Whistleblower

A long holiday break is the perfect time to go to the movies. Normally, we are too busy on the weekends throughout the year with activities and impromptu trips and birthday parties to go see movies on any kind of regular basis. When we do find time, we can’t seem to find anything worth seeing, as the good movies are released only in summer or over the holidays. The movie industry is fully aware that no one goes to the movies the rest of the year, so it saves the good stuff for those four months, emptying our pockets at the exact time when any extra dough has already been earmarked for travel or gifts.

A few days after Christmas, my sister, LM, was in town for a quick holiday visit.  We decided to see “Saving Mr. Banks,” a movie about Walt Disney acquiring the rights to the story of “Mary Poppins” from the story’s creator, Mrs. P. Travers, a woman who was apparently a bit of a bitch. We took my younger daughter, S, along with us, as she too appreciates a darkened theater and a bucket of popcorn. We all three wanted to see the movie even though none of us particularly likes “Mary Poppins,” what with all the singing and the odd British references and the hour too long part. We do like Tom Hanks, though, and Walt Disney and period pieces, and LM had dumped a box of Raisinets on top of the popcorn, so things were already looking to be swell.

Now, spoiler alert: this is not an action movie. S didn’t really get most of what was going on, as she tends to be a concrete, literal thinker, but LM and I were having a splendid time, followed by some tears, us, not S, followed by the need for a wad of tissues and digging in the bucket for the last chocolate covered raisin. In addition to some fairly emotional moments, the movie was also chock full of musical tidbits, the kinds of scenes that leave you humming on your way out of the theater. We enjoyed ourselves tremendously.

After the over two hour movie ended, S made a beeline for the restroom while LM and I continued to gingerly dab at our eyes. We decided to drown our sorrows in a quick romp to the after Christmas insanity that is Target. I do believe Target is more crowded after Christmas than it is before. I understand the joy that comes with seventy percent off wrapping paper, but seriously, folks, is it worth fighting for a parking space? We had an actual purpose for going there, seeing as S has blown her nose in every Kleenex in my house and has worked her way through the entire box of Mucinex. Also, I needed more gift tags for next year.

When we finally got inside, LM and I both realized that we also needed to use the restroom. She got the last empty stall, so I waited patiently for my turn. I could hear my sister humming in the bathroom stall. It didn’t sound like any of the “Mary Poppins” songs, but what did I know? It didn’t make any sense to me that my sister would be humming a nursery rhyme, but there she was, humming away as she peed, and it sure as shit sounded like something straight from Mother Goose.

After she left the stall, I entered and then had a twenty second debate with myself: to paper or not to paper? Normally, in public, the answer is always “yes, to paper,” but my sister just used this particular toilet, and I knew she would have put down paper before me. So was it necessary? There would still be the germs present from the thousands of restroom goers before her, so yes, paper it was. I am not one of those inconsiderate squatters who think they are all that, you know, the ones who end up pissing all over the seat for us paperers to discover. That forces you to mop up someone else’s pee with a giant wad of toilet paper, then flush it, leaving those in line waiting on you to think you are doing the courtesy pre flush before you blow it up in there, when in actuality, you are cleaning up a perfect stranger’s piss so you can start the papering process all over again.

Anyway, I peed, I flushed, I washed my hands, and I left the bathroom. My sister and daughter waited right outside the door, and when they saw me, they burst into song. The song was “Knick, Knack, Paddy Whack,” the nursery rhyme my sister was just humming in the bathroom. Also, they didn’t burst into song; just my sister did. My daughter looked at the floor waiting for the hole to appear, the one she was praying for to swallow her up.

“So that’s what you were whistling!” I said to her. “I couldn’t recognize that song from the movie we just saw, but it did sound familiar.”

“I wasn’t whistling,” she said. “It was that other lady in there.”

“That wasn’t you just whistling in the bathroom? Seriously? That wasn’t you? I totally thought that was you!” I laughed.

“Hell no!  What, do you think I’m crazy? That was some other weirdo whistling ‘Knick Knack Paddy Whack.’”

“She’s just the weirdo singing it,” S said under her breath.

“Yeah, I tried to get this one to join me,” my sister pointed in my daughter’s direction, “but she wouldn’t do it.”

“I don’t know why you wanted me to sing in public outside of the bathroom, that’s why,” S said to her.

“I wanted you to do it because it was going to be funny,” she said.

“Trust me, it was,” I told them both.

Heal Thyself

My daughter is on her third cold of her winter break. I tend to think the frequency of her upper respiratory infections is a byproduct of her weakened immune system due to her pretty significant allergies and asthma, although chances are just as good she needs to be doing a better job in the hand washing department.  She does wash her hands, though, and she isn’t a big nose picker, at least not that I can tell, and honestly, even with her hacking all over the rest of us, she is still the only one with the constant cold, so weakened immune system, damn you. Eighteen months of breast feeding for nothing.

I broke down and took her to the doctor’s office. Now that she is almost twelve, she doesn’t need to go to the pediatrician as often as she did when she was young.  It’s not that she gets sick less often, but rather we as a family know how to handle her various illnesses better. Still, after a new cold every week for a month, it seemed time to at least get a read on those ears and sinuses. I was pretty sure we would be leaving the office at the least with a prescription for antibiotics but more likely with one for steroids as well, so I was dreading this little visit more than she was.

Every parent says that different ages of childhood bring different challenges, that one age is no better than another, but that is not true when it comes to going to the doctor. When you take a baby or a toddler to the doctor, you can expect a fight. There will be tears, and not just yours. You might have to hold a small body still against its will, one that suddenly has the strength of ten grown men. Not so much for a young adult. My daughter is the one who asked to go to the doctor, since she is at that age where Mom doesn’t know best, in fact, Mom is a fucking idiot and she would trust a perfect stranger’s judgment over hers even though she has kept me alive for over twelve years.

Anyway, the good part is there was no drama or fight. She got dressed. She got in the car. She got out of the car and walks into the office. There was no battle of wills or fight to the death. She sat and waited until her name was called, and she was just as leery of the germ laden waiting room toys as I.

The bad part, because isn’t there always a bad part, is that she was taller than the office staff. She was even taller than the doctor. She dreaded being weighed as much as I do. Having her blood pressure taken made her nervous enough to elevate it. She looked as out of place at the pediatrician’s office as she does ordering off the children’s menu. She isn’t an adult, but she isn’t a child. What an awkward place to be.

The nurse who helped us was no mental giant, and she irritated both of us. First, she wanted to know why we were there to see the doctor, while my daughter who towered over her coughed all over the place and blew her nose twice. Then she wanted to know if she had any allergies. I realize it’s a standard question, but how’s about you look at her chart before you waste everyone’s time. My kid is allergic to every tree, tree fruit, tree nut, things that grow on trees, under trees, near trees, and mold. If I took her to a forest, it would be to leave her for dead.  I just looked at her and said, “Where would you like me to begin?”

Also, the nurse’s name, I kid you not, was L’Oreal, complete with the apostrophe. I wonder if she has a sister named Maybelline and a brother named Revlon.

After a tussle over which sized gown my child could fit in, the doctor examined her and declared her sinuses and ears to be beautiful. Also, that she has a cold, and it’s probably the nasty ten to twelve day variety that’s making the rounds this holiday season.

I’m still glad I took her, if for no other reason than to validate what I already knew, she has a cold and she just has to wait it out. I also don’t mind a professional opinion on the sore throat and sinus pressure, since I can’t exactly prescribe medicine, although I sometimes think I should be able to. Plus, no antibiotics or steroids were needed. It’s much easier to live with a tween who isn’t on steroids.

And it’s not every day you meet a woman named after a makeup line, although I think it should be.

When to Prune

Hey men, what is it with the beards?  

