Miss Rixie Recommends or The 3rd Annual Book Review

1. No Place Like Home by MHC
Despite the fact that Ms. Clark had four or five children and a handful of grandchildren, she (or any other author currently writing) does not seem to understand what children are ACTUALLY LIKE (children don't pick up on things like Mommy being upset or the fact that Mommy was crying an hour ago if Mommy is doing her best to hide it. Hell, they won't pick up on it if Mommy is doing her WORST to hide it. Children don't realize Mommies experience things outside of their children). This complaint, however, is the worst one I have about No Place like Home, Mary Higgins Clark's most recent bestseller. This suspenseful novel was reminiscent of Clark's golden age--Remember Me; Loves Music, Loves to Dance; etc. Highly recommended!!

2. Dating Is Murder by Harley Jane Kozak
Last summer I recommended HJK's first novel, Dating Dead Men, and said I couldn't wait for Wollie's next adventure (despite the fact that her heroine's name is Wollie). This second novel is proving to be just as engaging and original as her first.

3. Murderers Prefer Blondes by Amanda Matetsky
One of the best and most original books I have read in years. Matetsky's heroine has much to suffer through starting with the fact that it's 1954 and she's a working woman in a man's world. Couple that with the fact that her (married) name is Paige Turner and she has to take lots of grief about it from her male co-workers without being able to stand up for herself or she'll be fired. With a beatnik best friend as a sidekick, the heroine is modern without being over-the-top, and the plot is refreshingly original. The tone is informal without being cutesy, the situations are believable without making our heroine pathetic, and most importantly of all, Matetsky doesn't have to try too hard. Beautiful! Miss Rixie also recommends: Murder is a Girl Best Friend's also by Amanda Matetsky and anything by Tamar Myers

4. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
Your brother insists everyone call him The Rooster, including his business clients. Your sister dresses up in a fat suit and makes up her face to look like a punching bag to pull one over on her father. While living in Paris, you sign up for French lessons hoping to one day be able to talk pretty. Welcome to the colorful and electric, slightly off-kilter world of David Sedaris. Miss Rixie also recommends: Dress Your Family in Curduroy and Denim, also by Sedaris. More essays about his family, including his brother The Rooster.

5. Every Boy Has One by Meg Cabot
The third and final book in Cabot's NY Tribune series, this novel is (loosely) based on Meg Cabot's own wedding experience with enough twists and unlucky happenstances to keep the reader intrigued (and laughing). Cabot has again struck gold with her originality--the novel is written through emails, telephone conversations, instant messenger, and journal entries between characters--never in dialogue, making it a fast, easy, and enjoyable read. In her last several books, Cabot has climbed to the top of Miss Rixie's list of favorite authors where she resides with greats like Mary Higgins Clark, Janet Evanovich, and Jennifer Crusie.

6. Persuading Annie by Melissa Nathan
An updated, modern version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, Persuading Annie maintains the charm of the original while adding more spunk and sparkle to the characters. Nothing will ever top Nathan's other Austen update Pride, Prejudice, and Jasmin Field, but Persuading Annie runs a close second. Miss Rixie also recommends: pride, Prejudice and Jasmin Field, of course, and Nathan's original novel, The Nanny.

Boys vs. Girls: the Continuing Story

Brennan: When I was getting my hair cut yesterday, the lady told me I should use conditioner to counteract the chlorine from the pool. ... Rix?
Me: Yeah?
Brennan: What's conditioner?
Me: It's moisturizer ... for you hair. You know, lotion?
Brennan: YES, I KNOW WHAT MOISTURIZER IS NOW. SHUT UP!
Me [snickering]: I didn't say anything...

Boys versus Girls

Monday morning after teaching three hours plus of swimming lessons, my younger brother and I stagger home exhausted. We flip a coin to see who gets to shower first (he wins; I make him promise to hurry and threaten him with a torturous death as only an older sister can if he's not fast) and he hops in. A half an hour later, after I'm out and dressed, he knocks on my bedroom door.

Brennan: Rix?
Me: Yeah?
Bren: Can I come in? I need to ask you something.
Me: What's up?
Bren: There's something wrong with my skin. I've washed my face, like, eight times, but my skin feels all dry and ...
Me: Tight?
Bren: Yes! Exactly!
Me: Hold out your hand.
He obliges. I dump enough lotion in his hand to cover his entire body.
Me: Now rub on your face.
He closes his eyes and rubs as if his hands were a towel and a bucket of water had just been dumped on his head.
Me: Better?
Bren: Wow!...It feels better already. Oh my God...that's amazing! How did you know what was wrong?
Me: Well, your skin was dry because you spend three hours a day in a pool with enough chlorine to kill even the most resistant strains of bacteria and then you come home and you wash your face eight times. Write this down: water dries out your skin.
Bren: What??? That doesn't make ANY sense.
Me: Be that as it may...


Two days later as we're goofing around in the pool waiting for our next swimming lesson to start, I tell this story to another lifeguard, Chelsea, in the presence of Brennan:

Me: Isn't it amazing what a boy with two sisters can still miss out on?? I mean, the boy didn't know he needed MOISTURIZER to make his skin stop feeling DRY.
Bren: What's moisturizer?
Chelsea: It's lotion.
Bren: Oh, lotion. ... I used lotion once. On my hands. I can't remember why.
Chelsea and I watch in dumbfounded amazement as he swims away.

Boys.

7th Hell

Me: Mom, will you get me an ice cream bar?
Mom: No.

