No It All

As my mom tells it, my first slumber party was around third grade for Esther’s birthday.  And I would spend the following day as grumpy as, quote, “a little wet hen.”  As I grew as a connoisseur of the sleepover soirees, I mostly remember being the primary target of the typical party pranks including seances where little girls tried to lift me with just two fingers, and waking-up with my hand in a cup of warm water.  Myths busted.  There are several analog photos floating around of fifth grade me covered in towers of toilet paper and soda cans.

Last night was our very first birthday slumber party in the living room of the barn.  Poor Cruz succumbed to a barf bug and wasn’t able to make it.  It’s quite likely the bug Jake had last weekend when he woke-up at Cruz’s house on Sunday morning and tossed his cookies.  Our party was a carefully crafted small group of the Stars and brothers of the Stars: Kai, Big Jackson, Jake and Nate.  There was pizza from Giuseppe’s, caesar salad, brownies and double peanut butter chip ice cream. There were nerf gun wars.  And the helium balloons suffered immediate death as soon as our guests arrived.

This morning we woke-up and the time had sprung forward.  Luca met us downtown and we reclined in luxury for the latest Pixar movie, Onward.  I absolutely loved its Brothers Stick Together message.  The half-dad wasn’t even too weird.  We closed out the marathon birthday party with sandwiches at Ike’s and cones at McConnell’s.  All in all it was the easiest party we’ve planned, yet I still needed a recovery nap this afternoon.  Today, I’m definitely the mother of two little wet hens.

Last night I slept upstairs in the barn and fell asleep around 9 or so.  I’ve been quarantined in the barn this entire week, avoiding the bug that started its usual course: Jacob to James.  Around 11:15PM I wake-up and I can still hear the TV.  Left to his own devices, Jacob may never go to sleep.  I head downstairs and see Michael Jordan slam dunking with some sort of background cartoon animations.  Nate is curled up under his Man City blanket, fast asleep.

“Guys, it’s time to go to bed.  How much longer till this movie is over?”

Kai says, “One minute.”

Hmmm.  Likely story.  The movie ends and we scramble around looking for the remote control, which seems to be lost in a mess of blankets and sleeping bags and pillows.  I find it next to Nate’s feet.

TV off, lights out.  Goodnight people.

This morning I ask Nate when he fell asleep… was it during the Michael Jordan movie?  He naturally responds, “What Michael Jordan movie?”

We know whose got a childhood of toilet-papering ahead of him.

We had that short lull after soccer All Stars and now we’re back in it.  Baseball and Flag Football.  Full swing.  Nate’s on the Yankees and the Georgia Bulldogs.  Jake scored big, making it onto the starting line-up for the Kansas City Chiefs in just his second year.

Now we know Nate’s been playing roughly 5 soccer games every weekend so he’s in pretty good shape.  But, then James verbalized this Friday evening’s schedule for both boys and it goes:

Baseball
Football Pics
Football Pics
Football
Football
Football
Football

Too much?

Over the last few days, Nate’s been fairly fixated on tracing his soccer lineage.  He tells me he’s great at soccer because I’m great at soccer (naturally).  And I’m great at soccer because Granddad’s great at soccer.  And then the trail goes cold.  Maybe it then leaps all the way back to our British ancestors?  We’ll go with that.

Meanwhile, last night we had a hoopin’ and hollerin’ good time watching Man City play Real Madrid in the Champions League.  Of course our all-time fave, Kevin De Bruyne, or Kevinder as we call him, scored the winning goal and propelled us to our first ever win against the madrileños.  It was so exciting, we’re still all abuzz.

After the match we caught some highlights of the Juve game against Lyon, featuring the primary hero of the third grade “Stars” crowd– Cristiano.

Nate looked visibly distressed when we discovered Ronaldo’s relatively new…. man bun.  No joke.

Nate mostly speaks minion.  Yes, “minion” as in those little yellow cartoon guys that sometimes have one eye and sometimes have two and speak some version of gibberish Italian.  Nate is fluent.

It started way back when little kids make noises that sound like talking, but is really just gibberish.  And then it never stopped.  He picked-up English, but never abandoned his first language.  He greets me each morning with “Bello, Mama guena!”

Lately, he’s added new catch words and phrases.

It probably started with “Macarena, Macarena, Macarena.”

Then it was exclamations of “pina colada!”  Whenever the mood struck.

There was a short stint of “Man buns!”  Till I explained it was a hairstyle.  After that, he didn’t love it as much.

He’s had several weeks of “Mint condition!”  Followed by a few months of embarrassing, publicly sarcastic outbursts of “OK… Boomer.”

