My daughter has not cared about a single princess in the six years she has been on this Earth. I remember when she was about eight months old I bought her Disney Princess sippy cups. She didn’t touch them. The only time she was slightly interested in a princess was Fiona the Ogre from Shrek. Lovely. We own three princess DVDs, and they have been ignored in order for us to get our fill of the Imagination Movers. I get all kinds of protests if I suggest we watch one.
Cinderella and all her princess buddies get more mud thrown at them than a politician. I myself am guilty of this. She cleans and cooks for the sisters and the only goal is to have this big beautiful wedding and live happily ever after while everyone cries that they aren’t her? I wanted to teach my daughter not to be a “princess.” She would be a strong, intelligent, independent woman. Then she didn’t develop in the normal way. I told myself that I would be a good mom, and that I wouldn’t “expect” anything. I knew not to have high expectations before I brought her home from the hospital. I was in therapy and self-help groups growing up and I knew better. It was the little things that got me. I expected that my daughter would walk and talk, and it didn’t happen. Were my expectations too high when my 18 month old was still crawling? I didn’t know; she was my first.
About a month ago, we were going for a long drive in the car and the only DVD I could reach quickly was Cinderella. Cinderella is pretty tame. No dragons, no sharks, and no beasts being attacked by wolves. Nobody's mama is shot by a hunter. You only have to deal with a dysfunctional family, kind of pre-Harry Potter if you think about, just a nasty step-mother doting on two ugly daughters and forcing the beautiful worthy one to do their bidding. The minute I started the video the older two threw a fit, but I told them it was that or actually just stare out the windows like I had to do when I was their age. About twenty minutes into it the baby starts cracking up. I mean the kid was cackling over the mice. There is nothing more adorable than a toddler's belly laugh. Then I started laughing and the other two children start laughing, and then they loved Cinderella.
With the discovery of Cinderella, her girly girl side took over with a vengeance. She had to have the gowns and the shoes, she had to have the backpack, she wanted the dolls and she started brushing her hair. She chases her brothers around the house begging them to dance with her or help her try shoes on to see if they fit. Kenneth can fight her off but Lowell gets dragged around the playroom.
I guess I should be glad it’s Cinderella and not a different princess. Cinderella isn’t perfect, she managed to lose a shoe at a dance, I lose my keys and my glasses three times a day. Now we line up the Barbies and the Cinderella doll for “snack time,” and Kenneth the know-it-all yells at his sister that it must be tea.
Cinderella can be viewed as a girl cleaning and being a slave to her sisters and then just becoming a “slave” to a man. I don’t watch it that way now. Cinderella has given me some wonderful lessons the last few weeks. She has also helped me remember things I already knew. The first one, she “Stuck it to the bitches.” She didn’t fight or scream or make a fool out of herself. She played it cool and everyone got what they deserved in the end. The second? That magic doesn’t last forever. I remember little things, like when Frances finally walked, but then I had to get her to run. I remember two nights before Kenneth was born, she asked for “Barney” and Kevin wanted to run out and buy up every Barney in the store. Magic happens a little every day, and like Cinderella says to the Fairy Godmother, even until midnight is more than she could have asked for. In your time of need, the right people and the right things will come to you when you need them. It also gives a new spin to the idea of, “He’s just not that into you.” If that prince had his people take the shoe out and make every girl in town try it on, he definitely wanted to find her. My husband would have sold it on Ebay.
So now we have moved on to the Disney Princesses in all their glory, glamor, and commercialism. I did plan to raise my daughter on Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Ani DiFranco. But now, after six years of waiting for a little girl to come out, I’ll let her do it just a little longer. I am just not ready to squash it out of her yet. She can always figure out that monarchies have no real power later…..
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
The Grocery Store Diaries 4
The Grocery Store Diaries 4: When you have extra people with you
Dirty Looks: 3 in the parking lot, one in the meat section
You’ve got your hands full: o
Damage: None that I know of, but it is kind of like watching Hagrid’s three headed dog Fluffy at times.
Daddy went with us on Sunday after our weekly trip to Moe’s. That means that all three of them had a Moe’s balloon. Of course none of them wanted to give up the balloon and leave it in the car, so they carry them in the parking lot. Frances loses her balloon immediately and runs after it, in the rain, in the grocery store parking lot. Daddy runs after her while the boys start squirming to get away from me and follow dad.
Fortunately the Race Car cart is available so there is no crying about the unavailability of the cart. But there is a HUGE fight between the older two about who is going to push the cart, mom or dad. They finally decided they would let me push the cart like “normal days.” Thanks guys. They all agree to a seat when I hear the first “POP!” one balloon down, two to go. (Note: the toddler is under close supervision the entire time he has his own balloon, don’t email me.)
The older two sense a disturbance in the mommy force since daddy is with us, look at me with a wicked grin, and take off running. One insists we need cookies, the other one popsicles, and both boxes go in our normally fruit and vegetable filled cart (yeah right). In the mean time, the little one screams to eat everything as it goes in. I swear he can say “NOW!” This continues as they alternate between perfect angels sitting in the car cart and running around begging for junk they normally don’t get immediately.
The weirdest part was in the meat area, this woman was taking her time going through the chicken and staring at it like it was going to fly south for the winter. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it made me think I should look closer before I throw the antibiotic free organic chicken in my cart. Then I remembered I had three kids hanging on me and I didn’t have time to do anything other than trust that the grocery store was selling me good poultry.
Of course with another adult, check out is smooth and loading the car in the rain is easier. Father of the year just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Grrrrr
Today I picked my babysitter up from our old neighborhood, and before I drove home to the new neighborhood, I asked her if she would sit in the car with the kids while I ran in to the store and grabbed a few things. I had three on my list. She said sure no problem. I ran in and grabbed a basket. I was hunting for three things, but as I went around I kept throwing things in that I knew I needed. By the time I got to the check out, I was weighted down by the basket of “three things,” and had a case of diet coke in the other hand. I hobbled with all of it back to the parking lot. They looked at me like I was crazy, but it was a really quick trip and worth the upper arm workout.
It’s always fun to go to the store with other people…..
