For some bizarre reason many of the young people in my life, and when I say young,  I mean YOUNG…my teenaged nieces, my sons middle school pals, my near and dear’s children, have decided to “Friend” me on Facebook.  On one hand, I consider this a compliment, a commentary on my accessibility and, no doubt, youthful nature.  On the other hand, it’s actually just weird and I should probably be embarrassed.  But I use it to full advantage to spy on all of them.  Nice “Friend” I am. Thus far, I’ve only tattled once to a parent of my generation.  Thankfully, most children I know seem to behave almost too well on Facebook and post nothing even slightly interesting.  But last week I came across the most hilarious exchange on a middle schoolers page.  The page belonged to a he.  A lovely fellow who hasn’t yet turned thirteen.  The exchange was between him and a female classmate and it went something like this…
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So this has been a rather complicated holiday season in the White House.  Our beloved twelve year old golden retriever Deedee was diagnosed with metastatic cancer two weeks before Christmas and had to be put to sleep on the 22nd.  While that was going on we all(except for spouse) got the seasonal flu for the first time ever.  I had to deal with the dying dog, the familial flu which prevented any organized Christmas shopping and telling my kids that the dog could not be fixed, that parents were not superhuman and that life, even of those you love deeply, comes to an end.  Fuck.  Merry Christmas to all and to Deedee “goodnight”.  Because I was so dismayed at losing both our dog and my “Superhero who can solve ANYTHING” status with my children, I opened the flu door to bacteria and spent Christmas morning trying to pretend to be present for presents while battling pneumonia.  
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I am going to do something I rarely do and post a quick series of thoughts.  I spend too damn much time deliberating and editing and since time, these days, is something I just don’t have…I’m going to get this off my chest.  I just got back from a run.  It’s a crystal clear election day morning in New York, the leaves are glowing orange and pink and I could see my breath for the first time this year.  I had gone about 3 miles at a good clip when I passed a man I see almost everyday I venture out.  He rides a bike and has an American flag attached to his helmet.  He’s gregarious, charming and extremely conservative.  As we passed going in opposite directions he hollered out with glee and a slightly accusatory finger point from his teetering bike “I’m going to vote”.  “Good for you”, I replied.   “Tea Party all the way” he shouted.  Through slightly clenched teeth I shouted “Go for it.” and then I added ” It’s a privilege to be able to make that choice.”  And off he went.  
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What I learned this summer, by Jen Laird White.

First thing…it’s about two weeks too long and when you throw the Jewish holidays in there after TWO DAYS, two measly days, OF SCHOOL….I just don’t think God, whoever he or she is, would do such a thing. Particularly if she is a she.  There is not a she on this earth or floating above it that would have mothers do the whole back to school, let’s get on a schedule, get out of bed, make the lunch, do you have your backpack, here are your socks, did you brush your teeth, forget about making your bed well do that next week routine for two days, TWO DAYS and then CANCEL SCHOOL for god related reasons.  No god is cruel enough to taunt a mother with the two days of freedom, two days after a summer of running Camp Mommy, two days to do something that actually involves being a human not a mother only to snatch that new found freedom away for the Jewish holidays.  And can I point out that it wasn’t even the most solemn of Jewish holidays that we got off.  But don’t get me started.  Let us just say that this is a decision clearly not made by god but by a schoolboard largely made up of men and those with grown children.  And  let us just say that nice mommy was really and truly mean mommy by the end of it all.  I was even scared of me.  But it’s over.  And I’m sitting at the computer.

So what did I learn during the seventy three days but who’s counting that make up our summer holiday?  Plus the four for the lesser of the serious Jewish holidays.  A lot.  LOT.  I think I’ll just itemize.

