Being able to ask for help when you need it is a vital life skill in itself, but being able to manage on your own sometimes feels great too, as I discovered this week.
I am not a technical person. I rely on my husband to set up and maintain my computer system, my printer, my e-mail. When there’s a problem, I plead for help, but sometimes I’m like the shoemaker’s child who goes barefoot. Sometimes my husband is just too busy with the two factions whose tech support problems receive higher priority than mine – his clients and my parents – to help me in a timely fashion.
As this week began, I had reached the end of my rope with two ongoing technical problems: one with my iPod Nano and one with my Microsoft Outlook. Refreshed after a nearly work-free weekend, I launched into the new week resolved to solve these two glitches.
I attacked the iPod issue first. The problem was that I like to listen to podcasts while running. Every week I download about a dozen new podcasts from NPR, the New York Times, and the New Yorker. But I couldn’t get them to play sequentially. I’d set one podcast to play as I started my run, and when that one ended, a new one wouldn’t start without me manually selecting and clicking on it. The reason selecting and clicking was undesirable was that any buttons I press on my iPod while I’m running will interfere with the function of my NikePlus, which measures my distance, mileage and speed.
Yes, it’s complicated, arcane and frivolous as complaints go, but runners get set in their ways, and I want both: a complete mileage readout and the ability to listen to more than one podcast if the first one happened to end while I was still out running. I knew the answer was to put the podcasts in a playlist, and I’d gotten that far, but the playlist wouldn’t copy from my iTunes library into my iPod.
I tried to think outside the box. (Thinking outside the box is always preferable to being on hold with tech support.) Was I doing something wrong in making my playlist, or was the problem putting podcasts on a playlist? As a control, I realized, I had to try to make a playlist without podcasts, a conventional playlist of music.
I don’t keep any music at all on my iPod; I use it only for podcasts, but my daughter had downloaded all her favorite American Idol tunes onto my computer, so I randomly chose three songs to put in my playlist and synched. It worked – the playlist copied. Then I tried adding podcasts into the playlist and synched. Again, success. I took the three songs out and left the podcasts in. Synched. Nothing. The playlist was gone from my iPod. I put one song back in with the six podcasta and synched. It returned, a fully functioning playlist.
So – there was my answer. It takes a village to raise a child; it takes a song to make a playlist. I don’t know why, but with as little as one song, a playlist can include any number of podcasts; with no songs, a playlist won’t work. So all I had to do was be willing to include one American Idol tune in my cerebral mix, which is why my playlist now comprises Terry Gross interviewing an economist from the Bush administration, Susan Orlean discussing her latest New Yorker article, the podcast of the New York Times book review and Adam Lambert covering Steppenwolf’s Born to be Wild. The combination made for a seamless half-hour of running this afternoon. I was thrilled with my proactivity in finally taking the time to think through the problem, figure out a solution, and test the results.
Which left the second problem I was determined to solve: my Microsoft Outlook. For some reason, for the past week I’ve been able to receive mail through Outlook but not send it. On the one hand, this seemed symbolic: it was like a cosmic message that I needed to listen more and talk less. But there were some messages I really did need to send, and they kept getting stuck in my outbox. If I wanted to send e-mails, I had to go through the website version of my email each time, which within the incredibly cosseted world of e-mail seemed like a big extra hassle, though I kept reminding myself that fifteen years ago, when I was still using a dial-up connection that generally reached a busy signal, it wouldn’t have seemed so difficult.
For the first two days of the week, I exchanged emails with our domain provider. Their tech support staff was helpful, but in the end they couldn’t solve it; they said it was a problem on our internet service provider’s end. I took it up this morning with our ISP. I started with their website: found the internet section, found the e-mail section, and to my surprise, found myself staring at a link that stated my problem exactly: can’t send mail through Outlook. I clicked and discovered a whole page of text dedicated to my problem. It turned out this wasn’t mysterious at all: my ISP knew it was happening and knew why it was happening. More important, they knew how to fix it – and how to explain the fix to someone as nontechnical as me. One step at a time, I followed the directions, repaired my Outlook, and could once again send e-mail.
So with the week only halfway done, I had reached two goals, solved two frustrating problems, and done it myself, which hardly ever happens with technical concerns. I hadn’t done any significant writing or published any articles this week, but I’d gone to bat for myself as my own tech support, and I was psyched. Problem solved. Empowerment achieved. What a great feeling.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Social media and me, Part II: What I've learned so far about Twitter
Earlier this month, I wrote about why I was feeling so positive about my first brushes with Twitter. It was new to me, and I was just beginning to learn the ropes. At around the same time I wrote that, my 7-year-old learned to ride a two-wheeler, and I feel a little bit like she looked that day she finally stopped wobbling and soared down the lane. I have that “Okay, I get this now, I understand how to do it and I’m soaring!” feeling.
