The ripple effect

Sometimes I worry that I'm the worst influence in Alison's life.

It was from me that she picked up her love of cursing. Something she does -- almost always -- out of our earshot but I know she's a sailor-in-training. I sometimes commit minor traffic violations in her presence, and when it's just her and I and she asks if we can lay around like dogs watching TV with carryout for dinner, I almost always say yes.

I even blew off a parents' back-to-school night meeting to watch the Olympics with her. But I have landed a couple of solids in the good column, too, I discovered this week.

She was waxing poetic in the car coming home, telling me about some friends of hers who were complaining about their parents. One was unhappy that her parent(s) were too busy working and couldn't get her to something she wanted to do. Shopping or movies; something fun. They were terrible, awful people, not able to take five minutes off for their daughter. (Yeah, I know there's more to this story, but this is what I know.)

Alison said she listened for a while and then said, "You know where your electricity comes from, right? Food and water and stuff like that? Your parents have to work to pay for that stuff."

To another parent basher, she questioned the level of abuse they were actually suffering. "I'm pretty sure they're not that terrible," she said, pointing to another friend who was actually victimized by physical abuse. "Is it that bad? I didn't think so."

She shifted to talking about some friends complaining about the pain and agony of menstrual cramps. Apparently it's quite the topic of conversation and Ali herself has commented more than once about a girl who "saved my life" when she shared a chewy, double-chocolate brownie just in time.

Ali used to reject chocolate out of hand. Lately she's been carrying an Altoids tin that she's stuffed full of chocolate chips. Just in case another crisis erupts.  Somehow during the course of this latest hot topic, she turns to me and says, "The first thing you ever mentioned to me about it was that I'd better never try to be a "B" and blame it on my period. If I did that, you said you would have no sympathy for me."

I disputed her recall. I'm pretty sure we talked a lot about puberty and all its wonder pre, post and during. But then she reminded me of the day I'd made that impression.

We were in Target and there was a girl who was just ripping her mother a new one right in the line to the cashier. It was uncomfortable and the mom eventually caught my eye, shrugged and excused the behavior with, "She's on her period."

It was likely then that I whipped around to Ali and intoned the message that she'd better not take that incident as behavior she should emulate. Apparently I was a bit more forceful than I had intended.

I will move Heaven and Earth to keep Ali from being unhappy or in pain. And I know that periods play different levels of havoc on all who suffer through them. But it's not a blank check to be a bee-yatch to your mother or anyone else.

Side note: I'm fully aware that I, myself, am sometimes bitchy. You might try to trace it to a 28-day schedule, but sadly, sometimes I'm just cranky and I fail in my struggle to keep it from spewing like a broken water main.  Or I'm busy and I give my co-workers the virtual or actual hand.

This is a bit of a "do-as-I-say; not-as-I-do" kind of scenario, I know. But I struggle to overcome. If I can keep her from having this challenge in her repertoire , I'll be happy. And possibly make up for teaching her bad words.

Regarding my driving, Ali and I were on our own Friday as Jeff went to a friend's bachelor party kind of thing. I asked her how she was coming with her mission to convince the Captain to let her get her drivers' learner's permit.  She said she was still working on it and I offered to take her out to teach her to drive a bit.

"No offense, Mom, but no way," she said.

As I've been down this road with her in the past, I was not surprised, but I've really been thinking that she'd relent the longer she goes without getting behind the wheel when 16 is coming fast.

"Come on! It'll be fun," I said.

"Mom. You are a TERRIBLE driver. You know it. I know it. Miss Amy knows it," she said. "I really think I need to learn from Dad."

I argued back for a while but she was having none of it.  The ungrateful wench.

In reality, it's probably a good idea that I don't teach her to drive. There may be a few curse words she doesn't know yet. Better to keep it that way...

I leave you with her discovery that she is now the same length as our yoga mat, which is problem. Apparently she can no longer create a human sushi roll. Guess we need a longer yoga mat...

If you can't be an athlete...

For the last few weeks, I've been trying to educate my friend Molly as she's worked to inform Angie's List about our annual softball tournament. There are a ton more people who do not play softball than there are those who agree to, and I among those who agree to but shouldn't.

And if there were more of a choice, I'm sure I'd be relegated quickly to the cheer squad. But the cheer squad is important, as the mission of the softball tournament is to raise money for the AL Foundation, which helps a ton of great nonprofits in our corporate neighborhood.

Molly resisted my efforts to use what I thought was a perfect line -- the school announcer from Rydell High: "If you can't be an athlete, be an athletic supporter." I chuckled every time I encouraged Molly to put it into an internal communique.

Sadly, Molly is more sophisticated than I am. And the lack of that phrase didn't curb our efforts. We missed our goal of raising $45,000 by less than $3K.

