College Visiting Better than Bearable

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College visiting can be better than bearable with only a modicum of advance planning. Keeping the basics managed—hunger, timing and minimizing embarrassing moments – can turn an average college trip into one that’s a lot of fun and memorable for all the right reasons.

1. Bring Snacks! Sure, you thought once your kids were out of preschool you would no longer be packing snacks for car trips. Well, when you’re running late for the college tour, or are lost in a new city, or stuck in traffic, it’s great to be able to brighten the mood with a quick snack. Find a small cooler and pack a few items that will last if they end up in the car overnight—apples, nuts, pretzels and definitely a few water bottles.

2. Heading into a new city with unknown traffic patterns is probably not a good time to have you student driver practice driving.

3. Trust the admissions office directions over your GPS—you never know when there’s a Grand Prix in town that the admissions office will know to direct you around while your faithful GPS will blindly lead you directly into traffic.

4. Yet don’t always trust the admissions office on parking. Generally their parking lot is closest, but also priciest. Street parking can be an option, but see how long the meters last. Getting a ticket while college visiting is probably not going to improve the mood in the car.

5. Remember that 5 minutes early is on time. It takes time to get through all the stoplights, it takes time to park, it takes time to ask directions to the admissions office, it takes time to walk. Add in plenty of time and keep a book handy if you arrive early.

6. Note taking may seem a bit excessive, but after seeing even three schools, the trips and tips will start to blend. Keep a small notebook and pen visible just in case your student has the urge to reach for it during the info session.

7. While everyone suggests eating on campus and talking to students to get the vibe, sometimes it’s easier to eat on campus and eavesdrop on the nearby diners. Not only may your child find it less embarrassing, you also may hear more honest commentary.

8. Suggest that your student create a playlist in advance and then let him listen to it in lieu of bombarding him with “so what did you think of that school?”

9. Most importantly—plan time to do other things beyond visiting colleges—see how many ice cream stands you can discover and enjoy, go up the Washington Monument (well, once it’s repaired), find a corn maze to visit. Have fun!

And a couple of suggestions to pass on to your students:

• Ask your student tour guide where else he or she applied to college whether you’re still looking to expand your colleges under consideration or you simply need external validation of your choices.
• Even if the reason you went to visit Macalester was because you had never been to Minnesota, you don’t need to put that on your application.

Pirate Guidelines for Parents of Students Adrift Among College Applications

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As I stepped into the unknown (at least to me) territory of guiding a high school senior through the college application process, I felt like Elizabeth Turner as she boarded the Black Pearl—the college application process was more about guidelines than rules. I was fortunate enough to be offered two guidelines from people who had previously boarded the college convoy. I pass both along here to anyone else who faces, with perhaps some trepidation, the prospect of figuring out the college application process from a parent’s perspective.

First, as a parent, you can take on multiple roles in the college process. At one end of the spectrum a parent can sit back and let the student manage everything, which can be either completely freeing or entirely impossible. At the other end the mother so excessively edits her child’s essays that the essays beautifully reflect the views and perspective of a perimenopausal woman trying to recapture her youth. Ideally I hoped to find a role somewhere in the middle of this tightrope, or as it sometimes feels, a pirate's plank, presuming of course that I could keep my balance.

A good friend, who was a recent empty nester with 3 children successfully enrolled in college, suggested taking on the role of an administrator. As she described it, an administrator can type, mail applications, edit grammar, maintain critical calendar reminders, even chauffeur to college visits. An administrator does not write essays, suggest topics, select colleges, compare prospective college experiences or write questions for school visits. And as my friend clearly stated, an administrator has pre-determined work hours. Work hours may be negotiated, but generally should be set in advance, so if the student would like to have an essay reviewed, said essay would need to be completed before 11pm on the date the application is due. As with any good administrator/employer relationship, the job requirements should be negotiated in advance. Only time and my children will tell whether I am successful in meeting my targeted goals.

The second piece of advice came from a college admissions officer trying to win over the students in attendance. He suggested that college discussions between parents and students be limited to 5 to 7 pm on Sunday. During that time parents could ask any questions on their minds and offer their well-intended advice on the college application process. The remainder of the week, the college application process would be off limits for family conversations.

