peevish mama

We’ve been on a bit of a music tear lately, although all these late night trips to First Ave make us seem a lot cooler than we are. Doctor Dash and I have devised a bit of a system for the old/infirm/lazy. We call First Ave during the day to find out what time the main act is coming on (tip: they know exactly what time by around 4 o’clock) and swoop in about ten minutes prior to grab drinks and shimmy as close to the stage as possible, avoiding wild looking boys with flailing arms whenever possible. I like to dance as much as the next person, but I know how to do so without cracking any noses, which I’m not sure can be said for everyone.

A couple weeks ago we went to see Atmosphere and although Doctor Dash had predicted a testosterone filled environment (a warning to me upon seeing me emerge resplendent in lipstick and bling), I was a bit taken aback by the energy in that place before they came on. For the first time, as a bevy of young bucks bounced in place and loosened their taught neck muscles like boxers spoiling for a fight, I thought to myself, Jesus, this might get rough. Maybe I really am too old for this business. It didn’t help that the start time was super late, giving everyone plenty of time to get drunk and rowdy – pumped, if you will. Not a huge fan of pumped.

Nevertheless, if you don’t know Atmosphere and like hip hop, they are totally worth checking out. They are  local (went to Washburn High School) and they can and do turn it out for their fans. Big time. They put on an amazing show and as Slug tore through song after song, rapping a white hot streak (his lung capacity is truly astonishing), I started to understand the crowd. They knew all the words, shouting them out with fists in the air, veins bulging at their necks. They were there to pay homage to one bad ass Minnesota boy with some serious street cred. Slug’s partner in crime, Ant, spun beats of gold from his tables clad in a silky white shirt, slicked back hair, fu manchu stache and impenetrable expression, looking a bit like Steven Segal. I will say that the free flowing marijuana eventually took the edge off the jumpy crowd, as did Slug’s near constant banter and appreciation. Maybe it makes me a high maintenance audience member, but I love to be loved up. I think we have a really smart, rich, complex music scene here in Minneapolis and it’s nice to get some props. You could tell he was fired up to be there, playing in his hometown in one of the best places to hear music on earth. Slug raps about everything from hockey hair to a girl who is like a drug to Lyndale Avenue to killing his boss. It is quite raw and quite beautiful. The next day I felt drained, sort of battered and buffeted by the whole experience. It has taken all these many days to digest that concert and I think it was one of those shows where the performers put out so much emotion and energy, that you can’t help but do the same – absorbing and then sending back the love, the angst, and the anger. They were gooooood, so good that next time I go, I just might find myself feeling, um, pumped.

Two nights ago, one of my Babe-O-Matics, Shady, flew in from Chicago to join us for Arctic Monkeys. A departure from our recent hip hoppyness, Arctic Monkeys was Dash’s idea, but I LOVED it. In contrast to Atmosphere, who are around our age, Arctic Monkeys are YOUNG. They look so young, in fact, with their floppy ringlets of hair, that it’s almost impossible to believe that they’re as talented as they are, that they rock the way they do. The three front men look like they could be in a hair styling textbook illustrating the different ways hair can part. But no matter – they’re completely adorable. The lead singer, Alex Turner, is an unbelievable vocalist. His voice is so facile, so slippery – he runs it with no effort, no straining, no sweat. Unbelievable. And he’s super sexy, like a young Mick Jagger but not as peacocky. As it turns out, however, I do have an age threshold for unseemly chops licking and I located it on Saturday night. Just a wittle baby. And the drummer, Matt Helders, well, what can I say? Dash, Shady and I were all in love with the drummer. He and his lovable little fro just powered every song like a mad charging bull, pulling the rest of the band behind him. Screaming. Breakneck. Breathless. Uh mazing. Thoroughly satisfying, totally impressive, those boys have got some serious rock chops.

And now, at the risk of neglecting our children and our friends, I think we’re going to take a little break from our nocturnal musical adventures. Although I am loving Solid Gold, and I hear they’re coming soon . . .

My college girls and I used to call ourselves the Babe-O-Matics, and lest you think we took ourselves seriously, please know that it was all in jest. Mostly. Back in the day, I had inherited a tape player called the Invert-O-Matic (my dad has always been a gadget guy and this was pure seventies cutting edge stuff) which, no joke, would eject the tape, flip it over, suck it back in and play the other side. Someone covered the “Invert” with “Babe” and that’s all she wrote. I don’t remember exactly when we became the Babe-O-Matics – it feels like we just always were. And as it turns out, I think we always will be. We may no longer be running around Southbend, Indiana dressed like grungy man-girls in big Levis, flannel shirts, Birkenstocks and boots, but Babe-os we remain.

I’ve been sitting on this post for a few days – it doesn’t seem to be writing itself, as usually happens when the emotions are bigger than the words. Earlier this summer, I had intended to write about the bookend stop in Chicago on our way back from Michigan and I never did. The words sort of eluded me to describe how much fun we had overnight at Sunny’s* house in Wilamette with her hubby, Tax Man Italiano, and their four kids. Our other roommate, Shady** came in from the city for the night and we slipped right back into our old mischief, feasting, drinking, and gabbing to excess – only now we were surrounded by a gaggle of kids and a couple of indulgent husbands who seem to understand implicitly that if there was ever a night to step up and get the kids to bed and let us talk, it was then. Late night, sitting on Sunny’s porch, drinking those last beers we would regret in the morning, it struck me that after college, I was far too cavalier about the Babe-os spreading out around the country. Nothing seemed permanent back then. Nothing seemed of consequence.  We all had things we needed to do, and I figured they would always be as close to me as they were on that sad day we all drove away from our little blue house on St. Peter’s Street for the last time – weeping, desolate, inconsolable in the knowledge that we would never have that kind of fun again. 

