Signature Scents

This week George the Younger experienced a surprising milestone. Surprising for him and surprising for me. He got his first pimple. He didn't know what to do with it. Neither did I. I kind just kept looking at it like it was some kind of small pox on his head. He's only 12 for the Love Of Pete. In my mind it couldn't be a zit. It had to be a viral disease of some kind. Obviously. Where did my smelling-like-milk-and-talcum sweet little chubby baby go? The way of the dodo. I am so sad.


I admit I kinda knew this was coming. I knew in the way that only mothers of boys know. I knew because in the past several months walking in to the boys bedroom means being assaulted with "BoySmell." In hindsight, this odor was a harbinger of adolescent-things-to-come. It's a odoriferous bouquet of sweat socks and jock strap with a subtle top note of stale potato chips. It's a scent sensation not entirely dissimilar to the highly recognizable "LockerRoom" or "WrestlingMat" fragrance, but not nearly quite as pungent.

"BoySmell" hangs insidiously in the air. You know it's there. You raise your nose to catch the whiff like a dog catching the smell of a nearby skunk. You glance around the room trying to determine the exact source of the odor so that you can eliminate it. You realize this is an impossibility.

I change their sheets regularly. I remove all dirty laundry within a 24 hour period. George the Younger takes showers daily of his own volition. Henry is thrown forcefully in to the shower every other day. George the Younger is also a BIG fan of Axe. I open their windows to air out the place on all days when the weather is not producing heavy rain or hail. In other words, I feel that all reasonable precautions are taken. And yet..."BoySmell"

The consolation is that I know I am not alone. I have spoken to other boy moms who know and experience this smell on a daily basis. We agree that the WORST social enterprise right now is a sleepover with more than five boys age 10-15. This activity requires a significant financial investment to purchase giant bottles of Febreeze and lots of open windows. Further, after a couple of years of confusion as to "what-the-hell-is-that-smell-that-comes-home-permeated-in-the-boys-clothes-from-camp?????" question - - I know. Copious long term exposure to "BoySmell". Mystery solved.

So, we got the smell and now we've got the pimple. I did what every Mom does when faced with the first adolescent zit. I laughed at him. No, I didn't. I'm not that cruel. Well, yes I am that cruel, but I still didn't do it. I went to the store and I bought him some good face wash, some decent moisturizer and some keihl's version of pimple cream. If you remember, I myself have recently experienced some breakouts. So, I went for the good pimple cream since it looks like I am going to have to share it. Geeze. "BoySmell" and the sharing of cosmetics. A new era.

Girls and Poppies

Last week an unparalleled annual event came to pass. My girl scout cookies were delivered. Boxes right to my front door from a darling little-sash wearing neighborhood girl scout. Fabulous. In past years both my daughter and my sister have taken the initiative to purchase these little morsels of delight and put them in boxes to send to me in several overseas locations. For that, I was eternally grateful. This year, now that we are US dwellers once again, I could buy them on my own. Somoas, Thin Mints, and whatever the ones with the salmonella-less peanut butter are called. All uncharacteristically yummy. In just a few days we have nearly polished them all off. Sad.

Simultaneously, I have been catching a number of recent news stories about the horrendous goings-on in Mexico between the various drug cartels. Lots of killing over turf and market. Just the other day I was listening to an NPR story regarding the economic connections between the voracious drug consumption of the US (demand) and the drug production and distribution of Mexico (supply). Which got me to thinking. If the demand from US customers was so high that Mexican suppliers had something to really fight about (to the point where they were both willing and able to execute competitors) who were all these customers? It niggled me for a bit. Where were all these drugs going? If the story was correct and thousands upon thousands of pounds of drugs were being shipped to the US, wouldn't we see this drug consumption on a daily basis? And not just in the places that are obvious - I'm talking about everywhere. That's a damn lot of product. I was thinking about this just as I popped the 20th Samoa in to my mouth. And then the penny dropped. Hmmmm? Was there a connection there?

It had crossed my mind a few days earlier as I gleefully wrote the check for a wee tidy sum of money to my little green sashed supplier - why on earth were these cookies so damn expensive? Why was I so willingly, no, so zealously, writing a check for this particular type of cookie? Baked goods that, per unit, were insanely more expensive than any other mass-produced boxed cookie available in the US cookie market place? More importantly, why did I have to immediately place the Samoas in the freezer to keep myself from ripping open the package right there in the hallway and rabidly eating them one-by-one-by-one until the entire package was nothing more than shredded paper and crumpled plastic? Could there be something more to my shaking hands, rapid breathing and glazed eyes than just the thrill of seeing a girl scout on my doorstep?

