no time at all. Takes longer to get them in the cart! What would it cost them - $10 for the hour there is someone posted? It could be by invitation maybe. I'd for sure buy more I think if I knew I was alone, and could actually process a thought other than "Where's Milly" and "do you have any other Milly treats because no, my son really hates these organic lollipops."

OK, great, think I've talked myself in to the wine and cheese part. Am finishing up some coursework tonight, perhaps it would all work itself out with a more "fundraiser attendee" attitude.

Beating Onesself Up about Doing the Right Thing

2008-04-28T19:59:22Z

A funny thing I've noticed lately amongst me and my neighbors - we have a tendency to fault ourselves for not being "shrewder negotiators" when it comes time to haggle, negotiate, work out a deal, or generally get somethin' that's better than average. We muddle through, find out what we can, get the job done, and try to move on without too much remorse. I have a big problem with it. I give my mom total grief if someone does her an bad turn but It's really me, I feel insufficient, I have it so bad I can't concetrate right now.

And yes, I'm still talking about that ding in my car. But it extends to such a life outlook, what I used to use in every German paper in college - Weltanschauung. As an aside, I think the fancy people doubt themselves a lot less. I decided on a middle-road solution to the ding. They are going to pay me $400 towards my $670 quote to fix it. I feel like karmically, that is fair. Granted, dings happen all the time, and people aren't really, truly expected to write a note and put it under the windshield (though I have to admit, I would (which is why I will never be on "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous")) Some responders to my query post told me to just Let It Go. Then again, I was sitting in the car when boy WHAMMED open his SUV door and whaled into the car so hard it made a kind of bullet hole in the door, plus I saw him, so that can't just be "let go" in my book. Then I talked to the wife, who really was one of those bad, mean girls who read me the riot act and I don't think realized that I have her full information and given the way this life seems to work, indeed I will see her again. I think if I dug a shallow internet hole I'd find enough evidence that this is her standard operating procedure. Anyway, I'm sure I'll see her again, though of course, I'm sure in some capacity like she's trying to push a cart past me while I'm digging in the back of the stroller for a wipe like an oversized mother duck hunting for lunch in the water, but nevertheless, paths cross. I consider karma important, even though it seems diametrically opposed to "payment in full," so I thought well, I would like to have a fair and just moral ground from which to approach these people again (ok, in my book I have the moral HIGH ground here, which doesn't make me any less generous or good..) So they are paying me $400 on a $670 quote. The funny thing is, though, I did my research on them after I took less than the full amount, and realized they had enough cash at hand to give $8,000 to the Bush campaign in '04...they could afford to fix young Butler's (*not his real name) dent. But I digress. I was talking about how being a good person makes you eat your own hand off for not being more avidly in pursuit of gain.

My next door neighbor is a nice older man with Alzheimer's setting in. I know his wife deals with it more than any of us do - to me he's affable enough (except when talking about errant trees that "all need to be removed" because of their "behavior" or discussing our property line, which we share, which makes my generally super calm husband hopping mad). He was a lifelong schoolteacher and sings Helen that song that starts out HEL-en I love to see your FEET-ures and etc etc though I can never remember it even though I consciously think to myself while he's singing, cutting through generations and people and history with his clear and unwavering song. I think sometimes I should go over and record him singing it and make her a movie of it, but I have class tonight, for instance, and about 10 chapters of reading and and and. It's never the right time. Anyone heard of that song? I'm searching for it... Anyway, he totalled his old Volvo station wagon the other day, rearended on the freeway by a truck with a giant boom hanging off the front. Went right through his back windshield crushing the back of the car. Luckily he was driving alone. He said he figured that was that, but it wasn't. Unfortunately, as he is beating himself up now about the insurance, they only got market value for the totalled Volvo, about $1500. Well, it ran quite well, always started. He'd just put $1,000 in it for new battery, tires, other things. The insurance doesn't cover the having of a working and well-maintained vehicle. It doesn't cover getting smushed on the freeway. When he tells the story his shoulders fall and he doesn't sing and his eyes well up and he is sad and angry at himself for "not being a better negotiator." There are so many things like that. I think everyone does it with mortgage rates. "Whadja get?" and they're waiting, WAITING to tell you theirs, hahahahaha. Even having work done on a house..."Who'dja Use? WHAdja Pay?" it's all about the talents of making someone work on your granite countertops for slightly less than everyone else. Why? So we can feel just a little bit bad I think.

So I do believe that other people don't sweat things like that so much. I believe I have friends in higher places whom I know because I donate art (again, could I beat myself up more about that too? Why am I donating art when I need to be shoeing the children, selling art, and making the money to pay the mortgage...? )Because I can, and I believe that the art would raise much more money than the cash I could give, and the placement of my work in the marketplace at this moment is fetching exactly what it is worth and not much less. If that were so, I'd reconsider I guess. But again, at the end of the day, it's a karma thing. AND a way to keep myself preoccupied and not succeed perhaps. Who knows. At least my work gets to be belle of the ball. Maybe I can't be out there on the dance floor, but part of me can be Cinderella while the rest plays Ants in the Pants with a beat-up cardboard fireman dog stuck in plastic with my dear son who likes to make up rules and wear his pants over his pj bottoms.

