Tag Archives: marriage

Co-What?

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I once worked with a woman who firmly held to the notion of co-parenting. She and her husband rotated 24 hour caregiving shifts, each transitioning every other day into active duty. Every ride to school, every packed lunch, every nocturnal disturbance was handled by the parent on call while the other went about their activities as planned. It seemed to me like eating at a restaurant at your own table beside a couple that you know. You may nod and acknowledge each other, but you keep your appetizers and tabs separate and try not to listen too closely to their conversation. Their schedule was so regimented that I found myself often fantasizing about the mayhem that would ensue should a crisis occur during the changing of the guard. Would they just pass the baton in the middle of the X-ray series at the hospital? She was equally baffled at the way my household was managed. So I forced myself to take note of the duties that my husband and I share with total equality. I was shocked by how many things we do together!

Co-respirate

Co-steal chargers

Co-wear shirts

Co-order Pad Thai

Co-fight over television

Co-sit in chairs

Co-have legs

Co-pump gas

Co-disturb sleep

Co-misplace keys

Co-create laundry

Co-lose kids’ shoes

Co-overdraw checking account

Co-sneeze weird

Co-hate running

Co-eat Nachos

Co-clog sinks

Co-need stamps

And we co the shit out of not hearing each other.

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This Truck Will Go On And On. Like Celine Dion’s Heart.

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Each week a neighbor raps my door to tell me that the interior light of my husband’s truck is on. I follow this conscientious resident to the driveway where I wait for him to turn heel before I dash back into my house. See, I can’t fix the light. I have strained to turn it off countless times, but it runs on some kind of paranormal power supply existing apart from the battery. This light is a tribute to the truck’s dogged persistence to stay alive, to keep rolling back miles on the odometer so long as we remain willing to fill its tires with air and to find mechanic shops lax on emission regulations.

Right after we got married, G decided he wanted to indulge in the utmost of New York City extravagances: a car. Owning a vehicle in Manhattan is a fruitless proposition. Contending with street sweeping schedules and parking regulations  even the police don’t fully understand is a menace few have the constitution for. G, however, decided it would make him feel less marooned on the isle of Manhattan if we could flee over the bridges in a car of our own. The problem was that G didn’t buy a car. He bought a very large and old truck. Not old enough to be vintage and interesting, but just old enough to have an unfortunate number of miles and red upholstered seats. I’ll never forget the sight of G pulling into the parking garage attached to our apartment building. The doorman, who had extended us plenty of allowances in the way of oversized deliveries and loud gatherings, took one glance at that truck and said, “Oh, hell no.”

We finally found domicile for that truck in a neighborhood far flung from ours, making the process to fetch it more arduous than any journey aboard the trains and buses our fellow urban plebeians were relegated to. Circling our block while waiting for the other to emerge with weekend bags was like being on a Boeing 747 put into a holding pattern by Air Traffic Control. When the runway would finally clear, the one waiting at the curb would heave the belongings into the back and attempt to project himself into the cab. Much like air travel today, all passengers understood this was a no-frills mode that came with no pillows or legroom and a checkered maintenance history.

Determined to see the fruits of his investment, G sought opportunities to drive that truck anywhere. When I opened the invitation to a wedding to be held in the neighboring state of New Jersey, sent by a woman who worked for me, G declared with conviction, “We’ll go in the truck.” Despite my strenuous objections to turning up to a country club in a truck even the landscapers wouldn’t drive, his mind was fixed. I reminded him of my recent appointment to Group Director of a division within the media company I worked for, germane because the attendants at this wedding would be largely comprised of the people who report to me. He stared at me blankly, and I grimly realized there was no shaming a man about his truck. Like I felt about my crimped hair in grade school, he felt nothing but pride despite the jeers from those walking by.

