A Room of One's Own

It’s almost that time of year again—the time when my kids go away for a summer visit to their dad’s house in Southern California for a couple of weeks. I miss my kids when they’re away, but not right at first. Right at first I do a lot of skipping, and singing, and then once I leave the airport, I get sad. Typically, on the first or second day they’re gone, I do a deep clean of their bedrooms. In other words, I make it nice-nice so they can crap it up again. I leave the doors open so that I can enjoy the view; the sense of accomplishment I feel at taking their rooms from looking like a category 5 twister ripped through on its way home from getting a double root canal sans Novocain to Pottery Barn-catalogue-worthy, is huge.  

As long as they allow me my twice-yearly cleaning frenzy, I allow them to live in their own filth. Not really. I have my limits. I don’t like clothes on the floor. I like clothes in one of four places: on one’s body, on a hanger, in a drawer, or in a laundry basket. I suppose it had something to do with my own mother’s insistence that I clean my room on the half-hour. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but that’s how it seemed at the time. But now, I get it. Clothes are expensive. We don’t do shopping as recreation, but when we need something. They seem to really appreciate it when we go shopping for clothes, and it hurts my feeling when I see their clothes trampled on. It also hurts my foot when I step on a belt buckle. When they get to college they can experiment with a horizontally organized closet on their floor.

I’m an optimist. I never give up hope that one day, my son and/or daughter will walk into their room upon returning from vacation, take one look at the dusted, cleared off desk with room for a book and a pen, and say, “Mom. I really don’t know how I ever lived like that. I shall forever embrace a clean living space.”

Sometimes, when I glance into their rooms and my vision becomes obscured by the blood seeping out of my eyes, another one of my senses take over: smell. The odor emanating from my son’s room has no category. I really can’t describe it, so I’ll just call it “wrong.” Like emotions, smells can be wrong or right. Like, when my husband feels sad because I’m staying up late to work, or because the Giants lost, I tell him he’s wrong.

“When are you coming to bed?”

“Later.”

“Oh, darn it. That makes me sad.”

“You couldn’t be wronger about that.”

“Huh? But I am sad. I don’t like to go to bed without you.”

“You are fine.”

“Well, I’m sad that the Giants lost.”

“No you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!”

“I’m sorry, but you are wrong.”

“I am?”

“Yes. You are fine. Now go to bed.”

“Ok.”

When I open my son’s door and breathe through my nose, there’s just nothing right about it. I seriously feel pain. The only time I’m brave enough to enter is 1) when I’m super pissed off about something or 2) there is no two.

It’s a constant mental battle with myself every time I open his bedroom door: Do I leave it alone or tell him to clean it up? What’s the right thing to do? Is my health something I am willing to sacrifice? Where is haz-mat when you need them? Why do I care? Why can’t I just ignore it? Is my own room a shining example of how to care for one’s things? With this last question, my Woody Allen-esque internal struggle comes to an end and I back slowly away from the room, but not before sprinting to the window and throwing it open. Tomorrow, when the stank tank is empty, I shall clean, fully prepared for the fact that in less than 30 seconds after he returns, the carpet will have disappeared.

The Stick Diet

For me, just thinking about a state or county fair brings to mind fond childhood memories of hurling through the air on the Scrambler, clattering through the fun house, and most vividly, the smell of goat manure in the morning. There really is nothing quite like it, except for possibly the smell of a mixture of pig, goat and cow manure, oh, around 4 p.m. on a 100-degree day. Oddly enough, it’s when I leave the animal exhibits that I can’t help but think about food.

More specifically, stick food.

The smell coming from the food stalls is amazing; and by amazing, I mean unidentifiable. Nonetheless, for the better part of four days a year, the stick diet is the only one I have ever made a point of sticking to.

I like to open my four-day county fair 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 an exotic looking plant, impale it on 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 there was just one word: 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 eight, when she consumed the original stick-food at our very own Amador County Fair. Let’s just say it wasn’t the last she saw of it…If you see her at the fair this year, offer to buy her one.

