Billy Joel for President
Posted on April 15, 2016 12 Comments
A Billy Joel song came on in Office Depot this afternoon, and I’ll be dogged if the entire store, staff and clientele alike, didn’t break out into song. This is likely the closest I’ll ever come to witnessing a flash mob, and I want to tell you about it.
I was at the counter waiting for a fax to send. The clerk, a twenty-something gentleman with excellent costumer service and unfortunate psoriasis, was assisting another customer – a woman near my mother’s age (referred hereto after as “Do Rag.”)
Do Rag had a motorcycle helmet in her left hand and a photo on honeybees on a honeycomb in the right. She had wanted to have the honey bee photo made into a two-by-four poster. The result was blurry. Disappointing. The clerk told her the photo file was too small. She’d need a photo that was at least X number of kilobytes or gigawatts or whatever. He was kindly jotting the specifics down onto a post-it for her when it started.
“Whats the matter with the clothes I’m wearing? ‘Can’t you tell that your tie is too wide.'”
Do Rag was singing along from word one, tapping a heavy black boot in time. She was happy. This same woman, seconds before, was sighing. Shaking her head. Rolling her eyes. She’d been weighing a series of frustrating options: Take the blurry poster? Take a new photo and come back next week? Now she was in karaoke mode and all seemed right in her world.
“Ma’am,” said the clerk. (He said it to me. I’m ma’am.) “The number is still busy. Why don’t you walk around a minute while I try again?”
“That works,” I said. I didn’t have to walk three full aisles before hearing it. Another costumer enthusiastically jamming out to Billy Joel. This time is was not a singer but a whistler. And this guy, y’all. His tune really carried. 80 decibels, easy.
I walked until I found him (bored as I found myself to be, and with no real shopping agenda to speak of). I studied him from the corner of my eye, all the while feigning interest in the highlighters. He was just a plain, run-of the-mill dad with a kid who needed unlined index cards, not lined. (Where are the unlined?!) Golf shirt. Khakis. A bit of a pot belly. Nothing striking about him, really, except his remarkable whistle and unabashed love of Billy Joel.
Back at the counter, Do Rag was thanking the clerk and walking away.
“See you next week,” she said.
A new gentleman sidled up to the counter. Shaggy hair. Camouflage cap and wranglers. He was getting some kind of card laminated. Maybe it was a hunting license. I don’t know. I’m only guessing that he liked to hunt. I can say for sure, however, that he liked Billy Joel. He, too, sang along. Sang like he was in the shower. Like he was drunk in the back seat of a buddy’s car. Not a care in the world.
“Hot funk, cool punk, even if it’s old junk it’s still rock and roll to me.”
People of America, I think we’ve found a strong write-in candidate for the upcoming presidential election. Who’s with me?
I am Not Responsible for the Smell in this Restroom
Posted on April 5, 2016 7 Comments
At some point in my early twenties, older friends and relatives began sharing with me the myriad advantages I should expect with the onset of middle age. A coworker named Debbie once told me that, at the age of forty, I would stop caring what other people thought of me. On another occasion, Aunt Sharon watched me wince and hobble about in an ill-fitting pair of heels, then said, “Don’t worry. One day you’ll be forty, and you’ll be able to wear more comfortable shoes because no one will look at you anymore.”
I’ve been holding tightly to those promises for over a decade now. I have pondered in my heart the ways in which such realities as self-assuredness and invisibility would change me life for the better, and I suppose that, on some level, I went to bed last Tuesday expecting to morph, overnight, into new woman. The sort of Crocs-wearing woman who speaks her mind without disclaimer, apology or regret.
I didn’t.
I’ve worn heels twice since turning 40 last week. I happened to be wearing them over the weekend when I had cause to use a public restroom. And this restroom, y’all. How can I put this? It was the sort of situation in which the odor of the restroom greeted me at the door. I felt myself grimace and cringe upon entrance like the psychologists on “Hoarders” when they walk into a home which is occupied by 80 cats. Offensive. You get it. But it was what I had. I buried my nose in the collar of my dress and hustled into the stall, heels click-clicking.
The worst thing about this restroom, however, was not the odor, but the awkwardness I felt when I emerged from the stall to see that another woman had entered the restroom. The worst thing was that I cared what she thought about me. I shouldn’t have, being forty and all (so said that Debbie character) but I did.
It crossed my mind to address the embarrassment head-on. To say, “Listen lady, just so you know, I walked into this nightmare same as you. I am not responsible for the smell in this restroom.” That is crazy, though, right? It would have made me look overly defensive. Guilty as sin. Better to say nothing at all. The air quality was so poor, though. I couldn’t very well keep quiet. I just couldn’t. (I never can.)
