Handywipe

So I was sitting at my office desk the other morning and my neck and shoulders felt like monkfish. I mean they felt like they looked like monkfish. You know those pieces of fish that are supposed to be edible, tasty fish, but look like your calf muscles in full on, middle of the night, yeah I better get more potassium in my diet kind of spasm.

My neck and shoulders, but minus the lemon and parsley

I came home early for a de-spasming nap before the Kid needed to be schlepped at 5:00 to another destination for his pleasure and not mine.

But today was the day my handyman decided to attach the new gutters and chainsaw the dead tree in my front yard. I still believed a muscle relaxer could usurp the noise’s position in my ear canals and allow me and my best friend, the heating pad, a couple hours of downtime.

It wasn’t meant to be.

First of all the rest of my back turned into monkfish and then my pelvic area felt like it had never known pleasure in its entire life and therefore all parts decided to mutiny into some serious aching. Then new monkfish filets headed southward to my rather large quad area and to my giant Ukrainian calves.

Damn. These weren’t muscle spasms. Shit. I was getting sick.

And then the hammering began.

Now my handyman just might be the nicest man to have ever walked God’s green earth. I would rather stick icepicks through my forehead before I ever said anything less than perfectly kind to this old soul. We have had long conversations about writing and books and refugees and yoga and everything else your typical handyman probably would have not a snippet of knowledge about. (My handyman could also inform me to not end a sentence with a preposition).

I was happy the dead tree came down because there was this one broken branch, that is, log perched a might precariously between the fork of two lesser branches. I encouraged the Kid to take aim at it with whatever Star Wars or Nerf weapon he could produce, but to no avail. Thank you to my handyman for eliminating that branch and the rest of that rotting tree before it killed one of us and I would have to explain that gruesome accident.

“Mom, how did Mike get the tree down”

“Well, he had a ladder and a chainsaw…”

“Whoa Mom! Ladder and chainsaw should never be used in the same sentence.”

Agreed, but the task had been accomplished.

Now for the gutters. The gutters that were being reattached outside my bedroom windows while I was in the throes of a monkfish-muscle relaxer stupor - that got a little noisy. Shit, can’t I just be sick without the grating sound of metal against metal and a ladder clanging repeatedly across the front of my house.

And I felt stuck because if I got out of bed on either side my handyman would see me in my finest flannel men’s jammies and bird’s nest hair and face fused in a mask of sheer horror that he would see me in such a state.

But we have some history.

Last summer on a clear, bright, sunny day my handyman was repairing the roof on the house next door-because he is my neighbor’s handyman as well. This is the roof directly across from my very open bathroom window, the window devoid of any type of window treatment. I was in this bathroom. I was using this bathroom. I was leafing through my latest copy of Bon Appetit.

The FH used to scold me for parading around MY OWN HOUSE that had minimal window coverings in my less than…well in practically nothing- but hey- a bikini is practically nothing- but generally an acceptable garment that won’t alert the indecent exposure police. Now I am sure he wasn’t worried that someone would start salivating over my giant Ukrainian calves. I am pretty sure he just didn’t want to give our racist neighbors anymore ammunition to report us to codes for our trashbins languishing at the end of our driveway.

  ”Hey, if someone looks in and sees me in whatever state- it is their problem. They are doing the wrong thing. I am perfectly legal and at ease.”

Well, my life and my innocent, absolutely human bathroom activity took a bad turn.

I am fairly certain my handyman saw me wipe.

I mean WIPE.

Like a several wads of Charmin kind of wipe.

I sat down on the floor and started to sweat and hyperventilate. Well, not the hyperventilate part, but that would have been welcome as an attempt to stop the spread of my mortification and maybe just let me pass out.

I crawled across the floor, down one step and up another into my bedroom and regrouped. I looked out another window and my handyman was now on another part of my neighbor’s roof, hopefully looking directly into the bright sun to sear the vision of my bare behind from his mind. Then I hope he went home and had a total blackout night of drinking 151.

So around 4:30 the clanging and hammering stopped. He had nary a fleeting glance of my person that entire afternoon. It’s January. I still need to find a covering for that damn bathroom window.

A Buggy Conversation Full of Ex-Wife Charm

 

Not head lice. I thought this picture was much nicer.

