The New Girl

Birth Story.

I had just taken my last dose of [voodoo medicine] homeopathic remedy to induce labor.  You have to take, like, six doses over 12 hours and at 9pm on September 26th, I'd finished it, told my husband (with my tongue in my cheek) that my labor was going to start aaaaaaany minute and went to curl up in the basement and watch some tv.  For the life of me I can't remember what I had on but about 5 minutes in I felt a strange, *popping* kind of kick.

And then I felt a slow, spreading warmth and thought, 'Oh, holy shit.'

Even though I was officially overdue, I hadn't packed a hospital bag.  (I had a feeling that I was going to be significantly overdue...don't ask me why.)  My daughter was in bed asleep.  My husband was upstairs on the computer.  I walked up the steps, into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and had a fucking panic attack. 

'Um. I think my water just broke,' I yelled out to my husband, effectively passing my panic right along.

After what seemed like an hour of bumbling around, trying to figure out what to do, my brain took over and I directed The Man to call his mom while I called my midwife and started to pack a bag. 

I had yet to have a contraction.  

My midwife advised me to go to the hospital, since I was GBS positive and they needed to start the anti-biotics.  I was happy to go, as the labor with my first progressed pretty rapidly and I had some fear that I wouldn't make it on time.  (My sister had given birth to my niece and her labor was so fast that the midwife almost missed it. It, uh, was a home-birth ANYWAY but I was glad that *I* didn't have to deliver the baby.) 

Anyway.

The Man and I got into the car when my MIL got there and off we rode.  My sister was meeting me there.  (The Doula was out of town and in retrospect, it was so, SO great to have The Little Sister there. SO.)  All the way to the hospital, I thought of my daughter.  I wept for her, a little, knowing that when she woke up, her whole world would be different.  We had prepared her as well as we could, of course, but I already ached for what she was about to go through.

About a minute away from the hospital, I had my first taste of memory.  The contraction was slight and easily managed but it brought back a visceral, physical memory from deep inside my body.

'Oh yeeeeah, I remember this shit,' my body said, 'this shit huuurts.'

We got settled into the room and my sister came and the nurse was asking me questions and talking about the iv antibiotics and blah blah.  Then she asked if I'd saved the pad because she had to see if my membrane 'had really ruptured.'  She said this in a way that made me worry about whether or not I'd misinterpreted the event.  Like maybe I'd just been peeing my pants for the last 15 minutes.  She got the long ass q-tip and lo, the water had broken.  She checked me and told me that I was 2cm dilated. 

'It's going to be a LONG night for you guys,' she said, 'we're not going to see that baby until tomorrow morning.'

This was the first time that I tried to tell her that my last labor had progressed quickly.  I also tried to communicate the feedback I'd gotten from the nurses last time.  They were all, without exception, shocked at my behavior during labor.  Quiet but joking almost throughout.  I wanted both the staff and my midwife to know these things, in case it was the same this time.  The only reason that I hadn't had my daughter within 6 hours, start to finish, was because I pushed for OVER THREE HOURS (and I was still joking then, em effers.)

The nurse asked me if I wanted something for pain and I declined, telling her that unless the labor was long and unproductive, I didn't want medication.  The contractions weren't really difficult at that point.  I asked when she was going to call my midwife.  She smiled at me like I'd said something endearing.

'Oh,' she said, 'I won't be calling her for a WHILE yet.  When it gets closer I'll give her a call.'

This was about 11pm.

They came in and hung the antibiotics and I found out that my blood pressure was elevated (AGAIN) and so, I had to wear the fetal monitor OF DOOM constantly instead of intermittently and I was PISSED but RESIGNED and so I just moved whenever I felt the need to and the nurses had to come in and rearrange it and they weren't as sweet about it as the nurses at the last hospital but oh WELL, right?  SORRY, thems the BREAKS, OB nurses. She also asked me about 1229489 more times if I wanted anything for pain.  Something that doesn't bother me at all right now but at the time, made me inexplicably annoyed.  It was almost as if she'd never seen anyone like me before.  Like she thought she knew me better than I knew my own self. Like she just knew better.

My sister considered going home and then coming back later (since it was going to be so long and all) but she had a feeling that it wasn't going to be as long as the nurse thought and so she stayed.  I felt the same way but since I'm the sort who's inclined to 'Not Get My Hopes Up,' I tend toward the, 'Well, it COULD take all night, I suppose.'  

I was still joking, even though the contractions were getting more intense.  I looked around the room and I was Tweeting, my sister was texting and The Man was updating his Facebook status. Ah, technology.  At one point, the two of them (neither one a doula, obv.) were trying to time my contractions.  As the pain set in, I'd let them know and then while I'm 'Going Inside' trying to 'Breathe Deep The Giving Of Life' and all that shit, I hear them whispering to each other. Talking out the sides of their mouths, quiet-like, thinking that I can't hear them while LOST IN THE PAIN OF LABOR.

