"I never think of the future. It comes soon enough."

Albert Einstein

Kids' Stuff

At times it seems that there is more stuff for kids than there are actually kids around. Where are kids these days anyway? At least, when I am out walking, I don’t see any. Mine are there, of course, busy making mud pies, getting stuck in trees, and ripping their pants.

My kids are wondering about their peers as well. There is school, of course, which keeps most kids pretty busy. But these days most children also have after school activities, at times so many that they require a personal assistant (mom) to keep track of them all.

But what about on weekends, Zoe wants to know and I give it my best effort by suggesting that maybe they are visiting their grandparents. "Well," Zoë ojects, "There are grandparents all around us…I still don’t see any children." And she has a point.

Truth is, the life of children has become much more guarded – by us, adults. Whether it is that we enroll them in extra curricular activities, study with them for their next math quiz, or take them shopping with us because leaving them at home alone would be illegal, their life has become our life.

And it’s not just parents’ lives. There are entire industries built just around children. Big money is being made by figuring out how we can keep them busy, healthy, and entertained…if not happy.

Happy, would be too easy – and usually doesn’t require much. As I said before, a bucket and a tree to climb is all it takes.

But no. Children today need to be challenged, especially when they have ambitious parents. They don’t need to run around the block playing catch, they need golf lessons, or compete for one or the other athletic competition.

Less then figuring out the ingredients to a juicy mud pie or how to built a durable fort out of sticks, they need Zoo Tycoon and Reader Rabbit. And as every parent alive in this day and age knows, true happiness only comes with a ninety minute feature presentation.

And so that’s where children are: Inside our worlds, glued to computers, consoles, TV screens, and game boys: Little hands holding tiny monitors, deftly manipulating sticks of the other kind, blank eyes staring, mouths agape.

DVDs, CD-ROMs and electronic toys strewn across the floor. All the latest blockbusters, they’ve got it, taken it, half digested, and, as it looks, regurgitated, heaved up onto the floor. Done. New stuff is needed lest blank eyes become demanding mad eyes.

And there is always more fun available for a few extra dollars – more fun so parents can provide the entertainment that will make their little ones raise at least on corner of their mouths a full eighth of an inch. What shall it be? An American Girl tea party? A new theme park? A birthday clown? What, what just what do you want, beloved child, to make me feel I am a good parent. I have so much to give, haven’t I?

Ms. Bean Birthday Fairy

It’s the day before the big day. One of the kids has made it yet another year. Her eyes are glowing and her little mouth won’t shut with all the excitement of what’s to come. Another year, another birthday, and with that another cake!!

Just two nights ago, I tried to settle for apple pancakes instead but I was shot down almost instantly…NO CAKE ??? Oh, but of course, my little Bieneken…I was just kidding, you little love bird.

Ah, the cake. I am not the greatest cook but I am much worse with baking. Cooking at least doesn’t require measuring cups. I am a generalist. I am not good with details: Anything below one pint for me is negligible. Lists of ingredients, small print, and sets of measuring spoons all make my brain go lalalala.

But I have over the years managed to master one recipe that has produced decent results. It’s a vegan recipe I got from a friend who actually is a vegan. It combines six ingredients and it doesn’t require a noisy blender, and also I get around counting eggs.

Needless to say that recipe last night was still in some box underneath four other boxes in a house 500 miles away.

So, there I was the night before the big day, and opposite from me there were two boxes of Plan B, Dr. Oethker’s Vanilla Chocolate Chip Ready Mix, politely waiting on the counter.

My level of guilt at having resorted to preservative-loaded, taste-enhanced material that probably glowed in the dark hovered at a tolerable level. As a single mom right then it was basically that or nothing (which, as I already pointed out, was not an option).

The real issue at hand was whether I would be able to do it at all, especially considering the fact that I had forgotten to buy the one additional ingredient required: butter.

Luckily, there was a ‘light’ version printed on the back of the box that suggested to substitute most of the butter with other less potent dairy products.

I took a deep breath, scraped together whatever I could find in the 100% fat department, got out a mixing bowl, and started ripping open packages (including those that were meant to stay shut).

I preheated the oven, I measured the Quark (no advanced degree in astrophysics required), I greased the cake pan…I even (minuscule little detail) warmed the scraps of butter up to room temperature by placing it over a vent.