Looking at my girls over the flickering candles on that porch, my heart caught in my throat. We could be doing all of this together. Instead, we live parallel lives in different cities, only catching up for a few golden hours every year. Shady goes to a lot of the same concerts we go to when they hit Chicago – she was at Beck and at De La Soul. What a partner in crime she would be if we lived in the same place! And Sunny’s kids and my kids paired off and scampered away like they see each other every day. Sunny and I could be sitting at the pool together, at the beach together, cobbling dinners together out of cheese and crackers and wine. I married someone who knew me way back when – back when I was young and fun and didn’t have a care in the world. I know how much humor and patience and leeway and pleasure you draw out of that pot of memories, that book of characters and references. It’s huge. Embarrassingly, I think I might have blubbered something about missing out on my Ya Ya sisterhood, but Sunny and Shady understood. When six girls spend a whole Halloween night tied together disguised as a drain hair shark, on mushrooms, well, it adds a whole other dimension to your relationship. 

We could be doing all of this together.

But we’re not. And as bittersweet as seeing each other may be, it’s also completely restorative, satisfying and necessary. To laugh like that, to be understood and accepted like that, fills us up and lets us glide on through until the next time. We all have other wonderful friends where we live, sisters, the ladies you count on. But what we Babe-os had remains utterly apart – maybe because we’ve always lived apart – it’s locked away in time, but breathtakingly accessible. All we have to do to tap into that, is put ourselves into the same room. So we do.

On Saturday three of us flew to Saint Louis to surprise Dolly*** for her 40th birthday party. She had no idea we were coming. Her lovely sisters and hubby, Soul Daddy, masterfully kept it under wraps. Tartare had flown from Seattle to meet up with Shady and Sunny in Chicago and they flew in together. When I looked up from my phone to see the three of them striding toward me in the St. Louis airport, looking all foxy and smiley, my heart did a little jump. All together! For a party! For Dolly! It was just too good. 

The surprise was perfect. We didn’t jump out of a cake. We simply walked down the street and as we approached we could hear Dolly’s daughter, Mimi, yelling Moooom, come outside! So of course, there was shrieking. Of course there were hugs and laughter. Dolly was grinning ear to ear, as was the adorable Soul Daddy. Operation Babe-O-Matic was a success.

The Babe-os were in da haaayouse and Dolly’s relaxing afternoon had just morphed into something else entirely. We chatted, drank in their three adorable kids, oohed and aahed around the house, soaking up the wall colors, the pictures, the stuff of our dear friend’s day-to-day life. We felt lucky to be sitting in her kitchen, even for a couple hours, to have our hands on the counter top where her kids color, where they spill cereal, where Dolly rolls out pies, where Soul Daddy chops and puts out cheese and olives. We Babe-os take nothing for granted, least of all time in each other’s homes. It’s just too rare. And even back in college, back when all we really cared about was the next great party, we were all about nesting, making our dorm rooms and then the house on St. Peter’s Street sweet little homes to relish, share, and make memories in. Some things never change.

A lot of things never change.

After a little adventure to Dolly’s favorite nail salon for manis and pedis, a quick beer, and that festive, oh so fun, getting ready time when we chatted and cackled and checked out eachothers’ lotions and potions, outfits and jewelry, we were off like the wind to Dolly’s bash. We knew it was going to be great because it was at the house Dolly grew up in, now owned by her sister, the lovely Maisie and her family. We had already celebrated Dolly and Soul Daddy’s wedding at that house, not to mention various stops to and fro Mardi Gras throughout the years. This family knows how to fling open their doors, hug you close and throw down for a really good time. There were pretty lights strung up in the yard, cocktail tables with candles, delicious food and bevvies, jello shots in every flavor, and tons of party people who all love Dolly.

We knew it was going to be fun. What we didn’t know, is that we were going to spend the next nine hours in a magical musical pleasure fest! Soul Daddy’s old band set up in the garage due to some threatening sprinkles, which, luckily, never ended up getting much footing and began a night of amazing music. Lordy, did we dance! Soul Daddy sang and we all swooned. Dolly sang and we swooned some more. Our girl! As the night tore on in a mad blur fueled by beer and restorative stops to the food table, all of Dolly’s sibs took a turn, and then her uncle and then her cousins and before we knew it, the night had devolved into a beautiful crazy hootenanny. It was great. And if you went inside, you had their exquisitely woven playlist to contend with. I have fuzzy memories of lurching around, dancing to So Lonely, screaming the words while gnawing on a chicken wing. It was a buh uh uh uh laaasst!!!

Just like the old days, the Babe-os would fan out at a party, flitting around, talking to everyone, only to find each other again in a riotous explosion of cheers and hugs and laughter, feeling like you were home again after a crazy odyssey. This would happen, and did happen on Saturday, multiple times a night, all night long. We may have lived together, but we were always happiest to see each other. 

A lot of things never change.

Tartare, Sunny, Shady and Dolly, you are my heart. Happy birthday Dolly. I love you rockin’ Babe-o-matics.

*Because of love of, disposition, outlook, and Coppertone always at the ready.

**Because why mess with a good nickname?

***Because she has a love for Dolly Parton, not because she looks like Dolly Parton.

OK, deep breath. I can’t believe I’m even going to utter the C word on this blog. No, the other C word, you dirty dogs. Cougar. There. I said it, and just because I said it and just because I’m writing about it, doesn’t mean I am one, or close to being one, or preoccupied about being one. Or maybe I’m just kidding myself, depending on your definition, which is, my friends, the crux of the problem. The term “cougar” is bandied about with such frequency these days that it’s hard to avoid it – especially if you just so happen to be a woman approaching the age when such a term might apply.

Listen, I’ve had my ear to the ground and my whiskers in the air on this one. I have been paying close attention and the only thing I’ve concluded is that everyone seems to have a different definition of a cougar. Which makes it very difficult to know if one needs to be offended or flattered should one ever happen to be called or deemed a cougar.

A quick wikipedia check yields this definition: a woman over forty who sexually pursues younger men, typically more than eight years her junior. Pretty clear, no?

About a year and a half ago I emailed my brother, El Maestro de Bife, who has an exhaustive and deep knowledge of all things slightly inappropriate. I knew he was my go-to guy and asked him to distinguish between a MILF and a Cougar. MILF, of course you know, is the crass acronym for “Mother I’d Like to Fuck” – which is just a puerile male way of saying Hot Mama. While I don’t love MILF, I’ll grant you MILF. There are many many hot mamas out there and it is most definitely a distinguishable, identifiable subset of the population and therefor worthy of a name and this is the one that has seemed to have stuck. So fine, I get it.

