The sun was out.
The playground beckoned.
In it, a great puddle of mud with J-dog and V-meister's name on it.
People got wet.
And it was thrilling.
The very reason why galoshes were put on this earth.
N'est-ce pas?
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label childhood. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Playing Hookie
We did not make it to V-meister's gymnastics class yesterday afternoon.
The sun was out.
The playground beckoned.
In it, a great puddle of mud with J-dog and V-meister's name on it.
People got wet.
And it was thrilling.
The very reason why galoshes were put on this earth.
N'est-ce pas?
The sun was out.
The playground beckoned.
In it, a great puddle of mud with J-dog and V-meister's name on it.
People got wet.
And it was thrilling.
The very reason why galoshes were put on this earth.
N'est-ce pas?
Sunday, March 28, 2010
B-Baller
I had a great aversion to organized sports as a child and made it my business to become invisible during game days in gym class.
If we were playing dodge ball - and we always were - I would cower in the back of the court until my number was up, hoping against hope that I didn't get hit in the face, chest, or rear. These were by far the three biggest danger zones, but strictly speaking, there is no graceful way to exit a dodge ball game.
During softball season, I was the kid picking flowers in the outfield and praying that the ball did not come within a ten foot radius of my person, lest I be forced to catch it or, more horrifying still, decide where to throw it next.
Soccer was the most benign of the sports evils because you could stand around looking vaguely occupied and pre-emptively skedaddle when the ball started heading in your general direction.
The P-Dawg, who spent his youth league years hiding in the broom closet, also confirms having had a great disdain for organized sports.
Which is why we were both surprised to find that the little V-meister has been dreaming of becoming a baller and dying to join the junior Lithuanian basketball league which meets in the church gym on Saturday afternoons.
If you've never had the opportunity to watch a group of five and six year-olds play basketball as I did yesterday, I would highly recommend it on the basis of entertainment value alone. The aspiring athletes did fairly well with the dribbling, passing, and blocking drills, but things started falling apart about thirty minutes into practice when the scrimmage game began.
There were about three kids who actually knew how to play, and the rest of the motley crew traveled up and down the court on their periphery, like electrons spinning around an atom's nucleus. Every once in a great while, a proton or neutron would accidentally gain control of the ball, and then one of two things would happen:
The V-meister, for her part, was an enthusiastic though cautious participant, running up and down the length of the court on the exact same trajectory (just inside the sideline), but never attempting to take control of the ball or receive a pass. Whenever her team scored, she would shout "Yea!" and do a little jig. Every once in awhile when playing defense, she would remember what Coach Cliff taught her about blocking and randomly stick her arms up in the air - never mind the fact that there was no one from the opposing team, or any team, anywhere in her general vicinity.
But she loved it. She has advised us that she wants to play again next week, and is requesting that the P-Dawg install a net in our driveway so she could practice every day.
I'm proud of her. Basketball is the most entertaining and least offensive of the ball-centric sports.
Still, she must have gotten a recessive gene.
(I was too busy screaming from the sidelines to take any pictures of the game, so here's a random gratuitous V-meister shot, just for the heck of it.)
If we were playing dodge ball - and we always were - I would cower in the back of the court until my number was up, hoping against hope that I didn't get hit in the face, chest, or rear. These were by far the three biggest danger zones, but strictly speaking, there is no graceful way to exit a dodge ball game.
During softball season, I was the kid picking flowers in the outfield and praying that the ball did not come within a ten foot radius of my person, lest I be forced to catch it or, more horrifying still, decide where to throw it next.
Soccer was the most benign of the sports evils because you could stand around looking vaguely occupied and pre-emptively skedaddle when the ball started heading in your general direction.
The P-Dawg, who spent his youth league years hiding in the broom closet, also confirms having had a great disdain for organized sports.
Which is why we were both surprised to find that the little V-meister has been dreaming of becoming a baller and dying to join the junior Lithuanian basketball league which meets in the church gym on Saturday afternoons.
If you've never had the opportunity to watch a group of five and six year-olds play basketball as I did yesterday, I would highly recommend it on the basis of entertainment value alone. The aspiring athletes did fairly well with the dribbling, passing, and blocking drills, but things started falling apart about thirty minutes into practice when the scrimmage game began.
