A child is born

Imperfect and Joyful

2009-10-24T10:25:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to re-open my particular brand of crazy. If one day I just started showing up to playdates with bandaged wrists and unwashed hair, and, oh yeah, an intense need for affection as well as a penchant for taking rejection really, really bad. I mean 'over-the-top' bad.

(Woooweee! Was I a character or what?)

It's not like it's exactly a secret. I've shared bits here and there with those I trust. I harbor no need to keep things quiet.

We hear time and again how mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of, but I can't help remembering all that ugliness, all these broken and damaged people slumping and sliding around me, too tired to even reach out for a hand. I remember my hostility, my cruelty. Sometimes I'm ashamed of that portion, the ugly person I became, with little regard for those around me.

But I also remember that within all that ugliness, all that sadness and heaviness, there existed these tremendous sparks, like the bioluminescence fireflies give off in the waning light of day.

Spark. Spark. Spark. Weaving in the air and tangled up in the bushes. Unexpected presents.

Sometimes broken people make the most beautiful music. Once I sat outside the hospital smoking with three other patients, and the time we had within that 15 minute space was one of the best of my life. Had you taken us and placed us in a park, you would have never known what building we had just come out of, or why. Our conversation, our laughter, our faces, melodious.

It hits me sometimes, the normalcy of my life. The I have relationship with my husband brings me happiness and not heartache. We watch baseball together on the couch. We laugh and hold hands.

All of it: making dinner, shopping, seeing friends. Going to bed without medication. Going through my weeks without group therapy, a social worker, or the special kind of craft time that doesn't involve children with glue. Omega fatty acids replace Wellbutrin; calcium & Vitamin D replace Trazadone.

Like any person, I can say there was a time in my life that was particularly challenging, but it was also one that I wasn't quite sure I'd survive.

I pick up my youngest daughter from preschool, and take the short walk home with her among the crunchy fall leaves. I wonder what would have happened had this picture been available to me when I was 20. What my battered self would have thought then, if a nurse had showed it to me on my bed.

"Here is what your life will be like. Imperfect yes, but still mostly joyful. Can you hang on?"

I imagine that girl holding the picture in her hands in disbelief.

Lillian Through the Years

2009-10-18T10:42:00.008-04:00

Quieter, though hugely uncomfortable, times.

Cute, but about to become a hellraiser.

My sweet nursling, stuck firmly in that spot where personality is tremendous, breastfeeding schedule is pleasant and relaxed, and tantrums have yet to begin.

Almost two, apples have replaced boobs.

Rockstar three, with all the backstage demands and ridiculous riders. Still, we listen to the music and continue to love it.

Nearly four, dancing with her sister to Krupa & Rich.

In those early days, I crossed the numbered squares off the calendar with a black Sharpie, to signify another 24 hour stretch survived. When she turned two, I mourned the passing of one like it was a death. Three brought the things that three traditionally brings: tantrums, screaming and ferocity, wrapped nicely in a delicate pink paper and topped with an outrageous bow. Now, it's mostly joy, with a fairly generous helping of frustration, that mark our waking hours. She is delightful, stubborn, affectionate. She has a wicked mean streak that she was clearly born with, though it's fading with these last days of 3.

We love her, though we still sometimes threaten to put her out with the recycling. She'll be 4 tomorrow. And we're grateful that she's ours.

How Would You Like That Cooked?

2009-10-05T08:42:00.003-04:00

I was a solid vegetarian for 6 years. (I say solid because that's the amount of time I totally abstained from animals. After that, I had an additional 2 years of mostly abstaining but occasionally sneaking a chicken nugget or brief taste of my mother's meat sauce.)

All my well-intentioned meat forgoing missions went straight to hell as soon as sperm met egg and made a nice comfy spot somewhere in my uterus.

Suddenly, I was channeling George Romero's zombies, but thankfully substituting something acceptable in place of a nice juicy cerebellum.

Must. Have. Cheeseburger.

I tell you, the craving was otherworldly. Resistance was truly futile, and while my first foray back into the world of carnivores was less than satisfactory (an apartment stovetop burger, anyone?), soon enough I was back enjoying all those tasty items I had abandoned so long ago.

But I always felt bad about it, like I had totally let down all my animal buds. All those cows I used to wave to on Thruway trips to Syracuse ("I'm not going to eat you!")....certainly they had ended up on someone's plate by then, but I could sense their bovine spirits scowling at me as they chewed their heavenly cud. "Traitor," they mooed. "Traitor."

By now, anyone with the ability to read can probably list a few good reasons to not eat meat: the animal cruelty of factory farming, the multiple downsides of agribusiness -- including the utilization of undocumented workers so as to forgo decent wages and benefits -- the environmental toll of land for feed, billowing clouds of cow farts, the clogging of our arteries and elevated if not downright dangerous cholesterol levels. The list is lengthy and persuasive.

Yet I continue to munch on my spicy pork and chorizo sausage burgers with abandon, even fixing some spicy mayo to adorn the juicy goodness and toasting up the bun for maximum pleasure.

I used to wonder if Hannah, once learning the source of her beloved pepperoni or hamburger, would choose to eschew meat for something that didn't bother her burgeoning conscience.

I remember walking the aisles of Acme with her, talking over this very thing, that some of the food we eat comes from animals that are raised and killed. And I was completely caught off guard when she exclaimed: "Pigs are yummy!"

Yesterday at dinner (two grilled bratwursts and two grilled hotdogs for the girls), she mentioned to me, "I may want to become a vegetarian some day. I'm not sure that I want to kill animals." (Maybe she'll start after the hot dog?)

It's not like we're huge meat eaters here. Twice, maybe three nights a week, with the rest being meatless. But the cover story in this Sunday's New York Times got me thinking again. Showing a young woman who has been paralyzed from a virulent e.coli infection, straight from a package of hamburgers, it brought to light another reason for giving up ground cows: sometimes the way our food gets to the table is downright dangerous.

And so jeez, we have all these signs that point to...don't eat meat...and yet we still do, because, let's face it, it's yummy. It's really freakin' yummy. And as awesome as vegetarian food can be -- I make a kiss ass grilled roasted veggie and goat cheese burrito -- sometimes it lacks that rib-sticking feeling that we all occasionally desire. Is this our destiny? Is this what we're supposed to eat? Because of what we crave?

A long time ago, I read a book called Dominion. It is essentially all the reasons people of relative privilege should forgo meat, with faith-based themes of mercy and kindness. It also explores, in depth, other animal industries, including whaling and big game hunting. If God gave us dominion over animals and plants, how much of a bang-up job are we doing with that charge?

How do you feel about eating meat? Do you feel conflicted about it? Do you not eat it? And why?

1, 2, 3

2009-09-28T14:22:00.005-04:00

I've been catching up on some past episodes of SuperNanny, because it never fails to make me feel better about my own parenting skills.

When you see shit like this, you know things aren't that bad.

I really know that this is horrid -- making myself feel better at the expense of others, but I truly find myself watching episodes slack-jawed, unable to quite fathom what kind of hideousness I'm bearing witness to. It's like the destruction of the human race, one child at a time.

Watching the show reinforces the idea that too much shouting sucks, and it doesn't work anyway. (Hmmm...have to try to keep that one in mind.) Quiet, consistent discipline works best, with clear boundaries, expectations and routines established.

Still, it's all too easy to get lost in your own frustration and bewilderment. All decent parenting intentions can fly right out that broken window when shit starts flying.

Today, I took Lil to the park after school. We walked to the park in the stroller, with a packed lunch to share on a picnic bench. We had a great time for about an hour.

Then she had to get all three-year old on me and started throwing a fit when she realized that I had thrown out the pizza crust she said she was done with. (Seriously, why do kids pull this crap? They'll insist they're done, but if you dare remove the plate or throw away the food, all hell breaks loose.)

I told her she could finish the berries I had packed, and she yelled at me, "Give me those berries now!" (I'm actually laughing as I type this, because I can't believe the audacity of this girl.)

Trying to wield a ninja-like calm, I told her she needed to use her manners or I would put her in the stroller and take her home.

(Oh shit, I thought, now I've done it. I'm gonna have to follow through!)

"1...."

"No!"

"2..."

"No! No! Nonononononono!!!"

"3...okay, that's it."

At 3, I picked her flailing butt up and plopped it in the stroller, latched her in and took off.

You can imagine what we looked like, mother and daughter, one screaming, one with clenched jaws and breathing heavily through her nose, strolling back the way we'd come, down a fairly busy suburban street with lots of people out and about.