Though happy at the donations, I am still in recovery from the tournament. Our team started incredibly strong because it was stacked mostly with Kelsey Taylor's family, some other men who were high school standouts, and Jeff Reed in his second annual tour as pitcher. We had a few injuries and after my first few good plays, I rapidly descended to perform at the level of a 52-year-old person who plays softball once a year.

It occurred to me about six hours in that I was terribly misplaced. One of our guys was talking about how he'd been with his girlfriend for 12 years but at 24, he was just not ready for marriage. I opted not to tell him that college romances, let alone middle school, don't count. I was too busy reeling from the idea that I had almost three decades of living on him. How that happened, I just don't know.

It seemed like yesterday that I was playing softball at least once a week. Kind of terribly. But still. I could run the bases and make outs. So yeah. I need a new team. A geezer league. Jeff, who actually does still play regularly, didn't seem to suffer as much as I did.

We played from around 6 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Saturday. By the time I crawled into our tent, I was filthy, stinky, sore and blinded by my need to sleep. Jeff stayed up a while, he said. He could have been in there with me for all I knew. Once I got prone, I was dead to the world.

Alison, who'd had plans on the West Side and thus had to camp out with us, didn't watch us play. She walked around a bit and chatted with folks but then couldn't resist the lure of her new Harry Potter book. She finished it before we finished our games.

Earlier in the week -- her last full week off before school starts -- saw her building Camp Kick Ass in our living room and then blowing up a bunch of balloons and stuffing them in my shower. Jeff and I took them out when she was distracted and put them in her bedroom. I came home to find them in my bathroom. They're in my bathtub now and I'm debating finding the energy to stuff them in her tub.

We had a very short visit from Uncle Peter and Alison's favorite cousin, Nicodemus. Peter and Jen are planning a Harley Davidson trip to Sturgis, South Dakota. He's driving  out and she will fly to meet him. The only think I know about Sturgis is my sister, Debbie, on a similar trip, was struck by lightning and made the local paper.

Tomorrow is the annual Ali and Mom day-before-school extravaganza. I'm glad I had Saturday and Sunday to prepare. We don't have a plan yet, and I'm a little worried that our day out will be interrupted by the Olympics.

Since she was able to escape him, Alison has not been a committed sports fan. She used to watch the Red Sox with Jeff and she created a great painting once that had the Yankees descending into hell. But for a long time, sports have not been a focal point.

This morning, as I cleaned cars, she crawled into bed with Jeff and the of them stayed there until late afternoon watching various Olympic events. I'm sure the neighbors could hear them cheering and gasping and calling out "No!" and "Yeah!" and wincing out loud.

I wandered in for the end of women's cycling and was crushed right along with them when Mara Abbott lost her lead and finished fourth. 

Regardless of the outcomes, the captain was in heaven. She begged him to have Sunday dinner downstairs so they could keep watching. I'm not sure what happened to cause this sudden fascination with sports, but it's been fun to listen to them.

Just before dinner, they relocated from our bedroom to the family room downstairs and she took on a less active couch potato role. But he was still beaming.

Despite my aching everything, I'd have to say that life is good today.

20/20/20

This is a note to my FOB-JEK friends. It's not limited to those who served/serve though, so I'm sharing with everyone I know in the ways I have available to me.

 

Frank O'Bannon had a profound effect on me. He made me a better person. Judy, at least, made me behave better.

 

I'll never forget the day Joe came down to my desk and sat with me to edit a state of the state speech. I didn't know him well, and when the sitting LT Gov. came into my office unannounced, with his notes and in his shirtsleeves, sat down like he was a colleague, I just about died. And then we worked together, laughed a little bit, and polished more than a few paragraphs.  I didn't get the chance to know Maggie as well, but the few times I was around her, she was gracious and super smart.

 

If any of that fabulous foursome touched your life in as positive way – as they did mine –

I know you want to take a moment to tip your hat to them. I have a great way for you do to that virtually, but in a really meaningful way. We’re calling it the 20/20/20.

 

It came about because my friend J

onathan Swain and I were on the phone the other day. He'd done the math to mark 20th year milestone. We thought we shouldn’t let the year go without comment but we didn’t know that we should interfere with the very important races underway. Everyone’s already so busy, so tapped out. We didn’t think FOB or JEK would want to mess with the focus.

 

But hey, what if we do more than reminisce on our own? We talked with Tina Dennis Noel and Jeff Harris. And we came up with the 20/20/20.

 

Give $20 to Gregg-Hale in honor of FOB-JEK.

Find 20 other folks you used to work with and ask them to sign on to 20/20/20.

Raise $20K for John and Christina.

 

It'll be a great, albeit virtual, reunion.

 

Hope you can help. And if you unearth old friends who want to connect – share their email and we'll continue the reunion. Maybe even in person one day.

