Judgment Day

As I have mentioned on one or two occasions previously, my son, the intellectual, has a lot of opinions, some of which he shares with the world in his weekly column for his college newspaper. I never can seem to get it right which columns will incite people, and which ones will cause a collective yawn. Which certainly throws my own intellectual pretensions into question, I would have to say. Is it possible it's all a sham to cover up my insecurities?

Last week, he did a column on the OJ Simpson trial that recently concluded in Las Vegas, City of Sin. This time, it seems, the sins may have finally come home to roost, and apparently in the right coop, too. Which is, in my opinion, a fitting turn of events for someone who has been a fox in the hen house and never gotten punished, despite the pile of down fluttering around his feet and the tail feather stuck between his teeth.

Tortured metaphors aside, OJ Simpson is a controversial figure. Whether or not you think he got away with murder seems to have more to do with your understanding of the criminal justice system in this country than it does with the actual truth. While around 85% of white people think he is guilty, only 34% of black people think he definitely killed his ex-wife and her friend. In addition, another 30% shockingly don't know if he did it or not. How can that possibly be? What could possibly explain that level of division? The only answer, from my point of view, is that justice is not color blind. On the contrary, it appears to be color driven.

It seems that my son agrees with me, although not for the same reasons, about some of the flaws in the system of justice in this country which allowed a murderer to go free. The fact that my child is now grown up and has his own ideas about things, which are different than mine, baffles me. I nurtured this child from the moment of conception - how dare he turn around and have opinions of his own, and worse yet, hold opinions which are contrary to mine? Honestly, the next thing you know, he'll be telling me what to do. Oh wait. Check.

Anyway, we had quite a lively discussion about the whole justice argument after he wrote his brief essay. I disagreed with him on a fundamental level, because his conclusion seems to be that first, karma isn't real, and second, unearned retribution is not right, even though it feels good.

I disagree. I think karma is a fundamental reality, and the choices you make, good or bad, will ultimately come back to you. Although frequently it's later rather than sooner, which isn't usually fast enough in my mind. I would prefer instant action, but the world doesn't seem to work that way. It isn't fair, but then, life's not fair, and then you die. So why should karma work any differently?

As for the second point, I believe that there are some cases in which the public interests are served by getting the criminal off the streets, even if it's for the wrong reasons. (Can we all say Al Capone?)

That is not a judgment on the outcome of this particular trial. I don't know enough about it to have an opinion, really. Although I'll be honest, whatever he was accused of, I'm pretty sure he probably did it, arrogant cretin that he is. His defense team would have been most unlikely to allow me on the jury, due to my lack of impartiality. But in this case, I was speaking more about people getting away with stuff generally, and that sometimes the right punishment can apply to the wrong crime, but it evens up in the end. Karma.

My son, the activist, thinks that being punished for the wrong crime diminishes the course of justice. Personally, I say it's the natural course of events, the logical consequence of living your life badly, and it is how justice works in the real world.

But then, I've always been a true believer in natural and logical consequences. Back when I started parenting for myself, they didn't really call it that, at least as far as I know. Mostly, people in my neighborhood called it getting what you had coming to you. Or getting your comeuppance. In other words, karma. Ah.... There IS a theme here after all.

Karma is mainly a Hindu life concept, although you will also find it espoused in Buddhism and several other Asian traditions. It is based on the precept that there is a cycle of cause and effect, and that what you do affects your future and that of others whom you impact by your choices. For those beliefs that have a tradition of reincarnation, that effect can follow you right into your next life or two, which, if you ask me, is a heck of a punishment if you screw up.

Karma is not, by definition, good or bad. It is merely the word for, and the explanation of, the nature of cause and effect in our actions and our choices. If you make good decisions, there will be a good effect that occurs. When you make bad choices, there is a bad outcome. Whichever it is, you own it, and you are responsible for it.

That lack of ownership seems to be primarily at the heart of a lot of the negative stuff I see in the world today, something for which OJ Simpson seems to be the poster child. OJ is experiencing bad karma because he made bad decisions, over and over again, and whether or not he is accepting responsibility for the outcome, (and rest assured, as always, he isn't,) the karma is still exacting it's own sentence.

One of the things I have tried to do in my life is to live well, and to take the high road, even if other options were open to me. I find that taking the high road rarely takes me down the wrong path. On the contrary, I have never regretted doing it, because I can look at my image in the mirror every morning and feel good about who I am.

I would recommend that OJ take some of the time he will almost certainly spend in prison to review his decisions, to check his choices, and to see what he did to contribute to where he he finds himself today. I think that same lack of ownership may be the single biggest problem in this country right now. We make poor decisions, but they are never our own fault or our own responsibility. Instead, the fault belongs to someone else, and the outcome is out of our hands.

I would say that your karma will find you, wherever you are. If you take the high road, you won't get your feet wet in the cesspool.

Sweating petty peeves

A few years ago a book titled, Don't Sweat the Small Stuff, was on the best seller lists. The point, of course, is that we shouldn't let little, unimportant matters get in the way of achieving the great things we are all supposed to be striving for. I have a different take on it.

In life, the larger melt-downs, the overwhelming catastrophes, are largely beyond our control. The current stock market collapse? If the Federal Government throwing $700 billion at it not only doesn't reverse the course, it hasn't even slowed it down, what are we going to do about it? For most of us, we can only sit by helplessly and hope and pray that things reverse sometime before we need to retire on the 401k that just lost half it's value.

Unemployed? The only thing you can do is send out hundreds of resumes in a job market that is overflowing with people more qualified than you for every single job.

Cancer? Stroke? Alzheimer's? There is very little that you can do in the short term to stop the relentless course of a whole host of diseases that plague families just like yours and mine every day. The financial burdens are overwhelming, the emotional ones don't bear thinking about.

So again, if I can't change the course of the big stuff, then I reserve the right to sweat every single small thing that comes into range. Because it is the small stuff that we have control over. The small stuff is what we can change, or at least manage, the stuff where we can make a difference.

I was reading the letters to the editor in my local paper yesterday. Out of all the paragraphs dedicated to the election, from all the people trying to persuade us how dangerous the "other" candidate is [have you noticed that none of these people seem to lay out why you should vote for their candidate, only why you should vote against the other one, which leads me to believe that negative campaigning is never going to go away,] was a letter complaining about an incident that happened to her while attending a recent production of "The Lion King." Not the Disney movie, but the hit Broadway production currently on tour, and which has been in Kansas City for the past couple of weeks.

She paid a lot of money for her tickets, I am sure, because those things do not come cheap. But her experience was less than ideal, because in the seat behind her was a mother who had brought her toddler to the production.

This mother proceeded to talk, in a normal speaking volume, about what was happening on stage, rehashing the plot of the story to her child throughout the entire production, thereby disrupting the enjoyment of the everyone around her. Common sense should have dictated to this young mom that if her child can't follow the plot on her own, then she is simply too young to attend, and she should have been left at home with a babysitter and the movie video.

