Grandpa’s hairy ears and the priviledge of cutting his hair. July 12, 2009
Posted by irisia in musings.Tags: grandfather's wisdom, wisdom of grandparents
add a comment
Vacation was incredible. GM n GP were in such good spirits and good health. They’re 87 and 89 and I couldn’t help but just watch them in awe throughout the entire week. But I must admit that while GM has always gotten all the attention, I paid a lot more attention to GP on this visit. Grandma’s and Grandpa’s relationship is very much like mine and Howard’s. GM is the effervescent, loving, hosting, hugging – basically the one who makes a lot of noise. GP is the silent leader. That’s the best way to describe it. He has just as much love, is equally as great a host, doesn’t offer hugs but loves to receive them, and just loves with a lot less noise, if you will. I guess the more I grow up, the more I appreciate the wisdom and beauty in silent leadership. Being one whose style is more like my GM’s, I do the inviting, the cooking, ask everyone 10 times if they’ve had enough food, plan the next party, etc. Howard is always there, always very present, and always very quiet.
A couple years ago, I started listening to my Dad talk about my grandfather’s silent wisdom. Dad said that if he had a problem, he would sit down to talk to GP. Grandpa’s style, though not using those questions that a counselor uses, would encourage you to just keep talking – basically until you answered your own question. The bottom line is that we’re only going to act on our problems or feel the contentment we’re seeking after we agree with whatever the solution or resolution is. In leading by listening, the best teacher helps us teach ourselves.
So this trip, I really sat back and watched Grandpa. He was attentive at literally every moment to Grandma. If she would go out in the garage and stay there for about 10 minutes, he would get up and walk toward the garage. I’d ask him where he was going and he would say to check on Grandma. If she was in the kitchen doing the dishes, he’d go in and pick up a towel. If she was cooking, he’d go in and set the table. He didn’t follow her around like a puppy dog. He just wanted to be with her and help her. They really were like two hearts beating as one. They work best as a unit.
One thing that was very interesting is I saw him dump out his entire cup of coffee. I noticed that he never orders coffee at a restaurant. He generally jumps up to take just a half a cup of coffee. When I saw him dump his entire cup of coffee out in the sink (sort of without gaining any attention), I wondered if he has really ever liked coffee at all. He knows that people generally will not make a cup of coffee just for themselves. And, grandma loves coffee. So, if he always joins her in coffee, then she won’t skip on coffee because she won’t want to make it just for her. It’s probably not true that he dislikes coffee but after watching closely for a few days, I wouldn’t be surprised.
So, he asked me to cut his hair around his ears. I was amazed because he’s not a touchy, touchy person. He never asks anyone to fix his tie or button his shirt or do anything where someone would touch him. This is really the first time I can ever remember. I was almost nervous. I didn’t want to mess this up. He wanted me to cut the hair just above his ears. But, when I started, I noticed that he had more hair growing out of his ears than around his ears. I felt such a strong urge to giggle. Then my next urge was to cut that hair. But, it was a priviledge to cut his hair so I just took care of the requested task at hand.
Smarty Parents – The Zealous parents of smart kids – A chance meeting with a smarty mom extraordinaire. Hmmm. June 1, 2009
Posted by irisia in mom, musings.Tags: kids education, overly proud parents, parents helping their kids get into college, parents of gifted kids, parents of smart kids, smarty parents
1 comment so far
This weekend did we ever meet a collection of smarty parents. Actually, I never really thought of these parents who are QUITE zealous about their kids education as smarty parents. But, this weekend I met the smarty mom extraordinaire. Help, I better spell check extraordinaire! Or, I could just have dinner at her house (tee hee). See below.
This weekend we went to for a middle school student tour. Kids are able to visit the school while still in middle school to see if they are interested in the school and to see what is required to get in so they can work on their “resume” over the next couple years to help with admission to the school. So, too funny that I ran into the smarty mom who shush’d me at the Battle of the Books (BOB) competition. At the competition, Matt had a bi on the round so he and I were watching the round for fun. I was telling Matt that even if the team couldn’t remember the passage in the book, they should listen to the context clues in the question. In that question, there was a question about characters eating plantains. There was only one book with Spanish characters in a Spanish setting – Cuba 15. So I whispered Cuba 15 out loud – apparently a little too loud. I was shush’d by the Mom in front of me. I noticed that on the Mom’s lap, there were multiple binders, chock full of schtuff. I also noticed that seemingly all the parents from that school’s team were at the competition. I also noticed that the parents from that school were fast and feverishly jotting down the questions. I guessed that they planned on being in the finals – or were just doing their job well.
