When the World Dims

The Matron's world, that is.

Today is, in fact, a pitch-perfect warm day of a startling blue sky and movie-quality clouds.  Everything seemed brighter:  flowers popped their various rainbows and everywhere she looks, it is lovely.

But the Matron's mind is on food:

Mashed potatoes with real cream and half a stick of butter
Chocolate pudding and Popsicles
Berry scones from the Finnish Bakery
Cake:  vanilla, chocolate, marble from a box with canned frosting.  Add sprinkles

Egg salad sandwiches on white bread (Wonder is best)

These were key players in the Matronly menu for her dear friend and neighbor, Annie, who died Sunday night from cervical cancer.   Let her tell you, folks, there is no such thing as pain 'management.'

Pain permeates.   It is not physical, limited, contrite or controllable.   For the body, one must anticipate and plan, 'get ahead' of pain's onset.   This means the needles, the pills, the timing, the body's reception must all be in synch. Sometimes this happens and sometimes it does not.   Psychic pain is another thing altogether.  Here pain has the power of expanse for it can reach beyond the sufferer's body to everyone bearing witness, everyone who loves.   Yes, indeed, pain--that small plain word -- defies neat capture, in prose or in life.  Never again will the Matron stand for a second -- not a second -- the quick easy 'out' of assuming pain can be managed.

In all its manifestations, public and private, psychic and physical, pain has indeed permeated the Matronly world.  She is acutely aware, these past three days, of Reality, writ large, and understands that this moment too -- like all the moments and lives before her -- will fade into something someone only remembers.    This is both alarming and strangely helpful, understanding her current condition will some day be memory.   She is of firm belief that feeling this way -- really, really bad -- is a now or sometime-later-when-you-least-expect-it sort of commandment.  Now seems better.

The world lost not only an artist (the real deal) but the very best kind of person for whom there is no such thing as small talk, no gracious dribbling or waste.  No.  Meet  Annie and in five minutes you would be talking like teenagers pondering the meaning of life or characters on a great adventure in a movie:  spirit, heart, God or not god, love, politics, art, friendship, sex, bad behavior and its merits/drawbacks.  Whatever. She went for the jugular, each and every time.   This firm but joyful grasp on what really matters (who cares about how the job is, people!) is what made the Matron love her so.  Other people have their reasons, but for the Matron, Annie's astounding ability to live every moment rooted in the big stuff (death, love, meaning of life) made her miraculous and inspirational.  That woman mowed the lawn with God on her shoulder.   You could see it.

Annie.

I promise to cry in public, demand real cream in my potatoes, look through life's lens for the best possible picture, remember to see what's over my left shoulder if my mind is only on my right, open my heart as much as is possible, visit strange places and talk even when I'm crying even if it's in the grocery store or this particular coffee shop as I am now.  I promise to see the edges of color and lines in my life, and treasure them as singular beauties.   I promise to be  true to myself.  I will not only accept reality but roll around in it with pleasure.

I'll forgive myself when I fail at every single of the above promises, as I already am --hiding my tears in the coffee shop and noting the time (pick up Merrick!) and worrying about whether the dogs got their run.   Lucky me!  Every few minutes I will break a vow (open heart always?!)  and then -- I will get to remember you, forgiving me always and happy with every single flaw in my seams.


  Can I fold laundry and walk the dog with the world radiating through me?   Maybe if I remember you. 

Good-bye, my darling.

                                                                                Scarlett           Ann Marsden 2009

                                                                                Scarlett                Ann Marsden 2009

Wherein the Matron May Sound Like a Judgmental Half-Centenarian

Now, the Matron likes to think that her elliptical not only gives her a trim tummy but the pulse of America.  Quite nearly every morning, 6:30 am will find the Matron her previously mentioned machine watching Good Morning America!  Someday she plans to write a feminist critique of the show, which has a unique obsession with the female body.

So she takes this show with a grain of salt, seeing it as a daily Rorschach test of the American psyche:  warts, bumps, bruises, ideals, dreams and aspirations.  It was in this spirit that she watched the video about the two young men removed from a particularly grim graduation ceremony.  Their crime?  The dreaded:  "whooo!  Whoo!"  They gave a shout out, twice.

Removed!   This seemed, to the prim Matron, like the worst of sins:  Overreaction.   She also chided the glum, staid crowd whose demeanor makes the Stepford Wives seem like real independent-minded swingers.

