Pumpkin Spice in a place not always nice

One thing that floors me about New England is the dramatic change from small town to small town.  I don't sugar coat jack-the people one town over can be downright snobby.  I grew up hearing about Madison, CT, from my mother actually.  One of her best friends from college lives there, and has always lived there.  (People don't leave the shoreline).  My mom would go visit this "Madison."  It took almost an hour to get there from the airport and they ate chopped up lobster on a hotdog bun. Oh, and they were always going to day spas.  That is what my "twelve year old self" in Greensboro, North Carolina remembers of the place she can semi-call home twenty-five years later.

I moved here three Octobers ago-October is always my personal new year, and the only preschool spot available was in Madison.  Boy was that a way to throw yourself into a cultural immersion.  No, I did not go into labor on my yacht. I went into labor in an IMAX movie theater.  No, I don't shop at the health food store. I shop at the grocery store for my chicken nuggets.  Yoga?  No, I have never been to India.....

Other than preschool, I have a few other reasons for traveling to Madison.  I feel a wave of arrogance go through me when I cross the boarder of the towns, but alas, I am an addict, and Madison has allowed one little piece of commercialism into its stellar little town.

Starbucks

Last Saturday I was getting my usual and it was quite crowded with the usual people placing the most ridiculous orders I have ever heard-non fat, caffeine free, use soy, etc.... but then all of a sudden the baristas were calling the same drink over and over again: Pumpkin Spice, Pumpkin Spice, Pumpkin Spice...at least eight times I heard this called.  What is up here?

When people are doing something, you have to decide: Am I going to do what they do, or am I going to stick with my Skinny Vanilla? The good news about a blog is that you can always say you did it for the blog.

Yesterday, I had a very overwhelming day. I had one too many meetings on my computer and I had thirty minutes to get my boys to school before another meeting. Plus I had made a Halloween blog commitment. I'm in Madison, I have twenty five minutes, and I need a Halloween theme blog topic: Pumpkin Spice anyone?



The particular drink is plastered in posters and signs everywhere: Drink Me!  Drink Me! You are not a true coffee drinker/ Starbucks shopper if you don't order Pumpkin Spice. I should have tried green tea instead.

As a reminder of where I was, a woman whose kids had been in gymnastics with my kids for three years was walking out as I was walking in.  She went right by without so much as a nod. Gone are those days-I turned my head, said Hello-and asked how "Billy and Benny" were doing this year,  just so she knew I took the time to care. Those are fake names, I promise the real names are the top two on the social security website name list.  No, she had not been in a hurry, and no, she did not forget me.  Nobody forgets me.


Back to the line: I ordered the drink. 

This is too funny not to post:

Me: "Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte, please"  Maybe the please threw her off.

Barista: "You want whole milk?"

Me: "Sure, why not, I ran this morning."

Barista: (big round eyes) "Do you want whipped cream?" Oh I am going to mess with her..

Me: "Absolutely!  Why don't you go dust off the can!"

Barista to the other Barista:  Grande Pumpkin Spice Latte all the way!

Other Barista: "All the way?? " (Did I order rat poison? Ladies, I need to take you south!)

I didn't take any pictures but boy did I want to-I was paranoid.  I got in my car to get home to yet another webinar, and took a sip.

YUMMMMMM!  Like a liquid pumpkin pie.

It was worth extra time in Madison for that treat. I'll have to go again, only I'll get a tall, with skim milk, and no whip from now on.

I live on the Shoreline after all....

The Grocery Store Diaries: Halloween Special!

I own the grocery store parking lot now.  All three of them know they don't open a single door until I give them the go ahead.  All three of them know they can't ask for junk.  All three of them know we stick together and don't scatter in 101 directions. I said they know it. I didn't say they do it.

The pumpkins outside the store would be fight number one- but we get to avoid this because we have already gone to the "pumpkin patch" in town and we don't need anymore.  Last year I went to the patch for the pictures and then bought the pumpkins at the grocery store. Oh well, every now and then I do something the way other women would do it.