There were about three kids who actually knew how to play, and the rest of the motley crew traveled up and down the court on their periphery, like electrons spinning around an atom's nucleus. Every once in a great while, a proton or neutron would accidentally gain control of the ball, and then one of two things would happen:
- He/she would stand paralyzed until someone came up and plucked it clear out of his/her hands.
- He/she would take off running in the wrong direction.
The V-meister, for her part, was an enthusiastic though cautious participant, running up and down the length of the court on the exact same trajectory (just inside the sideline), but never attempting to take control of the ball or receive a pass. Whenever her team scored, she would shout "Yea!" and do a little jig. Every once in awhile when playing defense, she would remember what Coach Cliff taught her about blocking and randomly stick her arms up in the air - never mind the fact that there was no one from the opposing team, or any team, anywhere in her general vicinity.
But she loved it. She has advised us that she wants to play again next week, and is requesting that the P-Dawg install a net in our driveway so she could practice every day.
I'm proud of her. Basketball is the most entertaining and least offensive of the ball-centric sports.
Still, she must have gotten a recessive gene.
(I was too busy screaming from the sidelines to take any pictures of the game, so here's a random gratuitous V-meister shot, just for the heck of it.)
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
Sweet/Tart
I have two lucid memories from my First Communion day.
The first is the lemon meringue bars, a favorite dessert my mother had made especially for the occasion. I had ferreted away five or six of them while my parents were busy with their hosting responsibilities, and, basking in First Communion Day glory, ate piece after piece of sweet and tangy goodness by myself down in our cool, damp basement.
The second is getting stone cold busted by my mom for planting myself on the goldenrod yellow carpet in our living room, and, with the crisp white skirt of my dress billowing around me, loudly tallying up my communion cash in front of all the assembled guests. (ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.)
But here is what I don't remember, because I hadn't noticed it until I came across this old photo:
The look on my mother's face earlier, as I made my first careful, deliberate way down the aisle.
And that's the thing about mothers - one minute they're reading you the Riot Act in front of all your cousins, and the next, they're gazing upon you with a look of infinite love.
The first is the lemon meringue bars, a favorite dessert my mother had made especially for the occasion. I had ferreted away five or six of them while my parents were busy with their hosting responsibilities, and, basking in First Communion Day glory, ate piece after piece of sweet and tangy goodness by myself down in our cool, damp basement.
The second is getting stone cold busted by my mom for planting myself on the goldenrod yellow carpet in our living room, and, with the crisp white skirt of my dress billowing around me, loudly tallying up my communion cash in front of all the assembled guests. (ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS.)
But here is what I don't remember, because I hadn't noticed it until I came across this old photo:
The look on my mother's face earlier, as I made my first careful, deliberate way down the aisle.
And that's the thing about mothers - one minute they're reading you the Riot Act in front of all your cousins, and the next, they're gazing upon you with a look of infinite love.
Monday, December 14, 2009
The Bad Egg
I must have been six, with pig tails, saddle shoes, knee socks and a hunter green plaid uniform jumper. I had two friends - Mary Catherine and Sarah. They were nice girls, like me, though they did not always save me a seat at the lunch table.
We ate in the auditorium, with its penitentiary-like windows and lingering Lenten fish fry smell. On rare occasions, narrow beams of palest light invaded to expose the dust mites swirling overhead. The auditorium roared with restraint at lunchtime, a buzzing cacophony of indoor voices and folding chairs scraping endlessly over wide planked wooden floors.
I had not managed to secure a safe seat among my friends that day. To my right sat Dominic DiNunzo and on my left was Kristie Fini. Between the two of them they had a smorgasbord of delectable middle class American lunch fare: bologna sandwiches on white, chocolate milk, chips, Ho-Hos.
I opened my metal Hollie Hobby lunchbox and rooted around. There was no sandwich, but a piece of European rye, an orange, and a hard-boiled egg. On the egg was a message from my mother, written carefully in number two pencil: "I love you very much." It was adorned with hearts and my mother's trademark signature, a swoopy capital "M."
Though I would have preferred an All-American spread (and an easily pronounceable, non-ethnic name) I liked hard-boiled eggs, and this one in particular heralded a sudden rush of love for Mama, at home in our kitchen doing motherly things.
Kristie Fini was first to notice it.
"What. is. THAT?"
