Brothers

My boys have a Love/Hate relationship. On most days is would appear that Hate is the driving force. But I know better.

Little Squirt worships his brother. Surreptitiously messing around with Rock Star’s guitars and poking him in the ribs with light sabers is only his masked attempts for attention and emulation.

Rock Star also secretly adores his baby brother, although he’d rather be strung up by his guitar strings than admit it.

Little Squirt got into the car yesterday after school. He was upset because a bigger child had pushed him down on the playground during recess, and he wondered aloud what to do if he encountered that same hooligan again.
“If that kid picks on you one more time,” Rock Star said. “Tell him that your brother is a High School wrestler. And if he messes with you, I’m going to mess with him!”
Little Squirt beamed.

A family favorite poem:

Brothers
I had a little brother
And I brought him to my mother
And I said I want another
Little brother for a change.
But she said don’t be a bother
So I took him to my father
And I said this little bother
Of a brother’s very strange.

But he said one little brother
Is exactly like another
And every little brother
Misbehaves a bit he ssid.
So I took the little brother
From my mother and my father
And I put the little bother
Of a brother back to bed.

(Mary Ann Hoberman)

Finding Balance, Limb By Limb

I engaged in the age-old art of yoga last Friday, when I took a class that a friend offered in her home. For over an hour, as the instructor led us, we stretched and posed and took deep relaxing breaths to the accompaniment of Zen music. We centered on God as our breath of life, as the instructor spoke to us of us of gently honoring the body our Maker created for us. It was a thoroughly enjoyable and spiritual experience from start to finish, and I plan on signing up for the 8-week class.

I had been formerly been intimidated by yoga, having taken an advanced class at my health club a decade ago. The 20-something uber limber instructor would yell out names like, “Eagle!” and morph her body into a convoluted pose that I was no way in Hades able to imitate. I felt limber-challenged and uncoordinated and kept getting sharp, shooting pains throughout my back. I took that as a sign that God was not calling me to be Gumby, so I happily quit the class.

But this yoga instruction at my friend’s house was fun and safe, and I left feeling deeply relaxed and more confident in my body. Except for one thing: I have almost completely lost my sense of balance. I have no idea where it went or when I left it. But it’s gone. I found this out when I could barely do The Tree without knocking my classmates into a domino effect. Even the 70-year-old woman, who had to keep stopping to take hits from her oxygen tank, was able to assume The Tree pose for longer than I. It was embarrassing.

This distresses me greatly, because I used to have an amazing sense of balance. I was able to jump 2,100 times in a row on the pogo stick when I was 10. If it had been an Olympic sport, I would have won the gold. I was also able to balance for eternity on the bongo board. As God is my witness, I could have stood without falling on the bongo board from my middle school years straight through college without stopping once, except to break for nature calls. I was a Stellar Balancer, back in the day. So what the heck happened?!

I am bound and determined to get my balance back! Wherever it went, I shall hunt it down and make it return. And I’ll become super bendy like the lady in the pic above, stretching my limbs into positions they haven’t reached since the womb. That shall be me in a year, doing The Bridge on a beach in the warmth of the sun. (I’m especially juiced up about the beach part.)

Food! Glorious Food!

Here is the odd little personal fact about moi, which would shock my current friends: I hated food when I was growing up. It’s true, folks. I was groomed to be a Food Hater. My mother was a fearful and unimaginative cook, owning only one cook book my entire childhood. She had issues with her stomach, so the entire family was put on a bland-low-residue diet along with her. Our usual dinner was a plain, dried-out piece of meat (she was afraid of undercooking and giving us all botulism), a canned vegetable, and baked potato. Salt was forbidden. I asked my mother, once, if she could make the Corn Flake chicken recipe I’d eaten at a friend’s house for dinner, but she said it would be too much work. (Really? You dip the chicken in milk, then roll in cornflakes.....easy-peasy. Whatever.) I dreaded Dinner Time. It was a battle ground, with food as my enemy. I spent my childhood avoiding getting caught not eating. I’d stuff the dried-out meat into my napkin to throw away later, or surreptitiously give it away to my brother.

But now I am a Foodie. I love The Delectable. The Scrumptious. The Mouthwateringly Yummy! My childhood prison-food days are long gone and I have embraced the God-Given; that which brings life; food. It is no longer my enemy, but a steadfast and interesting friend. I have made a hobby of trying new recipes and new eateries.