Dirty Looks: 3 in the parking lot, one in the meat section
You’ve got your hands full: o
Damage: None that I know of, but it is kind of like watching Hagrid’s three headed dog Fluffy at times.
Daddy went with us on Sunday after our weekly trip to Moe’s. That means that all three of them had a Moe’s balloon. Of course none of them wanted to give up the balloon and leave it in the car, so they carry them in the parking lot. Frances loses her balloon immediately and runs after it, in the rain, in the grocery store parking lot. Daddy runs after her while the boys start squirming to get away from me and follow dad.
Fortunately the Race Car cart is available so there is no crying about the unavailability of the cart. But there is a HUGE fight between the older two about who is going to push the cart, mom or dad. They finally decided they would let me push the cart like “normal days.” Thanks guys. They all agree to a seat when I hear the first “POP!” one balloon down, two to go. (Note: the toddler is under close supervision the entire time he has his own balloon, don’t email me.)
The older two sense a disturbance in the mommy force since daddy is with us, look at me with a wicked grin, and take off running. One insists we need cookies, the other one popsicles, and both boxes go in our normally fruit and vegetable filled cart (yeah right). In the mean time, the little one screams to eat everything as it goes in. I swear he can say “NOW!” This continues as they alternate between perfect angels sitting in the car cart and running around begging for junk they normally don’t get immediately.
The weirdest part was in the meat area, this woman was taking her time going through the chicken and staring at it like it was going to fly south for the winter. I’m not sure what she was looking for, but it made me think I should look closer before I throw the antibiotic free organic chicken in my cart. Then I remembered I had three kids hanging on me and I didn’t have time to do anything other than trust that the grocery store was selling me good poultry.
Of course with another adult, check out is smooth and loading the car in the rain is easier. Father of the year just doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about. Grrrrr
Today I picked my babysitter up from our old neighborhood, and before I drove home to the new neighborhood, I asked her if she would sit in the car with the kids while I ran in to the store and grabbed a few things. I had three on my list. She said sure no problem. I ran in and grabbed a basket. I was hunting for three things, but as I went around I kept throwing things in that I knew I needed. By the time I got to the check out, I was weighted down by the basket of “three things,” and had a case of diet coke in the other hand. I hobbled with all of it back to the parking lot. They looked at me like I was crazy, but it was a really quick trip and worth the upper arm workout.
It’s always fun to go to the store with other people…..
Monday, October 19, 2009
Southern in the North Part 3
Part 3: I am actually living here-the present
I was a Spanish major, and I read a lot of Spanish literature. One of the famous old Spanish men you are forced to read is Miguel de Unamuno. He believed in something called “Intrahistoria.” That is history of the average person going about their daily life. It didn’t matter about who was president or what war was being fought. He tried to write about a day in a regular person’s life. I actually really enjoyed this one novel of his about a Catholic Priest who didn’t believe a word of what he was saying but wanted to keep his parishioners happy, but that isn’t the point right now. What is the point is that I am going to finish this three part series on how my daily life is different now. Nobody wants to read another exposé on how the weddings in the North go on for hours and hours starting with a sit down dinner and how in the south our bridesmaids wear hats and gloves with a buffet line centered on a punch bowl that matches everybody’s pastel shoes. Nor am I going to discuss politics. Google election maps if you are interested, except for Reagan in 1984.
Let’s get this out of the way, the weather. I got here last October, and it was already cold. It was already like coat and mittens and hat cold. I don’t think I had anything for the baby that fit. It snows a lot, every time I turn around it is snowing. When it snows, they close school. Then, the minute it stops, all the snow plow machines are out and it is all gone. I can even take thirty bucks down to the local bar and this guy named Josh will come plow my driveway. I have seen more snow here in a year than I ever saw over thirty years in NC, but I have seen plow machines and trucks that I never knew existed too. As far as it being “cold” goes, the buildings are heated and people have sweaters. Again with the living in Cary, but now I know why so many of my students were still wearing shorts in January. I go home and want to wear shorts in January now. When I did go home, there was a sign that said, “Heat kills pets” in a parking lot. Up here, it is perfectly acceptable to leave your dog in your car; it would never get so hot that an animal would be in danger, except maybe for one week in August. What I am trying to say is that at this point in my life, I will take the cold over the sweltering heat and humidity any day. I can always put on more layers; I’m getting too old to walk around naked.
Tip O’Neal used to say “Politics is local.” Up here, everything seems to be local. No one drives across the county for school; everyone goes to their neighborhood school. The schools are run by each town instead of the county. In Cary, the carpool lines and buses were quite an ordeal. Here you go in and sign your child out if you are picking them up and it takes less than ten minutes. I can call the district office if my daughter’ s bus is late and they will know which route it is and who the driver is just off the top of their head. The principal seems to know the families well and he calls me personally to set up IEP meetings (sidebar: I have finally quit cringing like he is going to yell at me). Classes are smaller, and kids still get to have a Halloween parade (my daughter refuses to do it, but the option is there). You see the same families everywhere: on the town green, in the library, at the playground and beach, and at gymnastics. A week after we moved here I was out on the green with the kids and this woman said to me, “You must be the professor’s wife in the brick ranch?” How could they know that so quickly? Could it have been the southern accent and the buck wild kids?
Before I moved to Connecticut, I had never heard the expression, “It is what it is.” They say that a lot up here. “It is what it is.” If you hate your job, it is what it is. The price of gas? It is what it is. This could be taken a couple of different ways. One way could be defeat, or a kind of “Screw it” attitude. I kind of think they mean this is not a battle that deserves a fight, so there is a level of acceptance to it. Again, why get too terribly upset if there is nothing you can do about it? That doesn’t mean that when it is time to fight, you don’t have at it. You most certainly do, but you don’t waste time, energy, and emotions on something that is out of your control. As a southerner I have hard time with deciding when something is what it is, but I’m getting there. (Note: My BFF in Richmond, Virginia says that “It is what it is” is said in Richmond, but I have never heard her or anyone else say it before I moved here).
