wild*life

Two weekends ago we had back-to-back soccer games at Damon Garcia.  On these days I position myself in between both fields and kind of ping-pong pivot back and forth.  I generally find myself in “enemy territory” for the Bullsharks, which is Nate’s team.  It’s apparently gauche to be cheering for your team while surrounded by the parents of the team your third-grader just scored his third goal on.  Touché.

Meanwhile, the Tsunamis were having a rough go against Nate’s teammate Connoly’s brother. The brotherly loyalties are complex out on the Saturday pitch.  Fortunately, Jake had a shutout during his fourth quarter as goalie.  Following the games, I talked the boys into lunch at SLO Brew The Rock.  It was hot and hoppin’.  By this point Jacob has already spiraled from his post-game mini-Gatorade.  “I’m NOT hungry Mom.  I don’t want anything.  Don’t get me anything.  I’m not eating.”

This is where you always agree.  Always.  Nod in agreement and answer noncommittally when he asks you if you’re ordering him something, despite his clear orders.  Then get him a cold, bubbly drink.

So the boys and I are sitting outside, surrounded by games and umbrellas and people drinking beer.  Five sips into his frosty ginger beer and the frosty Jake begins to thaw… “So what’d you get me?”

“Chicken strips and fries.  And you’re going to need to eat some of my salad.”

He chuckles and smiles a wry, knowing smile, shaking his head, “Classic Mom.  Classic Mom.”

Right back atcha, Classic Jacob.  He ate it all, and then some.

This email from our Team Mom made me snort out loud yesterday:

I am so bad at this!  I need to remind you sooner!  Tomorrow’s game is at 3:45 so please arrive by 3:15 for warmup. Jacob is on healthy snack duty. Go team!

Sent from my iPhone

I sure wonder what “Jacob” is going to bring for his teammates…

Back in mid-July, we came home from Flatrock and NYC and The Rat Mobile rallied.  On July 19th, I made a split decision and decided to high-tail it to Santa Cruz, buy myself a car over the hill, and get back home the next day.  Plus it was Grandma’s birthday, so if I didn’t find myself stuck on the side of the freeway somewhere in the desert surrounding King City, I could also celebrate with the fam.

Now buying a car was going to be a first for me.  When James was gone, I had to learn how to use the grill and to work our television and three remote controls, but buying cars, a life skill I’d successfully avoided.  Mostly because you so much as sneeze the words “new car” and my dad and brother are out on Stevens Creek before you can reach for the Kleenex.  Seriously, I mentioned the car I’d seen on the internet and Uncle Geoff was test-driving it that same night.  He literally described the upscale gas pedal to me.  I’m infinitely blessed and grateful to have a brother who likes doing all the necessary car research I haven’t the faintest interest in googling, who can then coach me on all the things I’d never know I should know and can commit to memory for 48-hours, before promptly erasing from long-term memory.

So on Saturday afternoon I drive the hill to the dealership to meet Fadi (pronounced Faddy, like Daddy, but not Fatty, like well, Fatty).  We’re wearing the same color shirts… millennial pink.  Now over the years, I’ve picked up some secrets to car shopping from Granddad.  First is to park your car away from the lot.  It’s important to just apparate, Harry Potter-style, onto the car lot so that first, they can’t judge you based on The Rat Mobile you drive and second, you can dramatically walk to your car as the sales rep in the cheap suit chases after you.  Third, if you can, pay cash.

So I apparate onto the lot.  Fadi brings around the perfect, barely-used, climate-conscious, plug-in hybrid 2018 Volvo SUV in a pearly white.  29,000 miles.  We drive it.  This is it.  It doesn’t have the built-in booster seats that are the only upgrade I want, but whatevs.  The Rat Mobile is not coming home.  Fadi doesn’t know that.

They want to examine my trade-in.  I literally hope no rodent corpses rain down on the inspecting mechanic.  How embarrassing would that be…  “The check engine light is on– we can only give you $1,000.”  Really, they only mentioned the check engine light?  Hot dog, this is my lucky day.

