Surreal Housewife of Amador County

Parental Guidance Suggested

2012-01-31T11:00:00.000-08:00

Just cleaned off my desk in my home office/loft/shit mitt and lo and behold, there actually is a flat surface underneath it all. After two days on the couch with my laptop on my lap, to give my back a break from my chair, I’m back to work at an official work space. All ready to conquer a mountain of writing about tiny computery parts and the companies who make them, I run into a problem: the next door neighbor is jackhammering his walkway into rubble. Until now, working from home has been a great test for my capacity to ignore. I can ignore a dripping faucet, a dog obsessed with licking himself, a woodpecker determined to break into the attic from outside my window and even the buzz of the dryer alerting me to fact that there are clothes to be folded, but I can’t ignore a jackhammer.

So, I do what any legal adult would do when they need to check out of the present moment and it’s prior to noon; I reach for my iPod. I always go with my initial, gut feeling as I scroll through the menu. Today, of all the 43,972 selections to choose from, it was Pink Floyd that caught my eye. Now, I’m listening to the sound of jackhammering and getting angry for the orphans of London. Why can’t they just leave the kids alone? Crap. This really isn’t working for me…

Maybe I’ll just do a little daydreaming. That ought to kick start the creative juices I need to begin writing about solder pastes and tin whiskers with the sort of flair our clients expect. In other words, I’ll try not to drive anyone to pull a Foxconn. (In case you haven’t heard, Foxconn, the China company who contracts with Apple to put iPads and other gadgetry together, installed nets around the massive, dormitory-laden factory because employees keep jumping to their deaths. Turns out, 35-hour shifts at 31 cents an hour is pushing people to the brink – literally. Check out the report by Jon Stewart here.

Ok, back to surreality. Let’s see… what is there to daydream about on this fair, almost-February morning? Aha! I’m eligible for my phone upgrade tomorrow and I’m throwing it all in for an iPhone – albeit last year’s model at the sweet price of $50. 3G is good enough for me. I just want to be able to find out where I’m going when I’m lost, how I can get my hands on some sushi when I’m out of town, and of course, play Words with Friends. I don’t really know how it works yet, but I plan to modify it into Dirty Words with Husband.

As technology goes, I’m not one to camp out in front of the Apple store. I had my Classic iPod for three years before one of my students informed me that I could download movies. That was three years ago and I still haven’t done it. Then, my brother told me about podcasts. Right now, I’m just thrilled that I finally have something to replace my Sony Walkman, which replaced the beige Realistic transistor radio that I used to toss into the white plastic basket on the front of my purple Schwinn bicycle — the one with one gear.

My kids and their relationship with technology is another story. It’s all they know. They will never walk across a room to turn a channel. Heck, they’ll never experience the satisfaction of successfully talking a sibling into getting up and turning the channel for them. They’ll never know what it’s like to not be able to see the TV while having an important phone conversation while holding a toaster-sized, two-headed “receiver” to their ear, while standing two feet from the phone base that is attached to the wall with a little curly cord that can be endlessly stretched and twisted, or wrapped around your leg until your foot turns a cool shade of blue. They’ll never know the supreme joy of FINALLY getting a princess trimline phone in any color they want, with its sleek, ultra-modern design that can actually travel all the way across the room with them because someone has finally made a 20-foot phone cord! Oh, the joy!

Modern technology at their fingertips robs them of precious critical thinking opportunities. For example, gone is the opportunity to feel the terror of making the decision to wait until the moment they are supposed to be home to call and ask for more time at the park with their friends. I could have left the swings, or climbed down from the tree in plenty of time to walk home, ask for more time, and then walk back. Instead, it was the same dilemma, weekend after weekend:

“Let’s see, do I run home right now and get there ten minutes late, or spend five minutes begging a dime off a stranger and then five minutes searching for a pay phone that works? Then, if she says no, will I still be in hot water for not being home on time?”

By the way, the answer to that last question was yes.

Yep, cell phones sure do take a lot of stress off kids. On the flip side, they sure do have the potential to bring more stress into their lives if they aren’t handled with maturity. It’s one more way to get into trouble in class, one more distraction that discourages homework, or walking across the street without tripping, or walking at all because they are content sitting on the couch texting their friends. Like Tosh.O, or Cialis commercials, or anything else kids have access to these days, with a little parental guidance it can all be put into perspective.

I sure did enjoy those days of having no ties to anything. My parents couldn’t call me and ask me what I was doing, or tell me to come home early because I didn’t clean my room before I left. Once I left the house, at the tender age of 10, or 11 or whatever, I was gone, baby, gone, until the designated be-home time. I loved the feeling of being off everyone’s radar.

Kids didn’t need cell phones to stay safe back then. My friends and I had a plan in case some pervert started chasing us down the street. Again, critical thinking in action: The plan was that we’d run up to the nearest house and ring the doorbell. No, wait; we’d just blaze right into the house and explain what we were doing in the middle of some stranger’s living room. Then, they could call 9-1-1, just as soon as they were done dismembering the last fool who walked in their front door.

Luckily, we never ran into too much trouble, except for the time a guy pulled up in his car next to us as we crossed the street in front of the neighborhood ice cream parlor and asked for directions to the local high school. As I politely gave him the left-right-left deal, my friend noticed that his johnson was hanging out of this shorts. As I said, “So, then you pull into the first parking lot and —“ she yanked me by the arm and we ran, laughed and screamed all at the same time. A block away, we stopped running and I asked her what was up.

Then, she told me.

A cell phone probably wouldn’t have done much good at that moment. Sometimes there’s only time to run. Not a bad life lesson. Sometimes, your feet are the best tool at your disposal. Just ask Fred Flinstone.

Borderline Inappropriate

2011-10-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

Remember how our kids, when they were little, got the pint-sized, rose-colored explanations and answers? However “age appropriate” they might have been, they were a yawn. They were cute and gentle and nurturing, and most of all, they were fulfilling.

But that was then; this is now. Responses now, while fulfilling for totally different reasons, are borderline slightly inappropriate. Now, it's finally getting interesting.

As much as I miss the little, squishy versions of my children, the clinging hugs to my torso, face burrowed into my neck, feet wrapped around my waist as if we were two pieces of an ancient human Pangaea that occasionally snaps back together for loves, tear-drying or carries up to bed, I don’t miss having to filter, edit and otherwise push the “safe answer” button when it is time to communicate.

With two teens and two “almost-theres” under one roof, communication is becoming something that not only moves information from Point A to Point B, it’s a source of entertainment—for everyone. I love that I can use the sense of humor I was born with, (yet not the same one I use when they’re not around) and I am thoroughly enjoying seeing a sense of humor develop in my kids. It’s a great day when one of them makes me laugh out loud. It’s a better day when I make them laugh out loud. Not that it’s easy – they have pretty high standards when it comes to what’s funny. Luckily, mine aren’t so high.

The transition between kid-friendly responses to their questions and factually correct, non-watered down responses began a few years ago. I recall the night I sat the three little princesses down on my bed and began The Talk. Before I could even begin, one asked why I had a piece of paper and a pencil. Then, without saying a word, I drew a picture. Of a woman. Down there.

“What’s THAT hole for?”

“That’s exactly what we’re here to talk about!”

The picture made it fun for me. Turns out, it was fun for them also. I refrained from drawing funny weenie pictures, but it wasn’t easy.

I’m also glad that I can stop lying to them, saying stuff like, “Oh, everything will work out,” or “Those striped tights and that polka dot skirt look so cute with that soccer jersey.” Now, I can do a little more tactful truth-telling. The truth is, things don’t always work out. The secret to navigating the tough times is knowing you can handle whatever comes along – good or bad – you’ve got the power.

Just the other day, looking for shoes with my 11-year old daughter, she picked up a shoe off a rack at the shoe store that in my opinion, had clearly been run over by the ugly train.

“Mom, look at these!” she said with the enthusiasm of a diabetic kid in a candy store who just found out they discovered a cure for diabetes. I could not, would not, let her wear those shoes in public. I had to intervene. My daughter knows, even gets irritated with me when she asks me what she should wear, what color she should color the clown’s pants, etc., because my answer is always the same: I can’t make that choice for you – choose whatever makes you happy. This was different. There exists a code among women – women who truly love each other – to tell the truth when it comes to wardrobe choices.

“Okay, when we look at things, there is a difference between my opinion, if I like something, and if something is right for you, okay? Um, these shoes are for women over the age of 70.”

“Thanks, Mom. I’m glad you told me.”

Then, we promptly went over to the section for ladies without canes and she found a pair she loved and I didn’t have to say a word.

Perhaps the most striking difference between parenting pre-schoolers and pre-teens lies in the delivery of not just important truths and honest life lessons, but funny stuff. And by funny, I mean rude. I mean, how does a parent actually get mad at an 11 year old girl with a smiling comeback like the following:

Dad: Hey, sweetie, don’t forget to grab your lunch on your way out the door.

Daughter: Stop telling me how to live my life!

Then, there’s everyone’s favorite, the somewhat hostile, “Your Face” one-liner.

Me: Honey, please push your chair in when you get up from the table, kay?

14 yr. old boy: Why don’t you push YOUR FACE in!

I can’t help it: It cracks me up every time. It’s a little like diffusing a bomb: he doesn’t want to be nagged, and can’t honestly say, “Stop nagging me” or he knows I’ll hurt him (emotionally of course, never physically, in case we’re counting me pinning him to the ground and sticking my finger so far into his armpit I can’t see my hand). With this routine, we make each other laugh, while at the same time communicating our extreme distaste for what has just been said.

“Hi Mama, what’s for dinner?”

“Your FACE!”

“Really Mom? Really?”

“Hahahahahaahahaha. Meatloaf.”

“Gross.”

“I’ll tell you what’s gross….YOUR FACE!”

“Mom!” my daughter yells, unable to keep from laughing. I got her!

Other times, it gets slightly more heated when I select “sarcastic reply” from my menu of options. Especially with my 14 year old son. He doesn’t get sarcasm.

“I can’t get the liner in the trash can right.”

“Keep trying. You’ll get it.”

“No, really, I can’t get it because it is SO STUPID! One side pops up when I pull the other side over the edge!”

“Stupid is a strong word. Apologize to the trash can now.”

“Mom, STOP! I….can’t…..get…..itaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!!! Stupid trash can!”

“Your Grandpa always said you have to be smarter than what you’re working with.”

“Seriously, Mom! It’s difficult!”

That’s when I keep the sarcasm, but lose the funny-ha-ha tone. Now I’m getting annoyed. He’s missed the window of opportunity to make light of a frustrating situation and he’s going to pay for it.

“No, Jackson, Climbing Mt. Everest is difficult. Calculus is difficult. A trash can liner is not difficult.”

“Dad says calculus is easy.”

“Dad’s easy.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nevermind.”

Later that night, we’re assembled at the dinner table. This is where I get the slightly inappropriate stare-down most of the time. I can’t help it though. Making dinner is hard and by the time it’s over, I need a little comic relief. My husband does the nightly "check in."

“How was everyone’s day?” The three girls answer first.

“Good.”

“Horrible.”

“I don’t know.”

“Dad, mom told me you’re easy. What’s that mean?”

All at once, three little girls’ faces spring to life, staring right at Dad, like little birdies in a nest, waiting for the worm. Since they know me, they know this has the potential for being borderline inappropriate, like the other night when one daughter asked me why we moved our desk out of our bedroom and into the loft area. I told her that a bedroom isn’t a place for a home office. “This is where the magic happens,” I said, raising my eyebrows up and down. She clammed up tighter than a nun’s knees and tried to look like she didn’t know what I was talking about. I think she actually left her body for a moment. My husband, complete with hands on hips and disapproving tilted head, said, “Really, Lisa?”

“Well, Jackson. What mom means, when she says I’m easy, is that I’m just a very agreeable person. I’m easy to get along with.”

“Nuh-uh, that’s not what it means. She would have told me that.”

“Man, you are good,” my husband replied to my son, shaking his head.

“That’s what he said….”

“Really, Lisa?”

Alternative Methods of Communication

2011-09-07T11:57:00.000-07:00

In an effort to better serve my audience, because verbal instructions, advice, and threats don’t always work the way I’d like them to, I’ve been toying with the idea of using something I know a little bit about – the written word – to communicate with my kids, and what the heck, my husband. After all, I’ve written letters to the editor of the local paper when I’ve had a problem with the schools, or the city council or the local liquor store (shortening store hours on Sunday? Really? Don’t they understand that Sunday afternoons are immediately followed my Monday mornings?) I’ve always received positive responses from people around town after my letters appear. With this in mind, maybe all these years I’ve been overlooking the most effective way to get my point across to my own people: in writing.

To be honest, I’ve already ventured into this area and it went well. I recently wrote each of our four kids a letter, personalized for their particular stamp on this world, and delivered the letters the night before school started. I just wanted to tell all the children that I’m rooting for them, what with all four in various stages of junior high school this year, and hoping the transition from a busy summer to the agony of sitting in a classroom all day goes smoothly. The result was even better than I had anticipated: two sweet hugs, one bear hug, and one hug accompanied by a handwritten thank you note!

I’ve decided to really go for it: my first full-length project for my family will be a book. Just in case you’re wondering, you don’t have to be Mitch Albom to write a poignant memoir about a special person, or a special day of the week. With this in mind, I plan to get busy writing Tuesdays with My Foot Up Your Ass as a way of communicating to my kids the importance of, well, just about everything I say. This, in an effort to avoid the kids sitting at my bedside someday, just like Mitch sat at Morrie’s, week in and week out, only I’ll be strapped to mine in a padded cell.

The book will cover a lot of territory. Here’s a sampling of just a few chapters I’ve already begun working on for my kids:

If You Don’t Feed Clothes to the Monster in Your Closet, He’ll Eat You!
Your Mess, Your Problem
Vocal Chords: I Will Remove Yours

Of course, the most important chapter will be, “You Don’t Know How Good You’ve Got It”.

In it, I’ll explain the finer points of living in a house where the most technologically advanced electronic device was a light switch. The house had one TV that received exactly three channels, and it would have been tuned to a kids show exactly never if an adult was home. And there always seemed to be an adult home. Making us play outside for hours and hours at a time. Telling us to get off the phone….the one phone that hung on the wall of the kitchen, which was not in view of the TV in the living room. Not that it would have mattered…

In this chapter, I’d also spend a little time on the topic of alternatives. For example, the alternative to playing outside on a hot day was playing outside on a hot day. The alternative to the food on your plate was no food, period. Let’s not forget talking back. Back in the day, before the authors of parenting books invented “1….2….3…..(insert consequence),” talking back resulted in anything from a glare to a swift smack upside the head, depending on the task at hand, or the distance between the smart mouth and said hand.

My book will have chapters dedicated to my husband, but these will be briefer, because he’s awesome, and because if I ramble on too long, he tends to glaze over, and then we have to start all over tomorrow. His chapters include:

How Wiping Kitchen Counters Improves Your Sex Life
Putting Things Back for Dummies
Football – Whatever
This is Me Rolling My Eyes at You (a kitchen-sink chapter for anything not covered elsewhere.)

Just to give my kids a treat, and feed their addiction to screens, I’ll create a website when I’m finished with the book. This will give me a “real time” venue to keep them updated with important announcements (“The next person to ask me a question will regret it”), and late-breaking news (“Grandparents en route! Remove all visible DNA from the bathroom counter, floor and toilets STAT!”)

To make sure it grabs my kids’ attention, and in the interest of full disclosure should an innocent viewer stumble upon www.everyonegetoutofthekitchennow.com, the first thing they will see on the home page is a meowing kitten and a blinking puppy, with this text underneath:

“Welcome to the Lucke-Eagye Family Website.”

Then, the puppy and kitten will fade out, and a skull and crossbones will fade in, along with a quote by the original parenting expert, Dante:

“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”

In addition to news alerts, the website will be full of lighthearted anecdotes, like the one my stepdaughter hurled over the wall the other day, out of nowhere, during a commercial break from Say Yes to the Dress. You know the show….all about women, with commercials aimed at women….

“Lisa, what’s feminine odor?”

I snuck a peripheral peek at my other daughter, who was in the room reading. Her face froze as she ever-so-slightly pulled her book even closer to her face, as if she was reading Braille with the tip of her nose. So, I knew she was listening.

I gave the little inquisitor the five second answer, which I shall not share here, but that must have been satisfactory, since she turned her attention back to the TV and away from me. Then, I split.

Note to self: never watch chick shows with the daughters again. Or, better yet, tell husband the girls are dying to watch an episode of Say Yes to the Dress with him, just cuz. Film the interaction during the commercials. Upload to Facebook. Mwahahahahahaha.

With a website, I can have a Q & A forum, where my kids can pose those awkward questions and I can give them the straight story without them getting embarrassed, or knowing the number of beers it took me to get through it.

The family website will be chock-full of little gems like this, not to mention a few choice images, and maybe some video. I’ve always wanted to secretly film them at their worst and play it back to them. My plan is to catch them arguing as a way of illustrating how stupid they sound. That’s right, I used the S word. If there is any other way to describe the sight of two kids arguing loudly over which one will hold the poop bucket and which will shovel, I would like to know what it is. I think filming them is a perfect way to get them to see how ridiculous their arguments are. Then again, it could backfire, which would be a bad thing. Like an evil déjà vu, I’d have to experience the idiotic moments again and again:

“See, I told you that you were looking at me during breakfast last Tuesday. Look, the angle of your head is directly pointing right at me!”

“No it isn’t! I was looking OVER your SHOULDER, out the window at the BACKYARD!! Rewind – wait – pause it right there! See, I’m looking toward the dog out on the back lawn!”

“That’s not the dog, that’s a deer!”

“No it isn’t! Rewind!”

The video may require some heavy editing. Especially if the camera is rolling when I sneak into the kitchen during dinner and long-neck the last of the Zinfandel while the kids are trying to decide who should put the milk away, the first person to touch it or the last person to use it.

Overall, I think wading into a new method of communication can improve almost any household’s ability to understand one another. With the written word, a person has time to think! There’s no pressure of an immediate, verbal response, or the kids witnessing my skull splitting in two. After all, we leave notes for each other all the time for silly little things, like “I fed the dog,” or “Your mother called, again,” or “I am not upstairs working in my room with the door closed so don’t bother checking.”

Isn’t it about time we started writing down the important things?

Home vs. Away Games: Don't (or do) Try This at Home

2011-06-28T16:44:00.000-07:00

Many people who know me also know that my husband and I have no kids every other weekend. We call these “away games,” (thanks to a clever friend whom I secretly refer to as Metaphor Man because of his ability to create unusual and interesting metaphors for pretty much any situation. One day, this person said, “Home or away game this weekend?” I said, “Huh?” Then, he said, “Do you have children with you this weekend, or not?”)

Anyway, everyone with kids knows what home games are like. However, if you have fewer than four children, otherwise known as “in your right mind,” you probably can’t relate to what our home games are like, which means it will be difficult for you to appreciate what our away games are like. So, in the interest of full disclosure, here’s a little background.

Home games are a mixed bag. During “family movie night”, they are a dream: six people sharing a large couch, a few blankets, and a wholesome flick, like Dodgeball. (We love that our kids are getting to the age when we can expand the family video library to movies that do not include voiceovers, talking toys, or communities of backbiting lions.) The take away value of a movie like Dodgeball should not be underrated. Since viewing that movie, I need only whisper the word, “wrenches” and my kids are clamoring for more chores to complete.

Family dinners are also a bright spot to home games. We don’t ruin them with lectures, or ever give the kids bad news during dinner. Dinner is a time when we hear about who did what to whom, and why, on the playground, and allow them to complain about the food without being interrupted with silly admonishments to keep their room clean.

However, there is another side to home games. They can also be a little like Ultimate Cage Fighting, but with a ring full of stoned, idiot-savant badgers. Vicious, chaotic and brilliant one second, blissfully unaware of having any purpose in life whatsoever, aside from eating and sleeping, the next.

Now, for the away games. The kids leave us for the entire weekend. We don’t hear the word “mom” or “dad” for 48 long hours, save for through a cell phone, which is different. There is also much cussing on my part, just because I can. For me, saying “Now where the heck did I set my mother-fucking coffee cup?” just feels right.

The house is empty and silent. There is no sound of “ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?” or “OH MY GOD THIS GAME SUCKS!” coming from my son’s room, where he often can be found amusing himself playing video games online with unknown opponents. Nor do I hear the voices of two ten-year old girls arguing loudly for twelve minutes about who should shut the bathroom drawer – the one who just got something out of it, or the one who needs something in the drawer underneath it. I’m also not treated to the sound of TWO people trying to ask me a question through the bathroom door while I’m concentrating on a crossword puzzle.

One of the few things you can hear on away game weekends is the occasional, and by occasional, I mean every 15 minutes, sound of a cork popping. If you listen very carefully, you might hear muffled sniffles – not as I peer into empty little bedrooms, but while watching a poignant movie without interruption, including the tragic ending that I don’t have to pause in the middle of to gently suggest to the children that they go play on the freeway. I’m just kidding. Everyone knows we don’t have a freeway in our town. Drop in on us during an away game and you may be surprised (but probably not, by now) to learn that underwear drawers are about the only place where you won't find any underwear.

Sure, it gets a little bit sad at times, mainly around 5 p.m. on Saturdays, when we’re floating in the pool, by ourselves, and that garage fridge is so close, yet so very far away…

Let’s get one thing straight: we are not advocating divorce. It wasn’t easy getting to where we are in life. There were plenty of tears, frustration, even anger—until we finally found an affordable mini fridge for the patio.

Seriously, most of our friends have asked us how they can get in on our gig. Others sneer at us, as if we waved our magic divorce wand, and then sat down and wrote our bestselling pamphlet, “How to Get Out of Parenting Every Other Weekend.”

Because we are actually on speaking terms with our exes, friendly even, everyone thinks it’s been a piece of cake. The truth is, we’ve earned every minute of our away games, and if you don’t believe me, have a few more children. Then try step-parenting on for size while you’re at it, which eclipses garden-variety parenting tenfold in terms of difficulty. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I’m right where I want to be, and someday, I plan to look back on these days from my padded cell and thank the universe for everything it ever blessed me with. My grown children’s therapists will all point out that my team of therapists had it all wrong, and gave me a bunch of bum advice back in the day, which will probably lead to some kind of hideous intervention-style sit down with a future version of Dr. Phil.

Or, perhaps not.

Perhaps our kids will grow up understanding they don’t just have two people who love them unconditionally, but many others who are ready and willing to shed blood, sweat and tears to make them happy. Four sets of grandparents who have hundreds of years worth of combined experience in life, and can’t wait to feed them lollypops for breakfast when we’re not looking and take them to the movies whenever they can.

