(Eli howled the whole time I was editing and uploading this video. I haven’t laughed this hard in months!)

To continue fielding the questions that LM’s school seems willing to pose to our children (but not define or actually answer), last night I was posed with yet another stimulating conversation starter with my eleven year old son.

“Mom, the counselor told us that HIV/AIDS is spread through ‘unprotected sex’. What does ‘unprotected’ mean?”

I saw this one coming a mile away, didn’t I?

Oh how I miss dinner conversations about the dog.

As if being Friday isn’t enough, here are some reasons we are celebrating today:

1. The sun is shining and it’s in the upper 60’s. (Enough reason for me to throw a party, I swear!)
2. With the break in the weather, I will get the deck sealed (tonight) before my new downstairs neighbor moves in and puts furniture out on her patio.
3. LM has TWO loose teeth. Not a big deal to most kids, but to mine, who has lost only two on his own (read that: without the aid of plyers and the dentist) we are all THRILLED!
4. I am in contact with a foster agency closer to my home. While I love the one I’m in training with, it’s a good hour to their door and I will need to go back and forth often for supervised visits with the birth family. A closer agency also provides me with more local resources and knowledge about day care providers and respite care. YIPPEE!!
5. Eli seems to be much happier now that we aren’t putting him in his crate each day. He still has an occasional accident, but we’re learning the why’s and how to prevents, and we’re all much happier (well, except the kitties, who have now banished themselves to LM’s room…)
6. This weekend the Red Sox play the Yankees which means: I WILL GET TO SEE ALL THE GAMES (since network television seems to think these games are important or something…)
7. NASCAR has its first night race of the season in Phoenix on Saturday. ’nuff said.
8. Today was garbage and recycling day which meant the loads of recycling I had brought home from the office are now out of the utility closet and out on the curb. I can finally see the pile of laundry left in the closet…
9. My laptop is finally home after nearly two weeks of being at the repair shop. We have more memory, we’ll have a new wireless card and we should be running smoothly all weekend. (What this means to you is: I’ll finally be able to post the video clip I’ve had on the camera for over a week!)
10. Newly has an ultrasound pic on her blog – just go see it, it’ll make your heart leap.

In Kingsbury’s debut novel, she reminds all of us of the desire, the innocence and the price we pay for our first loves. With phrases that turn over in you mind like the heat rising off the Mississippi pavement, a story unravels about the love, secrets, redemption, loyalty and loss. Kingsbury juxstapositions the desperate sexual tensions of teenage love with misguided physicality and the limitations of societal acceptance on honest emotion.

While a bit explicit for my tastes, Kingsbury captivated me from the early pages with her writing style. With the rhythm and flavor of her phrases, the reader is drawn in to the deep south, to the intimacy of secrets, to inherent passions. Characters and a setting unfamiliar to my life’s experience become seemingly familiar, as though the summer history of Haley, Fletcher, Riley and Crystal was my own.

There are some aspects of the novel that I felt were underexplored while the physicality of relationships seemed overdone. The end seemed an abrupt summary lacking the same flowing explanations we had experienced throughout. For the intensity with which the characters had come together, I struggled to understand how easily they seemed to accept loss.

Pre-arranged plans:

LM and I have eye appointments at 6 and 6:30, since they could take an hour or so (with exam and picking out new frames) I suggest to J that I just keep LM at my house for the night instead of J taking him as he usual does on Tuesdays. J agrees.

2 days before the appointment, I call to verify with J that we’re all set for Tuesday just being a “Mom Day”. J changes the plans.

New plans:

6:00pm, LM’s eye appointment
6:30 – LM will pick out new frames (if necessary) while I have my eye appointment. (The woman at the eye place is really awesome at picking out frames – well, except for the ones she talked me into last time – and she can at least narrow them down and then I can just have the final say when my appointment is over.)
7:00 – J will pick up LM from the eye doc so they can have their usual evening together. I will pick out my new frames after my appointment.

Reality as it unfolded:

6:00pm, J arrives 5 minutes after we do for LM’s appointment. eye doc is running behind schedule, so J and I sit and chit chat in the waiting room while LM reads a book (“Eragon” for the 7th time).
6:30, LM has his eye appointment. J and I continue our chit chat in the waiting room. Topics discussed: our current laptop issues, a letter from the alumni chair at our alma mater, LM’s cold and the medicine I packed for his night at J’s, and J’s partner’s 15 year old daughter’s new boyfriend (and prom date) and how that’s impacting J’s partner.
7:00, my turn for an exam, LM’s time to pick out new frames. I ask if it’s okay that he interrupt my exam when he has his options narrowed down so that I can give final approval. Doc suggests “Dad” help with LM’s choices. I try to cover my laugh, but tell J he can go help, but please still let me see the final options before a decision is reached.

