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.

Fifty

Here is John.

He is 50 years old.  Actually, he is 50 years and three days old in this photo.   Friends, this is actually a bad picture of the Matron's husband.  He has an adorable, sexy semi-smirk that's absent here; also absent is the typical careful attention to hair.   Still.

When the Matron was a Youngish Miss, she and her then-fiance did what most people do when encountering a red light while driving.  They stopped at it.   While stopped, the three young women in the car next to the driver's side honked lightly and . . . . one held up a sign with a phone number.  She looked at John, tapped the sign and pointed to herself enthusiastically.

This is where the Matron (then a Youngish Miss) for the one and only time in her entire life actually really truly had this thought:  "What am I, chopped liver?"

Sometimes, the Matron jokes that John is prettier than she is.  Often this quip is made in her husband's presence.  He has never disagreed.

Look closely at this photo.  See those eyes?   See the firm skin beneath, free of the dreaded eye bags?  This is the last time that face will look so well-rested for the next four days.    The photo marks John's departure on his four day fiftieth birthday road trip.  He had no real plan -- just a tent, a car, a cooler and an open mind.

All the Matron knew was that he was going to do what newly minted fifty year old men do on the open road.

Well, except for what his wife wouldn't want him to do.  Otherwise . . . all that other middle-aged man stuff.

Text from John's first night of trip:  "Camping.  Raccoons in tent all night.   Didn't sleep.  Moved all food.  They know how to unzip stuff."

Text:  "Raccoons can get in zipped tents and open cans."

Text:  "Rain."

Text:  "Raccoons don't like rain.  Might sleep in car."

Text:  "Buying air soft gun for raccoons tomorrow night.  Might sleep in car."

Text:  "Going to hotel.  More later."

Text:  "Open mic at bar in rural wisconsin.  Near toothless man asking me if I know where babes are.  Professional drinkers only."

Text:  "Will there be clean sheets when I come home?"

When that man returned, he did not walk into the house.  Stumbled.  Between the raccoons (he camped with them for two days) and open mic nightmares, he had barely slept in four days.

Matron:  "But did you get what you want out of it?  I mean, the reflection, the time, the sense of a life on the road?"

John, confused:  "Mary.  I slept with raccoons rummaging through my clothes and destroying my tent the first night, up all night with a gun the second.  The tent I put up, took down, put up and took down.  Drove about 30 hours total.  High life was a metallic shed with the sign "bar" slapped on it that appeared to serve only chronic alcoholics in a town of 900.  Raccoons are evil.  If the devil exists, these are his henchmen."

Matron:  "Sounds like PUH-LENTY of material for reflection, sweetie."

John:  "Well . . . I did wonder a few things."

Matron, all eager!!    She could not wait to hear the epiphanies:  life, aging, family, career, love and spirit.  What is it like to actually face fifty -- the inevitable decline and recapping of a life?   What could her beloved share -- or what burden might he bear, ahead of her own impending birthday?  

John:  "Remember those girls, the ones who flashed the phone number at me at that red light?  Way back before children?"

Hmmmmm . . . . yes, the Matron remembered.

John:  "Do you ever wonder what they're doing now?"

Then the Matron understood.  Her husband was doing exactly what fifty year old men do--maybe even especially the pretty ones.   But the Matron didn't say this.

Instead she said:  "Then you're not going to be happy about the new pet raccoon?"

Satisfying reaction ensued.

    (there were clean sheets and no raccoon--sorry, Merrick)

Nostalgia

Yesterday, the Matron went to the dentist -- and much to everyone's surprise, had an emergency toothectomy (yes she totally made up that word).  One of those molars was practically fermenting!    The ordeal was just that -- an ordeal, but thankfully at the hands of a kind and competent (and funny) dentist.

While tripping on all kinds of pain medication with her mouth wide open, the Matron flashed back to the past -- to an episode that she had truly entirely forgotten.

Freud has a different name for this.

See these children?  This is Stryker on his first day of second grade, successfully marring Scarlett's kindergarten debut.  Note how the daughter desired her hair all pulled up pretty, tidy little navy school uniform for a public school that doesn't require uniforms.   But that look in her eyes?  That is anger.   See that grin on her brother's face?  Joy.   Joy radiating from the suction cup stain on the middle of his forehead.

 He thought it would be fun to tell his new teacher that his parents hit him.  He also thought it entertaining if all  the pictures from this day forward, marking his sister's educational DEBUT were notable largely for his own disfigurement.

And they are.

Setting the stage for a child with PERSONALITY and WILL.  Which brings us back to the dentist and an event for which the Matron has no documentation other than her own previously repressed memories.

Stryker was maybe three and a half when he went for his first official visit to the dentist.  He had a swollen gum, a painful little tooth.  Unfortunately, this child could smell deception.  

