A Mile In the Snow. Barefoot!

Let's cut to the chase. What the hell is up with kids today? I'm not talking about jeans hanging below their asses (definitely do not understand that phenomenon) or rap music. There will always be something that younger people do that successively older folks will understand less and less the farther away from youth they happen to be. I'm talking about something far more basic.

At what point did screaming swear words in public become acceptable? What parenting class/book advocates tolerance of children hitting their parents as a form of negotiation? When did saying "no" constitute stiffling a child's emotional well being? How is it that a 3 year old can decide the fate of an entire group of people simply by throwing a tantrum that forces all in the room to rearrange the world to allow that child to feel good about themselves. Never mind that the lovely little angel has shattered everyone's eardrums because Mom was stupid to bring out the regular Goldfish crackers instead of the multi-coloured ones and wishes to have the situation rectified NOW!!!!!!!!

I am mortally tired of walking past groups of teenagers who seem to only be able to communicate through endless strings of curse words. And this is coming from someone who can swear with the best of them. When I am walking down the street, common societal courtesy states that if the oncoming pedestrian is more than 5 years my junior, and there is only room for one of us to pass, that the younger predestrian should stand aside to let the elder pass. I can't remember the last time that happened and I wasn't forced to step into the street. Even worse have been the times when I have had to shield an elderly person with some type of walking aide from these absolutely clueless kids.

The urge to yell comes on in a particularly strong way when I see parents at the playground kill themselves to provide their kids with every overly expensive, organic, whole grain snack available at Trader Joe's in an effort to prevent harmful chemicals entering their precious childrens delicate systems, but do nothing when those same children constantly interrupt any semblance of adult conversation by screeching, shin kicking or violent leg grabbing.

Of course, there are many children out there who have manners and not every parent allows horrid behavior in their children. There are just so many of them out there who don't. And those kids are growing up. If we are all the sum total of our experiences and relationships, then these kids are going to grow up to be selfish, self-centered, and incapable of reasonable two-way conversation.

Now before anyone out there gets their panties in a twist over my opinions, truly ponder these questions...

• With what we see, everyday in public from so many of these kids, would you hire them to work in your business? Would you want some kid whose clothes require a belt and the left hand to keep them up speaking to your clients? How about a kid who has never greeted anyone with anything other than "s'up" answering your phone?


• When you get into a fender bender with someone who was brought up to believe it is acceptable to hit their mother when she says "no", how far do you think you will get before that person hits you because you want to exchange insurance info?


• If your child isn't one of these little darlings and is lucky enough to have been brought up with manners and a sense of decorum, thank you for teaching them. But how do they fair against those kids in their classes who weren't? And don't think private school education is the answer, because I see this same horrible behavior from kids in catholic school uniforms, too.

No child or parent is perfect. Lord knows, I have a long way to go. My kids don't always remember to say "please" and "thank you". Una loves to push her way to the front of everything. Cameron loves to interupt. I probably say "no" way too often. Every parent I have ever known, myself included, has had at least one day when their child has caused them to shudder in horror over behavior too embarassing for words. I just wonder how far we can get when our children have no clue how to use a fork or at the very least not scream piercingly about "NOOOOOOWWW!" whenever they want something. What price will we pay in the future for not fixing this problem now? What price will these kids pay?

Episode 3 or 6? A Matter of Perspective

OK. So now we know what's under the black mask that has been breathing heavily at us for the last twenty years. We took the kids to see "Revenge of the Sith", this evening, and all has been revealed...

• Luke's incessant whining is genetic. It is the behavioral manifestation of early strength in the "dark side".


• While I always thought the series was a metaphore for the Cold War, it is actually more in line with fundamentalist Islam- lot's of chopping off of hands.


• The stupid "cinnamon bun" hair-do is also genetic.


• Only men can be lured to the dark side- no woman would join up after watching Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious turn into an apple doll. No amount of wrinkle cream or botox could fix that.


• George Lucus had to prove that JarJar Binks was a good idea. Really. And if I just plop him in here for a moment, it will make up for Episode 1.

