The subject line of the email from the cooking website caused my eyes to narrow as it flashed across my inbox yesterday afternoon. “Thanksgiving menu: it’s not too late to start planning!”
Of course it’s not too late, I muttered to myself irritably. It’s not even close to being too late! Thanksgiving is still eight days away.
But in truth, I know it’s also not too early. In fact, I myself should be planning my Thanksgiving menu. And on some level I am. Kind of, In the back of my mind. But not with the zeal I usually plan Thanksgiving.
And when a friend said today that she was already humming Christmas carols and basking in a Christmas mood, I told her I was still in an October mood and working hard to get to a Thanksgiving one. I’m doing everything I can to make time stand still, and yet strangely enough, it’s not working.
I just feel that this autumn is going by too fast. There’s no reason I feel that way this particular year, except that this autumn has allowed me to become so immersed in my writing and the kids’ new school year and some new article ideas and the publication of my book and getting to know the area around my parents’ new vacation home and a host of interests and activities to which fall lends itself. And all of that somehow seems to come to a screeching halt once the holidays approach. New school year? Try Thanksgiving vacation followed three weeks later by winter break, with report cards in between the two to remind you that the year is already exactly one-third over. One-third over? But I’m just getting used to the idea that Tim is in middle school. I don’t want to hear that seventh grade is already looming. I want it to be the first week of school for as long as possible.
But it’s not, of course. It’s seven days ‘til Thanksgiving. I love cooking Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve done it yearly since 1999 with only one exception. For that matter, I like cooking and menu-planning at any time of year. It’s not the domestic side of the situation that’s causing my agitation this year; it’s simply the chronological part. Winter holidays? Really? But I was so happy watching the leaves change.
It’s inevitable, and fall more than any other season seems to bring out the resistance in many of us to see time pass. So I’ll keep writing, keep finding time to walk in the woods, keep up everything that made this fall such a resonant time for me, and also nudge myself onward to the preliminary steps of holiday planning.
After all, no one says that has to mean six different pies on the Thanksgiving table or hours of Christmas shopping at the mall. Holiday season can mean whatever you want it to mean, including writing, reading and walks in the woods. But regardless of what it may mean to different people, simply as a function of the sun rising and setting, Thanksgiving will soon be here, and I have a menu to plan. Fortunately, as the email I received yesterday assured me, it is indeed not too late.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
I need a recipe...
My sister was laughing as I answered the phone. “You’re not going to believe why I’m calling.”
I knew immediately. “You need my recipe for mud pie cake.”
It’s an ongoing joke with us. For the past thirty years, every place she has ever lived, she’s called me for the mud pie cake recipe. It’s an inexplicable coincidence that this is the one recipe she never remembers to hold on to, though perhaps Freud would point out here that there are no accidents. She and I both love to cook; there are literally hundreds if not thousands or recipes she could be calling me for. But it’s always the mud pie cake recipe, which has been in our family for decades, a moist chocolate cake with a name that amuses kids.
The first time was when she was a teenager doing a summer homestay in Switzerland. There was a birthday in her host family, and she wanted to impress them with our trusty family recipe for this most all-American of treats: basic chocolate cake.
She called for the same recipe from Ohio when she was a freshman in college. Then there was the call from Austria while she was an exchange student. The mud pie cake recipe followed her around the globe – through Europe and then back to subsequent residencies in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, where she and her husband and children have more or less permanently settled. Since they’ve lived there for so long, I assumed the recipe was safely stashed at last and I wouldn’t be getting any more calls. But no, they still travel, and wherever they go, she gets the urge to use the kitchen, and for some reason remembers to bring along every recipe she wants except for this one. So in the past five years, I’ve gotten the SOS call from locales including southern France, Colorado, and Indiana. Now they’re spending a sabbatical year in Germany, and sure enough, she wants to bake a cake.
Yesterday she claimed that as I read her the recipe, she was transcribing it into an electronic file on her laptop and would therefore never need to ask me again. I’m skeptical. If it was that easy, why wouldn’t she have done this years ago? No, there has to be something more nuanced about it. It’s not like we ordinarily have a hard time talking. We discuss our kids, books we’ve read, our parents and their idiosyncrasies (by the hour, believe me), gifts to jointly give our other sister, exercise programs, the weather. We talk about all kinds of things. And yet it’s the cake that keeps her calling.
This cake recipe has been in our family for a very long time. Unlike many cake recipes, it’s absolutely foolproof; there’s nothing delicate about it. I remember making it in playgroup under my mother’s guidance when I was three years old, and I used to make it for bake sales in junior high. I don’t know much about the cake’s history, but because the recipe includes no milk or butter – no dairy products at all – as well as no chocolate in solid form and no eggs, I suspect it was a Depression-era recipe that bakers invented in order to make a cake out of inexpensive, readily available ingredients. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the taste: it’s moist and delicious, as well as really fun to make, especially for kids. “Water the garden!” my mom used to say back in playgroup days as each child had a turn to add one of the liquid ingredients and then stir. Now I make it with my kids, and both my sisters make it with theirs.
