NaNoWriMo 2014 is 12 hours away

It's Halloween. It's raining! The Giants are parading and I'm gearing up for writing. 

A lot of writing. Daily dedicated writing.

The kid is all costumed up and ready to create sugared mayhem. The dog is walked.

It is time. 

Happy NaNoWriMo everyone!

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Senior Portrait

Write on Mama Marianne Lonsdale writes of those teen parenting moments that count:

WoM Marianne Lonsdale tells of #senior #portraits http://t.co/A7TaxiUbxA #highschool #teenagers #graduation pic.twitter.com/yBFeGnvsqg
— mary allison tierney (@millvallison) October 5, 2014

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Mother's Day Peace

Mother’s Day began with a text from my college boy middle child.  He was working the farmers market and wished me a happy mother’s day and said I Love You.  He won. Later that morning my daughter presented me with an orchid, a plate of raspberries and a muffin, and a homemade card with a wonderful note.  Ok, she won. Handmade trumps text. Sorry buddy.  Now nirvana: read the Sunday New York Times in peace.  But, there is no peace in the NYT.

The story of the 200+ abducted Chibok schoolgirls, plucked from their boarding school beds and loaded onto buses by armed Islamist militant terrorists, is a hard one to read.  The group’s name, Boko Haram, translates to ‘Western Education is sin’ and they believe in strict Sharia Law. Their leader, Abubakar Shedau released a video threatening to sell the girls.  He wants to trade them for prisoners.  A CNN interview with one of the girls who escaped is heartbreaking.  She is so traumatized that she will not return to school. 

This is not good Mother's Day reading. Or maybe it’s the exact right kind.  I yell upstairs for my daughter to give me an update on her homework. 

In stark contrast is a moronic article in the Style section about crop tops. An enormous amount of lady sweat and anesthesia is going into feeling confident while sporting a partial shirt.  As a mother of a teenaged daughter, this is not optimal.  Apparently there are women so beholden to Forever 21 fashion standards that they’re scuttling over to their friendly neighborhood cosmetic surgeon, waving red carpet pictures of starving celebrities in crop tops and plunking down 6K for Airsculpt – all for the promise of flashing a smooth tight midriff.

At this point my ‘fix this’ mom brain kicks in.  Navy Seals can airdrop the crop top ladies into Nigeria in exchange for the 200 abducted schoolgirls who value education over Ab Attack class. I think about running this idea by my daughter. I envision the blank stare. I know she will think the Stella McCartney top that the 84 pound Rihanna is rocking is super cute, and that she will be horrified that my idea suggests that I am not taking #bringbackourgirls seriously. 

Good thing it’s Mother’s Day, as my first-born slides in under the wire and calls. He’s in solid third place. It was our first conversation in over a month.  There had been talk just that morning of filing a missing persons report, but luckily it didn’t come to that.  The call was appropriately glitchy – he has no reception on the Oregon farm where he lives and works.  It mirrored our relationship – ‘Huh? What? I can’t understand you. OK, well, thanks for calling, I can’t hear you so I’m hanging up. Call when you have better reception. Love you.'

Peace.

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P is for Pâques

What's up Doc?  Bugs would be thrilled to learn that the bunny - symbol of fertility- is alive and kicking in Swiss Pâques decor. Le lupin even is reppin in the cathedral.

Oeufs de Pâques are abundant as well. Precolored and decorated they are on display in grocery stores and farmers markets. Chocolatiers have plenty of bunnies and eggs. And everything. Even a liberty bell. Why?

Some are works of art, and some downright terrifying. I'm not sure how meringue ties into Easter but they are really pushing it. Huge nests of meringue with chocolate drizzle. 

These diverse bunny couples look a little concerned. The chickens (below) as well. A lot of work went into those facial expressions. Chocolatiers here don't rely on foil to do their job.

Bonne Pâques! 🐣 🐇

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O is for Om

Sometimes you just have to chill the F out. 

Walking around Coppet this afternoon with my daughter and sister we skirted a tiny vineyard, the leaves just beginning to bud. My daughter commented on the gnarled wood all pruned to the same shape and leaning the same direction with the new tender green and rust vines beginning to train. It looked like dancers waiting their cue. 

My sister pointed out the brown grass that was chemically scorched down each row contrasting the green grass between rows. Herbicide spraying is routine agricultural practice in Switzerland. They're anti-GMO but they do love their pesticides and herbicides. I've seen several spray trucks in the neighborhood this week. Beautiful as the local farmers market was, organic was not an option. 

The fields all around the lake are bright yellow with rapeseed in flower.  This is the basis for canola oil. There are many vineyards in between and lots of small dairy farms. Cows eat the grass right next to sprayed fields. Cheese is kinda a big deal in Switzerland and the chocolate? Same cows. 

