Catching More Than a Buzz

Gravel crackles under a banged-up truck. They’re here. They’re going to save me.

I open the front door and reach my hand through a plume of Marlboro smoke into July’s thick, wet heat, greeting Keith and his shirtless, white-bearded sidekick from Paul B. Davis Bat, Bee and Hornet Removal.

Before I can detail (in other words, launch hysterically into) the two separate hornet issues going down at my house, Keith is zipping into his jumpsuit and hollering through a protective veil, “You've got a hot mess out here, Mrs. Petty. A hot mess! Those suckers are mean. Mean, I tell you. They sting you just ‘cause they can. They’re eating through your walls. Do you hear me? They’re coming through your walls, Mrs. Petty. And when they break through, they’re going to sting you. Sting you ‘cause they can.” 

Keith is rhapsodizing about the swarm of livid beasts driving between the slats of our home’s exterior and, apparently, feeding their way through the interior to our living room. The wall is buzzing and ticking with bees. Not the bumbling nectar gatherers and pollinators. Not the flower dancers. Not the honey makers. No, the wall is buzzing and ticking with raging, ravenous, devil bees and has been for sixteen hours. Sixteen effin hours.

“You go on back inside. We’re going to shoot a killing agent right into the walls. We've got you, Mrs. Petty. We’ve got you.”

I return to my office but can’t concentrate on the white paper I’m drafting because I’m not really sure that Keith and his partner have indeed got me. I put my head in my hands and close my eyes. The vibrations of the wall-eaters are soon layered with the drumming from a pump motor, and only now is it occurring to me that I should have asked if it was safe for me to be in here as insecticide is blasted into my home.

The pump stops, and I hear a knock. Again I swing the door open to a smoke-laced swelter and Keith’s voice, this time asking where the other hornets are. We walk around back, and I point to these wickedly huge wasps that are flying giant arcs across the yard and then disappearing through the lattice at the base of our deck.  Keith explains that these are cicada killers, and they’re hunting. They don’t hive; they burrow. The females have serious stingers, but they’re not aggressive; they’re just downright terrifying because they’re loud and marked for war. They’re big enough to take out a cicada and drag it down into a tunnel for larvae to feed on. Keith tells me the only way to kill them is to spray chemicals into each hole and then gouge it.

He and his partner send me back inside saying it might take a while since we counted at least twenty active wasps during the pop-up Entomology class. And there are probably a lot more, Mrs. Petty. I go back to my desk, try to settle into some research, and almost achieve focus when I hear a thunderous ruckus kick up outside, complete with cursing and yelling and what sounds like the bee killers running. I start toward the kitchen to see what’s going on in the backyard, when the doorbell rings. I nearly trip over the dog getting to the door, which I open to a humongous and very much still alive and angry copperhead thrashing on the end of a snake stick, and Keith is screaming, “This was under your deck! This was where your kids go up and down the stairs! This would KILL you. KILL your kids. KILL your dog. I came within a foot of being killed dead myself! This is the biggest one I’ve ever caught. Can you take a picture? Send it to my boss? My girlfriend? Do you want the snake? Can I keep the snake?”

I assure Keith that I am cool with him keeping the snake, really cool, in fact, but I’d appreciate it if he would please strangle it first. We lay it out on the brick walkway and measure it at 36.5 inches – three feet of pure evil. I snap a picture of Keith and his kill and ping it to his people and to mine. Keith’s boss calls me immediately, and says, “That’s a right big snake. Good thing Keith’s there.”

After we cool off on the porch, relive the serpent-snaring legend a few more times, and come down from the afternoon shock, Keith bags the dead copperhead and throws it in his truck. He straps a tank of repellent on his back and tells me he’s “gonna go Rambo out there” to create a protective barrier. Just before Keith unleashes his hell on my yard, he turns, stares me in the eyes, and then nods, “Like I told you, Mrs. Petty, we've got you.”

The Heartcracker

“There is a crack in everything / That’s how the light gets in.” – Leonard Cohen

This one is for the mamas. You all have stories about a child who did something(s) that made your chest tighten, your teeth clench, your neck stiffen, and your head spin. I have those stories, too. Lord knows, my mom has those stories. But don’t forget those moments that broke you wide open and put you back whole at the same time – you know those moments when you can’t see anything but light, can’t feel anything but love, can’t do anything but love back.