His latest go-to is “Chinese chickón,” said with a bit of a Spanish accent.  Origins unclear… possibly based on a recent radio ad for the Barenaked Ladies concert in Paso?  Chickity China, the Chinese chicken.  Have a drumstick and your brain starts tickin’…

Then last night, I was quietly writing my blog, just minding my own business, when Nate caught wind of my muse.  He tried to delete my writing and ended the encounter with a harrumphing, “You smell like man buns!”

OK… Gen Alpha.

I’ve gotta hand it to the YouTube generation.  Jake was struggling with learning not just where the states go on a blank map, but also then learning the capital cities.  That’s when he took it upon himself to find a song to help him learn.  Score another one for “Self-directed Learner!”  He found this old-timey Animaniacs cartoon and we’ve been singing it ever since:

And now, Wakko Warner with the fifty US states and their capitals:

Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Indianapolis, Indiana
And Columbus is the capital of Ohio
There’s Montgomery, Alabama, south of Helena, Montana
Then there’s Denver, Colorado, under Boise, Idaho

Texas has Austin, then we go north
To Massachusetts, Boston, and Albany, New York
Tallahassee, Florida, and Washington, D.C.
Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Nashville, Tennessee

Elvis used to hang out there a lot, ya know

Trenton’s in New Jersey north of Jefferson, Missouri
You got Richmond in Virginia, South Dakota has Pierre
Harrisburg’s in Pennsylvania and Augusta’s up in Maine
And here is Providence, Rhode Island, next to Dover, Delaware

Concord, New Hampshire, just a quick jaunt
To Montpelier, which is up in Vermont
Hartford’s in Connecticut, so pretty in the fall
And Kansas has Topeka, Minnesota has St. Paul

Juneau’s in Alaska and there’s Lincoln in Nebraska
And it’s Raleigh out in North Carolina and then
There’s Madison, Wisconsin and Olympia in Washington
Phoenix, Arizona, and Lansing, Michigan

Here’s Honolulu, Hawaii’s a joy
Jackson, Mississippi, and Springfield, Illinois
South Carolina with Columbia down the way
And Annapolis in Maryland on Chesapeake Bay

They have wonderful clam chowder

Cheyenne is in Wyomin’ and perhaps you make your home in
Salt Lake City out in Utah, where the Buffalo roam
Atlanta’s down in Georgia, and there’s Bismarck, North Dakota
And you can live in Frankfort in your old Kentucky home

Salem in Oregon, from there we join
Little Rock in Arkansas, Iowa’s got Des Moines
Sacramento, California, Oklahoma, and its city
Charleston, West Virginia, and Nevada, Carson City

That’s all the capitals there are.

I’ll never forget my eighth grade Civics class with Mr. Patterson.  He was a tall, slender, silver-haired man tasked with teaching us the great responsibilities and privileges of citizenship.  And we were singularly focused on attending “The New York Trip,” which also included DC and Intercourse, Pennsylvania.  Besides learning the meaning of “BMOC” and the vague outlines of the three branches of government, I mostly remember the Great State Capital Memorization Test.

I can also confidently say that memorizing the states and their capitals has had very little real-world value since then.  I mean, of course I need a vague sense of where Kansas is.  And yes, I’m happy to report that I wouldn’t publicly humiliate myself via tweet by congratulating them on their Super Bowl win, but otherwise, I’ve never needed to reference Frankfort in my entire life.  Unlike math, which I use every day at work, and emphasize repeatedly on our after school drives home.

So back to eighth grade.  Besides the scrunchies and Z Cavaricci’s, I remember several sessions of studying with Jamie A. and Sarah.  By this point we were pretty versed in the power of mnemonic memorization devices.  A class just on this topic would be infinitely more valuable in life than memorizing states and capitals, but I digress.

Some *mumbling* years later, the two I can recall are that Illinois looks like the grampa from the Simpsons, upside down, and the Simpsons live in Springfield, Illinois!  The other one, which I’d also bet Jamie A. and Sarah remember is: My brother Geoff gives me Misery, which equates to: Jefferson City is in Missouri.  (This was clearly just a pneumonic device, Geoffrey George.  Believe me, it’ll save your bacon when Devon hits the fifth grade…)  After one or two trips in a station wagon with her three siblings, Sarah had the most real world experience with Missouri.  She was saving up to buy her own plane ticket.

Fast forward to a new generation of fifth graders and the Great State Capital Memorization Test has been moved-up three years given today’s childhood demands.  Two tests have taken place and, I take it from Jacob’s dramatic evening outburst, they’ve not gone that well.  The east coast test is tomorrow and all is lost, wail, wail, cry, cry.  Salt Lake City.

Silence!  Clearly you’re unaware of Mama’s Mnemonic Magic.  Get over here.  Buck-up.  We’ve got this.

