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The World Cup series: Part 2 of 4                                                         
(See Part 1 The World Cup: Get Up, Stand Up!)


Back in Texas, the humble, state-funded university had already adopted & even moved beyond the Sullivan Principles without any help from hardball political operatives like me. Akin to the magnetic inclusiveness of my public high school, the diversity of students and campus culture promoted natural connections, an environment where all ethnicities, races, religions & classes belonged. Which was certainly a relief. For it allowed everyone to focus on the really big, world issues. And funnel their energies into what's most important. Uh huh, that's right, talkin' bout Kickin' It Ol' Skool!
 
That's where Chris - a guy who made a persuasive political yet somewhat controversial fashion statement by wearing his $5 'Free Nelson Mandela' ANC t-shirt a minimum of twice weekly - made his pitch. He proudly played for "Agony of De Feet," an intramural team composed of mates from such exotic lands as Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Nigeria, Greece, Iran, Cambodia, Mexico, Ghana and California. In the heralded semifinals, this left-leaning right winger earned acclaim by scoring the go-ahead goal on a penalty kick, his cleat striking a glancing blow to the ball ground which sent the opposing goalie leaping into the air for a desperate save as earthshaking tremors (aka, 'incidental contact') propelled the ball's torpid-o charge into the net. Another of his citywide clubs, "Albion," was predominantly made up of Brits, a few Scots and a couple of Irish blokes whose brilliant strategizing (when the refs weren't looking) expedited the squad's phoenix rise from 4th division dregs to 1st division victors in only 4 seasons. It, too, was a culturally broadening experience, especially when they'd invite him to partake in postgame draughts at the Richmond Arms pub. There, after discreetly requesting that he please put away his checkerboard, they'd commiserate over what aled 'em by ordering another round of pints, plus a second bottle of Crush pineapple sodapop for their favorite rookie sidekick. 

Once forfeits due to injury exceed the number of actual matches played, it's time to quit. So how swell is it that the World Cup was so accommodating, showing up in our very own backyard just in time for Chris' ankles' retirement party in 1994? The first round-of-16 match, pitting Sweden against Saudi Arabia, proved rather uneventful despite the 3-1 result & those swingin' Swedes' much-anticipated raucous scoring celebrations (e.g., firm handshakes, kindly pats on the back, mischievous hair mussing... Buncha Viking punks). Yet, for us, just being there & sharing in the World Cup communal spirit was a no header. For instance, we gladly paid $20 to discover the 4-wheeling capacity of our Honda Accord when coming to an abrupt, final resting (parking) place mid-wye in our tracks due to all those partially dugout railroad ties crisscrossing the officially sanctioned dirt lot; waited out a thunderstorm in the Dallas zoo's Wilds of Africa aviary (conspicuously absent of football fanatics, who must have been going incognito); and learned why Texas-sized, ten gallon baseball hats never caught on with soccer players. Overall, it served very nicely as a warm-up friendly for Game 2.
 
Which Chris felt certain would be "the one," Brazil vs. Holland in the quarterfinals. The first half was classic, riveting soccer, a purist footballer's delight:  After 45 minutes, still 0-0!  Wholly unadulterated by scoring, the definition of "Fantastic!" Thus, given those fraught-with-suspense circumstances, Chris' Whirled Cup Spilleth Over Incident in the 43rd minute was perfectly understandable. Not that he didn't immediately "Beg pardon!" once he noticed the Coca-Cola cascading onto the fellow's head and frothing in foamy profusion under his collar. Plus offer assistance by fastidiously dabbing at the chap's furrowed brow & magnanimously presenting the now-empty souvenir cup to him by way of making conciliatory amends. Momentarily, it seemed, the day wouldn't be a complete loss in terms of real, interactive soccer spectacle! However, the guy was obviously not a legit football aficionado, for no requisite brawl ensued, but merely a miffed & international-mayhem-averting "No worries." Honestly, this WC experience was proving to be quite a let down. 
 
Of course, during halftime, lesser fans found themselves fearing that Brazil was Dunga for. Or perhaps musing, in an offsided sorta way, Wherefore art thou, Romário? But no doubt due to head coach Carlos Parreira's Tom Landry's pep talk in the Cotton Boll locker room, Romário came out striking, then proud papa Bebeto rocked the joint, and finally a buckin' Branco embraced his inner Texan, delivering a free KIKKer for the win!  In celebratory cacophony, everybody simultaneously struck up their belongings -- drums, horns, fifes, tom-toms, kazoos, cowbells, bongos, accordions + bagpipes -- and morphed into anaconda-like oneness to exit the stadium singing "Olé, Olé, Olé, Olé, Brasil, Brasil!" Afterwards, no one admitted they'd rooted for Holland's Lost Boys (sadly, Tink, it's 'cuz they dwell in Never Netherlands).
  
Turned out, this 5-goals-all-coming-in-the-second-half match was considered "the game of the tournament" (even by those who didn't realize we were there) and led the way to an unprecedented 4th World Cup title for the Seleção!
      
See Part 3 The World Cup: Soccer It to Me

My grandmother never liked me much. At least that's what she told me.

That was okay. It was the one thing we had in common, the strongest proof of our familial bond:  Mutual Disregard.

Mostly, it had to do with onions. They bring tears to your eyes, ya know. The onions, I mean. Well, and the grandmothers who insist on serving them up in every single dish at every single meal. Sliced, diced, sautéed or raw -- I'm afraid I put up a thoroughly leeky resistance.  Predictably, she resented her granddaughter's rapscallion behavior, threatening to withhold dessert: "And it's your favorite - caramel!" So I fell for it once... fyi, caramelized onions are not the same thing.

Or could've been grammar. She would send back thank you notes or birthday greeting cards with my grammatical mistakes circled in red - yes, really. She was a former Latin teacher and upheld the stereotype with compunc(tua)tion. It was my earliest introduction to the deterrent power & effectiveness of the zero tolerance correctional system. Particularly, the syn tax. 

But, as you might have suspected, her bitter disdain toward me was not limited merely to onions or handing down verdicts of punishing, diagrammed life sentences. In fact, it was bigger than the both of us, harking back to that historic North-South, Mason-Dixon great cultural divide. It began months before Grandmother was to arrive in Houston from her adopted home of Connecticut in order to supervise & cook us kids (oops, meant 'for us kids') while Mom partook in the women's moms' lib movement for two 'away' weeks during summer vacation...

On a sleepover at a friend's house, one of the moms I especially liked was waxing eloquent on the subject of manners. This evening's lecture was about the dignity, nay, the ultimate respectability conveyed by addressing all elders as 'sir' or 'ma'am.' Then she switched feet. As I watched her clippered toenails sail through the air in majestic arches before sinking into an oblivion of burnt orange (Hook 'em Horns!) shag carpeting, followed by a skillful application of maroon (Gig 'em, Ags!) nail polish & the meticulous positioning of delicate, silvery appliqués of stars, hearts + crosses, I contemplated this etiquette lesson. (Briefly, one of the brothers sauntered past in his 'casual attire,' creating a trifle disturbance in the flow of her stream-of-refined-distinction-consciousness: "Good Lord, go git some clothes on, bubs, we got company!" An admirable demonstration of ladylike grace under somewhat trying circumstances, it recalled & fortuitously exemplified last week's 'Thou Shalt Not Take the Lord's Name in Vain' session.) The righteousness of her divine message was undeniable. Right then & there, I converted. From that moment on, I went about freely dropping 'yes, sirs' or 'no, ma'ams' at will. It made me feel clean & good & extremely polite all over - verily, 'twas the Southern Baptists' answer to confession! In heretofore childish ignorance, I'd been operating under New England-bred WASPish constraints. This was a revelation. I was pretty sure it was the next best thing to being born again....

Well, ma'am, on her very next visit, Grandma put an end to that. "Cathleen, I am neither a 'ma'am' nor your "Grandma.' You may call me 'Grandmother.' Now go wash your hands for supper."