I agree, shaving is a pain in the ass, but when did you as a gender decide to go au naturale? Maybe the full Monty beard is an answer to the more tidy and douchier goatee, which seems to have seen its popularity wane over the past few years, or maybe it’s just yet another sign that people are too lazy to groom themselves. And by people, I mean men. Sure, it’s winter, and having a little extra warmth around the chin and cheeks might be a welcome thing. They sell this thing called a balaclava, and you take it off when you get inside.

I went out to lunch the other day with my sister and my younger daughter. We went to one of those small but worth it local establishments, with a clever name and a truly awesome pimento cheese, bacon, and fried green tomato po’ boy.  The odd part about lunch there is that every man in the restaurant had a beard. They were either full natural beard or on their way to becoming face afros. The younger ones, still light on testosterone, were scraggly and sparse and a little sad, a lawn in need of reseeding in spots. I sat there while we waited for food and counted. Of the twenty or so patrons there, about fourteen of them were men, and every single one of them had a beard. Not just a mustache, not a goatee, not a soul patch, a full beard.  Even our waiter had one, more of the scraggly kind wanting to be a full lush one, but nicely balanced with the largest clunky black eyeglass frames sold this side of 1955. I wonder if the health department ever gets complaints about beard hairs in food. Should food service workers start wearing facial hair nets?

I could understand if this was just a hipster restaurant, but when we finished eating and meandered around Main Street, all we saw were beards, beards, and more beards. Beards on fat, old guys, like Santa.  Scant beards on skinny, pimply, young guys, like meth heads. Beards at the army navy story and at the fro yo shop. Everywhere I turned, beards.

They bother me more than they should, but I understand why, which I am pretty sure is half the battle. What gets me the most, well, kind of pissed about beards is the double standard. Men don’t even have to shave anymore.

Remember when men made a little effort with their appearance? They would shave and comb their hair, maybe even smooth it down with a little brylcreem. They might don a suit or at least a smoking jacket and some slippers. Dinner was an occasion that called for dressing, as was travel and going out in public for most reasons. Nowadays, men don’t bother shaving or dressing. They slip on their crocs and sweatpants, and chances are good they didn’t bother with underwear. Smelling nice isn’t as important as smelling strong, hence a full line of Axe body sprays guaranteed to make you develop hives. We all know that dousing yourself in that flammable bug repellent is not hiding the fact that you haven’t showered in three days. And by the way, there’s a Fruity Pebble in your chin fur.

Women, on the other hand, are held to a different standard. For the most part, we shave, regularly and year round. Legs. Armpits. And over the past few decades, the bikini area as well. Women are now expected to look like little girls down there, thanks to a culture that even discriminates against an aging crotch. Name one straight man who has succumbed to pressure to get a Brazilian bikini wax.

For the most part, women dress appropriately for the occasion, and majority feel the pressure to wear makeup in public. You will rarely see a woman in crocs unless it’s Walmart or Disney World, both of which follow a different set of rules. Even trampy looking women are trying to maintain a certain level of sexiness or physical attractiveness. They might not be successful, but they definitely put some effort into their look, however distasteful it may be.

It’s just not fair.

The main reason I am so bothered by beards is worse than the unfair double standard. It ‘s that I want to touch them. You know when you see a cute puppy in the park and you rush over to find a way to pet it that’s not creepy? That’s how I feel about beards. I want to touch them. I want to see if they are soft or coarse. I want to scratch under chins and examine for graying and tug to see if they are indeed real. If there is a handlebar mustache hovering somewhere above it, forget it. I am fondling that face before you can say Bob’s your uncle.

I don’t even think I like beards and mustaches, but I am definitely drawn to them, and not in a sexual way. They don’t turn me on, but they do challenge my ability to control my impulses, as well as my sensory issues.

When do we stop taking things too far? What started out as the occasional pierced ear and goatee has turned into ear gauges and Grizzly Adams. I hope you will draw the line at growing out your ear hair. While it’s cute on a koala, you, men, are no koalas. Also, get some shampoo and conditioner on that face bush of yours. And a comb. And maybe invest in a trimmer, and then try using it.

If you don’t want to be mistaken for a pussy, stop looking like one.

From Scratch

My daughters and I started a new holiday tradition: baking cookies in our underwear.   Why, you might be wondering? The short answer to your question is that I don’t have three aprons. Let’s go for the long answer, though, because it’s more fun that way.

All week, my daughters wanted to make sugar cookies, the kind you roll out and decorate. As far as I am concerned, decorated holiday sugar cookies are the Walmart of the cookie world. They don’t taste good, and if you aren’t Martha Stewart, they don’t look all that good either. They are really more for kids, who are not yet in possession of a sophisticated palette and are naturally drawn to bright colors and fun shapes. They are my least favorite cookie to make or to eat. We only make them once a year if that, so for a few hours, I can suck it up and make my babies happy.

After spending a good fifty bucks on cookie cutters and decorating stuff and rolls of cookie dough, we got down to business. I decided to buy dough instead of making it because sugar cookies suck and I don’t care and it’s easier. I also had to buy some new cookie cutters because I got mad at my old ones taking up too much room in my drawer and tossed them in a fit of rage. And all the toppings, well, who knows how old those are. Does colored sugar go bad? I didn't want to find out. Back home, I got out the cookie trays, the parchment paper, the flour and the rolling pin. I preheated the ovens, and called the girls over to get started.

When I was little, I too loved to make sugar cookies. My mother never made a cookie in her life, but my grandmother would bake them with my sisters and me. She had an assortment of cookie cutters, a diamond, a heart, a bell, and for some strange reason, a camel. We would use colored sugar and red hots and silver nonpareil balls which looking back probably used mercury to give them their silver hue and shouldn’t have been eaten. We covered the dough in all sorts of nasty color combinations, and she smiled sweetly and let us do what we wanted. I don’t remember her ever really eating any of the cookies we thought were so special, even though the germs no doubt baked out of the finished product.

Sugar cookies were never high on my priority list as an adult, again because they suck, but also because they make such a colossal mess. Also, they remind me of play-doh, one of my most hated children’s toys. Play-doh smells funny and leaves tiny little pills of colored dough all over any surface in which it comes in contact. I spent many a day about ten years ago picking up tiny colored balls and vowing to throw away all of that non-toxic mess, only to give in the next time the girls asked  on a rainy day if they could play with the play-doh.

While it’s easy clean up sugar cookie dough, it isn’t all that easy to clean up rainbow sprinkles and colored sugar and chocolate jimmies, which resemble hamster turds to the untrained eye. For years, I have made sure we had plenty of other cookies around the holidays so that no one noticed that we forgot to make decorated sugar cookies. It didn’t work this year.

Now that my girls are older, baking sugar cookies was more fun because they added their own quirky touches. One of them meticulously decorated a snowflake cookie with individual sprinkles, while the other one insisted we used cat shaped cookie cutters so we could make kitties, which she then embellished with candy assholes. Let me tell you,  Santa wants nothing more than a crisp cat shaped cookie with a balloon knot.

Also, one of the girls found my husband’s Star Wars cookie cutters, which meant in addition to beautiful snowflakes and cat asses, we also had an assortment of Yodas and Boba Fetts and Darth Vaders, all tricked out in red and green. Yum yum!

The other big hit was the gingerbread boy, which my daughters fought to use. each time they cut one out, it was disfigured in some way, missing a limb here or there, whether to shark attack or birth defect, no one knew. My teen found it enormously amusing to line the torn edges where a cookie limb should be in red frosting, as if fresh from the battle field or zombie apocalypse.

So why the no shirts? Well, we had just come back from their piano recital and we didn’t want to get our clothes dirty. The kitchen is downstairs, the changes of clothing upstairs, and in between was a whole lot of laziness. It does get a little toasty near the double ovens, and when you are making asterisks on your cat cookies, any sense of decorum has already been lost. Where to go from there but shirtless?

Just a mom and her two girls, all in bras, licking fingertips and eating scraps of dough, fighting over who has to sweep the floor, and making memories. 

