Thursday Drive

Yesterday (Thursday) was my take-a-long-drive day, in case you weren’t on the edge of your seat just waiting for me to come back with a report. But you were, right? Probably almost falling off your seat, so excited for the juicy details of my trek.

I did take a different route this time, since I was jonesing for some different views and felt like shaking it up a bit.

I wish I could say the details were juicy. (Or that there were cowboys on this route.) But here are the high points:

• Totally would have run out of gas if I didn’t accidentally turn left when I should have turned right, leaving town. There was a gas station ahead, which reminded me to check the gauge. I wouldn’t have made it far, if not for that happy accident. (Mr. H, you’ve got an almost full tank now. You’re welcome. Sorry about the buggy windshield, though.)
• I was flying along, not following the speed limit, when road work signs appeared. The lanes merged, and I got stuck behind a slow-ass van whose driver insisted in maintaining the speed limit, even way back from where the real construction began (I am careful in construction zones. That’s a perilous job, and a damn hot one here in the desert.) I was kind of annoyed, until I realized he probably saved me from a ticket, since the highway patrol was out in force. So, thanks, driver…and sorry about the tailgating.
• There was a sign in the town of Superior advertising The World’s Smallest Museum. I was really tempted to stop and take a look. I’ll be damned if they don’t have a website, and aren’t you glad I let you know?
• The best part of the road (Hwy 60) between here and Globe, in my opinion, is the few miles of great scenery through Devil’s Canyon. The road is designated the Gila Pinal Scenic Road, and my favorite part of it is the view just on the other side of Queen Creek Tunnel. If you go to that link, there’s a photo of the old tunnel (the 1926 Claypool Tunnel) that the new one replaced in 1952. The old tunnel is still visible from the road.

Here are a few photos of the tunnel and the scenery on the other side of it.

What is interesting about going through this tunnel is that the scenery on one side looks very different from what you find on the other side. There are a few parallels I could draw about how life is like that sometimes, but I will let you find your own. I think you can handle it.

As far as I’m concerned, the drive is worth it for those few miles of treacherous-looking scenery and the winding road through it. When I’m driving, if I come across signs like “Road Narrows” or “Steep Grade”, my pulse quickens and I tighten my grip on the wheel. That’s good stuff. Maybe I’m a thrill junkie when it comes to driving, but I love those parts.

Later in the evening, we all went to Boy’s violin recital. It was sweet, and short, and the classes performed well. After, we went for ice cream.

When we got home, these clouds were in the sky almost above us…And, yes, the sky really was that blue.

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Next week is the last week of school around here, and there’s the usual small storm of activity and year-end school events. Tomorrow night, we will attend Boy’s Suzuki concert at school, where he will stand in the back row and play three songs on the violin with his classmates. I feel very lucky that our school sponsors such a great music program. He has two years of instruction behind him now, and he is proud of what he has learned and wants to continue if we move somewhere else.

The songs they learn are simple and uncomplicated. The notes are pure and clear. The earnest look of trying, of effort, on the students’ faces is sweet and heart-twisting. Last year, the 3rd graders seemed so far ahead of the 2nd graders. So this year, now that Boy is in 3rd grade, I can’t wait to hear the difference and how far he has come.

Girl is finishing 1st grade, and I haven’t yet wrapped my mind around her new 2nd grade-ness. Second grade seems like a big girl year, so much older than 1st, even though it’s just one year ahead. She is more capable and confident than she was going into this school year. I love seeing her at school, in her class or in the cafeteria, so sure of herself and where she should go and how to navigate her way from one place to the next.

It’s what we hope for, isn’t it?

Fourth grade next year for Boy, which sounds impossible. How is it possible that his 8 pounds, 9 ounces turned into a fourth grader? But I hear that the science experiments start to get really interesting in 4th grade (the tables at the Science Showcase last week clued me in on that). Since his interest in science and invention is boundless, I know he will be excited to move on to more challenging projects.

This year, especially, I feel relieved that the end of school is in sight. There are big changes ahead for us, and I’m ready to get on with it. But there’s something else, too. I feel like I can exhale now, like I also just moved up a grade. I swear to the gods, I don’t know how I managed to steer Boy and Girl through one more year of school without major event. In fact, aside from the bajillion visits Girl made to the nurse’s office, the two of them managed to stay off the trouble radar. They’re good kids, and I imagine they behave better at school than they do at home.

(I’m thinking of setting aside a room in the next house and calling it The Principal’s Office. I’m taking applications for someone to sit in there, behind a desk maybe, after school every day and on weekends. You won’t have to do much, and you can read magazines and even blog, but the implied threat could be a great addition to my parenting arsenal.)

