Just What I've Always Wanted

Did you get everything you wanted for Christmas? Yeah, me neither.

 I hate to sound ungrateful, but after a few trips around the sun, I have a pretty good sense of what I like, what I need, what I use, and what I appreciate. I do enjoy a surprise now and again, but at the same token, I am pretty expressive and have an inability to hide my feelings. My polite thank you is usually cancelled out by my face.

I come from a family of list-makers, and as such, we tend to make wish lists for birthday and holiday gifts. It makes life easier for everyone. You know if you get me something from the list, I will be happy, and you also know that you have not wasted your time and effort on something that may be returned or hidden somewhere until the appropriate amount of time passes before I can donate it to charity or regift it.

I realize the same handling applies to the gifts I give other people. I make a solid effort to think about what someone would like or use before I buy it because I want the recipient to be happy. I don’t give gifts out of obligation; I give them out of affection.

I’m really pretty easy to please because I like to be remembered. I also have a different set of expectations from close family members than for friends. And when it comes to my husband, well, I kind of wish he would just stick to the list.

This year, like most years, I wrote out my Christmas gift wish list. I didn’t have a ton of things I really wanted, which is great, because my husband and I decided not to buy each other presents. For the past few years, we have used Christmas as the occasion to take care of major things around the house. One year, it was a new light fixture for the foyer. Another, we redid most of the kitchen. Last year, we celebrated the birth of your savior with new garage doors.

For Christmas this year, we opted to replace our sectional sofa, but with the annual holiday break at the factory, we knew our gift would not be ready on time. We decided to get a few things to open to make the day feel special and set a budget limit that we both promptly ignored. I asked for a gift certificate for a massage, a better waffle iron that you flip and flip back like the ones in the 3-star hotel lobby breakfast bars, and Botox for my crow’s feet.

My husband asked for what he always asks for,nothing. I got him a cotton throw to match the new couch, a copy of his favorite holiday movie, and a new pair of ridiculously expensive sneakers to replace his worn-out ones that he still slaps around in after almost half a decade.

Cut to Christmas morning. The girls opened their gifts and enjoyed just about everything. My husband loved his blanket, was less than thrilled with the sneakers, and puzzled by the movie because he thought he already had it, which he did not, for the record. I loved my massage gift certificate. And then he had me open a huge wrapped box that sat lonely under the tree.

When I looked inside the shipping box, I had no idea what it was. I saw a manual with Japanese characters on it, and lots of packing material. There was also a large, round thing that looked pretty high tech.

“Do you know what it is?” he asked me.

“A Roomba?” I asked. I was really confused because I did not ask for a Roomba. I am not a stickler for a well-vacuumed house, and I doubted my ability to train my cat to ride it.
“Guess again!” He was so excited.
I looked a little closer and realized it had an almost oval shape, and a lid. “Is it a toilet seat?”
“Not just any toilet seat!” He could not contain himself.
“Is this one of those fancy Japanese toilet seats?” I asked.
“It’s a bidet! Remember when you said you wanted a bidet?”

Truth be told, I didn’t remember saying that, but clearly he did. He remembered it so well that it stuck in his mind for months until it was time to buy me something really special.

“Are you surprised? “He asked me.

“Incredibly,” I replied.

We finished opening all the gifts and went on to enjoy Christmas music and some fabulous cinnamon rolls. The toilet seat sat in its box, forgotten for the time being.

In the afternoon, I talked with my friend, MJS. We had that whole “what did you get” conversation. She told me about her haul, and then I told her about my toilet seat. MJS works with an assisted living community. She knew all about my toilet seat.

“We have lots of residents who have those installed before they move in,” she told me. “It’s great! All the residents should have them. When you get old, your accuracy starts to wane.”
“They miss the bowl?” I asked.
“Let me put it like this: it beats shit under your fingernails,” she replied.

A few days later, my husband offered to install it for me. “If you really like it, I can have an electrician come to the house to put a new outlet near the toilet.”

“This thing has to be plugged in?” I said.
“Well, it can’t very well run on batteries,” he said.

I don’t know why, but it never occurred to me it was electric. Perhaps it was because I didn’t know all that much about it.

“What does it do, anyway?” I asked. It was easier to have him tell me than to make the effort to read the manual myself.

“It does everything! It can heat up.”
“I don’t like a hot toilet seat. It disturbs me to know someone else sat there before me.”
“Well, it does other things too. It has a remote control and dual cleansing nozzles, for the front and the back.”
“At the same time? Dual action?”
“No, of course not. It also has a feminine hygiene setting.”
“I am supposed to douche with my toilet seat? Hand me that manual,” I said. “What is this? Pulsating action? Am I supposed to go the bathroom or get off on it?”
He grabbed the manual back. “It has a setting for kids too.”
“In case they have not yet been sexually abused by the toilet seat? To kind of loosen them up, break them in?”
He ignored that last comment. “It’s not a toilet seat. It’s a bidet. It can also air dry your holes.”
“Great. I always wanted someone to blow smoke up my ass. I guess this is the next best thing.”
“See? I told you you wanted one,” my husband said.

For now, the toilet seat is still in the box. My cats take turns sitting on and in the box every day. One of these days, we will get around to installing it and taking it for a test drive. I haven’t pushed the issue because it’s too damn complicated and also, to be honest, I am a little bit scared of it.

Out of Courtesy

Have you seen the news coverage of the brawls at malls all across the country? We have come to expect a melee at Walmart on Black Friday, but out and out mob violence at the local shopping center on the day after Christmas seems to be yet another new low for the US. It wasn’t just a mall or two; 12 malls in different parts of the country had to shut down to stop the clashes.

This level of discord is a concrete sign of the disconnect we have in our politics, our lifestyles, our wealth, really any area in which we can differ. With all the talk we have had about hope and tolerance and acceptance and coexistence, all we have really seemed to unite about is being against one another.

At the core of our dissonance is what I consider to be one of the key issues: a lack of civility. We are no longer a civilized society. We used to at least pretend to be polite to one another. We might have occasionally let someone in front of us in traffic. We would try to find patience in line at the grocery store. Hell, we used to wait in line. Now, we have devolved from a community with a sense of belonging to isolated beings with no regard for our fellow humans.

About a month ago, my daughter, E, stood at the crosswalk by her high school. There is a school crossing sign on the side of the road but no crossing guard to help older students safely walk from one side to the other. When E stepped into the road and walked, one car didn’t stop until it was mere inches from hitting her. She crossed the street in a clearly marked space during school hours when drivers should slow down and certainly stop for pedestrians, but that’s also a thing we don’t do anymore. So she was almost hit by the car.

The driver, who had to slam on her brakes, was also a high school student, a sophomore with a learning permit. Her mother was in the passenger seat next to her, ostensibly to offer guidance. The student put down her window and yelled at E.

 

This is what she said, with her mother next to her: What the fuck are you doing?

My daughter stood in the road, still shaking from her near miss. E didn’t respond verbally, but she did give the girl the finger. I have talked to E about flipping people off. It is one of those gestures that just makes people flip their shit. There is no turning back from the finger. She didn’t defiantly raise her hand in the air. She kept it discreetly by her side, where you would have to look closely to see it was an obscene gesture and not a nervous tic. The mother saw my daughter’s middle finger for what it was.