I joined Twitter a little uncertainly, not so sure I’d be welcome at the social media party. After all, I’m one of the last Facebook holdouts in my generation. In my mind, prior to late summer, Twitter was in the same category. I joined it because my agent suggested that I do so, but at first I didn’t feel like I was gaining much traction. I found lots of people whom I wanted to follow; I just wasn’t finding many followers of my own. “My friends aren’t really using Twitter,” I said, making excuses for my low numbers. “It’s not a soccer-mom trend yet.” But as my agent, who served as my Twitter guru in those early days, pointed out, it wasn’t my friends I wanted as followers; it was people I didn’t already know.
And gradually, with her help, I caught on as to how to find them. When people I was already following mentioned names in their Tweets, I looked up those names and usually clicked on “Follow.” Those names led to more names, and so on. Then I figured out how to search profiles for keywords. I thought about the topics that most interested me: parenting, writing, running. But that’s going to bring up like a million people, if I search on those three terms, I worried. I came up with an idea: search on writer plus runner plus the name of one state at a time. Find a writer/runner in Massachusetts, in Maine, in South Carolina, in Kansas, in Montana. I tried that, and it worked really well. In most cases, only a single page of names of people who identified themselves as both writers and runners came up for each state. And by not including “parent” in my search terms, even though that’s one of the topics I like to read about, I found a wider scope of people: an Episcopal minister in Massachusetts, a sorority girl in South Carolina, a grandmother out west, a middle-aged male CEO in the mid-Atlantic region.
Soon I was reading a lot about writing and a lot about running, which continue to be two topics of great interest to me. But I like knowing that these are only two of the hundreds or thousands of topical subgroups available to me. One day I searched on Unitarianism, my religion. Another day I searched on “mindful living,” a life practice important to me. But I could also choose words not connected to me, like “surfing” or “beekeeping,” and read about people I don’t necessarily have much in common with at all, and it would probably be just as interesting. I like finding out what other people are doing, just as the cornerstone Twitter question asks, but also what they are cooking for dinner, where they go running, what they are reading, how the weather is wherever they are. No one can be boring in just 140 characters.
And it’s not just chitchat; Twitterers use posts to point out valuable information, how-to articles, interesting blogs. Some of it is like small talk around the water cooler, but the links make all the difference. A co-worker from another part of the building might tell you about the soup she made for dinner, but seldom does she hand you a just-published article about the craft of fiction, say, or how to train for a half-marathon.
Moreover, this week I used Twitter to find an old friend I hadn’t spoken with in 15 years. She has her own website; I could have just as easily found her through Google earlier. But somehow the rapid-fire nature of Tweets made it easier to reach out. I didn’t have to cover the last 15 years; no one would expect that in 140 characters. I just had to say “Hi, how are you, glad I found you here, let’s get back in touch!” Ultimately, I do want to know more about what’s happened to her over the past decade and a half than she’ll be able to fit into 140-character bursts, but it helped me break the ice, knowing there was no pressure to write a long explanatory letter. Through Twitter, just a quick hello is all the eloquence you need.
So it’s really good to be here, and to keep learning. I’m glad my agent encouraged me, and I’m grateful to everyone I’ve connected with so far. It’s not like riding a bike in most ways. It’s not good exercise, for example. But as with my daughter learning to ride her bike earlier this month, it’s a skill that I’m excited to have mastered, and am eager to work on further. I’m soaring.
I joined Twitter a little uncertainly, not so sure I’d be welcome at the social media party. After all, I’m one of the last Facebook holdouts in my generation. In my mind, prior to late summer, Twitter was in the same category. I joined it because my agent suggested that I do so, but at first I didn’t feel like I was gaining much traction. I found lots of people whom I wanted to follow; I just wasn’t finding many followers of my own. “My friends aren’t really using Twitter,” I said, making excuses for my low numbers. “It’s not a soccer-mom trend yet.” But as my agent, who served as my Twitter guru in those early days, pointed out, it wasn’t my friends I wanted as followers; it was people I didn’t already know.
And gradually, with her help, I caught on as to how to find them. When people I was already following mentioned names in their Tweets, I looked up those names and usually clicked on “Follow.” Those names led to more names, and so on. Then I figured out how to search profiles for keywords. I thought about the topics that most interested me: parenting, writing, running. But that’s going to bring up like a million people, if I search on those three terms, I worried. I came up with an idea: search on writer plus runner plus the name of one state at a time. Find a writer/runner in Massachusetts, in Maine, in South Carolina, in Kansas, in Montana. I tried that, and it worked really well. In most cases, only a single page of names of people who identified themselves as both writers and runners came up for each state. And by not including “parent” in my search terms, even though that’s one of the topics I like to read about, I found a wider scope of people: an Episcopal minister in Massachusetts, a sorority girl in South Carolina, a grandmother out west, a middle-aged male CEO in the mid-Atlantic region.