If it guarantees regular phone calls from my sister, no matter where in the world she happens to be, then I actually hope she never does remember to bring the recipe with her – or, worse, memorize it. I like these regular phone calls from across the globe. Mud pie cake batter: the ultimate sororal glue. In our family, anyway.
For those who are curious about this baking tradition, here’s the recipe:
Mud Pie Cake
1 ½ cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cold water
Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients well in a large mixing bowl. Then stir in remaining ingredients one at a time, mixing well after each addition. (You can do this with an electric mixer or by hand.) Pour batter into a greased 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan or brownie pan. Bake for about 30 minutes.
I knew immediately. “You need my recipe for mud pie cake.”
It’s an ongoing joke with us. For the past thirty years, every place she has ever lived, she’s called me for the mud pie cake recipe. It’s an inexplicable coincidence that this is the one recipe she never remembers to hold on to, though perhaps Freud would point out here that there are no accidents. She and I both love to cook; there are literally hundreds if not thousands or recipes she could be calling me for. But it’s always the mud pie cake recipe, which has been in our family for decades, a moist chocolate cake with a name that amuses kids.
The first time was when she was a teenager doing a summer homestay in Switzerland. There was a birthday in her host family, and she wanted to impress them with our trusty family recipe for this most all-American of treats: basic chocolate cake.
She called for the same recipe from Ohio when she was a freshman in college. Then there was the call from Austria while she was an exchange student. The mud pie cake recipe followed her around the globe – through Europe and then back to subsequent residencies in Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, where she and her husband and children have more or less permanently settled. Since they’ve lived there for so long, I assumed the recipe was safely stashed at last and I wouldn’t be getting any more calls. But no, they still travel, and wherever they go, she gets the urge to use the kitchen, and for some reason remembers to bring along every recipe she wants except for this one. So in the past five years, I’ve gotten the SOS call from locales including southern France, Colorado, and Indiana. Now they’re spending a sabbatical year in Germany, and sure enough, she wants to bake a cake.
Yesterday she claimed that as I read her the recipe, she was transcribing it into an electronic file on her laptop and would therefore never need to ask me again. I’m skeptical. If it was that easy, why wouldn’t she have done this years ago? No, there has to be something more nuanced about it. It’s not like we ordinarily have a hard time talking. We discuss our kids, books we’ve read, our parents and their idiosyncrasies (by the hour, believe me), gifts to jointly give our other sister, exercise programs, the weather. We talk about all kinds of things. And yet it’s the cake that keeps her calling.
This cake recipe has been in our family for a very long time. Unlike many cake recipes, it’s absolutely foolproof; there’s nothing delicate about it. I remember making it in playgroup under my mother’s guidance when I was three years old, and I used to make it for bake sales in junior high. I don’t know much about the cake’s history, but because the recipe includes no milk or butter – no dairy products at all – as well as no chocolate in solid form and no eggs, I suspect it was a Depression-era recipe that bakers invented in order to make a cake out of inexpensive, readily available ingredients. Yet you wouldn’t know it from the taste: it’s moist and delicious, as well as really fun to make, especially for kids. “Water the garden!” my mom used to say back in playgroup days as each child had a turn to add one of the liquid ingredients and then stir. Now I make it with my kids, and both my sisters make it with theirs.
If it guarantees regular phone calls from my sister, no matter where in the world she happens to be, then I actually hope she never does remember to bring the recipe with her – or, worse, memorize it. I like these regular phone calls from across the globe. Mud pie cake batter: the ultimate sororal glue. In our family, anyway.
For those who are curious about this baking tradition, here’s the recipe:
Mud Pie Cake
1 ½ cups flour
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup cold water
Preheat oven to 350. Combine dry ingredients well in a large mixing bowl. Then stir in remaining ingredients one at a time, mixing well after each addition. (You can do this with an electric mixer or by hand.) Pour batter into a greased 8-inch or 9-inch cake pan or brownie pan. Bake for about 30 minutes.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
The honeymoon period: I've written the book, but no one has read it yet
I keep reminding myself that these few short days are the honeymoon period for my book.
The book is in print, the publicity effort has been launched, the order button on various websites has been enabled. The book exists.
And yet, and yet, no one yet has the book in hand. The earliest the printer could promise it, via the fastest shipping available – which I have no reason to think anyone but me opted to pay for – was later this week. No electronic version of my book exists publicly. Both draft copies are in my possession.
So what that means is that my book is completed but there’s no one in the world with a copy of it in hand right now. No one is actually reading it at this moment. Most likely no one will read it tomorrow either. Not until the end of the week…and that’s only if someone were to read it the moment it arrived in the mail, which not only modesty but reality forces me to admit is highly unlikely.
Hence, the honeymoon period. Right now, I get to float along on the victorious sense that my book is done – after more than three years of work, it’s done – and everyone who knows me seems happy for my success. My success in completing my book, that is. No one is congratulating me on my success in having written a good or readable or worthwhile book, because no one has read it yet.
