Ahhh...Young Love.

Or maybe: "Ahhh! Young Love!" It's a tossup.

My little man's best friend is a girl. And a bit of a tomboy at that. Talk about your '80s high school movie.

And they are inseparable. So much so that they had to be, well, separated this year, class-wise: they were so disruptive in the first grade that the teacher made absolutely sure they were assigned to different teachers for the second. Always talking to each other, always passing notes, whispering, sitting together at lunch, and so on. But the truly funny thing about their relationship? It's also a rocky one. She thinks he's insensitive; he thinks she gets offended too easily. He can be infuriatingly argumentative; she's a master of the Silent Treatment (this drives him insane).

I got to see a lot of this firsthand last year. Having no job, I decided to volunteer a couple hours a day in his classroom...making copies, helping kids with their math and sight reading, and just generally helping maintain order. Time and again, the same scenarios played out.

Enter Chloe, stage right. "Duncansmom, I'm not talking to Duncan!!" Though the teacher always referred to me by "Mrs." and my last name, the kids permanently labeled me "Duncansmom" anyway. She stalks off dramatically.

Enter Duncan. "Mom, Chloe won't talk to me! I accidentally elbowed her and I didn't MEAN to she was right behind me and I didn't know she was there!"

"Well, did you explain that it was an accident?"
"Yes."
"Did you tell her that you're sorry?"
"Yes!!"

"Well..." Really, what can I do? I shrug. "Give her time then, baby. If she's going to be mad, she's going to be mad." He stalks off in turn, mumbling, "Girls!!"

And so it goes on to this day, though they no longer disrupt class time. Just last week I was informed that, due to an altercation on the playground, Chloe was in fact not speaking to him. He has learned roll with it a bit more, be patient and wait for her to cool off; however, the chalkboard suggests that it still aggravates him a bit:

Oh, these tender moments.

I wonder...how many more grades before she's his 'girlfriend'?

Field of Daydreams

A few months ago, a paper came home from school announcing sign ups for baseball through the city recreation department, and Duncan expressed an interest. I was uncertain - he's never played team sports before, and I wasn't really sure if it would be his cup of tea. Not wanting to be a pushy mom, I filled out the application and the check, then sat down with him and explained the ramifications. This is a commitment to a team. It was his choice whether to sign up, but if he did, I was going to expect him to see it through. I gave him the envelope, and he chose to put it in the mailbox himself. And then, the frustrations ensued!

Duncan Disorderly is (a) gifted; and (b) an only child. He has little experience working in a team situation. He is accustomed to being good at things right away. New concepts and skills tend to come easily, and when they do not, he gets frustrated quickly and will often attempt to quit rather than risk seeming less than perfect.

At the very first practice, after swinging away fruitlessly at several pitches, the boy walked off the field. There were tears. There was anger. And he was totally "QUITTING BASEBALL!!!"

At the third practice, I was informed that they were "using the wrong ball" with him. Apparently, they have a special heavier, deadlier baseball that they use when it is his turn in catching practice. He simply would not accept that all baseballs were standard. He'd been hit by the ball a couple of times, and though he was no worse for the wear and not even bruised, he was "QUITTING THIS STUPID TEAM!!"

I gotta say, I was very discouraged at this point. As much as I did not want to subject him to forced misery throughout the summer, I had to stick to my guns. He had understood the commitment, and chosen to accept. "You have to see this through," I told him. "After this season, if you don't want to sign up for baseball ever again, I'll still be proud of you for trying this." The look I got was withering. Then, after a few weeks of practices, the games began.

Coach Pitch baseball with eight-year-olds has got to be the most informal sporting event I have ever attended. The coach, as the name suggests, does all the pitching, and "three strikes you're out!" seems to be replaced by six, seven.....eight....oh heck, let's give the kid one more chance, he'll hit it this time. Given that this could lead to a neverending inning, the kids are generally encouraged to take one base per hit, and innings end when each kid in the batting lineup has had a turn. And near as I can tell, they don't keep score. Fine by me, but some parents actually got a bit irate.

