Perpetually Lost

You all know that my own self-image is not nearly as incompetent as the image I paint in this space, right? That I tell you my two-right-shoe stories and my I'm-not-a-very-good-cook stories because  I usually have on a complete pair of matching shoes, and that I rock a chocolate sheetcake? This is true in every area of my life except one:

I am a terrible navigator.

Husband, Boys, friends, can I get an 'amen' here? (Not so loudly, please.)

The best moment of my young motherhood was not when the toilet-training was finished, or even when the vomiters learned to hit the bucket. No, the best moment was the day when Boy#1 took my place in the shotgun seat and opened an atlas on his lap. WOOOOOOOOOO!

No more nervously tracing lines to a destination, and watching for the exit sign--"Turn here! I meant turn back there! Turn around!" Now my sons were taking their rightful spots in the map-loving lineage of their father, and happily plotting courses that got us from Point A to Point B effortlessly and efficiently. It was navigational nirvana.

I must stress here that Husband has been the perfect pilot for a nervous navigator--never once has he said "Really? You really thought a gravel road would take us to the interstate?" or "Really? You really think I can get four lanes over to an exit in less than 100 yards?" No, he's been the swell peach of a guy that I married and his response to my ineptitude, over and over and over again, has been "Well, this isn't the end of the world. Let me get pulled over and I'll take a look."

I know! What did I do to deserve him?

But the Boys grew up and left home, darn it anyway, and while my grocery budget and tolerance for clutter have benefited from this transition, I have lost my navigators. As we were on our way to pick up Boy#1 from an unfamiliar airport a few weeks ago I got us so thoroughly and completely lost that we almost missed his flight. And that was with the help of my phone's GPS system. I may or may not have cried, and said "You don't even know how much I hate navigating."

Yesterday morning the sermon was about the 40 years the Israelis spent wandering around in the wilderness before they reached the Promised Land. Our preacher pointed out that if they had only gone northeast instead of southwest, they'd have gotten to their destination in a matter of weeks.

Husband leaned over and lovingly church-whispered, "Hey! Why didn't you tell me you had been Moses's navigator?"

Sigh. Some reputations are just too well-earned.

 

Friday Orts and a Blurb

Okay, I promise that this is the last adorable picture of Boy#4 I will post this week. This month, even. But isn't this the cutest thing? My sister, my sister-in-law, and I all gave birth to sons within three months of each other, and those boys are now fully-grown adults. A., shown here with Four, is off to a prestigious law school in the fall. J., who for some reason didn't make it into this picture, is teaching at a technical college and soon will be a first-time father. Four--well, you know all about Four because I've maybe mentioned him in the past few weeks.

I don't remember growing older--cue the music.

*****
However, I will never understand young'uns. All four Boys and Lovely Girl are in the same city this week as they coordinate vacations to take advantage of "free" sporting tickets that only cost them plane fare halfway across the country and a week's worth of lodging, but I digress.

Boy#3 and Boy#4 traveled together and were good enough to keep us informed of their whereabouts via text message. (Who says relentlessly saying "You'll text, won't you?" doesn't work?) At one point they were delayed on the tarmac almost two hours and Four was getting restless. Airplane seating was not designed for young men who are over 6'3", and the texts were beginning to sound surly, so I switched into chirpy mode.

"Look at this as a good thing--you can get more reading done!" I Pollyanna-d.

"Didn't think we'd be on the ground for two hours and I didn't bring a book" he Mr. Pendleton-ed back.

I had no response because WHO DOESN'T BRING A BOOK ON A PLANE? I was there when he was born but I was left with the feeling that this is not a child of mine at all. I bring a book when I go to the convenience store for gas, just in case there's someone in front of me in line.

*****

And now for our blurb: Husband and I try to eat well. Really, we do. But the past few weeks, which brought a tsunami of graduations, showers, reunions, etc., have been disastrous for our good intentions. This week I fired up the grill, and now we're at least trying to do better. Again.

Last night we had salmon. Husband isn't a big fan of seafood but one of his favorite clients sent him home with a sample of these salmon fillets once and we've been hooked ever since. (That was a fish joke; did you get it?)

I buy them at Sam's, and they are easy and delicious, but don't cook them any way except on the grill, in a drawer-shaped container that you fold out of foil. This step of folding the little box makes you feel crafty and dextrous and the salmon itself makes you feel nutritionally virtuous.

What more could you ask?

Near Miss

J., my best friend of forever

Hold up your right hand. Now put your thumb and forefinger together, almost touching with barely enough space to slide a piece of paper between them. Thiiiiiiis close. That was how close I came to skipping the get-together for my high school graduating class during last weekend's Tiny Town reunion.

