Hurray! The tomboys score!

And so ends the nightmare saga of the graduation dress.

Things that make me happy

My surprisingly good-humored better half. He's fighting for his life, but laughing more than he used to, as well. And he wears his wit on his sleeve.

These sassy, savvy girls, who keep me on my toes.

I love our strange visitors. There are three of these that basically live on our roof and chill on our fence post. Plus a few dozen little guys who hang out for the free food.

I love birdhouses and flowers and the first signs of spring.

This month, I celebrate a birthday, anniversary and motherhood (Can you see why Beaux hates May?). Here's to life. I feel blessed.

Tomboys in search of a gown

Jen casually mentioned that all the girls in her sixth grade class have photos of their graduation dresses on their phones, like screensavers. "It's lame," she opined.
About the third time she said something about it, I realized she was trying to tell me something. She's approaching a fashion crisis and in typical NotMommyoftheYear Fashion, I'm not picking up on. Duh. She has an event coming -- and nothing to wear.
Now mind you, there's great irony in all of this: I am the anti-fashion queen. I am the bag lady of journalism, completely indifferent to clothing, as long as it's clean and comfortable and semi-presentable. I don't wear sweats to work. But I am wearing a few favorites regularly that are approaching classic status because I've had them so long. And makeup? Takes too long and I frankly need the extra 10 minutes sleep in the morning.

Perhaps because I've never emphasized fashion, my girls have been left to sort of develop their own personal style. And while Jen has inherently good taste, apparently a genetic gift from her dad, she has my love of the casual. Al's a mini-me, clueless and mostly not troubled by the fact.
But the thing is, the graduation requires girls to wear a dress -- and who the hell, by the way, thinks kids need a full graduation at every stage of life? Kind of takes away from completing high school, if you ask me. When we were kids, we got our report card and started junior high, sans the pomp. And it didn't ruin any of our lives.
Jen would rather wear Levis and long-sleeved shirt. I think she figured I'd back her on it. But I think she'd regret that on the actual day. So I suggested that she, instead, decide to go whole hog and glam it up a bit. We'd do her hair (Good Lord, who is this woman masquerading as her mom?) and shock everyone who's used to super-casual Jen. And as soon as it's over, she can change. Like instantly, at the end of the ceremony. I also agreed she can wear her Convers sneaks, since they make her happy. What the hell? It's her graduation.
She decided she might be able to stand that, if it really provided some shock value. But there are rules. The school has one: The dress must be modest and for some reason, the litmus test for that is how wide the straps are. Huh? They have to be two inches which, by the way, is not easy because everything on the racks right now celebrates the sun with skinny little straps. Jen's rules are different. NO color. The dress has to be black-and-white or plain black, below the knee, and killer cute but not too frilly or femmy. Etc. We've now been to 12 stores, her friend Ayla calling every half hour to see if she found one.
Not yet.
I'm thinking her jeans idea wasn't such a bad one after all.

America, 60 years later

My first overseas trip for the newspaper was to Luxembourg, which, world traveler that I was, I had to look up on a map. There, at age 24 or 25, I stood in the vast grand hall of a genuine and humongous castle and looked down at the most verdant valley I've ever seen while an elderly man described a day when tanks rolled through but could not overtake the castle because of its position on the steep hill.
It was on that trip that I heard the stories of how younger Jewish families were "sold" the idea that their elderly loved ones needed to be moved to a safer location where they'd be safe from the Nazis. They were loaded, along with their treasures, into trains .... you can figure out the rest of the story. Although many Jews from Luxembourg would ultimately get away without being sent to concentration camps, only 36 of those who were sent to such death traps came out alive.
In this tiny country, I knelt in a chapel below a stained-glass window that depicted Jesus in a garden with his disciples -- and an American soldier. The American soldier, in fact, was everywhere in stories of the country's history. Someone had cut an American soldier into another stained-glass window among the 12 disciples at the Last Supper. It was jarring. And charming.
It was the American soldier who brought me there, to spend July 4 celebrating America, in a land across the sea. Americans liberated Luxembourg in World War II and they had not forgotten that debt. I heard so many tales from elderly Luxembourg residents of what young American soldiers had done for them.
Not long before that, I'd huddled in a doorway in a commercial district in Athens, Greece, while angry young men marched the street protesting American capitalist policy. It was scary, but I was "saved" by Greek shopkeepers more than willing to invite this capitalist inside to buy souvenirs while the demonstration raged outside.
It was never easier to be an American than in Luxembourg as they celebrated our independence day.
Amidst the horrors of World War II, there really was no better time to be an American, although there were certainly grave challenges. Our role in the war could not be second-guessed. There was a rightness and purity and unity of purpose that America in wartime has never since achieved.
We represented freedom and justice and that old cliche, the American way back then, some 60 years ago.
As I see the stories of road rage and celebrity stupidity and corporate malfeasance and greed and plain stupidity (watched any TV lately?), I'm not sure what we look like to outsiders -- or even to ourselves -- these days. But I think it's worth giving some serious thought.

Then Aly drew a name....

Kath wins the giveaway. And your Amazon.com $15 certificate is quite literally in the mail.
Thanks for playing, kids.

A bigger, better giveaway. Jewelry, anyone?

My new friend Lorrie Veasey, the funny chick at OurNameIsBlog.blogspot.com and creator of Our Name Is Mud pottery, is always generous about directing traffic to other cool blogs and giveaways. To that end, she published a pre-Mama Day note about a friend's jewelry creations. They're handsome and original and could be yours. You just have to visit Lorrie's blog here by Wednesday morning and leave a comment. Go get yourself some really cool bling.
And come back here Wednesday morning to see who gets the Amazon gift card, as well. There's still time to post a caption. Pretty please?

The picture says it all

Words fail me. But if you can come up with the perfect caption, you'll be well rewarded in the first-ever Miscellany giveaway. So comment away and see what delights await. Here's a hint: Gift certificate to Amazon.com.
-- Lo