Etiquette.

Friday couldn't get here fast enough. Really. About this time yesterday, I made a mental request of The Weekend to "please get here even sooner than possible, thank you!" Ah-ha! Notice the "please" and "thank you"? Perhaps it's because I've been taking care of someone else's kids for too long and I need to be let out to nanny-pasture, but I seem more aware of a strange and disconcerting absence of these two words in the house where I am employed. I've been trying to trace the source of this problem and have come up empty handed. I say them all the time, as do the parents. I should probably not be surprised in noting that the Little One uses these words far, far more regularly than the Older One (aside: I've decided deeming these two kids Thing One and Thing Two might be seen by some as demeaning, evil, disrespectful, or at least just plain bad so I've modified my language accordingly).

Now, I don't have children of my own (although for the record, I have two large dogs who are shamefully co-dependent on each other and also frightfully rambunctious -which come to think of it- is not much different than kids. After all, one of them puked on the floor yesterday, then was barking all through the night at what must have been a phantom squirrel, only to wake me this morning 45 minutes before my alarm went off. And would you look at that? I just made the longest parenthetical note ever!) but it seems logical that instilling manners is pretty damn important. Like, more so than potty training, folks. I for one, would rather have a kid that says, "P, will you change my pants please? I pooped all inside them" than a kid that says, "Hey. Hey! I pooped my pants. Change me!"

The house I work in follows the models of Attachment Parenting and Unconditional Parenting. I don't know what the hell either of these means, but I try to ride the wave...one thing I'm certain of is that I hear a lot of "don't force manners." OK. Yeah, confession time: back when I had a job that involved an office, one of my favorite things *ever* was reading Miss Manners columns from the Washington Post. Favorite. Ever. So, one might imagine the shudder that runs up my spine when I hear things like that. Now, I do believe it best to model manners (and many other positive behaviors for children, such as not pooping one's pants) but sometimes, kids need a good, swift kick in the proverbial ass. Case in point:

When I was about four or five, I said my first curse word. I had never heard my parents curse, but I was sure as shit modeling Someone. Anyway, I was playing Go Fish with my little sister, and one of my older sisters. Little Sister was about two(ish) so she brazenly stole my cards. I rightly declared her a Bastard. Yes, with a capital B. Older Sister promptly jumped up and scampered off to tattle on me. My mother marched me upstairs and washed out my mouth with soap. This set a precedent for several similar episodes I would suffer before the age of ten. Even so, I like to think I have grown into a well-adjusted adult. Probably because I was forced (there's that word again) to learn the following lessons:

• Even if someone tries to pull a fast one on ya, don't lose your cool. It's just a game.
• Dial tastes better than Lever
• Mom does not practice empty threats
• When Mom and Dad say "don't curse!" they really, really f***ing mean it

The point is, there must be some sort of happy medium. I don't like being bossed around by a four-year-old, but it also feels strange to condition kids as we do pets. As a functioning member of The World all I ask is that parents please remember instilling manners in your rotten, ungrateful children is necessary to teaching them how to be a Member of Society, not the Center of Society.
Thank you.

Old timer's.

I'm departing from the norm today. I'm not writing about the two little urchins. And I'm not being funny (am I ever? nevermind, don't answer that). But I do want to share something new I started today: assisting in a weekly writing workshop for adults in the early phases of Alzheimer's, via the organization Badgerdog Literary Publishing.

In a couple weeks, I will also be assisting a weekly writing workshop for under-privileged fourth graders, with the Austin Bat Cave. I can't stand people being told they have nothing to say. That they're just kids. Or they're poor. Or they're old. We start to tell people this, and then we start to believe it, and then -before you know it- we have fallen prey to what Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie so eloquently calls the danger of the single story.