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So my friend Mary called to see if I had seen the latest Vanity Fair. I had. Or at least the cover with a simply lovely shot of the eternally perfect Grace Kelly. Mary then complained that we weren’t in it. “Why”, I asked. “Well”, she responded, “They have an article on Tiger’s women as well as an, er, amazing photo spread. Check it out and call me.” So I did. The irony of flipping past the flawless Grace Kelly to find Tiger Wood’s women didn’t escape me for a moment and when I found them, the difference could not have been more dramatic or, as some might say, pneumatic. They are quite a bunch.
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So it’s that Holiday season again.  Everyone overflowing with goodwill and cheer.  In my house it’s everywhere.  Why, just this morning, I indicated to the spouse that I’d like to start our Christmas shopping a bit earlier than the last week before Christmas this year, to cut down on stress and all, and his response was “Goddamnit, do you have to start so early.  Wait until a few people pay me.  Fuck.” and then he stomped off.  Then I checked the kids carefully written Christmas lists.  Oh, they’d been hard at work like little elves.  All sorts of special Christmas requests including a pair of $15,000 night vision goggles and a taser, because, as my younger said of my older “Jack needs a taser for Middle School.”  Yes, the spirit is overwhelming.  

Last week my friend Juliet and her two boys, Chris and Max and my team of children went on a walk.  It was a half day of school and we had all had pizza together and were going to play some football.  At lunch her eleven year old son had indicated that the top thing on his Christmas list was DJ Hero.  As we walked I mentioned this.  “Yeah,” said Juliet. “There’s NO WAY he’s getting that” and she pantomimed spinning a disc on a turntable with a most excellent imitation of a teenage slack jaw while staring into space.  All she needed was for me to hoist her pants down to the top of her butt cheeks, utter “my G” and the idiot gangster thing would be complete.  I could see her point.  Now, unless you are Amish, you probably know what Guitar Hero is and DJ Hero is an off shoot of that, another way for electronics companies to make money.   But in case you are Amish and are reading my blog, Guitar Hero is a game that involves holding a fake guitar and pressing different colored frets on the neck to “quell” explosions that appear on the stage on your tv screen, to the beat of a song.  “What?”  you say, “That makes no sense at all.”  Correct.  And it makes even less sense when you realize that, in the case of our home, you are doing this to the tune of a selection of Aerosmith songs as you watch a cartoon Steven Tyler sing.  When I was a teenager, Steven Tyler freaked me out.  His pants were so tight that his crotch resembled nothing so much as an abandoned breakfast link and his mouth looked like it would eat a human in one quick gulp.  I was pretty sure he wasn’t very clean and I couldn’t listen to him because I would inevitably think of his crotch and feel dirty myself.  And yet, today, I stand with my boys, fake guitar exploding to the tune of that fine bit of songwriting “Dude Just Like a Lady”, as cartoon Steven dances his breakfast link around the screen with no sign of the drooping jowls, the apparent drug addiction and definite swinging sausage that I know are there today.  I am terrible at the game and I think I know why.  My utter disdain for things this useless is palpable.  I don’t get the glazed look in my eyes or the guitar grimace that my kids and even my spouse seem to get while playing.  I don’t for a second think I’m really playing an Aerosmith song.  And, thank god, I don’t think I’m in some concert hall with an exploding floor hanging with Steven Tyler.  The whole thing seems incredibly silly especially when my kids actually like playing the REAL guitar.  And DJ Hero, as Juliet pointed out, is NUTS.  I mean, how much skill is there in spinning a record and hitting exploding things.  And who are the cartoon DJ’s you would actually aspire to?  The only DJ I know is the one who dated Lionel Ritchies daughter and ended up, in a role model move we should certainly be encouraging, od’ing while hosting a show about rehab.   So we have a dead DJ, we have Steven Tyler.  What are kids to think?  

