Hej!

I’m sitting here on my balcony at five thirty, gazing at the sun-saturated face of the brick building next door. Although it is only five thirty in the morning, it is bright enough outside for it to feel like 10 am. I can hear the hum of the early morning commute as I look down onto the small rear yards of the surrounding retail and apartment buildings. The birds are chirping, and I can see the sign on the old beer factory in the distance. The pitch lines of the roofs are all the same, meeting at 60 degree angles over their bodies of variegated brick or neutral-toned stucco, and this repetition of roof design is soothing to me. Tiny dormers and sunroofs accent the roofs, seemingly squinting into the sun. I am glad to be on the shady side of the building -- it must feel like high-noon in the rooms where the sun is streaming in with a direct hit.

After being in Denmark for a few days, I have gotten over my initial irritation at the freakishly long hours the sun works here. It doesn’t get really dark until about 11:30 pm, and then it starts to get light again at around 3:30 am. I know this, because I was tricked into thinking it was time to wake up at 4:30 am my first morning here, when the sun was already streaming into the cracks of the not-quite-blackout shades in my hotel room, seducing me into thinking it was already after 7 am. By this time, my fourth morning waking up in Copenhagen, I have forgiven the sun for so rudely waking me that first day, and have come to embrace this place. My ear has gotten used to the sound of Danish, and I have even managed to pick out a few words from people’s conversations. I love the food, the design, the architecture, the efficiency of this city.

I had thought Denmark would be very homogeneous, but instead found Copenhagen to be very diverse. I could blend here, in that Asian-faces-sprinkled-into-the-crowd kind of way. Aside from my own preconceptions, I had also been misinformed by friends who warned of drug dens and overly-friendly Danish men. I didn’t notice the drug dens, and about fifty percent of the men I met on this trip were gay. And the only time I felt like a circus freak was when some people asked if they could touch my hair, and I let them. But this was not initiated by the Danes -- this was initiated by the Americans I was traveling with, with some Danes joining in. I now have great empathy for animals in petting zoos. I will never look at my daughter's My Little Pony dolls in quite the same way again.

Like pulling teeth

My son had two of his teeth pulled today. We went to the oral surgeon's office very early in the morning for our appointment. I mean my son's appointment. Dr. Krey explained the procedure and offered my son two options -- Novocaine after the numbing gel was applied, or laughing gas plus Novocaine after the numbing gel. He chose the latter, not because he was so nervous about the extractions, but because his cousin Alex had told him how much he liked laughing gas. Then the doctor nonchalantly mentioned to my son that he could invite me to come along, or I could wait in the lobby. "She can come with me, " he said, just as nonchalantly. I was touched and bummed out at the same time. I had brought a book and was hoping to get to read some of it. But my child said he wanted me to be there with him, so that is what I had to do. Even if it meant watching him get his injections of anesthetic, and seeing them yank his teeth out with pliers. "You might hear a scrunching noise," the doctor said cheerfully as he wrenched the baby teeth out, roots extending to quadruple the size of the exposed tooth. Through all of this, I sat, clenching my hands together, fighting the urge to reach over and hold my son's hand. He had asked me to be there, but he was not reaching out for me, he was not looking over at me nervously ... heck, he was not even looking anywhere near me. He was staring up into the overhead lights, probably at the plastic pterodactyl head that was hanging from the ceiling. So I clasped my hands, the right hand strangling the left as I fought to keep myself from reaching over to him. It's hard to be a mother from a safe distance, when you really want to treat your nearly pre-teen "baby" like a baby and just wrap him up in your arms.
This was pretty torturous -- for me. Next time, I'm going to ask for the laughing gas, too.

We still believe

After the Brownie meeting last night, my daughter's friend (who was joining us for dinner) noticed the handmade sign my daughter had created out of construction paper and taped onto our window. It was blue with a basketball on it, with the words "We Believe" in bright orange letters. Actually, it said "We Belive" with a little pointy insertion mark between the "i" and the "v" and a floating "e" squeezed in where it should have been in the first place. In any case, the sign proclaimed our family's belief in the home team, the Oakland Warriors,* in spite of the fact that they had lost two games in Utah.

As we entered our house, I overheard my eight year old daughter commenting to her little friend, "... yeah, and if Pietrus just made even ONE of his freethrows, the Warriors would have won the game." I had to chuckle, since she was sounding like some guy in a sports bar, talking about the game over a couple of brews. Even funnier was her friend's response, "Yeah, I know ... they shoulda won that game."

