A few good gems

Hello there, last weekend in September! How'd you get here so fast?

I'm off in a few hours to take four teenage girls on an overnight roadtrip to a regional church ball in Sydney tonight. I'm anticipating lots of hilarity, music, snacks, and stories but not a whole lot of sleep. After we get back tomorrow afternoon, though, I'm putting in a request for some laid-back weekending for the second half. Mama needs her rest.

What are you up to this weekend?  How about a few gems to start it off right?

- This speech by George Saunders  to Syracuse University class of 2013 is a keeper. He talks about erring in the direction of kindness. It's a gem no matter your season or situation.

- My cousin has a knack for bringing the fun; in fact, I'd say he's a professional fun bringer when he's channeling his alter ego Fresh Big Mouf. He's got a cool Beat Scout video serieswhere he makes music from found sounds in places like a diner, an industrial park, metro station, or a church. Check out this one with Kina Grannis, covering "Royals":

and this week's episode, "You Can't Hurry Love."  Also, it's just a great idea for an idle Saturday afternoon--you could have your kids try a Beat Scout video of their own.

- This essay gave me some good food for thought in the midst of a stressful week. 

- Kudos (though belated) to this 15-year-old winner (and his mom, who drove him every night after school to a university lab to test his theory) for creating a cheaper, more accurate and sensitive early-stage pancreatic cancer sensor and winning the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair this year. His uncle died of pancreatic cancer and Jack came up with the idea in biology class. (Also? His unbridled reaction to the win makes me cry.)  Kids are awesome.

- The man who buried his treasure in a poem.  Fascinating! (via Longreads)

- I can think of so very many ways to use this ^ poster-making template! The site has other turn-a-quote-into-a-masterpiece template options, too. (Like the fortune cookie one, above.) Brilliant!

- I have found a new favorite skincare product: Fresh Sugar Face Polish. It's kinda spendy but a little goes a lonnng way and you just use it a few times a week. I'm a new fan! 

- Finally, this well-done Portrait of a Ten-Year-Old Girl includes some terrific insights and observations about this typically in-between age (via Longreads).

Go embrace that weekend, everyone! See you here on Monday.

Channeling Nora

Photo: Hilary McHone in NY Magazine

You know the question about who would be on your ultimate imaginary dinner party guest list if you could invite five people from any era? Nora Ephron always makes my list.  In fact, she has long been a charter member of the group of outstanding women I would like to grow up to be--or at least be like. If this imaginary group had a name it would be something like The Society of Dames of Wit and Panache. Right now I'm in early training, nothing but a pledge, a wannabe, a plebe. Give me another decade or few and with any luck I'll get there.

A few months ago Nora's son, Jacob Bernstein, published a wonderful tribute to his mom. In it, he recounts her final weeks, when even then she maintained her signature humor:

Sunday, June 24, was a pretty good day. The sun was shining, and Mom spent most of the afternoon on a couch in the front of her room, doing the crossword puzzle with Max. Binky was there, as was Richard Cohen and his companion, Mona. Amy stopped by with her husband, Alan. “We’re going to the Guggenheim,” Amy said. “Do you want anything from the outside world?”

“Sure,” my mother said. “A de Kooning.”

Another thing she requested was a pineapple milkshake, so Max brought one from Emack and Bolio’s, made from fresh pineapple. But as far as my mother was concerned, a milkshake is one thing that’s actually better with crushed pineapple. Dole.

“When I get out of the hospital, I’m going to go home and I’m going to make a pineapple milkshake with crushed pineapple, pineapple juice and vanilla ice cream, and I’m going to drink it and I’m going to die

,” she said, savoring the last word. “It’s going to be great.”

 . . .

The weekend I read the article, the boys were out of town on a scout campout so I enlisted Maddy in my quest for an impromptu Nora tribute day, complete with pineapple milkshake. Get ready, the recipe is fancy. (Can this even be called a recipe if there are only two ingredients?) 