SO Juliet and I came up with an excellent idea.  How about reworking the whole “Hero” game model.  How about if you really could create a game with excellent role models and challenges.  Role models not known for displaying their breakfast links or drug problems, and you made it about practical stuff, stuff that might actually HELP kids in life.  Oh, like say, “Bed Making Hero”.  Where every time there’s a little explosion you have to cover it with a sheet or a blanket.  And you get extra points for smoothing and fluffing your pillow while little explosions happen all around the pillow.  And max points when you remember to raise the shades and carry your water glass down on the way to school.  Or “Dishwasher Loading Hero”.  Now that sounds fun.  Instead of a fake guitar, you have a fake plate and every time there’s an explosion, you smother it by pretending to load a dish.  If you’re really good, you can use the fake dish and glass, at once.  The most dishes in one load, without breaking, while the little explosions happen, and remembering to slightly scrape, wins.  I like the sounds of this.  What about “Scooping the Dog Poop in the Yard and Feeding the Pets Hero”.  You can see how that one works.  The guitar replacement is a bit tricker but the object of the game feels very clear.  Perhaps the fake pooper scooper becomes the food scooper(gross, I know, but if kids are happy watching Steven Tyler they won’t care) and you lose points for DEAD PETS and DIRTY SHOES.  You see where I’m going.  I think the “Hero” series can be expanded to include/help spouses since they all look ridiculous doing the guitar face and pretending they are Steven Tyler (which they really should not given the unimpressive exposed link).  How about the grownup version of “I Don’t Have to Leave My Underwear on the Floor Hero”.  Easy to see how that one would work.  Fake undies.  Little explosion instantly quelled by the quick flick into, yipeee, the laundry.  The cartoon character in this one could clearly be the customized wife, who looks just like YOUR wife and who smiles every time a direct laundry basket score is made and another round of silent seething prior to a fight is averted.  How about  the very simple “Consideration Hero”.  Easily played by everyone.  The idea is, say, there’s only one towel in the bathroom and there are two people who need showers and whoever goes first decides to use the only towel, even if the other person has brought it upstairs and kept it on THEIR hook, then the explosions start and must really, truly be smothered by going to the basement and getting another goddamned towel so that the poor second in the shower( because she was getting the kids off to school) person doesn’t have to use the wet towel.  Or what about “Kitchen Hero”.  Say, just for instance, that there’s a small amount of yogurt or half and half, or coffee and both people like it in the morning and one person rather than eating the last of it himself, say, hits the button to smother the explosion by getting a NEW THING OF YOGURT OR MAKING MORE COFFEE FOR THE OTHER PERSON WHO HAS NOT HAD THEIRS YET.  AND BY DECIDING TO LEAVE THE KITCHEN AND GO STAND SOMEWHERE ELSE INSTEAD OF READING THE PAPER  AT THE COUNTER WHILE THE OTHER PERSON IS TRYING TO MAKE BREAKFAST FOR BOTH PEOPLES CHILDREN explosionAND GET THEIR LUNCHES READY explosion AND PACK THEIR BACKPACK. explosion. AND OCCASIONALLY explosion explosion explosion OFFERING TO WALK THE PETS AND DRIVE THE KIDS TO SCHOOL WITH A HAPPY GRIN AND A TRUE SENSE OF GOOD NATURE AND JOY.  BONUS POINTS FOR ASKING “HONEY, WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU TODAY?”   As my friend Christina says..”Now, that’s a Hero”.

Okay, enough about that.  Someone paid us so I can go taser shopping.

