Bowser, Mario and why there's a castle in my living room

I have a castle in my living room. It's made from two cardboard boxes and multi-colored cardboard bricks . It belongs to Bowser - a fearsome, dragonesque character from the Mario games.

My son put it together one afternoon. He surrounded it with Mario trading cards, drew a few decorations on the front, then gathered up all his Mario plushies and set them around his creations. Some are Bowser's minions, out to do harm. Others are heroes on dangerous rescue missions.

I love to listen him play, to hear him make up his stories and do the different character voices. Of course, I'm not supposed to listen - if he sees me, he clams up, politely asks me what I need and then waits patiently until I leave the room.

Only it's my living room. So sometimes that's a bit of a problem. Because the living room is also the main room of the house.

So while I love having my son play pretend, I do occasionally wish his castle had been built elsewhere. The situation reminded me of another one, long ago.

When I was little, I used to love to play Barbies. I would make up grand storylines and set up major scenarios with my cast of motley characters - from Malibu Barbie to Prince Ken to Skipper. I'd do this, though, in my big sister's closet. I had to - she had the coolest closet with lots of space and two different shelf levels. Luckily, even as a teen-ager, my literary-minded sister understood.

"Okay," she told me. "But don't let it get too messy, and don't stay in there forever."

I didn't, of course. I put my Barbies away. And I know that far too soon, Bowser and his evil minions won't interest my son anymore. So for now, the living room is hs fortress. And that's okay.

"If you want to have a better dog, you need to be a better person"

"If you want to have a better dog, you need to be a better person."

I read that phrase awhile back in a Jon Katz book. Katz is an author and dog lover and when I read it, it seemed to make sense. It also seemed pretty easy, since we didn't own a dog at the time.

We adopted Copper from the local humane society. Well, I didn't adopt him. My kids did. They fell in love with his big brown eyes and his gangly limbs and his overenthusiastic confusion at his predicament.

Truthfully, I might have picked another pooch. But love can limit your choices.

Copper is just so big. He's three years old, over 50 pounds. He hadn't been neutered. He plays very rough, and it seems no one spent a lick of time leash training him.

Walking Copper strains our patience and our shoulders - he lunges at dogs, squirrels, old men getting their newspapers. We can't buy him treats - poor Mr. Whiskers sniffed at a new bone once and Copper picked him up and shook him like a rag doll. Luckily, the cat weighs a good 20 pounds and merely walked away with an injured dignity. And Copper loves, loves, loves garbage; last night he wolfed down half a baked potato. The other day he ate half a package of turkey bacon.

But Copper follows my son and daughter with gentle, adoring eyes. He sits, lays down and shakes hands on command. He snuggles beside me at night with his head on my legs, and warms my feet while I read.

In our back yard, he plays with such exuberance and happiness I wonder how anyone had the heart to abandon him in the first place. My  kids look at him like he's worth a million bucks.

I look at the leashes he's chewed through. I pick up the garbage on the floor. I wonder if he'll ever learn what we're trying to teach him. I wonder if the local seniors will ever forgive us for scaring the heck out of them on their daily walks. I wonder if Copper will ever calm down.

I wonder if I can become that better person I read so much about. And I hope it will all get easier.

It's the bedtime questions that are the toughest for mom

So my daughter asked me a question last night, and I've been thinking about it all day.

"What do you do when you have to be around people you don't like?" she asked me. It was late, and I was tucking her into bed. She likes to do this to me, my little princess does; she asks me questions about life and love and God right before bedtime, when any real creativity I've had has trundled off to sleepytime and all I'm really thinking about is crawling under the covers with a good book.

But she was serious. She wanted an answer. So I thought for a moment.

Now, I consider myself a pretty easygoing person. I mean, I like most people; I hope they like me. But sure, once in awhile I meet that person who just bugs the poop out of me. They're loud or rude or stupid or all three rolled up into one big obnoxious sandwich.  So what do you do? What can you do?

This is what I told her: I said I don't do anything about them. Because nothing will change them. And I can scream and rant and pull my hair out and they'll still be what they are and my day will be ruined. So I just try to change my reaction to them.  I take a deep breath. I try not to listen to them. I go for a walk. Then  I come back and I smile. Or ... I make a snarky little comment. (Hey, we're all human).

Try to be like a duck, I told her.  Let it all roll off you.  Then I scratched her back. She smiled and closed her eyes.

And again, I hoped I'd given the right answer.

If life were vacation, it would go something like this . . .

