And then there was the time my son broke his humerus…
and his mama donned a hairshirt and indulged in a week-long self-flagellation session:
A fractured humerus is not humorous
Category Archives: Family
My family steals acorns from squirrels.
There are certain foods that my kids simply won’t eat. I don’t force them to eat everything I put before them, but I do insist that they have at least one bite before they reject it. Occasionally this backfires on me. Once when Tatiana was three, I made her try “just one little bite of butternut squash.” She grudgingly acquiesced and then promptly threw up. Still streaming vomit, she whipped her head around to glare at me accusingly, and with an unmistakable note of triumph in her voice, she said, “SEE?!”
When unfortunate events such as this happen, the food is entered into the special Foods-That-Make-the-Kids-Gag category. My rule for these foods is that while I remove them from regular rotation, I make the kids try at least one teensy, tiny, miniscule bite of them once a year. This strategy has yielded some amazing breakthroughs! One of the foods they used to loathe was potatoes. We tried them in 2006. We tried them in 2007, and then: BINGO! In 2008 potatoes became one of their favorite foods. After years and years of trying, we still haven’t rounded the corner on tomatoes, but they’re on the schedule for summer 2013.
It’s hard for me to feel any great sympathy for my kids when they complain about the food I give them. Butternut squash? Potatoes? Tomatoes? PUH-LEEZE! I’m dealing far more charitably with my kids than my own parents ever did with me when it came to food. If we complained about what was put before us, my normally taciturn dad would bark, “If Mom puts a rock on your plate, YOU EAT IT!” And we did. Every single last bite of tripe, raw liver, or whatever else was being served up that day. We choked down some pretty challenging foods for kids growing up in America.
Between the ages of 5 and 8 I lived deep in the darkest heart of the American sticks, in a sleepy backwater town in Pennsylvania. To put things in perspective, Scranton – now practically a byword for shabby, benighted little townlet – was the glittering big city to our town. Reeking of kimchi and fermented soybeans, we might as well have been Martians when our family of six rolled into this microscopic, blindingly white village with a population of around 5,000 something.
The moment I first appeared on the playground of my new elementary school, the noisy chatter and laughter of children at play abruptly ceased, as if someone had pushed a magic mute button. Feverish whispering closely followed the eerie hush that had suddenly descended upon the playground. Little blond heads leaned in close together as the children conferred with each other in obvious bewilderment and consternation at the appearance of this alien in their midst. Innocently, they tried to work out how my face got so very flat, whether my eyes hurt all the time, or whether one would eventually get used to the pain of having eyes like mine…
I have no word of reproach for those children. During our four years in this town, we worked tirelessly, albeit unwittingly, to reinforce our reputation as freakish interlopers. Our idiosyncratic approach to food did much to shape this profile. While our neighbors cultivated neat flower beds with nothing more exotic than the odd rose bush, our front yard burst forth with abundant harvests of bok choy and wild sesame. Our school projects were held together not with Elmer’s Glue, but with homemade glue made of water and rice. We kept a giant red Rubbermaid cooler filled with enough rice to put Elmer’s Glue out of business and end world hunger. Even when my parents embraced some culinary aspect of the culture we were living in, they would tweak it somehow so that it was still nonstandard. We would have salad, but it would be tossed with soy sauce, sesame seeds, and red pepper flakes. We’d have Neopolitan ice cream, but instead of scooping it out, my mom would put the carton on a chopping board, cut away the carton, and then slice up the block of ice cream with her largest butcher knife.
You could probably smell the contents of our refrigerator long before our house came into view. If you were to open the refrigerator, you might find vats of soup with rubbery strands of seaweed floating in murky liquid, pungent dishes of marinated bracken fern shoots, or jars crammed with tiny little salted baby shrimp staring out at you with millions of black unseeing eyes. For years we ate sea cucumbers thinking they were vegetables until my sister watched a movie in biology class and saw the dinner we’d had the night before propelling itself in grotesque slow motion like a gigantic, warty slug across the screen. From that day forward, if one of us asked what a certain dish was and the answer was: “Just eat it,” four forks would instantaneously and simultaneously fall onto the table with a loud clatter.