J says to the optometrist, “I guess good fashion sense is a gene I should have inherited but somehow I didn’t.” Which would be a sort of funny joke if the optometrist knew that J was GAY and that he’s not actually my husband as everyone is currently thinking in the office.

J and LM leave the exam room to go pick out frames.

5 minutes later, LM is in the room modeling a pair of frames. “Um, I don’t love them,” I say. “I do!” replies LM and off he goes. “We’re ordering them in brown!” comes a shout from the frame-woman in the next room. Well, so much for Mom getting any say-so.

LM and J leave and I think I’m finally on my own to wrap things up. Following my exam, I meet with the woman in the frame room and she helps pick out a number of frames for me to try. She remarks what a “lively” child LM is. “He’s an only, isn’t he?” she asks. I confirm her thought and remark that apparently he has finally realized he has a choice in what he wears and decided to exert himself for the first time this evening. Frame woman says, “Your husband doesn’t stand a chance with your son, does he?” Realizing that in about 3 minutes of interaction time, this woman has realized the truth, that J has never had much parental control (or desire for it) over LM and that in tandem, LM often comes off as the adult. I don’t correct her thought that J is my husband, recognizing the innocence of the remark.

As I swap frames back and forth I am surprised to suddenly see LM standing in the doorway. They had gone to dinner and were now back in case I wanted more say-so in LM’s frames, although LM has no intention of looking at any other ones. I let it go. It’s his choice, it’s his face. I ask LM what he thinks of the frames I have on my face. J says, “You don’t want to know what I think of them.” Well, no, truly, it isn’t an opinion that matters to me, but I would look rude to say so, so I say instead, “No, go ahead, tell me.” Regretting the words the moment they fall out of my unchaperoned mouth.

“You look just like my mother’s yearbook photo with those frames.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll take these other ones,” I say to frame woman.

I’ve been divorced six years now and I’m still having to deal with my ex husband and his MOTHER?! Say it isn’t so.

I cannot wrap my mind around the events that unfolded at Virginia Tech yesterday.

The only words echoing through my mind are

He was somebody’s son. He was somebody’s son.

As we mourn those that lost their lives, I think it is critical that we find solutions – not people to blame – but solutions. We need to know our children. We need to know one another. We need to make sure our children and one another know God.

He was somebody’s son.

To ensure they only get truly serious, aware and educated parents for the foster program, the organization I’m working with puts their candidates through a series of torture tests to make sure they will be able to withstand the drama, chaos and mahem expected in a foster placement. The first of my set of torture was to make sure that trying to get to the 5:30 meetings on time would be virtually impossible, no matter how early I leave work. It seems that the entire route there is a drive-with-your-head-up-your-butt zone. My second torture test occurred last week when they showed us slides of abuse photos. I’ll admit, that was tough to look at and really tough to conceptualize. While I could clearly see how that mark on the child’s back resembled the loop of an electrical cord, I had great difficulty imagining any parent actually INTENTIONALLY doing that to their child. I know, it happens. Obviously. But I had trouble getting my mind (and heart) around it. I am proud to say, however, that even those slides did not deter me and I returned again this week. Another torture test given to me is the mounds of paperwork required for application. Copies of everything from my marriage and divorce decrees to my pets’ vaccination records to my driver’s license and my homeowner’s insurance is required. I also had to fill out more background information than was even required for my government secret clearance (every place I’ve lived since 1975 and everyone who has ever lived with me since that time.) I’m proud to say, I’m about 95% done with the paperwork.

Today, however, was a new and more serious form of torture. As we progress through the 12 weeks of class, I expect each test to get harder to overcome but this one today was nearly a setback. Today I had to have a physical.

Worse yet…

I had to step on the scale.

Let me just say it wasn’t a pretty sight.

I also had to have a TB test and will have to go on Monday for blood work but that all pales in comparison to the fright of stepping on a doctor’s office scale. I was proud of my physician, she didn’t scream, she didn’t pass out, and she didn’t call the paramedics (not yet anyway, we’ll see how my blood work comes back). You would think she had been through this torture test before.

As I write this this morning, my heart is still palpitating from the shock. I might have to call a therapist later this afternoon (I promise his name won’t be Mr. Ben OR Mr. Jerry!) I only hope that whatever they throw me next week is not nearly as torturous as “The Scale”. Chinese water torture? BRING.IT.ON.

