Technical Difficulties

Some people experience writer's cramp, so I must be suffering from writer's constipation. One could say I am having trouble with my vowel movements; nothing is flowing. I need a good mental laxative, one that will loosen up the ideas. I am open to suggestions at this point. Any tips?

A Letter from Christmas Past

I am swamped with grading but wracked with guilt over not posting a decent post in quite some time (or ever, as some may argue).  So, here is an Owens Family Christmas letter from 2006 until I can get back in the swing of things -

Greetings!  It is already that time of year: chestnuts roasting, stockings hanging and the Owens Family Christmas finally arriving!

We begin, as always, with Noah and Natalie, the apex of evolution itself.  Noah (6) started first grade this year but is a smartass far beyond his years.  His favorite activities are soccer, reading and honing his condescending demeanor.  Case in point: he recently emerged from the bathroom and announced that he had diarrhea.  Trying to assess the severity of the situation, Keri asked him, “What is diarrhea?”  The implication here was the unannounced what is diarrhea to you but those types of subtleties are lost on even the brightest 6 year old.  So, Noah responded in a way that truly made me proud.  With complete and utter disdain, he replied, “It’s a lot of poop, Mom.”  Natalie turned 2 and is clearly her own little person.  Despite her limited vocabulary, she is quite the little talker and makes her demands know to all within earshot.  She can say most of our names, except for Suzie and Kim’s.  Suzie is “MAMA!” when Natalie is mad and wants to be held.  Kim, for some reason, is “buddy.”  Dan ran both the Crim and the Detroit marathon this year and did not stroke out at either event.  Keri is teaching fifth grade in the Croswell-Lexington district, where the strain of banjo music and smell of manure mix together for a unique teach environment.  The Christmas song “All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” has a very apropos and literal meaning.  The Yankee family also bought a house this year, so please send donations.

Keeping true to her nomadic spirit and quest to inhabit every living space in Flint, Kim moved yet again and is also living in a house.  However, Kim went the smart way and moved in with someone who already owned a home.  Her name is Sue and she is a program officer at the Mott Foundation but more importantly, Natalie can already say her name!  This makes Suzie only a little bitter, as she did not think to try that first.  Kim continues to teach at Mott and actually got to teach a course she designed this year: readings in Popular Culture.  Turns out all those years spent in front of the television and reading comic books was really just extensive preparatory research.

Mike and Suzie continue to be the consummate travelers.  Vacation spots this year included a fishing trip to Alaska for Mike, as there is no way in hell that Suzie is going to camp; a trip to Chicago for Suzie (as well as Kim, Sue, Keri and Paulette) to celebrate her 60^th birthday with a weekend of shopping, eating and watching Wicked, as there is no way in hell that Mike is going to willingly participate in any of those activities at those prices; a week at Lake Michigan with the whole family, including Wally, Nancy, Abe, Beth, Sarah, Chris, Elizabeth and Connor; and, of course, a cruise up the New England coast.  What made this year’s travels so amazing was not the sheer amount of hours they were able to get off from work but the fact that every trip occurred after Suzie’s mastectomy!  In March, Suzie was diagnosed with a very early form of breast cancer.  If we were to compare her diagnosis to an unplanned pregnancy, the doctors caught the cancer at the moment the condom breaks – really, REALLY early.  Suzie opted for the mastectomy primarily to get Kim to cover the housework for six weeks.  The worst part of the whole experience was getting sent home the same day of the surgery, which meant Suzie didn’t get to milk an overnight hospital stay for all that it is worth.  The best part of the experience was that when Suzie did go on her many travels, carrying her over-the-shoulder bags was a breeze.  In between their travels, Mike and Suzie their various activities that they always enjoy: spoiling Noah, spoiling Natalie and enjoying life in general.

We hope that you continue to enjoy your lives as well.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy 2007!

April is The Cruelest Month

I finally figured out why T.S. Eliot wrote that line: he clearly suffered from sinus issues.  To all those who are suffering as well, I blow my red, swollen nose to you.

Weapons of Mass Diarrhea

I don't know when the world is going to end but I think I know how: toddler germs.  That's right, a tiny child will end it all with a deadly sneeze.  It turns out that while children are cute and cuddly, they also serve as deadly incubators of infectious diseases of plague-like proportions.  Forget SARS, bird flu, nuclear destruction or global warming; it's the children who will lead us down the path of armageddon, leaving nothing but a trail of tissues and empty antibiotic bottles.

Don't get me wrong: I love kids.  But sick children can easily level an entire nation within a matter of hours.  One cough is worth a thousand germs, germs that house unspeakable horrors.  I am shocked that preschool teachers are not required to wear hazmat suits during flu season.  I'd go on, but the cold meds are kicking in again.  If you have sick children, I suggest you wrap them in sterile bubble wrap before kissing them good night and then take a hot shower after, just in case.

When Did I Become an Adult??!?!

I had been looking forward to it all week: a Sunday afternoon spent playing Rock Band with my sister and her family.  (And a guilt-free Sunday at that as I am on Spring break and have all week to grade those papers that are nagging at me even though I stuffed them really far under my bed.) It was going to be the perfect Sunday as I introduced Sue to a game that the whole family enjoys. But something tragic happened since our last trip to Lexington....