"Look at that," said a mother beside me, after the last batter hit a fly ball that was caught near first base. "He's out. Why is the coach letting them all run home?"

"They're having a good time," I said. "That was the last kid, the inning's over. They've all got to come back anyway, and they're not keeping score."

She puffed up angrily. "Well, we are!" Whatever.

And my kid? He didn't do too badly! Not the best kid on the team by far...but getting a solid hit at bat and getting to run bases while I cheered did wonders for his attitude about this whole baseball thing. I do wonder if he believes he volunteered to play in the 'floatfield'. I could never quite suss what position he played. Shortstop, perhaps, but at various points in the game he seemed way closer to third, or second, or even to the far outfield, generally striking up conversations with other players, or examining the grass, or off in daydream land.

Still, he's happy now. Coming up to me after the game, trailing more dust than Pig Pen, sporting his City Recreation baseball cap and a shirt that had his number on the back and the team name "XYZ Dental" on the front (oh yeah - athletic sponsorship!), he slung his bat casually over his shoulder and gave me a gap-toothed smile that melted my heart.

"That wasn't too bad," he said. "I guess I'm kinda looking forward to the next game."

The Tell-Tale Wafer

With today's shift now over, we have a mere SIX days of school to go, which puts us in a 'clearance' mode of sorts. With the exception of products like condiment packets and some canned goods which have a long shelf life, most everything has to be gone by June 5th. On that day, whatever remains will probably be divvied up the way it was over Spring Break.

Yesterday, it was free juice pops...everyone who came through my line was entitled to a free grape juice pop, no matter what they were buying. Today the ice cream came out, to be offered as a side or as an a la carte item for purchase. Fortunately, due to an recent aggressive campaign of notes and calls home, most of the kids now have enough money on their accounts for the remainder of school year and can afford the occasional extra, so the Side Swap Pileup wasn't too bad today. But there were moments!

The Chutzpah Award today goes to a little snip of a 5th grader who came through with one side and two ice creams, only to find that he did not have enough money for an extra. So he handed me the side - a cup of Nilla Wafer pudding - and tried to take off with his two ice creams.

"Hold it," I said. "Umm. Have you been eating this?"

He stopped, then reluctantly shuffled closer to the register. "What? No."

"Well....where'd the Nilla Wafer go?" Each cup had been filled with banana pudding and garnished with a Nilla Wafer. He had handed me a cup of banana pudding, garnished with an obvious little wedge-shaped dent...and a lot of crumbs. He briefly looked at me like a deer in headlights, then recovered and gave me a noncommittal shrug.

I swear I could hear crickets chirping as I looked at him, then the pudding, and then again at him, hoping he would 'fess up and make the honest swap. But I'm guessing he took my hesitation for uncertainty, because when I finally set the pudding on his tray myself and retrieved one of the ice creams, I saw a look flash across his face that distinctly telegraphed: Dang, she didn't go for it. His pal behind him in line chuckled as he walked away defeated.

Oh yeah. Score one for the Decreasingly Gullible Noob Lunchlady.

When come back, bring pie

For a man who loves to tease that our child is the mailman's son, my husband sure has a reliable little protege at times.

The other night, I was IM'ing back and forth with an old friend, who happened to mention during our conversation that his wife had just brought him a slice of pie at the computer. I relayed this tidbit of information to my own spouse when he idly asked me who I was chatting with.

"Where's my pie?" he asked.

"I don't have any pie for you. I only said that my friend has pie."

"I heard 'pie'. I think you promised pie."

Flash forward to last night. While making dinner, I realized I had forgotten one important ingredient and would have to run to the store in the middle of cooking. (sigh) I let the boys know I was making a quick trip to the store. "You're getting pie too, right?" queried my husband.

"Ermm...."