This is a phenomenon I have noticed increasingly to be problematic in public places, this bringing of inappropriately young children to events where they have no business being in attendance. I don't hate children, as you may have noticed from previous posts, I have two of my own. But I do think there is a time and place for them, and it's not at an expensive Broadway touring production if they are under the age of ten and can't shut up. Or if you are over the age of ten and can't shut up, for that matter. It is a small thing, perhaps, in the overall scheme of the world, but the lack of courtesy to others is one of the things that makes me sweat.

I recently learned that there is now "school" for babies, where they go and get exposed to education materials for hours and hours a day, theoretically to allow them to hit the ground running in kindergarten and get ahead of the pack when they try for Harvard or whatever. Am I the only one who still thinks childhood should be for playing, exploring, creative thinking, reading stories with morals instead of financial statements with bottom lines?

This constant emphasis on getting your child ahead cannot be a healthy pursuit for either you or them. And I am here to tell you, if your kid is smart, you really can't mess them up if you try. Trust me. I am experienced at this.

I have a kid with a 190 IQ, and I did everything wrong. He is still smart. No common sense whatsoever, but you can take my word for it, he's smart. Has all the answers. To everything. All the time.

Take a deep breath, relax, and let them enjoy life a little. There is time enough for the job or the mortgage when they are old enough to know that keys are not teething toys. The only thing you should be worrying about right now is whether or not they can follow the rules. If they can't, that is something worth sweating.

When was the last time you got cut off in traffic? Someone pulled out in front of you? And then, worse yet, drove five miles an hour under the speed limit? How about that extra car turning left in front of you, delaying your progress to your destination, and worse yet, risking a crash that could injure others? My all time least favorite move, however, is when people fly past in a construction zone, knowing full well that the lane is going to narrow 20 cars ahead. They just have to get ahead of the people who have, in an orderly, well behaved fashion, gotten into the correct lane as directed. Don't you just want to smack them? Because I do.

I also hate going out into my front yard and finding someone else's dog poo waiting to foul my shoe bottom, or worse yet, my bare foot. I have dogs, it's true, and I would never consider walking around my back yard without looking down the entire time. But I want to be free to walk around my own front yard without shoes, if that's how I'm feeling at that moment.

I dislike calling a business and finding an electronic voice answering the phone. I do not want to push one for English, and I never know the extension. I don't think people should be punished for trying to contact a business. In fact, I think that is part of the problem with business today. Too few people actually willing to serve the public, too many people serving themselves. Could that have something to do with the public scorn for the current bailout proposal?

This is all small stuff, it's true, but it matters to the people who are affected. If you are already late to work, and someone cuts in front of you, it's irritating. If you are already having a problem with something that shouldn't have broken down in the first place, and you cannot reach a live person to help you, of course you will be aggravated and frustrated and annoyed. It is affecting your life, and it shouldn't be.

I am a believer in the idea that God helps those who help themselves. I can't solve the problem of cancer, but I can be sure when I am out in public that I am not disrupting others. I can drive more safely, I can choose not to answer my cell phone in the middle of a crowded restaurant, I can be courteous to the clerk that is having a tough day. I can smile at people for no reason, and I can hold a door open for a mother with a large stroller.

And by the way, what is with the limo sized strollers, anyway? How much stuff does your kid need for the five minutes you are going to be in the post office? I am always sort of fascinated at the sight of these moms with their large SUV's in a parking lot, pulling out the Hummer-sized stroller, the bag big enough to pack the kid into it, twenty other pieces of random paraphernalia, packing up with more stuff than I bring when I'm staying somewhere for a week or two, all for the five minutes they are going to spend in wherever they are going. I wouldn't be surprised to see them pulling out the kitchen sink, because some of these strollers are big enough to hold them.

And then they get inside, and the kid is invariably unhappy to be stuck in the now non-moving vehicle, which ultimately results in a crying kid running wild around the place unsupervised, because mom is caught in traffic and has to stand by the offending wheeled item, anyway. And you just know she is going to go after you if you should be so foolish as to tell her kid to get back to his mother and behave himself. Because the rules of decorum only apply to you, don't you know. Never to them. And definitely not to their hellion kids. I don't get it.

I was never one of those car seat carriers. I lugged my kids around in my arms, and I learned to do everything with one hand, like self-respecting mothers have done for centuries. It is, in fact, possible to use a public restroom holding an infant and never have anything but your own two feet touch the floor. It's not easy, but you can do it with practice. It encouraged me to encourage them to stand on their own two feet, I can tell you that.

My point? I can't change the course of the economy. I have no idea what should be done, and I'll be blunt about it, I don't think anyone does. So I just can't waste my life worrying about that. It's too big for me, and it's out of my hands. I can't find the cure for dread disease, I can't change the course of poverty, or anarchy, in the Third World, I can't even seem to generate money in my own household lately.

But what I can do is focus on the little stuff, the stuff I do have control over, the stuff I can change. In the end, if we all did that, it would make the world a kinder place to live. It would certainly be quieter, anyway. And I could definitely use a little quiet, with a teenaged daughter to sweat about.

Debating the wisdom of debating

I am not among the political junkies who anxiously await each presidential (and vice presidential) debate with the excitement of an eight year old waiting for Christmas. I consider them more or less a silly waste of time, if you want to know the truth. It's not that the opinions and thoughts of the candidates are not important. They surely are the very thing we should be basing our votes upon. But the reality is, they know the basic questions in advance, and prepare their answers with more precision than Eisenhower and Morgan planning the D-Day invasion. I am left to think that we are not going to cover any new ground in the effort, even if the event is broadcast live.

I would have a lot more respect for the debates if the moderators had more guts to hold the debating adversaries accountable for answering the questions. When someone is asked if the sky is blue, and the resulting answer doesn't have a yes anywhere to be found, I am strongly suspicious that they are not wanting to give me a straight answer. In fact, it appears to me that they are trying to do anything but answer the questions. Personally, I think that's because they are afraid if they tell us what they really think, we might not like them.

I don't know about you, but I don't think the vote for the leader of the free world should be a glorified popularity contest. We are not talking about prom king or homecoming queen, here. We are talking about someone who will make decisions that will affect six billion people around the globe one way or another. I don't think it matters if I like the person living in the White House, but it certainly does matter if I respect them and believe they are going to be truthful and forthright, and most importantly, represent us well among the world leaders in whose circles they will move.

So I personally don't really have an interest in watching the presidential debates. I do, however, really enjoy being a high school debate judge. That is where you cover new ground. The students take a topic, and they research and develop a plan to solve a problem, usually something of international concern.

Last year, the topic was, more or less, should the United States government send additional aid to Sub-Saharan Africa for medical interventions, and if so, what would your plan be? While at first blush, the answer seems an obvious yes, since that is a part of the world in total medical crisis, the how of it is a lot more complicated. While rates of AIDS, malaria, and childhood illness kill off their population at a rate that should shame the remainder of the world into doing something about the situation, exactly what form that aid should take is certainly a complex and complicated affair.

