Of Trapped Yawns and Sweater Sets

I've got a bit of writer's cramp in my brain. I have three posts started and still - nothing. I can't finish them.

It's like having a sneeze caught. Or a yawn. You know that feeling when you need to yawn and you just can't get the whole yawn to come out? Then you start to obsess about it and that just makes matters worse.

Now if you don't yawn soon, you're going to stop breathing because that jammed up yawn is clogging your respiratory system and you can feel it in the back of your throat and your lungs feel like they are being squeezed and you're dying and will someone please yawn at you because yawns are contagious right?

I'm not quite writhing on the floor, gasping for air, trying to get my lung constricting bra off with one hand while dialing 9-1-1- with the other. But I'm getting close.

The fact that I'm blogging live from the living room at Golden Manor while sharing space with The Actor isn't helping matters at all. He's got the remote and is toggling between Forest Gump and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Now Garbo has joined us - she'd been sleeping off a school drunk draped across the trough I share with MathMan. And there she goes again, picking a wedgie from her ass, looking like she might topple over if she doesn't get some raw spaghetti down her yawning maw immediately.

Oh hell. Back to the yawn.

So maybe I just need to force it. I regret what I am doing to you here and what I am about to do to you. My new favorite word unfortunate would be most apropos because, you see, as I am halfway through this post and there's a nagging in my brain about the dryer alarm that I ignored fifteen minutes ago and I'm afraid to get up and lose my train of thought.

Which might actually be an improvement, don't ya think?

MathMan and I spent the day together. We had a confirmation hearing for our bankruptcy. I'd love to regale with the wickedly funny details, but the truth is, as soon as we got there, our lawyer sent us away again. Everything is under control. We forgot to call yesterday to see if we had to show up and since we'd already taken the day off anyway, well, it was that kind of a thing.

After a long, arduous discussion about appropriate court attire, we headed up to the Federal Court Building in Rome (Georgia, not Italy, duh)

As an aside, perhaps TLC could do a program about what one wears to a bankruptcy hearing. I mean, do you wear your nicest business attire? If so, will the judge look at you and insist that you must have some kind of financial means and thus, should, in fact, pay back all those debts and happily accept ever sky-rocketing interest rates, fees that multiply like octo-bunnies and abusive collections calls until you've divested of all that fabulous clothing?

Because, you know me - I'm the Queen of Fabulous Clothing. If by Fabulous Clothing, you mean momstretch polyesterish pants and a swinging sweater set. All bought second hand, but who's keeping track?

So anyway, we took the windy-curvy route to Rome because driving to a court hearing isn't fun until you've achieved Motion Sickness Mach 4. We turned onto the cleverly named First Street and MathMan announced that he thought the big building with the gigantic American Flag must be the place. MathMan is wicked smart like that.

We locked everything we had except our Official File, our drivers' licenses and Social Security cards in the car's trunk (because if you want to see shiftless and shifty, take a peek at the people hanging around smoking outside a Federal Court building) and made our way through security. The nice octogenarian who wanded me twice was only slightly amused when I finally, with much exasperation, just reached up under my matronly sweater set (with faux pearl buttons, no less) and unhooked the offending metal under wire bra, pulled it through my sleeve and handed it to him.

"Make sure you don't lose this. I'd like it back when I leave," I smiled demurely at him.

Finally, we got upstairs to our appointed room, with almost half an hour to spare. We decided to look for our fifteen year old attorney. Well, heck fire! There he sat, coolly texting away on his iPhone with his telltale white earbuds jammed into his ears. I was glad to see he was still going with the gelled hair look. Nothing says legal authority like Bed Head's Got 2 B Glued.

MathMan tapped him on the shoulder and he smiled a greeting. As they discussed our case for all of thirty seconds, I surveyed the room. It was full of other financial losers just like us. The room was steadily filling up with couples in all manner of dress, including a critical mass of Koret matching separates. I felt an odd sense of relief to be neither over nor under dressed. Perhaps if I'd not ditched my bra downstairs, all eyes wouldn't be on me.

