Once More with Feeling.

Interview with local Boston commoner re: Royal Wedding

On a typical day,  Care gives us our wake up call sometime between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m. On the rare morning she is trying to prove her unyielding love for her parents, she'll give us a glorious 7:00 a.m.

This morning I heard movement over the monitor at 5:22, kid talking to herself, and doing what I call her "leg thwapping", a move that involves her quickly raising both legs and slamming them down as hard as she can over and over again. You can hear this from the floor below, it's that forceful.

Taking into account all 3 items: the early rise, the animated self-talk, the restless, geeked-out energy pouring from her limbs, it could only mean one thing-

I  think she knew the Royal Wedding was happening.

So fine....fine.   It's not the everyday occurrence and perhaps she was dying to see what the House of A. McQueen put togther for her gown.

I interviewed my little Anglophile between the service and first kiss, and after all that excitement,  it seems to me (and correct me if you disagree) she seems a little "meh" about the ceremony and downright dissapointed with the dress (hey, don't look at me- I thought it was lovely and agree, a nice throwback to Princess Grace's gown).

Please excuse interviewee's hair, it's looking a little poindexter-ish due to some bananas she decided to use as hair product.

 

 

 

Missing You

Not sure how to follow that. That wasn't exactly light material, in subject matter and the fact that you might have well thought I was getting paid to write by the pound (3,200 words according to this thing. Maybe next time I'll just write the dictionary.) But believe me though when I say, "and that's the abridged version."  Two weeks in a hospital, I tell you: you see some stuff.

But it wasn't all  "A Very Special Episode of..."  content all the time.  In that downtime, I could find something  odd or funny despite the "A Very Special Episode of..." turn my life was taking.  For example, you might recall me mentioning a major component of the pre-eclampsia is (was) the blood pressure,  and  I had arrived with a life-threatening level and then was able to maintain a relatively healthy one for 2 weeks with a lowest dose of BP medication. This was an incredible accomplishment in and of itself.  However,  I kept recalling an episode of The Office where the office tool Dwight raved about his brain's superiority as compared to  the lemmings he was forced to suffer daily.   So through all the  checks and charting, I kept hearing Dwight's braggery to Jim & crew on how he could raise his blood pressure at will, because his mental fitnesss was such, was so increbibly advanced, that he could manipulate involuntary bodily responses any which way he pleased.   So when Jim sarcastically asks him, "Annnnd why would exactly you want to raise your blood pressure?" Dwight's  rebotically responds, "So that I can lower it."

I may have used that bit once or twice with the staff.

Anyway, I needed to get that out of me since it's been sitting with me for 2 years. My secondary thought was maybe (maybe, maybe,) since  Interwebz is forever(-ish), one day some pregnant or one day would-be pregnant lady will read it and not be inclined to self-diagnose , or brush it off, or suck it up until the doctor's office opens.  And maybe,  if that were to happen,  it's possible to think one person might be spared a horrific outcome.  If that were to happen, ...well, that would be a comforting thought.

But even with Daniel's birthday looming  (which honestly for the majority of the day I was surprisingly okay), this has not been a good month.  A lot of waterworks and snot, crying in places where I just assume not give in to the ugly face.  Maybe you read my post about going to the dentist office two weeks ago? Reception got the ugly face that day (I so ever  grateful to be the only patient in the waiting room). The last time I had been there I was a few months pregnant with Daniel and loved getting to tell them (since they ask when they take x-rays) that yeah, there was a possibility that I was pregnant, since hi, I was due in the summer. In addition to the  emotional landmine of the office, for the few days prior to the appointment, I had just spent those trying to recover what is now a permanently erased a voicemail  I'd saved from my mom on my old cell phone, a result of switching to the iPhone (this futile act included many embarrassingly tearful calls and conversations to various level Verizon employees and the third party company  who does their voicemail). And  just before my appointment,  my sister had told me that our Mom's blog had been deleted. So losing that voicemail and her blog was like losing her all over again.  All these things kept pushing and pushing on me,  so when reception of dentist day asked, "How old's the baby now? Getting big?" and I said, "Nine months" and then I immediately thought they meant from the last time I was there a few years ago, so I foolishly started to back track and tried to explain about Daniel and then...

...I choked. It was too much. My voice cracked and I couldn't hold it in. I quietly bawled to the receptionist as I explained my son died, and I haven't been to the dentist because I had an appointment scheduled while I was on leave, never kept it, and never made another appointment, and-  and- oh my God, isn't the dentist gonna kill me when he sees what I'm bringing him.