I’ve been on vacation.  And while ON vacation,  I couldn’t even think about being interested in anything in the world, let alone vaguely amused by it,  when the kids didn’t go to school for six or more hours a day.  It’s all about keeping them alive.  Or safe from me.  Nothing is humorous, not the health care debate, michael jacksons obsessively covered and unsurprising death, not even the woman who blogged endlessly about motherhood and how much drinking helped her deal with it and then announced mid summer that she was quitting drinking.  Thank god I picked Middle Age as my blogging topic although I’d certainly quit middle age were it an option. Here’s a summer story.  My friend Wendy and I  jog every day we can in the summer.  We spend our summers at the same place on the ocean and we have boys who are great friends.  Wendy and I just like hanging out.  Our runs are usually talk marathons with topics ranging from death to divorce (is there anything else other than, perhaps, food although I prefer to eat food rather than talk much about it).  We run at just about the same speed although I’m a bit more pitiful since I have six years on her.  This summer has been a hard one for both of us.  I think we’re both at some sort of mid-life crisis cross roads, happy one day, confused the next.  So on one particularly beautiful morning, one of those days, in perfect symphony, we headed out wondering if we should just keep going.  The kids would get used to living without us, the husbands would find younger, much more sympathetic wives (at least for that initial fake phase before they showed their true colors and became “demandingshrews” with all sorts of needs that didn’t include giving blow jobs), we could travel and sleep in in the morning, cook breakfast just for ourselves and the only fights we’d have to break up would be in barrooms.  We could use the bathroom with no one walking in and earn housekeeping money having sex which is sort of the way it works for me now.  We glumly rounded the corner in a glade next to the ocean where the path widened and there was actually a picnic table.  Suddenly one or the other of us shouted “What the heck is that”.  Up ahead, mid-glade, whatever a GLADE is, was the largest, grey seagull either of us had ever seen.  It had to have been thirty five pounds.  And not a looker of a bird.  Sort of a seagull version of Marty Feldman, for those of you who remember him.  Just sitting there looking, shoulders hunched, eye wide (I say “eye” because only one was visible) and head tilted at a bizarre angle as though it had spent the night on a pullout couch…something MY summer vacation included a lot of.  We got closer and it didn’t move.  We got really close and it stared at us with one terrified Feldmanesque eye and still didn’t move.  And that’s when I noticed the clear fishing line wrapped around it’s beak and wing, closing it’s beak and effectively attaching it’s head to it’s wing.  Ugh.  Big problem. Way bigger than a pull out couch kink.  And not a good look.  Ugh again.  And it was such a nice, well needed run.  Suddenly, here we were, mid marital bitch and being faced with one of those real decisions.  An ethical, moral, substantive and not superficial dilemma and I was just not in the mood.  “What do we do?” asked Wend.  “Two choices.” said I.  “One.  We keep going and have our nice run and continue to hammer our husbands until we feel better.  If we choose one, the bird will sit here all day looking unattractive and probably feeling horrible then get ripped to shreds by a coyote or a fox once it gets dark.  Two.We saved the goddamned bird.”  I looked long and hard at her.  She looked back and grimaced.  “You know we have to try to save it, right?” she said.  I nodded.  We decided that she would stay with the bird, I would run back to the road and try to find a box or a towel and a pair of scissors or, better yet, a vet with a specialty in ornithology.  The road was about five hundred yards away and there was a little wildly overgrown cottage just to the left.  It had the air of Unibomber residence about it and I paused outside the cottage wondering whether I was going to get shot or spend the rest of my life in captivity if I went to the door.  I noticed that the beat up Subaru circa 1979 parked outside had Obama and Save the Organic Farm stickers.  In my experience, Subaru owners, Obama lovers and anyone who wants to save a farm, let alone an organic one,  is unlikely to own a weapon that they will use to shoot ME.  I was a bit more unclear on the captivity part but, feeling the birds terror,  I took my chances, made my way through the puckerbrush and knocked at the screen.  I could see, peering in, that this was a unique house.  So special.  A home to make me feel proud.  A home that made me feel, well, almost Scandinavian.   A place that made me realize that I was not a total failure in the housekeeping department.  Because this house was what TOTAL FAILURE looked like.  And it was the perfect place for my mission because it’s owner had clearly never thrown ANYTHING away.  The woman who came to the door had the sweetest elderly face I’ve ever seen and white hair hanging to her waist.  She didn’t seem at all dismayed by her failure as a housekeeper but more confused by my presence.  I knew instantly that I would not become her captive because there was no room in her house for me.  Phew. I explained my needs and she sprang sprightly into action grabbing a box from a heap of ten thousand box choices(you just never know when you’re going to need a cardboard box or 500), carefully determining perfect seagull size,  grabbed the stinkiest towel I’ve ever smelled from a stack of probably equally stinky towels and found a precious pair of sewing scissors that couldn’t have been better matched by the vet specializing in ornithological surgery.  She asked if she could join the rescue and I said the more the merrier.  On the way down the path she made me sniff two wild yellow primroses perhaps, in a failed attempt to make me think that the fierce stench was coming from them not the towel. I could smell nothing other than urine, pet hair and something that might have been dead emanating from the towel but the gesture was sweet.  We returned to the glade to find Wendy looking worried because Ole One Eye had tried a daring escape into the bushes no doubt sensing that someone was about to wrap her in the stinkiest towel ever and thinking perhaps that being torn to shreds by a fox was preferable.  So there we were.  Standing next to One Eye.  Box.  scissors and stinky towel.  NOW WHAT.  This felt a bit beyond us all particularly since none of us were really sure how much shredding power was still in the seagulls un-fishing line fettered feet.  I decided I’d do the wrapping and holding, the nurse with a towel, if you will.  Wendy could get all the glory as the stench-free surgeon. And our sweet elderly friend could step in where she felt comfortable.  I think she might have been the crisis counselor although not the one with the DNR order.  Too sweet for that.  I grabbed the towel, yelled for the girls to head One Eye off at the pass and we ran around the glade for three or four minutes like something out of the Three Stooges, only stinkier.  Finally,  I swooped, Wendy held the box, I grabbed, we threw the poor terrified bird into the box and held her down.  Wendy, with nerves of steel, started snipping.  “Ooohhh, I’m so frightened.” our  friend, the non-housekeeper kept saying.  I will admit to some serious heart pounding myself.  The bird initially made several attempts to remove my fingers only to be foiled by the fishing line closing her bill.  Eventually she settled down, staring calmly at us with her only eye, either suddenly understanding that this might work out better than drawing and quartering by the locals or just overwhelmed by the smell.  The smell kept me calm too, trying to control my gag reflex.  Wendy kept snipping.  A piece of line here, a piece there.  A chicken bone came out with one long strand that was securing the wing,  a good sign indicating that the bird had probably swooped on a child crabbing which involves no hook just a piece of chicken and a less than bright crab who won’t give up even after he’s lifted out of the water.  The hook might have meant serious damage, way beyond our NON expertise.  Finally, with a quick snip, Wendy freed the bill, leaving a small bit around the lower bill but the bird able to freely open and close.  The bird took a second to catch on.  I only understood when the bird did because the bird grabbed me.  It didn’t hurt but it got my attention.  I leapt, released my hold and the gull hopped out of the box and QUICKLY shook free the towel.  In a childs story, now would be the point at which it looked at us with a deep long stare of grattitude.  A communication between man and animal.  In this case, the bird did stop, the bird did look and I believe the bird glared and silently communicated the following… “I can’t believe you couldn’t find a cleaner towel”.  She flapped twice, made some sort of sound and took off.  Wendy, our new friend and I hollered with joy, we returned the scissors, the box and, as much as I wanted to keep it, the towel, said goodbye to our new friend with the crazy messy house and returned to our jog, so proud of ourselves.  We couldn’t stop talking about the how’s and whats of our rescue effort.  Finally we settled into our run again.  We’d gone about a mile, flush with success, when I said to Wendy…”So what do you think that was about?”.  Wendy got a knowing expression on her face.  She said that she looked at the bird and wondered if it was us, bound in invisible thread, struggling with our obligations but needing someone to set us free or even better, that we needed to set ourselves free.  I pointed out that the bird might have been an analogy for marriage, our marriages, bound by something invisible and suffocating that needed help and some freedom to return to its former marital bliss.  Again, that we needed to free ourselves of whatever it was that was damaging, starving our marriages.  We ran a bit farther and finally agreed that the bird was just a sign from god telling us that even goddamned seagulls need our help.    

