Bossier Mom Finds Her Ancestry

A few years ago I made the wonderful discovery that I had Native American ancestry. It brought all new interesting things to the forefront of life, such as growing much bigger vegetables in my garden, scattering seeds around for birds and small animals, and feeling much more in touch with the land I live in. I bought a leather purse. And purchased a really big knife with a colorful totem pole handle. I used my new colorful knife to personally clean and cook all the wild game my husband brought home for dinner. This was made easier by the fact that my husband doesn’t hunt. But the knife works very well busting through the plastic meat containers from Brookshires. I’m still working on the part at feeling that one with nature Cherokee benevolence for larger animals with big teeth, but have made great progress in liking horses, deer, and friendly dogs.

Last weekend I was standing out on the back porch in my purple pajamas communing with nature, inspecting my tomato plants, and watching my older son working in the flower bed beneath the trees in the back yard. He was grumbling about how the last two of mom’s columns printed in The Times had everyone in the world knowing he had gone to Wyoming and virtual strangers asking him which college he had finally chosen. Not necessarily a great thing when one is a teenage boy.

Abruptly this ended with a huge crash from the tree above him and the branches all rattled and shook. My son grabbed a long plastic PVC pipe, formerly used as a makeshift bow, that was lying nearby in the grass and started whacking at something in the bushes. A hideously ugly, snarling, opossum came darting out of the flower bed and running onto the back porch which, for the most minuscule next span of time, I happened to be standing on. Of course, this scenario instantly changed as I ran screaming out into the back yard to take refuge on our pool diving board and realized I didn’t have my totem pole knife, an arrow, or even my leather purse. What in the world did Pocahontas do when taken unawares with hissing man-eating small animals?

My son reminded me of my Native American heritage and told me to quit shrieking, it was just a small animal and he proceeded to grab the plastic pipe and a fishing net and headed toward the porch to catch the thing. Just a routine catch for him now, since he had just returned from the Wild West and dealt with these occurrences on a daily basis for the entire 7 days he was a mountain survivor-man. As he tapped away with the pipe and swiped with the net, the ferocious animal snarled and hissed and I hysterically hollered for him to be careful. It will bite you. They carry rabies. Don’t kill it. It will bleed all over my porch and draw predators like bears and 12 foot alligators that are now roaming freely all about the Shed Road area. And again, I was doing all this jumping and hollering in my pajamas. My loud verbal hysteria seemed to point out to both boys that I actually had more Italian ancestry than Cherokee. And I really do love Notini’s.

As my older son proceeds to bag the opossum, my younger son exits the house to see what is causing all the commotion. This son happens to be my big brained child and a Discovery Channel buff and is intent on filling the void in the world left by Steve Irwin. He then proceeds to instruct his brother (as only little brothers can do) in the proper ways of netting and capturing small animals, Louisiana Wildlife and Fishery Laws, the percentage of native Louisiana wildlife that actually carry communicable diseases, and the height in centimeters of the peak of Mount Everest in November. For a moment I wondered if the opossum was going to be the one actually netted and disposed of.

I calmed down a bit as I watched the two of them trot through the yard and toss the animal into the woods behind our house and we all went down the driveway to the calls of the mailman who happened to be driving by delivering the mail. Anxiously awaiting my new delivery of tomahawks, I ran out to his truck where he was thrilled that my older son was present because he had read about his college predicament in the paper and wanted to know if "Go Bulldogs!" was going to be appropriate from now on. My son rolled his eyes at me and smirked, which I brushed off because I was too busy trying to pretend that I wasn’t still outside after a major hunting expedition, waving hello to the neighbors, and visiting with the mailman while still in my pajamas. All in all, I realized that maybe I need to work harder on the Native American part of my DNA, and also.... I really need to get dressed much earlier in the morning.

Choose Your Path In Life That Puts A Smile On Your Face

I read in a magazine the other day that we spend something like ninety percent of our time not living in the present. Meaning we are always thinking about what we are about to do or what we have already done, rather than thinking about what we are doing right here and now.

This article came to mind as I’m watching my son, now returned from hiking in Wyoming, sit sullenly on the couch looking forlornly at the Delta luggage tag still hanging from his backpack. His clothes had not hit the washing machine yet due to that nostalgic smell of campfires and sagebrush that still clung to them and reminded of a fantastic week of throwing boulders off mountains and swimming in fast moving 35 degree rivers.

The reason for the sullen mood was he was now faced with The Great Dilemma. As adults we are all faced with a series of Great Dilemmas, but young people coming of age find that first taste of life being in shades of gray very hard to comprehend. Things were so easy when life was in black and white. When Ms. Cox told you if you talked in class one more time, you were going to take a fast trip down the hall to have Mr. Plunkett explain to you the value of silence from now till you left Airline High forever. Those are the days of when life was really easy....in hindsight, of course.

His Great Dilemma is now that he loved everything about Wyoming. The college, the people, the weather, sleeping under a billion stars, long nights by the campfire where he and his fellow campers spent hours sticking the shovel into the coals until it glowed red and then running to plunge it into the river where it would billow steam and then run back to shove it in the coals again. Great fun for 18 year old campers. My husband listened to him recount his trip, while whispering a sidenote to me as to how this must be one of the enriching activities young people miss by sitting on the couch playing Xbox.

