Soapbox

Crisis averted!  Supermom saves the world yet again!
Film at 11:00.

     This is the on-going story of Katie and the 3,000 word essay. I think, before it’s all done, telling it may take considerably more than 3,000 words.

    Ted and I were in bed asleep last night when Katie came home from her cast party, and I was awakened by the sound of her obviously upset, crying. (I still waken quickly at the sound of a crying child.)  I found her in her room in tears, turning out her pockets, and she sobbed out her story.
   Quick background:  Katie has to write a 3,000 word essay  about her senior theater project for her International Baccalaureat diploma. It is worth 1/4 of her theater grade for IB, so it’s a big deal, and messing it up could harm her chances of getting that diploma she has worked so hard for. The seniors were told by their theater teacher that the paper was due in early May. And then Friday, as they were gearing up for that night’s performance of the school musical, the teacher told them "Oh wait- it turns out that paper is due Monday. Sorry."
     Sorry? You’re sorry?

    As you can imagine, students were hyperventilating right and left. Since the paper is for the IB portfolio, the teacher doesn’t have any real latitude on the due date. They have to be mailed off to Venezuela or wherever to be graded by the mysterious and all- powerful grand high Poobahs of International Baccalaureate. The teachers, confronted no doubt with a row of tear-streaked faces, decided they could put the due date off until Wednesday morning if they express shipped them, but that was the very best they could do. And of course the kids all have the play Friday and Saturday nights.
    Once her initial panic was over, Katie, being an eager beaver, sat down with my little laptop and wrote over half of her essay Saturday afternoon.  She saved it onto a flash drive rather than onto my laptop, so she could also work on it on the other computer. She had a really early call for the play and figured she’d end up sitting around a lot, so she tucked the flashdrive and my computer into her messenger bag, grabbed her other stuff and off she went. As it happened, she never had an opportunity to use the computer. When she got home after the cast party she went to unpack her gear and discovered that the flashdrive was not in the messenger bag. This is where I found her.

    "My paper is gone!!" she sobbed. "It was like half-written! It must have fallen out of my bag at the theatre!! But the building is locked now, and I can’t wait until Monday for them to unlock the building to do more work on my paper! All that work is wasted!!"  She was literally pulling at her hair, distressed, distraught, disconsolate.

   Well, it was bad news for sure but, being parents, we were not nearly as impressed with the apocalyptic nature of the situation as she wanted us to be. However, being parents, we got out of bed, turned on the lights and rolled up our sleeves anyway. I told her (uselessly) to calm down and started to looking around the house  in case it never made it to the theater while Ted turned on my laptop to see if he could find any traces of the paper on it.
    "I didn’t save it on there!" she protested.
    "Nevertheless" he said, and proceeded to do… that thing he does with computers, which looks so much like what I do and yet is utterly different. Sure enough, he unearthed a partial copy which the computer had made when she accidentally closed it down w/o saving at some point. Apparently the computer does an emergency back-up in such instances, but you have to know where to find it, and super-dad knew.  It was only about half of what she had written, but it was a good beginning.

   So, doom at least half-mitigated, Katie was able to take a deep breath and realized that perhaps her entire last 2 years of school work were not a crash and burn after all.  She called her theater teacher right away and asked her if she could meet her at the school this morning and let her in to look for the thing. ("Which she damn well can!" I thought, as she was the one who messed up the dates to begin with) Visions of me on my hands and knees with a flashlight, crawling row by row through the auditorium were dancing in my head. What fun!
     Meanwhile I kept looking. Katie was resogned that all that could be done had been and went upstairs to brush her teeth for bed while I stood in the living room and did a "Monk". I surveyed the room slowly and envisioned Katie putting the computer in the bag, and probably setting it down while she gathered other things… where would she have put it?… I walked over to the big chair near the front door and lifted the small pile of folded laundry that was on the seat, shook them carefully…. and a small blue flashdrive slid out onto the cushion.
     I caught my breath. How many blue flashdrives do we have in this house? I wondered. How would I know? I’ve never even used one.  I slid it under the bathroom door, knocked, and told Katie to look down.
     "Oh my God where did you find it??!" she shrieked (and dropped a blob of toothpaste out of her mouth)

   Crisis averted, flashdrive found, supermom saves world once again! Ted popped it in my laptop and verified that it was the right one and had the paper on it, then promptly transfered the file to 3 different computers so that if we woke up this morning and poltergeists had crashed one of them during the night, she could still retrieve it from another machine.
     "Well, who has the greatest parents in the world?" I asked my smiling daughter as I finally went upstairs to go to back to bed at 12:30.
     "Pretty much me" she said.
     "Pretty much you?" Huh.