 

She leaned across the car and yelled this: Don’t you ever do that to my daughter again or I will fucking rape you in the ass.

My daughter told me this story when she got home from school that afternoon. E was still upset, not so much that she was almost hit by a car because that is an almost daily occurrence. She could not believe a mother, seated next to her own daughter, would yell such a vile thing to another female child. It was so shocking to both of us. I didn’t even know what to tell her, other than to stop flipping off people. Short of taking out her phone to record the incident or to snap a photo of the license plate, she really didn’t have any options.

We spent a week or so saying it to each other, to take some of the power out of the words. Do the laundry or I’ll fucking rape you in the ass. Pack your lunch or I’ll fucking rape you in the ass. Make your bed or I’ll…you get the idea. Humor, however inappropriate, took away a bit of the sting.

Here’s my point. If we are a society where women are comfortable threatening children with anal rape for crossing the street at a crosswalk in a school zone, then we are most definitely a society that will fight over a half-price hoodie at the mall. We will say whatever we want to strangers on the Internet. We will get ours before they get theirs. We believe we are entitled, more so than the other people may think that they are the entitled ones. It turns our that we are all wrong.

We may not like the outcome of the presidential election. We may not think life is fair. We may not worship the same, or any, god. We may believe respect is earned and not demanded. Can’t we at least agree to the golden rule? Can we not treat others as we would like to be treated? Can we not make an effort to find the common ground or at least follow some semblance of orderly politeness?

I, for one, make an effort in little ways. I observe yield signs and red lights.  I wait my turn for service at restaurants and in stores. I teach my children to be kind, not judgmental. It sure would be swell if some more of us could try a little kindness and a little less complaining. A touch of civility could be the secret to making our society better. It certainly couldn’t hurt, and it won’t cost any of us a thing.

Soup's On!

Are you enjoying this holiday season, or are you feeling the stress? If you are having a week like mine, you are probably doing a bit of both. Like many of my mixed-up friends, my family celebrates both Chanukah and Christmas. This year the lunar and Gregorian calendar collide, and the first night of Chanukah shares the spotlight with Christmas Eve. For those of us who overdo, it’s a level of excess unlike any we’ve seen in recent years.

I’m hosting my older sister and nephews this season and decided to make a nice Jewish dinner on Christmas Eve. I made two kinds of rugelach a few days ago rather than attempting homemade jelly donuts, also known as the difficult to pronounce sufganiyot. I even made my own applesauce to go with the potato latkes that will grace my table.

All we really want to eat is latkes. They are crisp and greasy and salty and truly delightful. They also sit in your gut, daring you to digest them, while you wonder why we celebrate a minor Jewish holiday by eating the equivalent of a Waffle House side dish. We have to have something else to balance out those potato pancakes, and I thought matzoh ball soup and a salad might help move things along.

I like to make my own stock. I don’t do anything unusual. I am not browning fatty backs and wings to bring out the flavor. I do not roast my onions and carrots to a delicious caramel before adding them. I just kick it old school with my chicken, veggies, seasonings, and water and let the whole pot simmer away on the stove.

With all the extra food in the house for the double holiday, I didn’t have room in my refrigerator for a big stock pot. I do have an extra fridge in the garage that is usually stocked with beer and old sodas that no one wants to drink. When we have company or holiday meals, our food overflow goes in the outside fridge. I had my husband rearrange his odd assortment of beer to make room for my stock pot and, interestingly enough, a honey baked ham that I plan to serve alongside the turkey breast for Christmas dinner. We don’t keep kosher, but we are also not big ham fans. Chances are good that thing is going to see the trash can Christmas night, minus a slice or two.

After the stock finished cooking, I let it cool for a little while before removing the chicken and pouring the broth through a strainer to remove the tired, old veggies that gave their all to the cause. With the stock safely transferred to another pot, it was ready to go in the outside fridge. I carefully lifted the pot of hot chicken stock and carried it towards the garage door. My daughter, S, held the door for me and scurried down the short flight of brick stairs to open the fridge door.

I took a step or two, and my heel caught on the third step.

Have you ever noticed that when you fall, you feel like it happens in slow motion? I lost my balance and fell back oh so slowly, trying to figure out a way to break my fall without spilling the stock on my daughter or myself. Make no mistake, that broth was simmering away mere minutes before. It was still plenty hot and ready to do some damage.

I fell down, landing hard on my butt and scraping my calf on the brick steps. I would like to say I didn’t spill a drop of soup, but I did. I spilled three drops. S was terrified, but honestly, other than the scratch on my leg, I was fine. I saved myself and the broth.

I perfected the art of falling with food when I was nine. A friend of mine had invited me to join her family on their boat, and we stopped at a sandy spot along a creek to play on rafts and have lunch. Her father grilled hot dogs for everyone, and I got it in my head that I wanted to eat mine in the small inflatable boat they had tied to the pontoon. It was moving gently with the current, and when I turned around to plop down in the middle, I fell, missing the little boat entirely. I landed hard in the water, in over my head. Somehow, I managed to save my hot dog, my right hand clutching it high in the air above the water’s surface.

That’s how I felt, holding that pot of hot broth. I was triumphant over tragedy, saving the soup, dodging what could have been not only an unfortunate loss of homemade stock, but also narrowly avoiding a severe burn a few days before Christmas Eve. It was a Christmas and Chanukah miracle, all wrapped into one clumsy fall.

Enjoy whatever holiday you want, however you choose to celebrate it. Maybe yours will cross over like mine, with a pot of matzoh ball soup right next to the honey baked ham in the fridge.

Empty Handed

I didn’t win the lottery.

To be honest, I didn’t really expect to win, but the Powerball had reached a ridiculous over 400 million dollars, and someone, at some point, was going to claim a buttload of Benjamins. Why not me? Why not my family? Why not now?

The Saturday after Thanksgiving was the last big Powerball, and my husband said in passing that we ought to get a lottery ticket. We were at the beach for the holiday, and we planned to drive home on a Friday. Our drive would take us by interstate and by small rural 2-lane roads, which meant we had the opportunity to pull over to a truck stop in the middle of nowhere and buy some tickets. It always seems the big winners get their tickets in some heretofore unheard of dead end, so there was precedence for our theory.

I want to throw out a disclaimer here about my life, which is, for all practical purposes, pretty damn cushy. I don’t work full time. We live quite comfortably. Our needs are met, and we have enough to travel and have nice things. I do appreciate what I have. We are very fortunate, and for the most part, I am generous and not materialistic.

At the same token, I would like to be able to do, well, more. My daughters will soon be in college, and how nice would it be to not have to worry about how to pay for their education? What if we had enough extra money to fix up the stuff we have been putting off around the house? What if we could take a trip to Disney World before Christmas? I recognize that I do not need over 400 million dollars. I would have been happy with a cool million, enough to handle that wish list and have a little left over to share with others in a charitable way. A million doesn’t go as far as it used to, you know.

