CRS and Caprese Salad

By Margy McCarthy

There were a number of times in the last week when I remembered I needed to post today.

One might think that because I am on vacation for two weeks, there would be time aplenty to rein in a page and a half of concrete thought. If I were relaxing on a beach somewhere with a trashy novel and the surf lapping at my toes, or sitting on the deck of a mountain lodge snuggled in a soft sweater against the cool fall breeze with a glass of pinot noir in my hand as I watched a red-tailed hawk circle on an updraft- I would be filled with writerly inspiration. In either of these scenarios, (or for that matter, any number of others) my mind would be strong, focused, and calm.

That, unfortunately, is not my reality. But perhaps my reality is more Erma-like anyway.

In addition to bouts of “desert spring cleaning,” getting the plants ready for my winter garden, volunteering to make political phone calls, and scrubbing toilets, it appears that I also have CRS. Here it is, Monday morning, and I was innocently sitting with my coffee and flipping through a magazine on the patio when Ohmygosh, it’s Monday morning and nobody posted on Erma! flashed through my brain.

Trust the caffeine to break through that CRS haze that way- I do have infrequent moments of clarity. Sadly, they only occur when I am sipping coffee and flipping through magazines.

So. Here I am.

Snooze will be descending from the mountain this weekend for his first visit home since the big move. We visited him there a few weeks ago for a two-day respite from the searing heat of the desert, and were given a tour of his apartment which was nicely furnished with his bed from home, a TV, and the Everest of laundry piles. We spent part of our time that weekend combing the Flagstaff Goodwill for dishes and cookware, and part buying groceries so he can eat at home more often. There really was no point in buying a hamper.

But this will be the first time he’s been back in my kitchen. I have been instructed that he will be in dire need of lemon chicken with capers and rotini with pesto, along with a big bowl of Caprese salad the minute his feet hit our property. I’ve already purchased the fresh mozzarella.

It’s nice to know that I’ve been missed.

Too bad he no longer has a bed here.

Too bad he doesn’t own a suitcase large enough to contain his entire wrinkled wardrobe. (heh)

But he will bring his appetite. And I have missed watching him eat.

Half-Empty Nest by Barb McKone

Half-Empty Nest by Barb McKone

My daughter is gone.

After a whirlwind of activity, excitement and confusion, we pulled away from Truman State University last Sunday one child down, my first baby left behind to a suite full of giggling, texting eighteen-year-old girls.  My 15-year old son sat in the back seat, only slightly traumatized by the experience.  My husband and I were worse off.  I felt numb.  Blind sided.  I really didn't know what to think, or what to do.  Drive home, I guessed, but I kept feeling like we'd forgotten something.  What the heck was missing?  Finally I figured it out.  Gracie was missing.  It all happened so fast.

She didn't wave goodbye.  Didn't walk us to the curb.  We had stayed until the bitter end; she had places to go.  Freshman barbecues to attend.  My daughter was gone.

Let me tell you what else is gone.  

The mess.

I know I should be broken up about our sweet daughter having moved on to the next phase of her life, and I am.  Really.  I miss her every minute.  I expect to see her smile every time I drive up to the house.  If I dig deep enough, I can muster up enough tears to fill that joke of a sink in their suite bathroom.  The day after dropping off Gracie was the first day of school in our little town.  The sight of the happy kids with shiny new backpacks waiting for the school bus, hand in hand with their moms, nearly knocked me flat.  Wasn't that us, no more than weeks ago?  After a couple of hours of kleenexes, I snapped out of it.  I snapped out of it because, from my vantage point under the covers in her bedroom, I noticed the large, multicolored glob of dried birthday cake frosting on her bedroom wall.  I  hadn't been aware of the frosting fight in the bedroom.  I pulled back the covers, grabbed a kitchen knife and damp paper towel, and started chipping.  