The Man: 'Are you supposed to start timing from the beginning of the contraction to the end?'

The Little Sister: 'I think so. Or. I don't know. I'm timing from the beginning until the end, you're supposed to time how long in between.'

TM: 'So, should I time from the end of one to the beginning of the next? To find out how far apart they are?'

[pause]

TLS: 'Hmm. I think so.'

Me: 'You both KNOW I can HEAR you, right?'

About 1:00 am or so, the contractions started to get more intense. I told my [crack-pot] cracker-jack team, who sat, one with a book, the other with a smart-phone, continuing to joke and loaf about, despite the dramatic increase in crampiness in my uteral region. It is a weird thing about a big experience like that, maybe, but I was shocked on a couple occasions that they couldn't, like, read my mind or intuit the change in my internal state. I know that's ridiculous, really, but it's kind of when a little kid presses on her bruise and says, 'Doesn't that hurt?' I had to actually speak. Out loud.

'Hey. I could use a little...you know, labor support over here.'

They both jumped up and it was about this point that The Man started to resemble one of those life-sized, movie house cut-outs of himself. He stood at one side of the bed, ashen-faced, and tried not to panic. My sister leaned in, comforted and did what a doula would do. The pain was still managable with that support and I recall that hour or so passing pretty quickly, despite the jump in intensity.

I wanted to sit upright and since it had been hours since I'd seen ANY medical professional, I got out of bed and planted myself in a rocking chair, monitors in place. The intensity of the contractions steadily increased and I distinctly remember thinking that if I wasn't progressing, if these contractions weren't productive, I'd skip the epidural and go straight for the cyanide.

Ahem.

Anyway.

For whatever reason, when each contraction would roll through, I would grip The Man's hand in mine, put my forehead on his forearm and push my head against it, like I was trying to snap that fucker in half. I'm so not kidding. I'm chuckling as I write this but at the time, it seemed like a completely logical pain reliever. So, there you are.

The contractions were getting longer and longer with shorter rest in between and at about 2:50 am, I looked at my sister and asked, 'Dude. Am I going through transition in this fucking rocking chair?'

About that time, the nurse came in. I don't remember if she asked me how I was doing or whatever. I just remember asking if she called my midwife yet.

'No, not yet. I'll call her when you get closer,' she said.

'Yeah, but..'

'We'll hang the second bag of anti-biotics at around 4.'

'Yeah, but...these contractions are getting pretty strong,' I said, 'Are you going to check me?'

'We don't like to check too much if you're GBS positive. I see that your contractions are getting more intense on the monitor. When we hang the next bag of anti-biotics, I'll check you. So, unless you tell me that you have to push, I'll see you in a little bit.'

And then, she left.

My sister said, 'She's not making it until 4. She's going to have this baby before then.'

I was starting to believe her and abandoned all thoughts of a cyanide capsule.

Around 10 minutes after 3:00, I felt like I had to pee. I'd felt that way after each contraction and I decided to go. My sister went to get the nurse and while the details are muddied, I recall being half-in and half-out of the bed, the nurse at my side, helping me to the bathroom. And then she said, 'Now, don't you go having that baby in the toilet.'

And.

And I.

What?!

'That doesn't happen,' I said, but it was a question.

'Oh, yes it does, more than you'd think,' was her answer and then I realized that I was having another one of those moments when I thought others should be able to know my thoughts. Because suddenly, I wasn't going anywhere and I wasn't going to do anything.

Besides push out a baby.

The next few minutes were full of flurry and panic and flashes of motion and sounds. I was fully in the bed and gripped by such a fierce urge to push that I have no words to describe it. At some point, the nurse checked me and said something I didn't get, followed by, '...you are a 9, though,' along with some kind of injunction not to push. They were waking the on-call doctor, who was sleeping down the hall.

My mind and my body were in a battle, for sure, I was full of worry and panic, trying to hold in the urge to push and cheating--I couldn't help it--bearing down even though I was afraid I was hurting myself in the process. Not to mention, you know, no doctor, no midwife. I remembered my sister having to dance around in her bathroom and fight her own urge to push while we waited for her midwife--it was a home birth and it was the midwife or me and I remember hissing, 'You better cross your legs and keep them together because I am NOT delivering this baby!'

I had a true appreciation for her at that moment because as I laid on my side, trying not to push and failing, I couldn't believe she held out. I could feel my baby trying to get out of my body. I was  freaked out that I was only dilated 9cm and was afraid of rupturing myself and then, from somewhere, I heard one of the nurses say that if my urge to push was so great, I was probably a 10.

Okie Dokie.

Just the lack of the doctor, then. I looked at my husband and thought he might fall over. I was on my side, trying not to push but feeling my son's head descend, I could feel him coming out.

'He's coming!' I yelled, 'he's coming!'

And then, you'll never believe what my sister said.

She said, 'He's coming! They went to go get him, he's just down the hall!'

