5 a.m. Swim Time

Look at the time on this post. It's not even 7 a.m. yet. I've been up since 5 a.m., surfing the web, reading email, reviewing notes for my novel. I should feel very virtuous, but instead I'm just crabby.

This is the first salvo in my campaign to write every day. Early morning is the only guaranteed time I can sit at my computer and wrestle with my fiction. Until 7:30 a.m., it's just me and the cat. After that, Ron leaves for work, Benny starts romping around and the weird guy next door starts power washing his driveway or something.

I used to write at night; that's how I wrote my first Europa Society play while holding down an editor position in San Francisco. For three months I worked until 6 p.m., napped until 8, then typed until midnight. But that's not practical now. Evenings mean dinner, bath and bedtime for my toddler, and are often my only time with Ron.

I've tried to write while Benny naps, but I just can't relax. I start at every little sound, whether it's the cat playing with a toy or our neighbor playing with his motorcycle. I'm sure Jack has a good reason to park his bike in the driveway, rev up the engine, and stand around staring at it for 30 minutes twice a day. But it doesn't do my nerves any good. When I manage to ignore the cat, the motorcycle, and somebody's noisy landscaping service and actually start typing, Benny wakes up an hour early.

So that leaves the appallingly early time of 5 a.m. for optimum writing -- after a shower and two bottles of Snapple, of course. This morning my brain wasn't fooled at all: "Why aren't we in bed?" it asks. "What is this thing called Light? I don't like it." So I coaxed my brain with Google News and four scenes from "Dr. Faustus," and it has graciously allowed me to post on my blog.

As in any crazy endeavor, I first look around for someone who's already done it. But none of my friends and family are insane enough to ponder sticky plot points at 5 a.m.

The best role model I could find was Lynne Cox, a long-distance swimmer who has kicked her way across the English Channel, the Bering Straits and the seas of Antarctica. Next to her, I'm nothing. This gal spends her life getting up at 5 a.m., diving into icy water and splashing around for a couple of hours.

I read Cox's memoir "Swimming to Antarctica" last year with bewildered astonishment. As a teenager, she'd meet her coach at dawn by some horrid bay, all ready to swim. "I can't believe you're doing this," her coach said once. "There is frost on my car windshield."

Cox knew she was a little obsessed. She underwent a series of tests at an underwater lab and scientist found that her body had exactly the same buoyancy as seawater. This should be a wakeup call.

Her response? "It's not easy to get out of a warm bed at 4:30 and do this. You have to really want it."

I guess that sums it up. If you're serious about a goal, you have to do whatever it takes. You have to really want it. So here I am at 7 a.m., trying to be a writer. I hope I want it as bad as I think I do.

We Return Triumphant

Ron let me sleep in a bit this morning, so we got a late start. The RV was due in Ypsilanti on Friday, and we all felt tired and grimy. We hit the Ohio Turnpike that day, hoping to make it home by nightfall.

I'd woken with a slight head cold, but I couldn't take any medicine because I was also carsick. High-speed winds came roaring up out of the south, buffeting the RV. Ron fought for hours to stay in his lane, while the trucks ahead weaved and swerved and passed dangerously close the edge of bridges. Benny whined for raisins and I clutched my armrest and tried not to sick up.

Construction almost foiled us around U.S. 23, with crucial ramps connecting the highway to 475 and 94 closed, but we pulled into our own driveway before dinnertime. The neighbors came out to hear our adventures and Benny happily chased the kitty. It took an hour for Ron and I to unload the RV and pile everything in the living room and dinner was takeout pizza from Cottage Inn.

Still, we were pleased. Benny and I each took long baths and we happily fell asleep in our own home. I was just glad not to be moving.

##

The Walls Are Closing In

This was the best morning of the trip - nice and warm. It was pleasant to lie in the bunk over the RV cab and listen to the jets take off from Dulles International Airport.

With Shenandoah and Manassas under our belts, we were ready to head back. We hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike and started gobbling up the miles.

High-mileage days like this are tough on Benny, who doesn't appreciate the single-minded rush of a 10-hour trip. We tried to stop for exercise - it was a beautiful day, after all - but turnpike service plazas aren't exactly toddler-friendly. Each plaza featured clusters of restaurants and stores surrounded by miles of asphalt. Since we were in the RV, we had to park with the trucks, which meant scurrying across the massive park lot, holding onto a squirming, protesting Benny, who hated to be carried.

So exercise for Benny meant racing around a deserted restaurant with Ron and I posted at each end of his makeshift track. Then we piled into the RV and tried to make another 100 miles before Benny went nuts.

Exhausted, we left the turnpike just west of Youngstown, Ohio, seeking some fabled campground in Leavittsburg. It had cable TV, a rec room, a volleyball court - sounded awful. But the lady at the toll booth had a better idea. She recommended the campground at West Branch State Park. The facilities had been recently expanded and renovated. Ron disliked crowded RV parks anyway, so we took her advice and drove 13 miles off the highway, the RV rocking and moaning all the way. I'd stuffed my computer's wrist rest through the handles of some particularly troublesome cupboards, but the window over the table still rattled and a haunted door near Benny's bed still creaked open at odd times.

West Branch's campground was beautiful, woodsy and sweet-smelling, with a lovely lake near our site. Ron built another fire in a faint, cool drizzle while Benny sat nearby in the dirt and provided a running commentary: “Fire, hot! Fire, hot! Daddy builds fire, hot!”

I served leftover spaghetti and corn for Benny and microwaved soup for Ron and myself, and we ate outside, lingering in the soft air until the rain picked up. Then we all bedded down for our last night in the RV.

I woke at about 4 a.m. in a state of panic. I'm not prone to claustrophobia, but suddenly the ceiling above me felt frighteningly low. I was in the bunk over the cab, against the wall, with the ceiling inches above me. Trying to fight my mounting panic, I herded Ron aside and climbed down. I stood beside the large, open window over the RV's table, panting.

It was a full 10 minutes before I could breathe calmly, with Ron almost beside himself with worry. I'd never been claustrophobic like that, just never. Finally I calmed myself (and Ron) and climbed into bed with Benny, whose ceiling was much higher. It still took a long time to fall asleep.

##

Never Call Retreat

CIVIL WAR BATTLEFIELD AT MANASSAS (BULL RUN)

I woke up with a splitting headache. My first thought was "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning!" since propane makes me nervous. A dozen things in this RV run on propane, including the furnace, the stovetop and the water heater. So I climbed down from my bunk with vague thoughts of looking in the mirror to see if my cheeks were rosy.

Ron looked at me curiously as I staggered past. He was pouring milk for Benny, whose cheeks were always rosy. No help there. I decide a more intelligent move would be to check the carbon monoxide detector, but I couldn't understand the thing. There were lots of green lights, so I decided we'd all live. So I gave up the idea and fished a Snapple out of the cooler.

We were in a bit of a pickle this morning because both our holding tanks were reading two-thirds full and our fresh water supply was low, which made showering a risky business. Ron used the bathhouse through the trees so we had enough water for myself and Benny. I'd given up on the idea of showering Benny - I'd never get him back into that stall -- so I gave him a sponge bath on the kitchen counter instead. Much less traumatic for both of us.

We pulled into the campground's empty dumping station about 10:30 a.m. to empty our tanks and replenish our fresh water. I went into the office to reserve our space for another night and buy a few groceries. When I returned, our small RV was dwarfed by giant road yachts. Ron was scuttling between the trailer and the station's water faucet, looking annoyed.

“I know,” he said. “I was going to wait for you, but then half the Fifth Naval Fleet showed up.”

We finally escaped to U.S. 29 and headed to the battlefield. Manassas, or Bull Run, was the site of two major Civil War battles. The first clash in 1861 was the very first battle of the war. Washington was so confident that the Union would lick those rebels that civilians followed the soldiers to watch the battle and enjoy a picnic lunch.

The Manassas Visitor Center featured an amazing map that laid out the events of that first battle. Tiny lights blinked on and off, revealing troop movements. Blue lights were Union, red lights were Confederate. Battles were indicated by flashing yellow and orange lights. The whole display was so dramatic and clear, Ron and I were captivated. Benny loved the lights too. “Red, blue, orange!” he yelled.

We walked the one-mile, circular trail behind the center, following the battle's movements. Things went badly for the Confederates at first, even with the Union commander's dinking around and wasting time. Then fresh Confederate troops arrived, and rebels rallied behind Stonewall Jackson in the battle that gave him his nickname. When the Union army finally retreated, they ran smack into a crowd of panicked picnickers racing back to Washington D.C.

The weather today was gorgeous, warm and sunny. Benny was tired after the walk and refused his lunch, so we put him in his carseat and hoped he'd nap while we took a driving tour of the second Manassas battle in 1862. It was a far-flung battle, so the tour required lurching up and down two-lane roads in our ungainly RV, covering the same ground repeatedly.

Benny was asleep by the first stop, so we sat in the tiny parking lot near Battery Heights, reading the battle guide and wondering how we would get out again. Then a small hatchback car turned up and parked close behind us. We watched in dismay as three people got out, walked over a cannon-ringed hill and disappeared in the tall grass. They never returned. I even climbed the hill to look for them, but they were gone. So we reluctantly executed an extremely tight 12-point turn and sped away.

We missed the second tour stop and had nearly left the county before we found a place to turn around.

“Only nine more stops,” I said cheerfully. “At this rate, we'll be finished by midnight.”

Benny slept until we foolishly took a shortcut on Featherbed Lane, which was narrow, unpaved and insanely bumpy. We nearly ripped off our mirror passing a tree-cutting machine, and a passing gravel truck scared us half to death. By the time we reached stop 5, Benny was complaining and I was counting my teeth.

We completed the tour by 4 p.m. and headed back to the campground for dinner: spaghetti and corn on the cob. Afterwards, Benny and I visited the laundry room. When we returned to the site, Ron had built a campfire, with our three lawn chairs arranged around it. We toasted marshmallows and made smores, then put Benny to bed.

With Benny asleep, Ron and I sat beside the dying campfire and talked about the coming weekend. The RV was due back Friday and we'd have two more days to adjust to reality again. This trip was a real chance for Ron, Benny and I to spend time together, and we didn't want it to end. Somehow, we'd have to work small escapes into our daily lives. We talked about buying a tent and camping throughout the summer, visiting relatives or just playing around. Benny was getting older and traveling was much less daunting.