"You mentioned pie last night. You got my hopes all up. Need pie!"

Duncan perked up, as if on cue. "You're getting pie?!"

"I didn't say that! I never promised pie!"

Duncan, with great vaudevillian flourish: "What's that? You promised PIE?!"

Partners in crime, those two. Pie, anyone?
(P.S. Bonus points if you recognize the title reference.)

Blackout!

What a day! When I arrived for work this morning, it became quickly apparent that the power had gone out just before I arrived. Who knows why. In my little town, periodic mystery blackouts are the norm...particularly in the spring, and in totally arbitrary patterns. You can lose all power and sit fuming in the dark as the sounds of your next-door neighbors merrily sniggering at Everybody Loves Raymond waft through their living room window. It could be out for two minutes or two days.

I proceeded to the cafeteria in darkness to find the kitchen crew all sitting together under an emergency backup light, discussing possible courses of action. In the adjacent kitchen, multiple trays of frozen pizza (why do the 'interesting' stories always occur on Pizza Day?) sat in near-total blackness beside defunct ovens, and fridges full of milks, fruits and salads were slowly and inexorably thawing. The obvious and reasonable solution would have been to send the kids home - no telling how long the blackout would last and this was going to be a real problem - but word came down from the main office that we would not be closing. Scramble time.

So, let the chaos commence! Obviously the 'hot' food wouldn't be feasible today, so it was time to dig through the stores for ready-to-eat options. The PBJ Uncrustables, the tortilla chips, the snack packs. The hamburger buns, thrown together with sliced turkey from the rapidly warming fridge to make deli sandwiches for those kids with peanut allergies. All sorted through with flashlights and transferred to the gym, the only large room with natural lighting. And gym class was in progress as we tried to sort this out. Honestly, a stray ball missed my face by inches as we set up our long line of tables along one side of the gym.

When lunch began, the setup consisted of a check-in table near the entrance, where we attempted to collect names from the surging swell of children before sending them to the buffet line to pick up their items. On the other end of the gym, students with their trays of food clustered together on bleachers or sat together on the floor to eat. It was stiflingly hot, noisy and crowded, and I was vaguely reminded of a refugee camp. Or a prison camp. Hold on to yer spork, kid. Any kid loses his spork gets a night in the box.

The power finally returned near the end of the lunch rush, and I was faced with a new challenge: take the hastily scribbled lists of three different cashiers and enter all the lunch information normally taken over a two-hour period into the computer by hand. Ten single-spaced pages of student names - spell name on touch screen, pull up account, make the appropriate transaction, rinse, repeat. And though I had strongly urged them to have kids hold off on money transactions until tomorrow, they had also accepted cash and checks in big disorganized piles. And the system often behaves in erratic ways when it's been shut down unexpectedly. When all the names were finally entered about half an hour after my shift should have ended, my register informed me that I was approximately $500 short. Later it recognized my transactions, but mixed breakfast reports in with lunch and told me I was at least fifty dollars short. Then thirty-eight dollars. At one point I had to leave to pick up my son from school, take him home, and then return because we could not leave until the totals balanced.

Two hours after the end of my shift, we had it down to seven cents short and sagely decided that it was an acceptable variance. Anyone who begrudged me that seven cents would have found that I would happily give them the seven cents myself...probably nasally.

Easy bein' green

Recent developments in my life have encouraged me to take a look at my own footprint on the world, and ways that I could be living a little greener. Don't get me wrong - I'm not a die-hard environmentalist and probably never will be. But there are a lot of little things that make a difference, things that don't take much extra effort on my part, and I find that I feel better and I'm having fun doing it!

