Good Things, Part 2

My daughter Claire-Adele used to be an avid reader of my blog (mainly to see if I was writing about her) but she stopped reading it because she said it was too "angsty." This is coming from a teenager. My dictionary's definition of angst has adolescent angst as an example. If teenager thinks my blog is angsty, it must be off the charts. But then, Claire-Adele isn't on the Facebook group of parents whose kids are in treatment for anxiety and depression where every single person's kid is either currently in crisis or has just gotten out of the woods of a crisis. You know how social media gets a bad rap for people showing all of the superficial, happy crap in their lives? This group is the opposite as it is full of raw, honest emotions, from the agonizing pain of child who is lost to the joyous relief of seeing that lost kid find their way back to civilization.

So my blog has been a little angsty, I agree, but the angsty-ness reflects the state of my life in general.

In the middle of all of this chaos mess, there are a few good things.

• I am reading a really good book: Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owen. It is about a young girl who is abandoned first by her mother then my her alcoholic father and is left to fend for herself in the marsh is North Carolina. I read this article about it in the New York Times and decided to read it. 

• In addition to reading popular literature, I also found a high brow show* (not) on Netflix from reading the New York Times. Schitt's Creek stars Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara (who I swear I saw walking in my neighborhood a few weeks ago.) I've seen the name of the show on airplanes, but I never watched an episode until last night. It was so good to laugh so hard. This is The Beverly Hillbillies in reverse where a vacuous, wealthy family loses its fortune and moves to the middle of nowhere. All they left from their former lives are their clothes. Eugene Levy's character has the best dress shirts. I wish the Boy were here to watch it with me.

• Ferries at night are good things. I love watching them crawl along the Sound like a glowing snail. My friend Laura had suggested we take a ride on the ferry in the evening in the winter where we can see the city lights. It is so hard to get a good picture of the ferry with my phone at night. It doesn't do justice to how wonderful I think they are.

* My friend Laura recommended Chernobyl. I think I'll take a pass. I couldn't get through the trailer.

Crying in the Morning, Maryland, and The Broken Bowl

This blog post is slightly disjointed, as that is how I am feeling right now.

Thursday morning before work, I cried about the Boy. I was listening to Spotify and the song Solsbury Hill by Peter Gabriel came on and I lost it when I heard the lyrics which I never heard before even though I've heard the song dozens of times:

"Son," he said, "Grab your things I've come to take you home."

Hopefully, there will be a day when the Boy comes home. He writes us a letter once a week and we have gotten pictures. It will be interesting to see how he progresses, and how we here in Seattle progress, too.

When I was feeling blue, I put on my Maryland t-shirt and baseball hat I got last year when I dropped Claire-Adele off at college. I need to remember that she is a good place, thriving.

For my birthday, I got a broken bowl in the Japanese style of kintsugi. (This one isn't really broken, just made to look that way.) The idea of kintsugi is to take the cracks and repairs as part of the object's history. The cracks are filled with gold or brass and lacquer, making what could render the bowl useless and instead make it beautiful. And it is true. This would have been a boring, dark gray bowl, but now it is unique.

My life right now feels like one of these broken bowls, still waiting for the brass and gold to fix it up. I could give each of the cracks a name. While I appreciate the beauty, at times I wish my life had a few less blemishes.

When is the Future?

I was talking to a friend about my idea to buy a Belltown condo. He and his partner are interested in moving in the opposite direction -- out to the country, perhaps on one of the San Juan Islands. Where my motivation is to walk to work, his is to telecommute from a remote spot. When his partner got a new job where he can telecommute, all of a sudden the present turned into the future for half of the pair. If Travor was going to telecommunte anyway, why not move to the islands now? Zach wasn't ready for this.

Sometimes the future has arrives sometimes like a train on a schedule. Other times, it pops up when we least expect it.

When I started to look at condos in Belltown, the future came up out of the ground like an early crocus in the spring. You know it is coming, and you know about when, but it still is a surprise. I was surprised that Jack and I had such synchronicity, that we both thought that the time for the future was now.

My other future, the one I knew was inevitable since the day she was born, arrives tomorrow morning at 7:45 a.m., when Claire-Adele gets on a plane for College Park, Maryland. That had always been a someday, a point in the future that we could and couldn't imagine.

I am surprisingly sad about this. I thought I'd be immune to these emotions, that my happiness for her would override my own sense of loss. That didn't happen. I don't want to rain on her parade, be a wet blanket snuffing out her excitement and anticipation. And yet.

I got her (and me) some flowers, the all purpose gift, appropriate in times of both happiness and sorrow. And so we share them, and each enjoy them for our different reasons.

London -- Fashion, Or Momma Suits Up

Before Claire-Adele and I went to London, we went shopping.

"Why do you need to go shopping before the trip?" I asked.

"I need clothes to wear," she said.

"So?" I said. "We can shop there. That is the cool part about London. Shopping."

"I need clothes to wear," she said.

Fine. We went shopping two days before the trip. We hit Nordstrom Rack downtown one day after work for both of us. If she wants to go shopping at the Rack, that is fine with me. What she doesn't realized that this opportunity of shopping in one of the leading fashion cities in the world mixed with her mother's generosity and credit card will only come but once, maybe twice, in her lifetime.

So we went to the Rack downtown. While she was shopping, I was poking around. I wasn't planning on buying anything because I was going to shop in London.

Until. I. Saw. The. Designer. Racks. I felt like Bilbo Baggins when he enters Lonely Mountain and sees all of the elves gold. Is all of this for me?

