Showing Up

"What's your story?" she asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, usually when straight people come to an event like this it's because they have a story. A reason to show up."

I pondered this for a moment, then offered up, "Well, I had a family member who died years ago of AIDS. Half the family doesn't know that's what he had because they didn't know he was gay in the first place. So there's that. But honestly, I don't know that his death directly inspired me; we weren't close or anything. It's more that this is the civil rights movement of our time and straight people need to show up because it's the right thing to do."



It was 1996 and the event was a Human Rights Campaign speaking appearance in Spokane by Candace Gingrich, half-sister to then-Speaker of the House Newt. It would take another 10 years before Washington state recognized domestic partnerships, another 6 years after that before Washington voters upheld the equal right to marry with the passage of Referendum 74.

What did I do to further the cause? Not enough. It's never enough. But I didn't stay home and wait for someone else to do the work.

I donated to the Pride Foundation and the campaign for marriage equality. I had our campus join the Inland Northwest Business Alliance, Spokane's LGBTA Chamber, just the way we belonged to the other Chambers; attended lots of meetings; and made some good friends. I ran for office as a vocal and open supporter of equal rights (and lost, but not because of that -- three-way primaries are tough). I walked and biked in Pride parades. I attended meetings and trainings, changed my usage to ask after people's partners (before they could be labeled spouses), updated language on the website I was responsible for so it would be more inclusive, spoke up in work meetings if we were slipping into assumptions I eventually learned to call "privilege", served as on-campus sponsor of events held in our facilities.

I write all this not to take credit, but to remind myself that I was awake. When we tell stories about ourselves we reinforce our essential nature, and mine is that of someone who wants to change things for the better. When things need work someone has to do something. I'm someone.

You're someone.

Being awake didn't start with Candace's visit to Spokane. My grounding started with my childhood feminism (thanks Mom) and belief that the government has no business telling us what to do with our own bodies, which extends to our sexuality. I had been a vocal opponent of the anti-gay Prop. 1 in Idaho in 1994, and its defeat was a bright spot on the night I lost my Senate re-election bid.

Along the way I also participated in trainings around race and privilege. But somehow, safe inside my higher education bubble where we actively recruited a diverse applicant pool and set up inclusive photo shoots to represent a welcoming campus environment, I thought we were on a reasonably steady trajectory of improvement in racial equity.

I thought everyone understood that America was becoming increasingly diverse, making inclusion an imperative.

I thought most good people could agree that any one of us is better off when all of us are better off.

I thought Lincoln had it right when he closed his first inaugural address by referring to his confidence in "the better angels of our nature." 

Having represented the Idaho legislative district that included the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations compound and then seeing them bankrupted and the compound turned into a peace park owned by North Idaho College (where I served on the board), I thought America understood the dangers of white supremacy, fascism, and hatred and we were working to outgrow these. 

When I cried with my daughters the night of Nov. 4, 2008, telling them they would grow up in a different America than the one I grew up in, those were happy tears.

I worked for a university that conducted research into racial profiling, which we understood to be bad policing, so surely police training would address this and things would change. I worked with faculty in the health sciences who focused on health disparities, so surely public health would address this and things would change.

This confidence in ongoing improvement in our national character is quite probably grounded in my whiteness. I don't have to witness racism so it can be invisible to me, making it shocking when it becomes visible. When my friends tell me stories about things that happen to them I hate the realization that this really happens, every day. I wish it weren't so, for all the good wishing does.

Understand that I grew up with Star Trek. Lieutenant Uhura with the dramatic black eyeliner was a strong and sensitive woman. The Star Trek future had women and people of color as admirals, scientists, doctors, explorers, starship captains, engineers. Men worked as nurses and reported to women superiors. People with conditions we label as disabilities lived full and productive lives with important jobs. This was -- and is -- the future I would raise my children to live in.

In all the Star Trek episodes with parallel universes there are inflection points that put them on a brighter path or a darker. In some moment the actions of one person make the difference. And here's the thing -- they don't know exactly which moment is THE moment. So they have to do all they can, all the time.

As do we. The brighter future requires that we wake up, and stay awake. It requires that we show up, and continue to show up.

Your Turn

How and where do you show up?
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Related Reading on my Blogs

• Personal Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding (2016 update to a piece I first wrote in 2012, updated in 2014; Nov. 19, 2016)
• Inclusion (Sept. 15, 2014)
• How I Came to Be a Bike Advocate (Sept. 15, 2014)
• Is There Such a Thing as a Lowercase "nazi"? (June 24, 2012)
• Why Marriage Matters: A Valentine to my Sweetheart and a Thank-You to the Washington Legislature and Governor Gregoire (Feb. 14, 2012)
• Hate Cannot Drive Out Hate: Only Love Can Do That (Jan. 16, 2012)
• The Very Proper Gander: A Fable for our Times (Oct. 21, 2011)
• Everyday Inclusion: Showing up for a Parade Once a Year Isn't Enough (Jan. 17, 2011)
• Representing the Aryans: Political Speech, Violence, and Living Without Fear (Jan. 9, 2011)
• We Stand United (Oct. 29, 2010)
• You'll Save Us, Won't You? My Kids the Idealists (Nov. 29, 2009)
• Standing Up for What's Right (Oct. 18, 2008)

Representing the Aryans: Political Speech, Violence, and Living Without Fear

Aryan Nations logo.
Later when I served on the
North Idaho College Board of Trustees 1996-2001,
I asked that we cease use of one of the
NIC logo variations that strongly resembled this layout.

The Aryan Nations compound was located in the Idaho state legislative districts I represented from 1990-1994.

Make that “the Church of Jesus Christ Christian Aryan Nations,” their full name.

Needless to say, I didn’t doorbell that particular precinct. I was young and cocky and made a bit of a joke of that when I told people my district boundaries. “I represent the Aryan Nations, but, y’know, I don’t doorbell there.”

The first time I ran, for a state House seat, I was also pregnant. That was another joke: “The baby was planned, the campaign was an accident.”

By which I meant my then-husband and I had decided to start our family, then I attended a women’s political conference and talked about wanting to run for office “someday,” then the week of the filing deadline I got persuaded to file against an incumbent who had no challenger, then—the very next day after I filed—I found out the “starting our family” part of our agenda was under way.

I did a lot of doorbelling. They tell you to walk for exercise when you’re pregnant. Boy, did I! I got asked a lot of questions about my political views and answered honestly while also trying to find common ground with people who might not share my position on a given topic.

Access to abortion was high on the political radar that season; the Idaho legislature had passed a bill restricting access that Gov. Cecil Andrus had subsequently vetoed. My political activities in Idaho actually launched then when I collected signatures on petitions asking Gov. Andrus for that veto.