It's fun to be on the receiving end of looks, isn't it? To be that object of curiosity. What the fuck is that noise?, I can imagine someone thinking, before craning their head around to see the circus act we'd become.

She gave up about halfway home, and when we pulled into the driveway, without even being prompted, she said, "Sorry, Mommy."

And that's what really made it all okay. So much so that I think I might even try again today. Except this time I'll take the car. You can always roll up the windows!

Two Things....

2009-09-14T21:44:00.003-04:00

Somewhere in Heaven, for old time's sake:

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
Uploaded by tressage. -

***********************

So my first post is up at my Brand. New. Blog! It's still taking shape, as I explain in my post. Hope you like it!!

http://virginmartyr.blogspot.com/

Don't Be So Sensitive

2009-08-24T08:53:00.006-04:00

There are times when I feel completely unable to parent. I struggle and flounder in the metaphorical sea that is raising children, and in that moment, when I find that answers don't come easily, I either sink like a boulder or find the strength and inspiration to keep moving and swim.

Of course, it all works out better when I don't drown in my own ineptitude.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what is the best way to parent an extremely sensitive child.

And, unfortunately, throwing up one's hands and shouting 'Enough with the crying!" doesn't quite cut it, because if it did, I'd be drinking out of a mug advertising my #1 Mom status.

I was a sensitive child. My husband was too. There were things we appreciated: relative quiet, small groups, not being the focus of attention, being home with Mom, life on the sidelines. Perhaps we were more pensive than other kids. We mulled. We stewed. We were deeply affected by the emotions of others, and our own countenance could mirror the stress, sadness or anxiety we witnessed in friends or loved ones.

But while my husband went on to develop his own coping mechanisms (by his own admittance, isolating and internalizing), I went on to develop none. Or at least, that's the hyperbolic theme I'm sticking with here.

Cutting oneself with scissors, knives and razor blades doesn't constitute a healthy way of dealing with intense emotions. It's certainly on par with drinking oneself into oblivion, but while getting wasted following a break-up won't turn heads, shredding one's skin into ribbons will.

It will also gain one entry to a psychiatric ward, where, for a brief moment in time, every trip to the comode will be overseen by a volunteer reading People magazine. Fun!

I want more than this for my children, and especially for the child I feel is most like me, and most like her father, this double whammy of DNA coming down hard upon her tender heart.

I've been frustrated with it. I cannot pretend otherwise. I've never grown used to the tears and the drama. But the more I've read about 'the sensitive child,' and the more I've pondered my own past, the more I realize I cannot be cavalier or dismissive about it. The fact that she experiences such extreme emotions now, at 6, is enough to make me want to crawl back into the fetal position I inhabited so frequently in the past. Despite my own experiences in this realm, I feel ill-equipped to guide her.

There have been times when I've looked at her and felt my heart sink, noting the fact that she resembled a depressed adult: red-rimmed eyes, slumped shoulders, slow movements.

She's not always sad. Not by a long stretch. She can be light and airy and enthusiastic and she's always loving. She thinks ahead and plans events and outings. She can flit about like a fairy, and I hate to see her magic weighed down by anything.

Mostly it's the separations. Visiting family is so wonderful for her, something she anticipates and marks on her calendar and makes nightly countdowns for.

But visits must end. Bags must be re-packed and cars loaded and journeys made back home. Whether we're the ones leaving or the ones being left, she takes it the same. Heartbroken. Shattered. She spends time walking around in a sad stupor, or lying on her bed. It can take her days to recover. And that is no hyperbole there.

When a friend went on vacation for two weeks, the very idea of it sent her into a strange spiral of anxiety and sadness. I half-expected her to emerge from her room dressed head to toe in black.

There are other things, too. Other signs that her road ahead may be more bumpy than smooth, but I hesitate to map them all out. I don't want it to seem that I'm spelling out her flaws or faults.

Because there is goodness in those extremes, chiefly her desire to be kind and loving to someone that's hurting. There's goodness in deep affection for family and friends. There's a great capacity for goodness in empathy. And she shows this.

At barely 3, she sat next to me on the couch after I just had learned my parents had our dog put down. She comforted me the way an adult would, with a hand on my thigh and soothing words. There was a maturity in her emotions, the way she looked at me and said, "She was a good dog."

And when my grandmother died, she sat with me in front of the fire in the fireplace, stroking my hair and back. She made me countless cards and pictures, checked in on me and told me proudly that she talked to 'GG' at night. "You like that, don't you Mom?"

This is the stuff that will serve her well, and others. But I worry about that heart, with its capacity for kindness, and its being prone to breaking.

How will she handle the stuff I didn't handle well? How will I guide her when I'm still trying to figure out the 'why' of my past?

How does a parent diagnosed with depression, anxiety and adjustment disorder (yes, that is actually in the DSM-IV) grow children with enough solid coping skills to make it through the shit-storm that is growing up?

Forgive me, blogosphere, for I know not what I do

2009-08-17T09:27:00.002-04:00

For some time, I've been trying to figure out how to post about matters of faith without making people's heads explode, sending their much-needed gray matter flying.

It's not that blog readers are averse to spirituality in general. Or spirituality in blog posts. Or potentially lengthy, rambling posts on virgin martyrs from a former mental patient turned wife/mother/student who forgets to pray ALL THE TIME.

But I didn't start my blog as a way to understand exactly why I am a unique snowflake and what purpose my frosty goodness serves on this planet. Besides melting, I mean. And I didn't start my blog to talk about Jesus or St. Agatha or why I keep reading books by Fr. James Martin.

I envy people with rock solid faith: people for whom everything is already ironed out. God controls everything. We all have a purpose. Everything happens for a reason.

But there will always be that part of me that questions it all.

Especially because I am Catholic.

Catholics have A LOT of STUFF to believe in. I mean, A LOT. It's crazy. And most Catholics I know believe some of it here and there. Other take everything for doctrine. They ride around with bumper stickers that say 'before I made you in the womb, I knew you,' eschew birth control and gay friends. I know some of these people too, and love them.

But what to make of transubstantiation, the virgin birth and Lazarus, when it's enough of a struggle to simply believe there is a vast being of goodness and light that resides in a vast place of goodness and light?

Not long after my grandmother died in January, I had an experience. No, it didn't involve angels or choirs or a bright light from beyond. But the way it happened (following prayer) and the vessel it happened through (my completely unsentimental child, Lillian) made its authenticity unquestionable.

In that moment, I felt spoken to. And it shook me. Because never before had I felt my prayers answered so definitively and noisily.

So these days I've been a little less doubtful, and a bit more intrepid about finding a good, solid path. Except when I forget. Which is ALL THE TIME. Again with the caps. My apologies.

So I've been toying with the idea of starting a blog about faith. And yes, Catholicism and issues pertaining to the Church, because, people, let me tell you, it's a goldmine of material.

And I've been feeling a little blah about this old blog. And irritated with the blogosphere (it's not you, it's me, except when it is you). And wishing I had the desire to write a bit more. And wanting to be read but also wanting to remain anonymous.

(And I totally wanted to name it Cafeteria Catholic, but surprise, the name has been taken, although the blog hasn't been updated since 2007. Still, no can do. Crap.)

But I am also hesitant to step into this new arena. I'm a pretty liberal person. That frequently doesn't jive with the religion I consider my home. I'm also vulgar. Let's just face it: I swear and talk about sex a lot and make inappropriate jokes and I'm still prone to being morose and sad and whiny I haven't read the Bible in ages...can I make these two sides meet somewhere in a purposeful middle? The person that wants desperately to explore faith and the person that still takes God's name in vain and sometimes passes out in bed at night without a single word of thanks?

So, there.

I need to grow. I need something else. And this isn't the place for it.

Not that this place is done. But perhaps putting my focus elsewhere will help my enthusiasm for it, because right now it feels a bit like a house that hasn't been lived in for a while.

Jeez...dramatic much?

Ooooooo! I just thought of a name. Time to go search and see if it's taken.

I'm Armed With Some Half-Hearted Threats

2009-07-29T13:06:00.001-04:00

Tuesday was one of THOSE parenting days. Actually, Monday was one as well, leaving me feeling a bit testy.

It all culminated in me telling the girls that I was this close to getting in the car and driving to Alabama.

This close!

Of course, when I say things like this, I mean it in the sitcommy way of Peg Bundy or Estelle Costanza. My eyes get big and my arms flail and my facial expression is 100% ridiculous and it's a little bit of comic relief.

"If you kids don't knock it off, Mommy's gonna take a hot air balloon to Alaska and live with the grizzlies like that Treadwell guy that gotten eaten a few years back."

