From Humbug to Humbled at the Hands of Hooligans

I: The Humbuggery

Saturday mornings slide into us sideways, wild and without mercy, just like the Monday through Friday that come before it.  Technically, we have an extra hour or so to prepare for takeoff, and our destinations are dance and kung fu versus work and school.  However, the routine (I am using this term loosely) is much the same…rude awakening, feeding frenzy, clothing crises, cursory calendar reviews, terse task passing, search for keys, and rounding out with a grumbling and fumbling roll out of the door.  A few weeks ago, Little Syd crept into our room breaking the day well before the sun ever had a chance.  She pitter-pattered across the hardwoods and gingerly kissed my nose.  I half-dreamed she was a butterfly or an angel, but then the sweetness soured as she jammed the arms of my glasses right into my eyeballs and summarily stripped me of the comforter and sheets.  She clasped her throat with one hand and fake-gasped that she was starving and dying of thirst.  To avoid her trademark paroxysmal fury (and thus the potential for sparking full-bore pandemonium in the Petty home), I caved.  I climbed out of bed, whisked her into my arms, and dragged and stumbled down the stairs.

I cocooned Syd in a green fleece blanket, piled her into a soft, swiveling chair and turned on a Phineus and Ferb, hoping to placate her long enough to make coffee – lots of it – and pour her cereal and milk.  I went through those motions of mollification, knowing well that I was running counter to conventions of today’s high-quality, hands-on mothering.  I eyed the clock and noted that we had two more hours before dashing off to Dance Masters.  About that time Eli moseyed into the kitchen, perched on the stool, and ordered up eggs, bacon and an “English.”  Jonathan strolled into the scene with the newspaper tucked under his arm, and take-it-easy ideas of sinking into the other swiveler to thumb through the news.  Before any first light pleasantries could sing from his lips, a venomous, soon to be violent, spat broke out between brother and sister over the coveted first chair.  Threats of parental wrath and a toy-less Christmas quashed the quarrel, at least temporarily. 

In our second take, so to speak, I filled our cups full with the darkest brew and slid fork-split muffins into the toaster, while Jonathan manned the scramble and sizzle of two skillets.  We were a breakfast symphony of sorts.  For a split second, what was once the calamitous cracking of dawn flowered into a Norman Rockwell American family portrait of rising, shining, day-breaking goodness.  I relished this tiniest sliver of still-in-our-pajamas time, this welcome leave from the packed agenda, the bullet points and to dos.  As surely as I hummed and harmonized in my head, the universe blasted the proverbial Mr. Bluebird from my shoulder.  This time it wasn’t blunt force trauma to my eyes that stole my vision.  With a cartoonish BANG!  SPLASH! and THUD!, Eli’s glass toppled over splattering and spraying orange juice in all crevices of the countertop and floor tiles, and almost simultaneously Syd spilled out of her chair.  Convulsive crying and compulsive cursing jumpstarted the blame hurling and the I am sorry swirling, which leveled the languor of our almost chill Saturday morning.  Somehow in less than a minute, the once buoyant banter about shuttling dancers and young masters, blowing the leaves, and later trimming the tree to holly-jolly tunes twisted into this urgent, pressing debate about dealing with the undone, messiness of our clutter-y, clatter-y, clumsy lives.  We fell into line, soldiering onward into the timeslots, checkboxes and tasks outlining our days.  The girls went one way, and the boys went the other.  I heard Faith Hill crooning, “Where are you Christmas?  Why can’t I find you?”

II:  The Humbling

Syd and I split and sped off with an extensive list of humdrum have-to-dos, while Jonathan stayed behind laboring in the backyard with our boy.  Around noon and at my husband’s request, I rang up my friend Amanda and asked if her son William could come over to break the monotony of this year’s Great Rake.  Instead of just one little boy, she sent two (William and Raine), plus her husband Ed and his blower (and yes, we howled as we spun and spiraled down every inappropriate joke about blowing).  Thanks to a neighbor’s colossal oak, leaf removal is an Everest-like achievement.  I think Jonathan and Eddie raked, blew, and dragged the tarp to the curb for four hours, maybe more.  And for this same amount of time, I think three six-year-old boys let their imaginations stretch to the far reaches of the cosmos, inside our house – fairly unattended, well, self-policing, I should say.    