It was straight out of a movie, I swear, especially when I'm all: 'I'M NOT TALKING ABOUT THE DOCTOR!! I'M TALKING ABOUT THE BABY! HE'S! COMING! NOWWWWW!!'

Two seconds later, the doctor walked in and pulling on his gloves, he said, 'Uh. Can we--break the bed down, please?'

The rest took another minute, at the most.

One big, long, push and he was out.

Sigh.

The Little sister went with The Boy to the little grow-light table. The Man was still a cardboard cut-out, holding my hand. I looked at him, misty-eyed and worried. And the first words out of my mouth were these:

'I am SO GLAD I never have to do that again.'

 

 

Fucked Up Fact Friday!

* I have been OFF THE GRID for a long time, now, friends. I've lost contact with what a lot of you are doing. I've even been off Twitter. 140 characters were even too many, it seems. PATHETIC. At any rate, I've accumulated lots of crazy shit to talk about but no time-slash-inclination to talk about it.

* So, BULLETS IT IS. I don't even know where to start.

* Our childhood home was sold. So, officially, someone else lives in the house where I grew up. When I close my eyes, I can still picture where [the vast amounts of clutter] things lived. When I picture those things [like my wedding dress, balled up at the bottom of The Little Sister's bedroom closet] I have a sudden shock when I realize that the space is now empty-slash-filled with someone else's shit [and my wedding dress is in a box somewhere in The Little Sister's basement.]

* A week or so ago, I found out that my aunt was sick. 12 hours later, she died. It turns out she had forbidden my cousin to tell anyone about her illness. (The illness and the circumstances around its discovery and her decline, incidentally, were quite similar to those of my mother. Because of this and other things, my cousin wanted to talk to me right after the diagnosis but, as I said, her mom didn't want anyone to know.) Although I have no judgment about the way each individual chooses her way of dealing with such a thing as finding out she has terminal cancer, it strikes me as...odd? Painful? I don't know. Like I said, I don't/can't/wouldn't judge. But it was surreal to find out that she was sick only hours before she died.

* The Little Sister and I decided that the right thing to do was to go home and show up for the funeral. It's what I wanted to do for my cousins, whose pain I have known and for and with them, I mourned. I was not particularly close to my aunt (the wife of my father's brother) but I was close to my cousin growing up and those bonds, for whatever reason, still feel strong.

* It is an odd thing to attend the funeral of someone after you've lost your own mom. I remember when my grandmother died, almost exactly two years after my mother, that my grief felt...shallow. I was 8 months pregnant and very uncomfortable but it was more than that. My mom, only 58, was gone and that pain kind of...eclipsed the pain I felt when I lost my grandmother. It was like getting a few stitches two years after having had a conscious open heart surgery. I felt that way again, at the funeral of my aunt. I was also happy to my extended family and so the surreal feelings just kept coming. Weird.

* When my mom was dying, there was a long period during which she was lucid and able to reflect and converse. I say a long time but I'm talking like 4 weeks. Over the last week, the cancer was so advanced and the medicine so strong that she was only able to hold occasional conversation. During that month, she asked about my aunt and my cousin repeatedly. They had been the closest of the In-Laws and my aunt's absence was...conspicuous, made more so by the presence of literally every other Italian family member in the tri-state area. At the time, it puzzled me. Then, it enraged me. By the time they came, the day before she died, she was in the throes of 'terminal agitation' (just as awful as it sounds) and she was unable to communicate at all. I basically threw them out, the agitation was so...agitating.

* When my cousin finally called to tell me about her mom, I had kind of forgotten the anger I felt at her not showing up to see my mom. I chalked up their absence to having difficulty dealing with a tough loss and those feelings were reinforced listening to my cousin and the struggle she was having. It brought me back to those days and night of endless vigil. To the frustration and grief and sadness and tension and pain. And to what comes after. The pain that was waiting around the corner for her and her family. I was grief-stricken for her. And then she said, 'I thought you'd never want to talk to me again.' 'Why?' I asked, mystified. 'Because of your mom,' she said.

And just like that, something inside me popped. Lifted away and vanished. The anger had been there, I suppose, lurking. When she said that, I released it. For good.

"Don't think that," I said, meaning it, "everyone has a different way of dealing with things like that. I understand."

And I do.

* Sigh. Sadly, there are so many more fucked up facts--mostly having to do with the state of my kids' noses (STUFFY! AGAIN!) and shit like that but I fear that I've used up all of your patience and attention with DEATH TALK. The next thing I post, so help me, will be my son's birth story. Birth! Happiness! Babies! Yay!

* Have a good weekend, all. Thanks for listening.

Do You Like Onions In Things?

There are a few things that are absolutely GRATING ON MY FUCKING NERVES right now. Would you like to hear about them? [Too Bad.] Oh, good! Here we go.