Until she attended her own daughter's 8th grade graduation ceremony from an all-girls charter school in St. Paul.  Kicking people out seemed like a tepid and ineffective response.  Why, the Matron wanted to deputize her own fine self so she could pack off half that auditorium to jail.   Indeed, at one point her more diplomatic husband saw the fire in her eyes and shook his head, no.

Thank you, honey.

The ceremony was held in a pretty little Macalester College Chapel.   The charter school is tiny and the Matron guesses the girls graduating numbered around 40; each was allowed three guests.   Emotions ran high -- extremely, spiritedly, beautifully high-- among the graduates, who are the first to attend this class from its inception through graduation (it's a new 5 - 8 grade charter).

Being the first fifth-graders meant these young women had a hand in starting the school.  They wept and clung to one another.  There were videos and testimonials.  These girls were at the center of the school's first four years:  fifth through eighth grade.  Many of the girls can not only recite the school's charter and institutional philosophies by heart:  they helped write it.  All this, the Matron thinks marvelous and one of the reasons she picked this school for her daughter.

When each name was called, the girls screamed with joy and applauded.  This was love and it was genuine.

To the Matron, sitting in her hot pink mini-skirt and previously good attitude, if the applause had ended with the players involved the entire endeavor would have been 100% successful.

But the parents and guests?  Ruined the entire event.

Mayhem ensued for about a third of the names called.  A row of people would rise to their feet, screaming and jumping and cheering.   Two women grasped one another and jumped up and down, throwing programs in the air when one girl picked up her diploma.   People screamed, whooped, pounded walls, threw small children and danced -- at the sound of the name of the kid they were ostensibly there for.

Friends, the Matron is not doing justice.  The noise was so loud that screaming for each girl receiving the 'extra attention,' that the noise obliterated the entire announcement of the name for the next. If a third of the names stirred a tsunami, another third of the girls following walked up, unheard in the din.

General hoopla as a name was announced also meant that all eyes were on the celebrators.  Ironically, nobody noticed the girls whose names caused each commotion.  Nobody looked at the stage.  Indeed, the entire room turned their eyes toward the whooping, jumping, weeping and nearly fainting family members.

Which made the Matron wonder who was the (unconscious?) real center of attention.  Clearly, not any of the children: it was their parents.

At one point, Merrick covered his ears and said:  "That hurts!"

The middle-aged man next to the Matron appeared the definition of class-bound sedation: suit and tie, clearly from a job that required such attire.  He clapped politely until his daughter's name was called, then jumped to his feet: "WAY TO GO XXX YOUR DAD LOVES YOU."

Why, thank you, sir!   Just that very second before you rattled the room, the Matron was fretting that perhaps these young women were not receiving sufficient love.  Glad that got cleared up.

Now, the Matron realizes that she is being a fuddy-duddy.   She actually affirmed this by using that phrase.  There is nothing wrong with joy and celebration!   The Matron also wishes she were a little less tightly wound -- the type of woman who would whip off a flowered straw hat and scream:  "there goes my baby!"

But she's not.  She's the one sitting in judgment and that vein of thought gets the last word.

One woman yelled:  "This is your education!  Go get that education honey!"

Indeed.  Education is a good thing.  The Matron has devoted entire professional life to the cause.  Because she teaches at a community college she understands full well the sacrifices some students make.  Some of the Matron's students work two or three jobs, raise children, and go to school full time.  Others are new to this country and a college degree is a dream that has sustained them through hardships she herself has read about but can only imagine.

One of these students, a woman from Sierra Leone, was 13 years old when she was raped at gunpoint by a soldier, one of hundreds of thousands of women suffering a similar fate.  That was the day she decided that -- no matter what -- she would get out of that country.  Her story still staggers the Matron who can barely type remembering the harrowing journey, true poverty and loss this young woman endured.   The day she picked up her college diploma marked a decade of sacrifice, toil and death.

Nobody screamed for this woman when she walked to the stage and received her diploma.  She got a nice round of applause instead and a few heartfelt sniffles from yours truly.

Graduating from 8th grade isn't a miracle or an Olympian achievement. Jesus is not passing out that diploma.  It's sort of the law:  children are required to remain in school until they are 16.  Moving up a grade every year (or so) is the natural consequence of that legal requirement.

Hearty clapping, eyes on the stage and big hugs afterward will due.

The Matron has two years before her oldest graduates from high school, a rite of passage whose excesses are accepted as the norm.   The Matron has two full years to acquire that Deputy License or a better attitude.   Hmmm . . . which way to swing?!

John has already informed her that he plans to sit by himself.

Fine.  