We did go to Disney World before Christmas a few years ago, when at least one of our kids was still considered a child by Disney age guidelines. It was traditionally a slow week, which meant lower hotel rates and a free Disney dining plan. Airline tickets were a tad more affordable because we had more competition in our market. The temperatures were perfect for amusement, and the crowds were small, and we could ride almost every ride more than once without having to Fast Pass or wait in line. We refer to that as the Good Old Days.

Now my kids are considered adults, and there is no off-season, and we don’t have that kind of money to blow on an extra vacation just because it would be fun. I miss the Good Old Days.

So, yeah, I was thinking about college, but really, I wanted to go to Disney World. We stopped at a gas station between two towns, the names of which are irrelevant and instantly forgettable. My husband stayed outside to pump premium gas into my European crossover SUV, while my daughter, S, and I went inside the convenience store to purchase snacks and drinks and five dollars’ worth of lottery tickets.

After grabbing a bag of Bugles, our preferred car snack, and selecting the most disgusting version of Mountain Dew currently on the market, which according to my spouse is the grape-flavored Pitch Black, we walked up to the counter to pay.

“Is that all?” the cashier asked me.

“No, I would also like to buy some lottery tickets,” I told her.

This was the second time in my adult life I have purchased lottery tickets. Any other time we had a wild hair to lose some money, my husband was the one who did the deed. I don’t know the protocol for playing the lottery, as everyone near me was about to discover.

“What do you want?” the cashier said.

“I would like five tickets, please. And make them Powerball,” I said.

"Ten dollars.” she said.

I hesitated a moment, trying to understand how my five tickets turned into a ten dollar purchase. Then I remembered the Powerball part was an extra buck a ticket.

“That’s fine,” I said, and handed her my credit card.

"Numbers?”

“Hmm? Oh, um, I’d like quick pick please.”

She printed out a small receipt and put it on the counter. “Cash,” she said. Her irritation with me was visible.

“Excuse me,” I said.

“Cash, not credit. You can’t charge lottery tickets.”

Did you know you cannot buy lottery tickets with a credit card? I sure didn’t. I took my wallet out of my moderately overpriced name brand handbag and dug around. I found two crumpled dollar bills and some pennies.

“I don’t have ten dollars,” I said. “Is it all right to wait and let my daughter run out to the car? S, go tell your father I need ten dollars to play the lottery.” I spoke those words. The whole thing was really happening. I was, in fact, this person.

A small line formed behind me. The cashier sighed and looked at me. The other cashier quickly handled the purchases of the other people waiting.

S came back inside with some money from my husband. “Here you go,” I told her, handing her the bill. “I’m sorry about that.”

She took my money and pushed the receipt in my direction. I grabbed it and our other stuff and went back to the car with S trailing behind me.

“I don’t think we are going to win, if the purchase experience is any indication,” I told my husband, handing him the slip.

“Everyone knows you can’t buy lottery tickets with cash,” he said.

“Apparently not everyone,” I said to him.

Two days later, the lottery numbers were announced, and out of our five tickets, we won four dollars for hitting the Powerball number. It was the only number out of all the numbers for the five lottery tickets that matched. Our four dollar win meant we only lost six dollars, so I guess that’s some sort of consolation. We planned on using our winnings to buy more lottery tickets. I think that’s how gambling works.

In case you were wondering, one person did win the entire over four hundred million dollars. One. Single. Person. I think it was a woman in Michigan. I don’t know what she is going to do with all that money, but I hope she goes to Disney World before Christmas.

Coming Right up

My younger daughter, S, told me yesterday that she has never seen a performance of The Nutcracker. I have to admit, I was floored at her announcement because I’ve seen it at least seven times now, as have my husband and my older daughter, E.  It has become a holiday tradition of sorts for the three of us to have a lovely dinner downtown and see the show.

S has never sat in the audience; instead, she has been up on the stage. For seven of the past eight years, S danced in a variety of roles. She has been a little mouse, a party girl, a toy soldier, a toy soldier on horseback, an angel, and a big mouse. Well, twice on the big mouse, and believe me, she is still disappointed about it. She has been on pointe and in ballet shoes. She has had her hair curled and her face covered with a mouse head. The one year she missed was due to an injury, and she volunteered to help with the production even when she could not perform.

The Nutcracker is a huge commitment for everyone involved. Auditions are generally held at the end of summer, and practices take place every weekend for months until that one weekend in December. There are many families way more involved and committed to the experience than mine, but we each contribute in some way to make it work.

Honestly, I love to watch the show. I love dressing up and going out and sitting in that slightly uncomfortable concert hall seat. I love when the lights dim and the musicians play. I love the grandeur, and the tradition, and I love when I see my child take the stage for roughly five minutes, knowing that she will have this special experience of realizing the reward of her hard work and dedication as well as the thrill of taking the stage with professionals from around the world for an audience of over 3,000 people.

This year, my sister, LK, joined us to watch the show. After our delicious dinner, we went to the concert hall and took our seats. We had good seats too, almost in the middle of the row, closer to the front, a great spot to see all the action. The first act went off without a hitch, and I was impressed as always by the quality of the performance.

After a twenty-minute intermission, the second act began. I love the second act because that’s when all the trippy stuff happens in the Land of Sweets. Spanish, Arabian, Chinese, and Russian dancers all perform, and the music and choreography and costumes are mesmerizing. Indeed, we were all engrossed when it happened.

Sometime during the Arabian or Chinese dances, we heard this horrible sound. It came from two rows behind us, and it was like a splash, only human. A human splash. It wasn’t a sneeze or a cough; in fact, it was so unusual a sound to hear in public that at first we didn’t know what to make of it.

About thirty seconds later, it became aromatically clear that the sound we heard was, in fact, the spew of vomit. My sister is notoriously phobic about vomit, and E is almost as bad, so the fact that the two of them were in such close proximity to someone else’s puke and powerless to flee made all three of us anxious. We had to turn around repeatedly to see if it was directly behind us. The large man seated in that row may have been targeted. He had an awkward look on his face and moved around, unsure if he should stay seated or get up and leave. We took comfort in knowing it was at least a row away.

We covered our noses with our fingers, but seriously, the smell. E, who was not in the greatest of moods, courtesy of being seventeen, decided there was no way she could sit through the rest of the show. She did that thing where she would start to stand and then sit and then sort of squat because she didn’t want to be rude, but really, it was too late for that, all the while with that look on her face that showed her contempt for other people and crowds and bodily functions. I told her to go, and so she did.

At that point, my sister took E’s seat. Apparently, the woman next to her made the mistake of putting her purse on the floor, as well as the bottoms of her shoes. LK leaned into me and we covered our faces with our collars because our fingers alone were not enough of a filter. On my other side, my husband sat and watched the show, oblivious to the panic and disgust we were experiencing. He later said he could smell it but chose to ignore it. I insist that smelling vomit is not a choice.

With E gone and LK next to me, we turned back to the show, and damn if we didn’t miss almost all of the Chinese and Russian dancing. After a bit, the smell dissipated, or we adjusted like my husband, but we were able to make it through all of act two and curtain bows.

We met up with E in the lobby. She told us that after cleaning the soles of her shoes in the restroom, she sat on a bench by herself. Soon after, an older woman sat next to her, even though all the other benches were empty. She held in her hand a large trash bag, inside of which was her vomit-covered coat. She gave E a sheepish look, and E got up and moved to another bench.