Therefore, whether you sneer, or are looking for an Away Game Action Plan, here it is:

1. Marry the wrong person. And by wrong, I don’t mean ever-so-slightly-not-suited-for-you-wrong. Really do it up right, and by right, I mean wrong.
2. Get divorced.
3. Work out, whether through mediation, court or via duct tape and a butcher knife, a thoughtful co-parenting schedule that everyone can live with.
4. Now for the tricky part: Meet someone who has completed Steps 1 – 3, fall madly in love, and convince your exes never to deviate from the schedule.
5. Love your kids like crazy when they’re home, have lots of sex and booze when they’re not.

It’s that simple! Be sure not to let me know how it works out.

Now that's a head scratcher!

2011-05-25T11:09:00.000-07:00

My head has no dandruff, or even slightly dry skin. No eczema or bedbugs, either. Yet, I’ve found myself increasingly going to it for good scratch lately. That’s because head scratching is the physical manifestation of the acronym WTF? It’s a way of communicating to those around you, “Please help me understand what the hell is going on here” in a non-judgmental way.

There are other uses for head scratching, however, that are a little more personal.

I’ve always been soothed by scratching my own head, in a rhythmic, gentle way. It isn’t anything that most people would even notice; then again, maybe the whole town thinks I have lice. Nonetheless, I can frequently be found scratching my head, whether I’m watching TV, or trying to come up with an intelligible paragraph at work, or actively participating in (enduring) a conversation with someone (misguided soul) I know. Usually, I’ve got my sunglasses on as well, which really helps me to focus on the head-scratching – in other words, my eyes can’t betray what my scratching is helping my ears to hear. There I am scratching imaginary little mini-paths around my scalp, as I’m calmed into a trance that keeps me from making comments like, “What the fuck are you talking about? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Are you really going there?”

Instead, I let my fingers do the walking, as I do the talking: “Huh. Interesting. Wow. That’s a head scratcher, fo sho.” It helps so much that occasionally, I start to nod off. This is when people usually say, “Well, see you later!” and I say, “Where’d I park?” and we both walk away scratching our heads.

We’ve all been there, and we all know it.

Those moments don’t hold a candle to the head scratching opportunities my kids give me. These moments are like terrible hybrids of both of the above: a little bit sedation, a little bit confusion, all rolled up into one, long, scratch. This week alone, two stand out:

Child (with panic): “Mom, I can’t find my shoes anywhere! I’m late!

Mom: “Have you looked everywhere?”

Child: “Yes! I need them now! Mom! Help me!”

Mom: “You checked the shoe basket?”

Child: “No.”

Mom: “Here they are, in the shoe basket.”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Later the SAME day, but with different child, whose name I’ve changed to protect the loony, I was again faced with a moment so odd that I decided to write them both down. Hence, this blog.

(sound of phone ringing)
Doris: “Hi Lisa. I can’t find my folder and I need it.”

Me: “Where is it?”

Doris: “Upstairs on my desk.”

Me: “Ok, no problem, I’ll bring it to you.”
(sound of phone hanging up.)

This really wasn’t a problem, because the child in question never leaves stuff behind. I’m happy to accommodate freak-of-nature situations now and then. Unfortunately, the folder was not on the desk, nor anywhere else that I could see. I called her back.

Teacher: “Hello?”

Me: “Hi, this is Lisa Lucke. May I speak to Doris?”

Teacher: “Sure.”

(sound of Doris picking up the phone)
Me: “Um, I can’t find it. Where else could it be? “

Doris: “Well, I’m not sure. I thought it was in my backpack. I’ve looked through it three times.”

Me: “Let me walk around the house again….(sound of me entering every room, looking under, behind and inside of every conceivable hiding spot.) “Nope, I just don’t see it.”

Doris: “That is SO weird.”

Then came the sentence that I always ask, and the same one that results in my hand springing up to my head:

Me: “Where was it the last time you saw it?”

Doris: “Here at school yesterday.”

Me: “You didn’t use it at home last night?”

Doris: “No, I didn’t have any homework. I didn’t even open my backpack at all.”

Ideas were beginning to take shape. The scratching intensified.

Me: “Have you checked your desk?”

Child: “No.”

What happens when a good scratch isn’t enough? Pocket-sized defibrillators that I keep in my purse, or in my jog bra, along with my iPod, cell phone, keys and boobs?

Funniest thing of all is that on this very morning, I couldn’t find my keys. After I shooed all kids out the door, and insisted that my husband, a.k.a., “The Finder” help me, I found them myself.

In my purse.

Endorphin highs and delusions of 42 things

2011-05-10T21:46:00.000-07:00

I had one of the greatest days of my life recently, in terms of productivity. It ranks right up there with a single day in 11th grade when I won a tennis tournament, placed 1st in a district-wide essay contest, changed the oil in my Volkswagon and lost my virginity. Just kidding. Everyone knows Volkswagons are impossible to work on. I was 17. My more current brush with over-achievement was a little different, though no less amazing. The more things I did, the more astounded I was that I wanted to do more. I cooked, I cleaned, I cooked some more, I did laundry, I exercised, I solved problems between my children that could teach those “leading” the Middle East peace process a thing or two. There was bacon. I brought it home. There was a pan. There was a man. You do the math.

Late in the evening of my glorious brush with domestic overachievement, I sat down and composed a list of all the things I accomplished on that fine day, from household chores to showing my fifth grade daughters how to use a self-sticking panty-liner as an emergency sleeping mask.

Scanning the list, I decided that the one plausible explanation was an endorphin high, precipitated by my long run at the crushingly painful hour of 3 p.m., when I’m usually yearning for Dr. Phil and a catnap, but instead find myself helping with science homework or prepping for dinner.

How on earth did a run during cozy sleepy time actually feel so good, and not only that, keep feeling good for the next six hours?

It was the next day that I really began analyzing what had happened. It started during a visit with my doctor, whom I went to for a little relief from my allergies. I asked her how her running regimen was going. She mentioned endorphin highs, and how much she enjoyed them. My ears perked up. The elusive endorphin high. I was not so sure I’d ever experienced one. I didn’t admit it to her, however. I didn’t want to seem like an amateur, like some anxiety ridden sorority girl at a sisterly pajama party, keeping her mouth shut about never having had an orgasm, mainly because she wasn’t sure of the exact location of her vagina. Sorry, that was uncalled for. Of course sorority girls know where their vaginas are located – as does every frat boy in town.

Before I made my list, I guessed that I completed about 42-or-so things that day. Here’s the general time frame in which they happened:

6:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.
1. Got up (for those of you who have never combined Benadryl and white wine to overcome allergies that can best be described as “Nazi-like,” you may not appreciate why this qualifies as an accomplishment. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about.)
2. Facilitated getting four kids out of the house and to school (technically two things, but I’m not one to split hairs.)
3. Finished three loads of laundry.
4. Sent work-related emails from home.
5. Sent home-related emails to husband at work (he loves it when I do this).
6. “Got ready” for work (so many things here, it’s too exhausting to think about, so I’ll just count it as one thing).

10:15 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
1. Saw the doc and got an allergy shot.
2. Took 13-year son’s gym clothes to him at school (please, no comments; I’ll hear plenty about this one soon enough).
3. Did a bunch of work stuff. Who the hell cares how many things that is.

2:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
1. Made a shitload of nachos for all my friends, I mean kids.
2. Delivered three girls to softball practice.
3. Ran 4.5 miles.
4. Went to the grocery store “for a couple things” and spent $174.
5. Made a meatloaf. It was terrible. (I didn’t say I did 42 things well…)
6. Picked up girls from softball practice.
7. Did miscellaneous afternoon dishes.
8. Planted a hydrangea in the front yard.
9. Summited Clean Laundry Mountain, effectively filling up my empty closet.
10. Cleaned the girls’ bathroom. Yuck. (It’s true what you hear about women’s bathrooms being worse than men’s.)
11. Cleaned the main bathroom, which also doubles as son’s bathroom. Double yuck. (It’s not true what you hear about women’s bathrooms being worse than men’s.)
12. Served dinner without killing anyone (sometimes it’s about what you don’t do)
13. Made milkshakes for all my friends! (the kids and hubby)
14. Made egg salad for the next day’s lunches (one with olive oil mayo and one with Best Food’s for the people who think olive oil mayo is “gross.”
15. Wrote this list (it counts!)
16. Put one last load of laundry into the washer, cussing all the way.
17. Performed Satanic Bedtime Rituals, which included: picking out one stuffed animal; no, the other one; no, not that one; served two doses of cough medicine; rubbed athlete’s foot cream in between ten little toes; scratched one back; fed one fish; set up one humidifier the wrong way; set up one humidifier the correct way.

Okay, so that’s six, plus three, plus seventeen, which equals 26. After I wrote this, I took my second and last shower of the day, poured myself a Big Glass of Wine, read something, and retired. All told, about 24 things, give or take a few things that may or may not have occurred during my “retirement,” but that won’t be shared here.

Not 42, but enough. So, on that day, I did at least 24 (or possibly 25-27) things. How could this be? Sure seemed like a lot more things...

Too bad that I bumped into my doctor a few days later at the grocery story and told her about my first endorphin high and the glorious rush of energy that followed. She asked if that happened to be the same day I got my allergy shot, to which I said, "Yes!"

She gave me the bad news that endorphin high it was not, but merely a normal response to the allergy med. Ever the junkie, I asked her if it would continue through the season. Sadly, she shook her head.

Back to doing 24 things.

My favorite superhero: Scenario Man

2011-03-31T09:34:00.000-07:00

I can’t get enough of messing with my kids. It makes me feel better. I get a little zing of satisfaction when I say or do something that startles them out of their zombie-like trance while watching iCarly, or puts them in their place to just the right degree in front of people. I don’t embarrass them, or at least, they aren’t aware they should be embarrassed and that makes it both o.k. and extremely funny (to me).

Take my 13-year old son. There aren’t enough hours in the day to take advantage of all the opportunities he hands me to get a laugh at his expense, and therefore, feel younger, less marginalized and more in control of my universe. Most of these situations are due to the fact that my son is actually the superhero I like to call, Scenario Man. Like Clark Kent, he switches at a moment’s notice, and the trigger is always the same: what if?

Recently, I had to check my son out of school early for an orthodontist appointment. It was the middle of the day, during lunch, and he was back at school without even missing a class. The next day, we decided to take off a little early to get some summer clothes, which means driving for an hour to the nearest community that has stores that don’t have ‘mart’ in their name. Since the last class of the day for him is study hall, I told him I’d pick him up just before that class started, at 2:15. I gave him a generic note that I scribbled while driving in the car line in front of his school. It read:

“Please excuse Jackson from school at 2:15.”

He wasn’t ok with that, for the same reason he’s not ok with things like hairy spiders in the shower, stains on his sweatshirt (the white one that he insisted on owning), or a loose bracket on his braces. All of this because he is Scenario Man.

“What if it bites me?”

“You’ll live.”

“What if it’s a Brown Recluse?”

“The hospital is three minutes away.”

“What if someone is standing close enough to me to see the stain on my sweatshirt?”

“They’ll think you’re a 13-year old boy.”

“What if the bracket gets worse over the weekend?”

“We’ll go on Monday.”

“What if I have to keep my braces on for more months because the bracket’s broken?”

“I’ll kill the orthodontist until he’s dead.”

These conversations always end with one of two responses from my son: “Ok” if he doesn’t realize I’m joking, or “Mom! Stop!” if he’s finally had it up to here with my nonsense. Either way, I’m laughing.

On this particular day, Scenario Man reared his precious head in a way that drove me to take ultimate action. We had the day all planned out, until this:

“What if it’s too early?”

“What are you talking about?”

“What if it’s too early to buy shorts and I have a growth spurt and grow out of them by July.”

In all honesty, I’m exhausted just writing about this. I simply can’t figure out how, with all the really important things I do in an average day, like four loads of laundry, cooking dinner, picking up, dropping off, picking up, dropping off, picking up, blowing my brains out, dropping off and a few hours of actual work I get paid to do, I have to expend oxygen explaining things like this to my son.

I adopted my best Dramatic TV Narrator voice for this one:

“If you grow out of them, we will go in search of more shorts. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, will keep us from our quest. We will find more shorts that fit you, and we will buy them with the dollars in my purse from the nice lady or gentleman behind the counter of the store where we find them. Then, we will walk back to the car, and - "

“Mom! Stop! I know what you are talking about!”

“Don’t worry,” I say, resuming my mom persona. “We’ll find shorts today that have a little room to grow. Okay?”

“Ok.”

The reason for this particular “what if” scenario is because my son is thoughtful. He feels bad that I have to spend money. Again, I’m not exactly sure how he got every single one of the marbles on this one and my daughter is completely lacking:

“Where is your backpack?”

“I don’t know. I think I lost it.”

“Don’t you think you better find it?”

“We can just buy another one.”

So, my son was not satisfied with the note. Remember, we’re in the car line. There wasn’t much time to discuss this. A bus was behind me, the bell was about to ring.

“What if the office lady wants to know why I’m leaving school early?”

“It’s not her business.”

“But Mom, what if she asks me? Should I tell her I have a doctor appointment?”

“Yes. Tell her you have a doctor appointment.”

“What if she asks me what doctor?” At this point, he was getting out of the car. I had no time for this, and neither did the bus full of kids behind me. He was about to slam the door.

“Tell her you have a cyst on your ovary.”

“Ok. Bye mom.”

“Bye, honey,” I said, blowing him a kiss and trying to wipe the grin off my face.

Premature Articulation

2011-03-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Why is it the older I get, the more frequently I hear the sound of my own voice saying something completely inappropriate? What exactly is happening to me? Is this a case of becoming less sensitive to the needs of others, and losing my ability to filter out the socially unacceptable thoughts in my mind before they can bounce off my tongue and infect perfectly normal conversations? Or is this a special talent I’ve always had, but never noticed? Maybe it’s just a case of everyone else being too uptight.

I’m going with the last one.

I think the rest of the world, or at least people who bump into me in the grocery store, or sit with me at the dinner table, need to relax. They should also stop saying things like, “Oh my god, Mom! I can’t believe you just said that!” I mean, big deal, so I said the word “boner” during a conversation the other night. So what if it was during dinner at Nona and Grandpa’s house. Who cares if my daughter’s 10-year old friend was present, and that she happens to be the daughter of a local law enforcement official who prosecutes people for a living? What’s he going to do, arrest me? Am I doing it again right now?

All I did was respond to something my own mother said. She commented on the last blog I wrote and asked me a question. I answered her. Is there another way of saying it? Apparently, because my 13-year old son sitting next to me hit me with this gem:

“Mom, use the other word. The one the doctor uses.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The word that starts with ‘er’”

“Are you kidding me? Your doctor asks you about that?”

Sidenote: What the hell goes on in those appointments that I’m no longer interested in attending, let alone asked to? I guess that’s why I’m off the invite list and instead remain in the waiting room reading the latest “Ladies Horrifying Journal” article about the top ten ways to inject some spice into your pork roast and your marriage.

My husband was somewhat alarmed at what I said; my dad, mom and aunt were laughing, as was I. My daughter looked amused and rolled her eyes at me. The 10-year old guest? Well, I guess my son and husband win this one, because she leaned over and asked my daughter what a boner was.

I won’t repeat the rest of the conversation because it wasn’t really that interesting, and because I don’t want to incriminate myself. I know my rights. Suffice to say I instructed my daughter to let her parents explain it to her some day in the distant future when I can honestly say, “I said what?”

As I flip through my mental rolodex, I can recall a few other things I’ve said over the years that probably could be filed under “What did you just say?” because that’s how people responded to them. Here they are:

Top Four Things I’ve Said That I Don’t Regret But That Some People Think Were Awful

1. 1.“Hi, how have you been? Did you ever f---k my husband?” (at a cocktail party. It was funny. Really.)

2. “I don’t care what she has between her legs; someone, somewhere is sick of her crap.” (at a Bunko party with women I barely knew, in hopes of never being invited back. But that’s another story – how I threw the Bunko game, and I use the term loosely, in order to avoid ever being asked to “sub” again.)

3. "God, I am such a retard!” (again, at a cocktail party, during polite conversation with a small group of women, one of whom has a child with Down’s Syndrome.)

4. “Every day?” (responding to a freshman student who seemed to never be able to understand one word I said. On this particular day, I was super annoyed at her inability to comprehend my instructions and she told me that she hit her head during P.E.)

That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.

Perhaps the list is longer in other people’s minds. To that, I say, “I’m taking the 5^th.”

Douches and Boners and Butts, Oh My!

2011-03-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

With each passing day, conversations with my children grow more mature. At ten, ten, twelve and thirteen years of age, we can now chat about grown up stuff, like mortgages, car payments, and periods. Yet, at the same time, conversations can take a sharp left turn toward more juvenile themes at the drop of a hat. Like being caught in a tug-of-war between adolescence and childhood, my kids are currently armed with just enough knowledge to be dangerously funny when overheard discussing things like tampons, and downright hilarious when they purposely include me in their pre-pubescent chat-chit.

They’re curious, but they don’t want to ask. When they do ask, they fidget and squirm and smile, as if I’m pulling out life-sized Mr. and Mrs. Puberty blow-up dolls. To be fair, I am the mom who drew pictures for my daughters when we had the birds and bees talk about four years ago. Here’s an excerpt from the official transcript:

“Hang on. Why are there three holes? What’s that one?”

End of excerpt.

The best part about my kids getting to the age where we not only have serious, forthright conversations about bodily functions is that we can purposely joke about them.

After all, who can resist a good boner joke now and then? Not me, and apparently, not my 13-year old son. In the parking lot of the grocery store the other day, a man waiting outside the store had some interesting looking trousers on…and by the looks of things, he was happy to see whatever it was he was staring at off in the distance. Because I’m losing my ability to filter my verbal mutterings by the day, I made the first move.

“Oh my god!” I blurted out, glancing at the guy as we approached and cruised by slowly (parking lot, remember?) My son shot a look at me and then switched his glance to the direction I was looking. Just in case you’re wondering, this happened instantaneously: my look, my gasp, my son’s look, and my son’s comment:

“Holy crap! You could hang a coat hanger on that!”

There it was – a boner joke, and my beautiful, young, innocent boy said it. Not only that, it was funny and made me laugh.

Then, there are the girls.

Those little women have a way of getting information out of me, especially the youngest two.

Walking in through the garage door recently, I had just started to kick my shoes into the appropriate shoe box, and they were on me. One had me around the waist and the other had a fistful of my jacket up at the scruff of my neck. They pressed me up against the couch, and bent me over backward just enough to disarm me of the power of leverage.

“Okay, lady, you better tell us right now what that deuce thing was!”

“What are you guys doing? What is going on??”

“Tell US NOW!! WHAT WAS THE DEUCE THING??”

“What are you two nut bombs talking about?”

“The thing that Robbie said at school today that Jackson was telling you about that his older sister told him about.”

Somehow, I followed that. But, that’s another blog.

“Are you talking about ‘douches’?”

“We don’t know! Are we?!”

“Oh my god. Are you kidding me?!” I was laughing so hard I was helpless. I was also in a stranglehold.

Keep in mind, these girls are ten. I’m not a short woman. They had me bent over the couch in an extremely uncomfortable position. Of all people, I am generally the one who sees sneak attacks from fifty paces. At this point, I would have made any concessions necessary to free myself from the frenzied grip of the ten-year old version of the Spanish Inquisition.

I had to think quickly. Do I really want to tell them this information? As much as I enjoy them asking for information that when disclosed, makes them almost pee their pants and then run away from me, I wasn’t sure they were ready for this. I geared up for my explanation, though to be perfectly honest, I was going to have to wing it, if you know what I mean.

At that moment, my thirteen year old son walked in the room. He wanted to know what was going on.

“Mom’s going to tell us what deuces are RIGHT NOW!”

If they could not even pronounce it, were they old enough to know what it was? Keep in mind, these are the two very same girls who once found a tampon in the glove box of my car and when one asked what it was, the other said, “It’s those things you put up your butt.”

An hour earlier, when my son had told me the “deuces” story, he asked me the same question, but it went like this:

“Mom, what’s a douche bag?”

“Remember the guy who lived next door to us on Oak Street?”

“Yeah.”

“Douche bag.”

“No, Mom, I mean what is it really?”

“Dear god are you kidding me? You are going to regret this.”

“I want to know. Christine Collins said her little brother Robbie was running around her house saying it and so his mom hauled him to the grocery store and showed him what it was and he freaked out.”

“Okay, it’s a slang term for a slime ball, derived from the French word, ‘douche.’”

“Mom! Stop it! What is a douche?!”

That’s when we went behind closed doors. Apparently, that’s also when the ten-year old goon squad started whispering and plotting.

I kept it short and simple because frankly, I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about.

The second I revealed the physical location of the body part associated with douches, thirteen year old boy squirmed, then turned and faced the extremely interesting closet door for a close inspection until I was finished.

“Got it.”

“You asked.”

Back to the mugging.

When the boy entered the room and saw me getting clobbered, I decided to do the mature thing and evade and get this over with. There was no way I was going to contribute to their long list of things to have nightmares about. Plus, they were hurting my shoulder.

“Jackson, the girls want to know what a boner is.” It was the girls who spoke next, in no uncertain terms:

“Oh my god, Mom! Gross!!”

I knew I almost had them, meaning they were on the edge of running away screaming for the sanctity of their bedrooms, putting this hideous, yet hysterical conversation that I was actually highly amused by to an appropriate end.

“Aha! So you know what a boner is??” I snapped, turning the tables on them.

“We’re outta here!”

“Yeah, we’re outta here!”

“I’m glad we had this talk,” I sang cheerily as they sped off like little roadrunners.

