sweet melissa

Yesterday I had the pleasure of picking up the very first Harbor Seal pup of the season. In fact, it actually isn't even Harbor Seal season yet. Elephant Seal season only officially started yesterday and usually they get a good month or so to themselves. So my Harbor's a preemie, for sure. She's even wearing her beautiful fluffy lanugo coat (which is normally shed in utero). But she's fairly fat and sassy (8 kg and bitey) so my hopes are high. Since they're both looking at a long stay in the hospital, I found it quite fitting to name my seal in my second cousin's honor. And so I give you sweet Melissa.

I get my updates on the bipedal Melissa third hand so I can't say for sure how things are going. It does sound like "brain dead" may have been a premature diagnosis. The doctors are performing tests they wouldn't be doing if the situation was totally bleak. So again I'm allowing myself to hope. I was right about the feeding tube, however, so obviously her condition could be better. I take great comfort in knowing that Melissa's grandmother and great grandmother are about as close to God as you can get without wearing wings. If anyone can manifest a miracle, it's those two.

My own Melissa gave me a humbling scare last night. She started coughing and spitting up after her midnight feed. I was pretty calm until she expelled her electrolytes through her nose. The vet tech that I woke up assured me that I was not an evil, incompetent seal killer. Apparently it was more a burp gone wrong than a problem with my technique. Still, I was unsettled. Then Erik reminded me he once laughed so hard he shot milk out his nose (all over his brother's pizza, no less). Amused, but no less anxious. Only this morning, when I found her sleeping peacefully, did I allow myself to take a breath.

free at last

TV is my friend. I'm not ashamed to admit it.

We all love TV in some way, though some of us only love to hate it. Personally, I embrace the kitsch. I like to think of my time spent in front of the tube as some sort of sociology project. After all, anthropologists from the faraway future would be fascinated with this window into our culture. Would they notice, as I have, that people on sit coms seldom ever close the front door? Would they question why Lucy and Desi couldn't share a bed but Fred and Wilma could? Would they wonder where the Brady kids relieved themselves, since their bathroom lacked a toilet?

TV has shaped me, though not always in the best ways. Physically I'm a little bit softer, mentally I'm a tad shallower, but honestly I think I'd be worse off without it. TV connected me to others in my generation. Strangers in adolescence, we now identify each other with catch phrases and obscure character references. We know that it's never to late if you care enough. We love it when a plan comes together. And we're certain that knowing is half the battle. We wonder where's the beef? And our bologna has a first name, it's O-S-C-A-R... We live for the day we get to ask a guy in a Rolls if he has any Grey Poupon. We feel for the woman who has fallen and can't get up. And we learned it from watching you, Dad, we learned it from watching you. And, I may be alone in this, but I think it's ironic how much more delicious my brain looks on drugs. In any case, you wouldn't like us when we're angry. We might just call on the power of Grayskull...

Like any friend, TV has occasionally disappointed me. Ted Turner still owes me twenty dollars for the time I sat through that horrible action adventure movie that I believe starred Judd Nelson. I kept thinking, "surely this will get better" as it grew increasingly worse. I remember deciding that the Turner Network Television station ought to reimburse me for my suffering. I calculated my damages based upon my hourly wage ($13) and the time spent rooting for Judd (90 minutes). I mean, seriously, whoever decided this movie was worthy of air time should be fired.

And TV has stood me up. How many times have I fallen for a new show only to have it abandon me mid season? Sometimes I see the writing on the wall. Reunion clearly was going nowhere fast. That cancellation was a mercy killing. Other times I'm dumbfounded. Smith was really, really good. I'm still hoping someone will pick it up.

More often, TV has stood by me. I remember the time I told Erik that Oprah was my friend. He immediately began mocking my delusions of grandeur. Mere moments later, in her opening monologue, Oprah vindicated me. She addressed the audience (including those at home) and proclaimed us all her friends. And who has been more loyal to me than my lifelong pal, Bob Barker? What would a sore throat be without the opportunity to bid on fabulous prizes? It just isn't any fun to vomit if you don't get to watch a Showcase Showdown...

Today, TV has freed me. Tonight I spent the last hour ever with my friends from the O.C. I no longer need to hide this guilty pleasure. I no longer need to wonder if people with think I named my pet after a washed up teen drama. I have one less show to juggle on Thursday nights, one less Season Pass to manage on my Tivo. Free at last. Why, you ask, didn't I free myself sooner? After all, even Mischa Barton jumped ship. You know, it's just the kind of friend I am. Loyal to the bitter end. Why did I get hooked in the first place? That's a better question. For this I thank blame my brother. He sucked me in when he lived here, convincing me the show was at least worthwhile as a target for our ridicule. And so it was. But beneath our disdain grew dedication.

As I delight in this feeling of lightness I have, freed of the chains I placed on myself, I must admit I wonder if I watch a wee bit too much TV. I have never calculated my screen time because honestly I don't want to know. I'm sure I'd be appalled. I've thought about cutting back, for sure. Especially after Ozzy didn't win last season's Survivor. I was so miffed, I thought about walking away. And you know how I felt about Lost leaving me hanging for so long. It took me a couple weeks to decide to wade back into that water. Now, of course, I'm as hooked as ever. Go Charlie Cancer, go. In the end, though, I don't see the harm in two old friends spending time together. Surely the damage is already done. I'm desensitized to violence, I have the attention span of a gnat. What good would leaving do me now?

And so I thank you tonight, Television, thank you for being a friend. We've traveled down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you're a pal and a confidant.

damn

Given my historical (lack-of) performance as a pen pal, I am not surprised to find I have many blog entries in draft format and yet have found none of them ready for posting recently. These are the electronic equivalent to the dusty, musty notes I occasionally come across in my collection of crap. They are in my handwriting but they're no longer from me. They're from a girl I used to be, usually about a boy I used to like (or grew to hate), written to a friend I seldom talk to but still adore.

Today in particular I am glad I haven't yet posted about my fairly boring misadventures as of late. A major clean up effort, a few failed seal rescues, a tardy attempt at something romantic for Valentine's day... they all wither in comparison to the significance of the news I received last night.

My second cousin, my cousin's teenage daughter, was in a car accident yesterday. After hitting some ice on the road, she's now, I'm told, brain dead. Her body's still functioning, so she's trapped in a world of feeding tubes and bed pans. She should be going to prom, filling out college applications. She should be worried about teen pregnancy, not bed sores.

So I am humbled. My life is so unreasonably happy and trivial. And I am heartbroken. I've actually never met my second cousin. Though I hold her mom dear in my heart, I'm sure to her I'm still a freckle faced pre-teen with bad hair and no boobs, wearing Izod shirts and Toughskins jeans that do anything but flatter. Our families are so separated (by years and miles), that I wonder if I even deserve to feel the sadness that I do. And yet, we're still connected (by our folks, by the phone) and so I join the McGowans in their grief.

Today I hug my husband a little bit closer as I am reminded how unpredictable life can be. I am grateful for all I have and sorry for all that's lost. My body may be in California, but my heart is in Pennsylvania, holding vigil by the bedside of a cousin.

in a house with a mouse

I would not, could not, in a house. I would not, could not, with a mouse. I do not like to watch things die. I do not like it, I can't lie.

Yet when my kitties found the mouse, running, hiding, in my house, did I take the cats away? Did I tell them not to play? Or did I grab my own flash light, to help them find the mouse at night?

Lucky for him, we were all too slow. The little mouse was on the go. Hiding somewhere amongst my shoes. Singing, quietly, his little mouse blues.

And so I sit here in my house, that I must share with a mouse. I wonder how he'll ever leave. Will he live or will he bleed? If OC finds him, I'll never know, unless he leaves me a bit of toe. If Blackie finds him, he'll soon tire. He doesn't like his toys once they expire.

If only the mouse had been a bird. Then his fear I would have heard. He'd be bigger, slower, and easier to trap. I could have freed him and continued my nap. Alas, the mouse is every bit a rodent. Here in a flash, gone in a moment.

I'm rooting for you, little guy. I'm sure you also wish you could fly. Though we may never meet again, I'd like you to know I am your friend. I understand you'll have to go, but please don't pooh in my Danskos.

63 things i love about my mom

Growing up, I never really thought of my mom as an actual person. She was just my mom. Not a girl with parents of her own. Not a kid with goals and dreams. Not a woman with worries and fears. She would share stories of her childhood, sure, but they seemed to be just that. Stories. Fictional tales of a world that supposedly existed long before I did.

Even now, it seems weird to use this picture on my blog, as it's my family before they were my family. This is my sister's first birthday which means I am just that twinkle you see in my dad's eye.

Sometimes, when I was little, I would catch my mom spacing out at the dinner table. Her eyes glazed over, focused on some faraway point where her children weren't complaining about vegetables and her husband wasn't discussing his work day. In this place, I imagined, there were no dishes to wash and nobody had their elbows on the table. There wasn't clutter on the stairs or laundry to put away. It made me sad to find my mother visiting her happy place, because I always figured I wasn't there.

Now that I'm older, I sometimes catch myself spacing out. I find that my own happy place is pathetically pedestrian. I realize, then, that I may have been wrong about my mother's mysterious destination. I suspect that instead of fantasizing about some hunky guy and a candlelit dinner, that my mom's daydreams may have been much more domestic. In all likelihood her thoughts were still on laundry and clutter. Which makes me even sadder.