To be honest, there is one thing on a stick that I never consume at the fair: caramel apples. It does contain the required stick, and therefore qualifies to be in 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 on a stick 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. (Why in tarnation hasn’t anyone figured out how to batter and deep fry an ear of corn? To whoever does figure this out, please keep the butter on the inside of the batter so that it doesn’t drip down my arm.

Even Asian food has gone stick, with the introduction of the eggroll on a stick. I remember seeing that little hut for the first time at the State Fair several years ago and wondered 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 mysterious, sticky meat product is, one that packs nicely around the little wooden spear. I passed on that one.

Each year, I longingly search for my favorite foods, hoping to find them stuck on a stick: pizza, tacos, beer. Wait a second! I just realized something: If I carry around some chopsticks, then technically everything can be on the stick diet! And a straw is basically a stick with a hole in the middle, so technically beer is in! I can see it now: My pre-Destruction Derby meal plan: a few hours visiting the beer booth, drinking beer through a straw, followed by nachos-with-chopsticks. Who’s with me on this?

Keep it classy, Amador!

Talkative or Silent: Which Kid Do You Prefer?

Recently, on Geniusbook, a friend of mine groused about her teenager, who seems to be perpetually on mute. She can’t get a word out of him. The responses to her post were split pretty evenly when it came to what’s worse: verbal diarrhea or the silent treatment. Some moms complained of constant chatter and too much sharing. Others were equally frustrated with the silent treatment.

Of my four kids, I have one who never shuts it, one who rarely shuts it, one who is mostly quiet until he’s completely insane, and one quiet soul who I refer to as the hovercraft, because of her ability to move silently through the house: no footsteps, no voice, just a delicious absence of sound.

Can you guess which way I’m leaning on this topic?

In any given moment, but most commonly in the morning when I’m vertical, yet still asleep, or during dinner prep time when I wish I was, I’m flanked by Chatzilla, with her verbal stream-of-consciousness, and Talkasauras Rex, telling a “story.”

Sometimes I have to interrupt T-Rex, like after I’ve pulled out all my hair, strand-by-strand, bitten all my nails down to nubs and scratched at my ears until they resemble shredded, bloody rags dangling limply from my head.

“This story was over an hour ago. Do you realize you are still talking about the look someone gave you when they passed back the paper today in math class?”

If her stories were a U2 album, it would be called “Where the Details Have no Point.”

In fact, I’m thinking of calling the State Department and offering up her services at Guantanamo. Water-boarding is no match for this form of torture.

Trust me, I listen to the important stuff, and yes, I am qualified to make that determination. But there are times when I just have to yell “Cut!” It’s hard to break her little storytelling spirit, but I’m not doing her any favors by not pointing out to her that her ability to digress and include every painful, unnecessary detail of a situation may result in a distinct lack of listeners eventually.

Sometimes I hear myself saying things that I know my therapist would scold me for, if only I admitted them to her, which I don’t. Like, the other day, twelve minutes into a story about how she misplaced her sandwich at lunch, I interjected, “Only those details that affect the meaning of the story, I’m begging you.”

Then, there’s my son. His stories have to be pieced together like a letter that’s gone through a paper shredder.

“Mom, Mrs. ____________ is so dumb. I got an F on the assignment for no reason. I’m going to play basketball now. Bye.”

“Hang on there, Turbo. Which assignment? What were the instructions? When was it due?

“No.”

Huh? I didn’t ask him any yes/no questions. Why is he saying “no?” I quickly think back to my list of queries.

“Okay, let’s break this down. When was the assignment due?”

“Last week.”

“When did you turn it in?”

“I didn’t.”

Now, I’m really confused and on the verge of tears. I just want to know what the hell happened without having to ask obvious questions, like, “what the hell happened?”

“Okay, try to tell me what happened from beginning to end, in that order. This is what is called a s-t-o-r-y. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The end serves to wrap things up and leave the listener with a sense of accomplishment that they’ve learned something. Ready? Go.”

