Things to be thankful for

In honor of tomorrow's holiday, here's a short list of things I'm thankful for - in no particular order, and mixing the momentous with the mundane.

G, with all her many gifts and talents
Our pets (but not their messes)
The 12 1/2 years I got to spend with P
Having a job and a place to live
Health
That my parents brought me up to be independent
That I live in a society where women can be independent
Friends, both online and in person
Literacy
Things that are vanilla or coconut-scented
Chipotle burritos
Hot coffee and tea
My iPod (it's old, but it works) and my MacBook
Rainy days
Central air conditioning
Netflix instant streaming
The smell of coffee brewing
Air travel
Black nail polish
Mountains, oceans, forests and deserts
All the different languages in the world
Green glass bottles
Books, bookstores and libraries
Vaccinations and antibiotics
Indoor plumbing
Digital cameras, especially the one in my phone
The sound of a full orchestra...and a single instrument
Electric lights
The Arnolfini Portrait
Silly cat videos and pictures
Calvin and Hobbes
My new favorite website
The entire Internet
Poetry
Flannel PJs
Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman
Texting and email
Loving v. Virginia
Sparkly white Christmas lights
The increasing availability of vegetarian food
Having lived in so many different places
New office supplies
Tim Burton's movies
Freedom of religion (it may not be as free as I'd like, but at least you're not going to get shot for it)
New York City
Birds in flight
Dark and milk chocolate
The smell of wet pavement
Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfume
Museums

Happy Thanksgiving!

40

Last Wednesday, I woke up feeling a little congested, and by late morning, I had the headachy, feverish, slightly unreal sensation that is usually the harbinger of some hideous virus o' doom. I felt so rotten that I went home after lunch, slept, woke up long enough to collect G from school and order pizza for her dinner, slept again, got up to feed the cats and make sure G went to bed properly (i.e., not with unbrushed teeth and still wearing all her clothes) and then went back to sleep.

I don't know what miracle my immune system pulled off during the night, but somehow by the time I woke up on Thursday morning, I was completely fine--every trace of whatever had been ailing me the day before was gone. Which was a good thing, because Thursday also happened to be my 40th birthday.

(!!!)

I went to work, where friends had baked homemade brownies for me and turned my cube into a mystical black-draped tent lit inside by battery-powered tealights, and then after being taken out to lunch, I left early (again) so I could pick G up immediately after her last class. We had tickets to see Twelfth Night at the Old Globe in San Diego's Balboa Park, and it's a good thing we got on the road as early as we did, because the traffic was so heavy that it took three hours to make a trip that usually takes an hour and a half at most. Luckily, G and I are good traveling companions--we like lots of the same music and usually pass the time by singing along loudly to the favorite artist of the moment-- and we still got there in plenty of time to check into our hotel and relax a bit before heading over to the theater.

The director had decided to set the play in India during the British Raj, and it made me a little uncomfortable to see some of the cultural appropriation that involved, but the production was so good I couldn't help loving it. It was a black-box theater, and we were in the front row, so there were several occasions when the actors came right up near us or actually sat just offstage beside us to watch the action. In fact, thanks to our position, I suddenly found myself part of the show during the closing song, when the actor playing Feste zeroed in on me in the front row, climbed up on the raised area surrounding the stage, and sang this verse directly to me with a hand outstretched:

But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
By swaggering could I never thrive
For the rain it raineth every day

This raised a roar of laughter from the audience and nearly caused G, seated to my right, to spontaneously combust with a combination of hilarity and tween-girl embarrassment. After the lights came up, I leaned over to her and said "Apparently I'm the Fool's girlfriend," and she said, still laughing, "I'm glad it was you and not me!" Hee.

The next morning, we had room-service breakfast and then hit the highway again, stopping along the way to do some shopping for G, who had earned a pair of coveted, trendy Toms shoes by doing work around the house, and also for me, because it was my birthday and I intended to indulge myself. :D We had chocolate cake at Corner Bakery (can't have a birthday without cake, right?) and finally got home in the late afternoon, tired but satisfied. All in all, a good birthday, and while it wasn't the crazy over-the-top celebration you're "supposed" to have for a milestone year, it was just right for me.

A day in pictures

It was raining when I went to the supermarket yesterday.

I got my coffee for free because I had to wait five minutes for them to finish brewing it. I didn't mind, but the guy said "This is Starbucks, we should always have coffee ready" and gave it to me on the house.

