Sugar on Snow with a Dill Pickle Chaser

My unemployment status enabled me to fulfill the minor dream of the last couple of years of actually having off the week kids get for winter break. It was a week filled with athletic firsts, continuous short order cooking and odd culinary delights.

By way of explanation, I bought my fantasy life when single, of a house in the middle of the woods in Vermont. I enjoy solitary pursuits like reading, cross country skiing and gardening. The solitude has been shattered by 2 kids, assorted friends of theirs, somewhat sluggish guests and even more Legos.

The house became kind of a trap when they were small, with little kids afraid of being swallowed up by the snow and the drag of hauling them back and forth from the city. It's now their fanatasy place and they fancy a move there which I am still on the fence about. It would madden this housewife in ways the city does not -- I would likely spend my days in the Subaru hauling boy child to hockey practice and girl child to dance or playdates by car. There's only so much driving past the KOA campground on Route 5 you can do. On the positive side, there is an old movie palace that shows foreign films and has concerts for everyone from Suzanne Vega to last Sunday's delight: a performance of the American Legion Band. Nothing like a little John Phillip Souza to get the blood stirring.

The week brought some athletic firsts for all. Old roommate showed up with sports mad boys, proceded to groom the ice on the pond across the way and introduce us all to pond hockey. After overcoming my fear of thin ice -- it was frozen about a foot thick -- it proved to be a marvelous diversion. The sun was setting over the trees as all the kids spun round and round and engaged in slapping the adults on the butt for ice tag. Then took the adventure level up a notch and went out on the river where the guys in camo and triple socks ice fish with Wild Turkey on their breath. Skated around an island I'd only previously explored by kayak and came back when yelled at by my friend who said the bubbles in the ice by the islands was absolutely not a good thing.

Attempted to instill love of cross country skiing in children. Fiery-tempered daughter did not want any help and cried for a solid hour -- and this on groomed trails! It was one of those moments when adults around you give you the sympathy eye -- or maybe it's the "why can't they behave look." She proceeded to come down with a bad flu that night, so it must have been that and not the skiing, or so I hope. Boy child is taking to it, but of course wants to go fast but can't figure out how to go up hills so that you can enjoy down. I've lost friends after making them go uphill on cross country skis, so will be patient with him.

Flu swept through the house disabling houseguest with daughter -- not sure if he would typically be so sedentary, but at day 4 of couch sitting with me playing non-stop board games from my
youth with marginally reading kids -- I was ready to boot him. Guests are only invited back if they haul wood into house for the stove -- no matter what state of health they are in.

Week ended with annual festival of winter -- guy in a mangy snowman suit seemed to be everywhere in town. Missed the dog sled demo but kids got to ride snowmobiles -- and wear a cool helmet. Partook of annual ritual of boiling maple syrup poured onto a bowl of snow. Kids were afraid someone could have peed on it, but I assured them it was of the cleanest sort. The snow turns to a taffy-like, impossibly sweet consistency only cured by a dill pickle chaser. Fed them hot chocolate on top of that and they could have been used as an alternative energy source.

Weekly Body Count:

• Family enjoyment index: 100
• Pond hockey: 100+
• Legos stepped on: 10, we have a larger supply up there
• Loads of laundry: 6, lots of beds changed with guests and flu
• Dryer appeared to stop working; moment of panic: -10
• Non-wood stacking guest: -10
• Amount of actual work done looking for job: 0

Homework, Cocktails and Colleagues

It's was the 100th day of school for the kids, and once again, I failed miserably as a helicopter parent. My daughter dilligently glued 100 cheerios in a random, non-aesthetic pattern to a red sheet of paper and then proceeded to screech at me while insisting that she had to write the numbers 1-100 next to each of them. If any number did not come out as she wished or bumped into another, she furiously erased, breaking the already affixed cheerios and then the process got longer and longer.

Parents at school divide into the "homework is enriching time with my kids" or the "crap, it's due again and he/she would rather be playing with legos...doing anything but and now we have a confrontation." You also have to be very careful in discussing homework with parents as it is not easy to identify which side the parent stands on. Some of the crunchiest I-don't-believe-in-structure parents reveal their type A sides in the homework competition.

Case in point: my daughter's best friend produced her 100 day project as a full portrait of Obama produced in varying shade of dried beans. Now this kid is very artistic, but come on. Her parents are artists and her husband specializes in painting dogs peeing. Not your usual homework obsessives.

After the grand celebration which involved cupcakes -- I actually volunteered but was mercifully trumped by a mom who revealed she does use Duncan Hines but stops at that nasty canned icing -- I slathered on some makeup and made it into the city for a re-union of the marketing staff at a highly successful dot-com I worked at.

The good news: most are gainfully employed, many a bit unhappy about where they are, but holding onto their aeron chairs for survival. The years have added a few kids, a few personal tragedies, but life has gone on and for the most part for the better.

For those on the outside wondering what actually went on at various dot-coms, yes, work happened. I was at this one during the last bust -- a lot of work on a small staff -- and we didn't get free food. The irony? Those who stuck this one out stayed through a buyout and now they get renowned chef-prepared free food, but have to deal with lego stations, scooters in the office and arrogant 25 year olds all over again.

I remember the bizarre run-ups to the conferences the company held -- one which got staged twice in one calendar year nearly resulting in a meltdown by the person who had to do all the logistics. I got the easy part of working on content. The last conference I worked on I got to deliver one of my favorite research projects I developed. I had had a baby a matter of weeks before the conference and I managed to suck my stomach in, stap on the heels and get up there in front of everyone. The weird thing is that what made that speech work is that in a male dominated industry I personalized the data and injected information about how the Internet was changing women's lives -- and even made some positive statements about online grocery shopping which did prove to be true, at least in certain markets.

Well, now here I am, far from that conference room, my online grocery account idle as I plan to save money and go to the butcher, sit with my daughter and make valentine cards, make sure my son reads his homework for the night and listen for them breathing ever deeper as they fall asleep on my shoulders.

• Laundry count: none today, changed two beds yesterday and even washed comforters +10 points!
• Stickers unglued from dining room chairs: 10, after all it's valentine's card time
• Vacuum: give it up until the last shred of glitter from valentine's is used up
• Dinner: give in to the siren call of frozen Ore Ida french fries...