While some combination of outdoor progress and indoor obliteration went down back at the ranch, Syd and I trudged about town, dutifully scratching off our line items, intermittently listening to Lady Gaga (her request), Sharon Jones (mutually agreed upon) and The Black Keys (my 2010 obsession band).  Finally, we landed at the Azalea Garden Center where together we wandered an Evergreen labyrinth in search of a Christmas tree, shorter and thinner than in years past so as not to overwhelm the space of the living room, per realtor staging instructions.  While usually I might be bent by such boundaries, the family that runs the nursery greeted Syd and me with gigantic smiles, bear hugs, well wishes and quickly joined us in the search for this year’s Charlie Brown tree.  When we found our slim, yet full Frazier Fur, our friends gave her a fresh cut and even attached the stand, which to me seemed a most masterful maneuver to stabilize far more than the tree.  I think Christmas stands and light strands threaten wedded bliss just like putting cribs together, installing car seats and getting lost do.

As the girls hurried home, my grip on the wheel relaxed, and I joined Syd in singing the jazzy, jolly jingles streaming from the all-holiday-all-the-time station, and I knew that bumping into buddies and laughing with lit up people scattered throughout our day had de-Grinch-ed and un-Scrooged me.  Ho-hum was more ho-ho-ho, and Saturday felt more like Saturday, and ‘tis the season sank into us.  When we arrived at 4501, Syd and I burst through the front door harking and heralding news of the tree.  Eli and his two pals, shirtless and shoeless, froze with their grubby hands jammed into a Frito bag, a Goldfish box and a bowl of Pirate’s Booty, respectively.  A quick scan revealed that they had at a minimum unfolded, hung and tied nine blankets to create a wicked, cool fort in the living room.  Using every piece of rope and twine, including wrapping paraphernalia, they had woven a web through the chandelier and banister (and incidentally they were trying to stifle snickers as I had tripped into their trap upon entering the house).  Shoes, socks, shirts, hats, gloves and other accessories littered the floors of three rooms.   The scene was stunning, Animal House stunning.  My little Deltas’ attention to destructive detail was unmatched by anything I had yet to encounter in my six years of motherhood, my four years of college, really my thirty-six years of life, but at the same time I knew I was witnessing joy – all-in-all-out joy.

I strolled out back to check in with the dads, who having finished their blowing and put down their tools, were shooting the breeze and drinking beers by the fire pit.  I recruited Jonathan to drag the tree in so the frat boys and princess could adorn and bedazzle it.  I lugged the decorations and lights up from the basement, one box at a time.  Before I laid down any laws about the fragility of some ornaments that dated back to my early childhood, one of Eli’s friends dropped a glass ball filled with some powdery snow (probably of the toxic variety) and sent shards in all directions.  Shocked at the shattering, Syd who was holding one of those Christopher Radko museum ornaments dropped hers, too.  To avoid the unavoidable outcome of bare feet and broken glass, I placed each half-dressed child in a chair so I could sweep away the wreckage (and my sentimentality).  As I cleared the carnage, Eli’s other friend crashed a cup of milk into the powder and shrapnel.  His eyes grew wide and he struggled anxiously, “Tall Syd, please don’t…please don’t be mad.  We don’t have to tell my mom, do we?” 

We continued this way, breaking things, falling off step stools, hanging too many balls, snowmen and Santas on single branches, and not evenly spacing lights until the little tree could bear no more of our decorative abuse.  In the midst of a ransacked, tossed house stood our little tree, beautiful, full of friendship, full of color and light.  In the midst of our mess, stood our life, beautiful, full of friendship, full of color and light. 


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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

 

Books, Covers, Hands, Rubbers

About twice a year, I book an appointment for a massage in hopes that I will hobble into the hands of a holistic healer who will knead and work and rub out a sweeping cycle of chronic pain.  I check in, peel off my clothes, slip under a blanket and wait for the New Age sets and scents to wrap around me.  Enya’s soothing sounds beckon me to unwind.  The lavender drifting through the air and the gentle flicker of the soy candles beg me to relax.  But I can’t.  My mind rings up ridiculous scenarios and reactions like a cash register at Christmas time.  What will I do if there is a fire?  Do they really change the sheets between clients?  Bed bugs!  Are there bed bugs burrowing into the fibers of the organic coverlet?  Oh my God, what’s that itch?  Will the masseur return to see a stark naked silhouette spastically scratching her ankle?   Will the hot stones scald me this time, too?   I should have shaved my legs.  Will the lotion make those awkward wet slurping and farting noises?  Will I keep it together if the masseur says the word buttocks out loud or will it be like that time I got the giggles so badly in the visualization segment of birthing class that I had to bury my face in my lumbar support pillow so I wouldn’t wreck the mood for the rest of mothers-to-be?  Probably something more like the latter.   

