“Grannie, where’s ‘em ducks?”

     You know we were having a party for my mother’s 85^th Birthday right? And you know I was in charge of it. Well, it came time to head back to the farm because that is where half of the weekend’s festivities were taking place. I figured if I pulled the kids out of school and we got an early start on Friday, we could be there in time to open the place up (it’s been empty all winter) and have plenty of time left for full time negotiations with the mice as to who really owns the place. Nothing relatives hate more than close encounters with rodents. Period.

     The problem was that Chris was not going to be back from working in the city until late on Friday, and he was going to come directly to the farm, so that meant all the kids and animals would have to go with me.

     “Hey, it’ll be fine.” I told them. “We can do this.”

I opened up the back of the station wagon on Thursday night.

     “We’ll have a dry run.” I said. “So you can see that we can all fit no problem.”

     “Mom, the only way we are all going to fit in here is if you run us all over with a steam roller first.” stated Sweetie dryly. “I call the front.”

     “No way. We all want the front.”

     “Yes, but I get it.”

I cleared my throat.

     “It will be a more pleasant ride for all of us if Sweetie gets the front and we all know it. So there will be no more discussion.”

     “She always gets the front, Mom. It’s not fair.”

     “True. But as a result nobody likes her.”

     “I don’t care if you guys don’t like me. I’m 15.”

     “And there you have it. Now everybody get in and find a spot around the dog. I will get the cat and put her on The Boy’s lap once he’s in. Band instruments on the floor where your feet would normally go, you know your Grandmother loves it when you play. Luggage will be placed after everyone else is in. Crate of homemade pickles in the front between me and Sweetie. Who’s getting the ducks?”

Little Miss Sunshine and The Boy ran to get the ducks. Something about catching six ducks and shoving them into that airline dog kennel was really appealing to them. I waited. Seemed like an awful lot of quacking. Wonder what’s going on back there…ah, there they come, each carrying an end of the kennel.

     “Good work. OK, slide that in the way back.”

With the large kennel of ducks in the back of the car, there was only a bit of room on either side of it for luggage.

     “Hope you all packed light.”

     “I’m only bringing my flashlight.”

     “Well I’ve got a bag of clothes and a bag of books. And there better be room for the books.”

     “Sweetie, you don’t need books. It’s a party.”

     “Why do you think I need the books? Forget the clothes if you have to. Bring the books.”

     “I’ve got what I need.”

     “I hope it’s a tooth brush.”

     “Try ipod.”

     “OK, everybody in. Let’s see how it is.”

     “Oh my God it smells awful in here.”

     “Never mind and shut the door.”

     “His foot is in my face.”

     “I can’t help it; her trumpet is where my feet go.”

     “Just close the doors, I have to make sure we fit.”

    “I can’t take two hours of this, there’s a duck eating my hair.”

     “That’s nothing, the cat’s about to eat a duck!”

     “I’m starving.” 

     “Mom the dog’s starting to growl and he’s looking at me funny.”

Just then a car pulled in the driveway.

     “DAD!!!!!”

The evacuation was less than 1.2 seconds.

     “What are you doing here?”

     “I took the day off; I thought you might need some help. Does anybody want to ride with me?”

All I heard was the scuffle of feet, car doors slamming and locking. Then, not a sound. I looked at my husband.

     “I guess they all want to ride with you.”

     “I’d say so.”

     “Guess I get the dog, the cat, the ducks and the pickles.”

     “Looks like it.”

     “Should we leave tonight?”

     “Suits me.”

     “Me too.” And off we went. Halfway there, he flagged me down.  Not quite so chipper now.

     “Want to switch?”

     “In your dreams.”

     Quack quack.

 

 

Let’s Talk Libraries

     Speaking of libraries, have you realized they are the last vestige of an age where kids can be left alone?  All my fellow parents say the same thing:  “Well, I do let him walk to the library by himself – it’s only half a block.” (And the kid is like 16)   Then I chime in, “Me too.”  What I don’t say is that my kids have happily walked the 7 miles into town to go to the library, because that is no longer acceptable parenting. (They pack a lunch; it takes a while)  But up here in Upstate, a child may, if you really trust the librarian, be allowed to sit in the library alone.  Why is that, you may ask?  Isn’t it possible that all the muggers and rapists and abductors like books too?  Not really, because the librarians, God love ‘em, will have none of that.  I once saw an unsavory character get stalked by a librarian whispering “May I help you?” for 20 minutes before he gave up and went out to terrorize the playground mothers.  It’s just not good abducting territory.

