An Elephant Never Forgets

Just before Christmas, Peanut's Nonnie and Auntie took her to Disneyland. She enjoyed the first day very much, but on the morning of the second day she vomited right down the middle of Main Street, U.S.A. They hadn't even made it to the statue of Walt and Mickey, and they had to turn around and go back to the hotel. The next couple of days were spent trying to find a gift shop that sold applesauce and figuring out if either of them had extra pajamas for my sickly eight- year-old to borrow. I almost jumped on an airplane to rescue her, but realized that she was with the next-best-thing-to-Mom and relaxed. Well, a little bit. Okay, I called around every 45 minutes or so. Don't judge.

Peanut was actually pretty all right about the whole experience, except for one thing: She didn't get to ride on Dumbo.

Tossing her cookies at the Happiest Place on Earth didn't bother her so much. Nonnie having to spend hours watching cartoons at HoJo's - not a horrible thing. No Dumbo = Catastrophic Event Probably Leading to Needing Therapy in the Future.

For weeks after she returned, she would lay in bed until way past bedtime, worrying that she had somehow offended the flying elephant by not waiting in line for an hour to visit him. "We'll go again someday, right Mom?" She would ask. I would climb the stairs to retire for the evening, and she'd still be up. "Maybe I should ride him first the next time we go to Disneyland."

So, here's the really, really weird part: I had the exact same experience when I was eight, like Peanut. No kidding. I didn't get to ride Dumbo and it blew. my. mind.

My mother was dating my stepfather and in an attempt to woo her, he flew my mom, my five-year-old brother and me to Orange County for a short overnighter - in his airplane. What young, single mother wouldn't be impressed by that, I ask you? Long story marginally short: I didn't get to ride Dumbo and I spend the rest of the evening (no, really it was more like the rest of my life) sobbing in distress. Worried that I might never, ever get the chance to see him again. Of course, I felt compelled to share this story with my mournful child.

My daughter and I are emotional hoarders. I don't mean that we hoard because we are emotional (although, truth be told, that may also be an issue), I mean that we hoard actual emotions: memories, events, words - as tangible as the shoe boxes full of limitless, useless, eclectic items in your Aunt Bertha's closets, that she will really need someday. The memory- mind- movies loop in our brains and weigh us down with as much anxiety as all the Splenda packets, broken shoelaces, and threadbare beach towels that you could collect in a lifetime.

When my husband and I decided to take Peanut and Bean to visit Mickey Mouse and his crew in February, it was the first ride on our list. However, we made it through the first day and neglected to visit the flying elephant.

The boys went back to the hotel when it got dark, and Peanut and I were at the neighboring themepark, California Adventure. We were trying to watch the new water-light show, but we had horrible seats. I heard a voice in my ear, trying to sound nonchalant, "Heya, Mom? Are you bored?" I answered honestly, that I was done with seeing the backside of water. "How about we, uh, go to the Dumbo ride?" Sounds like a good idea, right? It would have been, except that Disney was closing in ELEVEN MINUTES.

Me: I don't think we can get to Dumbo before the park closes.

Peanut: Yes, yes we can. We'll run fast.

Me: I haven't been able to run fast in years.

Peanut: Come on, Mom, think of the exercise.

Me: I don't want any exercise, I'm on vacation. I just want one of those giant corndogs and a Mickey-shaped ice cream sandwich.

Peanut: We have to do this, Mom, both of us! We need to catch up on Dumbo or we'll regret it forever!

SOLD

By some incredible miracle, I managed to get the lead out and run as fast as a third grader: past the ticket booth, past Main Street U.S.A. - Hi, Walt! Bye, Walt! - and under Sleeping Beauty's Castle.

We got the last two boarding passes for that damned ride. I am not kidding. We were the last two passengers for the evening.

It was easily 45 degrees, but we were both sweating from our unexpected workout. My heart was pounding from too many years and not enough regular jogging. But we made it. We made it and soon we were in the air.

I could see above the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The top of the Matterhorn. I could hear the music from the carousel below. When I looked at my daughter's face, I knew that this had lifted a weight from her shoulders. Her hair blew behind her and her missing-tooth-grin was reflecting the lights around us as we circled the evening sky.

That very moment made it on my shortlist of most wonderful moments, ever.

When we exited the ride, we walked, lighthearted, toward our hotel.

"Mom?" I looked down into my mini-twin's face to see what she wanted.

"We didn't get to ride Peter Pan."