I caught myself just as I was about to ask, "Yes, ma'am, but don't you mean 'for dinner,' Grandma?" Instead, I complied with Grandmother's directive. And, whenever I again felt the need to achieve that fresh, clean feeling, I did what all virtuous Episcopalians do. I scrubbed with Dial antibacterial soap.
But, eventually, when I became an adult and Grandmother retired & moved back to reunite with her sisters in Nebraska, we discovered our shared, unabashed love for each other... Ok, to be accurate, make that my love for punning & her love for punditry. Close enough. She explained it to me later, "When you were little, you were just 'a good kid.' You always did everything your mother told you to do."  Absolutely unforgivable!  'Nuff said. Yet she continued, "Then you finally starting speaking up... and your puns were better than mine." A greater admission of adoration she'd never uttered. She retreated to her room to recover, not to be seen again until she suddenly reappeared at 10:01 pm anxiously throwing on her windbreaker and urging us to take cover with her in the shower stall. Visions of Dorothy and being swept off to Oz spun through my head. Just before we realized that deafening tornado siren was the same testing of the advanced warning system that sounded nightly, 365 days of the year, at, yessiree, 10 pm. Methodically, she removed her jacket, hung it in the closet, and wished us a good night.
 
She even tolerated Chris, once he discovered that the best way to interact with his grandmaw-in-law was to rile her by debating etymology. Not that Chris has ever been an authority & he usually lost handily, a fact which made her persnickety, rancor-ravenous intellect appreciate him all the more. Several times a day, they'd dash over to the bookshelf to consult her gilded 1950's unabridged dictionary with its 500 to 5000-year-old word origin notations. (He wasn't permitted to touch it otherwise. Neither was anyone else. But, before Chris, no relative had the audacity courage slightest iota of inclination in that direction.)

Of course, bets were wagered. To everyone's dismay, one time Chris won. His prize: her much admired childhood pocketknife with its authentic, decoratively-carved, inlaid cow horn handle. Grandmother pretended not to care. So Chris would spend those long drives to the big town -- undertaken on the pretense that it boasted the best all-you-can-eat fried chicken buffet in the county (it did) (but, more importantly, it also had the county's biggest liquor store, allowing ample restocking options for the sisters' daily happy hours) -- pulling out his new acquisition to admire its fine workmanship & challenge Grandma to a game of mumblety-peg right there in the backseat. Duly baited, Grandmother would mumble some characteristically captious retort, forcing the frazzled chauffeur, racing over rollercoasters of sandhills in this vast farming country, to intervene, "All right, you two, settle down back there -- I'm trying not to plow into a combine here!" My great aunt riding shotgun in the passenger seat would sadly shake her head; the other unfortunate aunt sandwiched between them would dutifully confiscate the knife.

Quite often, we'd go on Platte river picnics. In a brilliant strategy designed solely to avoid odious odorous onion conflict, Chris and I would provide victuals. Grandmother didn't seem to mind, for she'd given up most cooking by then and genuinely embraced reprieve from such onerous tasks & the freed-up opportunity it afforded to focus on life's finer pastimes - namely, critiquing others' cooking. Such as, while observing Chris' attempt to cut open a watermelon one afternoon, "You city kids certainly are green when it comes to choosing ripe produce." Snapping the knife blade back into its authentic, decoratively-carved, inlaid cow horn casing, and then ceremoniously slipping the treasure back into his pocket, Chris replied, "Aww, no need to thank us, Grandma. Just let me know when I can slice up another piece fer ya!"

No matter where else in the world Chris & I visited, those annual trips to Nebraska were the favorites of our pre-kid travels. But, invariably, after depleting typical old lady talk -- like discussing the weather, or the potential of Tom Osborne's latest recruiting class, or the sweetness of this year's corn crop, or the nuances of Blackshirt defensive formations, or how Chuck Hagel was the right kind of Republican ('cuz he was the only one Left) -- their attention would turn to children. And it's easy to guess the gist of those hints, no? That's right, they couldn't stand babies! Enormously grateful that part of their lives was done & didn't possess the patience to deal with youngins now & what vexation 'n tribulation they wrought, o my!
 
Therefore, expecting cool politeness and an inevitable distancing of our relations -- far exceeding the 1,000 concrete highway miles already separating us -- to coincide with the news that I was expecting, we were completely unprepared for Grandmother's reaction. First, there was her admonition that I should hold & cuddle our newborn constantly. She regretfully reflected that she'd been a poor mother, believing the child-rearing experts' advice of her generation to let babies cry it out & limit affection in order to avoid spoiling them at all costs.

Then the phone calls began. Which, given her telephone-averse tendencies, were already extraordinary. However, on top of that, her nascent great-grand maternal devotion compelled her to withstand the tortures inflicted by our answering machine -- as we preferred to screen calls by initially letting Al Green, Bob Marley or Black Uhuru pick up for us. That really pushed her buttons rotary dial!  But, for a chance to chat with the infant Mikaela, she endured. Stipulating sworn oaths that no tickling occur to produce such sounds, she listened while the newest 'just a good kid' & perpetually buoyant baby razzed, cooed and incessantly giggled through the receiver into her great grandmother's delighted ear. My tech-savvy (had a computer) grand aunt received our regular email updates, which they read aloud at happy hours, laughing over Mikaela's antics while downing highball spritzers and schnapps.

Ever practical, Grandmother & her siblings had long ago disavowed any desire for presents, even on Christmas and Easter. "We have enough. Don't want anything. Don't need anything. Can't abide the thought of having more things to look after," they insisted. Thus launched a new tradition. We sent the only item still in constant demand, requiring minimal dusting & flexible storage options:
Gifted Conundrums. Their intrinsic humor amusing allusions relative demerits were debated among the 3 sisters in intimate speakeasies of contentious contentment. Those that made the final cut were then prominently featured at the Kensington Society Club's cold salads & casseroles holiday luncheon. 


Since we indoctrinate 'em early 'round here, M&K joined in the fun as soon as they were able to meet the high level of punning standards set by our family. Yup, right around 18 months of age or so... Honestly, though, it took them until approximately 2 1/2 to equal their folks' utmost erudite efforts. Not that we were tracking it. Well, alright, just casually. On their What To Expect hourly growth charts lining the halls. Fostering such a pressure-free environment is the key to inspiring creativity. (Plus, imho, witnessing your children's emerging precociousness so seamlessly converge with their father's not-so-latent immaturity is truly one of the greatest joys in parenting... as any mom of a preschooler could confirm.)   





"I'm glad we became friends, Cathy," Grandmother confided on our last visit together, "I like you." Which clearly was her subtle way of saying, "You're like me. I like that about you!" (It's true, definitely there are parts of her in me. But upon doing some further solecism searching, I must admit, they're fragmentary at best.) And then, overcome with such sentimentality, she added, "Oh, and you're OK, too, Chris."

After pausing a respectful minute or two to make certain that hadn't activated the tornado warning system again, I suggested, "Hey, wanna go to Dairy Freeze? I feel like having some onion rings."

"My treat!" ordered Grandmother, splurging for double scoops of soft serve choke(d up)cherry ice creams all around before managing to fully regain a proper sense of decorum.



*Easter Eggs Hint: In accordance with our stringently highbrow punning criteria, plays are only on "egg"- no "ex" - words. For instance, the ex-ample at right would be disallowed. Granted, it might suggest hilarity at 2 in the morning, but who could respect themselves if this cracked up them in the light of day?



 Caution: Further scrolling will reveal all the answers!    
                                          (To the puns.)

January 17th is my son-in-law's birthday. He'll be 304. Oh, that's right, you probably didn't know about our son-in-law...    OK, ok, ex son-in-law.

Actually, it was Mikaela's second marriage.

Her first relationship lasted only a few months, a steal-your-heart-away, whirlwind romance with a wild fella by the name of Tigger. The nuptials were surprisingly staid, infused with ceremonial pomp, striped of oozing sentimentality. Yet, soon enough, Mikaela would learn that old lovers' lesson the hard way: An affair with just another pretty face can't sustain itself forever. Sure, even if he makes you laugh...



It wasn't long before she sought truer substance (& less fluff). Someone with standing, as opposed to bouncing. A Frank kinda gent who you could build a real future past with...

And that's when she met Ben.  Eventually, they'd go their separate ways, but, oh my, it was something to behold while it lasted!


The initial attraction was typical: she was drawn to his senior letterman [book] jacket. She fell fast for his rags-to-riches story, in its accessible, easy-to-get-to-know-you, abridged autobiographical style. Here was a guy who wasn't afraid to communicate, plus his doing so in 240 pages allowed her to boast she'd read him like a book in only a week. Thus, they'd formed a hard-binding commitment - for who can resist someone who sets you up to achieve a new personal best?
 

