Are you Skype-hot? (Or, The Victory of the Pear)

Skype-hot
[skahyp -(ht)] adj. informal: hot/attractive from the shoulders or neck up
variation: Skype-hotty (adj) (antonym: Skype-dog)

I've discovered (invented) a new word. Like most words, it was borne due to a need in the language for a description of a certain slice of reality. Here's how I came upon this need:

Situation 1: On Christmas day, I was happily heading towards the brunch table, when a relative of mine sidled up to me. He started talking about his daughter's diet, how she had "ballooned up to 195" but was now down to a decent weight, and still headed in the right direction. I nodded at him, and thought it sweet that he was such a doting dad. He trailed off, for some reason, and left for a few minutes, but came back with more info about the diet. He then told me that he thought I might be interested, given my WEIGHT. As though it is an entity unto itself. As though it warrants a mention. Suddenly, I was no longer an attractive woman wearing a nice (LOFT) ensemble, with pointy-toed slingbacks. I was Miss Piggy, with little hooves. I was (am?) a woman who appears to be struggling with her weight. Beyond depressing.

Situation 2: At (ironies of ironies) the Mighty Taco drive-thru the other day, I had no choice but to block a jeep from leaving as I waited in line. One of the men accepted my apologetic gestures, and then motioned for me to roll down my window. When I did, he yelled to me, "You're hot, so I don't mind". I laughed sort of hysterically, and felt good for about 3 minutes, until I realized that Miss Piggy probably looks pretty good from the neck up, too.

Situation 3: Each year, the American Philosophical Association has its annual meeting, which involves hundreds of academic job interviews, on Dec. 26th. This year, the meeting was cancelled, due to the east coast snowstorm. And it so happened that this revolutionized the philosophical world, because, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. Since very few people could make the interviews, the philosophical world resorted to Skype interviews. And they discovered that this is a great way to save money. My husband, who is Chair of his dept., also pointed out that it's less sexist: people are only seen from the neck up. (As my follower, Emcy, said, a lot of smart pear-shaped people are going to get hired). He actually told me this when I got home from Mighty that day. And so, it gelled: I'm Skype-hot. Hot (if you will) from the neck up. From what you see in a Skype interview, or the car door window, I might warrant a second look. But, alas, get me out of the car, or meet me in person, and my WEIGHT has a life of its own, apparently.

Don't you think that the English language needs this word?

Which Jane Austen heroine are you?

I

Take the Quiz here!
I am Elinor Dashwood of Sense & Sensibility! I am practical, circumspect, and discreet. Though I am tremendously sensible and allow my head to rule, I have a deep, emotional side that few people often see.


Can this be true??!!?? 

The Importance of Paper Airplanes

      Last night was my husband's weekly "poker game for nerds". He and some of his colleagues meet at a local bar to have dinner and drinks and discuss an article that they've read over the past week. Last week the article had a substantial part of it devoted to what sort of property the elasticity of a rubberband is. Last night this group of professors from local colleges discussed whether the same piece of paper can be an airplane and a letter. When I wake up at midnight to his dark form in the bedroom, groping through piles of clean (or dirty)  laundry for his pjs, and ask him how it was, he usually says, "terrific".

      That's the problem with philosophy. It can look absolutely ridiculous from the outside (and my description isn't helping). Having my hands full all day with 3 little ones, I see it out of context and can see how people scoff at it. Or run from it. But, for example, when I read Epictetus' writings on Stoicism, or Locke's writings on political philosophy (which, I will say, I am forced to re-read because I assign it to my students; otherwise, I just don't have the time!), I remember why I love it. And why I want my kids to read it. And love it. (Which is the kiss of death). 

        In any case,  I worked a "double" yesterday so that my husband could discuss paper airplanes. 

My Grandmother is in a Comma...

It's nearing the end of the semester. When I used to teach in front of students (as opposed to narrating powerpoints, which is what I've been reduced to), I would tell them to warn their grandparents, other close family members, and friends, that this point in the semester posed a serious threat to their health, and possibly their lives. I know this because at the end of every semester (and sometimes in the middle, as well), students are hit by tragedy. Their grandparents die, their childhood friends are killed, a relative is stricken with something that requires the student to maintain a bedside vigil... Of course, all of these things prevent them from taking the final or writing that last paper. So, I would warn them, at the beginning of the semester, that they may want to advise family member to take more precautions then usual around midterms and finals. Some would laugh. Some would not warn their family members and then, as predicted, something would happen. I would then ask for the obituary. I'm serious.
You can imagine how this sort of thing is universal. So, every semester, my husband and brother (both of them teach as well) compare notes on this sort of thing, and on students in general. A few days ago, my brother received an email in which a student told him that her "grandmother is in a comma" Now, call us calloused, but we laughed and laughed. He even said, "this is funny on so many levels". Then we started rehashing old student stories. Like the student who wrote the following in an email to me:
You are probably very surprised that I am emailing you considering I know that you received my previous email where I fired at you good with both barrels. I will admit that I was under a lot of stress and still am.
Or the student who plagiarized my husband's paper and handed it in to him. Or the student who plagiarized a paper on plagiarism.  
I wouldn't say I'm cynical. But I do think it's important for all of you who know and/or are related to college students: dangerous days are ahead. You may end up in a comma.

