After ten years of extravapalooza parties for The Celebrated Date, I have finally come to my senses and declared:  no more.

The Halloween party broke me, folks.  I am a broken, broken woman.

Spawn took the news pretty well, actually.  Maybe the past month of me being rather snappish about being unemployed made an impression.  I just explained to the kid that money is tight and therefore I am not up to taking on the expense of a party right now.  That, and I am just not up to the emotional turmoil that comes with my old nemesis, the RSVP.  I am done.  Finito.

I know when I’m whupped.

(Sidebar:  my imminent unemployment has been pushed back about three months.  That’s another story for another time.)

I declared “no more parties” after the Halloween debacle.  I think Spawn finally understands that I meant that.  As soon as the kid opened mouth about a birthday party, I shut that thought right down.  Merry Christmas, kiddo.  And surprisingly, I didn’t get a lot of pushback.  Is that a little bit of maturity I see growing in?  Or is it my in-no-uncertain-terms tone of voice, which I am capable of having now and again?  Hard to say.

I’m not even ordering a bakery cake this year, folks.  That’s how serious I am about this.  I am actually going to bake my kid’s birthday cake MYSELF.

Last week, however, in a fit of pique I began to doubt myself.  I started researching options — not for a party, oh god no — for a fun weekend trip for the kid.  I mean, we get a long weekend due to MLK Day, and it seemed wasteful to not take advantage of it.

And you know what?  Plan B is a helluva lot more expensive than a party.

Of course, Plan B scenarios included:  a weekend in Chicago, a weekend at an indoor water park, a weekend in the mountains, and a weekend at a public aquarium.  The hotel rates alone were indigestible.

So I scaled back my expectations a bit.  Dinner and a movie, which is expensive in its own right.  Invitation to one friend only.  It’s all we can afford.

I’m trying to remember back to when I was a kid, what kind of birthday celebrations my parents did for me.  I don’t remember too many parties.  Mostly it was a friend and my grandparents (of which I was lucky enough to have both sets in the same town), along with my parents.  I had one slumber party, in the sixth grade, during which we girls pushed all the furniture out of the way in the family room and did cartwheels and handstands and stuff at some point close to midnight.   There is a picture in my parents’ albums of a party for me at age three, in which I and all of my mother’s friends’ children are dressed up in smocked dresses and patent leather shoes and wearing cone-shaped party hats.  I do not remember this party.  And I don’t remember having a party for my Sweet 16, probably because at that point I was too embarrassed to have one.

I guess you could say I am resurrecting a fine old family tradition by putting the kabosh on an extravagant party.  After ten years of this nonsense of offsite parties and entertaining a group of kids for 2-3 hours and then sending everyone home all hopped up on sugar, goody bag in hand — I have decided that maybe the sane route is to focus more on what the day means for us as a family.  Because, at the core, the fact that Spawn has a birthday is what makes us a family.

– Mox

After five years of volunteering at the local no-kill shelter, no one was more surprised than me that this little guy barked his way into my heart.

He’s a Chiweenie.  I know, I’d never heard of it, either, but apparently the Chiweenie is a “designer dog”, a mix of Dauchshund and Chihuahua.  Now, Spawn has been crazy for Chihuahuas ever since Beverly Hills Chihuahua came out.  I’ve never seen the movie, but I know every line of it because the kid watched it over and over in the car during a thousand-mile trip a couple of years ago.  I suppose I should be glad that Beethoven isn’t a current movie.

So Spawn wanted a Chihuahua and me, well, I’m not so crazy about ankle-biter dogs.  I’m more of a terrier girl.  And definitely a cat person.  And damn those folks at the rescue center for putting a crate of tiny puppies in the cat room.  Every time I walked by, he went berserk.  So I got him out of the cage, and he snuggled up in my lap, and fell asleep.  And that was the point at which I knew I was in big trouble.

The thing about a new puppy?  It’s like having a newborn in the house.  Crying in the middle of the night.  Potty breaks at all hours.  Baby gates up.  A general upsetting of the household apple cart.

Four days into it and he seems to have acclimated pretty well.   First order of business was learning about cats.  He seems to be a quick study.  And he’d rather be in someone’s lap than just about anywhere else.  He’s pretty sociable, which is a big switch from the cats and something to learn to appreciate.  So other than trying to impress upon him that the world (and not my house) is his toilet and what NO means, so far so good.

