Excuse me?

I know you were singing a song. What exactly were you saying? I’m sorry, what? Seriously, if you’d stop mumbling, we’d all have a much better time here…..

Merriweather – September 28, 2007. Elvis Costello? Wonderful. Bob Dylan? Yikes. The company? Priceless.

He loves me. He loves me not.

He loves me.

Yesterday was quite the day.

I had a meeting in D.C. at 3:30 pm. If you know the area, you know that traffic at 5:30 p.m. is beyond awful. But that’s when my meeting was over, so there I was, creeping and crawling north a little and east a little and north a little…..

Reminds me of step by step, closer and closer… you remember those horror stories?

Anyway, I was trying to get home in time to have a quick bite of dinner before going to the middle school curriculum night.

But alas. It wasn’t in the cards.

So straight to the school I went.

Strategically, I chose a parking space near the lot exit so at the mass exodus I could get out quickly. Always thinking, I am.

All the parents met in the cafeteria and then dispersed to the homerooms. Then, we spent 10 minutes in each class that our kid has – we did their entire schedule. Since there was such a short time in each, it really just gave us a flavor of what the teachers were like and what the kids would be doing.

The last class was science. The teacher talked and talked. And talked. The bell rang. But he kept talking.

I felt like I was back in school. I had better things to do and the teacher wouldn’t excuse us. I guess I could have gotten up and left, but it didn’t feel like an option.

And then it happened. The thunder. The torrential downpour.

Most of the parents were tucked safely in their cars. But not me.

As I walked down the hallway past all the lockers and posters, I realized that I should check my phone. It’d been on ‘silence all’ for obvious reasons.

Andrew had called 4 times. Oh, no! What is wrong?

I called him back immediately. But the phone didn’t work. Oh wait, my bluetooth was still on. Ugh. And it’s in the car.

Run through the rain. Now, I’m drenched. My nice sandals? Toast. White shirt? Well, you can imagine. But don’t.

In the car, shivering, I get the bluetooth. It won’t turn off. It won’t. Ugh. So, I’ll disconnect it through the phone itself. Locked up. No go.

Fine. I’ll remove the device period. Okay, done.

Still pouring rain. Traffic still awful in the lot. Since every parent is ahead of me.

I try again to call home. Nothing. So, I start driving with the masses. It’s only a few miles.

When I got home about 15 minutes later, my darling husband is on the porch. Seems he thought the meeting was over an hour earlier and he actually drove around to see if he could find me. Maybe I was in a ditch?

Fortunately, not.

But all I could think about was what the heck we did before we all carried phones. I was out of contact for a few hours.

Back in the day, one would have assumed that the meeting ran late. Now, if you can’t get through on the cell phone, it is alarming.

But it was nice to know he cares so much. Either he loves and adores me (probably that’s it) or he was freaked out thinking he’d be raising the kids himself.

Lucky for him, I made it home safely.

Oooh, that smell.

You know the Skynyrd song. I think I know what it was written about. My mud room.

With 3 tween boys (and a husband) kicking off their sweaty sneakers and tossing them into this 5×5 foot space devoid of ventilation, one can only imagine the joy that tantalizes my senses when I open the door. There are times that I honestly check the bottoms to see if they walked in something. Scary.
I’ve sprayed Lysol (ewww) and Citrus scent (too bathroomy). I’ve bought Sneaker Balls which turn out to be very fun cat toys, FYI.

So I started looking around. Do you know that a Google search for “Sneaker Odor Solution” yields 314,000 results. Yikes. Some ideas:

Baking Soda: A smelly shoe or sneaker is no match for the power of baking soda. Liberally sprinkle soda in the offending loafer or lace-up and let it sit overnight. Dump out the powder in the morning. (Be careful when using baking soda with leather shoes, however; repeated applications can dry them out.) You can also make your own reusable “odor eaters” by filling the toes of old socks with 2 table-spoons baking soda and tying them up in a knot. Stuff the socks into each shoe at night before retiring. Remove the socks in the morning and breathe easier.

Odor-causing bacteria thrive in dark, damp spaces and that makes your sweaty sneakers, shoes or boots an ideal place for them to grow. To get rid of the smell, you need to wipe out the bacterial population. Deo Plus+ uses a special enzyme mixture to break down the bacteria and get rid of the unwanted odors. Using all-natural ingredients, Deo Plus+ is designed to get rid of the worst shoe odors.

