So I'm going to go with "no" on that...

So the other day, Ali and I are coming home from school or practice or shopping and I tell her that her play director has informed the cast parents that she'd be open to us helping the kids run lines when she has to be working with the school band.

"Would you like me to help out?" I asked. I'm asking these days because sometimes she wants to be the Lone Ranger or some kid from TV who never seems to have parents around.

"Well," she said. "My class is full of people who don't listen. The boys might be doing "the worm" on the floor or messing around and you might get annoyed with that. And remember that time in third grade when you helped with the class going to Canterbury Park and you screamed at some of the boys for not paying attention? I'm still getting flak for that."

She took a deep breath."So I'm going to go with no on the play thing," she said.

I came to a full stop at a stop sign and looked over at her. "Seriously?"

"Oh yeah," she said.

So I might have dodged that bullet. But we're still on the hunt for the best genie costume we can find. We had some fun looking last week and even got to enlist Jenna Tokash for a little while.  We're still looking for something sort of like Barbara Eden but not, in Alison's terms, "something that won't make me look like a stripper."

In other news, I'm on day 4 of the Great Planking Challenge of 2014. Some of my nieces and I are trying to do this 30-day challenge. We'll have a plank-off at Thanksgiving. Planks are hard, man.

We're really excited to have Grandpa Reed fly in to spend Thanksiving with us. We're hosting my family this year -- we generally rotate the duty but most of my family is "in the country" as Ali calls it so we generally go there. We're hoping to keep this amazingly wonderful weather for it, but it IS Indiana and we'll be more than a month closer to winter, so it's unlikely.

This whole week has seen near summer weather and I want to keep it. Last night we broke out the chiminea and had a fire. Jeff and Ali decided we needed a picnic dinner so we put down a tablecloth, had our dinner and roasted marshmallows after.  

Alison questioned whether the sticks Jeff found in the yard were really the right tool for marshmallow roasting, but I convinced her that "in the country" sticks are the preferred tool. Fancy skewers are for city people. 

It was one of those spur-of-the-moment things that turned into a memory I hope none of us forgets.

"I love this," Ali said, snuggling up with me in the dark. "This was a great day."

*** 

And in yet more other news, I've started re-reading the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris. Ms. Harris created the Sookie Stackhouse character, too, and while I love me some vampire/fair/were-animal intrigue, in a battle of wits and depth of character, Lily would kick Sookie's ass without breaking a sweat.

As the series begins, Lily is the best house cleaner in the town of Shakespeare and she's fighting some pretty intense personal demons as well as grime and grit. She's apparently inspired me to dig through a few layers of grime in my own house. My bathrooms and my kitchen are currently sparkling.

The weather kept beckoning, though, so my yard -- as well as my neighbor's -- is looking pretty spiffy too.  My neighbor is having a bit of a difficult time right now so I've been helping in her yard. With the return of our chainsaw, Jeff finished a job I'd started with a tree in her yard. We'd actually thought we'd tossed it but it turned up when my friend Karin moved and discovered it in her garage.  

He was thrilled to see it return just as I remembered the job left to do over there... :)  

So anyway, in the midst of mowing and chopping down black-eyed susans gone by, Ali comes out and asks me to take her to basketbally practice. Jeff was in the shower after he'd played ball, and apparently he'd lost track of the time. So we jump in the car -- top down of course -- and scoot off to practice only to find it was cancelled.

As Alison rejoiced in the seat, her coach came by to apologize for the confusion. "No worries," I said. "We have a hoop in the drive way. What do you think? Alison does 50 shots out there instead of practice?"

The redhead shot me her death stare while the coach grinned and agreed. 

God bless her, as soon as she got home, Alison got out her ball and started dribbling. She even got a piece of chalk to keep track of her shots. She even exceeded her assigned 50 when her father joined her for a little one-on-one.

This week has been sweet but not free of the bitter. Dave Cox, one of a team of men who schooled me in the art of journalism and clean writing, passed away.