Houses have a basement, which is pretty cool. The only house I know of in NC with a basement is my grandparent’s. I’m getting used to oil to heat the house, although when I first moved here I was looking for a gas company in the yellow pages before my husband told me not to set up an account because the house needed oil. And the dirt is full of rocks. My baby hated to wear shoes at first but he was always stubbing his toes, so now he wears sturdy shoes. You can’t dig without hitting a rock, and a lot of houses have walls of rock surrounding them. This explains Owen Meany’s parents and their rock quarry. I also have numerous orchards in this area and the surrounding ones, which explains how Homer Wells found a job in one. John Irving turned out to be a great place to start.
The minute it is pretty, everyone is outside. Not a single day of beautiful weather is wasted. It can get a little boring every now and then if you have had enough of nature, but I can hop on a train and be in Grand Central in less than two hours. Then I can wander the streets of Manhattan and get my fill of noise and people and sky scrapers and go home rejuvenated. A lot of those kids I grew up with in Greensboro are living in New York. What is it about that place that made us move here?
I went to a Southern Baptist wedding once. The preacher talked about how the Lord had been preparing the Bride to be the Groom’s wife, and how he had done the same for the Groom to become a good husband. Huh, nobody said that at my Episcopalian wedding. BUT-I think when I look back at Parts 1 and 2, God, the Force, the Pagan Willow Tree spirit, or somebody else was preparing me to move north. I have made really good friends up here and we hang out and complain and enjoy just as much as I did with my mommy buddies in NC. And I’ll say this, where women are present, there are going to be, um, differences, no matter what part of the country they are in. If I had stayed home, I never would have written a thing, ever. Who knew I would have so much to say? Even though I will always support the Steelers and the nearest Chick Fila is in the Philadelphia airport, here I am, and here I will stay. I think they like me….
I was a Spanish major, and I read a lot of Spanish literature. One of the famous old Spanish men you are forced to read is Miguel de Unamuno. He believed in something called “Intrahistoria.” That is history of the average person going about their daily life. It didn’t matter about who was president or what war was being fought. He tried to write about a day in a regular person’s life. I actually really enjoyed this one novel of his about a Catholic Priest who didn’t believe a word of what he was saying but wanted to keep his parishioners happy, but that isn’t the point right now. What is the point is that I am going to finish this three part series on how my daily life is different now. Nobody wants to read another exposé on how the weddings in the North go on for hours and hours starting with a sit down dinner and how in the south our bridesmaids wear hats and gloves with a buffet line centered on a punch bowl that matches everybody’s pastel shoes. Nor am I going to discuss politics. Google election maps if you are interested, except for Reagan in 1984.
Let’s get this out of the way, the weather. I got here last October, and it was already cold. It was already like coat and mittens and hat cold. I don’t think I had anything for the baby that fit. It snows a lot, every time I turn around it is snowing. When it snows, they close school. Then, the minute it stops, all the snow plow machines are out and it is all gone. I can even take thirty bucks down to the local bar and this guy named Josh will come plow my driveway. I have seen more snow here in a year than I ever saw over thirty years in NC, but I have seen plow machines and trucks that I never knew existed too. As far as it being “cold” goes, the buildings are heated and people have sweaters. Again with the living in Cary, but now I know why so many of my students were still wearing shorts in January. I go home and want to wear shorts in January now. When I did go home, there was a sign that said, “Heat kills pets” in a parking lot. Up here, it is perfectly acceptable to leave your dog in your car; it would never get so hot that an animal would be in danger, except maybe for one week in August. What I am trying to say is that at this point in my life, I will take the cold over the sweltering heat and humidity any day. I can always put on more layers; I’m getting too old to walk around naked.
Tip O’Neal used to say “Politics is local.” Up here, everything seems to be local. No one drives across the county for school; everyone goes to their neighborhood school. The schools are run by each town instead of the county. In Cary, the carpool lines and buses were quite an ordeal. Here you go in and sign your child out if you are picking them up and it takes less than ten minutes. I can call the district office if my daughter’ s bus is late and they will know which route it is and who the driver is just off the top of their head. The principal seems to know the families well and he calls me personally to set up IEP meetings (sidebar: I have finally quit cringing like he is going to yell at me). Classes are smaller, and kids still get to have a Halloween parade (my daughter refuses to do it, but the option is there). You see the same families everywhere: on the town green, in the library, at the playground and beach, and at gymnastics. A week after we moved here I was out on the green with the kids and this woman said to me, “You must be the professor’s wife in the brick ranch?” How could they know that so quickly? Could it have been the southern accent and the buck wild kids?
Before I moved to Connecticut, I had never heard the expression, “It is what it is.” They say that a lot up here. “It is what it is.” If you hate your job, it is what it is. The price of gas? It is what it is. This could be taken a couple of different ways. One way could be defeat, or a kind of “Screw it” attitude. I kind of think they mean this is not a battle that deserves a fight, so there is a level of acceptance to it. Again, why get too terribly upset if there is nothing you can do about it? That doesn’t mean that when it is time to fight, you don’t have at it. You most certainly do, but you don’t waste time, energy, and emotions on something that is out of your control. As a southerner I have hard time with deciding when something is what it is, but I’m getting there. (Note: My BFF in Richmond, Virginia says that “It is what it is” is said in Richmond, but I have never heard her or anyone else say it before I moved here).
Houses have a basement, which is pretty cool. The only house I know of in NC with a basement is my grandparent’s. I’m getting used to oil to heat the house, although when I first moved here I was looking for a gas company in the yellow pages before my husband told me not to set up an account because the house needed oil. And the dirt is full of rocks. My baby hated to wear shoes at first but he was always stubbing his toes, so now he wears sturdy shoes. You can’t dig without hitting a rock, and a lot of houses have walls of rock surrounding them. This explains Owen Meany’s parents and their rock quarry. I also have numerous orchards in this area and the surrounding ones, which explains how Homer Wells found a job in one. John Irving turned out to be a great place to start.
The minute it is pretty, everyone is outside. Not a single day of beautiful weather is wasted. It can get a little boring every now and then if you have had enough of nature, but I can hop on a train and be in Grand Central in less than two hours. Then I can wander the streets of Manhattan and get my fill of noise and people and sky scrapers and go home rejuvenated. A lot of those kids I grew up with in Greensboro are living in New York. What is it about that place that made us move here?
