grocery characters, part I

She muttered as she turned the corner and entered my aisle. I weighed the risks of swapping semi-sweet chocolate for bittersweet in my recipe.

“I came all the way to Squirrel Hill Giant Eagle for this. Three Giant Eagles. Now all the way to Squirrel Hill.”

She didn’t mutter the way most self-talkers do in the city. The way the older Asian woman had in Starbucks, hunched and mumbling as she patrolled the tables, just an hour before and a block away. She didn’t let her sentence trail off, fishing tentatively—hopefully—for a response.

She was speaking to me.

As if I knew her. As if I knew why she’d been to four stores in one morning. As if I knew what she was searching for. And I didn’t. But I knew she was addressing me the way you feel someone staring at you before you actually see them.

And so I looked up.

“I can’t find kettle corn. I came all the way to Squirrel Hill and they don’t have it either. Even went to a goddamn Wal-Mart.”

Five stores, then. “That’s a shame. I wonder why it’s sold out everywhere.”

For a split second, it flashes across her face: she is surprised I replied. But she recovers instantly. “I sure don’t know. But if I’d known it would, I sure wouldn’t have given all mine to the kids. Woulda saved it for myself.”

“Well, good luck.” I hope for closure. She seems less odd to me now, now that we’ve had a coherent verbal exchange, and I’m satisfied I’ve been polite enough. Semi-sweet won’t do, I decide, so I’m on my way. They’re sold out of bittersweet chocolate.

She continues walking down the baking aisle, talking again, alone.

Of Felines and Canines and Cowl-necks

This afternoon my son asked, "Can we PLEASE get an orange kitten?"

"Sure," I replied. "Some day."

We've done this dance before. I love the openness of "some day": he is appeased, our current two housecats can rest easy knowing they won't be sharing litterboxes (or their people) with an uber-cute interloper, and I'm off the hook. Usually.

"Great. And can we dress it up like Puss in Boots, with a hat and boots and a sword?"

I respect his imagination. And the pervasive influence of all animated movies. But even though I can technically fulfill this request (thanks, Meredith), I won't.

I've long suspected animal fashion is a kind of torture--not quite circle-of-hell torture but certainly shame-inducing and possibly pain-inflicting--both for the person responsible for it and the animal forced to endure...and maybe for any witnesses. (I’m waging no PETA-style campaign here, just offering experienced opinion.)

I will confess to once—once—dressing our greyhound in an off-white, chunky, cable knit, cowl-neck canine sweater (not sure if the more pressing question here is WHY on Earth would I do that or WHERE on Earth did I find it) that…gasp, sigh…matched my own, human version. 

Which I was wearing at the time.

It was not even Halloween. 

The whole affair lasted twenty minutes: nine minutes to get the damn thing on her, 30 seconds of her giving me the Are You Fucking Kidding Me This is So Depressing For Both of Us face, and 10:30 minutes of me trying to get it off of her. In any case, it was the early 2000s and I didn’t know any better.

Sorry, Nora.



Also for the pearl necklace I made you wear on Audrey Hepburn movie night.

I am ashamed.

The Accidental Pajamist

I’ve been trying to ignore winter for several weeks, exposing my (freezing) ankles in cute flats, swapping my wooly cocoon coat for a neon-trim trench, and adding bright cropped skinnies to my closet. But frigid temps and snow have thwarted each tiny step into spring.

This morning I’d had enough.

Enough I say!

Out came the trench. Out came the printed emerald green pants. Back went the flats (seriously, it was 20 degrees this morning), but out came my favorite nude peep-toe wedge booties (offering slightly more protection from the elements, I reasoned). Paired with a chambray button down and sweater, it was my layered, spring-hued response to the lingering cold. I was ready to face the day with an outfit that said SCREW YOU, WINTER.

Since it’s Thursday, facing the day meant taking NJ to pre-K on my way to work. We walked in and a classmate promptly (and loudly) observed, “NJ’s mom is still wearing her pajamas!”

So maybe my winter-screwing green pants weren’t delivering the exact message I’d intended. 

At least now I know I can pull off the pajama pants trend. 

The Great Mom Divide

I want to believe women are past attaching a confessional vibe (or, possibly worse, a defensive one) to statements like "I'm a working mom" and "I'm a stay-at-home mom" (yes, this term has got to go). But still we're talking about it. Driving to work last week (I'm a mom but neither a SAHM or WM; more on that riddle later), I heard the local radio station's morning show guy report a study found SAHMs work fewer hours than WMs. I've yet to find said study (or anything that substantiates its claims), but here I'm less interested in the study's credibility and more interested in sharing the response from callers. I bet a dozen women called in while I drove the last five minutes to work. Angry women. Defensive women. I'll even say it: arrogant women.

Did I mention angry?

Amazingly, they weren't angry because the male (!) DJ was spouting off sketchy "study findings" just to generate buzz and rancor. Nor were they angry that said study was playing into the out-dated polarization of moms by way of mom-labeling. Whatever side they called in to defend (there were clearly two sides here, with no wiggle room for critical thinking or questioning), these women were adamant that their choice was more demanding and moms who made the opposite choice had it easy.

Easy? Motherhood? I'm a relative newbie in the mom world, but I'm willing to state with some certainty that being a mom is rarely, if ever, easy. I can't even figure which acronym is mine in this stupid SAHM/WM argument. Really, in this great division of motherhood, where do I fit?

I teach part-time for two schools, and my work week is split between my home office (read: dining room table) and campus. When I'm on campus, NJ is in pre-school and daycare. On the days I'm at the dining room table, he's right there with me.

Certainly some work-from-home days go smoother than others. Even more of a certainty: we have far fewer smooth days than rough ones. If the problem is clear (it is), the solution is nebulous at best.

For one thing, I need more focused work time than I did even five years ago. Multitasking is pointless; if I don't read a student's essay from start to finish, giving feedback and grading as I go and completing the task, then returning to it later means starting over again at page one. If I don't read at least five student papers in a row, I clip-clop along; grading is all about pace--galloping is too fast and walking is painfully, counter-productively slow, but a nice cantor keeps things rolling.

And five-year-olds are understandably needy (even mine, and he's a pretty independent little guy). There are block towers to build and knock down, soccer balls to practice with, Imaginary Hulk vs. Imaginary Thor battles to referee, letters and numbers to write, and only three chapters left before we finish Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. And that's all before lunch.

Most days I feel like my work/life scale isn't just unbalanced...it's toppled over. Today, a lighter work day for me than usual, NJ and I had a spontaneous "snowball fight" (we were actually inside, throwing soft foam blocks, but he's already immortalized it in a text message to his dad as "the snowball fight"), and between peals of laughter he'd catch his breath just enough to cheer, "This is the best day ever! This is the best day ever!" Today, I felt like I had it all together, at least for a few hours. Somehow, though, even the highlights like today seem to bring all those days without "snowball fights" into high relief.

I may not ever figure it out--how to work, and how to be a good mom, all at the same time. But I know I'm lucky to have a strong support systems of moms--family and friends, spanning generations, and including reps from the SAHM and the WM camps--who I check in with often. Sharing our questions, challenges, triumphs, and all around wonderment (at motherhood, at balancing work and life, at our children and their growth, and often at our husbands) reminds me that no matter how our days start or where we spend the next eight hours, being a mom is one of the toughest and most rewarding roles we play.

And the tough parts are a little bit easier when we have another woman to talk it out with, who listens--from her kitchen, from her office, from her dining room table disguised as home office--without judgment.