Axe Me A Question

Anyone who has had to deal with middle school boys has breathed in the scent of Axe.  For Christmas my mom really did try to be hip and cool to give my boys the "in" products, and placed in the stockings were Axe bodywash and shampoo.

Wasn't I surprised when I was standing in the shower, reading the back of the bottle.

Now, let's digress.  I'm such a geek that I actually stand in the shower and spend time reading the backs of bottles.  We could also blame it on the ADD that I truly think I have.  One minute the hair is being suds up by my wonderful French concoction, and the next minute I'm fascinated by an ad campaign that's suppose to attract middle school boys.  Oh, and then I'll probably think about the body wash and why it has a picture of a blue flower and not a pink one.  Where is my coffee?  I'd better finish up the shower so I can drink more coffee.

Poor mom.  Innocent Kidlet A and Kidlet B were at one point receiving Avon roll on soap, and now they're getting Axe that promises "The cleaner you are, the dirtier you get."  What?!?!  Is this what my kids are showering for?  Argh!  I think one is focused on getting dirty in football, and the other is Skyping about videogames.  Perhaps I'm naive.  At heart I still want them to be holding my hands and skipping with me through Harvard Square, heading to Burdick's for hot chocolate.  I'd better wake up.

The Axe phenomenon began last summer when a few boys were over the house.  Suddenly my home smelled worse than Hollister.

"What the heck is that smell?"

"It's an Axe bomb!  (Kidlet B) just let off an Axe Bomb!" Laughter ensued by all middle school boys in the house.  Apparently my home smelling like a very bad date is extremely funny when you're thirteen.  Do they understand the flashbacks I was having?

While teaching one day I went by a girl's desk, and the same odor enveloped me.  No, not again.  I looked at her with complete horror.

"Axe?" I asked.

"Yeah.  They Axe Bombed my notebook."

"I feel your pain.  Oh boy, chica, do I ever feel your pain.  I won't be checking your notebook anytime soon.  No worries."

Directions - Wash.  Attract.  Repeat.  My instructions?  Use.  Make mother vomit.  Make mother go through flashbacks.  Make mother dinner to pay her back.  Never use Axe again.

The marketing geniuses know adolescent boys will believe that the overpowering scent will attract girls who are obsessed with Lululemon headbands, Ugg boots, and cell phone cases.  The Kidlets should do something else.  Just axe mom for advice on how to pick up chicas.  I've got plenty of it.

If This Is Just The Beginnin'

I'm not going to do a "Back to the Future" blog post where I talk about all that I learned from last year's mistakes and how I'll improve in 2014.  Oh no.  I'm not going to bore you with how I'm going to lose fifteen pounds, get back to a size X and wear a teen size bikini at the beach.  As if these sisters could ever fit into a teen size bikini top - don't think so.  I won't brag about trying to write a best selling young adult novel, eat healthy, and spend loads of time with family and friends.

Because when it all comes down to it, today is another day.  Or is it?

I woke up at 5:00 am instead of my usual 4:00, perhaps because I actually stayed up past midnight last night, instead, as my boys insist, of napping at 6 pm.  I talked to my mom at 6:30, and made brownies.  I realized I was out of flour, and ran to the supermarket in the almighty Volvo.  I'm on my fourth cup of coffee.  I texted friends.  I jammed out to Pandora.

But isn't New Year's Day full of hope, full of promise?  Each year we wake up wanting some sort of miracle to occur on this day.  Like we'll put on our pants and suddenly they'll be super loose around the waist.  Darn!  it did not happen!  I still have forty exams to correct and twenty-something thank you notes to scribe.  The work didn't disappear overnight, so gone is the fantasy of lounging in pajamas all day, zoning out to Netflix.  But is that a bad thing?

I'm happy being busy.  I wouldn't have it any other way.  Let's face it.  I don't know how to relax. I never have.  For me, the ultimate form of relaxation is either reading or sending out postcards.  if that makes me happy, so be it.

So here is 2014.  Another day in the life.  The beginning, according to most, of yet another year.  But it's just another day...

Not A Creature Was Stirring

I have insomnia.  A few of my European Facebook friends know this, as I greet them at 8:00 am often, their time.  This morning I woke up at 2:30.  I wake up completely alert, ready to go, fully able to complete any task.  I put on a cup of coffee, and begin writing.  I write some of my short stories, my book, or more often than naught, postcards for Postcrossing.

