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Since starting this blog, a lot has changed in my life. I chronicle it here: http://open.salon.com/blog/girlyboymama

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More kinder drama

What an odd place I find myself in today. Not even 1 month ago, I was freaking out about how my son was placed in a Kindergarten class of a rookie teacher, in a room all the way hell and gone across the school from the other kinders. I worried that he would not get the interaction or same benefits of being in a group the others got. That we were somehow excluded and got the short end of the stick in this deal. But now I realize that, in fact, we hit the jackpot.

It all started coming to light a few days ago when he went on his first “walking” field trip with the other kinders to the local book store to hear an author of a children’s book read a few passages of the book to them. While I did not go, I had a “scout” (i.e. a mother/friend/field trip volunteer of one of his classmates) call and give me a full report of their first field trip went. She indicated to me that –apparently—my darling loving boy was Mr. Outspoken and completely engaged in a dialog with the author. At one point, the author asked for a volunteer to come up to the front and draw their own picture of Russell the Sheep. The author’s first mistake was waiting for hands, because wouldn’t you know it, Mr. Outspoken just got up and went to the front and drew the best damn sheep with a sleeping cap on its head that I’ve ever seen. (We’re still working on the raising hands thing.) From that point on, from what I understand, the dialog between the two of them could only be described as lively and endearing. At some other point at the event, children whose parents had volunteered for the field trip found their parents’ laps to cuddle up into. Since I was beholden to my job and couldn’t be there, Peter found solace in his teacher’s lap. Which brings me to the reason for this blog…

Last night at Back to School night, we had a chance to listen to what the teacher had to say about her plans for the year. Curriculum, activities, field trips, schedules… all of which were the focus of her ½ hour shpiel. Having learned of making her lap available to my son, I had already softened my opinion of her. If she would be so affectionate with the kids, she can’t be all that bad, right? So it came as somewhat of a bomb to us when she said that her position was officially up for grabs and she would have to interview for it come Monday.

What??? Interview for the job that you’re already doing and doing it so well that you have kids crawling all over you?? Crazy talk! NONSENSE!

Needless to say the parents all were incredulous and immediately formed a grassroots campaign to keep Ms. Wilson on board. It was agreed that each of us would ensure that the Principal knew exactly where we stand and that we would not tolerate even the suggestion of removing Ms. Wilson for another. Although Ms. Wilson may have the least seniority of anyone else interviewing for the job, it is outrageous to think that the school would remove her after the kids have begun their educational journey with someone as bonded to them as she is. Oh yeah, sure, the kids can get used to someone else. They are resilient.

But I have to wonder what message does it send to them if they decide to replace her with someone else? This is the very situation I did not want him in: whether it was US removing him from the class or the school dissolving the class and redistributing the kids to other existing classes. The effect and message is the same-- that their opinions ultimately don’t matter and some authority figure can better decide what to do when it comes to their education.

And thine Godlight did thus descend upon mine being...

Jesus Christ. What a hell week this has been. Enough to turn anyone religious. The latest addition to the shit pile that threatens to break this camel's back follows...

I received a bill in the mail yesterday for an office visit to my primary care physician I had back in June. At this time, I believed I was covered by Ant's POS health coverage (no kidding, it's called "Aetna Choice POS II"-- they even RANK their pieces of shit coverage. Amazing! To imagine that there's a POS I!). I was gravely mistaken. Since April (when I have proof that I enrolled), I have been living my life on the edge, which is to say driving my car, eating in restaurants, making lunches for my kids (using KNIVES! *gasp*).. you know, high-risk behavior type stuff. Here I was just walking around with some false sense of feeling securely insured by a virtual, abstract, and wholly inhumane behemoth of an institution called our health care system. And the motherfuckers had the gall to not recognize me. I mean, WTF people!? That bill not only added salt to my otherwise wounded shitweek, but why not throw a handful of sand along with it? And some battery acid, too. Sure. Why not. And to top it off, this was not the first time we had been screwed by this employer's health plan, so I really had no business being complacent or secure in feeling that I was insured.

Driving as defensively as I could remember that my Driving 101 class taught me in Sophmore year of HS, I arrived at work this morning in a near state of panic. I was determined to get to the bottom of it and ream someone a new a-hole.

