The Birth of a Super-Know-It-All

And so it begins. Today I witnessed an event common across the world (or, at least, in those parts of the world where children exist), yet heretofore unseen in my own home. Like a celestial event, it happened in a dizzying flash and marked the dawning of a new era. It was the birth of a new star – the super-know-it-all.

As six-year-old Grace had her arms outstretched, spinning in one spot as if she were a helicopter rotor, she collapsed to the floor in a fit of dizziness, announcing, “The house is spinning.” I replied, “No, it’s not, you were spinning and now it feels like the house is spinning, but it’s really not.” Confidently and matter-of-factly, she said, “No, the house really is spinning.” I debated attempting to explain equilibrium and the inner ear but quickly decided I’d be in over my head after the second sentence of that conversation. I was going to let it go because, as I have learned over the years, sometimes it’s just easier to let someone think they’re right, even when they’re wrong. This is usually the case with children, as well as curmudgeonly old people. But then the unexpected happened. Grace changed tactics on me and came out with, “You know, Mom, the house is spinning because it’s on the earth; and the earth is always spinning.” And so she had me…on a damn technicality, of all things.

The episode shook me, as I realized that this is the beginning of my end. I was immediately brought back to my younger self, circa late-1980s, when I, too, was a smarty-pants know-it-all. I mean, even more so than I am today. The event brought to mind occurred when I was in seventh grade – possibly eighth – so, obviously, I was a frightful mess of pre-teen hormones and sass. The episode in question involved a Teen Beat-generated poster of Billy Hufsey, which I had secured to my locker with magnets. Sure, the school handbook specifically outlawed taping posters to lockers. But I knew the rule and I didn’t have my picture of Billy Hufsey (who was posed in front of a shower stall, wearing only a white towel wrapped around his wet body) taped. As I said, I used magnets and I figured, if an objection ever came up, my magnet vs. tape argument was going to win the case for me, on a brilliant technicality.

One day, Mrs. Parente, while patrolling the halls and searching for wrongdoing, called me out. She told me – in a stern fashion, as I recall – that my towel-clad Billy Hufsey poster needed to come down, as posters were not allowed on locker doors. I politely let her know that the school handbook said nothing was to be taped to the lockers, and that my picture wasn’t taped. Therefore, I smugly told her, I was not in violation of any school rules. Oddly, she didn’t care. She was probably more of a wholesome-Kirk Cameron-fan than a towel-clad-Billy Hufsey fan. She told me to take the poster down, I told her I didn’t have to.

She didn’t see things my way; and the matter got referred to the school principal, Mr. Wally Harris, who, due to a receding hairline, was widely known as Mr. Hairless. He was also known (unfairly, I can say now) by another nickname, which would not be fit to print and was likely completely undeserved. From my safe distance of years and maturity, I would suspect that few people – excluding parents - are as maltreated as middle school teachers. Anyhow, Mr. Harris, who was clearly prejudiced against me because of the siblings who had come before me, didn’t appreciate my argument and would not admit that I was right. Though he never did admit that I had them on a technicality, I am still convinced – 20-plus years later – that I was completely in the right.

I had little recourse but to take the darn picture down. So I did, and then I put it back up, with magnets again, behind my coat. It wasn’t because of my great love of Billy Hufsey, even though he was pretty dreamy in that poster. Sure, I knew the poster was inappropriate in a middle school girl’s locker, but that wasn’t the source of the contention. There was no prohibition against magnets, and that was why the poster went back up. I was just mad that no one would acknowledge the loophole I’d found.

Which is why I acquiesced to Grace’s argument. When you’re right, you’re right, and I wasn’t about to argue with her reasoning. Grace is so much like her dad in so many ways, but today I was so proud – and nervous - as I got that quick glimpse of myself, and that glimpse of what I am going to be up against as the years go by. She’ll probably be a smarter, better version of myself…a Kelly-2.0, though hopefully less stubborn and quick to judgment. Grace’s broad knowledge base (already, despite her status as a kindergartener) and Nadia’s general kick-ass-and-take-names-later-personality have been secretly worrying me for a while now; and I fear it won’t be long before I am dethroned – in a hormonally-charged, violent coup, I fear - as Resident Expert on Most Things. Once Grace, with her cool head and calculating arguments, and Nadia, with her quick temper and disdain for being parented, truly join forces against me and Mike, a new reign of terror will begin. Life around here will probably be a lot like life for a middle-school teacher, albeit without the rest on weekends and summer vacations. Egads.

