Sorry.

I know, I know.

I haven't been posting.

If I had time today to post, it would go a little something like this...

Youngest is distraught about a certain coloring book page that she colored for me and then attempted to tear out of the book. It ripped in half.

"I so sorry, Mom," she told me, handing me one half of an Easter bunny's head, scribbled with deliberate strokes of yellow and green crayon.

"It's okay, really," I assured her. "I love it! I love how you colored just above the bunny's ear with this little swirl here. Looks like a butterfly."

"I was making you a present," she explained. "I ripped it."

"I don't mind that it's a little ripped. It's beautiful. Thank you!"

More to herself than me, she went on, refusing to let it go. "I colored it for you, and then I ripped it. I so sorry."

"It really IS okay, honey!"

Jeez. We really are our own worst critic.

Easter. A belated post.

The children acknowledged their Easter baskets, sorted their chocolate, and located all plastic, Whopper-filled eggs within the first ten minutes of waking.

And then what.

We’d done the official Easter gathering with my parents Saturday. With the exception of Oldest’s biofather picking her up after lunch for their events, the day was clear. And I felt the Easter letdown settling in.

The Christian holidays are a result of my upbringing, a faith that 12 years of Catholic education managed to beat out of me with a vengeance. When the Jehovah’s Witnesses come to my door with Watchtowers and Bibles, I shake my head kindly and say with the conviction of someone who’s finally come to her senses, “Thanks anyway. We’re not religious.”

But I do envy them the enthusiasm. I said to Husband, “It’s Easter. I want to celebrate something.”

He patted my shoulder kindly. “Well, I’m sure you could walk into any church down the street and celebrate the nailing of a man to a stick.”

“That’s not what I want to celebrate.”

His solution? A nature walk with the girls.

We saw a black snake sunning on a log at the edge of a lake. Youngest expressed a desire to swing from vines. Oldest complained that her feet hurt. And there were dragonflies.

We stopped at a bridge crossing a creek and peered over the splintery wooden rail at the trickle of water passing over smooth stone below.

“Are there fishes?” asked Youngest, clinging to my shirt like a baby gibbon as I held her up to look.

“There might be,” I told her. “Anything’s possible.”

So there's this guy I know. He'd go out of his way for someone he's just met. He stretches himself so thin helping people out that all his own projects always get put aside.

If he sees a little old lady having car trouble, he worries about her for days. "There was someone helping her," I point out. It doesn't make any difference. She looked confused and upset, and that upsets him.

When we lived at the apartment, he was the substitute dad for neighborhood kids at the bus stop in the mornings. One day, one of the supposed tough boys knocked on our door. "I got pushed into the lake," he said, looking on the verge of tears, looking as if for whatever reason he couldn't knock on his own door just then. His socks were soaked. The kid was sent back to the bus stop with dry socks on his feet.

This guy rearranged his entire career to stay home and freelance so he could meet his daughter at the bus stop after school. He makes dinner, does the dishes, shuttles the kids, folds laundry.

And he'd rather spend time talking with his wife after the kids are in bed instead of going out to a movie or to a bar with his friends.

I mean, come on. Of course I married him. This guy is amazing.

So since today is his birthday, I just wanted to let him know that he's the best thing that's ever happened to me. He's my best friend and my true partner.

He also makes really kick-ass coffee, which I think is important to any lasting relationship.

Prayer of the Agnostic 3rd-Grade-Talent-Show-Costume-Sewing Mom

Dear God(s)/(esses):
Please grant me the serenity to imagine for just five minutes that if I were to promise you Never Again, you would enact such divine authority as to prevent my thread from breaking, hems from bunching, etc. long enough for me to sew four stinking, glitter-ridden costumes for a group of children who have long ago lost interest in the whole endeavor.

PS, also please tap me on the shoulder periodically and remind me That’s Good Enough.

Thank you, Amen, etc.

A friend of a friend had twins four months ago, a boy and a girl.

When they went to pick them up from daycare, they were both napping. Dad woke up the little girl first and tucked her into her carseat. Then he went to wake the little boy. He wasn't breathing.

They did CPR. But he died.

I don't know what I would do if that happened to our family. I really don't. I still put a hand on Youngest's back every night to feel her breathing before I turn off her nightlight. I'm always relieved when I wake her up in the morning, and in the moment before I smooth the hair off her warm forehead, there's always a tiny nagging dread that whispers, What if she isn't sleeping?

I don't think that ever goes away. I feel the same relief every morning when I pat Oldest's shoulder and rub the goosebumps on the arm she's thrown out of the blanket, glad that she pulls away and burrows into her pillow for another five minutes of sleep.

I think if anything ever happened to my kids I might stop breathing too.

I've just returned from the fabric store, which is a strange and surreal place in the middle of a workday. One finds it populated with an odd mix of old ladies making throw-pillows, stay-at-home moms making summer jumpers, one-armed women seeking toggle fasteners, and of course, the huge, construction-site type man in greasy denim overalls who was… actually I don't have any idea what he was doing in a fabric store.

The register girl was the most unlikely of them all. Mid-twenties in a baseball jersey, with long, stringy blonde hair, overweight. And a frantic pattern of cuts on the back of her left hand that simply do not occur without intent. Register girl was either a cutter or was in the habit of backhanding boys with braces.

I sidled up to the register, clutching my fabric, and mumbled, "Excuse me, where do you keep the razor blades?"

"The what?" she asked.

"For my Exacto knife! God! What did you think I was going to do with them? Is it a crime to need razor blades for your Exacto knife? You do sell them, right?"

"Uh, over along the wall," she said, pointing. She did not know where to take this conversation.

"Forget it," I said, plopping my fabric down on the counter. "I'm not in the mood anymore. Can you just check me out?"

When I got back to my car, I gleefully looked over my purchases.

Sequined fabric and a shimmer rayon blend glinted at me from the plastic bag. I am Costume Mom. If you tell me that you and your friends want to try out for the talent show, I will make four of the bad-assedest costumes your school has ever seen. In two weeks!

Soundtrack Dad will not only burn copies of the selected talent show song for you and all your friends, he will edit the track so that it slides just under the three-minute time limit. And then he will print copies of the lyrics.

Heck, it's stuff like this that keeps parents off the streets.

Today's episode: Girl Meets Worm

Just how fast can an eight-year-old go from squeamish, shrieking, worm-hating sissy to devoted worm caretaker and condo-builder?

In about the time it takes her to see that her two-year-old sister is gleefully hogging all the worms.

I was extricating some weeds from a patch of land in which I'm determined to grow something purposeful this season. The girls were enjoying the spring sunshine and jockeying for position on our tree swing.

"Hey, come look at this!" I called to them, shaking a small earthworm free from the roots of a weed onto my gloved palm.

Youngest was the first on the scene. "What?" she called in mid-run.

"It's a worm!" I said, holding it out to her. "Look!"

She did look, peering with suspicion into the hand I held out to her as Oldest trotted up and looked over her shoulder.

Oldest made a face and backed away. "Ew!" But Youngest was intrigued. She giggled as she watched it curl and unwind.

"Do you want to hold it?" I asked.

Following her sister's lead, Youngest backed away and started to whimper.

"Oh no, don't worry." I said to her. I have fond memories of digging up worms as a kid, and I was not about to let a little apprehension get in the way of a cool, wriggling earthworm. Childhood is not complete without it. "Worms are friendly. You can hold them on your hand. Like this, see?"

I took her hand and gently turned the worm onto it. She squealed and laughed.

"Now don't squish him," I said, as she ran back to the tree to rejoin sister and show off her fearlessness.

In about five seconds, Oldest was back kneeling beside me. "I want a worm too! Can you find another one? Are there more? Can I hold them?"

The two girls took the care of their worms very seriously, constructing a complex dwelling out of leaves, twigs, and grass.

I was proud.

I'm feeling behind on everything, and it's depressing. Birthday cards, baby gifts, doctor appointments, taxes, laundry, emails. All the little stuff that really shouldn't be any big deal is ALL seeming like a big deal right now.

I would rather take a nap.

Rather than take five minutes to cross anything off my list, I'd rather sit for five minutes and think about how much I'd rather take a nap than spend five minutes devoted to anything productive.

To make matters worse, I'm on my very last Luden's Wild Cherry throat drop.

I have meetings today at 10:00 and 2:00.

This is also the proper positioning of one's hands on a steering wheel as one maniacally drives one's vehicle off a cliff to escape unnecessary meetings.

Luden's Wild Cherry Throat Drops are fabulously soothing when one's throat is irritated by silent screams.

I am totally burned out on writing. It's hard. It requires effort, thought, energy, and no shortage of sugar.

Here's a list of all the things I currently hate:

Transitions

Special offers (that aren't all that special)

Bullets

Edits

Making shit up

That last one deserves emphasis through repetition:

Making shit up

I feel like that's all I ever do. Marketing hands me a work order for a direct mail letter. Okay, a four-page letter. You do realize that's four full pages of nothing but words. What am I supposed to say in this letter? Don't know! Make something up! But make it compelling enough that the reader will stop what they're doing, jump online, and pay $54.95 for a professional reference book! But why would said professional want said reference book? Don't know! Make it up!

Here is list of features I hate:

Vibrant illustrations!

Up to date information!

Expert author!

Comprehensive coverage!

These pretty much describe every book I'm ever asked to write about. Seriously. Enough with the comprehensivefullcoloruptodateauthoritative shit. Give me something real to say. But since no one (including the author) actually knows what purpose the book serves… make it up!

All creative writing electives in college shall hereby be renamed Copywriting 101.

I expected to post today with some sort of horror story.

Saturday night, I had a group of friends over to my house for a book club meeting.

