Cross-Cultural Moment

I got an email yesterday from a guy in Germany who is coming to the US next month for business and wants to find a series of my geocaches while he’s here.  These particular caches all require solving some sort of puzzle to get the final coordinates.  He’d gotten all but three of the puzzles in the series and was very politely requesting help with the remaining few, which is a totally ok thing to do.

One of the three is a complicated cipher but one that would theoretically work equally well in English or German, so it was just a matter of telling him what sort of cipher it is.  The other two made me laugh, though.  The solving of one requires both a knowledge of how to keep a box score in baseball and an understanding of the Abbott and Costello “Who’s On First” skit.  The other requires familiarity with certain episodes of the old “I Love Lucy” show.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that a native German would have trouble with those!  I can’t even imagine trying to solve puzzles that rely on a knowledge of German pop culture.  Talk about frustrating.  If the situation were reversed I would certainly appreciate kindness, so I sent him a bunch of links to helpful Wikipedia pages and told him to please get back to me if he still had any trouble.  My family is actually going to Germany next summer (Himself grew up there as an Army brat and wants the kids to see it) so maybe I will find myself in the position that he is in now while trying to find geocaches on that trip!  Who knows.

As a side note, I’ve been very surprised at how many stereotypical red-blooded American guys of my acquaintance don’t know how to keep a box score.  The critical piece of information as far as puzzle-solving is concerned is that each position on the baseball field has its own designated number between one and nine, but a significant number of people seem not to know that, judging by the number of questions I’ve gotten on this particular puzzle.   I didn’t even grow up in the US for the most part, but every summer we would go to one major league baseball game, and my father and my uncle taught me how to keep a box score. I still remember how. Makes me think of them every time I do it.  This puzzle was in their honor.

Courage

Had one of those fascinating “people talk to me” moments the other day.  I was chatting with the parents of a boy on Thing Two’s soccer team before pickup from practice, and the woman mentioned that she came to the US from Hungary at 22.  The husband added that he’d arrived at 17, joining his stepfather who had mysteriously disappeared from the family home in Hungary years before and then contacted him out of the blue from what might as well have been Mars.  The two had been high school sweethearts but then he emigrated and they broke it off.  Five years later, he called her and asked if she was married yet.  Since she wasn’t, he told her that she should come and join him!  She arrived alone, speaking no English whatsoever, and because of traffic he was three hours late to pick her up at the airport.  She said she spent those three hours sobbing and confused and frightened. I can only imagine. There was no going back, and she had no idea what she was going toward.

They’ve been married for almost 25 years now and have two beautiful children. It sounds like they’ve made a good life for themselves here.  And both of them have serious guts!  I’m in awe.

OK, This Is Getting Weird Now

The universe has clearly decided to use me as a tool for bringing good into the world by repeatedly placing me into the right place at the right time to help somebody.  Granted, it beats the hell out of being an unwitting force of evil, but still.  Just a couple of days after the water bottle incident, another one today.

My younger two kids are playing in a gigantic local soccer tournament this weekend. Because Thing Two’s new club actually hosts it, all parents from his club are required to put in a certain number of hours over the course of the weekend to make everything happen.  Volunteers handle everything from concession sales to parking to supervising fields of play and lots of other stuff besides.  I spent from 8-1 today sitting between two fields acting as a field marshal, which primarily entails keeping score, making sure the refs and coaches sign the official score cards, getting the scores to the scorekeepers at the main tent, and making sure the refs get paid.  However, it also involves making sure that injured players are seen by the tournament medics, whom I had to call three times in that five-hour span for one reason or another (luckily none major.)

 My replacement arrived promptly at one.  By 1:15, I was comfortably ensconced in my folding chair in the middle of the parent sideline of an adjoining field watching Thing Two’s second game of the day.  At 1:18, I kid you not, one of the kids from the other team collapsed onto the field not 5 feet from my chair, clutching his ankle in distress.  I’d already turned in my field marshal supply bag, but the medic’s number was still in my cell phone.  By 1:20, he was at the field and shrinkwrapping an ice bag to the kid’s ankle.  Again, I didn’t do anything the marshal of that field couldn’t have done, but I happened to be right on the spot with the right number at my fingertips when the kid went down.  Uncanny.

Going Out With A Smile

This afternoon, I attended the viewing for an acquaintance who recently passed away at the very advanced age of 102.  She was born in 1916!  I can’t even begin to process all the changes she would have lived through in her life.  IMHO, viewings are a totally barbaric custom (who in the world decided that it was a good idea to make their loved ones make small talk for hours while standing in front of their open coffin??) but as Sheldon Cooper would say, one must observe the non-optional social conventions, so I went.

After giving my condolences to her loved ones in the receiving line, I made my way over to the kneeler in front of the coffin to pay my respects.  I understand that shouldn’t give me the willies, but it does.  I think it must all be in what you get used to growing up, and up close and personal viewings of those who have passed on was not part of my early life.  Anyway, I was jolted out of my disquietude by the sight of a small light brown wooden box propped next to her in the coffin.  There were letters engraved into the side of the box, which appeared to spell out the word PITA.  All I could think was that the acronym couldn’t possibly mean what it usually means given that the box was in the position of honor next to the deceased in the coffin! 

