That time Jeff borrowed Alison's eyeliner

I was in my bedroom when I heard her shriek from the living room after coming across her father. 

"WHAT are you wearing?" she asked.

It wasn't his vintage Flock of Seagulls concert tee that had her up in arms. It was the leather pants.

I strolled out to find them. Him on the couch. Her standing be the fireplace, pointing.

I reminded her that both she and I own leather pants.

"Yeah, but he's 50!" she said.

Rather than correct her math, I elected a history lesson: "Wait 'til you see him with the eye-liner on."

She looked at me. She looked at him. And grinned.

"Can I help? And can we use glitter?" she asked.

Yes. Yes we can.

Jeff was getting ready to represent TeamReed at the Christ the King annual trivia contest. It's a fundraiser to help the 8th grade class defray Washington DC trip costs. We've gone since 2009, I think, when one of the Vielee kids was in 8th grade.

Our team has consisted each year of a variety of Reeds, Vielees, Christoffs and Haases with regular ringer visits from our friend and trivia wizard Chris Austin. The team has won twice. Last year when I had to work the event rather than play and another time when I was home sick.

When we realized Ali's last YAT performance of Snow White was on the same night as Trivia, there was little question as to who would attend our daughter's needs and who would be trivial.

(At this juncture, I feel compelled to point out that I would have rocked the last category - guest stars on Friends - and possible saved the team from a second-place finish. I realize this logic pre-supposes I could have contributed to the previous categories...)

During her two prior play performances, Ali had learned that black eyeliner is a great lipstick. "It doesn't wear off even if you lick your lips a lot like I do," she said.

We had about 10 minutes to help the captain with his make-up before we had to head downtown to the theatre.  We work well as a team. She took the lip, I took the eye, and then I finessed the lip lines.

And then we left him to spike his hair.  Alison and the whole cast and crew exceeded prior performances on the stage. It was another awesome night for YAT.

As we walked out, I suggested we go over to the market where Ali could indulge in a bouquet of her choosing to mark her great work.

"In lieu of flowers, how about we get tacos," she countered.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I don't want flowers, but I could really go for tacos," she said. "In fact, I think I'll have that put on my tombstone: "In lieu of flowers, she wanted tacos."  Or, or, for my wedding, can we have tacos?"

I laughed and said I thought so. Thinking through her wedding planning, she considered asking for tacos in lieu of gifts and then mused that whoever she married could -- she guessed -- have some kind of other food if they didn't love tacos as much as she did. You could see her scoffing at the thought.

On the way to Taco Bell, we talked some more and I relayed the Trivia Night status courtesy of Lisa Vielee. That got us on to the subject of the captain, whose appearance she referred to as her dad the drag queen.

"Actually," I said. "You need to talk to Godfather Bob. He has a photo of your dad in a dress."

She gasped. "Really?"

"Really. He dressed up to surprise a guy who was retiring from his office. I think he wore a wig and panty hose and a blond wig."

And thus, the Captain rose even farther ahead of me in the race to be the cool parent. A few weeks ago he introduced her to the Beatles, which are now key players on her Spotify playlist. She has a few Sugarland songs, too, and the other day I heard her listening to the Statler Brothers sing "Flowers on the Wall."

"Don't get excited," she said. "It's on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack."

Yes. She and Jeff watched Pulp Fiction together.  And before you think she's flipping off a cast mate in one of the photos, she isn't. She may be genetically inclined to be a digital curser, but we have no proof that she is. Yet.

Enough.

It's so easy for a lot of us to get caught up in the idea that we're not good enough. For that job we want. For that person we want. For lots of things.

If you're person who's never doubted yourself or been mired in the muck of depression, I am truly happy for you. And more than a little bit envious. One of the many dreams I have for my kid is that she will be confident and happy in her own skin.

I've watched two of the last productions she's currently in with Young Actors Theatre. She's been in a few and it's always fun to watch her, though I'll admit they're sometimes a bit more complicated than I can easily follow.

It's not just me. When Hannah Ogden performs, Alex Ogden is always called on to provide translation services to her aunts and grandparents. When Alison found out that Miss Amy was out of town and would miss her latest production, she was sad, lamenting: "But this is finally one she could follow!"

I laughed. A., because it's true and B., because I'd said the same thing after the first time out.

The play is based very loosely on Snow White and it's performed really well by all the kids in it. As usual, a few of the cast offer up testimonials as part of the storyline. The testimonials are submitted by the kids while the script was being developed. The director selects a few of them and work them into the script. Or she works the script around the testimonials.