Things I have learned:

There's more than one way to recycle. With a little online research and a little creativity, I've been finding fabulous ways to steer clear of the trash can, although I think my poor husband is a bit baffled by the weird new collections that surface here and there. Plastic grocery bags are now piling up beside my side of the couch, as I've learned to cut, loop, and twine them into balls of plastic "yarn"...to crochet! I recently used a bunch of said shopping bags to crochet - ironically - a shopping bag. (But this one is strong and reusable, so there.) Glass jars get rinsed and reused for all sorts of purposes, bits of twine and twisties and colored paper go into the crafts drawer...even corn husks have been saved and dried for projects, and hollowed out light bulbs will make great ornaments for next Yule, or even little planters for small herbs and flowers. That's right folks, I'm turning into the ghetto Martha Stewart.

There's more to recycle than I thought. Sure, the city supplied me with a small recycle bin to put out beside my regular garbage bin, and I did generally put my soda cans in it. But it never occurred to me just how much else I could be putting in it until I began to think more before tossing. All the paperboard - cereal boxes, Pop-Tart boxes, soda cartons. ALL the cans - tomato sauce, coconut milk, canned veggies, emptied in the course of preparing supper all get rinsed and thrown in. Milk jugs, plastic creamer bottles from my coffee addiction, yogurt cups. I may have to ask the city if I can have two bins, as it's getting to be a big game of Tetris each Garbage Day, trying to cram everything into the wee recycle bin sitting next to my big half-empty garbage bin.

I need fewer chemicals than I thought. If McGuyver were to go into the cleaning business, he'd so call me up for tips. Turns out a few choice ingredients will create just about anything. Keeping a few basics such as vinegar, baking soda, and washing soda in ready supply, I can create everything from soft scrub to disinfectant spray to furniture polish, all environmentally friendly and very inexpensive....and goodness knows I've got the empty jars and bottles to mix 'em up!

It's not as far as I thought. I used to take the car everywhere. If absolutely necessary, I would walk or bike Duncan to school. It was hard, the first few times, convincing myself to take the bike instead. But with each errand I've run on my bicycle I've had the same thought as I arrived, namely, "I'm here already??" Just a few days ago, in fact, when I found myself low on a few groceries, Duncan and I helmeted up and hit the street. We arrived home a short while later, my basket filled with sodas and a few groceries (all packed in my crocheted plastic grocery bag!), energized from the ride and having a great time together.

I'll say it again, I'm far from perfect. I still buy my sweetener in those convenient little individual packets...and go through lots of 'em. I'm still overly fond of paper towels. I still can't convince myself to invest in seven-dollar 'energy saving' light bulbs when the cheap old 60-watts sit on the shelf beside them at four for a dollar...but I might, if I ever get up the gumption to buy one and see how much longer they really do last. And I do not compost. But the little steps go a surprisingly long way towards making me feel a bit better about myself, and towards working a little exercise and Fun Mommy time into my busy schedule.

And of course, with gas at $3.20 a gallon these days, the nod to my inner Scrooge doesn't hurt either.

Java Jive

Life can be delightfully unpredictable at times. Grab car keys and library books - check. Get to Chess Club meeting on time - check. Become part of random film student's final project - um, check??

Coffeehouses - the Denny's of the next generation, but even more prevalent. My fellow Gen-Xers and I spent our youth in the back booths of Denny's; crammed together in groups of five, or ten, laughing and gaming in a swirling nicotine haze, stretching that unlimited-refill cup of coffee until five in the morning and generally annoying the hell out of the waitresses (you had to tip well). Today's kids have the coffeehouses...but unlike Denny's, they have spread and multiplied to ridiculous proportions. You wouldn't see three Denny's restaurants in a one-block area. You wouldn't see a Denny's booth at the grocery store. Or in the library.

Not that coffeehouses are a new phenomenon, I know. They've enjoyed a certain counterculture appeal since the 60's, and I confess I also passed quite a few youthful evenings in them...usually real hole-in-the-wall joints, furnished with aging overstuffed couches and filled with music and smoke and students playing chess and carrying on all sorts of discussions. But these coffeehouses are bright, clean and corporate - upscale smoke-free establishments with wireless Internet access catering to quiet students individually absorbed in their laptops. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I guess...but it's a different universe.