Enter Sandman

2011-02-22T16:37:00.000-08:00

        Warren Zevon released a song many years ago entitled, “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.” As the title suggests, the lyrics espouse a certain joie de vivre approach. Some call it a “live hard, die young” attitude that so many edgy, alternative musicians embody – musicians like Zevon, Osbourne, and Bieber. You know, a take-no-prisoners philosophy toward life, save nothing for a rainy day, never play it safe if sorry is an option. Forget trying to keep up with the Jones’ – screw their daughter instead! To recap, the song is your basic feel good ditty – that is, if you need something to make you feel good after waking up face down in a pile of someone else’s puke.
        Recently, I popped Warren into my under counter CD player, and immediately shot back to a time when sleeping was, for me, a complete drag and definitely something I could put off until later. I was young. I was single. I had parties to get to before dawn, and classes to attend after the sun came up. As I listened to the lyrics, my thoughts drifted to the Greatest Weekend Ever, (of my twenties, that is), visiting friends at Cal, hitting the Big Game, then the streets of Berkeley.
        Just as I was getting my nostalgia on, smiling at the mental image that was forming of my own self dancing on a table at Golden Boy, wearing a Heineken cardboard six-pack hat I’d bought off a street vendor, another image faded in – one that expressed a very different connotation of the phrase “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
        I shook my head, banged on my temple with the heel of my hand, but it was no use. Like a circa-70’s TV that goes fuzzy at midnight, no amount of adjusting the rabbit ears wrapped in tin foil could get the Berkeley channel to come back into focus. Instead, my mind started showing re-runs of projectile vomiting bestowed upon me by my infant son – at two o’clock in the morning, after being up for the third time that night, trying to get the little life-sucker to, well, suck. Finally, after being oh-so-close to dozing off while he slurped, the sound of my baby throwing up the entire contents of left breasticle chased elusive slumber away, yet again.
        Then, it hit me: the most vivid, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” phase of life was not in my twenty-something years; it was as a new mother. Granted, that was 13 years ago, but let me just say that some memories, no matter how much we’d like them to, don’t fade.
        Enter baby number two, the same maternal-nocturnal emissions, sleepless nights, groggy days and the absence of that old friend I flipped off one too many times: Mr. Sandman.
        The toddler years proved to be just as clever at keeping a long winter’s nap out of reach. Just when I felt like I was indeed dead, and therefore, ready for a little shut-eye, the pitter-patter of little feet barreling down the hall at 3 a.m. reminded me that death, and therefore sleep, was still out of reach.
        Assuming the house must be on fire by the way my daughter was beating it down the hall, I’d jump out of bed, throw a sweatshirt over the sexy one I was already sleeping in, just in time to catch a two-year old flying through the air into my arms.

“Hi Mama!”

“Huh? What are you doing?”

“Saying hi! HI!”

“Hi. Okay, back to bed.”

“Want to play Hi-Ho Cherry-O?”

“No. Bed. C’mon.”

     These days, the opportunity for sleep is greater, I admit. Outside of an occasional sleepwalker roaming the halls asking why George Washington parked his skateboard in her closet, the nights are quiet. I take advantage of them. If I’m down at the local pub, and I see it’s 10 p.m., I get nervous. “Let’s get out of here,” I whisper to my husband, pointing at the clock. He gasps in horror when he sees the time and we sneak out the side door, racing for our Tempurpedic.
     As I listened to Warren finish up his song, I wondered how I might feel differently today, had I banked a few more hours of sleep, back when I honestly didn’t even know what the point of it was. Fewer gray hairs? A better complexion? A more tender pot roast?
     I guess I’ll never know. What I do know is that I now have a greater respect for my pillow. Now, I’ll sleep when I’m tired.

Sign This

2011-01-25T09:09:00.000-08:00

There are some days in a mom’s life when it all comes together: a hot breakfast on the table at seven a.m., after a soothing early morning run around a quiet town. Lost socks, tangled hair, broken shoe laces – these minor hiccups are no match for me on days like this. In one swift pass around the house the sock has a mate, pony tails are installed, and the laces are replaced. Tears after school? Not a problem. My reassurance that “It will pass,” is met with no resistance or argument. Days like this are capped with dinner on the table promptly at 6 p.m., before the whining starts, and backs are scratched as the little and medium-sized people drift off to sleep at precisely the right time. Just enough time for a glass of wine, a few kisses and another day in paradise is put to bed.

On those nights, I try to remember to fall asleep with my fingers and toes crossed.

However, sometimes I forget.

That’s when I wake up the next morning, and before my feet have even hit the floor, there is a totally different vibe going down.

“Crap!”

“What?” my husband says as he staggers to his feet.

“I forgot to put J’s wash in last night. I promised him his jeans would be clean. Shit!”

On days that begin like this, the kids fetch their own cereal because I’m doing last night’s dishes and yesterday’s laundry. The ones not emerging from their darkened rooms are treated to the sound of “Are you going to school today or WHAT?!” at a level even they cannot sleep through. Not only that, but St. Mom, Finder of Lost Things and Slayer of Evil, is lacking in both compassion and patience.

“Mom, where is my new beanie? I left it right here!”

“Must have grown legs and walked away. Probably went to live at some kid’s house who actually cares enough about her stuff to put things AWAY!”

From the other side of the house another tune springs to life:

“MOOOMMMMM, there’s a HUGE WEIRD LOOKING SPIDER IN THE SHOWER! I think it’s a Brown Excuse!”

“Is it wielding an ax? If it’s not armed, then I think YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF IT!” I holler from the kitchen as I scramble to make an inside out sandwich so my oldest daughter won’t figure out she’s eating the heels. How I can’t manage to bring a loaf of bread home from not one, but three trips to the grocery store in one week is beyond even my understanding.

On days like this, sensitivity is not my strong point. It is also on these days when I contemplate the possibility that perhaps, this time, I’ve gone too far.

Usually, those moments happen late into the days from hell. Did I need to point out to my daughter at bedtime that the world can finally stop looking for those elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction as I navigate her bedroom floor trying to avoid landmines? Was it necessary to taint the moment of the goodnight hug and kiss with a lecture? I get all mad at myself as I leave her room. Why can’t I just keep my big mouth shut? Just then I step on an empty hermit crab shell. I stomp back in and let her know that her crab ran away from home with the beanie.

Take that!

I had a brainstorm the other day, one that will finally put my mind to rest, and relieve me of the constant worry of wondering which of my four kids will be the first to haul my butt into a therapist’s office someday. Once I get them to “sign” on to my plan, I can finally relax, knowing it will be narrowed down to only those with access to an expensive, high-powered contract law attorney.

I began putting Operation Safety Net into play with the second youngest, knowing she’d probably be the toughest sell. I knew that if I could get her to sign on the dotted line, the rest would follow, especially the thirteen year-old, who could be convinced of just about anything, especially if he sees it in a TV commercial. It started when he was four. He saw an advertisement for the Perfect Pancake Maker and came sliding into the kitchen in his slippers, eyes big as sauté pans and said, “Mom! Thereisthiscoolthingontvthatmakesperfectpancakeseverytimeand itonlycosts14.99canwegetit?!”

Another time, more recently, as I searched my purse for my keys for about the tenth time in one day, he gave me his sales pitch for The Organizer.

“Mom, you need to get The Organizer. It has three zipper pockets on the outside and a large, dual-sided inner compartment with special pockets for a cell phone, clip-on key ring, pens and even a notepad,” he said, with all the earnestness of a late-night infomercial host who only has to sell one more widget before he retires to the Bahamas.

“What, no fresh produce compartment?” I queried, knowing he wouldn’t get it.

“Mom, why would you take fruit in your purse?”

I laughed, swinging my formless, pocketless, bottomless sack of shit over my shoulder after finding my keys in the fridge.

Back to my brainstorm.

“Here, sign this,” I said to my ten year-old, Landry, as she shuffled into the kitchen one morning, with her chlorine-infused mass of hair that would have made Medusa proud.

“What is it?” she said, head cocked, peering at the sheet of paper I held out with her one open eye.

“Um, nothing really, just a little thingy releasing me from any liability as a mom.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I didn’t make you cry every day for no reason and I served vegetables almost every night.”

“But I’m only ten.”

Now it was my turn.

“What is that supposed to mean?” I shot back, wondering where she was going with this line of questioning.

“It means, I’m still a child. I’m barely half done. Maybe you’ll start making me cry every day next year,” was her retort, with all the negotiating prowess and bad hair of a pint-sized Donald Trump. I didn’t let on that I was impressed.

“Oh, for god’s sake. Fine. Here, sign this other one.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s a document stating that I encouraged you to keep your room clean, bathe regularly and not eat off the floor.”

“And why am I signing this?” she said, both eyes open now, with a look that told me I had my work cut out for me.

“Because when people see how you live someday I’m not going to be held responsible. I tried.”

“Mom, are you crazy?”

“Probably, but I’m not stupid. Sign.”

“No. But if you make me some eggs we can talk.”

Thus began the stare down. She was Kruschev. I was Kennedy. The Cuban Missile Crisis had nothing on us. Between us lay my unsigned documents. I swiftly tried another approach.

“Remember the time when you were four, and you came and told me you washed the sliding glass door all by yourself and you were practically peeing your pants with excitement because you did it as a surprise for me right before Grandma and Grandpa were coming over for dinner?

“Yeah, I remember.”

“You used Pledge instead of Windex.”

“But you said it looked great!”

“It did look great.”

“The window?”

“No. The look on your face when you told me.”

“I’ll sign.”

“Oh, nevermind.”

I’ll just keep my fingers crossed.

A Fantasy of One's Own (Archive)

2011-01-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

I’m sooooo conflicted. There’s a cloud hanging over my head that makes Hurricane Katrina seem like a fanciful squall. My tortured soul rebounds between moments of clarity one minute and utter confusion the next. It isn’t even a complex issue: I simply hate football, while my husband, on the other hand, thinks the word “football” actually belongs in a sentence containing the word “fantasy.”

Thankfully, he has most of the standard fantasies men have, like those involving Carol Brady, or teeter-totters, and he happily shares them with me. However, the fact remains that the fantasy he logs the most hours with on a weekly basis is Football. Hence, the problem: I just do not get it and I desperately want to. I need to understand.

As I watch my husband watch the television each Sunday, I remind myself to use the word “passion” instead of “obsession.” When I find myself growing irritated at the sound of one man clapping for a bunch of players who cannot hear him, I start mentally checking off all the considerate things my man has done that week. Let’s see, there’s the weeding, just because he likes it and knows I don’t. Then, there’s reading to the kids and helping them with homework. He even vacuums.

When listing his weekly accomplishments doesn’t do the trick, I try a little fantasizing of my own. I tell myself that a forty-two year old man changing jerseys three times in one day in support of a pretend dream team is sexy. Sometimes I follow him up to our closet between games, and he lets me watch. Yeah, baby, the blue one. No, the other blue one. Oh, that’s it, right there, next to your little league uniform. Oh, baby, these thirty-four jerseys taking up valuable real estate in our closet are hot! Yeah, that’s my fantasy.

It’s not like he doesn’t snap right out of it at the end of the evening each Sunday, because he does. Well, right after he does the stats and sends out the newsletter, complete with quippy football comments, while watching Sportscenter. Then, he snaps right back to being the guy I fell in love with, the guy who made me believe in love again, and the guy who continues to hold me after the regular hug has ended. He is this guy six days a week (save for a couple of hours Monday evening), and seven days a week for half the year. Why, then, can I not help rolling my eyes when I overhear him on the phone with one of his fantasy friends, behaving like Ari Gold trying to work a last minute trade with some maniacal producer?

Right now, you might be thinking that I am that spouse – male or female – for which nothing is ever good enough. Well, the truth is, nearly everything is always good enough, and my husband would be the first to say that I never complain. That is because my husband, ironically, is a fantasy husband. He is my best friend. He is the guy who never leaves me hanging, if you know what I mean. He brings it. He is the guy who sees a pile of clean towels in the laundry room and puts them away. Hell, this is the guy who goes into the laundry room! (I know a woman who once hired a hooker to hang out in her laundry room, just to see if her husband could find it. Three days later she sent the lonely whore home.)

Maybe it has nothing to do with my husband. Maybe it’s my dad’s fault for punishing me with the same weekly clapping and yelling for my entire childhood – back when fantasy leaguers didn’t have computers. My dad and his friends had fifteen sheets of binder paper taped together that they scribbled their points down on as they happened. I must be suffering from PTFSD – Post-traumatic Football Stress Disorder.

Perhaps what I need is something to do on Sundays that gets me out of the house and away from the mental triggers. Just so that I can fully relate to my husband, to see things from his perspective, it will be something that never gets boring, and that I won’t know the outcome of until it’s completely finished. It’ll chew up hours and hours of my time, but I’ll have a lot more to show for it at the end of the day than empty beer cans and ranch dip stains on my shirt.

Interestingly enough, it rhymes with “ball.”

The reality of New Year’s Resolutions

2011-01-09T16:15:00.000-08:00

I never have been much for resolutions. At best, they’re excuses for putting off for some number of months things that a person ought to stop doing today; at worst, they’re opportunities for self-loathing and guilt when cast aside.

Instead, I’m a fan of Ongoing Adjustments. These are things that occur to me I should stop, or start doing. Eventually, I get to them. Just thinking about them is sort of a mini-resolution.

Ongoing Adjustments really do work. The key is being mindful of them. (There’s an Ongoing Adjustment right there – be mindful of what you’re doing at all times.) One of my Ongoing Adjustments is to raise my voice less frequently. Walk softly, carry a big stick, etc. I think it was Abraham Lincoln, or maybe Dr. Phil who said, “The problem with yelling is that you have to yell louder and louder, more and more frequently, to get the same result.” I hate raising my voice; it’s unpleasant for everyone, including me. If it’s unpleasant for me, how do the kids feel? Sure, it may shock someone into behaving for a moment, but that’s because it frightens and demeans the person on the receiving end. Ugh.

So, my goal is to stay mindful of the landmines that a busy household can produce, and adjust how I deal with them.

The problem with calling something a “New Year’s Resolution” is that the minute we screw up, we see it as a green light to abandon the project all together. With Ongoing Adjustments, we get a second chance, a third chance, etc. Progress, not perfection.

Mostly, I’m just very careful about making proclamations. Seems like the second I decide to do something, and then say it aloud, I don’t want to do it anymore because I feel like I have to do it, all because I told someone else I would do it. Quickest way to kill the joy is to make something public. The worst transgressors in this department? Celebrities. Perhaps if they kept just a few more things to themselves, they wouldn’t look like the biggest F-ups of all time – because they’re not. They’re no worse than anyone else walking around on two feet – they just have a microphone and cameras (and Twitter and Facebook and publicists) documenting their every move.

I’m also a huge fan of ongoing adjustments by default. These are what I call “back door adjustments.” Here’s how they work: you realize there is something you want to achieve, and you face facts.

Example: I really like getting into my favorite jeans. I also love putting on a bathing suit and going swimming without hating the whole experience. Therefore, I enjoy running and eating healthy most of the time. When I have a choice to make, I think about the feeling of liking what I see in the mirror. I let myself really feel it for a moment. I think about it when I’m heading out to run at 6 a.m. and would rather stay in and snuggle; I think about it when I’m reaching for water instead of a Pepsi. The more I like what I see in the mirror, the more I like brown rice, veggies and running. The decisions and practices become easier and easier.

I like the look on my kids’ faces when I walk over, remove the remote control from their hands, turn off the TV, and leave the room, instead of yelling at them from the other room to stop yelling at each other.

What we’re really talking about here is Reality. If you don’t like the way pizza looks on your butt, stop eating it. If you don’t like the sound of your voice as it hits maximum volume, shut up.

So, if you absolutely insist on making a resolution for 2011, how about this one: Resolve to keep it real. In your relationships, in your closet, in the mirror, wherever it is there might be just a little room for an ongoing adjustment. Don’t forget – you’re human. Most of us mere mortals have ongoing adjustments to make no matter what the calendar says.

Random Christmas Musings (and by musings, I mean gripes)

2010-12-26T12:08:00.000-08:00

It may not seem obvious, but if you really think about it, the holiday season is a lot like getting your period. There’s guaranteed bloating. Headaches. Mood swings. Let us not forget that red theme.

Getting your period on Christmas? A little bit like blowing your brains out and then having to clean up the mess yourself.

Face it, Christmas is for children. By children, I mean anyone young enough to believe that a fat, hairy stranger invading a house in the middle of the night and everything working out fine is actually a possibility. For the rest of us, it’s a tangle of massive proportions, disguised as a good time, cloaked in booze.

By “good time”, I mean agony. By “booze”, I mean “and plenty of it.”

At the risk of disappointing my kind, I hate malls. Therefore, I don’t like to shop. Even worse than being in a mall, is standing in a long line in a mall, sweating because I forgot to leave my coat in the car and being unable to take it off because my arms are filled with stuff nobody really needs, that I am about to spend the next six months paying off.

To be honest, I don’t do very much shopping. I buy for a handful of adults, and I actually put a little thought into what would make them happy before heading out to shop. If I do find myself without a plan, I find a non-mall specialty shop and wander around until something jumps off a shelf and yells, “That’s perfect for (insert name here)!” I buy it and I don’t think twice about whether it’s perfect. I always go with my gut when it comes to gift decisions.

One thing I try never to do is go to a mall without knowing the precise GPS coordinates of the item(s) needed. I’m in, and I’m out. People crossing in front of me abruptly, stopping to read their “lists” in the middle of a walking aisle is not one of my favorite things. In my mind, minimizing the risk of me biting my own tongue in half is what Christmas is all about.

Every Christmas, I also try not to throw-up when talking to grown-ups (and I use the term loosely) who insist that they still “believe” in Santa. These people love to say, “You gotta believe!” as they explain the ridiculous lengths they go to in order to keep their kids, well into their teens, believing in Santa. These are the same people who tell co-workers “Today is my birthday!” when they’re 46.

The day my nine-year old son looked me in the eye and asked me that all-important question was the happiest day of my life.

“Mom, are you Santa?”

“Well, yes, son; I am Santa and I have worked my ASS off for the last nine years trying to make you believe I’m not. I’m also the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy and frankly, I am exhausted.”

I mean, whom are we kidding? A jolly man with a bundle of presents flying through the sky with eight tiny reindeer, giving out presents to good children? Totally implausible. Everyone knows there are no good kids (except for mine, of course…).

I haven’t even mentioned family gatherings. I’m not going to start now.

My dog loves Christmas. At this years’ Special Dinner, something just for the six of us, we had grilled t-bones. The kids all had steaks that hung over the sides of their plates, and a steak knife. For every bite that reached their mouths, a hunk of beef careened onto the floor as they taught themselves the finer points of sawing their dinner into bite-sized chunks. Forget Pavlov’s dinner bell. When my dog sees steak knives come out of the drawer, he begins salivating. The same dog also ate an entire plate of homemade cookies given to me by someone who actually knows how to bake, and six pieces of fudge. He couldn’t eat the white chocolate covered pretzel sticks that some nice person without taste buds bestowed upon us; he had to scarf the cookies. If only there had been a little more fudge on that plate…

Gifts. This season, I only received things I really wanted, which means there are a lot of good listeners out there. I got a book I really wanted, wine, gourmet foodstuffs, gift certificates to restaurants I love, a candle, a blender, a bracelet and many lovely gifts from my children.

What else does a girl need? Quite a bit, actually, in the form of the various things I’ve bought for myself: a back support pillow on clearance, a short, hot, black pencil skirt on clearance, a wireless printer on clearance…is there a theme developing? Yes! I spend almost as much time purchasing things for myself each December as I do for others, all because I’m prowling the retail jungles more this month than all the other months of the year combined. It’s a simple matter of percentages, I explained to my husband, knowing he’d understand the numbers game. The more you go to the mall, the more chance there is of finding a screaming deal that technically, would be irresponsible to pass up. The more you spend, the more you save…everybody knows that!

Not to worry, I did pass on some things: people hawking stuff at the kiosks that dot the center of the mall. Valet parking outside Nordstrom. Nordstrom. The food court. Sobriety.

Christmas 2010: That’s a wrap! (Pun intended.)

Dumb it down, please!

2010-11-03T22:23:00.000-07:00

I’m sick of learning things. I’m tired of knowing what’s living between the creases of my mattress (bedbugs) and in the inner recesses of my down pillow (mites). I don’t want to know what the five most dangerous skin moles look like, how to determine if my car’s idling might be telling me something, or which sexual positions burn the most calories (well, maybe this last one is important).

I’m just so tired of the diarrheal stream of extraneous information coming at me with every click, by way of internet articles on a freakishly wide range of topics. From “How-To’s” to “Top Ten” lists, I’m over it.

Oh how I long for the days, circa 1975, when advice came along once in a blue moon, and boy could a person see it coming. In fact, everything I really need to know I learned in the seventies, and it was all summed up with this:

“Eat right, get plenty of rest, and take Geritol every day!”

I honestly don’t know what Geritol is, so I have replaced that with “wine.” I also exercise. That helps me to burn more calories than I take in, another important piece of advice discovered before the Internet “How To” article spawned the Age of Enlightenment Part Deux. I know better than to beat my children, and I refrain from using a blow dryer in the bathtub. All valuable bits of information, and all learned without the use of the Internet. In fact, all learned before the advent of the Internet.

What if people incorporated all the globs of unnecessary web data they’re exposed to into their daily routines – routines that have existed for centuries, without the benefit of knowing exactly how things might turn out. Even better, what if people started getting all the crazy amounts of info out there all mixed up, and turned into paranoid, confused little creatures who can’t keep it all straight? For example, what if I said this to my ten year old daughter:

“Turn off the TV, go outside, and get some vitamin D.”

“What?”

“The sun is a natural source of Vitamin D and 47% of American children do not get enough vitamin D in their diet. The popularity of advanced sunscreens is not helping either. Plus, you’re absorbing gamma rays and probably lead from the TV screen. Is that a melanoma on your earlobe?”

“Whatever, Mom. I’m going outside to ride my scooter.”

“That’s what I said! Go outside and play!”

Wait a second. That’s not what I said. What I said made no sense to her, and exhausted me. What I said (in my imaginary conversation, because I swear I don’t do this) was complete garbage. I told her to go and do something constructive. For ten year olds, that’s garbage. It ruins the journey. I have to admit, I can’t keep everything straight – all that information that jumps off Yahoo! homepage headlines is hard to keep track of! Just last week I mixed up “Five Steps to a Better Complexion” with “How to Find the Male G-Spot” and had a real situation on my hands. Not to mention the fact that I’m pretty sure a little bit of “10 Turkey Recipes You Can’t Live Without” may have slid its way into the mix.

Trust me when I say, it’s all I can do to drop the right kids off at the right schools each day and return home to the right house. On top of that, I have to plug back into the right computer. Now let’s see…was I working on that document on the upstairs PC, the downstairs laptop, or my new vacuum cleaner-word processor hybrid that allows me to work while I’m working?

It’s a lot of pressure, knowing everything. Some people really get off on it. They find out all possible options and explanations and consequences for any and all choices. Then, and only then, do they proceed with caution. I’m a curious person by nature, but I am at the saturation point for stuff I really do not need to know.

Why are we all so afraid to misstep?