We pulled into the manicured drive of the country club, lavishly lined with tilting maple trees. G’s arm hung casually out the open window as he inhaled the breeze coming off the well-tended grass of the golf course, oblivious to the engine’s deafening grumble. I shrank into my seat, noting the ridiculous contrast of my dress against the threadbare seats and my heels against the dirt-laden floor mats. I mentally reviewed my affirmations: I can’t be fired for driving an F250. I can’t be demoted for leaking engine oil all over the parking lot. If anyone sees me leave in this truck, I’ll scream from the passenger seat as though I’m being abducted and then I’ll bring a fake police report to work.  I continued with my mantras as the valet opened my door and extended his hand. The blood pounded in my cheeks as he pulled me from my chariot, which was, in its idle state, filling the foyer with noxious fumes. I cringed as he grunted against the heft of my body free-falling from the height of the passenger seat.  I offered a foppish apology and muttered something about Cinderella being a malcontent hooker for worrying about the impression she would make arriving to the ball in something as sweet as a pumpkin. G strode to the front and tossed the valet the keys as though he had just exited a Lamborghini.

During the reception, while G was sidled up to the oyster station, turning his plate into the deck of a deep sea fishing vessel, I looked up to see a few members of my new staff walking toward me, led by the one I suspected may be organizing a violent coup d’etat. Our eyes locked and I could see the glint of knowledge in his pupils. He knows, I thought with dread. “Hey Erin,” he said. I smiled graciously, straining to loosen the grip of paranoia. He leaned in close as if he was about to share something intimate.

“Listen, we couldn’t find anywhere to throw our cigarettes in the parking lot so we tossed them in the back of your truck. We saw the empty beer cans and figured you wouldn’t mind.”

Thankfully the reception had an open bar.

 

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If We’d Been Co-Pilots, We’d Have Crashed

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I didn’t plan my own wedding. I did virtually nothing to execute the event beyond select the dress and lick icing from china plates. I did go out of my way to call the DJ my mother had hired to make sure he knew I wasn’t being sarcastic with my list of dance songs. When Mom asked me if I wanted to fly out to Arizona to meet officiants, I said, “I guess you could just call Father Dale; He was my childhood priest, after all.” To which she replied, “He’s in prison, doll.” So I authorized her to choose an unknown pastor from the phone book, preferably one without a mug shot, and I promised I would be satisfied with his or her ability to recite words and sanctify our union.

Because I have always been masterful at outsourcing the planning of these types of events, I remain, to this day, blithely clueless about the etiquette behind addressing invitations to couples with different last names, the proper location of a salad fork, or what a person should do with Jordan almonds beyond certainly not eat them.

Given the status quo, no one was more surprised than I by my offer to plan and host my sister-in-law’s baby shower. I must have been overcome with resounding joy that someone other than myself was pregnant that I felt I should be responsible for commemorating the occasion. After a quick clean urine catch to ensure her pregnancy had not been transmitted to me – I’m convinced it happens this way for some – I was ready to assemble some over-complicated task lists and buy some gender-neutral newborn shit.

The danger in planning a baby shower when you live with someone both related to the guest of honor and who knows firsthand of your ineptitude at managing a budget and deciphering a catering menu is that they self-appoint the title of co-planner whether you want them to or not. Matters are further complicated when this person is a male. While he may possess prodigious ability to spend prudently and point a confident finger at crabcakes over shrimp skewers, he has neither endured a pregnancy or, arguably more grueling, a baby shower. He doesn’t speak stork. He doesn’t appreciate a crustless finger sandwich. He doesn’t value an infused sparkling water. He doesn’t appreciate a Lilith Fair party mix. And he sure as hell has no capacity for talk of crowning.

Alas I was stuck with my husband as my shower co-planner. We were not just planning a Jack and Jill baby shower; We were Jack and Jill planning a baby shower. And in this nursery rhyme, Jill fell down and broke her crown.

And Jack stepped right over her to go buy a party keg.

If you find yourself mired in party planning with a man who is not Colin Cowie, take heed because this process is going to be like the Invasion of Normandy: Nocturnal parachute landings with potato chips and sour cream dips, massive air attacks with Styrofoam coolers, and amphibious landings of sheet cakes with footballs piped onto it all while you lay huddled against your bunker of Martha Stewart brand paper decorations.

Theme

You must overcome his dead-eyed stare at the mere utterance of the word theme. In his view, themes are reserved for pornos or computer desktop wallpaper. Unless you want a baby shower designed around barely legal Asian cheerleaders or Bald Eagles, you’ll need to establish this unilaterally and keep veto power at the ready.

Parking

You needn’t trifle with hiring a valet service or alerting the neighbors to the flotilla of parked cars in front of their homes. He will point out, prosaically, that the best place for guests to park is on the front lawn.