Why Superlatives are the Worst

Mike and I went to see Jerry Seinfeld’s live stand-up routine a few months ago in Kansas City. Although we had a great time and laughed until our faces hurt, I refuse to proclaim it as “the best show ever” or “the most amazing experience.” Why, you ask? Because I don't like superlatives, and I really loathe the word “amazing.” Few things are truly amazing, and the word has become so overused that to hear something proclaimed amazing!!! has absolutely no impact any more, since everything under the sun is “amazing.”

If everything is amazing, then nothing truly is. Same with superlatives. People think their spouse is the best, their kids are the best, their dog is the best. It’s all meaningless. I have great kids, and I have a great husband. My cats aren’t really all that great, although I do love them in spite of their scratchy, barfy selves. But to proclaim something as “the best” only sets oneself up for disappointment. I think these grand proclamations are…well, sometimes a superlative is necessary…the worst.

Not to say I’m a comic genius or any such thing, but Jerry Seinfeld totally stole one of my ideas. In his routine, he did an entire bit about how he’s so tired of everything being “the best.” He said, in summary, how you hear all the time about this restaurant, or this store, or that movie, and how they’re “the best,” and “amazing,” and “so great.” And then you try whatever the raved-about thing is, and you discover that…eh….it’s okay. Seinfeld said he’s never out to find “the best,” but that he’s looking for something that’s “not bad.” And that’s all I’m looking for…something that doesn’t suck.

Superlatives are dangerous because they raise expectations and, in my opinion, raised expectations are about as bad for a person as intestinal distress on an airplane. If you think you have the best ____ (fill in the blank), you will be devastated when the ____ does something stupid, gets in trouble, or throws up on your pillow as you’re brushing your teeth for bed. It’s hard to recover when a paragon of excellence breaks your heart. Yet, knowing someone or something is faulty – that there are chinks in even really well-made armor - is one of the greatest often-unrealized secrets of life. Or so says Kelly.

I used to work at a small university. Because I am such an efficient worker, I often had a lot of free time on the job to explore personal interests, like on-line shopping, trip planning, and espousing my opinions to co-workers and some of the students I was friendly with. In hindsight, the students may not have been such a great audience (since many of them were just barely getting by), but I often preached the benefits of lowering expectations in order to be happy, as well as many reasons why embracing mediocrity is underrated.

Low expectations are good for a person for so many reasons. So much of life is completely out of one’s control and recognizing this is so important to achieve personal happiness. The lower one’s expectations are, the easier it is to be happy. If you expect little of the world, you won’t be disappointed if little is received. If you think you deserve so much - because you’re so smart/such a good person/tall/have beautiful penmanship - and then you don’t get it, it will be hard to find goodness in this mightily unfair world. On the other hand, if you expect little, and get little, you will be perfectly happy. And, on those rare occasions when wonderful things happen, it’s so easy to be delighted, since you weren’t expecting anything in the first place. Having low expectations – which goes hand in hand with avoiding superlatives in your life - is a win-win situation. If I get through the day and the whole family is still alive, it’s a good day. And if none of the cats produced a hairball or a meal, it's a really good day.

Embracing mediocrity is all about lowering other people’s expectations of you. This idea isn’t as well received as lowering expectations, but I support my ideas despite any perceived ridiculousness of said ideas. If one is the type of person who ALWAYS does their best, much will be expected of them – at all times. To do a great job will be to do a normal job. To do merely a good job will be a disappointment. Whereas if someone consistently does a sufficient job, the “sufficient” job will be perceived as good, any anything that’s a “good” job will be considered a great job. To be a high achiever is usually a recipe for disaster. To be an average achiever gives one the opportunity to occasionally be brilliant. I support embracing mediocrity because it takes the pressure off. And it’s much easier to please people, and less easy to disappoint them, if you’ve managed to manage their expectations.