I, for one, believe reading and writing are transformative acts. Often, listening can be as well. Here is a list of the people I met today:

• Eugene: currently working toward his black belt in Tae Kwan Do. A photographer. His name means "royal one" in Hebrew. He suffers from mild cognitive impairment
• Nadine: with her husband, opened a school in Louisiana for mentally disabled children, and later, a school for girls
• Terry: a retired archaeology professor
• Vic: a retired psychology professor
• Mona: a self-deprecating songwriter
• Carol: a 30-year 5th grade teaching veteran, whose students still sometimes call her on the phone
• Mickey: an artist in colored pencils, she dreams of having a Siamese cat
• Bill: retired geologist, who at 82 years old says he's, "not gonna get any better, and not gonna get any worse" his wife still calls the shots
  
• Carl: retired Russian Orthodox priest, who grew up Jewish, in a very German community in 1938.
• Ruth: retired high school english teacher, she has published a book and now struggles to hold a pen

Carl shared with me today that he loves reading. And because he loves reading, he wants to try his hand at writing. I was amazed that although I had to repeat the date several times, he was able to recall with perfect clarity that as a child, his mother would read The Little Red Hen to him every day. Finally in the third grade, his family could afford to buy him glasses. From that day on, he could read to himself. He never stopped. I laughed out loud with this group of people today, but Carl nearly brought me to tears when he said, "I can't do a lot of things anymore. But I can still read."

Today, I also came across a quote from Howard Thurman:
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

...I wonder, in fifty years, what some young writer might say about me? What would my life be in one sentence? I hope they will say that I was a reader. That I was a writer. And that in this life, I came alive.

Lucky day.

I didn't really know what to write about today. I need a break (in every way) from the two small children, but I had some time to kill. So why not entertain myself the blogging way? Anyhow, turns out today is 1.11.11, which many say is lucky. I wonder how many nincompoops will get married today, kind of like that craze over 7.7.07 (for the record folks- some things just can't save a crappy marriage, as Tony Parker and Eva Longoria will remind us).

Anyway, I can't mock too much because I am still guilty of "kissing" the clock and making a wish when all the numbers are the same. I also ate crayolas as a child, so there might be a connection there...

I had a little fun on Google searching for superstitions. I found two that I especially loved: apparently, an old wive's tale is that if you meet either A) a chimney sweep or B) a black cat on your wedding day you will have a happy marriage...

What I really want is to meet a black-cat-chimney-sweep. You might think this impossible because, after all, cats have no thumbs making the process of operating a broom difficult at best. But I would like to site the case of my little sister's cat, Digit, who had at least eleven extra toes on each paw (he was inbred, god bless him); with slightly more brain matter, he probably could have run a GM assembly line with moderate success. However, I do admit it's quite unlikely to run across a black cat that also happens to be a professional chimney sweep. In lieu of that happy occurrence, I think what I really, reeeeeally want is to meet a delightful Cockney chimney sweep, a la Mary Poppins. Actually, if I'm gonna run into a chimney sweep on my wedding day I would be de-flippin-lighted if it were in fact Dick Van Dyke with tap shoes and all. Also, I would like him to tap dance across the ceiling while singing, as he did when I saw the west London stage performance.

Now that, dear readers, would be lucky.

Noveau.

To my handful of readers out there, I'd like to go ahead and establish a new blogging rule of thumb (for myself anyway): "special day" posts (eg: birthday, Christmas, Saturdays, etc.) are given a 7-day grace period before officially becoming irrelevant.

On that note, I'll share a quick word about New Year's: First, the house party last Friday was an epic success. If I say anything more than that, it'll take away all the mystique and exclusivity, thereby rendering the experience nearly vulgar. But yeah, it was better than I could have expected.

Also, visualization boards. This weekend I'll be making one for 2011. The idea is that we attract into our life whatever we give attention to; we literally manifest our thoughts, dreams, and energy. I was looking for images and words that I want to bring myself in the coming year when I found this bit from Walt Whitman (I will always love him, forget that he's almost certainly gay and definitely dead) and wanted to share it:

"this is what you shall do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning god, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem."

I was fortunate to welcome great love and new friends into my life last year...here's looking forward to a year of new laughs and adventures with you all :)