Teen Theatre

This was the last week of the July theatre arts program sponsored by our school district's youth council. The kids going into fifth through seventh grades constituted the junior group, and the incoming eighth through twelfth graders were the senior group. Son #1 is entering the ninth grade, so he was in the elder group, but this was his first time in the theatre arts program. Many of his peers had four more years of experience there, so he really picked up a lot and worked on his dancing skills (I had failed to visualize him performing hip hop numbers until I actually saw him do it, and he was good!).

The older kids' show, last night, had some standout vocal solos and some impressive ensemble dance numbers. They were quite talented. I have to admit that I didn't enjoy a lot of the actual material as much, as it was very far removed from actual show music and more about current teenage alternative genre. The younger kids' show, on Wednesday, was much more up my alley. It was a Wizard of Oz motif, loosely based on the original story, but also pulled in songs from Wicked, Into the Woods, Tarzan, and other shows as we followed the chronicles of our four friends wandering the forest in search of the omniscient, omnipotent one.

One of the songs, which I hadn't heard before, really did move me. Part of the reason for this is that the young lady who sang it was not miked up properly, and yet we were able to hear her all the way in the back of the auditorium, over the pit band. A shame about the mike, of course...but in the second act, one of the players called her on stage in between two other numbers and said that he didn't hear her song before...and asked her to sing it again. This time the mike was working. Stunning! The program said she's going into the sixth grade. I can't even fathom what she'll do in high school, with that big voice.

The song was "What It Means to be a Friend" from the musical 13. This really tugged on my heart strings and my memory threads. At that time of life, I was just discovering friendships in my own peer group at school and had major trials...but I'm also feeling it for Son #1 who's also an intellectual and an introvert (as I was) and even though it might not be as bad for a guy he's having the same kinds of struggles as far as I can tell. These lyrics hit home with me big time.

A friend’s not a cheap little phony creep
Or a jerk trying to make a deal
A friend is a person who, most of all,
Cares about what you feel;
And nothing is harder
Than learning a friend isn’t real

A friend sends notes back and forth all day
And doesn’t care that you can’t spell
A friend knows you’ve got a crush on your teacher,
But a friend would never tell
A friend’s outside waiting
The minute you both hear the bell

And if your heart is always breaking
Cause the world is just not fair
When you’re at your worst
Your friend’s the first one there
Giving you something to lean on
And that’s what it means to be a friend

And if your heart is always breaking
And you want to run and hide
When your hope is gone
Your friend is on your side

If someone moves in ‘round the corner
And you want to show him you care
So you give him all your last month of vacation
And all of the time you can spare
But then, on the first day of classes
He acts like you’re not even there,
Then he doesn’t know…
He doesn’t know!
He’ll never know what it means
To be a friend

So last night we finished in the auditorium at about 10:10PM, and then the kids had to change and take off makeup and collect all their things. My son had procured $20 from his dad so he could go to the diner with the cast afterwards, so I dropped him off and asked him to please call no later than 11:30. I got a text from him at 11:29, asking me to meet him out front of the diner but not come in. (How embarrassing, to have your mom come inside and be seen by everyone!)

I remember what it was like at that age, to feel like I was being accepted by a group...or hope that I was, and I was willing to travel anywhere or hang out with people I really only kind of enjoyed because I was gaining that acceptance and it gave me confidence to build on. Even though the entire cast reported to the high school at 7:00 yesterday morning for the early performance, and they really only got a break for a couple of hours in the afternoon, my kid didn't seem tired at all when stepping into the shower at midnight. Meanwhile, Mama Bear was ready to drop!

Naturally I'm not the picture of energy today, but my parental satisfaction meter is off the charts.

Random Musings of...

...Son of Geek Soccer Mom?!?

Yup. Last night my eight-year-old came home from camp with a yellow spiral notebook that had his initials written on the front, and the word "Personal." He informed me that he was now keeping a journal. Before bed time, he was sitting on my bed watching TV, writing in it. I asked him what kinds of things he wrote, and he said it had a lot of emotion. "Like yesterday, when you didn't walk into the room with me, when you brought me to Care?" I reminded him that I did indeed go into the breakfast room when we arrived at his camp, and I recounted our conversation. "Oh yeah," he mumbled. At once he opened the book and crossed out a tearful face that had "Sad" written next to it, and another one just below that had "Nervous" next to it.

