Holiday Re-Run (UPDATED)

I agree this is a cop-out, but since it`s my blog and I call the shots, I want everyone to read my Halloween post from last year. It is all about the creepiest thing that`s ever happened to me personally.

"A True Creepy Story for Halloween"

Happy, happy!

(...munch munch...)

UPDATED to note that NONE of the eight people who commented on my post last year -- including the two well-known "Daddy bloggers" -- are regular commenters here anymore. I haven`t given this much thought, but my readership has changed a lot since I started blogging. And the number of comments on my posts rarely gets into the double-digits anymore, though it often did in my early months. I will take my turn toward blogosphere obscurity to indicate that I must be doing something RIGHT, to remain off the beaten path.

Update from the Home Front

So, who wants to hear the exciting update on my daily life?

(...munch, munch, munch....I`m into the Hershey bars now, which are a little too sweet, but still tasty...)

I was one of the parent chaperones/drivers on Big Son`s field trip last Friday, and got a chance to speak at greater length with Human Hammer Lady, his new teacher.

I might have to change her nickname after all -- she is more like Big Fancy Peg Who Doesn`t Perfectly Fit Into Simple Little Round Hole. (...munch, munch..).

She`s used to teaching older grades, she`s now working on her masters at USF, and she hopes to do a PhD somewhere in a few years. Someday, her stint at our little Catholic school will be just a line on her long and impressive resume.

"That day that Big Son started crying -- I didn`t know what to do," she said to me. This made me realize she is not evil after all, just ill-accustomed to dealing with immature 11-year olds.

(...munch, munch, LICK! SLURP!)

She also said something very interesting about Big Son`s class: there is no "middle." There are some kids who "get it," and are doing very well on her assignments, and some kids who just don`t "get it," and can`t keep up, and are doing very poorly. There`s no one in between, she says -- so she has to figure out a way to keep the former group of students challenged, while giving the latter group (including Big Son) the extra support they need.

We also talked about his language dilemma, and all the extra work he faces because of mine and Hub`s wish to raise our kids as bilingual as we possibly can. She`d heard about Big Son`s situation, and lagging skills in English, but I don`t think she understood all of the details, and realized that until last year, most of his formal education was entirely in Japanese.

(...CRUNCH, CRUNCH -- yes, I`m into the Nestle`s Crunch bars now. Sorry -- is this too distracting...?)

What else is new? Oh, Daughter`s GameBoy was found. I didn`t even know it was lost -- I just wondered what it was doing in my closet. I thought maybe she`d just gotten bored with it, which honestly would have been welcome.

I knew where it was all along, and finally mentioned it to her yesterday.

"You found it? Oh, thank you, Mama!" she squealed with glee.

The funny thing was, when I told this story to some of my mom friends from the big kids' school, one of them knew it had been missing. Apparently, Daughter has been going around saying to her friends that her GameBoy was lost, oh, woe-is-me, and it was common knowlege to all but her parents.

(...crunch, munch munch...)

I found a paper in Daughter`s room on which she'd drawn hearts with the name of a boy in her class inside. My own heart did a backflip into the pit of my stomach, as I pondered the implications. Did I like boys when I was nine? I don`t think I did.

I`ve got to update my blogroll, don`t I? So many I want to add.

Oh, I quit the parttime job that I`m not free to discuss. I was revelling in my escape, until my friend called me and asked me to PLEEEEEASE just keep doing it until the end of the year.

Damn.

But there`s also good news for my longer-term job situation. On Thursday, I have an appointment to go talk to my old boss, from my last job in Tokyo, to discuss working fulltime there again next year. They`re based here in SF, and I was going to go back sooner, but...well, my oldest kid was getting beaten up every day by a crazy old nun, so I had to keep an eye on the homefront, y`know?

(...munch crunch LICK munch...)

Okay, I`ve got to go now.

So much candy, so little time.

Candy-Coated Coda

Here is an excerpt from an email from a friend who is unable to comment on my blog, who had this to say about the candy-related post below and the general subject of her weight:

I must have the absolute slowest metabolism on the planet. Luckily, I noticed yesterday that the church has a photo of me taken from the side posted in the lobby (how did THAT happen?) which should put me off my feed for a while. I was kind of leaning in to speak with someone and thus a bit slouched over - there were NO indentations. My breasts, my 'waist' and my thighs all stick out the same amount - I was a perfect column. I hope that they leave that photo up for a while so that I can make myself sick looking at it.

Full disclosure: I am typing this post with my mouth full of Reese`s Peanut Butter Cups. You know what? This is better than an orgasm. Oh, yes it is.

Mmmmmmmmmm-hmmmmmmmm..........(...sigh...)

Food of the Gods

We have officially entered SWEETS WEEK.

Late last week, I gave in to temptation, and opened the bag of candy I bought to hand out for Halloween, and attacked the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.

Here is the pattern: I consume the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and love every minute of this, savoring each divine taste of evey morsel, even licking the brown crinkly paper at the bottom.

But then I feel so guilty about consuming all the calories in the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that I eat sparingly, if at all, throught the rest of the day and into the next day, until...I give in to my sensual urges and consume some more candy.

This is not a healthy, sustainable pattern, but it will end as soon as all the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are gone. I expect it to be over within a week.

Until then, I am taking vitamins, getting enough sleep and exercise, and alternating between self-control and euphoric sugar highs.

Expect some weird, manic blogging in the days to come.

A Lie I Don`t Regret

This is something I`d almost forgotten, until a comment on Dawn Eden`s blog jogged my memory a bit. (Yeah, I read Dawn Eden. You gotta problem with that?)

When Big Son and Daughter were preschoolers and I was at home fulltime in Los Angeles, I used to volunteer at a nursing home in Santa Monica.

I used to put Big Son in part-time daycare, because he was kind of an irritable, high-maintenance little boy who was better off running around with other irritable, high-maintenance little boys. But Daughter was a sleepy, cheerful infant who always had a smile on her face, unless she was eating, so she was a perfect baby to bring to a nursing home.

It was not a very organized place. I used to check in and then just wander from room, saying hello to the people who wanted to talk to me.

One day, I wandered into the "full care" wing of the building, where I didn`t usually go, because most of the totally bedridden patients were suffering from advanced dementia.

A woman was lying in her bed with her eyes open, so I decided to say hello and see if she was responsive.

I remember her window faced west, and the afternoon sun was streaming into her room. It was shining on her head and making her straggly yellowish hair, which was spread out on the pillow around her, shine like a halo.

"Is it you?" she asked, in a gravelly whisper.

"Yes," I said.

"I knew you`d come," she said.

"I`m here," I said.

"I`m sorry for all that happened," she said, and then her voice dropped to a low whisper and I couldn`t get all the details.

"But I always knew you`d come back," she said.

I wondered who she thought I was.

"Is that my grandchild?" she asked.

Ah.

"Yes," I said, lifting up my fat, smiling baby for her to see.

"She looks like a good one!" she said.

"She is."

I let her stroke Daughter`s face.

"I`ll see you again soon!" the woman said, when it was time for me to go.

The next week, when I went back, her room was empty. An aide told me she`d died.

I never knew her name.

Curses -- foiled again!