Fadi says this SUV is already on sale.  He can’t do anything on the price.  I’m a Soccer Mom alone at a customer-free dealership buying a car for the first time, wearing a pink shirt.  I’m not buying this car without getting something.  I want money off.  I want a longer warranty.  Whaddaya have to work with, Fadi?  I use the old “call my husband” gig.  He goes into the back to talk to his tough-as-nails sales manager.  It doesn’t matter to him that I’m considering paying cash.  He says it’s an R-Design.  I gather this makes it fancier.  Really fancy apparently.

I get up and head out.  We don’t have a deal.  I’m headed down to the Volvo dealership– for a little more I could get a brand new one.  “Oh don’t be like that.  Sit down Jaimie, sit down.  Don’t you trust me?”

“I just met you.”

We finally work our way to a deal.  I write out the check.  He’s relieved and happy to make the sale.  Now that it’s over, he wants to debrief the negotiation.  “Were you serious when you said you didn’t care about the R-Design?  Seriously?  How could you not care about that?”

“Yep.  I could give a flip.  What I really wanted were the booster seats.”

“Man I tell ya… you should be in sales.”

I am in sales, Sir.  Goodbye Rat Mobile.

Hello Bat Mobile.

It’s that time of year here on the Central Coast.  The days are crystal clear and a little too hot, but with the bite of fall in the air.  Every evening as we’ve returned home after school and work, a mama dear and her baby are lounging in the shade of the oak trees in the lower meadow.  The baby is exceptionally prettier than the other babies.  Her name is Clarice.  They’re mostly ambivalent to the monkeys that get out of the quiet new white machine, slamming their doors.  Except when those monkeys chase them, hooping and hollering through the trees in their Crocs.

This is also the time of year when backseat car drives mostly center around what to be for Halloween and fantasies of Mama projects to make last year’s party into an annual tradition.  Zombies, or rather Zombie killing is still the theme of choice.  Jacob plans to be a zombie hunter again… he just needs ANOTHER $100 Nerf gun to make his costume complete.  The fifteen Nerf weapons he already has just don’t have that zombie slaying je ne sais quoi.

Meanwhile, Nate is racked with indecision.  Making personal decisions, without brotherly advice, continues to be an ongoing area of focus for his individual development plan.  They’re in the backseat and Jake suggests, “Why don’t you be a Zombie Assassin?”

“Uh, what would I wear?  Like sweatpants and a jacket?”

“Yeah, and you could wear the mouth bra.”

“What’s a mouth bra?”

“You know, the mouth bra.  It’s black.  From our ninja costumes.”

I’m dying in the front seat.  There is zero self-consciousness or embarrassment taking place in this convo.

“Oh yeah… Mom, do we still have the mouth bras?”

It’s supportive and stylish for those active zombie-chasing nights.  And for the record, I used to call it a face bra.

James has been reading some sort of new research on lefties.  Apparently you have to be left-handed for this to show-up in your news feed.  And since my mom and my son and my husband and my nephew are lefties, I’m sure they’re all going to agree with the study’s initial findings that they likely have superior verbal skills.

I’m left-footed.  I’ve noticed my left big toe is quite well-spoken.

So today Jacob says to me from the backseat, “Mom.  Mom?  You wanna hear something ironic?”

Uh, yeah.  I totally want to hear something ironic.  Especially because you’re using the word ironic Mr. Fifth Grade.

“So at our school there’s a kid named Fletcher, and there’s a kid named Archer.  And they’re totally enemies.”

“Wow, that is ironic,” replies my foot.

This year, James’ birthday fell on a Tuesday.  Now I know June seems like old news, but seriously.  After you read this story maybe you’ll cut me some slack.

So the morning started like most mornings.  I’m getting out of the shower and Nate is peeing for a really long time.  I figure out it’s because he’s doing one thing with one hand, while wiggling his upper right cuspid with the other.  Out it pops (the tooth, not the other thing), and that means the Tooth Fairy’s on night shift tonight.

It’s a normal day at work, except for the part where James apprehends a thief.  He channels his old SaveMart bagger days by realizing he’s sold one of his most expensive shirts to a scrawny kid with a backpack and a bus ticket, whose name certainly isn’t Dani with an i.  So he hoofs it to the central bus stop, confronts the guy with total SLO-town disregard for the dangers of the world, and recovers all manner of stolen items as Not-Dani empties his pockets, swan dives out of his backpack… and runs.

