From an Angry Wife

Dear Idiot Brother-in-law,

You are an ungrateful snot. Pay your god damned car note before you completely fuck up your brother's credit. If my husband and I can't buy a house or get a student loan because of YOU and your ridiculous need to drive a sports car, I will BEAT THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF YOU.

Don't ask us for Christmas or birthday presents anymore. Don't ask for "help" buying a motorcycle. Pay us back the money you already owe us (which is accruing interest, by the way), and start acting like a responsible adult instead of a hissy-fit-throwing child. How can you be so behind on your bills when YOU HAVE A FREE APARTMENT?!

You're a jackass and I can't stand you. Stop coming to the house when Bizarro Dad is not here.

Up yours,
Sleepless Mama

Traits

I enter the bedroom, plop down on my husband's stomach, and start kissing his face.
Me: *smooch smooch smooch*
Bizarro Dad: Okay, okay, I get it. You love me.
Me: Of course I do.
BD: It's all a front.
Me: What is? My kissing you?
BD: Your loving me. You only love me because you love my beautiful-baby-producing ability.
Me: So you're saying I only love you because I... love you? And because we made pretty kids?
BD: Yep, that's right. You said, "I think that's the one with the right genes."
Me: (giggling) You got me honey. I sat down and made a Punnett square and determined that all your most desirable features that I liked would be dominant, and all the ones I didn't like would be recessive to my dominant ones. Thus we would reproduce highly attractive offspring.
BD: I knew it.
Me: Unfortunately, Sia accidentally inherited your tiny-butt gene.
BD: Well, they can't be perfect.
Me: And it's probably better that way. Can you imagine how much trouble we'll have with her as a teenager if she has a big ass?
BD: Terrible, I tell you.
Enter Sia, who climbs onto our bed.
Me: Hi sweety.
BD: Poor baby, what did I do to you? You don't have a butt.
Sia: (putting hand on her butt) It's right here, Daddy.

Grammy Mammy Pants

There are two things that run in my family along the matriarchal line: diabetes, and storing all our fat in the front of our stomachs, resulting in that six-months-pregnant look throughout the year.

Grandma, a diabetic of many years and a great lover of Dr Pepper and Mexican pastries, has finally reached the point of requiring insulin shots. It's kind of sad, but at least it's a tiny needle attached to a self-measuring device that looks like a pen, rather than the giant nail stuck to a glass tube her sister and mother used back in the day. Naturally Grandma has to worry about the usual related ailments, like slow-healing cuts and bug bites, shakiness, confusion, hypertension, and those whacked-out mood swings. Perhaps the strangest symptom of her diabetes has been her constant annoyance at anything squeezing her.

I wish I could count the number of times she's repeated "Diabetics don't like having anything pressing on us." She means things like the shoulder straps of purses, anything with a tight waistband, and overly tight socks (you've not been truly disturbed until you've seen a centenarian in leg warmers and flip-flops). But most of all, she can't stand to wear pants. In fact, I think it would not be a stretch to say she's probably never worn a single pair of pants in all of her 78 years. Elastic waist, jeans, slacks, belted stuff, things held up by suspenders, it doesn't matter, if the thing has a separate hole for each leg and is not a skirt or dress, she won't wear it, clamoring "It hurts, it hurts, I know it hurts, even though I have never tried it on, ever, I know it hurts."

However, for reasons that are bathroom related and are too gross to share with you, my grandma has now been forced to wear pants when she visits doctors' offices and labs.

Just as Grandma was worried about the possibility of giant needle-nails big enough to crucify with, she's also been concerned about the vice-grip waist of the slacks of yesteryear. She seems to forget that modern weighty women do not bother with the girdles and pointy bras of 50 years ago or, so help me, corsets. We would rather buy a larger size with a smaller number and feel comfortable while they trick ourselves into feeling thin.

Be that as it may, Mom and I were still worried that the elastic waistband of some stretch pants might still be too tight for my delicate little old flower of a granny. In fact, I thought it very likely that she'd let my mom buy the pants and then just not wear them. And of all the things that run in my family, the most powerful is the sense of pissed-offed-ness that comes from spending good money on something that isn't going to be used at all.

And then inspiration struck.

Since I inherited the looks-like-a-beer-gut gut, I've found that the easiest way to be comfortable without tossing on sweats is to put on my old maternity jeans. The elastic is a good two inches wide, so I don't have a narrow piece of rubber slicing into my belly, and it rests higher up on the abdomen. There are no drawstrings to stand there and mess with before I sit on the Throne. And the pants actually look nice while still being designed to expand as I need them to. I told Mom all about it.

I wonder if Grandma knows that she and I are basically wearing the exact same preggo pants without either of us actually being pregnant?

Edgy Mommy

You know that feeling you get when you're nervous about something but you're trying not to show it, but it keeps on popping out anyway?

That's what I'm like today, on my oldest child's first day of school.

There were no tears, just a few moments of agitation when I realized that my daughter was listed as a car-rider instead of a walker, at which point I began to freak out just a little bit at the thought of my poor five-year-old being left to wander in a sea of car-riders at the front of the school, doing battle with traffic and older kids all alone. I tend to exaggerate negative scenarios when I'm nervous.

Walking home after dropping her off this morning was sad. Little Sia, who wanted to wear her backpack just like Gina, got upset with us for not letting her stay at school. This made me even more freaked out, until she started asking us to carry her on the way back, and I realized she's still got some baby left in her.