1. Throw 4-5 scoops of vanilla ice cream in the blender.
2. Pour in some Dole crushed pineapple, including some of the juice. 
3. Blend and pour into glass(es). Serves two. Or one. No one will know.

So grab your teenagers, put on an Ephron movie, raise a glass of pineapple deliciousness, and deliver your favorite Ephron lines like these (extra points if you can name where these lines originated): 

• "It was a million tiny little things that, when you added them all up, they meant we were supoosed to be together..and I knew it. I knew it the very first time I touched her. It was like coming home, only to no home I'd ever known. I was just taking her hand to help her out of a car and I knew. It was like...magic."
• "I wanted it to be you. I wanted it to be you so badly."
• "That's your problem! You don't want to be in love. You want to be in love in a movie."
• "Don't you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address."
• "When I buy a new book, I always read the last page first, that way in case I die before I finish, I know how it ends. That, my friend, is a dark side."
• "When your children are teenagers, it's important to have a dog so that someone in the house is happy to see you."
• "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

And my favorite: "Above all, be the heroine of your life, not the victim."

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I realize you might not be as *cough* obsessive *cough* as I am, but just in case you are, here are a few good things for a Nora Ephron tribute day of your own:

• Nora Ephron's blog posts for the Huffington Post
• Hallie Ephron's article about the four Ephron sisters and their mother
• Nora's last work, the play Lucky Guy, just closed its run in NYC this month
• A Nora Ephron documentary is in the works
• Frank Rich's fantastic tribute to Nora in NY Magazine
  
• Her "What I Wish I'd Known" excerpt from I Feel Bad About My Neck 
• Design Sponge's series of posts about decorating inspiration from Ephron movie sets: You've Got Mail,  Sleepless in Seattle, Julie & Julia, and When Harry Met Sally
• Her entry for Six Word Memoirs: "Secret to life, marry an Italian." 
• A Channeling Nora playlist.  Okay, I'd better stop. Now my crazy is really showing and I can sense you are getting worried.

Day tripping

Photo by Debbie Brenner

Happy 4th of July! It's going to be a quiet one here. Two of my kids are gone, but we are going to do our best to be festive with those loyal enough to remain behind. I'm thinking burgers on the grill and pool volleyball. The fireworks don't fall under my departmental responsibilities, so I have nothing to say on that matter. 

For the past five or six years, the week of the 4th has included a trip to San Antonio, just under 200 miles away. The older kids have a camp that week at Trinity University, and San Antonio is always a welcome respite -- what with the Mexican food and the Alamo and SeaWorld and the Mexican food. This year my sister-in-law and I drove the older kids to camp, dragging along our 12 and 11 year olds for some good old fashioned Mom-led fun. (Imagine me doing a dorky dance that would make a 12 year old boy roll his eyes.)

The last child leads a strange existence. At the tail-end of the family, they are witness to everyone's activities and comings and goings, and I find myself trying to balance Parker's watching and participating as best I can. In this instance, he was along for the drive and the dropping off, but then afterwards -- it was all him (and his beloved 11 year old cousin). We spent the night in San Antonio and then headed out adventuring in the morning.

In an effort to avoid the sweltering heat and horde of humanity that is SeaWorld or Six Flags, my sister-in-law came up with the brilliant plan of visiting Natural Bridge Caverns and it's next-door neighbor Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch. The caverns are a huge underground system of caves with incredible stalagmites and stalagtites and mineral creations by the hundreds. And the Wildlife Ranch? Ummm . . . let me just say that a beautiful zebra stuck its head into my window and opened it's mouth WIDELY looking for the animal food pellets distributed at the ticket booth. I may have freaked out (because the teeth were large and unbrushed), screaming at my sister-in-law to roll up the window. When the same zebra stuck his head in the back window? The kids started laughing hysterically, all the while feeding her as quickly as they could pull the food from their bags. There's not much better entertainment than that. 

All of this got me thinking about the required elements for big kid day-tripping. Once, I loaded up my whole family and drove them to a small town about an hour away for some antiquing. Not a successful venture. The trip only ended on a somewhat less-dispirited note because of the Dairy Queen Blizzards I managed to locate in the 11th hour.

