She Said Yes!

Have you heard the news? Barbie and Ken are finally getting married! I know, I was surprised too. I never thought he would pop the question, certainly not to Barbie anyway. But there they are, sharing the same cardboard box in their own special display at Target. I always assumed both Ken and Barbie secretly fancied GI Joe, with his close cropped hair, rugged beard, and hot camouflage attire. But Barbie needed someone less blue collar to be her life partner. After all, she has a lot on her plate. She is a busy modern gal, but with her busy social calendar, surely it will be nice to have a legitimate escort to accompany her. Think of it, no more nights alone in the Dream House, wishing a man would call. No more solo cruising on the Party Boat. No more driving around by herself in the glamour convertible. Plus, she will have a live-in stylist with her. Who better than Ken to offer Barbie some fashion advice?

Truth be told, Barbie doesn’t really need Ken. She has her own car, her own house, and more jobs than I can remember. She has been everything from a flight attendant to a teacher to a doctor. Hell, she has even been a mother and a bride. But never before has she actually been a fiancée. How many little girls have played with their Barbie bride, wishing that Ken would actually ask her to be his, instead of just wearing a tux and looking uncomfortable? Anything is possible in Barbie’s pink world, even a marriage of convenience.

And Ken, poor Ken. Even though he has been Barbie’s companion for years, his sexual orientation has always been called into question. Sure, it’s easy to stereotype him as gay. He hasn’t aged a day in over fifty years. He is neat as a pin. He was born with that six-pack, and while he has had some unfortunate haircuts over the decades, his winning smile and boyish good looks haven’t faded. He has had to take a back seat to Barbie forever, much like Oprah’s Steadman, also a lifelong bachelor whose sexual preference is tabloid fodder.

I bet after all those years of rumors and innuendo, Ken just asked Barbie to marry him so that everyone shut up and leave him alone. I hope it works better for him than it did for Michael Jackson.

Reaching Nirvana in Down Dog

My yoga instructor cried at the end of class today, and she wasn’t the only one. I cried too, also at the end of class. Our tears were for different reasons.

LH has taught yoga at the gym for a few years now and has become one of my favorite instructors. When she first started, she would do the usual sun salutations, warrior poses, balance sequences, and calming stretches, much like a typical pattern of a lot of yoga classes. As she became more comfortable with us as a class and with her own skills as a teacher, however, she became creative. Sun salutations were just a quick warm-up instead of half the class. A simple balance pose gave way to scorpions, crows, and headstands. Warrior poses begat side planks which begat a whole variety of odd pushups with legs balancing on arms in all different directions. If the class had an even number of participants, she would pair us up for couples poses, which are much less erotic than they sound even though they involve almost as much body awareness and trust as other erotic things do.

Her class evolved into more than just a yoga class. You never knew what you were going to get when you unrolled your mat, and if you were lucky, she might come around during the relaxation at the end and tug gently on your neck with lavender scented hands. In short, LH’s yoga practice was everything yoga is meant to be. It challenged you, it pushed you, it made you step outside of your daily routine and your comfort zone, and it brought you back to a place of peace.

Like all good things, LH’s time as an instructor at the gym came to an end today with that last yoga class. She has decided to move on with her life, and that includes a change in workplace. I can’t say I blame her. People and water stagnate when still for too long. She decided to end her practice with her yoga regulars with a bang, doing all her favorite challenging poses, bringing in all her signature moves, and ending with a last hands-on relaxation technique. After her final Namaste, she sat on her mat and wiped the tears from her eyes. She knew it was the close of a chapter of her life, and while we all shared the moment, those tears were highly personal, just for her.

I was moved by her show of emotion, but that is not why I cried. My participating in yoga today was the first time I returned to hers or any yoga class in over two months. Back in January, I injured my Achilles tendon. I didn’t tear it, but I sure did make it angry, angry enough to seek the help of a physical therapist who recommended I lay off the downward dogs and warriors for a good six to eight weeks. Over those months, I moved away from my two class a day norm, replacing that time at the gym with more errands, more volunteering, just more. I packed on a few extra pounds, spent less time doing things I love, and devoted more of myself to caring and helping other people, whether my family, my friends, or my community.