Interesting Green Quote of the Day: Did you know that more than 10 per cent of household electricity in this country is used keeping appliances like TVs and video players on standby?” (Ian Lowe) I should go up and put everything on surge protectors so I can go around and shut things OFF. My whole house is on standby, and occasionally I fly onto the computer(s), print out everything for class and race out the door. Still, don't need to carve a hole in the planet for that. I could turn it on first I s'pose. Guess that would be doing the right thing.

the lowdown

2008-04-25T12:42:00Z

I've come to appreciate moments of relative calm.

UPDATE on my ding: I got a quote for $670, asked the perps to pay $400. I spent forever whiting out our personal info from the quote only to accidentally fax them the original anyway. Augh! Fire myself for incompetence. Am just kind of sick about this - I'm afraid that now that they have my personal info they will come attack/key/maim my young. I could put their personal info here but I won't do that. Suffice it to say, I've looked it up and, besides being quite generous Republican supporters, the husband (who was in the car with his son, the "perp" and mondo dingeroo) is the son of a rather famous Milwaukee couple who's been honored within the last 12 months at a gala fundraiser. Money. And I'm dumb enough to do this research AFTER I only asked for $400 on a $670 quote, and my husband is due to be unemployed in 18 days. That's what I get for trying to be fair. Sigh. Anyway, I have too much school stuff due this week to let this continue ad infinitum.

Yesterday I had nothing planned with the kids. Read=no deadline of time frame to hustle them anywhere by any time. Ahhh, right? Hahaha! I managed to make that difficult too! At one point, we had our agreed-upon list of walking errands (Henry must be ok with not only the agenda but the Ordering of Things, and then it's relatively smooth sailing except then Helen decides to just screech or whatnot)..anyway, we were kind of ready to go and Helen grabbed my (luckily cold) coffee off the table onto herself, my school text and notebooks, and the floor AND in the same moment Henry, who had been sitting and playing with this sound-sensor motion Thomas train on his HEAD realized that every time I or the baby shrieked about this coffee mess, the back wheel of the train caught up his hair and twisted it inside! Which caused more shrieking, which caused more twisting until I had the wherewithall to SHut it Off. Then I turned it back on, whistled twice (to make it run backwards), and voila! The hair was freed. Points for me.

Then he mopped the floor out of "being tired of waiting for us" and I hope it's not the last time he tires of waiting in Just That Fashion.

Then, I had a customer call yesterday for paintings! What's this? I have an art business? I haven't managed www.steinmanstudios.com in a while, maybe should? Ahem, oh yes, why yes, certainly I can come up with something witty. Give me a moment (or a shower, a sitter, and a freshly mopped floor?).

Then, I checked in with the wildly bad customer service at Chase Bank. I have a separate blog's worth of fresh doodoo about them, but suffice it to say, if you call the Commerce of the Currency which is a governmental body, and alert them to practices, they will give you the Magic Executive Office number, and they will actually tell you the right answers to things. And seeing as there may be ten people out there who HAVEN't heard my story, I'll paraphrase. I wrote our monthly giganto check to the Cobra people at my husband's previous employer, who are in Duluth, GA. Was tracking the check because of course you want your family's health insurance to stay intact. So. Imagine my surprise when I went online, as I do, and checked my bank balance, and checked for posted checks, found that one, opened the "view check" and saw quite plainly that it had been altered! Heart in mouth, the company name had been crossed off and written out for CASH in big letters. And worse, it had been DEPOSITED into another bank (Guaranty Bank, Headquartered right here in Brown Deer, WI, but with a branch, oddly, in Duluth, GA). I quickly called Cobra hoping they had some kind of crazy workaround to the normal way of depositing checks, and they let me know that no, not only don't they do that, but where is my check. Primal Scream time. Suffice it to say that I notified Chase, on April 14 (check had posted April 8), and besides telling me "the race is on - you better get to a branch to try to beat the people from taking out the money" they were quite careless, and managed to lose the paperwork I had to file at a branch (Fox Point Branch, in the Best Buy parking lot - again, not my favorite place ) - and then deny it. It was lost in interoffice mail. My favorite Chase employee quote was from loss-prevention specialist saying "We've just gotten so big, who knows where our interoffice mail goes." Thanks.

So, I'm thinking of switching to M&I Bank. Anyone had any good bank experiences lately? I'm fresh out!

In other news, the latest in D2D asks has arrived. This phase targets SHS Alumni, so I got the letter. I didn't get the SHS Alumni newsletter, because I haven't FINISHED it yet and every moment I live and breathe I think OH NO I have to finish that. But my PC is upstairs, and I can't get to it unless I put the kids in the van and run up there, and that isn't right.

Meanwhile the D2D army marches on and tries to take on as little liberal, academic, education-based water it can. As you may know, I'm very interested in how alumni feel about the first major fundraiser for SHS. It will be nice to have a track that can be used for track meets, and a field that will work for regulation soccer. Bleachers that aren't falling down, all that. I'm a little worried from the picture that the new steroidal bleachers will block the sun to the pool. I am RELIEVED the dome has been scrapped. And I'm a little worried about AstroTurf..there are new studies looking at the lead content in them: http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2008-04-20-articial-turf-lead_N.htm

Anyway, the dome, that took things into ridiculo-land for me. Something that would make the whole deal maybe more palatable would be a matching plan, where we sister up with an MPS school in dire need of sports facilities, and at least make the effort to help them out too? Maybe that's too "Old Shorewood" of me to think that way. I'm also concerned about D2D being a temporary team, and when it's done, they'll disappear. Who will pick up the slack at the school, and will the records be shared with the school of who donated what, and will people be able to rest assured that the record of their donations is held at school past the D2D flash? These are things I for some reason am asking, .. so far I get weird looks, like that isn't a current issue. Oh well.