Fortunately for all the believers in the Bay Area -- and even those, like my husband, who merely Want to Believe -- the Warriors showed up to play tonight and won Game Three of Round Two of the playoffs by twenty points. B-Diddy and his boys made a serious statement, in case anybody's belief in them was starting to falter. His dunk over Kirilenko was incredible. Or, as Coach Nellie put it, "Awesome, baby, awesome."

I'm sure the guys selling the "We Believe" t-shirts on the street corner are very happy after tonight's game. Sales should be brisk tomorrow. I hope I get one for Mother's Day.

* Yes, I know they are still the Golden State Warriors ... but we all know that they play in Oakland, baby.

Mother's Daze

My son is in the school play. Finally. After years of waiting, he is in a class whose teacher always has her class do a play. And, as predicted by his teacher, he has embraced the idea of being on stage, in spite of his years and years of saying how much he never wanted to be in a play and how extremely lucky he was to have never been in a class where he had to be in one. This year, he is in the fifth grade production of The Chronicles of Narnia. He started out saying he just wanted to be stage crew -- but soon changed his mind and tried out for the part of Maugrim, the White Witch's First Lieutenant. A bad guy. Powerful. Evil. Required to tackle one of the other characters onstage. Very cool, to a ten year old boy.

He got the part. He's even been rehearsing his evil wolf walk around the house. The walk is pretty important, since his character is onstage every time the White Witch is onstage -- i.e., a lot -- even though the Witch does all the talking, and Maugrim mostly is just her wingman. Which suits my son just perfectly. He could not be happier about this. He was walking around on all fours, practicing. I felt compelled to ask him if that was how the teacher told him to walk, and he said, "No, but I think that's how a wolf would walk." I also felt compelled to tell him that maybe the teacher would want him to walk upright, since it's a play and the audience would not be able to see him very well, crawling around on the floor. "Good point, Mom," he replied, dusting himself off, and immediately saying (with great excitement), "Hey, Mom -- did I tell you I get to attack Grant as part of the play?!!! It's so cool!"

Sigh. I am so proud of him. I know that this is a challenge for him, and the odds are pretty good that this will be his first and last school play. He will be entering middle school next year, where the parts for the school play go to those artsy drama kids whose lives revolve around performing onstage.

And now for the unthinkable: I might miss the school play.

Unthinkable, yes, but I am thinking it. I must have a pretty compelling reason, right? Well, that's open to debate, but I'll let you decide for yourself. A few days ago, I was offered an all-expenses-paid writing assignment in a foreign land that I have never visited before. "Go!" my wonderful husband said. "Really?" I said back. "Yes! Just go!" my wonderful husband said again. I checked my calendar and said "yes" to the editor. Then, I checked my calendar again, and realized that the date of the school play was not written down in my calendar. Then, I called the teacher, who said there was, in fact, no date set for the play, but that it was tentatively scheduled for the 5th and 6th. Whew! At least I would get to see the performances on the 5th, before I leave town. Or so I thought. I learned today that I need to leave on the 5th in order to be half way around the globe on the 6th. Damn the time difference! If only I could blink my way to my destination, I-Dream-of-Jeannie-style, and be able to do it all.

I called the teacher again and left a message asking if there was any chance that the play could be scheduled for a date when I could actually be here to see it. Yes, I have, in an I-Never-Dreamed-I-Would-Become-This-Type-of-Mom blink of an eye, transformed into the mom who requires the rest of the class to revolve around her all-important schedule. There's always one of them. And now I am her. And I wait. Hoping that the teacher will be able to convince the principal to rearrange the auditorium schedule to accommodate this one selfish mom in her class who wants to take this trip to the other side of the world and see the school play, too.

How is that for the perfect Mother's Day dilemma? Of course, the answer is that there should be no dilemma -- my priority should be to see the school play, and I should have already placed a call to the editor, sheepishly withdrawing my enthusiastic "yes!" and replacing it with a pathetic "well, I thought I could go, but I really can't ..." I think there would still be time for him to find a replacement for me, and I am sure he would be understanding, but I am not sure I will ever be presented with an opportunity like this again. I suppose other women are faced with this dilemma on a daily basis, but as a stay-at-home mom, this is uncharted territory for me.

I guess there are some days when no matter what you do, it feels like you are making the wrong decision -- when the big picture seems elusive, and all you can see is the potential for disappointing your child, and yourself, in the process. A mother I know once said: "It is a mother's prerogative to have self-doubt about everything, while acting like she knows what the hell she is doing." I know for a fact that she said it once, and only once. So far.

