Jiaozi

I'm still standing

Life tends to get in the way of blogging, doesn't it?

We had a nice Christmas break. Then right after New Year's I took a deep breath and ordered myself a new laptop computer, since the old one is going on 6 years old and the keys keep flying off. The very next morning, my hard drive died. Or committed suicide, more likely. So I didn't have a computer for a week. I took the old laptop to the repair guy so I could at least retrieve my files. He put in a new hard drive, so I can access my documents, but I lost my cookies and other personalization. So I have to retype all my passwords on the sites I use a lot -- if I can remember them. I'm hacking my own accounts. (My new laptop has arrived but I haven't set it up yet because that's a whole day-long project.)

Later on the same day the laptop died, we found that two of our cars wouldn't start. Well, their batteries were going on 6 years as well. Thank goodness we now have a third car (because Bess is driving!) (!), so Big A drove down to Sears and picked up a couple of new batteries. But one car still wouldn't start, so we had to have AAA tow it. It needed a new starter and other minor repairs.

Got that fixed, and Seattle Snowmageddon 2012 hit. The kids were out of school for a week.

So, you know, stuff as usual, and it was a nuisance, but I'm thankful that we could pay for the repairs, our power didn't go out, and we're all safe and healthy. Knock on wood.

I do feel sometimes as if the universe doesn't want me to have nice things. I am pretty frugal and try not to replace things if they can be repaired. My car (not one of the ones that broke down) is 9 years old and I am only reluctantly looking at a replacement. It seems as though every major purchase is followed immediately by the breakdown of something else, and before I know it we're hemorrhaging money. I wish someone would invent a money tourniquet.

Because I'm so cheap frugal, sometimes I do without longer than I really need to. It's a startling moment when I realize, for example, that when I need to wrap something up, I don't actually have to scrounge for rubber bands I've pulled off the Sunday paper. I could go to the office supply store and shell out $1.99 for a bag of new rubber bands and have all I need. It just doesn't occur to me to do that. Scrounging is such a habit.

I realized a couple of weeks ago that the kids were still eating snacks out of the three toddler bowls left in the cupboard. They prefer them to our soup and cereal bowls because the toddler bowls are plastic and durable and hold just the right amount for a snack. Should teenagers be eating Cheez-Its out of Disney Baby bowls? On the one hand, it's not as if we're using them for company. On the other hand, I could go to IKEA and buy a stack of SOLBRÄND bowls for five bucks and we'd be set, plus we'd have enough for everyone. So I might do that, one of these days, though I'm afraid if I splurge the dishwasher will break down. It's not a necessity, but it would be nice to have pretty snack bowls, you know?

I don't know why it takes me so long to think about those things. I'm not talking about a new car or appliance, nothing that will break the bank, just little niceties. I am truly the child of Depression babies.

Do you ever do that? Suddenly look at your ratty, cheap old frying pan with new eyes and smack your forehead and think, "Wow, I could actually replace this with one that doesn't have Teflon peeling off it and make my life a little easier!"? Or get the notion that maybe, at this point in your life, you don't have to sleep on threadbare sheets?

Note: Yes, my old laptop will be passed on to one of the kids. And I'm still scrounging for rubber bands.

Miscellaneous adoption-y stuff

Adoption assumptions

When Steve Jobs died, the press and public went into overdrive spinning mythical origin stories for him, and some of those stories concerned his status as an adoptive child. One graphic making the rounds had a picture of Jobs with the legend "Born out of wedlock. Put up for adoption at birth. Dropped out of college. Then changed the world. What's your excuse?" I saw other people referring to him as having been "rejected" or having a "rough start in life."