But, he also toured the college a second time and realized that Louisiana Tech had the Wyoming engineering program beat. Hands down! I was thrilled to think that our little college in Ruston left most other schools in the dust when it came to a quality engineering education. Not just anyone could engineer a nano, AND teach it with enough pizazz to make our smartest young people eager to learn how. Also it was a plus for me that Tech does not have bears. And my son, after having the time of his life in an area that he had taken to like a fish takes to water....or a bear takes to a human shinbone....realized that a quality education tipped the scales quite a bit when weighed against everything else.

The Dilemma, however, has to be solved. The one piece of advice I felt I should offer was that whichever way he chooses to go, he chooses that path and does so with a smile on his face and joy in his heart. I mentioned people we know that choose a life in one place or another and do nothing but moan about how much better the place not chosen is. Like in that article, never enjoying the here and now, but let years roll by moaning about how much better is a state other than Louisiana, a place other than Bossier, a climate other than sweltering southern summers. Makes me always want to offer up how pleasant tubing down a freezing river in northern Idaho must be.....while a bear’s pawing for his lunch 3 feet away.

We all make choices. I explained to my confused young man how I had to put aside my own hopes for a career in Extreme Hangliding when a blue-eyed man walked into my life and offered to share the next fifty years of his with me. Also I gave up the Astronaut thing to thoroughly enjoy day after day of reading Good Night Moon and spending ten hours at a time in the toy aisle at Wal Mart. I never looked back. And I never really acquired a taste for Tang anyway.

Dreams should stay with us. Guide our futures, but not cloud the present. Feel the here and now. Smell the crepe myrtles. If Louisiana it is, make that choice, and then enjoy the heck out of every minute of it. Tech is silky voiced southern girls with sunbleached hair, and buddies that don’t throw boulders, but ride around in duelies and ‘go muddin.’ And very few cougars.

This seemed to perk him up enough where I felt I could follow my daughter out the door to rollerblade down my suburban ordinary street. The street that I raised three children on and still had a mailbox painted bright green from a budding twelve year old artist. But it did cross my mind that Women’s Rollerderby was gaining popularity again, and when my daughter left on her own journey, I just might look good on ESPN.

Worried Mom Says Goodbye to College Bound Son

I sit here on the eve of my little boy's departure into the great big world. Great big Wyoming to be exact. And my little boy happens to be about six feet and 230 pounds, but that is irrelevant. He's my little boy. And he's smart and strong and has an excellent education behind him and I am so very proud of the man he has become. And I am dying inside.

When did my own mom and dad’s predictions come true? You know, the ones about how the years will fly by and life will seem like it passed in the snap of a finger. How dare they be proved so right. My twenty year old self absolutely knew they didn’t know anything they were talking about. Now here I am, helping my son, Charley, pack for college orientation and a hiking trip in the mountains over twelve hundred miles away. And how I wish I could throw him and his brother and sister in the car for one more trip to Chuck E Cheese, one more afternoon at the old Kiddie Mia’s, maybe one more long, pleasant morning of me leaning against the counter at the East 80 library catching up with a week’s worth of goings on with the two other librarians while Ms Anita has a bunch of 4 year olds glue cotton balls on a construction paper Santa.

As I sat in the auditorium of Airline High School at awards day, I looked over my shoulder at my son and several of his friends sitting in the rows behind me. The same group of skinny 10 year olds that I had sat through endless CABOSA soccer games watching them kick a ball around the field, while at the same time trying to chase my then toddler daughter all over the sidelines. The same group that I had sweated through baseball games at Tinsley, and watched them make their first attempts at being a band in Cope’s gym at Christmas. When did they all get so big? They sat behind me with beards and sideburns and the confidence that only young men moving forward into the world possess. I wondered at the little boys that had played in my yard. Would Broox be a doctor like his father? Zach a jet fighter? Michael a lawyer?

Everyone close to me was surprised at how well I was taking my son going so far away to school. After all I’m the mom that wouldn’t even let them cross the street until they were at least driving age. I was all right until I actually bought the plane ticket. Then I seemed to have a really big problem sleeping at night. Mostly worrying about bears. Bears live in Wyoming and like to eat campers. Of course there was a bear here in Bossier City. I saw that in The Times where Wildlife and Fisheries had to come get him. Good, one less bear in Wyoming. After I pondered bears for a few nights and was assured by the camp guide that really bears don’t want to bother fifteen loud teenage kids, I went on to worry about....cougars. After all we don’t have cougars in Louisiana. My son might not know what to do about a cougar. The ever patient camp guide assured me again that cougars didn’t like large groups of teenagers crashing through the forest either. Then of course, Wyoming has lots of cliffs. My son isn’t used to cliffs in Louisiana. He could be running along, not thinking, and run right off one. At this point my husband usually puts the pillow over his head and tells me to please go to sleep.