A Sylvia Plath Thanksgiving?

For some reason, I feel like I've known about Sylvia Plath since I was born. That probably says something about my upbringing, or at least the influence on my life of my older sister. I also feel like I've known the words to the songs on "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band" since I was born. That would be my parents, formerly known as hippies.
About Sylvia, though: I find her really depressing, and not something that I'd pass on as great poetry/literature (mostly because she--and her most famous heroine, Esther Greenwood---are soooo depressing), but I will admit that she appealed to me during my teenage years. In any case, one line of her poetry (actually introduced by Emcee) has stayed with me. It's from her poem, Tulips:

The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea,

 And comes from a country as far away as health.

Now, what does this have to do with Thanksgiving, you say? The stomach flu. On Thanksgiving. One of the cruelest hands dealt to me, because the whole point of the holiday is to eat. Now, Providentially, I had anticipated my limitations this holiday, as far as hostessing, etc., and had ordered the entire meal from Wegmans. So, we were not that put out, although poor (Type-A) David studied and studied the instructions sheet and was in the kitchen for 4 hours, reheating the pre-cooked meal. But, I felt pretty lousy all day, and went to bed early. And all day, on Thanksgiving Day, 2010, health was as far away as a distant country. 

My Waterloo

            I am merely average in my housekeeping. I may actually be sliding slowly on the spectrum towards "good", but I doubt that I will ever be envied for my abilities. Nonetheless, since I've had my third kid, I've hit a nice stride: beds are usually made, floors and rugs are vacuumed, if not daily, every other day, and I like to the kitchen to be cleeaaan. If possible. My husband even comments that our house looks like a hotel, because of a general lack of clutter (don't look in the closets, David. He's blissfully unaware of many unseemly details of our life. Like our bank account). I even felt confident enough, a few months ago, to let my bi-weekly cleaning lady go. A good canister vaccuum and a Swiffer-like mop were pretty much her equivalent.

         But, regardless of how much my housekeeping will improve, there is always my Waterloo: The Armoire. (Yes, say it: "Armoire". Don't feel silly that you can't really pronounce it. No one can). The armoire sits in my living room, and is high enough so that the kids can't reach the top. It also is an arm's length from the door. So absolutely anything and everything gets put there: anything small that you carry into the house and anything that you don't want the kids to get a hold of. Right now, just looking at it from the couch where I write, I see a baby video monitor, vaseline, a camera., a change jar, Aveeno baby sunscreen. a pen jar, keys, and a basket of stationery. And that's just the first row. 

         So, why is this my Waterloo? No matter how clean my house is, the armoire always has stuff (junk) on it. It always defeats me. And it's no small defeat. It's in the main room of the house and absolutely everyone who enters (legally) sees it. So, the house may be tidy and clean but the armoire betrays me every time. 

         The funny thing is, I feel like I can blame this (too) on my genes. My sister bought my mom the print
 "An Irish Dresser" and I see a definite resemblance between that and my Waterloo. At least in terms of housekeeping abilities...(the camera shutter is slow or I would have caught our chicken passing in front of the armoire).

  

This great American Country

           One of my secret loves is country music. It's not actually a secret from those who know me, but I suspect I wouldn't be classified as someone who likes country music. When I hear certain songs on our local station (FYI: 106.5), though, I just, well, feel patriotic stirrings. They actually played an instrumental, twangy version of the Star Spangled Banner the other day (my kids asked what the song was and I tried to stop the tears from falling as I explained what it was about. I was driving and it just seemed a little weird and traumatizing, not to mention dangerous, to let myself go, emotionally).
          Anyway, I don't love all country music (I can proudly say that I just had to google a billboard chart to find Taylor Swift's name, so that I could explicitly distance myself from her), but I also don't know quite how to categorize what I do like. I think it's probably most accurate to say that I love it because it's American (except for that Aussie, Keith Urban, who I don't really like, anyway) and, from there, it's safe to say that I prefer the more outlaw end of country: Johnny, Willy, Kris, Waylon...Toby. But, then, that would exclude George, who I think deserves every single of those 50+ number ones. George, with his lifelong commitment to Norma, and his latest hit, "I found God today" would not hang with Willie. So, it's outlaw overlapping with Americana.
        It's really patriotism, though, that draws me to country. I heard a song the other day (Toby, in fact) about not messing with the US because this "big dog will fight when you rattle his cage" and it made me proud to be American. Not that I'm into wars. But, that's the American spirit: it's feisty, proud and independent. It's the person who owns their little brick ranch house, which is meticulously kept. Who considers the bank more of a foe than a friend, and doesn't want to borrow any more than they have to. Who clips coupons (that's just seems sooo American!), holds more than one job if they have to, and has a respectful fear of addiction. I don't know why I added that last part: GW Bush is in my sidebar and his struggle with alcoholism just seems very American.
        So, right now, while my CD player is broken in my car, and I'm waiting for a windfall so that I can replace it, my kids are getting a good dose of country. Because some of the songs are "adult", I alternate with classical, which just might cause someone's head to explode.
      