I take exception to this. While being adopted can certainly have far-reaching effects on an individual's life and identity, the fact that Jobs was adopted (or born out of wedlock, for that matter) does not itself mean that he had a rough start, and a look at his biography shows that there wasn't much exceptional about his early life. I won't repeat the details; you can Google it yourself. But suffice it to say that his birthparents made a well-thought-out adoption plan; they agreed to the Jobs family adopting him, albeit with reservations, when the first adoptive family backed out; he was raised in what sounds like a pretty normal home; and later he made contact with his birth relatives and established a relationship with his birth sister, also a talented and creative individual. Pretty typical stuff. We're not talking about Oliver Twist or Little Orphan Annie here. (As for dropping out of college, that was his choice, and it was probably because of that choice, not in spite of it, that he became such a success.)

The "What's your excuse?" line is an example of pathologizing adoption -- that is, assuming that it is "abnormal," that it's necessarily an obstacle to overcome, and that adopted people are always damaged. The flip side of it is that if you, too, were born out of wedlock and "put up for adoption at birth," you'd have an excuse for not changing the world. That's a pretty crummy message. There's a difference between holding someone up as an inspiration and using him as a case study.

In my experience, institutionalization, a poor home environment, and frequent moves to different homes are the aspects of adoption to be concerned about, and even then the effects depend on the individual. Two of my children were affected by those aspects of adoption, and one really wasn't. Not coincidentally, she is also the one who spent the least time in an orphanage. She would give you the evil eye if you said to her, "Wow, you really had a rough start in life! You would have a good excuse if you turned out to be a mess!" I have seen her evil eye, and you do not want to be on the receiving end of it.

Happily ever after

We are sci-fi/fantasy geeks, so of course we watched the premiere of "Once Upon a Time" the other night. It was fast-moving and entertaining, and I think the whole family is hooked. But they sure hit the adoption theme hard, didn't they? I mean, it's bad enough when the Wicked Queen is depicted as an evil stepmother (I say that as a stepmother), but when she is also an evil adoptive mother, that's a bit much to handle. Or it was for me. I kept asking the kids, "Are you okay with this? Don't you think it's sort of negative about adoption?" They shrugged. There was one line in the show that had to do with "that basic question [adopted children] all inevitably face: 'Why would anyone give me away?'" I asked the kids if that's a question every adopted kid faces. More shrugs. When I was still sputtering a bit at the end of the show, May said, "Mom. You take this stuff too seriously." So, yeah. They're not exactly bubbling over with feelings about adoption at this point in their lives. Sometimes I'm the one with the problem.

An open letter to my children's teachers, school administrators, coaches, and activity directors

Dear folks:

I appreciate all you do for my kids. I really do. And I know it's not your fault that we have three children attending three different schools, or that between them the kids participate in two competitive soccer teams, three types of dance classes, martial arts, choir, and miscellaneous activities. (And I'm leaving out the college student, who is mostly managing her own affairs, except for the tuition bill.) It's not your fault that both of us work, or that we have five pets, two of whom are passive-aggressively housebroken. I know that.

But I want you to know how overwhelmed I am at this time of year. Every September I feel like I'm being buried under an avalanche of papers and requests. Every day my children hand me a stack of documents to fill out and sign: contact information, vaccination records, field trip permission slips, health education permission slips, performance agreements, behavior "contracts." I'm not the student; why do I have to sign contracts? It's worse than buying a house.

I apologize for snapping. I'm a little stressed. I'm afraid that somewhere in that four-inch stack of paperwork on my desk is something important, like the electric bill.

Then there are the requests for money. Tuition, lunch accounts, athletic fees, coaches' expenses, costume fees, uniform costs, tournament expenses -- okay, we signed up for those things. And I'm accustomed to the annual trip to the office-supply store to buy binders (three-ring), notebook paper (college-ruled), and markers (washable). But I'm having a hard time getting used to the idea of paying out of pocket for public-school field trips, books, and classroom supplies -- including tissues.

I'm sure I'm dating myself here.  We used to bring 50 cents to school for My Weekly Reader and that was about it. Times have changed.