Soon I was reading a lot about writing and a lot about running, which continue to be two topics of great interest to me. But I like knowing that these are only two of the hundreds or thousands of topical subgroups available to me. One day I searched on Unitarianism, my religion. Another day I searched on “mindful living,” a life practice important to me. But I could also choose words not connected to me, like “surfing” or “beekeeping,” and read about people I don’t necessarily have much in common with at all, and it would probably be just as interesting. I like finding out what other people are doing, just as the cornerstone Twitter question asks, but also what they are cooking for dinner, where they go running, what they are reading, how the weather is wherever they are. No one can be boring in just 140 characters.
And it’s not just chitchat; Twitterers use posts to point out valuable information, how-to articles, interesting blogs. Some of it is like small talk around the water cooler, but the links make all the difference. A co-worker from another part of the building might tell you about the soup she made for dinner, but seldom does she hand you a just-published article about the craft of fiction, say, or how to train for a half-marathon.
Moreover, this week I used Twitter to find an old friend I hadn’t spoken with in 15 years. She has her own website; I could have just as easily found her through Google earlier. But somehow the rapid-fire nature of Tweets made it easier to reach out. I didn’t have to cover the last 15 years; no one would expect that in 140 characters. I just had to say “Hi, how are you, glad I found you here, let’s get back in touch!” Ultimately, I do want to know more about what’s happened to her over the past decade and a half than she’ll be able to fit into 140-character bursts, but it helped me break the ice, knowing there was no pressure to write a long explanatory letter. Through Twitter, just a quick hello is all the eloquence you need.
So it’s really good to be here, and to keep learning. I’m glad my agent encouraged me, and I’m grateful to everyone I’ve connected with so far. It’s not like riding a bike in most ways. It’s not good exercise, for example. But as with my daughter learning to ride her bike earlier this month, it’s a skill that I’m excited to have mastered, and am eager to work on further. I’m soaring.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Gratitude for a great day
What a great day. There are days when something huge happens, like your wedding, and days when something amazing happens, like you get into your first-choice college, and all kinds of really special days when significant and unforgettable things occur. But days like today are more like a string of smooth iridescent beads on a necklace: not the valuable jewels of a family heirloom, not showy enough for a celebrity to wear to the Oscars, maybe not even quite elegant enough to wear to a job interview, but just somehow beautiful, with a simple perfection worth celebrating.
First of all, we weren’t rushed this morning. Since Tim started school five years ago, get-out-the-door morning chaos has been my nemesis. Whether we biked or drove or caught the bus, mornings were always stressful and rushed. But this fall has been easier. The kids get up earlier and finish breakfast before they have to, and Tim is ready to leave in plenty of time. That’s what happened today. He ate, brushed his teeth, collected his things for school, and I drove him to the bus stop, all a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Holly dressed herself without complaint and, given the choice of driving or walking to the bus stop (it’s about a third of a mile), surprised me by agreeing to walk. The sun was shining; the foliage felt thick and lush from yesterday’s rain. Some of the leaves are still bright green, others gold, some pale yellow, and a few already crimson or chartreuse. But all so abundant. Walking down the long driveway was like moving through the inside of a kaleidoscope.
I dug into the day’s foremost work priority, writing copy for a medical website: a task more intimidating than tedious. By 11, the dog was pestering me for a run, so we headed out. At first I was surprised by a tinge of fall briskness in the air, but as we headed toward the town center I realized it was warm in the sun, and we were both so happy to be out. The high school kids had the day off for Yom Kippur, and all along the mile to the center we passed small groups of teenagers. Charlie Fitzpatrick was doing yardwork, and a boy from church was pushing his bike along the path as he chatted with two girls I didn’t recognize. More kids were walking along closer to the Center. What a glowing picture they painted of teenagers on a day off from school.
When we got back, the run had rejuvenated my energy enough that I finished the medical copywriting, which was a big relief, and I made a delicious lunch: meatless soy “ground beef” and black beans heated with black olives, sliced tomatoes, grated cheddar cheese and avocado chunks, plus some tortilla chips crumbled on top. For dessert, a big (unnecessarily big, but I savored every bite) slice of the chocolate zucchini cake I made over the weekend.
