The Flip Side

For all of you who consider yourself "on the ball" - I have one tiny question...

Aren't you nervous about falling off?

Sometimes You Get Beaned

This is George the Younger playing catcher at Sunday's bball game. This is my stellar ability to catch a photo of the ball trajectory only milliseconds before beaning him on his well protected noggin. The photo also captures that he has his eyes closed while awaiting the beaning.

There's a life lesson for all of us in the photo:

Sometimes you get beaned when you most expect to.

Sometimes you get beaned when you least expect to.

In either case, it's wise to keep your eyes closed while it's happening.

Better yet, when armed with the right tools, it makes the most sense to at least get your damn glove up to protect yourself.

Here's to keeping your own glove up. Happy Wednesday!

Insurance and Earthquakes

Alas, once again we have found ourselves living in a place where the threat of earthquakes is real. First Tokyo, the KING of earthquakes and now SF, a place of lesser royal descent. In Tokyo you get the "thrill" of feeling the earth shake on a regular basis, your kids have quake-preparedness-bags, you actually keep bottled water in your house and shoes by the bed. In SF, we are complacent. We know there was ONE. We suspect there will be another ONE. So, we prepare by talking about preparing, and of course, spending money on Earthquake insurance, "just in case."

Over the last weeks I have been in the process getting the right level of insurance for our belongings. During this pursuit, I have (unfortunately) come to know a few things I didn't really want to know about insurance:

• Earthquake insurance is expensive. As in, "sorry kids, there'll be no college" kind of expensive.

• There is a reverse correlation between what you pay and what you get. You PAY a shit-load for earthquake insurance and YOU get a thimble-full of coverage. Should an earthquake occur, I can maybe get my house rebuilt. What I can't do is replace anything that is actually contained in my house. The State of California regulates how much you can cover your "stuff" for. The maximum "stuff" coverage is $100,000. Seems like a lot of moola, doesn't it? Okay, but now take a quick second and calculate what you think it would cost to replace every thing in your house - every couch, every chair, every glass, every spoon, every item of clothing. Hmmmm? 100 grand doesn't seem to go as far you'd think, eh? But, there's an interesting catch to this - - - The interesting thing is that should your house collapse in an earthquake AND THEN BURST IN TO FLAMES - - - well in this disaster scenario, your regular insurance also kicks in with your earthquake insurance and you are covered for your regular "stuff" coverage. Now that I know this, you can bet that there will be some minor changes to the Wisniewski-Earthquake-Preparedness-Drill.

• Things that are truly valuable are not technically covered under your "contents" insurance - neither in your regular policy nor your earthquake policy. You must carry these valuable things under a completely separate policy. AND, in order to carry these on your separate policy you must get some one to give you appraisals for all this stuff. (Might I just interject here that getting an appraisal on a couch is not the easiest thing in the world?) But, let's focus on artwork for a sec. See the above picture? I own this painting. I love this painting. I want to insure this painting. So I call the insurance agent. She says get an appraisal. I get a letter of value from a gallery owner that represents this guy. She says this is not good enough, I need a "real appraiser". I say that seems like a whole lot of appraising (aka $$$) for something that is a great painting, but not exactly a Renoir. We talk some more, bantering about the risk/reward of spending $1000 for an appraisal of a painting that's not by Picasso and right before we get off the line she interjects sort of off-handedly, "Well, you could always just get a letter from the artist." (Like this option has just occurred to her in the moment) Hmmm. So we go from needing to get an independent expensive appraisal to the artist just getting to say how much the thing is worth? I know the artist, I can get the letters. My question is - who says that the artist is right? I guess this doesn't matter. Still, food for thought. I'm thinking I can use this my advantage.

Now, armed with this essential insurance information, after the next BIG one in San Francisco the following events will happen in succession in the Wisniewski-Earthquake-Preparedness-Plan:

1. We will grab the necessities and quickly and efficiently exit our home


2. We will immediately torch our home using our craftily designed incendiary device which will have been installed to avoid detection from any pesky arson experts after the fact. We will be smart this way!