[Later]
Mom: Who was talking about the TV show 7th Heaven earlier? Now I have the theme song in my head.
Me: You know the theme song to 7th Heaven ? HA-HA!!! That's God punishing you for not getting me an ice cream bar earlier. ...Who on EARTH knows the theme song to 7th Heaven and hasn't yet committed suicide?
Mom: Well, I tape Gilmore Girls everyday and when I get home from work, I rewind the tape. 7th Heaven is on right after GG , so I'm stuck listening to it.
Me: Why, because the rewind button is the only one that works on your remote?
Mom: Well, what do *you* suggest?
Me: TBS where they are playing Seinfeld reruns at that time.
Mom: I hate Seinfeld.
Me:

[Ten minutes later]
Me: What do you mean you hate Seinfeld ? You always used to watch it.
Mom: I hate it.
Me: What are you TALKING about? You like Seinfeld.
Mom: I have a rule with myself where if I turn the TV on and Seinfeld 's on, I have to change the channel before anyone speaks.
Me: But what about Must-See-TV night that we all watched every Thursday all the time I was in high school??? You liked it then! Mom...
Mom: Nope.
Me: I swear you makes these things up just to make sure I'm still listening to you.
[She begins to read and ignore me.]

Me [Ten minutes later, unable to let this go]: I think we've lost sight of what that conversation was about. So Seinfeld is worse than 7th Heaven ?
Mom [Horrified]: NOOO!!!! [Pause] Well, yeah.
Me: [Several octaves higher than usual]: WHAT?!?
Mom: I would never actually watch 7th Heaven.
Me: And yet you know the theme song.
Mom: [Singing the theme song]: 7th heaven...

The Tonys...soon to be renamed The Norbert & Michelles OR The Idina & Tayes--Vote today!!

Rixie & Tara's List of Fabulous Moments During the 2005 Tonys:

Taye 'n' Idina

Norbert and Michelle Federer = BFF!!!!!

Sara Ramirez thanking Claritin

Norbert Leo Butz 'n' John Lithgow hugging

Hugh Jackman saying he got a "look from my wife"

Spamalot performance
Spelling Bee performance (as in"That is correct." "I KNOW.")

Norbert Leo Butz "getting the joke"
Sherie Rene Scott CRYING
"I have always breathed out of one nostril and tonight WAS NO EXCEPTIOOOOON!"
Hot guy from Spelling Bee singing to Al Sharpton
Hot guy from Piazza looking hot
HUGH JACKMAN DANCING!!!!!
Norbert and Michelle Federer = BFF!!!!!
Norbert 'n' John Lithgow hugging
Discovering that Sara Ramirez pronounces "Sara" cool and ethnic

Okay, I know those last two were repeats, but seriously, who can blame me????

I'm looking over this list and realizing that we've forgotten the two most obvious choices (and I mean, really, the whole point in watching):
1. NORBERT LEO BUTZ WINNING
2. SARA RAMIREZ WINNING ... YEAH, BABY!!


I bet you're wishing you watched it, aren't you???

I love my job. Make no mistake about it; I love my job. There are some days, though, when I could really use a break. Today is one of those days. There are so many words and phrases floating through my head ... overwhelming ... underpaid ... overworked ... underexperienced ... overlooked ... under the weather...

That last one feels the most right. But perhaps it would be closer to just say simply, 'I feel blue', and leave it at that.

I'm Still Alive...at least for now

When they told me that as a first-year teacher, I would never have any free time, I believed them.

When they told me that as a first-year teacher, the job would be my life, I believed them.

When they told me that as a first-year teacher, I would have no money, I believed them.

What I didn't understand was the extent to which these things would be true. What I didn't understand was that any free time I possessed would be wasted as I would be too exhausted to do anything but lie on the couch and stare mindlessly at the TV. What I didn't understand that any time I wasn't at school working, I was at home working. And on those rare occasions I wasn't at home working, I was at home thinking about work. Which, in most ways, is even worse.

In the twelve weeks that I've been teaching, I have enjoyed it more immensely than I ever realized I would. I'm more convinced than ever that there is nothing else for me but teaching (well, except maybe writing that best-selling novel I've been talking about. All in good time, though. All in good time). But, despite this, I've also become more convinced than ever that someone needs to invent a button to shut off my brain from time to time.

I'm watching a movie, thoroughly engrossed and entertained, and suddenly the camera cuts to an outside shot of the school--or even worse, inside a classroom--and suddenly, I'm thinking about schoolwork. Once an avid reader who read more than a book a week, I now find that most books can't hold my attention because there's always something going on at school that I must think about. Inevitably, when conversing with someone they will say, "What's new with you?" For weeks I would say things like, "Well, Johnny finally turned an assignment in, so we had a celebration fourth hour," or "Susie passed a quiz which means she actually *read* the chapter." Finally I began saying, "Nothing!" which I've now amended to, "Nothing you want to hear about. What's new with you?"

Now I try and explain the situation to my non-teacher friends. "I don't have any free time." They say soothing things like, "I'm sure that's rough." And I say, "No, no. I don't have ANY free time. ANY. Do you know what I did last week? I graded papers and watched the election. That was my life. And the week before that was even worse. Wait til you hear about it!" As I begin, my eyes begin to bug and my hands begin to flail and my friends begin backing away, or in the case of a telephone conversation, begin to make staticky noises and say things like, "What? You're breaking up! I can't hear you. I'll have to call you back." And I'm left to do things like grade papers and watch the election.

And yet, despite having no free time, no money, no sleep, and virtually no life, I find that my life, as it is, is more rewarding and more fulfilling now than I can ever remember it being. And despite everything, I'm not sure I would change a thing.

Unless, of course, that brain shut-off button comes along. Now THAT would be rewarding!

14 Ways to Wreak Havoc at a Small Town Grocery Store

by T.D.A., my talented and underappreciated sister

1. Constantly take and wear others' nametags and then insist you don't know where they are.
2. Switch generic/brand name price tags.
3. Erase all expiration dates in milk cooler.
4. Count one less item than necessary for baker (11 rolls, 5 kaisers, 7 coneys, etc.)
5. Switch money backward and forward in the register
6. Knock over egg cartons and leave to rot.
7. Open all cooler doors (and leave them).
8. Carry out for customer and return 15-20 minutes later.
9. Leave one item on each aisle floor. Exchange items periodically.
10. Pour rock salt into garbage boxes.
11. Leave all recycling bags completely full.
12. Never add up hours. Complain about being shorted on paycheck.
13. Constantly refer to Shur-fine brand as Shur-as-hell-fine.
14. Replace framed, first-earned dollar bill with a note reading, "Dave, IOU one dollar."