Beverage

The notions you had of an assortment of oversized glass containers dispensing vividly colored spritzers fade into the ether as you see him exiting the grocery store with two carts loaded with 30 packs. When you chide him for buying beverages befitting a Super Bowl party, he combatively unsheathes a few bottles of White Zinfandel.

Food

Not that you are an expert in the arena of intricate party foods, but you know the table should be a harvest of edibles that are cumbersome to pronounce or, at very least, to spell: Radicchio, Frisee, Arugula, Fennel. And it all has to be festooned with sauces that are even more complicated: Pico de Gallo, Pesto, Aioli. Don’t even think about a pasta or potato salad because that shit needs to be Quinoa or Couscous, and it had better be Israeli Couscous because the regular kind is so passé. As you labor through the order with the caterer, defaulting to pointing at the items over articulating them, your co-planner will interject his demands for verboten food stuffs every caterer disavowed upon getting licensed. Pizza, Buffalo Wings, and Meatballs. You smile meekly as he explains that the guests who are not pregnant, not female, and not worried about consuming copious amounts of nitrates would like to be considered too.

Favors

There is no money left for favors because he understood that element from the list to be favors that he can ask for during this process, like backrubs and picking up his dry cleaning.

In the end it will all turn out fine, as ours did. The guests were given food and drinks, and a good time was had by all just chatting and reminiscing. My co-planner even made a few game-time decisions, like to rent a tent due to the ominous cloud cover, that eclipsed my fear he was going to convert the presents table into one for beer pong. And, really, what baby shower guest doesn’t want to leave with a couple of Coors Lights for the road tucked into their bag?

 

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And My Middle Name Means Honeymoon

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In college I read an article in which a poll of newlywed women revealed that they did not have as much sex as they’d anticipated on their honeymoon. Instead late-night activities included sleeping, eating, and counting checks. I cast the magazine aside, cursing the post-modern woman and her unromantic notions of marriage. And this from a person who only gets romantic about imported cheese. When the first of my friends to get married took her honeymoon, I braced for the impact of high-velocity love.

“It was nice. Maybe a little long. We saw The Matrix one night.”

I suppressed the urge, like rising bile, to demand the return of my wedding gift since this union was clearly doomed. They saw a movie on their honeymoon? And not just any movie, but one starring Keanu Reeves? How was there time to see a movie when there were baths to be had in side-by-side clawfoot tubs facing the sunset? Was Barbados out of horses to ride in the crashing surf? Straining to lend support, I choked upon my words, “I bet everyone does that. I’m just going to go ahead and Fandango my honeymoon matinee now!” As I hung up the phone, I vowed to the gods of Sandals Resorts that I would do their catalogs proud on my own honeymoon.

Then I took my honeymoon.

The fissures in our union materialized as soon as we embarked on the trip from my parents house in Tucson, the site of our wedding, to Sedona, where we’d have a few days to rest and romp. We borrowed my parents car for the long drive. I opened the driver’s side door, key fob in hand, when G stealthily dove into the seat. He even raised a cup of steaming coffee in a threatening manner to defend his position. Because my mom had just told me of a women who had spilled scalding coffee in her lap, rendering her unable to wear underwear for weeks, I relinquished the seat but whined, “I want to drive. This is my parent’s car. And I know how to get there.” He closed the door and muttered,  ”I have to drive. I get car sick if I don’t.” Our bickering continued for several more minutes as my parents looked on through the window of the living room, mentally tallying the cost of the reception charges. We reversed from the driveway, G as the driver, and I grimly realized that having never owned or even ridden together in a car during our courtship in NYC meant that I had unwittingly married that most irritating of individuals who cites motion sickness as the reason they must get their way. On every matter.

By the time we’d arrived, I had learned another unfortunate truth about my husband. He likes Tom Petty a great deal. After the third revolution of the Greatest Hits album, I emerged from the car ready to send myself free fallin’ over a scenic lookout site, but was distracted by the ring of my phone. I glanced at the screen. It was my brother. I wasn’t sure of the protocol for accepting phone calls on a honeymoon. It wasn’t as if I could put a Do Not Disturb placard on my voicemail. I waffled over honeymoon-wireless decorum another moment before deciding it wouldn’t be uncouth to answer given that my brother really might have overdosed on tequila at our reception the night before.

