Tag: parenting

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Greece (Athens, Delphi) parenting

A Boy, a Bird, and a Bus Station in Athens

Parenting looks the same wherever you live

Parenting seems to be the same around the world. Whether you live in the United States or Greece, all parents have their hands full with a four-year-old boy.

Today, I’m watching a mother, father and their son who looks to be about four at the Liosion Bus Station in central Athens.

A pigeon is swooping its way through the bus station lobby, which includes a cafe, a mini-grocery, a trinket shop, and a bookstore. The pigeon flutters from one side of the lobby to the other.

The patient father follows his son casually around the lobby. The boy jumps high whenever the pigeon swoops low. He can’t reach it, much less catch it. In his green t-shirt with a tiger emblem and bright yellow shorts, ankle socks and grey tennis shoes, he reminds me of my own son many years ago.

He squeals whenever he swipes at the bird, but eventually gives up when the pigeon escapes out the lobby door into the crisp, early afternoon sun.

All the while, Mom has been arranging bags and luggage around a small table in the cafe specifically purposed to provide pastries, sandwiches, candy, and drinks to waiting bus riders.

Eventually Dad and the boy return from their pigeon escapade. Now the boy wants to investigate things over here.

The boy’s mother, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt emblazoned with BEAUTY in large black capital letters, leads him to a freezer case of ice cream novelties. He isn’t interested, but she pulls a treat from the case anyway.

They both step over to the cafe counter to pay. As she pays, the boy lifts a bag of almonds from a nearby display, runs back to the freezer case, and drops the nuts inside. Mom misses it all.

They both return to Dad. He’s wearing a faded blue polo-style shirt with a Union Jack flag on the sleeve and the words GREAT BRITAIN embroidered along the lower edge.

Mom is carrying the ice cream bar, now unwrapped. It’s a strawberry pink bar in the shape of a foot. The toes are dipped in chocolate. She bites off the big toe and sits down.

She spouts off a string of fluent Greek to her husband who nods and smiles.

As she cools off, her son decides to tidy up the place. He picks a plastic straw wrapper off the next table over and wanders over to a nearby trash can and drops it in. At least this time, the object being dropped belongs there.

A tanned old man is sitting by the trash can. He scowls at the boy and glances at his wife as she sips from a can of Coca-Cola Light.

An announcement is made from the station intercom. Time to pack up.

Mom pats her black canvas crossover bag, and then straps on a blue backpack in the shape of an owl. Next, she hoists a purple floral backpack onto her other shoulder.

Next, she lifts the handle on a wheeled suitcase, grabs a plastic grocery bag from the tabletop, and—nearly invisible behind all the luggage—hauls herself out to the platform area.

Dad grabs the boy. Based on the boys’ earlier antics, I’d say the parents have divided the workload evenly.

My eyes return to Mom gliding across the lobby. Two giant black eyes on her owl backpack glare menacingly as they jostle out of sight.

Thanks for reading! I’m sitting in Athens at a bus station watching what’s happening around me as we wait on our 3 o’clock bus to Delphi.

Click like, leave a comment, and follow my blog for more travel stories.

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parenting

Dear new parents: Complicate your child’s life. Spell their name weird.

Test drive some of the names I’ve collected for this post.

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Photo by Omar Lopez on Unsplash

Dear New Parents,

It’s time to choose a name for your baby, the most beautiful baby who has ever existed in the entire history of the Earth. How do you even begin to accomplish this most important of destiny-defining parental tasks?

Well, based on recent trends, you start by choosing a somewhat traditional name, but then you spell it weird. For example, thinking about Sarah? Go with it, but make sure you spell it Sarrah. Prefer Sydney? That’s fine, just spell it Sidnee. It’s cuter that way, and complicated, too, and besides, everybody’s doing it. All good reasons.

To help you choose a name and spell it weird, below please find a two-step form so you too can make life difficult for your newborn.

Step 1: Once you understand your motivations behind choosing a name for your baby, you’ll know nothing more than exactly why you would do this to a kid. Check no more than two, (okay, maybe three), below:

___I want to make my child re-spell their name a bajillion times.

___I want to take revenge on my child for a difficult labor and/or delivery.

___I want to show the world how creative and individual my child will be and I’m going to do it with my child’s primary identifier.

___I want to make my child repeat the re-spelling of their name, double-check and triple-confirm that it’s right, only to see it still spelled wrong on the receipt, coffee cup, diploma, etc.

___I want to ensure that my child will never find a pre-printed personalized key chain, miniature license plate, or bracelet ever in their entire life, thereby saving me $5.95 plus tax at least three times every time we go someplace new.

___I want everyone to know that my child is so unique, I have no choice but to bestow him or her with an equally unique name that makes everyone ask, “What?! Who?! Whyyyyyy?”

Step 2: Once you understand your “why,” test drive some of the names below. You’ll find more girl choices than boy choices. Not sure the reason, but it seems people spend way more time trying to be cute with girls than boys. Circle your first, second, and third choices, and then apply them to your dog or spouse over a two- or three-day period or to save time, go with your number one choice and force it upon your child for all time.