And that's not all. After the bills are paid, we start receiving the solicitations for annual gifts, both "voluntary" donations and "mandatory" donations (an oxymoron for certain). The children are sent home with piles of paperwork demanding their participation in magazine subscription drives, cookie-dough sales, wreath sales, and raffle ticket sales. I do not have any desire to turn my children into door-to-door salesmen, nor do I want to burden our friends and family who, frankly, have their own children's fund-raising efforts to deal with. I do not understand why your tuition and fees or our property taxes are not sufficient to pay your expenses. Perhaps you need a new accountant. And why do all of you do auctions now? If I'm going to pay $75 per person for dinner, I want it to be a quiet candlelit dinner with my husband. No offense, but I'd rather just send money.

See, my parents had seven children. I don't think they could have afforded all of us under the current system. We can barely afford the four we have. What do people who are unemployed do?

But there's more. Piled on my desk are numerous requests for our time. First are the open houses, orientation sessions, parent meetings, planning conferences, ice-cream socials, and potlucks. Then come the urgent requests for us to volunteer our time. I realize you could probably use some help here and there. But I want you to consider that, statistically speaking, more than half of the children you work with come from two-career homes, and many of the stay-at-home parents are caring for infants or small children. We're already a bit pressed for time.

As it is, my husband and I spend most of our nonworking hours helping with homework. Between our fourth-grader, eighth-grader, and tenth-grader, we actively help with about 8 hours of homework every day, including weekends. It's like a second job. Seriously, I just had to stop writing this post -- at 10 p.m. -- so I could answer the question "When do you use a discrete graph and when do you use a continuous graph?" which I had to Google anyhow because this is the new new new math and I have never heard these terms.

When I was a kid, it was enough for our parents to send us to school adequately fed, able to sit still, and ready to learn. That was their contribution. And most mothers didn't even work. Why isn't that enough anymore?

So I try to help out where I can, but just because I work at home doesn't mean I can drop everything to come to every open house, orientation, game, performance, concert, awards ceremony, field trip, assembly, or costume and uniform fitting. I do have work deadlines. I will try to put my time where I feel it will do the most good in helping you provide kids with opportunities to learn and grow. And, frankly, if we all have a Friday evening free, we're going to spend it doing something as a family, not going to yet another potluck.

I'm sorry. I'm a little cranky. Not enough sleep, too much to do. You should see the massive pile of sewing waiting for me. We'll all outgrow the clothes before I get them hemmed. And I've been working on this blog post for a month.

I know all of you, as organizations, are just doing what you feel you need to do to look out for your interests. But please be aware that the volume of requests for attention, money, or time you send us is multiplied by, let's say, 10 on our end, because you're all sending us this stuff at once. Could you maybe try staggering the requests? January is pretty slow. How about January?

Well, that's it for now. Appreciate your efforts, but if I don't respond immediately to your requests, and if I don't attend every single event, this is why. It's because every September -- It's still September, right? No? -- Rats. I'm more behind than I thought.

Love,

Sister Carrie

p.s. Oh, and PTA? You and the alpha moms will get your own letter. Yeah. Just as soon as I find the time.

Timepieces

This is my watch. I believe I bought it just before Big A and I got married, so about 19 years ago. It's the only watch I ever wear. It's silver- and gold-tone, so it goes with any kind of jewelry. I don't have a sports watch or a dress watch or anything. I go to the watch repair shop every few years to get the battery changed. For about a decade, planning a trip to China was my reminder to get the battery checked. I had the battery changed last year, so we must be overdue to go on another trip. This watch is important, because I am the only member of the family who wears a watch. People may claim that they don't need a watch because they can get the time off their cell phone, but they don't do it because it's too much trouble. I just have to turn my wrist, and there is the time, in analog form as God intended.

Speaking of which, here is my cell phone. I got it four years ago this month. Amazing how much cell phones have changed in a few years' time! I know the antenna is funky, but it works fine. I can make and receive calls, take fuzzy pictures, and send text messages, laboriously. I get pretty good reception. The antenna makes it easier to grab out of my purse.

