Up on the roof

When I was a kid and the weather was nice, I would often escape the house and climb one of the two big maple trees in our yard. I'd take a book and some snacks and stay up there for hours. 

There wasn't a lot to do in the country before cable television, and when you had as many kids as my parents did, solitude was hard to come by. Also, no one was going to climb a tree to steal my cookies or crackers or whatever I'd scrounged from the kitchen.

My father later told me always chuckled to see me up there because a family of black snakes lived in those trees, and he was just waiting for the day we'd discover each other. 

Now, my father was known to pull a leg or two, and I don't really know if Hoosier snakes actually live in trees. I do know that they can climb trees. (Yes, Annmarie, this is where you ask me if squirrels swim, and I repeat for the thousandth time, they will to survive but no, they don't do the backstroke in the Broad Ripple canal just for fun.) 

For the record, I never encountered a snake in a tree at home and had I thought I would, I would have never climbed them.  I was reminded of that childhood habit of mine because when February decided to dabble in spring-like weather, I was out in the yard cleaning up sticks and such when Alison decided to take a climb up a small tree in our yard to scout the roof.

She tossed down sticks and pushed of acorns that had accumulated on the gutter screens and then decided she liked it up there. So she hopped down, found a book and went back up.  Before you call the parenting police, I will say that I did consider whether to let her stay up there. But she's pretty nimble, the roof is not steeply angled, and heck: she was outside instead of in front of the cable box.

Today is just as balmy as yesterday, and she's expanded her up-top utopia with a basket tied to a tree branch with her bathrobe sash. It's a delivery system for books and snacks. Apparently she and I are not as dissimilar as I sometimes think. 

Before I left for a walk, she called down to ask me to put a sharpie and some printer paper in the basket. I thought about asking her why, but decided against it. I came back to see that she'd taped something to the chimney.

From the driveway, I asked her what it was. "I looked up Morse Code and wrote it all out," she said. "So if I'm in trouble, I can stomp out a message."

"What makes you think I know Morse Code?" I asked.

"I expect you to learn it by this afternoon," she said.

I think I'll wait for the yelp.

The Captain Wears Frilly White Panties

Actually, as I am in a position to know, I can refute that title. And as our resident laundress, Alison has some insight as well.

But when it comes to scary movies, or TV shows, the Captain definitely wears the panties in this family. We were watching "Supernatural" the other night. It was Alison's choice but Jeff likes to dabble in scary stuff, too, so I was outnumbered. And frankly, it was better than another episode of South Park, which is her current fascination.

Given the choice, I don't watch scary movies. I don't scream out or flail about. I have nightmares. Alison has scared herself from sleep more than a few times,  but she still likes them. I like hanging out with the two of them on occasion, so I agreed to her selection.

We were on the couch in the family room like people use to do. Jeff was in the middle. His flinching and yelping was an event in and of itself.

"Geeze, Dad. Are you wearing frilly white panties or what?" Alison asked.

If you ever find Jeff dead of a heart attack in our house, chances are it's because Alison or I did something deadly. Like walk into a room. Or speak.  He's incredibly skittish. Which we find hilarious.

In other news, Alison was bored at school on Friday, so she drew constellations on her arm by connecting freckles.

We are just back from Delicia where we had a wonderful Valentine's Day/Anniversary dinner. Jeff and I spent Saturday night watching Dead Pool and indulging in champagne and pizza. It's been a lovely weekend that's about to end with a collection of Reeds around the fireplace.

Happy Valentine's Day!

The Accidental Romantic

I'm not very romantic. 

I like romance. But I'm not very good at it, and I'm certain Captain Reed would confirm this situation. 

Most people assume that I planned our Valentine's Day wedding was a deeply thoughtful plan on my part. In truth, it was a happy accident.

I was looking for a Saturday in February. I don't even remember why we decided to do it in February. After convincing me that we were breaking up, Jeff proposed in October and we'd started moving into the house in January. It just so happened that one of the Saturdays in February was the 14th. 

Turns out it was awesome. The 18 years that have followed that Saturday in 1998 have mostly been awesome. Like everyone else, we have experienced ups and down, twists and turns, huge losses and huge gains and days of mediocrity scattered in between.

The gains have included new friends and family members that I wouldn't give up for anything. If you're reading this, you're among those fine people. And I'm grateful for you.

So, please save this date in two year's time. I'm pretty sure we're going to try to replicate our wedding reception to celebrate with all the people we've collected between now and then. I'm not the only one who thinks it was a great time. Or that it seems like it was just yesterday that my bridesmaids and I were caught at the bar doing this:  

That's one of my favorite pictures from among many taken that day. (Most of them by David Cowan, to give credit where credit is due.) 