I make a stop at the Whole Paycheck before zipping home for birthday dinner and creme brûlées.

Followed by a soccer game that night for Crystal Palace.  As the dainty name implies, we weren’t that good.  As I’m pulling into the turf fields parking lot, the Rat Mobile makes an excruciating screeching noise and a stranger warns me I’ll most certainly die if I drive my car home that night.  I follow my typical electronics protocol and hope it will cure itself if I just go chase a ball around on fake grass.

After my game, after driving a circle and attracting attention from all manner of soccer players and fields of horses with my excruciating nails on a steel chalkboard screeching, I pull the Rat Mobile back into the parking spot and get my work teammate, Nick, to drive me home.  Thank goodness he drove a car tonight and not his little scooter.

Clearly I’ve blown it.  Now Lufthansa will need to be towed and I won’t even be able to trade it in and I’ve pushed my luck one day too far.  Do they still have those billboards for tax breaks on junkers in your front yard?  Jump starting my car twice a day was not an embarrassing inconvenience, but a warning shout from the heavens.

The next morning I meet two young tow truck drivers back at the soccer fields.  Somehow I’ve evaded the campus police and the Rat Mobile has not been ticketed or towed.  Damn.  Luis, with a shadow of a mustache, takes a mallet and does some knocking.  He pounds a rock out of the left rear wheel.  It’s a miracle and a curse.  The Rat Mobile lives to gnaw another day.

But now I know my borrowed time has caught up to me.  My luck has run out.  It’s now or never.  The Tooth Fairy brings money and Pokémon that night.

Just another Tuesday.

Last weekend the boys and I went home to the farm, in Santa Cruz, for what is likely our final goodbye.

They found the flying turtles— the fantastic seated scooters we discovered at Chuck E. Cheese when I was in second grade.  Still ride like new.  Jake and Nate think it great fun to ride them down the hill of the driveway that curves like a long, wide paved halfpipe.

Nate has that mischievous glint in his eye as he inches higher on the hill, pushing the invisible boundaries I’ve set.  I see him doing it.  He thinks he’s sneaky.  The redwood roots have pushed up the driveway creating thrilling jumps.

They want to go higher and I sternly tell them no, not without helmets.  Grandma watches high up on the dining room deck, egging them on.

I don’t mention I rode those same hills.  On those same flying turtles.

With no hands.

We’re big believers in breakfast.  Especially after we realized it was the critical ingredient to managing Jacob’s emotional rollercoaster ride.  I’ll never forget when he was probably four years old and he says to me at Kelly’s, “Mom, not the kid-size pancakes.  I need the gwon-up size!”  For the record, it was the grown-up size.

With many brekkies under our belt, we’ve figured out the recipe for Jakey happiness = balanced carbs + protein, every 2.5 to 3 hours.  And what makes us all want to abandon our lives and run off with gypsies = pancakes drenched in syrup > donuts > cinnamon rolls.

We’ve had several years where Honey Nut Cheerios have dominated the breakfast table, cycling through various protein options including protein shakes, hard boiled eggs, sausages, and Daddy’s Brekkie Sammies (Trademarked).  But the King of Hanger is always eliminating what is working and declaring it impossible such incompetent nutrition will ever pass his lips again.  This recently took breakfast cereal out of the running.

And what did he propose in its place?

“I’m thinking that bread I really like… sourdough toast?  With smoked salmon and a poached egg.  Oh, and some sliced avocado.”

The 80’s are either having a bit of a moment, or like, we’re totally bringing them back to the future.

Jake’s been holed-up on the new couch in the barn watching She-Ra.  Though this remake doesn’t seem to sing anything about being a Princess of Power.  I certainly don’t sing it because I appreciate my quiet time.

Then the boys start throwing this hairy plastic ball at me, trying to get me to catch it.  “What?  Where’d you get a Koosh?”

“A what?”

Like, duh.  They have no idea what I’m talking about.  Today I found the Aerobie on the floor of the barn.  And they can never get enough of the Karate Kid and Home Alone.  We watched Ghost Busters last weekend.  And have you noticed scrunchies making a comeback?  Like seriously, they totally are.

Santa’s bringing back the hacky sack this holiday season.  I know I’m stoked.