My mom, who lives across the street from me, "just so happened" to be out mowing her ditch as we trudged home. When she saw us pass by, the mower magically disappeared and she walked over to inform me that she'd already cried this morning and that my daughter now belongs to the school district, not me. I don't know why she keeps telling me this. Maybe because that's how she felt when my brother or I started school. Or maybe she just always felt that I didn't belong to her because I was a Grandma's Girl, and she wanted me to know what that felt like (i.e.: rub my nose in it). I get paranoid about the intentions of others when I get nervous.

As a nice surprise, we brought over the old-fashioned desk from Grandma's that I used for my homework when I was in elementary school.

Solid wood and metal construction, with a swivel seat and a hinged desktop that opens to storage space. Notice the black circle in the top right corner. That's not a painted-on circle, my friends. It's a hole. For an inkwell.

I focus on something minute when I'm nervous.

Mom stayed with me for part of the day, doing me the favor of distracting me with unrelated subjects, like income tax evasion. The rest of the day, however, dragged on like a recital of the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles. And Azariah begat Helez, and Helez begat Eleasah... I had to do something with all that time and jittery energy, so I made a coconut pie. Yes, that's right, I have turned into Kitty Forman.

Every time the phone rang, I thought it might be the school and jumped about six feet in the air (a feat to be applauded, as I am less than five feet tall). Fortunately it was always a family member calling to ask a question or keep me informed of good news. For once I am thankful that my sister-in-law is an active busybody with so much influence in the school, because it means she was allowed to go check in with my daughter's teacher without needing to make an appointment first. Turns out I gave birth not to a girl, but to a Chatty Cathy doll.

Finally, thank Father Time, 3:00 rolled around and our whole family once again made the trek to the school. And waited. And waited. And stood around waiting some more. It is apparently school policy to wait until ALL the cars picking up their kids are gone before dismissing the walkers. We were there for a good half an hour.

And what happened when they finally let my baby out of there? First of all, she walked out into 90 degree weather wearing a sweater, because it was so freaking cold in that school. And then they made her go the long way around to the small gate (about 40 yards away) instead of bringing her to the main gate (where the cars would be entering, if there were any cars left, which there weren't, because they waited FORTY YEARS to make sure there were no moving vehicles). But my poor Gina, she was having none of that. She caught sight of us as I was trying to take her picture, and she wrenched herself away from the older girl holding her hand and came running to me in tears. I rushed out to meet her. It was just like on TV, when you see two people running to each other across a field in slow motion, only the grass wasn't as high, and her father was yelling "Go back! Go back!"

As I walked her back to the rest of the kids (after all, she must get used to going the right way, no matter how stupid it is), I found out why she's so upset.

"Mommy, they took away all my school surprise!"

"Your school supplies?"

"Yeah, I lost them, they're missing! I want my school sur-plies, Mommy. I let them down."

Cue Bizarro Dad and me trying very hard not to laugh and failing.

I would post a picture of her highly upset face as she told me "We'll talk about it later," (which, by the way, when the heck did she start saying things like that? What are they teaching her in that school?) but the picture contains too much private information. Apparently on the first day of school, they not only put your name on your clothes, but also your grade level, classroom number, lunch card number, how you get home, favorite ice cream flavor, and the names of the last five places you used a public restroom. Paranoid much, Principal Geometry?

Well, at least it's over. And at least I got to tease my mom by telling her that since she's the first of three generations of our family to attend this school, that means Gina is referring to her when she says "My ancestors went to this school."

Oh, hell. I just remembered: I have to get up and do it all over again tomorrow.

My Popo

Eighty-two years of living. Fifty-nine years of marriage. Laboring, sweating, building, repairing, fighting, sailing, fishing, hunting, teaching, swearing, holding, talking, loving, breathing.

Years of suffering.

Done now.

No more struggling just to breathe.

No more arguing over who did what to whom.

No more fear.

No more pain.

Rest now.

Float on the lovely ocean in my dreams.

Goodbye, Popo. I'm sorry I can't cry, but I really do love you.

Hatchling Unmutated Non-combative Chelonians

Bizarro Dad told our daughters that if we couldn't take them to the beach this weekend, we'd get some new fish for the fish tank (45 gallons, and we only have two algae eaters and one very aggressive cichlid who eats any other fish we introduce).

Bizarro Dad then remembered his final exam is on Monday, and if he passes THAT, the state exam is two days later. All his spare time (when he's not watching Black Snake Moan, apparently) is devoted to study and making flashcards. Guess where we're not going this weekend?

Knowing this would be the case, my darling husband went to a nearby fish store, presumably to get some more cichlids or a betta, something we're already equipped to take care of.

It was so simple. I thought it would be safe. He went alone.

He came back an hour later with two Red Ear Slider turtles and a floating faux log.

Most of the stuff they need, we already have, like a filter and an aquarium heater. The pet shop guy gave him a little bag of turtle pellets, so they've got food. And of course there's the log, so little Crush and Squirt have a place to climb up and rest themselves. Even the cichlid, Nemo, left them alone once he realized he can't bite them into submission (those darn hard shells). Turtles are completely compatible with our tank.

But uh-oh. Pet Shop Guy neglects to inform us that we also need a "basking area" for the turtles, a place where they can climb up and sun themselves under the vitamin-enriching rays of the UVB lamp.

