The Eagle Has Landed

We have a bald eagle in our neighborhood. Probably more than one, because there's a nest across the water. It sits in a tree near the river and looks for prey in the water and along the riverbank. The old men I chat with in the park sometimes while I'm walking Stanley tell me they've seen it pick up prey and carry it off. Of course, which old man you're talking to depends on which version of the story you get. Sometimes the prey is a small carp or bass from the water, other times it's a German Shepherd and sometimes it's a Volkswagen.

The eagle is sort of the celebrity of the neighborhood. Everyone's talking about it, and everyone wants to know what it's up to at all times. The people who haven't seen it yet are jealous.

I think I might even be stalking it. I sometimes cruise by the tree just to see if he or she is "home". I think about it when I'm walking my dog, and I feel compelled to see if the eagle is out for me to look at. I'm like a 15 year old girl calling my crush's house and hanging up. It's just fascinating. I love watching it in the tree. I've never seen an eagle in the wild before, and these things are just big and cool. It really doesn't move much; just moving it's head back and forth surveying the scene. I'm dying to see it take off, but so far it's just been sitting in the tree when I've seen it. I hope it continues to hang around the neighborhood, because it's cool and we need a little touch of celebrity in Northwest Ohio besides Jamie Farr & Katie Holmes.

Can We Fix It? Yes, We Can!

It's no secret that my kid lives for two things: Bob the Builder & Lightning McQueen. When my mom told me that there was a traveling Bob the Builder exhibit coming to science & children's museums around the country, I knew we had to go. The closest one coming up was Grand Rapids, MI, which is a three hour hike. So...last week Mom and I packed the kid in the car and set off.

First of all, the car experience. Since all of our family lives elsewhere, he is a good little car traveler. However, now that he's older, he's become quite the tyrant in the car. My mom and I were forced to listen to the theme highlights CD from Spongebob Squarepants...over and over and over. The CD is 20 minutes long, so imagine how it was hearing it 3 times an hour. If you ever want to test your mental health on the cheap, buy this CD and play it repeatedly: http://www.amazon.com/SpongeBob-Squarepants-Original-Theme-Highlights/dp/B00005NKK1

The hotel: Brendan just totally didn't "get" it. He thought we were at another house of my mom's. He kept asking why she had so many pillows and why she had a big pool at her house. We tried to explain several times, but he was mystified. He did like that Holiday Inn Express has a Froot Loops dispenser on their breakfast bar. If you want to impress a 2 year old, have Froot Loops. His favorite thing about the hotel was that mommy helped him "vump" (jump) on the bed. Mommy doesn't really do that at home.

Bob the Builder was like heaven for 2 year olds. It was basically science-themed Bob exhibits but the hit for Brendan was life-sized replicas of Bob's team for the kids to play on. Like a good mom, I took photos of him on all of them: Dizzy, Roley, Bob, Wendy, Muck, Scoop, Lofty and Benny. Is it bad that I was able to rattle all of those off without thinking about it? Too many Bob the Builder episodes for me, I think.

After Bob the Builder, we spent a lot of time at "Fuckee Fee" (Chuck E. Cheese for those of you without 2 year olds). He loves to go there and play games and ride. He was SO excited because he hit the jackpot on one of the machines and he got 35 tickets at once. He was jumping up and down and pointing. He won over 1200 tickets on that visit, so it was a big deal for him!

Ice cream: We went to get ice cream. Getting him to choose is like waiting for someone to make a life and death decision. He ponders his choices as if it's the only thing in the world worth thinking about. Finally, he chose some frightening neon monstrosity in the primary colors. It looked like Play Doh. He was also thrilled because they had a kid-sized table. He got his ice cream, and proudly went over to the "big boy table", as he called it. The first time he went to pull the spoon out of the ice cream to get a bite, the scoop of ice cream plopped out and onto the floor. My quiet and mild-mannered child let out a blood curdling scream and pointed at the ice cream on the floor as if he were looking at a corpse. The lady made him another one, but he wouldn't go anywhere near that pint-sized table after that. It was as if the table caused his bad karma with the ice cream.

We ended up staying 2 nights and spent both of them at Chuck E. Cheese. You haven't lived till you've spent two evenings at Chuck E. Cheese with a bunch of screaming, rude children during cold season, not to mention the pizza ovens putting out heat like a blast furnace. For as bad as their pizza tastes, why not just microwave it and save your guests the sauna action??

For those of you who live far away, if Bob comes to your town, I highly recommend paying him a visit. Project Build It was a hit with my kid. If you bring a paintbrush or a paint roller, you'll get one free admission per family. As another side note, the Grand Rapids Children's Museum was very cool too. If you get the chance, it's another good place to go.