Forgoing antiquing . . . here's my list of day-trip essentials: 

1. Something to DO. There really needs to be something along the way that expends some physical energy. This is true for my big girls as well as my son. (Obviously, this is why amusement parks are typically sure-fire teen pleasers). Walking from one antique shop to the next does NOT seem to fulfill this element. At Natural Bridge Caverns there was a large ropes course and zip line that more than made up for the less-than-captivating lecture given in the caverns. 
2. Something to LEARN. Even though Parker was more interested in secret passageways than our tour guide's spiel, my kids are usually pretty interested in facts and figures along the way. They especially love a factory tour -- watching something being made. The Blue Bell tour is high on my list (and not just for the ice cream at the end). I also have great memories of the Cape Cod Potato Chip tour. My dream tour? Crayola. Only because I've seen it on Sesame Street like a zillion times.
3.  Something NEW. Novelty generally isn't BORING. Parker has seen the zebras in the zoo any number of times, but being accosted by a zebra in a vehicle? That was original.
4. Something to EAT (see photo). I probably don't need to spend an entire bullet point on this. But as my momma always says, "A hungry child is a dangerous child." This is even more true for teens. 
5. Something to ENDURE. Okay, so this isn't necessarily a "required element" for a day of fun. But that's the whole point. It's pretty near impossible to plan and execute a day of perfect fun. There are long car rides, tiring lines, altered meal times, and often disappointed expectations. The trip itself is about spending time together, seeing more of our part of the country, and focusing on the positive.  Reminding big kids of these goals is an important part of trip prep and maintenance. Also? Telling everyone Mom needs ten minutes of quiet before her head explodes? That's okay too.

Road tripping

Last summer, as part of our move from Boston to Australia, we drove across the midsection of the US of A with the whole fam-damily.   Crazy. Fun. Lengthy! That's a whole lot of together time. We researched routes and sights, routed ourselves through friends' and family members' hometowns as much as we could, and generally tried to spruce up our necessary, long trek into an adventure. It was a lonnnng ride with some bumps and squabbles along the way but we already catch ourselves reminiscing about it with fondness.  Here are a few survival tips we gleaned for taking a road trip (long or short) with big kids and teens:

 Include everyone in the planning. We started with a long wishlist of places to see, which included things like the Wizard of Oz museum, Laura Ingalls's house, the St. Louis arch, Graceland, Mt. Rushmore. Obviously we couldn't do it all but we started with everything on the table. Sam found a couple of good planning websites to try different route options and check to see if we were missing anything cool. We used Roadtrippers, which was good. (And here's a good Lifehacker post about apps and tools for making the most of roadtrips.)  Then we mapped out a reasonable drive time (between 6 and 11 hours each day) and planned stops and made reservations but kept it pretty flexible.

Make a mega playlist. I decided to crowdsource it and asked friends on Facebook and my personal blog to make suggestions. They came through brilliantly with a bounty of 167 favorite traveling songs from 72 people, representing the best of many decades and musical genres. I can honestly say we all (ages 13-45 at the time) enjoyed them. Feel free to use our playlist on Spotify or make one of your own tailored to your own greatest hits. I also wrote down who made each song suggestion, which led to some really great storytelling sessions as an added bonus. 

Pack a distraction box. Our kids were 18, 16, and 13 but that didn't mean they were too old for distractions along the way. Ours included a couple of balls and a frisbee to throw around at rest stops, some sudoku and logic puzzles, some audiobooks, books to read out loud, snacks, games. Bring an atlas, too, to trace the trip. Honestly, though, we ended up talking and listening to music and audiobooks for most of the trip.

Sam is not looking so flexipositive... 