How can a mom sleep worrying about her son maybe hanging off a rocky precipice in the American West because I raised him in a state that is completely flat? How can I quit tossing and turning thinking about that little boy that I walked into TL Rhodes Elementary and turned over into Ms Moody’s capable hands now climbing a mountain infested with bears?

And I realize that as I am worrying about him dangling off his own precipice, I am actually dangling off one of my own. That of a mother with a grown son who does not live at home. Now that is definitely scary, uncharted territory. Even without bears and cougars, it’s a scary wilderness to cross. I am so proud that he grew into a strong and confident young man not afraid to head off into an unfamiliar place and future. That would mean we accomplished what parents are supposed to do. But would I redo all those afternoons of throwing breadcrumbs in the Country Place pond, all those cold evenings of trouncing through Carriage Oaks with three little ones pointing out the best Christmas lights, all the dark quiet nights where my head was bobbing but I managed to finish another chapter of Harry Potter for my drowsy boys. Would I take on problem teachers and chicken pox again and worrying about strangers following them on their bicycles? Those days are past, I can sleep late and eat at restaurants without happy meals. Would I do it all over again? Oh, yes... In a heartbeat!

David Goes To College

Two years ago I began sharing my life every week with all of you on the eve of my older son’s departure for college. It only seems fitting that I end this journey on the eve of my younger son’s departure for the same. I have once again begun a summer of buying sheets for twin beds, desktop lamps, little bitty refrigerators, and laundry bags for dirty clothes that will hopefully bring him home to be washed.

Now I face my second little boy leaving my nice, safe nest. The little one that followed big brother around the house and back yard from the time he took his first steps. That same one that hid behind the couch while watching Jurassic Park just one more time. The one with the skinny little three year old shoulders that wriggled at me to scratch his back just a little while more. And the one whose pitiful calls echoed in a big empty house when big brother started his first year of school. "Charrrrr-leeeee! Where are you???"

He has grown tall and strong and smart, and I am so proud of the man he has become. As I watched another round of blue robed, young people walk across the stage for Airline High, I cried in the stands remembering the sweet little people they had once been. I heard echoes of soccer games, and tee ball, and field days gone by. I smelled remnants of popcorn I had popped and candy I had sold while all those young children jostled and pushed to get first in line every Friday. I remembered field trips of herding kids around the Fair, and hours of sitting through lessons while he made his first attempts at being part of a band.

Now he is heading way down south and it seems so far away. I began once again losing sleep fretting how he would adjust to a new place and new life. Late at night I woke up worrying about him playing hockey so far away. What if he got hurt? My older boy had gotten hurt once during Rugby and I had to rush to his side. But Ruston was much closer than Lafayette. Could they take care of him until I got there?

The next morning I called the school and asked if they had a doctor on campus in case he got hurt or maybe came down with the flu. The kind freshmen counselor assured me they had a clinic on campus and they would take care of him just fine. Then that night I worried that maybe a clinic wouldn’t be enough. Suppose he got hit by a speeding puck or misplaced skate? Lafayette was swampy and had alligators on campus and probably had mosquitoes biting worse than we ever even imagined up here. Suppose he got West Nile Virus or Malaria or Swine Flu, or suppose he tripped and fell down?

The next morning after another call, the ever patient freshmen counselor assured me that Lafayette was well equipped for anything that may happen. She said they had doctors and hospitals just like every place else, and they had not yet lost a student to a wild alligator running rampage on campus. She assured me he was a fine young man that I had raised to be smart and strong, and he would handle anything that came his way with the confidence and skills he had gained from the home I had given.

But this did nothing to stop my tossing at night. And as I lie in the dark, quiet house and think of my little boy turning into a man, I wonder. Would I do it all again? Would I spend hundreds of hours chasing little people around Chuck E Cheese, and spend thousands of dollars eating only Happy Meals every time we went out? Would I spend years again going only to G rated movies, and end every evening falling asleep in a chair with Harry Potter on my lap? Would I lose months of sleep tending sick little boys and go through 13 more years of getting up before first light? Would I spend years once again reading Mercer Mayer and have the TV forever tuned to Nick? Would I spend hours waiting outside of hockey practice, and spend eternities next to a bed waiting for a temperature to drop? Would that mean I would go through eons of holding little sticky hands as I crossed streets, and get food stained kisses whenever I walked outside?

Would I lose that much more sleep? Would I do it all over again? Oh, yes. Without a doubt. In a heartbeat.

An Appropriate Time To Talk

After trying to explain to my husband why I had gone to the warehouse club that morning and bought more stuff than could fit in my car, my husband rather curtly told me that it was not a wise person that needed to put her convertible top down to stuff the last 48 packs of Ramen noodles in the car. He was rather insistent on my limiting shopping trips to only the amount that would fit through the doors, and very insistent on me not buying another pack of Ramen noodles or can of tuna until the year 2010. No matter how good a bargain they seemed.

