A Blue State Girl

It's official. North Carolina has gone for Obama. And I have moved from what was, as of yesterday, the only other state still too close to call but leaning red (that's Missouri, for those who haven't been following) to the one that leaned all the way blue for the first time since 1976.

Finally, disbelieving friends, do you believe me when I say I don't live in the Appalacia of Dorothea Lange photographs and moonshine stills defended with shotguns and raw-boned hound dogs?

After a year in Asheville, I was much less surprised by the election results than the Obama organizers sent in from sophisticated climes like Washington, D.C., and New York (home to many of those friends who still say, "You moved to North Carolina?" in a tone that suggests I am a hair's breadth away from committing child abuse for taking my son here). I had suspected all along that these poor souls who saw nothing more of Asheville than the inside of an office located next to Bojangles were under the delusion that the people pouring in to help with phone banks and canvassing and, yes, poll watching were the dedicated few liberals hiding out in our homes sandwiched between gun-toting hunters who might not have seen a moose in these parts but could bond with someone who shoots them from airplanes nonetheless.

Thus, when the news broke yesterday one of the Obama organizers in charge of us poll watchers sent us an email admitting that they had expected far more problems than they had encountered on Election Day. Indeed, during the poll watching training I heard about voting machines "incorrectly calibrated" so that a punch for Obama somehow landed in the McCain box. The New York Times ran a story in which a West Virginia voter recounted hitting the Obama box on the touch screen machine and watching his vote jump to McCain; the poll workers, he said, advised him to keep hitting his choice until, after a sufficient number of times, it stuck where he put it. We were on alert for long lines created by insufficient ballots, workers, or machines and designed to discourage voters in precincts that could be counted on to vote Democrat.

Given these dire possibilities and how hard it would be to snatch North Carolina from McCain, I fully expected to be assigned as a poll watcher to some precinct outside of Asheville, somewhere I have yet to discover that looks more like the place my L.A. friends think I moved to when I told them I was relocating to North Carolina. Instead, I was assigned to a precinct in West Asheville -- a part of town I associate with the most progressive, most hipster, most non-North Carolinian area around.

Hmm, I thought. I guess the Obama people know something I don't know.

And so I showed up at 6:15, already vigilantly looking for signs that the polls wouldn't open on time at 6:30. Workers ready? Check. Plenty of ballots? Check. Lines out the door and down the block? Um, no. Just six or eight people who had heard the same predictions of hours-long waits as I and who were also discovering the power of early voting. Turns out, I stood on line two weeks ago for a lot longer than anyone waited in this precinct on Election Day.

I took my place behind the poll workers, trying not to hover because -- despite the task I was taking on and the law degree that qualified me to do so, I really do hate confrontation -- but striving to be close enough to hear the challenges they might make to people's right to vote. Knowing that at least one of the three precinct judges had to be a Republican, I was on the lookout for that moment when I would step in, liberal legal credentials flying, Obama-issued handbook at the ready, to enforce the law.

Why was that precinct judge having such a hard time with those two students' registration? Why was the chief precinct judge spending so much time on the phone with the County Board of Elections, and what information was she giving the voters having trouble receiving their ballots?

It took me less than an hour to figure out that those students got to vote. And that chief precinct judge? She was on the phone transferring voters into our precinct when she could and encouraging those she couldn't transfer to go to their correct precinct to vote instead of casting a provisional ballot that may well not be counted. She was, in fact, so impressively doing all the right things that I told her more than once how much I admired what great work she was doing.

And what about the poll watcher credentialed by the Republican party whom I had been told to expect? She was, the Obama campaign had discovered, not qualified to challenge voters, and I was ready to pounce on her if she did. Except that she never showed up.

There was, it turned out, little for me to do except chat with the poll workers and accept their invitation to have some of the treats the precinct judges had kindly brought to keep spirits high and stomachs filled throughout the long day. As we popped mini Mint Three Musketeers bars and sipped lots and lots of coffee, I heard plenty of references to the debacle in Florida. I heard excitement about a certain someone's Get Out the Vote effort. (No mentioning of candidates within the polling place, as that would be electioneering.) And I nodded in sincere agreement as one of the precinct judges said, "I don't care what party you're from. Everyone has a right to vote."

The one useful purpose I served was checking names off of a Get Out the Vote list and entering them in a database so that the Obama campaign didn't waste its resources calling people who had already voted. Which perhaps did not require a law degree and a thick handbook of North Carolina election law, but which made me part of an astoundingly well run operation.

When the last of those names had been entered into the database at 4:30, I called one of the organizers and decided that finally -- after over 10 hours at the polls -- I would play the pregnancy card. "This is a model precinct," I informed her. "Is there any reason for me to stick around? Or can I go put my feet up now?"

She told me about the long lines they expected during the last couple of hours of voting, when people got off work, and about the necessity of keeping them from leaving the line without voting. She told me it was more important than ever to have someone there until the bitter end. In other words, she was clear that my work was not done.

So I told the other Obama poll watcher -- who had been there since 12:30 with little more to do than I, except that she had a blackberry and therefore had an easier time entering already-voteds into the database -- to call me if the long lines did indeed materialize. And I ran off to buy milk and juice for my son.

The call never came, but as the time for closing of the polls rolled around, I couldn't resist running back to "my" precinct. I brought The Boy with me so he could get at least a little brush with the historic day.

At 7:35, the place was deserted.

"No long lines?" I asked the other poll watcher.

Turns out, about 100 people had voted in the three hours since I had taken my I'm-pregnant-and-need-to-put-my-feet-up break. No long lines, no Obama workers frenziedly trying to entertain people as they waited, no fights to keep the polls open until every last person in line at 7:30 got to vote.

Still, we got to see the intial machine count for the precinct -- 261 for Obama, 157 for McCain -- and to think about how many of those people were first-time voters or voters whom I had seen enter the polls with a certain amount of well-earned suspicion in their eyes or voters who hadn't shown up on the rolls but whose vote the chief judge secured with phone call after phone call to the County Board of Elections.

It took almost two more days for the North Carolina vote to become official. In the meantime, I heard about Kay Hagen's victory over Elizabeth Dole on the drive back home and learned the next morning that my son will grow up in a state that has just elected its first woman Governor.

And then, yesterday, that email from one of the poll-watching organizers. There had been, he wrote, far fewer problems than they had anticipated. He invoked a North Carolina of his grandparents in a town I haven't heard of.

And I just smiled and savored the victory and thought yet again that those people expecting disenfranchised voters and intimidation and scenes out of a pre-civil-rights South just don't get what Asheville is all about.

ObamAsheville

Barack Obama is in Asheville. This very minute. Right now. Kinda makes me want to squeal a little bit.

This is, somehow, different from, say, the time I was out running after work on the Mall in Washington, D.C., and stopped to find out why there were crowds of people standing on the hill by the Washington Monument. They pointed toward Airforce One, just landed across the street, as President Clinton emerged, waving and smiling just like in all the pictures. It was, I'll admit, pretty thrilling.

And I have that picture of me also in my D.C. days standing awkwardly by Tipper Gore, whom I didn't even like at the time, squeezing in my one Kodak moment before some other gawking onlooker grabbed her for their photo op. I was, frankly, kind of embarrassed about the whole thing, but my friend's sister, who had invited me to the event, insisted.

That doesn't even count all the lesser politicos my friends would point out as we had dinner in Dupont Circle or drinks at a bar on the Hill. It was Washington. Politicians were pretty much expected scenery.

But in Asheville about the only scenery you expect this time of year is a lot of foliage. It's pretty stunning and all. But it's somehow even more stunning when Barack Obama comments on how beautiful it is.

I thought my celebrity-laden days were over when Hubby pulled me away from the golden folks on the West Coast. In Asheville, I've been content with taking the occasional yoga class with Andie McDowell. Which is not, by the way, worth calling my nieces about, the way I used to call them with news of having coffee next to Brad Pitt at the Starbucks on Beverly Boulevard or practicing yoga next to Katie Holmes or spotting Tom Hanks while out shopping at The Grove.

Now, detoxed from those heady days, I get excited when I hear that Barack is staying with Gladys Knight.

"Gladys Knight lives here?!" I ask excitedly. "I didn't know that!"

As if my real estate values have suddenly doubled. As if this isn't little Asheville, but a city of greater flash and prurient interest.

And maybe that's what makes Barack's visit so exciting. You don't expect it here.

I should point out -- she says with outward pride and inward astonishment -- that Barack is in fact the last of the current Dem celebs to visit this year. Michelle gave a rally on Primary day. No fewer than ALL THREE Clintons have made appearances -- Chelsea showed up first, in a modest little talk and appearance at a local church; then, when the race was getting tight, Bill swept into town to speak at Asheville High; and finally, just to show how concerned they were, Hillary made an appearance in one of Asheville's more suburban spots.

So, really, I shouldn't be so surprised or excited or giddy over Obama. But I am.

It began Wednesday, when the Obama campaign announced that he would be staying here to prep for his debate on Tuesday in Nashville.

Nashville, for those who don't know their Appalacian geography, is not very close to Asheville. But it is also not in a big battleground state.

Still, there was no announcement of a speaking engagement, nor, naturally, a location within Asheville. Just that he would be here. Which was exciting. Even though I really didn't see why he wouldn't do just as well prepping at home, which I would think is a little more comfortable, even if the foliage isn't as pretty.

By Thursday, the rumors were flying. A Saturday night fundraising dinner for him was supposed to have a "special, surprise guest." Secret Service had been spotted sweeping the Governor's Western Residence.

And then Thursday night the news broke. Obama would be speaking at a free rally at Asheville High on Sunday. The crowd went wild -- well before Sunday. Fliers appeared, the Sheriff of Buncombe County left me a pre-recorded phone message, and the Obama campaign emailed me to ask for my RSVP, even though they wouldn't guarantee me a spot on the grounds.

By Saturday, I was jumping up and down as friends told of being stopped on the highway by Obama's motorcade -- as if I hadn't been stopped (and annoyed) by motorcades a million times in D.C. Where was my been-there, done-that attitude? Stipped away by hillbilly air, I suppose.

I gave a "way to go" wave to my neighbor as she headed out for the fundraising dinner where, yes, he did appear. I even dreamed I was there.

And on Sunday, after failing to brave the crowds and instead letting my toddler nap in comfort as I watched the rally on the local ABC affiliate (yes, I know, one day he will blame me for not making it possible for him to say he once saw Barack Obama), I gathered around the cell phone of the Asheville High band member who lives across the street to see his picture of Obama and to hear about how OBAMA SHOOK HIS HAND!