I thought I'd looked through the racks when I saw It. It was destiny. We were meant to be together. Me and a black St. John black wool Chanel style jacket. When I tried on this jacket, I didn't feel like a million bucks. I felt like five to ten million. The jacket was one third of the original price, but still astronomical.

I brought it home, I showed it to Jack and the Boy. The Boy, who is a big fan of Neil Patrick Harris's Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother. The gay married family man with two kids plays a very well dressed scoundrel and a womanizer. Barney's tag line is "Suit up."

Even the Boy was impressed at the cut and fit of this jacket.

"Momma suits up," said Jack.

I packed my bags, including in two dresses I bought of the bargain rack at The Rack and one dress I had in my closet for eight years and never wore. I am not one of those people who buys clothes they never wear, mainly because I am not that adventurous to buy anything that I might possibly feel the least bit uncomfortable wearing.

And then we left for London.

When we were there, Claire-Adele suggested we get off at a random Underground stop and explore. I picked Notting Hill. On our way to the restaurant, we walked by a thrift shop with a window full of fancy shoes. We had to go in. Turns out this "thrift shop" only sells designer stuff.

Not in my size otherwise I'd own them.

Yeah, those are Prada.

Claire-Adele started looking at the clothes. She found a dove gray sweater with ruffles along the front button area. It would be a perfect sweater to wear in the fall on the eastern seaboard. It was 70 pounds, so I checked the label.

Armani.

This was my kind of thrift shop.

A few days later, we were in line to see the Harry Potter play and we talked to some women from Florida.

"You have to go to Kensington Palace. They have an exhibit of Princess Diana's dresses," she said.

So we did. This is something Jack and the Boy would not want to see.

The dress she wore to dance with John Travolta.

Could you see me in this suit? I could! Love it.

She wore this to a fundraiser in Chicago for Northwestern. Go U NU!

There more more clothes in the rest of the exhibit. I don't Jack and the Boy would have had much fun here, either.

This is a replica outfit made out of what appeared to be Tyvek or some other industrial paper.

I love this outfit. 

These dresses were designed to show off the fabric. Like a billboard.

Emeralds

Diamonds. This was valued at 1.4M pounds and was used to pay the estate tax for someone's estate.

So my clothes aren't as awesome as Princess Diana's. No one's clothes are, which is why these clothes are in a museum. Nevertheless, Claire-Adele and I were at the Tower of London, and this woman stopped me and told me she loved my dress.

"This is the first time I've worn it," I told her. "It was in my closet for eight years."

"Sometimes those things are the best finds," she said.

Even in the Tower of London, we saw some cool fashions that Jack and the Boy might have foud interesting.

This one is cool.

Add caption

London -- Low Maintenance

Forgive me for being off my blog for the past several days. Claire-Adele and I are on a mother-daughter trip to London before she leaves for college in less than a month. When Claire-Adele was ten, she and I made a trip to London. Now, she is eighteen.

What was she most excited about for this trip?

Drinking.

Every night so far, we've had a glass of wine, beer, prosecco, cider or sangria with dinner. As a very lightweight drinker, I am feeling a little sloshed after a week.

"I don't think I'll have an addictive personality," said Claire-Adele. She's probably right, yet there were nights when she drank more than I did. Which means she finished her drink and I didn't.

"I'm going to be responsible," she said as I bought her a 14 pound glass of champagne, hoping this would be a good investment in her learning to control her alcohol at college. Hoping, because if I am wrong, she cold be screwed.

Why did we come here instead of going someplace new? I wrestled with this, and here are my thoughts:

1. It is London. Seriously, how could it be bad? I love big cities.
2. They speak English and the food is predictable.

Most importantly,

     3.  This is an easy planning trip. London is the perfect low-maintenance destination for high maintenance people.

Compare to our two week trip to New Zealand a few years ago. It took us months to plan the logistics of that trip. We stayed (if I am remembering right) seven different towns on two islands -- Auckland, Pohara, some cute spa town with a hot springs water park, Christchurch, Queenstown, Manapouri, and Hamilton. We took three plane rides within New Zealand.

For this trip, all I had to do was book theater tickets (Ham for me, Harry for Claire-Adele), book airline tickets, and find a place to stay. In that order. Done. I was ready. Need to get from destination to destination? Buy an Oyster card for the Underground. Done. Easy-peasey, lemon squeezy.

Jack and I went to brunch last weekend with Carla and her husband who met in London while they were working there.

"What are you going to do while you are there?" she asked.

"I dunno," I said. Then she told me 300 things we could do, and I wrote down about 150 of them. I didn't open a guide book until the third day of our trip. Why? Because there is so much to do here that in Central London you can walk five minutes in any direction and find a castle, palace, museum or place of cultural or historical significance. With the Internet and a printer, you can find train schedules and print tickets for taking tours of Parliament or Bletchley Park.

Plus, Claire-Adele already had a ton of ideas in her mind of what she wanted to see and do, which made my life much easier.

Can you imagine how little I would write if I had to plan a trip, too?

Egads.

Final Draft

This isn't my last blog post, in case you were confused.

Last week when Claire-Adele and I were at Maryland, she critiqued my blog.

"That's not what really happened," she said. "I need to edit your blog posts to correct the errors. Or I should write my own version of what happened and post it on your blog.

"I'll call it Final Draft."

Maryland!

It is hotter than fuck here.

Seriously.