“Get ready to see George Bush rain on your Democrat parade! He’s gonna bring the pain to you bleeding heart hippies tonight. This will be a honeymoon to remember, you John Kerry-loving asshole.”

I hung up swiftly, directing a tense smile to G. Swept up in the tumult of wedding preparation, I’d forgotten that the first day of our honeymoon was Election Day. My brother, a staunch Republican, was prepared to badger us for the next 4 years if Bush secured a second term.

The first item on the honeymoon itinerary was a twilight hike over the vistas and red rocks that Sedona is famous for. If we timed it right, we would gaze upon the sunset that streaks the endless sky with pink and yellow hues. When we arrived at the trailhead, G noticed a General Store. If you’ve grown up in the Southwest, you know that a General Store is a tourist trap, doling out useless carved figurines and turquoise bolos, all meant to be exotic since a man with black hair, claiming to be an Apache, is selling them. G could not resist the siren song of the General Store. Once inside, he spent a fortnight poring over cowboy boots while I ate yellow Chiclets purporting to be Fools Gold from a mining pan. As G modeled countless pairs of boots, I shared a riveting account of the Indian Longhouse I’d constructed from popsicle sticks in grade school with our Native American shopkeeper. About to discuss the politics of reservation land and casino gaming to pass a few more hours, my phone rang again. I held it to my ear.

“Will you tell me what it feels like to be a loser when Bush sweeps this election?”

I silenced my phone and gestured to the dipping sun out the window to G who had finally decided upon the pair of cowboy boots sure to impart the bravado of a man who brands cattle. Relieved to have left the store without a pistol and a belt buckle, I noticed the sun had dropped below the peaks of the mountains. I suggested we return to the car since we’d missed the climax, but G insisted on pushing forward, determined to summit something even in the dark. I tugged at his arm in disagreement when – out of nowhere – he shoved me hard, sending me to the ground. As I struggled to my feet, I followed his stare, straining to understand why I was just assaulted by my husband.

Directly in our path, basking in the warmth of the sun-baked dirt, was a large tarantula.

I breathed a sigh of relief that I hadn’t vowed life-long commitment to a Chris Brown in disguise while G shouted incoherently about ‘saving my life.’ I stared at him, bemused, as he backed away from the spider as though it was armed with an even bigger spider in a slingshot. Instead of undergoing that pause that allows one to see the comedy of their circumstances, G launched into a diatribe about desert wastelands and the varied reasons the East Coast is infinitely superior to my Southwest home. He hurled insults at every Saguaro cactus in sight. I felt under attack and had grown irritable from hunger, a confluence of personality shortcomings that led me to a regrettable and impulsive act.

I kicked that tarantula at my new husband.

As G stormed back to the car, cowboy boots meeting the earth with thunderous booms, I followed behind, wondering if square-offs over large arachnids constituted irreconcilable differences. I felt a vibration in my pocket. I glanced at the text message that had come in from my brother.

“Polls are in Bush’s favor, you pussy-footing, illegal alien-loving motherfuckers.”

After showering and dressing in silence at the hotel, we found ourselves in the dining quagmire New Yorkers experience when they travel elsewhere: Restaurants close by 9pm. After being turned away by every place on the hotel’s compound, we found ourselves eating at a round-the-clock diner specializing in an unfathomable number of omelets. There we sat, on our honeymoon, barely speaking to each other between bites of greasy eggs. The only thing befitting our setting was G’s God-forsaken cowboy boots. I excused myself to the bathroom where I discovered 14 more text messages loaded with political taunts from my brother. I gripped the side of the sink as I stared at myself in the water-stained mirror. This is not at all what I imagined. This honeymoon sucks; I’d kill everyone in this restaurant to see a movie right now.

I walked out of the bathroom as the patrons clad entirely in denim took stock of my dressy attire with expressions of suspicion and pity. I sauntered to the table, determined to begin anew, prepared to comply with any amorous request from my husband. This was our honeymoon, after all, the acme of love and and passion. So I took his hands in mine and told him I wanted to make amends and make this trip feel like a honeymoon. He deliberated pensively for a minute before he asked me to ride a mule down into the gorge of the Grand Canyon. I told him I’d sooner have sex with a mule than entrust my life to it on the narrow passes of the largest canyon in the world. We resumed eating our cold, slimy eggs when he said,

“Why is your brother asking me if we’ll be raising our kids Republican?”

