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.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
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**
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**
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
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.
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.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
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.
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.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
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?!?
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?!?
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