How to Embarrass Your Kids

February 22, 2013February 22, 2013 / roughwighting / 40 Comments

One of the perks of being a parent is embarrassing your kids just by being…you.

Yes, I see the quick smirk on your face. I hear you thinking about the time you sang, “I Can’t Get No…Satisfaction” loudly while standing in line at the grocery store as your kids squirmed in…dissatisfaction.

It’s not like we start out trying to mortify our kids. They initiate it!

For instance – socks.

My man has worn long tennis socks with his shorts since he was a studly 25-year-old, and by god, he’s sticking with those socks (or ones like them) for his entire life. So, when our kids were…kids, they moaned on vacations as we walked the beach together in July, or attended swimming lesson or tennis lessons, or even soccer games, and they had to endure their dad in shorts and “tall” socks.

They’d save their allowance and buy short thick Agassi tennis socks, and stick them in their dad’s sock drawer (and throw out the offending “tall’ socks,” of course). But by that time, tall socks became a symbol of our independence, our stubbornness, and our parenting.

No child of ours was going to tell us what we could or could not wear, or sing, or even admire.

One day I was driving my kids home from a lesson – ballet or soccer or piano or chess or, well, the list goes on. Because we lived off a scenic, hilly road called “Paradise Drive,” we always passed many buff bicyclists. On this particular sunny afternoon, I unknowingly let out a sigh while exclaiming, “look at the calves on that man.”

bicyclist legs, biking, muscles, parenting, children

Well-muscled legs (note the lack of “tall” socks).

My son and daughter both bellowed in two long syllables: “MOOOOOMMMMM!”

“What?” I asked innocently.

“You’re married,” my son expounded. “You can’t look at another man’s legs!”

I came close to muttering back, “I’m married, but I’m not dead,” but instead said, “I’m just commenting on the muscles this guy has built by bicycling so hard.”

No good. My kids were adamant that I should not and could not notice the muscles on any other man but their dad.

Paradise Drive, biking, parenting, embarrassing, kids

On the embarrassing Paradise Drive home.

I realized then that I’d just found a supreme opportunity for future parental embarrassment. So each time the kids and I drove home on Paradise Drive and we passed a well-muscled bicyclist, I’d open my mouth and begin, “Wow, look at the…” And they’d stop me with groans of dismay and the two-syllable pronunciation of my name.

If one of their friends was in the car with us, my children would blush stop-sign red before I even pointed.

Ahhh, the perks of being a parent. 🙂

P.S. I won’t even start with how my stories embarrass my (now adult!) children. Let’s just say, I’m not supposed to write about negligées, sexual attraction, bedroom eyes, or passion (if you’ve read my book THE RIGHT WRONG MAN, you know I still embarrass my kids horribly). My poetry seems okay to them, though (as long as it’s not about them). Please check out Karen Elliott’s poetry-themed blog this week – she features one of my poems this Friday.

Never Give Up Chocolate

February 15, 2013 / roughwighting / 21 Comments

chocolate, writing exercise, wish I'd known

Pondering the things I wish I’d known.

What do you wish you’d known in your past, now that you’ve reached some type of maturity and can look back?

When I encourage my writing class students to write their list of “Things I Wish I’d Known,” I write along with them, thinking it’s an easy exercise.But I’m surprised by my first esoteric response:

“Never, ever give up chocolate.”

Embarrassed, but intent on following my own instructions of just writing out the first things that come to mind, I continue my list:

“Give to others, but be sure to also give to yourself.”

My grandson already knows some of the things I wish I’d known.

The following one surprises me:

“Don’t worry so much about hurting someone else’s feelings.”

Wait a minute. I catch a glimmer of something.

The next insightful “wish I’d known” advises:

“Those you love, love more; those you don’t like – avoid more.”

Ah, I’m connecting all the dots, or all the “wish I’d knowns,” to be more exact.

Never ever give up chocolate expresses all of the above platitudes, only better.

Never give up what I am, what I need, what is right for me.

Ever.

I’ve learned that yes, it’s important to keep others happy, to take care of them, to be a “good” mother,wife,daughter,friend,colleague,sister,aunt,grandmother,mom-in-law,sis-in-law,cousin.

But, I shouldn’t have to give up ME to be a good anything.

Not that I’d give up my mistakes and misdirections and missions lost. I needed each and every one of those experiences to get here – to a chocolate-loaded life of love, wonder, worry, pleasure, sadness, but mostly joy.

Particularly if I have a piece of saved (and hidden) dark chocolate buttercream nearby.

What’s on YOUR list of “things you wish you’d known”…?

P.S. I also wish I’d known that poetry can be fun, instructive, soul-searching, and beautiful. If you feel the same way about poems, my blogging friend Karen Elliott is featuring a Poetry Week February 18-23 – check it out at http://karenselliott.wordpress.com/ (one of my poems will be featured on Friday, 2/22).

Mystical

February 7, 2013 / roughwighting / 19 Comments

Life is mystical – if we allow it to be.
Close your eyes and take away what you see, or what you think you see.