It seemed like a good day to make soup, so I did.

I had to go back out and saw these pretty sunflowers outside the natural-foods store.

G made Catherine pose for a photo.

The two of them spent the afternoon watching anime in G's room.

Meanwhile, Malcolm chose to watch the BBC's Sherlock with me.

Eventually we ate soup for dinner.

The end!

She so did

Me: Did you eat breakfast?
G: Yeah. I didn't eat breakfast food, but I ate it at breakfast time.

(pause)

Me: You ate leftover Halloween candy, didn't you?
G: ... Maybe.

Commotion

Last night G and I watched Iron Man 2, which was quite good. It ended at about 11:30, and I sent her off to brush her teeth while I filled a glass of water in case she got thirsty in the night. When I brought it in, she was already in bed, and I could hear voices in the driveway below her window. We live in a condo complex, so imagine two rows of townhomes with attached garages facing each other and a long driveway (actually a little street with its own name) running between them and then letting out onto the main road.

As I switched off G's bedside lamp, the voices erupted into a full-blown argument:

Man (screaming): Fuck you, bitch!
Woman: [unintelligible]
Man: [unintelligible] Don't you ever [unintelligible] again!

At this point I heard the sound of several loud slaps and ran upstairs to my own bedroom to get my phone. When I came back about 30 seconds later, the argument was still raging and G said "Mom, what is it?" I said "Sshh, I'm going to call the cops" and pulled aside her curtain just in time to see the man reach through the driver's-side window of his car and shove the woman, who was standing just outside the car as if he'd thrown her out, so that she fell into the driveway with the contents of her handbag spilling around her. Then he peeled out onto the street and roared off, leaving her lying there in the dark.

I thought of going outside, but didn't want to rush out there right away in case the jackhole in the car decided to come back and perhaps beat us both up, or worse, run us over. So I opened up G's window and called down to the woman, who was starting to move around a little, feebly, "Are you okay? Do you need me to call anyone for you?"

She sat up, seeming stunned. "I think I'm all right."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah...I just need to pick up my stuff. It's okay. Thanks."

"Okay, if you're sure," I said.

I closed the window, but kept watching through a gap in the curtain while she slowly collected her fallen belongings and put them back into her bag. G said, "What happened?" and I said "That guy was an ass, he hit her and pushed her down. Never have a boyfriend like that." She said "What are you going to do now?" and I said "I'm going to wait and make sure she's really okay."

After a minute or so, the woman got all her things together, stood up and walked out into the glow of the streetlamp just outside the driveway. At this point I finally got a better look at her--she was youngish, maybe 30 or so, with dark hair, and dressed the way you would dress to go out on a Saturday night, in a black tank top and black pants, with heels. She stood there in the pool of light for a moment and then turned left and disappeared from view, digging through her bag as if she were looking for her phone.

I thought about calling the police anyway: even if the guy was long gone, they could have caught up with her easily since she was on foot, and perhaps taken a report or at least found her a ride. But it also crossed my mind that there was a small chance it could be a prostitution-related thing--I didn't think it was, but having grown up in a terrible neighborhood where prostitution was rampant, I knew it wasn't impossible either. If that had been the case, I could have caused her a lot of trouble by getting cops involved, and she was already having a hard enough night, so I let her go. I hope she got home or to a friend's house all right--our area is quite safe, so she was almost certainly in less danger walking, even alone at night, than she would have been with the guy who smacked her around.

G has an unshakable belief that I can handle just about any emergency that might arise (zombie apocalypse? no problem, Mom's got it) so she stayed calm through the whole thing and went tranquilly off to sleep afterward, but I was full of adrenaline for a long time. The most worrisome part is that not a single other person in any of the surrounding buildings so much as looked out a window to see if this poor woman was alive or dead. It wasn't even midnight yet, so I can't have been the only one awake. It's nice to know that the neighbors would be right there for me if I ever screamed in the night. Jeez.

Gimme a [letter of your choice]!

G's school had tryouts for the middle-school cheer squad last week. G wanted nothing to do with them because she prides herself on being a sort of anti-cheerleader--if you remember your early adolescent stereotypes, G is the Artsy/Goth Girl, although she hasn't yet embraced the music that goes along with it--and also because, as she accurately observed, "I can't do a split to save my life." The newly anointed cheerleaders appear to include the usual complement of popular girls, with one exception: G's friend "Penny," whom I think made the cut due to sheer dance/gymnastic ability.