So I’m fully immersing myself in this lull, this brief time before I have to get down to the serious anxiety about what people think of it. Soon enough – within a matter of days – there will be people actually reading my book. Even if they don’t rip it open the minute the mail carrier drops it on their doorstep or in their mailbox, within a few days they’ll be scanning the opening pages, flipping through, checking out the back cover or the acknowledgments. Right now is the only time I get to bask in the pride of having finally finished this long-struggling project, without having to confront any actual criticism.
Because the fact is, there will be criticism. It’s a provocative book on a controversial topic: how I challenged my 9-year-old to run a mile or more with me every day for a year. On the most basic level, that plan was controversial from the outset, as I explain in the book: when I went to an online discussion group for runners, expecting to find other parent/child combinations attempting to maintain a long running streak, I found no endorsements at all, only anonymous posters saying they thought my idea was an awful one.
But that’s the easy part of the controversy, the part about whether or not it’s okay to encourage a nine-year-old to run a daily mile. What’s harder is that the thoughts about parenting I’ve so candidly shared in the book are themselves divisive in some ways. I had about eight friends and family members read the manuscript during the revision process; most liked it, but one or two warned me that it was simply too harsh; that by being so judgmental in some ways and downright negative in others, I was creating in myself an unsympathetic character, a mother who was far too critical of her own child.
So the revision process, for me, was mostly an effort of toning it all down, stage after stage. I removed one adjective after another, finding ways to be ever less caustic in my parental observations. Too much, some of the readers had warned. Too much negativity, too much anxiety, too many questions about what constitutes good parenting.
In other words, I’ve already had a taste of the mixed reactions my book provokes. And that was among just eight readers. In another few days, ten times that many people might be reading it and judging me.
But after three years of work to get this book completed, I honestly believe I’m ready. I understand that some people will be taken aback by the raw honesty with which I depict the less joyful aspects of parenting and family life. Just as people asked us how a mother could submit her son to the physical rigors of a daily mile while we were doing the streak, people have asked me how I can be so candid about both the positive and negative aspects of my life.
My children have seen this book. They know what I write about and how I write. My parents and my husband do too. They accept it for what it is: my best attempts to give literary expression to my most authentic feelings. I know that some readers of my book won’t really like it all that much. Others, I hope, will like it a lot. But of course, I don’t know. And in the end, all I can really hope for is that everyone who reads it respects the fact that I took the time to write it.
Time will tell. But right now, I’m just enjoying the lull between publication and availability. I’ll never have these few days again, when the congrats-on-publishing are pouring in but there aren’t any how-could-you-say-all-of-this to balance it out. The time will come, but for right now, I’m happy to be in this buffer zone, this post-publication, pre-printing cone of serenity.
The book is in print, the publicity effort has been launched, the order button on various websites has been enabled. The book exists.
And yet, and yet, no one yet has the book in hand. The earliest the printer could promise it, via the fastest shipping available – which I have no reason to think anyone but me opted to pay for – was later this week. No electronic version of my book exists publicly. Both draft copies are in my possession.
So what that means is that my book is completed but there’s no one in the world with a copy of it in hand right now. No one is actually reading it at this moment. Most likely no one will read it tomorrow either. Not until the end of the week…and that’s only if someone were to read it the moment it arrived in the mail, which not only modesty but reality forces me to admit is highly unlikely.
Hence, the honeymoon period. Right now, I get to float along on the victorious sense that my book is done – after more than three years of work, it’s done – and everyone who knows me seems happy for my success. My success in completing my book, that is. No one is congratulating me on my success in having written a good or readable or worthwhile book, because no one has read it yet.
So I’m fully immersing myself in this lull, this brief time before I have to get down to the serious anxiety about what people think of it. Soon enough – within a matter of days – there will be people actually reading my book. Even if they don’t rip it open the minute the mail carrier drops it on their doorstep or in their mailbox, within a few days they’ll be scanning the opening pages, flipping through, checking out the back cover or the acknowledgments. Right now is the only time I get to bask in the pride of having finally finished this long-struggling project, without having to confront any actual criticism.
Because the fact is, there will be criticism. It’s a provocative book on a controversial topic: how I challenged my 9-year-old to run a mile or more with me every day for a year. On the most basic level, that plan was controversial from the outset, as I explain in the book: when I went to an online discussion group for runners, expecting to find other parent/child combinations attempting to maintain a long running streak, I found no endorsements at all, only anonymous posters saying they thought my idea was an awful one.
But that’s the easy part of the controversy, the part about whether or not it’s okay to encourage a nine-year-old to run a daily mile. What’s harder is that the thoughts about parenting I’ve so candidly shared in the book are themselves divisive in some ways. I had about eight friends and family members read the manuscript during the revision process; most liked it, but one or two warned me that it was simply too harsh; that by being so judgmental in some ways and downright negative in others, I was creating in myself an unsympathetic character, a mother who was far too critical of her own child.
