One Smart Teenager

May 5, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

Can a Teen Get Away with Doing What He Wants?

As a parent, it is always interesting to hear my child’s perspective on life, the universe, and everything. Our family has dinner together almost every night, and occasionally a real gem of a conversation emerges. The following conversation with my elder son took place the evening before my younger son was to have several friends over for a birthday party.

The meal began quietly, so to spark some conversation, I asked my son, “What are your plans for tomorrow?”

He shrugged and answered simply, “I do what I want.”

This type of comment from a teenager will nearly always make a parent’s eyebrows rise. Mine were no exception. With eyebrows high, I responded, “Really?”

“I always do what I want,” was the bland response, as he took another bite.

My fork hovered mid-air, and I thought for a moment as I swallowed. After a brief pause, I asked, “So — tomorrow, during your brother’s birthday party, when I ask you to take a team of 11-year olds around the neighborhood for a scavenger hunt, you’ll do it because you want to, right?”

Without missing a beat, he looked me in the eye and replied, “I want to do what you ask me to do because I don’t want to get in trouble. Therefore, I do what I want.”

No further response was required, but I did give him a quiet high-five and enjoyed a good chuckle for the rest of the meal.

21 Rules for Teenagers and House Guests

May 4, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

Suggested Rules Based on Mutual Respect and Personal Responsibility

Rodney King once asked the plaintive question, “Can’t we all just get along?”

Although Mr. King’s question was directed toward a racially diverse world, getting along with others starts in the home. If you can’t live harmoniously with your own family, how do you expect to live with roommates, or get along with people at work or in your neighborhood?

When my nephew moved in with our family, it occurred to me that although we have had no problems living with our own children, he had been raised in a different household; the “unwritten rules” that we live by may have been different for him. So, I decided to write down the rules that I felt were most important to help us all get along.

When I finished, I brought the list home and asked everyone in the house to read them. I then provided an opportunity to discuss the rules and make any changes, including additions or deletions, that were necessary. This enabled everyone in the house to feel that they contributed to the set of rules, and we came to a quick agreement to adopt the rules.

Please note – these are the rules in my house. Whether you have adult children living in your home, other family members coming to stay for a long period of time, or just guests arriving for the holidays, I encourage you to make your own list of house rules available to all who will be staying. Setting expectations up front can save a lot of drama and heartache!

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My Southern California Pot Garden

April 21, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

That Is… What to Grow… In Pots

When I was growing up, we always had a lush garden in the backyard. My mother has the greenest thumb I’ve ever seen, and now that I have my own family and home, I want to carry on the backyard tradition with my own children. However, with a yard the size of a postage stamp, I have to be strategic in my use of space; I want to garden, but still need to leave most of the grassy area for my kids and our dogs to play on.

I decided to start with a few large pots on the patio with vegetables and herbs. Since I wasn’t sure what would grow well in pots, I started small, with a few herbs, and tomatoes. The more I was successful at growing anything, the more I wanted to try something else. Today, I have 17 pots and 2 hanging planters as the start of my garden, and have since added three raised-bed boxes, in addition to using nearly all the rest of the available (non-grassy, play area) space in the yard.

What Grows Well In Pots

Nearly everything I have ever grown has done well in a pot. In some cases, as with mint, it is better to grow them in a pot, as they may otherwise take over the entire yard. So far, I have been able to grow: Continue reading →

The Watcher

April 10, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

I was walking through my garden the other day, and bent down to look and see if any of the squash was ready to pick. As I pushed the leaf aside, I saw a little gray, scaly head looking up at me. It might have been a lizard, but I saw the S-curve that made me believe it was a garden snake of some sort, so I let the leaf drop back in place, and went inside to get my husband. A few minutes of investigation on his part showed that, whatever it was, it had gone. Nonetheless, I put my shoes on before I went out to the garden again.

That experience provided the inspiration for this short story. If you sit outside on a quiet day in late summer, you might be able to see the same things.

The Watcher

Large droplets of dew slowly made their way in crooked trails down the enormous squash leaf overhanging the edge of the garden, while long fingers of mist pulled the fog into the yard from the valley below. He sat there under the umbrella of leaves as he waited, observing the activity in the damp yard just beyond his den. It was a great spot from which to watch, shaded from the hot sun for most of the day, and hidden from keen eyes that searched the garden for invaders.

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I’ll Be With You Shortly

April 9, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

“I’ll be with you shortly,” said the young man at the auto repair shop. He was tall, young, and handsome, and I was sure he was just trying to be helpful. “Thanks,” I replied, “but there’s no need to be insulting!”

