Kid Stuff

Exhausted & sick – the ghost of bad Domino’s pizza rattling around in my stomach verily unto the third day after eating. ISM is begging for money. Specifically, we’re 50 K short for the 2004-2005 academic year and Chrissie, ISM’s powerball director, thought the school would have a better shot of snagging some of those big private foundation grants if its adorable students were carted up to Sacramento to sing for their education at the annual conference of the California Charter Schools Association.

Not a bad plan. Execution left something to be desired though.

As for example: I volunteered to be a chaperone something like five weeks ago. And didn’t hear back. Okay, they don’t need me, thought I with some relief: I’m always volunteering for these school expeditions because I feel so much guilt over Robin. I’m a bad mother. I’m a negligent mother. So many things take precedence over baking cookies – the store, watching endless reruns of Law & Order, the dribbles and drabs of a creative life. And I actually have enjoyed the couple of expeditions I’ve been on. Children are so much more interesting to watch than adults. Fewer props. More primary process.

But I have been working very, very hard. On Wednesday, we had another disaster: in the night, one of the glass shelves filled with salsa jars mysteriously buckled and broke. I was sitting at my computer working on the first short story I’ve attempted in a year when the phone rang. Ben’s hysterical voice: "It’s bad. It’s very, very bad."

Of course, it wasn’t that bad and of course this is the second time something like this has happened which means we’re fucking idiots who never learn. Glass shelves? What were we thinking? Clean-up took three hours. Still haven’t inventoried the loss but it wasn’t more than $100. Still, I spent the rest of the day in a black hole. Felt absolutely like I wanted to die. This must be what clinical depression feels like, I told myself: you sit in one place and wait for the next breath to begin, you don’t even have the energy to read or look at what’s in front of you.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I’m one of those people who lives very much in the present tense. So by the next morning the visceral residue of the mishap was wiped clean and I was ready to be plucky again. Store going into its spring revenue season. The siren song of the cash register! Happy customers buying, buying, buying!

Friday ISM finally sent me back a badly mimeographed form: I was Mrs. Trumble, I was charged with ensuring the welfare of Robin, Kodiak and Nick in our great state capitol. Eight hours on a Monterey School District bus with faulty shocks. A really bad motel literally 20 yards away from I-5 but miles and miles from any restaurant. Thirty kids with no centralized food planning. Nick came up with a hundred bucks in his pocket. I seriously considered rolling him – I mean, how much resistance can a ten year old put up against a determined 51 year old woman?

On the ride up, Chrissie’s estranged husband snagged the seat next to me to recount the drama of their recent breakup. German, rangy, good-looking. Torvald. I kind of like Chrissie so I didn’t want to hear any of it. "She just gets up and leaves," Torvald tells me mournfully. "No explanation. She is ambitious. She has bigger fish to fry than a marriage and children."

Kodiak, sitting to one side of me, has a bag of pretzels.

"I will show you a magic trick," says Torvald. He grabs a handful of pretzels. "Now you see them. Now you don’t."

"Hey!" said Kodiak. "Give me back my pretzels!"

"Too late," says Torvald. He pops them in his mouth.

Best move Chrissie ever made was dumping you, I think. One of those very high maintenance European male egos. Besides him, his gorky kid Conor delves ever deeper into Gameboy-land. Torvald grabs Conor’s ear and twists.

"Ouch!" says Conor.

"There is a world outside the window!" says Torvald. "Look at it once in a while, why don’t you."

Now understand we were barrelling down I-5 somewhere just south of Stockton. Even in the green season, this is not exactly God’s grandeur on display.

So much more to write but when will I ever find the time?