Anyone got some scissors?

Of all the things I do for my spouse, I never thought I'd be asked to publicly humiliate myself. (Although, writing in a public forum like this, I risk it all the time.) I did something today that my husband has been teasing me about all day, something I am certain to never live down. You'll see.

My oldest, who is now 16, asked us a while back if he could go to a concert with his older cousin, who is 19, in Tucson today. Because I knew that Nolan would just be finished with band camp, and down to his last week of freedom before school starts, I agreed.

This morning, while we were getting ready to leave the house and meet his uncle halfway between Tucson and Phoenix, I started to get a little worried.

**He's not really been down to hang out on his own in Tucson before.

**His cousin, while he's a good kid, does get a little distracted easily.

**I just handed him a chunk of change larger than any I've sent him with before out in public. ($50...which amounts to a windfall, especially when it's simply handed to you, regardless of what you're supposed to use it for).

**What if he gets separated in a sea of bodies from his cousin at the concert? He doesn't know Tucson! Who will he call? Will he think to call?

**What if he decides a mosh pit is a good idea?

**What if he spends his money on hookers and blow? (Okay, I know, $50 is not enough for that, but I'm his Mom, and occasionally, I have leaned toward the dramatic when I'm having a nervy spaz attack.)

In between the admonishments to "stay with your cousin--don't get separated--be polite to your Tia Emma--yes, you might have to go to church with her--no, your blood won't start to boil when you dip your hand in the holy water--make sure you eat something--say thank you" I decided to add "Don't be waving your money around--be mindful of your surroundings--hide some of it from yourself in your wallet so you don't spend it all in one place--maybe it would be a better idea to go into the bathroom, take out what you need, and then go buy your tshirt or whatever--"

At this point, my husband is looking at me like I am insane, and I'm realizing that it's quite possible the boy has put his headphones in and is not listening to me at all. With a roll of his eyes I am certain he saves only for special occasions, my husband does not miss a beat: "That's stupid."

"What? I'm just telling him to be cautious! There's nothing wrong with that! Shrimpy Nana does that all the time! She leaves her basket with me, and goes into the bathroom because she hides her money in her bra! It's not so crazy! You've had lots of money in your wallet at Disneyland, you don't open it up like an idiot and wave it around, do you? You've been behind people in line who pay stupid, with a giant wad of money that screams "rob me" and that's annoying! I want him to be careful!"

My husband shakes his head and right when I think he might be about to agree with me, he starts to mock me:

"No, when I'm at Disneyland, I don't wave it around, I just..." at this point, he starts semi-shouting "Hey everyone, I've got a TON OF MONEY! I'M GONNA PAY NOW! WITH ALL THIS MONEY!! I'VE GOT AN ATM CARD, TOO, BUT I'M NOT GONNA USE IT! BUT I HAVE ONE! JUST SO YOU KNOW!!!"

I'm laughing so hard I'm crying, because it's one thing to realize you're overdoing the parenting, and another to realize that yes, that was something completely ridiculous that not only came out of your mouth, but you were absolutely serious about it at the time. There is just no defense, no way to save face and recover from that. So I laughed at my own advice and figured it wouldn't matter anyway, he's a teenager and it's in one ear, out the other.

Geez. It's too late for me to consider loosening the apron strings, I need to cut them and be done with it. He's 16, and I need to let him experience some of the world on his own, bit by bit, beyond walking to Circle K by himself, before I kick him out the door in a couple of years.

My husband will have to answer any phone calls that might come in the middle of the night tonight.

I'll be in the bathroom, ripping out the seams of the pockets in my bras.

Because you never know! What if the man behind you in line wants to steal your purse! You'll be left with nothing! Cochinomaranos!

Shrimpy Nana. Sometimes, I wish the things she's said to me over the years would fade from my brain, like long division and the Pythagorean Theorem....instead of digging in, waiting for the right moment to come out of my mouth and confirm the truth about my precarious hold on sanity.

If it's in a pot, I will kill it

Audrey is fascinated by plants.

Which is unfortunate, because I can't grow anything. I don't care what Martha has to say about how mint will overtake your yard, or how easy it is to grow your own herbs (oregano, basil, rosemary, not the medicinal kind)--I can't do it. Windowboxes, small containers, regular old school put-it-in-the-ground...I kill it all.

I was feeling little hopeful when I let Audrey buy a succulent plant. I'd just read in Martha Stewart Living about how easy they were to maintain. I had visions of growing up this plant to such proportions that I might be able to actually buy pots for it as it grew and someday, send Audrey off to college with her own plant that we grew together since she was a little girl.

She named him George.

And I underwatered him like I was supposed to. He eventually started to outgrow is little 2-inch pot so I got him a new home and we transferred him over.

He started losing leaves.