Two things: 1) I’ve never been involved in a book club of any sort. 2) I make friends reluctantly and sparingly, and participate in so few social activities as to consider myself gathering-challenged.

I have no horrors to report. It went well.

But here, I’m about to get all profound.

I was cleaning my house, and as I swept dust bunnies the size of grown cats from under my couch, I thought back to my mother’s style of house cleaning: ignore what you can’t see. We fervently ignored unseen corners of closets, boxes of clutter, papers and dust shoved under our beds. We ignored it all, the corners growing more and more horrifying, until they reached critical mass and began to spill out into the clean, clear center spaces.

Such a wonderful metaphor.

My mother has recently come to the same conclusion I have, that maybe a proactive approach is the way to go. As we speak, she’s pecking away at a lifetime of unaddressed issues in the basement. I like to think I cleared out most of my own baggage when I moved out, but it’s likely she’s still keeping a few pieces, ready to drag them out for re-examination whenever I visit.

I’m hoping to teach my own kids not to avoid the dark places. If they’re filled with dust, it’s your dust. And if you wind up covered with it, well, you can always shower later. Own the corners, or they’ll own you. Dust bunnies don't have teeth. Even if they did, Mr. Clean is one mean mutha-effah.

Could I just take a moment to address a few points of bathroom etiquette?

I am regularly offended by people's behavior in the restrooms here at work, and it occurs to me that perhaps (and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt) they are entirely ignorant of the psychological havoc they wreak. Allow me to elucidate.

The courtesy flush
I know that in civilized society, we like to avoid unnecessary contact with our own crap. But I assure you, you will have far fewer dealings with it if you flush thoroughly. And if one flush doesn't get the job done, it's not an admission of weakness to give it a second go-round. I know a few men who might consider it a source of pride.

Eye contact
It is okay to recognize and greet someone washing her hands at the sink as you enter the restroom. It is not okay to peer through the cracks of the stall door to see if someone you know is sitting with her pants around her knees. Honestly, I thought that was common knowledge.

Identifying vocalizations
Some people may think that all grunting, heavy breathing, sneezing, and humming sound the same as anyone else's. Not true. And that's a picture of you in my head that I don't want to carry around all day.

Congratulatory affirmations
I don't know about you, but I've been using the big-girl potty all by myself for a good twenty-six years. I've become quite skilled at having successful bowel movements. Applause is not necessary. (Again, honestly!)

And finally, please consider the following topics off-limits for stall-to-stall conversation:

What you had for dinner

Undergarment brands and stylings

Menstruation (in general)

Tampons (in particular)

Yeast infections

Bikini waxing

Marital intimacy

I understand that men have their own rules about restroom behavior, and gentlemen, I applaud you. But certainly not when you're least expecting it.

Sometimes I just get the urge to dress nice. But try explaining that to my co-worker sistahs.

As I was pulling my ratty Friday jeans off the rack in my closet this morning, I happened to notice the high-heeled, lace-up granny boots that I bought in November as a birthday present to myself. I love them so much that I've named them. Evelyn and Leighanne. But although they look fabulous, like so many other females they are deeply malicious and catty. They pretend to be nice to you and then when you're least expecting it, they pinch and squeeze for their own amusement.

No matter. It had been months since I'd worn Ev & Leigh, and the memory of the pain they'd caused me last time had sufficiently dulled. I slipped them on and immediately felt fabulous enough to wear a suede skirt to work instead of jeans.

I whipped in the door and passed a co-worker on my way to my office. She eyed me suspiciously. "You look nice today," she hedged.

"Thanks!" I said. "I have a job interview later."

She looked at me quizzically. I thought I heard a faint rustling sound as I walked away. It was the sound of rumors preening their wings and readying for flight.

People kept passing my office and pausing as if to confirm that yes, I was wearing a skirt.

"Taco Bell for lunch?" asked another co-worker via email.

"No thanks," I typed back. "I'm having lunch with Oldest daughter."

A few minutes later, a different co-worker stepped into my office, leaned in close and said, "I think you should talk to Boss."

"Why?"

"She heard that you're interviewing somewhere over lunch and she's mad that you're being so obvious and cold about it."

I noticed that Evelyn was beginning to dig into my little toe.

I didn't realize it, but before I got glasses I was actually missing out on something. Well, besides, you know, vision. I'm talking about the little smudgy fingerprints that children leave on lenses.

If the smudge is directly in your field of vision, you probably clean it off right away, while snapping something like, "Can you just keep your hands off my glasses? Please!"

But sometimes a small fingerprint can be left just on the edge of a lens, as you're kissing them goodbye and they reach up to pat your cheek or they reach around your neck for a hug so sincere that one wrapped-around hand bumps the edge of your frame. And that smudge stays there. Watching as cars pass you on the rain-drenched highway, throwing sheets of water into the path of your busy wipers. Watching as you fumble your way into the office with coffee mug, water bottle, briefcase, purse, and ID card tucked and wedged under the arms of your bulky coat. Waiting while your computer starts and as you sort through the papers that were left on your chair after you went home last night.

And then, as the transition into the office day settles into your routine, you sit in front of the lit computer screen, and you take your first calm breath of the morning, that's when the left-behind smudge of your little girl calls attention to itself. A silent assertion that you are important. You are more than the recipient of those papers on your chair. You are her mother.

It's bill nite, but let's be honest. Paying bills is no less arduous when done on a nite than on a night. Aiight?

That settled, we can move on.

I have an odd fondness for bill nite. At what other time in an ordinary week can you say to yourself, "Of course I should have that fourth brownie... I deserve it. I've earned it. I need the comfort of a simple carbohydrate to coax me through such a drab exercise in unpleasantness."

And I like to push back my chair as the last check is slipped into the last envelope, spread my arms graciously, and announce to those around me, "It's all right, Family. You can relax. I've paid the mortgage. The house is ours for another month!"

"Is bread fattening?" asked Oldest daughter in the bathtub, wincing as Youngest splashed and aimed a squirt from a rubber fish in her direction.

Please don't overreact, my inner Teenager pleaded with my inner Mom who is prone to overreacting.

I adopted a calculatedly level tone. "I guess anything is, if you eat too much of it."

As if I didn't know the exact calorie, fat, carbohydrate, fiber, and protein count of three distinct brands of white bread.

But I knew this wasn't coming from me. Fattening is not a word I use. Fattening is a word used by middle-aged soccer moms who believe that certain foods add inches to their thighs while low-fat s'mores can be eaten by the fistful. "Did someone tell you that?" I asked.

"Courtney said it was," said Oldest, and she busied herself with arranging a bubble citadel for our resident mermaid.

I quickly thought back to third grade. Yes, as scrawny eight-year-olds we'd called ourselves fat. We'd talked about how we needed to go on diets. But not really. We were imitating our mothers and older sisters, the same way we talked about lipstick and boyfriends. I didn't really think I was fat any more than I really wanted a boy to come within twelve feet of me.

The only third-grader I knew who could really claim to be on a diet was my chubby friend Susie whose mom regularly packed her celery sticks for lunch and then fed her brownies and Twinkies as after-school snacks. I'm quite certain Susie is in therapy now.

Of course, I felt a mom-ish responsibility to beat the issue to death with a heavy club. "You know, there's no such thing as good foods or bad foods! If you eat a balanced diet every day and exercise, you'll always stay fit! And being thin is not the same thing as being healthy! And people like you for what you do, not how you look!"

Oldest pointed to the bottles above her head and said, "Can you reach me some more shampoo for my mermaid's hair?"

"Anorexia kills brain cells!"

"What?"

"For more information, go to www.nationaleatingdisorders.org!"

Somewhere in the distance, my inner Teenager could be heard slamming the door to her room.

So let me tell you.

If you think there couldn't possibly be anything better than spending the late hours of your Saturday night copywriting your way through the guts of an online brochure that's five days overdue to the designer...

Well.

I can think of at least one thing.

And those tweezers are calling my name.

I seem to have come down with something that appears to be flu-like in nature. I have barely gotten out of bed since yesterday. So when Youngest came home from Grandma's, Daddy told her to leave Mommy alone. Mommy was sleeping. Youngest promply crawled under the covers with me.

"So what da matter, Mom?"

I told her that I was sick. Her eyes lit up. "I'm gonn' take CARE of you!" she exclaimed, and ran to get her Doctor's Kit.

"Oh god no," I mumbled.

Minutes later, Youngest was lovingly shoving hard plastic things in my ears, prying open my eyes and pretending to shine lights in them, poking me with toy syringes, and instructing me to swallow imaginary medicine the she held out to me cupped in her little hand.

I feel much better. I swear. I've had all the medical intervention I can handle.

The new word in Youngest's vocabulary is "actually."

This is almost as cute as her mastery of the word "probably" a few months ago, pronounced something like pwaa-bwaa-bwee, but used correctly in a sentence nonetheless. (Would she like to go with Mom to the store? "No, I probably would just like to stay here with Daddy.")

Her use of "actually" seems to betray just how much more is going on in her head than we have access to. For example, she'll pull her charm on Daddy and ask for a dessert during dinner.

"You need to eat your dinner first," says Dad.

Youngest says, "Actually, I ate my dinner already."

Dad points to 90% of her dinner left on the plate. "You have lots of dinner left here."

Youngest pouts, then scoots down from the table and runs off to watch TV while we decide whether it's worth it to chase her down.

Ten minutes later, as Oldest is clearing dishes, Youngest returns to find her plate missing from the table. "MY DINNER! IT GONE!" she cries in anguished outrage.

Oldest looks at me and rolls her eyes. I say to Youngest, "You said you were finished."

Youngest sticks out her lower lip. "ACTUALLY," she informs me, "I still eating it!"

