<p>Jym, if your son likes Pitzer, its not so hard to get into. Getting tougher than it once was, but definitely not in impossible range. Worth keeping on a list, anyway. Pitzer gave my son a free t-shirt when they admitted him, but did not give nearly enough financial aid, so we tossed the admissions packet & kept the t-shirt. </p>
<p>Sluggbugg, I’m just curious. What dorm is Slugg Jr. in? (I think I shall be headed up to Davis sometime in the coming year for… get this… 35th reunion).</p>
<p>Uh oh.</p>
<p>Warning to SluggJr: A Charter Member of the Mom’s Spy Network is headed his way. :eek:</p>
<p>Thanks, Calmom, but no, he didn’t like Pitzer-- too crunchy granola for him. He liked Claremont McKenna and Pomona.</p>
<p>I’m sorry, Alu, I had to post, I ruined our tie! But we’re still compadres.</p>
<p>mootmom,</p>
<p>Hope you checked all your HTML code for that post. We are all aware of the P2K crisis…</p>
<p>Today is the one month anniversary of D heading off for freshman year. So far, so good. We saw her a couple of weeks ago when we took her bike and a few other things down, including her little brother and the dogs. She was happy to spend the day with us, said it was good to get outside “the school bubble.” Also helped that we took her grocery shopping and picked up the tab. </p>
<p>We talk at least twice a week. She is enthusiatic, and the calls can last up to an hour. No IM or emial contact to speak of. Her roomates are warming up to being at school, so things are going better there. She has made friends and is really enjoying her studio classes.</p>
<p>She told the W that she misses the chaos that was dinner at home. Always degenerated into a comedyfest. One time we were all laughing so hard that the collective weight of our elbows on the table broke the table’s support, sending it crashing to the ground.</p>
<p>She will be home for a fall break in October. Looking forward to it.</p>
<p>So who else here in well under 50? Besides Aries of course.</p>
<p>m&sdad,</p>
<p>I love the image of the table falling under the weight of all that hilarity. Bravo!</p>
<p>and I am well under 50! That is, if you count 5 years as “well.”</p>
<p>I get to see my D in Oct too, only we are going to her.</p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>Smooth just got a call form the head of the History Department. Video interview went down a treat at the educational software conference and a Microsoft Game reviewer from Seattle wants to come over to interview him tomorrow. Uh, yeah, in his bedroom. :eek:</p>
<p>An embarassment of riches for the moms of sons in the Alley. It is very nice to hear. I can’t wait for the narration of the actual SluggS au revoir.</p>
<p>In our house, perhaps the counterpoint, the syncopation if you will, to this symphony of slacker boys learning to blow their own horns. S was in the silly local newspaper because, as a new member of the varsity soccer team, he scored the winning goal in one of their games. No prodigy. No “coaches will be calling me what does that mean.” But a very very happy S. And, in conjunction, an S who is studying more, seems to actually like the majority of his classes and teachers. But. But. But. And this is probably my karma for having mainlined my addiction to kid achievement via the D oh-she-who-caused-parades…S told me he isn’t sweating junior year because he has decided he doesn’t care if he gets an 89 on a test.</p>
<p>Oddly enough, for him this is a good outcome. I prefer to see him engaged and enjoying his work and bringing home an 89 than disdainful and distant and bringing home a 94. </p>
<p>Cheers. Tell Smooth he shoud have SBson the elder shoot his film to base his game on and SluggS write his soundtrack. And tell him Microsoft used to be full of guys like him and Google still is…</p>
<p>Raising a toast to all of you. I turn 50 on Saturday.</p>
<p>I hope you have a great time planned for Saturday!:)</p>
<p>Happy BDay Alum! A bottle of Dom for our China girl and all of her SA buddies. A big year for you, eh?</p>
<p>Happy birthday Alu!