A little more writing in the afternoon and then time with the kids when they got home from school. Tim and I played two games of ping pong: first he crushed me, 21-9 or something like that, and then I beat him 21-13. When we were done playing, the spanikopita I’d made earlier was ready to come out of the oven: buttery, savory, almost as good as the one I made for the teachers’ luncheon last week. (It wasn’t possible for this one to quite match up, because the one from last week was the one we couldn’t eat, so of course it looked just a little bit better!)
Now it’s softly raining, which is a sound I love at bedtime. So: great day from beginning to end. And yet…while someone, me, is having a great day, it’s someone else’s worst day. Soldiers are dying, children are starving, and my parents have a friend who is the subject of a police search because he has been missing for over a week. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile having such a happy day while knowing other people are miserable. But I don’t think it makes sense to ignore the good things on that basis, either. So, we notice and celebrate the small good everyday moments, knowing that there will always be someone suffering while we are rejoicing, and knowing too that the opposite might come as well, in time. But believing that appreciating what is good in everyday life is still the right thing to do.
First of all, we weren’t rushed this morning. Since Tim started school five years ago, get-out-the-door morning chaos has been my nemesis. Whether we biked or drove or caught the bus, mornings were always stressful and rushed. But this fall has been easier. The kids get up earlier and finish breakfast before they have to, and Tim is ready to leave in plenty of time. That’s what happened today. He ate, brushed his teeth, collected his things for school, and I drove him to the bus stop, all a few minutes ahead of schedule.
Holly dressed herself without complaint and, given the choice of driving or walking to the bus stop (it’s about a third of a mile), surprised me by agreeing to walk. The sun was shining; the foliage felt thick and lush from yesterday’s rain. Some of the leaves are still bright green, others gold, some pale yellow, and a few already crimson or chartreuse. But all so abundant. Walking down the long driveway was like moving through the inside of a kaleidoscope.
I dug into the day’s foremost work priority, writing copy for a medical website: a task more intimidating than tedious. By 11, the dog was pestering me for a run, so we headed out. At first I was surprised by a tinge of fall briskness in the air, but as we headed toward the town center I realized it was warm in the sun, and we were both so happy to be out. The high school kids had the day off for Yom Kippur, and all along the mile to the center we passed small groups of teenagers. Charlie Fitzpatrick was doing yardwork, and a boy from church was pushing his bike along the path as he chatted with two girls I didn’t recognize. More kids were walking along closer to the Center. What a glowing picture they painted of teenagers on a day off from school.
When we got back, the run had rejuvenated my energy enough that I finished the medical copywriting, which was a big relief, and I made a delicious lunch: meatless soy “ground beef” and black beans heated with black olives, sliced tomatoes, grated cheddar cheese and avocado chunks, plus some tortilla chips crumbled on top. For dessert, a big (unnecessarily big, but I savored every bite) slice of the chocolate zucchini cake I made over the weekend.
A little more writing in the afternoon and then time with the kids when they got home from school. Tim and I played two games of ping pong: first he crushed me, 21-9 or something like that, and then I beat him 21-13. When we were done playing, the spanikopita I’d made earlier was ready to come out of the oven: buttery, savory, almost as good as the one I made for the teachers’ luncheon last week. (It wasn’t possible for this one to quite match up, because the one from last week was the one we couldn’t eat, so of course it looked just a little bit better!)
Now it’s softly raining, which is a sound I love at bedtime. So: great day from beginning to end. And yet…while someone, me, is having a great day, it’s someone else’s worst day. Soldiers are dying, children are starving, and my parents have a friend who is the subject of a police search because he has been missing for over a week. Sometimes it’s hard to reconcile having such a happy day while knowing other people are miserable. But I don’t think it makes sense to ignore the good things on that basis, either. So, we notice and celebrate the small good everyday moments, knowing that there will always be someone suffering while we are rejoicing, and knowing too that the opposite might come as well, in time. But believing that appreciating what is good in everyday life is still the right thing to do.
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Five miles at the start of a sunny Saturday
I don’t usually run in the morning. This is because I like to ride my stationary bike right after I get up and read the newspaper at the same time, and also because usually I don’t want to leave the family at the beginning of the day. However, Holly asked for cottage cheese pancakes for breakfast, which I normally try not to indulge in, but today I really wanted some, so I had a plateful and then convinced myself that the high-protein breakfast was motivating me to head out for a run, and I surely wouldn’t feel nearly so energetic toward the end of a busy Saturday.
So I did my favorite 5-mile route, and what a great morning to be out. I left about 9:30; it was about 62 degrees, sunny, breezy. Lots of bicyclists passed me and a couple of runners, both of whom I recognized. On Russell Street there was a very merry outdoor neighborhood brunch under way, and then a little farther up the hill, Tim’s classmates Claire and Whitney were helping newborn snapping turtles to cross the street safely. This was no big surprise: Claire, at the age of 11, is acknowledged townwide as the patron saint of snapping turtles. Small-town life.