Husband goes out and gets ANOTHER floating thing, one that will remain stationary, and cuts a hole in the tank hood so the light from our lamp (repurposed from our garage lighting) can get through. The turtles love it! Except that we don't actually have a UVB bulb, and they're just making due with a 60 watt.

Oh, and it turns out Crush has an open wound where his tail used to be. This is especially bad, since all his peeing, pooping, and sexual activity will take place from one location: the cloaca, located in (you guessed it) his tail. Bizarro Dad has to take him back to Pet Shop Guy for an exchange. Oldest Daughter, who is now sobbing about Crush's departure, is told that Crush is getting his tail fixed. She moves on to sobbing about missing Daddy, and when is Daddy coming home?, and I lost my Daddy and miss him so much, can I see a picture of Daddy?

My research also indicates that we should throw away the pellets Pet Shop Guy gave us and get some high quality stuff, in addition to calcium supplements, aquatic plants, red-leaf lettuce, that UVB bulb I mentioned, the occasional live prey, a vet that can handle exotic animals, and a home improvement loan.

Wait, what? Oh yeah, you read that right. Two adult Red Ears require two hundred gallons of water, and if either of them are females then I have to provide a nesting area as well. Do you have any idea how much it will cost to build a two hundred gallon pond complete with filtration, nesting area, basking area, shaded area, unclimbable border (to prevent escapes), and protection from predator animals?

The best part, though? Captive Red Ear Sliders have an average lifespan of 40 years.

Forty. Years.

I will be 68 years old. My children will be middle-aged and have their own grandchildren on the way before these turtles no longer need me to care for them.

Don't get me wrong, the turtles are very cute, and I look forward to enjoying their presence. But I wasn't expecting a 40-year commitment to drop in my lap because my husband promised to take the kids to the beach the day before his final exam and then suddenly remembered he had to STUDY!

Next time, I don't care if it's raining, exam time, or two days before my due date, I'm taking those girls to the beach. That, or making sure I don't send Bizarro Dad to the pet shop alone. God help me if he brings home a pet that requires I name one of our great-grandkids its legal guardian in our Will.

My New Hero

When I gave birth in a military hospital, I had a private room all to myself (well, if by "private" you mean "sixteen different nurses, doctors, midwives, medical assistants, orderlies, and various emergency pediatric personnel." Sterilized equipment was used, along with monitors for both my contractions and baby's heart rate. Someone even came in with a what looked like a really REALLY long plastic crochet hook and burst my water for me. I'd taken classes on childbirth and how to take care of a real live baby. I had blankets and pillows, a bed that converted into a birthing chair, an bassinet with a warming pad inside it, oh and drugs (not an epidural, because I'm not a wimp, but a form of Demerol, because I'm not insane, either).

This evening my dog gave birth under my house. In the dirt. In the dark. By herself. With no prior experience, no instruction in what to do or how to do it, and no one to help her. (I didn't know what was going on until I heard the tiny cries. They sounded like cats.) The only way I can see them is to stick my camera under the house and aim it into their little hollow.

My dog is officially my new hero. Mother and babies (number unknown) appear to be doing fine, although I hope to take them to the vet this weekend if possible.

Congratulations to Xanga the Wonderdog!

CrazyHead Explained

As I mentioned before, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention, Subsection: Hispanic Party Regulations, I did NOT serve alcohol at my child's 3rd birthday party, nor did I hire a DJ or mariachis or even rent a moonwalk. Paying for music and a giant inflatable castle just wasn't financially feasible this year, and even if it were, I don't think I would have bothered. That's NOT how I roll. As far as not buying beer for any of my guests, I know, Manny, disgraceful to my people, but since I was raised by an alcoholic who made every holiday and occasion hell with the addition of beer or spirits available to everyone, I have refrained from inflicting the same shame upon my own daughters.

Slouchmonkey, since you're taking notes, I'll answer you as well: No, postponement doesn't really happen with a kids party, not when there's only one day when everyone who can help you is off work and so many things have to be ordered/prepared in advance, like food, the cake (which does not count as the food), 50 lbs of ice, etc., not to mention prearranged entertainment or sno-cone machine/popcorn machine/table and chair rentals. (Tangent: Do you know that you can actually hire a girl to come to your child's party dressed as a non-slutty Princess Jasmine and have her do little crafts and games with the children? This is not even the most over-the-top thing I've seen at middle class parties.)

To be fair, I wasn't expecting quite so many adults at a kid party (some of my relatives dropped in uninvited, but since they brought gifts I let it go), and I had initially planned to have everyone outside so the kids could play in the sprinklers and toss water balloons at each other. But I'll tell you one word that saved my living room from a massive pinata beatdown: CARPORT. That has saved many parties from being exclusively indoor affairs. Once the rain is not quite so torrential, a carport is your best friend. If you don't have one, then for God's sake, have a clean garage people can hang out in, preferably with a beam or hook in the center of the ceiling from which to hang that pinata.

One activity I wish we'd been able to do was Smoke Egg War. Basically, you take empty egg shells (1 inch hole on the top, washed, dried, and saved up in advance) and fill them with flour, then cover the holes with tape and crepe paper. Yes, just like Confetti Eggs, only messier. Outside, you throw the eggs on the ground (or crack them on someone's head) and let the flour get picked up by the wind and make a fake smoke. Nobody really wins, but everyone has a good time. I was looking forward to this activity, but Bizarro Dad warned me that even if it hadn't rained, Smoke Eggs + Sprinklers = T0rtillas All Over the Front Yard.