My Strongest Suit

In life, one has to face a huge assortment
of nauseating fads and good advice.
There's health and fitness, diet and deportment
and other pointless forms of sacrifice
Conversation? Wit? I am a doubter.
Manners? Charm? They're no way to impress.
So forget the inner me, observe the outer:
I am what I wear and how I dress.

Oh, now I believe in looking
like my time on earth is cooking
whether polka-dotted, striped, or even checked
With some glamour guaranteeing
every fiber in my being
is displayed to quite remarkable effect.
From your cradle via trousseau
to your deathbed, you're on view,
so never compromise--accept no substitute
I would rather wear a barrel than conservative apparel
For dress has always been my strongest suit.

Staying in or hitting townwards,
from the top and working downwards
I ensure that every stitch is stitched in time
Whether wig or hat or turban,whether clad boudoir or urban
Not to strut your stuff outrageously is a crime
And the few who are invitedto my wardrobe are delighted
as they wander through my things to find en route
that in negligee or formal, I am anything but normal
For dress has always been my strongest suit.

Overwear, underwear, anytime, anywhere
Overwear, underwear, anytime, anywhere
Overwear, underwear, anytime, anywhere

I am what I wear
I said anytime, anywhere
So bring me all my finest,
most audacious, my divinest
most revealing, most expensive, and to boot
Most arresting, most heart-stopping
Most free-flowing, most eye-popping
Most arresting, most heart-stopping
Most free-flowing, most eye-popping

Dress has always been my strongest suit
My strongest suit
You know that I am what I wear
Dress has always been my strongest suit

So bring me all my finest, most audacious, my divinest
most revealing, most expensive, and to boot
Most arresting, most heart-stopping
Most free-flowing, most eye-popping
Most arresting, most heart-stopping
Dress has always been my strongest suit
My strongest suit
You know that I am what I wear
Dress has always been my strongest suit.

"My Strongest Suit"
From the Broadway musical Aida

Letter to My Younger Self

 
As you get older, your character will develop, you will grow, you will adapt to the world around you, you will see things that amaze you, things that haunt you, things that scare you, and things that excite you.  Accept the setbacks, embrace the advances, and work to change the rest. 
 
You will see buildings fall and monuments rise, friendships develop and relationships fail, planes crash and dreams take flight.  Don't allow human cruelty--however large--to poison you, but do allow the gift of human kindness--however small--to change you. 
 
There may be a time when the music is wrong and you're wearing the wrong shoes and you want to sit one out.  Dance anyway. 
 
Learn the difference between giving up and moving on.  Moving on is always okay; giving up never is. 
 
There may be times when you feel shy.  There may be times when you feel self-conscious.   There will be times when it is easy to remain silent.  Speak up anyway, and be grateful you have a voice.
 
Don't let challenges over power you.  Instead, allow them to become empowering.
 
Girls in high school, models in magazines, women in the media--these people will never be portrayed as nice.  Nice guys finish last.  Be nice anyway.
 
The adage is, times will change.  So will you.  But stop every now and then and to take stock.  Remember, there's also an adage not all change is good.  Make sure you're evolving as well. 
 
And finally, whenever you get the chance, eat dessert first.

Good Night

“I need help! I neeeeed heeeeelp!” I’d wanted my voice to reverberate down the hall, but instead I sounded like a croaking duck.

“What is wrong with you?” my mother asked from my doorway a few seconds later. I attempted to look up from where I was face down on my bed under a mass of blankets. The effort was pointless though—the room was dark, only silhouetted by a single streetlamp across the street and on the corner.

“I need help. Look at my sheet!” The yellow and blue plaid cotton sheet was twisted around my calves and ankles, providing a makeshift straitjacket for my legs. “I can’t move and I’m sooo tired!”

“Okay, I’m turning on the light so prepare yourself. This is what happens when you only get four hours of sleep and then work all day.” She untangled the sheet and tucked it expertly under my mattress at the end of the bed while I lay comatose, made inert by exhaustion and frustration. Her movements were quick suggesting years of experience.

“There you go.” As she pulled the comforter up over my shoulder, I immediately felt better even though the July weather was much too hot for comforters. I heard her begin to move out. I snuggled down under the protective cover of darkness, then began to wail.

“Wait! Waaait! Now my pajama leg is all funny, and I can’t fix it.”

She didn’t even complain as she pushed the blankets out of the way, grabbed the green and white squared fabric bunched around my knee and gave it a yank down. “That’s why I have to wear socks pulled up over my pajamas bottoms in the winter.”

I wanted to ask ‘why only in the winter?’ but she was fixing the covers around me once again and I was distracted by familiar stirrings of childhood. My eyes wouldn’t open and it was too much effort to use my vocal cords.

“Good night,” came the almost-businesslike adieu from my childhood. I half-smiled as I turned my face back into the pillow, a favored position I had long ago outgrown. The light went out, and cozy in bed with the comforter weighing just the perfect amount, I picked my head up to listen to her sandals flip-flopping all the way down the hall until they were too far away to hear. Then, satisfied, I burrowed into my pillow and snuggled deeper in the memory.

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master,
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same,
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start at your beginnings again,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after hey are gone,
and so bold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
if you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds worth of distance run
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

On Faith

I remember attending church through most of my early childhood. Then, somewhere in my upper elementary school years, we stopped going so regularly. My mother blames this on my father. “I never missed church until I married your dad,” she often points out, as if this is conclusive. After all, he never missed church until he married her.

Both my parents were raised in fairly strict Catholic homes. My father’s parents were Irish-Catholic, and had the seven children to prove it. So far as anyone knows, they never missed mass. Ever. For my mother, church was more of a social event. You went, you socialized, you went home. Of course, because she went to a Catholic school, nearly all her friends were Catholic.

“Yeah,” my mom counters, “but I never even thought about missing until then.” I find this hard to believe. As a child, sitting and kneeling on the pews in your dress with your itchy tights, thinking about the glazed doughnut you were promised by your father on the condition that you are good, or at least quiet for Pete’s sake, and generally thinking of the 99 other places you’d rather be instead of in church is like a Rite of Passage. Baptism, Reconciliation, First Communion, Dreading Mass.