Both Big Son and Daughter forgot their lunches today.

They left them in the fridge. I noticed this morning, and could have taken them to them at school in time for lunch....BUT when I go back to work fulltime, I won`t be able to bring forgotten lnches to school. They need to remember on their own -- those two will never learn to be self-reliant if I keep bringing their lunches to them, every time they forget. It`s been happening about once a month, for each of them.

Since I was absolutely sure both of them had eaten breakfast this morning, I decided to make them go hungry for a day.

"Let`s go home right now," I said when I picked them up at 3:00. "I`ll bet you`re both starving!"

They looked at me blankly.

Had I ordered hot lunches for them today, and just forgotten? If so, it wouldn`t be the first time that`s happened.

But no.

"Oh, you mean because I forgot my lunch! But R. gave me half of his sandwich, and M. gave me some of his hot lunch," said Big Son.

"And Z. gave me half of her sandwich, and a rice krispy treat," said Daughter.

So how am I supposed to be a hard-ass mama and make my kids go hungry to teach them a lesson, if they`re at a goddamn Catholic school that is teaching them to share with others?

All that caritas et amor stuff keeps thwarting my evil plans.

Conversation Stopper

Picture this:

A mother is posing for a photo in a park with her son`s preschool teachers.

One teacher is complaining about how she never looks good in photos.

The mother is very not thin, and is resting a big round pumpkin on her left shoulder, right next to her big round face.

The mother says, "You think you look bad? I look like I have an undeveloped twin`s head attached to me here!"

The teachers do not laugh.

CLICK, goes the camera.

The self-conscious part of me was mortified, but the evil part looks forward to seeing the expressions on their faces in the photo.

Sharp Things Could Lurk Beneath the Surface

This morning, Little Son`s yuppie preschool had its annual "pumpkin hunt" park outing. They used to go to one of the commercial pumpkin patches, but that got too hectic, so now they just hide pumpkins in a nearby playground.

This meant the parents had to stand around the playground for an hour or so, watching all the kids play.

Little Son was with the big kids -- his four-year old buddies -- walking up one of the slides.

"I can`t believe people allow their kids to do that," said one of the fathers, whom I didn`t know. "I taught my kid to never walk up slides. It`s so dangerous."

"My son copies everything his big brother does," I said. "And 11-year olds walk up slides."

The father was a bit ruffled by this.

"Well, you`re the parent! You`ve got to tell him no!"

"Eleven-year olds want a reason for everything. If I tell him NO, he asks, WHY? And walking up a slide isn`t all that dangerous for an 11-year old." Or for a 4-year old, depending on the kid, I thought to myself.

"You don`t have to tell him a reason! He should just listen to you because you`re his mother and you said so!"

The guy was clearly getting perturbed.

"I think that if I fell back on 'Because I`m your mother and I said so' too much, without also explaining the reasons to him, I would lose credibility very quickly, with my particular kid," I said.

I didn`t feel like getting into a whole explanation of Big Son`s personality -- how he takes after me, and is a natural questioner. Overall, I think explaining my reasoning to Big Son instead of just giving him orders has actually made him respect my judgement more, as he gets older. He seems to question me less and less, even as he questions the rest of the world more and more.

"Which kids are yours?" I asked the dad.

"Just her -- we just have the one," he said, pointing at an adorable, delicate slip of a girl in a striped pastel dress, with golden ringlets spilling out of the sides of her ruffled sunbonnet. She was playing very gently with another little girl.

I immediately understood exactly where this dad was coming from.

"And which one is yours?" he asked.

"Right there -- the one who`s walking up the slide."

To his credit, the father didn`t say anything -- or even raise his eyebrows. So I decided to change the subject, and we made small talk about something else.

Then I noticed Little Son taking off his sneakers, to empty the sand out, and then leaving them off and playing in his socks.

"HEY!" I said, realizing too late that his teachers would now know exactly why he says that word too much. "Put your shoes on!"

"My daughter always takes hers off, too," said the father.

I looked. Sure enough, his delicate daughter was running around in just her frilly socks.

"I used to let my kids go barefoot, but then I cut myself on a piece of broken glass," I said. That was years ago, at the playground next to the beach in Santa Monica -- I didn`t injure myself badly, but it really drove home the point that sharp things could lurk beneath the surface.

"So you`re projecting onto your kids," he said.

Huh? Was he serious? He wasn`t smiling. I decided not give my usual snarky answer, just in case.

"Yep," I said.

I decided I no longer wanted to talk to this dad -- he seemed nice enough, but we obviously weren`t on the same parenting planet.

But later, I noticed that he made his daughter put her shoes back on to play in the sand.

Four-Year-Old Humor

Little Son: "Knock knock!"

Me: "Who`s there?"

Little Son: "Jacket!"

Me: "Jacket who?"

Little Son, barely able to speak as he rolls on the floor with laughter: "Jacket toilet man!"

Cute the first few times. Sure.

But by the tenth time....?

Please hit the road, Jacket Toilet Man, and don`t you come back no more.

Spiritual Matters

Yesterday, on the way to church, Big Son said, to no one in particular, "When I pray, I pray to monkey spirits."

"Well, I don`t pray to God or Jesus because they`re boys," said Daughter. "I only pray to Mary, because she`s a girl."

I was surprised to hear they pray at all.

Oh well. Blessed are the poor in spirit -- right?

I Wanna Know, Have You Ever Seen the Rain?

(UPDATED, to explain that Little Son, at four and a half, still sleeps in our bed. )

I was asleep.

I was dreaming about rain.

Rain was beating down on the roof, coming down in sheets, each drop exploding, one right after the other, in a barrage of water.

I woke up.

It was not raining.

Little Son was....um, where was he?

He was walking back to bed, and climbing back in.

"Where did you just go?" I asked him.

"....mmmm...love you, Mama...," he murmured, clearly sound asleep.

Uh-oh.

A sleepwalking child, a dream about rain pouring down.....

I switched on the light.

I looked and looked. I knew I`d find it somewhere.

Finally, I saw a few drops --- right in front of a plastic wastebasket.

The wastebasket has a lid that you have to raise and lower with your hand -- just like a toilet cover. In fact, the wastebasket is about the height of a toilet -- and it is white.

Three guesses what was inside.

Gooooooood Gossip

Mr. Principal said that the Mother Superior of the nuns who were at the school last year said she would like to consult with him about the teaching practices of a certain nun -- the very nun who made our lives wretched last year.

Apparently she`s teaching somewhere else, and her pound-and-humiliate methods have finally caught up with her.

The Mother Superior wanted to find out if there`s a pattern to Huggy Nun`s actions.

"I`d be willing to testify!" I said.

"Oh, I don`t think it`s anything like that," said Mr. Principal.

Damn. But I can hope, can`t I?

I will be sure to stay on Mr. Principal`s good side, to find out what happens next.

What else?

Ah, the eye situation: Big Son has perfect vision in his left eye, and 20/40 vision in his right eye. The doctor said his eyes aren`t bad enough to justify getting glasses at this point, if Big Son really doesn`t want them (and Big Son really doesn`t want them), but he shouldn`t be sitting in the very back row of the class room, because he probably can`t see small writing on the board.