He knew the dentist was going to kill him.

 At least that's what the Matron must tell herself to justify what happened when they stepped into the office door.  Friends -- that formerly adorable, precocious, chatty, obedient child CLUNG to the chair in the waiting room.  He flailed and screamed, pulled at furniture and drapes, lunged at desks, and howled as his mother, dental assistant AND DENTIST HIMSELF as the three adults pleaded with that child to step on into the next room.   The Matron took a few swats at him, trying to reel him in.  He was a good dodger.

 The dentist, assistant and the Matron circled around Stryker for hard-core hostage negotiations.  The dentist promised Stryker could turn on the drill.  Why, even drill a tiny bit into his very own hand!   Candy was produced by the Matron and nobody objected.  The assistant showed Stryker pictures of her own children in that chair.  She basically dissembled the examining room, bringing in item by item for Stryker to inspect.

"See, honey?  That's all this little mirror is!"

He remained wrapped around a chair leg, screaming and kicking at anyone who came near him.  He actually snarled.

The waiting room cleared out.  The Matron isn't sure if those other patrons were just hanging around to watch the show, post-appointment, or if the torture was getting to them too.

After ONE HOUR of pleading and promising, and threatening?   Beaten --and quite possibly committed to winning the battle -- they resorted to physical force.  Remember, Stryker had an actual bona fide physical problem!   The Matron now feared an infection was spreading to his brain.

The dentist and the Matron dragged a screaming, biting, kicking, sweating, sobbing Stryker into the exam room.

There!  

Child secured!  In chair, held down by his mother!

But the prisoner escapes!!   With one epic whirl of chaos and destruction, he pushes his mother aside, sweeps instruments off the tray, kicks the dentist, hits the chair and runs screaming and sobbing down the hallway, white bib bobbing from his side until he hit the bathroom and (so smart!) dashed in and locked hte door with three adults hot on his three year-old tail.

Here is the Matron, standing outside the locked door with the dentist and dental assistant.  They are sweating.  The Matron stopped trying not to cry and is now sniffling loudly.

Dentist:  "I'm retiring in two weeks, you know."

Matron:  "Really?  I'm sure after this you're ready."   Weak, but she was trying.

The dentist looked off into the distance, suddenly seeing a vision - far off and dreamy, a world the Matron could not see.  Things looked good there.  He smiled and pulled off his gloves:  "Actually, Mary, I've been a dentist for 35 years."

She waited, expectantly.  This was going to get her son out of the bathroom?

Dentist:  "And in all of those 35 years, I've seen a lot.  Some pretty bad stuff -- and good, of course -- but some really ugly moments.  You know what?  This is the worst.   Your son is the worst patient I have ever encountered.  It's almost unthinkable, how bad he is--as a patient, I mean, not a human being.  This is a little like a circle of Hell, you know?  That's what this is, this child and appointment.  Hell."

Friends -- here's where you think the Matron might be insulted? Shocked?  Surprised at the breach of professional decorum?  

But here was a man 10 days away from retiring in a private practice he owned.  A wise man, rich with experience.  He was telling it like it was.

Circle of Hell.  Even the Matron couldn't have said it better.

Matron:  "I know.  I'm sorry.   But it makes a nice ending to a storied career?"

Dentist:  "I'm going home now.  Shut the door on your way out."

And he smiled, put down his gloves and walked out the door.

Read All About It

Today, the Matron had the good fortune to encounter a friend she hadn't seen in a while.  Like most of her unexpected encounters, this one happened in the grocery store -- right by broccoli.  Sometimes the veggies vary but the goodwill?  Never.

Matron:   "Anything new and exciting happening in your life?"

Friend:  "Your blog is completely disappointing, as of late.  Absolutely no idea what's going on in your life.  Like hard facts.  Details.  You know -- that blog thing?"

Yes, she knows.

Friend:  "Readers need an update.  Like a news flash . . . or I might have to start calling you to find out what's happening."

This gave the Matron pause.  Call her?  As in, on the telephone?  Concern started its slow creep across her nearly unlined (ha)  forehead..  What if people -- people she would recognize on the street --- started calling to ask her 'what's up?'

Genuine human interaction makes the Matron nervous.  She swears she's a premature birth.  Her spirit was supposed to arrive around 2072 when telepathy replaces talking.

 To that end, the Matron is keeping her neighbors at bay with   . . . . an update of actual bona fide nearly-verifiable and almost reliable facts!

1.  Merrick recently discovered the highly disturbing and unanticipated fact that he is attending Summer Academy, which is exactly what it sounds like:  summer school.  Except it's at a ritzy private school and the parents are forking out big bucks for four weeks of work that they hope will rectify this type of nonlinear computing:

That, friends, is Merrick's approach to 'listing' numbers 54 through 59.   This topsy turvy approach defines all of his academic endeavors.   The Matron wants a littleless topsy and a little more trim and tuck.