Wrong Number

The other night, I asked my daughter, S, to answer the phone while I was cooking dinner. I had my hands busy with washing grapes and lettuce, and she was right next to the phone, so it wasn't an unreasonable request.

I hate answering the phone. It stems from my former work for the state as both a disability examiner and an eligibility worker for social services. Phone calls were a pain in the ass, and no one wanted to talk to you unless it involved yelling and threatening. After almost ten years of that, I am scared to answer a phone. How often is it someone you want it to be?

Now that three of the four of us in the house have cell phones, no one wants to answer the archaic land line. Except S, the only one without a cell phone. The land line is for her and 911 and annoying sales calls. And that’s why I asked her to answer it, because chances were good it wasn’t for me.

She said hello, and what, and then what again, and then she sighed and hung up.

“Who was that?” I asked her while I stirred the pasta sauce.

“I have no idea. Some freak,” she said, popping a grape in her mouth.

Immediately, the phone rang again. We all just stared at it.

“Well, don’t look at me,” S said. “I answered it last time.”

I picked up the phone and said,” Hello?”

Why do we answer the phone with a question, anyway? Is it because we aren’t sure that we want to greet the caller? We don’t want to commit to pleasantries yet?

“Your daughter just hung up on me.” Oh God, it was my mother.

I wouldn’t say that I am estranged from my mother, but I would say that is what I strive for. To say she is crazy is an insult to people with mental illness. Whatever her many untreated mental conditions may be, they are significant enough to warrant some serious boundaries on my part. I haven’t seen her since we met for a cup of coffee last December, and we have no plans to visit anytime soon.

I do talk to her about once a month or so, but not because I want to, more because I feel I should. She doesn’t call us or even speak to her granddaughters on any kind of a regular basis. Had anyone known she was the original caller, we would have let her go straight to voice mail. S didn’t recognize her number, and why would she, so that’s why she answered it in the first place.

“Hi, Mom,” I said. “S didn’t hang up on you intentionally. I don’t think she knew it was you. What did you say?”

I mouthed to S “It’s your grandmother,” and she rolled her eyes.

“I said hello, and when she asked who it was, I told her it was someone who loved her,” my mom said. “When she still didn’t know it was me, I told her I loved jewelry too. And that’s when she hung up on me.”

“Ma, she didn’t do it on purpose. She probably didn’t hear you. Or understand. She tends to be a very concrete person. It’s best to just be direct with her and not be all cutesy,” I said. I was going to add something about how she doesn’t have any use for game playing, but I was trying to be nice. “Would you like to talk to her now?” I offered.

“No thanks, I give up after twice.” You could hear the sneer over the phone.

“Well, technically, this is the second call,” I told her. “So here she is.”

“It’s your grandmother,” I said  loudly and sweetly to S and handed her the phone. She glared at me and grabbed it.

“Hi, Grandma. I didn’t know it was you.” S put on her innocent voice. They talked for maybe ninety seconds, and S handed the phone back to me.

She was only calling to thank me for the plant I sent her for Christmas, but as usual, she managed to turn it into a small scene complete with hurt feelings and misunderstanding. Go big or go home.

After we hung up the phone, I asked S,” So what did she say to you?”

“I don’t know. Something about being a person who loved me and jewelry. How am I supposed to know who that is? I thought it was a crazy person."

Oh, it was, honey. It was. If it’s wrong to be delighted that my child hung up on my mother, I don’t want to be right.

Red Solo Cup

My fourteen year old daughter asked for a hysterectomy for Christmas.

I don’t really blame her. I had to pick her up from school last week because she was so miserable. It was day one of her ragtime, and she was so nauseated and crampy she couldn’t sit in a desk. In fact, her teacher made her go to the nurse’s office because she was dry heaving in class and then almost fainted. The nurse insisted that she go home, as the school has a policy that if a student faints in class, EMS must be called to transport that child to the hospital, and she preferred not to have the headache of the paperwork that goes along with that scenario. Not to mention the part where children shouldn’t be fainting from their periods.

I took the teen home and pumped her full of ibuprofen and hot tea and settled her on an arrangement of heating pads. She remained there until it was time for her harder classes, and I drove her back to school with one of those adhesive heating pads stuck to her belly. Have you ever seen one of those? They look just like a sanitary pad filled with rocks, only without wings. I wonder how many women have stuck them in the crotch of their panties, waiting for cramp relief that doesn’t come.

I don’t know how long it takes to get used to having your period, but I am pretty sure it is until menopause.

The teen definitely hasn’t adjusted, even after a few years of being a woman now. She still won’t use tampons, not because the school convinced her and many of her female peers that she will lose her virginity by shoving a plastic tube filled with a wad of cotton in her cooch, but because the idea of sticking anything in her cooch disturbs her, to which I say, thank you Jesus! She sticks to pads and panty liners, unless faced with the possibility of being at the beach, in which case she closes her eyes and blindly aims for the right hole with something more covertly absorbent.

Knowing her feelings about things happening below the belly button made the conversation we had the other day even odder. She brought up a third option of feminine hygiene, the menstrual cup. A menstrual cup is a little cup that you stick inside your vagina to collect your menstrual flow. Although menstrual cups have been around since the 1930’s, I had not heard of them until Whole Foods came to town. They have a feminine hygiene section just for the granola vegan crowd, complete with what I think are washable and reusable pads and menstrual cups, sold under the brand name Diva Cup. Anyway, I guess a couple of other teens and my teen were talking about Diva cups after having seen them while shopping for overpriced organic snack food with their mamas.

Here’s how it went down:

The teen: Mom, have you ever heard of a Diva cup?

Me: Yes, why have you?

The teen: Some girls were talking about them at school.

Me: Really? Seems an obscure topic of conversation, but whatever.

The teen: Well, have you ever tried one?

Me: No. I am quite comfortable with regular old cardboard tube Tampax. I don’t really see the need to make changes now, after over thirty years. Why?

The teen: I’m curious about them.

Me: Seriously?? You won’t even use a tampon, not even with the plastic applicator, the kind that ruins the planet for the next generation of bleeders. But you’re curious about putting a small cup in your vagina? Please.

The teen, laughing: I know, right? I just can’t imagine putting a cup in there.

Me: Me neither. How long does it stay in there, anyway? Does it start to smell? What if your cup overflows? And then what do you do with it? Run it through the dishwasher? Or is it disposable? I don’t understand how that is any better for the environment. Can you use a Dixie cup in a pinch, because I still have a whole box of those under the bathroom sink if you want to try them out.

The teen: (more laughter)

Me: Do they come in different sizes, or are they a one size fits all kind of product? How do you put it in? And worse, how do you take it out? What if it tips over when you remove it?

She stopped laughing and redirected me, which was a good thing, because I could seriously have kept going for at least another five minutes or so.

About a week later, I kid you not, I met a woman who had actually used menstrual cups. Now, this was one of those situations where a casual acquaintance ends up telling you something extremely personal that you rather not know about them, ever.

A woman I barely know and I made small talk during a volunteer event. We were discussing our daughters, which is what women do who have very little else in common to discuss. She is an older mom with kids a little younger than mine, and we talked about how girls get hormonal and moody when puberty starts. Her daughter had not yet started her period, but since mine is a few years older, she asked me about how I taught her about menstruation. I told her about a class the hospital offers that does a great job making girls feel comfortable with their bodies and such. She thought that sounded great since she wasn’t really sure she knew how to teach them to use tampons.

Then she said, “It’s been years since I had my period, since I am past menopause, but I didn’t use tampons when I did have mine.”

“You didn’t?” I said. “Oh, I remember those giant pads, with the belt you had to pin them on. What a pain!”

“No,” she said, “Although I do remember those too. Like a diaper. No, I used those cups.”

Okay, finally I found someone who has tried the mysterious and lesser known menstrual cups, and it’s an almost complete stranger, but one that I will have to see and talk to again. I don’t want to have to think about her period, let alone her choice of feminine hygiene, but now, every time I see her, it will be the only thing I remember about her.