Of course, now that I have kids, I frequently hear myself saying crazy things like, “Always try your hardest,” and “Always do your best.” I am curious if I can apply my own lax standards to my kids. But, educating kids and parenting is a lifelong journey, and you can’t spill all the secrets at once. As a parent, I hope to sometimes avoid the superlatives – like wanting the kids to be the best at something, or always knowing what’s “best.” It’s a four-letter word for a reason.

Sometimes I feel like I’m well on my way to writing a best-selling self-help book. But then I realize I’m treading into the waters of superlatives and expectations, when the reality of it all is that I probably need to buy, not write, that book.

Feeling Lucky

Sometimes I look at Mike and think, That's one lucky guy. Not only because he's tall, ageless, handsome and has great kids, but because he has an awesome wife. These feelings usually coincide with a move, as I bask in a certain self-satisfaction about what a good sport I am (for being Mike's groupie, following him around to wherever it is he goes), how well-adapted I am (because I can see a sign up the street that says "Give a tasteful gift: Beef" and still manage to laugh about my newest surroundings), and how highly capable I am (to the tune of organizing 16,000+ pounds of belongings in a matter of days).

Sometimes I let Mike know about his vast luck in convincing me to marry him and, to my surprise, he frequently seems to believe me. And it's usually around that realization that I return to my senses and think, That poor guy. He just doesn't know any better. And I continue to hope, on a very regular basis, that he never wisens up and realizes he may have gotten the short end of the non-existent stick.

The Poor Mike sentiment also usually coincides with a move, as well, and this move was no exception. Just the other day, as I was cramming a package of light bulbs into a space almost large enough to hold a package of light bulbs (while Mike watched silently, shaking his head and likely biting through his tongue), I looked at him and laughed and said, "What would your life be like without me?"

If I were to answer that question, I would say that it would be empty - and I am talking about the sheer quantity of things. When we moved in together 12 years ago (though we'd both lived independently beforehand), Mike had a couple of duffle bags - nothing so fancy as suitcases - and a foot locker or two. I came with my own u-Haul. Now, we are up to eight full tons of personal belongings, and I know if I weren't in the picture, Mike would probably have a recliner that doubled as a bed, some Star Wars action figures for company, a box of books and his Rat Olympics trophy. In addition to an "empty" life, he'd likely have a lot less to shake his head at, with no one to force fragile things into places they don't fit. That's what I was expecting him to answer, based on the light bulb scene that had just occured. But, instead, the exchange went like this:

M: My life would be awful without you.

K: No, it wouldn't. You'd have found someone else.

M: Maybe, but it wouldn't have lasted.

K: Sure it would've. Plenty of women would've pursued you and you'd have ended up with one of them.

M: No, I wouldn't. I was meant to marry you.

K: You don't really believe that, do you? That there's only one person for you, and I'm it?

M: Yes. Don't you?

K: Of course not.

M: How many people do you think are for you?

K; Plenty. And there are plenty for you...(long pause, as I notice Mike looking deflated. More headshaking, unrelated to the light bulb incident.) Not that I want you to go out and find any of them, of course...

And this is how I always come to my senses and switch from That's one lucky guy to That poor guy. I have a husband with romantic ideals who believes in fate and destiny and thinks I'm it for him. Poor, poor Mike...to somehow think that I am the only one in the world for him. That poor, sweet man.

Mike promptly recovered and suggested that I should write spirit-deflating "greeting" cards for an anti-Hallmark. A Kelly-inspired anniversary card might say something like, "You two are still together?!?! Guess I'm out $50. Good luck hanging on another year," or a Kelly-inspired get-well card might say something like, "I don't do prayers but maybe if you clean up your act, your health will follow." There are a few other cards we created that wouldn't sell very well, thanks to my complete lack of romanticized ideas about anything.

I don't believe in fate. Or destiny. Or soul mates. Mike's and my differences abound. For example, he thinks that his hair is "bushy" if it exceeds a quarter-inch in length. I hold no such opinion. I like the electric blanket control to be visible on the floor next to the bed; Mike always tucks the control under the bedskirt, out of sight (after he so kindly preheats my side of the bed). He likes Michael Buble; I do not. Milk is my favorite beverage; he never touches it. To say I love ketchup would be a drastic understatement. I think it should be its own category on the food pyramid. Mike loathes ketchup. Soul mates? I can't believe he thinks so.

