Remember when we were first learning about sex and realized that our parents must have had sex at least often enough for us to be born? And how grossed out we were at the idea?
As bad as the idea and resulting visual of our parents doing it was, there is something far worse....the idea of our kids doing it.
I first realized just how disturbing this thought can be when my stepson was ranting about his sister's boyfriend. I don't even remember the situation. I just remember putting two and two together and coming up with EWWWWW! You mean this sweet, innocent child is having...EWWWWWW!!!!!
It was even worse with my own. He'll be 26 on Saturday. It's not that I wanted him to be a 40 year old virgin. And despite my Catholic upbringing, I've never been particularly anti-premarital sex. Until it came to him. When he was in the 5th grade and taking sex ed, I carefully explained to him that if he had sex before he was married he would go to jail. He believed me for awhile. I don't know who gave him the real scoop but I had to wonder at the time why he was researching the topic. I mean, was he trying to find out how long he'd end up in jail? Was he trying to see if it was worth the risk, or what?
As a mom who was a teen in the late 70's/early 80's (nuff said), it was hard to know how much info about my experiences to share as I was trying to prepare him for life and help him avoid heartache. I didn't want to be like my parents (don't do it ever or you will burn in hell for eternity!) nor did I want to give him too much unnecessary info lest he feel like he had to outdo me. Was there a middle ground? Did I do a Bill Clinton? (I WAS around marijuana, but I never inhaled.) or did I just pretend to be naive about such things and avoid the topic all together?
If you know me at all, you are probably thinking already that the last was not an option.
I settled for the speech - "I'm totally not saying you should have sex before you get married. or even after, but if you do, make sure to use a condom." I told him this so often that one day he looked at me in exasperation and said, "Mom! How often do you have to tell me this???" I looked back at him and answered, "I've been telling you to wear a seatbelt for 18 years and you still don't always do it." He thought about that for a second, conceded that I was right, and just rolled his eyes at me when I'd start up again.
I don't know when my son lost his virginity or who it was with. All I know is that one day my brother, sister, and I were making a joke about relationships, forgetting that my son was in the room, and he laughed knowingly. We all three looked at him and I asked, "how do you know?" When he just shrugged I knew the truth - and immediately suppressed it.
He has been living with his girlfriend for over 4 years now. Three years in his house, one in their apartment, and an unknown amount of time when he had her hidden in our basement. I suspect that their relationship is a physical one, but I don't really want to know for sure.
Today I was cleaning out a drawer in his old room. He told me there was nothing important in there and to just throw everything away. We have different ideas of important. There were pictures of him, his old medals from when he won Nationals in Karate, a couple of tools, and lot's of loose change.
And a condom. It was still wrapped, so perhaps he was saving it "just in case". But it was in a drawer, so in case of what? Was he doing it in our very house? ok, I just felt the blood rush to my head.
It's just an odd feeling. I look at him and see a man, but I also see the infant I held in my arms, the toddler walking behind the toy lawnmower, the 4 year old hiding behind me at the dinosaur exhibit, and the young kid competing in his first National competition. I only had a few short years to teach him everything I knew to help him be safe, happy, and successful.
I guess a condom in a drawer is a sign he got at least some of the message.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
There are some things you have to keep
I am between rehab projects and out of $ so I decided this would be the perfect time to redo the basement and last two un-remodeled rooms in the house. One used to be my son's bedroom and the other is my working office. Both are filled with ridiculous amounts of stuff, some useful and most not. Cleaning it out is tougher than I thought.
The first, and most obvious, plan was to just toss out anything I don't use. Since I haven't used almost any of it in a couple of years I that would take care of it. As a bonus, we live on a well-traveled road so instead of contributing to the landfill, I was able to just set things out by my driveway and they'd magically disappear.
But there are some things that I will never use and, if I'm totally honest, don't even like, but I am stuck with for the rest of my life. My challenge is figuring out what to do with them.
For example, the geese. My mother-in-law made these origami geese, complete with goose stand (maybe it's an origami nest?) out of magazine pages and gave me several of them on one of our visits to Okinawa. They're really cool in the sense of "wow! I had no idea you could do that with magazine paper!" but in a purely aesthetic sense, I'd rate them as moderately hideous.