If I lived here, I'd be like super skinny because I would sweat five pounds off every day. Even the squirrels here are languid from heat. The move so slowly, as if they have given up and don't care if you catch them. Not that I want to chase a squirrel in this heat. Claire-Adele and I walked around the campus for an hour without a water bottle. Mis.Take. I was parched at the end.

I am further convinced that the Pacific Northwest has the best weather in the continental U.S.. Rainy and cool while at times can be emotionally bleak, it is at least livable. In the fourteen years I've lived in Seattle, I never thought I might to die because of the weather. I can't say the same for the Midwest, with its heat waves, freezing spells, blizzards, tornadoes, floods, etc. I am sure four of the six of my blog readers will agree with me about the Pac Northwest. The other two live in the Midwest.

Anyway, Claire-Adele was excited to show me around. It looks lovely.

Isn't this great? I am sending my cosmopolitan, nose-ringed daughter to a farm school.

Ha ha. Not really. But they do have a little farm in the middle of campus. The colleges we looked at in NYC and Philadelphia didn't have cows, sheep or horses. The campus has a dairy and the student union sells its ice cream. That's kind of cool. You don't see that every day.

The rest of the campus looks like a regular college campus. It has a bit of southern influence, but not that much. Technically, the university is south of the Mason-Dixon line, but there is enough Yankee influence and sensibility here that I can tolerate it. I hope. This college didn't let women attend until 1916 and African Americans in until 1951. Seriously? WTF? Wait. I did some googling and it seems that that was fairly common. And some people don't believe in institutional racism. This institution (like many other universities) was racist, which is the definition of institutional racism.

Tomorrow is new student orientation where Claire-Adele will meet other students and I will learn all sorts of administrivia about the college. Goodnight, University of Maryland. I look forward to meeting you tomorrow.

State School

Claire-Adele committed to the University of Maryland.

I should be thrilled, right? She's in the Honor's Program, she got in her major government and politics, and she will be in Washington, D.C. where there are hundreds of opportunities to get internships with the federal government. This will be awesome for her.

For me, this is a state school which is about $22K less than a private school, plus she got a nice scholarship, saving me close to $30K.

Claire-Adele joined the UMD freshmen Facebook page, and connected with several like minded students. Claire-Adele could have written this herself:

"I like hiking, reading, going to political protests and watching Parks and Rec on Netflix."

I was happy for her.

Then, she said, "I am going to need cut-off t-shirts to wear to tailgates."

Whaaa, I thought. She is on the waitlist for an all women's college in NYC where, if they did tailgate, they would not wear cut-off t-shirts.

I did not go to a state school. Neither did Jack. I know not all state schools are party schools and private schools van be rowdy. Animal House was based on Washington University in Saint Louis, blocks from where I used to live. Yet, I have an assumption--that might be right or wrong--that state schools party more than private ones. Jack checked out some videos on YouTube of UMD students. One girl was at what looked like a fraternity party where she smashed a beer on her head, it cracked open, and she drank it.

Oy. At that moment, I realized I know nothing about UMD. Sure, the college counselor said it would be a great fit for Eleanor. Sure, it has great programs in what she is interested in. Sure, it is considered a top twenty value in college education. (That is per Claire-Adele. I did not verify.) Sure, it is saving me $30K a year compared to a private school.

But is it a party school? Am I sending my daughter off to a drunken bachanal for the next four years? I hope to god not.

Then I wondered, could this be good for Claire-Adele? No, I do not want to see her hammered in a YouTube video slamming a beer. But maybe an environment that is somewhat festive could better than a school where everyone studies all of the time. Or better than a school where everyone studies all of the time and then power drinks on the weekends to escape the intense academic pressure.

So I googled "Top Party Schools" and found a few lists. According to the Princeton Review, UW (Wisconsin) Madison is the number one party school in the U.S.. That list wasn't complete enough, so I continued to Google and found another list from niche.com. UMD is listed at #41. University of Washington, in my backyard, is #84.

I relaxed. That isn't so bad, but I did figure out where all of my angst was coming from, in addition to one YouTube video. What college conference has the most party schools?

The Big Ten. Eight schools made the top 25, including UW Madison, Ohio State, Penn State, Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Iowa and U of Illinois if I remember correctly. MIT and Rice beat out my alma mater, which ranked so low, I can't even find it. (Okay, I did. #260.)

No wonder I was freaked out. I was born and raised in Big Ten country, home of some of the big party schools in the country. Then I read a little more. While my alma mater was ranked #260, its partying grade was A-. UMD was graded an A+ in partying. I suppose it is all the same, at some point. Unless I send Claire-Adele to a convent, partying will be part of the scene.

The Baby Bucket

Today, Claire-Adele heard from a few colleges she applied to. Nixed at one, waited listed at another. She seemed to be in a reasonable mood, considering.

I bought her some flowers at the Market today before I heard any of the news. I made the decision to buy flowers last week, knowing this week was going to be crazy. We went out to dinner at Rositas to celebrate the near end of the college admissions process/rat race.

At the table next to us was a young couple with a baby in a baby carrier car seat bucket. The baby was covered up, so I didn't get a peek. While Claire-Adele and I waited for the check, Jack and the Boy went to Gregg's Greenlake to look at mountain bikes. (Gear heads...) The couple and their baby walked by.

For a few moments, I remembered bringing Claire-Adele to Zuzu's, a Mexican restaurant in Clayton, MO. It was the first time we went out with the new baby, which was scary and thrilling. People stopped and told us what a cute baby we had, and of course, I believed them. This was the cutest, best baby ever. The first time people come up and look at your baby is something remarkable. It is amazing that this little tiny creature exists.