After that, she began seeing him constantly. And she wanted it to be exclusive, willingly dropping friends or dates if they (playgroup) threatened to interfere. So much so that Chris & I discussed limiting their time together to just 30 minutes a day. Precisely from 4:00 to 4:30, because, after all, PBS' strict curfew also had to be taken into consideration. As far as Mikaela's loyalist devotion was concerned, it was Give me "Liberty's Kids" or give me "But I'll die if I have to miss a single episode!" Of course, we encouraged her to see other shows... as if there was a remote chance that it was within our control.



So, once again, we watched a rerun: Mikaela walked down the aisle (hallway) to the chapel (playroom) to vow eternal love until death do they part (?). As you Mikaela might imagine, it seemed a match made in Heaven. Her dad & I tried to be receptive to her wishes and set the right tone... Whosoever has just cause that this occasion should not be joined in music, click now or forever hold your peace:

Regrettably, only later did it occur to me -- I should have hired a professional armonica band!

It's with sincerest compunction that I admit it now, but at first we parents were skeptical. We predicted the numerous potential problems that life would bring this unConventional couple, yet their united Constitutions were resilient in the face of such adversity. For instance, we reasoned, her young man had quite a reputation. Was she aware of his previous activities, like when he was 18 (-th century) and quite the lightning rod about town?
Yes, yes, she countered, he'd told her every electrifying detail (excerpt what the Kids' Classics editors left out to make room for illustrations), &, besides, she wasn't naïve. She'd read the other tail-all accounts penned by his hangers-on, like Amos (that rat), or poor, pithy Richard Saunders (who notoriously suffered from an Almaniackal complex). Moreover, if she gave us a piece of her opinion, we would Do good to Silence our Mrs. reservations! (Ben suggested we could Master them Posthaste if we followed his General example -- he had such a humble way of stamping out mailstroms.)

And, as it turned out, those two crazy kids were right! Theirs was a remarkably productive partnership. Certainly he was inventive and, with time, his Franklin Institute-ion proved that he was an experiment that would last. He was a brilliant mathematician (further confirmation he was a total square, magical as he was in our daughter's eyes) who prompted Mikaela to accelerate the pace in memorizing the multiplication tables, thereby raising her expectations for a happy future -- as well as her math grades -- exponentially. (Finally, evidence he's not a D-ist?*) True, we did discover that he was a player, but his Morals of Chess merely entreatised us to make the next strategic, and simultaneously altruistic, move.

Indeed, he was the ideal checkmate for our girl. Following his example, she acquired a requisite "little book" to chart her progress (nifty graphing practice) & then allotted one week per virtue in her quest to expeditiously attain moral perfection. But, as the weeks wore on, she tired of it, experiencing such easy mastery over them all -- "child's play," I think she called it -- that she felt no need to continue past week 12. (Really, who orders a Baker's dozen of virtues anyway?)
     
1. TEMPERANCE. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.
2. SILENCE. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.
3. ORDER. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.
4. RESOLUTION. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.
5. FRUGALITY. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.
6. INDUSTRY. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. SINCERITY. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. JUSTICE. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. MODERATION. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. CLEANLINESS. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.
11. TRANQUILLITY. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
12. CHASTITY. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or
                        the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
13. HUMILITY. Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

But their most prolific collaborative effort was the stuff of legends (which they thoroughly investigated & only then reported in their newspapers). His Pennsylvania Gazette was the journalistic inspiration for her Texas Gazette. Further, he served as her opinions' column editor and certainly provided as much valuable input in that capacity as do most advisory committee board members. (What'choo talkin' 'bout, Michael Moore?) So, she began building her publishing empire -- as a community service, you understand -- which soon led to her wanting to scope (scoop?) out the competition. A field trip was arranged to tour a small, local paper where she compared typing wpm speed with the owner-managing editor, took turns interviewing & being interviewed by staff reporters, and laid out - as straightforwardly as she could - headlines on the copyeditor's light table. (Unfortunately, Ben was unavoidably 'otherwise indisposed' on that particular day, but he went with her, as they say, in spirit.)
 

Yet then love accomplished the impossible! It was Ben, alive & in person! (And, if I may be permitted to acknowledge, their supportive mother-in-law had a lot to do with it.) Leafing through a Houston Kids' magazine, it was as if an arrow struck. For what was on the agenda February 14th? Hold onto your heart, it was a lovely surprise rendezvous at the Museum of Printing History! I'm still not sure why Ben Franklin made an advertised appearance on that particular day... not that a print museum isn't the first place most people think of for romance. And back then, it seemed, he'd be Imprinted on her forever...  


But, alas, rekindling
an old flame, even
with a candlemaker's son,
can be wicked. There came a day -- right after that Valentine's Day, actually -- when she told us that she'd simply outgrown him.  


So we no longer celebrate the Printer's birthday in the old (Goudy?) style. Not after she threw Benny over for Robin Hood, anyhow. The attraction of an older man - roughly 400 years that young whippersnapper's elder - and a British accent was too much for her to resist...


*Some recent biographers have purposefully mischaracterized Franklin, both historically and intellectually. His family attended the most liberal Puritan church in Boston, Old South Church, home to many rebellious spirits who later led the American Revolution. As a young man, he advocated Deism & throughout his life stated that "the most acceptable service of God was the doing good to man." Although even he took some liberties with his autobiographical image, it's inaccurate to rewrite history to fit a religious agenda (I mean, that ain't Right). Franklin, like the majority of Americans today, held that belief in God, virtue & patriotism are inalienable rights for all Americans, Left for each of us to value & express in a "liberty of conscience." Now that's a founding, Father!

Jane Austen is Mikaela's favorite author. Well, unless she happens to be in the Middle of marching through a George Eliot novel... In fact, because of our pre-teen, who continues to find the gaping holes in my graduate school literary education, I'm cutting my wisdom teeth on The Mill and the Floss right now (actually, have been for the last 3 months). Her laughing repeatedly & for crying out loudly at Eliot's "the best sarcasm ever, Mom!" was humiliating. No, not because a young girl is devouring novels thirty years before I ever started them. That is mildly threatening. But not nearly as alarming as the thought that my acerbic wit preeminence might be usurped in my darling daughter's heart. By George, that Eliot is taking it too far.

Yet, every now and then, Mikaela humors me. And we read a novel together. Slowly. One or two chapters at a time, followed by an in-depth discussion where she asks me lots of questions. And then goes on to answer all of them herself.

Last month was my turn to pick, so I'd chosen The Chosen. It was a favorite book in junior high, introduced by an English teacher who tossed out the regular 7th grade textbook in favor of bombarding students with excellent 'young adult' novels, class periods spent debating the morality of characters' decisions, and weekly, intensive essay writing tests. (She could only do such an irresponsible thing because she planned to quit teaching after that year anyway. Between classes, we drilled with the 1,000 handwritten vocabulary flashcards she'd made for the upcoming GRE. That is, when she wasn't busy in an administrator's office receiving poor evaluations for her unacceptably slacker teaching methods.)  

The Chosen is a wonderful and challenging book, with layers of meaning and an intensely nerdy appeal. It's about the joy of learning. It's about friendship. And it's about the arduous, often tedious, phases one must endure for the sake of both. But, it also has kids as its main characters, so, compared to Mikaela's usual fare, is accessible and at the "appropriate reading level" for her age. Moreover, I could actually contribute something to the discussions, further explaining the numerous detailed passages regarding Hasidism, orthodox practices and the subtle distinctions in various sects' beliefs.

But the most significant theme in the novel is the necessity that intellect be complemented by the soul. It is a powerful concept when reading the book and identifying with its teenage protagonists, both Reuven, who seems to have a natural inclination to empathy, and Danny, whose brilliant mind often hinders his emotional insights. But it is equally poignant when rereading it as a parent, with the added responsibility of guiding a child young woman to achieve - and yearn for - that balance.

After wrapping up our study of the novel, we happened onto this article in The New York Times: Yes, Miky, There Are Rabbis in Montana. It was a neat summation to our talks, as well as a reminder of how the history of Judaism comes into play in today's current events.  The reporter prays upon readers' expectations in the post-9/11 era, toying with biases and perceived prejudice, both toward a Hasidic rabbi and the dogged police officer. The premise serves to provide contrast to commonly held preconceptions, by revealing a community in Billings that creatively fought intolerance, for example, as well as to set us up for his surprise ending.  

