Yo-Yo (Ra)ma*

I'm thirty-six years old, and there are a lot of things I still want to do in life. Last weekend, after hearing the Cleveland Orchestra play Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, I decided I would learn to play the violin.

I took piano lessons as a kid, but the thing that got me in the end (besides laziness and inadequate wingspan) was that pesky bass clef. It's a very busy instrument, the piano, and my left hand never fully cooperated the way it was supposed to. I always pounded out the melody, fudged the harmony, and pumped the pedals with a leaden foot.

The violin, however, is a simple, unassuming instrument with a pittance of strings. So rudimentary is the violin, that you could probably play it with your hands tied behind your back. I was fairly certain it was the perfect instrument for me, and, lo! I had an opportunity to try it when I took the V-meister to see a school friend make her debut with the childrens' orchestra.

The concert was part of the family music series, and the kids in attendance were given the chance to try different instruments before the performance began. V-meister didn't want anything to do with any of it, but I couldn't stay away from the violin table. After circling it for several minutes, I finally asked one of the orchestra volunteers if I could give it a go, and she said, "Why not? You look about twelve" (Not really, but it was implied.)

Just between you and me, I half expected that violin to play itself. And so I was rather taken aback at how awkward it felt, how cumbersome . . . how . . . how . . . downright difficult it actually was. I couldn't even figure out how to hold the bow without the docent's assistance, much less guide my paws into position on the strings. And the sound it made when I finally managed to put it all together was absolutely pitiful. I handed the violin back and ran away.

But don't think for a minute that my musical dream has been dashed. The violin is all the more enticing because of the challenge it poses. And really, I just want to learn how to hold the damn thing without poking myself in the eye with it play for my own pleasure and perhaps the P-Dawg's, who I plan to serenade by firelight (when I'm not busy hobnobbing with Franz Welser-Möst at Severance Hall, that is.)



* Cello, schmello

I Love a Good Grosgrain

I went to the secret wholesale design warehouse with The Decorators yesterday to start picking out furniture and fabrics.

The Decorators are my new best friends, though they know it not. Always impeccably dressed and trailing a faint scent of Gucci in their elegant wake, their very presence compels me to flaunt every piece of design lingo I've ever gleaned from reading Flutter's Shared Items shelter magazines.

It's like I'm transported to another dimension where potty training and housework do not exist. I catch myself saying things like, "I am loving the way this grosgrain picks up the blues in the ikat! Did you know I'm a flexitarian?" when just a half an hour earlier found me yelling, "IF I CATCH YOU JUMPING ON THE COUCH OR LICKING THAT DOORKNOB AGAIN, I WILL PERSONALLY HAND OVER YOUR LEGOS TO THE GARBAGE MAN, SO HELP ME GOD" at the top of my lungs.

("Grosgrain" is a new word I learned. And did you know that "damask" is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable?)

The design center was a bit overwhelming and I felt completely out of my element (Le Target), but in the end I managed to get several photos of myself posing with various pieces of furniture, select an assortment of fabrics, a sofa, sideboard, chair AND coffee table, and to stuff my purse full of complementary chocolates.

I now wear a knotted scarf and take my breakfast in the morning room.


"Girl With Knotted Scarf, Borderline Personality Disorder"

A few of the fabrics I liked:

Saved by the Bell

On Saturday, I was hanging out in the kitchen of our church hall, waiting for the V-meister to complete her first day of L1thuanian school.  The V-meister actually speaks fluent L1thuanian already, but I like to run around like a headless chicken six out of seven mornings a week and besides, my daughter is not yet old enough to realize that she could be doing gymnastics or watching cartoons instead of reciting noun declensions of a Saturday morning.

Anyway.  There was another mom there prepping ingredients for some chili she was planning to serve at a dinner party that night.  Because I know that hers is a non TV watching family who also bakes their own bread and probably composts as well, I asked her if the chili was vegetarian.

It was! And before I knew it, I had launched into a monologue about my new flexitarian diet.