“I did tell you! I got an F!”

“You told me the ending! I need some rising action here, Chief!”

And there you have it: One child thinks a story is a chronology of every nuance of every person she’s come into contact with throughout her day, and the other thinks it’s a one-sentence expression of his current mood.

There’s actually a third category. These people begin a story in the middle, then work forward and backward until the person desperately trying to understand (me) asks the wrong question. That’s when the storyteller cops an attitude and has the nerve to say, “You’re not getting it, are you?”

But that’s another story.

The Ultimate Diet Plan: Do Nothing

Doing nothing is not only not exhausting, but, as luck would have it, calorie-burning. Check out this data from ScientificAmerican.com:

Although the average adult human brain weighs about 1.4 kilograms, only 2% of total body weight, it demands 20% of our resting metabolic rate (RMR)—the total amount of energy our bodies expend in one very lazy day of no activity. If we assume an average resting metabolic rate of 1,300 calories, then the brain consumes 260 of those calories just to keep things in order. That's 10.8 calories every hour or 0.18 calories each minute.

Clearly, the take-away from that is if one is careful about calorie consumption on any given Sunday afternoon, it is possible, in theory, to expend more calories than one takes in, just by lying on the couch all day. The question is: Which burns more calories, turning a page or activating remote control buttons?

              Did you see that number? 260 calories “just to keep things in order.” Considering the fact that I mentally keep a lot of things in order most days, and at least half as many things in some degree of disorder, I’m burning calories just simply by being me. Sweet!

               Alas, that was the old me—the one who did yoga a few times a week and ran around the block now and then. I’m now into week four of a new personal training regimen, and on week two of the meal plan. It’s not a “diet” in the traditional sense of the word. The goal is to adjust how your body responds to food, to change its cravings, and gain an appreciation for green things. Instead of filling up on carbs, your body learns how to feel satisfied with lean protein and stuff like spinach, kale and tomatoes. One downside is that I’ve had to go back to eating meat, which I’d spent the last three months avoiding for the most part. And since last weekend was the annual Serbian goat feed, my return to eating things with a face could not have come at a better time. I also gave up dairy about three months ago, just because everyone else seemed to be doing it and reporting great things. Considering it is my favorite food group next to fermented grapes, I was ecstatic when I feasted my eyes upon the meal plan’s first day menu: Laughing cow cheese (with celery) for a snack! Lettuce wraps with chicken and string cheese for lunch! Wow!  

               The only carbs for the first two weeks came from some of the vegetables. No fruit, wheat, bread, rice, potatoes, etc. It wasn't that difficult, which my trainer says is due to the fact that I wasn’t a big bread person to begin with. Or course, I veered off path temporarily at the goat feed,  surrounded by gibanica and prijesnac (variations of Serbian cheese bread), but I stuck to vodka sodas, which have no carbs. Pretty clever, eh? Complex carbs will be phased back in over the next couple of weeks, things like oatmeal, brown rice, red wine...

               The workouts are going well. Within two weeks I noticed my pants were fitting tighter, but in a good way. I’m firming up and gaining muscle mass in my legs and butt. Not quite a Brazilian butt yet, but I think it may be somewhere north of Venezuela. My waist is shrinking ever so slowly, in part thanks to the wide variety of abdominal torture maneuvers my trainer thinks up. The conversations during the ab work sound something like this:

Me: Hi, how ya doin’ today?

Trainer: On your back.

Me: OK.

The trainer hands me the TRX straps, one for each hand, that descend from the ceiling like stretched out black mambas.

Trainer: Ok, press down with your hands, toward the floor, cross your ankles, drop your knees to one side and crunch. 20. Go.

Me: So how’ve you been? I squeak out after my second set of 20.

Trainer: On your stomach.

Me: OK.

Trainer: Elbow plank. Touch your knees to the mat. 20 times. Go.

