No It All

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.

We outgrew the whole dinosaur phase quite some time ago.  Honestly, we were never really that into dinosaurs back when they generally reach their peak of preschool popularity.  But then, somehow Uncle Geoff convinced us that little four-year-old Bry Bry loves the Jurassic Park movies and “they’re not too scary or violent.”  They’re fine… sheesh.

And so it’s 1990 at my house.

We’ve watched all the Jurassic Park movies, which by the way, are totally bloody, people-eating fests and not for the four-year-old Barney crowd.  We now have an Xbox game, four Lego sets, and a teeny baby T-Rex named Blue that I’m constantly protecting in my pockets so as not to lose her at fancy restaurants.

Jake and I have spent hours together in the early morning hours and late into the evenings, reading Jurassic Park and The Lost World.  We’ve had intense, deeply philosophical discussions on extinction, genomic testing, chaos theory, and climate change.  I had no memory of the themes and theories in these books.  Jake noticed the kids and women always make it out alive.  Sometimes he’s too logical… calculating the number of pages left or the existence of a sequel to reduce the excruciating anxiety of strategic cliff hangers and nowhere-to-turn chase scenes.

I was shocked that within the first ten pages it referenced my previous two employers… telling the entire origin story of Genentech, plus the power of Cray computers, which is what I sold in my first job at Sun.  Jacob and I are of the same mind that the planet will outlive us (though not as we know it).  It’s people that aren’t gonna make it.

Meanwhile, this spring we’ve experienced the return of the barn owls to our owl box.  The swooping.  The screeching.  All.  Night.  Long.  James has had some bad dinosaur dreams.  I find myself tossing and turning.  The velociraptors surrounding the house.  There’s no way out.

One night it was late and Jacob was still up, as usual.  The screeching swooped past the living room on the right.  Then the left.  It’s coming from all sides…

“Jake, the velociraptors are out there,” I say, ominously.

“Sure Mom.”  He rolls his eyes.

Are you?  Sure?

I just can’t believe I’m dropping my baby off at college tomorrow.  Woe is me how the time flies.

Thank goodness I still have eight more years before I have to write that sentence in earnest.  Seriously.  Eight more years.  I just can’t even take it.

But it’s true.  Jacob has already gone to two whole weeks of “College for Kids” at Cuesta.  Tomorrow is the first time I’m dropping him off.

Before we went to Pennsylvania, the boys and I drove out to the Junior College with a bag of snacks, our walking shoes, and a campus map.  We walked and walked.  Across lawns and down pathways and through the giant vending machine pavilion.

We scouted out where Jake would take his classes including:

1. Homeroom
2. Hogwarts and Beyond with Professor Snape, I mean Lorenzen
3. Digital Comic Book Publishing with Professor Mullikin
4. One Hour Web Design with Professor Nye
5. Acting 1 with Professor Hewes-Clark
6. Ultimate 2D/3D Video Game Designers with Mullikin again
7. Leadership Development with Professor Lent
8. Archery 101 with Professor Toberer
9. and then back to Homeroom

Jake would have taken all Mr. Mullikin’s classes if I’d let him.  He’s hypnotized by names like “Software App Creation” and “Video Game Animation.”

Everything about CFK sounds fun.  I’m super jealous.  I want to take the “Decadent Desserts” class and “Adventures in Watercolor” and “Improv 1.”  Seriously, “arcKIDtecture”?  That sounds amazing.  Pure tree-forts and swingsets.

Jacob seems to be doing well.  Managing himself as he navigates 9 different locations.  I can’t get much out of him about what he does in his classes.  “We talk about Harry Potter.”  And he won’t play two “stupid games” in his acting class.  His teacher seems to have given him a pass on “Zip, Zap, Zop” and reading poetry aloud over and over and over.  Otherwise he does all the other stuff.  I’ve noticed him admiring “good actors” as he watches Shazam! for the second day in a row.

Overall, his college experience appears to center almost entirely around plotting what contraband junk food he can afford from the vending machines.

For the last year or so, Lufthansa has been struggling.  Multiple warning lights are permanently displayed on her dash.  The tailgate is a public safety hazard.  And I’ve become a professional pit crew who can jump start her car in 10 seconds flat.  Sometimes twice in one day.  I did in fact buy myself new hood hydraulics for Christmas, so I wouldn’t have to actually use my PVC pipe prop in the parking lot at work while jumping my car.  I mean I do have some semblance of pride.

But unfortunately my ‘Good girl, Lufty!’s’ and ‘Atta girl’s’ are not achieving quite the desired reliability when it comes to the exciting Russian roulette that is my morning date with an ignition.  On James’ birthday there was a bit of an “incident.”  I’d tell you more, but that entire day really deserves it’s very own post.

We just got back from almost a full week in Pennsylvania, and then another five days in New York.  Twelve days sitting in the driveway?  Pit crew– Take your positions.

Shockingly.  Shockingly, The Rat Mobile started right up.  She knows she’s on borrowed time.  I mean she emanates insecurity.  But I recognize this rally for the Hail Mary that it is.  Shhhh, I hope she didn’t hear me say that.

“Good job Lufty!  Goooooood girl for starting.  Such a good girl.”

The last few months of school sped by in a blur.  But what I do remember are the conversations the boys and I have in the evenings as we drive home via our zig-zaggy route to the freeway.  So many backseat conversations where we debate the thinking behind civilians with access to automatic weapons, the most pragmatic ways to make flying cars a reality, and the exact process for how Jacob should go about registering the name for his future technology company.

These conversations generally start with really tough questions, as I make the right hand turn after the Panda Express.  How do black holes work?  How is the sun on fire if there is no oxygen?  Do I believe in parallel universes?  What about wormholes?  Do I even know what wormholes are?  Why don’t I know these things?

At some point Jacob declares with perfect timing and measured conviction: The only cure for climate change is voting.

Mind officially blown…

Meanwhile Nate asks me things like: Why when I rub red soap together does it turn white?  And…

How come we have never-ending snot?

Unlike the lions in Madagascar, the citizens of Wakanda, or my favorite, the Quinceañera, we don’t really have a real coming of age marker ’round these parts.  Well, maybe unless you count today… when I presented both Jake and Nate with their very first deodorant.

Let’s back up.  Grandma Suzy has notoriously declared Uncle Geoff’s first deodorant bestowed upon him in the fourth grade.  I’d say I really noticed the overwhelming aroma last fall, when I was responsible for evening soccer practice pick-up.  This was just the start of fourth and second grades.  The boys would climb into the backseat, with their friend Finn, and the windows would immediately fog-up, the air thick with sweaty little boy.

So, it’s about time.  When presented with two choices of Schmidt’s chemical-free deodorant, Nate chose lavender, and Jacob chose lime.

Nate used his for the first time this morning.  His little armpits are back to being irresistible.  I ask him how it feels and he says, “It kinda burns.”

“Oh no.  That’s weird.  I don’t think it should burn.”

“Well, it kind of scraped.”

I had taught him to take the internal plastic cover out and to recycle it.  And then I instructed him to raise it up, but not too far.  And I had demonstrated to go in through the bottom of his shirt (not the neck hole or the arm holes… which I could totally see him considering).  He’s decided to remove his shirt entirely every day for the entire process.  I did my best to warn him of the unintended swipe of deodorant on the front of his shirt if he isn’t careful, whether using the bottom-in, or shirt removal methods.  And then we covered the part where you put the cap back on and try not to stab the sharp edge into the soft cakey part.

I had no idea there were so many lessons to teach just on the singular subject of armpits… I mean seriously.

Deodorant: A modern day right of passage.