"You're done."

Her pout instantly turns into a wide, beseeching smile, complete with batted eyelashes. "Can I have some candy?"

I offer her fruit instead, which she grudgingly accepts and then leaves with it. I can hear her talking to Dad in the den.

"Oh, you've got an apple!" Dad observes.

"Actually Dad, I would like some candy..."

During the drives in to work lately, I've all but convinced myself that I'm a finalist on American Idol.

In the middle of traffic, I throw back my hair, grip the steering wheel meaningfully, and loudly belt my way through lyrics to songs I barely know…hoping the judges will see that what I lack in talent I make up for in stage presence and glamour.

"You are a star!" applauds my inner Paula as I wind down on a Cher-like finish.

Interestingly, that's one of the areas in which I was dinged on the aforementioned performance evaluation: Appraises others' work openly and honestly.

Writing is like singing, I guess. Those who can't do it very well are often the ones who persist in doing it, well, loudly. And since I've never been very keen on offering my own open and honest opinions, I find it helpful to fall back on a panel of judges.

The screechiest writing is most likely to bring out my Paula. At least to the person's face. "Well done! This is really… nice. I like it. That's all I can really say, it's just very good, very well done."

Sometimes I'll offer up a Randy. "I don't know, dawg. I just wasn't feeling it this time. It just wasn't for me, you know?"

Afterwards, Simon shakes his head. "Abysmal," he says. "Utterly terrible. I would honestly advise you never to approach a writing instrument again for the rest of your natural life. You simply cannot write."

But then there are those moments when I'm asked to read something that really is good, and that's when the judges leap to their feet and shout, "Outstanding!"

If only those moments were distinguishable from the Paulas. Perhaps I need name tags.

I love my workplace, I really do. My co-workers are like the sisters I never had, each one kind and supportive 90-percent of the time, and yet willing to turn on you like a snake and cut your throat if it means getting a bigger piece of pie for dessert.

We all know what a girl will do for pie.

Especially key lime.

But I digress.

I'm beginning to feel like the family vibe has gone a bit too far. As we rolled into 2004 and came upon evaluation time, Mom – er, my boss – called us all together into the big living room-like meeting area to talk about our feelings.

"You are all such wonderful people," said Mrs. S, "and you all do fabulous work. Which is why I didn't feel like it was fair to give any one person a bigger raise this year than anyone else."

Not quite sure whether to join hands and smile or start stabbing backs, the sisters exchanged confused looks.

"You see," Mom continued, "we have a pool of money set aside for raises. If I were to give one person more, it would take money away from someone else. And that's just not fair, is it."

Evil thoughts entered my mind. I thought of the people who regularly do less work than me. I thought of the people who take two-hour lunches. And all the times I've saved their butts by taking work from them. I could feel my blood pressure starting to rise.

"So, please, if anyone doesn't feel good about this, let's talk about it."

And of course, in true sisterly fashion, we did. Behind backs.

[IMPORTANT NOTE: I promise, I'm not a political blogger. I am not going to start blathering on about political things.]

[FURTHER CLARIFICATION: I support the right of any one adult, gay or otherwise, to legally marry any one other adult, gay or otherwise. I do not support the legal discrimination against or subjugation of any specified group of people.]

Our president is "troubled" by same-sex marriages. Troubled.

He is not troubled by national debt, corporate corruption, children living in poverty, destruction of wildlife, shattered foreign relations, or even the launching of a war based on pretense. None of these things trouble our president.

But two people falling in love and making a binding, legal commitment to support one another. Now, that's troubling.

No, I mean it. I can see why this is a national crisis worthy of constitutional intervention. These two committed people, once granted the right to publicly care for one another, might think it is also within their right to care for children (or pets, for that matter). Two caring parents dedicated to providing a stable family life? Think of those poor kids!

I am troubled that when the leader of our country states that "people need to be involved in this decision," and that "marriage ought to be defined by the people not by the courts," he doesn't mean those people.

I'm troubled that he thinks it's right to deny a person full participation in our society if that person falls outside his rich, white, heterosexual definition of the norm.

Anyway, of course gays can get married. They can get married right now if they want to. A gay person can march into any courthouse in the United States right this very minute and marry someone, as long as their genitals don't match.

In fact, any man can marry any woman. Even if they're perfect strangers. On a dare. For five minutes. After several too many beers.

Now that's a sacred definition of marriage worth defending.

Sunday was Nuffin Day at our house.

Some might pronounce the word for the little mounds of baked batter "muffins," but not Youngest. As far as she's concerned, we made nuffins.

It started with two blackened bananas hanging from a wire banana tree on my kitchen counter. They'd been hanging there all week. It was a standoff between us and the bananas. We weren't going to eat them but damn it, we'd paid good money for them and darned if we were going to throw them out.

"I'm not throwing those bananas out," I said firmly to Husband, keeping one eye on the offending fruit as I unloaded the dishwasher.

Husband did not look up from the Sunday paper. "Okay. I'm not going to eat them."

"I eat dem?" asked Youngest, who still licks the bottom of her shoes when we're not looking.

"No honey," I told her. "They're all black and icky."

Youngest thought for a moment. "Daddy eat dem?"

What would my mother do in this situation? Why, she would trick us into eating the black bananas by disguising them as edible food.

"We're going to make muffins!" I announced.

For the next few minutes while I gathered the ingredients, Youngest danced around the kitchen shouting, "Nuffins! Nuffins! I makin nuffins! I make dem! I eat dem!"

At a pause in her cavorting, Daddy sidled over and asked her, "Hey, what are we making?"

"Nuffin," she answered with conviction.

"What will they taste like?"

"Nuffin."

"What are they good for?"

"Nuffin."

"What do you love more than Daddy?"

"Nuffin."

"How much will your education cost us?"

"Nuffin."

"What are you going to amount to?"

"Nuffin."

Husband and I were amused. "What's more fun than teasing a baby?" he asked me.

"Nuffin," I said. "Except swatting you with a kitchen towel," which I reached for and caused him to flee.

They're painting the office across the hall from me.

With paint fumes wafting lazily about my head, I decided that it was time to eat the Really Fricking Huge Chocolate Brownie that I'd brought back from lunch at the local bagel place.

When the register girl asked me if I would like to add a brownie to my order for just one dollar, I thought, "I don't believe I'm in the mood for a brownie." And what came out of my mouth, instead, was: "Why, yes I would!"

Register girl reached behind the counter and withdrew the single largest brownie I've ever seen outside a 9x9 baking pan, wrapped in cellophane. With some difficulty, I stowed it in my purse for later consumption. My group ate lunch and decided to make a side trip to the craft store, and so I, feeling a bit conspicuous, went along with Giganto-Brownie in tow.

"Do you think I'm allowed to come in here?" I asked a friend, pointing to the "No Food or Drink Allowed" sign on the door. She told me not to be stupid, that it was just a brownie. Excuse me, but Giganto-Brownie was not just a brownie. It practically owned real estate. It probably had a family and several pets at home. I was not carrying it in my purse so much as it was allowing itself to be carried.

I started to feel as though people in the craft store were talking about me.

I felt compelled to walk up to random people and explain the situation. "It's not like I really even wanted the brownie in the first place," I said to a blue-haired woman as she was examining spools of thread.

In one of the aisles, a mother with small children was looking at yarn. "Hey, I smell chocolate!" said one of the children. "Well I'm not going to eat the whole thing at once!" I snapped at him.

By the time I got the brownie back to the office, I was a nervous wreck. "You're too skinny," the brownie whispered to me. "You should eat more."

"That's the sweetest thing anyone's ever said to me," I replied, before realizing that I was talking into my purse and people were staring.

And then they began to paint the office across the hall from me.

So here I am.

That is, at home. As in: I’m not at work today.

It’s a snow day, sort of. They predicted that gobs of all sorts of scary, icy snowishness would be dumped on us as we slept last night, and that upon waking we would peer out of our frost-laced windows and recoil in horror at the sight of so much frozen precipitation and vehicular carnage on the roadways.

It turned out not to be the case, but it was threat enough to cause Oldest’s school to close.

So here we are midway through the day, with Oldest contentedly curled up in front of a DVD that Husband had rented for her, and Youngest zooming about the house with a clay fish raised above her head that is apparently able to defy the earth’s gravity and occasionally break into fancy dance moves to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”

Okay, technically I have work with me that I brought home specifically so that I could stay home on the impending snow day without feeling guilty. Am I going to do it?

No.

I’m going to drag out watercolors and paper, and paint rainbows with my kids. I’m going to bake cookies. I’m going to sit with my feet up on the coffee table, a book in one hand and the other arm around Oldest on the couch, while Youngest pounds Play-Doh into the rug.

I’m a grown woman and I still feel like snow days are freebies. Neener.

We're taking Oldest to see Return of the King on Saturday, the grand culmination of several weekends spent on the couch together working our way through the extended edition DVDs of the first two movies. Oldest, you see, is a Type-II viewer.

I should explain.

There are three types of Lord of the Rings viewers.

Type-I: Grew up loving the world of Middle Earth or fell in love with it some time before the movies came out. Spent a great deal of time leading up to their debut fretting and checking up on Peter Jackson's credentials as a director and saying things like, "These films had better not suck." Felt great relief when Fellowship did, in fact, not suck. Rushed home after each film to re-read the books with renewed enthusiasm.

Type-II: Had not read the books prior to seeing the first film. Was immediately drawn in by Peter Jackson's visual re-telling of the story and captivated by the characters and epic, mythological landscape. Either rushed right out to read the books, or eagerly anticipated the next film.