The air was getting cooler, and we retreated into the RV, folded clean laundry, and went to bed. Tomorrow we would head home again.

##

The Perils of Irresponsible Geology

BASALTS: THE UNINVITED GUESTS

That forest ranger who said last night's temperatures could dip into the 40s was off by at least 10 degrees. When I woke up, I swear I could see my breath. Ron was pouring Benny's morning milk, looking a bit haggard after a night of keeping a restless toddler under the covers.

We had hot water though, and were able to shower. I took Benny to the women's bathhouse with me (it was blessedly heated) so I could blow dry my hair and powder my nose without my teeth chattering. Benny cavorted around the room, talking about the puppy we saw on the way. The rain had stopped and the sun occasionally peeked through thinning clouds.

We gobbled a hot breakfast at Big Meadow's restaurant and visited the souvenir shop. I bought a container of creepy rubber bugs for Benny and a pink Shenandoah baseball cap for myself. Then it was on to Dark Hollow Falls, where water cascaded over the volcanic metabasalts of the Catoctin Formation, according to my book.

All very wonderful, but reaching these falls required a steep, 1.5-mile roundtrip hike, so Ron and I tucked Benny into his Jeep stroller. Although its packaging claimed the stroller was “all-terrain,” we generally used it to push Benny through malls and Ann Arbor's downtown streets. It was about to get a workout.

The trail WAS steep, and rocky and winding. Benny bounced happily as I pushed him through gravel paths and over logs. Ron followed, his hood pulled around his unshaven face, looking a bit grim. I learned later that he'd seen evidence of bears on the trail, and was imagining violent scenarios where he offered himself for mauling while I escaped with Benny. Occasionally we were met by other hikers, who stared with undisguised wonder as we hauled Benny and stroller down yet another set of tree-root stairs. Our chosen technique meant that Benny was sometimes flat on his back, staring up at the trees, and he responded by yelling and squirming madly.

We heaved a sigh of relief as we approached the falls: silvery water splashing over greenstone steps. Each large step represented a separate lava flow. Benny cooed over the water, I cooed over the rocks, but Ron could only think of the ascent back to the parking lot, and perhaps of bears waiting to rip the Juicy Fruit gum out of his clenched jaw.

So back up we went, and it was awful. The going was very slow. Benny was on his back a lot. We met strolling hikers carrying nothing but pamphlets who asked, “Is it much farther?” as we staggered up the ravine. But we were too winded to give them the withering reply they deserved. We briefly rested at a gurgling stream, trudged up another mountain or two, and then I asked, “Where's the backpack?”

“I thought YOU had it,” Ron almost wailed. There was nothing else to do. I slid back down the trail while Ron toiled onward. The backpack was, of course, at the gurgling stream. I climbed back up the trail, panting worse than ever, half expecting to see Ron collapsed on a rock.

They were waiting for me at the parking lot and Ron snapped pictures of me flogging my butt up the last hill. We practically fell into the RV: Benny chugged milk, I chugged Snapple, and Ron chugged Coke and wished for bourbon.

We continued on. Fog wreathed the Blue Ridge Mountains, making driving treacherous. Benny fell asleep as we wound slowly down the mountains. The fog lifted a bit at 2000 feet and I started to plan my next crazy escapade.

My new goal was Little Devils Stairs Overlook, where several basaltic dikes “intrude” on the Pedlar granite. The wording made it sound like the black lava knocked on the granites' doors 570 million years ago, then rudely pushed their way in for a free dinner.

What actually happened was that black lava bubbling underground escaped to the surface through narrow passageways, or dikes, then spewed all over the landscape. Some lava hardened inside the dikes and turned in narrow strips of black rock surrounded by pale granite.

Unfortunately, to see these fabulous dikes, I'd have to leave the RV at a mountain overlook, cross the winding road, then walk beside the road for 500 feet. This I did, with Ron remaining behind with a sleeping Ben. I walked through the sopping wet grass, clinging to the rockface as an SUV or giant trailer roared past.

I found the designated milepost and began counting my steps, eyeing the sheer cliffs to my left. I saw the dark basalts glistening beside the granite, but the rain was too heavy and the rock too weathered to see anything well.

I'd almost given up when there it was, clear as crystal, a thick green-black line, about 2 feet across, shooting up from the ground through the pale gray granite. I touched the wet rock, trying to imagine it as black lava flowing upwards from the Earth's mantle to spread out over the ancient mountains.

The roar of traffic brought me back to my senses and I trudged back, soaked and triumphant. Ron listened politely to my description, clearly relieved to have me back in the RV. Benny woke up and we celebrated with peanut butter sandwiches.

The fog was back, but we were content, already plotting our route out of the Shenandoah and toward Manassas, or Bull Run. I bought some posters of Dark Hollow Falls at the park's last visitor center and we passed through Front Royal and onto Interstate 66.

Ron had found a likely campground at Bull Run Regional Park, 27 miles from Washington, D.C., and it was a lovely place. The weather was warmer at this altitude, but since we had an electrical hookup, we ran the furnace anyway. I made sweet-and-sour chicken for dinner and Benny demonstrated how one tiny bowl of rice can cover an RV's entire floorspace.

It's still a little rainy, but the forecast predicts it will be warmer and only mostly cloudy. We go to sleep and hope for a good day to tour the Civil War battlefield at Manassas.

##

Babies, Basalts and the Dreaded Black Tank

PEDLAR GRANITES IN SHENANDOAH

We woke early and quickly showered, anxious to see the Shenandoah Valley. But first we had to hose Benny down. He's such a game little kid, cheerfully sat naked on the shower floor, holding a small toy Weeble.

Then I turned the water on. Benny screeched as the water came out first icy cold, then scalding hot. I frantically adjusted the settings, pointing the shower head away from my panicked toddler. Benny lunged for the door. I held him down with one hand and sprinkled reasonably tepid water on him with the other. Somehow, I got him clean, but I don't dare repeat the experience.

We dressed Benny and took him outside to help him recover from his ordeal. Ron blew soap bubbles and taught him how to toss the surrounding trees' “whirly seeds” into the air. Benny was a bit hazy on the concept, preferring to tear each tree seed in half and toss both halves over his head.

It was now time to address the dreaded Black Tank. I strapped Benny into his carseat with a box of raisins and reluctantly met Ron outside. We emptied the gray tank with no difficulty, but the Black Tank was a real pill. It emptied fine, but then I was forced to fill empty gallon jugs from the city faucet and pour them down the RV toilet. Then Ron took the water hose and rinsed the Black Tank hose for about two hours. I think he would have doused the whole site in bleach with a side dose of nuclear radiation if he could.

We finally finished and left Walnut Hills, creeping down a steep hill. This wasn't by choice; it's not easy to creep downhill when you're driving a zillion-ton RV. We were forced to creep because we were following a very strange man. He was suited up in full biker regalia: the long hair, the leather coat, the chaps. But he was riding a moped, his long, silver-studded legs sticking out, bandanna flapping in the small breeze generated by his 24-mph speed. We loomed behind and tried not to crush him.

Our little friend turned down a dirt road, and we headed east on Interstate 64. People in passing cars turned and stared at the RV -- even Ron felt a bit self-conscious. There he was, after all, at age 40, driving a luridly painted rental RV and sipping a tiny Juicy Juice box. “I never dreamed I would be so cool,” he said.

I assume that the National Park Service WANTS people to visit the Shenandoah Valley, but you wouldn't know it from the signage around Waynesboro, Virginia. We nearly left the state by accident, with a side trip to a pitiful regional visitor's center that had nothing to do with the Valley. But we persevered and began the winding ascension of Skyline Drive, a sweet highway through the stunning Shendoah Valley.

The scenery was gorgeous and we stopped at overlooks for Calf Mountain and Turk Gap and Moormans River. But our hearts weren't in it. I tried to liven things up with my giant textbook “Geology of the National Parks.”

“Field investigations,” I read, “have shown that some Catoctin flows that exhibit columnar jointing erupted subaerially.”

It didn't exactly set the pulse racing.

Perhaps we were just hungry. We stopped at Loft's Mountain and bought Benny a stuffed animal - a large black bear - and ate surprisingly good hamburgers at their restaurant. We set off once more, but the weather turned cool and rainy, ebbing away our enthusiasm. We decided to stop at Big Meadow campground and tackle the mountain another day.

It was damn cold at Big Meadow and there were no hookups for the RV. Without an electricity hookup, we couldn't run the furnace for more than an hour. The furnace itself runs on propane, but the blower needs electricity and will run down the RV's auxiliary battery. So we put on every piece of clothing we owned and shivered until we could decently go to bed at 7 p.m. Ron slept with Benny in the back of the RV and I buried myself in my sleeping bag over the cab.

Ron and Benny fell asleep instantly, but I stayed awake for almost two hours, reading my new book bought at Loft's Mountain, called “Geology Along Skyline Drive.” This guy was definitely writing for doofuses like me. He laid out the Valley geology in terms I could understand, beginning with the granites, Shenandoah's “basement rocks.” These were part of the ancient Grenville Mountains, which formed a billion years ago and stretched from Newfoundland to Texas. Once the Grenvilles were the size of the Himalayas; now only their roots remain.

After the Grenvilles were eroded away by wind and rain, leaving only bare hills (plants hadn't evolved on land yet), North America started to break up. A rift valley formed, spewing out black lava, which covered the landscape. After millions of years, the volcanism stopped and an ocean appeared, depositing mud and sand.

That history was why Shenandoah geologists found granite on the bottom, topped by a metabasaltic rock called greenstone, which was then covered by shale and sandstone. It all sounded great. I could hardly wait to see a few weathered amygdules and some six-side columnar jointing. Dreaming of Pedlar granites, I fell asleep.

##

Kerplonken Lake

This morning I peeked out of our curtained alcove over the truck cab to see Ron and Benny reading books. The RV was nice and warm, since Ron had turned on the furnace (without reading the renter's guide!).

