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Welcome to the woods
Posted on October 15, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under sports, travel | 3 Comments
As I was standing in the path of the minivan, watching it back a pop-up trailer into spot just inches away, the thought popped into my head: gosh, I must really trust my husband.
But this is Steve. He gets the trailer into the campsite, perfectly positioned, on the first try. He comes prepared with boards of various thicknesses to ensure the trailer isn’t tilting to one side, so our first experience camping does not resemble an evil villain’s lair on “Batman.” And I was fully confident, as I occupied the space between “successful family camping experience” and “Daily News blogger tragically maimed by minivan,” that my husband would not see my face in the rear view mirror and suddenly get the urge to floor the gas.
In any case, we did the back-to-nature thing this past weekend, but I’m not sure that cooking on a tiny stove and having to walk to a shared public bathroom really qualifies as “roughing it.” Yes, it’s cold at night in our little pop-up, but we have a heater that runs intermittently and sleeping bags on actual beds — it’s more comfortable than most hotel rooms.
As it is, we’re roughing it even more than a number of our campground neighbors. Does it count as camping when you’re sleeping in an RV with an oven, microwave, built-in widescreen TV and a satellite dish?
But the kids love being in the woods by the lake, even if we never actually get out onto the water. They gather kindling and pine cones for our nightly fire, fight over who gets to sit on the most coveted rock. Steve and David play basketball on the campground court. Megan and I take a mother-daughter jewelry class. We have never-ending games of Uno.
And at night, the woods are illuminated by flickering lights and roars echo across the lake. You can hear the animals scurrying away in fear. Campfires, they understand. But a packed campground filled with Red Sox fans all watching the playoffs, all reacting in unison? That’s definitely something to be feared.
Debating Judy Blume
Posted on October 8, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under books, coping with a middle school kid, too grown up | 3 Comments
We had an exceptionally panicked meeting of the July moms — the group of women I first met online, all due with babies in July 1997, while pregnant with my sixth grader — via email the other night.
“She wants to read ‘Forever’ by Judy Blume,” one mom wrote.
She really didn’t have to say anything else. We all knew what “Forever” meant.
For our moms in the ’70s, this was the big unknown. They didn’t grow up with Judy Blume. They really didn’t understand the mysteries of “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” the boy puzzle unlocked in “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t,” the agony of being beautiful — but forced to wear a brace because of scoliosis! — that was “Deenie.” They saw that the books were popular. They gave them to us to read. They trusted Judy Blume, even if they didn’t really understand her.
And then Judy Blume hit them with the Big Sex Book.
I vividly remember the day I heard about “Forever.” I was in sixth grade. We were supposed to be watching a film about aluminum but, instead, everyone at our table (Stall Brook Elementary School in the late 1970s had tables instead of desks and “open classrooms,” which meant this conversation took place in an open classroom of three full sixth grade rooms) was listening to Benita recount the first scene in which teenagers Michael and Katherine get into bed together. And the second scene. And the third scene.
Let’s just say, on that day, I learned absolutely nothing about aluminum (why were we learning about aluminum, anyway?) but I went home absolutely desperate to get my hands on this book. Unfortunately, my mother had already heard about the plotline from her friends, so she took the book out of the library to read for herself.
She flat-out refused to let me read the book. Refused. That had never happened before.
My friend Debbie, however, had managed to score a copy. I snuck it home, tucked inside the grocery store bag wrapping of my math book, and stored it under my mattress.
I relayed all that to my friend: If she really wants to read it, and her friends are reading it, it’s only a matter of time before she gets her hands on a copy. Or she’ll only hear about the dirty parts and not about the fact that they used birth control, and talked about it beforehand, and that the book is very much a book of the 1970s, when we didn’t even know about AIDS yet.
Does she want her daughter to read “Forever” on the sly and only talk about it with her friends, or does she want her to read it and know she can discuss it with her mother?
All of which is easy for me to say — my same-age child is a boy who looks at a picture of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen and thinks only of Brady’s knee. When he reads a book, the “action” generally involves teenage spy Alex Rider and his decidedly non-sexual gadgets.
We’ll just have to wait three more years to see if I change my mind once my daughter hits sixth grade.
Thoughts?