“I’ve never tried them,” I said, because really, what else could I say? I couldn’t tell her I threw up in my mouth a little. “I don’t know what to tell you about teaching your daughter about tampons. Mine is still uncomfortable with the idea of them.”

“Oh, then she would never like cups, because you have to stick your whole hand in there,” she told me.

No, no, no. I can never, ever, shake this woman’s hand again, and the idea of hugging her is even more off-putting. In fact, I don’t think I can make eye contact with her ever again unless I develop dementia and forget this little nugget about her. And no matter what, I will never join her for a glass of red wine.

Red Scare

Hey kids, remember last time when I was getting ready to have my kitchen torn apart? Well, it’s been torn a new one. If the kitchen is the heart of a home, mine is undergoing open heart surgery, and I am at a loss. That kitchen is my room. It’s where I show my love, what with all the baking and cooking and nurturing and happy smells and simmering and from scratch going on in there. But it’s been gutted, down to empty cabinets, no counters, studs on the wall, a skeleton. Eventually, the new pieces will be installed and it will again look like a kitchen, but until that happens, I have to admit, I don’t know what to do with myself or my creative energy.

The other afternoon, the granite guy came to do the templates for the counter tops and the island. We bought granite from a local place that seems legitimate since it has seven locations, but I can’t shake my gut feeling that something just isn’t right. The salesman looked like a standard Southern construction dude, complete with steel toed boots, a camouflage ball cap, wind burned skin, and rough hands. He offered us a great deal, with all sorts of things thrown in, including the kitchen sink, but when it came time to discuss price, suddenly he acted all offended we wanted an itemized quote. It turned out we were paying for everything, even for things we didn’t really want or like. After buying our own fabulous sinks and faucets, we went back to our sleaze ball and renegotiated a better price, and voila, we were ready to have our counters measured, which would be done by the men who actually work with the stone. All the stone men also happen to be Russian.

Now, I would like to say I have nothing against Russians, except they are the reason my great grandparents came to America, so maybe I do have a little something against them. I'm sure they are not all Jew-hating Cossacks, but you never know, do you? This particular group of Russian men could, and might, all be related to each other. They had the same thick eyebrows and necks with the same gold chains, the same heavy Slavic accents, and even the same clouds of cigarette smoke enveloping them. If they weren’t selling granite, they could have been selling ex-Soviet weaponry or a shitload of heroin. Or all of the above.

Last week, I had to go pick out the actual slabs of granite that were going in my kitchen, which meant I had to deal with the Russians. They all looked at me like they are undressing me with their eyes, only not in a good way. Really, they were probably sizing me up, figuring out what kind of a rube I am, and how best to con me before killing me and dumping my body. One of the Russians came to my house a few days later to measure all the counters for templates so they could cut the granite and deliver it, in theory. I watched him from my window as he finished his cigarette and entered the house, bringing his cloud of smoke with him.

He introduced himself and shook my hand, looking deep into my eyes Svengali style. I didn’t know what that look meant, but whatever it made me do would definitely be against my will. He made little heavily accented comments about the things in my home, the kind of comments that workers should never make about your stuff, as if he were Christmas shopping in my living room or, more likely, what he would enjoy when he moved in after my death. Luckily he didn’t take too long before he oozed his way back to his car. His presence was less than reassuring.

The next day, it was back to the granite shop to make sure the measurements fit on the granite slabs, which is referred to as the layout stage, although it wasn’t like we actually put templates on the slabs and picked the best parts. Slabs of granite are kind of heavy and not easily tossed around like, say, a blueprint. The shop manager, another hairy, smoke-cloud enveloped Russian with a gold chain, creepily introduced himself and confirmed that the granite I selected was, in fact, the granite I selected. He made me sign my name on some painter’s tape on each granite slab, and then asked if I had any questions. My only question was when I could expect installation, and he replied with a shoulder shrug and a lopsided grin that let me know how little of a shit he gave.

For the next few days, all I could think of was how scared I was to be alone in the house with a group of hirsute Slavic men. It wasn’t just that I didn’t trust them enough to have them in my home, it was that I didn’t put it past them to do something to me and my home. I don’t mean rape and robbery; I mean dismembering and arson. I spent several sleepless hours imagining my husband being unable to use dental records to identify my body because both my teeth and my face had been removed. I could picture the Russian granite men lighting my faceless, toothless corpse on fire, only to douse the flames with a healthy stream of vodka-laced urine. My gut feeling bordered on the psychotic side of indigestion. I take worry to a whole new level.

I convinced my friend, SF, to stay with me the day my granite was to be installed. If nothing else, she can run faster than me and would be able to identify what I wore last. Her mother agreed it was the right thing to do, since she too felt I would not be safe home alone with a group of Russian granite men. I found that very validating, especially since my husband thought my fears were totally out of proportion to any actual danger in which I might have been.

I am pleased to report that my granite has been installed, and it looks beautiful, and also I am alive and well. The installation was done by Latino men. They even sang Feliz Navidad, among other songs,  while they worked. That was the only song I knew, but SF knew all the other songs, since she is a native Spanish speaker. She not only offered me protection, she also assured me they weren't talking about me. Paranoia and fear are the chicken and the egg of mental disorders.

And the best part was that my hair wasn’t braided and then used to hang my body before I was beheaded and then set on fire.

The Twelve Blogs of Christmas: Fourth Edition / Happy Anniversary

You know how some years, life falls into a nice, easy routine, low on excitement but high on predictability, and other years, it’s one crisis after another? Well, 2013 has been one of those crisis years. Maybe not the whole year, but the second half has been, well, one big clusterfuck.

When I am overly stressed, I do two things: I eat my feelings, and I put myself last on the priority list. I never claimed to be well balanced, just functional.  Dealing with one crisis after another has been a full time job, with little time for any self-care. So while I did find the time to gain weight this year, I haven’t done the same for writing, one of the few things I enjoy just for me. What used to be an every week habit has now become a rare event, even though almost daily, writing is on the to do list.

So here we are, in December, the tail end of Hanukkah waving at the start of Christmas, and I find myself wondering if I will be able to honor my annual tradition of writing twelve blog posts between now and the new year, or epiphany, or whenever I decide I have met my goal, because hey, it’s my goal, not yours. Go set your own ridiculously unattainable goal. Wait, this is attainable, because I’ve done it for the past three years. And I will do it again, starting now.

Presenting, the fourth annual twelve blogs of Christmas! (Cue the trumpets. Unfurl the banner.)

(I love the word unfurl.)

The rules are there are no rules, just like in life. I write about what I want. You read it. You are moved in some way, through laughter or tears or to do something else. Maybe you would like to leave a comment, something fabulously validating preferably. Sound good? Excellent.  Let’s begin.

Here’s today’s little anecdote:

After six years of deliberating and failing miserably to simmer anything, I am getting a new cooktop. My current range is a Jenn-Air 4 burner electric coil stove with indoor grill. When was the last time you cooked on electric coils? An apartment in 1992? Your parents’ house? Never? Well, I use mine every day. Every. Day. Lordy, it’s old. And filthy. It has two settings, high and off. And the grill? It makes an excellent trivet and crumb catcher. I don’t even know how to turn it on, and cleaning it never seemed a big priority because for six years I thought I would replace it.

Jenn-Air used to be a quality product, but now it’s like so many other brands that seem to be slipping away. The real problem with it, however, is its size. The only thing the same size of a Jenn- Air range is another Jenn-Air range, which is why we haven’t replaced it.

Getting a different brand of range poses a different issue. If we get a new cooktop, we need to get new countertops. Our current counters are tile. Whoever made the decision to sink a Jenn-Air into a tile counter top clearly wasn’t planning on doing a lot of cooking, but I have made do for these past six years to the best of my ability.