Even though we had a few days left, I decided to go ahead and get the candy during this trip.  I know that buying candy early is going to force me to run six miles a day instead of three. I can also look at all the flyers and handouts on my desk and know that we have a very busy weekend ahead and finding time to brave a store might not be on the to do list.

Why oh why didn't I just grab whatever was on sale and bury it under the bread and frozen vegetables? Did I really have to take the time to engage the three of them in conversation? Think about the opportunities for speech the candy aisle provides a mother and her children.

This is a "good mommy" banter:

Look kids, what shapes do you see?

What are the different colors? 

What flavors are in those?

How many lollipops do you see?

Ok my loves, can we pick out the best candy for all our special friends in the neighborhood?  And we know we aren't opening the bag until Monday, right?  Then we eat one piece a day until Christmas.

Then you watch this woman and her kids skip happily through the check out aisle.

 OK, that was fun.

Now, here are MY THREE in the candy aisle:

F: "OK, I want this one for today, and we can eat this bag tomorrow....So we better get at least five bags...

L: "Candy Corn!  Candy Corn! I want candy corn!"

K: "Oh come on, Lowell, if we pass out candy corn no one will ever speak to us again, you know how mom gets when no one will talk to her..."

F: Lollipops would work (whispering to Kenneth)  we can hide these in my room and she won't know...

K: You hide the lollipops and I'll hide M&Ms-you are so right, she will never find them....

Why do they think I can't hear them?

OK ENOUGH!  Each of you pick one bag and then we are shopping for real food....



The decoration aisle is not my thing.  My mother sent them pumpkin place mats and we will paint and carve pumpkins this weekend.  That is as far as I have time to take it. Everyone knows not to ask me for scarecrows and spiders that end up in the storage closet later.

We are shopping fine-like any other Shoreline mommy with nothing else to do on a weekday afternoon...

Until...

The witch!

There is this scary looking life sized witch that laughs an evil cackle when you walk by her.  My three year old has perfected jumping out of the cart and climbing up my side and clutching to my hair for dear life when we get near that thing. I want to tell him that there are plenty of witches in the grocery store all year long, but lately I am keeping such opinions to myself.

Do his brother and sister comfort him and tell him it isn't real? Do they try to ease his pain?  What do you think?

"Look Lowell, she is going to get you!" He climbs higher up my head.

"Hey Mom-we could by one for our living room." Then the baby really starts screaming...I wonder if my sister has these third child torture stories...


The check out is fine-five bags of candy (one of which they have already eaten), all the staples my children love, and no witch. Unless you count me....

Rock it out this Halloween....In preparation for my Advent tradition, four more "Halloween Quacks" are coming!

My Harry Potter Movie Timeline

The summer of 2011 is always going to be the season the most catastrophic life changing event happened to me ever ever ever.....

The Harry Potter movie franchise ended.
 

The first internet rumor I read about a possible movie was the creation of “Hogwarts High” and how they were going to make it an American teen cast.  I think I ran to the bathroom to throw up.  Then slowly but surely more professional announcements were made and we saw our very first picture of Dan, Emma, and Rupert  in early 2001.  Those three little kids are incredible actors now…

The movies took on their own cultural experience.  When you buy your ticket, which theater you go to, which time you went, what you were wearing at the event-all of those things matter.  This has to be the only set of movies where fans seriously have melt downs if something isn’t exactly the way they had the image in their head.  Serious Potter fans want Cornelius Fudge in a lime green bowler hat-not the brown one his actor was always wearing.  No one wanted to hear Ron say “Why couldn’t we follow the butterflies?” in Chamber of Secrets or Neville say, “Oh my God!  I killed Harry Potter,” during the second task in Goblet of Fire.  The books began to take from the movies too- Horace Slughorn called Ron “Rupert” when he couldn’t remember his name.  

I'll confess. While I went to ever midnight book selling, I never once attended a midnight movie premiere when they began.  I apologize to all Potter fans everywhere, but I could never get anyone else in my age bracket to go along with it.  Despite this shameful confession, please keep reading this post.