I didn't lose hope. His stalk was growing, I figured this was a natural progression, like when your child plumps up and then grows an inch overnight (there's a lot of that going on around here).

He eventually became just a stalk.

And now he's a stalk that's turning brown.

Only I could get a plant that usually thrives on a little neglect and still have it die. Ugh. I'm going to have a service for George soon, and I am sure the little one will be sad. He will join all the other plants I have attempted to grow for the children. I should put out little rock tombstones with their names painted on them: "Here lies Little Guy. He died with his roots on. RIP"

She will ask me to plant her sunflower seeds, and I will gamely try, just for her. We can plant them on the side of the house, the sunniest part of the yard. I will let her tend them and hopefully they will grow up and be taller than she is before long.

If only I could get the weeds in the backyard would succumb to my touch-of-green-death.......

Some food groups are better than others

I recently started using a veggie/fruit co-op in my area. I really like it, because you don't get to pick what you get, and while sometimes, there are weirder veggies in the mix, mainly there is normal stuff in it to offset the oddness of kumquats.

Considering I usually always eat the same things, I am finding myself branching out into the unknown, looking up things I don't recognize on the internet (lavender lettuce with dark green edges?) and finding out how to use or cook said items.

My most recent foray into the veggie world was into the unknown goodness of artichokes. I've never cooked or eaten one in my entire life, and there were four in my basket this last weekend. I didn't want them to go to waste, as the last time I got a couple, I put them in the wrong part of the fridge and they froze into uselessness. I decided to look up how to clean and cook them, and do it right away.

I had them steaming while I was doing other kitchen duties when one of Audrey's friends' Mom called me. We were on the "whatcha doing?" track and when I mentioned "artichokes" she almost swooned through the phone...right before she let out a "You've NEVER eaten one before?" tsk tsk. She advised me to melt up a little butter and use that to dip the leaves in to eat them. "Just look at the base of the leaf, you'll figure it out," she said.

I have to admit some skepticism at this point. First of all, they are kinda weird looking. And even when they are in the spinach-cheesy dip, the only way I've ever encountered or eaten them before, they didn't bring out any oohs or ahhs from me. I have been told by others that they are just too much trouble to deal with, lots of work, little reward--so I was thinking that this exercise might turn out to be futile.

Once the time elapsed, and I had melted a little pat of butter all ready, I started peeling the leaves off. The first one made me gag a little--too close to the stem. I doggedly made my way through the rest of the leaves, finally figuring out late in the game that you can't really manhandle the leaf and start scraping it too far up with your teeth because nothing happens. Nope, the real goods are right at the tip of the leaf, and you have to be a little gentle or you'll miss the good stuff. I got to the middle and proceeded to try and remove the choke as effortlessly as I have seen it done on t.v. to get to what I'd heard was the real prize, the heart.

I looked at my meager bit of grayness in my hand and wondered why someone would work that hard for such a small return. I was unimpressed. What's all the fuss about? I thought to myself. I mean, if I am dipping something in melted butter, it had better be orgasmically good, otherwise, why bother?

I tried again with a second artichoke.

This artichoke was fleshier, and as is the natural course of things, the fleshiness made it that much better. I'd added a little lemon juice to the melted butter; by the time I got to the third leaf, my eyes closed, I let out a little sigh, and I let my tongue help coax the flesh out of the leaf juuuust so. It was heavenly. And I could see what the fuss was about. Yet I still mauled the heart into a pile of furry stuff and gray goo.

So I had to eat a third one.

I did much better this time, and the heart was worth the patience I forced myself to take with the choke. Wow. A reward at the end of all that work? Nice!

I am a little ashamed to admit that I did eat the fourth one, too. I felt somewhat hedonistic sucking the lemon butter off that last leaf, but I managed it without blushing, a tummy ache, or a cease-and-desist from the vegetarian lobby.

I don't know what got me, the warm caress of the leaf on my lower lip, or the melted lemon butter. (Seriously, you could dip a paper towel in melted lemon butter and it would be the best thing you ever tasted, wouldn't it?)

All I know is I am ready for more.

Bring it on, weird veggies. I got a steamer basket and a squeeze of lemon waiting for you.

How 13 bucks saved my mind

I like order.

It's got a lot to do with my job, where I have to be precise and structured in my methods, spilling over into my daily life. I do things the same way every day, park in the same places, put my keys in the same place, even my purse has a special spot for everything and if something comes out, it goes right back in that spot when I'm done with it. (Which helps when I'm screeching down the highway and need a piece of gum right now.) Doing things the same way helps me keep from forgetting things, and helps me retrace my steps easily and find whatever it is I need, whether it's a kid left at school or my favorite pen. Not having things put back in the same place makes me craaaazzzy. (Just ask Ryan, who put my iPod back in my purse, but not in the same spot--I nearly drove off the road, I was so frantic, thinking he'd lost it.)