But what about these cougars I was hearing about? El Maestro responded that while a MILF still has her cubs around her, a Cougar hunts for her fresh meat alone. Interesting! Hunts. Alone. Fresh meat. OK, so as long as I have my chitlins in my wake and as long as I’m not on the prowl, then I can’t be a cougar. In fact, barring a piano falling on top of Doctor Dash, I will most likely never be a cougar. This is part of the popular lexicon that I can daintily sidestep, demurely holding my skirt to my side so as not to be sullied.

Then Barbie turned 50 and she looks fantastic for her age. Her breasts are still half way between her shoulder and her elbow as they should be, if not a titch higher, her feet still tiny, her hair radiant, her skin as creamy as a Coppertone Vanilla milkshake. But someone comes up with Cougar Barbie, imagining Barbie’s natural trajectory (never one for subtlety, it actually would be hard to imagine Barbie growing old gracefully à la Isabella Rosselini or Lauren Bacall). If you haven’t seen it, watch it. Hilarious, no? Heh, heh, ho, ho, ho! Hilarious! The paunch, the leopard print, the Journey – oh Cougar Barbie, you are too much! Still, this does nothing to disavow me of my notion that cougars are not something I need worry my pretty little head about.

And then. And then. Because you knew there had to be a then, in June we went out to the Jersey shore to hang out with our friends Chief Big Voice and Saucy-licious Duddy. Saucy and I were grooving to a really great live band at the Princeton, minding our own business, when I was approached by a young fellow whose opener was an enthusiastic, surfer intoned “Heeeyyyyyyy, a couple a cooouuuugaaaarrrrs!” My head swiveled around, my eyes turned bright yellow, I punched him in the trachea and snarled: “Are you fucking kidding me?” Actually, I only did that last part, but it was accompanied by my most withering Catholic high school girl staredown. I was pissed. COUGAR? Me? Us? We were just having a good time, digging the music, drinking many drinks, laughing our asses off. OK, so maybe we looked super hot, but it’s not like we could help it and we certainly weren’t on the prowl or giving the impression of being on the prowl – we were simply a couple of moms, out on the town, wrapped up in our own hilarious shenanigans. Nothing more. Nothing less. Simple as pie. Rowdy but uninterested. Needing to look no further than the band, our glasses and the people we came with for all the fun we needed. And then. And then, on our way out of the bar someone called Saucy’s sister, Little J, a cougar and she’s even younger than us! 

Screeech. Hold on one sharp shootin’ high fallutin’ minute here folks. Something was afoot. My feathers were ruffled, but not ruffled enough to have missed the look of complete and utter shock on the young lad’s face when I shut him down like a noxious Jack in the Box. It was but a second, because I immediately gave him the scapula of ice, but there’s no denying it – he was surprised, perhaps even dismayed, at my reaction. Could it be? Could he possibly have meant it as . . . a compliment? 

Nooo! we railed, Saucy-licious, Little J and I – No way! We’re not out trying to snag young dudes! We’re not even old enough to be cougars, anyway! Unacceptable! Unfathomable! Unprofessional! Unpalatable! Unfreakingbelievable! Now we were all pissed! And yet. And yet. Because like a then, there’s usually a yet, I think these guys meant no ill. Quite the opposite, I think they were trying, in that broad blunt simian way of youth in bars, to be nice. Well, maybe not nice, exactly. (I may not be a cougar, but I wasn’t born yesterday.) Simply put, these guys seemed to be operating with a different definition of cougar than we were. Maybe.

You need to write about this on your blog! insisted Saucy-licious, Clear this shit up! But all I could do was shudder. No, I couldn’t possibly. To even contemplate the word, to type the word, would feel like an admission, a toe dipped into fountain of age. Peevish and Cougar simply could not be seen together. It was not right. Not yet. Not for a long time. Not for a very very long time. Shudder. Shudder.

And then. And then, because there are always more thens, my friend the Magnificent Bastard sends out a tweet a couple weeks ago asking for top 5 hollywood cougars because he needs them for “work.” His were Julianne Moore, Sharon Stone, Catherine Zeta Jones, Cate Blanchett and Sophia Loren whom he deems “extreme coug.” Then another twitter friend, KC, replies almost immediately, so it obviously didn’t take a lot of thought: Maria Bello, Sharon Stone, Marissa Tomei, Liz Hurley, Vivica Fox and more! OK, fellas, let’s just hold on one more sweet salty snitch snatch second, because these chicks are some seriously hot stuff and not at all the compadres of Cougar Barbie; in fact, I think I may need the definition re-explained to me because if that NJ guy meant anything even approaching this, then perhaps a punch in the trachea was a tad harsh. (Before you start to feel too sorry for him, just know that he was undeterred by my smack down and followed up with an equally compelling: are you Brazilian? for which he received another punch in the trachea.) So I tweet/asked and they both answered that it pretty much just boils down to hot over 40. Cubs and hunting have nothing to do with it. 

Hmmm. Well then. Much ado about nothing. Maybe. Wait, you know what? No. Even assuming you remove the desperado aspect from the term, I’m not sold. Far from it, I’m still troubled and I’ll tell you why. I think forty is a bit young for Cougarville. Forty is the new thirty. Forty year olds have babies and toddlers. Forty year olds are still figuring out what they want to do with their lives. Forty year olds like to play. Forty sounds old because we all remember our parents turning forty, but it feels young. Hell, we all feel downright adolescent half the time. (For the record, I’m not there yet, but fast approaching.) In this day and age, forty just doesn’t feel old enough to be a delineating factor, a parenthetical tacked onto the sentence: she looks good. 

Women my age deserve to be unencumbered by parentheticals for a few more years. It’s only fair. Most of us just got done wiping butts, for crying out loud! So let’s all be peaches and pals and agree to leave the fine foxy forty somethings out of this discussion and move the Cougar line to um, say, fifty. And we’ll talk again in another ten years.

Meow.

We’re reading I Married a Communist by Philip Roth for book club this month, and while I shouldn’t be surprised that I had one of those reading moments when you stop, exhale, raise your eyebrows, go back and read the passage again, I was sort of surprised that it happened on the first page.