As with the first suggestion, only time and my children will tell how well I adhere to this rule. Yes, like the Pirates’ Code these are more guidelines than actual rules. Welcome aboard the College Convoy, Miss Turner.

A Novice Attempts to Help a Loon in Distress

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“You’ll want to use a fishing net.”
“A fishing net, like a butterfly net?”
“Not quite. Let’s see you could use a towel. You’ll want to grab gently yet securely.”
Apparently the bird rehabilitator on the other end of the phone presumed, quite correctly, that if I didn’t know what a fishing net was, then I didn’t own one.
“Won’t he bite?”
“Yes, he’ll definitely try to bite you which is why you’ll need to be careful.”

Here I was thinking I was being environmentally responsible by calling a local bird rehabilitator after spotting a loon in distress. I suppose that deep down I was hoping to hand off the problem to someone else, as in “I did my part, now it’s someone else’s problem.” Sometimes it’s good not to be let off the hook, or out of the net as it were. My husband and I decided to give it a try. By ‘it’ I mean canoe up to a large loon in distress, reach overboard while keeping the canoe balanced, grabbed the loon quickly and firmly without getting bitten and then, then do what? I needed to call the rehabilitator back.

“Okay, so supposing we are able to grab the loon, then what do we do?”
“Hold on to him, I should be able to get there in 20 or 30 minutes.”
“Hold him for 30 minutes? Won’t that be difficult?”
“Well you can put him in a crate like for a dog.”
“Oh okay,”

I hung up before I realized that we didn’t own a dog and didn’t have a dog crate on hand either. A recycling bin would have to do. I grabbed the recycling bin from the garage and contemplated its size. Would a loon fit in it? Seemed like maybe, although his head would surely stick out. And what in the world would we use for a cover? Maybe my husband could hold a towel over the top. I suggested as much to him.

“You want me to do what? “
“Grab a loon after I paddle up next to it, put it in this recycling bin and hold a towel over it while I paddle back to the dock.”

I have no idea why he agreed to this endeavor, but he did. We decided he should wear work gloves and long sleeves. He donned a plaid flannel shirt and we both put on life jackets. I know how precarious moving around in a canoe can be let alone leaning out over the side of a canoe to grab a loon. It was likely that more than the loon would be swimming in the lake before we were through.

I swiftly paddled quite close to the loon. We could see that he looked oddly asymmetrical. Too much of the white of his breast was showing on one side. Yet we couldn’t quite tell whether his wing was broken, or caught by fishing line or something else. I moved in closer. Even in distress, the loon was going to do his best to stay clear of the canoe bearing down on him with the large plaid human in the bow. I paddled harder. We were within several feet of him—clearly he was ailing as he didn’t dive. My husband reached out. The loon disappeared. Distress or no, taking his chances by submerging was better than being grabbed by whatever that was leaning over the gunwale toward him.

We peered around and found where he had resurfaced.

“We should try again, don’t you think?”

Perhaps more to convince ourselves that we had given it our best try than because we had confidence in our success, I paddled toward the loon again. This time he didn’t wait so long. He dove and resurfaced a good 50 feet away.

“I don’t think it’s going to work.”
“Agreed, let’s head back.”

Maybe it was best for all involved as I’m not sure what me, my husband or the loon would have done were we all in the canoe together. More likely than not, we would all be in the lake together. Capturing a loon for rehabilitation is probably best learned with an expert in person, rather than over the phone.

An Amazing Race- Grocery Style

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“You ladies have been randomly chosen…” Was that man with the balloons talking to me? Was I in a grocery store or at Disney World?

My first visit to the new Stop and Shop was rather disconcerting with the amount of attention lavished upon all of the shoppers as we wandered the brightly shining aisles attempting to find a favorite brand of cocoa or dried apricots. Even before I entered the store, I was greeted not by one or even two friendly employees, but by a veritable cheering line—not much different than the finale of the reality show The Amazing Race without having raced around the world first. And like a race around the world, we had our own Passport—this one issued by Stop and Shop, not the United States government. In lieu of visiting exotic foreign destinations, we stopped by tables laden with carrots and ranch dressing or shrimp with cocktail sauce or fresh rotisserie chicken. At each station our passport was stamped in pursuit of the ultimate prize—a reusable grocery bag. We weren’t going to win a million dollars in this race, but then again we had only come to purchase a few groceries and see the new store.