In other news, the local market had an American section with various BBQ sauces, a full display of Old El Paso Mexican fixin's ($7 package of tortillas & $5 can of frijoles) but I was stumped by American Sauce, a peachy-yellow color with bits of pickle or pimiento. Good news: haven't seen truck nuts, Uggs or a single Tesla. Ommmm.

 

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N is for Neighbor

When I was nine, I moved with my mom and little sister from a townhouse to an apartment that was around the corner.  This involved filling the back of my mom's orange Datsun station wagon with our stuff and my sixteen year old cousin learning to drive a stick shift. She was visiting from Texas and would we would swim in the townhouse pool at night, after the 10 PM curfew.

The apartment was several rungs down the ladder from where we were in the townhouse, though the two carports shared a cinderblock wall.  I would climb over, scraping my palms and walk by my old bedroom window, peeking through the manicured bottle brush bushes to see who was in there.  My dad's black Lincoln was long gone. 

The apartment was dark and my new bedroom window faced an unpainted wood fence. The sliding kitchen door faced the pool, cloudy with too much chlorine and tended by a long haired man in cut offs. I had an odd assortment of new neighbors: a girl I knew from school who became my best friend, a weekend dad whose son was a year ahead of me and I still know, a man who was college roommates with my future father in law.  When I was a student at UCLA, I had dinner with my former neighbor and his visiting three year old son. He spoke only Italian and sat on my lap and we drew hand turkeys with the crayons on the table. 

Twenty seven years later I spent yesterday with his adult son, touring Bern Switzerland and the Paul Klee museum and eating gelato. My niece rode on his shoulders and my teenaged daughter shared music with him on his iPhone and my nephew played Uno with him on the trian. When I was a girl I went to baseball games with his dad and as a teen I crashed at his North Beach apt with my best friend from the same apartment complex. It was a crap apartment by any measurement.  But the collection of neighbors became my ecosystem and evolved into my life. 

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M is for Memories

'Hooray for today!'

The first time I heard this was when my then three yr old nephew asked to be the one to return the blessing before dinner. This responsibility is always performed by my uncle or eldest male cousin. I've never heard my aunt or any woman or kid in our family say the blessing before a meal. I've only experienced such churchiness as a visitor in my uncle's Texas home, so I roll with it.  

Last night we held hands around the table and my four yr old niece announced 'Hooray for Today!' And then told us her favorite memory of the day, her play date with a friend and then announced that she was cheating and adding watching Sleeping Beauty on the computer. Then she passed to my daughter, who told hers and passed the torch around the table. We had a great day, visiting Rolle and going to an amazing and unexpected tea shop (my daughter's favorite memory) walking along the lake edged with gardens and every imaginable tulip, visiting a playground right at the lake edge and getting ice cream. 

My favorite memory was spending time with my daughter and family, exploring a new culture and the technology that allows me to keep in touch with family and friends back home.  And I'm going to cheat and add curling up with my iPad at the end of the day to write this and then finish season 4 of The Walking Dead.  

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L is for Lamb

Dispatch from Switzerland.  One week til Easter. Both here and across the border in France, every street intercsection and most every shop window is decorated with painted wood, paper mâché or plastic bunnies, chicks, eggs and lambs. Boulangerie windows are filled with chocolate rabbits wrapped in cellophane and pastel colors dominate the boutiques. But as one window features an image of a fleecy lamb, the charcuterie next door is promoting their deal on leg of lamb. With the hoof still attached.

Jesus was the lamb of god, the sacrifical lamb; I know this because one of the metal bands my sons used to like is called Lamb of God.  They were the opener for Metallica the time I escorted three middle school metal heads to the mosh pit, to set up our post-show rendezvous spot. I wasn't taken to Sunday school as a kid, so I've had to pick things up later, like while folding my sons' laundry pile of black metal band shirts. 

How do we leap from frolicking fuzzy cuteness to Easter dinner? Eggs represent rebirth, the bunny fertility and the leg of lamb - the sacrifice on special at the charcuterie -the edible essence of spring? 

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K is for Kiosque

Nyon Switzerland today with my sister, her two kids and my daughter, cousins with a five year break between each. Thirteen (Game of Thrones on kindle; wants that totally cute dress in the Naf Naf boutique), nine (blew his wad of 60 Swiss francs on Star Wars Legos; must jump off every bench), and four (will deny needing pee until end of time; gave Naf Naf boutique lady a heart attack by touching everything with her face).


Julius Ceasar hung out here. The original angry young punk. Lots of anti fascist graffiti plus some evidence that a Marin County punk swung through. Possibly last summer?  Amazing that there would be the same tags in Nyon as Mill Valley.