Why I do Racial and Ethnic Profiling

           I was at a dinner the other night (ok, it was a month ago when I started this draft, for those of you who know anything about my social life) and sat next to a formidable woman, a wife of one of my husband's colleagues (btw, "colleague" is a happy medium between "friend" and "coworker"). We really don't get out in the company of the colleagues to often, so most of my socializing is within my own comfort zone. But at this dinner, here I was sitting next to someone who answered my questions abrubtly and tersely and kept swirling her wine to get it to "open up and breathe". My own glass was disappearing quickly, making it more and more likely that I voice my own thoughts, which were that she should open up and breathe. Instead, I decided to just be myself. So, I glanced up from the menu and offered to her that I'm on a low carb diet. As it turned out, she too is on a diet, and this topic launched a thousand others. Well, not really, but what she told me is that as a child she was forced to eat coal miner's portions. I quickly deduced from this a very interesting fact--that she came from coal miners. This, is in turn, led to her telling me about her very Polish/German background, her father's mental illness, which may or may not have been related to his escape from the Nazis (!), and her hatred of dirt.
            All of these details actually put this woman into a framework that I could work with. No longer did I have a formidable university research psychologist sitting next to me. Who I really ended up sharing dessert with (yes, we did! At her request!) was a Polish woman, with some German blood, which made her a really hard-working, down-to-earth woman. Her tale of resealing the granite in her counter tops was just a peek into the incredible housekeeper she must be-- because she's Polish. And her success in her career is due largely to the intelligence and awesome work ethic that accompanies the Eastern European heritage.
           This is my confession: when I find out someone's background, I tend to generalize and assume that traits that usually accompany this are traits they possess. I will say, though, that these traits are almost always positive.
            So, when I find out someone is Irish, I can be pretty sure that an easy conversation will be had.
           Or when I find out someone is Jewish, I think "Type A personality and very hospitable". This has been verified time and again by my husband's family. I literally gained 5 lbs at our last visit to my mother-in-law's. And she is almost 80 and just recently began what I think is her 4th successful career: founding a museum of Jewish heritage. Her best friend, also Jewish, went to Princeton in her 50s and is a world-renowned lecturer and author with a position at Oxford.
            These are generalities (o.k., stereotypes) that I've arrived at through my own experience, so some may not agree. And I don't have an opinion on every group. But give me any of the above and I'd have a pretty robust opinion. I'll save my thoughts on Irish matriarchies for another post...

Selma and Pattie

For those of you who know me, you inevitably have run into, or heard of, my two younger sisters. This is especially true if you have kids the same age as ours, since we three seem to be in the same birthday party loop. At these parties (and at every get-together they've attended since they were teenagers), it seems that there is always a scene where these two sisters have an almost tangible bond between them, something like twins would have, which is manifested by--well, cackling is a negative and inaccurate way to put it. It's definitely dramatic laughter and it's usually a joke that only they understand. Just like twins.

My two younger sisters also have that typical sisterly bond with me (and my older sister); I can count on them for creative, enlightening opinions on anything from the mundane to the sublime. I can actually count on that from my older sister, as well (and my sister-in-law). But, despite feeling included in their lives, there is that exclusiveness to their jokes that reminds me, of, well, twins. And the dramatizing part of my mind always leads me to compare them (and my relationship to them) to Selma and Patty Bouvier, the twin sisters of Marge Simpson.

Which, of course, leaves me as Marge.

I'm actually not all that familiar with Selma and Pattie's characters. But I do know that, like the twins, my sisters have forceful personalities, ghastly, creative senses of humor, and a certain amount of chutzpah that makes for some really odd situations. Here are some examples:

When they were teenagers, we lived across from a ritzy golf course. The house across the street from us was owned by an up-and-coming couple that the decade would have deemed "yuppies". They would have parties on their lawn and my sisters, fed up with the pretentiousness of it all, decided to make it look like they were spying from their bedroom window that overlooked the house. "Make it look" is the operative term, because what they did was hold up beer bottles to the window so that it looked like binoculars were focused on the partygoers. How weird is that? Not to spy, but to make people think that someone was spying on them. That was the prank.

They were also notorious just for being themselves. Some of their victims were friends of my younger (and their older) brother. These were "cool" guys who got absolutely no respect from Selma and Pattie. One of these friends would walk around shirtless, reminding everyone in that decade of the up-and-coming actor, Brad Pitt. Selma and Pattie would laugh at him. Openly. And genuinely. Another one of these guys, now a full grown man, had dinner at my house not too long ago, and virtually paled when my sisters entered the room. He smiled a dry-mouthed smile at them and was pretty quiet the whole night. I think he actually said, "not you two" when he saw them.