All heads within earshot turned towards me and my hard-boiled egg, which I now clutched tightly in a sweaty little hand.
Dominic Di Nunzio chanted, "Rima has an egg! Rima has an egg!"
It was true; I could not hide it. I could only stare intently at the pock-marked table edge, trying to control a wildly quivering lip and a sudden desperate longing for my Mama, who was still the center of a world now shimmering unsteadily behind a salty fog of tears.
I wanted nothing more than to be ensconced safely with her at that moment, despite - and because of - that stupid hard-boiled egg.
This post was my contribution to this week's {W}rite of Passage Challenge, which was to describe an elementary school lunch. You can read posts from the other participants here:
We ate in the auditorium, with its penitentiary-like windows and lingering Lenten fish fry smell. On rare occasions, narrow beams of palest light invaded to expose the dust mites swirling overhead. The auditorium roared with restraint at lunchtime, a buzzing cacophony of indoor voices and folding chairs scraping endlessly over wide planked wooden floors.
I had not managed to secure a safe seat among my friends that day. To my right sat Dominic DiNunzo and on my left was Kristie Fini. Between the two of them they had a smorgasbord of delectable middle class American lunch fare: bologna sandwiches on white, chocolate milk, chips, Ho-Hos.
I opened my metal Hollie Hobby lunchbox and rooted around. There was no sandwich, but a piece of European rye, an orange, and a hard-boiled egg. On the egg was a message from my mother, written carefully in number two pencil: "I love you very much." It was adorned with hearts and my mother's trademark signature, a swoopy capital "M."
Though I would have preferred an All-American spread (and an easily pronounceable, non-ethnic name) I liked hard-boiled eggs, and this one in particular heralded a sudden rush of love for Mama, at home in our kitchen doing motherly things.
Kristie Fini was first to notice it.
"What. is. THAT?"
All heads within earshot turned towards me and my hard-boiled egg, which I now clutched tightly in a sweaty little hand.
Dominic Di Nunzio chanted, "Rima has an egg! Rima has an egg!"
It was true; I could not hide it. I could only stare intently at the pock-marked table edge, trying to control a wildly quivering lip and a sudden desperate longing for my Mama, who was still the center of a world now shimmering unsteadily behind a salty fog of tears.
I wanted nothing more than to be ensconced safely with her at that moment, despite - and because of - that stupid hard-boiled egg.
This post was my contribution to this week's {W}rite of Passage Challenge, which was to describe an elementary school lunch. You can read posts from the other participants here:
Monday, December 07, 2009
Comfort and Joy
My favorite childhood Christmas decoration was a pair of mice - a mother and her baby - which my mom always displayed on the top of the toilet commode for the few weeks leading up to Christmas.
I'm not sure why I loved those little rodents so, or why they were perpetually relegated to the bathroom. I seem to recall that they reminded me of characters in my favorite Lithuanian childrens' book series, and I must have admired the minuscule candy canes and holly berries that adorned their necks. Every year the setting of the mice atop the commode was, for me, the highlight of the family's Christmas decorating tradition.
I revisited the mice statuettes recently when sorting through ornaments at my parents' house. They were much less interesting than I'd remembered them - The velvet tufts of fur were threadbare in places, one mouse's ear was missing, and the paint on the holly berries around the other one's neck was chipped to reveal a plain old Styrofoam craft ball underneath. It was hard to believe those two tattered little mice had once represented for me the very pinnacle of comfort and joy.
Last night I hauled out all our Christmas decorations (except the tree and banister garland - those go up next weekend), put on some holiday music, and while the P-Dawg made us a dinner of steak with roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes and the children played quietly afoot, I busted my decorating moves.
I put the time honored garland up on the fireplace, spending a healthy chunk of time positioning fake holly berries equidistantly from one another:
I fashioned a string of wire lights and two bendable berry garlands into a nest, and placed it at the foot of my fireplace:
I hung the festive, but migraine inducing jingle bells on the front doorknob:
Then I painstakingly set up the nativity scene, triangulating the three kings and the shepherd with his flock around the holy family in a tasteful and aesthetically pleasing manner:
Fifteen minutes and one visit from the little J-dog later, the statues looked like this:
Which is only right.
Finally, I reluctantly draped my old frenemy, the button-eyed reindeer quilt, over the back of the family room couch.