So the revision process, for me, was mostly an effort of toning it all down, stage after stage. I removed one adjective after another, finding ways to be ever less caustic in my parental observations. Too much, some of the readers had warned. Too much negativity, too much anxiety, too many questions about what constitutes good parenting.
In other words, I’ve already had a taste of the mixed reactions my book provokes. And that was among just eight readers. In another few days, ten times that many people might be reading it and judging me.
But after three years of work to get this book completed, I honestly believe I’m ready. I understand that some people will be taken aback by the raw honesty with which I depict the less joyful aspects of parenting and family life. Just as people asked us how a mother could submit her son to the physical rigors of a daily mile while we were doing the streak, people have asked me how I can be so candid about both the positive and negative aspects of my life.
My children have seen this book. They know what I write about and how I write. My parents and my husband do too. They accept it for what it is: my best attempts to give literary expression to my most authentic feelings. I know that some readers of my book won’t really like it all that much. Others, I hope, will like it a lot. But of course, I don’t know. And in the end, all I can really hope for is that everyone who reads it respects the fact that I took the time to write it.
Time will tell. But right now, I’m just enjoying the lull between publication and availability. I’ll never have these few days again, when the congrats-on-publishing are pouring in but there aren’t any how-could-you-say-all-of-this to balance it out. The time will come, but for right now, I’m happy to be in this buffer zone, this post-publication, pre-printing cone of serenity.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Closing the barn door behind the...
I headed out yesterday morning before church to feed the cows and sheep, as I do every morning. The ground in the barnyard was muddy, but I was prepared for that.
What I was not prepared for was the sight that met me as I approached the barn. I quickly realized that the barnyard event I’ve always dreaded had come to pass: the cows were not standing in front of the hay barn, as they usually do once the sun is up and they know I’ll be coming out soon to feed them, but rather inside the hay barn.
This is the kind of scene I have anxiety dreams about. You know how some people turn back from their door three or four times before they leave the house to be sure they’ve turned off the coffee pot or the oven? That’s how I am about latching the barn gate. I check and re-check it before I leave the barnyard after each morning’s feeding, because I’m so apprehensive that I’ll leave it open and the cows will discover the open entrance into the haybarn. And then, I’ve always wondered, how on earth would I get them back out?
Well, yesterday I had the chance to find out. The good part was that it didn’t have to do with me or the kids leaving the gate open. It wasn’t our carelessness that caused the problem; it was the animals’ brute strength. They’d simply prodded the gate with their heads until the hinge broke away from the wall.
At the same time, this wasn’t altogether good, because it meant that even if I could get the animals back out into the pasture, there was still no gate to keep them from reentering the barn.
But at the initial moment, that wasn’t my problem; simply moving them was. Unlike farmers of old, I bring my cell phone out to the barn with me every day for just this kind of situation. I called the house; my sister, who is visiting for the weekend, said she would be right out to help me.
And then I had a surprise. Maybe the cows had been in the barn for hours and had eaten their fill by then, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t that hard to get them to move. Four of them were in the barn when I arrived; two I managed to simply push on out. Then I saw that the gate they’d knocked over was flat on the barn floor and one of them was standing with her legs intertwined in the gate rails; when I tried to pick up and move the gate, it discombobulated her enough that she moved her hooves and eventually clomped on out of the barn.
Which left the fourth, Gracie, who I knew from prior experience was likely to be difficult. She’s ornery by nature anyway, the one who has been known to wait until I’m in the rare tight spot during feeding time and then push me nonchalantly against the wall. “Move, Gracie, just move,” I said, pushing against her. She looked at me, unimpressed, and stood her ground.
But just then my sister drove up. Startled by the sound of the truck so close by, Gracie craned her neck around to see what was going on, took a step forward – and then I had momentum on my side. One push, using the detached gate itself as a nice flat tool against her big furry side, and she was out as well. My sister and my father took on the job of fixing the gate, and soon everything was back to normal.
This doesn’t exactly quell my anxiety about what happens if the cows again find their way into the haybarn. I have no reason to think it would be quite so easy to get them out next time. And it’s possible by the time I found them yesterday they were sated; it might have been harder if I’d arrived earlier and they cared more about stuffing themselves. Curiously, the enormous bull, Hank, was one of only two animals who was not in the barn when I arrived, even though he’s nearly twice as big, heavy and strong as the rest of the animals. I don’t know whether he’d had his share earlier or just wasn’t interested.
Still, knowing it’s possible to get out of this situation with a happy outcome is reassuring. I don’t know that it would all go the same way again, but maybe I can worry a little less about it. For now, the hinges are reinforced and the cows are full. And I’ll just keep double-checking the latch before I leave the barnyard.
What I was not prepared for was the sight that met me as I approached the barn. I quickly realized that the barnyard event I’ve always dreaded had come to pass: the cows were not standing in front of the hay barn, as they usually do once the sun is up and they know I’ll be coming out soon to feed them, but rather inside the hay barn.
