That's What Friends Are For

One night last week I settled in for an evening of fun and fashion. There's just something about a fashion show: the flurry of activity behind the scenes, the nervous models jockeying for position before being called to the runway. The roar of approval as each new ensemble is presented to an appreciative audience.

And while this may sound like an episode of "Project Runway", there was no backstabbing, no cries of "make it work", no Heidi Klum announcing, "You're out." The fashions were presented at The Lantana in Randolph and the models were all members of Friendship Club.

Before last week I knew very little about Friendship Club and Friendship Home. I'm embarrassed to admit this because Wilma Goodhue, a fellow member of the United Church of Christ in Norwell is one of the founders of Friendship Home, which is due to be built on our church's property. While I had heard Friendship Home mentioned in the past, I didn't fully understand what it was all about until I was invited to attend their "Fashion With Our Friends" fundraiser last week.

Reading up on Friendship Home online (gosh I love the internet) I discovered that it was founded in 1999 with a two-fold mission: Friendship Club provides adults with developmental disabilities the opportunity to share food, fun and friendship with each other, meeting twice a month at locations in Norwell, Duxbury and Quincy. Friendship Home will break ground this summer on the UCC Norwell property to provide a respite care and activity center where members can participate in day or evening activities, or stay for periods of up to two weeks, giving them a safe and stimulating environment, and providing needed respite for their caregivers.

I wish everyone reading this could have seen the Friendship Club members strutting their stuff on the runway at The Lantana. Commentator Beth Ann Strenge came out in a sparkly off-the-shoulder red gown and confided that one of the models told her she looked "...better than Charo." (Guess what? She did.) As each model came out dressed to the nines in spring outfits from Milton's, Lillian's Fashions and Dress Barn, Beth Ann would announce the model's name, place of work and their favorite hobbies and activities. I was pleased to recognize several familiar faces as they walked the runway (who knew I was surrounded by fashion models in my everyday life?) There was Michael Goodhue, who attends my church and works part time at Uno's in Hanover. And Matt Kardok, a staff member at the YMCA where I exercise. (An avid drummer, Matt jumped in and jammed with the musicians from the South Shore Conservatory of Music that evening).

While the audience was enthusiastic with its applause, it was clear that the members of Friendship Club drew their support and encouragement from each other. If one was too nervous to walk the runway alone, another would take their hand and walk with them. Men and women, in formal wear or casual, the common denominator was that everyone on stage was clearly enjoying themselves (personally, I would have either frozen like a deer in the headlights or tripped). The evening ended with everyone from Friendship Club taking the stage together and holding up hand printed signs that formed the words "Friendship Home" (all to the tune of Elton John's "That's What Friends Are For"... which caused my mascara to run...just a little...okay a lot.)

Ironically, the few hours I spent at The Lantana last week provided me with a respite from the cares and concerns of my every day life. While this was my first experience with Friendship Home, it will not be my last. If you'd like to join me, check out www.friendshiphome.net. You'll be glad you did

I Think I'm Turning Japanese

Did I mention I'm learning a new language?

The past few years I've been increasing my Japanese vocabulary. And do you know what I've discovered? The words Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Bakugan, B-Dman and Digimon all translate into the same thing in English: WASTE OF MONEY!

I have to hand it to the Japanese; they have an uncanny knack when it comes to creating a sensation that is guaranteed to whip American boys into a frenzy while at the same time emptying their parent's wallets.

Those of you with girls...I apologize. Go back to your Polly Pockets, your American Girl dolls and your Littlest Pet Shop and tune in again next week.

Where was I? Oh right...waste of money. As my boys began to outgrow their Rescue Heroes and Transformers (of which we have many) their pocket money (and mine) was suddenly spent purchasing packages of overpriced Japanese trading cards. First there was Pokemon (a card collecting game based on a television series based on a video game). Each trading card represents a different Pokemon or "pocket monster". And their theme song? "Gotta Catch 'Em All" (Clever!)