Here’s why: We’re being told how dangerous it is to make one false move, whether we’re having our bra sized, buying produce, or making a birthing plan. (Don’t even get me started on the number of birthing options today. My plan was, and still is, until the last little creature is off to college, “Get the hell out!”) Anyway, it’s a simple case of TMI. I understand that articles attract eyeballs, and eyeballs have fingers attached to them that click and buy. I know it’s all about the bottom line. Big sigh.

All I really want to know on any given morning is who likes me enough to have sent me an email. I promise. I just want to know if my best girlfriend has something funny to say. If there’s more I need to know, I’ll Google it.

Filter this

2010-10-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

I can’t wait for my kids to grow up. Actually, that’s not quite true. I can’t wait for my kids to get a bit older so that I am able to say what’s really on my mind. They’re still a little young for TUM: Totally Unfiltered Mom. TUM is the little voice inside my head representing the other mother, the one who longs to tell it like it is.

TUM is tired of watering her shit down.

How old does a child need to be to know what’s actually going through mom’s mind? When do I get to lose the filter?

Allow me to set the stage.

I have four children: two in fifth grade, one in sixth, and one in seventh, a.k.a. “The Fetid Socks Grade.” But that’s another story.

Each day between five and six p.m., a period of time in my house I like to call, The Bitching Hour, I make dinner. Within the same time frame, I am asked at least four times, though it feels like four hundred, “When will dinner be ready?” This is usually accompanied by my other favorite question, “What’s for dinner?”

You may be wondering, especially if you have a penis, and therefore, rarely cook anything other than the occasional grilled cheese sandwich for a party of one, what exactly is so bothersome about a few simple queries concerning dinner. The truth is, I don’t know. If you figure it out, let me know. For now, I’m chalking it up to one of those unexplained forces in the universe: put a woman in charge of a meal, then watch her head splatter against the walls if she happens to be interrupted one too many times while trying to read a recipe.

(If you really must know, options such as driving a whisk straight up my nose, into my brain and wiggling it around, ala a 1950’s-era lobotomy, have occurred to me during The Bitching Hour. So has homicide. I like wine.)

Back to my original assertion: What I’m thinking, and what actually comes out of my mouth, are not one and the same.

Oh how I’d love to Let. It. Rip.

Sometimes, my husband is a few feet away, winking at me as if to say, “I know what you are thinking, and I love you. Please don’t lose your mind and leave me alone with these beasts.”

The situations involving my fantasy replies and the actual responses I give almost always occur in the kitchen. See if you can tell them apart.

“MOM! How long ‘til dinner?”

This, as ten-year old daughter careens through the kitchen just in time to cross in front of me as I am transferring a cutting board with raw chicken juice on it from the island to the sink. I stop short, but the fowl juice keeps going, splattering on both the floor and my bare toes. Before I’m able to form my answer, another child enters My Space.

“What are we having for dinner?”

Now, I’m in two deep. Ten seconds later, in walks thirteen year old boy.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Wine. Wine’s for dinner, and plenty of it. Now go fill mama’s schooner and then make yourself scarce.”

Okay, so I didn’t actually say that.

What actually came out of my mouth was, “Chicken Picatta, mashed potatoes and grilled zucchini.”

“Cool. Sounds good,” he claims, as he strolls out of the room and into the abyss, otherwise known as Fetid Sock Factory.

There are other times when I long to give flight to, yet pluck the tender wings from, the words of a delicate fowl perched on the tip of my tongue:

“Mom, can you fill my water bottle for me?”

“No.”

“Mom, can you help me find my sneakers?”

“Sure. But first, can you help me find my fucking wand?”

“Mom, could we please not have peas again tonight?”

“Sure. Could you please never again ask me a question?

“Mom, I love you.”

“I love you more.”

Wait a second. I do say that last one, which always starts a bedtime debate that I end up losing.

Which, I guess, is why I have a filter.

Length does matter

2010-08-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Ever get treated to a story by a friend or acquaintance, and stand in awe of how well it’s told? I’m talking about the kind of experience in which someone says, “Have I got a story for you!” and gosh darn if they weren’t absolutely right.

I appreciate the telling of a good story not only for the details sprinkled throughout by an adept storyteller, but for a focused storyline and engaging ending that leaves me saying, “Ahhhhh. I shall not soon forget that tale,” as I kick up my feet on a velvet footstool, lean back into my worn leather chair, and take a sip of sherry, mesmerized by what I’ve just heard.

Enough with that crack-pipe dream. I have children. I don’t have friends who drop by for stimulating conversation in the parlor. I have a countertop, with unidentifiable smears that stick to my sleeves, or even more enjoyable, my bare arms. Furthermore, I use that same countertop to speed through the latest People magazine. When my doorbell rings, it isn’t Robert Redford and Meryl Streep showing up with a bottle of fine cognac to “have a story now” as they did in Out of Africa. It’s a girlfriend looking to discuss this week’s episode of Real Housewives of Crazytown.

Where have all the good stories gone? Where is the oral tradition that passed on such epic dramas as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, or Beowulf, so many centuries ago? As much as I love the written word, I just find it more satisfying to listen in rapt delight and watch the facial expressions of a human being standing before me, weaving action and dialogue, humor and tragedy, into oral gold.

Most of the stories I’m treated to are told by my little people, which means that what they lack in plot, they make up for in incoherence. Endings? Not so much. With my kids’ stories, it’s not a matter of when they end, but if.

My daughter’s stories are so long I’m sure that someday when I’m comparing war stories from a rocking chair with my friend Gladys, the conversation will likely go something like this:

“Say, dearie, when did you go through menopause,” Gladys will ask me, as we sit on the porch of some old folks home, our necks craning and our tongues searching for the bendy straws sticking out of our 32-ouncers.

“Let’s see…what year was it when Landry turned nine? Let me think..."

“Wow, you went through menopause in one year?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Gladys; I went through menopause while my daughter told me about her first day of fourth grade.”

(Note: To be totally honest, I have not gone through menopause. That was purely an imaginative attempt at making a point.)

Now that I've covered length, I can spend a little time on delivery.

You know you are talking to my ten-year old daughter when the end of almost every sentence sounds like it should be a question, but it’s not. Think of the tone of one’s voice when picking up the phone and saying, “Hello?” That's how all of the sentences sound when she tells a story. Not only that, short her stories are not.

Unfortunately, my daughter is not completely responsible. Genetics are also working against her. My daughter comes from a long line of women who would no sooner leave a detail, no matter how irrelevant, out of story than they would throw cat shit all over their living room just to see where it landed. Sadly, I’m one of them. I’m working on it.

The compelling orations that come forth multiple times a day from my daughter are also sans verbal punctuation, otherwise known as logical pauses. The question-yet-not-actually-a-question-tone of voice takes the place of periods and commas. In one aspect it’s rhythmic and almost hypnotic, as her voice rises and falls and rises and falls, until…it becomes evident that the sentences just keep coming…and coming…and coming.

Quite honestly, listening to my daughter tell a story sometimes causes me a bit of anxiety. It’s like watching a movie in which some poor lady crashes a car into a river. Water begins to fill the interior. The water is rising. It’s up to her chest. She desperately claws at the door handle and pounds on the window. Then, the water is up to her chin. It covers her mouth as she juts her chin up and tries to keep her nose above water. This is the point where you yell, "Breathe through your eyes! Breathe through your eyes!" Then, the water level is over the top of her head. She’s completely under water, and you're thinking, “She’s got to breathe! Breathe! But she can’t! She can’t take a breath or she’s dead! She struggles, but still, she can’t inhale! You’re watching this and you suddenly realize you’re holding your own breath, and possibly digging your nails into the arm of the person sitting next to you.

I’ll bet you’re just holding your own breath in anticipation of an example. I’ll bold each word that should be said with the same rise to the voice as a person would when picking up the phone and saying “Hello?”

Ready? Here we go? Are you getting the picture? I’m going to begin? Don’t forget to pause slightly at each bolded word, and say it the way you would if you were picking up the telephone and saying Hello?

“Mom, you won’t believe what happened today. Okay, so, today at recess Kaylie M. and Kylie R did that thing to Khloe and Kayla who had their backs turned and Mrs. Gardner told them again not to but they did it anyway and right then Clem Cadiddlehopper caught the ball and threw it up on the roof so that we couldn’t get it and Mr. Souza walked by and looked at us and said, “Hello girls!” and so then, later, at recess, I was on the swings with Keely and Sammy S. and then the bell rang and we lined up for lunch and guess what?

“What.” (I purposely withhold any trace of intonation that would indicate I am asking a question. I am taking a moral stand at this point and refuse to contribute to the shameful overpopulation of question/statements in the world. In fact, I may even start an effort to rid the planet of needless statements, questions and possibly, all communication whatsoever. I may just climb trees all day.

Back to the story?

“Right then, Chloe and Kayla turned around, and oh my gosh.” The look on my daughter's face communicated just one thing to me: I had missed something.

I quickly rewound, only to end up with a mental pile of tangled, black cassette tape encasing my head which I could only hope would result in a swift and painless death as it tightened around my throat. Technically, because I could not detect any exposition, rising action, climax or falling action, what I’d just heard wasn’t a story. I know the little darling tried to tell me something, but what was it?

I fondly recall the days, somewhere in the neighborhood of eight years ago, when my daughter’s stories took this form:

“Mama, I went potty in the potty chair at Nona’s house today!”

Now, that’s a story! A not-so vibrant verb, but who cares! Look at all those setting details: in the potty chair! At grandma’s house! Today! The only thing I was required to do all those years ago was smile, put out my arms and hug. There was no quiz at the end, in the form of, “Mom, did you hear me?” or “Mom, are you listening,” or the occasional, “Mom, why is your head in the oven?”

Now, it’s a little different. What makes it all even more fun is the anxiety I feel as the non-story- story seems oh-so-close to wrapping up, and my almost 13-year old son suddenly becomes aware there are people in the room with him. Like Rip van Winkle, his little head jerks a bit and the glazed-over look disappears from his already wide-open eyes. How he managed to daydream during the last ten minutes is beyond me. The glimmer of hope I had just seconds before of possibly being lucky enough to escape the scene with no more than a slight trickle of blood from my ear, as if I’d been concussed with a blunt object, recedes. My son opens his mouth and speaks:

“Wait. What happened?”

Then, she starts over.

I feel the two halves of my brain slowly detach from one another. A jackhammer sparks to life between my ears. I cannot listen to this again, I think to myself. No matter that I’m in the middle of making custard in the double boiler – I’ve got to get out of here! I try to sell her my departure.

“Well, I just heard the story, so I’ll just go in the other room and…”

“No! Mom. You didn’t hear what happened to them after she did that!”

What the hell is she talking about, I wondered to myself. Why don’t I get it? She basically just told me about every muscle that moved on the playground from 8 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Why did every sentence sound like the question of the century? Would the falling action ever appear, let alone the conclusion? What is wrong with me?

Back to my original assertion: with kids and their stories, it isn’t about “when” they might end, it’s a matter of “if” you can survive them. Pull up a comfortable chair when you come to my house.

The Other Temple Grandin

2010-08-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

By now, you’ve probably seen the movie or heard the story of Temple Grandin. Inspiring. Unbelievable. Poignant. The true story of a highly intelligent and autistic woman who craves the feeling of a hug, but can’t endure the human touch. She forges a special bond with cattle and then carves out a career designing systems for them to travel to their death without getting so much as one hive.

Apparently, completely calm, centered and happy cows make happy T-bone steaks. Rile them up, deprive them of the perfect coziness and pressure of Grandin’s specially designed chutes and you’re left with cortisol-riddled beefsteak that both tastes nasty and disrespects the beast. Like Grandin said, “We raise them to eat them so how’s about showing them a little res-PECT!!” Grandin even perfected a “squeeze machine”, as she calls it, which mimics the comforting feeling of a hug, without the unnerving (for her) sensation of two arms wrapped around her.

Somehow, she figured out that all she and the cows need is a little TLC.

I am inclined to agree with Temple, not because I totally understand her reasoning, but because I trust her. I saw the movie. I heard her interviewed on NPR. I’m also a fan because of another, more personal link.

See, there’s another Temple Grandin, one who lives in my world. I trust him, too. My version is a 43-year old math teacher and varsity softball coach who, each morning at precisely 7:20, takes his coffee and Sudoku into his "squeeze machine": the toilet closet. This, immediately after eating one bowl of cereal with sliced bananas both below the pile of cereal and placed on top, which he first slices lengthwise and then across, so each slice is a little half-circle. I guess this reminds him of geometry.

My Temple comes home every day at lunch, eats whatever I have fixed for him and then goes back to school with his afternoon treat in a bag: a yogurt and a banana. He sits at his desk, dipping the banana into the yogurt one bite at a time. His students pretend to be doing calculus problems, while secretly texting each other the following: BYGIAIA! (Banana Yogurt Guy Is At It Again!)

Those mornings when he peers into the fruit basket and sees that we’re out of bananas are dark, dark days. His face immediately droops. His brow furrows. He looks at me.

“You’ll survive, chief,” I say while pouring my coffee and shuffling toward the stove.

Trust me when I say, there is a teensy-weensy kernel in his brain, called the Temple Lobe, that tells him not to believe me. Unless he reads it in the sports page or on weather.com, no piece of data is trustworthy.

There are other things that give him the warmth and security he needs.

“I need my squeeze machine!” my husband yelled the other day when I told him I would not get off the laptop to let him check weather.com before he returned to school after lunch.

“You’ve checked it forty-two times today already. You checked it 10 minutes ago when you got home. What is the point?”

“The point is that if it doesn’t rain I need a plan B for practice. If it rains we’ll discuss situations in my classroom,” he said referring to what he might do if water fell out of the sky after school.

“So, write down an outside practice plan. You already know rain is likely. Why keep checking the weather? You could have had ten practice plans written for the next two weeks with all the time you’ve spent checking the weather!”

“Why can’t I just know?”

“Because you already DO KNOW. It said 80% chance of rain before mid-afternoon. Even if it said ‘150% chance of rain’ you know damn well you’d keep checking because that’s what you do.”

I knew what was coming next. Imagine the little black and white sketches that zoom through Temple’s mind when something does not compute.

“There’s no such thing as 150% chance of rain!! You know that!!” He hates it when I disrespect numbers as much as Temple hates it when cowboys disrespect cows.

“Whatever, Temple,” I said, referring the movie we’d just watched a few nights before, just to see if he was paying attention.

Suddenly, he was smiling. It was time for a scenario. We love scenarios.

“What if you found out that I was a highly functioning autistic?” my husband asked.

“What do you mean, IF?” I snapped, unable to keep the smirk off my face.

“Whaddya mean by that?” he said with that fake sad face he adopts just to get me to laugh.

“You check weather.com in the middle of FRIGGIN' JULY, that’s what! We live in California! It’s going to be hot! You’ve even got the kids doing it!" At this point, I can't even keep a straight face, even though I passionately believe in what I'm saying.

“What if a summer thunderstorm comes along?”

I turned and pointed to the living room window. “There’s my weather.com, all year long,” I said, adding, “Want to know what my ‘Plan B’ is? The sweatshirt in the closet!!”

There’s more. There are the clocks that he is umbilically tied to whether he’s at home, in a hotel or camping under the stars, where he ties his watch to the little pocket hanging on the inside of the tent. This because he is compelled to look at the clock just so that he knows what to feel: relieved (before 2 a.m.) or nervous (after 2 a.m.).

I once presented an alternate plan: my way. My way and my husband’s way are a little different. While he scopes the horizon, I tend to look straight down, careening through life, adjusting on the fly to whatever mishap I’ve recently created and fairly content to be in the moment. Other than important things, like appointments, kids’ practices and happy hour, I tend to take life as it comes. I'm not saying my way is better; like Temple's mother always told her, and anyone else who was tempted to judge, "Not more, just different."

I once suggested he cover up the clock at night, as I do, to ensure he won’t catch a glimpse. Of all the times to get bad news, the middle of the night is my least favorite.

“Why put yourself through the anxiety of seeing it’s 5:15 a.m. and that you only have 45 minutes left to sleep, which basically guarantees you won’t be getting back to sleep at all?”

“I just like to know,” he clipped.

“Well, I hope you are satisfied. You have most of our kids doing it. Way to go, Temple.”

“I need my squeeze machine!”

“Come here, honey. I’m you’re squeeze machine. I’m your Plan B.”

Male genes, decoded

2010-06-28T11:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, I consciously choose to let go of the surreal thoughts streaming live in my brain, born from trying to understand my children, and instead embrace what I see as the random thought patterns emanating from my husband’s mind. While my kids’ shenanigans actually bother me, given the biological connection and potential responsibility on my part for their weirdness, it’s actually entertaining to stop and contemplate where the hell my husband gets his ideas. Sure, we share our DNA with each other, but we don’t share DNA, so technically, I bear no responsibility for his thoughts.

While my children’s illogical conclusions (the dog pees in the yard, so why can’t I?) and mistaken beliefs (deodorant goes on the outside of one’s shirt) may be traced genetically back to me, thereby worrying the crap out of me, my husband’s oddities cannot. Hence, I don’t mind thinking about them.

Recently, I pulled up to our house after a long day of teaching, followed by picking up and dropping off kids at softball practice, only to find the front lawn freshly mowed. Hmmm, I thought, as I rolled up the driveway. I couldn’t imagine my husband would have come home during his prep period just to mow, then race back to school in time to catch the bus with his varsity softball team to their out-of-town game. I checked the garage. I spied the mower, wedged between the ping-pong table and the garage fridge, right where it had sat untouched since the beginning of softball season a month prior.

I walked out to the yard and inspected the precision cut. Nice. Definitely not a rush job. Just then, I heard the mower going in the back yard next door. Aha! It was our neighbor! He mowed our lawn because he’s retired, has nothing but time on his hands, the lawns are both small and most of all, he knows my husband is coaching three softball teams and in way over his head right now. What a guy. Neighbors rule!

Alas, those were my thought patterns.

Back to my husband’s thought patterns.

Returning home at eight o’clock that night, hubby brought it up first.

“Hey, honey, thanks for mowing the lawn,” he said with a thoughtful smile, knowing that I do things for him because I love him and not because I’m a passive-aggressive whack job. I know people who do this and guess what? They’ve got trained husbands who also know it! Husband stalls on a task, wife completes it, husband gets the cold shoulder for awhile, which suits him just fine because if he plays his cards right, it’ll last through the end of the seventh inning.

It’s a story as old as coupling itself. I can clearly imagine a caveman, sitting around, watching ants or whatever they did for fun back then, instead of going out and killing something for that night’s dinner. Along comes the wife, home from birthing her seventh baby in a nearby briar patch when she decides to take matters into her own hands, knowing the lazy slob is at cave, sitting on the rock. She clubs the first woolly mammoth that crosses her path and drags it onto the porch, just to make her husband feel bad about not getting it done.

“I didn’t mow it, honey; Ted did,” I said, smiling back at my exhausted husband and readying myself for his appreciative reply.

“That’s bullshit.”

I froze, not sure of what to do or say next. I wiped the smile from my face. Then, I made a mental note not to tell my husband that I put a fresh twelve-pack in the fridge in case he wanted to toddle over to Ted’s house with a couple of cold ones.

I turned toward the sink to hide the expression on my face which communicated something along the lines of, “What in heaven’s name is he thinking?” but with more f-words.

There was an awkward silence. I imagine it was equivalent to how a man feels when his wife asks him if she looks fat today. I decided to play it mature and direct by filling the sink with soapy water and getting busy on that pile of two dishes sitting on the counter.

“Oh, um, is that some kind of no-no or…” I asked casually before being cut-off mid sentence.

“Uh, yeah. You don’t mow another guy’s lawn,” he said snottily, as if I had a penis or something.

I was desperate to figure out where my husband was coming from. I imagined a somewhat different scenario, one in which my husband came home from work and found me relaxing on the couch, blouse askew, with an extremely satisfied look on my face and a cigarette dangling from my lips.

“Hi honey. Whatcha doin?”

“Well, Ted was just here, and….”

I mean, I can see how a husband might have a strong reaction to a neighbor reaching far afield of the boundary lines, but the lawn?

I tried it from another angle – anything to try and understand what my husband was thinking. This time, it was the other way around. This time, it was I who came home from work, plopping down my book bag and heading into the bathroom to take my first pee since ten a.m.

“Oh. My. God! Honey, you cleaned the toilet! You are so sweet.”

“I didn’t do that. Carol from across the street asked to use it and then she just knocked it out.”

“That bitch.”

“Honey, she did you a really nice favor. She asked to use our bathroom because hers wasn’t working.”

“I don’t care. You don’t wipe up another woman’s pubic hairs and pee drips.”

“Now, sweety, c’mon. She’s retired, home all day, kids grown. She knows how hard you work teaching and then have to come home and take care of four kids. She was just doing something nice for you.”

“She’s got her own bathrooms to monitor. You don’t do that. Nope. No way.”

Like I said, I tried to imagine this scenario. I kept getting stuck at my angry reaction to Carol’s obvious outpouring of support for her kind. Carol is my people. She understands me. She gets that sometimes, it’s just easier to shut the bathroom door, pretend it wasn’t there, and pour a glass of wine.

I looked at my husband, his jaw set, hands on hips as he stood looking out the living room window at the manicured lawn.

I decided to let him own it. Those genes were all his.

Your Kids are Weird

2010-05-30T10:21:00.000-07:00

Kids are weird. Especially your kids. That’s right, I’m talking to all you parents out there who send their kids to school every day armed with all the weirdness the world can handle. I’m qualified to make the call, because I’ve got kids of my own – but I’m positive about the fact that yours take the cake, evidenced by the chat I had recently while subbing in my fourth grade daughter’s classroom. Sure, my kid had her sweatshirt on backwards, but this other kid, Dougie, and I had the following conversation after I noticed him yawning and rubbing his eyes for the better part of the first hour of the school day.

Me: Sleepy, Dougie?

Dougie: Yeah, really sleepy.

Me: Didn’t sleep well last night?

Dougie: No, me and my dad went hunting. We were up all night.

To better understand what I was going through at that moment, imagine a split screen, showing what the two halves of my brain were trying to do simultaneously: form an acceptable reply. One side of the mental jumbo-screen flashed something along the lines of, “You went hunting and were up all night?” while the other half read, “What kind of hillbilly, redneck parent lets a nine year old stay out hunting all night on a school night?” Since the latter mental query contained its own answer, I went with the former:

Me: You stayed up all night hunting?

Dougie: “Yeah!” said Dougie, suddenly all fired up. I mean, I could tell this kid was a miniature version of his highly agitated dad, whom I’d never even met. “We got back to the gate too late and got locked in! We drove around and around to other gates and couldn’t get out!”

