Never underestimate your cleaning woman.

The first time I met Thupten, she was working at the hotel where we were staying. I kept running into her all week and she would always greet me with the nicest smile. I figured she was Vietnamese or Laotian. I later discovered she was a Buddhist nun from Tibet.

She entered the monastery at age 11. After 18 years she left, married her husband and then they moved to Ithaca. He works as a translator here. She has a school-age son and took a job as a chambermaid at the university hotel on campus, which is where I shanghaied her to clean house for me.

I thought Thupten became a nun because her family couldn’t afford to raise her. Turns out Tibetan families pay to send their daughters to be educated, it is a great honor, very prestigious and the girls study hard. The newly ordained nuns work from early morning into late at night, learning language, grammar, literature, prayers, sutras, tantras and texts. Crafts, astrology and medicine are also subjects they master. Generally, the education process lasts 18 years.

Well, with all that, who has time to sit around daydreaming about sex anyway?

Before I jumped to conclusions about why she left the monastery, I thought I best do a little research. I found this great explanation from a Buddhist nun:

“When most people hear the word ‘nun’, they think of Catholic nuns. Often, their first question is why would I want to give up having sex forever. Stated in this way, it puts sex on a par with things such as smoking or drinking: self-gratifying acts of pleasurable consumption. If one understands sex according to such a selfish, loveless definition, then I suppose that yes, I have "given it up". One of the vows I made when I was ordained pertains to sex, and it states that you should not use your sexuality in a way that harms. It is not what you do, therefore, but how you do it: using someone as a commodity for one's own satisfaction is definitely harmful if considered in that light.”

My cheeks flushed as I read. Here is a religion thousands of years old and they have had it right all along. No shame, no guilt, no pressure, and no fine print: for reproduction only!

No wonder Buddha always has a smile on his face.

Why is Denny's trying to kill my husband?

The Professor sends me business e-mail every day. Sometimes he wants me to schedule something, other times he's requesting information. You can imagine my surprise when I got this today:

From: Professor
Date: March 9, 2010
Subject: You can use this in your blog: Why is Denny’s trying to kill me?

In the course of breakfast, I was asked:

Would you like a Minute Maid orange juice or another juice?

Can I interest you in a pancake popper appetizer? (since when does
breakfast include appetizers?)

Would you like your hash browns "covered and smothered"? (As if the
hash browns are not bad enough - smothered in cheese and gravy?)
---

Nice observation! Thinking I might be able to use it, I dragged it into my Save folder. Then I stopped, opened the e-mail back up and examined it more closely.

What was my husband doing at Denny’s at 9:27a.m. on a Tuesday? A) He usually mentions breakfast meetings, B) What type of business men meet at Denny’s?, and C) He was dressed rather nicely today, a bit much for a restaurant that has photos of the items you can order on the menu.

I remember this tonight when we are alone in the kitchen together.

"I didn’t know there was a Denny’s in Ithaca."

“I wasn’t at Denny’s this morning. That was from a long time ago. I was going through old e-mail drafts.”

“Oh. When did you go?”

“When I was in San Diego.”

“So, you have a friend that likes to eat at Denny’s?”

“I ate alone.”

If he was having breakfast with another woman, not only was the poor thing only treated to Denny’s but he had the nerve to be thinking of my blog throughout the entire meal!

Dream Team

We had the end-of-season celebration for the Cayuga Heights Elementary School (CHES) basketball team at our house last night. I tried to keep it low key but that is like telling Martha Stewart to serve Pabst beer in the can. I was totally paranoid about using paper plates and plastic cups, too, because I feared the green police might show up and arrest me.

A normal person would have ordered pizza and called it a day. But since the forecast was for sun and the families that were coming over were all People I Know and Like, we decided to turn it up a notch.

The Professor dug through ice and snow to unearth our BBQ while I marinated flank steak and skewered chicken. I showed remarkable restraint with the decorating (didn’t want to emasculate First Born Prince with the multi-tiered basketball centerpiece I had dreamed up) and dared to put out wine and beer with the soda and iced tea.

It is very difficult for me to host a “potluck”. The operative part of the term makes me nervous. I don’t like to leave anything to chance, and in Ithaca we might have gotten eight kale and quinoa salads, but I was determined to stay relaxed. We ended up with an amazing spread and nice variety of delicious dishes. Coach’s wife even made an awesome basketball cake!

Watching everyone pile their plates with good food and hearing the music of happy people in my home, I realized I had reconnected with the joy of entertaining. It has been a long time since I felt like throwing a party. By the time we left California, I was so burnt out that the thought of even rinsing a carrot for a guest made me gnash my teeth.

It’s not a blind pass after all. If you trust your teammates, there’s a high percentage shot you won’t have to free throw to save your back from a layup, or get defensive about someone making a foul. I just needed to stop dribbling, and make a fast break. I learned that without blocking everyone so they could assist me, I was able to rebound my way to a slam dunk.

Trapped

The Professor couldn’t wait to schedule his first poker night. Probably a lot like I felt hosting my first book club. Filling up the house with friends and food is a lot of fun.

I remember the evening they all came over, bearing cigars and bottles of red wine. Boy, times have changed since my dad’s poker games when all you needed were some Planter’s peanuts and a six-pack.

After tucking the kids into bed, I went upstairs, put on my pajamas, washed my face and sat down to my computer. Damn. What I would have done for a glass of wine. I logged onto Facebook.

What’s on your mind?
Am trapped in upstairs office without wine while husband’s poker night is going on downstairs. Have already applied zit cream.

My next-door neighbor caught my update.

Comment:
I can try tossing a bottle up to you from the side yard.

I imagined trying to explain the smashed chardonnay to the Professor, his work associates and the fathers of my sons’ friends, while hanging out of my bedroom window.