FH: I’m glad I didn’t have the Kid over last night- we have lice going on again.

ME: Gross. Me too, that is I am glad the Kid was with me. Keep that shit away from me. You didn’t get rid of them the last time. That’s why you still have them.

FH: Yeah Yeah.

ME: Did the Kid tell you we got two birds?

FH: Yeah, I think he mentioned something about birds.

ME: Well good for you listening all attentive and such. Did he tell you what he named them?

FH: No.

ME: They are Mr and Mrs Thurston Howell III. Thurston and Lovie.

FH: What decade is this child living in?

ME: Would you prefer he named them Snooki and Kardashian?

FH: No, I guess not.

ME: Did he tell you one of the frogs died?

FH: Yeah. I guess.

ME: What the hell? How about being a father when your kid tells you his pet died??

FH: I did. That’s the reaction a typical father would give over a frog. Why don’t you ask your son how many fish he has killed?

ME: What? So the frog dying is some kind of karma catch-up for his fishing hobby?

FH: No, it’s just that you did the proper mom thing when the frog died and I did the typical dad thing. All I’m saying.

ME: See, you’re an ass and this is why I am the ex-wife with feelings for the dead frog. Ok, go take care of that lice shit and you better not send it my way. There’s a business in East Nashville that will take care of the lice for you.

FH: I can take care of all this.

ME: Uh huh, just like the last outbreak?

FH: Yeah well…

ME: Enjoy your day of delousing.

FH: Uh, will you text me the name of that lice business…

ME: Gladly. Enjoy scraping that comb across your scalp.

FH: This is going to be gross.

ME: Already gross there, skippy, already gross.

Dating: Beware of Phone Booth Owning Opera Singers

I haven’t gone around this block in a while so I thought it was time. Let’s see- I have covered shower squeegees and hot washcloths, minimal sense of humor in the midst of massive sushi mayhem and a potential Mother Hubbard position for the guy with eight kids.

Who have I left out?

Ok- this guy I actually really liked and wish we were still friends, but dumping me apparently meant that a continued friendship was not in the offing.

The first time I met him he brought me the most obnoxious fabric gas station rose and a dried turtle shell. This guy was offbeat and I was liking it. You can forget about perfume and jewels- a rose from Mapco and a little petrified reptile won a little bit of my heart.

Our first date was at La Hacienda and god bless the inventor of tequila. We had a smashing good time- fun yet intelligent banter, good food and a fountain of margaritas. It was proceeding nicely until we got back in his car and he put a tic tac in his mouth and choked on it- choked on it badly, like “oh my god I really like this guy, but he is going to DIE in the next ten seconds if I don’t heimlich the hell out of him. I was grateful when the mint dislodged by his massive heaving and we were able to continue with our evening. He seemed unfazed, but I felt like my margarita buzz was just wasted by the misplacement of a tiny breath mint.

Our dating continued- he was a most enjoyable companion. Very smart, VERY funny, but he exhibited a rather disconcerting habit.

He broke into song at inopportune TIMES.

I mean, he began operatic solos during moments (my moments) of my focus being ELSEWHERE.

I mean…

SHUT UP! SHUT THE HELL UP!!! LIKE RIGHT NOW!!!

Oh shit…just forget it….

He also owned different things.

Like a phone booth in his driveway. With a working light. That he turned on at night.

I couldn’t help but project into the future about his husband potential and how could I possibly make him get rid of the phone booth. It wasn’t really that feng shui for me. Or necessary.

And he owned three cars, but not just cars. One car was normal- a big white pick up. Two of the vehicles belonged to the first half of the 20th century.

I am not often practical, but I had to ask…

“You really bother to insure all three of these things?”

I went off-roading with him in this…

Jeep Willys

For my 40th birthday we went-I think the term is- mudding.

Vertically.

I really hoped I was going to make it to my 41st birthday.

But I hung on and even though my usually styled hair was a mass of muddy mattedness and I smelled like a goat and I learned to use a winch or be stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere Lebanon, TN, I had a glorious time.

And I pretty much did on most days with him. So I felt sad when he didn’t want to go out anymore. I would have gladly remained friends because I thought he was a really good man, but I think his flaw was his inability to be honest with me- I think he really wanted to have children- his own children- and I have been one and done for a long, long time.