(and what I would be "bringing him" would be his summer home's down payment. Holy Christ).

Like I said, I've never been so grateful for an empty waiting room. It then occurred to me that Mike & I have the same dentist's office, and he of the non-skipping of appointments probably filled them in about Carolyn. I had blanked on that piece of important data. Oops.

Today, April 27th, is my Mom's birthday, a woman whose death of 15 months ago- 9 months after Daniel's and 6 months before Care's birth, I can't really fully explain now.  The complexity of our relationship would easily exceed 3,200 words, and the impact would be,  God, I can't imagine that word count on that.   She didn't know about either of my children, but I was trying to find a way to get to the point where I was going to tell her about Carolyn. And then she died.   Our last face to face encounter on Thanksgiving ended with a  hug & and kiss, and I had a phone conversation with her on Christmas. Two moments I try to hold to.

It goes without saying give anything for her to to be here. Her death tragic and sudden and there was so much I wish I had said and done.  I would jump at the chance for her to see her youngest granddaughter, play with her, and for her to see me in the role of Mom in stead of just kickass Aunt.  She would get a kick out of Care's  fake sneezes and whistling, and be endeared by the fact that the first song I sang to Care was "You Are My Sunshine" only to be followed up with "The Muppets" theme song. 

There is no neat bow for to end this one, but I felt as though I should write something on the woman-who-gave-me-life's birthday. The same woman who had explained to me when Tara Dooley called me a 'dipstick' that it really meant nothing, since she was talking about a part of a car (and then proceeded to pop the hood to our station wagon and pulled out oil-covered metal piece all, "See Jen, THIS! THIS is a dipstick!")

("A" for effort, Ma, but Dooley still had it over me with the insult as it is, afterall, a classic.)

A Christmas Story

Mike's at a Celtics game with his crew tonight, so by defacto I've been  Single-Momming all day. With a little quiet in the house now, thought I'd might update here and thinking what to write....what to write... and then it occurred to me-

I ever tell you all about the time our house got robbed on Christmas?

1994,  I was 21 and living at home, working/going to school.  I lived with my mom and sister, Emily, who was in high school at the time.  The details of how we as a family got together for gift exchange is a little fuzzy as to who was where (I have another sister who was in nursing school and a brother who was living in Baltimore with my father), but I think just the 3 of us exchanged gifts that year at home and then drove to my grandparents in Massachusetts.

We came back home on the evening of December 26th and after going up to our rooms to unpack,  my sister Em noticed that her room had been gone through since some items were missing. After hearing that, my mom also realized  some of her stuff was gone, too.

It was figured out pretty quickly this wasn't your typicial burglary.  As we started to name items, it was pretty tailored to meets the desires of a very specific demographic.

Here's a list of the inventory that I can still recall and see if you can figure it out:

-Fancy Shampoo/Conditioner (Pantene Selects if I recall correctly)

-One Lucky Vanous (Diet Coke guy) calendar (incidentally- my Christmas gift to Em)

                             Help! I've been kidnapped!

-My one pair of Banana Republic jeans that I scored at Marshall's and paid like $20, tapered, light stone wash and I swear made me look awesome when I hit the clubz ( I had no money and so could not afford a "real" pair of BR jeans, so to find these in a Marshall's was HUGE to me.)

(Yes, I'm still bitter, you'll see why...)

-Some of my Mom's rings - including an emerald ring her parents gave to her

-My sister's diary

I'm sure if my sister read this, she could add to the list, since she bore the brunt of theft.

Yes, a teen girl had hit our house. It would be unfair to call this a "break in", since we had an (admittedly bad) habit of leaving the house unlocked, because we lived in "such a good neighborhood."  I would call this more of a "Walk-in" or perhaps "Sneak In".  But what was more obvious (other than our lack of judgment not locking the front door) was who had done it.

There was a girl up the street from us who was at one time friends with my sister, Em. The girl, I'll call her J, was a few years younger than Em.   J was in 8th grade and her mom had on numerous occasions asked me to sleep over their house while she worked the overnight shift at the Post Office. Sometimes my 16 year old sister would take this gig.  While there was another much younger daughter in the house (about age 6 or 7) in play, the need for the supervision was due to J's behavior, since she had a habit of either sneaking out or having people over. And the people she had over were not, um, helping her study or anything.