So what’s the point of my summer story.  Here’s the point.  Life goes along at it’s own pace.  Ups, downs, boring periods, fun times.  But how often do we get the chance to do something that scares us.  Something that we don’t know how to do or something that makes us very, very nervous.  Not often.  Kids do it every day.  They start new schools, play new sports, eat something that freaks them out.  And they feel proud when they do it.  We grownups just don’t have the opportunities.  Or we don’t take them.  Figuring out how to help that bird was scary.  I’m still a little amazed we did it.  I can’t tell you how good I felt for days afterwards.  Even now, I’m writing about it, aren’t I.  Just a little bit high.  And because I’m a sap I like to think there’s a bird out there retelling the tale of the rescue to all the other cawing gulls, partly to explain why she’s become so smelly but also a bit in awe of our kindness and skill.  That feeling of succeeding at something that doesn’t come naturally is too good to be passed up.  I think we should make it a rule, those of us of a certain age, that at least once a year, we make a choice to do something that scares us to death.  That we really don’t want to do because it’s hard.  Take a leap.  Be afraid.  Push yourself somewhere you really don’t want to go.  It’s the reason that I jump off the wharf in front of  my parents house every summer.  The wharf is a big wooden dock that juts into the tidal river that runs by our front door.  Kids leap seventeen times a day.  Adults do not.  It’s high, it’s cold, there might be sharks(not really, but “Jaws” ruined my life), it seems like an injury waiting to happen.  But I do it.  Early on in the summer.  Every summer and I’ll never stop.  Just because it reminds me of what it’s like to be young.  Nothing is old when you’re young.  I stand there.  I take a deep breath and I imagine the cold and that feeling of being airborne.  I imagine my leg getting ripped off by a shark.  I understand that airborne and fifty are not a good combo.  Neither are legs and sharks.  I get nervous.  And being a little nervous can be very exciting. It takes me a while.  Then I jump. And you should, too. Because when you sputter back to the surface, just for a minute, you’re eleven.  And eleven is a very nice place to be.