*sigh* I never get to have any fun.

Just Call Me Ms. CrazyHead

Insanity is trying to jam 23 people into one living/dining room with one loveseat, one recliner, a variety of dining chairs, office chairs, and lawn chairs, 2 ice chests (no alcohol), 7 pizzas, 1 giant salad, 2 cakes, 1 dinner table, 2 little tables, 10(?) gifts, 4 kid-friendly-but-messy indoor activities, 10 party favor bags, and 1 enormous SpongeBob SquarePants pinata bigger than the birthday girl. During a rainstorm.

Thank the Maker, the next kid's birthday is not for another 6 months.

Blessing or curse?

Last week my mother told me that if she ever has heart failure, she does NOT want a pacemaker installed. Especially not one with a defibrillator.

Her father, my grandpa, is in ICU right now. His lungs keep filling up with fluid and his kidneys are failing, so his heart has to work ridiculously hard to keep the blood flowing. It's so painful just to breathe that the nurses are keeping him sedated. He has all these medications and fluids and tubes and inserts and oxygen masks and goodness knows what else. If we take him off, he won't die quickly, but will suffer for several weeks, so that's not an option.

When he had his stroke (was it last month?), the only thing that kept him from dying was the defib in his pacemaker, which he had installed after a previous stroke several years ago. It sent a series of shocks to his heart because it detected that the heartrate fell below some predetermined number. My grandfather was being electrocuted from inside his own body, and it kept him alive. Which would have made us happy, I guess, were it not for his near-constant pleas for death for the last year. Even as I sat in the hospital watching him drown, one of the nurses looked up at the monitor and said "Oh, that red light means his pacemaker is doing something."

I am sure he was very happy for the extra five years his pacemaker gave him right. He was able to live long enough to walk again and see both my children and enjoy their laughter. But now, after this stroke, he can't remember who my kids are, nor can he move his leg or remember how to speak English. This most recent stroke was so bad, he has reverted back almost completely to Spanish, his language of comfort. Not an uncommon phenomenon, but seeing as he did not allow his children to learn Spanish when they were little, they now cannot translate for him when he speaks to his white and Asian doctors. Grandma simply refuses to visit him and translate for him anymore (let's just call it a prior grudge), so Grandfather is surrounded by people who can't understand him. Not that it matters much now, seeing as he's unresponsive to anything, even when you shout in his ear.

My mother seems to be in denial about his condition. She tells me that the machines he's on are "just giving him a little help." It is true that taking him off dialysis won't kill him immediately, but she has this idea that he will walk again and come home eventually. Since she's the one who's usually talking to all the doctors, I would think she'd know better than all of us that this stroke was too severe. True, she has seen her father come back from death's door and walk again. But why does she think that will happen every time?

For the last few years, whenever Grandpa told her he wanted to die already, she'd get mad and tell him off. I don't know what arguments she used against him, but it probably involved all those doctors, nurses, and physical therapists who worked so hard to keep him alive. She told me he was just saying he wanted death and not admitting he's really scared to die, but I think he might know more about that than she does. Does she really think he would rather be trapped in his own body than dead and free of this pain?

I don't want to see my parents like this, with bleeding bed sores and catheters and swollen yellow bodies and no clue who I am. I want my mom to live long enough to really know her granddaughters, and for them to know her, but at what point do you say "Sorry Mom, but now you're just existing for the sake of existence"? I wonder, will I ever be faced with carrying out my mother's wishes? Will I have a doctor thrusting a form at me and saying "Do you want your mom to live or die?" and another one saying "What about her quality of life?"

Time Capsule

25 Years Ago

I drove a car that looked like this:

I was three and a half. One of my mom's brother's had died right before my birthday, so when she had my brother, she gave him my uncle's name as a middle name. True to family tradition, nobody ever called my brother by his first name or middle name, and instead called him something else entirely: "Bub." By this time 25 years ago, my brother was two and a half months old and was already a better baby than I ever was. He was what Mom called a "sleeping baby." Very quiet, always asleep, not colicky and fussy like I was. I'm glad he was such a good baby, because I would have hated for my mother to have TWO babies who cried for 24 hours straight. She would have gone even crazier than she already was.

I have very few memories from this age. I do remember my 3rd birthday party. It was a costume party (my birthday is in October), and I was Minnie Mouse. The tail hurt my butt. I remember, at some point, standing in a doorway and looking at my mother in the kitchen, asking her when I was going to turn 4. Once I translated my brother's baby-speak into English for my Dad. And I even recall my mother getting upset with me because, when she asked me to grab several diapers for her as we were leaving, I didn't know how many "several" was and had to ask. I don't think she was upset that I didn't know; she was just in a hurry, and she didn't want to have to try to explain something as she was backing out of the door and down the steps with a heavy carrier in her hands.

That year, my parents would separate and, if memory serves, divorce. I did not understand why my father could not be with me anymore, and I cried for him all the time. I have never ever forgotten that pain, not even during the times I have lived with him. It is burned on my soul.