The names and their traditional spellings are on the left below, followed by the weirdly spelled variants, which by the way, are actually spellings I’ve seen lately on social media and on TV.

Girls’ Names

Abigail–Abagayle

Alexis–Allexous

Britney—Brytani

Cassidy—Kassadee

Casey—Kaci

Chloe—Chloey

Crystal—Chrystle

Emily—Emmali

Hailey—Halee

Katie—Kadee

Kimberly—Kymberleigh

Kinsley—Kinzlea

Lexi—Leksei

Lindsay—Linsie

Madeline—Madalynne

Mikayla—Micayla, Makaila, Makayla

Olivia—Alivia

Sierra—Syiera

 

Boys’ Names

Caley—Kaylyb

Conrad—Konrad

Jared—Jarid

Jordan—Jorden

Lucas—Lukus

Trey—Tray

Cameron—Kamryn

These are all I’ve been able to collect so far, but they should be enough to get you well on your way to complicating your child’s life. So don’t forget: as the parent, you are in total control here. Consider the long-term effects of your spelling choice… then choose the weirdest spelling you can dream up.

Heard or seen any outlandishly creative spellings for traditional names? Click “like” below and reply in the comments. Also, feel free to correct me if I’m taking this a bit far or have failed to see some redeeming value in the weird spellings of names. 

 

Categories
Italy

Verona, Italy is the bomb dot com

And other observations my daughter made when she visited on a daytrip from Venice

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From the Arena di Verona, the city bustles with vitality during a spring garden show in Piazza Bra, one of the largest public squares in Italy. Photo: Katherine Yung

My daughter spent three months living in Venice in 2017 as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. Her time there was magical, challenging, beautiful, and life-changing. On four occasions, she day-tripped with her friends away from the 124 islands that compose Venice to visit these cities: Bologna, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza.

Since her return, we’ve enjoyed many conversations about her time in Italy. This post is about her daytrip to Verona, home to 257,000 residents and located on the Adige River in northern Italy.

The interview answers are just the two of us talking; see the photo captions for more detailed notes and facts about her trip.

How did you get to Verona? We left the train station in Venice around 8:45 in the morning and arrived in Verona around 9:30. It really doesn’t take long to get there! And let me just start by saying it was the first sunny and clear day of spring. The weather in Venice during the first month or so of my stay there had been rainy, gray and cold, and we were all ready for some sunshine. I didn’t have to wear a jacket at all. It was absolutely beautiful.

Once we arrived at the train station, we had to walk quite a distance to reach the central historic part of the city. It probably took around twenty to thirty minutes. We walked past a café and decided to get cappuccinos for breakfast and then we kept walking to get to the old city walls. This is considered the heart of Verona. The walls are about fifty feet high.

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The old city walls of Verona mark the historic center of the city. Photo: Katherine Yung

What was first on the agenda? After reaching the center of the city, we decided to go to the arena first to meet Alessandra, one of the interns at the  Guggenheim museum in Venice who had returned on her days off that week to Verona, her hometown. She was going to be our guide for the day.

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Arena di Verona was the third-largest amphitheater in the Roman Empire. The 20,000-seat arena has a packed schedule for 2018. Built during the first century, the arena is home to a full schedule of productions, including an opera festival held every summer. Seats range from 18€ to over 200€, depending on the production and performance. Photo: Katherine Yung

To get to the arena, we walked through Piazza Bra, one of the largest public squares in Italy. There was a garden show going on. Vendors were selling flowers and citrus trees and other plans and lawn supplies. It was very busy. There were people everywhere.

The arena di Verona looks like a coliseum. It’s made entirely of stone and is literally a big stadium. They still hold concerts and theater productions there. It’s crazy old. The day we went to Verona was the first Sunday of the month and throughout Italy, there are discounts to state-run museums. At first, after meeting Alessandra outside the arena, we couldn’t decide if we wanted to go inside, but because it cost only 1€, we went in to see just how large it was.

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Inside the Arena di Verona. There’s not a lot to see, but my daughter and her friends decided to go in anyway, since entrance cost only 1€. Here’s a spectacular nighttime photo of the arena. Photo: Katherine Yung

Where did you go next? After we saw the arena, Alessandra took us down one of the main streets, Via Mazzini. It’s a pedestrian-only street. It has tons of shopping with lots of retail clothing shops.

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Walking down Via Mazzini in the retail heart of Verona. Photo: Katherine Yung

Did you see anything touristy? Yes! That was next! From Via Mazzini, we continued down to Casa di Giulietta, the “house of Juliet” from Shakespear’s Romeo and Juliet. Legend has it that the stone balcony that’s in the courtyard was the inspiration for the scene in Shakespeare’s play.

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The balcony at Casa di Giulietta. Photo: Katherine Yung

The balcony looks exactly like what you would expect it to. There’s also a statue of Juliet in the courtyard. It’s free to see. You pay, however, to stand on the balcony where you can have your picture taken. There’s a sotoportego—a tunnel-like walkway—you walk through to get to the courtyard. There’s a wall where people have written love notes on this wall. It’s totally black with writing and spray paint. It’s covered with notes and anything and everything people can find to stick their notes to the wall with… gum, Band-Aids, whatever.