This afternoon, we took Holly and Samantha over to the Nowell Farme neighborhood for their first time biking on real streets. The roads there are quiet, wide, flat and nearly car-free, so they got lots of practice. I forgot to bring my bike but rode Tim’s instead, which was amusing; I felt like a circus clown, but it was still good exercise and a lot of fun. As we rode I told Nancy C. about my e-mail dialog with Judy Blume regarding use of updated anachronisms, a discussion I will replicate in this blog once I get permission from Judy Blume. And having spent an hour biking, even slowly, I’m even more glad my daily run happened early!
The right thing to do now would be take Tim sweatshirt shopping, but neither of us actually wants to go. Holly is away for a couple of hours, and I think I’ll maximize my Holly-free time by writing up the interview with the new children’s librarian instead. Then if I finish soon, read today’s paper, which normally I would have read by this hour but since I didn’t ride the exercycle, I haven’t yet touched.
So I did my favorite 5-mile route, and what a great morning to be out. I left about 9:30; it was about 62 degrees, sunny, breezy. Lots of bicyclists passed me and a couple of runners, both of whom I recognized. On Russell Street there was a very merry outdoor neighborhood brunch under way, and then a little farther up the hill, Tim’s classmates Claire and Whitney were helping newborn snapping turtles to cross the street safely. This was no big surprise: Claire, at the age of 11, is acknowledged townwide as the patron saint of snapping turtles. Small-town life.
This afternoon, we took Holly and Samantha over to the Nowell Farme neighborhood for their first time biking on real streets. The roads there are quiet, wide, flat and nearly car-free, so they got lots of practice. I forgot to bring my bike but rode Tim’s instead, which was amusing; I felt like a circus clown, but it was still good exercise and a lot of fun. As we rode I told Nancy C. about my e-mail dialog with Judy Blume regarding use of updated anachronisms, a discussion I will replicate in this blog once I get permission from Judy Blume. And having spent an hour biking, even slowly, I’m even more glad my daily run happened early!
The right thing to do now would be take Tim sweatshirt shopping, but neither of us actually wants to go. Holly is away for a couple of hours, and I think I’ll maximize my Holly-free time by writing up the interview with the new children’s librarian instead. Then if I finish soon, read today’s paper, which normally I would have read by this hour but since I didn’t ride the exercycle, I haven’t yet touched.
Friday, September 25, 2009
When running after dark, metaphors and symbolism abound
Because of a midmorning meeting in Cambridge, lunch with a friend, a phone conference in the early afternoon, and the necessity of grocery shopping later in the day, I put off my run until after dinner. By the time I headed out, there was a half-moon high in the sky, but our long dirt driveway was still very dark, with heavy tree branches blocking out any moonlight. I wore Tim’s headlamp, which casts a circle of light straight ahead but does nothing to illuminate the surrounding woods. I brought the dog, but she seemed uneasy. She kept twisting her head around to look behind us. I don’t necessarily think she heard anything that alarmed her; I think she’s actually a little bit afraid of the dark, which seems odd for a dog, but I’ve observed this a few different times now, and who says dogs should be fearless?
For the first three-tenths of a mile, I was on the dirt road, which was shrouded in darkness and a little eerie. Then I got out to the footpath, which runs alongside the main road. Its pale gray crushed gravel reflected the headlamp and the moonlight beautifully. So even though darkness still surrounded me, I could see the path ahead of me with no trouble. At first I still felt a little jumpy but then told myself, “The path is well illuminated, and you have the dog with you, which will prevent the extremely unlikely possibility of any person or animal with harmful intent approaching, so stop being scared and just enjoy the run.”
Yes, the metaphor seems a little heavy-handed, but there it is nonetheless: when the path is well-lit and you have company, just enjoy the run and don’t be scared of the surrounding darkness.
It reminded me of an interview I heard earlier this week on NPR. Author John Geiger was discussing his new book, The Third Man Factor, which explores the experience shared by, among others, Everest climber Ernest Shackleton, NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, and World Trade Center rescuer Ron diFrancesco. The Third Man Factor, whose name comes from T.S. Eliot, is a concept in which at moments of extreme physical crisis, people experience the presence of another being. As Geiger explains it, believing in this doesn’t depend on any particular religious inclinations, because you can envision the Third Man as a spiritual presence or a psychological one; the point is just that a perception occurs that wards off a paralyzing sense of aloneness.