We read American Pastoral last year and it was a giant octopus of a book. Sometimes it thrashed in countless directions, in anger and fear. Sometimes it swam along as graceful and smooth as can be. And it went deep. (Hmm, this metaphor has legs! Ho!) It was gorgeous and challenging and we wrestled with it – on our own, reading it – at book club, dissecting it and putting it back together, or trying to anyway. That book club meeting was about a week after my knee surgery. I was on crutches, my injuries still felt fresh, personal. My mom was in town to help out, so I brought her with me so she could have a glass of wine, meet my book club ladies, and understand why it is such a source of joy in my life. I read American Pastoral under duress. I was frantically preparing to be on crutches for six weeks, gingerly probing worse case scenarios like a tongue returning to a sore tooth. Desperate to lose myself, it was rich and thick, the perfect book to take up the whole of my mind. I was a ball of angst, agitation and worry and American Pastoral is nothing if not a monument to angst, agitation and worry. Maybe that’s why it resonated so much with me.

Or maybe, it was just that good.

We’ve been back to school for a couple of weeks. Saint James seems muted about it. I’m not sure what to make of it. I’m not sure what he needs. What exactly does he expect to be doing with his time right now? He can’t very well hunt for creatures in the bushes and play soccer all day long. Maybe it’s too much to expect him to be excited about school – being a fourth grader is essentially his job. How many people do we know who are excited by their jobs? And yet, I wish he was. I wish he was fired up, tingling, hungry. 

So the passage that stopped me cold? It’s Roth simply introducing a character – that of Murray Ringold, a teacher. And in his muscular prose, Roth brings him to life and makes me want him for my son. To light that fire.

“His passion was to explain, to clarify, to make us understand, with the result that every last subject we talked about he broke down into its principal elements no less meticulously than he diagrammed sentences on the blackboard. His special talent was for dramatizing inquiry, for casting a strong narrative spell even when he was being strictly analytic and scrutinizing aloud, in his clear cut way, what we read and wrote.

Along with the brawn and the conspicuous braininess, Mr. Ringold brought with him into the classroom a charge of visceral spontaneity that was a revelation to tamed, respectablized kids who were yet to comprehend that obeying a teacher’s rules of decorum had nothing to do with mental development. There was more importance than perhaps even he imagined in his winning predilection for heaving a blackboard eraser in your direction when the answer you gave didn’t hit the mark. Or maybe there wasn’t. Maybe Mr. Ringold knew very well that what boys like me needed to learn was not only how to express themselves with precision and acquire a more discerning response to words, but how to be rambunctious without being stupid, how not to be too well concealed or too well behaved, how to begin to release the masculine intensities from the institutional rectitude that intimidated bright kids the most.”

Holy smokes, Philip Roth. Is it mere coincidence that twice now, your words feed me precisely what I’m craving?

Or are you just that good?

We recently discovered that the shower head in our bathroom has two settings: a cleansing, reasonable and perfectly lovely setting and then a wretched, awkward, freaky, horrible setting. One is a proper shower, the other is more a violent sputter – like when you laugh with beer in your mouth and it comes out your nose. Dash likes the latter. And apparently he is not ashamed. He is also impervious to any and all mockery and bullying I can throw his way on the matter.

Every single time I step into the shower, I am taken by surprise by the erratic sputters of water, prodding me like a gangly adolescent boy giant trying to give a back rub to a girl giant at a campfire at the top of the beanstalk. Every time, surprise turns to annoyance. Every time, annoyance turns to incredulousness and I think to myself: OhmyGod, like, for real Doctor Dash? Again? Seriously? I cannot believe this matters enough to go to the trouble to change the setting every single blasted time you get in the shower! UG! Seriously! 

And every time, I change it back.

We went up north for Labor Day weekend. Hastily assembled, last minute planning yielded three days, more relaxing and action packed than I would have thought possible. Sometimes, last minute is the best way. We pulled the kids out of school on Friday and set off due north with a minivan chocked to the gills with food, fishing poles, water colors, and anything else I could think of to keep our short attention spans from unravelling into pervasive, crotchety boredom.

I needn’t have worried.

The lake. It was beautiful. Deep. Almost primordial. Its dark, velvety waters were cold enough to make swimming something for which you had to summon up courage. It was cold enough to feel curative. And it was vast, with undulating shorelines, eddies and bays, silent islands, promontories and fingers of land, beckoning or accusatory, depending on how you looked at them. There seemed to be a secret code of earth and water we had to approach with caution and respect. Dash and I had to navigate, eyes skimming the horizon and darting back to the map, to reconcile the two dimensional with the three, to keep our bearings, to find our way home. It was challenging, but it got easier. We learned something new. We grinned madly, feeling slightly less the rubes on a pontoon. We squinted into the sun, proud, almost seaworthy. 

Fish. There are fish in Lake Vermillion. All hungry for worms and willing to be caught by Saint James and Supergirl (Dash too, but with less success – I think the jerky line of a child-held rod must make those worms dance extra seductively). They fished off the docks, they fished off the boat. It was the go-to activity for three whole days. It was what filled up the hours in the sun. And Devil Baby watched and cheered, played with the worms, touched the slippery bodies of the fish, and essentially hung around doing nothing in a way I’ve never seen her do before. It was gratifying to watch them do something contemplative, something that requires patience, quiet, sustained attention with eyes trained on the water.

Kitchen. More time and less stuff, I found myself enjoying the simpler, pared down ritual of preparing meals. I found it meditative: the opening and shutting of drawers, looking for a potato peeler, a whisk, a bottle opener; stopping to take a sip of wine and gaze out the enormous kitchen windows at the lake; washing dishes by hand, keeping my workspace neat. Without the rush, meal preparation is a completely different animal and in the silence of the cabin, broken only by the occasional triumphant whoop from the nearby dock, I remembered everything I love about cooking.