This is the kind of scene I have anxiety dreams about. You know how some people turn back from their door three or four times before they leave the house to be sure they’ve turned off the coffee pot or the oven? That’s how I am about latching the barn gate. I check and re-check it before I leave the barnyard after each morning’s feeding, because I’m so apprehensive that I’ll leave it open and the cows will discover the open entrance into the haybarn. And then, I’ve always wondered, how on earth would I get them back out?
Well, yesterday I had the chance to find out. The good part was that it didn’t have to do with me or the kids leaving the gate open. It wasn’t our carelessness that caused the problem; it was the animals’ brute strength. They’d simply prodded the gate with their heads until the hinge broke away from the wall.
At the same time, this wasn’t altogether good, because it meant that even if I could get the animals back out into the pasture, there was still no gate to keep them from reentering the barn.
But at the initial moment, that wasn’t my problem; simply moving them was. Unlike farmers of old, I bring my cell phone out to the barn with me every day for just this kind of situation. I called the house; my sister, who is visiting for the weekend, said she would be right out to help me.
And then I had a surprise. Maybe the cows had been in the barn for hours and had eaten their fill by then, but for whatever reason, it wasn’t that hard to get them to move. Four of them were in the barn when I arrived; two I managed to simply push on out. Then I saw that the gate they’d knocked over was flat on the barn floor and one of them was standing with her legs intertwined in the gate rails; when I tried to pick up and move the gate, it discombobulated her enough that she moved her hooves and eventually clomped on out of the barn.
Which left the fourth, Gracie, who I knew from prior experience was likely to be difficult. She’s ornery by nature anyway, the one who has been known to wait until I’m in the rare tight spot during feeding time and then push me nonchalantly against the wall. “Move, Gracie, just move,” I said, pushing against her. She looked at me, unimpressed, and stood her ground.
But just then my sister drove up. Startled by the sound of the truck so close by, Gracie craned her neck around to see what was going on, took a step forward – and then I had momentum on my side. One push, using the detached gate itself as a nice flat tool against her big furry side, and she was out as well. My sister and my father took on the job of fixing the gate, and soon everything was back to normal.
This doesn’t exactly quell my anxiety about what happens if the cows again find their way into the haybarn. I have no reason to think it would be quite so easy to get them out next time. And it’s possible by the time I found them yesterday they were sated; it might have been harder if I’d arrived earlier and they cared more about stuffing themselves. Curiously, the enormous bull, Hank, was one of only two animals who was not in the barn when I arrived, even though he’s nearly twice as big, heavy and strong as the rest of the animals. I don’t know whether he’d had his share earlier or just wasn’t interested.
Still, knowing it’s possible to get out of this situation with a happy outcome is reassuring. I don’t know that it would all go the same way again, but maybe I can worry a little less about it. For now, the hinges are reinforced and the cows are full. And I’ll just keep double-checking the latch before I leave the barnyard.
Friday, November 12, 2010
A Veterans' Day walk in the woods
The kids didn’t have school yesterday, and although we didn’t do anything overtly related to veterans, we were all conscious of the significance behind the day off.
For me, it was interesting to see how many of my Facebook contacts wrote posts yesterday in honor of specific people in military service and reminded me that even though my closest circles include few recent veterans, we’re just “two degrees of separation” in myriad directions.
And Holly reminded us several times that we should all be thinking of Great-Grandpa John, Rick’s grandfather, on Veterans Day; he was a World War II vet and was buried with his military medals last February.
What we did do, after a quiet morning during which I worked on an article under deadline, Holly played school and Tim read, was take a short hike around the Fairy Pond in Concord. (I usually call it by the more dignified name of Brister Hill, but as my father pointed out to me yesterday afternoon, it’s not called Brister Hill, which may explain why I’m the only one who refers to it as such. Brister Hill is on the opposite side of the street. So I’ll need to swallow my dignity and call it Fairy Pond like everyone else does.)
Many people close to me, and almost anyone who reads my blog, know of my ongoing quest to get my kids to do more hiking. Sure, they like time outdoors, but usually in the form of playing touch football in the yard or picnicking on the lawn. Getting them to combine nature with exertion is an ongoing struggle.
Yesterday it wasn’t that hard, though. In part, this was probably because I didn’t make a big deal of it. I didn’t insist or implore. I just asked, “Want to go for a walk in the woods? Maybe that trail we did last fall in Concord, where I took the picture of the two of you dipping your walking sticks in the pond?”
They remembered, and they wanted to try it again, though the recollection was also followed by several minutes of debate as to whether the day we went there last year was the same day a park ranger told us we couldn’t walk around Walden Pond with our dog and we also couldn’t walk around Walden Pond while leaving our dog in the car, a rule none of us could understand. (“I went to the woods because I wanted to live canine-free…”)
So we drove to Concord and spent 45 minutes on the trail. The kids found walking sticks again and scampered up the steep hillsides, then slid down on a slippery scrim of oak leaves. We saw ducks in Fairy Pond and a 5-member arrow of Canada geese flying overhead. (“Where are they going again?” Holly asked. As I said, my kids are not exactly precocious as naturalists.)