Here is an interesting sociological observation: the number of parents attending seemed to decrease as the socioeconomic level of the school decreased.
So, anyway, smarty mom was quite a character. She noticed Matt from BOB. I knew her team did a great job in BOB. They did win, of course! Yes, I’m jealous. I mentioned that this past year, our team did not seem to have a plan for how to go about preparing for the competition. She said that her school was the same way before she got there. So she SINGLEHANDEDLY created a “methodology” for BOB competition preparation. All jealousy aside, I would like to help with that for Matt’s team next year if he joins. I mentioned that Matt was not planning on participating next year because all the good team members were in the 8th grade and they were graduating. I had told Matt that’s why he needed to step up – which is not in Matt’s shy style. But when SMARTy-mom said the same thing to Matt, he changed his tune. First point for smarty mom.
So then, the conversation weaved to how the grade scale for A’s, B’s, C’s, is different than when we were young. Ours used to be 90-100 was an A, 80 – 89 was a B, etc. So then she said “What is the range for a C? I wouldn’t know”. The kids were just about to answer and she repeated her smarty parent comment for emphasis. “We would not know the grade range for a C. What is it?”
She then went on to tell us about how she donated her PSAT books to her local library because HER son was SO over the PSAT’s. She was on to bigger and better things and she just had to get rid of those books.
So then, she (with great pride I might add) started talking about how she was reading the dictionary to her kids at the dinner table. I started to snicker internally until Howard looked at me with that look indicating that I should be the last person to comment. I often read the book of Greek and Latin roots to the kids at the table. But this is so different. I just have such great enthusiasm for Greek and Latin roots and seldom have a captive audience with all 3 kids like I do at the dinner table. So, the truth comes out. I’m not really annoyed by smarty mom. I’m jealous! I’m in competition with her. I started envisioning meeting her again at BOB and having so many binders that I need a hand-cart to carry them all. I would meet her again at the school for the discovery day with a Smarty-mom sweatshirt that I designed, had trademarked and had sold to Moms all over the world who wanted to be like me. I would not just read the Greek and Latin roots at the dinner table – I would make up study cards and hang them all over the dining room. I would even hang them from strings from the ceiling so as the fan blew, the kids would see endless possibilities of how these beautiful roots could come together to form amazing words. I would even create an audio tape of Greek and Latin roots and play it for them as they fell asleep.
I would even start SMA – smarty moms of America – and I would be the president. No, I would be the chairman of the board and would raise trillions of dollars and write books for preparation for all sorts of things like BOB methodology and preparing to get into the school. I would write a New York Times best seller about creating a road map for building your kids pre-college resume starting with the 7th grade. Smarty parents all over the world would clamor for my books. When I met her again, she would not just recognize my genius son, she would gasp at the good fortune to meet me in person. She would bow down in homage and try to butter me up so she could run for a place of my board of SMA.
I guess it takes one to know one. 
The outer limits of normal – this could be a great song title May 24, 2009
Posted by irisia in musings.Tags: cool song lyrics, cool song title, low blood sugar, outer limits of normal, proclivity for darkness, song lyrics
add a comment
So many times when we’re hanging out on weekends, the kids will say something and Howard and I will break out into a song that has that line as part of the lyrics. Good thing the kids don’t realize yet how much we are dating ourselves with the songs we sing. They just think we know more songs than they do.
But a few weeks ago, I had my blood sugar taken immediately upon waking and it was 78. The medical professional seemed very surprised that it was 78. I asked him why. He said it was low, “but on the outer limits of normal”. I thought that would make such a good title for a song. How many of us could be considered on the outer limits of normal either as an individual or in certain parts of our behavior? How many of our relationships could be considered on the outer limits of normal?
Here’s another cool one: “proclivity for darkness”. One time Howard and I were talking about somebody with a real dark streak to their personality. I don’t even remember who it was. I said the person had a “proclivity for darkness”. I just sort of made it up but it seemed like a fancy way to indicate their pull toward the dark side of things:). It’s still one of Howard’s favorite phrases. He brings it up all the time and it makes us giggle.