The quilt, which begs that a crystal candy dish full of Werther's Originals be placed next to it, was a wedding gift from a distant relative, who had lovingly sewn it herself. It's cute, but not my style, and this year as I sorted through the boxes in our basement, I had decided to leave the quilt behind.
Except that after I had turned my back on the quilt in favor of a box of funky Crate and Barrel ornaments, I could feel those insipid little button eyes boring into me.
"Don't do it, bish."
And so I didn't. I brought the quilt upstairs and while the kids played with Legos in the corner, I draped it over the back of the couch.
After dinner, we retired to the family room to relax and admire my handiwork. J-dog and V-meister were miraculously well-behaved and no quarreling or couch diving occurred. If there had been a fire in the grate and snow falling softly outside the windows, we would have been a scene straight out of a Thomas Kincaid painting.
It took only a few moments for the kids to notice that the reindeer quilt was up.
"REINDEER BUTTON QUILT, YAY!!!!!", they squealed while holding hands and jumping up and down.
The joy was palpable.
There was couch diving.
An angel choir began singing Handel's Messiah, and the spirit of Christmas alighted on my shoulder in the shape of a small red bird.
I'll never be able to diss the beady-eyed reindeer quilt - it might as well be a threadbare pair of Christmas mice.
I'm not sure why I loved those little rodents so, or why they were perpetually relegated to the bathroom. I seem to recall that they reminded me of characters in my favorite Lithuanian childrens' book series, and I must have admired the minuscule candy canes and holly berries that adorned their necks. Every year the setting of the mice atop the commode was, for me, the highlight of the family's Christmas decorating tradition.
I revisited the mice statuettes recently when sorting through ornaments at my parents' house. They were much less interesting than I'd remembered them - The velvet tufts of fur were threadbare in places, one mouse's ear was missing, and the paint on the holly berries around the other one's neck was chipped to reveal a plain old Styrofoam craft ball underneath. It was hard to believe those two tattered little mice had once represented for me the very pinnacle of comfort and joy.
Last night I hauled out all our Christmas decorations (except the tree and banister garland - those go up next weekend), put on some holiday music, and while the P-Dawg made us a dinner of steak with roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes and the children played quietly afoot, I busted my decorating moves.
I put the time honored garland up on the fireplace, spending a healthy chunk of time positioning fake holly berries equidistantly from one another:
I fashioned a string of wire lights and two bendable berry garlands into a nest, and placed it at the foot of my fireplace:
I hung the festive, but migraine inducing jingle bells on the front doorknob:
Then I painstakingly set up the nativity scene, triangulating the three kings and the shepherd with his flock around the holy family in a tasteful and aesthetically pleasing manner:
Fifteen minutes and one visit from the little J-dog later, the statues looked like this:
Which is only right.
Finally, I reluctantly draped my old frenemy, the button-eyed reindeer quilt, over the back of the family room couch.
The quilt, which begs that a crystal candy dish full of Werther's Originals be placed next to it, was a wedding gift from a distant relative, who had lovingly sewn it herself. It's cute, but not my style, and this year as I sorted through the boxes in our basement, I had decided to leave the quilt behind.
Except that after I had turned my back on the quilt in favor of a box of funky Crate and Barrel ornaments, I could feel those insipid little button eyes boring into me.
"Don't do it, bish."
And so I didn't. I brought the quilt upstairs and while the kids played with Legos in the corner, I draped it over the back of the couch.
After dinner, we retired to the family room to relax and admire my handiwork. J-dog and V-meister were miraculously well-behaved and no quarreling or couch diving occurred. If there had been a fire in the grate and snow falling softly outside the windows, we would have been a scene straight out of a Thomas Kincaid painting.
It took only a few moments for the kids to notice that the reindeer quilt was up.
"REINDEER BUTTON QUILT, YAY!!!!!", they squealed while holding hands and jumping up and down.
The joy was palpable.
There was couch diving.
An angel choir began singing Handel's Messiah, and the spirit of Christmas alighted on my shoulder in the shape of a small red bird.