Now, I didn't know what flexitarianism was until I read about it in Martha Stewart's magazine two days ago, but I liked the sound of it and wanted to impress chili mom with my healthful ways.  All of a sudden, not only was I a flexitarian who eats nothing but grains, fish, poultry, and the occasional Big Mac, I was also making my family healthful recipes from the Moosewood Cookbook every other night. So while my friend V, who also happened to be in the kitchen listening to our conversation, shot me a look that said, "I saw you eat three pounds of ground chuck yesterday," I went on about the versatility of bulgar wheat. (What is bulgar wheat?) 

My friend V was on to me.  She said, "So. Do your kids eat these Moosewood recipes, too?"  And I was all, "Um, if I'm making something I know they wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, I'll give them soy nuggets instead."  And she was all, "You are so full of crap."  Which she didn't actually say out loud, but it was written all over her face, as was, "I'd like to see you turn on a stove."

My point is that while waxing poetic about quinoa, I realized that I have an affliction whereby I feel compelled to match my tastes and convictions to those of whoever it is I happen to be speaking with at the minute. And it's not that I'm lying, exactly, because I do like salmon and while I was speaking with chili mom, I was 100% convinced that I would never eat another Chuck Peterson Hungry Heifer special again as long as I lived, until I came home to find the P-Dawg making spaghetti and meatballs.

Before I had a chance to exchange wheatgrass smoothie recipes with my soul mate chili mom, the bell rang and I had to go retrieve the V-meister.  But now that I'm aware of my condition, I'll be working on developing a better sense of self.  Let's just hope that in the meantime, I don't meet any communists or trekkies.

Spaghetti with meatballs is a regular part of my flexitarian diet

Sunday Funnies In My Pants

Is there a more entertaining Sunday night activity than shuffling songs on your iPod, tacking the phrase "in my pants" on the end of each, and posting them to your blog?*

I think not.

1. Shoplifters of the World Unite in my pants
2. Drowned World in my pants
3. True Love Leaves No Traces in my pants
4. Lullaby in my pants
5. Les Techniques de L'Amour in my pants
6. Once Upon a Time in my pants
7. The Whole Shebang in my pants
8. Shakespeare's Sister in my pants
9. As Esu Muzikantas (I am a Musician) in my pants
10. Lighten Up in my pants
11. Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye in my pants
12. A Taste of Honey in my pants
13. The Weight in my pants
14. When We Dance in my pants
15. Whose Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses IN. MY. PANTS.

I'm gonna tag someone, oh yes I am!

Becca
Karen Meg
Vodka Mom
Alejna
Skiplovey

Go on, now!  You know you want to . . .


* I'm not sure where this meme originated, but I remember seeing it around a lot awhile back.  In some of the more refined blogging circles.

Hands Free

Next week, after the J-dog completes his neverending Montessori orientation period, both my children will be in school together all morning.  In other words: the moment I've been anticipating for the past six years of my life has arrived.  This post isn't about me not knowing what to do with my time now that I finally have some to myself, or about how much I want a third child now that two are flitting about the periphery of my nest.

I am happy.

But it's increasingly difficult to remember now how their baby bodies felt: the V-meister spare and birdlike; the J-dog pillowsoft and round with a steady, humming core. I lay in bed this morning post dream, chasing the essence of their infantness as quickly as it receded in smoky wisps from my morningscape. There was an ache, as there always is, and then a quick surrender to the reality that I am best as mother of two.

I'm still occasionally startled by this fleeting, vicelike grip on my gut, a selfish longing for their baby selves. It's not another child that I want - just the J-dog and V-meister for a moment fresh and new, unsullied by the desperate, anxious imprint of a new mother and her constant longing to have two hands free.

I want, of course, to correct my naive babymothering mistakes. But also, just once again, to lift their soft, malleable, diaper-clad bodies into the air, little toes and feet ensconced in the pods of footed pajamas, to walk with them feeling warmth nuzzled in the crook of my neck, and to hold them there with full knowledge of the moment's brevity in time.