Yet, it was not so very surprising to Mikaela. In part, this was due to our reading of The Chosen. But, its relevance went further, into homeschooling experiences that we never would have connected to the novel on our own.

We, too, had met a K-9 policeman and his dog. Back in 2004, Mikaela wrote about it in her own news article:

Her interview with Alpo came about by chance, on one of our many, many visits to the Houston Police Department's stables. At the time, our lil' National Velvet was in a typical, horse-crazy girl mode, memorizing everything equine, briefly taking riding lessons, and primarily devoting her energies to corralling her folks into weekly field trips to call on her HPD favorites (neigh, she loved them all). It soon evolved into a regular family outing, including a ritual first stop at a local Latino grocery for bags of carrots & apples for the horses and fritters & churros for us, followed by lazy afternoons spent watching & petting the horses. But, when we arrived early one morning instead, Alpo and his best friend were working out on a dog-sized obstacle course. In addition to learning all about K-9 duties, M&K's attentions turned to trying to coax Alpo into accepting a carrot and, with it, a vegetarian lifestyle.
 
More recently, we traveled to Bozeman and visited several small towns in Montana, including Libby, where we stopped for lunch. To our dismay, it perfectly fulfilled our every notion of the Wild West: As we stepped out of the (station)wagon, air thick with smoke & cinders stung our eyes... due to a wildfire raging on the ridge right above town! However, besides an occasional airplane pilot circling round to drop fire retardant, no one else seemed to notice. People were doing their grocery shopping, cracking jokes at the gas station or lingering over Subway sandwiches, with nary a glance at the looming orange flames. We city slickers got right back into the car & hurried on as fast as the 25 mph speed limit would allow to Glacier National Park, with a quick detour through its three gateway towns, one of which is Whitefish. Little did we realize then that being awed by Montana's scenery would also let us in on a sophisticated NY Times inside joke. (A rabbi, a cop and a German shepherd walk into a capitol building...)
 
None of these events were essential for understanding or appreciating The Chosen. And all happened independently of each other, with no foreseeable connections amongst them. But, one of the most exciting things about learning is seeing the relationships between what at first appear to be disparate things. And one of the greatest benefits of homeschooling is that it allows the time & opportunities to delve into topics of interest, engage in thoughtful conversations, build a one-reporter newspaper publishing empire, stroll around some quaint & heretofore obscure small town, or just pass the day horsing around. And, by doing such random things, find the connections between them. And, by doing that, see the connections to ourselves, as well.

My hope is that Mikaela has absorbed The Chosen's lesson that intellect must include compassion. It is a philosophy that applies to us as individuals, yet also necessarily extends to all levels of interaction. The conflicts facing the Middle East are just as complex and divisive now as they were when Chaim Potok described them sixty years ago. The need for an approach to the peace process which balances reason and compassion for both sides concerned, and the ultimate worthiness of engaging in talking rather than silence, would be well chosen.

In honor of Claude Monet's birthday, based on a song first performed to wide acclaim by the O'Jays -- fine artists in their own right -- may we now present our rendition of "For the Love of Monet."

Uh huh, that's right --
                                    As everyone knows, Monet always souled out.

And, just for the record, we have plenty of water lily gardens in Texas, too:

     But, perhaps, they leave one with
     a slightly different impression?













Later, gator.

Fresh off the heels of a Bastille Day do-si-do, the next day was devoted to that even more universally understood, unquestionably patriotic and supremely worthwhile national pastime: waiting 7 to 10 hours queuing up in anxious anticipation of 7 to 10 minutes of spine-tingling, if blurred and/or obstructed, Le Tour de France excitement.

Mildly despondent over my girls' lack of athleticism or even feigned interest in traditional sports, I thought what better way to inspire them than for us to become part of the esprit de corps celebrating the quintessential triumph in the Wide World of Sports - man's conquering of mountains atop a bicyclette. It was disappointing that we wouldn't get to cheer on Lancelot "C'est moi" Armstrong and that the American presence, however loathed (or reluctantly lauded), was absent that year. But, at the same time, I was spared from having to explain those insidious daily headlines accusing LiveStrong of taking illegal supplements and, besides, my travel-size
75' x 125' Texas flag hadn't fit into my carry-on bag anyhow... So, early the next morning, we set off to find our place along the Stage 8 route between Le Grand-Bornand and Tignes.

After several false starts & time trials, we finally ended up at a sweet pâtisserie in the little town of Seez. No one was astir here, there were no signs of impending Le Tour like we'd passed in previous towns - RVs lining the sides of the road, women liberally sunning (all of) themselves in lounge chairs, Smart cars jamming into hardware store parking lots along the route, police cars circling in anticipation of the riots sure to erupt any second - all a vicious (bi)cycle that we were eager to avoid. At the bakery, in exchange for our convivially in treating ourselves to some tarts, the éclair-voyant women assured us that indeed the Tour was supposed to pass down Main Street (which doubled as the highway) and that they wouldn't mind if we parked our van there for the day (we try to avoid tortes - unless they are drizzled with chocolate - whenever possible... mostly, we stick to our just desserts).

Mere minutes later, we emerged to find numerous Tourists staking out spots alongside ours, their hatchbacks popped up, vast smorgasbords being assembled on car hoods. Tout de suite, two different groups offered to let us share their hastily constructed shade tarps and picnic bounty. Vraiment, we had found the festive spirit that had eluded us the day before - Tailgating!

Of course, we did what international protocol demands: We thought it quite odd, politely declined and hurried away. (Mais oui, it seems rude, but not only are we Texans, we're also vegetarians and we don't drink - Mon Dieu, we are a Frenchman's worst nightmare. In our experience, this is truly the least offensive way to proceed, lest one takes pleasure in being pummeled with a baguette. Ok, it's not fair to generalize - in Bavaria or Austria, make that a hearty German sausage instead.)

We spent the afternoon lingering - very uncharacteristically for us, common Americans who unabashedly eat & run - over a leisurely lunch in order to secure a table &, with it, a spot alongside the route. As expected, the meal served its purpose, keeping the girls occupied for quite some time as they debated the intricacies of how to fairly divvy up three forlorn whole olives wallowing in a scant amount of fromage on our "sans viande, s'il vous plaît" pizza. That fractious repast over, our attention turned to ordering another round of drinks and predicting just how long each beverage's single ice cube could valiantly resist melting. Would the sparkling Perrier's bubbly action increase or decrease the rate of dissolution in comparison to the Coca-Cola, which flatly refused its reputed effervescence?
 

Though these math & science lessons already exceeded what we normally consider a week's worth of homeschooling, we were in luck. Out of thin air, the Alpine sky opened up (actually, a random pre-peloton truck rumbled by) and tossed a newspaper for our complimentary perusal. So, we discussed European politics, scrutinized the latest in Parisian haute couture and practiced our flawless French (by translating the comics). Tireless (yep, still no sign of the bikes) overachievers, M&K then calculated the riders' cumulative elevation gains (pneu math) and began making up those time-honored word problems, such as "If Pepé Le Pew pedals east from Paris at 30 km per hour and Mickey Mouse comes cycling 'round the Space Mountain from the wild West (EuroDisney) at 70 km per hour, how long will it take..."

... Too easy, 0 seconds! For there he was, the leader of the Tour! Wait, it was hard to tell - was he a man or a mouse? But then, it was clear - to the Mickster go the spoils! Mickey was floating our way & tossing out coloring books. "Me! Me! Throw it to me, Mickey!" He whisk(er)ed right by us with nary a glance. Color me blue, what kind of Mickey Mouse outfit was this? M&K consoled themselves with the fact that, on principle, they never would have wanted a Mickey anything in the States and did their best to ignore the adults high-fiving across the street.


Although we knew about the peloton - the main group of riders, plus their entourage of cars loaded with extra bikes, news vans full of perilously clinging photographers & satellite vehicles transmitting intermittent tv signals - the caravan was a surprise. Long after the road was blocked off so team buses & logistical equipment could pass and the t-shirt vendors had come and gone, a grand procession of sponsors came parading through strewing free merchandise. Immediately, things took on a festive spirit, with folks vying to attract attention and catch prized items. Très gauche, but who wouldn't succumb to temptation with rewards so dear: sample size packages of laundry detergent, mini beer bottle key chains, sacks of pretzels, paper pizza fans, single-serving tea bags & Aquarel bottles thrown to replicate air-to-ground heat-seeking missiles. Granted, it's not as though they were as valuable as colored plastic beads... No, sorry, that's Mardi Gras - but it was much the same thing. Once, long ago in New Orleans, I found myself among the throngs jostling for those precious purple (or green or gold) pearls when, all of a sudden, I was grounded. I looked down to find a little boy with a pocketknife sawing at my shoelaces (intertwined with strings of beads) -- apparently, this was a much more lucrative approach for the under 4 feet tall set. Similarly, the Tour worked its magic - people jumping up & down, madly waving their arms about, generally behaving in ways for which they would necessarily need to repent. Oh là là, to live in the fast lane today, who would not willingly fast tomorrow?