     My kids love the library.  I have two avid readers and one avid picture looker atter.  They all find what they need at the local library.  Sure there’s always that one librarian that doesn’t like kids, adults or pets other than cats, but the rest of them are like second parents, except this set is actually thrilled to have you put your feet on the furniture and leave all your books lying around.  They even leave signs that say, “Don’t re-shelve, that’s work for the elves…”   Can you beat that?  My daughter once asked me if she became a librarian could she live at the library.  Naturally I told her yes.  Give her a dream for Pete’s sake.  What’s the harm?  My mother once told me that nuns can eat ice cream whenever they want.  That worked for quite a few years…

 

Booking It

     We bring our children to the bookstore for more than the obvious reasons.  We are training them to “No.”  We have an outing to the bookstore about twice a month.  It used to be once a month, but now we live in civilization (Upstate New York) and so we can manage the trip twice a month.  We tell them we will buy them each a book.  But really what we are doing is teaching them “No.”  See, the bookstore has an incredible café with pastries and hot chocolate and lots of fun, fruity drinks, all at astronomical prices.  It also has $4 chocolate bars at eye level and lots of toys with accompanying manuals disguised as books.  And to all these things, we say, “No.”  This drives them insane.  Chris and I spend the morning leisurely perusing the shelves of  “Self-help” and “Mental Health” and “Parenting”  smugly knowing that if we wrote our own book, we’d be millionaires, because all you really need to raise kind, loving children is a good bookstore with all the bells and whistles.  Well, actually, we don’t know what kind of children we are raising; it is just our version of a sick joke to continuously take them there.  And when you have two teenage girls and a whiner, any kind of sadistic satisfaction that doesn’t leave a mark seems to still be acceptable behavior, especially under the guise of furthering their educational horizons.  Needless to say, they’re now onto us.  So here was the conversation:

     “Hey Dad, where are we going?”

     “I thought I’d take you guys to the bookstore – you can each get a book.”

     Groan.  “I don’t want to go to the bookstore.”

     “I’m willing to buy you a book and you are not saying ‘Thank you’?”

     “Thank you.”

     Little Miss Sunshine: “Well I’m not saying ‘thank you, I can’t stand the bookstore.  I want to do something else.”

     “Something else like find your glasses?  The book looks better when you don’t see double.  Just my opinion.”

     “I hate my glasses.”

     “I hate them too, they cost me $300.”

     “Dad, forget her glasses.  The rest of us know how to read.  Can’t we do something else?”

     “Can I tip you over for a glass of chardonnay, because you have quite the WHINE.”

     “That’s an old joke. I want to do something exciting.  Dad, can we go skydiving?”

     “If your version of skydiving is me tying the corners of a bedsheet to your suspenders and pushing you off the roof, then sure, we can go skydiving.”

     “Very funny.”

     ‘Then the bookstore it is.”

     Another weekend well spent.  Another lesson well learned.  They ought to pay us more…

Communication

by MaryBeth

Here is a recent communication between Barbara and me regarding control of this website.  The saga continues on the “Coast to Coast” page.  Have at it.

Dear Barbara,

 

     Thanks for the Carey addresses and for all your work on the website.  I liked the picture of the hand on the ledge, but then it was gone…Did you like it?  Here’s a request:  Please don’t edit my stuff – it freaks me out and then I feel like I just had a baby and someone keeps sneaking into the nursery and changing its clothes..  They are nice clothes, and clothes I might have bought myself if I had seen them, but better let me change the baby myself…

 

    By all means, feel free to present me with new clothes if you think the old ones are unacceptable, dirty or just plain not very funny, because what use is a baby if you can’t laugh at it?

 

     Thanks again for figuring it out.  Are you going to write on this thing?  I am hording all the space.  People will think I have killed you.  Speaking of which, (people that is )You are not telling anyone about this are you?  Becuase I want it to be really running, with lots of stuff on it, and adsense already in place, and then we’ll have our opening, and I’ll send it out to all my email addresses that I have and you can too if you want and we’ll be off to the races.  Does that seem fair?

 

                                                                                                                 Love, MaryBeth