Recently the doctor prescribed regular massage therapy for me.  I immediately scheduled a treatment, preferring a natural approach to the muscle relaxant and pain killer cocktail that was also prescribed.  Last week my journey back to the land of loose limbs and ligaments began with the receptionist ushering me into a room of grand Zen impression.  My joints creaked and cracked (I sounded like Rice Krispies when milk hits them) as I heaved my body up on the table and worked my way under the thin layers of linen and cotton.  Goosebumps broke across my bare shoulders, for I was too tall to pull the blanket over them.  I willed myself not to go down the path of what if, but the mental levees were breaking under the hurricane-force of my anxiety.  Time passed.  I don’t know how much because my watch was too far across the room, along with every other article and accessory that had given me security and coverage just minutes earlier.  I felt vulnerable, lying there, nude; the tension was multiplying at rabbit-speed.  What if, what if, what if.  Finally, the doorknob turned and in lumbered Mark. 

He padded in with a palpable heaviness and immediately ran into a stool which rolled into a rack bearing vials, vessels and votives, some of which clinked and clattered to the floor.  There was a clumsiness and sloppiness about him that severely challenged the clean, crisp lines of the setting.  His black shirt stretched over the pudgy expanse of his midsection, the buttons straining to stay fastened, the last few having surrendered their posts, revealing belly flesh that reminded me of Pillsbury’s poppin’ fresh dough.  His hair was slicked back into a long, wet salt-and-pepper tail that was definitively more rat than pony.  Static electricity made his dark pants cleave and hitch and rise in strange ways, and tattered, grayish gym socks crept out of his Birkenstocks. 

Nervously, I stretched my arm out to shake his hand by way of introduction.  From my somewhat limited experience, the handshake of the masseur has always been the tell for how the ensuing treatment would unfold.  Mark took my long, cold, arthritic fingers into his thick, soft palms.  He did not shake or squeeze, just cupped my hand in not one, but both of his.  At first, I thought, “Oh no, it’s the energy handshake, not the energy handshake.”  In the past, this type of we-are-one-with-the-universe gesture has resulted in a somewhat sympathetic rubdown where the pressure is delicate and cautious, leaving me feeling like I have been given a conciliatory pat on the back.  I needed to be unknotted.  I needed a take-no-prisoners approach to my trigger points, a dig in so I could dig out.  I began to worry about being at the mercy of Mark’s meaty mitts, even if he did seem so well-meaning.

After reviewing my history and symptoms (which left me feeling like I should have checked into a nursing home rather than a spa), I turned my head into the face rest, took in the aromatics and noted a ribbon of mint running through the lavender.  Mark put his hands on the back of my skull and pressed down.  Reflexively, I pushed back into his palms.  He said, “Sydney, this will only work, if you let it work.  Let It Work.”  What I heard though was Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire yelling at Cuba Gooding, Jr.’s Rod Tidwell, “Help Me Help You!  Help Me Help You!”  I am sure I tried to stifle a snicker, which made my shoulders shake a little, giving a clear indication that I was still spinning on something, still unsettled.  Mark’s hands never left my head.  Neither his pressure nor tone changed.  He just leaned in and said, “Let it work.  Let it work, Sydney.” 

