It Took Three Decades, but I finally LOVE Aerosmith

We were out of milk this morning. I was up. Walking. Going through the motions of The Mom Getting the Kids Breakfast. But not awake. And even if I were awake, I had very little patience. Really, none at all, for the sound of whining that was coming out of my six-year old. Nails on a chalkboard. Life purpose poison.

Before we realized we were out of milk, Little Skye had poured a bowl of cereal. He didn't mind that we were out of milk, what he complained full tilt boogie about was that we only had the organic Honey Nut Os instead of Honey Nut Cheerios that have the cartoons on the back of the box. I looked at my watch. It was only 7 am. I never step out into frigid temperatures when my bed is still warm but on this morning, with this whining, with how NOT in the mood I was for it, there was enough time for a grocery run! I was very willing to be the one to make the run. In fact I would have wrestled my husband to the floor in a frenzy for the car keys if he'd so much as motioned for the door, being the helpful "I'll run out and get that for you, honey" kind of guy he is.

In my haste to get out of the house I barely noticed, until I was walking through the parking lot of the Giant Eagle and felt a lopsided lump that bounced on my head with each step, that I must look reaaaaal pretty this morning. I literally rolled out of bed and went out in public in a suburb, where that is a violation for which one can be ticketed, with yesterday's ponytail barely holding on to my right temporal lobe.

"Ma'am, excuse me. Are those the clothes you slept in?"

"Yes, officer. And they're even the same clothes I wore yesterday. Please let me off this time. My kid was whining at the crack of dawn. I had to get out of there before I went postal."

"Understood, ma'am. Have a nice day."

I approached the sliding doors intending to avoid my reflection and anyone I might know. Murphy's Law would have me bumping into Alex's horribly judgmental first and second grade teacher who was convinced that all of Alex's problems were his mother's inability to organize. "Routines are not routine" still echos in my head, particularly at times like this when I have to make a milk run on a school morning. Only inferior, substandard parents don't know when they're going to bed groggy-eyed that there's no soymilk in the fridge for tomorrow's breakfast.

I just needed one carton of milk. The parking lot had about four cars including mine. Maybe I could run in and run out unnoticed. I grabbed the milk. Then I remembered the delicious organic cookies that we devoured yesterday after school. I would definitely want some of those in the afternoon. And "oh, yea, we're out of bread....". I walk over to the bread section, waaaaaay over at the far end of the store, and on my way to the registers, swing by the jelly section because we're almost out of that, too.

I'm done hunting and gathering and begin walking toward the registers, waaaaaaay over at the other end of the store, when suddenly it hits me that I've got a nice stride going and it's to the beat of......is that Aerosmith? Aerosmith and I like it? Aerosmith at the Giant Eagle in UPPER ARLINGTON?.....And I like it?

Surely I am still not awake. This can't be true. But the driving lead guitar was telling me that it was. Between the jelly aisle and the pharmacy I had suddenly revived. Music can sometimes substitute for espresso apparently because when I got up to the registers and unloaded my basket onto the conveyor belt I turned into Espresso Lady! I said very loudly "IS THAT REALLY AEROSMITH PLAYING AT THE GIANT EAGLE IN UPPER ARLINGTON? AM I IN THE RIGHT SUBURB?!!"

The cashiers, one about 18, the other about 50, plus their high-school dropout baggers lifted their heads and smiled. One of them nodded in the direction of the bagger who looked even more disheveled than me, only because I can't grow five o'clock shadow. He had just finished a night shift, stocking shelves. The choice in music was his. We saluted each other with a smile and suddenly, on cue, I broke out in my best air band lead guitar "Bent bent bent bent bent bent ben-neeeeh! Bent bent bent bent bent bent ben-neeeeh! [g a a# a g a a# c / g a a# a g a a# c (all quarter notes except the c which is a half note)] because I didn't know the words, or I would have sung them in the same scream yell voice as Steve Tyler who I never could stand until THIS....VERY....MOMENT.....IN......TIME.

I said "I must be asleep still! I must be dreaming! Aerosmith at the Giant Eagle in Upper Arlington! What a hoot! I bet if I come back at 10 am it will be Neal Sedaka." The cashier's nodded mournfully.

Everyone was in good spirit suddenly. None of the cashiers expected, when they clocked in that morning, that there would be some Upper Arlington housewife playing air band guitar and pretending to be Steve Tyler in aisle two. The customer in aisle one, however, was not amused. She seemed to take offense at the Neal Sedaka comment. Or maybe it was my air band guitar. She looked over her cold shoulder and gave me a cold stare.