We began to make a weekly escape from our little town when my dad became the pastor of a Korean congregation, which met in a church on the corner of 76th Street and Broadway in New York City. When people from our town found out that we were voluntarily going to the Son of Sam’s lair they shook their heads in disbelief and real concern. But for us it was a blessed relief to hang around with other dark-haired people who understood that roasted seaweed and dried squid were delicious snack foods.
The heavy price we paid for our furlough was the two and a half hour drive to New York. Every Sunday morning at the crack of dawn we would pile into our light blue Chevy Malibu station wagon and head off to the big city. My two older sisters would occupy the bench seat, while my younger brother and I would roll around like a sack of potatoes in the cargo area. The car was not without amenities. There was a gigantic hole in the rusted out bottom of the car and if you lifted the floor mat, you could watch the highway rushing by. If it got too hot, you could always roll down the windows. It was even equipped with a dual-purpose coffee can that made an admirable puke bucket, and could serve as a toilet in a pinch.
On the way back from church we would break up the journey by stopping off at a grocery store to buy lunch. We would buy a loaf of bread, some salami, yogurt, and pickles. Usually we would sit in the parking lot of the Grand Union dining on this Grand Repast in our chariot of fire. When the weather was good, we would drive a little further to a rest area that had picnic tables. One day we sat at a picnic table somewhere on the interstate in our Sunday best, feasting on pickles and salami like kings and queens. My parents were gazing at the tall oak trees that surrounded us when they had a sudden brainstorm. Before we could lick the pickle juice off our fingers we were hustled over to gather acorns that had fallen from the trees. Travelers did double takes, squirrels glared resentfully as we stooped over to collect acorns, their acorns. Because, as everyone knows, squirrels eat acorns. So do Korean people. These acorns would later be peeled, puverized, and transformed into a tasteless, glistening, gelatinous substance.
It’s a lot of effort, really, for not very much at all, and hardly worth it when you factor in the enormous psychological cost of having to steal food from squirrels in plain view of everyone traveling on I-80.
We eventually moved when my parents decided it was time to seek the company of like-minded fellow acorn-eaters in the far more populous and diverse suburbs of Washington, DC. I remember staring out the back window of the old rusted-out Malibu as we drove away, taking a final look at the place that had become our home, despite the intense sense of dislocation and alienation we had felt there for so much of the time. I may even have shed a few tears.
When I tell my kids, who have grown up on such innocuous foods as pasta, chicken nuggets, and pizza about my years in Pennsylvania, I tell them about real hardships and how they humbled, but also strengthened us. If we could make it there, we could make it anywhere, blah, blah, blah-buhty, blah…And let’s get real, kids: Do I make you eat raw organs? Am I dishing up sea slugs? Have I ever once made you eat squirrel jello?! So if Mom puts a tomato on your plate, YOU EAT IT!”
Prayers
At one of the most difficult times of my life, I experienced one of the most beautiful moments of my life…
In Seoul I climbed mountains to stand in candle-lit Buddhist temples perched on the steep slopes. I’ve stood with the throng in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican listening to the Pope give his Easter address from a balcony. I’ve sat in silence with Quakers in the exquisite simplicity of a wooden meeting room lit by sun streaming in through skylights. But the most sacred moment I’ve been privy to thus far took place in a slightly shabby hospital room at New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
It happened about six years ago, when I was there with my daughter, who was six months old at the time. She was scheduled to have surgery the following day, and a trio of phlebotomists had come in to her hospital room to draw blood for the requisite pre-operative blood work. It’s a one-person job, but I was not at all surprised to see several come in together. Already by six months, my baby was a veteran of hospital rooms and E.R.s, so I knew by then that even the most experienced phlebotomists hate “sticking” infants. In those first six months of my daughter’s life, more than once I’d watch the phlebotomist’s face fall when he or she would enter the cubicle to see me waiting with a baby in my arms. They would immediately excuse themselves to start hunting for a colleague upon whom to foist off the dirty deed. What made it worse was that my daughter was what they call a “hard stick,” and it often took multiple attempts before a tiny vein could be found. More than once a nurse or phlebotomist would try a couple times and would then refuse to try again. On one occasion, after the first phlebotomist failed to draw blood after two attempts, we had to wait for another one to come back from lunch, because no one else could be conscripted.