I'll never be able to diss the beady-eyed reindeer quilt - it might as well be a threadbare pair of Christmas mice.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
But Nothing Could Be More Horrifying Than Nellie
I happened upon my old copy of Little House in the Big Woods the other day while looking for something in my ancient keepsake chest. It was one among only three books I'd apparently deemed worthy of saving (the other two were Ramona and Her Mother and a Catholic Guide to Sex) and I thought it would be fun to read aloud from it with the V-meister every night before bed.
A few nights ago, we curled up on the couch together and started. Things were pretty much as I'd remembered them in the Big Woods, except that by page three, there was talk of wolves eating little girls. Ten pages in, someone had been attacked by a panther, Pa had shot a deer, butchered a pig and rigged its carcass up in the yard, Ma was making entrail stew, Laura and Mary were tossing the pig's inflated bladder around the yard, and my rainbows and unicorns reading voice had morphed into an apologetic whisper.
All this Blood and Guts on the Prairie took me quite by surprise - I didn't rememer any of it from back in the day. And so I took to muffling and sometimes flat out dropping words like "dead", "killed," and "carcass," but the ever vigilant V-meister was reading along and consistently calling my bluff. So like any good mother concerned with preserving the rose tinted facade of modern life in the 'burbs, I skipped to the chapter about Christmas. I told myself it was because I wasn't in the mood to explain entrail stew just then, when the ulterior motive was essentially to shield the V-meister from unpleasantness of any kind and faciliate her current belief that chicken nuggets come pre-fabbed and batter dipped straight from the heavens.
Oh, sure, we've talked about death: I accidentally rented the story of Babar and his mother when V-meister was two. And when my grandmother passed away, I explained my beliefs about the afterlife in the most benign and pleasant way I could, making it sound like the awesome passage I'd like to convince myself it is. But one day V-meister will have to learn that not everyone dies peacefully in their sleep, that awful things can happen to good people, that there is pain and suffering, that the meat we eat for dinner was butchered.
Ours is a whitewashed, Photoshopped, and airbrushed world. And it's not that I really believe in protecting my babies from all of its harsh realities, but rather that I don't know how far to peel back the glossy veneer, how much of the gritty core to expose, or when.
I remembered how upset I was with a friend some time ago when she relayed to me a story about being at a museum with her young daughter at the same time as a pair of conjoined twins. To my horror, she explained that she wasn't able to herd Mary out of the exhibit in time to prevent her from glimpsing the twins, but proudly recounted how she'd explained, post facto, that they were "kind of like Zack and Weezie on Dragon Tails" and therefore nothing to be afraid of. How dare she keep her daughter away from those little girls as though they were some kind of monstrosity? How could she compare them to a cartoon character, rather than providing an honest explanation?
But judging from the cold sweat that Little House in the Big Woods provoked in me, I see that I'm no better. I'll admit I initially insisted that Babar's mother was "just sleeping" (I later had to renege because, even at age two and a half, V-meister wasn't buying it.) I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was inside her great-grandmother's casket. I make it a point to flip the news channel when war footage is being shown, and I regularly omit the word "chicken" in front of "nugget" just so my kids would eat.
The funny thing is, I actually learned a lot about life from watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. And - wonder of wonders - witnessing countless unmedicated labors, amputations, fires, and gruesome illnesses through Michael Landon's deft lens didn't actually make me any worse for the wear. If anything, I was pleasantly surprised to learn as an adult that my chances of contracting smallpox or dying in a covered wagon accident ware actually quite slim.
As luck would have it, the V-meister wasn't too impressed with Little House in the Big Woods, anyway (too many words, not enough pictures), so for the moment, I've been spared the ole' "How to Avoid Being Eaten Alive by a Panther" speech. I think I'll put Little House in the Big Woods back in the chest with the Catholic Guide to Sex until she's . . . about thirty. But I will make a conscious effort to answer her questions about the harsher realities of existence honestly and in an appropriate context for her age, whatever that may be.
I guess it's time to start calling a spade a spade. (Or a chicken a chicken.)
And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my rabbit stew on.
A few nights ago, we curled up on the couch together and started. Things were pretty much as I'd remembered them in the Big Woods, except that by page three, there was talk of wolves eating little girls. Ten pages in, someone had been attacked by a panther, Pa had shot a deer, butchered a pig and rigged its carcass up in the yard, Ma was making entrail stew, Laura and Mary were tossing the pig's inflated bladder around the yard, and my rainbows and unicorns reading voice had morphed into an apologetic whisper.
