Celebrating, With or Without You

My dad, my giant personality in a giant body Dad, should be celebrating his 80th birthday today, but he's not. We will celebrate, we will raise a glass (and if it was warmer Jack would smoke a cigar but it's freezing outside and that stinky thing is an outdoor activity), and I will tell my girls stories about their grandfather, ones they have most certainly heard but ones that give me comfort and make me laugh and allow me to feel, just for a bit, that he is a part of their lives in a way that is not just stories but real day to day grandfather stuff.

Several nights ago my sister and I went back and forth via text, hashing out dates and years and time frames that all led to the demise of Bill and Sharie's once promising life together. Ashley was 8 (I think), I was 16. Maybe, I know I could drive because all I wanted to do when they told us was leave and go to a friends' house, which they did not allow. I actually thought they were kidding, several of their good friends had recently made the same announcement; I thought it was a Keeping Up with the Neighbors kind of joke. It was not. I realized that the specifics, now over thirty years later, didn't really matter at all. Our lives were changed forever, the ripple effect of their decision still in play today.

Dad moved to an apartment just a few minutes walk from our house. In no time he had married his secretary but just stop right there. Dad's secretary was 10 years his senior, not smoking hot, and a bit bossy, in a matronly kind of unpleasant way. She vehemently disliked both my sister and me; her first direction as the new Mrs. Lang was to change the locks on the apartment that was now theirs. Interesting way to cozy up to the stepchildren, she continued on this charming path for most of their 19 year marriage. When Dad died I think she was genuinely surprised at our grief, and it was clear to me, that even after 19 years, she had no capacity to understand just how much Ashley and I loved our Dad. I felt a tiny bit bad for her. Tiny bit.

The stepmother died a few years ago. I had remained in contact with her as she had been very interested in my children and had, uncharacteristically, been very kind to them, always remembering them at birthdays and Christmas. She said once she was doing what Dad would have wanted and I appreciated that effort, even though I knew that there was little anyone could do to represent what my father might have meant to my children.

Mom and Dad worked hard to maintain a very friendly relationship. My sister, still very young, benefited greatly from their willingness to work together. It wasn't perfect and while I went off to college, she took the brunt of the saga of the divorced parents. It's never easy but I appreciate so much that they tried. They had been friends since high school, and they continued, in a new and unique way, to be friends until Dad died.

Yesterday, on the phone with Mom covering the Mother's Day things, she was quiet for a minute and then said, "your father would be 80 years old tomorrow". The quiet was now on my end. Mom just turned 79, she was a year behind him at Hillcrest High.

"I know Mom, I know."
"Your dad would have done 80 so well."

Sitting at the island in our kitchen, the same island that came from Mom's house, on the phone with my mother while one daughter bakes a Mother's Day cake and the other sets the table for the dinner, I imagine what life might look like if there were two more places set at that table, if our downstairs guest room was full of grandparents and love and laughter.

"I always loved your dad Allyson, I always did."

I know that too Mom. 
Happy birthday Dad, we all miss you so very much.

One is the Loneliest Number

Here we have a picture of my mother, taken by my sister from outside the front door, the required 10 feet away. Mom is quarantined with about 500 old(er) ladies and perhaps 3 senior gentlemen in a retirement home in Kansas City. No visitors, no leaving, temperature checks for all employees entering, no seniors wandering the neighborhood; Sharie is locked down, save the occasional whiskey and brie delivery from her daughter. While not ideal it could be much worse and if this is what is required to keep the old folks healthy then that is what we do; Mom is perfectly happy doing Sudoku and watching reruns of golf tournaments.

For those of you who continue to insist that this is a media driven frenzy may I suggest that you turn off the telly and read a book. In this 24 hour news cycle in which we live it can be too much, and Breaking News is rarely that. Stay informed, don't go batty.

To those who somehow still believe that this is a hoax or a Democratic ploy to win the upcoming election I say "My God, how bad do you think he is?" So bad that thousands of people world wide were willing to sacrifice their life to rid the US of this orange boil? Granted, more than once I have yelled, while watching a speech or a presser or a Rose Garden chat, "He is killing me!" or "I'm dying!" but to be completely honest, I didn't mean I was actually dying. And while I am certain that I am not alone in my over reaction, I hardly think that people in Spain took this literally and were willing to jump on the sword to save the US from the nincompoop quasi leading us into oblivion.