Reading. I was forced to unplug. No wireless, no phone. No twitter, no blog. Just my books. I have been feeling scattered lately. Unmoored. I have been finding it hard to focus, to lose myself in a book. Perhaps it’s because there has been so much end of the summer action to attend to. Perhaps, I too am losing the power of sustained attention, giving way to the rat-like compulsion to check my email, tweet and surf every few minutes. In the quiet of the north woods, I became that mother – the reading mother. On the chaise, with her nose in a book, occasionally peering over the pages with narrowed eyes and an amused smile, luxuriating in the act of reading deeply while her family plays almost, almost, out of earshot. They fished, I read. My heart slowed down. Everyone was engaged, so I could disengage and dive into my books: Snow by Orhan Pamuk, challenging reading, testing my patience, but a book whose layers slowly unfold drawing you further and deeper. It’ll be worth it, I think. Time will tell. And Dangerous Laughter by Steven Millhauser, a tightly wrought collection of short stories, the few I have read so far are intriguing, smart, mildly menacing – he is a beautiful writer.

Fish. Each catch was followed by a few seconds of tense hook extraction. Saint James and Supergirl would bow their heads in concentration, working against the ticking seconds and the struggling fish to get the hook out as gently and quickly as possible. They’d toss it back in the water, peer into the depths and inevitably yell “Yep, he made it!” with joy and relief. For them a fair fishing bargain involves no more than a few seconds of discomfort on the part of the fish. They are tender and respectful toward nature. I am not sure whether this is something you can teach, or whether this is something that just naturally occurs in a child.  

Kitchen. I brought everything, even my sharp knife and cilantro. But even when you bring everything, there are things you wish you had brought. As I made salads and salsas, mixing and matching my ingredients like edible Garanimals, I thought of Jumpa Lahiri’s piece in the NY Times earlier this summer. I thought of all the things I would remember next time (honey, white pepper, soy sauce, hot sauce, gin, the pickled eggplant I just made) and all the things I was so glad to have brought (my knife, sea salt, avocado, cilantro, olives, strawberries, fancy cheeses, sauvignon blanc, baby spinach, garlic, tomatoes, baguettes, Hope Creamery butter, two kinds of vinegar and olive oil).

Fire. Doctor Dash made two fires a night. One with charcoal for grilling steaks and salmon. One with wood for roasting s’mores. The fire drew the children out of the brush, away from the beach. Like young natives, they watched the flames, flicking and dancing against the darkening sky. Or maybe they were just hungry.

Fish. One morning I glanced up from my book and saw a stout fireplug of a man talking to Doctor Dash on the dock where he and the kids were fishing. Our cabin neighbor had ostensibly come out to introduce himself to Dash, but in fact needed to flip Dash’s rod right side up before showing him a picture of the 53 inch Muskie he had caught the day before. We chuckled about this the rest of the day, picturing the poor guy grimacing over his coffee mug as he looked out the window watching Dash cast with an upside down rod. He probably muttered through his pain and agitation for a good fifteen minutes before getting so exasperated he burst through his back door to save Dash from himself. Hilarious.  

Watercolors. I’m so glad I brought them. Devil Baby painted and painted. Busy, quiet, happy. Just how I like her.

Feathers. The bald eagles. They were incredible. We had no idea they all hung out in the north woods. We saw more eagles than seagulls, yet they never lost the power to startle us, to elicit a gasp, a pause in the action to watch their muscular flight, their graceful hunting, their branch shaking landing in the tops of trees. There was an island where a bunch of them seemed to perch and to hover right below them in a quiet kayak was pure magic. And then there were the loons. My kids said the cries of the loons reminded them of our neighbor, Evan’s, cry. Somewhere between a giggle and a sob, suspended between joy and loss, the loons stopped us in our tracks over and over again.

Haunting and beautiful. Just like that lake.

Paint me impressed. Our friend Pat Coyle (Irish Laddie for purposes of this blog) wrote and directed (and acted in – that’s him above) a beautiful film called Into Temptation whose run at the Lagoon has gotten extended for a week, which makes this post of imminent import. I would like you to go. Go to support a local film maker, who had to move mountains to get this baby, his baby, made and seen. Go to see a movie that will remind you how much you used to love movies before life got so busy, when you had the time to go to every indie and foreign film playing at the corner movie house, when every once in a great while you were left stunned, unable to get out of your seat until the last credit rolled off the screen into crackling silence. Go to see our fair city preen and strut her stuff up on the big screen, as plain by day and gaudy by night as the hookers in the movie. Go to see a movie that sounds pitch perfect. Not one false note. Just go. You’ve got one week. Show times here.

I’ll leave the synopsis to the professionals here and here, but I just want to say that this movie is a really good reminder that film, despite being such a grand, sweeping, larger than life medium, can also be heartbreakingly perfect for presenting a very simple and soulful story like this one. In this age of Hollywood blockbusters, Megaplexes and supersized Cokes, you forget that sometimes, sitting in a lumpy theater seat in the dark and letting your pulse slow down for a couple hours, can be one of the most transformative and lovely experiences around. This movie, Pat’s movie, forces you to pay attention with all your senses, because there is nothing too obvious, too loud, too Hollywoodish about it. You listen and watch the way you’d listen and watch in a dark wood – for the tiny, the telling, the salient and true.

I think it takes a really deft hand to control a movie, to allow the truth of the relationships to emerge through restrained dialogue, almost imperceptible glances, the slant in a person’s shoulders. The acting is outstanding, the music perfection, and the story, well, the story is as deeply affecting as they come. The movie manages to be funny, smart, thrilling and crushingly sad. It reveals itself in small moments of tension, quirkiness, humanity, doubt and despair while the macro questions about God, loneliness, and existential angst loom like a shadowy figure just around the corner. It is a treat and a treasure. It is a challenge. It is art.

Hat’s off, Irish Laddie.

Grades first and fourth. The faces say it all.

One minute I’m navigating back to school night, standing in line in the school gym, clutching myriad forms and checks, and sweating about getting my kid the band instrument choice he wants. The next minute I’m in the middle of a thumping sweaty rumpus at First Ave, right up close to the stage, crackin’ out my best, getting my hip hop on courtesy of these fine fellows. Dash and I went with Nanook, Gear Daddy, Crackerjack and Renaissance Man (happy birthday RM, fellow Virgo and lover of eighties new wave, good birthday, wouldn’tchasay?).