The Lowdown on the Wrapup

P-Dawg and I went on a weekend spa getaway to celebrate our anniversary.  Timid spa virgins no longer, we signed ourselves up for massages and seaweed wraps.  I thought they'd roll me up in some wet leaves and twenty minutes later I'd be skinny, but that's not how it went down.

First I almost kicked the massage therapist's teeth out when he tried to exfoliate my feet (I'm very sensitive), and then a smelly, wet paste made out of ground up seaweed was smeared all over my bod-day - kind of a shocker when you're expecting to be swaddled in something more akin to a fig leaf.  (I am from Ohio.)

Next, the P-Dawg and I were individually folded, burritolike, in some butcher block paper and a layer of warm thermal foil.  Then we were left alone in our respective mud cocoons for about twenty minutes to dwell on the various itches that developed the minute our arms were incapacitated. 


"P-Dawg?"

"Yep."

"I have a facial twitch."

"A new one?"

"No. Will I die?"

"Someday."

(Time passes.)

"P-Dawg?"

"Right here."

"I really have to see a man about a horse."

"Me too."

"We oughtn't have pounded that mineral water."

(A few minutes are spent staring at the ceiling and listening to Enya.)

"P-Dawg?"

"Yep."

"I actually didn't realize it was going to be mud."

"Me neither."


"Do you think our bod-days are really being detoxified?"

"Nope."

"Well, crap. I was sort of counting on being a dress size smaller after this."

When all was said and done, I may have lost a pound or two of water weight and my skin was as smooth as a baby's butt for a solid week, but I'm not sure it was worth it on account of the ick factor.  Plus, I gained it all back when we went out to dinner that night, so it was kind of a wash.

And therefore I give seaweed wraps, as a general category, a solid "C" rating.  But I give our anniversary getaway weekend an "A+."

Rimarama Recommends: The Outdoors

My kids are Outdoor Kids but I am an Indoor Mom, which can be problematic.

In grade school, one of the worst punishments you could impose upon me was to send me outdoors until dinnertime.  If Chrissy Long was not available to play Mary Lou Retton with, I'd just roller skate around and around the cul-de-sac, hoping for the salvation a wipeout could bring.  Once back in the comfort and safety of my bedroom lair, I could rejoin Ramona, Beezus, and Nancy Drew OR resume the work of molding Barbie-sized wedding cakes out of wads of wet toilet paper if I so desired, AND I DID.

But like I said, J-dog and V-meister?  Outdoor kids.  They love dirt and sunshine.  And back when I was pregnant for the first time and busy planning my stay-at-home-motherhood fantasy, frolicking outside was not accounted for in my short-sighted daily itinerary of: nurse baby and read books until dinnertime.  So it was kind of a shock when all of a sudden I had these two kids for whom I was expected to provide, you know . . . fresh air.

Well, I don't know what happened - maybe it's the fact that I actually like our new backyard, maybe it's old age - but I'm slowly coming around to this Spending Time Outdoors concept.  On more than one occasion last week I daresay I experienced an intense desire to go on a hike.  (Has anyone else had this happen to them?)

I even put on sneakers and packed a picnic lunch, for crying out loud.  And you know what?  It was lovely. There are some really nice things outdoors, readers.

And do you know what else?

Nothing beats meandering down a mossy trail on a cool summer's day with walking stick in hand and two wonderstruck little human beings tripping along beside you.

Nine

9-9-00


"And you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls."


-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Whistleblower

We were all in the car yesterday heading to a Labor Day picnic and the V-meister was chattering about What She Wants to Be When She Grows Up. She's enamored of the P-Dawg lately and alternates between wanting to be a doctor or a veterinarian.

She could not have been more impressed on the handful of occasions when he's taken her to the office or the hospital, where the V-meister was allowed to color in the physician's lounge and granted unlimited access to cookies and PBSkids.org at the nurses' station while her father finished up rounds. (I was home eating bonbons and watching The View, of course)

***************************************************************************

V-meister: "When I grow up, I'm going to be a veterinarian and I will take my children with me to work."

