All I Know About Hockey I Learned From The Mighty Ducks

When deciding whether or not to accompany John to various soirees, I seriously consider two things: the horrors of mingling versus good food. Sometimes the food comes out on top. Sometimes it doesn’t. On Wednesday night, the food was linked to a free Sabres game, so I went. I had a massive hankering for a stadium cheeseburger.

I had a bad day Wednesday. My cowlick refused to conform to the basic architecture of my head, I had a huge zit right smack in the middle of my forehead, my kids were completely stir-crazy, and I’d received what I’m sure are the first of many rejections in the mail. Writing rejections are the worst. There’s no sugarcoating. They never say, “It’s not you, it’s us.” They might as well write the following:

Holly,


It’s not us, it’s totally you.


This isn’t what we’re looking for at all.


I guess you can submit again sometime, but get a clue first. Sheesh.


From,
A very, very mean editor.

Little did they know I would later attend Buffalo’s most highfalutin event on a Wednesday evening. That’s right. My day was bound to get better!

And what does the stay-at-home mom wear to a post-work highfalutin event at a hockey arena? These are the types of fashion questions that boggle my stay-at-home mom mind. John intended to go in his suit. If I had gone in a suit, people would’ve assumed I’d come from work. I would be faced with awkward, “What do you do?” questions. So, I opted for jeans, a nice top, and high-heeled boots. I made John change into khakis and a sweater.

We were very underdressed. And there were no cheeseburgers. Just a lukewarm pasta bar. I shook hands with one of the most powerful men in New York State government, and stood by sanguinely while John chatted with Mayor Brown and former Mayor Masiello, who shook my hand and told me it was lovely to see me again.

We’ve never met.

“The food here sucks,” I told them. “I want a cheeseburger.” (I didn't really say that.  But I was thinking it.)

One state legislator shook my hand for what seemed an excessive amount of time and then gave me his card, and told me to call him if I needed anything, anything at all. The card is still in my jacket pocket, and I intend to use it the next time I get lost in Buffalo.

“I'm looking for the exit to 33. No, I don’t need a GPS; I have your business card.”

At least there was the hockey game to look forward to! And we had great seats. Unfortunately, we were seated next to a perfect contender for that show Girls Gone Wild, and she also happened to be a Rangers fan. In the middle of the first period, we moved down and proceeded to watch the most boring hockey game that has ever not been broadcast on Time Warner Cable.

Luckily, at the beginning of the second period, Buffalo’s only gay, black, die-hard Sabres fan joined us, automatically raising our spirits, warming me up with a good cuddle, and flamboyantly explaining the makeup of the Sabres’s fourth line, which was helpful because even though I’ve watched hundreds of Sabres games over the past 15 years, I still don’t know what icing is.

“Icing! Icing!” I yell.

“That’s not icing,” says John.

“High sticking, then? Was it high sticking?”

Honestly, everything I know about hockey I learned from the Disney film The Mighty Ducks.

“Treat it like an egg, Gerbe! You’re not treating the puck like an egg! Form the flying V! Where’s the flying V? Why don’t they ever do the flying V?”

This is when John buries his face in his hands and doesn’t come up for a while. Gay, black, die-hard Sabres fan wasn't embarrassed to be seated next to me. We scorned the hot Rangers fan and yelled at Ryan Miller for his lazy goal-keeping.

On the way home, John and I listened to a most excellent podcast called, “How Did This Get Made?”, a show that discusses movies so terrible they’re amazing. They deconstruct gems like “Jingle All the Way,” “Twilight,” and “Superman 3.” We listened to the podcast about "Superman 3", or, "Superman: The One Where Supes Gets all Rapey."

On Wednesday night, I took a gamble, and I chose food over the horrors of mingling. And I lost that bet. But I had a good time anyway.

Mayor, it was lovely to see you again, too.