I was just out of high school when I was fortunate enough to get a job as a stringer for the Terre Haute Tribune-Star. My high school English teacher and newspaper sponsor, Donna Gorby, had recommended me. Without that action, there's little doubt that I'd be living in a trailer by the Eel River somewhere with 17 cats.

Instead, I got to spend my professional formative years hanging out in a real newsroom with a crew of people, including Dave, who never seemed to mind my coming by. At first, I'd phone in stories and later use some funky pseudo computer to send my stories in over the phone from the field, but once I started dropping into the newsroom at night, I found my home.

I didn't write like the "real" reporters because they were actual adults with J-school under their belts. I idolized almost all of them and learned something important from every one of them.  Dave and the rest of the editing team gave me endless grief about my leads and worked really hard to meld me into a newspaper man.  I learned that you make your own luck at the Tribune-Star. And it's served me well.

For a while, a group of us played Trivial Pursuit after the paper was put to bed. We couldn't have done it very often, but it's one of the first things I think of when I think about those days. Dave and Carl were always there. Joe Baker sometimes. Rob someone. I can't remember everyone who played but I think it was anyone working nightside. 

I must have got to play with them because I brought cheesecake. I can't remember how it started or when it ended. They'd tell stories and cuss and moan about things. They'd fight over grammar and beat their endless rules into your head until you bled newspaper ink, I swear.  I don't think I'd ever felt truly at home before  I found myself in the Tribune-Star newsroom.

Dave Cox was the city editor then editor -- I think. His was the voice of reason. The happy voice. The guy whose smile was always right around the corner. He got such a kick out of things. He was just a rock of good judgment and support.

It's been years since I've really thought about my Trib-Star days. They were great days. They helped me get started on the path that's led to where I am today. I'll always be grateful, not just to Dave, but to everyone there for taking a chance on a girl they didn't know.

Of course at 50-cents an inch, it wasn't that big of risk..... 

Godspeed David Cox. I hope there's cheesecake waiting for you up there.

The Cold October Rain

When it rains in Indiana in October, my preferred spot is snuggled up under a blanket, maybe watching the rain through the living room window while I move between newspaper, iPad, book and crossword puzzle. I'll have a drink, maybe a snack. Ooh. And a fire. A crackly fire in the fireplace tended by my husband who checks on the drink and snack supply from time to time. Maybe he'll rub my feet, too. Maybe switch out the iced tea for a nice cocktail...And country music.

Ah. Glorious.

Today, however, I spent the better part of the downpour perched on an aluminum bleacher watching the first half of the 7th and 8th grade Christ the King Tigers football game. It was approximately 75 degrees below zero. 

A few of the girls had rain ponchos. Ali had her rain coat. Some resorted to trash bags, supplied by a mom who keeps a roll in her car. (She has boys.)  I had a strip of plastic mat and a cushion to shield my butt from the bare metal; a raincoat and an umbrella. So it wasn't like I was totally unsheltered. But I was reminded that I'm strickly a fair weather, outdoor football fan. 

I can't imagine sitting through one of those blizzard-stricken football games. Or playing/cheering at one. I guess the players and cheerleaders actually move around, but geeze. I'm totally putting this in the pile of "Things I Did for You" to pull out when I'm old and alone and need Alison to push my wheelchair or grind up my food.

The boys were behind 8-0 at the half. The cheer coach had decided the girls would get to do their half-time dance but then would get to go home. This was welcome news to most of the girls, but Alison was already planning an early exit because she had a basketball game of her own to get too.

She'd brought her basketball uniform and shoes, but had brough the bag to field because it also contained her pom poms and other stuff. I should have been smart enough to get the bag to shelter when the rain started, but I was more focused on keeping myself from melting like the Wicked WItch in Oz.

By the time Jeff arrived -- he'd played basketball that morning -- we discovered the wet things. He took them home and tossed them in the dryer. I followed with Ali soon after the dance. We poured some hot soup down her, too, and headed back to the school.

The basketball team, sadly, fared no better than the boys. We got home; Ali headed to the shower and I headed to the gym to work off a little of the Bunco madness from the night before. 