I suppose we're entitled to a little bit of enthusiasm, living as we do in a town that doesn't expect much in the way of national attention. I'm sure every one of us knew that Obama tells every crowd to whom he speaks that they live in "God's country" and that he sure plans on returning to visit because it's just so nice here. But every one of us cheered and bounced in our seats when he said it all the same.

As for me, I guess I'm entitled too. Because I may have lived among celebrities when I was in Los Angeles and Washington, but then I had to act like I lived among celebrities. Excitement was strictly frowned upon and, frankly, not worth it most of the time. I mean, Brad Pitt looks pretty much the same whether he's in the pages of People magazine or sitting at the table behind yours sipping a latte.

Now, however, I've been in Asheville for over a year, and all I expect is to enjoy my life without any shiny trinkets of celebrity-spotting to convince anyone else there's something here to enjoy. So when something unexpected does pop up, I have the pleasure of seeing yet again that Asheville has a surprise or two up its sleeve.

Which, I think, is worth getting excited about.

Gas Shortage on the Ground

The gas shortage in my chosen home of North Carolina made the front page of the New York Times yesterday. Which assures me that even if I hadn't managed to notice it ten days or so in by, you know, living in the middle of it, I would have eventually figured it out by reading about it in the New York Times.

It is, I'll agree, hard to miss long lines of cars clogging the streets, idling away the fumes at the bottom of their tanks in the hopes of making it to the front of the line before the supply runs out. Especially when that long line is snaking its way down the street that intersects our sleepy little residential one.

Aha -- so that's why I suddenly noticed speeding strangers making use of the bypass we offer. Sure, the kids playing ball in the street -- as they are accustomed, our little one-block stretch of road leading exactly nowhere and therefore generally offering no real danger from speeding cars -- might slow them down a bit. A speed bump, if you will (luckily not a literal one). Once I saw what was out there, I understood their detour, even if I still sort of resented it. (I resent it when a stranger parks in front of my house, so you can see how the proprietary feelings I have about the public throughway on which I live might pop up in these circumstances.)

Still, hard as it is to miss a severe gas shortage, I did. For a long time.

Sure, I heard people talking about how hard it is to fill up and worrying about making it to work. But I work at home. Besides, under the best of circumstances, standing at a gas pump is an occasional activity for me. I hardly ever have to drive more than two miles at a time. Plus, oh yeah, I'm pregnant, and pumping gas is a no-no for pregnant women.

In fact, I grew so accustomed to having Hubby pump my gas during my first pregnancy that I became convinced it's something I just don't do even long after I gave birth and got over the notion that it was somehow harmful for The Boy to so much as sit in the car at a gas station.

This somewhat pampered feeling that Hubby is the member of the family who mans -- literally -- the gas pump is, I'll admit, troubling to me. I recall one especially memorable feminist-who-pumps-her-own-gas moment from my high school days. This was when there was actually a real choice between self-service and full-service stations. Near my high school was a little independent self-service with the cheapest prices in the area. And a big sign reading WE PUMP GAS FOR LADIES.

I, of course, took this as a challenge.

Being only sixteen, newly driving, and in my father's car, I might have been a tad cautious backing up to the pump. But nothing, I'm sure, to justify the two men making wild gestures as if I needed their guidance to arrive safely at my male-dominated destination.

I don't remember what I said in response to their assistance, but I do remember the worried/amused expression of my friend in the passenger seat.

I shoved the car into Park and lunged for the pump before one of them could get to it.

"We pump for ladies," the older of the ground crew said to me.

"I can pump my own gas," I muttered. I reached for the gas cap and turned. Or tried to. And tried to. And -- really frustrated now -- tried again.

The manly man tried and failed. Finally, the younger of the two gave it a good tug and managed to release it. As I grabbed the pump from him with a surly internal curse of my father, who, after all, owned the car with the tight gas cap, he grinned at me the grin of the vanquished.

"You see?" he said, his face still, twenty-six years later, hovering in memory. "There are some things ladies just can't do."

So, okay, I can pump my own gas. I feel, at times, obligated to. And still it took me days and days to notice that everyone else was having trouble doing just that because, literally, there was no gas to pump.

My first inkling that something was wrong came on a quick run to the grocery store one afternoon. Usually I know just how to navigate the left-turn-lane-less street that takes me to the highway. But this time I found myself caught in a long, not-moving lane. Did it occur to me that I might inadvertently be in line for gas? Nope. My well-tuned brain figured school was back in session and this was just the result of parents lining up to meet their children at the nearby elementary school.

"My son isn't going to that school," I said huffily by way of punishing whomever I could blame for causing my seven-minute ride to the grocery store to balloon to twenty minutes. I considered calling Hubby to share this decision with him but decided against it. Perhaps a good call, as I'm not so sure he would have let me live my astonishing ignorance down any time soon.

It wasn't until later that afternoon that I finally figured it out. This time I wasn't even in a car. I was walking Audrey (she of the chicken-hunting fame) and had to cross the line of cars waiting at the BP a block from our house. Still, the wheels turned slowly. Until my head finally also turned slowly and I took in the rather stunning sight of cars backed up for a mile or more.

This is, I hasten to remind you, Asheville. We don't get mile-long traffic jams. We just don't.

A flash of understanding. This line of cars looked suspiciously like the one I had endured earlier in the day. Only then, at least a week and a half into the crisis, did I start to pay attention.

So what can I tell you about what it's like on the ground of the gas shortage? Kind of self-satisfied if, like Hubby and I, you can congratulate yourself on choosing to live in the city -- close enough for him to bike to work and me to walk The Boy to school -- forsaking the safety of the suburbs. Not that the suburbs hold the slightest appeal for us or ever have. But, still, we take our self-congratulations where we can get them.

Of course, there's no way not to get caught up in the frenzy to grab gas when you see a station with pumps that aren't covered in tell-tale trash-bags. It's hard to resist when everyone's talking about it -- where there was gas this morning, whether it's still there, how long one should drive around wasting gas looking for gas, how long someone they knew waited in line only to pump six cents' worth into their tank before the supply ran out.

In fact, a few days ago I was driving by a station that -- look! -- had gas! I nearly pulled a U-turn right there, but resolved instead to stop on the way back from my errand. Never mind that I had a full half a tank that under normal circumstances should last me two more weeks. In Asheville these days you just never know when you'll be presented with another opportunity to buy gas without waiting in line.

So, half an hour later (having, in fact, wasted gas driving to a store that was -- wouldn't you know it -- closed) I headed back to the station.

What slowed me down was the discovery that there was in fact a line. Not the more obvious reason to skip it. Namely that I am -- as I may have mentioned -- pregnant and therefore not supposed to pump gas, no matter how lucky I am to find it.

I'd blame my forgetfulness on the Second Pregnancy Syndrome -- whereby you don't pay the least bit of attention to what you eat, what air you breathe, how much you exercise, or all the other things that were so vitally important during your first pregnancy and that does not bode well for the level of attention the second born will garner. (I am, in case you hadn't figured it out, a second born and therefore absolutely determined that this child will get just as much attention and will seem just as much a genius as The Boy. But I'm apparently not off to a good start.)

But, the truth is, neglect of my second pregnancy has nothing to do with it. Because even the least gasoline-addicted of us can't help but get caught up in the fever of a real live local gas shortage.

My Ancestors Come to Asheville

A year ago, we bought our lovely Asheville home from a couple who lives across the street from us.

At the time, coming from Southern California, as Hubby and I were, and from a law degree, as I was, this fact lay somewhere between discomfiting and horrifying.

To Californians, real estate transactions are brutal affairs, gladiator-like battles in which the putative purchaser balances her desire for a home -- any home she can afford -- against her equally strong wish to prove her superior negotiating skills. Offers are made and countered; inspections are performed and righteous demands for repairs are made; suspicious and often nasty opinions are formed about the party on the other end. Only when closings have closed and pictures have been hung does the animosity begin to drift out the gorgeous original windows as the new homeowner settles into a sense of ownership that owes nothing at all to previous inhabitants, except when they occasionally pop up to haunt her in poorly-installed ceiling fans and Code-violating plumbing.

Living -- as I have for a year now -- in Asheville, however, the fact that the former owners of my home live across the street from me does not seem terribly startling. This couple who lived in our house for six years, meticulously and flawlessly fixed the place up, and entered into a major financial transaction with us, now shares photo albums chronicling the restoration of our ninety-year-old home as we sit on their porch sipping wine. They give us advice on how to winter-proof our windows, tour the house with us to point out oddities that would otherwise have us cursing and freezing as, for example, winter approaches and we are unable to figure out how to get the heat to rise to the second floor, and kindly refrain from tearing up every time they see what our neglect has done to their garden.

The only time I have regretted the proximity and neighborliness of the former owners of our home is when I invite them inside it.

Invariably on these occasions I have dumped a basket of clean laundry on the living room floor with plans of folding it some time hours (or sometimes days) hence. I have failed to pick up the detritus of a small boy's previous evening of play: wooden farm animals strewn across the rug; the dog-hair-ridden pillow we leave on the floor to hide the big hole Audrey dug in our carpet thrown to the side so it can both look ugly and fail to do its job of concealment; Dr. Seuss books distributed over every available surface; and a half-empty sippy cup of curdling milk resting on the back of the couch.

"I'm sorry it's such a mess," I say apologetically. "It really isn't always this bad."

"Don't worry," our neighbor always says with great care. "It took us years to decorate."

Notice she never says, "We were this messy too," or, "Mess? What mess? I'd never know a toddler lives here." And who can blame her?

But today, for the very first time, I wish I had an excuse to invite her in.

It's not that the place is spotless -- far from it. In fact, there's a dresser sans drawers sitting in the middle of our foyer. But it's antique. And its resting place is well earned, as Hubby managed to carry it on his own from the minivan he drove last night from Louisville, Kentucky, to our front door.

(No, I'm not afraid to move a little furniture with my husband. It's just that you're not supposed to do it when you're pregnant. So, you know, I carried table linens instead.)

Rather than bemoan the fact that a dresser is sitting in our foyer, every time I come downstairs or walk from living room to kitchen I stare at it as I pass, marveling at its -- its -- what?

We have other antiques in our home, mixed in with the jumble of Ikea couch, various pieces of artwork chronicling the development of my brother-in-law's career as an artist, and the water-stained coffee table my parents received as a wedding present. Antiques alone don't mean much to me, other than a musty-scented image of someone else's grandmother crocheting doilies and generations of strangers doing things I can't even imagine on the green armchair in our living room.

