Holey Moly

My seven-year-old is a ragamuffin, or so everyone must think. I sent Satchel off to school today in his beloved star hoodie, that has been patched in one place, but has new holes in others. Ditto on his pants. Both knees have been expertly mended, yet he has made new holes in the tender area surrounding the (more than generous) patches. Before walking out the door he showed me a large section of rubber sole hanging from his shoe. I'd repaired it before, but going with the theme here, they needed more repairing. Since he only has one pair of shoes that fit (he refused to wear his sandals, rain boots, or snow boots and I have no clue where his Crocs are), I had no choice but to whip out the Shoe Goo and hope that it could make a seal quick enough to get him through the day. To help with the process, Satchel walked on his heels all the way up to his class, which I appreciated. It made me smile even though I was really annoyed by the state of his affairs. (Don't even get me started on his socks.)

Jiro isn't in nearly as bad of shape, and I consider him to be my rough and tumble boy. He's pretty notorious for getting stains on things, but for the most part he is hole free. Actually he may be the only one.

Like Satchel, I too get attached to certain clothing items (a.k.a. "My uniform"). I just recently had to admit that my black shirt with three holes in the pits was no longer appropriate for work. Ditto on my khakis with the holes in the seam. Just last night I told Warren that if I saw him wear his long johns with the holes up and down the legs and all through the crotch one more time I would secretly throw them away.

Excalibur

Satchel's class went on a hike in Overton Park in early January. On the hike, one of his classmates found a really cool stick. (Imagine that, right?) The thing that made the stick really cool--its sharp end--also made it unacceptable to bring back to school. So, Satchel, who really wanted the stick, waited for his classmate to discard it. Then he picked it up and hid it along the trail.

He's been talking about this stick for weeks.

Weeks!

We've been to the trails several times, but the only time we made it to the section where he hid it, there was ice and snow, so he couldn't find it. Today, he found it. And he was SO excited. (Look at that smirk.) I was really impressed with his ability to remember the exact spot where he put it.

Playback Memphis

Playback Memphis is a Professional Improvisational Ensemble.

You heard me.

I'll admit that I was a little hesitant about going to see a Professional Improvisational Ensemble. It seemed a little...uh...hokey. After reading about the required audience participation element, Warren assured me that I'd be called on stage and forced to embarrass myself like I did the time I got hypnotized at the Looney Bin.

But my friend, Shannon, was insistent that we go together. (Neither of us thought our husbands or sons could be convinced to go.) After a drink at her house, we headed over to First Congo's basement. I hadn't been there since we used to hold our Roller Derby meetings there and was pleasantly surprised to see it completely transformed into a lovely, professional looking theater.

Shannon and I took our seats, chatted with some people we knew in the audience, and then waited for the show to start. There were nine performers, all dressed in black and barefoot. They started off with a routine where they each chose a pose or a motion and then told us a little about themselves. From there, Virginia Murphy, the "conductor" (and founder of the group), explained what was going to happen. She wanted audience members to share stories and so that we could then watch as 4 of the 8 performers re-enacted the story, one by one until they were all four performing together.


I was skeptical, but they were extremely successful in boiling each story down to its essence and projecting it back to us. The most amazing part were the stories from the audience members. They ranged from one woman's frustration with plastic bags at the grocery store to one woman's foray into teaching at the women's prison to another's newfound fear in her own neighborhood. It wasn't long before I was hoping Shannon wouldn't notice I had tears streaming down my face.

After a few of these performances, Virginia asked the audience to chat for a while and tell each other stories.


Then volunteers were asked to come on stage and tell longer stories for the performers to re-enact in more detail. I have to admit that this was my least favorite part of the night. I think Virginia might have been nervous--she made it hard for the story tellers to get a word in edge-wise between her non-stop questions. (I know she was trying to guide the story, but it made this part drag on a bit too long.) Regardless, the performers once again thrilled us with their interpretations. I especially enjoyed watching Joe Murphy in action. I've only seen him in his Music for Aardvarks role (which he also rocks). He brought some serious humor to the stage.


Next there were some duet improvisations based on audience input. Then the everything came full circle as all nine performers took the stage again and chose a movement and recapped a story we heard.

I have to say that I definitely left feeling like this Professional Improvisational Ensemble was really doing something powerful and important. And I wished that I would have dragged Warren and the kids along. (Don't worry, I will next time.) I can't say enough good things about Playback Memphis. I only hope that you won't just take my word for it. Go see for yourself!

Thanks to the talented Melissa Sweazy for letting me use some of her photos from the evening!

Treehuggers

Yesterday we had our second annual Old Forest Jamboree to benefit Citizens to Preserve Overton Park at the fabulous Hi Tone Cafe. Last year, I thought we made it kid-friendly by having it start at 7pm on a Wednesday. While we did have a few kids in attendance, it was nothing compared to this year! Sunday afternoon from 3-6 (when there is no school on Monday) proved to be way more kid-friendly. In fact, I believe we had more kids in attendance than adults! Which, by the way, is awesome since CPOP's main objective is to preserve the forest for FUTURE generations.




The Hi-Tone proved to be the perfect place for the Jamboree. We had a great stage and sound for our musicians, plenty of tables and chairs for our people, lots of room for our kids to run around in, and oh yeah, the best pizza in Memphis, half-price! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Hi Tone!

