Puns and Buns: coping with (non) weight loss

Bathroom scales are like 2 AM phone calls: they are either the wrong number or very very bad news. (TM)

Don't even think of stealing this little Ben Franklin-esque nugget! I've trademarked it, see?!? I plan on plastering it on decorative tiles, coffee mugs, key rings, and other tchatchkes, so that while I may never be thin, I can at least make money to console me.

It'll be sold right next to the current popular axiom, "Friends are like bras: close to your heart and very supportive." (I happen to prefer mine.)

So, if you're wondering if my pithy little truth springs from actual experience, the answer is, yes.

I hopped on the scale this morning, feeling less bloaty and a little leaner. Damn scale put all that to a screeching halt. This is very disappointing to me, considering that I have been exercising regularly, and have improved on the calorie intake front.

The first person who jumps on down to the comment section and posts that muscle weighs more than fat will be personally macheted to death. I don't care if muscle is a lead weight. I used to have muscle AND weigh less than this, and I'm pissed about it. I have gone from forlorn to out and out mad.

At the risk of having my children removed from my home by DFS, I will post yesterday's food journal:

Breakfast: snack sized protein bar, coffee w/ skim milk

Lunch: Bratwurst, sauerkraut, diet coke, coffee w/ skim milk

Dinner: 2 bourbon and Coke Zeros, 1/2 bag of lite popcorn

Exercise: 2 mi. jog

(We went out to lunch, Osman's Midtown yum! So we weren't hungry for dinner.) Don't you think that after that day's worth of food, I should be thinner, or at least not so freaking mad?!?

Doesn't my scale understand that throwing me a little bone would go a long way in psychological terms?!? Would it hurt the little effer to just knock a half pound off the total now and then?!? Just once in a while?!?

M, if not the scale, is supportive: he'll tell me the weight has at least left my third chin, or that my upper arms are less swingy. These are the little tidbits I live for--a glimmer of hope among the Oreos and sweet tea vodkas.

Auld slang lyin'

I'm relieved that I made, and failed to keep, my new year's resolution early. It really saves me from the crowds at the gym the next couple of months. While I have exercised on and off since my kids were born, I was in a real, um, inert phase there for a while.

Now that I'm back into either walking or 'running' every day, I feel
a) entitled to eat a little bit more
b) more aware of my health in general
c) I should do other small things to be healthful

and, I don't dare tell CC about this, because someday when I'm off this kick, she'll use it to try to motivate me (curse her and her positive motivation):
d) like I kinda look forward to exercising each day.

Shh. It's totally the kind of thing I don't want to get out there.

But don't expect to see me at the gym or the health food store anytime soon.

I have one simple goal, for one simple reason:

I want to be skinny.

For vacation in March.

I finally have a deadline. I hope I have the willpower to make the goal happen. I doubt it, because let's be honest; seasonally available Oreos are both rare and delicious. Also, unless there is a global run on cheese and bacon, there is still a TON of food out there that I love.

I don't want to have abs or anything. I want to weigh 8 lbs (ideally 10) fewer than I weigh right this second. Well, not this second, but what I will weigh in a few days. (I've got the major PMS bloat, which makes me both heavy and MEAN.) This is not an unattainable goal. As long as there is somebody around to duct tape my mouth shut after a single helping of every meal. And as long as somebody invents a calorie-free way to approximate the nearing bliss of cocktails. (Let's keep it legal. Heroin would be great, of course, but the track marks would really distract from my figure in a swimsuit. No matter how much weight I lose or don't.)

Look. I'm vain. I get it. Do I care about my heart? Not really. Blood pressure's fine. Cholesterol is manageable. I visit doctors when I'm supposed to, and promptly ignore them. I don't want to run marathons or be a fitness model, or have washboard abs or be able to wear sleeveless dresses again. I just want the clothes I already own to fit better.

The journey of a 10 pounds starts with a single step. Maybe if I write everything down, I'll eat less.

I'm even drinking water right now.

Actually, that's not true. I'm drinking diet soda.

I need to work on the honesty of my food journal.

I guess I broke that other resolution early, too.
Shit. The whole new year's shot already.

And a partridge in a pear tree

Thank goodness, we survived. The holidays are over. The traffic, the insanity, the crazed WalMart death stare of the general citizenry is all gone.

Yah. That's right. I said it. I'm GLAD. I can say whatever I want because it's December 26th.

The best part, of course, is that I don't have to hear any godforsaken Christmas songs until next October, at worst.

I'm done with carols for the year
falalalala
I'm done with everyone else's cheer
falalalalala
I'm done with this assault on my ears
falalalalallala la la la.

Some of the worst offenders:

Silver Bells
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
Up On the Rooftop
Jingle Bells
The Twelve Days of Christmas

Even Cookie Monster cowtowed to the Facebook pressure, appeared on SNL and sang freaking carols with Jeff Bridges.

The Dude does NOT abide.

Another thing, while I'm Grinching it up. What is the deal with Jewish songwriters and the nauseating yule tunes? Yes, all of these were written by your circumcised friends, and some of them were famously penned in July:

There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays
I'll Be Home for Christmas
Silver Bells (again...blech)
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
The Dread (above mentioned) Rudolph
White Christmas
Let it Snow! Let it Snow! Let it Snow!
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire (The Christmas Song)
Winter Wonderland

I'm blaming you, Irving Berlin. Okay, to be perfectly honest, I have a special place in my Harry and Sally-loving heart for Winter Wonderland. And at least these songs had the dignity to be recorded by velvety-toned crooner stars of their day before being slaughtered by every dolphin-pitched diva of my lifetime. But that is the only slack I'm cutting.

Why? Because not one of these famed Jewish songwriters could be bothered to put pen to sheet for Hanukkah. Oh, no. They left that task to the hapless Adam Sandler, who is:
a. not funny
b. not a songwriter
c. not really terribly appropriate for children
d. set his music to a movie flop that was neither a nor c.

ADAM SANDLER?!!? Christmas gets Irving Berlin and Jews are left with a crappy series of guitar chords claiming to be a song, but really is a list of dubious celebrities with equally dubious Jewish lineage. FOR REAL?!?

When I went to the kids' school to talk about Hanukkah, and was doing my part to convince 80 six-year-olds that
a) Hanukkah is fun
b) Hanukkah is as good as Christmas
c) Jewish 6 year olds think Hanukkah is a and b and do not resent Christmas at all

I realized that I was describing families playing "games" involving a top; eating fried vegetables; lighting birthday cake-sized candles; and singing "songs."

Really, not the most convincing talk I've ever given.

But the "songs" mentioned in one of the "Hanukkah really IS cool" books, subtitled "so are Orthodontics, Calculus, and 401Ks", SUCKED!

The first Jewtune, of course, is the Dreidel Song. Which really isn't a song at all, since 87% of the lyrics are, in fact, just the word dreidel. Not a song, really, so much as something to hum until your top stops spinning.

The second song, even WORSE, is O, Hanukkah. Worse, because 93% of the lyrics are the word Hanukkah. AND because it's simply sung to the tune of O Tannenbaum. To paraphrase Seth Meyers (a third reference to SNL tonight, and the only funny one so far) REALLY?!?

• The whole of the songwriting industry talent is Jewish, yet plagiarizes a Christmas carol?
• A Christmas carol from GERMANY?
• IN GERMAN?!?

And, yet this is where the world is. The way I see it, there are 11 months between now and next Hanukkah. I propose a Festival o' Lights song writing contest. I'm not going to limit entrants to the Chosen folk--Taylor Swift, you've had a helluva year, bring your best--even Andy Samberg who suffers from the Adam Sandler A, B and C mentioned above--can contribute.

I DO want quality submissions, though. I don't want recycled carols, jokes, self-deprecating Jewish humor songs, lists of Jewish celebrities, songs about watching wooden toys spin.

I want celebratory! I want majestic! I want flames flickering! Gelt gleaming! I want Maccabees aplenty! I want to revel in it.

Neil Diamond, I'm looking at you.

The stations of the trash can

I want to start off by saying I painted a flattering picture of my husband in yesterday's post. So, when if have a few harsh things to say in today's post, everybody better pipe down. I'm lookin' at you, M.

Last week was an unbelievable week: department parties, PTA meetings, last minute holiday breakfasts with friends, school parties, errands, last minute gifts...on and on. Thursday morning, I took my kids to school at 8 AM and did not come home until 9 that night.

Look, I don't want to show off the sparkly cross I'm schlepping around or anything. (Sparkly? I'm just sayin' if I have an accessory over my shoulder, it's gonna be pretty.) because I complained mightily. I moaned and groaned, and every cashier who checked me out heard me complain about my head cold and accompanying aches and pains.

But.