I missed the yoga. My ankle healed, but my schedule had already absorbed that extra hour on a Friday, just as it did the ones on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. My practice time vanished, and I didn’t even notice how much I missed it because I was still working out, just in a different way. But today, I wanted to take the time to be there, to have my last two-person star pose and feel the connection to another person in a non-sexual way, to close my eyes and trust that wherever I was touched, it would be healing. As I moved through the routines and positions, I found my muscles had more memory for yoga than I would have believed. Even after over two months of rest, I was still able to participate in a challenging way. I could still do it, baby.

I stretched and I breathed and sweated, and when I finally earned my savasana, I closed my eyes, relaxed my muscles, calmed my breathing, and I cried. I felt at peace, a serenity I don’t know anywhere else, including my temple where I am so overcommitted. I felt, in a word, spiritual. That realization brought me to tears, not in a sad way, but just pure emotion. I was me again, doing something for me, and it felt right.

I am going to miss LH, as I imagine most of the class will. We will continue our yoga practice without her and in time we will find another instructor that we will grow with and enjoy. It won’t be the same, but it shouldn’t be. her absence won’t stop me from going to yoga, though, because I learned today that it is something I should always make time for, something that means more to me than an hour at the gym. It is about a connection that I forgot I needed to make, one with myself.

Namaste.

Harmonic Convergence

It was bound to happen, but I didn’t think it would have happened so fast. Before I tell you what it is, how about a disclaimer for the gentlemen? Yes, indeed, it is that time of the month again. I know, I know, it’s bad enough when your mom/wife/girlfriend/daughter/fag hag has to tell you all about her monthly, and now you come here for a little diversion, only to find more menses. Unfortunately, bleeding seems to be a big theme at my house these days. So indulge me yet again, and soon enough, I will be ready to share another poop story with you.

Back to what happened. Last week, my period was late. More than a day or two late. The kind of late that makes a woman start to freak out, the kind that makes a woman start every sentence with “I’m late” or “where’s my fucking period?” I am generally not late, and yes, I had reason to be a little paranoid, so it was indeed a new thing for me to obsess over, the lateness of my period. My sister, LM, told me in her usual helpful manner that it was probably just my age (Thanks, again for that, dearest older sister). My husband assured me it was stress or just a fluke and nothing to worry about, and not his fault in any way. My friends just told me to shut up about it because it was coming, it always comes, and to calm the f down. I guess that was their nice way of telling me that my worry and moodiness were probably pretty good indicators of the upcoming shedding of my uterine lining, but all I was too consumed with freaking out to notice.

The truth is, all of them were right. I am getting older, which screws up my cycle. I have been stressed, and moody, and it had nothing to do with the excess of salt and chocolate I have craved and consequently consumed. And yes, my spouse and I took precautions to avoid an unplanned pregnancy (and who says I don’t have a filter?). I was worrying for nothing, and before I broke down and bought a pee stick, I started bleeding.

Now, that’s not the amazing part. Bear with me here a moment. My daughter, E, who recently became a woman in that way, is not quite yet regular herself. She got her first period, and then didn’t get another one for about sixty days later, which meant she was lucky as hell but wasted a ton of panty liners. She was not late, though. Her period came last week too, but it was way early. Neither of us was expecting it, even though by her own admission, she ate all of her Valentine’s candy and was mean to her friends at school. At home, we can’t really tell a difference in her mood, because it’s always changing in that special tween way. I am convinced all tweens are bipolar, but luckily for society, some of them outgrow it.

If you add the two of us together, you get my husband’s worst nightmare. My daughter and I are now in sync with each other, bleeding alongside of each other, cramping and whining simultaneously. I haven’t felt this close to her since she was in my uterus. We are both walking around, rubbing our lower backs, taking turns with the heating pad, and filling up every garbage can with our used feminine hygiene equipment. I figured it would occur at some point in our lives, our synchronized bleeding, but somehow I was hoping she would not be in the fifth grade when it did. It kind of takes a little of my parental leverage away. She thinks she is now my peer, since we can share our pads and complain about our cramps and generally disgust and freak out my husband and her father.

Not only could it be worse, one day, in the next few years, it will be. At some point, daughter number two is going to join the club, and after I slap her face and buy her all sorts of special teenage rags for tiny twats (for those OMG moments!), she too will sync up with her older sister and me. Then the three of us can bleed simultaneously, and my husband can begin construction on the shed he plans to move into in the back yard.

I Brake for Kugel

I texted MJ yesterday afternoon: Does the baby want kugel?

MJ replied: Hell to the yes!