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The wall at Casa di Giulietta is plastered with notes of love and friendship. Here, my daughter and her fellow interns from the Guggenheim in Venice left their mark. Photo: Katherine Yung

Did you see any art while you were there? Yes, we were in Verona on the very first day of an exhibition of Toulouse Lautrec, the French illustrator and painter. The show was at the Verona AMO-Palazzo Forti. It was a show totally devoted to his work. I really wanted to see it, so another intern and I went. The tickets cost 15€. We were at the museum for an hour and fifteen minutes. It was an incredible show. The galleries were painted in French blue and a dark, muted magenta. There was one room where all of his prints were displayed. This room was arranged like a café with tales in the middle and strings of light bulbs that led to the center of the ceiling. Seeing this show in this gallery was the highlight of the day for me.

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Photos weren’t allowed in the Lautrec exhibition. These are brochures from a page in my daughter’s travel journal.

Where did you go for lunch? We went to a restaurant my friend knew about. It was called Terrazza Bar al Ponte. You can sit outside on a balcony over the river that runs through Verona. We were hoping to find a place on the balcony, but it was so crowded outside that we had to sit inside. I ordered totellini with sausage. The pasta was a very thin dough and there was sausage flavored with rosemary and cheese. It had a spicy flavor, but the spiciness wasn’t overkilled. The tortellini was in an olive oil and light butter sauce. It was super light… a lot of food, but very light. The service was great. We did have to wait around forty minutes, but in Italy no one seems rushed when there’s food involved and there were five of us. Also, the staff let me charge my phone behind the counter.

Where did you go after lunch? After lunch, we crossed the Ponte Pietra, a stone bridge that crosses the Adige River and then we walked to the top of Castel San Pietro, the location of the first settlements of Verona. The settlements date from the 7th century… before Christ! From the castle, you get this amazing panoramic view of Verona. There are restaurants there for lunch, but since we had just eaten, we took a walk to the top of the castle instead. There were stairs everywhere. It was quite a hike to get all the way up there, but I’m so glad we did because the views were incredible.

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Looking up at Castel San Pietro from the walk across the Ponte Pietra (the stone bridge) over the Adige River. Photo: Katherine Yung
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Looking down from Castel San Pietro to the Adige River and Verona. Photo: Katherine Yung

Where did you go after the Castel San Pietro? We went to see the Arco dei Gavi, an arch constructed to honor a family by the name of Gavi. Under the arch, you’ll see stones from an ancient Roman road. We walked over the stones—they’re smooth and rounded around the edged—under the arch. You can see the ruts from wheeled chariots and whatnot that used the roads back during Roman times.

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The famous Arco dei Gavi, one of the few arches not constructed to commemorate a military event, but rather a family. Napoleon dismantled the arch, but it was rebuilt in 1932. Photo: Katherine Yung

What, no gelato yet?! After the Arco dei Gavi, we went to Piazza delle Erbe, a square that’s the business center of the city. And business for us meant, I guess you could say, the business of gelato. I had one dip each of raspberry and lemon-mint from a shop called Pretto Gelato arte Italiana. It was so good. I really preferred the lemon-mint and wished I had ordered two dips of it.

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Raspberry and lemon-mint gelato in Piazza delle Erbe, the political and economic center of the city. Photo: Katherine Yung

What was next on the schedule? After gelato, we walked to the Castelvecchio & Museum. It was old and beautiful. So much history right there.

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The spectacular brick ramparts of Castelvecchio, now Castelvecchio & Museum, which protected Verona in medieval times. Built in 1354, the castle sits alongside the Adige River. Photo: Katherine Yung

In 1957, Carlo Scarpa, who’s a famous modern Italian architect, began renovating the castle. This in effect created the museum. Throughout the museum, there are rooms with paintings and sculpture. There are also rooms full of weapons that were used back during the era when the castle guarded Verona.

When he was doing the renovations, Scarpa put a modern spin right on top of the ancient. He was making the castle usable again and also put his modern style on top of the old. He intentionally made details stand out so you’d notice the contrast between the old and the new.

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This staircase inside the museum shows Carlo Scarpa’s mixing together the new with the old. Photo: Katherine Yung

After touring the Castelvecchio, we noticed it was around five o’clock, so we decided to head back to Venice. We got back to Venice around six o’clock.

Where does Verona rank on your list of the cities you visited? Well, no doubt, I think it’s the most vibrant. It was the most surprisingly charming. Before we went to Verona, I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect it to be so packed with activity and with so many things to see. There were so many sights… and maybe the weather spoiled me a little, but it is probably the one city I would go back to first and spend more time in.

I make no apologies. As a writer and parent, I feel perfectly entitled to take full advantage of my daughter’s experiences in Italy by wringing every possible story idea from it! Yes, our family did visit her in Venice for a week, and while we saw so much in that time, we envied the luxury of time her three-month internship allowed.

Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this post, click “like” so more people can find it, and feel free to leave a comment!