How do you deal with corrupt governments that would rather divert donated food and medicines to the black market to sell for guns or drugs or whatever else the leaders deem necessary to maintain their own economic and social superiority? What do you do with people who are afraid to vaccinate their children because they are suspicious that what is in that syringe is more dangerous than the viruses that are already killing off more than half of their children before they reach the age of one? What is the point of throwing even more money at the problem, when the money already flowing in that direction is being misused and inappropriately diverted away from the people who need it to line the pockets of the already wealthy?

It was fascinating to listen to high school students, who have researched and dedicated hours of their lives and their free time to the problem, and who came up with a host of creative, and perhaps even effective, solutions for the problem. It was also fascinating to watch the students whose job it was to argue the negative, as they raised objections, and, in general, offered alternative solutions of their own.

While young people are often idealistic, and things that they think should work depend upon a perfect world unlike the one we live in, I think the leaders of the so-called civilized nations could probably learn some things from these very bright kids who have a vested interest in the outcome, after all. The world they inherit and will someday administer themselves is the world we will hand over to them, and they care, passionately, about what kind of shape that world will be in when they do take the reins.

While AIDS is the poster child, literally, of what has gone wrong in that part of the world, it is probably not even the most deadly killer of children. That dubious distinction falls to childhood diarrhea, which kills an astounding number of children every year in the undeveloped world, especially in Africa, mostly because of contaminated water.

Many of the teens addressed the problem head on by suggesting a wide variety of means to provide people with clean water. The most interesting solution I recall included directing more money to research for making dirty water sanitary in the glass or the pitcher, since there is no possibility of maintaining a clean city or local water supply where there are no cities, no real houses, and people are living in so called shelters that we wouldn't consider for housing our pets.

I remember from when I was growing up, watching commercials on television for groups like Save the Children, and wondering how they could possibly be genuine. Winsome tots with enormous eyes staring out of emaciated faces, or little children with distended bellies belying the malnutrition that was slowly killing their bodies and their minds, all of which could be remedied with mere dollars a month. How could that possibly be, I wondered. Are they really living in that kind of squalor? Why doesn't somebody do something about it, I thought. To say that I had no understanding of the kind of poverty experienced by those in the Third World is an understatement, of course. But it is virtually impossible, sitting in a cozy house in the United States, to grasp the life realities for people who are not worried about where their next meal is coming from, but when their children had eaten last.

Then I took a trip to Southeast Asia, and got an education for myself. I saw what it really means when they talk about flooding in those places where sanitary sewers are non-existent. It is not necessarily that they are under ten feet of water, like when a catastrophic flood happens around here. It's that one foot of foul and contaminated water covers dozens of square miles, taking hours or days to recede, and leaving behind not only mess but disease and pollution in the hovels that pass for homes for the truly poverty stricken people who live in the way. There is no government to sweep in, to provide aid and clean up supplies and financial assistance for people who had nothing to begin with. They simply endure, one day after another, until they die at an age which is a shameful reproach to the civilized world that has not made a difference, no matter how much aid we have thrown their way.

If you look at mortality statistics, you will find that men and women in some parts of Africa and Asia have an average life span in the 40's. As in, if you reach aged 50, you have outlived your expected life span, and you are on borrowed time. How can that be, in the same world where Americans routinely expect to live past the age of 80, and at 48, I think of myself as still young?

It is easy to marginalize, in our minds, the people in those parts of the world which are disadvantaged. We prefer to assume that they have a different attitude towards life, towards themselves, even towards their children. I have heard people (possibly even myself) throwing around such silly statements as life is cheap in parts of the world where they appear to have nothing to live for.

But I learned, when I was in the midst of the very poverty that I thought was a television backdrop, that people love their children just as much, people hope for something better just as hard, and there is a reason that people who have access to birth control and health care immediately lower their birth rates. If you know your children will survive, you don't have more of them, you invest everything you have into the ones you have. Suspiciously like we do here, in fact.

I was in the countryside of northern Vietnam, being driven to what was simply the most hauntingly spectacular place I have ever been on earth, when I had my lesson in hope and faith. We drove past mile after mile of rice fields, with people standing in the midst of the muddy water wearing the conical hats that you think are a film prop, but turn out to be real. It was picturesque and fun to see, because it was the opposite of the negative pictures of the country I had grown up with.

Every now and then, we would pass what I would have thought were abandoned huts, and by calling them that, I am actually giving them more credit than they deserved, these little abodes were so run down. I knew people had to be living there, because there would be clothes hanging on a line in the front, or perhaps a child sitting on the porch staring at us as we passed. It was clear that these were children who wouldn't normally, in the course of their entire lives, see a white person with blue eyes staring back at them, and it took all my self-control to not stop at each one and try to help.

Then, we passed a particularly disastrous place. You could see the roof was falling in, and had some holes in it, making it almost pointless to call it a hut. The little porch area in the front was missing half of the floor boards, and the steps were cockeyed and coming apart as well. In the front were two little girls, enormous eyes staring out of their tiny faces as we passed, playing with a stick. One thing I noticed about the clothes in that rural part of the world - they are all in earth tones, for some reason, and these two girls were wearing dresses that were no different. It reminded me of the film, "Schindler's List," with everything in black and white. But then, I spied an unexpected drop of color in the picture, and it took my breath away. One of the girls had her hair in a little ponytail, and she was wearing a vividly red bow tied around it.

I almost wept for the sadness of that picture. It suddenly struck me in a visceral way, that her mother loved her just as much as I loved my own little girl, who was not much older than the one I was looking at. She even looked a lot like my own precious daughter, who is half Asian herself, and favors that part of her heritage in the best possible way. But because my girl was born into a country of wealth, she had countless bows strewn around a house that would be no more real than a fairy tale dream to these girls. Meanwhile, they had only one red bow between them to show the world that their mother cherished them just as much as I cherished mine.

I will never forget the sight of that red bow. It was a moment in time from a trip that last lasted many days, but it is the most important moment of the whole experience. Because it opened my eyes, and the doorway into my heart, and allowed me to understand that whether you are rich or poor, you have the very same hopes and dreams; you want security and food on the table, and most of all, you love your children just the same. And now I understand, in a heart way, instead of a head way, that even in the midst of abject poverty, you still want your children to feel hope and joy, and to believe in something better for their future.

That is why I was so impressed last year with the kids of my own world, who had so many creative and original solutions to problems the rest of us really don't want to think about. The problems are so big, and so overwhelming, that the older generations have almost given up. I have faith in the next generation, because I think they have big hearts and creative minds which think out of the box. I believe the 21st century will be the better for the presence of the Millennials, the bearers of those hearts and minds, and who are anxious to be a part of the solution.

The election this year will be impacted by their thoughts, their dreams, their opinions, and their vision for the future. If you haven't been paying attention, they have a totally different viewpoint, and the world is a much smaller place for them. They not only understand the importance of the world view, they live it, as they facebook with people all over the globe on a daily basis.