Ron suggested we skip showers today, or use the bathhouse, but I sniffed at such cowardice. I would take a shower and if water backed up and flooded the RV, then the tank was full. Ron fled with Benny at the very idea, and I put my experiment in motion.

The tank was full, of course, and I spent a very gloomy 20 minutes mopping out the bathroom after my shower. Ron used the bathhouse like a sensible person and we loaded up the RV and drove it to the dumping station.

The station was blessedly clean and private, no frightening drain or scores of catcalling bystanders. Benny sensed something was up and sat chillingly silent in the RV as I read instructions from my trusty guide. Ron's face was set as he pulled off the sewer cap and attached the hose, then ran the hose down the drain. When he opened the gray tank valve and the hose wiggled like a snake, we cheered. The toilet holding tank, known as the “black tank,” didn't need emptying, thank God.

The task completed, Ron went off to wash his hands 20 times. “I'd like to amputate them,” he said.

Triumphant, we drove down the mountain to a pretty visitor's center at Sandstone, West Virginia. Sandstone is adjacent to New River Gorge National River, one of the oldest rivers in North America. That river was around before the Appalachian Mountains formed. We visited the waterfalls, then returned to the visitor center for a picnic lunch.

Since the rest of the day was a straight shot along Interstate 64 to Staunton, Virginia, I drove the motor home for the first time. It drives much like a U-Haul truck, so I had little trouble. I just set the cruise control for 55 mph and sat in the right lane to watch retirees in giant Winnebagos zoom past us.

I pulled off the highway for gas just beyond the state line into Virginia. They're very friendly in Virginia. I met a guy at the pump in front of us whose wife's cousin's landlady sews Civil War uniforms in Gettysburg. Then I went inside the station and learned all about the cashier's 2-year-old named Simon. He can read and write his name and count to 5 in French.

Ron, meanwhile, had to listen to some loud guy stare at the RV and yell loudly, “Now that there is funny!” three times to his girlfriend. We tried to pull forward out of the gas station, but a new car had parked in front of us and there was no way to back out.

So we waited. The elderly driver finished pumping gas and slowly walked to the station. He emerged an epoch later and got into the car and spoke to his wife. He'd forgotten something. He got out of the car and re-entered the station. We waited. He re-entered the car and checked the map. Ron was beside himself at his point. Finally the car backed away and left and we followed it to the highway.

At 6 p.m. we pulled into Walnut Hills Campground and RV Park just south of the Shenandoah Valley. Our Frommer's Guide lauded the campground's inviting sites on Kerplonken Lake. A quick inspection revealed that the Kerplonken was a small, mucky death trap for toddlers, surrounded by a crowded RV ghetto. So we opted for a site on a woody hill. It's nice up here, with hookups for electricity and running water.

Giddy with success, I made pancakes for dinner, only setting off the smoke detector twice. Tomorrow we'll travel up Shenandoah Valley National Park.

##

100 Boxes of Juice on the Wall

Moderation is not my strong suit. When presented with a sufficiently ridiculous goal -- like moving to a foreign country or taking an editor position or having a baby -- I respond with almost excessive caution, researching and organizing madly until my energy or Ron's patience gives out.

But such prudence never lasts for long, only until I overcome the tiniest of hurdles in my new endeavor. I board the right plane, find the right desk, put the diaper on the right end, and suddenly I'm euphorically confident.

Case in point: Our 1998 move to Prague in the Czech Republic. I spent two months reading books, poring over maps and packing half the apartment into two boxes and suitcase. Then two days after my arrival, I ran all over the city to view five Romanesque churches in chronological order. Some were very obscure and hard to find. But I did it, and returned to the Prague Post newsroom and told an astonished Ron and his reporters about my day. The next morning I came down with tonsillitis and was in bed for a week.

This odd scenario played itself out once more today, when Ron and I woke at 6 a.m. in a strange RV campground called Pleasant View. It was icy cold, since we were too craven to run the furnace. Benny ran around the tiny floorspace, shivering in his spaceman pajamas, so we bundled him quickly into jeans, shoes and sweatshirt. Ron also dressed hurriedly, then zipped Benny into a warm jacket and took him outside.

Left alone, I picked up the RV renter's guide and painstakingly walked through the steps necessary to take a shower.

1. Turn on water heater
2. Turn on water pump
3. Read that water pump isn't necessary, since the RV is hooked up to city water
4. Freak out
5. Turn off water pump
6. Nervously take shower

Ron and Benny returned soon after, Ron looking somewhat appalled. Pleasant View offers a restaurant, miniature golf course, horseshoe pit, volleyball court, swimming pool - most of which were closed, since it was early May, but scary nonetheless.

But Benny was thrilled. He saw a bird, a white cat and a long train traveling along nearby railroad tracks. He was ready to live there and watch retirees rearrange lawn furniture 10 times a day. But Ron wanted out, so he took a quick, impressed shower, and we hit the road.

Our goal: Charleston, West Virginia, 220 miles away. In a strong contrast to the nervous creeping of Day One, we barreled along U.S. 23 like a guided missile, stopping only for short exercise breaks for Benny.

By noon we were circling the bypass surrounding Columbus, Ohio, and heading south. We were all starving for lunch, but we had no milk or lunch meat, just a few tired leftovers swimming inside the cooler. We needed a grocery store, but apparently all the ugly, sprawling, useful development is north of Columbus. Benny woke from his nap and started whining again.

We finally encountered a store - Aldi's. This was a very strange place. I left Ron and Benny in the RV and bought three packets of deli meat, a gallon of milk and a 20-box pack of Juicy Juice. (The couple in front of me bought a carload of bathroom tissue and 25 pounds of sugar.) We ate in the Aldi parking lot.

Grimly we trekked on, crossing the Ohio River at Portsmouth into Kentucky. That's when I got a call from Steve, the very talented guy who's directing my 12-minute play, called “The Video Game.” This play will be performed next month, and while I'm very excited, I didn't really want to discuss cast changes with Steve right then. Steve wanted an electronic copy of the play, so I nervously agreed to send him one in the next few days.

“I can't promise anything,” I warned, envisioning our vacation deteriorating into a fruitless search for wireless access in the Kentucky foothills. Steve called me back soon after, saying he found his own copy and I breathed again.

We crossed into West Virginia and Benny shouted happily as we passed mile after mile of his favorite objects: trains. Miles of grimy diesels rattled along decrepit tracks, pulling flatbed cars piled with coal. We passed rusting refineries and expansive railyards as the RV steadily gained elevation.

By now we were approaching Charleston and I leafed through our camping directory, a handy tome the size of a telephone book. I found a charming, secluded campground with lovely scenery near a state park. Unfortunately, reaching this park meant driving the RV up miles of winding mountain roads at 8 percent grade. Ron looked a bit harried as the road narrowed and daylight weakened. It was nearly 9 p.m. when we reached Clifftop Campgrounds. We backed into our gravel slot in a woody glen, hooked up to the electricity, and put Benny to bed.

But we couldn't relax yet. A new problem had emerged. The monitor said our “gray tank,” the tank that holds the leftover water from the sink and shower, was full. This baffled us because we'd taken exactly two showers and rinsed out some sippy cups. The agent who reviewed the RV with us swore we had enough capacity to “shower five times a day” without having to dump the tanks. Even more worrisome, dumping the gray tanks required the ever-dreaded Sewer Hose, something the agent had sworn we'd never need to do until the day we brought the RV back.

“Maybe the monitor's wrong,” Ron said hopefully.

I checked the renter's guide. “If the water starts backing up in the shower, we'll know the tank is full.”

We were too exhausted after 10 hours of driving to discuss it further, so we went to bed and I dreamed of showers on wheels pulling coal cars.

Kit Carson Didn't Bring a Lawn Mower

I'm typing this by a dim cabin light in our Cruise America rental RV, catching a night breeze through the screen door. The intrepid explorers have sallied forth today and traveled … 76 miles.

Ron, Benny and I stopped at Pleasant View Campground, just outside Van Buren State Park south of Toledo, Ohio. Most of our fellow campers looked like they'd been here for years, decorating their tiny plots with fences, lawn furniture, wind chimes, sundials, ornamental ponds. Well, maybe not the last, but this certainly wasn't roughing it in the wilderness. One lady two trailers down was mowing her lawn.

Still, this was just the wimpy, cushy, 90-minutes-from-Ann-Arbor campground I wanted when I reserved this site the week before. I asked for a pull-through site with the works -- electricity, water, sewer. Thus you have my vacation philosophy: Lower your ambitions, and then lower them again and you might just pull it off.

After two days of stuffing half of our possessions into labeled grocery bags, I was ecstatic when D-Day finally arrived. We dropped Benny off at daycare and headed over to Ypsilanti to get our rig: a 25-foot Class C motor home with two double beds, a galley, a table, a bathroom, two closets and a small armchair. Our first apartment in San Francisco contained less than this.

The Cruise America agent zipped through the vehicle's complicated water, sewer, electrical and propane systems, then spent an equal amount of time speculating on the vehicle's height.

“Thirteen feet, six inches,” she said finally, peering at the RV's roof. “But there's that air conditioner up there, you know. I'd allow myself 14 feet. In fact, to be safe, I'd allow 15 feet.”

“Really,” I said. That seemed awfully high. Cruise America's web site put the RV's clearance at 12 feet.

“Yup,” she said. “You don't want to rip the air conditioner off. So no McDonald's drive-thrus.”

I meekly agreed and we went inside to watch a horror film starring two badly dressed people who loved handling RV hoses and valves and sewer caps. I shuddered and hoped Cabella's sold Haz-Mat suits.

Then we asked another agent about our little green toilet packets, since the video said to use them right away. He looked at me like I was three-quarters stupid and said, “Use them whenever you want.”

“But the video said 'before you depart.'”

“Why would you do that? Do it later, do it when it's convenient. Use them when you feel like it.”

And when would that be? Two days from never? What I felt like doing was burying the packets in the woods and wrapping the bathroom door in yellow police tape.

Feeling completely inadequate, we drove the RV home and parked it in our driveway. Our neighbor Jack was tickled by the whole idea and thrilled by his quick tour of the RV. Our other neighbor Scott tried not to snicker, but he obviously considered the whole enterprise hopelessly dorky.