My family had been very open-armed to this girl, even though I thought she was a total twit. Not that we were the Bradys by any reach, but we were a good crew for her to be around, had kept an eye on her, took her to places with us,  and made her part of our little family because her home life was pretty rocky, and made more so because of a recent divorce.  My mom, also single, empathized with the mother, and I knew J's mom had been pushed to her limits with J, and was doing her best to keep it together, since and she wasn't getting much assistance from the ex-husband.

I knew J had clipped the items. What burglar comes in for a Diet Coke guy calendar and shampoo? I was PISSED she had done this to us. On Christmas, no less.

I  like to think I'm pretty level headed and hard to frazzle in times of crisis. I find it's best to deal with the X-situation first, and then fall apart/explode/rant when all is said and done.

This was not my shining moment.

My exact words to my mom when I Cagney & Lacey'ed the case: "OH FUCK THIS."

A bullshit me bounded over to her house. I knocked on the door. No answer.  Knowing they were home, I opened the door and said a bunch of "Hello?"s.  This sounds strange now, but it really wasn't since her mom had entrusted me with a key,  her kids, and was I welcome there. I went upstairs to the Mom's room and the mom was there.  I told her what I had suspected, and asked permission to search her daughter's room.  She agreed.  I went in searching through the layers of teen-bedroom detritus  and was able to locate a few items: the jeans (which at the time I didn't know were missing, and now had a hole cut into the knee), Em's calendar, now written all through, Em's diary, which now had a few added entries from "Em", including a bit of her first experience with a tampon and liking how it felt going in & out of her (classy), and the shampoo.

The bigger ticket items: the jewelry, an Irish Belleek ashtray, cash were not there.

I spoke to J's mom and told her what I'd found. I said I needed to find J and she has coming with me. The mom gave a a resigned, "Do what you gotta do."

I found J in the basement. With a boy. If they weren't having sex, they were rounding 3rd by the time I made my presence known.  I told her, "Get your clothes on and get upstairs. And guy- BEAT IT."

More enraged, I walked up to the mother, and said, "Oh and by the way, I just found your kid having sex."

When a clothed J finally made her appearance, I yelled.  A lot.  Mostly "what the fuck are you thinking?" and "You fucked with the wrong family."  I dropped probably no less than 20 F-Bombs that night to a 14 year old girl.  Not my proudest moment at all,  but I had felt so betrayed by her I just couldn't keep my shit together. Our family been there for her so many times, my sister had been her friend when they were younger, and THIS was how she treated us:  by stealing from us on Christmas.

It was all I could do not to jack her up against a wall at this point, mostly  because her (fucking) perfected teen indifferent-to-defiant attitude.  Deciding to take a page from the Scared Straight campaign, I said to her, "You're coming with me."

First stop:  My Mom.

My mom had her moments of getting people to spill- and at a minimum, lay the guilt so heavy you couldn't breathe.  When I came up empty with the jewelry (and a few other items), I thought  she could make her get the stuff back.   We learned  J had a partner, and the partner had the other half of the loot.  It was then advised she could call this person at that moment.  I stood beside J as she called, and  her partner in crime said, "tell them I don't have it anymore." That report got J a quick,  "then I guess we're  seeing the Vernon Police tonight."

I drove the 14 year old thief the police station.

Once there, I get some face time with a officer laid out the details. He advised, giving the 2 idiots 24 hrs to give *all* of the items back, and if not, then press charges. I am sure the cop was seeing the crime for what it was, the value of the items and ages of  the criminal mensas, and perhaps rightly thought we would have a better chance of seeing the (mostly sentimental) items returned if we gave a window for them to do the right thing/avoid a rap sheet.

To be honest, this suggestion was not really a favorite of mine. In my eyes, which were only 21 years old then, saw this in black & white- a crime was committed, and I had a person ADMITTING IT, had recovered some of the items at the home of said admitter-er, and I'm to give this girl some slack? What the fuck, V.P.D.?

Begrudgingly, we gave the damn 24 hours.  The next day we returned to the police station to confirm we had our stuff back "mostly satisfactorily" since all but the cash was returned (surprise). I'm not sure if it was stipulated she had to pay us back or what.  The officer from that day was of my mind that we should have pressed charges AND gotten our stuff back. He was my kinda guy, since even though I knew we could drop a charge, I wanted these girls pissing their pants, at least for a little while.