I've got to get sketching! I am thinking maybe for the art that will come to Shorewood, maybe a permanent marker for the Pig 'n Whistle location...maybe a retro tin pig'n'whistle would be affectionately welcoming people to the land of people who eat soy beans on purpose. Kind of a juxtaposition and a statement that says we're real, and yes, we have a sense of humor. Tut tut. We're a unique community and not a cookie-cutter burbo. I also am pleased to say I have a fun painting in (yet another) silent auction this weekend! (Did I mention my new business model involves creating art for silent auctions? Although this leaves me a little out of the "making a living' loop!!), for the Bal du Lac and the Milwaukee Art Museum, which is being co-chaired by friends Al and Kristin Fraser. Am I going? Ha ha. But I send my painting to enjoy it for me.

AND, advice for the day, if you find yourself thinking you need a bigger house, a new kitchen, or are biting your hand over someone else's new granite countertops, consider going to graduate school. I'm serious. Take a class! Get your head out of STUFF and up into thoughts. Granite Countertops deplete the Earth of a nonrenewable resource anyway, and will soon (mark my words) devalue your house anyway because of their cost to the environment. So if you consider yourself Earth-conscious or remotely "green," stop coveting your neighbor's granite. Tis not green 'tall.

What Would You Do? The Ding Debate

2008-04-20T20:41:00Z

So here's what happened. I was sitting in my 2006 red Subaru Forester, our precious new car basically, in the parking lot of Best Buy last weekend. I was sitting in the car, spacing out, half-heartedly checking my bank balance on the phone when BAM! A car door smashed into me. I looked out my window and saw a kid getting into his SUV on the passenger side, looking terrified, suddenly, that I'd seen it too. And then the car started backing out of the spot, and I LEAPT out of my car and started saying "NO NO NO this isn't happening!" Not my car. Please no! They stopped, the dad came around, felt the deep ding, and said "Yep, that's a ding allright. I'd like to keep my insurance out of this, but let's exchange numbers." So we did. Because that's now my husband's work car, I am never in it..except on weekends...and it has no carseats. So I haven't been to get an estimate. Sigh. I just called them today to give them an update, and to ask for an email address because that's how I communicate with the outside world these days..and they called back. And the wife was MEAN. She was so mean to me! "I can't believe you're going through with this, my van is covered with dings, someone actually broke in to my van for no reason, and really, I hope YOU never have kids because they do this all the time." I was shocked. Granted, I caught them, and if they'd gotten away I wouldn't be able to ask them to cover the damage done to my car. She then said "I have family in the car business, so when you get your little quote from the dealer, we're going to send you to one of our own people." We've only ever dealt with our dealer on this car, and were planning at some point to resell it or trade it in. The ding makes a significant difference. Am I wrong to ask this family to pay for the son's damage to my car?

Chicago Trip with Kids: After

2008-04-19T03:45:00Z

alternate title: Cousin Choking on Silver Spoon, Chicago a Treat

Well, I made it, we're home! Thank goodness for I-Pass, I tell ya, and Drive-Thru Anythings, and the McDonald's Dollar Menu salad. I have pulled my upper back strangely, as if I were carrying a 22 pound moving turkey around the streets of Chicago yesterday while my 4 yr old narrowly avoided being stranded on the El platform while the rest of us dallied too long to get off the train at our stop. But he's fine, we're all fine, and I am in agony. Got home last night and found out my work did make it into MKE so this morning was a flurry of art activity and delivery to Sprout in time for tonight's Gallery Night, which I won't be attending for so many domestic reasons but mainly I'm in pain AND I have a lot of schoolwork and other committee work to do.

I've just joined another one. This is the official CDA Art Committee though, so I think it will be interesting beind on the "official" side of some "Plop Art" as they call those "Percent for Art" programs in Chicago.

But I digress. I wanted to mention a few really nice things about Chicago, and complain about my 16-17 year old cousin who wants for nothing and was a complete pill on the whole trip (they were in Chicago from Albany for a week staying in the really freaking nice and swanky Hilton Chicago at 720 S Michigan Ave. I got to stay there too. Gorgeous. It's been redone. There were two bathrooms in my room. I could have wept. And more valet parking guys than in Hello, Dolly) (the belligerent boy cousin...he just wanted to go home the whole time, and I guess his cigarette-smoking tattooed girlfriend missed her neandermate..I just couldn't figure out why this guy who is on the crew team wearing a polo club sweatshirt was too weak and lame to help schlepp the stroller up a flight of stairs) (when taking the El, there is no easy way to get up there unless you just always use the stops with the elevators) and instead we got the eager assistance of a cracked-up black man helping these "helpless white people" har har with their heavy load. Helen slept peacefully in the back of the stroller while this guy single-handedly practically hoisted the big orange "homeless shelter" as my uncle calls it up the steps. I was cool with the cousin being "chill" and all, I'm not totally fuddified, but the fact that there was nothing in this giant city he wanted to see, and nothing his girlfriend was curious about at all, was mystifying. That, added to a complete snobbish disdain for all things including quality of the wine that I brought (he is 16) to have a glass when my kids were in bed (belly laugh there - hotels are nice, but a sleeping young child in bed at bedtime asleep in a hotel means they are either faking it or terribly ill). By day two I DID get to have a glass of wine, two actually, with my aunt who is gracious and friendly and understands my what-is-that-in-your-mouth-and-who-pooped level of interest in my universe and had her kids watch mine and we actually got to have an adult conversation for an hour and 18 minutes in the lobby of the hotel. Whew.