He’s got Maine and New Hampshire down, no problemo.  But he doesn’t like my recommendation that Vermont looks like a “V”.  “No it doesn’t, Mom!”  He sees a duck face in New York and draws it in.  I’m told Vermont looks like a beanie that the duck is wearing.  For two days we exclaim, “The beanie on the duck is?… Vermont!”  And then we sing, “Montepelier is up in Vermont.”  Followed by my additional idea that it’s Vermontpelier (we pronounce the “r”).

And the state shaped like a gun shooting the duck is Massacre, otherwise known as Massachusetts.  The little bullet under the gun is Rhode Island.  And the state connecting the gun with the bullet is Connecticut (also pronouncing every letter).

Pennsylvania looks like a big flat rock, because we go there to visit Flatrock.  And the capital sounds German, I’m told.  Ohio is to the left.  Jacob says, “Are you Columbus with me to Pennsylvania?”  Under Pennsylvania is a fish-shaped state called West Virginia.  Our friend Charleston likes to fish.

We head back to the coast.  There is a state that looks like a face throwing-up on Pennsylvania.  It’s New Jersey.  And the silverware holding the guy’s mouth open is Delaware.  Which leads us to the DelMarVa coast: Delaware, Maryland, Virginia.  The extra line is Washington DC.  I tell the inappropriate story about grumpy Daddy and Crapannapolis.

Jake decides Virgina looks like a bird flying west.  There’s a rally (Raleigh) in North Carolina, and last but not least, South Carolina.  Learn this song by watching a video you found on YouTube a dozen times, and you’re set.  Several practice runs and Jake has it all delicately stored in short-term memory.

On Friday evening I pick him up from Club Star and excitedly ask, “How did the States Test go?!”

“We had a substitute, so there was no States Test today!”

You’re Frankfort kidding me.

*Image courtesy of ZoCo products.

This is our first weekend after the All Stars season of soccer tournaments.  After several months of three to five games every weekend, I was completely at a loss.  What do we even do on weekends?  Then today we went to back-to-back kid parties and I kind of remembered.

About two weeks ago, I was standing on the sideline with Eli’s dad.  We both went to college at the same time, which I’ve decided is why he looks so familiar.  Anyway, he says to me, “Nate, is so fast.”  And it’s true.  I hear the dads yelling “Motor Nate!” when they want him to take it all the way.  He can sure turn on the speed when he wants to.  Which generally doesn’t include waking-up in the morning, coming to the dinner table at night, eating food, or walking… anywhere.

Eli’s dad really doesn’t seem to believe me when I tell him Nate’s nickname is Pokey.

It is with the deepest grief and a sincere sense of loss that the family of Chicken Sando Fucillo, of San Luis Obispo, shares her passing on the morning of Saturday, February 1, 2020.  Chicken, or as her friends and family called her, Sando, is devotedly loved and mourned by her adopted family, especially her human brother Jacob, who has cried at least three times leading up to and after her passing.  Sando is survived by her step-sisters from a second marriage, Chicken Princess and Chicken Perfect, and her younger siblings from a third blended family, Chicken Mohawk and Chicken Pipsqueak.

As an avid athlete throughout her life, Sando was well-known in the poultry world of track and field.  She’d medaled several times, outrunning many competitive wild canines.  She also placed several times in trash can jumping, and meal worm sprints.  Leading up to the holidays, she suffered from a sprained ankle due to an unobserved coop training accident.  In typical Sando-style, she rebounded, only to pass in her sleep of natural causes.  She was discovered in her favorite nesting box by her loving brother Nate, who immediately recognized she had gone to the chicken championship track in the sky.

A native of Santa Cruz, Sando was raised in the mountains by a stout single mother.  She grew up tough as nails, but with a soft spot for little human boys.  She was the life of the party, greeting any stranger as an old friend and possible source of meal worms.  Beyond her career as a world-class track and field athlete, Sando enjoyed ruling the roost, jumping from tall places, and testing kitchen scraps to make sure they were safe for others.  As her brother Jacob reflected, “She was my favorite chicken.  And she was a survivor.”

Sando served on the boards of several organizations including Indian Knob’s Early Risers and the SLO Chapter of Hens Against Domestic Violence, having survived several traumatic months with an abusive male roommate.

A celebration of Chicken Sando’s life was held at 7 am on Saturday the first in the lower meadow, prior to the SLO Surf n’ Turf All Stars Soccer Tournament.  The good Reverend James presided over the celebration of her life, including a jubilant shower of meal worms.  Her grave is marked by a beautiful local rock sculpture created by two artisan brothers.

Chicken Sando Fucillo
? – February 1, 2020