 

 

The Spirit of Christmas Part II (Teenager Me is Fun edition)

It had been a few years between Mom-administered writing assignments.  The last one was from 1981/2 (wherein I got to first exercise my bullshitting chops as a 3rd/4th grader), and this was being from 1986, which puts me squarely mid-8th grade.

The circumstances surrounding this one are a little unclear, other than that all 4 of us kids knew mom had likely screwed up.

The background:

Four kids, ages ranging from 5 years to almost 14. As far as personality traits go, we had The Sneak, The Goody-goody, The Instigator, and The I Will Not Put Up With Your Stupid Clown Ass Crap (sometimes known as "The Enforcer"). I will not name names on the first 3, but I was #4, and I will say, not with pride, that my self-righteousness did get me into the mix (verbally, physically) with the person who chapped my ass that day. I had wanted things to be fair and right (and er, my way?) and if my mom wasn't going to call out the offender- she called it "choosing your battles" (if you could hear me go in my best Phil Dunphy voice: "LAME"),  I didn't have a problem finding the energy and resource required to bring the perp to justice (I was, after all, the oldest). 

The point is, we were not quite The Waltons.

Whatever happened this day in December 1986 though, from what I can piece from memory and the clues in my essay, Mom had thought we had done (touched) something, and sent us into our rooms. I'm sure there was yelling about this. I'm sure I did my fair share of it, too.  At one point, as we're sitting in our rooms, she was in the hallway and noticed that linen hall closet (also near our rooms) had been slammed shut so hard, that the door was actually pushed INTO the closet.  It didn't break the door, but that is getting some serious speed behind your door slam.

She called us out into the hallway and yelled, "WHO DID THIS?" and all four of us were like, "Uh, not me." And it was the truth. Unfortunately, she was not buying it.  The fact of the matter was, it was our mother who had slammed that door so hard it went inward. But do you really think we'd point that out to a woman who had fire shooting out her eyes?

And so with that and with the threat of a canceled Christmas looming over our heads, found ourselves yet again writing our Spirit of Christmas essays. 

And once again, I found myself with little to say on the subject, but having 2 pages to fill, I had to come up with some nonsense.

The first paragraph was me taking on a "You want an essay? Oh, I Will GIVE YOU An Essay," stance. I employed a very clinical, calculating, almost dictionary-like framework, including underlining words I would define, parenthetical thoughts, quotation marks and other fun gibberish. I also see I threw in an "etc.".  Nice. It's clearly fluff and I was well aware of that. It actually sounds like the wedding toast Joey Tribbiani first thought to give Chandler & Monica (all the "caring and sharing" and "sharing and caring with the love" business). 

A few favorite lines:

    "Loving is not fighting and putting up with certain habits because you care for someone and it doesn't  matter because love comes naturally."  What on earth? I think what I was trying to say was, despite the fact that x-sibling can be a total dickwad, because they are your bro/sister and will be so for life, get over it and just love them already.

    "Sharing is giving and not being greedy. Not necessarily items but love and feelings (proud, happy, sorrow, etc.)" Okay, some more bullshit filler, but I highlight this one because who finds my use of parenthesis there hilariously adorable? My sister read this to me on the phone when she found it, and lost it.

Apparently, I could only stretch the Christmas stuff a full paragraph, so I decided to shift gears and go a different direction. I chose what it meant to be a family. It would seem I took that task quite literally.

    "Motherhood" (this should be good)  "Motherhood is something that you are given and is a responsibility not to be taken for granted. ...It is a tough job but somebody has to do it. The mother stands as the discipliner (ed. note: totally a word) and if feels the need for her own rules is allowed to be "the boss" and make decisions."

Page Two:

    "The Children. The children are the children and are self explanatory." How I've gotten this far in life and not received any fancy awards for writing, well, it defies all logic. 

    "Since I am a child (daughter) (ed note: heh.) I know from previous experience (ed note: double "heh") that children screw up. 

Okay, now I'm about to casually set her up to realize she may have biffed this one:

    "But, I know if there are more than one child that mix ups occur. Today someone touched some things I my conscience knows for a fact that I didn't do it." I think I'm so pissed here, I was just running with whatever was in my head- proofreading be damned.

