Category Archives: life

October 29, 2007 · 12:01 am

After the Party

Driving home after a birthday celebration for my mother-in-law, we pass the site where my brother-in-law’s pastry shop is going to be. It’s officially under construction, but so far the construction looks like a lot full of turned up dirt with a few stakes in the ground.

Snags, riding in the back seat of the car, says “I hope Uncle Mikey isn’t an astronaut by the time they finish building his pastry shop!” And since construction generally takes six or eight months around here, and since Mikey isn’t a pilot of any kind, nor does he work for NASA, the chances of him becoming an astronaut in the next six or eight months are somewhere between pigs flying and hell freezing over. My husband said “If Uncle Mikey is an astronaut before his pastry shop is finished, I’ll eat my hat!”

Snags thought that was pretty funny, you know, eventually… like after we spent several minutes explaining what “eat my hat” meant. But then Snags went on to demand “What hat?” and my husband said, “I don’t know, any hat… Some hat… A hat. It doesn’t matter…”

Snags (the optimist) considered all this for a few minutes then said, “Well, if Uncle Mikey is an astronaut by then that’s okay because I will take over his pastry shop!”

To which I replied, “You will? Oh really? How are you going to do that? What about school?”

“Oh, I’ll go to school! School can come to me while I am at the pastry shop!” Snags said, the air of a child actor in his tone.

“Besides,” he continued, “They aren’t even teaching us anything at school anyway. At least it feels like they aren’t! I don’t think we’re learning anything.”

I called him on that. I said “Well, what about all the sight words they’ve taught you? And all the words you can write now? You even write whole sentences by sounding out words yourself!”

“And math!” my husband added. “You know how to count by ten.”

Snags obviously felt bolstered from our pointing out all the things he had learned in school. “Yeah!” he said, “And I can count by eleven! Listen… 11, 41, 51, 61, 71, 81, 91, 101, 1000…”

My husband couldn’t take it. He interrupted. “How about 11, 22, 33, 44, 55….”

“You don’t know Dad! Snags cried. “I can count by twelve too, wanna hear?” Snags asked.

“Sure,” I said stifling a laugh.

“Okay… 12, 32, 42, 52, 62, 72, 82, 92, 102, 1000!” he proudly proclaimed.

And there, in the darkened night, with a low slung but full and bright moon shining in front of us, I thought to myself, maybe he’s right. Maybe they aren’t teaching him anything in school afterall.

10 Comments

Filed under astronaut, counting, humor, Kindergarten, learning, life, pastry shop, Snags, Uncle Mikey

October 24, 2007 · 12:09 am

Running for Tiffany

Once upon a time there was a girl. She liked to run. She liked Tiffany’s. The jewelry store, that is, not other girls named Tiffany. Although she assumed they were very nice as well. The girl in our story wasn’t rich enough to shop at Tiffany’s very much, and she’d never eaten breakfast there at all, but she loved looking through their catalogs. In fact, she often flipped through Tiffany catalogs while she ate her breakfast in the mornings at her own kitchen table. And there, with milk from the cereal bowl dribbling down her chin, she could imagine, if only for a few moments, that she was beautiful like Holly Golightly and she was adorned with glittering gems from her favorite store… Until her six year old son interrupted her glorious daydreaming by demanding something like, “Belle! I need you to put this axe in Princess Leia’s hand. Thanks!”

Then the girl would snap back to reality and attach the LEGO axe to the LEGO Princess Leia, and the little boy would run off to play and the girl would glance at the clock, realize she was running late, and wolf down the rest of her breakfast before dashing up the stairs to get dressed for work.

This was all pretty routine until one fine fall day when the girl received an email from a running friend of hers, telling her about the Nike Women’s Virtual Half Marathon and how instead of a finisher’s medal, all participants who finished the race would receive a keychain designed by Tiffany. Well, if THAT didn’t get the girl’s attention, nothing would.

Now the girl had already run a lot that year as it was. Still, she had hoped to squeeze in just one more race that fall. The girl had given some thought to using her husband’s entry in an upcoming race that he had to skip due to his sore knee and his foot that he had run over with his lawnmower. She thought long and hard about it, but in the end she chickened out because, well, it’s against the rules to run a race under someone else’s bib number. And even though the girl suspected that other runners did that kind of thing all the time, she was afraid SHE would get caught and kicked out of racing forevermore. So she told her husband she wouldn’t use his entry after all. Imagine! The girl was actually starting to hang up her racing shoes for the season when that fateful email arrived!

The email explained that in order to participate in the virtual race, the girl would need to purchase her very own Nike+ iPod sports kit. The kit contained a little accelerometer that the girl would attach to her shoe and a receiver that would attach to her iPod. All wired up like that, the girl would run 13.1 miles any time of day and anywhere in the world on October 21st and the sports kit would track the distance she ran, the length of time she’d been running, and the calories she’d burned. If she completed the miles, the Tiffany keychain would follow in the mail.

The girl decided that this was a fantastic plan and she liked it even better when she discovered the whole Nike+ iPod sports kit was fairly inexpensive at $29. The girl compared that to the $200.00 Garmin Forerunner system that some of her running friends wore and she decided that the Nike+ iPod system was a bargain. Plus, the Garmin system didn’t come with the promise of a Tiffany anything!

So the girl bought herself a sports kit, set it all up, and went out to run. Once outside in the cold fall air, the girl learned very quickly that nothing keeps a girl running like trying to calibrate a new Nike+ iPod system.

