All Because My Office Was Cold

It’s all because my office is cold.

We’re heading into the final third of May -- Memorial Day is this coming Monday -- and Spring has not yet arrived. Of the past ten days, only ONE has been sunny, and the temperature hasn’t risen above 72 degrees. It feels like the middle of March, with the occasional foray into the sixties being a reason to celebrate.

People are surly.

Today, I am wearing my son’s hand-me-down fleece hoodie (the outerwear kind) while sitting at my desk. I am hunched into it, holding it closed at my neck because I am just that freaking freezing. No, my window isn’t open. I’ve been fighting a head and chest cold (and losing, for the most part) for the past week.

I am surly.

At a quarter to three, I decide that I need a cup of coffee, both as an excuse to get out of the office for some exercise before it starts raining again, and to warm up. I pull my green wool winter coat over the hoodie. Yeah, it's that cold. As I come out of Dunks, dodging other surly, hunched, chilly pedestrians, I decide to walk further downtown to find a new handbag. The one I have is comfy, roomy, and slouchy, perfect for carrying a universe of odds and ends (my morning yogurt, my Kindle, my to-do book, the empty travel coffee mug at the end of the day), but impossible to locate my house keys or train pass or ringing cell phone in quickly. I need a sectioned, structured bag with designated pockets, but in a size sufficient to slip my laptop into if I decide at the last minute to do work at home.

I wander the accessory aisles at TJM. I’m shocked at the prices. Do people really spend $119 for a handbag? Really? Isn’t this supposed to be the off-price store, you know, 60% off department store prices? I mean, if the price tag starts with a 1 or a 2, it had better only have four digits and a decimal point. Anyway, I find a nice large bag -- not big enough to be mistaken for a beach bag or anything -- in a bold, bright print, a perfect antidote for my Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Hmmm. Maybe I should get a belt to go with it. A brown belt to match the brown straps of the handbag. (No, really, that’s how I shop. I’m not a fashionista, in case you haven’t noticed.) I do have a couple of nice belts at home, but I’ve lost about thirty pounds over the past year or so (the Post-Surgery Complication Diet -- wouldn’t recommend it as a first choice, although it left me with a bangin’ size 4 bod) so one hangs around my hips like a big bangle, and the other unhooks itself whenever I stand up. So I pick up a nice white and silver belt, all the rage in fashion these days, it seems.

I think about what I might have in my closet to go with the belt (nothing comes to mind), and head over to browse the shirts and blouses. I find two great tops that beg to be cinched at my newly discovered waist by the belt in my hand, so I grab those. One is dusty rose, a kind of lace-ish fabric layered over knit, and the other is a steel-grey jersey with a row of large rosettes along a wide collar. (My imaginary Stacy and Clinton WNTW intervention voice tells me to stay away from blacks and browns, and to try for something reasonably form-fitting.) Should I complete the outfit and snag some pants, or maybe a nice spring skirt? Fortunately for everyone involved, I am not delusional enough to think I’d look good in capris (nobody does), so I head up to the cashier.

Sixty-three dollars. And two cents. I’ve spent $63.02 -- $65.04, if you count the medium coffee from Dunks that started this excursion -- on a whim. Some people should never be let out on their own, especially disorganized people who can’t find their house keys or cell phones in their junk-filled pocketbooks. Is this what they call retail therapy? Whatever it is, it worked. I feel fabulous. I will be bringing my lunch for the rest of this week and next, but I will look great.

And you know what? It’s all because my office was freaking cold.

When I Am Queen Of America

When I am Queen of America, I shall use “shall” instead of “will” in sentences. You’ll have to deal with it, because I shall be Queen.

Actually, no, I won’t be too pretentious, even though I will have unlimited power. I will be eminently practical and will strive to make the world a better place . . . or at least free of some of my personal pet peeves.

When I am Queen of America, I will designate a Minister of Punctuation, whose function will be to eliminate unneeded apostrophes from all public signage. Abominations like “Pizza’s - two for ten dollar’s” will cease to exist.

When I am Queen of America, I will give amnesty to any bystander who, having seen trash being thrown out of a passing car, picks up said trash and tosses it back into the vehicle from which it came. This includes lit cigarettes. I will also pardon anyone convicted of grabbing a cell phone from a distracted driver and disconnecting the call.

