halloween just doesn't excite me

i don't think i've ever been into halloween, which is weird because i think both my parents enjoy it, especially since they met at a halloween party. and don't you usually learn to love the events your parents love?

i can only recall a few halloweens with any sort of clarity.

youth: some sort of costume that involved wearing a decorated cardboard box.

adolescence: i dressed up like a businessman (slacks and a sportcoat. how original) because it was the only thing i could afford as a college freshmen. yes, of course, i did it just for the candy.

adulthood: when i was pregnant with pooka, i didn't dress up, but i remember handing out candy. one little boy came to the door and saw arizona, our first cat, walking around. he made a typical toddler comment like, "is that your cat?" and i replied, "no. that's my husband. i turned him into a cat because he made me mad." i don't think any 'scream' mask could have made his eyes wider than they were at that. heh. it still makes me laugh to think about it.

since we're talking about old music

certain songs bring back specific events in my memory, and other songs just bring up general feelings or images from recurring scenarios.

hearing jim croce's "bad, bad leroy brown" reminds me of driving around in dad's truck singing along until i realized i said 'damn'. i didn't know if i would get punished for swearing. i don't remember dad saying anything at all, but having parenting experience now, i'm sure he was laughing at me.

listening to "hot legs" or "do you think i'm sexy" by rod stewart always makes me think of pam and i remember sitting in her room next to her tiny record player as she danced on her bed. hearing "bridge over troubled water" just makes me think of her in general and our relationship.

we used to do a lot of duets back in the day. dad had a reel-to-reel player and used to tape us singing. sometimes it was just for a lark, or to record candid memories, but sometimes it was a performance. i remember pam and nicole practicing "you light up my life" repeatedly for days and days until i was about ready to scream. then again, jeanine and i rehearsed "love will keep us together" almost as much. she and i also made up some of our own ditties which we thought were awesome, of course. i haven't spoken with her in years, but whenever i hear that song i think of her. thanks to 93.1 doug.fm, i hear all these old songs a lot more often than you'd think.

dad had some of everything on those tapes. his music, our music, our voices. there's one reel of dad trying to get me (approximately 3 years old?) to recite something for the tape, but i refused to do it. what's there is probably more than 5 minutes of him offering different requests and suggestions, but all his coaxing was futile. i don't think you hear me say anything more than "noooo."

it's funny how kids will do some of the strangest things for attention, unless their parents ask them to.

this is the 3rd time and i'm starting to take it personally

my college was well known for it's gay-friendly atmosphere. so much so that a tomboy with short hair, who liked to wear jeans, eschewed makeup, listened to melissa etheridge, and didn't sleep around was assumed to be gay. even by my father, at one point.

i didn't get around much, but both of the guys i 'dated' in college before kisu ended up being gay. well, one of them was bi, but still.

recently i found out that a guy on whom i had a major crush in high school is also gay.

what the hell?

i don't have a problem with gay people, except that it makes it more difficult to date them if you're the opposite gender. obviously, this is not an issue anymore, but i'm starting to develop a complex. of course, that's just silly. i didn't turn them gay, right? (did i?)

i told kisu straight up, if he ever even has a fleeting thought about changing his orientation: please, for the sake of my vanity, just keep it in the closet.

a classic (rock) education

one of the very first songs i ever sang to pooka was don mclean's "american pie." it became one of her favorites and to this day still is. i feel bad that bug has only heard it from a cd. i just don't have the patience anymore to sing all 6 verses at one sitting (unless i'm driving).

pooka also had her fair share of nursery rhymes and other typical kiddie songs, but she also was exposed to a lot of the music that kisu and i listen to on a daily basis, although we keep out anything that's too, um, adult for her. therefore, she has a great appreciation for such artists as big & rich, barenaked ladies, cowboy mouth, great big sea, gaelic storm, third day, dixie chicks, jimmy buffett, and other assorted music.