I'm thinking "My hair, right?"

She turned around, crouching her shoulders after getting a glimpse of me. I recognize that "Get me out of here, NOW!" posture. Her cashier quickly rang her out and she left. A minute later my cashier hands me a receipt and I leave, sharing one last smile with the five o'clock shadow shelf stocker.

I get out to the parking lot, slide into my minivan and right in front of me, in a silver sedan, is Cold Shoulder Lady. As if she was waiting for me. She eyes me. The Upper Arlington Eye. If you've ever gotten the Upper Arlington Eye, you'd know how Julia Roberts felt in Pretty Woman when she was at the race tracks cheering on a horse by waving her bent arm up in the air, her hand in a fist, and yelling "Hoo-hooo-hooo!" the way Randy on American Idol gets his "dawgs" to cheer after a particularly successful performance. We don't cheer on our horses, dear. And we don't get down to Aerosmith at the Giant Eagle. Shit. She's going to call the management as soon as she gets home and the shelf stocker is going to have to stock shelves at 3 am to Neal Sedaka.

Cold Shoulder Lady backed up and drove away. A Bush-Cheney bumper sticker on the back bumper. I hooted "YES!!" Because the image of Bush-Cheney supporters being driven out of Upper Arlington gives me great satisfaction and was just the antidote I needed for the nails-on-a-chalkboard, life-purpose-poison whine waiting for me back home.

Even if he doesn't know who Aerosmith is, he does know who Bush and Cheney are and this would be just the story to rock the Jukebox* out of his mood.


*NOTE: Skye's nickname is the Jukebox because he always, ALWAYS, has a song to sing.....that is....when he's not whining.

Proud Parents of a Hacker

Our ten year old hacked all the parental blocks on his computer.
We couldn't be more proud.

All that's Left after the Firehouse Fire

Here's a link that will show you the firehouse that burned down almost to the ground in Boulder, CO. It sits at the bottom of the driveway of our home in Boulder. We always felt safe knowing that in spite of the dangerously arid summers in the mountains, the firehouse was literally a stone's throw away. In June of 1993, Skye sweated his ass off cutting the concrete with a diamond blade saw in that firehouse floor to install a toilet for the firefighters. He was working under the direction of his stepdad and firefighter, Jim Burch, who was unable to tackle the job as he was recovering from a heart attack that he suffered while working in the house that's a stone's throw up the drive from these burnt out firehouse pictures.

http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/local_story_042121337.html

Will you still pretend we're friends after all that's left of your lollipop is a soggy paper stick?

Valentine's Day came and went. But the Sugar is still in my house!

My fourth grader's class didn't go too insane this year, thanks to the kids with the allergies, but what is up with those clueless kindergarten parents? Skye came out of his bedroom this morning with heart shaped Red Dye #40 on a stick and the words "be mine" on it. Be mine till death from all this sugar before breakfast due us part. In pancreatic sickness and in health. Will you still want him to be yours in second grade with no teeth?

I took the deathpop (my friend Barbara thinks I'm being a drama queen when I use that word) out of his hand and put it on a plate on the top shelf of the cabinet, with plans to throw it away when he's not in the room. Mommy Dearest made him eat a bowl of processed Cheerios instead, as if they're so much healthier. When Skye was finished he went into his room, only to emerge asking for help to open a bagful of candy. An entire BAG FULL of candy from just one classmate!!?? I checked the card attached to the twist tie. Figures. An unpopular kid. They always do that.

This bag should have been the total sum of candy he'd scored from the entire holiday. But no. Justin (not his real name), gave Skye a bag with a three musketeers, a tootsie roll and 28 sugar and dye hearts, that, if left unattended, Skye would devour in one sitting. Justin, don't your parents know that? Don't they know that he is going to eat them one after the other until they're gone? And then want more? Sneak behind me while I'm writing on my blog, tiptoe into his room, quietly climb onto the top shelf of his desk where I hid his candy, precariously balance one foot on the back of his chair and one foot on the edge of his desk while pulling on the bookshelf that's not securely fastened to anything, to score some more of this addictive contraband!!??

Of course they do! Valentine's Day is the day the unpopular children win favor with their peers using candy. The more candy, the more friends! Doesn't matter if they kill themselves getting to the candy, as long as they go to their grave with Justin's name on their sugarcoated lips. The kids whose parents want them to climb the ladder of social success five rungs at a time wait patiently for February. It's Valentine's Day or bust for their little DNA wannabes.

