Keep it to yourself, sonny boy

My office-away-from-home is the Paradise Bakery and Cafe at Hamilton Town Center on the Noblesville/Fishers border. I can be found there several days a week, hopefully at that one four-top table with the handy plug in for my laptop, surrounded by various sorts of Shakespeare stuff -- currently Othello, Much Ado About Nothing and King Lear, but also a with a copy of Beowulf and another of The Canterbury Tales and sometimes I wonder if it wouldn't have been easier, when all was said and done, to have become a fortune-teller or a traveling hobo, both of which are occupations that strike me as being less likely to drown one in a sudden avalanche of books -- and lapping up a cup of coffee. So I'm sort of a regular and I see the same people there all the time, which isn't that surprising when it comes to the counter staff, but maybe a bit more so when it comes to the clientele, who are obviously people using the restaurant with its cozy and cheerful atmosphere as their own offices.

The two people who man the bakery counter where I order my sesame bagel are a couple of guys in their twenties who are always very polite and friendly and say, "Hi, nice to see you! How are you today?" Only the other day, one of them, the one with the glasses, made a misstep that embarrassed all three of us and reminded me of the many times when I have had to get the tire iron out of the trunk of my van to pry my foot out of my mouth.

Through the doors the other day, laden down with my giant purse, the laptop bag and a satchel full of books, happy to see that I was the only person in line, since I felt very certain that my shoulder was about to be dislocated. I staggered to the glass counter and set down the satchel at my feet with an "Ooof!" and looked up to find both men smiling at me in their how-can-I-help-you sort of way.

"Well, hello, young lady," the one with the glasses said jovially. "Sesame bagel? Cup of coffee?"

For some reason, his greeting took me aback and made me goggle at him slightly. Which I'm sure led to an attractive facial expression. It's just that I decided right then that there are times when someone my age can be addressed as "young lady," and those times, specifically, are times when I'm being spoken to by an elderly person. Because to them, I am a young lady.

But being addressed as "young lady" by a guy who obviously just graduated from high school - or more to the point, graduated from a bottle to a sippy cup -- within the past couple of years, well. It seemed cheeky and condescending, as if he was actually saying, "I am acknowledging the fact that you are two weeks older than dirt, but trying to assure you, through the medium of humor, that you look every day of your advanced years, plus a decade." And for me to reply, "I'd like a sesame bagel and a medium coffee, old gaffer," didn't have quite the same zing to it. Since, you know, Cary Grant.

It was awkward. I didn't really want it to be awkward because I don't think the young man was intentionally trying to be boorish in his behavior. But, you know, awkward nonetheless. The other guy sprang into action at the register, rang in my order and gave me my total; I handed over my debit card. The bold one with the glasses cleared his throat nervously and grabbed my bagel from the display case, turning his back to slice it and send it through the toaster. His very back seemed to be saying WhydidIsaythatWhydidIsaythatWHYDIDISAYTHAT?

"Would it help," the other young man whispered, returning my debit card to me, "if I told you that he's on a work release program from an institution for the socially inept?"

I laughed good-naturedly. "I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Because I am very, very old."

But Young Glasses wasn't done yet. "Can I carry your bags to a table for you?" he gabbled, turning around with a tray holding my toasted bagel and a mug.

I fixed him with a look, only slightly truculent. "Are you asking because you make a habit of helping ladies to their tables, or is this more a matter of you assisting the feeble octogenarians who come through the door?"

Then we all had a good chuckle and he manfully shouldered my laptop bag and satchel - I carried my purse and the tray with my bagel and coffee cup - and when he set everything down at the table I indicated, I resisted the urge to pinch his cheek and say, "Aren't you just the sweetest boy? I bet your mommy is very proud of you!"

Reprise and Reprisals: Madge-at-the-swimming-pool

I'm kind of proud of that title. I flatter myself that it sounds like something Jane Austen might have come up with. Er, something with which Jane Austen might have come up. Up with something Jane Austen might have come?

Shut up.

Anyhoo, Madge, the elderly woman I encountered at the YMCA pool a few weeks ago, the one who told me, obnoxiously, that she was going to swim in my lane? I met her again today in the clear, chlorinated waters of the shallow end. All the lanes were in use by lap-swimmers; I myself was moving into my fortieth minute of high-cardio aqua aerobics and was feeling particularly sassy.

So when Madge came down the steps into the pool, she didn't look in my direction. But she did start moving toward me with a purposeful stride and it was pretty obvious that she was going to come up to me and attempt to commandeer my lane in her imperious way. I was all, like, grimly, "Hells to the no!" and was ready to square off with her, if I needed to. Because remember, I am both a mother and a teacher, which means that I am possibly one of the bossiest people alive, except for maybe Hugo Chavez. And one of the mores of a peaceful and prosperous planet is that people need to learn to wait their turns. Old or young, poor or wealthy, people need to stop being so freaking pushy and acting like the axis of the world runs through the middle of their ridiculous heads. For heaven's sake, just BE POLITE.

So I left her approach me, and when she got within six feet, I turned the ol' laser eye on her, that look which clearly says Do Not Frigging Mess With Me. It's not so much an entire facial expression as it is a dangerous glint in the eye, that same one Mel Gibson had in the Franco Zeffirelli-directed Hamlet, when he put some manners on Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. It's the same look I give to whisperers, note-passers, eye-rollers and sigh-heavers. And it works.

Madge stopped short and looked around, nonplussed, probably searching for someone else to persecute. Seeing that there was no option, she turned and went back to the steps, climbing out to sit on the bench, just like everyone else does when they're waiting for a lane to open. And while her head was turned away, the lifeguard caught my eye across the splashing of four swimmers and gave me a double thumbs-up.

Victory!

Creepy old perv or innocent grandpa?

I was at the grocery store with Meelyn on Friday and we'd filled our cart and finally made our way to the check-out. We had to wait just a little bit, but when it was our turn to start unloading all our food onto the conveyor belt, we did so with great dexterity, having practiced this maneuver many, many times before.

I was unloading the small part, the part where a child can sit, so my back was to the people in line behind me. Ordinarily, this wouldn't be a problem at all -- I am not noted for my paranoia -- but there was a problem. With "but" being the operative word, only add another "t" to the end of it.

As I was removing items from the cart and placing them on the belt, I couldn't help but feel something? someone? touch my bottom. I sort of froze for a split second, evaluating the situation. I mean, I've been to Italy before and I don't know if things have changed over there in the past thirty years, but my bottom got touched, like, all the time. It was great. I'm kidding. Sort of. Anyway, I was only fifteen at the time and my bottom was, well....different than it is now. I glanced quickly back over my shoulder and noticed that the old gent who was behind us in the line was actually BEHIND us. It was his behind touching my bottom.

I murmured, "Excuse me," and pushed our cart a little bit forward so that I'd be out of his way and continued piling groceries on the belt. A few seconds later, there it was again: a gentle but insistent pressure on my backside. Another quick glance confirmed that it was that man again, standing back to back with me, pressing his rear against mine.

Flustered, I moved the cart a bit forward again, deciding not to say "excuse me" again because it was just kind of embarrassing, you know? I mean, the dude was old, right? And because he was so old, it just didn't right to imply that he was engaged in some kind of pervy shenanigans that might have gotten his face slapped if he'd done such a thing forty years previously.

Because old men don't think nasty thoughts, do they?

So, back to the groceries. Back to the unloading. We were almost finished, and Meelyn, oblivious to my plight, was standing in such a manner that I couldn't push the cart forward any further without mowing her down. Which is why, when the elderly man pushed his keister into my derriere for the THIRD TIME and just left it there, touching me, I had no good way to escape.

Let me just go off on a rabbit trail here. American women, for all our Virginia Slims and equality and freedom and such, are often just too freaking nice. We are so nice that we let people get away with doing stuff that they shouldn't ought to be doing because we don't want to make a fuss, don't want to cause a commotion, don't want to embarrass anyone or draw undue attention to ourselves or whatever. So we let people carry on doing something that is clearly wrong - or perhaps maybe....not so clear? When you're in a situation that's hard to define, what exactly can you do to define it?

For instance, should I have turned around and said to the old codger, "Sir, I can't help but notice that you've pressed your backside rather firmly against mine three different times now and I'd like to know just what you're doing? I mean, are you just in a hurry and needing to get your groceries unloaded quickly and are therefore being heedless of my personal space? Or do you have some other intent? I need to know so that I can decide whether I should hit you with my purse, or threaten to have my husband hunt you down or just give you the Miss Manners patented glacial stare-and-thin-lipped-smile combo."

Instead, I just turned all the way around so that I was facing him. He must have sensed my breath on the back of his neck, because all of a sudden, he pulled his bum in and, casting a furtive look over his shoulder, suddenly busied himself with re-arranging all the boxes and cans in his own cart.

He wouldn't look me in the face, wouldn't meet my eyes.

I didn't say anything. How could I? I mean, maybe he was mortified that he'd run into me three different times. Sadly, my bottom does stick out a good bit. On the other hand, if you were an elderly clandestine bottom-rubber, mine does make an easy and visible target. It's just all RIGHT THERE, hard to miss.

I didn't want to hurt his feelings. I didn't want to call him out in front of all those people. I was second-guessing myself like crazy by that point, anyway. Surely it was just my imagination that led me to think that my rear end was not only being touched, but pressed against?