And here I am, seventeen years later, my baby in the bucket is about to leave for college in few months.

Holy crap. I hope the next six months aren't like this. I hope I don't start weeping every time I see a wagon or a stroller because my kids is going off to college. Ugh. I am going to sound like a new mom who thinks they baby is pure angel and they are the first person to ever experience the miracle motherhood.

And yet, I think this is as big as becoming a mother, maybe even bigger. It is easy to bring a kid into the world, and much harder to get them to the proverbial finish line.

Out with the Old

The next two weeks are going to be rough as Claire-Adele waits to get her acceptance letters from colleges. Our Spring Break plans hinge on where she gets in, which is a drag since this is her last Spring Break before she leaves.

Last night instead of getting involved in her spinning about what to do over break, I re-arranged my book stacks (i.e., the stacks of books I have around the house that don't fit on our shelves). With Claire-Adele leaving in less than six months, I don't need these books anymore. This morning, I donated them to the Little Library in our neighborhood.

We bought these books when we moved to Seattle in 2004, and they were well used. Instead of getting a pass to the Seattle Children's Museum (which is cool if I remember correctly), I am now buying tickets to Bumbershoot for the Boy.

These new books have replaced those old ones:

I had to balance out the geriatric knee book with something more inspiring. The Pacific Crest Trail is a gorgeous coffee table book with cool photos of places I'd love to see. While I have no plans to do a Cheryl Strayed and hike the whole thing from Mexico to Canada (or wherever she stopped), I wouldn't mind hitting parts of it. I can't imagine the kids would think it would be a fun vacation, but I can make plans for when they are gone. My neighbors Jen and Dave are empty-nesters as of this year, and they are having a blast traveling all over place.

After I moved some books around, I went to brush my teeth before I walked the dog and take the books to the Little Library. I looked around the bathroom and found other debris that will likely be left behind when Claire-Adele leaves, including a drawer full of nail polish. The old eye shadow will need to be tossed, but maybe I can find a place to donate the nail polish. If the YMCA Homeless Teen Center doesn't want it, maybe I can offload it on some of the neighborhood girls.

It is hard to believe this phase of my life and Claire-Adele's is coming to an end. It is not like she's dying, but there will be an extra empty bedroom in my house by the end of the summer. When someone dies, the loved ones are left with all of the crap the person has accumulated over a lifetime. Except for what she decides to schlep to east, all of her shit will still be here: dozens and dozens of books, a closet full of games, craft kits that are mostly used up, and a baby grand piano in my living room that no one will play, except maybe the Boy who dinks around on it once in a while or his friends who play when they come to visit.

Some parents leave their children's rooms as museums, untouched after the kids leave. That's not going to happen here. The Boy, who has been sleeping in the coverted attic space, will move into Claire-Adele's room when she leaves.

"Oh that's mean!" you might be thinking to yourself. "Poor Claire-Adele getting booted out of her room when she goes to college."

Nope. The kid has a view of Lake Washington and Mt. Rainier from her bedroom. It is the nicest room in the whole house, and she has it all to herself. There is no way I am leaving the hottest piece of property in my house unused while she is gone. Instead, she was extremely lucky for the years she was here. When she visits, she can either sleep in the converted attic, or out in the shed.

Orchids and the Empty Nest

This morning, Jack and the Boy went to hit the epic pow at Alpental where there is 34 inches of fresh snow at the top. I am not skiing after I pulled a muscle in my knee a few weeks ago. Claire-Adele is off at work.

Before they all left, Claire-Adele knocked on the shed door with a piece of paper in her hand, Jack trailing behind. (Jack was on call last night, so I slept in the shed instead being woken up every two hours by his phone. Insomnia is a bitch in my advancing age. I protect my sleep like a mother lion protects her cubs.)

"I got into Maryland," she said.

"The Honor's college and she was accepted into her major," Jack said. "You have to apply to major in Government and Politics, like you have to apply to study engineering at UW."

"Wow," I said. "Western is nice, but the opportunities for going to school in D.C. are..." I wanted to say "huge," but DJT ruined the word for me.

"Maybe she can get an internship with one of the Senators," said Jack.

"I'll need to increase my donation to Patty Murray," I said.

After Jack, the Boy and Claire-Adele left, I was watering my orchids. One of them was growing out of control, which is surprising since orchids are high maintenance, slow growth plants. This one had roots growing out from between the leaves. It had roots growing out the pot and down the side. Some of the roots stretched out and tried making a home in the pot of another orchid. Orchids thrive in small pots, but this one had had enough. Its roots were screaming to escape its cramped, plastic home.

I went in the yard to my massive stack of plastic plant pots that should be recycled but aren't. Marie Kondo would have a cow if she saw this mess on the side of my house. She is only liked 33 years old. Of course she doesn't have clutter-she hasn't been on the planet that long. I have t-shirts in my closet older than her. (Maybe not, but close enough.) Anyhow-I found an old orchid pot, brought it in and cleaned it up. I went in the basement and found some orchid bark that I bought before Marie Kondo was born, and repotted my plant into a bigger pot.

And then I started to cry. Claire-Adele is like my orchid, screaming to be on her own, needing a bigger pot.

Soon I will be a partial empty nester, left with an empty pot with no orchid.