I debated asking for a refund for E’s ticket. The seats were over 55 a head, and she was too grossed out to see the entire show. I also thought for about a minute or two that they should have turned on the lights and thrown some cat litter or baking soda all over that puke, but the show, as they say, must go on. There was nothing to do but sit and watch.

After congratulating S on another successful show, we spent the drive home discussing what would cause a grown woman not to get up and leave if she felt that she was going to be sick. She certainly wasn’t a child who may not understand that nauseated feeling, but an adult? And in a formal theatre? Again, it wasn’t a heavy metal show or a football game; it was the motherfucking ballet. Have some class, people.

I wanted to have some sympathy for the woman. She didn’t set out to ruin everyone’s evening. She didn’t feel well, and for whatever reason, she wasn’t able to leave before she got sick. But then I thought about the audition and all those Saturdays of practice and the hundreds of dollars spent for everyone to watch the show, and I decided no.

You ruined more than your own night; you ruined the performance for at least two rows of people. You made me miss the Chinese dance. Perhaps you should stay home and watch it on DVD, or, at the very least, bring a discreet bag with you. Pick an aisle seat maybe. Wait and eat after the show. Go to a different show, maybe Disney on Ice. I’m sure you won’t be the only one puking there.

A Little Bit of Pixie Dust

I haven’t written a blog in almost two months, and my silence is weighing heavily on my mind. It’s not that I haven’t had stories to tell, because there is always a story. It’s really a combination of things. They fit together like a puzzle that disappoints when you place that last piece, when you don’t have a sense of accomplishment, just the realization you have wasted your time.

The primary reason I haven’t blogged is my freelance work producing web content. I spend most of my days writing, just not writing anything fun. Now, if you are interested in the benefits of metal roofing or storage units or replacing your windows, then I’ve got you covered.

I do have to be creative to make boring topics semi-interesting, and I have to do it on strict deadlines and formats and word counts. I am writing more than ever, but none of it makes me feel very good, and it barely adds loose change to my pocket. The few cents a word helps to cover the occasional dinner out or birthday gift or shoe splurge, and I am gaining what I hope will be valuable experience, and so I persist.

In addition to not having as much time or as many creative sparks, I am struggling to find humor in the every day. This is a tough one for me, because laughing is my favorite. But ever since November 8, things just don’t seem so laughable anymore. Now, every day brings another brick of sadness and hurt. My disillusionment has become the existence of so many like-minded people, when every day I want to see what’s happening in our country and the world, and we sink lower than the day before. It’s a pretty hopeless feeling, and I can’t shake it.

Part of it is that what used to amuse me seems so trivial now, as if I am wasting time on frivolity that could be better spent bearing witness to the shit show into which our political system and government has devolved. Also, things seem personal now, and hurtful, and laughing at weird news feels cruel and sadistic. We have real problems to address, but now, we cannot rely on those in charge to weigh things like facts and reason and logic before making decisions. I feel a responsibility to pay attention even if I am powerless to do anything, and all that paying attention is exhausting.

I grew up in a less than happy home. My main coping mechanism was humor. It helped me survive a pretty rough childhood, and it’s been there like a touchstone throughout my adult life. Now, I feel deserted, and alone, and scared, and at a loss. I don’t know how to cope without an ability to find comedy in tragedy. Without the humor, it’s just pain.

I have been feeling like this for weeks, and I have hesitated to express it. I don’t want to sound melodramatic and fragile. I live a pretty nice life now. I am fortunate. The social issues that matter to me do not necessarily affect me directly, and I know I am lucky. People like me who are not in survival mode are exactly the ones who need to stand up for people who can’t for whatever reason do it for themselves. Maybe it’s the reform Jew in me, or the intellectual, or just the sensitive soul I am, but the compassion I wanted for myself when I was a child is what I now share with others in whatever small way I can. I am disheartened because it doesn’t feel like it’s enough to make a difference for anyone.

I am writing this now, at the beginning of December, when I normally try to write and post 12 blogs, my annual Twelve Blogs of Christmas. I have been trying to meet this goal I set for myself every year at a time when we are all feeling both the joy and stress of the holidays. This time of year is especially busy in my home. From October to January, it’s one celebration after another. Halloween, my older daughter’s birthday, Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, and my younger daughter’s birthday. Throw in a good football season, and we have the makings of a mental breakdown’s worth of to-do lists and preparations. That’s a fuckton of work to be done, my friends.

In a good month, I may post two or three blogs, which as of late has dwindled to none. And now, at the start of December, I want to meet my goal. I want to take twelve moments out of my life or out of my mind, where I do most of my living anyway, and write them all down and share them with you. I can’t promise they are all going to be funny, but hopefully, they will be relatable. Who knows, maybe together, we can find a reason to get up every day and keep going in a pretty hopeless time. For me, it will be writing. For you, I have no idea, but maybe, just maybe, it will be reading.

For what it’s worth, this counts as number one. Eleven more to go. I would say game on, but I really hate that expression. Instead, I’ll leave you with this…HERE WE GO! Please read that in Peter Pan’s voice, because that’s how it sounds in my head.

Oh, the Horror

My teenage daughter, S, is solidly in her horror movie phase. Luckily, she doesn’t want to watch the gory movies because I would not be able to participate. I can’t butcher a chicken without feeling queasy, and even fake blood can make my stomach turn. She and I much prefer the kind of suspense that makes you watch from between your fingers or through the weave of a blanket, my preferred viewing method. I have seen more scary movies over the past year than I did in the previous forty-odd, but I suck it up in order to spend time with my lovely child, periodically shrieking and knocking over popcorn.

The good news is I am not nearly as frightened as I used to be. I am able to walk down the hall alone and use the bathroom by myself. I can even look in the mirror, and I don’t have to turn on all the lights. The bad news? I fear, between the constant creepy movies and the daily news, we may have become jaded. We don’t seem to scare quite as easily as we once did, yet the real world provides enough terror without having to search for it as entertainment.

A few months ago, my girls and I were at the beach for a long weekend. We brought along one of S’s beloved friends, AH, who shares S’s passion for spooky movies. We had gone out for dinner and decided to stop at a Redbox, one of those DVD vending rental machines, on the way back to the condo for a night of thrills and chills. My other daughter, E, stayed in the car in the Kroger parking lot because she has not only outgrown horror movies, she also insists she cannot sit still for over 90 minutes, even though she does it every day at school.

AH, S, and I stood in the fading sunlight by the outdoor Redbox kiosk, trying to agree on a movie. The usual underage degenerates squatted nearby on the bench, probably waiting to approach a sketchy adult to ask for an illegal beer purchase. We ignored them and got down to the business of selecting a movie, which was scary enough on its own. Three people trying to agree on anything? Someone could end up in a body bag.

As I scrolled through the titles, I read them aloud. Ouija Board? Stupid, they said. The Forest?Already seen it. The Visit? More funny than scary.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?  No, just no.

I made my case for the zombie movie. E was in the process of reading her first Jane Austin book for school, and I thought the movie would be great if she didn’t finish it in time, kind of like SparkNotes. S and AH thought it looked boring and stupid and definitely not scary.