Despite its faults, we loved it none the less. Cameron will be able to imagine himself to be a Jedi for the next month. Una will bemoan her lack of hair (no pastry hair for her).

The Valley of the Shadow of... Cavities

Today is the day I have to face one of my fears - the consequences of poor oral hygiene. Una has a cavity. She told me this evening she couldn't eat because of a cut in her mouth. As I looked for the cut I saw the unmistakable shadow on her molar that signals the end of independent toothbrushing (at least at night) for my beautiful daughter.

Ever since I was a very small child, I have feared loosing my teeth. I have a very clear memory of my father's false teeth and how much they freaked me out. I was smart enough to not say anything about it, as it would have been rude, but boy did I hate seeing his teeth in a cup (especially if his toupee was sitting on the sink next to them!). I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night to brush because I didn't do it well enough before I went to bed.

Needless to say, I feel completely responsible. Our lack of dental insurance must surely be advance, cosmic, karmic punishment for not attending to our girl's oral health with more dilligence.

Thank God, it's a baby tooth. Eventually it will fall out and we can wipe the slate clean. Until then, we'll have to pay someone to drill the damn thing out and fill it in with some compound that some consumer group will insist causes some god-awful disease/ attention deficit syndrome.

In the meantime, I will combat the forces of oral evil with floss and brush and ultra vigilance! I will instill the dread of tooth-rot that has kept me in good stead all these years deeply into her soul. I will make her learn the whole "School House Rock" song "They Call Me Yuck Mouth".

After all, she can't be Miss Chinatown with a bridge. Or one of those acrobats that uses their teeth. Or a gum chewer.

Kaboom!

Once again, it is Kaboom season! For those who do not know of the marvelous phenomenon, KFOG, our local (fabulous) radio station, puts on the best party. It is a listener appreciation event with live music and the absolute best fireworks display, that people fly from out of state to see it. This year the headliner was the "Wallflowers". Not our favorite band, but they put on a good show. Imagine a free concert with 3 bands playing full sets, on a pier on San Francisco bay among a mellow crowd of 250,000 people (as mellow as a crowd of 250,000 can be), followed by a most spectacular fireworks show, choreographed to a custom rock sound track, that lasts 25 minutes. All of it on one of the warmest day we've seen this year.

Yeah, it was a blast.

We always have a good time at Kaboom. The kids look forward to it each year like they do Christmas. This year we took Declan for his first Kaboom outing, and he was mesmerized throughout the fireworks show. I guess you can say that he has now been initiated as a Kaboom fan. Each one of the kids have been to every Kaboom that they have been around for, and we're not about to break that tradition.

Now we just have to wait another year.

Dog's Eye View

We have noticed in the last week that all of the O'Chan offspring have what is a common trait in dogs - Heterochromia iridium. This is what makes David Bowie's eyes two different colours. As James has brown-brown alleles on his genes, the kids can only have brown eyes. What is really cool, is that each of them has one eye that is noticably lighter than the other, and in each of them, it is the left eye. I have no idea what the chances of all three of them having this are, but it doesn't suprise me. After all, we are the O'Chan Clan, and if there is something we can have that is odd and totally out of the ordinary, then chances are, we will get it in spades!

Here We Go Round the Stonestown Galleria

I have gone to the dark side. I have joined a "Mommy and Me"-type exercise class. Worse than this- I'm getting our nanny to go with me. In my defense, it is a free class at the mall. Three days a week, the mall has a trainer come in (a very loud Russian lady with pigtails and enormous thighs) to put those of us flabby Moms who can't be bothered to pay for "Mommy Boot Camp" to a grueling hour long circuit training class. And I mean, truly grueling. My knees are still talking to me 36 hours after the class I took yesterday. All of the moms gather at the Macy's end of the mall where we run around our babies in their strollers while clapping and chanting "Bah Bah Black Sheep" and "The Wheels on the Bus" (a lot of us just mumble until the part in the song where the "babies on the bus go waah, waah, waah"). All I can say is, thank God none of the stores are open at that hour. I would hate to be seen by someone who hasn't seen me in a few years in that state!

