Parent Company

The Five People I Meet at Wegmans

One of Caroline's assigned summer reading books is "The Five People You Meet in Heaven," by Mitch Albom. I'm not ready to get into a theological discussion in this forum, but the title of the book did get me thinking about this:

The Five People I Meet at Wegmans

1. The Sample Abuser: Starts with four to five "tastes" of gelato at the coffee counter, then stops by enough sample stations in the rest of the store to consume 800 calories without dropping a dime.

2. The Line Reservist: Leaves her cart right next to the belt at the checkout, then remembers 12 other things she meant to buy. Instead of admitting a temporary setback, she leaves her cart there to save her place in line, leaving the rest of us to queue behind a cart with no human operator.

3. The Express Line Flouter:  He pays no mind to the "12 or fewer items" sign, or the "12 items or less" sign, for that matter. (We won't do the grammar gotcha.) Even if he has 54 items to buy, he considers himself entitled to use whatever checkout line is convenient; the rules be darned!

4. The Loud Talker: Can be a mom or a dad, but it's the parent pushing the kid in the top seat of the cart and narrating their trip through the aisles. "Look, Sasha, mommy is buying apple sauce for you. Only the free-trade, organic, nut- and gluten-free variety, of course." The words are said loudly enough to be heard back in the dairy-frozen aisles.

5.  The Aisle Obstructor: Yes, members of my own family do this. It's the folks who absent-mindedly leave their carts spread out over the whole aisle while they stop to pick out an item, making passage for other customers all but impossible. Even worse, when they leave their cart blocking an aisle while they have a chat with the friend they just ran into. I can't say for sure that women do this more than men, but to me it's a violation of the Man Code. Men are not in the grocery store to socialize; we're there to convert our family shopping lists into tangible results, then to pay and get out. Or maybe that's just me.

---Greg

Shopping with boys

I took our son (age 10) to the mall to buy summer clothes. I wouldn’t call this shopping in the traditional sense that I, as a female, can relate to. We ripped through the store and grabbed items off the rack at lightning speed. The “try-on” stage would have been skipped entirely except for my rule that I won’t spend my money on any clothes I don’t see tried on, to make sure that they fit within reason. 

So we raced through the store to the dressing room. No one was in sight besides me -- a sign of recession? Son asked me to validate that his door was locked. I reiterated that no one was nearby; he locked the door anyway. Various thrashing sounds could be heard, then suddenly a pair of madras shorts came flying over the dressing room door accompanied by the words “too small.” Then another came flying – “too small.” Then the bathing suit came flying -- “just right.”

Out my son emerged with a new shirt on, saying “let’s go, I want to wear this home.” A clever ploy not to have to change back into his old shirt. End-to-end elapsed mall time clocked in at 11 minutes. At least boys outgrow clothes so there is an imperative to shop. With adult men, clothes aren’t replaced unless they are on fire or the men are metrosexuals. Yes, I like antiques, but I don’t expect one’s closet to qualify for an appraisal from Antiques Roadshow.

It’s no secret that most males don’t love shopping. I’ve labeled my husband Greg’s look of mall anguish as “shopping face,” a countenance that is one despair level down from Munch’s The Scream (see picture above). Girlfriends, do you know what I mean by shopping face? Which is why fathers will be disproportionately showered with golf shirts and other outfits for Father’s Day. It’s a win-win-win. We get to see them in new clothes, we don’t have to suffer through a day at the mall with them, and they avoid the same fate.

To be fair, I will follow up at some point with an entry about shopping with girls. Better yet, Greg can write that one. 

---Allison

Tipping the hat to teachers and coaches

As the school year winds down, I’d like to offer appreciation to teachers and coaches for another year of helping our children (in the collective sense) learn and grow.

I look at our youth soccer coach and marvel at how he can control a field of 30 second- to fourth-graders, let alone teach them how to play the game. My only experience with getting large groups of young kids to comply with orders is directing them to the food table for pizza and cake at a birthday party, and even that isn’t so easy.

Or a middle school teacher who has to deal with a class full of attitude and hormones and actually gets them to pay attention and learn, or as they say, “stay on task.” Imagine spending a day with this age group? Anyone who has dealt with kids knows that this is no picnic. Or the music teacher who teaches little ones how to eke out a complex series of symbols in musical language from a violin or piano (and has to listen to squeaking all day long) and then produces a recital with a room full of kids who can actually play beautiful songs.