Fortunately, most of my friends are Foodies, too. The other evening, four of us gathered together at Houlihan’s, on an evening when they were testing new “small plates” to put on their menu. We shared a bottle of savignon blanc while tasting white bean and artichoke hummus with pita bread, and ginger lemongrass porkbites with peanut sauce. We caught up over goat cheese and artichoke poppers, shrimp po’boy sliders with Creole remoulade sauce and BBQ chicken flatbread pizza. We topped it all off with my favorite creme brulee.

Ahhh.....good friends and good food, filling up my body and soul. There is surely no better way to spend a winter evening.

I Need Pooh-Bear Help

It’s one of those days when everything that can go wrong is. Honestly. It’s like a conspiracy of the forces!

It was my day to car pool Rock Star and his friends to school, but I could not find the car keys this morning. It turned out that I left them in my raspberry purse when I went to FL with my Vera Bradley bag, because I knew I wouldn’t need them on vacation. But I didn’t figure that out until after I tore up the house looking for them, blood pressure sky-high, so I wouldn’t run the car pool late.

Then I couldn’t get into my junk drawer to get to the scotch tape. The drawer was completely jammed, and it cost me a French-tip nail to finally jar it open. My blogger site was uncooperative, and it took 20 minutes of problem-solving until I could log in. And there were other annoyances.

None of these problems in themselves are major, and I’m not complaining. I just returned from a week’s vacation, and I am grateful. But the small irritations of life somehow seem to conspire together on certain days to invade my peace of mind and turn me into a Raging Lunatic. If I lived near a beach (Someday, I will, please God? Amen.), I’d run there to meditate and center myself. The ocean makes me feel close to God.

Instead, today I will seek the wisdom of A.A. Milne. Currently I am reading his tales of Winnie-The-Pooh to Little Squirt. There’s something so comfortingly innocent about the simple insight and common sense of these timeless, beloved characters.

“It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately.”

.......Of course, we had both a blizzard and an earthquake within 24 hours of each other in my town last week.....never mind. (Big sigh.) I think I’ll go “center” myself on Valentine chocolate.
 

The Rest Of The Week In Florida

I finally found some internet juice! Thank you, God! My laptop and I are grateful! If I sit in a certain chair in the corner by the window, I can steal I mean benefit from a generous neighbor’s wireless. And gaze at lovely palm trees when I get bored.

It’s been a good week in FL. A really good week. The weather has not been at its spectacular best, but I’ll take 50s in Florida over the Chicago blizzard we missed. Oh, and the earthquake. Did I mention the earthquake that hit our suburban neighborhood while I was away? I’ve always been the Queen of Excellent Timing.

I came on vacation with no expectations other than to soak up a little sunshine with my friend, Lisa, on an End-Of-Winter Getaway. (I thought acquiring a tan would be a nice bonus, but it’s been too cold to tan. But no worries, I have a tube of self-tanner sitting in my bathroom. It’s safer that way, anyhow.)

We’ve done some adventuring, Lisa and I. Here are the highlights:

Downtown Disney!
We made the 2 hour drive to Orlando in the pouring rain, with Serena, my GPS, as our navigator. Serena has Borderline Personality Disorder, and constantly tries to mess with my head, but she behaves around Lisa. So Serena got us to Orlando accurately. We ate caprese sandwiches for lunch in downtown Disney through a thunderstorm. But the rainiest day at Disney trumps the sunniest day at home.

A Murder Tour!
Serena got us to Casey Anthony’s house. I’ve had an odd obsession with that case since the beginning, and wanted to see the family home. We parked nearby, stealth and stalker-like, until I got out my camera. Then Lisa had had enough of my Wannabe Nancy Drew Behavior, and gunned the engine.

YWAM!
We ate dinner at Lisa’s sister, Megan’s YWAM base, and took a tour of the area and her house. I had told God, one day last year, that I wanted to pray for a missionary but I didn’t know of any. Then, out of the blue, Megan, a missionary, sent me some prayer requests. I had my missionary to pray for! Thank you, God!! I may not be one of your brightest bulbs, but I recognize a prayer calling when it jumps up and bites me on the.....never mind. (Inappropriate use of a metaphor.) It was so good to see the YWAM ministry close up.