Regardless of our church attendance dropping off, my siblings and I still went through Confirmation. My parents got me through by insisting once I was confirmed I could stop going to catechism. For the six months it took me and the rest of my catechism class to prepare, I got myself through it by imagining what I’d do with my free Thursday nights after this was over. Oh, and playing tic-tac-toe with myself during class.

When the time came for, well, what I can only call my pop quiz with priest, I failed miserably. I thought the questions were going to be about me and my spirituality, in which case I would have passed with flying colors (although shy, I’ve always believed one of my greatest talents is coming up with crowd-pleasing, diplomatic answers in a very short amount of time. I would have wowed them had I ever decided to enter in the Miss America contest). The test, however, was over Jesus and the history of Christianity (where do they get this stuff?) “I’m not very good at geography,” I said weakly to the priest as I struggled to come up with some proper nouns. “Jerusalem? Jordan? Syria? Oh, oh, I know! The Red Sea! The Nile?”

The aspect of confirmation I enjoyed the most was picking out my saint name. I was instructed to pick a saint that I felt an affinity to, someone I felt could guide me on my way to becoming the fully-realized Catholic the church wanted me to become. My mother had chosen Saint Theresa. “How did you choose that?” “I had always loved the story about it rained roses when she died.” I was transfixed for days by that beautiful image. Was that one of the miracles that occurred after she was dead that helped her achieve sainthood? I wondered. I wonder if that counts for a miracle. If I were in charge, I would definitely count that as one of her miracles. Who doesn’t want it to rain roses? And how could anyone compete with raining roses?

In the end, I went patriotic. I chose Elizabeth Seton, the first American saint. At my confirmation, the priest didn’t read the “Seton” part, so I ended up with just Elizabeth, along with seven other girls. I was upset because although John’s mother was impressive, she was not the one I had chosen. I had felt an affinity to Elizabeth Seton, and besides, and now I had betrayed her and looked unoriginal.

Once I was confirmed, I gave myself more freedom to explore my feelings on religion and Catholicism. I was able to mesh what the Bible said and what I had been brought up to believe with my own feelings—no, I would think importantly, My Morals. What I eventually came up with was—prepare yourselves for this—the Bible was written by men, not God, and men are fallible. The Bible could be wrong, and at the very least, it’s archaic. To believe that thought hasn’t evolved in thousands of years is also archaic. (Even after my confirmation, it took years to squelch down the inner Catholic in me who wanted to cross herself and pray to God to not punish her for blaspheme.)

From this I created the Benevolent God (though the title didn’t come until later when I read it in a book. After recognizing my own personal beliefs fell under this title of Benevolent God, I felt they were validated. They had merit. My benevolent God must be the truth!) The benevolent God ignored the fact that I didn’t go to church. He ignored that I only said prayers occasionally. He overlooked these things and He loved me anyway because I was good (usually) and kind (mostly).

While in college, I took a class called Modern British Heresies. We discussed a lot of different ways to commit blasphemy and what constituted a heresy. I began thanking God nightly that I didn’t live in 18th century Britain where my benevolent God may have been considered blasphemous. Yup, good thing I lived now, in the 21st century, where I could have a clear conscience about the whole thing. … Right?

We discussed many of the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism. Although my teacher never specifically said so, I believe he was Protestant, and I devoted more time to developing a theory on why than I did on the homework I was supposed to be doing for class. “If you are a Protestant, to please your God, you have to live a long and hard life. You have to work all the time, and you have to work hard. You have to think pure, clean thoughts, and you don’t get to take lazy days. If you’re Catholic, you can do whatever you want, so long as you’re sorry at the end, and make a confession. Want to drink? Sleep around? Become a thief? Go for it! Just make sure you are absolved for your sins before you die!” We all laughed, and I considered that what he said had some real merit to it. Except for one thing.

He had not taken into consideration Catholic guilt.

Here’s the thing with Catholic guilt: it does not matter how religious you are. It does not matter how much a part of your life Catholicism is. If Catholicism has ever entered your home, the guilt will be there forever. It’s the Energizer Bunny; it keeps going and going and going. Always. So far as I know, it affects each person differently. I mainly experience guilt over the way I treat others. Despite the fact that I am always courteous and as a rule nice, I can experience guilt for days over how I think the other person perceived me. Did he think I meant that in a mean way? Did she think I was trying to get away from her when I said I was busy? Did I hurt their feelings?

I also experience (lesser) guilt over church-related things: spacing off in Mass, not going to Mass, cheating during Lent, taking the Lord’s name in vain and then rationalizing it by saying who doesn’t? , not always feeling 100% sorry for my sins. Luckily, I don’t usually feel guilty about lying because if I did the guilt would be doubled: (1) because I lied and (2) because I’m really good at it. Long after the religious tendencies go, the guilt remains.

If Protestants are earning their way into heaven through hard labor and strong work ethic, Catholics are getting there through the guilt time they put in. If life is a roller coaster, the fluorescent-painted seats, chugging up hills in anticipation and zooming down them with exhilaration, the delicious spray of water at the bottom, the blue sky whirling by, the indistinguishable faces swirling past—this is the fun part. Standing in line before the ride with four hundred other sweating, cranky people for three hours with the heat and humidity index at 95 while around you debate the merits of admitting defeat and getting out of line versus holding your ground while convincing yourself it can’t possibly be much longer—this is the Catholic guilt that accompanies. You can’t have the ride without the line … at least if you’re Catholic. And while the ride is fun, it’s over in a blur. The line is long and the waiting is interminable. And just when you think it’s over, you turn a corner and realize you’re only half there. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.



I think back to my childhood and how I constantly asked my parents about God. “How do you know He’s there? How do you know he’s real?” And their response, “Because you have faith.” “Where do you get faith? How do you get it?” I don’t remember their responses, but I know how I will respond if my children ever ask me.

