get it get it get it

by dailies

Today was incredible! Almost too much to write about so I’ll confine myself to just a couple events. The first part of our day was Phoenix’s most vigorous soccer game yet. After winning the previous four games, today’s challengers tasked them severely.  And I got to see some… whooooooOOOoo… I don’t know what to call it, parental behavior that was just … intense.

S. Grips Her Knee

In fact today I saw pretty much every bit of published parental codes of conduct broken (just on OUR side of the field, the other team’s parents were even more yelling-y and included two screaming pacers). I was left kind of reeling: How do coaches put up with this? Like a mother yelling, “What was THAT?!” repeatedly at her daughter when the girl made mistakes and then bellowing, “GET IN YOUR SPOT SAMANTHA!!” (names changed to protect the identity of dickweeds). Probably my favorite was the father who yelled at every player to “GET THE BALL!!” (really?), repeatedly told his daughter to physically push the opposing team members, kept up a constant mantra of play-specific adjuncts delivered from the sidelines (this is, everywhere I’ve read, a no-no), and did not applaud anything other than a score (this same personage only remembered a few names of the top-scorers. At one point when my daughter had the ball he yelled, “Get it, uh-number… uh-5!” He also mixed up the three Latina girls’ names. Oh and he kept getting off and on a cell phone to chew someone out).

I am not making any of this up!

I’ve had to do some personal education on being a sporting parent. I participated in sports as a kid, but my parents rather didn’t. I’m proud of Ralph and I and our developing strategies – which soccer enthusiasts, coaches, and successful and happy athletes prefer over the pushy/aggressive and “motivating” paradigm. I’m still figuring it out but if I hadn’t started a self-education I would probably be feeling decidedly uncomfortable and confused about what I was seeing (Karen Ridd’s piece in Natural Life Magazine‘s September/October 2008 issue, “Lost in the Parenting Wilderness”, was especially helpful; her sons are high-level performers and so the onus of parental management and her own past experiences as a competitor were especially difficult to navigate). Today it was kind of heartbreaking to observe just how little support comes off the sidelines and how much screaming, criticism, and inappropriate coaching happens instead. A real eye-opener for me.

We have a good coach (inasmuch as I can tell). He has seriously developed the girls to an extent I would have not imagined. Several of them have improved markedly, our daughter included, in the space of two practices a week for a couple weeks. I’m impressed.

More reading from an article called “Parents & Motivation: What’s Your Role?” by Dr. Alan Goldberg, a sports psychologist:

“Pushing, prodding, demeaning and bottom line, emotionally abusing [your] son. Is this motivation? […]

Pushing your child towards certain athletic goals that they may or may not have will backfire in your face! It is not your job to motivate your child-athlete. It is not your job to push or pressure them. Doing this will only kill their love for the sport and cause them to ultimately lose respect for you.

Your children’s motivation to participate and excel in a sport is something that should come from within them, not you. They should compete because they want to. They should practice because they want to. They should have their own reasons and own goals. They should pursue their own dreams. I don’t mean to be harsh here, but when it comes to your child’s sport, your dreams don’t count.

I’m going to keep this report positive (although I am seriously, Jane Goodall-like, wanting to further report on the intense behaviors I saw today!) because despite almost comic unpleasantness Ralph and I had a great time. It was a wonderful game. The girls worked hard. They were three players short on the team and there was an incredible amount of effort. I felt like I got to know each of the players a little bit better by observing them tasked so hard. After the game ended, we were the only family who let our daughter play on the playground (because remember how these are little girls?). Fortunately there were many other children there waiting for their siblings’ games to end, including two of Phoenix’s teammates. We stayed an extra hour and a half while they played. Ralph and I played with the girls, much to their delight – they especially enjoyed Ralph’s intensely physical and boundlessly playful shenanigans.

In other news I am walking on air as our first indie bookstorein HQX opened. Let me point out we are a combined community of two towns and about 26000 people and before today we did not have a serious bookstore. This one looks decidedly good! It is in a very small space – in fact it is the former anteroom of the diner I worked in as a young woman and, briefly, a handful of hours last year. Despite a small space, selection and pricing look great!

And what should I see when I walked in but, immediately, Scott Clevenger’s book – a book I’ve been wanting (as I’ve recently decided to allow myself book-buying, not just library use)!
Z. O. M. G.

