When in Rome?

This is a post that has been knocking around in my head for quite some time, but one of those I just never got around to writing. In light of recent political thangs, I was reminded of it...but suddenly a bit reluctant. I don't want this to come across as a post about a particular candidate, because it isn't. It is, however, about a phenomenon I've witnessed for years and it really makes me twist off. So here you go!

Let me start off by telling you a little bit about myself: I studied French for over eight years...all through high school and college. That's for a solid eight years, not intermittently during that time period. After I graduated from college, my roommate and I instituted "French Sundays" and we only spoke French on those days so that I wouldn't get too rusty.

That same roommate also taught me some of her native Portuguese. And a bit of Spanish.

In my twenties I also enrolled in German classes at a local community college.

When my son was of preschool age, he showed a strong interest in learning Spanish...so I enrolled him in a program for little kiddies and their mommies. It was great for both of us. All three of my children either have or will learn non-native languages...I firmly believe it is not only a wonderful academic exercise but also a key to understanding other cultures.

Plus I just LOVE how it feels to articulate myself in a new language. It is uniquely thrilling.

So with that caveat, I must say I take great offense of this notion that we Americans are backwards and unenlightened because so many of us don't speak a second or third language.

I've been extraordinarily fortunate to have spent a lot of time in Europe. As I looked forward to my first time in France, I was thrilled to be able to buck that stereotype I'd been taught all of us ugly Americans deserved. I was going to take my pretty damn good French vocabulary and accent and WOW them in those French-speaking countries. Plus I would use my rudimentary Spanish when I could! And maybe I'd just speak French all over Europe and be super awesome!!!

Guess how many times that happened? Let's see...once in Provence a B&B owner kindly indulged me. That's all I can remember. Oh, no wait...their was the bartender in Paris who totally mocked my accent. That's a funny story for another time. Remind me, 'kay?

Sure, there were other times that I got to flex my linguistic muscles, but what usually happened was as soon as the first French (or Spanish) syllables were out of my mouth, whomever I was talking to would wave their hand and say (usually with a polite smile or wink, sometimes with an impatient roll of their eyes), "That's okay, let's speak English." It was disappointing, but whatever. I got over it.

When two Europeans from countries with different languages get together, guess what they usually speak? English. Because, the thing is...English just happens to be, for whatever reason, the default language. On the internet and in real life.

If you live on the border of Italy and Austria, there's a geographic imperative that makes learning more than your family's native language tongue a highly valuable skill. We simply don't have that in the United States.

I would LOVE for there to be languages taught in our grade schools from Kindergarten on. For what it's worth, I'd also love for there to be art, music, and PE, to name a few. I'm supplementing my kid's education with foreign languages. And art and music and PE.

My point is that I'm sick of being told we should be ashamed of our ugly, unenlightened, and inferior nation because we travel abroad and speak English. I know there are those who fit that stereotype, but for the most part I think it is an unfair characterization.

Into the light of the dark, black night

The other day I was lounging on my sofa; it is next to a big window that faces the street. As I was reading, I heard the clip-clack sound of someone running in shoes not designed for said activity. I looked up, and one of the college students who lives next door was scurrying past.

"Huh," I thought, and went back to reading.

One and a half sentences later my doorbell rang. There she was, standing on our front porch.

"A baby bird fell and is in our driveway," she announced.

It honestly took me a split second to realize why she was telling me this. Oh, she wants me to come help her, I brilliantly deduced.

"Would you like me to come over and help you?"

A look of gratitude flashed across her face, "That would be great! It just fell onto my driveway. I don't know what to do. It's just laying there."

At this point I'm wondering what she thinks I can bring to the situation. Not that I mind helping, not at all, but I couldn't figure out why she needed assistance.

"Do you think we should put it back in it's nest?" I asked. "They say you're not supposed to do that because then the Mama bird will boot it."

She just looked at me with an uncertain look. I was thinking that was probably the best route to go...better than leaving it laying on the ground, right?

I wasn't prepared to see what I came across. I'd pictured a cute little birdy, unable to fly, confused and looking up at the branches from which he'd fallen.

Not. the. case.