So the question becomes, what do I do with these? I can't throw them away because she made them, and to make the guilt even worse, she recently passed away. I can't pawn them off on the kids because they already have some. I can't display them in my house because...well, technically I could display them in my house but I really don't want to. So I'll keep them and bequeath them to my kids in my will and then they will be stuck with them because Grandma made them and they knew Grandma and, well, she made them. I figure they can bequeath them to their kids, too, and so on until we either hit a generation that isn't sentimental about them or magazine paper becomes so rare that they are considered priceless works of art and sold for millions.
Then there's the other thing. I don't even know what to call it. My husband got it in Okinawa from his karate teacher's wife, a woman who was like a second mother to him. She made it and wanted him to give it to me. Or so he says. I sent her a purse so I suspect she felt a need to reciprocate and as she was scanning the room the first thing her eyes fell on was this creation. He says she felt he and his American wife needed one of these. Which is why his friend didn't get one. Because his wife is Okinawan. I think that's racist.
This object is a display for the Doll Festival, or Girls Day. It has tiny figures made from q-tips and colored paper arranged to look like they are having some kind of ceremony on top of a festively-decorated shoe box. The dolls are supposed to harbor bad spirits and originally part of the festival was sending similar doll displays down the river or into the ocean to take the badness with them.
I've looked this festival up on Wikipedia and this thing does, indeed, look much like a mini version of the traditional doll display. It's bright red and made out of a shoebox, paper, and q-tips, all covered with cellophane that is uncleanable and has collected about a half inch of dust . I think it's the q-tips that are the deal-breaker for me, and even though I do look at it and think, "wow! what a creative thing to do with colored paper and q-tips!" right after that I think, "I wonder if this was a craft project at the senior care center."
My husband was really excited about this thing. He called me all the way from Okinawa just to tell me he was bringing it home for me. And he reports that when his sisters saw it they expressed envy and wished they could have it. I was getting pretty excited about it too until I saw it. And then I really wished he'd left it with my sister-in-law because I knew that unlike me, she could truly appreciate it.
But again, this woman, who is a very important part of my husband's history, made it. I can't throw it out.
I think I've found a solution, though. Before we redid our kitchen we had a bulkhead going across 3 walls. We tore it out and put in really tall replacement cabinets. The top shelves of those cabinets don't get a lot of use, so I can put the geese and the q-tip display on the top shelve in the cabinet I use for spices and cooking stuff. This way they'll be protected and mostly invisible, yet I'll see them every day when I cook and think of my mom-in-law and husband's teacher's wife.
Craft project gifts are not limited to the Japanese side of my family. My American family is just as creative and well-meaning. I have a ceramic gnome, lovingly painted by my grandmother, that matches nothing in my home in either color or context, but that will always have a place there. Not necessarily a visible place, but a place nonetheless. It's current place is a spot on the dresser in the guest room. Hopefully our future guests don't get freaked out by gnomes staring at them while they sleep. or by gnomes sitting in the middle of what is mostly Asian art.
But I'm as guilty as they are, I suppose. People all over the country have been gifted with my handmade pottery chip'n'dips. And my really good friend has a set of 4 bowls I made for her which she likes to praise as "really heavy", apparently not realizing that's not actually a compliment in the pottery world. I think she keeps them because I made them for her.
The first, and most obvious, plan was to just toss out anything I don't use. Since I haven't used almost any of it in a couple of years I that would take care of it. As a bonus, we live on a well-traveled road so instead of contributing to the landfill, I was able to just set things out by my driveway and they'd magically disappear.
But there are some things that I will never use and, if I'm totally honest, don't even like, but I am stuck with for the rest of my life. My challenge is figuring out what to do with them.
For example, the geese. My mother-in-law made these origami geese, complete with goose stand (maybe it's an origami nest?) out of magazine pages and gave me several of them on one of our visits to Okinawa. They're really cool in the sense of "wow! I had no idea you could do that with magazine paper!" but in a purely aesthetic sense, I'd rate them as moderately hideous.