The girl was the responsible sort and so she read the directions to her new gadget rather carefully. The directions suggested the best way to calibrate her new gadget was to run ¼ mile on the inside lane of a track. But the girl was running out of time. The date of the virtual half marathon was fast approaching and she didn’t know where to find a track. So the girl took her new gadget to her favorite trail and started running. The girl ran one mile but her Nike+ iPod system said she had run 1.05 miles. So the girl started over. She ran a second mile, and her gadget said she had run ANOTHER 1.05 miles. Frustrated with the inaccuracy, the girl continued on her quest to properly calibrate the device to her satisfaction. In the end, the girl did calibrate her Nike+ iPod kit, and she did it by running 11 miles…

A week went by while the girl dreamed about that Tiffany key chain. Then the morning of the 21st arrived. It was cold and dark as the girl awoke to dress for her race, but stars from the Orionids Meteor shower streaked over head and promised to help light the girl’s way as she headed out once again to her favorite trail. She started running just as the sun rose at 7:00 a.m., her favorite songs playing faintly in her ears. She ran and she ran and she ran until she had gone a little over 14 miles. When she was done, she stopped. She hopped in her car and drove home where she uploaded her running results into the computer and took a shower. She ate some lunch then took a restless nap by bribing her six year old son into taking his own nap. “I’ll pay you $5.00 if you sleep for an hour!” she said.

As she lay in her bed, tired and a little sore from all that running, the girl realized that everyone has their price. For her, it was the promise of a Tiffany’s keychain that will arrive in the mail. For her son, it was $5.00 cold hard cash.

The girl’s husband laughs at all of this. He says to her, “You better hope the keychain was designed by Tiffany the jewelry store and not Tiffany the teenager who used to sing in malls!”

The girl doesn’t think that is funny at all. Regardless, she’ll be waiting by her mail box…

9 Comments

Filed under humor, life, Nike+ iPod, running, Tiffany's, virtual half marathon

October 22, 2007 · 12:06 pm

R.S.V.P.

R.S.V.P. It’s French. It means répondez s’il vous plait. Translated into English it means get off your lazy ass, pick up the phone, and call the number on the invitation I sent you and let me know if you are coming to the party or not. If I don’t answer the phone, just leave a message.

Okay…okay.. translated into English R.S.V.P. actually means respond please. But for some reason, it appears that people are completely ignoring the little note that says R.S.V.P. on their invitations. They’re not responding at ALL. And I’m not sure why.

Is it because it’s French and not that many people in the good ole U.S. of A. speak French? Well, if that was YOUR excuse, you can’t use it anymore. I’ve just translated it for you and so now you know what R.S.V.P. means.

The same holds if you were going to say you don’t R.S.V.P. because YOU think it means REGRETS s’il vous plait and that you only need to call if you AREN’T coming to the party. It doesn’t. If I wanted you to only call if you weren’t planning on attending my party, I would have written the words “Regrets Only.” But I didn’t.

And while I’m at it, let me also tell you that the date written after the letters R.S.V.P. means that you are supposed to call and announce whether you are coming or not BY THAT DATE. It’s kind of like the sell by date on a package of ground beef. Or the expiration date on your carton of milk. You are supposed to do something BY THAT DATE. When the date is linked to an R.S.V.P. it means you are supposed to let me know BY THAT DATE if you plan to attend or not. It does not mean wait until the day after the party to say “Oh, by the way, sorry we missed your party, we went camping that weekend…”

And now, dear readers, I’m sure you are asking yourselves what on earth is Belle’s diatribe all about? You might even be shrugging on your jacket this very moment to run out and check your mailbox again, just to be sure you didn’t over look an invitation from me. Don’t worry. You didn’t. My anger isn’t directed at you.

It’s directed at THE PEOPLE I SENT BIRTHDAY PARTY INVITATIONS TO for Snags’ 6th Birthday. And yes, I know his birthday is over and done with and that the party has already come to pass, but sheesh! I realize I should let it go, but I can’t. This is STILL bothering me.

And it’s bothering a friend of mine too. Natalie recently mailed out invitations for her daughter’s birthday party. When we received ours, I picked up the phone to call and say that yes, Snags would very much like to come to the party and we were looking forward to it. My friend then informed me that I was the ONLY person who had responded so far, and she was getting a bit worried. Why weren’t people responding? Had the invitations been lost in the mail? Did people not like her daughter?

I assured her that people loved her daughter. Her daughter is beautiful, and smart, and friendly. I explained that I had experienced the same thing over Snags’ party invitations. I told her how I had sent out 15 invitations and only half that many bothered to respond.

“So what should I do?” my friend asked.

I suggested she give it some more time. Be prepared, I told her, to feed and party with all the children you invited, but understand some of them won’t show up. And they won’t tell you they aren’t going to show up. And then, I went on, understand that some children WILL show up even though their parents haven’t called to tell you they are coming. And those children will likely bring uninvited brothers and sisters with them. It’s a real mess, I agreed. But plan for a full house and maybe half will come. “You’ll probably have leftovers,” I told her.

I’ve discussed this issue with friends and co-workers alike. I’ve asked them all what they would do, if they sent out invitations with a clear request for people to R.S.V.P. and the R.S.V.P.s weren’t coming in. Many people said they’d pick up the phone themselves and call their intended guests. They would outright ask people if they were coming. Others said they wouldn’t call. They said they would hope for the best but expect the worst.

I think in the future I won’t write R.S.V.P. on my invitations at all. I think I will come up with something new, an R.S.V.P. alternative. I will write it on the invitations in fat red magic marker so it’s hard to miss.