All other potential purchases had to be pushed aside for this one (including $18 worth of groceries) – because you bet I bought a copy (here’s a taste of the authors’ brilliance). I read the introduction in the lobby of the Theatre next door with their live music venture – and laughed out loud! Also who should I see in the modest turnout but my mom’s ex-boyfriend. Likely so stoned that… well, what’s a good stoned reference. Like he could hardly move. I waved in and invited him over. He seemed suspicious but he did drift in and out of the store. I stood talking to new friends and old acquaintances while my kids ran and tumbled about with their friend (another sleepover here tonight). I couldn’t have felt happier than I did this evening – and it was just simple pleasures, really.

An indie bookstore within biking distance from my house here in HQX.

Pinch me.
Halftime Strategy
¡Estas chicas son increíbles!

freaks & squeaks

by dailies

Our friend has a new camera with a high definition video function; she’s been doing a few short films including some of my family.  Here she graces you with a glimpse into our Halloween, sitting on my mom’s porch and handing out candy*:

This one was taken by our own teeny little camera, and the subject speaks for itself, literally:

* What say thee on the feminist front?  Are Westernized women’s problems over – do we live in an egalitarian, just society that treats them with respect, as my mother’s boyfriend argues here?

respite, almost finit

by dailiesUncategorized

Two days ago as I made the bed and negotiated with Nels about making his breakfast and creating a fort (he wanted me to do both, simultanously) my mother’s boyfriend D. walked in the house (like he will) and asked if he could use the phone (like he does). I said, “Absolutely,” and got back to my one hundred million things I was trying to get done (on the list: make kids’ haircut appointments, pick up the silk dress with its $5 repair, drop off organized fabric scraps to the Senior Center thrift shop, pick up tracing medium, get groceries, fuck around in the hardware store for way too long looking for 8/32 bolts and appropriate t-nuts and then miss the consignment shop’s closing time by a few minutes and get all cranky). D. beeped away for a while and finally talked with my mom about something or other and loudly ended the conversation with, “I love you too, sweetie-pie,” and then he drove away and once again I had the house to myself.

I felt a small hit in my gut. Our peaceful past month is about to transform into, once again, the challenge of living with my mother and her goings-on and her boyfriend whom I have mixed feelings for which I address by being polite as I can, inclusive (even when I don’t feel like it), and allowing myself space from the situation. For all I know the guy walks into the house and thinks it is my family that intrudes – intrudes on time with his ladyfriend, or the big warm house with plumbing and electricity (and a phone) and comforts he’d otherwise have a more free enjoyment of. Forgive me, but my time spent in a certain seaport town and watching aged Peter Pan types live off the comfort and material possessions of their paramours while they self-report a more idyllic, simpler lifestyle has made me a bit of a suspicious asshole.

And anyway, I go back and forth on the “shoulds” of our living situation.  My mother should have privacy and a place all to herself, right? No wait, this is a 2500 sq. ft. house and it should be lived in by many people who fill it up and love it and clean it and care for it.  And the truth is, I really don’t know.  In a lot of ways it’s easier (if more expensive) to carve out one’s own space, to live in such a way you can instantly flee when you arent’ getting along – instead of being forced to keep the peace and make the effort.  Despite ups and downs living here in the Family Home, the last time my mother and I talked about it she asked us to stay.  For now, we’re staying.

This morning Nels is thinking about nothing except his sister’s arrival, imminent.  Last night he made Sophie an elaborate “track” out of labeled popsicle sticks leading through the house and to a little offering on the table:  a bowl of nuts he painstakingly opened himself, a spooky Halloween ghost craft, a new coffee cup, and a handmade flower card.  I am proud of myself I made it two weeks without Sophie and without crying and even while enjoying myself a lot.  This weekend the family is reunited for a trip to Port Townsend where Ralph and co. will play a show and an acoustic set at the local record shop; we’ll be joined by many friends, eat great food, dance, and have little time to adjust to our to any kind of foursome normalcy until Sunday.

how we touched and went our separate ways

by Uncategorized

Tonight my mom huffs and puffs a bit before taking the dinner she made upstairs for her and her paramour.  She and Sophie are headed to Portland tomorrow, to meet up with my brother, stay the night, and then head East to scatter some of my father’s ashes on the same lake his parents were interred (yes, I know you can’t really “inter” cremation remains).  Anyway, right now she’s a little pissed because I’ve reminded her that she just decided to leave a full two hours before Sophie’s first swim team practice (this is not the first time I’ve told her Sophie’s sport schedule, nor will it be the last I suppose).  My mom doesn’t want to leave later to honor Sophie’s swim date, and she’s rattled enough (or maybe hungry enough for the hideous hangtown fry she’s just prepared) that she kind of trails off before stomping upstairs.