I think Selma and Pattie (if I'm correct) scared Homer and made Marge appear kind of weak, but nonetheless on par with them. That's how I feel with my sisters when they're in their "mode": grown men can be brought to their knees and I just stand by and, if only metaphorically, do that disapproving Marge Simpson groan (<-click there).

My Own Greek Chorus

So lately I've been feeling like I have a Greek chorus in my head. This is partly because I just saw (again) "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", one of my favorite movies. But it's also because I really do have something like that in my head; the movie just articulated it as such. It consists of people I know who have strong opinions about some aspect of life. Because I'm either insecure, impressionable, or both, when I do something which they might opine about, I, against my will, imagine what they might say. They're like my own little Greek chorus in my head, booing and cheering for me, shaking their heads, wagging their fingers, and, every once in a while, throwing me a bone by nodding approvingly.

One prominent member of this chorus is--you guessed it--my mom. No mystery here, and if I didn't have a whole chorus of people other than her, I would think I was normal. However, my mom has very strong opinions--very strong opinions--so maybe she's the one who allowed all of the other people to enter. So, for instance, if I watch tv (which I don't very often, in deference to my own will, I'd like to think, but also to this prominent chorus member in my head), I feel as though I've started on the slippery slope to debauchery, laziness and just pure evil. Or if I say that my kids don't go to preschool, I sense the nod of approval from a woman who is singlehandedly trying to rid the planet not only of daycare, but of full-day kindergarten as well (oddly, this unpredictable chorus member is completely against homeschooling).

Another member of this chorus is my sister, who has very strong opinions about, well, everything. She especially zeroes in on shopping and housekeeping. And, actually, she is a renowned chorus member: other people obviously have her in their heads as well. One sister has admitted as much. And, for example, last week, when I bought $300 worth of full-price clothes, my mom (who had been babysitting the sleeping children in the car while I shopped) saw the measly amount of clothes I got for all of that money, looked at them for a minute and said, "don't tell ---". I actually did tell her--as sort of a defiant confession-- and when she said, "oh, who cares" (meaning that sometimes you just have to go full-price), I practically floated out of her house. I'd been dispensed from bargain hunting.

I also have a friend who is something of a fashion maven. Whenever I am in a shoe store, I (unwittingly) imagine her disapproving face as I struggle to make a decision. Anyone with any fashion sense just knows what to buy.

Some of these characters come and go. One of my friends is really nice and whenever I see her she occupies a niche in my head for a few days, shaking her own head whenever I do something petty and small towards others.

Or when I am suffering from the disorganization that is my life, the chorus member that is my husband wags his finger and says, "you need a system".

And I have a friend who, at least to me, appears to feed her children very conscientiously and very well. I sense her stare as I drive up to yet another window for another fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants fast food burrito.

There are definitely worse things than a Greek chorus that you don't need to treat with Lithium. But I do wonder why it is I'm so susceptible to peer pressure that I actually carry it around with me.

Making the Familiar Unfamiliar

Sometimes if I just stop and look at myself, I cannot believe what I am doing. Or wearing. For example, this morning I found myself wearing a towel on my head, and another wrapped around me, vacuuming a kitchen floor covered in spices. I stopped mid-vac and realized how ridiculous I looked. But, as they say...context, context, context. Only minutes before, I was taking my 3 minute morning shower, hoping that while I did so the children wouldn't be tearing the house--or each other--apart (I always imagine someone telling the tale of what my children did to make the news headlines and then shaking their head saying, "the mother was in the shower..."). I stepped out of shower and heard (yes heard) that deafening silence that tells you that the children are up to no good. None at all. So, I threw a towel on and ran down to the source of the silence, which was my children staring at a kitchen floor covered with the spices they had dumped on it. (Of course they chose the colorful ones, like turmeric and paprika, that show up in every seam in the floor). The vacuum was sitting 2 feet away and so I thought, "why not?", which is how I found myself vacuuming the kitchen floor in a towel this morning.

I know I'm not alone here. My sister, for example,  found herself standing in her backyard yelling, "put your pants on, Marmalute". Context: the toddler son of a Russian neighbor had disrobed in her back yard.

       
And a few days ago I answered the door for a friend and his son while wearing this headband and a black sundress:

Context: my 3 year old daughter had been fixing my hair when I was on the computer and, of course, I didn't notice--or sense, I guess--what she did. He didn't notice either.

Bertrand Russell described philosophy, in so many words, as making the familiar unfamiliar. Raising these kids can be so--well, overwhelming is the wrong word, but something along those lines---absorbing? that I don't see the hilarity of it all until I stop and look at things objectively, i.e., make the familiar unfamiliar. Then I think it's worth writing about.