I was still grumbling about his obvious lack of bargain sense when my son came into the kitchen and asked why I was grumbling. After I explained the situation, my son tried to explain why his father was perfectly justified in his reprimanding of me and that I really should be more reasonable and understanding. And maybe not shop as much. Holding up my hand to silence his third party explanations, I told him he really needed a lesson on the appropriate times to talk. And this was not one of them. Silence was golden when not agreeing with his mother.

Seeing an opportune moment to give a life’s lesson to my firstborn, I went on with illustrations of when to talk and when to be quiet. I started with the obvious. When in church, it is not appropriate to talk. However, you may whisper. Or give an exaggerated wave when spotting a friend across the aisle.

Movie theaters are a place where one should not talk. They even display warnings before the movie that silence is golden. However, everyone knows this is just a suggestion because you absolutely have to talk when guessing the ending of the movie or feel the need to guess every actor’s name and what previous movie they played in.

My daughter was standing nearby and already knowing the talking rules because, as a woman, it is programmed in her DNA, she went on to explain to her brother other situations where talking was appropriate. She explained that in her history class it was inappropriate to talk sitting down. So since she had a daily problem with this, her teacher often made her stand up. Usually at the back of the class. Once she was standing, it was then appropriate to talk. Although the teacher did not necessarily agree with this rule. Also, the boy sitting near her had a problem with listening. As she constantly chattered in his direction he made the mistake of listening and thus be made to stand against the wall also.

But, an appropriate time to listen would have to be saved for another lesson on another day.
She went on to explain that in her other class, she had a problem knowing exactly when the teacher did not want her to talk. So the teacher would kindly send her into the hallway. Every single day. According to my daughter, this was an appropriate place to talk. Especially with the other students in the hall. Out here they did not have to worry about disrupting the class. They just had to worry about the principal passing.

I patted my daughters head at her socialization prowess. After all, not everyone was born with such fine social skills. I had recently run into one of her teachers at church, and the teacher had told me that my daughter was.....um.....very "social." I was so very proud that the teacher had taken notice.

I also explained to my son, that being very social myself, I loved walking with my dear friend in the mornings. But, a truly skilled socializer knows that this may appear an appropriate time, but is actually not. My friend is much taller than me and walks very, very fast. This makes me trot at a very brisk pace and run very short of oxygen by the first quarter mile. Lack of breathing and risk of passing out and turning blue, makes it an inappropriate time to talk. However, it is perfectly fine for her to talk. And I do forget my prowess and attempt conversation periodically. Luckily my friend keeps a portable defibrillator in her fanny pack.

My son’s girlfriend walked in during our lesson, and we explained to her what we were explaining to him. Not necessarily agreeing with the three women in his life, he began to argue the soundness of some of our lessons. Once again, I held up my hand and silenced him. Explaining that when outnumbered three to one by very social women, he should have now learned that this was an extremely inappropriate time to talk.

Farm Town

All my teenagers have Facebook accounts. For months I have heard them talk about what was on Facebook, what Facebook quizzes they took, what pictures they posted. After giving them the responsible mom speech of watch out for creeps and predators and freaky stalkers, I then gave the speech that they spent way too much time on an internet program and how much did they really need to connect with people they saw all the time. I would never do something so silly.

Then several of my friends told me they had Facebook pages because that’s what good moms do. That way they can oversee their children and what is on their pages to make sure no creepy predators will see too much. They said I should have one too. So one day I signed on and created my own Facebook account.

Well, I needed some friends, or it really didn’t work. My daughter was my first friend, still young enough to want her mom as her internet friend. Then a few of her friends became my friend, too. I asked my son to be my friend and he, and even his girlfriend, became my friend. This made me very happy. My other son blocked me. He wasn’t friendly. I told myself it was his loss that I was not his friend. After all, I am very friendly.

For awhile I signed on once in awhile and checked out my friends. Then one day, my son’s girlfriend posted a very nice photo and I left a comment. My son told me that was just too creepy to have a mom comment on a photo. I could remain their friend, but had to be a very silent one. I did not want to be creepy.

Then I started getting more friends. It was such fun. I reconnected with friends that had moved far away. I could now hear about when they drank their coffee and see pictures of what they cooked for dinner. This wasn’t particularly interesting, but it was nice to think about my far away friends.

Then I got some friends from high school. This was fun too. I hadn’t seen many of them in 25 years and now I could read about what movies they liked and see pictures of their kids I had never met. Since I posted a photo of myself from about 20 years ago, just so no one would know I am now middle aged, I was surprised to see that so many of my high school friends hadn’t aged either. It was amazing. But it made me feel very old. And wrinkly.

Then I got friends from when I was about only ten years old. And even ones from when I was five! And I hadn’t even thought of them since then. Of course we have nothing to talk about since we don’t really play Barbies or jump rope anymore. But it was nice to see when they stepped out for coffee and what Facebook games they were playing.

Then they started sending me quizzes. I could find if I was stressed, or what Star Wars character I was, or what superhero was most like me. Quizzes to find if I was normal or a potential serial killer, and I could even grow my own virtual farm.