Yet we stay married and do just fine, almost all the time. I don't attribute it to anything other than two people actually liking each other and treating each other well, minus the occasional hurt feelings when one of us (usually me) is an insensitive jackass. Though I sometimes look at Mike and think, That's one lucky guy, I know I'm lucky, too. Not just because I'm a good sport, well-adapted, highly capable and have great kids, but because I have a great husband who, fortunately for me, has the romantic idea that I'm the only one in the world for him. That poor guy.

Weird Like Erma

I was a weird kid. Which is not all that surprising, considering I am likely a weird adult. This is probably not a revelation to anyone who knows me and probably not news to my blog followers, since one of my earlier entries (see: Kids Say the Darnedest Things) recounts an ugly second-grade incident that served as the catalyst for many people classifying me as weird, at best, or full-out loopy, at worst. As a disclosure, in hindsight, I also find the child described in that story to be pretty weird.

I don’t think I was aware of being weird when I actually was a kid. I never really felt like I fit in, but that’s probably a universal feeling among kids…found in both “normal” kids, as well as the truly weird. Everyone feels like an outcast at some point, right? So I never thought of myself as weird then. But now, when I am having a conversation with someone and share a memory or detail about the-long-ago-me, I frequently have to pause as I discover that I really was a weird kid.

The most recent discovery of this weirdness has stemmed from some friends commenting that my writing and/or sense of humor are reminiscent of Dave Barry and Erma Bombeck. Though I am immensely flattered by the two comparisons (because I adore both), I have just recently come to the realization that it is weird that I have been compared to Erma Bombeck – who made a climb to fame as a wise-cracking housewife/mother of three in the 1960s and beyond– for about two decades now.

Dave Barry is, of course, more contemporary than Erma Bombeck, but I actually grew up with Erma. A quick review of her titles on Wikipedia confirms that, indeed, I have read everything she’s ever written (I fell in love with her at first read…she had me from the title page). I can remember being on a ski trip as a middle schooler (seventh grade, if I’m not mistaken), riding back on the bus from Powder Ridge, listening to Tone Loc on my walkman, while voraciously reading Family: The Ties That Bind…And Gag, which was my Erma favorite, along with The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank (see what I mean about those titles?!?). This was January or February 1989, which would have made me all of 12 years old. How many 12-year-olds even know who Erma Bombeck is, much less has read her complete canon? How many 12-year-olds knew “supp” hose so intimately? While other pre-teen girls were flirting with pre-teen boys, I was curled up on a bus seat, by myself, laughing out loud to Erma Bombeck. I can remember Amy Testagrossa asking me what was so funny and why was I laughing out loud. I read her a passage from the book and, though I’m almost positive she laughed, I wonder now if she was just being polite, while thinking that I was such a weirdo. To complicate matters, Erma’s books were always mine….they were never my mother’s.

My early penchant for Erma, may she rest in peace, got me to thinking about my childhood reading habits. I can remember “babysitting” John and Ben Van Rheen – I was 11 and, though Ben was a few years younger, he was about the same size as me and totally didn’t listen to me; John was Ben’s lackey who participated in whatever mischief Ben could create– and busying myself reading The Hartford Courant downstairs, while they plotted the overthrow of the world (or, at the very least, me) upstairs. At age 11, I had my own subscription to the newspaper and my weekly gig for the Van Rheens –as painful as it was - not only paid for the subscription but also put some much-needed cash in my pocket to pay for my periodicals (Bop and Teen Beat, if my memory serves me correctly…finally, something about me that might have been normal!). I didn’t know what to do with those two boys, but I think their mother’s main requirement for a babysitter was someone responsible enough to call 911, when needed. Surely someone who showed up toting her own copy of the newspaper could give the police an accurate description of the events leading to the call and accurate directions to their out-of-the-way house.