MathMan returned to my side and told me what the attorney had said. We were free to go, Mr. Fifteen had us covered. Well, that was a relief. I took one more look around and stepped toward the door. Something was bothering me, though. Then it came to me. I stopped and turned to face the crowd that had now gone back to their own thoughts and conversations.

"Um, excuse me!" I had to raise my voice a little, "Excuse me! Hi. Um. Sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know something. You. Um. All you people here seeking bankruptcy protection and debt relief! It's important that you know that you are ruining America with your greed! Our economy is in the shitter because of you and your clutching greedy ways! How dare you use those bank-issued credit cards! How dare you take out those supposedly regulated mortgages that you knew you couldn't afford! For shame! For shame! For shame!!!!!"

It was at that point, my octogenarian bra-keeper and some other fascist thug dragged me from the courtroom.

I guess they didn't take kindly to my use of the word shitter in front of the American flag.

MathMan was soooo mad at me. It took him twenty precious minutes to convince security that I wasn't really dangerous. They let me go with him after he agreed to let the old dude keep my bra. Dammit. That was my favorite black bra, too.

When we finally escaped that ordeal, we discussed the day that yawned before us. We didn't have any solid plans, but MathMan had some dirty ideas. Listen up, People of the Internets, we've been married twenty years. We have three kids underfoot most of the time. We have the house, two jobs and our fair share of stress. What else would we do to release a little of that angst and anxiety?

We ran errands, course! Got the oil changed on MathMan's car, paid the extra three bucks to get it washed, too, deposited a check from my side job, blah, blah, blah. Then we came home and got busy. In front of our computers. Really.

I even made a video, which I'll share with you later.

Yawn............ah, that's better.

Adventures in Real Parenting: The Bliss That Is Ignorance

This morning, very early, my mobile phone went off in my pocket. It was The Actor. I flipped my phone open and barely got out a quick "hello" before The Actor, a little breathless and rushed, blurted out "The Dancer wrecked her car."

Time froze for a moment. A split of a split split second.

"Is everyone okay?" First things first! The Dancer was driving both The Actor and Cupcake to school since MathMan had to leave so early and my car isn't running.

I could hear The Dancer in the background, she sounded like she was giving instructions. I reached for the home phone to dial 911.

The Actor still seemed rushed. "We're fine. She just ran off the road a little, no big deal, we're fine. There's no damage on the car."

"Where are you?"

"Where Dad wrecked his car."

I could picture it. A longish bend on Miller Farm Road next to a pasture where long-horned cattle stand around looking bored. MathMan went into a fishtail spin there a couple of years ago and ended up off the edge of the road, his car nearly on its side, a mirror gone, some dents and the whole driver side of his Corolla bearing a new design scratched into the silver paint by the barbed wire fence his car rested against.

"You're sure you're okay. Everyone is okay."

"We're fine! We've got to get to school," he announced and was gone.

I hung up my phone and went back to what I was doing. No damage. No injuries. I didn't hear anyone having a meltdown in the background. I figured that they'd run a little off the road, as The Actor had described it, and were able to pull out of the ditch with no problem.

A little while later, The Dancer called to tell me that she'd gotten the others off to school and she was heading to the high school. I quizzed her briefly and she simply said everything was fine, no damage, no big deal. She hung on the phone longer than usual, but gave no indication that anything was wrong.

I actually didn't give it another thought.

Cupcake ran up the stairs this afternoon and stood before me, her head down. She knew I was pretty pissed at her for the tummy ache nonsense earlier in the day. I told her why it was wrong, told her what her punishment would be and pointed her toward the kitchen to have something to eat and to get her homework done.

"How was your day?" I finally asked after we got through that other annoying business.

"Fine," she said, stuffing a couple of pieces of popcorn chicken into her mouth. I watched as she chewed them, savoring them. I was just getting up from the table when she opened her mouth again. I thought she was getting ready to toss more chicken in.