I pictured a really pissed off guy in camo-gear, which is scary, with a Remington or Ducks Unlimited cap perched crookedly on his head as a result of scratching it while he stared at the lock on the gate(s). Then I visualized Dougie and his dad sleeping in the truck. A big truck with a gun rack in the back window, maybe an ice chest bungee-corded in the bed and a “Nuke Iraq” bumper sticker on the tailgate. To be fair, it wasn’t exactly terrible parenting. They got trapped on a locked ranch. I got it.

Me: “Soooo, what did you do?”

Dougie: “Well, we had to call my mom.”

My mind conjured the image of a sleepy good ‘ol gal in her sweats, t-shirt and socks, sound asleep, being awakened by the sound of a phone and feeling that horrible surge of adrenaline that only parents feel when the phone rings in the dead of night while family members are out somewhere. Especially when dads, guns, ice chests and sons are involved. I pictured her looking at the clock. I asked Dougie for more information:

Me: “What time was it when you called her?” I asked

Dougie: “8:18.”

The familiar feeling of my one brain working on two realities hit me again. I only had a few seconds before I’d need to reply. Dougie was anticipating a reaction. A correct reaction. The kid needed some validation and I wasn’t about to let him down – especially after the night he had, which I was failing on a grand scale at understanding. I quickly recalled that yes, Dougie had been in his seat at 8:00 a.m., so how could he have called his mom at 8:18 a.m.? Better yet, why would Pa wait until morning to call? I decided to go with something vague to cover up the fact I was not computing.

Me: “Then what?”

Dougie: “She brought the extra key and I didn’t get home and get into bed ‘til 9:22.”

More eye rubbing and yawning. This time it was me. It was 9:22 right now.

Judging by the look on the kid sitting next to Dougie, whom I’ll call Mugsy, I had company. Mugsy’s mouth hung open. His brow was furrowed and eyes were turned straight up toward the ceiling as he crunched the numbers. My light bulb, on the other hand, shone brightly.

Me: “So, you went to bed last night at 9:22?” I said, with the building intensity of a trial attorney about to pounce on an unsuspecting witness. I had Dougie’s number, and it was 1-800-WEIRD.

Dougie: “Yes. It was like 9:22 or 9:23,” Dougie reiterated very matter-of-factly, while I tried to keep a straight face.

Me: “What time do you usually go to bed, Dougie?” I asked, expecting an answer of, like, 5:30 p.m.

Dougie: “Like, EIGHT O’ CLOCK!” he said with the dramatic flair of a highly offended Lawrence Olivier.

Clearly, Dougie needs his twelve hours or he’s just no good. I dismissed my witness, satisfied that I had solved The Mystery of Dougie and the Locked Gate(s).

I pictured my own kids subjecting the other adults in their life to stories such as the one Dougie had shared with me. Are there adults, like teachers and grocery store clerks who think my kid is weird? Do my kids have stories like this? If so, what would they be called? Sadly, it took only four seconds before I had a list going. Perhaps one would be “Why I Like to Smell My Sister’s Dirty Feet” or “Ketchup on Scrambled Eggs: Is There Ever Enough?” I stared dejectedly at the still-yawning Dougie.

Maybe your kids don’t have the market cornered on weird after all.

Plan, Forest, Plan!

2010-04-17T10:26:00.000-07:00

I may not know what I’m doing tomorrow (for as the Zen master says, it does not yet exist.) I may not remember what I did yesterday (for as the day planner says, it was forty-two things), but I do know what I’m doing today: planning.

My husband and I are going somewhere. Not to the Grand Canyon with the kids or to Vegas without them; those are trips. We’re planning a vacation. We’re going to Great Britain. More specifically, we’re going to Wales with some good friends of ours and we aren’t taking the children. There is a very good reason (lots of them actually) why we aren’t taking the children with us. They won’t be children anymore.

We’re going to Wales in 2018.

We hatched the plan a few nights ago, while out to dinner with another couple, the husband of which hails from Wales.

“What’s it like in Wales, Martin?” I asked wistfully, picturing thatched-roofed cottages, a rolling green countryside, and shepherds in natty tweed caps with small herds of white goats following behind. Baaaaahhh. Baaaahhhhh.

“It’s great. Pubs everywhere.”

“Let’s go,” I said to my husband, who immediately whipped out his built-in calculator (not the one he uses to count to one) and began wiggling each finger one at a time.

“2018. The last two graduate in 2018,” he said, in a deadly serious tone, and then added, “We’d have to be morons not to be able to save up for a vacation that’s eight years away.”

“We can go to Wales! Without the kids!” I squealed.

“Yay!” said my girlfriend.

“Cheers!” said her Welshman.

“College tuition,” said my husband.

A hush fell over the table. Our friends have one child. They were silent, but only in deference to our obvious pain. We have four children. Four tuitions. Four sets of books. Four kegs at one per month for four years, minimum, probably five and possibly nine if they follow in my footsteps…We stared dejectedly at our friends, wondering how they got so lucky to have fertility issues. Then, my husband and his calculator sprang to life (again, not the one he uses to count to one).

“Okay, here's how it's going to work," he began, as we leaned in so as not to miss any important details of the jewel heist it looked like we were planning. "We'll have everyone's braces paid off by 2015. We sell the house in 2016, after Jackson graduates. Then, we move into our rental, which still gives all three girls their own bedrooms. We’ll have time to save up even more money before the last two graduate because we’ll only have one piddly little mortgage! Wales here we come!!”

“Yay!” said my girlfriend.

“Cheers!” said her Welshman.

Like Forest Gump and his famous cross-country footrace, we were planning!!

Massimo's Oil

2010-03-23T07:20:00.001-07:00

http://www.oliveoiltimes.com/massimo%e2%80%99s-oil

This is a short story I just had published in The Olive Oil Times. Follow the link to read a true romance...with olive oil.

March Madness

2010-03-18T17:23:00.000-07:00

It’s March and that means madness around my house. Of course, so does January, February, April, May, June…you get the idea. The madness this month comes not from basketball. I actually find it amusing to watch a grown man agonize over a bunch of brackets. The source of this month’s madness is my (and by my, I mean our) annual Spring Project. With the exception of every year prior to this one, I’ve chosen a special (and by special, I mean expensive) project to complete so that I can enter into the season without some nagging, energy-draining task sitting around, in all of its incomplete glory, cluttering up my life and mind. So, my first annual Spring Project is….The Yard(s).

Three years ago, our front lawn was passable and a nicely manicured flowerbed, complete with happy azaleas, lined the front porch. The back yard was mostly beautiful hillside, with an ugly patio/lava rock wasteland nightmare that honestly, couldn’t get much worse. Then, we came to town.

This is our backyard, looking up the hill away from our house. Lovely, right?

With an acre lot, two-thirds of which is wildland, we bought a John Deere riding mower and I’m not allowed to mow. Fine by me. My husband can’t wait for the weeds of early spring to start growing on our hillside so he can do the one chore that allows him to both sit and be productive at the same time. I’m sure it’s highly satisfying. He also likes to weed. He’s a sick, sick man.

Then, there’s me. I have no green thumb, do not find gardening relaxing and if you must know, possess a shockingly immature fear of bugs. I don’t even like to water. I have so successfully dodged my husband’s many attempts to show me how to turn on the sprinklers that to this day, if he asks me to turn them on or off, I answer, “I don’t know how” and I’m not even lying.

There is only one thing I love to do in the yard. I love a freshly hosed-off porch, especially on a hot summer evening while enjoying a glass or wine, or shot of whiskey. It’s cool and clean and I can easily spot and kill spiders who make the fatal mistake of thinking they can enjoy a refreshing drink on the porch with me. I often do the same thing on a summer morning, but don’t worry, I don’t drink wine or whiskey at that hour. That’s what mimosas are for, silly.

The problem is, once we made the decision to re-do the lawns with new sod, I grew discontent with the azaleas. I decided that simply trimming the neglected azaleas was less appealing that ripping them up, I mean, tenderly removing them, and planting daffodils. (See the post dated March 15 for that happy story.)

In the backyard, where the ugly red lava rocks live, we shoveled. Like mad.

The backyard, looking toward the house...

As outdoor tasks go, I’d still rather be using a long handled tool than have my hands in the dirt, weeding and avoiding slugs, and eight-legged terrorists. Speaking of long handles, my husband didn’t even complain about the pace I kept both before and after my 10 a.m. lunch break. While some may have called my movements geriatric, I like to think of them as more zen-like and rhythmic: shovel rocks, dump wheelbarrow, shovel rocks, dump wheelbarrow, shovel rocks, dump wheelbarrow….doesn’t it just have a soothing flow? It did, until I started this convo:

“Um, I was just thinking…”

“Oh no. You want to put them back?”

“No. I was just thinking that the dog and the kids are going to be walking through all this dirt and it’s going to be a big pain.”

(No reply from husband. I could tell by the way his eyelids were flickering that he was searching the mental hard drive for something I might say next that would require more hard labor.) I continued:

“Can we put down some kind of tarps or lining to keep it from becoming a big mud puddle the next time it rains?”

“Can’t we just tell them to stay out of it?”

“Sure. I’ll tell the kids. You explain it to the dog.”

“No more rain this year.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s softball season. No more rain.”

“I’m just curious…do you cross your fingers and your toes when you say that?”

So, the giant mud triangle and the madness of the March project has begun. The first round bracket: Us vs. The Yard(s). With luck, March Madness will not become August Angst.

Daffodil Hell

2010-03-15T11:38:00.000-07:00

Not to be confused with Daffodil Hill, the popular tourist destination just a few miles to the east of our home, Daffodil Hell is what our front yard resembled following a visit by a satanic gardening cult (my husband Chris and me) who performed the ritualistic dismemberment of a perfectly good azalea bed and transplanting of what were totally content daffodils previously residing in my Aunt Ann's yard. Click on the picture for a better view of the horrified husband, post ritual, masking his identity for fear of future attacks by copycat cults. Plus, he was just really, really embarrassed. The cult leader, which would be me, when asked by husband midway through the slaughter, whether the carnage could have been avoided by a tiny bit more planning, replied, "I like to adjust on the fly when I do yard work. Planning takes too much time." To which husband replied, "Yes, but so does doing the whole thing over again."

Coming soon: in with new sod, out with ugly red lava rock.

My own (not so private) Disturbia

2010-03-08T21:03:00.000-08:00

I had an epiphany the other day about a horrifying topic. Because I’m me, I didn’t panic. Instead, I decided to write about it. It all went down in a matter of seconds: the epiphany, the acknowledgement (“Hmm. That was sort of disturbing…”) and then the laugh. Here goes.

I know why people kill their own children. It isn’t because moms and dads are insane, or because they suddenly “snap.” It’s much simpler than that. The reason parents kill their own children is because it’s easier than teaching them how to organize their backpacks.

If you don’t believe me, go and find a random twelve year old boy, preferably one with both fresh and long-term stains on his shirt, a green Gatorade mustache outlining his upper lip and a ratty baseball cap slapped on his head backwards. Ask him if he thinks he’s dressed appropriately for going out to dinner at a restaurant where you look down to read a menu and not up. When he answers, “Yeah, why?” you’ll know you’ve got your control group. Look into this boy’s backpack. Try not to laugh or cry. It won’t be easy. Next, have a conversation with your control group during which you attempt to explain the benefits of having an organized backpack. Here’s what to expect:

Before you are finished with your first sentence, his gaze will shift from your face to something compelling off in the distance, like a moth flying erratically, or a gentle breeze. After another sentence or two, he’ll begin glancing around, mentally plotting his escape. If your mouth stops moving for more than three seconds, he’ll take it as his prompt to speak. Expect him to say, “Uh huh” or if you’re really lucky, “Ok.” You’ll know the conversation is finished when it hits you that it may be simpler to just cook him and eat him than continue talking.

There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if the forensics teams who investigate crime scenes that involve parents and children would shift their focus one muddy tennis shoe to the left, they’d have their motive. Instead, they enter a room and ignore the obvious. Stepping over the ever-present backpack, they begin throwing ideas out in the effort to figure out just what the hell happened.

“Hey, Mack, look over here. An empty bottle of Prozac. Mom went off her meds.”

“I guess that about does it, Frank. C’mon, let’s go interview the neighbors.”

It’s troublesome to me that in crime dramas, entire cases are culled from interviews with the neighbors, as if the guy next door has some kind of supreme knowledge or ability to see through walls. What do neighbors know about what goes on in other people’s homes? As evidenced recently, neighbors don’t even know if a family of three is living in a tent on the other side of a fence not fifteen feet away from their summer cook-out – FOR EIGHTEEN SUMMERS IN A ROW!

On the way out the door, the detectives finally notice the backpack, unzipped for the world to see: Piles of wadded up papers, inch long pencils sharpened to a razor point, a binder with nothing in it, a couple of bent up cootie catchers and one dirty sock. How do they not see that something is very, very wrong with this situation?? Tsk, tsk, they think to themselves. The poor kid was probably just minding his own business, doing his homework and ka-POW!

I have a sneaking suspicion of my own. I think the last few minutes of the kid’s life included a conversation similar to the following:

“Mom, have you seen the rough draft of my report on Ancient Rome?”

“No. Have you checked your backpack?”

“It isn’t there. It’s not anywhere. It’s gone.”

“It must be in your backpack. Here, let me look.” (The beginning of The End.)

“Mom, it isn’t in there and I’ve got to find it! It’s due tomorrow!”

Opening the backpack, the fully confident mom is sure she will find the very same folder she watched her son label ‘History Homework’ at the beginning of the year. I mean, why the heck not?

Pulling out the bright red folder, the one that even a twelve-year old boy couldn’t miss from fifty feet away, mom holds it up. She smiles. She is proud of herself. Her son, on the other hand, isn’t feeling her joy. He’s scowling.

“I don’t keep it in there, MOM!”

Confused by his reply, mom keeps trying, in her patient mom voice.

“Where was it the last time you saw it?”

(The End is near.)

A cast iron frying pan on the stove catches mom’s eye. Her hand twitches. The boy responds:

“Right where I always keep it! Folded up under the placemat next to the cookie jar!”

(Ka-POW!)

The End.

What kind of busy are you?

2010-03-03T09:41:00.000-08:00

So many people still ask me, “Why aren’t you teaching anymore” that I feel the need to make a formal statement. Since I don’t have a publicist (my 67-year-old dad bragging about his 43 year old daughter to his friends over coffee doesn’t count) I can’t call a press conference. I’ll just address it here, in my blog, which is read by roughly thirty-two people. Since about twenty of them live around here, I’ll count on them to spread the word so that I can shut up already and stop explaining myself. By the way, has anyone ever considered the fact that asking why a person has made a huge, life-changing decision might, in fact, be categorized under “not your business”? I mean, who goes around asking people, “How come you’re not married anymore, Doug?” or “Why’d you want to make your tits bigger, Bonnie?”

More and more, I understand what poor Brangelina must go through, not to mention Tiger Woods. Can’t a guy have his issues without the whole world poking its snorkeling mask into his fishbowl? Who gives a hoo-haw anyway? He’s getting laid. It’s a story as old as Adam and Eve. That’s right: Adam cheated – with himself! Trust me when I say, the original sin wasn’t eating the stupid apple. There was a man. There was a weenie. There was masturbation. Eve caught Adam abusing himself in the garden and ate the goddamn apple because she was stressed!

I quit teaching because I was beaten. I couldn’t fight the good fight any longer. The fight against what, you ask? The fight against insanity. See, I went from “insanely busy” while teaching high school English and attempting to raise four children (ages 10, 9, 8 and 8 at the time I surrendered) to “crazy busy” now that I’m a freelance writer (again), working from home. Keep in mind, I use the term “working” loosely, especially since my tax preparer pointed out to me the other day, “You really need to be making money to write things off.” That uplifting statement came on the heels of this: “Is this the extent of your writing income?” while holding my 1099’s between her thumb and forefinger like it was a hairy spider. “Um, yes,” I answered, bowing my head in the kind of shame known only by fully conscious morons. Luckily, I’m the sort of sick individual who is motivated by a thorough ass-chewing, so I’m ramping up the effort to stop making a coma at writing and actually make a living. (If you don’t think a tax-preparer making thinly-veiled insults about your income is humiliating, then I guess we have slightly different sensitivity levels. That, or you couldn’t catch a clue with a butterfly net. Only you know for sure.)

Back to why I quit. My goal is to eventually downgrade the rating of “crazy busy” to somewhere in the neighborhood of “mildly kooky busy.” I’d never be so idealistic as to expect to just be plain old “busy.” Miss Merry Sunshine I am not. I hate that bitch. She’s busy painting her nails.

If I could just get my kids to simultaneously shut the hell up for thirty seconds, and my husband to pile all of the household chores, cooking, homework help, meaningful conversations, errands, appointments and shopping, onto his plate next to teaching full time, coaching basketball and softball, occasional side jobs painting houses, rocking my world on demand and the chores he already does, I could get somewhere with this writing thing.

There’s an agent out there somewhere who has that weird feeling he’s forgetting something. He can’t put his finger on it, but he will. Soon, he’ll be sifting through his slush pile and there will be a manila envelope addressed to him, complete with wine stains and maybe a booger helping to hold the stamp in place. In the top left corner, he’ll see my name: Surreal Busy Housewife.

Top Ten Lists, Deconstructed

2010-02-23T09:38:00.000-08:00

I hate top ten lists. Mainly, I hate them because at best, only two or maybe three entries are actually funny. Typically, it’s the first one on the list, (#10) because that gets the ball rolling and sucks you in; #8 is usually funny because if there were two duds in a row that soon, the listener or reader would bail. Then comes the lull, or several barely amusing entries that keep you hoping for a funny finale, #1. If it's good, you're happy about hanging in there for numbers 7 - 2. If it's not good, you're sort of numb, wondering what went wrong. The list started so cleverly, had so much promise.

Why can't people just stop when they're ahead? Why is our society obsessed with more, more, more? In my opinion, Top Ten lists are about three times as long as they should be.

The reason I like the idea of Top Two lists is because there is a fifty-fifty chance of actually laughing, given that even a moron can come up with at least one funny thing to say about nearly any topic.

For example, here is the Top Two Ways to Know You Are an Italian Woman:

#2: You wear a sweater instead of a bathrobe over your pajamas in the morning.
#1: When your hands start moving during a tense conversation, people leave the room.

I have friends who are more Italian than me who could probably come up with several more, but that’s about it for me right now. I could add one more (#3: Your Thanksgiving table features a platter of homemade ravioli in the center, and a sad turkey off to the side) but that’s only slightly amusing. Better to quit while you’re ahead, I always say.

I sometimes think of funny lists while I’m taking a shower. Anything to keep my mind off the obvious. For example, one morning, I thought of The Top Two Reasons Not to Take a Shower While Drunk. The entries were easy and obvious. In fact, it was one list where I could have gone on and on; but I didn't. I kept it brief, witty and real. So, here they are, The Top Two Reasons Not to Take a Shower While Drunk:

#2: You might spill your drink.
#1: Alcohol and razors don't mix.

While Top Two lists pop into my head at normal times, like when I’m showering, there are other times when it seems inappropriate, or at least odd, to have one occur to me. Example: At exactly the time we were supposed to be pulling away from the house and driving to school the other morning, I found myself in the middle of a pointless argument with my twelve year old son about whose fault it was, his or mine, that most of his socks were missing. I was so inspired that on the spot I came up with The Top Three Reasons Why I Should Run Away From Home:

#3: It’s finally time to find the lucky woman who went home from the hospital with my baby
#2: I’d have a six hour head start, since that’s when the next meal is and they’ll notice I’m not in the kitchen cooking it
#1: On any given day, SEVEN dust-ridden socks are living under my son’s bed

Feel free to leave your own Top Two, or at the most, Top Three lists under ‘comments’, but please, don’t bore me with numbers 7 – 2.

Solutions on a silver platter

2010-02-18T08:44:00.000-08:00

Sometimes kids just need a little help figuring things out. I know the current trend in child-rearing is to stay out of their hassles whenever possible, let them problem solve and all that crap, but is it worth it when you feel you might have a stroke if you listen for one more second to their ridiculous arguments?

It happened just the other night. My four children decided a game of inside hide-and-seek was in order. Keep in mind, our inside hide-and-go-seek has one slight adjustment from the traditional, outdoor, no-holds-barred, flying-through-the-air-to-the-base version I grew up playing.

The kids aren’t allowed to run in the house, so the first person found in each round is “it.” This creates a slightly more competitive mood, which is basically the last thing my kids need. They do “insanely competitive” all by themselves. In the indoor version, a perfect hiding place is imperative. I once caught one child pulling the empty racks out of the dishwasher, preparing to climb inside it. I asked her how she planned to close the door. She had no answer. I didn’t even have to say, “Get the hell out of the dishwasher!” which was what I was thinking. All I had to do was illuminate the problem and she solved it. She went and got the plunger and stuck it to the inside of the door. See, I pay attention to those books once in awhile.

Other times, it’s not so easy.

On this particular night, as I sat in the reading room, reading the same paragraph over for the tenth time, I had to step in and say something when I heard the following exchange, or some similar variation for the twentieth time. Keep in mind, the conversationalists, such as they were, were at opposite ends of a 3500 square-foot, two-story house.

“I need more time! Seventy seconds isn’t enough!”

“Yes it is!”

“No it isn’t; I need eighty seconds!”

“No you don’t, Jackson. Just find a spot."

"No!"

Fine! I’ll count to seventy-five.”

"What? No way! That’s only five more seconds. Kee, that’s not enough time! You always count longer when you and your friends play!”

“Nuh-uh! I’m counting now! One, two, three, four…”

“Kee, stop! Wait! What are you counting to? Eighty? Keely?"

“…five, six, seven…”

“KEELY!! WHAT ARE YOU COUNTING TO??”

“Everybody freeze!”

That was me. I had to step in and settle this, once and for all. I continued:

“Count to 100. That’s it, every time. If you can’t find a hiding place by then you are disqualified from that round. You will spend the time dusting the bookshelves while everyone else plays. I’ll get the Pledge.”

Miraculously, there was no more complaining about the counting. In fact, the counter slowed down a step, knowing that if even one person was disqualified, it would throw off the whole dynamic. Everyone knows you can’t play hide-and-go-seek with just three people.

Problem solved.

The Goodfellas guide to multitasking

2010-01-27T13:58:00.000-08:00

Martin Scorsese is a scene-stealing phony who clearly staked out my house for years before baking all of his notes into a mafia-themed film version of a rich ziti, dripping with cheesy, philandering husbands, drugged out hoo-ahs (whores in Jersey) and marinara-making wiseguys. Of course, a drugged out whore and a philandering husband do not live in my home, but there is marinara sauce and cheese, and the insanity of multi-tasking.