After the walk, we drove to Bedford for Tim to get a haircut, and then had hot chocolate at Starbucks.
I expend so much time and so much breath trying to get my kids to join me for activities like hiking in the woods of Concord. Yesterday they agreed to do it with very little discussion, maybe because I didn’t introduce the idea with a great deal of discussion – just casually suggested it. And the haircut and hot chocolate underscored, I hope, the idea that going for a hike doesn’t need to be a major or time-consuming or tiring activity. It’s just an enjoyable thing to do on a sunny cool fall afternoon.
At least it was for me. And I hope for them as well.
For me, it was interesting to see how many of my Facebook contacts wrote posts yesterday in honor of specific people in military service and reminded me that even though my closest circles include few recent veterans, we’re just “two degrees of separation” in myriad directions.
And Holly reminded us several times that we should all be thinking of Great-Grandpa John, Rick’s grandfather, on Veterans Day; he was a World War II vet and was buried with his military medals last February.
What we did do, after a quiet morning during which I worked on an article under deadline, Holly played school and Tim read, was take a short hike around the Fairy Pond in Concord. (I usually call it by the more dignified name of Brister Hill, but as my father pointed out to me yesterday afternoon, it’s not called Brister Hill, which may explain why I’m the only one who refers to it as such. Brister Hill is on the opposite side of the street. So I’ll need to swallow my dignity and call it Fairy Pond like everyone else does.)
Many people close to me, and almost anyone who reads my blog, know of my ongoing quest to get my kids to do more hiking. Sure, they like time outdoors, but usually in the form of playing touch football in the yard or picnicking on the lawn. Getting them to combine nature with exertion is an ongoing struggle.
Yesterday it wasn’t that hard, though. In part, this was probably because I didn’t make a big deal of it. I didn’t insist or implore. I just asked, “Want to go for a walk in the woods? Maybe that trail we did last fall in Concord, where I took the picture of the two of you dipping your walking sticks in the pond?”
They remembered, and they wanted to try it again, though the recollection was also followed by several minutes of debate as to whether the day we went there last year was the same day a park ranger told us we couldn’t walk around Walden Pond with our dog and we also couldn’t walk around Walden Pond while leaving our dog in the car, a rule none of us could understand. (“I went to the woods because I wanted to live canine-free…”)
So we drove to Concord and spent 45 minutes on the trail. The kids found walking sticks again and scampered up the steep hillsides, then slid down on a slippery scrim of oak leaves. We saw ducks in Fairy Pond and a 5-member arrow of Canada geese flying overhead. (“Where are they going again?” Holly asked. As I said, my kids are not exactly precocious as naturalists.)
After the walk, we drove to Bedford for Tim to get a haircut, and then had hot chocolate at Starbucks.
I expend so much time and so much breath trying to get my kids to join me for activities like hiking in the woods of Concord. Yesterday they agreed to do it with very little discussion, maybe because I didn’t introduce the idea with a great deal of discussion – just casually suggested it. And the haircut and hot chocolate underscored, I hope, the idea that going for a hike doesn’t need to be a major or time-consuming or tiring activity. It’s just an enjoyable thing to do on a sunny cool fall afternoon.
At least it was for me. And I hope for them as well.
Thursday, November 11, 2010
It's only a minor problem -- but I'm not sure I can solve it
My father is fond of saying that some problems have no solutions. Right now I’m facing one of them. It’s not a really big problem. It’s just a challenge that I don’t think can be successfully met. And yet to even say those words sounds so somehow un-American. Doesn’t everything from my education to my country of birth to my religion inform me that challenges exist to be met? Am I really ready to say there are cases when simply giving up is the right thing to do?
To make a long story short, last spring our school’s parent volunteer association decided that rather than having Walk-to-School Day be a twice-a-year event, we should form a Walk-to-School Committee whose mission would be “to make walking or biking to school a safe and regular habit.” In other words, something that happens all the time, not just on two designated days that include raffle prizes and lots of ceremony. And they asked me to chair this committee.
I pulled off a bang-up launch. On October 5, despite impending rain, nearly 200 kids in Carlisle’s elementary and middle school grades walked or biked to school. The grades with the highest and second-highest rate of participation won cool prizes. Fourteen volunteers staffed the crosswalks to ensure safe passage.
But the event’s triumphs, ironically enough, may have turned out to also be its downfall. As successful as it was deemed to be, I’m now stuck with the suspicion that it takes three months of planning, $50 worth of prizes and fourteen volunteers to make it possible for kids to walk to school.
My committee wants to make Walk-to-School Day a weekly event. And we can do it without the prizes and heraldry. It’s the fourteen volunteers that I can’t seem to get past. Carlisle simply isn’t a walking town. Our town doesn’t have traffic lights: walkers are strictly at the mercy of the judgment of drivers. The new footpath system is wonderful as far as making it possible to walk somewhere other than in the roadway on the main streets, but the cars that pass through the center aren’t expecting to stop for crossing foot traffic. The side streets have neither sidewalks nor footpaths, and many of them don’t even have adequate shoulders, at least adequate enough to shelter pedestrians during rush hour.