To those upset that the Democratic nominee is almost certain to be Joe Biden (and I am right now speaking to my 15 year old Bernie loving teenagers) just stop. He may not be your first choice, perhaps you think he'd make a better fourth for poker at Sharie's retirement home, but life isn't fair (see Election 2016 results for verification on this) and right now Joe is our way out of this incoherent rambling hate driven failed experiment. I'm not saying that choosing a bankrupt ridden reality television personality was, in and of itself, a terrible idea. Perhaps you really like the idea of hiring people supremely not qualified for the job and to that I say, excellent, have your teeth cleaned next go round by the teenager handing you your burger at the McDonald's drive up window, but this, this didn't go so well.

Let's bring back experience and character. Have you seen Joe's bench? We are going to be fine.

Share the toilet tissue, stay home, help those who need it, do what you can. Treat people with respect and kindness. The best way to beat this is together, and name calling is a very lonely game.

Sorry Mom, but cute picture. Stay safe Sharpie. Stay safe everyone.

Downstate Rush: State of Reality T.V.

Years ago, when I first moved to Chicago, I would often drive back to Kansas City, just the dog, me, and eight hours of farmland. Back before satellite radio and cell phones and any kind of high tech mobile entertainment there was FM radio and stations that catered to their surroundings. Driving downstate meant hours of country music as the CD's I meant to bring were often sitting on the kitchen table, forgotten in the race to get out the door. Once I got past Springfield there was little else but talk radio and in downstate Illinois that meant Rush Limbaugh.

I grew up in a Republican household. I was weaned on Nixon and Reagan. But this was new, what this man was saying was unlike anything I'd heard at home and it was horrible. Hours later my father assured me that this was not what he believed, Rush Limbaugh did not represent the vast majority of the Republican Party, and that his audience was small. Rush Limbaugh, dad assured me, was a footnote in the wide open spaces of the Midwest; he didn't speak for everyone.

Last week the president awarded Rush Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

In a speech that was more reality television than the constitutionally mandated informative update to Congress, Trump handed out scholarships, reunited families, and awarded the highest civilian honor to a man who has attacked every single segment of the population: women, minorities, children, anyone who disagreed with him (I refuse to quote him).

My dad was wrong. His audience was big, growing, and now, rewarded.

Recently, as part of a class, I reread The Federalist Papers. Interesting reading in the age of Trump, the first president in my memory to completely alter my interpretation of Hamilton, Madison, and Jay. For all the brilliance in their work they missed one important element: that one day we may elect a person so morally corrupt, so uninformed on the working of government, that all the checks and balances won't matter. The founders assumed that this country would choose educated, honest, and kind people to hold executive office (remember, they were modeling the position for George Washington, Mr. I Cannot Tell a Lie). Even with the tremendous foresight of the founders, Hamilton in particular, they did not establish safeguards to protect a democracy from a president who lies about things so easily verified. Rush Limbaugh, Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, has spent years preparing Trump's base for this moment, and now it is our choice how to respond.

My father isn't here to see the Limbaugh enabled Trumping of the US. I'm confident he wouldn't like it, confident that he would, like Mitt Romney and John McCain, find a way to look beyond republican party platforms and cast a vote for country over self. There's hope in that, and we all could use a little more hope right now.

Blue Line, Green Line, Chicken on a Bus: Getting There is The Whole Journey

The first time I rode on a subway I was about 6 years old, with my father, and, in all places, underneath Mexico City. A most unusual entree to public transportation for a girl from Kansas City but my father, whose usual means of transport while traveling was in the back seat of a car being driven by someone other than himself, thought it important for me to be comfortable on mass transit. Perhaps knowing that my future would not be one of backseat riding, he took me on the train in every major city we visited. By high school I understood the hilarity of my father having the driver pull over and drop us at a train stop, with instructions to pick us up a bit further down the line.

In Boston, following a minor traffic accident in the Callahan tunnel at the hands of an angry taxi driver fueled by a deafening Mahler, we moved on to the T. In Puerto Vallarta we rode a bus with a chicken. He left me to navigate the DC Metro alone, a first, setting me up for years of confident transit riding in Chicago, London, Paris, Philadelphia, and yes, Kansas City. Following a knee surgery, unable to drive, I rode the KC bus to work every day for weeks, which proved to be the source of amusement for many of my coworkers, as well as a good books worth of stories.

Last night we had dinner with the more adult than child daughter of one of my oldest friends, in town for a conference. The last time I saw her she was in a diaper, bundled mightily, and rocking in a basket in my living room. I expected a bit more than that but was quite surprised when, after dinner, she pulled out her phone and mapped the best route back to her hotel, "the green line I think" (to be fair I was also surprised that she ordered her own food, didn't drool once, and stood without assistance). It seems the ability to find your way, wherever you may be, is impressive.

This afternoon my daughter Mary texted me, would it be all right to go with friends to the Anti Cruelty Society after school? They needed to visit to complete a science project, due next week, "we'll take the blue line".