Human Hammer Lady told me she moved him back to his old seat, somewhere in the middle.

And Big Son`s counselor changed his schedule so that he misses his Religion class sometimes, and not his Art class. Guess who doesn`t mind seeing the counselor now.

Things could be worse.

There`s a parents meeting tonight, and some of the moms are meeting at a neighborhood bar for beers BEFORE the meeting.

I keep remembering reasons why overall, I like this school.

Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, but Words.....etc.

Yesterday was my parent conference at Little Son`s yuppie preschool.

Considering I am not exactly (ahem!) the perfect mother when it comes to packing healthy snacks, showing up for school events, and picking my kid up punctually (though I deserve the "most improved" award for the latter category, after a bad start), I was expecting the worst -- perhaps even something along the lines of this.

They love him there, though -- they really do. The teacher told me what a bright, sunny, smiley, charming, considerate little boy I had, and how he will definitely be ready for kindergarten next year, blah blah blah.

Great. But then she said, "We do have one concern."

I`m sure I visibly flinched.

"It`s a word he keeps saying, that we try to discourage, and we hope you will cooperate with us on this," she continued.

A word -- my mind reeled with the possibilities.

Was it Jesus? Was it fuck? Was it hell?

Or even Jesus fucking hell???

She didn`t leave me in suspense for long.

"It`s 'hey,'" his teacher said. "We`re trying to get him to address people by their names instead of saying, 'Hey,' to get people`s attention, and also not yell, 'HEY!' when he`s mad about something."

I am so relieved -- and amused -- that....well, that I can`t even come up with a good punch line to end this post.

I mean, fucking hell already!

Someone just asked me....

...this question:

Is there some reason you spell it Mr. Principle? That a pun?

Nope. As a child, I memorized the old elementary school spelling trick, "The princiPAL is your PAL."

But since in my case the princiPAL was NOT my PAL, it appears to have backfired.

School Update

I went to get Big Son`s homework after school today.

Human Hammer Lady was really nice -- did I just dream that encounter yesterday? Did it really happen?

Today, she asked how he was feeling, she discussed his assignments with me, she complained a bit about how Big Son doesn`t like to write in his class journal in a way that didn`t put me on the defensive at all.

Let`s hope I change her nickname soon.

I hear some of you wondering whether perhaps Mr. Principal had "a word" with her. I would have to guess, probably not.

As a sign of what a hilariously optimistic world Mr. Principal dwells within, today I heard he has given my phone number to some prospective parents considering sending their child to our school.

Yes, you read that correctly.

There was a good reason for this -- they`re a Japanese family, and I can tell them about our school in their native language.

But I doubt that all of my views are going to make it into a brochure anytime soon, in any language.

The Rest of the Story (...UPDATED...)

A commenter (Hi, Margalit!) wonders why I don`t just pull Big Son out of this school.

I will, as a last resort, but there are several reasons I won`t yet:

1) My son himself wants to stay at this school, because

2) He loves his math teacher, and has a 97 average in her class; he likes his English/reading teacher a lot, a young man (I don`t know how Big Son is doing in that class, but the fact that I didn`t get a mid-term progress report is an excellent sign); and his science teacher is an older man who`s a brilliant quirky "mad professor" type, and whom Big Son has a little trouble understanding sometimes, but there aren`t any big problems there.

3) Big Son wants to be with his friends -- this is key, because it took him quite a while to feel accepted by the boys in his class and he finally does. Moreover, I like his friends` parents, and by that I mean, I can allow him to can go over to their houses, even sleep there, without worrying about what he might get into.

4) We can`t afford private school. I`ve looked into public school alternatives, but I think the reason Big Son`s class suddenly swelled from 19 students last year to 28 this year is because public junior high schools (sixth grade is considered junior high in SF) are spotty.

5) We actually talked about homeschooling, since it is an option, but he is very indifferent to it, and so am I. He even said, "Mama, you don`t understand my math homework -- how can you teach me math?" I concur.

6) We had a conversation last night about "worst case scenarios." He has the Human Hammer Lady for Social Studies, Religion and Spelling -- only three classes,* and he thinks he can manage to get C`s in them. If he does get a D, he can`t play sports or do morning traffic duty, which would be disappointing, but not the end of the world.
(*And Art, but Big Son would love that even if Attila the Hun were teaching it.)

I don`t want to make it sound as if she`s his only teacher -- just the only teacher he and I are having problems with.

Big Son wants to stay home today because although he`s better, he`s still coughing and says he has a headache, so I`ll let him. Under normal circumstances, I would probably make him go.

But I am adjusting for abnormal circumstances.

UPDATE: I spoke briefly with Mr. Principal this morning. I am fully aware that I need to take a different approach than last year, when Big Son had a crazy old nun --- Mr. Principal was clearly happy Huggy Nun was on her way out.
But he actually hired Human Hammer Lady, so my complaints have to be more circumspect if they`re going to have an impact.
Mr. Principal thought it was a very good sign that Big Son hasn`t been sent to his office once this year so far, but I told him all was not totally well. I described the crying episode, and the counselor impasse, but then agreed that on the whole, everything was much better than last year.

Unrelated: I have a bad mother confession to make. While I was posting on my blog this morning, Daughter packed her own lunch. Guess what I let her take to school to eat today?

A giant Tupperware container of leftover mashed potatoes.

I didn`t realize this until we were on our way to school. If I had been overseeing her instead of madly typing here, I would have thrown in a few chicken chunks and an apple, but....oh well.

It won`t kill her.

The Human Hammer Lady Strikes Again

Big Son was home sick from school today -- nothing serious, just a cold/cough and low fever.

But this meant I had to go to school and get his homework and textbooks, so I had to talk to the Human Hammer Lady, one-on-one, in her classroom after school.

We had a polite email exchange over the weekend, since Big Son`s weeping/spelling test boycott episode. I said, "...once he starts crying, he`s ahamed to lose face in front of his peers, so he makes a bad situation worse." And she responded that the class as a whole was "extremely rowdy" and they (the class, not only Big Son) "have to learn to accept the consequences for their actions. "

Something else of note happened over the weekend: Big Son informed us that he`s having trouble seeing out of one eye. I initially freaked out, connecting this with his chronic migraines (which often strike a particular side) and immediately thinking, "Brain tumor!" until Big Son pointed out that the bad eye is on his good headache side. Hub also told me that when he started wearing glasses in junior high school, he had one eye with perfectly normal vision and one eye with horrendous vision.

Anyway, we have a pediatric eye doctor appointment Wednesday morning.

I also found out Big Son sits in the very back row of a rowdy class of 28 -- not exactly conducive to listening closely to the teacher.

I told his teacher about his eye, said we were having it checked out, and asked if she would move him forward. This seemed like a reasonable request to me.

"I just moved him there," she said. "I`m still figuring out where to put everyone."

Um, okay -- but that was not the "of course" I wanted to hear. I really hope she moves him, though, because I don`t want to have to talk to her about it again. I know someone has to sit in the back row, but shouldn`t it be a kid who`s not having eye problems?

I started talking to her about Big Son`s grades.