I can't get enough of the shutters or the lake view framed by the alps. Sitting outside in a cafe enjoying a cafe au lait while 2/3 of our kids soak in the culture of Tom 'n Jerry on their mom's iPhone and my daughter pulls out her kindle, I appreciate that the breeze off the lake is blowing the cigar smoke from our neighbors the opposite direction. Next to the cafe is a news kiosque selling every imaginable size Swiss Army knife, international news papers, post cards and chocolate. Perfection.

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J is for Jura

I’m going to know a lot more about the Jura Mountains after I’ve been in Switzerland for a few days, but what I know now is this: The Jura Mountains border western Canton Vaud.  Canton means ‘district’ and a canton is a member state of the Federal States of Switzerland. The capitol of Vaud is Lausanne. The French pronunciation of Vaud is ‘vo’. I don’t speak French. Lausanne is a major producer of white wine.  This is a plus.

My son visited my sister’s family in Switzerland last summer and he gave me a list of a few not to miss items:

Visit the H.R. Giger Bar and Museum.  He didn’t go and really regrets it.  This is at the very top of my list, not because it is so metal and beyond cool, but it’s in the town of Gruyeres, and that means cheese, n’est pas?

He's requested that I bring back these cool French white-out pens.  I know this is a bad idea, because he not going to be using them for appropriate purposes, but I am curious why America can’t even dominate the white-out pen niche. 

There’s this Parmesan cheese with crunchy crystally bits they sell at the farmer’s market …  Ok, now we’re talking.  This is my child after all. Cheeeeeese.

The Jura Mountains will be there too, but will take a back seat to tagging pens, Alien bar and the beloved cheese.  For the record though:

The name "Jura" is derived from juria, a Latinized form of a Celtic stem jor- "forest". The mountain range gives its name to the Jurassic period of the geologic timescale.

Is that really a copper cauldron of melted gruyere?
this could be a problem

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop. 

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I is for International Flight

In twenty-four hours I will be embarking on a much-anticipated flight to Geneva to visit my sister and her family.  As international family travel goes, this should be a cakewalk.

One of several reasons we're flying to Geneva.
Who wouldn't fly 12 hours to hang out with her? 

Ok, I just realized I don’t know what that term really means.  What is a ‘cakewalk’?

So I distracted myself with the google and learn thus:

the cake walk was originally a plantation dance, just a happy movement they did to the banjo music because they couldn't stand still. It was generally on Sundays, when there was little work, that the slaves both young and old would dress up in hand-me-down finery to do a high-kicking, prancing walk-around. They did a take-off on the manners of the white folks in the "big house", but their masters, who gathered around to watch the fun, missed the point. It's supposed to be that the custom of a prize started with the master giving a cake to the couple that did the proudest movement.

Huh.  This flight should be a piece of cake.  This flight should take the cake.  Same reference.  Interesting. 

I am flying with a very reasonable 13-year-old girl, not multiple toddlers or teens, and she’s good company to boot. (Another etymological search: Old English ‘to bote’ something added to/ moreover)  She can carry her own self packed bag, has downloaded a library’s worth of Game of Thrones on her kindle and I have four unread New Yorkers and three seasons of Walking Dead on my iPad.  I no longer need to travel with a diaper bag. More’s the pity. We might wish I did.

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop. 

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H is for Helpers

Every child should have at least two mothers. The second mother can be a neighbor, aunt, gramma, friend, spouse or well trained labradoodle. Having an extra set of eyes or hands is crucial to parental sanity.  One thing you can't have enough of is help.

 

Even Lady Granthum agrees, "Parenting is hard enough, even when you like the child."

cousins in Seattle
pic by Auntie Kirsten

When there's an age gap between siblings or cousins, it's like home-bred childcare.  Older siblings and cousins can be vital second mothers, filling in on playground and carpool duty or handing you a clean diaper, depending on the age.  Even if they complain, they enjoy the responsibility.  

My eldest has stepped in to help my sister with her kids while simultaneously she is helping me with him.  My cousin's daughter has done the same. When I was little I often stayed with my aunt's family in Texas for the summer. I was mothered by her and my five older cousins. When my parents divorced one of those older cousins came to stay with us for a few weeks to help my mom with the move, and she learned to drive a stick shift out of necessity. And I learned what skinny dipping was.  Win-win.

cousins in Switzerland
pic by Auntie Kirsten

Lady Grantham:  "One forgets about parenthood. The on-and-on-ness of it."

Isobel Crawley:  "Were you a very involved mother?.....I'd imagined them surrounded by nannies and governesses, being starched and ironed to spend an hour with you after tea."

Lady Grantham:  "Yes, but it was an hour every day."

Mary Allison Tierney's essay The Gingerdreadman is included in the anthology Mamas Write, available at Amazon, or your local independent bookshop. 

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