3. We will claim on our insurance policy for our house, our stuff and... the one billion dollars each (say this with your best Dr. Evil imitation) for the slightly lopsided ceramic leopard crafted by Henry in London, the three small ceramic bowls used to hold paperclips and safety pins that Shannon made in 1993, and the triceratops-gecko-lizard-mutant sculpture that George made in Germany. We will be able to collect this amount because we will have the aforementioned "letters from the artists" to support our value.
   

Who'd have thunk it? Elementary school art paving the way to securing our financial future. And there I've been bitching about having to display (and dust) this stuff over the years. I was missing the whole boat. It's good to have a plan....

Two Down - none to go

Headed back to school again last night for the second in the series of 2009 back to school nights. This one was for the elementary school. Disappointingly, we didn't get any pithy humorous insights into the mind of a fifth grader from the head of the elementary school like last week's middle school soiree. It's probably just easier to make fun of middle-schoolers since their behavior is so damn obviously nutalicious!

We did the standard fare of meeting with the teachers . They did their spiel about what they were going to cover this year. And I must publicly confess that to me, all of their prepared comments sound a lot like white noise at this stage of the game. Why? I calculated yesterday afternoon that I have been to a grand total of TWENTY-NINE back to school nights in my parenting career. Holy crap.

This is why I only listen to a small part of what the teachers are actually saying. I get to "we're going to focus on diving deep in to the travails of Lewis and Clarke" and then HMMMBZZZZZZHMMMMMMBZZZZ. If, while heading to my car on the way out of back-to-school night, I was taken hostage by some nefarious terrorists and my very life depended on answering the single question of "What is Henry going to be covering in language arts this year?", I would be discovered several days later in an alley behind the SF School with a bullet in between my eyes.

I would be unable to answer since I was trying to see what in god's green earth Henry already had jammed in to his desk as of week three of school. What kind of mother am I that my give-a-damn about exactly what he is going to be studying in the "critical" fifth grade year is easily eclipsed by wondering why the hell he has so many pieces of crumpled up paper, three broken pencils, two mashed dixie cups and a pile of pencil shavings in his desk? Moreover, why is his desk so full of miscellany and his desk mates seem to have nothing in their desks at all? Is this a sign of some mental illness or malady? Or, is he just a slob? Many questions....

But, speaking of questions... While I was half listening to what can only be described as the wha-wha-wha of Charlie Brown's teachers, what I was decidedly half-listening for was when the teacher genuinely paused and asked the parents for questions. This never happened. Not once. Not the regular teacher, not the language arts teacher, the music, the art or the PE teacher (although what would you ask the PE teacher anyway - - but that's beside the point). Not one to be deterred by the lack of an invitation, I raised my hand at the end of the regular teacher's patter/jabber and blurted out, "What is your philosophy on home work and will the kids be getting any during the school year??"

You see, here we are at week 3 of school and Henry has had exactly ONE night of real home work. This lack of homework is driving me crazy - - cause if it's one thing I am balls on certain of as a parent is that idle hands ARE the devil's plaything. And the second thing of which I am crystal clear on is that when 6th grade rolls around Henry's going to be hit blind-sided with with the two-by-four-called-homework if he doesn't get some real practice in this year.

I'm not all for make-work just for the fun of it. Or, maybe I am? No, really, what I'm for is about 30-40 minutes of real applicable work that means he has to sit his happy tush down at the table for that long and GET. IT. DONE. ALL. BY. HIS. LONESOME. Instead, he rambles around the house gritching about how he's not allowed to do anything until George the Younger gets his homework done and why does it take him so long and why do I have to wait to watch TV until he's all finished and why do I have NOTHING to do this whole time and why do I have to.... Get the picture??? It's making me bat-shit. To use an overused idiom: If I had a nickle for every time I say "because" to Henry in the afternoon I would be able to hire someone to say it for me while I calmly finished reading the paper.