Thinking Outside of the Box - Doh! I Meant "Inside"

We were headed to a halloween party at our church and, unlike some of you perfect parents out there, I haven't purchased the pieces for the kids' "real" costumes, yet. Since Peanut and Bean have enough costumes to transform every child within a two mile radius, I felt confident that they would find something fantastic in the Ikea bins, upstairs.

Before I continue, let me mention that after a lifetime of being involved in theater - I have a true love for costumes. Seeing people turned into a plant, animal, or mythical creature is akin to some kind of crazy magic. I, myself, have been hired to design and/or costume children's theater productions for many years (okay- OKAY! Those who really know me will want me to mention-in full disclosure- that a lot of those costumes were sewn with a glue gun. In all fairness, it's really hard to sew foam!).

MacG and I were sitting on the couch, when we heard, "We're ready for the costume party!" My daughter's sweet little munchkin voice was proceeded by her appearance, as Elphaba - that's the Wicked Witch of the West, for those of you who haven't been acquainted with the musical, "Wicked".

"You have to paint me green!" She cackled. I agreed.

Then came Bean. We could hear him thumping uncertainly down the stairs and craned our necks to see what fabulous character he had chosen.

My son had decided to attend the church costume party, as a Cardboard Box.

Peanut had "designed" the getup. It had a large box with armholes for the suit and a smaller box with eyeholes for the mask. She had drawn a mustache on the front of it.

A Cardboard Box?!

I am ashamed to admit the next part:

I said, "Wow, guys. Really...uh...creative. You couldn't find a real costume to wear?"

*Ouch* I feel awful for having said that. Thank goodness Peanut responded with:

"This IS a real costume, Mom. I worked really hard on it." Bean nodded his square head.

Well, okay, then.

I painted Peanut's face (and the inside of her ears and back of her neck: it had to be right. It was really hard to remove.) green and off we went. My children had been thinking outside of the box, while creating this recycled facade. My son was now, literally, thinking inside of the box - and I had to deliver him to the party in his new, square state.


Bean was disturbed that people kept mistaking him for a robot. "I. AmaBOX!" He would correct them.

After some spooky fizzy punch and carnival games, came the costume parade. Ian donned his mask - it's pretty difficult walking around with a box on your head - and joined the circle.

The kids walked around in circles and a microphone voice called, "And now, the judges will tell you what they've decided."

You mean the costumes were being judged? *Sigh*

"For funniest costume: The Box!"


Bean went to accept his award and I was flooded with pride (and guilt for having tried to talk him out of wearing it). Peanut spent the remainder of the evening bitterly telling anyone who would listen, that the concept was hers, dammit (all right, she didn't say "dammit" - she's only eight - but you could hear it in her voice)! Bean agreed to share the chocolate bar that he had won and all was well.

This was my latest lesson on not trying to stop my kids from being creative and unique. Sometimes it's a hard lesson to learn...

Luckily, my children are very persistent and persuasive.

And creative and unique.

An Hour Drive That Lasted Three and a Half Hours. Three Hours and Forty-Two Minutes, to be Exact

Have I ever told you that I have a paralyzing fear of heights?

I'm not talking about "climbing up the ladder" heights. I'm talking about "driving on a on-way dirt road looking over the ocean/a steep canyon/a severe drop into sharp conifer trees" heights. Whenever I know that there is going to be a road like that in my future over which I absolutely must travel, I make MacG drive. I close my eyes, hold onto the door handle with a force that turns my knuckles a bluish white, and say really bad words under my breath. I don't open my eyes until he tells me we've survived. Unfortunately, we live in a state, which is home to many, many beautiful mountains and we find ourselves traveling on these awful, quaint roads too often for my liking.

I got to drive myself across three such roads, this week. Well, okay, two such roads: I was hopelessly lost and went over one of them twice.

Peanut (she's eight) was going on a school camping trip to one of our state parks, with two 3rd/4th grade classes. Yes, that's forty-seven eight through ten year-olds. I volunteered to go with them. I was in charge of all the food for the kids and around fifteen adults - and I had forgotten the peanut butter. I figured that the odds of someone in this particular group needing peanut butter for making their lunch sandwich the following day was pretty high, so I stopped at the grocery store on the way out of town. I would only be ten or fifteen minutes behind the rest of the caravan, I figured.

Big mistake.

Really big.

I should have brought another parent with me to navigate, but every seat in my little (totally not-a-mom) car was completely filled with food. Along with my duffel bag, the front seat had several condiments lined across the seat and piled up on the floor. Do you know how much ketchup this age group eats? The back seat was covered with twelve watermelons. And they were heavy! I could feel my car accelerating quite a bit slower than usual. The trunk looked like a fruit cart: 90+ Gala apples, three bags of oranges, enough grapes to feed... well around 70 people. There wasn't any room in that car for someone to hold the map. Barely enough room for the map!