My mom was, and in many ways is, the center of my universe. She's that voice in my head that scolds me when I've done something foolish or cruel. I hear her in my laugh and see her in my mirror. She consoles me when I'm sick, cheers me up when I am down. And though she no longer makes my meals or tucks me into bed, she still takes care of me. To me, it seems, she'll always be a mother, though I've come to realize she's so much more.

I simply can't imagine a world without my mother. So today, as she completes her 63rd trip around the sun, I give you 63 reasons I love my mom:

1. She had four children. And no epidurals.
2. She married my dad (even though his sisters warned her not to) and stayed married (even when it wasn't easy to do).
3. She taught me that it is important to air out your crotch sometimes. It was a disturbing thought, imagining my mother going commando to bed, but it was solid advice.
   
4. She gave me my sad hair and my wild eyebrows. I hate them both but I love them because they remind me of her.
   
5. She has a tendency to hide new purchases from my father. Though she makes her own money and he has resigned himself to her shopping, still she feels compelled to spare him the mental strain of calculating how much something is worth and wondering why she had to have it. I find it especially endearing that she particularly employs this trick with furniture, sneaking large pieces into the basement. She brings them into the general population weeks later, after he's grown accustomed to walking past them on his way to fetch the Diet Coke.
   
6. She once had a dog named Peanut who met his untimely demise after all-too-successfully chasing a car. Though my parents only had Peanut for a couple of weeks, she speaks of him often and fondly. Perhaps this is because he wasn't around long enough to develop bad habits like the rest of our dogs?
7. She also loves Ginger (a.k.a. Blackie and Snickers), though nobody else does. That cat has peed on too many surfaces to count but Mom doesn't hold it against her. She doesn't see that cat as one big walking bladder. She loves her for her soft fur and generous purr.
   
8. Though she probably wouldn't do it these days, she's been known to eat peanut butter straight from the jar and brown sugar right out of the box.
9. She now eats quite healthfully. No matter where she's at, she always has the soup and salad and she starts each day with oatmeal and coffee. It's boring, I know, but it means she'll be around to be my mom for a long time.
   
10. She has a tendency to misspeak, though she doesn't always recognize it. I especially enjoyed when she told me, "I don't not dislike you." She also insists it is "gay radar," not "gadar." And I love how she swears that "drugs started in California."
11. She can sew. She used to make quilts and taper our jeans. She even made entire outfits, though I could have done without those matching jumpers with the zippers up the back that my sister and I peed our pants in.
    
12. She doesn't let labor get in the way of her household duties. She was doing laundry when I came along and made breakfast for the family before Kevin's birth.
    
13. With the help of our next door neighbor, she stole the best cat ever, Frisbee, from the pound. He was too new and not yet eligible for adoption. But he fit nicely in Julie's purse.
    
14. As a kid, she threw her rubber band doll out the window honestly thinking she could run down three flights of stairs and catch it. It broke. She also barfed cookie dough up those same stairs. She had to clean it up.
    
15. She used to wet the bed and, in the morning, she'd suffer dire consequences from her rather strict parents. As a result, she was always very understanding with the nocturnal failures of her own offspring.
    
16. She keeps a mental tally of all the times my dad doesn't flush the toilet (you know, if it's yellow, let it mellow...) and uses each one as a justification to buy a new Longaberger basket.
17. She used to drink a lot of cheap wine. One of my favorite memories of early adulthood involves sharing a box of pink wine with my folks in our hot tub.
    
18. She doesn't drink anymore. She also gave up smoking way back when.
    
19. She's a clever shopper. She used to use my brothers as place holders in long bargain basement lines. Once an annoyed woman in line behind us remarked snippishly that "it must be nice to have someone to wait in line for you," which my mother answered with a simple, "yes, it is."
    
20. She's an equally savvy diner. When told by a waiter that he could not serve the salad dressing on the side, she suggested he should, "try."
21. She's got a pretty great garden. She even makes her own compost.
    
22. She was recycling long before it was cool. I was mortified when she would stop at the side of the road and pick up someone else's aluminum can. I knew it was good for the environment and my dad was thrilled (every can was a nickel), but I was a teenager and couldn't get behind it. To this day she has to work harder to recycle than I ever do. She doesn't cash in the nickels anymore, she just does it for the planet, fondly recalling her participation in the very first Earth Day.
    
23. She never had her ears pierced. She said she didn't need any more holes in her head and she had a pretty great collection of clip on earrings. (Do those even exist anymore?) Then one day she came home from a trip with her old college friends and they were pierced.
    
24. She can play piano. She used to play "The Entertainer" and the next door neighbor and I would dance.
    
25. She's very forgiving. We've given her a lot to forgive along the way.
    
26. She once told me snails like salt. While I would have preferred not to be a pawn in her war against garden pests, I'm glad she didn't tell me the truth about my role until I was old enough to handle it.
27. She once told my brother, when sending him for a haircut, to get "the normal," assuming the barber would know exactly what she meant. All she's ever wanted was for her family to be normal.
    
28. She's quick with the comebacks. She was once asked by a friend's son why she had such fat legs. She promptly asked him why he had such a big mouth.
29. She still has a bit of her east coast accent. Her friend Patti recalls thinking, on the day they met, that her name was "Freon." She also still drinks "witer" while everyone else is having water. She has, however, dropped the southern accent she picked up in her Peanut days when she used to urge the women in labor and delivery to "poosh."
    
30. Of all our childhood toys, she kept the Care Bears (because they were "nice") and ditched the more collectible Barbies, Star Wars and Fisher-Price.
    
31. She's a dedicated shopper. She got me a Cabbage Patch doll for Christmas when they were still hot (which, ironically, also had bad hair - she picked it because it was "different") and she made sure Kevin had every He-man ever made, even Prince Adam.
32. She made the best chocolate cake for my birthday once. It was a bundt cake with a tunnel of fluffy chocolate chiffon icing.
    
33. She's always saying "that's enough of that behavior" and she refers to people she doesn't like as "creeps."
    
34. Though I've mentioned it before, I love how she summed up The Crying Game with one sentence: "They must have just been doing blow jobs or something."
35. She's got great siblings. Her brother taught me how to back dive and her sister was particularly supportive during the chaos of my own sister's wedding.
    
36. She found peace in her own life when she realized everyone's family has drama and nobody's normal.
    
37. She always buys me great gifts. They're always heavy or fragile so she has to deliver them in person. I particularly love my walrus sculpture and my glass pig.
    
38. On road trips, she would always second the motion when a bathroom stop was suggested. And, as I mentioned before, she keeps track of all the good restrooms in her vicinity.
    
39. She plays tennis with really old ladies. Often they don't play for long stretches of time because somebody has died and they're looking for a fourth. My dad doesn't play tennis with her much since she scratched his cornea.
    
40. When visiting me in college, she joined me in my very uphill bike ride to campus. I gloated in the glory of significantly besting her speed only to later discover she'd been riding on a flat tire.
    
41. She would always make my brothers "get" her neck (something they're traumatized by to this day) and she would claim the only ottoman as her own, passively defending it with her stubbly leg hairs. I'm not sure why I find these memories so endearing but I do. They are such a slice of our every day life.
    
42. She really didn't mean to make me look like Jenni Africa and once she realized that she had, she began rinsing out the perm solution immediately.
    
43. She helped me sell a lot of Girl Scout cookies. I still have the precious stuffed Kookabura to prove it. In fact, Mom was a Scout herself for 12 whole years.
    
44. Knowing how much I hated that pig dog, she once set my ATM password to RAGS.
45. She gives everything a nickname. Our pets, for example, have no fewer than three names each. She also names buildings (such as the Devil's Whore House and the Penny Pincher's Dream) and vehicles (such as Big Red and his predecessors, Brownie and Greenie). In her honor, we kids have dubbed her gazebo the PSG (Pot Smoking Gazebo).
    
46. She's not afraid to try new things. In addition to the ear piercing, her nursing school buddies have taken her river rafting. Meanwhile, my sister has sent her up in a hot air balloon, and my brother has convinced her to buy her own ipod.
    
47. She cheated to win a scavenger hunt hosted by her Spanish teacher during a field trip to Tijuana. Apparently you really don't need any Spanish to navigate the border city.
    
48. She makes horribly bland Mexican food and she hates beans. For years I thought I hated Mexican food. It turns out I just hate my mom's version. On the other hand, she makes a great Beef Stroganoff, complete with festive orange slices.
    
49. She's always my cheerleader, encouraging me even when I'm laughably unrealistic or just not trying very hard. She never chides me for giving up, for eating poorly or drinking too much, as she assures me it took her more than 50 years to defeat these same demons.
    
50. She would bring me flat Coke and soft boiled eggs when I was sick. And she always let me watch The Price is Right.
    
51. She was always a nurse, even when writing excuse notes for school. I never had a cold. I always had an Upper Respiratory Infection.
52. I love her handwriting. She writes in the kind of cursive that is now almost totally dead and she often underlines things. I find her handwriting in unexpected places, such as the ancient Campbell's cookbook she let me have. Next to Pork Chops a l'Orange? "goo"is immediately replaced by "great".
    
53. Other notes I love include the one about Lucy, who was recently re-evicted from my mother's house because "she barks and pees in her sleep" and the one inside an extra copy of "Get a Financial Life" she apparently never did return, explaining that her, "daughter already knows everything in this book".
    