The first thing is that every single morning for the past, oh, week or so, my son has been waking up at 4 in the morning, weeping and wailing, without stopping until I go in there, armed with a bottle, medicine and [my revenge] some saline nose spray and the nose frida. Even the time change did not disrupt his schedule and he seemed totally oblivious that the 4:00 was really 3:00. He just skipped right over that adjustment and kept on rocking the 4am wake up. As soon as the door opens and I present myself, grumbly and pissed off, the crying magically ceases and he says, 'Mama. Mama.' And then my irritation leaves and the dull resignation-slash-warm-sappiness-AKA-he's-only-little-for-a-little-while-feeling sets in and I hug him up and change his diaper and give him medicine and chuckle at how much he HATES the nose frida. I sit on that fucking exercise ball and give him a bottle and he is SO DROWSY. Then I go to put him in the crib and he twists his little bendy ass around so that he goes in STANDING UP.

Standing.

At 4:30am.

What the fuck is up with that, I ask you?

Anyhow, usually the crying part is over then and either he's up talking and laughing to himself or he is pretty quiet and falls back to sleep. I am, as you could probably guess, completely awake by that time and so, you know. I wake up grouchy and irritable and ill-prepared to handle the rigors of my days. And when I say rigors, I mean my daughter.

Which brings me to the second thing: she is making me nuts. Nuts! With the (intensified and inexplicable) baby-talking! And the (renewed after a long, lovely absence) Crazy-Ass Temper Fits! And the (brand new) Ignoring Me-Slash-Selective Mutism! Where she refuses to answer the simplest question! At all! I don't have to provide you with an illustration of how all three of these behaviors combine to create the MOST ANNOYING SITUATIONS IN HISTORY, do I? I didn't think so. You can trust that they DO. Every day, multiple times a day.

I am threadbare and due mostly to the sleep deprivation, my patience is thiiiiiiin. I find that I have an annoyed edge to my voice whenever I'm talking to my daughter and today it started at 7:03am, when she refused to say good-morning or give me our customary Morning Hug and insistently said the baby word, 'Powwnnyyyy,' over and over, to indicate, I suppose, that she wanted me to find her lost pony.

Can you hear that clicking? It's my MARBLES. I'm losing them one by one.

Anyway.

If it wasn't for my promise to myself that I was going to post more regularly, I'd be suffering in silence [and you wouldn't have had to suffer through this post.]

Before I go back to drinking coffee and breathing deeply before tackling the giant job of unloading the diswasher, I'll tell you the story behind the title of this post.

After my mom died, The Little Sister and I went back to my hometown to have Thanksgiving with my dad and my grandfather. We were making all the family favorites in our own way, really, and worked our aaaaasses off. We included my grandmother's mac and cheese. My sister, however, omitted the grated raw onion on top, since none of us liked it anyway. The crunchy texture just didn't suit us. This was our first-ever time making a Thanksgiving dinner. And we were without my mom. It was tough.

If you've never read about my grand-dad, this might not make too much sense but you have to know that he's sort of...er...difficult. Kind of obsessive and nit-picky and before and during dinner he made a series of remarks and comments that I'm SURE he thought were benign but were actually most annoying.

So.

After dinner, my grandfather was telling The Little Sister how good everything was. Then he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Huh?' And he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Uh. Yeah, sure.' And he said, 'You know what's good? For the Macaroni and Cheese, you take an onion and you just grraaaaate that onion right on top.'

And I had to suppress my deep, deep, laughter when my sister leaned in and muttered, 'You mean like how you're grrrraaaatting my nerves right now?'

Fun Fact Friday!!

Ho ho! You thought it was dead, didn't you?! (So did I. Totally.)

- For whatever reason, (it's totally a Mental Glitch, I know,) it kind of skeeves me when a man buys a woman clothes as a gift. I know it's crazy and if your man is tuned in enough to know [what size you wear] your taste in clothes and he buys you nice little gifts of clothes, that's awesome [but for whatever reason, a little skeevy. I don't know why. MENTAL GLITCH.]

- I was once watching an episode of Giada and her cute husband came home and brought her a present, a [tiny] pair of white pants and she was all excited and was all, 'I'm going to wear these awesome [size minus 4] pants to dinner!' and I was all, 'Hm. How...sweet [and a little ookey]!'

- Once, when I was dating The Tool, he bought me an *outfit* for Christmas. I'm saying that he went to The Limited, [flirted his ass off with the first woman he could find, I'm absolutely sure] approached the sales girl and asked her to pick out an entire outfit for me. She basically pointed him to a manikin and he purchased every single thing that manikin was wearing, down to the crazy bracelet with a million little balls on it. (The bracelet was the only thing I kept. Swear.)

- Do you guys remember those? The days of Pearls on Steroids? An over-crowded strand of whatever with all kinds of jingling and jangling?