I will decree that healthy food will always cost less than unhealthy food. Thus, a box of low-sugar cereal with fiber and fruit will be half the price of sugar-coated sugar cereal flavored with high fructose corn syrup. Junk food that cannot reasonably be placed anywhere on the Food Pyramid will be subject to a surcharge and a double tax.

When I am Queen of America, everyone will learn to apologize properly. No more, “We are experiencing delays on the Red Line. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.” Instead, you will hear the following: The train you are waiting for is ridiculously late, due either to our incompetence or our crappy, elderly equipment, and therefore, you will not get to work on time. We understand that it is entirely our fault that you are, in fact, being inconvenienced, and we are very, very sorry that we have screwed up your day. We will try to do better tomorrow.

It will become acceptable for public officials to point out to reporters, commentators, and interviewers that their questions are, actually, stupid. Such responses will be explicitly protected by the First Amendment and will carry no political backlash whatsoever. Radio and television talk show hosts will be prohibited from presenting their whacked out opinions as fact. Also? All natural-born citizens will be required to take -- and pass -- a civics course before being permitted to make public statements about how the government should be run.

Okay, fine, so I’ll never be Queen of America. Too bad. I’ve got lots of ideas.

How about just . . . Queen for a Day?

Well, Maybe Not The Worst . . .

So I celebrated Mothers Day by nominating myself for the Worst Mom Award. Here’s what happened.

Yesterday, as usual, we were running late for church. It’s my job to get the three kids out of the house in time for the 10:45 service, which is the SECOND service on any given Sunday. Rev leaves the house at 7:00 in order to get to the first service, which starts at 8:00. That’s 8:00 AM, which should be all the explanation I need to give as to why the second service is the only possible option for me. Anyway, the day started out with good intentions (as they always do), with my children completely forgetting about Mothers Day until they were on their second helping of pancakes (which I made).

Church started ten minutes late, so we were on time. My mind was occupied with the half-prepared Children’s Church lesson, and my spirit was not helped at all by the dry “period of praise” segment of the service. (Really, y’all, if we can’t find any songs written this century, can we at least sing ones that were composed during my lifetime? Please?) I skipped the Meet’n’Greet and dashed downstairs (well, clomped, since I was wearing my four-inch platform stilettos) to write the memory verse on the white board and set up for the arts and crafts project.

Let’s just say that I was a little frazzled.

After church, as I cleaned up the classroom, Doodle, who is nine and a half, moseyed in and said, “Can I go home with Dad?” I said, “Sure.” I watched him take off up the stairs, where the Pastor’s office is. A few minutes later, I crossed paths with Rev, who was coming downstairs, dressed in his civvies, pausing only long enough for us to snap at each other over whether I should have seasoned the chicken before I'd left for church and the fact that there wasn’t enough whole milk to make his dessert recipe for the dinner he was cooking for my mom and me. (This thirty-second conversation was the only time we’d really spoken all day -- at least while both of us were awake.)

By now, my feet hurt, I was a little irritated, and I had less than two hours to get my grocery shopping for the week done before my parents were due to arrive for dinner. I grabbed Scooby and headed out to my car.

By the time I got home, Rev was well into his dinner prep, and the kitchen looked demolished. Scooby dashed off to change out of her Sunday dress, while I made three trips to bring the grocery bags in from the car. Scooby reappeared, wearing shorts, and asked, “Can me and Doodle go outside?” I said yes, despite the fact that it was only about fifty degrees. She scampered downstairs, then came back up seconds later, looking confused. “Where’s Doodle?” she asked me. “I don’t know,” I snapped, “ask your dad.”

Said dad looked completely blank. “I thought he was with you.”

Every inappropriate Anglo-Saxon word I had ever learned crowded into my head at that moment, looking for a chance to escape. Each assuming the other had him, we had left the boy at church.

Now, we typically would check with each other before leaving after service. I’d say, Do you have the boys? or he'd tell me, I have the little guys. But yesterday, Rev was preoccupied with his dinner plans, and I was multitasking my grocery lists, my meal plan for the week, and my post mortem on a class that had not gone as well as I’d hoped.