In true Adrienne style, I spent a lot of class observing my fellow gulag masochist (in between bouts of lunges set to "One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians/Babies) and was amused to see the range of mommy types. There were the ones who have become a little heavy and are feeling bad about it. To punish themselves they wore huge grey sweatpants and hubby's ugly white tee shirts. They were also the ones that brought their older kids along for the ride. My guess is they also have their kids following them into the bathroom with them and never have a moment to themselves. Their kids were all in car seat/ stroller combos. Then there were the moms who will get their cute little figures back while eating ice cream pies but exercise heavily in front of the rest of us while complaining about how their old jeans just don't fit as well any more. I always want to tell them that my jeans not only don't fit but have run away to hide because they are afraid I will burst their seams (probably wouldn't be problem if I could lose weight eating ice cream). They had the high end jogging strollers and co-ordinating Puma workout attire.

My personal favorite were the absent mothers. They sent the nannies in their stead (yes, mine is coming with me, but only because I have known her for 20 years and she wants a new exercise program). There were three of them there, two with twins! As these tended to be older ladies who gave up caring what they wore and hadn't put any thought into what kind of stroller they used, they tended to be a bit detached.

I suppose the most amusing part of the whole thing was that Declan decided he was going to starve to death if I didn't feed him tem minutes ago, right in the middle of class. As I was determined to finish this class, I put him in the sling to nurse him, and continued with the class, who was at this point, jogging to the opposite end of the mall (two blocks away). As I am not a quitter, and I am a modern mom, I multi-tasked - I pushed the stroller, nursed the baby and speed walked to the other side of the mall (circus music, please!). Had I been truly ambitious, I would have called the bank on my cell phone (as I now have a bluetooth head set) to transfer some funds or get a better rate on my credit card.

Yes. I'm going back. What the hell, it's free. Maybe I'll be able to eat my ice cream and get in my jeans if I punish myself for a few weeks. At the very least I'll have a full compliment of nursery rhymes to chant to Declan while jumping up and down in front of him. Wonder how that would look on a resume?

The Urban Disadvantage

As a city dweller, I have always prided myself on being something of an urban survivalist. There has never been a point when I have felt that I was unable to hold my own. This includes walking smack dab in the middle of the Rodney King riots and dealing with stalkers on the bus or the pimp on my doorstep.

That is, until I had kids.

Cameron and Una have very little homework these days, so afternoons can be spent having small adventures around town. One day last week we decided to head to the really cool dollar store in Japan Town (Ichiban Kan). Having loaded ourselves up with all kinds of fabulous plastic "stuff" and the Japanese equivilent of "Moon Pies", we headed over to the square to enjoy the fountains and hang out in the sun. One of the nice things about Japan Town is that it is meant to be used by families so it is great place to run around and play in without bothering anyone. As the kids played in and around the fountains, Declan was taking a nap in his sling while I chatted on my phone with my friend, Bethany (a fellow urban survivalist). As I was talking to her, an extremley disheveled homeless man wearing a Muni uniform and pushing a shopping cart approached me and asked me for change. He wasn't that unusual (for SF, anyway), but it is not that common to see homeless folks in that area. He was obviously communicating to me from a very distant planet, one that apparently housed Jesus. I told him no and figured that was that.

As Bethany and I continued to chat, this...individual... decided to start rumaging in the trash can just behind me. While it isn't how I would choose to spend my afternoon, he seemed happy with it, so I ignored him. At about that point, Una came racing along, taunting Cameron with "You can't catch me!". All of a sudden, this guy in the Muni suit completely loses it and starts screaming threats at Una. I hung the phone up (poor Bethany had no idea what was going on) and stood up. Una was frozen in place, not knowing what to do and this nut job starts throwing things at her. Then, he started to push his shopping cart at her!

Well that was it. It was on! I was ready to kill this guy. I didn't care who he was or what his mental health issue was. He was about to hurt my kids.

At that same moment I realized I couldn't run, I couldn't climb, I couldn't fight. I was holding my baby and because of that I couldn't keep this guy from hurting my daughter.