I put out an appeal for adult volunteers to help with a weekly Walk-to-School plan, but the response was scanty, and I can’t say I blame anyone. Most parents of school-aged children I know are already booked to the hilt with volunteer activities, whether or not they also hold down full-time jobs that might prevent them from being available at the walk-to-school hour. Some of the town’s older residents who do not have young children in the schools provided a great deal of help at our Walk-to-School launch, but I can’t blame them either for not wanting to make this a weekly commitment.
So I’m stuck with how to admit that I might not be able to do this. It would be a much better story – and a much more traditional one – if I rose up against the odds and showed that a safe walk-to-school program could be done. If the naysayers were someone other than me, over whom I could triumph in the face of their skepticism. The problem is the task is mine – and I’m also the one most skeptical.
It puts me in a problematic position. I’m not much of a hero if I say “Sorry, I tried to lead this effort but it’s not going to work.” That surely won’t put me in the annals of American mythology. After all, my friend Deborah faced down fifteen years of obstacles simply to get Carlisle’s footpath system installed. It doesn’t make me look very impressive if I can’t take the project the next step and ensure that they are used.
I haven’t given up yet, and at the same time, I see no evidence that I can make this work. In the end, I may have to be the anti-hero: the one who admits that sometimes a plan just can’t be pulled off. I don’t want that to be my role, and I’m not willing to give up yet. But it may be that Dad is right: some problems do not have solutions. As un-American as that may sound, it just may be true.
To make a long story short, last spring our school’s parent volunteer association decided that rather than having Walk-to-School Day be a twice-a-year event, we should form a Walk-to-School Committee whose mission would be “to make walking or biking to school a safe and regular habit.” In other words, something that happens all the time, not just on two designated days that include raffle prizes and lots of ceremony. And they asked me to chair this committee.
I pulled off a bang-up launch. On October 5, despite impending rain, nearly 200 kids in Carlisle’s elementary and middle school grades walked or biked to school. The grades with the highest and second-highest rate of participation won cool prizes. Fourteen volunteers staffed the crosswalks to ensure safe passage.
But the event’s triumphs, ironically enough, may have turned out to also be its downfall. As successful as it was deemed to be, I’m now stuck with the suspicion that it takes three months of planning, $50 worth of prizes and fourteen volunteers to make it possible for kids to walk to school.
My committee wants to make Walk-to-School Day a weekly event. And we can do it without the prizes and heraldry. It’s the fourteen volunteers that I can’t seem to get past. Carlisle simply isn’t a walking town. Our town doesn’t have traffic lights: walkers are strictly at the mercy of the judgment of drivers. The new footpath system is wonderful as far as making it possible to walk somewhere other than in the roadway on the main streets, but the cars that pass through the center aren’t expecting to stop for crossing foot traffic. The side streets have neither sidewalks nor footpaths, and many of them don’t even have adequate shoulders, at least adequate enough to shelter pedestrians during rush hour.
I put out an appeal for adult volunteers to help with a weekly Walk-to-School plan, but the response was scanty, and I can’t say I blame anyone. Most parents of school-aged children I know are already booked to the hilt with volunteer activities, whether or not they also hold down full-time jobs that might prevent them from being available at the walk-to-school hour. Some of the town’s older residents who do not have young children in the schools provided a great deal of help at our Walk-to-School launch, but I can’t blame them either for not wanting to make this a weekly commitment.
So I’m stuck with how to admit that I might not be able to do this. It would be a much better story – and a much more traditional one – if I rose up against the odds and showed that a safe walk-to-school program could be done. If the naysayers were someone other than me, over whom I could triumph in the face of their skepticism. The problem is the task is mine – and I’m also the one most skeptical.
It puts me in a problematic position. I’m not much of a hero if I say “Sorry, I tried to lead this effort but it’s not going to work.” That surely won’t put me in the annals of American mythology. After all, my friend Deborah faced down fifteen years of obstacles simply to get Carlisle’s footpath system installed. It doesn’t make me look very impressive if I can’t take the project the next step and ensure that they are used.
I haven’t given up yet, and at the same time, I see no evidence that I can make this work. In the end, I may have to be the anti-hero: the one who admits that sometimes a plan just can’t be pulled off. I don’t want that to be my role, and I’m not willing to give up yet. But it may be that Dad is right: some problems do not have solutions. As un-American as that may sound, it just may be true.
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Halloween stash, ten days later
It was mid-afternoon yesterday and the thoughts typical of that hour started running through my mind. “Do we have anything in the house that’s chocolate? Or something not chocolate but sweet anyway? Homemade cookies? Hershey’s kisses? Marshmallows?”
That’s just what 2 p.m. is like for me most days.