I heard silence.  It sounded like breath, like labored breathing steadying into a more natural and graceful pace.  For a moment I could feel the pressure of Mark’s digits distinctly, ten points across my head, but then they blurred and I felt only a singular firmness, a fixed and fixing force pushing on me, on my mind and my body.  “Let it work.  Let it work, Sydney.”  His voice did not match his visage, nor did his fluid, slow, deep strokes once they began working my neck and shoulders.  Mark uncovered me down to my fading tan line, and I quietly lamented the vanishing traces of summer and remembered July as the last time spinning my children around, or just carrying them, didn’t brutalize my joints and muscles.  As if he could somehow hear my inner monologue, Mark again laid his hands on my head, paused, pressed, pushed with the heft of his whole body and somehow shifted my sadness back to silence.  For sixty minutes he continued to work like this: an elongated, smooth and specific rub, followed by a pause, then listening, adjusting, turning, pushing and stretching me.  In the darkness, Mark was less masseur and more an old, soulful musician, a master from another time, tuning a dusty, tired, and tangled instrument.  Patient and persistent, he continued to tweak, strum and listen…tweak, strum and listen.  He seemed to know what the instrument didn’t know.  She not only could, but would, sing again.

Mark didn’t heal me that day, but he did move my pain to the side and more importantly, pushed me out of my own way, cleared the path, so to speak.  As he was leaving, he told me not to rush, and I regretted that earlier I had done just that, rushed to the appointment, rushed to get under the covers, even rushed to judgment.  Stretched out and chilled out, alone again in the room, I realized that Mark, with all of his hairy, fleshy, unkempt humanity hanging out was an authentic keeper of comfort and calm.  The elaborately crafted zone of Zen was but a Feng Shui fabrication.

I booked my next appointment.


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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

Scattered, Together

Last week I told Jonathan that I wanted to scatter the ashes of two of our dogs along the banks of the James.  I had in my head that we would zip our coats, pull on old boots and skip down to the river’s edge, with Eli and Syd kicking up autumn leaves along the way.  Further, I had thought about what I might say to honor my fallen canines and how I might explain to my children the significance of returning Molly-Girl and Big Mason to the trails they loved to traipse and the waters in which they splashed and swam so zealously in life.  In my mind’s rehearsal, the splendid Fall foliage, crisp breeze and rapids lapping the rocks could have been the myriad colors, breaths and loving licks that my old hound and peculiar cattle dog shared with us through the years.

On Sunday, the careful and complete deconstruction of my poetic vision of remembrance began early. I trumpeted to the troops to pull it together for the excursion.  Syd responded by thrashing on the floor over the fit, or rather ill-fit of her denim capris, and she hurled a hand-me-down tennis shoe in my direction when I offered assistance with the laces.  The mere mention of sporting a jacket incited her further.  I thought to check her forehead for the famed “666” skin tattoo, but I didn’t want to get that close to the writhing heap on the hardwoods lest it start snarling and spitting and striking.  Meanwhile, Eli asked me no less than twenty-two times if we could fish once we got there, and he also wanted to wear his trunks as it had been a stretch since he had waded in the waters.  Given that it was forty degrees (if that) and we had not one, but two dogs to memorialize, my answer to my son’s relentless requests remained a fixed and firm no, though I secretly admired both his enthusiasm and determination.  Downstairs I could hear Jonathan jingling the keys, signaling that he was ready to roll the train forward, and probably had been for quite some time. 

Finally, the Petty Four piled into the car and began the journey.  Jonathan asked if I wanted to explain to the kids what we were doing.  I put the two urns full of ashes on the floor, inhaled deeply and turned to look at Eli and Syd.  I explained that we were taking Molly-Girl, one of their dogs, and Big Mason, my old rescued greyhound who they hadn’t met, back to their favorite spot for dashing and dipping.  Thus, in the future whenever we raced down the dirt paths, jumped along the flat rocks or swam in the water, our four-legged, furry friends would be with us, too.  I asked my children to think of what they might say as part of our makeshift tribute.  Eli spoke of his love for Molly, but worried that he might not be able to say much about the dog he never knew.  Syd asked if cats liked to swim, too.  In those moments I was grateful to have on oversized sunglasses to hide the tears welling in my eyes.  I am proud of how my children handled the concept of death, and I am awed by their takes on life and living.  The elder is a peaceful little warrior; he seems to build on the past and hold lives lost in his six-year-old heart.  But I like Syd’s approach, too.  She is a little life drinker, a keep-a’goin’-what’s-next-kind-of-gal.  As usual, the students were teaching the teacher.