So there in the hospital, when three phlebotomists walked in to my baby’s room to draw her blood, I understood. Other doctors and nurses happened to be in the room when they came in, and together they formed a circle around the bed where I sat holding my baby. At the periphery, others watched with bowed heads.
It was silent in the room as the phlebotomist prepared her needles and tubes, but as soon as she began a gentle whispering filled the room. It rose up all around me like the rustle of autumn leaves being blown by the wind. It took me a moment to realize what it was: the sound of people in that room, from all over the world, offering up prayers in their own languages for my little baby, for the phlebotomist to draw her blood easily, and on the first try.
She was able to do it. My baby cried for just a few seconds and then smiled up at the phlebotomist when the needle was withdrawn. The woman turned to look at me with tears in her own eyes and marveled in her softly accented English, “What kind of baby is this? She’s smiling at me, after I just poked her with a needle!”
There are very few moments in life like this: moments so rare and precious when you know that you are in the presence of something holy and you feel sanctified for having witnessed it. I will remember this moment and the goodness and decency of strangers, who all prayed to some higher being that my baby would be spared pain, with wonder and deep gratitude for the rest of my life.
Home from the hospital
Working It Out
I love the moments when my boys are like this:
But let’s get real. There are plenty of days when they’re like this:
This afternoon they left in high spirits to play tennis at the courts in our neighborhood. I’m still not sure what happened at the tennis courts, but they returned home separately, both filled with fury and absolutely certain that the other had been grievously, outrageously, unforgivably in the wrong. Venomous words and death stares were exchanged. Bitter tears were shed. They retreated to opposite ends of the house to marinate in their own bile.
I wondered if I should dispense a few bromides, make them hug it out, or exact insincere apologies from both aggrieved parties. Being the exceedingly lazy person that I am, I decided to do the easiest thing: nothing at all.
I was reminded of how my mother dealt with us when we quarreled as children…
One day my older sisters were bickering with each other. My mother frogmarched them into the kitchen, poured herself a cup of coffee, drew up a chair, and in a brisk, business-like tone instructed them to punch each other.
My sisters looked at her and then each other with intense embarrassment and discomfiture.
“Well?! You wanted to fight. So fight. Go on!” she said, drumming her fingers on the kitchen table.
They stood there looking miserable.
“Amie, you punch Annabelle,” she urged. Weeping now, my sister declined.
“You wanted to fight, so fight, I said! Go on! Punch Annabelle as hard as you can!”
Seeing that my mother would not be deterred, Amie weakly nudged Annabelle with a closed fist. Now my mother was really enjoying herself. She took another long swig of her coffee and said, “OK, Annabelle. Now you punch her back. Go on!”
When Annabelle, who was also sobbing by now, returned the nudge, they were both finally released from the horror show.
Years later my brother and I were squabbling about something or other when my mother remembered the diabolically clever penal scheme that had sprung like a miracle from her brain: the perfectly formed child of her fertile imagination. She couldn’t wait to relive the glory of the moment.
“You want to fight?! OK! Go on, fight! Adrienne, you punch Teddy.”
I can only imagine the satisfaction she felt as she watched the scene of her past triumph repeat itself.
“But I — don’t want — to hit him!” I blubbered and spluttered and managed to gasp out.
“I said, HIT him! You want to fight so badly, here’s your chance. I’m not stopping you! PUNCH him as HARD as you can!”
It was clear to me that we were mere puppets in this twisted demonstration of my mother’s disciplinary ingenuity and that the show would only end when we did as we were told. I delivered the first symbolic “punch,” a mere brush with my knuckles.