So the question becomes, what do I do with these? I can't throw them away because she made them, and to make the guilt even worse, she recently passed away. I can't pawn them off on the kids because they already have some. I can't display them in my house because...well, technically I could display them in my house but I really don't want to. So I'll keep them and bequeath them to my kids in my will and then they will be stuck with them because Grandma made them and they knew Grandma and, well, she made them. I figure they can bequeath them to their kids, too, and so on until we either hit a generation that isn't sentimental about them or magazine paper becomes so rare that they are considered priceless works of art and sold for millions.
 |
| They look even worse in pictures than they do in my head. |
Then there's the other thing. I don't even know what to call it. My husband got it in Okinawa from his karate teacher's wife, a woman who was like a second mother to him. She made it and wanted him to give it to me. Or so he says. I sent her a purse so I suspect she felt a need to reciprocate and as she was scanning the room the first thing her eyes fell on was this creation. He says she felt he and his American wife needed one of these. Which is why his friend didn't get one. Because his wife is Okinawan. I think that's racist.
This object is a display for the Doll Festival, or Girls Day. It has tiny figures made from q-tips and colored paper arranged to look like they are having some kind of ceremony on top of a festively-decorated shoe box. The dolls are supposed to harbor bad spirits and originally part of the festival was sending similar doll displays down the river or into the ocean to take the badness with them.
I've looked this festival up on Wikipedia and this thing does, indeed, look much like a mini version of the traditional doll display. It's bright red and made out of a shoebox, paper, and q-tips, all covered with cellophane that is uncleanable and has collected about a half inch of dust . I think it's the q-tips that are the deal-breaker for me, and even though I do look at it and think, "wow! what a creative thing to do with colored paper and q-tips!" right after that I think, "I wonder if this was a craft project at the senior care center."
My husband was really excited about this thing. He called me all the way from Okinawa just to tell me he was bringing it home for me. And he reports that when his sisters saw it they expressed envy and wished they could have it. I was getting pretty excited about it too until I saw it. And then I really wished he'd left it with my sister-in-law because I knew that unlike me, she could truly appreciate it.
But again, this woman, who is a very important part of my husband's history, made it. I can't throw it out.
 |
| I couldn't get a good picture through the layer of dust |
I think I've found a solution, though. Before we redid our kitchen we had a bulkhead going across 3 walls. We tore it out and put in really tall replacement cabinets. The top shelves of those cabinets don't get a lot of use, so I can put the geese and the q-tip display on the top shelve in the cabinet I use for spices and cooking stuff. This way they'll be protected and mostly invisible, yet I'll see them every day when I cook and think of my mom-in-law and husband's teacher's wife.
Craft project gifts are not limited to the Japanese side of my family. My American family is just as creative and well-meaning. I have a ceramic gnome, lovingly painted by my grandmother, that matches nothing in my home in either color or context, but that will always have a place there. Not necessarily a visible place, but a place nonetheless. It's current place is a spot on the dresser in the guest room. Hopefully our future guests don't get freaked out by gnomes staring at them while they sleep. or by gnomes sitting in the middle of what is mostly Asian art.
 |
| My father-in-law made the hat - but I think it's pretty cool. And my son wore it all the way home from Japan when he was 7. |
But I'm as guilty as they are, I suppose. People all over the country have been gifted with my handmade pottery chip'n'dips. And my really good friend has a set of 4 bowls I made for her which she likes to praise as "really heavy", apparently not realizing that's not actually a compliment in the pottery world. I think she keeps them because I made them for her.
 |
| A chip-n-dip |
Thursday, August 25, 2011
It can't be me
I keep reading that nothing ever goes away on facebook, but if that's true, why can I only go back a couple of pages? I decided to start a blog because I want to be able to look back with fond memories at those entertaining moments from my family, job and dogs.
Take today, for instance. I have 2 dogs - Bear, a 2 year old, 70 lb. boxer/lab/hound/? mix that we rescued from a shelter last August and Aki, my 9 year old, 7 lb. Maltese. They are like my children, especially in the way they annoy each other like human siblings.