This fascinates me for a couple of reasons:

1. How do the cheer coaches know, six weeks into the school year with a brand-new crop of seventh graders, who is popular and who isn't? Does it show somehow, or do the popular girls just tend also to be the bouncy, outgoing type who have taken lots of dance lessons?

2. If you become a cheerleader because you have actual skillz, does this automatically make you popular too? Can you be a cheerleader and be socially shunned by the other cheerleaders? Penny is a cute, sweet little girl, but kind of like an overeager puppy who does whatever she thinks will please whomever she's with at the time, and I can imagine the cheerleading crowd dismissing her as a wannabe.

To show her total rejection of cheering and all that goes along with it, G instead used last week's club rush to join the newspaper, which is much more her sort of thing. The meetings happen during zero period, which means she'll have to be there by 6:45 a.m., but she's pretty motivated and I think she'll do fine. She's been like a different kid this year in terms of the morning routine: where last year I had to drag her out of bed and she was late a shocking number of times, this year she gets up on her own when her alarm goes off, gets dressed without being told, finds her own breakfast (not the healthful bowl of whole grains and fresh fruits I'd like her to eat, but at least she does it herself) and is usually downstairs waiting at the door to the garage while I'm still brushing my teeth. I don't know why this happened, but I'm glad it has. We had quite a few no-holds-barred cage matches over getting ready last year, and I wasn't up for another 10 months of that.

Said is NOT dead

Last night G informed me, "Mrs. M (her English teacher) told us we shouldn't use 'said' in the stories we're writing," and then showed me this handout she got in class:



ARGH.

"Well," I said, trying to be diplomatic, "I see what Mrs. M is getting at, but I don't actually agree. It's fine to throw in a different dialogue tag here and there, for variety or emphasis or color, but 'said' is really the best one to use. It's straightforward and not distracting, and if you're writing your story and your dialogue well, you won't need anything else 90 percent of the time. Also, if every other line of dialogue ends with 'he laughed' or 'she divulged' or 'he nagged' or 'she smiled*' it's going to sound awkward and overwrought. This is my professional opinion, by the way."

"Really?" she said.

"Yes," I said. "And not only mine. Here, look at this." I grabbed the nearest book and showed her that in three pages of mostly dialogue, the only attribution other than "he/she said" was one instance of "he roared," and that one was used when it was really called for. Then for good measure, I showed her places where the author had written some of the dialogue so as not to need a "he/she said" at all, and explained how that worked. I did tell her that of course her teacher is the boss in her classroom and she has to follow these instructions at least somewhat or she'll get marked down, but not to go overboard with it.

I suppose what they're trying to do is teach the kids that there are other words available if they need them, but kids are literal, even in their early teens, and most of them are probably going to take this handout to mean that "said" is evil and they should never use it. This is why so many adults are convinced that it's wrong to write in the second person and that starting a sentence with "and" or "but" is verboten--their seventh-grade English teacher said so and they've never forgotten it. As far as I'm concerned, the only thing that's really forbidden in writing is doing it badly (she pontificated), and even that isn't true if you happen to be entering the Bulwer-Lytton contest. Save the droning, drawling, giggling and stammering for then.

*I have a special hate for "smiled." I used to read a decorating magazine that used it at least twice in every article with an interview--"'We love our kitchen's new look,' smiles Susan"--and it nearly drove me around the bend. Not only does it sound smarmy, it's impossible; you can say something with a smile, but you can't smile your actual speech any more than you can hammer it or swim it. Gah!

Sometimes you win

In the autumn of 1985, I was a freshman in high school and my younger brother, J, had just started kindergarten. To say it hadn't been a good year for our family would be an understatement; I've had other bad years since then, but that was my first glimpse at just how wrong things could go, and how quickly.

Now it was Halloween, and J and I both wanted to carve a jack o'lantern, the way we'd been used to doing in previous years, but our mother said, regretfully, that she didn't have any extra money to spend on a pumpkin. J was crushed as only a five-year-old can be, and I wasn't too happy myself. But I was also a stubborn kid who didn't like to be beaten at anything, and I wasn't planning to give up yet.

"Don't worry," I told J. "I'm going to fix this."