"I mean, it wasn't all bad, considering it started off with us spinning around in the car two and a half times on the way to school!" she chirped before popping another piece of barbecue sauce coated chicken in.

Screeeeeeech!!!! Excuse me? "Spinning around two and a half times?"

She nodded, her eyes resting on me now. "Yeah, I don't think we went around three times because when the car stopped, we were heading in the wrong direction, but I know we went around twice. Almost hit a tree and skidded. You should've seen The Dancer's face! The Actor thought it was fun......" her voice trailed off as she noticed that my face had gone ashen.

Yeah. Okay. If you're thinking that I haven't let myself think through what could have happened, you would be right. It didn't happen. The Dancer handled it. They are fine. Nothing and no one was damaged and all is well.

Did I ever tell you how MathMan used to tease me by calling me "Worst Case Scenario Lisa?" Yeah, well I'll be squeezing the image of The Dancer's little white Celica, carrying my three precious children, spinning in circles on a country road out of my head for many days to come.

This might take some work.......

Adventures in Real Parenting: Boy Was My Face Red

When I was a kid, I would want to sink through the floor in embarrassment when I was watching television with my father and an advertisement for feminine hygiene products would come on. He's my dad. The very idea of something suggesting vaginas or bodily functions other than farting did not need to be spoken about in front of him.

Over the years, I became a little less embarrassed. When The Dancer was an infant, MathMan and I were terribly broke, buying groceries on a Shell credit card. The baby and I were sweating out a hot summer in our un-airconditioned apartment and MathMan was working about eighty hours a week as a manager for Radio Shack. For weeks at a time, I would pack up The Dancer and flee to Indiana for breaks from the monotony, hunger and heat.

One night, in my old bedroom at my parent's house, I was wrestling with a breast pump and having absolutely no success. In a huff, I tossed the vile sucking machine back into my suitcase, shoved my milk heavy breast back into that stupid bra with the flap and stalked out of the room to pluck The Dancer from my mother's arms so that I could nurse her before I exploded in a rain of milky, white sweetness all over my parents' family room.

In front of my father, I was self-conscious about nursing the baby, but I was determined to get over it. Nursing was a healthy and perfectly natural thing to do. I sat discreetly under a blanket, The Dancer sucking away like a Kirby vacuum and griped to my mother about the breast pump. Being the cheerfully helpful man that he is, my father suggested that we take a trip out to my uncle's dairy farm where I could be hooked up to the milking machines.

I responded with a simple, "Moooooo."

I never really got over the ick factor of nursing my babies with my father around, but I did what I had to do and just tried not to think about it.

You'd think at the age of forty-three and the mother of three children, I'd be over it. I assume my father might have a clue about the things I do with my private parts or that I even have them, but I am loathe to admit anything. I think it might be part of the dynamic between my generation and our parents. My parents were not terribly demonstrative, affectionate people and they certainly weren't open about things like sex and love and all the complicated and uncomplicated pieces of the human condition. There was oh so much that we never discussed. Hell, for the longest time, my mother referred to our private parts (see, there I go doing it) as "your body." For a while after I started school, I was a bit confused whenever someone used the term "body," but didn't mean privates.

How times, and parents, have changed. And so have kids, as a result. Last weekend, The Actor had two friends stay over and they watched the movie Stepbrothers. (Spoiler alert below.) Oh my. I was there, too, working away at my computer while they watched the movie, laughing at all the jokes. They didn't seem terribly concerned by my presence when one character talked about stuffing things in vaginas. They even saw me shake my head and laugh at a scene where one of the main characters rubs his scrotum on the drum kit of another. (Links not safe for work)

I tried to imagine watching a show like that with either of my parents around and I came up blank. It would just have never happened. I remember once watching a Cheech and Chong movie with my mom in the house, but, if memory serves, her eyes bugged out of her head and she stormed out of the room in disgust during one of the racier scenes.

