After wisely bypassing the menu item called “American Fried Rice” at our Bangkok hotel several times, my husband finally gave in to curiosity and ordered it, and we got a glimpse into the secret world of how Thais imagine Americans: a cheerful sunny side up egg topped a mound of fried rice, ringed by two hot dogs, a fried chicken leg, tomato slices, and a piece of deli ham. I have to commend them: that is America on a plate.

I have two nearly grown boys. They’ve reached that age when they’d rather Skype with friends while gaming than join us out for dinner. Leave the house, boys. Live real life. But the thing is, that is real life to them.

With the occasion of Mother’s Day, though, I easily coaxed them to come along. We hung around at home most of the day, each doing our own thing, and then we headed out for a late brunch at an inn.

The carving station: I think about how I slice up the weeks, time for tennis matches, homework help, rides to friends, dinner from scratch, orthodontist appointments, frozen pizza, all a jumble of laughter, bickering, and chores.

The pasta station: It’s freshly warmed to let the sauce sink in, like hugs and kisses, high fives and fist bumps, texts and emails, pride in each new change.

The vegetable medley: Put some veggies on your plate; I guide them to make the right choices.

The bitter greens: Nostalgia that my little boys are gone mixes in with everything else.

The sweets table: I realize with joy that they’re becoming their own people, confident young men.

Brunch: that is motherhood on a plate.

With the Internet down on a Saturday morning and the rest of the house asleep, I poured myself a cup of coffee and flipped through the pages of my newly published ebook. I had just gotten a message of praise about it on my phone and was drawn into looking it over again while imagining my friend’s fresh pair of eyes. I felt a sly, proud smile form as I let my phrases float by, remembering each story I had told.

Ten pleasant minutes of this, and then I got punched in the gut.

I stared in disbelief at one of my sentences, a sentence I had proofread many times before between publishing it on my blog and in my ebook, but somehow it now popped out at me: “They imagined their harvest goddess, Demeter, in the depths of despair at her innocent daughter Penelope taken away by the god of the underworld.”

I have taught The Odyssey many times, so I know that Penelope is not Demeter’s daughter, but is Odysseus’s faithful and clever wife. Demeter’s unlucky daughter is Persephone.

My pride crumbled into embarrassment. Regular typos are bad enough, but at least with those, people would give me the benefit of the doubt. This factual error that they now believed I believe? I drew shallow breaths as I imagined friends and strangers judging my ignorance.

I spent the next three anxious hours not waking up my husband to moan about my mortification and, more importantly, get him to reset the Internet so that I could correct my mistake and stop misinforming the world.

Did my husband appreciate my self-restraint? He did not. He said instead that he has shown me how to reset the Internet several times before. He didn’t even think the error was a big deal, so why did it matter so much to me?

Once as a new teacher I misinformed my high school freshmen that Northern Ireland was north of England. The next day a sweet girl shyly but firmly raised her hand and said that she had double-checked with her mother to be sure and that, no, Northern Ireland was not north of England. That was a self-contained humiliation. I could apologize and correct the error to everyone who had been sullied by it.

With this, though, even after I corrected my mistake, the feeling of humiliation remained. The error was out there. Long-gone readers who will not revisit my blog or manage their Kindles will live the rest of their lives thinking that I think Demeter’s daughter is Penelope. Despite all of my obsessive checking, this error got by as proof of my incompetence.

I fight the tide of my inadequacy day by day, each new wave crashing against me. Some days my confidence is strong; other days the undertow drags me out to sea. I want to stand on the shore, resolute, like Penelope waiting for the day her Odysseus would return.

And, for the record, she’s not Demeter’s daughter.

I hit a bucket of golf balls on a beautiful spring afternoon, and at least a few of them went far, straight, and true. I looked up in time to see them arcing gracefully against the blue sky and puffy white clouds.

Most of them, though, went puttering off the tee or awkwardly left or right. I took to proclaiming “Shanked it!” each time, not knowing what that meant exactly, but knowing it was bad.

Still, those couple that go right make all the mis-hits worthwhile. Isn’t that always the way?

#85: Hit a bucket of golf balls again (101 things in 1001 days).