The thought of those teenage years set off a visceral reaction that makes me squirm. In high school I wanted to be one of the cool kids--the cheerleaders and the daters and the effortlessly fashionable--but instead I was one of the good kids. I got good grades and played in the orchestra, and I was as happy as a teenager can be, but oh, how I wanted to be Cindy whose hair curled in a perfect flip, or Linda who knew just when to laugh, or Deb who was tiny and bubbly.

I wasn't brave enough to be bad and bad is the currency of popularity during high school, so I skated at the edge of popularity, with good friends all around me but not quite sitting at the cool kids table. I really, really wanted to sit at the cool kids table.

After we graduated I kept in contact with my immediate friends, but not so much with the rest of classmates. Going back to the 10-year reunion didn't help; it was too soon, and in spite of the interesting things the good-but-not-popular had been doing (I had been back from the Peace Corps for three weeks, not even long enough to lose my Costa Rica tan) we fell effortlessly back into our high school roles. The only difference was that  the cool kids were outside to smoking pot instead of cigarettes while the rest of us talked about debate trips.

I went home and cried.

So when I read on Facebook a few weeks ago that one of the women who still lives in Tiny Town was going to have a cook-out for our class, I almost didn't go. "There's no reason to," I told Husband. "I still see the people I want to see, and I don't need to be reminded that I don't have perfect hair or know when to laugh." I was kidding, but not really, and mostly relieved that we wouldn't get into town until after the cook-out was supposed to start. The hostess reassured me that it was going to be informal and I could drop by later, but...I didn't want to go.

I happened to check my phone as we were driving toward my hometown, though. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology a picture popped up of people who had arrived at the picnic.

"Oh, my gosh!" I gasped. "It's J., my best friend from before I started school, and C., my best friend from when I was in country school, and I'd really like to see what Ronda is up to, and there's Alice!"

At the absolute last moment we turned down Pine Street to where the cook-out was being held, and when I walked in the gate it felt like a true homecoming.

We have reached a stage in life where we are what we are, and astonishingly, perfect hair no longer has much impact on how much I enjoy or fail to enjoy a person. Instead the qualities that made J. my best friend from forever have fed our friendship over the years--she's still kind and generous and funny and so willing to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. The same qualities that made C. my best friend in country school are still at the forefront--she's still vivacious and hard-working and high-achieving even in retirement.

Age is a great leveler and bad's worth has been devalued. I'm so glad I stuck around long enough to find this out.

Perfect Packing

I packed in a hurry Friday as Husband and I got on the road for the long holiday weekend. My work day went a bit longer than I had anticipated, and instead of being on the road at 4 p.m. our arrivals and departures board had started flashing DELAYED before I even pulled my suitcase out from under the bed. (No, we don't really have an A&D board, but wouldn't that be handy? "I've already told you what time we're leaving--now you just need to check the board." In my dreams.)

My packing methods are not exactly scientific: If I have clean underwear and my vitamin pill, I figure I can buy anything I forget when I get to wherever I'm going. This has worked well for me in the past, and actually, it's worked even when I didn't have the underwear and vitamin pill. This weekend, though, I knew I'd be going to a class reunion, to a parade, to church, and all of the rest of the festivities that are special during Memorial Weekend in the tiny town where I grew up. I wanted to look nice, to not embarrass myself or my family.

I threw in  three skirts, four dressy-ish t-shirts, jewelry appropriate to gussy up or calm down the outfits according to the event, make-up bag, toothbrush, clean underwear and vitamin pill. I had new L.L.Bean sandals that are ooooh, so comfy, so I would wear them everyplace except church and for that I had my black mules because it's always nice to impress the homefolks in Tiny Town who had lived through my high school miniskirt years and probably still wonder if I've come to my senses concerning my clothing choices.

Sunday morning, I got dressed. Black scoop-necked t-shirt with appropriately tasteful silver jewelry? Check. Long swirly skirt with abstract print? Check. Undereye concealer and understated make-up? Check. Shoes? Check, and check.

The shoes get two checks, because if you'll look closely at today's photo you'll notice that while the shoes I packed were both black Clarks open-toed mules, they also were the right shoe from two different pairs.  So people who greeted me at church and wondered why I was all dressed up from the ankles up and ready to go to the beach from the ankles down? Now you know. 

At least I had on clean underwear.

There's Symbolism in Here Somewhere

I'm clearing the pictures of graduation weekend off my camera, which means I've been looking at these shots and thinking "Hmmm...why in the world did I take that? I must have thought there was a blog post in it, but what could that post have been?"

I offer for your perusal the shots I can't explain.

On the left is the breakfast of champions (and college graduates and their families). This is a Shipley's Bullseye, which is a doughnut, topped with chocolate glaze, topped with vanilla icing, topped with sprinkles, topped with a blob of red something.