The Sages of our Society

            Yesterday I decided that it was the day for a big weekly (or, in my case, sometimes, biweekly) grocery shopping. This, of necessity, is an early morning excursion: all of us are at peak energy level, me from my morning coffee and the kids from their nights' sleep. So, off we went, and things actually went pretty smoothly: the baby slept in the moby and the other two were given edible bribes at strategic intervals. And, because it was mid-morning, the store was full of what might be, demographically speaking, my favorite group of people: the elderly.
       
           I love old(er?) people. Here is a perfect example of why: after an hourlong grocery shopping trip yesterday, I was standing behind a woman who must have been about 80. Because I couldn't reach the grocery dividing bar--and my two year old boy was literally scaling the cart--I asked her to hand it to me, despite that she was obviously suffering from Parkinson's (or some other tremor-causing disease). She said, "of course, dear. We're all in this together". Words of wisdom--that I think she really meant-- in such a mundane setting. Impressive. And it happens all the time. Older women always stop me and tell me to enjoy my little ones, because it goes way too quickly. (Okay,Kenny Chesney also hit on that theme, but I bet he learned it from his grandmother).
       
          So, in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, there was an article,  "Want my advice? Um, not really", which described how generation Yers (and Xers) have no need (or desire) for the advice of their elders. Apparently, given changes in perspective, technology, and work ethic, their advice is just not that useful anymore. The first example that was given involved a girl who wanted to have a destination wedding. Her mom said no, it was rude, "too inconvenient for guests...(and) too selfish". The girl ignored her and held it anyway; her response to her mom's comment was, "the older people totally mean well, but they're giving advice based on things in the past, when times were different".  
       
           I'm actually embarrassed for her. I mean, the idea that manners (or virtue) are grounded in selflessness is as old as, well, I don't know. It's safe to say the ancient Greeks. If at a loss, you can actually figure out what the right thing to do is, etiquette-wise, by choosing the less selfish route. So, frankly, it's silly to think that the last 30 years have produced such an unusual series of events that the basic principles of etiquette have been changed. And a difference in perspective is actually what distinguishes--in a good way--the elderly from the rest of us. They (or most of them) know what's important (honestly, I think that's mostly why everyone at daily mass is over 60. My husband, on the other hand, says they have more to pray for).
         
          You can probably guess the rest of my rant, so I won't bore you here. But, right now, I'm glad to be on a daily track that involves running into the sages of our society.
    

How my Family Multiplies

              My parents met on the one day that they had anything in common. They've been drifting apart ever since. This drift has included almost 40 years of marriage, 7 children, and 12 grandchildren...and separate residences and illicit undertakings on the part of my father. While we all agree that this is not the best of situations, we kids have nonetheless responded to it by, well, laughing about it. That's just how we deal with things. So, for instance, when my father would take to the road for several days, without contacting us (including my mom), and this road included a small town some 30 miles away, where he would stay overnight (with whom, we never asked), we concocted an elaborate tale in which he was the mayor of the town. I think we may have even told him about it, although we may not have. Our jokes (and elaborate tales) have no real, practical purpose. They are for our amusement, and can actually get pretty ghoulish. But it's how we deal with things.
         Pretty much anything is fodder for us, and many of the tales have given rise to characters who've been with us for years...and years. One of my sisters and I have a running joke where we are heavy-set women who wear ironed tweety-bird sweatshirts or t-shirts and go to garage sales. We're really good at bargaining and have shrewd eyes and small town accents. And then there's William, an eternally pre-pubescent boy with the unfortunate combination of a hair lip and buckteeth. William takes over one of my other sisters on occasion, sometimes just for laughs, but in recent years, also when she's under duress. There's also an Asian named Rally (Larry) who my younger brother invokes; he answers the phone by saying, "herro" and then asks if yus yus chin is around. Rally was born when said brother entered grad school. And there's a man named Rick, also with a hairlip-- and a tapeworm-- who lives with his sister Tammy and is channelled by myself and another sibling. We actually wrote a pretty decent short story about him as the deranged leader of an uprising among employees at a local convenient store where, of course, my sister was, at one point, resentfully employed. Again, that need to deal with adversity by laughing at it, or something.
        I really don't have anything philosophical to tie into this post here. And I'm not sure why my family has so many characters. But I will say that they're almost like other family members: I'll catch a glimpse of William, evidenced by his hairlip and buckteeth, as my sister turns her head away from an awkward conversation with someone, or I'll answer my phone to Rally shouting, "herro", or Rick saying "hey" (his trademark salutation). Sometimes they all come out at once, like when my poor mother tries to have a serious family meeting. Suddenly, her 7 children are no longer sitting in front of her, having been replaced by  a motley crew of defense mechanisms.

Leviathan in a Car Chase

I've got this thing for cops. It's not that cliche "man in a uniform" attraction; I like any cop, male or female. Actually, it's more that I like what cops stand for: order, safety, a bizarre lack of boundaries (think of the questions they ask you when they pull you over), a lack of rules governing them....I don't know, maybe there's no sense to be made of it (although I'll try at the end of this post). But, when it comes down to it, I like cops.