(Honestly though, I'd rather not end up ground beef in the scat of an animal nicknamed Mr. Chocolate.)

"I've had enough! One more peep and I'm jetting down to Florida to find CSI Eric Delko. I don't care if his hours are unpredictable!"

(This is how he looks when he misses me. Very wistful...)

"The next person that screams will be responsible for me actually traveling to Crawford, Texas to help former President Bush clear brush."

(Because sometimes a day with The Decider seems more palatable than parenting.)

"Since no one is listening to me, I may as well just head out to the Redwood Forests. And no one will be able to drag me back..."

(...because I will be chained. "No, officer, I am not heading back to the Mid-Atlantic! I don't care if it's snack time!")

But they never get it. Just frowns and watery eyes and then suddenly I feel like an asshole. All they hear is Mommy Go Bye-Bye.

The schtick never works like it does on TV.

How About Some History?

2009-07-17T07:46:00.017-04:00

My entire experience with the aftermath of Mother Nature's wrath is wrapped up in the minor inconveniences of lost power and downed limbs.

I have no tales to tell of being on a sailboat in the midst of a major storm, nor fleeing an F4 making mincemeat of farms and trailer, nor being tossed helplessly by the shifting of the Earth's plates, nor watching flood waters rise around me.

This is the way I prefer it, from my relative safe perch in the Mid-Atlantic, where our last major event was a hurricane that made its way up from the Carolinas not long after Hannah's birth. Those winds, approaching 60mph, were terrifying. It is beyond my comprehension to fathom anything more powerful and actually being around after its departure.

That being said, I love me a good nature disaster story. That sentence sounds awful, as if I am blind to and callously indifferent to the destruction and death wrought by sky, wind, rain and mud. Not true. I am as horrified as anyone when a giant tornado winds its way through a Kansas town, leveling humans and houses alike. I could not stop watching and reading items on the tsunami in December of 2004. That water could erase the lives and livelihoods of that many people was too much to handle. Ditto on Katrina.

Mother Nature is one tough cookie -- kind and generous and beautiful one moment, and merciless the next -- and that is compelling.

Dave and I just got back from what I like to refer to as our Death and Destruction Tour of Western PA. (Alright, we just got back more than a week ago, but medical woes and writer's block have prevented me from doing anything with this experience.)

We visited the Flight 93 Memorial, and also Fort Ligonier, which featured actual soldier's uniforms with cannon shrapnel holes.

The highlight of our trip was Fallingwater -- Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece of a vacation home built for Edgar Kaufmann, Sr., the Kaufmann department store magnate, back in the 30s. And I'd show you pictures, but I can't, without the express permission of the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy, so you'll just have to trust me when I say it was truly spectacular.

But while we were in the vicinity, I wanted to do some touring of Johnstown, PA.

Johnstown, if you're not familiar, is famous for pretty much one reason and one reason only.

On May 31, 1889, the town and its denizens were completely obliterated when the South Fork dam failed following a record rainfall.

Oh, Mother Nature. Seriously.

But it wasn't just Mother Nature, which makes the story of Johnstown so much more compelling. It was about man, too. And class. And negligence. And odds.

Because at the time of the flood, the dam belonged to a group of some of the country's wealthiest Americans (Andrew Carnegie and Andrew Mellon, for example).

(These guys fancied themselves some time away from the Pittsburgh riff-raff and pollution.)

The reservoir contained within the dam was originally created to provide water to the Pennsylvania canal, but when the canal system became obsolete, the water passed through several hands, before being purchased by this fabulously wealthy group of men who renamed the reservoir Lake Conemaugh, and proceeded to create what was called the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club surrounding it. This club was a means for some of Pittsburgh's wealthiest to get away from the noise and pollution of the city and get to somewhere private and peaceful. And you had to be asked to join. You couldn't just sign your own ass up.

(The actual South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club building. The inside is in shambles, but is in the midst of historic renovation. Across from the porch would have been Lake Conemaugh, but is now homes and roads.)

The dam, which contained approximately 20 million gallons of water, had been in disrepair for a long time. The members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club did some basic maintenance on the dam, but not enough to make it secure. They trimmed a good 4 feet off the top of it to make a wider base for their carriages to pass, covered the dam's spillway to keep their game fish in and neglected to replace the dam's drainage pipes, which had been pilfered and sold for scrap.

In the meantime, they had cabins built for themselves, had servants on staff, and generally had some lovely times around the lake.

Fast forward 10 years. Massive rains for days on end put Lake Conemaugh close to its breaking point. A heavy, ominous, saturating rain that already had water practically flowing through the streets of Johnstown, which was about 14 miles below the strained dam.

On the day the dam gave way, a man named Elias Unger led a group of men to try to hold the dam, patching with futility until finally, it let go. The story goes that Elias, knowing the number of people that lived in the path of this monstrous wall of water, went back to his house and collapsed. The dam itself gave way at about 3:10pm.

(Elias Unger's house. The water would have filled the valley below.)

It took the water almost an hour to reach Johnstown, and in the meantime, destroyed the towns of Mineral Point and Woodvale.

I read David Halberstam's book about the Johnstown Flood a few years ago, and I'll leave it to him to actually describe the scene:

The height of the wall was at least 35 feet at the center, though eyewitness descriptions suggest that the mass was perhaps ten feet higher than off to the sides where the water was spreading out as the valley expanded to a width of nearly half a mile. It was also noted by dozens of people that the wave appeared to be preceded by a wind which blew down small buildings and set trees to slapping about in the split seconds before the water actually struck them...Because of the speed it had been building as it plunged through Woodvale, the water struck Johsntown harder than anything it had encountered in its fourteen-mile course from the dam...The drowning and devastation of the city took just 10 minutes.

So the wave decimates the town, stripping trees, building, barbed wire from factories, industrial parts from the Iron Works, houses, people, animals...all get swept up in this massive surge of water. At the edge of town is a huge stone bridge, and all the debris gets jammed there. The bridge, for whatever reason, actually holds.

At the Flood Museum, they had this map with a timeline and a miniature flood trail stuck within a plexiglass box, with plaques on the outside describing the scene. I don't know why I took a picture of some of the scene descriptions, because really, what is the point, but here is one worth posting, because when you think of the horror of that day, and thinking that good God in Heaven how could it possibly get worse? It does.

Yes, presuming you are still reading this lengthy post, this is correct. Here is Halberstam again:

Now boxcars, factory roofs, trees, telegraph poles, hideous masses of barbed wire, hundreds of houses, many squashed beyond recognition, others still astonishingly intact, dead horses and cows, and hundreds of human beings, dead and alive, were driven against the bridge until a small mountain had formed, higher than the bridge itself and nearly watertight...

And then, for whatever reason, all of that jammed debris caught fire.

Jesus.

In the end, more than 2,000 people were killed that day. Many survivors ended up blaming the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club for not doing more to ensure the dam's safety. Some tried, unsuccessfully, to bring suit against the club. Editorials of the day skewered the clubs members as out of touch elitists and some actually depicted the members as guilty of murder, and indeed, after the flood, most of the members went quietly away as if guilty. A few were involved in the massive relief efforts, but most were not.

(What is left of the dam. It's hard to get a good idea of the scope of water that would have been contained within this, due to the angle.)

Clara Barton and a few other workers from the Red Cross arrived days after the flood and stayed until sometime in October, providing much needed leadership and disaster relief. Go Clara!

I just find the entire story so interesting, as it's a good primer on both negligence and the relentless nature of water. What was once a wealthy man's retreat became hell on earth for those in the path of Lake Conemaugh, released.

(Halberstam's book is fantastic, as it actually contains eyewitness accounts. Kathleen Cambor wrote a work of fiction about Johnstown and the flood that included some of the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club members, and it was fascinating as well.)

Two-by-Four

2009-07-03T09:09:00.006-04:00

(Dear Cate, don't read this, thank you)

After Lillian's 8lb., 5oz. body was pulled from a 5-inch incision in my abdomen, the doctor examining me in recovery decided that she didn't like the amount of blood coming from my nether regions.

In fact, she stood between my leaden legs, and said, and I quote, "What is that?", with this crazy, scrunched up eyebrow look suggesting a head-scratching mystery.

I was feeling like a person who had just been operated on (i.e. like a pile of shit set aflame), otherwise I might have been able to come up with any number of comments in response.

"I'm sorry, doc. Have you ever tried to wax around a beach ball?"

"Didn't you learn about vaginas in med school?"

"I call it my pink taco!"

"Careful, it's got teeth!"