So I had the talk yesterday with my ten year old.  Yes, that talk.  We were in the car coming from the pediatrician where he’d just had a tetanus shot after a run in with a rusty nail, en route to the vet with our older cat who’d had a run in with her younger male sibling that left her with a pus oozing wound, an unfortunate need to vomit over the entire house and a bad attitude.  As the cat growled and screeched in the carrier, Jack and I rode to our vet, a great guy who unfortunately moved twenty minutes away a couple of years ago but is so nice he’s worth the trek.  The ride gave us a chance to chat and it turned out to be substantially more interesting than I could have imagined given the pus-y pissy pussy in the back. So there we are, me and Jack, cruising down the highway, when he says, immediately after a somewhat mundane discussion about why he refuses to wear his yellow raincoat,  “Mom, you know how you tried to tell me where babies come from and I didn’t want to know.  Well now I have some questions.”  I kept both hands on the wheel, eyes on the road and tried to stop the sudden rush of blood to the head.  I had, in fact, about eight months before, tried to have “the TALK.”.  Jack was home from school, pseudo sick during a period of malingering that ended when he made the serious misstep of pretending to lose vision in one eye.  He lost the fire for faking while sitting in the pediatric neurological opthamologist with numbing drops in his eyes and teary parents, imagining brain tumors.  Who knew, in his world of ten year old fakers,  that losing vision was ANY different from a belly ache?  On the day I decided to talk about where babies come from, he was perched in front of the boob tube, eating a quantity of cereal that would belie the claim of severe gastric distress and I thought, what the heck, if he can eat that much cereal, well, let’s just make something of this day.  I got out the book that covered this topic, one that my mother had actually used for me and my siblings.  I find it comforting that in a world of endless changes,  where babies come from has changed not one iota since caveman days and before, even if the advent of Victorias Secret, transexxuals and deadly STDs has made the whole production somewhat more complicated.  So there I am, well worn book in hand  proposing a chat about where babies come from.  Jack stopped chewing cereal, looked skeptical and, for the first time that day, actually a bit sick.  But he nodded.  I began with the flowers and their stamens, moved on to pictures of tadpole like sperm and jelly doughnut eggs, followed by wrestling frogs and just prior to the doggie style doggie style, stopped at chickens who looked for all the world like they were playing leapfrog.  Even more than the previous page’s frogs.  At that point, Jack, eyes now truly feverish, closed the book and said he needed a nap.  That’ll teach him.  You may not start sick, but I can get you there.