This tiny little creature didn't even look much like a bird. It didn't have feathers...just pink skin with a few scattered tufts of down. The beak and legs looked soft, as if they were molded of orange jello. The poor thing was prone on the cement, its entire body struggling to gasp for breath. There was something trailing out of it; I wasn't sure if it was intestines or the poor thing had lost the contents of its bowels from the landing, or the stress.

It was clearly not going to make it.

I looked at the girl- well, woman really, she's probably twenty or twenty-one- and I knew I couldn't tell her that.

"Ummmmm, he looks pretty badly injured," I said. I looked up, trying to find the nest. "Where is the nest?"

"What nest?"

"The one he fell out of."

"Oh, he didn't fall out of a nest. His mom was carrying him and dropped him. He fell pretty far."

Ugh. Either a Mama bird is going to start dive-bombing us for hovering over her baby, or she's rolling her eyes at us for doting over the runt she dumped.

"Well, let's see..." I stammered.

She asked, "Should I get a box and some towels?"

I looked at her and realized that despite the fact that she's somewhere around twenty years old, she was looking at me with the same expression my four-year-old daughter does when she's got a boo-boo (medical term), Please, make it all better.

That's why she came to me...she needed a grown-up. Right now, even though she's technically an adult, she needs someone to take control.

"Yes, grab a box and some towels. He's going to need to go to a vet. Do you have a car? Can you take him? I can't, I have to get my son from school in a few minutes."

She said she could and ran off to get the emergency medical supplies for the bird, and I stood so that I blocked the sun beaming down on the poor bird. I imagined the bird being taken into a vet's by this sweet college student, and them graciously thanking her and telling her, Don't worry, we will take good care of him.

And then looking at each other after she left, wondering what they should really do.

I looked at the little orange beak, opening and closing as the bird tried to breath. I pictured a little dropper, guided by a vet's had, hydrating the bird drip by drip. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe he'll be okay.

The student rushed back and handed me the box full of towels. I really, really didn't want to do this...but I crouched down and gingerly attempted to scoop him up. His little body was limp and I was horribly afraid I'd squish him, but after a couple of attempts I was successful and placed him in the box, his makeshift nest.

"Thank you so much," the student said with a huge sigh of relief.

One evening a couple of months ago I walked by her house while taking my dog for a walk. It was dark outside, so the large picture window facing the street glowed like a movie screen. The dining table was filled with laughing students, and the aroma of their meal reached me on the sidewalk. I smiled, remembering back a couple of decades to a dinner party I threw while at college. I got all nostalgic for those years of young adulthood....the burgeoning independence, the future wide open before me all full of hope and promise, the developing friendships you just know will last forever. I have to admit, I was a bit envious in that moment as I passed by.

Looking at the student before me, baby bird in hand, that memory flashed through my head. I realized how young she really is, how much I've grown in the past twenty years, and that no matter how enticing the trappings of her world might look from a brief outside glance, no way would I want to return to it.

"I'm really glad I could help," I answered.

Toga! Toga! Toga!

When I was in college, I was so broke that I took my measly paycheck to the local Meijers to cash it and have money orders made for my share of the rent and utilities. For my most broke six months, I was left with about ten dollars for food and bus fare for the following two weeks.

I bought a lot of eggs and cheap bean burritos.

I'd always thought those days were far behind me. The reality is, though, that these recent months have been so financially difficult that we're dangerously close to reliving my college experience. Frankly we are barely making it paycheck-to-paycheck. We're fortunate that we have money trickling in from here and there (and some super great friends (especially this one; she just started blogging today) who've helped out in a pinch or two), otherwise I don't know what I'd do.

Sometimes the idea of reliving college years is appealing. NOT the scrimping and saving part, though.

Anyway, today as I was backing out of our driveway, I realized I'd forgotten something inside the house. As always, I was running late, so I hurriedly threw the car into park, opened the door, and stepped out.

Except that instead of putting the car in park, I had put it in reverse. I realized this as my foot shot out from under me and I started to fall and stumble backwards. I was hopping on my left foot, trying to get back into the car and find the brake with my right foot. As I struggled, I had visions of the open door knocking me over and the car continuing on without me. With my four year-old daughter strapped into her car seat.

But instead of hitting me, the open car door caught on a decorative column on the side of our house. There was an odd, groaning sound as the door bent; at that moment I made it into the car and slammed on the brakes.