As you might imagine, I had particularly interesting discussions about that issue the further along I got in my pregnancy. At the Kootenai County Fair I spent time in the North Idaho Pro-Choice Coalition booth, accompanied sometimes by a woman who was nursing her fairly new baby.

The “other booth”—the one espousing views on the other side of this issue—had a display with jars of plastic fetus models showing physical development during pregnancy. We had a pregnant woman (me, at about six months) and a real live burping, pooping, drooling baby. 

While most people might have trouble calling a mom and soon-to-be mom “baby killers” we did get our share of people who went beyond vociferous in telling us how wrong we were to hold our view. People who shared their political/religious beliefs went on to commit murder in the 1990s, with a rash of clinic bombings and assassination of physicians.

Fast forward. I get elected (winning by 313 votes over that incumbent). Six days later baby Katie is born, conveniently waiting until two days after the North Idaho Legislative Tour at which I meet my new colleagues and keep putting my feet up on chairs because they’re so swollen and my back hurts.

Now I’m a new mother. With a baby. One I will kill to protect, with no hesitation. And I’m a liberal/progressive Democrat who says what she believes, representing the district with the Aryans.

At first I didn’t worry about it (hello, hormones!). Oh, once in a while I thought it was probably good that I had retired one of my other jokes—“I don’t want to doorbell the compound while I’m pregnant because I have blonde hair and blue eyes and I’m proven fertile; they might kidnap me for the breeding program.”

But as Katie grew and I took her places with me, I began to think about whether I endangered my family by having her in the public eye. Another woman who entered the legislature at the same time I did and had her daughter a week after Katie was born chose never to include any family photos in her campaign material for that very reason.

I thought about getting a firearm for personal protection. I grew up in a hunting and fishing Idaho family and received gun safety education as a little girl: Assume all guns are loaded, don’t point a weapon at anything you don’t plan to kill, if you wound an animal it’s your responsibility to find it and put it out of its misery. 

I just didn’t get much gun shooting education—that was for my three big brothers.

If I owned a weapon I’d want to know how to use it properly and I just never got around to finding the time and taking that step. We did have a little .22 rifle my husband occasionally took “plinking” (shooting cans off a fence) and I sometimes went with him. 

But in an emergency I wouldn’t have known where it was, much less how to load it quickly (although I have decent hand-eye coordination, an actual advantage women have over men as shooters).

In 1992 I was elected to the Senate seat for a new district alignment, still with the Aryans. I talked with the senator from the northernmost district, which also had its share of people with views that are, shall we say, out of the mainstream (or at least they were then) and who own plenty of firearms.

His take on it: “There are more FBI agents in downtown Coeur d’Alene than in the whole compound. You don’t need to worry.”

I don’t know if he was right about the FBI numbers. And in light of what happened to Victoria Keenan and her son Jason, whose family I knew, in 1998—being chased and shot at by Aryan Nations members in a terrifying incident that subsequently led to the bankruptcy of the Aryan operations—I’m not so sure he was right to tell me I didn’t need to worry.

The Keenan episode took place four years after I lost my re-election bid in 1994. During my years in office alongside my work on issues such as environmental quality and child care licensure I took a number of positions you might say were antithetical to the views of the Aryans:

• In my first session I debated and voted against an amendment that would have banned flag-burning, which I viewed as an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment right to free speech. (My debate included use of a cloth diaper as a stand-in for a white flag of truce, which I used to make the point that it’s possible to communicate without saying a word.)
• I worked actively in support of sovereign Indian nations’ rights to manage gaming on the reservation. This was the subject of a special session and constitutional amendment in 1992 when the state moved directly to restrict Indian gaming. I and others weren’t successful in our efforts and gaming was restricted in a way that allowed Class I gaming (which let the state run the lottery) and Class II (bingo, pull tabs, etc.) but didn’t allow tribes to run Class III games such as roulette, craps etc. which are the real money makers. (News flash: The house always wins. And for the record I think gambling is stupid and possibly addictive behavior. For me this was about sovereignty rights.) Despite the restrictions the Coeur d’Alene Tribe opened a casino near Worley and has quite a business operation there.
• I spoke out publicly against the anti-gay Proposition 1 in 1994 as part of the No on One campaign (as did almost every state legislator, Gov. Andrus and Attorney General Larry EchoHawk, I'm pleased to say). In the end Proposition 1 lost by 3,098 votes out of 450,000 votes cast. Little Katie—who is now all grown up—still wears my lavender T-shirt with the slogan “Idaho is too great to hate.”

What I did not do through all of this:

• Live in fear.
• Hide my views.
• Regret running for office.
• Believe that the Aryan extremism represented the vast majority of my constituents, most of whom just wanted to be left alone and not told what to do regardless of political party affiliation.

Today, with Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords in the hospital and six people dead after yesterday’s attempted assassination in Arizona, I have to wonder if I could speak out, uphold my views and live without fear if I ran for office again.

How many people who might make good elected officials will never consider running out of fear, and what does that say about the kind of America we live in today?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. -Martin Luther King Jr.

Related reading

• Is There Such a Thing as a Lowercase "nazi"?
• We Stand United
• You'll Save Us, Won't You? My Kids the Idealists
• Five Things You Don't Know About Me
• The Very Proper Gander: A Fable for Our Times
• Everyday Inclusion: Showing up for a Parade Once a Year Isn't Enough
• Personal Privilege and Biking: It Takes More than a Bike Lane to Start Riding (2016 Update)

How to Improve Family Communication: Fridge Talk

So many how-to books provide advice on communicating with your children as they “mature” into their teenage years. They speak earnestly of Family Dinner Night and reflective listening.

How to Talk So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk was only the first of such books I read during the years in which I thought one could learn parenting from something other than cold, hard reality and a zillion mistakes you catch on to only when it is far, far too late to change anything.

In this age of texting, though, asynchronous communication with bonus points for smart-ass-ness seems like a much better recipe for success.

Our family realized at some point after buying a house with stainless steel appliances that the refrigerator provides a great medium. A few dry-erase markers and voilá: communication!

I don’t even have to see my teen-aged daughters—and believe me, I rarely do—to have a charming exchange that demonstrates the closeness of our bonds.

Take this one, for example. A few days ago I wrote on the top of the left-hand panel:

The bicycle has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” – Susan B. Anthony

Dear Eldest Daughter responded:

What about that whole right to vote thing? Hell, even pants. Just a thought.

Me:

Cycling created the need for pants (bloomers) & freed women from dependence on men for transportation so they could get to the suffrage meetings J

Eldest Daughter:

LOL. OK. J

Score one for heartwarming mother/daughter talks.