All this Blood and Guts on the Prairie took me quite by surprise - I didn't rememer any of it from back in the day. And so I took to muffling and sometimes flat out dropping words like "dead", "killed," and "carcass," but the ever vigilant V-meister was reading along and consistently calling my bluff. So like any good mother concerned with preserving the rose tinted facade of modern life in the 'burbs, I skipped to the chapter about Christmas. I told myself it was because I wasn't in the mood to explain entrail stew just then, when the ulterior motive was essentially to shield the V-meister from unpleasantness of any kind and faciliate her current belief that chicken nuggets come pre-fabbed and batter dipped straight from the heavens. Oh, sure, we've talked about death: I accidentally rented the story of Babar and his mother when V-meister was two. And when my grandmother passed away, I explained my beliefs about the afterlife in the most benign and pleasant way I could, making it sound like the awesome passage I'd like to convince myself it is. But one day V-meister will have to learn that not everyone dies peacefully in their sleep, that awful things can happen to good people, that there is pain and suffering, that the meat we eat for dinner was butchered.
Ours is a whitewashed, Photoshopped, and airbrushed world. And it's not that I really believe in protecting my babies from all of its harsh realities, but rather that I don't know how far to peel back the glossy veneer, how much of the gritty core to expose, or when.
I remembered how upset I was with a friend some time ago when she relayed to me a story about being at a museum with her young daughter at the same time as a pair of conjoined twins. To my horror, she explained that she wasn't able to herd Mary out of the exhibit in time to prevent her from glimpsing the twins, but proudly recounted how she'd explained, post facto, that they were "kind of like Zack and Weezie on Dragon Tails" and therefore nothing to be afraid of. How dare she keep her daughter away from those little girls as though they were some kind of monstrosity? How could she compare them to a cartoon character, rather than providing an honest explanation?
But judging from the cold sweat that Little House in the Big Woods provoked in me, I see that I'm no better. I'll admit I initially insisted that Babar's mother was "just sleeping" (I later had to renege because, even at age two and a half, V-meister wasn't buying it.) I couldn't bring myself to tell her what was inside her great-grandmother's casket. I make it a point to flip the news channel when war footage is being shown, and I regularly omit the word "chicken" in front of "nugget" just so my kids would eat.
The funny thing is, I actually learned a lot about life from watching Little House on the Prairie reruns. And - wonder of wonders - witnessing countless unmedicated labors, amputations, fires, and gruesome illnesses through Michael Landon's deft lens didn't actually make me any worse for the wear. If anything, I was pleasantly surprised to learn as an adult that my chances of contracting smallpox or dying in a covered wagon accident ware actually quite slim.
As luck would have it, the V-meister wasn't too impressed with Little House in the Big Woods, anyway (too many words, not enough pictures), so for the moment, I've been spared the ole' "How to Avoid Being Eaten Alive by a Panther" speech. I think I'll put Little House in the Big Woods back in the chest with the Catholic Guide to Sex until she's . . . about thirty. But I will make a conscious effort to answer her questions about the harsher realities of existence honestly and in an appropriate context for her age, whatever that may be.
I guess it's time to start calling a spade a spade. (Or a chicken a chicken.)
And now if you'll excuse me, I have to get my rabbit stew on.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
I Am a Card Carrying Curmudgeon
I always thought a trip to the zoo meant shuffling obediently from one wildlife habitat to the next, whining about having to go to the bathroom, and begging for a Sno-Cone. But now they've made it all fun and stuff, with rides and jungle gyms and a Ben & Jerry's stand every twenty feet. I don't know where they put the elephants.
We went last week and instead of feigning interest in some impossibly far off and partially obscured animals, J-dog and V-meister spent the afternoon frolicking and running away from me in the labyrinth-like play area. There was a jungle gym, a five-hundred foot long tunnel slide, and a swamp with a mechanical alligator that would periodically lunge out of the water to give me a heart attack.
But I had driven across town, parked three time zones away, and spent a bazillion dollars for an EDUMACATIONAL FIELD TRIP. We were going to see some animals if it was the last thing we ever did.