However, mysteriously when I sat down in my chair, something changed. I no longer had the fight left in me. Having done this so many times before, I knew the energy it would take to make the dimwits in the Perovert Systems HR Department learn their jobs. And I use the term "learn" loosely. I just was not up for it. So it was that I had resigned myself to the reality that I would not be insured for a half a year until I could be added to his plan during open enrollment for the following year. For I had come to the stark awareness that I had most likely missed the deadline to sign up for benefits at my new job by mere days (that's the "battery acid" I referenced above). Or had I?

In what can only be described as The Impossible Long Shot, I went to our internal HR rep to find out if I had missed the window of opportunity to enroll in new hire benefits. After all, I was well beyond the 30 day window that all HR personnel indicate is the "window of opportunity". In fact, I have been employed here now for 42 days.

Her downcast eyes and tone confirmed my suspicions, but she said that I should probably just log on to the benefits site and try. And therein lay my religious moment.

I tried, and by the grace of Goddess/God/PowersThatBe/MrUniverseDude/WhateverTheHellYouWantToCallTheDevinePower, I suceeded. In fact, I was informed that I even have the opportunity to make changes to my election for another month (i.e. until we can sort out what the dumbfucks did at Perovert Systems). This is unprecedented. This small light cast in the midst of a dark and gloomy week offers me the chance to hope that someone, somewhere in another dimension/time/space/reality really is watching over me. Call it the wipey that has cleared the smudges from my rose-tinted glasses. Anyway, I very much prefer to see the world that way.

The Kindergarten Blues

We arrived this morning at school just under the wire. I swore we were going to be late, but we made it just in time. I was still grappling with my own disappointment from yesterday but I stifled it for Peter as best as I could. He was perfectly oblivious to anything that was going on with me. He could not wait to get to school. He got dressed, got his shoes on and ate breakfast all by himself without our so much as giving him a suggestion. He picked out his new guitar shirt to wear, and he did so with pride.

We arrived at school amidst the chaos and confusion and hustle and excitement of the first day. I had to admit that I was happy to know that starting the next day, we'd be dropping him off well before the start of school at daycare and we wouldn't have to deal with this mad house too often. We parked the car a million and a half miles away and walked to his class room. Apparently it had cleaned up nicely (I didn't see it yesterday when it was still the storage facility), but in my opinion it looked like shit. It's a portable class room so no windows. The only thing illuminating the cavernous space were a few flickering flourescent lights, which was actually probably all for the best since the only rug they had on the floor in the corner where they do circle is SKAN.KEE. There was no hominess about it. It was not a cozy space.

As we arrived to the sea of new faces, Peter found his new BFF and happily got to some business of serious playing. They didn't have dress up clothes for him yet, but apparently they are ordered and on their way. As I looked around the room, I saw many other parents there with the same expression on their faces that I felt in my heart. I don't know if there's a single word for it but confusion, disappointment, wonderment, anger, sadness, and happiness all rolled up into one is probably the best description I can come up with. I waited for the teacher to approach us and welcome us to her classroom. We waited, and waited, and waited. I was also waiting for her to greet Peter, which I never actually saw her do. So we kissed Peter goodbye and then left. It was so anticlimactic. I wanted something more. In wanting that, I felt like I was being a spoiled child. So that feeling turned to guilt, because at the end of the day, it's not about me. It's about Peter, and he was clearly over the moon happy about his new beginning.

I was in no mood at that point to mingle at the coffee social, but I tried. I felt so out of place, standing there pouting about the whole situation. Mercifully, the PTA president came over and struck up conversation. We chatted for a couple minutes and once our conversation ended, I realized it was time I took my pouty ass home.

On our way back to the car, we saw and started chatting with another parent of a child in the class. If it is possible, we actually met someone who is more unhappy about the situation than I was. It was hard looking in that mirror, and when Ant called him a whiner, I again realized that it's not about me. Dude really was a whiner. I found myself trying to point out all the positive aspects of this situation and he repeatedly rebuffed them.


And here is our happy-go-lucky Big Kindergartener!