Then came Yu-Gi-Oh! (More trading cards based on a television series based on a Japanese comic book). My kids collected stacks and stacks of these cards, with absolutely no idea how to "battle" (or play the game). Here’s an example of the direction on the Axe of Despair card: “A monster equipped with this card increases its ATK by 1000 points. When this card is sent from the field to the Graveyard, if you offer one monster on your side of the field as a Tribute, this card returns to the top of your deck.” And that’s just the instructions on ONE CARD… One Christmas my son had to have a Yu-Gi-Oh card launcher, an oversized contraption that strapped to the arm and could only be found on eBay for the inflated price of $50. I've never actually seen him use it and to add insult to injury, I saw the same item one year later on the shelves of Ocean State Job Lot (for $9.99...grrr!)

We managed to skip right over Digimon (Digital Monsters...more trading cards based on video games), and briefly paused for Beyblades, Japanese tops that battle in a flimsy, molded plastic arena (which cracks easily when you step on it. Take it from me). After Beyblades came Battle B-Dman which are essentially monster-shaped marble launchers (though my son and I got into quite a heated argument when he asserted that they were not marbles but B-d balls. Guess what? They're marbles.) Did I mention that Beyblade and Battle B-Dman are both based on, yes you guessed it, a television series? Which brings us to Backugan, our recent obsession. Bakugan is a combination of all the crap that came before it. Based on a television series (of course!) the game contains monsters (Digimon!) that are round like balls (B-dman!) and contain trading cards (Pokemon! Yu-Gi-Oh!). One card in the pack is metal, which triggers a magnet inside the ball to spring open, converting the ball into a monster (okay, that's new). Store shelves were wiped clean of these items for months. My friends all complained that their kids were consumed with Bakugan toys.

And suddenly, like an epidemic that eventually burns itself out, Bakugan is over. One friend's son who was obsessed with it announced recently that he doesn't care about Bukugan anymore. It's fallen off the radar for my children too, whew! Finally we can take a break from all the stuff imported from the Land of the Rising Sun.

Except...the other day my son came home from school with erasers in the shape of a hamster, an airplane and a seal. The erasers come apart into several pieces, and apparently all the kids in his class are trading them with each other. Thinking I should get a few for him to trade back with his friends, I stopped by the toy store and inquired about them. The clerk replied, "Oh, the Japanese erasers? Yes, they're right here by the register. All the kids are collecting them. They're 99 cents each."

Sigh.

There's a Bird in My Bush! 5/6/2009

Life in my town is starting to feel like a movie and the movie in question is Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds". First, I'd like to state that I am not a bird person (certainly not like my friend Susan, whose longest running relationship aside from me is with her parrot, Wilbur.) My husband however, is definitely a bird person. While other recession-savvy folks are finding ways to cut their food budget, we continue to buy large bags of sunflower seed, thistle seed and vats of peanut butter. Each year my husband recycles the Christmas tree by drilling holes into the trunk thus creating a peanut butter feeder. So I guess you could say that I've become a bird person by association (much the same way I became a Red Sox fan). While I do enjoy seeing a bright red cardinal against the snow in the dead of winter, and the vivid yellow goldfinch in the summer, in general I can take 'em or leave 'em.

Lately, when entering and exiting my house, I've been startled by a sudden flapping sound in the tall evergreen bush by my front door. While my heart returns to a normal rhythm, I'll think "crazy bird" or "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" before focusing on the zillion other things on my mind. After several more heart-lurching moments, I finally took a closer look at the bush only to find a perfectly crafted robin's nest...complete with four brilliant blue eggs. Cautioning my sons not to get too close or touch it, they marveled at this amazing bit of nature before shoving each other out of the way to get to their Wii inside.

Spying cautiously through my front window gives me a birds-eye view of the mother robin sitting on her nest. It's like having an ant farm through my living room window (except the ant has feathers, beady eyes and a suspicious nature). The downside to this miracle is that now we’re all paranoid about entering and exiting the house by the front door. We've now taken to exiting via the garage or the slider on my back deck. And while this is all well and good when we are home, unless we want to leave our garage door open (exposing the complete mess inside to the entire town) or leave my slider unlocked (hey burglars! c'mon over to my house!) we still have to enter through the front door when we've been out. Which sets our flighty robin flapping away into a nearby tree (causing me to wonder why she didn’t build the nest there in the first place). We won't be able to prune that bush anytime in the near future, further hindering our feeble attempts at landscaping.