Thanks Dad.

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

Last night I put away the china. It took hours because in my years I have accumulated a hefty haul of the good stuff. And I was happy to do this because I found myself a lovely new china cabinet, actually quite old, at an antique auction that, for the first time in my entire adulthood, actually holds every single dish and platter and bowl and egg cup. Every single piece, which is to say that this is one gigantic old cabinet, moved to its new home in the back of a truck (hired via an app recommended by a dear friend who did not, understandably, want to move said cabinet herself) marked in grease paint: For Sale, $600 OBO. I'll dance around the price difference of cabinet and truck and note that I was noticeably nervous during the entire six block journey home (but happy to report that driver and helper were in fact most helpful and that we all arrived home safely scratch free).  But that is another story; this is the story of the contents, and not the cabinet.

My great aunt Margaret's china, a delicate old ivory pattern, fills most of my shelves . I have full place settings for at least 14, plus assorted creamers and soup tureens and finger bowls. My cousin has an equal amount of the same pattern; pooling our resources we could host a formal dinner for an entire classroom of kindergartners. I doubt we will do that, but we could.

Additionally I have 15 place settings of an old English china that I bought years ago at, oh dear, another antique auction (I'm drawn) because I liked it, and it reminded me very much of my grandmothers pattern, Autumn by Lenox. She collected and added to the pieces given to her at her wedding so that when it was time to share she had enough to stock the cabinets of several granddaughters. Many happy family dinners were served, and spilled, on those beautiful old plates. I trust that the tradition continues. My inheritance on the grandmother dining front came in the form of utensil, not dish, and for that I am quite pleased. But the china, and the vast quantity of it, always intrigued me. It was there for Sunday dinner, and Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, but when else was it dirtied? What would I do with all these dishes? I was barely beyond microwave popcorn for dinner when she explained, "my dear, you have china so that when your husband brings home business associates you can serve a proper meal for them". She was serious, I'm not kidding.

You're thinking about all those last minute phone calls when Darren called Sam to tell her that he and Larry were on their way with very important clients, right? And of course then Endora appeared with Uncle Arthur just as Sam pulled out a pork roast and Tabitha made a circus tent with baby elephants appear on the front lawn, and Mrs. Kravitz ran to tell her husband about all she saw just as Larry and Darren pulled up with their guests and... yes, I know, me too. But Jack has not once called late in the day to tell me that he was on the way with Sean and very important clients, and it turns out that Jack is not the only one with a job so there's that poop in the oatmeal.

Unwrapping years and years of bubble wrap and placing my precious pieces in their new home I made a decision. We will host a last minute but carefully planned dinner. There will be no very important clients (my clients tend to be, average, about 10 years old) nor baby elephants but there will be colleagues and conversation and wine and lovely dishes. Jack is none to certain about this mixing of bankers and teachers but I'm confident we can pull it off. Do you work with either one of us? Want to come to dinner? Mimi would be so pleased.

Growing Up, Moving On, Hanging Tight: Kindergarten...High School

One morning, in the first week of kindergarten, the burgeoning parent group held a coffee and doughnut get together on the playground after drop off. Having survived a few days of leaving my children with relative strangers I was eager to connect with parents more seasoned and well versed in school matters. I knew no one and so lingered awkwardly near the coffee table while others chatted about teachers and after school programs and reading levels.

"Do you have a child here?", asked a woman on the receiving side of the table.

"Two actually, we have twins in kindergarten."

She was the parent of a first grader and was curious as to how we found her neighborhood school, a small grade school that had been on the brink of closing only the year before.

In Chicago you can attend your neighborhood school or, if you prefer, you can apply to schools outside your attendance area and hope. When our girls were starting kindergarten our neighborhood school was simply not an option; there had been a shooting in front of the school at 3:00 in the afternoon. Safety trumped all my other concerns, we filled out the forms and entered the girls into the vast school by school lottery. Their names were not drawn anywhere, there was no choice to be made. We entered the round two lottery: one four year old was put into first grade at a nearby school, the other found a seat in second grade at a school several miles away. They tested for the gifted and classical school program; one was put in a school in the south loop, the other on the northern suburban border, a distance of over an hour in a car. Jack walked into the CPS offices to appeal our situation. They apologized for the clerical error that put the girls into first and second grade but suggested that perhaps being in two different schools might be a good thing.

"You don't have twins then, correct?'

The veteran parent listened to my long story, offering sympathetic nods and an "oh no!" where required.

"You know, as horrible as that sounds, I've heard finding a high school is even harder."