 

Here’s the link to give: https://secure.actblue.com/contribute/page/fob20thanniversary

 

The form is standardized at other amounts. Use the blank amount if you want to donate $20 to this cause. Whatever you want to give, if you can give, will be gratefully accepted.

There are tons of FOB-JEK folks who have deeper, longer ties than mine. If you are one of them and you see this, please think through your Rolodex and send to as many folks as you want.

No harm in going beyond 20, right? :)

Car talk

Some of our best conversations happen in the car.

Last week it began with a long monologue from my co-pilot about office work.

"I would be a terrible secretary," she proclaimed.


I gave her the side eye and gestured that she should go on.

"It's like if I was at work and some guy comes in and says to me, 'File this,' I would say, 'You have hands, file it yourself!' And if he yelled at me, I'd get him a ball gag," she said.

Curious, if not mildly shocked, I asked how she had come to know what a ball gag is.

"Mom, I'm 15," she informed me. "I know things."

 I offered up a silent prayer and said, "OK, what is a ball gag?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot. "You know, it's what you put on a dog to keep it quiet."

I thanked whatever divine providence had answered said prayer. "Uh, that's a muzzle," I said.

"Yeah! A ball gag," she argued.

"No," I said. "It's a muzzle. Why do you call it a ball gag?"

Patiently, she agreed to educate me. "I saw something on the Internet and a dog had a ball in his mouth and the caption said something about keeping your dog quiet," she explained.

"Actually, a ball gag is a sex toy," I said.

Silence. 

Then: "I would be a terrible secretary." and she picked up her soliloquy on how she would rise up against her oppressors should she ever find herself in the secretarial pool.

Somehow, I don't see her there.

From October 2010

She and I were in the car the other day, and I mentioned a boy in her class. His name is Sammy Kacius, and I always pronounce it with a hard "a," which is wrong.

"Mom. It's Kascius," she said for perhaps the 1,098th time.

"Man, I hope you don't marry him. I'll never get your name right," I said.

"Dude," she replied. "If I marry Sammy Kacius, he's changing HIS name."


October 2009 
"Hey Mom. You wanna know what I think?" she calls from the back seat.

Of course I bit: "What do you think?"

"I think those people who sing those songs are telling everyone about their PERSONAL BUSINESS, that's what I think," she said, clearly disapproving.





October 2009

In the car, Ali was discussing her hope to be a ninja for Halloween this year. She wants only her eyes to show and she'll go around karate chopping anyone who gets in her way - Hai-yah!

"Did you run that by your Aunt Donna?" I asked. "I'm not sure she's ever done a ninja. Aren't you at least a little bit concerned?"

"Nope," she said.

"Why not?"

"Well she hasn't had one problem with any of my costumes yet," says the girl who never sees the process, just the fabulous finished work.

In other news, the heat wave is taking a toll on us but Jeff and I took a long bike ride early this morning. Ali had demurred, insisting she wasn't yet awake. When we got back, my FitBit hadn't yet buzzed and I'd been talking about pedicures, so I convinced her to walk into Broad Ripple with me.

Jeff had offered to play Uber if we wanted and I'd decided that if I buzzed on the way, I would take him up on it. I did, he did, and we lunched at A Taste of Havana. It was great.

Since then, it's been blessed air conditioning.

It's not too late

What is there to say about this week?

• A terrible candidate has elevated a perhaps as terrible or worse candidate for the highest office in the land.
• A candidate from the past  has upended the Indiana Democratic party - ostensibly to save it.
• Horrific behavior by some in an organization sworn to protect has caused unspeakable violence apparently from (or in support of) the oppressed.
• And unrest outside our borders continues to spread an insidious flume of poison air throughout the globe.

It's enough to make you want to cower in your closed-up house, hoping against hope that none of this awfulness will seep in through the cracks of your foundation or the tiny cracks that have escaped your attempts to isolate yourself.

We may well have screwed our own pooch but I'm not ready to concede.

I think we can still elect a great candidate (and yes, I mean Hillary.) If Evan can help John, I'm all for it but goddammit, Evan, you'd better help John.

I weep for a nation that believes violence can stop violence.  I hope that this is the bottom from which we start to crawl up. And I pray (yes, it's come to that) that my global sisters and brothers will stop their various exercises in madness.

But mostly, I look to this face -- and all of the other fresh, sweet, young faces out there -- who may actually have it in them to fix the mess we've created.

The first is Ali at three months; the first picture I shared in what was to become this blog. Look at that innocence. That curiosity. That huge head and tiny body. We all started out just like that. It's in us to fix this mess.

The second is Ali at two or three. At that point, she had a habit of interrupting conversations with,  "Guy, guys, guys!" to insert her own opinion. She did that once, standing up in her chair at a dinner party, telling four, loudly debating adults, that we should quiet down and listen to each other.