The SISO Method for Life Management

As part of my ongoing plan to NOT turn into my mother when I get old—well, this is really only about certain aspects of turning into her since her voice already comes out of my mouth and I’ve been known to say “six of one, half a dozen of the other”—I try to apply the SISO method to purchases.

Stuff In, Stuff Out, that is.

This picture illustrates a bit of that. We’ve “invested” (ha!) in cheap dishware for far too long. It chips, it cracks, it breaks outright, and the dinner plates for the most recent set don’t even fit in the dishwasher, necessitating a lot of hand washing. I also bought a set of deliberately-even-cheaper plastic dishes for use on the patio--as if anyone would ever remember to use those instead of the breakable set.

I’ve always liked Fiestaware and decided to start buying it as an investment in better quality and products made in the US. Not shopping for it like one of those people who tramples others in search of the matching serving bowl, mind you—just having fun poking around antique stores and picking up a plate or a bowl here and there.

I figured this would take a while but we could put up with the cheap stuff (it disappears a little bit at a time anyway) as we built up a cupboard full of colorful fun.

Last weekend I lucked into a batch that nearly makes up six full settings (thanks, Vintage Rabbit, for being such an awesome source!). Eldest Daughter helped me haul our stash out to the car.

When we got it home I faced the test: Would I keep all those other dishes or make a clean sweep of it?

Before the SISO days, I would have justified keeping an entire second set of dishes I didn’t even like stored in the basement “in case we entertain.”

Never mind that the last time I did a sit-down dinner for over a dozen people who would care about matching dishes I had a different husband and still ate meat (that was some prime rib I cooked, too—I still refer to that particular meal as The Day I Did The Full Martha). But no more.

Instead I boxed them all up for Goodwill. I did stash the really giganto plates and the “gold” (plastic) chargers in the basement because I didn't score any giganto Fiestaware yet; if I haven’t used them in six months out they go.

How is any of this being “not my mom”? It all goes back to the weekends I spent sorting through their house preparing for the estate sale before we moved them to assisted living for Mom’s dementia.

I swore then to end my “just in case we’ll need it someday” approach to deciding what stays and what goes. A lifetime of that and they’ll be digging your corpse out from under a mound of empty yogurt containers and peanut butter jars, to say nothing of magazines saved because there was that one recipe you really meant to try one of these days when you had fresh cilantro on hand, or was it fennel bulb?

At any rate, I’m trying to use the SISO method not just on housewares but on my closet, my bathroom, and other places where things tend to accumulate and then multiply in the dark.

If my white sleeveless shell—one of those closet basics they tell you to invest in and They Are Right On This One—is getting ratty around the arms and I buy a replacement then I have to get rid of the first one. No keeping it for back-up. It’s ratty, remember? You replaced it, right?

If I own two pairs of tan capris—one pair dressier than the other so yes there’s a reason I have two pair (pairs?)—then I resist the urge to buy a pair of tan capris with faint cream stripes (different, right? Not duplicative of the other two pair, right?) on sale for 50% off at Bobby’s Boutique which carries the best of the Goodwill best meaning I could have had those babies for $4 instead of $8 and even Eldest Daughter the Uber-Mom-That-Makes-You-Look-Old-Clothing-Critic thought they looked good on me breathe baby breathe it’s okay you don’t need them….

Stuff In. Stuff Out.

Don't Buy That Case of Stuff on Sale. I'm Serious.

Nearly a decade has passed since I helped prepare my parents for a move to assisted living for Mom’s dementia, but whenever I enter into a frenzy of cleaning, sorting, down-sizing or right-sizing I’m taken back to these days.

They owned so much STUFF! I had no idea until I saw it all spread out in heaps and mounds all over the pool table, end tables, coffee table, folding tables, and every other flat surface in their basement.

When I’d visit and she’d tell me she was “busy sorting” I had no idea what this meant. The topic wasn’t much of a conversation-starter so we’d move on.

Once I went downstairs to look for myself, though, it appeared that each and every day of the week she started the task anew based on a different sorting algorithm.

• “Today, I’m putting all craft projects into the craft project pile.”
•  “Today, I’m putting everything into piles by kid so if it’s a craft project by Barb it goes in the Barb pile.”
• “Today, I’m sorting by holidays so if it’s a craft project by Barb related to Christmas it goes in the Christmas pile.”

All of these without reference to the previous day’s system or any apparent progress, so of course she would never finish sorting.

I took the girls with me sometimes to keep me company while I combed through closets, drawers, the three-car garage, and the dusty piles in the basement for anything actually worth keeping.

I had ONE method: if it pertained to one of their six children, it went in a box with that kid’s name, and if it was something personal about Mom and Dad such as a scrapbook or photos it went into the box that would move with them. Other than that, Helloooo, Estate Sale Lady.

We found amazing quantities of some items. I only recently—and I’m serious about this—used the last of the plastic wrap I took with me.

The girls took a lot away from this. Things like finding six unopened bottles of nail polish remover in the bathroom cupboard stick with you, I guess.

Now any time I have more than one of something (due to innocent stocking-up-on-basics-that-are-on-sale on my part, honest) they say with a note of sad warning, “Mom, are you turning into Grandma?”

When we moved into this house about three years ago I wastefully—wastefully!—threw away multiple partial bottles of various skin lotions that promised oh so many magical things, all because one of the girls was there and spotted all the containers as I packed up my bathroom.

I also have to watch my grocery-buying, although that’s getting easier since I’m starting to put up more of my own food. I only have so much pantry space and there will always be another sale on pasta so I no longer buy six bags of bow-ties (we do love our bow-tie pasta).

When I cleaned Mom’s fridge I found three bags of the fake baby carrots. Bag #1 in front was crisp and orange. Bag #2 right behind it was looking a little saggy. Bag #3 behind that had turned into green slime.

I realized that in Mom’s brain the trigger for something like “I need carrots” fired at the store and she bought carrots, but the reset to “carrots purchased, return to neutral setting” never took place. Her brain just keep pinging on “buy carrots, buy carrots.”

Since she’d spent a big chunk of her life producing food in large quantities to feed her six children and their assorted friends and relations, her food-buying philosophy was firmly grounded in the notion that it never hurt to have a little extra on hand. As in, if they dropped the bomb you’d want to shelter in our basement, where you could live the next 40 years on a diet of canned tomatoes, string beans, and pickles.

Couple this lifelong pantry-stocking with an inability to know that you’ve already bought something so you’re buying even more than you meant to….

…and you’ll understand why I make an extra effort to keep tabs on the condition of my bathroom closet and my produce drawer.

And why my girls do, too.