If you’ve been keeping a tally of the Moxville Zoo, the population now looks like this:

• Four cats in the house
• Three cats outside
• A turtle
• A gerbil
• About a million guppies
• And now, a very small dog

I keep telling myself that Spawn will always remember Mom’s (mostly) willingness to have pets, and those memories will be golden someday.  Of course it helps that I like animals anyway (with the exception of things that slither) and have the capacity to care for them.

And I suppose it helps that I am a crazy person.

– Mox

My mother has the maddening trait of telling me, “someday you’ll understand.”  It’s maddening because she uses it as a club to beat me and my feelings about something into submission.  She also says things like, “I’m sorry if you’re mad/sad/hurt/etc.” instead of just apologizing for whatever it was she did/said.

To me that’s just a lot of passive-aggressive twaddle.  I try really hard not to pass that particular legacy on to Spawn.  Some days I’m more successful than others.

Given this fact, more often than not I’d rather eat glass than admit when she’s right about something.  Y’know, except here, on my anonymous blog.

Of all the things that I will supposedly understand “someday” I have arrived at one such understanding.  That understanding is this:

The older you get, the less you handle change well.

Here lately I have seen a mountain of change.  Most of it doesn’t amount to a hill of beans, especially taken as separate events, but taken all together it’s just enough to really depress me.

I am unfamiliar with being depressed over change.  And I don’t like it.  I don’t like change, and I don’t like feeling depressed about change.

Of course the big change that is staring me in the face is the end of my job.  I think that’s probably the one thing that all this hinges on.  If you’re read here any time at all, you know that I am Planny McPlannerson and I like my plans to be planned out.  I like to know what to expect.  It’s probably one of my worst character flaws, because it keeps me from trying new things a lot of the time.  I have never been, nor will I ever be, the sort of girl who can just “wing it” through life.  So the fact that the job is ending, but I don’t know how or when (though all indications tell me that the first of the year will find me jobless, hooray), or what lies in wait after that… well, to say that I am unnerved is a bit of an understatement.  No time is a good time to lose a job, but the holidays seem to be the worst time to face unemployment.  And the manner in which this job is ending — by my boss being sick — just is the cherry on top.

So, I’m packing that horse-collar around, trying to orchestrate a small Christmas (by staying within my means), and little things have just been piling on.  Things like my next door neighbor dying.  My mother’s best friend’s husband dying.  (Two funeral homes in one day is not fun, folks.)  Local family businesses succumbing to the economy after two and three generations.  Shifts in the local news media that have resulted in a good many people I know losing their jobs.  War, famine, pestilence, stupidity… stir until well-blended.

Oh!  And I’m sick!  Yay!

I’ve really been surprised by my reaction to all of these goings-on.  I’ve noticed that stuff that would ordinarily roll right off my back is instead getting on my last good nerve.  And it’s a little alarming, to realize that I am turning into a crusty little old lady, except without the old-lady trappings.  All this change is making me crotchety.

And I can tell you this, if it were not for Spawn I probably would not have put up the Christmas tree this year.

Humbug!

– Mox

Oh, and yeah, I’ll likely be out of a job by years’ end. Merry freakin’ Christmas.

Strangely enough, though, I’m not feeling terribly overwrought about it. I’ve got some other stuff in the hopper, true, and maybe that’s the reason. Or maybe it’s all a matter of perspective. I’m sure if I were the main source of income for my household I’d feel a little differently. But I’ve been getting by on meager rations for a while anyway, so I know what I can and cannot live without.

Over this past weekend, one of my dearest girlfriends came for a visit, and we indulged in the time-honored ritual of shopping, lunching, and gossiping.  I don’t get to do that sort of thing very often, which makes it all the more delicious.

Denise and I are good for one another in a lot of ways.  As a single mom in search for her next husband, Denise is my reminder to appreciate what I have and also my muse in keeping things fresh and new.  Left to my own devices I begin to morph into my mother.  For Denise, I am the sounding board she sometimes needs to make sense of her crazy life.  We’ve known each other since junior high and to say there’s been a lot of water under our bridge is something of an understatement.