This dresser, however, is an antique from my family. So is the inlaid set of drawers now temporarily resting next to Hubby's desk (incidentally made by my maternal grandmother right around her 70th birthday). So are the slightly faded, posed portraits of past generations of my paternal ancestors that I spent this morning scattering about the house, and the framed postcard written by my great-great grandmother, newly arrived in the United States, to her family back in Germany. Even the far newer wall hangings that had never particularly wowed me when they adorned the walls at my grandfather's apartment -- I took them because, frankly, we have a lot of blank walls and never bothered to remove all the empty picture hooks left by the former owners -- look lovely and sophisticated and at home on our walls.

This morning, when I came home from dropping The Boy off at school, the jumble of items we acquired while cleaning out my recently deceased grandfather's apartment this weekend was frightening, anxiety-producing. Clutter makes me anxious; clean, neat spaces leave me calm. Unless, of course, the clutter has been there so long I don't notice it. But even then my eye is far too likely to alight on it without warning one day, making me jittery and depressed and certain I'll never live in a house that looks like the ones featured in Vanity Fair articles about beautiful homes that I never read because I find them boring.

Today, however, I moved with a purpose. I separated things into piles, swept from room to room putting them in places -- actual places they belong. I put the framed photograph of my great-great grandmother on top of the inlaid set of drawers, alongside a picture of my grandfather in his Army uniform looking jaunty (if, he used to say with a touch more pride than humor, the oldest Lieutenant the U.S. Army ever saw). I rested the hand-painted picture of my great-grandmother cradling the one-day-to-be-army-lieutenant as an infant on the built-in railing next to the built-in china cabinet (in which we have -- thanks to my ancestors again -- real china).

And as I wandered through my home -- past the bureau in the foyer and the box-upon-box of vacation slides Hubby rescued from the trash pile and the table linens monogrammed with my great-grandmother's initials -- I felt more at home, among these things from my grandfather's home, than I ever have.

These items that meant so little to me resting in their familiar spots in my grandfather's apartment have taken on a new life. They are here for my son and his soon-to-be-sibling, certainly. But they are also here for me, a reminder of where I have come from, and a welcome piece of myself that I never quite cared about before.

And so, last night, as we cruised down I-40 in our rented Nissan Quest with the Elmo DVD playing in the back seat, I brought my ancestors to Asheville. Home with me.

If you'd like to read more about my trip to Louisville with an active toddler, and what it taught me about being flexible in life, go to YogaMamaMe's story "Travels with Toddler."

Asheville Anniversary

So a friend emailed me the other day asking me for a link to my blog that she hadn't read in some time. Having not read it myself in probably longer, I headed over here and discovered that, to my shame, the last time I wrote about my new life in Asheville was, um, Memorial Day. To put this in perspective, we are now on the cusp of Labor Day. Nothing like a good, long summer vacation.

I have, I hasten to plug -- um, mention -- been writing plenty of a slightly different sort at YogaMamaMe. I didn't mean to abandon A Hill-ish Life. I just figured if ever I had a good story that couldn't be tied to motherhood and aging and yoga and my wavering sense of self I'd traipse back over here to tell it.

It seems, however, that if you try hard enough, just about anything in life can be tied to motherhood and aging and yoga and my wavering sense of self. Especially if you have a toddler, have just turned 42, and are struggling to keep up with your yoga practice when you have limited time, your favorite new yoga teacher is about to leave town, and your energy level hovers -- for obvious reasons -- around that of a 42-year-old pregnant woman. In other words, I suddenly and unintentionally was no longer writing pieces for A Hill-ish Life.

But a story did come up a couple of weeks ago, one that exemplified yet again the lovely mingling of small town and home of urban transplants, hills living and tourist center, place that's still new to me and, yes, home, that Asheville has come to mean. Best yet, the story takes place on my and Hubby's wedding anniversary. Which itself took place just a couple of weeks before the anniversary of our first year in Asheville. Which, come to think of it, is right about, oh, today.

So now, it seems, it is time to give some attention to A Hill-ish Life, if only as practice for remembering to give The Boy an occasional pat on the head after his sibling arrives in March. (It is very difficult for me to even joke about this, so please know that I am joking.)

Being the type of person who gets grumpy when you ask me to plan something special for myself but who secretly expects the person doing the asking to make the day special despite my protests that it doesn't matter, I didn't really get on the ball in terms of planning a special wedding anniversary. We had just ended a long run of visitors, with my dearest friend flying back to L.A. two days before our anniversary. I had work to do, a toddler to run after, and did I mention the pregnant thing? We weren't public yet, which meant I had to pretend not to be tired and sick and not unlike Tony Soprano wandering through one of his dreams that none of the viewers ever really understood -- kind of disconnected and confused and only pretending to get what was going on.

But, busy as we both were, Hubby rightly insisted we mark the occasion with a nice lunch. And I found myself waiting for him in the sunshine on the steps leading to the street near the restaurant in a cute red silk top and high heels. Neither high heels nor silk is a favorite of mothers of toddlers: High heels for obvious reasons -- you try kneeling down to pick up a 25-pound sack of child in three-inch strappy sandals. Silk because it can not be worn anywhere in the vicinity of a 20-month-old when food, dirt, or grape juice are to be found nearby. Which, where a toddler is concerned, is always. So you know I had finally managed to mark this as a special occasion. I had also cleverly hiked up a too-long black skirt into a sexy little number that worked as long as you didn't get close enough to spot the spider veins that have been stealthily creeping across my legs since I last wore shorts in 2005 -- and no one was going to get that close besides my husband, who probably knows about them already and has so far managed to avoid mentioning them to me and probably could be counted on to ignore them on our wedding anniversary.

We were meeting at a lovely restaurant we had discovered a couple weeks before, during my mother-in-law's visit (second in the string of three out-of-town groups who ranged through our home in July and August). Cucina 24 is everything the hills of Western Carolina are not to those who have never been here. They cook Italian, not possum. They have a professional pizza oven, not a wood-burning stove, which would be far easier to find in this town. Everything we have ever eaten there has been impeccable, so much so that I am not joking when I say I am looking forward to bringing my parents there on their next trip to Asheville. I am not joking about this because my mother does not joke about the places she is expected to sleep and eat when on vacation. Generally, this list should not include anyplace in Asheville, but as she has been forced here by my relocation of her grandson, she has discovered both a hotel and a restaurant or two up to her standards, and I felt certain she would welcome Cucina 24 into the fold as well.

Hubby hurried down the steps to meet me carrying a bundle of roses -- four red ones for each year of our marriage, and one white one for The Boy. It was an utterly unironic romantic gesture, the kind men get to make on wedding anniversaries without fear of appearing sentimental and like they are expected to mark other occasions -- like our first cup of coffee together or the first time my basset hound Roxanne presented her belly to him for rubbing -- with equally romantic gestures.

We settled down for a lovely extended meal. We shared a salad. We ordered entrees. We chatted with the waiter. We forgot that Thursdays are pretty much always hellish for him at work and I hadn't made any money in weeks.

As we nibbled at our gelato, my rings sparkling wittily under the recessed lights, feeling every bit the couple on their four-year-wedding-anniversary date, the waiter brought us the check.

"You'll see," he said somewhat apologetically, "that only the dessert is on there. Table Restaurant is picking up the rest."

It was one of those moments when -- again, I'm going back to a Tony Soprano dream even though that show is way past its cultural currency, but I can't think of any better analogy -- you know the person speaking is indeed speaking English, but you can't for the life of you understand what he's saying.

"What?" Hubby said, a reasonable and impressive response.

"Table is picking it up," the waiter explained again. "That's all I know." He reminded us that he was new at the job, as we'd discussed during the course of our leisurely and -- did I mention? -- not inexpensive lunch.

Table is another restaurant in town that proves yet again how Asheville really isn't located anywhere near Appalachia but rather on a tesseract that sweeps you to a hidden spot in Oregon where everyone has North Carolina plates and pays North Carolina taxes and doesn't vote for John Edwards but doesn't really live in North Carolina. We're not quite in California, but we are most definitely located on the west coast, no matter what any map or airplane pilot might tell you.

The waiter retreated and Hubby and I began spinning our conspiracy theories.

"Do you think someone mistook us for someone else?" I asked uneasily.

Hubby shook his head. He is a man and does not like other people to pay for his meals. Something about the mysterious connection between a wallet, a stomach, and a penis that I've never been able to figure out. Not that I've really tried. If someone else wants to pay for my meal badly enough to fight me about it, the pacifist in me graciously gives way every time.

Then I had a thought. "I saw a guy sitting alone at the counter," I said, my mind tripping spy-like around the clues. "The manager was pouring him glasses of wine out of a bottle and seemed to know him. You think it was the owner of Table?"

"Even if that was the owner of Table, why would he buy us lunch?" Hubby asked. He squirmed the squirm of a man who has had someone else beat him to the check -- only he didn't even know who this someone was or that there had been a race.

We stared at each other. We had switched genres mid-story, a romance novel suddenly taking a turn into a mystery thriller.

"I hope he didn't hear me say this place is as good as Table," Hubby finally ventured, squirming even more. I had to agree that it's one thing to have a stranger buy you lunch and quite another thing for him to do it because you have just maligned his livelihood.

"He couldn't have," I said, sounding about as sure as I felt.

"Do you think it's the faculty adviser thing?" Hubby asked uncertainly. He had just begun a new part-time job as the faculty adviser to the student newspaper at a small college just outside of town. The owners of Table, he had informed me over lunch, were graduates of that school.

"Maybe," I said dubiously. "But it seems strange for them to buy you lunch just because you're advising the newspaper."

Hubby agreed. But what other reason could there be?

"Do you think it was the wine?" I finally asked. I barely remembered the wine, since it had been spilled on me -- more appropriately, all over me -- over two months before, when my sister and her boyfriend were in town. We'd taken them to dinner at Table -- then, in our pre-Cucina 24 days, our favorite restaurant in Asheville (and it's still our second, in case the owner is reading this). Unbeknownst to me, the people at the next table ordered red wine from a waiter who was wearing tight new shoes or had had one too many the night before or otherwise was having one of those nights when you should not be balancing trays containing glasses of red wine. It tumbled and got me. Pretty well.

Apologies were sincere and many, the wine didn't seem about to do anything permanent to my outfit, and I frankly didn't think it was a huge deal. Apologies accepted, we headed into dessert.

But Asheville isn't a hillbilly town, and Table is the sort of restaurant that could easily make it in L.A. or San Francisco (maybe not Manhattan because it is, after all, Asheville, and a little laid back for Manhattanites). So when the check arrived I expressed some surprise that they hadn't, say, comped us a dessert, just as a formal apology for the wine.

