New Musings

So this has been sitting in my drafts since last fall. And while I’m the last person to want to revisit that long, very cold, drawn out winter, I have nothing new to offer until they figure out a way to wire my thoughts directly into the computer…So I present last fall’s thoughts. Hope to have thoughts of spring of summer sometime soon!
No thought out entry today, just wanted to document the beautiful first snow fall of the the season. It is a perfect snow–light, fluffy and sticky. Lucas went out with the neighborhood kids for a snowball fight. The 1/2 inch snowfall discounted fort building, but the snowballs were flying pretty good. Later Lucas and I went to the mailbox to mail a letter and he noticed the crunch of the snow under his boots, which he commented he hadn’t heard since last winter. We stopped and caught snow flakes. Some were packed little balls of crystals, and earlier I had caught one big enough to see its beautiful pattern, and I watched it until it disappeared into a drop of water.

Today I’m preoccupied by two lies related to women. The first is “morning sickness” and the second is “hot flash.”

I would like to meet the woman who during her pregnancy only feels like puking in the morning. It sounds so manageable and neat. I and many others had it full on, all day and all night. As a word person, it bugs me, and worse, I believed it. Boy was I pissed when it wasn’t relegated to the morning. “All day nausea” sounds less appealing, but at least it’s accurate. Pregnancy presents a whole host of things to get used to and I, for one, like to know the truth beforehand. So why can’t we change the word? The sea experts have taken away a beloved name from my youth, “jelly fish” and supplanted it with the more accurate, but goofy sounding “sea jellies.” I propose, in the name of accuracy, we rename “morning sickness.” Here are some ideas to get started:

“All day puke fest,” “nausea all the time,” or “good luck eating for four months.”

Maybe part of the reason people avoid using the word nausea, is that no one can spell it, nor can they make the grammatical distiction between nausea and nauseous (I had to look up the spelling). People use it interchangeably, but according to my grammar book, they are different. And when I find that book, I’ll prove it.

Fast forward 15 or so years and I run into another word lie that bugs me: hot “flashes.” Now if it were a flash, as in fast, it wouldn’t be so bad, but the other day I had a whole hot hour–flash my ass. And I don’t even have them that often. I can imagine I’ll get even more steamed when they come with more frequency, which by the way is not in the definition of “flash,” even though the definition runs three inches long. I mean at that rate, flash could mean practically anything, so should we really be using such a feckless word to decribe a medical condition? It’s clearly up to us, because even the scientists haven’t tried to give it a Latin name.

I never took Latin, so I looked up synonyms for “flash,” and what I found made me even madder. Not only did someone pick the most inaccurate word for hot flashes, they also picked the least descriptive. I mean, check these out: “gleam, glance, glint, sparkle, glitter, glisten, glimmer , shimmer.” I mean heck, if you’re going to lie to me, make it good! I personally am going to start calling them “Hot glisten” when I’m feeling sexy and “hot shimmer” when I’m feeling like the ’70s.

So what’s the DVR topic? Well, mostly I was going for hip and funny, but on the topic of using words accurately, a DVR is a well-named thing, and acronyms can be useful. Maybe that would work for morning sickness. Good LUck eating for 4 Months=GLUM. Hmmm. I’ll keep working on it as soon as my hot shimmer is over.

This entry is dedicated to my dear friend George who is very probably the only regular visitor to this website–even I don’t visit it that much. So a few weeks back, just as I was ready to get online and finish a draft blog, post it and pat myself on the back for such a heroic action, he e-mailed me to say my site wasn’t there. I got on and sure enough, my site had been hijacked by a beautiful blond lady peddling designer knock-off perfumes. And if she had featured a link to just one of my essays or the cover of my book, I probably would have let her stay, because she was way prettier than me. But she had no room in her virtual life for anything but perfume, so I was forced to take action, which consisted mainly of a full-blown tantrum of the over-40-I-don’t-understand-all-this-web-technology-I-text-message-isn’t-that-enough-for-you-people variety.