 Merrick is also hobbling about on crutches after being sent to school for three days with a 'buck up boy' from his mother.  You know you're guilty of that one?  Please say it's so!  Yours truly took her first good hard look at the leg after Merrick wondered:  "is it okay to crawl at school, Mom?"   Imagine her shock at seeing the swollen, red, bruised log where his lovely ankle bone used to be.  Live and learn.  Next time she'll get Scarlett right on that.

2.  He Who Cannot Be Named (HWCBN) and the Matron recently had at it over the appropriate use and definition of the word 'hegemony.'   Dictionaries were consulted, politics called out.  Tempers flared.    All the while, the Matron's entire interior universe was singing 'my 16 year old son and I are arguing about HEGEMONY.'   Who needs drugs when you can engage in parental combat over ideas?!  And even understand them.   Actually, HWCBN turns 16 in a few short weeks, when he will join the other infants trying to kill her from behind their steering wheels.  Perhaps this is really Darwinism at its best.  On other eldest fronts, the young man is fifth in his graduating class academically; the top three are tied, which in his mother's eyes makes him third.  She should really get on with updating the principal about this mathematical error.  This honor -- second year in a row -- means various school festivities and awards, certificates and all such things occupying the Matronly time.   Beats juvenile detention, though.   Finally, the son is headed to Kentucky then Chicago this summer, where he will spend seven glorious weeks hundreds of miles away from his parents for seven weeks at a two-state debate institute.

Here is the schedule that the Matron encountered when she signed the permission forms (and wrote the check):

8:30:  Breakfast
9:00:  Library
12:00:  Lunch and free time
1:30:  Library
5:00:   Free time
6:00:   Dinner
7:00:    Library or Lab

Again, hear the universe sing:  an offspring of hers is choosing to spend six hours a day in the library all summer.   He also was awarded a national merit-based scholarship AND plays baseball and has his own small computer business.

Pause for a moment and consider:  "this woman is just bragging about her child."

Why yes she is!   This is her job as his mother.

 3.  These are not Scarlett's vocal cords but they do the trick.

Those little bumps, right above the v at the bottom?  Nodules.  Scarlett has been in a play, movie or commercial continuously since she was just 8 years old.  In retrospect, the Matron can trace the moment the vocal cord problems began, during a particularly spectacularly busy run as first Ramona Quimby and then Annie.   Wonderful roles, all, but nobody told this stage mother that the voice needed a rest.  The Matron is a big believer in rest, but her parenting book defined that as copious days off from school, nothing more.

Under strict doctor's orders -- really, a world-class voice specialist, thank goodness -- Scarlett has been cut from the stage until September.   In the interim, she is allowed to speak only in her new healing 'airy' voice, visits the physician for rehabilitation and generally tries to keep talking to a minimum.

And the daughter?  Much to the Matron's oceanic relief, she is happy.  Happy because now she knows that the problem isn't her singing voice stripped away, but a wound that needs to heal.  She is already plotting her glorious return to the stage when she starts HIGH SCHOOL (sob, sob, sob!!) at the St. Paul Conservatory for Performing Artists in September.

That's right - it's like all Glee all the time.  Fame.  Rent without drugs (mostly -- but that's another blog post).

The Matron sees these teenagers roaming around downtown St. Paul, where their campus is.  Classes require dance studios, orchestra pits and stages so the students roam from artistic venue to artistic venue for 'class.'  They lunch at coffee shops and hang out in the park.

Guess who cannot wait for this much freedom.

4.  The Matron herself?   Continuing her reign as Online Teaching Goddess, she is teaching literature and Gender Studies at her computer over the summer.   By fall, her very own individual professional "Writer" web site should be up and running, thanks to some astounding generosity of spirit on the part of another overly busy mama.    Mostly, though, she continues to use the word 'contemplative' to describe her life situation.  Her friend and neighbor is still on the long pull toward death.  Every morning, the Matron wakes up and her second or third thought is:  "what nice thing can I do for xx today?"  And she does it.   But the life that is fading is one of the brightest, most beautiful the Matron has ever encountered.  An artist's life -- the kind of woman who would see the perfect photo -- a hawk devouring the captured squirrel, the monk on a street corner, a child caught just so -- and abandon her schedule to fulfill the purpose of a single photo.  She was-- is -- that exact same way about people, too.  What the Matron loves most about dear friend is that she immediately skipped over small talk to the heart of the matter --and was always led by her own.   In the face of suffering and injustice, the Matron has taken to a serious meditation practice.  It helps.

5.  John turns 50 tomorrow, Saturday May 19th.    Mostly he wants someone to compliment him on his unparalleled talents with a vacuum, and his youthful hot appearance.  The Matron will assert that the latter is, without question, true.