I was thinking about everything except being a mother.

I stomped out of the house, clutching my cell phone, headed back to the church. On a Sunday morning, it takes about twenty American minutes to get there from home; on a Sunday afternoon, it takes forever. Every dawdling, cell-phone chatting, don’t notice the red light has turned green moron decided to pick that very moment to pull out in front of my car. I tried the blame for leaving Doodle behind out on everyone, eventually settling somewhere between “we were all careless,” and “sometimes stuff happens.”

When I got to the church (in nineteen minutes), Doodle was waiting patiently with a church member in the front lobby, munching on animal crackers. I put on my game face and said, “Hey, kiddo. What happened?”

He smiled, not troubled in the least, and replied, “Well, after I told you I wanted to go with Dad, I went up to the Sanctuary to find him, but he wasn’t there. I came back downstairs, but he wasn’t in the Fellowship Hall either. So I went to find you, but you’d left already.”

Oh.

If this were the movies, I would fall on my knees, wrap him in my arms, and tearfully promise never, ever to leave him again. But this is real life, where parents mess up and kids, understanding this, find the nearest adult and wait for you to come back, because, really, Mom and Dad aren’t going to leave you at church all week, and that’s what you’ve been teaching them to do since they were old enough to wander away from you in Walmart. So we thanked the nice lady for staying with him, and raced each other to the car. Once we were buckled in, I said, “I’m sorry I left without checking with Dad first.”

And my empathetic little boy proved that I wasn’t a complete failure as a mom when he responded, “That’s okay. Everyone can make a mistake.” Then he proved that he was savvy as well, when he added, “Sooo, maybe I should get my own cell phone.” His eyes met mine as I glanced over my shoulder, and he shrugged, as if to say, Well, it was worth a try, anyway.

Hmmm, I thought as I drove carefully home, mindful of the precious cargo in the back seat, Worst Mom? Maybe I’ll just settle for first runner up.

Goodbye, Sarah

Over the past year and change, I’ve sought out numerous accounts of other women who are walking this cancer road. All of them have been connected to me virtually; I’ve identified with some for one reason, with others for another. I’ve cheered them on through rough spots, and in return, they’ve educated and encouraged me. Sometimes, I’ve seen myself in what they’ve written; other times, the only thing we’ve shared is a diagnosis.

One of these women was Sarah Feather, a/k/a The Carcinista. She did not live far from me, but we never met, nor spoke in person. She took her treatment at the hospital across the street from mine. But she was married and had kids, two boys the same ages as my younger kids. She, like me, had a snarky sense of humor, and loved to write. I followed her blog, The Carcinista (www.carcinista.com). There was never any self pity, no melodramatic Hallmark sentiments, only a clear-eyed account of what it’s like to go through hard-core cancer treatment and hope for the best.

Sarah died yesterday, after a long (and stylish) struggle with ovarian cancer. Just a couple weeks before, she had decided to stop treatment because she would not trade off quality time with her family for a few more days of sickly life. I listened to a podcast of her explaining her decision, and thought to myself, I hope that, when the time comes, I can handle the situation with this much grace.

I’m sorry for her husband, and for her boys, who are way too young to lose their mom. But I know that some day they’ll be strong enough to read Sarah’s blog and other articles and postings, and realize that how you face death is as important as how you face life. Maybe more important, because you have to do it by yourself.

Bye, Carcinista. Safe journey.

Change ME

So, I’ve taken on a new job. It will eventually pay well, but not in money. It’s certainly a time investment, and, like all other jobs I’ve had over the years, it is starting out with me feeling not-very-competent.

It is the job of understanding my son’s special brain.

I wrote last time about Boy’s ADHD diagnosis, and the merry-go-round we’d been on until last month. How stepping off of that ride only led us to the current rollercoaster of ADHD. We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto; we’re in the land of alphabet soup: ADHD, IEPs, WISC-IV, PAI-A, and the like.
Moms, at least those of us who are inclined to, pray for grace all the time. Please, Lord, don’t let me kill this child. Or, Please let his dad come home so I don’t have to handle this alone. Or, my personal favorite: Lord, DO something with this kid, will you?