On this evening of all things back-to-school, the smell of hallways, chalk, and gymnasiums still fresh in my nose, we got SCHOOLED. We got old schooled, we got new schooled, we got knick knock paddywacked give the dog a bone, this old girl came rollin home. These professors of hip hop put on a great show. It’s the 20 Years High and Rising Tour, marking 20 years since their first and biggest album, 3 Feet High and Rising, dropped (see how I did that? I got the lingo, bitches) and they put on a show that emphatically said: we are still here, mother fuckers and thank YOU for still being here, mother fuckers! They went easy on the goof, heavy on the heavy, and scratched all the right spots with their genius rapping, sampling, scratching, and happy mahem inducing antics. It was really cool to watch a hip hop show backed by a smokin’ ten piece band (the Rhythm Roots Allstars) who really stood on their own but, combined with De La Soul, just amped it up to a whole other level. There were crazy bongo explosions (seriously, like three or four guys on bongos – awesome) and a full horn section affectionately introduced as Ghetto Brass (which made me chuckle given my afternoon of instrument wrangling with Saint James) and who floored us with a little Stevie Wonder: a bright, shiny, clear your sinuses, Sir Duke. Beautiful. Truly.

I’m not a professional, I don’t take notes, I don’t have the vocabulary or the knowledge base to really talk about music in a meaningful way but most importantly, I don’t want to miss anything. More and more, I’m finding that if I think about how I’m going to blog about something, it really takes me out of the moment, so I try not to do that. Ever. Consequently, I’m left with little more than ringing ears, a huge grin on my mug, sore muscles, and the vague notion that in addition to hopping us up on some good hard hip hop, these sampling geniuses tantalized us with a little Gorillaz, a little Steely Dan, a little Beastie Boys (Hey Ladies!!!), a little MJ, for sure some Run DMC. I know there was more, but I have a mind of swiss cheese.

And not for nothing, the last twenty years have been kind to De La Soul. They look great and they sound great. It was nice to be at a show watching guys our age working it out, and working it out really really well. It was an 18+ show, so there were plenty of babies in the audience to be sure. We even ran into Matt who works at the pool snack bar and knows to give us a heavy pour on the vino blancos, and bless his heart he was totally cool, casual and refreshingly not surprised to be running into a couple of pool mommies at the show. Every now and again they’d pan a big bright spotlight over the crowd going nuts and I amused myself imagining what Posdnuos would think of our little group dancing all dirty and freaky with our yoga arms up in the air and silly smiles plastered on our, ahem, super duper dewey and youthful looking faces. Every time I go to see live music I have a little age dysmorphia conversation in my head for a few seconds: Jeez, these people look like toddlers, ooh, hey, that one looks like a grown up St. James, cute! I should feel really old, but I don’t feel really old, what is wrong with me that I don’t feel really old? Fuck it, step aside slightly stinky, disaffected little one and watch a mama strut her stuff, WOOOHOOOO! 

Sigh. It’s true. It’s really really true. So my take away from last night?

Mirror mirror on the wall.

Tell me mirror what is wrong?

Nothing child, keep keeping on.

And on and on and on and on.*

*OK, so I took some liberties with the last two lines. Sue me.

A couple things for starters: as I sit down to write this post I have a song running through my head. A song which none of you know unless you happen to have gone to a Catholic all-girls school in the eighties. I say this with some confidence because it is a little known fact that the Catholics are prolific song writers and drop a panoply of new, uplifting, guilt-inducing ballads every year. Trust me, they’re really good at it. When my parish went all folksy acoustic in the late seventies, I knew there was something afoot and I was not mistaken. So my song? The harvest is plenty, laborers are few, come with me into the fields . . . Ringing a bell? Susie? Yes? If not, it doesn’t matter. Completely irrelevant.

The other point I want to make is that I know I am tormenting you with this whole tomato fixation and I apologize. The only thing I can recommend is some patience. Maybe go away for a while until I get this out of my system, which will be sometime around the first frost. Anyone who has been tuning in here for a while is familiar with my little obsessions: calamity, my knee, music, bacon, my son’s hair, tequila, my knee, calamity. Usually I move on in some fashion or another. Sometimes not. Only time will tell.

Earlier this summer I ordered a big cedar planter on line and planted two measly tomato plants and a pepper plant (respectively, Joaquin, Bruce and Pepe). I got a late start (blame it on the knee and the tequila) and had meager hopes for my teensy garden. In fact, in a knee-jerk act of proactive self-defense, I pooh poohed myself here. 

Well, I needn’t have gone to the trouble, because those tomatoes pictured above in my oddly chunky looking hands are the first of my harvest and they are freaking delicious! They burst in your mouth like little ampules of summer and there are a lot more where those came from.

The ever potent and mysterious confluence of sun, rain and neglect has yielded tremendous, bodacious, GIGANTIC tomato plants. Joaquin and Bruce have completely muscled out poor Pepe, who despite a lack of sun and nutrients, has still managed to squeeze out a few lovely peppers. Joaquin and Bruce scoffed at the cages I got from Ivory Tickler and are growing out of control, every which way. They are muscular, unruly, borderline intimidating. They look like they could snatch a small rodent scuttling by, eat it and use its tiny bones to pick their teeth. They look like they might grope you, should you walk by with a short skirt on. They look like thugs, unsavory characters, major bad asses. And they are loaded, loaded with tomatoes. I am fearful, but I am proud. I love them. Come see them. Just watch your ass as you come through the gate.

Yesterday was my birthday. And it was lovely. I’m not one to make a big hooha out of my own birthday. But I must admit, it’s kind of nice when others make a hooha for me. 

There were flowers on the kitchen counter, which had to have been purchased sometime between ten at night on Saturday and seven in the morning on Sunday because Dash has been on call. A+ for effort, my love. Beautiful swollen peach roses and sunflowers. Sunflowers are so straightforward and happy – they’re my favorite.

There was a precious half hour alone with coffee and the New York Times.

There were sleepy birthday hugs. They woke up remembering.

There was a trip to the Kingfield Farmers Market and my window sill is bejeweled in tomatoes, glowing orbs of yellow, red, orange.

There was a  yoga class, which always does me a world of good.

There was a fortuitous bump into Salt and Pepper Polymath at the supermarket. He wished me happy birthday. I’m not sure how he knew.

There was a late afternoon trip to Bush Lake where some of my book club ladies awaited with their hubbies, resplendent in sun hats and laughter, vodka tonics and cheese. They sang to me and I felt as if I would burst from happiness before melting into the sand from embarrassment. Dash and I lingered in the warmth of the waning sun, long after they had all left, our toes in the sand, our kids feeding the remnants of sand speckled cheese to the seagulls.