So I ended up on the wrong side of the coast. On a one-lane, dirt road. Overlooking the ocean. Twice.

The drive started out quite wonderfully: I had moon roof open, windows down all around. I had my favorite teen vampire soundtrack on superloud. There was a Cherry Coke Zero in my drink holder. Since I don't normally go on solo road trips, I was relishing the breeze and the music.

I had used an online map service, which had given me the direction to travel up the coast, find this nightmarish road and turn left onto a street - which hasn't existed for around 40 years. Apparently, it would have brought me into the back entrance to my destination. Forty. Years. Ago.

I had become desperate enough to ask an old man on a motorcycle for some guidance. He had a giant handlebar mustache, which bounced when he said, "I don't know what- in- the- hell you are talking about. I've lived here for half of my life and I've never heard of that road." He was yelling through my window: "You are at least fifty miles away from where you want to be."


Since I was in charge of cooking and it was almost time for our little campers to eat dinner - I began to panic. Just a little. As I headed back down the highway, I noticed that the fog was closing in on my little silver car, making it look like I was driving on a thoroughfare in the middle of the ocean. It was so awesome.

You realize that I'm being facetious, right?

I was sick to death of teen vampire music, at this point. I had listened to all three movies (don't hate) and I was done. My own racing heart accompanied the raucous bouncing of melons on the backseat, setting a rhythm for my trek across the coast.

I stopped at the first McDonald's that I could find and bought a giant Coke, so I didn't feel like a dork being there. But not one person who worked there "ever knew that we even had state parks". They referred me to an

extremely

slow

talking

man,

who had a crumb of something McFried on his lip. He told me to goheregothereandturnleft (only much slower than that). It turns out that he really meant to turn right, because when I next stopped at Burger King (I interrupted a domestic dispute to ask for directions) they sent sent me back the way I came. I bought a cup of coffee before I left.

On my way out the door, a much younger motorcyclist than the first one said, "Listen. I'll tell you how you can get where you're going. For real, this time." And he did.

I made it to our campsite by 5:01pm. The school camping schedule had stated that we would begin to cook at five. "You're late!" One of the kids said, beginning to unload the watermelons.

He had no idea...

Food, Glorious Food!

This week I have learned how much a smallish child can eat in a span of six hours. Packing a snack and a lunch for two people has really thrown me for a loop. I think it's because I have giant twin piles of foodstuffs waiting to be neatly packed(all right, who am I trying to fool here? So it isn't so neatly packed - more like haphazardly stuffed - but no one has complained yet) into lunch boxes, staring me in the face every morning. It isn't spread out through the day like it has been, all summer.

I'm thrown into a panic at roughly 6:35am each day, trying to figure out what I am supposed to put in the aforementioned lunch boxes. If I ask Peanut and Bean what they would like to eat, they will tell me to include:

A) Gum

B) Chocolate

C) Lucky Charms Cereal

I am not the healthiest eater on the planet, but I recognize these items as unwise lunch selections. What is on our menu? I'll tell you: Peanut butter sandwiches, peanut butter bagels, peanut butter and crackers - do I really need to go on? I guess I think peanut butter is a comfort food.

I know that one mother at our school packs homemade pumpkin muffins almost every day, because her family considers them comfort food. Another child is allowed to have Cheetos - only they aren't really "Cheetos", because they are a low-fat, health store, organicy version of something that really shouldn't have ever spawned a healthier version, at all. I mean, if a snack is going to turn your fingers orange - it might as well have all the other unseemly...uh, benefits, too, right...

I'll tell you what I crave when I think of comfort food:

McDonald's

Yes, I am actually owning up to my abiding love of the Golden Arches. Let me tell you a little bit about our history.

One of my earliest memories is seeing my mother's waist length hair right at my level, but a little further in front of me was the counter at Mickey D's. We would go there to celebrate, to reboot after a bad day (only we didn't say "reboot" back then, of course), or as a reward for something good that my brother or I did.

I know this to be the truth: Nothing tastes finer than one of Ronald's cheeseburgers, if you are sick or melancholy. Even if it barely resembles a cheeseburger.