They will debate the same problems we leave them, and they are facing challenges as they enter the working world that many Boomers have never faced, but they have different life experiences and different tools with which to work on solutions as well. They are the first generation in American history who should not necessarily expect to have a higher standard of living than their parents, a shocking statistic I read awhile back, the truth of which is becoming clearer to me by the day. But ironically, at the same time, they are less interested in the material goods that have bankrupted their parents, and the leadership that have led us to the precipice of another Depression.

They are grabbing the mantle for themselves, and I believe they will shape the world in ways that are new and different. They volunteer at unprecedented rates, they are socially conscious, they were born recycling and they wear their seat belts because it's the right thing to do. They are stupid at times, there is no denying it, because they are young, and to be young is to be stupid. But they are also eager to learn, and eager to move forward and into the future. If the solutions I heard last year are an indicator, we are leaving the world to a generation that is more than up to solving the big problems they face. I look forward to the next 40 years, and to seeing them take the world by storm.

If you don't have the fun of being a part of the life of a Millennial, I suggest you get out of the house and into the schools and be a debate judge for a day. It's a lot of fun, and you will feel good about the future, I'll guarantee it.

The devil you know is not the angel on my shoulder

My mother reminded me the other night that I used to have a devil cat that went without mention in the post about my favorite cats. There would be a reason that cat was not included in the list. She was not only not my favorite cat, she is the only cat I have ever met that I couldn't stand.

That cat truly was possessed by Satan, and I have never been happier to see a pet go away. She was unrepentant about every single rotten thing she ever did, and I'm pretty sure she stayed awake at night dreaming up nefarious schemes to wreak havoc upon our world. Or at least my part of it, anyway.

Among the tricks she would pull out of her bag were urinating on the carpet in the hallway, where you couldn’t really see it until you stepped in it, although you certainly couldn’t be unaware it was there. Her pungent presence was unmistakable, rapidly emanating throughout the house, as she left her calling card fairly routinely, despite a lovely litter box available to her at all times mere paw pads away.

She clawed the furniture and climbed the curtains relentlessly, until we had her declawed. Then she extracted her vengeance by biting me, drawing blood on a regular basis. She left many scars behind her to remind me at odd moments that I am not an entirely loved human, and that there is at least one cat who never fell prey to my charms.

Her most favorite trick of all involved a hallway, a long run, and her claws. We had a hallway from the living room to the back bedroom. She would start at the beginning of the hallway, and then run down the length of it and take a flying leap onto my bed. She never did this during the day, of course. She would wait until I was sound asleep, then the action would begin. I would awaken to hear a ghostly galloping coming rapidly closer, and then WHAM. She would be on my back, talons digging into my skin, and meowing at me as though I was the one at fault for the ruckus.

The first time she did this, I thought it was all a mistake, and she didn’t know what she was doing. The second time she did it, I still thought it was probably an accident. But the gleam in her eye did not go unnoticed, so I knew I had better keep close watch on the situation. When it happened the third time, I knew I had run into that most despicable of all creatures, the devil cat. She had the evil eye, and for reasons that I do not understand to this day, she fixed it upon me and made it her mission to drive me past the point of sanity and into madness.

I hung on and kept trying to civilize her until my son was born, but at that point, it came to down to him or her, and I wasn’t giving him up, so she had to go. As I mentioned, I was not sorry to see her disappear from my life. Honestly, I was rather grateful to have the excuse that my son's safety was at stake. But I do have a heart, especially for animals, who are, after all, more or less captive to the whims of their owners, so I felt kind of bad about it all, just the same.

I didn’t want to deprive her of her life unnecessarily, so we decided to take her to a shelter, in hopes that someone else would have better luck with her. Given that she was spayed and declawed, I was pretty certain that she would be given another chance, and I sincerely hope she treated them better than she did me. Because she is the single, solitary cat I have ever met that didn’t instantly fall in love with me, and the feeling was entirely mutual. Come to think of it, my ex-husband was the one who got her. That explains a lot right there.

Anyway, the real story begins when we took the cat to the humane society in Minneapolis. For some reason, the city we lived in didn’t have a humane society, and as I said, I wanted her to have a chance. Just not with me. So we took a trek to The Cities one Saturday 11 days after Adam was born.

We were pretty pathetic at that point, I must say. We were broke, we were new parents who got no sleep because we had an infant that never slept, we were amazingly stupid about pretty much everything, especially if it required common sense. So we took off for The Cities an hour and half away with nothing more than the kid in the car seat and a couple of diapers, and probably not even enough money for gas to get home.

And, of course, the offending pet, who yowled like a banshee the entire distance, just to make sure we didn’t have any regrets when we got there. I swear that cat knew where she was going and she was glad about it, because she obviously hated me even more than I disliked her. And that, I must tell you, is saying something.

We arrived in plenty of time, and all was well. We dropped her off, they were not entirely unhappy to take her, and I must say, her attitude improved the moment she was someone else’s responsibility. I am moderately hopeful that she was a changed animal for the experience. It would make me feel less bad about the whole thing.

Anyway, with lighter hearts, we got back into the car and started home again, figuring we would be there in good time for supper. (That is a cozy little Minnesota word for dinner, and it means the evening meal, which often consists of hot dish, which is another cozy little word straight from the land of the ten thousand lakes. And a few loons. Some of which are related to me. Or related to people who are related to me. Which is actually a lot of people, because I have a lot of relatives, so if any of them would be named... never mind. Where was I again?)

All was going well until we stopped at a red light in Shakopee, Minnesota. Did I mention that this was the weekend of the Renaissance Festival? And that there was a horse track that got out about the same time as the Festival? And just to make things really fun, did you know their largest employer ended their shift right about then? And then there was Valleyfair right there, too. Well, I didn’t know all that, either, until the car died in the middle of four lanes of piled up traffic, and refused to move another inch.

We sat there, my ex and I, and looked at each other in bewilderment. We simply didn’t know what to do. We had about 15 cents between us. I was still recovering from a Cesarean section operation that was more invasive than most, so I was already well beyond exhausted and on the way to catatonic, and wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavier than my baby. My parents, who we always counted on to save us from our own stupidity, were out of town for the weekend. Worse yet, this was long before cell phones were anywhere but in the heel of Maxwell Smart’s shoes, and since we weren’t Maxwell, and weren’t all that smart, either, we were up a creek without a paddle.

Like any good Irish Scandinavian, I could only say, Uff Da," the Norwegian epithet that covers all contingencies.

While we sat there, trying to understand the fate that had befallen us, and more urgently, what we were going to do about it, a police car pulled up behind us. We were relieved, because we knew that help was now at hand. Here was an expert, someone who was accustomed to traffic related crises. He would be the solution provider, and he would know how to make it happen.

Well, he knew what to do, all right. He yelled at us, “Get that car out of the middle of the road.”