I maintained a subscription to the newspaper for as long as I could afford one. In my financially destitute college years, I sacrificed fun for the newspaper, delivered to my dorm room. There’s a telling photo of me at a sleepover…all of my floor mates are passed out asleep and I am awake, reading the newspaper in my sleeping bag. The photographer – whoever it was – surely took the picture because I was such an anomaly.

Eventually, I climbed the social ladder and was able to add magazine subscriptions to things I could afford. My first subscriptions, excluding Highlights when I was five or so, included Rolling Stone, Better Homes & Gardens and Mother Jones. How I discovered Mother Jones is a mystery but I loved the investigative journalism. I was 20 and my magazine rack defined me: interests in home decorating, music and socialist-leaning government exposes. Perhaps there’s a good reason I’ve never felt like I never fit in. It’s probably because I haven’t.

Truthfully, I still don’t fit in. But I’m fine with it. There were some lonely adolescent years, but I think that happens for everyone – weird or not. And I’ve discovered throughout the years that “weird” is relative and comes in many shapes and sizes. There was once a discovery of someone who collected their toenails in a jar, which I thought was really, really weird, until one day I was talking to a completely different person who made a reference to…collecting toenails in a jar. I still think this is intensely weird, but if multiple people are partaking in this, maybe it’s not all that weird. Or maybe it is weird, which means that I am not so weird.

Along the way through life, I’ve met one or two of these suburban-housewife-idolizing, 12-year-old girls who grew up to appreciate shabby chic décor and investigative journalism. I’m not so sure that makes me any less weird, but weirdness loves company. Maybe they also didn’t go outside for recess in all of fourth grade (I preferred helping the teacher, Ms. Morton, correct our class papers), or maybe they played outside with friends, like a normal kid. I guess it doesn’t matter. Maybe Erma was weird, too, but she was able to mask it with funny. And that’s my hope…to temper the weird with humor, so that all that’s really remembered is the funny.

The Thin Line Between Trash and Treasure

Trash. Treasure. Like love and hate, there’s a thin line between the two. I am reminded of this frequently, both in the larger world - I volunteer regularly at my local thrift shop, which is inundated with equal parts treasure and trash – and in my own garage, as I continue to look at the things I once thought were treasures but have since become junk that I couldn’t unload at my yard sale in September.

There’s been so much talk about the economy and its miserable state. I hear all the time how no one is buying anything and that consumers need to open their wallets and start spending again. Unemployment, underemployment and stagnant wages are frequently blamed for people not spending. I will freely admit that I am fairly ignorant about Economics, market forces, etc, etc, and only persevered through my college economics class because of a very handsome boy who I hoped would fall madly in love with me (I am still stumped on two subjects: macroeconomics, and why that boy let me get away). Yet, from my position as a Consumer of Things, I have some opinions on the matter.

I think it is possible that no one is buying anything because…just maybe…we have all bought so many things in our lives that there is just nothing left we need. Maybe we have inventoried our belongings and realized we already have all the crap we need, in addition to a bunch of crap we never needed in the first place. And not only do we have all we need, so does everyone we know. There’s just nothing left to buy because Americans are such excellent consumers that we all have everything that has already been invented. That’s one idea. My other idea is that every expert on the matter is wrong. People are totally spending money. But perhaps they are doing it on the cheap, at places like thrift shops and yard sales and eBay and craigslist, because consumers have finally realized that whatever it is they think they need is available somewhere at a deep discount, because someone somewhere has already become a convert and discarded the once-desired treasure as undesirable junk.

I will use the yard sale as my case study to prove both points. First, some yard sale background info. Several military posts participate in post-wide yard sales. Twice a year, on a designated Saturday in the spring and fall, everyone wanting to participate sorts through their belongings, classifying things into why-the-hell-do-I-still-have-this?! and oh-wow,-I-forgot-I-had-this! In the spirit of “If you price it, they will come,” we bust out the neon stickers and the Sharpie and coldly calculate how much someone might pay us for the stuff we have deemed to be junk. It is really a beautiful thing. Literally, there are probably hundreds of sales condensed into a few square miles; and it is the bargain hunter’s/junk lover’s Mecca. No cheapskate’s life is complete until they’ve made the pilgrimage to a post-wide yard sale. People come from miles away – we’re talking Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, etc – on a quest for discarded treasure. The first of the pick-up trucks drive around so early in the morning it’s still dark, and I have seen people armed with flashlights to get the best deal. While the sale officially starts at 6 AM on SATURDAY morning, you have lost a lot of business if you’re sleeping in that late. I made my first sale this year at 2 PM on FRIDAY afternoon. As a complete disclosure, I’d made my first purchase at 9 AM on Friday morning. Since I live in the glass house, I want to be clear that I’m not throwing any stones.