It kind of looked like this, only mine was shades of bronze, copper and brown:

 

- When I was a surly pre-teen, my mom got me 'The Sweater' one year for Christmas. Jazzed as I was to get clothes for gifts back then, this sweater...it was..tragic. It was black and its front was host to a bazillion strawberries.  The strawberries were connected by a vine. On each cuff was a detail, two little berries. The sweater was expensive and well made and my mother looooved this sweater and her disappointment with my, uh, [incredibly rude and ungrateful contempt for it] reaction ensured this story remained one of the Golden Oldies in our family. You know, as in,  'It was like a STRAWBERRY SWEATER...' for any situation in which you were disappointed or disappointed someone else or when you badly misjudged another person's likes. So, it wasn't a total loss. That [horrible] sweater.

- Later in my teen years, a guy who *liked* me bought me a coat. A fucking fox fur coat. I have no desire to flip this into a judgmental, paint flinging, FUR IS MURDER, comment clusterfuck. I don't really care if you like fur, if you wear fur, if you sleep with a fur comforter, if you have fur lined gloves or undies. Whatever you do is your business and I could not be honester when I tell you I don't care. I just, you know, don't wear fur. And although I knew this guy, and he knew me, this gift was nothing short of Crop Circle Sized Sign that we were Never Ever Going To Be BFFs and that omg, he was a little, er, craaazy (not because it was fur but because it cost so fucking much and what the hell, dude?) (He actually DID turn out to be crazy, too, so.)

- He dropped the present off or had it delivered or something, because he wasn't there when I opened it. I was in the living room with my mom, my sister and my friend, I think.  When I moved the paper back and the soft, silky, silver fox fur became visible, my mother sucked her teeth and blew out a low whistle and chuckled. I swear, as she walked back into the kitchen, I heard her murmur under her breath, 'That poor sucker.'

- I never wore that coat but neither could I figure out what to do with it. It sat in my closet for years and years. And years. AND YEARS. When we went to clean out my dad's house (so weird to call it my dad's house. It was my mom's house, too. And mine and my sister's. So, the family house, then.) I found that coat in the closet, along with a GREEN MINI SKIRT. Made of SUEDE. omfg. Whaaat? I put them both into a bag and donated them to The Goodwill.

- I hope the same person buys them both. And rocks them OUT. At a costume party.

 

 

All Right, Already. Manson.

I crack up every time you guys talk about Manson.

Oh, if only Manson knew how popular his ass is on the interweb.

It would, I'm sure, trigger an episode of paranoid ramblings, complete with crumpled grubby lists and squinting at every traffic helicopter while talking of a government conspiracy to earn money by telling his life story. Screwing him out of his identity or his inheritance or WHATEVERthefuck.

Anyway.

I love you guys for 1) remembering about Manson and for 2) loving on the Crazy.  Though I hate to say it, this might be the last, full-length Manson Story to be had.  There are a finite number of these gems, really, as I don't live there anymore (whoo hoo!) 

So, if you haven't ever heard of Manson, and you have absolutely no effing clue what I'm talking about, you should probably read to catch up.  (There are three separate links there. You're welcome.) Otherwise, I'll go ahead and tell you of the time that Manson turned his ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS INTO A DOG KENNEL. FOR BREEDING DOGS.

Yes, yes, my friends. Yes he did.

But we'll back up and talk a little bit about Manson's dog.  His [little fuckwad of a yapper] dog was a Boston Terrier.  It liked to [torment the shit out of my dog] run up and down the length of the fence, barking a hearty 'HALLO!' to anyone, anyone at all. For hours on end.

[Bonus TFS in a story: One time, Manson left pictures of his dog in our mailbox. I've looked for them, but I can't find them. One of the views was the back of the dog's head, hanging out the driver's side window, as Mason took a picture of the FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. One other time, Manson left his dog in his car when he went inside to get [high] something and just, er, forgot to come back out. It was hot as balls and The Man and I did a little Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who was going to have to go and knock on the door, so that little fucker wouldn't roast to death. I lost. Damned rock.]

Anyway.

Manson approached the fence one day, gripping the squirming pooch in his hands.  He had a couple [guys just out of rehab] friends over, lugging cinder-blocks into his downstairs and mixing cement in the driveway. I didn't think too much of this, as there were always cinder-blocks and rehab guys around and, well, let's be honest: I didn't really want to know.

He launched into one of his famous 'discussions.'  These generally started half-way through whatever the hell was running on and on through his head, and so it took me a few minutes to jump in mid-stream and figure out what he was trying to say.

'Do you like bulldogs?' he asked.

'Um. Yeah. Sure. I like bulldogs,' I said (while the inside-my-head voice was all eye-rolling and heavy-sighing, 'Whaaaat?  What'sThisNow?!')

'I'm making a kennel! I'm going to breed bulldogs!'

'Uhhh. Oh--uhhhm..'

'And Boston Terriers! (Lifts the dog up for emphasis.) I just ordered all the puppies and I'm making a kennel!'

I should say at this point, that the houses in my neighborhood had no basements. Manson's house was just like mine, only with a monster addition on the back/top, which gave his house a second floor.  The year before, [the rehab guys] his friends had sectioned off the front of his house and made it into an apartment that he used to rent out. So, the area in which the guys were working was like, The Kitchen and The Laundry Room.