If the school gave me a parent report card, I wouldn’t expect to see an A for effort . Sometimes, not even a B.

Just last week, I forgot for three days in a row that they both needed a boost in their lunch money accounts. For three days, they came home with a lunch stamp on the backs of their hands. And I still forgot. I wrote a note in big letters (Lunch Money!) and put it on my desk. And I still forgot. (They had enough to buy lunch those days, but the coffers were darn close to empty.)

I forgot sometimes to track down school library books, even though every Friday is library day. Every single Friday. No surprise. And I still forgot.

Sure, I kept the school machinery running well enough. Homework, worksheets, Wednesday envelopes, Friday folder, signed reading sheets, no tardies, clean socks, clean underwear, making sure everyone wore underwear (you’d be surprised at the rate of willingly going commando around here).

But I kept things running just well enough, some weeks.

One of the best parts about school, aside from learning (of course), is that sense of getting another chance to get it right. As a student, and for me as a parent. There’s a lot to be said for a clean slate. But there’s also something great about knowing the ropes, in knowing the routine and the expectations. Both are necessary to keep things moving smoothly along, at school and at home. And still, sometimes things get bumpy. I’m still learning.

This evening I drove past the school on my way home. There were just a couple of cars in the parking lot, and it looked like it will in a few weeks. Deserted. Full of waiting.

I could almost hear the daytime sounds that move through the air when school is in session. The laughter. The creak of swings. The whump of a classroom door closing. A voice over the P.A. system telling so-and-so to come to the office or to return to class. The breeze sending leaves skittering across the sidewalk when everyone is in class and the courtyard is quiet.

All of these sounds together make their own kind of music, and that music carries us forward into summer and into the next year. It’s a song I know, and one that my kids know now, and there’s safety and confidence in finding that I can hum along. I know they can, they know it so well, and it reassures me as much as it tears at my heart.

Still, the music is simple and uncomplicated. The notes are pure and clear.

We move on.

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I’m off to Girl’s class with a cupcake cake. The kids with summer birthday are each assigned a day in May to celebrate their birthday in class, and today is her day.

After that, I’m off to play poker. In the middle of the day. (gasp)

Mr. H will pick them up after school, and I will win the noon tournament. At least one of those things is true. (The way my luck is going, it won’t likely be both things.) Still, it’s an afternoon off for me!

Anyway, I will leave you with the trailer for the Sex and the City movie. It’s out in just two weeks, on May 30 (as if you girls didn’t know this). Is anyone else excited to see this?

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I know some of you have heard of the Uterine Tracking Device, or UTD. Last week, Mary Alice over at From the Frontlines posted about this device (it goes by a couple of names, including the Uterine Locating Device, as she called it). My sister Ducky clued me in on the name of this handy little gadget a year or two ago, and it was a huge relief to have a name for something that I’ve been using for years.

It may have several names, but it has one purpose.

To find things that men and children cannot. Or will not. (As is most often the case.) Socks. Shoes. Tiny little toys. A giant box of cereal. Things that have no invisible properties whatsoever. But it seems to take the superpowers of a grown woman to find them.

Yesterday, hours and hours into the heart of Mother’s Day (4:00 p.m., if you need specifics), I got a call from Mr. H. (The first call of the day from him. To be fair, he took an early flight from Indiana, and endured overbooking, a bump to another flight, and a long layover to get home.)

“I’m at the airport, and I need you to come meet me. I can’t find the Jeep, and I’ve been walking around for over an hour.”

Huh. If I hadn’t once lost my own car at O’Hare by going to the wrong corner of the lot, I would have had the privilege of mocking him for losing his car. For losing the bright yellow Jeep.

“Let me change clothes, and I’ll be right there.”

“Happy Mother’s Day.” Oh wait, he DID NOT say that.

On the way to the airport my phone rang.

“Go back home. It’s okay, I’ll find someone else to help me.”

“No, I’m almost there.” Like hell I’m going back home after dragging myself and the kids out of the house on Mother’s Day.

“Okay, then. I’m in the East Economy Lot. Call me when you get here.”

“Be there soon.”

“And Happy Mother’s Day.” Except, no, he didn’t say it then, either.

I arrived at the designated lot, and called him back. “We’re here. Want us to drive around and look for it?”

By this time, a parking lot attendant had shown mercy and was taking Mr. H on a row by row search for the Jeep. We were on and off the phone a few more times.

