She Blinded Me With Science 3/25/09

Spring is here and with it comes that annual staple, the elementary school science fair. Ah, the science fair. A place where budding scientists of all ages can suggest a hypothesis, create a thoughtful and insightful display to prove or disprove that hypothesis, and then completely abandon said display in order to see what their fellow scientists are up to.

One of the things about science is that it deals in Immutable Laws and absolutes (i.e. gravity). The science fair has its own set of laws and absolutes. There will be no less than five baking-soda-and-vinegar volcanoes, and at least seven “tornados in a bottle”. There will absolutely be an impressive display of moldy cheese and bread (a science experiment I conduct in my refrigerator monthly. FYI, mold grows faster on the sour cream lid than the salsa lid).

Kids will absolutely not stay with their project, choosing instead to leave mom, dad or a handy older sibling to explain their results while they run like a pack of wild hyenas looking for displays that involve candy. There seemed to be an unusually high number of candy experiments this year, prompting mini-mob scenes around these booths, begging for samples. My friend’s son gave up candy for Lent. She granted him a special dispensation for the fair at the risk of a major meltdown.

My son’s project involved gravity and how to calculate your weight on other planets. It was a simple matter of stepping on a scale and then multiplying your weight by a planet’s gravitational pull. I formed my own hypothesis prior to the fair. I guessed that not one single adult woman would step on that scale. My hypothesis proved correct. Hooray, I’m a scientist!

Each year I enjoy reading the guidelines for the fair, especially the types of exhibits that are not allowed. For example:

“Nothing that causes harm or stress to humans or animals” (This doesn’t include parents).
“No live vertebrate animals may be brought to the fair” (Giant squids are acceptable).
“No bacterial cultures” (Leave your E. Coli at home).
“No controlled substances” (Please, no “Breaking Bad” meth labs).
“No dangerous or combustible chemicals (See above).
“No open flames” (We love our school, save the open flames for the July bonfire).

How different from the science fair of my youth with bubbling test tubes and noxious chemicals (our junior high had asbestos, what could we do to make it any worse?) My most vivid memory is not of my own experiment, which I can’t recall, but my friend’s display: Dissection of a Fetal Pig. That poor unborn pig, splayed open on a display board, would have been disturbing enough if my mother hadn’t made things worse by bringing me a ham sandwich for lunch. Blech!

The science fair actually lends itself to its own experiments: How high will the gymnasium temperature rise when the collective body heat of moms, dads, kids, and grandparents is added? What is the loudest decibel level reached at the peak of the fair? Is there a limit to the patience and interest shown by the principal and assistant principal as they visit every project? (The answer to that is no, their patience is infinite.) And of course, how fast will the kids snap back to their booth when the trophy cart is wheeled in? (Immediately).

The best part of the fair is watching my child explain his project and realizing that he actually learned something in the process. As he happily accepts his trophy, I can’t help but put forth one last hypothesis: How long will that trophy serve as a proud reminder of his hard work and achievement? Hopefully forever.

In the Midst of Death... 3/18/09

They say that death comes in threes. Whenever a public figure dies, be it a politician, a musician or an actress, two more are sure to follow in quick succession.

This past week, I learned within 48 hours that three people I knew, or knew of, had passed away. None of them were relatives, nor were they even what I could classify as close acquaintances. But their deaths have touched me nonetheless.

The first was Susan, the next-door neighbor of our relatives on Nantucket. When my husband I decided to hold our wedding in their back yard, Susan graciously offered the gazebo in her beautifully maintained garden as a spot for our wedding pictures. Though she is gone, her generosity that day will live forever in our memories and our photos. She was 67.

I learned about the passing of Bob, a fellow church member, at my Sunday service last week. Though I only knew Bob by sight, I was one of many in the church who delivered meals to his family while he was hospitalized. Each week I would see Bob's name in the bulletin, with brief updates on his condition, asking for cards and prayers. Each week I prayed for his recovery. It was a blow to hear that he had lost his fight. He was 52.

Kara, the fiancée of a close friend's brother, was diagnosed with her illness just a few weeks ago. Imagine visiting your doctor and discovering that in all likelihood you would not survive to see the summer. Despite her diagnosis, Kara fought hard, continuing to make plans to marry the man she loved. Her life ended at the age of 32, just six weeks after her doctor's visit.

It's natural to contemplate our own mortality when someone we know has passed. Had I died at 32, I would have been married only briefly. I would have never known the joy of my children, the warmth of my community, the rebirth of my writing or the friends who make me laugh each day.

If I were to die at 52, I might be lucky enough to see my oldest graduate from high
school but not my youngest. I wouldn't see them off to college, watch them find their careers, fall in love, marry or have children of their own.