We were day four into kindergarten, having survived the long and arduous process that ended in a wonderful school, a place that has now been our home for the past nine years. High school? Was this woman serious? High school was years into the future, further even than kindergarten had been from pregnancy. I dismissed her comment somewhat offhandedly, I had far more pressing things to concern myself with, high school was not even worth considering.

That was yesterday, maybe last month.

This past Friday Mary got her high school placement, Kate having secured her spot when she moved to a middle school in 7th grade. We were in Rome when we got the email, physically as far away as I felt from high school nine years ago. Against almost all odds the girls will be back in the same school this September, having been separated for the past two years. Somewhat surprisingly they are both happy about this; separation was hard but they have enjoyed these years apart, each finding their own place.

The search for a high school was, thankfully, far less problematic than we had been warned. Perhaps because this was the girls' search, their choice, helped greatly by their nine years of hard work.

Walking into school Friday I had a moment of finality, the very familiar feeling that something has come to an end. What has been an open ended question for months now has an answer, they have a place to be in September. They are both registered, they have school t-shirts, they are looking at after school clubs and sports. Finding a kindergarten was a relief, after months of unknown, as is finding a high school. But for something that has loomed so long on the horizon, having an answer to a question posed nine years ago seems an abrupt stop to a very long conversation.

Now I stand on the other side of the table, handing out the doughnuts. Finding a school is difficult, finding one that is hard to leave, even trickier. How lucky we have been to have called this place home for nine wonderful years.

School Shopping List: No Guns (Arming Teachers is a Really Bad Idea)

I'm not ready to give up, and putting guns in schools sounds to me like exactly that.

Beyond the logistics of why arming teachers is a bad idea, beyond the cost and liability and training, is the idea arming teachers is a societal move that I just can't comprehend.

The irony being the very people who run screaming from universal health care, a far too socialist proposal, embrace the idea of one man one gun, the definition of leveling the playing field. Because if you arm teachers don't you then need to arm pastors, and post office managers, and concert promoters? Everyone on a military base is armed, that didn't help.

We have in place a police force; civilized societies organize and assign jobs. Visit a kindergarten classroom: one student hands out paper, one student wipes down tables, one takes messages to the office. If they all wiped down tables it would be madness. I'll continue to do my job, you continue to do yours.

This is not a sustainable solution. There are hundreds of reasons why it won't work, logical and tangible reasons, but none more important than the defeat it illustrates as a society. If you can't beat them join them? No.

The President seems to think this is the best he can do, I know we can do better.

Heart Breaking Plans: Run or Hide?

This post shooting conversation was different.

Perhaps because they are now thirteen, or maybe because they are both looking at high school in the very near future, or possibly because they are more political now than ever before, but this conversation was different.

They have a plan. My children have a tangible plan for what they will do if this kind of horror ever finds its way to their schools. No longer can we talk about the good, or look for the helpers; they aren't buying that line any more because they know that this is real and this happens and it could happen in the very places that they feel safe nine months of every year.

Mary has a hiding place, a spot she has identified in her school as a place she feels will shelter her from a shooter should someone get in her building. Kate has no such place but worries because two of her classes are held in rooms with one glass wall, "it would be like a fish tank Mom, a shooting gallery", so she'll run. They've spent time discussing this, and last week they discussed it with me.

No parent should need to discuss with their children where they will go when someone with an assault rifle gets into their school, and no child should ever have to make this plan.

But there we were, discussing the pros and cons of hiding versus running, the security measures in place at both schools, which teachers they feel will protect them, and the importance of speaking up if something feels wrong. There we were, last Thursday, having a very real conversation about what exactly my children would do if someone came into their school intending to kill them and their friends with an assault rifle.

Maybe this conversation was different because my children are no longer asking "why?".

They are planning and in that, accepting this as normal. It's not, it can't be. I'm angry, you should be too.

Writing, Cleaning, Procrastinating, Not Writing At All

Rather than writing a story on a Chicago celebration, which I am supposed to have finished next Monday,  I am organizing my drive, which has never before been touched. Technically it's not happening now either, but I am discovering a bunch of things I wrote when the girls were much younger, scraps of notes on the floor of my disorganized google drive. I'm having a wonderful time!

Time Out April, 2009

There are several things in our home that are automatic time out offenses: hitting, screaming, spitting and often throwing. Today at lunch, for no real reason, Mary spit out an edamame. Time out.

After two minutes she was allowed to return to the table.

“Why were you in time out?”

“I would rather not discuss it”

Back to time out. Two minutes later she returned.

“Now, why were you in time out?”

“Let’s just say I’m sorry and move on.”

Time out is clearly a very effective method of punishment.