The she pulled something from it and immediately decided that I was a suspicious person and required a bit of torture to get me to divulge whatever prized information I had stewing about in my brain. Faster than I could say What the Fuck, I had several pairs of hands treating my belly as if it were some freshly risen dough in need of a serious beatdown.

And if I'd had any secrets, I would have lasted just about as long as Mancow did being waterboarded.

It wasn't a life and death situation. There was no talk of a trip back to the OR. I just had some excess bleeding and it needed to be stopped.

And they did it by treating my abdomen like a Tae-Bo accessory.

Whatever pain medication that allowed them to successfully separate my flesh and extract my child had most definitely worn off, and it felt just like you'd imagine aggressive palpitations on a just operated upon body to feel like (shit, set aflame, again).

It was the most ghastly pain I'd ever experienced. I would take a full 27 hours of my firstborn's labor before I'd go through that single minute again.

After I had time to fully process the medical staff's smackdown -- with a delightfully cherubic baby sucking away happily at my soon-to-be-ravaged nipple -- I was rather irritated with David for what I perceived as not coming to my aid.

I had indignantly decided that he should have reacted to my loud cries of pain by, at the very least, asking "What the fuck are you doing to my wife, motherfuckers?"

When I actually brought this up, like (no kidding) two and a half years later, he defensively explained that it was all he could to stay conscious. Too much thought and he would have hit the floor.

I should have realized this ahead of time, knowing full well about his difficulty merely having a vial of blood taken, but goodness that pain wiped clean any amount of sympathy I had for squeamishness. I was just so traumatized by the horrific sensation of multiple women punching my just-pieced-pack-together stomach. (Am I successfully imparting how painful this was?)

During childbirth class, Dave almost passed out several times. The most dramatic was when my midwife brought out what can only be described as a relief map of the dilating cervix. I remember him turning to me and kind of squishing up his face, as if willing the vision of gaping cervices from his head, in an attempt to stay upright and conscious. God, I love him.

And it was pretty impossible to look at, even for me. I can watch a surgery on TV with no problem, but the representation of how my lady bits are supposed to look in order for a baby to emerge was just grotesque. 10 looked impossible. (Mine stopped at a ladylike 4, simply refusing to go no further.)

Also a problem was the discussion of vaginal tearing, and really, who can fault him for that. I just kind of la-la-laed through that part, trying to conduct a magical thinking experiment in which my vagina escaped unscathed from the peril of an emerging baby head. La la la la I can't hear you. My vagina is totally gonna be fine, la la la.

Sometimes I have trouble believing that all this happened to me. That I survived these two gigantic events and walked away with two gorgeous babies. But contrary to popular mother-speak, I never forgot the pain. I don't think I ever could. If one was given an ice cream cone after being smacked in the gourd with a two-by-four, one might be excited to have the cone by probably won't forget that their head hurt. Ya know? I know, this example doesn't exactly fit here, so sue me.

(I have no idea why I'm thinking about this, but I am. Now the kids are back from Home Depot with their father, who apparently also stopped at the beer store. So the weekend begins. Happy 4th everyone!)

I'd Like To Say It In A Haiku

2009-06-26T07:44:00.003-04:00

Humbled, grateful for
your kindness, willingness to
support a person

unknown to you. You
are amazing, and I won't
ever forget it.

(So sorry this 'ku is devoid of any flourishes outside my desire to express thanks. I just wanted to say it. Thank you for supporting a friend and her family.)

St. Peregrine

2009-06-18T10:55:00.007-04:00

Did you know that St. Peregrine is the Patron Saint of cancer patients?

No?

Well now you do.

I should have found this out when my mother had cancer, but the craziness of the 24/7 breastfeeding newborn Lillian and a penchant for turning to St. Jude anyway made this need obsolete. So my mother wasn't exactly a 'hopeless case,' which happens to be St. Jude's specialty. She did, however, have Stage 3 colon cancer. It was serious enough to warrant going to the main intercession Saint.

I'm of a clearer head these days. But once again knowing someone with a serious case of cancer, I wanted to find out who exactly is the go-to Saint for this disease.

We Catholics have Saints for everything. It's amazing. You got some dental issues? Saint Apollonia might be able to appeal to the higher ups on your behalf.

Looking for help during labor? Sr. Gerard Majella, ladies!

Eye troubles? St. Lucy is your best bet, having quite possibly had her eyes taken out by Diocletian as part of her torture.

Gardeners facing a tough growing season can implore for the intercession of St. Fiacre.

Fearful of a shipwreck? St. Anthony of Padua is your guy.

Tired of procrastinating? Expeditus might listen.

Even pastry chefs, undertakers and cab drivers have their own saints. No malady or profession is left without a celestial partner to lean on.

*******

About 10 years ago my parents took me to Ireland as a college graduation present. I made it through college, hadn't succeeded in killing myself, and so that was worthy of celebration. Unfortunately, I was fairly deep in the throes of a nasty depression, and so I was a sullen, weepy traveling companion. (My poor parents, seriously). (Also, Saint Dympna...Patron Saint of Mental Illness! Good to know.)

While we were there, we made a little pilgrimage in our rental car to the shrine at Melleray, where the Virgin Mary had reportedly appeared to some boys in the 80s. It was me and my parents, and a friend of my uncle we were also traveling with. As I sat in the chair before this shrine, where a white statue of Mary was set into the dug out side of this hill, I felt very little. I was so consumed with despair that I was entirely stuck in myself.

I had some natural intrigue about the story of the boys. I admit to watching to see if the statue would change to Jesus and back again to Mary, as some people had reported seeing, or if it would grow almost psychedelic with bright wavy lines around it, before returning to its natural state.

And I did pick up some of the holy water from the blessed spring that ran through the shrine. I did look at all the lit candles that symbolized someone's fervent faith or requests.

But generally, it was just another stop in Ireland, albeit one with a bit more relevance to my scattered faith.

In the car on the way back to our rental house, my mom and Jim began talking about their rosaries. Jim took his out of his pocket and mom took hers out of her purse. And in something my Agent Scully-like nature still has trouble processing today, they both discovered that elements of their rosaries had changed color. On my mother's rosary, the Christ figure, like the rest of the metal on it, had always been silver. It was now a gold color. On Jim's rosary, a scattering of links had also turned to a gold color, in nothing that resembled a pattern.

I won't go on and on about it. It was something I saw (I was sandwiched between them in the car) that still can make me shiver when I think about it.

It was simply one of those times heaven comes down to smack you in your head and remind you of something bigger and more wonderful. Whether we feel it or not. It's there.

*******

Yesterday I saw a bird on our dogwood. It was bigger than any of our typical fare, and I could tell instantly by its size and coloring that it was a bird of prey. I assumed it was a hawk, and stood there for a moment watching it. We see them circling above sometimes, but never this close. And never perched. Then it flew off.

This morning as I opened the bookmark that has St. Peregrine's novena for cancer patients on it, it hit me. What does a peregrine falcon look like?

And do you know what? It looked exactly like the bird on the dogwood. That wasn't a hawk. I scoured Google images feeling this jumpy sort of jubilation. I looked up the info on how they were endangered but are making a comeback, and can be found all over the world. I lingered on one particular image showing its back, and one showing it in flight, the two views I got the best of.

And back to Agent Scully, or at least, back to the reality that I am most certainly not an ornithologist. It was yesterday. The coloring was certainly not brown. I saw those striped tailfeathers. Is my memory serving me correctly?

So maybe it's nothing. Or maybe it was something big and wonderful.

I have decided that I don't care. I'll take it as a sign. St. Peregrine Laziosi has nothing to do with the peregrine falcon. All they share is a name, but right now that is at least enough to make me feel like I'm being listened to.

If not answered, listened to.

Can You Help A Sister Out?

2009-06-10T08:45:00.004-04:00

Dear everyone who reads this thing,

I know times are tight. We're all holding on to our hard-earned cash with clenched fists, hoping for a turnaround sooner rather than later.

But I'm going to ask you to unclench a bit, and I know, all of you are exceedingly generous anyway. I've seen it and experienced it among this amazing online community.

I have a friend who was recently diagnosed with liver cancer. She is a year younger than myself, with two small children. And by small, I mean a 2-year old and a baby.

I don't like to talk of prognoses, as we've all seen people who've beaten the odds.

But this is not good. As if any cancer is good. It's downright serious. Without treatment, it's 6 months. Hopefully, treatment will eradicate this monster and keep her with her family. Her team is trying to get her into a clinical trial, but we haven't heard yet if this is a possibility.

I belong to a local organization for moms, and we're holding a fundraiser for our friend and her family.