Despite my questions, how debilitating the guilt can be, the annoyance at stereotypes, and the differences between what I was brought up to believe and what I actually believe, I don’t question my faith. When I’m scared or overwhelmed, I say a Hail Mary. When I hear sirens signaling an accident or ambulance, I want to cross myself. When I lose something, I ask Saint Anthony for a minute of his time and I’m usually not disappointed.

“Where do you get faith? How do you get it?”



I was eight years old. I know I was eight because Nicole and I were good enough swimmers to go off the regular diving board, but still too scared to try the high board. I know that Nicole had said something to make me mad. I don’t remember what it was, but our friendship has always been like that. We make each other mad, we have fights, and then, if possible, we never talk about it again. We like it that way. I watched as she trotted across the cement deck of the pool from the deep end back to where our moms stood in the baby pool, cooling their feet and ankles while watching our youngest siblings. Boy, was I seething! Well, I’ll show you, I thought darkly as I watched her help herself to a juice box.

I approached the high dive. There was quite a line which, I thought, will give me time to decide what I want to do. Some loud boys got in line behind me. They were pushing and shoving and laughing at each other. I edged forward away from them. I wasn’t sure I had the guts to get out of line now.

Across the pool I could see my mom and Nicole’s mom talking and laughing. Weston and Tara were … what were they doing? Oh. Pretending to be dogs. Naturally.

“Go! Go!” someone said behind me, pushing me onto the first stair. I climbed up to the top, but it wasn’t my turn yet. The girl in front of me was waiting for the boy in front of her to get to the ladder down in the water before she went. One bounce and she was gone. I listened for her splash. Where was it, where was it, where was it? Splash!! Oy, that took an awfully long time for her to get to the water!

My heart began hammering around unsteadily in my chest. I could hear myself laboring to breathe. Remember in Romancing the Stone when Michael Douglas dives off the side of a castle? That’s what this is, I told myself. Just take three steps. Step, step, step, JUMP!! It will be so simple. Fast and easy. I took my first hesitant step onto the board, positioned between the two handrails. The board was still wobbling up and down from the last girl’s jump. I looked up as I waited for it to become more stable.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

I’d lost Tara and Weston in the crowd and I couldn’t find Nicole either. My mom and her mom were still chatting. In fact, no one had noticed that I was about to embark on what I could only think of One Giant Mistake. Why wasn't my mother's intuition screaming, "WAKE UP, WAKE UP!"?? Why wasn't Nicole watching? This was supposed to be all for her anyway! ... But to honest, the only person I was mad at was myself. Mad, and scared, and nearly hysterical.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

The board had stabilized. I took one timid step. Big mistake. The board began wobbling all over the place. I looked down. I was still over cement. I needed to move out so that if I accidentally fell off, I would at least land in water and have a CHANCE at surviving. One more step, and now the handrails were gone. Tears began to swim in my eyes. Ordinarily, I'm all for crying. I'm a very good crier. But right now, they were hindering my ability to see. How was I supposed to make it to the end of the board with no visibility and a board that's just rearing to buck me off? I gazed wildly around, hoping for something to save me.

Please don't make me go, please don't make me go!

Over the water, the sun was intensified and I could barely keep my eyes open. Vaguely, I heard a whistle sound. One more step out, more pausing as the board shook and vibrated. Maybe it was this unsteady because it was about to fall off. I imagined going down with the board. Better to just get to the end, jump fast, and hope it doesn’t go with me. The slower I take, the better chance there is of this thing falling off and killing me.

Time seemed to slow down and background noises faded. This feels just like a movie, I thought bordering somewhere between hysteria and numbness. More whistling, this time accompanied by shouts.

“Hey!! Hey! Get OFF the board!”

Vaguely, I became aware that the lifeguard was yelling at someone. The lifeguard … was yelling … at me. At me! “Hey! Get off the board!” She gestured largely to the kids diving off the sides, then tapped her watch. “The board’s closed now. You’ll have to wait till later to jump.”

I nodded numbly, and swiveled, grabbing onto the handrail for support as I made my way down. The boys behind me had long ago left realizing they weren’t going to get to go off the board for at least fifteen more minutes until the board opened up again. I scrambled down the stairs sucking the air in deep gulps and releasing it with sighs of relief.



Years later, I remember the walk out across that diving board like it happened ten minutes. But I don't remember the terror I felt; it lost its edge years ago. I don't remember the exact color of my relief or exactly what I did after I got down the stairs. But I do remember thinking about guardian angels.

And no matter how much someone could talk about coincidences and timing, I will never be convinced otherwise. Anyone could have been stopped from going off. But it was me. Probably the youngest and most frightened and least anxious to go. I was the one who had stopped. And as I watched my red painted toenails as they flew down those stairs, I remember raising my head and thinking, "Thank you, God. Thank you, God. Thank you, God," over and over until the terror ebbed and faded into just another childhood experience, unordinary from any other.

New Look

I was getting sick of the blue and orange (I'm not really an orange kind of girl), so here's the new look.

Enjoy.

Seven Children, a Dog, and a Guitar

The night my parents sat my sister and me down in our living room and explained to us that Mommy was going to have a baby, I imagined a baby doll waiting in the garage for us. I waited patiently, and then expectantly as they explained that soon we would have a little brother or sister. Neither of us spoke, and at the time I assumed Tara was waiting with diminishing patience, as I was, for one of them to go out to the car and bring the baby in. Of course, Tara was only three at the time, and since it took her close to a year to even realize she had a brother once he arrived, it is more probable she was watching Sesame Street in her head or pretending she was a puppy. I, on the other hand, remember a distinct feeling of confusion when I realized that not only was there no doll, we wouldn’t even get the baby for months.

Talk about a let down.

The months leading up to my brother’s birth were a little more eventful, however, than I would have at first expected. Nearly every night we discussed possible names before my parents finally agreed on Holly for a girl, Brennan for a boy. I was not-so-secretly praying for a brother, not being all that impressed with the sister I already had.