What I gained in conservative drinking Saturday, I lost to chocolate chip cookies, Ruffles potato chips and french onion dip. (Lynda is evil and knows my weaknesses.)

It's still pretty cold out there, but I have no reason to be out in it. Peyton Manning is killing my fantasy football score. The couch is calling my name. I wonder if I can talk Jeff into a fire....

The exception

it was parent-teacher conference this week. It always falls on a Tuesday, which is Jeff's basketball night, so I usually make the rounds by myself.

Up to now, Alison has always gotten good reviews. Good student. Participates well. Helps other kids. Sometimes rushes through the instructions and doesn't score as highly as she could have had she followed directions. (genetic; sorry.)

This year, there was a new theme: her spunkiness. Her entertainment value.  Both traits I've enjoyed for years but she seemed to have hidden a bit. It seems this is her break-out year when she's hit that level of freedom to be herself.

She's a cheerleader for the football team.

She's playing basketball.

She's on the spell bowl team.

She's Genie in the 7th grade production of Aladdin.

She is still, however, a prude. Mrs. Aragon AKA Drama Coach, Band Director and All Around Fabulous Person, is hoping Alison will be a genie like "I Dream of Jeannie."  We talked about how close to that costume my Ali would go.

I informed Mrs. Aragon that sadly, I doubted Ali would bare her midriff. Since she could talk, she's been telling men of all ages and body types to put their shirts back on.

Alison is currently insisting that her costume be more like Disney's latest genie, voiced by Robin Williams. I reminded her that she IS a girl.  No matter. She even suggested that we find a way to glue on a goatee.

"I am not wearing that costume that looks like a, well, can I say it Mom?" she asked.

"I don't know what you want to say," I said, then sighed and said, "Go ahead."

"Like a stripper. I am NOT going to wear that!"

So anyway, I also talked with her homeroom/math teacher, who she adores. He's a hard-ass so we like him, too. He's one of those teachers we'll hear her quote years and and years from now.  I was telling him that I was worried her extra curricular activities would affect her grades and that we'd been talking about it.

He tells me that last year, everyone involved in the 7th grade play suffered a decline in their grades. No exceptions. I told Alison, and warned her that her father and I wouldn't be happy if her grades fell.

"There were no exceptions?" she asked.  

"None," I said.

"Well, Mom," she said. "I intend to be the exception this year."

We shook on it. And as everyone knows, when a genie shakes on it, he/she means it.

Peaks and Valleys

Ever seen a yoyo master ply his or her trade? It's a blur of zigs and zags that makes you dizzy.

Such has been my professional life this week.

Happily, I've had other stuff going on, too. Here's to the peaks. To hell with the valleys.

Jeff brought home a bouquet of lilies that had yet to bloom before I left on a quick work trip. They were a great welcome home and have only gotten more gorgeous every day this week. 

***

After years of claiming to have a terrible case of stage fright, Alison tried out for the 7th Grade play. She got the role of Genie in an adaptation of "Aladdin."  Huzzah to not letting your fears hold you back. 

***

I'm trying to connect a friend of mine to another PR professional. One had to decline. The next prospect today responded with in minutes to my request with: "You had me at dominatrix."

***

Ali and Jenna were making cupcakes today and I overheard Alison impart the following wisdom: "I've found that if you give it a good beating, it'll tone right down."

Informed that that phrase exactly describes my parenting style, she rolled her eyes. Jenna giggled. I love Jenna.

  

***

It's week three of my debut fantasy football team. Squirrel Gravy has a 1-1 record and is going up today against Valentine's Heart Breakers, which, sadly, Jeff says should live up to its name. 

Alisha has Trent Richardson, who makes his debut as an Indianapolis Colt today. The bad news is he's apparently the best running back in the league right now. The good news is it's his first game with the Colts, and they're up against San Francisco's awesome defense. "So if you have to play against him ever, this is the game to do it," so says my advisor.