This week, M has contracted the Illness. Granted, it seems to be a little more severe than mine, as it involves nausea and stomach pain.

But.

This morning, at the last possible minute, I heard the trash man pull through the neighborhood. He whizzed past our house. I, in my pink polka dot night shirt (shut up) scream "TRAAAAAAAAAAAAASH" and head out the door. I'm barefoot. It's like 60 degrees out there. My street is all rough stones, not paved smooth (we live in Alabama. Roads are for Northerners.) I'm dragging the trash can behind me.

Trash man has emptied next door neighbor's can.

I'm running across the street, jammies and bedhead blowin' in the breeze. Trash can is rumbling across that uneven street, and I'm sure every one in the neighborhood can hear it.

Trash man has emptied 2 neighbors down's can.

I race up on to the curb, situate the can properly for the automated claw thing and wave at the trash man. I self consciously situate my arms across the boob region....it's cold out there!

He empties the can and gives a little toot of his horn. The neighbors who live in the house whose curb I have requisitioned pull out of their driveway in a giant Cadillac. (Everyone in my neighborhood save 2 are elderly)

I have never met them before.

And now, I am standing on THEIR yard in my Suzy Whoo pjs with my trash can. Curl up and die.

I walk back across the circle of our street, dragging the trash can. The rumble o' shame. I come back into the house. "That was not dignified," I announce to anyone who missed it. I assume M is still in bed nursing his cold.

But.

He is not. He is in the front room watching the whole thing, bed head, Suzy Whoo, boobs, all of it. "Sometimes it's nice to take the garbage can for a walk."

I kinda hope it's ebola.

Technical Difficulties (again)

Last week, my computer died. It would momentarily start, flash Japanese lettering on the screen, which presumably translated to "you are totally screwed" and then die.

Of course, several things coincided with the death of the computer.

1. My parents were here. Which meant my mother, in her eagerness to help, would say things like, "maybe the floppy disk drive is faulty" or "Could it be the printer?" While earnest, these comments were insanely frustrating.

2. I had totally failed to back up my photos on the handy dandy external hard drive M has given me. All I could envision was the loss of my photos (excessively dear to me) combined with six months of I Told You So. Dread.

M handled things well. He refrained from the expanded "I Told You So" lecture, and only delivered the highlights. He managed not to scream at any of the non-techies living in the house who were offering advice (S: "Just unplug it, Daddy. That's what I always do when it doesn't do the right thing."). He performed an autopsy as best he could, given that the compact nature of my desktop is a labyrinth of wires and screws.

At some point, he stepped back and shook his head. "I can do no more." An ER-esque scene panned out: the various tools used in the rescue attempt scattered about, the partly disassembled carcass of the computer, the distraught family members peering timidly and sadly at the wreckage.

Bad news.

Fortunately, M hopped on the Internet of his own computer and found a computer dude: Danny the Computer Guy.

Ok, don't ask me. I didn't name him, for God's sake. Even my five year old was like, "what the hell? Why didn't he call himself Dan the Computer Man? It has a good rhyme." True that, S. True that.

DTCG lives in a little house down off Dauphin Island Pkwy. He looks like some one who would know the difference between a Hobbit and an Elf. I mean, really KNOW the difference. He agreed to examine the remains for free and give us a diagnosis.

Within 2 days DTCG had my computer back to me. The Lazarus computer, as it were. Everything was intact, we were only $99 the poorer, and amazingly, there was no D&D role playing in the Internet browser history. (Or porn, for that matter.)

DTCG saved my computer, and the short term health of my marriage as well. M brought our baby home, plugged it in, and I (begged him til he did it) backed up all the photos. Phew.

I will be happy to recommend DTCG to anyone in the area who needs PC help. But if he answers the phone speaking Elvish, you're on your own.

You don't care that they're laughing...

So, in mid-September, you may remember I wrote about the idiocy involved in fouling up my knee cap. Which, by the way, is still not 100%, but apparently I was misled by the whole 40 is the new 30 crap, so I should never expect to be 100% again.
I have decided to begin "exercising" again. Yes, I DO know how scare quotes work, but in this case, they are clearly needed. Exercising up to this point has meant going for a walk. It's a brisk walk, and 45 minutes long, but still. It's walking.

People have been doing it for tens of thousands of years. It's not a sport: no crowds fans behind ropes cheering (verrry slooooooooooowly) for their favorite walker. Jersey sales for the walker league are next to nil. Nobody wants the #8 trading card of the 2000 walking season champ. So what I'm saying is, I have resumed doing what every person in Manhattan does every day for a living.

YAY ME!

The thing is, it takes up too much of my day. Stop laughing. For real. I have important stuff to do: pick up my house, put away laundry, iron, errands, blog, drink.
That 45 minutes is a big chunk. So, I've decided what I need to do is cover the same distance, only faster. You know what they call that? Running.
Homey don't play dat.

The many, varied reasons why I do not run:
1. It hurts
2. I look like Phoebe from friends (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_0Ta_DIWuU&NR=1 ) copyright? What copyright? Thanks, NBC.
3. It hurts
4. I might fall and hurt myself
5. It makes my nose run
6. My unusual running style (see #2) means that my armpit rubs up against my sports bra and causes chafing.

BUT, I do have a treadmill, which we have had since Ethan was born. It has been used sporadically, (but during those intermittent exercise jags, I do use it regularly) which is surprising because of its readiness to use as a dry cleaning rack.

So, on my treadmill, the Phoebe style doesn't matter because there's no one to see. I can run with a soft cloth tucked into my sports bra to protect my delicate underarms, I keep a box of tissue in the cupholder, and while falling is not out of the question, the odds are reduced.

Unfortunately, I STILL cannot run. The kneecap does not abide. But I can walk a heckuvalot faster on the treadmill. So, two days ago, amidst the pouring rain, I decide to hop on that sucker. No more uneven sidewalks, rogue dogs and sprinklers for me! I'm exercising in comfort, if one can call it that.

But, it's been a while since I had my last exercise jag. The treadmill is in the playroom, so I have to unearth it. Much like a paleontological project, I can see how long it's been since my exercise regimen went extinct by the layers of crap that are on top of the treadmill:

Pool noodles (August)
S's 4K graduation certificate (May)
E's Santa hat from last year's school play (December, '09)
...it's been a while.

I put on my ipod, and press "start" and that baby hums to life. But as the belt loops around at a neck-snapping 2 miles per hour, dust flies up. Like primordial layer of actual measurable thickness kind of dust. I'm walking exceptionally slowly and sneezing. Are those FOOTPRINTS in the dust?!?

THIS is not what I had in mind.

I pause, get the dust rag out, wipe it all down and start again. I finally get the hang of it. Armpit insulators are working well, tissues staunching the snot. Everything's going just right.

In the end, I finish my 3 miles in under 40 minutes. I snap a pic of the display screen and email to CC. I know my personality, and I know that after that fiasco, I need a cheerleader.

CC promptly calls and says, all flattery and encouragement, "I can't be seeing this right! You are smokin' fast!"

I don't care that she's just being nice. I don't care that there are 100 year old tortoises who could move faster. I don't care that CC herself probably ran 8 miles in that time, in the rain, uphill both ways, that very morning. I don't care because she is my cheerleader and I need that.

Every Phoebe needs her Rachel.

Fit the tab into the buckle and pull low and tight across your hips

I am just coming to terms with last Wednesday. And I had a whole long weekend to recover from it.

It started with the guy who came over to adapt my new grill from propane to natural gas. My awesome electrician's son had planned to come do it (and that's some good eye candy), but an unanticipated rewire of a house in midtown and the crap weather of last week made it impossible for him to come by. The electrician, though, didn't want to leave me in a lurch (imagine that, gardener!) and sent a colleague over.

The colleague, though really really nice, kinda hit me by surprise. First off, he was struck by a motorcycle when he was stranded on the side of the road, which left him half-paralyzed a year ago. So, he's still got a substantial hitch in his giddy-up. Two, he brought his chihuahua with him. I was concerned about his steadiness on my uneven driveway and patio. I would have felt terrible if the motorcycle accident had paralyzed him, but my lawn furniture had finished him off. Second, who brings a chihuahua with to hook up a grill?

Clearly, I had no business playing with natural gas (I really need my eyebrows) but I hadn't planned on supervising the whole modification procedure. Two hours gone.

Then, I head off to school for the 3rd, yes 3rd, Thanksgiving celebration of the week. Yes, Virginia, the Pilgrims ate Froot Loops and DID drink Capri Sun out of foil pouches during the first Thanksgiving. You got a problem with that?