Hawaii, Kauai, sun, mystical, palm trees
Allow the mist to cover the noise and the squalor of untruths.
Untruth – we have control over nature or people or our fate.
Fate – is that not an issue of the supernatural, of what is meant to be?
What are YOU meant to be?
Close your eyes and let go.

Let the mystic in you see the unseen.
No clarity, no right or left
No wrong or bad
No mine or yours

Just

Then the light shines through

the mist.

And you see

what is.

Hit Me (the link between football and blogging)

February 1, 2013 / roughwighting / 32 Comments

I’m a middle-aged woman who hates violent movies and shies away from angry words or, really, any kind of confrontation.

But, I absolutely LOVE football. Go figure!

My love affair began in 1985, living in San Francisco, watching Joe Montana and the 49ers. Of course, I’d watched football before then – didn’t “get” it. What was the fuss all about?

I dated a quarterback in high school. He was cute, and my popularity increased because I was seen with the BMOC, but the football games were for hot dogs, dancing to the band, and dishing about the cheerleaders, not watching the game.

In college I went out with a guy who tried to inspire passion through round pretzels. No, really. He wanted me to understand the game of football, so he pulled out a bag of those small round pretzels (do they make those kind anymore?) and turned the dorm lobby’s old wood table into a football field.

“Here’s the quarterback,” he’d try. “Now this guy on defense will try and get away from the offensive line..” (the pretzels would be moved in position) “and hit the quarterback so he can’t throw the ball.”The guy lost me at “hit.” Any game that worked because one person had to hit another just wasn’t my cup of tea, or in those days, my mug of beer.

Joe Montana happened.

But Montana happened, and then Steve Young, and ‘The Catch,’ and 49er fever throughout the Bay Area. I had an ‘aha’ moment, and I began to love football (and its strategy), and to understand the necessity of hits.

49ers, quarterback, blogging, hits, football

New astounding quarterback.

Segue to this coming Sunday, with another 49er team suddenly coming from nowhere to the SUPERBOWL, with a new quarterback who astounds pundits with his finesse and running abilities and de-stressed attitude.Where are my pretzels? Where’s my 49er hat and sweatshirt and friends who are fanatic fans like me? We will dance with Michael-Jackson-moves when our team gets a field goal, prance after a touchdown, sing bird tunes with a first down, and groan like sick seals after a sack.

Sack of our quarterback – bad. Sack of the other team’s quarterback – good. Yet both are hits.

The moral of my post is that – hits can be good, if used properly, in football.

Or Blogs.

Roughwighting has been ’hit’ over 10,000 times! Yes, over 10,800 readers have come on over to my blog in the past 1 ½ years to see if I’m quarterbacking a blog worth hitting.

I thank all of you who read my wighting words and enjoy them, who comment when moved, who are touched in some small way from my shared revelations.

Hit me again.

Family members prepare for the game.

And Go NINERS!

(reblogged and re-edited 8,000 hits later)

The Wind Beneath My Wings

January 25, 2013January 25, 2013 / roughwighting / 43 Comments

Whenever I hear the expression “you are the wind beneath my wings,” I think about how my friends have blown me through misgivings, doubts, mistakes, dilemmas, marvels, damnations, mysteries, and discomforts.

The times I laugh the loudest, and cry the hardest, are with my friends.

The wind beneath my wings.

One night this week, a group of six friends took me out to celebrate the publication of my book, The Right Wrong Man. They passed around cards of encouragement and pride, they plied me with chocolate bars to fortify me in my (writing) times of need. They gave me a bag full of ‘writing essentials’ in case the power went out: notebook, candle, pencils, pens, and an eraser that says ‘delete.’

God, I love my friends.

I cherish the faded photos of my first steady friends – friendships cemented during our college years of love found, love lost, tests failed, classes passed, maturity endured, parties survived.

And I cherish the photo of us, decades later, still smiling together.

Women are only as strong as their friendships, yes?

Decades after college, still smiling.

A week ago, another friend, “Inda the Bride,” took me out for lunch to celebrate my book, and before I knew what she was doing, two glasses of champagne sparkled on our table. Her friendship goes way back, including an evening 20 years ago when my daughter made glittery nameplates for our dinner table, but the glimmering “L” came off long before dessert. Linda’s been Inda ever since. Oh, and she and her love married in our house; I even pressed the CD button as she came down our stairs, so Pachelbel Canon in D Major would soothe her jittery nerves.

The wind beneath our wings.

Just as I’m writing this, I see an e-mail pop up from a ‘new’ friend. We’ve only known each other for 12 years. A Baby Friendship. She writes:

MADS helped me survive New England winters, teaching me how to drive in the snow (close your eyes and pray), how to tutor special ed students (stare them in the eyes and love them), and how to laugh when you want to cry.

The wind beneath my wings.

When I began this blog almost two years ago, the second post I wrote was about a long-time friendship – “A Place I Could Easily Call Home” (http://bit.ly/placecallhome), and the first poem I posted explained that “Friendship sooths the rough edge of life.” (http://bit.ly/friendshipoem).

As I scroll down the friendships of my life, the special women who have helped me get through my fears and my devils, helped me celebrate my joys and my loves, I thank them for the wind they’ve provided beneath my wings.

Cheers and love to you, my friends!