The Introvert Lost

“But small talk with stiff-backed strangers at a swanky cocktail party is by far my least favorite part of my job.  Send me to a famine of a flood and I’m comfortable.  A few rounds of the room at a social event, however, leave me exhausted.”  Bryan Walsh, The Upside of Being An Introvert (And Why Extroverts are Overrated)  Time Magazine

In middle school, Horizon Skate was the place to be on a Friday night.  In those days, Horizon was a dark, dank, foggy with smoke destination where a deejay played a rotating assortment of pulsating top 40 hits.  Every single kid piled onto the rink whenever he played The Beach Boys’ Kokomo.  As an interminably shy 12-year old who would never quite fit in, but who kind of wanted to, I went a couple of times.  I found the whole experience to be emotionally draining.

20+ years later, Horizon is pretty much the same, minus the smoke.  I know because I lost Ben there on Saturday afternoon.

Rather, “they” lost Ben on Saturday afternoon.  I was just there to pick my kid up from a birthday party.  The host had no idea where he was.

“He’s around somewhere,” she said. 

“Somewhere” was a vast area mobbed with elementary school-aged kids maneuvering about the place in roller skates, playing arcade games in wobbly roller skates, trading tickets for prizes in wobbly  roller skates, and drinking large sodas in wobbly roller skates.  In other words, Horizon Skating Rink is the fifth circle of hell.

I went to the laser tag room: no Ben.  I checked in the jungle gym area: no Ben.  I checked in the arcade: no Ben.  (I did, however, get hit in the thigh with a skee ball.)  I sat and stared at the kids circling around and around on the skating ring, twisting and shaking to a Justin Bieber song.  No Ben. 

I noted the many unguarded exits, the strange men loitering in the vicinity, seemingly enraptured with whatever was on their cell phones.  I watched people pour in and out of the front door. 

I began to become unhinged. 

They called his name over the intercom.  Three times.  He didn’t show. 

Eight employees on walky-talkies were deployed to find him.

“He’s wearing a blue shirt, jeans, has blonde hair, and he’s six.  He’s only six,” I blubbered.

We found him waiting in line with his arcade tickets to redeem his prize of two small rubber lizards, one of which would consume the other in the van on the way home. 

“Did you hear them call you name?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go to the snack bar?”

“What’s a snack bar?”

I was livid.  I was angry at the hosts of the birthday party, angry at Horizon for not being militant about the entry and re-entry of their most precious clientele, but mostly angry at Ben for his complete apathy regarding my near breakdown.  

So I did anything a mom with a bruised thigh courtesy of a rogue skee ball angry with her child for running off would do: I took Ben to the store and bought him copious amounts of candy and treats. 

The prodigal son came home.

Later that evening, I accompanied John to a swanky ball at the convention center. I acquiesce to being John’s date if he follows one rule: he does not leave my side. 

The event, of course, had an endless shrimp cocktail bar, and who can resist endless shrimp cocktail?  I sure can’t. 

“I’m going to get more shrimp cocktail,” I told John.  When I returned to where he was, he was gone.  

I did a lap around the room.  No John.  Another lap.  No John.

I was starting to become unhinged.  It appeared everyone in the room was comfortably chatting with someone they knew intimately while I was wandering around, lost and unbridled. 

I finally found him talking to friends in the complete opposite corner from where I had last seen him.  He greeted me like I was another acquaintance on the VIP floor, completely unaware that I was yay-close to dissolving into a weepy puddle in the middle of the ballroom floor. 

I read the above-quoted article in Time Magazine with interest.  (Also learned in Time Magazine:  The Miller’s grizzled langur monkey, believed to be extinct, was recently found in Borneo, in areas it had never inhabited before.  Good news for grizzled langur monkey fans!) 

While the extrovert (i.e., my husband) becomes energized in large social situations, the introvert becomes emotionally taxed.  While extreme shyness is hopefully a thing of my past, according to the innie or outie quiz in the magazine, I am a hard-core introvert.  And it can be difficult to be an introvert in an extrovert’s world.  (There are those, of course, who fall in the middle of the spectrum.  They are called ambiverts.)

“From the moment we wake up to the second we go to sleep- preferably after relaxing with a book in bed- introverts live in an extrovert's world, and there are days when we’d prefer to do nothing more than stay at home.  But while our temperaments may define us, that doesn’t mean we’re controlled by them- if we can find something or someone that motivates us to push beyond the boundaries of our nerves.  I’m happy to be an introvert, but that’s not all I am.”