No. It wasn't my imagination. I felt all weird and twitchy about that incident for the rest of the afternoon, wondering what I would have done and how I would have felt if it had been Meelyn's bottom he'd touched. Because I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when it came to my hiney, but discovered that I was totally and completely unable to summon any feelings of "Aw, the poor old thing...he probably didn't even realize," when it came to Meelyn's hiney.

I would have jumped over the cart full of groceries and gone all Matrix on him.

Later that evening, when my husband and I were at dinner, I recounted my touchy tale to him. When I explained the first incident, he just nodded his head to acknowledge his agreement that it was probably nothing, but raised his eyebrows when I got to the second episode. By the time I was getting to the third moment of the old man pressing against me, my husband laid down his fork.

"Did you say something to him?" my husband asked.

I shrugged and swallowed a bite of salad. "What could I say that wouldn't make me look like some freakishly high-strung individual?"

My husband gave me a long look and then replied, "A lot of the time, that's probably what people like him count on. That no woman is going to want to accuse some nice old fart in a Mister Rogers cardigan of touching her for fear that she's going to seem hysterical and bizarre. Because what could be more harmless-looking than a guy who looks like he could be your granddad? That just gives men like that a green light to go ahead and touch a few more ladies. Never in a way that seems on purpose, like just reaching out and grabbing. But in a more subtle way, pressing against a butt in a grocery check-out line, 'accidentally' getting some side-boob action with his elbow when he reaches across you as we pass the collection plate at church...."

I gulped and glanced around nervously, doing a quick Spot-the-Pervert check amongst my fellow diners. "You're freaking me out. Like there's this whole world of dirty old men out there, prowling around trying to cop a feel."

It was his turn to shrug. "Well, that stereotype got started somehow. We can't blame it all on Benny Hill." He picked his fork back up and speared some lettuce on it.

"So, if this sort of thing should happen again? I should?...."

My husband smiled his lop-sided smile, the same one that melted my heart when we first met. "You look at him and say, in a very quiet voice, 'If you don't stop touching me, I am going to break you in half, motherfu.....'"

"Okay. Gotcha," I interrupted hastily.

Next time....

A serving of thoughts on the side

Around here, because we generally go to church on Saturday evening, Sundays aren't the organized days they were when I was a child and we had to be sitting in Sunday School, turned out in our best and in a Jesus state of mind by nine-flipping-thirty a.m., despite the fact that my dad was grumpy because he hadn't had a second cup of coffee and the chance to read the sports section of the Sunday Indianapolis Star as thoroughly as he wished, and my brother was grumpy because he had to stop running little cars down that orange Hotwheels track laid across the living room furniture so that the cars could crash into the fireplace hearth and I was grumpy because that's just who I've always been.

My mother was grumpy because it was her job to make sure we were all ready to head out the door by nine-twenty, plus put a roast covered with Lipton onion soup mix into the Crock-Pot, and we all fought her every inch of the way, including the meat and the little foil packet the soup mix came in.

So these days, things are much calmer and there's plenty of coffee and no one cares about the Sunday newspaper and dinner is a much more laid-back affair notable for its lack of silver flatware, good dishes and nice glasses, which all sensibly stay where they're supposed to, which is in the china cabinet. They make grudging cameo appearances on Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter because they can't be put in the dishwasher.

Here are some of the thoughts swirling around in the calm of the day:

1. The annual argument that pits my husband against me and the girls began today, with opposing sides voicing strident opinions on on whether or not the furnace should be turned on. My husband contends that it is mid-September and mid-September is too early to have the heat on. The girls and I offer rebuttal by pointing out that it is rainy and chilly outside, a weather pattern more common to mid-October, which is a perfectly reasonable time to employ the use of central heating.

2. Today is the first Sunday for making a snack to accompany the afternoon's football, so we are having Game Day Taco Dip with tortilla chips. I really like this dip because it's easy to throw together, can be served warm or cold, and it a relatively sensible snack if you make it with neufchatel cream cheese, nonfat refried beans and reduced-calorie shredded cheese - and these little fixes happily are unnoticeable and the dip tastes the same as it does when all the fattening stuff is used. SCORE!

3. I bought a new top yesterday because the hanger on the store's rack had one of those little plastic bead-type things with my size printed on it, but when I got the blouse home, it turned out that it was a size smaller than the size noted on the hanger. Thankfully, I still have the receipt, but wouldn't you know that the store is one out-of-town?

4. Aisling found a piece of piano sheet music in the piano bench today, a copy of Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water," and said, "Where did you get this?" I sat for a moment, looking at the music, bemused. That sheet music brought back one of my worst memories, a memory of the night when my friend Lori was being installed as the leader of the Rainbow Girls in New Castle's Masonic lodge. She'd asked me to play this music, which had great personal meaning to her, to accompany another friend of ours, Dave, who had a gorgeous tenor voice.

It was a very dressy affair and I was wearing an outfit of my mother's, one in the late-seventies peasant style, but made with a gorgeous satiny blouse in watercolored lavender, turquoise and lapis, slightly off-the-shoulder and paired with a long, gauzy tiered cream skirt, the tiers banded with the same satiny fabric as the blouse. It was very, very Stevie Nicks. I felt like a fairy princess in that outfit and my mom even let me wear her little diamond stud earrings.

I had practiced on that music for weeks and weeks, both with my piano teacher and with Dave and everything went really well until that night, when even the confidence I'd gained from wearing that beautiful outfit leaked out through my toes once I saw the lodge's ballroom, with chandeliers and lots of chairs set up and a grand piano, all surrounding a highly polished dance floor.

I had a moment of choking stage-fright, worsened by the fact that, in a moment of pee pee-nerves, I somehow managed to flush the entire back of that gauzy skirt down the toilet. I hauled it, hand-over-hand, out of the potty, frantically picking pieces of wet toilet paper out of the hem. There was no time to take a breath and regain my composure because I was due to be sitting on that piano bench in about half a minute. So I wrung out the skirt, which then showed a distressing tendency to cling to the backs of my legs, and tearfully exited the bathroom, only to find that in my absence, all the seats had filled up. I had to walk across that entire huge room under the inquisitive gaze of a big herd of people, all by myself, the heels of my taupe suede Candie's mules click-clacking on the dance floor and my skirt billowing gracefully in the front, but stuck to me in the back from my bottom down to my ankles.

Do I even need to tell you how "Bridge Over Troubled Water" went?

Let's just say that Dave intrepidly sang "Bridge Over Troubled Water," but I was playing something totally different, like maybe a tuneless rendition of "Cecilia" or even "Scarborough Fair." It should have been more along the lines of "The Sound of Silence." Huh.

I was utterly mortified, Dave was nonplussed, and poor Lori. Poor Lori. Here was her shining moment of becoming the rainbowiest Rainbow Girl of them all and there I was, a piano student of TEN YEARS, whacking and thumping desperately around on the keyboard like a possum trying to get out of a cage.

That was in 1978 and here today, thirty-three years later, I still felt a miserable sense of "Dear God, if you love me, please kill me right now," only this time, my undies weren't wet.

What a terrible memory. I wish I'd never brought it up.

5. If you are a lady who goes to a gym to work out, and if you shower there after you work out, but haven't yet taken that small moment of time required to stop at the front desk and rent a locker, be aware that there is going to come a reckoning, a time not specified, when either your shampoo, conditioner or body wash will come open in your gym bag and make a hellish mess that will convince you that it might just be better to pitch the whole mess into the garbage bin and start over, with new sneakers and everything.

6. I love Sundays when you can do things just because you want to, rather than because you have to. Which is why I just put together a loaf of oatmeal bread with sunflower seeds and diced apricots (excellent for ham sandwiches) and am sitting here typing a blog post....instead of working on lesson plans for my Shakespeare and Brit Lit classes. Which I have to do. Right now. So goodbye, and enjoy the rest of your day.

I'm blaming it on the recession

I have long since stopped apologizing for being the kind of person who takes great pleasure in girly things; like jewelry (real is good, but fake will work) makeup (fake, but hopefully not as fake as, say, Disco Party 1979) and manicured fingernails (the faker, the better.) The job I have is one where people see my hands a lot - or at least my perception is that my hands can be seen a lot - and I have the world's worst fingernails, despite the fact that the only mammal that drinks more dairy than I do is a baby calf. I'm practically out there in the fields and meadows, skulking around and wresting calves away from their mothers, but do I have good fingernails? No, I do not. And I also eat yogurt every day, so if you really needed any more proof that life is not fair, there you have it.

Before the recession, I completely enjoyed being able to go to the salon to get my nails done. I've always favored a discreet french manicure and it was such a satisfying feeling to look down at my hands and see fresh, pretty nails instead of the dull, scraggly and prone-to-splitting things that God favored me with.

Then the recession happened and life changed.

[Pausing for a moment of piteous sobbing]

So now I do my own nails, mostly successfully because of my friend Juju. Juju does her own nails too and you would never know, they look so beautiful and professional. She claims that she finds life dismal and grey without manicured finger- and toenails, hardly worth getting out of bed for. So she gave me some tips (haha...a little nail-related humor there for those of us in the biz) and I got started and I've been ever so pleased with the results.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday, I broke a nail. So aggravating, but luckily I was headed back home anyway, so I stopped off at the Sally's in town to replenish my nail stash (I even craftily bought a packet of nails and a teeny glue bottle to keep in my purse just in case; I don't know why I've never thought of that before) and then drove home hurriedly. My husband was due home from work at about 5:15 and we were going out to dinner. Observing myself in the bathroom mirror, it was perfectly apparent that I needed to do a major overhaul before I was going to consider myself presentable at Applebee's or Ruby Tuesday's or Bob Evans or wherever we were going to end up. I needed to change my clothes, trowel on some makeup over the old makeup I'd put on at eight o'clock that morning, do something to control the mad frizz that had become my hair....and

fix that nail.