Judging by the children's RED DYE #40, YELLOW DYE #5 and BLUE DYE #1 lips and tongues and teeth and gums and plaque, when I walked into the Valentine's Day party on Tuesday, a lot of friendships were forged.

Nothing. What are you doing?

A colleague of mine sent me an email about some Professor of some University...Harvard....who's going to speak at some big conference that it would behoove me to attend.

I skimmed it.
Kachu Piccu Harvard BodyTalk Workshop Conference Deepening Cutting Edge. Sounds like something smart I'm missing out on. AGAIN!. Thanks for rubbing it in.

Yo, housewife sitting in front of your tv eating valentine's chocolates, watching the olympics with the acute awareness that if that were you on the ice and you took that fall you'd be immobile for weeks and it would take MONTHS, YEARS, THE REST OF YOUR LIFE YOU'RE SO NOT YOUNG ANYMORE to get over that kind of fall. So it doesn't really matter if I eat the entire box of Godiva's once I come to that sort of realization about what my over 40 body is capable of, does it!

I walked an extra loop around the lake at the dog park and passed all the women who were sporting trendy little jock outfits. Pretended I was passing Norway, Finland, Germany, France. My dog wanted to stop and French sniff their dog's butts but I kept on marching past them with the wind in my hair, dragging my dog by her neck. Going for the gold.

We have a plumber coming over to the house to fix our pipes in the basement -- the real plumbing problem that is the cause of all the plumbing problems above ground. It will be nice when the upstairs toilet will actually flush instead of regurgitating six towels worth of water all over the floor. And I'm looking forward to being able to turn on the dish disoposal without water shooting out of the filtered water spigot, all over the counter and under the sink where the construction guy forgot to caulk before getting fired.

The Hostess with the Mostest Turkish Women in Her House!

I can almost smell them when I look at this picture. They are delicious!! Thank you Gulenay and all my wonderful Turkish friends for making me something so so so so yummy! I am the luckiest woman in Ohio. I took this photo to make everyone else jealous that they don't have a group of friends like mine!


Gulenay and Prince Charming, or in this case Prince Furkan. If you ever want to organize a party or have a half dozen Turkish women descend on your dining room table and roll a hundred grape leaves faster than you can brush and floss, call Gulenay. She'll have the grape leaves stuffed, in the pot and boiling before you even get to the bathroom. It's the Turkish chi. There's something in it and they won't tell me what it is. But it makes them very, very efficient!



From left to right: Lucky me, Nesrin (from Istanbul), Gulenay (from Izmir) and Prince Furkan (who liked my soup!), Zehra, Fatma (from Bursa), Bidia (from Izmir), Seyda and taking the photo is Sumyra (from Izmir).


Gulenay (Seyda in the background) and Prince Furkan. He wants more soup but all he could get his hands on was this plastic toy. Look into that baby's eyes....what a flirt!
Sumyra, Nesrin, Bidia, Gulenay, Zehra, Seyda and Fatma. Zehra teaches at the school where Skye went to preschool. If it were not for Fatma, the meals we share would not be possible. Over a year ago I saw Fatma's daughter reading a book on Turkey at the library. I met her mother a few minutes later and we talked. I asked her if she could teach me how to cook Turkish food. Within a week a small group formed. Then more women came together to cook Turkish food and talk and laugh. Then more and more. It has been wonderful for me to go back into my childhood via eating and cooking foods that bring me back through my senses to my old neighborhood in Izmir at dinner time, when the Turkish women were cooking outside or with their balcony doors open. I get to relive days from long ago through my new friends. Such a gift!


Gulenay in my messy kitchen before all the eating began. Look at all these beautiful scarves.


Do NOT mess with these women. I hope I don't have to tell you twice.

Out of Touch with my Pre-teen! Already!!

All the underwear in Alex's drawer is solid. It's been that way for years. No airplanes, no spiderman, batman and definitely no Telletubbies. Those don't even fit Little Skye anymore but he won't admit it. Won't read the writing on the waistline at the end of the day that appears in the form of a pink ring around his middle.

Skye won't put underwear on unless it has a print. Underwear and shirts. Alex? Not a single drawer with a print. With one exception -- one package of underwear with prints has been sitting in his drawer unopened because I accidently bought the wrong size. Two sizes ago.

In that time, the boy's standards have changed. Solids, yes. Prints, you've got to be kidding me. This morning with his eyes still half closed I tossed him a pair of the new underwear with the rocket print. He slid them on without really looking. But suddenly the pattern caught his half awake eyes. Just as slowly as he pulled them up he slid them right back down in one continous movement, looked at me through his bangs and said in that sarcastic monotone that teenagers use, "Seriously".