Type-III: Think that Orlando Bloom is so hot. So very, very, very sexy hot hot HOT! Oh my god, look at his sexy, twisted Elf ears. Bet Elves are magnificent lovers. P.S. Arwen is too fat to be an Elf, and think Frodo and Sam are gay. But nevertheless!

Husband and I, of course, grew up with the books. On opening day of each film, we stood in line outside the theater in the miserable December cold, holding hands and nearly jumping with excitement like the dorks we know we are.

In line for the final film, at the earliest showing in the city on opening day (excluding the midnight shows – I mean, we have kids and all), I looked around and wondered how many of us were that kid in school. The kid who wrote secret messages in runes and named pet fish Legolas and Gimli. And here we all were, taking our bent, worn copies of The Hobbit out of hiding and looking around at other kids who, just like us, would have loved to take it apart and point to precursors, themes, symbolism, and the sheer, wandering majesty of the world of Middle Earth.

In a way, it's kind of sad that now it's a phenomenon, and that there may come a generation of kids who think that the books are based on the movies. But we'll set them straight. Oldest is reading my beat-up copy of The Hobbit. Each night she shows me what chapter she's on with an excitement in her eyes that I recognize, and I peer over her shoulder and get swept up in the adventure all over again.

Thursday is Quote Day! Here are a few:

"A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often -- just to save it from drying out completely." -- Pam Brown

"I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen." -- Ernest Hemingway

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." -- Eleanor Roosevelt

"True friends stab you in the front." -- Oscar Wilde

"For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" -- John Greenleaf Whittier

Many people believe they are married to the "best" person of the opposite (or same, depending) sex. The truth is, I have secured the best man. I've known this for some time, but now and then I have to publicly proclaim it.

Last night, against Husband's better judgment, I talked him into watching a show we'd Tivo-ed (against his better judgment) on Discovery Health about The Woman with the 200-Pound Tumor.

The tumor weighed more than I do, even on fat days.

You half expected it to morph into human form and separate itself from the woman like an alien-esque form of asexual budding reproduction.

I have a grotesque fascination with things that go that wrong with the human body. Husband was outright horrified. He cringed and winced and watched sideways while I sat glued to each lingering camera shot.

Toward the end, we both promised each other never to get sick or sprout monstrous tumors. And then I felt a migraine coming on.

I've had migraines in the past. I've had them with increasing frequency in the past few months. Usually I see sparkly lights, take some pills, go to sleep for a few hours and wake up able to function. But this, this was the migraine to knock all previous migraines on their collective rear. We went to bed around 10:30 and by midnight I was sitting on the bathroom floor convinced that my brain was hemorrhaging.

And then I was a character in Our Town and the dragon from Sleeping Beauty wanted to marry my sister.

I kept Husband up for many hours, alternately wretching, sobbing, and hallucinating. If he would have rather been sleeping, he never showed it. He brought me water and tissues and made me feel calm. I ultimately convinced the dragon that I didn't have a sister, and he turned into a shower of brilliant fireworks that could be seen throughout all of Grover's Corners.

He's such a nice man. Husband, that is... not the dragon.

The other night, I was pulled from a sound sleep, as I sometimes am, by this:

"Mom…"

Our bedrooms are close enough together that the kids know I'll hear them if they call in the middle of the night. And they don't even really need to call. I seem to be tuned in to their frequency. If they toss, cough, whimper, or simply open their eyes in the darkness and say, "Mom…" I wake up.

I try not to overreact, though. I usually give it two or three Moms before I leap out of bed. One to wake up with, another to judge which child is requesting Mom and with what level of intensity.

So with the first "Mom…" I opened my eyes and waited, listening intently.

"Mom…"

The second was as indistinct as the first. A mellow, unpanicked request. Faint, yet insistent. No hint of whimpering or discomfort. No clue to the child's identity.

"Mom…"

This was weird. It didn't seem to be either rising in tone or settling back into sleep. And I honestly couldn't tell whether it had come from an eight-year-old or a two-year-old.

"Mom…"

Four Moms in a few minutes meant that comforting of some kind was needed, even if the request was still entirely calm. I rolled out of bed and walked barefoot into the hall, still listening, still trying to determine whether it was sleep-talking or a false alarm.

"Mom…"

Which kid is that? I peeked in on Oldest, her arm flung up over her face, hair plastered to her cheek in a dead sleep. I rubbed her back beneath the comforter and kissed the top of her head. No response. Must be Youngest.

"Mom…"

Next door in Youngest's room, I stepped carefully over the carpet, avoiding the creaky floorboards, and leaned over the rail of her crib, putting my hand on her back. She was sound asleep on her stomach, bottom pointing skyward, pudgy cheek planted firmly against the sheet. Totally unawake.

"Mom…"

I felt a chill. I thought immediately of wind over crevices, air traveling through pipes, beams creaking, stray cats trapped in sewers, and other rational explanations. And of course, ghosts. I went back to our room, intending to wake Husband and insist that he search the house and find the lost ghost-child who was calling for its mother so that they could be reunited in the afterlife.

"Mom…"

I looked down at the foot of my bed.

"You little shit," I told the cat. She opened an eye and looked up at me.

"Mom," she breathed through her nostril, the air whistling against the bedspread.

It’s an exciting time of the year here at the Weasel homestead. Having successfully weathered the financial upheaval of yet another holiday season, it’s time to [drumroll] Zero Out the Budget for the new year.

I will mentally gather all of our money together into one big virtual pile, from the lowliest stash of coins on our dresser to the dollar bills I had stashed in my desk drawer at work, all the way up to our savings and checking accounts. I will remove all earmarkings and intentions from all of our money. I will absolve it from any well-intentioned but ill-fated savings attempts. I will stop making the $50 that’s been languishing in the Disney World fund feel guilty about the -$2879 deficit in the Automotive Repair fund.

None of that matters anymore. This is a new year. All funds return to zero. For a brief few hours, all money belongs to all funds. We can, for a moment or so, entertain the idea of pouring all available money into the Furniture fund and going on a Queer-Eye-esque makeover spree for our house. We can imagine what it might be like to spend thousands of dollars each month on clothing and concerts instead of paying the mortgage or feeding the children.

Then when we finally settle in and start plugging realistic figures into the budget for the coming year, it should be depressing. But it isn’t. We’ve taken back the choice. We choose to spend $400 per month on groceries. We decide how much to put toward college funds, vacations, and new shoes. We’re reminded that things that don’t seem like choices, such as paying credit card bills, are choices when we decide to pay $5 more on each bill each month to pay them off just a tiny bit faster.

Now I can finally stop feeling guilty for “stealing” $4.55 per week from the grocery budget for a quick sushi hit. This year, there will be a Sushi fund. Maybe I will spend $80 per month on rainbow rolls instead of gas for my car…

This morning I celebrated my return to the office with the creamy, nutty wonderfulness that is Ferrero Rocher.

It does not mean "feral roach," as my husband tried to convince me. That was an attempt on his part to get me to stop eating the little goodies and leave some for him. Do not be fooled by such lies.

So I left home with an apple, an orange, a Luna bar, a mug of coffee, and three beautiful, gold-wrapped Ferrero Rocher from the gift box given to us by a close friend. These would be compensation for each of the healthy foods I planned to eat throughout the day. These would help ease the transition from holiday binging back to healthful, sensible eating. They would make me forget that I am but one of a few stragglers left in my office without any remaining vacation time to take during this three-day work span sandwiched between two four-day weekends.

Nestled snug within my purse, they assured me that they would hold my hand through this unpleasant Monday. At periodic intervals, they would emerge and reward my perseverance with soothing chocolate.

It is 9:17 a.m. and I have eaten them.

And the Luna bar is growing uncomfortable with the way I keep feeling its wrapper to discern whether it contains a chocolate-like coating.

I stand out today because I am wearing brand-new black jeans.

The last time I wore new black jeans to work was in August 2000. They were very, very black. The next time I wore them was a week later, after I'd washed them. They had emerged from the laundry somewhat less black, betraying a few faded streaks and creases. In fact, after a few more washes I began to worry that I resembled the shaft end of a before-and-after colorfastness experiment.

Here is a random list of things to which the blackness of my jeans might be compared:

The depth of night
My eternal soul
The creepiest corner of my laundry room where spiders dwell
Unrelenting evil
The sleep of death (what dreams may come, etc.)

Merry Christmas to All!

I'm worried about BBY KAT, the light brown Honda.

She's one of the cars that I frequently see during my drive to work. I'm usually on the road at about the same time, traveling the same route, and I find myself riding along beside many of the same cars each morning. It's like a playgroup for my Ion. He perks up when he sees cars he recognizes.

There's BBY KAT of course. And the white truck with the Attend the Church of Your Choice sticker. And the silver Ion whom my green Ion thinks of as a sort of cousin. (We let each other over in the sticky construction spots).

There's the orange Cougar. And the bright yellow Beetle. And the car that I only saw once but can't seem to forget because of its www.rememberjanebelle.com sticker.

But I'm just hoping BBY KAT is all right. I caught up with her on an entrance ramp to the highway. The streets were rainy, cold, and slick, and I was just trying to get to work without random cars losing control and sliding into me. As I pulled up behind BBY KAT, one of her rear wheels began wobbling alarmingly as if it were about to fall off.

"What do I do?" I wondered. "Do I honk, flash my lights, roll down my window and shout?" I felt terrible, but I did nothing. I watched her turn onto the highway and speed up to match the traffic, unaware that anything was wrong.

A police car passed me. "Catch her!" I silently prodded him. "Pull her over and warn her about the wheel!" But he didn't. The wheel continued to wobble, and the officer passed her without a glance.

