Allowance

Lately my son has been saying the most profound things to me. I want to write them down but he says them in the car or right before bed and I forget. About two weeks ago, I picked him up from jiu jitsu and he was explaining how he was wrestling with a girl named Gabby. She's 14 and she's the niece of the owner so clearly has a leg up. But she beat Will again tonight.

I asked Will what he thought about that.

And he said, "That's okay mom. I'm not some guy who thinks women can't do things. Women can do whatever they want."

Also this month my son decided he wanted to get back on the allowance thing. He kept saying I'll do whatever you want but make a list. And I kept saying you know the list. Make your bed. Put your dishes away. Blah, blah, blah ad nauseum.

I made a list. And he started doing the things on the list.

But, he doesn't necessarily do them first thing. Or the way I would. Or in the correct order according to my system. That's in my head. That must be correct. Because it's in my head that way.

So the other night I was clearing away dishes in his room. He said, "Mom, I'll do those things in my own time, if you let me."

And I thought, doesn't the meaning of allowance have something to do with allowing?

Goodbye to the Fighting Finn

ARLINGTON, TX - Inez Risher, a long-time Arlington resident and business owner, died Monday, September 13, 2010. She was 95.

Mrs. Risher was a force to be reckoned with and her legacy lives on with the family members she leaves behind. She and her husband of 62 years, Jim Risher owned Risher's Furniture at 108 N. Collins Street. For nearly 50 years, she sold furniture to generations of loyal customers who often came by just to chat.

Although many people would consider it unusual for a woman to start a business in the 1950's, Mrs. Risher never gave it a second thought. She worked seven days a week, wheeling and dealing, from behind her rickety desk that sat on an unforgiving concrete floor. She did her hair, got dressed up and wore pretty, not sensible shoes. And she always drove a Cadillac.

Mrs. Risher was born to Lempe and Arthur Lindquist on October 9, 1914, in Monessen, Pennsylvania. Her parents were both from Finland and Mrs. Risher only spoke Finnish until she began attending school. Later in life, she still used Finnish phrases particularly when trying to discipline her unruly grandchildren. She met and married her husband Jim while living in Canton, Ohio.

The couple moved to Texas from Ohio when their young son and only child developed asthma. The plan was to continue on to California but they made a pit stop in Arlington and never left. Her son, Jimmy as she called him, grew out of his asthma and went on to become a star athlete at Arlington High School.

Unwilling to bend to tradition, Mrs. Risher was at her core a businesswoman. She kept a tidy house, she made a mean pigs in the blanket but her stove was broken for the last 20 years of her life. In a 2001 interview, she said, "I like to work, and I'm very happy that I can work. I guess I've never had a job that I actually disliked." She did love to garden and maintained a beautiful home on nearby Meadow Oaks. She had many beloved pets that she spoiled to distraction.

Mrs. Risher followed local and national politics and was an outspoken Texas Democrat. Heaven forbid someone mention FOX News or the Republican party at the dinner table.

She had a tendency to give people too much credit, literally at her store, also in her life. Her husband played the heavy. At 6' 6" nobody dared mess with Grandpa Jim. Except his wife. He did whatever she asked, in part because he knew there was no sense arguing with her. And, because as time wore on, he seemed more in love with her every day.

Her wicked sense of humor and infectious laugh will be missed.

A Man Needs a Maid

When I was a kid, my dad had tons of records. LPs they're called. Vinyl. You can only find them in vintage stores or garage sales these days. You can glimpse them in the John Cusack film High Fidelity.

One artist my dad loved is Neil Young. I was thinking about a song on Young's Harvest album entitled "A Man Needs a Maid." Young writes, "Just someone to keep my house clean, fix my meals and go away."

About six months ago, I started working full-time hours for a client. For the fifteen years prior, I have been steadily self-employed, running my own agency and then freelancing. When you work for yourself, you get used to calling the shots. You also get used to other fun stuff like being self-insured at $1,500 per month. Still there's something to be said for having the freedom to come and go, being able to run away to Ethiopia for example.

The adjustment to working full-time outside my home has been tough. In some ways, it's great. I know where I'm going everyday. I have my lunch buddies. In other ways, it feels very strange.

The biggest issue for me has been getting used to being away from home. We had to find after-school child care for our son. I can't throw a load of laundry in the dryer whenever I need to or wear crappy sweat pants all day because no one is going to see me anyway.

Mainly I've noticed how quickly my home fell into disrepair. I can feel the dust collecting on my bare feet. Clothes that need ironing are piling up in the basement. We eat out more often than in the past. Homework is a disaster. I can't make lunch everyday for my son.