But this won't be all bad. As Claire-Adele gains her freedom, I'll regain mine as well. In the past few weeks, I have been hanging out with some of my empty nester friends. One's daughter left for college last fall. Another has two of her three kids out of the house. These are the women who are free after work to go to movies on a weeknight or accompany me the Pacific Northwest Ballet's studio rehearsals at 4:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. Most of my mom friends can't.

Claire-Adele is now more willing to hang out with me, too. Less than twelve hours before she got her acceptance to UMD, we went to dinner downtown Friday after both of us finished work. Jack was working and the Boy was hanging out with friends. I was glad I took this chance to hang out with Claire-Adele. If we were just at home, she might have gone to her home by herself, or I would have spent time cooking dinner. At the restaurant, we had no choice but to talk. I figured I'd take advantage of these opportunities before she moves away forever, like I did from my parents. This summer, we will go to London for a week of mother-daughter bonding before she leaves. And then, I'll hang out with my new crew of other empty nesters.

Childcare "Professional"

After work, I was watering my orchids and the Boy told me about his day. He was home from school today for MLK Day. He did his Day of Service by helping watch our neighbor's four kids (ages 2 to 11) jump on our trampoline this morning. At the end of the day, he told me how he was better at with kids than he thought he was. He said the mom thought so, too.

"Maybe I could pay you to watch the kids for the rest of the day," the mom told the Boy.

"I am not a childcare professional," he said. "I am the next door childcare amateur."

I laughed at his story. "Claire-Adele is a childcare professional," the Boy told me. "She gets paid to watch kids." Claire-Adele has a job watching kids at a downtown health club.

"You are a childcare amateur," the Boy said to me. "You never got paid to watch kids." 

How depressing, I thought. My expression must have appeared on my face.

"But you are a really, really good amateur!" he said.

Oy. What makes a professional, just getting a paycheck? What about my years and years of unpaid, 24/7/365 experience? Doesn't that count because I wasn't paid? WTF? I've raised kids for seventeen years and I am a lower rank than my daughter who is seventeen? What gives? Or does "Mom" rank higher?

Addendum: I was talking to a friend of a friend at an event this evening who got divorced after 25 years. For most of her marriage up until it ended, she was a stay-at-home mom, full-time parent, primary parent, whatever. She gave up her career to raise her kids. The fact that she wasn't "working" during her marriage became a major issue in her divorce.

"Why is it someone can choose to be a nanny and that is a career, that they are professionals, but if a woman choose to raise her own kids, that isn't considered a job? What gives? Aren't both people doing essentially the same thing, except one is getting paid and the other isn't?"

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

The Quilt I Would Have Made for Myself

In my days as a stay-at-home mom, I started quilting. I quilted when I ran for School Board. Cutting fabric and running a sewing machine allowed me to zone out from the hectic and unpredictable campaign.

Since I've started working, I haven't found much time to quilt. In the past few days off of work, I finished a project I had been working on for about a year. I often work on more than one quilting project at a time. The different phases of quilting -- picking fabrics, creating a design, cutting fabric into shapes, assembling the top, quilting and binding-- each have their different appeal and it can be dull to have to do all of those steps them all in the same order every time. Unfortunately, a quilt has to be done in order; therefore, I have more than one project going. Plus, it can be daunting to finish a project without something else to work on.

This week, I finished a quilt. I finished the quilt I would have wanted on my own bed when I was ten. It is full of bright colors and birds and bicycles and flowers and tree houses. It has a green and blue binding. Some people out here might call them Seahawks colors.

Yesterday, I shipped it to my cousin's daughter in Chicago. She is eight. I hope she likes it.

I was sad to ship this quilt off, sadder than when I've shipped off other stuff. I make more stuff than I can use, so I have to get rid of what I make somehow. Claire-Adele didn't want this quilt, and I can't blame her. It is a little too whimsical for someone her age.

The funny thing about quilting is that started the hobby so I could make a quilt from the dresses Claire-Adele wore as a toddler. My mother-in-law lives in Atlanta and would buy Claire-Adele dozens of fancy dresses, so many that I sent her every day to preschool wearing one.

"Please don't worry about the dresses," I said. "Don't let her attire keep her from doing art projects of getting dirty. My mother-in-law buys them and she lives in the south where the clothes are more..."

"Flamboyant?" the teacher replied. I wasn't sure what word I was looking for, but "flamboyant" worked. I gave dozens of Claire-Adele's dresses to friends, family and Goodwill. Some had paint stains, others food. The fabric was too beautiful for me to part with, so I loaded them extra dresses in plastic tubs in the basement so someday they would become a quilt. But I needed to learn to quilt first.

Somewhere in this process, quilting became my hobby and I had almost forgotten about Claire-Adele's dresses in the basement. My goal was to create something for her before she left for college. I fear she won't like what I make, or won't bring it to school. I want to talk to her about patterns, but I fear there will be nothing she likes, and she'll kill the project before it starts. Which begs the question: who am I making this for, me or her?

Perhaps this is the quilt I need to make for myself. And if Claire-Adele wants it someday, I'll let her have it.

Brag and Drag Letter -- Senior in High School Edition

This week was part of ten days off of work. This will be the longest break I’ve had since I started my job last summer. Before the break, I was kind of dreading spending a week with my family.

The weekend before my break was total shit. Claire-Adele was in a rare form of bitchiness, so much so I was counting the months until she is 18 (six months) and leaves  for college (nine months). At one point last week, I was rooting that she’s choose a nearby state school. Now and rooting for her going to school on Mars. The following Monday I was giddy to return to work. The source of this general moodiness (I am guessing) is her applying to college.