We parked, climbed through the gates at the 42^nd Street access and spilled down to the trail in the chilly morning air.  We made our way to a quiet, open spot on the river.  When we took out Molly’s ashes, the kids’ level of interest heightened like some magic was underway.  Eli and Syd said their goodbyes and I love yous and each took a turn pouring dust from the plastic bag before bounding down the bank.  Jonathan shared his thoughts, too, but I couldn’t seem to find the words about my little dog’s kindness, propeller-like tail wag and her patience with my children.  Instead, I was cracking up at the amount of ash now covering my jeans and boots thanks to the wind, and I was fearful that Eli and/or Syd were soon to fall in the frigid waters as they precariously perched two rocks over and launched boulders into the gentle rapids.

When we got to Big Mason, a courageous, giant, fawn greyhound who heroically battled cancer and an amputated leg, among other amazing trials, I was shaking partly from the low temperature, partly from raw emotion and partly with laughter because Eli had reappeared, taken the urn, and was feverishly dumping it, without fanfare, into the river.  I remembered Jonathan telling Eli to let me scatter some, too, for Mason was my dog, but I also remembered not pushing to do so.  I had already let go, fully surrendered.

By that time, Syd’s zipper had broken; a thorn had scraped her cheek, and streams of mucus poured from her nose.  Jonathan had stepped into the river accidentally, while trying to keep her from falling in.  Eli was still talking about fishing.  And I was covered in the ashes of two dead dogs.  We trekked back to the car and rolled homeward – snotty, bloody, cold, muddy, wet, and dusty, but already talking about our next adventure together, one likely to be every bit as scattered.

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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

Ready or Not

My latest Sisyphean challenge is keeping my house “show ready” with children ages three, six and forty-one (yes, I am talking about my husband).  It seems just as I clean and de-clutter the kitchen countertops, someone either clogs a toilet, pitches their pants or panties on the floor, or takes on a Lego-building enterprise of epic proportion.  Push that rock up, and it tumbles back down.  Repeat.  Repeat.  Agonizingly, maddeningly repeat.

Yesterday, after wrestling my daughter into her car seat and ensuring my son was buckled up as well (currently, there is a goldfish lodged in his latch), I pointed the car in the southbound direction headed to a birthday celebration at Monkey Joe’s.  I calculated we could get there by four o’clock, but only if the traffic lights were kind.  We had no time to spare.  As we gabbed about the highs and happenings of our days, my ringing BlackBerry broke up our chatter.  Our real estate agent wanted to show the house at 4:15 PM.  I looked at my watch, 3:45 PM.  F-bomb…cubed.  Running logistics and scenarios quickly in my brain, I agreed that I would swing back to my house, grab my grumpy, growly dog (read: Cujo-like canine not welcoming of strangers on his property), drop him by my sister-in-law’s house, and keep the train moving toward the party for which we were soon to be late. 

I texted the mom of the birthday twins that we were behind schedule, knowing she would understand, having just gone through a similarly frenzied buy-sell-move house cycle.  I rang Weazie (my darling sister-in-law), but wound up having to text her, too, because my signal was cutting in and out…naturally.  I thought to phone Jonathan (my husband), more to express excitement about prospective buyers than anxiety about preparations, but I had slipped into a “Can you hear me now?” conversation-dropping vortex so that call had to wait.

I curbed the car and started to leave Eli and Syd in it while I leashed and dragged Blue back to my rig, but a couple of street-roaming characters holding brown bag wrapped bottles made me think better of this plan.  We three sprinted to the house, sort of.  En route, Eli dropped a deck of cards (yes, scattered all fifty-two of them), Syd stubbed her toe, and I began hallucinating that my children were not actually humans, but rather slugs.  Slugs in quicksand.  We recovered and stumbled inside.  Blue guiltily jumped from the sofa, leaving a drool stain and swirling dog hair in his wake.  I flipped the cushions, Fabreezed the room, and noted that I was now barking more than my dog.  Meanwhile, my little diva decided to don a different gown, and as she made her way to her room, she tossed her socks, shoes, sweater and dress like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs behind her.  I tripped up the steps, picked up the jettisoned pieces and jammed them into a drawer.  

Five minutes before show time, I finally corralled the crew in my car, and we rode off into our rapidly deteriorating afternoon.  While counting to ten in my head and trying to breathe deeply and slowly, the phone rang again, and I answered without checking the number, thinking it was the agent asking where to stash some flotsam or jetsam we had strewn about and overlooked in our flurry.  However, it was Jonathan, asking with rife irritation, “Do we have a showing right now?”  Upon hearing my answer in the affirmative, he thundered, “GODDAMMIT!”  Apparently, his day was going no better than mine.