My exit came up, and I took it, spending the entire remainder of my drive with my knuckles clenched on the steering wheel. I imaginined BBY KAT's wheel coming loose, her car careening out of control, flipping several times into oncoming traffic, and ending in a twisted wreck with many innocent people dead. All because I couldn't bring myself to flash my lights at the woman.

I know it sounds silly, but I'm going to be checking the paper for traffic fatalities. The world is just too darn dangerous.

I came into the office today to discover that Facilities had left on my desk a very nice, leather-simulated, gold-edged, checkbook-sized 2004 calendar. How kind!

Checking my email, I discovered that the company had kindly provided everyone with a "pocket diary," reflecting the true international flavor of our international owners.

My very own pocket diary. Well, as a devoted diarist since the age of eight, I feel it would be a shame to waste it on dates and appointments.

Dear Diary, (reads my very first calendar entry)

Today I shall be meeting with marketing to discuss the direct mail efforts for a collection of drug books. The meeting is set for two o'clock in the afternoon, which I feel is a wonderful time of day for a meeting. The sun should be casting beautifully through the barren tree limbs, and we'll all be a pleasant state of mind having just returned from lunch.

I will take you with me everywhere, Dear Diary! I'll use you to record phone numbers of people I meet, as well as the addresses and birthdays of close friends.

But for now, I'll have to stop writing in you. Since it's taken me forty minutes to thoughtfully record today's meeting time, my boss is standing at my office door and looking impatient because there were several files she had asked me to give her before the meeting. (Between you and me, Diary, she needs to lighten up.) Talk to you again soon! Love, ME

This morning I was led to believe that someone called Monkey Jim was in my house.

Youngest woke this morning and asked urgently for "muckeegeem." That's the phonetic approximation. One of the first things you discover when your toddler turns verbal is that phonetics do not apply. What comes out of the baby's mouth as opposed to what the baby intended to come out of her mouth are sometimes two entirely different things. You find yourself instead playing a little game of "now if I were the baby, what would I say?" And then you rattle off a bunch of similar-sounding words and phrases until the baby hears you say the right thing and perks up.

I've gotten pretty good at the game. See, if Youngest and I are going for a walk and she says, "ahmunnawideinnatolla!" you can bet she meant to say, "I want to ride in the stroller." If you're rocking her to sleep and suddenly feel moved to sing the lullaby your mother sang to you when you were a baby, she might reach up and put her fingers over your mouth and say, "nosingingdatsong!" which means, "You have no vocal ability and you're making my ears ache, so please stop."

But there's no context in the morning when she's just woken up, and who knows what Monkey Jim-type characters could have been entertaining her while she slept. She smiled at me quizzically. "Nooo…No muckeegeem. Muckeegeem."

"Muddy gem?"

"No. Want the muckeegeem."

"Money gleam?"

She tried pronouncing it slower for me as if I were a retard. "Muckeeeeegeeeeeemmm!"

"Many… geems? What's a geem?"

"GEEEM! GEEEM!" She seemed to be thinking, could I be any more clear?

"Okay," I said, trying to take a step back and locate some clues. "Should we go look for the, uh, muckeegeem?"

"In sissy's room," she said. "We go find it."

Ah ha! The location had been established. We knocked on Oldest's door, who was grumpily putting an outfit together for school. "Muckeegeem," I said to her. "Translation?"

Oldest looked at me blankly and then put her arm around Youngest, leading her conspiratorially a few feet away from me. "What's she talking about?" she asked Youngest.

Youngest seemed relieved. "I want muckeegeem," she explained. "I pwess de buttons. Pway muckeegeem."

"Oh, okay," said Oldest. She went to her junk drawer and pulled out a little electronic handheld game in which pressing buttons causes pixilated monkeys to jump over barrels to the tune of loud, monotonous beeping. Youngest squealed with glee at the sight of it.

Monkey game. Much less spooky than the idea of Monkey Jim hanging out in my closets.

Today's top five coping mechanisms for having too many large projects with small deadlines:

1. Eat raw fish.
2. Sing along with Cat Power songs.
3. Imagine that Chan Marshall and I regularly share insights and eat sushi together.
4. Wonder if Chan Marshall likes sushi, and suppose that even if she didn't she'd pretend to just so we'd have an excuse to hang out.
5. Decide that if Chan Marshall is going to lie to me about something as fundamental as sushi, she has no business hanging out with me anyway, and how dare she call herself my friend if she can't even be honest and up-front with me.

Good point and well stated. Closes with the Kurt Vonnegut passage of which I am most fond.

I am so proud of Youngest. She has adopted the time-honored tradition of the Bedtime Water Stall.

I find it amazing that all of us as human beings, independent of any organized plot or intention, have at one time used the Stall on our caregivers. It works every time, and yet no adult can resist it.

Step 1. Refuse to go to bed. Wail, scream, beg, whimper, kick, and plead in an effort to avoid going to bed.

Step 2. Stand in your crib long after Mom has kissed you good night and closed your door, and howl without mercy.

Step 3. Suddenly stop crying, sniffle plaintively, and call out with sincere earnestness, "Mom? Mommy………?"

Step 4. Give Mommy a second to wonder if the cessation is some kind of trick, and then call, "Can I have a drink of water?"

Even the most steadfast and resolute Ferber parents find themselves weakening at this innocent request. They ask themselves whether their own rest or sanity at the end of a long day is worth denying their sweet child a simple drink of water, and the answer is always Of Course Not.

We can ignore requests for Oatmeal the puppy, Emily Baby, another blanket, a lullaby, a hug, and even one last kiss goodnight. But not water. It just seems so cruel to leave a small child all alone in a dark room without even a sip of water.

And maybe part of us remembers being that child and feeling relief wash over you when the door to your bedroom opened and your mother appeared with a small cup of water, backlit by the bright hallway light. She'd help you to sit up while keeping the covers tucked tight around you, perch on the edge of your bed and put one arm around your shoulders while you gratefully took the cup and leaned into her warm motherness for one last stolen cuddle before sleep.

I can't help it. The little voice calling "I habba dink of water?" will probably get me every time. Good for her.

"All right," I said to my stomach this morning, poking it awake. "It's been two weeks since we last spoke, and you promised me a verdict on the embryo situation."

It yawned and stretched, glaring at me distastefully. "Well you should know," it groused. "It's your uterus."

"You're the resident smart-ass. Shouldn't you have the inside story?"

"I told you already. Nothing new to report."

"Nothing growing?"

"Nothing but my sincere annoyance with this line of inquiry."

"Fine then," I said, and rolled out of bed in search of my favorite jeans.

"So, I'm thinking burritos for lunch?" said stomach.

With some difficulty, I closed the button on my jeans. "I'm thinking I'll no longer be attributing your roundish, womanly shape to anything maternal for a while."

"Watch it, or I'll work up some serious indigestion on your behalf. Bitch."

As much as I hate letting my stomach get in the last word, I had some strong coffee and such to lean into.

It's quirky how the corporate mind works.

You cut the headcount for a certain department just to see if we can all work harder and make up the difference. For the most part, we do. But it costs you a whole lot in overtime and freelance.

We point out that it would cost half as much to hire someone to do the work.

You ignore us. Then you have a great idea. We should hire someone!

I don't want to offend anyone's business ethics by saying too much, but consider this a public service announcement regarding things to watch out for when submitting your resume:

1. Be sure you have the correct date at the top of your letter. Yes, people do notice little things like that. If your letter is dated two years in the past, you look really pathetic. And if you claim to have written it on Oct. 15, 3003 please be prepared to describe how the human race has evolved in a thousand years. I really do want to know.

2. Leave out the pleading. Beginning your letter with "Please consider me…" and ending with, "Please, please call right away to set up an interview!" did not make me want to call you. It made me want to be far, far away from wherever it is that you are.

3. Keep in mind that the number of literary associations and poetry clubs you list on your resume to is inversely proportionate to people's respect for you as a copywriter. I don't know why. Counterintuitive, isn't it.

4. Use appropriate capitals. There is no shame in capitalizing a word at the beginning of a sentence. It does not make you appear stodgy or old-fashioned. If your IM friends tell you otherwise, they are not really your friends.

Stay tuned for more real-world resume tips and learn how to avoid having your resume plastered with post-its and passed around for others' amusement! Not that any of that goes on around here. That would be wrong.

The workforce of my department is 33% pregnant, with women ranging in progression from 6 to 38 weeks. Maternity leaves are blocked out on our calendars like big fluorescent streaks of freedom, and scheduling work is a strategic exercise in beating nature to the punch.

It works out well for me because there's always an ample stash of chocolate in the meeting room. But our (male) boss is more than a little sensitive to the fact that in an entirely female department, we're all ticking time bombs. He has even gently suggested that perhaps we might consider hiring a few men.

As I was sitting in the meeting room unwrapping another piece of chocolate, chatting with the pregnant girls, I happened to mention that I should stop eating so much sugar. It was making me feel icky.

They perked up. "Icky how?" they asked.

I thought about it. "Icky… nauseous…tired…crampy…"

"You're pregnant!" They cried with glee, clapping their hands and exchanging knowing looks.

"I am not pregnant," I said, a statement that started out with conviction and then, mid-sentence, struck me with the realization that it was not impossible and was therefore technically possible. And holy crap. Come to think of it, I was feeling extremely pregnant.

"You are!" they insisted, as if the baby alert had been tripped and red-flashing sirens were now going off above my head.

"No I'm not. Leave me alone. I have to pee," I said, and stood up to leave. "And my boobs are sore."

Across the table, one of them uncapped a permanent marker. "Can you smell this?"

"When was your last period?" someone else asked. And I should add that this question would indeed seem to cross the boundaries of polite conversation if I had not spent yesterday afternoon with the same crowd hashing out the pros and cons of membrane ruptures and episiotomies.