Normal Mood of Daughter during Senior Year of High School

Mood of Daughter During College Application Process

I was complaining to my friend Jen about Claire-Adele's noxious behavior.

“Work is easier than home,” she said. How come no one told me that years ago? Why does the world keep this a secret from stay-at-home moms?

I could be simple and say Claire-Adele is horrible and awful all of the time, but no. With this experience comes exceptionable bouts of helpfulness and kindness.

"I'll make the Christmas cards this year," she said.

"I wrote the family Christmas letter," she texted me, including a copy of the note.

"Where is the address list? I'll address the envelopes," she said.

"Oooh, can I make the chicken parmesan for dinner tonight?" she asked. Uh, yeah. No permission needed to make dinner for the family.

I have three days left of vacation, and I've survived so far. Here's hoping I can make it until Tuesday. At the very least, I have my fancy red shoes to welcome me back to work.

Disappointment

Claire-Adele did not get into the school she applied to for Early Decision.

The night before she found out, she did, however, get accepted at the state school she applied to, which softened the blow a little bit. Her letter from Western said she was accepted with distinction and would be considered for merit aid. Which is all good. Now she has to buckle down for the rest of the break and finish her other college applications, which might be harder to do after the sting of rejection.

I had a million feelings after I found the news.

• I feel bad for my daughter for not getting into her favorite school.
• WTF? Her favorite school is one of the most competitive in the country. What kind of Princess cries over losing something that would be an honor and a privilege, not a right?
• Yay! I don't have to shell out an obscene amount of money for her to go to school.
• But I don't get to go to New York a few times year for vacation.
• How would she navigate the big city anyway? She could go to school much closer to home and that would be nice.
• She would learn so much in the big city and it would be fun. I am sorry she might miss that unless she gets into another school in the Big Apple.
• I could buy a new car, a vacation home, Jack could quit his job or retire early, etc., with all of the money we'd save on tuition if she went to a state school instead.

And back and forth and back and forth...

Saturday morning, I woke up and talked to my dad on the phone about Claire-Adele not getting into her top choice college.

I told him I felt like Rachel from Friends when she is finding out of she was pregnant. Phoebe took the test and told Rachel she wasn't pregnant, and Rachel was got weepy when she heard the test was negative. Phoebe lied, and said "No, you are really pregnant, but now you know what you really want."

When I was growing up, my mom thought it was outrageous to spend a ton of money on a private college education for me.

"I don't need the mother of my grandchildren to be that educated," she said. My mom turned the corner a little bit when a friend told her that it is good for women to have the capacity to be financially independent in case they get a divorce. My dad never participated in those discussions. He quietly wrote the tuition check and that was the end of the conversation.

Fast forward to 2017, the Year of the Gropers, Assaulters, and Rapists: Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Matt Lauer, et al. Now more than ever, a woman with a strong education is a woman who has power over her fate and destiny. Now that uneducated women deserved to be harassed or assaulted--hardly. We need more women who can step into leadership roles in all areas -- business, government, entertainment, education.

A good education is a shield, a weapon against the bullshit of sexism. I am not talking here about assault or rape. I am talking about mansplaining or the automatic assumption some men make that women don't know what they are doing. I remember I met a young journalist from Northwestern when I was President of the Seattle Council PTSA. I told him I was an NU alum, too.

"What did you study?" he asked.

"MMSS," I said.

"Oh my god," he said, eyes wide. "You must be smart." As if I wasn't. It was as if I were an airhead until proven otherwise. Does this happen to men? I doubt it.

I had my Rachel pregnancy moment when Claire-Adele didn't get into her to favorite school. I realized how much I wanted it for her when she didn't get in. Sure, I had been saving money for this (and the Boy) since before they could walk or talk. I gave up a fancier house, clothes, and car so some day my kids could have the education they wanted.

But maybe I am wrong. Maybe she'll be fine without a snob school on her resume as my friend Marta calls them. Claire-Adele will likely be fine no matter where she goes. She is smart, creative and independent. Still, I had thought the world was changing--as so many other women did--and now we are in a moment of national reckoning and I am boomeranging back to wanting to protect her, to give her a suit of armor to face the world.

Claire-Adele

The big day is coming up soon.

I am kind of glad she is being so difficult. If she were being sweet and normal, I’d be crying every time I’d hear a Christmas carol.

“Claire-Adele loves Christmas carols and next year she won’t be here to listen to them the day after Thanksgiving,” is what I’d say between sobs. I would think about how after she leaves for college that we might never live in the same city—or coast—again. Ever. I did that to my parents. Oy.

Still, I hope that tomorrow brings happiness for her even if it breaks my heart a little bit. My sadness will take a backseat to her happiness, but it is not as if I’ll rejoice if she doesn’t get in. I'll probably be right there in the pit with her, along with the other 94% of the students who apply and don't get in.

Would I be happier if she stays closer to home next year? Only if she is.

On another topic, I opted for the red velvet. They should be delivered in one to two days. I can wear them the dress I wore to Hamilton, forever now to be known as my Hamilton dress.