These are the issues all working women face. I've always looked with envy at the other moms who are so organized. Even when I was at home, I wasn't organized. But my house was clean and the laundry was done and I cooked.

I was at a baseball game the other day - pretty much my entire social life at this point - and I was talking to other moms about what they have in their purse. I did have Advil that one of the dads needed. I have money, chapstick, a coin purse and a brush. But there are those mothers who have it all. Socket wrench? Check. Tourniquet? I can fashion one out of a handkerchief. Nail file, snack items, motor oil, cake knife, matches, corkscrew, flashlight, etc. All there and somehow neatly tucked away but at the ready for any occasion.

I can't even find my keys.

Now my house is in a permanent state of neglect. I'm not sure what the desired state would be, but I think ideally I would be able to find my keys. When you are the maid and the math tutor and the nanny, it's annoying. It's difficult and thankless. When you're a working mom, you really need a maid.

My husband and I were talking last night about work and stress and what we really want to do when we grow up. He asked me what I wanted to do and I said lately I've been obsessing about buying a truck. Not a new truck, but an old truck. A pick'em truck as my grandpa used to say. My husband said, "What are you going to do with a truck? Drive a bunch of baseballs around?"

"I'd head west," I said.

I was driving to work one morning and I heard the Avett Brothers covering a John Prine song called "Spanish Pipedream". I got the chills when I heard this refrain:

Blow up your TV. Throw away your paper.
Move to the country. Buy you a home.
Plant a little garden. Grow a lot of peaches.
Try and find Jesus, on your own.

NB I'm dedicating this blog to my friend Lisa C. who is one of those moms who does it all. I learned a very important lesson from her. Throw the dirty athletic cup into the wash with the rest of the baseball uniform. Now why didn't I think of that?

I'll Never Be French

I'm reading a very funny book by Mark Greenside called
I'll Never Be French. I haven't finished it yet but the premise
is he follows a woman to France for the summer and ends up living in Brittany, at least part time.

Something like that happened to me although I haven't yet had the good fortune to make France my semi-permanent home. I did live in France as a student and fell in love with the country and the people. But the women were a mystery to me. I was a junior in college then and not really a woman myself. But I could tell these women, even the college students, weren't like the gals back home.

That's why I enjoyed the rare opportunity I had this year to live in close quarters with a French woman. I warned my friend Sylvie before we left for Ethiopia that I would be taking notes. And I did. So here's my homage to Sylvie and other French women who have become less mysterious to me but remain something to aspire to versus something I am.

Here's what I learned from living with a French woman.

French women invest in fashion

Maybe they learn it from their mothers or maybe it's part of the secret code, but French women understand that great fashion is timeless. They make investments in stylish, timeless pieces. A great trench coat, a classic handbag. When you amortize the cost over a lifetime of use, it actually makes more sense to spend big.

Of course this brings up another quality French women have.

Fait la regime

French women are very aware of and also take action to keep themselves in good shape. One thing I have to say is that while in France I did experience some of the most ridiculous workouts I've ever seen. In that regard, American women kick ass. I went swimming and there were couples making out at the edges of the pool. I went to aerobics and people were smoking outside of class. But, French women manage to stay pretty much the same size throughout their lifetimes, hence making investments in fashion, makes sense.

Fait la regime you'll hear all the time in France and it's basically a commitment to very quickly turning around any weight gain by dieting. There's no packing on 25 pounds and holy merde what happened? French women and men closely watch their waistlines and make quick adjustments where needed to slim down. So their size is their size, for a lifetime.

French women paint

After spending a day in an Ethiopian orphanage cleaning bathrooms and god only knows what, we came home to our spare little room and collapsed on our spare little twin beds. I don't remember what I did but it wasn't much. My friend Sylvie on the other hand took out a small sketchbook and watercolors and proceeded to capture a scene from the day's events in her book. And I remember thinking wow. First she had the thought or preparation to bring paints. Second, this was obviously something she did as a habit. Third, how cultured? Like a lost art, no pun intended.

French women have really nice underwear

You know when you get Victoria's Secret catalogs, or sadly no longer get them because you're not their demographic anymore, whatever, a-holes - but I digress. You know when you get those catalogs and you think, mmm that probably hurts. Or geez I really don't think my butt will look like that in those. Well French women are wearing that underwear. It's not so much even that it's tiny or lacy, it's just that it matches. I mean my underwear collection compared to Sylvie's is appalling. I should be appalled. What am I thinking? I'm dead? I'm wearing the underwear of the dead.