When the call came from the hospital, and Sandi, our baby-sitter and best friend’s mom, informed me that I had a baby brother, I congratulated God on his listening skills. A slideshow of images appears in my head every time I think of those days: the dark pink, wrinkled face of my new baby brother, only a day old as he sat on the laps of his older sisters; watching my mom make room for Tara on her hospital bed when Tara insisted she had to rest; my grandparents in the oversized hospital gowns. But what I remember mostly are the ribbons my grandparents gave Tara and me the day Brennan was born. They looked like pink and blue lace but were stretchy, and we were extraordinarily pleased with them. Our high-school baby-sitter French-braided our hair with them to celebrate, and it was understood, at least between Tara and me, that this was the real treat, and not be confused with the gift of human life. On the way home from visiting the hospital, our car broke down and my dad walked us to a nearby house where we hitched a ride the remaining four miles home. Tara and I cried like it was the end of the world. Some might argue the excitement and stress of a new baby brother, Mom away from home, and all that extended family around had worn us out, but four miles can be a long and scary distance. I was excited about having a new brother, but his birth just didn’t stack up to everything his older, worldlier sisters were going through at the time of his birth.

By the end of my kindergarten year, only a month after his birth, all that had changed. Not only was I enamored with Brennan, I wanted another one. “But Mom,” I rationalized, “we have two girls and one boy. We need another boy to even things out.” Some days I felt a sister might be good. “Mom,” I tried persuasively, “if we have another girl, then when I leave for college, you’ll still have two girls and a boy. Nothing will change.” Hardly foolproof logic, but it didn’t matter because Mom was having none of it.

I was nine years old when my mother wrote a rap for each of us kids to perform on tape. Immortalized forever in my pink and white tie-dyed, hello 1991 T-shirt and matching stretch pants is me rapping, “I love my mom and dad, and I love my baby brother. I always tell my mom she needs to have another.” So she is aware that I want another one, I remember thinking. It will happen eventually.

By the time Brennan was five, my best friend’s mom was up to her fourth child. “But Mom, Sandi has four kids. Don’t you want her new baby to have someone to play with?” “Her new baby can play with Brennan,” she’d say distractedly, while folding laundry or cleaning up spills. I’d get pouty and leave in a huff, the star in my own movie about a misunderstood, underloved girl. “All she wanted was someone to love,” I imagined my audience saying. Never mind the sister and brother she already had.

Shortly after this time, I gave up on the dream of having another sibling and moved onto my next great plan. Every Friday night, Tara and I would beg our mother to let us have a friend—any friend—over to spend the night. She had plenty of reasons why we couldn’t: the house is too small or if you have one, then I’ll have to let your sister have one. The reasons went on and on, but without question, the most irritating one was, “Girls, for crying out loud, I spend all week in a small, overheated room teaching to eighth and ninth graders. The last thing I want to do at the end of the week is come home to a houseful of other people’s children.” This seemed horrendously unfair. Why should Tara and I have to suffer because other people’s children were obnoxious?? Why should we have to suffer because our mother had chosen a career that involved children? When asked, my mother would respond as she finished making dinner, “Why don’t you become a teacher, and then you’ll know.” Well, I informed her coldly, you lose, because guess what?

“I said, GUESS WHAT?”

“All right,” she’d sigh resignedly. “What?”

“I’m never becoming a teacher. Yeah, you heard me. If the result of teaching is that you don’t want kids around, I’m never doing it.”

As any educator will understand, this seemed to brighten her spirits rather than diminish them. And the result of all our whining was that the One Per Season Rule went into effect. “You may each have one friend a season. You can choose whoever you want, whenever you want, but don’t come whining to me two weeks after you had someone, cause it’ll be your own fault you used up your season.”

The ‘whoever we wanted, whenever we wanted’ part sounded just fine, but once a season? Tara and I looked at each other and scowled. One per season? That meant only four times a year. We turned the scowls on our mother who sighed the sigh of the truly weary. “Take it or leave it.”

We took it. It’s not like it was really a step down.




The result of this was that I routinely began to live in a dream world. Whereas up to this point, I could never understand why Tara’s habit of insisting we acknowledge she was—despite all evidence to the contrary—a dog, I slowly began to understand that when life hands you a lemon, well, you just gotta get on all fours and pretend that lemons were dog food.

“My name is Leisl,” I said, “and this is my brother, Kurt. Are you here to talk to our mother, Maria? She’s down the hall playing the guitar and singing about her favorite things. Oh look, here is my sister Louisa.”

But Tara was having none of it. “I’m not playing. I’ll only play if I can be the dog.”

“Tara, the von Trapps did not have any dogs.”

“Then I can’t play. I’m a dog.”

“Unh! Why do you have to ruin everything? Just be Louisa for a little while!”

“Woof,” she said matter-of-factly before settling on the floor with her head on her paw to rest.

I sighed, torn between my desire to be the von Trapp family and the reality that, like it or not, we were already short four members. Up to this point, I kept telling myself that four members could be overlooked. After all, my mom really did enjoy singing and playing the guitar, and probably would have agreed immediately to be Maria. My father flat-out refused to even acknowledge the game, calling me Erica despite my efforts to legally change my name to Leisl Michelle von Trapp (Leisl’s middle name was never shared with the general public, therefore, I decided just to keep my own—I liked it and it was so much fun to write in cursive). Refusing to do anything fun wasn’t such a far cry from Captain von Trapp, so I figured my father passed inspection. I’d put on my mother’s dress clothes and mope around the house, pretending he had given orders that under no circumstances were we to have play clothes.

So being short four members wasn’t really a problem, because we so obviously made up for what we lacked. We were, I was convinced, the von Trapps incarnate. It was only my mother’s steady refusal to produce any more offspring and my sister’s insistence that she was a dog that was keeping the rest of the world from knowing it too.

“Woof,” Tara repeated stubbornly.

I stomped my foot impatiently. The von Trapps did not have a dog; they had guitars and fun uncles. This wouldn’t be a problem if Brennan had wanted to the dog. Brennan had never seen The Sound of Music and so was resigned to the lowly role of Kurt, who had barely any lines, and was really only there so that Freidrich wouldn’t get lonely. But Tara knew the lines and, more importantly, knew the songs. She knew exactly when to stop back and let Leisl have her solos. Tara understood that Leisl was the oldest and prettiest and therefore the most important.