This was the worst. I spent hours each day tending my virtual farm. I would plant my crops, and check back often to see them grow. I could harvest them and sell them, and build fences for my horses and pigs. I could go to my friends’ farms to help them harvest their crops and we could all be neighbors and send each other horses and pigs. I thought maybe I had been on a bit too much when driving down the highway I passed a barn. I thought only 50,000 more coins and I could own one too. When passing a beautiful garden, I wondered if the owner would let me harvest it and we would both get more coins. My children worried about my problem with farming and how I was ignoring my own too-much-internet advice.

Realizing my problem, I let my virtual farm finally go fallow and let my obsessions calm down. Then one morning I get an email from my mother asking to be my Facebook friend. She had her own account now and was gathering friends. She would take her own tests probably want to comment on my photos. I wasn’t too sure about having my mom comment on my photos. But, then again, if she had her own farm, would she let me help harvest her crops?

Pool Party

After nine long months of waking up at 5:55 to get everyone dressed and out the door for school by seven, and passing out on the couch by nine, the last day had finally arrived. I made the last lunch, handed out the last backpack, and waited the last time for that teeny, tiny break in traffic where I could zoom into the busy street of other parents heading for school. I was looking forward to sleeping a bit later, taking life a bit slower, and having a less regimented schedule. And it all would begin today.

Well, it would almost begin today. It would begin right after my daughter had her End Of The Year Pizza and Swimming Blow Out. After 15 screaming girls piled into my car and then into my yard for some serious fun, then the slow lazy days of summer would hopefully begin.
My husband left that afternoon, as he had been told by my daughter that morning, to cart home many young ladies that were ready to swim. I stayed behind to start baking pizzas that I had been told were on the menu for the afternoon. The pool had been cleaned, the grass mowed, and the picnic table polished for the big day.

I was still pouring chips in a bowl when the car doors opened and a bunch of chattering, screeching, giggling young girls ran through the yard and my daughter led the noisy bunch upstairs to change clothes. They all crammed in her room while trying out her perfume and investigating her latest purchases from Belk’s. They hurriedly changed and wasted no time hurrying back down the stairs to head for the pool. But they did take a detour to yell names at her brother and tell the girl that her clothes were outdated and she seemed thinner last time they had met. Nothing like trying to knock out the competition while still several years too young.

Very pleased at the angry looks from the girl and dodging the swats from the brother, the gang of teen girls hurried out to the yard. I was amazed at how a pan of pizza could disappear in mere seconds. And also how pizza seemed just as edible after being dropped in the pool. And how 15 girls could all be talking at once, and yet insisting that the radio needed to be louder, and how cell phones didn’t seem to work as well when they got wet. And how pepperonis can float.

I brought out pizza after pizza, while trying to pick up glasses and cell phones from puddles of water and place them in dry, safe places. I would hurry back out when shrieks went up that glasses were missing and pizza ran out. Then right when I thought they were going to all die of starvation, one mom showed up with a pan full of brownies. A cry of glee went up in the air and they attacked the poor mom and left her damp and frazzled and holding a tray of nothing but crumbs.

After sitting the post-brownie mauled woman in a chair to recover, I hurried inside and outside, retrieving drinks and answering yells. It did make me wonder how after an afternoon of dozens of juice bottles, I had very few requests for directions to my bathroom. As I wiped my sweaty hair back from my face and plopped next to the brownie victim, I pondered the price of extra chlorine for the pool. And wondered if the person that named the lazy, crazy, summer days had ever thrown a pool party for teenage girls.

But after hundreds of jumps from the diving board and thousands of squirts with the hose, the moms began to parade in like the calvary coming over the hill. The screams began to quiet and no one hollered when I turned the volume on the radio down. I walked through the yard picking up scattered Sunny D bottles and skimming the last of the floating pepperonis out of the pool.

The lazy, crazy, days of summer had begun. Young people having fun and partying til they dropped. But even though I wouldn’t need to set my alarm for 5:55 in the morning, I had a feeling that if I made it until nine o’clock on this evening it would be my own high note of middle aged mom partying til she dropped. Those long summer days of no early mornings, afternoons of swimming, and watching TV until late at night would just have to wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow after I had removed all the pizza from the skimmers and dumped extra chlorine in the pool.

Houdini's Disappearing Pants

Harry Houdini was a great magician. Performing all kinds of magic tricks, he could make all kinds of things appear out of nowhere. He could make a rabbit appear out of somebody’s hat. The Ace of Hearts would appear amazingly in the pocket of his coat. Or he could make a bird appear fluttering frantically right out of thin air.

Every mom knows that Houdini wasn’t unique in his magical abilities. When my daughter is scrambling frantically about for where she left her clarinet, I magically go look in the spot where it should be and magically make it appear. When my son is insisting that I have not washed his favorite, navy blue school shirt, I patiently ask him if he has looked in his closet. I then get that condescending look that only irate teenagers can give to parents that seem to be asking the world’s most stupid question. Of course, he has looked in his closet.

So I then go on to look in my ironing pile for the disappearing shirt. Then in the dryer. Then I dump out the bucket of dirty clothes to see if, just perhaps, when washing 90 loads of clothes each day, I happened to miss washing his favorite blue shirt for the last seven days. Then as he is frantically pulling at his hair, and pointing at the clock, and wailing that I have lost his blue shirt, his brother must have stolen it, I got it mixed up in the Goodwill bag, I patiently walk up to his room and look in his closet. And....Abracadabra!!!! It magically appears.