I had brought in plastic bags to recycle and when I didn’t see a recycle bin by the entrance, I asked one of the freshly scrubbed employees where the plastic bags could be recycled. Before I even finished my question, she had efficiently extracted the bags from my grip and cheerily offered to deposit them for me. Guess I would have to wait for my next visit to find where the bin was hidden.

In every aisle a shining, smiling employee was posted to assist in all manner of needs—finding an item was only the beginning of the magic these grinning employees offered. It was as if I were in a distant country that was working hard to impress the recently arrived tourists. An employee nearly snatched the shopping list from a customer as she gazed across the endless rows of cereal boxes. I honestly thought he was going to fill up her shopping cart for her. As another bent down next to me, I checked to see if my shoe was untied. Turned out she was restocking the bottom shelf.

So it was with a sense of relief of having successfully navigated the gauntlet of supportive employees that I found myself at the checkout line, my purchases being pleasantly scanned by a smiling cashier. Then came the balloon man. Holding one yellow and one purple balloon, he approached us and happily informed us that we had been randomly selected as winners. We would receive $10 for every Stop and Shop brand item purchased. Seeing as I had only run into the store to pick up a handful of groceries, I knew I was not a million dollar winner. Fortunately, though two Stop and Shop brand items had made their way from my short list to the conveyor belt. Balloons aloft, the magical moment guide led us out to the front of the store to present us with Stop and Shop gift cards and gave us the two balloons. It wasn’t a million dollar check, and our balloon man hardly resembled Phil from The Amazing Race, but yet I still felt a sense of victory at having completed my own personal grocery store competition.

Racing a Hail Storm

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Afternoon thunderstorms, the forecaster had been clear on that point. It was 8 a.m. —definitely not afternoon— why was I hearing the sound of a giant closet door being slid across the sky? And why when I turned the corner was the entire western sky darkening?

Here I was thinking how convenient that I could drop off my car and walk the 2 miles home, getting my exercise in early. Maybe I could out walk the storm; I quickened my pace.

Half way home and subtle, infrequent flecks of rain tapped against my bare arms. Another 100 yards and the taps were not so subtle—more like pellets as they cascaded off the brim of my cap. I started counting the time between lightening and thunder; 1 one thousand, 2 one thousand, 3 one thousand, 4 one – crackle, boom, BOOM! Okay that was getting close. I quickened my pace again; didn’t think that was possible, but clearly the motive was increasing.

Three quarters of the way home and it was ominously dark, yet cars hadn’t turned on their headlights. Option A, stay in the street and take a chance on not being seen by a driver; Option B, step into the poison ivy with my bare legs and endure 2 weeks of a horrendously itchy rash. In essence a life or limb choice. Then I remembered, I was still wearing sunglasses. It wasn’t as dark as I feared. I opted for the pavement.

The rain was coming down in a torrent by this point. On the plus side, I hadn’t worn a thin T and my baseball cap was decent at keeping the rain off my glasses so my vision, other than the darkness, was not obscured by rain drops.

“Ow!” The drops started stinging, and raising a racket. “Who is throwing stones?” I looked around—pea size hail with a few nickel size pieces thrown in for good measure. I thought of my open windows I had left at home and kept hustling.

Finally, I ran into the house, quickly shed my shoes, ran for the nearest open window, slid across the floor in my sodden socks, fell down hard, jumped up and slammed the window shut. I continued racing through the house, closing windows until finally I closed the last one and everything was quiet.

“Amazing how sound proof those windows seem,” I thought. Then I looked out. The rain and hail had completely subsided, the cloud had moved on and the sky brightened. Hope the mechanic could achieve better timing with my car.

Really? You Can Recycle That?

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A pizza box with a greasy liner hung out of a blue recycling bin as I walked past. Hmm, I had heard that I wasn’t supposed to recycle paper or cardboard that was contaminated with food. Would it be taken with the recycling? Or was the whole bin doomed to be passed over?

I paused to glance in the next bin—canning lids. Now there was an item that most likely is recyclable but would never go through the blue bin path to recycling in my household. I have the ultimate recycle system for canning lids—I wash them, put them on clean class jars and give them to my mother-in-law. Miraculously the glass jars return full of homemade strawberry jam—now that’s a recycling system that can’t be beat.