I spent a week getting bounced back in forth in e-mail between my dual domain name registrars ( I don’t know why I have two, and if you ask me why I will hold my breath and kick and scream). It was a long enough time for me to reflect that although e-mail hasn’t changed the “pass the buck” customer service routine, it does make it easier to call both parties to task for doing it.

Of course it turns out to be all my fault, anyway. Those e-mails I kept ignoring about renewing my domain name registration should have been the first tip off. But I had thrown some money at the web host when I renewed with them–didn’t that count for something? Who knew you have to pay someone annually for the right to use your name online? And in fact, if you DO ignore those pleas to renew, your name goes into a domain name jail and then you have to pay way more money to bail it out. AND if you still don’t buy it back, it goes to an “auction,” and god knows who can get their hands on it then. I can just picture visitors of the future: “Oh hey, that author who wrote a book about her dad in Holland during WWII runs a porn site now–how sad what people will do for money…”

And then it was this thought that paralyzed me: I have to pay to renew my domain name forEVER. Faw-e-vah, as we say here in Massachusetts. Even a mortgage payment stops after 30 years, and other “forevers” such as marriage and taxes must succumb to the grim reaper. But what will happen to my domain name? Will my son have to keep renewing it after my death? Can I have it destroyed so it never falls into evil hands that are sexier and prettier than I am?

Or do all the unrenewed domain names end up in the virtual dust bin, occasionally rummaged through by bargain hunters or e-archeologists. “Oh look at this one: sandradeden.com. That was such a turn-of-the-century fashion, to name a website after yourself. No screen name, can you imagine? They had no idea what they were doing back then. Let’s see what else we can find out about her…says she wrote a “book”–wonder what that is–and then turned it into a porn site…how sad what people did for money…”

So I never followed up with the not-the-swap party entry, and I know you all are clamoring for closure. Gingerbread houses were built, both from a kit and with free-form graham crackers. My husband and son tried to eat them. Lamb was served, and wine flowed. There was an awkward moment over the gift grab bag–apparently my friends couldn’t read my thoughts about having it, and not everyone brought a present. However, like a good Christmas miracle, it all worked out, and each person got a present.

While I don’t think a new tradition was born, we successfully bridged the gap from what was to what will be. Thankfully, I don’t have to worry about it for another 11 months or so. I’ve still got the second Saturday in December saved in my 2008 calendar, though. I’m sure something will happen around that time–or else. 

So Santa brought Lucas a Nintendo DS this year, which is big news because before Christmas, he was very possibly the only 8-year-old in the US to have no electronic toys. There was a rumor about a kid in California not having any at age 10, but that was never confirmed. Lucas began the DS campaign in the summer. We refused on the grounds that it would require additional parental nagging and monitoring. I explained that I don’t have the energy to yell at him any more than I do now. No slouch, he countered with this: “I think I should only play it on weekends and only for two hours a day.” Hmmmm. He must have been reading the parenting books again.

We pointed out lack of funds and the small concern that it actually might not be good for him. For the first four years of his life, we were building-blocks and PBS-only kind of parents. We figured he’d have the rest of his life to use beeping machines, see things blow up, and view commercials urging him to eat junk food and buy stuff. We started to ease up after age four–he does need to be a functioning member of society–and slid down the slippery slope of Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and the occasional soda and bag of Doritoes. All of which I’m sure lead to the desire for a DS, which will surely turn him into a zombie who can’t funtion without a beeping gizmno in his hand. So while we’ve made peace with that, there is still the matter of cost. It costs $130 clams, or 13 sawbucks, or $30 more dollars than a C-note. Am I the only one who thinks that is a lot of money? When I was a kid, I had to walk 10 miles to get a toy that cost $10. Now I had to work 10 hours to get one? I don’t think so. Lucas then mentioned Santa, but we told him Santa didn’t give such big gifts. Poor thing, he believed us.