“This bathroom,” I said to the other woman in exasperation. I said it like I knew her. Like the smell was not a source of embarrassment to me but, rather, a problem we shared. “This bathroom is the worst.”
The woman said nothing in response. She looked away from me, then cast her eyes toward the floor.
Maybe she thought I was the culprit. I don’t know. Maybe she was embarrassed for me. There is a chance, though, that she was just admiring my shoes.
When Your Head Has Been Completely Shaved…
Posted on March 26, 2016 15 Comments
A woman’s guide to coping with temporary baldness (dedicated with love to my friend J, who has complained less about her brain surgery than I did the last time my IUD was changed out)
1. Get a temporary tattoo on your scalp.
Please! When do you suppose this opportunity is going to come along again? Never, that’s when. Your hair is growing back quickly, so there is no time to waste. Get a rub-on tat. Something tough.
2. Guilt your mother into buying you a Hermès scarf.
Ask her outright or, if you’re like me and enjoy a little razzle-dazzle, work in a good, histrionic crying jag. Tell her you need the scarf as a head wrap and that, given the indignity you’re suffering, you are entitled to the very best. A few months from now when the hair is back, you can wear the scarf around your neck.
3. Sleep in.
That 45-minute block of time you’ve traditionally reserved for shampooing, conditioning, combing, blow-drying, curling and flat ironing you hair – you can just sleep right on through it. Sweet dreams, beautiful.
4. Cut in line.
You know as well as I do that you’re not sick. The head shaving was part of the procedure that ensures you stay well. Here’s the thing, though – strangers may not know that. Prey upon their pity. Cut in line. What are they going to say?
5. Sing “Nothing Compares to You” in public.
How awesome would that be?! Go to a karaoke bar and impersonate Sinéad O Connor to the best of your ability. I guarantee it will bring down the house.
6. Get a cool wig.
After a lifetime of making do with the hair you were given, you now have a chance to wear the hair you always wish you’d had – any color, length or texture you please.
7. Have fun with your make up.
You have a beautiful face and a skilled hand with cosmetics. This is the perfect time to get a makeover at the mall or watch a few instructional YouTube videos concerning new techniques for make-up applications.
8. Get into a fight.
If there is one thing I learned from going to public school in South Georgia, it’s that hand-to-hand combat between women involves a lot of hair pulling. You would totally dominate your opponent.
9. Ask me to cover your weekend and holiday shifts at work for the next twenty years.
‘Cause I will. With pleasure.
10. Hold your head up high.
You have handled this whole mess with inspiring grace and dignity, and it is over. There are about eleventy-hundred people praising God for this, your remarkable recovery. If you do nothing else on this list, I pray you hold your pretty little shaved head high.
XOXO
A Mediocre Mother and the Back-to-School Rush
Posted on August 9, 2015 21 Comments
Last week, all the good mothers took their children to get back-to-school haircuts. I meant to, but I got busy painting the guest bathroom. I may take them later this week. Or next.
Last week, all the good mothers starting putting their children to bed a little earlier in an effort to ease into the early mornings that school will require. I decided that those earlier mornings are just not going to be easy. They never have been in the past, regardless of how many times we suffered through them. I decided to let my children play on the iPad every night until it’s battery drained.
Last week, all the good mothers started looking through Pintrest boards for healthy and creative lunchbox ideas. I still don’t know what will be in my kids’ lunchboxes. I’ve yet to grocery shop. I will, though. As soon as I finish this post. (The smart money is on a turkey sandwich, an apple, goldfish crackers and two cookies.)
Last week, all the good mothers bought small black boards and chalk in order to prepare for cute First-Day-of-School pictures. You know the kind. The kids hold the black boards in the morning for a photograph. “First Day of Second Grade.” The thing about that, though, is that I have horrible handwriting. The worst. And what’s more, I am left-handed, so everything I write on a blackboard is immediately smeared away with the side of my hand. I will take a picture, though (provided I remember to charge my phone.)
Last week, all the good mothers said to their kids, “I cannot believe you’re going into [insert grade here]. You’re growing up too fast.” And I said that, too. Because I love them like crazy. Even if you can’t tell by the amount of processed food in their lunch boxes.
I’m the Lesser Half
Posted on August 2, 2015 29 Comments
So I watched back-to-back episodes of “Catfish the TV Show” earlier today and am now kicked back before a TLC program called “Sex Sent Me to the ER.” This is me – the person I become when my husband is out of town.