The nail, I determined, was the easiest part. Just open the packet, choose the nail that fits, apply a dab of glue to your actual fingernail, press on the fake one and hold for ten seconds, et voila! A perfect fingernail, all shiny and pretty.

At least that's what you'd think. But remember, you're not reading Gwyneth Paltrow's blog about how your life can be just as perfect as hers if you had her fame and her money, you poor thing. Nor are you reading something by Michelle Phan, who is to the YouTube world of cosmetics what Martha Stewart is to doing crafts and putting sheets on your bed with properly mitered corners.

No, you're reading my blog, and you know something bad is getting ready to happen, right?

Well, you know me: always thinking of others, that's me. I wouldn't want to disappoint you, so I'll tell you -- and oh, is it ever true -- that I squeezed the glue bottle a little too hard because I was in a hurry, right? And the squeezing led that glue, which is a very liquidy liquid, to gush out all over my fingers. A LOT of my fingers.

In spite of (or perhaps because of?) its lack of viscosity, that glue dries fast. So in spite of the fact that my fingers were liberally bathed in wash of extremely liquid and fast-drying glue, I managed to grab that fingernail, press it on and hold it down.

If I'd just been able to continue holding that nail down for, say, another week or so, I think everything would have been okay. But there came a time, about thirty seconds later, when I needed to use my hands for the aforementioned clothes-changing, makeup-reapplying and hair-fixing. That was when I discovered that I'd glued about four of my fingers together.

I gasped and did the natural, yet so very stupid thing, which was try to pull my fingers apart. It hurt quite a bit, so I did the next thing I could think of: I went out the the upstairs hallway and yelled down the stairs, "GIRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLS!!! I NEED YOUR HELP!!!"

They were occupied with their own interests, the first and second of which were making their own dinner in the kitchen and listening to really loud music. I waited impatiently for the song they were listening to to end and then bawled out again, "GIRRRRRRRRRLSSSSSS! C'MERE!!! HURRY!"

"WHY?!?" they both yelled.

"BECAUSE I'M THE MOM AND I SAID TO COME HERE!" I hollered, agitated. If my fingers were all permanently glued together, how was I going to live life as I once knew it? My immediate worry, that of changing clothes, repairing my makeup and fixing my hair, wasn't a problem anymore because I knew quite well that there was no way I could go to a restaurant: I couldn't hold a fork.

Grumbling, the girls came up the stairs and met me in the hallway.

"Why are you wringing your hands?" Meelyn asked after looking me over.

"You'd better hurry up and get ready," Aisling advised helpfully. "I think I just heard Daddy's car pull in the driveway."

"Listen," I said. "I do not have time to explain. Just listen, because I need your help."

"If this is about rubbing that cream on your heels again, I am so out of here," Meelyn said, turning to go back downstairs.

"It's not my heels! It's my hands!" I said tightly.

"Can I see your phone?" asked Aisling. "I want to look up movie times."

"FORGET THE PHONE! FORGET MY HEELS!" I shouted. "MY FINGERS ARE GLUED TOGETHER!"

Meelyn said blankly, "How on earth did you manage to do that?"

Aisling said angrily, "You said I could go to the movies!"

I shot her the Ice Cold Glare of Maternal Displeasure and then turned to Meelyn and summarized the situation: "I was fixing a broken fingernail. I squeezed the glue bottle a little too hard. Glue came out everywhere. My fingers are stuck together."

Meelyn, as the take-charge and competent first-born, said, "Oh, that's bad. What do we need to do to unstick you?"

Aisling, the baby, for whom life is just one big party waiting to happen, doubled over laughing until a sudden thought struck her: "Hey, since you can't, like, use your hands anymore, can I have your phone?"

The next ten minutes weren't a lot of fun. They involved me putting my gluey hands into the sink and the girls pouring acetone-based fingernail polish remover, which dissolves this type of glue, over my hands again and again until I could finally work my fingers loose, unfortunately leaving a bit of skin behind in the process. It hurt. It still hurts, both on my hands and in my soul. Because you know what? I blame the recession.

If it weren't for the recession, I'd be at a nail salon, where any reasonable person would be, getting my nails done by an actual professional. If I broke a nail, I'd be able to swing by the salon, hold out the affected finger, and sit in a comfy chair sipping a Diet Coke while the technician tut-tutted over the damage, fixing it in a jiffy and maybe even giving me a coat of polish to match my outfit. I wouldn't have to be juggling packets of fake fingernails and tiny little obstreperous glue bottles in my bathroom, trying to give myself that ladylike and well-groomed appearance I enjoy.

RECESSSSSSSSSION!!! I HAAAAAATE YOUUUUUUU!!!!

Later on at the restaurant, I was holding a menu and my husband, who is such a gentleman for noticing little niceties like this, said gruffly, "Your fingernails look so pretty, honey."

I glanced down at my nails, which looked pristine, and thoughtfully considered the other side of my fingers, which were gouged and scraped and a little bloody. "Thanks, sweetie."

RECESSSSSSIOOOOONNNNNN!!!!!

Because I have That Kind of Face

Do you have that kind of face, a face like mine? A face that beckons every weirdo in a thirty mile radius and says, without your lips even moving, "Tell me something about your scary life. GIVE ME DETAILS." A face that convinces people that you should be the recipient of their most personal information which they will tell you and tell you and tell you, even though you're actively backing away while looking at your watch and saying, "OH LOOK AT THE TIME! I'M LATE FOR MY LOBOTOMY APPOINTMENT."

Listen, I am a nice person. Fairly nice. Say, not nearly as nice as my grandmothers (they both had That Face too) or as nice as my mother, but one heck of a lot nicer than Kim Jong Il. I'm not insensible to the needs of others to unburden themselves of painful experiences, or find a shoulder to cry on. I understand that, I really do. And I'm not actively opposed to being the person who holds the burden or offers the shoulder. At least until last Monday, I wasn't.

People have told me stuff ever since I was sentient enough to sit up straight and say, "What happened next?" (Note: It is ALWAYS a mistake to ask this question. A better question to ask might be, "Do you hear that tornado siren?") One time I remember in particular was when I was a Ball State student and a fellow co-ed from a class on modern poetry followed me to the student center, talking. And talking. I bought a Tab, she bought a Tab. I went to sit in a booth, she accompanied me. And while we were sitting in the booth drinking our Tabs, she confided in me, "When I was in high school, my acne got so bad, I tried to dry out my skin by soaking cotton balls in lighter fluid and using it on my face."

Yeah.

I told the world's record for the fastest speed at which one can exit a booth while babbling, ""I'msosorrybutIhavetogo.IjustrememberedIhavetocatchaplanetoMadrid.BecauseIjustdecidedto

bea foreignexchangestudent."

Episodes like this have continued to happen over the years since I received my diploma, which was for English literature, but maybe should have been for psychology. But one of the worst in recent memory happened last Monday.

I was at the YMCA, in the swimming pool, getting ready to start the hour-long water aerobics class I attend. It's a pretty big class, about twenty-five people, so we're all crowded into the water like a school of little fishies. It makes it easy - FAR too easy - to strike up a conversation with people nearby. Now, listen, when I go to the gym, I don't mind trading pleasantries with people, but I go there to work, and my feeling is that if I'm in the pool conversing with my fellow splashers, I'm not really giving my all to the cardio, know what I mean? So I try not to get involved with the talkers.

Try as one might not to get involved, sometimes the talkers will just HAVE YOU. As I was warming up for the workout, one of them made her way over to me and said, innocuously, "So how are you this morning?"

I smiled at her, swishing my arms back and forth through the water, warming up those muscles. "I'm great! How are you?"

MISTAKE! MISTAKE! BAD MISTAKE!

If you get the vibe that someone might tell you a bunch of personal stuff about themselves you definitely do not want to hear, it is a very, very bad idea to ask them, even out of social politeness (the kind where you don't really care how they are, but ask anyway because that's just what we DO) how they're doing. You know why?

THEY'LL TELL YOU.

The water aerobics instructor, Becca, waded through all the people in the pool and started the class, saying, "Let's start with a jog. Move those arms and get your knees up high!"

"Well," my pool friend said confidingly over the splashy noises going on around us and the sound of Bachman-Turner Overdrive singing "Takin' Care of Business" in the background, "You might have wondered why I don't have any teeth."

Honestly, what do you say when someone says something like this to you? I mean, you have to be nice to people. Yes, you do. Don't argue with me. The world is bad enough as it is without people like you and me responding with something like, "No, I can truly say to you that I have never even once wondered why you have no teeth and I don't want to think about it right now, so move on, sister."

Becca yelled out, "Jumping jacks! Arms UP! MOVE that water, ladies!"

I said, "Uhhhhh.....welll....err......"

"I don't have any teeth because I used to do crack," my pool friend said at high volume.

"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, hoping that was the right thing to say. It hardly seemed appropriate to say something reassuring like, "That's okay. I know a lot of people wholost their teeth because they did crack" because I don't. Thank goodness.

"Yeah, me too," she bellowed. Becca looked inquiringly over her shoulder and then said to the class, "Back to a JOG, high knees! PUMP those arms!"

"Yeah, the guy I live with did too, but we quit."

"Oh, good!" I offered plaintively, wishing that Becca would tell us to do the remaining forty-five minutes of the class under water.