  

She came at me all grin and firecracker eyes, slap-wrapped her body around my left leg, and asked in a conjured honeysuckle voice, “Mama, will you come to a Mother’s Day Tea in my classroom?”

My heart cracked open.

“Oh, I’d love to, Bunnyhop. Thank you so much for inviting me.”

She untangled herself and flung her arms out, mad-giggling, “Well, who else would I invite? It is a Mother’s Day Tea!”

My heart cracked open.

“Will you help me pick something out to wear, Mama? I want to look extra special, but I don’t want you to see me until the tea. Just help me come up with some possibilities.”

We skittered upstairs. She turned, blocking her door so that I couldn’t enter, and said, “Oh, Mama. Ohhhhhhh, Mama, my room is a wreck. A wreck. A wreck. A wreck. You’re not going to like it. Not going to be happy one bit. It’s okay though. Let’s just work on the outfit for now.”

This was my six-year-old master-distracter giving me a focus lecture. She undersold the wreckage. I walked into some place unrecognizable as a room in our home. My chest tightened. My teeth clenched. I rubbed my neck and massaged now throbbing temples. Syddie, reading and redirecting me, just said, “Outfits, Mama.”

We sorted through option after option after option after option after option. One dress was too tight on her arms. Another, too short. She wanted to wear a sweater like her friend Maddie, but she didn't own one. She wanted to run out to Target that instant. Her white shoes with bows pinched her toes. Hand-me-down dresses weren’t special enough. Her flower girl frock, too fancy. Her lips quivered. Her eyes puddled. She crumbled. And now, next to the mound of strewn, wrinkled misfits and unfits was a pile of huffing, puffing, sighing, sobbing Little Syd. I wanted to cry, too.

I said, “Come on, Bunnyhop. This doesn't feel very Mother’s Day-ish. I’d rather see you wearing a big ole smile than anything else!”

I bear-hugged my little heap and tickled her ribs and made up a silly song about a girl who couldn't find her outfit and couldn't find her happy and almost made her poor mama cry because the girl was looking in all the wrong drawers and behind all the wrong doors, and really she just needed to open her heartcloset.  She said, “You’re SO crazy, Mama.” And I said, “For you, Syddie.” And in the softer light of a little laughter, we fashioned a few ensembles that had at least a fighting chance of living up to her brand of special, but she said she’d have to sleep on it still.  I asked if I should wear something special, too, and she said, “Oh no, Mama. You should just wear your jeans. I like you best when you are just you.”

My heart cracked open.

“I like you best when you are you, too, Syddie.”

“Just maybe not those jeans with all the holes,” she adds.

And just like that, I can’t see anything but light, feel anything but love, do anything but love back.

Still Playing Dress Up (this time as a Mom)

This one’s for my dear friend, Red.  We’ve raised so much together, pal – a little hell here and there, a few glasses, children and from time to time, each other.  I wish you luck and laughter in the throes of labor and delivery.  I know the possibility of having a little girl makes you nervous…and probably with good reason given some of our own history.

Like the Allende meteorite, my daughter’s birthday streaks through the holidays – a blazing fireball with all the potential of cratering just four days after Christmas.  Santa, generous grandparents, bighearted aunts and an uncle set a sky-scraping bar for the mom-come-party-planner in me.  Before I can clear away the scraps of ripped up red and green wrappings and strewn streamers of ribbon, December 29^th is knocking impatiently at the front door and threatening to ring my bell, too.  Kids are crashing from candy cane highs, and parents palpitate anxiously as they stare down the barrel of another week without school.  Add to this balance hang, Little Syd’s swiftly shifting opinions and expectations regarding how she should be celebrated, and I usually find myself in a modern day fairytale, trying to summon some she-roics and bibbidi-bobbidi-boo birthday magic.