Lately, however, I’ve been reminded of the much more powerful, more effective prayer. Change me, Lord. Change ME.

Although I’m very good at it, I don’t love to yell. I don’t enjoy getting a major attitude, or giving my teenager the silent treatment, or letting him know with every stiff, jerky movement of my body just how angry I am at him for whatever he has or hasn’t done. But that has been my go-to position for so very long, I am awesome at it.

Part of my new job is to rein that in. I finally realized that I’ve been doing the same thing for fourteen years, and it hasn’t worked – and isn’t that the common definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result? So I quit.

Hear that, world? I’ve given my notice. I quit being the hair-trigger bitch who snaps at the least mistake. Who fires off hurtful one-liners as if I were starring in a sitcom with a laugh track and timely commercial breaks. I’m done.

A few days ago, my son informed me at 6:00 PM that he had to write some poems for English class the following day. “How many poems,” I asked warily. “Thirteen,” he answered.

Now, understand that his computer account unlocks for his use at 7:00 PM and locks again at 9:00 PM, his bedtime. He had left himself a mere two hours to get this project done – despite the fact that he had just gotten off of April vacation during which he had insisted he had no homework. I began to steam immediately.

I unlocked the computer until midnight, knowing full well that he wouldn’t get enough sleep, that his poems would be utterly terrible, and that he’d have issues in school the following day.

Sure enough, his math teacher sent home a note saying that Boy had fallen asleep in Math class. Really. Imagine that.

That night, I sat down across from Boy, turning off the TV to get his attention, and . . . didn’t yell. Instead, in a calm and patient tone, I offered to help. “Boy,” I said, “I’d like to help you organize yourself so that you don’t have another last minute scramble like you did last night.”

“What do you mean?” he asked innocently. “My English teacher said my poems were ‘beautiful.’”

Not likely, I thought uncharitably. Aloud, I said, “But think how they might have turned out if you’d spent five days rather than five hours on them.”

He thought for a minute. “They’d be amazing,” he said quietly.

“And you might have been able to do some cool artwork to go with them,” I added. “But because you left it to the very last minute, you had to stay up way late, Daddy had to print them off early this morning, you were all stressed out with your wrinkled brow thing going on” (he laughed) “and you fell asleep in class.”

“Oh,” he said. “I guess you’re right. But I work better at the last minute.”

True, that, I thought. But I countered with, “What happens when you end up having two or three projects due around the same time? In high school, you’ll have more work, and when you get to college – well, your professors won’t know or even care what other class assignments you have. If you try to do everything at the last minute, you’ll run out of ‘last minutes’ and not be able to get everything done.”

You could almost see the light bulb go on above his head.

“So, I’d like to help you organize your time and your assignments so you don’t have to struggle like this again, okay?”

And, so, did it work? Depends on what your measure of success is. Do I expect him to be Mr. Super Organized all of a sudden from that one conversation? Of course not. The kid has ADHD, remember? It's going to take a lot of work to train his brain to get from point A to point C without a detour to Outer Mongolia in between. But I got buy-in from him to at least let me try to show him a better way.

But that’s not the success of the story. Remember, I prayed for ME to be changed. And for the first time, a botched assignment didn’t turn into a why do you leave everything to the last minute, haven’t I told you before, blah-blah-blah blame fest. Rather, I took a major step toward understanding Boy’s brain, and in return, he took a major step in understanding mine. And we ended the conversation without either one of us shouting, crying, stomping away childishly, or pouting in our rooms. Maybe next time he feels overwhelmed by an assignment, he’ll ask for help sooner rather than later, knowing that I want him to succeed. Maybe next time I see him flailing, I’ll step in kindly, with an offer of assistance rather than a declaration of impending failure.

I could grow to like this job. Maybe I’ll even get pretty good at it. I think it might have some pretty good benefits, after all.

Boy's Brain

I wish my son had a normal brain.

I’ve just finished reading a really great book called Delivered From Distraction, by Dr. Edward Hallowell, a very famous and very smart psychiatrist who studies and writes about and has Attention Deficit Disorder, or ADD. I read this book because my older son, Boy, has been diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), and I went looking for some answers.

