Lunch Duty

"Your Aunt Kate and I made cinnamon toast a lot," I said. "It was one of our favorite afterschool snacks. We perfected the evenly toasted bread, the perfect spread of butter that was thick, but not too thick and was applied immediately so that it would melt and make a good surface for the cinnamon sugar."

I moved quickly as I buttered the four slices of bread on the platter. Mary put four more in the toaster. Anna liberally sprinkled the cinnamon sugar over the buttered toast and it quickly melted, confirming that we had made it all correctly. Perfectly made cinnamon toast insures that the butter and sugar will become one and you don't have to worry about the topping falling off while you eat your toast. Except that some always does - too much topping in one area, or not enough butter in another. Even after years of cinnamon toast making, I accept that there will be some fallout. And of course being liberal with the sugar topping, to make sure that you get it all the way to the edge, means that some will fall on the counter and the floor.

"That used to make your Poppy crazy," I said. "He insisted that he could feel the sugar crunching on the floor under his shoes and that it was all over the counter whenever we made cinnamon sugar toast."

I can feel the moment. Kate and I sitting in the tv room off of the kitchen with our cinnamon toast watching Quincy reruns in the late afternoon. We would be oblivious until the point that dad entered the kitchen and then we would look at one another while we listened to dad in the kitchen knowing that we hadn't cleaned up from making our snack.

"Can you imagine Poppy supervising lunch at middle school?" Mary said mischeviously.

Anna snorted.

"Stop eating your salad with your fingers...get your feet off the table...did anyone wipe this table off?...chew your food before you swallow...don't put ketchup in your milk..." Mary said in her best Poppy imitation.

Anna laughed out loud and sprayed cinnamon sugar out of her mouth all over the table and floor.

We sat in stunned silence for a minute. And then we all laughed.

Half Bushel

I have a distinct memory of laying on the couch of our house in Denver looking up at a print of this painting. Maybe I was four years old? I would make up stories about the basket - sometimes dark stories - it was abandoned by a little girl who was being chased or harmed in the orchard - sometimes happy stories - a little girl playing the in the orchard. The lighting in this painting is so amazing that it can be happy or sad or scary - it can be whatever your imagination wants it to be. I think of myself as a writer and when I think about my development as a story teller and writer, I think of this painting and all of the hours and years of my life that I have spent studying the painting and making up stories that go with it in my head.

The print hung in every house my parents had together until a recent move of theirs. "Would you like the print?" they asked. "Oh yes!" I said. As a child I thought that the print in our house was an actual painting by Andrew Wyeth. We had lots of original art around, so I did not understand the difference with this print until I was older and learned about mass produced prints. My parents bought the framed print from a store in Kearney before I was born. And that is the other story that this print tells.

My parents are depreciating when they talk about the print and the condition it is in after all these years. They joke that I should hang it upside down for 30 years so that the print can slide the other way back into its matting. I've chosen to leave it just the way it is with the print slipped just a bit out of the matting. That's part of the print's story as well - all those states and houses and walls.

Andrew Wyeth was a favorite of my dad's and became a favorite of mine due to exposure, I think. Like a child being introduced by a parent to a favorite football team or a family profession, I was introduced to Andrew Wyeth.

It is strange to me that I feel so sad that he died. I never knew him, obviously. And his art remains, of course - more legacy than most of us can even imagine. I have two of his prints in my house and love them both. What more do I expect from this relationship with a famous artist? I feel loss nonetheless.

I visit the Half Bushel painting in the Joslyn when I can. They loan it out fairly frequently, so it's not always there. I always ask the museum docent about the painting when I am at the Joslyn and I like to know what city it is visiting and think about the stories that it is telling other people.

It occured to me that I should make this a real project - write short essays and make a book. A Half Bushel of Stories.

Smoke Break

It's been tense as Anna studies for her first high school finals. After we dropped off Mary, we shared some terse words and she was pretty upset with me.

"You need to relax before your test," I said a few blocks from the school. "It's not worth it to stay upset and then blow the test that you studied for."

"I know, Mom. Don't you think I know that?" she said.

We pulled up to the circle drive and I noticed that even in the subzero temperatures that the usual group was huddled under the tree by the parking lot having a cigarette before school.

"Maybe you should have a cigarette," I suggested in an offhand tone.

"What?!" she said. She turned to look at me. "Are you serious?"

"Well, people have a cigarette to relax, is all. I am sure those kids would share a cigarette with you. I believe the term is 'bum a smoke.'" My mouth twitched and gave me away. I smiled. She smiled back. And just like that, the tension broke.

"You're crazy!" she said laughing.

"I am crazy. Don't let me catch you smoking, or you'll see how crazy I can get!" I threatened with a stern face.

"You're crazy!" she said again with a smile.

"Have a good day," I said.

"You too," she said.

I need the semester to be over. I am running thin here.

Do You Remember T-Rex?

Bill noted that it is not so much the cold as it is the possibility that the wind may drive a piece of straw through your ear and kill you. The wind is that strong and crazy.

I feel like hibernating. Shuffling around in yoga pants and slippers, laying under comforters reading and watching movies. Instead we have finals week for the kids and hearings and trials for me and Bill. I drag myself out of bed and drag the kids out of bed.