THEN, I had to go to the girlie doctor for my annual TSA-style check up. Which, of course, provoked all the usual questions pertaining to my mortality. Especially: if 40 is the new 30, then why do I need a mammogram now? Do the girls not know they are ten years younger than they were a generation ago? Ugh. Although seeing all the mothers-to-be in the waiting room with their babydaddies always gives me a chuckle. There was this woman sitting with her mom-to-be folder cooing over every prenatal milestone with her man beside her: "AWWW. Look what the baby can do at 18 weeks. AWWWWWWWW at 22 weeks. AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW at 28 weeks."

Meanwhile, I'm playing on my iphone because sitting in the waiting room listening to mellow music and doing the online crossword puzzle is the first calm I've had all day. I'm thinking, "wait 'til you get a load of what they do during week 312, lady! I'll give you a hint: it involves permanent markers, hot wheels, and your new upholstery. Sucker."

I'm all proud of myself as the woman with the mature uterus until the nurse asks me to get up on the scale. What kind of sadism is this doctor practicing? And, why, oh why, on my health history questionnaire is there a box to tick off if I wear my seat belt? SEAT BELTS? This is how we assess my quality of life? Do I smoke? Do I drink? Do I wear a seat belt?! For real? How about the box where I check that I do all three. At once. Or if I eat vegetables occasionally. Or if I eat fried foods at every meal. Nope. Seat belts=how seriously you take your health.

After finally escaping with an ego feeling its age and my girlie parts excessively lubed up, I head for the boys' friends' houses. Very nice friends have picked up my kids from school and taken them home to play. Unfortunately, said friends live on opposite ends of the universe. I stop in at the grocery and head to midtown to Friend #1.

Friend #1 is the most optimistic, good natured soul. EVER. It's just really beyond belief how upbeat and positive she is. TOTALLY unlike me. I just sit back in awe, thinking she should be in a zoo or something. Where's the cynicism? The angry humor? The wry and insulting sarcasm?

I have groceries in my trunk, and I walk into her (immaculate) house and agree to chat. But, time gets away from me. I realize I've imposed for nearly an hour while Friend #2 has S at her house. ACK! I rush out and half-drive, half text Friend #2. (And the doctor thinks a seat belt is important. Hah!)

EXCEPT. I accidentally text Friend #1 the message intended for Friend #2. Fortunately, Friend #1 is (as mentioned earlier) perfect, so I had nothing nasty to say, but was a bit frazzled at the mix-up nonetheless.

Now, I'm driving in holiday traffic, panicked, and trying to retext Friends 1 and 2 to clarify the mistake.

Blessedly, Friend #2, KH is the most laid back mom ever. She has boys and babies and chaos and seems remarkably sober and well adjusted depsite it. She called and offered to keep S overnight. Which is AWESOME, since it would have taken several more hours in that traffic to get to her house anyway. She's laughing at my texting gaffe. Her LOL comes through as actual laughing.

Finally, I got home. E and M and I wolf down our belated dinner and chillax in front of the TV. I refuse to tell M of the texting debacle since he is anti-text anyway. Around 10, KH calls me. S wants to come home.

I get BACK in my car, which I have been in for a substantial part of the day, and head off to pick up S. Who has been keeping KH's household up for hours. I apologize, pick up my kid, and head home.

Finally. It's 10:30 and everyone's asleep. I thought of my new scripts (Hooray! Chemical sanity!) to console me and my girls for their medical trauma. I faded into sleep and dreamed of more awkward texting scenarios, wondering if perhaps wearing a seat belt is really my best option.

This post rated G for Gross

A couple of weeks ago, we had to take S back to the gastroenterologist for his bi-annual check up. And the whole thing is a clustercuss.

For one thing, the pediatrics specialty offices affiliated with the university are located in an old hospital. So, upon walking in, everything seems kind of normal, if labyrinthine, but soon everything gets kinda weird.

The reception desk is the old nurses' station. It's a giant counter. The waiting room is two old hospital rooms combined. And the actual patient rooms are hospital rooms. So, they are relatively huge compared to normal clinic rooms. They all have bathrooms. Plus, they're under-furnished. Big, old, tiled hospital rooms with one little exam table, a series of cubbies with GI information, and a hard wooden chair to wait in. The whole effect is something like Cuckoo's Nest meets The Shining.

Which really starts to mean something when I tell you we wait at this doctor's office forever. Every time. This time it was an hour and 45 minutes. And then we really start to feel like we're Jack Nicholson.

So, the doctor is asking me all these questions about S's eating habits, pooping habits, growth, etc. etc. We go through the same questions every time. Every time, I remind the doctor that with the exception of my mother, my family are tall. I would be tall if not for spinal surgery. M's brother is crazy tall. S's brother is crazy tall. Tall is something we do. Except for S. So, his 12th percentile is really more significant than at first blush, since the rest of us are in the 75 or above.

So, we go over all of this again, and he gives S a cursory physical examination. He palpates some poop. Reminds me to go back to giving S Miralax daily. Urgh.

After a couple of days on the Miralax, I feel bad for poor S. He's gone from Jack Johnson, all Sittin' Waitin' Wishin' to Paul McCartney, a Man on the Run, as it were. And we're supposed to be checking the evidence and keeping mental notes of how it all, um, comes out.

A couple of notes about that: we have issues with the boys forgetting to flush. So, telling S to wait and not flush is counter intuitive to the goals of a sanitary house. Second, I am not a connoisseur of pooh. It all looks like pooh. And I have no burning desire to inspect it. I leave the pooh inspection to labs on walks and techs in labs.

But, hilariously, we have a chart to measure the pooh. And all I can think of is that stupid pooh character from a really dumb Canadian animated show about Terrence and Phillip, or was it South Park? I dunno. Here's the chart, anyway, in case you need/want to check your pooh:

You need to strive for #4, if you're wondering. And, Bristol, wherever you are now: Thank you for your AMAZING contribution to medicine. Without this chart, all would be lost.

Pooh Inspection has worn thin on me, so I have taken to shouting at S when I hear him race off to the potty:

Are you in the potty?

-yes

Are you going poop?

-yes

Is it regular?

-yes

Did it hurt?

And, my son, bless him, even he has a shred of privacy and doesn't shout everything through the rooms of our house for all to hear, screams back:

STOP ASKING ME POOP JEOPARDY QUESTIONS!!

Ooh. Soorry. The correct answer should be phrased as a question.

Das Auto

I heart leasing vehicles. Because that makes today the happiest day for the next 3 years and 36,000 miles:

Julie: Keeping the economy afloat since 1975.

The Physics of Parenting

As far as I understand physics, which is not very far, current theories abound on alternate dimensions, alternate realities, wormholes through mulitidimensional spaces, the possibility that our reality is merely a hologram, and a space/time continuum that can be disrupted with a flux capacitor.

Very intelligent people with very advanced degrees and brains much bigger than mine are probing the universe both vast and miniscule for proof of these ambitious theories. I, however, have found proof.

Yes, it's true. I know that you're thinking, "J, I've seen you try to calculate a tip at lunch. There is no way you have solved the enormous mysteries of the universe."

But, I have seen and heard with my own senses the reality of an alternate universe. For real. And people, that universe is beautiful.

First, let me explain the players in our universal dilemma:

Reality A: That is the reality I know. It's the reality in which my friends here exist, the planar dimension in which children, laundry, discipline, homework, and all other trappings of mortal life exist.

Reality B: This reality has accidentally intruded upon my reality. This is the reality for people without children who live in real cities, have disposable income and free time.

Wormhole: The cell phone, equipped with the flux capacitor, with which I am able to communicate with Reality B.

Holographic Me: HM. The person on the other end of the flux capacitor cell phone. Sounds a lot like my younger, married, blissfully childless sister.

Now, the first blip, if you will, of the space/time continuum between Realities A and B occurred last week. HM contacted me through the Wormhole and asked what I wanted for Christmas. Christmas? That's like 2 Reality A months away! Nobody in Reality A is thinking that far ahead. Reality A people have dug their claws in and are just trying to survive effing Halloween. Clearly, Reality B time accelerates much faster than ours.

The next blip occurred three days after the conversation with HM. A box arrived on my doorstep. Was this UPS man MY UPS man? Was he a Reality A UPS man? Or was he the John Connor of UPS men? Was he a messenger not of material goods, but of space and time itself?!?

Upon opening the box, I found a gorgeous Williams-Sonoma salt-keeper made of hand polished Italian olive wood. This very item was what I told the HM I wanted for Christmas. Holy shit!! HM is sending me my wishes from an alternate dimension.

Yesterday, another box arrived from HM. It was a very appropriate, hip and well-fitting sweater for M. HM had processed my request for clothing for my husband and sent it through the wormhole device through the personage of the intergalactic UPS man? Things were indeed getting seriously cool.

THEN. This conversation. Between me and HM through the Wormhole. all the evidence in the Reality A that another reality clearly exists.