At 4’12”, I’ve always been sensitive about my height. Even as a child I was short… er…”staturely deficient.” The strange thing is that people who are tall or “staturely endowed,” always seem to think that perhaps I am not aware of it. “Gee, you’re short!” is often the first observation people share with me. Usually I manage to swallow my initial response (“Duh!”), and opt for the more polite, “Really? I never noticed.”

I once met a man who was exceptionally tall, probably close to 7 feet in height. We met in the cafeteria at the university I was attending and ended up standing in line next to each other. At one point, he looked down at me and said, “Oh, Hi! Gee, I’ve never seen you around here before.” Looking way up and hoping to avoid neck strain, I just smiled and replied dryly, “I wonder why?” I’m not even sure he heard me.

Tall people don’t realize what a difficult world this is for short people. Practically nothing is built with short people in mind. Deli counters at the grocery store, for example. I can ring the bell, wait a few minutes, and the person at the counter thinks that some kid is playing “ding dong ditch” with them. Usually I have to stand on my toes, jump up and down with my arms in the air and holler a bit to get their attention. “Hey! I’m down here.” I try to shop when the counters are likely to be less busy. Otherwise, unless I am feeling really assertive, I end up getting my turn after all of the tall people are finished.

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It’s Just a Game

April 9, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth (game on IOS)

I’ve been playing a game on my iPad for almost two years. Those who know me are already well aware that I’m a geek, and although I don’t have the constitution to play God of War or Mortal Kombat, I can get into slower paced games that involve teamwork, building, and collecting. In this case, I play The Hobbit: Kingdoms of Middle Earth.

As part of the growth of the game, I built a city and joined an alliance. Alliances are important, because when you are part of an alliance, you can share resources that are necessary to build cities and train soldiers, you work together to defend each other or attack enemies, and you can send your resources and gold over to another ally if another player is coming to attack you. Aside from that, members of an alliance often talk, strategize, and enjoy a certain level of camaraderie and friendship. In my case, I have belonged to several alliances. In each case, I quickly moved up the ranks to serve in an Officer role, and in some cases, Vice Regent and Regent, which are the top leadership positions available in an alliance. I have always attributed this to my tendency to teach and encourage. In each case, my alliance merged with another alliance to form a bigger, more powerful, more competitive alliance, where I learned more advanced game techniques, made more friends, and rose up through the ranks again.

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Hello World

April 9, 2015 / Jennifer / Leave a comment

[First published March 24, 2015]

“Hello world!” seems a good enough title to begin a new blog. Welcome to Up the Downs Staircase, a place where I will be able to record some of the random and no-so-random thoughts that engage my brain on a daily basis. Topics are likely to vary from inspirational stories, memoirs, pet peeves and public service announcements, things I find funny on the Internet, things that make me go “hmm…,” and anything I didn’t mention here.

Those who know me will understand the play on words in the blog name. The obvious explanation is that I took it from my name, and it implies that the content of the blog will include snippets from my journey as I travel up my own staircase to my unknown destination. This is true, and is probably an excellent description of what you will find here.

Another explanation for the title comes from the meaning of the phrase “up the down staircase,” which implies rule-breaking and going against societal norms. I hope you will find content that fits this description as well.

Years ago in my high school Drama Club, we put on a production of Up the Down Staircase. Of all of the productions in which I was involved, this one was the most unusual, as most of our productions were musicals. This one was a drama. The play centers around Sylvia Barrett, an English teacher at an inner-city high school, her passion for classic literature, and her desire to inspire her students. As one might expect, she is quickly introduced to the reality of educational bureaucracy, disinterested students, and other, even less interested teachers. Disillusionment leads to discouragement, and she considers leaving the public school system. Until she realizes that she really did inspire her students and make a difference in their lives. The novel on which the play was based is told through notes, memos, essays, lessons plans, and other forms of writing that might be found in a school setting.

I remember one day while we were rehearsing and working through brand new sets, two of our main characters were running through a key scene that they had been having some trouble with. It started off quietly, and then little by little, all of the activity on and off stage came to a halt, all eyes on the two actors in the small corner of the stage. It was real. It was raw, and it was emotional. Our leading actress finished the scene with real tears, feeling real trauma from the experience that had ceased to become just a story to her. It was powerful.

I don’t expect to leave you with that much emotion, but I promise to be real. Occasionally, I hope to be powerful. Mostly, like Ms. Sylvia Barrett, I hope to inspire.

Thank you for reading.