      All I can say it- thank goodness I use my powers only for good!

     So I've got this kid….
          …and yesterday the boy child came home for the week- along with every freakin' stitch of clothing he owns in garbage bags. We could barely fit it in the back of Ted's Santa Fe! He seems to still have every t-shirt and pair of pants I ever bought him since his freshman year in high school. I buy him new as the old gets raggedy, and he hangs onto the raggedy, apparently.
    All weekend the house will be filled with the sound that every parent of a college kid probably associates with school vacation: the chug-chug of the washing machine. My grocery bill went up last week when I started shopping for his favorites, and my water bill is going up this week. But it's awfully nice to have him home.  I don't know if soon he won't be coming home much any more… or if he soon will be living here again. Time will tell.  I'm good either way: he's such a sweet, lovely boy. Or… man, I guess. He's 21 now, mom: he's a man. I'll have to get used to that, won't I?

    They are calling for lovely weather today and tomorrow- I must take advantage and get that darn garden plot finished.  I still need to strip the rest of the sod and work in the compost, terrace it a bit, and put up a fence to keep the dogs from dashing through it in pursuit of squirrels.  I hold no dreams that a fence will keep the rabbits out.
    I love working in the dirt- I love the smell rising off the freshly-turned earth as the sun warms it, and gently re-planting all the little worms I uncover. It makes me feel that, no matter how screwed up things are,  there's something right with the world, when the earth is rich and fertile.
    The seedlings I planted Tuesday and Wednesday are mostly sprouted already and will soon be clamoring for a home. I keep opening the seeding trays and staring at the little shoots like a proud momma. I love the way each one is different, and the graceful way they curve up from their beds and reach towards the sun. Grow for me, babies, grow! Grow big and strong… so I can eat you!
   And then, and then… my daughter asked me to go shopping with her this afternoon. She asked for the old lady to tag along!! I swear to God!  She has to get some birthday gifts for friends and hates shopping alone, so would I mind too much going to the mall with her?  I'm sure the fact that I'm almost guaranteed to buy her lunch while we're out did not factor into it at all. 
    Of course this will cut into my digging in the dirt time today but it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make to be with my girl. I must remember to watch for the warning eye rolls that tell me I'm trying too hard to be "fun". Sometimes, even though it's a drag for me, it's best if I just be the mom.

   Oh, and one more labor of love: I came home from my mother's house with a whole box of family photos that I'm going to scan, and work a little Photoshop magic where I can. Many are pictures I have already seen, but some are brand new to me. The delight I felt at uncovering delicate black-and-white images of my grandfather, shortly before his death, working on his cane-backed chairs at the State Fair, or cleaning fish down by the Big Darby… it's like discovering a piece of myself that I thought I had lost. I can't wait to get to work, and then share the pictures with my family.

     It's shaping up to be a good weekend all around.

   The other night I watched a show about little girl beauty pageants. It left me feeling more than a little nauseous.

   Somewhere in Florida 2 dozen three and four-year old girls were painted and teased and sprayed, strutting on stage in ruffles and sequins and shaking their little tushes that were barely out of diapers. Their adoring mothers and grandmothers were sitting on the sidelines, mouthing each word along with their child, weeping and nearly fainting with joy when they won-  and shouting and ranting bitterly when they lost.
     "How can they do that to these little girls?" one wept when she felt her child had been "robbed" by clearly biased judging.

   How can they do this? I wanted to reach through the television set and rap those mothers on the forehead and shout "Do you see what you're doing?"

   Actually, they do. They just don't see it as bad.
   There are people in this world who can eat coconut and say "Yum", and there are people who can look at one of those kiddy freak shows and think "How sweet!"  There's no accounting for taste! One mother watched her child deliver a fake beauty-queen smile and wave at an age when she should be learning how to share her Lincoln Logs and told the interviewer breathlessly, "Oh, I thought she looked just like a little Barbie doll! Don't you? Just exactly like a little Barbie doll!"

