Screen Ban

We have a Screen Ban at our house from 11am-5pm. This is a new thing for us, just started the day after school got out for the summer. Music is allowed during this time but no other internet, no TV (exception granted for the Olympics), no video games, no movies.

It’s been a good move, though the kids might beg to differ. Of course it isn’t perfect- they complain, sneak whenever our backs are turned, watch TV at friends’ houses. But other things have happened too. Sometimes they’ll hang out on my bed and read while I’m folding laundry. The dogs get an extra walk. We go to the pool. They play board games. They help me in the kitchen. They make stuff up.

#5 asked if he could make a fort recently during the Screen Ban hours. An indoor fort.

I was a big fan of forts when I was a kid, both indoor and outdoor. Indoor forts we made by stringing sheets and sleeping bags over artfully arranged furniture. My sister’s brilliant contribution was the addition of a box fan, placed just so in order to extend a sheet into a “room”. Outdoor forts we made with whatever wood we could find in the patch of woods behind our house: scrap lumber, branches, sticks, logs. Outdoor forts rocked because you could add to them over the days; you didn’t have to dismantle them to give your mom the sheets and chairs back.

#5 mostly makes indoor forts because we don’t have a yard or woods per se, unless you count the property that doesn’t belong to us and contains all the trees that keep landing on our house. He did make an outdoor fort once but I literally couldn’t get to it when he wanted to show it to me, it was in such a steep and treacherous part of the “yard”.

He wanted to make a fort this day upstairs, and offered to take it down before dinner because it uses all of the dining room chairs. He didn’t want to make it downstairs in the music room because #2 was down there and, I quote, “She’s really annoying when you’re trying to build a fort.”

If you asked her, she would probably say the same thing about him.

Once he made the fort, he started working on me to let him sleep in it. He even offered to take it down so everyone could eat around the table and then rebuild it. I’m just so thrilled any time something non-electronic happens that doesn’t involve arguing or tears that I relented. It was pretty cool- it came out round inside.

outsidefort — This picture was taken the morning after, before 11am. Hence the TV.

My permission secured, he went to work on getting #4 to sleep in there with him. Because it’s a little scary and lonely to sleep in there by yourself.

When I got home from work, it was odd how dark and quiet the house was. The dogs were crated, #4 and #5 were asleep in the fort and the sitter was on the couch using her laptop. We said goodbye in whispers but the dogs woke up anyway.

The dogs were so totally discombobulated by the fort. They whined in the crate because there were nearby laps they weren’t in. I let them out to take them outside but they beelined for the fort instead. Except Jack couldn’t figure out how to get in it, so I helped him.

Then came a series of nails on the floor and much dog activity. In and out and all around the fort. I took them both outside briefly but afterwards neither one would calm down at the same time, all the while crawling in and out of the fort and on #4 and #5’s heads.

I went to forcibly remove them, but #4 protested sleepily and said that Casey was under the covers, which she was. Somehow Jack also ended up naked, which makes him harder to grab because he’s quite wiggly and there’s nothing to hold on to when he’s naked. Well, nothing good anyway.

At this point, #5 sat up halfway and said, “Why is it so hard to sleep?”

I told them if the dogs got too annoying to put them back in the crate and went back in our room to read.

More whines. More nails on the floor. I heard the crate door open and shut, twice. Then more whines. Lots and lots more whines. The crate door opened again, and then there was the unmistakable sound of Puggle Demolition Derby.

One of these days I’m going to record that. It defies description. My friend Jeremy, who is owned by two pugs, refers to it as “weaseling”.

#4 and I opened my bedroom door at the same time.

Me: Are they being annoying?

Her eyes were wide and she nodded vigorously: Yes!!!

So I let them in and squished their little heads together in an embrace, reminded them I was the big dog and told them to calm the hell down.

Them: wiggle wiggle

Me: I’M THE BIG DOG!!

Them: wiggle wag

Me: Big dog! That’s me.

Them: whine

Me: Shut it.

Them: lick

Me: awwww.

Everyone slept after that. #4, in fact, managed to sleep until ten a.m. which earned her this picture that she doesn’t know I took.

I noticed she also added a fan. Aunt Beth will be proud.

Did you ever build forts as a kid? Is anyone else doing screen bans this summer? I told my chiropractor about it and he thought it was brilliant; then he told his kids and now they’re pooling their money to take a hit out on me.

One & Done Sunday #20

Welcome to One & Done Sunday. One picture, and five links that are worth your time.

Here’s your picture:

It’s a total geek shot of my Superstar console. The question people always asked when they saw it was, “Why does it have so many colors?”. Looking at it from this angle, it kinda looks like the venue we performed in in Berlin last year. There’s a very Euro-techno feel to it. Plus, it’s dusty.