When I was pregnant with Peanut, I convinced myself (and my doctor - although, I'm still not quite sure if she was just humoring me) that I had horrible morning sickness, which could not be conquered by anything other than A1 Steak Sauce or everything on the McDonald's menu. I truly did have awful morning sickness. I also had afternoon sickness, early evening sickness, and late night sickness. McNuggets seemed to be a cure-all. I know how terribly unhealthy the Big Mac is, I really do. I haven't had one in ages. However, during that nine+ months the Big Mac was a lifesaver.

Needless to say, I was not one of those adorable women who looked like they swallowed a beach ball. I was one of those gigantic women who looked like they swallowed a few too many Happy Meals.

When Peanut was a baby, that movie, "Supersize Me" was released on DVD. I watched it one extremely early morning, after the baby had decided that 4:45 was a perfectly wonderful time to wake up. I'm pretty sure that the film was supposed to shock and awe. It was supposed to show the American public how truly awful those french fries are. Maybe it was aiming to make us all fear the evil Sausage McMuffin and its partner: The crispy, golden, flaky, delicious fried Hashbr-but I digress.

That movie just made me want to eat me some McDonald's.

However, I can't pack that in the lunch boxes, now can I? Nor would I want to: I want my kids to grow up with nutritious food, which actually looks like the food that you are supposed to be eating.

But I bet I got you thinking about those fries...

September 30, 1985

Yesterday was okay, I didn't do much, I went to MacDonalds for lunch, I walked with my friend C, my brother A, and me. We went to my old house where Iused to live so it wasn't fun. I went to lot's of stores, we went to halmark, lucky's, mac Donalds, Thrifty's, and another one, I can't spell the name. My brother was acting wierd, so we both (me and C) yelled alot, and he just kept on being wierd, then we went home. A stayed home but I went to C's house, we both made Halloween books, and they were neat! you open the little books and then you open doors glued to the paper and you see a person, on the top of the door is a person in a costume.

Aways Look a Gift Horse in the Mouth- or, Pockets, as the Case May Be...

My husband, whom I shall call "MacGyver" - because everyone seems to use "The Husband" or "D.H." and my husband is original and completely uncommon and using such a nickname would not do him justice- is really good at fixing things.

He is, after all, super MacGyvery - minus, of course, the mullet. Minus any hair, actually.

So, MacG (there, that's even better) has a new hobby: Restoring and refurbishing old Coleman lanterns. How this all started, I'm not completely sure; but it is less expensive and time consuming than some of his other interests, so I've decided that I'm a fan. To aid in his search for Coleman bits and pieces, we decided to spend our Saturday at a flea market. Call him a Lantern Picker, if you will.

This was the first time at a flea market, for Peanut(8) and Bean(6). They weren't too sure about the place, for the first hour or so that we were there. For MacG and I, the smells, sounds and sights brought us back to our childhood, because we'd both been to that exact flea market several times in our youth.

MacG is an awesome companion at places such as these: When a bent old woman shrieked "onedollaronedollaronedollaronedollar!" in his face, he calmly blinked at her and asked, "so, uh, how much does everything cost?" She was not amused.

The kids quickly got over their hesitance and learned to bargain. Peanut found some great pieces and Bean bought six boxes of TNT Pop-Its for, well, one dollar. You totally had these when you were a kid:

Right?

All the people milling around looking at other people's junk (er, I mean treasures) reminded me of the garage sales that we used to have at our house, when I was growing up. I began to ruminate about one sale in particular:

The one where my mother sold several hundreds of dollars to the neighborhood ladies. It may have been thousands, but the idea makes me feel kind of ill, so I'm going to pretend that it was just hundreds, okay?

How does one sell money, you ask? Was she printing copies? Laundering for the mob? Well, hang on and I'll explain.

My grandmother is a notorious pack rat. I think I got the hoarding gene from her. She was the one who gave me a sugar cube for my birthday - from a trip that we went on, like, fifteen years ago. She rarely parts with anything. So, imagine how pleasantly surprised everyone was, when she began packing up items to donate to the Goodwill. This was sort of ironic, because she enjoys shopping at Goodwill - once she even bought back a sweater for me, which I had donated to Goodwill, because she thought it "looked like" me.

She put the *ahem* treasures in boxes and then they sat in the garage for a while. For a long while. Years.

One particular weekend on a summer in 1988ish, my family was planning to hold a garage sale. My grandmother was visiting her mother on the other side of the country, so my mother decided to help her out. She took the To Be Donated boxes out of Grandmother's garage and priced it all out - fully intending to hand over the earnings.

One of the boxes was full of old, worn out purses. There were square bags, drawstring sacks, imitation *insert your designer here* bags; lots of purses. No one even really paid much attention to them for a while.