67 still seems far too young (though it seemed ancient to me when I was 21, it's now just 21 years away!) If genetics play any part, my grandmother lived into her nineties, but the odds these days of living that long seem slim (despite Willard Scott and the Smuckers Club).

On a personal note, I've never been one of those "live for today" folks. I've always been prone to worry about the "what ifs" of tomorrow. But the events of this week have reminded me that none of us knows just how many tomorrows we have left. Given the choice, all pain and illness aside, I'd be willing to bet that Susan, Bob and Kara would have all wished for the same thing: more time.

As a result, I'm going to try to focus less on the "what ifs" of tomorrow and enjoy the moments of today instead. I'll revel in the noise and chaos of an elementary school science fair or my fifth-grader's first sleepover. I'll remember to tell my family and friends that I love them. I'll try to honor those who passed this week by making the most of whatever time I have left.

Care to join me?

Check Me Out! - 3/11/09

You know me.
You've seen me at Shaw’s, Home Depot and Wal-Mart. As you crawl towards the checkout with your bulging cart, waiting interminably to begin placing your items on the belt, cursing inwardly as the patron ahead of you pulls out a checkbook, I breeze by you wordlessly.
You know me.
I am the one who uses self-checkout.

I confess: the self-checkout lane has always intrigued me. Unless I have a shopping cart bursting with food (which would mean real meal planning on my part, so basically never), I tend to drift to those last few aisles that offer the chance to play supermarket cashier for a few minutes. Look, I can scan barcodes and weigh bananas with the best of them! Using self-checkout gives me the feeling, if only briefly, that I have another concrete skill to fall back on (should the need arise). There are those that prefer to have others scan and bag their groceries, pump their gas and mow their lawns (okay, I agree with that last one) but there's something about self-checkout that lures me in every time.

I always think that self-checkout will be a time saver, and sometimes it is. More often than not, there's something in my order that sends up a flag, causing the little green light on top of my checkout to turn red and blink. The oh-so-friendly computer voice says, "Please stand by...help is on the way". Of course, help is not really on the way, because the other cashiers (the professional ones, not the amateurs like me) are all helping their customers, so I've learned from experience that you can't just wait for help to arrive, you need to nudge it along by saying, 'Help, HELP HELP!" in an increasingly loud voice. At this point everyone in the checkout area turns to look at me while an employee with a key hustles my way.

Anyone out there recognize this scenario? You scan your item and place it in the bag. But you were a split second too quick, because the voice then says, "Please remove item from bagging area." You remove the item only to hear, "Item removed from bagging area. Please return item to bagging area." at which point you put it BACK in the bag and the whole cycle starts all over again. Perhaps this could be implemented as a new form of torture. Imagine terrorists removing and replacing items in the bagging area for ten or twelve hours on end.

The aforementioned computer voice is consistent whether I shop at Shaw’s, BJ's, Wal-Mart or Home Depot. I'm sure the voiceover talent was chosen for her soothing, dulcet tones, but that's a small consolation when I hit my third or fourth error during checkout. At that point, all I want to do is find the woman who belongs to that voice and smack her in the head with my oven-stuffer. A clerk confided to me the other day that one customer referred to the disembodied voice as an evil (I can’t print it here…use your imagination.)

The best part of self-checkout is that it guarantees job security...for store employees. I’m sure they were initially fearful that these electronic cashiers would replace warm bodies one by one. No need to worry. As long as there are folks like me who are masochistic enough to use self-checkout, there will be a need for clerks to change our blinking red lights back to green.
You're welcome.

My Recent Job Interview - 2/25/09

These past few weeks, I ventured out of my safe, mommy-cocoon and did something I wasn't completely sure I was ready for.

I applied for a job.

When my children were born, my husband and I agreed that I would stay home full time while he continued to work outside of the home. We felt that if we could swing it financially, it would be great for our children to have one parent home with them through their pre-school years. We agreed that once they were both in school full time, I would go back to work.

Well, my youngest went off to first grade over a year ago and guess what? I'm still home. Why didn't I immediately go out and get that full-time job? Well, for one thing, there's the issue of early release every Tuesday. My friends who live outside of Hanover just shake their heads in disbelief when they hear that the elementary schools have a half-day every week. My older son is now in middle school, and his regular day ends at 2:15p.m. (Except on those Tuesdays when the middle school is released early...good grief!) Add to this the fact that I enjoy volunteering in the classroom and after school. Put it all together and it really isn't conducive to returning to a 9-5 job.

Over the years, I have taken on part time jobs that I could work around my family. As a Pampered Chef consultant, I set my own schedule. My job as a weekly columnist lets me write about what I want, when I want (provided I meet my deadline). So when a part-time position working for my town became available, I went for it.