With this small seed of girl-scouts-gone-wrong planted in my brain, I actually took the time to peruse the ingredients listed on the side of the Samoas package. Not surprisingly, there wasn't an actual opiate listed anywhere. But who's to say that it isn't hidden in the TBHQ, the Carrageenan or the invert sugar? Yes, Wikipedia has defined all the aforementioned ingredients. Lots of scientific jargon that is supposed to give the consumer some comfort that these things are just emollients or elasticizers or whatever. But, is it too far a leap to think conspiracy here? Everything leans in that direction and where there's smoke....

I'm not saying that there is smack laced in the cookies, I'm just saying it's all a little too suspicious, don't ya think? Girl Scout Cookie time and Mexican Cartels gone awry simultaneously? Exorbitantly high prices and glaring mystifying changes in your ability to govern yourself when eating them?

I'm just saying that I know that there are only 10 somoas left in my freezer. I'm considering hiding them inside a package of fish sticks so the boys think that they are all gone. Is it wrong to lie to your children about some cookies? Or is it just a sign of deteriorating moral turpitude brought on by an insatiable craving?

I'm just saying that I know that some time in the month of March these cookies will go on sale in front of grocery stores and Target and Home Depot. This makes me very happy. "Happy" as in I can scratch that little "girl-scout-cookie-itch" one more time this year. Addiction is an unkind master.


(Personal Consumption / Addiction Management Tip: If you put Samoas in the freezer you cannot, without risking chipped teeth or annihilated dental work, eat them ravenously. You must plan ahead for the 2-3 minute defrost time thereby putting the brakes on thoughtlessly consuming more than you had planned. Just a little helpful hint to other Samoa eaters everywhere. Unfortunately, this tip does NOT work for Thin Mints. Cold merely enhances the addictive attributes. For Thin Mints, just accept that an entire sleeve equals one hit no matter what the package says.)

TP

As I have mentioned before, there is always something interesting (often in that this-is-incredibly-stupid interesting way) in the San Francisco Chronicle. This week the interesting thing was NOT that the Chronicle is losing millions of dollars on publishing their paper, because frankly, who is making money these days in newspaper publishing? The interesting thing was an article on Toilet Paper. Yes, apparently this is important news. Why?

This was critical news because it was a Wednesday (and evidently an excruciatingly slooooow news day) and some ridiculously savvy, quite observant and ran-out-of-ideas reporter determined that what we really wanted to know about was American's penchant for really, really soft white TP. According to the article we LOVE TP. We like to use a lot of it. Double rolls, giant rolls and super giant rolls (which as an aside DO NOT fit in to the recesses in the wall designed for TP in a house built in the 1940's. Strangely, the girth of TP rolls has swelled substantially since this construction period). American wipers prefer their 4x4 paper sheets to be cushiony soft, with lots of air bubbles blown in to them or tiny little quilt patterns impressed in their 400 count softness. TP has gone the way of sheets. No more are the basic sheets good enough for anyone. Cotton count must be extraordinarily high. We love it. We just frickin can't get enough of it.

Don't get me wrong. I am fully ensconced in the camp of liking soft toilet paper. Having lived in a few countries that do not prefer their TP to be soft, I can personally attest to its level importance in daily-life-satisfaction-levels.

While living in Frankfurt, I believed that I had cracked the nut as to why German's are often perceived to be a somewhat gruff and querulous people. After uncovering the crux of the issue, I now submit that they aren't just perceived as being grumpy. They are in fact perpetually irritable. Why? Toilet Paper, of course. Think about it for a minute. Imagine having to wipe the most sensitive parts of your body regularly with little brown pieces of scabrous sandpaper. Now get up every day and put a smile on your face. Not likely. Change the TP, change the attitude.

I have applied this philosophy for other countries as well. Take SE Asia for example. In most remote locations, there is often a lack of TP altogether. What you have are: hole in floor and access to water. Now, while this is not optimal in the western sense, these folks are not surly. They are relaxed. Why? Because of the nice soothing water and the absence of harsh or coarse materials near their privates. Tender treatment = happy people.

