The Earth Moved Under My Seat

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It’s been one of those weeks.

We were babysitting the youngest grandkids, Guilia and Luca, this past weekend.  They are usually able to keep themselves busy, are well behaved, get along most of the time, and are always very entertaining. It was a rainy day so we decided to take them to the Mall, have some lunch, and go to the grocery store.  The Mall has a play area, a Merry-Go-Round, and some cars that rock if you put in a bunch of quarters. There is enough to keep them busy, moving, and get them somewhat de-energized. The plan was to wear them out by the time we got home since their parents, stuck in different airports because of the weather, wouldn’t be home until the next day.  We wanted them to have fun and then get a good night’s sleep so Scott and I could get a good night’s sleep. This is the same plan we utilized with Aidan and Riley when they were very little and it always worked.

I combed their hair, washed their faces, and made sure they had on clean clothes.  Scott put Luca into his car seat, and I checked that Guilia was securely fastened in her booster.  The first problem was discovered in the Mall parking lot upon our arrival as we were getting the kids out of their car seats.  Guilia, who had arrived at our house with a suitcase holding at least 4 pair of shoes, did not have any shoes with her. I’d checked them both before we left the house and I swear she had shoes on.  It was obviously an illusion. She assured us that it was ok; she didn’t really need any shoes.  We decided the easiest solution was to go buy a cheap pair of flip flops so she could get into the food court which, just like all eating establishments, has a policy of no shirt, no shoes, no service. 

As we were getting the kids back into their car seats to go to Wal-Mart for shoes a bee flew in the window.  Scott and I, acting and sounding like people who needed to be put in white, locking, restraining jackets, moved to a windowless room with padded walls in a big white building somewhere out in the remote countryside, finally trapped and smothered the bee with a tissue, but not before it stung my finger, only adding to the whole atmosphere of hysteria.  The kids misunderstood, thought we were entertaining them, and laughed at us as though a couple of clowns had come to the Mall parking lot just to entertain them.  Finally, sanity seemed within our reach.

Lunch went smoothly because of the allure of the Merry-Go-Round which we told them only went around, up and down, and played music if children ate a good lunch.  As we were working our way to the play area, Guilia realized that she needed some lipstick.  I, a reasonably intelligent and sane person most of the time, took her to Simone at the Estee Lauder counter at Macy’s and bought the 4 year old a $21 tube of lipstick. We then left the bag with the lipstick on the seat of one of the rocking cars that had swallowed up all our quarters, leaving us with no quarters and no lipstick.

Guilia has a dead cell phone she plays with.  She puts it up to her ear and talks for long periods of time to some imaginary friend.  Sometimes Luca gets to talk on the dead cell phone, but it’s a real contest and the one thing they always fight over.  She began to talk on the phone as we drove home, and Luca was becoming extremely impatient and upset because he needed to make an important call.  Guilia was not going to part with the phone under any circumstances.  Things got very heated and the argument was causing Luca to cry.  Scott and I begged Guilia to give her brother a turn with the dead cell phone. Guilia lifted herself up in her booster car seat, put the dead cell phone under her little butt, and said to Luca, “You can’t have it. The phone is charging.” 

Scott and I had no idea phones could be charged this way, and I’m betting it’s news to you, too.  We’ve always used a plug-in charger for our cell phones. 

On Tuesday, sitting in the sun at the pool with the girls, I suddenly felt a little shaky.  My water bottle started shaking and it seemed like the earth was moving ever so slightly.  Was I getting sick?  My friend Patty also looked startled and shaky.  The other girls didn’t seem to notice anything and so we both said, rather loudly, “DID YOU FEEL THAT?”  Then, not wanting to alarm anyone, we both quietly said that we felt something weird —like things were shaking and quivering. Maybe groundhogs had a tunnel underground and were running through it, having groundhog sex, or giving birth to baby groundhogs, shaking up the ground underneath us. The other girls thought we were joking.

In fact, the earth had moved.  Soon the news was out that there had been a 5.8 magnitude earthquake in central Virginia that had rattled the whole upper east coast.  Earthquakes are destructive and terrifying.  But this was not an earthquake like the ones people in Haiti or Japan experienced.  Those were extremely serious, damaging, massively devastating events causing loss of lives and traumatic injury to thousands of people. 

But still, this earthquake merited quite a bit of news coverage.  Here in the Pittsburgh area we saw the photographs people took of the effects of the quake they’d experienced:  a lawn chair turned on its side, a wall picture hanging askew, lipstick missing a woman’s mouth and ending up on her nose, golf games being disrupted, plants falling over.  People told horror tales of spilling their beer and feeling dizzy.  Well, that could have been because of too much beer, not the earthquake. 