Reality, Knocking

This article has given the Matron pause.   If you haven't, read Anne-Marie Slaughter's piece in The Atlantic, "Why Women Still Can't Have it All."     Slaughter's title is the article's summation:  she argues that it's impossible for a well-educated, professional woman with children cannot have both pinnacle family and career.

The Matron agrees.  Completely.

But of course, from her vaulted position of critic and feminist scholar, she has Additional Comment and Observation.

Slaughter's 'all' that women aren't having is clear:  it's financial, professional and family success.  Having it all is the dazzling career dulled only by the brighter shine of successful and well-attended happy children (and spouse).  One simply cannot be Time magazine's Woman of the Year and tuck your five-year old in at night while tomorrow's steak is marinating.   Got it.  True.

There's been no small amount of hoopla over Slaughter's argument -- commentary every which way one can imagine and too many too link here.  But Google may just have met its match with "anne-marie slaughter response."

The one vein that bothers the Matron is this:  "I DO have it all, just on my own terms" or "family IS having it all."   Online and on-the-ground, the Matron has heard that Slaughter's goal itself -- having it all -- is actually, well, just undesirable or over-rated.

That's precisely the problem.

Women reject 'having it all' or redefine what this means precisely because achieving 'it' is actually impossible, as Slaughter maintains. We all know this trick on a lesser scale.   The Matron sees this play out in her own household when Elder Son has an item Youngest Son covets.  It's tasty.

Youngest Son:  "Hey, I want that candy too!"
Elder:  "Well you can't have it."
Youngest:  "I didn't want it anyway.  Who cares about that crummy candy?"

You cared, kid.  But since the candy is in the steel grip of that sixteen year old brother, it is as good as non-existent.  It's psychologically sound -- sane, even -- to not only learn to accept what we cannot have, but to retrain ourselves not to desire the unattainable in the first place.

It is the Matronly theory that much of the "I don't want it all" is simply learning not to desire what one can't have.   Sure, she herself would like to be rolling around some Ivy League college lawn or watching her books fly off the shelf.  The sacrifice this would require -- just the attempt, not an assured win -- is untenable.

 Wait!  She can still hear it!  It is the Matron herself succumbing to the wiles of capitalism, the siren song of external success:  "who needs all that!  Family is all.  I have enough."

The social system we all live in values and rewards personal, financial and professional success.  It's natural, normal, logical to desire life achievements that are awarded respect within our culture.  It feels good to be seen as successful.  There's power and security in having one's own self-worth mirrored by the approving world around us.

Do you feel better wearing a size six or sixteen?  Forget how your legs feel:   which size gets the approving cultural eye, from medicine to fashion to the bus driver?   Unemployed for a long enough period and instead of happy chatter following you at parties, the mood gets grim.  Nobody wants to know.  America loves a success story -- so why wouldn't we want success?  Smile and the world smiles with you -- and who could not help but smile back? And so on.

Now, the Matron fully appreciates that there are among us many who have made conscious and painful choices to live a life decidedly not valued:  she sees these people often at the Zen Center, people living on sazen and a dime.   She knows whole families that never buy new, don't own cars (in Minnesota winters, folks --that's a commitment) and grow their own food out of deep philosophical commitment.   People devote their lives to religion and serving the poor -- these people have made thoughtful choices.  They sacrifice much in terms of financial security and socially-sanctioned success for ideals that loom larger.    She's not talking about those people.

No, the Matron is talking about her own fine breed, those of middling success:  a satisfying job, happy family, enough money to feed the children and a few stray cats.   Those of us who could have done more.  But won't.  The Matron hasn't devoted her life to the alleviation of suffering or a greater good.  Most of her considerable energies have been directed toward creating a life for herself.    She's exactly the type of woman Slaughter is describing (okay, maybe a little lower on the pay scale and cultural hierarchy than Washington power types, but still . . . ).

It's not that the candy isn't tasty or that she has acquired new, more altruistic tastes -- it's just that the goodies are in a steel-grip, out of reach.

Emergency Intervention: Day Three

The Matron adores her youngest -- the wild child.  -- beyond all reason.  

John:  "Mary, why do you always say yes when Merrick asks to sleep in our bed?  We need to pull together on this and get that kid in his own bed, all the time!"

Matron:  "For the record, I am constitutionally incapable of refusing a late-night parental bed request from my baby.  If he asks me, he's in.  Keep me away from him after 9 pm."

Guess who sleeps with his parents?