I had the feeling we weren’t alone anymore. The little neck hairs stood up, telling me to turn around.

Directly behind the two girls, these young, vulnerable teenagers, stood a middle-aged man, reeking of alcohol. He sported a tank top and a leathery tan, an overgrown mustache, and some seriously bloodshot eyes.

He practically leaned into them, and he mumbled, “Whhaa arrre we playin’?”

“Excuse me?” I said.

He took a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket. “I gaaa a dollar for the nex’ game,” he said, and tried to push past us to shove a dollar into the Redbox.

I put my hand up in the universal Stop and Back the Fuck Up position. “Sir,” I said loudly. “This is a movie stand, and we are selecting a movie. You will need to step back until we have finished and then you can have a turn.”

S and AH were paralyzed with fear, eyes bulging and unblinking.“Don’t move a muscle,” I whispered through my teeth at them.

The man lurched closer and continued to slur his words in our direction and wave his sweaty dollar bill around. Finally, another intoxicated man came over and hauled him away, over to the rough-looking teenagers who thought they just won the jackpot. I glared at him until I was comfortable enough to turn back to the Redbox.

“Pride and Prejudice and Zombies it is,” I said to the girls. “We are not spending another second picking out a movie.” I swiped my credit card and grabbed the DVD, and we race walked back to the car, where E was waiting for us.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she greeted us warmly. “Where’s the fire?”

“Did you see that guy walk up to us?” I asked her.

S and AH both talked rapidly, over each other, to explain to E what had transpired at the Redbox.

E pointed at the man. “That guy?” she asked.

“Yes, him. God, he’s drunk,” I said.

“He smelled horrible,” S said, “like old beer bottles and raw onions.”

“And pee,” AH added.

“He just pulled up in that car over there,” E said. “He was the driver.”

The movie wasn’t very scary, but after the Redbox drunk, nothing fictional would have frightened us. I only hoped that when E had her test on Pride and Prejudice, she would throw in something about the zombies.

Collective Memories

15 years ago, the lives of almost 3,000 Americans were lost because of coordinated terror attacks. We could not have anticipated or prepared for such a horrific event; we could only respond with shock, with anger, with sadness, with fear, and ultimately, with distrust.

I don’t know if everyone remembers where they were that day. I remember. I had just dropped off my 20 month old at daycare. I was pregnant with child number two, my child who was born after 9/11. I went to Target, trying to get my errands finished early so I could go home and rest before I needed to pick up my daughter. Target was quiet, unusually quiet, even for an early morning. I walked around, throwing the items on my list into my cart. No one spoke to each other, as if we were all observing a moment of silence but we didn’t know why. I only knew that a plane crashed into one of the towers. I didn’t know that it was on purpose, or the first of four planes diverted.

I drove home and sat on the couch in front of the television. I flipped between several television channels for hours, watching the planes hit the towers, over and over again. I felt numb and alone, except for the child I was carrying, a child who would be born into a very different America than the one I knew as a child.

As we mourned the many losses we suffered that day, we became a different country. We gladly gave up a bit of personal freedom in the name of public safety. We were encouraged to turn in neighbors, to report suspicious behaviors. Our government patched together a plan, a reactive solution, and we reminded ourselves to never forget.

We reacted more, by removing shoes and nail clippers and shampoo bottles at the airport. We invaded countries that ultimately suffered worse at our hands than by their own. We demonized an entire religion based on a small percentage of evil people, and we turned fear into an American value.

What we did forget, in our goal of never forgetting, is what being free felt like. We lost our sense of hope and trust in other people. Our response as a nation centered on protecting ourselves from ever experiencing such terror again, yet we live with our own fear on a daily basis. I don’t know about you, but I am more frightened of the divisiveness and anger that has torn us apart than the possibility of another major violent attack.

Some other things we should never forget are other sad moments in our history. McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Japanese internment camps. Slavery. The Trail of Tears. We are not above committing some pretty heinous acts against each other as a country. How did we as a nation overcome them before? Where are those history lessons?

I don’t want to make America great again. I don’t know what that means. What I want is to feel safe and hopeful. I want my children to grow up without having active shooter drills at school or knowing where the closest exit is in the movie theater. I want us not to spend hours at the airport because we all have to take off our shoes, unless we want to pay more money for the privilege of keeping them on while skipping ahead in line. I want us to respect our police officers, but I also want them to rebuild community relationships. I want our leaders to be problem solvers, not finger pointers. I want us to all take a good, long look at our Constitution, not just the 2^nd amendment or part of the 1^st, and try to live by what we use as our guiding principles.

I want us all to do better, to be better people, to raise better children. Better isn’t about winning or making money; it’s about supporting one another, about showing kindness, about learning to trust, about listening instead of speaking, about thinking before acting. Better is when we all move ahead, instead of stepping on the backs of others to jockey for position. Is it a race, a contest, a journey? We all end up in the same place eventually, and I for one am not in a hurry to get there.

It is okay not to agree on everything. It is perfectly fine to discuss different ideas and not have a solution. It is one of the rights that we should exercise regularly.

I don’t know if the terrorists did this to us, or we did this to ourselves. We turned against each other. We suspended some of our core beliefs as a nation, and I don’t think we will ever be the same.

I know good people who do good things for others, and I cling to these examples to find my hope for the future. I try to teach my children to look for the good, and if they don’t see it, to be the good that other people see. I don’t know if that is enough to make a difference, but I like to think it is more effective than removing my shoes at the airport.

Progress, at What Cost?

As I was driving to Target yesterday, I passed a house that I always pass, but something was different. Along the road, at the corners of the property and next to the driveway, were tall wooden posts, the first signs of a fence that is being installed.

The fence made me sad. In a matter or days or weeks, depending on whether they are hiring someone or doing it themselves, that house and its surrounding yard will no longer be visible from the road.

I love to look at that house. It looks a bit like an out-in-the-country home, only new neighborhoods are encroaching on its isolated location. The house itself has some years on it. It has a front porch and is in need of a fresh coat of paint. I can picture a couple of cane-backed rocking chairs out there, but honestly, I have never noticed if they have rocking chairs. I may have missed my chance for clarification.

It’s not the house itself that draws my attention. It’s that magnificent yard. So much is happening out there. In one corner is an old RV, which may possibly be a room addition of sorts. There is a shed in the other corner, and in between, lots of things clutter the yard. There’s a crudely penned area on one side of the house, and in the back, what I think might be an above-ground pool.  Clothes lines, old bikes, a short windmill, mostly a bunch of junk, really, but not a bonafide junk yard. It’s the kind of yard that demands you pay attention, which so much to see, but no real sense of order. It would be fine in the country, which it used to be, but now, it looks a bit like an eyesore, probably more to the neighbors than to me. I find it fascinating.

The real reason I love the house is that I never know what animal I’m going to see in the front yard. I’m not talking dogs or cats or even a rogue chicken.

In the past, I used to see a mostly white swayback horse with a little age on it. It would mill about in front of the house, grazing on blades of grass that sprouted at random through patches of dirt. The horse had no lead, no supervision, and no fence. It would just stand in the yard and chew. I never saw it out in the road. That horse knew its boundaries.