Here are some of his other favorites:
mindshare: I had a boss that used to use this phrase. For some reason the idea tickles him to death
“only those looking best deal” – one time when we sold our house, a visiting realtor left their b-card. It had a catchy tag line on it. We still bring it up when we’re bargain shopping.
I wish I could play by ear and read music. But I did write a requiem. May 15, 2009
Posted by irisia in mom, musings.Tags: always taking blame, bella, carter burwell, edward, learn moonlight sonata piano, learning to read sheet music, movie score, people walk all over me, piano by ear, piano Pachelbel Canon, piano requiem, play piano by ear, play by ear, requiem, requiem to loved one, twilight score, write requiem
add a comment
I’ve always enjoyed playing by ear. It’s such a great feeling to hear a simple melody and to sit down and play it. But, reading music would be great also. A loooong time ago, I took lessons as a kid. I learned this great, albeit small, repertoire of classical songs. That makes me feel like a real pianist. But my favorites have always been the version of Pachelbel Canon that I taught myself and some old church songs that I play by ear.
Over the last couple years, a couple songs have come along that I really want to play. I’ve bought a couple pieces of sheet music and searched the Internet to download a couple others. I think the song I’d like to play more than anything is Moonlight Sonata. I have that sheet music and just can’t read it. It’s so funny because I can print out lyrics to simple songs and play the song by reading the lyrics. Yet, I can’t read sheet music. It’s like it may as well be Greek.
I did write a song once. I would like to write another one but the auspices for writing the song are not those I would like to repeat. I went almost 33 years of my life and nobody in my family had ever died. I had never attended a funeral. No close friends had ever died. I knew this was a blessing but I also knew it would be very painful when somebody that I loved died. Then my Grandma Sally passed away. I was not close to her at all and probably saw her once every other year or less. She was a good person but had dependency problems which often caused visits to be very difficult. On top of that, I surmised that she would not remember the unpleasant visit. But, I still loved her.
She passed in her early 70’s. I felt great sadness and could not get myself to recognize that she was truly gone. I sat down at the piano to play my favorite songs. The piano is always the place I go to drown out anger or lose my sadness in the melodies of my old friends – those songs I play by ear. But, when I sat down, a song just poured out onto the piano. It was very much of a requiem. It was relatively short. But, as I began to realize that people I loved really did go to other places – some sort of places that I didn’t understand – I suddenly got in touch with the deep dark places of my heart, my soul. I had always heard the word “raw” by movie actors but never really knew what it meant until I felt it. I felt like all the flesh and blood of my body was exposed and there was nothing protecting me. I felt the pain of bleeding, like hemorrhaging. I felt like I had no protection from myself – from my own worst enemies – my fears and repressed thoughts and sadnesses.
We all say our childhoods are painful. In truth, I suspect we could all say our childhoods were idyllic if we didn’t have such good lives now. If we lived now in a war-torn country, or if we lost our parents early in life, or if we suffered great abuse or poverty at these stretches of our lives where we blame our parents, we probably would remember our childhood in a home wrapped in a white picket fence with beds of thorn-free roses instead of grass.
But, at that point in my life (just after the birth of my second child), I was feeling great sadness, and great anger, for the way that I was badgered by my parents as a kid. Mix that with good old fashioned Catholic guilt treatments and the middle-child, overly-sensitive thing, and I was a mess that could never express my feelings, always felt like I did something wrong, always took the blame for everything, and let everyone walk all over me.
All of this anger and frustration and sadness had built up over the course of 32 years. That mixed with a very healthy dose of post-partum depression made for a nasty cocktail for incredible sadness and the associated anger.
So I continued to write the song.
The next part of the requiem became the story of my life. I had, what I believed was, a sad childhood. Dark spot. Then I met my wonderful husband. Bright spot. Then I started to really get in touch my my repressed anger. Funny thing, through his love, I felt more in touch with my repressed anger. I guess he was a safe place to be. Then I had my children. Very bright spots. But life seemed like this dance between sadness and joy. And that’s how the song goes.