I went to a Southern Baptist wedding once. The preacher talked about how the Lord had been preparing the Bride to be the Groom’s wife, and how he had done the same for the Groom to become a good husband. Huh, nobody said that at my Episcopalian wedding. BUT-I think when I look back at Parts 1 and 2, God, the Force, the Pagan Willow Tree spirit, or somebody else was preparing me to move north. I have made really good friends up here and we hang out and complain and enjoy just as much as I did with my mommy buddies in NC. And I’ll say this, where women are present, there are going to be, um, differences, no matter what part of the country they are in. If I had stayed home, I never would have written a thing, ever. Who knew I would have so much to say? Even though I will always support the Steelers and the nearest Chick Fila is in the Philadelphia airport, here I am, and here I will stay. I think they like me….
Friday, October 16, 2009
Southern in the North Part 2
Moving from the north to the south Part 2: Living and working in Cary, NC
1997-2007
All right, so I graduated from Meredith, and unlike some southern schools, the population as far as I can remember was more southern girls than northern girls. I landed a job at an elementary school in Cary, NC, and I was told by the foreign language coordinator at the time that I was “Very lucky to get a position in Cary as a first year teacher.” I kind of frowned when he said that. I was semi-born in Cary. In the 70s it was a tiny little town with a tiny little Episcopal church. My parents chose to live there because it was dirt cheap. The Cary of my toddler hood was not the Cary I worked in twenty three years later.
The first day the other language teachers welcomed me and showed me the ropes. I remember telling one of them that I lived in Cary as a toddler/preschooler but I grew up in Greensboro and hadn’t really lived anywhere else. They laughed that C.A.R.Y. had become an acronym for Central Area for Relocated Yankees. I still didn’t know what they were talking about. Then I got into the groove of the school. My boss was a Yankee. A lot of my colleagues were Yankees. The majority of the students were Yankees. I might as well have already moved to Connecticut. They laughed when school was cancelled for half an inch of slush. They followed the Boston Red Sox. I taught with a lot of people who had, “rented a u-haul and driven down to get a job,” because it was a lot easier to get one in NC than it was in the iron fisted union north.
Some people say that northerners are “blunt.” I found that to be true, but I liked it. Let me give you an example with something simple, like the hole-puncher. Some of the teachers required all the kids in their class to have a three ring binder. But I wasn’t punching holes in my worksheets. A southern teacher would have just bitched about the new teacher who didn’t bother to punch holes, then smile when I walked by. Then for all the years we worked together, that woman would be mad I didn’t punch holes. However, a teacher from the north would just say, “Hey, can you punch holes in their worksheets?” Then I would say sure and start doing it, and then there were no hard feelings over something that wasn’t that big of a deal in the great meaning of life anyway. Of course, the next year I just had each kid bring a pocket folder for my class so I didn’t have to worry about it. And thirteen years later I am teaching online, so no one has to punch holes in anything.
The parents were interesting. The moms that volunteered worked really hard. I mean they were determined work horses. If you asked them to cut paper, they cut paper. If you asked them to color a poster, it wasn’t out of the lines. They could dry wall and make Christmas cupcakes with reindeer pretzels on them from scratch for a class of thirty (this was before such things were banned). One parent was supposedly “difficult” or didn’t want to “hear it” about her child. A teacher who had him in her class said, “Well, she is just VERY Manhattan, but I’m VERY Boston, so I can handle her.” I didn’t have a problem with her either really, I just told her he was talking too much and she told him to “SHUT UP DURING SPANISH!” There you go.
My Yankee boss, well, um, she was very by the book. I will say that she never did or said a single thing she didn’t have the right as the boss to do. I remember one time, I was standing in the school lobby and I could see out the front windows, and some guy was honking like a maniac at a woman trying to walk across the street. I said to no one in particular (I was talking to myself, all right? Just call me Smeagol/Gollum) “We don’t honk our horns in the south!” She was standing right behind me. I waited for the fall out, but she just sort of smiled, shook her head, and walked back to her office. To this day I don’t know how I got away with that.
By being in Cary, I learned where everything was in the north. I didn’t realize it was all so “close.” I finally knew that Raymond and his family were on Long Island. Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and The City, and Mad About You were all in New York. I was getting it. The Sopranos were in New Jersey but it didn’t take Meadow long to get to Columbia in the city. Ally McBeal was Boston, as was The Practice, and Fenway Park is there too. That was the same time I was watching and loving Good Will Hunting, where the last place I ever wanted to visit was South Boston. I learned about block parties. That is when everyone pulls all of their grills and chairs and coolers out in the driveways and the kids run wild everywhere and everyone is out and about eating and drinking. So that is what was going on in Pushing Tin. My neighbors from New York tried to get this going, and it worked a little, but she said it was nothing like it was at home. My students who went to New Jersey to visit grandparents always complained that “95 sucks.” They were telling the truth.
My colleagues from the north talked with finality. They knew their stuff and they believed their beliefs. They also enjoyed good meals and good drinks, but they didn’t seem to get sloshed. They talked a lot about how it was better in the south. Things were cheaper and the weather was nicer. A couple of them rarely went home, a lot of them went back every summer, but wouldn’t go for Christmas. When Kevin was offered the job, people said, “Why would you move there when we are all moving here?” Indeed….
(end of part 2)
1997-2007
All right, so I graduated from Meredith, and unlike some southern schools, the population as far as I can remember was more southern girls than northern girls. I landed a job at an elementary school in Cary, NC, and I was told by the foreign language coordinator at the time that I was “Very lucky to get a position in Cary as a first year teacher.” I kind of frowned when he said that. I was semi-born in Cary. In the 70s it was a tiny little town with a tiny little Episcopal church. My parents chose to live there because it was dirt cheap. The Cary of my toddler hood was not the Cary I worked in twenty three years later.
The first day the other language teachers welcomed me and showed me the ropes. I remember telling one of them that I lived in Cary as a toddler/preschooler but I grew up in Greensboro and hadn’t really lived anywhere else. They laughed that C.A.R.Y. had become an acronym for Central Area for Relocated Yankees. I still didn’t know what they were talking about. Then I got into the groove of the school. My boss was a Yankee. A lot of my colleagues were Yankees. The majority of the students were Yankees. I might as well have already moved to Connecticut. They laughed when school was cancelled for half an inch of slush. They followed the Boston Red Sox. I taught with a lot of people who had, “rented a u-haul and driven down to get a job,” because it was a lot easier to get one in NC than it was in the iron fisted union north.