As I eyed the brightly painted vehicle depicting purple mountains and happy families, complete with a huge “RENT ME” sign, I couldn't help but agree. But it was all worth it when Benny came home and got an eyeful of his home away from home.

“RV truck,” he said in an awestruck tone. Then he saw his little bed made up in the back of the RV with his racecar comforter and big pillow and stuffed sheep and squealed with joy.

We split town in high spirits, sailing down US-23, only to encounter a series of threatening overpasses, ranging from a graceful 15-foot clearance to an ominous 13 feet, 3 inches. After clearing the last glowering railroad bridge, we concluded that while our first Cruise America agent was quite nice, she had no head for heights. If we'd listened to her, we'd never leave the county.

Exhausted by our ordeal, we stopped for dinner 20 miles from Ann Arbor at McDonalds. I left Ron and Ben behind and trudged a quarter-mile or so along empty pavement to buy two No. 8s and a Happy Meal.

I have to be very specific about Benny's Happy Meals. I know we're eating too much fast food when I hear Benny playing with his trucks and yelling, “Nugget Happy Meal, white milk, apple slices, boy!” Well, sometimes I do get a little loud at those drive-throughs. And I gotta say boy, or Benny ends up with a little plastic hooker doll.

We ate in the RV and Benny was radiant. He's got chicken nuggets, Mom and Dad in an RV. Only a diesel train screaming through McDonald's parking lot could make life any better.

We hit the road again and the honeymoon was soon over. Benny's bedtime approached and he began a steady, low-pitched, wordless whine. Fortunately, he was almost drowned out by the pots clanging under the oven range. But it was still annoying, and we counted the miles to Pleasant View Campground.

And now we're here. Benny is happily asleep in his RV bed, surrounded by heavy privacy curtains. The traffic from nearby I-75 moans, the neighboring trailer's water line gurgles, and our microwave's small screen blinks “Sharp is Simply the Best.” All is right with the world. Good night from the lonely outback.

##

Ladies' Home Urinal

Gross name, eh? Also a completely suitable one for a certain magazine of a similar name, published by Meredith Corp. I made the colossal error of buying a copy at the grocery store last night. Thus how famous smiles and cheerful pastels make fools of us all.

I was enticed, I'll admit, by the cover shot of Candice Bergen, one of my very favorite actresses. Of course, my devotion does not extend to watching "Boston Legal," a flashy lump of TV dreck also featuring William Shatner. When Shatner isn't playing a leering, smarmy lawyer, he's found on UPN, pushing legal advice for accident victims.

Obviously, I should have resisted temptation. But follow me, my little Dantes, to Ladies' Home Urinal's Mother's Day Issue, where you will hear desperate cries and see tormented shades. It's for your own good, really.

We roll through the dumb editor's letter and nice pictures of women relaxing in hammocks and babies holding kittens. But the party's over on page 23 (page 8 of actual editorial content). "CONFESSIONS OF A WORRYWART" blares the headline, followed by 2,000 words of insomniac angst, from elementary school fears of nuclear war to 9-11. "America suddenly grew frightened and I found myself for one brief period not alone."

I'm not a big proponent of mind-altering medication, but this writer should consider it.

We then enter six pages of complexion hell (pimply skin, dull skin, burned skin, red skin, pores you could drive a truck through) and emerge in kicky shorts heaven. Yes, it's spring, and you can wear shorts everywhere, even to the office. "Pair them with a matching jacket ... Just add smart accessories and you're ready to close the deal."

But lest we're having too much fun with our culottes and salicylic acid, it's time for the feature "My Life as a Mom." We plow through a four-page (single-spaced) personal essay by a mother who's daughter has a speech disability. Then we get three pages of mother-daughter vignettes about cooking and a piece about a heroic rescue by a labrador retriever, followed by a dog food ad featuring a baby lab.

We need the break, because then it's time to meet a couple where the wife nitpicks incessently and the man punches a wall and calls her a moron. Then we read a multipage personal essay by a mother who lost her little blonde daughter in a tragic accident.

And how does this last essay begin? With the mother driving the girl in the car, and the daughter trying on sunglasses and giggling because the world looks pink. She calls to her mother and what does Mom do? She's too cranky to look and insists on focusing on her driving.

How that scene pulls at the mother's heartsrings now, how she wishes she had shared her daughter's joy. And every mother reading it should be felled to the core, guiltily remembering a similar moment. (Hell, I did it yesterday.)

Is this what women want? Is this what women need? Do we need to buy publications that attack every facet of our lives? Do the cheery little features sprinkled on this bleak landscape make up for the anxiety, insecurity and near-neurosis that permeate this magazine?

I never made it to the Candice Bergen article, or the talk with Blythe Danner, another favorite of mine. According to the table of contents, Bergen just talked about her hair anyway. I also missed how to manage stress before it kills me and my hidden heart attack risk that even my doctor might not know about. I also missed the six fabulous dinner recipes, which is fine because I hate artichoke hearts.

I can't believe a magazine like this is so successful, that women fall for this alarmist crap served with hearty doses of pablum. I stare at the Candice cover with the cheery teases in blue ("A Mother's Day Tribute") and the ominous teases in red ("Dangerous Drinking: Have You Crossed the Liine?").

And I think again of Dante's sinners: "Those who rejoice while they are burning." To the publishers of the Ladies' Home Journal, those poor souls are mothers.

I'm Fine, Thanks

That's Benny entering his Grandpa's house after a successful Easter Egg hunt on Sunday. Note how he insists on carrying ALL his little yellow eggs rather than put them in a basket. We all had a great holiday with Ron's father, his brother Steve and family, and his sister Marlene and family.

Today is, of course, Wednesday -- my favorite day of the week. Mondays are a little jagged around here because we're wiped out from the weekend. (There's no such thing as a relaxing weekend with a toddler.) If the weekend was rainy and dull, Benny is sick of us and sick of his toys. Plus Ron works long hours on Mondays, often leaving before Benny and I wake and returning late at night.

Benny is in daycare all day Tuesday, so I can catch up on errands and get a good chunk of writing done. I've found a sweet little cafe in a town called Saline (pronounced sah-LEEN). It's got yummy treats, free wireless access and plenty of electrical outlets. Ann Arbor cafes are wonderful, but can be problematic when you're trying to get real work done. They're often noisy and crowded, and a glass of Coke costs a mint. Then I have to fight rush hour traffic to pick Benny up.

But this Saline cafe works well, since Benny's daycare is halfway between Ann Arbor and this very small town. There's no outside seating and you can't get any decent newspapers, but you can't have everything. I like being only 10 minutes from Benny, too. The mother hen instinct pops up in the oddest places.

Back to Wednesdays -- Wednesdays are the best. I'm generally rested after a Benny-free Tuesday and ready for action. We go on an adventure in the mornings: to the museum, to the farm, to Ann Arbor's wonderfully big Gallup Park. Wiped out, Benny takes a nice long nap and happily plays with his toys all afternoon to make up for a day of neglect.

This morning Benny and I went to Gallup Park, a fine recreational area following the winding Huron River. It's got pretty bridges and fetching trails and little sunlit clearings. People can fish or kayak or paddleboat or rollerblade. The park also hosts flocks of big geese and their little duck cousins.

We brought a ball, some books and a picnic lunch and spent the morning. Benny ran along the trails, wearing his train conductor cap, beside himself with excitement. He would only eat one box of raisins, so I scarfed his goldfish crackers and peanut butter sandwich as well as my own lunch. It takes a lot of energy to keep up with him.

Sentenced to the Writer's Block

A friend of mine is also working on a book. It sounds like a lovely manuscript about her experiences in Korea, and there isn't a creepy killer robot in sight. Plus, she's got an entire fine arts department behind her, since she's wrapping up a graduate degree on the East Coast. Double plus, she doesn't have a toddler whining to play Finding Nemo games on her computer all the time.

However, she still has problems (insert maniacal cackle here).

Elizabeth's problems sound a bit like mine these days, which is encouraging. Soon she will undoubtedly ask: "Which of these four illustrious agents should I retain?" or "Warner wants to buy the film rights, but should I give up creative control?"

But for now, her worries sound familiar: designing the book's structure, finding time to write every day, keeping Jupiter's moons straight (oh wait, that's me). She ended up throwing out her outline and knocking out her first three chapters. Then she started talking about a prologue. Elizabeth's writing is more sophisticated than my slapstick prose, so I'm sure she can pull it off.

My prologues, on the other hand, are always awful. When I start thinking about a prologue, I lie down until the feeling goes away.

"Secret Soldiers" remains an unholy mess, with gears and wires sticking out all over. I wrote an elaborate backstory for my villain, then threw it out. I cut half of Book Three, then put everything back. Finally I decided that my book suffered from three major problems:

1. I opened the novel with the pursuit of a wanted criminal, then abandoned the chase in Book Two.

2. My main protagonist started out making decisions and taking actions, then devolved into a smartmouthed package being toted around by loony guys.

3. My villain was sort of bananas from day one. Then he moved into ominously melodramatic and ended with completely maniacal. Perhaps a little more subtlety was in order.

Oh, and No. 4: Not enough killer assassin robots! HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Get On The Bus

PREHISTORIC SABERTOOTH TIGER!

Today was a slice of little Benny heaven: warm temperatures, big dinosaurs and four very noisy buses. Spring fever hit me with a 2x4 this afternoon and sent Benny and I rolling down the sidewalk.

Our mission: the No. 8 bus to downtown Ann Arbor. Benny, who'd spent his entire naptime singing songs in the bedroom, was hyped up on apple juice and cookies. He rode in his stroller, eyes rolling, yelling "Bus! Bus Stop!" at the top of his lungs. Even after three years in San Francisco and one year in Prague, I still can't read a bus schedule properly. Somewhere a pack of map designers cackle madly as they sketch route drawings placing north on the bottom and east on the left. "This'll get her," they snicker.

But lo, a bus arrives precisely at 2:07 and we're on our way. The crowded bus forces us to sit near the back on the left-hand side and Benny now insists on those exact seats each time we board a bus. We stop at the bank, the post office, the book store, with Benny providing a running commentary like Howard Cosell. I just nod and try to remember that we wanted him to talk.