I love movie scores and this song does remind me of a score. One of the songs I’m trying to play now is from Carter Burwell’s Twilight score. It’s so amazing how these composers imagine their Bella and their Edward and these songs come to life for them – that the songs so well depict those feelings and people and events.
I hope someday my hands will create for me, a new song. Life is all just a process. All the parts have meaning and come in due time. It’s a good journey and I’m very blessed.
What is this gifted stuff all about? February 16, 2009
Posted by irisia in Matthew Educational, matt, musings.add a comment
Matthew asked me yesterday what the definition of gifted was. I told him that I could go look but it might be a fun challenge to try to come up with one first and then see how close it was. I asked him why he was wondering this. Matt has always been in the gifted classes. This year, his AIG English is being taught by a teacher that is just starting her training to be a gifted teacher. When I went to visit her 7th grade classroom, she had all these sticker charts with nickel-sized stickers next to each name. Matthew said she will also periodically lose her train of thought and ask them kids if they like her new shoes or her new hairdo.
For some reason, probably because I’m a thankless snob, it bothered me that the teacher was using stickers and other tools for a 7th grade AIG class. I made an off-hand comment to Matt – “she just doesn’t understand the gifted mind”. Matthew knew I wasn’t being serious but he and I also knew there was a lot of truth to my supposedly joking comment. So, later on, I ran into one of Matthew’s classmates who has this same teacher. I asked him what he thought of the teacher. He said he liked her. I asked him if he thought the use of stickers and such as juvenile for this class. He said “No, I like them. It’s a chart for the items we’ve turned in and it helps me remember to turn everything in”. So, I will say it again. I am a snob, snob, snob. I have wanted to write this post for a long time but I fear that if I actually put my snob-dumb into words that G-d will punish me for not appreciating that I am “gifted” with such smart children. But I do fully appreciate it. Ergo, I need to lost the snobbiness. OK, I think I’ve beat myself up enough.
OK, so here goes. If I was to come up with a definition of what I think gifted is, here is what I think…
Gifted: a person who has strong intelligence, powers of reasoning or exceptional ability to learn in the areas of subject-area studies, analytical and reasoning abilities, memorization skills, oh heck – I don’t know. I guess I will have to look it up.
Mom, are you reading my blog? January 24, 2009
Posted by irisia in mom, musings.Tags: blog diary, blog private, blog public, family reading blog, mom reading blog
add a comment
So I have this blog that I really enjoy writing in. It’s really personal but I want total strangers to read it if they enjoy it. At the same time, I feel really funny if my family reads it. It’s not that I write about them – although sometimes I do, it’s just a diary of sorts. Isn’t it funny how we’d let the world read our diary but feel funny if our own family reads it? Howard knows I have a blog but I’ve never shared the address with him. And, he hasn’t asked. We have a great relationship that way. It’s not a don’t ask, don’t tell. It’s just that we know which things each other would rather keep private and we really respect that – for the most part. OK, here’s one of his that I have trouble respecting. He hates to tell me when he’s off from work because he thinks I will manipulate his time – which I do. But, just the same, I wish he would tell me. So I know this is one of those things that I should just respect as his.
The other day I wrote a blog about my having really blonde hair at the time. All of the sudden my mom starts texting me about hair and long hair and such. I want to ask her if she’s reading my blog but then she won’t respect that I want it to be private from family and she will pester me to deather for the address. But, I think I might have sent her a link at one point and she reads it. It’s all family G-rated so I guess I shouldn’t care but I would still write differently somehow if I knew family was reading it. Strange huh?
My son just signed up for high school. Boy do I feel old. January 9, 2009
Posted by irisia in mom, musings.Tags: child going to high school makes parent feel old, feeling old, feeling old at 40, parent feels old, thinkexist quotes, thoreau quotes
add a comment
It’s funny the times in our lives that we really feel old. Last night we signed Jack up for high school (using forms, not in person). I just couldn’t believe my son was really going to high school. I don’t really feel he’s that much older by looking at him but everytime he states the age he will be after his next birthday (which he does often), I pause to say – wow, I’m getting old.
Then I look around a friends I catch back up with that I haven’t seen since high school or college. They have kids the same age. But they don’t feel old to me.