Come on American women. We need to step it up. Go see your local bra whisperer. Find a beige and a beige that match. Or isn't torn. Or isn't from 1984.

Come on.

French women moisturize

I never really thought about moisturizer until I hit 40 and now I think about it, but I'm not really committed to it. Eh whatever, right? Oh I forgot my sunblock in the car and it's like 200 yards from here so I'm not going back. My friend Sylvie always wears sunblock and always puts on moisturizer. And it shows.

French women don't take shit

This was interesting for me if not a bit uncomfortable but I really noticed this quality when I was travelling with a French woman. French women do not take shit. Whatever Protestant-based or Catholic, Quaker, Pilgrim-based guilt American women seem to carry around, French women do not abide. We were flying to Dubai and the guy in front of me basically reclined his seat into my lap during take-off, something that is technically illegal according to made-up airplane laws. Well Sylvie immediately pointed out his mistake explaining that my tray table was now positioned directly under my rib cage and he needed to remove it, all in a way that was charmante. He moved...and then I think he went to fetch us some free champagne from first-class.

Because while American women are intriguing, even beguiling, French women are extraordinary.

"One is not born a woman. One becomes one." Simone de Beauvoir

Grasping at Thin

For my age. For my location. For my peer set, I'm still pretty fit. Not thin. But fit. At Christmas, or really it begins at Thanksgiving, I climb on to a slippery slope known as holiday weight gain. "Hey it's the holidays. I think I'll eat a bunch of nuts covered in crap I used to spackle my bathroom. "

My neighbor just brought over a chocolate mousse. Not an ordinary MOOSE mind you. This is chocolate mousse swimming in Oreos. Like mousse itself wasn't fattening enough. And god love her, I'll eat every bit of it. "Thanks Shelly," I'll wave to her, my arm fat swinging in the wind. (The Hanging Gardens of Babylon according to Erma Bombeck)

Sometimes I think about letting it all go. Bring it. Bring on the skinny legs, huge belly. Bring on the holiday sweaters with stirrup pants. Bring on the "dressy" track suit.

Like a long lost lover, I occasionally glance my gym. I think to myself, "Don't I know you?" Then those horrid recollections come flooding back like the time I took that Pilates mat class and the smell of AXE body spray.

As I sit here blogging, I can feel my muffin top longing to escape my mid-rise jeans. "Please let me out," she says. "I can't breathe. "

Suck it up muffin top. I'm not ready to let it all hang out. I'm picturing a slow descent beginning with Spanx worn daily and then those whale rib numbers that Scarlett O'Hara wore, until one day I walk up to my husband, unzip my velour track suit jacket, and my stomach drops to the floor.

Erma Bombeck also wrote, "Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart. "

My Vicious Circle

Three of my friends are facing cancer scares. Tomorrow I'm having lunch with one of them. Yesterday a friend had a biopsy. Over Thanksgiving another friend flew to Northern California to say goodbye to her sister who is in stage 4.

It's taken me a long time to make these friends. I'm a pretty shy person at heart. I can talk to anyone one-on-one, but walking into a cocktail party full of people I don't know is like agony. My three friends are all very different, have very different backgrounds but they share a common thread.

At this point in my life, I'm not interested in talking to someone who is all "Up with People". Actually another friend of mine just met an "Up with People" person. That's not for me. Unless she's willing to share some "Up with People" dirt, because you know there's dirt.

My three friends were all willing to share their flaws with me. That's what I like. I've recently become closer to a high school friend I didn't know very well. We ran into each other at the gym and I was explaining my theory of looking for chinks in the armor. She exclaimed, "Oh I love the chinks," which didn't come out right but I totally got it.

I know many women who put on that face, that suburban "my children are perfect, my marriage is perfect, all is perfect" face. Well I am deeply flawed so I don't know what we're going to talk about after I run out of nice things to say about my son. He's perfect or nearly. I am not.

My three new friends, and all of my friends that I have now, are willing to admit their flaws. That quality makes them perfect to me. Those flaws are the things we laugh about or cry about. It's the imperfections, in my humble opinion, that make us interesting and beautiful.

Sometimes when I run or sneeze, I wet my pants. Just a little. Hey I had a ten pound baby, okay? One of my friends lost custody of her young son to a jerk of an ex. But they've spliced together a close relationship as adults. One of my friends admits she's not that close to her dying sister. One of my friends has a daughter that doesn't fit the timeline of her marriage. One of my friends is almost surely getting a divorce.

We're all flawed and imperfect and ridiculous. For me, it's easier to let it all hang out.