Next Saturday, I choose to stay home.  Ben’s staying home too.  And there’s nothing at all wrong with that. 

Your happy song of the week is a request by Miss Corrie: “Staying Alive” by the Bee Gees, a song, I think, that speaks to introverts and extroverts and even ambiverts alike.  

Take the quiz:  Are you an introvert or an extrovert?  http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/27/quiz-are-you-an-introvert-an-extrovert-or-an-ambivert/

Elladay Part 2

In the waiting room, a group of girls were  playing with a train track. Ella marched right up to them and said,

“Hey girlfriends!”

Have I mentioned how much I love her? How her exuberance and passion for life brightens dreary January days?

She shucked her coat and joined them. She didn’t seem to notice that they were staring at her incredulously. She wouldn’t care if she knew. Life, to Ella, is too wonderful to give heed to the criticisms of her peers. Life is shiny, brand new every day, and she greets each day with a smile as big as Texas.

Remove her from the fun before she’s ready though and Houston, we have a problem.

Today, we found out that Ella has a significant hearing loss in her right ear. Her hearing is just in the normal range in her left ear. Without going into a lot of details, it’s probably treatable. And this is wonderful news.

It also explains some things.

One more Ella mystery solved.

Elladay

“Mama has baby in her tummy,” says Ella to a group of moms and daughers waiting for dance class to begin.

“What? No! No, mommy does not,” I say. “Just Christmas cookies, people. I made an astonishing number of Christmas cookies this year.”

With two new baby cousins in the family, Ella is lobbying hard, in her own way, for a baby brother or sister. She has made it clear that gender is of unimportance: she just wants a small round baby the size of a loaf of bread who coos and cries and wears diapers. You know. Your average nightmare.

“I loooove babies.”

Yesterday was Ella’s first dance class. I dropped the three boys at a friend’s house, to Ella’s dismay. She is adamantly opposed to being separated from her twin. She screamed all the way to the community center. We waited in the car until she calmed down. I pleaded. I threatened. I counted to three. She would not stop screaming. I reminded her how badly she wanted to take dance class. I threw out words she loves: ballet! Tap! Gymnastics! Pink! Girlfriends! She sobbed.

When she finally settled down, we joined the gathering of waiting moms and daughters, all of the little girls dressed in pink tutus and worn ballet slippers. This is my first girl. I had no idea where to buy relatively inexpensive tutus and ballet shoes, so we arrived in sneakers and comfortable stretch pants. (Turns out, Payless and Target! Who knew?)

This did not go over well with Ella.

“Pink! I want pink! I need dress!” I promised we would get her dance clothes this week. Another tantrum commenced, and I held my squirming, squalling child while the other moms looked on with fear. This little girl will be in my daughter’s class?


And just like that, Ella was quiet. With the flick of some mysterious switch, she was happy again. She pointed at me and announced the impending arrival of my phantom cookie baby.

Earlier that day, I had given Ella the Heimlich maneuver. One moment, she was happily devouring a peanut butter and jelly sandwich; the next moment, she was struggling to breathe. I took three long strides across the room, pulled Ella toward me, squeezed beneath her rib cage, and she spit up a large chunk of bread. Her raspy, choking breaths were like music. I held her and promised she would be okay, promised I would always take care of her. She smiled at me, held my cheeks with her small hands and said, “I know.”

Before the girls entered the gym, I pulled the dance teacher, Miss Nikki, aside and told her Ella was a bit different. Special. I spoke of learning disorders and speech delays and receptive communication issues. Miss Nikki clapped her hands excitedly,

“I have a graduate degree in special ed! I love working with kids like Ella!”

Through the window, I watched six little girls walk on point, practicing wobbly plies to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. Miss Nikki helped them form proper poses, one little girl trying her hardest in cumbersome sneakers. And I can’t be sure, but I think that little girl was Miss Nikki’s favorite.

Alabama Shakes and Shopping at the Home Depot

We're in the process of moving the kids' rooms around.  I lost my office.  Ella is gaining her own room painted the color "Ballet Slipper" by Benjamin Moore. 