As I approached the next driveway, a large, grey plastic object was perched on top of the underlying contents of the bin. I stopped again—this clearly wasn’t one of my speedier walks. What was that? Upon closer inspection, I could tell it was an infant car seat. Really? Recycling an infant car seat? Not that I had any to recycle—my kids grew up in the days when we could hand down car seats and cribs—a seemingly impossibility today with the rapidly changing safety regulations. But in any case, can they really be recycled now?

I think I am a pretty thorough recycler, but clearly I am way behind if all of the items I saw filling the bins actually could be recycled—milk cartons, an easily identifiable Target shopping bag, a large clear bag stuffed with shredded paper—shredded paper yes; plastic bags, no, of that I was certain; intact cardboard boxes, more milk cartons, maybe I should be recycling them, but no juice cartons—hmm, odd distinction, or maybe no one drinks orange juice from cartons any more. A Miracle-Gro bag, Bounty paper towel plastic packaging, a plant. A plant? Oh wait, maybe that’s with the trash. I was starting to doubt that I knew anything about what could and couldn’t be recycled. A dishwasher detergent box with the metal spout intact—yes or no?

I really need to just follow a recycling truck and see what happens with all this stuff. I mean if it does belong, how in the world is it ever sorted and actually recycled? Is it? And if these items don’t belong what happens to them and everything in the bin with them? Are there people pawing through conveyor belts full of recycling stuff? Has this already been on Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe and I missed it? Clearly this would count as a dirty job. And costly too. Is it at all cost effective to put all of this in one recycling stream? I think I’ll sit on the curb and wait for the recycling truck to come by. I have some questions to ask.

Shortly After 10 pm May 1, 2011

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Shortly after 10:30 pm EDT, my iPhone buzzed with an AP breaking news tone.
“Okay, this will be another trivial news story,” I sighed as I picked up the phone. Clearly I was wrong—for once, truly breaking news that Osama bin Laden had been killed.

With iPhone in hand I immediately opened up Twitter and watched the feed continually updating. All tweets focused on the surprise forthcoming Presidential announcement and speculation.  As the president spoke these were followed by reaction, commentary and yes, humor: @TomBodett “Trump not convinced. Demands Bin Laden long-form death certificate.”

The following graph compares how my tweet feed split between tweets related to bin Laden (red line) and those not (blue line) from 7 pm on May 1 to 4 pm on May 2. I scanned back in my tweet stream. “POTUS jolts us awake with unanticipated newscast announcement” was quickly followed by people commenting on the tap-dancing of the networks as they waited for news. Within an hour, every tweet was related to the announcement. From 11 to midnight EDT my tweets scrolled quickly by, dropping off shortly after the President's TV announcement and picking up in the morning as people got back on-line.

Around 11:20 pm @Pogue apparently disembarked from a plane, and tweeted before scanning his tweet stream on an interview with Marty Cooper. The only other completely ordinary tweet that followed in the middle of the night, I actually considered directly related to the unfolding events as @hodgman retweeted @ParisHilton who was looking forward to getting back to her pets sometime after midnight east coast time.

The twitter-ether created an interactive community buzzing with personal reactions to a highly charged and momentous story as it unfolded. From humor to poignancy to patriotism to reflection, a flood of top of mind thoughts brought me close to strangers, friends I only know through twitter, newscasters whom I know, but who don’t know me—a fascinating, educated, opinionated, thoughtful, humorous, reactive group. Collectively their tweets influenced my reaction. I felt I could talk through what I was thinking and synthesize the tumult of thoughts flinging through my brain. My twitter community was far greater company than the newscasters on air trying to fill air time waiting for the President to speak, or rehashing what the President had said as they scrambled for more information.

I was put off by terms like “victory” and “celebrate”. Surely a time to reflect and be thankful an evil voice had been silenced, but I prefer to celebrate peace and hope not death and destruction. Most online shared similar sentiments even as news of people celebrating in the streets of the physical world was tweeted into our on-line community.

The Twitter-ether was alive and the Twitter community seemed to make the world a bit more interwoven and a lot smaller.