I asked him what else makes him nervous, and he said being alone in his room with the door closed...because someone could come in and sneak up behind him and scare him. I asked him whether he knew that we lock all the doors and windows at night, and he said yes. Then I asked whether anyone had ever come in and scared him. He said no. So what was he nervous about? One of his brothers walking in. Sigh.

Oh, to be eight again, with all the anxieties. He got lots of hugs and kisses before shut-eye last night, and more than usual this morning. I wonder what else about the family might be in his journal...but at least his musings aren't on the Internet like mine. Yet.

Five Minutes of Terror

Yesterday afternoon, another scorcher in the recent Long Island heat wave, seemed a great time to take the Amigos to the community pool. After an hour there, the sky grew dark and a few raindrops began to fall. (Not a bad thing since we need the rain.) But, without warning, a wall of water began to crash down upon us. Naturally, the lifeguards all stood up and blew their whistles repeatedly to summon everyone out of the pool.

Sprinting towards the perimeter of the deck where our towels, shoes, and pool bag were, I became drenched. Once under the overhang, I realized that the wind was whipping the rain at such an angle that there would really be no shelter there. So I decided to grab the kids and all the stuff and head for the building. However, only the older two were next to me, trying to collect our stuff while being pelted hard in the face with raindrops. Son #3 was not with us, and it was impossible to see more than a few feet ahead.

Of course the hearts started pounding and I could detect a shrillness rising in my voice. We agreed to split up and cover the area, meeting by the lifeguard area. It was barely possible to be heard, even while shouting, because of all the other people shouting. My heart sank as I pondered the fact that it would not have been unusual for a grownup to carry a screaming eight year old kid (mine) out of the pool area under these circumstances...and if my son were to have been dumped in a stranger's car and driven out of there, my heart would be broken forever. I tried not to freak out.

Still no luck as we met up at the lifeguard station. The boys checked the men's room and the front desk. I began to give a physical description of my son to the lifeguard in charge when, mercifully, he appeared, shivering with a towel covering his body head to toe. He hadn't heard his brothers calling for him in the rest room amid the commotion of all the people hiding from the rain in there. He'd taken his towel and gone in there because he actually had to use the facilities...which would have been fine if he'd told one of us where he was going. PHEW!

Not caring that all four of us and all of our belongings were completely waterlogged at this point, we made our way to the car as the rain continued to pour down. As we drove home, Son #2 (Mr. Melodrama) and I implored the little one to remember to always tell someone if he needed to leave the group. Murphy's Law is unfortunately still in effect. Whatever can go wrong usually does, at the worst possible time. But the feeling of relief was also washing over me at that moment, and I'd forgotten all about begin waterlogged.

Quick showers for all, and a load of laundry done, made everything seem okay again. I made an early dinner and was physically drained by 8PM. Monday morning came, and it felt like a typical one...until I got into the car to take Son #3 to camp. My seat cushion had not yet dried, and I managed to become soaked through before I realized what was happening. %$#@! I made the best of it by putting down a few canvas grocery bags from the trunk. It only took two hours to dry off. But I'm smiling, all things considered.

Rain and Sun

Harumph, I didn't hear that it was going to be so gloomy today on Long Island. I thought it would be at least a sunny or partly cloudy day. But the rain has ignited my sister-in-law's multiple sclerosis, and her nerve endings are killing her today. Bummer. Our dinner plan has been blown to bits. However...we made an alternate plan with my niece, who recently got engaged to a young man whom we haven't met yet...so we will meet him tonight! Lemonade comes from lemons, that's what I think.

No Humans Need Apply

You may know that I'm in charge of tech support where I work (otherwise known as a service desk or help desk) and we pride ourselves on spoiling our customers rotten. One aspect of this is our response time to emails. During "on shift" times we often answer within minutes. Many of our replies include some customization of a canned letter, or a fully customized reply if it's a one-off problem. I realize that not every tech support bureau operates this way, and I don't attempt to hold everyone to our high standards...but some things do make me cringe. Here's one of 'em.

In the middle of last week, the service provider for my personal email account had a catastrophic outage. Email was inaccessible for over 24 hours, and there were rumors that their corporate email even had an outage. Facebook and Twitter buddies of mine were posting frustrations about the outage. When the problem was fixed on Friday afternoon, I thought I'd be the atypical customer and send a quick note to their support portal to thank them for fixing it. I chuckled when I got the autoresponse email that said I'd receive an answer within three business days. I figured the rep who read it would be relieved that it wasn't a complaint, and would put a smile on his/her face.