Sharing my bird tale with several friends yielded many bird stories in return. "Dorito", an orange-bellied bird, would fling itself at my friend Donna's bedroom window at 5 a.m. hundreds of times in a row, day after day. Donna put wrapping paper, construction paper, even stuffed animals in the window trying to deter "Dorito" from slamming itself repeatedly at the glass (imagine how the neighbors must have appreciated this new décor.) Donna finally broke down and ordered a permanent shade, which did the trick (perhaps "Dorito" gets a kickback from "Blinds to Go".)

I mentioned to my friend Barbra, who I now think of as The Birdwoman of Hanover, that I had seen several wild turkeys strutting through her yard. These ugly trespassers simultaneously drove her dog bananas while causing her daughter to freeze in fear. Barbra also said that they have had several robins stand on the outside windowsill, in their own poop, pecking the windows repeatedly (and in the process transferring their poop to the windows). She’s also found a bird nesting inside her garage. But probably the best story was the morning Barbra heard a flapping sound coming from her chimney, which services a wood burning stove. Barbra called her husband in a panic, who rushed back home from work only to find that the flapping had stopped. That night they lit a fire in the stove. The next morning, the flapping began again. Barbra called in a specialist, who dismantled the stove, looked up the chimney and pulled out a live, soot-covered duck (luckily not a wood duck but a mallard). Taking it outside, it wobbled for a moment, and then flew off. About all this Barbra said, "I don't even like birds...I don't have bird houses, I don't have any bird feeders!" Yet for some reason they flock to her.

Getting back to the robin in my front yard, my husband brought up the interesting point that once the babies hatch, the mommy-robin is more likely to fly at us rather than away from us when we approach the front door. At this point we'll have to come up with a creative way to get into our house without leaving it unlocked. Because, while a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush, a bird in the face is worth a trip to the emergency room.

Take the Friendship, Leave the Bread 4/29/2009

Recently a friend dropped by unannounced and presented me with a large Ziploc bag filled with white goo. Printed on the front of the bag were the words "Amish Friendship Bread" and the date. She handed me the bag and a set of instructions and explained that the goo was bread starter. I was one of four people she was passing this to, and if I followed the instructions in ten days I would have two delicious loaves of bread and enough starter to pass along to four of my friends.

The instructions were simple enough. For the first five days all I had to do was "...mush the bag". On day six I had to add a cup of milk, a cup of flour and a cup of sugar, zip up the bag and mush it again (I was getting good at the mushing part). I was a little leery of anything that contained milk with specific instructions to not refrigerate, but then I remembered that the Amish don't have refrigerators and they're still clip clopping along the back roads of Pennsylvania, so it must be safe. Still, some mornings I’d wake to see that the bag was bloated with air, bursting to be released.

Day 7...mush. Day 8...mush. Day 9...mush. Finally day 10 arrived and by this time I felt like I had been caring for one of those "virtual" pets that needed daily attention lest they wither inside their little electronic homes. Following the directions I added more milk, more sugar and more flour. I then set aside four cups of starter to pass along to four friends (or I could keep one for myself and have fresh bread in ten more days). Once the starter was separated, I added several more ingredients and baked the batter. The bread turned out delicious, cinnamon flavored with the consistency of a quick bread (a "quick" bread that took ten days to make!) I decided to pass three bags along to my friends and save one for myself.

I gave one bag of starter to my friend Maria and two more to my friend Jessie (Jessie took two because one friend threatened me with bodily harm if I gave it to her.) I checked in on Jessie and Maria over the next ten days to be sure that they were mushing on schedule. I took my bag to NJ for the Easter weekend, intending to pass the subsequent starters along to my mother and two sisters. Once again, the bread turned out warm and tasty. My younger sister was suspicious about the safety of the starter and conveniently “forgot” to take hers home. My older sister forgot hers as well. My mother reluctantly offered to adopt a bag, commenting, "It's like an edible chain letter", but made it clear she was not going to pass anything along to anyone.