And finally, let's talk about Japan. For a big city, Japan is by far one of the cleanest cities to dwell. This goes right down to the toilets. No matter where you are, and this applies to toilets in the subway (Yes, the subway), the toilets are clean. I'm not talking about eat off the floor kinda sanitary, but at least you can always go in and if you can't train your kids to hover effectively or for a long enough period of time, you do not have the immediate problem of getting them to a medical facility for a "silkwood" scrub down. I would rate the TP in Japan at mid-range. Not too soft, not too coarse. It isn't always available in the toilets though. They do, however, often hand you little packages of it as you are walking down the street. Yup, this is considered one of the premier advertising schemes. TP in most months, fans in the summer. So, the paper itself is moderately comfortable, it is provided to you free and the bathrooms are clean. All factors = mainly serene people. (footnote: this does NOT apply to the Japanese folks hanging out in Roppongi on any evening. This is a completely different story for a completely different post)

But, then we get to the US and my argument falls apart. It does not work in the US. If it did, we would be so unbelievably blissful! Someone would need to find a way to tether us all to the ground since our euphoria would be so great we would float away in to the atmosphere. In the US we have access to unbelievable soft wiping materials. Walk in to any grocery store and you will find an entire aisle devoted to singing the praises of no less than 30 brands, makes and styles of TP. It's almost too much to bear. Buying TP is like having to decide on new car options every time you shop. Seat warmers? Auto-defrost? Quilts? Little Bears or little angles? Amazing. US toilet paper is so velvety that there are now commercials dedicated to letting us know that sometimes it's so damn downy that little pieces of it can stick to your ass. In other words, dial down the silkiness a bit and buy OUR product that's still chalk full of heavenly softness, but tough enough that it doesn't leave lint in your crack. But are we a happy people? Nope. We are not. We are an ungrateful complaining sort. "Find and exploit the Negative" - - that's our motto.

Still, I'm leaning towards the hope that my TP philosophy really does work. It's just that as American's we have just gotten WAY too comfortable with all the crap that we've got that we've got nothing to want for. In other words, maybe there's a negative effect in attitude when the TP is just too velvety. You know, the whole "too much of a good thing" adage?? So, I have an idea. Let's borrow some TP from Germany.

That's right. Take all the downy soft quilted triple rolls off the shelf and put in some good old German cheap stuff for about 6 months. Let everyone suffer through a half-year of red irritated butts. This will be the main focus of our lives. When your ass hurts - it's hard to complain about much else. Folks will no longer complain about the economy, the job-less rate, the whole here-we-go-to-hell-in-a-handbasket issues. Newspapers will be filled with stories of ragged sphincters and how to correct the problem. In the meantime markets will correct naturally, chicken little will stop screaming that the sky is falling and the republicans will start to love the democrats (couldn't resist that one). When we put the nice stuff back (having surreptitiously pulled back on the throttle of softness a wee bit)... voila!! Immediate attitude adjustment with in acceptable ranges for countries with soft TP. Moderately soft quilted = calm and contented Americans. Hand me the Nobel.....



p.s. The article was actually about the fact that US toilet paper cannot be made from recycled paper and therefore was a BIG drag on global warming. Softness = lack of rain forests. From now on be informed. Wipe your butts with your own conscience. Not only is it affecting our ability to perform as a contented nation, we're destroying the earth as a result. Crap.

My Home Boyz

On Sunday night, the boys decided that a little photo op was needed to show their most fierce Asian gangsta member faces. A quick contemplation of this picture leaves me with the indubitable conclusion that there isn't a whole lot to fear here. Assuming that they were total strangers and I stumbled across them vandalizing some random local property, I would fearlessly approach them, quickly flick them both on the forehead and inform them, in my most pedantic motherly tone, that they were grounded. This would be opposed to say, some really fierce looking gang members where I would be more likely to cross the street, clutch my car keys in the classic eye-poking-out position while averting my eyes lest they think I could ID them in a post attack line-up through my my own battered black eyes. With these two guys of mine, I might even grab them by the ears and drag them home to their mommas... You go my fuzzy bears: Henizzle and Geoizzle..



In other news, we have been without internet service since Sunday. Over the past few days I have had the opportunity to reflect on how dependent I am on electronic access (regardless of how crappily slow our connection is). I have been unable to do the following CRITICAL items:

One. Live my life vicariously through other people's lives on various blogs, emails and facebook.