Then I remembered something sweet that was in the house, something sweet and big. Holly’s trick-or-treat stash.
I checked the bottom shelf of the utility room fridge, the extra fridge that everyone but me forgets about. Inside of Holly’s black cloth Halloween-themed bag, it looked like the demolition site for the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel: a haphazard array of half-eaten candy bars, untouched pieces of chocolate, and empty wrappers, all resting on a sugary coating of semi-squashed gummy worms, Sweet Tarts and Sour Patch Kids.
Amidst the wreckage I found two untouched miniature Milky Ways. Even better, they were chilled. Perfect!
Halloween was ten days ago; I think it’s been five or six days since I saw Holly pay the slightest attention to her candy stash. Sure, the whole idea of trick-or-treating was exciting on Halloween night…but that was partly the cachet of walking from door to door in the dark, and the thrill of limitless possibilities when it came to gathering candy. Now that her caloric loot is assembled, she just doesn’t care that much. She and Tim – with whom she kindly shared, since he considers himself too old for trick-or-treating, and fortunately they have different tastes when it comes to candy – sorted through her bag when she first came home and each picked out a few favorites, but now it’s largely forgotten.
And this, really, is why Rick and I don’t go to great lengths to limit the kids’ sugar intake. They do it themselves. Oh, sure, they want candy…when it comes to picking out a singular snack at the general store after school on the way to afternoon activities. But their interest wanes quickly when I don’t work hard to make that happen. It’s the same with soda. On the one hand, I honestly find the thought of kids drinking soda rather repulsive, and I often repeat to Tim and Holly the statistic that soda is the number one contributor to childhood obesity. On the other hand, my kids consider a glass of soda a great treat at a party or special event, and the funny thing is that because they’re not used to it, they can’t even drink a whole glass of soda. They ask for it; I get credit for saying “Oh, it’s a special occasion, so I guess so….” And two ounces later they’re done. Easy.
So yesterday, I ate Holly’s two mini Milky Way bars without compunction. She’s unlikely to notice their absence, and her bag still contains plenty of Hershey bars and Almond Joys. But I can fairly reliably assume that she’s forgotten about Halloween candy altogether for this year. By the time she goes looking for it, I will have started our annual ritual of Christmas candy-making, and she can have a peanut butter ball or a square of fudge instead.
And if I’m wrong, and she asks in the next few days where her Milky Ways went? Well, in that case, I’ll simply resort t the most reliable system of all. I’ll blame it on Rick.
That’s just what 2 p.m. is like for me most days.
Then I remembered something sweet that was in the house, something sweet and big. Holly’s trick-or-treat stash.
I checked the bottom shelf of the utility room fridge, the extra fridge that everyone but me forgets about. Inside of Holly’s black cloth Halloween-themed bag, it looked like the demolition site for the witch’s house in Hansel and Gretel: a haphazard array of half-eaten candy bars, untouched pieces of chocolate, and empty wrappers, all resting on a sugary coating of semi-squashed gummy worms, Sweet Tarts and Sour Patch Kids.
Amidst the wreckage I found two untouched miniature Milky Ways. Even better, they were chilled. Perfect!
Halloween was ten days ago; I think it’s been five or six days since I saw Holly pay the slightest attention to her candy stash. Sure, the whole idea of trick-or-treating was exciting on Halloween night…but that was partly the cachet of walking from door to door in the dark, and the thrill of limitless possibilities when it came to gathering candy. Now that her caloric loot is assembled, she just doesn’t care that much. She and Tim – with whom she kindly shared, since he considers himself too old for trick-or-treating, and fortunately they have different tastes when it comes to candy – sorted through her bag when she first came home and each picked out a few favorites, but now it’s largely forgotten.
And this, really, is why Rick and I don’t go to great lengths to limit the kids’ sugar intake. They do it themselves. Oh, sure, they want candy…when it comes to picking out a singular snack at the general store after school on the way to afternoon activities. But their interest wanes quickly when I don’t work hard to make that happen. It’s the same with soda. On the one hand, I honestly find the thought of kids drinking soda rather repulsive, and I often repeat to Tim and Holly the statistic that soda is the number one contributor to childhood obesity. On the other hand, my kids consider a glass of soda a great treat at a party or special event, and the funny thing is that because they’re not used to it, they can’t even drink a whole glass of soda. They ask for it; I get credit for saying “Oh, it’s a special occasion, so I guess so….” And two ounces later they’re done. Easy.
So yesterday, I ate Holly’s two mini Milky Way bars without compunction. She’s unlikely to notice their absence, and her bag still contains plenty of Hershey bars and Almond Joys. But I can fairly reliably assume that she’s forgotten about Halloween candy altogether for this year. By the time she goes looking for it, I will have started our annual ritual of Christmas candy-making, and she can have a peanut butter ball or a square of fudge instead.
And if I’m wrong, and she asks in the next few days where her Milky Ways went? Well, in that case, I’ll simply resort t the most reliable system of all. I’ll blame it on Rick.
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