I’ve thought of a few already:

C.A.T.M.I.U.R.C.T.T.P.O.N.B.4.12.O.S. (call and tell me if you are coming to the party or not before 12 on Saturday)

W! T.I.W.E.& S.D.S.A.O.Y.K.I.U.D.C.A.T.M.I.U.R.C.T.T.P.O.N.B.T.D.S. (Warning! This invitation will explode & spread dog shit all over your kitchen if you don’t call and tell me if you are coming to the party or not by the date specified).

Or, maybe simply:

U.SUCK.IF.U.DON’T.R.S.V.P.

20 Comments

Filed under birthdays, invitations, life, parties, R.S.V.P.

October 11, 2007 · 1:08 am

Snippets

As I was driving to work today there was a very nice looking Cadillac SUV in front of me. It had a vanity plate that said 4 God. And below that, on the plate’s frame, was this:

Everything I Have Is

And I thought, even your Cadillac? Really? How do you plan to get that pretty SUV up to God’s house in Heaven? Are you driving it to him? Right now? Or is it already his and maybe he’s letting you borrow it, drive it around down here for while?

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My husband and I have been married for 14 years now. Our Wedding Anniversary was this past Tuesday. On that very night I heard my son say to my husband, “I wish you and mom would get a divorce already!” My husband was taken aback. I heard him ask “Why? Why do you want us to get a divorce?” to which my son responded, “Because then I could marry mom!” My husband assured him that even if he did come around and divorce me, that Snags still wouldn’t be allowed to marry his mother. There are laws against that you know.

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I was out on a long run recently when I came upon two men running toward me. I caught just a snippet of their conversation but it was enough to make me turn around to get a second glance at the speaker. He said to his friend, “Yeah, it’s dangerous, but I do it anyway.” I wondered if he thought he came across as brave, because I thought he came across as stupid, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see his picture linked to a Darwin Award next year. I am actually hoping to see this, so I can find out WHAT the dangerous thing he used to do was.

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I cannot sew. I’m not proud of that, but it’s true, and I don’t try to hide the fact. That is why I buy my son’s Halloween costumes. This year, as you might have guessed, he’s going to be Darth Vader. There is a kid in our neighborhood who copies my son’s every move and ends up with the same costume every year. This irritates my son and me to no end, and this year, as expected, neighbor kid is dressing as Darth Vader. But neighbor kid’s mom is oblivious and happy because she has a cardboard Darth Vader mask and has decided that she can dress her kid in black pants and black shirt, and voila, she’s made a Darth Vader costume. My son heard her telling me about this and he said “You aren’t supposed to MAKE Halloween costumes! You are supposed to BUY them!” Neighbor kid’s mom was not happy about that comment. I suspect she will be considerably unhappier when she sees Snags dressed in his store bought Darth Vader finest on the 31st.

7 Comments

Filed under Halloween, humor, kids, life, religion, running

September 28, 2007 · 12:36 pm

My Bad

I jammed up the elementary school’s traffic circle this morning. And I’m not sure, but I think the traffic circle parent police and the vice-principal may have taken down my license number. So I expect a call sometime later today, if not an actual visit from the crossing guard and a real state policeman, possibly banning me from the circle forever. They can do that you know.

But it’s not my fault. Not really. I mean, normally I walk Snags to school each morning. The cold front that the weatherman was calling for was supposed to move through over night and dump all its marble size raindrops then. And it did, at least some of it. I mean, I heard the thunder and the rain last night. It started right when I started watching The Office, and at the exact moment when Snags got out of bed crying that he’d hurt himself, scratched his eye.

That turned out to be his eye lid, but one look at his claw like fingernails convinced me he’d be a bloody mess by morning if I didn’t do something right then. So I trimmed his nails, cleaned off his eyelid scratch, and sent him back to bed amid the rain and thunder and my trying to catch all of the funniness that is The Office.

This morning was supposed to dawn clear and bright and chilly, but I take it the weather Gods didn’t get that notice from the weather man at our local television station. Because instead, the sky was that odd blue color, the one somewhere between an enthusiastic cobalt and a depressing gray, the one that means it might be getting ready to rain, hard. Or it might simply be the old rain burning away from the sun behind it. And only a little more time will reveal what is to be…

I kept looking out the window, and as luck would have it, everything was fine until the very. last. second. And then the sky split open.

But I’m flexible, so I said to Snags, “Get in the car. I’m driving you to school.” And Snags complained. He wanted to walk. I would have walked, really, I would have. But I promised a neighbor friend who is out of town on a cruise vacation, that I would walk her son to school each morning, leaving her mother-in-law babysitter to tend to my friend’s young twins in the morning without having to cart them up to school and back like my friend usually does.

I figured two small boys with backpacks, lunch bags, and umbrellas might not be the thing to mix with a downpour and a deadline. School has a definite starting time, and puddles are the devils snare to that.

So I picked my neighbor’s son up and in less than 2 minutes we had pulled into the school’s traffic circle. I followed the rules, I followed the cars and stopped where I was supposed to. But then I had to get out of my car to help the boys out. The doors have to be opened by hand, they don’t glide away like those on all the minivans that were surrounding me. One door has a child lock on it so Snags couldn’t open it even if he wanted to. The other, well, that door would have opened into the traffic. So I got out and opened Snags’ door to let the boys out onto the sidewalk.

Only they are five, in Kindergarten, and not fast. Not fast like the 3rd and 4th graders hopping out of the cars in front of us. So by the time I got them out of the car and back into their backpacks and put their umbrellas up and gave Snags a kiss, and hopped back into my car, I was the ONLY car left in the circle. All the cars that had been in front of me had vanished. But all the world was behind me waiting, waiting, waiting to pull in.