You have to understand that as a child, I wanted nothing more than to play the drums. I asked for a drumset every year for roughly 6 years before I finally received it one very happy Christmas.  Sadly, it went right to the basement, the one area of the house I did not enjoy spending any quality time in.  It was cold, damp and a bit creepy.  I didn't mind going there with someone else but apparently my "skills" on the skins dictated that drum time = alone time for little Kim.  The drums were quickly abandoned and pretty much became dust collectors by spring.  Video games filled the void and I actually displayed some aptitude at the Atari 2600, enough so that other people relished the challenge.  But the passion for the drums never fully died.

Fast forward to January 2008 and the purchase of the aforementioned Rock Band video game for Noah's birthday.  We had fun playing it that first night but Sue wasn't there and we had other things to do.  I only played once or twice and chalked up my somewhat mediocre performance to the fact that it was a new game and Sue wasn't there to enjoy it with me.  Here's where the story gets tragic.

We arrived at my sister's and quickly set the game up.  Since the drums were a bit challenging, I graciously offered Sue one of the guitars and dove for the drumset.  My inner four year old emerged.  Unfortunately, I mean that in both a figurative and literal sense: the passion and excitement were there but so were the skills of little Kim.  Only this time, it was much worse.

I quickly realized something was amiss when the game started booing.  Instead of the fast, furious beat of "Blitzkrieg Bop," I could only hear the occasional pathetic crash and thud of what sounded like an infant rummaging through the drawer of pots and pans in the kitchen.  And before I could stop myself, I uttered the phrase I thought only lame grown-ups used: "I don't understand how to play this.  I think the game is broken!"  

As soon as I said it, a wave of cold nausea gripped my insides.  Somewhere between getting a real job, paying a mortgage, feeling guilty about the size of my carbon footprint (thanks, Larry) and contemplating parenthood, I had become.....an adult.  Not just responsible, in a good way, but a complete tool, the kind who doesn't "get" new cartoons (seriously, anime??!?!), new fashions (what the hell is up with Hollister sizes? I can't pull an XXXL over my head!) or apparently new video games.  

The real kicker is that the laughter I envisioned all of us sharing was in fact directed squarely at me.  Apparently, the harder I tried to play, the less aware I became of what I was doing.  I discovered I have a habit of sticking out my tongue when I am concentrating really hard, which had everyone near tears but I was too engrossed to notice.  Still, the game was fun and I enjoyed the quality time with my family.  Because that's what adults do......*sigh.*  I am going to go drink some Metamucil and call it a night.

Dining with Banshees

I love children. I think they are tiny vessels of joy, wisdom and innocence, the kind you can never get once you cross that threshhold into adulthood (I think the bills kind of screw it all up). I love children so much that my partner and I are actually thinking of buying one soon, legally of course, just so we can be around that kind of insatiable curiosity on a regular basis.

But someone or something keeps sending little red flags my way, little moments that cause me to pause and think, "Am I really ready for this?" Dining in public seems to be the place where these flags pop up the most.

Recently, Sue and I were enjoying a lovely (well, edible food that required no effort on our part) meal at Olive Garden. Suddenly, I heard a shrill, piercing shriek that sounded what I imagine a hyena caught in a blender would sound like. I froze, partially because my eardrum had been perforated and I lost any sense of balance and partially because I was certain that someone had clearly been impaled by a fork or a coffee stirrer.

When I finally managed to take a look, I saw my biggest future fear staring right at me: a three year old child who clearly lost all sense of shame and reason. But even scarier was the look on his mother's face, a look of anger, embarrassment, shock, horror and pure mortification all combined into one large, throbbing vein on her forehead. I pitied the child, for I was sure that the mother's fury would soon be unleashed upon his joyful, wise and innocent little butt. The real shocker came in the following minutes, or rather, the real shocker actually never came. The mother.... did nothing.

Not a peep came from her mouth, nor even a tiny swat from her hand. She composed herself quickly and continued her dinner conversation with her friend, who was frantically searching for a graceful exit of some sort. She acted as though the 50+ diners burning a hole in the back of her head with their smoldering glares did not exist. She just disengaged entirely from the situation.

And eventually, so did we. One by one, the diners returned to their meals, some smiling in pity, others shaking their heads and wondering what has happened to the state discipline in the 21st century. Sue and I quietly finished our meal and left, too afraid to admit that the mother might one day be us and the wailing banshee our child.

After dinner, we stopped at Best Buy and picked up a pair of Bose earphones, the kind that blocks out all noise. We're going forward with the baby plan - we're just going to be better prepared...

Thoughts That Keep Me Awake at Night

What if a future civilizatiion discovers an episode of American Gladiator and bases all of their historical knowledge of us on that viewing?

If Sarah Connor killed the maker of the cyborgs, how do they keep coming back from the future in The Sarah Connor Chronicles?

If a train is traveling east at 95 mph, starting from point A, and a train traveling west at 80 mph starts from a point 150 miles west of point A, does anyone really care if I can figure out when they're going to meet?  Isn't that why we have schedules?  (I hope a brave students writes "I'll check amtrak online" to that question one day and I hope it's my nephew.)

How did Marisa Tomei win an Oscar?

If I actually retire at 65 instead of 72, how long will I have to eat cat food?

Somebody said "my nipples are bigger than pancakes" and I laughed so hard, I forgot who said it.  Damn......who said it??!?!

I can't believe I watched American Gladiator.....again......