I have driven by that house on and off for at least a decade. At first, I saw the horse almost every time, and then less and less, until finally, no more horse. Even though I never saw it, I still looked for it every time. Like the house itself, the horse had some years on it, and I figured nature took its course.

And then one day, I saw a pair of Sicilian donkeys. Regular donkeys are just sort of heehaw ho hum, but Sicilian donkeys? Holy hell, I want a dozen of them. They too hung out in the front yard, minding their own donkey business, doing their donkey thing. I took more trips to Target than a family of four warranted, in case I could catch a glimpse of those beautiful taupe mini donkey-donks just chilling in the yard.

Cute AF, am I right?

 

Then one day, there were three! A baby had been born, perhaps in a manger, and it was the cutest thing I had ever seen. The homeowners seemed more protective of the wee donkey, and at some point a makeshift corral was built to contain the family of three. I would slow down whenever I had occasion to drive by, grinning like a fool the whole time if I was lucky enough to spy them.

The donkeys, unfortunately, are no longer residents of the yard. I am convinced they were forced to give them away, because no one in their right mind would willingly part with a family unit of Sicilian donkeys.

And now, the tell-tale signs of a fence have been erected. I will be denied of my chance to eyeball the yard, looking for animals that seem so out of place on the way to Target. So yes, I am a little sad, because progress means more development, and development means country houses are no longer isolated, and maybe having a horse in the front yard is not the sort of thing that should be happening. Going forward, every time I pass that fenced-in house, I will reflect back to the good old days, when the country was the country, and donkeys and horses roamed freely in front yards.

In the Off Season

Last week, we celebrated Christmas in July, on July 25, to be exact. Yes, it’s the middle of summer, and to be fair, we are Jewish, but hear me out. I had my reasons, and they were all pretty good as far as I am concerned.

For starters, it’s hot, ungodly hot, the kind of heat that makes domestic abuse and other violent crimes increase. It is so hot you literally want to beat or murder another human, as if you needed another reason.

Also, it’s six months from Christmas. That’s a long time to wait for holiday fun. Think about it, other than summer vacations, what does the summer have going for it in the way of celebrations? Fireworks and red, white, and blue clothing? Hot dogs and hamburgers cooked on a grill? Watermelon seed spitting and competitive eating? None of those hold a cinnamon-scented candle to the winter holidays. There’s no gift exchange, no special decorations, not even any themed movies. And forget about Hanukkah in July. That has literally no ring to it. Plus, there is no way I am stinking up the whole house with the smell of fried potatoes.

Which brings me to the real reason we celebrated Christmas in July.  Have you seen Krampus, a movie loosely based on a German folktale about the darker side of Christmas? Krampus is a sort of half goat, half demon creature that punishes the bad boys and girls who don’t deserve Santa’s good graces, and seems to have that dark side we have come to expect from German traditions. The movie premiered last holiday season, but we did not get a chance to catch it at the theaters, and now it’s available on Redbox. It seemed wrong somehow to watch a holiday movie in the middle of summer….but if you make it a special occasion, well, you get Christmas in July.

I am known as one who likes to run with a theme. I sat down and came up with a whole menu and everything. Originally, it was going to be turkey sandwiches with cranberry mayo and decorated sugar cookies, but S, my daughter, didn’t like the idea of mayo on her sandwich, and I can barely stomach the mess of decorated cookies at Christmastime. We switched to roasted turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, rolls, and frozen hot chocolate, most of which could be purchased from an upscale fancy grocery store and reheated at home. Score!

The day of the festivities arrived. I was working on an article about ways to keep cool during the heat of summer, which is one of the more interesting topics I’ve had from my freelance web content job, and I learned a few ideas during my research. Some of the weirder tips included spritzing your sheets with cool water before you slip into bed, which is a great way to get a head start on your night sweats, and putting a fan behind a big bowl of ice like it’s 1916. One of the other things I read suggested reversing your ceiling fans to run counter clockwise in order to push the cold air down.

I mentioned the fan trick to my husband while my daughter, S, and I sat on the couch, trying to keep cool and save energy by not moving any parts of our bodies. He said that went against logic and engineering, but if I read it on the Internet, it must be true, so we could give it a try. He reversed the direction on the fan. It slowed down, stopped, and then began turning in the opposite direction. My husband stood directly below it with his hand stretched in the air, trying to see if he could feel the cooler air.

And then, just like that, it started to snow.

Gentle puffs of built-up dust and cat hair floated down and settled on the coffee table, the sofa, even on S and me. The dust and funk of that ceiling fan that no one can reach blew softly around us like fat gray flakes before blanketing every surface underneath it.

“Look, snow! It’s snowing for Christmas in July!” I exclaimed.

“That’s disgusting, and it’s getting all over me,” S said.

“When was the last time you cleaned this fan?” my husband asked.

S sneezed, and my husband returned the fan to its normal clockwise setting. I got up and vacuumed all the snow dust.

“Gee, cold air,” he said, and walked into the other room to play the Centipede arcade game that he bought the family two Christmases ago.

Later, we listened to Bing Crosby crooning familiar carols while we ate our lukewarm mashed potatoes and rotisserie chicken. Even upscale fancy grocery stores ignore turkey in the summer months. After we cleaned up and made the frozen hot chocolate, we settled under blankets upstairs to watch Krampus, and for a moment, we forgot all about the summer heat.

 

 

Yes, I am Tired

I’m tired. I’m tired of thinking about rape. I’m tired of reading stories of sexual violence against women. I’m tired of men who commit these acts of violence getting the minimum of consequences for their actions. I’m tired of women being victimized, diminished, and blamed for what they must suffer at the hands of perpetrators. I’m tired of the privileged culture in which we live straddling the line between tolerance and fairness and the oppressive and inherently unfair good old days.

Is this about the Stanford rape case? The one with the young, white Olympic hopeful who can never recover from the effects of a party culture that led to twenty minutes of action? The one whose father is worried about his inability to enjoy a steak? The one who will serve three hard months in prison of a six-month sentence because the judge does not want him to suffer any more?

Yes and no.

About a month ago, something horrible happened that involved my daughter’s middle school. You may have heard about it on the national news. It was kind of a big deal. An eighth grade girl from my daughter’s school and a boy from a different middle school hung out on a Sunday afternoon. They drank alcoholic beverages. They had consensual sex. They drank some more. The girl passed out, and the boy continued to do sexual things to her. He decided to share what he was doing by Face Timing at least one person. That individual, or possibly more people, saved the FaceTime video and shared it with other people. Some of those other people saved it as well to show it to even more people.

The girl was allegedly naked from the waist down and in her own vomit. She had to have her stomach pumped at the hospital. The boy was charged with second degree sexual assault. I don’t know if these details are accurate as reported in the news or just from the pieced-together version of the rumors.

The other people who saved and sent the video are also middle school students. Some of them go to my daughter’s school, and others are enrolled at other middle schools in the county. Four of those people, all middle school girls, were charged with disrupting school and possession of child pornography. Other students had their phones confiscated by police detectives for forensic testing. 