Today Aki spent the entire day teasing Bear. We give them treats sometimes when we leave the house because we usually crate them while we are gone. (Aki has a marking problem.) Bear devours his right away, but Aki prefers to fondle his and then sprint to the office with it when we get home and spend his time guarding it.
I wondered why Bear kept barking at me and crying. I thought he had to go out. But no, he wanted Aki's treat which Aki had placed on the floor and then moved about a foot away from it to lay down (or do dogs lie? I can never remember). Every time Bear would whine, Aki would wag his tail in what is apparently the canine version of nyah nyah nyah.
I tried giving Bear a treat of his own but he wolfed it down and then stared longingly back at Aki's, causing Aki to again wag his tail in glee.
I moved to the couch and of course the dogs moved with me. Aki placed the treat reverently on a blanket on the other couch and came to sit by me. Every time Bear moved a muscle, Aki sprinted back to his treat. When he saw Bear look at me, he'd sprint back to my lap, effectively blocking Bear from both me and the treat.
I wanted to snatch the stupid thing up and just throw it away, but I didn't want to get in the middle of dog politics. I have no idea how such an action could tilt the delicate balance of who dominates whom and when. I am mindful of these things since the beginning of Bear's life with us when I'd yell at him for something and give him the stink eye and he'd give me a stupid look for a long time and I'd get bored and go back to my office. As it turned out he thought I was submitting to him and decided that meant he could eat my shoes. It took about a month of daily stare-downs for him to realize I was just going to win and I don't want to have to do that again. The one thing he has an attention span of more than 5 seconds for is staring. I, on the other hand, find that it gets old quickly. And it usually happens when there is something really interesting on t.v.
Since the guy doing our gardening pulled out the vine-tree monster earlier this week and got attacked by the family of chipmunks living in it, there hasn't been much wildlife for the dogs to bark at. The guarding game seems to be their substitute entertainment.
Take today, for instance. I have 2 dogs - Bear, a 2 year old, 70 lb. boxer/lab/hound/? mix that we rescued from a shelter last August and Aki, my 9 year old, 7 lb. Maltese. They are like my children, especially in the way they annoy each other like human siblings.
Today Aki spent the entire day teasing Bear. We give them treats sometimes when we leave the house because we usually crate them while we are gone. (Aki has a marking problem.) Bear devours his right away, but Aki prefers to fondle his and then sprint to the office with it when we get home and spend his time guarding it.
I wondered why Bear kept barking at me and crying. I thought he had to go out. But no, he wanted Aki's treat which Aki had placed on the floor and then moved about a foot away from it to lay down (or do dogs lie? I can never remember). Every time Bear would whine, Aki would wag his tail in what is apparently the canine version of nyah nyah nyah.
I tried giving Bear a treat of his own but he wolfed it down and then stared longingly back at Aki's, causing Aki to again wag his tail in glee.
I moved to the couch and of course the dogs moved with me. Aki placed the treat reverently on a blanket on the other couch and came to sit by me. Every time Bear moved a muscle, Aki sprinted back to his treat. When he saw Bear look at me, he'd sprint back to my lap, effectively blocking Bear from both me and the treat.
I wanted to snatch the stupid thing up and just throw it away, but I didn't want to get in the middle of dog politics. I have no idea how such an action could tilt the delicate balance of who dominates whom and when. I am mindful of these things since the beginning of Bear's life with us when I'd yell at him for something and give him the stink eye and he'd give me a stupid look for a long time and I'd get bored and go back to my office. As it turned out he thought I was submitting to him and decided that meant he could eat my shoes. It took about a month of daily stare-downs for him to realize I was just going to win and I don't want to have to do that again. The one thing he has an attention span of more than 5 seconds for is staring. I, on the other hand, find that it gets old quickly. And it usually happens when there is something really interesting on t.v.
Since the guy doing our gardening pulled out the vine-tree monster earlier this week and got attacked by the family of chipmunks living in it, there hasn't been much wildlife for the dogs to bark at. The guarding game seems to be their substitute entertainment.
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