I Am NOT Buying New Jeans

Well, I'm back!

I wasn't sure. It was a little shady there. Life has been hectic. But that is standard Bowers MO, so I really can't use that as an excuse.

Speaking of excuses, I've been mentally using a lot of them the past few months with regard, to, um, you know, exercising. The whole, hey, I got a new hip, or hey, I'm homeless for the summer excuse, while actually somewhat valid, is no longer flying. Why, you ask? One word. Jeans. It's fall and my jeans are tight. Like, I want to do that first trimester rubber band thing tight.

Suddenly a summer of Mack & Manco Pizza (Still can't get past the name change) and Kohr Brothers soft serve is literally not sitting well with my pant seams. Especially when my "exercise" was chasing the monkeys up and down the boardwalk or, alternatively, up and down the beach. It was constant and repetitive, but not necessarily a big calorie killer.

As a result, I went to a kettlebell class today. Actually, I went for the first time last week, but couldn't lift my arms high enough to type about it till today. I'm trying to get done what I can before they realize I did it to them again and go on arm strike. I may have to drink my coffee through a straw...

Kettlebells, for those who don't know, is the art of swinging large chunks of metal around your head and other parts of your body without maiming yourself or others in your general vicinity. If you are like my instructor or the others in the class, it looks super cool and graceful. If you are me, it doesn't.

Right now I want to throw some praise at my instructor, Will Schlucter from WillPower Kettlebells . He has been both patient and encouraging, and hasn't mocked me to my face (yet).

It's not like he hasn't had plenty of opportunity. Let me preface this with I am not an early morning person, and I am highly dependent on coffee, so a 6 am class with no coffee (because I can't make coffee that early) is already setting me up for something Not Good.

So, Will starts us out with some stretches. Easy, right? But all the stretches have names that I don't know and involve contorting your body in ways I haven't moved since my 20s (sorry, Steve) while holding weights and have I mentioned no coffee? After Will catches me before I tip completely over, we move into the real exercises.

These involve more movement with the heavy chunks of metal, except that I don't get to lie on the mats anymore. Bummer. Gravity is not your friend here. Our task is reps of Goblin squats. Steve has informed me that these are actually called Goblet squats, but hey, Goblets squats sound fun, like I have happy wine while exercising. Goblin is much more appropriate because I believe my face is now resembling something out of the depths of Mordor. This is followed by push-ups and some stretch called the Frog. Let me tell you, kettlebell class is not where you are going to get hit on.

After doing this -- a lot -- he makes us lift some bigger, heavier chunks of metal and then walk around the room with them. More than once. On the bright side, this will come in handy the next time I have to drag Nick out of a toy store.

Finally, we do a very long drill of one-arm swings. I quickly downgrade my weights while my "friend" borrows one of my heavier ones for this task. Show off. Have I mentioned the other two women working out with me are tall, skinny, and blonde? Right.

Anyway, while swinging my slightly-less-than-crippling weight around, I notice that Will is definitely not standing anywhere near the possible trajectory of said chunk of metal just in case it flies from my sweaty hands. Smart, smart man.

Finally, it is stretchy time again, with all new animal names -- Cat, Cow, Frog, and Pigeon. And then something called the Pretzel. I no longer like pretzels. Even if you dipped it in Nutella. I am off pretzels.

Despite all that, I actually feel (relatively) good. And I'm going back on Wednesday. One of my friends has told me to give it six (!!) weeks to fit in my jeans again. That's mid-November. Right before eating season. Sigh. I'll let you all know if I'm done with the rubber bands by then! And if you want, come and join me some morning and watch the fun.

:)

Janine

Happy New Year!

Yes, yes. I know it is not January. But honestly, I think that is a terrible time for a new year. It's cold and dark and miserable -- all you are thinking about is surviving until the sun decides to stop being like the grumpy thermometer Nazi who insists that you only need a sweater and you'll be fine, really, no need to be actually warm. The only things new in January are the increasing numbers on the scale and the credit card statements. Of course you make resolutions then -- you are fat and broke. You can really only go up from there, right? And that assumption is completely wrong, too, because evil February is right around the corner with it's grey, damp misery -- if you know me you know how I feel about February. And if not, hang around and you'll find out. Hate it.

No, I've always thought September is a good month for starting anew. You're over the dewy, heady days of spring where everything is new and sparkly and you are just so into finally being over stinking February and seeing green that you can't even think about being productive, and then there is summer with it's fun and adventures and just letting the sun toast the brain right out of you. Every year I bring a "real" book and "brain candy" book to the beach. Guess which one I read? Guess which one I carry around to look smart?

Perhaps because I'm a geek, I love September and the beginning of school and all that new possibility just waiting. New things to learn and do and explore. I miss school. I sat in my son's Open House tonight and found myself wanting to make a car in science class, too! I wish I had time to brain storm and write and confer with others about my writing EVERY SINGLE DAY. I miss that. I didn't know how good I had it.