Kugel, for those of you without Jewish friends, who live in the South, or who list The Olive Garden and Applebee’s as some of your favorite restaurants, is a noodle pudding. It’s similar to rice pudding or bread pudding because it is a starch baked in a sweet custard. It’s heavy on the cinnamon and dairy, and if you are so inclined, you can pollute it with raisins or dried fruit bits. Like most baked foods, it can be really good or really dried out and horrendous. A lot of goyim (Google it; for Chrissakes, you are reading this online!) don’t know what to do with the idea of sweet noodles, but really, it that any weirder than soaking old bread in eggs and milk and sugar?

MJ, who is not even a little Jewish, loves kugel. She is also pregnant, so obviously her unborn baby is going to love it too. My husband, who, like MJ, is not even a little Jewish, hates the stuff, and my girls and I don’t need to finish a whole batch of it alone. So it was MJ to the rescue, because she is happy for some Jewish leftovers.

I texted her back: Are you on the road? Can you swing by and pick it up?

MJ has to drive a lot for her job. A. Lot. She hasn’t complained to me yet about hemorrhoids, but I know it’s just a matter of time. She sits on her pregnant ass all day in the car. Even the baby is going to have piles (you don’t have to Google that one, just ask your grandmother).

MJ replied: On my way home from Charlotte.

We live between Charlotte, North Carolina, and Atlanta, Georgia.

I texted her back: Great, let me know when you get close.

She did, so I tidied up a bit so she couldn’t see that we live like pigs, which is ridiculous, because she know we live like pigs. My girls continued with their homework, and I kept one eye on the side door for MJ’s car.

Ten minutes later, the phone rang. It was MJ.

I said: Hi, MJ.

MJ said: I’m not coming.

I said: What do you mean? What happened?

MJ said: I just fucking rear ended some Vietnamese chick on the exit ramp. Your exit ramp. She stopped dead still on the fucking exit ramp for NO FUCKING REASON.

I wrote that in capitals because MJ yelled that part.

I said: God, MJ, are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you want me to come down there? Have you called the cops? Did your air bag go off?

I really did ask a whole string of questions just like that.

MJ said: No, thank God. We are both okay, no injuries. The air bags didn’t even go off. She’s got my insurance information. She didn’t even want to move her car off the road!

I said: One of you should call the cops. Won’t she need a police report for her insurance?

MJ said: It’s barely a dent on her bumper. Jesus, I am going to implode. We are sitting here by Wendy’s and all I want to do is go home.

I let MJ do what she needed to do and got off the phone. I looked at my kids sitting there doing their homework and said to them, come on girls, get your shoes. We are going to take some kugel to MJ.

My oldest daughter, E, was very concerned about MJ, but I reassured her that everything was fine, she just had to wait for the cops to come to fill out a report. I cut a big piece of kugel and put it in a plastic container. Then I called MJ back.

I said: Are you waiting for the police?

MJ said: We never called the police. She called her FUCKING MOTHER!

MJ screamed that part.

I said: Is her mother a police officer?

MJ said: I should just leave. This is nuts. We have exchanged information. What do I need to stay for?

MJ agreed to call the insurance company instead of the cops. We got in the car with the kugel and drove to the Wendy’s. Her car was in the parking lot next to the car she hit. We pulled up on the other side of her. MJ was on the phone, looking fabulous as ever, with her tiny baby bump poking out of her dress. My kids ran over to her side of the car and handed her the container of kugel. We looked at the back of the car she hit, which had a dent in the bumper the size of a dime, or maybe a nickel, to err on the generous side, although dimes are worth more than nickels. MJ got out of her car and snapped a couple of pictures with her camera phone.

I said: Do you want me to stay?

MJ said: No, I’m fine, thanks. I guess we are about done here. Her insurance company didn’t need a police report.

I said: Well, make sure yours doesn’t. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?

MJ said: No, it’s all fine. Thank you so much for driving up here.

I said: It’s the least I could do. You had an accident driving here to pick up the kugel. I hope it is worth it.

MJ said: I know it will be. Thanks again!

We kissed MJ goodbye and I drove home, leaving MJ to finish up the business of an accident and then drive home cautiously so she could eat her noodle pudding, which sat in its container in the passenger seat feeling guilty, like a blood diamond. Such devastation, all for those sweet, creamy noodles, which in all honesty, you don’t get to eat every day.