Todd went away on business two days ago. Two. I couldn’t tell you precisely what he is doing. Me? I am throwing soup cans away. Seems I’m suddenly too lazy to walk to the garage where the recycling bin is kept. I am staying up past 1 o’ clock AM, much to my own detriment. I am giving the air conditioner the workout of it’s life. I am eating ice cream. Two servings. From a mug used earlier for coffee. That is what I am doing. Stuff like that.
Character is who you are when no one is watching.
-Anonymous
Jellyfishing
Posted on July 27, 2015 19 Comments
“Hey, you want to see some jellyfish?”
It is like offering to point out to us a bad tattoo or a twelve-story condominium, such was the proliferation of jellyfish at Orange Beach on this particular day.
“We’re good, buddy,” we say.
“You sure? We got a bunch,” he says. He is the color of a peeled apple, this boy, but with the sort of dense, stippled freckles that join together and form a mock-suntan.
“Well, alright,” we say.
We follow the boy. He leads us to a plastic kiddy pool which has been stationed next to a chaise. There is a freckle-blotched woman sunning in the chaise. Presumably his mother. She says hello. We return the greeting.
“See?” says the boy. He points downward.
The kiddy pool, four feet in diameter, is filled to capacity with a terrifying menagerie of jellyfish. Some pump and pulse with regularity. Some weakly convulse. Others, the sure-enough dead ones, float and sway with the movement of the water – their previously dome-shaped bodies flat. Flush with the surface of the water.
“What do you call a group of jellyfish?” Alexa asks.
“Don’t know,” I say.
“A jam!” she says.
“Unless they’re protected by law, in which case it would be a preserve,” I say.
This is what nerdy women do on the beach. They engage in word play.
I produce a phone and ask if I might take a photo. The boy agrees. His mother smiles. She is sure he is a budding scientist, not a sociopath. We are not so sure.
The children join us. They gaze into the pool. Instantly convicted to join the cause, my daughter Carrie fetches our net, tromps into the ocean, scoops up a jellyfish, and dumps it into the watery mass grave. And I am fairly sure that she is a budding scientist. I hope she is.
The following morning, Alexa, the guys and I are out on the balcony. We are drinking coffee and admiring the ocean.
“Look,” Scott says. “A dolphin.”
“I saw it too,” Todd says. “Look past that blue umbrella.”
We watch the surface of the water until, again, it’s dorsal fin momentarily resurfaces.
“What eats jellyfish?” Alexa asks. She is having the same thought as me: I hope that dolphin will eat all of those miserable jellyfish so that we can swim in peace today.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’ll check.”
A quick and disappointing Google search reveals that the main predator of jellyfish are… larger jellyfish.
“I’m not sure that helps our plight,” Alexa says.
I think, then, of that corny starfish story keynote speakers always tell at conferences in an effort to inspire us – the one in which the dancing woman throws dying starfish back into the ocean in an effort to save their lives. It hits me then that I have witnessed it; the real-life version of the starfish story. I have seen it in action. That boy with the freckles, Carrie, and the jellyfish. It is the Starfish story in reverse; less inspiring, but morbidly fascinating.
It made a difference for that one.
Counting Cookies
Posted on July 19, 2015 11 Comments
“Who ate all the cookies!”
My eleven year old slams the cabinet door. It springs back open in response to the force.
“There are still some cookies left,” I say.
“There is one cookie left. A broken one.”
“Oh.”
“There were eight cookies left after dinner last night,” she says. She reviews the facts like a seasoned prosecutor. “William says he only ate one. Dad didn’t eat any, and I didn’t eat any, either. That means that someone ate six cookies between last night and right now.”
Implication: That someone is you, mom.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say. “I bring all the food in this house. I earn the money that buys it. I shop for it, I put it into the cabinet, and if I want to eat every last thing under our roof, that is what I will do.” And sometimes that is exactly what I do.
Carrie eyes me with pity and disgust.
“Dad does the grocery shopping. And works.”
She grabs a bag of pita chips and carries it to the table muttering six cookies…
Most popular diets today involve tracking your daily consumption. The Fitness Pal app provides a nice food log. Weight watchers, too. Me, I’m just going to keep sharing a cupboard with this middle schooler – let her shame me into moderation.
What a Joke
Posted on July 8, 2015 43 Comments
The link to my ASHA Leader article is here, if you’re so inclined. After reading, could you do me a solid and leave a corny joke in the comments section? Many thanks.
Punishment
Posted on April 30, 2015 21 Comments
Never in the history of parenthood has a single declarative sentence been so fraught with loopholes. The sentence is this:
No television or playing outside with friends this afternoon.