Can I explain here that I am not cheap and I am not a freeloader -- my expectations of free desserts and receipt of free lunches notwithstanding? It wasn't the six dollars for a dessert, just the expectation that in a nice restaurant that's what you do to apologize for spilling wine on a customer.

While I intended my comment as nothing more than an end-of-meal conversation piece, Hubby took it a bit more seriously. Maybe it's that he had taken out his wallet and therefore involved his penis in the conversation. On our way out, he noted to the manager -- not angrily or rudely, but forcefully -- that in the future if they spilled wine on a customer they might consider comping the dessert.

The manager was most gracious and promised to do just that the next time we were in.

Only he wasn't there the next few times we were. And he wasn't the manager, apparently. He was the owner. Who happened to be having lunch at Cucina 24 on our wedding anniversary. And who happened to recognize us -- well, probably not me because I'm not 6'5" like Hubby -- and ended up comping us everything but dessert.

Figuring out the mystery brought on an odd mixture of responses. I mostly felt pleased with myself for figuring it out, which just shows how self-centered I can be sometimes. But I also was genuinely touched by the gesture, and impressed by his ability to recall us, recall the two-month-old minor incident, and respond so graciously.

Hubby was touched too, but, much more, sort of embarrassed. Like I said, it's hard for men to let someone else buy them a meal, especially when that person doesn't even know them, wasn't eating with them, and certainly wasn't party to the anniversary being celebrated.

But the anniversary was, in a way, the whole point. Not just the wedding anniversary part, but its proximity to the anniversary of our first year in Asheville.

After all, here we were, celebrating our life together as that life settled into the rhythms of a new home, where the food is as good as anything we could have found in L.A. but the people are, at times like this, in the best way of a small town, often better.

Memorial Day Hillbilly Style

In my experience, geography plays a large part in what Memorial Day means (beyond the honor-the-troops part that the newspapers remind us of annually, making me feel chastened for about the amount of time it takes me to finish reading the paper before heading off to one party or another).

Growing up in Los Angeles, it was the last day you could count on having an outdoor barbecue before July, since June is the only month in Southern California that can reliably be counted on to bring cold and rain. In the cities of New England and New York, Memorial Day represented a whispering hope of summer rarely fulfilled, when we found ourselves standing around at some optimistic outdoor venue shivering and hoping we wouldn't have to retrieve the umbrella from the car. Memorial Day was generally pretty warm in the DC environs, but also the bearer of summer thunderstorms and the feel of living in a dishwasher on the dry cycle that comes with endless days of 90 percent humidity. And the Memorial Day parties I recall from my days in St. Louis evoke memories of the scent of Off and citronella candles and of warm-ish cans of Budweiser sucked down in a desperate effort to stay ahead of the heat and bugs.

So how do we do the onset of summer in the WNC Hills?

Here in Asheville, The Boy and I celebrated by going to the pool at the JCC.

This is not, I suspect, what one might expect to hear when being told of a traditional Hillbilly Memorial Day. Jews and corncob pipes don't generally mix in the collective imagination. Nor does a place to swim that does not involve inner tubes, cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon, and cut-off shorts.

We did, I hasten to point out, spend Saturday at the White Squirrel Festival in Brevard, forty minutes south of town. Turns out the festival wasn't about eating white squirrels, but we saw plenty of amateur replicas, lots of Boy Scouts and Chamber of Commerce types, and some really good live music. (In addition to retaining more of the hill culture than Asheville, Brevard is home to a highly regarded music school.) What we did not find, to Hubby's great disappointment, was a beer tent. But The Boy enjoyed the roasted corn on the cob that was available so much that Hubby forgave the Festival this major shortcoming.

Asheville, however, despite my best efforts to color it otherwise, is not exclusively hillbilly territory. Hence, the JCC pool is a gathering place, not only of Jews, but of other young, upscale transplants from California, New Jersey, and the Midwest. They grill brautwurst and drink microbrew IPA's. Their children rest between bouts in the pool with library books and colored pencils. True, the lifeguard to whom I spoke about possible swimming lessons for The Boy sported a shiny gold nipple ring and a thick hills accent, but Hubby assures me The Boy will speak like us, not like the other adults in his life, so I feel it will be safe for him to learn to swim from this man.

I was thrilled to discover this lovely summer ritual just a half mile from our home -- close enough to load up the stroller with snacks and baby sunblock and towels and hoof it over -- where neighbors greeted me warmly and mothers of The Boy's preschool friends chatted with me around the baby pool.

The Boy, however, was less enamored than I of the social possibilities offered by our JCC membership.

While he adored swimming in my parents' pool last summer, he was determined not to join the splashing, yelling mass of kids in this overwhelming, noisy, hot place. Clutching Buddy, his blankie, he allowed me to take him over to the baby pool to see his friend from school. He even consented to putting Buddy out of harm's way and to sit in my lap while I dangled my feet in the cool of the pool (as Horton the elephant would say).

He showed enough interest in a bucket of toys at water's edge to eventually wander from my lap, and to gaze with round, serious eyes upon the efforts of a teenage girl who volunteers at his school to engage him and his friend in play. His friend was happy to have water squeezed on his head and to race toy cars. But the Boy made it quite clear, for his part, that his head was a water-free zone, although he did shyly demonstrate his knowledge of how toy cars work with the ones he clutched in his round little hands.

What The Boy would not do, under any circumstances, was get in the water. I asked him several times as he sat at the edge of the baby pool but he declined. I decided he could go in the big pool in my arms and thereby get over his fear. While he had no choice in the first half of this proposition, I was dead wrong about the second. As I made my way down the steps, he wrapped his legs around me extra-tightly so as to have leverage to pull them well out of the range of the water. When I dipped one of his feet into the water he whined his disapproval. When playing children inadvertently splashed him, he cried. And I gave up.

We spent the remainder of our short time at the JCC pool sitting on a towel eating grapes and playing with the stacking magnetic bugs he received as a gift when he was ten months old and has recently rediscovered. I managed a few words with other adults, but they were brief and not promising of longterm friendship, anchored as I was to a hot little boy who wanted nothing more than to go home.

We arrived home to a peaceful front yard shaded by maple trees and decorated by lounging hound dogs. I had to concede that a glass of cool water and the breeze playing softly through the trees was just as nice as friendly neighbors and the smell of chlorine, and a lot more sane.

Besides, according to The Boy, blowing bubbles on the steps of his own front porch is the ideal way to welcome summer to Asheville.

Asheville Al Fresco

Summer is on its way to Asheville.

It's taking its time, mind you. As soon as I get excited by a warm, sunny day a big, dark storm cloud dumps buckets of cold water on my happiness. Or an arctic wind blows a chilly blanket over a tauntingly sun-speckled afternoon. I've despaired of ever putting the space heater next to my desk into deep storage and truly believe the teacher at The Boy's school who sent his stand-by long-sleeved shirt home for the season is crazy.

But we have had the pleasure of more than one warmth-kissed evening. There is a certain besotted-ness never to be recaptured in sitting on your own front porch, waving at the neighbors and watching your child tumble through the fauna of the front yard. Or in eating dinner downtown in a restaurant open to the street, where we take turns walking down the sidewalk with The Boy as he gazes upon the lights in the trees and chases after dogs out with their owners. If ever he had a chance of adjusting his sleep schedule to daylight savings time, we have destroyed it with our own woozy happiness at spending evenings outdoors with our child.

Last Saturday, the start of summery evenings brought us an even greater opportunity than giving our child a lifetime of sleeping disorders (at least according to the articles I occasionally come across in the New York Times with the latest studies about how we're doing everything wrong when it comes to sleep training). Hubby was invited to a block party by someone at work. A real, live, outdoor social event.

We were excited but cautious. Would we fit in? Would be meet new friends? Or would we stand on (rather than in) a corner, awkwardly shifting from foot to foot like a thirteen-year-old at a dance when "Stairway to Heaven" is playing -- not entirely sure we want to be dancing but disappointed that no one has asked us to?

I was leaning toward the less hopeful side of things when Saturday came. Work took precedence over yoga practice since I had spent most of the week watching a too-sick-for-school boy. This meant that I was already five or ten pounds heavier than I wanted to be for meeting all those . . . who? Who was I meeting who really cared how I looked?

"Not the point," I muttered to myself as I struggled to find an outfit with just the right sense of carefree summer-ness but enough warmth to guarantee I wouldn't end up feeling cold and stupid and willing to wear just about anything with long sleeves someone offered me, no matter how bad it made me look. Crisis number two: the weather was not exactly summer-like, though it teased the edges of warm enough to hang out outdoors in something less than North Face fleece-lined windbreakers.

One thing we did have going for us. The Boy had taken an astounding three and a half hour nap. Which meant that we were going to be up entertaining him well past our bedtime anyhow. Might as well do it outside the boring confines of home.

We made our way to a little street no more than a mile from our home and parked the car. As we walked down the block toward the festivities a warm breath of sunbaked air wrapped around me. I don't know how it's possible, but I swear it was a good ten degrees warmer on that street than it was in our own shaded front yard.

Looking back, I believe I turned a corner when I removed my cardigan with only a moment's hesitation about the chocolate brown bra straps peeking out from under my spaghetti-strap top. An hour before, the very thought of looking so sloppy would have sent me diving back into my closet. But get me away from mirrors, show me how absolutely ordinary all the other folks at the party are, introduce me to the new phenomenon of going to social events with my child instead of my martini-swilling best girlfriend, and I melt into that realm where you look great precisely because you don't care how you look.

For a time, we meandered, taking stock, petting dogs to make it look like we weren't shyly standing around not knowing anyone, and spending more time than necessary rearranging the food table to accommodate the rice salad Hubby made. If we had been at an indoor party we would have been forced to make our way uncomfortably from room to room until we ran out of options for trying to appear as if we were actually going somewhere with a purpose. But the outdoors lessened the pressure. We were a mere step away from strolling amongst a bunch of strangers downtown, only here there was a tantalizing possibility of extended conversation.

Hubby took over the first follow-The-Boy shift, and I did what anyone who doesn't really know the other people at a party does. I ate.

We all three ended up by the bands -- a rotation of neighbors with surprising talent, none so much as the nine-year-old girl who belted out a tune sounding almost like Michelle Shocked, only too young to have ever engaged in a good protest march. I ended up talking to a really interesting woman, a college friend of the host. We chatted about motherhood and career and college days. Of course, she lives in Atlanta.