He and his law partner had just arrived at our house to facilitate a conference call, which they had already rescheduled once, as their office information and voice systems were being upgraded.  I was slightly sympathetic, really I was, but as he was telling me this, my daughter was thrashing and sobbing, Oscar-award-winning-performance style, because the party was a no-girls-allowed affair.  Further, Eli had just punched her, harder than he had intended, because he saw a convertible “Punch Buggy” parked on Monument Avenue.  Blue was frantic, thinking he was going to the vet, and thus tearing back and forth and side to side among the seats, creating a funnel of fur and slobber, and temporarily obstructing my vision as I drove.

In reciprocal huffs, Jonathan and I agreed to divide, conquer and just deal.  He handled the agent, and I continued down the trail with my crazed blue heeler, my dazed daughter and my somewhat un-phased son.  It was no wonder I was sweating through my silk shirt, especially since Blue had accidentally activated the seat heater with his paws.  In the middle of this wholesale unraveling, I stopped for a second to think about the seemingly seismic spiral we’d just spun down in less than forty-five minutes.  At that moment, as if someone were playing the soundtrack of our life, Michael Franti and Spearhead cheerfully chimed in from the radio (and Eli and Syd sang in unison)…and that’s the sound of sunshine coming down.  I laughed, truly out loud, at the irony, and joined in the chorus with my kids…and that’s the sound of sunshine coming down.

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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

Ashes to Ashes

A handful of people dear to me are going through some extraordinarily tough, extremely adult, and pardon my language but there is no other word, shit.  On the surface this story is a bit more "Pass the Absinthe Please," but really for me, the experience was a reminder that I can hang my head and shed some tears for a little while, but I have to keep my eyes open, too.  Even in the middle of the muddle of life’s circumstances, there are glimmers and garnishes scattered through our days, often in the most unexpected places.

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July 2010

I had to pick up my dog's ashes today.  I waited until the last possible minute, and even though I had made peace about Molly-Girl dying, the idea of her incinerated and put in a little box made me jittery, haunted me even.  One of my stall tactics was a six-mile walk in a stiff and stifling heat.  I stopped to help a woman with her groceries, and as I turned back to the sidewalk, a hornet – the size of a hummingbird – stung the back of my knee.  Reeling sideways in agony and fearing a second attack, I then somehow caught my lower leg on an exposed and jagged barb of a chain-link fence.  The crease behind my knee swelled and throbbed, and blood streamed down my leg and soaked through my sock.  I could hardly breathe, panicked that an allergic reaction was underway.  It wasn’t, though.  The little lady in her wide-brimmed hat said, “Darling, sit down on my steps, and I will be right back with some lemonade, a cigarette and gauze.” 

I think it took her ten minutes to get that out of her mouth, and I felt in addition to the sting and the gash, that the hot, painted-black concrete was searing the skin from my thigh.  All this, I tell you, for helping someone take their bags inside.  She returned, cheerily, broke the cigarette in half, spit on a clump of tobacco and handed it to me for the sting.  She then gave me the gauze, which had yellowed from the smoke of years of a bad habit kept indoors.  She didn’t have tape so I just tied the bandage like a tourniquet.  She sat down on the steps and sipped lemonade with me, from delicate, etched glasses that she had garnished with mint.  Something about that garnish, that touch, was beautiful, better than a hug, better than a clean bandage.  I would be fine, even if I did lose my leg eventually to gangrene.

I made it home and surveyed what more could be done to avoid my task.  I settled on baking a cake for a friend’s forty-first birthday.  I thought she would like a particular cream cheese pound cake, which calls for inordinate amounts of butter, flour, sugar, eggs and yes, cream cheese.  I was not sure I had enough of everything, but I started creaming and sifting and beating anyway.  I poured the batter in a Bundt pan, put it in the low-heat oven and calculated whether or not I could make it to the Emergency Vet and back within an hour and a half.  I decided I could and left.  I was dizzy from heat.  I was dizzy from pain.  I was dizzy from the fragrance of friendship in the form of a cake cooking in my kitchen.