On the right is a view of Boy#4's apartment several hours into the packing process. It looked depressing and insurmountable, and I was pretty sure we'd still be sorting and packing and labeling boxes when the next commencement day rolled around at Big University.

The promise of the picture on the left filled me with delight, the promise of the picture on the right filled me with dread. The Bullseye looked indescribably delicious, but turned out to be overwhelmingly sweet and excruciatingly guilt-producing. The packing process looked un-finishable but everyone pitched in and it was (dare I say it?) kind of fun. The final box was marked "Stuff Mom says is miscellaneous crap" by late afternoon. (Boy#1 thinks he's soooo funny.)

So I guess the lesson of these two pictures, taken for some reason I no longer remember, would be that you shouldn't judge emotional outcome by initial appearances.

Boom. I may call myself MomQueenBee, but clearly I'm also the Empress of Symbolism. 

Without Irony

I unpacked this

So far we have gone through nine graduations in the MomQueenBee family. This includes four high school, four college, and one law school ceremonies. It does not include any nursery, preschool, kindergarten, or elementary school graduations because THOSE ARE TRAVESTIES. (I'm sorry--did I shout? I must have Opinions about those.)

I have two tasks at these graduations: 1) Don't make a fool of myself by blubbering or shouting "Mah bay-bee!" 2) Iron the academic regalia.

This isn't as easy as one would think it would be. Not the composed part, the ironing part. The composed part I can handle in my sleep--after two hours of watching Someone Else's Child walk across the stage, my mind is much more on whether we'll be able to find seats later at the restaurant than on savoring the sentiment of the moment.

But the ironing? First of all, the equipment is never exactly what I expect. I knew Boy#4 had an ironing board because I had packed it into the closet of his apartment myself. It was a hand-me-down from Boy#1, who actually irons and who bequeathed most of his worldly college goods to his younger brother when One graduated and skedaddled out of town.

However, because he irons, One took his iron with him to his grown-up home, which prompted the following exchange just before Commencement:

Four: Mom, could you iron my graduation gown? It was really wrinkled when I took it out of the bag.

Me: Do you have an iron?

Four: (crickets)

Fortunately he determined that his roommate did indeed have an iron. It was in the box in the closet, having been a high school graduation gift four years earlier. I had the honor of opening the box, removing all the packing materials, and plugging the iron in for the first time. I also managed to calibrate the temperature correctly so that it did not melt the "fabric" of the gown, a task that is not as easy as it seems and the entire reason that I have taken over the ironing gig. It also made short shrift of the two pairs of khakis and two dress shirts that Four's brothers threw onto the ironing pile when they realized their own clothes had not made it to Texas unwrinkled. ("Thanks, Mom!")

Ah, boys. You have to love 'em. Because that kid you see crossing the stage there, in the perfectly smooth gown and commemorative stole?

That's MAH BAY-BEE!

Beamish

Well, that's a nice contrast, don't you think? I left you with a photo of my beamish four-year-old Boy#4 on his first day of school. (Beamish = beaming with happiness, optimism, anticipation.)

Now I'm back, with a photo of my beamish 22-year-old Boy#4 on the first day of the rest of his life.

Oh, I know, I know. Every day is the first day of the rest of your life, and blah, blah, blah. But there's something about graduation from college that is a mile marker carved in stone. I thought about this last week in the moments after Four had received his diploma. (And I had plenty of time to think--in contrast to Small College's sweet but meaningful 48-minute Commencement ceremonies, it took nearly three hours for all the graduates at Four's university to stride across the stage, and that was only one of three ceremonies. Yikes.)

Boy#4 stood there in the foyer of the fieldhouse, diploma in one hand and phone in the other as he called his freshman roommates who had agreed to meet for a post-ceremonial photo. He had been extraordinarily fortunate in his first housing assignment: Five of the six who were in the original suite are still in the same posse, and all graduated on time in a tough curriculum. Four of these graduated with perfect grade point averages, an accomplishment shared by only 41 of Big University's thousands of undergraduates. Four is perfectly fine with not being one of those 4.0 students--"I might not have been an engineer at all if I hadn't been rooming with them," he says.

He bear-hugged his older brothers who were students at the same time he was. They were the ones who showed up at the hospital after his bike accident, who drove to the all-night pharmacy for pain pills and slept on the couch so he could have a bed while he recuperated.

People ask me from time to time why none of the Boys attended Small College.

Small College is a terrific school, I tell these people, but Husband and I agreed that we wanted our kids to go away to school. The college years are the halfway house to adulthood and it's healthy for them to live where they can spread their wings and find their own communities away from parents who are almost compulsively predisposed to fix things.

Boy#4 graduated with a college degree last week, but he also graduated with good friends, good coping skills, and knowledge that comes from relationships as well as from classes. He's ready for whatever is next.

We all are beamish, and we are thankful.