October 2008 Archives

I'd just like to say that I'm prouder than the mother of an honor roll student. Proud of my husband Mark, that is.

Back when Kate was a few months old, she and I tagged along with him on a work trip to Chicago. Maybe I have some Nordic blood I'm not aware of. Something that drove me to bring my wee tender infant to Chicago on a winter weekend that served up record cold. As if thrusting this defenseless small thing out into blasting bitter winds and inhuman sub-zero temps was some cultural rite of passage that if she managed to survive would result in her being given a secret name from a tribe elder.

But really I think it was just me wanting to get out of the house.

Yeah, so anyway, we went there and it was chilly. And we stayed in a schmancy hotel. And the first night Kate arcanely (and cruelly) managed to wake up every hour at the same exact time (3:14AM, 4:14AM, 5:14AM) forcing me to stick a boob in her mouth to quiet her down because Mark had to wake up the next day with some hopes of having slept enough to be an intelligent functional journalist. Those few nights comprised perhaps the most miserable ones of my infant mothering.

But all that aside, Mark and I did go out one night to an amazing restaurant called Alinea to eat the most decadent, fascinating, and theatrical meal of our lives. All 25 or so courses. Not to mention the 15 wine pairings. (But really, after the eleventh glass of wine, who can keep count?)

In fact, the business behind Mark's trip to Chi-town was that he was interviewing that restaruant's chef, a guy in his early thirties named Grant Achatz who's a disciple of His Holiness Thomas Keller, and a frontiersman in the realm of molecular gastronomy. That scientifically-alchemized and post-modernistically presented haute gourmet food utterly unlike anything your mom used to make. And food that many moms--from my mother's generation at least--might never appreciate the staggering artistic and experiential merits of. (I can hear my mother now: "You've got to be kidding me! For the price of that coo coo meal you could've put a down payment on a perfectly good house!")

So, after that trip Mark wrote a story for Wired about Grant. They stayed in touch. Gourmet named Alinea the best Restaurant in America. Grant was named the Best Chef in the U.S. by The James Beard Foundation. Grant got cancer. He started work on a cookbook. He asked Mark to write an essay for the book. Grant also asked Geoffrey Steingarten and Michael Ruhlman to contribute. (This, by the way, is like being invited to play golf with Tiger Woods and, well, some other really amazingly super good and well-known golfer.) Grant's cancer, blessedly, went into remission. The book, Alinea, went on sale over a week ago and I believe is now in its fourth printing. I'll resist the cookbook/selling/hotcakes metaphor-pun.

I can't imagine people are snatching it up because they're in a rut about what they've been serving for dinner and want to mix things up a bit and wow the kids with some Surf Clam with Nasturtium Leaf and Flower with Shallot Marmelade. Or maybe have the neighbors over for Sunday football and some Foie Gras with Spice Cinnamon Puff and Apple Candy.

The book has a "How To Use this Book" intro, and it actually says that they do want you to venture to produce some of its recipes. But it's unlikely that any non-professionals (aside from one blogger with a lot of time, patience, and ambition) would do so. Hence the brilliant term "coffee table cookbook." Aside from the complexity of the number of components and steps and even the staggering grocery gathering that'd be required, you'd also need a kitchen stocked with a madman's array of chemicals plus state of the art hi-tech equipment that can do things like turn fresh parsley into powder or make Gob Stopper shaped spheres filled with unexpected innards, like say, curry sauce. Or Concord grape. Or, heck, both.

Not that that's a recipe mind you, but this book is packed with similarly mind blowing match-ups that you could never in your most drug-induced Suessian dreams conjure. And if you ever have the very very good fortune to eat at Alinea--something you really should try to do before you take all your foods up through a straw--you won't believe you're actually eating these sublime things all together or that you love how they taste.

And for God's sake if you do eat there, be sure not to go with your mother or your brother-in-law or whoever it is who'll be too freaked out by the food's novelty or who's an unadventurous eater or is even just an old school party pooper. Or maybe on the other hand, bring them along! Require them to just shut up and eat, and watch as the kitchen and the front-of-the-house staff knock their damn socks off! I promise you the next day they'll quit their 17-year run at the accounting firm, hop a flight to Fiji and take up kite surfing.

But oh, where was I? The book. The book. I'm telling you, it's like that. It's not just like flipping through the utterly comprehensive and practical yet curveball-less Joy of Cooking. It takes you places. This is not a cookbook that you buy for your friend who likes to cook, although he certainly will love it. Buy it for someone whose culinary specialty is a toasted bagel and know there will be something that will floor and amaze even her--not to mention the people who come across it on her coffee table.

There's science! There's art! There's technology! There's food! There's stunning photography! And there's my husband's name. Right there on the cover page.

So recently I suggested you make a contribution to help fund breast cancer research. Today I'm advising you to go out or go online and buy this book. Not because I want to help sales for Grant or for Mark, though they are nice guys and God knows Grant is a fascinating and crazy hard-working genius. But because this book could boost your cool quotient exponentially. Not to mention the effect it could have on many of the folks on your holiday shopping list.

Help cure cancer, save your soul, then impress your friends. You can thank me later.

Tomorrow is the local kiddie Halloween parade, and Kate's school's Fall Festival and some pumpkin ho-down at a nearby cemetery of all places. Kate, Paige and I will be debuting our 2008 Halloween line of haute costumery. Tonight as I was double-checking every last detail of our ensembles like some OCD Project Runway contestant I told Mark I felt like it was the night before my thesis presentation.

Which is, needless to say, utterly pathetic. And perhaps an indicator that it's time for me to rejoin the workforce. Either that or resign myself to housewife life and sign up for a Betty Crocker cook-off.

Though our costumes do rock so incredibly hard that we're sure to stun and amaze all who see us. And if we don't all I can say is poor Mark will have himself one brutally long ugly night of talking me down off the ledge of irrational female emotions. 

It's weird that as hopped up as I am to trot the girls (and sure, myself) out on Halloween, in the very same week it became brutally clear how remotely not cut out to be a Pageant Mom I am. Which isn't to say that I entered Paige into the Little Miss Fatty Legs Northern California Regional Semi-Finals. Though if there was such a pageant and I was the type to enter my nine-month-old daughter, I can assure you SHE WOULD KILL.

My encounter was actually a gazillion times more chill. My gargantuanly talented photographer friend asked if Kate would--well I don't even want to use the term because it makes it seem like more than it was but--model for a shoot she was doing. No big thing--just some pics for a website (or catalog?) for a Brangelina's kids level-of-schmancy children's clothing line.

Of course, while knowing it was so not remotely a big deal there still was one wee part of my being that immediately interpreted the invitation to do this as my friend's way saying that she'd truly never looked upon a more beautiful and luminous child than Kate. Ever.

And so, knowing Kate has the star power to be the next Brooke Shields but because we're not the types to do anything about it other than leave a trail of love-struck 3-year-old boys in her wake, I happily agreed to help my friend out and do this it'll-be-fun shoot. And immediately put Kate on a strict grapefruit and Tab diet... Okay, well not really.

So, two days before the shoot I noticed Kate had a dark quarter-sized bruise on her cheek that appeared in that way that little owies crop up all over 3-year-olds who engage in some sort of Ultimate Playground Fighting all in the name of good recess fun. One day before the shoot Kate and her friend Owen decided to give each other magic marker "tattoos" akin to a prison gang ritual. Kate's cheek, neck, and the length of her arm were inked in what I was sure was wash-awayable marker, though Mark's bath-time washcloth dermabrasion had no power over them. And the actual day of the shoot she get a big red ballerina stamp on her hand from dance class like some little raver club girl.

It's not until you want your child to be free and clear of bodily markings that you realize what a typical week in the world of a preschooler serves up to their dermis. Sheesh.

And the fact that the thought did cross my mind that all these things could affect THE PICTURES scared me into wondering if there's some latent Pageant Mother embedded deep deep inside me just waiting to bust out like an alien from Sigourney Weaver's stomach.

Well, suffice it to say that Kate doesn't seem to have the, uh, temperament to withstand a mellow photo shoot at our good friend's house where she's usually comfortable enough to frolic naked in the backyard kiddie pool and raid their selection of sippy cups.

A simple request to try on a pair of tights--this doesn't even include the dress, boots, sweater and hat which were ultimately required--caused Kate to scream "NO!" in painfully close range of my face, then run off to pry the play cash register away from the hands of one of the other more serenely-natured girls.

Finally, miraculously, the entire outfit did get onto her body, despite the tricky Euro buttons up the back of the dress, and the hysterical crying fit that ended in a series of those hyperventilating quick intakes of breath, a snot-smeared face, and my promise to pack her to the gills with ice cream the moment we got home.

Thankfully the woman who was running the shoot was a mother too, and told me one girl/model recently wouldn't even getting dressed. That left me feeling like my Ivy League-level aspirations that got knocked down to a good liberal arts school at least didn't devolve into the community college outcome that that other poor mother walked away with. Misery no doubt loves company, but loves someone who is worse off even more.

I don't know yet whether the pics of Kate were even use-able. My friend managed to tell little sweet stories to Kate while photographing her, brilliantly distracting her from her satanic crying spell. And since most of the other clothing ended up being too big for Kate, it turned out I only had to wrangle one outfit on her and then we were free to go. Of course, in writing this I realize that was likely the polite way to excise Little Miss Tantrum from the scene.

Whatever the case, as we headed out the woman actually asked if we'd ever want to do it again, remarking that Kate is "really beautiful" and kindly leaving out the "when her head is not rotating full circle and she's not puking pea soup" part of the sentence. Perhaps she'll bring some sort of kiddie sedative along next time. Or better yet, something mind-altering for the adults.

Driving down the mountain from my friend's house I saw Kate in the rear view mirror looking worn out and gazing out the window. I asked her what she thought of having her picture taken and she said weakly, "Good." Did she think it was something she'd want to do again I asked, mostly out of curiosity about what she'd say. She perked right up, leaning forward with a million-dollar smile (best one of the day) and chirped, "Yes, Mama! Yes, I'll do it again!"

I've no idea what would make her want to re-enter the Zone of Wailing Misery which she was so entrenched in just moments before. Either modeling shoots are forgotten like the pain of childbirth, or the extent to which Mark and I restrict Kate from having sweets is so great it was a small price for her to pay to get an ice cream sandwich.

If we ever do decide to do it again, I just have to figure out what treat I'm going to allow myself to have at the end.

My dear friend Shelley, with whom I rented a Victorian in San Francisco for some seven or so years of single-gal debauchery, had a childhood dog named Mitzy. In that way Shell and I have of happily talking non-stop whenever we see each other, we've covered a lot of conversational ground about everything from current life issues to childhood tales.

Shelley grew up in the frozen tundra of Minnesota. One day she and her mother discovered that little Mitzy, who was but a wee Chihuahua, had somehow been left outside. Being out in a Minnesota winter can be physically devastating for an adult human. Temps drop to absurd sub-zero levels, and in no time eyelids can seize up, snot can freeze in your nose... Well, you get the point.

When the little Mitz-sicle was discovered by the back door, a forlorn young Shelley snatched her up, carried her carefully inside and planted her on a heating pad, while likely weeping and assuredly whispering heartfelt apologies.

Miraculously, little Miss Mitz warmed up and bounced back. And yet Shelley never did dedicate her life to the church. Go figure.

Anyway, I'm a huge dog person. I adore the beasts. Yet I always found that story hilarious. Maybe it was more about them having a lap dog--one named Mitzy no less--that just slayed me.  That coupled with the fact that as an adult Shelley and her husband Don are so not Dog People. Somehow all those things, along with my sick sick sense of humor, have led me to razz Shelley mercilessly about Mitzy whenever anything about the cold, or small dogs, or forgetfulness, or heck even heating pads, comes up in conversation. (Yes, it's a tough job being one of my friends.)

Well last night at dinner Mark mentioned that when he'd gone in to get Paige that morning a window in her room had been left open all night and she was--yes, you got it--a little Paige-sicle.

Thankfully Paige didn't require the "To the heating pad, STAT!" treatment that Mitzy did, nor did Mark have to cradle her carefully to prevent possible cracking. He just closed the window, put a little hat on her, hugged her up, and moved her to a warmer part of the house.

We're in this Indian Summer season here in the Bay Area. During the day in the sun it can get well into the 70s, but at night the temps drop 20 or more degrees. At any rate, the window staying open was decidedly my fault. I'm the one who puts Paige to sleep at night and closes her curtains. I should have checked the window then, and somehow didn't.

And of course yesterday the little dumpling woke up with a runny nose and sneezing the cutest saddest little sneezes you ever did see. Today she's no better. At nearly nine months old, she's got her first cold, poor dear.

Guess who is fretfully whispering "I'm sorry" into little ears now?
  

Dear Kate:

I confess. Well, it won't take long for you to figure this out on your own anyway.

My genes are totally responsible for how your hair looks when you wake up in the morning.

All I can say is I'm so very sorry.

xoxo,
Mama

My morning glory:

A couple weeks ago I was reading an old high school friend's blog and found out it's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Thankfully, breast cancer hadn't been on my mind at all.

But last year--Breast Cancer Awareness Month of 2007--that wasn't at all the case. I mean, I didn't even know it was a special month then, but I was all too aware of the Big C because one of Mark's aunts, and one of our favorite humans ever--the woman who performed our wedding ceremony, in fact--had just been diagnosed.

If it's a sickening stressful scary feeling being the friend of someone who's going through what she did, I can't even imagine what it's like to be the protagonist. I mean, as fans of Mark's aunt, we are just a small part of a large large group. So when she was sorting out and sifting though all the early information and emotions, she luckily had a big community to tap into for support, resources, good doctors' names. And of course the insights of other women who had gone through it too.

Again, I have no idea what it's like, but I can only imagine that it's like walking into a room of all these women--maybe some close friends, some social friends, former co-workers or clients, and even a big klatch of your mother's friends from Florida. All these woman who  you've probably known have had breast cancer, but of course now that it's struck you, you can't help but see them in a different light. Maybe you're greedy to get information from them, or desperate for their empathy or compassion, and you definitely want to hear all the really positive success stories. (Woot to all those Floridians still waking up every morning, greeting the day, and hitting the golf course!)

Or maybe you don't even want to go there and reach out to them at all, even though they're smiling up at you and offering their support in that amazing way that women seem to be able to even if you don't know them at all but really just need someone to help you because you're grocery bag is slipping and you're holding onto your crying baby and your toddler has decided to run into the busy parking lot.

You know. That amazing way that women who don't even know each other can be.

But anyway, back to this room. This room that I imagine is filled with all these women who have some life connection, and now another link through breast cancer. As much as their smiling faces and encouragement may bring you comfort, at least in those early days I can imagine that there's that moment as you walk to the center of the room that you see a chair and it's got your name on it. That must be the big sucker punch.

Everyone knows someone who's had breast cancer, but then what do you do when it's suddenly you? I don't care how friendly or welcoming the members are. Who wants to be part of that club?

Well, once you get through all the surgeries and treatments and whatever other interventions might take place, God willing you graduate to the elite gold club. The survivors' club. And blessedly so far everyone I know who has wrangled with breast cancer has managed to do that.

Because of course there are many other women who I know who I haven't mentioned yet. Women who would be in my imaginary support room, as it were. Once Mark's Aunt started to move into the "looks like it'll be okay" realm towards the end of last year, my womb-to-tomb friend Amelia's kid sister was diagnosed. I mean, in my mind she's still 11 years old and poking around the outskirts of where Amelia and I are hanging out, wanting to get in on the older girl action. But really she's in her mid-30s now. Older than my mind can grock, but still way too young to have an oncologist.

And one of the first people to spring to my mind whenever I see a pink ribbon is my beloved sister-cousin, Nancy. I'm not exactly sure when it was that she passed the special five year mark to being free and clear of cancer. And thinking of that now it makes me regret that I wasn't more aware of it. That I didn't send her a massive bouquet of flowers that day, or write a fat check to a research charity in her honor, or have a freakin' parade for her. Truly. I can think of no better day to jump into a fountain in public and dance and dance and dance.

Of course, there are so many other women who I've known--and even not personally known--who I'd love to recognize. The mothers of friends that I made in adulthood, who died when my friends were young girls. Women I never knew but whose daughters dazzle me daily with their friendship and intelligence and creativity, not to mention their own amazing mothering. To all those long-gone mothers, I pay tribute to you and promise to take special care of your girls. (They're all doing great! You'd be incredibly proud!)

So today I shout out to you from my front porch. Sitting here in the sunshine of a warm October California day. Happy to be alive. Happy to be the mother of a sweet dumpling baby who is sleeping inside and a spunky brilliant spitfire of a preschooler. Two daughters with whom I hope to share a long and illness-free lifetime.

And of course, I hope the same for you and your daughters, mothers, cousins, sisters, and favorite aunts.

So here's how I envision we get there. Let's go out and get mammograms despite how unpleasant we may have heard that they are. Let's really do regular self exams. And get tested for the BRCA gene if you have a family history. Let's laugh in the face of the crumbling economy by writing out generous checks today to Susan G. Komen For the Cure, or Breast Cancer Research Foundation, or National Breast Cancer Foundation or whatever charity or hospital or research center is meaningful to you.

If everyone does their part today, maybe a few years from now when someone brings it to your attention that it's National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, you'll think to yourself, "Oh, right. Breast cancer! I'd almost forgotten that disease even existed."

Last night Mike, Myra, and the kids came over for dinner and I gave them a general warning about the current state of our bathrooms. It seemed easier for me to set expectations than to run around and check on them every so often like some OCD McDonald's washroom janitor. While Kate masters the art of diaper-free life, you never really know what you could encounter behind the bathroom door.

Some scenarios include: Half the roll of toilet paper unraveled and strewn about the room like some poorly-executed small-scale Christo installation, or wadded into a ball in an equally fraught-with-failure attempt to put it back. Then there are the wipes--those flushable ones for kids that I refused to buy the Princess or froggy version of in hopes they wouldn't be seen as a toy. Joke's on me since the plain white container apparently holds some less-is-more allure for Kate. At any given time, anywhere from one to 30 of those wipes could be tossed about the room. Once they were even spread across the wall tiles like some sort of moist wallpaper treatment. (And to think she's never watched so much as a minute of HGTV!)

Oh and if stickers are your thing, you may be lucky to find the toilet seat decked out in a fresco of the one-for-pee two-for-poop stickers reserved for the special potty chart. (One of these days I'll actually move those out of reach.) You may think it sounds charming to find your toilet bejeweled this way, but when you're standing in line at a store and feel a small something clinging to your butt cheek, only to discover later it's a sparkly unicorn sticker, you may change your mind. As a stay-at-home mother I've found such experiences slowly chip away at my dignity, even if they are kinda funny sometimes.

The other thing that's disconcerting is unwittingly sitting on the padded training potty seat when you lower yourself down half-asleep in the middle of the night.

You may be thinking that my staying with the girl when she "goes potty" would prevent any or all of these scenarios from taking place. The thing is, 80% of the time I am with her. It's just those infrequent (but blessed) times she wanders in on her own, or that I need to do something mid-way through a seeminlgy endless poop sesh, that I return to see Kate's bathroom decor handiwork. Bodily functions aside, when it comes to leaving her personal mark on the bathroom, the girl is fast.

I was going to mention that when I enter to see a maelstrom of wipes and toilet paper it's all blessedly un-used. But I won't mention that, seeing as I'm a huge parental believer in The Power of Jinx. The moment I say anything, luck's tide will no doubt turn on me.

It's like this weekend at Ella K's birthday party. I foolishly gloated to a friend that Kate was at long last potty-trained. Not even an hour later--at which point of course the backyard party had moved indoors--Kate announced at top vox "I'm peeing!" and I (along with everyone else at the party) looked over to see her in fact doing so all over our host's lovely living room carpet. Last time I brag.

The other manifestation of the potty training thing that spares our bathrooms but is still disquieting is the pantie obsession. Mark and I are getting a taste of how the parents of those boob-flashing spring break co-eds must feel. When Kate's feeling shy she balls up the hem of her dress, pulls it up revealing her little bod, and sticks it in her mouth to gnaw on. The alternative to that shy mode is the "Wanna see my princess panties?" mode. I can't count the number of times people like our mail man have had Kate reveal her panties to them. It's troubling.

Well, no more troubling than my having to continue to change diapers, I guess.

One of Mark's friends from his New York days wrote a great book about misheard song lyrics called 'Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy. Who can't love a book like that? It should be required reading in bathrooms across America. And I truly mean that as a compliment.

One of my personal misheard song faves was from my friend Cynthia. She confessed to me in college that she'd long been singing, "I jog in the city! Running wild and looking pretty!"

You'd have to know Cynth to really appreciate how perfectly hilarious that was. Even now it's a total side-splitter to me.

Not that I'm much better, mind you. No doubt there are myriad song lyrics I belt out daily that are utterly incorrect. One Mark caught me in the act of was from that Billy Joel song "Piano Man." I thought the guy in the song was "making love to his tiny can gin" instead of his "tonic and gin."

Not sure what led me to believe gin ever came in cans. Or weirder: tiny cans. It's one of those things that as you're singing it doesn't seem quite right but oh well you're not the songwriter you're just driving in your car singing along happily and maybe even thumping the steering wheel when the spirit moves you, so who are you to question what vessel gin traditionally comes in and how big it is. Know what I mean?

Of course when Mark discovered I'd been making this mistake he pounced on it delightedly as only a loving spouse can. In a futile attempt at self defense I think I tried to cover my tracks by explaining I thought he was "making love to his tiny Can Jin." You know, some diminutive Asian woman. (Yeah, he didn't buy it either.)

Anyway, yesterday I asked Kate what she wanted to bring into school today since she was the Star of the Day, the school's one-at-a-time version of Show and Tell. She took the question to heart and started surveying her toy empire intently. At one point she ran up to me with some wooden play dishes and said, "Mama, I want to take these in for Start of the Day." To which I corrected, "It's not start, honey, it's star. Like you're a shining star!"

Here I am trying to help her out, teach her something, and what I get back is an insistent, "No, Mommy"--the name she reserves for me when she's being stern--"It's start."

There's just no telling that girl she's wrong. I wonder where she gets that from.

Turns out Kate's gotten some other school-related things wrong too. The circle time song she insists goes, "Make a circle. Make a circle. Make it ground! Make it ground!" She sings this song nearly incessantly causing me to mutter between clenched teeth "Round, Kate. Round."

And they say some non-denominational hippie-type grace before eating at school. I'm not sure exactly what the words to it are, but I'm pretty sure they aren't, "Thank you, thank you, my hard things! Thank you, thank you for everything." My guess is it's a "heart" that "sings." Though, knowing that school it might also be a harp.

Anyway, one song I'm certain I know the words to--since this Star of the Day thing has had it stuck in my head all day--is the theme song from this low-budg New England talent show called Community Auditions that was on TV when I was a kid. It had a small studio audience comprised of mostly pushy pageant-type parents, and was on something equivalent to local cable access. (UHF on the dial, yo.)

I was likely one of about seven people bored enough to watch it, but TV producers must be desperate these days because a Google search led me to discover it's actually been brought back like some bad 70s TV show zombie stalking the airwaves. My God, modern science can resuscitate anything these days, but what are the ethics behind these frightening decisions?

Anyway, back in the old school Community Auditions day their most popular act by far was young girls wearing bad red wigs and warbling out "Tomorrow" from the musical Annie. They also had a preponderance of young dance and gymnastics troupes who'd perform in bright matching costumes covered in those old big round sequins. Lots of kids "Puttin' on the Ritz" with canes and top hats too. Oy.

I can nearly assure you that none of the acts that appeared on Community Auditions made it big.

So, the show's theme song (in hopes that typing it will drive it out of my head) went:

Star of the day, who will it be?
Your vote could hold the key!
Is it you? Tell us who
Will be star of the day!

When I picked up Kate from school this afternoon one of her teachers came up to me to report that Kate took her Star of the Day title very seriously. At one point during her my-crap-from-home presentation some kids were talking. The teacher said Kate stopped, glared at them and said, "Please be quiet. It's my turn to talk."

Again, where does she get this from?

Ah, little Miss Kate. You are my start to every day and my star of every day. And your Mama loves you so very very much.

While our kids were strangling each other on the sidewalk the other day, a neighbor casually mentioned to me that his cat brought a rat into their house the night before.

"A mouse?" I asked weakly, venturing hopefully to correct him.

"No, no. It was a rat alright," he replied. "It was actually pretty big too."

It was one of those things someone tells you nonchalantly, and it's all you can do to repress a full body shudder and exclamation of GAAAHHHH!

Several minutes later, he'd moved onto some other topic or was chatting with the kids or something, as I stood frozen, frantically wondering, "Was it dead? How big was it? Was it half-dead? Eeeeeeeeew!!! What room did it drag it into? Oh God, was it on a carpet? Was there a trail of blood? Did their kid see it? How the hell--and where--did they dispose of the thing?!"

I could barely stand to even think those thoughts, but I also couldn't stop myself. For the remainder of the evening, back inside having dinner and such, any quiet moment would lead my mind back to thoughts of THE RAT, which as the night progressed grew larger, bloodier, and more diseased in my imagination.

Well, hey. What do they expect having cats. One of the first things I told Kate when we brought her home from the hospital as a newborn was, "We're dog people." I mean, it's important for kids to know what their family stands for right out of the gate.

My disdain for cats started out with allergies as a child, then progressed to more of a fear of them (don't laugh) after a couple episodes where I've been clawed at. (Turns out they don't like having their stomachs scratched vigorously or being thumped on the back. Who knew?)

But after this rat story I have a whole new reason to hate.

The thing is, I'm starting to see some cat-like qualities in my own offspring. In Kate. No, I'm not allergic to her, and sure she's scratched me a few times but in minor unintentional scenarios. Thankfully we're not at the rat stages, but Kate is doing her fair share of taking the outdoors inside.

Today I was reaching blindly for a rattle for Paige in the great toy abyss between her and Kate's car seats. Instead I withdrew a plum-sized chunk of concrete. Not exactly the German wooden toy that'll get Paige into Princeton that I was groping for. And clearly Kate's work. God knows how she manages to reach down and pry off a piece of the sidewalk before we snap her into her car seat.

And that's just the car. Inside the house, her play kitchen is a shaman's workbench. The girl has collected acorns, leaves, sticks, fistfuls of grass, dandelions, and other small organic matter. It's wedged into little containers, mixed in small enamel pots with tiny wooden eggplants. I even found a Tupperware in her bureau alongside her basket of barrettes, filled with a cache some sort of random sidewalk nut.

Needless to say, outside is another story altogether. The bucket in the back of her trike is full to overflowing with pebbles, leaves, dessicated kumquats, pieces of straw, prickly chestnut husks, and a thoughtfully curated collection of twigs. Seed pods are especially prized booty, as she employs the multiplicity of innards for a variety of projects, most often as the key ingredient to her specialité, homemade 'soups.'

And I should really just write the hipster architects who live on the corner a check for all the polished gray stones Kate's purloined from their modern front yard-scape. By year's end she'll have denuded the place. And from the small crazy-person piles around our yard and spilling forth from her various front porch bowls and baskets, it's quite clear that she's the perpetrator.

Of course, aside from being creepily cat-like behavior, this all can't help but remind me of my mother. Which is to say, what Kate's got is in the genes. Driving down the road with my mom you'd think she was swerving to avoid an oncoming car, but really she'd careen to the side of the road with break-neck velocity then hop out giddy like a school girl to haul in a branch laden with pine cones. Some women swoon over designer labels, but a piece of driftwood or a fallen bird nest was what'd weaken my mother's knees.

Her pine cone habit was at times out of control. Look for a clear place to sit in her car and you'd re-enact a scene from The Sound of Music. For as much as she gathered, emptying the car of her earthly treasures was a less immediate compulsion. The back seat was typically off limits it was so overburdened with her finds, along with her stash of old bread, crackers, and cereal she fed to wild ducks. (The woman single-handedly changed the dietary needs of the North American Mallard by causing them to grow dependent on stale Ritz Crackers.)

At least the pine cones, chestnuts, shells, and other natural detritus my mother gathered were the raw materials for some backwoods-type Martha Stewart projects. (Though it should be known she found Martha to be "a puke.") She'd gild a bale of nut husks and pair them with some holly sprigs, quahog shells, and maybe a pineapple or two. Slap on some peat moss and rig in a few candles and next thing you know we had a centerpiece worthy of a White House state dinner. As wacky as she was, the end products were always impressive.

As far as I know, none of Mom's roadside finds made their way into her repertoire of soups, though it's hard to really know for sure. Come winter, she did did make a hearty stew.

Invariably when you're traveling and you tell someone you live in Northern California, you get that tired old oh-sure-it's-pretty-and-all-but-what-about-earthquakes?! reaction. Some folks will verbalize it, and with others you can just tell by looking at them that they're thinking it and are silently pitying your poor sense of judgment.

As a longtime NoCal resident--16 years now!--I find the whole earthquake thing an absurd reason to avoid living here. (God please spare us tonight if The Big One should hit.) I mean, there are far better reasons to not live here. Exorbitant real estate prices, atrocious bagels, crappy public schools, the almost spooky lack of corn muffins, the unswimmably cold Pacific Ocean....

Don't get me wrong. There are many many reasons why this is one of the most amazing places in the U.S. to live, but I'm also aware of the place's pitfalls. I mean, the bagels. Are. Truly. Dreadful.

Though one thing I will say we're blessedly exempt from is the maddening small talk about the weather that seems to comprise about 45% of all conversational airtime in New England. Frankly, I'd happily plunk my house astride a fault line to live free of that natter.

It's not that we're such brilliant conversationalists here on the West Coast. More likely that our weather tends to be so damn predictable it becomes a conversational neutral. Instead we drone on incessantly about sky-high real estate prices. (I guess we're still boring, just on different topics.)

But every once and a while you get a day like yesterday, and all those repressed or misplaced weather hounds come out of hiding. And sometimes they're the least likely suspects.

So when the Friday Mama Posse convened, the mothers and babes in arms sat at Sacha's kitchen table, and the three-year-olds occasionally tore past in a howling squealing stream. A couple times in the blur I noticed little Ella B. clutching a child-sized rainbow striped umbrella.

Running in from the backyard at one point she called out triumphantly, "I think the rain is coming, Mama!" Causing Megan to laugh and turn to us, "She's been talking about this all morning. The girl is so excited that it's going to rain today." Mary chimed in that she totally was too. I think we actually all agreed. After the typical six-month or so rain-free stretch, an impending downpour was fraught with novelty. Sure, even excitement.

Throughout the day, I couldn't help but notice other people looking up at the gray sky, marveling. No dramatic leaf colors. No city-stopping snowstorms. We don't even have many of those sunny-but-chilly days everyone back East gleefully calls crisp. Sure, you can haul out some heavier sweaters and even boots if you like, though during the days you may still opt for flip flops. Our seasonal changes are more subtle than the showy Midwest and East Coast drama. But to some sensitive California souls they don't go unnoticed.

As the day wound down I chatted with a neighbor out in front of the house. The sun was setting so early it seemed, and the air was cooling off. The much-anticipated rain hadn't started yet, but likely would in a few hours. Even though in our mellow family mode we'd be staying in anyway, I remarked it was the perfect Friday night to be home, snugged in warm and cozy, watching a movie.

Back inside, Mark had dinner underway and called out from the kitchen if I wanted a drink. After a moment's thought, I jumped into the new season with both feet and said I'd take a bourbon and Coke.

Ah, yes. Fall indeed.

I'm exhausted just thinking about how much cramming Sarah Palin is doing to get ready for the debate tomorrow.  

I wonder what approach they're taking with her. Flash cards? Crib sheets? Miking her updo? For her sake I hope they're coming at it from all angles.

Oh Sarah. It's sure to be a long night for you. But all the coffee along with the stress--I mean 'energy'--coming off the pack of Republican handlers frantically working with you should help get you through.

Besides, remember all those long nights you've had conferring with the Russians on complex foreign policy issues? You're used to burning the midnight oil!

And really, we've all had our share of all-nighters in college, right? So it's in that spirit that we in the McClusky household will be watching the debate tomorrow night. We'll do a shot every time Palin says something utterly asinine.

Now that I'm thinking of it, maybe Mark should plan to take Friday off of work.