    Oh… so you mean that as a good thing, then.    Huh.
    Another said "There is no difference between this and putting football pads on a boy, or putting a little girl in a cheerleader skirt that barely covers her bottom."  Well, I agree with the last part of that sentence. The worst thing, the inexcusable thing for me is the false sexuality these girls are taught to convey.

    When I was a kid I remember the little kiddy pageants they had in little towns in southern Ohio and West Virginia: "Little Miss Parade of the Hills" , "Junior Miss Rutabaga Queen" and such. Tiny girls in ridiculous beehive hairdos and eleven petticoats squeaking out a rendition of "How you Gonna Get to Heaven if You Don't Read Your Bible Now?". They struck me, a gangly, dirty-kneed kid on a bike, as boring and dumb. Looking back, maybe they were silly, but they were also much more innocent than the competitions I saw on this show.

     These four-year-olds, winking, pouting their red shiny lips, swaying their hips, shimmying their non-existent boobs and singing "Sweet Nothings" about sexual pillow talk seem to be bordering on child pornography. One mother speculated, after her child didn't score well in the  Western Wear competition that perhaps they would change the outfit… something with cut-outs to show off her midriff, perhaps.
    This is a four year old we are talking about! A four year old who spent the first 2 hours that morning getting her hair done and false eyelashes applied, may I add.
    Another mother  explained that it is fine to put little children through hours of make-up and rehearsals instead of letting them finger-paint by saying,  "Oh, all little girls love dressing-up and putting on shows."  

    Truth be told, when I was 4, I did love dress up. I loved digging through our dress-up box and pretending to be a gypsy or a pirate or a princess. And I liked putting on a show. Tracy Foster and I used to write plays and perform them for our families.  
    At no point in the above scenario were we asked to "act sexy" for the overweight middle-aged men, former "Miss Avocado Queen" and transvestites who were judging us. At no point did our mothers spend thousands of dollars on outfits that made us look either like an over-decorated cupcake or a little pole dancer, outfits that we outgrew within a few months. At no point were there any winners or losers declared. And at no point was the ideal we were shooting for a Barbie doll: a grinning, vapid, bleached-haired, pointy-toed, sexual and yet sexless inanimate object with a body type no child could ever grow up to match.

    "These competitions are just great for the girls" one mother said. "But I guess you might not feel that way… if you have an ugly kid."  And then the pudgy, bleached suburban mom who was about to take her child to a professional tanning session before a big show smirked at the camera, no doubt feeling sorry for those of us whose  children cannot pull off a Marilyn Monroe routine complete with skirt blowing up.
 
    Ah. Now we come to the real reason for all the time and money spent on pageants. She might as well have said "I measure my self-worth by the trophies my child has won. I see myself as an extension of her." 

 Grow up, lady!  This issue isn't the moms of pretty girls being envied by the moms of the halt and the lame. Some of  us simply believe that the beauty of a child laughing and playing so far outshines the beauty of a child posing in makeup and a wig  that there is no comparison!

     When my daughter was 4 years old she was as beautiful as the day, with naturally platinum blonde ringlets and big blue eyes… and a smile that made me ache inside and a laugh that cheered up the worst day. She was not an object to show off like a stupid little purse chihuaua, nor was she a way to make up for my own short-comings. She just brought me unspeakable joy, and so I tried to give her joy in return.

    She had scabby knees because she spent the day learning to climb trees with her best friend, not getting a professional "Glitz" portfolio made. Her taste in clothes tended towards orange flowered shirts with purple striped shorts. If she had a million dollars, she once told me, her intention was to buy a pony and feed all the hungry dogs in the world, not "Spend it on shoes and purses" as one contestant told the emcee to delighted chuckles from the parents watching. She spent hours learning to read and to ride her bike and coloring pictures of the world that filled her imagination instead of sitting still for hair and make-up and learning how to hold a stage smile for 20 minutes and shake her bottom at grown men.

    And yet despite this horribly deprived childhood she endured, my daughter is poised, confident, smart and classy. Imagine that! Without a single beauty competition to prepare her! At 18 she is ready to take on the world and knows, I believe, that true happiness must come from within, not from external validation and superior false eyelashes. And yes, I am ridiculously proud of her. But I am who I am, and she is utterly, undeniably and forever her own person.