But at least I can rest assured I still know how to strike up a friendship and may even one day do it with someone who lives close enough to, say, go with to the Sex and the City movie premiere. (For the record, I am planning on going by myself while The Boy is at school. I am not the least bit shamed by the article I just read about how everyone is going to see it in groups. I did, after all, once sit through a midnight showing of Beaches all alone.)

After a while I found myself in charge of The Boy, and then the party really took off. We explored the hill behind where Daddy stood watching the bands and engaging in the we're-all-friends-here-even-though-I-
don't-know-you talk. We went racing down the hill after the sticky whiffle ball The Boy found half buried in the ivy behind the swing set. And, best of all, we danced.

There is no one, I feel certain, who can manage not to smile at a sixteen-month-old dancing to "Psycho Killer." At least not when you're at a block party in a neighborhood and a town where people have kids. After all, the band playing the song just as surely listened to it in college as I did. A long, long time ago.

So these parents could be in a band playing music that made them feel like you don't shed some of your hipness when you become a parent as surely as you shed beer-weight and bad haircuts when you leave college. And I could pretend that having a toddler makes me as young as a woman you would expect to have a toddler. I don't know how old that is, but I suspect it's a good deal younger than forty-one.

Thankfully, not many people think you're forty-one when you're crouching, in true yoga-lubricated-knees fashion, next to your toddler in a spaghetti-strapped Gap top and Keds that I once spotted on Rory in an episode of Gilmore Girls.

Even more thankfully, you don't much care if they do when you're busy grinning as your child claps his hands and gives out a "Yaaaaaay!" with the rest of the music-loving crowd.

Mother's Day in the Neighborhood

One of the things we excitedly told people about the house we bought on our three-day househunting trip to Asheville last summer was how many children lived on the block. "The Boy will have kids to play with!" we enthused, no doubt steeped in sun-flecked memories of our own childhoods running wild on the streets in the days when parents didn't worry about things like pedophiles and bike helmets.

There are more than a few moments when, however, my enthusiasm for living on a street with lots of kids freaks me out.

Who is this woman who sees it as a plus that small children can be heard calling to each other in the early evening hours of a spring night? Can it be me ooh-ing over a little girl's tutu and aah-ing over a little boy's Speed Racer promo car from "Mickey Donald's"? And do I really want to be here in ten or twelve years when they become teenagers driving cars?

Oh yeah. One of those teenagers will be mine. Which quite changes everything. And, yes, makes me like living on this block and talking to four-year-olds about the cookies they ate in school today.

I began to truly appreciate the world of which I am now a part on Mother's Day.

Normally, I'd think Mother's Day was all about me since I am, you know, the mother. But that morning I didn't much feel like being the center of attention. Call it the crappy weather. Call it the reminder that I will be getting up at 6:30 on Sunday mornings for a long, long time to come. Or, if you will, attempt to psychoanalyze what my problem is with being the one getting the special treatment for a day. The thing is, I just wasn't feeling too excited about going out for a big celebration in Asheville. It was cold and rainy and I have been dreaming of the beach lately, either because the weather is turning warm or because it is disappointing me in a deep, personal way by repeatedly turning cold again.

The Boy wasn't being much of a Mother's Day gift either. Cute as ever, of course, but with a runny nose that occasionally slid into bouts of inconsolable crying over some shortcoming of mine like giving him the wrong spoon after plopping some yogurt in his bowl at breakfast. Then again, maybe I was the one not being much of a Mother's Day gift. At any rate, he was ready for an early nap and I was ready to watch a movie with Hubby, who wisely drew the blinds just in case the sun came out and I lost the ability to watch a movie in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

I was, to be honest, more than a little distracted when, sure enough, half an hour into the movie I noticed a sliver of bright light at the bottom of one of the blinds. I tried to ignore it, but my toes started to twitch in tribute to my own mother who, could she see me, would surely give me a "What are you doing inside on a beautiful day?" for old times sake. I was almost glad when, far earlier than we'd expected, we heard The Boy's cries of indignation at awakening to find himself -- offense of offenses -- in his crib.

It was still well within the range of respectable lunch times, the sun was shining, and I somehow managed to come up with a restaurant I wanted to go to for lunch. So off we headed.

We walked in the door to find one of The Boy's friends from school having lunch with his parents. In fact, I had had a nice chat with his mother a couple days earlier, when I craftily volunteered to devote my "Mitzvah Hours" to sitting with a bunch of napping toddlers while their teachers headed off for a Teacher Appreciation lunch. "Mitzvah Hours" is a euphemism for mandatory volunteer work at The Boy's school. "Is it a mitzvah if someone makes you do it?" Hubby asked me. I waved away the question as one that would only make me resent the obligation more.

But, as it turned out, the whole volunteer thing was great. We volunteer moms sat and chatted for an hour an a half, and I came away feeling like maybe, ahead in the distance, I might be headed toward the faint sounds of a social life.

Here, on Mother's Day, at the Sunnyside Cafe, was my proof that I was. Cool family, cool restaurant. Made me feel kind of cool myself, despite my joy at living on a block full of little kids and their detritus. At this point, Asheville, for all the pros and cons of a small town, was feeling like a good place to celebrate Mother's Day.

But great as it was to watch The Boy and his school friend kick their legs with the joy of recognizing each other, the moment when it hit me that not only am I a mother, but I have a SON came later, at home.

The sun had firmly established itself by then, so we headed out to the front yard to blow the bubbles that so fascinate The Boy. "Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!" he yells when he spots them spinning along the length of the front porch. He even blew one of his own that day, the pleasure of which I decided far outweighed the danger from all the soap he swallowed the many, many times he put the wand in his mouth instead of blowing on it.

Then our neighbors came out to work on their yard, and their four-year-old boy, Matthew, headed over to our fence.

Matthew had shown remarkable interest in The Boy once before, when we and his parents bumped into each other at the park around the corner. At the time, I had chocked up a four-year-old's tolerance for a sixteen-month-old to boredom and the possibilities offered by a sandbox. After all, a four-year-old can't possibly fathom why it is that a sixteen-month-old has so little to say, nor why he is still kind of wobbly on his feet. Although I doubt he minds when his young friend eats sand.

But, as a four-year-old will do, Matthew saw nothing the least bit unusual about being friends with his little neighbor. The world at that age has the wonderful in-the-moment quality that renders such things as playing with a sixteen-month-old much less of a big deal than the fact that you can steer the Speed Racer car.

When Matthew was distracted from demonstrating this feature, as four-year-olds frequently are, The Boy picked up the yellow Speed Racer car from the sidewalk and examined it intently. Hmm. Big boys play with these. Must be good stuff.

Matthew returned looking for his car. "The Boy has it," I informed him. I turned to my son. "Can you give Matthew his car back?" I asked without much hope for success.

But he did. My boy walked to Matthew, hand outstretched, and handed him his Speed Racer car, and suddenly Mother's Day meant something new. No longer was being a mother just about thrilling with every newly discovered word and eating breakfast in my pj's because my son insists on eating his sloppily in my lap. It wasn't solely about my relationship with my little boy. It was about my little boy being just that -- a boy walking after his friend as they explored the yard next door.

"Sit on your bottom!" I called as Matthew and The Boy approached some steps. Matthew looked up at me like someone who knows to listen to a mother, and, after a moment The Boy did as I suggested. But for a few seconds before he did, he was poised at the top of the stairs with Matthew holding his hand as if to help him down.

And in that perfect tableau I saw that one of the joys of being a mother is watching your child learn to navigate the world, not with you, but with a friend.

Voting Early (But Not Often)

Who knew when I moved to North Carolina that I'd be so important to the rest of the nation? Every time you look at a newspaper these days, it's all about the North Carolina Democratic Primary on Tuesday.

Me, I've already voted.

North Carolina has something called "early voting." I'd never heard of such a thing, although everyone here seems to think it's so normal as to be unworthy of comment or explanation. I guess if you can get enough people to work the polls for a good three weeks before the primary, you too can have early voting.

Still, I was suspicious. Who's to say the box with your ballot won't get lost between the day you vote and election day?

My suspicion is not entirely unfounded. (Just like my suspicion that if I don't ask for a receipt at the gas pump my credit card number will somehow remain in the machine to be spit out at the next customer; this fear was justified when I had ATM card information stolen from a gas pump a few years ago, almost making the hassle worth it.) I'm still smarting from my first presidential election in 1984. I was a freshman in college and duly requested my absentee ballot. Some fiasco on which I am now a little bit fuzzy occurred that launched me into a fiery letter addressed to my Senators about being disenfranchised on this, my first chance to vote the way a left-leaning eighteen-year-old easily influenced by the politics of a notoriously left-leaning college campus would vote. Alan Cranston's office responded; the newly elected Republican Pete Wilson's office did not. I still didn't get to vote.

I was also feeling jealous of my vote in the primary election this year because it actually matters. I spent much of my voting life in places like California and Massachusetts, where the Dems really didn't need my vote. And primary elections? Even living in states with elections far earlier than ridiculously late North Carolina, I frequently found myself voting for the guy who had already dropped out of the race: in 1992 in New York, I voted for Bob Kerrey after he had ceded the race to Bill Clinton, and in 2004 in pre-move-up-our-primary-date-because-we-have-so-many-delegates California, I voted for Edwards even though John Kerry already had the nomination. Not alone among the disenfranchised, I was pleased to find that I, Hubby (Kucinich), and my best friend (Dean) had all managed to vote for different candidates without a one of us voting for Kerry.

Then there was the actual Presidential election of 1980, when my father drove to the polls in Los Angeles after work to vote for Carter while listening to his concession speech on the radio.
The fact that I remember this somewhat humiliating event shows just what a mark it left on me.

And so my fear of early voting, of the chance that this, my second vote that could count, might not. (The first time I felt like my vote counted, I help elect the dead guy to one of Missouri's U.S. Senate seats; the defeated John Ashcroft went on to be a calamitous Attorney General, a tenure for which my family still blames me.) Still, all three Clintons and Michelle Obama have already made their pitches here. People are holding out hope for Barack, but the message is clear. We're almost expected to do the early voting thing.

Then, on Thursday evening, Hubby came home grinning about how much fun he had had early voting that day. He dropped a post-it with the names of candidates running for state seats in front of me and said, "I did a little research. In case you want to know who else to vote for."

"Because I should let me husband tell me whom to vote for," I said, pretending to be offended but really both surprised there were other opposed offices and relieved that I wouldn't have to figure out for myself which candidate I supported.

"You don't have to vote for the same people," Hubby pointed out. But I already knew I was going to. And I knew I was going to do it the following day, Friday.