The good things we did in Chicago were: found a Loop restaurant within walking distance that was groovy for kids: Italian Village - Henry still didn't eat anything except bread and honey, but whatever, he's a cheap date. I know I can feed him a bushel of organic apples, a ton of oatmeal, and wash it down with organic juice so what's a little bread 'n butta in an Italian Restaurant. He enjoyed walking around taking digital photos of the fish in the aquariums and the floor (and one shot, I kid you not, of someone else's waitresses behind). Other fun things...during the day the following morning, went on the El, the Brown Line (the Yuppie Rollercoaster) and took it to Western, which has an elevator. That was good though the group tired of looking at endless backs of apt and condo buildings. Did get to Cafe' Selmarie, and the quesadilla was actually "Quite Satisfactory" according to my 11 and 16 year old cousins, and took them over to Merz Apothecary which appealed to the ladies and had my sexed up underage cuz looking for sex-enhancing balms. I just couldn't get over the combination of gallingly over-the-top in-your-face behavior and total financial dependence on mommy to buy everything. Wouldn't bring his camera on the trip because it's two years old and therefore lags in megapixel quality..and nags about having this or that constantly, yet orders "Oxygen" at the restaurant because he is so stifled. I was rather fascinated at the caged bird beladen with all things a person could want or need that could just not be pleasant to be with. However, the cousins were humanized when Henry interacted with them, for which I was grateful, as was their mother I think. I meant to take them to the Chicago and Franklin stop on the Brown Line, for Brett's Kitchen, Pearl, and the galleries, but there really wasn't time. Also, if the Wendella water taxi were going (I think maybe it was, just has a new look?) it would be fun (and by fun I mean fun for me, but also hard to manage) to take the commuter boat. The river is really stunning in the sun, with all the bridges, and people and cars and boats, and the buildings all along the river are glorious. I wish I had a brain that could retain information gleaned on the architecture tour etc, but I do not. I can't even remember the titles and artists who did the major sculptures. I used to know them all, include them in skylines, like the back of my hand.

On our way back to the hotel we took Michigan Ave, and there at the River there is SixtyFive, the Chinese hole-in-the-wall place where I used to stop a lot for Hot'n'Sour soup when I was pregnant with Henry (apparently I craved heartburn...he was born with a lot of hair...a total old wives tale which proved true in my world at the time) and ruined a cool camera Steve gave me by putting the to-go soup in a container in my bag with the camera. Nice soup in the camera. Ugh. Ruined. ANYWAY, we stopped there because I wanted to share bubble tea with the ingrates, at least give them something to either enjoy because they're cool or disdain because they're haplessly provincial. ha ha. Thanks to my aunt for being up for a new experience! I ordered mango, and let me tell you. This was made with all fresh mango chunks. We watched a little in awe as this woman put an entire blender-full of fresh mango through its paces and added maybe a few scoops of the powder stuff, then the tapioca balls, and it was delicious. I have had bubble tea before and usually it's just the mix and ice chips. If you have a chance to go there, get the mango bubble tea. I even gave some to Helen on our drive (as I was totally bad mommy and didn't have time to feed her properly as the time just flew) - sans the tapioca "bubbles" of course - just the mango part, and she gobbled/slurped it up and then promptly passed out for the duration of the drive. Wowie. Kids Yahhhh, Gahhhh, What is Thhhhaaaaat. So I was glad, note to self, that I hadn't tried to take them to the quite non-Disneyfied actual Chinatown because for all the effort they just would have made faces and wished they were home where boy could have girl and blah blah blah.

So I got back last night around midnight. And wow does my back hurt. I tried to make it look effortless to carry Helen and walk and talk and keep track of Henry in Chicaggy and now I am Paying For That. As Henry says, No More Trips Without Dad. I agree. Hear, Hear. Anyway, in Shorewood Village News, I'm now a part of the CDA's committee for Art! Woo Hoo! So any Plop Art will be partly my fault, and I feel the responsibility. Hopefully, we'll have a beautiful wealth of integrated and unexpected and pleasing art pieces that go in seamlessly with the rebuild of our village. That's my mission for that anyway! Stay tuned!

Chicago Overnighter with Kids: Before

2008-04-16T13:19:01Z

I am creative, outgoing, caring, and messy. I can not believe how neat and tidy some people are. It baffles me. I think my husband and I were attracted to each other (in Chicago, eleven years ago, working Saturdays at the Northwestern Computer Lab downtown in Wieboldt Hall) because we both sink into projects and pay attention to time only because things close and coffee gets burnt tasting. Cleaning up means taking wads and stacks of papers and pushing them into some kind of bag to work on at the next hitching post. Now that we have kids I have to be better about conventional time frames not just because it's good when kids eat at regular intervals but because other people call and freak out if norms aren't being followed. I think I have so many projects going at once because I can't bear to get down and pick that congealed banana mound off the hardwood floor. It pains me even to think about. Eating at 5 makes me cringe unless it's lunch. Anyway, I digress.