Me: "That sounds excellent!"

(pause)

V-meister: "Mama, I really want YOU to be something when you grow up, too!"

(!)

also:

(Crap!)

P-Dawg: "Mama is something. But she's taking a little break from it now to help you and your brother grow up."

V-Meister: "Well . . . what is she?"

Me: "I'm sitting right here, you guys."

P-Dawg: "She's . . . a writer!"

V-Meister, skeptical: "Does she still know how to write?"

Me: "YES! YES, I DO!" (Probably. Maybe.)

V-Meister, unconvinced: "Well. That's good."

*****************************************************************************
Ouch.

You know what? I wasn't really stung by the fact that my daughter does not yet (will she ever?) recognize mothering as valuable work, but rather because dammit! I still want to BE SOMETHING when I grow up.


"This is total bull$hit."

The Decorators Are Coming!

P-Dawg and I have really wanted to make some updates to our new digs ever since we moved in almost a year ago, but are paralyzed by laziness and indecision. So we finally enlisted two friends who run their own interior design business for some much needed help.

They came over last night for our initial consultation and ended up staying for several hours, walking around the house saying things like, "How do you feel about this banister?" and, "I'd like to see a window seat/reading nook here surrounded by floor to ceiling drapes" (I WOULD LIKE TO SEE THAT TOO!!!)

After being introduced, J-dog and V-meister, who only minutes before had been launching themselves headlong off the furniture, scattered to various corners of the abode faking shyness, leaving us to peacefully discuss our tastes and "vision" with Chris and Brett over a bottle of wine. I learned that I could talk about my pattern and color preferences for hours, and also that the P-Dawg has an enormous secret collection of Japanese prints and a bottle of Absinthe stashed away under lock and key in our wine cellar.

Eventually P-Dawg went upstairs to check on the kids and found our daughter sitting up in bed, sucking her thumb and twirling a lock of hair around her index finger with great intensity. The V-meister was clearly stressed out.

"What's up, V-Meister?" asked the P-Dawg.

"Are those decorators still here?"

"Yes."

"Are they decorating the house right now?"

"No, we're still just talking about it."

(*suck, suck, suck, twirl, twirl, twirl*)

"Daddy, I don't want those decorators decorating my room."

"Okay."

(*suck, suck, suck, twirl, twirl, twirl*)

"I will decorate my OWN ROOM."

"Okay."

"With balloons and streamers."

"Okay."

"I will decorate it with balloons and streamers, and also butterflies."

"Agreed."

"Those decorators will NOT decorate my room."

"That's fine."

With that settled, the V-meister relaxed into sleep and the P-Dawg went back downstairs to learn about the exciting differences between broadloom and berber.



And example of the V-meister's mad decorating skillz.

J-Dog Goes to School

The moment of J-dog's dreams finally arrived yesterday: pre-school orientation.



I even got to stay and watch for awhile - a HoverParent's dream come true! We had to sit on the sidelines so as not to interfere, but that didn't prevent me and my friend V from feverishly snapping paparazzi style photos. V was actually bold enough to cross the line of demarcation and take some close-ups of her daughter while the teachers' backs were turned, but I restrained myself and stayed put in my pint sized pre-school issue chair.

There was only one minor incident when, after another student occupied the seat he'd been sitting in, the J-dog tried to bulldoze her out and then resorted to sitting in her lap. Thankfully, I was able to shoot daggers at him with my eyes from my perch in the Parent Zone, and certain disaster and/or a potential sexual harrassment lawsuit was averted.

Today was his first day flying solo and went swimmingly. By all accounts, the J-dog was cheerful, cooperative, and in control of his bodily functions, although he is quickly making a name for himself as the class clown and had to be reigned in a few times for disrespectin' the geometric form work.

I think he'll be OK.