I laughed a hearty laugh but underneath, as I tossed him a pair of solids from his drawer, I pondered how out of touch I was with what I thought could pass as acceptable for my changing, growing boy. Brought back memories of my mother's "out-of-touchiness" that plagued my wardrobe as a pre-teen on into college.

Oh my God! It's happened! Over a pair of underwear no less! The generation gap just cracked open and I'm losing my credibility!! A slip like this, where a parent appears stuck in the dark ages, is costly at this stage in a boy's development.
From now on if I say bright he'll say dark because I was wrong with that rocket underwear so can he trust me on bright next month? Next year? Next decade! We're on shaky ground now. You can't erase rocket underwear from your mind's eye. It was a defining moment.

Does this mean he's going to stop making sound effects of rockets the next time he builds one out of legos?? Is this the impetus for that rite of passage a boy makes from making sound effects to not talking? Rocket underwear??

Oh Mercy, What Have I DONE!!!!

As Long as I Don't Start Looking Like Him

I registered on Classmates.com as Elmer Fudd because I wasn't sure if I was already in the directory. I didn't want to register twice. That would be "dorky" for one thing -- plus a few other words from the 70s and 80s that come to mind. "A-duuuuh! Amy signed in twice! Nerd."

I'd forgotten I'd registered as Elmer until I logged into the email address I give out for such things where all I'll get in my inbox are ads. A week went by. I logged on to the spare email account and had one message. In the subject it said, "Elmer, there are 5 NEW photos of people in your community".

"Weeel-wee? Weww, wet's have a wook-see, sha-weee? Is it Bugs? Daffy? Woad Wunner? I wonder what they wook wike now!"

Out to Dinner with Mitsy

Alex (10), Skye (6), and I (42, but that's just a number) went out to dinner last night. Not with their imaginary friend but mine.

Mitsy joined us for dessert somewhere between the third or fourth trip to the ice cream bar. We ate well beyond our needs, especially the ice cream. Afterall, it was a Chinese buffet and this is the Midwest, Home of Overeaters. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

We asked our imaginary friend all kinds of questions while holding imaginary cigarettes. I admit, I started it. I picked up a chopstick and asked "Mitsy, however do you get chocolate ice cream out of a white cotton shirt?"

Soon after, Mitsy was barraged with all kinds of questions that you'd find answers to in Helpful Hints from Helloise. Just as she was about to close her mouth around a forkful of peppered shrimp, someone would interrupt Mitsy's meal with yet another query. Eventually the questions turned in the "pushing the envelope" direction. Answers to which would more likely be found in a book written by Tony Soprano than by Helloise because Helloise probably never had the need to dispose of a dead body. Or if she did, she wouldn't rat herself out in her own book.

Ice cream makes me do terrible things like continuously hold fake cigarettes in my hand in front of my children and pretend to be "a smoker". And to allow the content of questions for our guest of honor to go from the simple, coffee stains in carpet, to the gory, blood stains on the ceiling. But after tonight I know for sure my children will not cross the line I most fear, in spite of my fondness for fake smoking in front of them and talking to Mitsy in an English accent, and that is them becoming smokers themselves.

We waltzed arm-in-arm through the parking lot and lo and behold, just a few feet from our minivan, there on the asphalt was a plastic cigarette holder! I said "Oh my God! A plastic cigarette holder! We hit the jackpot!" and took a step toward it, dragging the boys on either arm so they could see up close the treasure the gods have left for us. Was it the gods or was Mitsy really there in the restaurant, not just in spirit? Was this evidence to let us know she really exists and I was right on the money with my Pall Mall butt with red lipstick musings?!? It has been decades since I created her. She could easily have smoked herself to death and gone on to the other side by now.

I could only know for sure if this filter was dropped by Mitsy upon close examination. If it smelled like Chinese, think of the conversations we could have about our imaginary Mitsy. Sometimes, however, circumstances beyond our control prevent us from uncovering life's mysteries. When I stepped in closer, Little Skye lunged back and yelled "Nooooooo! Mommy!" I think he thought I was going to begin my disgusting cigarette butt collection again. He knew I was crossing the line with my humor and was perhaps afraid, thinking "If she's done it before, she might do it again." He pulled back on my arms and dug his feet into the ground. Even if I were insane and I really wanted to start a cigarette butt collection as a 42 year-old mother of two young impressionable boys, Skye was NOT going to stand for that in his home.

I slept very well last night.