Both of us are at the age and stage in our lives where our “careers” are looking less like a career and more like Act One.  And we know a lot of other women in the same boat, having worked 20, 30 years at a job and suddenly finding out there are other things to do in life.  Had we known at our college graduation that we’d be in this position in our 40′s, would we have invested so much of our souls in our working life?

We got to talking about Second Acts over the weekend, and while I know the economy is something of a mess and this isn’t a practical idea, something I would love to do is open up a coffee shop/bookstore in my little podunk town.

I even have a name for it:  R & R:  Read & Relax.  (Don’t steal my idea! I will hunt you down!)

Comfy chairs, tables, bookshelves, coffee, and pie.  Doesn’t that sound like a great place to be?  It would be another refuge from the world.  I think people need that.  It would indulge my need to share great books with people and also give me a good excuse to make brownies.  I know that running a business is not for the faint of heart, and it’s a lot of hard work. Which is why I prefer to just think about the idea.

Oh, in a perfect world…

– Mox

While I laugh at the things that Spawn considers supremely important, I’m also reminded that once upon a time I lived that life, too.  I remember my elders sort of chuckling over the things I did and said and thought, and feeling sort of belittled by that.  And yet from this side of the street, I can see why my life’s foibles were so amusing.  Having a mortgage to pay whilst coming to a career end at the same time does tend to color one’s perspective about not being able to have afternoon recess.

I try not to get too carried away with my own life and its issues and have a little sympathy for the things that loom large in Spawn’s world.   Some things are different from when I was this age, and some things are exactly the same.  It’s the events that are the same in which I get to pull out the tried-and-truisms that were used on me and my generation, thus ensuring the same scenario will unfold for the generations coming.

I particularly am enjoying this period in Spawn’s life, because at ten years of age, there’s just enough guile in the kid to keep some information from me, while still giving me a pretty good picture of what goes on in the World of Fifth Grade.  It’s this age and stage where the boys begin to like the girls and the girls begin to like the boys, and the innocent assignations that come from this mutual discoveries, that just tickle me endlessly.  Oh, how I remember this.  All too soon the shade will be lowered on this window in my kid’s world, so I encourage as much sharing as possible while that window is still open.  I do love me some good fifth grade gossip.

Last night, Spawn gave me the perfect opening to say the thing I have been saving up to say, ever since the boys and the girls first got the notion that each was different from the other.

“Mom, Lucas asked Lauren to go with him.”

“Yeah?  Where are they going?”

You have no idea how long I have waited, patiently, to be able to ask that specific question.  I am sooo funny.

Spawn, however, never missed a beat.  “Nooo, Mom!  He wants to be her boyfriend!”

“Oh!  So that’s what it means?”

“Duh.”

“So what did she say?”

“Well, Ashley and Carly said not to go with him because he’s weird.”

“Ah.  Well, you can’t win them all.”

How I would have loved to launch into a soliloquy on how girls need to think for themselves and not try to tell their friends what to do, but that line of reasoning would have gotten preachy, and quick.  So I just let Spawn think that I had no idea how this boy-girl stuff works in this modern age, and that “going with” someone literally means to go somewhere.

Some day, however — with any luck — Spawn will get to utter that question from this side of the street.

– Mox

And how many do you think came to the party?

Four.  Count that out.  One.  Two.  Three.  FOUR.    This does not include one who said they were coming who didn’t come after all.

Four out of ten is a 40% return.

(Yes, I am still talking about this.  I have talked about nothing else for two weeks now amongst my friends and family.  Because it just irritates me so.)

I have tried to gently explain to Spawn that this will be the last year Mama will put up with this nonsense, that all the kids in the peer group are living busier and busier lives and not everyone will be able to come to a party.  And Spawn has responded with essentially sticking fingers in the ears and saying la-la-la-Ican’thearyou.

I suppose the reason it haunts me so is that it feels like a judgement.  And maybe it’s really not, it’s just my overactive imagination, but I do realize that with the issues Spawn lives with there is a lag in maturity level when compared to peers.  It doesn’t help that the kid doesn’t have any siblings to help galvanize emotions and reactions.  Kids just don’t want to hang around a kid who is emotionally a couple of years behind the curve.