Now, for my Potter movie timeline:

October 2001-first trailer on television, internet not quite so out of control at this point-I asked my husband to “please be quiet because I almost missed Mr. Ollivander telling Harry that the wand choses the wizard and he must be destined for great things because his phoenix feather matches he who must not be named.”  My husband gave me the longest stare ever that night.

November 16, 2001- I go opening night, husband goes with me, see about eleven students there, all of them fairly intelligent kids.  On the way out, one adult woman is crying that everything is ruined now and how could they make a movie and how could she have gone to see it.  I felt her pain, but in my head I still see what I want to see. It’s fun to live in La La land….

May 2002- The last time I ever bought a VHS tape before we bought a DVD player. It had extras at the end of the tape and I fast forwarded through the movie to watch the bonuses first.  I believe one month later I had the DVD.

November 14, 2002- Chamber of Secrets on opening night again with husband and college Roommate Kim, who never reads fiction but read Harry Potter for me.  This was the last movie with Richard Harris as Dumbledore.  This was also the last movie that was the book adaptation ver batim.

October 10, 2003- I packed my hospital suitcase and planned to watch the Harry Potter DVDs while I labored au naturel with little Miss Frances.  Of course she was a breech scheduled c-section. But we watched the movies in recovery no problem.

June 4, 2004- First movie as a new mother. I went opening day to the first showing with one of my best friend’s daughters.  I had another student in line tell me she was going to beat me to the theater. I told her she would not so I raced an eleven year old into to the room. Alfonso Cuaron did a PHENOMENAL job with book three.  Just phenomenal…. I went again on the 4th of July-this time an IMAX.

November 19, 2005-  Opening night at the IMAX theater.  I was nine months pregnant and my stomach hurt every twenty minutes-what was up with that? My son let me watch the movie and was born the next morning…. 

Academic year 2006-2007-I taught high school in Fuquay-Varina and every Friday they had to do a “cloze” activity with a movie clip from Harry Potter.  I think secretly they began to like it….

July 11, 2007- I was in the urban city of Pittsburgh for this one and within walking distance of a hippie little theater next to an Argentine coffee shop.  I went opening night by myself as we had no babysitter, AND then went on July 12th with my husband when we had one. My eyeglass lense had popped out before I found the "Eyetique," so I sat on the front row and semi-squinted...

July 17 2009- Now we are in Connecticut and it's the first time I don't go on opening night, but I did wear my Weasley sweater and hand knitted scarf.

November 19,  2010- Five Novembers after I went into labor with my son, I'm back at a Harry Potter movie on an opening night. This time I went with a British friend!!!  Still in Connecticut.

Finally, on Sunday, July 17, 2011,  I wore my special Gryffindor scarf that my grandmother knitted for me and my sweater that Molly Weasley made me and sent by owl Christmas morning to Fuquay Varina (don’t you dare tell me otherwise) and I went to the last show. This was the first time I went to the 3D version.  Here is the picture of me, so I will never forget:

I still have all the stubs to all the movies.  

My movie going spanned over ten years and three states, students, friends, family, babies coming in to the world, popcorn, junior mints, diet cokes, not bathroom trips- a big deal the year I was literally nine months pregnant. Emails to friends telling them if it was good or not…blog posts, Facebook updates…midnight phone calls from old friends across the country..

Now, those three eleven year old child actors are in their early twenties and moving on with their careers. It's very happy and very sad..but it is time.

Things end and you really should in no way make them last longer than they are intended to last.

You are supposed to live what you live and experience what you are going to experience. Soak it up. Remember it, embrace it.  Learn from it and don't be ashamed of it.  But when it's time for the next thing, move on. A novel series needs complete closure, as do their movie adaptations.  Guess what?  The world is still spinning.  The economy still needs help.  My children are still rocking my world. Game of Thrones is working its way into my fantasy loving heart.

And Harry is thirty one years old and head of the Aurors office at the ministry of magic in London.

Hurricane Irene....