Politics at work
Posted on October 7, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under books, politics, stories | Leave a Comment
Here in the newsroom, it’s our job to talk about politics all day long — local politics, state politics and, since it’s an election year, the presidential race. The highlight of my Saturday nights lately? Taking a break from posting Sunday stories online to watch the opening sketch on “Saturday Night Live” with Tina Fey’s pitch-perfect Sarah Palin.
At other offices, however, politics may not be welcome. Here is where I’m hoping you might come in — I’m looking for people to talk about politics at work. How do you cope when you’re the lone Republican in an office of Democrats? When your boss is a huge conservative and you’re more liberal, do you just keep it zipped when he talks about John McCain? Or is your workplace just another arena in which you can let your Obama button do the talking?
My colleague, Aaron Wasserman, is working on a Sunday feature about politics at work. You can drop him a line at awasserm@cnc.com or give him a call at 508-634-7546.
By the way, that liberal news media I keep hearing so much about? I’ve yet to encounter the forces all walking in lockstep to the left. But then, fresh out of college, I went to work for Rupert Murdoch…
An embarassing confession
Posted on October 6, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under guilty pleasures | Leave a Comment
Quite a while ago — back when he was in preschool — my son went through an interesting phase: he didn’t like to leave the house without his construction helmet. He would get up in the morning, put on his hard hat, and go about his day, preferably in garments that were truck or tool-themed. Everywhere we went, we were greeted with the knowing smiles of moms who had totally been-there, done that.
This is why I love Victoria Beckham.
I know. There doesn’t seem to be a relation there. At least not until you look at this picture, or others plastered all over Jezebel, one of my favorite Web sites.
You see, Beckham’s son appears to be going through a superhero phase. And while other celebrity moms might decide to whisk the kid off to therapy or only send him out with the nanny, she’s decided to just roll with it and coordinate with matching ensembles.
How can you not love that?
It really just increases my soft spot for the Spice Girl who really couldn’t sing (discuss: could any of them?) but who still is, really, famous for wearing outfits that would never work only any human except for the woman formerly known as Posh Spice. Even the Fug Girls have decided to throw up their hands and just give in when she puts on outfits that require a pair of leggings that end in hooves.
It’s just too bad she doesn’t have a daughter. I’d love to see what she’d throw together if she had to coordinate with a princess phase.
Evolving politics
Posted on October 5, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under Saturday, when I grow up | 4 Comments
The kid had a hypothesis. He also had a project due in Earth Science.
“We’re going to dig for dinosaurs in our backyard,” he tells me.
Dinosaurs. Of course. Because everyone knows dinosaurs once roamed the outer reaches of MetroWest and Milford. Looking for a dinosaur in our backyard is just par for the course, I guess.
David was very serious about his mission, however. His latest dream is to be a paleontologist when he grows up — possibly that was inspired by our visit to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History this summer — and he’s been fascinated by his Earth Science studies.
In the course of researching for his dig, he came across a reference to Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s support of teaching Creationism in schools and belief that dinosaurs and humans once walked the earth together.
“Mom, the fossil record clearly doesn’t support that 7 days nonsense,” he said.
We imagined what life might be like for a rogue paleontologist in a world where Creationism was the law of the land. He would have to dig secretly, under cover of night. Maybe he’d be Indiana Jones: Dinosaur Hunter, with a fedora hat, whip and annoying sidekick kid, fighting off Creationists with raptor jaws and a firm belief in science.
Or maybe not. The backyard dig, it seems, has come to naught. The closest thing he found to a dinosaur was the decomposed carcass of a fox that died underneath our playset over the winter.
“Maybe there aren’t dinosaurs in the backyard,” he said, discouraged.
Maybe not. But maybe, the important thing was he thought to look.
Bring your parent to school
Posted on October 3, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under coping with a middle school kid, education | 4 Comments
I received one of those offers you just can’t refuse in the mail yesterday — I should probably clarify here that no horse ended up losing his head over this, although my son will probably want to hide his head in shame.
Our middle school is celebrating October, the “Month of the Young Adolescent,” with “Parent Shadowing Week.” When I saw it on the calendar, I assumed this would mean David would be coming with one of us to work. Which, to be honest, is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. David has spent plenty of time at EMC and both the MetroWest and Milford Daily News offices.
No, what the principal has in mind is far more devious: he wants parents to shadow the kids.
Really.
“I know that many of your children will not want you to participate in this program.”
You think?