"It was bad," my friend hollered, shaking her head dismally. "I have four kids, and they had to go live with my mother."

"I'm so sorry!" I yelled back, splashing. I tried to put a little distance between us by craftily moving back in the water, but she caught on to me right away and followed.

"Boy, you really move around in the water!" she observed. "Well, anyway, where was I?"

"I have no idea," I said firmly, but she'd already recalled that she'd left off at the part where her kids were with her mom because she and her live-in boyfriend were both doing crack.

"So anyway, they're pretty much grown up now and I wanted to get some teeth, but now I have TMJ and osteo-arthritis in my jaw, so it isn't going to work out," she said, confusing me with her slightly garbled story.

"Oh, I'm sorry...."

"So my son? The one that's twenty-one? He came over to our place the other night and he stole about eighty vicodin pills out of our bathroom medicine cabinet."

At that point, I nearly just stopped in defeat and drowned myself. I mean, what the heck? Who was this woman? The other ladies in the class are retired teachers. Retired nurses. Current nurses who work non-day shifts. Ladies who serve Meals-on-Wheels and volunteer at St. Vincent de Paul. Ladies who finish the water aerobics class and shower and go to bridge club together. I'm familiar with and comfortable with all those people, and most definitely out of my sheltered league when dealing with former crack addicts and the toothless mothers of pill-stealers. Not that I don't totally applaud her for being able to beat the crack thing, and not that I'm not sorry that her life took such a bad turn that she couldn't even raise her own children - that's a tragedy no matter what. But....but...why can't I just do my exercise? WHY?

"Cross-country SKIS, ladies! Get those arms and legs MOVING!" shouted Becca. The other members of the class obediently began thrashing around in the manner of skiers on an open field of snow. I felt like I'd just been hit in the side of the head with one of their poles.

"He's probably gonna sell them," she predicted gloomily. "And my arthritis is going to be kicking my butt tonight."

"I'm...so sorry," I offered inadequately. "Listen, I need to get out of the pool. I have to pee." It was a frantic bid for escape and a total lie. But at this point, WHATEVER it took to get away, anywhere.

"Oh, me too!" she exclaimed brightly. "I'll go with you!"

Unable to maintain my Zen-like serenity

So I was in a yoga class this morning and feeling pleased with myself because it was the first time I'd been able to maintain my balance nearly perfectly in a very respectably executed vriksha-asana, or tree posture.

The person closest to me, a woman who just recently began coming to the class, whispered "Hey!" in a quiet voice. Being me and so full of myself that I'm in danger of choking on my own eyebrows, I turned my head, ready to graciously accept her expressed hope that she, with many weeks of arduous practice, would be able to do a graceful and balanced tree like mine.

Instead, she pointed at my left ankle. "Hon, you've got a panty liner coming out of your pant leg."

I physically felt my face change. My mother and I both have a problem with this. While trying to express an outward attitude of calm and generous tolerance, it's often perfectly obvious that what we're really thinking inwardly is, "Oh, shut up, dirtbag." I tried to rearrange my features into a gentle smile while bending over to remove the DRYER SHEET from my pant leg. I crumpled it up and dropped it into my gym bag and briefly considered interrupting the class so that I could whack that woman in the side of the head with my water bottle. Just as a helpful measure to correct her faulty vision, you understand.

Panty liner, indeed. I am never standing by that hag again.

Songs that make me cry (hopefully you have some too?)

Aisling just played this song, Taylor Swift's "The Best Day," for me on the piano and I am seriously thinking about lying down on the floor and crying until my eyes fall out. I cannot listen to songs like Stevie Nicks' "Landslide" or Joni Mitchell's "The Circle Game" or any songs about people getting older and children growing up; it's just ridiculous. I even cry over that absolutely STUPID "Butterfly Kisses" song, which just enrages me but I can't help it. That person who sings it, whose name I can't even remember, gets to the part about his daughter in her wedding dress and I am just a face full of bubbles and snot.

Once I was crying quietly to myself in a store while looking at handbags and some lady asked me in a concerned voice if I was okay. I said yes, I was fine and tried to get rid of her but she said persistently "Are you sure?" and then offered me a tissue and I was tempted to tell her that I just found out that I'd lost my job so that I wouldn't have to tell her that I was crying because Alanis Morisette's "Head Over Feet" was playing and it always reminds me of when my husband and I were first married. In the end, I couldn't lie and couldn't tell the truth, so I left her mystified, that nosey thing, thinking that I was weeping sadly over the fact that the Nine West bag I coveted was $110.

 I used to cry a lot over "Cat's in the Cradle" but it has that really distinctive opening bar and I generally can make it to the radio in time to quickquickquick switch the station, unless I'm in a store and then I just leave, abandoning entire carts full of groceries or once, an Ann Taylor Loft 100% wool gorgeous winter coat priced at a steep post-season markdown and WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?!? Please tell me I'm not the only one who spontaneously starts leaking tears whenever certain songs start playing.

Signs that the apocolypse is upon us

"Every time it's so right, it feels sooo good," croons the blue bear to the tune of a sensuous soundtrack while the Missus sits on the love seat next to a romantic fire burning on the hearth, twiddling her hair bow and sending sexy, come-hither eyes his way.

Then a voice over comes on and tells us, "When you have a softer bath tissue, you can enjoy going more while still using less."

Which is when you realize that the bear is on the toilet taking a grizzly-sized crap while the little lady waits for him to finish up so that they can get back to making sweet bear love, hopefully not on that grandma-shaped rug in front of the fire. Because there is nothing that puts a girl in the mood like her lover saying, "Listen, baby, Big Daddy's gonna go lay down some stink in the bathroom, but then he's comin' back to rock your world."



These Charmin commercials have always been weird, but this one goes over into the EWWWWW territory with the music, the man-bear on the toilet getting WAY too much pleasure out of wiping his furry bottom (he actually pulls the paper off the roll and holds it to his cheek before, er...wiping) and the lady-bear sitting there all rowr!, not to mention the fact that Charmin has set up a website called EnjoytheGo.com, where we're informed that some lady named Iris H. from Alabama has been awarded the title "Queen of the Charmin Go Nation" which is the same as saying "Queen of the Crap," right? Gee, thanks.

It's all just so many kinds of wrong, it's hard to wrap your head around it.

Long tall Sally

I went to Aldi by myself today to do the grocery shopping, and by the time my cart was full, the check-out line was prodigiously long. I sighed as I got in the queue, trying to avoid slumping over and leaning my elbows on the handle of the cart, mindful of my mother's many lessons about good posture and the need to look and act like a lady even when you feel like a troll. There were two senior citizens in line in front of me, one a handsome and dapper gentleman with a ham in a shopping basket and the other a woman with pretty white hair. She was very tall - I silently measured myself against her as we were standing there and determined that I, at 5'3 inches tall, came approximately up to her shoulders.

The genial man turned around and saw her, his eyes widening and his mouth broadening in a big grin. "Well, my goodness!" he said in a jolly voice. "Did you play basketball in high school?"

The lady, who was half-turned toward me, smiled tolerantly and said, "Well, there wasn't a girls' basketball team back in my day, but I would have liked to."

He chuckled happily at that and then his eye fell on me, standing there looking pumpkin-shaped, as usual. "And you, young lady!" [I thanked him for that.] "What did you do in high school?"

"I was on the speech team," I answered wryly, and for some reason, that struck them both as terribly, terribly amusing and they both hooted and cackled and nudged each other saying things like "Speech team!!! Aahhhahahahaa!!" and "Did you ever?" and wiping tears of mirth from their eyes until I felt like rapping their ancient and withered heads together and saying a few things that I'm sure that Mr. Jim Robbins, my speech coach at New Castle Chrysler High School, would not have approved of for public discourse.

Confirmation consternation

Aisling's Confirmation Mass at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parish went very well on Friday evening. It was all very beautiful and my husband and I -- Meelyn too -- were moved to tears as we watched our youngest go forward to receive God's promise for her life, but also to make her promise to Him. The joyful solemnity of the occasion cannot be overstated.

After Mass, Aisling was glowing with happiness, giddy and excited, so we all went out for a late dinner to calm her down.

The picture to the left is of Bishop William Higi of our diocese, which is named Lafayette-in-Indiana, giving his usual excellent homily. It was nearly the same one as last year's at Meelyn's confirmation, but that's okay because it's a message we all need to hear over and over again: We can profess Jesus as Lord and Savior, but if we don't live that way, if the message of salvation is only in our minds and not in our hearts, then we aren't really saved. And other than that, all I can add is that Kayte's son Matt is the altar server on the very end there, looking so much taller and broader than the last time I saw him, which was in the fall.

Before the Mass started, however, a couple of very strange things happened to us. They were those kinds of things that Carol, Susie and I have discussed before, i.e. the tendency in our family to attract oddballs of different sorts. Sometimes people come up to us and speak random remarks that are inapropos to anything that's happening. Or they do weird things that end up getting them in trouble - boy, does Carol have a story about that. It seems to be some kind of family heritage: my own father has what my mother has referred to as "a ministry to the naked," due to his stumbling upon the undressed in several awkward situtions and being forced to render aid to them while modestly averting his eyes.

Thankfully, I didn't have to experience any nakedness on Friday night, but I did encounter one of those folks who has an urgent need to tell you Too Much Information, whether you want to hear it or not.