This year, to mark her majesty’s milestone of four years, I called girlfriends of all ages from across the land for costuming, cupcakes and karaoke – a tulle and tunes twist to the tired-but-tried-and-true princess theme.  Given the complicated calendaring and overwhelming obligations of the season, I had to practically stalk would-be guests to gather enough support to officially declare this event more than a glorified playdate.  Finally after a few days of determined phoning, texting and emailing, I confirmed a party of five, and turned my attention to the feast, flair and fanfare for the fete, wishing all along for a wand and some pixie dust.

First, I planned a light lunch for the lasses:  warmed ham biscuits with a poppy seed and mustard butter (or just plain mayonnaise for the less adventurous), fresh fruit and sparkling lemonade.  Wanting an elegant flourish, I climbed on the counter to retrieve a stack of hand painted porcelain dessert plates which had collected a good bit of dust in their decade of neglect.  I grew nostalgic for my grandmother, remembering our tea parties and how she served chicken salad sandwiches and Charles Chips to me on her own gold leafed bone china.  I loved how she trusted and treated me like a lady – every day, not just on special occasions – even when I was little.  Per usual I hadn’t left enough time to go waltzing wistfully through the wilderness of my memories, so I jumped down with plates in hand, nearly breaking every last one of them when I landed (read: not very ladylike, neither dainty nor demure, really shouldn’t be trusted with heirlooms at any age, etc.).    

Snapping back to reality (or at least my version of it), I hurriedly bedazzled the dining room table with crystal, white candles, crisp linens and lilies (admitted layovers from holiday hostessing).  I stepped back to take in the tablescape and half-expected the teacups to turn a tango with the candelabra.  However, I bumped into Little Syd who, with hands on her hips, immediately tut-tutted and tsk-tsked and threw wrinkles into this regal plan unfolding – reminding me with the subtlety of a hammer that it was her birthday, not mine.  She pretty-please asked me for some princess-y paper plates and pink plastic forks instead.  A few flashbacks of spilled juice, broken glass and water rings in the wood later, I fully surrendered form(al) to function.  I also realized that I seem to expect messiness and chaos (and get it) whereas my grandmother expected decorum and grace (and got it).  Again, with this little birthday bash closing in on me, I couldn’t pursue my thoughts about self-fulfilling prophecies and today’s little princesses, but I filed this in the Be A Better Parent manila folder in my mind.

With menu and table set, I shifted gears to the party’s activity, secretly wishing for the simplicity of pin the tail on the donkey or the ease of Chuck E. Cheese’s.  Instead, I dragged down a basket brimming with glitz and shine – some gowns gifted, some handed down – all of scratchy, shimmery, sequined and synthetic fabrics complete with worn velcro and shot elastic.  I itched and hitched just looking at the gobs of glam.  Next I plugged in the karaoke machine and tested the microphone (maybe I even donned Syd’s pink boa and gave my Gloria Gaynor a go…and perhaps a little Dusty Springfield, while no one was looking or listening, of course).  After Windex-ing my daughter’s new full-length mirror, I crossed “Entertainment” off the mental party list running in my brain. 

This left cupcakes (and very little time before I was to turn into the proverbial pumpkin).  Earlier, while I was checking out at Target with a handful of paper products and plasticware in every shade of rose, blush and bashful, I spied miniature Disney purchase-me-NOW princesses dangling at child’s eye level in the impulse buy section.  But it was I, not my daughter, who grabbed two Cinderellas, left my cart to hold my place, and bounced like some Girl, Interrupted from one line to the next looking for enough dolls for each guest.  With fists full of four Cinderellas, one Aurora, and one Ariel, I rushed home to begin the Cupcake Wars in my kitchen, a battle between me and my imagination. 

I raided the cupboard and cabinets for sugary embellishments and food coloring, and I stripped the helpless heroines of their teeny-tiny rubber dresses.  I jammed a Cinderella into an upside down cupcake that I hoped to transform into a gown fit for a ball, but alas, the doll was a touch too tall.  If this really were the Food Network’s take on a bakeoff, the camera would zoom in on me pressing palm to brow, bleep a flood of obscenities, pan to the ticking-tocking time bomb of a clock, and a voice might say, “We really hate to see this happen to someone who has worked so hard.  I am not sure even a fairy godmother could turn this around.” 