And that was the last time we dealt with that.  I had begged Rich to take him into the garage and do the talk.  Rich assured me he would, once he got around to it.  Which was NEVER.  And look, I do think ten is a bit young for this conversation even though the experts recommend eight.  I, personally one to often ignore experts, would have delayed oh, say, until he was thirty and getting his own place, but Jack has some very sophisticated pals who have known the nuts and bolts of procreation for a long time.  The only fight I’ve ever had with my friend Martha, the mother of Jacks best friend,  was when, at four, she told her son EVERYTHING, just because he asked. To me, that’s like dating Claude the local homeless guy, just cause he asked.  Sweet, yeah, but not advisable.  And, thus, because Henry ASKED,  I had dropped sweet  Jack in the sweet little nursery school classroom  with his sweet pal Henry who swaggered in armed with this potent time bomb of bizarre info.  I am unclear on the connection between autism and vaccinations but make no mistake, I think this kind of penis/vagina info at that age could result in permanent catatonia.  And I thought the grin on Henry’s face was about Legos.  I freaked when, once outside the school, Martha told me that Henry was now the possesor of the penis/vagina info, info that I, at forty eight,  still find hard to fathom even though I have, indeed, been an active participant and have the children to prove it.  She calmly explained to me that she and George were parents who believed in telling the truth when asked a reasonable question.  I shrieked that I was a parent who preferred to elude any less than tidy truth, particularly those involving penis’s and vagina’s,  at all costs at least until children could shave and buy their own dinner in four star restaurants.  And that there were no reasonable questions involving four year olds and the penis in the vagina thing.  It all eventually died down but, six years later,  I was reasonably sure that Jack did, in fact, have the info and I feared his version was not accurate.

So here we were, travelling the Parkway at sixty, screeching cat in the back seat, eyes on the road and Jack with some questions.  It was as good a time as any.  He turned his precious ten year old eyes my direction and said “Okay, mom.  First question.  Ketchup, pickle, mustard?”.  I had no idea what the fuck he meant. And, as I explained before, I have participated in the penis/vagina thing so I was confused.   “Huh?” I said articulately.  “You know, mom, ketchup, pickle, mustard.”  It became clear that I was screwed because my sex talk dilly dallying had allowed him to move so far beyond the certainly odd penis/vagina connection and into the land of the truly bizarre, although that reference to hamburger companions made me more than curious.  And concerned.  “Jack”, I said, “I gotta be honest.  I have NO idea what you are talking about.”  “Mom, c’mon.  You know. (look of disbelief) What are those?(look of extreme disbelief) What are ketchup, pickle and mustard ” (Look clearly translated to mean: “you idiot, you’re trying to keep me from the smutty truth. But I can take it”).  My mouth was now hanging open in dull confusion and I was fantasizing about the enormously expensive vet visit that was, oh, shoot, another eight miles away.  I shook my head.  “I don’t know ,sweetie.  I don’t know what you mean.”  He paused, turned to look seriously at me and said. “You know, Mom. Ketchup, pickle, mustard.  Condiments.”