It doesn't look like there will be a change in the homework situation. The teacher gave us some pablum about how we all have busy lives and they already work so hard during the day at school and he doesn't believe in make-work and his teaching style is about the creative discovery method. This translated to me as, "I, as the teacher, am too damn lazy or busy to plan this out and implement it for your child." Good news is that I got a little pat on the back from about half the other parents who wanted to know the same thing I did.

At least I am not alone in my frustration. Little comfort this will be at 4:00 this afternoon when the Henry-banter begins again. I thought about creating some make-work-home-work for him myself. I mean, if you want something done right do it yourself, right? 'Cept, I have a little problem Houston. I have no idea what it is they are going to study. Note to self - next year pay attention in back-to-school night.

Good TV

My sister was on the Today show this morning. She wasn't one of the feature stories such as the woman who was impregnated by some other person's embryos or the little girl who was nearly mashed by some car that backed up faster than lightening on to the 7-11 parking lot sidewalk but was miraculously saved by those cement posts that usually just make dents in your fenders, but this time actually served a purpose of saving some sweet kids life. Nope, she was just kooky enough to get up at the absolute butt crack of dawn to stand in line in front of Rockefeller Center for her close-up - right next to Al Roker.

She called me slightly after my own pacific coast butt crack of dawn - knowing, with some degree of certainty, that I would be awake already yelling at the kids - oops - I mean getting my loving off-spring ready for their day at school. She was on TV!! Turn on the TV!! We turned on the TV - a real treat for the non-daytime TV family that we are - and waited to see her. And - YUP! There she was. Smiling for the camera with her bright pink poster proclaiming her success at scaling Kilimanjaro which was recently signed by one of the hosts (sorry Deb, can't remember what her name is). Very cool.

I have to say it's a bit hinky seeing your relatives on TV. I suppose that the siblings of, say, Katie Couric, are immune to it by now - - but we aren't a TV appearing family on the whole - so, it was a little bit of a thrill. Hey!! I KNOW HER!!! Kind of thing. And since it was a nice benign TV appearance, I admit to musing on how incredibly grateful that I wasn't seeing her being hauled away in cuffs or running from the cop car into the courthouse with her head ducked down or covered by a bath towel - cause then I would have to have to come up with a deeply witty version of the standard response in the interview of the perp's relatives where they say something like "Honestly! I've known her my whole life and had no indication whatsoever that she planned to walk naked through the NYSE!! I am shocked!!"

In other words, I am grateful that my family is not amazingly newsworthy, but just has the dedication to rise before the sun and eagerly wait in line, sign in hand, just to be seen on morning television just for fun. So, Aunt Deb! Way to go getting your mug on national TV! You looked great....

The tree

Saturday was a nice sunny day here in the bay area. The perfect day to send all boys outside to do some boy things. They decided on a little football toss on the front sidewalk. Football in hand they headed out the door - peace settled inside the house and I started working on the "application package" to our HOA for the remodel.

Soon, I was immersed in all things "neighbor-notification" and I wasn't paying too much attention to the fact that my silence had been broken with the sound of the door opening and slamming closed a few times. At the fourth slamming, I noticed Henry come in the kitchen to retrieve the broom. A highly suspect activity since the only time Henry uses a broom is when I am standing over him forcibly making him sweep up some mess or other he has created. Still, I thought to myself - ooooh! Maybe he's going to sweep the front porch! I briefly considered telling him to go and get the "outside broom" from downstairs, but then I thought, "What a sweet kid to just up and sweep the porch of his own accord?" so I let it go.

Slam number five indicated Henry's arrival back in the house about three minutes later. I was again optimistic that perhaps he was just back fetching the dustpan. You know - - any job worth doing is worth doing well and all that? But, instead, he reached for the mop. Hmmm. I was damn sure he wasn't going to swab the sidewalk - - so my curiosity was peaked. I had to get up and check it out.