    "But I don't have any proof of it so she (mother) has no idea who the heck did it. ("Listen, I didn't do it, and if I did, I'd totally let you know.") ...is harder for people to see it if there are an abundance of them. ("But I recognize you've got your work cut out here, so I'm cutting you a little slack. That said, this instance might be a rare moment where your heathen children didn't do it.)

    "Today I touched NOTHING that wasn't mine." ("I believe I've made my point here, woman.")

    "I screwed up at the end (I'm sure I "calmly, reasonably and concisely" expressed my displeasure with being sent to my room for something I had nothing to do with thereby not adding to the mayhem) but someone (that would be you, ...MOM) didn't see that it wasn't all (any) my fault.

I'd come to learn that it was my essay that turned the tide and "saved Christmas" that year. I was many things, but  she knew a liar wasn't one of them. And with my judge & jury personality, she knew that I would have quickly ratted a sister/brother out in a situation like this. It also finally dawned on her that all of us were being straight with her about the door, and that "perhaps" the only other person besides me who had that kind of strength and love for slamming things, was her. Yeah, she knew.

Do you think she admitted that last bit in 1986?

My colors are blush and bashful, so this'll work out well.

Comment left on my Facebook page today, by my sister Emily:

The other day, Libby (my 4 year old niece)  looked over my shoulder at an US Weekly on the plane and said, " MOM, is that Aunt JENNIE in there???" After I told her no, I asked her why she thought that. "MOMMY, she is SO pretty she needs to be in there, wearing a pretty pink dress."

Officially the nicest compliment I've ever received. I am pretty enough to be in US Weekly.  You know, I would love to dominate  the "Who Wore it Better?" feature.

(My) Old Man and the TV

My Dad came to visit us kids this past weekend.  He ended up staying at my house for his last night and  we hung out just the 2 of us for awhile before heading to bed, having a serious conversation about some stuff going on in his life.  Generally speaking, he's not the most open fella about his "feelings", but he was making an effort and I just listened because that is what I do.  Also, it's polite.

Because I have inherited my Dad's piss-poor hearing, or maybe because I didn't want to accidentally A.D.D.-it, I turned the television's volume down so I could focus.  When we hit that point that signaled "important conversation over", MAD TV was on, and I turned it back up so we could watch (to my memory, nothing else was really on at this time, and decided it was good enough for the next 20-30 minutes before I went to bed).

The first full sketch that we were met with...there are no words.

It was about a married couple (wife played by Nicole Sullivan), and the missus was attempting to have a conversation with the hubs about their sex life, specifically,  her issue with him and his Pavlovian response to anything indicating oral sex.  As she is trying to address her issue (and it's made clear the second she mentions it), is that he aggressively takes her by the back of her head and pushes her to his stuff.

This site gag (uh, whatever) is repeated ad nauseum with every double entendre spoken, be it with wifey, the flower delivery guy (whose name: BJ), and both of the wife's in-laws who stop by.

I don't know about you, but watching a sketch about blow jobs with your dad?  It's not high on my list of things to do....yeah, ever. 

So we're both sitting there, not saying a word, and I'm thinking, channel change? (if I knew Rock of Love Bus repeat was on, I would have), express view that this bit is, like, so lame? ignore it and play it cool for one lousy sketch?

I went with the last one. I am really hoping Freud doesn't have anything to say about this, because, ew.

Sorree Libby, You Tigah Now.

Not your mama's babysitter

It's never too early to teach them the importance of proper pretty summer feet.

Sar, age 5.5.

Quotes from the Potty Training Seat, The Libinator, age 2.5

Lib: Mommy! Mommy! I did it! I did it!

The Mom: [inspects Shorty's port-o-can] Uh, no you didn't. Not even a drop.

Lib: Oh.....[thinks about things] I try again.

____________________________________

(While handily courting the fruit snack bribe from Mom)

Lib: I'll take my fruit snack now.

Mom: When you've gone potty you can.

Lib: You can get it ready for me. ('get it ready' for her?)

Mom: Libby, when your done, I'll give you a fruit snack.

Lib: You can give it to me now. I'll just hold it.  Trust me.

( "you'll just hold it"? "Trust me"?? Uh...no.)

_____________________________________

On two separate occassions from her Aunt Kate and her mom, it's been asked what kind of underpants she wants.

So Lib, what kind of underpants to you want?  You want Princess? Dora?...

Lib: RED.

Yeah, I can't wait to see how this one grows up. 

Photo of the Day: The Dad and His Little Girl