Some people say that northerners are “blunt.” I found that to be true, but I liked it. Let me give you an example with something simple, like the hole-puncher. Some of the teachers required all the kids in their class to have a three ring binder. But I wasn’t punching holes in my worksheets. A southern teacher would have just bitched about the new teacher who didn’t bother to punch holes, then smile when I walked by. Then for all the years we worked together, that woman would be mad I didn’t punch holes. However, a teacher from the north would just say, “Hey, can you punch holes in their worksheets?” Then I would say sure and start doing it, and then there were no hard feelings over something that wasn’t that big of a deal in the great meaning of life anyway. Of course, the next year I just had each kid bring a pocket folder for my class so I didn’t have to worry about it. And thirteen years later I am teaching online, so no one has to punch holes in anything.
The parents were interesting. The moms that volunteered worked really hard. I mean they were determined work horses. If you asked them to cut paper, they cut paper. If you asked them to color a poster, it wasn’t out of the lines. They could dry wall and make Christmas cupcakes with reindeer pretzels on them from scratch for a class of thirty (this was before such things were banned). One parent was supposedly “difficult” or didn’t want to “hear it” about her child. A teacher who had him in her class said, “Well, she is just VERY Manhattan, but I’m VERY Boston, so I can handle her.” I didn’t have a problem with her either really, I just told her he was talking too much and she told him to “SHUT UP DURING SPANISH!” There you go.
My Yankee boss, well, um, she was very by the book. I will say that she never did or said a single thing she didn’t have the right as the boss to do. I remember one time, I was standing in the school lobby and I could see out the front windows, and some guy was honking like a maniac at a woman trying to walk across the street. I said to no one in particular (I was talking to myself, all right? Just call me Smeagol/Gollum) “We don’t honk our horns in the south!” She was standing right behind me. I waited for the fall out, but she just sort of smiled, shook her head, and walked back to her office. To this day I don’t know how I got away with that.
By being in Cary, I learned where everything was in the north. I didn’t realize it was all so “close.” I finally knew that Raymond and his family were on Long Island. Seinfeld, Friends, Sex and The City, and Mad About You were all in New York. I was getting it. The Sopranos were in New Jersey but it didn’t take Meadow long to get to Columbia in the city. Ally McBeal was Boston, as was The Practice, and Fenway Park is there too. That was the same time I was watching and loving Good Will Hunting, where the last place I ever wanted to visit was South Boston. I learned about block parties. That is when everyone pulls all of their grills and chairs and coolers out in the driveways and the kids run wild everywhere and everyone is out and about eating and drinking. So that is what was going on in Pushing Tin. My neighbors from New York tried to get this going, and it worked a little, but she said it was nothing like it was at home. My students who went to New Jersey to visit grandparents always complained that “95 sucks.” They were telling the truth.
My colleagues from the north talked with finality. They knew their stuff and they believed their beliefs. They also enjoyed good meals and good drinks, but they didn’t seem to get sloshed. They talked a lot about how it was better in the south. Things were cheaper and the weather was nicer. A couple of them rarely went home, a lot of them went back every summer, but wouldn’t go for Christmas. When Kevin was offered the job, people said, “Why would you move there when we are all moving here?” Indeed….
(end of part 2)
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Southern in the North Part 1
“What’s it like to live your whole life in the south and move to the north?” I keep getting this question and I have been afraid to blog about it because I just have this feeling that someone will get offended or get their feelings hurt. If I say I love living up here everyone at home will go off and if I say I want to go home everyone around here will go off. Then I decided people are people and they want to go off anyway over anything, so I would just go ahead and do it. How The Mommy Quack went from North Carolina to the north. I have thought about this long and hard, and it will be divided into three separate posts, parts 1, 2, and 3. Today, you get part 1. Enjoy!
Part 1: My roots and my early images of the north, Birth-1997
I grew up in the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. It is the third largest city in the state. It is famous for the February 1st Woolworth sit-ins, and probably other things I don’t have time to Google. I was obsessed with Study abroad when I got to college, but I never once thought about leaving the south other than that. I wanted to get to Raleigh, the capital. I knew I would go to school there and I planned to stay there. Don’t know why now, but I did. I moved to Greensboro in the second grade and I stayed, my parents were from the area and all my grandparents were there. I grew up with the same kids from second grade until we graduated. There were very few changes in the group. Everybody knew somebody else somehow, that’s the way I remember it anyway. I knew very few people from “The north.” If they were from the north, they had been in the south a long time.
When I thought of the north, my first vision was Gone with the Wind. I have only seen it once and that was when I was in Kindergarten and I remember Scarlet, I think it was Scarlet, throwing dirt in a “Yankees” face. That must have meant they weren’t nice people. I have not seen that movie since, and I probably should. I also thought, as a five year old, that “Yankees” were going to burn my house down. My parents should have explained that one, but then again, they also let me stay up for Dallas, so what would be wrong with Gone with the Wind?
I went to high school with a girl who told me that John Irving was the only contemporary author worth anything. I naturally had to keep up with her and read all of his books. These gave me my second round of northern images. The boys were on the wrestling teams. The characters were funny, but it wasn’t slapstick, ha ha funny. It was dry, ironic humor. They were opened minded and they explained that there was more than one way to view a problem. Garp’s mom was a single working mom and her best friend was a transsexual. That didn’t happen in Greensboro. In the north they had granite quarries and orchards for cider houses. They never seemed to complain about the heat and they were always jumping into bed with each other. It was always cold and everybody could drive in the snow. To this day, almost twenty years later, I still remember reading The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Irving made me want to go to a prep school in Massachusetts. I would have cut my tongue out for Ellen James. Well no, probably not.
In college, the next “Yankee” I was introduced to was Kevin Smith. I love that man. I really, really love his work. I will even admit to a giggle during Mallrats, OK? I’m surprised I wasn’t kicked out of the theater for laughing so hard during Clerks. So everyone in New Jersey smokes, cusses, and watches hockey. Got it. And again, the humor was more my speed. Chasing Amy defines our generation in a lot of different ways, but I digress.