We all love candles, don't we? So we're selling candles. Small pots are $9.00, and larger ones are $15. There are some really great scents: orange cream, watermelon, chocolate-dipped strawberry, plumeria, eucalyptus spearmint, and something that smells so like the ocean, even Kramer would approve. And many more.

Please, just send me an email if you want to buy one or 20. We'll work out the details there.

Thanks for listening,

Kelly

Pretty Purple Pills

2009-06-06T14:05:00.003-04:00

Once upon a time I used to take this great medication. It happened to be during a time when I took lots of other medications. Weeeeeee!

Heh.

Anyway, the medication was called Trazadone, and I used it because I'd go entire days without sleep. We're talking four days at a time. The anxiety I felt at the time was so pervasive that I couldn't escape it. In fact, it was worse at night, when all was quiet and all distractions were gone.

And Trazadone did exactly what it was supposed to do. I could take half a pill and be deliriously tired and pass out within 20 minutes. It was fantastic. It was the first pill I took that its job with no additional side effects.

Once I tried to call Dave after I had just taken a pill, thinking we could have a lovely little long distance chat while I waited to get tired. That was a big mistake. Within minutes, I was slurring like I'd just downed 10 shots of Jaegermeister and followed it with a 40 oz. "I wuv yoooooo. When kin I shee you gin. Garble garble garble."

Man, that shit works.

All this reminiscing has made me think about all the things I'd take a pill for. And here's but a brief list.

1) To never shave or wax again. Ever. Can you imagine the time saved by Italian women all over the world if this pill were available? We'd be able to take more time making sauce ana da meatballs. But how to make a pill that would isolate that hair and not make my eyebrows fall out? I don't know, but there are some fucking smart people out there, and the sky's the limit folks, get going!

2) For a sudden burst of super strength. This would come in handy when I see people litter. Because I really want to smash people when they drop their shit all over the place. They just think, "I don't want this Double Whopper wrapper in my car anymore, so I'm going to just throw it out of the window, because the world's my trash can, and I'm a giant asshole." And that's when I'd follow them to their destination, pop a super strength pill, lift the offender up, spin his or her ass around a few times, and then stuff them in their own trash can, which is probably empty anyway.

3) To grow an impermeable plastic skin, sound-proof and sight-proof, for when the days of childrearing become to much to handle. I mean, pretty much, this is going to straight up be a bubble, except form fitting so I don't destroy furniture.

And pretty much this sucker will just shut me down.

I won't be able to see or hear my children, or feel them clawing at me asking for more frosted animal crackers.

Don't get me wrong. This would be a last resort, for when all my calm voiced parenting and reasonable offers fail, when the yelling and fighting doesn't cease, and when I feel myself wondering if it would have been better to have simply been born a squirrel. "I'll give you a choice kids, either you knock this shit out, or Mommy takes the bubble pill."

4) You can't have visited this website for any length of time and not know that I have a problem with headaches. Specifically, migraine headaches. I was at a website the other day that describes migraines as a brain disease. And quite frankly, it fucking feels like it. It feels like a red hot jackhammer blasting away at the inside of my skull. And I've had them since high school. I currently have a really great medication that gets rid of them almost 100% of the time, but sometimes they come back. And since my insurance only covers 6 pills a month, and one headache might require 3, you can see how I might run out. And that sucks.

On a scale of crosses to bear, I can live with this one. But if I didn't have to, I'd pop that pill in an instant. To never experience that blinding pain again, to never have the blind spots, the nausea, the pre- and post-headache hangovers. That would be amazing.

And honestly, I don't really like taking medication. Seriously. I know you're all like, right, you just spent minutes rhapsodizing over some anti-depressant that knocked you out cold and how fantastic that was, and then how you'd love to pop other pills, and we're supposed to believe you're more a natural-type gal? Really, though, it's true. I'd rather just go about my life without filling prescriptions until my arteries start filling with plaque or something awful like that.

Right now, beside my migraine meds, I also take Omepreazole for reflux. Which really pisses me off. Because producing too-much stomach acid is totally an old man disease.

So this is what I want to know, readers. If you had the inclination and could take a pill that would change something for you, what would it be?

Hello...It's Been A While

2009-05-22T07:50:00.005-04:00

Hey.

It's me.

I know, it's been like three weeks or something awful like that. The rest of you prolific ladies are writing witty posts with images and anecdotes and memories and here I sit, pretty much trying to force something to come out.

Sometimes I think I'm trying to lose all of the readers I possibly can.

Sometimes I think I am simply waiting for something to happen. And lots of things do happen, but I just don't feel like writing about them.

I think that's the problem when you're like me, and your personality is such that you require a little bit of quiet time each day. And not at 8:30pm, when you're so bloody exhausted from the day and you still need to fit in some exercising, and then shower, and then sit down to do the work you get paid to do and didn't accomplish during the day because you had a sick child home all week.

Mine is a good life. It is.

And I am lucky to be is possession of it.

But, like so many of us, it's quite a busy one, and when you need just a little bit of something to feel restored, and that something is in very short supply, you start entertaining those lengthy fantasies of running off to an island in Mexico.

Through my work I found this place called Isla Mujeres, and it's been this constant presence is my brain. Laid back and relaxed, it's the anti-Cancun. Just the place to get...well, restored. And I started doing all this research on it, looking at hotel reviews and B&B reviews that showed pictures of guests having margaritas at the low-key, open air bars, with free appetizers and the camaraderie that accompanies escapism. To quote Liz Lemon, "Me want to go to there."

Alas, it's not to be. At least, not yet.

I'm looking forward to summer, and I'm not. I don't look forward to being activity coordinator to two children home for 3 months solid, but I am looking forward to venturing out with them, and seeing what kind of fun we can have. I don't look forward to the bickering, but I am looking forward to picnics in the park with friends, hikes, day trips and water ice.

I still have to work in the summer, quite possible two jobs, and my children will be home all day, and I'll have to try to balance this again. It's elusive, the feeling that you're doing things right.

But it's the way things are.

Yesterday evening we spent about an hour outside. We pitched a ball for the kids to hit with a plastic bat. We watched Hannah run track and field around the tulip poplar. We watched unknown bugs fly haphazardly, like a dissipating tornado, in a distant patch of sunlight, looking like flecks of gold. We drank iced coffee, sat some and played some. It's the part of this time of year that I love, when things go smoothly and we are this unit and we're outside doing. When we shed off the passive nature of winter and work together toward a common goal.

So that's what I'm asking for. There will no free time, no margaritas in an open-air bar. (How to remedy that?) But I'm hoping to make some memories just the same.

And shit, I'm hoping to write a little bit more too.

She's My Girl

2009-05-04T07:38:00.000-04:00

She came out of me screaming, a hellion covered with the bloody remnants of her prior home. I saw her there, to my right, screaming under the bright lights of the OR, being wiped off, before I closed my eyes. After 27 hours, the desire to sleep was relentless.

When the midwife held her over my battered body, trying to get her to latch on, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Our first nursing was a haze, lost to drugs and the marathon of labor.

We truly met the next day, when I was awake enough to look at her and note her blue eyes. I nursed her and became drowsy again, but this time the sleepiness was from the pleasant oxytocin rush that comes from a little mouth getting her fill of colostrum.

Oxytocin is the love hormone.

Diane Ackerman wrote, "So the mother and baby find themselves swept away in a chemical dance of love, interdependency, and survival," and that's how it was that first day, when I had the chance to fiercely hold the body that had been poking me for the past few months: the elbows that would protrude, the knees, the feet, the perfectly round head that would butt my cervix and stop me dead in my tracks. The oxytocin flowed as I looked down at her sucks and pauses, the fluttering of her jaw, examining her furry ears and brushing her cheek with my finger.

It's been six years since that day. Six years since my broken water, six years since swept membranes, since castor oil and contractions every 90 seconds, six years since a hospital transfer, since Pitocin, since occiput posterior, since midwives and nurses and doctors, six years since I balled up my birth plan after 27 hours and chucked it as infection came on, since I lay shaking on the table thinking oh my god they're cutting me open and then, then, six years since her cry first entered my ears and registered. She's mine. Mine.

So there was love, the kind both natural and chemical. And there was the slow creeping in of terror: the realization that this creature we created would indeed be coming home with us, and that we'd have to figure out this breastfeeding thing, this non-sleeping thing, this crying thing, this healing thing.

And as much as I wanted to get in the car with my pain meds and ice packs on my boobs, and hide out in a K-Mart clothes rack, pilfering Combos and Cherry Cokes to live off of, this little baby that scared the hell out of me was also completely enchanting.

Oh oxytocin, bringer-back of frightened new mothers...