I was in the nave of the church, having walked into the narthex with Aisling to find her group from our parish. I left her there with some friends and went back into the church, where I was arranging some hymnals on a bench to reserve seats for my husband, Meelyn and myself. While I was placing hymnals at a comfortable distance, I heard someone behind me say, "Excuse me? Ma'am?"

I turned around to find a lady about my own age standing on the other side of the aisle. "Yes?" I said pleasantly, smiling at her.

"Do you know where the confirmands and their sponsors are supposed to meet?" she asked.

"No, I'm afraid I don't," I replied. "I just took my daughter out to the narthex to meet with her group, but other than that, I don't know anything."

"Oh," she said, crestfallen. "See, I'm a sponsor this year and I wanted to make sure I got everything right this year? Because last year, I was so confused and I stood up at the wrong time and sat down at the wrong time and my friend, the one I was sponsoring, she was, like, 'What is wrong with you tonight?'"

"There is a lot to it," I said sympathetically. "These big, complicated Masses...."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Last year, I started my period on Confirmation day and I was bleeding like a stuck pig and I had the most horrible cramps...."

"Oh," I said faintly, trying not to shoot my eyes back and forth to find the nearest exit.

"So I told my friend, 'I am nearly DEAD from these cramps and I'm worried I'm going to leak blood through onto my dress so I just don't have much brain left over to think about when I'm supposed to stand and sit,'" she continued in an we're-all-girls-here-together manner that I found very disconcerting. I mean, I'm sorry about her cramps and all, but I just wanted to put the hymnals on the bench and go on back out to the van where Meelyn was waiting without having to explore the intricacies of someone else's menstrual cycles, y'know?

It didn't seem too much to ask.

But it seemed that she had the desire to continue talking to me, perhaps attempting to engage me in a discussion over which feminine hygience products I find the most efficacious, but I was not going down that road. With a hurried, "Excuse me," I went out the side door of the church as if I had wings on my heels, leaving her there to see if she could discern the onset the onset of this month's Untimely Visitor without me there to help her.

Once I got back to the van, Meelyn and I went to run a couple of errands, and by the time we got back to the church for Weirdness Phase 2, all the confirmands and their sponsors were seated in the nave and being given their marching orders by a man with a clipboard and a headset, which reminded me of Jennifer Lopez in The Wedding Planner, so I immediately dubbed him The Confirmation Planner.

As Meelyn and I sat down, a blonde woman in front of us, a sponsor, turned around and said, "Are you bystanders?"

Bystanders? I thought. What a strange word to use. As if we have the habit of stopping by random churches to observe how their practices for Confirmation Mass are organized? "I'm a mother," I answered her. A bystanding mother? A mother who stands by? Who knows?

"Oh. Well, then, you're not supposed to be in here. They just made the announcement that all people who aren't part of the Confirmation Mass need to leave. You're all banned from the church until 6:30, and then you can be seated. So I'm afraid you'll have to go out to the narthex now," she said loftily. She tossed her sleek, pageboy haircut just a little and pursed her lips in a smile that reminded me uncannily of a tiger baring its teeth -- unfriendly and a little bit predatory.

I gave her a level look and said "Oh," in a cool voice, and glanced around at about twenty other people sitting in the pews around us who obviously were not part of the Mass. One was an elderly gentleman with bowed head and closed eyes, leaning forward on his cane; another was a girl of about ten who was reading The Thief Lord and chewing gum. I decided that Meelyn and I would stay put. So it would be better -- friendlier and more helpful -- for the lot of us to go and stand up in the narthex for nearly an hour with nowhere to sit and perhaps say our prayers? I don't think so, sister.

Talk about bossy! I wanted to give her a boop on the nose and say, "Who died and left you in charge?" but I didn't, of course. I was sure thinking it, though, and decided that if anyone came up and told me to move, I'd tell them that I was slightly handicapped and couldn't stand out there on the tile floor of the narthex for an hour, and then if they gave me any more grief about sitting in the house of God, I'd pull up my left pant leg and show them my gnarly six inch scar.

At least she didn't tell me to move because she'd just started her period.

Because sometimes I want my mouth to stop talking

Okay, sometimes I say random things that probably make people doubt my sanity. I think it's because I have a combination of my dad's sense of humor (dry) and my mother's sense of humor (dippy) and you'd be surprised at how those two things -- the dry and the dippy -- do not fit together, no they don't fit in any way.

FOR INSTANCE.

I was coming out of the church today and because my knee was hurting, I was leaning on my cane. Everyone was in line to shake Father's hand and too late, I realized that I was at the part of the line where I was up for the shakin' within the next two people, yet I still had a grip on my cane, which had rendered my hand unpleasantly moist.

I vigorously yet surreptitiously wiped my damp palm on my pants. Okay. It probably wasn't that surreptitious, but my family has gone to great lengths in my life -- you might say it has been their PROJECT -- to inform me that everyone in the world? They are not paying attention to whatever dumb thing I happen to be doing at any given moment. So I was drying off my hand, right? And then it was my turn to be greeted by Father.

I held out my hand and he gripped it and said, "God bless you! How are you?"

And instead of saying, as my mother taught me, "Fine, thank you, Father. How are you?" I said, like the BIGGEST FREAKING DORK IN THE WORLD, "Well, right now my hand is a little sweaty because I was holding onto my cane, but other than that, I'm great."

I was under the impression that I'd delivered this mot which turned out to be not so bon in an insouciant manner reminiscent of the adorably sassy Barbra Streisand in What's Up, Doc? but instead it must have come out in the weird and banjo-chorded manner of someone who'd married her cousin because Father, who could never be accused of having a poker face, visibly recoiled like I'd just bitten him and some man behind me in line gave a short bark of laughter.

You know that feeling when you wish a deep hole with a welcome mat in front of it would just open up and invite you in? Yeah, that feeling. It's a bad one, isn't it? I shuffled off, silently wondering why I can't JUST. SHUT. UP. Do I have some form of Tourette's? Is there some sort of treatment available?

But then I thought indignantly, "Well, sheeesh!! I'm sure I'm not the only parishioner filing out of the church with a damp palm! And at least I told him why my palm was sweaty! It was because I was holding my cane. What if I'd just sneezed, huh? My hand could have been moist and crawling with germs. I was trying to SET HIS MIND AT REST, but he reacted like I said I had some POOP on my hand instead of a little honest perspiration!"

I was strongly tempted to turn back around and whack Father about the shins with my cane, and that guy who laughed at me too. But instead I held my head high and walked on out, dragging my dignity behind me like a piece of toilet paper stuck to my shoe.

And everyone else who greeted me or whom I greeted?

I made strictly conventional replies.

My mother will be so proud.

You know what's just never good?

Something that's never good is when you go to the grocery and the cashier scans all your food items and you reach out to give her your money with a used dryer sheet hanging out of your sleeve. This isn't quite as bad as exiting a restroom with a festoon of toilet paper trailing from your shoe, but almost.

At least it is a mute testament that your clothes are clean.

The only laundry cling-on story I've ever heard that is truly awful, yet very funny is one my friend -- let's call her Frieda Jane -- told about her husband.

Frieda Jane and her husband have one daughter, and when that daughter was about four years old, they were all headed into the church one bright summer Sunday. The husband was walking slightly ahead of his two womenfolk so that he could open the door, and as he was walking, Frieda Jane noticed something very strange peeping from the left leg of his trousers. Whatever it was was being jostled down as he walked and was soon going to fall out altogether. What puzzled her was that it seemed to be....pink?

The item fell out a couple of steps later and was immediately recognizable as a pair of their daughter's Disney Princess underpants. Frieda Jane and her daughter saw the unmentionable garment at the same time and Frieda hurriedly stooped to pick it up, but her daughter felt the need for editoral commentary.

"Daddy," Frieda Jane Junior squealed in that piercing tone of voice children use when they're getting ready to say something that will wake you up in the middle of the night, flinching, for years to come: "Daddy? WHY ARE YOU WEARING GIRLS' PANTIES?"

Frieda Jane jacknifed over in laughter and her husband turned around, mortified, because it was that church time when everybody arrives at once and there were roughly three thousand other people all hurrying for the doors, but not hurrying so much that they couldn't register F.J. Junior's eyebrow-raising remark.

Frieda herself was still laughing about it as she told a group of us at our monthly Moms' Night Out dinner. "At least, " she quavered, wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, "at least it didn't happen as we were going forward for communion."

Tiny terror visits the library

I was browsing the public library's website this morning and noted that the Children's Department was offering Tiny Tot Storytime every Tuesday morning, and that brought back some fond memories for me, not so fond for Aisling.

Aisling, unlike Meelyn, who went to a public elementary school through her second grade year, has never been traditionally schooled. Has that made her kind of mavericky, I wonder? Or was she just naturally resistant to anyone who tries to parcel her into neat package labeled "Little Girl, one (1) - aged five years"?

Anyway, I signed her up for a story time for kindergarteners at our public library, thinking she would deeply enjoy it. She and Meelyn were the type of children, after all, who would lug a laundry basket of library books out to me in the living room, where I was peacefully sitting and enjoying my own library book and a Diet Coke, affixing me with Oliver Twist eyes and being all, "Please, mum, can we have some more? Books? Read to us?" And then I'd scootch to the center cushion of the couch and they'd climb up and plop down on either side of me and HEAVEN HELP ME if I tried to sneakily skip over a page here or there, especially in the nine-million-page books of that sadistic Dr. Seuss: a small finger would come down firmly to keep me from turning over to the next maddening bit of rhyming nonsense and two little voices would lisp, "You mittht thumthing, Mommy."