But this little research project led me to this info:

”Frequently, children’s feet will sweat more than adults’ feet,” says Rosario Labarbera, D.P.M., chief of podiatry at The General Hospital Center at Passaic and at Saint Mary’s Hospital in Passaic, New Jersey, and board member of the New York College of Podiatric Medicine. Often that perspiration is foul-smelling–a condition doctors refer to as bromhidrosis. The odor is very similar to that of rotten cheese.

Bromhidrosis in kids is mainly caused by the presence of fetid bacteria on the foot, according to Morton Walker, D.P.M., formerly a podiatrist in private practice in Stamford, Connecticut, and author of The Complete Foot Book…

Well, ewwwww. Fetid bacteria. Just ewwwww.

And that brings me to my other odoriferous issue.

B.O.

Not mine, fortunately. I have worked that out nicely. It’s those boys again. (Andrew does a fine job with his hygiene, in case you were concerned…)

When exactly does puberty start? And why do the boys smell like men already? Okay, the 12 year old. I get that.

But my baby smells like a hippie on the Grateful Dead road tour. Scary stuff. Looks like we might have to start enforcing a 2 shower a day rule around here.

Or, I could start wearing a face mask.

Man of Constant Leisure

My friend Tom at Man of Constant Leisure writes and performs the songs for the Princeton Review Vocab Minute. It’s kind of like School House Rock for bigger kids.

Anyway, some middle school kids made a video! Here it is for your viewing pleasure.

I can’t breathe.

Who doesn’t remember the Close-Talker from Seinfeld? And who can’t relate?

I get a little claustrophobic at times. In crowds, for sure. And I really get antsy when someone is in my personal space. Is there something wrong with me? Maybe. But it’s not relevant. It makes me nuts.

If you don’t laugh (although clearly I have no guarantee you won’t), I’ll tell you my cool air theory.

I breathe the cooler air the best. The easiest. When I walk around or even stay still, the air temperature changes slightly. Kind of like in a lake. It’s colder in spots. And warmer in spots. (And not just the spots where the toddler was swimming.)

Back to the air. Those cool spots are really refreshing. When I feel closed in or stuffy or whatever, I crave for a cool spot of air. Usually, by moving my head a bit, I can find one. Sometimes, sadly, I cannot.

Okay, I’ve gotten off on a tangent.

I really wanted to tell you about an encounter I had with a close-talker last night.

I went to a charity event. I was a speaker there, and I’m a board member. So, I feel as if one of my responsibilities (and I enjoy it anyway) is to mingle and greet and chat – even with the people I don’t know as well, or (okay, here’s some serious honesty) that I don’t relate to as well. One such woman approached me last night.

I like this woman. She is interesting and does some wonderful things in the community. But she and I are in different galaxies. She is slow and deliberate and thinks before each word. I am fast and cheery and… anyway, I think fast and I talk fast. It’s just who I am. I’m not saying it’s better. Not at all. It’s just who I am. (And I’m perfectly happy this way.) And she is just who she is.

So she approached me and we were talking. Her face was – and I kid you not – about 5 inches from mine.

I
was
very
uncomfortable.

Very.

So, I stepped back.
And she stepped forward.

And this continued for what seemed like 20 minutes. It was probably 20 seconds.

But whatever.

What to do? I couldn’t breathe. I was starting to panic.

I put my hand to my mouth, turned my head, and I coughed.

And I said, “Excuse me.”

She stepped back.

I think I’m on to something here.

With a cherry on top.

Some things can be cured with a strawberry milkshake from Chick Fil-A. Some things can’t.

I, for one, think it’s usually worth a try.

We’ll miss you, Bertha.

Auschwitz through the lens of the SS: Photos of Nazi leadership at the camp

I don’t usually post articles, etc. But this really hit me. Thought I’d share.

Newly discovered snapshots donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos.

In the Shadow of Horror, SS Guardians Frolic New York Times, September 19th.

From the article….

The photos provide a stunning counterpoint to what up until now has been the only major source of preliberation Auschwitz photos, the so-called Auschwitz Album, a compilation of pictures taken by SS photographers in the spring of 1944 and discovered by a survivor in another camp. Those photos depict the arrival at the camp of a transport of Hungarian Jews, who at the time made up the last remaining sizable Jewish community in Europe. The Auschwitz Album, owned by Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust museum, depicts the railside selection process at Birkenau, the area where trains arrived at the camp, as SS men herded new prisoners into lines.

The comparisons between the albums are both poignant and obvious, as they juxtapose the comfortable daily lives of the guards with the horrific reality within the camp, where thousands were starving and 1.1 million died.

You can view the online album here.

Thanks to my brother-in-law for the pointer.

A brief blog of silence in memory of Marcel Marceau.

A beautiful day in Little Italy.