A note about that: When Jeff told his buddies I was in a FF league and he was helping me, Ed Kaufman (commissioner of Jeff's FF league for years now a frequent winner) replied, "Uh, why is she listening to you?)  Jeff has a great track record in fantasy baseball. He gets brought back to Earth with is football league. 

Regardless, he's enjoying my foray into football. "There's something sexy about talking football with your wife," he said the day. I have pledged to pay more attention.

Jeff volunteered his best email was when we were texting each other about something and I wrote: "Stop bothering me. I'm evaluating tight ends." I followed that up with a question: "What exactly is a tight end?"

It was funny, he said, because "of the high probability" I really didn't know what a tight is. (I didn't.)

***

We had a huge storm the other day with lots of thunder and lightning. Ali relocated to the couch to watch it through the living room window. I was sleepy and declined her offer to join.  The next morning I found evidence of who'd joined her.  Yep. Pink Bunny, her very first plush friend, still makes an appearance every now and then.  

  

***

Our neighborhood had a food truck gathering at the local park that included a live band that covered a bit of Johnny Cash. We squeezed in dinner there before Ali had to go off to basketball practice. Jeff had a smoked turkey, goat cheese and roasted red pepper sandwich on foccacia. Ali had bacon-topped mac-n-cheese. I had a kale and brussel sprouts salad. Happily for me, they shared bites. Strangley, they didn't want to sample my salad.

  

***

For those of you paying attention, I had a great time in NYC Sunday. I wore the shoes for something like three hours straight without sitting down. I think the high of being at the WWHL Clubhouse and being the whole mix of thinks kept the pain at bay. I'll admit that the dogs have wimpered a bit since then, but overall, well worth it. 

****

And now on to today. Alison will cheer again at the Christ the King football game. Here she is last week, courtesy of Jeff Reed, and a silly one resulting from me finally remembering to bring in a souvenir from a work trip. 

  

Sanctioned frivolity

My father-in-law, great man that he is, sent me a check for my birthday last month and instructed me to spend it on something truly frivolous.

I always do what my father-in-law says, and as a diehard Republican, I know he's not inclined to indulge in much frivoulous spending. I'm not either. It goes against my Pentecostal upbringing, and my instruction as a frugal Hoosier in state government.

My friend Angie says Jeff and I are the cheapest people she knows, and while she didn't really mean it as a compliment, I took it as one.

That said, I do like nice things, and I do like nice shoes. I don't wear heels as much as I used to, but tonight I have almost an obligation: I'm staffing Angie while she bartends on Bravo's Watch What Happens Live. 

So, I hadn't yet spent Gary's money, and I needed shoes.  I DID shop around. And when I had found the Stuart Weitzman shoes I really wanted, I still went to another store to see if I could find them cheaper.  And I alerted my fellow frugal partner along with asking for advice from my lady friends before I bought.

Jeff was with Ali at a high school football game, hanging out with his buddy Kit Earle. I texted Jeff a photo of my choices -- the ones I loved, the ones I liked and a pair that was a bit more practical. 

  

Text 1 to the great shoes: "Kit says absolutely."

Text 2. "I concur."

Text 3. Even informed of the price: "Perfectly frivolous."

Text 4. "I think the first pair is more interesting, but it'd be hard to go wrong with either. Kit concurs, but says the 2d pair might compliment fishnet better."

Text 5 to the third pair. "We aren't interested in the increased practicality of this pair, but appreciate the sturdier heels may have some appeal for the wearer."

My girlfriends were universal in their quick decision to buy pair 1.

So, thank you Gary, for defraying the costs of my work outfit tonight. I would ask you all to tell me to "break a leg" tonight in the tradition of the theatre where that's actually a call for good luck.

Unfortunately the likliehood of it actually happening is greater than it should be. I'm out of practice. But they are really, really pretty....

Cheers!

Alison is set to cheer the Christ the King Tigers football team this afternoon in her debut performance as a cheerleader.

Amy Tokash (former cheerleader) is thrilled.