Ah, but I digress. Time to veer away from the "kids today" speech, because frankly I sound old.

I am a coffee addict, but I am not a fan of the contemporary coffeehouse. Still, Duncan was now engaged in his chess battles, and I had forgotten my customary mug o' coffee from home, so I popped over to the little coffeeshop in the library. I had been in line for a minute or two when a woman approached the counter, identifying herself as a film student, and asked the employee if she could film him making the coffee. Oh, and could she film me buying the coffee? And interview me about coffee? Well, why not!

And boy, she wasn't kidding. She disappeared briefly, and returned with lighting equipment, tripod and camera. She even miked me. And so I sat and sipped my overpriced ambrosia, casually answering questions about why I like coffee, my coffee drinking habits and frequency, what brands of coffee I favor. After regaling her with tales of my all-day addiction and my Zen love of the percolating pot and the ritual of preparing and sipping coffee, I think she was surprised to hear that my favorite coffee is "the cheapest". But really, I'm a gourmand, not a gourmet. With all the sugar and creamer I pour in there, it really doesn't matter too much anyway. Spider Robinson would disavow my existence for saying that.

The funniest part? I didn't exactly plan to be filmed today. The coffee-phile she interviewed in that brightly lit yuppie nook appeared in geek glasses, burgundy hair askew, pentacle necklace and a Beatles' Rubber Soul shirt. A relic of the 'classic' coffeehouse if I've ever seen one.

I Scream, You Scream

Spring has sprung! It's mighty warm out...and even warmer in the cafeteria. I've taken up stashing a few water bottles of my own in the freezer near the register. I'm also finding that I 'need' things from the walk-in freezer more often these days...don't ask me what, but I'm sure it'll take me a minute to find it! But most of all, the advent of warm weather means that we are now serving ice cream with lunch far more often, which often leads to what I call the Side Swap Pile-up.

It works like this. For what is called a "Type A" lunch, a kid needs to choose one entree, two sides, and a milk. That gets charged the standard lunch price, $2.25. A la carte or extra items beyond those get charged separately. This can be particularly important to the free and reduced kids...buying a Type A lunch costs them either nothing or forty cents, whereas individual items cost anywhere from fifty cents to $1.75 apiece.

The small freezer is at the end of the line, right near my register, and contains the ice cream. In today's case, there were two kinds: ice cream sandwiches and frozen juice pops, identified as a side by a small sign beside them. So the kids would get their entrees from the server, choose two sides along the line, then reach the freezer and spot the ice cream. They would then decide to swap out one of their sides for an ice cream, but instead of returning the other item to its proper place would merely set it on top of the freezer or on the edge of the milk refrigerator. Between rushes, I had to clear away the ever-growing piles of juice cups, carrots, apple slices, etc....the Side Swap Pileup.

One audacious young man cracked me up, forcing me to quickly put on my "this isn't funny" smirk to avoid encouraging him. He slid on up to my register with one entree and TWO ice cream sandwiches. "Oh no," I told him. "You need to put one of those back and choose another side. You need two different sides." After a moment's consideration, he returned one ice cream sandwich and hopefully pulled out...a frozen juice pop! Sorry kid, but nice try and thanks for the laugh.

And so the afternoon wore on, until finally I was checking out my last kid of the day...there was a sudden POP, followed by a sticky rain, and *poof* my computer died. What on Earth? I traced the source...as the server began shutting everything down and putting food away, she had slammed the lid on the milk refrigerator. Which happened to have a small container of orange juice resting on the lip. Thanks to...you guessed it...the Side Swap Pileup. The ensuing eruption of juice splattered both me and my last student, and tripped the surge protector on the computer.

I could make some sort of awful pun at this point, pertaining to the juice...pop....but, I'll abstain. I'm above that sort of thing, you know.