We stop for pastries at Cafe Felix -- well, I eat the pastries. Benny sneers at his blueberry muffin and demands Goldfish crackers. So I eat the muffin and the chocolate tart and the squishy jam thing. "Have another cracker," I tell Benny as I lick icing off my fingers.

Newly forified, we catch the No. 2 to the University of Michigan's natural history museum. It's dark and dusty and bereft of "hands on" educational strategies, but we like it. No kicky videos or foam dinosaur nests, but it's got some big mastadon skeletons and a giant freaky fish fossil with fangs and armored plates. Benny counts the toes on the allosaurus and stares at the triceratops skeleton half-buried in the sand, felled by a predator. "Look, it's sleeping," Benny says.

#

The Land of Misfit Toys

If you click on the links to the right, you can learn about my two produced scripts. A 15-minute screenplay called "The Europa Society" was made in to a movie by Apprentice Films. It screened in Ann Arbor and Mt. Pleasant, both in Michigan.

The second is a 12-minute play called "The Video Game." This one is about two video game characters who stand around and chat while the gamer takes a break. Remember that old Looney Tunes cartoon, where the sheepdog and the coyote say "Hi, Frank" and "Hi, Ralph," then punch a time clock? Then the dog sits on a hill and the coyote tries to steal the sheep? It's kinda like that. Anyway, "The Video Game" will be performed June 24. I've got a director and a cast, and rehearsals start this month.

Usually when I think of my fiction projects, I often recall The Land of Misfit Toys from the "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" TV show. Santa created this island for screwed-up toys with square wheels, strange habits or tragically misguided name choices (remember "Charlie in the Box?")

My toys hide in obscure computer files or crumpled boxes from Kinko's. I've got a short story called "Happy Burger" and a 10-year-old play script titled"The Bats From Hell." My one-act play "The Europa Society" lives as a 40-page stage play and a 15-page screenplay. My short play "The Video Game" wears three separate hats: one where the Russian sentry lives, one where he dies and one where nobody knows. Glowering over all of them sit my two novels: "Secret Soldiers" and "Escaping Olympus."

My efforts at writing a full-length script have failed miserably so far. The first, called "Wake Up Winslow," was about a brother and sister hosting a local morning television show. Their older brother talked them into the show, then promptly disappeared after the first day. After Scene Four, the script crawled into a hole and still refuses to come out. Sometimes a story is smarter than I am.

##

Living Out of the Moment

New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winner Anna Quindlen recently wrote an essay titled “On Being a Mom”:

http://www.momsview.com/discus/messages/23/33816.html

I've got two separate copies in my email inbox so far, as various mothers weep over the words and forward the column to their 300 closest friends.

It is, of course, a lovely essay describing Quindlen's feelings about her three teenagers. I like her description of the independent people she raised, the now-obsolete parenting books she devoured, and the weirder mistakes she made.
(Thank God I'm not the only one who's ordered McDonald's from the drive-thru and driven off without the food.)

But I'm afraid Quindlen started to lose me with this quote:

“But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough.”

Now I'm the first to say “Gosh, yes, you gotta enjoy your children, or what's the point?” I'm having a good time programming my own little robot (er, son) with all my strange interests, from Bugs Bunny to Jupiter's moons. But when I find myself reading another parenting column that says “Live In The Moment,” I start to get a little testy.

Because at the moment Ron's working late and I have a cold and Benny's lying on the sofa screaming because he dropped one of his 4 million little Thomas trains. And somehow, imagining myself 20 years from now, weeping over a dusty shoebox filled with Thomas, Toby, and Harold the Helicopter isn't helping one bit. But I still dig the little red engine (James) out from under the sofa and help Benny build a bridge over the Crevasse of Doom (the space between the sofa cushions) and peace reigns once more. At least long enough for me to gulp some DayQuil.

One gal I know recently had the nerve to mention that she nurses her 2-year-old sometimes and frankly, she's getting sick of it. Immediately another mother began spouting how she'll miss nursing one day, she should enjoy this last part of her daughter's babyhood, etc. Suitably chastened, the first mother just nodded tiredly.

I myself felt unqualified to comment, not only because I didn't nurse my baby, but because I often celebrate Benny's milestones with almost indecent glee, stopping only short of ritual bottle-burning ceremonies.

So we mothers need to be a little cautious throwing that “live in the moment” line around. I can't help but feel its wisdom, but it needn't be another source of guilt. Every mother treasures something different with each child. I myself confess to an unhealthy attachment to Benny's tiny baby T-shirts. They no longer fit Benny, of course, so I put them on his stuffed animals, which make them look quite casual and sporty, in my opinion. And maybe I'll keep a few tiny trains - especially Toby, my favorite. Let's just say he's square.

##

Welcome to My New Blog!

Thank you for following me to BabySpace's new home. I was enticed here by BlogSpot's cool layout and kicky little features. Hopefully, this new site will encourage me to post more often.

I've brought all my online diaries to this site, so feel free to browse posts describing our child-free days tooling around in George the VW Beetle. I plan to post pictures on old entries as well, so readers will have the chance to see the portraits produced by Benny's harrowing adventures at various studios.

Feel free to comment and give all kinds of advice about the blog. Let us boldly go where no blog has gone before.

CK

Culture Clashes

If any faithful readers have sent me an email lately, I must apologize for not responding. Cowardice is my only excuse --my Yahoo inbox is a scary place these days. I’m afraid to open it.

Two disparate groups have taken over, shunting aside friends, family and Viagra salespeople. Both groups love long conversations via email, and some folks get a little reckless with that “reply to all” button.

My playwriting colleagues favor lengthy discussions about theatre critics, recent stage productions and why Performance Network (Ann Arbor’s theatre company) won’t acknowledge our obvious genius. Mother’s group members like to discuss parenting articles, toddler vaccines, sleep issues and potty training.

Which is all fine, usually. The playwrights will launch a swarm of emails about staging Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” using little Honeybaked Hams one week, and the mothers will send a flurry emails about the dangers of Post-It notes the next. No problem.

But last week was difficult because both groups lost their minds at once. One playwright sent everyone an innocent opinion on the play “Proof,” about a girl who sacrificed college to look after her mentally ill father, a famous mathematician. The father dies, leaving the girl anguished and in limbo. Meanwhile, a playgroup mother sent out a list titled “You Were a Little Girl in the Seventies if …”

Chaos ensued. I received dozens of emails a day, just from these two groups:
_______________________________

“You were a little girl in the 70's if...

You owned a bicycle with a banana seat and a plastic basket with flowers on it.

You thought Gopher from Love Boat was cute …”

________________________________

“In Proof, not only do we wonder whether the ghost is a ghost or the personified thoughts of Catherine, the live person conversing with the ghost …”

________________________________

“Too fun! I remember playing with Strawberry Shortcake dolls, as well as her friends, Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie …”

________________________________
“Obviously, to make a point dramatically takes time. Dad's-ghost exposition, like extended narration, is a way that playwrights shorten the dialogue. Others are blatant
semiotics and simply scanting character development …”

________________________________


“I wanted to be Laura Ingalls Wilder really bad and wore that Little House on the Prairie-inspired plaid, ruffle shirt with the high neck and I despised Nellie Olson! But I LOVED Bo Duke …”
________________________________

I don't think this is at all fair to Auburn's play. The scene between Catherine and Robert (where Robert is dead) is a very rich and complex interaction. It is true that in other scenes, Auburn's writing suffers from substituting "interrupted monologue" for true dialogue …”
_______________________________

“Oh yes! I got to see John Schneider at the Kalamazoo County Fair! My other childhood crush was Kirk Cameron from Growing Pains. I had his Teen Beat poster on my wall and practiced french kissing daily …”
________________________________

Um, maybe a little too much information there. You can see now why I twitched and cringed a little every time I saw that red “New Mail” signal. And I couldn’t just delete the stuff; buried in the dreck was information about one-act play festivals and upcoming playgroup dates.

So if you receive emails babbling about the haunting complexity of Kirk Cameron’s dialogue in a play with little hams, now you know why.

##

Cue the Killer Robots

It's Sunday afternoon, Ron and Benny are napping, and I'm in my home office, trying to write.

I'm trudging through the second revision of my first novel, a science fiction story. Originally named "The Wanderers" (the word "planet" Greek for "wanderer"), it is now titled "The Secret Soldiers."

The Secret Soldiers are, of course, 10,000 killer robots chasing an accused criminal named Rodney Jackson. The robots were just a neat sidenote in the original draft, but their numbers grow with every revision, and now the damn things are beeping madly all over this latest draft.

I'm almost afraid to tell people I'm doing this, since the most common (and rational) response would be "You're still messing with that thing? Get a life -- you wrote it three years ago!" Well, yeah, I know.

The thing is, I'd like to send it to some book agents, and "Secret Soldiers" is nowhere near ready for that. First of all, it's too short: 70:000 words. It needs to be at least 10,000 words longer, and unless I want to include a list of names for all 10,000 killer robots, that means I have to write.

And for me, adding 10,000 words isn't as simple as typing up 40 more pages and calling it a day. When I did the first revision on this novel, then a 50,000-word draft, I cut 5,000 words out, then wrote 25,000 more. Gives me a headache just thinking about it. I added some new scenes between Ares (my villain) and Zodiac (Earth's Supreme Chairman, don't ask). Then I gave my heroine a 20-page stop at the planet Saturn ("the slum of the Solar System").

That's another reason I don't talk about this novel to people -- it makes me sound like a complete nutcase.

Anyway, I'm determined to send it out to some agents who claim to like this sort of thing. But I need to transform these messy pages into a polished, 80,000-word manuscript. (God, just thinking about these numbers makes my head hurt.)

It all sounds slightly insane, but it's got to be easier than reading the next book on my Military History Reading List (remember that?): "The Origins of War," by Donald Kagan.

##

Ooh ooh ... eee eee ... EEEK!

I hosted playgroup this morning and I’m still reeling. I spent Sunday grocery shopping and cleaning the house from top to bottom. A protesting Ron scoured the bathroom, dusted off ceiling cobwebs and scrubbed crayon marks off walls. Benny trotted back and forth between us, puzzled by the sudden activity.