A little light reading: Yes, more on transportation…..but really about society and time and happiness and big stuff like that

I can’t help it! I went to read the Creative Class blog, where I find all kinds of coolio urban trend stuff, and there it is—more transportation—The Great Car Reset by Richard Florida.

My own #2 Daughter is part of this trend away from cars as the be-all, end-all for the next generation. She turns 16 in a matter of days. Family budget constraints are such that she had to choose between driver’s ed this summer and an advanced theater camp at the Spokane Civic Theater.

She picked the camp; driving can wait. So not my attitude at her age, when I was especially annoyed that--because I started first grade at the age of five--I couldn't take driver's ed sophomore year with my friends. I had to wait until my junior year to turn 16 and grab those keys to freedom.

I would call this next link the “great minds think alike” category but that would be utter hubris on my part. Still…..

I started a draft blog post back in late April on the whole notion of ownership, which we’ve pretty well sanctified in U.S. society. I parked it in Blog/Drafts to come back to “someday” when the idea grabbed me again.

Lo and behold, there goes Chris Brogan (a great social media guy whose work teaches me so much) responding to that same Richard Florida piece on cars and questioning the whole notion of ownership. Dang it.

Then about 30 minutes later this turned up via Twitter: Millennials Are Not Romantic About Their Wheels. This transportation stuff follows me everywhere! So I finally got mine written and out there asking whether we can develop new models based on use without ownership.

Being Productive on the Bus: You may remember from an earlier Light Reading that I just had to comment on a Planetizen post that seemed to treat all travel time as equal. This post, also on Planetizen, is the rebuttal from someone who, like me, considers transit time a great opportunity to read, deal with those pesky emails, and in general be more productive than I would be fuming behind the wheel at a red light.

And while we're on the subject of time, a sort-of-related post: Money makes you less likely to savor small pleasures according to research reported at Miller-McCune, because you don’t slow down and savor the everyday joys. Since I don’t have much money, it’s a good thing I have some time.

What about you--where do you find your happiness? What's the value of time?

In defense of high school drama

No, I don’t mean the “omiGAWD!” type of high school drama. I mean talented kids singing and dancing and blowing your socks off the way Lewis & Clark High School Tiger Drama did a couple of weeks ago with their production of “Urinetown: The Musical.”

I know what you’re thinking. Poop jokes.

Apparently so was Mr. Wayne Lawson of Spokane, who wrote a letter to the editor suggesting this choice indicated a decline in the moral environment.

I'm a proud LC drama mom, and I only wish "Urinetown" had run more than one weekend so word of mouth could have spread. The place would have been packed night after night.

The play's story was powerful and thought-provoking, wrapped in entertainment. As another LC mom (disclosure: her son is dating Second Daughter) wrote in a response on the Spokesman-Review site:

“Urinetown: the Musical” is a social satire and recipient of multiple Tony awards. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics. It is a commentary on morality, on humanity, and on love. Furthermore, it has a strong environmental message.

Besides all the lessons in the story line, honestly, if you can get dozens of high school kids to stay hours after school, day after day, to rehearse, paint sets, and prepare, how can anyone complain?

People who lament "kids these days" should see firsthand the dedication, work ethic and commitment demonstrated by students in drama and every other after-school activity.

I think back to the hours of my life given to marching band (yes, I was a University High School Titan Band Jock) and track (not a standout) and how important the lessons were that I learned.

• Show up on time.
• Know your part.
• People are counting on you.
• If you miss a cue, keep going.

That’s what high school drama is teaching our kids. I think that’s a major contribution to the “moral environment” that so worries Mr. Lawson.

What can YOU do?

While you could (as I did) write a rebuttal to Mr. Lawson on the Spokesman website, you can do something far more meaningful.

The Lewis & Clark drama program has been selected as one of 50 high school programs from the entire US to go to the American High School Theater Festival. It’s part of the Festival Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland: the largest arts festival in the world.

Between now and the summer of 2011 the program needs to raise $70,000. I can’t direct you to a PayPal link to give online (yet), but I can ask you to write a check made out to LCHS Drama with a note “for Edinburgh” on the memo line and send it to Lewis & Clark High School c/o Greg Pschirrer, 521 W. 4^th Ave., Spokane WA 99204. (If they end up not raising enough to go to Scotland the money will still benefit the drama program--great investment.)

If you want to participate in the fundraising committee, let me know in the comments here or text your email to me at 509.869.2949. Several of us have already told drama teacher Greg Pschirrer that we’re all over this and we need your help.

You can also follow them on Facebook and on YouTube.

Go Tiger Drama!

To race, or not to race: That is the question. Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune…

Or, put another way, whether ‘tis better for your butt to suffer the pains and agonies of a bike saddle that so outrageously isn’t your BFF that it creates actual wounds, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, leg aches and charley horses from your hamstrings down to your toes, and by opposing—or quitting—end them?

This may all be the Fit Chick’s fault. Or possibly mine—I’ll get there. She wrote a really nice blog post called Balancing Act on her Bicycling Magazine blog. It may be relevant that it took me three weeks to work far enough down in my email to read the bicycling.com email that led me to her post (which then inspired my post about the taste of happiness).

At any rate, I read it—about how she has lots of dust bunnies and a cruddy-looking kitchen but that’s okay because she and her husband prioritize riding higher than cleaning (and they have a cleaning service come in twice a month)—along with all the thoughtful comments. Then I came back to it the other day with a different perspective.

If the problem is deciding how to spend your time, I'm wrestling with it but from about 180 degrees away from her allocation approach: Do I quit training before even getting started in racing because I don't have the time to do what it takes to be competitive?

I'm a 47-year-old mother of teenage daughters; I work full-time; I chair or serve on several volunteer boards/committees that are important to me (including our local Bike to Work Week effort which peaks in May--and there's no taper involved in THAT effort....); I'm married to the love of my life and he trains heavily for racing (at a much higher level than I'll ever hit); Sweetie’s two kids are with us on odd-numbered weekends and he has to work Saturdays. These all represent time commitments and constraints.

I started training over the winter thinking I'd like to ride at a higher level and see what I could do in a race. My starting point was as a regular year-round commuter who does longer weekend rides of 30-40 miles with no trouble. I’ve stretched to the occasional longer ride of 60-90 on some of the region’s many outstanding bike rides like Tour des Lacs and Eight Lakes Leg Aches. Note—these are not timed and slowing down does not represent failure.

Since last October I've been putting in 8-10 hours most weeks getting in endurance miles, doing intervals with a power meter, being pretty systematic thanks to my racing sweetie, and getting stronger—but apparently not strong enough.