It's not like I go to bed at six or anything like that!  When I tell people I wake up at 2:30, they often ask that. Um, yeah.  I go to bed at six?!  I go to bed at 9:30, and then wake up at 2:30.  It stinks.  I know today I'll need a nap, as it's almost 4:00 am and I haven't fallen back asleep yet.  I usually get up at this time.

Sometimes I do crazy (oh yeah, MausiGal, real crazy!) things like bake.  This is one of my recent creations:

Baked French Toast, complete with praline topping.  Yum, yum, yummie!

I dated someone who also had the odd sleeping hours bug.  That was convenient.  Watching movies at 3:00 am is always fun to do, especially with someone else.

So now I'm debating, at 4:00 am, whether to write more postcards, embark on Mexican Piggy Cookies (where is that piggy cookie cutter from Williams Sonoma that I bought just for this purpose?!), or work on the novel.  Perhaps I could try going back to bed before the supermarket opens at 7am.  But alas, I have just made a cup of coffee.  What a waste that would be!

Avi Kitten is looking to be fed.  He's my morning buddy, always awake when I am.  Thank gosh for companionship, of any kind.

Game Day!

I have a son who is a jock.  Let's just get that out there.  Kidlet B loves sports.  He stays after school to play intramurals, whereas I was the kid staying after hours to work on poetry for the literary magazine.  I even tried the Math Club in middle school, but was so lame that I was designated the runner with all the completed sheets.  Go, team!

I wasn't surprised when last summer Kidlet B made the comment that he wanted to take up football.  Did it scare me?  Most definitely.  The words, "head injury" kept going through my mind.  This was the kidlet who fractured his arm - twice - in the same place in one summer.  I discussed the idea of his participation with the pediatrician.  I talked to other parents.  And I wondered where my once little six pound kidlet found the desire to go bang heads and smash other beings.

I run and work out on the treadmill.  That's the height of my athletic ability.  My family tells me I run like a duck, so that should give an indication as to how I may appear should I one day make it to the Boston Marathon.  Quack, quack, quack.  I don't have to look far to know where Kidlet B gets his inspiration.  His father and his uncle are both athletic.  His dad played multiple sports and continued to do so until a few years ago, and his uncle...well, Sprout is Mr. Baseball.  After playing on the high school's state winning team, his legacy goes on in the family as the SuperJock.  FocusMan, my other brother, and I, pale in comparison.  Kidlet B wants that experience, I can feel it.

I agreed this year to football, despite thinking of the little Rice Crispy guys and hearing, "Snap, Crackle, Pop!" on my son as he hit the field.  The sound of helmets banging makes me ill.  At the last game I shouted out, without thinking, "Don't hit my son!" as other dads were screaming, "Get him!  Kill him!"  I had better get used to this, though, because at age thirteen he is already 160 pounds and over 5'5".  He's a big kid, made for the sport.

Today is his first game for the playoffs.  I am going to wear the same outfit I wore for when they clenched the game for entry.  Faded jeans, black sweater, black clogs.  Am I being superstitious?  Anything for my son.  Kidlet A and I, along with Auntie C, will stand on the sidelines (I'm too nervous to sit) and watch.  Kidlet A will ponder, like I so often do, why people want to go and smack each other around.  It's a paradigm in which we don't belong.

Kidlet A has not yet joined the Math Club. He's not making his mother's mistakes, and is venturing out on his own, like his brother.  He wants to go to Sweden as an exchange student.  Sweden!  I can't yell from the sidelines across the ocean.  I will simply have to put on my jeans, black sweater, and clogs, smile, hug, and send him off into success, just as I am with Kidlet B.  This is their time.

Maus in the Volvo Haus

The mighty Volvo is dead.  Yes, the 2012 S60 Turbo which I adore and worship wouldn't start one day after school.  I approached the vehicle after working with eight, middle school knitters for an hour during a post-day program.  Knit purl knit purl cast on cast off, I was ready for a break.

Key in ignition, no go.

Foot on pedal to start.  No go.

I pray, yet still no miracle.  I watch the track team run buy and wonders if this is some sort of penance for me not running, or perhaps not buying a Kia, as my brother suggested.  Of course exercise and owning a car are in no way related, but at the moment MausiGal is not thinking clearly.

Damn Volvo.  This happened about a month and a half ago as well.  Two times in two months.  No go.

Re-evaluate.  I love my car.  Volvo has become so much of my identity that my screen name on various websites across the Internet involves the word Volvo.  My students at school can identify me on the street.  My dream car is a P1800 - the original Bond mobile.