And so his campaign continued, unflagging, until we decided he could have a DS, but he would have to pay for it himself. At his request, we calculated that it would take him 26 weeks to save his allowance for a DS, which for an 8 year old (or an adult for that matter) might as well be a lifetime. But no matter. I was smug with our brilliant plan. He would learn the value of saving for something, and we wouldn’t have to cough up the money. But it was not to last. One afternoon, he said with a heavy sigh, “All the other kids are getting electronic toys for Christmas from Santa.” I scrutinized him. There was no hint of manipulation or anger–just a child-like despair and resignation. He didn’t ask, but the issue was there. How do I explain that Santa will bring all these other kids electronic toys, but not him? I was caught. Caught in the tangled web of Santa lies.  

I knew this was some sort of cosmic joke at my expense. As the youngest of four, I have no active memory of Santa. When the older kids stopped believing, my parents gave up on the concept of Santa, probably to save their sanity by not having to assemble and haul out four kids worth of presents late on Christmas Eve. I never minded, though, because the trade off was that we opened our presents on Christmas Eve, and that was better than anything. Of course it also means I don’t have any Santa memories to help out in these matters. And now Santa had come back for his revenge.

I looked into Lucas’s disappointed face, heard the baying of the materialistic hounds at the gates, and caved. “Maybe you could ask Santa for a DS. He is magic after all.” And now, I thought grimly, I’m going to need some magic to pull this off.  

I went into overtime behind the scenes (many thanks to my brother-in-law and sister!). Meanwhile, Lucas put off writing his letter to Santa. He has acquired a habit over the years of not asking for things that he thinks we’ll say no to. Mostly it’s things like asking for candy or a toy in the store, asking for seconds of cookies of sweets. I never could figure out if it was a control thing or what, but since it works in my favor, I don’t delve into it too deeply. He finally wrote his letter on Christmas Eve, but he left off the DS. Afraid of showing my hand (I’m a terrible liar) I didn’t encourage him to add it. He put in some DS games, and a few other things for a total of about four items. I felt a weird mix of sadness, pride, and anticipation. I bought a one-time-use digital video camera to record the historic moment.

Of course, this was the first year he went downstairs on Christmas morning without waking me up. I woke suddenly–my mother-instincts kicking in at the first sound of crinkling paper. By the time I joined him, he had discovered the DS in his stocking and was opening it. Last year he would have exclaimed, and his whole body would have joined in with the excitement, jumping and squirming. But he was a whole year older and the excitement went underground. You could see it in his eyes, but there would be no textbook Christmas home movie of him ripping and laughing and yelling with delight.

So, after all those months, I finally got to see this thing in action, and I have to admit it’s a very cool, sophisticated piece of machinery. It’s portable, has a touch screen, has the capacity to incorporate other gamers and games from other systems into the DS games, which sounds kind of Matrix-like, but hey, I liked those movies. And yes, Lucas gets lost in it for hours, but he is a character in the game and interacts and has to think through situations and make decisions about what to do and where to go. We haven’t completely caved–he still only gets to play the games rated “E” for everyone. We’re hoping to stave off the murder and mayhem for another couple of years.

My coworker’s son also got a DS for Christmas. “Have you tried it, yet?” he exclaimed excitedly. “It’s so fun!” I told him I haven’t yet tried to pry it out of Lucas’s hands. Besides, I too have slid down the slippery slope. I got my eye on a Wii, and I only have to save my money for 24 more weeks.

Forgive me, reader, for I have sinned. It’s been more than four months since my last posting. Who knows where I’ve been–I don’t know myself half the time–but here I am just in time for the holidays.

First let me tell you I am a hard core traditionalist when it comes to the holidays. I love Thanksgiving and I love Christmas, and if you dare try to change the holidays on me, I will knock your block off. Good will toward men…as long as nothing has changed from last year, right down to the cranberry sauce (cooked with fresh cranberries and no orange bits or other weird stuff added to it, thank you very much). The only exception allowed is adding people to the table. My fondest memories are of Thanksgiving at my grandmother’s house where the 9 adults sat around a table that filled the small kitchen and 6 kids were at the kids’ table in the living room, and it was just boisterious enough to be festive without being overwhelming. 