So I hope he is happy and doing wonderful in this world because I actually think it is a better place with him in it.

And I certainly hope he is out there off-roading with a fabulous woman by his side.

Well, she can dance a cajun rhythm,

jump like a willys in four wheel drive.
She’s a summer love for spring, fall and winter.

 She can make happy any man alive

~from Sugar Magnolia by the Grateful Dead

Hmmmm….

What?

I'm Thinking...

Still Thinking...

I got it! Yes, Mom I am ready to accept Colin Firth as my stepfather!

My Saturday. Why?

Agarn July 2011-January 2012

It actually started really great. The Kid was happy to have some morning time with the pile of super hero movies he got for Christmas and I had a couple of hours to write with one of my besties. So one big ass mocha and one toasted sesame bagel with butter later (sesame? am I really that predictable Jennifer??) I knocked out some new paragraphs and supplemented a few old ones with some pretty rocking adjectives. I try to incorporate languid when I can because it is one of the best adjectives ever. See List Love . Lugubrious not so much, but I am trying to find it a home.

My morning took me back home to find the Kid still enjoying the lazyness of the noon hour and he didn’t really want to budge to run mundane errands with me. All mothers out there- you know very well how easy it is to run errands without a kid in tow- even if that kid is twelve and can help carry stuff.

Score. Errands accomplished.

So at this point I was in a bit of a time crunch- just a wee bit- because I was going to get a homemade chicken pot pie (make that two because the Kid can inhale one for dinner and another for dessert) and chocolate cupcakes in the oven because we wanted to celebrate Michelle’s birthday. But I had to accomplish this before the football game started.

So errands run, groceries put away, the beginnings of a roux on the stove and I am furiously peeling carrots when…

insert string of loud expletives here, the ones that begin with F and end in ER

What should have been a shaving of carrot skin dangling from my peeler was actually a large shaving of the top of the knuckle on the middle finger of my right hand.

The fucks were flying.

So as I am trying to stem a large flow of blood and keep a roux from burning the Kid is crying because Agarn was on his back-and not in a come hither I am ready for frog love with my froggy aquarium-mate kind of back position, more like I am about to meet my frogmaker.

Oh holy shit this day is going downhill fast.

I am BLEEDING and wondering if this is emergency room time and hugging a Kid about to lose a pet and then my Mom calls to see what we are up to on this beautiful Saturday.

“Uh Mom, I just cut myself (I am answered with  a rush of oh my gods and probably a reach for a rosary) and Agarn is about to die and the Kid is in tears and I am almost in tears because my fuck you finger is bleeding like a stuck pig and my goddamned roux is burning, but otherwise-hey, typical Saturday. But can I call you back in a little bit after I stop making my kitchen look like a scene from The Godfather and after I add another denizen to the fucking pet cemetary in our yard. That’s ok? Great Mom, love you too. Bye!” 

Oddly enough, the Kid accepts Agarn’s death with sadness and acceptance, but I want to find little teeny tiny defrib paddles to shock him back to life because I realize how much that little green blob meant to me. The Kid made him a paper origami burial shroud- shaped like a frog- and he wrote a little note in it. He dug a fine hole and placed Agarn in there with love and covered it in little rocks. We cried for a while and then went back inside.

Oh yeah- my finger.

Still bleeding.

“Mom, you need to go get stitches. That’s a really bad cut.”

Shit. I just want to watch football and eat pot pie!!!

And here’s a good part- I am such a rotten mother I don’t have one damn bandaid in the entire house or a tube of neosporin. But I did have peroxide. That was fun.

So Michelle texts me and says she and Jaks are on their way over for the birthday dinner that was supposedly permeating my house with its delicious smell.

Yeah, well I have a little problem…

So the two college kids that I regularly feed and house came over not minding a bit that the promised birthday dinner was a congealed buttery blob of a roux on the stove and completely non-existent cupcakes.

If anything these two precious girls of mine are adaptable

They came with pizza, pop, bandaids and neosporin. They didn’t mind my kitchen was a total shitmess from the day’s adventues and even offered to clean up. But I wasn’t entirely sure of the location of that hunk of skin I took off with the veggie peeler and thought I might be going a little too far to ask them to clean up in my biohazard.