Book Time May, 2008

One hour of relative quiet each day, one hour to myself while the girls coexist in quasi peace in their bedroom amongst an enormous pile of books. Naps may have faded to the occasional but praise the Lord and pass the sanity, we still have book time, in theory. Today they compiled their allotment, 10 or so books apiece and marched in order to their assigned space, promised calm, and opened to the first page.

Foolishly I decided to sacrifice my hour to repairing our Internet connection, akin to me thinking the best use of this precious time would be to rotate the tires and check the brake fluid. I called India. A wonderfully patient and kind woman with a very strong accent answered, it took five minutes for me to explain that the problem was the Internet connection, I started with “my computer doesn’t work”.

“MOM, Kate is climbing on the bookshelf!”. The kind woman kept talking, “excuse me, one moment, just, excuse me”. I sent the child back to book time. Next we had, “MOM, Eleanor just threw up”, the woman continued. And then a scream, a piercing scream, which I assumed must have meant that Kate fell off the bookshelf and directly into the vomit. The woman kept talking. This tragedy allowed me five minutes of time in which I was directly confused and quite overwhelmed, and no closer at all to finding the problem with my computer.

“Mom, I have to go potty”, fine, yes that is fine, acceptable, preferable really to other options, off you go. A few more minutes, “MOM, come quick, MOM, the toilet is spilling”. While I may not know much about computers, or India, or auto maintenance, I do know that when one puts an entire roll of scrunched up tissue into a toilet it quite likely will cause a problem.

The woman was still talking. “Excuse me, I’m sorry, thank you for your help but my children have flooded my bathroom and I’m going to have to hang up”.

The flood waters have receded and I will be posting from the coffee shop tomorrow, again.

Meet the Flintstones August, 2009

To combat our open run on illness, I recently introduced Flintstone vitamins to Mary and Kate’s daily diet. At breakfast each day we discuss Fred, Wilma, Barney and Betty, creating a great curiosity in the girls as to the daily life of the Flintstone family. Recently I discovered an old episode on a far off cable channel and the three of us sat down to watch Fred and Barney at the lodge while Wilma and Betty were at home with Pebbles and BamBam. They loved it, as did I.

Today I overheard this recap:

Mary: Kate, did you see the telephone? It was round, no buttons, you turned it to call someone. Funny!

Kate: Well Mary, they lived a very long time ago. Things were different.

Really? The car propelled by feet got by you but that archaic phone, similar to the one I used as a child, that was the ancient indicator.

It's been a wonderful afternoon. I always feel so accomplished when I write.

What I Want

It's been over one year since I have written anything here. I miss the corralling of thought this place gives me; instead I've been uttering in sometimes incoherent rants on twitter, occasionally Facebook. I am so completely immersed in politics that I've missed writing about the things that matter most to me: my children, my family, growing up, growing old. Rather I greet each day with news of what was said or done overnight, and each day I am genuinely horrified.

For two years (at least) I have been working on a collection of stories-those were supposed to be finished this summer. I've read about half as many books as usual. My morning quiet, extended this summer to at least three hours thanks to lazily sleeping children, has been consumed not with stories of faraway places but 140 character snippets of information, quite often leading me down a rabbit hole of hate and unkindness. I've given up far too much of my time, time that is really only mine for two months of the year.

What I've learned in allowing myself to be dragged into conversations that inevitably end in frustration is that there are people who still believe, soundly believe, that what is happening in the United States is a good thing, the right thing. There are those who believe that economic growth, attributed to this administration but factually part of an eight year increase, outweighs the other issues. There are people who believe that the other issues, as repugnant as I might find them, are the correct course for this country.

I do not.

My husband was asked if he had changed his mind regarding Trump given the economy. His response was brilliant:

Frankly, I find the question offensive, and the concept to be repugnant. To consider that I might be more OK with a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, homophobic, unstable commander in chief , just because I would have a few more dollars in my pocket? Hell no. How selfish would that be? "Sorry Mary and Kate, your President says it's ok to grab women by the pussy, but we're richer now, so that makes up for it."

It was suggested to me that I watch inspirational videos on YouTube because in America everything is possible and that if you are offended by confederate statues or schools named after Civil War generals you should just move. In my life I know many people who don't have this option. Perhaps if we all watched inspirational videos on YouTube we'd find the way. I doubt it.

I want my life back.

I want to not worry everyday about what he might do or say, and who he might anger, or inspire. I want my children to grow up with a commander in chief who models dignity, kindness, intelligence, and compassion. I want to live in a country where hate is not fueled by fear, where hate is not tolerated, where hate is not the standard.

I want this to be over.

Allyson