I watched The Actor react during the movie the other night. There were times when he made eye contact with me and put his hand over his face or shook his head or rolled his eyes in embarrassment. But then what do I really expect? MathMan and I are open about sex. We discuss it in a straightforward way with the hope that we can convey both the pleasure and the responsibilities of being sexually active. We use the proper words for the genitals and we make up a few of our own, too. You know, so as not to be so bloody clinical about it.

MathMan used to hate the euphemism that I used for vagina when The Dancer was little so he came up with his own word and we've used it ever since, when we don't use the proper term, that is. I coined the term badgina, but not to imply shame of the vagina, but rather more like badass. A strong woman, a tough chick. You get the idea. A sort of family short-hand or inside joke.

So why should I expect my son to be chagrined to watch such a movie in front of me? I wondered if I was bothered or surprised or a little of both. I thought about whether it meant he and his friends were showing some lack of respect for me and did it matter? Then I wondered - would The Actor watch that movie in front of someone else's parents and be laughing and burping and farting and generally carrying on like his friends did here?

And then I got a pretty good idea of who I am as a parent, the alleged keeper of the moral flame in some societies, because the very idea of The Actor behaving that way sent a shudder up my spine........

Until It Shines

I suppose when the day starts with a very nicely worded and very frank email from my boss telling the staff that personnel cuts are likely by the end of the first quarter, it's perfectly natural that I would be vacuuming lint from between the washer and dryer at 10:00 p.m.

The email came early, maybe 9:30ish. By 10:15a.m., I had dusted my desk, wiped my phone down with alcohol, packed up something to be returned to our computer distributor and reorganized my to do list. Which, I think, I later threw away as I was sorting papers and tossing things.

I can't really blame the email. It was just another trigger for my Windex addiction. I've felt this bout of undiagnosed OCD coming on for a while. Over the long holiday break, I did some company cleaning. The Dancer's friends came over for New Years Eve and heaven forbid they go home and report dust and refrigerator grunge to their mothers. I don't even want to think about the repercussions of having the other ballet moms know that I didn't get all the cat hair out of the window sills.

What started as company cleaning last Wednesday ended yesterday with me on my knees, spray bleach bottle in my hand, commanding the gunk along the shower door track to be gone or get up and lend a hand. There was a dusting to be done.

I guess I expected this as we get closer to the date when we'll have to move from this house. Every time I go into the basement, the toys and stacked Rubbermaid boxes remind me that we have a lot of things that need to be sorted for giveaways, carted off to the dump or packed. Things don't feel wildly out of control, since we've made the conscious decision to give up the house, file bankruptcy and start over. I guess I still have some innate need to make order of the chaos.

It's not just personal chaos that's working on me. I listen t the news and things seem so out of control. The economy, the Middle East, the change in Administrations. Even the weather seems to be all discombobulated as the Southeast is drenched, the Midwest is iced over and the Pacific Northwest is buried under snow, snow and more snow.

I'm sure that the little Polly Pockets that accidentally got sucked up into the vacuum tonight as I sought out all those furtive dust bunnies hiding between the treadmill and the toybox won't mind giving up her plastic life so that I can rest easy tonight about the economy. Every time I stand in the pantry and reorganize the snacks and things, I feel like the weather will get right again. It's got to, right? Gaza will be tougher. That's going to require more elbow grease. Maybe washing the car or pulling the refrigerator out and cleaning behind it.

As for that email. I responded the best I could. I thanked my boss for his candor, told him as his friend that it must have been a hard email to write and asked him to give me a heads up if I needed to start looking. Until then, I'd give my best to the organization. What else could I do?

Thankfully, he came out of his office after reading the email and saw me taking a stack of travel magazines off the top of my bookcase and tossing them into the trashcan. No one else was around.

"Pssst!" he hissed to get my attention. "You can stop cleaning. Your job is safe," he whispered.

Okay. Good. Phew! Still, I caught myself later picking up the curled, dead leaves that dropped off the half-dead poinsettia in the conference room......