"...it's wasted on the crappiest generation of just spoiled idiots..." Louis C.K.

It's not what you have, it's who you are.  I tell my kids this all the time.  I also tell them, there's no shame in having and enjoying nice things, we simply don't judge people by their possessions.  Someone may have a larger home with more "stuff" to play with - that doesn't translate to good or bad, just a person with more stuff.  Then we review the opposite example...  Someone may have a smaller home with less "stuff" to play with - again, not good or bad, just a person with less stuff.  It's who a person is that's important.  I think our two oldest boys get it.

Cheri at Blog This Mom included a wonderful link in her recent blog post.  It's a clip that's making the rounds so many of you may have seen it.  If not, it's worth the four minutes.  Conan O'Brien is interviewing the comedian Louis C.K., and Louis riffs about how AMAZING life is and how spoiled we are.  It's funny and true.  YouTube embedding has been disabled for the clip, but click on the link and watch it - "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy..." 

Chris and I continually struggle with how much is too much with our kids.  Our boys are far from spoiled, but also have plenty to play with, and have rarely been denied a requested "special" gift for a birthday or holiday.  We've made it clear what the boundaries are so they don't ask for things they know aren't kosher in our home.  They don't seem bothered and haven't complained about desperately wanting something that we don't believe is appropriate.  I can honestly say, I don't think our boys are "bummed" that they don't have game systems [other than Wii], cell phones, or computers in their rooms with Internet access.  Oldest Boy [11], Middle Boy [9], and Toddler Child [3] seem content to play board games, build things with Lego's, watch some television, and play approved games on the family computer.  When they're outside, they play.  I mean, they really play.  They look for sticks and rocks and bugs.  They build forts in the bushes, ride bikes and run to nowhere.

The goal isn't to raise our kids to be so counterculture that other kids view them as socially off.  But my fear is... that it's happening.  Chris and I have discussed this and are united in our opinion that it's not worth it to join the mainstream on some of our issues.  We just can't.

I confess, sometimes I want to.  It's about me though, not the kids.

I spoke with a friend last week and reminded her how much we'd love to have she, her husband and kids over for dinner.  I knew as adults we'd visit and eat and drink and laugh... but, I impulsively said, "Will your kids be okay playing with our kids?  We don't have a big screen TV with a game system in the basement, or lots of cool play equipment in the backyard.  We have rocks and sticks."

She was very gracious and said, "Heck yeah!  They'll have a blast!"

After thinking about how concerned I felt for our boys and the possible social judgment they might endure based on what "stuff" they did or did not have, I realized that when I tell my kids, It's not what you have, it's who you are, I need to remind myself... it's the truth.

Em - the Cancer who had cancer.

Phone conversation a few weeks ago.

Em:  Just read your blog post about Supermodel. Very nice. I like how you acknowledged you've had friends for much longer.

Me:  I tried to be sensitive to that.

Em:  When are you going to write about me? We have lots of good stories.

Me:  I wrote about you.

Em:  I know, but something funny.

Me:  I will. Sometimes what we think is funny doesn't translate well to a blog post. But I will. Maybe I'll write about the time we got our under-age consumption tickets.

Em:  Just don't make me sound stupid. You always make me the dumb one.

Me:  Naive. There's a difference between stupid and naive. Like the time I thought I had an enlarged prostate. I'm an intelligent person, I was just naive about anatomy.

Em:  I don't know. I know how you are.

Me:  You were always a little more naive in college, it's endearing. We have to have a shtick. Trust me. I won't make you look stupid.

*****

Northern Arizona University - Flagstaff, Arizona - January 1986

Em and I met when she was a freshman, and I was a sophomore. We lived in Cowden Hall, a cruel name for a dormitory that unfortunately for years had a reputation of housing the heavy and socially inept. Girls like Em and me helped change all of that; I think we made the "den" proud.

 

 

We loved The Boogie Boys - Fly Girl. We changed the lyrics to "Fun Girl," and sang it loudly whenever it played. We were fun, not too fun, just the right amount of fun.

The Halloween Party

We were invited to a large Halloween party at a popular co-ed dorm. Because even though we lived in Cowden, we were fun girls. I talked Em into renting costumes. We waited too long to go to the rental shop, so there weren't many choices within our price range. I spotted two bumblebee costumes. She wasn't wild about the bees. It was a hard sell, but I told Em we'd look cute and a little more feminine with red lipstick and red bows on our antenna. She agreed.

 

 

I drove a yellow VW Super Beetle that was almost too small for Em, me, and the bee costumes. I could hardly drive and shift, and Em complained the whole way to the party about how ridiculous we looked and how she hoped no one we knew saw us crammed in my car.

We got to the party and were mortified to see all the sexy costumes. Sexy devils, sexy cave-girls, sexy princesses, sexy mimes, sexy rabbits. We were not sexy.

Em glared and said, "I told you." 

It was hard to dance. Our costumes made crinkle noises like a diaper, and when a guy asked one of us to slow dance, he couldn't get his body close enough. All of our cool dance moves for fast songs were lost in the costumes. We didn't look cool or sexy.

Em and I had words a few times that night. Walking to the bathroom, I overheard a group chatting, Did you see those bees? I think they were fighting. / Yeah, but I saw them hugging like they were making-up. It was kinda cute. Not sexy.

The Bug

My car was essentially Em's car, too. One weekend she wanted to drive home to Scottsdale to see her parents. I chose to stay in Flagstaff, so she took the car. When she left Friday morning, she mentioned she wasn't feeling well.

I got a call from Em on Saturday night.

Em:  I threw up in your car.