My mother pounced, practically spitting in glee, “Teddy! It’s your turn. Now you punch Adrienne!”
She didn’t need to tell him twice. He turned and punched me so hard I landed on my beleaguered ass clear across the room. That was the last time she ever tried that. But hey, it all worked out in the end…My brother and I love each other, and I even named my own son after him. The slurred speech and blurred vision eventually cleared up. And as for the memory loss? Who wants to harbor bitter, unpleasant memories anyway?
This afternoon I heard a lot of sniffling and muttering that went on for hours. Nicholas eventually started to do his homework in the dining room. Teddy took up his ukulele in the living room next door and started strumming it softly.
“Who’s playing the ukulele?” I heard from the dining room. I braced myself for the brouhaha that was sure to ensue and tried to head it off.
“Teddy,” I said, “Nicholas is trying to study. Why don’t you go up to your room and play?”
“No, I like it.” Nicholas said from the other room. “Teddy, you sound really good.”
And that was that. Peace in the valley once again.
Take me back to San Francisco
First published last September…
I’m on a plane heading to San Francisco for my cousin’s wedding. Actually, while I will be going to the wedding, I’m really going for my parents, who are using this happy pretext to revisit the place where they began their own life together as a married couple.
In February 1963, my father was a student in San Francisco. Against all odds, he had managed to make his way to the U.S. to pursue the education that had cruelly eluded him during a childhood filled with adversity and suffering.
School was a luxury, a beautiful dream that was constantly interrupted, snatched away, and cut short by real nightmares: air raids, forced labor by the Japanese occupiers, disease…The sudden and premature death of his father was disastrous for his family, already reeling under the privations brought about by the occupation. My father witnessed beloved siblings die from malnutrition – the very thought brings me to my knees. The family was able to scrape together enough money to pay for only one son’s school fees. The others had to help on the farm so that the family could survive.
When my father’s older brother saw how desperate he was to get an education, and though he would sorely miss his help on the farm, he gave him his blessing to leave home at the age of 13 in pursuit of his dream. My father would have to find a way to support himself through school. He still remembers his brother’s sacrifice with deep gratitude.
He walked for days to get to Seoul, where he found a job sweeping glass in a watch factory. He worked during the day, went to night school, and at the end of every long day, he would sweep clean a place on the factory floor where he would sleep. Eventually, he enrolled in a new college that had the lowest tuition he could find.
The school’s president was the scion of a family of Catholic martyrs: three generations of his family were wiped out on one day. His own father had physically survived the massacre, but was a ruined, broken man. The president had gone on to become the leader of a Christian underground resistance movement. He was repeatedly arrested and tortured by the Japanese for his activities and was always on the run. Fearing for her own safety, his wife would dress as a beggar and hide in the busy marketplace all day, returning home to their children only late at night. Eventually, he led a large group of hundreds of refugees to Manchuria, an arduous journey on foot during which his youngest child, an infant, died. When he was finally able to return to Korea, he founded the college.
My father became the president’s star student. He had a fierce hunger and passion for knowledge. He gorged himself on philosophy, history, languages. Emboldened by a degree finally under his belt, and encouraged by American G.I.s he met while doing his compulsory military service, he took and passed a test, which would allow him to continue his studies in the U.S.
Before he was about to graduate, my father went to the president’s office to tell him that he was getting married. The president congratulated him heartily, and it was only then that my dad revealed that he was going to marry his own daughter, my mother. The college was (and is) an institution where skirt hemlines are strictly monitored and relationships between the sexes are discouraged. How my dad worked up the nerve to court and get engaged to the president’s daughter behind his back is unfathomable to me. His placid, gentle demeanor belies steely, ballsy determination that has carried him throughout his life.