After I'd had this phone for two years, the cell phone company gave me credit for a free phone. I gave the credit to Bess so she could replace her phone with one more text-friendly. Now I have another credit for a free phone. Every time I look at the choices I'm overwhelmed. I wouldn't mind having a QWERTY keyboard, but all the phones now require data plans. I don't want to have to add another $30 to my cell phone bill just so e-mail can follow me everywhere. I'm on the computer too much as it is. And then I'll have to replace the girls' phones since I'm paying for data service. Technology is a slippery slope. So I don't do anything about my phone, even though the girls tease me mercilessly about it.

My sewing machine was a college graduation gift from my parents. I've made three wedding gowns, several prom dresses, and countless outfits and costumes on it. It's a big metal Kenmore zig-zag machine. It has no electronics in it, which is why it will last forever. You have to fasten an oddly shaped contraption to it to sew buttonholes, which is fine with me because it's still a big improvement on trying to sew them by hand. I don't see any reason to replace it.

I don't have an iPod. Actually, my dad just sent me an iPod because I was the only person in the family without one. Even he has one. It's still in the box waiting for me to set it up. Don't get me wrong, it's a cool thing and I will probably enjoy it a lot, but I've only just got comfortable with CDs. This is an entire different sort of machine.

It's not that I'm a Luddite, exactly. But I don't like change -- or, more accurately, I don't crave novelty. I get a tremendous amount of security out of having things around me that fit like well-worn shoes. I hate having to get used to a new car or sofa or phone or wallet. It messes with my sense of space. Nothing is where I expect it to be. I like being able to put my hand where I am accustomed to putting it to turn on the wipers without having to give it much thought. It throws me when I can't rely on that and actions that ought to be automatic suddenly require conscious thought.

I dread having to buy new shoes and break them in. When I find an article of clothing that I feel both comfortable and attractive in, I buy it in several colors. Yeah, I'm one of those people. I'm like the old guy I saw in JCPenney one day berating the sales clerk because the store had discontinued some style of flannel shirt that he'd been buying for 40 years. I wouldn't take it out on the clerk, but I've felt the same indignation. How dare you stop carrying those socks, the ones that are just the right length and have just the right kind of toe? What am I going to do now, go barefoot?

You would think, being such a creature of habit, that I'd have sense enough to buy a good handbag. I'm a perfect candidate for that sort of investment because I would keep it forever. I don't need a wardrobe of bags, just a good all-purpose black leather bag.  With the money I've spent on inexpensive bags I could have bought a good one by now. But it's hard to part with that kind of cash all at once, you know? It's especially hard to spend that much money on myself. And it would have to be the perfect bag, with an outside pocket for my keys, and a place for my quaint old cell phone....

I get enough change in my life from my children. They grow up so fast. Look away for a moment, and by the time you look back you have a new child. We are in the middle of a big transition, away from caring for small children and toward raising teenagers. The baby clothes and toys are long gone, and every day another relic of childhood falls by the wayside, boxes of stuffed animals and childish books consigned to the garage. The two older girls now wear adult sizes (if size 00 jeans can be considered adult), and I keep mistakenly buying clothes for Ella that are too small for her, she has shot up so much in the past year. She is the only child now who will pose for a first-day-of-school picture, first-day-of-school pictures being so profoundly uncool for anyone over the age of 13. 

This is my big little girl, shiny as a new penny, ready for another school year. Where did my baby go? When I hug her, I don' t have to bend down; the top of her head tucks under my chin, right where it used to be when I held her in a baby carrier on my chest, except now her feet reach all the way to the ground. She fits differently in my arms now. I will get used to it, I suppose. But I don't need any more novelty in my life, thank you very much.

A mile before breakfast

I bought myself a pedometer last week. I'd been thinking about getting a pedometer for a long time, idly wondering how far I travel each day just running up and down the stairs and through halls and into rooms fetching things and putting things away and prodding people. Finally I did it. I picked the cheapest pedometer at the sporting goods store. It has a vaguely Star Trek-y look that appeals to me. I keep wanting to tap it and say, "Picard to bridge!"