Now, I haven't applied for a real job in about 20 years. My first challenge was re-writing my resume. Actually, the first challenge was finding my resume. After scanning old back-up drives from a computer that died years ago, I finally located an electronic version. I marveled at the long list of clients I had worked with, then panicked when I realized I couldn't remember any of the jobs we did together! That was about fifty million dead brain cells ago.

Once my resume was "polished", I had to decide what to wear to my interview. Jeans? Too casual. A suit? Too formal. Semi-casual dress with boots and a black vest? Perfect. (Though I worried that my fur vest might look too real, thus giving the impression that I didn't really need the job...Could I slide in the fact that it was a fake and came from TJ Maxx? Possibly.)

I was amazed at how calm I felt on the day of my interview. This calm dissolved as I entered the room and found not one but three interviewers. Being interviewed by a committee made me feel like those politicians you see on C-Span, the ones who stammer and break into a sweat under intense questioning. ("Yes, Madam Chairperson, I do feel that I could bring a great deal to this position...and did I mention this fake fur vest came from TJ Maxx?”) Still, I kept my cool and tried to compose my answers without looking like a deer in the headlights.

Somehow, I managed to make it to a second interview. This time, only two interviewers. We're making progress here. After the interview, I was given a "skills test", a way to be sure that I could do more than turn on a computer and curse at the screen. After successfully recreating both a Word and an Excel document, I left the building bursting with confidence and good cheer. The feeling that I wasn’t a dinosaur, that I could pull it together and reclaim a spot in the working world, was worth all the effort. Hooray for me!

Sadly, I did not get the job. And though I was disappointed, it was my older son who put it all in perspective for me. When I told him the news, he turned to me and said, "Mom, did you do your best?" I smiled as I thought of how many times we had asked him this same question, after a difficult math test or a soccer loss. I said to him, "Honey, I did do my best." and he replied, "Well, that's all that matters."

And you know what? He's right.

A Personal History With Lent 2/25/09

Ash Wednesday is now upon us, heralding the beginning of Lent. Lent is the period of forty days leading up to the Super Bowl Sunday for Christians, Easter (Final Score: God 7, Satan Zip!) Ash Wednesday immediately follows Fat Tuesday, the final day of Mardi Gras, signifying the end of overindulgence. In a nutshell, its time to put away your beads and your booze and reflect on the somber season ahead.

I was raised American Baptist in a primarily Jewish community, so the idea of giving something up for Lent wasn’t on my radar until I was much older. In my church Lent meant listening to depressing, dirge-like music every Sunday. My mother would bring us to a special Maundy Thursday service where my sisters and I would hold our noses for an hour to avoid the stench of lamb that had been prepared in the adjacent Fellowship hall. The term “Good Friday” seemed an oxymoron to me, since what happened to Jesus seemed anything but good. And then Easter would arrive, with baskets of candy, pretty new dresses and the return of triumphant, victorious anthems during church service.

As I grew older and my circle of friends began to include Catholics, I became intrigued by the idea of giving something up for Lent. It was kind of like making a New Year’s resolution that you only had to keep for forty days. I decided to adopt the practice for myself and have done so every year since. Some years I’ve been successful, other years…not so much.

It seems like the most popular thing to give up is chocolate, or for the really brave, “sweets” (a vague term that encompasses everything from cookies to ice cream to
Jell-O!) Giving up sweets is particularly challenging for me since both of my son’s birthdays and my birthday all usually fall within Lent. When your child looks at you with those big cow eyes and wants to know why you’re not eating a piece of his birthday cake, what do you say? “Sorry honey, Jesus didn’t give in to Satan’s temptation and neither will I…Back off!”

To further the agony, my all-time favorite candy, Cadbury Mini-Eggs, are only available during the Easter season. These little beauties are my own personal version of crack. Once the bag is opened, there’s no going back. How many times has my husband had to hide my “stash” of Mini-Eggs to prevent me from overindulging and waking up with a roiling, nauseous, Mini-Egg hangover?

Some friends give up alcohol. I’m an infrequent drinker at best and so it seems like a minimal sacrifice for me. Others give up swearing. Much as I enjoy the occasional expletive, I’ve weaned myself (mostly) from the practice since my kids were born. Someone else suggested giving up coffee. Okay, there’s spirituality and then there’s torture.

Thankfully, my current church suggests adopting a new practice, rather than eliminating one, which seems like a good way to go. Perhaps a little more time spent reading the bible and a little less time on Facebook? In the grand scheme of things, adding daily prayer or increasing my good works probably carries more weight than giving up those evil, awesome, addictive Mini-Eggs. But for the sake of my waistline, not to mention my soul, I think I’ll give them up anyway.