I dug through my pockets and my school bag and scraped together all the change I could find, and then I took J by his sticky little hand and marched him to the supermarket down the street. There, I read the price on every kind of squash in the produce department and weighed them until I found one I could afford--it was a yellow spaghetti squash about the size of a Nerf football, with a nice flat bottom so it could stand up--and I paid seventy-nine cents for it and walked J home again. Standing in our dingy kitchenette, I cut that spaghetti squash open, and I scraped out the seeds and pulp, and I used the point of a steak knife to carve a miniature face with triangle eyes and nose and a gap-toothed mouth, just like a jack o'lantern. Then I stuck a single skinny birthday candle inside and lit it with a match, and I said to my brother, who had been watching the whole process with ever-increasing delight, "Here you go. It's a squashkin."

In the quarter-century since then, I've carved many real jack o' lanterns, and I'm sure J has too. As adults, we don't talk much or see each other often--it's been more than five years since the last time--and I don't know if he even remembers the squashkin. But I do. I remember it, and sometimes when everything is rotten and I feel as if I can't do anything right, I think about it and smile. It may have been a tiny win, but that day I won at life.

So far so good

Here we are at the end of week 2, and school is still gliding along as smoothly as can be. G was bumped up into honors biology this week, putting her in all honors classes except for math, and we've had no issues with homework - she's been finishing most of it during her tutorial period or while she's waiting to be picked up, and what she's had to do at night has been quick and easy. It helps that the assignments she's getting are more creative than in previous years; instead of "write these 20 spelling words five times each," it's "use this list of geographical features to design and draw your own island." I know which one I'd rather do.

She also asked earlier this week if we could go to New School's football game on Thursday night, which was not a request I'd ever expected to hear from my determinedly non-sporty child. I would have taken her, even though I have zero interest in football myself, but we had tickets to see a cinema broadcast of Shakespeare's Globe's Henry VIII that same evening, and Shakespeare trumps football in our house. Now is when her father, a devoted fan of anything involving a ball, should be here; he'd not only take her to the football games, he'd be over the moon that she wanted to go, and patiently educate her in the finer points of the sport. I know I wouldn't know anything at all about football (or basketball, or baseball, or golf, or or or) if it weren't for him.

Anyway, while walking out of the theater last night, G and I agreed that we're going to try to see all of Shakespeare's plays together. We've seen this one, The Taming of the Shrew and Much Ado About Nothing, we have tickets to see Twelfth Night in November, and if I can swing it (tickets are expensive), we'll also see the Globe's touring production of The Comedy of Errors the same month. She wants to see A Midsummer Night's Dream after that, so I'll have to look for a production that's not too far from home. There was one at our local repertory theater back in January, but we missed it. Rats!

Time keeps on slipping

If I'd needed something to underline the fact that we've entered a new era in G's life, I got it by seven a.m. on the first day of seventh grade. At her small, familiar old school, the first day always meant a stream of parents walking hand-in-hand with little girls sporting braids and fancy barrettes, little boys in new, dark-blue jeans, and tiny kindergartners laboring under backpacks bigger than they were. At her giant new school, I drove past a crowd of unaccompanied teenagers who looked old enough to be driving themselves, stopped, and waited as G gave me a casual "see you later," hopped out of the car, slung her bag over her shoulder and walked away in a pair of my knee-high boots that she'd successfully campaigned to borrow. I'd warned her that those boots would hurt by the end of the day, but she didn't believe me. When I picked her up late that afternoon, the first words out of her mouth were "OMG, my feet are killing me. I'm never wearing these again." I suppose when it comes to some things, experience is the best teacher.

Aside from sore feet and a broken P.E. locker, her first week as a seventh-grader was supremely smooth and easy. She has six classes--biology, honors history, honors English, P.E., pre-algebra and vocal music--and already seems to have mastered traveling between them, as well as using the library and navigating the food service lines at lunch. (That said, I think I'm going back to packing a lunch for her, because on three out of four days, the only vegetarian item was pizza, and on the fourth day she had to get pasta and pick out the bits with no meat sauce.) She says her teachers are nice and is happy about all the subjects she's taking, so from her perspective, everything is roses.