“Please, with all due respect to your child, come some time during the week if only for a couple of periods… Parents must follow the school schedule. We must insist that parents arrive and leave with the bell… Teachers will let you know how you may participate in their classes.”
There’s also a note instructing us to avoid cell phone conversations and texting during class. The sad thing is, that instruction is probably necessary… and someone’s mom or dad will get detention for violating it.
“You’re not coming to school with me, Mom,” David said when I showed him the letter last night.
“Other kids’ parents will be going,” I said.
“Oh sure, you can use that excuse but I can’t?”
But then a truly evil grin crossed his face. “I bet Mr. Hammond’s going to spring a pop quiz.”
Crap. I’ve met Mr. Hammond and I’m sure he’s right.
And Mr. Hammond teaches math.
The reluctant model
Posted on October 1, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under kids at work | 1 Comment
About 10 years ago, these magazine covers started popping up around our office. Our designer’s daughter was on one. Our photo chief’s daughter was on another. I ran into the editor of this new monthly, MetroWest Parent, and joked “hey, what do you have to do to get a boy on the cover?”
Apparently, all I had to do was ask. David, dressed in his finest overalls and winter coat, was playing to the camera just a few days later. We spread the library’s floor and the wall behind him with cotton batting to simulate snow, added a sled and let him do his thing. The resulting cover — with trees Photoshopped in — has been hanging in my cubicle, as well as on the wall of our home, ever since.
David’s had a few more stints as an unpaid news model over the years, as has his sister, and he’s never especially minded. So when Heather Kempskie, editor of P&K, the magazine that MetroWest Parent has become, put the call out for past models for the 10th anniversary issue, I happily volunteered his services.
At first, the person who didn’t take it well was Megan.
“WHAT? David gets to be a MODEL? I’M THE CUTE ONE!” she raged. “I’ve never had a cover!”
The day of the photo shoot was another matter, however. That would be my fault. You see, I forgot to feed my kids.
Oh, they had breakfast, and they had apples before we took off for the studio at the Natick Mall, but by the time we got there, they were more than ready for lunch… but David was wearing a white shirt. That’s really asking for trouble in a klutz-prone family right before a photo shoot.
As a result, the photographer was faced with a slightly cranky, very hungry model (just like shooting for Vogue!) who could only send longing glances at the food court tantalizingly across the way. And his kid sister, nose already well out of joint, was huffing up a storm.
This, you can imagine, really put a damper on his modeling career. Sure, I finally did feed them — and we even swapped his dying iPod Mini for a Nano at the Apple store before setting his sister loose in her quest for the perfect back-to-school outfit — but he doesn’t look back at the day that happily. He even refused to look at the pictures when I emailed them home.
“I did it, it’s done, I’m NOT coming back for the 20 year anniversary,” he says.
Still, I’m pretty sure I haven’t scarred him for life. You see, he voluntarily wears the P&K t-shirt he received the day of the shoot. And when people ask him about it, he says, with studied nonchalance:
“Oh this? I had to wear it for a magazine cover.”
Klutzes I have been
Posted on September 29, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under weird | 2 Comments
I discovered yesterday that it’s possible to severely bruise, if not slightly fracture, your foot simply with a falling piece of frozen pork loin.
As I hobbled around today, watching part of my left foot gradually turn black, I started thinking about all the foolish ways I’ve injured myself. The best one was probably shown on a certain news channel’s Christmas party outtakes reel: while covering an event for “green” vehicles, I was talked into taking a motorized bike for a spin.
Fun fact #1: I hadn’t ridden a bike since 1990.
Fun fact #2: The last time I’d driven anything with a hand throttle, sometime in the mid-1980s, I’d flipped it.
Fun fact #3: They didn’t show me where the brakes were, and they weren’t where I’d thought they’d be.
Fun fact #4: A Japanese tour group decided to wander across the road where I was taking my test drive (sometimes, as July Spitz likes to point out, life really does resemble an “I Love Lucy” episode). Did I mention the sharp turn and steep hill?
The cameraman who I’m pretty sure caught this all on tape reassured me, between bouts of laughter, that the camera wasn’t on and, even if it was, he certainly wouldn’t ever broadcast it on television. Professional courtesy and all. I ended up with a really disgusting looking subconjunctival hemorrhage in my eye and a bruise from my hip down to my knee.