Reply to comment:
Thanks—u r sweet but I’ll manage!

That was when I lived in La Jolla, back in the day, before I moved to Ithaca, before my mother, three aunts and father-in-law joined Facebook. Before my husband worked at a prominent university and I befriended some of his colleagues.

I caught myself really cooking my writing. No one wants to read the first raw thought out of my head but sometimes that's the funniest, best stuff we've got. I feel like I have only two choices. Curb my enthusiasm or be exposed as an unfit wife and mother.

I want to break free.

Bikini Bottom

We are going on a special outing tomorrow. School lets out at 11:00a.m. for parent/teacher conferences, so the ski club is heading back up to Greek Peak (http://www.greekpeak.net/). We were just there Monday, skiing as usual. I was chaperoning, however I don’t think that’s the proper term for chasing six-year-olds down snowy mountains. That is speed skiing.

This week the resort is treating us to a change of pace. Planning to fulfill my supervisor commitment, I asked the president of the PTA about it.

“They have an indoor water park?”

“Yes, it’s not open to the public, only resort guests. But as part of our ski club package, we get to go for the afternoon.”

“You mean like with inner tubes and chlorine and nasty little bits of unidentifiable matter floating in the water?”

“Ha, ha, Lisa. You are so funny!”

I was actually being serious.

“So, you’ve been there before?” How old are the lifeguards and do they serve margaritas?

“Oh, yes! It’s really fun.”

I am imagining myself poolside, holding out fluffy towels in between reading my book or answering e-mail.

“The water’s pretty warm, actually.”

I snap out of my daydream.

“Excuse me?”

“They heat the water to 82 degrees, so it really feels nice.”

These Ithaca moms actually go on the water slides with their kids! I wonder if they body surf the wave pool, too.

“Fabulous.” Not a single one of my bikinis is going to hold up against a deluge bucket or activity tower.

How fast can L.L. Bean deliver in the snow?

What the hell are we fighting for?

There was not a single episode showing June Cleaver away from her home. No, she was always doing housework, greeting Ward when he came walking in the door from work, or making Wally and Beaver a snack.

Carol Brady managed to slip out once in a while, when she wasn’t locked in the bedroom servicing Mike, but it was only to the butcher shop and mostly the focus then was on what horrible thing happened while she away, not watching the kids.

At least Lucy Ricardo was seen regularly out and about, trying a part time job here or hanging out with her girlfriend there. Of course, she liked to drink, had a green card marriage and her confidant, Ethel, was a dingbat, but hey, she was teaching us girls there was something for a stay-at -home mom to do besides laundry.

So here we are--2010. Our foremothers burned their bras, broke glass ceilings and changed policy enabling us to do anything. We can even power around in a submarine now if we want to enlist. Yet still many of us are choosing to stay home. It’s not an easy decision.

Here in Ithaca there is no where to hide. Not a lot of distractions for a gal hoping to do something besides grocery shop, hang out with her kids or get crafty on a snowy afternoon.

They say parenting is humble work. Parenting full-time is even more of a lesson in humility. When someone asks us what we do, no one I know sticks her chest out and says, “Home maker!” It doesn’t roll off the tongue in a professional way like “Defense Attorney” or “Financial Analyst.” I have found I like to embellish a little and throw in extras like “I volunteer” or “I started a second career as a writer". Announcing that I am also “wanton sex goddess” might scar my children.

Whatever we decide to do, my wish for our generation is that our work is meaningful (either pay me or get down on your hands and knees and thank me); our peers respect us (no, I don’t lay around all day checking Facebook!); and that someday, when our sons and daughters look back, they will have good memories of moms who got out of the house, enjoyed their time away from the family, and kept learning and growing and challenging themselves without guilt, fear or June Cleaver flash backs.

Someone’s Singing, Lord

I used to snicker and roll my eyes at the mere mention of a Bake Sale. This is not 1950 where the only skill we homemakers have is making and hocking muffins to raise money for our kids’ school. We used to be attorneys and accountants, doctors and teachers. Some of us billed out at $250 an hour, for God’s sake. And now someone is asking us to turn out a batch of brownies. For profit?

Two weeks ago there were 4 volunteers over 3 hours selling various donated items. They made $100. Quick math pencils out to a little over $8 an hour each. Isn’t that minimum wage?

I am in charge of raising money for the 5th grade class trip to Niagara Falls next year and the PTA offered up this past weekend’s basketball concessions for us to get a jumpstart on our fundraising efforts. I figured that rather than making a fuss, I would just go along with the program.

A few e-mails netted us some very tantalizing homemade goods. I was drooling over the chocolate chip cookies, blondies, apple galettes, cocoa butter wafers, and cinnamon rolls hot out of the oven…we even had pizzas, fresh fruit and popcorn.

The other volunteers were coy, not wanting to overprice things. Hello! The last time I made $8 an hour I was 12 years old! So we asked top dollar and none of our customers flinched. We even had some big spenders tell us to “keep the change.”

In addition to other moms, a dad, a custodian, my two sons and some of their classmates helped run operations.

I’ll confess I’ve been in charge of projects that yielded higher returns for less investment. I took on the assignment prepared to change everything. This expert was going teach Ithaca how to make some real cash. But, sitting at home Saturday night after a dinner of pizza, fruit cups and cookies, I was thinking about how successful the sale was, how much fun we all had and how it really felt like a community effort.

I never thought I’d say this, but it was worth it. One little boy had a sandwich baggie full of change and bought at least a half a dozen treats, one at a time, throughout the day, right up until the end when he hoped I would take his last 67 cents for a 75 cent bag of popcorn.

When was the last time you felt like singing “Kumbaya”??