???

'Sooooo,' I hazard a guess, 'you're turning your kitchen? and your laundry room? Into a...kennel?'

'YEAH! It's gonna be great! State of the art!'

???

So, a couple weeks go by and you can hear the yipping and the yapping and you can, every once in a while, see some puppies frolicking in the backyard.  I don't need to describe the smell of urine, right? If I tell you that it smelled like The Vet outside my house, you'd know what I'm saying, yes?  So, it would appear that Manson made good on his [insane] plan and is living above, his, um, dog kennel.  The sliding glass door was always covered and so, I had no idea what it actually LOOKED like in there.

Me and my other next-door neighbor [Gladys Kravitz] were DYING to know what's going on in there. How has a guy turned his Kitchen? And his Laundry Room? Into a...kennel?

And then, one day out of the blue, Manson sees me in the back yard and asks me if I want to come inside to see the kennel.

I'm going to give you a minute, so you can let that shit sink in.

Go ahead and take your time. I'll wait.

Yes. Yeeessss.

He asked me if I wanted to GO INSIDE his house and LOOK AT HIS DOG KENNEL. That was IN HIS KITCHEN.

I was thoroughly and completely torn.

On one hand, I NEEDED to go inside there to see a Kitchen Dog Kennel, first hand. But on the other hand, [as I looked and looked for another living soul who could witness me walking into Manson's house, in case I never came out] I was, er, a little skerrd. I mean, really, there were no Potential Witnesses to my disappearance. Manson lived with a [boyish looking heroin addict] his [air-quote] cousin, who was a tall, quiet [creepy fucking lurker] guy, who had nearly given me cardiac arrest, several times, when he suddenly spoke to me after minutes of standing stock-still, unnoticed.

Anyway.

You know my nosy ass wasn't going to turn down his invitation, just on account of the crazy. And so, although my dog was less than thrilled with the idea, I left the sanctity of my yard and entered The Kennel Kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was how...authentic...the smell of the urine/veterinarian's office was up close. Along with the yipping and yapping, it felt like I was walking through the SPCA. Seriously. I looked around and saw...kennels. They were built of the cinder-block and each had a gate for a door. The linoleum had been stripped and the dogs were kept in a room on a cement slab (with blankets/bedding for each dog.) If you didn't look at the sides of the room, you might have believed that you were in an actual kennel.

But that impression, friends, came to a screeching fucking halt the second you looked at the perimeter of the room. For the perimeter of the room was more or less, intact.  There were shelves and then, you know, the kitchen. A stove and a fridge and the door to the upstairs, all streaked and rusty looking and smelling very strongly of puppy pee. As I was walking through, I was completely preoccupied with two things. The first was the 29475084573 puppies who, free from their cages, came to mob me and for some reason were, ALL of them, trying to chew the bows off my slippers and the second was that every single inch (every. single. inch. EVERYSINGLEINCH) of available surface--wall or otherwise--was filled with a cheap, dollar store nick-knacks. Of a bulldog. Or a Boston Terrier. There were HUNDREDS of little figurines, bobble-heads, cups, ashtrays, plaques, doo-dads, you name it. They were e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

I was completely visually overwhelmed and as I wandered through the living/laundry room kennel, disoriented, into the kitchen kennel, the [creepy fucking lurker] cousin materialized out of nowhere and was leaning against the door-jam, standing there mute. Watching me. It was like a dash of cold water to the face and I was roused from my dream-like overwhelm state and tried to pick up the pace, wading through puppies, to get to the side door and out into the [real world] yard. It was like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together. Through six inches of peanut butter.

Anyway. (You still here?)

I was still a little shaken when I crossed into my yard. I was accosted by my own dog, who was hyper-smelling me all over, like, 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

I went into my own back door, awash in relief that I made it back out into the light, hooked off both slippers, stepped into my own kitchen and dumped them, unceremoniously, directly into the trash can.

The End.

 

It Gets Better. Special Mom's Edition.

When I dropped off my son at the gym's Kids' Club, (REFUSING TO SPELL CLUB WITH A 'K',) there was a very upset little girl, being held by the worker. "She's new," I heard her say to another mom. About 20(ish) minutes later, as I went in to change my [gym-pooper, WTF?] son's diaper, I saw the little girl, still being held, still crying--looking much, much worse for the wear.

"I called once and the mom said she was going to leave her because she needs to get used to it but I think she needs to come and get her," said the sweet, 19 year old girl who works there.

I had a series of flash-backs. Waiting until my daughter was 15 months old to even ATTEMPT going back to the gym, knowing that she'd be a screaming mess. Going every single day for a MONTH, staying for only 10 minutes because she'd be crying her face off. Feeling hopeless and trapped and like I'd never, ever be able to resume a normal life. Crying on the way home out of frustration and depression, aching to have one thing be easy. Just one.

When the mother came in, she reached for her baby and while soothing her said, "Well, I got 15 minutes. I guess that's a good first day. Should we come for 15 minutes tomorrow, too?"

