Spring Non-Essentials

Even though I am married to a person that reads more books a year than anyone I know, I don't read nearly as many books as I used to. And when I say "nearly as many," it's really just another way of saying I don't read books. It's not that I don't have the desire to read, it's just that every time I try to focus on more than three pages at a time my head starts bobbing back and forth, my eyelids slam shut and I fall asleep. So instead of inducing narcolepsy by reading books, I read the newspaper every day and other things that don't require long stretches of concentration, like magazines.

Anyone that knows me at all will support my admission that I am clueless when it comes to fashion and style. I don't wear heels, I don't buy designer denim, my absence of a curvy figure omits anything low-cut and I don't wear jewelry. Despite this mild retardation when it comes to putting an outfit together that doesn't involve yoga pants and a hoodie, I do have a subscription to "In Style." But how I ended up with a subscription to "W" magazine is more than a little bewildering because there is no way in hell that I would have ever paid money for this oversized publication filled with overpriced, oftentimes hideous, crap.

Since it arrived in my mailbox and I'm always up for a good laugh, I thought I'd take a break from the sports section and see what the fashion world is up to. After I got past an ad for Marc Jacobs featuring a model standing in a toilet and a picture of a dress made from ostrich feathers, I came across an article titled "Cheat Sheet to Spring's Must-Haves." Obviously everyone has a different perspective on what defines a "must-have" and judging by W's list, some people in this world are, in fact, insane.

When I saw the prices attached to some of the items, the first thing I thought was holy shit what the fuck. And then I started thinking about the other, much cooler things (in my opinion) that could be purchased with the same amount of money:

Ralph Lauren sandal - $1,950. Ten pairs of sandals at Target and two pedicures a month for a year, including tip. Depending on where I get the pedi, there might even be enough leftover for a manicure or three.

David Yurman watch - $13,500. Three watches from Fossil. Also, two new tennis racquets for each of the three kids and one private tennis lesson a week for each kid, for a year, monthly club dues included.

Blumarine cardigan - $1,630. Five cardigans at JCrew, a sweatshirt for each of the kids, and 30 take-out lunches to be eaten at the park.

Chopard watch - $20,300. Three years of weekly piano lessons for the kids. Oh yeah, and a three-week Hawaii vacation with first-class airfare.

Bottega Veneta bag - $1,550. Twenty sessions with a personal trainer, followed by a bacon cheeseburger and an Extra Pale Ale after each workout.

Tom Ford eyewear - $420. Fifteen pairs of sunglasses at Target, none of which will cause tears to be shed when they are sat on/driven over/lost/mangled.

St. John's Couture jacket - $2,595. A jacket from REI that's actually wearable for each member of my family, and Sunday morning breakfast at Original Pancake House for a year.

Erdem dress - $5,445. Three dresses for Zoe from Mini Boden, 100 martinis for me, a few beers for Doug and maybe even some chips and salsa. And a 50" plasma TV.

J Brand shorts - $158. Three pairs of shorts at the Gap that actually fit a girl that has leg strength and doesn't have an eating disorder.

Eugenia Kim hat - $215. One baseball hat that can be worn to the bar ten times, where I will happily order onion rings and two glasses of Fat Tire on tap.

Nicole Miller top - $375. A top off of the sale rack at Banana Republic, and one year of HBO and Showtime.

Christian Louboutin bootie - $1,595. Six pairs of new shoes for each of the kids. Well, eight pair for Zoe because she's a girl.

Clinique All About Eyes Serum - $25.50. Okay, this one actually makes sense. In fact, I might be buying it in bulk.

Clean 'Em Up!

Even before the economy started tanking, my kids were aware of the fact that not everyone in the world is financially content and fortunate enough to have a warm home with fresh fruit in the refrigerator and cookies in the pantry. More specifically, they know that there are certain intersections in the Minneapolis area that seem to be occupied 24-hours-a-day by someone holding a poorly made cardboard sign that often includes words like "homeless, out of work, needs money, hungry" and "broke."