Six days without power means no blogging...ugh...

How to visit childless friends

Those of you who go back and forth between the two blogs have had the privilege of meeting the "Lake guard" and his wife.  To me they are everything that represents a small New England town.  They shovel when it snows and they grill when it's warm.  Don't ask them a question if you don't want an answer, but if you need any kind of help they will be the first to show up.  Seriously-a shoulder to cry on or a gazebo to put up.  It's them.

They frequently host neighborhood get togethers with their awesome lake dock and fire pit for roasting marshmallows.  Here is the catch-they don't have kids.

I know you guys love it when I take my kids into a new environment.  This is what happens when I take them to the "Lake guard's" cottage.

They go after the dog and all her toys.  My three year old starts asking for the dog when we pull up in the driveway.  "Tiki!  Tiki!" My daughter starts to complain that the dog has more stuffed animals than she does. That could not be possible.  After about thirty minutes, the dog goes and hides, but tonight I caught my son trying to get her to come out of the bedroom closet.

The kids know where all the candy is. They have two bubble gum machines, a box of peppermint patties, and three M&M dispensers.  Mind you both of these adults are not overweight.  I start grabbing candy and putting it in cabinets after the kids eat three handfuls each.

They only have flesh colored band aids.  This confused my son as he really couldn't imagine anyone not wanting Yoda on a band aid-how could you heal without a Jedi using the force?

You have to change the channel or you walk in and your children may be watching Tosh.O or an episode of Law and Order.

I once put ten different breakable items in their bedroom. I don't think anything has been broken this season.

 The husband tore up the pantry looking for MacnCheese for my daughter-he was about to boil pasta and make it from scratch before I told him it wasn't necessary.

And finally, I usually get one or two texts the next morning for toys and possibly shoes that my children left behind.

The best part? My children NEVER want to leave and can't wait to go back.  Swinging in the hammock, sitting around the fire pit, playing with that dog...I hope they remember all of it forever.

Who is inviting us over next?

My Good Baby.....

I didn’t want to quit my job. I had zero desire in staying home with my baby. I would drop her off at the sitter’s house, spend my day with a group of teenagers, and get her at the end of the day for a late afternoon and evening that I appreciated and loved because I hadn’t seen her all day.  She was perfect.  She hardly ever made a noise. She nursed and ate no problem. She lay on a blanket and never fussed. She slept through the night. I thought I had done it all right.  She had one ear infection at six months and one case of bronchitis at four months.  That was it.

I was very excited about having an entire summer off with her. In the fall I was going to transfer with my boss to a new middle school.  After seven years of teaching I was finally going to have the perfect set up: a great daycare center, a new house, a perfect middle school job.  Then one morning in July I woke up and a voice told me “Quit.”  I told the voice I didn’t want to quit, but it said it again, “Quit.”  Are you kidding me?  I had devoted my entire young adult life to teaching teenagers and older elementary students Spanish and this small voice was telling me now to quit?  After I had finally arrived as much as a middle public school teacher could?

I had already moved all my boxes from one school to the new one.  That meant I was going to have to move everything again and have my boss find a new teacher.  Then there was the thing about all the other teachers I loved seeing.  What was I going to do?  No, I can’t quit. I love my job and running after school and buying clothes at Ann Taylor… and don’t forget the books on tape, I need to listen to my books on tape when I commute to work.  One of my aunts always scrutinizes me because I have time to read novel after novel and she can’t figure out how I do it but I listen on tape….ha ha ha.  If I stay home I’ll wear sweat pants, eat chocolate, and watch The View. No thank you small voice, I like my life just the way it is…

.

QUIT!!!!!