HM: You said your kids needed pj's for Christmaskah. (wow. HM even knows my hybrid holidays)

Reality A Me: Yes. PJ's are things that children on our planet sleep in.

HM: Yes. I am in Target. In the boys' section. I see pj's. I need to know what size your boys are.

RA Me: S is XS. E is M. Thank you!?!

HM: E likes this Bakugan (buh-KU-gun) thing, no?

RA Me: Yes. It is called BAK-u-gan. I don't really understand it, but it appears to be something Earthlings his age are playing with.

HM: Target has these bak-u-GAN pjs here. They seem to be navy with some kind of bomb thingys all over the pants.

RA Me: Oh, yah. He has those. Weird. Those exist in your universe, too? Perhaps they have Phineas and Ferb pjs in his size. His brother already has the Phineas and Ferb ones, but E would probably like them, too.

HM: What are you saying? Fin YAY us and Fur?

RA Me: Sorry, the Wormhole connection must not be clear. Phineas and Ferb. It's a cartoon series.

HM: How would I recognize this Finny and Fur pj?

RA Me: Phineas and Ferb. There's a ninja fighting platypus on the front.

HM: Now you're just messing with me. You can't just put random words in order and make a sentence. You must use proper, sensical words in my universe.

RA Me: No, for real. His name is Agent P. The pants have his nemesis on them. Jewish looking dude in a lab coat? His name is Dufenshmirtz. Wanna hear his theme song?

HM: Seriously. I am looking for pajamas. I do not know what the hell you are talking....oh, shit. Look at that! I found the Ninja platypus. Part mammal, part reptile, entirely effed up.

RA Me: Yes, and my son tells me that the male platypus has a poisonous spur on his hind food. Seriously strange. But I digress.

HM: OK. I have the Finny Furry pjs. Now, what about the other son? They have something here with animated cars that talk and have eyeballs instead of headlights?

RA Me: No. Those aren't cool anymore.

HM: Does S want the Backy gan pjs?

RA Me: No. S hates Bakugan. (Why can HM not learn this word?!?) What else do they have?

HM: It appears as though there are Star Wars characters made out of....Lego pieces?

RA Me: Yes! PERFECT. He loves Lego Star Wars.

HM: There were no Legos in Star Wars. Also, what is this creature that looks like a lizard? What is a Clone Wars?

RA: Yes. We call it cross marketing. Lego has recreated the entire Star Wars Universe in Lego pieces. They sell the kits for bazillions of our monetary units. Also, George Lucas created another episode of the Star Wars saga with animated aliens to expand the time between the young Jedi Anakin's training and his rebirth as Darth Vader. I think the lizard thing you see might be Ahsoka. Is it female?

HM: What the @#(*() are you talking about?

RA Me: Actually, that was way nerdier than I anticipated. Yes, get the Lego-ized animated alien pajamas. That will make son #2 happy.

HM: Great. These are only like $12. Their Christmas shopping is done, too. I'll go over to the Lego store and pick up a couple of those kits.

RA Me: YOU HAVE AN ENTIRE LEGO STORE!?!? S would explode with happiness.

HM: Yes, it's right next door to Banana Republic.

RA Me: YOU HAVE BANANA REPUBLIC?!?! I would explode with happiness.
I love your universe.

HM: I've been shopping for like 3 hours. I'm almost done with my Christmaskah list.

RA Me: But how did you shop with the kids whining and bitching and touching and begging to go home?

HM: Don't have 'em. Don't want 'em. I'm done. I'll drop these things in the mail tomorrow. Bye.

RA Me: (left staring at the Wormhole) Woah. No kids. Banana Republic. Amazing. Christmas shopping all done in peace and quiet? Woah. *Shiver*

It's humbling, people. It's a big universe. And CLEARLY, there is intelligent life out there.

Conspiracy Theory

They're out to get me. It's a plot. A conspiracy. An evil league of evil doers completely set on two things and two things alone: making me insane and destroying my worldly posessions.

Shhhh. They'll hear me. I don't want them to know that I am on to them. They might attack in a new way. Do you think they can read this? Are they online now, watching me?

M made a paper boat for them on Sunday. They set it out to sail on the pool. Naturally, it got wet. S turned it into a wadded ball and put purple marker on it while it was still wet. He threw it up on to the ceiling where it stuck like a spitball. Until I got it down. But it left a purple stain on the ceiling.

See what I mean? That clearly can't happen without tremendous foresight and evil planning? How did they convince M to make the paper ship? How did they know? How did S know to use purple marker instead of yellow or some other slightly less conspicuous color? How did he know to throw it up on the ceiling directly over the TV so that I notice it every time I sit down?

They must have been planning. For a long time.

How did they know that leaving sticky lollipop residue on the cabinets would cause navy lint from their uniform shorts to adhere and leave dark, sticky mess all over my cabinets? How many experiments did they secretly run to determine the stickiest adhesive? The most obvious color of lint?

I think I am being regularly drugged while they conduct their experiments. It's why there are never enough hours in the day...I'm telling you...

Shhh. They're right here. Watching. Always watching.

I just want my theory to be written down. Just in case something (else) happens to me. So there's a record. I think they just put something in my drink...EUYHRIKLFWEUISQWUI#*#(&@$

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Turkeys, crows, chickens and other birds

Have you been wondering about where I've been? I know you're missing me and the shining light of humor I bring to you every morning.

I have been sucked into the vortex of the iphone. I haven't been online with my computer since I got it. I have turned into one of those antisocial freaks peering into the nanoscreen of my iphone to get my news, email, weather, world-goings on, games, entertainment and life resources in general. Sad, but true.

Even in the fog of technology, however, I did enjoy the company of my family, however briefly.

S came home with a good story last week. At school, they played a variation of capture the flag. Only I guess they play it with a rubber chicken?! When S's team won, he demonstrated the score with his fingers: one to zero. He was crowing about his team's success, and I suspect he was probably not exhibiting the best of sportsmanship.

However, instead of using pointer man to illustrate one, he used tall man. And for those of you without kids, that means he gave the losing team the finger.

After regaling us with the victorious tale of capturing the chicken, and his flaunting of the score, we asked him why he used his middle finger instead of his pointing finger.

He says, ever so nonchalantly, "I flipped them the bird."

Why, yes you did, young man. "Do you know what that means?"

No. But just like a chicken, you know, bird?


Hmm. Yes. Indeed. However, in our culture, flipping some one the bird is a really obscene thing to do. It's like saying a dirty word. Like, sometimes when you want to curse or swear at some one and maybe they can't hear you, you can say the obscene message with your middle finger.

Like f#$( you?

Exactly. (How lovely that my child can just blurt out that sentiment). Pointing the middle finger is like saying f&^* you. In fact, it is saying that without using words. Everyone in our culture understands that gesture to mean f&*^ you.

Hmmm.

Now, I feel as though I have armed little S. Not only with knowledge (I am sure he's heard the expression like a million times) that he can share with his mini cohorts; but also with a certain power. It's kind of alarming. Like having a small nuclear device in the trunk of your car.

Let's hope he uses his new found power for good, rather than evil. Although he has been so mischievous lately, it would not surprise me at all for him to get caught flipping the bird at another losing squad. But, also it would not surprise me at all for him to look up at the disciplinarian with wide, pathetic eyes a la Puss in Boots from Shrek, and say, who, me? I was just showing them the score. How could THAT be naughty?

That kid is trouble. f#$%

Crazy like a fox

I took Clooney to the vet yesterday. He's been licking and chewing at his skin for weeks now, and it's to the point that he's driven to distraction by itching.

I didn't go to the regular vet. The regular vet is the guy who gives rabies shots, flea repellent, heart worm prevention. The regular vet is the guy who has giant posters of anatomical cross sections illustrating cat's urinary systems and dog's inner ear. The regular vet has Milk Bones in a jar and rewards Fido for a nice, passive inspection process. The regular vet has an office with technicians and is, you know, regular.

I went to Dr. Apocalypse. Dr. Smoke and Mirrors, Dr. Magic Wand, Dr. Pixie Dust. Dr. Pixie Dust has NO pharmaceutical-sponsored diagrams. Dr. PD has a bag of Purina with a skull and crossbones drawn on it. Dr. PD has a Milk Bone Box with the nuclear waste icon. Dr. PD's office is like going into a palm reader's lair. Walking through the door suspends all disbelief. Walking through the door transfixes you, engages you, and absolutely renders everything you hear in that examination room compelling, factual and completely plausible. Despite the fact that there's a 50-50 chance Dr. Pixie Dust is a quack.

A few things about Dr. PD--he is an actual DVM. He got his degree at Auburn. (Which, for the record, has an excellent animal health program) He is by and large sane in his appearance. It's what he says that is alternately paranoid bat-shit crazy and completely and totally true.