So the four of us sat on the couch, ate, laughed hysterically and watched ZooKeeper because you can’t go wrong with smartass talking animals.

By midnight I was exhausted and the young’uns were still going. I told them I was going to bed and that I couldn’t understand why these to twentysomething colleges kids wanted to hang out with a middle-aged mother- who can’t perform the simple task of peeling carrots- and her kid on a Saturday night and that they must be lame.

But I am thankful we all happily agree our kind of lame is pretty special.

A Little Heartfelt Advice For Parents With Exes, New Spouses, Stepchildren and Extended Families

Part I

My cell phone just rang and it was the FH.

“Hey, we’re having a lot of fun and the Kid feels like spending the night. Is that cool with you?”

“Sure no problem.”

“I’ll bring him back to you sometime tomorrow morning.”

“Don’t worry about it. I have to go to Lowe’s and Petsmart anyhow so I can grab the Kid from you while I am in your neighborhood.”

“Great! See you tomorrow.”

“Kiss him goodnight for me and tell him I love him.”

“I promise I will.”

VERBATIM

Now this kind of conversation is not unique for us. The FH and I have had many, many conversations like this. What makes this conversation important? What makes this conversation different from many conversations that so many divorced parents have across this great modern family country of ours.

Time is all ok. My time. His time. The Kid’s time. About nine years ago some miserable bitter divorce judge told us what our parenting plan should be - every other weekend, Wednesday dinner and home by 6:00 pm, you get Christmas this year and the other one gets Thanksgiving next year. And blah blah blah about birthdays, fall break, spring break,  Arbor Day, Bastille Day even though it’s a French holiday, Chinese New Year, Ramadan, and Groundhog Day.

And we haven’t looked at it since that day.

Every week we check schedules and discuss drop offs, pick ups, overnights, weekends, practices, and  the inevitablility of any given day going all wonky with the unexpected.  If we had stuck to the original schedule NONE of this two household parenting thing would have worked. Crazy work schedules, out of town trips, flu in one house and lice in the other do not work with such stringent parameters.  I eavesdropped on a conversation of women yesterday at a local coffeehouse and they were discussing someone’s divorce. They were talking about time. And adhering to the letter of the law and not one minute late or there will be a call to an attorney.

Gross. It was just gross. And I felt bad for those kids they were discussing. And I felt very fortunate.

The Kid knows both his mom and dad speak to each other kindly and get life figured out for him so he can concentrate on his priorities- legos, Star Wars, his friends, his little frog- without the drama of parents hanging onto and dispensing their crap.

Now before you coo and gush about this relationship, don’t give me too much credit in being nice to the FH- I mean he is the FH for a multitude of reasons.  I am sure he will piss me off for something and I will take advantage of any opportunity to correct his grammar or spelling or actually any inadequacy about him that I feel needs to be addressed with my unsolicited snark. I can’t get too warm and fuzzy on his ass. I do have certain standards to uphold and giving him shit is one of them.

When the Kid was about six years old he said this nugget of perception and wisdom to me:

“Mom I am really lucky. I get you and Daddy whenever I want.”

They are not stupid. They figure it out. They know.

Part II

Children that are not yours still need your love. If you have stepchildren try to create a relationship that allows love to develop, but if this seems so completely out of reach at least just be nice to to them. Remember- They get it. They know. Please don’t be mean. You are not helping by not being nice. This is a short paragraph on (step)parenting advice. Why? Beause I am naive and idealistic enough to think that what I just said should suffice. Truthfully, I don’t think it should have to be said at all.

So just love those kids. That’s it. Simple enough.

A Letter to the Pittsburgh Steelers

Dear Pittsburgh Steelers:

I have a request. Please don’t cut Hines Ward. Please let him play for one more season.

I live in Nashville, TN in the middle of a sea of blue clad Titans fans and I have never once wavered in my loyalty to my beloved Steelers. My son and I proudly wear our black and gold in public knowing that the Steelers force field will protect us. The Steelers logo is on my car and I even have a Troy Polamalu magnet on my refrigerator complete with long black curls and a big number 43.

Every week during football season I talk with my mom on the phone and we gush over the beautiful smile that appears on Hines Ward’s face and how Mike Tomlin seems like such a nice guy.

I realize there are important things like contracts and salary caps and the need for younger and faster players who will become the next generation of Steeler champions.