During the year, when I'm at work, I like to moan and groan about how busy I am. Life would be very different, I say, if only I had more spare time.

Well, I'm on vacation this week. And I think I'm getting a taste of what would happen if I allowed myself to live a totally unstructured life:

1. I would watch a lot of Food Network.

2. I would go to the gym in the morning and then go home and crash into bed.

3. I would eat too much candy.

4. I would play Mario checkers with my son - and lose.

5. I would have long conversations with the dog, who would start to look slightly bored.

6. I would drink many different types of coffee.

7. I would hang out at the library with all the other cool people.

8. I would  talk a lot about how the house was really messy and how I should clean it up. And then I would watch Food Network.

9. I would write.

10. I wouldn't have any excuses not to do all the stuff I've been putting off ... and I'd watch more Food Network.

Injury causes Christmas slowdown - but it's not all bad

It's Christmas Eve, and I'm barely moving. Oh, it's not fatigue, although like most everyone else I know, I'm pretty beat.

I'm injured. I have no idea how it happened, but somehow I managed to pull, stretch or somehow mangle the band of muscles that surrounds the chest and upper back. I woke up the other day, somewhat alarmed at feeling pain in my chest, but soon realized that I could barely take a deep breath without my muscles screaming.

It's  frustrating, annoying - I feel like I've been in a fight. I've been walking in slow motion for the last few days, trying to avoid quick movements and sudden turns.

But I can honestly say I've found the silver lining that surrounds this cloud. I've had to slow down - I've had no choice but to step back from the holiday rush. To my surprise - and guilt - I've found this makes my children really happy. Oh, not the injury, of course -but the accessibility.

We've read Christmas books. We watched Christmas movies. My son showed off the videos he's been making; my daughter demonstrated all the airplanes she's created in her problem-solving class.

I'll likely be moving a little slower through Christmas. But maybe I was moving too fast to begin with.

Real Christmas magic and miracles come from families

I've been pretty cranky at work lately. Oh, it's nothing really, just lots of tension in the office - tight deadlines, lots of projects, fraying tempers.

The gray skies, bumper-to-bumper traffic and constant drizzling rain haven't been helping my mood much, either. But when I walk in the door of my house, that all changes. No, I don't have a fancy house - not at all. But I'll come in, crabby and bedraggled, and my husband will greet me like a princess; he'll have dinner already started and the dog walked and fed, to boot.

My kids will rush over to show me their school projects, not even noticing I look like something the cat dragged in. They'll chatter excitedly with each other and giggle and wrestle while I peel off my purse and my boots and my bookbag, and every time they laugh I'll feel my mood lighten.

By the time I walk upstairs to change my clothes I feel like an entirely different person.

I just finished a little Christmas book of short stories recently. It's called Magic, Miracles & Mistletoe. I started it on a whim, deciding for no good reason to start a project about holiday magic. The dedication was the last and easiest sentence I wrote:

"This novella is dedicated to my family: Without them, there'd be no magic at all."

Birthday party amid holiday rush takes premier planning skills

I have a friend who is a schoolteacher, and she carefully planned out her conception so her kids were born in the spring.

I've never been that much of a planner. That's why my husband and I are putting together a birthday party right after Thanksgiving and smack dab in the midst of the holiday rush.

Our little boy is turning 9. Wow! That doesn't sound very little anymore, does it? Ok ... I'll deal with that later. Right now, we're trying to order a cake, plan a party and find gifts - unavailable in stores, naturally - all while handling the usual holiday mayhem.

"What do you want this year?" I asked my boy, halfway hoping he'd say he was forfeiting his gifts and sending money to Hong Kong or someplace like those kids I see occasionally on the news. No such luck.

"A Wario plushie," he replied. "And a green Angry Bird."

Um, ok. Wario, I knew was a character from the Mario games. And Angry Birds, heck, that should be easy, right??  WRONG. The GREEN angry bird is so elusive I'm pretty sure it's only sold in some Angry Birds store in Hong Kong.

This is starting to remind me of the time my daughter wanted to be Lavagirl from "Sharkboy and Lavagirl" for Halloween and I had to come up with a costume. Not good.

But we're trying. I'm calling parents to make sure families will be in town on the weekend, ordering a cake from the bakery girl who hasn't heard of Mario and, oh yes, buying Christmas gifts on the side.

I should have planned ahead. Way ahead. Soooo ... you wouldn't happen to know the area code for Hong Kong, would you?