I wanted to say something encouraging. My impulse was to reach out and relate. And then I thought, "This is probably her third kid and you're going to look like a know-it-all-idiot-assvice-giver."

But there was something about her. About her voice. I held my breath and jumped in.

"Is she your first?" I asked.

"Yes, she is," she said.

I told her how she reminded me of my daughter. About how my girl had colic and was touchy anyway, ("Her TOO, oh my lord!") and how I waited to bring her and how I would bring her every day for only 10 minutes, knowing ahead of time I'd be called and how I'd cry on the way home.

"But, you know," I said, "it gets better."

I told her how my girl adjusted and then, one day, it was like a switch was flipped. That once she was a little older and had a little more practice, things like going to the gym became much easier.

"How long did it take her?" the mom asked.

We are sensitive, I think. Sensitive to parenting differences or child temperament differences that look like they might be caused by parenting differences. Sensitive to others' comments or questions or suggestions or, let's face it, assvice. Feeling (or actually being) criticized for doing this job that is exceptionally difficult most of the time. We make judgment calls every day, in charge of these dependent little people and we hope, most of us, that we are choosing Right most of the time.

But being called to the carpet, so often by people who have no business doing the calling, can and does chafe, I think. It scrapes us up. Makes us a little raw. So that even a slight breeze can sting. It also makes me reluctant to try to comfort or connect, lest I step on a nerve or a feeling. Lest I unknowingly take a loofah to an already exfoliated, or maybe thin, skin.

It can be a fine line between, "Oh, man, I've been there and it really DOES suck," (i.e. I understand and empathize) and "I've been there, done that and got over it," (i.e. Yeah, yeah, they all go through it, suck it up.)

It makes me think of this issue that I had with The Man. Every once in a while, he would observe or be subjected to something that usually only happens to me, the primary care-giver. Like, TLNG would become hysterically unhinged because he put the wrong number of raisins on her plate, for instance.

"Wow," he'd say, "what's up with THAT?!"

"Welcome to *MY* world," I'd say.

He'd get angry and upset and it had to happen a few times before my sleep-deprived mind was sharp enough to inquire-slash-figure out what the fuck was happening.

In welcoming my husband to *my* world, I was offering what I *thought* was a humorous kind of empathy. I was trying to say, 'RIGHT?! Who knew that having exactly EIGHT RAISINS was the KEY TO HAPPINESS? Today?'

But what he heard was more like, "Yeah, WHATEVER. I deal with this shit like EVERY FUCKING DAY, dude. You're not telling me anything I DON'T ALREADY KNOW. BETTER THAN YOU."

Since we're married and we like each other, we worked that out and it's all good, now. The mother wrestling her kid into a cart in the produce section, or the mother whose kid is standing still in the middle of the sidewalk I'm trying to walk on, or the mother whose toddler is face-down, screaming in the aisle of CVS isn't likely to give me a second chance, though.

 I don't know where I'm going with this, really.

Except that like gay teenagers, I think that sometimes moms of newborns or toddlers or multiple children in challenging phases need to hear it, too.

It gets better.

"And you know, this one here," I said, pointing to my son, "he walks right in and never looks back, so there's always hope for the next one."

She sighed and chuckled and looked at me, "Thank you," she said, "thank you, so much."

You Wouldn't Believe How Long It Took To Write Even This Pitiful Attempt At A Post.

Having been so long away from this space and you, my dear friends, I've kind of...lost my voice. I find myself composing half-posts in my head and then, you know how it goes--I lose the thread before I can sit my ass in a chair that doesn't include a toddler trying to scale it. While whining or screaming or grunting or pulling at me. Making it impossible to concentrate.

Wait. What was I saying?

Anyway.

I want to write. I want to tell you things. But I just don't know what to say.

Is that writer's block?

Maybe.

I am good for a few 140-character tweets here and there but it seems that, in a way, Twitter is helping to kill my blog.  I tweet something and then my brain calls it 'DONE!' and it doesn't make it to the page here. Which is ridiculous, I know, but there it is.

So.

What now?

I remember the days of [you guys doing the creative heavy lifting] blog participation fondly.

Anything you want to hear about?

 

Flatlining.

I am searching for a pulse, here. Looking for the blog's corotid and trying to detect a trace of blood pumping through. Looking for a beating heart.

Is it...is it...dead?

There is no Blog 911. No emergency response team to resuscitate a blog. No code blue. No crash cart. No glooping mystery gel onto electro-charged paddles, charging up to whatever, --CLEAR-- BZZZZZT, regular sinus rythm, everyone breathing a sigh of relief.

There's just this vague feeling that the universe is organizing in a not-so-benevolent way. Organizing to create a vacuum, a black hole, into which all of my time and energy--creative and otherwise--is being sucked.