That’s when I noticed the looks. The disdain. The shaking of heads. You’d have thought I was sitting there reading a map for 20 minutes, or talking on my cell phone and had missed the green light. But honestly, when I got home and looked at the clock, I had been gone for a grand total of 6 minutes. So I couldn’t have jammed up the traffic circle for too long. But apparently, jamming it up at all is a CRIME.

So I am off to dig out the TRAFFIC CIRCLE RULES paper. The one I didn’t fully read when it came home because I didn’t expect to be driving Snags to school. It’s not MY fault it started raining this morning. And I can tell you one thing… If I end up going to jail for this, the weather man, he’s going down with me.

7 Comments

Filed under humor, life, school, traffic, weather

September 27, 2007 · 12:00 am

Soccer

Snags is playing soccer this fall but if you sat and watched the practices and games, you’d think he thought I’d signed him up for Conversation 101. All he does during practice is stand in line for the various soccer drills and talk to the kids around him. The coach is forever calling “Snags! Are you ready?”

Last weekend his team played their first game. And by game I mean scrimmage and also I mean there were no referees or anybody “official” on the field. Well, save for the two fathers turned soccer coaches, that is. And I only count them as officials because they had whistles.

When you are five and playing soccer, the field is pretty small and your teammates are both boys and girls. Your team uniform consists of matching t-shirts for all the players.

There are no fouls: no yellow or red cards. There are no free kicks or penalty kicks. But that is probably because there are hardly any kicks at all. Mostly the team runs in a large clump, like a herd of small animals, chasing the ball around the field. If and when some hapless player does manage to strike the ball with his or her foot, it’s usually by accident and out of bounds, or into their own goal. Nothing says team quite like scoring a goal against your own, now does it?

Since the games are more or less unofficial in this age group, each team member gets to take a turn trying out various positions on the field. They can play one of three broadly defined positions: offense, defense, or goalie.

The goalie’s job is the easiest here. The ball so rarely comes anywhere near the goal, the goalie can take a nap if he wants to and still be 99.9% guaranteed that nobody will score on him while he snoozes. Except maybe that kid from his own team…

But back to my kid…the whole time Snags was playing defense he stood there sentinel, not moving except to chew on a finger shoved so far into his mouth it looked like he was trying to force himself, like some high fashion runway model with an eating disorder, to vomit.

I don’t know what he was looking at but it’s safe to say it wasn’t the ball, or the rest of the team as they came charging at him and he stood there, as if behind glass, or as if he was watching the action before him on a television set in Best Buy. Occasionally he’d swat at a bee that flew his way, but that was it as far as motion goes.

The coach tried to get his attention: “Snags! Get ready, the ball is coming right at you! Run to it! Snags! Look! The Ball!” Eventually his coach gave up and called for the other defensive player, Tony, to take the ball. And so did Snags. As the ball came his way I heard Snags say, “Get the ball, Tony!” even though clearly it should have been Snags’ ball. Being as it landed right as his feet.

Another kid on the team, Paul, isn’t much better though. He doesn’t move unless the coach Calls. His. Name. His mom stands at the sidelines yelling instructions: “Paul, go get the ball, run after it, kick the ball Paul!” And Paul shakes his head and hollers back, “But the coach didn’t Call. My. Name!”

And Paul may have a point there. I noticed that the coach is more than a little vague in describing the rules and roles and the various soccer skills to the kids. These kids are 5 and 6 years old, playing in a league where five is the minimum age for starting to play. Meaning, most if not all of the kids on the team have never played before. On the first day of practice, for example, the coach told the kids to dribble the ball. One child picked up their soccer ball and started to dribble it like a basketball. The coach sounded a bit annoyed as he said, “No! No HANDS! Don’t pick up the ball with your hands! This isn’t basketball!” He sounded, I thought, like Tom Hanks in the movie A League of Their Own, where he yells all aghast, “There’s no crying in baseball!”

So the children heard “no hands in soccer”, only to be told later, when they played the position of goalie, “Go get the ball! Pick it up with your HANDS!” So I think they might be just a little confused about it all. And I think the coach ought to maybe demonstrate the skill he’s trying to teach. Then again, I tried out for the girls soccer team in high school and didn’t make it, so what do I know?

Since I’m not the coach, I merely sit and watch. I cheer the kids on, cringe when they score on the wrong goal, and hand over Snag’s water bottle when the coach calls for a water break. Oh, yeah, and sometimes I swat at a bee that flies my way.

6 Comments

Filed under coaching, humor, kids, life, Snags, soccer

September 20, 2007 · 12:15 am

The Fire Drill

Snags has a mortal fear of fire drills. It all started when he was in daycare, somewhere between the ages of two and two and a half, when another child pulled the fire alarm. I imagine the sudden loud noise of the clanging alarm frightened him the first time he heard it. When we picked him up from daycare the afternoon this all happened, Snags said, “A baby pulled the fire alarm!”

That of course, seemed impossible. I mean, how could it be? A baby? Pulled the fire alarm? Babies aren’t tall, they can’t reach the average fire alarm, can they? But we quickly learned that Snags was right. It turned out that Megan, a little girl at the school, was in her teacher’s arms as the teacher stood in the hallway near a fire alarm. Megan, curious babe she was, reached out to the shiny red fire alarm handle and gave it a yank, thus setting off the blaring tones of the alarm, and requiring the entire population of the daycare center to evacuate the building.

Three, almost four years later and Snags has never forgotten this. He has also never forgiven Megan this one transgression for the fear it instilled inside him. And over the years this fear… snowballed, more or less.