The similarities are close enough. After all, what do you think those disclaimers of "any person resembling these characters, living or dead is a coincidence" are all about?

Just dreamed it up out of thin air, right Marty?

My red, runny nose you did.

The latest installment of Goodfellas of Amador County happened just a few days ago, when I got that all too familiar feeling of being in the weeds without a whacker. I had a raging head cold. Snot flowed. Someone had rearranged my face.

My plate was so full it would have fed my mom (she's Italian.) My suburban thundered forth through the highways and biways of my town like an '88 Caddy, bags of guns and money (groceries and hospice donations) in the trunk and a helicopter that circled overhead (the clock) watching my every move.

My moves, by the way, were legendary. In the next ten minutes I had to lose the helicopter, pick up two kids, drop one off at basketball practice, make a stop at the hospital, the doctor's office and the beauty salon and get home in time to fulfill the promise I made to my husband that morning to make his favorite dish - Chicken Cacciatore - and still have all of us on the couch for American Idol at eight. The pressure was on.

No time for getting stuck at a light, I whipped a right turn into the gas station, cut the corner and popped out on the other side of the intersection, narrowly ahead of the school bus instead of stuck behind it. Basketball practice started in five minutes. Calling the coach, who doubled as my husband, and claiming a flat tire was not an option. I needed a plan.

I sped, I dialed, I broke the law. I watched the helicopter. I wiped my nose on my sleeve as my 9 year old answered the phone.

"Landry, listen; I need you to do something."

"Hello?"

"LANDRY! It's me!! Where's Jay?"

"Mom??"

"LANDRY! Turn away from the television. Listen carefully. Ready? Go tell Jackson to make sure he's ready for practice. Tell him to get his water and a sweatshirt and be outside in front of the house. I'm two minutes - no wait - tell him I'm thirty seconds away. GO NOW AND TELL HIM!!"

"Mom, can I have a snack?"

"Landry! Go do what I said NOW!"

"Fine." (sound of phone being put even closer to her mouth)

"JAAAACCKKKKSOOOOON MOM WANTS YOU OUTSIDE IN --"

"Mom, when did you say you were coming home?"

"I'm OUTSIDE NOW! TELL HIM TO HUSTLE!!"

"JAAACCCKKKSOOOON MOM IS OUTSIDE NOW WAITING FOR YOU! Um, Mommy?" she said in that sweet voice that basically ends my hysteria for the moment, lest I have to crown myself Worst Mother Ever and Eternal.

"Yes, sweet pea. What's up?" I said, wiping my nose.

"Mom, what do we have to eat?"

"Honey, I'll be back soon. I've got to run some errands," I said, hissing at my son to hurry up and shut the door as he poured himself slowly, one appendage at a time, plus his gym bag, into the front seat. "Bye, hon, see ya in a bit," I said to my daughter.

"Mom but wait I -" I hear as I snap the phone shut.

I pulled away from the house. Did I see a second helicopter? I knew I didn't have much time. If I cut through the abandoned car dealership behind the school, I'd be able to go left at the highway and sneak through the bank parking lot to the back of the elementary school where daughter number two was waiting. But first, I had to pick up more drugs (x-rays) from my dealer (the hospital) for my buyer (Dr. Pinhead) who seems to have perfected the art of needlessly billing insurance companies by ordering bi-weekly x-rays of a minor arm fracture. But before I did that, I had to get my son to the airport (gym) to catch his flight to Panama (basketball practice) because if I didn't the supplier (my husband) would break my kneecaps (give me that hateful "I'm-very-disappointed-in-you" look).

We pulled up in front of the airport terminal (gym entrance) and I shoved my son, his gear bag full of guns and money (basketball and water bottle) out the door. The bag popped open when it hit the ground. We were on a hill. Everything splattered. Drugs and hundred dollar bills were everywhere.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

"Haveagoodpracticeseeyalaterbye," I spewed as his shoes tumbled down the hill toward the bricks of cocaine (basketballs).

I roared away, already planning the five minutes I'd have between getting home after making all my drops and being at my eyebrow waxing appointment in the next town. I needed to get a head start.

Opening my phone, I pushed the buttons with my thumb, kept one eye on the phone and the other on the highway. With my other eye, I watched the helicopter watch me.

"Landry it's mom. I need you to get something out of the freezer in the garage and put it in the microwave to defrost."

"What? Mom, where are you?"

"I'm in the car. Just listen. Put the phone down and go out to the freezer and take out a package of heroin."

"What?"

"CHICKEN! OH MY GOD LANDRY THE CHICKEN!!!"

"Okay, okay. How long do I put it in the microwave for?"

"Just push 'defrost-1-start'. That's all you have to push. 'Defrost-1-start.'"

"What are we having?"

"Chicken cacciatore."

"Mom, are you talking on the cell phone while you're driving?"

"You're cutting out. Gotta run."

I glanced at the helicopter: the guns (groceries) had been in my trunk for more than an hour; the drugs (ice cream, frozen fish sticks) wouldn't last much longer. I wiped my nose on my sleeve again, watching the helicopter. I decided to bypass the stop at home and instead go straight to my next drop (eyebrow wax).

Forty-five minutes later, I pulled into the garage. I went into the house. A frozen pork roast sat on the counter - next to the microwave. A note lay beside it.

"Honey - Basketball practice cancelled - the band needed the gym. Meet us at Round Table."

I walked straight to the safe (wine rack) and pulled out my handgun (Zinfandel).

Then, I pulled the trigger.

It takes a stink to raise a man-child

2010-01-19T11:06:00.001-08:00

Let’s see….where to begin. Have I ever mentioned that my 12-year old son is a solid B student, gifted athlete, handsome devil, but living schizophrenically in two worlds? Not only that, he can pull you over to the dark side in just one sentence. Conversing with him is like being adrift on Lake Michigan in a cardboard box and no sail. If you sit perfectly still, the best you can hope for is calm seas. Try and lean one way or another to affect the direction and you might as well call it a day.

While I usually know right where I stand with regard to any of my three daughters, (“My hair is fine. Go away.”) with my son it’s a bit trickier to discern exactly what he needs from me at any given moment. See, he’s twelve and seems to have a foothold in both boyhood and adolescence. One minute he’s gooning around in his annoying sing-song voice, happy and carefree. Then, the phone rings. I answer it and tell him it’s for him. He takes the receiver. The sound that comes out when he says hello alerts me to the fact that he’s hiding some kind of sound-activated bass device in his sweatshirt. Mono-syllables squeeze forth in a forced baritone:

“Yeah. What’s up….Yeah. Yeah. Wait. I’ll ask. Mom. Can I go to DJ’s? Yeah. See ‘ya.”

Then, the phone call is over. Click.

“Wah-wah-wah, aaaaaahhhh-puuuukowie-neener!!” he yells, scooting along the kitchen floor in his oversized tennis-shoe slippers, chasing the dog out of the kitchen.

See what I mean? My little goofball one second, someone’s knight-in-shining-pre-pubescent-armor the next.

The troubling part is that he seems completely fine with his dual-personality. It’s me that is left scratching my head one second and on the verge of a psychotic break the next. Like the other night when I went into his room to tell him goodnight. I found him standing in the middle of the room looking around at nothing in particular. This is normal. That he was also wearing the underarmor he’d had on during his basketball game a few hours earlier struck me as odd.

“Are you going to sleep in the shirt you had on under your basketball uniform?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with that half-grin that told me he at least saw the door I was opening – whether he would choose to walk through it was another matter.

“Sheesh, Jay, how can you sleep in a shirt you just played a game in? You might get away with it now, but you won’t get away with it when you start to smell…” my voice trailing off to that mumblespeak that always serves as an introduction to the topic of puberty. He really perked up at that point.

“Well, do I smell? I’ve been wondering. I don’t know what it smells like,” he said in his man-child baritone. He also seemed….eager.

Now it was I who stood in the middle of the room, staring at nothing in particular. I was at a crossroads – a body odor fork in the road. Now what? I wondered. In an instant, I did what any caring mom would do. I lifted my arm.

“Here. Take a whiff,” I said. I knew there was only one way to paint this picture for him.

“Well, can you smell me first?” he asked. I said sure. I knew I’d smell a whole lot of nothing, but I played along.

“Nope, I don’t smell a thing really. Now you try it,” I said, offering up the Mother of all pits.

“Ewwww!!!! I gotta go poooootttttty…” my son squealed, flapping his arms from side to side with elbows pinned to his torso, flying out of the room and down the hall.

Just when they think they’re all grown up, they remind you there’s still a little time left.

Let's argue about it

2009-11-12T11:56:00.000-08:00

The situation: my nine year old daughter and twelve year old son will not stop arguing. No topic is too meaningless, no issue too worthless for them; they can make mountains out of molehills faster than I can make a gin and tonic, which is why I had to come up with a plan, quick. Turns out, it's also going to make me wealthy.

The idea hit me the other day when I overheard this little gem of a convo at the breakfast table:

Niner: Stop looking at me.
Twelver: I'm not looking at you.

Niner: Yes you were.
Twelver: No, I wasn't.

Niner: Yes, you WERE.
Me (from across the room): Grow up, both of you.
Twelver: Mom, I was not looking at her. I was looking out the window behind her.

Niner (with gusto): No you weren't; you were STARING at me!
Twelver (with even more gusto): Landry, if I was staring at...
Me: Both of you grow up!! If you want total privacy when you eat, take your cereal into the closet!!

I immediately realized my mistake. Twelver, otherwise known as Literal Boy because of his inability to detect sarcasm, started to get up. So did Niner, who will do anything, anytime, no matter how ridonkulous. I told them to use their mouths for eating and try not to activate their eyeballs.

"Does that sound reasonable!?" I asked in that tone of voice suggesting to them that mom is teetering on the edge of coming completely unraveled. They know this tone. It usually results in very nervous expressions on their faces. I sort of enjoy that, which makes me a little nervous, but continued anyway:

"If there was a way to make money on your arguing, I'd be FILTHY RICH! LISTENING TO YOU TWO MAKES ME WISH I'D NEV..." I stopped short of saying that terrible thing a parent should never, ever say to a child, wondering if my eyeballs were replaced by little spinning dollar signs like the ones in cartoons. I had a twinge of guilt, knowing what I had almost said aloud, but that feeling was immediately replaced with a highly rational thought: I would never ever wish they hadn't been born, but does that mean I can't help out some unsuspecting, perfectly happy young couple who enjoy weekends in Napa having hot, protected sex and then returning to their chic, comfortable and most importantly, empty apartment?

That's when I began to hatch my plan. I would videotape their arguments, have them professionally produced into thirty-second public service announcements and sell them to Planned Parenthood for their next birth control campaign. I'd make millions! The first thing I'd do with the money is put a little into the kids' college fund. No, make that a lot into their college fund. Then, because college is still several years away, I'd splurge on that ear-drumectomy surgery I'd been saving for. I saw the commercial one day right after an episode of Hannah Montana. There was no subliminal message; in fact, I had my back to the T.V. at the time. All I needed to hear was the booming announcer:

"Parents, do you fantasize about being deaf?" and I was listening! I hastily wrote down the toll-free number on the back label of one of the wine bottles laying next to me. BAM!!

Now, I encourage the arguing. I have hidden microphones all over the house. I look for ways to help them turn minor skirmishes into full-blown offensives.

"Jackson, did I see Landry just go into your room looking for a pencil?"

"What? Where? LANDRY...."

I even began modeling the kind of behavior I want to elicit from my children, just like all of the parenting books describe. I use my husband for this part of plan. To keep things authentic, lest my children figure it out, I didn't tell him what was up.

"Stop looking at me," I said to him the other night at the dinner table.

"But you're beautiful, baby, I can't help it," he replied.

I glared at him. He frowned.

"What the hell is that look for??" he half-yelled. Now, we were getting somewhere.

"You know EXACTLY what!" I hissed.

"Do not!"

"Do too!!"

"You're crazy!"

"Well YOU married me so I guess that means YOU'RE CRAZY TOO!!"

"Let's argue about it!!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Ass: It's what's for dinner

2009-11-03T08:34:00.000-08:00

I bought a roast the other day. Not just any roast. A rump roast. A large, asymmetrical wedge of beef that sports no cool name, like tri-tip or tenderloin. About all it really does is conjure up an image of a fat ass. That's its claim to fame. The ass roast.

It was my first roast. My mom made them all the time when I was a kid, usually petrified beyond recognition and served with mashed potatoes, peas and homemade gravy made with something called "drippings." Even then the word freaked me out. Now, it's even scarier. If I knew then what I know now, nary a morsel of anything made with "drippings" would have passed my lips.

So, I was in the grocery store, looking for something easy, yet impressive to serve my in-laws when the idea hit me: a roast! I quickly scanned the meat department for a large chunk of meat. I didn't even know that it was ass that I was looking for. I had no idea really what that thing was that my mother used to serve. I grill tri-tips and tenderloins; I don't put meat into the oven, unless it's a bird. I saw something that looked vaguely familiar. I checked the label: rump roast. There was no doubt about it, this was the very same thing my mom regularly executed in our aqua-colored oven circa 1977.

I took my ass home and poked holes in it, then shoved in chunks of garlic. Salt, pepper, olive oil and into the oven my ass went. An hour and a half later, I tore open an envelope of gravy mix and followed the directions. I added the "drippings" to it (evidence that I have, in fact, become my mother) and whipped up the potatoes. We had our dinner: a perfect piece of ass.

Just then, my nine-year old came in.

"Mom, what's for dinner?"

"Assss..." I began, swiftly realizing my error. I continued: "...k me no questions, I'm trying to get dinner on the table."

Where are your manners? (rhetorically speaking, of course)

2009-10-28T09:37:00.000-07:00

Last night at the dinner table, in a span of twenty-two seconds, the ten-year old daughter was caught licking her mashed potatoes off the back of her fork and the twelve-year old boy turned the simple task of drinking milk into a highly complex procedure - which he failed to execute. Instead, he decorated his face with it, where it dripped onto both his shirt and the table. In fact, the mashed-potato-lollipop-licker got nailed twice in less than a minute; it was between takes that I turned to look at my son and saw the dairy beard.

What the hell?

I was already annoyed by the fact that husband, who sits right next to potato girl, didn't seem to notice because he was far too busy licking his fingers one by one: slurp, slurp, slurp, slurp. He doesn't lick his pinkie finger, but always hits the others in the same order, beginning with the ring finger and working toward the thumb. Guess what he does next? He picks up the napkin and dries his fingers.

Sooooo, when I turned and spied the milkman, doing it for the second night in a row I might add, I had a little somethin-somethin to say - to all of them.

"Can you slow down and make sure the cup is actually touching your lips before you tip it up to drink?" I said rhetorically, of course. He didn't get that. He actually answered.

"Mom, I DID!"

"Don't even go there. You didn't, or it wouldn't be all over your face and the table, now would it?" And another thing: his ability to detect rhetorical questions is non-existent.

"Mom, I --" but I cut him off.

"Just slow down. The goal is not to toss the milk from the cup to your mouth from an inch away." I wanted to add that there would be plenty of time for that someday with beer, after breaking his mother's heart and joining a fraternity, but I didn't want to open up that can o' worms at the moment. Fingerlickin' good man would have chimed in and admonished me not to criticize the brotherhood. Plus it would only lead me to conjure visions of frat boys in their underwear, getting blindfolded and paddled and it was certainly too early in the evening for that fantasy.

That's when I saw the potato-licker, at it again. Who taught children that it was a good idea to spin forks or spoons around and go at it from ten different angles? This is the same one who will simply tilt her head up to the ceiling if someone asks her a question just after she has taken a drink, so she can talk without it spilling onto the table. I desperately wish I was kidding.

"Kee, just move the food from your plate to your mouth with the fork; it isn't a sugar cone for your dinner."

I decided to test them one more time, just to see if anyone had learned anything.

"Why is it so hard to eat without involving fingers, noses, chins and fork cones?" I snapped. All but one had finally figured out that mom's questions don't always require answers.

"Well," clipped the younger daughter, who's nine and always ready with a long-winded speech when just a syllable will suffice. "Sometimes when the food is..." she began, glancing up to see The Look on my face. "Nevermind."

Not two minutes later, I noticed a smiley face made with mashed potatoes and peas on my son's plate. He can't be serious, I thought to myself. I looked at him. He looked at me. We both looked at the plate. He looked scared.

"Are you kidding me?" I said incredulously. My annoyance at his poor timing surged ahead of my disbelief that he was making pictures with his food. Again, the rhetorical question meter failed to launch.

"I wasn't --"

"You don't have to explain what it was you weren't doing. I can see exactly what you weren't doing because I have eyes in my head. And stop answering my questions!"

I ask you, am I asking too much??

(Don't answer that.)

The Ironic Vampire Song

2009-10-23T13:04:00.000-07:00

Remember that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when the hot concierge that the main character goes out on a date with tricks him into getting up onstage at a local bar and singing a song from the vampire opera he's been pouring his heart and soul into composing? Remember? The guy adopts a Transylvania accent, right out of a Count Chocula commercial and adds a sadsack tone to his voice that gets the bar full of local islanders practically crying in their beers: "...die...die...die...I can't" the guy sings in his plaintive, slow-motion-like wail as he drops his head down and to the side on the last note. Even the hot concierge undergoes a tranformation in that moment, seeing the guy as a real person, with a real heart and real emotions - unlike the goofy bastard that dumped her a few years back. Remember how funny and perfect that song was - in the movie? In the movie, it brought two people together.

Now imagine your husband singing the same refrain, over and over. Imagine it's 10:30 p.m. and you're flossing your teeth, trying to tell him about something important that your boss did to you that day, some great injustice that needs to be expressed. You glance in the mirror and see your husband in the walk-in closet, pained expression on his face that might also indicate a furious case of gas and those words dripping from his sad lips: "...die...die...die...I can't" as he throws one limp sock, then another, into his already overflowing laundry basket. Imagine he's still singing it as his your head hits the pillow. Then, you're head starts singing it - well after he's snoring.

Fast forward eight hours. Kids are looking for their backpacks, which they left "RIGHT HERE LAST NIGHT" but that somehow have evolved into upright, walking hominids and split since then. Someone needs her hair brushed while you're brushing your teeth (a talent most moms have, yet try their best to not let anyone find out about) and the twelve year old wants to give you a hug. A hug? At seven-twenty in the morning??? There's no time for hugs! About this time you realize your husband has picked up where he left off last night with his serenade and "...die...die...die...I can't..." drifts into hearing range, which means he isn't doing anything because you know damn well that he uses both hands to dramatize the song, spreading his arms apart as if an enormously fat woman of his dreams is going to spring into them.
Are you imagining it? What are you feeling?

"Die...die...die...I can't."

Things to do when you’re dead

2009-10-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

I'm starting to worry. I need to sleep through the night and I need it yesterday. My usual remedy of doubling up on my thryoid medicine is not helping. I've been waiting patiently now for almost a dozen years; my kids are practically grown and I still rarely get a full night of sleep. The youngest two seem to think it's an all night party. The older two, eleven and twelve (their ages, not their names) believe they invented bloody noses and that they go away quicker with an audience. My plea to "pinch and go back to bed" falls on deaf ears.

Question: Shouldn't nocturnal interruptions have ended years ago? When my first child hatched, I plunged into sleep deprivation hell so surreal that I once forgot how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich - halfway through the complex procedure. I remember a sudden feeling of hyper-consciousness, aware that I was holding a knife and a jar of peanut butter, but unable to figure out why. It was just the four of us, including the bread, alone in the universe with no purpose or attachment to anything - not even each other. Turns out that unless one is purposely trying to zen out, it can be a little scary. Either way, it was the closest thing to amnesia I've ever had, except for when I'm in the grocery store with my kids and pretend not to know them.

Anyway, I told no one. Not even my husand (now ex-husband, keep reading) who was very busy sleeping in, going to his job as a bar manager at noon-ish (after surfing) and coming home at about the time I was going to bed for the third, though not yet final time of the night. I was too embarrassed and afraid to tell anyone about my momentary coma so I chalked it up to lack of sleep.

Fast-forward a few years. Nighttime feedings were replaced by other, more complex needs: cough medicine, the fan turned on, the fan turned off, a hug, the blankets pulled up, the blankets pulled down, etc. The little people, their feet flying, bounced into my room at all hours with endless, sadistic requests. Good thing they were still little, soft and smelled good. Tucking them in, even an hour before dawn, felt satisfying.

Now, it's a little different. We're currently in the sleepwalking years: new husband, a blended family and increasingly inventive ways to prevent a full night's sleep. Closet monsters and wayward blankies have been replaced - last week it was with the sound of Santa and his reindeer in one of the children's closet. Turns out it was the eight year old doing a midnight search for her bicycle, which she explained she must have in order to go to Paris. Other times a nine or ten year old might pop up at the foot of our bed asking if we know where Larry is. One of us gently nudges the miniature somnambulist back to bed, assuring her that Larry will be right back - he's probably catching a nap somewhere. Some nights we simultaneously drop back into bed, exhausted and share our adventures:

"Where ya' been?" I ask groggily.

"I had to get in the airplane (bean bag) and land it safely so the boy from 14F would go back to his seat (bed). What about you?"

"Just some general hysteria. A little involuntary farting. That's about it," I mumbled.

Our fate as permanently addled zombies was sealed last summer when we made the tactical error of getting a dog. Not just any dog, but a beagle. Beagle owners out there, wipe that smirk off your face. For the rest of you, the question, "What could a dog possibly do between the hours of 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. but slumber?" is contained in the following list, for starters: skunk interaction, shocking intestinal distress, sleep barking/farting/whimpering, endless self-gratification (licking).

I guess several nights in a row of solid sleep will just have to wait until they are all out of the house - the college years. Then, we can lie awake at night wondering not just what they're doing, but where and with whom they're doing it.

Many years ago, when sleep was what you did after you got laid and before you snuck out of someone's apartment, I thought I understood Warren Zevon's plan to "sleep when I'm dead." It was an option I exercised. Little did I know that one day I'd be penciling "sleep" into my color coded, month-at-a-glance day planner under the heading, "To Do (After I Die)."

Grey Matter Management 101

2009-10-16T10:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you have to kill off the weak to make the robust ones work to their fullest potential. No, I’m not talking about offspring. I’m talking about brain cells.

Brain cells are funny. Not funny ha-ha, (nothing funny about sitting in the driveway with the car running and wondering where the hell you were going), but funny weird. Sometimes they fire on all cylinders and other times, not so much. Like the other day when I found a package of shredded cheese in the cupboard – next to the dog biscuits. Hmmm, I said, pulling the package out with two fingers as it dangled like a dead bug – one that took a left instead of a right and ended up in a pantry instead of a shrub. Of course, my husband had to be standing right there at that exact moment so I couldn’t bury the package at the bottom of the garbage can and pretend it never happened.