Alison's testimonial was one of the ones selected this time around. One girl talked about how she'd been at the popular table until the popular girls turned on her; a boy said he'd recently learned his father had other children outside his family; another boy said he'd been so scared to perform when he started acting he'd nearly cried himself to sleep.

Those were the part one of the testimonials. In two other segments, the players told how they'd felt about the issue and then concluded with how they'd come to terms with it.

Ali's testimonial Part 1: "When I was growing up, I had the image of the perfect little girl engraved in my head: pink and sparkly and clean. I'm not like that."

I'm proud to say that I was never the mom who forced Barbies or certain color schemes on Alison. She wore dresses, but she climbed trees in them. It's true I lamented her former dislike of bathing. But when she was 7 or so and Febrezed herself instead of showering while I was on a work trip, I was more than a little proud of her ingenuity.  Not that I didn't have a conversation with the Captain about what could slide and what shouldn't.

I have had more than a few moments of doubt about whether I should have pushed her to be more girly over the years. Especially as she struggled to find her place when puberty set in.

Ali's testimonial Part 2: "I felt I would be torn my whole life and never be allowed to be happy. Or as I am."

This was hard to hear. Sure, she's in those adolescent, horrible years, but my biggest dream for her is to be happy. The hardest part of parenting, I think, is knowing you can't ensure that for your kids.

Ali's testimonial Part 3: "I'm a tomboy, not a princess. I am who I am. And that's enough."

How cool is that?  I hope she really believes it, and that she believes it consistently.  Every testimonial ended with the idea that being true to yourself is enough. Whatever that is. You are enough.

Not a bad lesson for any of us, I'd say.

Every one of the YAT shows offers a similar, self-empowerment lesson along with the actual play. If the audience gets only a sliver of what the kids in the program get, they'll be better off. I'm biased, of course, but it's really a wonderful organization, well worth your support.

Of suction, hairballs and snow angels

I remember the day Jeff came home proud as a new father, of the Dyson vacuum he'd found at Big Lots. He had read somewhere that the discount chain had scored a batch of the super sophisticated machines.  So he’d gone off on a hunt.

I hadn't thought much about it. Seemed unlikely, but Jeff loves a bargain and so I kissed him goodbye and wished him luck. But then he actually found one. I had been saying we needed a vacuum for a while.

Our floors are hardwood, tile and linoleum and three of them are covered with area rugs. As the chief sweeper and floor caretaker, I felt qualified to judge. Jeff, as the chief ignorer of the debris that coats our floors, wasn't convinced. 

But a BigLots value vacuum: this was a point of pride. And a Dyson! This was about 10 years ago. Since that time, Jeff's involvement with the machine is largely to drag it upstairs when I'm lazy and helping me remember how to dump the dirt.

Over the years, the only real maintenance I've done on the thing is to turn it upside down and use a steak knife to hack out what looks like skeins of red hair from around the beater/roller/thing that rotates when you vacuum.

This is the real reason we don't have pets. Between Ali and me,

we shed enough hair to knit blankets. It literally has brought the

Dyson to a halt more than a few times. It's disgusting, but if it actually were thread - like the embroidery kind -- you might think it's a pretty shade.

Anyway, the other day, I was preparing to suck up the last remnants of Christmas and New Year's Eve when the captain, my captain said,  "Wait. Let me see if I need to do some work on that thing." 

Now, the Dyson is battle worn. In addition to it's systematic strangulation by red curly hair, it also suffered some sort of crash and it's barrel/body has been held tight to its suction by a cobalt blue bungee cord for probably the past six years or so. I don't remember how it came loose -- probably as I dragged it up or down the stairs. 

Sure we could get it professionally repaired but that "temporary" bungee cord fix works. And we'd have to actually take the vacuum in for the repair.

But I digress. Jeff flipped the thing over, saw the hair and asked for a screwdriver. I advised him of my steak knife method. He rolled his eyes.

He actually took off a protective shield, which opened up access to the roller bar. After he'd unrolled the hair, he spied another removable cover and unearthed a filter. 

A filter. Who knew there was a filter?  I think once it was white.

The one under the cheerful yellow disc, though, was coal-black. No hair, but pretty icky.

We considered trying to wash it, but I thought we'd suffered this

long with it, we should replace it and use it one last time. He

gingerly put the icky black round thing back in and away I went.