New stove means new counters. If I am getting new counters, I might as well replace my kitchen sink. And if I replace a stove, sink, and counters, well, let’s do something about that backsplash. And while we are at it, let’s do it all between thanksgiving and Christmas, the week after one child is in the local production of the Nutcracker and the other one gets her wisdom teeth pulled (at fourteen! Who gets wisdom teeth pulled at fourteen??).

Go big or go home, or something like that.

You know what I am not? A contractor. Yet here I am, auditioning people to do things to my house that I will use every day for a long time to come. How’s that for a little pressure? I know, I know, it’s a good problem to have, but still, it isn’t easy. Don’t judge me.

So far, things are going pretty smoothly, and if everything goes according to plan, it will all be done in less than two weeks. Except we all know nothing goes according to plan.

My husband and I think we have everything about ready to go, starting with the teardown this Saturday. We have written checks and transferred money and proclaimed the kitchen our Christmas present, so it better fucking happen or else I want to see a box of Frye boots under my tree come December 25.

On the floor in my dining room are my new sink, faucet, and cooktop, which is gas, five burners, and fabulous. Also, it adds another task to my contracting position, which is to find a guy to run a gas line and connect the range after the counters are installed. Yesterday, the right man for the job came out to my house to have a little lookie-loo and give me an estimate. It was a last minute appointment, one I really didn’t have the time for but wanted to squeeze in before the mad rush to the carline at school.

I have talked to this very professional and pleasant individual a few times, but had never put a face with a voice. When he showed up, I was taken aback. He looked exactly like a sad clown, only without the makeup. Large belly, gray page boy hair, and the face of, well, a sad clown. He looked in the kitchen and then kneeled over the new gas cooktop, lying on the floor, and started to wobble.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I still have my sea legs.”

“Oh, did you take a cruise for Thanksgiving?” I asked politely. Yes, I am capable of polite when need be.

“Twenty-fifth wedding anniversary,” he said.

I made a little more small talk, trying to hurry him along, which was difficult because his phone rang incessantly and he felt the need to answer every single call. I tried not to picture a too-small hat with a droopy little flower on his head.

He went to the crawl space and came out and took more calls and finally I had to remind him that I needed to leave ten minutes ago to get my daughters from school and could he just leave me an estimate. He told me he would get it ready that minute in his truck.

I went inside and locked up, then went to the driveway to get the estimate and say goodbye. Only he didn’t have it ready for me.  “Look at this,” he said to me, pointing to his computer screen mounted in his work truck. “Have you seen anything so beautiful in your life?”

He had opened a file of pictures of his cruise, all one hundred and fifty of them. Pictures of nature. Landmarks. His wife. The two of them at dinner. The two of them on shore excursions. Plants. Animals.  

“Lovely. Wow. Amazing.” I interjected appropriate and hopefully enthusiastic reactions to this sad clown’s vacation slides, like I gave a shit that I, in fact, did not. “Looks like a really good time.”

I was now fifteen minutes late.

“Yeah, it was really rough,” he said. He started to explain how the winds were over 45 knots per hour and the swells and headwinds and how the boat went up a wave nose first and then crashed down into a crest and I couldn’t follow because the whole thing sounded like a verbal word problem. I didn’t want to do that math, I wanted to leave, but I was being held captive by the sad clown who could make or break my cooking experience for the lifetime of my Thermador cooktop. This was not a person to whom I could afford to be rude.

“Listen,” I finally said, “I am really enjoying hearing about your trip, but I kind of have to get my kids.” I don’t know if it sounded that bad when I said it to him, but I have a feeling it was worse.

“No problemo, “he told me, and took my email address so he could send me the invoice and set up a time to do the gas line work.

Then I had to wait for him to back out of my driveway and get the fuck out of my way so I could be late to pick up my kids from school.

Here’s a word problem: if the sad clown estimates three hours of labor to do the work, how much of that time will be spent showing me his vacation slides?

Mother of the Year

I just had a nasty little fight with my teenaged daughter. It was pretty ugly, ugly enough for my other daughter to ask us to stop. Now we are on different floors in the house. If I had an outbuilding to go to, or a job, or some errands, any excuse to leave the house, I would. But it’s cold and raining, much like the feeling I have in my heart, and I have nowhere to go and dinner to make. So I am staying here, seething.

The fight started as many do, over nothing. My younger daughter has a sore throat and didn’t want to go for dance class, opting instead to stay home and rest. My teenager likes it when we leave the house for dance class, as she gets to be alone for a few hours in the house, doing god knows what. Normally after school when we are all home, she hibernates in her bedroom with the iPad, emerging only for more snacks or the eventual call to join us for dinner. It’s not like she would even know we were here.

But no, she had to cop attitude about us being at home during her precious alone time.  She complained about us not leaving. She rudely demanded the upstairs bonus room in which to pretend we didn’t exist, and followed her demand with a couple of eat-shit glares and some heavy sighing. So I got pissed at her.  

The more appropriate response would have been to ignore the glares and the sighs, which is what I would normally do. After all, she is a teenager, and they are prone to eye rolling and sighing and selfish demands. Today, however, I just got irritated. Her sister didn’t feel well, and as usual, all the teen could think about was herself. I also couldn’t get past the alone time thing. I haven’t had alone time in fourteen years. Fuck her alone time.

I should have been the adult. I should have either let it go or made a mature comment about being understanding and sharing and accommodating other’s needs, but instead, I played it like a bratty adolescent, which I figured would be a language she could understand.  I met her on her level, and it wasn’t pretty.

I started by staying in the car long enough to give her a head start upstairs so I could just avoid her altogether. She knew what I was doing, however, and she waited in the kitchen for me to enter so we could continue what began in the car.

I set my things on the counter and watched as she made herself a cup of hot cocoa with four giant marshmallows. This is a child who demands a healthy smoothie for breakfast and a low carb lunch every day because she wants to continue to fit into her skinny jeans rather than maybe exercising or something. While she snuck a chocolate and peppermint cookie out of the pantry, I commented that I was through buying special foods for her if she insisted on eating crap every afternoon. I know, real mature. I was fully aware I wasn’t fighting fairly, but I didn’t care. Once I started, I couldn’t stop.

She whipped out the ultimate comeback: yes ma’am. She only ma’am’s me when she is angry because she knows it drives me nuts. I cleaned up the mess she made making her cocoa and called her a princess, adding she treated me like a servant who had to clean up after Her Majesty. She said if I didn’t act like a servant, she wouldn’t treat me like one. So I told her she wasn’t just being a spoiled little princess, she was acting like a bitch. She scowled at me with eye daggers.

She countered with my need to act like an adult, that I was a grown woman and she was just a fourteen year old child, that it was offensive that I would call her an expletive. I told her I was offended by how she treated the rest of us. Also, that if there was another word for how she was acting that was more accurate than bitch, I would have used it.

After exchanging more eat shit glares, she ate the last apple muffin, getting crumbs all over the floor before storming off for the upper floor.

Now she is indeed holed up in her room, her electric keyboard on the highest volume as she angrily bangs out Lana Del Ray songs and Ben Folds Five’s “Brick,” because she knows how much I hate both. It works since her bedroom is right above my office. My other daughter is dutifully working on a homework assignment that isn’t due for another month, scared to talk to either one of us.

I would not describe this as a shining moment in parenting.

I normally do the right thing when it comes to my girls, especially compared to what I endured as a child, including my teenage years. I didn’t call her a bitch. I told her she was acting like one. It doesn’t matter, though, because in her mind I did, and that is how she will remember this argument for the next twenty or more years. It isn’t so much a defining moment as it is a scarring one, and I am the one doing the scarring. Not good. No gold star for today.

The easiest way to fix this is to go upstairs and apologize. Of course, I am not ready to do that yet. Instead, I will continue to stew in my own passive aggressive angry juices, justified in blowing up at her because I do it so rarely, because she kind of deserved it, both the words and a little reminder that I am human too and want to be treated with respect. Except that if I act like a baby, do I deserve it?