We located the "African Savannah" habitat and while I made a great show of ooo-ing and ah-ing over some baby giraffes, the V-meister fiddled with the brakes on J-dog's stroller and asked if it was time for ice cream yet. We got Sno-Cones and ate them near the "Savannah". While my daughter was busy trying to jerry-rig a coin operated view-finder, a flesh and blood giraffe walked by right under her unsuspecting nose.
Before I knew it, it was time to go home.
But I remember when the zoo was a place where you went just to see some animals and maybe climb on the big boulder over by the primate house. The gift shop was nothing but a tiki hut where they sold T-shirts, bumper stickers, and the occasional troll pencil. I also remember a time when the childrens' section at my local library had more books than toys, and when my backyard entertainment consisted of a ball, some dirt, and my own spit. And I think there's something to be said for that.
I'll bet my local art museum is the only holdout without an interactive "kid zone," a place where you might actually get Tasered for climbing into a display. And I rather like that. Because I don't think we're doing our children any favors by manufacturing all of their fun.
We went last week and instead of feigning interest in some impossibly far off and partially obscured animals, J-dog and V-meister spent the afternoon frolicking and running away from me in the labyrinth-like play area. There was a jungle gym, a five-hundred foot long tunnel slide, and a swamp with a mechanical alligator that would periodically lunge out of the water to give me a heart attack.
But I had driven across town, parked three time zones away, and spent a bazillion dollars for an EDUMACATIONAL FIELD TRIP. We were going to see some animals if it was the last thing we ever did.
We located the "African Savannah" habitat and while I made a great show of ooo-ing and ah-ing over some baby giraffes, the V-meister fiddled with the brakes on J-dog's stroller and asked if it was time for ice cream yet. We got Sno-Cones and ate them near the "Savannah". While my daughter was busy trying to jerry-rig a coin operated view-finder, a flesh and blood giraffe walked by right under her unsuspecting nose.
Before I knew it, it was time to go home.
But I remember when the zoo was a place where you went just to see some animals and maybe climb on the big boulder over by the primate house. The gift shop was nothing but a tiki hut where they sold T-shirts, bumper stickers, and the occasional troll pencil. I also remember a time when the childrens' section at my local library had more books than toys, and when my backyard entertainment consisted of a ball, some dirt, and my own spit. And I think there's something to be said for that.
I'll bet my local art museum is the only holdout without an interactive "kid zone," a place where you might actually get Tasered for climbing into a display. And I rather like that. Because I don't think we're doing our children any favors by manufacturing all of their fun.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
I'll Take That as a Complement
I always wore glasses as a kid. And I'm fairly certain that my gargantuan, chablis-tinted plastic frames, coupled with a short, cross-gender haircut - which I liked to wear feathered and parted straight down the middle (not pictured) - were my main obstacles to social superstardom.Ninth grade saw salvation and gradual peer acceptance in the form of contact lenses, the kind that would routinely pop out as I went about my daily business. Still, rooting around the bathroom floor searching for your contacts beat the hell out of getting stuffed into your locker by Frank Snodgrass.
Alas, my glasses reprieve was short lived. They served me well through high school and college, then all of a sudden*, I just couldn't wear them comfortably anymore. I haven't worn them regularly for over ten years now, and it really chaps my hide. Because even though I have a decent pair of virtually weightless Swiss specs that are the least obvious pair of glasses I've ever owned, they still give me a bit of a complex. Whatever! Things could be worse.
Every once in awhile, I'll put in my daily wear disposable contacts on the off chance that my dessicated, renegade eyeballs decide to cooperate, but it's usually only a matter of hours before I peel them off and flush them down the toilet in disgust. I had them in today, and as I was going through the supermarket checkout line, the cashier says to me:
"You have such a pretty face!"
Me (blushing): "Oh! Thanks!"
Cashier (recognizing me as a regular customer): "You usually wear glasses, don't you?"
Me: "Um, yeah. I have my contacts in today."
Cashier: "It makes a huge difference in your appearance."
Me: "Uh, thanks."
Cashier: "Just lovely."
Me: "Yeah, I'd wear them more often if they weren't so uncomfortable, you know what I mean?"
Cashier: "Such a pretty face . . . Hey, Carl! (to bagger) Take a look at this young lady, don't you think the contacts really make a difference?"
Carl: "Oh, yes! Very nice!"
Cashier: "She usually wears glasses."
Carl (contorting face in disapproval): "I see."