This schedule thing is purely between my mother and daughter.  I tell Sophie, “Grandma wants to leave tomorrow at 3 – but that means you’ll miss swim team.”  And the next few paragraphs indicate why my daughter is awesome: first she thinks for a few seconds, then says, “Is there a different time Grandma can leave?” and I tell her, “Well, you should figure it out.”  She doesn’t cry or whine; she doesn’t want to give up swim team or the roadtrip either.  And she’s definitely able to hold her own talking to Grandma.

I’ve worked hard at training the kids not to run upstairs to see my mom, with pretty good success.  They are instructed to call Grandma’s cell phone first if they’d like to visit her.  Sophie pads on over to the downstairs phone (she’s adorable, barefoot in the WTWTA Max costume prototype) and dials my mother’s number.  She realizes the cell phone is downstairs in my mother’s purse.  A few minutes later (after reading a bit of her Japanese comic book) she tries again; this time she sneaks the phone outside the door to my mother’s upstairs bedroom, comes back downstairs, and calls.  I hear her say, “Grandma, I have something I want to talk to you about,” … pause, waiting for assent …  “OK, I’ll be up as soon as I’ve finished vacuuming.”

And then she fiddles about with the vaccuum attachment and asks me how to make it work, and I’m busy sewing so I don’t get to her right away, so she figures it out herself. And by the way, I don’t actually know how to work that particular vaccuum attachment, so now I know someone I can ask.

And then she goes upstairs and remembers (without a reminder) to bring up the plate of chocolate-chocolate chip cookies we’d made for the old timers.

You know what?  I want my kids to make their own schedules, and understand them, and keep them, and negotiate around them (and yes, do housework!).  As it turns out Sophie agrees to miss her practice and my mom later comes down and tries to convince me she didn’t pressure Sophie into this particular agreement.

As for my father’s remains, I have my own little bottle or two.  That skinny old bastard made a lot of ash.  So, I’ll either go to the lake on my own or I’ll take his remains somewhere else or I’ll put ’em in a coffee can and toss them off a cliff and the wind will blow them back into Ralph’s face.  Or something.  I just can’t bear to go with my mom and brother.

what brings us together is food

by dailies

An entry from today featured in our newly launched family project, Ask Nels:

Cynthia asks:
I want to find a boyfriend. Where should I look?

Nels replies:
You can just ask someone to be your boyfriend. You can look inside some woods, like my Grandma did. You can stay there until I get older and then I can be your boyfriend.

***

I hosted nine people for dinner tonight.  Three of our friends from up north came by on their way back from camping, and my mom invited her boyfriend D. over.  In honor of Sophie’s first soccer practice I prepared her favorite meal: spaghetti with meatballs (I rarely if ever use a recipe for this dish and it is always fantastic).  I also made roasted cauliflower, salted cucumber, garden carrots, ceaser salad, and sweet tea.  And somehow I did this while chatting with my out-of-town friend S. and not feeling at all crazy about (still) living in the non-space that I make my home in.

As we sat down to dish up D. waited until my mom had loaded his plate with veggie accoutrement, then took up a huge, huge spoonful of angel hair pasta.  My mom quickly (but quietly) jumped on him for taking such a large share.  “You can’t take that many – there are lots of people here!” she whispered.  “But I’m hungry for this much,” he said, and didn’t budge.  WTF – is he five years old? They actually argued over this for a while.  Then he put some back, and later when there was enough, requested her apology.  This was kind of perfect, a knife’s edge balance of things that grate on my ass: my mother’s constant chastisement of people about the “polite” thing to do, vs. a display of douchebaggery at a communal meal. Unbeknownst to the guests I’d already set an extra salted pot of water to boil for the possibility of a pasta FAIL, so we were covered.

In D.’s defense, I have seen my spaghetti and meatballs make people do crazy things before.  Once we had a male guest who loaded up plate after plate, telling us these enthralling stories the whole while to distract anyone from infringing on his meat-share, and only getting one speck of red sauce on his impeccable shirtfront.  I have seriously not seen anyone eat that many meatballs, not even Joe Crecca from my Port Townsend years.

By way of previous reference, my mom did indeed find a boyfriend “in the woods”. Or rather, they ran into one another in town and when she found out he lived off the grid out in the boonies (no plumbing, no electricity, a house that needed much work on) these aspects of his lifestyle further recommended him to her fancy.  I haven’t been to his place.  I don’t really like the guy.  But I’m glad my mom does, and that my kids do.  They’ve been out to his place a few times (the kids).  But he comes over much more often to ours.

Looking up my own caesar salad recipe I came upon a post  (also including diners who behave like heels) that reminded me:  I miss my dad so much.  That was some OG bastard.