Yep, today I suck at parent. I better go say I’m sorry, and while I’m at it, maybe drop a dollar or two in the therapy jar. It’s like a swear jar, only for the no doubt countless hours of counseling that she will require as an adult to undo the trauma I caused her during her formative years. I sure wish my mother had a therapy jar for me. Maybe I wouldn’t need one today for my own kids.

Did I just blame my mother? I believe so. I knew somehow this was all her fault.

Gelt Guilt

You think shopping for Christmas is a pain the ass? Try finding Hanukkah stuff in a southern town. I have spent more than eight nights looking for small gifts worthy of the festival of lights, and let me tell, it’s slim pickings here in the Bible Belt. I didn’t bother looking at Wal-Mart, because, really, that’s just a step above Hobby Lobby.  But I’ve covered Target, Party City, my local Publix, and nothing. All anyone stocks is menorahs and blue and silver garland. How many menorahs does Target think we need?

In my house, the fun never stops during the holidays because we have one of those so-called interfaith families. My husband abhors organized religion but loves Santa and decorations and presents presents PRESENTS!! So we do both holidays.  Not only do I have to capture the motherfucking magic of Christmas, but I have to honor those hard fighting Maccabees by finding small ticket items that can be doled out over eight nights. Consider yourself lucky that Christmas is but one day a year.

My family refers to Hanukkah as the socks and underwear holiday. We save the good stuff for Christmas morning, and I never objected because the only thing I remember ever getting for Hanukkah when I was a kid were those knitted slipper socks with the pom poms on top. It was the only thing my grandmother knew how to knit, and she made a new pair for each of us every year, whether we needed them or not. She must have bought a lifetime supply of the ugliest, cheapest yarn 1968 had to offer, so all the slipper socks were in stomach-churning   color combinations like avocado green and corn yellow or rusty orange and camel beige.

Hanukkah presents were easier to find for my kids when they were little because they were happy with any small thing, a bag of chocolate coins or a new wooden dreidel. Hell, that’s two nights covered right there. I could always find a paint your own dreidel kit or foam menorah craft to make my preschoolers happy. My daughters are both in double digits now, however, and they need another dreidel like I needed new slipper socks.  They have fancy dreidels and laser light dreidels and dreidels that play music (the ubiquitous “I Have a Little Dreidel”) and even a stuffed dreidel made for infants.

They also have plenty of jewelry. We have chai's (this has nothing to do with tea) and Stars of David and evil eyes, bracelets and earrings and necklaces, enough to wear a different one for each night of Hanukkah. The only thing that would further identify them as Jewish would be a yellow star sewn on their clothing, but I don’t think we are quite there yet in America. Seriously, how what do Jewish parents with sons do? They don't really care about Jewish star earrings last I heard.

Today, I went in a party store and found a small Hanukkah section hidden amongst the paper plates. Much to my surprise, they had cheap plastic headbands with blue glitter dreidels perched atop springs; I think their technical name is "deely boppers." These headbands were a find. I haven’t seen them on any crap party or Jewish themed website for the past ten years. When I checked out with my boppers, I asked the cashier if that section was the extent of their Hanukkah goods, and she nodded yes. The two women behind me in line gave me a knowing look, then a fake sympathetic smile, the kind you give someone you think about letting out in traffic but then drive by anyway since the coast is not clear in the other lane, leaving them to wait for another nice person. Sorry, the look said. Sorry you’re Jewish.

So far, I’ve got the deely boppers, a couple of dreidels, menorah sunglasses, and a Hanukkah themed Mad Libs book. Four nights down. I figure I will fill in the rest with lip gloss and nail polish and other worthless crap that young teenaged girls enjoy. I contemplated Thanksgivukkah shirts, since this is the last time for 70,000 years that the first night of Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving, but really, it's not like they will have an occasion to wear them again. 

I know it’s not about the gifts. It’s about the time spent together, making memories, sharing experiences….blah blah blah. It’s totally about the gifts. If Hanukkah didn’t have eight nights of gifts and an unfortunate proximity to Christmas, it would go the way of other lesser Jewish holidays, those we cannot pronounce and therefore forget altogether. Ever hear of Shavuot? Exactly.

I get that Christmas is a big deal, both religiously and commercially, but just once, I would love to see more than one end cap that’s devoted to Hanukkah, when the rest of the store has its halls decked in red and green.  Can you imagine going into a store to find the whole place shiny with silver and blue, klezmer music blasting over the intercom, the greasy smell of potato latkes wafting in the air? Glade and Febreze don't come in jelly donut smell, ever.

And how about a t-shirt or some dreidel socks or underwear or pajamas or something new instead of yet another box of candles and some paper plates?  Besides, I always buy my paper plates on sale after Hanukkah, because, let’s face it, who doesn’t love a bargain? 

I wonder what would happen if I just didn't get eight gifts, or, rather, sixteen, because there are two of them. We lose interest by the fifth night anyway. Wax drips all over the counter, a plastic dreidel or two forgotten on the floor, the stench of old grease in the air. I don't even like jelly donuts.

Why are Jewish holidays so long? Nobody has the attention span for an eight day holiday anymore. We don't even take vacations for that long.  We rewrite history all the time. Why not change that ancient miracle so I don't have to shop for as many gifts? Then we'd have a reason to buy a new menorah, with room for maybe just four or five candles. 

After we do that, maybe we can work on one spelling of Hanukkah. Enough with all the K's and C's and H's.

You Call It Corn

Have you ever been to a corn maze, that quintessential autumn experience? Up until a few weeks ago, neither had I. I had always seen the signs pop up around our area at the end of summer, but never really thought it was something I wanted to cross off the bucket list. Mazes in general are not my thing.  As a child, my experience with mazes, on paper at least, involved starting at the finish and working my way backward until I found the start. Yes, I cheat at mazes.

But real life mazes seem to be the kind of thing where evil lurks. Mazes are just easy to spell labyrinths, and labyrinths are the domain of Minotaurs, deranged caretaker/writers, or lesser known Muppets and David Bowie in a bad wig. Add corn to it and well, after Stephen King’s “Children of the Corn,” is there any doubt I would hesitate to wander inside?  A red-headed kid named Malachi is probably lurking inside every corn maze to make sure no one ever leaves. Plus, there seems to be confusion in general over the spelling of maze. If the maze is made out of corn, is it spelled maize? The local establishments sure seem to think so. Are they being clever or ignorant? I just don’t know.

The main reason I had always hesitated in going to a corn maze is the same reason I don’t like to drive someplace new; I am what I like to call directionally challenged. I don’t know north from up, but I am pretty sure they are the same direction. I don’t like to get lost, as chances are pretty good I will never find the right way. I like to look at a map, then print directions, then enter my location on GPS, and finally compile all the information into my own version of Point A to Point B, and somewhere along the way I still manage to get lost. Seriously, I am impressed I know my way around my house.

As soon as I thought “corn maze” and “good idea,” my brain just wouldn’t let go of it until it happened.  I conned my younger daughter into it, selling her on the idea of fun and adventure. She should have known better; I blame her.  We decided to make a day of it, going first on a hayride and then a quick trip to the pumpkin patch. We decided to save the corn maze for last, anticipation and all.

We bought our tickets and approached the start of the maze, where an older man went over the rules before you were allowed to enter. Apparently even corn mazes have rules, including no running and no veering off the marked paths. The last thing those corn farmers need are a bunch of wild people hiding in amidst the corn stalks. After the man gave his little rules speech, I told him I wasn’t very good with directions and asked him about how long it would take to go through the maze.

“As long as it takes you to get from the start to the finish,” he told me. Great, one of those. Just answer the damn question.

“Could you be a bit more specific?” I asked him.

“Bout an hour to do both sides,” he said.

My daughter and I had a quick little chat. We hadn’t had lunch but had enjoyed some fine tater tots at the concession stand. Our water bottles were empty. The only bathroom was a port-a-potty, which I eschew on principle, but if we were only going to be wandering for thirty minutes, we could handle it. We grabbed a map from the man and into the maze we went.