For my part, there's been some emotional adjusting to do. I'm not sitting around sniffling soppily over her baby photos, mind you. If anything, I'm excited for her, because it became obvious to me last year that she'd outgrown the confines of elementary school and was ready for something new. But at the same time, this transition has really driven in the fact that she's getting older and the number of years she'll be at home with me is dwindling fast. Of course I've known ever since she was born that one day she'd get her driver's license, graduate from high school, go off to college, be grown up; but these always seemed like things that would happen far off in some hazy, half-imagined future. Now they seem like real events that are coming soon (very soon - she can get her learner's permit in less than three years) so I'd better start mentally preparing myself for them, not to mention figuring out what I want to do with myself after she flies the nest.

Of course she's only in seventh grade and it's not as if she's moving across the country tomorrow, and I don't want to spoil the next few years by constantly focusing on what's going to happen later. But time has a way of sneaking past faster than you think, and I don't want it to catch me off guard, either. Looks as if she and I both have a lot of work to do.

Daybook

Outside my window... the sunlight has made that subtle shift from summer to autumn.

I am thinking... I'll go mental if this week is as boring as last week.

I am thankful for... having the money to get my brakes fixed, even if I would much rather have spent that money on something more fun.

From the kitchen... I'm planning to make this vegetable curry for dinner tonight (for my dinner anyway; G won't want any and will probably have pasta).

I am wearing... black capri sweatpants and a navy blue tank top.

I am creating... a new look for G's bedroom. She wants all black furniture, so I've slowly been replacing the light wood stuff she's had since she was two. This weekend I bought and assembled a bookcase; now all she needs is a loft bed, which will probably be her Christmas present this year.

I am going... to see some Shakespeare later this week.

I am reading... Neverwhere

I am hoping... that G has an easy transition to junior high.

I am hearing... Ben Harper singing "Diamonds on the Inside" from my laptop.

Around the house... I think G is still sleeping (I've been in to wake her a couple of times, but she just goes right back to sleep). One of the cats is in her room and the other one is lounging on the floor of my room.

One of my favorite things... believe it or not, is cleaning the house. I don't like everyday chores like vacuuming and dishes very much, but I love when I can do the really detailed cleaning that I rarely have time for.

A few plans for the rest of the week: We have the aforementioned Shakespeare play to attend, plus an orientation and dinner for incoming seventh-graders the following day. I've been talking to P's cousin about getting together with her and her daughter on Friday - we haven't seen them in more than two years, even though they only live a 30-minute drive away - but I don't know if it will actually come to fruition.

Here is a picture for thought I am sharing...

This photo is exactly what I wish my life were like. I don't play the double bass, or any instrument, but in my fantasy world, I would, and I'd have a room just like that and sit around playing Beethoven symphonies all day long. Except between three and four o'clock every afternoon, when someone would serve me tea and cookies on the terrace that I imagine is right underneath that window. I guess in my fantasy world I would also have a maid. And a cook who knew how to bake shortbread.

Vacation, all I ever wanted

A short review of the first week of my end-of-summer vacation:

Had car problems
Was without a car for 48 hours
Registered G for junior high
Paid $450 for new brakes
Had repair crew in house for an entire morning*
Did work
Found BEES IN MY HOUSE**
Watched a week's worth of groceries vanish in four days
BEES. IN MY HOUSE.
Did more work
Went nowhere except grocery store and post office
OMG BEES

* The good part of this is that our air conditioning finally, finally works. It works so well that yesterday I thought "Wow, it's nice and cool in my bedroom; I think I'll lie down and enjoy it." Next thing I knew, I opened my eyes and an hour and a half had passed. I went downstairs and G was huddled under a blanket, shivering. Do your worst, California autumn! We're ready.

The bad part is that one of the repairmen asked to use our upstairs bathroom while he was here, and let's just say it wasn't a Number One. I know when you've got to go, you've got to go, and I could hardly send the poor guy to the service station down the street, but the idea of a total stranger taking a dump in my bathroom really bothered me at a visceral level. (Yes, I know, I use public restrooms that thousands of total strangers have used before me. It's not the same.) I need to go in and sanitize now that some time has passed - I couldn't bring myself to do it earlier.