Only 24 more things to go…

Timid No More: How I Broke Out of My Comfort Zone by Doing 101 Things and How You Can Break Out of Yours

In the ebook Timid No More, I share my favorite adventures from my quest to complete 101 things in 1001 days, a quest that made me less timid and squeamish. I share serious tasks (stop complaining) and silly tasks (ride a mechanical bull), intimidating tasks (travel alone) and nostalgic tasks (listen to old records). I also give ideas for readers to create their own set of challenges so that they can reinvent themselves too.

Stuck in a rut? It’s time to expand your comfort zone.

Order the ebook at Amazon.com for $0.99.

Timid No More is published on Amazon for the Kindle; if you don’t have a Kindle you can still read it using free Kindle reading apps.

P.S. If you read it, please consider writing a review on Amazon.

#dpssimplicity

If you’re ever looking to lighten the mood in a room full of seventh-graders, all you have to do is tell them where you’re going on vacation this summer. It’s guaranteed to produce an explosion of excited laughter.

As long as you’re going to Lake Titicaca, that is.

Once the laughter died down, one girl asked me with worried concern: “So if an adult asks you where you’re going this summer, you have to say that word to them?”

Oh, to be so young again.

I better not tell them that the pyramids were erected.

Here is a sneak peak at a project I am working on.

(Drum roll please.)

Timid No More: How I Broke Out of My Comfort Zone by Doing 101 Things and How You Can Break Out of Yours

In my new eBook, I share my favorite adventures from my 101 things list, and I offer tips on making your own list and using it to invigorate your life.

Stay tuned.

I am also starting an occasional newsletter. Please subscribe.

(video link)

My other vlogs:

• A Christmas Quest: Solve the Riddles to Find Your Present
• Living with the Millennial Generation Means Not Laughing at Rage Comics
• Unpacking the Christmas Ornaments
• Leftover Turkey Oatmeal
• Pet Peeves
• Peru, My Pet, and a Moral Dilemma (RIP, little Chewie. I didn’t eat him, I swear.)
• Why I Blog
• Butternut Squash Pasta Sauce

Check out other vlogs at Mama Kat’s.

From Dorky to Not Too Timid

Chapter 1: A Happy, Dorky Childhood

• Ditched, in which childhood friends run away from me on the playground, and I don’t know why

Chapter 2: Mistake-Making Teen

• My First (and Second) Confession, in which I discover that lying to a priest isn’t the best way to prepare for Confirmation

Chapter 3: College Hijinks

• What’d you do with the money?, in which I sing my way into a pretty good insult from a stranger

Chapter 4: A Mixtape of Love

• Love in a Mixtape, in which a homemade mixtape is a declaration of love from my future husband

Chapter 5: Two Adorable Boys

• How to Respect Your Kid’s Intelligence and Ruin Easter All at the Same Time, in which I shatter my son’s innocence on an Easter morning

Chapter 6: A Happy, Dorky Adulthood

• Laughter from a Bright Yellow Sweater, in which I get targeted by the comedian at a New York City comedy club

Chapter 7: Amazing Adventures

• Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies in Cages with Tigers, in which I let my babies in cages with tigers

Chapter 8: A Tenacious Finisher

• Hiking Mount Katahdin, in which I am amazingly slow but terribly persistent

Chapter 9: Doing Anything for a Blog Post

• Graffiti to the Rescue: I Tagged My Garage, in which I spray paint graffiti onto my own garage

Chapter 10: Not Too Timid and Squeamish

• Pura Vida: Traveling Alone to Costa Rica, in which I take on every possible adventure during a solo trip and declare I am no longer too timid and squeamish

What’s the next chapter?

My son is tiptoeing around me, asking questions about my blog and my race, trying to break the ice. He knows I am still angry with him.

I agree to bring him to his Saturday practice, alone, another touchy subject because he never arranges a carpool.

“I’m not pleased with you,” I say. “We still have to have that talk.”

“I know,” he says.

He had stayed up until 4:30 in the morning on a school night putting the finishing touches on a chemistry project, Skyping with a high-achieving friend. This questionable decision led to his not meeting other responsibilities the next day.