And within moments of my (and my UTD’s) arrival on scene, Mr. H found the Jeep! With no actual help from me, really. Apparently it’s just enough for one of these devices to show up on the radar. Presto! There it is.

After discussing what we should do next, and since the kids needed dinner, we decided to find a place to eat. (And I didn’t feel like cooking.)

Finally, after we had been seated at a table and ordered our food, then Mr. H said it.

“Well, happy Mother’s Day.”

“Oh, is that today?” I said brightly. I never said I wasn’t passive aggressive.

Did I mention that he gets full credit for flying across the country to arrive here on Mother’s Day? And for following up his Happy Mother’s Day with “You’re the heart of this family”? That was a great thing to hear, even though I had to wait for it.

The day had not been without its great moments. Girl and Boy started the day off with unrestrained excitement to give me the things they made for me at school. They had each written sweet things, penned in their 6 and 9 year old handwriting.

In Girl’s class they were asked to fill in the blank:

My mother looks prettiest when…pretty any time. (Awww.)

My favorite thing about my mother is…her hugs and kisses.

The best time I ever had with my mother was…when I was born.

I had to try very hard not to laugh when I read that. Or to cry at the memory of pushing for two hours, the last hour without the epidural. Good times.

But, then, there she was at the end of it, so maybe Girl is on to something.

In Boy’s class, they were asked to write a letter to their mothers. A few high points from his letter:

Your cooking is amazing, and my favorite meal you make are hot dogs. (Betty Crocker, watch out.)

You are always courteous to others.

Your book is really good.

You are good at teaching me poker. (Thank god his teacher didn’t read these…hot dogs and poker. Where’s my trophy?)

But the best part? I really appreciate you. Those are all the reasons I love you.

I love you, too, Boy.

And I’ll say this. Maybe that Uterine Tracking Device is good for more than finding lost socks and sneakers. Maybe, just maybe, if we’re lucky, we can find some really big, important things. Bigger than cars, even.

With mine, I found my family, so maybe I won’t mind so much next time when I’m called on to find the cereal.

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Yesterday afternoon, after discovering that in the month of April I earned exactly 1 cent from Google AdSense, I decided to investigate my ad options. Was there something more? better? brilliant? I could be doing to maybe earn 2 cents this month? Because by the end of the year, if I double my income every month, I could be earning $2.56/month! The bounty! The windfall!*

So I tweaked and expanded my ad options, settling in the end on some large image ads to run in the sidebar.

A while later, I was in front of my computer as usual and talking on the phone with my friend Ms. W.

Suddenly, I gasped. “NOooooooooooo!”

“What?” she asked.

There, right in my sweet, feminist sidebar was an ad for an international d*ting website. (I’m afraid to type the word, in case AdSense manages to find it and target my site again. For the record, it’s NOT doting, or duting, and not even diting or deting.)

I have a big problem with Google funneling ads like that to sites that haven’t asked for it. They definitely got that one wrong. All they have to do is troll my site and figure out that I’m only interested in runnings ads for hot cowboys or guys that look/sing/kiss like Gerard Butler. Research, people, research! (Girls and maybe even some of you guys, take note…I just saw Gerard Butler in P.S. I Love You. Hot damn. He carries the movie. Though it didn’t kill me to see Harry Connick, Jr.’s sweet face, or Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s ass . Not necessarily in that order.)

And, to be honest, I wouldn’t reject an ad that featured Angelina Jolie or maybe Jeri Ryan.)

Anyway, I apologize to anyone who saw the ad. I assure you that I selected no ad category that would line up at all with that kind of thing. I’m no prude, but it’s not the sort of service I envisioned promoting from this site. (Again, reference the above paragraphs for ad topics I DO support.)

So. You might be wondering why I don’t permanently remove my AdSense ads? I thought about it. But in the last month, that’s the first offensive ad (in my opinion) I’ve noticed, and I hope that I’ve managed to filter out more of the same in the future.

I went into my account and changed my ad format so that future ads would be selected from content on this site.

Satisfied that I had managed to slay the dragon, I reloaded my site and sat back to watch the show.

Want to guess one of the first ads to pop up on my liberal-leaning, Hilary Clinton- (or Barack Obama, when/if he takes the nomination-) supporting blog?

Yep, first thing, an ad for the Republican candidate, whose name I won’t print.

I did a search of my site. Never once have I mentioned his name. I have discussed the Presidential race, and the primaries, but I have never mentioned our Senator from Arizona. Nor would I ever want to run advertising for his campaign.

I can’t decide which ad was worse. So, my thanks to Google. Way to help me out, there.

Friends, I fear the dragon just slayed me.