We kicked off the festivities with a round (or two) of Ghost River Beer and the Lorax Posse. The Lorax Posse is a group of forest loving musicians who decided to get together and play some music for the first time ever! Ok, they did have one practice. I thought they sounded awesome and everyone seemed to be enjoying the music. Thanks to Mike Graber, Jana Misener, Krista Wroten, Jeff White, Jim Spake, and Jonathan Hart! Y'all gotta play more gigs!

Next up we had the Old Forest monologues. Elaine Blanchard, Roy Barnes, Wendy Sumner Winter, and Steve Black each took the stage and shared their thoughts on our lovely 10,000 year old gem.(Of course only the front room could hear a word they were saying thanks to the two other rooms full of our enthusiastic, dare I say rowdy, next generation supporters!) Maybe we can get the transcripts up in the next few days.

We ended the afternoon with an incredible set from the oh so talented and melodic Star & Micey. People were seriously going crazy over these guys. They are so good! And without really being LOUD. They were just perfect for a rowdy Jamboree. Go see them!

It was one of the best Valentine's days I've ever had. Good times with good friends for a good cause. Can't beat that. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it such a success!

They KISSED Kenny!

No, no kissing, but it is a South Park Valentine's Day at Chez Oster.

Feral Children

My column this week once again focuses on the Old Forest. And, uh, my feral children. Please read Once in park, kids naturally go a bit feral.

Free Cookies

The Midtown Schnucks, despite its crowded parking lots and aisles, is still my grocery store of choice. (At least until Whole Foods or Trader Joe's comes to Midtown.) Recently they've started letting kids under ten have a free cookie when accompanied by an adult. Maybe because they knew we were helping ourselves anyway? Anyways, it's nice and I appreciate it, as do the monkeys. Satchel had a lot of questions about why a kid would be in a grocery store without an adult, which was cute. I could only guess that the kids who walk home alone from school might catch wind of the free cookies and mob the store.



I should also add that on our last visit to Super Target, a woman in the deli offered the kids a free cookie without prompting.

Ninja Snow

After dragging myself out of bed at 5:30am, I was pleasantly surprised when I got a text from my workout partner, Ashley. I expected a "Not feeling good" or "Bring me a banana," but instead it read, "Look outside." After resisting the urge to wake everyone up to look at the snow, I happily crawled back in bed.


The boys came running in around 8:30am, fully dressed. They had gotten dressed by themselves--a rarity--before looking out the window. "Can we watch TV?" they asked. "Did you look outside?" I asked. They turned around and walked to the window. "NO school?" Satchel asked cautiously. "No school," I said. Then Jiro reported that he almost couldn't get Satchel out of bed because it was a school day.

"Aren't you excited about all of that snow?" I asked. They walked over and looked out the window again. "Oh yeah, we can definitely have a snowball fight with that much snow," Satchel said.

After some breakfast we all got bundled up and went outside to make snowmen and have a snowball fight. (As an added bonus we got to meet our new neighbors. They have the two small boys like us, the same car, and even hail from California like Warren. As we talked we also discovered that we've all been to Africa. Crazy huh?)


After making two snowmen, we made a fort and a stash of snowballs. When Warren was done shoveling the porch, we attacked him. Before we knew it, it was raining, and the snowmen were melting. We're hoping for a little freezing so we can do some sledding before its all gone.

Bowling with Monkeys

It's been over two years since we last went bowling. Satchel's been talking about having a bowling birthday party this year, but then he switched to just wanting to go bowling with his family. Since we had errands to run in Germantown on Saturday afternoon, we stopped by Cordova lanes to play a few games (and admire the many mustaches).


Having mastered Wii bowling, I think the monkeys were a little shocked to see how much harder real bowling is in comparison. (Ditto for the adults.) With the help of bumpers and a ramp for Jiro, we were all able to improve our scores with practice. We all had fun cheering each other on, and I loved having both of my monkeys want to hug me and sit in my lap between turns.

The only bad thing was the price tag. It was $4 per person per game, which, uh, kind of added up. However, Monday is Family Night from 6-10pm. Up to 5 people can bowl for 2 hours for $20 per lane. Also, Sundays from 10am-noon is $1 per person. (There's a minimum of 3 games per person though.)

And is it bad that I was kind of digging the shoes?

Snowed In

Being snowed in last weekend was actually awesome. Sometimes I get too wrapped up in trying to be everywhere and do everything, so it's nice to have an excuse to hole up and not do much of anything. I actually read a book! I'm ashamed to say how rare this is. It's called Secret Suppers and is all about the underground dining scene across the country. Very cool. I also baked! I'm absolutely addicted to the Chubby Vegetarian's Banana Ricotta muffins with walnuts. The kids love them too.



As you might imagine, Warren did his share of cooking too. He made sukiyaki on Saturday and brown rice sushi on Sunday.

Satchel also got in on the action, insisting that we finally cut open the star fruit he picked out at the Winchester Farmer's Market the weekend before. He swore that he really, really liked it, but I couldn't help noticing that he took very small bites and only ate one piece. Jiro only licked the outside of one piece before declaring it nasty. I quite liked it and Warren had a few good ideas for incorporating it into some dishes.


Satchel did quite a bit of reading on his own too. We've finally found something that interests him; The Dororo manga books. Uncle Kevin suggested them, and they are a hit!


Yes, still inexplicably sitting in a box. This picture also demonstrates the fact that I finally found someone who knows how to properly patch up the monkeys' pants.

Jiro spent the weekend in his long underwear with his short underwear on top pretending to be a super hero.