With the capture of their first trinket, M&K were also hooked. Not long into their bountiful hunting, a driving Hotel Etap receptionist caught Katrianna's eye & a gentle, underhanded throw, along with an errant gust of wind, sent the gift skidding to her feet. Juggling other treasures, Katrianna failed to retrieve it immediately. Quel dommage, she who hesitates... With remarkable speed, a white-haired old man teetered over, deftly reached around her and grabbed the tantalizing gem! He quickly shuffled off to regain his original derrière position several yards away & carefully examined the hotel chain's logo emblazoned on its discounted key chain. Like taking Haribo bonbons from a baby, he slipped it into his pocket and then seemed content to let his wife collect the remaining loot. A difficult blow, Katrianna regained her composure after recognizing the bitter truth - this ain't no church-sponsored Easter egg hunt, this was the Big Leagues! Time to put away childish things & up her game. Had we not realized it before, we now fooly understood -- this was a world-class event.
 
Finally, the motorized recycling dumpster signaled the fin du fin de carnival. M&K happily bent over to admire their amassed good fortune when, to cap it off, the key chain culprit abruptly etapped Katrianna on the shoulder with the day's most esteemed giveaway - a polka-dotted cycling hat, the crème de la crème of Champion's (a grocery store chain)! Despite Katrianna's attempts at refusal, he insisted she accept his hat trick and left only after she'd finally granted him "Merci." Our hats off to him, he was rather a good chap-eau, after all.

And then, without further adieu, the real, live Tour de France raced by! In front of the first set of riders, we saw Michael Rasmussen, the man who would win the day's stage and, with that, don the yellow jersey for the remainder of the Tour. Amazingly, in this 15 minutes (make that seconds) of fame, we'd witnessed the most critical moment in the 2007 Tour de France! Le directeur sportif beaucoup modeste de Team Sarkar, I took a victory lap.

For the next 10 days, Rasmussen retained his lead & we reveled in the glory of being part of history every time updates came on the news. There was none of the chauvinistic divisiveness like when Lance was winning - in one afternoon, all nations had united in global camaraderie. Sports really were rewarding, the girls had to admit, as they played Crazy Eights with their Télé 7 card deck or passed many a pleasant hour deliberating the true identity of a bank's stuffed animal mascot dangling from yet another key chain: marmot, squirrel or chipmunk? The virtue of athletics was redeemed, though some of the lustre diminished slightly when the wheels literally fell off the little plastic axles on their little plastic Kleber car... (How deflating is that?)

We were even inspired to explore more destinations along Le Tour's hallowed ground, following in the bikers' stirrups. We visited the cycling-friendly towns of Le Bourg d'Oisans and Briançon. So encouraged were we by the red & white ALLEZ! messages spray painted on the roads, that it was almost possible to pretend we didn't see the cycling purists' cigarette butts or the many fans' scattered trash littering the Alps at every hairpin turn on the scenic Col de Galibier. Forevermore, we'd be able to watch future Tour coverage and fondly think back to these affirming experiences...

Then, four days from the favorite's ensured victory on the Champs-Élysées, we got one last French translation lesson. On its front page, the newspaper ran an unexpected obituary - the passing of Le Tourch -












Leaving behind grieving past winners (relatively speaking), the Tour de France died on Thursday, July 25, 2007,  'at the age of 104, after a long illness.' 













Rasmussen was kicked off his team and removed from the Tour due to drug allegations.
[Alberto Contador, now Lance's 2009 nemesis - and teammate - would go on to win.]

Duped again, we sure felt like dopes.

For Father's Day, a deferential retrospective of our family's beloved Dad -

Early on, thanks to Dad's musical tastes, we discovered that the most soothing, soporific lullabies for infants include any with a walking bass line by Steel Pulse. Then, thanks to the kids' toddler years, we discovered that the favorite band for irie men in their late thirties is The Wiggles. (True, Veggie Tales tunes are also great, but they get Chris too revved up and we have to increase his Ritalin.) 

When she was 3, Mikaela had a lingering cough for a few days following a cold and she milked it for all it was worth - which was, not coincidentally, attention from Mom when her newborn sister was nursing. Chris took charge and strictly forbade any future coughing-for-effect. Of course, it had none other than the predictable, expected result (a parent to anyone but a father): Mikaela's scratchy throat continued for a full year. Satisfied with a parenting job well decreed, Chris complacently left to go to the office every day and I got to take Mikaela to cough at playgroups, parks, nature classes & library storytimes where I received a daily dose of "the look" from complete strangers - what kind of mother would drag around a [not] sick child like that?
 

Their dad has always been a devoted companion for the girls' imaginary play. Each year in December, he would take his place on Santa-Mikaela's sleigh-sofa, squeezing in beside the other elves - MacKenzo, Socko & Katrianna - and fly throughout the land looking for good little girls and boys deserving of presents. Some days, he'd even come home & regale them with news brought directly from Saint Nick himself, who happened to be seen at our neighborhood Target stuffing his "magic Santa pocket" (versatile spandex, Perseus) full of innumerable toys of all descriptions. My, what delightful fun! Until that afternoon when Santa sent a note stating that if a cantankerous Mikaela kept refusing to cooperate with her "very cool dude" father, she'd find only lumps of coal in her stocking on Christmas morn. OH HO, a very original and clever ploy, Chris Kringle! Until Mikaela noticed that Santa's message was written on an Intel post-it note -- exactly the same kind that Mikaela had earlier written "6 AND 3!!!" on & stuck to Chris' computer screen so he would correctly state his daughters' ages when clients asked.
 
 


As a former member of the #1 squad in Houston's premier amateur soccer league, Chris was primed (well, just past his prime) to turn his talents to coaching Mikaela's youth team. He spent practices diligently working with the children to perfect the most important skill in football: how to celebrate a score by stretching out one's arms & running circles around the field yelling ¡Gooooooolllllllllll! like Univision's Andreas Cantor. The kids loved it! Well, loved it at practices anyway, since going 0-8 for two consecutive seasons really did not allow for too many game-time display opportunities. [Check out Chris' soccer blog] 
     
When we started globeschooling, Chris happily moved over to let me take the driver's seat - 15 minutes at a stretch (plus a yawn and then he's usually asleep for the next 15 hours). His main way to prepare for our trips is to plan all the ways he can back out of them at the last minute. Once we're on the road, though, he defies the stereotype about men getting lost & refusing to ask for directions. A 21st century, tech-liberated kind of guy, he not only buys several maps for each trip, but also insists we listen to the GPS voice navigation system (when it comes complimentary on rent cars). That way, he's covered every contingency and when we get lost - as we always do when he's in charge of directions - we can be sure to get lost as quickly and efficiently as possible. Some people go for unlimited mileage; others content themselves with unlimited options for choosing the wrong way to go.

These days, Dad willingly plays Monopoly with the girls. That all-American game that teaches such important values: the value of math fluency in everyday life, the value of money management, the value of planning ahead, and, most importantly, the value of cheating without getting caught. No, that's the old, outdated Monopoly everyone knows. And, frankly, they're tiring of it. So, we're on the waitlist for the new & improved, more realistic edition. Where you still learn the value of cheating, but also the value of getting caught, so you can position your company to receive a government subsidized bailout (in the billions of dollars, not measly Boardwalk thousands) and a golden personal parachute compensation package that'll keep you flying high all the way to your 85th birthday. . .


With respect to Model Parenting, he takes a slightly different approach. Chris leads by counter example. It's a variation on 'Do as I say, not as I do' which he contends builds character by providing the girls a healthy chance to resist negative influences. For downright-bodacious example, although he grew up in India & still has remnants of a British accent, he revels (and rebels) in talkin' like a Texan. To Mikaela's chagrin, he employs every Southern turn of phrase & inflection and drawls out their linguistic delivery. The eye-rolling grammarian can't hardly stand it - "Daaaad, that's a double negative!" (A typical hypo critical tween, Mikaela prefers to be singularly negative instead.) Master of reverse psychology, Chris tells the girls, "Simply find a guy who doesn't do these things - that's the key to a happy marriage, just ask Mom."