All was under control. I felt big. It was a good feeling but it only lasted until I had pushed the cake into the oven, closed the oven trap, and saw the lumpy pile of butter still sitting there on top of the vent…or should I say slowly disappearing into the vent.

That’s when the beaten up brass ensemble of the circus with the one-eyed poodle should come into play. It’s when ‘grotesque’ remains the only word to describe what followed in a series of unfortunate details:

Semi-melted butter dumped in bubbling batter, rushed whisking of not-to-be whisked ingredients inside a burning hot cake pan, and a second attempt at closing the first act of a doomed production.

Oven trap shut. Sweat contained. Cake saved.

But the grace period only lasted fifty-five minutes. At least I did manage to extricate the cake when it was time. And for just one moment, it looked perfect like a freshly fluffed pillow.

But then in an audacious if not to say outright foolhardy attempt I decided to turn it up-side-down for extra effect. Unfortunately, only one third of the cake followed Newton’s law.

What a pitiful sight it was: My wonderful creation diminished to a sorrowful crooked pile of what looked like steaming cow dung. But great minds rebound fast, right?

I took out a spoon and in an attack of mad genius scraped what remained in the pan onto the counter, formed a ball out of it and stuck it onto the pile.

Then I got out the chocolate glaze and generously lathered every inch of that dough ball creation until all traces of disaster were sufficiently covered.

A dusting of chocolate sprinkles and a halo of candles was to ensure that nothing was going to come between me and the excited screeches of my six-year old.

Did I say nothing? But at 6am…who really gives a damn. We ended up having a lot of fun! Hurray.

The End of Discontent

The kids are in bed…all three of them. The house is dark. I am listening to Arabella (R. Strauss) while trying to keep the “z’s” and “y’s” apart as I am typing away on a German keyboard.

I am too tired to get up to make my way over to the light switch. It wouldn’t help much anyway since regardless of how much I can actually see, my left pinky will jump to the “z” when the “y” is what I really need.

I still haven’t been able to load my pictures on this computer so there will be onlz (see what I mean!) “bla” for a while. Sorry! But I hope that by February, once we will have settled into our new home, womayyle (wow, cute!!) will be back to its original format.
In the meantime, you’ll have bear with my ranting and raving to keep you entertained…

Here is a brand new thought: Capitalism sucks!

In its unabated, unbridled form it’s a far too simple concept to achieve either excellence or fairness. In fact, not only does it fall short of creating lasting greatness it also contributes to the deterioration of many aspects of our lives:

Cities are growing uncontrolled, coastlines are being eaten up by private property, industries keep producing while mountains of trash keep growing, and resources are being depleted.

But all of that is hardly anything to raise a heavy eyebrow over. I would like to venture instead into what capitalism does to us and, inevitably, what it will be to our next generation.

Smothered by products from early on we (and our children too) get used to a world that caters to our most whimsical needs. What may be a box of heated wipes in the beginning becomes the latest electronic device by the time they are seven.

Children are turned into little consumers with a well-developed ego that will predispose them to become social automatons: Human beings who will seek contentment in consumption, who will prefer quantity over quality, and who will ultimately prove to be unable to compromise. A lonely life and a meaningless one as well.

It’s something that other systems didn’t achieve in their time. While just like in any other given socio-economic order capitalism produces its share of starving children, sick children, undereducated children, abandoned children, victimized children, and child victims, children living in a capitalistic society are faced with a foe that is greater than all the others taken together: meaninglessness.

Most parents I know are trying to dampen the sweet call of consumerism in their homes. But somehow human beings are lured to consumption like a fly to a pile of steaming …uh…pig guts? That’s why we ultimately came up with the free-for-all thrill.

After all, let’s not forget, consumerism is not some godly order – we invented it because to consume is what we want. Whether it’s food, stuff, or entertainment. The acquisition of products – the more, the better – gives us a sense of achievement: We won’t die today.

But we may die sooner than we want to realize because a life based on denial is a life doomed to failure. And a society that nurtures instant gratification will ultimately leave nothing more that a pile of…garbage.

Somehow, I think, early in life children have a keen sense of what really is meaningful: Relationships, team work, and personal accomplishment. But for every attempt that parents make to keep that sense alive there is a product that will promise a cheap substitute. And just like the laws of hydrodynamics dictate, we humans will end up choosing the road of least resistance…downhill.