Thank god we had this talk.   Condoms.  It’s condoms.  God, the embarrassment potential at the hands of his male pre-teen pals because of word confusion was enormous.  Condiments.  Condoms.  You can just see the poor little guy standing there nodding knowingly and about to make a fast food reference that would guarantee years of no one to sit with at lunch except for the other children who thought that ketchup, pickle and mustard were part of a romantic experience.  Phew.  And we’re were off and running on “the Talk”.  I explained the “whats”, the “hows” and the “what fors” only touching on STD’s for fear of wounding my boy for life.  I think I made a good case of the clap sound almost like a romantic sinus infection.  But there was a relief in having this chat.  That could have been embarrassing down the road, say, when, my boy,  preparing to lose his virginity at thirty six has to stop by the the Grand Union pickle aisle first.  And the mustard.  My god.  Downright painful.  The other questions were about Maxi Pads and vasectomies (this one prompted by running in to a friend in the supermarket parking lot, while Jack helped load the car, who was near tears because her husband had gone to the doc for the old snip/snip and had balked at the last minute and come home intact. Don’t get me started on the difference between a tiny nick to the balls and pushing an eight pound moving thing out of a canal half as small as a paper towel tube, attached to your body and surrounded by sensitive nerve endings, over a period of several hours.  NO patience. ).  This talk with Jack was amazing.  I don’t know if I have ever been as proud of myself as a mother (other than, perhaps pushing the moving eight pound thing through the half size paper towel tube).  We had a good chat, I stayed calm and was, if I do say so myself, quite articulate about things hard to be articulate about.  Jack didn’t turn red or even look confused.  He just wanted to know some answers and he knew when he was ready to hear them.  He listened and sighed with relief when I think he realized that condiments had no part of romance even if penis/vagina contact did.  I’m sort of with him.  The thought of pickles in your bed, ohh, and relish?…..anyway.  While I was proud of myself, I was even prouder of Jack.  Brave boy, calmly taking advantage of some quiet time (save for the screaming cat) to ask something he wondered about. And really listening.

It got me thinking about all of us.  Perhaps we all need to ask more questions.  When things don’t seem right to us, rather than jumping to judgement in our confusion, or boarding the bandwagon of popular opinion, we need to ask questions.   And lots of them.  Some big.  Some small.  Can you leave your kids in the car while you run into the grocery store?  If you don’t tell a friend she looks fat, is that lying.  Does executing terrible criminals make sense or does it make us worse people?  When does life begin and how do you reach a common ground when some people believe that abortion really is killing little babies?  Why is Geithners plan the wrong one or the right one?  Is Blue really the new Black?  Or is Brown?  Or, as I suspect, is black always going to be the new black?  Why does my hairdresser, after years of fine work, suddenly give me a purple lowlight?  What if the one I love isn’t really cold, but I’m just a bitch?  Is a romance in cyberspace cheating?  How do you take care of your parents when they’re old.  Why do I have to wear a yellow raincoat that looks like it’s for babies?   You can go on for ever.  And I think we should.  Talk to each other about all sorts of things, try to see how the other one thinks. See who knows what.  Henry knows a lot.  And acknowledge that you only know what you feel.  And that it may not always be right.  Just spend some time asking and answering.  Go for a ride with someone you like (I recommend leaving the screeching, pus covered cat at home) and find out something you want to know.  And something they want to know.  I think we’ll all be better off.   And stand less chance of spending large amounts of time in the ketchup aisle before a hot date.

PS.  Okay, can we talk about my Pus-y, pissy, pussy line?  And here’s some smart people talking about how to tell your kids about sex.  Just wing it.  You’ll be fine.(something pertinent)

I ran into my friend Danny at the drugstore the other day.  He was buying nosehair clippers.  I was buying super strength nighttime anti-aging cream.  Pretty much sums it up.

PS.  Just a quick product endorsement, I was buying ROC, the strongest amount of retinol you can buy without a prescription.  It’s good. and it’s only 19.95.  I have no idea what kind of nose hair clippers he settled on but let me know if you want me to pursue that information.