** Yesterday morning I was lying in bed, drinking my coffee and reading my email, when I heard a loud buzzing/humming noise. Investigation revealed a large bee/wasp/hornet thing bumping around the inside of my bedroom window. I managed to trap it with my empty cereal bowl and release it outside, and then I heard the same noise coming from inside the wall behind my bed, near the electrical outlet where my bedside lamp plugs in. While I was taping up the open space in the outlet so nothing winged and many-legged could squeeze its way through, G called "Mom, there's some kind of insect on the wall down here, and I don't know what it is, and I'm not going close enough to find out." I went downstairs, and sure enough, it was another flying stinger. I couldn't catch that one, so I sucked it up with the vacuum hose of doom. I haven't seen or heard any more since then (the one in the wall buzzed a bit more and then stopped) but I did find about 30 of them lying dead on the little balcony outside my bedroom. If I don't post again, it will be because a swarm carried me away in the night and made me their queen.

Hot air

On Monday, I telecommuted so I could be at home to deal with the air conditioning repair guys, who were supposed to arrive at 9 a.m.

At 8 a.m., I got a phone call saying that the delivery truck with the new condenser unit was delayed and wouldn't come until 11.

At 11:30, I got another call saying that it might be as late as 1 p.m.

At 1:15, the phone rang again: "They'll be there within 45 minutes."

At 1:50, two guys finally rolled up and got started.

At 3:30, they announced that they had to leave (WTF?!) but the company's owner, who'd done the initial estimate, would be there in about 15 minutes to finish the job.

At 5 p.m., the replacement guy called me outside and explained that everything was hooked up properly, but that mice had eaten all the wires and insulation that ran under the deck and connected the condenser to the furnace in the garage. He said he would have to come back with a crew and crawl underneath to fix all that and install a rodent-stopping screen before the system would work. So, to sum up, the air conditioning still doesn't function, the furnace is now disconnected as well (not that we need it at the moment, but really) and I can't have the repair guys back until next week, when I'm on vacation and have time to deal with them. Oh joy.

During the course of this long, long day, we also discovered that it's like freaking Wild Kingdom under the deck. In addition to the wire-and-insulation-loving mice, the first two repair guys found a possum skeleton; and when one of the guys stuck his hand into a hole in the wooden steps leading down from the deck to the condenser, a gray cat came shooting out and nearly scared us both to death. (Apparently it was using the hollow inside of the top step as a hideout. Sorry about that, cat.) Thanks to our own two cats, none of these creatures have ever entered the house proper--if you were a mouse, you'd need testicles like cannonballs to dare poke your nose out with that pair of bloodthirsty killers on the loose--but just the thought of them lurking around out there gives me the shivers. Ugh.

Mind you, we haven't had A/C for any of the three summers we've lived in this house (the old condenser was the original c. 1985 model and was already defunct when we moved in), so we're in no worse shape now than a week ago. It's just having the promise of cool air dangled in front of us and then yanked away that makes it seem worse somehow. A friend of mine suggested that when the system is finally working, we should crank the thermostat down to 55 degrees and have a party with parkas and hot chocolate. Sounds good to me.

Welcome home

Thirteen ways to know you're at our house:

1. The area near the front door looks like a shoe store on clearance day.

2. You can't get a hamburger for dinner, or any other type of meat.

3. Fruits Basket is probably playing on TV somewhere.

4. Cats are watching you balefully from high places.

5. The shelves are stuffed with books, and all around the house you find open, face-down books in various stages of being read.

6. You can access the Internet in at least three different ways at any given time.

7. The reading material in the bathroom is a copy of Archaeology magazine, open to a page with a photo of a hideous unwrapped mummy.

8. Black is clearly someone's favorite color.

9. Someone else is clearly in love with jewelry.

10. The kid-drawn art on the fridge is anime-style.

11. It's an all-female house, but the older family photos include a tall, dark-haired guy with a nice smile.

12. It's okay to randomly burst into song if you feel like it (and if you wait long enough, someone will).

13. Someone will probably still be awake at midnight.

Mr. Sandman

Apparently that three-hour nap I took this afternoon was a bad idea, since it's 3:41 in the morning and sleep is nowhere in sight.

I wasn't intending for the nap to stretch out that long, and indeed when G was younger she would have woken me almost as soon as my eyes closed. But now she's twelve, and twelve-year-olds are crafty enough to know that if they wake you up, you might make them stop watching TV and clean their rooms or take a shower or something equally heinous. So, if I happen to doze off, she leaves me unconscious until I wake up on my own. In fact, she has literally tried to lure me into napping in the past by covering me with a blanket when I'm lying on the sofa, which seems all sweet and solicitous until you realize it's like throwing a towel over a parrot's cage. Hey, you're annoying me. Stop squawking and go to sleep.

The worst part? It works!