Sweating and seemingly circling back to the I Will Survive theme of previous famed sound-checking, I sheared down a mini-cake on the fly and fastened it to the regular cake with a flick and flounce of frosting.  Thankfully, the four Cinderellas played nice and settled into their spongy yellow tiers.  To match the color of their bustiers, I swirled a few drops of blue into the buttercream and then thickly swept the sweetness over the now double-deckers.  I recruited Sir Jonathan with his giant salmon-catching paws to cast candy pearls onto the skirts (and bit my perfectionist tongue as I watched wide-eyed his Big Bang spray of sprinkles).  The last two princesses called for petal pink frocks and more studded styling, and once iced and detailed, took their places next to the four Cindys. 

I surveyed the scene on the silver tray and laughed at the five pretty and prim royals, and that siren Ariel, who is Little Syd’s favorite.  With a shock of flaming hair and a seashell bikini, my daughter’s celebratory confection looked like a stripper bursting from a birthday cake.  Accidentally perfect…a showgirl for my showgirl.  When Little Syd saw the cupcake queens-to-be, she gasped.  She approved.  She lit up with wild delight.  And in that moment, that split-second, happily ever after seemed within reach.  For both of us.  Right up until the damsels-turned-divas birthday guests started frantically fighting over the lone Aurora.

Not-So-Smooth Operators

I: Order in the House

Nearly three weeks before our move across town, I responsibly rang up Verizon, navigated a series of key and voice prompts, waited some twenty-six minutes and finally found myself speaking with a human, I think.  She asked some of the same questions I had just answered and then in a nasal monotone with traces of low-grade irritation said that she could not make changes unless the accountholder authorized her to do so – the accountholder being my husband of twelve and half years who has not made one of these calls probably in at least as many years.  I calmly replied, “Mrs. Novack, I can have Jonathan dial you up or we can patch him into this call, and I will likely recommend, and he will surely authorize, closing this account and transferring our business to your competitor.  He really has no allegiance to our home provider.  However, if you would be so kind as to check the active email address and the signature on the checks, you will see that for eight plus years, I have made not most, but all decisions with regard to our account.  Please, Mrs. Novack, do you think you or perhaps your supervisor can help me with this transfer of bundled services today?” 

She sighed, snapped and then sucker-punched me with some sarcasm of her own, “Let’s get started, Mrs. Petty.  I can see you are a valued customer.”  She curtly clacked my new information into her database, and I could almost hear her lips curling into a deliciously wicked grin as she delivered the news that FiOS, Verizon’s fiber optic faster-than-cable-even-in-peak-hours solution which I had enjoyed for the last few years, was not available at my new address, and thus, I must return to DSL.  She assured me that my email address and phone number would neither change nor would service be interrupted; the DSL line would be dedicated, thus faster than, say, Comcast cable; and DirecTV was much improved in its consistent satellite delivery, even in stormy weather.  Something about how she painstakingly and precisely piled up these pumped up promises made me uncomfortable.  She must go by Charlotte or Char, short for Charlatan.  However, the continuance of my email address was important to me from a business perspective, so I begrudgingly tolerated the degradation and downgrades and marked January 21^st between the hours of eight and twelve: Day of Execution.  When I set the phone back in its cradle, I mourned the loss of sixty-two minutes.  I would never get them back. 

On January 18^th I rang Verizon to confirm the appointment and again was time-sucked into the labyrinth of the customer service loop.  Alas, the delightfully diligent Mr. DeWitt chimed in after seventeen minutes in the queue and quite chipperly checked off his pledge list: the technician would be in and out quickly for the DirecTV hookup, the phone line would go live seamlessly from a remote location, and the DSL self-install was virtually impossible to botch.  I had that same ill-at-ease Glengarry Glen Ross you-are-so-being-sold-sister feeling, as the words virtually impossible knotted my stomach and tightened my chest.

II: Disorderly Conduct

Around seven in the morning on the twenty-first, after settling the kids at the new kitchen counter with their eggs and English muffins, I checked my BlackBerry messages.  The first and only email that day came under the subject line: Action Required, and the text indicated that my Verizon email account had been disabled.  While this news chafed me given the guarantees of Mrs. Novack and Mr. DeWitt, I had expected and even prepared for a few hitches in the hookups; after all I haven’t heard many Moving is the Best! stories in my time, nor have I experienced any firsthand.  I took a deep breath and went to check the telephone for a dial tone, as the number was to be activated first thing in the morning.  Nothing but dead silence rang in my ears.  Strike one.