I think it's great that she's doing more at school and I do think she looks really cute in her uniform. But I've been a little squeamish about one of the cheers in particular. It's not Miley Cyrus twerking, but it could be a gateway move for all I know.

Lois Stewart (albeit somehat under the influence of pino grigio and ebullience after a fabulous gathering of old friends) rolled her eyes at me about it.  Lois is my arbiter of lady-like behavior and all things proper. So I guess if she's OK with it, I shouldn't fret. 

But she had been drinking... I might have to sober her up and have her her watch again.

Lois and my good friends Cheryl Gonzalez and Angie DeMauro Russo came over to the house last night for a bit after our FOB reunion. It was an adults only gathering so their chance to get a glimpse at the little redhead came at home. She entertained (?) them with her cheers but Jeff called a halt when she wanted to model her uniform. 

I'm 100 percent sure the girls would have been happy to see it. Angie has two boys, Cheryl is always a good sport,  and Lois has been Aunt Lois since Ali was born. 

After she was banished, Lois continued to roll her eyes at me being prim about the cheer moves. She reminded me that she, too, used to be a cheerleader, a fact I'd totally forgotten. 

I'll post some more photos from the game and I should get a move on getting ready for the game. The coach can't be there for the start, and I've offered to help corral the cheerleaders so they're where they should when they should be. I'm strictly logistics. What I don't know about cheerleading could fill the field.

Meanwhile, I'm shopping for a new arbiter of all thinkgs lady-like. 

Wish me luck this week -- it's my first week playing in a fantasy football league. What I know about cheerleading dwarfs what I know about football, but I'm learning. The other women in the league have really fun names. I'm playing against Anita Tight End this week, for example.

After much discussion with Jeff about what my team name should be, we settled on Squirrel Gravy, an homage to my roots and a reflection of my football prowess. I wore my "Squirrel: the Other White Meat" tee-shirt to the draft.

Excerpts from the week prior:

Ali and I were watching TV and an ad for a new show, "Trophy Wife" comes on. She asks what a trophy wife is. Forgetting that earlier in the year, I'd told her that her father had been married before I came into and vastly improved his life, I gave her the standard definition.

"So you're a trophy wife," she said.

"Yes. Yes I am," I said... 

***

As we were getting ready for her debut performance on the CKS Cheer Team, I wondered out loud what I should wear.

"Anything but your squirrel tee-shirt," she said.

I laughed and reminded her that I loved that shirt.

"Yeah, it's pretty funny," she allowed. "But not around cheer leading."

#MissingFOB

Surrounded by pins and signs and photos from days gone by, Tom New singled out an 8x10, black and white photo that any Hoosier political junkie would easily recognize as part of every campaign Frank O'Bannon waged in his years at the top of Indiana government.

It's his Indiana University basketball team photo that clearly shows him as a member of the team.

Holding it up, the governor's former campaign director and chief of staff recounted an old and favorite story about how the governor saw the use of that photo as a stretch. He'd never actually played in a "real" game. His action came in practice games, and he really didn't like using the photo for campaigning.

It was one of the few times Tom and the two-term governor argued, and it typified the man who was a true believer in the power of the team and whose leadership style elevated everyone around him. He didn't like using his IU basketball photo because it left the impression he'd had a larger role than he'd actually had.

Problem was, basketball-crazy Hoosiers across the state loved it, and so in every campaign, it was part of the story. At one point Judy suggested the politicos play up Frank's All-American status in volleyball where he actually was a key player. 

"That didn't poll as well," she deadpanned this weekend at a gathering to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the governor's death. 

It was a relatively small group. The organizers knew if there was a blanket invitation, there wouldn't be room to hold everyone who had a special connection to Frank O'Bannon. He was just that kind of guy. Regardless of whether they'd been there from the beginning or nearer the end, everyone gathered at that little shelter house in Rocky Ripple Saturday hold their memories close. 

I'd covered him as a news reporter and I remember my first interiew with him. I'd had to go through Donna Imus, his press secretary when he was Lieutenant Governor. She scared the beejesus out of me and still can, truth be told.  