She is my evidence that we don't completely suck at the task of parenthood.

Her now 6-year old hand is constantly creating: pictures, notes, cards. Most have the same message, in one form or another.

I ♥ U Mom

Love you, Mom

I Love Mommy

Most are brightly colored, rainbows and flowers and butterflies, the stuff of her age and stage. She draws us all together, her family.

She notices things: the color of a flower, the way the sunset looks, how a clump of tall trees will remind her of being in her grandparents' cabin. I am so proud of this observant part, the recognizing and acknowledging of beauty.

She is always talking. Always planning. She has decided to live near us when she gets older, because she cannot comprehend living apart and surviving. Or, at least, this is what I tell myself. For her it's simpler. She just wants to be with us. She plans dinner and dessert menus for when we'll have 'grown-up' dinner together. She skips over dinner and gets right to the dessert: brownies dipped in chocolate sauce.

Her husband will be named George. She will have 4 children and own her own bakery. "Maybe you can work in it with me," she tells me. And actually, despite the desire to finally sleep in in my later years, this early rising to go bake with my daughter has an appeal that I can't quite describe.

She is sensitive, compassionate. When my grandmother died, she massaged my shoulders as I cried by the fireplace. She brushed my hair. She made me a card that said "I'm sorry that GG died." I watched her try to process my grief and make me feel better. She'd flutter in with a card or with words of empathy. She'd kiss my cheek and then depart, hesitantly, trying to discern if she'd made an impact.

She did. And she does. Every day.

For six years, I've had the pleasure of knowing her. And though we've hit some bumps, it's mostly been like rowing on a still lake. The sun is out and the rowing feels effortless and you just want to keep going, forever.

The pain of her birth day hasn't faded. It's impossible to forget how the earth moves, each contraction like the shifting of plates deep within the ocean. But how I'd throw myself back into the epicenter to see the glory of her, emerging.

Happy Birthday to her, my first girl, my big kid, the child who made me mother.

Home Wrecker

2009-04-25T07:45:00.004-04:00

I have bad news.

I have no future in wildlife protection.

Before you start crying for the squirrels (if you are wont to do such chest beating over these frequent road kill), rest assured that I believe that they are still fine and growing well in care of a rehabilitation facility, with the exception of THE FACT THAT THEY WERE NOT SQUIRRELS AT ALL.

That deserved caps. Trust me.

What my husband raked up that day was actually a bunny nest.

(Now I give you permission to start crying, because bunnies are generally more well-liked than squirrels. People tend go 'ooooooh, bunnies,' while the squirrels get 'ewwwww.')

You know how squirrels have long tails? Long, freaky tails that sometimes wave around like a snake under the influence of a charmer. Eek.

Well, apparently, the babies do too.

So right above this spot where this nest was, nestled in our magnolia tree, was the remnants of a squirrel home. That little fact is really the thing that did us in and made us 'identify' these wriggling creatures ourselves. As squirrels. And not bunnies.

Not bunnies with a belly full of mama bunny milk, which the rehabilitator said that they had.

Which, damn it, has really f'ed me up a bit.

So there are three things that kept me from beating my head against the wall when I found this out.

1. Not even the squirrel lover to whom we first transported the bunnies realized that these were not squirrels, and she actually held one. "It didn't occur to me to even check the tail," she said. Me neither. Seriously. Why confirm that an animal known for its tail even has one?

2. There was a baby bunny-sized dead carcass in with the bunnies, covered in ants and other bugs.

3. Apparently, bunny mamas feed their young a few times a day, and if the nest had been compromised by an intruder, it is possible that the mother abandoned it. They could have still had full bellies, despite being left behind.

At least, this is what I tell myself.

Because I have been trying not to tell myself that we destroyed an intentionally placed nest and ripped two bunny babies from their mama's paws.

You know? Because that would blow.

("What heartless bitch took mah behbehs?")

Me and ground cover simply do not mix. I am going to ignore the pachysandra from now on. And if my husband attempts to rake it, I will run away. No more baby nests.

Perhaps as karma for my bunny-nest destruction, I had a wicked case of poison ivy on my forearms. We spent the weekend pulling up periwinkle and pachysandra, and clearly some of those evil three-leaved vines were tangled within. I wore gloves, but also a tank top. Probably not the smartest shirt choice.

Having poison ivy (and since living in this house, I've had it too many times to count) makes one consider all sorts of torturous-sounding home treatments. This morning I actually considered lancing some welts and pouring alcohol on it. Because this shit itches. Like the dickens. However dickens itch. Which I presume is a lot.

I bet that bunny mom is out there laughing, watching me scratch through the window.

I'm drinking a martini and trying to save some baby squirrels

2009-04-18T18:22:00.004-04:00

Yeah, that's the title of my blog post, and I'm sticking to it.

The martini is one part orangecello liquor, three parts vodka, and one part cranberry juice. With lots of crushed ice.

The squirrels are really little, eyes still closed and with barely any hair.

That's what I'm focusing on right now, besides my kids who are busy writing stories with their grown-up bunny pens purchased for them by one of their great aunts. One story is about a cat and a duck who didn't get along, were put in jail ("for 590 days," Hannah said) and finally learned to get along when they discovered a mutual love of playing baseball. Lillian's story read, simply, "Daddy, you're bald." It is apparently futuristic.

I almost just fell down the back stairs, which shows you how well I hold my liquor. And also, I just checked on the squirrels about 30 minutes ago. They're warm and wriggly.

I really resent this. But mostly I don't. Alright, a little. I don't want to worry about little babies who still desperately need their mama.

Seriously, why did we have to rake that patch of pachysandra, only to rake up a bunch of fur and two wriggling babies and one of their (we presume) brothers or sisters, mostly devoured by something or other?

Because I'm not a huge squirrel fan. But two little bodies that keep nestling up to one another in their makeshift nest have a tendency to make one a squirrel fan.

Or, at least, I'm rooting for them.

And I'm thinking if I still made milk, I'd be pumping a little to try to syringe into their little rodent mouths. Although with the alcohol, I'd have to pump and dump and wait two hours.

Having been given a name and email by a neighbor, who actually knows someone who rehabilitates squirrels (what luck!), I'm hoping they survive long enough away from their mother to make it to a much better caretaker. I've been told they need warmth (heating pad) and water, along with as much of their natural nest as we can bring inside. So I had a heating pad covered with a pillowcase (totally disposable, now), which is also covered with winter-rotted leaves and a ton of squirrel hair. It's a bit frightening, that big nest of hair sitting on something I frequently use to help relieve the pain of a migraine.

(This is the crapload of hair they're buried under.)

It's not right, but decency dictates I try to save these little fuckers. And I'm glad I was home and intervened, since Dave suggested they wouldn't make the night and perhaps we should hasten their demise in some fashion: squirrel baby euthanasia in a bucket of water.

But I won't have it, the murdering of these siblings. They won't die tonight, and they certainly won't meet their end in a nasty bed of ground cover with ants and cats and the fox I see almost every time I look out the bathroom window in the dark of night trying to make dessert of them.

(Don't scream. Seriously. If you're drunk, this is kind of cute.)

So the woman our neighbor knows, I just talked to her, despite being slightly inebriated. I giggled a bit too much, thinking about the luck of this. Who rehabs squirrels? Well, apparently a co-worker of my neighbor.

David is driving them now, he and two little squirrel babies in the Subaru, to their new mama. I find this really endearing, that he's willing to drive 45 minutes to find them another home, even though they probably won't make it.

Chances are, he's getting laid tonight, that hunky squirrel transporter.

I'm gonna go fix myself another drink and listen to the kids' next story: "Dad Interrupts People and Spills Coffee." (<-----not making that one up, that's the title).

The end.

Admit It

2009-04-15T08:31:00.004-04:00

David: "You'll never believe what I just saw on TV."

Me, walking back into the room: "What?"

David: "A commercial for 'The Cougar.'"

Me: "What the hell is that?"

David: "A new Bachelor-like reality show."

Me: "Let me guess, younger guys, an older woman?"

David: "Yep."

Me: "Holy Mother of God, where does it end?"

Sometimes, I truly believe that we, as a nation, are flushing any collective intelligence we may possess right down a crap-filled toilet. How much longer can this go on, before we simply become a country that no longer publishes any papers except the National Enquirer, and no longer produces any programming except for From G's to Gents? When radio stations filled with Nickelback clones eventually overpower NPR?

Remember how indignant we were when Wife Swap came on?

Two families swap spouses for a period of time, and we watch the matriarchs and their different rules and styles create havoc in the other family.