Two. Satisfy my essential need to complete the crossword/Sudoku/Playfour on various on-line newspapers (please note I don't necessarily read the news there - - I just do the puzzles. I would also add that doing the puzzles at the beginning of the week is pivotal to my self esteem for the remainder of the week. Beginning of the week puzzles = easier = feelings of contentment and success. Later in the week puzzles = more difficult = lack of success and feelings of abject worthlessness)

Three. Respond to life-or-death emails from the school on issues such as what I want to bring for the pot-luck meeting on Thursday night, or donations for the school auction in April. (O.K. technically I could respond to these emails via my blackberry, but I am woefully inept at typing anything other than "lk342 lk03na *7hskj" on my tiny little key board. Weirdly, when I was a working stiff I could punch out incredibly long missives including font changes differentiating between "nice boss" type and "mean boss" type. I was proficient. Now I am maladroit. Like I said, weird).

And last, order a new grill cover since ours blew away during a recent wind storm and cannot be located in any of our neighbors back yards. It is likely somewhere in San Jose or choking an endangered aquatic mammal to death in the Pacific ocean.

I have also been unable to do some less-than-urgently-important things like - take care of my year-end health care spending account and re-enroll the boys for school next year. (yes, I know that these should take precedence over the aforementioned items. But, we're talking about things I want to do versus things I need to do. See the difference?)

And, so as to mention the obvious - - not having internet meant that I needed to: a) Dial AT&T for help; b) Come to grips with the reality that my idea of "help" (aka ASSISTANCE) was clearly not AT&T's definition of "help" (aka Provide-unlimited-doses-of-frustration); c) Spend 47 minutes in the que waiting for said "help"; d) Realize that those 47 minutes of static laced hold music were a total waste because the person on the other end of the line spoke English with the same level of fluency as my dog Otto; and e) Be told by the person with limited language proficiency that I now needed to talk to another department whose wait time was, in her opinion, much shorter. She was accurate that the wait time to get a "person" was shorter. She was way off on the amount of time that person (admittedly one that spoke our native language) would put me on hold while trying to figure out the problem only to finally get back on the line 30 minutes later to tell me that he was going to have to open a trouble ticket and that a line manager would call me back in 20 minutes so please don't use your phone between now and then since they don't have the capability to call me more than once. Yup. That's helpful.


Good news is that we have internet back on line. Other good news wrapped in bad news is that the speed of internet service that we have been paying for is not that which has been being delivered. This means that I may be able to quit yarping so mightily about US internet speed. But, guess what - - I got me another "Problem Ticket YN74DX0" outstanding. I cannot use my cell phone for the next several hours while I wait for them to call me back. I have decided to send my home boyz over there to rough them up about this issue. I mean, if you've got homies - - you may as well use them.

Up and at 'em

When Shannon was small, I used to wake her up in the morning by cheerfully chirping, "Up and at 'em." Several years ago, I guess she heard the phrase again and realized what I was really saying. It was discovered that for many years she thought I was ushering her in to the morning by brightly shouting "Up and Adam!" Turns out that for a dreadfully long time she has been secretly wondering who the hell Adam was and what did he have to do with getting up in the morning. Funny girl. I was reminded of this yesterday when I was clearing photos from my cell phone.

The boys occasionally requisition my phone and take shots of random things like floors or car tires or the branch of a tree. Yesterday, as I was cooling my heels in The King Coffee Shop (where I hang for an hour while the boys do their Kumon twice a week) I was bored and remembered that I could use that time far more effectively than to purchase and then eat the oatmeal-raisin cookie that was screaming my name from behind the counter. Yes, I could occupy myself by deleting stupid photos from my Blackberry. I came across this one and I laughed right out loud in the coffee shop. Sadly, I may not be able to go back there again since I have now likely earned myself the moniker of crazy-person-who-laughs-loudly-at-nothing-that-anyone-else-can-see. Damn, cause those cookies are really very yummy.

I took this photo of Henry several weeks ago at around 7:00 in the morning. I know it was taken several weeks ago because he still has a whole head of hair versus the now stubbly short hair he has been sporting since the head shaving lice incident.

I snapped this minutes after after I had been bellowing up at him to:

GETDOWNSTAIRSNOWWENEEDTOGETTOYOURORCHESTRAREHEARSALBY7:45OR WEAREGOINGTOBELATE!!

I figured I would diffuse the already tense, and becoming tenser, situation by taking a photo in lieu of say pouring his un-pictured cold milky cereal over his sleep tousled head.

The result is an image that is HIGHLY representative of what Henry looks like in the morning. It captures, in utter perfection, the essence of Henry "I am not a morning person" Wisniewski. Had the camera been turned back on me it would have presented the lunatic look of a Mom who plainly doesn't have the right skill set to deal with a cranky 10 year old in the early morning hours. Especially when said Mom had already lovingly made the entirely ignored and unappreciated mug of hot cocoa you see next to him.