The next afternoon, I headed for the local public library, one of several early voting polling places.

My understanding is that one of the justifications for offering early voting is to avoid the long lines on election day that somehow seem to end up only at polling places in heavily Democratic precincts. But here I was in a strictly partisan primary and I couldn't find a spot in the parking lot.

Weaving my way around an aggressive senior citizen cruising for the next available spot, I parked illegally at the side of the building. We were all compatriots, I figured, responsible citizens being sure to vote early.

As I crossed the parking lot, I spotted a table set up just beyond the no-solicitation zone with a sign reading OBAMA TICKETS HERE. Hmm, I thought, never having voted in North Carolina before. Maybe here they offer you a whole ticket to go along with the presidential candidate of your choice.

I walked over to the table, thinking maybe I could toss aside my husband's voting directive in favor of directions from complete strangers. Then I noticed the name "Michelle" written in the top corner of the sign. Michelle Obama, I recalled, was speaking that afternoon at the UNC Asheville campus. It was this sort of ticket being distributed, not some additional quirk of the North Carolina voting system. Since I already had plans to do something non-historic that evening, I kept going.

Inside, the polling place looked pretty much like most places I've voted, except maybe the garage where we regularly did our local voting in Long Beach. There was no place to tie up the dogs, had I brought them, here. But there was the same phalanx of tables: one where they would check you off on the rolls, a separate one where you got your ballot, and the rickety tables where you were instructed to mark your ballot only with the pen provided (in my case, a plain old Bic ballpoint with a big feather attached to the end that made me feel a vague connection to the Founding Fathers).

The one big difference from my past voting experiences was that the two women checking in voters were using laptops instead of big books of names that no one ever seems to be able to negotiate. I stepped up to the elder of the two, a woman of about 70, perched behind her shiny silver Dell. She blew away all the senior citizens who volunteered in the polls in West Hollywood and couldn't quite seem to be able to handle those new-fangled books that listed the voters alphabetically.

She asked my name, and I went through the contortions I condemned myself to when I chose to add Hubby's surname to my own without bothering to put a hyphen between them.

"It's two words," I said. "Cole, C-O-L-E . . ."

Her fingers were so fast there was no need for me to continue. I wasn't there.

"It's probably under Essig," I said wearily. You'd think I'd be over the frustration of strangers relegating half of my last name to the role of forgotten and useless middle name by now, as well as to that moment of wondering just who "Melissa Essig" is.

But this septugenarian computer whiz saved me. "Do you want to try your birthday?" she asked.

And there it was, my truncated name. But here's what I loved most about my voting experience. She FIXED it. This diminutive, white-haired, sweet old lady sent her fingers flying over the keys of a fancy new laptop and moments later handed me a sheet of paper with my full, proper name on it. So next time I vote early there will be no confusion.

And so I cast my vote with the feather-adorned pen and fed my ballot into the machine that counts how many ballots go in. (Will it add its count to all the other boxes so we know not only if a ballot is lost from a particular box but will be alerted when the entire box is locked in a room in the library basement, mistaken for old books?) I happily put my "I Voted" sticker on, even though it felt funny to be wearing it four days before the primary election.

And I watched Obama on Meet the Press this morning just to make sure the vote I've already cast was the one I felt was right. I wonder if anyone has told him about early voting.

A Two Market Town

Last Saturday we went to, not one, but two tailgate farmers markets. It must be spring in Asheville.

I still recall the days when I was living in Manhattan and the farmer's market meant a Sunday stroll through Union Square to purchase an oversized sticky bun. To me, the market was just like one of the ubiquitous fairs that fill the streets of Manhattan on weekends, except instead of curly fries and the ASPCA van hawking dogs and kittens for adoption it offered only vegetable and flower stands. Pretty, but I hadn't yet acquired an organic-local-small farmer consciousness, so I wasn't there to shop. It was, in my defense, the early '90's, and I didn't have Michael Pollan to point out the error of my ways. Or Hubby, who I'll admit is the one who reads the Michael Pollan books in our house and then passes the pertinent bits on to me.

We did have farmers markets when we lived in West Hollywood and Long Beach as well. But they weren't nearly the community affairs they feel like here. Stands pushed side-by-side in parking lots, they often required a lot of elbowing and skillful maneuvering around the kettle corn vendor, who seemed to attract the biggest crowds. Organic produce was surprisingly difficult to come by, and really no cheaper than what was available at Wild Oats. Or maybe I just told myself that.

Here in Asheville, however, we take our farmers markets seriously. You know the vendors grew the produce themselves, offering the opportunity either for a friendly chat or a dicey eyes-averted duck-and-bob as you head for more promising vegetal wares. The musician strumming a guitar and singing folk songs is far from polished and frequently just a little bit off key. Dogs are allowed to wander through with their owners, making me misty eyed for my baby Roxanne, who regularly saw her efforts to investigate the West Hollywood farmers market thwarted. (Our current dogs are not among those wandering the Asheville farmers market because Audrey doesn't know how to be polite to other dogs, which sometimes makes me miss Roxanne even more.)

We were particularly excited for last Saturday's market-going. Although the tailgate near us -- on the UNC Asheville campus -- professes to be year-round, it dwindled considerably by November. We returned once in December to buy a pristine Christmas tree, but there wasn't much edible to purchase, unless you count decorative gourds.

By then we were on a waiting list for a CSA -- Community Supported Agriculture. A new concept to me, CSA's are more or less like a co-op; you pay a flat fee up front and, come spring, the growers divvy up a portion of their produce among the CSA members. Every week you pick up your box of goodies and start cooking. The one to which we applied included an option to receive fresh flowers weekly (we signed up) and to lower the cost by volunteering hours working on the farm (we used The Boy as an excuse to decline).

Notice that we had to apply for the CSA. It even took some work just to find one who'd let us do that. Apparently, if you plan to own a small farm, you'd best do it in Western Carolina. Because we Ashevilleans are lining up for your offerings. So many of us, in fact, that a month ago I received the sad news that our one CSA hope was, yep, full.

I can't say I was too upset about that on Saturday morning. While we pretended we would have continued the Saturday ritual of strolling to the farmers market even as a CSA member, I tend to doubt the pull would have been nearly as strong if we already had a refrigerator full of produce at home. Plus, it's likely to be a much longer stroll this spring, with The Boy, at 25 pounds, able to walk himself and therefore rather disdainful of his stroller. Even if we could get him in it, I can vouch for the fact that there's little relaxed or fun about pushing 40 plus pounds of baby and stroller up the Asheville hills. Or so I'm reminded every afternoon when The Boy and I return from school.

At any rate, it was threatening rain on this particular Saturday, so the car was an easy choice. Even though there is something just plain wrong about driving your SUV (a crossover! and a Honda!) to the tailgate market so you can righteously purchase locally grown produce.

Turns out even doing that much was a bit of a struggle. The thing about those small local farms -- they tend to grow for the season. And, sun outside my window notwithstanding, the April season yields little in the way of edible produce. Plenty of lovely flowers were available for transplanting, but the gardener in our family didn't seem interested, and I'm not in a position to make backyard suggestions, seeing as I do zero work out there.

We left with a bag of watercress and some sausage from the local animal farm because they didn't have the pork loin Hubby was hoping for. Turns out the sausage wasn't such a great substitute; after an enthusiastic dinner of it on Wednesday night, The Boy spent an hour or so crying and producing some mighty evil-smelling poop. Belatedly, Hubby tasted the sausage and declared it surprisingly spicy. Henceforth, the meat-eating adult in this family will be tasting all animal flesh before I make it available to The Boy's tender toddler tummy.

"What about the downtown market?" I ventured hopefully as we pulled away from the tailgate, a whole morning still stretching before us. The downtown tailgate was new, and I envisioned a busy, festive atmosphere. Apparently my Union Square dilettantish farmers market days aren't entirely in my past.

Satisfied that he had done his best to support the folks at our own little tailgate, Hubby agreed.

The downtown market was in a bigger space, and there were more Ashevilleans wandering about, but if you can't grow produce during April in Western Carolina, then you can't grow produce during April in Western Carolina. It doesn't much matter which tailgate market you belong to.

Still, excited by the sights of neighbors and co-workers and better dog-watching for The Boy, I excitedly scooped up two tubs of goat cheese. Hubby dutifully handed me ten dollars before telling me that we were down to the last of our cash and he was hoping to find a pork loin waiting for him here.

Happily, there was, and he even had enough money to pay for it, with a nickel to spare. Between the meat, the goat cheese, and the dogs, we were all three pretty satisfied.

But not too satisfied to make our next stop Target. Because, like many Ashevilleans, I suspect, we love our community supported agriculture, but we still need to spend a little time under the fluorescent lights of a big, artificial box store to lend some balance to our lives.

Going to See the Goats

On Sunday afternoon Hubby, The Boy, and I took Grandma to the Carl Sandburg House.

Normally, I would not make a point of spending my Sunday afternoon at the home of any famous dead person. I seem to have some kind of allergy to historic homes. The second I enter them the heavy, dust-smelling air turns to cotton wads in my brain, and before I can say, "Hey! Cool antique tea set!" my eyes are drifting closed.

Since I have known Hubby, I have visited historical homes with him only to prove my True Love. The first time, I dutifully feigned interest in colonial methods of spinning wool in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on our way home from a wedding. We weren't even engaged yet, and I suppose the romance of a wedding put me in the mind of working toward one myself. Or maybe it had been so long since I had consented to this sort of outing that I half hoped I would enjoy it, creating another shared activity for the two of us. Lucky we have plenty of others.

Most recently, Hubby and I stopped by a historic home in our historic home of Long Beach. The grounds were lovely, and we were in a part of town unfamiliar to us, so I was happy to be along. But when it came to agreeing to a guided tour of the house, I begged pregnancy and swollen ankles, even though they never really were.

By now, I feel secure enough in my marriage to know that I will never, ever have to go to another historical home with Hubby.

What persuaded me to join in the trip to the Carl Sandburg house on Sunday was the promise that we wouldn't have to tour the house. We were going to see the goats.

We had set out to visit Carl Sandburg's goats before. (I suppose these are more likely descendants of his goats, since he's been dead for a while. I can't say how long because I carefully avoided the plackets bearing information about him and his life. I did read one poem, though, and liked it very much.)

On Thanksgiving Day, when Hubby had to be at work at three o'clock, we cheerily decided to check out downtown Hendersonville, not far distant from the goats. We thought we could find a cozy restaurant serving a turkey-free Thanksgiving meal before tiring The Boy out with a goat encounter. In this way, I would have an actual holiday because he'd be so tired when back home alone with me all afternoon that entertaining him would require nothing more than choosing a movie I could half watch on TiVo and devoting the other half of my attention to whatever it was we used to play with before Christmas and his birthday rained the presents we play with now.