As they say…Fifty is an “f” word… but it’s not so bad… really. I promise.</p>
<p>When I turned 40, I was the recipient of a surprise party at my house, which I arrived at completely drunk and stuffed to the gills from a fine, fine meal, so I couldn’t appreciate the party. Someone gave me a card that I fretted over, though. It said, “When you’re over the hill, you pick up speed.” :(</p>
<p>When I turned 50, I rented a bed & breakfast inn, hired a small whalewatching boat, reserved a restaurant, and invited my closest family and friends to enjoy a day on me. It was way more fun to turn 50. :D</p>
<p>All the best, Alu, may some of the best be yet to come.</p>
<p>Congratulations! I just turned 49. Not looking forward to the next one, but it’s better than the alternative.</p>
<p>However, it is fun with the kids out of the house…though I miss the kids. It’s never easy…but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.</p>
<p>Why the title?</p>
<p>Just felt like it.</p>
<p>Here’s the thing. While I grumble about my physical aging, and peer with annoyance into the mirror at my wrinkles and folds, and while I feel every day the aches and pains, and wish away that 5 pounds, still, it’s OK. It’s OK I guess to be turning into an older, if not yet old woman.</p>
<p>I was a very pretty girl. Pretty enough to be the 2nd prettiest in a high school of 200 people (OK, low benchmark). Pretty enough that movie stars took me home. (OK, low benchmark). Pretty enough that people knew my name in college when I didn’t know theirs. (5:1 ratio boys:girls, low benchmark). But still, disclaimers aside, a pretty girl.</p>
<p>Now, for 50, I’m not bad. But the part where heads turned? Unless it’s a 60-year old man, or a young man with an older woman thing (yes they are out there), the heads turning is pretty much over unless I really put on the dog.</p>
<p>It’s mournful to see it pass. But on the other hand, feeling the tide of pretty girlness pass is in some ways to feel it more powerfully. When I was pretty, I was besieged, I was overwhelmed. Now that I am, as a friend of mine described me to someone who had to meet me at an airport, “a pretty woman, showing signs of aging,” I appreciate the prettiness more. It feels like a friend, like a pet. Thanks for visiting, prettiness fairy. Now off you go to more fruitful pastures. </p>
<p>That said, I find turning 50 to be both terribly sad and beautiful. Why? Why?</p>
<p>I was talking to someone I work with the other day. I told him that turning 50 is like a long car drive. You are on a long long long straight road. You can see ahead of you for miles, and it’s all flat. Then suddenly, and you don’t know when it happens, the high rocks are visible. That’s death. 50 is like suddenly seeing, still far away, that at the end of this car ride is death.</p>
<p>So I guess to be saying goodbye to the prettiness fairy is nothing at all compared to now seeing the death fairy in my windshield. It is terribly sad. And yet I don’t know why but some kind of beauty comes with it. The sight of death far away makes the light on the nearby landscape more gold, more liquid, more clear.</p>
<p>I don’t mind the signs of aging so much if they are also a signal to some that yes the death fairy and I have begun our conversations.</p>
<p>This is Sinner’s Alley. Generally no one talks about death, and conversations about birthdays are accompanied by confetti. So think of this as a dark night in the Alley, yet one where you look around and the only people left in there you find comforting, and they fixed the burned out neon light and put in a regular light so the place looks kind of poetic like an old English pub. And they bring out the good brandy.</p>
<p>I will be floating around a lake in the Sierras on Saturday. Perhaps other musings will come to me. Perhaps I will just get sunburned. Adding to the signs of aging. One never knows.</p>
<p>Alumother–</p>
<p>Your words touched me–I just found out a friend of mine lost her long battle with cancer this morning. She was younger than 50 and for the past few years could see death on the horizon yet always hoped to cheat it a while longer.</p>
<p>I was NOT especially pretty growing up, and it took me a while to be happy with what I had. Certainly I’ve been blessed with better health than some “pretty” people and I am grateful for that as I age. “If you have your health, you have everything” means more to me now than when I was young. </p>
<p>I guess my point is to be grateful for every day because you never know what the future holds. And being gray and wrinkled is ok if you can still get up in the morning and do something for somebody. </p>
<p>And with any luck some day I’m going to look back and remember how young I was at 52! Oy. Pour me a tall one.</p>
<p>:::pfffftttt:::thwwttttt::::: I have a wad of gum stuck to the back of my head head, and I seem to be missing a shoe…Has anyone seen Trent, the aging Chippendale dancer? His Speedo caught fire while he was trying to climb out of my birthday cake. I don’t think y’all planned it that way, but a man in flaming underpants was an awesome present! 
I love you guys THIS MUCH!!! ::::slugghuggz:::: Mootie, mucho congrats to all of the mooties!! Be sure to drop some Cheetos on the floor for the marmots. 