So I decided that I could go over to the school, but my principal wouldn’t be there.  My very first boss was psycho and militant, but Matt wasn’t that way. I never heard him raise his voice ever. Not once in the four years I dealt with him.  Maybe he won’t be there. Maybe he took his family to the beach. Yes, I’ll drive over there and I‘ll check in and he won’t be there or if he is he will tell me I can’t quit because they won’t be able to find anybody else to do the job.  I was in my car and I didn’t want to drive there.  But the car went left when I should have gone right. Then I was in the parking lot. Ahhhh this is the brand new building that I’m going to be working in. I have a  big classroom with windows and a dvd player and a computer.  I get smaller classes and textbooks that aren’t  bent up to hell.  Frances was quiet in the back seat.  Not screaming, not cooing.  She was such a good baby.  I took her out of her seat and went in the main doors that weren’t falling apart.  

My principal was right there in the front lobby-like he had been waiting for me.  I was holding my baby and she wasn’t clinging back on me.  She didn’t show any interest in the school, didn’t show any fear in my boss. It wasn’t too late to tell him I had come to unpack my classroom.  It wasn’t too late to say I wanted the teacher’s manual to my new text book.  It wasn’t too late to get back in the car and push her in the stroller around the mall looking for clothes or pop her in the baby jogger and run three miles around the lake.

“QUIT!” damn that voice..

“Hey Matt, do you have a second?  I need to talk to you.”  Say no, you don't have time, you are getting ready to go to a very important meeting at Central Office. Or even better, you are going to go home and watch a World Cup qualifying match and you need to leave right now...

“Let’s go to my office.”

I really thought he would say no, I really thought he would tell me not to go, that he couldn’t live without me teaching at his new school.  I put Frances on the floor of his office. She was nine months old and she lay on the little blanket.  She didn't sit up.  She didn't crawl.  She was noot looking at us, and not curious about where she was, being quiet. I was so lucky I had such a good baby.

“Page you won’t get this time with her back. Let me get the paperwork for you.”  QUIT!  I can still hear the voice...

And with two signatures, I was a stay at home mom with the best baby in the whole wide world, because she never made a peep or got off her blanket.  Never lit up when I or her father walked in a room. Never acted nervous or curious.  But ate and slept through the night.  I had such a good baby.  I was nervous about the new role, but excited at the same time. 

The voice surely had a reason it wanted me to quit....

Can you already see the flags my 29 year old self missed???

The Quack is Back....

I don't believe in coincidence.  There are no accidents.  I have no regrets.  Everything that has ever happened to me has happened for a reason at the moment it happened.

I once had a girlfriend that was extremely anti-technology. She had no computer at home.  She didn't own a cell phone.  She refused a GPS.  She always insisted you needed to be able to do things without the help of all those gadgets.  She also joked about email and everyone "checking it."  She said, "are you waiting for the email that is going to change your life?"  This was before Twitter and Facebook or even texting, so no, a email didn't move my life forward in any way.

But a text did.

I have been very active in the Ryan Woods Autism Foundation.  I love the founder, Brenda Wilson. She is a grandmother with a vision and an action plan. I attended the gala they have in November.  I spoke at one of their parent workshops in May.  Then about a two weeks ago, I got a text from her...

B: Would you like to MC our Music Festival in September?
Me: Oh Brenda honey, this is my cell phone, not my husband...
B: No, we want you to be our MC.  You will have the crowd laughing and we won't have to hire a D.J......
Me:  Are you sure?
B: Yes, you have the energy, good looks, and it feels so right, please say yes!
Me: Yes!

Now in less than a month I will be the mistress of ceremonies at an autism event that sometimes 1,000 people come to .....oh my what have I agreed to?

Since I'm doing this, I want to "Quack" for a while.  Over the last five years I have had a lot of people ask me my opinions on everything from the movie Rain Man to hyperbaric chambers.  I thought I would take some time to answer and reflect on how I went from a twenty-nine year old new mother with "the best baby in the world" because she played on her blanket not making a sound,  to the (almost)  thirty-seven year old mom to three children that changed my universe.

All my posts are going to lead up to the main event on September 10th in Middletown, CT. If you are in the area I encourage you to come.  Be prepared as you read-some days you might need tissues, others you may want to finish your drink before you read and spit it out laughing....

I promise I will do my best to be honest and somewhat entertaining....text me if I'm not....