I sat back down. "I'm not sure," I said. I opened my calendar and looked back over the months. "In the last six weeks I've had three periods but at least one of them wasn't a real period because I'm still on the mini-pill."

This was followed by a brief discussion of the mini-pill's laughable effectiveness and the number of people we all know who have gotten pregnant on this so-called form of birth control. Then we stared at my calendar and decided I was either three days late or not due for another two weeks.

"This is ridiculous," I told them. "We're totally making this all up. I'm not pregnant."

Later, I had a heart-to-heart talk with my stomach. "Is there anybody in there?" I asked it.

"That depends," it said. "Are you talking about the fat deposits that keep asking for more chocolate, or the burrito that's trying to tell you that Mexican fast food is never a good idea?"

"That's not what I mean," I told it.

"Then no," said my stomach. "I assure you, we are as unpregnant as we could possibly get."

"That's what I thought!" I said.

"You might want to check back in two weeks, though."

As far as my eight-year-old is concerned, we're past the stage in our relationship where I can do no wrong. I am no longer met after work with squeals of glee and arms flung around my neck in an affectionate cling. She can go hours now without even acknowledging my existence. And the last time I was called "the best mom in the world" was when I offered to order pizza for dinner.

That's okay, I guess. But I do find myself taking on tasks that reassure me I am – if not "the best" – at least a good mom.

For example, there was the morning of picture day at her new school when I twisted a chunk of her hair into a funky braid, and she told me later that all the girls had admired her hair and asked her how it was done. Good mom.

There was the "summer reading club" I invented for her after she'd completed the official reading club program at the library within a matter of weeks. We made a chart on poster board with a maze of squares to color in for each 15 minutes of reading. Some of the squares were "prize" squares, with a big reward (a trip to the book store) at the end. Like I need to encourage the little bookworm to read... it felt like rewarding her with candy for finishing her cake. But still. It was a good mom moment.

I've recently taken on my most ambitious good mom project yet. I am making her Halloween costume. Not just cutting eye-holes in a sheet to make a ghost, not stacking two boxes together to make a robot. No, daughter wants to be Glinda from the Wizard of Oz. And so a Glinda costume I will create.

We took a trip to the fabric store and collected a sewing pattern, fabric, thread, pins, zippers, sequins, and bobbins.

As we stood in line with our arms full of ivory taffeta and tulle that would eventually become something resembling a gorgeous, princess-esque dress worthy of the Good Witch herself, a lady in line behind us said to Daughter, "What are you making?"

Daughter, dutifully polite, replied, "My Halloween costume, Glinda."

"Oh!" said the nice lady. "So your mommy is probably going to teach you to sew! I wish I knew how to sew."

That's when the panic attack set in. "Know HOW to sew?" I said to myself. "TEACH? You mean there's a skill involved that I should have mastered with proficiency enough to pass on to my offspring? It's not just sticking a bunch of fabric together?"

I should note that I am not a total sewing novice. I own a sewing machine and have in the past made things from patterns. However, I should also note that the sewing machine was given to me on my eleventh birthday, and that the last article of clothing I ever successfully completed was a fuzzy pair of pajamas for my Cabbage Patch Kid.

But as soon as words were out of the lady's mouth, Daughter looked up at me with a strange smile. Faith. She believed in me. I'd told her we could do this, and she believed we could.

After sitting the little prodigy down at the machine and teaching her to sew a straight line, I watched her turn out a quite respectable-looking pillowcase with our scrap fabric. She showed it to Dad and explained, "Mom taught me to sew!"

So maybe she'll never tell me I'm the best mom in the world when the costume is finished. It doesn't matter. Daughter has a new pillowcase and a new skill. I found out that my sewing machine does more than take up pants and repair rips. And we found something we like to do together.

I just hope Glinda will forgive the slightly bunched gathers and uneven hems…

The baby broke my heart this morning.

We have our routine. We wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast, pile into the car, and Youngest and I head for Grandma's house while Dad waits with Oldest at the bus stop. However, today Grandma had arranged to come to our house and play. Dad, Oldest, and Youngest would hang out at home, and my piece of the morning puzzle was not needed.

So I kissed everyone good-bye and went out to the garage, started the car, and spent a few moments fumbling through CDs.

As I was fumbling, I noticed that the doorknob to the door between the house and the garage slowly turned. The door slowly pulled open. And in the doorway, still clinging to the doorknob above her head, stood a lone little girl with a mix of confusion and betrayal in her wide, blue eyes.

"What about meeeeee?" she cried.

She might as well have said, "Why don't you love me anymore, Mommy? Don't you cherish the special times we spend together on our morning drive? Remember yesterday when I pointed out the Big Tuck and you told me that it was called a Garbage Truck. And I said, Bawrbidge Tuck! I wiggled in my carseat and sang a little song about the Bawrbidge Tuck, and we both laughed. We laughed not because it was funny, but because we loved to hear the sound of each other's laughter. Don't I mean anything to you?"

Fortunately, within seconds Daddy swept her up from behind and explained the situation. I blew kisses. She waved, reassured.

The Care and Keeping of You is an excellent book and I highly recommend it to all young girls. However (and this is not necessarily a bad thing), it has taught my eight-year-old the "V" word.

The "V" word is one of the hazards of being a mother of girls, as well as being a girl yourself. There is no neutral alternative to the "V" word either, and believe me I've searched for it my entire life. You either come across sounding like a semi-verbal two-year-old or the business end of 1-900-HOT-SEXX.

One of the things I contemplated upon first becoming a mother was how I would call all parts of the anatomy by their proper medical terms and approach all discussions of natural bodily issues with frank, unembarrassed honesty so that my children would grow up free of shame.

For the first years of my daughter's life, I pointedly avoided any nonsense names for the nether regions. In fact, I avoided any names at all. I realized this was a problem when daughter, a well-spoken six-year-old, got kicked in the crotch by another kid and yelled, "Ow, my pancreas!"

By then it was too late to introduce baby names, and I was going to have to teach myself how to say the "V" word without flinching. I asked her again where it hurt, and then said, trying for nonchalant: "You know, it's called your V. . . "

"My what?"

"You know! Your Vuh. . . Um. The thing that's connected to your bladder."

"Oh. Okay."

Later, I overheard her threatening the kid that if he ever kicked her in the bladder again, she'd rip out his pancreas. We were not quite there yet.

I bought her the above book recently because it is published by American Girl, the wholesome alternative to Barbie and pop culture for the 7-12 female demographic. It contains friendly, illustrated discussions of the proper way to brush your teeth, how to eat a balanced diet, and other wholesome, healthy things.

I stopped by daughter's room one evening while she was lounging on her bed turning the pages. I plopped down next to her and glanced at the headline on the page she was reading.

YOUR FIRST TIME, it said.

"Christ!" I shouted, and grabbed the book out of her hands.

I was slightly relieved to find that it was referring, Judy Bloom-style, to that time of the month… or as we like to say, her first visit from Aunt Flo. Healthy, normal body discussion, I told myself.

I handed the book back, and she continued reading. At one point, she pointed to a word and asked, "What's this word? Vaaaa...?"

"Yeah, that. It's the thing connected to your bladder."

Youngest daughter is the only one-year-old I know who has mastered the Sneeze Ritual.

When she sneezes, I tell her, "Bless you!" in a tone of voice that one might also use to exclaim, "Wow, your head just exploded!"
She says, "Think-oo!"
"You're welcome," I say.

When I sneeze, she points her finger accusingly at me and says, "Bahs-oo!" with the same undercurrent of threat she uses when she sees the cat on the kitchen table and shouts, "Dit DOWN!"
"Thank you!" I say.
"Oo-weltim!"

She is a very thoughtful one-year-old.

There are two things that will ruin just about any barbecue: bees and wetting your pants.

In my defense, I've never been stung by a bee and I could very well be so allergic to them that a simple sting would send me to fatal anaphalactic shock within minutes. Large swarms of bees are spooky, and bees crawling into my soda can remind me of the girl I knew in third grade who swallowed a bee, and the bee stung the back of her throat, and her throat swelled up so she couldn't breathe, and they had to cut a hole in her trachea so she could breathe through a hollow pen, just like that episode of M*A*S*H. (Well, it could have happened.)

Also, it is not my fault that I wet my pants. It is the fault of a giant, inflatable moon jump recreational thing, my co-workers' insistence that it would be fun to act like children, and the fact that I've given birth to two healthy, eight-pound babies.

I've often told my oldest daughter that when something unfortunate or embarrassing happens, you have every right to act like nothing's wrong. When you wet your pants in front of twenty of your closest coworkers, there is no reason to stop and exclaim, "Holy hell! I just wet my pants!"

In the same way, a third-grade girl with a pen in her trachea has every right to ignore the stares of onlookers and go right on picking bees out of her soda. If you don't draw attention to yourself, no one will even notice anything is out of the ordinary.

I don't like being told what to do. Especially when it's coming from peanut-headed little order takers who don't know what they're talking about.

Today's drama unfolds in the local post office, centering on an issue that has become very near and dear to my heart. For a variety of reasons, I refuse to sign the back of my debit card. This little card is the access point to all of the money in my checking account, and unlike a credit card bill that I can refuse to pay, an unscrupulous person with my debit card can simply TAKE all of my money. Therefore, since never in my adult life have I EVER seen a cashier check my credit card signature against the signature I provide, I feel that signing my debit card is equivalent to signing over all my money to some random stranger.

I don't want to do it, and you can't make me do it.

For years I just left the signature field blank and very rarely encountered any resistance. When asked, I simply offered my driver's license as proof of my identity. What a great plan! So much more secure than a signature. And so, I decided to print in the signature field, "Please ask for ID."

