The Crab Chronicles

Competition

I'm always fascinated when observing my son and his friend Colton. Everything is a competition. There was a line from a movie the other day that made me laugh a lot: "They're men dear. They ever stop competing they die."

That was from the movie The Big Year. Truer words were never spoken. (Although how a movie about bird watching could have a trailer that looked so deceptively interesting, I don't know. It has Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson, but it's a pretty thin tale.)

Yesterday, I took the boys bowling. Colton either threw gutter balls or strikes. Not much in between. To be fair, he had played an entire baseball game and he had to have been tired. Michael started throwing gutter balls, but warmed up and then proceeded to win 2 out of 3 games.

The nice thing about the boys is that they aren't mean or vicious in their competitions. When one threw a strike, the other would high five him.

Then they came home and played: basketball, Uno, and videogames on the game cube.They stopped competing only long enough to eat.

I seriously doubt they had much conversation the entire time they were together.

Girls, OTOH, would have been talking nonstop from 4-8.

I remember as a teenager wanting more to DO stuff. I liked playing sports, walking, watching movies, listening to music. I wasn't so much into fixing hair or painting fingernails, or all that "girly" stuff. Maybe that's part of the reason why it's so much easier for me to manage Michael than Alesia.

I do miss her, though, terribly. I finally sat down yesterday and typed out an email saying everything I've been wanting to say to her for a long time. I doubt she will ever read it, but so be it. Sometimes it's good just to get the words on paper.

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Spring has come to Atlanta, and with it, new life. Redbuds and daffodils are everywhere. Highs today and tomorrow will be 85. I am getting an itch to start gardening...

I was told that the reason my squash plants never produce enough is that I need to put out a LOT of plants so they can cross pollinate. Anyone out there know is this is true?! More importantly, how do I know if I have male or female plants? Or are they hermaphrodites?!

It always starts out looking great, and then poops out...

Pool Boy

Want to know how stinking hot it was here today??? I actually did two things that I haven't done in a LONG time, just to beat the heat.

I went swimming, and I wore shorts to the pool.

Yep, the glare off my fishbelly white legs blinded some folks, but it's all good...

After a long afternoon writing and working on the blog, I needed some R&R, so I headed to the pool for the first time this summer. You should've seen Michael's face when I walked in the pool area. I looked around the deck and didn't see him. I looked in the pool. He was chatting with a GIRL. He waved politely. I thought I heard him say "I don't know who that big fat white old lady is but she might be crazy, so just smile and act natural..."

Just kidding.

In the pool he refers to me as "Mommy," for some reason. The rest of the time it's "Mom."

We threw around a nerf ball for a while. Then, I know he was absolutely astonished when I got in a lane and started doing laps.Hey, I was on a swim team for years [cough cough; I was 8-12 years old] and I won a lot of races [I was high on pixie stix, but don't tell anyone...]

Mike can go all the way down the pool swimming freestyle, on one breath. I think he just practiced that skill because it helps him when playing sharks and minnows.

He started playing sharks and minnows right before I left, and I was glad to see the lifeguards pull up chairs right next to the sides of the pool and monitor the kids carefully.

This is an old picture from last summer but you get an idea of how vast our pool is...

While I was swimming I was also cooking dinner.

I put a tiny pork tenderloin in a baking dish with some water in the bottom, covered it with salt and a slather of barbeque sauce, and baked it at 200 degrees for about 5 hours. VERY yummy. The meat was fork tender. We like to put out all the many BBQ sauces on the table and everyone goes to town. Sunday night is a good one for BBQ sandwiches.

Mike said tonight he is going to take his new chess set to the pool and play Bart. I think he just wants a chance to gloat some more...

Chess Prodigy

I learned to play chess when I was about 12 or 13, and my great uncle Harvey taught me. He loved the game. I instantly wanted to master it and beat Uncle Harvey. I didn't particularly like him. He was an uncle by marriage and he talked weird. (He grew up in Boston.)

However, he put up with my great aunt, who was a total nut. [I had more than 30 great aunts and uncles, BTW.]

Anyway, I have learned that Mike likes to shop in antique stores, thrift shops, and junk shops. Sometimes the definitions blur a LOT, at least around here. There's a place not too far from here called Scavenger Hunt and they have a huge variety of things, from furniture, to lamps, to old TV's, CD's, DVDs, knicknacks - just about everything. We headed over there this morning to bum around.