Her aide happened to be standing near me, and I couldn’t resist asking about the box.  I was told that it contained the ashes of her cat PITA, which she had requested to have buried with her.  Ok, all good.  It’s just the cat’s name.  Maybe it’s a foreign word or an odd nickname or something?  After all, we are talking about a very elderly woman here.  Then the aide clarified: the cat’s name was actually Pain In The Ass!  I burst out laughing right there in front of God, the coffin and everyone.  A dear friend of hers said that she would have enjoyed hearing laughter at her viewing so I guess it’s okay. 

An Unexpected Mitzvah

As I get older, I increasingly appreciate the idea that on occasion I can be the inadvertent vehicle through which someone receives a blessing or has a need met.  Makes me feel like I am giving a little back to the universe that has provided for me so abundantly, I think.  A karma thing more than a religious one.

Thing Two had a soccer game this afternoon.  It was a beautiful warm sunny day in a summer and fall that have been overly cursed with rain in these parts, and it occurred to me that I should probably bring the dog along and walk her at the park where the game was being held while the boys were warming up.  I loaded her and her standard array of dog supplies into the back of my SUV alongside Thing Two’s soccer paraphernalia when we left the house.

Because she happened to be with me, I had a half-empty liter bottle of water (untouched by human or dog lips; I pour from it into her portable bowl when she gets thirsty) in the car fifty feet from the field when the woman next to me on the sideline started getting a migraine and needed water with which to take her medicine.  I was the only person on the sideline who had any.  By the time the game ended, her vision had cleared and she was feeling much better.

I didn’t do anything special.  I just happened to have water with me when she needed it, but it was a small thing that made a big difference to her.  My contribution to the forces of good in the universe for the day.

On Getting Old

Two nights ago, I went to my second Back To School night in a week, this time for Thing One.  I emerged from it with several take-home thoughts, many having to do with the ridiculous cross-enormous-campus sprints he has to do several times a day (it’s a good thing he’s fit) but others relating to the fact that at least three of the seven teachers I met that night could theoretically be my children too.  They can’t be much past their mid-20s, which is looking pretty young to me these days.

The other day, I talked to a friend whose teenaged son had recently come across a phone booth for the first time and asked her to show him how it worked.  After she obliged, he said, “Now I finally get why you tell me to “hang up” the phone when you want me to get off a call!”

Then, this afternoon, Thing One and Petunia were in the car with me as I drove to taekwondo class.  The song, “Hey Ya” by OutKast came on the satellite radio, and since both kids like it, they were cheerfully singing along.  In the middle of a lyric, Thing One broke off singing to ask me what “Shake it like a Polaroid picture” means.  Ye gods.  Of course, he’s never seen a Polaroid camera or shaken its film to develop it, so how would he know??

Has someone asked a question recently that made you feel old too?  Hoping it’s not just me. Please tell me your stories!

Back To School

Back To School Night for the middle school two days ago: I attended, while Himself dealt with the soccer practice taxi runs.  The usual division of labor.  It will be repeated later this week for the same occasion at Thing One’s high school.

Unfortunately, there being two middle schoolers in this family these days and only one of me, I could only follow the schedule of one child.  In practice, an easy decision.  I am now on my third sixth grader at this school, so I’m pretty familiar with the logistics and demands of that grade; she has neither of the new teachers and in general, sails through school like a Sunfish in a stiff breeze anyway, so I told her ahead of time that I would be seeing her brother’s teachers.  She understands.  I did take the opportunity over the evening to stop in and say hello to her math, science, and LA/SS teachers, though, so I don’t feel that I entirely neglected her.

The procedure is that you follow your child’s Monday schedule in its entirety from class to class. Each teacher has about 10 minutes to give you an overview of who they are and what they plan to teach that year. As veteran parents, most of this we’ve heard several times before. We know the drill courtesy of Thing One, our ‘trial balloon’ through the system. My goal for the evening was twofold: unusually for us, we have two new teachers this year, whom I wanted to meet, and secondly, I wanted to have a talk with Thing Two’s language arts teacher and get a bead on the aide who will be with her this year, since she plays an important role in his IEP.

I walked away feeling very good about the two new teachers. Granted, I also felt very old, since the new math teacher looks like she’s 12. I understand that she’s in her early 20s: like I said, I’m just old. The new Spanish teacher is actually one of the very few minority teachers we have, in addition to one of the few males. I love his enthusiasm and I think he’s going to be a great role model as well as a good teacher.  These evenings are always very stressful. The teachers frequently mention the homework they assigned for tomorrow and the tests that were today or are tomorrow or next week and of course I haven’t heard about any of these things. This is by choice because I want to see how much Thing Two can handle on his own, but I couldn’t resist texting my husband and asking: did he study for that test? Did he do that homework? The answers were invariably reassuring. But I think in general, as long as he is able to manage his own affairs, I am better off just not asking those questions.

I have to say though: the best part of the night was a conversation with another parent that I had while I was walking into the science classroom and she was walking out of it. It was almost at the end of the evening, I was tired and overwhelmed and I wasn’t paying attention to who was walking by me. All of a sudden, I heard my name called and I turned to see a woman whom I know well. Her sons are a year older and a year younger than Thing Two, so I’ve seen a lot of her over the years.

What she wanted to tell me was that her sixth grade son had had a tough time in band that day. He made a couple of mistakes and he was upset with himself. Thing Two, who plays the same instrument, apparently told him that it was OK and that everybody makes mistakes and not to worry about it, which made him feel a lot better. Not a big interaction, but apparently it meant enough to her son for him to go home and tell his mother about it, and then for her to turn around and tell me about it at school.  Absolutely made my evening. He’s a good kid.