This morning, after I convinced the fine gentleman at the paint store I didn't need primer (ample quantities of primer came with the house), I stopped by the Home Depot for an edger, some blinds, and just to browse.

Women enjoy browsing.  Men shop with purpose, and the Home Depot is filled with men who are shopping with purpose.  I meander lazily through the paint aisle and am nearly trampled by contractors and salesmen who assume I have a purpose for being in the paint aisle.  I did have a purpose- getting an edger- but the purpose was really secondary to checking out the Martha Stewart paint colors.  So pretty!  Who gets to make up the names for paint colors?  I want to paint my kitchen "Wooden Spoon," even though it's grey and doesn't match my kitchen at all.

John often mocks me because of my short attention span.

"And that's why I feel so passionate about this.  I mean, it really comes down to- ooooh look!  A butterfly!"

I feel like that in the Home Depot.  There's the hanging blinds I'm looking for, gotta make sure to get cream and not white- oh look!  Carpets are on sale!

I like the Home Depot, and I'm excited about Ella's new- oooh!  Look!  It's your Monday Happy Song! 

I'm really looking forward to this album coming out in April.  If you like Janis Joplin, etc. etc.:

From The Planet Mexico

“Mom. Is our planet called Earth?” asked Ben.

“Yes. We are earth. The blue planet.”

“Huh. I thought we lived on the planet Mexico.”

Sometimes I fear the public school system is failing him.

We were in the car, Ben in the back seat dressed in full Darth Vader regalia. He was speaking to me from beneath his black, shiny helmet. Honestly, he resembled Rick Moranis in Spaceballs more than the tall guy they got to play Darth in Star Wars.

Ben is trying desperately hard to be a good boy, which is really hard for people from the planet Mexico- not to be confused with the country in North America here on the blue planet, earth.

In my refusal to mention what racist thing Ben said the other day, I should have mentioned no pejorative terms were thrown about. I was told that because I did not relay what he said, people’s imaginations went to the worst possible places. Compared with the guesses family and friends made, Ben’s statements were almost inoccuous. Relief swept over faces when I told what had been said.

“That’s nothing. Listen to what my kid said about…”

In the car, we named all the planets.

“There’s Mercury, and the Venus, which is covered with a poisonous gas,” I said.

“Jupiter’s the gaseous planet,” John said.

“ALL the outer planets are gaseous,” I retorted. I know this from reading The Magic School Bus Chapter Book #4: Space Explorers, which is a scientific work on par with Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time.

“Caleb, do you know what color Mars is?”

“Blue and green,” he said with confidence.

“Nope. Mars is the red planet.” I was starting to feel smug about my space knowledge.

“I thought you said 'what color ours is.' Our planet is blue and green.”

Tonight, the husband is out watching the final playoff game; this week he travels. I am left alone here on the planet Mexico to discuss basic astronomical nomenclature with my kids.

“Mars people are called Martians,” said Ben proudly.

He is a good boy. They are all good boys. But sometimes I ache for grown-up conversation.

Tonight it is too cloudy to see Venus burning in the winter sky.

Nine Years Ago

Before Caleb was born, mommy looked like this:

After Caleb was born, mommy looked like this:

Was it worth it?

It surely was.

Happy Birthday Caleb!

Born 9:12 pm on 1/13/03

LAST CALL TO ACTION!  HGL is moving to its own Facebook page!  To receive or continue to receive HGL posts on your Facebook news feed, please press "Like" on the Facebook plug in toward the top of the right column. 

Don't make me beg.

Love,

Holly

Pride

I have a list of Happy Song Project suggestions, the first of which I will get to next week. For today, however, this song, though not entirely "happy", seemed appropriate.





HGL is in the process of migrating to its own Facebook page!  To receive or continue to receive HGL posts on your Facebook news feed, please press "Like" on the Facebook plug in toward the top of the right column.  You rock.  Love, Holly

That Awkward Moment When You Realize Your 6-Year Old is Racist: A Martin Luther King Day Post

The other night, and I don’t even remember how we stumbled upon this topic, Ben said something... a bit racist.  I can't even repeat it, I have so much shame.