Do you know how tall corn grows? Pretty fucking tall. This corn was a good seven to nine feet, which meant we were no match for it, vertically speaking.

We really should have had a plan. Follow the people in front of us. Only make right turns. Pay attention to the perimeters. Look for landmarks before you enter. Anything. Instead, we just went with our map and my lack of a sense of direction. And it turned out our map wasn’t even a map; it was a list of ten clues. When you approached a number plaque, you were to answer the question, and your answer determined whether you went left or right. I didn’t even notice the answer key on the back, which would have been helpful, considering the clues were all useless corn trivia. We found number one, and then we wandered around aimlessly until we stumbled upon number three. We had no idea where number two went.  We also saw the family that entered before us, but they didn’t look like they knew what we were doing any more than we did.

Not only was the corn really tall, but someone, or SOMETHING, had been eating it. Underneath the stalks were piles of crap. Lots of piles of crap. Most of it was in pellet formation, but I couldn’t rule out human.  After about the first half hour, those piles of feces became our only landmarks.

“Didn’t we just pass that pile of crap?” I said to my daughter.

“How am I supposed to know? I didn’t memorize poop,” she answered me.

“If you had, we wouldn’t be in this mess, now, would we?”

Yes, in the course of thirty minutes, we were turning against each other, just like lab rats, the kind that have to run through mazes and hate on each other. During that time, the sun burned hotter, and we were hungry and thirsty.

“I really need to go to the bathroom,” my daughter said.

“Go under the corn like the rest of the animals,” I said. “I’ll stand in front of you and create a diversion.”

“Are you serious?” she asked me.

“Do you think we can eat this corn, or is it feed corn for livestock?” I asked her.

“I am not eating raw corn,” she said.  “And I am definitely not going to the bathroom in this maze.”

“Suit yourself,” I said.

A family passed by us, looking confused. It was a different family. They still seemed enthusiastic and gleeful.

We trudged on. At one point, we heard goats bleating, which meant we were on the outer edge of the maze. We were also on the outer edge of the farm, which meant we were no closer to the exit than we were the entrance.

“This isn’t fun anymore,” my daughter said.

“Was it ever?” I snapped.

“Can’t you look on your phone to see where we are on your phone?”

We stopped and I attempted to verify our location, even though I should have known that a corn maze would not be on the satellite map.  I looked at my watch. We had been in the maze for over an hour. We had sweated enough to reduce the need for a bathroom.  It was now after two pm, and we still had an hour drive home and lunch and afternoon dance practice to get on with. We had no more time to waste, lost in the produce aisle.

So I did it. I called for help. I called the number on our corn maze tickets. And it went straight to voice mail.

“Oh Jesus,” said my daughter. “How can they not answer the phone? How are we going to get out of here?”

“Calm down!” I yelled. “They slap hysterical people, just so you know. I ‘ll try again.”

I tried three more times. Voice mail. Each message I left conveyed more of the panic we felt. My phone battery was at 20%. We moved on, hoping this time to at least make it to number five of the clue list.

We continued to walk in circles, to pass more corn stalks with piles of crap on the ground and the same clue number four and people who were as lost as we but not yet on the verge of tears. I called again, and this time a real person answered the phone. She asked the number we saw last and told us to stop moving. We stood still, defeated. My daughter’s eyes were watering.

A few minutes later, the man who gave us the clue sheet wandered in and gave us a look.

“I told you I had a poor sense of direction,” I said to him.

“You weren’t kidding,” he said, and started walking. We followed him. On the other side of corn we could hear other people laughing and rushing. “No running. Rule number two!” he shouted at them.

In less than five minutes, we emerged from the corn maze, our heads hanging low. Other people watched us following the man out. It was the corn maze walk of shame.

We hustled over to the car, not stopping for a bottle of water or a quick stop at the port-a-potty.

“And now we know why we’ve never gone to a corn maze before,” I told my daughter.

“I hope we won’t ever do it again,” she added.

“Can you imagine if it were at night? I mean, that maze is open until ten,” I said. “Can you imagine getting that lost in the dark?”

“If you hadn’t called, we would still be there til ten,” she said.

“You’re right, Malachi,” I said.

“Stop calling me that,” said my daughter.

What's Cookin'?

If you don’t know what to make for dinner tonight, you could making what I’m making, grilled Greek chicken pitas with homemade tzatziki sauce. It used to be one of everyone’s favorite meals, until my tween, S, was sick one night and the smell of the grilled chicken made her want to throw up. It doesn’t smell bad, really, unless you are sick or something. Plus, it’s so easy to make, it practically makes itself.

I always start by marinating my chicken. I buy boneless chicken breasts and then cut them in half horizontally so that they are “cutlets.” The thinner chicken pieces will cook faster and more evenly. Plus, have you looked at the size of the chicken breasts you can buy at the grocery store these days? These chickens shouldn’t be endorsed by Paula Deen; they should have Dolly Parton on the packages. Seriously, I don’t know how chickens strut around and peck with those giant titties throwing them off balance. They must look even more awkward in heels. You don’t need that much breast meat. Seriously, more than a handful is too much. A serving size should be roughly the size of your palm.

Anyway, I slice them and then shove them in a Ziploc bag with some vinaigrette salad dressing, chopped garlic, and a hefty squirt of Dijon mustard.  It doesn’t matter what kind of dressing, but they do sell Greek dressing, for those of you who are really concerned about getting the right flavor profile. I don’t know what the garlic and mustard does that the salad dressing doesn’t do, except make it sound like I thought up something special. I didn’t. It’s just salad dressing and mustard and garlic. Bam!

Next, I make my own tzatziki sauce. This is where you get to impress the whole table. Sure, you can buy a pretty tasty version at Trader Joe’s, except they put too much dill in theirs, and dill is the devil of the herb world. Plus, it’s super easy to make.

You need a good sized cucumber and some Greek style yogurt to make the sauce. I like to buy giant hothouse cucumbers, the ones that come shrink wrapped for your protection. They are all stacked up neatly in their prophylactic wrappers at the store, ready and waiting for you. The one I bought today was about the size of a double headed dildo that I, um, once saw on the internet. Seriously, even I got penis envy from that thing.

I like to hand grate my cucumber. First, I start by holding up the cucumber near the vicinity of my crotch and dancing around a little. My husband made the mistake of walking through the kitchen while I did my seductive cuke dance. I violated him by ramming my cucumber in the middle of his belly, repeatedly, until he left the room. Feel free to dance with your hard cuke as long as you like, or until you lose interest.

After that, I pretend I am a mohel and cut off the end of the cucumber, just the tip, in a covenant with dinner.  Then I take the cucumber firmly in my fist and roll down the plastic wrap and snicker. Finally, I get out the grater, and gripping the cucumber shaft in my hand, I drag the end over and over across it, making a nice pile of shredded cuke. I like to start slowly and then build up speed and then slow down again and then go fast and hard, until you have about a cup or so.  It ain’t rocket science; it’s just a shredded cucumber. No one is going to care if you have a quarter cup too much.

Be sure to squeeze out the extra juice from the shredded cuke before you add it to the Greek yogurt.  Add some minced garlic, a little salt and pepper, and some dried oregano and parsley. Those would be better fresh but I ain’t cooking for the queen. One of my kids won’t even try the shit even though she loves everything in it. Is my family worth the fresh herbs? Not on a school night.  Cover all that mess and stick it back in the refrigerator.  

After all that dancing and shredding and marinating, it’s time for a nap.

When you are ready to eat, have someone else grill the chicken and put out some pita bread along with the sauce. Make one of your kids set the table. Get the other kid to put out the sauce. There bitches, dinner’s ready.

Another easy way to make this meal is to go to any Greek restaurant and pick it up. There is a Greek restaurant on every corner, probably across from the Starbucks.  It’ll probably come with some salad too, or maybe a pickle slice and an olive. Opa!