Categories
Italy

Vicenza, Italy: where the art is the city itself

And other observations made on a daytrip from Venice to the City of Palladio

My daughter spent three months living in Venice in 2017 as an intern at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. Her time there was magical, challenging, beautiful, and life-changing. On four occasions, she day-tripped with her friends away from the 124 islands that compose Venice to visit these cities: Bologna, Padua, Verona, and Vicenza. 

Since her return, we’ve enjoyed many conversations about her time in Italy. In this and future posts, I’ll be relaying the details of each of these short excursions. This post is about her daytrip to Vicenza, a city with an approximate population of 113,000 full of architectural gems that was designated a World Heritage Site in 1994.

The interview answers are just the two of us talking; see the photo captions for more detailed notes and facts about her trip.

How far is Vicenza from Venice? It’s only a 45-minute train ride that goes through Mestre, which is near Venice on the mainland and then Padua before arriving in Vicenza.

What did you do first? We first walked from the train a few minutes to the city walls. Then we made our way to the Palladio Museum. It’s a large museum situated within the Palazzo Barbarano. The museum showcases Andrea Palladio, the Italian architect who designed tons of buildings all around the city. Palladio lived in the early 1500s, so he can be considered a High Renaissance artist.

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The city walls of Vicenza. At this location, pedestrians enter beneath the arch in the darker portion of the wall. Photo: K. Yung

The museum has old and rare sketchbooks and drawings by Palladio. Those were so interesting. It was amazing to see how well-preserved the papers were.

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The museum is also famous for all of the dioramas they have of Palladio’s designs. These aren’t old, but they are really valuable, so anyone—and especially art historians and architects—can understand more about how the buildings were designed. You can get a sense of the effects that Palladio achieved with his symmetry, like the long views down corridors.

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Dioramas attract many to the Palladio Museum. Here, architecture and art history scholars can see up close the Palladian features that created this ubiquitous architectural style. Photo: K. Yung
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Photo: K. Yung

Was symmetry his trademark? Well, one of them, along with columns. He’s why columns are popular in homes and public buildings. Basically, his work was about highlighting classical Roman architecture, and symmetry was one characteristic. His designs influenced architecture around the world. It eventually became called Palladianism. Palladio’s work is easy to recognize because he had a very distinct style that totally revolutionized the architecture game. And lots of people are familiar with Palladianism, even if they don’t realize it. The White House and the U.S. Capitol—and thousands more examples around the world—are good examples. So is Thomas Jefferson’s home, Monticello.

Did you have a tour of the Palladio Museum? Yes, we had a guide who spent 2 ½ – 3 hours showing us the museum, which was our main goal in visiting Vicenza. There was an exhibition being shown there called “The Mysteries of Palladio’s Face.” It was all about portraits of Palladio—or the fact that there aren’t portraits of him. No one really knows for sure what he looked like. Even drawings of him are different. However, there was a drawing we saw where he had actually sketched his hand onto the paper. Kinda cool because at least we know it’s his hand, y’know?

You were there such a short time. Did you miss anything? The Villa Rotonda was closed when we were there and that’s one of Palladio’s most famous and influential works. It’s a square building with four entrances, one on each side. It’s one of the most recognizable structures of the Renaissance.

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The Villa Rotonda contains four identical facades, which add balance to the complete design. Photo: Stefan Bauer, http://www.ferras.at [CC BY-SA 2.5 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)%5D, from Wikimedia Commons

What did you do after the Palladio Museum? After that, we walked around downtown to see some of the other buildings. There’s a whole street in Vicenza called Corso Andrea Palladio… it’s lined with multiple palaces and buildings that were at least designed by Palladio if they were constructed during his lifetime.

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In this photo, you see the Teatro Olimpico on the right. Built from 1580-1585, the theater appears deceptively rustic on the exterior, but on the inside, the design does an “about face” and High Renaissance style takes center stage. The plaque that declares the theater’s designation at a UNESCO World Heritage Site is displayed at right. Photo: K. Yung

Then we went to the Teatro Olimpico. It’s a performing arts theater that Palladio designed. Today, the theater does live theater productions. You can go inside the actual theater and sit and look at the paintings. You can also see the façade that Palladio designed and the illusion of the set itself.

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This photo does not show the theater’s majestic interior in its entirety. Visit here for fabulous photos and a full explanation of how optically revolutionary this theater is. Photo: juliacasado1 on Pixabay.

On the interior, parts of it plays tricks on your mind due to optical techniques. For example, it appears that the set is very deep based on the perspective you see through the entrance with the blue sky beyond. The ceiling of the theater is painted like the sky and it’s encircled by large-scale Olympic figures.

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The theater hosts dance and theater productions today. Photo: K. Yung

What else did you see on such a short trip? We went and saw the Basilica Palladiana. It’s a building downtown that you can easily identify because of its copper roof. They issued a contract to Palladio in 1549 to renovate the building because of structural problems that occurred over the years. Today, there are restaurants and shops around it, plus exhibition spaces for art and architecture shows. One thing that makes the basilica significant is that it shows the first example of the Palladian window. Palladian windows have a center window with a semi-circular top and then one rectangular identical window on each side.