The preschool that Snags attended insisted that children keep their shoes on during the day, and the teachers imparted the logic that “You need to keep your shoes on in case there is a fire drill!” to the children to teach them this. I assume they said this because if there was a fire, or even just a drill, that they’d waste precious time putting shoes on 10 or 20 children that had been running around without shoes. Evacuating the building without shoes could be a danger. We wouldn’t want these barefoot raggamuffins to cut their foot on a pebble in the parking lot, right?

And yet somehow, in all of that “keep your shoes on” harping, Snags got it twisted in his head that taking shoes off CAUSED the fire alarm to sound. Shoes on and all was golden. The days were quiet and calm. Shoes off and all would be chaos and the screeching alarm would pierce eardrums and turn children into stone. Or at least that’s how I imagine Snags had made the connection of in his mind. Because once, we were at the mall and Snags saw people trying on shoes. He was half way to the exit door before I caught up with him. “Let’s go! Now!” He cried. “The fire alarm’s going to go off!” I couldn’t convince him otherwise. Nothing I said quelled his fears. He started to cry and shake in fear and as the tears began to roll down his face like a sheet of water over Niagra Falls, I conceded that it might indeed be best if we cut our shopping trip short and left the mall as quickly as we could.

When Snags was three a new student started at his school, and was placed in Snag’s classroom. The child had some discipline problems in that he did exactly everything he was told not to do. Also, he was fond of taking off all his clothes any time he felt like it, which seemed to be approximately every five minutes, or three seconds after the teachers had dragged him out from under the craft table and got him dressed again. And of course, as part of all of this, he took his shoes off.

The teachers admitted that this new child was a challenge, and that he was a disruption to the class and that he upset ALL the other children. EVERY. DAY. It seemed there was nothing they could do about this except wrestle the naked problem child to the ground and forcefully put his clothes back on him. Snags began to dislike school. He’d cry in the mornings that he didn’t want to go to school. It wasn’t fun. Jeremy wouldn’t keep his clothes on… Then one day, Snags’ teacher came to me and DEMANDED that I had to do something about Snags, because every time Jeremy took his shoes off, Snags started to panic and cry because he thought the fire alarm was going to go off, and his crying set the other children crying one by one, until the entire class was a roomful of wiggling, writhing, crying children that no amount of anything could calm.

I didn’t know what I could do. Really, it seemed to me, the teacher should be doing something about Jeremy the problem child who couldn’t or wouldn’t keep his clothes or his shoes on. I shouldn’t have to do anything about Snags for being scared. Besides, I’d already spoken to Snags about this. Ad nauseum. I’d explained that shoes, on or off, were not the switch that controlled the fire alarms. In fact, I’d told him there was no connection there at all. But he insisted it was true. After all, the teachers told them this every day. Keep your shoes on in case there’s a fire drill. Only Snags heard “Keep your shoes on or there WILL BE a fire drill.”

Eventually, the problem child was removed from the school. This wasn’t my doing. One morning we just arrived to find that he wasn’t there, and then he wasn’t there the next day, or the day after that…. And then we learned that the school had asked the family to take the child elsewhere, he was simply too great a disruption, too great a discipline problem, and they couldn’t handle him, shoes or not.

That would seem to be the end of the story except Snags focused his energies on Megan, the child who had pulled the fire alarm that very first time. When she was a baby. She’d been moved up to his classroom, and sometimes at nap time the teachers would set up her cot on the floor directly underneath the fire alarm. Snags monitored this like you’d watch a poisonous snake circling around you. He asked the teachers to move Megan’s cot. “She might pull the fire alarm again,” he warned them.

Over time we got to the point where every morning Snags would demand that I ask the director of the preschool center “Is there going to be a fire drill today?” And every morning she’d say “No. No fire drill today.” This got tiring very fast. I was sick of asking the question and I know the director was tired of answering it. But if we didn’t dance the dance, Snags would be paralyzed with fear, right there in the middle of the hallway, unable to move unless he was promised there wouldn’t be a fire drill frightening him on THAT day.

So, after a few months of this, I got the bright idea to tell Snags that the computer where I signed him in in the mornings had a sentence there each day telling me if there was going to be a fire drill or not. So I’d log him in and say, “No fire drill today!” and he’d audibly breath a sigh of relief and relax a little. Sometimes he would even start to skip down the hallway.

The director of course, knew about Snags’ fear of fire drills. It had been born and bred in her center, after all. I’d asked her every day for months if there was going to be a fire drill. So eventually, when there WAS going to be a fire drill, she’d warn me ahead of time. “We’re having a fire drill tomorrow morning,” she’d say to me as I passed by her office on the way back to my car after depositing Snags safely in his classroom. “I’ll try to do it early, before you arrive.” And for the most part, this worked. I think we went almost 1 ½ years without Snags having to partake in a fire drill of any sort.

But then Kindergarten was upon us. The first day was a shortened day where the students met the teachers and the parents stayed to fill out paper work. We went to this shortened day and all was well. On the second morning, as we headed off to school, Snags told me that “At least they don’t have fire alarms in the classrooms!” It seems he’d scoped out the surroundings and noted that the alarm bells were outside the classroom doors. “Maybe if they have a fire drill it won’t be so loud” he said.

“Don’t worry, Snags!” I told him. There’s no way they’d have a fire drill on the 2nd day of school! That’d be crazy!” I scoffed. And as usual, I saw Snags relax a little.

But I was wrong…

When I picked Snags up from his after school care after his second day of school (his first FULL day of Kindergarten) he ran to me and said “I have something to tell you!”

“Okay, what is it?” I asked.

“Not until we’re in the car!” he said.

So we gathered his lunch box and his back pack and left for the car. Once he was strapped in his booster seat, I sat in the driver’s seat with the car door open and turned to him and said “So, what was it you wanted to tell me?” and he said through gritted teeth “Shut. The. Door!”