I'm writing fast today because it's 7:45 am and I have to seriously Handle a meeting and childcare before heading to Chicago for an overnighter. I've been up since the cows and chickens this morning, as I unpacked my new seriously delicious macbook and had to clear a stashing place for it. Today we're going on another Road Trip! My aunt and uncle are in Chicago from New York for a fancy conference on Neurology so we're going to spend a night with them in a hotel. You'd think I'd be packed, but was just working on the marketing proposal for the ADA committee at UWM. Another story entirely. Anyway, we're driving. I laughed a dry coughing laugh when they suggested we take the train. Neat! It is a neat idea. And IF I could come out of the train station, look around, and get back on the train with both kids asleep in the stroller, I would. Four hours with moving pictures and time to reflect sounds great. But this is different. Also, I love it when relatives let me know they're "coming to see us" meaning Chicago, which isn't so much HERE as all that. But I do enjoy Chicago, I know I'm not the norm here in Shorewood, it's full of IRE for the windy city, and I completely understand why. I had to move there from the East, not from here, in order to not get the Gary, IN impression of it somehow. The driving doesn't bother me - I just assume the position on the Edens that I'm going in to JEDI KNIGHT TRAINING and I'm flying a plane and that is why there are other fighter pilots on all sides of me. I have I-Pass. I don't stop at rest areas because they tarnish my experience and make me look at them, and they are aesthetically Not Pleasing. :) And the one good value at the Lake Forest Oasis is gone - there used to be this weird pipe and used book shop smack in the middle inside there between that weird yellow trinket vending bus and the creepy pay-as-you-go massage chairs (across from the Illinois Info Booth that seems always always closed), and they had a machine that would BUFF OUT FLAWS from DVD's. Seriously, I kid you not. This goth tattooed teen was working late one night buffing dvd's for the owner of the little kiosk store and she told me all about it in a monotone soliloquy, staring at the machine as she held a shiny disk to the buffer, how you can revive "dead" dvd's and his kids make a mess of 'em and they don't last long enough. This was probably 3 1/2 years ago, .. and I assumed these buffing machines would become available. Where are they? Did Disney decide that no one should own them and instead keep buying copies after My Minty Pony, painful enough to purchase once, had a better chance with repeat sales? I wonder.

Anyway, so we won't be stopping there if I can help it. I like to hit Exit 347 at the 40-minute mark of our trip. I think I have that right. It takes other people longer. ;) I don't stop there either, but that's my marker.

Our trips to Chicago involve many old haunts from when Henry was 9 months old, and before that, the many years I lived there as an artist and NMH employee as well. I did the typical 20-something apartment swap every year when my lease was up, so I have many one-year stomping grounds that I know well. Later we stayed put longer, but got a good deal on more space so those areas (Albany Park) aren't so walkable with the kiddos nowadays.

We'll go and I'll try to stop at the school where I'll be teaching up a storm later this month (I've been teaching this arts integration course for ten years called "the Green Team" ... now it's almost cliche'! Groan) but we're going to again pursue activism through recycled art that hopefully also brings a smile or cocked head, and I'll be checking out that seeing green exhibit for inspiration! My students are in 3rd and 4th grade and are bringing the concept to the school - it's not a population that sees green just yet so much.

Then we have to go to the Trader Joe's on Lincoln Ave because they have kid carts and Henry loves finding JoJo (not Milly like we have here) AND the CB2 next door, the Crate and Barrel Concept Store that is fun to look at. They have good deals on Messenger Bags by the way, and just neat totes and bags in general. They used to carry this bag called The Chicken Bag that was in Spanish and my students used to love to check out what I had in there. They have some fun recycled stitched-together juice box bags now, but the UWM bookstore carries those too. I digress. I might call my friend Jerry who lives around the corner. He's hilarious. Actually, he's not, but we are goofy and hyper together and Henry likes him a lot.

We may have coffee (when are we leaving again? I am such an idealist!!) at Cafe' Selmarie, in Lincoln Square. Not only do I have friends (who are a couple, who just got married!) who are librarians at Sulzer Library, but there is a picture of me and Steve and our orange (what else?) marbled fondant wedding cake at the back of the restaurant in line with the other more traditional wedding cake photos they do. Oh yeah, and we're on their website too :) I love Steve's expression...kind of like, "Yeahhhhh, there's my crazy wife hugging her WEDDING cake."

In the morning I would love to get over to Brett's Kitchen in the River North district, take the El (brown line) maybe to Chicago and Franklin, go to Pearl Arts and Crafts and check out the galleries from the street (kids+galleries not so much). Love Brett's - haven't tried it with kids, but eh. Helen likes boiled eggs, Henry will eat cake and an apple. It's all good.

Will let you know how this goes - I'm sure I'll have better advice for any trips to Chicago! Maybe I can conjure up some bloggalicious coupons for you, dear readers!