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Vincenza’s Piazza dei Signori, where the Basilica Palladiana is located to the right of the dark brick tower in the photo above. The distinctive copper roof is visible behind the statues that line the upper edge. Photo: cusarina on Pixabay.

After going to the basilica, we decided we wanted to have lunch outside on the plaza, the Piazza dei Signori. We found a quaint café in the sun and… wait for it… had some pizza that was altogether forgettable. It was more like American pan pizza. I’m sure some people liked it, but I was disappointed. I didn’t even make a note of the name of the place. Oh, well. That was literally the only downside to the whole day. I would love to go back!

How would you sum up Vicenza? It’s a quiet city with an off-the-beaten-path feel to it. It’s very beautiful and important. It’s like a giant art museum, but the art is the city itself.

I make no apologies. As a writer and parent, I feel perfectly entitled to take full advantage of my daughter’s experiences in Italy by wringing every possible story idea from it! Yes, our family did visit her in Venice for a week, and while we saw so much in that time, we envied the luxury of time her three-month internship allowed. Check out my profile on Medium.com and find more stories about my daughter’s other daytrips around northern Italy.

Categories
Italy (Venice) Motherhood

My daughter and the peeping tom of Venice, Italy

It was scary to think how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Imagine being 22, female, and in Venice, Italy for a three-month internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a small, yet world-renowned modern art museum located on the Grand Canal. At 2 a.m. on the day your father plans to leave after helping you get settled for a week, you notice that the motion sensor outside your door is lighting up frequently. Too frequently, in fact, for this time of night. In addition, some of the lights are brighter than others. That’s odd.

You also hear strange noises outside. You ask your father to check the exterior heating/AC unit that you assume must be malfunctioning. He discovers not a malfunctioning appliance, but a rickety lawn chair that someone has been using to stand on so they can peek inside your apartment.

Read more about my daughter’s internship experience here.

The peeping tom had made his first appearance earlier that evening, after dark around 7:30. My daughter’s landlord–let’s call her Maria–had come over to help with the t.v. reception and while they were making adjustments, my husband and daughter had both noticed someone outside the apartment loitering in the walkway. They discussed the strange loiterer, but Maria eventually dismissed him, explaining that he was likely just someone from the neighborhood who was curious with the activity in the apartment since it had been vacant for quite some time.

So, in the middle of the night, when my husband ventured outside to check on the furnace and instead found a rickety chair, and a man with frizzy, shoulder-length hair rounding the corner about thirty feet down the corridor, real concern set in. Trying to assess the situation, my husband walked further down the corridor and noticed another lawn chair that had been stepped through around the corner. My husband immediately called Maria, who then immediately called the polizei.

While they waited for Maria and the police to arrive, both my husband and daughter tried to make sense of it all. Upon reflection, they both figured the peeping tom had ruined his first chair while peering in the window, and gone to retrieve another. My daughter also realized that the brighter lights from the motion sensor were more than likely flashes from a camera. Did he deliberately walk back and forth often enough to cause the motion sensor light to camouflage the camera flashes? It was scary to think about how much time and effort this man had put into his actions that night.

Fifteen minutes later, three uniformed police officers were there assessing the situation. Then, unbelievably, the frizzy-haired man sauntered by. Actually, because of the way the walkway turned, there was no way for him to avoid the small gathering without looking suspicious. He tried to play it cool, his camera hanging from his neck.

When my husband recognized the man, he nodded to the police officers who stopped the man and asked what he was doing out so late at night. He replied that he was a photographer taking night shots of the city.

Maria didn’t stand for it. Her Italian temper flared and her arms waved in anger. She accused him of spying and told him to leave the neighborhood and never return. She informed him that a police report was being filed at that moment and if anything happened later, he would be sorry. He was never seen again.

Although this was incredibly scary for me to hear about back in Missouri, it was good to know that, in general, Venice is a quiet municipality known to be “one of Italy’s safest cities.” The full-time resident population in the historic city center has declined dramatically in recent years, and today rests at about 55,000. We had researched the city’s crime statistics before our daughter left on her trip and were reassured. What causes the most trouble for the millions of tourists who visit each year? Pickpockets. What about violent crime? According to Frommers, it’s considered rare.

The next day, my daughter actually considered returning home; maybe this adventure was too much to take on and this incident was a sign that it just wasn’t meant to be. After an anxious day of pondering her options, she decided to stay; however, she did want to find a different apartment.

After attempting and failing to find an alternative rental with the help of my husband (who postponed his return flight for three days), my daughter returned to her original apartment, where Maria assured her she would be safe.

Still, my husband and my daughter took a few precautions. Before leaving, my husband helped her cover the windows with white paper. They figured that if a peeping tom had no view, there would be no temptation. They also made a point to meet the older woman, a Venetian native, living just across the passageway.

Over the next weeks, my daughter got on with her new Italian life. She began working a routine schedule at the museum and truly felt comfortable and at home there. She made many international friends. She became more brave and confident in her new surroundings.