I still marvel at the fact that I was actually surprised to find no restaurants open in historic downtown Hendersonville on Thanksgiving Day. I felt sad and waifish wandering the gray street alongside people plainly walking off too many servings of mashed potatoes. By the time we were ready to concede, we were so hungry that we ditched the goats for a little Mexican restaurant we found on the way home, where we enjoyed being the only gringos among the Spanish-speaking workers and The Boy, not speaking any language, waved corn chips around and considered it a perfectly good Thanksgiving.

There have been other plans to see the goats. But we've never quite made it. Because, don't you know, there are so many fascinating distractions in the vicinity of Asheville.

At any rate, I was anxious to join the family on Sunday, as I had bowed out of their jaunt to the Cradle of Forestry on Saturday. Turns out it involved horses, but The Boy found them terrifying. Better to wait for the goats.

We set out in the car as The Boy settled in for his nap. Usually, having The Boy nap in the car works well -- but usually we are facing a drive of longer than half an hour. The Boy was already suffering from a cold wrought by our indulgently letting him skimp on sleep to spend time with his visiting aunt and cousin earlier in the week. Grandma was around for several more days, and I was adamant that he not be gypped out of his nap.

So we took the long way, winding past the charming mountain sights of car lots and strip malls. We zipped through historic downtown Hendersonville with only the faintest sigh of nostalgia and continued on to the Carl Sandburg House.

We drew near. The Boy snored.

"Let's keep going," I suggested, even though my bladder was suggesting otherwise.

And so, for half an hour more, we wandered, until I and my bladder concluded The Boy had enjoyed sufficient nap time. At which point Hubby concluded that he needed to eat in order to enjoy the goats.

We headed for historic downtown Flatrock, home of the Carl Sandburg House. Although it was not a national holiday, it was a Sunday, and we encountered exactly as many open restaurants as we had on Thanksgiving Day in historic Hendersonville.

Thank goodness for Mexican restaurants. We were decidedly not the only gringos in this one -- in fact, the only people who spoke Spanish (if you don't count my hesitant knowledge of words and phrases useful for conversation with our house cleaner) were the wait staff. But it was surprisingly good, considering the circumstances, and The Boy loves him some refried beans.

We finally pulled into the parking lot of the Carl Sandburg house as the sun, which had been warming up the car during the entire drive, slipped behind a thick padding of clouds. I drew The Boy close to me for warmth and noted with pleasure that we were in a park with trails. Carl Sandburg's house, I was happy to see, was only a minor attraction.

We headed over a little bridge and started up the hill in the direction of the goats. I was deep in the thick of a cold that had my chest feeling like a sack of overcooked grits, so I encouraged The Boy to hitch a ride with Daddy. Nothing doing.

Normally, I would be happy to climb a half mile hill carrying a twenty-five pound boy on a chilly April day after eating three shrimp tacos and stolen bites of The Boy's beans. But I was most uncharacteristically not in the mood for exercise.

The Boy consented to ride on Daddy's shoulders for a few blessed yards, then continued in my arms until we reached the top of the hill and we all decided it might be a good idea if he walked a ways himself.

Letting a newly walking toddler walk two-tenths of a mile under his own steam seems like a good idea only after you've carried him three-tenths of a mile up hill while wheezing from a cold. Especially when he stops every two feet to observe the older children passing him by on their way to the goats.

At some point, I grabbed him and pretended not to notice his squirms of toddler determination, nor his tearful assertions of independence. He'd shut up, I was certain, once he saw the goats.

I wasn't wrong. "Look! Goats!" I cried when they came into view, as if he could remember his past joyful encounter with goats two months ago at Disneyland. Still, they were furry four-legged creatures and patently not horses and therefore, he seemed to figure, worth checking out.

The Boy did find the goats interesting, though not as interesting as the goat dropping riddled sawdust in the barn. The chickens were pretty cool too; but the huge pile of dirt on the other side of the chicken house was even more intriguing. These attractions, as any parent knows, could be avoided only with clever distraction. To my disappointment, eight-day-old goat Thor wasn't much of a distraction, while the historic goat milking house was.

Ah well. The historic goat milking house was only a few rooms sporting very little written information to slow down people like Hubby and Grandma who actually read it. And it was cold enough to prevent me from falling too deeply asleep.

Plus, I discovered, historic homes are more fun with a little boy running joyously ahead of you and then turning to peer through doorways with a gap-toothed grin spread across his face.

Family Fun

Lately, I have, for some reason, become acutely aware of the life cycle of a "typical" person's desire to spend time with her family. (A disclaimer here: I have no idea what a "typical" person entails, really, and insufficient knowledge to take cultural differences into account. Nor do I possess the proper scientific background to support my claims. But I couldn't figure out any other way to phrase it, since what I'm about to say doesn't exactly describe me, and I can't speak for anyone else.)

We are born with an intense desire to spend time with our parents, especially any of them who happen to be breast feeding. I see this stage manifested in The Boy's bellows of "Mommy!" even when the second Mommy picks him up he kicks his legs and pikes energetically in a move designed to make her drop him one day if she isn't careful.

Some time between the age of The Boy's youngest cousin -- who is 11 and loves to spend time with her family -- and her brother -- who is 14 and begged off coming to visit us last week with some excuse that sounded to me like it had to do with washing the car (although his mother insists he's done no such thing this week or ever) -- things change. We enter that stage of adolescent cantankerousness that includes a violent aversion to anything that smacks of spending time with one's family. Eventually, we grow out of adolescence into something approximating adulthood, and we like spending time with our families again.

Some of us, it turns out, never really make it to that adulthood stage.

For example, I've been married to Hubby for almost four years, lived with him for almost five, and I'm just now getting the hang of wanting to hang out with family.

It could be that I merely entered the adolescent aversion stage a bit late. I recall my mother cleverly delaying it when I was in my early teens with frequent Saturday shopping trips on her credit card. It probably helped that my sister went away to college just as I hit my teenage years and packed enough parental hostility into her trips home for the both of us. Plus, I figured I kind of scored getting to be the only child at an age where I could appreciate it.

But somewhere along the line it finally kicked in, and -- as my recent move from 15 miles south of my parents' house to 2,500 miles east illustrates -- I haven't really recovered.

I was getting there -- at least where Hubby's family was concerned -- in the first couple years of my marriage. Hubby is one of those curious sorts who never seems to have gone through the aversion stage. I still marvel at how it is possible to cram three siblings, multiple significant others, and an abundance of children into a medium-sized house during a cold St. Louis Christmas and never hear a single voice raised in anything but excitement over opening and playing with gifts.

At first, I approached this family closeness with caution and no small amount of suspicion. It may not speak well of me, but I have to confess that the first thing I think of when I am planning a vacation is not whether my mother would like to come along. I frankly felt a little bit pressured, as if I was expected to find the same comfort in family gatherings as Hubby.

Instead, I contorted myself into a pretzel of anguish over trying to be a family member. I mean, I knew I was, but I didn't see how that earned me the right to automatically fit in. I felt like I had to pass unspoken challenges and gather points along the way to some unknown destination, like half of a team on The Amazing Race. (My partner, sadly, had no idea we were racing anywhere, and spent our family visits basking in the midst of this game I was still learning to play, making me feel like the person who twists her ankle and grimly limps toward certain elimination.)

But eventually it dawned on me that Hubby's family weren't a bunch of judges on a reality show, but just a bunch of people who loved me because he did. And then loved me just because.

This is not an easy concept for many people to understand. You mean, families just love you? Unconditionally? In books and Hallmark Hall of Fame movies, sure, but in real life?

And then, two years ago, I got pregnant and it started to make sense in a way that does not lend itself to explanation because, frankly, there is none. I had done the unconditional love thing with my basset hound Roxanne, but an awful lot of people don't get the love-your-dog-like-your-child thing. Being pregnant with a human being put me on the same playing field as my in-laws.

Until, that is, I had The Boy and discovered the whole new web of tensions that come with a baby -- a web that seems to start and end with a new mother's hormones. Still, much as I'm willing to take the lion's share of the blame, the truth is that different understandings of what family means come rushing to the surface when there's an infant in the house.

And so I entered a whole new cycle of fretting about what Hubby's family thought of me. Did they look down on me as the first of the family to use disposable diapers? (The water, the energy of washing cloth ones!) Did they think less of me for my less than abundant milk supply? (No, more! both mother- and sister-in-law cried when they saw what I went through to avoid putting The Boy on formula in a bottle.) Surely they found me a bit selfish for preferring to calm my crying baby myself instead of passing him along so I could take a break and a nap.

By the end of each visit, my mother-in-law and I would have a drink or two together and proclaim our undying love for each other, our admiration for the other's role in my son's life, a desire to wipe the slate clean of all the normal spats that come with family. "I love you, guy!" we seemed to cry, like fraternity brothers seeped in the camaraderie of too much keg beer and a soggy yearning for some ill-defined approximation of brotherhood.

But, alas, my mother-in-law would depart and I would sober up, return to my quiet life with my small, immediate family, and panic when I saw how excited Hubby became when we began planning the next family get-together.

Until this week. When, for whatever reason, I have emerged from the fog of youthful rebellion against all things grounding, and have embraced being a 40-ish mother hosting barbeques for three generations of her family and looking an awful lot like an ad in Martha Stewart Living. I imagine all of us caught in the frame with laughs of adoring family joy as we point at The Boy gripping the chair of his cousin and putting his beaming baby face up to hers. We are soft, un-funky, lit by the easy caress of a suburban sunset, and selling something like a cheap boxed wine.

[NB: We most definitely do not live in the suburbs, but that's the point -- feeling like I'm completely myself at a family barbeque veers dangerously close to this territory.]

Many of you are aware that I've lately committed myself to another blog, http://yogamamame.blogspot.com. (Ooh, was that blatant self-promotion? Good for me -- I'm usually so terrible at it.) It consists of me mulling over a daily dilemma raised by trying to achieve personhood while dealing with motherhood in a way I find personally amusing, and then addressing the dilemma with some principles of yoga that I probably won't actually follow myself. So much easier to be the teacher than the student.

Only, it turns out, I have been teaching myself something. Because in all my writing about untangling the knots into which we tie ourselves (both mentally and physically) I seem to have straightened myself out a bit. I've let go of fretting over what my in-laws expect of me and whether they like me and whether they think Hubby made a big, huge mistake or just confounded them with an odd choice in a life partner. I stopped trying to fit in and just fit.