i was pretty pleased with the breadth of her music experience until saturday morning. on the way home from dance class, i turned on a local folk-type music program only to hear the closing notes of simon & garfunkel's "the boxer." i was bummed that i missed it, but thrilled to hear the opening notes of "cecilia" follow immediately. it was at that moment that i was struck by a regrettable hole in the girls' education: no simon and garfunkel. no jim croce. no beatles.

what the hell have we been doing?!

immediately upon our return home i gathered up the respective cd's and vowed to have pooka listen on our next car trip. when next we entered the car, kisu hijacked the radio and played queen. despite the fact that i was by then actually craving some lennon/mccartney, it did start filling the hole.

pooka thinks i'm tormenting her, but after the tenth listen, she usually starts singing along.

tidbits

saturday when kisu and i were out and about, we noticed a curious trend: the cops were out in full force. we passed through at least 5 different municipalities and saw cops (mid-action) in every one. was saturday some kind of cop holiday? i even saw several earlier that morning on the way to dance class. the really weird thing is that many times we saw them in groups of 3 or 4 cars.

there must have been some major shit going down that day.

****

this morning on the way to work i saw a vette pass me. (you know he was going fast if he passed me.) as he went, i noticed some large wheels in his passenger seat. thinking bicycle, it was only as i saw his handicapped plate that it clicked: a wheelchair.

i guess a vette doesn't have a lot of trunk room, eh?

18 month bug

i can't believe how big she's getting. trite, i know, but look at her:



her personality continues to develop and shine:



she has lightened up on the bullying, at least at home. she responds better when you say, "no hitting," or, "be nice." she

her vocabulary is starting to expand significantly, as well as her clarity of speech. she likes to try out every new word she hears. friday night, all we heard was, "yook, yook!" as she pointed to her hand. she wanted us to 'look' at the marks she colored on herself.

it's funny, i don't remember pooka having any of those cute speech impediments that lend themselves to unforgettable family jokes. and at the time i was (inordinately) proud of her perfection. but bug uses 'y' for 'l' and i'm still proud of her. i know she'll grow out of it sooner or later. and for now it's part of her charm.

she is very self-assured and will let nothing stand in the way of what she wants. she has been known to drag the stool across the house to reach her goals. she is frighteningly fearless, climbing rocking ottomans (ottomen?) to reach forbidden items.

she couldn't be more different from her sister, and yet when they play together they are irresistibly cute.




we get her to do a little bit of show-pony stuff. we're still trying to get her to do the full "touchdoooooown michchchchigan!" but the way the season's going she hasn't heard it often enough to emulate.

and then she just stares

pooka is really showing a lot of growth lately, particularly in taking personal responsibility for herself. she is getting into the rhythm of laying out clothes for school the night before; getting up without (too much) whining; doing homework. often the first words out of her mouth when i pick her up are, "i already did my homework, mom."

the reading homework is a breeze for her. whether it's poetry, library books, spelling lists, or writing, she enjoys it, looks forward to it, and does it well and usually pretty quickly. the math homework? not so much. well, she does show enthusiasm for it, but her facility with numbers is not as great as with letters. i think this is an inherited trait, because i never liked or did very well at math that much, either.

math trips her up even when it depends heavily on her strong language skills. she had to come up with two story problems the other day. the first one was easy (she had probably been thinking about it all day) but the second one just refused to show itself. i suggested she follow the theme/scene she used for the first. i suggested three different possibilities, but she said they weren't good enough. for first grade math? it's not a pulitzer prize, honey. i offered up other scenarios, too, but she just couldn't decide which one to use.

i'm beginning to think she has anxiety issues. in situations like this it just grabs her and won't let go.

so far that's the only plausible reason i can come up with for the way she behaves at other times, as well. when she's being willful or disobedient, we'll remind her of consequences (in a perfectly normal tone of voice): if you don't get ready for bed, you won't get snuggle time; if you don't stop whining, you will lose the daddy blanket.