Well, it must be magic, because he insisted it wasn’t there.

A few weeks ago we had a family event where my son needed a new suit. Leaving the shopping to my husband while I handled things with the family, they naturally went to the store and paid no attention to price. Men tend to do that. He came home with a really nice new jacket with a matching, dapper, new pair of pants. After wearing them for a few hours, I found them a few days later crumpled up in his room.

Realizing that many men not only buy pants not on sale, but also leave them crumpled on the floor, I patiently picked them up and patiently had them cleaned. And then I hung them back in his closet. A few days later he had to wear them again. I told my son to take very good care of them, I just had them cleaned and they would be excellent pants to wear to graduation in a few days.

But then the pants disappeared. Almost as if by magic. Wanting to get them clean and pressed for the upcoming big day, I began to search around for the magically disappearing pair of pants. I searched high and I searched low, and no pants could be found. So I asked my son to please find them.

A few days went by. I asked him again. I got a huff and a puff, and a "Mom, quit nagging."
More days went by. I asked him again. This time with a bit more volume. And a bit more nagging. And a threat that we were running out of time. And a reminder that they had cost too much money. And another reminder that they had cost so much to be cleaned. And then I nagged some more.

Finally, after that last and best nag, my son went to retrieve the pants. Grumbling the whole time, because he knew just where they were. But then he searched in his room. He searched in his car. He searched in the garage, in the driveway, in the pool. He searched in the attic, and the back yard, and the mailbox. He couldn’t seem to find his pants.

Crossing my arms I asked where did he last see them. He told me in the garage. He knew they were there. His brother must have taken them. His brother must have lost his own pants, so was now wearing his.

Knowing that his brother was not wearing the pants, I searched couch cushions and under beds and behind doors. I made him call his friends and their friends and their friends, but still no pants were to be found.

Finally, I realized, that not only would be the one wearing nothing but boxers on that Saturday afternoon. But, just like Houdini couldn’t perform that one final trick, this magician of a mom would never find that one disappearing pair of pants.

The Last One Is Sweetest

As a kid, one of my favorite candies was M&Ms. I loved sorting out the colors and eating all of, say, the yellow ones first. They were great fun to pelt that skinny freckled boy at recess who was always hanging around. And although they weren’t supposed to melt in your hand, they always did, and made a great multi-colored tattoo on your palm when holding it upright to give Mr. Spocks Vulcan greeting to your science geeky friends.

The only thing is, that in that little brown bag, there never seemed to be enough. After sharing them, and throwing them, and watching ants swarm them, I would get down to the last few and always wished I had enjoyed the others more. Eaten them slower. Thrown less at the freckled boy. Not agitated the ant piles. The last one was always the sweetest, I would take the most time before eating it, and I held it on my tongue the longest. And when finally the bag was empty, I really wished I had just one more. Because, after all, that final M&M was the very last one.

Last week my second son finished his last day of school as a senior. He is my second little boy to finish 13 years of getting up obscenely early in the morning to get dressed, eat breakfast, and grab lunches as I stood in the driveway to see three little people off on the big yellow bus. I would wave until it made the corner in the beginning, trying not to droop too badly as my tired body wanted to go collapse in the grass. And as they got older, I was no longer allowed to wave in the driveway, so I would watch the yellow bus make the corner from my kitchen window. And even later, I would clandestinely watch that blue truck pull out of the drive.

Now for the second time, it was over. No more arguments in the morning about where was his favorite shirt. No more complaints about how I had burned his eggs and used the wrong bread for his toast. He will be heading away down the highway to find his own clothes and toast his own bread, not needing Mom anymore.

No longer will I hear the arguments in the hallway of how his sister is hogging the bathroom, or getting makeup all over his stuff. I will never again have that scramble to find the essay he wrote last week or the Algebra homework he left on the couch. He has come over the crest of the mountain and done it so well, but 13 years seemed to fly by far too quickly just like those summer days flew by of vacations at the beach.

As he grabbed his last white collared shirt and khaki Hollister pants, and he ate his last scrambled eggs before dashing out the door, I stared at the young man that had once been my little boy. That same little boy who I had called out word after word on each Thursday morning while he was learning to spell. The same one who had counted the days until he could catch that bus with his big brother for the very first time. That same one who I had taken off work to attend field days and field trips, and dashed up to the school to bring forgotten backpacks and trumpets, had sold millions of candies and mountains of popcorn to fund 13 years of PTOs at three different schools. He came home that last day with a mortarboard and tassels and ran off with his friends.

I remember when they first started school, I thought I faced an eternity of those early, dark mornings where I would never sleep until the sun rose again. I thought I had forever of early nights for bedtime and countless hours of homework. I looked forward to the end of those many colorful days of regimented lifestyles and only buying white shirts.