The third is from Paris where she's just taking a moment and hadn't realized I had my phone out.

The fourth is at Pride 2015. She was thrilled to be among a throng of people so happy to be accepted the air was thick with joy.

I work with a ton of great young people who have that same kind of energy and love and tolerance that Alison's generation also has. I'm hoping right now that we can find the shreds of those traits within our selfish, cynical, awful selves.

Guys, guys, guys: it's in us to make a positive difference. We've got this! We just have to want it more than we want to crawl inside our safe houses and wait for this wave of horrific actions to pass. I don't know what to do any more than you do other than to not be silent when the occasion arises. I'm going to work for candidates I believe in; not just vote for them. I'll look for opportunities to make my corner of the world a better place.

If we all do even some of that, maybe we can return to times where we're sharing more moments that make us all do this: 

Best summer so far?

Summer school may be looming for Alison, but the view in her rear view is pretty good. 

Summer camp with lifelong besties, a week in Paris and then a week in Maine with Auntie Jen and Uncle Peter on Pleasant Pond.

For the first time in a few years, she had to share a bit of her time with Auntie Jen with me as I flew out with her on Friday and then flew home alone on Monday. She stayed until Thursday.

Next year, probably to her chagrin, it might be all of us, which could give us time to finally check out James and David's cabin in northern Maine. Alison has always cherished her time in Maine. There's an extra layer of special when she gets exclusive time (sans parents.)



Flying home alone was no big deal to Alison - she'd chafed at her maternal escort. "Mom. I'm 15. I've flown a lot. I know what I'm doing," she insisted, making me flash back, of course, to the hundreds of times as a toddler she'd push us away and say, "I can DO it!"

Sigh. Jen caught a little of it when she dropped her at the Portland airport and hovered as she got assembled and then headed off to the TSA. "She didn't even have a backward glance for poor ol Auntie Jen."

Ditto for her arrival home where Jenna lay in wait to surprise her. I think Ali had anticipated Jenna's presence but she didn't complain as we walked to the car. Then, a blur, a flash and a crushing hug from behind.

Note to Amer: Jenna will be a great stalker in the future.

We're almost back to normal now. I have a work trip next week; Ali has a summer class and Jeff will be a single parent for a few days.

Check on him.

Or, more accurately, check on the redhead. The last time I left them alone she was seven or eight and he forgot to bathe her.  "I Febreezed myself," she boasted shortly after I got a whiff of her.

Step by Step by Step by Step

I could write forever about how wonderful our trip to Paris was. I can't begin to express how thankful I am to Tracy Wiseman and Eric Yocum for inviting us to join them there.  I can, however, quantify it a bit, courtesy of my FitBit.

Sunday: 11,707 steps. Mostly in airports.

Monday: 18,871 steps. Notre Dame and a Segway tour in a rain that chilled our bones but was so worth it.
Tuesday: 14,784 steps. Musee d'Orsay, long walk home through the Marais neighborhood, dinner in the park behind apartment where a music festival was underway.

Wednesday: 17,509 steps. The Arch d'Triumph, lunch on the Champs Elysees, the Eiffel Tower

Thursday: 20,979 steps. Bicycle tour of Versailles. Picnic by the Grand Canal.

Friday: 19,563 steps. The Catacombs, Pompidou Centre and the Louvre
Saturday: 26,460 steps. L'Orangerie, shopping and twilight stroll to see the lights of the city and the sparkly Eiffel Tower.

Sunday: 9,928 steps. Flew home. Sad.

I've shared a lot of photos that illustrate the incredibly beautiful structures, country side and art. But I owe it to my calves and quads to also share this side of Paris that they will not miss.

Conversational Highlights:

Deep in the Catacombs, Ali was chatting with a friend, Lauren, she'd made in line. They shared a love of anime and other things things that had them jumping up and down and squealing. "As a vegetarian, I'm a little disturbed by all of this," Lauren confided.

"Well, there's no meat left, if that helps any," Ali pointed out.

Later, as we rode to Versailles on our bicycles that were packed down with French treats for our picnic, Ali turns to to Jeff and says, "Hey Dad. You're riding a bike. In France. With a baguette."  They laughed about that for half a mile.

Jeff and Ali did a much better job speaking to everyone in French. I was less eloquent. On our first full day, Ali was buying a treat for her and a drink for me. She did a great, job of asking in French if the merchant spoke Englais.  The woman smiled and said yes. "Awesome," said my little American. "I'd like a Nutella waffle and a coffee," Alis said.

On our last night, we were walking from the apartment to a bridge where we could see the Eiffel Tower light up the night. We passed by the 117th ancient structure and I asked Tracy if she knew what it was. "It's a church," she said. "See the crosses and such?"

We giggled like little girls at her ability to spot religious structures.

Pretty shots: