The other half

This post was inspired by the post at Strange Pilgram. I know it's an odd take off of that, but it moved my brain in this direction.


I want to be a fly on the wall when the dads get together. My circle of friends is a combination of stay-at-home moms and dads and their work outside-the-home dads and moms. We have occasion to get together in a variety of combinations. As couples, men's night, women's night, park play groups, family play groups. It is fascinating. Me being a woman, I see the women's side of things and the couples, but I always wonder about poker night.


Poker night is a mystical beast. I wish I could see our men in their native habitat and how things play out. We know men don't have the same topics of discussion as we do. Or do they? Do they talk about their wives? Do they talk about sports? That's a tough one, because I am sure at least half of the poker guys couldn't care less about sports teams. Do they talk about their kids and the weird things they do? I cannot even imagine that it could be as interesting as any time I get together with the girls. I've asked before what the topics of conversation are, not because I want to pry, but just curiosity. I really would like to see how guys relate.


I guess it has always been that way. I've never really known what groups of guys do or are interested in. There's the generic sports talk, or, if your guy leans toward the geek, the generic vid game/role playing talk. There might be sci fi, or taking things apart or putting them together. But really, is that all? And when a woman asks, the man shrugs it off as if it is so unimportant.


Occasionally, the womenfolk hear a snippet here and there. It's usually something shocking or grandly funny. The good thing is the guys do talk to us. It spreads like wildfire through the feminine grapevine. Then us ladies, as we get together more often than the gentlemen, have a little rehash and a giggle about whatever that latest tidbit was.


Why is it the women can pull things together and see each other more often? Is it something we crave and make an effort for? I just realized that the men haven't had a poker night since June, or maybe May. The women have had three book clubs, a couple girls' night out, maybe a girls' night in (can't remember), some play time at the park. It's not always the same combination of people, but the same people rotate in and out. There is definitely a list of gals, and roughly, their husbands participate in poker night. We care if it has been too long between bar hops, but they are so nonchalant. I don't get that either, because it is always great to blow off steam with a few people who know the trials of your sex.


If anyone has been the fly on the wall with a gathering of men, or is a man who would be happy to enlighten us, I would love to hear what their normal ordinary conversation topics are. Please leave a comment.

My aunt

My aunt died on St. Patrick's Day. My mother's older sister. At the moment she was passing from this life to the next, I was in the local Irish pub, having a Smithwicks with a couple of friends and trying to be polite to the weird old man that was talking to us. We finally moved indoors and whiled away the time with random conversation and peeling peanuts from their shells, depositing the empties on the table. I remember it was a warm night, the warmest in weeks and the warmest in weeks to come, because I wanted to wear my leather jacket and it was too hot.

The next day I got the email. I knew it was coming, but still, you just think, that maybe, there will be a miracle. It was breast cancer. My mother's mother also died from breast cancer. The pit of my stomach churns thinking about it. Two cases, on my mother's side. It's a worry. But maybe, we'll get lucky.

It was a little weird getting the news via email. I could quietly grieve, instead of loudly grieving over a phone, but it seemed weird to me none the less. At least it wasn't one hundred years ago, or even 60 years, when a letter came, weeks or months after the fact, telling you a relative died. But I'm not sure I'm ready to be entirely in this emailing, texting world. At least it wasn't a text.

I saw this aunt, cousins, uncle occasionally and much less now than I had as a youth, which wasn't much to begin with. We were introduced to much less midwestern fare, not that my mom and dad were typically midwestern in the meals they fixed for us, but still, I had my first taste of some more exotic foods. We had some kind of oriental food, possibly Thai (my parents already made Chinese at home). My oldest cousin graduated from high school and we visited (or maybe that was college) and we had blintzes and I was introduced to bagels, lox, and cream cheese. My uncle was a professor and Jewish, my aunt was a nurse, and my cousins played violin, viola, cello. I wished I could be as cool playing an instrument like that.

My aunt was one to give thoughtful and thought invoking gifts. When I was nine, she gave me a lined book for writing in. Inside she inscribed, "For you to write your poetry in." It had not yet occurred to me, until then, that I had poetry to write, let alone having my own book to write it in. I remember bits and pieces of my nine year old poetry.

My desk may become a mess
But if you may
Please let it stay
In my room for more than one day.


Practice makes perfect, some people say.
But it seems like I get worse every day.
Sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't.
I feel as if I'll quit, but I won't.

Immediately after my aunt died, I went digging in my basement. I'll admit it, I'm a bit of a pack rat. But, don't you think that a historian should be? It is my own personal history. I went digging and digging and digging. I know that book is in my house. I took it to college with me. I couldn't find it. I think, at that moment, that made me more sad than anything else. I have hope, I know it is here somewhere, I just didn't have the gumption at that point to haul everything out and dig through it. Another day.

Here it is, another day. My aunt never met my daughter in person. Who is named after the grandmother that first died from cancer. I'm sorry about that. We just didn't have the money or means to get to Seattle to see them before things went badly. My parents enjoyed visits with them out there in their retirement home in Seattle. I'm glad they did and they had good times.

My aunt had, what to me appears to be, a meaningful life. And she imparted a lot of great traits to her daughters, my cousins, whom I still admire a great deal. And I still admire my retired professor uncle. I believe we still need to make that visit to Seattle. I hope he can heal some from such an emptiness in his life. He has a passel of grandkids and another on the way. And the girls will tell such wonderful stories about grandma to their kids. They also know what it's like to be missing a grandma. I was eight when my grandmother died. I remember it pretty well.

I count my blessings that my own children's grandmother (both for that matter) is relatively healthy and well and can be there to impart her own special wisdom.

I just realized ONE YEAR

I just realized I started writing this just over a year ago. So much changes in a year, it's incredible.

I thought to celebrate I want to rename my kids.

Hunh?

Well, at least for this blog. I am kind of bored with the non-creativity of Wild Child #1 and #2. So I was giving it some thought. I am going to use the names they might have been given had our fancies struck us differently.

WC#1 had a toss up, but the second choice name was Andrew. He does not seem like an Andrew at this point in his life, but I think I will use it here.

For WC#2, we had come up with a silly name for her that I don't think we would have ever used. It was a private joke between Mr. Wild and me, but I cannot explain it without revealing the real name of her brother. I have always liked the name Willa, so Willa she will be here.

And at some point, I may have to describe me yelling in frustration at them, so may have to use their middle names. Each name did have a middle name to go with it. So, you may see Andrew Ervin or Willa Marie pop in occasionally.

So introducing Andrew:

And Willa:

(if you look close, you can see her eyes match that ocean)

But they are sooo not those names.

The end of an era

I think I've mentioned before the trials and tribulations of Mr. Wild and his foray into stay-at-home parenthood. It was fraught with its pitfalls, frustrations, and happy moments. But it was good for all of us, I think we all would agree in our family.

After WC#2 started all day kindergarten, Mr. Wild thought perhaps he needed things to do. He did, for a bit, work the census, which worked as a great part time job. For as long as it lasted. It was supposed to last for a couple months, but his census team was so good, they were done in about four weeks. That was it.

Mr. Wild still felt he needed to have some useful occupation. He started to toy with the idea of getting back into the museum field. Yes, we both have the same professional background, which is a challenge unless you live in a high population area with many historical societies in a small land area. We love living in Wisconsin in a small town. We love our friends here and our schools and the atmosphere. We love the way we can get nearly everywhere in town on bike (if we wanted). So getting back into the museum field without us moving could have been a challenge.

But, the jobs popped up, one here, one there. There was one about 45 minutes away, but sounded very interesting. Unfortunately, the website with the announcement was outdated, because they had already hired someone for the posted position when he checked. Let this be a lesson to all (including me), keep your websites updated!

Then, it seemed almost providential, a nearby town with its historical society had a new job announcement. Mr. Wild read the description and said, "I can do that." And the whole process went well. They called for the phone interview. Mr. Wild was nervous, "I haven't done this in years." They called him back for an in-person interview. Trying on work clothes for Mr. Wild was a bit harrowing. We won't mention how it seems all the clothes shrank in the last five years. They were pleased with him and called him back for an interview with the staff.

Then, they called him with the position. He was thrilled. I was thrilled for him. It is always nice to be chosen for a job. Then reality set in. We didn't know how we were going to be a two income family again. Did we want to? Mr. Wild and I have grand ideas of maybe we could switch places. But extenuating circumstances at this point won't allow us to switch.

[I'm going to add a dig into the health care debate. His job offers no health insurance, mine does at very low cost. I tried to look up the cost for family health care at the level I have it, and we could not afford that on our own, not with orthodontics and the kids being in sports and glasses and everything else. If there had been a public option at a reasonable price for the whole family, well then....]

We did find afterschool care for the kids. It is a good price and both are doing well with it. For my son, the afterschool care is at the school and he gets his homework done during those hours, then can come home and relax with us. I think for him, this transition is fine, and maybe even really good for him. He's at the point where he won't listen to us grownups, can be distracted by what we have at home, so the afterschool program allows him to get his homework done and then be relaxed at home. For WC#2, I think it's a harder transition. She was extra huggy the first week, to both of us, but now she seems to be settling in a routine. She's good about doing her homework after she gets home to see us.

The hardest thing, I think, is for Mr. Wild to change his focus and mindset. He liked being at home when the kids came from school. He misses those two hours before I come home. I never understood this was the case, because, to me, he would often seem frustrated with the kids when I got back, but I think that just comes with the territory. I don't know if I can be of much help, because I have always been at work. I cherish the weekends and other spare time I have with the kids, but I don't think I know that feeling of not being there.

He says he always feels overwhelmed with how much he has to do at this new place and is not able to concentrate. Granted, he's only been back a total of seven days. I keep telling him to give himself more time than seven days.

I'm not sure how long we will be able to stay in this pattern. I think we both believe we needed to give it a try. Especially since this job would be good on his resume and not some random job he could have held. It's kind of a wait and see situation. I believe in Mr. Wild, after he has six months or more to get into a routine, I think things will go well.

But I think we both might really be happy if we could both be at home. Funny that.

Pictures

Okay, okay, here's some pictures of our lovely trip to Maui, Hawaii:


The flight there:



Our backyard, yeah, it was always gorgeous like that:





Some beach time:



Heading to the mountain with Grandpa and cousins:




Haleakala, my sister, me and some of our kids. Sorry, we were all freezing up there. Should have been better prepared:





Gorgeous Iao Valley:




Some miniature golf and bumper boat time. I was soaked after my kids got me:




Some time with my cousin's kid. It was cousin-mania with my cousins, their cousins, and second cousins. WC #2 is teaching them jumping techniques:




In the end, we were sorry to leave this beautiful place.






Those of you that live there, I hope it is still breathtaking for you every time you step out that door. I spent many mornings just being in awe of the sights I could see every day.

More pictures are in the sidebar. Please enjoy. I have been missing from the blogosphere, but I hope that you will accept this post with my apologies. More later about trying to become a published in print author....

Best Wishes,

Happy Anniversary!

My intent was to post this with pictures, but I have to sort through and size down before I post them, so I thought I'd get this post out now without waiting any more. Some pictures to come later.



Can I just say, Maui is exquisite? The Hawaiin Islands are an amazing place. At least Maui is. My husband and I are historians, but he never likes to visit museums when we go traveling. Probably because, professionally, we look at museums and think about how we could do it different, better, etc. But it was killing me not to know more about the history of the islands. I did, at last, visit the Sugar Museum, because it was also killing me not knowing how sugar was removed from the cane and my cousin, who lives on Maui, wasn't sure how it worked either. I know now and feel so much better knowing.

We went to a different beach on four different days. I got a rash at one. Not sure how or why, but it cleared up after a couple of days of avoiding the beach. We went to Iao Valley, a gorgeous, lush, green place. We went up Haleakala, 10,000 feet, with the clouds floating below our feet. We made a trip to the west side, to Lahaina. I wore a flower in my hair, but never got a fresh flower lei. $34 and up for it was a bit expensive. We checked out a mini-golf place, which was entertaining for the kids. We did some mall and outlet shopping and that was actually fun too. In the end, it doesn't seem we did a huge amount, but we decided we'd go at the pace our kids could handle and it seemed about right for all of us.

We never made it to Hana. I would have liked to, but seeing how winding the road was and how long it would take, I decided to give my second child a break from motion sickness and boredom in the car for both of them. We stayed in north Maui, not far from Kahului. The view out our backdoor was gorgeous, as was the inside of our rental place. My cousin lives further east from there. Paia is a funny little town, we stopped there a couple of times.

We rented a lovely little Ford Focus. If you're looking for a compact car, this was pretty nice. It could give our Toyota a run for its money. You go Ford, and keep it up. It was a cute green color we all liked, too. I didn't even take a picture of it. I should have. The biggest challenge about driving was trying to properly pronounce the Hawaiin street names to the driver, and then having the driver not sure how that was spelled or what it might look like written because we were totally not used to it. We had a pronunciation guide in one of the guide books, but there were lots of exceptions to the general rules of pronunciation, so we never quite got the hang of it.

None of this would have been possible if it hadn't been for my parents. It was my mom's idea to take all us kids and our significant others and children. They took care of the flight and the place we stayed. Everything else was up to us. We stayed in the big house with my sister, her two year old and 2 month old daughter and her husband. My parents had a cottage and my brother and his girlfriend had their own studio apartment under another building. This was my parents' fortieth anniversary present to all of us. I think what made this trip more special was getting to do it with all the family. We didn't always do things together in the day, but we would often gather in the big house at night and make dinner for everyone, talking about our adventures. My kids got to spend time with their cousins who live in Phoenix. Poor WC#2 got to learn what it was like to try to share with a two year old. They both did reasonably well, but there were conflicts. Despite that, they had quite a blast and loved being with each other. Extra special was that I got to see a cousin of mine from my mom's side, whom I may not have seen in 20 years or more. She has a two year old of her own, so my kids got first and second cousin time. I don't think this trip would have been quite as wonderful if it had been just us.

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Thanks for having us in more ways than one!

The Panic Before the Calm

Tomorrow is the flight to Hawaii. I have been working hard all week, going in early to work, getting prepared for a big to-do we had at work yesterday for the 4th of July. I am exhausted. I haven't had much time to think on what needed to get put together for our trip.

Today is the day. I have to check all the bags, make sure the kids have everything they need, check on toiletries and make sure we comply with all the FAA guidelines. Pack a big bag to check underneath. Put other toiletries in a plastic bag for the ride in the cargo hold of the plane. Make sure we have sunscreen, cameras, bug sprag or lotion, swimsuits, towels, the works. Pay a few bills before we take off, so they don't get forgotten.

Tonight we drive down to Chicago, stay in a hotel room before the flight. I think this is much better than trying to get kids up early, early, early in the morning to try to make it to our flight. We did a little shopping earlier in the week to try to get things for the trip. I think we're set.

But, I'm just a little panicked. I'm pretty sure we can get this all done, but it's not done yet.

At the very least, I got all the things done I needed done before leaving work last night. I was there until 7:15 pm, but it is done and behind me now. I can relax and not worry about all that.

Lots of things to look forward to: my sister's new baby, ocean views, sand and seas, tropical setting, a week there, time with my family. No internet, no cell phone service (well not for my phone, because it is out of network and I just don't use out of network), so I cannot be reached for anything at work. We're not sure what we'll do while there, but maybe we won't do much except explore Maui and check out all the beaches we can. The kids love water and love swimming at the lake, I figure this is the next step up.

Aloha!