The line of the earthquake must have travelled in a straight line directly from me to Patty who was sitting right across from me.  We were quite shook up but we got no sympathy. Things might have been different if there had been a follow-up pool tsunami.  We are both experiencing a little post-traumatic stress — mine exacerbated because of the whole shoe, bee, lipstick, phone ordeal— and to speed our recovery we may need to relax at the pool more than usual, maybe with a couple of Margaritas or Cosmopolitans.

It was reassuring to see how our country survived a 5.8 quake.  Many other places in the world might not have been as lucky.  It’s so good to be an American, with only a tipped over lawn chair or a shaking bottle of water, instead of a collapsed building with hundreds of people in it as a result of an earthquake.  No serious injuries were reported, no electric or phone lines were downed, and television went on with its regular programming.  Modern technology quickly assured us that we were okay. When the electric goes out and the phone lines are downed due to earthquakes or storms or whatever, we get upset and sometimes panic, but we can still use our cell phones to communicate or call for help. 

And if we need to recharge the phone all we have to do is stick it under our butt and sit on it.  Who knew?

Creating a Good Portfolio

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Our daughter and her family recently moved, and the new neighbors have a couple of kids the same age as our grand kids, Guilia, 4, and Luca, 3.  Guilia was invited over to the neighbor’s house, but she quickly ran home to ask her mom how much they paid for the cleaning lady.  My daughter asked why she needed to know, and Guilia said she told the new neighbors that they really needed a cleaning lady because their house was a mess.  She said she’d go ask her mommy how much it cost so they could get someone to clean their house, too. 

Kathy was mortified, of course, much as Scott and I were, repeatedly, when we were raising our children.  In fact, upon hearing this story as Kathy related it to us, Scott and I shut and locked the doors and windows, closed the drapes, and turned on some very loud music so the neighbors wouldn’t hear our cheerful cries of “Hooray!”, “Way to go Guilia!” and some other things that actually aren’t suitable to print here. 

For us it’s exciting, exhilarating, enjoyable, and includes a little bit of the “revenge is sweet” syndrome.  And Guilia has given us this gift at such an early age!  She’s quite precocious so imagine the joy Scott and I will have for years to come.  I know all you grandparents understand what I mean by this.

Our daughter was known as Chatty Kathy.  In fact, a neighbor once told me how much everyone missed her when she went to college because she would go up the street visiting with all the neighbors on the block, and visiting everyone again as she came back down the street sharing all the news she’d learned on her way up the street.  She was the Town Crier.  Scott and I hid out as much as possible, sometimes looking at our children with that universal parental look that all parents adapt at times in public places — “Whose children are these and why can’t their parents do something about their behavior?”

Kids do things at a much younger age now than our children did.  Every generation says that, and I’m sure it’s true because of the rapid advances in technology and education.  We have access to more and more information, and we are all more universally tied together because of the Internet, social media, cell phones, cable, and so on.  Our children need to be up to speed on all the new technological offerings and prepare much earlier in life for their future.

Last week I was at our son’s house in Philadelphia watching the 8 year old twins, Aidan and Riley.  I told them how proud Scott and I were that they’d passed to third grade, and asked if I could see their report cards.  They excitedly asked if I’d like to see their portfolios.

They have portfolios?  They are eight years old and they have portfolios. 

Of course I wanted to see their portfolios!  I was picturing them coming down the steps with a briefcase, IPad, cell phone, and a professional resume along with a cover letter, looking for a job as a Lego builder or bug collector.

Aidan brought me his portfolio which was an extra large, fold-over, colorfully decorated gift bag.  Riley’s equally large striped gift bag doesn’t fold over.  Each of these bags is full of all their second grade papers, art work, reports from the teachers, tests and quizzes, stories they’d written, and so on.  I looked carefully at everything, and of course it was all fabulous.  Alas, there were no resumes.  I guess they have to add more stuff in each grade, keep their portfolios up to date for the next ten years of school, and then add all the college stuff to complete the whole portfolio thing.  They might need some more big gift bags, but when they are completely, formally educated, they may not need a resume.  They can show up at job interviews with their colorfully decorated gift bag portfolios.

I’m thinking I should call Kathy to help me find a good cleaning lady to go through all our old statements, photos, shopping lists, greeting cards, reminder notes, old calendars, useless saved newspaper articles, expired coupons, clothing tags, instruction books and warranties for appliances we haven’t owned in 30 years, and everything else we can find, and get it all organized into portfolios for me and Scott.  We could probably just use our Giant Eagle or Walmart bags since we would need so many.  At least we’d be recycling, even if, because of the old and used bags — plastic, no less— our portfolios didn’t look very professional.  With the way our government  and Congress and Obama are handling the economy, we need to get our portfolios in order too, so we are totally prepared  with our complete life’s portfolio in case we have to get a job working 9 to 5 because our retirement investments took a hit, and now instead of a financial portfolio, we may end up with only a change purse.