After a punishing 3-1/2 hour ride last Sunday checking out a race course that I'm clearly not ready for, I'm questioning all the use of that time that could have been spent hanging out with my teenagers (who will leave home all too soon) or just having a few minutes of down time between work, meetings, cooking dinner, and trying to spend a minute or two with my sweetheart. I gave up a yoga practice I was committed to in order to make bike time. (And the cat hair coating our crimson sofa could probably take on Fit Chick’s dog-hair dust bunnies in a fair fight.)

So now—shall I rather bear those ills I have than fly to others that I know not of?

Do I reclaim that time and get my life back to a different kind of balance?

Step up the training to try to be competitive, although I don't need racing to have a complete and satisfying life?

Keep up the training at the level I can make time for, race, and accept that it's going to hurt like hell sometimes and I'll probably finish last every time?

No matter what, I get a new bike saddle. My bike saddle—aye, there’s the rub.

I was so tired coming home from that ride that I fell asleep in the car. And by a sleep to say we end the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd.

Not that I want to die, mind you—this Hamlet thing can be carried only so far. But there definitely are a thousand natural shocks along 54 miles of chip-seal county road. My flesh was heir to every last one of them after that ride.

What to do, what to do…. The native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.

BUT.... today I went for a ride closer to 60 miles with the good folk of the Baddlands Cycling Club. I had a different saddle (courtesy of my sweetie and North Division Bike Shop where he works, I'm trying out a couple). The course wasn't so damn hilly. I managed a faster overall pace, albeit with a few stops when the group regrouped to let slower riders (AKA moi) catch up.

It wasn't so bad, and the pale cast of thought got sunnier. I'm signed up for a race, and hoping for a better outcome than that of good ol' Hamlet.

Raised by Wolves, or Free Range Kids? Either Way, They Learn and Live. At Least So Far.

Image via Wikipedia

NOTE: This is an older post that disappeared somehow, so I republished.

For years now I’ve told people that my children are being raised by wolves. I’ve now learned a much healthier-sounding term for my parenting approach: I’m raising free-range kids.

I found this term through the Cult of the Bicycle blog, which picked up on a text reference on the Free Range Kids blog to letting kids go out and ride their bikes. (You can buy it on Amazon)


Following that link, I was THRILLED to find other moms like me who don’t make their kids live in an antiseptic, antibacterial, padded, no-sharp-corners, experience-free bubble.

I've never been a "smother" and I don't think that makes me either neglectful or crazy. My kids are learning lessons from real-life experiences that I could never convey through verbal instruction (the effectiveness of which, after all, assumes that they listen to you).

One example (and I’m sure my daughters will jump on here with comments to clarify, expand, correct, and shoot down my fuzzy memory and factual assertions)—

My daughters are now 19 and 15. They've been riding on transit in our city of about 200,000 for the last 5+ years.

When my 15-year-old started at age 10, it was because she was attending a citywide gifted program that didn't have school bus service, and I simply couldn't drive her to and from school every day. (My bike commuting habit was not the only factor.)

She had already ridden the bus downtown with her older sister a few times, and we had a bus stop at the end of our block. I rode the bus with her the first day. We got to the central plaza and I showed her where to catch the second bus she needed to transfer to in order to get to her school.

When we came to our stop, we picked out landmarks so she could recognize it again. I showed her how to get from the stop to the school (a 2-block walk), and told her how to get back. I instructed her to sit up front, close to the driver, and tell the driver if anyone bothered her.

Turns out I should have come down and ridden home with her that first time, because she thought it would be easier to just get on the bus on the same side of the street where she got off in the morning.

This, of course, meant that she was riding farther away from home instead of back. The bus driver recognized that she wasn't getting off as he passed stop after stop, heading farther and farther east until she was the only person on the bus.

He asked her where she was supposed to end up, explained that she needed to catch a bus going the other way, and helped her get off at the right stop and cross the street to catch a bus headed back downtown to the plaza, where she could then catch another bus to come home. She got home safe and sound with an adventure to talk about.

Sure, it gave me some heart palpitations to hear about it afterwards, and I kicked myself for not riding home with her that first time. But--SHE MADE IT JUST FINE (and geez, it WAS a gifted program she was heading to/from....).

My kids have had plenty of adventures. No broken bones or concussions, and only a couple of small scars, one set definitely caused by free-range behavior: a wild bike ride down a bluff at dusk when she went off a trail by accident (same Gifted Kid who got on the bus going the wrong way).

Gifted Kid, in fact, started riding her bike to school a couple of years ago, a distance of about 3 miles on some fairly busy streets. My husband and I rode with her the first day and explained the funny nature of the one-way streets she would have to deal with in order to come back along a different street than the one we were taking to get to school.

That afternoon I got a call from her cell phone. “Mom, I’m at some corner.”

Shades of the bus ride—she had gotten turned around or missed a key intersection or some such, and was heading south when she should have been heading west. The steepness of the hill she was facing stopped her, as she was pretty sure we hadn’t come down something quite that steep in the morning.

I’d commuted by bike that day too, so I hopped on my bike and rode to her after determining where she was (not a particularly high-rent district, in case you want to fill in some stereotypes and assumptions about the people who live around there).

When I got there, she was talking to a nice young woman who had gotten concerned when she saw a relatively young kid sitting on the curb with a bike and a cell phone, apparently lost.

The woman smiled at me and said she was just keeping GK company until I arrived. I thanked her profusely, and GK and I rode home.

No kidnapping or rape or assault, no drug addiction, no pregnancies. They have good grades, extracurricular activities, talent, manners—all the characteristics you hope your kids will demonstrate when they’re a few months old and screaming their heads off while they cut teeth.

They also have street smarts, they know how to handle an unwanted come-on much better than I did when I graduated from college, and they have great self-confidence. They've developed an internal moral compass and are quite clear about their values and priorities. They are far more comfortable being around people very different from themselves in age, socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and level of hygiene than I was at their age when I had had no such exposure to the wild, beautiful, and sometimes scary variety of the world.

I share the belief of the Free Range Kids author/blogger that most people are good, and nothing has happened to change this. Statistically speaking, my kids and yours are in more danger from people they know than from total strangers.

I could keep them safe from “everything” and send them out into the world completely unprepared to function as adults, but what would be the point? Better to learn, live, and pick up a scar or two along the way—as well as a better sense of navigation. Right, Gifted Kid?

Frankly, my dear: I believed it when Rhett said it, but never again

I just had to tweet this the other day. I couldn’t say this particular thought out loud because I was in a meeting in which someone was doing this very thing: starting sentence after sentence with the word “Frankly.”

Now, this particular person is actually someone I do believe is frank in these statements. It’s just a verbal tic.