10 Years Ago

I drove a grey car just like this:

I was 18, in my senior year of high school, and had been living with my dad for three years. It had been over a year since my baptism into a religion different from that of my parents. I was engaged to a young man who, at the time, was serving a mission for our church. Yes, I said "engaged." He got on his knees and proposed and everything. My readers know him as Notorious D.I.C. At this time I was involved in Honor Society, JV soccer, calculus study sessions (in prep for the Advanced Placement exam), college credit English class, 5:30 AM seminary class, and other stuff I don't remember anymore. At church I spent two hours every Sunday as a Nursery assistant (I don't know who I was supposed to be assisting, since there was no Nursery leader to speak of, just me and whoever volunteered to help that day). Most nights I didn't sleep at all, staying awake to chisel at the mountain of homework or work on scholarship essays and college applications. I also spent a fair amount of time writing to and calling(!) my boyfriend.

During this time I was in and out of depression. I know, I know, how could I function while depressed? It's fairly simple, really: habit. I had been depressed since, as you see above, the age of 3. It was second nature, although it certainly didn't make my daily tasks any easier. I was driven to succeed in school, but sometimes I would burst into tears or faint without warning. During a practice AP exam, I had terrible back spasms. My calc teacher urged me to stop the test and just go home, but I insisted on taking the test, pain and all. I had to lie flat on the classroom floor, and I cried whenever I moved. When I finally left school and drove myself home, nobody was there. I called my boyfriend's mother, and she drove me to Minor Emergency Care. She remains my friend to this day.

That year I avoided prom (I thought it would make my boyfriend happy), I graduated magna cum laude, and I was accepted to the school of my choice. That year I spent a lot of time wondering if my boyfriend actually loved me, and whether I still loved him, and what this meant to my future. That year I wanted to just die a few dozen times, but I always woke up in the morning, and I just kept on going. I didn't know any other way to be. Prayer maybe kept me from going over the edge, but it didn't keep me off that edge, no matter how hard I prayed.

The following year, my mother would remarry. I did not like her husband very much, as he was obviously a terrible alcoholic and had no job. But then Mom always had poor taste in boyfriends, and since I was living in another city by then and no longer had to live daily with her chosen companion, it didn't much matter to me who she married, so long as she wasn't getting abused.

5 Years Ago

I drove a car just like this:

Five years ago I was living in Jacksonville, NC, celebrating the second anniversary of my marriage to PFC Bizarro Dad. We had an infant daugther (Gina), a house on base that had been built during the Korean War era, and a brand new washer and dryer bought with my husband's first and only Christmas bonus. It wasn't too bad, being a military wife. Even with a baby, life was much calmer than it had ever been. My husband was non-deployable, so I didn't really have it as hard as some of the other wives. I was pretty happy, actually, despite being poor.

It was during this year that my husband's grandfather, the man who raised him, took him out looking for produce boxes to sell back to grocery stores, bought him pecan rolls, and taught him the proper use and handling of a machete, passed away. We were able to get emergency leave and fly down to Houston for the funeral. There was a very big fuss at the viewing, I remember, because Grandpa had been living with one of his daughters (Aunt Margie the drug addict), and she kept changing the story of how, and even when, he died. She had not allowed an autopsy. We were all suspicious (she'd tried to give him a deliberate medication overdose in the past), but I remained polite to Margie, and Bizarro Dad and I both spoke at the funeral. Margie had sold Grandpa's house out from under him and taken all his money, but she had just enough ethics (and perhaps not enough of an eye for antiques) to give my husband his grandfather's pocket watch. It is over a hundred years old, and the little cogs are exquisitely engraved. Grandpa, my husband remembers, would often take the watch to a jeweler to have the battery replaced. They'd certainly charge him money, but the battery never kept working. Upon receiving the watch, my husband took it to an expert watchmaker to have it examined. The watchmaker told us, among other things, that this watch had no battery, and needed to be wound daily.

It was either this year or the next (my memory is hazy) that my own grandfather would have a stroke, forever changing my mother's priorities and forcing my grandmother to care for my grandpa in a whole new way. This, while very sad, did not seem to have a daily impact on my life six states away. I felt bad for my family, and I prayed for them, but I could not just pick up and move back to Texas with a baby and leave my husband stationed in NC. In this respect, I was now different from all my ancestors, who took care of their parents and grandparents at all costs.

1 Year Ago

I drove (and still drive) a van like this:

By this time our family was living in Houston again, with my dad. Also living with us at the time was my husband's brother, J the Irresponsible. We were gearing up for my second child's second birthday, but we didn't much feel like having a party. Instead, we bought a very nice "rock climber" playground set, the type of thing you get from Toys R Us and have to figure out how to haul back home (even with an empty van, I still had to discard the box in the parking lot just to make all the parts fit my vehicle), then put together yourself with only a screwdriver. Good thing the kids loved it.

One year ago, my grandfather was still in and out of the hospital (fluid kept building up in his lungs because he didn't understand the term "salt-free diet"). My mother was living with her parents to take care of them and herself. In fact, by that time my mom had been sober for nearly two and a half years. She was also very sick (a liver virus) and taking weekly injections. At this time she was a widow, her own husband having quite literally drank himself to an early grave the year before. (This is not why Mom quit drinking, so don't think she learned a noble lesson from a personal loss. Mom quit drinking because the judge said she had to after she drove her van into somebody's house on Christmas Eve one year. Her husband simply would not join her in quitting, despite the doctor's warning that he'd die in a year if he didn't give up alcohol. Doctors are a lot smarter than drunks think they are.)

My husband's Aunt Margie died of a drug overdose. She was 46, and her teenage granddaughter was about to have a baby. Yeah, you read that right. If she hadn't been so stupid, Aunt Margie would have been a great-grandmother before the age of 50.