There were phone calls and messages throughout the day from all the people I love.

There were grilled rib eyes, tomatoes sliced and drizzled, a little salad of farmers market radishes and carrot, thinly sliced, in a chive mustard vinaigrette. My perfect meal.

There was angel food cake with whipped cream and berries, rowdy singing and plenty of help blowing out the candles.

There was a dance party which ended in a crash. The portable disco ball is kaput, which is just as well because ever since we moved into this house I have been politely requesting a disco ball. A real disco ball. Doctor Dash thought he could mollify me with the disco boobs* he got me for Christmas, and it worked for a while, but I’m afraid that’s all she wrote on that one. 

There were tears and words of truth in the bathroom before bed. Supergirl was crying over the disco boobs, Devil Baby kept repeating that it scared her when they crashed and I hushed and shushed, promising another disco ball, a better disco ball, a real disco ball. Saint James took his toothbrush out of his mouth, looked me straight in the eye in the mirror and scolded: well this isn’t going to help us save up money for Costa Rica.

Touché, St. James, touché. But it IS my birthday.

*Coined by Supergirl.

I stare at a blank screen. And then I let some days pass by, hoping for inspiration. Because what is there to say? You are nine. You are beautiful. You are boy. You are easy to me. And maybe that’s hard to write about. You are my perfect companion: smart, affable, introspective, handsome, funny, sweet, perceptive, passionate. You still snuggle. You still fold your long bony limbs up to climb into my lap – I put my arms around you and squeeze, like a giant gathering sticks into a bundle. You love your friends. You think nothing of holding hands, of throwing your arm around a buddy’s shoulder as you walk off in rapt conversation. You watch the satellite radio like a hawk, yelling change it, don’t change it from the back of the minivan. Music matters to you. A lot. You read like wind, plowing through books like you’re famished. Sometimes you are moody, sullen, secretive. Already? You still love stuffed animals, but you are over Pokemon cards. You still want to be a naturalist when you grow up. You are a handsome devil, but you have no clue. Your room is a mess. You spread everything out on the floor. Your voice is soft and your words are few, so when you talk, I want to listen. Your stories are silly and merry and sometimes I find myself just watching your face, letting that boy voice wash over me.

Your uncles think you’re a mama’s boy. And you are. In the best way. You love your mama. Sometimes you smother my arm in a million kisses when I’m walking by. You cling to me like a baby chimp. But I notice our paths gently diverging as of late. More and more, you are forming a boy-alliance with your dad. You talk about sports, about FIFA, about Barcelona and Messi. You miss him when he’s working late. You ask about him. You try to wait up for him. You kick a soccer ball in the yard with him and I wonder, watching through the kitchen window, look how happy they are, what are they talking about? Boy stuff, I suppose. Guy stuff. And my heart feels squishy because I can see your trajectory: it is clear and it is good, but it leads away from me. You are a smaller, looser, clumsier, version of your dad – a puppet, a Pinocchio – and you watch and mimic, absorb mannerisms and gestures without even knowing it. Your future is written on your shoulders and in the cool blue of your eyes. 

You are nine, Saint James. You are still a little boy, still a mama’s boy. But not for long, sweetness, not for long.

Happy Birthday. I love you.

Everyone is gushing about tomatoes these days. Yammering on and on about how perfect they are, heirloom this and that, just a drizzle of olive oil and some salt, dizzying profusion, vine ripened, sweet meaty flesh, panoply of colors, blah blah blah. Hell, I even rhapsodized about tomatoes about this time last year. Yes, people, tomatoes in August are amazing. I get it. There are a million ways to prepare them, but simplest is best. I get it. Eat them now or forever hold your peace. I GET IT!

You think I don’t understand? Me? The woman who would marry tomatoes if she wasn’t already married to bacon and Doctor Dash? Me? I freakin’ love tomatoes. I’m like the Mother Theresa of tomatoes. The wan, weak, mealy ones? I love those too. They’re all part of God’s plan, and if you have to throw ‘em in a low oven for some slow cookin’ caramelization to make ‘em palatable, then vaya con Dios, mis hijos, I’m in.

See the picture? That’s what I’ve had for lunch or dinner or both, every day since we went to the Mill City Farmers Market this past Saturday (which, incidentally, is my new fave market. Have you noticed a pattern? The last one I visit is my favorite. It has grown tremendously since last summer, but still maintains the cool, locavore, minimalist aesthetic of its founder Brenda Langton of Cafe Brenda and Spoonriver. Maybe it’s the backdrop of the mighty Mississippi and the brooding, cool-as-shit blue Guthrie Theater, but this market really feels like an open air temple to good, fresh, delicious food. And they have dim sum carts. And they have a delicious pig cart where you can get an egg and bacon breakfast sandwich. And they have mini donuts. And pies. And smoked trout. And live goats). I digress. I digress and I need to get back to feeling ambivalent and tortured about tomatoes.

I have been around the bend a few times and to me this shameless orgy of tomato goodness is bittersweet, although admittedly juicy and delicious. It represents the beginning of the end. Summer is waning, and tomatoes are like the glittery confetti at a New Years party. Tomatoes are the grand finale at the fireworks show. Tomatoes are the last hurrah. They are Mother Nature’s one last blast of love, of goodwill, of sweet summer warmth. She is saying good bye and like any smart woman, saving the best for last. (Fall harvest gourds and squashes don’t count, so don’t split hairs and mess with my metaphor mojo.) 

And because you, my readers, are empathetic creatures, you may be asking yourselves: Why, Peevish Mama, why, why must you be so sad? Why can’t you just enjoy the tomatoes? I would sigh a mighty sigh, my gaze fixed on an uncertain point in the middle distance, my eyes brimming with salty tears, and answer you thusly: I am enjoying the tomatoes, my little ones. They are perfection. They are poetry. They fill my heart and my belly in innumerable, indescribable ways. Tomatoes, my loves, are exquisite, yes. But so are these dwindling honeyed days of summer. And for all that fleeting beauty, I cry into my gazpacho. I cry. 