In his examination room, I listen to what he has to say (and he DOES have a lot to say) and I think about the world, the toxins humans pour into it every day, and the new "science" of food. Then, I pay my bill, go outside and see the bright, shining light of day, and think, "nah. That was nuts."

We first visited Dr. PD when we got Clooney. He gave us his lecture on the four horsemen of the Apocalypse: milk, wheat, soy and corn. Not what you were expecting, eh? He explained that these products should not be in dog food, and are inserted in various amounts to add volume cheaply. These foods, he very rationally told us, are toxic to dogs, and to humans (a big leap, yes. But WAY beyond the purview of this blog right now) and that we need to feed the dog limited ingredient foods developed by such noteworthy dog-food companies as Dick Van Patten (of Eight is Enough. I wish I were making this up.) These food brands include such non-traditional combinations as salmon and sweet potato, bison and potato, duck and rice, elk and sweet potato.

I swear to God, every time I bought that bag of food, I laughed. In what Universe was a 12 pound dog, with only a faint genetic wisp of wolf left in his DNA meant to eat ELK? I mean is there anything funnier than the image of Clooney, long (well-maintained) hair blowing in the breeze like Fabio, chasing down a herd of elk, culling out the weak, and bringing one down with a swift leap and fierce bite to the throat?

Honestly, I am laughing now, just describing it.

After a while, Clooney grew bored? Ill? Intolerant? to the Dick Van Patten food. I went back and bought an alternate brand, whose name I can never recall, but whose bag looks much like a tampon/Masengill ad. The packaging offers water color renderings of open prairies, deer and bear standing harmoniously together, fish jumping in the stream. It's like Snow White's menstrual cycle, illustrated. Clooney ate this brand with enthusiasm for weeks.

But then. The Itch.

Poor Clooney. He has been itchy and licky and miserable. Without exaggeration, he will sit and lick his feet (a notorious sign of allergy or skin irritation) for more than an hour at a time. I'm thinking to myself, I'm feeding the Masengill food, what more could be wrong with this poor dog? I then started reading about environmental allergens. Did you know that some dogs are allergic to GRASS?

OK. That does make the fantasy of Clooney hunting the elk even more comedic. Now he is sneezing uncontrollably as he's stalking the herd.

Maybe Clooney, in all the generations of tinkering that have been done to his genes, suffers from grass allergy. What the hell, Dr. PD probably knows about this.

I go in to Dr. PD. Without examining the dog, he begins his diatribe. I intervene early, not wanting to listen to the litany of ailments caused by corn gluten. (And there is a list, by the way.) I proudly announce that I feed my dog Masengill dog food, fresh non-municipal water, offer him no treats or human food, and bathe him only in unscented, unperfumed oatmeal based baby shampoos.

AHA! I must be the perfect client for Dr. PD! I think for SURE I am going to get a quick rundown of what to do and be out the door.

Wrong. He begins to tell me about the cellular process of allergy. About mast cells, and histamines and leukotrienes, and nano-charges of cells. I start to have flashbacks to our first visit. We had this little puppy and got a huge lecture about food, and the dog fell asleep, and M swears he fell into a corn-gluten-induced coma. And we all left the office shaking our heads and thinking this guy was a nut job. Until we bought conventional, non-Masengill brand dog food and the dog barfed non-stop for a week, developed a yeast infection in his ear, and developed malaise unlike any puppy should have. We tried the Dick Van Patten stuff within a week, and voila! Perfect Puppy. Crap. Hate it when the nutjob is right.

So, back to the current appointment. I blacked out for a while during the part about nanovolts of human cells and free radicals. But then he said something that started to resonate: this has been the worst allergy summer for humans and animals in the past 15 years. (This is documented fact, per the news) during the oil spill, hundreds of thousands of gallons of dispersant were sprayed over the gulf. This highly volatile dispersant, in Dr. PD's opinion, evaporated readily, was absorbed into the high humidity air over Mobile and, at the molecular level, has created poor air quality and stimulated everyone's allergy responses.

OK. STOP. I know. Bazillions of quantity of air in the world. Relatively small quantity of toxic crap. True. I get it. But, pollen levels are unusually low this year. AND, when my parents came, my mother's allergies went into hyperdrive. AND, government air quality standards have consistently identified Mobile's air as fair to poor all summer. AND, who trusts the government or BP to tell us what REALLY went on this summer? Perhaps the dispersants are the equivalent of thousands of poorly-maintained diesel trucks driving around? I'm just saying. It's possible right?

In the end, Dr PD suggested I make Clooney home cooked meals for 5 days to see if the licking stops. If the licking stops, we can start examining the food for triggers to the itching. If the licking doesn't stop, we can try a drug for 5 days to see if the licking is externally caused. If the licking stops then, we wait for the heat and humidity to die down along with the quantity of pollutants in the air.

Oh, fine. You're right. In the light of day, this all sounds like nonsense and insanity. It's like recounting a dream you had to some one and you realize that describing a monkey in a wizarding outfit offering you a telephone made of cheez-its really doesn't do justice to the strangeness of the dream, but instead makes you sound like a raving lunatic. I'm just saying.

If the dog stops licking, I'm going to let you know.

Because Dr. PD will be promoted to Grand Poobah of the Pixie Dust and I will begin following his advice on EVERYTHING. Except maybe fluoride. Fluoride HAS to be good for you, right? Seriously. Doesn't it? Right?

An Open Letter

Dear Jerk,

Lemme tell you a few things that are on my mind right now:

1. If you are going to insist on stealing a credit card number, go ahead and don't take mine.

2. Once you have stolen a credit card number, don't be a total douche and spend $700 at FOOTLOCKER in MILAN. Really? In all of Milan, you couldn't find a better place to buy shoes? Milan, buddy. Headquarters of shoes coveted by everyone everywhere and you went to Footlocker. Christ, some half-wit in Jersey could steal a credit card and go to Footlocker. I really expected better fashion sense from an Italian.

3. Also, next time, could you steal my card on a Monday or Tuesday? That would give the company a few business days to send me a new card. Stealing a card on a Thursday afternoon really louses up my whole weekend.

4. Seriously. Footlocker?

5. Really, your timing sucked. I got my iphone last week. And I got the crappy data plan with it. So, I went and got a router so that I could have wi-fi in the house. M was crazy busy last week, so he didn't hook it up until Saturday morning. Which meant that by the time I FINALLY had my router, I had no credit card to buy new apps. Which annoys me beyond reason.

6. I think that as punishment for stealing the credit card number, YOU should have to go to all of our autopay sites and update them with the new credit card information when we get it. Seriously. It's annoying. And I just know that we'll think we've got them all done, and then a PAST DUE notice will come and we'll realize we totally forgot to update something important, like the water bill, and then I'll have soapy hair and be stuck in a dry shower, and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.

7. Maybe, if you need sneakers or trainersor whatever they call them in Italy, so badly, you could get a job at Footlocker. For real, right? They hire just about anybody. And you clearly have some computer knowledge as you managed to intercept my credit card number. Go ahead and get a job, ok?

8. Finally, and I say this sincerely: if I were to find out who you are, I would send the angry hoard of Capital One vikings out to avenge me. And then you had better hope that the sneakers you STOLE help you run fast, because those guys will show no mercy.

Sincerely,
Julie P.

The Child Punisher

The other night in the car, S becomes aggravated with my (admittedly irritating) game of echo. I was playing that infamous game from childhood and repeated everything he said. Including, "Stop copying me!" I was having a good time, feeling rather rousing of the rabble, and was enjoying some time with my little guy.

Eventually, he screams: "The Child Punisher is going to come get you!"

This gives me pause. What an entirely fantastic concept! The list of adult offenses (keep it clean people) that could rile the anger of the Child Punisher would be hysterical. So, S and I then start talking about some of offenses the Child Punisher would not take kindly to:

1. Serving vegetables/making kids eat everything on their plates
2. Making kids clean their rooms
3. Making kids go to school
4. For not letting kids play Wii
5. Not letting kids eat whatever they want
6. He does not like it when grown ups talk on their cell phones and ignore kids

So, basically, no surprises there. The list of adult crimes eligible for The Child Punisher shares a number of items that make kids misbehave. Coincidence or psychic phenomenon?

The idea of the Child Punisher exacting revenge for every small slight against (pretty) spoiled kids amuses me tremendously for whatever reason.

Mostly, though, the idea of a world small enough that injustice can be identified as a candy bar is kind of wonderful.

OOOH. It's NEW. And SHINY

Remember when you were a kid, and you saw something advertised on TV only to find that it was a total piece o' crap when you actually held it in your hands?

