mom would be proud

So the other day I accidentally spread yogurt on my bagel instead of cream cheese. I immediately thought of my mother, who once mistook her conditioner for shampoo - for a whole week. I felt even more like my mother when I realized I had been suspicious of the especially runny cream cheese but didn't toss it out. My mom is all about keeping food past its prime. A quick survey of her kitchen will yield any number of culinary nightmares - moldy cheese, browning avocados, wilted lettuce, wrinkled tomatoes, sprouted potatoes... My mom is so into old food, in fact, that when I blamed some older eggs for a recent stomach illness, my mom defended the eggs. She explained that the eggs in her own fridge were significantly older and that my brother once ate an egg that was even a little green and he was still fine. This just made me want to vomit more. My dad's explanation, that the eggs would've made me sick sooner if they were the source of my malaise, was much more palatable and scientifically sound.

2 regrettable discoveries

Recently I've made two disturbing discoveries.

1. I've had a typo in my profile THIS WHOLE TIME. Not just a run of the mill dyslexic typo or even a finger-too-fast-on-the-keyboard typo, I had entire extra letters in the word "moment." I am such a spelling snob that I would like to think perhaps I was drunk when I set up my profile. Given my known habits, odds are pretty decent I was. Not attractive, I know, but I'd rather be drunk than stupid.

2. Speaking of drunk, for all you budding sommeliers out there, I have learned that Apple Jacks and Sauvignon Blanc are a bad pairing. The combination just might make you throw up a little.

Enough said.

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.

dinner with an old friend

Last night I had dinner with an old friend. It's been, I'd guess, nearly 14 years since last we've hung out. That evening was similiar - a blur of old stories, unrestrained laughter, surrending finally to sleep without bothering to pick up a tooth brush.

Today, all day, I remember why we broke up. The throbbing tightness of my sinus, the unsteady gurgling in my stomach, the dehydration and disorientation, the mysterious bruises... My husband has been picking up the pieces of my broken self for years. Like a machine, he set to work putting my world back together. Starchy foods, fluffed pillows, otter pops, the ocean breeze... Slowly I have become mostly human.

It won't be over until tomorrow. And then the memory of this pain will keep me from my friend for another decade or more. Curse you, Vodka, you're just not good for me.

my inner child is spoiled

Seventeen months ago I left my job to be a stay-at-home mom to my inner child. Since then I have noticed just how spoiled that inner child is. This morning, for instance, she had frozen pizza and rolos for breakfast. As I sipped on my coffee, wondering how she could stomach such a feast without feeling sick, I sighed with relief that at least I am not responsible for any actual children.

Friends say I'd make a great mother. I am, after all, a fairly swell Anti. But I know from the way I treat my kitties that my children would end up in therapy. My cats are subjected to a blend of overprotective paranoia and benign neglect, mixed with bouts of smothering affection. I alternate between praise and disdain for the same bad behaviors (usually regarding the murder of small creatures) and I clearly play favorites (which I also alternate).

And now, I realize, I treat my inner child with this same damaging mix of indulgence and inconsistent discipline. When I left my job to save my sanity, I imagined my inner child and I taking naps, eating healthy snacks, and combing the beaches for shiny trinkets, abducting living creatures from the tidepools and putting them back after a thorough inspection. I figured we'd do arts and crafts, read interesting books, plant things in the garden. I thought I'd be a really great mom.

I'm not a complete failure. My inner and child and I have a decent relationship and for the most part we have a really great time. I just can't help but think I am letting her down sometimes.