Alas, I should have gotten up two slams earlier. I arrived on the front porch to find not only the football stuck in our holly tree (which was oddly trimmed to resemble the kind of tree you might see on the cover of a Candyland in previous efforts to "market" the house prior to the sale) - but my "inside" broom was unceremoneously sticking out of the top of the tree where it had been sent as a projectile to try to unjam the ball. All three boys were noodling to think of the next best thing to throw at both the broom and the ball. Hence, the mop. So, before they were able to sacrifice yet another household cleaning implement to the stuff-eating-holly-tree. I gently suggested a ladder might be helpful here.

George the Elder was first up. There is no photo of this, as George the Elder is not a big fan of heights. I had to stay and spot him. This doesn't make much sense since logically, if he was to fall off the 10 foot ladder, there are only two not-so-good outcomes. One, my flight/fight response would kick in and I would impulsively step out of the way to avoid being crushed by the big thing that was falling out of the sky - OR two, I would try to catch my husband as he plummeted to the ground. The first would result in only one person having to visit the emergency room. The second option likely would have rendered us both needing an EMT and left without anyone to drive us there. As fate would have it, he didn't fall and was able to retrieve the broom.

Without a whole lot of urging or convincing, George the Elder stepped down from the ladder of doom and allowed George the Younger to take over. Luckily, after several good "pokes" with the broom - and some directional advice from Henry who stood on the porch and yelled LEFT LEFT when George the Younger should have been going RIGHT RIGHT until I figured out that the whole mirror image thing needed some coaching - the ball popped out and the day was saved.

I never did get the chance to finish the HOA stuff. After the excitement of using the ladder - Henry decided that he was done with football. Oh well, I got a good 30 minutes in before the extraction was necessary.

Stupid is as....

In thrilling news, I attended the SF School middle school back to school night last evening. The head of the middle school gave an informative and humorous opening talk about the mental and social state of your basic middle schooler. And while I appreciated all her stats and figures, all the research in the world wasn't necessary to remind me that yes... middle schoolers are a special kind of nuts.

Presently, I am trying to get a grip on the difference between female middle-schooler (for which I have experience, e.g. Shannon) and male middle-schooler (for which I have no experience, e.g. George the Younger). Females: lots of intense verbiage, overt stressing over things like friends, clothes, who-say-what-to-whom-when-and-how-did-this-effect-my-social-life, cute boys, non-cute boys, lots of tears, some screaming, and early PMS. Boys (so far in my experience): Increased non-verbiage, lowering of voice, realizing that there are "cool" and "not cool" guys at school and wanting to be one of the cool ones, clothes, more frequent use of hair gel and the absolute inability to remember anything that went on during the entire school day.

I can confidently say that there is at least one commonality between the two - - a ramped up snarkiness in every day tone of voice. In some respects, this surliness makes the whining that they did as toddlers pale in comparison. That is because it is this particular tone of voice that is the clear and unequivocal sign to all parents that, in the minds of our own children, we are relentlessly becoming more stupid and obtuse as the sun sets on each day.

If you could see your head the way your middle-schooler sees your head it would look like your face, but it would be eerily surrounded by a fizzy little cloud of brain information that is leeching out of both ears and nostrils in equal and unceasing amounts. They can see this like a good psychic can see your glowing aura. We, as parents, can not see this as we are neither mediums nor middle-schoolers. By the time these kids get to high school, they are confounded as to how we lucky we are that our heads have not collapsed from the increased pressure on the outside pushing against the vacuum left behind on the inside. Their befuddlement is augmented in later years as by this time they have been studying at least basic physics. Shouldn't our heads have deflated?? It's against the laws of nature and yet - we still carry those empty orbs around making their lives a living hell as if by sheer will and magic.


So, as our children become "smarter" and crazier, we become "dumber" and crazier. Now there's a combination that makes the teenage years an interesting conundrum and challenging period. I'm so looking forward to it!

But, for now - - middle-years: here we are!! May the best man win. I've got my money on me. Brain or no.