The Easy Bake Oven comes to mind in this category. Many many jokes have been made about baking food with a light bulb. The fact that it continues to sell like its own proverbial lukewarm cakes is a testament to the gullibility of children. Lite Brite glows dimly second.

Sometimes, though, something came across your childhood radar that was just as cool as you hoped. Something that touched your childhood in a way that transcends commercialism and advertising. The rare tangible object that really brought happiness. The closest I can get is really the Barbie Dream House. I really Barbie'd it up in my day and didn't really covet much else than that.

Recently, as an adult, I have been lucky enough to ride the roller coaster of material joy. One word: iphone. OOOH. It is just as cool as it looks on TV. I wish we had wifi at home, though. I don't get to make facetime calls without the wifi. And since I bought the smaller data package, I have to figure out how to purchase apps using wifi only. But I'm getting it. And the organizational features are excellent. The potential glimmers like El Dorado.

On the other hand, and on a smaller scale, I have been waiting for the entire summer (which, in terms of TV seasons, is getting longer and longer) to wait for the return of my beloved Bones. I know, I'm an adult. I shouldn't anticipate the fall return of my TV shows. But I DO. And it's not a BIG thing or anything. I just have my little infatuation and crush, and Oh, forget it. Just leave me alone.

I didn't get to watch Bones during its premiere on Thursday night (can I point out that Thursday is overly populated with nearly every good show on TV, while the rest of the week languishes in crap?) But as soon as a solid hour of time with my honey, my DVR, and my snack foods was liberated, I sat front and center on the couch.

Meh. Not even I, with my little fan-adoration could stop from snickering at forced lines or eyerolling at a far fetched plot line. Really?!? After the whole summer, this is what I waited for? How I Met Your Mother came back pretty strong. Modern Family posted a robust effort. Even Community dragged Betty White out for a quick gulp of her own urine. Even though they boarded the Betty White wagon a little late and in forced fashion, they at least TRIED!

Bones? Even with the magic of TV, they couldn't manage to make the group stay apart for a year? How is it that this hyper-educated Scooby Gang controls the goings on of the FBI and the thinly disguised Smithsonian? How can a scientist, though lacking social skills, be wearing a magenta bra and Monday panties in the middle of a third world jungle? What the hell was going on?

How could something I wanted so badly be so flimsy?

The only thing I took away from my Sunday night TV watching was an impulse for a new haircut.

**By the by, if you've missed me, blame my parents. I can't blog and hang with the fam at the same time**

Motherhood, formerly known as Your Life

I accidentally got into a Facebook discussion thread that turned all argumentative and political.

Wait, I got into a Facebook discussion thread that accidentally turned all argumentative and political.

At least, I thought it was accidental. I hate it when this happens. But the thing is, this thread looked stable--there was no Sarah Palin, no Glenn Beck, no outlandish stakes or claims--nothing nuclear incendiary about it.

But, no.

The thread was borne from a newspaper Dear Abby type clipping: childless woman is miffed that her child-having friends never have time and always claim to be exhausted blah blah blah.

So, discussion begins as follows:
Poster: Is having children REALLY that hard for us childless people to imagine?

Me: Yes. It is a thankless, hellish, never-ending task that sucks the life force directly from your veins.

Third Poster: Only because you allow it to. We make these choices, we could not be weighed down by guilt and exhaustion.

Me: (though I shouldn't have) Something about sitting up with sick children in the middle of the night and feeling completely exhausted and isolated. Thus, parenthood is isolating and exhausting and thankless.

Third Poster: Only because you choose to be. You could wake up husband, call family for help, assume child will be fine and go back to sleep. You choose to carry your cross.

Since Facebook threads are notorious for convincing nobody of anything, I thought I would continue my argument in my own personal forum. Because, let's be honest, at cinnamon I am never wrong, and I can delete dissenters.

I want to say that I intentionally use humor and alcohol to deflect any accusations of schlepping a cross around. I don't want to be the mom who says that her children are everything and that their little lives matter more than her own. These moms eventually wind up in the full fetal when the youngest child leaves home, and have to be nursed back from their Gollum-like precious mumblings to a quasi-human existence.

I fully realize that in the hypothetical I set up that a) most children will not die of fever b) the emergency room is always open c) that I could wake my husband. Though Third Poster should realize not every one has the advantage of nearby family. It's very geo-biased of her. She should also realize that husbands and wives throughout history have an agreement: (the first example was found written on a cave wall) when it comes to babies' needs and the sun is not up, moms are responsible.

Look, I have said before that I can not imagine working outside of the home and raising kids. It seems impossible to me. Why, then, is it so hard for non-breeders to imagine that they CAN'T imagine being a parent?

Let me try to describe a day to my non-breeding friends. Shall we begin at pregnancy? Imagine you swallowed a watermelon whole. It's sitting on your bladder and occasionally kicking you in the lungs. You are in a permanent state of PMDD for 9 months. Then, like that scene from Alien, something slimy, loud and inexplicably evil erupts from your midsection as you beg to be euthanized.

So, that is how parenthood starts.

Now, you've got that little sucker home. For the first half-year of its life, the torture is like a Vietnam Vet's horror story. The enemy deprives you of sleep, leeches fluids from your body, creates lists of manual labor as its laundry/trash/dish washing/housekeeping slave, and keeps you pasty and filthy so that you rarely leave the house.

The next four years, known as the "toddler/preschooler" years are only dimly recognizable as your pre-sucker life.

First, imagine yourself as a conjoined twin. Now, imagine your conjoined twin is a sadistic maniac. Now, take your sadistic maniac twin to Target. Are you with me? Your sadistic twin doesn't want to go and whines the whole way there. In fact, she may find something in the passenger seat and throw it at you. When you get there, SCT doesn't want to walk, but wants to ride in the cart. This is tricky. When you are three-quarters of the way to the back of the store, SCT has to pee. You take SCT all the way back to the front of the store to the bathrooms, which might have been cleaned during the Nixon era. You hold your breath and enter. Meanwhile, SCT is using her hands to touch everything she can reach while she sits on the toilet. She only washes her hands reluctantly when she's done.

You return to your errands. You need food for you, SCT and your husband. Of course, you haven't had conjugal relations w/ your husband since SCT came around and you're wondering since he doesn't ever get up when SCT is sick, why you're feeding him anyway. SCT touches everything down every aisle, occasionally knocking very fragile things off the shelves. You can't slap her, despite every impulse in your body, because, honestly, it's frowned upon to slap conjoined twins in public.

You're halfway through the frozen food section when SCT has decided she is done. Not a little done, not sorta done, but altogether DONE. She starts screaming and making a scene (as though conjoined twins walking through Target don't make a little bit of a scene to start with). You appease her by opening a box of Fruity-ohs from the basket. Persevere. You think to yourself that the household budget is a little tight these days, mostly because of SCT's insatiable needs, but that you could really use a cute shirt. And, hey, you deserve something even if it's going to be ill fitting because it has 2 armholes and you and SCT have four arms. But you deserve something. SCT disagrees. She pitches a fit for the ages, compelling you to check out.

During check-out, it appears that SCT has completely lost all control of her limbs, and is flailing them about wildly. The ENTIRE gum display erupts into the air, and every single little impulse item is something she covets beyond reason. You bribe with popcorn and ICEE.

The bill at Target for groceries and your $10 shirt rivals the GDP of a small country. Husband will be displeased.

You buy ICEE and popcorn and head to the relative safety of home. SCT runs out into the parking lot and nearly kills you both. Apologetically, you salute the driver, and throw everything into the back of your car.

On the way home, ICEE magically finds its way on to your prized new shirt. It was blue raspberry ICEE. Unloading groceries with SCT is about as easy as you'd imagine. Legs, arms flailing some more. Total lack of cooperation from her half of your body. She's dying of hunger or exhaustion or boredom or Spongebob is on. You sit down and wonder if this is how you expected your life to be. And you realize it's already 11:30. Only 11:30. And you're ready to die.

Granted, things are less irrational during the school years, but they are nonetheless busy. And SCT was only one child. Whatever innate need people have to produce second offspring must be a pretty powerful survival instinct. Right now, I am procrastinating on no fewer than 6 things by posting this entry. The boys will be waiting in carpool before I know it. I rationalize that this is my time, but no one will be appreciating the concept of my time if there is no milk for cereal tomorrow morning. Or food for lunch, or library fines, or or or everything else I'm supposed to do today.

Yes, parenthood is a choice. Not necessarily a well-informed one, because it is not possible to anticipate what motherhood is. You can petsit, babysit, niece-sit, go to ten thousand family reunions, but that doesn't capture it.