Friday I wore it around the house and recorded 2,000+ steps. I hadn't set my stride length yet, so I didn't know how much distance that represented. Also, I found that I didn't step hard enough to get the pedometer to register every step. The pendulum inside it has to jiggle to trigger the recorder, and apparently I have mastered the Mom Stealth Walk, gliding noiselessly from room to room like a creepy character in a horror movie. The pedometer also ignored most of the steps I took climbing stairs, which was deeply disappointing because we have three flights of stairs in our house. On the other hand, vigorously scrubbing the sink registered as a few dozen steps, so maybe it was a wash.

Saturday I vacuumed the house, which in my mind is approximately equal to running a marathon. Seriously, I have to shower after I'm done. I had calculated my stride length at 2 feet and entered it into the pedometer. I was so disappointed to get a total of just over half a mile for the day. I think I got cheated somewhere. Of course, I did sit and crochet and watch TV for most of the evening, and it wasn't a school day, so I wasn't doing as much fetching and prodding as usual.

Sunday I didn't bother with the pedometer, though I probably did a quarter-mile circling Trader Joe's.

Today I put on the pedometer as soon as I got dressed. I registered over 400 steps just getting Ella up and ready for school. She needs a lot of prodding to get out of bed. (I keep telling her that I do too, but I don't have a helper.) I made myself oatmeal , but it wasn't ready when we had to leave for school. After I got Ella to her classroom, I took the dog to a park near the school for a quick walk -- or as quick as a walk can be with her, because she has to stop and smell every single bush and tree, though she herself is too fastidious to relieve herself anywhere but her own back yard. After putting the squirrels on notice, we headed back home, and I finally sat down to my oatmeal. The morning's tally: .97 miles, all before breakfast (and only half of which I attribute to walking the dog).

Try it. Your mileage may vary, but I'll bet it's at least as much as mine. And if you think I'm going to hold this over my family's heads -- you're right.

Friday roundup

I've been thinking that I might be a better blogger if I were a sloppier blogger. I work those essay-length posts to death, and that cuts into my output. I'm going to try the lazy writer's friend, the bullet list.

• October is adoption month at our house. Bess, May, and the dog all have their adoption anniversaries this month. Is it weird that the only date I'm sure of is the dog's? I don't have the other adoption dates written down except in my travel journals. We've never made a big fuss over "gotcha day," a term I don't especially like anyway. For the record, this month marks 13 years for Bess and 4 years for May. And they are both excelling in junior high. I am so proud of them. I really didn't expect for May to be doing so well academically this soon.
• Reality TV is evil. I may explore this thought at greater length later. It seems to me that reality TV capitalizes on the same urge that causes people to slow down in traffic to look at an accident. (I'm not judging -- I have that compulsion too.) It could have been humanizing, the way blogs are humanizing, by reassuring us that we all share experiences, but instead it's exploitive. And dishonest, since much of it is staged. Also, it reduces the amount of work available for screenwriters.This is a bad thing for creative people everywhere.
• That said, some good writers must be getting work, because I find that there is an embarrassment of riches on TV right now, being as how I'm a scifi and musical geek. My [only intermittently functioning] DVR is getting a workout. But the DVR's memory is almost full because I never get to watch the shows I record. A warning to those of you who have young children: When they get older, you can never watch anything adult on TV until they are, well, adults. Or at least 18. My teens stay up later now, and they want to hang out in the family room with the comfy couch, so until 10 p.m. I have to watch family-friendly programming. And I can't stay up until 11 p.m. because we're all up so early in the morning. I've given up on putting anything rated R in my Netflix queue. I don't think I'm overprotective, but there's no reason to expose them to material that they are not mature enough to understand.
• On a related note, how come every PG-13 movie has the F word in it exactly once? I believe that the rules are that if they use it more than once, or use it in certain contexts, they get an R rating. But why use it at all? Does a PG-13 rating sell more tickets than a PG rating? And is it any wonder that the girls report that kids crowding the locker bays are all "F this" and "F that"? We used to get in trouble for saying "crap." (Remember when the radio stations skipped that word when they played Paul Simon's "Kodachrome"? Of course you don't, you're too young. Take my word for it.) Am I wrong in thinking that the worst cussing should not be used casually but saved for when you're really at the end of your rope? I'm just not sure that breaking a fingernail warrants the F word. Let the profanity fit the crime.