This wasn’t an issue while I was out running tonight – I wasn’t that scared; I wasn’t in any kind of danger or crisis at all as far as I know; and being alone wasn’t a problem since I was no more than a mile from home – but the combination of dog, moonlight, path and headlamp made me feel that I was both safe and accompanied, literally and metaphorically. And to believe both of those things is a very sustaining feeling, I imagine, whether you’re out running at night or climbing Mt. Everest.
For the first three-tenths of a mile, I was on the dirt road, which was shrouded in darkness and a little eerie. Then I got out to the footpath, which runs alongside the main road. Its pale gray crushed gravel reflected the headlamp and the moonlight beautifully. So even though darkness still surrounded me, I could see the path ahead of me with no trouble. At first I still felt a little jumpy but then told myself, “The path is well illuminated, and you have the dog with you, which will prevent the extremely unlikely possibility of any person or animal with harmful intent approaching, so stop being scared and just enjoy the run.”
Yes, the metaphor seems a little heavy-handed, but there it is nonetheless: when the path is well-lit and you have company, just enjoy the run and don’t be scared of the surrounding darkness.
It reminded me of an interview I heard earlier this week on NPR. Author John Geiger was discussing his new book, The Third Man Factor, which explores the experience shared by, among others, Everest climber Ernest Shackleton, NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger, and World Trade Center rescuer Ron diFrancesco. The Third Man Factor, whose name comes from T.S. Eliot, is a concept in which at moments of extreme physical crisis, people experience the presence of another being. As Geiger explains it, believing in this doesn’t depend on any particular religious inclinations, because you can envision the Third Man as a spiritual presence or a psychological one; the point is just that a perception occurs that wards off a paralyzing sense of aloneness.
This wasn’t an issue while I was out running tonight – I wasn’t that scared; I wasn’t in any kind of danger or crisis at all as far as I know; and being alone wasn’t a problem since I was no more than a mile from home – but the combination of dog, moonlight, path and headlamp made me feel that I was both safe and accompanied, literally and metaphorically. And to believe both of those things is a very sustaining feeling, I imagine, whether you’re out running at night or climbing Mt. Everest.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Back-to-School Night
I joked earlier today that Back-to-School Night is the official start of the fall social season in my circles, the same way a big charity ball in early January is the start of the gala season in Palm Beach. Geeky as it sounds to confess, I love back-to-school night. I’ve loved it ever since Tim was in kindergarten. Partly I like visiting the school and finding out what’s planned for my kids for the upcoming year, but I also like running into all the other Carlisle parents we know. Wandering across the school plaza after dark, waving and greeting and calling out, it always feels to me like a sort of Halloween night for adults, just a great night to be out after dark running into everyone we know.
We’re usually invited half a dozen or so times during the school year to various classroom events, and of course it’s fun to be there when the kids are, to hear them read or perform or whatever the event of the day is. But it feels special, in an almost furtive way, to be there on parents’ night without them. It feels a little like we're spying on them, even though they’ve been preparing all week for our visits with special notes, bulletin board displays, folders of deskwork for us to examine. Or maybe for me it’s the adult equivalent of playing house. Without the actual occupants of the second grade room there, I can pretend I’m a second-grader myself, and all these books and art supplies and other resources are for me.
The school is like a club, a membership club to which we’ll belong for only those years until our two children reach high school. Maybe it’s because our tenure is so tightly defined that it feels so special to me. People who don’t have school-aged kids are still welcome to plenty of the events: concerts, plays, fundraisers. But only while the kids are in grades K through 8 are we really part of the fabric of the school. Even before I had children, I suspected I would like the grade-school years best as a parent; now that we’re in the thick of them, I can’t imagine that I’ll be any happier when my kids are older. I love having them be part of the school community. I’m delighted with the teachers, the policies, the procedures, the general ambiance. I like the winter holiday concert and the Spaghetti Supper, the kindergarten rainforest play and the seventh grade musical, the first day of school and Field Day, the Chinese New Year celebration and Move-Up Day. With three years between the kids’ grade levels, the elapsed time between Tim’s first day of kindergarten and Holly’s eighth grade graduation is 11 years and 9 months. We’ve got about 6 years and 9 months left to go.
Rick and I get a lot of support as parents. My list of people in addition to Rick whose presence serves to fortify my efforts goes on and on, from the other moms in Holly’s preschool playgroup to our pediatrician, plus lots of friends, neighbors, community members and, more than anything else, family members. But also playing a major role in my kids’ upbringing is their school. And I so happily welcome the evening every fall when we get to go and re-establish contact with the institution, its staff, and all the other members of our not-so-secret society.