To get a bit of a break in which to rest my rasping throat, I started signing them up for library story times practically at birth.

So what was there to not like about Kindergarten Story Time?

On Tuesday mornings, then, we'd traipse off to the library. Meelyn would bring her math book or her reading book and we'd sit at a little table within sight of the Story Room, where Mrs. Dudley, who was a friend of my mother's and very fond of my girls, presided over the big rocking chair. Mrs. Dudley was the head librarian of the Children's Department and she did an excellent job with this program, always having several books that shared a theme (often seasonal), plus a nice little craft for the kids to do. It was a lovely way to while away an hour on a Tuesday morning, and I often wished the head librarian of the non-fiction department would devise a similar entertainment for Moms in their Early Thirties.

At nine o'clock sharp, Mrs. Dudley would press Play on a little CD player and the welcoming song would come on, summoning all kindergarteners to the Story Room for an hour of bliss: "Good morning! Good morning! Good morning to you!"

As soon as the song started playing, Aisling would shoot me a look that wavered between anguished and infuriated. "I don't want to go" would be her invariable comment, even as she slid off her chair.

"Why not, honey? Look at all your friends! There's Mackenzie! And Micayla and MacKenna! They all look like they're ready to have a great time!"

Aisling cast her three little story time companions a look of slitty-eyed contempt. "They are not my friends. I don't even know them," she informed me haughtily.

"Mrs. Dudley is waiting for you!" I said desperately, waving maniacally over at her, pretending that I was tying Aisling's shoe.

"I don't like this one bit."

"I'LL GIVE YOU TWO PIECES OF CANDY IF YOU'LL GO LISTEN TO THE STORIES."

"Do I have to do the craft?"

"THREE PIECES, AISLING!"

"All right. I'll go. But I'm not going to like it. With those girls and all. And the books. And the craft." She picked up her little backpack, her constant companion, which was stuffed with a plush bear, a naked Barbie doll, a handful of Hello, Kitty barrettes and, of course, her favorite books, and trudged off to the Story Room, head down, scowling.

I slumped back onto my chair, exhausted. "Tell them your name is McKinney. You'll fit right in," I called after her.

Meelyn looked up from the subtraction problems she was working on, her smooth blonde head combed sweetly into curly ponytails decorated with pale blue feathery puffs. "She finally went. Do you think she'll stay?"

I glanced surreptitiously over at Aisling and accidentally met her furious stare. "I HATE THIS," she mouthed at me, pointing to Mrs. Dudley and the book she was reading and then at all her rapt companions.

That was always a special feature of Story Time for our family. Sometimes, Aisling would decide she'd just had enough and she'd get up and stalk off, even as I made shooing motions with my hands, indicating that she was to return to the group and SIDDOWN.

I sighed. "Oh, geeez, I don't know. Let's hope for the best. Maybe we should move to that table over there where she can't see us."

"But if she can't see us, we can't see her," Meelyn observed shrewdly. "And remember that one time? When she said that boy's head was in her way and she couldn't see the pictures in the book?"

I laid my own head on the table, overcome with dismay. "We'd better stay right here. Just let's not look over there anymore."

"Too late. Here she comes," said Meelyn, pointing with her sparkly pink pencil. "And, boy...she looks mad."

Sure enough, there was Aisling, striding back over to us with her chin thrust out. "I hate it over there," she said wrathfully, slinging her backpack onto the table. It careened into Meelyn's math book and sent it arc-ing to the floor.

"Oh, Aisling," I groaned. "Why? What could you POSSIBLY HATE about having a story read to you by Nanny's dear friend Mrs. Dudley who likes you so much? What could be so awful about sitting there with all those other little boys and girls your own age?"

"I don't like being TREATED LIKE A CHILD," she stormed.

Oh. Well, of course.

EXCUSE me?

On Friday, Meelyn, Aisling, Kieren and I drove over to New Castle so that Aisling and Kieren could mow the lawn (Poppy is still in his boot, nursing that broken foot) and so that Meelyn could wash windows. Nanny and Poppy are supporting the Teen Work Ethic Formation program this summer, accompanied by a little folding cash money. This transports me back to the days when Ma and Grandad paid me for pulling weeds and dusting books and cleaning golf balls. Regardless of the cash laid out, it is still important to help family members in need.

We'd had a busy morning, what with the never-ending housework, Kieren at driver's ed class and the girls still finishing up bits and pieces of schoolwork, so by the time lunch rolled around, we were ready to hit the road; I told the kids we could stop by a fast food drive-thru on the way to New Castle, if they wouldn't mind eating in the car. They didn't, and I told them they could each have four dollars to buy what they wanted.

The three of them made their choices as we sat by the menu sign, and I placed the order in the outside speaker. The young man who took my order repeated it back to me (he was correct) and gave me my total, then told me to pull forward, which I did.

Upon arriving at the window, the order-taker looked out at me and said, "Let me just repeat this back to you one more time, sir, to make sure we have it right."

My spine immediately stiffened. Sir?! I know the Bible says quite clearly that it shows a person's good sense when he is slow to anger and it is his glory to overlook an offense and I cite Proverbs 19:11, NAB as a reference. But the Bible doesn't have much to say about PMS and I sat there for that split second between being called "sir" and the kid's realization that I am, in fact, a woman, wondering what kind of exoneration my criminal defense attorney could muster if I briefly and fiercely assaulted the drive-thru guy, and moreover, if I could convince Jesus that my ill-tempered lack of respect for the scripture was motivated by biology and not my fault at all.

"I mean, ma'am," the young guy amended, somewhat abashed. But it was. Too. Late.

See, the bad thing about PMS is that there are times when you realize you're overreacting, right? There's this place in the back of your mind where reason and good sense reside, tied up in a closet, and you can hear them squeaking, "Let it go! Just chill out! Eat some chocolate! Laugh it off!" but the front of your mind is positively shouting things like, "Oh. My. HELP. Do I look like a man? A poorly turned out transvestite? A mannish lesbian? I knew this outfit was wrong! And I am sooo beyond overdue for coloring my hair! And the darned air-conditioning doesn't work in the van and my hair is frizzy like a dandelion clock! Do I sound like a man? Do I need hormone replacement therapy? Jesus, I know you're not going to like this, but I'm going to have to KILLLLLL HIMMMMMMM!!!"

The drive-thru kid correctly repeated the order again, so I said in retort, with a wry little smile that showed what a good sport I am when someone is confused by my gender, "You've got it, ma'am!"

Drive-thru guy whipped his head around to look at me, startled. "I couldn't resist," I said, and gave him a real smile to show that we were just friends joking with each other.

He gave a hollow kind of chuckle -- See? It isn't fun when people call you what you're not, is it? -- and said, "Right....Would you mind pulling forward? We'll have your order ready in just a minute."

As we waited, Kieren opined that the drive-thru guy probably had the teenagers working the grill spit on the cheeseburgers, which was all well and good for me, since I just got a Diet Coke, but somewhat harsh for him and the girls, since they were the ones eating.

"Sorry," I said grumpily.

"I guess they could have spit in your Diet Coke too, though," he said reflectively.

I chose to ignore him. "Listen, do I look like a man?" I looked at Kieren, then entreated the girls by peering imploringly at them in the rear-view mirror. "Sound like a man? I hate this outfit. I knew I shouldn't have worn it -- these are just work-around-the-house clothes. And my hair. My roots are SO BAD."

"I think you hurt that guy's feelings," said Aisling reprovingly.

"He hurt MY FEELINGS," I said in a high-pitched voice.

"Silly Mommy, you don't look like a man," said Meelyn consolingly.

"Or sound like a man," affirmed Kieren.

I flipped down the vanity mirror on the sun visor. "Are you suuuuuuuure?" I asked nervously, cringing at the sight of my mad hair. "Where's my lip gloss?"

I caught the three of them sharing a raised-eyebrow look at one another, but couldn't interpret if it meant I was being a crazy middle-aged trout with the PMS blues, or if I really do look like a man and they were just trying to spare me the truth. I got out my cell phone and called my husband at work for a fourth opinion.

"You do not look like a man. OR SOUND LIKE ONE," he added hastily, correctly anticipating my next question. "Let it go! Just chill out! Eat some chocolate! Laugh it off!" He paused for just a moment to rally all the forces of diplomacy he possesses and cleared his throat. "You, uh....do realize what time of the month it is, right?"

It's funny, after eighteen years of marriage, that my husband is sounding more and more like the voices of reason in the back of my mind. Or maybe the voices are sounding like my husband? Should I be worried about that? Is this indicative of some kind of mental issue, or is that just the way things are after many years of marriage? Maybe I need to find a therapist?.....

Oh, help. Here I go again.

You would cry too, if it happened to you

Did you all see the news story out of central Florida on April 1? About the woman in the Walgreen's parking lot who got back to her car after she picked up her prescriptions (maybe for OxyContin?) and found out after she was inside the vehicle that the battery was dead? And that she was trapped inside her own car because nothing electrical would work?

This was not an April Fool's Day prank.

She called 911 from her cell phone and plaintively told the dispatcher in a well-modulated and ladylike voice, "Nothing electrical works. And it's getting very hot in here. And I'm not feeling well."

On the tape of the call, you can hear the dispatcher, who was understandably baffled, asking the prisoner if she was able to manually pull up on the door lock.

"Okay, I've got that going on," said the woman, amidst noises of fumbling around inside the vehicle, "and oh...okay. Uhhhmmmm, sorry..."