    Baby pageant mothers are living out their unfulfilled adult dreams of beauty and perfection vicariously through their innocent children. They are sad, sad creatures and are probably passing that sadness on to their daughters. After all, what 20 year old can possibly live up to the title of "Little Miss Perfect" gained at age five?

When Katie was about this age the whole Jon Benet Ramsey tragedy filled the news. I looked at beauty pageant photos of that poor little girl and looked at my child sprawled on the floor among her legos, and did what I often do when something upsets me- I wrote a song. I call it,

The Undeniable Lifetime Benefits of a Baby Beauty Queen.

My new baby girl is so precious and sweet
From the top of her head to the soles of her feet.
I've got dreams for her future to have a happy life:
She won't be a doctor or an engineer, but she'll make a lovely wife!

I’m gonna put my little princess in a baby beauty pageant
Cause I’m told it will make her proud to be
Judged entirely on her pretty face and on the clothes she wears
So she’ll know, all that counts is what the judges see!

Rock-a-bye baby, so sweet and so new,
Hold still while I put this mascara on you…

I'll spend eight hundred dollars on a scratchy, frilly dress
That doesn't cover her behind at all.
She'll learn how to toss her curls and give a sexy pout.
Her hero and role model will be- her Barbie doll!

Break out the eyeliner! Tease up her hair!
Moms, parade your girls like one-trick ponies!
A 5 year old's not pretty without lipstick and high heels.
Some say she's an object, I say that's a lot of baloney.

Hush little baby, don't fuss at me
Or you'll never win Miss Congeniality.

The beauty pageant life can be good for little girls.
It gives them poise and confidence, they say.
Of course, that self-esteem depends entirely on her looks.
They say competing's fun- but do the losers feel that way?

Put on her sequined western-wear! That make-up and hairdo
Cost a mint, but she looks like a star, Oh
It will all be worth it when she steps out on that stage
For the 23rd rendition of "The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow"

And when she's grown too big for the kiddy beauty pageants
And if she thinks of college and career
I'll put her in a bathing suit and let her strut her stuff
And if she wins "Miss USA" that year,
The one with the best boobs will get a scholarship, I hear!

      "Uh oh…" Ted said as he shut the front door. I looked up from the bread I was kneading.
    "What is it?"
    "You’re… gonna want to sit down." he said solemnly, looking at the stack of mail in his hand.
    "What?!" I demanded, wiping my hands on a towel and feeling a growing sense of unease.
    "Don’t say I didn’t warn you." he said as he held out an envelope. "Your AARP card is here."

  "What??!!" I shrieked, and he laughed. "No!" I threw the dishtowel over my face. "Noooo! Those bastards!! Why are they doing this to me?!" Reluctantly I took the proffered envelope and regarded it dubiously.
     "Card enclosed?? I didn’t ask them for any stupid card! "
     "Aw Trace, you should get the card. You can carry it in your wallet, and, you know, get discounts and stuff" he said, grinning with delight.
    "On stuff like on dinner at 4 PM and funeral urns? No thanks! Honest to Pete- what makes them think I want to join their stupid club anyway?"

    And I had been having such a nice day! Seriously, I think they have a lot of damn nerve sending a young, vital, happening gal like me a retirement card!! For God’s sake, I’m only… oh holy heck, I’m almost 50. OK, but do they have to rub it in?

  Forget all that baby-boomer crap about how "50 is the new 40" Nuh uh. I’m here to tell ya: fifty is still fifty!! Fifty is half-way to 100! Fifty is "older adult", osteoporosis and bladder control commercials.  At fifty you are "a woman of a certain age" and described as "handsome" instead of pretty. (Rats. I was still working on attaining that pretty thing, and now it’s gone forever) Fifty is a poodle perm hair-do, elastic-waist slacks and velcro shoes.

   You know, I don’t mind the wrinkles so much, or the occasional grey hair. The saggy eyelids are a bit of drag- I always thought my eyes were my best feature. But it’s not like I’m the only one so afflicted: at least my beautiful sisters have aged along with me.  I miss having babies, but I truely enjoy the freedom of having adult children who can drive themselves places and show me how to text. I can still climb mountains with my husband and run up a flight of stairs without really thinking about it. So far, fifty isn’t that bad.