For all academic subject(ivitie)s, our homeschooling dad consistently demonstrates that the overwhelming male need to know all the answers supersedes logical thought. He is unable to utter the words "I don't know" in the presence of his children. For the last several years, we've focused on one particular whopper that came to symbolize them all. We were studying the history of flight (getting ready for the girls' first plane ride - can't do anything around here without making it "educational") and Chris explained that the use of Concorde jets had been discontinued due to all of the sonic booms produced when they kept breaking the sound barrier. Now I knew that fuel costs plus ticket prices for the supersonic time-busters had been exorbitant and was also under the impression that safety issues had ultimately grounded them, so I never bothered to check. As any good wife - not to mention educator - would do in this situation, at the speed of sound, I led the children in ridiculing their father (my life's Catcalling). "Oh c'mon, Chris, that's just plane wrong! Exactly how many sonic booms per day were they having with all those Concorde flights to Paris?" From then on, nearly any theory offered by their venerated father on any subject earned the immediate classification of "sound barrier" and was promptly disregarded (after pausing for a traditional moment of derisive laughter). Ahh, how quickly time flies...             
 
In honor of Father's Day this year, the girls begged me to let them guest blog. Their subject? "Sound Barriers" They'd made a list of Dad's best knowledgeable nuggets and were all set to start it off with a Boom! Due to my journalistic integrity, which will allows nothing but strict adherence to the facts, I decided I better google it. Ah ha, I was right, so I called Chris over to look - in the interest of fairness and edification, mind you, not to rub it in. Then, he googled it. Unbelievable, Wikipedia had his back! M&K were undeterred and wanted to proceed with the other 49 irrefutable Dad facts, but the truth is that I was too shook up - dumbstruck, you might even say. What if he was right about the others, too? The girls' list will have to wait until next Father's Day - so we can conscientiously verify its inauthenticities, as well as to allow ample time for researching my Wikipedia conspiracy theory: 1) Chris hacked into their system unbeknownst to the editorial staff, or 2) all of the entries written for Wikipedia are in fact written by fathers similarly afflicted by Sound Barrieritis. I wonder if Oliver Stone is onto this? Honestly, I always thought it was called "mendacity" because men have a much higher capacity to supremely exemplify its many forms. (Hey, anyone seen my hot tin roof? Alas, let she who is without sin cast the first Brick...)

It's the universal truism of fatherhood - there really should be nothing knew under the son (or daughters), should there?

Finally, as Chris likes to remind me several times an hour, this family's blog would not be possible without his generous support, technical know-how and editorial advice. Even Mikaela has noticed his invaluable contributions: "Mom, do you think the people who read your blog miss as many of the jokes as Dad does?"  

Two households, both alike in dignity,  
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,  
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes  
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whose misadventur'd piteous overthrows
Doth with their death bury their parents' strife.
The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,  
And the continuance of their parents' rage,
Which but their children's end naught could remove,  
Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;
The which, if you with patient ears attend,
What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.
                                                                                            Prologue, Romeo & Juliet

On June 1st, Italian soccer star Luca Ceccarelli and his stellar girlfriend Irene Lanforti, both alike in dignity, got married in fair Verona. The mayor officiated at the ceremony in an effort to promote the city's romantic image, as well as a brand new $1300 bargain opportunity for other lovers to follow in Luca & Irene's footsteps (or in Romeo & Juliet's wake, as the case may be - my guess is that the price tag for the latter might be a bit higher, though, as it involves a double ceremony of sorts, so do check with your wedding planner in advance). In fact, they exchanged vows on Juliet's famed balcony, a destination which already receives 1.2 million pilgrims a year.

Only problem is that it's not Juliet's balcony. We jester not (we're no Shakespearean fools), we have this on high authority - that's right, we watch Rick Steves. Apparently, the Cappello family household, supposedly linked to the ancient Capulets, was actually occupied with "misadventur'd piteous overthrows" of another sort... indeed, it is reputed to have served famously as the neighborhood brothel. (Does this earn Luca a red light district card?) The balcony was added to the facade centuries after R&J's legendary tryst, but I wipe my civil hands clean of disparaging it any further.


The point is, by the time we got to Casa di Giulietta ourselves, it was a bit anti-climatic. All of us were jaded by visits to too many sightseeing attractions and - though it was subtle - we discerned that this one was yet another tourist booby trap. The whole idea of seeing Juliet like that rubbed M&K the wrong way, so none of us was disappointed when we arrived after closing time.

But, now, a flashback to the prologue of our own play on Romeo & Juliet:

M&K's Shakespearean melodrama had begun long before we entered Verona 'live and in person.' After several nights spent reading acts of the play aloud for "bedtime stories," we went ahead and scheduled Franco Zeffirelli's version for family movie night. They loved it and, naturally, it provided all manner of new family farcical fodder, like the scene where Romeo finds out Juliet is masquerading as a Capulet - dubbed the "Oh, Crap-ulet!" moment (yo, no disrespect). I very purposefully emphasized how silly R&J were to be so impatient, "doomed" and inclined to moaning - trying to make sure to counteract any over-romanticizing of the love story and its outcome (putting me in direct opposition to the dreamy Mercutio, thousands of English teachers who annually uphold this as the sacred epitome of tragic love, and the millions more afflicted with Sir Walter Scott disease in its many Harlequinesque manifestations). But, since they already knew about that sort of thing from Marc Antony & Cleopatra, I felt relatively assured that they were quite content to scoff at scars & won't be inclined to feel - or purposefully self-inflict - any wounds.  

Nevertheless, it did inspire them. We created an abridged script of the balcony scene and M&K began practicing at once...  so, May we humbly present Mikaela in the guise of Romeo and Katrianna as a r's rolling, Romeo-relishing Juliet:

And, since there was only one fair way to resolve "the ancient [actress] grudge that threatened to break to new [sibling] mutiny," Mikaela now assumes the role of a be-musing Juliet & Katrianna displays her best Zeffirelli-directed portrayal of the boysterous, love-struck Romeo:

Eventually, after all of this intense theatrical preparation in the states, the girls found themselves performing to wide acclaim across Europe. In nearly every village, town or city, in each & every country we visited, they sought out spare balconies, trespassed their stony limits & winged it to love's lofty heights to answer the summons of Shakespearean schmaltz. As you can imagine, many awe-struck, appreciative aficionados would stop what they were doing to listen (interpreted by M&K as a 'standing O') before resuming their mundane daily tasks, which peculiarly enough usually involved sweeping the dirt off their own balconies so that it cascaded, confetti-like, right onto Romeo & Juliet's upturned, praise-expectant bare heads.   


When we finally got to Verona following four months of "touring," our little troupers approached it with all of the enthusiasm of hackneyed actors on their 500th run of an off off-Broadway production. Their namesakes "up in graffiti" outside the gates of the Casa di Giulietta failed to amuse them. But, it was a beautiful, crisply cool night so we merrily romped through the medieval, marble-cobbled streets pretending to be the Montagues & the Capulets (improvising to add the snappy fingers & mandatory dance moves of the Sharks & the Jets, obviously). It was really perfect and oh-so authentic, all except for the fact that Tybalt, aka the Prince of Cat's, aka Chris, refused to change into the tri-colored tights I'd brought along especially for this occasion... clearly, men do not support the arts.

We strolled past Verona's colosseum and through a maze of fashion boutiques to Piazza delle Erbe, the expansive town square lined by herb vendors' carts, gleaming lights and freely flowing fountains of youths imbibing the nightlife. It was quite nice, but then we meandered around a corner and found ourselves in Piazza dei Signori, lorded over by a middle aged, supremo Dante who refused to tell us definitively whether we'd found Paradiso or, could it be, the infernal Cinema Paradiso? - certainly, his mute condescension proved to be a divine comedy at our expense.  Once more, we wandered on through an indescript opening in the walls and, magically, we were completely alone in yet another piazza facing the biggest, most imposing staircase and balcony we had ever scene!
 