“Okay,” I sighed, beginning to worry what he could possibly have to tell me that was so secret the car door had to be shut.

I turned back to him. “Okay, what is it?”

“We. Had. A. Fire. Drill. Today!” He said.

I realized then it was highly unlikely that he would ever trust me again.

Then he went on to explain that during the morning announcements, right after they said The Pledge of Allegiance, the Principal announced that they would be having a fire drill.

“Where you scared?” I asked.

“YES!” Snags replied.

“Did you tell your teacher you were scared and what did she say?” I asked.

“She said it would be okay.” He said.

Snags told me how the class practiced lining up and going outside for the impending fire drill. In place of a real alarm, his teacher made a “beep beep” sound and when she did that, the class had to line up and evacuate to the playground. But they weren’t allowed to play. And then the teacher said the practice was over and they all got to go back inside the building.

Later in the afternoon the Principal came on the loudspeaker again. This time she was ready to actually have the fire drill. She gave the children a one-minute warning. I think they may have counted down. And then, right as the alarm was about to sound, Megan, Oh Megan the child who pulled the fire alarm when she was a baby, screamed “EVERYONE COVER YOUR EARS!”

So Snags was prepared. He knew the alarm was coming. He even knew when to cover his ears and line up and go outside.

He wasn’t THAT scared. He survived.

“But NEXT time,” he told me in a bit of a worried voice, “They aren’t going to WARN us! The Principal said this was the last warning and next time it will be a surprise fire drill!”

And I find it hard to reassure him. I can tell him not to worry. I can tell him it will be okay, because it’s true. I just can’t tell him it won’t be today. Or tomorrow…

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

Author’s note: Snags’ elementary school had that “surprise” fire drill TODAY. Tonight, a child who looks like Snags and acts like Snags, but most certainly cannot BE Snags, said to me “I LIKE fire drills!” Upon further inquiry, the imposter child stated that his reason for liking fire drills is “…because we get to go outside!” and also because “…elementary school fire drills don’t frighten me as much as the ones at daycare did…”

And that’s the first step in denial and why I had to get the entire fire drill story down. Because one day, most probably in the near future, this kid of mine will swear he never had a fear of fire drills, that I didn’t spend an entire year asking the daycare center director on a daily basis if there was going to be a fire drill that day.

So whether Snags is 7 or 15, 23 or 30 when he denies this all ever happened, I can say “Oh yes it did! Here, read this. THIS is how it all went down!”

11 Comments

Filed under alarm, fear, fire drills, humor, life, shoes, Snags

September 18, 2007 · 12:03 am

Race Report

13:22. That’s how many minutes FASTER I ran the Philadelphia Distance Run on Sunday over my previous ½ marathon, which was back in the Spring. And just between you and me, the 13:22 shaved off my time means I set a personal record for speed on Sunday. So congratulations to me!

They call Philadelphia The City of Brotherly Love. I don’t know about the brotherly part except to say my brother is here visiting on his vacation from where he lives kind of far away and he ran the Philadelphia Distance Run yesterday too. So I was in Philadelphia with my brother if that counts. And I think it counts because he volunteered to drive us there in the first place.

Now the love part, I get that. Because having set my personal best ½ marathon time ever in that city, I love Philadelphia now too!!!

But let’s back up a bit, shall we?

It took us a little longer to get to Philly than we had anticipated because somewhere along the way we hit some serious traffic that appeared, like traffic often does, out of nowhere and for no good reason. The closest hint we got for the traffic being so heavy was when we finally, after about an hour, inched our way 15 miles up the road and saw one lone police car at the side of the highway and everyone slowing down to look at it. I guess maybe it was a novelty, like some strange and beautiful bird you might want to watch, or like some sort of dangerous animal you’d creep slowly and silently by, hoping not to attract it’s attention so that it won’t ~~jump out and attack you~~ write you a ticket.

After we arrived in Philly we debated which to undertake first: should we check into our hotel or go to the race expo to pick up our race packets? We attempted the first and got a little lost, so we settled on the second. The lost part wasn’t our fault though. I attribute it to the map that came in the mail as part of our final set of race instructions. The map showed our hotel on 8th street, only it wasn’t on 8th, it was on 4th street. I suspect that in the interest of space and saving paper, the map maker simply ended the map at 8th street and stuck little hotel dots along the edges to indicate that they were “near” the borders of the page and if only you drove around and around in ever increasing circles you’d eventually find your way and be so relived to have finally done so that you wouldn’t dare complain or blog about it to the world.

And yet, I also suspect the map maker didn’t attend all of his requisite cartography courses during college because a little thing called scale would have helped immensely and also, the map maker didn’t count on a geographer (ahem, that’s me) trying to follow the ~~map~~ worthless piece of paper.

Now, in case you aren’t a runner or a person who likes to hang out at race expos, I’ll tell you that the expos are place where you go the day or two before the actual race to pick up your race packet which includes your race bib (no it’s not a bib for eating, it’s simply a sheet with a number on it that you pin to your shirt so they can identify you as runner number some-thetty-something), your timing chip, your free race t-shirt, and other goodies. Then there are vendors who set up booths to try and sell you stuff: running shoes and shorts, socks, energy bars, hats, sunglasses, key chains, spinal adjustments, muscle creams, etc… You get lots of free handouts from the vendors too, like band aids and safety pins, notepads and tote bags, packs of oatmeal, and energy drinks.