I made real northern friends the two times I studied abroad. The first time in Ecuador, I was taking this class, and I met Ecuadorians absolutely, but there were two girls from Brooklyn that were there too, Lisa and Michelle. I don’t think at the time I knew Brooklyn was a borough of New York. Michelle lived in the apartment above the laundry mat/dry cleaners her parents owned, in the “neighborhood.” After we got back from Ecuador I was in Greensboro for Christmas and my phone rang. It was Michelle from Brooklyn calling to wish me a Merry Christmas, but then she went off on me because she called directory assistance at my college and they gave her my mom’s address and phone number. She ranted and raved for five minutes, “I could have been anybody! I could have been a stalker! She just handed over your information young lady!” It never occurred to me to be more cautious. Of course, why did she call and ask for it? So I took this to mean they didn’t give out important information so freely in the north.
My second two friends from the north were Jeannie from Boston and Kysa from New Jersey. I met them on the airplane to Madrid. I also met a really cool girl who went to Bates in Maine, and all I could think was Maine? Wow! All the way up in Maine? Where is Bates? I had never been past New York, New England sounded so beautiful. Kysa attended a women’s college very different from the one I attended. At Meredith you had to jump through a lot of hoops to start “alternative” clubs back then. At Barnard the only club not allowed to have a charter had something to do with girls interested in, um, better not say here, email me if you have to know. Jeannie used to save my phone messages and play them for her friends so they could hear my “cute accent” for themselves. Good times.
This was my exposure to the north during the educational phase of my life in North Carolina: reading John Irving, watching Kevin Smith, and studying abroad with others from the north. I wasn’t even in the States with them. I know the rules to the Southern Belle Primer. I might not always follow every single one of them, but I know them. I don’t wear white shoes after Labor Day. All three of my children have good, solid family names. I ate my grits and drank my iced tea and loved barbecue. I was living the southern way.
And then I got my first teaching job in Cary…..
(End of Part 1)
Part 1: My roots and my early images of the north, Birth-1997
I grew up in the city of Greensboro, North Carolina. It is the third largest city in the state. It is famous for the February 1st Woolworth sit-ins, and probably other things I don’t have time to Google. I was obsessed with Study abroad when I got to college, but I never once thought about leaving the south other than that. I wanted to get to Raleigh, the capital. I knew I would go to school there and I planned to stay there. Don’t know why now, but I did. I moved to Greensboro in the second grade and I stayed, my parents were from the area and all my grandparents were there. I grew up with the same kids from second grade until we graduated. There were very few changes in the group. Everybody knew somebody else somehow, that’s the way I remember it anyway. I knew very few people from “The north.” If they were from the north, they had been in the south a long time.
When I thought of the north, my first vision was Gone with the Wind. I have only seen it once and that was when I was in Kindergarten and I remember Scarlet, I think it was Scarlet, throwing dirt in a “Yankees” face. That must have meant they weren’t nice people. I have not seen that movie since, and I probably should. I also thought, as a five year old, that “Yankees” were going to burn my house down. My parents should have explained that one, but then again, they also let me stay up for Dallas, so what would be wrong with Gone with the Wind?
I went to high school with a girl who told me that John Irving was the only contemporary author worth anything. I naturally had to keep up with her and read all of his books. These gave me my second round of northern images. The boys were on the wrestling teams. The characters were funny, but it wasn’t slapstick, ha ha funny. It was dry, ironic humor. They were opened minded and they explained that there was more than one way to view a problem. Garp’s mom was a single working mom and her best friend was a transsexual. That didn’t happen in Greensboro. In the north they had granite quarries and orchards for cider houses. They never seemed to complain about the heat and they were always jumping into bed with each other. It was always cold and everybody could drive in the snow. To this day, almost twenty years later, I still remember reading The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Irving made me want to go to a prep school in Massachusetts. I would have cut my tongue out for Ellen James. Well no, probably not.
In college, the next “Yankee” I was introduced to was Kevin Smith. I love that man. I really, really love his work. I will even admit to a giggle during Mallrats, OK? I’m surprised I wasn’t kicked out of the theater for laughing so hard during Clerks. So everyone in New Jersey smokes, cusses, and watches hockey. Got it. And again, the humor was more my speed. Chasing Amy defines our generation in a lot of different ways, but I digress.
I made real northern friends the two times I studied abroad. The first time in Ecuador, I was taking this class, and I met Ecuadorians absolutely, but there were two girls from Brooklyn that were there too, Lisa and Michelle. I don’t think at the time I knew Brooklyn was a borough of New York. Michelle lived in the apartment above the laundry mat/dry cleaners her parents owned, in the “neighborhood.” After we got back from Ecuador I was in Greensboro for Christmas and my phone rang. It was Michelle from Brooklyn calling to wish me a Merry Christmas, but then she went off on me because she called directory assistance at my college and they gave her my mom’s address and phone number. She ranted and raved for five minutes, “I could have been anybody! I could have been a stalker! She just handed over your information young lady!” It never occurred to me to be more cautious. Of course, why did she call and ask for it? So I took this to mean they didn’t give out important information so freely in the north.
My second two friends from the north were Jeannie from Boston and Kysa from New Jersey. I met them on the airplane to Madrid. I also met a really cool girl who went to Bates in Maine, and all I could think was Maine? Wow! All the way up in Maine? Where is Bates? I had never been past New York, New England sounded so beautiful. Kysa attended a women’s college very different from the one I attended. At Meredith you had to jump through a lot of hoops to start “alternative” clubs back then. At Barnard the only club not allowed to have a charter had something to do with girls interested in, um, better not say here, email me if you have to know. Jeannie used to save my phone messages and play them for her friends so they could hear my “cute accent” for themselves. Good times.
This was my exposure to the north during the educational phase of my life in North Carolina: reading John Irving, watching Kevin Smith, and studying abroad with others from the north. I wasn’t even in the States with them. I know the rules to the Southern Belle Primer. I might not always follow every single one of them, but I know them. I don’t wear white shoes after Labor Day. All three of my children have good, solid family names. I ate my grits and drank my iced tea and loved barbecue. I was living the southern way.