Victuals and Libations!
We have done wines! We have visited wineries and done tastings paired with chocolates. We have eaten fabulously-prepared fresh seafood, which is my very favorite kind of food at a restaurant by the sea, which is my very favorite kind of retaurant. Steamed little neck clams in a butter-garlic sauce, grilled salmon, shrimp and crabcakes; all so yummy!

The Beach!
I love the ocean almost more than anything. It has a kind of magical aura that brings out my creative, spiritual, peaceful Very Best. We sat on the beach on a chilly day in which the locals were wearing parkas and scarves. We read in beach chairs and collected shells and envied seagulls their lifestyle.

I rate a vacation by how much I obsess about my real non-vacationing life. And this week, I have obsessed very little (which makes this vacation a 9.5. If it was sunny and 80s and I had a week of Good-Hair Days, it’d rate a 10.) I have skyped with my family and texted a few friends, but that’s it. The things in my life that I found really irritating the last few months have completely vanished from my conscience. I haven’t thought about them at all. I’ve just embraced each day with its Floridian Vacation Adventuring. I’ve been blessed with relaxation and laughter and sunshine. And a wonderful couple who have hosted me with such sweet hospitality. And a good friend who invited me here, and a husband who has played Mr. Mom while I’m gone. Blessings abound! Thank you, God.

Sunday & Monday In Florida

I love Lisa’s family! I really do. Her parents are warm and welcoming and fun. And so are her sisters and brother-in-law. They make me feel like a part of the family and feed me well. Lisa’s father reminds me so much of my beloved father-in-law that it’s eerie. From his personality and mannerisms, right down to his touch of a Long Island accent, he is so similar to how I remember Dad. Or the Dad that he was before Alzheimer’s robbed him of so much of who he was. It's comfort, wistfulness and longing, all tangled up together, to have these reminders of Dad.

I drove from my hotel on Sunday afternoon, relying on Serena, my new GPS Servant, to get me to the Lisa Family Compound in one piece. It was a chilly, overcast February day (for Florida. In Chicago, this weather would be typical for May.) We celebrated all the holidays-in-one over a turkey dinner with the works, and finished it off with a homemade ice cream birthday cake.

I am enjoying my stay in this Palm Coast hotel! It’s in a brand new “hurricane” building, which means that this is the place to hide out should a Katrina-like disaster ever hit again. The walls are solid and sound-proof, which keeps everything wonderfully quiet, but makes getting cellular reception ad hoc. A sweet woman serves me breakfast every morning, made-to-order. She moved here from North Dakota after her apartment burned to the ground, destroying all her worldly possessions. She relocated to FL two years ago to be near her parents. But she doesn’t care for the consistently balmy temps and humidity. To me, a Chicagoan, consistently balmy temps and humidity sounds like a piece of Heaven!

On Monday we took the grand tour of the beautiful, historic St. Augustine. We walked along the beach and browsed shops. We engaged in a really enjoyable wine-tasting at a charming little wine shop. Lisa and I agree that The Magnun Opus of the wine-tasting medley was a cabernet-chocolate concoction. Oh, the angels will absolutely be serving this ambrosia in Heaven!

We at shrimp tacos at a Mayan restaurant, then drove to the San Sebastian Winery for a tour and participated in another wine-tasting. This made me realize how sympatico I am with this family! The tour guide was interesting and engaging, though the wines were a touch too sweet for my taste.

Our evening ended with a cocktail party at a beach side condo. The wrap-around-porch overlooked the intercoastal waterway, the ocean and pool. The view was lovely! How I’d love to host parties on that porch! (Please, God, find me a condo with a beach front view and I will host many parties for your Kingdom! I promise!) The owners are friends of Lisa’s parents, and I thoroughly enjoyed visiting with them. The woman wrote a book which is soon to be published, so we talked “writing” a bit.

Good times. Life is good here in Florida.

Airport Adventures

I am in Palm Coast, FL, sitting in the lobby next to a large aquarium. The fish look happy, which I’m interpreting as a positive omen for my vacation. And what’s not to be happy about being in FL? The palm trees...the ocean...the perpetual balminess. Ahhh....vacation. But we had a few interesting adventures in getting here.