But I don’t regret a second of it. Five toddlers and their mothers swarmed over this house like a plague of locusts. There wasn’t a square inch left unused or uninspected. They ate all the muffins and cookies by 10 a.m., so I brought out Goldfish crackers and little frozen quiches.

One mother brought a frozen pizza (thank god) and I added two French bread pizzas for lunch. Those disappeared, so I baked some chicken tenders. When the last mother departed at 1 p.m., only a few graham cracker crumbs remained.

The horde quickly spread from the living room to the dining room, kitchen and office. Two kids crawled under the dining table, one tried to climb Callisto’s cat perch in the office, and another tossed empty plastic pop bottles around the kitchen, Two more found Benny’s car bed and jumped on it in wonder and delight.

Benny handled it pretty well. I’d hidden his baby doll and his 1,000 matchbox cars ahead of time, so he was OK. But I hadn’t counted on OTHER kids’ toys. One little boy (let’s call him Nutty) brought a toy guitar. Ben chased Nutty all over the house, trying to get the guitar, while Nutty howled.

Nutty always brings some weird comfort item to playgroup -- Iast week it was a scratched-up Monkees CD. Mickey Dolenz apparently screams in one song, so Nutty went around making monkey sounds and shrieking: "Ooh ooh ... eee eee ... EEEK!" Swear to God.

Anyway, while I was passing around quiches, Nutty got distracted and Benny nabbed the guitar. Nutty shrieked, Benny cried. I took the guitar from Benny and suggested to Nutty’s mom that she hide it somewhere. She stuck it under the coats in the bedroom, which meant that six toddlers ended up there, trying to climb the queen-sized bed. Bored with that, some started opening dresser drawers.

Unfortunately, it didn't stop there. Nutty’s mom kept slipping him the guitar on the sly. Benny would always find out, so I’d have to abandon my hosting duties to break up guitar fights. Nutty’s mom would hide the guitar again until next time.

Meanwhile the other mothers were looking around (at pictures, bookshelves, bulletin boards items stuck to the refrigerator) and loving everything they saw. So I’m fielding questions like:

“Who took your wedding picture? It looks like a magazine spread!”

“You have books on Japan? When were you there?”

“Look at this clipping on the fridge! Did your husband write this column on Thomas the Tank Engine? Kheegann LOVES Thomas!”

“What a great toddler bed! Does Benny stay in it? How do you keep him in it? Has he ever fallen out? Where’d you get the bedding? Do you regret not hiding the bed in the basement and telling people that Benny sleeps on the floor?”

It was a little maddening, but I couldn’t get upset, because these mothers were obviously so nice and well-meaning. They all have their own lovely homes, by the way, although I gotta say, as a guest I do resist the urge to follow them around and say, “What lovely lamps! Did you get them at Pier One? I saw similar ones at Pier One, but they were short and silver instead of tall and gold …”

After everyone left, I broke a big rule of mine and napped with Benny in his car bed. We were both pretty wiped out. Thank heavens I only host playgroup a few times a year.

###

The Playgroup Empire Strikes Back

Episode XXVI: An Old Controversy


It is a dark time
for the Playgroup’s
Rebel Alliance. Previous
attempts to move the meeting day
from Wednesday have been repulsed
by the evil Galactic Mother’s Empire.

But the Rebel Mothers, strengthened by
a mighty host of squeaky toddlers, have launched
a counterattack by email. Will the Rebel’s
democratic system triumph over the iron fist of tradition?


_______________________________

To: Playgroup
From: Princess Leia
Subject: Down With the Imperialist System!

I think we have a pretty good idea of the playgroup days now. Friday turned out to be the favorite with seven votes (Anne L.,Anne R., Lynn, Jenie, Kathy, Janice, Jenny). Monday came in second with six votes (Anne L., Anne R., Victoria, Amy, Kathy, Elizabeth). Wednesday had five votes, Thursday had three and Tuesday had two.

I think if we alternate Mondays and Fridays we should accommodate everyone for at least one of the days.

Leia

_________________________________

I’m not sure why Leia listed the victorious names. Those who voted for Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday weren’t worthy of mention. Anne L., Anne R. and Kathy have obviously established a power base with an eye toward world domination. I assume we peons should display proper obeisance at the next meeting.

The new schedule is just nuts. It took me 20 minutes to record the names and dates into my new Franklin planner. I think I need a secretary. Most weeks we end up with two playdates, which means a steady stream of emails from hosting mothers harping about RSVPs so they know how many muffins to bake.

Also, Ron and I had scheduled a vacation for my assigned date in March, which apparently wrecked everybody’s life and required a dozen more emails and frantic swapping.

Advice to new mothers: If you decide to join a playgroup, choose a dictatorship. Don't worry if the Playgroup Empress demands handwritten RSVPs and soy-enriched Cheerios. Count yourself lucky.

Stalking the Wild Compy

In today’s press-one-if-you-hate-phone-menus world, we’d all like a little more personal attention. But be careful what you wish for. Sometimes problems just shouldn’t be solved and the customer isn’t always right.

My problem was simple; I needed some teeny mailing labels --Avery 6527, for return addresses. After writing my family’s address for the zillionth time, I was getting a little hysterical. So I walked into my local computer store. (Let’s call it CompNation, or maybe CompUniverse. Comp-Fifth Dimension?)

Red-shirted Compys circled us instantly: Hmmm … labels, you say? For return addresses? What about these giant labels for dot-matrix printers? Oh, you need tiny labels for an ink-jet printer? Wait here.

So I waited by the customer service desk, melting snow running down my neck, Benny squirming in the shopping cart. I fended off waves of Compy salespeople and Benny played with toner cartridge brochures. Our chosen saleswoman returned.

“Those labels are on back order,” she said. “But Sean’s looking into it. Just wait a few minutes.”

Then she ducked behind the service desk, put on a puffy coat and LEFT THE STORE.

We waited. Benny abandoned the brochures and started tugging at a PDA display. Two Compys approached, asking if I needed help.

“Oh no,” I said. “Sean is helping me.”

The two men looked confused. “We don’t have anyone named Sean. Who was helping you?”

“I don’t remember,” I said, feeling stupid. “She … uh … left.”

“She left the sales floor?”

“No. She left the store.”

The salesmen looked baffled. Benny shrieked and lunged for a robotic dog on display. “Do you mean …” one asked, looking around and lowering his voice. “Sean In The Back?”

“Sure,” I said recklessly.

The men conferred and left hastily, and we waited. Benny lost interest in the robots and started going through my wallet. Finally Sean In The Back appeared, wearing a snappy tie and a “I could be running Cray supercomputers” expression. He led us through an “Employees Only” door and into a cubicle maze.

I stood by his desk, hands clenched on my shopping cart. Sean pounded furiously on his keyboard. Benny pulled inspirational sales posters off the wall.

“I can give you 8,000 by Tuesday,” Sean said.

“EIGHT THOUSAND LABELS!” I squawked. Office workers popped up around us like prairie dogs.

“I can get you a good deal on that. Or you can get 2,000 for $10.79.”

“Fine,” I said.

So we waited. Geologic ages passed. Glaciers advanced and retreated. Lunchtime approached. Benny’s moans increased as he listed every food product he could name: cheese, meat, peas, cake, Ruffles. Sean hunched further over his keyboard, fingers flying. A grandmotherly lady wandered by and gave us pretzels.

“Our usual vendor doesn’t carry those labels,” Sean said finally. “I’ll go with someone else.”

We waited. Tap tap tap. Sean requested a credit card and drivers license. Tap tap tap. Sean peered at the screen, frowning, then picked up the phone.

“Jasper? Sean here at CompNation. Listen, I’ve got an order 9847B here with a GR reference prefix. The computer won’t let me enter the product registration number without an order equation and the square root of pi. Can I bypass all that and just type in the VST code?”

Jasper didn’t know, but he apparently had some handy tips, because Sean pulled down a hefty reference tome. Tap tap tap went the keyboard. Rustle rustle went the pages. Benny had finished his pretzels and was trying to launch himself out of the shopping cart.

Finally, Sean turned to me with a smile of triumph. “The labels will arrive by Tuesday at the latest,” he said proudly.

“Do I pick them up here?” I asked.

“Oh no,” he said smugly. “They will be delivered to your home.”

“How did you get my – oh.” I hated to say it. “Sorry, Sean, but our real address is on the back of the license. The one on the front is no good.”

Sean looked crushed. More frantic typing and another quick call to Jasper about canceling an order 9487B. “Perhaps you’d like to walk around the store a bit,” he said, eyeing Benny, who sat slumped over the shopping cart seat, a portrait in despair.

“No,” I said firmly. “We’ve been here an hour already.”

Sean grunted and returned to tapping and rustling. Finally, he handed me a three-page receipt.

“You said the labels were $10.97, right?” I said.

“Yes, plus taxes and shipping,” Sean said crisply.

“How much is that?”

“Well, with a six percent sales tax …” Sean gave me a look inviting me to pipe up with my own figure. I just glared. “That’s 11.63,” he finally said.

“And shipping?”

“Not sure. It varies. I’d need to check.”

“We’ll wait.”

Sean reluctantly turned back to the computer and mumbled, “Eight-fifty.”

“I’m paying EIGHT DOLLARS to ship 10 dollars worth of labels? I’m paying $20 total?”

Which adds up to one cent per label, my husband said after a giant box arrived on Tuesday. Inside was a large quantity of balled-up paper and a thin blue envelope.

So now I have 2,000 return address labels. I use them for envelopes, file folders and photo albums. I draw trains on them and give them to Benny as stickers. I use them as bookmarks, message pads, bandages and lint brushes. I'm ready to paint the labels pink and line the bathroom cabinets with them. If Ron sees me handwrite a return address before 2020, he'll probably divorce me.

#

Short and Not-So-Sweet

[BabySpace is back! Here are few vignettes to bridge the gap to February.]



** Somebody told me about a joke going around Canada -- they were worried I'd be offended. It's a game really. You sit around in a busy public space and watch women. (It's not kinky, I promise.) The name of the game: "Midwest or Lesbian?" I died laughing.