The Matron makes light of the bedtime carousel,  but has weightier concerns.   The gun-toting, dog-loving, tree-climbing Merrick is doing poorly in math.   Not just poorly.   Emergency-level bad.  His teacher actually called for an Official Two-Parent Consult to report that he is failing math.  

Matron:  "Merrick?  What's 8 x 7?"

Merrick:  "Three?"

The situation was significantly dire that the Matron called in the big educational guns and had her son tested for a learning disability.  Nope.  But Merrick has what the psychologist calls a "perceptual black hole," a gap in his cognitive ability.   That gap?  He cannot comprehend how parts fit into a whole.

Psychologist:  "I showed Merrick a square made out of four sections, took it apart and had him put it back together.  He made a straight line.  Four times."

The psychologist reported that Merrick was a bright kid and generally strapping young man, but would benefit from individual focused instruction on how all those single digit numbers add up to ten, and the like.  So Merrick is headed for four weeks (mornings only) of Summer Academy, a reading, writing and math camp.   Starts next week!


Nobody wants to see a new fourth grader unable to add 2 + 2.  Right?


But.


In the interim, one of the Matron's wise blog readers threw yours truly for a loop.  She queried:  why send a gun-toting, dog-loving, tree-climbing nine year old to squirm in a desk all summer?  Perhaps--and the Matron is paraphrasing -- this child will thrive if he's tossed into the woods.  An all body boy might not actually bloom in school.  Thanks Suburban Correspondent!


This gave the Matron pause.  Summer school is just four weeks, mornings only, out of the 12 week vacation.    Merrick needs the instruction.  But the Matron took a hard, self-critical look at how Merrick spent his time outside of school.


In front of the television.


More and more, that child had been gravitating toward TV.  He argued at bedtime, not just about the parental bed but any - didn't want to go.  He'd been having trouble falling asleep and rising early.   Left to his own devices, he still grabbed a gun but carried it to the couch.  With chips.  

The television and computer were -- are -- superior in their cage-like capabilities.  The Matron and her husband, who both work largely from home, both need to - well -- work.   With and around their three children.  They are also stage parents, schlepping Scarlett from one show to the next, another rehearsal, audition or now voice rehabilitation.   HWCBN had baseball, debate.  Driving to school.   Teenagers -- at least theirs -- want to talk.  They require energy, tutelage and concentration.

The Matron and her husband were all offhand, been there and done that, with third-graders.  So they took the path of least resistance and let the television and computer take turns raising their child.  Things have been even worse, as of late. HWCBN is gone for most of the summer (debate institute), Scarlett is still in school (year-round all-girls school) with theatre and friends in the evenings, most of Merrick's buddies are in day-care full-time.  His only remaining reliable companion?  TV.

A few days ago, the Matron juggled all this information:  the poor behavior, problems in school, Suburban's advice, impending summer school, screen fixation, the absence of friends and siblings.    Actually, she didn't just 'juggle.'  She stood in the center of it all -- and knew.

Because she knows -- and loves -- this child.

No more TV.

On Monday, new screen rules -- okay, first ever screen rules -- were presented to Merrick.   The parents tried to keep it simple:  no television or computer from 9 am until after dinner.   Not a quick game of bowling on the wii, not just one tiny episode of The Office.  No youtube dog videos.  Nothing.   And no, it didn't matter what the older children were doing visa vie screen time.  This rule was the household rule for children, twelve and under.   Which was only him.

Friends, there were tears.  Withdrawal and denial.  He might as well have been attending his first AA meeting.   He begged, pleased, bargained, cajoled and reasoned.   That child raged about life's injustices.  He pouted in his room and swore of all of humanity.

Until . . . he remembered his tent!   Why, wasn't there a tent he could put up in the backyard?  Indeed!  The Matron could not pull out that tent fast enough.   And . . . wasn't there a big box of untouched leggos in the basement? Yes!   Here they are, darling!   Merrick speculated that Scruffy needed a bath.  Why, he could do it!   During a routine Target run, he expressed interest in a BOOK which the Matron promptly tossed in the cart, library be damned.  She was seizing that moment.  Merrick had not willingly touched anything with text in four months.

Buying band-aids, Merrick inquired about the $8 package of 100 latex gloves.

Merrick:  "Mom?  Can we buy those?  I have a couple of ideas for them."

This morning, Merrick forgot about television before nine. He had 12 solid hours of sleep under his skinny little belt, the second in a row after happily going to bed at a reasonable time -- in his own room.   That child popped awake, grabbed ten latex gloves, a cap gun, a comic book and headed to his tree for some reading and what-not.