Then all of a sudden, women were clambering for the chance to buy one of Grandmother's old purses. One lady came back and bought all of them. How wonderful, we thought, Grandmother will be thrilled that we were able to make some money off of this old junk (oops, I mean treasure) before she could give it all away for free!

She wasn't thrilled.

She was extremely unhappy with us.

She had been using the old bags as her own personal Bank of Grandma. Each purse had had around $100 in its folds.

The moral of the story: If you are going to sell someone else's stuff, be sure to check the pockets first...

November, 1985

My grandmother took me to the goodwill. It has lots of good stuff there! I got parts of my costume from there, and purple pants. I think it is pretty neat there! I am not poor or anything, but why pay regular price, when you can pay five dollars lower? I got lots of stuff from there.

C is getting lots of words for this journal! He gets more than me sometimes! I used to get the most all of the time, but B and C are getting pretty much now! I can't wait until Thanksgiving, a nice, carved turkey, with a mashed potato, beans and sweet potatoes! Yum! I can't wait! Then christmas is to come! That is fun! This year for Christmas, we're going to Yosemite.

All in the Family

A couple of months ago, I found out that I am part Cree Indian. When I got this news, I immediately felt as though a hole inside of me had been filled. I always knew that something was missing and now I understand why.

Although my husband would disagree - because I change my mind a lot and I look awful with bangs - I kind of feel like having a tribal wolf tattooed on my forehead, or something. I'm still Team Edward, girls, don't worry: This is about something else, altogether. This is about being totally excited about a recently discovered heritage. I've got a whole lot of German in my background and I'm French,English and Irish, too. But I had already known about all that.

The Indigenous thang is all-new to me.

For some reason, my daughter has decided that being Sicilian is what it's about. Her dad is half Sicilian and she has decided that she is made up of mostly that half of him. I can't entirely disagree: She tans like crazy and can put down more pasta than the Super Mario Brothers. Peanut's not quite as thrilled about my discovery. She's content to work at her Auntie's booth at the Italian festival, wearing her red, white and green hat; indifferent to the rest of her DNA.

My son and I have square feet, sort of like Fred Flintstone. Super sexy image, I know. If you put his left foot by my right, it looks like one set of different-sized feet, except that the smaller one doesn't have a little flower carefully painted on the...er...thumb. I don't usually like thinking about feet, but I think this might be some of the reason that he is diving into the whole "being Indian" thing, with more gusto than his sister.

Now that I have children, I think about my ancestors a lot more than before. I've always had a dusty, halfway sort of interest. Now I really want to know where I've come from - where we've come from. I'm lucky, because part of my family history is still around: My great - grandmother is still living. That means that my children have a great - great - grandmother. Nana danced in the conga line at my wedding.

She celebrated her 100th birthday, last October.

Generations gathered to revel in her accumulation of decades: There was something really amusing about hearing a one hundred year old woman being called "Mother", by her children. Keep in mind that her three children were in their eighties, themselves. There was a huge cake - thankfully they withheld the candles, or there may have been a disaster. I can barely manage to extinguish my birthday candles and I am- well, quite a bit younger than Nana. My sister created a beautiful slideshow, which made everyone simultaneously have an allergy attack (*wink*). I made a photo album of Nana's life for her gift, but the centenarian and the octogenarians brought it home to Mother's house and promptly forgot where they put it. Stuff like that happens when four people's combined ages equal around three hundred and fifty-five years.

It's still missing.

Knowing where you've come from is important. It helps you decide where you are going. And I think I am going to buy a dreamcatcher and learn to speak Algonquin, which is the language that the Cree people of my family spoke. It might take me a while - but I've got sustainable genes, so I've probably got close to seventy years to do it.

On second thought: I don't think Nana is a fan of McDonald's and Taco Bell, like I am. I'm pretty sure that she doesn't add five Splendas to her coffee every morning, either, so I might have considerably less time than I've estimated.

September, 1985

My ancestor's came from England, Ireland, France, and Germany. My grandmother just came back from visiting my great grandmother. My grandma just went to Germany before crismas '84 and when my mom was young, she went to France, my friend Samantha just got back from England. Her grandmother lives there. Know one I know went to Ireland, except my friend, Rachel, who is mostly Irish. I have lots of ansestors still living, like my great grandmother, my great uncle, my great aunt, and a great cousin, Lot's of them, most of them are really old, and they just sit and watch t.v. But my greta grandmother goes out to lunch and shopping, and shopping and shop, shop, shopping. My great grandfather is dead, he used to fly and airplane across the street from the house at the airport.