</p>
<p>Was it only a week ago that I was a year younger and still had a sluggkid living here? The two best things that happened during the birthday /college move-in week were:</p>
<p>1.) SluggJr wished me a happy birthday, and I didn’t even have to prostrate myself on the kitchen floor in humility, submission, and adoration. </p>
<p>2.) When we met the family of one of SluggJr’s floormates, the little brother who is just starting high school this year exclaimed, “Man, I want to go to college!” He was so cute with his unshaven face and his sweet disposition, I wanted to stuff him in a milk crate and take him home with us. Of course ten minutes later, we heard the little brother snarling in the hallway, “Hey, I’m not your freakin’ slave!” Yup, I knew there was a teenager underneath that Beetle haircut. </p>
<p>I asked SluggSr to explain the waterworks on the morning of the move, and his response was something about being a “puss.” Okay, I was sort of relieved to hear that because I was afraid he might say that the prospect of living alone in this house with me had driven him into uncontrollable sobbing. I chalked it up to a delayed reaction from SluggJr’s latest insufficient funds notice from Wells Fargo the day before the move. </p>
<p>I actually felt my eyeballs suck inward when I opened up that last insufficient funds notice. Two weeks ago, the bank foolishly offered him a credit card with an $800 limit as “overdraft protection.” He promptly maxed out the card and overdrafted his checking account again. Since I do not know anyone who has not gone through this college credit card rite of passage to adulthood, I decided that it was time for the baby slugg to have his own checking account. </p>
<p>So, the day before the move, I went down to the bank, prostrated myself before a 20-something account manager, and begged her to release me from financial purgatory and let me close the joint account. During my kids’ high school years, I perfected the ability to rant and make sense at the same time, so she let me close the account on my own. It probably helped to convince her when she looked at the $95 deficeit. When I left the bank, it felt like one of the smartest things I’d ever done as a parent. No more checks, no more ATM’s, and he’ll have to make minimum credit card payments out of the monthly allowance he’ll get from us. He can get a job and open up his own account. Welcome to College Finances 101. ;)</p>
<p>We spent the weekend evaluating ourselves as parents, the mistakes we made, and the things we did right. Given the track records of relatives on both sides of the family, we are happy that we did not produce convicts, drug addicts, or a new low of oh…say, cannibals. We think they’re going to be okay adults. SluggyD is TA’ing and has a p/t job at a research lab, in addition to her three classes. She still calls us while she’s waiting for the bus, but she’s doing okay and adjusting to her first <em>single</em> year in college. </p>
<p>After two trips up and back, SluggJr was ready for us to leave and vice-versa. He got his Internet working, and we assume that he got the phone service in his room activated. He will, if and when it becomes necessary. Btw, Calmom – SluggJr has morphed into a Leach. 
</p>
<p>He hugged us and kissed the dog, and started to growl because we were dawdling. We had to take one last, lingering look at him in his college dorm. :)</p>
<p>Attention, Alu!! Pick up those lagging bosoms and slide into the orange booth. This one’s on me. A pretty woman showing signs of aging, huh? Okay, that BITES! LOL – Let’s huddle and talk about how much more handsome men get when they are past the age of blowing beer out of their nostrils. </p>
<p>Have you guys seen Kevin Costner, lately? Rrrrufff. :D</p>
<p>Slugg - I imagine I am not the only one who feels the corners of my mouth turning up when I even see your name as the last poster. Thanks for the update.</p>
<p>Alu - You send me. Yes, you do. Muse on.</p>
<p>ALU!! </p>
<p>I have been spending my whole summer on these same midlife-y thoughts and actually been doing some writing on this topic. I related to everything you said. x100.</p>
<p>I have been slightly ashamed to discover how much the passing of that prettiness fairy hurts. For the last 45 years, I think I had myself convinced that I was a person who thought “looks don’t matter.” Of course, I was pretty then! I am realizing now that a pretty girl saying looks don’t matter is a bit like a white person saying “race doesn’t matter.” Hah!</p>
<p>You can proofread my book for me if you want because YOU GET IT.</p>
<p>XO
-SB</p>
<p>Hugs to all. These are new observations to me, given that I was never someone who was thought of, or who thought of herself, as a pretty girl. I wonder what my equivalent analogy would be… will have to give it some thought. Having always been thought of as a “smart girl”, I’m finding that smarts don’t seem to pass away, so maybe not all of us have this epiphany, depending how we’ve always self-identified?</p>