“Oh” I said casually, “I must have tossed this up there on accident when I was putting away groceries yesterday.” The look on his face said it all: a kind of “yeah, right” smirk. But, because he’s so good at being a husband, he kept his mouth shut and did his very best at disguising what he was thinking.

“Hee hee…silly me,” I quipped.

My theory is this: aging, half-dead brain cells are what make me get into the shower with my underwear still on and they need to be regularly and mercifully sacrificed for the greater good. If not, they draw down on the fresh, powerful brain cells that help me remember to turn off the sprinklers or locate my reading glasses. It’s all about thinning the herd. Remember, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

Clearly, the simplest and most enjoyable way to eliminate the almost-dead weight is through the use of a cocktail or two. Just a little nip does wonders for a brain and the results are immediate. Case in point: last night my son showed me this week’s logic problem that his math torturer, I mean, instructor gave him for homework. I read it. I read it again. I gave up and said, “Wait ‘til your father gets home,” but not like June Cleaver says it. When it comes to homework, my husband and I know our place: I get language arts and he gets math, or anything connected to math, like science, history, social studies and Spanish.

About thirty minutes after reading, and then abandoning the logic problem, I made myself a cocktail. Just a little fruity concoction I threw together with canned pineapple and mandarin orange juice leftover from the nearly fresh fruit salad I made to go with the crock pot meal that was simmering. The logic problem was a distant memory…or was it?

As I sat on the couch, sipping and staring at the kids staring at the TV, the following sentence popped into my head: “If Colonel Mustard gets six shots, and the first two add up to an even number on the bullseye chart, that leaves four shots and three of them have to be odd points or he’ll never arrive at 71 points!” I reached over and poked my son on the shoulder, rapid fire, and told him to “go get the logic problem, Q-LAB!” (Quick Like a Bunny” which is responsible parenting code for “Hurry the f*&! up!) I didn’t want my sudden burst of vodka-induced cognition to evaporate without getting it down on paper – which of course would have been the fault of those feeble brain cells slowing everything down.)

My son returned and we quickly plugged in the numbers. I was correct! My son was not convinced. He listened, nodded and then said politely, “I still want to show it to dad.”
Fine, I thought to myself, knowing I had the problem solved. Thanks to proper brain cell management, that is. If I had not kicked up my feet with a cocktail, nudging those addled cells over the cliff into grey matter oblivion…

I pondered the idea of writing a book. I’d need a doctor to collaborate, to give my theory legitimacy.

Now where did I put that phone book...

Chatting with a twelve year-old boy, or tightrope walking on acid

2009-09-22T09:01:00.000-07:00

Year after year, the relationship between my son and me, his loving mother, grew stronger, deeper and kinder – until he turned eleven. That’s when the previously solid, almost sublime nature of our bond began to show signs of stress fractures. It used to be I could look at him, tilt my head a fraction of an inch, adjust the appearance of my eyes by barely lowering or raising my eyebrows and know what the trouble was. Instantaneously, he would have the answer he needed to whatever dilemma he currently faced. We communicated without words. Not all the time, of course, but when it happened, it was gold.

It works a little differently now. Now, he’s twelve.

Instead of non-verbal cues, I’m barraged with not only too many words, but too many of the wrong kind: pronouns. Our exchanges are anything but silent, thanks to my son’s knack for slaughtering the English language like a blind butcher with a dull knife and a rib roast.

I pepper my responses carefully with mental cusswords before I speak, and then quickly edit out the foul language. Recently, I could not withstand the urge. I knew I was seconds from experiencing my own head popping off and rolling across the kitchen floor with its eyes still blinking, so I said it: “F-word!” No, I mean I really did say the letter “F”, followed by “WORD!”

The feeling was dually satisfying: Great not only because I “cussed”, but because I didn’t actually say the word “fuck.” Had I gone that far, a new era would have dawned. Like the old college adage, “Hold off peeing as long as you can when you’re out drinking, because once you go you’ll have to go all the time,” allowing myself to drop F’ers is a slippery slope I’m not ready to experience. Hell, I just allowed “crap” into the household lexicon, even for my three girls, ages 9, 9, and 11. “Have at it!” I cheered the first time I heard one use it correctly: “Crap! I forgot my backpack at school!” (as opposed to the incorrect use of the word: “What’s this crap on my plate?”) While they seem to have a firm hold on usage, it isn’t necessarily the case with brother.

My son can no longer answer even a yes or no question without mentally straight-jacketing me.

“Do you like this?” I asked while we recently shopped for back-to-school clothes.

“Yeah, but no, yeah, I don’t know,” was his double oxymoronic reply.

“Um, so, you like it, or you don’t. Want me to buy it for you?” I queried calmly.

“I like it,” he said. Not exactly an answer to my question, but in the ballpark. I continued.

“So, I’ll buy it for you?” I said, hopeful we were really getting somewhere.

“Well, it’s just that I don’t know if I’ll wear it,” my son said, as I heard the hiss of the air
escaping from my rainbow balloon.

“I don’t understand. If you like it, why wouldn’t you wear it?” I said, still calm and
carefully obscuring what I was feeling on the inside: utter terror at the direction we were headed, yet again. It’s always the same – I’m on bad acid, he’s on some kind of turbo crack, yielding a complete absence of common ground.

“Mom!” he spat, followed by, “I just can’t know so many things! Your holding stuff up, and I don’t have green shorts!!”

Wow, I thought to myself. I have not felt this weird in twenty-five years. I think I’ll take my lungs out of my body for a second, massage them, and put them back in so I can breathe. There we go. Much better now.

Sometimes, it’s more surreal than terrifying, other times, it’s the opposite. In either case, I remind myself to relax, and enjoy the long, strange trip it is.

A Fantasy of One's Own

2009-09-22T08:58:00.000-07:00

I’m sooooo conflicted. There’s a cloud hanging over my head that makes Katrina seem like a fanciful squall. My tortured soul rebounds between moments of clarity one minute and utter confusion the next. It isn’t even a complex issue: I simply hate football, while my husband, on the other hand, thinks the word “football” actually belongs in a sentence containing the word “fantasy.”

Thankfully, he has most of the standard fantasies men have, like those involving Carol Brady, or teeter-totters, and he happily shares them with me. However, the fact remains that the fantasy he logs the most hours with on a weekly basis is Football. Hence, the problem: I just do not get it and I desperately want to. I need to understand.

As I watch my husband watch the television each Sunday, I remind myself to use the word “passion” instead of “obsession.” When I find myself growing irritated at the sound of one man clapping for a bunch of players who cannot hear him, I start mentally checking off all the considerate things my man has done that week. Let’s see, there’s the weeding, just because he likes it and knows I don’t. Then, there’s reading to the kids and helping them with homework. He even vacuums.

When listing his weekly accomplishments doesn’t do the trick, I try a little fantasizing of my own. I tell myself that a forty-two year old man changing jerseys three times in one day in support of a pretend dream team is sexy. Sometimes I follow him up to our closet between games, and he lets me watch. Yeah, baby, the blue one. No, the other blue one. Oh, that’s it, right there, next to your little league uniform. Oh, baby, these thirty-four jerseys taking up valuable real estate in our closet are hot! Yeah, that’s my fantasy.

It’s not like he doesn’t snap right out of it at the end of the evening each Sunday, because he does. Well, right after he does the stats and sends out the newsletter, complete with quippy football comments, while watching Sportscenter. Then, he snaps right back to being the guy I fell in love with, the guy who made me believe in love again, and the guy who continues to hold me after the regular hug has ended. He is this guy six days a week (save for a couple of hours Monday evening), and seven days a week for half the year. Why, then, can I not help rolling my eyes when I overhear him on the phone with one of his fantasy friends, behaving like Ari Gold trying to work a last minute trade with some maniacal producer?

Right now, you might be thinking that I am that spouse – male or female – for which nothing is ever good enough. Well, the truth is, nearly everything is always good enough, and my husband would be the first to say that I never complain. That is because my husband, ironically, is a fantasy husband. He is my best friend. He is the guy who never leaves me hanging, if you know what I mean. He brings it. He is the guy who sees a pile of clean towels in the laundry room and puts them away. Hell, this is the guy who goes into the laundry room! (I know a woman who once hired a hooker to hang out in her laundry room, just to see if her husband could find it. Three days later she sent the lonely whore home.)

Maybe it has nothing to do with my husband. Maybe it’s my dad’s fault for punishing me with the same weekly clapping and yelling for my entire childhood – back when fantasy leaguers didn’t have computers. My dad and his friends had fifteen sheets of binder paper taped together that they scribbled their points down on as they happened. I must be suffering from PTFSD – Post-traumatic Football Stress Disorder.

Perhaps what I need is something to do on Sundays that gets me out of the house and away from the mental triggers. Just so that I can fully relate to my husband, to see things from his perspective, it will be something that never gets boring, and that I won’t know the outcome of until it’s completely finished. It’ll chew up hours and hours of my time, but I’ll have a lot more to show for it at the end of the day than empty beer cans and ranch dip stains on my shirt.

Interestingly enough, it rhymes with “ball.”

Stop Doing the Math

2009-06-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Numbers have no business in exercise. I learned that today. Instead of getting on the treadmill at 4 p.m. like I usually do, putting channel 10 on (Oprah), and walking for 45 minutes, I picked up my son's iPod. Hmm. I thought about the big hillside we have for a backyard, just sitting out there. And, that view of the Sierra from the top of it.

A narrow loop up, around the two big oaks, and back down is 110 steps. It's approximately a twelve to fourteen percent grade, I figure, based on my comparison of it to the big hill my grandparents lived at the top of when I was little. That hill was a bitch. This one is slightly less bitchy - more of a shrew. Enough with the numbers.

I set off with Radiohead playing in my ears. I had never heard Radiohead, but I've heard that Coldplay copies them, and that they copy Coldplay, and since I like Coldplay, I decided to begin my circular hike listening to them. I completed ten loops in two songs: "Just" and "Paranoid Android." Those are the only two Radiohead songs on my son's iPod. I liked them so much that I kept hiking and started the songs over again. I lost count of my laps, thank god, and then switched to White Stripes, another group I've never heard, but have heard a lot about - mainly from much younger people and people on TV who seem to know about these things.

Turns out, I like the White Stripes too. After listening to "Hello Operator" and "My Doorbell", the latter of which I really liked, "We're Going to Be Friends" started. I have the Jack Johnson version too. I love that song. I love it even more now, after exercising and discovering there's more to life than Jack Johnson. When the thumping "Blue Orchid" began, I tried to keep time with the beat. It worked on the way down, but I stopped pretty soon after the uphill leg began.

My son even thinks I'm cool. He just asked me why I still have the iPod on if I'm done hiking. I told him I liked the music he had on it. He smiled.

I'm setting a goal for the end of next week: "Blue Orchid". Not miles, or minutes, or heart rate. The next time someone asks me what I do to stay in shape, I'm going to say White Stripes.

Of Yoga and Hookers

2009-05-08T12:08:00.000-07:00

It’s probably getting really tiresome reading about my eleven year old son all the time. Unfortunately, the guy just won’t stop providing me with fodder…

Yesterday, I was helping him with an essay that he had to write summarizing what he has learned as part of the D.A.R.E. project, which helps educate kids about the evils of making bad choices regarding drugs and alcohol. In order to help him put his thoughts into words, I said, “Tell me what you have learned about making bad choices regarding drugs and alcohol?” He thought for only a split second before spitting out this little nugget of wisdom:

“Well, I know I won’t marry a hooker someday!”

“Reeeeaaallly” I replied, nodding in complete agreement. “That’s a good start. Shall we put that in the essay?” I asked. I began to type. I'm a fast typer.

“NO MOM! I just meant that, well, I don’t know what I meant! Nevermind, pretend I didn’t say that!”

“So you’re saying you WOULD consider marrying a hooker someday?” I said, laughing. I love tripping him up in his own words. Love it, love it, love it.

I hope he has lots of boy children someday (and three girls just for good measure).

Meanwhile, one of my lovely little ladies has adopted a new pet: my yoga mat. I do yoga in her bedroom because it is the only room with the perfect combo of VCR and floor space. She found the mat one day and proceeded to roll it up and carry it around the house off and on for a couple of days. I mostly ignored it, stopping occasionally to tell her and Yoga Buddy to pick up their sandals. It was her buddy. The last "buddy" she adopted was a 12-inch stick. It's name was Stick Buddy. She whittled it to such a sharp point that it really should have been called "Shank Buddy," so I confiscated it.

I didn't think too much of Yoga Mat Buddy, though it did seem a little odd. Then again, I have known my daughter for all of her almost nine years, so it really wasn't that strange. Fine, it was normal for her. Until a few nights ago. On my way to the laundry room, I walked past the bathroom at the same time the door opened. She had just emerged from the shower, clad in her robe and jammies, with the yoga mat rolled up under one arm. This one stopped me in my tracks.

"Um, you had the yoga mat in the bathroom with you?"

"Yes," she said, in the most neutral voice I've ever heard come out of her mouth. In fact, it's the only time I've ever heard Neutral Tone. I hear harsh, sassy, sad, even bored, but never neutral. I could tell by the look on her face that even she knew that this qualified as bizarre - even by her high standards.

We stared at each other for about five seconds. Then, I kept walking. I just kept walking.

Can I, Can I, Can I...

2009-04-15T14:16:00.001-07:00

In my house, wanting things that other people have is a dangerous contagion the likes of which haven’t been experienced since the plague brushed Europe clean of a third of its population over six centuries ago. Back then the carriers were rats and fleas; now, it’s perfectly healthy children.

When one of my little people sees one of their siblings with something, about to get something, or even thinking about the potential possibility of receiving something in the distant future, the secondhand barely moves before the “Can I’s…” tumble out like wet dominoes on a hot skillet.

Of course, when I say “things,” I obviously mean precious commodities like empty shoeboxes, or a slice of American cheese. And, by now you realize that when I say “little people” I mean the youngsters I live with. I used to call them “little people” all the time until that hit show aired featuring the official little people of this world. Now, my kids are actually more like “medium people.” The exception is my ten year old. There is, in fact, a medical term for her condition and that is “shrimp.”

Recently, the thing they all wanted was toothbrushes. It began with one asking for a new toothbrush. Unbeknownst to me, she'd followed me into my bathroom (my medium people actually glide silently over the carpet) and saw me get the huge multi-pak of instruments for brushing out of the cupboard. That’s all they are after all, a thing that cleans one’s teeth. What's the big deal? The needy one said, “Can I have the blue one?” Then another not-so-needy one, from where she came I have no idea and seeing two empty slots said, “Who else already got one? Can I have one?” Then, a third, but not so stealthy one, sensing that somewhere, someone was getting something, burst into the room and said, “What-are-you-guys-getting-can- I-have-one?”

Oh how I wished I'd been giving out spankings.

Tossing the package up to a top shelf I said, “Brushing is overrated anyway,” and left the room.

I’m pretty sure that in our house a driving force behind the competition for things being equal is probably due to their subconscious, yet diabolical wish to drive me insane. If it isn’t helping with dinner (Can I stir the pasta? Can I stir it next? Can I stir it after that? Can ANYONE stir my Martini?) it’s helping at the grocery store or sitting up front. The other day all three girls clamored to help me hold the bag in the bulk foods aisle. I only wanted pine nuts, but ended up getting dried cranberries, which I already had at home, and something called quinoa, because it was cheap and served to quickly even the score before my head popped off and rolled down the aisle with its eyes still blinking.

As I sat and stared into space a few evenings ago while the eleven-year old rubbed my feet as punishment for not cleaning his room (it’s all about logical consequences), the moment I’d been waiting for finally arrived. In an instant, my kids’ unchecked competitive spirit was no longer a mystery; my problem wasn’t solved, but it certainly was understood. It was, of course, my husband who provided my moment of illumination when he walked in the door and after quickly surveying the scene, said eagerly:

“Can I have a foot rub?”

Where Have All the Name Brands Gone?

2009-03-23T10:14:00.000-07:00

I’m writing this with a heavy heart and an even heavier cart: that is, a cart laden with jumbo-saving sized packages whose providence isn’t Italy, France or even Mexico. My grocery cart, ever since I left teaching and its monthly salary, such as it was, no longer contains items that have crossed any borders save for the ones between some factory town in Scranton, Ohio and my little hamlet in the foothills of Northern California. I’m saving money, to be sure, but my palate is paying the price.

It warms my heart to know that a lovely little factory in a quaint, smog-choked town somewhere in the middle of the United States is the place my canned tuna calls home. Gone are the days of the tender fish packed in olive oil and imported from Genoa, or Sicily. Now, my cupboards overfloweth with items from places not even remotely Mediterranean. Western Family Spaghetti Sauce has replaced Pietro’s Marinara. I don’t even like spaghetti. The very least these mass-producing food manufacturers can do is a little research. If they did, they’d find out that a sauce isn’t defined by what it tops; it’s defined by what’s in it. That’s why the Italians call it marinara – because if you would like to, you can put the meatless sauce on fettuccini, eggplant, polenta or any number of other things beside boring old spaghetti.

Speaking of pasta, too bad the only brand I can afford now doesn’t even offer anything as exotic as angel hair. I bought Billy Bob’s Noodles the last time I went shopping. Why would a company call their pasta product Billy Bob’s when it would have been just as easy to pick Salvatore or Luigi? Can’t they at least humor me?

Now when I shop, I do it with a calculator in my hand instead of an iced mocha. Not only that, but the once entertaining business of reading labels to make sure that the oil in my salad dressing is virginal has been replaced by the punishing practice of comparing costs per ounce of various brands. How the mighty have fallen. Now, I buy three pounds of ham at Costco and slip half-pound portions into plastic fold-over baggies which are stored in the freezer until needed. I can no longer afford the nifty little re-usable plastic tubs that I used to buy. Sniff, sniff.

What’s worse, I’m becoming my mother: I buy things like that giant, dreaded green canister of parmesan cheese (or so they say it is) that I’ve long criticized her for doing. Don’t for a second think I splurge on Kraft. Nope, it’s Select Brand Parmesano, with the fake fancy ending thrown in, as if it has any more connection to Italy or its culture than my neighbor’s German Shepherd who dumps on my lawn every morning.

I must admit that my new adventures in grocery shopping are adding some spice to my life. Granted, it’s Steve-O’s Chile Seasoning and not Miguel’s Mole, but you can’t have everything. In fact, I’ve got a mantra that I repeat to and from the store, one that motivates me to keep my chin up and my eyes on the prize (lower grocery bill): “I’m working from home, I’m working from home, I’m working from home…”

Has anyone seen my funnybone?

2009-03-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

By Lisa Lucke

Lately, I’ve felt lost. I’ve felt…separated from something important. Recently, I put my finger on it, and came up with what it is I need to locate: my sense of humor. More specifically, I need to find my sense of humor at critical times of the day when it seems so very far away from me.

There are times when I really could use a good laugh, like around seven-thirty in the morning, as my eleven-year old son gets into the shower when he should be getting into the car. Now, this doesn’t mean I want one of my eight-year old daughters to walk up to me and say, “Knock-knock!” like they’re so famous for. It means that I simply wish I could embrace my son’s eleven-year-oldness with a smile and perhaps, just maybe, a brief roll of the eyes and a funny-sounding cussword, like “fiddlesticks,” instead of a silent “Mother F!” and a not-so-silent foot stomp that sends my other three children scurrying for cover like infantrymen into a foxhole.

Why can’t I just roll with the punches? Why can’t I be more like Carol Brady and throw my perfectly coiffed head back and laugh it off?

Sometimes, the need for a sense of humor strikes in the middle of the night – when I least expect it. Surprisingly, it isn’t any easier to come up with a lighthearted perspective at two a.m. when the family beagle is howling in two part harmony with the sound of daughter number three puking. I try so hard at those times to conjure up the spirit of Erma Bombeck, or even Marge Simpson, women who showed the world how to navigate the streets of domestic Crazytown with their eyes closed and wearing a grin from ear to ear. As my husband breaks for daughter’s room, I sprint down the stairs to rescue the dog, where he’d been trapped in the eleven year-old’s room – since eight. I was too late. Thank goodness the dear boy didn’t have his sleep interrupted – by the noise or the odor.

About that time I realize that pubs all over town are announcing “last call” which means that technically, it’s an acceptable time to relax and have a cocktail. I pour one. Sure enough, I’m just beginning to feel funny, when it all comes crashing down around me.

“Watcha doin’?” My husband asks as he pads down the stairs, and sees me sitting on the couch, in the dark.

“Just hanging out, enjoying a Scotch.”

Silence. The worry lines on his forehead deepen into Everest-like crevasses.

“Honey,” he says gently, carefully sitting down next to me.

“Yes,” I respond cautiously.

“Knock-knock.”

The Language Barrier

2009-03-23T10:08:00.000-07:00

By Lisa Lucke

It’s been said that as young boys begin the gradual process of becoming young men, magical things happen: they take on more responsibilities, they look out for their younger siblings without being told to, and their brains go on an extended vacation, only to return just in time to take the SAT their senior year.

At some point during the last six months, when my son turned eleven, the transformation began. He and I have been living on different language planets.In the past, we’d barely have to speak at all to understand each other; our ability to simply look into each other eyes was all we needed to communicate. I remember those days fondly, when I’d glance at him, smile, take a sniff and then change his diaper. He’d smile back. We’d Eskimo kiss. Now, I smile, but not because I’ve met his needs; I smile because if I didn’t, I’d be sobbing.

Even when I’m really concentrating, I just can’t seem to put the dots together anymore. Now, when I can’t figure out what he wants, or what he’s trying to tell me, I take that giant leap of faith and do what my mother always did: I say, “No.” I figure that whatever it is he’s asking for that I can’t wrap my college-educated, teaching-credentialed brain around, I can remedy with a simple, negative response.

It happened to us just the other day at the grocery store, while I was trying to push the right buttons before the debit card machine beeped at me again, while the lady in line behind me stared me down. At that particular moment, my son walked up and said something about soda and his allowance. I replied, “No” without even looking up.

“Mom.”

I said nothing, and continued concentrating on the buttons.

“Mom. Mom. MOM!” he sputtered in rapid succession. “Can I have this?”

(Another pet peeve of mine: using pronouns when a common noun will do nicely. Couldn’t he see that my head was buried in buttons…how should I know what “this” is?) What happened next can only be described as bizarre.

“Jay, what is 'THIS'?” I spit out, without taking my eye off the buttons.