And kids are like that, I get that, but what I don’t get is why the parents don’t use this as a teachable moment, that we don’t shit on others just because they’re not like us.

I dunno.  Maybe it’s just me.  Except, I don’t want to believe that it’s just me, since we go to this hotsy-totsy private Catholic school where they talk/teach all day long about doing unto others.  Somebody isn’t getting the memo.

Look, fifth grade is hard enough, what with the uptick in teacher expectations and all.  Spawn is really struggling with that.  Parent-teacher conferences this year were painful.  Then there’s the whole business of “popular kids” and “unpopular kids.”  I’ll let you hazard a guess as to which group Spawn is in.

It hurts me, as Spawn’s mom.  And it makes me angry.  Yes, kids will be kids and kids can be cruel, but who is raising these kids?  Where the hell are the adults in this scenario?

I suppose I should be thankful for the 40% turnout we had.  It would be a helluva sight easier to do if some of these purported grown-ups had just done the right thing and called their hostess to start with and beg off.  If you’re coming, great.  If you’re not, please own up to it.  My feelings (and those of my child) will be much less hurt if I know, going in, who to expect.

The way I was raised prohibits me from going all ape-shit on these people, but it does not prohibit me from spewing invective all over my anonymous blog.  I am sorry you must witness this, and someday I hope to be past it.  Until then….

– Mox

I loathe giving a party.  Loathe.  And the reason I loathe it is because no one has the common sense or decency or proper manners to respond to a RSVP.

If you’ve been with me for any length of time, I have already covered this.  But people don’t know what to do with an RSVP.

As far as the rest of the party stuff, it’s a piece of cake compared to getting someone, anyone, to commit to coming.  Decorations?  Food?  Games and activities?  Those, I all enjoy doing and planning for.

Spawn is having a Halloween party this year.  Against my better judgement, I said yes to this — knowing that at the 11th hour I would be having a nervous breakdown about the RSVP part.

Spawn is not what you’d call a social butterfly, so the guest list for any party is usually pretty small.  How I wish the kid would invite more kids to these things, because at least then the law of averages would get me a fair sized count.  But the list is usually small for us, and therefore, if I don’t hear from anyone I really get anxious.

I don’t understand how people in good conscience can leave a host(ess) hanging like that.  I mean, there is food to buy, for one thing.  But just the flat-out rudeness of people to not even acknowledge the invite one way or another, well, that really gets my hackles up.  How would these people feel if their child invited people to a party and then no one responded?  Don’t they think their kid would wonder if anyone was coming?

My project this evening has been to call each of the invitees and ask if they are coming.  I’ve talked to a lot of answering machines.  I am quite annoyed.  The fact that I am calling and following up when clearly I should not have to do so is not helping matters any.

I hate to lower the boom on my kid, but I think this may be the last year I put up with this nonsense.

– Mox

Our annual fall break/family vacation is fixing to commence.  I have a feeling the question will be “who let the dogs out” before it’s all over with.

– Mox

And I have discovered Pinterest. Holy smokes that’s a lot of fun.

– Mox

After church on Sunday, Spawn and I packed a couple of bags and headed out of town.  I’d sort of made plans in my head of how this was going to go, while also being open to whatever presented itself in front of me.

In the ten years I’ve been Spawn’s mom, I’ve learned that with Spawn you have to have a certain amount of flexibility, because the kid will confound the best laid plans, every time.  It’s far better to just have a loose idea of what you’re going to do and be willing to change your itinerary as you go along.

I tend to fancy myself as quite the outdoorsy person, when current evidence would suggest the contrary (see: artificial nails).  I’m continually surprised by how far away I’ve gotten from the person I used to be, once upon a time.  Some things have changed and will stay changed — I don’t have much intention of ever tent camping again — and other things I really miss doing.  Of course my life, with its’ schedules and responsibilities, sort of precludes things like getting back into riding or further exploring whitewater rafting.  But I’ve learned that if Spawn is game to try something new, I should be, too.

Within reason, of course.

This is how I came to be standing on a platform in the woods, sixty feet off the ground, in the rain, tethered to a metal cable, and jumping into the leafy abyss.

If you’ve never ziplined, I would recommend the experience.

– Mox