And so I found myself relaxing on our deck on a soft spring evening punctuated by the shrill, almost-teenager cries of my nieces, sharing parental laughter with my sisters-in-law, and granting myself a place in the tableau of what she has created spread before my mother-in-law's eyes. The wine I am drinking, by the way, is pretty cheap, but we bought it at Trader Joe's, so that makes it okay.

And therein lies the secret. I can drink cheap wine and shop at Trader Joe's. I can be a mom in her 40's and still have a kick-ass yoga practice. And I can be part of a family I want to spend time with without losing the little edges that make me me.

In fact, now that I'm looking at it from the inside, I see that this family has some pretty interesting edges itself. If you care to spend enough time with it to appreciate them.

The Boy's First Ball Game

Actually, we haven't yet been to The Boy's first actual baseball game. But we did spend a lovely hour or so at the ball park yesterday.

Asheville, I was thrilled to discover recently, is home to an A farm team for the Colorado Rockies. Not yet entirely adjusted to no longer living in a Major League city, I was sort of hoping that "A" ranked higher than "AA" and "AAA." I guess I was thinking about something like The A-Team; surely Mr. T wouldn't be a member of the A-Team if the AA-Team was better.

However, Hubby carefully explained to me, in baseball, the A team is, in his words, "one step above the Rookie League." I didn't even know there was such a thing. I guess growing up going to baseball games in a Major League city is sort of like buying your meat at the supermarket; it comes all cut up and inspected and wrapped up in cellophane so you have no idea where it really comes from.

Still, I've always wanted to go to a farm team game and I've never been, unless you count owning Bull Durham on video.

Hubby brought up the idea of taking The Boy to an Asheville Tourists game earlier in the week. (Doesn't the team name just make you want to come visit us? If so, don't read yesterday's post.) Good weather was predicted, we had no other plans, and we're always on the lookout for things to do with The Boy on weekends. Not that we desperately need him to go to school five days a week or anything.

The idea hovered in the air all week, bringing with it no concrete action, like, say, buying tickets. For some reason, I figured this was because we didn't have to worry about getting tickets in advance. We're not talking about Dodger Stadium, after all. It never dawned on me that, while Hubby has many strong points, buying tickets to anything ahead of time is not one of them. ("Do you think we should buy our tickets?" I recall asking one year three weeks before we were supposed to fly to Hawaii for Thanksgiving.)

And so, yesterday, we began our Sunday morning in eager anticipation of the Tourists' 2:00 start time. We ate breakfast, played, and read the paper secure in the knowledge that we had something exciting to do with the rest of our day.

By 11:00, Hubby announced that he was bored.

"We could go to breakfast," I said, as the only member of the family who'd not yet eaten any. Then I thought about the need to fit The Boy's nap in between the present moment and the 2:00 game time. "Except you already ate."

"I can always eat more," Hubby cried eagerly, halfway out the door. Did I mention he was bored?

He was also excited to introduce me to a new cafe downtown, where all the coffee is fair trade, all the food is organic, and there is excellent people-watching to be done by a 15-month-old boy. We settled ourselves at a table that afforded a perfect perch from which The Boy could loudly announce, "Dawh! Dawh!" at the sight of each passing pooch outside the windows.

He even gobbled down a whole sausage patty, making his meat-eating father inordinately proud. But by noon he still didn't seem nap-inclined.

"Let's take a walk and tire him out," Hubby suggested.

We concocted a vague plan. Before the start of the game we needed to: a) get The Boy to nap; b) buy tickets; and c) get some baby sunblock, since I had sent both of the tubes we had to The Boy's school after he broke out in a rash when they put the regular, reasonably priced stuff on him. It was hard enough buying a tube to take to his school at $17.99 for a few ounces; I just couldn't bring myself to purchase the additional one we would obviously need at home.

For some reason, the sunblock shopping was put off until later, and we walked in the direction of the stadium with some vague words about simultaneously tiring The Boy out and buying tickets. Then, I suppose, we were going to walk back to the car and drive around for an hour while The Boy slept before parking the car at the stadium, within walking distance of where it was currently parked. This made perfect sense to us, as do many things that shouldn't, because we are parents.

There is a certain joy you feel sad to know can't last in seeing your child doing his toddler run down sidewalks for the first time. Initially, The Boy carefully held onto my hand, letting go only for detours to every plate glass window that reflected a smiling little boy back at him. Then he got the hang of it and performed a scooting, wide-legged run down the hills, stopping every few steps to right himself or investigate a bottle top or cigarette butt strewn at the side of the road.

We made our way to a deserted playground on the east side of town, where he cheerfully climbed and slid and put wood chips in his mouth. But he still didn't seem all that tired.

"Should we put him in the car and drive him around?" Hubby asked.

I pointed out that we had the Times with us and no need to be at the park by 2:00, since The Boy was unlikely to last a full nine innings, even at an A-team game.

So, back to the car we hiked. We strapped The Boy in and headed in the direction of the stadium. "Where are we going?" I asked Hubby, unsure of what my plan was but fairly certain that we had agreed to do some other things before going to the game.

"I thought we should get tickets now," Hubby answered. It seemed a reasonable suggestion, with just an hour to go before game time. Then, I figured, we could buy sunblock.

To our surprise, the stadium was already bustling with patrons and the buzz of a ballpark on a Sunday afternoon.

"I'm not sure what to do," Hubby said, as we drove by.

"Let me out. I'll get the tickets," I said. By which time we found a parking spot that seemed too good not to take.

Since The Boy was still wide awake and intrigued by this adventure, we grabbed him and headed for the ticket booth together. No sooner had Hubby locked the car doors than a shifty-looking guy sidled up to him.

"Already have tickets?" he asked.

Wow, I thought to myself, not only do games sell out here, but there are actual scalpers.

"No," said Hubby, no doubt thinking something along the same lines.

Without a word, the man held up two tickets. He stared down at them with hooded eyes, avoiding Hubby's gaze.

Hubby reached for them. "Are they--?" he asked.

The man gave a slight wave over his shoulder as he departed, leaving the tickets in Hubby's still outstretched hand.

Unused to small towns and small town A-team ball games, my first thought was that we would be arrested upon presenting the tickets at the turnstile. I am ashamed to admit it, but it's true.

"They're general admission," Hubby said with an apologetic shrug. "He didn't say anything," he added, as if to explain why he took the tickets, why he didn't offer the guy some money for them, why we did not deserve to be arrested.

"If they're only general admission, maybe he had some extra and was just being nice," I said hopefully.

So now we had tickets, a parking space, and a wide-awake boy. "We still don't have sunblock," Hubby pointed out.

"He's wearing his hat," I said, sort of amazed that The Boy hadn't pulled off his little red baseball cap as soon as I put it on. Plainly there were too many sights distracting him.

"You know, we also forgot to bring the camera, and it's his first ball game," Hubby said somewhat sadly.

I agreed this was a shame, but we've been so lousy about taking pictures of The Boy lately that I'm getting used to it. Plus, only videos can capture the joy of him walking and saying "Dawh" and "Cah" (trans. "Dog" and "Car"), and we don't know how to post our videos so others can enjoy them, so I don't bother much with them either.

At any rate, it seemed decided for us. Or, at least, our poor planning skills had made it so. We were going to the ball park with a boy in need of a nap and sunblock, an hour before game time, without so much as a camera to record the event.

It didn't matter once we stepped into the stadium. Even with just a few food stands and a few more beer stands, the ballpark feeling melted over me. I spent two summers as an usher at Dodger Stadium when I was in college and likely absorbed so much hot dog grease that it lies latent in my system until activated by the sights and sounds of a stadium and then bursts forth in a splash of excitement for summer and childhood and the clean lines of a baseball diamond.

We passed under banners featuring famous past players for the Asheville Tourists -- Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, Willie Stargell, and Cal Ripken among them. I pointed excitedly at them and felt part of two things at once -- both Major League Baseball with its circuit of big cities featuring huge stadiums and the smaller towns that feed it, home to parks where kids can still line up to have players autograph their gloves.

It turns out the General Admission seats were all in the sun -- and not really seats, just concrete risers where the folks who plan for such things spread out their portable chairs while they hide in the shade waiting for the game to start.

Hubby suggested we might warm someone else's seats in the hopes that they not show up and with the all purpose excuse a baby provides in case they did. So we made our way to some in the back, right next to the McDonald's Family Section that, Hubby pointed out with alarm, is alcohol free. We made a note of seat numbers to make sure we don't sit there if ever we manage to buy tickets ahead of time.

We settled in to the sounds of the announcer and the piped-in music, and the field as close to us in the last row as it is to season ticket holders at Dodger Stadium. The Boy munched on a soft pretzel with relish and watched the other kids with wide, serious eyes. After a while, he got a hang of the place, and left our laps to wander the length of the bench and smile at the man sitting at the end drinking a beer.

The announcement that start time had been delayed by an estimated hour came as we were watching them spread some kind of absorbent dirt over the field in what seemed to me to be a feeble attempt to dry it out after the previous night's rain. It wasn't looking good. Plus, The Boy had just decided it was time for him to sit on the ground and play.

"I'm afraid there are peanut shells down there," said Hubby of the peanut allergy. Not that a few peanut shells on the ground bother him, but his son who we suspect has inherited his allergy and who wanted to sit amongst them and likely put them in his mouth was another story.

"He's never going to take his nap here," I sighed. "And he doesn't care if we see the game or not. Plus, we got in for free," I added.

"I don't mind leaving," Hubby agreed. I think it had more to do with the fact that he could tell himself this didn't count as The Boy's first ball game and thus not feel bad about forgetting the camera than with anything I had said.

So we went home, making one person looking for a parking space almost as happy as our dogs.

I don't know if The Boy's enthusiastic response to his first almost-baseball game makes him more my son or his father's. Hubby, after all, still cares to follow baseball, watches games on t.v., and once even played on a team in his youth. I, on the other hand, have grown to appreciate the atmosphere of the ballpark more than the games. I'll always think of the major league season as it was when I went to Dodgers games with my father -- before realignment, when the play-offs were just five games, and when Marge Schott hadn't yet made me too embarrassed to be a Cincinnati Reds fan.

Whatever the reason, we all three love going to a game, and I know my family will be returning to see the Asheville Tourists play. Maybe we'll even get season tickets.

And when the next Jackie Robinson or Willie Stargell makes it to the major leagues, my son will be able to say he saw them up close when they played for his hometown team in Asheville.