Believe it

... on the strength, booooy.

WARRIORS, baby!!!

Just feeling the love here in Oaktown -- jammin' to Too Short's Blow the Whistle, my new theme song for Baron Davis and the Warriors ... they go on and on can't understand how they last so long, they must have super powers ...

Short Dog, that's Oakland, baby.

Blow the whistle. Game over, Dallas, time to go home.

I've got it playing on a one song, repeating, endless (until I turn-off itunes) loop. For real, though.

I think the time is right to change the Warriors name to the OAKTOWN WARRIORS, enough of this Golden State BS. Although, as Snoop pointed out, it's Cali, baby, gotta come out and support the California team ... so maybe Golden State isn't so bad. I'll ponder this before I start my petition drive for the name change.

Amazing

Two boys, ages 6 and 9, get souvenir stuffed animals. One is a baby penguin, which the boy names "Pecker". The other is a long snake, with a label bearing the name and details of the species, the Asian Snake.

Later, at dinner, the older boy announces to his little brother, "Hey, my Asian snake is, like, twenty times longer than your little Pecker."

The parents exhibit incredible self-control and do not burst out laughing. Utterly amazing.

Pups in Cups

Two fifty-seven. School will be out in eight minutes, the boys will be descending on the house in about thirteen. I get the snacks ready -- bananas and apples cut-up into individual pieces, glasses of water on the table, popcorn in microwave, ready to pop. All set. A few minutes later, my son and five of his fifth grade friends, all new members of the Pups lacrosse team, come clomping into the house.
"Hi, guys -- shoes off, wash hands, come to the kitchen and have a snack --" I bark out as they enter the door.
Various versions of "okay" are uttered, and they disperse. After a brief Nerf dart gun battle, they regroup around the table, eating voraciously, as if they have not been fed in days -- in other words, like ten- and eleven-year old boys. We are doing well on time. They start talking about YoGos, and how good they are. "You like YoGos? I have YoGos. If you finish up the fruit, you can have YoGos," I say to the munching and chattering bunch. "YEAH!!!" they reply, and five pairs of hands grab at the remaining fruit on the plate. I bring out the YoGos and five pairs of hands grab at them -- as if they have not been fed in days -- and the happy sound of boys talking with their mouths full of chewy food fills the room.

I look at the time, and we are still doing well. "Okay, guys -- if you're finished eating, get ready to go, we need to leave in three minutes." The boys scatter again, with some clearing their dishes, others just getting up and finding their gear bags. Soon they are all sitting on various parts of the living room floor, putting on shoes and goofing around. Then, one of them announces: "Oh, I think I'll put on my cup now." He leaves the room as the rest of the boys do a collective but silent, "Oh, yeah ... my cup ..." which is replaced by each boy also announcing "I have to put mine on, too!" Soon, they are emerging, one by one, each rapping the knuckles of his fist on his crotch, resulting in the heretofore unknown-to-my-ears sound of jock knocking. Like primates pounding on their chests ... but lower.

Fifteen minutes later, we are twelve minutes late and still getting the guys into the car. The discussion turns to where one of the boys is, and why it is taking him so long to put on his cup. Speculation abounds. The boy in question emerges and gets into the car, bombarded by all the other boys asking him, "Hey, why did it take you so long to put on your cup?" and we are able to finally leave the house. The conversation is, of course, about cups. I am driving along, trying to eavesdrop, but the only thing I can make out at this point is somebody saying, "Hey!!!" and another boy annoyedly responding, "What?!! I just wanted to check if you had your cup on." Hmmm, that doesn't sound good. I feel compelled to set some rules. "Okay. OK!!! -- HEY YOU GUYS -- HEY! HEY! Okay, one of the rules in this car is 'no --'"
Boy A: "-- crotch talking?"
Me: "No ... although, that's a good rule, too."
Boy B: "-- crotch touching?"
Me: "Well, kind of -- the rule is 'NO PHYSICALLY CHECKING IF ANOTHER GUY HAS HIS CUP ON.' You can check your own cup, and that's it. Got it?" In unison (well, almost): "Okay."
I drive up to the field, and they scramble out of my car with a chorus of mumbled "thank you for the ride"'s as they disperse. I watch them as they continue in their own little fifth grade boy world, still acting very much like elementary school boys in their pre-teen bodies, and find myself really enjoying this moment -- feeling wonderfully entertained by these goofy little pups, wearing their cups.