So as I sat there, filling out a little index card of my hopes and dreams for my 10-year-old this year (ahem, some personal responsibility would be nice), I thought, hey, what about me? What can I do that doesn't involve a tuition payment, anyway? Other than brushing up on some math and geography (Lord, I don't know where anything is on this planet unless it lives in this house.), I would like to exercise my little brain. So I'm going to read more and write more. Hence, this lovely little piece. Some of you (you know who you are), told me I should blog. OK, we were several sheets to the wind, but that's fine, as I have a feeling that some of these posts will be composed in that state, as well.

I'm not planning on making this about anything in particular. I love my kids and will probably write about them way too much, but they're my world right now. The cool thing about them is not how they suck every conscious moment of my life, but rather how, if I take a step back and a deep breath (or ten) and think about it, they have truly gifted me with a new perspective on almost everything as well as a new way of interacting with the world -- some good, some not so good, but it is what it is.

Anyway, I had a whole rant about Open House and whatnot, but I think I'll save that one for later. I'm sure what annoyed me will come up again. Hope some of you join me for the ride. Or just pop in now and then to get an update. But this is about me and for me, so you won't hurt my feelings if you don't.

Oh, and PS, the book I am going to read is The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. It has received amazing reviews if you are into this kind of stuff. I'll let you know how it goes.

:)

Janine

Tis the Season

"Love has its sonnets galore. War has its epics in heroic verse. Tragedy its sombre story in measured lines. Baseball has Casey at the Bat." - Albert Spalding

Ahhh, Spring. Finally. After a long, wet, and cold winter, it is refreshing to wake to the singing birds and budding trees and seasonal allergies. And, as of yesterday (go Boston!), Baseball Season. Again, hopes are raised and a clean slate is ready to be sullied again, with both joys and heartbreaks.

Sadly, football encroached upon our morning with the news of McNabb's trade, and we had to teach the boys that loyalties sometimes do have to change -- or at least be flexible. We comforted them with the knowledge the DeSean Jackson is still with us, even if Westbrook is not. Similarly, the excitement of slow pitch ball practice starting tomorrow was tempered by the fact that Steve will have to be a Yankee. Sigh.

However, it is still Spring! and with that in mind, I present today's poetic selection. Written by Ernest Thayer -- a former Harvard Lampooner -- and published over 100 years ago (1888), Casey at the Bat still resonates with baseball fans. Check out The Baseball Almanac website for more information on the poem's origin as well as an audio version.

Happy Spring!

Casey at the Bat

The Outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day:
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play.
And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. The rest
Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast;
They thought, if only Casey could get but a whack at that -
We'd put up even money, now, with Casey at the bat.

But Flynn preceded Casey, as did also Jimmy Blake,
And the former was a lulu and the latter was a cake;
So upon that stricken multitude grim melancholy sat,
For there seemed but little chance of Casey's getting to the bat.

But Flynn let drive a single, to the wonderment of all,
And Blake, the much despis-ed, tore the cover off the ball;
And when the dust had lifted, and the men saw what had occurred,
There was Jimmy safe at second and Flynn a-hugging third.

Then from 5,000 throats and more there rose a lusty yell;
It rumbled through the valley, it rattled in the dell;
It knocked upon the mountain and recoiled upon the flat,
For Casey, mighty Casey, was advancing to the bat.

There was ease in Casey's manner as he stepped into his place;
There was pride in Casey's bearing and a smile on Casey's face.
And when, responding to the cheers, he lightly doffed his hat,
No stranger in the crowd could doubt 'twas Casey at the bat.

Ten thousand eyes were on him as he rubbed his hands with dirt;
Five thousand tongues applauded when he wiped them on his shirt.
Then while the writhing pitcher ground the ball into his hip,
Defiance gleamed in Casey's eye, a sneer curled Casey's lip.

And now the leather-covered sphere came hurtling through the air,
And Casey stood a-watching it in haughty grandeur there.
Close by the sturdy batsman the ball unheeded sped-
"That ain't my style," said Casey. "Strike one," the umpire said.

From the benches, black with people, there went up a muffled roar,
Like the beating of the storm-waves on a stern and distant shore.
"Kill him! Kill the umpire!" shouted someone on the stand;
And its likely they'd a-killed him had not Casey raised his hand.

With a smile of Christian charity great Casey's visage shone;
He stilled the rising tumult; he bade the game go on;
He signaled to the pitcher, and once more the spheroid flew;
But Casey still ignored it, and the umpire said, "Strike two."

"Fraud!" cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered fraud;
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn't let that ball go by again.

The sneer is gone from Casey's lip, his teeth are clenched in hate;
He pounds with cruel violence his bat upon the plate.
And now the pitcher holds the ball, and now he lets it go,
And now the air is shattered by the force of Casey's blow.

Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright;
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light,
And somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere children shout;
But there is no joy in Mudville - mighty Casey has struck out.

Two for One!!

Ok, I'm starting out a little slow, but it is Easter Week, people. What with Bunny Hayrides, egg dying, zoo trips, and three children following me around for Spring Break, I'm lucky to get a shower, let alone read some poetry. So, since I missed yesterday (you would be surprised at how tiring it is to take four little guys to Burger Thing, a Bunny Hayride, egg dying and then kicking their butts at Mario Kart), you can have two poems for today. I'm just that nice.

Today's first selection is a bit of a cheat and an advertisement. There is a very cool website for those who like poetry or think they might like poetry or who may, now and then, be looking for a poem. Poets.org is just the site to take care of all of those problems. In fact, if you prefer more modern poetry than the ancient stuff I tend to throw out there, you should sign up for their Poem A Day email for the month of April (see, another two for one. You can read that site AND mine!).

This is the poem they sent for April 2, 2010, by Derek Walcott. Born in the West Indies, Mr. Walcott was the 1992 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature. He published his first poem at age 14 and has since gone on to write several collections of poems, plays and essays.

In The Village

I

I came up out of the subway and there were
people standing on the steps as if they knew
something I didn't. This was in the Cold War,
and nuclear fallout. I looked and the whole avenue
was empty, I mean utterly, and I thought,
The birds have abandoned our cities and the plague
of silence multiplies through their arteries, they fought
the war and they lost and there's nothing subtle or vague
in this horrifying vacuum that is New York. I caught
the blare of a loudspeaker repeatedly warning
the last few people, maybe strolling lovers in their walk,
that the world was about to end that morning
on Sixth or Seventh Avenue with no people going to work
in that uncontradicted, horrifying perspective.
It was no way to die, but it's also no way to live.
Well, if we burnt, it was at least New York.

II

Everybody in New York is in a sitcom.
I'm in a Latin American novel, one
in which an egret-haired viejo shakes with some
invisible sorrow, some obscene affliction,
and chronicles it secretly, till it shows in his face,
the parenthetical wrinkles confirming his fiction
to his deep embarrassment. Look, it's
just the old story of a heart that won't call it quits
whatever the odds, quixotic. It's just one that'll
break nobody's heart, even if the grizzled colonel
pitches from his steed in a cavalry charge, in a battle
that won't make him a statue. It is the hell
of ordinary, unrequited love. Watch these egrets
trudging the lawn in a dishevelled troop, white banners
trailing forlornly; they are the bleached regrets
of an old man's memoirs, printed stanzas.
showing their hinged wings like wide open secrets.

III

Who has removed the typewriter from my desk,
so that I am a musician without his piano
with emptiness ahead as clear and grotesque
as another spring? My veins bud, and I am so
full of poems, a wastebasket of black wire.
The notes outside are visible; sparrows will
line antennae like staves, the way springs were,
but the roofs are cold and the great grey river
where a liner glides, huge as a winter hill,
moves imperceptibly like the accumulating
years. I have no reason to forgive her
for what I brought on myself. I am past hating,
past the longing for Italy where blowing snow
absolves and whitens a kneeling mountain range
outside Milan. Through glass, I am waiting
for the sound of a bird to unhinge the beginning
of spring, but my hands, my work, feel strange
without the rusty music of my machine. No words
for the Arctic liner moving down the Hudson, for the mange
of old snow moulting from the roofs. No poems. No birds.

IV

The Sweet Life Café

If I fall into a grizzled stillness
sometimes, over the red-chequered tablecloth
outdoors of the Sweet Life Café, when the noise
of Sunday traffic in the Village is soft as a moth
working in storage, it is because of age
which I rarely admit to, or, honestly, even think of.
I have kept the same furies, though my domestic rage
is illogical, diabetic, with no lessening of love
though my hand trembles wildly, but not over this page.
My lust is in great health, but, if it happens
that all my towers shrivel to dribbling sand,
joy will still bend the cane-reeds with my pen's
elation on the road to Vieuxfort with fever-grass
white in the sun, and, as for the sea breaking
in the gap at Praslin, they add up to the grace
I have known and which death will be taking
from my hand on this chequered tablecloth in this good place.


Poetry Part II!

Which brings us to my poem for today. I was reading through a list of popular poems, and this one stuck with me. Perhaps it is because I am feeling older lately, or that I am wondering what to do now that the boys are getting older and I am curious as to what wonderful things they will achieve. (They are all geniuses, you know.)

It was said by Walt Whitman that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow "was the sort of bard most needed in a materialistic age: He comes as the poet of melancholy, courtesy, deference—poet of all sympathetic gentleness—and universal poet of women and young people." His poem, A Psalm of Life, is a rallying cry to make one's mark upon the world, and to Live, not just to live.