Despite my hibernation instinct, I have been day dreaming about hula hooping in the park. Ha! I can hardly motivate myself to take the hoops to the YMCA in this cold.

Last night at 9pm, enough was enough. I put TRex on the stereo and moved the dining room table.

"What are you doing?" my kids asked.

"Hooping," I said.

It worked. I felt better. I still had to drag myself out of my cave, I mean bed, this morning, but an impromtu hoop jam to some classic rock last night was just the thing. I was so warm I was even sweating by the time I was done.

My winters often have musical themes. It is often music that I have listened to before, but new meanings are revealed to me as I listen to the same song over and over and over. One winter I liked to take super hot tubs and listen to Bob Dylan. One winter I liked to write and listen to Tom Waits. This winter my soundtrack is The Ramones. And I hoop in my dining room.

I think about the pioneers and try to imagine living here on the prairie without a house of wood and stucco with glass windows to keep the wind and cold at bay. I cannot imagine how they managed without a stereo.

The Magical Narrator

"Our kids won't have anything like that," Bill commented while he watched me sort through piles of hand written notes from my best friend from high school. "Their notes are all text messages and blogs and they're out there in the air somewhere. No one will have them twenty years later."

"I suppose that's true," I said.

I dragged my personal high school archives out last summer for the 20 year high school reunion - notes and cards and pictures and my scrapbooks. I set them aside thinking that I would read through them, come upon some great realization or story, and write it up. Like "American Graffiti", "Stand By Me" or "Sandlot." I've noticed that movies about childhood are often told from the point of view of the writer - the thoughtful kid that grew up to write about childhood and make some sort of profound statement about coming of age or whatever - the magical narrator.

I read a few things aloud to Bill, I laughed, I was embarassed. I thought of these documents as a holy grail of sort, but really, I just have a rabbit. I am perculating some ideas. I would have to say that what I feel overall is disappointment in the documents. I think that there is a story or lesson in all of it, but I don't think it is in the words written by 17 year old girls, I think it is in the head of a 38 year old woman reading the words of 17 year old girls.

Punk Rock Parenting

It was one of those mornings. We have a lot of them at my house, but not always, so today was typical, I guess. Lots of scurrying around, lots of not eating breakfast, lots of complaints about packing gym clothes and lunch and homework. We finally made it to the car and the windows needed to be scraped. Argh. I actually broke my ice scraper this winter and I have not replaced it. I have been using a CD of some crappy female pop star that ended up in my car. So I grabbed it, scraped the windshield and got back in.

"That's not my CD is it?!" complained Mary from the back seat who was mad at me because I had not made her a lunch that day.

"No. It's not," I said, trying to be calm. To stay calm, I drew on all of my years of experience with parenting children.

Infants have screaming fits where they are inconsolable - diaper changes, feedings, walking, nothing makes a difference. You get to the point that you are ready to toss them out the window (I did not understand child abuse until I had my own child.) and then the infant falls asleep for four hours or smiles at you and you forget it all. Toddlers are unreasonable and will stick their hand in the peanut butter jar and smear a fistful of peanutbutter on the floor or scream or tear a book that you love and you will consider walking out the door and never coming back, and then they wrap their chubby arms around you and say, "I wuv you, Mommy," and you are filled with a love that overwhelms you and makes you feel bad for ever being fed up with the toddler. Teenagers will make you crazy with their eye rolls and smart mouths and complaints and bad attitudes. And then they say,

"Can we listen to my Ramones CD?"

My heart began to thaw. I slid the CD in. The punk rock filled the car. We sang along.

"I wanna be sedated..."

And although 1 minute ago I wanted to be sedated? Now I am happy and singing and smiling.

"Have a good day, kiddo," I said outside the middle school.

"You too, Mommy."

And I hit "back" so I could listen and sing along to the song again.

Talking a Blue Streak

When the girls called their dad to ask if it was ok if they put blue streaks in their hair, he asked them to wait until they could talk about it.

"Dad says it's ok!" they squealed last night when they got home.

"Oh good. What did you guys talk about?" I asked.

"Well, he said no, and then we reminded him that he had spiky hair and crazy clothes in high school," Anna said.

I pictured 18 year old Eric in his shredded t-shirt held together by safety pins - the spiky hair - the Doc Martens. And I smiled.

Their hair looks great - the streaks are nice accents.

Court Four

Chided by my son who reminded me, "Mom, you promised.", we made a quick dash to the YMCA yesterday evening even though we were expecting company and had a few chores to complete before they got there.

I fumbled for the YMCA cards. The desk clerk looked quizically with me and my giant hula hoop and my son with his baseball glove. "Are you going to use the gym?" she asked with concern, "Because we have a basketball tournament in there tonight."

"No. Not the gym." I smiled and handed her our membership cards and she scanned them. She watched us walk to the elevator.

On the fifth floor of the downtown YMCA is a maze of hallways connecting racquetball courts. Racquetball seems to have fallen out of favor in recent years. The courts are frequently completely empty. Last night there was a lone game going on in Court One. We followed the hallway to Court Four, our favorite and Frank played catch with himself off the wall while I hula hooped.

It is hard to be a summer sport in Nebraska in January.

After 30 minutes of "court time," we took the elevator back down and walked past the confused desk clerk.

"Have a good night!" she called after us.

"You too!" we said.