This is Day Three.

She knows, she knows . . . she's all Pink Cloud and La-La-Land and also probably entirely discovering what everyone else already knew.  Parenting is like that.   In all honesty, less Matronly income-generating activity has taken place. There have been a few dark moments when the dogs and outdoors and no tent would suffice:  Merrick wanted just a few minutes of TV.    She couldn't even find those few minutes to attend to this blog.

The final bright side to the screen ban is that for the very first time, the Matron and her husband scheduled work hours.  One parent is fully on domestic duty and other, hunkered in an office.   So for the first time in oh so many years, the Matron hasn't been checking email and scanning online classes in every free minute.  Instead, she worked from 8 to noon Wednesday morning and will return to the trade on Friday.

Heaven.

Excuse her now.  She and Merrick are biking to the dollar store, rounding through the park on the way home, and then headed downtown St. Paul where they plan to window shop.   As God-Buddha-Allah-Oprah-Universe is her witness, window shopping was Merrick's idea.   Then Merrick has offered to help make dinner.

Sixteen years into parenting, the Matron is smart enough to know a corner that needs to be turned when she comes to one.   Not yet on the other side, but she is definitely rounding.  It feels good.

Matron! You're on Candid Camera!

Why depend on eye bags to age you, when there are blog titles?

Tonight, the Matron attended a Parks and Recreation department meeting for dog park volunteers.  At Parks and Rec, dog park volunteers are called Dog Park Guardians/Stewards.  This is because Parks and Rec could not decide on whether or not to call volunteers (who mostly tell people to pick up doo-doo) Dog Park Stewards OR Dog Park Guardians.

Let's just use both!

The Matron is a brand spanking new Dog Park Guardian/Steward.   In preparation for the Dog Park Steward/Guardian annual meeting, she received and responded to half a dozen emails.  Each was about which type of boxed dinner she would like and each had to be repeated.

The meeting itself is in a squat strip mall-like building.  The room?  Straight out of the television show:  a dazzling gray-brown color scheme, barren walls, big square table, folding chairs.  The walls are lined with boxes and more chairs, crumpled poster paper.   The unremarkable table is stacked full of boxed Panera sandwiches, each neatly labelled.  Boldly, gleefully, attentively in charge of these boxed delights is:  the Director of Parks and Recreation.

She is a blonde with Amy Poehler hair.  This Director of Parks and Recreation (who is chirping:  "Who has honey-glazed turkey with feta?!!" ) is wearing a canary yellow pantsuit with a voluminous scarf   to compliment.   In a room full of t-shirt, short and sandal-wearing volunteers whose hands most likely were recently scooped in a poop bag, she is wearing three inch heels and a manicure made to glimmer and shine under fluorescent light.

Here is where the Matron does the camera scan.   Surely, this cannot be true.  She has landed-smack dab into the center of a television show.   The Matron herself even complied, dressing the part in her shorts, sandals and t-shirt, clutching the thick packet of Dog Park Guardian/Steward Information and with appropriately bewildered yet authoritative look on her face.

The Dog Park Guardian/Stewards hunker up to their boxed lunches around the square table and introduce themselves by sharing their names -- and what kind of dog they own.  The Matron actually went first and initiated the dog thing.  She thought it would add flavor.  Some extras really do contribute to content!

After the Director of Parks and Recreation led the staid volunteers through a 45 minute treatise brief history of area dog parks, county commitment, various constituencies and the importance of being a team player, there is hearty discourse over the Parks and Recreation's brand new Dog Park Rules.  

These rules are presented in a paper handout, appearing as they will once they are laminated and hoisted onto trees.  You know how rules are listed - 1,2, 3?

  Here are the Rules

1.  Do not in the first place come into the possession of an 80 lb Walker Coon Hound
2. If you do find yourself so unfortunately situated, be sure to walk him.
3. When he knocks you over, it is okay to curse the gods and cry a little, knowing this will happen again tomrorow

The Dog Park Rules constructed by the Parks and Recreation staff (in consultation with various appropriate agencies) have headings and subheadings.  Sort of like this, but only with a more refined degree of murkiness.  

Here are the Rules That are the Law

1. Rule
2. Rule
3. Rule

Here are the Rules that are Unenforceable but We Hope You Follow

1. Rule
2. Rule
3. Rule

Here are the Rules that Animal Control Wants Listed

1. Rule
2. Rule
3. Rule

This unwieldy structure generated must hoopla and heat among volunteers who wanted simplicity.  As in "Rules" 1,2,3.    The Director of Parks and Recreation wanted to distinguish between various institutional means of enforcement and authority.