When you think about it, which I don’t do enough, it’s amazing how many people are involved in teaching our children skills and shaping th em into adults.  While we are our children’s first teachers, and try to continue to be through their lives (with less and less effect, it feels, as the years go by), it is the proverbial village that helps us teach and guide them. In our culture wars of “it takes a parent” vs. “it takes a village,” I say it takes parents and a village to raise kids.

While we’ve celebrated Mother’s Day and are soon to celebrate Father’s Day, here’s to Teacher’s and Coaches Appreciation Day, which can also include all others who help us navigate the journey of raising those who we hope will be loving, responsible, productive adults.

---Allison

Face time on Facebook

Let me talk to the ladies for a moment. Moms, do you use a picture of yourself in your profile on Facebook, or a picture of your kids or family in that spot instead?

There's a fascinating essay by the author Katie Roiphe on Double X  in which she scolds moms for symbolically diluting their own identity when they substitute a picture of their offspring for one of themselves.

The intentions are often innocent when moms do this, Roiphe says. It can be a pain to comb through your digital photo folders trying to find a flattering one of yourself. Some moms do it as the equivalent of wearing a wedding ring; a picture of you and your children announces that you're not on Facebook hoping to meet guys. Still, Roiphe writes:

"Facebook, of course, traffics in exhibitionism: It is a way of presenting your life, at least those sides of it you cherry pick for the outside world, for show. One’s children are of course an important achievement, and arguably one’s most important achievement, but that doesn’t mean that they are who you are. It could, of course, be argued that the vanity of a younger generation, with their status postings on what kind of tea they are drinking, is a worse kind of narcissism. But this particular form of narcissism, these cherubs trotted out to create a picture of self is to me more disturbing for the truth it tells. The subliminal equation is clear: I am my children. And perhaps for their health and yours and ours, you should be other things as well."

Isn't this kind of like the Christmas cards we get every year, the ones from friends we haven't seen in ages who send us a family photo in which the parents are missing? Sure, the kids are cute, but we've never laid eyes on them in real life. I'm curious to see what Jane or Joe looks like 25 years later, not little Jason or Jennifer.

How about when people use a picture of their dog or cat as their avatar on Facebook or Twitter? I'm not sure I can get my head around the psychological reasons for that.

---Greg

Date night

As our First Couple hit the Big Apple for their date night, I was jealous. Why are they able to fit in a regular date night when we’re not?

Of course we don’t have a staff and a live-in mother-in-law, or a plane at our dispoal, but these are just excuses. It’s not just us, most of our friends don’t have regular date nights, either. Maybe that’s one of the reasons our generation is less happy than our parents’.

We are constantly chasing after kids, working, trying to make ends meet, and at the end of the day we just want to crash instead of putting on a dress and heels (that would be me, not Greg) and head to the theater. If you go to any theater or cultural performance around here, the predominant hair color is gray.

Camp David doesn’t cut it as a weekend getaway for the Obamas; I doubt the cooking there is as pure and precious as the Blue Hill’s, where they enjoyed their Manhattan meal and could have easily strived for five just on appetizers. I’m a vegetarian, but this place is even over the top for my taste. The grilled asparagus comes with “cured immature eggs.” I, for one, like my eggs to be mature.

I’m all for local produce, but these farmers are a little too rhapsodic about their rhubarb.  I’d like to think that our Commander in Chief eats something more substantial than fiddlehead ferns -– like the occasional pizza and wings -– but I digress.

Back to the topic at hand: How many of you pencil each other in; or rather, type “Date Night” into your Blackberries? Or is your date night just texting each other from different rooms?

Let’s take a poll:

poll by twiigs.com

---Allison

Gender neutrality? I don't think so

Brava, Rachel Alexandra! You showed those colts a thing or two in the Preakness.

“Gender doesn’t matter, a thoroughbred wants to run! If a filly is as good as the colts, she ought to compete. That was my position, and that’s why we came,” said her co-owner Jess Jackson.

In our post-feminist age, most don’t question that women and men can be thoroughbreds. Women now outnumber men at universities, and in the work force. One can debate about pay level, glass ceilings, and now sticky floors, but we’ve come a long way, baby, so it’s no longer heresy to notice that there really is a Mars/Venus thing. Parents with both boys and girls may really notice this (yes, what I am about to say is a generalization and doesn’t apply in all cases -– I get it).