A more serious side note: I am by no means a “high risk” candidate for HIV/AIDS, but have thought it is a reasonable idea that perhaps I should be tested. While I for one know my own carefulness in this regard, I cannot vouch for the other person(s) involved. Just to be certain and safe, I have thought it wise to get tested. This will be the third time I have asked to have the test performed alongside standard blood work. This is the third time the physician I spoke with has suggested I do not get tested, or that I do not get tested at that facility. The first doctor told me to just go donate blood, saying that was as good of a way as any to find out (yeah, great, and risk contaminating someone accidentally?! Um, NO THANKS!) the second one told me that if I didn’t THINK I had HIV/AIDS then don’t bother. Today I was given a more reasonable explanation when she suggested I go to an “anonymous clinic” as it can turn up negatively on a life insurance request years down the road if I just asked to be tested without cause for concern. Again, I have absolutely no reason to even think I’m at risk, but it amazes me that in a culture where people can be spreading the virus without even knowing it FOR YEARS, that we don’t make this a mandatory test with any blood work performed. I will still get tested, I will find some “anonymous clinic” to have my blood drawn at (that doesn’t sound good, does it?) but I think we need to make it easier and more routine for people to be tested. Even those of us trying to make the effort are finding it difficult. What about those who have reason to be worried? (stepping off soap box now…)

If you’ve spent any time around me at all, you know that I cannot, for the life of me, ever refer to my son or my brother within the same conversation without mixing up their names. I’m horrible at it. When they are in the same room, look out, I might as well just not even try to get it right.

It’s not hard to imagine why I do this. Being 8 years older than my brother, in my mind, little blonde-haired, blue-eyed boys will always be G.

Always.

Happy Birthday, baby brother!

LM’s birthday is at the beginning of May. Knowing he will probably like to invite two classmates over for a sleep-over/bowling/pizza party like he did last year, I started looking at the calendar. I have bell choir in church the one weekend, making Sunday morning a VERY early morning (too early for an after-sleep-over morning!) and the next Mom weekend we may have company here. If we put it off until the end of the month, it’s Memorial Day weekend and I suspect the kids won’t be available for a party then.

I IM’ed my ex to talk about options, namely to see if I could swap a Saturday night so I could have him on a different weekend.

J misunderstood my request and said they would be happy to host a birthday sleep-over…

I took a breath and then explained my actual request.

He said that was fine, too, just to let him know, but if LM wanted to have his party that weekend, he could always do it at his dad’s.

I said I would talk to LM about his options and let him know tomorrow.

Most mothers are busy with the cake, the party invitations, the schedule for the actual party, getting a great gift, favors for all the party attendees…

Me? I’m busy trying to explain to my ex husband how his homosexual lifestyle might impair his son’s desire to invite friends over to the house. I never thought the preparations for my son’s birthday would include carefully crafting my wording to my ex husband so as to not insult him, while still supporting my son’s choice to NOT reveal his dad’s homosexuality to his peers.

How do I get my ex to look at the situation through an 11 year old boy’s eyes and realize there is no way LM is comfortable enough with my ex husband and his male, live-in partner, to invite over his best friends for his birthday?

How did this ever get to be my life?

I can’t think of one. Not ONE. I’ve been thinking it over for the last couple of days, amidst all the hoopla and I cannot think of one.

There is no word in my “white, 30-something, single, Christian mother” vocabulary that I think is appropriate for me to use, but not for some white, 30-something MALE, or some black 30-something female, or whatever.

What Don Imus said was wrong. Horribly, unapologetically wrong. It was insulting. To women. To African-Americans. To anyone with a sense of decency. It was wrong.

And it is equally wrong for rappers, for the rich and famous, for star athletes, for my neighbor down the street, for ME, to use such terminology to describe another human being. It is NOT okay for some African-American to use the terms Imus used but no okay for Imus. It is, across the board WRONG.

Should Don Imus be fired? Well, I suppose that depends on the goals of that company. If they are in the money-making business with morality aside, then follow the likes of Howard Stern and give him a promotion. If you are in the business of trying to be a role model, trying to raise our standards in this nation, of trying to demonstrate a level of decency towards one another, then fire him.

But as consumers, we can take a stand no matter what happens at the corporate level. Sponsors are pulling their dollars from Imus’ show – that’s in response to consumer backlash. If we refuse to buy rap albums, movies, magazines, products of any nature that support or promote violence, discrimmination, abuse, ignorance – they will cease to exist.

It is not up to the radio to decide for us what is decent and kind for humanity.

It is up to us.