Appreciating Depreciation

2008-04-14T07:45:00Z

Of course it is tax time. I do enjoy forms, and taxes, I think because as an artist my head is wandering around the ether and my feet are usually forgotten in a crunched up pose, but my hands grab pens, paints, keyboard, pen and paper happily and I like to fill out a form or two. I dig it. Maybe because I'm an artist it validates me to have a Schedule C to frame my life and my supplies, plus a refund..always good. And I feel happy that I understand depreciation. I feel really like a competent adult. Even if I don't know how to do the math per se, I know it's a Schedule 179 and I know there is a time frame for all things. I'm the family peeve calling around making sure everyone's got their money in ...which is funny, as I totally side with my mother-in-law who refused to pay quarterly because "they're just going to buy bombs with it.."

So speaking of depreciation, I had the nice sparkly thought that my marriage is actually appreciating, as my husband apparently knows me quite well and uses this information for good, for which I consider myself lucky. Today I had a little meltdown (it was my day to run errands, get the car dinged hard by a *** boy in an SUV (I caught them, I was sitting checking my mail and WOW did I jump when that door hit mine) (new item on to-do list..I have to schedule some body work for the car)) so Steve told me to go get grounded with some coffee grounds (only he could understand that jacking my head further into the clouds is a grounding thing for me) and that (the car thing) started me thinking how an item begins to depreciate as soon as it "walks off the lot". I happend to be in the Best Buy parking lot by the Lands End with the Most Ill-Fitting and Not-Cheap clothings for womens that when you're heading for rock bottom, stop in there and try to dress yourself like an overgrown mushrooming 80's high school preppy complete with headband Outlet, and I'd just had what felt like a mild stroke wandering around the ill-lit Best Buy, trying to find a myriad of things from Cyberchase DVD's (none) to a simple 9Volt (my husband calls it a "transistor radio" battery) (NOT in the battery section, mind you, but nearer the Bubblicious at the checkout) to a laptop computer. I had been shadowing this nice couple who was shopping for a computer for their daughter entering med school. It was a nice thought. I almost offered to be their daughter for purposes of role-playing, but thought better of it. I've been bold lately and it's been alternately horrid and funny. Demanding a painting audit for payment at Sprout - bad...deciding to use German phrases as IF they were yiddish to get along with my Jewish fundraiser cohorts-funny..ok maybe just to me, but I L-O-V-E-D the A-M/A-Z double-take. So anyway at Best Buy I just kind of loitered and watched. I need a camcorder too so I lost track of them for a while (why do they break? Why do I go back for more? But baby just started walking today!! Hurrah! And so need a camera...because should have made movie yesterday).. Anyway, these were well-meaning, intense and quite linear people who were not picking up what BestBuyBoy was laying down, and didn't differentiate between Mac and PC (I'm thinking they're not going to the HD TV section next). But so I was thinking about depreciation and parents who buy their children laptops for school. I know they want to do the right thing, without considering the educational discount the student will be afforded on a pc AND the MS Office Software (esp by going direct for mac at an apple store or online), and they're unaware of the inevitable sheet of paper the student will be handed on the first day outlining the software requirements for the class. (I don't think I ever mentioned here that Steve and I met as computer lab consultants at Northwestern University ...we used to bring Henry there too..Swiss Family Robinson Computer Lab) I know the temptation to do the right thing and have it all there for the student is overwhelming, but consider this. The laptop starts to depreciate the day it walks off the lot. It's April. School will start in August, maybe even September. The student most likely does not have a paper due before then, but will probably unpack that laptop and load all kinds of cr*p on there in the summer, or at least spill some cr*p on there before August. One or more peripherals will get lost, possibly the USB cable that came neatly tied in a little twisty-tie, and suddenly there is a problemo. Then come to find out that model doesn't burn DVD's, and assignment #1 for the elective is to make a little movie or CD or something...then what? Then student is going to the computer lab anyway, and laptop is back in the dorm serving as a lunch tray or worse, a bun-warmer for chilly roomie or roomie tryst. The laptop is depreciating at the speed of light at this point. Stop the insanity. Buy nice sheets before school, those ridiculous special XLong twin sheets, as those will be needed on the very first day. But the laptop? I'd wait and see the requirements the school provides at Orientation, what educational discounts exist, and what software is necessary to purchase. Ya can probably even check it out online beforehand. A better education for higher education is allowing your precollege kiddo to go to the library and work amongst other people and pay for printing, as the toner on that fancy new printer is bound to run out right around exam time, and that student is going to have to know his/her way around a printing card anyway. And those computer lab people can run the gamut.