Since finishing off the first pack of Mr. Clean Wipes, it's been easier to not fall too far into sentimentality.  I've found two phone cords and a favorite sweatshirt I "lost" last fall.  I've found duplicate sweatshirts of at least three she took to school, meaning three of her friends are missing theirs.  Which friends, we may never know.  I've found sales slips for clothes never returned after last Christmas and birthday, and a shelf of American Girl dolls I'd completely forgotten about. The missing Lacrosse letter, graduation cap and 8x10 senior photo were found behind a bookcase, and there really was a piece missing from the "broken" Dustbuster.  It's called a CHARGER, and it was under the bed.  It took three days, but her room is now the cleanest in the house.  It's HUGE.  I had forgotten how much larger rooms look when the floor is showing.  I've organized her drawers, what's left in them, and her closet is color-coded and spacious.  I'm thinking about moving in.

I've heard story after story about the moms who move their kids into their dorm rooms, organizing their drawers and labeling their desk supplies and hooking up their printers for them.  Tsk, tsk.  The kids should be independent.  Do it for themselves.  They're going off to college, aren't they?  Why coddle them?  What kind of mom would do that to their child?

Me, that's who.  

I love it.  I helped her pack, organizing t-shirts into tank, sports, sentimental, and fashion. Underwear was carefully laundered (by me) and sorted in much the same way.  In the dorm room, we chose a bed close to a closet with the desk underneath for more floor space and started unpacking.  She was gone in a flash, off to breathlessly meet new friends and make plans to meet up at the orientation events.  Small-world stories popped up every few minutes: I think I know you from camp.  Aren't you Robert's friend?   You're in my dorm?  On my floor?  OH. MY. GOODDD!  Four hours later, computer almost figured out and a tally of everything we'd forgotten in my purse, we shoved off.  It was time.  I was satisfied.  I'd organized her for one last time.  From now on, she's on her own.

Famous last words, right?  

Truth be told, I know that I did it more for me than for her.  I'm a little scared of my daughter being at college, so it makes me feel good to at least try to believe it that my last-ditch effort at organization might help her somehow.  She'll start out her first semester of college with her jeans separated from her sweats, and she may be able to study better knowing she has an extra set of clean towels on the shelf above the closet door and a hook for necklaces. Why it makes a difference to me, I don't know.  But somehow, I sleep better knowing I folded her pajamas. 

She called three times in the first three hours after we left.  She called to thank me for the plastic talking parrot from the Cracker Barrel gift shop (somewhere in Ohio- great green beans and cheesy potatoes) I left on her bed.  Hours of amusement.  She called to ask where her headbands were. Bottom drawer of the three-drawer stack on the left side of her closet.  She called to let us know the barbecue had been short and she and her her new "best" friends were getting ready for their first evening on campus.  She told us how much she loved her roommate "Cat"- she wasn't at all stand-offish as she'd first worried, just a little shy.  And, she called to thank me for helping in her room, unpacking and organizing her drawers, and making her dorm bed with her new comfy sheets, a thick new comforter, and matching pillows.  

Okay, now I'm getting a little misty.

She noticed.  I could hear a sweet genuine smile in her voice, and she noticed.  Maybe there's some hope after all.  Perhaps my need to separate push pins from paper clips will make a little bit of difference in her life.  Maybe the next eighteen years will be slightly more organized, and include a Dustbuster that's actually charged up from time to time.  

I can't give up  hope. 

In the meantime, I woke up in the middle of the night last night wondering if I'd ever taught her how to make my special laundry paste out of Clorox 2, Oxy-Clean and water.  Find an old toothbrush, dunk, and scrub scrub scrub.  Bra straps: good as new.  It'll also take the paint off your car.

Maybe next summer we'll perfect the laundry paste.  For now, I've done what I can, and my nest is half-empty.  

I need to go have a little alone time now.   I suddenly have the perfect spot for just that.

Getting Organized

by Judy Merrill Larsen

Some of my nearest and dearest will be laughing themselves silly with the title of this post. I tend to be cluttered. I have good intentions, but I've always been able to ignore mess if I have a good book to read or the NYT crossword to solve. I straighten up the coffee table in the family room, but within a short time it's crowded with my stuff. I'm often asked if I outline my novels and I laugh and respond that only if post-it notes stuck on my laptop and various legal pads counts as outlining (and, as an English teacher for 15 years I know it doesn't).