Late last night (three business days plus about seven hours) I did receive a response from a rep named Pat. I could only tell it was Pat because his/her name was in parentheses in the From field. The message was a generic "we regret that you suffered an inconvenience" note, signed generically. So much for the personal touch. I might've received the same note if I'd written to say "you %$#%$# have held my email messages hostage for the past 24 hours you &%@&%@" or something similar. No customization and certainly no personalization. Does their software not allow for this? Or are they completely not motivated to respond to a "thanks" and a smiley face any differently than they would a complaint?

Definitely a case where I would not say "vive la difference."

Wash 'n' Dri

This week I spent a few days in Pittsburgh at an industry conference (CESSE), which went very well. CESSE stands for the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives. Not that I'm an executive, but I work with some of 'em... I have to thank my friend Tom who originally asked me to moderate a session at this meeting. I met some great colleagues who work for other publishers and vendors...and have probably roped myself into moderating (at least) next year. But next year the conference is in Vancouver, where I've never been, and where the weather is probably delightful in July. But that's not exactly what motivated me to blog today.

In the hotel (the Omni William Penn, which was lovely) my room had a regular manual flush toilet, but the commodes in all the common areas were the automatic kind. And I sampled the rest rooms on quite a few floors: the lobby, the fitness center, the Conference Level, the William Penn level, and the 17th floor where they served the meals. I'd say that, at least half the time during the week, the toilet flushed as soon as I sat down initially, which means I would get sprayed with (hopefully somewhat clean) water before I conducted my personal business there. So I'd have to wipe for the usual reasons and then to dry myself off from the spray. A minor inconvenience, made slightly worse because this was a panty hose, skirt, and slip week for the poster child for blue jeans and sneakers. I chalked it up to the way the electronic sensors were tuned at the hotel.

So, around 5:30PM I arrived at Pittsburgh International Airport and decided to make a potty break before waiting on the security line. You guessed it. As soon as I sat down, I felt the flushing mechanism engage. Sigh. What does it say about my humdrum existence if I'm looking forward to flushing my toilet at home?

Filling in the Blank

Last night we had a bunch of friends over the house, and after dessert we got a big game of Apples to Apples going.

In case you've never played Apples to Apples, here's how it works. There are hundreds of red apple cards, each with a noun or phrase (e.g. Eleanor Roosevelt, Top of the Roller Coaster, My Family, Skinning Your Knee, Green Beans) or a blank apple which gives you an opportunity to make up your own answer. There are maybe one quarter as many green apple cards, each containing an adjective (e.g. slimy, tempestuous, unforgettable, arrogant, fantastic). Each player receives five red cards. During each round, one player gets to be the judge. The judge reads the adjective on the green card. The other players each choose the red card that matches the green card the best, and put them in the middle of the table. The judge turns all the red cards face up, reads them, and decides which fits the best (completely subjective so no fair arguing the point later). The person whose card was chosen gets to keep the green card. All who played during the round get a replacement red card. First player to collect ten green cards wins. The judging rotates around the table.

This game can be a real load of laughs. There are always rounds where the adjectives are hard to match (such as feathery, terrifying, or appetizing) and then it can turn into "which red card is the most outrageous." It also helps if you know something about your fellow players. For instance, most people love peanut butter, but I know that I can win in the category "disgusting" with one of my boys if I submit a red card that says "peanut butter and jelly sandwich." One round last night was the green card Industrious. The red cards in the middle of the table included Marie Curie, Joan of Arc, Eyes, and Stephen King. The twelve year old judge selected Eyes as the winner. Remember I said no fair arguing? Well, two of the players got a little peeved at that and asked the judge 1) whether he knew who all of those people really were and 2) to explain his rationale. After a short quiz we determined that yes he did understand the choices. He chose Eyes because they are constantly on the job from the moment a person wakes up in the morning until bedtime, from birth until death. Not bad for a preteen analysis, eh?

The game had one poignant moment. In order to understand, you'll need a bit of background info. My cousin's daughter, Mia, lost her battle with a rare and incurable childhood cancer (rhabdomyosarcoma) three years ago, just after her ninth birthday. My family is not a large one, and my children have cherished the few second cousins they have (no first cousins on that side). They obviously continue to hold Mia in their hearts, as evidenced by what happened here. It was my turn to be the judge. The green card said Magical. As I was reading all the red cards in the middle of the table, the last one was blank. Son #1 had put in that one. I asked him what his answer was. He said, "Mia." Through the mix of happy and sad tears that started streaming down my face, I lost sight and memory of all the other red apples, and silently pushed the green card towards my son. Because our friends knew the story, no explanation was necessary. We continued the game as I took a few minutes to regain my composure.