We’re usually invited half a dozen or so times during the school year to various classroom events, and of course it’s fun to be there when the kids are, to hear them read or perform or whatever the event of the day is. But it feels special, in an almost furtive way, to be there on parents’ night without them. It feels a little like we're spying on them, even though they’ve been preparing all week for our visits with special notes, bulletin board displays, folders of deskwork for us to examine. Or maybe for me it’s the adult equivalent of playing house. Without the actual occupants of the second grade room there, I can pretend I’m a second-grader myself, and all these books and art supplies and other resources are for me.
The school is like a club, a membership club to which we’ll belong for only those years until our two children reach high school. Maybe it’s because our tenure is so tightly defined that it feels so special to me. People who don’t have school-aged kids are still welcome to plenty of the events: concerts, plays, fundraisers. But only while the kids are in grades K through 8 are we really part of the fabric of the school. Even before I had children, I suspected I would like the grade-school years best as a parent; now that we’re in the thick of them, I can’t imagine that I’ll be any happier when my kids are older. I love having them be part of the school community. I’m delighted with the teachers, the policies, the procedures, the general ambiance. I like the winter holiday concert and the Spaghetti Supper, the kindergarten rainforest play and the seventh grade musical, the first day of school and Field Day, the Chinese New Year celebration and Move-Up Day. With three years between the kids’ grade levels, the elapsed time between Tim’s first day of kindergarten and Holly’s eighth grade graduation is 11 years and 9 months. We’ve got about 6 years and 9 months left to go.
Rick and I get a lot of support as parents. My list of people in addition to Rick whose presence serves to fortify my efforts goes on and on, from the other moms in Holly’s preschool playgroup to our pediatrician, plus lots of friends, neighbors, community members and, more than anything else, family members. But also playing a major role in my kids’ upbringing is their school. And I so happily welcome the evening every fall when we get to go and re-establish contact with the institution, its staff, and all the other members of our not-so-secret society.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
All creatures great and small (shouldn't be my responsibility)
Like a lot of women my age, I spend too much time feeling like World Hostess: it’s my responsibility to make sure everyone – everyone! – is happy, warm enough, cool enough, well-fed, comfortable, safe and entertained. For some of us it’s just in our nature, I’m afraid: feel like the world is your front parlor and it’s always your responsibility to ensure everyone’s comfort level.
And I’m okay with that, having lived with it for four decades. I’m used to taking responsibility for everyone who steps into my home: my children, their friends, my husband, his friends, our parents, our kids’ friends’ parents, our parents’ friends’ kids. Plus the neighbors, census takers, carpet cleaners and the UPS man. If they cross our threshold – no, our property line – I want to be sure they know they’re in good hands.
But recently I’ve been struggling with the question of where to draw the line when the animal kingdom is concerned. I’ve started taking responsibility for the personal safety of every creature on our acreage, and since we live on a farm surrounded by forests, that’s a very large number of beating hearts.
Almost a year ago, following an article I wrote on the pet-matching website petfinder.com, we adopted a stray dog from a shelter. She’s a terrific pet but she occasionally chases the five sheep who live here. Occasionally is the key word. She’ll saunter past them for months, uninterested, and then one day she’ll bolt straight toward them. I honestly believe she just wants to have some fun and experience the thrill of the chase. But I can’t expect the sheep to know that; they seem terrified when she bolts toward them, and they ignore my plaintive instructions: “Just don’t run, and she won’t chase you.” They bleat, disperse, and tear haphazardly across the fields. She never catches them; that’s not the point for her. She just wants to have some fun. But they don’t know that, and I consider it my responsibility to protect them from the experience of being sporadically terrorized.
Fortunately, the cows are large enough that they intimidate the dog, but whenever a calf is born, I stay vigilant until it becomes steady on its feet. The dog sometimes sniffs around them, curious, and usually a bellow from the mother cow is enough to warn her off, but when they’re first born the calves have such spindly little legs, and I want to make sure they never have to use those legs prematurely to run away.
And then there are the chickens. Unlike the sheep and cows, they’re not ours; they belong to the next-door neighbors. But chickens don’t know from property lines; they free-range their way onto our lawn on an almost daily basis. And I have no problem with this, except that if I see them I won’t let the dog out because, despite my hopeful question to my neighbor about whether chickens perhaps can fly, it turns out they can’t. Not even under extreme duress. So I check for chickens before letting the dog out, but every now and then there’s one or two in the corner of the yard that I don’t spot, and wild chasing ensues. Fortunately, the dog hasn’t yet caught a chicken, but I find it a little tiring to worry about them so much.