So plan now to be in Indianapolis trying not to get rib sauce on your fancy dress or suit or to over-indulge in cheesecake. We'll probably have a better vintage of champagne and Jeff might even share his fancy liquor.

But mostly it'll just be fun.

Speaking of falling.... the captain is down

So Jeff has recently replaced me as the cool parent. I'm not bitter. I'm not sad. I knew he couldn't last.

And like all good mothers, I just sat back and waited.

For the past few weeks, they've been chattering in their code, talking about the Beatles and other rock music that I can't remember now. He let her watch Pulp Fiction. Super cool dad stuff.

So when she casually mentioned to him that she wanted to see the Dead Pool -- the newest Marvel movie that comes out next week, she was naturally thinking he'd be fine with it. And when our Jasheway friends said they were screening it, he thought we'd all go.

Then he heard a little bit more about it. We agreed that he should go to the screening and see if we were OK with her seeing it. While Ali and I were waxing poetic about deep-dish pizza, he went to the movie.

Ten minutes in, Duane leaned over and said to Jeff, "No f-ing way (should Ali see it.)"

He gave her the news on the way to school Friday. She was less than pleased.

"I'm afraid I lost my cool status," he told me.

"Oh, yeah," she confirmed later.

I did give her the spiel of how "Dad and I just want to be sure it's something you're ready for and as he described it to me, I agree that you're just not ready for it."

I'm ready to see it, but should anyone with a shred of innocence? Nope.

I didn't actually beat a path to tell him that he'd fallen from the pedestal, but I didn't hesitate to confirm it when he questioned it.

And damned if he didn't start to build that damn pedestal back up. He and Grandpa have a habit of breaking into Monty Python bits from time to time. They crack themselves up with phrases that lead to soliloquies. He mentioned that the skits are on Spotify and she might want to check them out.

So she's been singing "I'm a lumberjack and I don't care," all day.

I had a hair appointment and he took her to a choir performance today, giving me full warning that he was going to remind her that I'd chosen to cover my gray over hearing her sing. (She and I had had a long talk -- she agreed with my decision, as neither of us want me to look like Barbara Bush.)

After she and her choir group won gold - seriously - he suggested they do something to celebrate. "We're already on the west side, how about we ditch your mom and go to Jungle Jim's?" he asked.

She looked at him. "Or, or, or," she said. "Instead of a two-hour drive, we could go see Dead Pool."

It was easy to nix the movie. It's not out yet. They settled for lunch in town.  When we finally got back together and I got the scoop on the choir competition and the aftermath, I asked her how he was doing climbing out of his hole.

"Well, Monty Python helped," she said. "But he's got a ways to go."

Alison in love

It had to happen eventually and like her mother before her, she resisted. But finally, Alison has fallen hard.

She'd been curious about it for a while, but I'd been hoping to put it off. She's nearly 15. Such a dangerous age. She's so freaking cute and tiny that I'm almost afraid to send her outside the house.

But last week, she fell off the ledge.

Let me set the stage for you. We were on our way home from school/work. She'd been spending a lot of time "studying" lately. Between her bedroom and her bath, she's been popping up as infrequently as prairie dogs in a drought.  But I was trying to get her to come clean.

We were talking about dinner. We were going to be on our own, so we could do anything from eat cereal in from of the TV to going out. We've been driving by a Little Ceasar's Pizza shop for the past couple of years since it moved into a closed storefront on College.

She'd seen the commercials. I panned the place, saying we were Papa John's people and she wouldn't like it. But she'd had a hankering. I thought I'd probably have salad and she could have a small, terrible pizza on her own.

We pulled in. "I have a deep dish pepperoni ready to go," said the young man at the counter. We shrugged, picked it up and went back to the car.

She pulled open the box to view the new treat. It was like angels sang. Fat, red-sauced smeared angels. The cheesy goodness was thicker than some lasagnas I've had. And the smell. Oh, the smell.

We were two minutes from home.

"We could try one," she suggested, tugging off a pepperoni, stringing three feet of cheese.

"I could have a bite," I said.

And right there on 49th Street turning onto Guilford, she fell in love.

Am I sad that she fell in love with deep-dish pizza? Not one bit. Well maybe a little. Because I can't resist it, either, and while her metabolism is akin to that of a hummingbird and mine is more sloth-like, it's a delight I've forgone too long.

How did we go this long before she experienced deep-dish pizza? Because I've been on a freaking diet since she was born, that's why. And yes, I did advise her that there were something like 58 trillion calories inside that wonderfully greasy cardboard box.

"We can only have this once a month," she said, through a mouthful of pizza. "I'll go jogging later."

I took my piece on a walk around the neighborhood so I could reach my step goal. It was a six-piece box. She finished it for breakfast.

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.