I do try. I have a file for all my 2007 tax receipts. I just can't always find the file. (Oh, and yes, I know I should put it in my file cabinet. I'm not stupid.)

And, I'm not a slob. I just keep things. And I have yet to find the perfect organizing system.

In some areas, though, I have systems in place. In my classroom, each class was color-coded. Red handout? Fourth hour. Grading sheets? Green. But I frequently lost my keys under the mounds of papers and files on my desk. My recipes are neatly divided in my recipe box. But, sometimes I use a recipe for a bookmark in a cookbook.

All that said, I love having a structure, a rhythm to my day. I get the coffee ready the night before and I make sure that there are four cans of Diet Mountain Dew (ick. yuck. gross.) in the fridge for my husband who, while not a coffee drinker is a caffeine needer. I not only make a list before I go to the grocery store, I plan out the dinner menus for the week. I do crosswords in ink.

So, that's why I love this time of year--we're about to get back to school. Structure. Set schedules. Every June, along with the kids, I celebrate the arrival of summer vacation--no nagging about homework, no late night runs to Target for posterboard. No pleading with the school custodian to please, please, please let us in to the part of the building where a certain locker is with a certain chemistry book inside of it.

But . . . by the end of July (and maybe a tad earlier) my husband and I start whispering to each other, "When does school start?" Because the kids, as kids do, view every night as Friday night. Their alarms aren't going off at 7 a.m. But ours are. And we still ask our kids to wake us up when they get home. And that ranges from midnight to 3 a.m. And teenagers are nocturnal nightfeeders. And we're tired. I'm ready for the house to be empty for 6 or 7 hours every day.

So, right now, I'm rejoicing as much as the kids are grousing. The schedules have arrived. The summer reading is 50% done. The college books are ordered. One has already headed back to school; another is in week 3 of his job two time zones away. And on Monday, I will have a quiet house by 8 a.m. and will be able to gather all the post-its and other scribbles and get down to the business of finishing the final (or so I think) revisions of my novel so I can send it off. But right now laundry calls. Hope the buzzer on the dryer doesn't wake any of the sleeping kids.

My Olympic Events or, Damn, I'm Old

by Judy Merrill Larsen

I remember when I realized that most of the athletes at the Olympics were younger than me. It seemed to happen suddenly. I went from wanting my hair to look like Dorothy Hamill's (1976) when I was 16, to realizing one of the athletes in the 1992 Olympics was a kid I used to babysit for. But, thanks to some of the events, like marathons and shooting and stuff (not sexy events, I know), there were usually some athletes who were older than me.

For instance, this year, if I were 7 years younger, Dara Torres would fit that spot.

But this time around, what has caused me to gasp is not the record-breaking swimming events nor the stunning agility of the gymnasts, but the realization that there are parents of athletes who are younger than me. Yes, that's right, I'm almost closer in age to some of the grandparents of the athletes than I am to the athletes themselves.

And quite honestly, that irritates me. I'm not ready to be sent to a rocking chair with my food mushed up for me to gum.

So, I think we need to rethink some events. I mean, heck, they discarded that whole amateur athlete position. And they now stagger the games so the winter and summer games aren't in the same year. They tossed out the scoring for gymnastics so there's no such thing as a perfect 10 anymore. What we need are events that hinge on having some life experience. (Isn't that nicer than saying events that are aided by cellulite, bifocals and creaky knees? Thought so.)



Without further ado, here are events I'd be likely to medal in:

~wine opening. Oh yeah, I can swivel that cork out without even blinking. In one motion and with no cork residue left behind. And, to show even more versatility, I'm not a wine snob--grocery store sale wine is fine by me.

~lie detection. C'mon, if you're a parent of teens worth your salt, you're right here with me. When said teen gets a bit vague, a little shifty-eyed, you know the lie is coming. And, then I just smile, nod, act as though I bought it, but watch out, kiddo, because I will trap you in it like nobody's business. You won't know what hit you. Yup, I'm that good. (15 years of teaching high school really hones this skill, too.)

~sock sorting. I may own the world record on this one. And all those socks with no mate? They're in the top drawer in the laundry room and, oh baby, when the mate turns up it's a special day around here. And every 9 months or so I dump the drawer and we start all over.