I think there's a lot we'll ALL learn in Kindergarten...

Ahhhh... Kindergarten. Where you learn to behave in the real world. Where you learn to read. Where you learn what it means to be the little man on the totem pole. And in this day and age, it's a coming of age, when parents --in some manner of speaking-- are saying goodbye to their babies and welcoming their school kids. It's a time mixed with anxiety, anticipation, a little fear, but mostly hope.

So much is talked about this time as being critical for a child's development into well-adjusted adulthood. Since January of this year, we have been building up our own soon-to-be-Kindergartener's anticipation for what is to come. He has been looking so forward to it, as have we. In January, we were the very first family to register him for his school. We had no second thoughts about the school. We were convinced that it was perfect and would offer him a well-rounded education. A computer lab, an organic garden, a well-developed performing arts division... Because it seemed to have it all, we pursued enrolling him in this school with reckless abandon.

In May, we attended a parent orientation. They invited us for an evening to chat with the K teachers, of which there were 3: a bilingual teacher, a 40ish year old mother of kids at the school, and a veteran who had been there for decades. In this meeting, they explained that the rooms, which are all next to one another, would all be used by all the children. They explained the co-mingling that all the classes would have (except the spanish-speaking which would have only limited integration at first). I was excited. Overjoyed, actually. This meant he would have all the amenities that both classrooms had to offer.

So, it came as a grave disappointment to learn today --one day before school starts-- that only YESTERDAY a teacher who had been a sub at the school for some time, accepted an offer to teach a Kindergarten-1st grade mixed class, to which my son was assigned. This classroom is on the OTHER side of the school from the kindergarten rooms. It opens to the big kids' play yard and is in a portable classroom.

I'm totally devastated, and at the same time, ambivalent.

On one hand it completely dashes any and all expectations I had of my son's first real school experience. His will not be the typical Kindergarten experience. I do not know how they will be able to have the same interaction with the other classrooms that they had shared with us back in May. They do not have their own playyard like the other Kindergarteners have that contains a brand new play structure. I do not know how they will be able to integrate with the other kids. How will this young teacher of only 24 years manage our handful of a child? Can she do it? What if she can't? I worried whether even the veterans would be able to do it. We only get one shot at kindergarten, and it somehow feels like we got gypped in a big fucking way. I feel pissed. I feel dissed. I feel outraged.

And then on the other hand, for my son I have to try to model the reaction that I would ask of him: to be open minded. Maybe it could be a good thing. The ratio in this class is less than the others: only 17 kids, 6 of which are 1st graders. Mixed-level classes lends itself to a more Montessori approach, which is something I've always stood behind and felt was an excellent teaching model. Maybe the 1st graders will mentor him. Maybe he will get an opportunity to self-advance his education because he'll be exposed to it more.

I know that I have to put on a brave face and not let him see my disappointment. He is so excited. He can't wait to get started and he doesn't have the same set of expectations that I do. Maybe I need to go with the flow more. Maybe I need to behave more like an adult, less like a kindergartener and stop pitching a fit.

One thing is for certain though: we are all going to learn a lot this year. Probably and most especially me.

Passwords + swiss-cheese-brain = lots of emails for pw requests * patience

ARRRRGH! I hate forgetting my password to this site. By the time I recover it 45 fricken days later, my creative moment is lost.

My latest obsession

Twelve years ago, just about to the day, I spent 7 days touring, and falling in love with, Turkey. My visit to this wonderful country affected every one of my senses. There I met the friendliest people, sampled the tastiest food, heard the most amazing sounds (if you've ever heard a call to prayer for a Muslim, you'd know what I mean), saw the most incredible views, smelled the most fragrant aromas, and experienced a hamam.

While all of the trip was memorable, it was the small fraction of time --only 2 hours or so-- spent bathing in a traditional bath house that has remained at the forefront of my mind as the quintessential experience. Everyone simply MUST experience this at some point in his or her life to say they've lived a full life. Here was my own experience:

At the youth hostel we were staying at in Istanbul, the proprietor recommended that we visit a "hamam" at some point during our stay. He suggested one that had been around for a while. My traveling buddy, me, and another guy we were traveling with were game and said "sure, why not". So we hailed a taxi and off we went...