Me:  Oh, no! How did you do that? Who throws up in a car while they're driving? God, Em.

Em:  I'm sorry. I pulled into my parents' driveway, and I couldn't get the door open fast enough. My mom's been cleaning it.

Me:  You threw up on the door? There's all those nooks and crannies. This is awful. Please make sure she gets the smell out. I can't believe it.

Em:  Sorry.

 

She returned to Flagstaff on Sunday, her virus was gone, and the car was clean and didn't smell like vomit. I love Em's mom. 

Trouble

We had a little trouble every now and then. A little academic, a little financial, a little mild-lawbreaking, but we were having fun!

Here we are waiting for an appointment about a little trouble. The sign on the wall says something about shoplifting. For the record, this appointment had nothing to do with shoplifting or breaking the law. Our dorkiness charm got us out of the bind.

REAL Trouble

Em and I got arrested for underage consumption of alcohol. I was 20, and Em was 19. We had been at a bar where a fraternity was hosting a party. We both got in with the same fake ID—a Hispanic girl named Lupe. It was easy; because we both looked so Hispanic.

At midnight we decided to go to a different bar for after-hours dancing. No ID required. I drove us across town and flew into the parking lot of our new hotspot, almost hitting a police officer. I parked and pretended nothing happened. Em said, Oh shit, as the officer approached.

I passed several sobriety tests—I don't know how—and was given a ticket for underage consumption. Em got out of the car and confessed to having had "one drink." Riiight. She was given the same ticket. When she answered all the questions for the officer, she lied about her weight, and I corrected her. We had an argument about our heights and weights in front of the disbelieving cop. "That's enough, girls," he said.

We chose not to tell our parents and deal with the trouble on our own. Our court date was set, and we were hopeful and confident that things would work out in our favor. We'd learned a very valuable lesson and planned to tell the judge just that. I even wore my glasses so I would look smarter. [That's my Bug behind us.]

 

I was called before the judge first. I looked at Em, gave her the nod, and whispered, "Don't worry, just follow my lead."

Things did not go well, the judge was tough. I cried, I explained, I apologized, and I was fined $480. The judge dismissed me, and I looked over at Em as I exited the courtroom and as her name was being called. She looked at me like, Thanks, idiot.

Em received the same fine. Now we'd both have to tell our parents.

Here we are after court.

20 Years Later...

Em lives in Arizona with her husband and son. We don't get to see each other as often as we'd like, but we talk on the phone frequently. We afford each other full "range of motion" and provide a much needed soft landing for one another in this world of prickly surfaces.

In a prior post, I shared that Em was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in July 2007. She remains cancer-free, and I remain indescribably thankful and relieved.

I better call Em to make sure she doesn't think I made her look stupid.

Hazel

Mom and Dad selected our first family pet from what they thought was a litter of Basset Hounds. It was 1969, my brother Mallory Joe was a baby and I was three. They named the puppy Hazel and as she grew, it was obvious she wasn't a Basset. 

 

Hazel had the short legs, long torso, keen sense of smell and a-ti-tude of a Basset, but her other parts weren't right. Her snout was long and pointy like a Dachshund, and her ears and markings were Beagle-like.  Her head looked disproportionately small compared to her fat torso. [Fat is a bad word in our house, but she was fat.] She was an odd looking mutt and people often asked, "What kind of dog is that?" 

What I remember the most about Hazel:

Danger Was Her Middle Name. Hazel chased cars. It was terrifying to watch. Her short legs moved shockingly fast as she tried to bite a car's tires. We lived in a residential area so the occasional car moved at a much slower speed than we see today. I'm sure this fact saved her life many times. I vividly remember seeing Hazel hit by a motorcycle when she and I were both very young. It rolled right over her, then she rolled several times like a Little Smokie to the curb. Hazel walked away from the accident, but Mother swears she was never the same. She became quieter and moved too slowly for her young age, Mom says, because she was in chronic pain.

No Touchy. When new kids played at our house, they naturally wanted to pet Hazel. My whole family could see a child approaching Hazel with enhanced peripheral vision. We would simultaneously yell, "DON'T PET THE DOG!" Then we'd laugh nervously, "Uh...she might bite." Hazel was great with our immediate family, but snapped at anyone else who approached her. She was fine with others in the house if they simply left her alone. Eventually, only our closest friends were comfortable playing at our house.  We had the "mean dog". But she wasn't. She was a dog in pain.

Hold Your Cookie Up! Hazel could smell a cookie from anywhere in the city. She didn't move quickly though, more like Eeyore, probably because of her car chasing accidents. But if a careless child held a cookie anywhere other than over their head, Hazel got it. She sometimes got a finger too. Mom would give us and our friends cookies, instruct us to, "Hold your cookie up. I mean it. Over your head. HIGHER! Go outside with it. Quick. I'll block Hazel." And she did.

One-Trick Pony  Hazel didn't sit, stay, come, fetch, or anything else Hazel didn't feel like doing. Hazel could "sit-up" and she did it well. She sat square on her fat butt, posture-perfect [like a chubby ballerina] and begged for food. She looked like a fire hydrant and could hold the position for several minutes.

Hazel was about 11-years-old when Mom determined it was time to put her down. Hazel was suffering from cancer. It was time. We all cried, but knew it was the right thing to do.

 

Yesterday, Chris and I were in the park with friends and our conversation turned to dogs. As we shared various dog stories, I thought of Hazel for the first time in years. I joked that I grew up with a "DON'T PET THE DOG!" dog.

Awkward Segue:  This morning, I watched a YouTube video my mother emailed me. It's about an 88-year-old woman who's the mayor of a Canadian city.  Her name is Hazel.