Live from Times Square, NYC

5:15 p.m. Tuesday... We are on a train to NYC with Bill's family -- the final fling before school starts next week. After using the same credit card for some 25 years, we had enough reward points to stay in Times Square. I'm preparing for sensory overload and have forewarned Will and Liam about round-the-clock horns, sirens, jack hammers, and neon lights. We have never been to NYC as a family. Big city adventure is calling the Malcolms. Unsure if these independent boys will understand why every day they must wear the same brightly colored shirts as one another. They will in 20 years when they are on this train with their kids. The older set is going to the 9/11 Museum tomorrow. I got teary when I saw a clip on TV of the museum's executive director pointing to a piece of metal that represented "the moment of impact." The irony turned my stomach: He was so proud of his museum with this hunk of bent metal; he spoke in a subdued dystopian voice. I'm not sure in my lifetime I will ever want to see that moment again. Perhaps the boys will when they are adults. It will be in their history books, not etched on the backs of their eyes.

On a brighter note, tomorrow I'm taking Will and Liam to "The Art of Brick," a LEGO sculpture exhibit at Discovery Museum. I'm already imagining the LEGOS flying out of the tubs when we get home. Will & Liam, inspired to build. Me, panicked to sort. Earlier this summer we were hit by this LEGO bug. Rather than buying a $50 LEGO sorter, I punched quarter-sized holes all over the bottom of an Amazon cardboard box, filled it with scoops of mixed-up LEGOS, and shook it to bits as I watched the little LEGOs drop through the holes. Perhaps I should have done some sorting before the trip and warmed up their senses to the noise of NYC.

11:30 p.m. Tuesday... Just got into the hotel after a stroll in Times Square, where first reluctant boys agreed to hold our hands within the first 15 minutes of our walk. Lying in bed, we are summing up our first few hours in NYC. Giggling, Liam repeats words from one of the gigantic billboards, "How do you get a beta butt?" The drawing on that billboard will probably come out in one of his flip-o-ramas. I ask, "OK, who saw the man wearing only underwear and a big gold chain around his neck?" Will, "I did." Me: "I hope I never see one of my adult sons in Times Square wearing only his underwear." Will: "I will be in Orlando. NASA isn't here."

8:00 a.m. Wednesday... I'm Googling our destinations today. Last night walking back to the hotel, Bill and I realized we cannot rely on the gigantic billboards to navigate. They are all digital screens. A close-up graphic for slimming women's underwear might be at a particular corner, and when we return, it could be completely different, perhaps "How do you get a beta butt?"

Happy Hump Day from the city that never sleeps.

Meanest Woman in the World

Teetering. Teetering on the edge of summer. Writing. Writing on the edge of summer.

Camps. Camps teetering on the edge of summer so I can write.

Backfire.

On the calendar two weeks ago, it all made sense. Time for me to write. Fun for them to go.

This morning, I was working with rubble. Tired kids. Skipped camps yesterday. Absolute beach freedom yesterday. Late night last night. Wake up call this morning for camp... Rubble.

I found enough fresh clay to work the rubble into some semblance of my children. A barter with one and a subtle ultimatum with another. After two hours of this arguing, in front of house guests, I turned to rubble.

After the second drop-off, I had four hours of camp-freedom to write a clever Hump Day Short. There were no words in my body. Let alone a clever one.

I started the van and idled for seconds. I needed to do something mindless. I wanted to lie flat on the ground and breathe. Maybe cry. The wide open gymnastics parking lot was not the place to do that.

A discount home décor store was on the way home from Will’s camp. I grabbed a cart and pushed it slowly down the first aisle. My chest tight. My shoulders hunched. Retail therapy. Better for me than chocolate bars dipped in peanut butter.

Into the cart went a lamp for the table next to our guests’ bed. In went a mattress pad for their bed. In went a bedside table for Liam. In went a long ottoman for the living room. I hope it will fit in the car. Oh man… I don’t have the car! I have the van! The van is what our guests take to the beach. In the hub-bub of the morning, I took the wrong vehicle! They are on a beach holiday with no vehicle to transport them to the beach.