Second, you need to know I have a religiously diverse family: one Catholic, one Eastern philosopher, a Jehovah’s Witness, two Jews, one agnostic (that’s me), two unlabeled believers in God, and one undeclared who actively dislikes the holidays. As you might imagine, this presents certain challenges. And the most people I can get to the Thanksgiving table is 7, which compared to my childhood memories is a pretty lame number. So I’m always trolling for Thanksgiving refugees. When people complain about having to deal with the family at Thanksgiving, I always invite them to my house like a holiday salesman: “Come to my house where Thanksgiving is fun!” Seven is the fairly steady number, although I manage to add a person every now and then. But I lust for 10 or, better yet, the perfect number of 12. After years of asking the Witness (they don’t celebrate any holidays except wedding anniversaries) and the undeclared to come visit the day after Thanksgiving and being turned down, last year I gave up. I said, know that you have an open invitation, but I’m not going to ask any more and start some weird guilt thing going on. You see, we started out as entirely Catholic family, and despite our various religious divergence, the guilt seems permanent.

The letting go worked like a charm, because this year turned out to be the bumber crop of Thanksgivings. On Thankgiving day, we not only had my mother-in-law who recently relocated to a nearby town, but I also snagged a friend I’d been trying to get for years. The undeclared and his wife said they’d come on Friday, and while I was busy making pies and wrestling with a 26 lb turkey, the Witness was making secret plans to surprise us all on Friday. So after a fabulous showing of 9 on Thanksgiving, we bumped our numbers to 11 on Friday. I can die happy now.

While Thanksgiving was a wild success, I’m facing a radical change in a Christmas tradition. Thankfully it’s not with my immediate family, and I would like to acknowledge right now the steadfast support of the Jews, who are great defenders of our family holiday traditions, thank goodness. No, this is about a tradition with dear friends. Every year they throw a Yankee Swap and we’ve been attending for years. It’s the kind of event that when you get your new calendar in January, you flip right to December, count to the second Saturday and write down “Yankee Swap.” Earlier this year, after many years together, the couple broke up, and in the range of emotions expended in grieving and supporting both of them during this difficult time, it took some months for me to realize my beloved Yankee Swap was not to be. Change was stalking me.

But what to do in its place? Part of the tradition was the ever- revolving people at the Swap. A few of us were hard core regulars, but the rest of the group was different year to year, sometimes a big group, sometimes small. It was clear the Swap could not be replicated at someone else’s house, but I knew we needed to do something. I mean that Saturday is blocked off in my calendar! I e-mailed two of the other core people and started to brainstorm. Maybe we could do an event, go to a restaurant, ride a hay wagon. The e-mail was light and funny and really meant to spark the creativity I knew we were capable of to come up with an event that would help us through this difficult year. I envisioned enthusiastic responses–”Yeah that’s cool, how about we have a snowball fight in the park,” or “I know a great little restaurant with a fireplace that would be perfect for a small gathering.” I was feeling virtuous and sure I would be hailed as the savior of the Sacred Yankee Swap. I could not have been more wrong. One e-mailed back, “Not really interested in those ideas. Thanks anyway.” and the other didn’t respond at all. That’s when it hit me: I was the one, true defender of the tradition. Good will toward men be darned! I claimed emergency executive powers and e-mailed back. “OK, guys, here’s the deal. I need a new tradition and I need to be with the two of you. So you’re coming over my house, and I don’t care what we do, but we’re going to be together and make some freakin’ holiday memories!”  They got on board after that. The “Not the Yankee Swap Holiday Event” will be held December 22, and a good time will be had by all, or else.

So this year I’ve taken Kenny Roger’s words to heart, you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them, know when to stop inviting ‘em, and know when chase them down and make them drink eggnog and hot cider or else! Happy Holidays!