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*If I’m violating some part of Google’s Terms and Conditions by revealing my ad revenue (cough), guess what? I don’t freaking care.

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This is my 100th time, and I’m nervous. It’s not as though I haven’t done this before, or that it doesn’t come naturally. (I have, and it does.)

It’s just that, well…it’s a special night, and I feel a lot of pressure to make it memorable. Exciting. Fun. Something I haven’t tried before. And as satisfying (and unsatisfying) as Crash’s “I believe” speech in Bull Durham. You know the one. (Don’t tell me you didn’t memorize it.)

Of course, at the end of that speech, Annie Savoy’s first response was just two words. Say it with me.

Oh, my.

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For the last couple of years, most of the time since we’ve lived here in Arizona, the highway department has been building a section of the freeway loop connecting us to the rest of the metro area. The project will be finished soon (soon is relative–think months and maybe a year or more). My kids have gotten to watch the progress of the building of the road, four lanes and an overpass, from the start.

It’s slow going, road building, and fascinating. Boy likes to observe the progress of the overpass, including the time when a large section collapsed (fortunately, not a section directly over the street). But the process intrigues me, too. It’s a lesson in patience, but there’s also a sense from week to week that things are moving along, if slowly.

On Facebook, I have exactly ten friends. Four of them are related to me–three sisters and one cousin. I check in from time to time to see what people have posted (but don’t really do much else with my account).

Last night I discovered that my sister C, who lives in Washington DC, had posted photos on her page from a going-away party for a friend. As I looked through the photos, there was a moment when I thought, “Wow, these people know my sister better than I do.”

I felt almost like I was standing outside the window of that party, looking in. Everyone smiling, laughing, taking photos, having drinks.

I felt sad and even a bit envious–for all the things that others know about her that I do not–and that sadness stayed with me all night. Then, this morning, I thought how ridiculous it is for me to just sit with that feeling and do nothing.

So I sent C an email, telling her what I just told you (except for the window part). I told her that I would like it if we could email more frequently, and get together sometime. That really, I just want it to be less true that all of those people know my sister better than I do. I don’t assume that it will be easy to get to know each other. Maybe it will. But as I said to her, I know at this point in our lives that getting to know each other is a long road, and that it is made harder by the time and distance that road has to cover.

(Why does it seem that everything in my life can be scrubbed down to the metaphor of a road?)

This may take some time. We have a lot of years to cover. Maybe we’ll sit down one day and the conversation will just flow, or maybe it won’t, and we’ll feel like it’s more work than we anticipated. Either way, I hope we’ll stay with it and give it the time a relationship with a sister deserves. Just a friendship, even. We’re sisters, yes, but of the long-lost sort. And this isn’t a movie with a tidy ending. It’s just messy, messy life, and there’s no map for this sort of thing. A thousand roads can lead to the same place.

Anyway, at this stage of things, it feels more like a beginning, like driving on a new road that has just opened for the first time. One that took a long time to build and even collapsed a time or two. The surface might be smooth and the view wide open, but without a map, who knows where we’ll end up.

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So I open my inbox, and there’s an(other) email from Build-a-Bear Workshop, courtesy of my 6-year-old girl’s gushing admiration for their stores and their products. From time to time she likes to play games on their website, which requires an email address and sign-up by a sucker parent.

So now, along with the other (grown-up) email subscriptions I maintain–including the New York Times, Poets & Writers, The Writer’s Almanac, Dear Prudence, Salon, etc.–I now receive periodic updates from Build-a-Bear Workshop.

But here’s the kicker…take a look:

Really? Is that what moms across the country are hoping to receive on Mother’s Day? A stuffed bear? In clothes? I would love to see the market research to back up that campaign. And then I would like to have a long sit-down with the moms who indicated, “Yes, I’d love love love it if my husband and children gave me a stuffed bear/cat/panda dressed in a tutu or maybe biker chaps for Mother’s Day!”

We have a lot to discuss.

To be fair, if that’s what those moms want for Mother’s Day, they are completely within their rights to ask for it. Because anyone who is a mother sure as hell deserves one day of getting whatever she wants. (Even if it is an over-commercialized money-trap of a holiday.)

But why muddy the water for the rest of us, and for all the poor husbands who now might, just might, think it’s a great gift idea? (Gentlemen, pay close attention. Unless your wife/significant other/mother of your children expressly and quite specifically says “I WANT A TEDDY BEAR,” do not give her a teddy bear for Mother’s Day. Or her birthday. Or Christmas. Or EVER. You get my drift.

Psst…also? She doesn’t want a teddy either. In case you missed that bulletin.