We probably knew all along that there was ADD/ADHD in the picture. Teachers have mentioned it over the years – along with other teachers who denied that Boy might have it. He didn’t always fit the profile. He can focus, sometimes, and other times, he can’t. We’ve brought him to therapists and counselors, sometimes at the point of pulling out our hair, trying to find out what was wrong with this kid? Why couldn’t he function like a normal child? They would talk to him, give him a few tests, and conclude, Meh, maybe he has ADD, maybe he doesn’t.

One kindergarten teacher told me, with sympathy in her voice, “I hate to tell you this, but your son may very well be a genius.” I cried about that. Another teacher scolded me, saying I’d better do something about his outbursts before my husband and I got sued by some other child’s parent. I cried about that, too.

And always, there was the sense that maybe it was just a discipline problem. If we structured his days, if we took away his privileges, if we punished him in just the right way, maybe he would straighten up and fly right. Sometimes it worked; mostly it didn’t.

Last year, I stumbled across a book about bi-polar disorder in children, and became very scared. A lot of symptoms described there were day to day occurrences in my kid.

Things came to a head this year, his eighth grade year, when he literally spent more time out of school – suspended for infraction after infraction – than he did in class. Rev and I took days off from work to stay home with him, or brought him with us to do his school work in an empty office. Finally, in February, I’d had enough, and on the same day I registered him for the public high school assignment process, I requested a transfer from his charter school to a public school. He would finish out the year in a regular high school, and probably repeat the grade before going on to high school. He was failing all of his classes, and was not even trying anymore. We got one day’s notice, and then he was going to another school.

A few days later, we took him for a five-hour neuropsychological exam (that had been scheduled since November). It took several weeks to get a result, but there we were, sitting with the psychologist, listening to her tell us that our son has ADHD. As I was soon to learn, Boy experiences the world through constant static. Sometimes he’s able to focus through the static and actually learn. Many times, however, the static takes over, and his mind drifts. As his pediatrician observed, he’s the ultimate multi-tasker; imagine how well he’ll do when the static goes away?

So what now? Now, I get on the merry-go-round of trying to find mental health professionals that are (1) accepting patients, (2) believers in both cognitive therapy and appropriate medication, and (3) covered by our insurance. In a “team approach” specialty – you can’t see a psychiatrist until you’ve seen a therapist, and only the psychiatrist can prescribe ADHD medication – you’re left trying to put together the team. Nobody says, Here’s a referral to a group; they’ll take care of you. You might as well just take out the Yellow Pages.

I’m supposed to entrust my kid and his special brain to some person I find on my own, through an Internet search or an advertisement in a parenting magazine or a list mailed to me by the pediatrician’s office.

Are you kidding me?

In the meantime, I’m reading Dr. Hallowell’s book and a few others, trying to figure out the day to day of dealing with my kid and his issues. I haven’t jumped on the oh, this is great, you have a magical brain, I wish I were that special! bandwagon that Dr. Hallowell espouses, but I’m also learning to cut the kid some slack. He’s fourteen, and there are some things that teenagers do: argue, procrastinate, sleep a lot, slack off on their homework, and so on. Friends of mine who have or have had fourteen-year-old sons have warned me about this toxic phase. But Boy is different, now. I have to help him find a way to be organized – because he never will on his own. I have to study his diet and sleep habits because there are things we can do to make his brain function better. And I have to remind myself, daily, that sometimes he’s dealing with a behavioral issue, not a discipline issue.

This is all new ground. I am happy that Boy is not bi-polar. I’m also relieved, profoundly relieved, that we finally have a working diagnosis, one that addresses both Boy’s strengths and his weaknesses (as opposed to years of being told only what bad thing Boy did each day). And I feel like I have a second chance to be a good mom, one who takes the time to take his side some of the time.

We’ll get him through this. We all need to learn some new tools, but eventually, he’ll be able to hear us clearly through the static. And then, who knows where that brain of his will take him?

But You Gotta Have Friends

Every once in a while, you get a lesson in friendship.