Imagine my delight, then, when I found myself assisting the local police in chasing a car driven by a girl so high on heroin that, when arrested, she promptly fell asleep in the back seat of the cruiser. It all started when the family and I and were driving home this past Sunday from dinner at a friend's. I had some clothes to return at the mall (some of those bought on the pre-vacation splurge that didn't make the cut), and on the exit ramp off the highway, the car in front of us swerved. My husband pointed it out, but not being as cautious a driver as he, I (empathetically) thought that they had perhaps dropped something and lost control of the wheel while looking for it (when he reads this it will only fuel his belief that I am a bad driver. But that, in turn, relieves me of any driving duties on road trips). Seconds later, they overcorrected, hit the concrete barrier, and almost flipped the car. Now this is not something I would do, so (in response to the husband's clipped-bark order) I called 911. They put me through to the local dispatch and that's how I came to direct 5 cop cars through the city streets in hot pursuit of a heroin-high college student.
      
Let me just say that what's neat about cops is that they really listen. When they asked me for the license plate of the car, I only had to say it once. We followed this car for a few miles with me giving a "play-by-play" to the cops (this included the driver and passenger switching seats in an apparent attempt to gain some control of the car). I never once had to repeat myself. It's a girl's dream.
 
That was pretty much the peak of it, though,--my directing the cops via cellphone--because once they pulled the girls over, they told us to wait in a parking lot until they could question us. After about 45 minutes, I began to feel a little ridiculous and especially vulnerable because of my overeagerness. I mean, how long was I supposed to wait? It even occurred to me that it's really not cool to like cops. Of course, when they did finally come over after an hour or so, I was overly cooperative and eager to please, happily handing over my license for personal info and acting as if I knew the prescription drugs that the cop said were in the car. And later that evening, when they called and asked if I would be able to identify the girls in a line-up--which I couldn't--it was all I could do not to offer a theory that filled a hole in their story quite well, if do say so myself.
    
This was actually my second run-in with cops in the past 2 weeks, excluding the parking ticket I got while having dinner at said friend's house. While we were on vacation, my mom-- a modern Amelia Bedelia--watered our window boxes while leaning out of the front window, and accidentally left the window wide open. Our neighbor noticed and called the police, who called us and reported doing a "walk-through" our home (fyi: that's police jargon). Thank God I did all of that mad cleaning before I left:).
     
So, both of  these experiences have prompted me to think about why I love cops. This, in turn, made me think of what life would be like without them, which naturally made me think of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.In it, he imagines what life was like before civil society, i.e., the construction of laws and government. He conjectured that, in this pre-civil  "state of nature", man was brutally competitive and that, finally, in order to survive, a social contract was drawn up by which people forfeited their rights to everything in order to have some protection. In other words, we agree to abide by laws because we know that the alternative would be chaos. Or as Hobbes famously said, pre-civil society would have, "no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death: and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In fact, the work Leviathan is so named because of Hobbes' view of human nature: the leviathan is an Old Testament deep sea monster, and the analogy is that as the calm water is to the deep sea monster beneath, so is civil society to the monster that is our true human nature, lurking beneath.
       
So where do cops fit in? They are the most immediate enforcers of the social contract. But, really--even though they are not supposed to be, I think--they are above the social contract. In virtue of their position, they can run through red-lights, do a walk-through a complete stranger's home, and ask you anything they want (for any of you have been pulled over, don't they ask weird questions sometimes? And don't you answer?). They're sort of living above the law...which makes the think about what life would be like without the law. Which makes me think of Hobbes...
      
In any case, I love cops, and that was one exciting car chase!

The Socratic Plumber

        We're back home now and, for some reason, while we were gone, the plumbing in our bathroom, in various ways, failed. The bath won't drain (I suspect that the 2 year old has been sending toilet paper down it); the water pressure is completely off in the shower, so you have to manuever things to get something other than a trickle; and the sink clogs easily. You can imagine how the morning routine becomes frustrating very quickly.
     Now, in some houses, these would be minor problems: just a few adjustments, probably involving a snake and a wrench, and possibly (but hopefully not) some Drano. Not in this house. With all due respect, the husband is probably the least handy man in the entire world. The thing is, he isn't clumsy, he's just...overly thorough. He actually needs to have a complete understanding of what needs to be done before he does it. So, for instance, when we bought the (requisite) minivan, he sat down in an armchair one evening to read the manual. I actually found some parts highlighted. I'm not kidding.
        You can imagine how this approach works (or doesn't work) with ordinary household jobs. One time we bought an infant chair, in need of reassembly, at a yard sale. Because it didn't come with an instruction manual, it turned into a kind of working experiment, and after about 20 minutes, he was staring at a twisted peice of metal with a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip. We also have a doll stroller that he "assembled" . When my sister sees it she always says, "that stroller is soooo funny", because he somehow  managed to connect all of the pieces into something that does not at all resemble a stroller. It actually looks like one of those deep shopping carts you can buy for your own personal use.
     So, in the case of the bathroom, the plumbing problems are going to result in one of two things: a day-long project that ends with his detailed description of the inner workings of the bathroom; or an expensive plumbing bill that most households wouldn't have to shoulder. I prefer the latter, because chances are it's inevitable anyway. (I actually have a pretty nice roster of handymen of various types, should those of you who know me need anyone).
     The thing is, in the grand scheme of things (read: philosophical), this all makes sense. At least from Plato's perspective. In Plato's Apology, after Socrates is told by the oracle at Delphi that he is the wisest man in Athens, one of the groups of people that he interrogates is the craftsmen. They, of course, quickly reveal  ignorance of their craft, in the sense that they don't really understand what they are doing.  This is part of Plato's theory of knowledge: the man who (merely) knows how to fix a sink does not really understand what a sink is or how all the parts work together, because when Plato talks about understanding he really means understanding. He would, in this case, require an understanding of the Platonic Form of the Sink, in which all sinks that exist "participate"; it's literally the ideal sink, and once you understand it, you would understand all individual sinks. And it's this Platonic Form that serves to distinguish between the type of knowledge the plumber/techinician has, and that which the philosopher has.
       So, what's really going on is that the husband, being a philosopher, is not satisfied with understanding at the technical level; rather, he strives for the philosophical level. Fat lot of good that does our household, though! And, it should be mentioned that as a philosopher, myself, I've become pretty handy with a drill and skimming through instruction manuals...