But I have another acquaintance who says it quite often and whom I know to be not entirely truthful at times. I’m talking about big dishonesty—cheat-on-your-spouse-lie-to-your-friend dishonesty—not spare-my-feelings-about-how-this-outfit-really-looks-on-me tactful misdirection: “What an unusual shade of brown!”

When the latter person starts a sentence with “Frankly” or “Honestly” (which happens multiple times in any one conversation) it’s all I can do to keep from rolling my eyes or blurting out, “Really?”

For the record, I also notice other verbal repetitions, such as teenagers overusing “like.” Just ask my two teen daughters, who don’t overuse it because when they started down that road, I repeated “like!” every time they said it for a while. Worked like a charm, although I sounded as if I had the hiccups. (I taught them not to use “like” when you mean “as if” or “such as,” too.)

We got through that phase rather successfully. I, like, notice it when other people, like, overuse “like,” but it doesn’t raise my hackles the way “frankly” and “honestly” do. (Although I do think it sounds as if the person needs some intellectual booster shots if it, like, happens multiple times in back-to-back sentences.)

My theory: There is something about asserting one’s truthfulness specifically that makes me notice—and question—the sincerity of the word being overused. Frankly, honestly, methinks the lady doth protest too much.

You'll save us, won't you? My kids the idealists

Ann Handley inspired me with her piece Innocents at Home, about the optimistic and idealistic Millenials. Go read it now—I’ll wait (and hope that you come back—you could get lost reading her other posts, and I’d understand).

I have a couple of those innocent idealists at my place too, although Eldest Daughter would probably describe herself as more of a cynical pessimist or pragmatist than an idealist.

Eldest Daughter is 19 now. She loves it when I say that out loud, “my 19-year-old.” I am somewhat less fond of this, since I can't continue to be 35 in my head unless I had her at 16, which I didn't.

Her birth came six days after I was elected to the Idaho legislature on my birthday lo, these many moons ago. I went home from an organizing session the weekend after the election, woke up at 2 a.m. to pee, and my water broke. Nine weeks later, I was in Boise with her as a freshman legislator and new mom.

There was (I assume still is—legislative traditions don’t change quickly) a color-coded name tag system in use that let you identify people at a glance in the capitol: white type on black for House members, black type on white for Senate, white on green (the color of money) for registered lobbyists, white on red (the color of we’re-out-of-money) for staff in the executive branch.

My friend Jane, who at the time served as executive director of the Idaho Democratic Party, had name tags made for my baby and a girl born to another freshman D House member a week after mine (and here I thought I was so unique, campaigning pregnant and all). The name tag for my bundle o’ joy, burgundy type on light pink, read “District 2 Legislative Baby” with her name.

And thus, the die was cast: She’s always been a political baby. She has a poster of four-time Idaho Gov. Cecil Andrus autographed "to the future governor." She has been in parades doing the float queen wave, but not as a float queen--she walked alongside her mom the candidate. She has gone doorbelling a few times, although I quickly realized that people would think we were Jehovah's Witnesses if I brought a kid with me. She listens to NPR.

Second Daughter is 15, born in 1994 (the year I lost my re-election bid for the State Senate, after winning the seat in 1992). That means she was six in May 2001, about a month away from her seventh birthday, when U.S. Sen. Jim Jeffords announced he was leaving the Republican Party to become an Independent.

I remember it because she burst into the garage to announce, “Mom! Jim Jeffords left the Republicans! Now education will be safe!” She knew the balance of power in the Senate had changed and that the change would affect policy. (You may also guess from this that she had been exposed to influences and opinions from a Democrat.)

Let me repeat—she was six years old.

This is the same kid who, just a couple of years later after becoming a vegetarian, would walk around her elementary school handing notes to people that read “Save a cow—be a vegetarian” and “Cows don’t eat people—why should people eat cows?”. She carried a petition to gather signatures asking Skittles to remove gelatin from their recipe so it would be a vegetarian candy (which it is in Europe, apparently. What gives, Skittles?).

Second Daughter also quizzed me when she was in a math team in about fifth grade as to whether the president really needs to know math, since she plans to be president someday. (Her comment when Hillary Clinton was doing well in the 2008 primaries was, “No—I want to be the first woman president!” to which I responded, “Sweetie, I can’t wait that long—you won’t be 35 and eligible to run for another 20+ years”). (And yes, the president needs to know math.)

I remember reacting defensively when Eldest Daughter—at about age 12 or so—responded to some news story about environmental devastation by turning to me and saying, “Your generation ruined everything.”

Now, hang on just a second....

For one thing, I’m really from the very tippy-tippy-trailing-edge of the Baby Boomer generation, not dead center where the big rabbit sits in the boa constrictor, so it’s not my fault, right?

For another thing, that generation did manage to work its way--painfully at times--through civil rights, feminism, the Environmental Protection Act, access for people with disabilities, and other signs of progress. They/we didn’t ruin everything.

Still, she had a point. The consumption-driven economy creating/created by our nation’s wealth after World War II used up a lot, and we’re now seeing the cracks and potholes in that system.

My daughters think and talk about big issues. They recycle without having to think about it. When Eldest Daughter realized she wouldn't be able to vote in the historic 2008 presidential election, she said, "Oh, well, I'll get to vote in the school bond and levy!". They pay attention to the news. They accept, embrace and exemplify human differences I wasn’t even exposed to as a kid. They're smart and compassionate.

They’re going to save the world.

I’m counting on it.

What IS It with the Body Spray Already? Smells Like a Lot More than Teen Spirit

Image via Wikipedia

My eyes are tearing up and I’m getting ready to sneeze, a good sign that one of my sweet-smelling daughters has readministered body spray. Again.

“Readminister again” is not a redundant statement; they will later re-readminister. Possibly just as they get into the car or some other enclosed space in which I will be trapped with the vaporous goodness.

Japanese Cherry Blossom? Cherry Almond Vanilla? Something involving cherries, at any rate. Or flowers. It’s hard to tell what specific scent it is when it’s bombarding you at Force 10.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my daughters. Really. I’m pleased that they prefer to be clean and sweet-smelling. They generally leave the house groomed, although we differ on the critical question of whether slippers with semi-hard surfaces on the bottom count as footwear for the big wide world out there.

On the slipper question they vote Yes, I vote No. My vote does not count. The only time they entertained the possibility of reconsidering this point, it was because four feet of snow fell on us in late December and early January and stayed for weeks. They didn’t wait for the spring thaws to go back to the slippers.

They’re not over the top on make-up, thank heavens. Admittedly Eldest Daughter went through a raccoon-eyes phase, applying black eyeliner and extra-black extra-clumping mascara with the enthusiasm of a small child newly introduced to scented markers.