Prada and a Fortnight, Part 2

Claire-Adele and I skied today. Rather, we drove in the car to Snoqualmie together and we skied on two different parts of the mountain--me on the greens, she on the most difficult terrain she could find. Only West was open. Everyone there fit into two categories:

1. Beginners
2. People who wished they were at Alpental, buy hey, snow is snow and they'll take what they can get.

When we were driving home, I asked her if I should buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes. In my last post, I wondered what advice I would give her. Now I was curious to hear what advice she would give me. I didn't explain the whole middle-aged, pre-empty-nest and pre-empty bank account syndrome that I am experiencing. Instead, I asked the question straight: Should I buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes?

I partially expected her to freak out, and say you want to spend how much on shoes before I could go to college? That would buy a quarters worth of textbooks! And then she would cry. This morning before we left for skiing, she lost her shit when I suggested taking her out to dinner on Dec. 15 in honor of her getting her first college response--good or bad. We would celebrate her applying to college.

She exploded into tears. "How can you say that? Don't you know how stressful this is for me?"

(Me silently thinking: Yeah. That's why I offered to treat you to dinner...)

"I am going to my room to cry by myself," she said and stormed off.

I was expecting something like that when I asked about the shoes. Instead, I got an in-depth analysis.

"What do they look like?"

"Velvet Mary Janes," she said.

"Nice," she said. Even without a picture, she approved of the style. "What color?"

"They have the style in blue, purple or red."

"Burgundy red or red red?"

"Burgundy."

"Brown burgundy or red burgundy?" she asked. I had to think about it. "More brown, I suppose. They aren't really all that red."

"How high is the heel?" she asked.

"Two and a half inches," I said.

"Mid-height," she said. "That's good. How often would you wear them?" she asked. "If you wear them ten times, that is $40 a time. If you wear them 100 times, that is $4 a time."

"I am planning to wear them at work," I said.

"You would wear Prada to work? Isn't where you work super casual?" she asked.

"I don't care. They can wear what they want. I'll wear what I want."

"Seriously? Don't people where you work wear t-shirts and ripped jeans?" she asked.

[Editor's Note: I am skipping the sidebar conversation on ripped jeans.]

"What would you wear it with?" she asked.

"I don't know. Black skirts, likely," she said.

"You could wear the blue ones with your Jawa dress," she said. "If you wear blue shoes with black, you will need to wear a blue scarf or blouse or something. Blue shoes with black clothes otherwise doesn't go together."

[Editor's Note: I am skipping the item by item of discussion of clothes in my closet that could be worn with different colors.]

"The blue or red are probably the safest bet. I'd skip the purple," she said.

"Should I get a pair, or ___" I asked, waiting to see how she would fill in that blank.

"Christmas is coming up," she said. "You could get yourself the shoes as a Christmas present."

What is my take-away from this conversation? The conversation wasn't

• Philosophical--why should I spend that much on shoes when there are homeless people in Seattle? or,
• An analysis of my budget or whether or not I could afford the shoes, or 
• An analysis of the practicality of buying luxury goods versus spending that money on something other than shoes.

The question before the court of Claire-Adele was "Should I buy a $400 pair of Prada shoes?" Her analysis considered something I had thought about but not as my primary question: Are these the right shoes on which to spend $400? In some bizarre way, I was proud of her. She was not going to be an impulse shopper, letting her emotions take over her decision making. I was impressed.

When we got home, she looked online at the shoes I was considering.

"The blue ones are nice," she said. "And those silver Mary Janes would look great with my Winter Ball dress."

Yes, yes they would. And the real reason to keep Mom actively engaged in a conversation about shoes became apparent.

Prada and a Fortnight

Years ago, before I had kids, Jack and I were shopping at Marshall Field's in Chicago on a Saturday. It was January and we were getting ready for our upcoming to trip to Thailand in March and we both needed new clothes. The previous week, I was feeling a little funny and wondered if I was pregnant. I was too naive or in denial to think it was a real possibility for about a week after I missed my period. In Marshall Field's, I was riding the escalator down, I saw I giant shoe display. Even though I didn't know I was pregnant at the time, I remember thinking, I will never own a $400 pair of shoes.

The deep recesses of my mind knew I was pregnant even if the front end of my brain didn't know what was going on. The backend of my brain knew that if I were pregnant, that every decision in my life thereafter would be different, and spending $400 on a pair of shoes would be an absurd and unnecessary expense with baby clothes, new furniture and saving for college. To this day, I've never owned a $400 pair of shoes. 

In less than two weeks, Claire-Adele will find out if she gets into a college that will have a major financial impact on our lives. Even if she doesn't get in early admission to her dream school, she will have more chances in the winter to apply for more schools that will cause an equal amount of financial wreckage. I've scrapped and saved and invested and got a job to prepare for this. Like childbirth, I can prepare and be ready, but that won't make it any less painful as I open the outflow of money we set aside for saving for college that hasn't been touched since 2001. The thought of taking more money out of savings than I am putting in makes my head spin. 

I know it will be for a good cause and I am willing to spend a boatload on my daughter's education. First, I know she wants it and will work hard. Second--and I don't know if this is reverse sexism or not, but I know from my own experience as a young woman in the workforce I benefited tremendously from having a degree from a top-notch university with a top-notch major. Whenever I got mansplained to or had to speak up in a meeting, knowing I had a great education gave me confidence and credibility I don't know if I otherwise I would have had. Maybe I was like the Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz--I had a brain all along, but Northwestern was my Oz, telling me it was true. I want Claire-Adele to have that advantage because I know it helps, and as such I am willing to pay for it. It isn't just the brand name, either. It was four years of being surrounded by people equally smart and hard-working, who challenged, humbled, and supported me. 