I enjoy wandering around the expos and collecting all the free goodies and then parting with some of my money when I see something I really need. Like the pink running shirt I bought that says, on the front: This seemed like a good idea 3 months ago, and on the back: Race Official, Do Not Pass. It’s a lovely shirt but none of the other racers seemed to heed the warning on the back because plenty of them were passing me right on by during the actual event on Sunday. Personally, I think they just didn’t know how to read.

After we collected our race packets and parted with some hard earned cash at the expo, my brother and I waited in line to check into our hotel. While there we witnessed a hotel employee standing guard over an adolescent boy in a wet t-shirt and wet shorts and the hotel employee was saying something to the boy’s mother about two chairs and a life preserver. I was enthralled by the scene but before I could learn any more I was called to the front desk to get my room key.

My hotel room had 3 pillows on the bed and a small card with “pillow menu” printed on it, describing the varieties of pillow firmness that were available depending on how you liked to sleep: on your side, on your back, or even both ways, like a flopping fish. I played Goldilocks and tried all three pillows before picking my favorite and falling into a deep slumber.

And then it happened. I had a nightmare! I woke with a start at 4:00 a.m., having dreamt that we had already run the ½ marathon but that I hadn’t gotten my finisher’s medal because they weren’t giving them to you for crossing the finish line. Rather, I dreamt they were passing them out down a dark alley near the entrance to a different hotel. Only I hadn’t known that and so I didn’t venture down that alley and didn’t get my hard earned medal. I tried to go back to sleep because technically, I had one hour until my alarm was set to go off, but I was rattled, my heart was pounding, and sleep didn’t come easy.

In the darkness that is 5:00 a.m. in mid-September, my brother and I debated driving to the race start or taking a cab. Driving would mean getting the car out of the hotel’s parking garage and finding a garage closer to the race start where we would probably have to fork over an additional $20 in parking fees, so we decided on a cab.

When we stepped outside the hotel door we were accosted by a woman demanding to know how we were getting to the race. And in case you are wondering how she knew that’s where we were headed, well, it’s a pretty easy guess when you have a large race number pinned to your shirt. We told her we were going to take a cab and she asked if we’d like to share a cab with her. Of course we said yes because the more people in a cab, the less any one person’s fare will be if you split the cost, right? That’s what sharing a cab means, right? Share a cab = split the cost. Well, that’s what I thought it meant, but apparently I was wrong.

The cab fare came to $9.60. I had two five dollar bills at the ready. The man in the front seat who at the last minute decided to share the cab along with us, actually turned to us in the back and said, after the cab driver announced his dues, “Can you guys spot me a couple of dollars?” as if we would ever find him again in the crowd of 12,000 runners. As if he ever really inteded to pay us back. The woman who had the bright idea to share the cab in the first place had a whopping $2 at the ready. Sensing this wasn’t going to be an even split, I handed the cab drive all of my $10 and the woman handed me her $2 and said, “No that’s for YOU, not the cab driver!” and she stepped out of the cab. I thought about this for a split second. My $10 left the cab driver with a tip of $0.40. I felt that was inadequate even for the short ride. So when big spender lady wasn’t looking I handed her $2 over to the cab driver and told him “Here, here’s $2 more for your tip. Thanks for the ride!” And he said thank you and waited for me to exit the cab before driving off.

As we got in line for the race, I spotted two of the women I’d spent much of my summer training with. I inched my way over to them and asked if they were running together for part of the race. Usually people train together and then on race day it’s “everyone runs their own race” meaning if, during the race, you have to stop and tie your shoe, your friends run on. They don’t stop with you. Likewise, if your running mate falls and breaks an ankle during the race, you wish them well and continue on. It sounds harsh, but honestly, an ambulance will come along and pick your friend up so they’ll be okay. You know, eventually. Like once the cast comes off and they’re finished with physical therapy and all that.

My training partners, however, said they were running together the whole way and I was free to join them. Since my brother had predicted a faster finishing time than I had, he was positioned closer to the starting line of the race and I was alone back in the crowd. I thought it would be nice to have some company along the way so I eagerly agreed to run with my old training pals. We ran together until mile 8 or so where my friends pulled over to grab some Gu (an energy gel that many runners like but which I can’t stomach) and I kept going. I figured they’d meet up with me again so I kept ~~trucking~~ trudging along. With only 1/10th of a mile to go, my friends caught up with me and we ran it in.

I collected my race medal, dug out my cell phone, called my brother to find out where he was in the sea of race finishers, and then called my husband to tell him I’d finished the race with a pretty good time. Then my brother and I, not ones to be lazy after all that running, walked the 2 miles back to our hotel so we could shower and change before heading home.

And there you have it, my race report.

5 Comments

Filed under 1/2 marathon, freeloaders, life, Philadelphia, running, taxicab, traffic

September 14, 2007 · 12:09 am

The Bionic Woman

I’m off to the races this weekend. A foot race, that is. A ½ marathon. I’ve been training for it all summer long and it’s finally here. This isn’t my first ½ marathon, and it’s not even my second. I’ve done a few of them by now. My race this Sunday will be my second one this year and the one I’m running in October will be my third, again, for this year. But I’m not bragging, I swear. Bragging would be if I wore my finisher’s medal around my neck when I go to work on Monday. I won’t do that. Although… I might pass it around for people to look at.

While I’ve put in a lot a lot of time running this past year, I haven’t lost a single pound. In fact, somehow I’ve piled on all the pounds the rest of the world has lost. I’m some kind of pound magnet. Or maybe it’s all the chocolate I’ve been eating. Yeah, I suppose that could be it…

Or maybe it’s the chocolate combined with the fact that I’ve somehow managed to excuse myself from other forms of exercise on my days off from running. Yes, I am one those people who take days off from running. And not just when I’m sick. Some runners, I know, would say that I’m not a real runner if I take days off. I could argue the point but I won’t. I want to save my energy for this weekend.