54. She has been known to swipe a pen or two in her day (a passion of mine). And she often passes the good ones on to me. I love my light up smiley face pen ("with no cap," she explained, "because it's stolen") and the one that looks just like a fish. She also shares goodies acquired legitimately from eager drug reps. She recently gave me the whale shaped Synagis soap dispenser I admired in her bathroom a year ago.
    
55. She rewards bad behavior. Even though she was recently miffed at my then-sick sister, she ultimately brought her dinner (a pineapple pizza) to make peace and spare her an unpleasant drive in the snow. When I negotiated the delivery she wouldn't commit to the good deed. She only said, "we'll see." But I knew I had succeeded because in mom-speak if it isn't a "no" then it's a "yes."
    
56. She's finally given up keeping bunnies as pets. We had one when I was little that was so unruly we sent it to Pet-a-Pet Farm. And later, in San Diego, she tried again but Rags was always busting in to the pen. She had a few more in Washington, but there they were just lonely and cold. I think, like my snails, she was making peace with something from her childhood. Her father raised rabbits and as a family they ate them. She always said that they didn't want to know when they were eating Thumper.
    
57. When my brother Billy used to bite us, she would encourage us to bite him back. If we were crying too hard, she would do it for us.
58. She loves to do the Jumble but she often cheats. She uses her electronic Scrabble word finder to help her unscramble the letters. Of course, she's always bummed when the clue is more than seven letters long, because then the machine can't help.
    
59. She's vastly improved her Scrabble game. In fact, she often wins and almost always beats me. Apparently I suck at Scrabble.
    
60. She always used to threaten, when we were already crying, that she would "give you something to cry about," but she never did hit us with that dreaded wooden spoon.
    
61. Even though it was against the progressive Montessori-type rules, she would take young Kevin his lunch if he forgot to bring it to elementary school. I wonder sometimes if she regrets not teaching him to suffer the consequences of his actions as he seems to be having difficulties leaving the nest.
    
62. She used to insist in my college days that I needed to have a kitchen table. I think it was more of that "normal" business. Normal people have kitchen tables. She even went as far as to buy me a set once. It was a hideous 70's yellow ("in perfect condition," she protested as I spray painted it black...) and I ultimately dumped it during a move. She has finally given up, I believe, as she never complains when forced to dine off my coffee table while sitting on my couch.
    
63. She once put a pussy willow up her nose, a story she told me after I put a button up my own.
    

Happy Birthday, Mom.

i miss him already

He was my oldest and dearest friend. Couldn't be sweeter. Always there for me - in good times and bad. Every birthday, every study session, every broken heart. Of course he was at my wedding. You should see the pictures. We grew up together. From lollipops to mimosas, he was everywhere and everything. And our favorite holidays - Halloween and Easter - I can't think of a single one spent without him.

And yet it's over. At least for now. I guess you could say we're on a break. I need some time to think things over. Do I really love him or is he just a habit? Love is not supposed to hurt, after all, and, really, in many ways he's just dragging me down.

This doesn't have to be forever. I just need some space of my own, a chance to clear my head. I'll admit, it hasn't been easy. The first couple days, I mourned him. I was inconsolable, certain this break up would be a catastrophe. Ready to beg his forgiveness and take him back.

Now, a few days later, I feel stronger. More focused. I can see the insidious way he weaved himself into every aspect of my life. Frankly, I'm appalled. And finally, just possibly, I can imagine a future without him. Or at least without so much of him.

Still, I'm going to miss you, sugar.

32 things i love about my brother

Today my brother Billy turns 32 and my youngest niecelet, baby Grace, is 3. Though Grace's arrival was all too early, I love that her unexpected debut made them birthday buddies. I'm sure mathematically it should be little wonder when people you love share birthdays. Still, I like to think there's more to it than simple chance and probability.

When I first considered crafting this entry, I worried this list would be a tough one. Growing up, my relationship with Billy was more adversarial than affectionate. Even now, I tend to refer to him as my "other brother" simply because my youngest brother (Kevin) is so clearly my other half. Billy's birth made me the middle child - my psychological destiny - where Kevin's birth just made me a little less lonely. Billy's birth was most unsettling not because I was no longer the baby, but because I came to understand that I wasn't a boy. As he grew, I could see just how eagerly my dad had longed for this, his number one son.

Billy, because of his gender it seemed, got away with murder. His every wish was (and in many ways still is) Dad's command. I remember I first realized how much influence he had when Billy got our dad to voluntarily enter a mall (the then-new Plaza Bonita) to purchase whatever it was that Billy so needed (I think it was a baseball). Not a big deal, you might think. But this was our dad, the man once described so eloquently by my uncle as "tighter than a donkey's asshole facing uphill against the wind." And so, in the language of our family, money equals love and, in my young mind, every dollar my dad spent humoring Billy was a dollar less he loved me. Twisted, I know, but no less true.

Although my husband disagrees, I feel I've gotten over much of my first-born-penis envy. I see now that we were all over indulged, ungrateful brats and I no longer begrudge my brother for being more successfully spoiled. In fact, I now appreciate his persistence and the guile behind his tactics. Billy's dedication to his goals, though somewhat demented, was not so much a character flaw as a personal strength. I've also come to realize that my mom was right and Billy, in all his antics, really was just seeking attention and approval. While he could get whatever he wanted from our dad, Billy could never get what he wanted from his sisters. Our exclusion of him was so complete that we once made up our own board game (called "Money," funny enough) and labeled it "for ages 7 and up" (as Billy was still 6). Boys can be violent and dirty, but girls can be downright cruel.

And so imagine my delight when I found it easy to express my admiration for the boy my brother was and the man he has become. Here are 32 reasons I love my brother:

1. He made my nieces, Savannah and Madisyn, and he loves them wholly, even though they aren't boys.
   
2. He had the good fortune to marry a good woman and the good sense to feel nervous about it. I love that they eloped on New Year's 2000, making it nearly impossible to forget their anniversary.
   
3. He's super coordinated. He can ride a unicycle and juggle and, with practice, he can even ride a unicycle while juggling.
   
4. He embraced all the 80's fads, especially break dancing.
5. He once won a trophy for weight lifting. He still has ginormous forearms and I hope someday to convince him to dress as Popeye for Halloween.
   
6. He's not horribly sentimental. He doesn't hold on to relics from past relationships.
   
7. When he was learning to talk he had difficulty expressing himself and I was his sole translator. I still remember him struggling to form the "J" in my name with his incredibly unhelpful tongue. It always came out, "ya.. ya.. ya, yenni."
   
8. He runs his own business. In fact, he's always been an entrepreneur. He used to buy candy in Mexico and resell it in school.
   
9. He dreams big - too big, sometimes. He wants to add a parapet and a multi-story parking structure to his house.
   
10. He's artistic. He wants to weld a sea creature sculpture and place it surreptitiously in the bay by his home.
    
11. He's fearless. He used to dive into our swimming pool from the roof of our house. I shudder to think of the things he would try when he was away from home.
    
12. He's got quick reflexes. What helped him master video games in his youth allowed him to successfully remove his girls from a runaway truck before it crashed into a tree.
    
13. He's always been popular. I have few social graces and I'd like to think this flaw is genetic. Clearly I am wrong.
    
14. He once cut his finger tip nearly off and he waited politely outside while I fetched Mom so that he wouldn't bleed on the hardwoods.
    
15. The last time we fought he was almost 13 and I defeated him after unexpectedly punching him in the face. I love that he remembers it wrong and thinks he won.
16. He slipped off to Tijuana the morning he was supposed to meet with a military recruiter.
    
17. School was never easy for Billy and, after failing English, he found himself one class shy of graduating high school. I love that he took the class over, got a B all by himself, and earned his diploma.
    
18. He was into skateboarding and he forgave me for being upset that he bought the same board (a "hippie stick") as a friend of mine.
    
19. Much as I died of embarrassment when he'd pee in the street in front of my friends, I love that he's teaching his girls it's okay to go outside if you want to.
    
20. He didn't poop the whole time he was at 6th grade camp. That's like a week. I don't know if I'm more impressed our disgusted.
    
21. Once, on one of a million boring road trips we took together as children, he startled two unsuspecting passersby by shooting his cap gun out the crack of the van window.
    
22. He makes cool bird houses out of old license plates.
23. He's pretty honest - he'll tell you anything.
    
24. He's willing to help out. He installed a much needed water heater at Eloise's house.
    
25. He takes his trash to dump himself instead of paying to have it hauled away weekly. I thought this was because he was being cheap, but it's not. If he takes his trash to the curb weekly, you see, he has to think of it 104 times a year. If he takes it to the dump say monthly, he only has to think about it a dozen times each year. Gross, I know. And tellingly eccentric. What I love even more is that my sister also has to make trips to the dump (she uses more cat litter than the law allows). Better still, they both loaded their trucks the day before Thanksgiving only to discover, independently, that the dump was closed for the holiday. I chuckle when I imagine them hauling around household garbage and cat shit for the entire holiday weekend.
    
26. When he was young, my sister and I convinced him he was a boy-girl so he would let us put barrettes in his hair. I distinctly remember explaining, "there's boys and there's girls and then there are boy-girls..."
    