Within minutes, I'd sucked up the holidays. 

Later, after a week of actual lawyerly work, without my knowledge, he attacked the Dyson again. He'd found the owner's manual, too. I found out when he rushed in to the bedroom where I was painting my nails.

"Did you know we were supposed to clean the filters on the Dyson every six months?" He asked.

 I reminded him that the first I'd learned of the filter's existence was shortly after Christmas 2015. Doing the math, that

 means we'd neglected at least 20 cleanings if we've only had the Dyson 10 years. I'd say that with only three rugs, we probably don't need to adhere to the biannual cleaning but the hair thing is hard to ignore.

"Huh!" I said. "Who knew?"

"Yeah. When I went to clean it, it disintegrated," he said. 

"I've told you a hundred times that we live like pigs," I said. 

He just looked at me and then, serious as he could be, said: "Do you think you can wait six days to vacuum again? That's how long it'll take Amazon to get us new filters."

I just looked at him. Considered reminding him of how diligent I am when it comes to vacuuming. 

But all I said was, "I can commit to that."

The lesson you should take from this is that Dyson guy isn't lying when he tells you his machines are freaking awesome. 

There is a part of me that fears if he reads this, however, he'll stage a raid and take ours from us. 

So please don't tell him.

In other news, Ali actually agreed to take a walk with me in the snow today. It was fun. Now, I'm off to risk life and limb to get to Bunco. Wish me - and my fellow motorists - good luck.

At the Airport

Portland Airport may be my favorite place to await a flight. It's clean, the people are friendly, there's an outlet for every passenger and you can actually understand the announcements.

The rocking chairs are nice and if you haven't had enough lobster, they're ready for you. 

Other observations from @PWM:

I don't know how people traveled without smart technology. I suspect it keeps a lot of folks from going postal. Unless, of course, there aren't enough power outlets.

It's 705 steps from one end of the airport to the other. For a person short on steps and snug in the waistband, that's kind of a godsend.

In my journey up and back, I've learned a lot more about some guy's father's health issues than I need to. We're worried about whether he can get dialysis in the area to which they want to relocate him. What I learned from my newfound knowledge: bluetooth tech should be kept to the car. Or away from others' ears.

I've learned that families who leave their 2-year-old in charge of luggage risk TSA flocking toward them. You're welcom, random family. Happy travels.

When did dogs become passengers? Not service dogs. Just your ordinary pets; some that fit in carriers and some free-ish range. We shared space with four dogs on one of our flights out and I've seen at least six here. No cats, rats or ferrets. I wonder where TSA draws the pet line?

I was tempted to channel a store clerk and inform the hipster girl that she needed to decide if she was going to buy that book or just read it in the aisle. 

I was even more tempted to tell the guy with the jeans to his knees that they needed a pull. His backpack was hiding his underwear, though, so I gave him a pass. Sort of.

I'm worried now about the soldier who left his military security badge behind at gate three. Seems like his/her C.O. might frown on that when he/she gets back to base.

Jeff is sacked out on a stretch of chairs. He never sleeps well the night before a flight. Ali took pity on him, sharing her pillow and Pink Bunny.

We had another awesome Christmas in Maine.  Sadly, Ali and I had to leave our paintings behind because we'd already shipped out our extra stuff and had no room in our bags. We've redecorated a bit at Grandpa's. The bet line of the art outing was when I'd stepped back from my snowman family - a departure from the instruction - and was proudly surveying my work. Jen glanced over, pointed to the shortest snowman and asked if that was me.

Separately, Alison had done the same thing. Tall people have issues, man.... :)

We're traveling with a packet of James' donuts and some fruit. I think the fruit will make it home to Indiana. Not so sure the donuts will.

Hope your holiday was awesome, too. 

Shopping with Alison

Ali and I spent much of the day shopping. We'd made a dent on Mass Avenue yesterday but my foray through Circle Center mall was a bust.

Worse, I was dressed for my Saturday workout. No one else in the mall was wearing sneakers and I had their hair scraped back. More than a few people gave me funny looks. I guess it's the season for dressed-up shopping.

So today, heading into the madness we call Castleton at Christmas, I put on an outfit and even brushed my hair. Not saying I kept up with the Carmel housewives but I wasn't barred from the door.

Highlights from The Fashion Mall:

On the way, Ali reminded me she was celebrating a holiday she made up when she was supposed to be studying for finals. She calls it Reverse Lent and during its tenure, you do whatever you want with no repercussions.