So in February 1963, my mother stepped off the plane in San Francisco to meet her soon-to-be husband. Their separation had been long. Her arrival had been delayed by a year when an x-ray revealed that she had had tuberculosis as a child. She spent the year listening to tapes, trying to learn English. She still sometimes mimics the stilted, heavily accented recordings that she would listen to over and over again: “I am a boy.” “I am a girl.”
It was a difficult first year for my mother. She cried every day because she was homesick and so far away from home. The birth of my oldest sister, and my second sister soon after, brought comfort and joy. As their family grew and they settled into their new country, my parents began to build a happy life together. Painful memories of the past receded as they made new memories: outings to the zoo with their daughters, the taste of sourdough bread, eating watermelon in their little apartment under the belfry of the Hamilton Square Baptist Church.
Standing in front of Hamilton Square Baptist Church
Photos and more about our visit to my parents’ first home here.
Pets
A shortened version of one of my very first posts. Read the full post in two parts, here and here.
When my parents moved back to Korea from San Francisco with three children in tow, they were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to get enough protein in our diet. In America we had been raised with plenty of milk, cheese, chicken, and beef, all of which were almost impossible to find, and/or prohibitively expensive in Korea at the time. My father acquired a pair of rabbits to remedy the situation. We have photographs of ourselves feeding carrots to Veronica and Brownie through the bars of their hutch, our eyes wide with childish wonder and delight. One morning my dad called us outside. “Kids, look! The rabbits are having a wedding!” We ran out expecting to see Veronica dressed in a long white gown and veil and Brownie in cutaway tails and an ascot. We were confused and disappointed to see that Brownie had merely mounted Veronica and was jerking furtively with one beady eye trained on the growing crowd of spectators witnessing the consummation of his marriage bed. Soon there was a hutch full of Brownies and Veronicas.
Me and “Dinner”
I think it was Brownie Sr. who was first served up for dinner one night. When it was discovered that we had just eaten one of our pet bunnies, bloodcurdling keening alternating with howling recriminations sent sonic shockwaves reverberating around the whole neighborhood. My father quietly gave away the rest of the rabbits to a delighted neighbor that very night and that was the end of that. My dad had learned an important lesson: you don’t give names to your food.
His next idea was to buy some chicks. Of course, this time no names would be given. But we had also by this time acquired a dog, to whom a name most definitely was given. My grandfather rather grandiosely dubbed him Sodeka, for Socrates, Descartes, and Kant. Despite his extravagant name, Sodeka was unceremoniously kept in the yard tethered to a chain, just as all Korean dogs are. Any wisdom Sodeka may have possessed was in realizing he knew nothing. Perhaps he was even wiser than his partial namesake, because unlike Socrates, he grasped that the pursuit of truth and virtue were pointless. He wasted no time mulling over the ethical ramifications of eating defenseless baby chicks too stupid to keep far enough away. Cogito ergo sum? How about: My growling stomach tells me I exist, and I therefore deduce that those senseless birds won’t in a minute. Screw Kant’s categorical imperative, he was hungry, and the chicks were right there! Sodeka died a few years later when he got into the trash and ate some chicken bones. In his dying act, he proved the existence of retributive justice in the world.
When we moved back to America we acquired an aquarium, which became home (and hospice) to a rapid succession of fish, fowl, and rodent. The many, many fish all too quickly succumbed to spectacularly depressing, protracted deaths, despite my fervent prayers and earnest ministrations. I would admit my patients to the hospital isolation ward: a pickle jar filled with saltwater and warmed with my rickety old swing arm desk lamp that served as a heat lamp. It never helped. They would continue to float on their sides or backs until they finally took their last gasp. Only once, the fish my little brother named Charlene Tilton seemed to be on the brink of a miraculous, unprecedented recovery. Every day I could see that her body was slowly righting itself until one glorious day she finally regained her vertical position. I was Florence Nightingale! Clara Barton! Hell, I was Mother Theresa! The day I planned to present Charlene Tilton with her discharge papers, I rushed home from school to find that the arm of the desk lamp had slipped and the bulb was barely a centimeter over the water. Charlene Tilton had been poached to death. Oh, the bitter, bitter tears I shed over each and every one of those fish.