~rolling-eye stare-down master (vs. teen-age girl category). I will not be moved. Not a whit. Roll your eyes, sigh with disgust, doesn't matter. And, I also up the degree of difficulty by being able to do this at the mall. In Abercrombie and Hollister. Oh yeah. High five, right here.

~spaghetti sauce maker extraordinaire. Over the years, the recipe evolved into perfection. I love it. My kids love it. My husband loves it. Friends ask for the recipe. And just the other day, my older son called me from Seattle to ask for the recipe now that he's out on his own. I dare say this category might need to be retired.

~and, as long as we're in the kitchen, let's include gravy made from scratch. With turkey drippings (but no giblets. Those are just slimy.) and broth and a bit of cornstarch mixed with cold water. Bring to a boil. Simmer.

~I'm pretty damn good at camouflage dressing (and perhaps the two previous events help explain this one). No, not as in war-torn fashion. I'm talking about understanding the "what not to wear" mantra. Understanding what makes me look slimmer. I might not quite be at medalist level here, but I'm willing to push myself and hope one of these years to be on the medal stand.

~Finally, I'm a font of unwanted advice on any topic you can imagine. And, I manage to slip it in without even being asked for it (telepathic, I guess).

So, what events would you like to see? What would you medal in? We can do this and, I promise, no goofy team outfits or chapeaus.

All Washed Up by Jenny Gardiner

Wet towels have become the bane of my existence. I’m practically drowning in them. I find them everywhere. Damp towels on the bathroom floor, saturated swimming pool towels on the hardwood floors. Dripping hair towels soaking into the carpets.
With my three kids home all summer, the soggy towel factor has increased exponentially. It’s almost out of control. By my calculations I am faced with at the very least nine wet towels a day, and that’s if the kids only go to the pool once. If they go to swim team practice in the morning, that’s three more soaking wet towels. Don’t even get me started on swim meet days: two to three more sodden towels per kid (that is if they don’t lose them at the meet), bringing me to a grand total of six thousand four hundred and twenty four soggy towels per week, give or take a few.
I try to encourage the kids to hang up the towels, give them a chance to air dry. But they’re just so darned wet. The towels, not the kids. So even assuming the kids did hang their towels regularly, which they’re not, the damp towel dilemma has taken over my life.
I’m washing, and drying, drying and washing. But I don’t seem to make any headway.
And supposing I do get all my wet towels washed, there’s the other problem of the towels in the closet. Every day, I wash those towels. Fold them neatly. Place them in an orderly manner on the shelves of the linen closet. And every day I find the clean towel pile overturned. In an effort to get to their favorite towels, the kids pull from the bottom of the pile, allowing the stack to tumble. Dead soldier towels, strewn about the floor. At least they’re not wet.
My husband came up with a solution to our towel problem. Unfortunately he announced it at 11 o’clock at night to an audience of overly tired kids.
The idea was this: pit each kid against the other. Whoever finds a wet towel on the floor can confront the towel offender, and force a payment of 25 cents. My teen-aged son, who never met a get-rich-quick scheme he didn’t like, started to gleefully calculate how much money he could make annually off of his sisters by merely busting them violating the towel rule.
My older daughter, our number one towel offender--but aside from that all-around wonderful helper--burst into tears, feeling persecuted. We couldn’t calm her down for thirty minutes.
My other daughter, another towel violator, stomped off to her room, slamming the door shut.
Today, my son, the mercenary, happened into his sister’s room in search of our kitten, when what did he come upon, but a wet towel. Now mind you, at least it wasn’t heaped on the carpet. It was draped across a chair. But nevertheless, it was not in its designated spot on the towel rack. Excitedly he thrust the towel in his sister’s face. She shrieked at him, accusing him of sneaking into her room, her private space. He leered at her, that ire-inducing smirk that every brother in the world knows will elicit hatred, venom, retribution from a sister. Usually in the form of a slap, smack, pinch, punch or kick.
There’s a lot more noise in my house today. Whereas yesterday, I spent the day in relative peace, stooping to pick up the myriad of wet towels laying about, today, I had to don my striped shirt, secure my whistle over my neck, and adopt the role of referee. It hasn’t allowed me much time for washing towels.
I think my life was easier when all I had to worry about was picking up wet towels off of every horizontal surface in my house. Excuse me while I go run interference with my kids, I think it’s getting violent.