Oh, and we were late for orchestra where he did arrive with his hair looking exactly like it did in the picture. He was wearing the clothes that he is shown resting on. I believe I had to wrestle him in to them. Classic.

The SFS Bears

Last week George the Younger's sixth grade basketball team made it to the finals. They were 8-1 heading in to the semi finals. They won their semi-final game in a nail-biting-down-to-the-wire match. They were tied at the half and scored the winning points in the last 50 seconds of the game. Talk about some happy kids when that game was over!

Unfortunately the finals didn't go so swimmingly. They lost miserably. 30-high to 20-low (I am sure George the Younger could tell you the exact score. It will be burned in his memory as only one of those it-was-totally-unfair-they-were-teenagers-and-we-weren't-moments can be).

They played against a team called Live Oak. They shoulda been called Giant Redwoods. These kids were HUGE. They were 7th graders, but according to the league rules they were still allowed to play in the 6th grade division. Still, they were unnaturally mountainous even for 7th graders. Now, I can't say for sure, but I harbor some suspicion that they have some kind of genetic engineering program over there at Live Oak. Perhaps their snacks are laced with highly potent growth hormone. They looked more like our coach than they did our kids. When one of their gargantuan players stood on the line to make his free throw, I saw arm pit hair when he tossed off the shot. And you know what that means? Arm hair = other hair. Our little baldies were playing against bigger kids with willy hair. Uh Oh!

In the end the Bears couldn't adjust their passing game to the immense wing-span of Live Oak and rebounding was like watching 5 Shaq's playing against an opposing team of Lilliputians. It was gruesome. It was fodder for a Brother Grimm story. I suppose there must be some kind of moral here though. I wracked my brain in the car on the way home to try to think of it, some sage wisdom or words of comfort for him. I came up with: Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. How's that for creative insight? Stick to the oldies I always say. I also took him to The Great Steak Escape for dinner. There's nothing like a cheese-steak and a rootbeer to take away the sting of defeat.

We got Rain

We are finally getting some much needed rain here in the San Fran area. After daily news stories shouting loudly about our impending water rationing - it looks like we have added a couple o' inches to our dwindling reservoirs. Somehow I doubt these few days of rain will be the answer to our prior pleading to the Gods of Cloudburst for water - - please send rain!! - but who knows. Perhaps it will keep raining for the next couple of weeks and all my neighbors will rejoice that their lawns will be saved. Not that rain means anything to them.

After a full day of rain yesterday and the day before and the day before, I caught a non-downpour moment to get out and walk Otto last evening. I observed that not one, but two, of my nearby neighbor's sprinklers were busy watering their already sufficiently drenched lawns. So much for the filling up of the reservoirs. Me thinks that the folks here in the Wood don't really give a wet mole rat's hide about rain or lack thereof. A green lawn trumps all. Dopes. I'm sure they walk by my lawn - which is currently a combo of green and light brown - and snidely comment that it would look a whole lot better if I just ran the sprinklers.

In other news, today is the last day of a four day no-school weekend. The rain did put a bit of a damper on getting everyone outside - but it was also a convenient excuse not to do a damn thing. We did try to go to the movies once, but it was sold out. The nice thing is that my guys are getting old enough that we don't need to don layers of foul weather gear to take them out for a walk any more. They are past their puppy stage and running them around to burn off excess energy is no longer a daily requirement. This is not to say that a little exercise doesn't do them good, but it isn't compulsory now. We can send them downstairs to become immersed in Wii - and it works just as well.

Truth be told, all the boys mostly hung out upstairs on the computers and played some game called "Ghost Recon". This means that I have listened to "Follow ME!", "He's got a grenade!", "Where ARE you???", "HEY!! I'm on your side. Why are you shooting at me???" for the better part of two days. Meals were opportunities to recount countless dangerous missions and how many times they killed bad guys or were killed by bad guys (or by each other). Heartwarming. I tried to get them to play something more interesting like Dominoes with me - - but many eyes rolled in unison. To be fair, George the Elder lamely tried to convince the boys that a non-combative game would be nice. But, in the end, they played mercenary fighters and I was afforded some time to myself to watch ice skating on TV. Nothing like watching a few triple axles or salchows end up badly. Cause after all - isn't that what we're all waiting for? Skaters sliding akimbo on their butts? That's what rainy days are for.