My oldest son, “Boy,” thinks that a “friend” is someone who posts stuff (usually about themselves) on his Facebook page. His idea of a conversation is a “comment” or, if he’s really pressed for time, a thumbs up “Like” for a picture or video he’s added. Most of the time, he and his “friends” are talking past each other, not having a conversation or connecting in any way.

I watch him navigate all of his social media choices, and I purse my lips. Friendship, I think to myself, is about to go the way of the dodo.

But then I think back on the last several months of my own life, and my dealings with people I would, if asked, have referred to as “friends.” Mainly, they’re colleagues and acquaintances, who fit neatly into the little pockets of my life, as I fit into theirs, and whom I like. We throw hour-long baby showers for them, email little jokes to their in-boxes, and ask earnestly how their kids are doing after a bout with the flu. But, are we “friends”?

One colleague is working on a huge case with me. Over the years, I’ve listened to her family problems, and she visited me when I was in the hospital. I would have called her a friend without hesitation up until about a month ago, when I came face to face with the fact that I really hadn’t thought about it hard enough. That was the day this colleague, I’ll call her “Mary,” threw me under the proverbial bus in open court. Her particular betrayal had to do with undermining my position and ability to do my job, and what’s worse, she did it without even knowing that she was crossing a line. As in, it never occurred to her that what she was saying was in any way hurtful or offensive. It wasn’t the first, or even the thirty-first, time she’d cut the legs out from under me; it was just the worst so far. I’d swallowed my pride and my retorts, because the case came first, and it would do no good at all to derail the train for the sake of my ego. I had my share of sympathetic looks from other members of the team, and told people – and myself – that the best approach was just not to let it bother me.

So this one day, I let it bother me. I began to explain to her that what she’d done was a new low, and her utterly blank face and its What did I do? thought bubble just pushed me over the edge. As she tried to school me on why I wasn’t qualified to do the task we had been discussing in court, I snapped, “I am too angry to talk to you right now.” And I walked away. It was a full week before I spoke to her again. It took almost a month for her to come to me and apologize.

Here’s where the lesson on friendship came in. I was raised to believe that forgiving and forgetting went hand in hand. That an apology set the counter back to zero, and you moved forward as if nothing had happened. And perhaps that’s why the concept of self-esteem has always had a slightly foreign flavor to it for me. So when faced with what I can only describe as a half-assed apology (full of excuses and reasons for the tiny subset of egregious behavior that she was willing to recognize only after a third party pointed it out to her with circles and arrows) accompanied by a plea not to lose our “friendship” and what may have been remorseful tears, I sat in silence for a moment. I waited for the Christian part, the turn-the-other-cheek, forgive-seventy-times-seven-for-they-know-not-what-they-do part to kick in. I even said a prayer for the right words.

God answers prayer, and here’s what I said. I accept your apology. I know you want me to say that we can go back to being friends, but I really can’t. I don’t know if we ever will, because you have hurt me very deeply. I will continue to be civil, because we are grownups, but I have resigned myself to the fact that I don’t have to be friends with someone to try a case with her. I didn’t raise my voice or anything; I didn’t need to – and I felt peace.

Another me would have backtracked, instinctively coupling forgiveness with assent: it’s okay, which translates to, it’s okay to treat people, specifically me, with disrespect and condescension. I’m used to it, and I’ll take it some more.

But that’s not forgiveness. That’s enabling. That’s not humility; that’s self-abuse. And it’s not friendship.

Years ago my mother said something very profound. When I was upset over a disappointing relationship, she observed, point-blank, “There are more than 6 billion people on this planet. Not every one of them is going to be your friend.”

Not every colleague is going to be my friend. Not every person who writes slogans on my Facebook wall, or sends me email jokes is my friend.

And you know what? That’s okay. I don’t know when I lost that concept. If I ask Scooby, “What is a friend?”, you know what she’ll say? “A friend is someone who helps you and who you help when they need it.”

It really is that simple. Help them get through the day. Help them see the truth of themselves. Help them move forward when they can’t. Help them in ways, small and large, to succeed. And count on them to do the same for you.

Everybody else is just baggage. A Facebook friend, in name only.

I hope Boy realizes this a lot sooner than I did.

So, to take a cue from him: Sorry, “Mary,” I’m un-friending you. Bye.

That felt good.