Whew. OK. ON the plus side on this depreciation topic, I actually bought myself a computer today. !? It's still in the box. I just finished my paper for class, but see, I'm IN class, and I have all these needs to type things and without deelay (don't, please, note the post time here. Remember all those gentle encouraging coffee ideas? hm, yes. Ask me anything about the brand positioning of donorschoose.org though, I'm all over it). After that kid totally freaked me out (was I SHOT? Was there an accident?) and I talked to my understanding husband, I drove to Bayshore, went to the Apple store, and bought a MacBook with my educational discount and even got a little keyboard skin to protect at least some part of the thing that is going to eat grape juice pdq I can feel it. I have half a mind to wrap it in plastic wrap but have geeked out on reading online and realize it could verrrrry well overheat if I do that. Anyway, so now I have my MomBook as I call it "White, for Easy Cleaning"...I swear I should work there. I would say things that were raucous but right on to people like me who case the place, know that's what they want, but can't get over the whole "Have a Copy of MS Office for PC at Home" thing. Well. Mr. Corey showed me a nice free online interface called Neo Office or something like that (I've forgotten the whole transaction because it makes me lightheaded to think about it) AND I got a free printer (now we just have a ridiculous number of printers) and so there you go. I can't wait to be able to make imovies. I have been supposed to have been making little documentaries of my arts grant for YEARS and I kept whining "When do I get my imoney to make imovies guys?" so now, thanks to doing our taxes, we had a little for me to do that. I now have no excuse. As time is a-wastin, the thing's depreciating downstairs I can hear it. I have to teach some Green next week, so I'm going to head to the Green show at the Woodsomething gallery on Locust this week. I can't wait. Seeing Green I think it is. I'm excited to make fifty recycled paper Earth clocks tick tock folks...but that's next week. Also pending is my grande free Calatrava painting for the Bal du Lac. Nothing like bringing coal to newcastle is there?

IN OTHER NEWS - I have started a LIST of Riverbrook Stories, see to the right here. If you send me a story to my email, ( I will post it anonymously unless you ask me to use your name). I think there are a lot of stories that would lend themselves to a kind of tribute book for them. I would be honored if you would share even a simple memory or idea about the place that is soon to be no more. Something about what Riverbrook (formerly Pig 'n Whistle) is to you, or why you like it, or what funny things happened to you there, please share. This is the time. The time is now. It's being RAZED.

Gimme Shelter

2008-04-10T07:08:00Z

My mind is a whirlwind like the winds that have been bruising the faces of our village's youngest members lately. Nothing I can do protects Helen's face from it. We walk to school, the three of us - me, Henry, Helen, the orange-clad ones, yelling over the wind to each other, me begging Henry to stay out of the street, don't pick that up, don't lick the pole (!?) and stop at the alley..him asking me about watching Cyberchase later, about why we can't just walk to Varnes and Ogre (Barnes and Noble)...Helen just growling in the stroller.

So there is a vortex of thoughts, brought about by nature and the culmination of fifty projects that have to smooth out like an addled gallbladder in a suspension of time and space. I used to be better at that when I wasn't playing with my kids, and trying to get places on time, but now I get down and play with them and make lunch within a reasonable time frame all to their delight and the back of my mind saying ... Your Art is Waiting for its Whimsical Creator, Madame.

It will have to wait. Though I did get interviewed for MKE this week (thank you Steph!) about gallery night artwork at Sprout in a story that will be called "Under $100"...I used my line about being the "Lillian Vernon of the art world" again but I think the message of a Steinman-Heyden on every wall will be better-understood for the socially networked set. We'll see! I'll be arting it up this month with a new painting of the art museum FOR the Art Museum's "Bal du Lac" ball chaired by Shorewood's own power couple the Frasers. I am inspired by our Art Museum and am actually having my students in Chicago (I still teach with this great org called CAPE ... I know, I know, gotta bring it over the border) doing a recreation of the Tony Oursler at the MAM only with the kids' faces projected on a beanbag stuck under a big paper mache globe talking about the pressure to go green....Anyway, another art auction of hundreds where no, I won't be attending, I'll just be another artist donating another painting for someone to buy under value to support the nonprofit while I take little or no deduction because artists can only deduct the supplies...so...that's ok. I'm oddly inspired by freebies - I feel like it's much more invigorating to create something to give to the greater good - there is no Medici family breathing down my neck saying "Make the David look more like Aunt Ruth!"

I want to blog about some things, like the Riverbrook going away. I'm working on it. I want to blog about ADD and moms who actually take Adovan and drugs to make them more productive. I want to blog about navigating the mom waters, and what it's like to become a parent really. Really what happens is that your little puppet show of mommy, poppy, and baby, turns into a sea of puppets that are parents of other kids and really as a mom that means other moms. Other moms at the grocery store, other moms as soon as you go outside. Other moms calling. It's good, it's great actually, it's real, and it's a total shock if you're not used to this world. Basically, the change in seasons to an outdoors-is-preferable one means contact, so I think we all need to bone up on how to handle the adjustment. Moms are your friends, but you must know how to navigate the waters. You may not have been surrounded by women before deciding to raise your children in Shorewood. Well, you're here now, or at least you've got a birds-eye-view of one now (me) and here it is. If you want to talk to men, which you maybe used to do at work regularly or even see yourself more as "one of the guys"..you'll have to engage the TruGreen ChemLawn solicitor longer or perhaps go to a myriad of district-education meetings or other such things to find that. Otherwise, the game is on, and it's mom time.