Me: We can catch up later…

Of course, this isn’t completely accurate. There’s a lot more cussing than that. Like when my trainer is smiling and encouraging me, and I say, "You do it, asshole." But then he does do it, which leaves me to do it next. 

There is definitely something to the old saying that you get what you pay for. Like my home exercise regimens, which are free, and fairly non-existent. But hand someone some hard-earned dollars and suddenly, working out rises to the top of the shit-pile of priorities. And when someone says you've lost an inch around your waist, and another two inches from various other private places (back fat, upper arm dingle-dangle), lost a pound of fat and gained 1.5 pounds of muscle mass in four weeks? Well, that's just priceless. 

Menopause: A Beginner's Guide

About the only times I’ve really spent any money on myself to get in shape throughout the years is for gym memberships and yoga. I think I’ve belonged to a gym three times in my adult life, for about a year each time. The first time was post-first baby, when I lived in Southern California. I joined a gym and had a one-time appointment with what was called a “fitness trainer” and then I was on my own. I did the circuit three times a week and then hit the treadmill. It was a yawn, but I slowly got myself back into shape.

Fast forward 12 years, when I got divorced. I decided that shedding 230 pounds was not enough; I needed some muscles. Again, I joined a local gym. Again, I was highly motivated. I knew I had to get “back in the game” as they say, but the other thing driving me was my desire to be strong, and take care of my children. As a single mom, I knew it would fall on me to carry sleeping children from the car, up the stairs and into the house; I would need to pack up the car to go camping, lift bikes into the truck and boxes of wine into the shopping cart, all by myself. Then, I got married for the second and last time, and while I've managed to keep myself up fairly well, there's a new motivation for exercising: Ol' broad Menopause is gaining ground.

A couple years ago, I started doing yoga. My body changed rapidly and I had tone where before there had been little. Plus, I really enjoyed it. I was doing the right thing for my back, which happens to be chock-full of issues: degenerative joint disease, mis-alignment, arthritis, etc. Keeping the muscles in my core strong will counteract the effects of the arthritis in my spine, my doctor said. I also began running about five years ago, but my back doesn’t like running, and it doesn’t like sitting either, which I do a lot of as an editor and writer. So lately, I’ve been at a crossroads; my yoga teacher moved away, I got busier at work, and as a result, I have fallen out of my yoga routine. But time marches on, and so does peri-menopause. (For those of you with a penis, that’s the period of time before actual menopause.) It’s the time when hormones start tinkering with a woman’s body and mind; moods shift unexpectedly; muscle tone begins to change, and wine consumption rises sharply. Of all people, it was my 16-year old son that asked me about it recently.  

“Mom, I was watching ‘That 70’s Show’ the other day and the mom was going through menopause. The husband said she was having ‘mood swings.’ She was super nice one second and the next second she was screaming like a maniac and then she was back to being nice, in like three seconds.”

“Yep. That about sums it up.”

“Are you in menopause?”

“Nope, but it’s gaining on me. Those same symptoms are starting to happen to me.”

“How do I know which mood you are in?”

“Just don’t be an a-hole, ever, and we’ll be good.”

“When am I ever an a-hole?”

“Well, you know when I ask you to put your clothes away and you mumble, “yeah,” but then you don’t do it?”

“Yeah.”

“A-hole.”

“You know when I’m about to put dinner on the table and you chase the dog through the kitchen?”

“Yeah.”

“A-hole.”

“But that’s just me being a kid.”

“You asked me.”

“Are you getting that feeling right now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to go clean my room.”

“I’m glad we had this talk, son. I love you.”

“Love you too, Mom.”

So now I’m working out with a personal trainer. It’s not cheap, but the results come in a fraction of the time. And there’s accountability: Every week, he watches me do those reps and crunches and lunges and I need to be better than I was last time. It's also keeping me on the lookout for new and inventive ways to cuss. (Firm) bottom line: I’m highly motivated to stay ahead of the menopause curve, build muscle and be strong. 

After all, those boxes of wine aren’t getting any lighter.