Well, okay, genius, I guess we didn’t realize that we were blocking traffic, what with all the noise from the honking horns preventing us from being able to hear ourselves think. Then he yelled at my ex to get behind the car and push, and shouted at me to get behind the wheel.

We tried to explain, of course, that I was not allowed to drive as I had just had major surgery, but he didn’t care a whit about my health. The only thing he was interested in was getting that car out of the middle of his street, and if someone got hurt in the process, it wasn’t his problem. Then he jumped back into his patrol car and roared away, lights flashing and siren blaring until he got beyond the bottleneck. Then he turned the corner, and he was gone, leaving us little better off than we were before.

If I were mean, I would leave you hanging there, with us in the middle of the street and no end to this story in sight. But I have never liked cliff hangers. I always read the ending of the story first to see what happens, so I can decide if I'm going to like it or not. I don't want to invest a lot of time in something only to find out I hate it. So I will continue this story, and if you think it's in the wrap up phase, you are wrong, because this story is just starting to get interesting.

Or as interesting as any story I tell ever gets. In fact, this is really my best story, so it's downhill from here. Sorry.

Anyway, to continue....

There we were, still in the street, and now blocking traffic even more thoroughly than before the thoughtful intervention of the long arm of the law. We must have looked particularly pathetic, because suddenly, people decided we needed help to get the car off the road. Although, come to think of it, possibly it may have been that they just wanted us removed from the street so they could go home or wherever they were headed. I'm not sure which it was, although the tightly pursed lips of one of the people who helped may have been a hint. I dunno.

Anyway, eventually with the help of some rather annoyed strangers to whom I am happy to say I am not related, but am eternally grateful, we got off onto to the side street, and we were out of harm's way, at least for the moment. It didn't solve the myriad of problems that we were imminently facing, and which had not yet dawned upon us, so for a brief moment, there was some relief.

Then, standing there on the sidewalk in the middle of downtown Shakopee, we realized our dire situation. I do not think dire is too strong of a word under the circumstances. No car. No money. No food. No way home. It was getting late, after 6 in the evening, by that point. Oh, and no diapers. The last point was rapidly becoming the most urgent, as our soggy infant could not slosh around indefinitely in his rapidly dampening apparel.

We looked at each other in some desperation, with no idea what to do, or where to turn. The seriousness of the whole situation was dawning on us, and I said a silent prayer for guidance. And that was when a miracle occurred, and I had the honor of meeting two of God's real angels, come to earth to save us from ourselves.

Out of nowhere, a car pulled up, and a couple got out. They were was young, about our own age, and he asked if we needed help. We would have done the usual Minnesota thing, our cross to bear and all that, except it was getting dark, we had a newborn baby, I was about to expire with fatigue and worry, and we had absolutely no where else to turn.

We explained the situation to them. We told them about the cat, and why we were there. How the car had just died, right there in the middle of the street. How the cop had left us high and dry, without even getting us out of the middle of the road. How we had no money, no one to call, no diapers and no food, to say nothing of no way home. And how we had no earthly idea where to have the car towed, or who to call to tow it. In short, we were a mess, and we laid the whole problem at the feet of these strangers who listened with such sympathy and concern, and took control of the situation for us.

In very short order, I still don't know how it happened, he had a tow truck there, he had me bundled into the back seat of his car with Adam, they had Tom off with the tow truck driver to the shop, and without even a moment of hesitation, they followed after the tow truck in their car, with Adam and I safely tucked away in the back seat.

He took a turn on the way, and I had a brief moment of concern when he pulled up in front of a house. He said he would be right back, asked if I wanted to come in and use the restroom, get a drink, call someone - anyone? - which I would have, if only I had known who to call.

While the couple ran in to do whatever it was they were going to do, I recall thinking, this is probably a really stupid thing to be doing. I am in a car with total strangers, no one on earth knows where I am, and I have exposed my newborn infant to the most dangerous situation he will probably ever be in. But since I didn't have any better ideas, I decided to just let it all happen. Frankly, I was almost too exhausted to care any more. If they were going to hurt me, at least I would probably get some sleep, was my delusional thought process.

Then they were back out again, with drinks for me, and of all things, some teeny, little diapers. I have no clue why this unmarried, childless couple would have had diapers in their house, but diapers they had. They hopped in the car, they handed me diapers, drink, and some crackers to snack on, and they said, let's go see about your car.

I think I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew, we were at the auto shop, and there was my husband. I have rarely felt so happy to see him, I must be honest. The shop was going to fix the car, but it wouldn't be until the following week, leaving us still stranded in Shakopee. However, I felt that now, at least, I had some hope. I was trying to decide who, among the many relatives I have, was actually in town and available, when this young couple did something for which I will be forever in their debt. They said, "Hop into the car, we will take you home."

We protested, of course. It was an hour and a half to our house, and then an hour and half back. We couldn't possibly allow them to do that for us, they didn't even know us. But somehow, almost before we knew it, we were back in their car, and heading for home.

Along the way we talked, as people do, about our lives. We told them about being students, they talked about what they had done that day. Which was to work, and then attend the Renaissance Festival. We found out they had to be to work early the next morning when we arrived at our home, and asked them to come in, so we could scrape together at least enough money for their gas, and they refused. We tried to give them something for their troubles, and they would not hear of it. We did finally persuade him to give us his business card, so that we could, at the very least, write him a thank you note, and then they were gone with a smile and a wave. Truly the nicest people you could hope to meet in a crisis.

I know you are thinking, well, that's a nice story. Stupid of you, but nice. But it's not over yet.

The following Monday, my mother came home. I called her and cried on her shoulder, as usual, and she came and got Adam and me a couple days later and we went to pick up the car. My mother is living proof that you never get to stop being a mother, because I am still at it, and she is still saving me from myself on a regular basis. We went up and I paid for the car, (as I recall, I had to borrow the money from her - sorry, Mom,) and she went her way, and we went ours.

I tried, on the way home, to find that house again, but I got all turned around, and I couldn't figure out where it was. I even went back to retrace my route from the street where we got stranded, but I couldn't find that neighborhood for anything, no matter what strategy I tried. It was the oddest thing, because one thing I do have is a good sense of direction, and I can usually find anything, anywhere, but I never did find that house that day.

We knew we had to call the young man, I don't recall his name now, to thank him again for all he did for us, and to try to repay him for his gas, at least, and his time. We called the number on the business card, and while the number was real, and the company was the right one for that number, there was no one there by that name. Nor had there ever been, to anyone's recollection.

If there had been an anywho.com back then, unless it registered in heaven, I don't think we would have found him, because I know that God sent those angels to us that day, because we were lost, and then we were found. So if you ever wondered if you have a guardian angel, I can tell you, yes, because I have looked mine in the eye.

Diamond in the rough

Baseball, golf - what do they have in common besides a little white ball? Well, I can think of two things right off the top of my head. In the first place, my mother loves both of them, and anything my mother loves has to be a good thing. Although I hate golf, personally, and I went on strike from baseball when the players went on strike from the management, and they never really gave me a reason to come back.