Yard salers continuously arrived and I, always anxious to unload some stuff so that I can eventually buy new stuff, would ask them, “What can I help you find that you need?” And people repeatedly said, “Oh, I don’t need anything. I’m just looking around.” To which I would always reply, “Well, what can I help you find that you don’t need?” And then I would start showing people various things, like my piece de resistance: a moose-faced egg separator (the egg white pours from the moose’s nostrils, of course, and it looks like a snotty-nosed moose). Frequently, I could convince someone they needed one of my former treasures (FYI, that moose flew off the table early in the sale). Some people were more discriminating. I’d say, “I have this lovely weed eater that works almost all the time,” and they would respond, “Oh, no thanks, I don’t have a yard.” Even without a yard, I might have bought that weed eater for the price I had it marked at. Yet for every discriminator, there’s always the person who sees the purse and exclaims, “Oh! I love purses. I shouldn’t buy it, though, because I already have 200!” and then goes on to purchase Purse #201.

While I do believe that most people just don’t need anything, I also believe that people do spend money all the time, and especially on crap they don’t need and crap their friends and family don’t want. I’m guilty of it myself. Despite the fact that I am always cleaning out, I am also always on the hunt for the next fantastic bargain; and second-hand shops are one of my great weaknesses. Which is why I volunteer at my local thrift shop. In addition to the fun I have interacting with adults once a week and studying consumption habits (I’m still chuckling over how I asked an older woman if she wanted a bag, or if she preferred to wear the leather chaps she’d purchased straight out of the store), I get first dibs on the donated items. And I am frequently startled by the things people give away. Many are brand new, quality items with tags still on. Plenty have gift tags still on, like the fuzzy golf club covers to Uncle Fred from Maddie, or the children’s literary collection for Jessica, with love from Grandma and Grandpa. I hope it truly is the thought that counts, as a lot of people are obviously not that fond of the actual gifts the thought produced.

But one person’s trash is another’s treasure, and I like to think of second-hand shopping as a green alternative to regular shopping. It’s recycling in its funnest form. The transformation of trash to treasure, simply by the changing of hands, keeps things out of the dump and saves money, so that people can have more money to go out and spend on the latest gizmo they never knew they always needed. It doesn’t even matter what the item is because, like beauty, trash/treasure is in the eye of the beholder. See my snotty-nosed moose egg separator as an example.

Miner Voyeurism

I don’t watch a lot of TV. I quit Dancing With the Stars and American Idol cold turkey several seasons ago, and joyously said goodbye to Lost (and five seasons of insomnia induced by this show’s maddening twists) this spring. I currently watch only two shows, of which Glee is a guilty pleasure and The Office is an admittable one. Though Glee’s saccharine life lessons annoy me, as well as the boy-band-tendencies of Mr. Schuester, I’ve found a bright spot in Sue Sylvester, or at least the version of her that interacts with her sister (disclosure: her conversation with her sister in the God episode actually made me cry). As far as The Office goes, I’ve heard a lot of people say that the Michael Scott character is ridiculous and not believable. I congratulate those people on never having had a Michael Scott as a boss. But believe me when I say that there’s an entire class of graduates of the Michael Scott School of Low Level Management and Improv, people who are now mediocre bosses at various locations throughout the United States.

I used to enjoy watching the news but I’ve largely given up on it. The 24-hour news channels just about destroyed news, having turned a lot of things that are not even remotely newsworthy into “news.” An event has to be major to get me to tune in, and there have been only a handful of times in my life when I have been “glued” to the TV. The first time I can remember was when Princess Diana died. I was 20 years old, living in my first apartment. I turned on the TV to discover the mangled black car and the news that Princess Diana had been a passenger in it. Her death began a news-watching marathon for me. I watched for days, and I can still remember those boys walking with their mother’s coffin and her brother’s powerful eulogy. My heart broke for the motherless sons.