I sit in the parking lot on this eighty degree autumn day and wonder if I've just become too materialistic with my obsession with the Swede mobiles.  Is it a fetish?  Can one have a Volvo fetish?  Let's face it, anyone who walks up to people with old Volvos and asks them about their mileage is obviously hooked.  No matter what the condition of the Volvo - old, new, broken, used, brand new - I am attracted.  I'm like a kid on Halloween when going up to the car dealership - no house will be left unvisited for candy, and I want to see each vehicle.  I stop at every car, browse the interior, sit inside, imagine myself driving the machine.  I am intoxicated by the feel of the steering wheel, opening the sun roof, heck, even imagining placing my venti salted caramel mocha in the cup holder.  New or used, each Volvo for me is a gem.  Am I materialistic?  I think again.  No, I reckon.  Even has their quirks, and mine just has to be with a car that's foreign.

And a car that is now dead in a middle school parking lot.

The tow truck comes and of course, once the driver sits in it, the engine turns.  Miracles never cease.  Yet still, the dashboard is lit up like a Christmas tree, lights aglow with everything that could possibly be wrong with a car - CHECK ENGINE - that's a scary one - so off I drive (I know, idiotic) to the dealer for repairs.

One week later I am told the prognosis.  Ready for this?  Oh, the irony!

Mice.

Mice living under the hood ate through wires in my beloved car.  The insurance company even checked out the claim, and found it to be true.  The car is kept in a garage, fairly warm, where I have found no evidence of mice, but such is my fate.

So for the past three weeks I have been driving an XC60.

It's a cross-over between an SUV and a wagon.  Yummy.  The Volvomom/MausiGal is addicted, and wonders what it will be like when she is finally forced to give it back and return to her sporty, little S60.  Zip zip zoom.  

Yes, I am so lucky to own what I have.  I have been blessed with material things, but above all people in my life who are amazing and love me more than the material things could ever account for.  I'm one lucky MausiGal.  That's another blog post in and of itself.  

Now, if only to find that little family of mice in the garage and set them on a relocation program...

The Bloggie Is Back

The Bloggie is back, after about a month hiatus.  Whoa, what a time it's been.  I've truly missed writing, but every time I went to sit down at the beloved Chromebook Baby I was pulled away for one reason or another.  So tonight, a Friday night completely free, I am able to compose.

I miss summer.  Let me just start off with that.  I miss days in the sun at York Beach and the awesome times in Vermont, of which I'm already counting down until next year.  However, summer was kind enough to leave me with ten pounds extra from its iced mochas shared with Dads at Starbucks.  No amount of running seemed to keep the pounds at bay.  Egads.  Pass the elastic waistband, please...FAST!  I'm debating starting a secret weight loss blog, because I'm too embarrassed to post my own weight loss crapola on MausiGal.  Blah blah blah.  Been there, done that.  Who hasn't?  Why live in shame?  I'm back to working out every day on that treadmill, with the incline of ten (tell it to the mountain!) at four miles an hour.  I know I can lose it all, it's just a matter of sticking with it, and staying away from iced mochas.  And caramel macchiatos.  And scones.  And fettuccine.  Do we sense a problem?

Being alone on a Friday night has a stigma in our society, doesn't it?  I was speaking with someone recently and they were really curious as to what my weekend without kids would be like.  "So, what ARE you doing?!" was his question.  I'm vegging out.  Seriously.  With over 130 students to teach this year, I'm exhausted by the time i get home.  Combine that with two extremely active thirteen year old boys of my own, and I'm ready to throw in the towel.  My car has become the Mom Taxi, as much as I lament to say this.  I tell people I own a "sporty Volvo."  Who am I kidding?  I own a kid totting mobile!  This afternoon's kid pickup (four thirteen year old boys from the ice cream stand) held a lively conversation on the benefits of AXE deodorant.  This continued into how one may shower twice a day and still smell.  I teach middle school.  I feel their pain.  I live their pain on a daily basis!

I'm really content - honestly - to be here without an agenda - at the computer, jamming out to Tom Petty, and writing on the Chromebook.  Am I a hermit?  I don't think so.  I do like spending time with people, but I don't think I'm the type that honestly looks to go clubbing or out to bars on a Friday or Saturday night.  No, gracias.  I'm totally happy at home cooking my new specialty - clover bread!

I recently gave this to someone, and he told me how yummy it was.  He then proceeded to tell me they used it for French toast.  Um...French toast?  My awesome bread?!  Cut up and soaked in batter?  Should I be insulted or honored?  I'm a bit bewildered.  Isn't crappy bread suppose to be used for French toast?  Someone help me out here!  I've made a few loaves of this, and it's just delish.  Plus, it looks so pretty.  And who can say no to pretty? (Wasn't that the most shallow thing you've ever heard in this blog?)