Jonathan, with earnest sympathy, wished me luck, and he and the kids headed out into their fully wired and functioning worlds, leaving me alone to slay the looming electronic dragon now threatening our sanctuary.  As we had moved our material lives from one address to another just the day before there was still plenty to unpack, shelve, hang and find a place for – plenty to dos to distract me from these un-doings.  The eight o’clock hour passed, as did nine, ten and eleven.  The tension took hold in my neck and shoulders first, and I found myself rolling my head, inhaling and exhaling deeply and slowly, pacing, meditating, and willing the nagging little sparks of rage away. 

At 11:45 AM, the doorbell rang.  Before the thought Ahhhh, Finally! could crystallize in my head, in slogged a technician with mud on his boots and mad on his tongue.  Visibly frustrated from his previous service call, Raj scowled at and scorned me for choosing DirecTV as a resident in the city – this from the man wearing a DirecTV identification badge.  He cynically questioned why I chose Verizon over Comcast – again, this from the man being paid through a Verizon partnership.   When I pointed out the equipment errors on his work order versus my service agreement (which thankfully I had at least saved on my computer), he slammed down his paperwork and furiously punched numbers into his handheld.  His head shook, no, his whole body quaked, and he was telling, no, yelling at me that he should just walk away, just walk away until the back office could get its act together.   I was almost ready to agree with him, given that he was smoking and spitting out flames, seemingly seconds from going full Vesuvius in the front hall.  He jammed his phone into my palm and demanded in heated, slightly broken-English, “You see if you work this out with my super.  Otherwise, I leave.  I leave now.  I leave right now.”  Strike two.

After a few intense rounds with the supervisor and a transfer to billing and then back to the supervisor, the orders were reconciled, another truck would deliver the correct equipment within the hour, and authorization was given to continue work.  The dish was mounted, unobtrusively and without event, and the now somewhat settled tech returned inside to identify where lines needed to be connected.  He then said he would go into the crawl space to make said connections and asked that I remain in the den to tap the floor where we needed to drill a hole to run the line through – and so began my lesson in coaxial wire fishing.  While I assisted without comment (which is hard for me) to keep the process moving forward, I did wonder why he had not brought someone along, especially since he reminded me no less than four times that this was at least a six-hour job for only one man.  Through the floor vents, I could hear him bristling and cursing beneath the house.  I asked if he could hear me.  A grumbling followed, then a rustling, then silence.  A few minutes later, he was back inside, covered in dust and flecks of insulation and his head hung low.  He said, “Mrs. Petty, you cannot have what you want.  You simply cannot.  There are two ducts that I can’t pass through.  I am, too, how do you say…burly?”  Here we go again.

Against my better judgment, which by the way is probably crumpled in a corner along with the original paperwork for this order, I asked if I could give it a go, if I could fit through the ducts.  His eyes bulged and he began shaking his head so violently I thought it might disengage.  “Mrs. Petty, that is absurd. I cannot authorize you to handle the cable, to go under the house.  I cannot.  I will not.  I most certainly will not.”  I almost laughed at his kind of Seuss-ical response, especially since he also sounded strikingly like Apu, the Indian character on The Simpsons.  But some strange No Retreat, No Surrender/MacGyver impulse kicked in, and I defiantly stormed out of the room, grabbed his flashlight and my cell phone from the counter, and headed outside.  I crawled through the first underground room on my hands and knees and yelled back to Raj to go tap the floor in the den so that I could follow the sound.  When I made the turn into the second underground room, I had to drop to my elbows and G.I. Jane belly-crawl toward the tapping.  Giant camel crickets – the ones that look like jumping spiders – eyed me cautiously from their upside-down perches, and little rushing noises reminded me that snakes and rats and other vermin liked dark and damp places, last I checked.  I thought I was either going to be sick, eaten alive or become the subject of one of those mysterious disappearance shows.  I fully appreciated why Raj had been cursing earlier, as I found myself doing the same.  Eventually, I located the cable, managed to wriggle through the ducts and could hear the wrapping just inches away from me, but I couldn’t get to him because I had run into a cement wall, the end of the crawl space, a real bitch of barrier in the wire-fishing world.  I wiggled down through the ducts and slid and slithered back to daylight.  When I returned covered in dirt and with two dead stink bugs tangled in my hair (seriously), Raj smiled for the first time in four hours, and the only time that day, as far as I could tell.