27. He's gullible. Not once, but twice, he has purchased bogus stereo equipment while waiting in line in a drive thru.
28. My sister and I, while babysitting him, once inflicted him with rug burn while dragging him upstairs to wash his mouth out with liquid soap to punish him for cussing. (Why liquid soap? Again, girls can be cruel. Why not bring the soap to him? I guess we were caught up in the moment...) I love that he not only forgives us but he counts this memory, along with the one where we insisted he strip and show us his first alleged pubic hair, among his favorites.
    
29. He once bought movie tickets for the entire family at Christmas time. I'm fairly certain we never used them and I remember my mom scolded him for not buying them through the military where they would have been cheaper. I personally was touched that he had gotten us anything at all. In fact, I'd venture to say that that unused movie ticket was the best Christmas present I've ever gotten.
    
30. He's good at chess. We don't play chess in our family so I have no idea where he even learned it.
    
31. He loves eggs. It's disgusting how many he can eat. Yet he doesn't like cake. Who doesn't like cake?
    
32. He built an entire house (without a permit, on my parents' easement) because he felt like it. For whatever reason, we call it the Devil's Whore House.
    

I still worry about Billy. I'm no longer concerned that I'll find him running around naked and peeing in front of my friends. Instead I worry that his dreams are bigger than reality. I can't imagine, being a princess and a parasite, what it really means to be self-employed and responsible for the health and well-being of three other people. It must be exhausting, overwhelming. I'm confident, though, that Billy's got the drive and the determination to get what he needs, even if he can't have everything he wants.

Happy Birthday, Brother.

two years ago yesterday

Yesterday was my sadiversary. Like my December sadiversary, I found myself unable to blog about it on the actual date. Perhaps this is because I so often choose feeling drunk over feeling sad. While I know all too well how easy it is to drunk dial, I have learned it is a tad trickier to drunk post. In any case, it's now been two years and one day since I killed my cat.

Officially I considered yesterday a celebration of Fabe's life. I toasted his magnificent being, the heft of his body, the length of his tail, the aging of his distinguished whiskers. I heard again his impatient "harrumpfh," saw again his bored acceptance of my affection. I asked him again (always in Spanish) "cuantos besos quieres tu?" and I heard again his answer "zero" and replied (as usual) "cien?" I recounted his adventures and triumphs. I begged his forgiveness for the times I let him down.

I remember after he died I realized he had really had exactly 9 lives. I'm certain they're more meaningful to me than you, but since I am convinced I'm doomed to get Alzheimer's some day, here they are for the record:

• 1. abandoned by owners to be euthanized - presumably for anti-social behavior (1990)
• 2. kept at evil small town pet hospital, used as blood donor until considerably more anti-social - finally stolen/rescued by my sister (1991)
• 3. poisoned by incompetent pet sitter/unauthorized flea bomb, summer of love - hacking cough lingered for years (1992)
• 4. let out onto third story roof by brother - Billy swears it was Fabe's idea (1994)
• 5. bit on the ass by neighbor dog - scar the size of a quarter (1995)
• 6. trapped in neighbor's garage 3 days - Erik went searching door to door after I'd given up (1997)
• 7. threatened with "social consequences" for fecal incontinence (a.k.a. "poopetas") - turns out he didn't have sphincter failure, just an unfortunate reaction to a change in the menu... I'm sure I wouldn't have followed through with it anyway... (1998)***
• 7. dehydrated during do-over move from u-hell - the day I learned never to tow a car in 1st gear (1997)
• 8. developed stomatitis - had to have all his teeth pulled (1999)
• 9. developed squamous cell carcinoma - couldn't open his mouth to eat (2004)

I still feel guilty. Not for killing him, but for not killing him sooner. He couldn't eat. His eyeball had collapsed from the pressure of the abscess that grew behind it. I had him addicted to morphine. But I needed some time to get used to the idea of letting him go. He was okay with it, I think. He continued to worship the sun, he still watched the birds (though without depth perception, I suppose). He came home promptly for his fix. He let me sleep on the floor beside him (though he left in the night when I snored...). He'd sometimes purr. And when it was time, really time, we both knew.

My two new kitties insist it was a good thing that Fabe passed. They are enjoying his house, his furs, his hundred kisses. Today OC even enjoyed the company of a bird. I'm not sure if it is good or bad that he didn't kill it right away. I woke up to the familiar sound of too much fun and intervened. It was ultimately able to fly away, but is it dying somewhere now of an infection?

Anyway, I know that OC and Pequeno are right. And I know that I should be appreciating them as in a dozen years or so I will be toasting to their memory... (maybe even sooner in OC's case as I calculate he's already used at least 3 lives...) And so I'm glad my sadiversary has passed. But I'm also glad I had such a great cat to be sad about in the first place.




***The poopeta story, though deleted, deserves further explanation. I've crossed it out not only because Erik came home and remembered a much more legitimate near death cat experience, but because I really wasn't all that close to killing Fabe in the first place. I was frustrated, yes, and disgusted, for sure. And desperate, even. Definitely desperate. But murderous, not quite. In fact, I was appalled to learn, after consulting my veterinarian sister about the alarming number of pellet sized cat turds I had begun to find in the house, that cats with sphincter problems often suffered "social consequences" for their incurable fecal incontinence. After a few weeks of poopetas, though, I must admit I had begun to have some insight into the phrase "social consequences." Indeed, I would often blurt it out when stumbling across yet another tiny turd as I shuffled through the darkness towards the toilet, half asleep. All too often a poopeta would be left in my lap after a love session, an accidental token of affection. So often that Fabe was exiled from my lap. I lived in fear of the poopeta. I calculated the likelihood that the next poopeta would find a way to touch my now watchful body and the odds were high. Imagine my guilt when I realized the poopetas were all my fault. I had, for whatever no good reason, recently switched cat food brands. This, like towing a car in first gear, is apparently not a good idea. The sad thing was that switching back was equally confusing for his delicate constitution so the solution to the onslaught was slow in coming. In any case, eventually my cat's digestive track was returned to normal and he was spared the social consequences of my actions.

tall, dark, and cursing

My husband doesn't understand why the cats fear him. Sure, he's big even among guys, a full foot taller than me. So he's what? 700% taller than they are? And at least 1250% heavier...

And his height is greatly exaggerated by his recreational hair growth. You see, he hasn't had a haircut since September 2005. At first he claimed he was doing it for me, as I told him I missed his hair. Now it's nothing short of a full blown science experiment. Though he hates dealing with it - all the washing, the detangling, the finding of it in his food - he is determined to see how big he can get his white boy afro. (He actually even combs it with a pick. He was so excited when he discovered this tool. Until then he'd just been breaking all our combs.) Depending on the humidity, I sometimes call him Erik Africa. I took this shot thinking I could mock him, but it actually looks pretty good. This is probly what Lilt meant to do to my third grade hair. But Lilt could have never given me his volume. Only Dad could have done that. But no, he just gave me his exceptionally large forehead and his Rosacea. (Thanks, Dad.) Erik also has naturally long eyelashes that any self respecting girl would kill for. Like his hair, he considers his lashes a nuisance. Apparently they have the audacity to brush up against the lens of most sunglasses. Darn, I hate when that happens. Is it wrong to be jealous of your husband's hair?

But I don't think his size is what the cats fear most. I think it is his volume. The cats, like myself, are both nervous by nature and frequently sleeping, thus they find loud noises disturbing. They especially hate the trash truck or, as we call it, the Kitty Grinder. (Funny aside: I thought I coined the phrase "Kitty Grinder," using it to tease my then-living kitty. Each week Fabe seemed grateful that I hadn't turned him over to the authorities, but I could tell he was angry that I had considered it at all... Then in a totally random pre-Tivo channel surfing session, I saw a Kitty Grinder in a Felix the Cat episode. It was more meat grinder than trash truck, but still, it was actually labeled "Kitty Grinder." I was at once delighted and disappointed. I am never quite as clever as I think I am...)

Tonight, when I woke at 3 am to hear my husband cursing, "F@ck you, you f@cking @sshole!" I too was startled and a little afraid. Of course I knew this meant he had stumbled across a cat, presumably the black one, as he is basically invisible - "blacker than night," I say - and because the orange one is, after 2 weeks of captivity and 2 good stool samples post emergency enema, free once again to roam the neighborhood and slaughter small animals, thus he is seldom home...

Sometimes cats deserve cursing. Sometimes they intentionally trip you or at least foolishly don't not trip you. (Which brings to mind another of my favorite mother quotes - "I don't not dislike you," a miscalculation on her part of the number of double negatives needed to say she loved me...) Tonight, the cat's chief crime was falling asleep in front of the heater (and therefore squarely in the path to the bathroom) and assuming that humans, like cats, can see well in the dark.

I can't expect my cats to understand about rods and cones - though the black one was home today when I watched the Mythbusters Pirate Special... Together we learned that pirates wore eye patches not to cover unsightly gouged out eyes. Instead, the eye patch served to keep the concealed eye prepared for fighting in the dark. The pirate, when moving from a well lit place to a darker one, would move the patch to cover the sun bleached eye and carry on with the necessary plundering and pillaging. Very keen, those pirates... So perhaps he assumed that sleep was like the ultimate eye patch and he expected that Erik should have been able to avoid an obstacle such as himself. I can't say for sure.