“And I’m not pleased with Dan either.” My other son has lost his computer privileges one week after getting them back because of letting his grades slip. He hadn’t felt like studying for a quiz. But he’s on crutches due to a stress fracture, which puts him off the track team for the season, the team he was so excited to join just two weeks before.

“And I’m not pleased with daddy either. And I don’t want to run that race today. And I know that none of these are real problems, so I feel terrible.” I “have” to run an obstacle race later in the day because I was asked on my “Say yes” day, but I feel I am the only one who has to live under crazy self-imposed rules.

I am sloshing in a pathetic stew of hormones that will subside within a few days.

“So you feel sad about feeling sad?” David said. “That seems like a vicious circle.”

I saw the first world problems video a few months ago, and I’ve felt guilty and inspired ever since.

“And at my book club meeting last night I heard about this woman I met through tennis who is friends with the book club women….”

I pause, struggling to contain my emotions.

“Mom,” my son says, touching my shoulder.

I lose the struggle and burst out crying, the left lens of my broken glasses steaming up. I am afraid the lens will fall out if I try to clear it because it is held in precariously with Super Glue. I broke my glasses the other day, and I only have an expired pair of trial contacts as an alternative because I somehow failed to schedule an eye exam and cannot get a new prescription for contacts until I do.

“And her daughter just got home from surgery on her skull because, I don’t know, ten years ago or so a nanny apparently smashed her head when she was a baby and she had brain damage and is lucky to be alive and the nanny never admitted wrongdoing and somehow served only three months in jail.”

I blurt out: “That’s real problems.”

We drive the rest of the way to the courts in silence.

“Thanks,” my son says. “Good luck.” He grabs his gear from the back seat and walks away.

And I drive away, grateful.

Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth. If she can just hold off this batter, she’ll get her first win.

The 7th-grade wood shop teacher made it clear that girls shouldn’t be in shop. The alternative, home economics, had a final project to sew a silken-backed vest by hand. I wanted to wear a silken-backed vest even less than I wanted to sew one, so there I was, the only girl among heavy machinery and a roomful of boys.

Shy and awkward, I was the kid always picked last in gym class, but I had just seen Tatum O’Neal in The Bad New Bears. Her character, Amanda, had something special that others wanted. She threw a baseball like none of the boys could, so she made demands for French jeans and ballet lessons. She chewed her gum with authority, squinted her eyes at the batter on the plate, and let fly a fastball.

I slipped on some confidence like Amanda’s cleated sneakers and tried it out, walking gingerly. It seemed to fit. So even though I couldn’t throw a baseball and wouldn’t dream of changing my Levi’s for imported jeans, I carried a little bit of Amanda with me into the wood shop class.

My teacher, age 80 or thereabouts, treated any question I asked or mistake I made as clear proof that a girl didn’t belong in his class.

And here’s the windup. The pitch: a fastball, low at the knees. Ball three.

I had been fumbling with my candle holder for the last few days of shop class. I avoided asking my teacher for help by getting busy with my sandpaper any time he came around. That wood was as smooth as a Louisville Slugger.

Still, the whine of the saws, the smell of the sawdust, the new creation made by my hands, I was beginning to enjoy the class, beginning to belong.

And she lets loose a curve ball. Strike two. A full count: 3 and 2.

The boys asked him questions all the time, so why shouldn’t I? I popped in a fresh stick of Juicy Fruit and began chewing away.

Here comes the pitch. Will it be another fastball?

“Um, Mr. Jones? I need help putting the blade in the band saw to cut my next piece,” I said.

Mr. Jones put down the candle holder he was inspecting and looked me square in the face. A pause.

He said, “You are chewing your gum like a cow chewing its cud.”

There’s a long drive. Oh, what a hit. It’s over the fence. A home run!

Game lost, I stood there lonely on the mound, cheeks burning.

The fact that he’s probably been dead for 30 years doesn’t lessen my shame. That game is etched in the record books forever.

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Submit your blog essay or anecdote of no more than 500 words to Yeah Write on Tuesday and return on Thursday to vote for your five favorites.

This is part of a series, Scene from a Memoir.