she receives these ultimatums as punishments that have already happened. as if she knows she is unable to accomplish the things she needs to in order to avoid them. she will stop moving altogether, or she will whine louder or burst into all-out tears. it doesn't make sense to a rational person. you know what to do to avoid the punishment, so you do it, but not her. i think anxiety just freezes her and she locks up, incapable of making a decision or taking the necessary action.

we don't know what to do about it. we've talked with her at calmer times about what she needs to do to avoid those punishments, etc. she understands that she can control her own destiny somewhat, but in the heat of the moment, she just can't do it.

last respects

the first encounter with death that i can remember is my grandmother when i was 14. pooka has faced not one but two episodes this week.

first it was the dog. friday morning, it was g.g.(great-grandma). kisu's grandmother's passing was no surprise, but still comes as sad news.

the most difficult thing for pooka to accept was that we were going to grandpa's friday night instead of the school fall festival.

she has accepted both deaths with an equanimity that's almost chilling. but then again, she's only six. and perhaps her distance from both entities helps to dull the sting. she only knew the dog for a brief 3 weeks, being told the whole time how sick he was and that he would soon be leaving.

she wasn't much closer to g.g. we saw her only occasionally, and she was never a very affectionate person. she did try a little bit with pooka, but i think the kid saw through her, saw her internal discomfort with intimacy. pooka is a very loving and affectionate child, but only offered g.g. the dryest and quickest of hugs.

kisu and i debated whether to allow her to attend the funeral services, but g.g. pre-empted that concern by mandating no service. she only requested a family luncheon, to which we have been told not to bring the girls. so much for the love and support of your blood relations.

singular suckitude

kisu had to take primary responsibility for his mother this week, which took up most of the after work hours. so i have been living the life of a single parent. i have to admit i hate it. there's a reason i went the traditional family route: getting a husband and then the kids, you know?

i have new-found respect for those heroic women (and men) who manage to raise multiple children on their own, particularly in despicable circumstances, particular when they manage to instill in the children a drive to succeed and a measure of self worth. that isn't easy to do, even when you have a partner present to prevent you from getting medieval on those kids butts.

in particular, i have renewed respect for my sister who spent a large portion of raising her children doing it on her own. three kids, who were practically triplets, on her own because her husband was not only not helping, but often times actually trying to cause more trouble for her and for them.

once upon a time, i thought i wanted three kids, but after this week i think i have buried that idea. (as if the crashing economy hadn't already.) the tiny island of sanity to which i am desperately clinging would be completely engulfed by the tsunami that a third child would bring to our world.

maybe in ten years or so we'll have one of those 'oopsy-daisy' babies. by then our sanity will either be sufficiently recovered or completely blown and crazy will be normal.

vanity plates

there are typically two options for personalizing license plates: vanity plates and 'support' plates.

vanity plates are the fun ones that offer so many options.

you can label your possessions: mybenz
you can go with your oh-so-clever rebus: 2fast4u
you can compress your name: lkeisha
you can hint at your favorite comic book: snikt (the sound of wolverine's claws, for those who don't know comics)

i have often thought about what i would put on a vanity plate, if i could bring myself to spend the extra $35. (i am so cheap, but definitely NOT easy.) i like 'megachk' or if i wanted to fork out an additional $35, i could get the u of m plate that has the first letter built in, and go with 'egachik' or 'ishu'.

the challenge, of course, is not only do you have to come up with something readable in 7 letters or less, but it has to be something that no one else has already taken.

the other way to go is a support plate. support plates are usually fundraisers for specific organizations, like conservationists or a university. they also have patriotic plates. these are the ones where you can proudly display in which armed service or conflict you served. i have seen quite a few that said korean war veteran, vietnam war veteran, a couple world war II veteran, and an increasing number lately for gulf war veteran.

today for the first time ever, i saw one that said cuban missile crisis. i didn't know they printed those. was that a conflict worthy of a plate? history's not my best subject, but i didn't think there was any actual military action for that. not technically a conflict but a tremendous build up of tension? that's like having a plate for cold war veteran. but maybe it was a special run for this particular driver because he looked an awful lot like castro.