In any case, my husband took his hair and went back to bed. My cat went outside but has since returned, unscathed. I made a pot of tea and here I sit, realizing that one unexpected byproduct of my life as princess parasite is that, by sleeping as often as I want, I can't always sleep when I'm supposed to. No big deal. Tomorrow I'll take a nap.

a little tied up

I was tied up yesterday (helping a friend move out of her house and away from her marriage) so I didn't get to see Shawna's entanglement. Even so, just viewing the aftermath - the exaggerated, artificial smile cut into her cheeks, the deep fleshy gash in the back of her neck, the tangle of netting that half filled a kitchen trash bag - made my vagina hurt. You know the feeling. It's the female equivalent of what guys experience when they see another guy get kicked in the balls. It's that twinge triggered by empathy that's followed by an ache born of cellular memory. It's a physical protest to life's many injustices.

It wasn't just the obvious wounds that made my cervix wince. Entanglement affects more than just the surface of a seal. Shawna, though 2.2 kg heavier than Famous, was significantly more emaciated. Famous was scrawny but scrappy. Shawn was the saggy and sorry. And no wonder. In addition to the difficulties of being recently weaned, Shawna was forced to dive while wearing a green plastic afro. Even if she had been fortunate enough to catch a fish, it would have been impossible to swallow as the netting stretched across her mouth like a horse's bit. Dehydrated seal eyes are often described as gummy; Shawna's were downright crusty. She was so depleted she didn't even have the energy to be tube fed last night. Her breakfast, 300 ml of electrolytes, was the first thing to reach her stomach in a long while.

Shawna isn't nearly as cute as Thornberry, Marciel, and Cranny (who are all, by the way, faring quite well in the company of nearly 20 others of their kind), but in many ways her rescue is much more satisfying. Fur seals are warm and fuzzy, but entangled animals we know we owe.

this is how dorky i am

It's cold right now. Not snowing cold, of course, but California cold, which means I've been relatively bundled up. So I was bummed when I couldn't find my gloves before leaving this morning for my follow up visit with Dr. Wonka. (Where, by the way, I stole my first pen of the year... though I'm not even sure it's stealing since the drug reps probly want their pens out there in the world. Even so, I was all sly and used the pen to write a check and then "absent-mindedly" dropped it into my groovy new skurvy purse.)

Instead, after a brief search, I located and wore my back up gloves. (Which are actually much nicer, thus they are my back up. I have a tendency to save everything nice for some never-to-come later time. Usually this strategy backfires. Just ask Erik about the infamous moldy Tastykake. My grandmother had sent a box all the way from Philly. In the beginning I was all happy, on a nostalgic chocolate high - eating, sharing - like a normal person. Everything changed when my supply was reduced to one lonely kake. Erik foolishly contemplated eating it. Of course I wouldn't hear of it. Instead, I saved it for myself, for my future more-deserving self, and, as the title of the tale implies, I rediscovered it, moldy and quite inedible, weeks later...)

I ran a few errands on the way to Dr. Wonka's. One stop was Home Depot where I was exchanging a dimmer switch I had attempted to install. (The Home Depot guy swore it would be easy. "Easy, as in 'even a girl could do it', easy?" I asked. "Yes," he assured me. The hardest part would be picking out which one I wanted, he said. Well, I assumed he meant I would have a style conundrum. I am, in fact, often painfully indecisive. But I live in a rental which means the choice was easy. I picked the cheapest one. Well, as it turns out, there's more to a dimmer than just style. There are two different types of wiring one might encounter when digging around in walls and I had, of course, bought the wrong one. Indeed, the act of turning off the power, unscrewing the wall plate and connecting the wires did not seem overly complicated, but I wish Home Depot man had been a bit more specific with his cryptic warning. I would have totally spent the extra five bucks for the one that could accommodate either type of wiring. I love things that can do both. Both is always the right answer, I say.)

Home Depot, I know from experience, has a decent bathroom. (My mother and I, thanks to our shared genes of thin hair and overactive bladders, keep a mental map of all the best public restrooms within a 200 mile radius of our homes. In fact, on Christmas Eve I added a most delightful loo to my list. While driving through Big Sur, Erik and I stopped at a little roadhouse whose restroom had an actual (optional) potty seat built into the toilet lit. Although I don't have children, I was touched at the thoughtfulness of the management and the cleverness of the person who designed it.)

While washing up afterwards, I happened to glance at myself in the mirror. I noticed my cosy winter hat was more askew than it normally is. I am accustomed to finding it poofed up a bit in the back from my perpetual pony tail, but this lump was strangely peaked and forward. I took off my hat to investigate.

I had found the missing gloves.

of famous & feces

I didn't actually make any New Year's resolutions this year, so I can't say I'm disappointed in myself. I auditioned all the standards - exercise more, eat better, drink less, spend sparingly, and write often. My good intentions are apparently dyslexic, however, because instead I find myself exercising less, eating more, drinking better (only top shelf margaritas for me this year), spending often, and writing sparingly. I'm fairly certain I even blew "be a better vegetarian" when I partook in the broccoli salad at a recent potluck (pretty sure that was bacon I tasted...). Oh well.

It took a seal rescue to bring me back to my blog. This super cute recently weaned California sea lion was brought in yesterday on my grandfather's would-be 91st birthday. In honor of Pop (who passed last year, the day before his 90th) we named him Famous. Famous rejected his breakfast (insisting mama taught him never to eat dead fish), so we soon tube fed him and sent him on his way. Though he was only in my life for a few brief hours, he was just what I need to pull myself out of a growing funk. I'm constantly humbled by how young and small these sea-faring animals are (Famous is just 7 months old and 23 pounds) - put in my place by the majesty of nature.

Intellectually I know I have nothing to complain about. By definition, the plight of a princess parasite is pretty darned enviable. Even my semi-dreaded trip to Anaheim went swimmingly. Seeing Disneyland through the eyes of a three year old was nothing short of splendid. My niece's spanking clean karma brought us all kinds of good luck. Costume clad employees were constantly popping out of nowhere, stopping to greet a bewildered Grace. Donald Duck was noticeably stand-offish - but I guess that's consistent with his character. Minnie Mouse was her absolute favorite and accordingly we met her the most. We literally stalked her at breakfast - for which we were rewarded with a balloon...

And then there were the princesses. All day long Grace looked forward to getting to "Eat Ariel" at dinner. (Would she taste like fish, I wondered?) And yet, once we were seated, all she wanted to do was ride the "alligator" up to the second floor and watch the near by roller coaster go upside down. We barely made it back to the table in time for our photo op and even then she was every minute a fussy toddler. It was the only time my father had to use his border voice (first discovered when overzealous Canadian mounties wanted to search our car...) which effectively prevented her from spilling her dessert.

Other than the border voice, which she took in stride, Grace was only truly traumatized a few times. She now thinks whales are scary (thanks, Pinnochio), bugs get you (in fairness, that show was marked with an exclamation point and came with 3D glasses), and she's none too keen on ladybugs (they spin like tea cups). She concluded that dragons are the scariest, however, as even Grandpa was frightened then. In fact, the next day she wouldn't even go close to the Chinese restaurant that was sporting decorative dragons out front. She has no fear of heights, however. I found Dumbo disturbing, she wanted to ride it twice. This will surely come in handy in her future cheerleading career. The only ride she refused to board was the one with Frog & Toad. After riding it, my mother and I agreed she made a sound decision.

The funniest moment happened when my folks and I attended the other exclamation pointed show - "Honey, I Shrunk the Audience." My mother actually believed that our 3D glasses were
"safety glasses" and she was shocked that they effects were all aimed exclusively at her. Shortly thereafter we found ourselves in the audience at the Silver Horseshoe enjoying a live rendition of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia." Dad took the opportunity before the show to sneak in a nap and we all left feeling strangely refreshed. There's something to be said for the fiddle.

My trip to Disneyland confirmed my hubby's conclusion that "girls have ruined pirates." I am now the proud owner of pirate princess mouse ears, pirate princess pants, and, of course, a pirate princess tiara that actually stays in place even in my pathetically wimpy hair. I have a Paul Frank purse that celebrates "skurvy" (particularly appropriate since Grace was sporting a spot of skurvy on her lip the whole trip) and a fancy skull ring that matches the skull necklace my red headed niecelet, Savannah, bought me with her very own money last year.

The most magical thing that accompanied our trip to the magic kingdom happened while "swimming" in the hot tub of my parents' very expensive hotel ($500 a night - don't tell Dad...). Grace commanded that we should "make the bubbles go down" and instantly the timer ran out. Unfazed, Grace continued swimming. My sister and I were totally creeped out.

The minute my family parted ways, however, the magic ended. My sister's plane was delayed and her car seat misplaced. She got home hours later than anticipated - frustrated, frazzled and famished. I drove away from the hotel and realized one exit later that I had left some luggage behind. The challenge of retracing my steps paled in comparison to the 90 minute detour I'd endure later. I left the air mattress I bought for my parents' pending visit (intended to balance out the very expensive hotel stay) at the register and didn't realize it until I got home.

Wasted time and gasoline was nothing compared to the lost sleep I spent capturing OC (who had elected to run away from home the whole time I was in Anaheim, his longest absence since he was abducted). His return home was accompanied by enough resistance that my vet prescribed Progesterone for my black cat. I was expecting Prozac or Paxil, but Progesterone gave me some pause... The violence has decreased notably since OC's emergency enema, however, so I've held off on the hormone therapy.