She shared her hard-earned wisdom with Number Two Daughter, who uses a light hand. Both have beautiful eyes in any case.

And they do smell nice. But this comes at a price: the constant reapplication of body sprays purchased approximately every other week at Smelly Body Sprays R Us or some such chain.

When one of them gets ready for school in the main bathroom, we brace ourselves for the moment when the door swings open and the cloud wafts out well in advance of the girl ostensibly wearing the perfume—or being worn by it.

I’m sure I did this at their age. I remember a certain fondness for Love’s Baby Soft that probably announced itself around corners. Today my tastes are a trifle more sophisticated (Coco Mademoiselle by Chanel, which they had better not stop making), and expressed in moderation.

So what do I do, say, “Don’t smell quite so nice”? There’s a reason the words “teen girls body spray” bring up 103,000 results in Google.

A closer look at these results reveals that apparently this isn’t exclusively a girl thing—in fact, it’s a huge problem with boys.

Who knew? Since we have one boy who is 11 and still smells like the outdoors and whatever project he’s been working on involving glue and solvents, if not soldering irons and melting rubber, this has not yet become apparent.

Boys ODing to prevent BOing is such a problem, in fact, that the manufacturers are actually starting to suggest boys should tone it down. This will never move product—I’m amazed at their public-spirited campaigns (which conveniently move the product name up in the Google results....).

For example, this YouTube spot aims at the boy side of the line, using a sex appeal pitch to suggest that subtlety is sexier than a level approaching anesthesia.

This piece talks about the Axe overdose effect similar to what I’m experiencing with Cherry Almond Vanilla Blossom Floral Flower Whatsis.

The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding (such dreamers they must be, the people who could found something with such an aspirational name and so little hope of realizing the goal expressed in the name….Oh wait, it’s a Christian organization; they may have back-up help) write about the problem here.

The Google results, as always, are an entertaining mix of sites telling you about the problem, and sites enabling you to make purchases that will add to the problem.

I won’t even get to the articles where they talk about using body spray as a flame thrower or inhalant. I already know this stuff is both deadly and a substance of abuse--I’m livin’ it. Here it comes now....

Becoming a Woman, and Boys Boys Boys: More Time with Younger Daughter

Image by Melvin Schlubman via Flickr

Picking up where we left off in our mother/daughter interview. Scene: Coffee shop. Rainy day. Nosy Mother and Younger Daughter stare into each other’s eyes, gauging questions and the risk of answering honestly. Nosy Mother asks, smart-aleck Younger Daughter answers.



What kind of woman do you want to be?

The kind without a penis.

That’s a given. Moving on from that—

Young Daughter giggles, then is momentarily distracted when she notices that she left a handmark on the window like that scene in Titanic.

The kind who goes shopping fairly regularly, with the money to do so—not credit cards. I don’t want credit cards. I know it might come in handy, but I don’t want one.

Happy, hopefully. Most of the time. Not like overly happy, but close enough. Um… I’d like to have a career where I can support myself and possibly children with the essentials on my own without anybody else like if they died, divorce, anything like that.

When it’s your turn, what are some of the questions you’ll ask me?

Well, you’re gonna have to wait and see, aren’t you? See, that was a question—get it? Ha ha.

I hesitate because the inteview seems to be winding down and I'm wondering where to take it.


That’s it? You didn’t ask me about boys.

What about boys?

I don’t know, what about ‘em?

What do you wish you had known before now, or what do you hope you’ll learn before it’s too late?
You mean before I go crazy and kill one of them?

Yes, preferably.

Furrowed brow.

Too many questions.

I suggest she stick with the before now question.

I don’t have that many problems. No, wait, that’s a lie. Um…. I guess, just, to know for sure how you feel about somebody before you get into a relationship.

Moving on to what she’d like to learn before it’s too late.

If I knew what I wanted to learn, then I would have already learned it, wouldn’t I? Or at least be part of the way there.

I guess I’d want to know myself better before I got into a really serious relationship with somebody. Have a little bit more confidence too—inward, not outside. My friends have told me that when we’re in public I seem really confident and everything, but then they know me. (With a lisp): Confidenth ith thexthy.

What should I be asking you about boys?

What type.

What type?

We hit pay dirt. To aid in readability this section is shown in separate paragraphs, but it’s best read in one long gulp without coming up for air in order to achieve something like the original experience. Good thing I type at over 100 wpm.


I don’t know why, but dark hair. Not that I don’t think guys with light hair are attractive but…. Like dark brown or black. It’s pretty. Attractive. I know that supposedly that’s less important to women than it is to men, but it’s still fairly important at my age, I’d say. I enjoy the attractiveness.

Some level of, of, of—like comfort, Oh, I do like them tall. Whether that’s physically because they’re like bigger and taller—I don’t like them smaller than me (shudders). I just don’t. Or just an air about them that’s kind of comforting. I’ve noticed that I always, like, no matter who the guy is if he—hmm—if he keeps kind of capturing my interest when we’re dating, there tends to be some side of danger to him. Never a biker or something, but like—should I change names?—skip that one—there was—after that….

She gazes off into the distance, rummaging through some mental filing cabinet, while I worry about the omissions.

We’ll just say Jesse. Jesse—kind of a—not a great student. He was in Odyssey (the gifted program she was in). He’s taking online classes now. Also now he does a lot of pot. So I’m glad I got out of that. But he didn’t back then. OK.

Or there’s Devin—he was a jerk around his friends but he was nice when you were just with him, so I guess that part of him that was a jerk, that was the danger aspect. I don’t like that, but--three days, I think that one was.

OK, so then more recently I’ll start with Matt. I don’t know what the danger was there, which may have been the reason that it ended because I lost interest, but he’s a really nice guy, which is kind of sad, because, well, he’s a nice guy…. I don’t know. I think Hannah liked him. I don’t think there was danger, so that might have been why.

Nyc? N-Y-C.

Chuckle, clarification that NYC is a spelling and not an offhand reference to New York City.

Scene kid, piercings, but nice guy, very hyper which I appreciated because he could keep up with me but then he didn’t pay that much attention to me. And then I found out—we were hanging out with a big group and we went to this kiddie park and there was this big No Smoking sign and I was joking and said “No smoking, Nyyyyc,” and he said that he didn’t smoke – cigarettes –and it turned out he did smoke occasionally and he smoked pot sometimes and he hadn’t told me that and I was pretty sure it was obvious that that was important to me. That was my birthday. My birthday parties are cursed. That was a bad night. He never came—to the party.

She shoots a sidelong look to see if I caught the double entendre.