Unlike regular jobs, this job defines you. It's impossible not to: you are forever Johnny's Mom. You are thrilled with his successes and crushed by his failures. You want everything to be perfect for him, yet understand that hardship is essential. You cringe when new studies reveal that the sippy cup he wouldn't put down for 3 years was laden with BPA and is probably going to make him sterile or stupid, or kill him when he's 36. You hope against hope that he will learn the skills to be happy. Because happiness doesn't fall in your lap--like everything else, it is earned. Will he be able to identify a career that he loves, or be equipped to be professionally satisfied without one? Will he find a person to love who loves him in turn? Can you impart to him the lessons of your failures, or is he doomed to repeat them? Did he watch too much TV today?

Of course, you can parent without being dogged by these issues. Of course, you can raise a child without karate and French class and violin lessons or soccer. But each mother I know makes decisions, all different decisions, based on a truth she honestly believes to be the best for her child.

Sometimes, even when the SCT is sleeping, those decisions leave us up and alone in the dark.

I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up!

Friday was the confluence of negative health tides. I never get a head cold--I get pneumonia. In much the way contractors come to my house and shake their heads in disgust, doctors of all varieties look at my various barnacles, ailments and aches and mumble about how unusual that is.

Friday morning, I was making my bed. Yes, that mundane task I do every morning. As I was about to yank up the covers from the foot of the bed (why do I even put all those blankets on my bed? I invariably get hot and they all wind up down at the foot) when I saw a Lego lurking in the pile of my rug. I thought casually to myself, "I'm going to step on that sucker when I come back to this side of the bed. I should pick it up now and save myself the agony. I reached over to pick up that blessed block, and let me tell you, it was the last thing I thought for at least 20 minutes.

My whole world went tie-dye. Many people talk about whiteness or darkness when they experience harsh pain, but my world goes all frizzy. The world doesn't disappear, it just swirls and blurs. My knee had gone out and left me crumpled on the floor. Foot 90 degrees from front. A horrible, tangible grinding sound came from my knee when I righted it. I literally writhed on the floor grunting. There were no words, no profanity, no crying. Just some primordial "I am about to die" guttural sound.

Clooney, sensing pain, runs into the room and begins to lick my face frantically. You know how they say dogs sense our sickness? That's a load of crap. There was nothing WRONG with my face...would he PLEASE stop licking it, but I would not have been surprised to look down and see my knee joint parts sticking through my skin. It hurt that bad.

So, now my knee hurts like craziness. I immediately call CC, an expert in all things muscular-skeletal. Because, of course, her musculo-skeletal system looks freaking perfect, but also, incidentally, she happens to have a professional degree in the area. I go limping over to her house for an expert opinion. After checking it out, she has decided that all the important parts are still attached, but that, indeed, something not good at all happened to the knee cap.

Which is a bummer, because my mom was a carrier for FPS, and my sister and I have both manifested its symptoms. FPS, for you medical know-nothings, is Funky Patella Syndrome. While there doesn't seem to be anything anatomically freakish about us (per se), the knee bone is not well attached to the thigh bone in nursery rhyme verse. My sister, who survived years of elite athletics as a pole vaulter, was felled when she bumped into a piece of gym equipment. That ridiculous injury required weeks of rehab. My mother, strolling the beach as waves lapped at her ankles, was felled when a monster wave of six inches knocked her down and blew out her ACL. And while a bed-making injury was humiliating, it certainly won't go down as the craziest in my family. (It's August, and Dad is still recuperating from Christmas-Light-Hanging induced bursitis.)

Now that the knee was appropriately iced, and I was resting comfortably-ish on the couch, I was able to turn my attention to my other medical ailment: leprosy. I had this crusty, oozy, nasty rash crawling across my chest. I was, at this point, hoping the leprosy would spread and cause my leg to fall off right at the painful knee, but despite its menace, I didn't dare hope the rash would actually spread to the point of usefulness.

Of course, my doctor was out of town for the week.

I nursed my wounds all weekend. I limped about making pirate sounds, and vowing to spread my rash to anyone who pissed me off.

On Monday I, along with a thousand other people, called the doctor--desperate for an appointment. The leprosy was definitely out of hand. The knee was swollen, but usable, no longer my first priority.

Nurse Frantic calls me back, assures me that the office is in chaos, but if I am willing to sit there, they will 'work me in.' I go. I bring my Kindle. You never know how long you'll be trapped in a waiting room. Especially since, for a change, it wasn't the pediatrician's office. So I wouldn't be playing a marathon game of "Don't Touch That." I'm reading Chelsea Handler's book, Are You There Vodka, It's Me Chelsea, an appropriate work for someone of my sobriety level.

I'm sitting under the TV, which thankfully isn't tuned to Faux News, and I scan the waiting room. My internist is part of a large practice, and I always like to see what kind of patients he's seeing all day. Just to put myself in perspective.

The first thing I noticed is that EVERYONE had portable oxygen tanks. Already, I'm thinking, "look at me! Gettin' my oxygen from the air around me! Woohoo! He probably thinks I'm in amazing shape!" Also, since I don't have a BMI in the vicinity of rhinoceros, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. Now, I'm wondering if maybe I'm not too hard on myself and that maybe a slightly overweight one-legged leper might be able to go somewhere in this world.

I go back to reading Chelsea. I love Chelsea. Don't get me wrong, I'm never awake to watch her show, and I have waited however many years to read this book. Even though I'm late to the party, I'm definitely on board now. I'd like to consider myself a lot like Chelsea. Except the little people who have seen my uterus were, you know, fetuses. So, I'm laughing out loud at my book, and the guy waiting in the chair facing me hands me his Winn Dixie receipt and a pen and asks if I can write down the name of the book I'm reading. The guy has a wicked comb-over, is dressed like a shlump, and is affectionately stroking his octogenarian mother's shriveled hand.

This is the paragraph I was reading:

The problem for my dad with the suspenders my mother bought for him is that he hasn't adjusted the straps since he got them. So instead of attaching somewhere around his midsection, the suspenders clamp onto his pants three inches below his nipples. Now picture the suspenders attached to a pair of sweatpants. This vision is what first led me to coin the term "camel balls."

There is NOOOO way CombOver is going to like this book. But, I write down the information for him, vaguely entertained by the prospect of him reading about Chelsea's back and forth on whether to get involved with a red head and his clownish pubic hair.

Nurse Frantic calls me in, and the Dr, comes to look at my leprosy. I pull open my shirt neck and he visibly recoiles, "blech!" Really, Dr? Is that your official diagnosis? I've got a wicked case of the Blech? Is this like the Clap? He prescribes some unctions, snake oil and steroids.

The knee, he agrees (shaking his head, mumbling about my unusual FPS) is intact, but slightly screwed. (I knew that.) He insists on X-Rays, which even I know will reveal nothing, but whatevs. Chelsea and I can kill some time down in the lab waiting room.

The lab waiting room makes the Dr.'s waiting room look like a MENSA convention. We are talking liver spots and impending death. I briefly thought of mercy killing this bunch by switching out their oxygen canisters for CO2 tanks stolen from McDonald's fountain machines. I went through all the poses for my xray porn movie (spread this, bend this, move this way, hold it, great) and left the ebola-ravaged center in a shower of Purell.

Shockingly, the snake oil is clearing up the leprosy. I got no phone call regarding the Xrays, which means (not shockingly at all) that they showed nothing. So far, I haven't started bleeding from my eyeballs, so hopefully I didn't contract whatever nasty was floating around the clinic, and I survived.

Thanks to Chelsea.

Swagger Wagon: Part Deux

As much as I love the Toyota Sienna ads, I have come to loathe the new Chrysler ad. In this spot run during football, a kid is running away from bullies, takes refuge through the liftgate of the family minivan, and gives his pursuers a big raspberry as his mom pulls away from the driveway. BUT, in the middle, the narrator has to explain the new safety features of the vehicle, which include back up sensors (as mom is backing up, she nearly runs over the bullies, but thank goodness, there's back up sensors to let her know the boys are behind her) and a rear view camera (as mom is backing up, she nearly backs into traffic on her street, but thank goodness, she had a camera to let her see so she could slam on the brakes just in time).

Okay, let's start with the basics. Before she got out of the driveway, mom nearly killed three neighborhood kids, herself, and her own child. Maybe mom shouldn't be in the carpool anymore. Apparently, before dad bought her the new Chrysler, every trip to the orthodontist was about as safe as a WWII sortie into France.

Second, whatever did we do before our cars told us we were about to hit stuff? Oh, yeah. We looked behind us.

Third, why would any advertising executive decide to green light this ad? This ad is selling a multi-passenger mini van with a one-child family. This ad is selling a vehicle based solely on its unnecessary safety features. Using a mom who CLEARLY needs them. I don't think of myself as a menace to traffic and local bullies! I don't need a car that protects me from myself! Why would I need a car with safety features for geriatric blind people?