Yes, I said enema.

In his previous life, OC was known as Thomas, the Buttless Wonder. He came into my life via my sister who was supposed to euthanize him after he collected a mass of impacted feces the size of a golf ball. Instead, she found a generous donor and a skillful surgeon who spared him from his congenital bilateral perineal hernias. My only instruction as his adoptive mother was to be sure he never got backed up again. Imagine the guilt I felt when, after nine days of captivity, he revealed his constipation to me this past Saturday.

My veterinarian, bless her heart, put the blame on OC. While I assigned his lack of bowel movement to his forced sedentary lifestyle and rodent-free diet, she likened it more to a kid at summer camp, unwilling to use the unfamiliar facilities. Though he was going, it wasn't often enough and as a result he ended up backed up.

Unfortunately, I could identify. I am the reluctant victim of vacation constipation. Normally a very regular pooper, on vacation I often find myself dreading the act of excreting. Not an avid traveler, I can only recall a few mortifying occasions where my output has unfortunately exceeded the capacity of the local plumbing. Most notably, I had trouble while visiting my brother in Portland. It was here that my dear sister agreed to dispose of my problem in exchange for the right to pick the restaurant for dinner. Kevin and I exchanged troubled glances as we shared a bowl of tortilla chips that night. Most recently, I visited my dear sweet Yvette. Yvette has been my friend since fifth grade and so she quickly assigned my inconvenience to her insufficient plumbing and her paper happy son. I knew better, though. I have a history. It was at Yvette's that I realized I had never learned to properly plunge (as I usually have a man around and plunging is most definitely penis work...) - my agony and embarrassment prolonged while I puzzled through a personal science lesson.

Speaking of home science, my how I have been enjoying the static electricity lately. In my previous life as an employed person, I used to follow my mentor/coworker into the dark room on a regular basis hoping to catch a glimpse of the static jumping off a newly opened package of OVM (orange vinyl mask). OVM quickly became a dinosaur in the now digital printing industry so after six long years I retired having never seen the mysterious sparks. I learned, however, that orange cats are equally adept at generating static and I've enjoyed petting OC in the dark ever since. And last night even Pequeno (aka Blackers the Attackers) was reluctantly putting on a light show.

So how is it I've been feeling so funky? I've been sipping top shelf margaritas, reminiscing about magical moments, shocking my unsuspecting cats with static electricity. I have enjoyed the regular movement of my bowels and even the emotionally draining emergency enema was free of charge (my sis had to agree to pay all of OC's butt related vet bills before I would adopt such a medically needy cat...). My husband rearranged all the furniture while I was gone (something which is very sexy - just ask Springfield's Apu who garnered great interest in the bachelor auction after announcing that his hobbies included talking about where to place furniture in a room...) so my computer could have an ocean view and a heater. What could be better?

Okay, so I haven't enjoyed being a slave to the litter box. Seriously, it is not my fault if OC finds the facilities sub par. I scoop that thing so regularly that I have even begun doing it in my dreams. And my hormones haven't exactly been friendly to me, an unfortunate byproduct of my dyslexic good intentions... Nothing extraordinary, though. Just the usual bloatation and crankiness. And then there was that one supremely horrible day that started with 3 am caterwauling followed by vitamin-on-an-empty-stomach vomiting that ended with cracking my head on the bathroom countertop. Now that day I know I had a reason to cry. But over all, I figure maybe I really am just disappointed in myself for not resolving something in the New Year. So, here it is.

I resolve to steal more pens.

My employment free lifestyle has left me sorry little access to office supplies. Gone is the joy I find in swiping a fine writing instrument. You know, one that feels heavy in your hand, or writes in purple or green, or lights up or otherwise celebrates itself. God, I love stealing pens. Buying them is a rush too, don't get me wrong, but a stolen pen is a prize for life. I reconnected with this joy at Dr. Wonka's office when left alone for my torturous scratch test. If you've never had one, a scratch test is a modern day torture device where your back is covered with 73 itchy stimulants that you are not allowed to scratch for 20 minutes. It begins with the control stimulant, histamine, which always itches, to ensure maximum discomfort. After about 15 minutes I bored of my gossip mag and began snooping in drawers. It was then I found the wealth of drug rep pens. I chose a lime green one, obviously well loved as the name of the drug is all but worn off. They owed me that pen. And more...

I'm not sure how I will achieve this pen swiping goal (I seriously seldom interact with the real world), but resolutions are not supposed to be easy. At least this is one I haven't already broken.

insincere apologies and really bad lies

I would apologize for not posting for the last 10 days (and for the 5 unposted days that preceded my previous entry) but I know my words would sound hollow, their meaninglessness just adding insult to imaginary injury. I especially can't apologize for my lack of activity since I know that I am about to embark on yet another internet-less journey which will last another 5 days. Yep, in less than 9 hours I will find myself in LAX, greeting my sister and my youngest niece and chauffeuring them to our ultimate destination - Disneyland.

Close friends and family members may recall that the last time I went to Disneyland was in 1998. The drive down was punctuated by a rather nasty mother-daughter fight which erupted into a full blown exclamation point shortly after our arrival at the hotel. It was during this fight (which involved my mother all-too-accurately assessing her children as worthless ingrates who were careless with their finances) that one of my favorite old tapes was born. My poor fool not-yet-husband meagerly attempted to speak up on my behalf and was told promptly to, "Shut up. You're brain washed." I would venture to say, in fact, that this is my all time favorite Mom quote. The runner up? Clearly that goes to her realization after watching The Crying Game that, "they must have just been doing blow jobs or something."

{This leads me to an aside... I've started collecting old tapes from the younger generation. My eldest niece, during my Christmas visit, added a gem to my menagerie. We were discussing an uncomfortable conversation she had with her grandma (my mother-in-law) after watching My Super Ex-Girlfriend - a conversation which began with the declaration from said sexagenarian that "There is more to love than just rough sex." - when the topic turned, naturally, to the subject of masturbation. It was here where her mother (my cancer-free best friend) assured her that masturbation did not result in hairy palms by proudly displaying the smooth surface of her hands. Had I been properly hydrated, I am sure I would have peed my pants. Anyway, this exchange resulted in my all time favorite niece old tape, "The only thing worse than imagining your parents having sex together is imagining them having it alone." Too true.}

Anyway, back to Disneyland. Ah, Disneyland. The so-called Happiest Place on Earth. Disneyland was such a perfect hell the last time I visited, a surreal prison I roamed with my brother and my boyfriend, moping, avoiding lines (this was pre-Fast Pass, folks), avoiding the parents (except for at lunch when we, not so ironically, needed their money). We ended up on the train, I recall, the three of us. We were soon disgusted by the behavior of a family of heathens we dubbed the Feet People who took to rubbing their stocking feet against the hand rails of the train. The memory still turns my stomach. In fact, their blazon disregard for cootie control in public was so appalling that my brother used it as his inspiration for his essay on his college application to Yale. Strangely, his hilarious literary flogging of this disgustoid family did not gain him entry into the ivy league. We are both still scarred and bitter.

This is not to say the trip was entirely without merit. The high point of our visit to Mickey's world came when I was approached by an altogether too enthusiastic Beast (as in Beauty and the...). The Beast accosted us when we were buying slurpees and cotton candy and I kindly requested that he go entertain others. He ignored me and continued his uncalled for attempt at cheer. I then informed him that I had recently learned on television that Disney characters are frequently assaulted by unpunished Disney guests. After this revelation, the Beast signalled silently that I should "bring it on." I punched that Beast, who was not my mother, with all my debt-ridden, cootie-covered might. His costumed collapsed and I swear I nearly made contact with the actual human inside. He then moved on, satisfied by our laughter, no matter what the price.

I don't expect I'll be assaulting any Disney workers this time around (though I haven't ruled it out), but I am prepared for a less than perfect time. Whatever the next 5 days bring, it will be worth it to see the world through the eyes of a three year old. Still, I will miss my husband and my home and my two kitties. I am such a pathetic homebody. Which brings me to my really bad lies.

Last Christmas I received as a gift from my now healthy sister-in-law and my eldest nieces a gift certificate for a one hour massage in the Bay Area. Those who are in the know know that I am a whore for a full body massage. I, who cannot physically buy gas that is 2 cents more expensive than the gas half way across town, will willingly fork over hundreds of dollars to have a complete stranger stroke my less than attractive naked body. This was an awesome gift, the perfect way to shed the stress of the cancer of the year before.

And yet. I am seldom in the Bay Area. And when I am, I spend my time with my nieces. And I sleep on a cot or the floor. And I drive home, through traffic, late at night when I am tired. All of these things would destroy the efforts of even the most prolific masseuse. And so I never used my gift certificate until last week when I turned it into a gift certificate for my sister-in-law. I know, how lame? I regifted a gift I loved to the very person who gave it to me. I was told at the spa that I wasn't the first but still I felt dirty. I swore my second eldest niece to secrecy (she was in on the plan) but the swear was unnecessary. I cannot tell a lie. Ever. I confessed on Christmas morning when my sister-in-law figured the whole thing out. Am I that transparent? Apparently.