Nothing too special was happening in my own life. I was doing Cub Scouts at church, but I only had one boy to work with. I was always pissed off at my brother-in-law for not mowing the lawn or leaving a mess or playing X-Box all day instead of getting a damn job or bringing porn in the house or systematically staining and/or tearing up the floor in his bedroom. I was pissed at my own brother for leaving a dozen boxes of stuff for me to pack up and store in our already crowded garage. Everybody was still pissed at my mother-in-law for not doing anything to discipline her youngest daughter. I was pissed at my husband for ignoring me and the kids in favor of his own video games, and for not coming down harder on his brother for things that were obviously way over the line, and for allowing his brother to stay in our house way longer than he promised me in the first place, just because their older sister didn't want him in her house anymore. I was also pissed because I'd been sharing a bedroom with my children for a year instead of having my own room (before J came to live with us, my own brother had lived with us for nearly a year), and the only adults in the house not having sex were the ones who were actually married to each other. (J, what with the porn and the wife living way over in California, was obviously having sex with himself.) My mother was pissed at my husband and my brother-in-law for not doing more to help my father with the yardwork (we have very large yards in this area, and since my mother and her parents live across the street from my house, Mom sees all.) My dad was pissed that J was leaving messes, and that he was leaving Dad's clean clothes lying on top of random stuff in the dirty garage instead of just taking 10 extra seconds to bring it in the house. My husband was pissed that my dad was giving me a hard time about J and that I was giving him, Bizarro Dad, such a hard time about J, and he was also pissed at his brother for leaving our DVDs out of the case and lying on the floor, and for hogging the X-Box (my husband is the one who paid for the stupid thing, and my husband was the one with a job). I was also pissed about J's stupid dog, who pissed and pooped everywhere and on anything, and who was essentially locked in J's room all day long whenever J did finally get a freaking job.

So basically, everyone was pissed about everything a year ago. Now we're pissed about different things, but at least J's gone, the husband and I do have our own bedroom, and no one else that I didn't give birth to is coming to live here.

That's life, I guess. Kind of sucks, doesn't it? But at least I have the kids to make me smile.

My daughters have betrayed me

My life as I know it is over.

I suppose it was only a matter of time, really. I just didn't think it would happen so soon.

I blame myself.

I should never have got cable.

That's right, I am now facing the $64,000 question:

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

That's right.

Me.

Thanks a lot, girls.

And you too, Time Warner.

In Case of Emergency

Here's something you need to know if you're living with very old people:

They don't know that they're supposed to call 9-1-1 immediately in a medical emergency.

I'm probably overgeneralizing. Maybe it's just MY grandparents, because they grew up as migrant farm workers with very little formal education. Maybe it's generational (no phones when they were kids, no 911 when they were raising kids), maybe it's because when they were young only rich people could call medics to come to the house, maybe it's just that they're senile.

Just please, explain this to them, and not just once in a while, I mean weekly: if there's a medical emergency, call 911 immediately. Don't try and revive the person yourself, don't wait a while and see if he gets better, don't half-assedly attempt to wake up someone else in the house, don't call the neighbors or the relatives and ask THEM to call an ambulance. Grandma, if something is wrong, don't wait. Call 911, and do it fast.

Grandpa will never be the same. His arm is dead, his leg is partly paralyzed, his face is stuck, he falls asleep for fifteen minutes and thinks a whole day has passed.

Memory Lane

Strange, is it not, how a simple drive to the grocery store can recall the oddest memories.

Some would say I have a long memory for the trivial, and to those people I would say "Remember that time you scratched my wrist with a stick AND hit my pelvic bone with your head while on the trampoline on the SAME DAY? Why yes, that was 10 years ago, but what's your point?"

Today while driving a stretch of road to one of the cheaper grocery stores, I happened to pass by a Dairy Queen tucked between the Fas Mart convenience store and Chala's Resale Shop. Neither of the other two stores mean anything to me, but for whatever reason the Dairy Queen caused a synapse to fire in my brain and remind me that when Bizarro Dad and I were first married, I used to drive his mother around, and she'd tell me stories about her family's life.

Once, when we passed the DQ in question, she was in the process of telling me the tale of how her other other son's girlfriend came to live with them. Apparently Girlfriend's parents were from Mexico, and as such had different beliefs about disciplining children than we do here in the US. They believed that it was the responsibility of the oldest son to provide the guidance and punishment for the younger children. This did not result in leniency, or even in gentle but firm guidelines, I'm sad to say. Instead, Girlfriend was beaten black and blue by her brother (probably for getting pregnant), and the parents condoned it completely. My mother-in-law did not feel this was a safe environment, and allowed Girlfriend to move in with her and the rest of the family. Sadly, her stay was not permanent, as Girlfriend proved to be every bit as violent as her brother and tried to attack a member of the family.

Yeah, I got all this from a Dairy Queen.

Oddly enough, driving down the same stretch of road on the return trip brought back different memories of the same person. On the opposite side of the street there's a Shipley's Donuts (the most awesome doughnut chain in the world, screw you Krispy Kreme). This reminded me of the story in which my then-pregnant mother-in-law had a fitful craving for doughnuts, and sent her husband and 11-year-old son (Bizarro Dad back when he was Bizarro Boy) out to retrieve the desired pastry in the dark at some ungodly hour. To Shipley's they went, because they knew that no other place in town would have decent doughnuts that would satisfy the demands of a pregnant woman. Poor Bizarro Boy, having to tap on the glass and hope the shop was open. But then, he was the only child in the house who was excited about the new baby, so it seems fitting that he'd be the one to go out for comfort food.