Deer populate the woods surrounding the farm, and venture often into the fields and across the driveway. In the morning, my son and I ride our bikes together the nearly half-mile down our dirt road out to the main road, where he either catches the bus or continues by bike to school. It’s not uncommon to see deer leaping across the driveway. The dog has given chase a couple of times and not yet caught one, but again, it’s not something I want to see happen, not in general and especially not with the kids around. So as my son and I ride down the driveway in the morning, I try to make train whistle noises to scare them away, which embarrasses him to no end. “Do you really think the deer know what a train sounds like?” he asked me this morning. “I don’t care if they know what a train sounds like; I just want to sound like something they wouldn’t want to be near,” I told him.
Today I drew a line in the sand, though. I opened the door, saw a flicker and a scurry, and the dog was off in a blur chasing a chipmunk that had bee foraging in the corner of the garage. As she dashed to the edge of the yard near a grove of tall oak trees, I shrugged. “Chipmunks and squirrels are officially on their own,” I announced to no one.
I can be a good host, but not to everything. Let’s say mammals over five pounds are my responsibility, plus domestic fowl. I’m happy to serve food and beverages to our human visitors and make sure the dog stays away from the non-human ones as much as I am able, but every host deserves a break once in a while. From now on, I’m turning over the care of birds (other than chickens), reptiles and small woodland creatures to a higher power.
And I’m okay with that, having lived with it for four decades. I’m used to taking responsibility for everyone who steps into my home: my children, their friends, my husband, his friends, our parents, our kids’ friends’ parents, our parents’ friends’ kids. Plus the neighbors, census takers, carpet cleaners and the UPS man. If they cross our threshold – no, our property line – I want to be sure they know they’re in good hands.
But recently I’ve been struggling with the question of where to draw the line when the animal kingdom is concerned. I’ve started taking responsibility for the personal safety of every creature on our acreage, and since we live on a farm surrounded by forests, that’s a very large number of beating hearts.
Almost a year ago, following an article I wrote on the pet-matching website petfinder.com, we adopted a stray dog from a shelter. She’s a terrific pet but she occasionally chases the five sheep who live here. Occasionally is the key word. She’ll saunter past them for months, uninterested, and then one day she’ll bolt straight toward them. I honestly believe she just wants to have some fun and experience the thrill of the chase. But I can’t expect the sheep to know that; they seem terrified when she bolts toward them, and they ignore my plaintive instructions: “Just don’t run, and she won’t chase you.” They bleat, disperse, and tear haphazardly across the fields. She never catches them; that’s not the point for her. She just wants to have some fun. But they don’t know that, and I consider it my responsibility to protect them from the experience of being sporadically terrorized.
Fortunately, the cows are large enough that they intimidate the dog, but whenever a calf is born, I stay vigilant until it becomes steady on its feet. The dog sometimes sniffs around them, curious, and usually a bellow from the mother cow is enough to warn her off, but when they’re first born the calves have such spindly little legs, and I want to make sure they never have to use those legs prematurely to run away.
And then there are the chickens. Unlike the sheep and cows, they’re not ours; they belong to the next-door neighbors. But chickens don’t know from property lines; they free-range their way onto our lawn on an almost daily basis. And I have no problem with this, except that if I see them I won’t let the dog out because, despite my hopeful question to my neighbor about whether chickens perhaps can fly, it turns out they can’t. Not even under extreme duress. So I check for chickens before letting the dog out, but every now and then there’s one or two in the corner of the yard that I don’t spot, and wild chasing ensues. Fortunately, the dog hasn’t yet caught a chicken, but I find it a little tiring to worry about them so much.
Deer populate the woods surrounding the farm, and venture often into the fields and across the driveway. In the morning, my son and I ride our bikes together the nearly half-mile down our dirt road out to the main road, where he either catches the bus or continues by bike to school. It’s not uncommon to see deer leaping across the driveway. The dog has given chase a couple of times and not yet caught one, but again, it’s not something I want to see happen, not in general and especially not with the kids around. So as my son and I ride down the driveway in the morning, I try to make train whistle noises to scare them away, which embarrasses him to no end. “Do you really think the deer know what a train sounds like?” he asked me this morning. “I don’t care if they know what a train sounds like; I just want to sound like something they wouldn’t want to be near,” I told him.
Today I drew a line in the sand, though. I opened the door, saw a flicker and a scurry, and the dog was off in a blur chasing a chipmunk that had bee foraging in the corner of the garage. As she dashed to the edge of the yard near a grove of tall oak trees, I shrugged. “Chipmunks and squirrels are officially on their own,” I announced to no one.
I can be a good host, but not to everything. Let’s say mammals over five pounds are my responsibility, plus domestic fowl. I’m happy to serve food and beverages to our human visitors and make sure the dog stays away from the non-human ones as much as I am able, but every host deserves a break once in a while. From now on, I’m turning over the care of birds (other than chickens), reptiles and small woodland creatures to a higher power.
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