I manned up, though, and made my way to the clinic.  I immediately saw a woman crying, rocking in a chair, waiting for news about her Pug.  I sat with her for a minute and held her hand.  I was this woman a few weeks ago.  We hugged and I then headed to the front desk.  In a hushed tone (trying to keep that poor woman from seeing one of the darker possibilities), I told the receptionist that I was picking up Molly Petty’s ashes.  She rifled through a bin, pulled out a box, checked a certificate and handed it all over.  I slipped out of the building and into my car.  I just put everything in the passenger seat and turned up the music and rolled down the windows, headed home to get back to that cake. 

Before I turned onto the Interstate, my phone rang.  It was the vet.  They gave me some other dog’s ashes, so sorry for the inconvenience, please come back, etc.  I turned around, blinked back tears, but couldn’t keep them from coming.  And oh Lord, did they, and I, fall.  I parked the car, took some deep breaths and wiped my face dry.  I headed back in.  Take Two: Buck up, Sister.  The woman who had been crying about her Pug took one look at my red eyes and streaked face, and she just fully decomposed, sobbing like someone in one of those evangelistic churches who is on the verge of being healed.  I hugged her again and tried to say something helpful.  I then switched the boxes and my gears.  I left and started to worry and wonder about that damn cake.

I got home.  I unlocked and opened the door.  The answer slapped me in the face, hard and charred.  Burned up cake, burned up thigh, burned up dog.  I might have been burned up, too, but for Miss Ida’s mint garnish.  Better than a hug.  Better than a bandage.  


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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

Pick Me Up

I miss the pick-up ritual at my son’s old school.  Instead of entering the paved carpool loop (which sometimes was a bit Bermuda Triangle-ish in nature), I parked on a side street and then walked across a field to try to find my son in a clump of classmates at his teacher’s side.   I would often bump into friends and just kind of natter and zigzag my way across the expanse of grass.  Usually, Eli’s teacher would see me at some point “mid-social,” wave to get my attention and release my boy to me.  My then five year old would bound my way, top speed like something on Wild Animal Kingdom.  He would crush into me with a monster hug and snaggletooth smile to match.  More than once we both lost our footing in a crash of excitement, resulting in either dust or mud kicking and spitting up around us.  While these after-school reunions were chaotic and messy at best, I knew they were some sort of cosmic gift, our secret handshake as we transitioned from the business of our days.

This year pick up is a much more formal, coordinated, straight line affair.  There is not really a curb-the-car-on-a-side-street-ramble-and-rattle-about option.  Instead to keep things running smoothly, there are a lot of rules.  I try not to talk or text while in line, I stick to the A lane, boldly display my carpool number, move up to the appropriate spots, do not park or leave my vehicle, have the door unlocked and ready for Eli to be ushered in by the helpers, exit quickly upon retrieval of my child, remain alert at all times, etc.  Really, I know most of the rules, and I try to follow them, too.   However, one day I blew it…really blew it, apparently. 

One sunny Tuesday afternoon, I maneuvered into the pick-up lane and came to a point where I had to veer to the right.  I remember seeing a line of cars, but they were edged up to the curb, as if they were parked.  I wondered what event was going on at the school and I made a little mental note to pay more attention to the calendars and notifications sent home each day on Eli’s clipboard.  Anyway, I turned right, buzzed by the “parked” cars, and slid into what I thought was the end of the line of waiting parents.

Probably somewhere between patting myself on the back for arriving a little early and discovering a hole in my shirt’s seam, two impeccably dressed and well-maintained women materialized beside my car.  I turned down the radio and slightly regretted that I had on a skull-emblazoned Pearl Jam t-shirt and a faded, picked exercise skirt that was riding high as I sat behind the wheel.  For a second, I thought maybe they were going to rush me to volunteer at the parent picnic.  They didn't.  Between the rather severe once-overs and gleaming, glossed grins, I couldn’t tell if horror or pity was registering in their eyes.  One of the ladies did the talking and the other kind of half shook her head at me and half nodded in agreement with her friend.

“Well, we want you to know that we are not mad at you.  But you do realize that you just cut about twelve cars in the line?”  Um, I do now.  I apologized; honestly, I thought those cars were parked.  I apologized again (and probably one more time for punctuation and good measure), and I vowed that this would not happen again, never ever.  Pinky swear.  Before turning to whisk back to their vehicles, the talker sweetly reassured me, “We just wanted you to know so maybe you wouldn’t do it again.  It will be okay.”