To say that I freaked out would be an understatement.

“What? WHAT? What did you say? Why do you think that? Who told you that? Was it that god-forsaken public school system?” (Further freaking out commenced, and I turned to John and may have said things like the following):

“Why don’t we just call up the KKK and send him on over to Arkansas or wherever it is the KKK hangs these days.”

“I knew we should’ve sent him to the city schools for the first few years of his life. Then he’d know what it’s like to be the minority.”

I became irrational, which is what happens when freaking out goes unmitigated. Sometimes John just lets me go on:

"Why would you say that?  I need to understand the root of his statement right now or I'm going to totally freak out!!!

“This is what happens when you let kids watch too much television.”

“I failed! Somewhere along the way I failed.”

“YOU FAILED JOHN! SOMEWHERE ALONG THE WAY YOU FAILED!”

Ben: “Waaaaaaahhhhhhh! I don't want to go to a different school!"

And then, the voice of reason interceded. Caleb, who just turned nine on Friday, said the following:

“Ben, you’d better not say things like that or Martin Luther King will come out of his grave and get you.”

Stunned, both Ben and his guilt-ridden mother dropped the subject. I decided a lecture on pacifism would come later, after I could be sure Ben was no longer a racist.

I think Martin Luther King Jr. would want it that way.



MLK Jr.:  Racists, he's coming for you...

HGL is in the process of migrating to its own Facebook page!  To receive or continue to receive HGL posts on your Facebook news feed, please press "Like" on the Facebook plug in toward the top of the right column.  You rock.  Love, Holly

Blog Annoucement

After some consideration, I've decided not to publish blog posts on my Facebook page anymore.  However, since some people won't remember to read my blog unless it's on Facebook (you know who you are), I am creating a Facebook page for the blog.  You can find the page HERE. 

If you would like to continue to receive my blog posts in your news feed, please "like" the page. 

If you'd rather not, then you can subscribe to the blog via Google, Yahoo, etc. or stick your email address in the Feedburner spot over there and have the posts arrive in your inbox.  Neat, right?

If you don't want to do that, either, well.  Fine then.  I don't care.

(Except I do care.  Deeply.)

I will post a couple more posts through my regular Facebook page and then move completely over to the Holly Goes Lightly Most Awesome Community Facebook Page in America Thank You Very Much where I will post pithy quotations, witty sayings, what I'm eating for lunch, how I'm feeling, plus my deepest darkest secrets every half hour or so.

(I won't.  I will only post blog posts and rarely anything else.  Promise.)

Again, the link is HERE.

Next post: Back to Our Regular Scheduled Programming...

Feeding the Hungry

Has someone told you that you're callous, selfish, and that you hoard food? Me too! I've proved them wrong by voting for the Calvert County food pantry to win $5000 to help feed the hungry. And you can too. It's easy!

Vote for Rev. Robert Hahn at THIS LINK.  It takes less time than it did to contemplate who called me selfish, callous, and a food hoarder! (Scroll down to find the answer to this enigma.)

My sister works hard to help run this food pantry, and your vote would really be appreciated. Again, it's THIS LINK. Thanks so much my lovely readers!



































Kiah the Wonder Dog

Dreams of Walking in the Snow

When there are spiderwebs hanging from your Christmas tree like tinsel, perhaps you've kept it up too long.  Unfortunately, Christmas trees are not easy to dust.  The needles just keep falling off.

All this to say, I finally took the tree down and the stupid thing gave me a rash on my hand.  Apparently I'm allergic to sap.  Or bark. 

I'm so over Christmas. 

I am, however, uncharacteristically excited about winter.  If it would just snow! 

Ben (solemnly):  I pray for snow every single day, mom.

And he does.  (Dear God, thank you for this food.  Bless it to our bodies.  Thank you for mom and dad and all my grandmas and grandpas and for my teacher and for my toys and fireplaces and Kiah and robots, and please let it snow today.  Amen.)

We want to go sledding and make snowmen and throw snowballs at my neighbor who hates me.  But that's a post for a different day.

Today's happy song:  Brandi Carlile's "Have You Ever."  I could listen to it over and over and over and over and over and over...