Flexipositivity is our family's travel motto, a mashup of flexible + positive. It's a made-up word that draws eye rolls (and I'm sure it will be lampooned by our kids forever more) but it conveys what we hope will be the overall feel whenever we  travel. Things will happen and the only thing we have control over is our response. No sense ruining the day over it.  For instance, I lit my hair on fire in Kansas. Flexipositivity! Greg, who had been in Australia for a few months working in advance of our move, pulled onto the wrong side of the road. Flexipositivity time. Speeding ticket? Rained out? Have to take a turn sleeping on the floor? Flexipositivity, activate. (See? Now you're rolling your eyes, too.)

Embrace the wacky and the wonderful. World's Biggest Easel in Goodland, Kansas right next to the freeway? Yes, please. Ditto roadside dinosaur, stuffed penguins at Little America, and other oddities. Breaking up the trip with a little wackiness upped the adventure factor for us all. Build in a little time to be able to swerve off course and take a spontaneous stop now and then.

Sam and the World's Largest Easel, Goodland, Kansas

Take two cars. Ha! Just kidding, kind of. Last summer we needed to get two cars across the country and it was a fabulous--though admittedly spendy and un-green--way to go. I kid you not: For a lot of the journey, we had a kids' car and a parents' car. They could answer their own darn are-we-there-yet questions, right?  It was practically a second honeymoon.  As a more realistic alternative, shake things up by rotating seating throughout the trip.

Kids' car: better than the glass barrier in taxis and limos! 

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- Along the Way looks like a cool road trip app, though I haven't tried it. Have you? 
 
 - I ordered this Journey Journal from Cracked Designs to jot some of our road trip memories. I also LOVE this one if you'd rather make your own trip scrapbook on the road.

Happy trails and safe journeys!  What are your favorite trip tips?

On giving up

​Summer 2011.

Guys, I have been exercising like a crazy woman lately. (I've also been eating like a crazy woman, but that's another story.) I'm doing this boot camp. And I'm running. And, did I mention the boot camp? Because my arms feel like dead weights just flopping around my torso. ​

So, Saturday I attended boot camp at 7 AM. I know it's not THAT early, but it's early enough that my body screamed at me in a really high-pitched, angry scream when I drug it out of bed at 6:30. I ignored my body and hauled its lifeless self to the field where I tortured it for a good 50 minutes. And when I came home I was all proud and boastful-like. I said, "Sterling! Aren't you so proud of me for going to bootcamp at 7 AM?"

And he gave me a funny look and said, "Sure." Which was totally not what I was going for. So I said, "Look. You should be plenty happy I haven't completely given up."​ He laughed and praised me (half-heartedly) and went about his merry way.

I was left to think about "giving up." 

Sometimes I wonder if I've "given up" on some of the important stuff with my younger two kids. ​For instance, when Jordan was in sixth grade, I was still in full-on kid mode. I instituted programs and made sticker charts and fashioned schoolbus cakes from the Family Fun magazine. We were DOING THINGS, and MAKING THINGS, and ACCOMPLISHING THINGS. And now? I kind of just want to MAKE IT THROUGH. 

Is this laziness?​

Or wisdom? ​

Probably some of both. ​

But in the spirit of enduring to the end, I'm instituting a summer reading "program" over here. My oldest two love to read. And while the two youngers are strong students, neither has yet accepted reading into their heart as the best thing about the entire universe.​ And this pains me. So I'm not giving up.

We are going to read the Harry Potter series. I think both kids have read the first book. Not reading the other six books, it seems to me, is a travesty and renders their childhoods essentially incomplete. ​And I'm NOT giving up. Not me.

Here's my initial plan, subject to modifications:

1. Start by reading the first book out loud. Together. The sheer time commitment of this task seems a little daunting, but considering the amount of time I dedicated to watching seven seasons of The West Wing, I think I can make it through a read-along of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
2. Set aside some dedicated quiet reading time. This is for me as well. I've got some dissertation reading to slug through. I'm thinking we will do this in the mornings while our brains are fresh and before the children have departed to the four winds.​
3. Engage in a bit of Harry Potter mania -- try out some trivia games, make some Butter Beer, maybe even (gasp!) watch a movie.​ You know, teach them about finding a passion and completely obsessing over it. Or, alternately, have a bit of enforced fun.
4. Set some goals. Also known as bribery. There will be a mighty fine prize should they complete all seven books. ​
5. Work on journals. I actually did this with Parker last summer, and it was fairly successful. This is just 15 minutes of writing a day in a notebook all jazzed up with "SUMMER 2013" on the cover. It takes some work to be a good writer. Write a little everyday. 