And now can you even believe that you once thought that Wife Swap was the ultimate in reality-show cesspools? Temptation Island now sounds positively tame.

What, now with Rock of Love Bus, Charm School, Bad Girls Club, and of course, every other bit of reality fare offered by VH1 and MTV. Remember how cool the first season of The Real World was, with all those different people stuck together in a NYC loft? And even Real World San Francisco, which mixed a conservative Catholic and an HIV-positive gay man in the same house?

And now it seems to exist as a kind of teen porn, where the only social experiments involve insanely large quantities of alcohol and what ends up happening in the hot tub when everyone gets home from the bar. Lather, rinse, repeat.

I just read about a new reality series from Fox (surprise!) where people actually get laid-off on camera. I don't know about you, but I anxiously await seeing someone lose their entire income, health insurance and retirement benefits in a single minute. Fun!

And I look forward to reading the next day in the papers of that same person coming back with an assault rifle and mowing down as many people as possible.

And lest you think I am riding too high a horse here, I will totally cop to watching the entire season of I Love New York 2.

Subsequently, you might think that a woman who watched a man nicknamed The Entertainer suck on New York's toes in a jacuzzi might not be the one to be pontificating on reality show trash.

And you would be right, if not for the fact that I have cleansed myself of that sin. I washed it away with the holiest of waters. I no longer give a rat's ass that New York chose Tailor Made over that hot piece of man meat named Buddha. Nope. I have asked the gods of television for their forgiveness, and I feel the peace of their mercy.

And I no longer watch any reality fare save Top Chef.

Okay readers, what trash show can you admit to me that you watch (or watched) and enjoy?

I'm Elswehere

2009-04-06T09:11:00.001-04:00

Hey you.

Yeah, you.

I'm guesting over at The Dayton Time today. Stop by.

Dear Sickness, Go Away, Love Me

2009-04-01T09:21:00.005-04:00

Wow.

I'm speechless.

Just. Wow.

Alright, who am I kidding? I am seldom speechless.

I could go on at length about how disgusting these last few days have been. The stomach flu is apparently an inspiration, at least for language describing vomit and uncontrollable diarrhea.

Yes, you read that correctly.

Uncontrollable.

David and I have yet to succumb to this illness most foul. I am hoping, however, that if we do, our sphincters, having had an additional 30 plus years of strength-training, can somehow manage to hold back the deluge.

And there really is nothing like trying to get partially digested pizza off of a comforter (and rug and sheet and pajamas and child and child's hair) at 12:30am. And again at 1:30am.

And it's horrible, because you love your child so much and all you want to do is make them feel better and get them cleaned up and as cozy as possible and the whole time you're cleaning them, you look like you've just sucked on a dozen limes or seen picture of Rush Limbaugh naked.

Because, the grossness. It's just so gross.

And then there's the poop. Which, you know what, I'm not going to go into at great length, except to say eventually I gave up and dug out the pull-ups I am so glad we still had. After the third change of underwear for one of the kids, I had just about had it. At one point, one child had just vomited in the kitchen (half on the rug and half on the linoleum, of course, so more surfaces to clean) and one was standing there having just soiled themselves. Again.

Despite my best Florence Nightingale intentions, I was understandably....frazzled.

I should also mention that David went to work, because men -- as lovely as they are, and as much as they contribute to family life nowadays, thank the good Lord -- still usually leave the puke and poop behind.

To their wives.

Which would be me.

And in the midst of this insane bout of excretion, David actually asked me to make his lunch.

"Are you kidding me?"

"No, I have to go."

"Do you know where my hands have been? Do you know I'm still wearing the pajamas I wore last night in the midst of my laundry extravaganza?"

"Alright, forget it." This was said with a mixture of annoyance and exasperation.

Seriously, if I was the one in need of a lunch and going to work, I'd just decide upon a Big Mac.

******

There is one thing about the kids being sick that I actually enjoy. When they're so exhausted and spent and unable to do anything but lay there, I can rub their heads and cuddle with them and feel their feverish little bodies against mine. We can be quiet together and return to a time a bit more primal, when their need was mostly physical.

Here's, though, to recovery. To parents not getting what their little ones bring home. To girls skipping and running and the shelving of Saltines in favor of yogurt and strawberries.

Here's to my girls feeling better.

The Perils of Too-Frequent Q-Tipping

2009-03-24T15:45:00.005-04:00

If you've followed this blog for any length of time, you will know that I am a hypochondriac. And mostly I blame my parents, because, hello?!?!?!?!

triplebypassbreastcancercoloncancerdiverticulitisholyshitI'mgoingtodieahhhhhhhhhh!

And because it's convenient to blame one's parents to avoid fully acknowledging one's own inherent nutiness. Nutitude. Nuthood.

(Nutever. Heh.)

Also, I have a health care team who love to indulge my whims and schedule lots of tests for my symptoms. Usually we call these people good doctors. For the purpose of this blog post, however, we are calling them enablers.

So anyhooo I'd been having these really persistent swollen glands in my neck, forever. Right under my ears. They were a little sore. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands. A hypochondriac does NOT appreciate swollen glands that last a long time. A hypochondriac loathes swollen glands, because usually a hypochondriac will start Googling. And despite what the Google says, the hypochondriac will not be held down, and will keep Googling until she finds something awful and horrible that is bound to befall her or that is befalling her that very moment.

So one day, while I was cleaning my ears for the third time, it dawned on me.

Hey, dumb ass, the ear is a self-cleaning body part. Maybe all the q-tips you stick in there 20 times a day aren't helping. Maybe by f*cking with the self-cleaning mechanism of the ear you are introducing bad things, and hence, your glands are telling you to knock it the hell off. Idiot.

It's true. I am a compulsive ear-cleaner. And those warnings on the q-tip box to avoid putting the q-tip into the ear canal? I totally ignore that shit.

So a few days with only washing the outside of my ears along with my face in the shower, and my swollen glands are gone. Just like that.

I am an idiot-genius.

But then I come home from school last night, and sit down on the couch with my husband.

"Where's your iPod?" I ask. "I'm gonna jog in a bit."

"Oh yeah...." he says, frowning dramatically. "I go to pay the bills tonight and charge up my iPod and while I'm taking off the earphones, I see a big hunk of earwax hanging on one side. That was nasty!"

I am mortified. Earwax, like a booger, is something you don't want on display. It's like the perfect example of how human beings are just disgusting saliva-mucus-hair factories and there is nothing attractive about us. As a lot, we are smelly, sticky and atrocious.

"I'm really sorry. I haven't been cleaning my ears as frequently as I used to." And then I go into my account of the glands and the ear cleaning and what a stellar detective I could be.

"Well, that doesn't mean you should stop cleaning your ears altogether."

Snap.

So now with the glands down, I'm focusing on this crick I have in my upper spine.

(I'm thinking it's a pinched nerve.)

****Adding that when husband says he took off earphones, he meant removing them from the device and not taking them out of his own ear. *****

Because Everyone Needs A Little More

2009-03-22T16:05:00.002-04:00

...sweetness. I will do you a favor and send some your way.

I've been a little hung up on this one muffin recipe lately, and so I thought that the best thing I could do with it was to pay-it-forward, because it's the kind of baked good that can change one's mood. This muffin is like Robert Pattison to a Twilight fan.

I found it by doing a random search for 'pear' and 'ginger,' since there was a time last year that I had a little too much of both. Not surprisingly, the recipe belongs to Nigella Lawson.

With the body of Venus, magic hands, an accent both engaging and comforting, and a proclivity for using terms such as 'tooth-achiness', 'palate-cleaving' and 'marshmallow-gungy,' Lawson has to be one of the most interesting and fun 'gastro-compendiums made flesh' around. All those other TV chefs look and sound entirely bland by comparison.

I especially like when when she bakes some exorbitantly rich cake, and the camera shows her replendent in her robe coming back for seconds after everyone else is asleep.

Here is the basic recipe, and then I'll tell you some of my inadvertent tweaks:

Nigella's Pear and Ginger Muffins

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees

-In a large bowl, mix 1 3/4 cup flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 3/4 cup white sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 1 tsp ground ginger

-In another bowl, mix 2/3 cup sour cream, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 tbs honey, and 2 large eggs

-Fold into the dry ingredients

-Gently fold in 1 1/2 cups peeled pear, chopped into 1/4 inch dice

-Divide batter among 12 muffin cups, and sprinkle 1/2 tsp brown sugar over muffin tops

-Bake for 20 minutes, cool for a few minutes in the pan and then remove to wire rack.

You're welcome.