Case in point: Yesterday, our tween son and daughter each had a separate soccer game at the same time, different fields. Son was suited up an hour in advance, goalie gloves on, rarin’ to get to the field even earlier than the warm-up. Daughter threatened not to play; “invented a crisis” as Greg said, and had to be dragged, nearly Kicking and Screaming  to the field in time for the game.

Boys are mysteries to moms; girls are mysteries to dads. When asked to list his favorite things in life one day, our son included “violence” in his selections. Huh? Boys like to blow stuff up, smash things together, bang into each other, hurl catapults at people on video games, and watch gratuitously violent movies. And wear the same pants over and over. Without washing. It’s a guy thing. Some days I feel more like a primatologist than a mom.

While Nerf and cap guns are going off incessantly, daughter is upstairs behind closed bathroom doors cutting and dyeing doll hair to the point where drains clog, and doing who knows what with makeup. Dad doesn’t get why it takes her an hour to get ready in the morning, or why anyone would watch America’s Next Top Model clips on You-Tube in a continuous loop. It’s a girl thing.

When my friends first started having kids, we were hell-bent on gender-neutrality. But we threw in the towel when a mom in the group bought her daughter Tonkas, and instead of running them through a pile of mud and sand, she tucked in her trucks at night. Go figure.

---Allison

Bridging the humor gap

Can you believe it? Dunder Mifflin is closing its Buffalo office. That was one of the revelations on the season finale of "The Office" on NBC on Thursday night. Pop Stand has more details.

"The Office" to me has represented a sort of generational divide between me and our oldest daughter, Maddie. She loves the show, while I've never really quite understood the appeal. It pains me to admit that because I've always enjoyed nearly any kind of comedy. And subtle brands of humor can be more rewarding because you feel like your brain is doing some of the work, instead of just watching Three Stooges pratfalls or something.

The deadpan style of "The Office" has always seemed like a descendant of Christopher Guest's movies, such as "A Mighty Wind" (my favorite of Guest's films). I am a fan of Guest, mostly, but it's still really taken me awhile to warm up to "The Office." (The show lands in the same category for me as the humor of David Sedaris, another taste that I've never quite acquired. I know he is supposed to be hilarious, and I know that someone in my demographic is supposed to enjoy him. Friends give me Sedaris books for my birthday, assuming that I must love his subtle brand of humor. And I know that I should -- I blame myself here -- but I still can't flip the switch and become a fan, try as I might.)

While all three of our kids have been chuckling during "The Office" this season, I figured they had surpassed me in the sophistication of their senses of humor. Which is fine with me, but it doesn't explain their lingering fascination with "Hannah Montana."

Maddie has the earnest, serious side of most first-born children, so Allison and I have always particularly enjoyed watching her get such a kick out of "The Office."

When I was younger I was always an early adapter for almost any kind of humor. So I appreciate the irony of now being "the old man," whom certain types of humor is lost on.

I am finally starting to warm up to "The Office," particularly after Thursday night's "Company Picnic" episode in which the character Michael Scott and his former comedy partner did a skit at the company picnic called "Slumdunder Mifflinaire." Great stuff.

I guess I've really gotten older since the broader company of "30 Rock" is more my style these days when I turn on my stories on the TV.

---Greg

The laundry disconnect

I hate doing laundry. We have yet to come up with a workable system in our house to get laundry washed, dried and put away for five family members plus an exchange student. Sometimes we get to the washing and drying, but then we end up with 10 baskets of clothes that need to be folded and put away. That part doesn’t usually happen. Soon, dirty clothes get comingled with clean, and we start the cycle all over.

I was irritated on Mother’s Day when, in addition to having two soccer games scheduled in two distant locales, I had to keep the laundry process going. It never ends. At least at one soccer game, some of the mothers rebelled by bringing “beverages” and by that I don’t mean Tim Horton's coffee. Which made coming home and doing laundry a bit less unpleasant.

Why is it that mothers  are the only ones who know which clothes belong to whom? To stop enabling our families’ lack of laundry ownership,  I am planning on imposing a Garanimals labeling system, whereby I put embarrassing Sharpie labels with each person’s name and a ridiculous animal figure on each piece of clothing so that everyone can help sort, fold, and put away.