My grandmother says her hardest birthday was 60. I have a friend that’s been worrying for a year about turning 30, and she just turned 29. 40 was hard for me but also in every glorious milestone of my oldest child.
Here’s a good quote:
Here’s another by Thoreau:
“How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live.”
By the way, I love ThinkExist as a quote site.
Talking to people on airplanes December 19, 2008
Posted by irisia in mom, musings.Tags: small talk on airplanes, talking on airplanes, talking to people on airplanes
add a comment
I’m an introvert with a capital i – so I guess I’m an INtrovert. So, naturally, I hope desperately that the people who sit next to me on airplanes will not start talking to me. It’s not just that I don’t want to share some genialities with them, but it’s that once you speak to the person who’s arm is literally touching yours – and will be for an extended period of time – then they can keep talking to you periodically like comment on what you’re reading, etc. At this point I sound like Monk but I’m really just unfathomably shy and desperately INtroverted. I love great, meaningful conversations with people I know but small talk makes me nervous and uncomfortable.
But yesterday, I was on two airplanes and in one cab. For some reason, I was brave enough to speak with the person next to me on all 3 occasions. In the cab, there was this nice Chinese gentleman. He was tremendously tall – I’m guessing 6′4″ or so and he said he lived in VA and worked in NY. So, I suspected he may be an athlete. I commented on his work being so far away and he said he was an opera singer. Go figure.
On the flight from VA to Atlanta, I was sitting next to a quiet gentleman who about halfway through the flight pulled out an MRI medical journal. I figured if he was a doctor, he would dislike small talk as much as I but for some reason I felt compelled to ask him if he was a radiologist. He said he had previously been a radiologist but now he worked selling equipment. I had to ask him a couple more questions about this since I always ask people how business is. It’s fascinating to see what businesses are faring well in the recession and which are not. I was fascinated by his answer. He predicated his answer with the fact that his company is a very large, very diverse, very global company. So, if the U.S. economy is tanking, they have a lot of other business to lean on. But, he said that hospitals purchase equipment through borrowing. For some reason I thought that hospitals would just have hoards of cash lying around. But he said they borrow against their investments and when the stock market tanks along with the economy, it’s not easy going for the medical equipment salesmen. I started to wonder about how long the sales cycle was for selling medical equipment but he became quiet. I assumed his monk-ness was probably causing a little voice inside him to hope I would stop asking questions – so I did.
Then, on the last leg of the flight I sat next to a yahoo. That’s Howard’s word for a professional grown-up brown-noser. He talked on, and on, and on, and on about himself, his job, and yada yada yada. He worked in Charlotte and a few years ago I had know the owner of his company. He said the company had now grown to several hundred people. Then, as we were getting toward the end of the flight, he asked me 2 times to stop by the office some time. I thought he would give me his business card – which would say chief yahoo on it so I could find him when I just stopped by. But he didn’t. Then, he invited me again to stop by. What a strange thing. Does he really think I would stop by the office, tell the receptionist that I was looking for the chief yahoo I met on the plane and just mosey around the office taking a gander at how they’ve grown. Either that or it was one of those lines you give people after talking for a while. But, it was really bizarre. I asked him what he did and he mentioned that he didn’t have a title yet but they called him the grand poobah. Oy vay (sp?). Ug, yuck. I had a couple suggestions but I kept them to myself. Perhaps I’ll share them with him when I just “stop by”.
from the journals of Monk-dom
Words to say more often – “my pleasure” November 26, 2008
Posted by irisia in lamentscha, mom, musings, personal development.add a comment
Lately I had the great blessing to be seemingly over-appreciated for something I did. Whilst I should just count my blessings, I must admit I had a hard time not overly basking in the praise and wasn’t sure what to say. I had to admit that humility is something I’m working on and is sadly not my strong suit. So, I said “my pleasure”. I’m embarrassed to say that I don’t think I’ve ever said those two beautiful words before. So, as I ponder more ways to be more humble in life and work and parenting, I looked up some quotes.
Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself. – Blaise Pascal
I long to accomplish a great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble. The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny pushes of each honest worker. – Helen Keller
the anti-humility quote:
Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance and hypocritical humility. I chose honest arrogance and have seen no occasion to change. – Frank Lloyd Wright
I guess if I have to look up quotes and read more about it, I have a long way to go.