And then I got my first teaching job in Cary…..
(End of Part 1)
Friday, October 9, 2009
What to do when On Demand is not on demand
I don't know what the hell parents of children with autism did before things like youtube, DVDs, and On Demand cable. I remember the scene in Rain Man, when Tom Cruise pulls over on a country road and begs a lady to let them watch The People's Court. That was a pretty creative solution until he bought the little television. I totally get that scene now.
I have blogged about the Imagination Movers before. My kids love that show. I could go on about how I am a tad disappointed that Knit Knots was fired from season two. My only main comments there are 1) What does Nina do now other than act as a "groupie" for the band since she no longer works for her Uncle Knit-Knots? and 2) I hope the actor was well compensated or has other acting opportunities ready to go because they put him through a lot last season, including carrying around a pet rock, watching paint dry for fun, and dressing up like a cu cu machoo that couldn't speak English. Then they go and fire his ass....
So the point is my child loves this show. So much that we sprang for tickets for their concert in November. She understands it will be crowded, she understands it will be loud. But she wants to go and you better believe you will be reading a blog about it later. I have always been grateful that she can go to school and come home and watch Imagination Movers to decompress while I get dinner done. She knows how On Demand cable works, and she can read the names of the shows on the buttons to choose from.
A couple of days ago, The Imagination Movers were removed from the ON Demand menu. To say that a tantrum followed is a bit of an understatement. We have a DVD of them as well, but alas we have no DVD player at this time. I took for granted that I would always have access to cable. What was a mother to do? A good mother would have held her and said life wasn't fair. A perfect mother would have said "let's go color." A superior mother would have said, "How about we read some books." And a guilt trip mother would have said, "Have you seen Slum Dog Millionaire? CHILL!" Now, who is ready for what the Quack Mother did?
As much as I hate math, I can count to four, and a light went on in my brain stormin' head. I found Noggin, now Nic Jr., on Demand and hit an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba as fast as I could. As soon as my man DJ Lance Rock had the toys coming to life, I held her close with her special blankie and said, "Look Frannie Monster! The Imagination Movers are wearing Yo Gabba Gabba costumes today!" Four movers, four Gabba Gabba friends. Scott is Muno, Rich is Foufa, Smitty is Plex, and Dave is Brobee. Nina comes over and voila, we have Toodee. She smiled and said they did a great job pretending to live in Gabba Land. My four year old, catching on, nodded and said that I sure did solve an idea emergency.
Any mom can brainstorm. But the mother of an autistic child needs the quick thinking of the Imagination Movers combined with the wackiness of Yo Gabba Gabba daily.
Think Fast ladies,
Page
I have blogged about the Imagination Movers before. My kids love that show. I could go on about how I am a tad disappointed that Knit Knots was fired from season two. My only main comments there are 1) What does Nina do now other than act as a "groupie" for the band since she no longer works for her Uncle Knit-Knots? and 2) I hope the actor was well compensated or has other acting opportunities ready to go because they put him through a lot last season, including carrying around a pet rock, watching paint dry for fun, and dressing up like a cu cu machoo that couldn't speak English. Then they go and fire his ass....
So the point is my child loves this show. So much that we sprang for tickets for their concert in November. She understands it will be crowded, she understands it will be loud. But she wants to go and you better believe you will be reading a blog about it later. I have always been grateful that she can go to school and come home and watch Imagination Movers to decompress while I get dinner done. She knows how On Demand cable works, and she can read the names of the shows on the buttons to choose from.
A couple of days ago, The Imagination Movers were removed from the ON Demand menu. To say that a tantrum followed is a bit of an understatement. We have a DVD of them as well, but alas we have no DVD player at this time. I took for granted that I would always have access to cable. What was a mother to do? A good mother would have held her and said life wasn't fair. A perfect mother would have said "let's go color." A superior mother would have said, "How about we read some books." And a guilt trip mother would have said, "Have you seen Slum Dog Millionaire? CHILL!" Now, who is ready for what the Quack Mother did?
As much as I hate math, I can count to four, and a light went on in my brain stormin' head. I found Noggin, now Nic Jr., on Demand and hit an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba as fast as I could. As soon as my man DJ Lance Rock had the toys coming to life, I held her close with her special blankie and said, "Look Frannie Monster! The Imagination Movers are wearing Yo Gabba Gabba costumes today!" Four movers, four Gabba Gabba friends. Scott is Muno, Rich is Foufa, Smitty is Plex, and Dave is Brobee. Nina comes over and voila, we have Toodee. She smiled and said they did a great job pretending to live in Gabba Land. My four year old, catching on, nodded and said that I sure did solve an idea emergency.
Any mom can brainstorm. But the mother of an autistic child needs the quick thinking of the Imagination Movers combined with the wackiness of Yo Gabba Gabba daily.
Think Fast ladies,
Page
Monday, October 5, 2009
I need more Barbie!
Please forgive the week without any posts. We moved, Kevin is out of town, and I have had a lot of work to catch up on. Since I stayed one night in a hotel and just changed houses, I haven’t really had a grocery store diary either, except maybe taking the baby to the 7-11 for whole milk while he ran up and down the aisles touching everything and laughing.
I thought I would talk about another toy that has a special function in our house. I’m talking Miss Thing herself, Barbie. Barbie and I go back, I had the mansion in 1978. Maybe it was in Greenwich. No, it couldn’t have been with those pulley elevators. I remember I got in big trouble for taking a chapstick and smearing it all over the Barbie doll’s hair. I had Western Barbie, and if you pressed her back she would wink. My aunts were only eight and thirteen at the time, and their bathroom was full of Barbie perfumes and make up that I wasn’t allowed to touch. I bet if I went over to my grandparent’s house tomorrow it would still be in the medicine cabinet upstairs.
Yes, yes, we can debate the importance of Barbie in pop culture and what she means to little girls. I googled it and got all kinds of crap. Feminism Friday had a good one, The Body Shop had a poster about ten years ago, and did you know what her real life measurements are? I remember that fact being flashed at Lollapalooza back in 1992. Don’t knock her, she has had so many different careers she is ready for anything. I have a Spanish Teacher Barbie the nieces gave me a good eleven years ago one Christmas. I love that thing. I would go back and forth between wanting a convertible like Barbie or a jeep like Barbie, and then I remembered I can’t drive worth a crap no matter what it is.