At least I didn’t hurt the bike. The owner even apologized for insisting on the ride. He didn’t realize the extent of my klutziness.
Being a klutz isn’t easy. Walls jump out at you when you least expect it. Cute pairs of shoes have to be evaluated for hazard levels. And when your son takes up Little League, foul ball territory always seems to be smack where you’re sitting.
And when you open the freezer, frozen pork loins bent on havoc are just bound to attack. But you know, I can accept that. I cradled the plastic-wrapped meat against the swelling — both a weapon and a treatment, how unusual — and told it I didn’t take it personally. These things just happen.
Of course, it’s on the menu for tomorrow night. I may forgive, but I still have to make dinner.
Riding the late bus
Posted on September 28, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under coping with a middle school kid | Leave a Comment
In Franklin, parents are concerned the school district will have to do without the popular late bus, which allows students to stay after school without worrying about a ride home. (See Joyce Kelly’s story here.)
I’m actually surprised that such a thing as a late bus still exists. It’s a thing of the past in my town, which can definitely cause a chilling factor in after school activities when both parents work. I was lucky enough this week, when David expressed an interest in joining the history club after school (it’s really cool — they’re going on archaeological digs around town and investigating a haunting at a local landmark), that he made sure a friend was also planning to join. I offered to switch up on parent pickup with the friend’s mom, but she reassured me that she’s at home (”for now, and climbing the walls”) and perfectly willing to schlep David home as well.
Growing up, I dreaded the late bus, frankly. There were two of them: one going south, one heading north. There were even two times: the earlier bus picked up the kids who had after school sports and activities, the later bus crammed in the kids from detention. The early late bus would drop you off at least somewhere in the general vicinity of your neighborhood. The late late bus — and here I’ll point out that when I took it, it wasn’t for detention, because I was never caught doing something that would have thrown me there — featured an extra-surly driver who took great pleasure in randomly dropping you off wherever he wanted. Sometimes, this meant I’d walk from Larry’s Package Store down Farm Street to Valleyview Road. Other times, I’d get to walk from the opposite end of Farm Street, near Rosewood Dairy, down Farm Street, over the 495 overpass, to Valleyview.
Anyway, back in the present time, I’ve told both kids that if they are interested in something after school, they shouldn’t immediately dismiss it just because they know transportation will be an issue. Working moms, if they’re good at one thing, are at least experts at finding a workable solution.
Reality brites
Posted on September 25, 2008 by jlord
Filed Under guilty pleasures | Leave a Comment
The family has taken a vote and we’re watching “Dancing With the Stars.” I was the lone negative vote and I cannot believe my family is putting me through this.
“Kim Kardashian? Oh God, why?”
“Misty May!” my husband said.
“Susan Lucci? Nooo…”
“Misty May!” David responded.
“Ted McGinley? You’re going to make me watch TED MCGINLEY? The show is doomed.”
“Misty May!” Megan yelled.
My entire family is in love with Misty May-Treanor (and were psyched to see her Olympic gold medal volleyball partner, Kerri Walsh, cheering her on in the stands), and I’ll admit she’s kinda awesome. But she’s definitely a woman who looks better makeup-free and in her sporting element than tarted up to look like someone else’s idea of glamorous.
I actually prefer Megan’s idea: She thought Misty May would have rocked it out on “Survivor,” which is actually my family’s reality show of choice. We’ve been watching it for almost Meggie’s entire life; in an act of desperation one colicky night, I flipped it on and instructed toddler David to occupy himself with “the swimming show” while I calmed his infant sister down. David was mesmerized, the pseudo tribal-chanting cheered the fussy baby and we were instantly hooked.
Survivor players always talk big about their “integrity” and “making their kids proud” by not playing dirty in the game. My kids would never forgive me if I went on Survivor and didn’t lie, cheat and scheme my way to $1 million (my husband, of course, has me pegged as either the first person voted off, or the person airlifted because she ran into a tree at the first challenge). It’s not reality: it’s Survivor!
Opening night of Survivor, which is tonight, is always something to celebrate. I’ll make a dessert and we’ll happily taunt the contestants as, one-by-one, they express incredulity that Survivor is, you know, hard. We’ll pick favorites (David will go for a young man, Megan will go for a young woman, Steve and I will use code to discuss which female players are artificially enhanced) and mock the first person voted off.
And there won’t be a sequin in sight.
keep looking »