First, decide on what things you do, who you are, what you wear, and get things lined up inside your house. I'm not talking jackets and shoes. I'm talking a brush, a toothbrush, and makeup choices for mom. What is your lipcolor? Pick one. What is your summer choice for rec classes for the kid(s)? Decide. Swim classes or Not? Pick. If you want to up the ante, here are some faincy words to bandy about like the latest cool sunglasses for Spring/Summer: the Fox Point Pool, the WAC/ new location, Hanna Andersson store in Schaumburg, and... maybe let me just make up flying lessons in Sheboygan or perhaps hot air balloon class in the Dells. Prep like it's the first day of school for you and you'll be fine. Then when you run into someone whose name you can't remember because it falls into the Kathy/Lisa/Jenny category, who has their kids (smugly, it seems) riding the car cart at Pick'n'Save while your kid(s) whine loudly about not getting the car cart, who (with suprisingly strong upper-body strength) grabs you by the shoulders and looks you in the eyes (remember, most moms around here are medicated, if it's any consolation) and demands to know your CHOICES, you won't think "Free Cookie, Free Cookie, Free Cookie at bakery...right...over...there..." and instead you will utter "T-Ball, Third Session, K-4" or "Alligator, Tuesday nights, He's Taking Him." You'll have it straight. You'll know Tiny Tykes is now Bright Beginnings, and no, you're not signing up, not until session II anyway,....and you'll say YES, Playdate Tuesday from 10-11:15 would be GREAT. Your house is of course clean so you will say "Our House, absolutely. Coffee?" At least from May 12 - June 14 (*not real dates - I don't have my sh*t together for real yet).

Where was I. I'm in the middle of writing a paper about www.donorschoose.org and need feedback on a survey I have - any teachers reading this want to survey a site intended to bring happy free supplies and joy to teachers just send me an email and I'll get you the link and support you in your endeavor.

I was raised by teachers - now my mom's a minister. Double whammy. I've no choice but to devote myself to the funding of public good.

OK, so about saving the Riverbrook restaurant from being RAZED. So extreme, like a dog that bit someone having to be put down. Ironically, it's to make way for a senior center. Can't think of a better thing to have on the grounds pf a senior center but an ice cream and reasonably-priced restaurant with coffee, soup or salad, a side of overcooked veggies and dessert included in the meal price. In addition, I think it's everyone's special hideout from prissiness. I don't just like it for the massive chicken pot pie, or because I could, you know, could, just as easily have a martini with pancakes for dinner or a bloody mary and scoop of egg salad on a lettuce leaf with custard for dessert. I don't just like it because yeah, I did go there in high school though it was totally different and the area wasn't so weird, ...though come to think of it I did have a really bad date there once ("You shouldn't make such weird faces, it's not pretty") where he took me for a walk in Estabrook and we got chased by a crazy car and he ran off like a jackrabbit and luckily I made it out of the park but yiiiii. I have fond memories of being totally embarrassed by my dad who always used to say "Hey, let's go to the Pork 'n Toot!" (It was the Pig 'n Whistle for many years). I like it because when I mention it to people, they say, WHAT, that place is going away? Where will I take my family for breakfast? Where will I go to hide from other business people at lunch? Not to mention it's the only remotely racially diverse place to go in the entire city. It is the only, as far as I know, racially and culturally diverse restaurant on the North Side of Milwaukee. We go there because we miss living in a city with better race relations (try any). I wouldn't call it huggy by any means, but there is a comaradery there that you know if something happened there - baby lost a sock, or someone was hurt, that everyone in that place would help. Where on Sundays fun black families and fun white families go and exchange smiles as our kids grab the salt shakers and throw napkins on the floor. The waitresses are scary and that's part of the fun - they remind us to be good to our teeth and each other. Where will I send my husband and kids when I have a big project due and I want to know they're in a booth somewhere being carbed out and my husband doesn't have to make fifty trips to get everything set up and is having his coffee refilled fifty times?? (I love city market and Einstein's, it's just a lot of work with kids along or not) I don't think anyone is going out on a limb to save the place...it'd be like saving that pair of jeans we don't really share with the community, or the pair of shoes we do the real work in that we hope no one notices, but that we rely on when push comes to shove. I'm going to miss that place, not because the management is nice or cares about us in particular, but because they allow my family a real experience, which is sad that that's how homogenous our experience is here (we moved from Albany Park in Chicago three years ago and it was very, very different there), but 'tis what it 'tis. I will keep shopping at Lena's, but that has a spooky Aldi quality and strange smell, for the diversity of people and vegetables, but will deeply miss Riverbrook for what it added to our community, even if it wasn't so fancy and the owners didn't act like part of the "team."

Other businesses in Shorewood seem to do just fine, on the other hand, despite freaking me out for various reasons. Take Flow (please!), the creeeeeeeepy store on my corner which sells jackets guns on them and apparently lets people try one shoe with and has terrifying clientele esp. on Thursdays and Fridays, ... the 'Tween Friends store with the peeliest foam mannequins I've ever seen and every time I walk by I want to tell them to either get rid of them or get nicer ones, that skin disorders don't need advertisement....and Luxe...how the HECK are you supposed to SAY that out loud? Luke's? Luhcks? I'm not fancy enough to know. I'll ask my friend Anne, (she's French and runs the gem, Alliance Francaise). She can say it I bet and make it really pretty. First it was a fancy stuff store, now it is a hair dresser. Strange. Any place that's got magazines that straight in the window scares me. And all the Ikea pillows..and the darkness in there. Eerie. Spa-like? hm.

Better get going. I have to attend a fundraising gala tomorrow and before that am going to inventory my art and hopefully create a great marketing plan for the American Disabilities Act Services at UWM. Baby has an ear infection, forgot to dose her up before bed. Argh. Gave Henry a haircut today at the breakfast table. Gotta love Swiffer. Got yoga in a couple hours. Be well.