Gradually, her strange experience became a distant memory. Most importantly, she didn’t let the peeping tom’s bad behavior define or detract from one of the most valuable experiences of her life so far. It had been a rough start, but she was determined to thrive.

Thanks for reading! If you found this post interesting, click like so others may more easily find it. Also, feel free to leave a comment on your own strange travel experiences.

Categories
Life lessons Memoir & Narratives Motherhood parenting

The Toy I Trashed: The Hot Wheels Slimecano

Every parent has been there. You buy that cool toy your child yearns for and within minutes you realize: BIG MISTAKE.

So, in the spirit of Christmas, I thought I would relate my own such experience with the Hot Wheels Slimecano Playset… y’know, to relive the “joy” once again and possibly save another parent from buying this behemoth. After all, even though some cursory online searching indicates this toy has been discontinued, one or two units could still be lurking out there on a dusty store shelf or in an online retailer’s inventory.

In a word, the Hot Wheels Slimecano was formidable. Introduced in 2004, this apparatus was composed of an armload of plastic pieces that snapped or otherwise fit together. My eight-year-old son had seen it advertised on TV and wanted it desperately.

All those plastic pieces were accompanied by directions that explained which parts attached to which other parts, which combined to form race tracks, slime reservoirs, ramps, and other components that, when completely assembled, resulted in an ominous and wobbly gray, brown and orange tripod-like structure down which my son could send his cars. So awesome, Mom.

Also, there was somehow a skull or dragon head involved in the design of the thing, although I don’t remember the significance of that, other than maybe it was there to advise parents in “Jolly Roger”-style of the gooey mess that was about to be made.

An unsettling slime concoction was key to the Slimecano. I don’t remember if it was a slime we made ourselves from ingredients supplied in the box, or if it was included in the package already prepared in packets, but it was there, a thick, gloppy translucent orange goop dotted with dark specks. This slime provided the magic of the toy.

For a fleeting five minutes, my son played with the Slimecano. He was mesmerized watching his car careen down the plastic track… until it hit the slime and needed to be pushed through an oozing river of the stuff and then guided around a puddle at the bottom of the track. This all happened to the same unfortunate car. After all,  the wheels on a car can only move when they are not embedded with slime. My son soon figured out that this was a toy that required him to sacrifice his least favorite car. Send that car down the Slimecano once, clog up the wheels, tire treads, and undercarriage, and voila! auto salvage in miniature.

Then came the very unmagical clean-up time. While snapping apart the Slimecano, my son discovered the entire apparatus was encrusted with the orange goo. So was the floor. And his mom’s patience. As he dismantled the game, washed off each piece, and shoved the plastic collection back into the box, we knew that the Slimecano may have just had its one and only use. The game was over and disappointment was the victor. Thanks, Hot Wheels.

So there you have it, my gift to you: a cautionary tale of the toy I trashed. Have a similar toy story in your family? Tell me about it in the comments. We can laugh about it now, can’t we?!

If you enjoyed this post, click like so others can find it. Follow my blog for more posts. Thanks for reading!

Photo: Christopher Harris | Unsplash

Categories
Life lessons Memoir & Narratives

Thanks, Kohl’s, for selling this shirt.

It’s nice to see clothing like this instead of that snarky shirt I wrote about recently.

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Now that’s more like it… a shirt about kindness.

 

In August, Kohl’s mailed a back-to-school catalog with a shirt on the cover displaying the words, “Shhhh! Nobody Cares!” I wrote about it in “Ten Questions for Kohl’s About This Shirt.”  I believe that snarky messages like this only send negativity into the world… and can be especially hurtful in a school setting.  I’m a middle school teacher and I know several kids who don’t need to read that their lives are unimportant.

Kohl’s tweeted to me a week or two after I published that blog post. Here’s their tweet: “Thanks for this feedback, Marilyn. We’ll be sure to pass it along to our buyers here at Kohl’s for review and future considerations.”

So when I found this “Throw kindness like confetti” shirt on a pre-Halloween mailer about a week ago, I was gratified. Yes, I know this mailer wasn’t in response to my blog post. I’m sure this flyer and the merchandise within it were all “put to bed” weeks or months ago. However, it’s nice to know that Kohl’s is aware that positive messages make the world a better place.

Categories
Memoir & Narratives

Promposals, Gender Reveal Parties, and Other Things I Do Not Understand

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Photo: Pixabay

In which I see a connection between these things and mascara

Gender reveal parties. Promposals. Save-the-dates. Bachelorette weekends. Maybe I’m a Debbie Downer, but these are all things I just don’t see a need for. I don’t understand the need for a get-together where we pop a balloon to see whether it’s filled with pink or blue confetti. I don’t understand why a guy can’t just ask a girl to prom. And if save-the-date cards are just a “heads-up” to book flights and lodging ASAP for a wedding, then does that mean the actual invitations are for people you don’t expect to show up anyway?  And finally, who decided that bachelorette parties needed to occur three states away and therefore require asking Friday off, and maybe Thursday, too?

It seems that major life occasions of the twenty-something set are now bigger, better, and more celebrated than ever before. And I’ve noticed this trend not only in major life events, but also in (brace yourself)… mascara.