Daily accomplishments -- a log

I have been thinking about the "100 days" posts and wondering what I do accomplish on a daily basis. If I can remember to do it, I think I'll occasionally post a daily list. I know there are days when I feel I've accomplished nothing, and I'd like to know if that's true.

Here's my list for today, in excruciating detail:

• Got kids up and fed
• Drove kids to school
• Loaded and ran the dishwasher
• Put brisket in the crockpot
• Started this blog post
• Worked on a post for another of my blogs
• Researched summer programs for May and Ella
• Scheduled two medical appointments
• Hung out on Facebook
• Agreed to be a board member for a fledgling (and tiny) nonprofit
• Swapped e-mail with family members
• Read two articles and listened to two podcasts online
• Exercised the dog
• Picked up the kids from school
• Helped kids with homework and reading (longest sustained effort of the day)
• Fed the pets
• Cleaned the litterbox (not my job -- someone owes me)
• Did a load of laundry
• Watched kids play outside
• Finished making the brisket and side dishes for dinner
• Washed the dishes
• Read half the new issue of TV Guide
• Watched The Daily Show
• Tucked kids into bed
• Finished this post
• Did a little reading

Not a bad day. I got some things done and also got to relax. Nothing earth-shaking, though. Just routine maintenance. I'm still aware of the myriad of things I didn't get done. Maybe tomorrow.

That's comedy, folks

Ella (watching me laugh at The Daily Show and trying to understand what's so funny): "Oh, I know! It's like Funniest Home Videos for adults!"

Uppity yours

On September 4, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA) told reporters, "Just from what little I’ve seen of her [Mrs. Obama] and Mr. Obama, Senator Obama, they're a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they're uppity." When a bit of a fuss emerged over this comment, Westmoreland issued the following statement: "I’ve never heard that term used in a racially derogatory sense. It is important to note that the dictionary definition of 'uppity' is 'affecting an air of inflated self-esteem -- snobbish.' That’s what we meant by uppity when we used it in the mill village where I grew up."

Give me a frigging break. Rep. Westmoreland was born and raised in Georgia and grew up during Jim Crow. I grew up in the North and I'm younger than he is, and I know darn well that "uppity" was never used as a term for stuck-up white people. My mother, who was also born in Georgia, told me when I was a little girl that it was a derogatory term white people used to describe black people who the white people thought were too big for their britches. She had no patience for anyone who would say such an ignorant thing. (Later I heard the term extended to women: "uppity women" were those who wanted crazy things like equal pay and equal opportunities.)

Last spring Rep. Geoff Davis (R-KY) referred to Obama as "boy" -- "That boy’s finger does not need to be on the button [authorizing a nuclear attack]." When called on the carpet, he called it "a poor choice of words." Again, you don't have to be from the South to know what it means when you call a black man "boy."

And people say racism is dead. I'm sure Westmoreland and Davis would both claim they don't have a racist bone in their bodies. Right. They know the code words. They just forgot who they were talking to.

All I know is that I'm going to raise my Asian American daughters to be uppity. Let's all be uppity, shall we?

So long, Camelot

I'm feeling rather sad about Ted Kennedy. Sure, he appeared to be the ne'er-do-well member of the family a few decades ago. But he pulled himself together and grew gracefully into the role of elder statesman. And, you know, he's a Kennedy. It was sad when Jack was killed, and it was sad when Bobby was killed, it was sad when Jackie died, and it was really sad when JFK Jr. died. I'm sad for Teddy too. He's the last of the Kennedy boys. You know, the Kennedy kids turned out pretty well, most of them -- Caroline and Patrick and Kathleen and Rory and Robert Jr. and Maria. I grew up at the same time as the current generation of Kennedys and feel protective of them. I don't wish them any more trouble.