So what's gone on in the past month?  I went on an IKEA binge, during which I had my left boob smashed by an IKEA worker who tried to help us load a mattress.  Ouch!  Love IKEA, hate their customer service.  I'll admit, I'm addicted.

My awesome grandmother had a stroke last Saturday, which is incredibly sad.  She's in her early nineties.  How can you express the thoughts you have when you see someone you adore go through such pain and confusion?  And then see her son, my Dads, go through such anguish over his mother?  it's awful.

I am falling asleep.  My days run from 4:00 am to 10:00 pm, so one can imagine way.  More later.  Hopefully I'll be able to pbdate before October!

Time To Start Running!

Before I married twenty years ago I ran every day after work.  I hated it.  Why?  Because I thought it would get me ultra-skinny before the wedding and allow me to continuously eat Heath Bars.  Fast forward, and I'm hoping to get ultra-skinny once again, but there's a story behind putting my feet to the pavement.

The second week of July I could hardly jog one forth of the track.  Why was I even trying?  Because of this guy:

Yes, my son completed Clemsville's Fourth of July run, turned to me, and said, "So, Mom, are you going to do it with me?"  In his hand was information about a 5K in October.  My brothers, sister-in-law, and other kidlet had run this race.  Far be it for me to say no to a kidlet's request.  The training was on.

So during the week we were in Vermont my personal trainers became my brother, Dude,  and sister-in-law, MaineGirl.  MaineGirl had found information on what was titled "Couch to 5k," which she changed to "Laptop to 5K" in my honor.  

I've known lots of runners, and I've been impressed with each of them.  I've always seen running, especially long distances, such an unachievable goal of mine.  I could hardly run down the street, for fear that my neighbors would think that I was being robbed.  No, I'm not a louse.  I power walk on the treadmill at four miles an hour at a nine incline.  But run?  Forget it.  So to hear about people running - I was in awe.  

My roommate in college, RunnerGirl, would just take off and go.  "I went for a long run!" she would come back to room and declare.  I would look up from a book and smile.  Um, yeah.  My fat arse was so envious that she could run, run, run.  At times I snuck off to the indoor track on campus and tried to run to no avail.  I hated it.  I couldn't breathe.  RunnerGirl enjoyed it!  And to this day she has Facebook posts about herself and kids enjoying the sport of running.  Yet more inspiration for me to move forward with this.

Uncle runs marathons.  He's diabetic.  He was once hit by a bus while running.  He has a toe problem (as in he can't find it).  He still runs.  Go figure.  If I had all those issues I'd be at home hiding in a closet with my cat.  His running stories crack me up.  The texts of support from him are keeping me going in this endeavor as I've encountered shin splints, weird knee problems, and the idiocy known as "Why is Kristin wearing walking shoes as she tries to run?"  My first mini-marathon truly is for him.  I'll get there.

Vermont's runs were amazing.  With vistas of the mountains (see above, which doesn't even begin to do it justice) and a country landscape, pounding the pavement in eighty-five degree heat wasn't as bad as it should be.  Dude and MaineGirl paced me at minute intervals to build up my endurance.  If Dude could do this with a pace maker, I guess I could, too.  Well, maybe...  So we ran.  Me, kidlet, MaineGirl, and Dude.  Each day.  Dude pushed me at times where I started spouting obscenities when I couldn't go on any more.  Uphill can be a killer, especially when it's nearly ninety degrees.  The former quaint scenes of wildflowers and Green Mountain farms don't look as pretty when one is breathing like Luke Skywalker's father.  

Back home I'm keeping up, running farther each day.  I've changed to my brother, Sprout's, training advice of, "Run 'til you puke."  Granted, I'm not vomiting after running, but I am running as far as I possibly can.  I'm now up to about two miles.  When I run around the track I'm amazed that I used to only be able to jog a quarter of it.  Proud?  Most definitely.  

Off I go.  Rewarding myself with a caramel macchiato more often than not when I'm done.  

Some things never change.  Yes, I do follow up with water.  I down lots of Pelligrino.  Far be it for me to drink ordinary water, right?  

What's different from twenty years ago?  I'm actually enjoying the runs this time. I plug in my music, jamming out to either Nicki Minaj or The Beatles, depending on my mood.  I compose blog posts (like this one) in my head.  I come up with new short story ideas.  I think about how cool it will be to one day get that 13.1 sticker and put it on my desk at school.  Oh yeah.  And even better?  How amazing it will be to see the look on Kidlet B's face when I finish that 5K with him.