Louisa was manipulative and liked to crawl into normal people’s bedrooms with whole jars of spiders in her hands. Tara was perfect for Louisa and if she couldn’t see that …

“What if Louisa is a girl who thinks she’s a dog?”

Tara chewed on that. “Can I bark whenever I want?”

“I guess.”

“Can I have a solo?”

“What do you want to sing?”

“I don’t want to sing, I want to bark.”

It was shortly after this when I began wondering exactly how old Leisl was when she ran off to the hills that were alive with the sound of music to live alone. I slipped deeper and deeper into my dream world, until …

“That girl? That girl pretending she’s a dog? No, that’s not my sister. In fact, I don’t have any sisters. Or brothers. I’m an only child.”

My favorite conversation from last week:

To take a page from the Operagirl:


My favorite conversation from last week:
[After working 2 hours on a contract at work for my father, only to find an identical one already made in a folder]
ME (nearly hysteria): WHAT'S THIS??

DAD: Oops. Guess I already had Heather make one. (To Heather) And I wasn't going to tell you, but I already had Erica make that contract you did for me just now.

ME: But I worked for TWO HOURS on that contract.

DAD: Well, I appreciate the effort.

[Heather and I exchange glances.]

HEATHER: I think we need to work on our ... (spells out "communication" using the manual alphabet)

DAD: Our what?



My favorite conversation from this week:
SWIMMING LESSONS KIDS: Erica, how old are you?

ME: How old do you think?

SLK: 46?

ME: What?

SLK: 32?

ME:

SLK: 41?

ME: I'm gonna go home and kill myself

SLK: 37?

Miss Rixie Recommends (Annual Book Review):

Miss Rixie recommends:

Six weeks into summer, I am working through my list of BOOKS TO READ. (Although, I must say, my list always seems to grow faster than I can read them. I love that.)

So, here are a few that I've read that I recommend very, very strongly. If you are looking for books to read, here are some good choices.

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot
Although Ms. Cabot can't seem to decide if she prefers "Meg" or "Meggin," she's a winner everytime. Told through letters, emails, voice messages, and journal entries, this novel is original in its use of modern day communication. I laughed out loud, quoted lines from it for weeks, and it almost makes me want to go into the office every day ... until I get there and realize I have no one to IM with, nor is there a hot lawyer hanging around to take me to lunch.

Nighttime is My Time by Mary Higgins Clark
One of MHC's best in years, it had me guessing right up to the very end. Very exciting with lots of human interest touches (high school reunions, babies give up for adoption at birth, first loves, and, of course, the resident psycho).

The Princess Diaries, Volumes I through IV by Meg Cabot
I'll be the first to admit, after seeing the movie a few years ago, I was very, very, VERY reluctant to read these. But the movie DOES NOT DO THESE BOOKS JUSTICE (nor does Mia ever ONCE utter the phrase, "Shut up!"), they are a fast read (it usually took me about two hours to finish one), and let's face it, princess or not, Mia Thermapolis is every one of us who've ever been a teenage girl ... except maybe Lana Weinberger.

Dating Dead Guys by Harley Jane Komerk
By far, the most original mystery I have read in years. The author proves that not only is she an accomplished actress (Parenthood), she knows what readers want--a mystery that's actually mysterious, and originality with some romance thrown in. Am anxiously awaiting the next by HJK.

To the Nines by Janet Evanovich
Admittedly, this is the second time I've read this novel, but it's just as funny as the first time around. In fact, I read it so fast last summer, that I could remember very little about it so it was almost as much fun this time around. After reading two books from her Full series this summer, I experienced such profound disappointment with them that I knew I could only be cured by revisiting some classics. To the Nines rose to the occasion.

Other 2004 summer reads Miss Rixie recommends:
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
(and Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix as well. And Chamber of Secrets and the Sorceror's Stone, for that matter. J.K. Rowling is a genius.)

Ms. Simon Says by Mary McBride
Fun romantic suspense that a vacationer can breeze through.

Kill the Competition by Stephanie Bond
One of her best, although most of Ms. Bond’s are excellent. A few more years of exposure and she’ll be right up there with Jennifer Crusie. However, Miss Rixie does NOT recommend one of her early one’s, Manhunting in Mississippi, which was recently republished, and then bought and read by Miss Rixie this summer. Word on the street is some consumers are confusing this with a new release and said consumers are quite disappointed with it.

Bride of Pendorric by Victoria Holt
Imagine Wuthering Heights meets happily ever after. Suspenseful with an intriguing cast of characters. Just as good the second time around.


Next on Miss Rixie's list of BOOKS TO READ:
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding
Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich
Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Office Space: the Miss Rixie edition

Office Space: the Miss Rixie edition

So fellow readers, I am back at my summer position: interning in my dad's office. In case you missed out on the fun of last summer's work, let me direct you to the following blogs:

Friday, 27 June 2003
Tuesday, 14 July 2003
Thursday, 14 August 2003

Aah, good times, good times.

Usually I'm in a rather large office, but one or two days a week I'll be in a smaller office. One of my first experiences at Office B happened today. Office B is so small that all three of us in the office--yes, you heard right, all THREE--can hear exactly what the other two are saying, doing, and thinking. This has cut into the considerable time usually devoted to internet "research" (entertainment news) and personal emailing.

So the three of us in this office today are me, my dad, and this guy whose code name will be Norm. I chose Norm because that is his actual name. Everyone in Office A knows Norm is really lazy and doesn't do anything ever. However, Norm is the only full-time person who works in Office B. Everyone else from Office A stops by once or twice a week, but has their real office in building A in a completely different town.