Why?

Director of P &R:  "This way when Law Enforcement comes to a call they can look at the sign and know what they are authorized to enforce."

This confused the Matron who spent the next few minutes wondering how Law Enforcement was thus able to respond to other emergency calls.  Were there little flashcards or posters at each burglary?  The things you discover, as a Dog Park Guardian/Steward with a boxed dinner and Information Packet.

In the end, the Parks and Recreation staff settled on footnotes.  The Matron was proud to participate in  (as another skeptical, observant and equally bewildered Dog Park Guardian/Steward noted) the creation of the only known tree-bound set of rules for a dog park to be organized by footnotes.

As the meeting was breaking up, the Director of Parks and Recreation expressed her interest in 'keeping in touch' with "the social that we have now in the media."

Director:  "You can use the facebook.   I think everybody has the facebook now.   Maybe some of you even have the Twitter.  I don't use the facebook but it's a good community-building tool!"

After securing her Dog Park Guardian/Steward t-shirt and whistle, the Matron filed out with the other sandal-wearing drones, dizzy yet appropriately directed.

It was an entirely satisfying event.

New Environs for the Matron

So much shiny and new:  updated blog decor is still a work in progress but progress has arrived!  As if yesterday's update on Merrick's future as a mercenary-felon isn't enough, the Matron is tweeting under her real name.   Even feigned anonymity is no longer worth the effort.   But the Matron as a distinct personality and writing voice shall remain here, with renewed devotion now that summer as arrived and the job, cooled.  The balancing act of this double personality is on Twitter at mbpetrie.

Merrick 911

The Matron has frequently blogged about her youngest son:  the gun-wielding, dog-loving, tree-climbing, school-shunning, mud-wrestling man on the left.  A family inclined toward art, literature, music and libraries, has learned to incorporate this:

Note:  the Matron took this picture while following Merrick and READING on her Kindle.  That's what she does in nature.  He looks for the best shot.

Here and there, the Matron wonders if she's wrong about her youngest.  Perhaps he's a poet?  An artist in the rough?    An intellectual in-the-making?

Recent Merrick developments, however, have ignited some Matronly alarms.  First, Merrick has taken to COFFEE.   Black.   Started with a tiny sip and has now evolved into daily battles over the entire pot.    His parents allow him a slim half cup in the mornings.  

Merrick, to his mother while being picked up at school:  "Can we go out for coffee?"

He also likes doughnuts and asks to lick the rims of his father's empty beer bottles.  The Matron just hopes that he skips the drunk part and goes right to AA.   He appears ready.

Further alarms.  From time to time, the Matron visits her daughter's facebook page.  This is what she found there yesterday:

   "I walk into the kitchen and Merrick is sitting there reading the paper and eating cereal.
                     Merrick:  I'm never gonna live in a house.  Waste of money.
                     Me (Scarlett):  Where are you gonna live?
                     Merrick:  Well, I'll most likely get arrest for some driving-relating thing.  Going through
                                                a red light, too many parking tickets, speeding . . .
                     Me:   But where are you going to live?
                     Merrick:  Oh, Scarlett .  . Jail, DUH.


See?  It's not just the Matron's imagination.  Merrick is resigned to his life of crime and his sister has begun the process of documentation.  This may come in handy for the social worker.

The Matron's oldest son -- acutely aware of and largely sharing his mother's feminist bent -- has taken to calling her "babe."      She brings him snacks while he's studying and he says "Thanks, babe."   Two words, limitless irony and sharp humor.

This is all lost on Merrick.

Merrick:  "If he calls you babe, I get to call you Missy!"

Matron:  "You're nine years old.  You cannot call your mother Missy."

Merrick:  "Chick?"

Matron:  "Only if you promise not to sleep in your clothes again tonight."

Merrick:  "Two chicks and a missy for one night in pajamas."

Matron:  "Deal."

Today, there is a Show and Tell Gala for third-graders in Merrick's classroom.  Here's what he's bringing, minus the gun.

The gas mask isn't just a shelf item.  He actually wears it around the house, the way other people put on flip-flops.

He has also recently acquired an app that serves like a police scanner, allowing him to follow some sort of dispatch from the St. Paul police.    This now occupies much of his time and attention.

Merrick:  "If you get on the scanner and the police are chasing you, is that being famous?"

And the Matron wonders why she's never invited back to offer friendly optimistic advice at those early childhood parenting classes.