But you know what we really need? We need a team in the truest definition of that word. Players that last a long time together on one team. It seems so rare in sports. I’d like to have a little of that back.

Please let Hines Ward retire a Steeler- but please make it next year. The Steeler fans need him for one more year.

Thanks a bunch!

GiGi

And Writing Well Part II or What the Kid Teaches Me

Since last night…

Did you finish your math homework?

Yes- it was easy as pie.

He said this just as I completed the word pie in my previous post.

Mom, what does adversary mean?

Look it up in your dictionary.

But Mooooommmm, YOU are my dictionary.

And then just before we read another chapter of Fablehaven- a chapter I was dreading because I was drag ass tired…

Mom, you are just the perfect mom. Thanks.

So maybe I will try to be a little less worried about how well he writes and take comfort in that sweet little heart.

Easy as pie.

How Do You Teach a Kid to Write Well?

Well, damned if I know.

Give me food allergies, give me asthma, give me an FH, give me how to explain Love Actually when he walks in on me watching it. I got it. I got all this down.

I make him all his favorite meals and coo at his frogs. I have his friends over for spaghetti and sleepovers.

I am fucking June Cleaver on antidepressants, but all his laundry is neatly folded and I read to him every night.

How do I teach him to be a good writer?

Or more accurately and let’s get a little closer to the crux of the biscuit in GiGi world- how in the hell do I not totally lose my shit when his writing sucks.

When it sucks donkey balls.

How do I convey the beauty of a landscape of adjectives and adverbs and the precision of  complex sentence structure? How do I articulate that sentences and paragraphs are akin to the lego structures he builds with such extreme tenacity and detail? How do I get him to care and to love it?

Some people are afraid of spiders and some people are afraid of high places. I am afraid of the Kid not writing well. I am afraid of him being that kid in college that professors talk about when they poke fun at horrific papers.

He has an exceptional intellect and impressive vocabulary. His imagination soars through Middle Earth and beyond. I am often told he is a perceptive old soul.

But just because you throw butter, flour and apples together doesn’t mean you have a pie.

I am frustrated and perplexed and I feel like an ass.

I think I am a pretty good mom and I can occasionally write something worth reading, but I am not a good writing teacher. But I better get it figured out because I have zero faith in the school or his teachers to take the time and make the effort to accomplish this goal.

So I better get to making that pie.

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya…

Well, not really.

Last night as the Kid took his first fencing class, he may have realized that being Inigo Montoya, the Man in Black or Captain Jack Sparrow is not as easy as it may look.

When the Kid was a baby I thought I was going to be the mom that allowed no toy guns, swords or other weapons into my pacifist house. That didn’t last long. We have had squirt guns, nerf guns complete with fully automatic capabilities, plastic and wooden swords, plastic and wooden knives, and enough light sabers to bring down the Empire and that bastard Darth Vader. My hippy-trippy peace, love and joy do-gooder ways took a back seat when sparring with the Kid and pretending to be a Jedi or Jack Sparrow was actually more fun than maintaining my bleeding heart liberal views.

The requests for fencing began around age three for the Kid and by age five (again the Kid) I took fencing lessons because he was not old enough or strong enough (and it was one of my before 40 goals), so I thought if I had a bit of expertise I could at least share some knowledge.

Fencing was completely FUN! There was something very satisfying about thrusting a long, sharp foil at a male counterpart who in my imagination strangely resembled the FH. I aimed for the heart every time.

So I promised the Kid that when he was old enough he could do fencing too.  So here we are. I informed him that just because he has seen Pirates of the Caribbean and The Princess Bride ten bajillion times that it does not mean he knows more than the fencing teacher. He promised he would not try to be a fencing know it all. It was pretty amusing watching his very unmenacing “en garde” and his fancy fencing footwork across a crowded gym. He was so focused and intense! I know he was channeling his sword-wielding heroes.

And I just may have to pat myself on the back a bit for really knowing my son. He was never meant to be that football or baseball athlete. Soccer was about as team sport as he could ever manage and was never really all that thrilled about it. I think if it was more like Quidditch and dueling with dragons he may have been more on board.

So as the weeks progress I anticipate hearing the following words with renewed vigor…

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

Ah. Wuv. Twoo wuv!