Supergirl has taken to calling me Bubble Butt. These days she can often be found hovering around my derrière, karate chopping or poking or jiggling said (allegedly) bulbous protrusions. I’m not sure what the appeal is, aside from the fact that my butt is most definitely more prominently on display these summer months, what with bathing suits and all. And we do shake our booties in our house. In fact, I often shout it out as an explicit instruction: shake those booties, shake ‘em, shake ‘em, uh huh, that’s right! My kids are half French Canadian, after all, and I need to cultivate the Latin in them as far as dancing goes, so we don’t end up with a family who thinks a big grin and a slow jog is an adequate substitute. It comes from the hips, child, but since you don’t have hips, well, shake the next best thing, that’s right. Shake it! Shake it, baby! Moreover, Supergirl’s face is pretty much at ass level, so it’s simply the first thing she sees if I happen to be around. I suppose it makes some sense – she sees asses, like we see faces. Maybe two year olds are fascinated by knees, only lack the words to say so. And we know twelve year olds are fascinated by breasts, only they know better than to say so.

To tell you the truth, it took me a while to even register the recent scuttlebutt. I am by and large impervious to being ogled, prodded and otherwise fondled by my offspring. Privacy and personal space are more than abstraction, they are downright fiction. One becomes accustomed to all manner of  sticky bodies scaling one’s limbs, digging their fingers in one’s ears, probing one’s clavicles and such. Moreover, after a hard yoga class, I can think of worse things than a bit of a glute massage while I’m doing the dishes.

The truth is, far from being offended or annoyed, I am heartened by Supergirl’s silly fascination because although she doesn’t necessarily mean it as a compliment, I am choosing to take it as one. Johnnny Depp captured my imagination when he used the term “high water booty” to describe his then girlfriend Kate Moss in an article I read over a decade ago. My buns may not go so far as to hike up their skirts to avoid the rising waters of the bayou, but say what you will about six year olds, they know their shapes. If Supergirl thinks there is anything “bubblish” about my buttocks then I must have, as of yet, escaped the dreaded “triangular factor” coined by my father and unwittingly illustrated by countless bathing-suited older women walking by us on the beach over the years; women whose slightly atrophied glutes had come to resemble a heart, a triangle, an upside down party hat, an icecream cone, an inverted volcano, a tornado, etcetera. So bubble butt? Ya, I’ll take it. And I’ll take another one of those mini massages too.

Doctor Dash can be a very wise man. There have been times in our marriage when he noticed things about the kids or put things into words in a way that made me stop, blink, and sheepishly acknowledge the lightbulb suddenly swinging above my head. I am drowning in the kids. I can’t see the forest for the trees, but he, with his hours away, sometimes brings a new perspective that is, frankly, right on.

Example: when Supergirl was about a year and a half old, she was a total wild child. She was a climber and a runner and her mission in life seemed to be to find the highest and most precarious perch from which to exhibit herself to the world. She always had a naughty smile on her face as she watched me staggering around below, trying to talk her down, ready to catch her if she ever slipped (she never did). She was (and is) a coordinated and strong little monkey with no fear of heights or speed. She was (and is) a girl in constant motion. We found ourselves gasping and clutching our chests, shaking our heads in exasperation, telling everyone who would listen what a “handful” she was. Until Dash wisely noted that if she was a boy, we would think nothing of her level of activity and risk taking, and that maybe we just needed to stop talking about it. Simply put, just because she’s a girl, doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the right to careen through life at top speeds. Of course. Of COURSE! We didn’t want to change her, wouldn’t be able to even if we tried, so what was the point of belaboring the point? No point. Right. So we stopped making such a big deal about her hair raising antics, learned to trust her as much as she trusted herself, and have come to quite enjoy having that kind of kid in our brood.

As I’ve mentioned before, we have been trying to give Saint James and Supergirl some freedom to roam our neighborhood. We want them off the couch and into the brush. We hope that by giving them a little space, they’ll gain a sense of confidence in themselves, a healthy sense of safety in their surroundings, and maybe some smarts along the way. Earlier this summer, we let them walk two blocks to Sweet Jessamine and Ivory Tickler’s house to turn on their sprinklers while they were on vacation: a chore adventure hybrid – genius. Doctor Dash made the observation that the two of them seem to get along the best when they get to go out alone on their little excursions. Normally, Saint James and Supergirl are notorious, insufferable bickerers, making the Costanzas look like swooning love birds. They have turned quarreling into an art form, refusing to agree on anything, dividing the universe of ideas in half and planting themselves firmly on either side of the line. They argue, they parse, they quote and misquote, they poke holes in reasoning, they unveil inconsistencies, they split hairs, they tit for tat, they begrudge, they demean, they scoff, they tease, they bully, they quibble, they scrap, they wrangle, they aha, they I told you so. In short, they fight. Constantly. Except, it seems, when they go off on an adventure. Yes indeed Doctor Dash, I do believe you are right! What an interesting bi-product of our little freedom experiment!

They don’t exactly walk off hand in hand, but they do go side by side and it’s as if the expanse of the world unfolding in front of their feet makes them feel less chafed by each other. Simply turning the focus away from the other to a point over the hill or down the creek allows them to coexist in peace, at least for a short time. Or maybe, when they are walking alone, they feel a bit of us against the world. They always come back happy, having seen one dead animal or another, having caught some insect or another, or, most recently, having had a relaxing little visit with neighbors. Yesterday Supergirl asked if she could walk to Red Vogue’s and Salt and Pepper Polymath’s house with Saint James, under the pretense of showing them the tie dye shirts they had made at camp. They came back about an hour later, their smiles ringed with the telltale mark of blue Gatorade. I find it amusing that they walked over to our dear neighbors’ house, accepted a little refreshment, chatted them up, (hopefully) didn’t fight with each other, (hopefully) said thank you and good bye. How civilized of them. And all NOT under my watch. It’s actually a small miracle. And another interesting bi-product of our freedom experiment.

Thank you Red Vogue and SPP, for being part of a little world that allows them to feel big. And thank you Dash for discovering one small way to curb the bickering. Their mucky water shoes are parked at the front door and if you see them touching dead things in the creek, just know that . . . I’m kind of, totally OK with that . . . as long as they’re not fighting.