Next morning I think he actually had his friend, who was his ex-girlfriend and then they dated again and then they broke up again and her heart was broken—he like told me through her that he didn’t want to date because I was overbearing because of the pot even though I hadn’t said that much. I told him he could either stop smoking pot or date me but not both which was like too much for him. Too controlling.

Most recently there was Eric. He was a junior so he was older. He was a nice guy. So it was good because I had the thing of danger because he was older but he was still nice. It wasn’t really danger but it was something extra, you know?

Like having a motorcycle. One time, I crashed a motorcycle into a fence. With me on it.

That must have been at your dad’s.

At Aunt Jeanne’s. It was a small motorcycle, not like a big one.

They have to be able to talk a lot. Sometimes it turns out that’s a problem because they don’t have as much to say as I do because they’re a guy. Ooh, she has my shoes! (Noticing the black, shiny flats on the barista)



This is by far the longest answer.

I told you you should have been asking me about guys.

A future post will feature an interview with 18-year-old Oldest Daughter, who is just as quick-witted and has four more years of experience in seeing if she can get to me, choosing what she will and won't tell me, and generally excelling at verbal fencing.

Related Reading

• How to Improve Family Communication: Fridge Talk
• Raised by Wolves, or Free Range Kids? Either Way They Learn and Live. At Least So Far.
• You'll Save Us, Won't You? My Kids the Idealists
• Getting to Know My 14-Year-Old. Or Trying. Very Trying.

Getting to Know My 14-Year-Old--or Trying. Very Trying.

This idea is thanks to The Daily Blonde, who interviewed her 13-year-old son. I show the piece to Younger Daughter and suggest, “We could do this—it will be fun.”

Her: “Sure. Sure as in ‘We can do it,’ not sure as in ‘It will be fun.’”

Later that day, after she completes the latest stage in her quest to re-read all the Harry Potter books—she just hit the speed bump created by #4, which is a lot longer than #3—we adjourn to our neighborhood coffee shop/bakery.

Then to a second, when #1 proves to be—as is always, always the case on Sunday afternoons, and always, always forgotten until we’re looking at the sign on the door—closed after 3 p.m. After ordering, we settle at a table that lets us look out at the cold, rainy street.

Image by -eko- via Flickr

What do you want to be when you grow up?

She shoots a blue-eyed glare at me from under her eyebrows, since she’s been asking me what she should be for quite some time now and I have apparently not provided satisfactory answers that let her decide her entire future. At age 14. Pursed lips, deliberative pause. She’s so pretty and smart.

There are a lot of things I want to do, but I’m not sure which one. It just has to have something to do with words and people.

Which she knows I just read in her 25 Things post on her blog. She’s picking raisins out of her bagel. That’s my girl!

What are some of the ideas you've had?

Being an English teacher, preferably Honors because—preferably Honors. Or editing of some sort as in newspaper, magazine, publishing house.

We recently discussed the distinction between copy editing and editorial decision-making. I think she means the decision-making kind.

Politics generally, which would be going straight into politics like looking to be a senator or president or something like that. Or going through being an English teacher and then trying to run for superintendent (of public instruction—a statewide office in Washington; we recently discussed whether the teaching profession had any political pathways).

Or train dolphins.

t’d also be really fun to run a coffee shop. I know I wouldn’t make big bucks but it would be fun. It would have to have a cool vibe. I’d want to burn candles but some people are sensitive to them.

Or I could be a trophy wife, go on a reality show.

Talk to me about the dolphin training.

They like fish.

I sense she’s giving up on this whole endeavor.

What do you like about the age you are?

That I have all my options open—well…. Okay, except some certain sports where you have to train since like before you were born. The sense that I have my options open and could do almost anything from here.

What don’t you like?

No one takes us seriously. Adults don’t take you seriously. Also my peers—most of them are stupid. Which is not to say that they’re not nice, some of them—just not smart.

Also I can’t get a job that will pay me enough, like a steady job, because people don’t hire 14-year-olds. I know that I have the responsibility to do it, but because of my age I can’t. All the age limits and everything.

At least I’m tall enough to ride the rides.

Does it make sense to you (that adults don’t take you seriously)?

It makes sense to me that they have more experience and therefore see themselves as higher beings, but it’s really annoying.

Are you going to share your bagel?

Is that an interview question? Is it now? (in a mocking/challenging tone)

Discussion about the raisins we’re now both picking out of the bagel. Nasty, squished-bug raisins, masquerading as chocolate chips. Not that this is a point I’ve made before or anything. We circle back to the interview.

If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Never Never Land.

Why?

Beause I was just joking.

If it were outside the US, it would be someplace like Paris, because come on--French people, fashion, food, coffee, French people.

Or a big city but not in the heart of it. Or a middle city like Seattle where there’s a ton of culture but you’re not flipping off all your fellow drivers—not all of them. Or somewhere near New York.

Or Never Never Land. There are mermaids there, but they were ugly in one of the movies. Not at all your usual stereotype. They tried to play with the mermaid stereotype but it was just ugly. Really fun to play follow the leader and bounce on logs behind Peter Pan, like the little kid with the Indian hat with the feathers.

Treading in dangerous waters, what do you like about our family?

Not too short.

We’re not too short?

Right. How tall am I going to be? Big Sister said about 5’8” or 5’9”.

She lied. What do you like about our family, besides not being too short?

Which one?

The family you live with the majority of the time.

Including or excluding the children?

Sweet Husband’s two kids, The Engineer and The Movie Sponge, are with us alternate weekends & half the summer. Eight-year-old Movie Sponge follows Younger Daughter everywhere, mimics her every move, sits beside YD watching her play Sims, claims to like TV shows she’s never seen just because Younger Daughter likes them. See poem “I Have a Little Shadow.” The Engineer pretty much focuses on making things and taking things apart.

She's stalling.
You decide in your answer.

Let’s see… We’re pretty good-looking.

Can’t argue with that, nor would you want to.

We have fun when we make sex jokes about Santa Claus.

This comment really should be followed by a full explanation about a carful of butt-gusting laughter occasioned by the giant blow-up naughty Santa on North Division who waved at us in leering fashion two Christmases ago. What does a naughty Santa pull out of his big bag of presents? No time though, as I’m having to prompt for answers—they’re not flowing like water here.

What don’t you like about the family?

Pass.

After an awkward pause, the interview picked up a real head of steam when she prompted me to ask her about boys, making it far too long for one blog post. Boy stuff in another post.

Turn about is fair play; you can read her interview of me.

Related Reading

• Becoming a Woman, and Boys Boys Boys: More Time with Younger Daughter
• Good Word, Indignant: An Interview of Barb Chamberlain