"I know you might not believe me, but he`s made so much progress from last year. He`s really a different kid now. Unlike most parents at this school, I really don`t care about Big Son`s grades -- I just want him to learn and improve. I don`t expect him to get A`s."

"I don`t think anyone can expect A's. There`s nothing wrong with B`s."

"Yes. In fact, there`s nothing wrong with C`s. Last year he got a lot of 'mercy C`s ---"

"Well, he won`t get any 'mercy C`s' from ME!"

She interrupted me to say that. She really did.

"No, I don`t expect you to give him any," I said, deeply resenting that I had to say it at all.

Fast forward -- I told her that Big Son wanted to stop seeing the school counselor.

"He doesn`t want to miss class anymore. And maybe he`s getting self-conscious about getting pulled out during the day, even though he didn`t seem to be last year."

"Until he learns to control his frustration, he has to see the counselor," she said.

Since when was it up to her to decide?

"I don`t want him to think of seeing the counselor as a punishment for his behavior," I said.

Noncommital on the seat request, impasse on the counselor. Not good.

Oh well, what did I expect? She is the Human Hammer Lady, and I am the nail that sticks up -- or rather, the mom who sticks up for my kid.

I got a stomachache today from just talking to her.

Maybe this is a silver lining, and I`ll lose a few pounds?

Think positive!

Four Bloggers and a Funeral (UPDATED)

Yesterday began with a great memorial service.

Don`t look at me like that -- it really did.

Seriously, when the people at Little Son`s yuppie preschool asked me if I had signed up for a job on its annual "Maintenance Day," the Saturday on which parents come in and do on-site improvements, I told them, "No -- I have to go to my friend`s uncle`s funeral."

The stony silences suggested not everyone believed me, but come on -- I could have thought up a much more believable lie than that. If I were lying I would have said it was my own uncle, at least.

I had expected the funeral to be on the dull side. I had never met the deceased, my friend`s uncle, who was a retired Lutheran minister, and I knew very little about him. I was there to help some of the other moms from our school pick up and arrange some simple food for the reception afterward.

But everything about the service was beautiful and affecting -- the music (which included Latin requiems as well as Norwegian hymns, all sung by a professional quality choir and accompanied by almost the entire church), the building (built just over 100 years ago, before the '06 quake), and most of all, the touching tributes by the people who`d known him:

"...He took me in 39 years ago, when I was a 16-year-old runaway, and changed my life..."

"...He baptized my partner, who was dying of AIDS..."

"...He was the kindest man I ever met."

In fact, I wish I had the chance to come in contact with him before he was a bag of ashes on the alter, but I suppose being in a roomful of people whose lives he touched was the next-best thing.

I admit I know very few details about the modern Lutheran Church -- hey, I can barely keep up with Catholicism, Buddhism and Shinto, the religions various members of my family practice at home.

Oh, I know the basic historical outline of Martin Luther getting himself excommunicated for speaking out against the Roman Catholic Church`s corrupt sale of indulgences, leading to the Protestant Reformation, etc. But there are so many different flavors (synods, whatever) of Lutheranism nowadays that I just can`t keep them all straight.

The deceased guy was obviously not from one of the religion`s conservative factions, because he was one of the founding members of Lutherans Concerned back in 1974 . (I know it sounds funny that I keep calling him "the deceased guy," but I am purposely avoiding mentioning his name here, so that my blog won`t show up in Google searches by people looking for more substantive info on his life and work. If anyone is interested in reading more about him, here is his obit ).

After the service, his ashes were buried under a tile in the church garden.

There was one tiny moment of high tension during the service, when all the people were invited to receive communion. Three of the other moms from our Catholic school were sitting in the pew with me, and we had a very lively whispered, "So should we go up there?" conversation.

I mean, the idea of an all-inclusive, everyone-welcome Eucharist was a pretty radical concept to us "Lord-I-am-not-worthy-to-receive-you" people.

I decided not to go. I don`t receive communion in the Catholic church, for many reasons, so I thought it would feel as if I`d slipped into some weird parallel universe, if I were to receive it in a church that was pretty much its mirror image -- well, except for any mention of the Pope, and a conspicuous absence of any special alters to or statues of the Virgin Mary (they did have a really nice angel statue, though). I was concerned that my abstention would be taken as a lack of respect for the dead, but I figured I should try to be consistent.

In the end, only one out of the seven Catholic moms I knew there went up to receive communion. She said later that it felt like exactly the right thing to do at the time, and joked, "Lightening did not strike me dead."

Almost a year ago, I went with some school mothers to the funeral of another school mom`s father. At the time, I remember thinking how my family had only been living in San Francisco for a few months, and yet there I was, already at a funeral -- this had a funny way of making me feel accepted in our new community.

Yesterday, I had another oddly comforting thought. It occurred to me that if I were to suddenly drop dead, the mothers from our school would probably offer to help poor Hub with all the things he didn`t know about, or understand. They, not him, would decide what kind of cookies to buy for the reception after the service -- all he`d have to think about would be the logistics of getting my ashes back to Japan and scattering them into the Kamo-gawa when the police weren`t looking (or whatever else he wants to do with me -- I am unlikely to give a hoot, either way, at that point). Hub would really need a lot of guidance, if I died, since I have no other family nearby, and since my parents probably wouldn`t be much help. Usually, thinking about my own mortality and the possibility of leaving young children behind is the stuff of my nightmares, but it didn`t feel ghoulish at all to imagine my friends buying cookies for my own (hopefully only imaginery) funeral -- no doubt the fact that yesterday`s funeral was so positive and uplifting had a lot to do with that.

I had a very small window of time after the funeral, in which I had to get my house clean. I almost succeeded -- well, I didn`t get to one of the bathrooms at all (the scuzziest one), so I guess that counts as a failure. But I exhausted myself trying, which must count for something.

For a while, I didn`t think it was really going to happen, but we pulled it off -- we managed to have another Blogging Baby SF meet-up.

I was still madly vacuuming when the hip, cool StefanieJ from Mommymatic arrived, all the way from Salt Lake City. I`d never met her before, and if first impressions count, she will remember me as being drenched in sweat and spastically chasing crumbs and lint balls around my living room.

Ann Adams of Roc Rebel Granny came in from Merced, and Uncle Roger and his lovely wife Rachel and two adorable kids came from a few blocks away. I`ve met them all before, and will hopefully meet them all again, many times.

The only no-show was Hub, who had a big work project to finish, and hadn`t planned on people coming over. He said hello and then vanished.

"I was afraid to talk to people who read your blog," he said to me later. "I have no idea what kind of things you say about me on it."

One, two, three -- all together now:

POOR HUB.

Oh, Hub -- if only you knew....

(UPDATED -- I guessed another possible reason why Hub fled: maybe he just didn`t want his picture taken and posted on the Internet? Photos of the meet-up -- and my house -- posted here:
http://rocrebelgranny.blogspot.com/2006/10/party-time-in-san-francisco-again-part.html and a description here:
http://rocrebelgranny.blogspot.com/2006/10/party-time-in-san-francisco-again-part_16.html
and another description here:
http://mommymatic.blogspot.com/2006/10/in-which-i-wax-all-sentimental-about.html)

Deja Vu All Over Again

Don`t you hate it, when you`re sighing with relief and something sneaks up and knocks the wind out of you?