We arrived at a very ordinary building. It did not look remarkable in any way from the outside. We were directed to enter the women's hamam to the left, while our male companion went to the right. We agreed to meet up in 2 hours in front.

After passing through a small foyer, we entered the lobby of the bath house. In the middle there were easy chairs and sofas for lounging all centered around a small pot bellied stove on top of which tea was warming. There were many women of varying ages sort of just wandering around. One woman was getting a leg and armpit wax that looked very painful, but hey, no one ever said being beautiful wasn't easy.

We paid our entrance fee (the cost of which I have no recollection, but I'm certain it wasn't more than $10) and were guided to our individual changing rooms, each of which had a cot, a towel, a flat frisbee/dish looking thing, and wooden shower shoes which I had decided I wouldn't be caught dead in. I would later learn that only wood will keep you from slipping and falling on your ass once you enter the main bathing area which is usually tiled entirely in marble.

What ensued was nothing short of the most profound relaxation experience I've ever had. Starting in the dry heat room (basically a sauna), you stay there for as long as you can take it. After about 20 min or so, you move to the main bathing area that is an architectural phenomenon in its own right. The cathedral dome is designed to enable light to filter through at just the right amount so that it maintains the room's serenity. This room is a bit cooler than the sauna but filled with steam. Around the perimeter, there are small basins with a faucet above it. You can adjust the temperature of the water, but the Turks typically use cool water.

The woman who took our money at the entry, suddenly appeared through the door. A towel was wrapped around her and she was sporting the stylish wooden flip-flops that I decided weren't so bad after all. She beckoned for me to meet her at the polygon shaped marble slab/table that was in the center of the room. A little nervous, I carefully made my way over. She proceeded to scrub the nastiest, blackest, crap off my body with what only looked to be a regular washcloth. I was shocked and horrified to discover that the nasty, black "crap" ended up being years and years of built up dead skin. Grossed out beyond belief, I was sent back to my seat near the basin to rinse off, while my friend got her "once over". When she returned, I went back to my scrubber who proceeded to wash me tip to toe. It felt a little weird and indulgent to have someone doing this to me, but as they say "when in Rome..." After all, all the nationals in that room were bathing each other. I decided that it was ok and decided that the indulgence felt a lot better than the guilt.

Once we had completely rinsed off, my friend and I returned to our "cubby" rooms and wrapped ourselves and just relaxed on the cot for a few minutes. When we emerged into the main sitting and lounging area, the woman who was running the place appeared with a huge platter of food that she place on a coffee table. She and several other generations of women proceeded to eat, drink, smoke, and laugh. It might sound silly, but witnessing that single event changed my opinions about the culture that I had initially concluded was sexist with all the divisions based on gender. I realized that these women were not only comfortable in the gender role their culture dictated, they embraced it. Admittedly, it softened my previously rigid Gloria-Steinemesque ways.

Back on the street in front of the hamam (which we learned was built in the 1500s), we felt renewed, refreshed and cleaner than we had ever been in our lives. Literally squeaky clean. I decided right then and there that I would not be leaving the country without doing this at least one more time.

Ever since this time, I have not been able to shake the yearning for the experience once again. Knowing that a trip to a Turkish hamam is probably well after a trip to Disneyland, LegoLand, and probably even Hawaii, I have been obsessing on bringing the experience to me.

In my Internet searches, I have learned that the lemon scented hand cleanser used all over the country in restaurants, on busses, and other public venues, is really lemon cologne. I have also learned that the scrubber used to get the nasty, black crap off my body in the hamam is called a kese and it is quite different from a loofah. I have also learned that the frisbee bowl thingy, the towel, and even the fashionable wooden shoes from hell are all known quantities in hamam land.

One trip to eBay and $40 later, I am now the proud owner of 2 kese, "the" lemon cologne, henna, jasmine bath soap (traditional is olive oil soap), and some Turkish coffee. SCORE!

So, for now, I will indulge myself with these items that bring to mind so many good memories.

Links that rocked my world and set me up (besides eBay):
http://www.yiyelim.com/
http://www.tulumba.com/