That did it. The Sarkar Sisters Theater Company sprang into "Action!" Well, at least they tried to. Turned out that the final, moonlit performance of Romeo & Juliet actually started with the Intermission due to a minor glitch - when, upon inspecting the balcony to ensure its safety for the children, Mom was, at its vertex, suddenly struck with her fear of heights forgotten in all the excitement. No problem, there was only a slight twenty minute delay as Mom took to her hands and knees to crawl back down the 72 steps...
 
The dénouement of our Verona play date:

Truly, I don't know how I hadn't thought of this before. We always seem to overlook the obvious and what's right in our own backyard, don't we? But, thanks to the newly betrothed Mr. & Mrs. Ceccarelli and the fare-mayor of Verona, I'm adding The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas to our list of worldly, must-see sites. Of course, it's the home of the esteemed classic musical, valid reason enough. However, now I also realize we should be looking ahead and scope it out as an ideal spot for Mikaela's or Katrianna's future nuptials & afterparty. A wonder that it hasn't occurred to the fine, entrepreneurial folks at the La Grange chamber of commerce, ain't it? Just goes to show that we Americans still lag far behind in terms of European sophistication and literary nuance...     

A glooming peace this morning with it brings;
The sun for sorrow will not show his head.
Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things;
Some shall be pardon'd, and some punished;
For never was a story of more woe
Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

It all started when we were trying to fit in with a new playgroup at their park day. We'd recently decided to homeschool Mikaela, but we hadn't found our niche yet in any of the homeschool groups where most families' kids were older than ours or we'd been rejected because we wouldn't sign the group's statement of faith, publicly declaring our animosity toward Satan and expressing our willingness to enlist the kids in a crusade if given 48 hours advance notice.  

This group, though not homeschoolers, seemed ideal because it had an abundance of toddlers along with several five year olds who'd just missed the school district's birthdate cutoff.  If it worked out, both of my girls would have plenty of potential playmates and our homeschooling wouldn't even be an issue.

It was a gorgeous 75 degree fall morning, full of buzzing bees, flitting butterflies and birds tweeting their sweet, melodic songs (this was long ago, before they communicated exclusively through twitter - 140 notes at a time).

Then, suddenly, he was upon us. Lawn Mower Tractor Guy. Oblivious to all due to the roar of the engine, his walkman headphones and the thick, dangling earflaps of his woolen winter cap, he was headed straight for the sandbox! Like Odysseus, who had to abandon his insanity act and rescue the infant Telemachus from an oncoming plow, I threw aside my frivolous, inane, getting-to-know-you banter just in time to hurdle the teeter totter and swoop up Katrianna.

The whirling blades just grazed the ironsides of the ship-shaped sandbox, barely causing a stir among the kids inside it who were too preoccupied with shoring up caches of pebbles (resourcefully stored in their pull-ups) for the inevitable battle that brought each and every playdate to a glorious conclusion. Still panting, I glanced around to see that the few moms who had bothered to look up from their cell phones were snickering in my direction. In an ironic twist in our odyssey to find playgroup inclusion, my conspicuous child-rescue action was regarded as egregiously overprotective and confirmed their suspicions that "the homeschooling mom" was indeed out of her mind.

I hung my head in shame. I called to Mikaela that it was time to go when an empathetic mom broke ranks and came over to commiserate about the odd fellow who'd nearly mowed down my daughter.  Thinking it a lost cause anyway, I nervously adjusted the buckle on Katrianna's overalls and explained, "I just hadn't realized Ignatius J Reilly had moved to Houston."

She laughed, then added, "Oh, but he hasn't. That was Holden Caulfield!" Right then I knew we'd found our playgroup and I could postpone carpooling the girls to Lil' Missionary Club meetings for at least another year.

[Helpful hint: Undoubtedly, the Confederacy of Dunces allusion litmus test is a good idea, but that Toole's book only came up this one time. For no fail conversational icebreakers, I recommend going with War & Peace or Moby Dick - both are invaluable sources for discovering common ground among parents while watching soccer games in lawn chairs. Nevertheless, this was a refreshing change and I am forever beHolden to the Catcher in the Wry.]

Over the winter months, Charlotte and I and our four kids became good friends. We even went along when they invited us to some services at their church (but it was an Episcopal church, so it doesn't really count - as everybody knows, religion and Episcopalians never really mix...  except maybe martinis... in post communion happy hours...  the Reverend Father tends bar). But, one deceptively free & easy spring afternoon, we lingered to let our kids play when all of the other playgroup moms had left. Charlotte leaned across the picnic table and asked me confidentially, "Now truthfully, Cathy, why do you homeschool your kids?"  Lulled by a cool breeze as we sat there in 96 degree shade, I let my defenses down completely and made a terrible mistake: I was honest. I blame it on sunstroke.

I answered that, like most parents, I strongly believed I was obligated to do the best I could for my kids.  A huge part of that had to do with meeting their academic needs. Although I didn't think it would be "bad" for them to attend public or private school, I was in a position that I could stay home with them and we could choose to homeschool instead. They had learned so much already before they were of "school age" and, out of all the options I'd looked into, I felt we could do the best job of providing them a challenging education, letting them progress at their own pace and keeping the learning fun. Plus, I added, it was what Mikaela said she wanted to do & my plan was to go along with it for as long as she wanted...

Charlotte looked incredulous. I guess she sensed I was still holding back. She guilefully goaded me on with "But is being smart really so important?"

That did it, she got me in my Achilles cranium. I went on to explain that I thought God wanted each of us to reach our full potential. We'd all been given gifts and, since my girls so far had not demonstrated any Carl Lewis tendencies or Olympic aspirations (wiped away a tear there), I was focusing on what seemed to be their particular strengths and affinities right now. They were smart, they loved to learn, and they wanted to homeschool. My personal philosophy was that each of us should do our very best with whatever talents God had given us and, through conscientious effort, we would make the world a better place.

My spiritual revelation had the precise effect I always suspected it might. Charlotte immediately remembered a crucial need to replenish their goldfish's food supply, tossed the kids head first into her bicycle's pup tent kid carrier and shifted through all 3 gears of her bike's derail-hers in the fastest getaway I'd ever "witnessed."

Sincerity stinks. Had I learned nothing from Linus and the Great Pumpkin? In a momentary lapse of judgment, I'd forgotten to keep my blanket securely in place o'er this little (jack-o) lantern o' mine. And, I hadn't even told Charlotte the whole story... that the worst period in our pre-school years was when I realized three year old Mikaela was recognizing words and learning to read on her own. On the advice of several teacher friends, who told me that she wouldn't fit in at kindergarten and would have to skip ahead a couple of grades if she kept this up, I rebuffed all of her repeated requests to teach her to read 'real' books. The "rejection" seemed to hurt her emotionally, no matter how I explained it or tried to distract her with 'fun' activities and playdates. But I persisted, determined that she would attend traditional school.

I spent my time touring schools and visiting on parents' night open houses, taking Mikaela to our neighborhood school's Dr Seuss play to show her that indeed - in 2 more years - attending school would be wonderful, and even signing her up for pre-K classes where I was told she asked too many questions, overparticipated and refused to properly print lowercase letters using the "clock system" (because she had mastered upper & lowercase lettering already, but apparently that was not the point). After three months of this, my little scholar was literally at her wit's end. Finally, at home one quiet morning, I pulled out a chapter book and asked her to read it aloud to me. She was ecstatic and that decided it for all of us. What were we waiting around for?

Our families continued to get together after my unconscionable faux pas, but we always kept to safe topics after that: discussing our kids' vegetable preferences, debating the environmental impact of cloth vs. commercial diapers or, always a bonding win-win topic, listing all the things other moms did wrong in raising their kids.  By the next fall, her son was accepted into the city's most competitive academic kindergarten program, reputed to produce only National Merit Finalists and Rhodes Scholars. He did very well but, for first grade, she transferred him to a magnet school for music, explaining that she sought a well-rounded education.  

Sacrilege! Not that I'm judging...  Few parents are comfortable putting all their little eggheads in one basket. Of course, we've been doing this homeschooling for so long now, we just went ahead and invested in a whole basket case...  but that's just us. Most likely, her son will graduate from the music academy as a classically trained musician, receive a scholarship to Juilliard and be first chair in any of five instruments.

(That's okay, we play music, too... We adhere strictly to the Chu-ze-key guitar method -- if you don't know the fingering on a note, no need to fret, simply choose to play a different note or skip it altogether. Hey, when they're teenagers, who do you think will be picked to play in a garage band? See, we homeschoolers do consider socialization and the big picture.)  As our kids grew, we met on their school holidays and during summer vacations and, eventually, we also found some like-minded families in homeschooling groups.