I am so tired of cooking dinner.

Less Talking, More Rubbing

My massage therapist quit. It’s almost as tough as a break-up. I know it was him, not me, but still, I must move past him and find another one to take his place. If you think about it, finding a new masseuse is about as difficult as finding a new boyfriend. You have to trust this new person enough to get naked and let him or her touch your body, to help you relax, or to work out your most hidden pockets of pain. It is not a relationship to take lightly.

The best way to find that someone new is Groupon. At least if it doesn’t work out, I didn’t pay full price. This applies only to the massage therapist. You’re on your own for the new boyfriend part. I don’t even know how to find an old boyfriend.

Last week, I went for a massage to the salon where this Groupon massage therapist works. I should have known something was a little off about the place for a couple of reasons. First, I have never noticed  the salon before even though I drive by it at least three times a week. Second, the entire parking lot was filled with Buicks and Toyota Avalons and even a Lincoln or two. I went inside and knew from the smell that something was up.

Do you remember way back when you would go to a salon and the entire place reeked of that pissy permanent solution? Well, that’s what this place smelled like, a combination of formaldehyde and urine. Yes, I had stumbled into some sort of underground blue hair salon. Every chair was taken with elderly women getting their weekly shampoo and set.  Old ladies were under heated dome dryers or had heads full of plastic curlers. The cackling and coughing were as overpowering at the stench.
You know how at Disney World, they have a little parking area for strollers? Well, this place had the same thing, only for walkers and wheelchairs. There was a line for the restroom. I could feel my ovaries drying up as I sat in the waiting area.

How did they all know about this place? I kind of got why I might not have heard of it, but is there some sort of secret senior network that distributes this kind of information? It sure as hell wasn’t on my Groupon voucher; “consider this your senior discount” wasn’t anywhere in the small print.

My massage therapist came out to greet me, and I was pleased to see she looked so spry. She escorted me to the room and went over my paperwork before getting down to business. The room looked like a Hobby Lobby vomited all over it. Ornate crosses, reproduction prints of the Sistine Chapel, more crosses, inspirational quotes. At least none of the crosses were burning. Even the background music sounded sort of hymn-like. I didn’t know if she was a very devout Christian or thought the majority of her clients were, but all that crossy cross made me more than a little uncomfortable.

She asked about my health history and then excused herself while I disrobed and got on the table. She came back in and began my massage, making small talk in a way I prefer my massage therapists not do. First, she started talking about getting a higher degree. I asked in what field, and she told me she was working towards a doctorate in metaphysical science.

What does one say to that? Wow, you are getting a higher degree in the science of everything not science? Is that online or is there an actual institute of higher learning where one can earn such a degree? If it is online, is there a graduation ceremony?  Instead, I mumbled something about not knowing much about metaphysics, which is true, I don’t. I’m not up on all my New Age quackery.

But no matter, she seemed pretty well versed in it, which I discovered when the small talk veered off to a discussion about our children. We were comparing stories about our kids, in a getting to know you, not my kids are better than your kids sort of way. I was talking about how artistic my daughters are, with one of them studying guitar and piano while the other likes piano and ballet. We talked about their personalities, and how school is for our kids, and then she said to me, “I bet your girls are indigo children.”

Not knowing what that meant, I chose to stay silent. After all, she was working on her doctorate in metaphysical science. She probably had coursework in it.

“Do you know about the indigo children?” she asked me.

“I do not,” I said.

“Well, Google it when you get a chance. I bet your children are indigos.”

When I got home, I got right on my desktop and looked up indigochildren.  Guess what? It is a New Age thing, but mainstream enough that CNN covered it in the past few years. Basically, it can be used to describe a whole gaggle of kids, ranging from the artistic and sensitive types to the kids who talk to dead people and bend spoons with their brains.

 When my daughters got home from school, I asked them if they ever saw dead people. They indicated they had not, although my older daughter said she did see a dead deer on the side of the road on the drive home. She didn’t sound all that sensitive when she said it.

I'm sure Groupon will have another massage deal tomorrow.

More than Meets the Eye

Don’t you hate when you get something stuck in your eye? Not like a stick, but more like an eyelash. Honestly, I can’t imagine having something like a stick, when a thin little hair is painful enough. Part of why it bothers me so much is because I am a hard contact wearer.

Most people who wear contacts are lucky enough to wear the comfortable soft kind, the ones you can easily dispose of or replace. They are moist and comfortable, or so I hear. Me? Well, after years of being one of those people, I just couldn’t see anymore. My options were to wear glasses all the time and have mildly impaired vision or to go gas permeable and learn to live with the pain. My eye doctor at the time described wearing hard lenses as having a bottle cap stuck under your eyelid, only not that comfortable.

Honestly, hard contact lenses aren’t that painful. After a week or so of adjusting, I hardly noticed them anymore, unless my eyes were dry or I had something in my eye. The problem is, my eyes are always dry, and when they aren’t, I have something in them. I spend a portion of every day blinking like I have a tic or the creepiest wink ever. No one has ever said my eye thing is disturbing, but I have a feeling that is out of courtesy or just plain awkwardness.

What I am trying to say is, I always have something in my eye. It's not just an occasional irritant; it is part of my daily life. If I’m at the beach, it’s sand. If I am in the woods, it’s whatever the wind blew under my eyelid. And if I’m at home, it’s a hair. An eyelash, an eyebrow hair, it doesn’t matter. One time I even had a long head hair wrapped around my eye.

Think about that for a minute….it was wrapped around my eye. Do you have one of those boiled egg slicers? If so, you remember what it looks like when you stick a hard boiled egg in it and lower the slicer thingy, and right before it cuts through the egg, it has a bulgy appearance, the tension forming a meniscus on the egg's surface before it slices clean. That’s what the head hair around my eye looked like, at least to my other eye that was looking at it.

When I woke up this morning, my left eye was irritated. I walked to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. This examination was pre contact insertion, so I had my glasses on. I can see with my glasses, but not well. It might be legal to drive in them, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Anyway, when I looked in the mirror, lo and behold, my left eye was all swollen and puffy, and not just my normal morning eye bag puffiness. This was allergic reaction swollen, the kind that would make strangers recoil, the kind that would make children point and scream, the kind that gets you whisked into an exam room at the ophthalmologist’s office.

I took my glasses off and pressed my face up against the mirror so I could see what was going on in my eye. I tugged a little on my lower lid and saw the end of a cat hair hanging out on my eye. Bingo, I thought. No wonder it looks like I’m having an allergy attack, because I am.

Yes, I am allergic to cats. I like them; they are furry and cute and strangely affectionate and clingy, and they bury their own poo. But my body treats them like the enemy if we get too close. Cat licks on my neck produce red welts like I’ve been whupped with a leather strop. An unfortunate and absolutely accidental cat scratch results in a raised weal that rivals the Continental Divide. And a hair in the eye, well, it looks like I need a battered woman’s shelter.

I pulled down on my eyelid to try to extract the offending cat hair from my eye socket, but it turns out it wasn’t a cat hair. It was a clump of cat hair, a hair ball, if you will. I didn’t go to sleep with that fur wad in my eye, but I sure woke up with it. How does one get something like that in an eye during a fitful night of sleep? Did I sleep-groom my kitties? Did the cat plant it during my altered state of consciousness?

You know that magicians' trick where they pull a handkerchief out of their pocket and it just keeps coming out, one after another, all knotted together like one unending colorful scarf? That’s what my cat hair wad was, a never-ending third rate magic trick. I just kept pulling out hairs, all knotted together. It was about a kitten's worth of hair, not unlike the tumbleweeds of cat fur that roll across my hardwood floors.

After sleeping with the offending clump of hair under my lid for a solid six to seven hours, thank you Jesus for the night’s sleep, my eye was swollen to the size of a giant squid’s. Have you seen one of those? They’re fucking huge.

And yes, I crammed a contact on top of it.