I'm going regularly to the gym again. I am working to keep up with laundry, dinner, laundry, dinner, housework. My kids have been sick no fewer than four separate times since the beginning of December. My son is the worst kind of mobile--upwardly, that is, climbing onto every horizontal surface, without regard to height. He is like a mini-tornado, only with a breakable head and so in addition to everything else, keeping track of him has become an even fuller-time job.

It sounds like I'm making excuses. It's not intended to be that. I'm not rationalizing. I'm...I don't know what.

Grieving, a little, maybe.

Bending my head down, ear to my blog's mouth, listening hard for its breathing, while I wait and hold my own.

Sliding my hand a bit down and in and yes, there it is, I found it. A pulse. Sluggish and weak and fragile.

I think it's going to be touch and go for a while, so let's don't get our hopes up.

Let's just be Cautiously Optimistic.

Whatever the hell that is.

 

While My Blog Gently Exsanguinates.

That was a whole play on the "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," but I'm not too sure it came through. Remember when I used to blog ALL THE TIME? When, maybe, in the days before readers, you came here and there was New! Content! and you could spend some time reading and maybe laughing? Yeah. Me too.

Anyway.

I am in a mix and mush of time and space.  Whatever time I have is going to chasing my smaller child around, while he attempts to scale EVERY-SINGLE-SURFACE available.  He's mostly successful in the scaling but not entire successful in the descending and so, here I am, trying to prevent the [inevitable] konker-bonkers and the goose-eggs and the visits to the ER.

Sigh.

I didn't have this EXACT hell with my girl, as she was late to walking and even LATER to climbing (like, just this past year she's started wanting to go on the *big* slides) and so, I am WOEFULLY UNPREPARED to turn around after four seconds to this:

It is everyone's favorite thing to say that this is due to gender difference, and who am I to argue, really, what with the N = 2 and all? And while that may be so, I also think my two kids have different areas of relative strength and I'm seeing his. RELATIVELY SPEAKING (As I think DISMOUNTING is probably, you know, IMPORTANT.)

This post is going absolutely nowhere, obviously, and if you want to jump ship, I won't try to stop you.  I'm trying to figure out a balance, I suppose, and I'm finding that means that the house work gets done, my kids get taken care of, things stay clean and folded and generally running smoothly, I can get to the gym and can read some fiction or whatever but there isn't enough time for me to do all that and generate a decent post.

Or, at least that's how it feels right now.

It's easier, this second time around, to keep in mind the 'It's a phase' mentality. So, maybe when he's done with the 'What Goes Up Can't Exactly Come Down All That Well' phase, I'll have a second to get back to it.

Until then, there's this:

 

Hope you're having a great holiday season.

Turns Out, It Does.

The knife makes a nice sound as it goes through the frosting to the bottom and then up the side of the bowl.  A kind of muted Click and Swoop as I scoop some out to dollop onto my Orange Cookies.  It's repetitive and relaxing and I'm calm in the quiet kitchen, working alone, after the kids have gone to bed. Frosting and setting aside each cookie, wondering if the icing sets or not.  I can't remember.  The fleeting urge to call my mother to check flares up a stinging behind my eyes and then vanishes.

The recipe was my great-grandmother's and as far back as I can remember, we had these orange cookies around the holidays.  The recipe card came from one of the two boxes that I brought back from my father's house, when we cleaned it out.  One box was full of my mother's recipes and the other box belonged to my grandmother.  The recipe for the orange cookies was in my mother's handwriting and for whatever reason, it still strikes me as crazy that these things survive, even when she does not.  There it is, though.  Her writing.  As familiar to me as the sight of her making some of the recipes that are now in my possession.

This year I have both boxes of recipes and I've decided to bake the cookies of my growing up years.  I rooted around in my gram's recipes and found the recipe for the Magic Cookie Bars that she made.  I layered the ingredients for her specific recipe and I thought about her.  I thought about how many times she'd used the stained, faded card.  How many times she'd done exactly as I did.  How things always change and nothing stays the same and how, as I'm baking now, off the exact card she used--we are still connected.  Through the years, through the baking, through the ether.

In my experience, it is the women of a family who weave the tapestry of memory and history.  It is the lineage of the women in my family who are the carriers of the knowledge of nurturing.  My great-grandmother died the year I got married when she was 95.  A few years after that, my grandmother developed dementia.  A few years after that, my mother died.  While my grandmother was still alive, she could no longer follow a simple recipe.  She died a couple years after my mother.  For so many years I had so many people to call for advice.  Women whose job it was to know and remember.  Women who crocheted the blankets and fixed the broken angel's wings and baked the cookies.  Women who knew if the damned icing sets or not.

They're all gone.  In a few short years, I lost them all.

Now, the women of my line start with me.  It's a big responsibility, in a way.  A little scary and a little lonely and more than a little sad, especially around the holidays.  The Sister and I are forging ahead, making new traditions for our children.  I'm doing my best to document what's happening now, in case my kids don't think to ask questions about themselves, about their childhoods until it's too late.

About the icing--there's no one to call. 

So, I'll just have to wait and see if it sets.