Since then, I've been asked for my ID from people who never seemed to care before, and that makes me feel wonderfully secure. They feel secure, I feel secure. It's a very secure transaction.

Apparently, the post office has no interest in security.

I walked up to the counter and asked for a simple book of stamps. I hand the man my card, and he takes it, asking whether it's credit or debit. When I tell him debit, he immediately asks if I want any cash back. I decline. Then he flips over my card.

"Whoa, uh…"

"Oh, right," I say, reaching for my ID.

"I'm sorry, we can't accept unsigned cards."

"Well, my signature is on my driver's license. Let me get that out for you."

"The card itself has to be signed."

"But my name is on the card, which matches my driver's license, which has my photograph AND my signature."

"You have to sign your card," he says, pointing vaguely to a "NO CID" notice at the counter.

"So you're saying that if I sign it right now, I could go ahead and use it?"

"That's right."

"But then ANYONE could do that! How do you know I'm who I say I am? How do you know you didn't just offer some random stranger a book of stamps with cash back from MY checking account?"

"I'm sorry…"

"Okay, fine. I'll use my credit card." I hand him my signed credit card, which he flips, scans, and then hands back to me.

I take it, then hesitated. "You're not going to check it?"

"Um, I did."

"You looked to see that the back is signed. You didn't check it against my signature on the receipt. You have no idea whether the signatures will match. If they don't match, will you decline this transaction?"

"Um, we just have to have a signed card."

At this point I realized what I was dealing with. There was no battle to be won here, he just didn't care. He was doing what he was told until his next bathroom break, and when he came back he'd do what he was told some more. I was looking to the eyes of apathy, and before me stretched a vast, bleak expanse of not giving a shit.

Well, okay. Seems like a good time to redirect my frustration and pay a call to Pamela, the Spineless Insurance Adjustor Who Won't Return My Calls Because She Owes Me a Settlement Check for my Totaled Car.

I think I feel a latent spinal injury coming on…

There are many things that are wrong with today. Following are the highlights.

--the color red--
I pieced together an outfit this morning based on two shades of red, having no idea whether they are compatible or not, because I am colorblind. But don't tell anyone. I'm hiding my colorblindness from folks in the design department who will soon be instrumental in helping me modify my job description to include graphic design. Is that twisted or what!

--my subconscious--
I'm having recurring dreams in which people I work with are urging me to open up, take risks, reach out to others, and make friends. To my subconscious, I say: Shut up. Why can't you just make nice with the disembodied voices? They're not so bad. Now go back to your box and leave me alone.

--bad weather--
Two sweaters later, I'm still shivering. When rain causes the temperature to plummet from 80 to 60 outside, somehow our building misses the memo and keeps churning out frigid air until somebody kicks it (it's always me…)

--another survey--
I've got news for you, mister corporate communications. I don't know what our company's long term goals are, and I don't give a rat's patoot. And the next time you ask me to fill out a 30-minute long electronic survey about how you're doing, it had better prompt a secret door in my computer to open and spill forth unending Hershey's Kisses.

--your commute--
No matter HOW difficult it was for you to drive into work today, believe me I couldn't care less. I'm sure the traffic was miserable. I'm sure you left your house over two hours ago. I sympathize. Really. Okay, not really. We all drove in the same traffic and the same weather conditions, and you are not special for having done so.

I'm becoming one of those people who, when given lots and lots of challenging, high-profile work with an unreasonable deadline, just says "eff it!" and goes home in the middle of the day, sits in front of the TV with a big bowl of butterscotch pudding, and re-watches the extended DVD of Fellowship of the Ring.

I was disappointed this morning to find all of the work still waiting for me, not even slightly more finished than when I'd left it.

There's a reason for my uncharacteristic slacking, and that reason may shock and offend many readers. But I'm prepared to present that reason right here, in this public blogging forum, so that the truth may be told.

You see… I'm an inch and a half shorter than I initially thought.

I don't know how or when I determined my height years ago. After a certain point at the doctor's office (around the time they stop giving you stickers and Arrowroot cookies when you behave yourself) they stop measuring you at every appointment. They don't stop weighing you, though. Ironically. I suppose at some point I got it into my head that I was five feet and eight inches tall.

This is not the truth. I am only five feet and seven inches tall. And that "seven" is a generous seven. But I will call it seven in the same way that all numbers on the scale below fives are rounded down.

So while I'm sitting here figuring out how to relate to myself as short, fat, and lazy, you can ponder the most logical conclusions to be drawn from this sad epiphany: butterscotch pudding tastes best with a little dollop of Cool Whip stirred in, and blogging makes you short.

This past weekend, the kids and I were playing out in the yard. The littlest one was scooting with difficulty through the grass on a little Radio Flyer trike, absorbing a few lessons about the physics of surface drag. The oldest was wandering around looking sullen.

"We need a swing set out here," I observed.

Oldest gave me a "thank-you-Captain-Obvious" look. "Swings, slide, sandbox, and trapeze."

"Clubhouse," I one-upped.

"Treehouse," she countered.

We do have the perfect, kid-friendly tree in our yard that's been begging for some interaction. "We could hang a rope ladder from that tree, build a platform around the lowest branches, and put a trap-door down to a tire swing…"

I was suddenly caught up in memories of the slapped-together playgrounds of my youth. My dad, who went through disposable cars quicker than a pack of matches (as a form of recreation), would periodically go out into the yard and slap something together for us. He'd hang an old tire from a rope, sling it over a branch, and call it fun. He'd nail some spare lumber to a tree and viola! Fort.

I'm surprised any of us kids survived.

But thinking back made me realize that you didn't necessarily have to buy a swing in order to have one. We just needed some rope.

So we went out and bought rope. Don't judge me. Honestly, if we'd had rope just lying around, we would have used the lying-around rope.

* * *

Step two was to somehow flip one end of the rope over the sturdiest branch. The most favorable branch happened to be 12 feet above us. I looked at Oldest.

"You climb the tree," I told her. "I'll throw this rope up to you, and you'll drop it down over the other side.

"I'll fall," she replied, as if logic were clearly on her side and I should be hauled off to parenting prison for even suggesting it.

"I'll catch you."

"Make the baby do it," she suggested.

The baby looked up hopefully from her struggle with the trike, her eyes alight with the promise of danger. "Ab TEE!" she squealed, which meant: "Give me the rope. I shall hold it thusly between my six teeth whilst I scurry to the top of the tree with the alacrity of a young squirrel. Now move out of my way!"

I looked back at Oldest. "Ascend the tree."

* * *

Rope secured, we had only to invent a seat for our swing. Initially, I entertained the idea of just tying a large knot at seat-level. Mom tested it. Do you have any idea how many muscles it takes to support a grown person's weight dangling from a rope? I will tell you: All of them. One becomes acutely aware of the fact that one is no longer a 52-pound 8-year-old in such a situation.

We scoured the garage and shed for seating materials, all the while I was asserting, "I will NOT purchase a prefab plastic swing seat. I will NOT." Running to the store at this point would have cheapened the whole endeavor. We were engrossed in a real-life learning activity. This was innovation in action. I was teaching my kids to be clever, creative, persistent, and resourceful.

"Look for something we can use for a seat," I told Oldest, all the while thinking that the perfect seat was sitting in a package on a Toys R Us shelf, constructed of molded plastic. In lieu of it, we tried a piece of lumber (the corners were too sharp), a stick (too flimsy), PVC (too slippery), a knotted towel (too droopy), and countless other failed materials.

In the end, resourcefulness paid off. Oldest shouted, "HEY!" from the corner of the garage and I looked up to see her waving a foam "noodle" that we used for swimming. This noodle was firm enough to serve as a support while still providing squishy, butt-hugging comfort.

Now my children can look back fondly on this adventure and tell their children about the swing Mom built.

Noodle-on-a-rope, they'll call it. And their children will cringe.

We are rapidly approaching a level of sophisticated e-living. By this I mean that I may never have to shop for clothing outside of an online catalog again.

I haven't lived 27 years of life without uncovering certain truths about my wardrobe choices. Let's look at these facts:

I know what size I wear.

I never pay more than $15 for a pair of pants.

Mixing earth tones with jewel tones is wardrobe suicide.

Although this would seem to peg me as the ideal online shopper, I recently made my very first major online clothing purchase. A catalog came in the mail, addressed to the house's former mistress. (I should add that we're also still getting the previous mister's Victoria's Secret catalogs, so I've since confronted and dealt with any oogy feelings about catalog contents and their intended recipients.) This particular catalog contained an extensive clearance section with many pairs of pants under $15. Many were in fact under $10. And a few were under $5!

This was clearly an avenue of purchase worth exploring. So, in true anal-retentive fashion, I armed myself with a stack of post-it notes and proceeded to flag every item I would consider wearing. I believe I flagged at least 500 items. I then made lists. Many, many lists. I listed by price and by season, by color and body region. Every item was justified, rationalized, and closely scrutinized.

I ordered close to 20 pieces of clothing and spent $81.40, shipping included, after mining the various coupon codes and promos.

Now when my new $5 blouse is stained with Koolaid-laced baby kisses, I'll consider it $5 well spent.

I've apparently reached a point in my life where right now at work looks a lot like this time last year. I came across this, which I wrote about a year ago...

< July 22, 2002 >
And without warning, work has ground to a screeching halt.

I'm still in panic mode. I'm still in "write this 12-page brochure in 5 minutes" mode. So I had one project left on my desk that was supposed to last me all week. It's done. I'm bored. And the week is stretching out ahead like a few hundred miles of dead Kansas flatlands.