Nowadays, it seems that more and more corners are being occupied and some of these intersections are located in places where it's not exactly convenient to throw cash out the window. Besides, if I said goodbye to $10 every time I saw a cardboard sign, pretty soon I'd need a cardboard sign of my own.

When Zach was little, he suggested that since these people seemed so hungry maybe we should give them a turkey sandwich and a bag of chips instead of cash. That way they would have something to eat without having to take a trip to the grocery store. I tried to explain to him that these guys just preferred the cash because they might not want a turkey sandwich for lunch. He said oh yeah, they might want ham.

Since everyone in our family uses a Sonicare toothbrush, all of the toothbrushes that are sent home from the dentist or school end up in a designated guest toothbrush drawer (please, don't laugh at me). When Zoe brought one home from school a couple days ago, I noticed that we had accumulated way more toothbrushes in this drawer than we would ever have guests, but it seemed pretty wasteful to just throw them away. That's when I got a brilliant idea: I should put together a few personal hygiene bags, keep them in the car and give them to the homeless! The kit would include a toothbrush, a travel size tube of toothpaste, a small bar of soap, and maybe a comb. After all, I always feel better after I brush my teeth, everyone loves a new toothbrush and I'll bet these guys would really appreciate a bar of soap.

I was pretty excited about my creative idea and thought that everyone else in my family would be too. When I mentioned it to them, though, they didn't think it was a very good idea. In fact, they thought it was pretty stupid and I think the boys were kind of afraid of what would happen if we were to pull up to a stoplight, open the window, and watch as a penniless guy opened up a bag and instead of finding cash discovered a bar of Ivory and a tube of Crest. I think their actual words were: "Holy crap is that ever dumb. Our car will be pelted with toothbrushes."

Suddenly those turkey sandwiches don't sound like that bad of an idea, especially if I start wrapping those sandwiches in $5 bills. And I know that Goodwill won't accept fun things like a Sit & Spin, but does anyone know if they will accept new toothbrushes, still in their original packaging?

Jr High Choir Attire

When Zach brought home all of the information from his various classes at the beginning of the school year, I made a list of all the supplies needed for each class. In addition to the standard items like notebooks, folders and pencils, he needed colored pencils, a flash drive, a TI30 calculator, graph paper and combination locks. Surprisingly, though, the class requiring the most expensive supplies turned out to be choir.

There are three choir concerts during the school year and the boys are required to wear black pants, a white dress shirt, a tie and dress shoes to these concerts. Because he plays in several piano recitals each year, Zach is unlucky enough to already own a pair of dress shoes, which is lucky for me since I hate shoe shopping for my boys and the choir teacher has pointed out no fewer than half-a-dozen times that no tennis shoes are allowed. I headed to Target to find the shirt and pants and judging by the depleted stock of size 14 black pants and XL white shirts, I was not the only one spending over $50 on two articles of clothing that would be worn exactly three times before they were outgrown.

Imagine my surprise when the rehearsals for the second concert started and Zach brought me a note from the choir teacher saying that gee, the kids are working really hard and learning new songs for the Disney-themed concert and gosh, wouldn't it be fun and wacky if the kids all wore matching t-shirts with a Disney logo on them for the low price of $10? I thought, um, of course it wouldn't. I have a perfectly good pair of almost-new black pants and a white shirt hanging in the kid's closet specifically for choir concerts. I even ironed goddammit!

Assuming it would be useless for me to complain, I filled out the t-shirt order form, wrote out the check using my 24-pt. "I'm Annoyed" font and handed it to Zach. It was then that I noticed that I could be generous and offer to pay for one, two, or even more shirts for other kids who may not have the financial means to purchase an extra shirt at this time. Okay, so if the school thought that some families might be financially inconvenienced by having to purchase a $10 t-shirt after they've already bought the previously required dress pants, shirt and dress shoes, wouldn't a person with as little as 25% brain function think maybe the matching $10 t-shirt idea is stupid? I guess this says a lot about his choir teacher.