The next event that glued me was the attacks on September 11, 2001. We lived in Germany at the time. I was at work and had gone down to the mailroom where Howard, the mailman, had a radio he listened to. He told me a plane had struck a World Trade Center building. It didn’t mean much to me at the time. I had no idea, in those initial minutes or hours, of the quantities of people that would be involved or the vast scope of the horror. As information trickled in, we all got sent home from work. I listened to the towers fall on the radio as I drove home. The TV went on the minute I walked in the door. I watched the smouldering rubble for days, just waiting for the rescues that never came.

The tsunami was my next overdose of news. I was very pregnant at the time and not working. I had a lot of time to tune in and did so. Nature’s savagery was startling, though it was good preparation for Hurricane Katrina, which followed eight months later. The storm made landfall at the end of August and I can remember still watching the coverage in mid-September as Grace recovered from a major surgery and we didn’t leave the hospital for six days. Of course, by this time, I was distracted and losing interest in the plights of others, when seven-month-old Grace had so many issues of her own.

I followed the Sago mine disaster pretty closely. It was Mike’s birthday, 2006. I still remember the heartbreak that followed the announcement that they’d made a mistake and it wasn’t that one miner had died, but that only one had lived. And so it was with the Sago outcome in mind that I tuned in two nights ago to watch the Chilean attempt to rescue those men who had been trapped in the mountain-mine for more than two months.

I hadn’t been following the story too closely…I knew they were down there and alive, but that was about the sum total of my knowledge. Yet when they hoisted that rescue cage up and a miner emerged, I wept. As I watched the child that I assumed to be the miner’s son weep with relief, I cried some more. Though I’d planned on going to bed early, I watched the capsule descend and then waited for it to come back up. The second miner came up and his exuberance was inspiring. He hammed it up and his sheer joy was infectious. I thought, “Here’s a group of people who probably know what’s important in life. And won’t forget any time soon.” I went to sleep overjoyed. As soon as I woke up, the TV went back on. The number rescued had risen to nine and I tuned in to the tenth rescue and cried again. I hoped for the best as the rescue efforts continued. I couldn’t tune in because kids needed to get herded to school and we had some stuff to do. I had a dentist appointment at 11, and never have I so looked forward to going to a teeth cleaning. At my dentist’s, there are TVs in the ceiling, they recline you, stick a pair of headphones on and pass you a remote. I turned on CNN and told everyone to take their time, that I’d be happy to wait if anyone was running late. As Emmy scraped and cleaned my teeth, I sat there with tears streaming, overcome with joy for the families that had waited so long. I dictated to Emmy the personal stories and the amazing details and reported the miners’ surfacing. After the cleaning was over and the dentist had finished with me, I asked if I could stay in the chair for a few more minutes because the next miner was almost up and I didn’t want to miss it. They all went to lunch and left me there. I was high on happiness when I left after another miner was extracted. I tuned in and out a few times throughout the day, as the events of the day allowed, and tuned in again with Mike after the kids were in bed, just in time to see the final miner emerge from the capsule. I cried tears of joy for every miner I saw exit the capsule, and have wracked my brain all day, trying to remember when, if ever, there was such captivating, good news on TV. Finally…something worth watching.

One of my favorite things is airport voyeurism. I love checking out the reunions – people brought back together after having been apart for who knows how long. I can’t leave an airport without tears. It’s one of my favorite places – assuming I’m not actually flying – because it’s so often filled with happiness. Yesterday, the mine in Chile was an airport on the world’s stage. And the world got a good look into the hopes and joy of 33 families reunited after 69 days apart. I absolutely loved yesterday, knowing that something wonderful was happening for so many people – not just the miners and their families, but for the entire nation of Chile, and beyond…to all of us voyeurs sharing joy vicariously, for all of us who finally had something on TV worth watching.