For all the difficulties we have had with Son #1 embracing his brothers as more than mere thorns in his side, he does have his endearing moments such as this one. His apple really didn't fall that far from my tree after all.

Blue Mood?

Last night we had a quick pizza dinner because the kids wanted to go to the community pool afterwards. When we arrived at the park, the place was crawling with cars, and there were security people and parking attendants. We hadn't known that there was a free band concert to begin at 8:00. We managed to find a spot, and the attendant assured us that we'd be able to get the car out if we left before the concert finished. So we headed on into the pool area.

Son #3 gets frustrated sometimes because he's not a strong swimmer. We've been trying to coach him, but he's also stubborn about thinking he can't do something. The walls he builds in his own way are higher than anyone else could ever build for him. Sigh. Anyway, one of his "I can't do this and I never will" rants turned into a comedic moment for a change.

The concert started promptly, and they launched into a big band medley. I was thrilled to hear one of my favorite tunes and said excitedly to the kids, "Listen! They're playing In the Mood!" Little Determined Chin scowled, and growled, "Yeah, well I'm really in a mood." The rest of us looked at each other, and went from smirk to big belly laugh in no time. Even the little crank case finally started cracking up.

I personally never underestimate the power of humor.

How Did the Geese Cross the Road?

Well, I guess it's no surprise that geese traveling on foot have chutzpah. Long Island culture screams chutzpah! I've seen groups crossing side streets and even secondary roads seemingly without regard to the vehicle traffic, even as if they had priority over cars, trucks, etc. This morning was the first time I've seen the geese crossing a road where traffic moves at 55+ miles per hour.

I was heading east on the Sunrise Highway, by Station Road in Bellport, when I saw them a short distance up the road. A few cars had slowed down -- luckily, traffic was light -- and the geese were just about across the right lane, heading for the left. By the time I got to them I'd been able to safely go to the right lane to avoid them. However, they did appear to be hurrying, as if they'd finally grasped the grim reality of highway traffic: either a driver refuses to stop for an animal on principle (sad, but true) or a driver cannot stop safely in time to avoid the animal. I wonder whether the flock has been thinned during highway crossing expeditions.

At any rate, all five of 'em made it to the median. I didn't stick around to see whether they were attempting to cross the westbound lanes as well.

Fun?!? Duh! Mental.

Those of us over 40 who grew up in the States used to see those adorable "Reading is Fundamental" TV commercials. The RIF acronym only acquired that other meaning (Reduction in Force) in the late eighties. As my own childhood was, in politically correct terms, unsatisfying, books were most of my best friends until my later teens. However, the Three Amigos have different ideas.

All three have school district recommended summer reading lists for their grade level (9, 7, and 4). The oldest has an assignment to read a novel and write about it before the beginning of the fall term. Still...last night, when I casually mentioned that we would go to the public library tonight to get summer reading material, I might as well have said that I was sending all three kids off to training camp for suicide bombers. Sheesh. What an outcry.

I'm holding the cards, though. If they want to go to the pool after dinner, they'll have to be quick about choosing their books. No moping around the library and whining about having to read over the summer. For example, last night Son #2 threw up his hands and moaned, "Mom, I already know how to read." Sigh, good thing I'm committed to this parenting thing. Or else I'd really be committed.

Pedaling It All Around Town

Son #1 is enrolled in a theatre arts workshop at the local high school for the five weeks of July. Being that it's during the day, and no one is home to drive him, on Monday morning he made his first two and a half mile bike ride to the high school (mostly southeast). He was fine navigating the main roads, and he worked up a good sweat.

After the second day, he tells me that he's going to catch a ride with his friend L to and from the high school from here on in (fantastic, since she's one of his best buddies). Where does L live? About two miles east of where we live! Oh well, at least there's the companionship factor...a third friend is carpooling with them too. Maybe he'll go somewhere for lunch with them afterwards sometimes, etc. I told him that he just needs to pick up the phone and let his brother and either Mom or Dad know that he won't be home 'til later.

I know I used to be a teenager, and I do remember some of it, but it's a new era. Scary.