Certainly, we all got a lot out of that playgroup experience. The kids made many new friends, although -inexplicably- none of them elected to homeschool when it came time to start kindergarten. And, perhaps most significantly, it reaffirmed my promise to myself that I would never again divulge even the slightest hint of religious motivation in our homeschooling decision. Thank God, I've faithfully stuck to that one...

The truth is we're closet religious homeschoolers. But, if asked, I'll deny it. Three times.

Oh, for Pete's sake...

The summer before my senior year of college, Mr. Wayne C. Martin, a former high school teacher turned mentor-father figure, invited me to brunch. We met at a funky, retro diner where he treated me to a ridiculously large breakfast, all the while extolling the virtues of its low price, Texas-size portions and value for the buck. Since I usually made do with cereal or some synthetic vending machine donuts before my early classes, I actually thought him quite extravagant and politely requested more syrup as I listened.

It seemed the real crux of our conversation would have to do with my career choice dilemma.(I suspect my mom might have put him up to the whole thing, but this cannot be verified in the usual way as she remained inconspicuous and I never once caught sight of her head popping over a booth to snap our photo as a record of this monumental, life altering exchange.)
 

Ultimately, there are two options for an English major for whom gainful employment is merely a novel idea: teaching or law school. Ironically, it was the college profs, who themselves had just mastered the fine art of university politics and finally received tenure after 15 years of one to two semester stints shuffling around the country, who had taken me aside to recommend law school with visions of dollar bills dancing in their heads.  But, it was Mr. Martin's shrewd scheme to bring me over to the dark side - educating young minds and feeding my hungry soul with virtue.
 
Actually, the teacher point was moot, already decided. If I became a lawyer, I knew I'd want to specialize in constitutional law instead of criminal defense, so I readily foresaw that I would end up working for some corporate law firm & feel guilty for not doing enough pro bono work - after all, what good can a theoretical, constitutional lawyer ever do for the world? (Unless you count becoming a community organizer, returning to law school to position yourself to help those most in need, lecturing as a Constitutional law professor, rising to US senator, and then becoming America's president & the leader of the free world as doing 'good'? Thankfully, I stuck to my high moral standards & taught in a private school that catered to the overprivileged upper classes instead.)

So, what approach would a world history teacher take to entice someone to spend her days locked in a classroom with 150 kids? Travel. He wanted to assure me that I could make a teacher's salary and still travel the world. Frankly, this took me by surprise as I thought, based on consistently poor quiz grades from his nitpicky classes years before, that it would have occurred to him that I had learned very little about the world and lacked all essential curiosity. If so, he discreetly kept it to himself that day.  I also failed to mention then, mostly because I was preoccupied with the rapidly cooling hash browns, that all my world travels in the past ("world" referring here to 30 miles or so away from home plus a couple of out of state ventures) had taught me that places didn't matter because people had a unique ability to make themselves absolutely miserable regardless of their surroundings or proximity to desirable amenities.

Still, this was his own, personal rasion d'etre and he was going to make it mine. He explained that if I was frugal about money in other areas, I could save enough to go to Europe or anywhere else on those three month summer vacations that only teachers, not lawyers, enjoyed.  He had done just that for the last thirty years, plus built himself a house with the help of only one contractor, and had an extensive collection of classical music records of which, no matter how many hundreds of times he replayed their selections with amplifying frustration, I never once successfully identified the entry notes of the cello and always mistook them for those of a viola...  Really, I was a lost cause and he probably should have just let me slip through the cracks as hopelessly ineducable.

Upon exiting the esteemed eatery into Houston's stifling 10 am heat, Mr Martin directed my attention to a two story building across the street which declared itself to be "Blue Bird Circle." He said he had one more thing to show to me and, lured by visions of Mr Martin as fairy godmother and me as Cinderella encircled by singing, highly skilled seamstress bluebirds, I followed in meek but expectant certainty of the eternal happiness that was surely in store. Twenty years before it was cool in Paris Hilton's eyes, this trailblazing, trendsetter teacher had brought me to fully air-conditioned, 35,000+ square feet thrift store nirvana. Here, he revealed, is where he'd found many of the antique treasures I'd no doubt admired in his home. Sounding eerily like Bob Barker, he began pointing excitedly in all directions and asking "Can you guess the price of this item? What about the complete set of mismatched dishes here? An almost unbroken vase there?" 

At that time, I was making my way through college with scholarships and minimum wage jobs and living with four bohemian-type roommates, with whom I had little in common except a predilection to share $100 rent, in an ancient house that mysteriously kept losing its monthly condemnation notices. What did I need with used furniture? I'd salvaged cinder blocks & plywood planks as bookshelves and they worked just fine. What other furnishings did a person really require anyhow?

Still, I absorbed all his carefully imparted knowledge, examined scratches and dents with expertise and left with a parting gift: an Egyptian statuette of Bastet, the goddess of war & solar energy for only $2.25!

I appreciated his efforts, truly, but I'm proud to say that I was sensitive enough not to share my ultimate impression: World travel? That's not why I chose teaching. This morning would never, ever have any relevance to my life.

I left a bit befuddled but mostly in a hurry, eager to get over to my boyfriend Chris' house where we could spend our afternoon doing significant, meaningful things like watching soccer matches that ended in a 0-0 tie.

Eighteen years later...

We did not originally plan to homeschool our kids, but we found ourselves doing just that in lieu of enrolling Mikaela, only days after her 5th birthday, in a class of second and third graders so she might fit in academically. By the time Katrianna was a 3 year old, reading by herself and also deemed "too far ahead," we were fully immersed and enjoying the benefits of learning at home and all over Texas.

Then, in 2004, Chris started his consulting company which allowed him to work from home, as well. That soon resulted in a "great awakening," ironically presenting us with the ultimate paradox: Now that we schooled at home and my husband worked at home, why in the world were we staying home?

"Globeschooling" became our reality.  Now in our fifth year of homeschooling while traveling, we've visited 18 states, 17 national parks & 11 countries. It's like mini semesters abroad for all four of us to share and experience together, only without the college credit or student loans. In what sometimes feels like a global game of tag, our "home base" is Texas, where we catch our breath, recover, get some work done & plot strategy for the next adventure.   

Often our destinations are determined by Chris' work, but sometimes they are simply driven by our curiosity (and, if more than a couple of miles are required, we're usually also driven by our car...  named Hermes. Wait, who would be so pretentious as to name their car after a Greek god, messenger to Olympus? OK, so that was just a joke. To actually believe it, you'd have to think we were capable of christening our dog 'Picasso.' And that would be ridiculous.)

    
Now, you ask (and you're not alone), is this globeschooling really a mid-life crisis in disguise? Well, we prefer to humbly refer to it as "our little intellectual and spiritual epiphany," but because methinks protesting too much is in vain-ity, I admit that perhaps it could be some manifestation of a mid-life crisis. But, it is one that skips the sports car, divorce and/or plastic surgery and instead opts for taking one's spouse and kids along for the ride. So, along with you, they too can discover the truths in themselves, their family and the meaning of life. Sure, all of that is trivial and superficial, but you can supplement with math workbooks & science experiments to prove you're providing them a worthwhile education.  


We did have many concerns and reservations when we started. Yet, though it appears counterintuitive, so far our odyssey has built cohesion, continuity and a deep sense of stability that belies the uncertain, itinerary-shifting surface appearance. We have been welcomed in homeschool groups at home and throughout the country, the girls have made friends around the world, they experience history up close, they see the homes and hike the countryside described in the novels of their favorite writers... They find identification within their town and their state, but also see beyond themselves, as Americans among the many states and regions that have gained resonance after our visits, and as proud, appreciative Americans who are simultaneously "citizens of the world." Above all, I hope that the kids are gleaning from what we're doing that the world is an adventure to be explored and that it instills in them confidence, enthusiasm, and a sense of possibility with unlimited horizons, both physical and philosophical. 

But, as good as this sounds, it still does not quell or satisfactorily answer the eternal and reverberating question of those back home: "Now, why [insert invocation of God here, either for blessing purposes or in conjunction with a colorful string of twangy expletives] would you ever want to step foot outside of Texas?"  As far as they're concerned, we'll just never learn.