I asked her how long it lasted, noting that Lent's days of deprivation number 40.

"No! It can't be 40 days: I'd run out of stuff to do."

As we strolled, we saw a bunch of really beautifully decorated trees. I said we might need to have a themed tree one year. Something elegant like the ones we were seeing and others from Mass Avenue with their one-color or special design theme.

Alison was not convinced. "Our theme is family. A mish-mash of stuff that's old and new and some stuff so old it doesn't even make sense. We're keeping it all."

We took a break to have lunch. Alison had offered to share her coconut shrimp and I demurred as I'd already had one. She pointed out that I didn't have a tail on my plate and I told her I don't like debris on my plate so I'd tossed it into my empty soup cup and it had been carried away.

She doesn't subscribe to my dining quirk.

"I keep it all on my plate to show my pride. Especially with ribs. I like a big pile of bones so I can say, 'Yes. I ate all of that," she said. "The bones of my enemies, you know?!"

Holiday Hits & Misses

Pretty sure you're like me and scrambling to get ready for the holidays. I thought I was ahead of the curve but then got trapped in Shutterfly Hell last week. It put me back a good six hours, which if my Facebook feed is any judge, is not an uncommon occurrence for folks trying to make last-minute(ish) gifts.

I'd complain to Shutterfly but I'm pretty sure they'd roll their collective eyes and ask me if I'd sorted my photos before embarking on the task. Thinking you can whip out a calendar filled with touching/funny/silly/significant photos after not backing up or sorting photo files for three years is like thinking you can build a deck in a day after watching HGTV.

So, sorry, family. By the time I get those damn things organized, Alison will have graduated from college. But riddle me this: I was complaining about my picture plight to a fellow sufferer when another woman happened into our conversation. "What? You sort your photos? You name them? Why would you do that?"

She didn't actually call us idiots, but I'm now sure that I'm missing some sort of virtual magic photo sorter. If it's just me and that lady in the dark, I'm going to explode.

In any event, I resorted to using an old photo to make cards at CVS. It outrages Alison now that I hooked her baby self up to our old sleigh and called her Max (the Grinch's dog.) But it's a great shot.

Here's an updated one, though, which is fun, too. It only took a little begging to get her to do it.  

"Remember when you used to love helping me with Christmas pictures?" I said.

"I was a baby," she deadpanned. "I had no choice."  

Ali has taken to blasting “Highway to Hell” when I pick her up from school. She's not a huge AC/DC fan. She is though, of late, not a fan of my driving. 

When she was a kid, she and the Ogdens loved to sit in “the way back” of the Subaru and I’d bounce them around by swerving wildly (while in perfect control) in our neighborhood. But now, she’s subscribing more to the unfounded rumor that I’m a bad driver.

Here’s a conversation we have had nearly daily for the past few weeks:

“You almost killed me. Again. ” she will claim from her shotgun seat,  referring to a time when a car swerved out of traffic in front of us and I had to slam on the brakes.

“Actually I saved your life,” I retort.

“Only because you almost killed me first,” she'll claim.

No respect.

***

Jeff was struggling (kind of) to get off the couch where he was weighted down by the youngest redhead in the house

"Be like that blue train," she encouraged.

"What?"

"You know. That blue train. Be like that blue train!" she said.

"What are you talking about?" he said, exasperated and still trapped.

"You know: “I think I can. I think I can. You can do it!”

***

One of the first clubs Ali joined at Herron was an a capella group that meets an hour before school one day a week. She's also in the choir and was chosen to be part of a special part of one of the songs in the school's winter choral performance. The choir has new dresses this year and her's needed hemmed.

I thought I'd do it myself. What a mistake: it was Shutterfly all over again. In my defense, I'm not my sister Donna, and the skirt was full -- with a lining. 

It was well worth the $20 to have it hemmed and to withstand expected ridicule from our tailor, Lam Son in Broad Ripple. He's great and knows us mostly because of Jeff's suits, though he took in a bunch of clothes for me a while ago. I went to pick up the dress, which still bore the safety pin hem-mark job I did. 

"How hard did you laugh at my poor attempt?" I asked. (Jeff had delivered it.)

"Well, you don't have the tools I have," he said.

Savvy, Lam Son. Savvy.

If you're downtown in Indy next week, look for Ali to be caroling with her a capella group. She might have her Santa hat on. I'll give you a cookie if you ask her how to spell "a capella."