It was all anyone talked about for the last few weeks of school. Students talked to each other about it. Parents tried to figure out details. The only ones who remained silent were the school administrators, hiding behind the fact that the assault did not take place at school and therefore they were not obligated to address the rumors or provide support for students troubled by the assault or those rumors. We were all supposed to ignore it or pretend it didn’t happen, or worse, that it didn’t affect us.

When the students talked, they seemed to focus on the wrong information from the story. They discussed this girl’s already bad reputation. They said she was asking for it. They said what did she expect. They said she should have known better, and that she is just as much to blame. She drank. She had sex. She deserved it.

My daughter came home and shared these conversations with me, about how the girl never came back to school, how badly she felt for her, and how she tried to tell other students that it wasn’t the girl’s fault. My daughter was in the minority in her beliefs.

And that makes me tired.

Clearly, the two stories have similarities. Girls were drinking. Boys were drinking.  Girls passed out. Boys did things to them that they did not have consent to do. We all act shocked when we hear about it, and a percentage of us will try to make sense of it by blaming the victim.

I have two teenaged girls. They are both tall. They have some curves. They dress like most girls their age, which means skirts and shorts are short, and arms are bared, and bra straps frequently show, sometimes intentionally, sort of like an accessory.  They are not whores. They do not dress likes whores. They don’t know any whores, and they are also unsure of what whores wear. Nothing about their clothing means they are asking for unwanted attention. They dress like many girls their ages, and they are comfortable in their garments and in their skin, and they should be comfortable.

My daughters are good people. The Stanford victim and the middle school girl might be good people too. They might not. They might just be human. They did not deserve what happened to them.

The boys who sexually assaulted them are not scrutinized in the same way. They too drank, but they weren’t assaulted. They need to be held accountable for their actions. I don’t know if they are good people. They are also human, but they committed crimes and owe society, and women, a debt for their actions in order to return to the community.

I am tired of other people not understanding this simple fact.

Some of us call it rape culture. Some people say men can’t help that they are visually stimulated. Other people say that women need to be careful and stop putting themselves in potentially dangerous situations. But rape happens everywhere. It can happen at someone’s home, or at a party, or behind a dumpster. Alcohol is available in homes and groceries stores and restaurants and bars. Dumpsters are behind most every commercial property. What situations are women supposed to be avoiding?

It is always, at every level, about consent. If you do not have consent, you have no right to initiate further action on another person.

Some people also say that women who lie about being raped are part of the problem. I’m tired of that too. One person’s lie does not discredit many people’s truth. Instead, let’s concentrate on the men, because by and large, the men are entirely the problem.  Women who rape, like women who lie about rape, are not the issue. They are an anomaly. Men rape women, and other men, and children. It is by and large a male-perpetrated crime.

Men need to know they must have permission, even in a relationship, even in a marriage. Women need to know they have the power to say no. Men need to believe women when they say no. Men need to tell other men to believe women. Women need to tell other women that they believe them. Men and women need to talk about what no means with each other. They should discuss it with their children. Their children should understand what sex is and how it can only occur if both people say yes.

When you think children are too young for that conversation, remember my daughter’s middle school.  Stop wanting our society to return to the good old days. Rape was around then too, and women were property, and consent didn’t matter. Now it still is, and they aren’t, and it should, and everyone needs to talk about until we can all agree that it does not matter what a woman wears or drinks, it only matters if she said yes, and that any man, of any race or socioeconomic class or age or athletic ability, needs to accept her answer, or in the absence of one, realize that if she did not say yes, then it is a no.

And we should not stop talking about it until rape stops, until punishments are fair and enforced, until victims are no longer blamed, until we can all agree that consent is key.  Until we are all tired of the ways things used to be, and the way they are now.  If you want to make the world a better place, start with this issue, and don’t stop until everyone understands. Only then, after being tired for so long, can we rest.

There Will Be Blood

I have two teenage daughters, and I am a woman at the end of the childbearing bell curve. We spend a lot of time in my house menstruating, talking about menstruating, complaining about menstruation, preparing to menstruate, and recovering from menstruation. All totally normal.

Brace yourself. I am going to talk about menstruation.

I can commiserate with my girls. I see them suffer from cramps, and I remember that misery as I microwave heating pads and dole out fistfuls of ibuprofen to offer them some relief. I buy an endless supply of pads in at least three sizes and tampons and panty liners, none of which are ever on sale at the same time, and all of which are taxed as a luxury item, because there is nothing more luxurious than shoving overpriced chemically enhanced cotton wads in or near a cooch. I scrub panties and the crotches of jeans with hydrogen peroxide or a paste of baking soda and vinegar, making volcanos out of all the stains. I also endure the tears and rudeness and lethargy that one of us is constantly subjecting the rest of us to; misery loves company but hates everyone indiscriminately.

I’ve been doing this period thing for almost ¾ of my life, and while I would love to not deal with it, I don’t like the implications of breaking up with my lady friend. I actually thought that the dreaded M word had begun because I went from my current regular irregularity to a total uterine strike.

My period is all over the calendar. Not literally because what? Gross. I mean it’s not every month and then it’s twice in one month. It’s never a 28-day cycle like in the birth control ads. Sometimes it’s every 40 days, or every 22 days, or every 15 days, which is a real treat if it lasts 8 days or so. And then, out of the blue, it was over 75 days. It wasn’t my normal.

Naturally, I started to freak out. I’m old. This is it. I don’t know the first thing about hormone replacement. I’m going to wither and dry up and then fill out in all the wrong places. I will become invisible, as women of a certain age do, no use to anyone but not ready to shove out in the middle of the ocean on an ice flue.

I turned to the Internet, the source of the best and most accurate information in times of panic and worry.  Here’s what I learned: the definition of menopause is cessation of menstruation for a year in women of a certain age. I had 290 days to go.

Lucky for me, I needed to see my gynecologist for my annual exam, so I didn’t have to go out of my way to discuss it. I could just wait another week and then casually mention it with my feet in the stirrups. Deep down inside, I was convinced I was going to need a D and C, that fun procedure where they dilate you and scrape all the ick off your uterine walls. It’s an old school abortion, well, not wire hanger old school, but pre-medically induced abortion, back when women and their doctors could still make reproductive decisions together.  Naturally, I freaked out some more.

My appointment started out totally normal. Sit and wait. Pee in a cup. Finger stick. Sit and wait some more, only this time in a room filled with pregnant women. Feel old because you think you are in menopause and these women are all still fertile and youthful and you don’t want to be them but you don’t want to be you either.

I followed the nurse to the exam room. She asked me the usual medical history update questions, and then she asked the first day of my last period. I told her 80 days ago. She handed me some pamphlets and told me to disrobe and don my paper drape and vest.

These are the pamphlets:

 

They burned my flesh, just holding them in my hand. I stuffed them in my purse, got undressed, and assumed the position on the table.

My gynecologist seemed a bit surprised to hear I was on period sabbatical, because, get this, I am too young to be in menopause. She wanted to know about my mother and grandmother’s menopause experience, but they were of the generations who had unnecessary hysterectomies because something was wrong with every woman who was no longer having children.  Basically, we had nothing to go on except the 80 days part.