The Confucian saint

We left Cape Cod yesterday and are heading to New Jersey to see the husband’s family. On route, we stopped in Mystic, Connecticut, (site of the movie “Mystic Pizza”) and took a really nice boat ride down Mystic River. Ok, if I was single and/or in my twenties, it would have been incredibly boring, but things change when you have kids. You find yourself on a lot of excursions with retirees for some reason, especially when you’re vacationing.

Now that we are on the road again, my husband is in what one of my sisters (my follower, Emcy) calls his “clipped bark mode”. In clipped bark mode, he –you guessed it—speaks in a clipped bark in order to get things moving in an orderly and timely fashion. He has no time for nonsense. And clipped bark mode is heightened when his plan involves his family. So, you can imagine the scene this morning, trying to get three kids out to the car and the room packed, so that we can leave to have lunch with his dad and then dinner with his uncle. A lot of barking is going on.

I actually really appreciate that he is so devoted to his parents. It’s an ordered devotion, too: he loves them, but is not at their beck and call. He has what Confucius called “filial piety”, which for the any follower of Confucius, is considered a virtue: respecting your parents is really important.

Well, that’s my philosophical spin on this leg of our trip: my husband, the Confucian saint.

The Elephant on the Beach

        People-watching on the beach is one of the most entertaining ways to pass a summer day. I just love the way people are so comfortable: fat, thin, tan, white; everyone’s walking around exposing a lot. Except for the new moms, who I’ve noticed are wearing black from neck to knee. We smile at each other.
        Speaking of what people are wearing, it’s ironic that the elephant on the beach (read: in the room) is the attractive, welll-toned woman in the string bikini, standing 5 feet from you and your husband!
      So, we’re pretty well settled here on the shore and I’m spending most of the time nursing or holding the baby while the kids play in the sand or surf. This leaves the husband in charge of a lot more than he usually is and he definitely doesn’t do things the way I do. Under his watch, every meal includes french fries and ends with dessert; the kids can go out of the hotel room in just diapers; and the fallback for entertainment is a movie or cartoons. I even disagree with him about where you should apply the sunscreen: I say the hotel room, to avoid the sand mixing in and to give it some time to be absorbed. He says the beach, to get more time down by the water.
         For some reason, all of this irritates me. I know he’s the other parent, and so, in theory, has equal say in their upbringing, but, frankly, I still feel like he should be doing things my way. Trust me, I don’t act on, or even voice these feelings all, or even most, of the time. But, I was beginning to wonder if I am unusually controlling. And then I remembered a little bit of Locke (read: John Locke, English philosopher and contributor, at least in terms of ideas, to the Declaration of Independence). Locke wrote on everything from colors to what human beings are. Somewhere in there, he also expounded on ownership—I think in response to the King of England owning the land that the peasants farmed. His theory is that ownership is based on labor: if you put work into something, you own it. I guess this matches my intuition: of course, I don’t think I own my kids (and I’m not dismissing lthe husband's hard labor which earns 99% of our income), but it seems that I should have more voting power, given the amount of labor put in to these 3. Maybe it’s a stretch, but that’s what came to mind when mulling this over.
        Of course, if I act on any of this, I might become Philosopher mom plus 3, if you know what I mean. And so we have another instance where philosophy makes no impact on the real world...

The Platonic soul hits the beach

We have finally left for the much awaited vacation to the beach. We've been preparing for this for a week, now: the husband, by typing up a 47-item "to-do" list, which he left on the dining room table in a file folder marked "Cape Cod"; and me, by washing every item in the house and buying for myself a new "beach/vacation" segment of my wardrobe. The shopping trip for that segment amounted to me snagging every black item near my size at Macy's, perhaps the only store left in the mall that does not have that depressing (recession-induced) final sale policy. Final sales don't work if you have a Moby'd baby attached to you: I can only eyeball things, since I am not going to unwrap 100 yards of material and a sleeping baby to see if something fits.