I had to pull forward so that I could close the car door. It was stuck waaaaaaaaaaay open. I briefly considered ditching it and biking to her preschool, but we were already late and I was working. Plus I didn't want to deal with the hassle of getting out of the car, extricating my bike from the garage, emptying the variety of things I'd packed into the car for the school day and shoving it into the bike trailer, so I said, "EFFF it!" and yanked as hard as I could.

The door budged by about six inches.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEF IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!" I yelled and pulled with all my might. It closed!

Well, almost. The 'door is ajar' light is still on. Whatever. The door isn't going anywhere right now.

So, now we'll have to scrape up the money for the deductible. Fun, fun times.

And not a keg party in sight.

A River Runs Through It

I live in a college town and the influence of the university is everywhere...from the scores of inexpensive restaurants, to a bunch of independent music and bookstores, to fliers for bands stapled to phone poles, there is not mistaking this town has plenty in the 18-25 year-old crowd.

Yesterday I went for a long bike ride; I hopped onto a bike path right by my house, went through some neighborhoods, hit downtown, then through an arboretum which ultimately dumped me onto campus.

This campus is, coincidentally, much like the campus I spent all of my college years at (undergrad, post-baccheloriate, and med school). It has huge expanses of green lawn peppered with mature trees and well-maintained landscaping. The buildings ooze history, and the walkways crackle with a lingering energy generated by the of hundreds of thousands of earnest (and not-so-earnest) matriculated who have shuffled along them.

Both of these campuses I have come to know so well also have rivers that bisect them nearly exactly in half; there are many ornate pedestrian bridges. The perimeters of each of these university campuses are agricultural, and it's pretty common to see horses and cows as you go about your day. This town I live in is just so similar to the one in which I lived while in college that it is sometimes spooky.

And then there are the students. Yesterday was a beautiful afternoon, and they were outside in droves...studying, picnicking, studying, making out, studying, walking hand-in-hand, studying, riding their bikes, and of course, studying.

As I biked along, memories that I hadn't revisited in years came flooding back. I suddenly vividly recalled studying, picnicking, studying, making out, studying, walking hand-in-hand, studying, riding their bikes, and of course, studying. Can it really have been so long ago that I was one of them?

It's been a dozen years since I've claimed a college campus as truly my own. As I rode amongst the students, I as struck by the fact that I was an outsider...I didn't belong anymore. I'd spent nearly all of my adult life a college student, it can be odd to realize that THAT time of my life is over. Oh, sure, I could go back to college and get another degree (sounds like a nightmare to me, but still, I could). But that's not the point. The bitter pill to me is that even if I did so, I'd still be an outsider.

That's the rub. I'm (relative to them) old now. It was obvious as I rode along those bike paths; I was invisible to those whipper-snappers. Yet as I watched them walking purposefully towards a building, or laughing together, or lounging by the river soaking up the sun pretending to study but really waiting for that moment when the first kiss would arrive, or making plans for the evening...all I could think of was, "Wow. Is it really not yesterday?"

Andrew McCarthy. All growed up.

Earlier today, I joked to my husband that I didn't see how Andrew McCarthy could actually be taken seriously as a love interest in Lipstick Jungle. After all, he looks like this:



and this:



and, yes, this:



But as I caught up on DVR'd Lipstick Jungle shows (teehee, I just Freud-enly typed shoes) I slowly became entranced by the fact that HE HAS GROWN UP. And you know what else, he's one of those bastards who get better looking as they get older. Seriously, the older the better.



Then, to make matters worse, I found this. So, nice. He's actually a sweetie as well as being cute. Still. Again. Whatever.

Dang. I have a crush on Andrew McCarthy. Again. Still. Whatever.

Vines...ABC Wednesday, brought to you by the letter "V"

I definitely have a thing for taking photographs of windows and doors. This is one of my favorites...it was shot at the Mission in Carmel, CA. It is one of the most beautiful, magical places I have ever been (there is a photo gallery at the Mission's website full of beautiful images one of the parishioners took).


Here's another "Vine" shot from my visit to the Mission:


And just for the fun of it, here is a "Vine" photo I took probably twenty years ago. It was the exterior of the house I lived in with a bunch of other students. This was back in the day when I developed and printed my own film. I could lose myself for hours in a darkroom.