Chrysler has tapped into the ubiquitous national neurosis of fear. Everything out there is trying to hurt us and our children: cars, inoculations, plastic, Latinos, moms in reverse. Chrysler's not interested in swagger, it's interested in taking us out into the world and back safely home with out being eaten by vampires, killed by UVA/B rays, or maimed by playground equipment. I am afraid of enough crap. Lemme drive my gas-guzzling family vehicle around in style, dammit.

This ad embodies every reason I DON'T want a minivan. It's conservative. It's too big for a regular family. It's stodgy. It's going to bitch at me every time I put it in reverse. Its creators are appealing to my husband who deep down thinks I'm not a good driver. Screw that.

In researching today's segment, (read: googling Chrysler minivan) I found this article that ran this summer in the Chicago Tribune http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-06-30/news/ct-edit-minivan-20100630-29_1_minivan-suvs-hood-scoop

Yes, in nutshell, yes! First of all, I like this article, because it verifies what we all know deep down inside: girls like cute cars, boys like manly cars. Sometimes stereotypes exist for a reason. But what I appreciate about this article, is that sometimes (even) Americans will break down and act in a practical fashion. Even if our practicality stems from cupholders big enough to hold McD's french fries so we can stuff our faces on the road. But while we're breaking down and being sensible, we don't want to have every impulse towards coolness stomped on like a juice pouch. And, oh Chrysler, you are stomping my Capri Sun.


I KNOW what to do when my vehicle is in reverse: look behind me. Do not run over children (no matter how obnoxious). Do not back into oncoming traffic.

I want style. I want to think that those hot (read: young) guys are looking at me, not at the diaper bag I distractedly left on the roof. I've got SWAGGER. My family is cool, and I want a minivan because I've got 2 kids, and we're out DOING stuff, and we've got cool places to go, and that's how we ROLL.

We are not the people that hide from bullies in the trunk of the family car.

All of this being said, of course, I'll probably be in a car wreck this week. It'll be my fault. It'll involve bullies and reverse, and y'all will see me driving my stodgy Chrysler the week after that.

Objects in mirror sound angrier than intended

Someone left a comment here at notcinnamon the other day, which just made my week for two reasons: one, hey! A comment! Woohoo! two, he remarked that my blog is so real-life.

And my blog IS so real life. In so many different ways. First, I have bucked the trend of embracing parenthood and married life as just one beautiful, unicorny miracle after another. I'm just not buying it.

Second, as I do in my actual life, my blog just sometimes blanks out for days on end.

Which brings me to my parents, who call and say, "you haven't blogged, you haven't called! We're beginning to wonder."

Wonder what? If I'd fallen off a bridge, been in a car wreck, gone insane, or somehow disappeared, then surely a morgue, a hospital, a mental institution, or a milk container would have notified you as next of kin or asked if you'd seen me. Sure, it's not Facebook, and you wouldn't instantly receive my status update: JULIE "is kidnapped. In trunk of '87 Cutlass, traveling west on I-10, near Pascagoula," but eventually you'd hear about it through the appropriate channels.

In fact, what I have been doing is FAR worse than falling off a bridge. My butt and the driver's seat of my car are becoming molded to one another. It's like some horrible evolution. Instead of developing webbed feet from being in water, I've developed carpool ass, which is changing the contour of my body to be more commuter friendly. Without exaggeration, I pack up my car as if for a road trip: water (it's a bazillion degrees out and I'm giving up soda), protein bars (trying to eat healthy and don't want to just grab junk), Kindle (reading in carpool line slows imminent mental dulling), walking shoes and clothes (for exercising during carpool, but I don't want to run errands in the Springhill Walker uniform, so I pack it and change behind the reflective dashboard solar blocker thingy), cell phone (so as not to be incommunicado), calendar (to schedule more crap to do during the upcoming days/weeks/months), cooler with snacks and cold drinks for kids, music class materials (for S, not me), lap desk (for E to do homework during S's music class), reusable grocery bags (to save the planet), insulated grocery bag (so everything I just bought doesn't spoil in bazillion degree heat), library books to return, coupon folders, extra car seats, baby wipes, car wipes, umbrellas--you name it, I've got it. And I'm schleppin' it around because I just NEVER KNOW. How is this possible? When did I become this person? Where did the day go?

It's not like everything in the day is slavishly devoted to my family and my errands, and my kids. But, if I want to visit with friends, or meet for coffee, or have lunch out, I have to wedge it into the day with a crowbar. And, the worst part is, I don't have an out-of-home job! HOW is everybody doing it? What is it that everyone is neglecting that is suddenly going to explode from neglect and bring us to our knees? Am I the only one worried? Am I the only one waiting for Martha Stewart to show up and say, "Hmmm, I see you have not been following the six month plan for rotating your furniture cushions. Just go ahead and throw that couch away now. It's gonna be useless." What am I forgetting? I have to be forgetting something, because right now I'm functioning like a super-saturated solution. Everything's going along ok, as long as no one adds one more crystal of sugar. Cuz then we're doomed. Everything's going to come to a grinding halt, and we're going to be paralyzed in a maze of rock candy.

So, no I didn't call. No, I haven't blogged. I haven't updated my Facebook status. (To my current knowledge I still may be "waiting for the weekend! Or "wishing summer would end!") My butt has melded to the seat in my car, and I can't move. I'm supermom! I'm doing it all and loving it. Right? RIGHT?!?

Rubbed the wrong way

This weekend, CC is in Louisville, KY to support her husband as he participates in a triathlon. Not an Olympic, or "Intermediate" triathlon of 1.5 km swim, 40 km ride, and 10km run; but an unholy trinity of the Ironman triathlon of 3.8 km swim, 180 km ride, and 42.2 km run. I wish him luck.

I was gonna participate this year, but y'know, I'd die.

However, I DO appreciate the efforts towards fitness and healthy living. And, since I'm suffering through an hour-plus long carpool every afternoon, I've run out of excuses why I can't exercise. I can easily park my car, walk for 40 minutes, and return before the line moves an inch.

But my inertia is of Herculean strength. Being of good sense, I decided not to a) rush into anything and b) set reasonable expectations. I am totally one of those people who, in the event of rain and a missed walk, tosses in the towel, claims all is lost, and eats two dozen cookies. My goal is to walk three days a week, which I consider a very modest exercise goal.

Also, being of good sense, I had to do first things first: buy some clothes in which to take my walks. The Spring Hill Walker's Uniform is standard issue to women in the 36608: visor/cap, formfitting v-neck or tank top, black and white running-type shorts, ipod, shoes. Being both anti Spring Hill Women, and not a walker, I had only the ipod and the shoes. I have a cap from when I was at Northwestern. It'll do. I bought a cute walking skort, v-neck shirt, and made the shopping trip Monday's exercise.

Next, I had to actually walk. I parked my car and, indeed, walked for the designated time by myself through the streets surrounding the boys' school. Despite heat rivaling Satan's sauna, things were progressing satisfactorily.

Except. Except for one mortifying detail. My thighs, having not been exercised regularly in the last 35 years or so, rub together. And, in this devil's steam room of a climate, there is substantial sweat. After a brisk walk, my thighs boasted giant strawberries from chaffing. That was nearly it. As I said, it doesn't take much to discourage me. And certainly matching rashes on such delicate skin and so perilously close to my under-manicured nethers, are no small matter. Wednesday was out.

Thursday, on my way to carpool line, I stopped in at the drug store because I'd heard tell of a new product that reduces chaffing. Embarrassingly, I had seen it on TV. I think it's made by Gold Bond and the ad features heavy-set people happily throwing up their arms, skipping, and moving their limbs jauntily, freed from the discomfort of chaffing. Maybe, though I lack significant creases and folds, the anti-chaffing product could work for me.

Unfortunately, drug store did not carry said product. HOWEVER, they did carry a similar product, made by Massengill (?!?) that might suit my needs. The product isn't with athletic products like Icy Hot, or with skin remedies like Caladryl, or even with lotions. It is conveniently located with the feminine hygiene products. So, there I am, scouting past Astroglide, powders, douches, condoms, lube of all varieties, remedies for ewwwww, and lo, there on the bottom shelf. Silky gel to reduce chaffing in the "delicate bikini area." My bikini area cheered with optimism.

I lubed up my thighs and prepared for my walk. In the heat. Alone. But then, I saw SB and LE, and suddenly my lone trek was a laughing, upbeat trio. The walk was less boring, the company enlivening and I was (shh, it'll ruin my rep) having fun! And my lady bits didn't complain at all.

Friday, however, rain prevented me from achieving the hat trick I was aiming for. But I'm not giving up hope. Monday will come again, and I will oil up my thighs and start anew.