If that doesn’t work, I am looking into washer/dryer combo units that are popular in apartments, ships, and RVs – you throw your clothes in, and hours later they come out both cleaned and dried. Sort of the crockpot version of clothing care. I can throw a load in, come home and it will be done. Maybe that’s what I’ll ask for next Mother’s Day. Along with a promise that everyone does his/her own laundry and puts it away. Now that would be a gift that keeps on giving.

---Allison

Sounds like a backup plan

We just averted a family disaster. The hard drive on our family PC crashed over the weekend. That is the machine on which we had stored all of our digital pictures, dating back more than 10 years. All of those photos would like be gone forever, but ....

I had installed a backup system. I believe I first read about JungleDisk.com on Lifehacker. Jungle Disk is something you install on your PC, you register for an account and you pay $2 per month, plus a very small charge for data uploading and storage (15 cents each month per gigabyte of storage used, and 10 cents per GB of data uploaded, 17 cents per GB of data downloaded). Then you set your Jungle Disk to back up all of your data (photos, documents, music, whatever else you choose) at a scheduled time and it takes care of the rest.

When the inevitable hard drive crash happens -- and it's a question of when, not if -- it provides great peace of mind to have one's data backed up.  When our technical guru, Mark, helped us tap into Jungle Disk to retrieve our photos, I told him that this not only saved my pictures, but also my marriage. If 10 years of family photos had vaporized, well, let's just say things wouldn't have been pretty around here.

There are other backup products out there. (See Lifehacker's suggestions.)  And some people do their own backing up, copying their data to an external hard drive, or to DVDs, compact disks, or anything else that stores data. But I knew that I wouldn't have the discipline to stay on top of a weekly or monthly backup schedule, which is why I went the automated route.

I'm not trying to pat myself on the back here. I just want everyone to get a backup plan for their data before it's too late. (Cue Karl Malden saying "Don't let this happen to you!")

---Greg

Our waffle house

On our recent DC trip, we spent one night in a chain hotel with a breakfast buffet. I hate the typical chain hotel breakfast. The coffee is always horrible, the bagels are lame, and in general I dislike the feeding trough atmosphere.

But at this rather cheap hotel, they had a waffle iron in which you could make your own waffles. Batter was handily dispensed into cups that were sized to hold a perfect amount of batter to fill the iron with no spillover. So I opted for the waffle. Various kids in our family saw this and thought it was cool, then started to make theirs. I ignored the sign “Adult supervision required” and sat and enjoyed my waffle in peace while my kids made theirs. I believe there were spills that ensued; this was the end of our vacation so I pretended not to notice.

The waffle-making process had a bonding impact on our family. Suddenly we actually cooked something together -- although in a serial fashion -- albeit a high-carb food in a hotel lobby. So upon returning to Buffalo, I bought a waffle iron – the Wal-Mart, not Williams-Sonoma, variety. For less than $20, I was now equipped to technically provide a hot breakfast.

Since then (about 10 days), I have been providing waffles every day for breakfast. On Tuesday I didn’t know what to have for dinner, so I announced to a collective groan, “waffles.” We had run out of several boxes of mix so I actually had to make them from scratch. Quite good, but so is anything with a heavy dose of butter. And now we have leftover mix for breakfast tomorrow. Anyone for waffles?

As New Yorkers, we can be proud that one of our own invented the waffle iron, though there is some controversy around this. Which day is the correct day to celebrate Waffle Day? I report, you decide.

I long ago gave up the consumerist notion that I was one electronic device or small appliance away from happiness … if only I had a new camera, new CD player, breadmaker, pasta machine, I would be happier. But in our recessionist cocooning mode, our mere waffle iron has added some morning cheer. There is actual excitement when you lift the lid and see a perfectly toasted waffle. It’s nothing like the cardboard variety that comes in our grocer’s freezer.

We now actually cook (or more correctly, heat) our breakfast instead of dumping chocolate sugar cereal into a plastic bowl. Though since some of us add chocolate chips to our warm waffles, the nutritional effect is neutral, but it feels like we’re doing something wholesome. To paraphrase Homer Simpson, “Waffles – now there’s a temporary solution!”

---Allison