Can we fix it? Yes, we can!

This Rock Star Will Self-Destruct In 5 Minutes

So...music. Everyone knows I love it. No surprise there. I started this entry back on April 8th, but I thought it sucked so I scrapped it and started over again. I started it because I wanted to commemorate the 14th anniversary of Kurt Cobain's body being found. Not to be morbid; more because I'm truly curious what would have happened had he lived, and I'm truly sad that he died. He was 27 when he died. That's just young; way too young. He left behind a very young child, and I imagine there will always be a hole in her life where her dad should be. I still remember the way I felt when he was found dead. I thought Nirvana was this crazy and cool new sound; way different from the hair metal I had been listening to up to that point. Once Nirvana came on the scene, it changed my thought process about music. I stopped listen to the "party, girls, booze" type stuff and started listening to things that were much more introspective.

I have a coworker that I chat with a lot about music. He's my parents' age, and he's very, very religious so our views sometimes are divergent. He likes some pretty cool music, but he doesn't know much about the people who make it. I've always been one of those people who feels that you have to know where the artist is coming from to "get" their music. I do a lot of research on musicians I love. It helps me enjoy their music 100 times more just knowing who they are and what their lives have been like. I was the one who burst my coworker's bubble that James Taylor hadn't lived a white picket fence life and had been a raging heroin addict. I have that effect on people. Maybe next week I'll tell him how Elvis died. ;)

Anyway, one night we were discussing music and the people who make it when the subject of self-destruction came up. We both had different thoughts about WHY so many creative people are hellbent on hurting themselves. He thinks it's the lifestyle. Do I think the lifestyle helps? No. However, I think there's more to it. I think that the creative arts attract tortured people. To be creative, I think one has to have a certain amount of pain inside trying to get out and vying for attention.

The interesting thing about Kurt Cobain is that he just liked playing music by all accounts. Fame was actually the worst thing that could've happened to him. He didn't handle the spotlight well and didn't enjoy being looked up to, according to those who knew him best. It does make me curious why someone like Cobain even wanted a recording contract. I've heard it's because he never thought Nirvana would get famous. It still makes me think...

I think certain people are just self destructive because they want to be, because they don't cope well with life or because their lives have just been too full of pain to continue. Kurt Cobain would've bottomed out on drugs, alcohol, or some other vice if he had been Kurt Cobain, real estate agent in Omaha, NE. Jim Morrison would've led a troubled life even if he'd taken a different path. There are scores more, and it's worth considering what would've happened if those people had lived. A lot of really creative people die young and some by their own hand. Janis Joplin, Hendrix, Morrison and Cobain were all 27. That's really just at the beginning of life. What would've happened to them, to us, to the arts in general had they lived? What else would Kurt Cobain have accomplished? He'd be 41 now. What would he be doing? Would he still be famous? Krist Novoselic & Dave Grohl have said Nirvana died with Cobain (which on a personal note, is what I feel should happen with any band when the singer leaves or dies. John Corabi or Gary Cherone with Motley Crue, anyone?). Would Nirvana have continued had he lived?

There are absolutely scores more celebrities who have lived lives that could be called ticking time bombs. Brad Nowell was 28 when he died. He overdosed before his group's major label debut was even released. Would it have still produced hits if he'd lived, or was morbid curiosity the cause of its success?

Would Jim Morrison have continued to write music and live a nomadic lifestyle? Would The Doors still be performing together like the rest of the members are doing now? The "New" Doors, anyone? Didn't think so...

Is this just pretentious pontificating on my part? Thoughts?

The Mild Side

So, it takes me forever to fall asleep at night. From the time I crawl into bed to the time I fall asleep it's seldom less than an hour. While I wait for sleep, I think. Sometimes about what I've done that day, sometimes about what I have to do the next day. Sometimes I plan out scrapbook layouts in my head or silently will myself to hurry up and fall asleep.

The other night in the midst of this process I started thinking about how my life has changed since I became a mom. Before I became "Brendan's Mommy" I was just Sarah. I liked to go to concerts, travel and have a few drinks with friends. I still enjoy those things, but life has taken a different turn so that those things matter less. An enjoyable day now might be spent looking for bugs in the grass or playing with Play-Doh. Having a child allows the parent to revisit his or her childhood all over again with the benefit of hindsight.

In effect, my life has gone from the Wild Side to the Mild Side, and that's ok. I was never a person who had a career path that was set in stone in my head. I was never one of those people who woke up in the morning knowing that someday I was going to be a nurse or a teacher. All I've really ever known is that I wanted to be a mom. The rest is just details.