Right now there are a lot of things out of order around the house. It's not entirely laziness but a lack of motivation and time. Working full-time and trying to balance the time I spend with the kids has been a challenge for me this year, not to mention trying to balance in time for regular housecleaning. Not that I was super-super-eat-off-my-floor clean before, but I was considerably neater when I had an extra day or two to think about it.

I realized just how much the disorder was bothering me last week when I was looking into my pantry and it looked like Costco exploded in it. One of the problems we've been tackling is what to do during the time frame when the kids get home in the afternoon and we get home in the early evening, and dinner preparation is waiting on me, the last person into the house. A couple of 8:45 pm dinners made me realize that something had to be done, or I was going to be riding the guilt train forever; because that doesn't stop coming to your station just because you're working, and pizza all the time is not necessarily good for you. I gathered everyone together and proposed some solutions, the most obvious being that the older kids and Mr. W were going to have to pick up some culinary slack. Awesome idea, I told myself, let go of the kitchen, you control freak, and eat someone else's dinner once in a while.

The Marinade Explosion of 2010 notwithstanding (during which Ben found himself covered in marinade that "just exploded" out of the bag and my kitchen looked like someone committed a murder in it) this new regime had gone okay...until I looked into the pantry and realized that because it was such a mess, I knew where everything was...but no one else did, which is why Mr. W sent Nolan to the store to buy some spaghetti when there were 6 packages already in the pantry. And while I can throw amazing things together out of the supplies I have in there, Ryan is only going to see the Tostitos.

Inspiration struck me in Target, of course, when I was looking for a glass jar and saw shelves of organizers you can put in your pantry. Intrigued, I bought some plastic baskety-bins to house my baking supplies, as I had various chocolate chip bags about to stage an uprising with the sugar to take over the entire shelf, and an under-cabinet thing just the right length to hold a loaf of bread or two. I arranged that particular shelf when I got home and voila! a little pocket of order peeking out at me from the chaos. Thirteen bucks later, and I started breathing easier, and the spot between my brows unfurled, no botox required. Now, everytime I open the pantry, I look at that shelf and it makes me happy.

While I still can't look at the other shelves without cringing, I am feeling brave enough to tackle the rest of the pantry this weekend.

If only I felt brave enough to tackle the dust on my bookshelf, too.

Hug your favorite person in a lab coat

It's Lab Week April 19-23rd. Ordinarily the lab I used to work in would have some contests and a couple of fun things, maybe a potluck, and maybe a management-provided catered lunch, and maybe some swag from our vendors.

The lab I work in now goes all out. There will be contests all week, like dry ice shuffleboard, LabLympics (there are three individual and one group relay event), a salsa/guacamole competition, and all kinds of food all week long (breakfasts, lunches, ice cream social, barbeque in the park). The bottom line is that I won't be able to come home and complain about being worn out at all this week, not without risking an "Oh, pleaaase!" eyeroll from the family. (That's what I get for bragging a little about how this group outdoes my old one.)

One of our contests is for people to submit an account of "How I Became A Scientist" which will be emailed out to all, and we have to guess who it is. I thought I'd post my story here, if only to get a post in. It's been a long time since I've done one, I didn't think anyone would mind too terribly much if I cheated. Just a little.

Here's my story:

I became a scientist because of two people.

My parents.

I remember being about 6, and stumbling across a book inside one of our living room tables called “Biology”. It was big, and green, and I started looking through it. In the middle of the book were transparencies of all kinds of things. Plants, animals, a human body; the transparencies were designed to be looked at separately to look at details of certain systems or structures, or all together to get the full 3-D effect. I was completely fascinated by the frog and would flip through those pages, trying to figure it out. Eventually, Mom would catch me with the book, and while she did not mind me going through it, she worried about the transparencies getting torn, so she’d usually take it away after a little while.

But I’d always find it again.

Mom would take the time to talk to me about her biology class, not squeamish at all about the dissection portion, and how interesting it was. It was from my Mom that I first heard about DNA and how things could be inherited from your family. She was always curious about science and her musings to me would make me think. I wanted to find out the answers so that I could share them with her.

My Dad, on the other hand, was all about airplanes and space. He told me stories about astronauts and fighter jets and all about the math and physics that went into those endeavors. He stressed that math was not something to ever be afraid of and when he talked about the laws of motion, he spoke about them like they were old friends. I could not wait to meet them. On road trips, on our way home at night, he'd talk about astronomy, mythology, and the first man in outer space.

Their combined influence made me want to pursue science as a career. And while I never knew I’d be in the field I’m in when I was a little kid, I always knew that I would be a scientist.

As for my Mom's book...I still used to find it from time to time, and I still turned to the page with the frog splayed out on it. I've not been able to find it for a while...

...because my nephew has it.