They say that when confronted with a mountain lion you should make yourself as large and loud as possible, something I could do. So, over his screaming rant I yelled at him to get away from Una and yelled at her to run away from him, hoping the sound of my voice would break the confused trance she was in.

In his psycotic state, I'm sure he thought I was some kind of demonic, two-headed monster and he backed off enough for Una to run around behind me and the bench. I pushed Cameron at her and told them to run to the other side of the square. Turning back to the freak, I used my most commanding and big voice to tell him to leave. He couldn't decide what to do and I was completely trapped where I was because of the benches. In the end he backed off and went on to attack all of the store fronts with his cart and his fists while yelling at and threatening the other children in the square.

After the cops came to take him away (it took a cop with a batton and two security guards to get him into custody) I had a chance to think about the whole situation. My kids are the best thing that has ever happened to me. Having the kids has made me challenge every belief I have ever held, for the most part to my betterment. I can't picture my life without them (at least for more than afternoon). But...

My kids make me vulnerable, even more now that there are more of them than I have arms to drag them away from danger. It gave me peace of mind to know that I could kick your ass if you got in my way. But now, I carry a baby down the street while I try to keep the other two in my visual field. My only real means of protecting them is through avoidance, after a life time of never backing down from a confrontation. Never letting my urban environment so much as nudge me without shoving back. I find myself avoiding places and events because I can't do what my urban home sometimes demands of me- defend myself or my family. And this pisses me off.

Despite my love of my family, something that defines who I am has been taken from me because of them. Even when they aren't there, my edge has been dulled. I second guess myself. I worry about being alone in parking lots or walking at night to Safeway. I avoid the very urban environment that I have thrived in my whole life. The environment that made me brave enough to travel through Mexico by myself, to eat in restaurants alone or ride the subway through Manhattan in the middle of the night. And to own myself (something a lot of people never do). This was the one part of me I wanted to make sure Una got.

The question I have is whether or not I will ever get it back? It sucks to have fear shadow you, especially when it never has before. I have never needed to fight anyone, but I have taken great comfort in knowing that I could. I hope the next time I have to fight back it is a mountain lion, because if it is one of those things that the big city frequently dishes out I may not be so lucky again.

Have I Seen Everything?

Having lived in San Francisco since 1971, most of that time riding the bus to get to it's four corners, I was pretty sure that I had seen all of the.... variable behavior the city has to offer. I have been followed across town by Jesus asking me if I thought we could be friends. I've watched naked men ride motorcycles down Market street in the middle of the day. I have lived on "Hooker Hill" and been on a first name basis with the lady of the night assigned to the corner my apartment stood on. I have snuck in, under age, to many a club (gay and straight). Once, I rode the glass elevator to the top of some fancy hotel to steal the silverwear off the table nearest the lift doors (I broke my ankle jumping off the cable car afterward, so I paid for that experience and do not need any "tisk-tisk" from the peanut gallery). After tripping over a 90 year old nun's foot, I managed to spill tortellini into the purple-robed lap of then Archbiship Quinn's lap, allowing me to be cussed out by a Holy Man. As a result of that misadventure, I was barred from serving at a luncheon for the Pope and thus able to sun myself on the roof of my Guerrero street apartment building while JP2 visited Mission Dolores, just a few blocks away. Apparently, I was in the area where no one was allowed to look out the window or be on their roof (for fear of assasination attempts) because next thing I knew, I had 2 secret service men pointing a rifle at me while yelling at me through a bull horn from a hovering helocopter that I would be shot if I didn't leave the roof immediately.

In other words, I have experienced many things here in my beautiful city. These many things have provided me with many stories that provide good entertainment at parties. Today I experienced something new.

My car is in the shop this week being put back together after tangling with a FedEx truck. Thus, I am required to utilize our public transit system to get around. This being a time consuming process, I usually take a book with me to keep me occupied. My current reading material is "Reading Lolita in Tehran". It has a large picture of two robed and scarved women, huddled over a book (presumably one banned in Iran) on the cover. For the last two days, there has been a man of obvious middle eastern descent waiting for the bus at my stop. Each time he has seemed perfectly quiet until the time I go to sit at one of the seats in the waiting shelter. After taking one look at my book, he starts to pray in arabic, quite audibly. At first I thought perhaps it was just that time of day. But he wasn't facing east. He was quite definitely facing me, each time. Apparently, I exude some type of influence on him. What is it I wonder?