Yesterday, after only two sessions with the school counselor (the person who visits through the St. Mary`s program), Big Son told me he wanted to stop going.

"It`s not the new counselor -- I like her. She`s nice," he insisted. "I just don`t like missing school. I don`t think I need to go anymore."

I told him to keep going a little while longer, but he said he wants to make this month his last. I don`t see any point in forcing him to go.

Last night before bed, I asked him if he wanted me to help him study for his spelling test by quizzing him on the words.

"You really need to do well on the test, to bring up that grade, you know," I said. He had a big fat "F" average going on the test portion of his grade in that subject, even though he`d gotten an A on the last test for which I`d helped him study.

"No, Mama -- I think I can do okay myself. I want to do it by myself."

Great, I said. Things looking up?

Not for long -- today I went to pick him up at school, and found him sitting on a bench in the corner of the schoolyard, crying.

I couldn`t understand his mumbling, but he seemed to be telling me his class had to break up into groups for Religion. Some students had to read Biblical passages together and then summarize them for their groups. He said he was still talking to his group, and had missed the first five words of the spelling test.

"There was no way I could pass it after that! So I started crying, and didn`t do the rest of the test," he said. "I handed in a blank paper."

Crying and handing in blank tests -- does this all sound familiar? I could hear that crazy old nun he had last year laughing somewhere.

Big Son`s teacher was across the playground, talking to another teacher. I purposely waited to see if she would come over and talk to me, and explain to me what had happened, and why my son was sitting there weeping.

She did not.

So I walked over to her. She had started talking to another mother, and broke away for a moment to talk to me.

"He missed the first five questions on the spelling test because he was talking," she said. "It wasn`t just him -- about a third of the class missed it."

Ah -- so she continued with the test, to punish the kids who weren`t paying attention. Harsh, but fair -- this is sixth grade, after all, and she has 28 kids, including a few boys with (ahem) larger-than-life personalities. She`s a new teacher at our school this year, and has taken a strict approach right from the beginning, and I perfectly understand why.

"But he was the only one who refused to take his test -- the rest of the students who missed the first questions just continued," she said. "I told him he could re-take the test Monday, but that he couldn`t re-take the first five questions, because that wouldn`t be fair to the rest of the students who also missed them."

Fine, I thought. Well, not fine -- harsh, but she had already offered to let him retake some of the test. That was better than nothing.

But then she said something that made me hate her.

"He started crying," she said, without a trace of sympathy or compassion -- and I might be reading too much into her intonation, but she seemed to say it with just the teensiest bit of disgust.

Then she turned back to the other mother to whom she had been talking, her conversation with me over.

--------------

We interrupt this post for some background on crying.

I myself have never been much of a crier. I had a big mouth and was frequently in trouble in elementary school. One reason for this was that after a teacher scolded me, I would continue to glower defiantly, like the boys did. Most of the other girls, when scolded, would turn on the waterworks.

Consequently, I was the only girl in my class who got sent to the principal`s office. This was almost unheard of, for a girl at my public elementary school in the Connecticut suburbs in the early '70`s.

I resented this. I remember wishing I could cry, too, like a normal girl, and even tried to muster up a few drops, to lessen my punishment -- but try as I might, I just couldn`t get my anger to come out as tears.

Then, with the onset of puberty, along with the various other physical bodily changes, I began to cry --- like a normal female with feelings, or so I thought. I was human after all.

But by then, my attitude toward crying had done a one-eighty: instead of crying to get out of punishments, I tried to suppress my tears whenever possible, despising them as a sign of weakness and doing all I could to maintain my angry glower.

I, too, once had only disgust for the girls who wept openly at nothing, instead of controlling their feelings and physiological reactions to them. Were they women or little girls? Grrrr!

For me, crying was like vomiting. I thought, if you think you`re about to do it, you certainly can`t always stop yourself from doing it, but as a courtesy to the people around you, you should remove yourself to a private place where no one has to see your spilled bodily fluids. No one wants to see someone cry, anymore than they want to see someone regurgitate their lunch.

My attitude is no longer that obnoxious, that cut-and-dry. I realize that all people are different, and express their feelings in different ways. Not everyone can hold in their tears, not everyone even wants to, and, like me as a child, not everyone can cry at all.

But for a boy to cry and lose face in front of his peers, well -- that`s kind of a big deal. Big Son doesn`t cry much, but I do think he cries more often than other boys. He`s 11, and not the most mature kid -- plus, he`s overly sensitive, and takes things waaaaaay too personally. He hadn`t even mentioned to me that a third of the class had also missed the first five words of the spelling test -- he thinks everything bad happens to him, and him alone.

I hate to see my kids cry -- does any mother like it? Sure, my kids sometimes exaggerate to get attention, or even fake it -- especially Daughter -- and that`s just plain annoying. But to see one of them crying for real? And then have a teacher dismiss it like that?

When a sixth-grade boy cries in class, how can a teacher act as if it doesn`t matter? Or even sneer at it? (Okay, maybe "sneer" is going too far -- I don`t want to read too much into her tone, since I`m trying to keep in mind that she seemed angry and was obviously having a bad day herself...)

Last year, Big Son had a crazy old nun for a teacher, who thought she was pounding my kid into shape, and she was really just pounding him into the ground.

This year, the nun is gone, but he`s apparently got the Human Hammer Lady as a homeroom teacher.

The only reason I didn`t take him out of that school last year was that he wanted to stay in it so badly, because he liked everything about it but the nuns.

And he still does -- in fact, even more so. He likes his three other subject teachers a lot, and has many friends now.

So, if the Human Hammer Lady is going to pound him, I will have to think of ways of helping him either develop a tougher exterior layer of protection, or avoid getting pounded in the first place.

I helped my son survive his wretched year in Huggy Nun`s class, and he even improved and learned a great deal despite her. He`s reading at (perhaps even above?) grade level now, and he`s getting better everyday. I am astounded and proud of how far he`s come.

Human Hammer Lady, you are no match for my family --- if we made it through last year, we can survive you, too.

Someday, though.... wouldn`t it be great to have a teacher who`s on the same side as my kid....?

Daughter to Mama: GO AWAY

I am a meanie, when it comes to Daughter. She is a very sweet, cunning little weasel, and incredibly gifted when it comes to weaseling out of things she doesn`t like to do.

Homework is one of them. She needs to be prodded with a sharp stick.

At the beginning of the year, she told me she wanted to join "The Homework Club" with her friends. Some of the teachers at the school are there everyday, maintaining a quiet classroom in which kids can do their homework and ask for help if needed. It sounded great, and I didn`t even care that parents were charged the after-school daycare rate of four bucks per hour -- I think that`s very reasonable, and it seemed like a small price to pay to get Daughter to do her homework.

Then a few weeks ago, her teacher told me her homework had been "spotty" recently -- some was done well, some was done not so well, and a little bit wasn`t even done at all.

"That`s it -- no more Homework Club until you do your homework!" I told her. "I`m willing to pay for Homework Club, but not for Social Club."

Daughter buckled down, but she has missed a few assignments, and until her teacher gives me the all's well signal, she`s not going back.