Of course, she has good reason to doubt me. The first lie I ever told her? We were driving through Berkeley (going South, crossing University Ave, my eldest niece growing in her womb) when she offered me half of an orange. I declined, insisting I had "just brushed my teeth." She looked at me, the person she had been hanging out with for hours, and she laughed. I am such a bad liar.

Though I am a horrible liar, I am a pretty good petty thief (especially of pens) and I tend to cheat at games (I am permanently banned from being Banker in Monopoly thanks to a series of interest free loans I once made to myself - loans which, I must say, I disclosed on my own when the game ended...).

So there you have it. An insincere apology and some really bad lies. Meet you back here in the new year, but give me until the third...

i had the power

Most of my family lives in a state that experiences an actual winter. Rain, snow, sleet, black ice, fallen trees. As a result of their decision to live where houses are affordable, they have lived in various stages of electrical deprivation for four days of this past week. When I first heard of their predicament (by cell phone, as the land lines are down as well), I must admit I gloated. I thought immediately of He-man, hoisting his blazing sword, boasting of the power of Greyskull. I felt like He-man, summoning the power of PG&E. While my family faced cold showers, melted ice cream, and icy morning toes that never quite defrost, I thought to myself, "I have the POWER!"

And then I remembered the trip I had planned. I was leaving the next day to visit my eldest nieces and my now-healthy sister-in-law in Oakland - a trip I hadn't made since chemo ended in March. There I have always enjoyed electricity, running water, telephone service, and refrigerated food, so I knew I'd be better off than my folks. But a trip to the ghetto usually involves another sort of deprivation - some predictable, others completely random.

The house is small, so sleeping space is at a premium. Twice during the year of cancer I established (and lost) a personal oasis. Now that each niece is enjoying a bed of my design, I am reduced to using a cot and a sleeping bag. When I arrived this time I discovered that even my sleeping bag had been usurped. And the space for my cot was covered with an even more intimidating pile of clutter than the one that had existed when I left. Fortunately, I was able to barter for the return of my sleeping bag which I'm now using on the floor.

Chairs are another known scarcity. In fact, when asked which topics will come up in their inevitable psychotherapy sessions, both nieces agreed that "no chairs" would top the list. Mealtimes are okay, though - they're generally served buffet style. But TV time is torture, so I wisely set my Tivo to tape and store the shows that meant the most to me. I was pleasantly surprised to find the chair population had tripled since my last visit, though the TV room did not enjoy the benefit. Besides, nobody here watches Survivor. In fact, I learned that my nieces actually watch Project Runway and America's Next Top Model. This should not surprise me since they are teenage girls, but still...

I was worried about the bathroom situation. The bathroom was most often the source of unexpected unpleasantry. I am a tad obsessed with personal cleanliness and I tend to shower more than twice as often as the average Oakland family member. The fact that a duck lived in and around the bathtub during most of the year of cancer was admittedly difficult for me. Curry and I would engage in virtual death matches for access to his turf - fights that I was accused of starting and fights which I almost always lost. Who knew that a duck could actually draw blood? After the duck died - which was actually tragic and which only served to help me recognize what an evil person I was inside not to have shared in the love of a family pet - I was reluctantly relieved but the bathroom gremlins were not done with me. For while a tidy shower is a gem, a troubled toilet is torture. Happily I report the bathroom is better than ever complete with a brand new shower head that gets your entire body wet at the same time.

In contrast to the possibilities, the deprivation I have suffered for the last five days has been minor. Still, I'm certain that the loss of the internet in this house is a direct result of my aforementioned gloating. I'm not a web junkie so at first I wasn't altogether disturbed, but I felt immediately guilty about neglecting my blog. I didn't want to be one of those bloggers. Nothing bores me more than visiting a blog I've enjoyed and finding a rerun. And here I am, not even two months out, and I have become what I hate. An entire week without posting. Inexcusable.

I'm still not home yet (the internet only works on one computer and this is my first stolen moment alone with it) so I still don't know who won Survivor. And I've got another trip planned next week (with my youngest niece this time). So I can't promise consistency but I do know I owe.

about yesterday

Eighty three years ago yesterday the world gained Bob Barker, while little Frankie Sinatra celebrated his eighth birthday. Six years ago yesterday my husband lost his favorite cousin and birthday buddy, Kate. Her lifelong battle with cystic fibrosis ended two short months after her name came to the top of the organ donor list. While I absolutely suck at remembering most dates (especially if they're in September), December 12th is burned into my brain.

And yet all day I was unable to blog about it. Only now, with the freedom of having another 364 days to go, do I find myself back at my keyboard, telling the story I should have told yesterday.

Kate was significantly younger than my husband and, though their affections ran deep, they seldom had a chance to relate to each other as adults. It was the occasion of her sister's wedding that brought the three of us together, bonding over a bottle of tequila. I could commiserate with Kate's position as sister of the bride, having been one just a few years before. Kate's bridesmaid dress was WAY cuter than mine. Mine was, I kid you not, compared to wallpaper by fellow shoppers who found its twin in a discount clothing store. But Kate never wore a dress in real life so hers was arguably more traumatic. Immediately after the wedding she pulled on a pair of jeans and the three of us sought out a quiet spot to toast the happy couple.

I knew early on I had no prayer of keeping pace with my husband and his hard drinking cousin. It is for this reason, perhaps, that I remember the night most clearly. Even so, it comes back to me in highlights:

Sitting on the steps being swarmed by strange Vegas bugs, surprised to learn that Kate has taken to smoking cigarettes with her relatively worthless lungs. Erik, ordinarily more of a pacifist, squashing the bugs vehemently with her shoe in return for his cousin's promise to stop smoking in the future.

Kate's head landing on the carpeted casino floor after Erik unsuccessfully tried to invert her tiny body. The two of them collapsing, laughing, at the persistence of gravity.

Secrets exchanged revealed a life well lived. Each professed a profound affection for the other.

Security shushing us (apparently even Vegas has its limits), ushering us away from the pool area.

Walking her to her room, Kate returning to the hallway, laughing, demanding to know what we were laughing about, insisting it was probably her. Kate, realizing as the door closed behind her that she was locked out, inspiring us to laugh at her. All of us laughing as she was forced to wake her already disturbed roommate.

The next morning, at the check out desk, Kate showing up fresh as a daisy to wish us farewell. Erik, his stomach contents curdling on the floor in the corners of our bathroom, marveled at his cousin's perkiness. Even having drank the least, I was somewhere in between, also awed by the wonders of youth.

Erik and Kate's family are fortunate to have a lifetime of other memories to cherish, even though some life times are too short. I am personally grateful to have this one grand evening in September (the 27th - I had to look it up) to remember. I love how Kate is still alive in her family, with them in their stories. And I'm amazed at how she shows up now and again in unexpected places - her father finding her handwriting on a bookmark pressed between the pages of an old book. I'm lucky to know little about loss and I'm luckier still to have known Kate.

about last night

Last night I was asked what kind of vegetarian I am. I had to tell the truth. The truth is I'm not a very good one.

Ordinarily I cheat only once or twice a year, celebrating my birthday and my anniversary with a juicy filet mignon. I just can't bring myself to order a plate of pasta at a steak house - which is invariably where my husband and I end up. Besides, my nearly anemic blood cells savor every morsel. I try to give them the iron they need through a daily vitamin, but apparently it's not enough to own the vitamins. You actually have to ingest them to extract their benefits.

This year, however, I feel I've crossed the line. I'm not exactly a full fledged carnivore but a vegetarian I am not. I am more a vegevore or a carnitarian. And, yes, I know the scientifically correct term is "omnivore" but that implies I eat everything and there are, believe me, plenty of things I do not eat, such as:

1. haggis (duh)

2. dog food (ok, maybe once, but it was more a dog treat than actual dog food and I'm pretty sure I didn't swallow it... [insert inappropriate eating-but-not-swallowing joke-that-I-can-no-longer-tell-now-that-my-parents-know-how-to-access-my-blog here...])

3. boogers (especially not since that poor boy who rode my bus in elementary school tragically acquired the nickname "snot box"...)

4. snails (snails are probably not tasty anyway, but I feel I owe them since I was tricked at the age of three to slaughter them, my loyal snail friends, after my mother insisted they "like salt". In case you don't believe me, I have provided actual photographic evidence of this event. I have no explanation for the suspiciously squished looking snails in the foreground, but as you can see I did offer each of them a jolly ride in my dump truck before death. And the empty case of Boone's Farm, well, that explains a lot, doesn't it?)



At any rate, this year I've had more than my fair share of celebrations. Apparently now any old barbecue ranks right up there with birthdays and anniversaries. I mean, really, every day is somebody's birthday, right?

But my beef with myself goes well beyond the beef in myself. After all, last night's delicious meal of murder was shared with the very same friend with whom I recently consumed the dreaded liquid death. He reported it was nearly a half gallon of vodka we put away that night. I'm not sure if I'm more disgusted, disappointed, or appalled? (Though my inner adolescent is just the teensiest bit proud...)

In so many ways, I'm really looking forward to the fresh new year ahead. I know new year's resolutions are generally not worth the internet they're written on, (and my new year will begin in Anaheim on my sister's terms) but I feel like I may be ready to let go of the yummy little flesh filets and the sour self pickling. If not forever, at least for good.

hill top

I ran across this poem in a public journal, one of many in the waiting rooms of the UCSF cancer treatment center. It was obviously written by someone young, someone who shouldn't have to know about tumors and chemotherapy. Granted, everything seems more significant when your best friend is fighting cancer, but a year later I still find this poem makes me happy... and sad.

hill top

The hilltop is the bigest
hill on the Galexe it
is scary to climb but
also looks like a hot dog.

how is a monkey like a fork?