I didn't offer to pay for any additional shirts because I was hoping that if enough kids didn't turn in their order forms and money maybe they would chuck the whole idea into the incinerator and just let the kids wear whatever they already owned. Unfortunately this did not happen and Zach brought the shirt home on Tuesday, the day of the concert:

After the concert I asked Zach what he wanted to do with this fine piece of blue apparel and he said to just throw it away, but I'm thinking that maybe I'll add it to the same pile that my dog shit-stained Gap sweats are in. I'm also prepared to shop for another dress shirt and pair of black pants for the May concert since, due to Zach's growth spurt, I'm pretty sure he's outgrown the one-time-worn pants hanging in his closet. Oh, and if I haven't mentioned this before, I am ready for this school year to be over.

It's Getting Out of Hand

Ten years from now my memories of this school year won't be "Oh, that's the year Zoe started kindergarten" or "That was Charlie's last year of elementary school." It will be "Fucking-Ay. That was the year that Zach worked his ass off and did 873 science projects."

Believe it or not, my son is working on another science project. This one, though, is going to require a little bit of involvement from his dad. No, Doug will not be shopping at JoAnn for felt and styrofoam balls and surprisingly enough I would gladly welcome a project that required such accessible, inexpensive and realistic science project materials.

This is a group project with the end result being an eight-minute presentation about the weather. Is the presentation performed in the classroom, like a skit? Oh no, because that would be convenient and age-appropriate. This presentation has to be filmed with a video camera (preferably high-def), transferred to a hard drive, edited together in a creative way and it should be exactly eight minutes long and turned in on a DVD or other high-quality format. They must also include a commercial, that they have to write and perform, for a product or service that benefits the environment or is in some way related to Earth Day.

Although this project was assigned a month ago, Zach's group is still only about 85% done. Since they all need to participate and they aren't provided with any time in class to meet as a group, they need to get together in the evenings or on weekends. Finding one night that five 13-year-olds are all available and able to get together is a tough task. Finding several nights has been almost impossible, specifically for one boy named Kevin that for some reason thinks that going skiing with his friends at the last minute instead of working on a science project is more fun.

Since Doug is familiar with editing software he tapped into his patience and, after transferring the footage to our hard drive, spent some time in front of the computer showing Zach how to edit it together to create a movie that makes sense and is worthy of an A. After Zach spent over three hours editing on Thursday night, the movie was complete and Doug transferred it to a DVD and a flash drive.

This might make me sound boring and old-fashioned, or maybe I'm being hyper-sensitive to the impact that the economy has had on some families, but it seems like this project could have been completed for a few thousand dollars less, and have been just as educational, with a presentation performed in class including a couple props and some charts made on poster board. It makes me wonder: was the main goal to teach the kids about interpreting weather reports and how to work together as a group, or was it to find out whose parents have spent the most money at Best Buy? After reviewing the scoring system, I have come to the conclusion that a good grade will only be possible if you have a high quality video camera, a fairly new computer with decent movie editing software, blank DVD's or a large storage flash drive and group members that don't have any other weeknight or weekend activities that require any time.

After a few productive meetings, Zach's group has made a surprising amount of progress. They designed some elaborate weather chart backdrops on Powerpoint and incorporated the weather channel on the Wii, both of which are displayed in the background on giant TV screens. Their time logs are completed, the script will be written over the weekend by Kevin (if he doesn't go skiing instead) and as long as there aren't any misplaced DVD's and hard drive failures, everything should be completed on time.

One benefit that has come out of this project is that Zach realizes that he is very lucky. Not only do his parents shop at Best Buy, but he also has a dad that is a creative director, knows how to edit film and feels immense amounts of sympathy for a kid that has spent virtually every weekend of the school year working on one science project after another. He has also learned that there are always members of a group that won't hesitate to slack off and do the bare minimum, that PC's suck and using Powerpoint on a Mac is the only way to go and that his mom doesn't love having three teenage girls talking about their hair and giggling in the basement on Valentine's Day, even though she hates the holiday anyway.

But has he learned anything new about the weather and how to interpret a weather report? I don't think that really matters, since we all know the weather forecast is wrong 95% of the time anyway.