And that last day in my kitchen I carefully cooked his eggs. I ironed his white shirt and handed him his last few dollars for lunch. This morning was so different than the thousands before. This morning I tried to make last just that few minutes longer, and hold each minute that much more dear. Because I knew this one was different. This one laden with regret of all the mornings I wasted. If only I had just a few mornings more. And as I watched that young man dash away I knew this morning was sweetest. Because, after all, it was the very last one.

A Mouse In The House

In the south deer hunting is still a popular sport. Some people love it, anxiously waiting for deer season to open and regularly cruise Bass’s Pro Shop for every new gadget ever invented for hunters. They keep pictures of Charlton Heston on their walls, and have bumper stickers about prying guns out of cold, dead fingers. Others hate deer hunting and cringe at killing Bambi. Growing up loving Bambi, I understand how they think of the little speckled guy every time a shotgun blasts. I understand their feelings. I also love venison.

The sweet cartoon character came to mind the other night while lying in bed I hear a scratching in the ceiling. I froze while the scratching get louder and moved across my bedroom ceiling. I thought it could be a cute little squirrel like Rocky or it could be a kitty like Garfield. But it didn’t take long lying their in late night terror to realize it was a rat.

Hearing it move across the ceiling, I bolted upstairs to my daughters room to see if it was attacking her while I had been frozen in fear down below, and opened her door to find her sleeping peacefully, unaware of the monstrous beast. Finding her alive, I ran downstairs to retrieve our cats to slay the beast. I picked up the bigger of the two cats, who weighs about 25 pounds and prefers to not move if he doesn’t have to. I opened the attic door and told him to go kill the rat. He looked at me with heavy lidded eyes and yawned.

Pushing him with my foot, I tried to get him to run into the attic. Cats are supposed to love chasing rats. Maybe he didn’t know that. So I told him. He meowed again and headed back downstairs and sat down near his bowl. He didn’t appear overly enthusiastic at saving my life. The other cat ran away.

In spite of my late night wanderings, nobody else woke up with the monster running around our attic. I cautiously went back to bed and, after a very long time, fell back asleep. The next day I told my husband what happened. He patted my sleepy head and told me I had been dreaming. Seeing my face, he amended that with the suggestion that he would put some traps in the attic just in case I hadn’t been dreaming. But that I had.

After sprinkling the attic with several types of rat traps and sticky traps, the next few nights we all went to bed with only me awakened repeatedly to the scratching and clawing over my head. The last night I lay frozen in my spot for hours, waiting for the monster rat to make it into the attic to certain death, or ready to spring if he fell through the ceiling and landed on my bed. The rat took his time and didn’t head to the attic. Unwilling to remain in mortal peril, I went to sleep on the couch.

After finally drifting off to sleep, I was awakened again to a deafening clamor from the upstairs hall. Realizing the rat must have been caught in the sticky tape, he was pounding back and forth on the attic door. I waited for someone to wake up. The pounding got louder. I was not about to go finish him myself. No one woke up and after forever the pounding stopped.

The next morning I dragged myself into the kitchen after a week of sleepless, rat filled nights. I told my husband and kids that I thought he was caught. How had they slept through it all? They opened the attic door in awe that their really was a rat and he really was dead. And sticky. And that I really hadn’t been dreaming.

I asked what would have happened if it had been a burglar pounding on the door and they had remained asleep? What if he had been stabbing me and they hadn’t even known. They smiled and said, surely as he had been stabbing me on the couch, my screams would have wakened them and they could have all run to safety. Surely the rat wasn’t as loud as I claimed.

But that night as I dragged myself into my nice comfy bed to finally get a quiet nights sleep, one thought crossed my mind. Maybe some people’s hearts break when they think of all deer as Bambi. But, although I was a Disney fan too, not once in the past sleepless week had I wanted mercy for Mickey.

The Most Perfect Fit

Back in the Eighties, which was probably way before I was born, it was absolutely necessary for all the most stylish people to only wear certain brands of jeans. If you showed up at school with jeans that did not say Lee, or Calvin, or Brittania, then you were outcast to the group that shopped wrong. The problem with many of these brands, however, was that most stylish clothes are modeled by women who have never eaten a cheeseburger in ten years and top out at about 92 pounds.

Now I did know several girls that topped out at 92 pounds, and they wore the stylish brands very well. And then some of them didn’t. They were so very skinny that the jeans were just saggy and baggy and didn’t fit. And then I had another friend that was absolutely beautiful, but very curvy. She loved Gloria Vanderbilt jeans and would rush to the store every payday to buy a new pair of those perfect jeans. Lucky for her they were one of the preferred brands on that teenage list, but most of all she loved them because they were the perfect fit. And that made her even more beautiful.

When I was about 8 years old, which was probably somewhere back around ten or twelve years ago, I would dream of having the perfect wedding dress. Of course, at age eight my dream of the perfect dress was this fur trimmed, diamond glistening dress with a 30 foot train that caused all the wedding guests to gasp at its beauty as I walked by. When I actually did shop for my wedding dress, I searched all places and prices. Being an only child, I knew my mother would be willing to pay whatever price for my perfect dress.