Today I experimented with him. I walked into the shelter and sat down next to him. He smiled and said hello, as did I. No praying. I pulled out my book and made sure the cover was visible. Praying starts. I let him go for a minute, and then got up as if to see if the bus was coming. Praying stops. I walk back into the shelter. Praying starts up again. Walk out of the shelter to stand in the sun. Stops. Come back in to sit while waiting for the now 30 minute late bus. Starts.

I'm tempted to go back to the bus stop tomorow and see what happens. While I have caused representitives of the Catholic church to curse me (thus making my mother's declaration that I am "enough to make a saint swear" a bit more accurate), I have never caused anyone to evoke Allah in public before. Maybe he would tell me exactly what he is praying for if I asked. Maybe I could make some requests? Does he want to read my book? Are the women on the cover his sisters? Is he plotting to bomb the bus shelter? Did he just forget to take his medicine? Candid Camera?

Necessity is the mother...

Because my children are turning into couch potato brats, incapable of cleaning up their room (or even remembering that they promised me they would do it just five minutes ago) I have taken the quite drastic step of denying them their television. This happens periodically despite the fact that I can't tell exactly who is being punished more. The lack of consumer-driven entertainment allows for more sibling torture time, which is, inevitably entirely too loud and obnoxious for an only child, like myself.

During those periods when there is no television to distract them, the kids like to practice arguing. They can spend hours thinking up ways to taunt one another to distraction, using only the power of their imaginations. Once, Una cried for 20 minutes in the back of the car because Cameron took her imaginary sword and wouldn't give it back. While her mental conjuring abilities are excellent, she could not possibly imagine up another sword half as nice as the one Cameron took from her and he was a butt-head for not letting her have it back. Of course, Cameron attacked her with it as well, and then, in the coup de gras, he threw it out the window.

The other day, the imaginary argument was directed at some imaginary target against whom, Una and Cameron had joined forces to oppose. Usually, this scenario involves some kind of energy weapon or the ability to control the elements telekineticly. This time it involved fruit. The kids were throwing fruit at their imaginary target from what Cameron had dubbed their "fruit-tillity belts". When they ran out of imaginary fruit, it was off to the "digitizer" to create some more. Unfortuately, due to a bad "DSL connection" it was going to take 5 minutes instead of 5 seconds. Apparently, the web connectivity issue was causing the digitizing computer to be quite "depressed" (we saw "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" the other night and Cameron really liked Marvin the clinically depressed robot).

I'm not sure that television is a bad thing. I am not good at bonding with my kids over a nice game of whatever. I will say that my kid's attempts at self-entertainment are a great deal more entertaining to me. Perhaps i should jump in the car a go find that amazing sword Una thought up.

Unsafe at any speed

James and I found ourselves in either grave mortal peril or a scene from "cops", this weekend. While on our way to our friend Allegra's house warming party in Oakland, we found ourselves smack in the middle of a high speed police chase! After our inadvertantly preventing the chasee from continuing on his path, he decided to exit the freeway. It wasn't until he started to change lanes that we realised there were two cop cars on his tail. We watched them all exit (after gleefully exclaiming "car chase!) and I thought it was over. James remembered the other side of the exit was an on-ramp and slowed down in case they got back on the freeway. They didn't. Instead the "alleged criminal" (we all know he's guilty of something) flew up onto the overpass that doubles back over the freeway. We looked up to see him speed up over the crest and boom! right into the side wall of the structure. Pieces of the car flew, and the car itself caught air. Another 10 MPH and he would have been over the wall and we would have been the family on the news "flattened by a falling car involved in a high speed chase that went tragically wrong, this afternoon. " Or as James so adequately stated, "it's raining sedans and criminals!"