Declaration of Independence or, Common Sense, Baby!

by Judy Merrill Larsen


Don't worry, this isn't going to be a little history lesson. Or a quiz about who signed what and when. Uh uh. It's about the power of natural consequences and how letting those consequences take their natural course can lead everybody--parents and kids--to the independence that we all want. It's necessary, but sometimes it can be a painful struggle. Just ask the British.

As adults, we get this. If I eat less and move more I'll lose weight. Doesn't always make me do so, but that's a natural consequence I understand. Same with, oh, say, paying bills so the electricity stays on. In my fifteen years of teaching, I often found myself preaching this to my students. Especially when they'd ask about extra-credit. I'd launch into my song and dance about "Well, if you'd done the assigned work you wouldn't need extra-credit. now, would you, so why should I give you a chance to make more work for me?" That always brought them around, yes indeedy.

But as a mom, it was often much harder for me to hold to this. For a few years, when my sons were in elementary school, I was on a first-name basis with the night janitor at their school because we seemed to need to ask him to unlock a classroom door at least once a week to fetch something we needed to complete a homework assignment. Part of me knew I should let them deal with the consequences of not remembering. But it seemed so cold. Harsh.

No more. One thing teenagers teach you (and the sooner, the better) is that they often only respond to natural consequences. For example: (and I need to make a disclaimer here. Not all of these examples come from the children living under my roof. Some come from their friends. I swear. But they're all instructive.)

~If, when you are "assigned" community service by a judge because of some hi-jinks you were caught participating in, "forgetting" to perform said hours will cause those hours to be doubled. Plus you'll be fined. So maybe next time you shouldn't ignore your mom's nagging.

~If you keep calling in sick to a job you no longer like, you'll get fired. And the company who sends you your cell phone bill doesn't care the reason, they'll stop your service. And, no, they don't have to warn you in advance.

~If you blow through all your lunch money/allowance by noon on Tuesday, you're going to be hungry (or brown-bagging it) for the rest of the week. Not to mention that you can forget about any extra-curricular fun.

~If you buy clothes that scream "Skanky crack ho" to your parents, but "sneak-wear" them under your t-shirt, the school will likely call your parents to explain they don't mesh with the dress code and you'll be assigned a detention. Also, said clothes will likely disappear the next time your mom does the laundry.

~Speaking of which, if your mom tells you to put all your dirty clothes in the laundry basket outside your door so she can get the laundry done and you don't, there will be no clean clothes for you. Deal with it. Ha.

~And, if you decide your mom isn't all that bright and why can't you just put all your dirty clothes in the wash together (because she is no longer willing to do your laundry (see above)), don't expect that same stupid mom to replace your now pink underwear. But you can expect her to laugh at you when you make your request. And, if you've blown through your lunch money/allowance this week, you'll be wearing the pink underwear to school.

~If your economics professor has told you that your homework is all to be done on-line, and you sign up for the wrong on-line program, and then notice that your classmates have homework, but miraculously you don't, that doesn't mean you're off the hook; it means you'll be retaking the class in summer school. At 8 a.m. if your mom has anything to say about it.

~If the bank explains that if you bounce a check there will be fees assessed--which will deplete your checking account even more, they really mean it. It's not like when your mom used to tell you she'd fine you for having to go up to the elementary school at night to pick up your geography book. She remembers how cute you were at age 4. The bank doesn't, and even if they did, they wouldn't care.

Natural consequences. They rock. In part because your kids can't be mad at you or blame you. Not that they won't try, but even they have to realize that they brought it on themselves. And that's where the real power comes in--they have to take responsibility.



That's a pretty powerful lesson. And it leads to independence. Possibly even adult behaviors. And all you've had to do is sit back, watch it unfold and bite your tongue. And maybe sacrifice some tea tossed into a harbor.