“Are you having menopausal symptoms?” she wanted to know.

“I don’t know what they are,” I said. And it’s true. I knew about moodiness, hot flashes, and no periods. Was there more to expect? “I mean, I could have hot flashes, but how do I know? Sometimes I get kind of hot for no reason.”

“Are you waking up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and have to change your nightclothes?”

“No, nothing like that,” I told her.

“Crying for no reason?” she asked.

“I have two teenage daughters. There is always a reason,” I replied.

She ordered a blood sample to check my hormone levels and then prescribed Progesterone, which would make me have a period if I was still supposed to have one. She instructed me to wait for the lab results before taking the medication, but that I would need to take if for 5 days in order to make my period start. Apparently, if you are supposed to menstruate but you don’t, that can also be a problem, although she didn’t elaborate. I made a mental note to look it up on the Internet when I got home.

“So, I don’t have to have a D and C?” I asked her.

“Where did you get that idea? Of course not,” my doctor said.

“My own head. And the internet. But mostly my imagination,” I replied.

“Stop doing that. Stop looking up things, and stop thinking,” she recommended.

Two days later, the nurse called me to report that my hormone levels are normal. Totally normal. I am what is considered perimenopausal, which is totally normal for a woman of a certain age.

I took the damn pills. After yet another week, I got my period. It was not the massacre I expected. It was totally normal.

Since then, times are back to my 45 day, 30 day, 19 day routine. Perimenopause. I don’t really know what else to look for because I threw away my pamphlets. I imagine most women of a certain age do the same, and it’s totally normal.

Is This Organic?

Do you ever think some people take the organic food trend too far?

I started buying predominantly organic food for my family about seven years ago. When I first had my girls, I bought organic milk because I was concerned about the added hormones. I didn’t want my daughters to start first grade and their periods at the same time or fatten up for slaughter. As our household income went up, I started adding more organic and local foods to our weekly grocery shopping because we could afford it, gradually replacing most of the conventional food we ate. That organic shit ain’t cheap, my friends.

Nowadays, my weekly grocery shopping has turned into an almost every day errand. I rotate between three to five stores, depending on what’s on sale and what I am planning to cook. With the amount of fresh produce I buy, I do have go shopping more frequently because we either finish it all or it spoils without all those chemicals to keep it in pristine condition past its prime. It’s practically a full-time job, all the grocery shopping and cooking. I don’t mind really, unless something goes wrong, like when the free-range chicken is spoiled or when I crack open an avocado and find a giant pit surrounded by dark brown bruises mocking me.

Sometimes, it’s something worse.

Last night, I made what I hoped was a healthy and tasty meal for my people. I had vegetarian Italian sausage, which I happen to love because it doesn’t contain gristle or indeterminate white hunks, and a large bunch of green kale. I sliced the “sausage” and sautéed it with chopped onions and red pepper strips. After I stripped the kale from the thick stems, I rinsed the leaves in a colander, shook off the excess water, and chopped them before adding them and minced garlic to the pan. Salt, pepper, a splash of chicken broth, also organic, went into the pan to simmer while whole wheat rigatoni boiled in a pot of kosher sea-salted water.

I made up dinner like I usually do, pretending I am on “Chopped” or some other cooking show where you have a few random ingredients and have to make a tasty entrée to present to the judges. In my case, the judges are my family, none of whom particularly like any of the same foods. One hates the fake sausage. One detests kale. One thinks rigatoni is stupid. My goal isn’t so much to impress my panel, but rather to see if I can create a dish that none of them thoroughly enjoy, except for me, because I pretty much love everything I put in it. That’s the benefit of doing the cooking. If they don’t like it, they can take a turn at the stove.

I do get some comments, usually in the form of a backhanded compliment, like “this sausage doesn’t have a funny aftertaste” or “the kale doesn’t taste as bad as I expected.” You can imagine how motivating the feedback is.

Three of us sat down to eat the rigatoni with Italian vegan sausage and kale, presented in lovely porcelain pasta bowls, with a sprinkle of chopped parsley and shredded parmesan. The missing person, S, was at her dance class, but rest assured there would be plenty for her to sample when she got home. Everyone enjoyed it.

My husband devoured all of his, even though he doesn’t really care for any of the foods individually, including the pasta. I am married to the only man I know who hates noodles of all shapes.

I was attempting to mindfully eat my food, enjoying the contrast of textures and flavors, taking time to chew thoroughly and really taste it.

My oldest daughter, E, tends to unhinge her jaw and swallow whatever is on her plate in one breath. The pasta was no different, except she left a small pile of vegetables at the bottom of the bowl, which she moved around with her fork. We chatted about our days, and she sat, listening to or ignoring us, playing with the few leaves of kale.

Then she freaked out.

She threw her fork down and stood up, open mouthed, hands on either side of her face.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” my husband, her father, asked.

“Bug! Oh my god, there’s a bug in my bowl! There’s a bug! I almost ate a bug!” She paced around the kitchen sink, open mouthed, not really gagging, but you could tell she wanted to. “I’m gonna be sick! I almost ate a bug! Didn’t you wash it? What if I ate its eggs? I’m going to die!” E was giving an Oscar-worthy performance.

“Of course I washed the kale! I washed it and dried it and then chopped it. Are you sure it’s a bug?” I defended myself, feebly, because it really didn’t matter what I said. She was already over the edge.

“Look at it! It’s got legs and eyes! I know what a bug looks like! I almost ate it! I’m going to be sick!”

“Just calm down,” my husband said. “Lots of cultures eat bugs all the time. Protein. We have a certain allotted amount of insects and feces in all of our processed foods. You don’t think you eat bugs in every bowl of cereal, anything that contains flour?”

“You’re not helping,” I said. I picked up her bowl and took a peek. All I saw were chopped leaves of kale. Except one of them had an interloper, a small oddly shaped insect with its legs compactly folded against its exoskeleton. “Yep. It’s a bug. I think it’s a stink bug.”

“I’m going to be sick!” she shrieked and ran upstairs.

I showed the bowl to my husband, who pushed it away. “I don’t want to see that,” he said.

“I kind of wish she ate it, She would have never know it was there,” I said, looking at my own bowl, which contained the rest of my dinner. “I really liked that. I guess we have to throw the rest away.”

“Well, I’m not eating it,” he said.

“So, I guess I can’t really save some for S when she gets home from dance, huh?”

He gave me a look.

I got up and dumped the rest of the meal into the garbage. Then I went upstairs to soothe E, who was in her bed, looking at her phone.

“Are you okay?” I asked her.

“I could have eaten that. I probably ate its eggs. It’s probably infesting my intestines as we speak. I’ll be dead before breakfast.”

“Seriously?” I said. “There are no eggs implanting in your digestive tract.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“Because I cooked it. No eggs would still be viable. I suppose that’s the end of kale for a while, huh?”

“Six months at least. No leafy greens for at least six months,” E declared.

“But it’s salad season,” I said.

She gave me a look.

“At least you know it was organic,” I said before gently closing her bedroom door and going back downstairs to clean up the dinner dishes and mourn the rest of the meal, lying in the top of the trash can.

When S got home from dance, she ate a frozen dinner, but it was also organic.