So let me bring this back down to today. I have a little girl, and that little girl doesn’t play like other children. I also have a mother with four grandsons and wants to give my daughter dolls. My daughter has about six Barbies and a Ken in counting. They sat there for three years. The poor little Barbies, if they were played with at all they were lined up in front of mirrors to be left alone to stare at their beautiful reflections. Then last year, during Pre-K, something happened, and you will never, ever, hear a harsh, sassy word come from my mouth about that doll again. (Well, ok, maybe one.)
Frances comes home from school and tells us nothing. She couldn’t re-tell a story, or sequence events. If I ask her how her day is she says, “fine.” If I ask her what she does, she says “Nothing.” Now I know that all kids do this, but you can talk a kid into a story with the right bribes. But I still got nothing. Frances also comes home and plays alone. This is part of her autism, some might call it her “stem” but I am not good on terminology, I leave that to the experts.
One day last year, she was in the playroom and I heard her talking to the Barbie doll, she had named it, “Maddie,” then she had another Barbie named, “Bella” (I’m making these up). She named each Barbie and Ken for a student in her class and they kept the same names all year. Then each day she came home and re-enacted the entire preschool day with the Barbies. I knew who answered a question, what was said at circle time, who went to OT and who had speech. She could tell me through the Barbies what each kid had for snack. She would sing songs and do the weather.
Her brain rocks and her memory blows me away. I can’t remember what snarky comment I made to the woman at the library that handed me her mommy business card. This also means I have to be careful what I say around her. Once “Mommy Barbie” was on a toy telephone like this: “Uh huh uh huh, ok. Bye bye (hang up toy phone) Idiot,” and then “Mommy Barbie” rolled her eyes and shook her head.
A couple of other moms in our groups tell me this is wonderful pretend play. I go back and forth on this being pretend play. She is acting out her day using dolls that look like people, which according to Barbie History, is what she was originally designed to do. It is a start but not exactly there. Barbie is giving me hope though.
I am always searching for toys and games and the educational stores to find things to get my daughter to talk and sequence. Who would have thought that I would just need more Barbies? Now I’m looking for Barbie everywhere. Yard sales, consignment stores, I am searching toy bins at Wal-Mart. We must have a Barbie or Ken for each member of the class. Thanks Barbie, you might have made me feel like shit about my breast size, but you have given my daughter an outlet and a way for me to spy on her day.
I thought I would talk about another toy that has a special function in our house. I’m talking Miss Thing herself, Barbie. Barbie and I go back, I had the mansion in 1978. Maybe it was in Greenwich. No, it couldn’t have been with those pulley elevators. I remember I got in big trouble for taking a chapstick and smearing it all over the Barbie doll’s hair. I had Western Barbie, and if you pressed her back she would wink. My aunts were only eight and thirteen at the time, and their bathroom was full of Barbie perfumes and make up that I wasn’t allowed to touch. I bet if I went over to my grandparent’s house tomorrow it would still be in the medicine cabinet upstairs.
Yes, yes, we can debate the importance of Barbie in pop culture and what she means to little girls. I googled it and got all kinds of crap. Feminism Friday had a good one, The Body Shop had a poster about ten years ago, and did you know what her real life measurements are? I remember that fact being flashed at Lollapalooza back in 1992. Don’t knock her, she has had so many different careers she is ready for anything. I have a Spanish Teacher Barbie the nieces gave me a good eleven years ago one Christmas. I love that thing. I would go back and forth between wanting a convertible like Barbie or a jeep like Barbie, and then I remembered I can’t drive worth a crap no matter what it is.
So let me bring this back down to today. I have a little girl, and that little girl doesn’t play like other children. I also have a mother with four grandsons and wants to give my daughter dolls. My daughter has about six Barbies and a Ken in counting. They sat there for three years. The poor little Barbies, if they were played with at all they were lined up in front of mirrors to be left alone to stare at their beautiful reflections. Then last year, during Pre-K, something happened, and you will never, ever, hear a harsh, sassy word come from my mouth about that doll again. (Well, ok, maybe one.)
Frances comes home from school and tells us nothing. She couldn’t re-tell a story, or sequence events. If I ask her how her day is she says, “fine.” If I ask her what she does, she says “Nothing.” Now I know that all kids do this, but you can talk a kid into a story with the right bribes. But I still got nothing. Frances also comes home and plays alone. This is part of her autism, some might call it her “stem” but I am not good on terminology, I leave that to the experts.
One day last year, she was in the playroom and I heard her talking to the Barbie doll, she had named it, “Maddie,” then she had another Barbie named, “Bella” (I’m making these up). She named each Barbie and Ken for a student in her class and they kept the same names all year. Then each day she came home and re-enacted the entire preschool day with the Barbies. I knew who answered a question, what was said at circle time, who went to OT and who had speech. She could tell me through the Barbies what each kid had for snack. She would sing songs and do the weather.
Her brain rocks and her memory blows me away. I can’t remember what snarky comment I made to the woman at the library that handed me her mommy business card. This also means I have to be careful what I say around her. Once “Mommy Barbie” was on a toy telephone like this: “Uh huh uh huh, ok. Bye bye (hang up toy phone) Idiot,” and then “Mommy Barbie” rolled her eyes and shook her head.
A couple of other moms in our groups tell me this is wonderful pretend play. I go back and forth on this being pretend play. She is acting out her day using dolls that look like people, which according to Barbie History, is what she was originally designed to do. It is a start but not exactly there. Barbie is giving me hope though.
I am always searching for toys and games and the educational stores to find things to get my daughter to talk and sequence. Who would have thought that I would just need more Barbies? Now I’m looking for Barbie everywhere. Yard sales, consignment stores, I am searching toy bins at Wal-Mart. We must have a Barbie or Ken for each member of the class. Thanks Barbie, you might have made me feel like shit about my breast size, but you have given my daughter an outlet and a way for me to spy on her day.
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