The Problem with Princesses

I have several problems with princesses. I’m not speaking of real-life, actual princesses, a la Diana or Grace Kelly, since I’ve never met anyone of royal background and suspect that, despite the title and royal fanciness that goes along with the job, the demands of royalty are probably great and exhausting. My problems with princesses, specifically, are with the Disney variety, and my prime complaint is that my daughters are obsessed.

Grace and Nadia are only five and three years old, yet they are crazed when it comes to princesses. Earlier in the spring, I took them to a mother-daughter tea party, which included a special visit by princesses. As Belle, Cinderella and Jasmine mingled with the commoners, my daughters stalked them like paparazzi, with Grace seizing my camera and snapping pictures of their every move. Grace and Nadia followed them around constantly, while Nadia jabbered non-stop, asking questions about Beast’s well-being and how Raja was doing. In one of those a-picture’s-worth-a-thousand-words moments, there’s a photo of Nadia sitting next to Cinderella during a story and, though all other kids are looking forward at the storyteller and book, Nadia is beaming at Cinderella with pure adoration.

I’m not very girly and it is often a mystery to me how I got such girly little girls. We have princess dress-up wear, attend princess birthday parties, own princess games, go to princess tea parties and partake in princess pretend-play. At times, Nadia actually thinks she is a princess and if you address her as Nadia, she will firmly tell you to call her by her formal title, Princess Nadia. One time, one of the girls actually banished the other from the kingdom (the complaint came to me as, “Nadia kicked me out of her kingdom!!!”). It was quite a scene, complete with princess tears and a princess tantrum. Princess Nadia has chosen Prince Mike as her betrothed and there have been more royal weddings in this house than any one family can afford. Princess Nadia always outfits Prince Mike with a bowtie or, if the bowtie is nowhere to be found, a “tie” cut out of construction paper. After the wedding, there is always a dance, and the ritual is completed…until the next wedding tomorrow.

As the mother of the princess, I, appropriately, get to be the Queen. This sounds okay, but I already wear a lot of hats around this house and can’t risk getting saddled within any extra responsibilities around here. Since I’ve been stripped of my king, I am the apex of the monarchy and the ruler of the kingdom. It’s not the worst role, though I often suspect and fear that the princesses are plotting a coup, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Prince Mike was in on this scheme, too. Sometimes I debate getting my own taster.

Most of the time, the princess mania just baffles me. I don’t get the fascination. But after a recent viewing of Cinderella, I finally had an idea to make this whole princess-mania worthwhile. Now, I am the first to admit that I have a lot of weaknesses and pretend play is one of them. While Mike can expertly play the role of prince and patiently abides by Nadia’s every wedding demand (she’s your classic bridezilla), I am a fan of watching their show - a spectator, as opposed to a participant. But the other week, I actually had a great idea. I told Grace and Nadia they each could be Cinderella and I would be the evil stepmother (it’s unfortunate that this is the role I can most easily identify with). I then gave them some rags and a bucket of cleaning solution and sent them outside to scrub the floor mats in the van.

Before judgment is passed on my parenting, let me defend myself by offering that the girls love to clean things. As far as they’re concerned, the only thing better than getting to scrub a toilet, is getting to scrub a toilet while impersonating a princess. And the only thing that would be better than scrubbing a toilet while impersonating a princess would be scrubbing the toilet as a princess, in preparation for the tea party reception after the royal wedding to Prince Mike. I ask you…if the victims are eager and willing participants, is it really wrong?

But, like all good things, it didn’t last long. Kids grow and get smarter every day and it was just a few days ago that Grace came to us with a proposal: she wanted to do chores, in exchange for money. I don’t recall Cinderella ever being on anyone’s payroll. Perhaps now that Grace has started kindergarten, she and other five-year-olds will start comparing notes about what goes on at home. Maybe a more sophisticated princess let Grace know that the Evil Stepmother can’t get away this malarkey, and that there’s something called an “allowance,” which Grace would be entitled to as the result of the labor being performed as Cinderella. I don’t know quite how my great idea unraveled so quickly, but there went my one use for princess-mania…up in smoke, like the plume of dust they would’ve swept up, had the Cinderella charade lasted just a little bit longer.