Today, in a solar eclipse of juvenile delinquency, both of our children managed to earn the same punishment. The girl failed to be ready for school at an acceptable time, and the boy (in deference to his mother) arrived home from school with a note stating he had talked excessively during class. Both children were punished in the same manner: No television or playing outside with friends this afternoon.
It felt straightforward when I uttered the words. Easy to understand. Simple to enforce. But these children. They are confused. So very disoriented by this whole “no tv or friends” business. A sampling of the clarifications they have requested:
Does watching a show on the computer count as “television?”
Does watching a show on my phone count?
When will the “afternoon” be over, and am I to assume that I can play outside with my friends tonight once the “afternoon” has concluded? Because that is how it sounds.
Can I play outside without my friends?
Can I play with my friends inside my house? Inside one of their houses?
Can I bring Kate this pamphlet about band camp? I won’t play with her. I just need to bring her some time-sensitive information.
Can I go outside to feed and water Cottontail (i.e. the pet rabbit) if I promise not to play with her?
If I should happen to see one of the neighborhood kids when I am outside feeding Cottontail, may I wave? Say hello?
Can I play a game on the Wii? It isn’t really television. It is a game.
What do you expect me to do all afternoon?
Rest assured I am standing firm. I know full-well what the consequence of the childrens’ respective offenses was meant to be, and I will not cave. The punishment is working. On whom, though – that is still unclear.
Sinkhole
Posted on April 25, 2015 24 Comments
I’d like to be the kind of person who loves her neighbor in spite of his shortcomings. The sort of person who avoids the temptation to celebrate when said neighbor gets his comeuppance. I’m not. I’m Dean’s neighbor. And when that sinkhole opened up in Dean’s yard this week, I laughed in a tone reserved only for occasions on which mirth is entangled with bitterness and spite.
We live in an old Victorian home downtown. We are old-house people in an old-house neighborhood which we share with a gaggle of lovable, old-house neighbors. There’s Francis, the hippie who grows heirloom tomatoes and smells like a Grateful Dead concert. There’s Trina, the director from the arts center, Mildred, the author of a detective series, Jack, the town historian, Leanne, the homeschooling mother, and of course, there are our dear friends, the Arnolds.
We get along famously, the band of us. Lots of dog-petting, story-swapping and tomato eating. Our unfenced yards form a magnificent green space in which the children run and play. If Norman Rockwell were to come back from the dead, our block party might be the first scene chose to paint.
But then there’s Dean.
The renter.
Dean’s home is at the center of it all, and while he likes the community green space, he feels strongly that his portion should be, well… Just green. And space.
Dean announced last month that his yard was no longer to be used as a safe passage for our children as they travel from our yard to the Arnolds. He is sorry. But his grass; he just doesn’t want anything to happen to it. What if, over time, a trail was worn?
Dean loves his yard. Loves it. His grass is cut more often than I am kissed. And loving the yard as he does, Dean can’t bear the thought that one of our 60-pound children might bend the a blade of grass in the wrong direction as they walk upon it.
Here’s the thing, though: Dean also loves his Jeep. Loves it so much that he parks it… on his grass! Everyone else parks on the street, but not Dean. Too much risk that the Jeep would get hit by another vehicle.
Let that sink in: He won’t let the children walk on the grass, knowing the only other alternative is walking on the sidewalk, which is inches from the busy street, but he won’t park on the street for fear of the Jeep being hit.
For four weeks, I have been fantasizing about taking out my anger on Dean’s lawn. I considered inviting all the neighbors over to drink beer and blow dandelions over the property line or tip-toeing over to his place in the night and writing a message in lawn with a big bottle of salt: Nice grass, jerk! The yard ultimately spoke out on its own behalf.
It seems Dean was out digging holes in his yard. He was preparing to plant a hedge of Cyprus trees along the property – a sort of organic “Keep out” sign. One knock of his shovel exposed an enormous hole – four feet deep at least. Maybe deeper. Wider for sure.
There is some sort of drainage pipe under the ground. Rainwater tears have leaked through the pipe and washed away the heart of the land until, at last, empty and unsatisfied, the Earth opened up her mouth and cried out in anger.
“Where are the children?” Look at the picture of the sinkhole again. You can see it. The longing.
Dean has a mess on his hands. He has been calling the city to complain, but it doesn’t sound like they are in any hurry to fix the problem.
“I’m just worried about the kids,” he said to my husband. “What if they fell in? They could be hurt.”
Oh please. And how would our kids manage to fall in the hole when they aren’t even allowed on his property? If he wants to worry about anything, it should be his Jeep. Parked out in the grass like it is. It could be swallowed up at any moment. Wouldn’t that be a shame.
Ginger's Grocery 