He called in two senior technicians to develop and execute a new plan of action.  Perhaps he could have done this sooner.  By four o’clock, there was still no television, still no dial tone and still no internet connection.  In a thirty-two minute check-in with Verizon, Miss Thomas guaranteed me that the phone would be up by five o’clock.  In the midst of all of the misfiring and the litany of let-me-downs, my children returned home and shortly thereafter, my friend and her twins stopped by to check our progress.  After drinking a beer with me, swapping some whose-move-was-worse war stories, and witnessing a host of workarounds, one of which included staple-gunning about fifteen feet of black cable around baseboards and a doorway, my friend dryly advised, “Syd, maybe you should let your husband handle the electronics.”  We laughed (and I nearly cried).

Finally, at around seven, Raj wrapped it up and pushed some papers in my face for signatures of satisfaction.  Really?  Before I could scrawl anything in triplicate, I politely asked him to give me a channel and remote control tour, inquired about pay-per-views and digital video recordings, and posed a few other normal conversion questions.  But Raj was done with me.  Totally done with me.  He’d already washed his hands of the day’s debacle; he wanted a cold one somewhere far away from here.  He told me to read the manual.  He told me he didn’t do phones or internet.  He wrote down the number for customer service – even his DirecTV pen was sneering at me.

While High-Def was in da house and those snooping teenagers and their pesky dog were back on the flat screen, fingering old man Withers at the abandoned carnival for attempting to steal Uncle Jack’s fortune, five o’clock had come and gone with no dial tone.  I called Verizon one more time and was greeted by the message, “We’re presently experiencing a high call volume.  You may experience a longer than usual wait.  Thank you for choosing Verizon.”  And thank you, too, Verizon for making me feel all warm and fuzzy about said choice.  When Mrs. Jackson came on the line, she said, “I am sorry, Mrs. Petty.  There is really nothing we can do at this time.  We’ll need to send a technician out, but Monday morning is the soonest someone will be available.  You’ll be down for the weekend.  Someone can be there between eight and noon?”  Strike three.  You’re out, Mrs. Petty.

III: Out of Order (Luck, Patience, etc.)

On Monday morning I wished Jonathan a happy birthday and he again wished me luck with Verizon.  The hours ticked away.  At noon, having heard from no one, I placed yet another call.  When Mrs. Reed told me that it appeared the order had been cleared and closed, I just sank, sank right down to the cold kitchen tiles, tears of near defeat flooding down my cheeks (I think the weight of the actual move must have been bearing down on me…the losses, the lack of continuity, the unknowns…the unsettling as one resettles).  I wanted to scream, Are you fucking kidding me?!, but I didn’t have the strength.   Instead, with voice cracking and through sniffs, I asked how it could be closed if I still had no telephone or internet service.  She was sympathetic or at least pretended to be as she offered to transfer me to another department, but I begged her not to throw me into the abyss of no resolution, as I had been hanging out there for some four days.  I begged her to see this through.  I asked if she thought speaking to a supervisor or notifying the SCC might make a difference, and I learned that namedropping was a necessary evil, for the mere mention of the Commission resurrected Mrs. Reed’s enthusiasm for stellar customer service. 