      But why all of the black, you ask? Am I one of those existentialists (think Sartre) who can turn any environment into a Parisian cafe? Nope. It's that extra 14 lbs left over from the devil-may-care attitude I adopted during my second trimester; black is a handy way of slimming down when you have neither the time nor energy to really exercise. So, here I am, heading to the beach with a black wardrobe.
      The thing is, the problem with the extra lbs is not so much that they exist (although, for health reasons, they must go), but that they matter to me: 'tis vanity that has me investing my husband's hard earned money in this wardrobe. So, really, what I can do, at the least, is put this whole appearance thing lower on my list of priorities. In fact, one of the "greats" offers a nice argument for doing so. Plato, in his dialogue Phaedo, describes us as immaterial souls trapped in material bodies. The more attached to our bodies we are, the more difficult it is for us at death (you can imagine how heaven, hell and purgatory eventually fit nicely into this system). So, adopting an eternal perspective, or at least a Platonic one, this vanity is ultimately bad for me. God forbid I become like that vain soul in C.S. Lewis' The Great Divorce who couldn't cope with the loss of her material body.
      Alas, even Plato admits that this perspective can take a lifetime to gain, so in the meantime, it's off to the beach in my new, black, skirted bathing suit.
   

Stoicism and Babyhood

So, I've been pretty much stuck at home these last 3 months, since the birth of my youngest son. It's really not him that keeps me at home; in fact, if I do go out, I take him with me, all Moby'd up, as we run errands. No, it's the thought of taking all three out to Target, or wherever, that prompts me to reconsider and then stay home. As they say, this too, shall pass, but it could have been a lot worse if not for people visiting. I can think of a few (oustide of my fam) who really made my days easier by bringing their kids over to swim; who knows what I would have done with my days otherwise.
Despite the diversions, though, my reaction to being stuck at home was to ponder the stoic, Epictetus, and how life is what you make of it. (This, of course, is what any normal person would do). In fact, this is the quote that came to mind:

          I must die, but must I die groaning? I must be imprisoned, but must I whine as well? I must suffer   

          exile, but can any prevent me from going with a good grace and at peace? This is in my power.

           "But I will chain you." What say you fellow? Chain me? My leg you can chain, yes, but my will,

           no, not even Zeus can conquer that. "I will imprison you." My bit of a body, you mean.

Okay, so it's a bit melodramatic. But, the fact is, I am somewhat immobilized, due to circumstances, and yet, in the tradition of the Stoics, my perspective (or "will", as Epictetus says) is what I can work with. I can make this a bad situation, or a good one, and so I chose to make it a good one by seeing it as an opportunity to throw a series of what I thought were great pool parties! And, on the other hand, it also lets me spend quality time with my kids, while they're still home all day. Because, sadly, this too shall pass.

"One swallow does not a summer make....

....neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy." Okay, this is probably one of my favorite quotes from Aristotle. It's a perfect rejoinder to someone who thinks that one instance proves their point; at least the edited version--one swallow does not a summer make--is. But the latter part also says a lot about happiness: there can be a huge gulf between experiencing things that make you (momentarily) happy and actually being happy. Happiness, for Aristotle, is a state. And, it's what we are all looking for: once we find it we need nothing
more. So says the Philosopher, as he's been called.
      But there is still something to be said for those things that bring that warm fuzzy feeling of happiness, if even for just a moment. It even makes me happy to think of them. So, here's a list of some, but I'm sure not all; I see no pattern, but if anyone else does, let me know! And, the order of things listed means nothing.
Here goes: penguins; bikers on Harleys; road trips; an email or phone call from my husband; family coming over to visit; my kids, first thing in the morning; Christian, and especially Catholic, philosophers; Peter van Inwagen's Quam Dilecta; mass; healing masses; Barnes and Noble bookstores; libraries; a book by my bed, waiting to be read; Asian Indians (no idea where this come from, but when the feeling's there, it's there!); the Christmas season; landing in a foreign country; C.S. Lewis books; a well-delivered lecture; the life of Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta; my kids having a full, happy day; St. John of the Cross; fully habited nuns on a city street; college campuses; making power point slides for other people; chocolate during a crisis (I'm not sure that such a biological reaction counts as happiness!); the day after a big grocery shopping; memories of grad school (no idea how that experience morphed into something positive, but it did); and family vacations.
     Of course, my mind also turned to those things that can give me a feeling of despair capable of sinking me for a moment or even longer. Among these are: any thought in the middle of the night; memories of summers in my hometown, during my teenage years (boooring and hot!!); settling disputes with customer service representatives; thinking of my kids going to school; and thinking of my kids growing up. Nothing else comes to mind right now, which I guess is a good thing.