   What I do mind  are the salesclerks calling me "dear" like I"m senile… and my propensity for forgetting names that makes me worry that perhaps am! I mind that it’s so hard to find attractive clothes that fall somewhere between teenaged clingy and old lady polyester.
    I mind that I keep hearing myself saying things like "When I was your age…" to my daughter, and that college kids today have "Ugly 80’s" parties the way  we used to have "50’s dances. (Not that the 80’s weren’t ugly! whoo boy!) I mind having to hand my beeping cell phone to my daughter and beg, "Make it be quiet!"
    I mind all the commercials for miracle creams that promise "Just use this and you’ll be young forever!" as if aging skin is a disease…and I very much mind that I want to run out and buy them! I mind these stupid glasses that I have to wear to read anything and the way I have to peer over them to see across the room.
    And most of all, I hate that I don’t feel old–that is, older. I always assumed that by the time I turned 50, I’d be adjusted to the idea, but I’m not! I get up and head out into the world and feel like exactly the same person I was 25 years ago. It’s only when I see myself reflected in the attitude of those around me that I realize that I am not (at least, not to them).
    Or,  when I get a freaking AARP card in the mail!

    Well I’m not a retired person. I don’t need your  American Association, your magazine and your Medicare lobby, thanks so much. You can keep your membership card, and your discount on heart pills and dentures and funeral plans. I suppose there are a few people my age ready for the blue-plate special and retirement in Boca, but I am not one of them.

  Heck, I’m only fifty!  I’m only half-way to 100, and have you looked at my dad lately?  Man, if he’s any indication, I have a long way to go to old age. There is still lots of time to do all the stuff I haven’t yet done, and fix some of the things I did wrong.
    So don’t take it personally, but I won’t be requesting my membership kit just yet. I think I’ll go program an electronic device, and put on my tight hip-hugger jeans, call a friend and tell them a bawdy joke, and then maybe I’ll do some sit-ups.

    Just because I can.

    I went in for my annual (drat being old!) mammogram the other day. By now I know the drill: strip to the waist, put on the lovely paper "shirt" they provide and go sit and wait for your name to be called.  I have had several now, and I must say, I don't recall ever being "manhandled" in quite the way I was this time- and by a woman! But as with a pelvic exam, one stares at the wall and tries to pretend that what is happening isn't happening, I guess.

   For the last image, the technician stood back and frowned.
   "Could you turn a bit more to your right?" she said. "I'm trying to get more breast tissue."
    I laughed.
   "Let me know how that works out!" I said "I've been trying to get more breast tissue for 30 years!"
    Ha ha. Well, it's an awkward situation, you know?

   Afterwords I was sitting in the little waiting area beside a woman who, when she arrived, must have been well-dressed.  I took in the nice shoes, slacks and expensive haircut and considered my own blue jeans and scuffed chukka boots. I noticed that we were both sitting in the exactly the same manner, however: arms tightly crossed, clutching our paper shirts closed, hunched slightly forward in our chairs. And because I have a perverse sense of humor, I sat back and grinned.

    "I love mammograms" I announced to the wall before us.
    "Uh… really?" she said. She cut her eyes nervously in my direction, and I suspect she was wondering how much longer she would have to sit there next to the crazy woman, but politeness won out and she asked, "Why is that?"
    "Oh yeah. Because it doesn't matter if we arrived in a Mercedes or in a Chevette, wearing Gucci or Salvation Army. And it doesn't matter if we're built like Dolly Parton or, " I looked down ruefully,  "like Boy George. Yep, when we're sitting around waiting in the ole pink paper shirts… we're all just women. It's the great equalizer, don't you think?"

   She smiled at that.
    "I think they're making these shirts smaller every year" she confessed tugging at the bottom of her paper shirt. "I swear I'm colder every time I'm here. What would it cost- about 3 cents to make them a little longer?" We both laughed as a technician approached.
    "Patricia? Your films are good- you can go. We'll send you a card in the next day or two to let you know the results."
    The woman stood and collected her purse. "Good luck" she said to me with a quick smile as she went to get dressed.

    Oh yeah. That's another time when we're all the same: when we're waiting for the results. Good luck to all of us.