So yesterday she asked me, "Mama, when are you going back to work fulltime?"

"Well, I`m going to talk to my old company and see if I can do something for them, because I`d like to go back fulltime when Little Son starts kindergarten next year, and maybe even before then if I can."

"Why not go back now?" she asked.

I didn`t say anything. I guessed where this was going.

"Doesn`t our school cost money? Don`t we need the money? Don`t we need to save for college? Don`t we need to pay for our house in Tokyo?"

"And I suppose if I went back, you could go to the Homework Club everyday, right?"

"I`d have to go, if you worked," she sighed. "But I don`t mind. Really!"

Yep, she`s an evil genious, all right: trying to get points for doing something she wants to do, anyway.

Too bad her Mama`s even more evil, and can see right through her.

Heh heh heh....

Weighty Stuff

What is a nice way to say, "a little bit fat but not totally gazungo-mungous?"

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, just described me to someone this way:

She' s tall (5'6" or thereabouts), a little on the hefty side (by her own admission - so am I) and has short blonde hair and glasses.

(My friend is a senior citizen, a fellow blogger, and I don`t want anyone to say "get new friends" in the comments, because she`s really great and was just trying to accurately describe me to someone who`s never met me before.)

Actually, I`m only about 5'3" -- close to 5'4" on a tall day, when I`m standing up straight, which is never. My hair is closer to light brown, and.....hefty?

"Hefty" sounds like "heifer." "Hefty" sounds like a brand of trash bag -- oh, wait, it is! That must be why it sounds like someone so big she has to clothe herself in black plastic trash bags.

I`ve always preferred "chubby." Or, even more accurately, "voluptous," since so much of my "heft" is right above my rib cage.

But now, have I crossed the line from "chubby" to "hefty?" Dear god.....! I can still fit in normal sizes! And I`m still a size "medium" in Target clothes! Really!

I`ve started swimming in recent weeks, since we joined the Y. While I am still just as "hefty" as ever, I have noticed that my "heft" no longer jiggles.

Hub poked me in the stomach the other day, and asked, "Why is it so hard? You`re not.....pregnant, are you?"

I pointed out to him that it would be biologically impossible for me to be pregnant at this particular point in time unless I were cheating on him, and all he said was, "Yeah, right."

But it`s true -- my stomach still sticks out a little bit, but it`s no longer squishy. I could pass for someone in early pregnancy with a "baby bump." Damn, I`d better be careful how I dress, or else strangers will ask when my due date is.

"I like you better squishy," said Hub sadly.

Sorry, Hub, but if I`m going to be a big ol` hefty middle-aged woman, I need nice strong muscles to support my heft.

But isn`t there something better to call it?

A New Way of Looking at Our Preschool

Whenever I feel like a misfit mother at our yuppie, earthy-crunchy preschool, I`m going to remember this:

The teachers will never ask me to work the concession stand at a Raiders/49ers game to raise money for the school. No, they`ll just ask me to come to their auction and drink wine and spend money on some stuff.

I`ve got to try to remember that, the next time Little Son`s teachers look askance at the contents of his lunchbox.

Too...tired.... (...UPDATED...)

On Sunday, I attended my very first pro-football game -- the San Francisco 49ers were playing the Oakland Raiders at Monster Park.

But I did not go as a spectator. Instead, I worked in one of the concession stands, to help raise money for our school.

How was it? Well, the work was unpleasant, but I expected that. The crowd was utterly terrifying, and I did not expect that at all, oh foolish football naif that I am.

There may have been some nice, normal people -- families, even -- who went to see the game Sunday, but I didn`t happen to see any of them. Maybe I just didn`t notice them, among all the drunken, screeching scary people buying beer at our stand?

I knew it was going to be that kind of day when we got to the stadium parking lot in the morning, and lots of people were already there, and already drunk.

These were the pregame "tailgate parties...." but at 8:30 am??? Kickoff wasn`t until 1:00.

As one of the other mothers said, "No one is wearing just a shirt." Nope, everyone was decked out in either full 49er or full Raider regalia -- t-shirts, hats, painted hair and faces, team tattoos of both the temporary and permanent-looking variety, etc.

Shirts that said, "FUCK THE 49ERS!" were quite popular.

I asked to work in the kitchen in back. The registers looked complicated, and I`m kind of slow when it comes to working new technology. Plus, I didn`t think I could rise to the challenge of learning under duress, with drunken people screaming at me.

One thing I got to do was help make the garlic fries. There were instructions on a card on the wall for making the "garlic slurry" to pour on them.

"Slurry? Is it really called that? Am I the only farm girl here?" asked one horrified mom.

The pre-diced garlic came in big jars, and was very pungent, like freshly sliced onions. We wore rubber gloves to mix it onto the fries, which were fresh from the big grease vat. So every hand motion would bring forth a blast of hot steamy greasy air mixed with that garlic stank, and if you didn`t stand back in time, it would hit you right in the face and blind you for a few seconds. By the end of my turn doing the fries, my face was wet with tears and my eyes were beginning to swell shut.

We all took turns, because no job was really all that fun. I also got to turn sausages on the gas grill, from which six-inch flames would shoot up at random intervals, singeing my fingers. I kept telling myself, "It`s better than being at the registers....it`s better than being at the registers...." until I almost believed it.

I kept remembering why I went to college: menial white collar labor is infinitely cushier than menial blue collar labor.

I had many minimum-wage food-related jobs in my youth, and while some of them were wonderful (like the summer I spent frosting and filling doughnuts on the night shift, or the time I worked for a wedding/events caterer) other jobs, well....sucked. And Sunday reminded me a lot of the ones that sucked.

I took a bathroom break before the game started, and worried that I had walked into the men`s room by mistake. But no --- the absence of urinals told me I was in the right place.

Yeah -- the women were that scary. Some of them had as many tattoos as the men, and their own "FUCK THE 49ers" shirts -- except they had breasts, so all you could read was the "FUCK" over the fold.

And the noises, oh god the noises. No, I`m not talking about the usual indelicate restroom noises -- at least those would have been natural human sounds.

One person would scream WHOOOOP! and pound her fist in the air, and all of the people around her wearing the same color shirt would scream WHOOOOOP! right back. It was like feeding time at the zoo. "ROOOOOAAAR! YAAAAAAA! WHOOOOOOOOOOOP!"

Would I be their prey? I was wearing the concession stand shirt, which was the 49er color. Would the drunken black-shirted women give me a hard time?

I resolved to stop drinking any water after that, no matter how thirsty I got, because I didn`t want to have to go to that restroom after the game started.

I can`t remember the last time I felt that personally at risk -- I think it was the time my innocent American suburban family took a vacation to Marrakech (don`t ask) in 1984. My father and I went out for a stroll by ourselves and wandered off the main street and got lost, and kept seeing trucks full of troops headed into the center of the city, and heard what sounded like rioting around every corner. We finally found out way back to our hotel, but it was scary.

See, I tend to avoid danger. That`s probably why I became a business journalist, not a war correspondent.

So I just concentrated on making big bowls of garlic fries, and filling the outside trays with them, and grilling sausages and wrapping them in paper, and placing them in the warming drawers, and telling myself it would all be over soon. It was easy to stay busy, because at any given moment, there were 20 things we were supposed to have already done.