 ***

She's still fun most of the time. The teen drama has been minimal. Or perhaps she's just investing it in snark. The plumber was coming a few days ago so I cleaned her bathroom.

That night: "Hey mom, while you were destroying my place of sanctuary, you didn't happen to see my Harry Potter hair bow, did you?"

***

She was baking cookies this morning and moved my teapot, which sent her pan of just-baked cookies a titter. So of course she grabbed it with her bare hand. I told her not to put her hand under cold water but to instead put butter on it. I took out the remnants of a stick from the fridge.

I reached for a butter knife to apply it. She plunged her singed fingers into the 1/4 stick nub of butter.  I looked at her. "Uh. I wouldn't eat this," she said.

Merry Christmas. Hope you keep your oven mitts handier than we do.

And so this is Christmas

We have strict rule about Christmas around our house: no decorations can go up before Thanksgiving is over. But with Alison off all week last week and me off Wednesday, we violated it a little bit.

Defying her father, Alison broke out Jeff's legendary X-marks the Spot collection of Christmas music in early November and has been blasting it every chance she gets. He grumbled about it but was not-so-secretly pleased.  And on the way home from Aunt Donna's house, he blasted it in the car.

If you happened to be traveling I-70 Thursday evening, you might have heard us singing along to Snoopy v. the Red Baron, by the Royal Guardsmen one of my favorites, or some of the classics.

The CD collection pre-dates Ali and my appearance in Jeff's life. He started it with cassette tapes for his family, which explain the alternative stuff and the 80's classics for Jen and James and the classics for Gary and Marian.

There's a bit of everything in there, a lot of classics with a bit of a twist or two, classics straight up, some reggae, calypso and hip-hop. Elvis and Bing Crosby are well represented, along with country (for me) rock, jazz and bits from comedy albums and Christmas-themed shows and movies.  There's even some Wiggles and Crazy Frog (for Ali from Christmases past.) Ali and Jeff like to torment me by twanging out to some of the country songs.  

I take heart that Alison can identify all of the country artists even as she claims disdain: "That's Alan Jackson," she'll say before starting in with a sound somewhere between a yodel and a howl when he hits the honky tonk part of "Honky Tonk Christmas."She skips Toby Keith's "Santa I'm right here" because it makes her cry.

Each of us has  trigger song. For Jeff on the way home it was "White Christmas." As it ended,  he said something like, "That'll do it for WMPG. Gram if you're out there, this is for you."  Then he told us the story of when he was DJing in college, his shift happened to be the last one before Christmas break. He ended the session with this song for his grandmother then went home to find her crying in the living room, so touched that he was thinking of her.

Alison is trying to get Jeff to work together on a new CD but he's been working too much lately to do it. I can't decide if it'll be a great collaboration or will be one long fight. She has no idea the hours he put into those things. He used to start in August. On the other hand, it would be fun to watch. For a while.

We had a great Thanksgiving. It rained for most of it so the inside of the house is fully decorated. Jenna's coming over soon -- if Team Tokash ever wakes up -- and we might get out in the yard to do the rest. We have a 6-foot-tall inflatable Godzilla (Thank you Eric & Tracy) that Alison is determine to turn into Santa.  I have a fine place for it on the back porch. Or back yard. Or back in the box where it's lived since our wedding.

We had planned to re-gift it back to the Yokam-Wisemans but clearly failed in that mission. There's still time... Part of our Thanksgiving tradition is Friday night dinner with the Jacksons. Ali was three or four when we started this, and I wouldn't have blamed either Patrick or Patricia with being a little leery of having dinner with us and a toddler. Ali is as much in love with them as they are with her, though, and there were times last night when I thought she might just sneak off with them instead of coming home with us.

Part of my mission this holiday break was to back up my tons of digital photos, to finish some homework I have to do and get the house decorated. I got lost for a bit in the shots of Ali and her friends as little tykes  but I'm about 80 percent there, so I'm feeling pretty good.

We have too many pumpkin chocolate chip cookies leftover from Thanksgiving. And Jimmy sent us home with a pumpkin roll so it's been an exercise in discipline, which I've largely failed.

For Thanksgiving I tried a new dish that paired roasted Brussel sprouts with butternut squash, pecans and cranberries. It didn't look much like the photo Lisa posted and I might have been the only one to eat it. I figure the fiber count alone negated some of the cookies.

So today, I'm thankful for sweater weather. And fabulous friends and family. Possibly not in that order.