After trying on beautiful dress after beautiful dress, and having sketch after sketch of special orders offered to me, I stopped in one small store in Bossier and glanced through the ones hanging on the rack. And there I found it. Right off the rack, less than a quarter of the price of my next favorite one. And I thought it was the most beautiful dress I had seen, and it made me the most beautiful bride I could be. It was the perfect fit.

So now my son is choosing a college. And he happens to have a very, very big brain. And happens to be quite athletic, too. So we get letter after letter from school after school offering him wonderful things and wonderful places to go. Gathering up all these wonderful offers, we began to tour those that seemed best.

We toured a school of extremely big brained young people. They all walked around with special made hats for their extremely large heads. And they showed us inventions they had invented and new planets they had discovered. The professors had extra snazzy suits and wore extra shiny glasses to aid in teaching these extra smart kids. But my son just didn’t feel comfortable in a place where he would need that extra large hat.

So then we went to another school that offered all kinds of sports. The swimming pool was extra long and wide. The workout room would computer program your muscles. The athletes were extra tall and their faces glowed with the very best health. The football team threw extra long passes and the basketballs had that much more bounce. But with so many people teaming around this giant place, my son just didn’t feel like he was anything more than just another one of the extra strong guys. And the price of vitamins would have been far too much.

So we toured one more school before giving up on the rest. This one was just the right size, not too big or too small. This one was not very far away, so it wouldn’t take too much gas. The athletes were strong, but still friendly, their teachers glasses not too thick. And it was right here in Louisiana, had been right here all the time. It had mosquitoes and alligators, but had no bears or sharks.

And it proved just once again, although some people may rate things high, while others rate them low, that whether too big or too small, too pricey or too cheap, the most important thing of all is look very close at everything. Because hiding right on that rack, or right in your back yard, is the very thing that may be the most wonderful of all, and that very best and most perfect fit.

Mowing the Grass

The days are getting long again and sunshine fills the air. Birds sing sweet songs again, bees buzz around fragrant flowers, and the grass, once again, has grown lush and thick. Time to wash off the grill, clean the pool, and, of course, take out the lawnmower.

As I heaved the dirt encrusted clunker across the yard, I remembered that the self-propelling mechanism had broken last year. But in a great brainstorm of economics, I had decided to not fix it. Having to push it myself would be great aerobic activity and supreme muscle building for my arms. I had decided to use old fashioned strength and determination to mow my yard. My giant yard. With lots of grass. More grass than I remembered it having.

So as my daughter reclined on the swing in the fresh spring air, I heaved and sweated and pushed that monster machine around the yard. Since my daughter regularly confuses herself with the Queen of England, I knew I would receive no help there. And having decided over the winter to accept my post-forty year old body, I knew this old mower was no longer the turbo-muscle machine that I had dreamed it to be. I seriously needed a new mower.

It was actually exciting to be the one to pick out the brand new lawnmower. I never had that privilege before. So trying to be the best lawnmower chooser ever, I went from store to store and observed many makes and models, and asked many mechanical questions of men that wore aprons and had pencils behind their ears.

I opted for a shiny black mower that propelled itself and came with a two year warranty. My son helped me pick it up in his truck and then put it together. It was nice to know that several years at Louisiana Tech and thousands of dollars had come to use by him being very proficient at assembling the handle bar of the mower. But all that shopping had left me very tired, so I waited several days before taking it for its first run.

Sunday morning I got up bright and early, and didn’t decide to mow. I waited until later. Then when no one else looked like they were going to mow, I ran outside and fired up my new machine. It was very fast, and very easy, and I buzzed right down the yard. And then it broke. I had a beautifully mowed half yard and a broken mower. My husband patted my back and told me he would take it back to the store.

When he got there they wanted to repair it. After all, I had bought the extended warranty. He patiently explained that it was brand new and he just wanted another one. The guy with the pencil behind his ear wasn’t very happy. He had coffee waiting and two donuts on a napkin. Telling my husband he couldn’t return it without the bags and papers it came with, he sent him back home while he went back to his donuts.

My husband remained calm and went back for the bags, of which, luckily, we still had. He then returned to the store where the man had finished his first donut. At this point my husband said he didn’t really want a new one anymore, he would prefer his money back. The man said he needed the credit card it had been purchased with. Which happened to be my mom’s. She had kindly used it that day when shopping with me, because my son had talked me out of all the cash in my wallet. And my one and only credit card, also.

So my husband had to retrieve my mother, which was not that easy a task. Prying a woman off a quarter slot machine, when she was just ready to hit three 7s, is very difficult. Especially when she hadn’t eaten her free buffet yet. But with much hard work, and promise of dinner at Captain Ds, he got her back to the store and they refunded our money.

4 hours later, 1 dinner at Captain Ds, 3 rolls of quarters, and much frustration later, my husband returned home having completed returning the mower. He smiled tightly and told me although I had done a very good job at choosing the last one, and was very good at tending the grass, he knew I wouldn’t mind if he bought our next mower. He just didn’t have any energy left for more returns. And not nearly enough quarters left to ask any more help from my mom.