My sister-in-law/best friend is not lucky enough to be a parasite. Instead, she earns the lion's share of the income for her family (which, come to think of it, is actually an appropriate cliche since female lions also do the majority of the hunting). Her current job sucks in all the classic ways - underpaid, understaffed, unclear or unreasonable goals, uninspiring product - as it has for many years. The last time she tried to escape its grasp, she was stricken by breast cancer and had to stay for the health benefits. She's healthy now and has more than an inch of real live normal looking hair (none of the patchy wiry grey that chemo leaves you with) and so she is once again putting herself out there and interviewing for jobs.

The other day she called to describe a particularly strange interview for a dot com company. The interviewer asked her only three questions:

1. You have no resources (phone, internet, books, paper), how do you calculate the number of seats on a 747?

2. How is a monkey like a fork?

3. You work for a cereal company and designed a cereal - Special K - and included in it three non-essential ingredients, one of which turns out to be super profitable and boosts sales 30% over 3 months. Your boss wants you to design a cereal - Special J - and boost its sales 60% in one month. What do you do?

I'm not sure how my sister-in-law answered (by her swift dismissal she figures she answered incorrectly), but she's certain she did okay on the monkey and fork question. I've had the unfair advantage of being able to contemplate these questions all night. And, of course, I am not wearing a fancy suit, I have not just driven somewhere strange, my palms are not sweating from nervousness, and I do not have to remember to maintain eye contact. Even so, I think you will find my answers similarly lacking:

1. You have no resources (phone, internet, books, paper), how do you calculate the number of seats on a 747?

First of all, I think this question might be a test to see if the interviewee has seen Snakes on a Plane (which I have not). Instead, I would have to rely on memory from plane trips past. It seems to me that planes have about 30 rows which usually seat either 6 or 7 across. Conservatively, I might go with 6 x 30 = 180 + 5 for the crew (two pilots, 3 sky waitresses) = 185 but that is lower than the death rates I recall from gruesome previous crashes. So I would try 7 X 30 = 210 + 5 for the crew = 215 which sounds about right. (Incidentally, the internet tells me I am so woefully wrong - the 747 is a double decker plane and can seat 416 - 524 passengers... and I am right, the snakes that were on a plane were on a 747.) Also, I am disappointed I did not think to figure in first class which is generally about 10 rows of 4 seats across so I'd want to reduce both guesses. So 185 - 20 = 165 and 215 - 30 = 185. Now they both sound wrong and I am sure I would be stammering and anxious to get on to the next question.

2. How is a monkey like a fork?

My first instinct is that they are both cleverly adapted to their purposes and they can both fling pooh. My husband adds that they can both pick things up, but that is implied in my answer so I might just leave it at that. It just dawned on me, though, that both are nouns that can be used as verbs - you can monkey around and fork things over. And both are used in children's stories - monkeys jumping on beds, forks running away with spoons. Both can be violent - monkeys kill and forks are used to poke elbows that are on the table. In fact, I assume they can both take your eye out. And you can, under the right circumstances, purchase both a monkey and a fork. Both are found at the zoo (assuming the zoo has a snack bar and doesn't use sporks) and in the road. Both have been around for a very long time. Still, I can't help but think I am missing some hipster connection between monkeys and forks. Again, blabbering, creativity dwindling, now dreading the next question.

3. You work for a cereal company and designed a cereal - Special K - which included in it three non-essential ingredients, one of which turns out to be super healthful which in turn boosts sales 30% over 3 months. Your boss wants you to design another cereal - Special J - and boost its sales 60% in one month. What do you do?

My friend wishes she had said that she would tell the boss to go f@ck himself for setting such an unreasonable goal. Now I can think of no other answer. My only other thought is that if Special J is a new cereal, then how can I boost sales that don't already exist? If the sales of Special J are currently $0, then putting it on the market automatically boosts sales, though it is impossible to say by what percentage since 60% of $0 is still $0. Also, I would have to ask if any part of our company's increased profits on Special K would have to go to pay the lawyers, assuming Kelloggs will be suing us for using their registered name. At this point I assume that both the interviewer and I are aggravated at having wasted time getting to know each other. We are both disappointed and relieved as I am politely pointed towards the door.

Before I became a parasite, I had the challenge of interviewing folks with the intention of hiring them. I supremely sucked at this part of my job (though I must have had beginner's luck for the first person I ever hired is a fricking super star...). I must confess I, too, threw in a couple of odd questions. Each of my potential employees had to name their favorite cartoon and tell me how they felt about chocolate. (In fact, the one person I did not ask about chocolate turned out to be a very bad hire who lasted less than 2 weeks. Turns out she was a vegan, which I wouldn't have held against her, but I can't help but think it might have given me some insight into her compatibility with the job.) I so wish I had heard of the monkey and fork question. It's a little cruel, sure, but I'm certain the answer would reveal more about a person than pathetic canned questions such as, "where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

In any case, I am once again grateful that I am neither asking nor answering questions at a job interview. Instead, I am sitting here enjoying a very precious, rare moment - both my kitties are inside and they are not trying to kill each other. Sure, I know they are only in because it is finally raining outside, and they are only peaceful because they are asleep. Still I savor the semblance of normalcy.

So how is a monkey like a fork? Good question.

one more reason i love my husband

I consider myself infinitely (inexplicably) fortunate to have a husband who treasures me. I love everything about him - even the really dumb stuff like the way he always locks his keys in the car. (In fact, for the last five days he's been using a spare set of keys after having misplaced his normal set entirely...)

Today I love him just a little bit more because today when I went to the mailbox the dreaded doggie doo was gone. (This was most excellent timing for on this day my junk mail did indeed disassemble itself, sending my Rite Aid coupon book fluttering to the once soiled ground...) I thought for a moment the disappearing dung was a Christmas miracle, but when I expressed to my husband my utter elation, he confessed that he had disposed of the stool sample the night before.

Now handling dog feces has always been, in my opinion, penis work. In fact, the phrase "penis work" was coined while watching my future sister-in-law shovel dog shit from her yard. Since my husband has a penis, this small act of kindness shouldn't really rock my world the way it has. I think it is the anonymous nature of the turd that makes this act extraordinary. It's one thing to process the product of a beloved pet. It's altogether another thing to pick up after someone else's pooch. Or maybe it is just that my husband is working so much (to support my parasitic ways) that I am touched he would take one of his very few moments of spare time to free me from my coprophobia.

In any case, today I celebrate my remarkable marriage and my feces free path to postage.

had a little fun monday

Waking up at 5:30 in the morning is never fun. Realizing at 7 that 5:30 might not have been early enough - also not fun. Waiting in line with feet numb from the morning cold - painfully not fun. Learning 4 hours later that the very last guaranteed seats went to the group in front of mine - agonizingly not fun. Waiting 7 more suspenseful hours (3 of them in line again) to learn my fate - the epitome of not fun.

Being in the actual audience for one of Ellen's 12 days of Christmas shows - okay, that was fun.

My experience in Burbank convinces me again that the fates that rule my life appreciate irony. They proved it during my trip to TPIR - where I wished only to be called as a contestant, arrogantly assuming that I'd make it on stage. For Ellen I boldly hoped to be first in line (a seemingly reasonable goal since my sister and I had been first a year before when we arrived at 8). And indeed I was first in line - for the Tom Hanks Riff Raff Room.

The fates were not satisfied with 11 hours of torture (7 of them sick with disappointment and regret). The irony became richer as the giveaway was revealed - a designer purse, aviator sunglasses, a designer fragrance, a ton of make up, a cashmere sweater. All of these things I should not be allowed to have. I do not wear make up - I used enough of it in my adolescence to last my whole life. I do not own cashmere - if it can't go in the washing machine it can't go in my closet. I don't have designer anything - unless you consider Doc Marten a designer. And yet, the total package value was the best I've seen so far - $2,000. The local girls were going wild; I was trying to figure out when Whitney Houston's husband started making cosmetics.

At least I could use my consolation prizes from TPIR - eggs, wallpaper, and a telephone, followed up by hair care products and breath mints upon rerun. I find myself confounded by my recent windfall. It seems I may finally need to figure out how to become an eBay merchant.

My fates enjoy repeating themes as well. The first time I saw Ellen, I had to share a bed with another woman. Then it was my sister I reluctantly snuggled after she had booked a hotel room with just one bed (another reason I am skeptical of my sister's schemes). This time I had to share a bed with my skinny seal friend's daughter. My friend would have happily done the honors, but (after arranging the entire trip) she had to miss the show to attend a funeral. Instead, I surrendered my solo bed to her replacement, the seal friend I often refer to as my future self. (At least I know in the future I will get to sleep alone...) Of course, I am pretty much a professional sleeper so I wasn't bothered by my loss of real estate, just amused at the fates' consistency.

Perplexed as I am by my recent winnings, I am also immensely grateful to have successfully survived the experience and to be chosen to be in the audience at all. Beggars can't be choosers and they really shouldn't be whiners.