My mother-in-law tells the best stories.

I really shouldn't drive down that street to often. You should hear the stuff that flits through my brain the further west I go. We're talking junior high boyfriend, summer job, and that time my grandma got held at gunpoint by a mugger, only to grab him by the throat and flag down a passing cop. (She won't eat at that restaurant anymore, since none of the staff bothered to come outside and see why a strange man was pressing up against the little old lady who regularly came alone or with her husband.)

Shhhh...

Can you keep a secret?

I am sick of Cub Scouts. I have my own problems right now, many of them, and I don't want to deal with a bunch of ungrateful little snots this month. I just can't make myself care.

But I guess I will have to do it anyway.

I seriously am ready to throw in the towel, though. It's not like these kids can't transfer to the dens at their schools.

Friday night

Approximately 10:45 PM
Living room
Sounds of idle tapping on keyboard, mouseclicks, and kids DVD.
Gina and Sleepless Mama are in living room. Sia is asleep in her bedroom.

Sound: quietish "pop" originating from up the block. Suddenly three louder consecutive "POPs" from directly in front of our house

Me: Get down! (Grab Gina and pull her to the floor)
Gina: Mommy? What is it?
Me: It's a gun, baby. Stay down! (Carry her into hallway and run to back of house, into kids' bedroom)
Gina: Mommy! They shooting?
Me: (Laying Gina on floor) Yes, baby. They're shooting. (Grab sleeping Sia and sit on floor cradling her) Stay down, do you hear me? Stay on the floor.
Gina: Mommy, I scared! They shooting at us!
Me: Me too, baby. Stay on the floor.
(Minute passes. Place Sia back on bed.)
Me: Stay back here in your room, kids.
Gina: Mommy!
Sia: I scared!
Me: It will be okay. (Step into my room, next to the kids' room. Grab shotgun and release safety. Walk back into hallway) Stay in your room. (Close children's door.)
Kids: Mommy!
Me: (Slowly advance to front of house. Listen. Peek out window. No cars, no people. Return to hallway. Engage safety and carefully place shotgun in hallway, within reach of children's door. Open door and hug kids.)
Gina: Mommy, you shoot them?
Me: No, baby, I didn't shoot them. They ran away.
Gina: You gonna shoot those bad guys?
Me: No. The police will chase them.
Gina: You gonna help them? You help bad guys?
Me: No, sweetie. We have to take care of our family.
Gina: Those police guys chase those bad guys?
Me: (pause) Yes. Those bad guys ran away because they are scared of the police.
Gina: You gonna shoot you gun?
Me: No. We only shoot when the bad guys come into the house. And we have to be nice to the police.
Gina: (pause) We have to be careful.
Me: Yes, baby. We have to be careful.
Gina: Mommy, I scared.
Me: I know. But the bad guys are gone.
Gina: They shooting our house?
Me: No. Sometimes stupid bad guys shoot in the street. But they're gone now.
Gina: I want to go eat. (She means in the living room.)
Me: Not yet. Now Gina, when we hear a gun, we have to get down on the floor. Understand? When you hear a gun, you get down, just like this. (Demonstrate. Repeat instructions and physically lay child on her floor.)
Gina: Mommy?
Me: Yes baby?
Gina: You be careful with you gun.
Me: Yes, Gina, I promise.

Can we get a cat?

"Honeeeeeeeey, I want a kittyyyyyyyy."
"We said no more cats after the last two turned aggressive towards our children."
*sigh* "I know."

"Honey, I think I'd like a pet."
"Uh-huh."
"What would you think about a hamster or something?"
"Sure, that would be okay."

"Look Honey, I got this at Half Price Books. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Choosing a Pet. Let's see what it says."
"What does it say about Chinchillas?"
"Let me see...60 hairs can grow from a single folicle...annual veterinary care...three-story housing...average price per animal $369.33."
"Okay, no chinchillas. What about smaller rodents?"
"Hamsters...solitary creatures...I remember I had one when I was a kid, and he used to bite me HARD."
"What else?"
"Rats...these are actually quite social to humans. I had one in high school named Big Mama. She would crawl up my arm and sit on my shoulder."
"Rats...no."
"Well, there are also dwarf hamsters, mice, and gerbils. If you want a gerbil, you have to get a pair, because they thrive on family life."
"Why don't we go to the pet shop and see what they have?"
"Honey, you should know, the cages aren't cheap, and you have to get them toys and stuff."
"Yeah, I know, but I'd like to have a little pet."
"But I thought you thought it was a dumb idea?"
"Nah. Let's go."
"I'll get the kids dressed, you jump in the shower."

"Look Gina, you see the hamsters?"
"Rats, Mommy! Rats!"
"Sia, come get out of the basket so you can see, too."
"Rat! Mouse!"
"These are ger-bils."
"Nerbils."
"Look, these dwarf hamsters are fine in a group. There's a whole bunch of them cleaning each other."
"Look at these two gerbils."
"Oh, they have such long tails."
"What did your dad say when you told him we were going to the pet shop?"
"He said, 'Don't come back with anything too big.'"

