Joys of Single Motherhood

I am a Weight Watchers dropout again. I always lose weight with WW and I am truly inspired by all the brave, dedicated women with whom I gathered on Monday mornings to dissect our eating patterns for the past week. Then I get bored. Mostly I get bored and then weary of paying $13 per week to listen to food suggestions that don't apply to me. "I found the best thing and they're only 100 calories each! They have them at Trader Joe's/Costco/Whole Foods. They're called "NuttyBuddies" and you can get a box of six for $5.99. They're delicious!" Even I don't want to eat anything that processed, but the WW ladies don't seem to mind. It's not that I'm a purist, it's just that I won't pay a lot of money for food that's barely food. So, I stopped and went back to my own "Eat It and See It" diet. The central idea is simple. At the end of the day if you've eaten reasonably, you should be able to remember everythi...

We used to have a saying where I grew up. Any sort of  epiphany was met with the quip "Light dawns on Marblehead!". (Today we just say "Doh!")   I'm not sure how many people even got the pun. Anyway, I think we have finally, finally recognized that Kid 2 has dyslexia. The list of symptoms fits almost exactly and I for one feel like an idiot. The school system has bent over backwards to provide services to help Kid 2 succeed but over the years, none of the solutions have been particularly successful. Were we too busy to wonder why until now? Every year around this time, he suffers a sort of mini-breakdown. He stops doing the work and goes into full Bartleby Mode. We always figured he got tired, that it was his version of Spring fever. Finally, I started to really think about his progress and particularly his writing ability. This is the sample that really got me going. It's something that he attempted to writing for Social Studies and I think it was sup...

I attended a board meeting last night that featured a report from the security consulting firm hired at a cost of $80,000 or so in the wake of the Newtown massacre. It was surreal. Talk about best intentions gone awry or maybe $80K down the drain.  I listened to a former NYPD captain, now managing director of this fancy security firm explain the importance of learning proper lockdown protocols for both students and teachers. "This is really a life skill that your children can take with them to college and even beyond that. If they're in a movie theater and something happens, they'll know what to do." So, whenever some nut with a gun shows up and starts randomly shooting people, our kids will be prepared? I wanted to laugh but it was all so crazy. He went on to talk about training teachers to immediately lock their classroom doors in the event..of an "event"? "Locking doors is very, very important. Studies have shown that a shooter will move on to a...

Today is most un-Spring like. Cold and dreary. More like a late November day.  I am sitting and sending out resumes. The modern automated systems are annoying to say the least. You put in your info, press a button and hope for the best. I've been chasing a couple of inside channels but no payoff yet. I am also sitting and waiting for the phone to ring. I have calls out concerning Kid 2 and calls out for various stories I'm working/thinking of working. School board meeting tonight so I will be able to corner a few folks. I heard an interesting figure at the last meeting. Someone blithely allowed that the schools currently need about $17 million in facilities maintenance. Ulp. Talked to the BizWhiz Mini Superintendent and it's more like $12 million when you only take into consideration 'urgent' repairs. The school is gorgeous from the outside and rather deshabille inside. Broken blinds, scarred and punctured ceiling tiles, etc. Small stuff but so out of kilter com...

I am listening to the NPR radio coverage of the manhunt in Boston for the bombing suspects. I used to live in the same suburbs that they're searching now for the younger suspect. It's the usual minute by minute coverage. The wait has begun and within the hour or so, this suspect will either be dead or in custody. They just did an interview with the mechanic who worked on the second suspect's girlfriend's Mercedes Benz wagon earlier in the week. Just this minute, I heard an interview with a young man who was on the wrestling team at Cambridge Rindge and Latin with one of the suspects. As a journalist I can appreciate a great story. The Boston Bombing story has foreign intrigue, and empathetic victims in a setting where just about everyone is white and lives in a nice house. When I lived there, most of the neighbors on our street were doctors or professors at one of the area colleges. Three people died in Monday's bombing. Meanwhile, in West, Texas--a town of 280...

"A tattoo is like wearing your worst outfit from high school for the rest of your life." from Patricia Marx in 'Ladies' in the March 4 2013 New Yorker I hate tattoos. I have several due to post-mastectomy reconstruction and I can attest that the very process is creepy and painful. And anxiety-producing. I had mine done for aesthetic reasons but boy, I hated having them done.   I laughed pretty hard when I saw the above line from Patricia Marx because it's so true. A hundred years ago growing up in Maine, a tattoo was considered the epitome of 'poor white trash-dom'. Broken snow-mobiles, rusted car engines, overgrown lawn and a junkyard dog was a sign of people with tattoos. A tattoo that one had unwisely had done while serving in the Navy or Army was considered okay. That just meant your buddies talked you into something unwise once when you were drunk one Friday night in some boring hell-hole. Even the snobs in rural areas have their exceptions...

I took my daughter bra shopping today, at Victoria's Secret. When I told her she'd have to buy her own, in other words--pay for them herself--she was shocked. I explained that if she wanted to wear $30 bras that was fine but it is a luxury I won't afford. I hadn't been inside a VS in a few years. Yikes. There are Demi Push-Ups, and Push-Up Tee, Simple Lining, Cotton With Push-Up, as well as sexy numbers with lace, etc. It was dizzying and by the time I staggered outside to wait for her I'm sure my eyes were glazed. As I made for the door, I stopped to ask a clerk "do all of the mothers race for the door as soon as they can?" She might have been in her early thirties but she laughed--she knew exactly what I meant. "Often," she replied. Holy crap, there must have been at least thirty different bra models. I couldn't even find my way back to the dressing room after I finally stumbled upon the staging area with the right model in a different s...

I suppose I should put a more serious heading on this entry but it's catchy. Besides it's another beautiful Spring day and I just paid ConEd so the power will stay on for another month. And the flowers are coming up in the backyard, right where I planted them. Apparently on this less well-heeled side of town--read: fewer mini-mansions--the squirrels are not so smart. They didn't manage to dig up and eat all of the flower bulbs. Not even a third. Ah, the little known advantages of living on this side of town. Dumb, less ambitious squirrels. Anyway, Kid 1 is doing better. He has been excused from French class. They call it "auditing". He goes, sings the songs and does his thing but he doesn't get a grade. He can take it again as a freshman. I tried to get the language requirement dropped for him at the beginning of sixth grade but they wouldn't do it. Now it's done. He can't write English and I'm pretty sure he doesn't know what a 'ten...

My son is off the rails again. It's better this time. He talked to me on Monday about his worsening depression and his anger--rage really--at having to interact with the "special kids" in his remedial math class. Some of his ranting was funny, as usual. "I am tired of all of these 'special' kids. You know what? Their 'Special' status is over. That invisible card they have that says "Special", well I told one of them today that his card had expired and he was no longer "Special"! Your ticket's been punched and you're out of here!" This 'special class' includes three or four kids with special needs. Most are autistic to some degree. One needs a 5 minute 'iPad' break in the back of the room every ten minutes or so. The time is signaled by a bell, or a cricket chirp or some noise that drives my son crazy or crazier, as it turns out.  He dislikes one of the kids because as he puts it "he's always...