The second thing they have in common is that they are both played with a club of some kind, which brings me to the primitive nature of mankind, generally. See that smooth segue there? That is what you get for your money when you go to an expensive hidden Ivy school like St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota.

Of course, having said that, I feel honor bound to mention that when I attended this illustrious institution, it was not nearly as expensive. In fact, back then it wasn't that much more costly than attending the U of M, once you added in room and board. And no one had ever heard of hidden Ivy's, either, which, in any case, wouldn't have meant anything to me. Because the main draw for me at the time was the fact that I could run away home in less than half an hour, and I missed my mom a lot. And if it had really been all that exclusive, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been allowed to grace the hallowed halls, because I was poor financially and academically, and not all that motivated, either.

And let's just clear the air, while we're at it, on a misconception that causes me a lot of grief. St. Olaf College is not located in the same place as Betty White lived in "The Golden Girls." I loved that show, and I love Betty White, but I seriously wish they had used another name for her fictional home town, like Oleville or Lena City, because I am tired of the snickers I hear when I wear my sweatshirt and try to show a little collegial veneration to the alma mater.

Besides St. Olaf, Northfield is known for two other things, Carleton College, and Jesse James. [There is no more golf in this story, because I hate golf, so if you are waiting to hear about Jesse playing golf, you are going to have a really long wait. Although you never know, since I do have an annoying tendency to lose track of what I'm talking about, and sometimes I end up right back where I didn't mean to start in the first place.] Since I don't acknowledge Carleton, being they are the adversary in town to the saintly institution of higher learning which I myself attended, I guess I'll have to talk about Jesse James.

As you may or may not know, my current abode is in the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. I am not bragging about it, because if we didn't have the skyrocketing crime rate and the jaw dropping stupidity of the school board and the city council, not to mention the current mayor, Mark Funkhouser, who has confused his office for a home business and his wife for an unpaid advisor, [I think that's what he is calling her in these sad days of the Mammy-gate fiasco,] we wouldn't have anything to talk about at all. However, sprinkled amongst the mindless politicians and way too many criminals, are a lot of really nice people who also call Kansas City home. Which is why it is such a nice place to raise children, even if they don't have anything to do once they can drive.

Anyway, Jesse James is from Kearney, Missouri, another of the many suburban outliers of the metro area. I have been following with some interest over the last few years the debate over whether Jesse James was really buried in Kearney in the grave that bears his name, or if it was all a ruse.

I think it's significant that his mother was alive at the time, and personally ordered his grave stone, which reads, "IN LOVING MEMORY OF MY BELOVED SON, MURDERED BY A TRAITOR AND COWARD WHOSE NAME IS NOT WORTHY TO APPEAR HERE." I don't know about you, but that sounds like one mad mom to me, which leads me to believe that she knew something a whole lot of other people apparently didn't. Namely, that Jesse James was well and truly dead. It doesn't seem likely we would need to be digging him up and making trouble out in the spirit world for ourselves, since we have enough trouble to keep us busy just with the people who are still around, but no one consulted me.

Maybe the doubters think he is hiding out with Elvis somewhere. Kilroy was here, but Jesse left the building. Anyway, it seems that the bones that are all that is left of the legendary outlaw were DNA tested and proved to be truly the remains of one of the most dangerous men of all time, and there is at least one less outlaw to worry about around here.

Before the whole discussion of whether it was or wasn't him in that grave, he tried to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, which turned out to be a pretty significant turning point for him. In the end, he got away, but he and his gang were never the same again.

One thing he surprisingly didn't learn, growing up in the small town of Kearney, is that in the truly small town, the stranger is noticed. And the sight of a few guys with guns standing around guarding the entrance of that bank in little Northfield got the attention of a whole lot of people. When the outside lookouts fired shots in the air, thinking they would scatter the crowd and frighten them into hiding, they misjudged the situation with deadly results.

Those citizens may have been small town folk, but they knew how to shoot a gun as well as anyone, and the warning to run for cover was merely the incentive they needed to find a safer place from which to shoot the fleeing criminals. The James-Younger Gang took some heavy losses that day, and their reputation suffered as well, after one of them shot the unarmed clerk in the back of his head.

That was Jesse's real downfall, the shooting of that clerk. Because up until then, they weren't robbing people, according to the media which were already sensationalizing stories for the purposes of raising their readership numbers. [And here we thought that was just a current phenomenon.]

The romantic tall tale went that they were modern day Robin Hoods, taking from the rich and giving to the poor. Which was, of course, so much nonsense, since they were taking from trains and giving to themselves, but you know how it is when a story gets passed along from one person to the next. By the end, you wouldn't even recognize your own name, it would be so garbled. So when we know for sure that Jesse James came to a certain end, it isn't something to be sad about.

Kansas City is a dangerous place these days. The murder rate is on the rise, and even as we are figuratively strip searched and forced to sign over our firstborn in order to procure a little Sudafed for allergy relief, the meth capital of the world continues to poison the populace more or less unabated. I am forced to muse on the rationality of strict control over the sales of Sudafed while promoting the sale of guns on the open market at shows, but perhaps that is just my own personal bias showing. I can't help but notice that they seem to be conspicuously linked, in this town, at least, and if we must treat Sudafed as dangerous, shouldn't we be treating guns just the same?

I don't know anything about illicit drug use personally, as I prefer to be in control of everything at all times, particularly myself, and eschew anything that would prevent that from being the case. However, those that have been caught in the snare of cocaine have said that it is more addictive than almost any other drug, harder to kick than anything except tobacco, which is apparently the hardest addiction on earth to break.

I have read that it takes 21 days to break a bad habit and substitute a new, better one, but I think kicking the smoking habit is a lifetime battle, much like alcoholism. I have known many smokers who stop for awhile, but it seems to have long talons. It claws them back in again and again, as they battle themselves for supremacy over a habit that rules their lives and drives them to commit suicide by millimeters. It's a death dance in many acts, as the smoker struggles to leave that enticing lover behind. In the end, like Satan's apple, it seems to draw them back in, reminding them until their final desperate breath that they remain possessed by a demon from which they will never be free.

On a purely practical level, by the time you add up all the packs of cigarettes an average smoker buys in a lifetime, you would have a pretty nice sum of money saved up. Just think of what you could have done with that cash, had you not burned it up at your fingertips. You could have bought new cars, you could have paid off your house, you could even have taken a fabulous safari, or gone on vacation to South Africa, and toured the diamond mines.

Which brings me to the diamonds mentioned at the top of this post. [I'll bet you didn't think I could get there when I was talking about Jesse James, did you?]

What, exactly, is a diamond in the rough, anyway? Of course, we all know that means someone of stellar quality who is a little unpolished around the edges. But why do we value people in the rough, when we value only the gems that are polished? Why is it that with people we mistrust the polished and the precision crafted? Why do we prefer the down home, fried chicken and french fries variety rather than the pheasant under glass enthusiasts? What makes jello superior to creme brulee, anyway? And if you make red jello and add little pieces of fruit, what does that do to change the equation?