Earlier this month, we played our final performance of Jesus Christ Superstar on Broadway. It was bittersweet, as I guess these things always are. I’m better for having this opportunity to work with such talented–and nice, being that they’re largely Canadian and if they’re not nice enough they get kicked out of their country– people.

There was a party afterwards. I’m not big on parties and went to a yoga class instead, planning to swing by the party on my way home.

When I walked into the locker room it was nearly empty because I was running late and made it just in time. Something caught my eye: a prosthetic full leg, from just below the hip, on the floor against the wall.

Because the natural state of my mind is to be small and boxy, I couldn’t imagine anyone who actually needed that prosthetic would be down in the hot room to do yoga. My first thought was that it was some sort of prop, a possibility since this midtown yoga studio caters to a lot of performers.

They say yoga expands your mind.

I went downstairs and set up my mat. I looked to the right of me and there was the woman to whom the prosthetic belonged. She was tall, strong, and determined and there to do Bikram. I was humbled and inspired. I could not in good conscience sit out of a single pose that class.

It was an immediate and complete shift in my perspective.

I wished that I felt confident enough to speak to her after class, but I didn’t. I didn’t have confidence in finding the words to convey what I felt without those words being condescending, insensitive, or disrespectful. But in my eyes she was a goddamn rock star.

I don’t know if I’ll see her again or not, but the memory remains. I’m grateful for it.

The next day when I was extra sore from the extra effort I put out in that class, I thought of that badass woman and smiled.

Namasté.

Here are your links:

I just came across this post this morning and it filled my soul. Not much makes me happier than when one of my kids likes my music (and props to this kid for being a RUSH fan!): Pretty Girls Make Gravy: The Day She Discovered Led Zeppelin.

When your kid has to write an apology letter on the last day of school. Sh*t my 6-year-old-says: Apology Letter

Maybe some are staged, but I prefer to believe they’re not. 21 Pictures that will restore your faith in humanity

Get schooled on heavy metal: LA Weekly (thanks Deathrow Dan for the link).

This entire blog is worth reading, so I’m linking to the home page: An Athlete’s Journey Through Breast Cancer

Happy Sunday.

Coming to a Close

Somewhere at the very end of May, it came to my attention that there was such a thing as Camp NaNoWriMo. You probably know, National Novel Writing Month is November. Affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo, participants commit to writing 1667 words per day to have a novel of 50,000 words at the end of the month.

Quantity, not quality, folks. Well, at least for mere mortals like me.

I made one attempt at NaNoWriMo a couple years ago. One way of looking at it is that I failed. I didn’t even make it to the half way mark. But I prefer to look at it as I got a good chunk of raw material towards what has become my work in progress.

For some reason, when I saw “Camp” in front of NaNoWriMo, I was thinking, Camp must be shorter somehow. Camp must mean a smaller word count. Camp sounds like something I could do!

So I Tweeted my friend Erin, who writes the blog MomFog. She has five kids too- and she actually gave birth to all of hers, leading me to believe it was at least somewhat intentional. Erin completed her first NaNoWriMo this past November and I asked her if she was doing Camp.

To which she replied, well I guess if you’re doing it, I’m doing it. And because I’m a Twitter NitWit and don’t have a smart phone and am not on it all the time, the next Tweet I got from her said she was signed up.

So I signed up. Because at this point, I had to.

Turns out, “Camp” is still 50,000 words.

I did a bit of a cheat. I am bogged down at a place in my work in progress where I have a crapload of backstory. Way too much. I don’t know how to work it in, I’m not sure if it fits. I’ve been struggling with moving forward. What happens next. So I decided that for CampNaNoWriMo I would simply write what happens next. No building on back story, nothing in the past, only forward motion allowed.

I did really well for a while. I was even getting up extra early to write and I was totally on target.

Right up until the week that the kids got out of school.

Which is the week that CC started working a second job during the day, prepping the next tour to go out.

Which is the week that camps started and the chauffeuring began.

Which is the week that my show posted the closing notice.

It came down to the last day of June and I was 8,000 words short. My plan was to finish, even though we had a two-show day. I would finish between shows.

I’ve been on shows closing before where the atmosphere backstage is a total downer. But this is such a great bunch of people that it was total party time. All kinds of people were stopping in to say goodbye, the head carpenter brought in a bunch of food, the ushers made a bunch of food. I typed about three sentences and finally decided I would really rather enjoy the time.

And so I did not complete CampNaNoWriMo. But I have 42,000 words of what happens next. And I don’t regret either my decision to start it, nor my decision to not complete it.

Also, I can’t wait to start revising. There’s some serious crap that should never see the light of day contained in that 42,000 words.