In fact, while shopping at Target recently, I realized that shopping for mascara isn’t what it used to be. For example, here’s what I used to do when I ran out: enter cosmetics department, find Maybelline Great Lash by looking for hot pink tube with green lid, get brownish black, toss into cart, roll eyes at $4.99 price for a teensy-weensy .34 ounces, and leave. Easy, right?

Here’s what I have to do now: enter cosmetics department, find Maybelline Great Lash by looking for hot pink tube with green lid, get brownish black, see royal blue color and wonder if I would like it (maybe, maybe not… not sure), wonder why I can’t find my classic spiral brush, find it mixed in on a peg containing something called a grabber brush, notice three other brush styles, read packages to figure out which one does what, give up, pick one, toss into cart, roll eyes at the price, leave, and wonder how mascara became so complicated.

Too many decisions. Too many choices. Too many everything. There are now mascara formulas and brushes designed for multiple purposes: lengthening, adding volume, separating, enhancing eye color.

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Cover Girl mascaras at Target

 

In fact, within Target’s cosmetics department, each brand’s makeup section is dominated by a yard-wide patch of real estate sporting glossy cardstock packages that sparkle with blister-packs of mascara shaped like torpedoes, cylinders, and even telescopes. Sometimes at Wal-Mart, the mascara even spins on a pedestal, and a little spotlight illuminates it when you walk by. And mascara gets this kind of attention at every retailer, whether it’s Target, Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, or the cosmetics big box known as Ulta.

The Maybelline selection alone is impressive. Here one will find a mind-dizzying array of mascaras with names such as The Colossal Bigshot, Lash Sensational, several sub-categories of Great Lash, Pumped Up Colossal, The Falsies Push Up Angel, The Falsies Push Up Drama, Illegal Length Fiber Extensions Mascara, Define-a-Lash Washable, Full ‘N Soft, Lash Stiletto Ultimate Length Mascara, plus a range of Volum’ Express versions: The Falsies, The Rocket Volume, The Colossal Spider Effect, The Colossal Chaotic Lash, The Mega Plush, The Falsies Big Eyes, and The Colossal Cat Eyes. I’m not kidding… they’re all there. Just look next time you shop.

Likewise, Cover Girl also boasts a fair share of mascara overload. Here one will discover Full Lash Bloom, The Clump Crusher, The Super Sizer Fibers, Lash Blast Volume, Lash Blast Fusion, Bombshell Volume, So Lashy! BlastPro, and Plumpify BlastPro.

You may be thinking that since Cover Girl and Maybelline are brands that target young women and teenage girls, the same group going gaga over promposals and gender reveals, it makes sense to cater to their “more is more” mentality. True, but I contend it’s infiltrating into other age brackets, including mine. Y’know, women who were married on a Saturday afternoon at a church (of all places!) and not at an exotic resort over a three-day weekend, hence the need for a save-the-date.

Don’t look now, but soon all women will be forced to sift through row upon row of mascara options. It’s already happening with Revlon. This brand may not sport the oomph of rockets and push-ups, but when one has had enough colossal chaos, there are still six choices. Oh, and they have five different mascara brushes, too, and they’re all trademarked.

So there you have it. Promposals. Gender reveals. Save-the-dates. Bachelorette weekends. Mascara. They’re all connected. Simplicity is out. Complexity is in.

And I get it: making memories and having fun is also in. But for a generation that incorporates  “simplify” and “live love laugh” wall art into their home decor, promposals, bachelorette weekends and their ilk seem to rub against that notion and complicate occasions already fraught with details.

Maybe I’m just getting old(er!), but if this generation really wants to simplify, it should scale things back. Wait to see if it’s a boy or girl. Ask a girl to prom between classes. Buy the basic mascara. Really keep it simple. Sound less than exciting? Well, Debbie Downer would be proud, so there’s that.

 

What do you think about promposals, gender reveal parties, etcetera? Click like and leave a comment so I’ll know whether or not I’m a Debbie Downer who just needs to chill out.  

I’m a writing teacher who writes. Click here to find my teaching blog.

Categories
Family History Missouri Aviation

87 years ago today, Warren wrote to his mother.

Below, I’ve transcribed a letter from my grandmother’s brother, Warren Kerns, 17, who was killed in an airplane accident with his brother Nelson, 15, on July 24, 1930. You can read about the accident here. He wrote this letter to his mother, Caroline (called Callie) who was visiting her parents in California at the time. Some of the handwriting is indecipherable. I just transcribed the letters as best I could, leaving out editing marks to avoid distraction. For example, I’m not sure that the first word in the last sentence is “Play.”

It’s eye-opening to read how life was so vastly different back then in southwest Missouri. My ancestors worked hard. Their days were consumed with difficult, laborious, time-consuming, hot, sweaty work. This will be even more evident in other letters I have and will eventually post. True, we work hard today, but with much less exertion. My ancestors also enjoyed relief from their work-filled days in the simple joys of ice cream and socializing.