I used to run an average of about 6 miles a day. Then I started getting some aches and pains and tired and bored, so I backed off a bit. Okay… a lot. Now I run 3 days a week. Two short runs of oh, three to five miles say, and one long run on the weekends. On the intervening days I should be doing some other form of exercise, cross training by walking or cycling, or even lifting weights, but I’ve gotten LAZY. That probably explains some of these extra pounds, too.

Despite my slothfulness, I want you all to know that I am still strong. Oh yes, I am. These arms may have flab hanging from them but they are powerful. Bionic powerful, I tell you. In fact, I may be the reason they have a remake of The Bionic Woman coming out on TV this fall. I know that when you think about The Bionic Woman you are most likely remembering the days of Lindsay Wagner and her portrayal of Jaime Sommers, but I’m pretty sure it’s because of me and the feat of strength I pulled off the several days ago that they are bringing the series back.

Last week there was a fire right outside of the parking garage that charges me $150.00 dollars too much per month to park my car there while I work. I didn’t actually witness the fire when it was in full blaze, but I came upon the aftermath, the burnt remains, when I made my way to the garage to retrieve my car and go home.

To enter the garage and get to your car you have to wave your parking ticket or monthly pass card in front of a magnetic card reader machine affixed to the brick façade of the parking garage. The machine then sends a signal to a lock on the door. You listen for a click and then pull the handle, open the door, and walk inside to the elevator.

On the day of the fire I walked up to find the card reader machine, which is made of metal and plastic, all sagging like the clocks in an M.C. Escher drawing. It looked, well, melted. I looked up and noticed that the awning above the door was half missing and the other half was hanging in tattered melted strips of nylon, like a shredded shower curtain. The glass around the door was cracked, the street was covered in ash 2 inches deep, and black streaks ran along the sidewalk.

I thought it was odd, that it looked as if a fire had blown by, but that seemed impossible. My office is right across the street. If there had been a fire surely I would have heard the fire trucks, seen the flames.

Since there was a man at the door with his hand already on the door handle, I passed the card reader machine without waving my parking pass at it. Another woman walked up, and the man gave one good strong yank, and the door, despite its magnetic lock, popped open. I remarked that it looked like there had been a fire and the man said there had been one. A generator mounted on a truck that was parked right alongside the garage entry had caught fire around noon he said. The flames, he told us, could be seen for several blocks. Somehow I had missed all of this.

But I learned my lesson. The card reader machine, all melted as it was, wasn’t working properly so it wasn’t going to open the door for me anymore. The following day, as I approached the door, the cracked glass had been repaired but the card reader was still sagging, the awning still missing. I had two choices. I could turn around walk down the street and around the corner then up the ramp that the cars use to enter and exit the garage, or I could yank on that door handle with all my might and pop the lock. I chose the latter.

As I grabbed the handle, a woman standing nearby said to me, “You can’t get in that way, it’s locked. You’ll have to go…” and I looked her in the eye, put my hand on the door handle, and yanked. With an audible snap, the door popped open. The woman’s eyes grew large, she took a few steps back, staring at me in shock and surprise, and I think, a little bit of fear.

I hope my legs are bionic at the race this weekend!

6 Comments

Filed under 1/2 marathon, bionic woman, exercise, fire, humor, life, running

September 10, 2007 · 12:07 am

Dance Party DJ

One of Snags’ recurring ideas is to hold a Dance Party. He usually begins planning the event upon waking in the morning. He must think about the party all through breakfast, because as soon as he downs that last bite of brown sugar Pop Tart, he springs from the table to begin gathering everything he’ll need.

His list of rockin’ party supplies generally includes an overturned laundry basket to serve as a convenient table, a CD player, at least one CD (you’ll be lucky if there are two), a couple of lights to throw various colors around the room, and some snacks.

Since he’s not allowed to plug anything in himself, I get recruited to help. I do so, but I admit it’s with a weary trepidation. I’ve been to these dance parties before you see. They aren’t well attended, and the night usually ends with the host in tears as I shoo him off to bed before the fun ever really starts.

Snags is, of course, the host of the dance party. He also controls the lighting, the music, and the snacks. The lights aren’t bad. His disco balls and stop lights throw multiple colors across the walls, almost like a real disco. If you close your eyes you can imagine that you aren’t in my family room; you can almost pretend you’re on a wide wooden dance floor and not surrounded by strewn toys, crayons, magic markers, or the oversized sofa.

The snacks are just so-so for a dance party. But if you favor graham crackers, fruit snacks, and apple juice, then you’re in luck.

The music, however, leaves something to be desired. Maybe it’s me. I admit I’m not a great dancer. I can’t keep a rhythm. Even so, it’s easier to dance to popular music: hip-hop, rock, disco, or dare I say it, even country. But try dancing to Barenaked Ladies as they sing “Oh Hanukkah Oh Hanukkah” over and over. Or “Baby Bumblebee” from Toddler’s Favorite Tunes. Whatever Snags’ favorite song du jour is, that’s what you’ll listen to non-stop until your head explodes or you trip over an errant tinker toy and have to retreat to the sidelines with an ice pack planted on your ankle.

Fairly soon after that the dance party will end. I’ll declare it’s bedtime, and the Dance Party DJ will cry in protest as I begin to turn off disco balls and unplug the CD player.
But don’t worry, there’s always another dance party being planned. Be sure to check your mailbox, your invitation should arrive any day now.

5 Comments

Filed under dancing, disco balls, DJ, humor, life, party, Snags