And that is my Holy Saturday thought to ponder. Which one are you doing?

A Psalm of Life

What the Heart of the Young Man Said to the Psalmist

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
"Life is but an empty dream!"
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest,"
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act to each to-morrow
Finds us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait.

Poetry Month!!

Well, kids, it's that time of year again.

April is National Poetry Month, and to keep my aging brain from deteriorating even further, I'm going to attempt my poem-a-day posting. Some of you may remember my email chain from the pre-Nicholas years. This lovely blog will make things so much easier!

Comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome and appreciated, as I don't have 30 awesome poems exactly lined up yet.

Today we will start nice and easy, having been inspired with a trip to the zoo with the boys. By the way, starting April 10, the Philadelphia Zoo will be featuring some amazing Lego sculptures, one of which is a polar bear!

Our poem today is brought to us by the much missed poet Shel Siverstein. While largely known for his children's poetry (A Light in the Attic, Where the Sidewalk Ends), he also wrote the song "A Boy Named Sue" for Johnny Cash and was a playwright who worked with David Mamet.

Without further ado, here is our poem for April 1, 2010:

Bear in There

There's a polar bear
In our Frigidaire—
He likes it 'cause it's cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He's nibbling the noodles,
He's munching the rice,
He's slurping the soda,
He's licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he's in there—
That polary bear
In our Fridgitydaire.

Mindfulness

I suck at multitasking. There. I've admitted it. It's out there. I think I'm good at multitasking, as I often am working on many, many things at one time, but at the end of the hour, afternoon, day, I look around and see that while I may have done many things, really, I haven't actually accomplished anything.

Worst of all, all this busyness has distracted me from my kids. So, not only have I not accomplished anything, I also have neglected spending some quality time with the boys, which is why I'm home doing all this crazy stuff in the first place.

It's hard to admit to the multitasking problem, because it is fun to be busy. I love being home, but I miss working in an office with the routine of publishing deadlines and specific tasks, and a boss giving guidance on prioritizing. I miss the thrill of working hard and making that last FedEx departure. Yes. I miss having a boss, because some days I look at the house and the zillion things that need to be done, and I don't know where to start, and one job leads to another and to another and then the day is over, the house is a mess, the clothes are still in the dryer and I get to start all over in the morning.

But wait. I digress. The point I'm trying to make here is that while I may think I'm able to check email, update Facebook, listen to NPR, clean the toy room and and spend quality time with my kids, I can't.

So today, I sat on the floor and played with Nick, ignoring the crumbs of dog treats underneath us. I read to Christopher at random points of the day, not just at bedtime, and didn't try to clean up around him while we were hanging out. I didn't shoo Steve off to bed as soon as we finished his latest Magic Treehouse, but spent some time just snugging and talking about his book and his day. And yes, the toy room is still a mess, the clothes are still in the dryer and I have zillion things that need to be done. But today when I was with my boys, I was really WITH my boys, and despite the disaster surrounding me, I think I got something right today.

But, now that they are asleep, Facebook here I come!

Subculture? What subculture?

"I enjoyed learning about your subculture."

What? What subculture? Sitting in a tiny classroom, having just had my writing-butt handed to me through a class critique on my admittedly cheesy essay on choosing a preschool on the Main Line, I was unable to say anything but thanks as the twenty-something next to me handed my her thoughts scrawled on a copy of my paper.

I was confused. Since when was I part of a subculture? And what subculture is that? I believe she was referring to motherhood. I'm not sure if she knew I was a stay-at-home, because that would probably put me in a sub-subculture, I suppose. But either way, since when has being a mom become a subculture? I suppose since I have been immersed in it for seven very odd years, and most of my friends are parents at one stage or another, I consider it to be more normal life.

Was it just that I was older? Was it that I was trying to go back to school -- again -- after yet another hiatus to have another rugrat? Was it that obvious that I felt like I didn't belong in that class?

Whatever she meant, it hit a nerve. I've never been a big fan of definitions as they are so limiting. But it also made me wonder who I am anymore.

Yes, I am a mom. I'm also a wife, I have an odd sense of humor, am a fan of eighties alternative music, and am an ex-editor of trade magazines as well as an amateur writer -- hence the blogging. While I love being a mom and a wife, I'm so much more than that and I've decided that I'm going to have fun trying to figure out what some of that more actually is. I'm turning 38 this year and I figure perhaps it's time to discover what I want to be when I grow up. Chocolatier and balloon artist have crossed my mind...

So, in order to get my butt in gear -- and since this is Ash Wednesday -- sort of like New Year's for Catholics where we can use the 40 days of Lent to jump-start us into making ourselves better -- I'm declaring that I will use this space to chronicle year 38, relax and have fun, and maybe even discover my particular subculture. If anyone besides my wonderful husband is reading this, I hope you enjoy the ride!