Cashier (shaking head): "You should wear your contacts more often. It's a shame."
Me: "Thank you."
Cashier: "No, really, I mean it."
Me: "Okay, thanks."
Cashier: "Have a nice day."
Then me and my beautiful visage hightailed it outta there before the stroke of noon, when I was scheduled to morph back into a bespectacled hag.
* Following a recurring, untreated case of conjunctivitis that may or may not have been triggered by poor contact lens hygiene habits.
"Beauty"
"Beast"
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
You Gotta Love Nuns
We took the kids to the natural history museum over the weekend, where they saw their first planetarium show.
The beginning of the presentation depicted a daytime sky. As soon as the sun appeared, the little J-dog dutifully shielded his eyes, even though we told him it was OK on account of it being a planetarium and all. He watched the rest of the show through a crack between his fingers.
It's a proud testament to my hyper-vigilant parenting style (DON'T LOOK AT THE SUN, KIDS! ARE YOU LOOKING? STOP LOOKING! YOU'LL BURN OUT YOUR EYEBALLS!), and it reminded me of the fifth grade, when a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse occurred in our hemisphere.
It just so happened that this very special eclipse was even more spectacular if you happened to live, as I did at the time, in the deep south. In my little Catholic grade school, we spent many a science period preparing for the auspicious day by making shoe box solar eclipse viewers. I don't recall the exact details, but the shoe box solar eclipse viewer is a low-tech sciencey-type of contraption whereby you can indirectly view an eclipse without blinding yourself.
On the morning of the eclipse, the brothers Rama and I traipsed off to school brimming with excitement about the phenomenon we were to witness that day. The buzz in my classroom was reaching a fever pitch as we fifth graders tinkered with our viewfinders and prepared to file outside to witness the scientific marvel that was mere minutes away.
But it was short lived. Only moments later, our diminutive and roundly feared principal - Sister Patricia Ann - walked in. She pulled down all the blinds, confiscated our eclipse viewers and had us put our heads down on our desks for the duration.
We couldn't be trusted not to look straight at the sun. Someone was bound to burn their eyeballs out.
My mom experienced the eclipse standing in our backyard. She said it was the coolest thing: twilight at ten o'clock in the morning, even the birds were still.
And I guess I can see where Sister Patricia Ann was coming from, but I've never really forgiven her. I associate "eclipse" with the gluey smell of my fifth grade desktop, and I always wonder: has anyone actually burned their eyeballs out?
The beginning of the presentation depicted a daytime sky. As soon as the sun appeared, the little J-dog dutifully shielded his eyes, even though we told him it was OK on account of it being a planetarium and all. He watched the rest of the show through a crack between his fingers.
It's a proud testament to my hyper-vigilant parenting style (DON'T LOOK AT THE SUN, KIDS! ARE YOU LOOKING? STOP LOOKING! YOU'LL BURN OUT YOUR EYEBALLS!), and it reminded me of the fifth grade, when a once-in-a-lifetime total solar eclipse occurred in our hemisphere.
It just so happened that this very special eclipse was even more spectacular if you happened to live, as I did at the time, in the deep south. In my little Catholic grade school, we spent many a science period preparing for the auspicious day by making shoe box solar eclipse viewers. I don't recall the exact details, but the shoe box solar eclipse viewer is a low-tech sciencey-type of contraption whereby you can indirectly view an eclipse without blinding yourself.
On the morning of the eclipse, the brothers Rama and I traipsed off to school brimming with excitement about the phenomenon we were to witness that day. The buzz in my classroom was reaching a fever pitch as we fifth graders tinkered with our viewfinders and prepared to file outside to witness the scientific marvel that was mere minutes away.
But it was short lived. Only moments later, our diminutive and roundly feared principal - Sister Patricia Ann - walked in. She pulled down all the blinds, confiscated our eclipse viewers and had us put our heads down on our desks for the duration.
We couldn't be trusted not to look straight at the sun. Someone was bound to burn their eyeballs out.
My mom experienced the eclipse standing in our backyard. She said it was the coolest thing: twilight at ten o'clock in the morning, even the birds were still.
And I guess I can see where Sister Patricia Ann was coming from, but I've never really forgiven her. I associate "eclipse" with the gluey smell of my fifth grade desktop, and I always wonder: has anyone actually burned their eyeballs out?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)