** Benny went to a New Year's party with us and obligingly went to sleep in a guest bedroom. When I checked on him at 11:30, he was awake, so I asked if he'd like to join the party. He sat up and excitedly asked, "Party?" Then he grabbed his little paper party hat and ran for the bedroom door. He watched the ball drop with the rest of the party and then we brought him home. He's still wearing the hat today.

** I get nervous when people suddenly decide I'm the soul mate they've been looking for. That's happened once or twice at Benny's playgroup. One mother keeps coming up with the craziest things for us to do, like "Let's go to the grocery store together!"

I'm serious. I can't imagine a more annoying prospect; Benny and I have a very set grocery routine, involving cheese slices from the deli, a shopping cart that looks like a car and small bags from the snack aisle for Benny to smush. Now, how am I supposed to work another mother and her cranky kid into that?

Another mother's schemes involve ideas for our monthly girl's nights out; her last one was a visit to a paint-your-own-pottery place. Frankly, my idea of a girl's night out involves pottery only if said pottery contains copious amounts of gin. This mother hosted a cookie exchange in December that I carefully missed.

##

Doormats Unite!

I had to edit a friend's 10-minute play today. She was having it read tonight, so I had to hurry. So I slashed away, sick as a dog, coughing desperately, with Benny on my lap humming the tune to "Jakers!"

I don't want you thinking I go around running down people's work, because I don't, but this is a really bad play. This gal writes the dullest dialogue on the planet and still manages to get stage readings and become a Force in the local playwriting world. I just don't get it.

This particular opus, her latest, is called "Roadside Shrine" (actually a good title). It's about two men who died in a car crash and their ghosts appear at the roadside memorial.

It's a decent premise, and I couldn't say no to reviewing the script, because so many people have helped and supported me. But this means I read 13 pages of:

TERESA
If only I’d been there ... I could’ve stopped you from
drinking so much ... like I always did.

STEVE
Tell her the damn truth!

GARY
No.

STEVE
Tell her about our girl.

GARY
Shut up! She wasn’t YOUR girl.

TERESA
What’s he talking about, Gary?

STEVE
Why don’t you tell her about Susan, Gare?

TERESA
Gary. what’s he talking about?

GARY
Nothing.


As I said, an interesting premise, but with flat stereotypes as characters. Men are lusty beasts and women are either doormats or whores. Which would STILL be okay ("Doormats unite and rise up against your oppressors!"), if the dialogue was better.

SIgh. Time for Benny and I to take our medicine and go to sleep

##

The Grinch column that won't get Ron fired

[This entry appeared as a column in the Business Review newspapers. It's a takeoff on a newspaper memo I found when Ron was cleaning out his files at home. I am indebted to EO-Chicago, an entrepreneur's organization, for the new material. This crowd used to be WEO and YEO (don't ask) and now calls itself just plain EO. It's a branding move that they explore vividly on their web site yeochicago.org. The branding FAQ is especially good for laughs. And yes, one of their core values used to be "sexy-hot."]

To: All Employees, Mr. Grinch Inc.
From: Cindy Lou Who, President

Grinchy Greetings!

As company president and chair of the Grinch Branding Task Force (Special Operations Unit), I am proud to announce an exciting new initiative to replace last year’s “Let’s All Be Green and Weird” campaign.

Remember, we cannot hope to convince customers of Mr. Grinch’s change of heart (yes, it really did grow three sizes that day!) if our own people continue to shriek in horror whenever he visits our corporate offices. Thus, we have created a new way to present our brand message in a sparkling, spellbinding fashion (see figure 34XY9 and spreadsheet RM450).

We will begin with 27 meetings with 4.5 employees each during the course of a week. At these meetings I will provide a brief slide presentation (see “spellbinding,” above and offer each employee a happy Grinch mask and fuzzy green vest.

The new brand message, or “vision” if you will, is particularly powerful because it has both an internal and an external purpose. Internally, it deepens our influence and impact on each other. Externally, this vision will empower us to expand our influence on the world. We can now channel our collective focus, energy and resources on building one powerful external brand. Next step: world domination!

Vital to developing any branding initiative is an intuitive grasp of Mr. Grinch’s core values. Such values inspire the instant sense of kinship and trust you feel when you meet another member of this organization. (Needless to say, hiding in broom closets should no longer be necessary.)

OUR 2006 CORE VALUES

Boldly Go!

Roast Beast

Cool

The more insightful among you will see the pivotal changes made to the 2005 Core Values. We shortened “Sexy-Cool” to “Cool” and changed “Free Sleigh Rides!” to “Boldly Go!”

All these changes were made after copious feedback requiring thousands of man hours. However, lively dialogue with employees on branding issues remains our most precious resource. We now offer a quick example of appropriate and inappropriate dialogue:

APPROPRIATE DIALOGUE

Thoughtful Employee:
How can we be sure that the branding initiative will not diffuse or confuse who we are as an organization?

Empathetic Manager:
We all love and value this organization. Our goal is not to change who we are, but rather, to more accurately express who we are today and provide a platform to increase our reach, influence and value to members moving forward.

TE: I worry that this initiative will threaten our core promise and the brand recognition/value that we have already established. Seriously, it keeps me up at night.

EM: This evolution in no way changes our core member promise to not keep Christmas from coming. This brand simply opens up a new dimension in which Whoville and the Grinch can pursue other avenues to revenue enhancement.

TE: Thank heavens for this meeting. I feel more serene and confident regarding my part in the company’s future.

INAPPROPRIATE DIALOGUE

Apathetic Employee:
Why do you keep making us come to stupid meetings when we have work to do?

Testy Manager:
You think you’re suffering? I have to brainstorm kicky initiatives while the special ops group rappels down walls with bumper stickers in their teeth.

AE: When are we gonna talk about my raise? I gotta houseful of Whos to feed.

TM: Sit down and shut up.

IN CONCLUSION,

Please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions. Remember, if you display any curiosity about any aspect of the branding initiative and don’t immediately ask a question, a member of the special ops unit will land on your head.

Happy Holidays!

##

The Long Slog

Well, I’m back, after a two-month hiatus. October was one of those long slogs with a new worry around every corner. My writing, my house, even my military reading list fell by the wayside.

My birthday, sadly, was one of the lowest points. The whole damn month just skittered out of control, with Benny’s surgery on the first Wednesday. The next day, he came down with a horrific cold. Sunday came and clobbered me with the same cold. Benny’s recovery from both surgery and sickness was slow, but he was just well enough to have cabin fever, since he couldn’t go to daycare.

A week later, just to make a party of it, Benny got an ear infection and I caught something that made me cough uncontrollably for two days. The doctor gave me a Magic Elixir with a heavy narcotic which beat down my cough, but gave the world a slightly glazed aspect. Still with Benny now in daycare three days a week and me thoroughly drugged, life calmed down, and we all slid out of October in a calmer state of mind.

In fact, we’d all recovered enough so I could tackle National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. This crazy program challenges people to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. I’d actually “won” NaNo in 2002 by writing a science fiction novel called “The Secret Soldiers.” Back then, of course, I had no kid and no job (we’d just moved to Michigan from California), so I had time to write detailed outlines and dream up zany subplots. It was very lovingly written, actually, requiring index cards and labeled file folders.

This year was quite different. After a heady burst of enthusiasm in the first week, I wrote my novel “Escaping Olympus” through an effort of sheer will. No outlines, character sheets or maps – just a pile of reference books and a rough list of plot points. Half the time I was exhausted; the rest of the time, I would rather do anything else. Without the support of Ron, Cindy and my friend Jessica in California, I never would have finished it. I grew to loathe Max and Daphne, my main characters, and all the crazy folks they had to deal with. Now the finished draft is buried in my hard drive and I’m afraid to look at it.

December is looking much better, thankfully, and I have high hopes for 2006. Happy Holidays!

##

The Rise and Fall of a Really Long Book

Well, I just closed up Book No. 2, written by military history writer Paul “I wish I was Gibbon” Kennedy. Paul Kennedy wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” and “The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery”, among others. (1)

Described as “a work of almost Toynbeean sweep,” the Great Powers book purports to describe economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. Well, jolly. Apparently just reading a military history book isn’t tough enough, Let’s throw in some economics for fun. (2)

Kennedy is definitely an economist -- never met a list he didn’t like. When discussing 15th-century China, a lesser historian would refer to “the formidable Ming navy.” Not Kennedy – he’ll list how many combat vessels, how many floating fortresses, how many cruisers, how many private ships, etc., along with a list of the countries the private ships traded with. Bleah. Remember Clause’s “dreary pedantry?”

Kennedy lists the world’s most “broad and fertile river zones,” to no real purpose (his point was that Europe didn’t have any), just to show off. He lists North America’s biggest exports, Europe’s busiest ports and types of missile-throwing instruments. (What the hell is a trebuchet? Who cares?) (3)

Then he goes on to the Hapsburgs and turns slightly less boring, happily listing the reasons the empire failed. (sounded a little smug, too; after all, the empire survived in some form for 400 years. The U.S. should be so lucky.)

I liked some of the economic backdrop, how sheep grazing willy-nilly all over 16th-century Spain hurt that country’s ability to fight in the Netherlands. (4) He made a nice point that Wellington’s army in 1815 wasn’t much different than Lord Marlborough’s a century before. Nelson’s fleet wasn’t much more advanced technologically than Louis XIV’s. It was the military organization that changed.

But Kennedy would constantly undermine his own writing. He wanted to be both Good Cop and Bad Cop whenever he analyzed a country. Which is fine, you want to know both the positives and negatives.

However, it’s pretty discouraging to sit through tiny-type pages filled with long lists, praising the Power to the skies (such wonderful diplomacy, arms production, railroads, military development!), only to read that actually, the country has no money and a crazy leader and won’t amount to anything.

This isn’t Good Cop/Bad Cop, it’s Good Cop/Bad Sargeant, where a cop lists 43 reasons why you aren’t really in trouble and then Sarge strides in and barks, “Lock ‘im up!”

After a while, you conclude that nobody’s any good, everyone’s riddled with tragic weaknesses, and we should all go back to pounding rocks with sticks. Kennedy turned much more confident and readable with World War II, but after that I kind of gave up and watched “Hot Properties” on ABC.


________________________

FOOTNOTES

1) Gibbon wrote “The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.” I know, it was a cheap history joke. Sue me.