My phone whistled to me as a text came through. Could I have one of Will’s friends over after their camp ends this afternoon? Of course. No problem. The friend’s mom was picking up her two other kids from a camp and a play date - two towns apart - at the same time. Her reply text: “Thank you so much.”

Thank you… I needed that genuine “thank you” today. For today, I am the meanest woman in the world.

I took over from another friend who was the meanest woman in the world on Monday.

I pity whomever is bestowed this honor tomorrow.

8 Goals for Back-to-school

Back-to-school. The buzz, panic, duties, anxiety. The routine, brain power, confidence. In a word association game, the response to “back-to-school” would elicit numerous responses. My back-to-school started in the spring. It was a calm revelation that happened in the van. When I opened the door and had one leg in, I noticed rosary beads on the rear-view mirror. And in the tumultuous decision-making about which school the boys will go to in the fall, that rosary confirmed it: Catholic schools for both of them. I’m not Catholic. I closed the door on that silver van and walked two cars down to my own silver van.

A major change takes energy. We needed a powerful hibernation or building of strength for back-to-school in the fall. Positive affirmation, self-confidence, mindfulness. Hard-hitters, yet our mantra was...

On a recent gorgeous summer outing at a lake with several adoptive families, a friend summed up the summer well, "It's been a good summer. We've had one enjoyable event after another." As have we. Consequently, we shouldn't lament too much about this thing called back-to-school, right? It's the cadence of the season: With children, it will happen over 12 seasons.

Yet emotion took over reason last week when I felt a build in the momentum. One box of school uniforms arrived. Yesterday another. We have school supplies for Liam but not yet for Will. The last camps for summer will finish next week. Labor Day, September 1st, is early this year. School starts the day after.

We have a few weeks, and the days will fly. I’m not excited about putting Dream and Relax in a box. I’m not looking forward to the spin we enter September 1st and the dizziness we feel by October 1st.

What I want for my family this back-to-school season is this…

Mutant August Weeds

It’s August.  It’s August?  But we were just counting down the days until school was out.  And making glorious lists of all things possible in summer.  Now, we are making lists of all things that need to be crammed into summer.  Because of that meddling word: “August.”  What can we make happen and what do we cross off the list? Visions of growing a red rose bush against the barn wall danced through my gloved hands as I ripped out all the weeds beside the barn.  That was on Mother’s Day. Mmm… the future splendor of that hidden garden scene.  I planted the bush and my gardening friend planted the bare branch for which the climber could rise high against the barn where red bits of beauty would pop out as I walked through the garden gate.  Succulents would cascade off the window ledge.  Crazy giddy that.

I watered the bush regularly for a couple weeks.  I made a mind-map of where I would let the vegetation be natural and where I would plant wild flower seeds and late-summer blooming zinnias.  I bought the seeds.

Then came crazy old June.

And in mid-July, I eagerly opened the garden gate – anticipating the ocular sensory punch.  It got me right in the gut. Here, fill in any words of shock and disbelief.   Mine: “Huh, I guess I didn’t get the roots.”  Taming ten-plus years of a weed garden will take more than one clearing a season.  I decide to wait until I have a good chunk of time to tackle this.

Come early August, I walk up to the edge and peer into the jungle.  I see a few red specks.  Roses blooming under that tangle.  I see succulents through the sprouted volunteer bush-tree.  And I am amazed by the vegetation.

However, I back away quicker than I approach.  What is happening here?  Why does this look like a giant’s salad bowl?

Time to readjust the hidden garden vision.  I recognize this climber from last year: it will turn red in the fall.  And that will be the red beauty this year. Oh, that glorious summer list.  I crossed off “clean out the mutant weeds” because I crossed off “research mutant weeds to see if they are poisonous.”  Perhaps "mysterious weed research" is on the list for when the snow flies.

Right now, we need to go fly a kite.