I didn't think I'd find anything of interest there, but I thought it would just be something to do. Mike's best buddies have been out of town all week and he's been pretty bored and bummed out.

We found 2 DVD's, a paperback mystery for Mother, and a beautiful chess set for Mike, for $21, total. The chess set was $10. It's all wood, a traveling set, and it's beautiful. I found it in a back corner of the shop. Ironically, I'd been looking for a chess board for a while, but unable obviously to buy a nice one due to finances. Mike had said he wanted to learn how to play.

Now, I wanted to play chess so much when I was young, I really really tried to be a good player.

I wasn't then and I'm not now.

I have a lot of talents, but chess is not one of them.

The first game was a teaching game and it ended in a stalemate.

The rest of the games we played?! Mike beat me. Yep, he's a much better player than I am.

Oh, the humiliation I feel as a chess impresario wannabee...

Ah, the pride I feel as a mother, knowing my kid is really really smart and he picked up the game in a nanosecond. I don't know why I'm surprised. He learned English in 6 months.

(He's also taller than me now, officially. Oh well. I still can cook better.... ;-)

Robin Hood and Subatomic Particles

Michael is now a baseball player. We went to a nearby Baptist church that has a small rec league and he did a practice and liked it. Most of the kids are a bit younger - it's 4th, 5th, and 6th graders - but that's OK. They can't throw as hard or run as fast but I told Michael, he can play with this little team and learn the game and it's a good first step into the baseball world. Michael got a little coaching on batting and hit several nice ones. The coach seems to be knowledgeable and compassionate. Everyone I talked to there was extremely nice. I just need to help Mike focus on getting homework done quickly on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.

He will still play tennis, and tennis will take precedence, but I am happy he is branching out into another sport.

I was delighted this morning when I talked to the benefits people about my COBRA coverage and the subsidized rate is extended another 6 months. That's a long-winded way of saying my insurance won't double in May, as I had feared. My horoscope said I would get good news this morning - how eerily accurate those things are, once in a blue moon.

Last night at dinner, Mother asked Alesia to give the blessing. We could tell she was hungry. She thought for a moment and said, "Thanks for the food. Bless everyone we love. Amen." Our normal blessing takes another few seconds to say. After the amen, Mother looked at her and said something like "that was short and sweet" and Alesia said "I didn't want to say a long one! I am HUNGRY!" We had to laugh.

I bought some flashcards with trivia facts on them, made by a company called Brainquest and now every night as we finish up dinner, I quiz the kids a little bit, to test their general knowledge. It's fun. For instance, did you know the Great Wall in China is the only man-made object visible from the moon? Or, as Alesia pointed out, it depends on which side of the moon you're on, whether or not you can see the dang wall! 

The other night I asked a question like "What classic story includes the Merry Men, Friar Tuck, and Little John?" Alesia frowned at me. "The married men?!" Nope. We laughed. I know she has seen the movie Robin Hood. Finally I said I would give her a hint and I pantomimed a bow and arrow. She frowned again. "Cupid?!" Well, he usually makes married men merry, but whatever.

Something was asked the other night about what the states were called after the south split off during the Civil War. We were looking for the word "union." Alesia said "You mean the gray men?!" Uh, nope, that's the Confederacy..

Sometimes her Central Auditory Processing Disorder provides moments of mirth.

Sometimes I wonder if Alesia is still deficient in her knowledge, due to being adopted at such a late age [13]. Then I ask her something and she pops out with the answer straightaway, and I heave a great sigh of relief. She may not know Robin Hood but she can name all the main subatomic particles.

I go back and re-ask some they missed every night to see what they're retaining. It's learning, but it's fun.

Gotta go. I have a job interview. It's a lunch interview and I am wearing a white shirt. Maybe I should've chosen a dark shirt, since I often end up wearing my food. Oh well...

Party Prep

Yesterday’s post was one of my shortest ever. I’m sorry if you felt ripped off by it. Instead of the usual half a cup of coffee you can drink while you read me, you probably just got down what, maybe two sips? My bad. Truth be told, it was a rather yucko day, and I just didn’t feel like writing. That’s rare, for me, but it happens.

