Naomi, the Old Lady of the Hills, has challenged me to make a list of ten things, pertinent to my life, that begin with the letter “M.” Naomi is one of the many bosses of me, so here is my list.

1. Music. Without it, life would have no color. Music is so much a part of me, talentless as I am, that I can not even imagine a silent life. It would be very horrifyingly quiet and dull without something wonderful to sing along with in the car, in the kitchen, wherever one might be. I played music when my students took tests or had quiet study time. I figured, if cows produced more milk when the barn was full of music, then students might produce more and better work. They did, too. Better quality work, and faster, too. Music makes us more civilized, and less afraid to be uncivilized at times. It brings out the best in us, and the worst. We show our true personalities to the world when we allow others to listen to our music. That’s one of many cool things about Patriside’s Mixmania.

2. M*A*S*H. I confess, I am addicted. This is the last television program I ever watched faithfully, and it is the only television program I watch on DVD up in my kitchen. (I do go into ecstacies over certain Adult Swim DVD’s that my son brings home to watch with me, but I don’t count those among my absolute visual obsessions.) There has never been another program like M*A*S*H. The casting was perfection itself, and it never, ever jumped the shark.

3. Moon. The symbol of the night. I’ve been fascinated by the moon since I was a child, and used to lie on top of the family car and look at the night sky with my pink plastic toy binoculars. The moon is the subject of so many legends, and stories; the moon features heavily in art and music. The many words for ‘moon’ have infiltrated our daily language, as all of us lunatics well know. It remains a beautiful silvery glowing mysterious icon of the night. And night is what I’m all about. (Blogger wouldn’t let me put the moon picture on here. It really was a picture of the moon, not of anyone mooning. But since I couldn’t put any kind of picture here, you’ll have to take my word for it, won’t you.)

4. Mom. My mother is a person I’ve tried to imitate and NOT imitate all my adult life. I do many things now in peculiar ways, just because Mom did it that way, or did NOT do it that way. I know; it makes no sense. I have spent much of my adult life trying not to be like her, and just as much trying to do certain things just the way she always did them. Holidays, mostly. It all comes down to the fact that Mom is fantastic, and I love her with a fierce protective love that is unequaled in anything or anyone else I love. It doesn’t keep me from laughing at the Momisms, though.

And we must not forget that there are many aspects of Mom.

5. Men. Need I say more?

6. Moxy Fruvous. These four guys have been my favorite band since the mid-nineties. A sensible ordinary person would have gotten over it by now and moved on but I have never been sensible or ordinary, and I just like them better as the years go by. I do love me some expert a cappella singing. Of course, like every band, restaurant, store, etc, I have ever loved in all my life, they are now defunct. Oh, they SAY they’re on hiatus, but I know better. I love them; therefore, they’re gone. I have all their solo cd’s, and they’re great, but it’s just not the same. Guys, PLEASE come back. In twelve years, nobody has ever taken your place.

7. Musicals. Dear heaven, I LOVE a good live musical. The first one I ever saw, live, was ‘Oklahoma,’ and it’s only gotten better since. I’m glad we took the kids and all their friends and all my students to so many in years past, since we certainly can’t go to any now or probably ever again (sob) but we saw our fair share and more back when we could. Whenever I look at our old white van, I see it packed full of teenagers, dressed to the hilt, and excited about going to Indianapolis or Louisville or even just Bloomington to see Phantom, or Les Miz, or Sweeney Todd, or Into the Woods, or Evita, or Godspell. . . . . . and dozens more. And of course a good original soundtrack in the car, with the volume up to eleven (snicker) makes a road trip that much greater.

8. (Les) Miserables. I’m probably cheating, calling this an ‘m,’ but I love it so much I couldn’t combine it with the other musicals, and it was impossible to leave it out. When I taught sixth grade, we were fortunate enough to have Beverly Cleary’s “The Platoon System” in our anthology. This was a chapter from her delightful autobiography “A Girl From Yamhill County,” and this chapter told of an innovative teacher who, one day, put the boring textbook away, folded her hands on top of her desk, and proceeded to tell her students the story of Jean Valjean. At the end of the semester, she hadn’t finished, and her students were frantic. But the teacher promised that when school started up again, so would the story, and she kept her word. Of course, a few of the “less intelligent” parents protested that such an adult story was being presented to children, but the principal did not cave, at least, not much. He asked the teacher to tell the story only once a week, in the auditorium, instead of daily, and to teach her required health lessons on the other days. That these students, who were the same age as my sixth graders, could love and OBSESS about a story this much fascinated my own students, and one day I folded my hands on top of my desk and began to tell them this same story. It worked in real life, too. Later that year, I was able to take a vanload of students to see the student version of this show, and it was a rousing success.

When Hub and I took our own kids and a few of their friends to see this show, we got a wonderful surprise. Our seats were in the nosebleed section, far sta
ge right, but when we climbed up there that night, our seats were full of speakers and sound equipment. We were escorted back downstairs and given seats in row five, center. It was absolutely fantastic.

Les Miserables teaches us that no matter how hard our lives may be, however cruel some people may be, or however impossible some goals may seem, there is always hope, and it is always worthwhile to keep on trying.

It has become one of my life’s themes.

9. More Cowbell. Everyone needs more cowbell in his/her life, in every aspect and in every way. There’s just never enough cowbell.

10. Memories. The older I get, the more precious these become. I try, every day, to put the bad ones behind me and to focus on the good ones, and the making of more good ones. I have not yet succeeded but I am still trying.

11. Mamacita. This blog has changed and improved and given such wonderment and happiness to my life. . . . it may have even saved my life. I would never be able to thank you all enough for making Mamacita part of your lives, too. It’s getting more and more difficult to even remember life before I was Mamacita. Things happen, and my first thoughts now are “Can I blog that?”

I chose the name ‘Mamacita’ hurriedly, and on a whim. A friend (Hi, Wes) had encouraged me to start a Blogger journal, and I needed to call it something. My husband and my daughter both speak German, so I knew what ‘scheiss’ was (heh), and this journal started life as a repository for anecdotes that happened at school, and schools, as we all know, are full of scheiss. I tried to register “Scheiss Daily” but somebody already had it, so I went with ‘weekly.’ As for my identity, I wanted something ‘parentish’ but the word ‘Mommy’ in all its possible incarnations was already being used by several people. At that time, I didn’t know of anyone else blogging as “Mamacita” so I grabbed it. I’ve since learned that there are many others, and I have recently put my favorite other Mamacita on my blogroll. She actually had the name first, but I didn’t know that when I chose it. We arm-wrestled for the name and tied, so we’re both using it. Check out the other Mamacita some time; she’s awesome.

Is that more than ten? Whoops. I was never very good at math.