2) And no, I don’t know who Toynbee was. The line’s funnier if you don’t know. I see great possibilities for intellectual references. “How was that parenting article on the dangers of stickers?” a playgroup mother might ask me. “Ah,” I’ll say in awed tones, “It was a work of almost Toynbeean sweep.”

And yes, I really did read an article last week warning parents about stickers. We are a nation at risk, surely.

3) It’s some sort of medieval catapult. You can buy a desktop model at trebuchet.com for 30 bucks. Yawn. God, footnotes are boring.

4) Don’t ask me how. Read it yourself. I’m not going back in there.


#

On War: The Thrill of Victory

Barney Brodie, author of the reading guide to Clausewitz’s “On War,” said it best: “With Book Eight we are back in the realm of pure gold.”

“Book Seven was not exactly wandering in the wilderness,” he continued, “but ... Clausewitz himself seemed to be eager to hurry through it.”

I agree, except I thought all three middle chapters were wandering in the wilderness, and I nearly didn’t make it.

Clause pounds home a familiar maxim: “Destruction of the enemy is what always matters most.” If he repeats this, it’s because war leaders get distracted so much. They want to strut around, or scare the enemy or capture some sexy fortress – none of which destroys the enemy.

With “War Plans,” Clause says, we will put all the influential factors in war in a nice tidy, order. (Insert maniac Prussian cackle here.)

But Clause knows we’re scared, so he says: “When we contemplate all this, we are overcome by the fear that we shall be irresistibly dragged down to a state of dreary pendantry, and grub around the underworld of ponderous concepts.” (Exactly, Clause, where the hell was this fear in Book Six?)

In the end, he says, theory isn’t a bunch of formulas for solving problems, “nor can it mark a narrow path on which the sole solution is supposed to lie by planting a hedge of principles on either side.”

And so we begin the last sprint to the finish line. Clause talks about the gap between “absolute war” where people go to war for sound, logical reasons and conduct the war in a focused, efficient manner; and “real war” where everything goes weird and incoherent and nobody knows what’s going on.

He tries to explain why this happens, generally because people love to take the easy way out when they can. He crabs sniffily about the wimpy wars before Napoleon, where nobody went and laid waste to the enemy’s land.

War back then was instead conducted by separate, clearly defined forces and nobody was hurt too much, least of all the people in the countries engaged. It was easy to figure out what the enemy had, so a general knew exactly how many guys to send to tussle over a useless supply depot.

But once Europe became a happy land of plunder and carnage, generals could identify the enemy’s center of gravity (the army, or the capitol, or both) and destroy it.

And don’t divide your main force, for god’s sake. Clause just won’t let that go. When a “trained” general staff scatter their forces like chess pieces, when the leaders use “self-styled” expertise to get all devious for no reason, when armies separate to show “consummate skill” by reuniting two weeks later at utmost risk, well, Clause says, that’s just “idiocy.”

Clause wraps things up with one of his favorite examples, Napoleon’s doomed advance into Russia in 1812. Napoleon entered Russia with half a million men and returned to France with about 50,000. Most people think he just advanced too quickly and too far, that he took Moscow and found himself over his head. Clause doesn’t think so. He thinks Napoleon basically did things well (although he definitely could have started sooner and saved more men). Napolean thought taking Moscow would topple Russia, but he miscalculated. Czar Alexander and his people were tougher than that. So it was the PLAN that was wrong, not the execution.

And on that happy note, I closed “On War,” the first book on my terrifying military history reading list, adopted simply to get me through an awful TV season. I finished it (more or less), but it still scares me. The benefits remain to be seen.

So what’s up for book two? Nothing less than the “Rise and Fall of the Great Powers” by Paul Kennedy, which I borrowed from Andy. I really have no choice, you know. Anything’s better than Kelly Ripa in “Hope & Faith.”

##

On War: Rationing the Horse Fodder

I just wasn’t prepared.

The author of the “On War” reading guide, Bernard Brodie, was a cheery companion for the first three sections. But even Barney couldn’t drum up much enthusiasm for Book Four. He called various chapters “rather less consequential” or “not particularly memorable.” I can think of some stronger language, like “fairly gruesome,” “droolingly dull” and “coma-inducing.”

I did like one chapter on the use of the battle, where Clause gets all indignant about silly folks who don’t like to fight. They get nervous when it’s time to roll the dice. “The human spirit recoils from the decision brought about by a single blow,” he says.

So governments and commanders sought out other means of avoiding a decisive battle, finding other ways to meet their goal or abandoning it altogether. All this, Clause says, turned a battle into a kind of evil, something that a properly managed war could avoid.

“Recent history has scattered such nonsense to the winds,” Clause snaps. Warriors must not fall into the same stupid thinking again.

“We are not interested in generals who win victories without bloodshed,” he goes on. “The fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously, but not provide an excuse for gradually blunting our swords in the name of humanity. Sooner or later someone will come along with a sharp sword and hack off our arms.”

Ah, good old bloodthirsty Clause.

He makes another important point: that now victory is effective without pursuit. Troops on both sides are exhausted and disorganized after a battle. But this isn’t the time for the victor to pause. Any time lost after the battle is in the loser’s favor. He’ll get a nice rest and maybe some gruel or something. Then the victor has to go beat him all over again.

Clause constantly repeats this point throughout the book, but it’s worth hounding us about. Apparently he didn’t go far enough anyway, since I remember some Civil War generals who’d beat the enemy, then sit around and let him go.

So okay, not bad. But then I hit Book Five (“Military Forces”). Barney called the early chapters “somewhat dated.” I call them “thoroughly useless.”

Modern armies are huge, Clause writes breathlessly. Why Napolean had 200,000 men! And then he tells us in detail how to go into winter quarters.

But I’d rather read about marches, billets and horse fodder all day then deal with Book Six (“Defense”) again. Defense is the stronger form of waging war, Clause tells us, an idea that World War I generals took a little too much to heart.

Clause tells us how to defend fortresses, set up fortified positions and establish entrenched camps. We defend ourselves in the mountains, by the rivers, in the swamps, in the forests and along a cordon. Even Barney admits tiredly that in the last chapter, “Clausewitz is not at his inspired best.”

I myself skimmed much of Book Six, eager to get on to the more interesting problem of attack. Oh God, what a mistake that was. What I got is how to ATTACK a force on the river, attack an entrenched camp, attack a mountainous area, attack the enemy in swamps, forests and cordons. Barney was bored too: “This book is but the obverse of the preceding book,” he grumbled.

I liked the part about the “culminating point of victory,” which says the attacker can overshoot the point at which, if he stopped and assumed the defensive, he might still succeed. The trick is, of course, knowing when to quit.

I nearly quit myself halfway through Book Six, and again early in Book Seven. I was very discouraged, given to snapping at slow ATM machines and griping about long traffic lights. Perhaps this was a stupid idea. I’m a 21st-century housewife with a toddler to raise, not a Napoleanic general with cavalry forces to manage. Maybe I should acknowledge my culminating point and go watch “So You Think You Can Dance?”

But I slogged on, and was rewarded by Book Eight: “War Plans.”

##



 

On War: Don't Skip Lunch at A&W

There’s a reason why people read Clausewitz in the abridged version. Anybody tempted to read the middle sections of his book “On War” should lie down until the feeling goes away.

I felt rather smug as I marched steadily through Book One, nodding sagely at Clause’s big concept, “Friction in War.” “Everything in war is very simple,” Clause said, “but the simplest thing is difficult.”

Nice work, Clause. You’re a regular Oscar Wilde. (1)

But I did like that basic idea, how difficulties accumulate in war until they make victory nearly impossible. Let’s say you’re driving to Kalamazoo on Interstate 94 and decide not to stop for lunch at the Albion A&W, although you love A&Ws. You’ll be in Kazoo in an hour, you’ve got a Snickers bar under the passenger seat, you’ll make it. Easy.

But then you hit some road construction, and then traffic slows down for an accident, and then you’re stuck behind two halves of a modular home that blocks both lanes. A funny light starts blinking on your dashboard, and you instinctively slow some more. Finally, after two hours and many difficulties, you arrive in Kalamazoo and scarf down two scary hot dogs at a 7-Eleven. Austria’s defeat at Austerlitz couldn’t be more tragic.

Or, to illustrate this idea more poetically (Clause is the genius after all, not me):

“Each war is an uncharted sea, full of reefs. The commander may suspect the reefs’ existence without ever having seen them; now he has to steer past them in the dark.”

Nice. Then I strode confidently into Book Two (“The Theory of War”), full of dishy stuff about tactics and strategies and sniggering comments about geniuses. (2)

Book Three (“Strategy in General”), while not a rollicking good time, had neat stuff about boldness, perseverance, surprise, cunning and the science-fiction-sounding “Unification of Forces in Time.”

In his chapter on the strategic reserve, Clause talked about a reserve’s two purposes: to prolong and renew the action and to counter unforeseen threats. What he didn’t like was maintaining a strategic reserve for the hell of it. He mentions the Prussian loss at Jena in 1806, where the Prussians had 20,000-man reserve just over the river, but couldn’t get it to the battle in time. Meanwhile, another 25,000 men were in east and south Prussia, just sitting around, acting as another reserve. Stuff like that makes Clause crazy.

All good stuff. But then I turned to Book Four (“The Engagement”) and began an unhappy relationship that sapped my confidence and broke my heart.

_________________________________________


(1) That’s no compliment really, since I dislike the playwright Oscar Wilde. His stuff sounds witty on the surface:

“Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow.”

“Whenever people agree with me I always feel I must be wrong. “

“I can resist anything but temptation.”

But Oscar’s a big phony; anybody can write like that. Just take an idea and turn it upside down. Here’s two from me:

“My faults are my only virtues.”

“Nothing is cleaner than a dirty mind.”

Go on. Try it.

(2) Here’s a real footnote with a nice Clause quote. He was sneering at his fellow military theorists. If something couldn’t be addressed by their fancy rules, his fellows said the issue was the stuff of genius and defied all rules. Here’s Clause’s response:

“Pity the soldier who is supposed to crawl among these scraps of rules, not good enough for genius, which genius can ignore or laugh at.”

Go get ‘em, Clause.

##