Because all metaphors aside, I think what we are really saying is that jello is like us, while the creme brulee is for the people who have Gotten Above Themselves. And let's not even get into Baked Alaska, which would be timely, but the thought of making that metaphor work gives me a headache.

I think the dumbing down of America is well underway. It began in the ghetto among the seamier underside of the nation's least fortunate citizens, where education coincided with leaving the grinding, relentless poverty behind. I think the jealousy that escape engendered caused a backlash against those who were fortunate enough to find a way to run away. It has gradually, slowly, risen to a point where now even our nation's leaders downplay their education, lest they be perceived as elitist, a code word for someone who is out of touch and out of place in the world of the regular person.

I, for one, decry this development, and I see it as further evidence of a culture in decline. Those who do not seek to improve themselves will instead tear down those around them in order to level the playing field. I don't know about you, but I don't want the country's leaders to be level with the majority of the people who surround me in this metro area. I strongly believe that to lead you must be, first and foremost, smarter, stronger, braver, and more dedicated than the people around you. It is always my hope that our leaders rise to the top because they are the cream, not the fat that we discard because it's bad for us.

Of course, even in the rough, a diamond has great potential value, because the hidden interior may be perfect, flawless - it's just waiting to be revealed. One false move while the diamond master is cutting will ruin what could have been a flawless gemstone, however, and all the value can be gone in an instant of misjudgment.

I don't know that people aren't sort of like those rough diamonds after all. When we are born, we are all potential. But it seems that some people are fatally flawed from the get-go, and no matter how carefully they have been handled, they go the wrong way.

Other people are certainly damaged by the misdirected whittling of their parents and others, who should have tended them more carefully. Although I would point out that even flawed diamonds have their uses in the industrial market, where they make fine tips for such things as dentist's drills and oil drills for extreme locations like the ANWR. So just because someone looks like a lost cause today doesn't mean they might not have some redeeming qualities somewhere under the bad stuff.

Jesse James wasn't a diamond, though, he was more of a cheap rhinestone. Except to his mother, I guess. He would have been better off using a club to play golf instead of a gun to shoot people and rob banks and trains, since he finished off his life being shot in the back by a greedy accomplice looking for the reward money. I can't help but feel we have not advanced a whole lot in the intervening 150 years. The motivations may have changed, but the outcome is still too many innocent people dead for no good reason. We do have both red jello and creme brulee today, however, so I guess that's something. I think there is a lesson in there somewhere for all of us, and as soon as I find it, I'll let you know.

Good grief, Charlie Brown

There are too many moments in my life when I know exactly how Charlie Brown feels as Lucy pulls that football away from his moving foot. There he finds himself, lying on his back in the grass, breathless and irritated that he has fallen for her line once again. I am feeling like that at this moment, in fact, having reread the blog post I wrote over the last several days and finding yet another error.

That post was four days in the making, a comedy of errors that would not end. I began it Thursday in anticipation of a Friday morning publish, something which never came to pass because I was too busy to finish it. It didn't happen during the day Friday either, as things went from bad to worse, and suddenly, it was Saturday, and I was caught up in the excitement of helping my lovely daughter prepare for the dance.

Last night, I salved my conscience about missing a post day, and letting down not only my own goal to write at least one blog a day, but also the readers who look forward to my thoughts, [a reality which surprises me more than it does you, I can assure you.] As I was frantically trying to get it written and published, I was telling myself I deserved a day off, having faithfully written an item every day for more than a month.

I really did finish it up late last night, while waiting for the party girl to return to her safe little cocoon. But what with one thing and another, suddenly, I was was waking up with my hand on the keyboard, blog not only unpublished, but with misspelled words and poorly constructed sentences throughout, and worse yet, missing vital parts which I had previously written and which had now mysteriously vanished.

More interesting, to my mind, however, were other lines which had been written but were incomprehensible. I spent a good five minutes trying to decipher what on earth I was talking about in one line, which came out of nowhere and made less sense than OJ Simpson's first trial. I finally gave up in disgust and just got rid of it, because I clearly wasn't heading anywhere intelligible with it, anyway. A lot like now, it seems, but I will persist, because I'm sure there's some humor in here somewhere, and heaven knows I could use a laugh about now.

I think a ghost may have been here during my unconsciousness and hacked away at my post, trying to finish it for me. That's the only explanation, and I'm sticking to it, because the alternative is that I make no sense at all, and I don't like that possibility. Although if there were a Dave somewhere that was married to one of my relatives, I'll bet he'd be the first one to say that he always knew my intellect was a sham and I covered my own ignorance with big words.

Finally, early this morning, apparently still not fully functional, [and who would be, I would like to know, when your daughter and her friends don't come home until 1:30 in the morning, and they are still making noise and forcing you to send an annoyed text to them in the family room at 3:30 a.m. imploring them to GO TO BED,] I once again tried to finish up this silly post, which was no longer interesting even to me, but had become a mission that I could not leave undone. Possibly I was still unconscious when I finished that post, I'm not really clear on it, but I did get it published. Finally. Sort of.

I have a habit of publishing each daily post, then reading it in the published form, to be sure it reads "in print" the way it did in draft form. Occasionally, I will catch a spelling error or a grammatical mistake, which I do try hard to correct, to make the reading easier. Anything for my readers, is my motto. After all, I'm still looking for that wealthy patron who will throw money at me, and I don't want bad grammar and my abysmal spelling to stand between me and Easy Street.

Anyway, I did finally get the post written, which should have been an easy job, seeing as how it was about one of my favorite subjects, cats, and I have lots of entertaining stories about the cats I have known and loved. Except that I started to reread it, and found a mistake in the first line. I went back in and corrected it, and started to reread, only to realize that the correction didn't make any sense.

I heaved a rather substantial sigh, and went back in again to correct the correction, only to find that once I got back to the published version, there was yet another error in the following line. Welcome to my world, in which I have apparently lost all ability to string three intelligible words together to form a simple sentence. I had to go in and make corrections more than a dozen times, which means that my counter is way off now, because believe me, that many people are not showing up on my blog since the last time you were here. Or I was here. Where are we, anyway? Do any of us really know?

Wait. What was I talking about?

Charlie Brown frequently feels lost in a world he does not understand, and which doesn't make sense to him. I know how he feels. I am often puzzled by the world, and left to wonder what drives people to behave the way they do. I am continually confused by the bad things that happen to good people. I wonder why some people prosper despite making all the wrong choices, while others do everything right and still lose out on the brass ring. If life is a merry-go-round, I would like to be the music, because going in circles makes me sick to my stomach, anyway.

I have always loved the Peanuts characters, in part because they resonate for me. They represent a world that I understand, and they are predictable and clear in motivation and direction. I suspect that Charles Schultz and I have a few things in common, despite our different life experiences, and I wish I had gotten a chance to know him before he passed away too soon. I have read that he had a tendency to walk on the dark side in his personal life, but being one to do that myself, I would just consider that being a realist.