The next ill-fated resident of that glass house of death lasted for only a few days. Butch was an impossibly adorable, fuzzy little chick, hatched in an incubator in my brother’s second grade classroom as a terribly misguided science project about the life cycle. The teacher blithely sent Butch and his siblings off to their deaths at the hands of a dozen or so second graders without so much as instructions on what to feed the poor doomed birds. Butch chirped piteously all day long and would only quiet down when we took him into our hands, where he’d nestle contentedly and immediately fall asleep. Every time my Dad caught us in the act, he’d make us put him back in the aquarium. He said with authority (having grown up on a farm, after all) that our very touch was toxic to the chick and that we would hasten his demise. Maybe he was right, or maybe Butch just got too cold in the aquarium. I really don’t know what we would have done with a rooster in the heart of suburban Arlington anyway.
Then there were the two gerbils named Pee Wee and Flea Bag. Once in awhile, I’d let them loose in the front yard. They would frolic about in the grass until I called for them. As soon as they heard their names, they’d come racing back to me. Maybe those brief interludes when they could feel the sun on their backs and the wind in their little rodent faces put forgiveness in their hearts, so that they returned to me even though I routinely forgot to feed them for days on end. Or maybe they made the cold, sober calculation that my negligent care was better than being eaten by a neighborhood cat:
“Yo, Flea Bag, that crazy chick’s calling us back. Come on, man, now’s our chance. Let’s do it! Let’s run for it, man!”
“Yeah! Let’s do this thing! Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m fr–!”
“Awww sh*t, Flea Bag! There’s that damn cat, again. Damn it!! Come on, man, we gotta go back to the aquarium.”
“Dude, I’m so depressed.”
“Next time, man. Next time…”
Those gerbils never did make their escape. They lived to a ripe old age and ended their days in the aquarium. I sobbed when they died, belatedly regretting all the times I’d forgotten to feed them. My family tried to console me, assuring me that it was almost unheard of for gerbils to live as long as they did, but to this day I can’t think of them without pangs of guilt.
A guest post from my son
Dec. ’12
Sept. ’13
As a thirteen-year veteran of living with a mother, you could say that I’ve become an expert. Here are my top ten tips for handling mothers.
1. Never ever act like you’re stressed, even if that’s how you feel. The mom will stress out and a stressed out mom equals the whole house being stressed out.
2. When your mother says that she has a “surprise,” unless it’s your birthday, that’s a red flag.
3. When your mother asks you to do something you don’t want to do, don’t be obviously disobedient, just look for every possible loophole.
4. When the word “adolescent” comes up, change the topic immediately. If you don’t, you’ll be in for an awkward “talk.”
5. Moms are good at lie-detecting. Practice the fine art of blaming things on your siblings before trying this at home.
6. When your mother tells you to take a shower, turn it on and then go hang out in your room. Don’t forget to turn the water off eventually, or she’ll get suspicious.
7. There’s always some secret your mother doesn’t want her parents to know. Use this knowledge wisely.
8. When your mom tells you to clean your room, don’t just shove everything into your closet. That’s an amateur move. Be more creative. Stashing things in your dresser drawer, your siblings’ bedrooms, or under blankets is less obvious.
9. Before dinner time ask your mother to help you with your homework so she won’t have time to make one of her famous “experiments.” You’ll have a better chance of getting chicken nuggets.
10. If your mom complains about how badly your clothes smell after soccer practice, act both shocked and hurt that she would be so mean to you. There’s a good chance she’ll feel so bad that she might even buy you some ice cream.
Tried and failed again…
For twelve years I have tried and failed to write about 9/11. Last night I stayed up way too late laboring over the essay that I thought would finally express what that day meant to me. This morning, twenty minutes before it was scheduled to post, I read it again and aborted. At the last minute, it seemed to me that “no words” better expressed what I was trying to say than the 700+ words I had wrung out of myself like blood from a stone. Ironically, yesterday’s “no words” post, which consisted of just that, got more hits than many other posts I’ve spent hours composing.