Any other summer suggestions for the betterment of our youth? I'm all ears. . .​

Prom 2013

Prom happened this weekend.

There are a few important mother/child interactions that I feel comfortable with, competent even. I feel pretty good about helping proofread an English paper or scholarship application. I enjoy talking with my kids about friends, and life experiences, and dating. I can remember being a senior in high school and am happy to share my wisdom (such as it is). But prom? I feel completely at sea amongst the rhinestones and fancy hair and glittery nails.

It's not that I'm against the frou-frou. Not at all. I'm frankly amazed at women with the motivation and skill to carefully coordinate accessories and shoes and handbags. And I bet those women make awesome prom moms because they KNOW something about all of this fanciness. Me? I'm merely guessing. When it comes to prom, here's what I try to do for my girls: 1. Let them know I'm excited for them. 2. Support them by listening to what they envision in terms of dress, shoes, hair. 3. Follow them around and pay for stuff.

I guess mostly I don't want to force my own predilections on my kids. And, obviously, you can't show up to prom in a t-shirt and jeans. It's just not done. So, I do my best impression of a sparkly mom. I even went to Charming Charlie's and thoroughly investigated the entire fake diamond/silver section. That's love baby, because costume jewelry is about 1, 637 steps down on my personal priority list.​

And, as promised, the dress:​

Maddie had a great time at prom. There was a lengthy gathering wherein all of the parents played overly-excited paparazzi. There was a white Hummer limo. There was a fine dinner. There was dancing. And there was an after-party that lasted until 5 AM. While she enjoyed the dressing up and the fanfare, she seemed even more engaged with the people, enjoying her friends and their last grand hurrah.

In the flurry of all of the preparations, I tried my best to live the prom moment, to remember my willful, blue-eyed toddler now changed into this silvery butterfly. But, quite frankly, living the moment is difficult. First of all, it's hard to help with the jewelry, and carry the clutch, and manage the manual camera settings AND live the moment. And really, the moment, as it stands, is a little much to bear. The prom moment screams so loudly, "LOOK AT ME. I'M ALL GROWN UP." And I look, I do. But then I have to turn away and shield myself a little from the glaring truth. That she's all grown up. 

And then I curse prom and go home to chocolate doughnuts and The West Wing, which are my only true friends at the moment.​

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In other prom-related materials, did you know that the asking is a huge deal? It is at our school. Even The New York Times has something to say about it. Read it here.

​Time recently published a 1979 prom picture of  President Obama, along with a note he wrote to his date. I'm not sure where my prom date is, but I am sure he's not holding high public office. Darn.

New addiction

Okay, friends, have you or your kids tried the game GeoGuessr?​ (And if so, why were you holding out on me?!)

Fair warning: If you're not in the market for a new, time-sucking electronic addiction, you might not want to click over right now.​ On the other hand, it is fairly educational. And it appeals to the armchair-traveler-slash-amateur-detective in each of us. 

Basically, the game presents a Google Earth snapshot. It's like you've been plunked down somewhere on the planet earth with only whatever clues are in the photo to figure out where you are. You can follow the arrows on down the road, twirl around 360', zoom in and out (license plates are blurred out). Then you make an educated guess on the map where this spot is and you get points depending on how close you come.

Okay, I can tell I'm not capturing the essence of it here but trust me. It's a worthy time-waster.

The best part is that it's a blast to play along with your kids or family as you narrow down the location, make predictions, and take a virtual trip around the globe. (I apologize, my dear adopted Australia, for thinking you were South Africa. It was the desert-y village with cars driving on the left side of the road that did me in.)

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GeoGuessr did not pay me for my gushing, nor do they know who I am. I'm just a fangirl and feel compelled to pass it along.​