Trying not to crack up visibly and audibly at the perfectly framed segment of Mean Girls: The Mom Years that just went down on school grounds, I rolled my car forward and collected my child.  Eli piled in, buckled up and said, “Cool shirt, Mom.  Guess what I did today?”  And it dawned on me that the gift of picking up my son is that he picks me up, too, every time.

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Dish out some happy and be kind, good people.  More later.

Pass the Laughter Please

Back in the late nineties, a friend from college asked me to write and read something during her wedding service.  I agonized over this a bit, thinking perhaps I was better suited to planning her bachelorette party or donning a pretty pink dress of her choosing than standing before her nearest and dearest and flowering on about everlasting love.  I had only been married for a split-second, and I was in the middle of my I-have-no-real-responsibilities-but-I-am-very-important twenties.  In other words, my experience on the subjects of marriage and life was a tad thin.  However, whenever I thought about this particular couple, a smile just reflexively swept over my face, for they were, and are, two uproariously funny people, just popping and locking through their days with self-deprecation, wit and spunk.  I love that not-taking-yourself-too-seriously quality in people, being slightly prone to seriousness myself.

The following work was written with two side-splitters in mind, but over the years it has been tweaked for and shared with others, including a pair of sunny Californians who got hitched in the Santa Ynez Valley and are godparents to my firstborn.  I often think that if for some reason I cannot raise my own children, then I know that these two will be part of a caring (and assuredly comedic) ensemble that softens the edges and fills my little lights' lives with color (albeit way outside of the lines) because they are no strangers to the better-laugh-than-cry universal truth in which I wholeheartedly believe.

Twelve years of wedded bliss, two children, four dogs, a few moves, a career change or two, and a handful of "crises" later, I do not have the answers, but I do have a story or two to tell.  There is magic in a good soul-shaking chuckle.  Seriously, let's all loosen up, lighten up and laugh a little more.

Pass the Laughter Please

August 1999

An alarm sounds breaking the silence of your slumber

You leave the warmth and shelter of your best friend’s embrace

Your feet hit the floor and the rush begins

A shower, a bagel, two sips of your coffee, a quick kiss and you’re off

Out of the door you’re running to work, bites of a deli sandwich, an afternoon call

Perhaps groceries at the store or a full tank of gas

Pay those bills, sometimes it’s so tough to relax

Prepare dinner for each other, have a glass of wine, watch the shows

Sometimes that’s just how fast one day goes

What’s one to do with so many tasks, chores, errands and responsibilities

Just take a deep breath, together, and say, pass the laughter please

Slow down, tell a joke, tickle your husband, hug your wife

Stay in bed for one more snooze, snuggle for those seven extra minutes

Sit down for breakfast, share your thoughts, kiss for a moment longer

Call each other twice a day, if only to say hello or what’s for dinner

Pick up a treat, cookies or his favorite cheese

Have a conversation in lieu of TV, look at each other

Enjoy youth, flexibility, take advantage of hours you have, even if you think you don’t

You really do have plenty of time right now, and one day you won’t

How’s one to seize all of life’s wonderful opportunities

Just take a deep breath, together, and say, pass the laughter please

A child tugs at your nightgown and whines in your ear, no need for a clock

Late for school, scramble out of bed, dress your child, dress yourself

Eggo waffles and juice, eating on the go, a quick kiss, if you’re lucky

Carpools, buses, work, juggling still, phone calls from teachers

Soccer practice in the afternoon, homework, tests

Best friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, no friends

Winning, losing, growing, changing, all the time learning

Your children will grow, and they will grow fast

Take care to grow with them, make special moments last

How in the world can you keep up with so many memories

Just take a deep breath, together, and say, pass the laughter please

All the days ahead of you will be different, hopefully each rich and full

Whether novel or routine, there will be success and failure

Challenge, questions, answers – love will see you through time and again

If and when you stumble remember your soul mate will break your fall

When you excel that same best friend will smile, hug you, encourage you

Work, children, school, mortgages, car payments, marriages, grandchildren

You will never be alone, never short on things to do

You have friends; you have family; you have lobsters in Maine

And surely you know you have each other in times of joy or pain

How will you find the courage, strength, and energy to endure so many activities

By now you know the answer, by now you have the keys

Just take a deep breath, together, and say, pass the laughter please