Today I’ll just say that this is what kept me going that terrible year:
I lived for the doctor’s appointments when I could hear the heartbeat of my son, who was born about 9 months after 9/11.
I am truly evil.
In terms of my relationship with my adolescent, this past year can be summed up with a series of pictures and graphs:
The rough road we’ve traveled this year with our son has lined my face with new wrinkles and has added gray hairs to my head.
At first there were road blocks that had to be negotiated. Eventually, the way was blocked off entirely.
For a long time, there was no easy way to get through to the other side.
But just when I had lost all hope, the foundation of a new and stronger bridge was put in place.
And then, one fine day:
Where once my son’s moods could be described by this sine wave:
fig. 1
They are now more like this:
fig. 2
Nowadays, when I open my mouth to say something, I can reasonably expect NOT to have my words immediately torched to cinders as if by a giant flamethrower.
Lately, I can generally get through the day without being reduced to a quivering mess of raw, exposed nerves because of some act of poor judgment or lack of impulse control on my son’s part.
It is so sweet.
It’s time to celebrate this time of intellectual and emotional growth that has come hand-in-hand with my son’s physical growth. It’s time to rejoice in the relative peace and harmony that has descended upon our household.
It’s time…for payback!
I am now going to reveal a delightful secret to those of you who may have children on the cusp of adolescence…Right now, your young adult is at the most sensitive, vulnerable time of his or her life. They are yearning for approval and acceptance by their peers. It doesn’t take much at all to embarrass them. Think of this embarrassment as the very wellspring of your own illimitable powers. Yes! Be glad! Breathe deep the heady aroma of your own might, (while at the same time willing yourself to ignore the stench of the sweaty socks strewn about your minivan and home). These days, even as my son grows taller than me by the minute, my power over him grows at an even more astonishing rate. I have in my clutches the ultimate weapon – the power to embarrass, and the shamelessness to deploy this cruel, cruel weapon.
This past weekend one of Nicholas’ friends came over for a sleepover in the middle of the night when his parents had to make an unexpected trip to the ER. I got out of bed to help Nicholas blow up the air mattress while Colin went to pick up the friend to bring him back to our house. Nicholas kept insisting that he could handle it himself, and kept urging me to go back to my room. He was getting more and more agitated about my presence and I simply couldn’t comprehend why until at last he said, “He’s going to be here soon. Don’t you think you should put some pants on, or something?”
I looked down at the ratty, oversized tee-shirt I was wearing as pajamas, and because I am an evil, evil human being, who suffered the tongues of flame in the deepest bowels of adolescent hell this year, I replied nonchalantly, “Nah. He’s just like family. He won’t mind at all.”
Oh, how I relished every second of my son’s squirming until I finally took pity on him and went to change. When I considered all the many battles we fought over his wardrobe over the course of this past year, I couldn’t help but think that I’d let him off too easily.
Later in the weekend he told me that he was going to DJ for the upcoming school dance. The perfect opportunity, once again presented to me on a gleaming silver platter! How could I possibly resist?
“So, I’m sure they’ll want parents to chaperone, right? Because I’d love to be there for your gig.”
An eerie silence immediately filled the car. The words “shock and awe” sprang unbidden to my mind.
“Mom. I love you so much, but...”
I cut him off with my wild, demonic cackling.
My God! Life really IS good!
Thus Spake…
A few quotes from my favorite Nietzsche-reading young philosopher with companion quotes from Thus Spake Zarathustra.
Thus Spake Zarathustra: “Behold, I bring you the Superman!”
Thus Spake Zarathustra: “How lovely it is that there are words and sounds. Are not words and sounds rainbows and illusive bridges between things which are eternally apart?”
Thus Spake Zarathustra: “Good and evil, and joy and pain, and I and you – colored vapors did they seem to me before creative eyes. The creator wished to look away from himself, – and so he created the world.”
Happy Monday!
o wonderful, wonderful 