Okay, so last weekend when I went to bake these, I found I was completely out of vegetable oil. I was afraid to substitute olive oil because I thought the taste might come out a bit odd. So I went ahead and melted a stick of butter and used that in place of the veggie oil. Not surprisingly, the muffins were insanely good. A bit of extra saturated fat has that effect. And sometimes I feel like I can taste the vegetable oil in baked goods, so the lack of this taste was appreciated.

I've also used fresh ginger. But since I'm not sure of how much fresh ginger equals ground ginger, I just kind of winged it and think I added a couple of tablespoons. One of the things about grocery store ginger is that it almost always is quite stringy, so there were the occasional ginger strings in the finished product. It didn't, however, take away one bit from the luscious muffin and its ability to make my mouth really really happy.

I've also used low-fat sour cream, because I honestly can't tell the difference between the low and full-fat varieties anyway, but it struck me as hysterical melting an entire stick of butter and then using low-fat sour cream as some kind of lightening agent. Kind of like the diet coke with a Big Mac value meal.

Also, I would have taken a picture, because they're pretty with their brown-sugar crackled tops, but the last batch I made I took out of the oven right before going jogging, without removing them from the muffin tin, and the sides got a bit dark.

Which is just like me. There is at least one line from every recipe I try that I screw up.

But nevermind, because the taste is still divine, with the soft-baked pears and pungent ginger. As Nigella might say, 'this spice-laden squidginess' is the ultimate comfort food.

Untitled

2009-03-06T09:20:00.003-05:00

Last night, I was afflicted by the sort of physical exhaustion that typically precedes a migraine attack. I couldn't finish my treadmill workout, and stopped a mere 10 minutes from the end, just as the Kings of Leon were singing about a storm bubbling up from the sea.

How prescient was that group of sex-soaked Southern rockers.

I ended up falling asleep during 30 Rock, just as the attention-seeking Jenna was lamenting that she'd have to share her birthday party with Tracy, trying unsuccesfully to get the focus back on her by donning a back brace and faking injury.

And not surprisingly, I woke several times in the night, the new but familiar pain piercing from my left eye through to the left temple.

When I stumbled downstairs this morning, I took my last Maxalt and popped a Fiorcet and made the coffee with much difficulty.

(Hannah, meanwhile, was rambling excitedly about buying lunch at school today. This will have been only the third time she's done it, mostly because school lunches are entirely devoid of any nutritional substance. The hot dog is bad enough, but it comes with a side of either Pop-Tart or fruit (and guess which most kids choose) and some kind of drink. Most kids choose chocolate milk, but Hannah was going on about how there is a new beverage, simply called 'Orange Drink,' and the 'drink' part of this is truly a clue as to how little good it will do the body ingesting it.

Still, it's only once in a great while, and then we can get back to the peanut butter on brown bread that she likes to complain about. And I love how excited this makes her, a temporary halt in the norm and the promise of sweet junk; the responsibility of carrying those 3 single bills with her, a big girl with money to spend.)

Usually when I have a migraine, I don't have the visual disturbances that can accompany the pain. But I found this morning, looking out the window in the dim morning light, that I couldn't see the host of birds swarming the feeder. If I turned my head all the way, so that both eyes focused, I could see them. But with just my left eye dominant, they were obscured by a white blur.

I like to watch the birds rummage on the winter ground, and conduct their dances around the feeders. The goldfinches are decidedly muted in color now, mostly a soft ochre. We have the sparrows and cardinals, tufted titmouses (titmice?), and the fun nuthatches, walking up and down the side of the dogwood with hurried energy and a strange grace. The other day we saw a red-bellied woodpecker, whose name we didn't believe since its head was the reddest part of its body.

The robins are back now, too, picking the berries out of the holly-type tree we have growing next to our back steps.

In this blurred out vision, with birds that I know are there but can't make out the way I'd like, I can still sense Spring. On the periphery of this white hole, I see the melting snow, the water seeping into the ground and making a muddy mess perfect for the girls to stomp through in their rain boots. It's white surrounded by white.

It takes 15 minutes for the medicine to kick in, to kill the pain that was previously killing me. Whether it lasts or not is unknown, but I am grateful for the reprieve.

As we walk to the car to bring Hannah to school, she is still excited about her upcoming lunch purchase. She skips excitedly out to the car, yelling "I love the way Spring smells!"

She is infectious. My enthusiasm for the day, though muted by medication and a desire to sleep, gets a bit bigger just by being near her.

When we pass, the birds take off from their perches, waiting for us to disappear before they return to feast again.

I Want A Pet

2009-02-27T12:52:00.004-05:00

It wasn't all that long ago that I stood in a K-mart check-out line on a cold Sunday night with a pregnancy test in hand. I decided to go to K-mart despite my hatred of this particular store and all of its employees and customers, because it's only a minute from my house. Why travel all the way out to CVS, I thought.

Well, I should have just gone all the way to fucking CVS because there was only one register open and a woman with about 7,000 jars up baby food and 6,000 little outfits for a baby boy, and an additional 5 people behind her.

And so this little jaunt to K-mart for a plastic stick to pee on took longer than it would have taken for me to drive further down the main stretch to a store that doesn't make me want to pull my hair out. That is a terrible sentence, and I am sorry.

And before you're all like, "Hey, congratulations!!!"....let me tell you that I've spent more money on pregnancy tests when I haven't been pregnant than I have when actually knocked up.

So yeah, and it's cool. I wasn't all brokenhearted. I was very relieved. But I am seriously about to write a letter-to-the-editor concerning my period, because it's fucking with me.

Do you know what my two main premenstrual symptoms are these days, besides a crazy lady rage that makes me want to climb skyscrapers King-King style and grab planes out of the sky to snack on?

Nausea and light-headedness!

I know. I know. Two of the main symptoms of pregnancy.

Also, after months and months of having my cycle be anywhere from 27-29 days, without fail...it suddenly jumped to 35. So you can see, feeling like shit and counting the calendar days, why I might jump in the car and make a trip to a place that makes me want to slit my own throat.

I'd rather place leeches on my skin than walk into that hell-hole, but I had to go. Because I was late.

And the funny thing is, if only I could have calmed myself down and reassured myself that, really, what were the odds, I would have gone to sleep and woken up the next day and gotten my period. And my husband wouldn't have been all like, "Oh my God, seriously woman. You are going to be the death of me."

So lately I've been okay with the idea of not having 3 children. Like I'm going back into my brain and revising the way I always thought things would be.

Like I've finally accepted the fact that this is about the max I can handle: two children, part-time job, part-time school, old house, volunteer booby-advice dispenser, husband that has an aversion to doing the dishes and vacuuming but likes to spend entire days working outside.

Plus, I like to drink. Really, I don't want to have to give that up for 2 more years. Last night I was pounding the white wine while making dinner, and it's great to cook buzzed.

And I got a really cool Jon Stewart shirt not too long ago, and it wouldn't look nearly as awesome with breastmilk stains on it.

Also, that telegenic efluvia that comes postpartum and makes your lustrous pregnancy locks fall out all over the place in heaps and piles? It lasted 2 years. I'm lucky I have any damn hair left at all. One more pregnancy and I'd be shopping for wigs.

Does it sound like I'm trying to convince myself? Seriously, though, it's like 90-10 now, whereas before it was like 20-80 and I was going off the deep end.

The problem now is that I've replaced baby lust with pet lust.

The other day I spent a good hour on Petfinder, ogling a bunny named Cashew.

I know...Cashew! It's the cutest thing I've ever heard. And the corresponding picture made me nearly weep with joy. Seeing that little rabbit body splayed out on a bed, looking all cozy and comfy. I could see she'd be a great companion. She and I could watch The First 48 together, and her little head on my lap would convince me that the world isn't really horrid and evil, but warm and snuggly.

And then the LLBean catalog had to come, and I'm going to write to them and ask them to stop using cute dogs to advertise their pet accessories and furniture. No more black and yellow lab puppies. No more goldens. Strictly chihuahuas. Or hairless cats. Or birds. I'd get the gist, seeing a parakeet on a pet bed. Okay, scratch that.

So I spent some more time on Petfinder looking at dogs needing a home. And falling in love.

And do you know what? My husband is every bit as anti-pet as he is anti-baby number 3!

Cats are out, for sure. He doesn't want rodents, and dogs are too much work.

(Powers of the internet, unite against my husband David. Heap scorn on him for depriving his wife of a pet to love and cherish. And housebreak. And kick out of the bed. And walk at 5:45am, in rain, sleet and snow. Shit!)

I'm going to keep working it.

I mean, at least we wouldn't have to get a new vehicle just to add a pet to our family.

Cashew...mama's coming!