"How should I know!" my son replied hotly. "Mom, what are you talking about?!!"

I ignored what may as well have been Swahili, and pushed away from the check stand with my fully loaded cart. My dumbfounded son, expecting me to answer his original question, whatever the hell that was, just stood there. Everyone was staring: the checker, the people in line, well, everyone except the bagger, of course. He’s 16, and he’s a he. He knew exactly what my son was talking about the whole time. I could see it on his pimply little face. He thought I was a moron.

I’ll go out on limb here and suggest that it’s a gender thing. I have three daughters and while we don’t always like what we’re hearing from one another, make no mistake about it – we do understand what the other is saying. In fact, one of my daughters, at the tender age of 8, has already mastered a foreign language: beagle. That’s right – she can communicate with our family mutt as evidenced recently when she informed me that our cocker/beagle mix was requesting ribs for his birthday dinner. “Hmm,” I answered. “Ribs are your favorite food. What an interesting coincidence.” My husband and I just looked at each other, and about this time, my son entered the room. Just because I thought it was safe to do so, I asked him what he wanted for dinner, and his reply included the following words, not necessarily in this order: doorbell, toothbrush, cycling.

The burning question is, why is it that my daughter can speak Beagle, but I can’t even speak 11-year old American Boy? On a good day, my son and I have only two or three head-exploding conversations that usually end with one of us begging the other for mercy. Mostly, the beggar is me. “Please, can we start this conversation over? I promise to try harder,” is my normal plea. He gets frustrated, sometimes stomps his feet, and occasionally, his eyes well up. That only happens when the thing we’re discussing is school. It’s virtually impossible for us to discuss why a certain paper didn’t get turned in on time without some form of water escaping from some orifice: for me, it’s steam out of the ears, and for my son it’s tears out of his face, and it usually goes like this:

“Mom, I had to go to study hall again today.”

“What happened? Didn’t you finish everything last night? What did you forget?" (My first mistake is always the same: asking him more than one question at a time. It never goes well.)

“Nothing MOM! I DID; he didn’t put it on the BOARD!”

“Put what on the board? Didn’t you put your name on it?”

“What?!”

“The paper you didn’t turn in.”

“NO MOM! What paper?!! The DUE DATE MOM!!”

“You missed the due date?”

“NOOOO! He said it OUT LOUD and Joey had my HAT!”

“What does Joey have to do with this? Did you or did you not have everything done last night when I asked you specifically 'Do you have everything done?'”

“ARRGGGH, MOM, YOU DON'T GET IT. YOU’RE NOT LISTENING TO MEEEE.”

“You’re right. I don’t get it because I’m an idiot.”

This is where the tears start flowing because my son feels bad for my confusion. He doesn’t like it when I put myself down. He actually believes that I think I’m the problem. Little does he know that it makes me feel better to stop the bleeding by blaming myself so that I can go on with my life like most moms I know and just pencil in an extra therapy appointment for the following week.

“Can we please start over?” I say meekly. “I promise to really concentrate this time.”

Rules and responsibilities

2009-02-11T09:27:00.000-08:00

By Lisa Lucke

I got all tripped up in my own rules the other day. Most of the time, they stay out of my way, but occasionally, they’re like a squirming, coiled rope that I have to dance around carefully. I made the mistake of taking one of my eight year-old daughter’s laundry basket into the laundry room for her…breaking my newest rule, which is: anyone needing their clothes washed must get their clothes basket to the laundry room and then tell me it’s there. I, in turn, promise same-day turnaround, which means at some point before they go to bed, their clean laundry will be stacked on their bed, waiting to be put away, or thrown into a corner at bedtime.

What happens when you break your own rule? Every other kid notices and wants to know why. I cleverly pointed out to them that taking one’s laundry to the laundry room is actually something they are expected to do; it’s more of a personal responsibility. Therefore, I simply decided to lighten the load a bit for that person. They weren’t buying it. I immediately knew that the family scorekeeper (the nine year-old) would be monitoring my every move for the rest of the week and waiting for me to lighten her load…

I once read that anything a kid can be doing for themselves is something the parent should NOT be doing. I like that. I don’t expect my kids to do their laundry just yet, but hauling their laundry basket into the laundry room, located on the same floor as their bedrooms, is a responsibility they can handle. So, that one does not, in fact, qualify as a rule. Rules, as a friend of mine has always reminded me, are stupid, and are for regular people. I guess my kids, until they turn 18, will be classified as “regular people.” Wow, and I always thought of them as highly irregular…go figure.

What it comes down to is this: rules (not to be confused with responsibilities) are part of my neverending quest to trick myself into thinking I don’t have as many children as I actually do (four). Lately, though, I’m finding that the amount of rules in our household has become cumbersome. It isn’t that the rules of engagement in our house are unusual, or cruel, they’re just numerous. We have the typical ones that are must-haves in large families, like put your shoes away, load your own dishes, speak only when spoken to, but also a few others that are getting a bit hard to manage. For example, the other day, one of my daughters asked if she could sit on the couch. I said, “No, dear, it isn’t your day. Check the calendar. It isn’t even your day to speak to me.”

Some might say this is going too far. I mean, a rule against sitting on the couch? Well, if kids have perfectly good chairs, and even beds in their own room, why clutter up the public space with bodies? Right now, the air quality is manageable, but that’s because they’re all under the age of eleven. Just think of the stench that will be wafting around in just a few short years. Come to think of it, maybe I’ll make a rule against puberty…

Typically, I like rules. I never have to answer questions about who sits in front on the way to school because they each have their assigned day. Friday is the day nobody sits up front, which conveniently frees up plenty of space for my ice chest (full of iced, caffeinated beverages, of course). And I’m particularly fond of the rule prohibiting getting the dog too worked up. That’s a fun one to monitor. Hmm, are they playing, or is that a near growl I hear? Did I just hear the dog run? Are those squeals of delight, or panic? Who made that sound? Who’s playing with the dog instead of getting ready for school? Most mornings I just shut my bedroom door and let that one work itself out. Gotta love the rule against coming into mom and dad’s room during “getting ready” time: getting ready to go to work, getting ready to shower, getting ready to lose my mind…

It has occurred to me that I may need to cut back on making rules. Or, maybe I’ll just call them policies, in honor of our new administration in Washington. I can see it now…

“Um, Jackson, what are you doing?”

“Getting something to eat.”

“What’s the policy for opening the refrigerator?”

“At least one hour after, but not less than one hour before the next meal.”

“Exactly. When did we finish lunch?”

“An hour ago, Mom.”

“Nevermind.”

See the difference between “rules” and “responsibilities?” My friend is right – rules are stupid, but they keep me sane. Therefore, rules rule.

Xmess Traditions

2009-01-05T15:13:00.001-08:00

Every family has its Christmas traditions. Some we look forward to with enthusiasm, others we tend to avoid thinking about until they are upon us, like my grandmother’s tomato aspic, or my Uncle Ted’s kamikaze-style wet kiss on the mouth, which he places only after gripping my head with both hands in a vice-like snare. These kinds of memories we try bury deep in our subconscious with a gentle pat-on-the-back and desperate plea to never resurface. With any luck, I won’t be unpacking those bags someday in a therapist’s office.

Food plays a central role in my family’s holiday traditions, and while most people can recall the moment they discovered that Santa didn’t exist, finding out another piece of key, Christmas related information far surpassed the shock at finding out my grandmother’s neighbor was, in fact, Santa. Not surprisingly, the moment of revelation included food and I’ve never forgotten it. It was the moment I found out, after taking my first bite, that my mom regularly included the gizzard and other innards of the turkey, all boiled and ground up, in the Christmas stuffing. No doubt about it, my family could have taught those Native Americans a thing or two about utilizing the whole animal…

Like some people go to church, my family goes to the Christmas dinner table. There are customs, rituals and rules that need following. Rule number one is that Christmas dinner needs to be exactly the same, year after year. For as long as I can remember, or at least as long as my Italian grandmother was alive and in control of the situation, Christmas dinner meant two kinds of roasted meat, turkey and ham; mashed potatoes; real butter; homemade butterflake rolls; three gravy boats; homemade ravioli; carrots, peas with pearl onions, homemade cranberry sauce, a jello salad, and two bowls of dressing – one with the dressing that came out of the bird, and the other that just cooked in the oven. The tension created by the in-bird stuffing was palpable; everyone wanted it passed to them next, fearing they’d have to eat the slop that was cooked in a casserole dish. Not only that, but anyone who suggested that the non-bird stuffing was just as good as the in-bird variety was immediately asked if they were crazy – and definitely NOT in a funny, rhetorical question sort of way. It was more like a scene out of Perry Mason. My grandpa, the angry judge, bending toward the poor defendant, while all eyes were on him: “Answer the question, sir, ARE YOU CRAZY??) That’s how serious our family food traditions are. Make no mistake, it was an equally grievous, even unheard of idea not to make everything by hand; even the stock that went into the making of the gravy was from scratch. My aunt and mom bought extra turkey wings, legs and necks in order to prepare fresh turkey stock in the days before Christmas. There was also a rule, I mean tradition, regarding appetizers: few were allowed because of the fear that everyone would fill up and ruin their appetite. So, all we ever had was a clam dip, some salami and sliced cheeses, home-cured olives and peppers, mushroom torta, grilled paninis, chilled shrimp with cocktail sauce and a cheese ball. Homemade, of course.

Now that another year is out of the way, and the food traditions packed nicely way like ornaments in those little sectioned boxes, my family is free to go back to their willy-nilly menus that on any typical night might include as many as two food groups. But that’s another story.

Please pass the anesthesia

2008-11-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

Traveling with children in a state that restricts the sale of alcohol is a little like waking up during the middle of brain surgery. You know you are supposed to be here, on the trip, with four children, but is it supposed to be this painful? Where are the easily accessible safety measures, like wine and Tylenol (in that order) that prevent one from feeling the scalpel carve into the frontal lobe like a dull switchblade whittling on a piece of driftwood? Did the guy behind the counter of the Shell station mini-mart just tell me that they don’t sell wine, or even beer? Sorry?

“You’ll have to go down the street to the all night deli. They only sell beer, but they close in 10 minutes.”

“Sorry??” I said again, even more desperately. It was only quarter to nine. “The all night deli closes in ten minutes?”

“Yep,” was the clerk’s calm reply. Just what the heck was going on around here? I was starting to think that being Amish wasn’t a choice – it was forced up on the people of this state through the withholding of any vices!

Off we went, just about 250 yards, with plenty of time to spare. Sure enough, there was a sign up ahead: All Night Deli. That’s it. I thought we’d be looking for a place called Yoder’s Deli, or the End of Days Diner (we were in Lancaster County, after all). The news wasn’t good. Turned out, they couldn't sell liquor after 8 p.m. Defeated, I trudged back to the car with an hours old bratwurst and a bag of pistachios. If I couldn’t have my Zinfandel, I’d numb myself with food.

Two bites into my dog, my husband left for the vending machine, wishing he’d had a brat himself, and then re-appeared fifteen minutes later with a bottle of wine in each hand. “You’ll never guess what happened!” he said proudly, as if he were Gilligan, and I Ginger, and in his hands were a blow dryer and curling iron.

“Where did you get those!?” I said, with growing confidence that I was, in fact, looking at actual bottles and not hallucinating.

“I met a wine salesman in the lobby and his meeting for tomorrow just got cancelled; he gave me the samples after he overheard me talking on my cell phone.”

“I’d sure like to know who the hell he planned to sell the wine to!" I muttered.

Now, where did I put that IV drip…

Please Pass the Bullets

2008-09-11T20:40:00.000-07:00

If a 10 year old boy drops his pencil in the middle of the kitchen for the fifth time while gearing up to start doing his homework, does his mom hear it even if her head has popped off?

The answer is Yes. In fact, she continues to hear it the 6th, 7th, and 8th times, even after her head has rolled down the hall and out the front door.

Why is it that when I say, “Jay, get out your homework,” he hears, “Jay, observe and comment on every molecule within a three-foot radius of your notebook.” Of course, I’m exaggerating a little bit. Sometimes he hears, “Jay, go to the fridge and open it; stare blankly for three minutes. Close it and wander over to the window and watch the cats watch the gopher holes."

It isn’t until at least 9 p.m. when the really mundane things begin to catch his attention. More disturbing are the nights that I run out of wine around this same time. Like last night, when I took the last sip as I heard this:

“I think I see a fruitfly.”

“Keep working.”

"Do you think the dog is cold out there?"

"Keep working."

(noise of ice dropping into icemaker in fridge)

“What was that!?” he says with an edge of anxiety in his voice, as though there is actually some possibility of me answering, “I have no idea! Get out of the house quick!! Run down the street to Bradley’s house and play video games until the police come get you and tell you it’s safe to return!!!”

It’s 9:30. The third and final paragraph of this behemoth of an assignment is halfway finished. There’s still a math page to do and spelling words to review.

"Honey, I'm going to the store..."

Don't everyone answer at once

2008-08-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

Everyone knows about the laws in the universe, like gravity, that keep our feet on the ground. Equally well known is the ninth law of thermodynamics, which states that sitting on black vinyl car seats in the middle of August really hurts. And who doesn't know about the law governing the speed of light, which in my house involves a competitive sprint to bed each night, leaving the loser responsible for turning off the lamp in the corner. Everyone knows about those laws, but it takes a seasoned parent to detect, and understand, the law that governs the functions of auditory processing in children. I call it, the Law of Don't Everyone Talk at Once, because that's what you find yourself saying, whether you mean it literally or sarcastically.

In scientific terms, it goes like this: "A child's voice operates disproportionately to his parents' need to hear it." In laymen terms it means that when you really need the little people to pipe down, their "off switch" is jammed in the "on" position; other times, like when when you discover a game of tic-tac-toe on the dining room wall drawn in purple Sharpie, suddenly everone's on "mute." It happened to me just the other day...

"Who did this?" I announced, not even bothering to play the reverse psychology game of staying easy-breezy in order to flesh out the culprit. That's when I avoid making any eye contact and casually mention, "Oh, I was just wondering, no big deal, if anyone remembers who may have accidentally put a mark over there on that wall..." In those cases, it's always easy to spot the guilty one if you're really paying attention because they consider fessing up for about one nano-second, before their common sense reminds them it's a trap. In that brief moment, the eyes will lower and the mouth will droop, for just an instant. But that's long enough! You've got them! On this particular day, like I said, I didn't bother with highly evolved modes of interrogation. I was annoyed and I wanted my man. My query was met with total silence.

"Well, Don't Everyone Answer at Once," I snapped. Shoulders were shrugging all over the room, a room so quiet that you could hear the spider on the wall breathe a sigh of relief as the fly landed in his web with a dull "poof." At that point I had to start grilling them individually, utilizing all of my FBI body-language training. After three nopes, I had my man (well, woman). Her answer? "I don't remember."

So, why is it that when you want kids to talk, they can make clams seem blabby, but when you really, really, really need a little quiet time, the voices are like hail, raining straight down on your brain? For some reason, as it gets close to dinner time, this phenomena is at its peak in my house. One by one they file up to the counter bar and simultaneously begin rapid-firing their requests:

"Can I have just ketchup and a teeny, teeny bit of mayo on my hamburger?"

"Can I have pickles on the side and no bun?"

"Can I have mustard, a lot of ketchup, and mom?? Can I have lettuce, but under the burger on the bottom bun?"

"Mom? Can I have..."

"PLEASE DON'T EVERYONE TALK AT ONCE!!" I shout. At that moment, those boys in The Deer Hunter have nothing on me. Give me the goddamn gun!! Spin that chamber and let her rip!!

Suddenly, everyone's on mute again and the laws of the universe are working in my favor.

So Many Questions

2008-08-19T09:10:00.000-07:00

Just when you think you're getting somewhere as a parent, when your well-thought out lecture or explanation of a critical issue or situation rolls off your tongue like a strike right down the middle, your kid throws you a curveball. Take, for instance, the profound discussion I had the other day with my almost-11 year-old son who thinks he needs to begin wearing deodorant. I explained that until his body starts changing, and he begins going through puberty (immediate smirk on his face), he really doesn't need deodorant. He wasn't buying it, and a little later in the day approached me and tugged up his t-shirt. "Mom, smell. I need deodorant." Okay, I thought, I'll give this moment to him. I bent down a bit and took a whiff near his armpit. "Whoa. You're right." I recoiled in shock as my mind processed this turn of events. My little guy was growing up. Not only that, he was taking after his mom. Depressing. Then, the next day, came The Question that made me feel as though we'd taken a giant step backward in the realm of understanding bodily functions. "Mom, do they make shin-deodorant?" I didn't know quite what to do with that, but guessed that the season's first soccer game on a 95 degree day, combined with those hideously polyester kneesocks had something to do with it. "No," I replied; shins sweat, but they don't stink, luckily.

By far the best question he's ever asked that has made me question my ability to explain the world to him, was after our first 'birds and bees' talk. I was fairly frank, included all the requisite body parts and where they go, and when he pulled his face from the half-buried position in his comforter, asked me this: "If you want more than one kid, do you have to do it again?" My answer was a tight-lipped "Yes" as I wondered what was coming next. Yep, he didn't disappoint: "So, you and dad had to do it once for me and once for sister?" Crap. Now what? Is this where I am supposed to explain that there are other reasons for doing it? That there is also the "no particular reason, but with plenty of birth control" purpose? I quickly scanned my brain's hard drive for the file entitled, "Too Much Information." I mentally opened it. I had my answer: "That's right. Twice. Let's go eat dinner."

Back at the Ranch

2008-08-14T08:55:00.000-07:00

There was a big difference between the first day of school last year, and the first day of school this year, for both me and my kids. This year, they went. I didn't.

The decision to leave teaching, and pick up my former career as a freelance writer, was made to salvage the ol' grey matter, and therefore be a more sane mom, woman, wife and friend. I can already tell it was the right one - as evidenced by the fact that not once this morning did I have to do what I call, The Mom Move. That is, when I feel that my head will surely pop off, which usually happens four or five times each morning that my four children and I, and my husband (also a teacher) are getting ready for school, I bite down hard on my tongue. It's like an emergency brake for my head. I bite hard, hold for three seconds, then release. My head doesn't go into orbit, no blood is shed, and amazingly enough, whatever ridiculous thing my kid was doing has stopped. It's like they can sense The Move, even though my mouth is closed. They smell it. Like a wise mouse, they back away from the mousetrap and scamper to some undisclosed location.

This year, on Opening Day, I was just a mom. This year, one breakfast was served at one time - it wasn't five people scurrying around a kitchen, gathering bowls, plates, spoons and forks while the sixth person asked a variety of questions about the lunches he was making for the whole crew. "Strawberry or Raspberry?" "Who wants ham?" "Who wants mayo?" Who wants a poke in the eye with a sharp stick? Today, I put a platter of scrambled eggs and toast on the table at 6:45. My husband, who loves his title of Lunch Guy, used a list I typed up with each kids' sandwich likes and dislikes, and made lunches without a game of 200 questions. He didn't have to stop and pour milk or butter waffles because I was still upstairs trying to create flat hair. I did breakfast, he did lunch, and the kids did great. At 7 a.m., I headed up to change clothes, help out with pony-tails and stubborn cow-licks, locate missing socks, and we headed out at 7:40. Best of all, no tears were shed in the making of this morning.

Fifteen minutes later (ah, the beauty of a small town) I was back home, at my computer, working away. The budget will be tight, but the load will be lighter. A few other things will be different as well. For instance, I picked up the kids from school. They didn't have to scurry around the play ground looking for the shuttle driver that brings them to the high school. Instead, we walked home, I layed on the living room floor, and one-by-one, my son and three daughters told me about their day. They listened to one another and I listened too - with no papers to grade in front of me, and no nagging worries on my mind. I even asked questions about the things they were telling me. Not so long ago, I often did the auto-nod and "hmm" response when they spoke to me. Or, they weren't telling me things at all because I was too distracted to notice the "I have something to tell you" look and too overwhelmed to truly do anything about it if I did. Only one of my four will really open up to me without me having to ask. The other three need a little prodding.

So, now, instead of being a cattle dog, herding them toward the tv, or herding them toward the computer so I can get some serious work, or worrying done, I'm a cattle prod. I poke, I prod, I like it.

Yeeee-haaawww!

The Stick Diet

2008-02-25T20:25:00.000-08:00

For many people, the county fair brings to mind fond childhood memories of thrilling rides, crazy loops around the fun house and the smell of goat manure in the morning. There really is nothing quite like it. Except for the smell coming from the food stalls. Stalls? Yes, because that’s where throngs of hungry animals - the two-legged variety - go to graze on stick food. The Stick Diet is the only one I’ve ever stuck to.

I like to open my four-day diet plan with a deep-fried artichoke heart on a stick. It is a strange concept, as it is kind of a strange thing, the heart of an artichoke. Only in America would someone take something unique and exotic, pierce it with a piece of wood, fry the life out of it and sell it for a profit. Speaking of profit, just what is the mark-up on cotton candy? Last time I glanced at my recipe card for the space-age looking stuff, there was just one word on it: Sugar. Is it a recipe if there’s only one ingredient? I mean, is there a recipe for banana? Anyway, if you really want to get technical and count air as an ingredient, then you might actually have a recipe for cotton candy. How much are they making on that stuff? Whatever it is, it’s way too much. It does however, come on a stick and therefore, I get to eat it.

And who doesn’t like corn dogs? Well, my mom, for starters. She hasn’t eaten a corn dog since she was 8-years-old, when she consumed the original stick-food at our very own county fair. Let’s just say it wasn’t the last she saw of it…There is one thing I never consume at the fair, and that’s candy or caramel apples. Too healthy. It does contain the required stick, and therefore part of the diet plan, but the presence of that apple, all natural and juicy and obviously grown on a tree just ruins the whole experience. One would have to consume a helluva lot of fry bread to cancel out a crisp, fresh apple. Even corn-on-the-cob gets stuck with a stick, and really just barely qualifies due to the natural nature of corn itself. The saving grace is that it’s slathered in butter and doused with salt. It could only be better if it was fried.

Asian food has gone stick also, with the introduction of the eggroll on a stick just a few years ago. I remember seeing that little hut for the first time and wondering what happens when you bite into a bunch of shredded cabbage on a stick? Doesn’t it just fall apart? My guess is that cabbage isn’t the main ingredient, but most likely some meat product is, one that packs nicely around the little wooden spear. I passed on that one.

If only someone can figure out how to put nachos on a stick, I could add them to the Stick Diet. Maybe if I load them into my mouth with a stick borrowed from the deep fried mushroom stand, it would qualify…