If you want to laugh really hard, see Dave Barry's year-end review here.

The holidays are always stressful, for most folks anyway, and this year we were trying to have a very quiet, low-key holiday, and then they were stressful anyway. Mother and I have been so sad about my aunt and uncle’s deaths, and yet trying not to be too weepy and morose around the children. I got weepy and morose yesterday at work, and just hid in my cubicle, trying to work, and miserable. My cubicle is back in the corner and all my near neighbors were out yesterday. Sometimes one just needs to have a Pity Party. That’s not always possible at home, with Michael wanting to be my shadow.

Michael was at his friends’ house until 8:45 last night. I hate going home and not being able to be around the children. I want to spend time with them. I want them around. That’s why I adopted them. Unlike most parents, I suppose, I like hanging out with my kids and I miss them when they are out with friends or playing tennis or something. I don’t want to be one of those horrible mothers that clutch too tightly and are overprotective, but I want to enjoy the short time left before they grow up and go out on their own.

Alesia’s newest obsession is her Sims game, on the computer. She created her world, and runs everything in it, which is so unlike life. One of her school friends introduced her to this obsession. 

For those of you unfamiliar with it, Sims is like a virtual dollhouse run by you and the computer. You set up a family and their home, the family members cook, eat, go to work, etc. Right after Alesia put it on the computer, I was walking by and happened to notice her onscreen house and yard featured a bathtub in the middle of the lawn. When I asked Alesia about that, she just shrugged and said “I couldn’t fit it in the house.” I didn’t say a word about public indecency or plumbing issues, which took some self-control. I was cooking dinner the other night and I heard her yell “Get out of bed and go on to WORK!” – needless to say, I was quite puzzled and disturbed, until I peeked around the corner and realized she was playing The Game. One of her Sims characters burned up in a fire the other day and I asked Alesia what happened and she just shrugged and said “I dunno. I kept typing in EXTINGUISH.” I thought for a minute. “Maybe you should have told them to simply GET OUT of THE HOUSE!!” Alesia looked annoyed. “Whatever.”

The computer has some control of the characters in the game, and it definitely has an attitude. After poor Amanda burned up, I happened to be standing there when a window appeared that said “Poor Amanda. Remember, her body is gone but her spirit is alive forever.” I thought yikes, very philosophical for a computer game. I happened to agree with that idea, but what ideas are there that I might not approve of?! Sorta scary to imagine. However, I try to look on the bright side. Alesia is learning that actions [or inactions] have consequences, even in a computer world. One of her characters lost her job because she didn’t wake up and go to work. She failed to wake up because Alesia commanded her to take “something to help her sleep.” I don’t know if the computer interpreted that as a Melatonin or a fifth of Scotch. I asked if later the virtual finance company came to repossess the virtual car, but Alesia was not amused by that. [I was thinking OK, let’s make it really realistic.]

Party preparations continue. Mother and I discuss the food constantly. The kids both had long chore lists today, things we don’t normally do too often, like dust the living room. We pay a little for particularly arduous chores - hey, it's cheaper than a maid. My kids earn their "allowances." Here are today’s lists:

ALESIA

Dustmop dining room and living room, and entrance hall

Re-fold and neaten towels in laundry room, generally straighten room

Mop laundry room floor, Granny supervising [this pays $10]

Dust living room [carefully]

 

MICHAEL

Take small vacuum and clean out corner of family room where dirt is spilled [under plant]

Dust tabletops in family room

Straighten stuff underneath tables

Clean tile floors around the carpets in family room and in breakfast room

Scrub poop stains off living room rug [this pays $5] and put down plastic on the rug

 

Tomorrow we have a little more cleaning and food prep to do, plus I am taking Mother out to lunch, and giving her her birthday gifts early.

Michael is nervous about the party, and entertaining any children that might show, particularly his friend Clay. He voiced his anxieties when I was trying to get him tucked into bed. I suggested when Clay is here they hang out upstairs, play board games or watch a movie in my room. I told him he will have to not bother me when I am trying to entertain folks and take care of things downstairs, which didn’t set too well with him. We have not had a party since he has been home, not a real one anyway, just some informal evenings with friends over.

He seemed to brighten up when I pointed out that he always gets nervous before new things, and they always turn out to be fun. Lots of reassurances and hugs help, too.