In addition to our 12 hardworking school volunteers, toiling for our fabulous single-digit percentage of the gross (oh, don`t even get me started on how little my individual effort probably earned for our school), we had two regular employees there to help us, one in front and a cook in back.

Our cook was a very short white woman named Rosie, who I would guess to be in her mid- to late-50`s. She never smiled and barely spoke at first, except to order us around:

"No, you`re wrapping that wrong! Do it like this!"
"Don`t let your hot links burn! That one`s done! Take it off, NOW!"
"You need to pick up that box over there and put it down over there," etc.

She reminded me so much of my grandmother I wanted to weep. My grandmother was taller, but she was also a mostly unsmiling woman who worked as a waitress and probably also ordered people around at work -- although I knew for a fact that she was a kind, warmhearted person underneath. If she were still alive, my grandmother would now be in her 80`s, but when I was a little girl, she was about the age Rosie was.

I think I must have been giving off unspoken "doting granddaughter" vibes without even trying, because Rosie started being nicer to me than to the other women working in the back.

"Here, take a break," she said, noticing my red, swollen eyes. She hadn`t offered anyone else an extra break -- even though the other women who took a turn doing the garlic fries ended up just as red-eyed.

She even took her towel and gently brushed the grease, garlic and crumbs off the front of my shirt. The she tried to push me outside our booth.

"Go on out, take a break. Walk over to the side and look out at the cars or something," she said.

I looked outside at the seething mass of humanity, the crowded drunken freak show before me, and pleaded, in a tiny, plaintive voice, "Please don`t make me go out there!"

She didn`t make me. Instead, she shook her head and said, "Okay -- stay inside. I guess I can`t blame you. In over 20 years doing this, I`ve never seen it look this bad before."

Then the fight broke out, right outside our stand. I was walking to the front with a bowl of garlic fries, so I happened to see it start.

A guy pushed another guy -- accidentally or not -- and there were angry words, and then one guy threw his full cup of beer on the other guy.

May I say, you have to have really, really impaired judgment to throw a beer you just paid EIGHT DOLLARS for?

Anyway, the fight was like a fire spreading -- in a matter of seconds, there were five guys beating up five other guys, right up against our stand. Somebody`s contraband glass bottle shattered against the side.

"Don`t leave the registers!" said someone.

"FUCK THE REGISTERS!" said one mom, taking cover in the kitchen and dragging her husband with her.

Our stand briefly stopped taking orders -- I mean, we had to. No one could get to the counter because of the brawl.

Everything ended a few minutes later, as suddenly as it all began, and the police appeared on the scene right after. Perhaps troublemakers have some kind of internal police radar detectors hardwired into their skulls, that gave them the "DISPERSE!" signal ahead of the cops' arrival?

Eventually, the other kitchen workers stopped taking Rosie`s gruffness personally -- we respected the fact that she worked the hardest of all, and we all felt very sorry for her, working the concession stands for more than two decades. Who knows -- maybe our sympathy was misplaced. Maybe she enjoyed it, but...we sure didn`t.

At the end of the long, hard day, both Rosie and the other employee said we had been a really great group. This was true. We were -- none of us was lazy, no one bickered with anyone else. We all worked together really well.

Most of us walked out to our cars together, braving the drunken freaks en masse. One woman from our group left by herself, and she was never seen again. Okay, no, she was probably fine, but we all thought she was nuts.

How tired was I?

I was too tired to go out for a beer, as I`d originally planned.

That`s REEEEEALLY tired.

UPDATE: Two of the Irish moms did go out for beers afterwards, and stayed out until after 10:00. What can I say? I respectfully bow in awe before the true Women of Iron. I fell asleep before 8:00.

I am working on a post....

...about why I was TOO TIRED to finish a post this weekend.

It involves the Oakland Raiders-SF 49ers game. Are you curious? Yes? No? Yes?

In the meantime, I will just announce the good news that Daughter was "Student of the Month" for September at her karate studio. Maybe she really did break a board after all.

Karma in my Mailbox

Last year, as longtime readers of this blog remember, our family hosted a couple of Korean exchange students for a month.

After they went home, as a gesture of thanks, our school gave us $100 worth of Rainbow Grocery gift certificates.

I went there once, just to visit a San Francisco institution, and spent about $20. I meant to go back, and stock up on things like Annie`s canned soup, but I just haven`t gotten around to it. The place is near our vet`s and the place where we get our Mazda serviced, but I still haven`t gotten around to going back there.

Since I had done nothing, nor expended anything, to get the certificates, I decided to give them to a friend -- someone I know who's had some bad luck and a lot of stress lately, and goes to Rainbow Grocery regularly to get a few certain products. I know she will use them, and from our point of view, it was easy come, easy go -- nothing lost.

No sooner than I had put the certificates in an envelope to give to my friend, the mail came.

I never told the story of our Very Expensive Parakeet on this blog, because it bothered me to think about it, and I was trying to put it out of my mind.

In a nutshell, a major pet and supply retailer sold us a parakeet with an avian gastric yeast infection last fall, and we spent an astronomical amount of money treating her. With our vet`s cooperation, I have been trying to get at least some of that money back from the retailer.

Nearly a year later, the retailer finally sent me a check -- for significantly more than our expenses. And the excess was much greater than the value of the certificates I had just decided to give to my friend.

Yeah, you can definitely make the argument that I would have gotten the check whether or not I gave away the certificates, but.... the timing was so incredible that I like to think that it was the "you-must-give-to-receive" rule at work.

Thank you, Universe.

Don`t you just HATE it when......

....you`re poking around underneath your kitchen sink, trying to figure out where a little leak is coming from, and the pipes come apart in your hands, sending a gush of fetid water onto you and your kitchen floor and giving off a smell like rotten eggs?

As Little Son would say, "JESUS!"

UPDATE: I put the pipes back together. Yaaaaaay, me! But it`s still got a bit of a drip -- anyone know a good plumber in San Francisco?

Nipping Bad Habits in the Bud

"JESUS!" exclaimed Little Son, when he dropped something.

Uh-oh.

"Where did you hear that?" I asked, worried that he would say, "From you!" I`m very careful about swearing around the kids, though, since I fully realize that what goes around comes around.

"Fom Au Pair Extraordinaire!" he said.

Ah. Off the hook, sort of.

To be sure, Au Pair Extraordinaire heard it from me. And after I heard her say it, I had the talk with her about how yes, I do say it sometimes, but not not in front of the kids, and that it`s best not to say it at all because some Chrisitian people are offended when Jesus` name is said in vain.

"Vein?" she asked, looking confused. She was a nurse, after all.

"Please just don`t say it. It bothers some people," I said.

But now Little Son is saying it.

That`s all I need his preschool teachers to hear -- at the school where I`m already mama non grata. This is even worse than the "touch your butt" game, when you think about it.

"You know, you shouldn`t say that word," I told him.

He thought about this.

"So it`s a bad word, just like hell?" he asked.

"Yes! Exactly!"

"Okay," he said. "I don`t want to say any bad words."

Problem solved -- for now, at least --until he starts Catholic school kindergarten, and informs everyone that "Jesus is a bad word."