I flew out, yesterday, from frigid 20 degree Chicago to Charlotte with my friend, Lisa. The flight was without incident, except that my tray table got jammed, and wouldn’t store upright for the landing. So I gave up trying because I didn’t want to break a nail. Those Flight Attendants are persistent in following FAA regulations, by golly, and that tray table needed to be stored upright for the landing! So it took two of them and the gentleman sitting behind me to fix it. I was relieved! With all the current FAA regulations, I was concerned that, because of my errant tray table, the plane might not allowed to land. I had visions of circling in the airspace above Charlotte for the rest of my life.

After a layover, we boarded a small Barbie plane to fly to Daytona Beach. I don’t care to fly in small Barbie planes, ever since I developed my fear of flying. You can feel every bit of turbulence in the tiny planes, and my hands gripped the arm rests with every bump. But we landed safely, collected our baggage, and headed over to Hertz.

At Hertz, I was handed keys and told I would be renting a Prius. I argued, saying I didn’t want a Prius, that I had reserved a not-a-Prius and didn’t appreciate the bait-and-switch. The woman said that I had no choice unless I wanted to upgrade to a Mercedes for an additional charge. So Lisa and I went out to the Prius with really bad instructions and a useless diagram, and spent 20 minutes in the dark trying to figure out how to turn on the engine. The engine may have turned on, we weren’t sure, but I couldn’t make it reverse, and it felt unsafe to me to try to drive a car that I was so unfamiliar with. I was too exhausted to try any harder. I was getting my Ticked-Off on, so I marched back to the Hertz lady and told her I just wanted to get to my hotel in a car I was able to drive; not some vehicle from The Jetsons cartoon. I returned the keys of the Jetson car, broke my contract, and rented a normal car from another agency. Thumbs down to Hertz!

We pulled out of the airport to a freeway of bumper-to-bumper traffic. Apparently a pre-Daytona 500 race had just ended, so we joined the crawling throng of cars filled with drunken race fans. Serena, my GPS, was frustrated as we had to keep re-routing due to the road-blocks from the race. “Re-calculating! Re-calculating!” she kept saying huffily in her upper-crust British accent. But she was faithful, and got us safely to my beautiful hotel. Whew!

A package greeted me as I checked in. My husband; wonderful Super Hubs whom I will adore forever, sent me a package! I headed to my room, and opened the box filled with little wine bottles and Recess peanut butter cups. My dinner. I indulged. Ahhh...the man knows me well. A lovely beginning to my Florida vacay!

Let Me At 'Em!

Nothing makes my blood boil faster than to know that someone is being mean to one of my kids. I go from Zero to Terminator in 10 seconds or less. Mothers everywhere know exactly what I’m talking about. Our protective instincts are innate.

I have never wanted to beat up a second-grader more than I did last Friday. I found out about “the incident” only because Little Squirt was telling me, while doing homework, about how he needed to forgive someone. After pumping him for information, he told me how a child from another class had punched him in the mouth during recess. He peeled back his lip to show me dried blood and a bit of swelling. He said this child, “Bob,” had punched him in the past.

I was ready to go nuclear and drive to “Bob’s” house, guns blazing. But Super Hubs, being the more even-keel one in the marriage, said he’d call the school on Monday to get to the bottom of this.

This morning he put a call in to the principal, who is a wise, together woman. She has very high standards for her school, which is why it is consistently ranked #1 in the whole district. She said that “Bob’s” behavior was unacceptable. Within 30 minutes she brought both boys to her office, corroborated Little Squirt’s story, made the other child apologize, and phoned his parents. (She gets the job done, this principal, and I really wish she’d run for public office! She could whip our country into shape in no time.)

So on we go. I’m glad that “Bob” was held responsible for his behavior, and hopefully will behave himself at recess from now on. And I’m glad that the principal reinforced the message that we wanted to give Little Squirt; that he matters. We are not okay with someone hurting him; and he shouldn’t be okay with it either. Forgiveness is good, but so are boundaries. Truth and grace, hand-in-hand.

But here’s what I’m learning more and more about Little Squirt: He has a heart of gold. When he got home, I debriefed with him, asking how he felt about going to the principal’s office with “Bob.” He said, “I just kept worrying about Bob, and how he’d feel about getting in trouble. I was sad for him.”

I don’t deserve the children I was given. Little Squirt was cut from a really special grain of cloth; pure kindness and empathy. He is one of my favorite teachers.