I want to be busy. It's not that I have any unusually strong work ethic, or that I'm opposed to killing time on the clock. But I can't look like I'm bored, and I can't ask for more work. If I did, my boss would either a) give me busywork, or b) downsize me. Neither sounds like more fun than I could devise on my own. So here's my list of scheduled activities for a typical day this week:

8:30-9:45 Log in, check email, check web email, check alternate web email, respond to emails, check hits counter on site, check hits on alternate site.

9:45-10:00 Attempt to doctor the office coffee with varying amounts of Folgers Cafe Latte mix so it reaches acceptable drinkability levels.

10:00-10:15 Scavenger-like, wander around the building looking for departments who have brought in bagels, donuts, leftover birthday cake, etc.

10:15-10:17 Duck into a bathroom stall and consume findings before anyone wonders who I am and why I'm eating their department's food... or judges me for eating cake with my fingers.

10:17-11:00 Head back to office and open various Word documents, arranging them on my screen so they look important. Lay out several printed drafts on my desk and mark them up with arrows and margin edits. Stick cryptic post-it to computer that says, "Mtg JB 11am - br. WBS htst!"

11:00-1:00 Lunch.

1:00-3:30 Blog, blog-hop, toss a few emails, surf sites of interest, post on message boards.

3:30-4:30 Rifle through scheduled jobs to double check that nothing is due before October. Yep, still caught up. Ah. Contemplate leaving early.
< / July 22, 2002 >

Fixed!

Let the eggshell-finish latex begin.

Surprise.... it's green. Or brown, or orange. Whatever.

I was thinking of painting a few rooms in my house but can't get over the initial fear of botching it. So I've made a mess of my blog to prove to myself that mistakes are fixable.

I'll fix it tomorrow. Right now I'm going to leave work and embark upon the peril that is driving. Please, please, if you see me on the road... just don't hit me.

In the spirit of our current "top 5" format, I'd like to offer the five most annoying occurrences of recent days.

1. Driving home, minding my own business, and rather enjoying a piece on NPR's All Things Considered about the history of home economics, when suddenly my progress is rudely impeded by two crackheads in a "borrowed" car.
2. Missing the conclusion of All Things Considered.
3. Hearing my newly repaired $2000 air conditioning system, not even a month old, hissing its dying, smoking breath through the shattered vents.
4. Having your well-intentioned family poking at your most impressive bruise every five seconds to see if the swelling has gone down.
5. Learning that the crackheads were driving a "borrowed" car without insurance.

But just so as not to begin the week on a down note, here are the corresponding five highlights of the event.

1. Having a very thoughtful (and attractive) young man offer me the use of his cell phone, and accepting his offer to dial the number for me.
2. Seeing one of the crackheads arrested at the scene.
3. Pretending that the large, spidering crack in my windshield that I've been meaning to fix for nearly a year must have been caused by the other car.
4. Not feeling required to use my nasally "sick" voice when I called my boss to tell her why I wasn't coming in to work the next day.
5. Glancing down at my copy of the police report and learning that I'd just been assisted by – none other than! – Officer Money.

10 ways in which scratching a poison ivy rash is like teenage sex:

1. You know you're not supposed to do it.
2. You really, really want to do it.
3. You've read about all the scary consequences of doing it.
4. You know people who have done it and nothing bad happened to them.
5. You think about doing it every minute of every day.
6. It wakes you up at night.
7. The more you try to put it out of your mind, the more you want it.
8. You scratch just a little bit, and before you know it you get carried away and scratch the entire thing.
9. Nothing has ever felt as good as scratching that itch in the heat of the moment.
10. As soon as you realize what you've done, you instantly regret it.


A quick note to anyone who arrived here through a Google search for "teenage sex." Please go away because you are a pervert.

If you were looking for "poison ivy sex"... well, best of luck with that.

Today's tale: In which The Ivy exacts its revenge.

Prologue
I've never had poison ivy before. I didn't know how dead serious my Girl Scout leader was when she told me, "Leaves of three, let it be!"

Book the First
The first time my younger brother came over to our newly purchased house, he pointed out a section of the yard and remarked on the nice crop of poison ivy. That can't be poison ivy! I thought. The illustrations of poison ivy plants in my Girl Scout Handbook are very small and leafy. These large stalks are nearly as tall as the trees growing nearby. Besides, little brothers are stupid.

The Ivy narrowed its eyes and waited.

Book the Second
"We ought to do something about those weeds along the fence," said husband.

Book the Third
Wearing nothing more than a tank top and shorts (and a pair of gardening gloves, to be on the safe side), I removed the weeds. It was quite satisfying work, pulling them up by the roots and watching the pile accumulate. When I was done, the fence looked fabulously weed-free and I called over oldest daughter to help me stuff the weeds into yard waste bags.

She whined her way out of it. I gathered up big bunches, and The Ivy clutched and caressed my exposed skin as I carried it across the yard to the bags.

Book the Fourth
"What do you suppose this small, reddish bump on my arm could be?" I asked myself.

I could have sworn I heard the echo of The Ivy's voice answering, "Why, you're looking down the barrel of 3 weeks of misery, my ivy-pulling little friend. And just when you think it's going away, a rash will sprout up somewhere else. You'll never be rid of us!"

Conclusion
I'm never going out in my yard again, never never again. And I've also arranged to have the first layer of my skin surgically removed and replaced with a synthetic material that's impervious to all allergens and irritants.

The End

This is a comment about nature and how unfortunate it is that it doesn't come packaged in individually sealed wrappers for our convenience and safety.

Daughter and I were out pulling weeds in the yard yesterday, which is a surefire way to eradicate any warm feelings you might have toward grass, plants, and live things in general. After an hour or so of itchy, sweaty work, we decided to go inside for a snack. And on our way inside, we passed one of our trees which has been working on growing plums for the past few months.

"Are those ripe yet?" asked Daughter.

I smiled a condescending mom smile and started to explain that those were yard plums. The kind that grow on trees, not the kind we eat.

Huh?

While I respect the tree's efforts, it just never occurred to me that these little nuggets of juicy, pulpy goodness were the same sort of things for which I routinely pay around $2.00 per pound at the local grocery. For some reason, the produce in the store is clean. Pre-bagged, priced, and neatly stacked. So far removed from its natural, free-growing state that it seems to have more in common with the boxed cereal in aisle 4 than the potted mums you'd see in the floral department.

Yes, that's right. Plums DO grow on trees. And so do other so-called fruits and vegetables. In the dirt, surrounded by air, and crawled on by bugs. It's from this filthy, sordid past that the produce is plucked, cleaned up to look respectable, and warned never to mention its roots in polite company.

So, feeling foolishly urban and out-of-touch with the fine, fertile planet of my birth, we picked some of the ripe plums, washed them, and sliced them up. (I'll admit, I had to pretend I'd just bought a pound of them at Schnuck's in order to ward off the fear that they would erupt into germy, wormy, sliminess as I cut into each one.) And by Demeter, if they weren't the best darn plums we'd ever tasted.

Then Dad came into the kitchen and exclaimed in horror, "You're not eating the plums from the tree, are you?"

Grandma colored her hair black and always wore bright red lipstick even though she rarely got out of bed. Her legs hurt from arthritis. And so her bedroom was the living room, and at family gatherings, holidays, and Sunday visits, her grandchildren would pile onto her bed and watch TV with her, snuggling deep into her soft, Opium-scented grandma-ness.

Above her bed for as long as I can remember there was a picture she'd painted years ago of a forest landscape. "Let's take a walk in the forest," she'd say, and with two fingers as legs, we'd play hide-and-seek behind trees, swim in the stream, and stop to pet a baby deer.

Grandpa kept pigeons and rabbits behind the house. You could follow him out to feed them if you stayed out from underfoot and didn't touch any of the droppings on the cages. Passing the two-liters of diet Pepsi stacked by the back door (Grandpa was diabetic, and I hated diet soda), you'd be met by the strong smell of bird feathers and rabbit food as he pushed open the creaky metal door.

Many years later, I learned that the rabbits weren't exactly pets, and the "alligator stew" Grandpa made didn't exactly have alligator in it.

But on ordinary Sundays, if you were hungry Grandpa would boil you a hot dog. No matter what time of day, and no matter how much your mother objected that you had just eaten.

And if you were bored, Grandma would lead you into the back bedroom, which was stuffy in the summer and cool in the winter. And she would clear off her art table, setting out real artist paper, watercolors, and expensive brushes. If you asked for crayons, you were given pastels or colored pencils. And whatever you created was given an "honest" artistic critique. "Well," said Grandma every time, with her eyebrows drawn into serious consideration. "This is marvelous use of color. Your lines are very clear and your figures have wonderful shape. This is very good work!" It made me giggle with pride every time.

When I was in high school, Grandma gave me a box of her art supplies, explaining that she was old and her legs hurt, and she didn't think she'd use them anymore. I remember feeling annoyed with her. At 16, I was immersed in creating and studying art. Art was everything. You didn't just give your paints away, that was like giving up on living. I refused to take them, but she insisted. So I kept them in the box and refused to use them.

Grandma died Friday. After her funeral, I didn't go to the gravesite. I went home. I got out her box of paints and her brushes. I noticed that a fan brush was stained pale blue from the last painting she'd done – a landscape that now hung in the hall of my parent's house. I decided to paint the girls' names on their bedroom doors surrounded by flowers and other girly things.

Four hours into the project, it occurred to me that I could have spent that afternoon doing anything I wanted. And instead of painting in my new studio, or playing the piano, or journaling, or doing anything for myself, I wanted to do something nice for my kids. I wanted to make them smile, even for an instant. That's the reasoning, I suppose, behind why I am in possession of Grandma's paints in the first place.