Sadly, I brought three of the four bags back from NJ. I thought, "I'll just make them all myself" at which point I started to think about the mathematics involved. Three bags would mean six loaves to bake on day 10, not to mention a dozen starters to have to pass along to others. If I kept those for myself, it would be like the enchanted broomstick from “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” scene in Fantasia. I'd find myself surrounded by gallon Ziploc bags of goo, mushing and mushing all day long. Add to this the emails I received from Jessie and Maria while I was gone: Jessie's said, "I held a little memorial service for the friendship bread right before I THREW THE STARTER IN THE TRASH! The bread was good, though...” Maria's said, "I just let out the air, did the last "mush" and two-thirds of the contents squirted out all over the counter. The zipper wasn't closed in the middle!"

With a sigh I walked out to my garage and threw my three bags of starter in the trash.

The moral of this tale is that while I welcome your friendship, a little goo goes a long way

Birthday Parties at Home - 4/23/2009

As the mother of two boys, I recently reflected on one of those "life lessons" you learn pretty early on: Never host a birthday party in your own home.

When my oldest turned a year, I planned a birthday party to be held at home. Other mothers warned me that the first birthday party is more for the parents than the child. Ignoring that little nugget we invited everyone we knew. Friends, family, moms from Gymboree; all were in attendance, along with children of various ages. The cake was ordered and balloons and streamers hung over stacks of brightly wrapped presents. As chaos reigned around us and my son shoved handfuls of Teletubby cake in his mouth, I realized those mothers were right. My son was used to being the center of attention; this was nothing new for him. He couldn't even unwrap presents without our help (and even then he was more interested in the wrapping paper…) This party really was more for us.

Fast-forward a year to our second party at home. This time, I was more judicious with the invitees. Limiting it to my friends from playgroup and their two-year-old sons, I figured a smaller group would be mellower. What I didn't count on was the following equation: (8) two-year-old boys plus (1) cake times (2) hours equals total destruction. When we finished scraping frosting off the walls and the rug, we vowed never to have another birthday party at home.

Subsequent birthdays were spent at the YMCA, the arcade, bowling alleys, the movies and anywhere else that welcomes packs of feral boys with open arms. Though I’ve stuffed piñatas, loaded countless goody bags, and served pizza and cake, not once have I had to clean up! It was worth the extra money for the privilege of walking away from the mess, loading the gifts into the trunk and driving to my nice, clean home.

Years later and faced with a very different economy, I thought I might try to save a few dollars by…gulp…hosting a birthday party at home again. My boys were older (maybe a good thing, maybe not) and with my husband to help, we could get through it. It would be like those challenges on “Survivor”: grueling, exhausting, guaranteed to knock the stuffing out of us, but when it was over we’d be stronger from the experience.

My younger son turned eight and so we decided to invite some friends over for an all-Lego party. Limiting the party to an hour and a half, we dumped all of our Lego pieces in the middle of the basement floor (approximately three million pieces) and let the kids go to town. Fully expecting that they would be bored in about ten minutes, I had several games up my sleeve to fill the remaining time. Surprise, surprise; the kids had to be pried away from the Legos in order to cut the Lego cake. Challenged to be creative, the kids made spaceships, an elaborate Star Wars base and even a Pawn Shop (complete with drunks inside…original!) Each kid left happy, with a $6 Lego set and a handful of candy. Success!

My older son turned eleven just a few weeks later, and I suggested (in a moment of temporary insanity) that he invite a few of his friends for a sleepover! It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as the date approached and my friends said things like “Wow, you’re brave” and “Good luck with that” I started to get apprehensive. The evening was filled with movies, video games and Nerf wars (and the kids with chips, cake and soda). Though we tried to enforce “lights out” at midnight, no one fell asleep till almost 2 a.m. (then woke up at 6:30!) Though I’ve never craved a large family, it was surprisingly fun to have five boys crowded around my breakfast table hoovering pancakes and bacon. By 9 a.m. our house was our own again.

In the end, it cost us about a hundred dollars for both parties (plus a few hours of sleep) and though I felt good about saving money, I felt even better about the priceless memories we had created.