June 10, 1930

Dear Mama: 

How are you getting along. We are all getting along fine. Charlie and I have been plowing corn most of the time since school was out. I sure was glad when the last day of school came. It rained today and is rather cool now. I s’pose it is nice and warm where you are. We went to two children’s day exercises Sunday. We went down home Sunday and had all the ice cream we could eat. You don’t know what your missing. I have to wear an overcoat to plow corn in. Where are going to spend the forth of July. It is not very far away. I don’t know where we will go.  Most any place rather than in the corn field. Things sure are cheap here. Eggs are $.16 and cream $.25 in Hume. I am going to a community sale tomorrow, which they are starting in Hume. It is now nine o’clock about my bedtime (sometimes). Well, this is all I can think of to tell you. Answer my letter soon and send me a good measure of California summer. Play like you are receiving kisses through this letter also. 

With Love, Warren

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Categories
Italy Italy (Venice) Motherhood parenting

Yes, send your daughter to Italy. Alone.

Last December 2, I backed out of the driveway headed for the rural middle school in southwestern Missouri where I teach language arts. It was 7:02 a.m. My phone rang. I saw it was my daughter. Awfully early to get a call. I wondered whether something was wrong.

“Mom!?”

“Yeah, what’s going on?”

“I got the internship!” My heart soared. Two months earlier, she had applied for an internship at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection, a modern art museum in Venice, Italy. She would venture to the beautiful floating city to undertake museum duties such as guarding masterpieces, giving presentations, hosting tours, and sculpture cleaning from Feb. 2 to May 2.

She was beyond excited. So was I, but now that her acceptance was official, it was impossible to imagine her moving to a foreign country and working for three long months away from her home, her language, her friends, her family, her life. The night she received the acceptance email, I lay in bed and cried.

I simply could not see it happening. but it did. True, it was a rough transition for everyone at first, but we made it, and it was a beautiful, life-changing experience… for her and me.

And let’s be honest, I realize this isn’t intimidating for everyone. Many kids and their parents have no problem doing this type of thing; however, for Midwesterners like us, just traveling to the coasts of the U.S. is a major excursion. In our eyes, Venice might as well have been Venus.

Internships that pay, like my daughter’s, are popular and highly valued. Study abroad programs are also. Should you ever be so fortunate as to have your child venture out alone on a similar endeavor, here are some tips to get you through it.

1. Be Strong. Even though I was excited, I was also scared for her, but I couldn’t let my reservations known. I had to be strong and encouraging because I knew that deep down she likely had reservations as well. Even though living in Italy and this particular internship had been her dream ever since we discovered it on Google, interrupting her college career and moving to a foreign country would definitely be outside her “comfort zone.” I had to show I was positive about this opportunity.

2. Send your spouse to get her settled. This was my first and best idea. My husband would fly over with her in January to help her get settled and accustomed to her new home. After all, she had never been to Italy, or even Europe for that matter. She had traveled with our family to South Africa five years earlier, and with a group of other college students and veterans to Vietnam in 2015. But Italy? For three months? Alone?

3. Make sure she doesn’t stand out. We Americans like our colors. Once my husband realized her bright floral umbrella could be spied far ahead through a crowd, he purchased her a black one. In looking at her Facebook posts that first week, I noticed her eye-catching, crimson-red purse.  I texted my husband to make sure to get her a black one of those, too. Maybe we were being overly protective, but after watching a few Youtube videos of tourists and residents walking around Venice, we knew the city is a labyrinth of narrow, sometimes dark, walkways interspersed with those picture-perfect canals. No reason to look like an outsider, especially if you’re female.

4. Use technology. Numerous Facetime calls, the app People Tracker, Facebook, and Instagram made Italy seem not quite so far away. She started a blog called “From Venice with Love” that kept her in touch with friends at home. Happily, her work and social schedule quickly filled her time, and posting to Facebook and Instagram became more convenient.

5. Send a care package. We waited a couple of weeks, but then sent things from home she couldn’t find there. For example, the Venice grocery stores she frequented didn’t carry American basics such as Ranch salad dressing or pancake syrup. Peanut butter is  hard to find. So are Ziploc bags.

6. Visit. If possible, visit for a short time about halfway through. This helped me understand the new lifestyle my daughter was experiencing. Her pictures and posts made more sense and I gained a new appreciation for the life-changing time she was having. Plus, it was Venice, people. We had to.

7. Break the trip into “chunks.” This made the trip seem more “doable.” My daughter’s internship broke down into three parts: one five-week period after my husband left, one weeklong chunk when we would visit, and finally one six-week chunk. Honestly, this last part flew by for both my daughter and I as she was finally comfortable and confidently knew her way around the city.

8. Pray. I relied on this daily. It was a great comfort to know that He would protect and care for her continually.

My daughter’s Venice experience was indeed life-changing. She now has an international set of friends she keeps up with daily through What’s App and she can’t wait to return and tour southern Italy. Her internship also confirmed her next steps: to complete her bachelor’s degree in Art Education and then pursue a master’s degree in Art History with the intention of working in a museum setting someday. She is already filling out applications for another overseas internship. I, on the other hand, am writing myself a note to re-read this post when she lands it.