Can you imagine the moment when the woman's door opened, can you imagine what was going through her mind? Because the car battery's still dead, right? And she needs to call AAA, or maybe even AA or maybe just her friend Amy, to get down to that parking lot with some jumper cables before the 911 dispatcher, all seized up with mirth, starts telling officers in their squad cars to drive by the Walgreen's on John Young Parkway and look for the lady standing next to the SUV with the hood up.

I imagine that many of us are laughing, even as we cringe inside, knowing that we ourselves have perhaps been just inches -- centimeters!!! -- away from making such a spectacle of ourselves at some point. Or maybe we actually have done something like this and time has drawn a merciful veil over the incident.

Or maybe you can imagine doing something even more spectacularly bird-brained in this particular woman's situation, which is exactly where my imagination led me. I can so see myself, locked in the car, thinking, "It's getting hot in here! I don't feel well at all! I must think of a way to get out of here! Oh, crap! My cell phone battery is dead, too! Why do all the batteries in my life die and desert me in my time of need? Is this some kind of metaphor? Wait! I know what I can do! I remember that segment on the news that said you can KICK OUT THE WINDSHIELD in case of an emergency and you're trapped! Yes! That's what I'll do!"

Walgreen's shoppers going in or out of the store would have been greatly surprised and undoubtedly amused to see me emerging triumphant onto the hood of my minivan, rising from the chunks of broken windshield the way Venus emerged on that shell through the sea foam, only not as pretty, being plump and flushed and slightly hysterical. And sweaty. "I'M OKAY! DON'T WORRY! I GOT OUT!"

I can see it. I can so see it. And you know what? So can my husband, my father, my brother, possibly my sister-in-law and many of my friends. The only ones who would remain loyal, because we're all in the same dopey club together, are Meelyn, Aisling and my mother.

Ohhhh, it just doesn't bear thinking about. Poor lady.

Fear and loathing at ALDI

On Mondays, I try to get out of the house by around 9:30 in the morning, leaving the girls settled with their work so that I can run around town doing whatever boring, fidgety errands have to be done, and going to the grocery.

I shop at ALDI here in our city because I think it is one of the best grocery stores, like, EVER. Do you know that they have albacore tuna for something like $1.19 a can? And bran flakes for $1.69 a box? Did you know that they sell whole wheat pasta in several different beguiling shapes, as well as a very nice selection of flash-frozen fish filets? I adore ALDI.

The one drawback of the store, however, is that you do have to bag your own groceries. If you're not familiar with ALDI, I'll tell you that you can either buy grocery bags (paper or plastic) there for small change, gather empty boxes from around the store and load your food items into those, or bring your own bags. I do the third option, bringing those fabric grocery bags you can buy just about anywhere nowadays.

Today, however, when I pushed my grocery cart over to the bagging counter, I was dismayed to find that I only had two other fabric bags stuffed inside my largest bag. I was supposed to have four other bags, but remembered too late that we'd taken two of them out to carry our library books in, and those two bags were, in fact, sitting at home on the table in the laundry room, with books.

I had too many groceries for my three bags and I really didn't want to traipse back through the store hunting for boxes, so imagine my joy and happiness at turning around and seeing a cardboard box of the perfect size for my canned goods sitting right there on the counter! Sometimes people get too many boxes for their needs and they leave their extras on the counter for others to use; I was really glad to see that box.

So there I stood, busily loading my cans into the box in the obsessive way I have, trying to balance it perfectly with two cream of mushroom soup cans at kitty-corner ends, combined with two cans of beans at the other kitty-corner ends and a large can of tomato juice in the center, when all of a sudden, someone right behind me screeched, "YOU'VE GOT MY BOX!"

I think I probably jumped about three feet, which is pretty darn good considering that my usual standing jump is about two inches. I'm very sad that there were no talent scouts and/or sports agents in there looking for baby wipes or fresh carrots, because if there were? There would be a new line of Nike or Adidas or Puma sports shoes coming out with a silhouetted image of me -- pumpkin-shaped -- leaping into the air emblazoned somewhere near the ankle.

As soon as I returned from orbit, I looked behind me and saw a little elderly lady, about three feet tall, standing there and looking as if she wanted to beat the living daylights out of me with her cane.

"I....I'm so sorry," I stammered, starting to unload my carefully-balanced cans. "I thought somebody put it over there as an extra."

"Somebody DID put it over there," she said, glaring. "It was me. I put that box there."

"Here," I said, handing it to her. "You can have it back. As I said, I just thought it was an extra."

"It wasn't an extra. It was my only box." She grabbed the box from me, spun on the heel of her tiny, faux-leather Harriet Carter shoe and marched over to a section of the counter far removed from me and my cans, shooting me menacing glances from time to time as if I was going to try to grab her box of oatmeal and make a break for the exit.

With difficulty, I restrained my urge to sass her. I just went to confession last Thursday and it was hard enough to explain the time before that when I sassed the lady at the library. Father kept gently saying things about pridefulness and lack of humility and the deplorable need to have the last word that frankly stung just a little, thank you. I'm just saying that the sacrament of reconciliation is a very good thing and if you're a Catholic, you're lucky to have access to it because of this word: accountability.

Anyway, I sadly took my groceries out and put them in the van, wheeling my cart back up to the corral at the side of the store. I usually leave my quarter in the cart for the next person who comes up, just as an act of goodwill, remembering the many times when I've suddenly realized that I need a quarter for a cart and all I have is my debit card and a lip gloss in my pocket. And do you know what?

Do you know what?

When I was back in the van ready to pull out, that grouchy old dame...I mean, elderly lady, came out of the store after me, pushing her own cart with the box of groceries laid proudly in the basket like a newborn baby, and she got her own quarter back from her cart AND THEN SHE TOOK THE QUARTER OUT OF THE CART I'D JUST LEFT.

Oh, do you think it wasn't hard not to jump out of the van and run over there and shout "THAT'S MY QUARTER!" while brandishing my own cane in the air?

Don't be silly. That wasn't hard at all. What kind of person do you think I am?

Shut up.

Fear and loathing at the public library

I went to the library last week to pick up another gargantuan stack of books to read and two very odd things happened while I was there.

1) Last summer, the library installed two confoundedly annoying U-Scan stations so that now, instead of being greeted at the check-out desk by a smiling library employee who passes the time of day with you while scanning and "de-sensitizing" your reading material, you now approach a computerized area that refuses to acknowledge your library card, stubbornly denies de-sensitization of your books so that the alarms will go off when you try to leave and generally makes your life just a little more difficult.

I almost always use the U-Scans when I go, even though I HATE THEM, because the people who borrow DVDs from the library have completely co-opted all human beings behind the desk for the purposes of checking out their eight million movies -- what do those people do with their time, other than watch movies? DVDs and videos can only be checked out for a week, and if you come up to the circulation desk with, say, fifteen movies, I have to wonder if you even have enough free time to sleep or eat a sandwich.

So, harboring bitterness in my heart, I took my ten books to the U-Scan and started TRYING to run them through. First, the computer wouldn't read my card. Then, it wouldn't acknowledge the UPC codes on my books. Then, it wouldn't de-sensitize the magnetic area on the spine. I wanted to hurl every book I had at that monitor screen, swearing vigorously under my breath because? It's rude to talk loudly at the library.

Finally, a woman behind the counter said to me, "Do you need some help?" She was wearing a severe dark business suit, different from the other employees, who generally favor a business-casual sort of look.

I smiled at her. "Oh, yes. I just can't get the hang of these things. They're kind of a pain." [NOTE: I have said the same thing to other library employees since the U-Scans were installed and have been met with fervent agreement.)

"Only for you," Ms. Business Suit said.

I eyed her for a momen and then did something I usually don't do: I sassed her. I drew myself up to my full height, tossed my head and said with a chilly inflection, "Perhaps I shouldn't have pursued that Bachelor's degree in English literature. Maybe I would have been better off majoring in library book scanning." *

She had the grace to look discomfited, as if suddenly realizing that insulting library patrons was not in the best interest of its employees. "That came out wrong," she amended. She was trying to scan my card and the bar codes of my books and was having about as much luck as I'd had, which just GOES TO PROVE, doesn't it?

Between the two of us big dummies, me with the university degree in English literature and her with the university degree in library science, finally got all my books properly checked out. I bagged them and sailed out the door with the bulky grace of the Queen Mary headed out to sea, my nose in the air.

Unfortunately, my nose was at such a tilt, when I pressed the unlock button on my key fob, I heard the van's doors unlock, but I didn't actually see them. But I was right there in the front row, so it really didn't matter, or so I thought. I slid open the rear driver's side door, put in my heavy bag of books, slammed the door shut and then got in the driver's seat.

I was still feeling a little testy, so I was only irked further when my key wouldn't work in the ignition. "Stupid....key....turn.....on....the....car!" I fumed. I took my keys out of the ignition, suddenly realizing that I was probably using the Blazer's key, but when I jerked them out of the ignition, I dropped them on the floor, right on top of my Bon Jovi CD. "But I don't have a Bon Jovi CD," I said to myself, puzzled, picking up my keys.

Then I looked around the van, which was exactly the same as it always was, except for the fact that it had grown a very nice, highly-polished wood grain dashboard while I was gone. "Gosh, I've been driving this van for eight years and I never noticed that wood grain dash before," I marveled. It looked so nice. As I was sitting there admiring it, I also noticed that instead of a blue bead rosary hanging from the rear-view mirror, the rosary was white and silver. Hmmm...