I didn't have a grand scheme to work for FOB, though I did admire him. It was years and a career change later that I got my chance, and  I will be forever grateful to him and Phil Bremen, who lobbied to get me, for bringing me on board. 

Being deputy press secretary and later Director of Commuications has had a huge impact on my professional life. But the perks weren't just professional. 

My father's faith in the Democratic Party was second only to his Pentecostal faith. His religion and his nature forbade him from out and out bragging, but he was inordinately proud of my time in the Statehouse. 

I once staffed Governor O'Bannon at a fundraiser in Sullivan County. (It's always smart to bring a local girl/boy-made-good when you're out and about...) The governor knew my dad was there, so he made a much bigger deal of my role on the team than it actually was. For FOB, I think it was more than a savvy political move to made a big deal of a near-hometown girl. He was a father, too.  I can still see the grin on my dad's face.

I've never been known for following my father's faith, but in a post 9-11 speech I wrote for the governor, I used a line of Scripture. The governor was a man of faith, too, but like my dad, lived it rather than pushing it onto anyone else. The speech was at an event headlined by the father of Todd Beamer, ("Let's roll") who'd help down one the hijacked Flight 93. Using my remarks, the governor made a reference to Beamer's sacrifice.

The speech was apparently well received and later, the governor was kidding me about using that particular line. I retorted something like, "Hey, I know my Scripture!" 

He grinned and with the devil in his eyes and pointed out that within his preparation material, which I'd included with the speech, I'd left a print out where I'd Googled to find right words and the correct citation. "I don't think you know it that well," he said.

Another time, Cindy Athey called me and said the governor wanted to see me. She didn't elaborate and I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach like when you get called to the principal's office. I was in his office a lot, but generally knew why beforehand. 

I get in there and he says he's just gotten a copy of a book that collected some of the most inspirational or noteworthy speeches made in the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks. Still wondering what I was doing there, I nodded and went along with him.

He handed me the book. I flipped through it to see some really famous people with excerpts of their commentary. "Look at page 52," he said. And there he was with a line or two.

"You wrote that," he reminded me.

In a world where we're grappling with what to do over poisonous gas attacks, economic turmoil, human rights issues  and difficulties within our own personal lives, these flashbacks aren't really important at all. But they're special to me and anyone who knew FOB has hundreds of his or her own memories and storiees about him.

He sincerely cared about people and he actively worked to improve lives without ever taking full credit. He made you want to be a better person.

He'd done the hard work in actually delivering that speech, and it was his picture in the book. But he made a point to give it to me and to make sure I knew that he valued me. He probably got a bigger kick out of seeing my reaction to the thing than he did in seeing his name next to internationally known leaders.

When I was a news reporter, I learned a lot about writing, reporting, being organized and working ahead to make up for unexpectedly busy times. 

I learned how to be a better human being from Frank O'Bannon, Judy O'Bannon, Cindy Athey, Lois Stewart, Margaret Burlingame, Bobby Small, and dozens of other people who were core to the FOB team. Not that I always follow their edicts and examples. I do, however, always wear a slip now when my dress or skirt is even somewhat filmy. 

Alison was born while I worked with the FOB team. She was the first baby in a while and the Skirts (you ladies know who you are) made sure I had advice and support. The Mini-Skirts (you know who you are) did their part, too. Judy and Jonathan Swain came to visit her in her first days on the planet. 

Alison pointed out her letters on the state seal in the governor's office carpet, gnawed on the furniture and toddled around the place like she was at home. 

Because it was just like home.

When the governor suffered a stroke that September day 10 years ago, we all came back home to that office, streaming in the doors like lost children trying to find our way. It was a terrible, terrible day but we mobilized almost on auto-pilot because we were a team. Because we were a family.

Yesterday was a lot like a family reunion. And I'm grateful and honored and all over again to have had the privilige of working with the team that Frank O'Bannon built, and for still having them as friends. 

I'm sure I'll be a better person again. At least for a least a little while...