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Daughter`s teacher came up to me today and said, "You really need to help her with her vocabulary homework."

Uh-oh.

It seems that students in her class are required to use each of their vocab words in full sentences.

"So if the word is, 'conceal,'" said the teacher,"Daughter writes a sentence like, "I know what 'conceal" means."

And when the teacher said this, I got a warm fuzzy feeling all over, because I used to do exactly the same thing.

Daughter reminds me so much of Hub that it scares me sometimes. She has his face and his personality -- classic Japanese passive-aggressive behavior, as well as hone and tatemae (which, explained simply, is the difference between one`s true feelings and one`s actions, which the Japanese have perfected into sort of a social martial art) -- to the extent that I sometimes wonder whether he managed to slip a gender-adjusted cloned embryo into my uterus, when I wasn`t looking.

So I`m always glad when I see rare flashes of myself in her. I will take her word-use strategy as a sign that she does, indeed, carry some of me in her DNA.

I did things like that all the time. I vividly remember arguing with my ninth-grade French teacher, who wouldn`t give me credit for a portion of a test that asked us to describe a picture of a room.

I had written, "There are no chickens here." And, goddamnit, there weren`t any chickens! It wasn`t wrong!

And to this day, I still remember that the French word for chicken is poulet. This kernel of retained knowlege has helped me read menus and order my preferred protein in countless restaurants over the years, proving that there are indeed advantages to this method of "learning through arguing with the teacher."

It`s not quite the Socratic method, but hell, you`ve got to start somewhere.

Quick, grab it before it slips away!

Big Son is doing much better at school, his teacher said.

And all three kids will get newly colored belts in karate, at the school`s promotion ceremony next week, and they`re all very thrilled that they won`t be white belts anymore.

And Daughter claims she broke a board in her class, but I didn`t witness this. All I can say is, it must have been a flimsy, balsa wood board.

Good news, and a happy feeling -- enjoying this while it lasts.

And preschool? Well.... the director handed me an invoice, with a sticky-note attached to it.

"Looks like you have a note from our bookkeeper," said the director, frowning.

It occurred to me the director might not have read the note, and maybe she`s not keeping track herself of who`s paid what, when. I mean, that`s what they have a bookkeeper for -- so the teachers don`t have to worry about it.

All the sticky note said was that they received my payment for the year in advance in full, but we still owe $170 in assorted fees, due by the end of the school year.

Yes, I paid the whole year in advance. I could have done it in installments, with no interest penalty, but I figure that although this means that we lose the interest ourselves, I will think of it as giving that money to the school.

I also paid the big kids` school in advance, but their school gives a 4% discount for doing it this way, which is great -- I mean, think about it: it`s like a 4% tax-free return on our money.

This way, Hub, who is not known for bothering himself with the details of our savings and expenses, can look at our bank statement, and screech, "OH MY GOD -- WHERE DID ALL OUR MONEY GO?"

And I can say, "School," and the pain is over for the entire year.

I wonder if the preschool director knows I paid the whole year in advance? Her frown would suggest otherwise.

But then I realized why she was really frowning.

"No more Oreos at snack time, okay?" she said.

Oops. Au Pair Extraordinaire packed Little Son`s lunchbox, and she must have given him some organic, no-trans-fat, Trader Joe`s Oero-like cookies.

I`ll be sure to warn her not to do that again. First it`s sugar, then before you know it, they`re smoking crack.

Preschool Update

Preschool director, to me: "How is your job situation?"

Me (trying very hard to stay unbeat, despite the gaping, growing hole on my resume): "Oh, fine! I`ve got this part-time job now, and I think I can do more freelance writing, and I hope to go back fulltime next year."

Preschool director (frowning): "No, I mean how is your job scheduling problem?"

Oh. Right. As Daughter would say, DUUUUH.

It`s been one of those days.....

It started off early this morning, when I decided to add a splash of hazelnut-flavored coffee creamer to augment the nonfat milk in my morning dose of caffeine. I shook the container, as one is supposed to do -- and realized (too late) that Hub had used it before me, and not closed the cap all the way. So I began my day by spraying sticky coffee creamer all over myself and my kitchen, like a scene from a bad TV sitcom.

Hub came running to see what had caused me to yelp.

"I closed it!" he vehemently insisted. But really, there was no way he could have, since he`d used it a few minutes before and the kids obviously don't use coffee creamer.

I was early for preschool pickup today, nervously pacing back and forth on the sidewalk and worrying that I wasn`t early enough, when a woman tapped me on the shoulder.

I looked up and my heart stopped, because she looked just like the strange woman who yelled at me for spanking Little Son on Friday.

The Friday spanking/yelling incident has left me with a fear of middle-aged slender white women with shoulder-length light brown hair. I keep thinking I see her everywhere.

But no -- it was just another preschool mom, and one that I happen to know. She has a daughter in kindergarten at the big kid`s school and a son at Little Son`s preschool, and she said the preschool director approached her about "my problem." She said she`d he happy to pick up Little Son and take him to his babysitter`s house anytime.

Ah -- so the preschool is trying to solve "my problem" for me. I appreciate this, though I feel kind of awkward about it.

I thanked her, and I will certainly try to set up some play dates with her son and mine (since he will likely be in Little Son`s kindergarten class next year), but I don`t want to impose unless necessary. I`d rather just take Little Son to the babysitter`s house myself instead of preschool sometimes. I mean, it`s preschool -- it`s not as if he has homework to make up when he misses it, for godssake.

I never wrote about Little Son`s first day of preschool last month, did I? It was during that crazy week of Au Pair Extraordinaire`s car accident, so I got distracted.

Well, the "check engine" light went on in the Mazda, and it was time for its tuneup, anyway, so I grabbed the first service appointment I could get. I thought Hub could drop it off at the dealer`s and take a taxi to work.

Instead, Hub`s plan was to follow me, with Little Son in his car, to the dealer`s, and then I would drive him to work (and spare him the unspeakable inconvenience of a taxi ride), and then take Little Son to preschool.

I reluctantly agreed rather than argue, and the plan might have worked, if 1) I hadn`t been caught in morning traffic on the way back, and 2) Hub had remembered to bring Little Son`s backpack, which I had to go home and get. And my cell phone battery was dead, so I couldn`t even call the school to let them know what was going on.

So, as it was, we were half an hour late. We missed all the first-day "meet and greet" hoopla, and...got off on the wrong foot.

We are still looking for the right foot. It must be here, some place. If you find it, please let us know.

Actual Conversation

Me, brandishing a package: "Look, Hub -- I found this great bamboo table runner! We can put it on the windowsill of the big living room window in our Tokyo apartment, to cover up the places where the wood is a little discolored."

Hub: "Um...we`re not going back to that apartment for at least three years. Why are you even thinking about it?"

Me (annoyed that he would even ask this): "Because I want to go back there!"

Hub (annoyed that I`m annoyed): "Why can`t you try to be happy here?"

Me (annoyed that I have to state the obvious): "Because it`s not my home."

Hub (half to himself): "When I married a foreigner, I never thought I`d have these problems..."

Me: "So you turned me into a Japanese wife. Live with it!"