You're probably wondering why I didn't figure this out sooner, aren't you? Somewhere back around the time of the Bon Jovi CD that magically appeared on my floor?

"OH! MY! GOSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!" I shrieked, grabbing my purse and launching myself outside That Other Person's van before he or she came back out and saw me loitering in the front seat, eyeballing their woody dash. You know how it is when you do something stupid in public, though: You feel that every eye in the tri-county area is firmly fixed on you and your flaming face, or at least that's how I feel, although certain people in my family have taken pains to assure me that no one really cares what I'm doing at any given time, seeing as how the axis on the earth doesn't run through the middle of my head. I hastily retrieved my books from the back seat and carried them two vehicle over to Anne, who was sitting there with a broad smile on her grill.

"I meant to do that," I assured her, sinking into my accustomed seat and noting the non-wooden dash and the Story of Mendelssohn CD on the floor. After that, I just couldn't get out of there, like, fast enough. That was PLENTY of humiliation for one day.



*A week later, I took this incident to confession and never mind all that happened, just let it be known that I often fight the sin of pridefulness and I did my penance accordingly. Arrrgh....

Ohhhhhhh myyyyyyyyy gosh....

I am currently praying a novena (nine days of prayers) to Our Lady of Lourdes with a large group of friends. We are communicating via email as we all pray daily for a laundry list of general intentions, plus our own personal intentions, of course.

(Now listen here. I just have to say that, before any of you email me and tell me that Our Lady of Lourdes -- who is, of course, the Virgin Mary -- is dead and cannot hear our prayers, let me just point this scripture out to you and let's be done with it: "Jesus said to her, 'I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?'" (John 11:25,26)

Well? Do you? 'Cause that's kind of an important point for Christians and Who Jesus is to us and who we are in Him.)

So today, one friend on the list whose husband has been out of work for many months emailed all of us and related, "Our prayers are being heard!" She went on to say that a possible job offer was looking more solid all the time, and it meant that they'd be able to stay in Indianapolis and she asked us to remember her family specifically as we prayed today.

I was very excited. I like this friend, Debbie, so much. I would absolutely hate to lose her and her family to some other state, where they'd not be able to appreciate her wild sense of humor, her energy and faith and her beautiful gang of kids the way we do here, I just know it. SHE MUST STAY HERE!

So I replied to the entire group and feverishly typed that the girls and I would say an extra novena prayer specifically for her family and then, in a moment of exuberance, I typed:

Our Lady of Lourdes, you go, girl!!!

Thank heaven -- THANK HEAVEN -- I caught myself and changed it quickly to "Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us!" because I don't know. I mean, "You go, girl" doesn't seem quite seemish, does it? Maybe it sounds a little disrespectful or a bit frivolous to address the Mother of Our Savior in such a way?

I don't think that any of my friends are so humorless or dog-in-the-manger-ish that they would cut me off for a comment deemed to be impertinent. And honestly, I don't think that even Jesus and the Blessed Mother wouldn't misunderstand the exuberance I was feeling at Debbie's good news. But kind of like those awful t-shirts that read "Jesus is my Homeboy," it just doesn't seem....right.

One way I perceive Mary that seems completely right is this: Sometimes when I'm feeling sad or very tired or frustrated or scared, I picture her in my mind, coming toward me with a motherly smile, her arms held out to welcome me into her warm embrace. I go to her and wrap my arms around her waist and lay my head on her shoulder and she shushes me and pets my head and kind of rocks me back and forth. And then Jesus comes up and says to her, "Everything okay here?" and she says, "Everything's going to be just fine" and then He wraps His arms around us both -- group hug! -- and gives us a squeeze. "I love you both," He says tenderly and kind of smooths my hair and gives me a loving look and an encouraging smile and then goes off to tend to some other lamb who needs help.

That seems just exactly perfect to me.

Typing errors I have perpetrated upon the innocent

When I was in high school, my mother told me to take a typing class. I thought she was full of it, because my grandma had bought me a little typewriter when I was about ten and I'd invented my own two-forefingers-and-one-thumb method of typing that had stood me pretty well so far. Unfortunately, most of the typing I was doing at ten consisted of using sheet after sheet of paper to write "Mrs. Donny Osmond. Mr. & Mrs. Donny Osmond. Donny and Shelley Osmond" or, alternatively, "Mrs. Leif Garrett. Mr. & Mrs. Leif Garrett. Leif and Shelley Garrett."

She was right, of course, and when I got to college and had to type paper after paper after paper, as all English majors do, I thought my poor fingers would wither up and fall off. One night during finals, when I was typing up a huge term paper that I had to turn in at 8:00 the next morning, Pat (who was about fourteen at the time and could type none too well himself) took pity on me and sat down before the electric typewriter and hunted and pecked while I tried to coax some blood back into my tortured digits.

So I really don't type all that well. Oh, I can type fast. But my main problem is accuracy, particularly if the room is dark and I can't see my fingers.

I have two embarrassing stories about typing errors, one that happened just two weeks ago, which triggered the memory of the truly humiliating one that happened two years ago.

Two weeks ago, I was typing up an email to send out the the homeschool group about an upcoming performance of The Nutcracker that about fifteen of us had signed up to go see at Clowes Hall on the Butler University campus last Sunday afternoon at two o'clock. When I send out group notices, I always strive for a cheery, friendly manner because when you make some of the dumb typing errors I make, you'd best be known as a friendly sort of person so that some mom won't come up and strangle you with the strap on her handbag when you type that thus-and-so is to take place at four o'clock when it was really supposed to take place at three, if you see what I mean.

I finished up the email and CHECKED BACK THROUGH IT, which is what I've learned to do ever since Embarrassing Email Typo Error Number #1, which has scarred me for life. Yes, I had the date and time correct. Yes, I had the correct venue. Yes, I had even remembered to add a list of the families who signed up. But then I looked at the title I'd given to the performance and all the blood drained from my face.

Instead of typing The Nutcracker, I'd typed The Butcracker.

Did you know that the 'b' key and the 'n' key are very closely aligned on that bottom row, as in right next to each other? I do, intellectually at least. But my fingers have a hard time processing the message. And sure enough, when I'd been typing "Our long-awaited performance of The Nutcracker is coming up next Sunday, December 7" I'd instead typed something that looked like I was reminding everyone about the Holiday Festival O' Porn I'd signed us all up for.

If I'd sent it out, I wouldn't have worried that anyone would have been offended or anything, because my Catholic homeschooling homies aren't like that. No, it would be more an issue of a few of them never, ever, ever letting me forget what I'd typed so that our kids could have long sense flown the nest and possibly had children of their own and I'd still be hearing Butcracker jokes.

I didn't get so lucky with the first incident.

From the first incident, all I got was a tight, unamused silence that made me wake up in the night, cringing in shame against my pillows as I silently wailed, "Ohhhhhhhhhhh, geeeeeeezzzzz, I AM SUCH AN IDIOT."

Here's what happened:

I was trying to get a group together to go for a day of educational fun at the Indiana State Museum (the same place that Meelyn, Aisling and I went to last month with my friend Virginia and her kids) and I was corresponding back and forth with the museum's director of educational programming, whose name was Tina. I had originally addressed her, politely and formally, as Ms. So-and-so, but when she wrote back, she addressed me in a friendly, breezy way as 'Shelley,' so I felt comfortable in likewise referring to her as Tina in an email I sent back confirming the number of people who would be going on the field trip.

Only I didn't call her Tina.

I typed Tuna instead.

I caught my error just after I'd clicked the Send button and I gave a little scream of dismay. "Nooooooo!!!!!" I cried, but it was too late. Because, Send buttons? There is nothing more final than one of those, my friends. If reports from people who have had ghostly encounters are true, even DEATH isn't as frikkin' final as a sent email.

Woe to all those for whom the 'i' and 'e' keys are too nearly positioned.

I sat at my desk, wringing my hands, wondering what to do. Should I just pretend that I didn't notice? Should I send a follow up email in which I could apologetically explain that I caught my error with her name just as I hit the Send button? Should I wait until she replied back and then add a wry, self-deprecating explanation for my typing skills?

Because, names, you know...People can be funny about their names. It always irritates the woo out of me when people spell my name 'Shelly' instead of 'Shelley.' Yet leaving out that extra 'e' is nothing compared to calling someone a large, slimy fish.

I chose to go the self-deprecatory route, feeling that since she had established that breezy tone from the very beginning, perhaps I could get away with saying, Oh, look what a goose I am, how could I have made such a ridiculous error when typing your name. Which is what I did. And I truly expected to get back an email from her that said something like, Oh, I laughed so hard when I saw that. Don't worry about it. It happens all the time.

But I didn't get it. Instead, she replied in a short, cold, formal note that addressed me as "Mrs. McKinney."

"Please don't mention it. Your field trip date and time are confirmed for...."

Yikes.

I spent the rest of the four weeks until field trip day praying to all the saints and angels that I would not have to come face to face with this woman whom I had obviously offended. They came through in their intercessory prayers and there was ice and snow the night before the trip and I enthusiastically canceled it, saying that I hoped we'd be able to re-schedule at another time (like, preferably when Tina got a job offer from a state museum out east or west or anywhere but Indianapolis, Indiana) but I never did. Virginia cottoned on to an excellent program for elementary, middle and high schoolers and those field trips became her domain and I was never so thankful for anything in my life.

But NOT so thankful that, on the day we went with Virginia and her kids, I ate a tuna salad sandwich in the museum's café or anything. No, not that much....