Let's go back to $400 shoes. I was reading the fashion pages in the New York Times this week and I saw this amazing--amazing--pair of red velvet Mary Jane pumps by Prada. I have two weeks before I find out if I am going to have to adopt a major form of financial austerity for the next four plus years, depending on where the Boy decides to attend college, too. Is this now my window of opportunity--the window that closed when I first became pregnant--to buy an outrageously and irresponsibly expensive pair of shoes? In two weeks, that window could slam shut and not open again for eight years during which time I will be shopping at the Rack.

Nordstrom has these shoes (not in red, though) on sale for $389 with free shipping! 

They would even be less than my $400 threshold. Then I start wondering, would these be the perfect shoe? Are these shoes simply awesome, or are they the most awesome? Should I look for a better shoe, like these...

And they too are on sale, even though the sale price is crazy. These silver ones are wild. I have no idea where I would ever wear them, but aren't they fun? 

Fun...fun...fun.

Perhaps that is the theme here. This for the past seventeen years, my life has been primarily about responsibility and taking care of other people, not fun and frivolity. I can't say I mind. I am glad I have two kids and love them deeply even though at times they drive me crazy. I suppose that is the point of parental love. I remember thinking I was ready to have kids when I had more to give than I needed to take. Somehow I took that to mean I didn't need to give anything to myself. Buying these shoes aren't going to deprive my kids of food or shelter, or anything, really. 

Fast forward thirty years when Claire-Adele's daughter is going to college. What would I tell her to do? Buy the shoes or save the money?  

I don't know. I have a fortnight to decide.

The Senior Crying Season and the Wishbone

Claire-Adele applied Early Decision to one college and Early Action to another this fall. Applications were due Nov. 1. She will hear from the Early Decision college on Dec. 15. For those who are unfamiliar with the process, Early Decision applications are binding. If she gets accepted, that is where she will go. She will withdraw all other college applications. This early decision school is her first choice, her dream school. The odds are slightly more in her favor of getting in early decision than in the regular application pool, though the odds of getting into this particular school are very, very low. On the other hand, they have to let someone in. Her odds of getting in would be zero if she didn't apply at all.

We have now entered the Senior Crying Season. The applications are in, and everything is beyond her control. All she can do is wait.

I didn't realize how stressful this waiting time is for Claire-Adele until a few days ago. In the past two weeks, she has thrown two tantrums and had one stressed out crying fit, which is out of character for her. I am not talking about being a usual snitty teenager who makes rude and insensitive comments. I am talking about toddler level meltdowns at a grocery store two hours past nap time and mom said no to buying a box of cookies. That kind of uncontrolled and irrational meltdown.

In addition to the stress of knowing her fate lies in the hands of strangers, she is also having to prepare a second round of applications for regular college application decision in case she doesn't get into her first choice school. She is stressed, and I feel for her. I, too, hope she gets into her favorite school.

I wish she could understand that whether or not these schools pick her, she will still be the same interesting, curious, hard working person she was before. She doesn't beleive me when I tell her that. She is a teenager, and needs validation from someone other than her mom. I get it, but I wish she could get it from someplace else in addition to a college application review board. Today, she went to work and after work she staying downtown to go the YMCA Youth Leadership Program that she was a part of for the past two years. As an alum and camp intern this summer, she is welcome to crash the party. I am glad she is seeking self-care by surrounding herself with people who love her as she is who aren't in her immediate family.

This Thanksgiving, Claire-Adele and I broke the wishbone. She begged to do it. I knew what her wish was without her telling me.

And I wished for the same thing.

Steely Eyes

The other night, Jack was working and the kids and I went to dinner. The kids speak more freely when their father isn't there, taking advantage of the "one parent versus two kids" shift in the power dynamic. 

Claire-Adele said she needed a picture of herself for her Facebook profile, and she asked to look at my phone to see if I had any pictures of her that she could use. My new smart phone came with a new operating system that organizes my photos by faces, which is both creepy and useful. The kids then started looking at pictures of me on my phone, most of which are crappy selfies. I don't know how to take a selfie--I always look at the wrong spot or I am squinting, usually both.

"Look at this one," said Claire-Adele handing the phone to her brother. I saw the picture as my phone changed hands.

Tofino, B.C., August 2014

"You have the best steely eyes in this one," said Claire-Adele. Steely eyes? I thought. Here is how the dictionary on my computer defines the word:

steely |ˈstēlē| adjective (steelier, steeliest) 1 resembling steel in color, brightness, or strength: a steely blue.2 coldly determined; hard: there was a steely edge to his questions.
Claire-Adele was refering to the second definition.

"You look like you are not going to take any shit," said the Boy.

"You look like you are female British Minister in wartime," said Claire-Adele. "Like Winston Churchill, but meaner."

Meaner than Winston Churchill? Seriously? And this was meant to be a compliment.

"Dad is smiling and I am in hiding in the background," said the Boy. "While you look like you are going to kick some ass." They both thought this was cool. Or they were making fun of me. Probably both.

How could it be that my kids could see me in such a way that I didn't or don't see myself? When I look at that picture, I think "I was so much skinnier before I tore my ACL" while they are comparing me to military generals. Where did they both get that idea, an idea that they agree on together, when I have such a different view of myself? Or maybe they don't see me much like this, and when they did, they found it remarkable.

This made me wonder if I should take the kids out to dinner alone anymore, especially when they are going to dissect me into bits. Or perhaps this is the reason I should take them out to dinner, to give them a chance to make me--their mother--an open topic for conversation.