"I like this tall cage."
"This one has an exercise ball."
"That one has a detachable carrier."
"Kids, please don't break the parrot toys."
"What about the tubes? Do they all connect with this brand of tube?"
"I want to get them a little toy car to hide in."
"Gina, which cage do you want for the mouse?"
"I want...this one."
"Are you sure?"
"This one!"
"Okay, we'd better get a ceramic food dish, because they'll chew the plastic one."
"Look, here's a little gerbil TV they can hide in."
"Mommy, fishies!"
"Don't you put your hands in that fishy water, young lady."
"Yeah, Daddy already has fishies at home."
"Here, this food is the pellet kind, at it says 'gerbil' right on the front."
"You said no cedar bedding, right?"

"So, which rodents were we going to get after all?"
"The book says gerbils are curious and will jump into your hand."
"The dwarf hamsters are $14 a piece."
"The cage Gina picked is probably not suited for dwarf rodents. The wheel is too heavy."
"Oh crap, that lady wants the gerbils! I want the gerbils!"
"She wants a silver one."
"But they don't have a silver one."
"Dude, she just said she wants a silver to go with her champagne-colored one."
"Is she serious?"
"Ma'am, we'll take those two gerbils, please. They're both female, right?"
"Sia, you like the birds?"
"Fourteen-day guarantee? Sounds great."
"Gina, look, Mommy is signing a contract that says you'll take very good care of the gerbils."

"Look, girls, kitties!"
"Yeah, kids, the kitties are very pretty. But now we can't get one, because we have gerbils!"
"My two nerbils?"

It's never too late to apologize

Dear Mom,

I'm so sorry that, when I was a kid, I made rude comments about the yellow squash slices you were cooking for dinner. Squash wasn't my thing, but I still should not have been so mean about it. In retrospect, they actually looked like little suns bursting.

I did like the zucchini boats you made when I got older. Those were awesome. Sadly, I have never been able to duplicate this recipe. Come with me to the grocery store so we can pick out some zucchini, please.

Love,
Me

Gack! update

My weekend

House full of in-laws, including brother-in-law's delightful wife from California in town for a visit: check.

Eight people for one bathroom: check.

Rapidly vanishing towels: check.

Sheryl Crow concert, complete with chuckleheads sitting behind me who won't shut up and let me enjoy the show (for which everyone there paid $30 a pop) because they HAVE to make their opinions known as loudly as possible: check. (But they did end up leaving, so I could enjoy Sheryl in peace.)
Stomach issues as a result of too much birthday cheesecake: check.
Wait around the house until 2:00 Saturday for sis-in-law to call and let us know if she needs us to babysit or not, only to have her call after we've gone and leave a slightly annoyed message for us indicating that she didn't need a sitter after all: check.
Trip to the zoo: check.

Landlady decides brother-in-law must move out by the end of the month, and informs us on Saturday: check.

Husband has to be talked down from his anger at being forced to ask his brother to leave when the guy has "nowhere to go" and "not enough money to get a place" even though he "doesn't know how much money J makes" at his full-time job, while husband is simultaneously informed that his reply to landlady's representative came off as rude AND that our landlady (one of my relatives) is legally in the right: check.

Inform brother-in-law and his wife of impending move-out, to which BIL replies "Whatever, I'll go stay at Mom's,": check.

Husband and the partial horde of in-laws go to a haunted house, while I stay home with the kids and do laundry: check.

Sis-in-law calls at night, sounding annoyed that we never returned her call this morning (wait, WHAT?!), and is inf0rmed of the impending move-out, to which she replies "Don't you pay rent?": check.

Travel all the way to church early for a committee meeting, only to find out said meeting not being held this month: check.

Go back home to pick up husband and kids for regular church meeting, only to find husband cannot get into shower in time due to prolonged shower interlude between brother-in-law and his wife: check.

Visit to estranged father-in-law, his much younger wife, and their two small children (same ages as my own kids): check.
Husband continues to feel guilty about kicking his brother out, even though it is our landlady doing the kicking, and maintains that HIS family will blame him for this: check.
Husband continues to be upset that his unintentionally rude reply was met with a firm, snippy rebuttal, and has to be told AGAIN what went wrong with the original conversation, which was only about four or five sentences long: check.
Tiring of all the in-laws, I leave the kids with husband and go visit my paternal grandmother. While there, my cousin brings her son over to the house. Nephew (second cousin?) has a head injury, and his mother has brought him over in an attempt to keep him awake. Cousin keeps repeating the story of how the head injury occurred, and I try to keep her in a different room while our aunt entertains the boy, so that cousin will stop making him so nervous. Boy is fine (it seems to have been a glancing blow), but grandmother continues to be agitated, and cousin continues to be nervous, though less so: check.
Buy raffle tickets from grandma, in the hopes that I might win the $2000 gift certificate to Gallery Furniture: check.
Travel home at night through iffy neighborhoods: check.
It's late, and the children are still awake: check.
Husband continues feeling guilty, despite repeated assertions that he is not at fault: check.
Weekend comes to a slow end: check.

Family Game Night

This evening my little girls learned a new game. It's called Bonzai.

The rules are simple, really. I lie down on my bed, stomach down. The children take turns standing on my back. As they jump off me like the five-foot spring board I am and onto our super-bouncy bed, they yell, "BONZAIIIIIIIIIII!"

That's it. That's the game. Over and over again. I am quite sure my back will be several shades of blue by morning.