Here’s what I really want for Mother’s Day. A late morning in bed (no early alarm telling me it’s time to get up to take the kids to church), a couple of sweet cards and a hug from my kids and Mr. H, coffee (at my desk), and the rest of the day free to go play poker or to see two or three movies. (If anyone wants to go all out, I wouldn’t complain about a freshly washed car and a full tank of gas.)

Oh, and no cooking. Pretend you’ll notice a difference (hey, it’s my day, my way).

And for the Build-a-Bear marketing geniuses? You might wanna consider knocking my demographic off your next campaign.

Unless, of course, you want to give me a coupon for a tank of gas.

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There’s another live version I like even better than this one, but I couldn’t find it online. I love Jack Ingram.

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You Will Hear Thunder

You will hear thunder and remember me,
And think: she wanted storms. The rim
Of the sky will be the colour of hard crimson,
And your heart, as it was then, will be on fire.

That day in Moscow, it will all come true,
when, for the last time, I take my leave,
And hasten to the heights that I have longed for,
Leaving my shadow still to be with you.

Anna Akhmatova

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Boy telling me this morning in the car line at school: “You’re the best mommy a kid could ever have.”

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*You’d be asleep right now if I actually used Twitter. Am I the only one who doesn’t get the appeal of it?

For anyone who’s wondering (as I sort of am), according to Twitter.com, “Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?”

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The road was paved and marbled with cracks and patched potholes, like many farm roads. The edges crumbled and fell away in chunks of asphalt. The blacktop road, we called it, though it was really closer to gray.

On its way south, the road caught the end of our long driveway, making a T of our drive. Across from our driveway, there was a field, fenced in and usually fallow. And in one corner of the T, there was a small and spooky cemetery. It was easily forgotten until I waited to board the school bus or, like that day, when I turned toward the river and it was on my left, its old and weathered headstones shadowed by the spruce trees that rose up among them.

On this day, just ten minutes before, I had done something that until then I had never ventured. I asked Sue if it would be all right for me to take a walk down to another cemetery a mile or so away, the one where her father (my step-grandfather), was buried. It was a lie, my request. I knew she was more likely to give her permission if I declared the cemetery as my destination instead of the river, which was another quarter of a mile past it.

I had learned to lie years before, to protect myself and my siblings, but this lie was significant because I was mature enough to look down through a scope and aim for a tender place. As I knew she would be, Sue was touched that I wanted to visit her father’s grave. I think she even hugged me.

It was a magnificent lie.

I was 16 or 17, I think, and this would be my first walk alone beyond the end of our driveway. We had walked down to the river as a family before, but this was a brand of independence that I had never tested. Would she have said yes, had I asked earlier, at 14 or 15? Who knows. I doubt it. But she had loved her father more than anyone, I think, and was devastated by his death. On the day of his funeral, she spent a good part of the day throwing up, though she may have been drunk, a possibility that was startling to me (given the strict religious atmosphere of our house) when I overheard her two sisters speculating on it.

I had loved him, too, and missed the time we spent together when I was younger, hanging out with him in his workshop where he made birdhouses and shelled the walnuts that we collected together from the side of the road. None of this stopped me from trading on his memory. Self-preservation is a powerful force, stronger at times than love or memory, even. I regret the lie, but I don’t regret what it accomplished. I tell myself that this distinction is possible.

And there’s this. It didn’t occur to me until I was much older to consider how Sue’s parents had shaped the person she became. A lot of her history is still unknown, more and more of it lost as people die or forget or choose not to remember. Or to tell.

That walk was exhilarating. It wasn’t for exercise–which seems to be the only reason I take walks these days, with a bottle of water in hand and a step counter attached to my waist. This walk was pure. It was escape. It was my feet taking some of their first unwatched, unchoreographed steps. It was freedom, different from my time at school, out of her watch, or on overnight school camping trips. Those activities were sanctioned, with permission slips and supervision.

Yes, this one had required permission, too. But I had purchased her approval with a lie, which by that time I saw as fair trade. It was familiar currency in our house–only this time I dictated the terms of the transaction.

That walk was my first lesson in something else. On that day–as I walked over one hill and then the next, down the long slope to the stop sign, as I turned east and passed the cemetery on my right, as I dangled my feet over the edge of the slab across the Finley River–I accomplished something important, pivotal even, though I didn’t know it just then.

It would be a few more years before I would use the truth with even more force, toward a purpose that should have come much sooner and at the hands of responsible adults.

But on that day, with one lie and two miles worth of steps, I began to learn that I had the power to leave.

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