I believe Mr. Schultz himself identified most closely with the hapless and luckless Charlie Brown, although during his lifetime he was known to claim that all of the characters are composites, and they all have elements of his own personality within them. I think I identify most closely with Woodstock, myself. I am constantly losing direction, going in circles or flying upside down. I frequently find myself in the clouds, or flying too low, and running into trouble, no matter how much preparation I may do ahead of time.

I lack the self-confidence of a Snoopy or a Lucy, ready to tell the world what to do, much less to just get out there and do it myself. I like clear directions and a scripted procedure, so if I mess up, I can get back on track again.

I find myself pulling for Woodstock, because he is kind of a quirky personification of me in the piece, the one who harmlessly flits around the edges, isn't always in the picture, but is on the sidelines cheering for his best friend, the center of attention. While Snoopy is the idea man, full of directions and answers to the questions, Woodstock is the more introspective creature, wanting to know about the little why's and wherefore's that the more self-confident figures haven't even considered.

I think that I identify with Mr. Schultz in part because my view of the world is similar to what appears to be his rather oppressed viewpoint, where the football will always be pulled away, and the tree will always eat the kite in the end. Although his life was ultimately one that most people can only dream of, he never forgot what it felt like to grow up the son of a hard working barber in middle America. He was always afraid that everything he had achieved would be pulled away unexpectedly, just like Lucy pulling the ball away from Charlie Brown.

I understand that fear, because it happened to me, and it is tough to find yourself flat on your back on the ground in the middle of your life, confused and not knowing how you got there. Mr. Schultz tapped into my fears and my realities and personified them in that football moment, and just like many other people, I will always be able to relate to Charlie Brown because it happened to me.

But we shouldn't forget that he also created Woodstock, and I think the free spirited nature of a bird taking wing, even if erratically, is really more my style. I have noticed, too, that in the end, Woodstock usually arrives at his intended destination, sometimes a little behind schedule, but he is there, nonetheless.

So I will forgive myself for falling down on the job of getting out a column every single day, and I hope you will, too. If I occasionally miss, please chalk it up to a Woodstock moment, and assume I was flying upside down again.

Oh, to be young again, now that fall is here?

My daughter had the fun of attending a school dance last night. It was homecoming, and the school was celebrating the victorious performance of their football team on the field of play. Although, if truth be told, that is only the excuse to get dressed up in new clothes and go out to eat at a place fancier than the usual McDonald's. The dance is the backdrop to the after party, an excuse to change out of the finery and get back to normal, and where food and fun and a smaller group of friends get together to enjoy what is left of the evening of playing adult.

It is fun to see how they look and act when they are wearing their finest clothes; the boys in their suits and ties, and the girls in their party dresses and high heels. They are so close to being grown up, it takes your breath away to see someone who was your little one such a short time ago suddenly taller than you, with their own style and flair, and living life on their own terms. You are privileged to spend the time with them, you suddenly realize, because it is over all too soon, and you have to wonder where the days went when the future stretched out in front of you like an endless vista?

I remember holding my newborn in my hands and thinking that 18 years was too long. I was terrified I would fall down on the job, and somehow irreparably damage this little being who owed her life to me, but to whom I felt I owed the world. She was so innocent, so new, so fresh and untried, and it was my obligation to get her to adulthood so far into the future in one piece, a whole, civilized human adult.

There have been a lot of bumps along the way, and there were times I have recognized my own abject failure and wept for the frustration of how far I fall short. As a parent, I have made more mistakes than I could possibly hope to atone for, and yet, they have forgiven me each and every time I disappointed, and love me still.

My darling little bundle of sugar and spice barely made a dent in the blanket when first I held her in my lonely waiting arms. She was born too early, in a hurry, as she is even now, to be about her business. [This issue of early versus late continues to plague us, as I am always a day late and a dollar short, while she is early for everything and thinks she is late if she arrives only five minutes ahead of schedule.]

She had an apgar score of zero when she was pulled from the Cesarean incision, [that would be out of a possible ten, which is the only time she has not rated a ten on anyone's scale] and her birth constituted a crisis of emergency technology as can only be found in a modern hospital setting. I am grateful for it all, because without it, I would not have my spunky little survivor. But it is not the restful, peaceful portrait of motherhood that you see in the parenting magazines, either.

For the first days of her life, she was laid out naked on a little open table with a heat source right above her, nothing like the cozy incubator you see pictured on the television shows or in books. They explained to me that they needed her accessible, so that they could get at her instantly when she had problems or distress, as she so frequently did.

They did continual testing of her blood, her temperature, her blood pressure, all her vital signs, to be sure that she was getting what she needed to survive and thrive. They measured each drop of blood that came from her little body, because a premature infant does not have much to spare. The only time she was touched was when they had to perform another procedure on her, because each touch caused her to stop breathing, and then they would have to intervene.

She was already a week old when I was finally allowed to hold her for the first time, and it was the most amazing thing. I sat in a chair, still weak myself from the surgery and the aftermath of a very difficult pregnancy, and they handed this bundle of blanket to me. You know how a seven pound baby feels, there is a little substance there, so I didn't expect a four pound infant to be that much different. The nurse put her into my arms, and the anticipated weight wasn't there. I almost threw her into the air, as my arms came up to meet her and kept going. She was light as a feather, and there was more blanket than baby, which was not the first time she has surprised me, and certainly hasn't been the last, either.

So it was with a full heart that I looked at my beautiful daughter last night in her best dress and her Converse sneakers, a mix of elegant and casual that defines who she is about as well as anything. She is funny and sarcastic, cynical and worldwise. And yet, underneath all the adult trappings, she is still my little girl in pink, and I felt my heart skip a beat when I watched her with her friends - a full blown person with her own personality and her own opinions and feelings and style - so much more than I imagined when I took that tiny infant in my arms sixteen years ago.

I watched her drive away from me with her boyfriend at the wheel, heading first to his house to take more pictures with his parents, and then off to have the fun of the evening, and my throat caught for a moment in astonishment that 16 years could pass so soon. As they turned the corner, I blew her kisses from my heart to hers, and wished I had the power, like a fairy godmother, to preserve her from hurt and pain and the bumps of life. I wished that every moment of her life would be like the ones she was having then, filled with joy and hopefulness and fun.

But since real life isn't a fairy tale, and the world we live in is not made of dreams, I pray that she will hold the good times like last night in her heart and mind as collateral against the harder realities that she will face. When the final balance is totalled, I hope she will know that she contributed to the plus column in my life and that of many others. She has made the difficult moments of my life better, and she has pushed the happy moments to greater heights.

Butterfly kisses are real, and I feel them in my stomach whenever my little girl throws her smile my way. I am grateful that God gave me my daughter on loan, to watch over and cherish and be a part of her life.

Behold the future!