Consequently, Norm never has anyone checking up on him and even when other people are there, he feels no need to change his usual daily routine. Here is what he's done in the last two hours: taken his wife to a doctor's appointment, gone to the bathroom with a newspaper for about twenty minutes (maybe twenty-five--men are so weird. Can you imagine disappearing for a half hour AT WORK while everyone knows you're just taking a crap?? I mean, he took a newspaper, for Pete's sake), smoked a cigarette, talked to a guy about how much work he has that he doesn't want to do, smoked another cigarette with this guy, made a personal phone call, made another personal phone call, shut off his computer and restarted it, and then, oh yes, smoked ANOTHER cigarette. Plus, he lights up before he goes outside, so I smell it. My hair will probably smell like smoke by the end of the day. Sheesh. Oh now, I hear him rattling a newspaper. I wonder if he reads Foxtrot.

Course, I shouldn't talk. Here's what I've done in the last hour: driven to a gas station to buy Diet Coke, eaten a piece of chocolate cake, written a resume, entered some case notes, thought about going to the bathroom and then decided I didn't want to go in there after Norm, wrote an email to a friend, lost said email to friend, considered rewriting email to friend, then reconsidered and wrote email to sister. Oh yeah, and complained to my dad about how I'm bored and want to go home. He said, "Eat some cake." I said, "Okay," considerably cheered. Yum! There's another woman that works in this office. Her name is Audrey and I like her a lot. The reasons for this are threefold.
1) She called me adorable.
2) Last Thursday she brought doughnuts and today she brought cake.
3) She also thinks Norm is a tool.

Just wanted to let you know--Norm was NOT reading the newspaper, he's reading a Tom Clancy thriller and just informed me that Tom Clancy is one ugly dude. Considering that not ten minutes ago, Norm told some guy, "It's so hot in here, my armpits are mildewing," I'm not exactly thinking Norm is attractive enough to pass judgment.

[Sidebar to my father]: Dad if you are reading this: I'm totally joking, I was busy the whole afternoon ... except for those times when you looked over and saw that I was not.

Mothers Know Best: A Mother's Day Edition

When I was born, while my mother was still in the hospital, a Special Transmitter was surgically inserted into her. This Special Transmitter is a secret among all mothers the world over. No one except other mothers get to know about it.

They call it Mother’s Intuition. And it can be as powerful as God.

When I was young, I used to imagine the ceremonial swearing in of new mothers. Someone important, who vaguely resembled my image of God, would swear my mother in. She would raise her right arm and swear to protect me. This was usually followed by something like, “I swear to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, no matter what my kid tries to tell me, so help me God.” At this point, God would agree to let her know, via the Special Transmitter, exactly when, where, and why her kid was lying. The appropriate punishment for the lying child was left up to the mother. That the benefit part of being a mom.

Over the years, as I baby-sat, taught swimming lessons, and entered the field of education, I began to understand that sometimes children are just so transparent that it doesn’t take any special transmitter to know when they are lying. But there have been enough experiences in my own life when my mother has amazed me that I have no doubt that Mother’s Intuition is the most powerful weapon in the world.

Like in eleventh grade, after we’d had a big fight and she warned me not to leave the house. But I did, and a car accident ensued. Mother knew best.

Like the day after I moved to college and couldn’t get my long distance calling to work. There was no doubt in my mind: If I don’t talk to her right now, I’ll just die! … and the phone rang. Mother’s intuition.

Like spring break of my senior year of college. “Bring home your suit just in case. You never know who may call for an interview!” “Mom,” I sighed patiently, “nothing’s going to happen in five days. I’m not that lucky.” But I know better than to ignore Mother’s Intuition and brought it home anyway, and when the phone call came for an interview, I was barely even surprised. After all, mothers know best.

Like when she said, “I just know if you can get an interview, you’ll get the job.” “But I don’t have that great of a feeling about it. I think he’s just calling me to tell me they hired someone else.” “If you can get an interview, you’ll get the job.” Mother knew best.

I was never one of those teenagers who took my mother for granted. I knew I had a great one. My friends envied me because she was so great. But it doesn’t cease to amaze me that even despite that, the older I get, the more I realize that even in the smallest matters, my mom always knows best.

Happy Mother’s Day, Mum. You’re the best…but then, if you know anything, you already know that.

Growing Up, Growing Older

I graduate from college the same month Baby Brother turned sixteen. The previous December when I had gone home for winter break, I was shocked and amazed to find out he was now taller than I was. Over spring break the following March, we went a movie together. It was the first time we actually went—together, and not as Sister and Her Younger Brother.

That same vacation, he offered me some advice on what to do when I started teaching ninth grade. He brought home his binder full of assignments and allowed me to look through them. He shared with me what he liked (“I really liked making a mobile based on a book I read. I’d show it to you, Rix, but it’s in my locker.”) and what he disliked. The amazing part of all of this was what he said was … useful. I wasn’t just humoring him, I was listening to him.

And then it occurred to me that I left home four years ago and have missed a major chunk of his life. I missed his first middle school dance. I missed when he sprained his ankle (both times). I missed when he got his driver’s permit. I missed his first day of high school. I missed the day he found out he got a part in the play.

I find myself wishing I wasn’t quite so much older than he is. This way, I think wistfully, I’d be around for important stuff. Like after he sprained his ankle and he and Dad drove to the hospital watching Mom following them in the rearview, giggling as she played with her hair—the nervous tic she can’t control when she’s worried. Or getting to stay the whole weekend and having another chance to see him in his first play after he got sick the night I came home specially to see it.

So I tell myself to think of the pros of being so many years older. What are the good things?

And then I see my six-year-old self looking down at his dark pink face in the hospital. I remember how I gloated to my young self because I got to hold his head(!) while Tara had to hold his feet because I was so much older. I remember how, after he got lost at the mall, he came running to me because I was safe, I was comfort, I was special.

What are the good things?

I remember marveling with my best friend that he’s getting so old and he’s looking so grown-up. I remember playing the “Who’s the nicest, sweetest, most genuinely caring person you know?” game with Tara, and even more clearly, I remember how we came up with the same answer.

And I think to myself I wouldn’t trade that fading, itty-bitty, barely-there memory of a newborn Brennan in the hospital for a hundred other memories.

What are the good things?

Oh, everything.

Happy birthday to my baby brother. May all your wishes come true.