Within the hour my landline telephone (yes, the landline, hallelujah!) rang, and Jamie said that he was around the corner at the remote box and would be at the house within ten minutes to secure the line.  Five minutes later the doorbell rang.  In walked Jamie, and while he didn’t have a cape, sword or movie star locks, backlit and flowing in the wind, he kicked off enough hero vibe to this downtrodden damsel to give me hope.  What I gathered in about five minutes was that mergers and acquisitions in telecommunications were a bit like arranged marriages, and the brides, not yet broken by their bridegrooms, were still kicking, screaming and clinging to their independence.  There was no love and certainly no communication among the parties – nothing was synchronized.  I was caught in a dot-net/dot-com crossfire of grand-scale irreconcilable differences.  Further, not meaning to salt my wounds but doing so nonetheless, Jamie told me that not only did I have FiOS capacity, but he had run the line last year through the neighborhood before the Verizon layoffs.  Net-net, all of this suffering was for naught, there had been no need to downgrade.  He gave me the business office direct line and his number, and said it would be hard to get out of the contracts, but not impossible, and that really, Verizon should make this right.

I couldn’t quite wrap my head around what I was going to have to do and undo to get what I wanted done and undone.  What I needed was internet service, preferably my old email address, but specifically the ability to electronically connect to the outside world – professionally and personally – from home, incidentally not only the place I live but where I work.  Jamie told me that he had not been trained on the internet side of the business, but I asked him to stay and witness the self-installation process (remember…virtually impossible to botch per Mr. DeWitt).  I connected the Y-cable, turned on the computer and modem in the order described in the Quick Start Guide, clicked the perky Let’s Get Started! icon, and followed the prompts.  A file began downloading and reached about fifty-eight percent, then crashed.  The following message box jeered, “The install files are corrupted.  Please contact customer service.”  I sighed.  I placed my hands beside the computer, so that I wouldn’t throw it.  My fingers were shaking.

Probably sensing a Steel Magnolia-esque meltdown, Jamie dialed someone in the field and handed me his phone.  I had no idea who was on the line with me as Jamie had only referred to the voice as a computer genius.  The genius said, “Please don’t ask questions, just do as I say.  Let’s bypass the bullshit and get you reconnected.”  He then told me to type in an address comprised of numbers, dots and slashes, gave me all sorts of codes and passwords, and within two minutes, the world opened back up, like a National Geographic slow-motion-flower-blossom reel.  The genius said he couldn’t do anything about my email address because that was a database re-pointing issue between FiOS and DSL, and I would have to go through the traditional channel of Tech Support.  I thanked the nameless mastermind and his apprentice, Jamie, instinctively bowing my head in reverence and profound gratitude.

At this point, I had not gone to the butcher, the market, or even left the house. Jonathan’s birthday dinner was slipping into the realm of best laid plans and good intentions.  I called my husband and relayed the status report – Television: check.  Phone line: check.  Internet connection: check.  Email address: negative.  Birthday dinner: negative.  Syd from school: negative.  I think JP was still on a high from a Saturday night dinner with friends (birthday celebration number one) and a small bacon-and-all-things-Petty-inspired surprise party on Sunday (birthday celebration number two) because he pushed his disappointment about birthday celebration number three aside, fetched our second-born, and then shopped for and mostly made his own dinner.  I did make him a dessert, though – shook five cookies out of a bag, arranged them on a plate and lit a candle in the center.  I told him, “Some years you get Italy.  Some years you get Frank Stitt’s Seven-Layer Coconut Cake confection, and this year, my dear, Pepperidge Farm and a votive.  Happy Birthday.”  I couldn’t get through the song without seizing up with laughter, and I cracked up again when I saw my sister-in-law’s mobile upload to Facebook.  I am still laughing now, knowing I will “pay” for this birthday for years.  The point is I am still laughing, several address changes later.

I will spare you the tedious account of the next seven days, including the eight hours I spent on the phone with techies from America to Asia and back, only to find out that keeping my email address – the trigger for all of this madness – was never a real possibility.  But let me shoot straight – take notes Verizon – on what I (re)learned: moving is hard.  You are going lose stuff, stuff like the plastic pitcher for your husband’s iced tea, the vacuum cleaner bags, a Black Crowes poster and maybe even your virtual address.  But it’s stuff and if you don’t just move on, well, you stand to lose even more – your sanity, your perspective, and heaven forbid, your shield of humor.  So keep moving, friends, always forward, with a smile, no matter the bumps, the bugs and the barriers that come before you.  And to think, all this light tipped from a two dollar Target clearance bag of Mint Milanos…

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.