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Thanks again to The Empress for joining me here to write about honeymoons. Her story made me chuckle and cringe, which is always the best humor concoction.

Regale us with more honeymoon sucker stories. If you actually rode a horse in the sunset, take that shit elsewhere.

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Miami Blues

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When Dom, our firstborn, was a few months old we all went to Puerto Rico. When Eve turned two months old, everyone flew to Santa Barbara. Neither trip imparted fond memories since we were certain, like many new parents, that vacation would kill our baby. We spent the duration of each trying to fend off invisible pathogens and UV rays, like Dustin Hoffman in a HazMat suit quarantining a populace from an infected monkey, a ludicrous proposition given my husband’s reluctance to use hand sanitizer. Despite numerous assertions to remain at home and useless self-persuasion that a vacation is just what everyone else needs, the instant Liv rounded that two month corner and the temperature tumbled back into the single digits, we booked a trip to Miami.

Neither G or I had ever been to Miami. I had my reservations since my preconceived notion of Miami was that it was a city built for those who hear club music pounding in their eardrums even in silence and for those who have stopped hearing anything at all. I’d always imagined the streets were paved with pastels and the cadavers of those who didn’t fare well on a plastic surgeon’s table. Nevertheless we were seduced by the reasonable flight time from New England, the temperate winter weather, and the abundance of Latinos sure to have kids screaming louder than ours.

Upon arriving – withered in a way only parents attending to three children on a plane, two still held on the lap, can appear – we were ready to make Miami our own, like much whiter and lumpier versions of the Spaniards who’d initially colonized it. It took us mere minutes to hit the beachside walkways with strollers and newly purchased discount sunglasses. It may have been the vacation-colored lenses in those aviators made of tinfoil, but suddenly our senses, deadened by winter, were awakened to everything in our surrounds.

Flowers. Palms. Ocean Breeze. Waxed Chests.

Their combined effect disarmed me and G and immediately imparted our vacation manners. We were speaking in full sentences again instead of commands – Get me a diaper!  Make your own dinner! – and awaiting responses from the other. We were strolling instead of marching, laughing instead of groaning. We even held hands until that maneuver sent one of the strollers, child ensconced, into shrubbery.  It was as though we were a gentler version of our typical selves. And it wasn’t just us. Everywhere I turned, I spied couples, most smart enough to travel without children, heaping affection on the other. Doors held. Appetizers shared. Apparel coordinated. I even saw one man lovingly apply sunscreen underneath the thong of his wife’s bikini. He actually lifted the lycra, and slathered sunblock in between her very ample butt cheeks. I would have to draw the line there at ‘shit I would only do on vacation’, though, since I hate nothing more than applying sunscreen, even when it’s not inside someone’s ass. G has the back blisters to prove it.

With exception to anal SPF, everything G and I find tedious or ridiculous in real time became wondrous and magical in Miami time. Aren’t $18 hamburgers delicious when there’s a sliver of avocado on them? Popped collars are so fashionable! Why don’t you wear fedoras and smoke Cubans? Even the tiresome antics of our children seemed fresh and novel in the glare off the ocean. Isn’t it funny the way Dom drags his feet upon the wood, leaving a trail of blood down the boardwalk? Isn’t it adorable the way Eve had diarrhea in swimmer diapers?

I had unexpected desire to engage in activities I’ve never had interest in. Normally I’d look upon a person on rollerblades with disdain and think who the hell rollerblades? I’d sooner pogo stick my way to the market than be seen alive on rollerblades. But in Miami – on vacation – rollerblading seemed like a completely sensible way of traversing distance, even if one is wearing nothing but a bandana. Suddenly I’m thinking that I’d like to rollerblade around town. Maybe take some lessons, but not in a rental pair. No! I’d like to actually own a pair. You know, maybe I’d get some customized with my initials and in my favorite colors to compliment my bathing suit. When my rollerblading notions begin to spiral recklessly into rollerblading my way into a Senate seat, G reminds me that I possess a terrible equilibrium and that I haven’t been seen in a bathing suit since the late 90s.

It is at the mere mention of the words bathing suit, that my vacation-inspired dreams began to sunburn. The bathing suit is the uniform of Miami, standard issue. It is the great unifier of South Florida; Be you male, female, going to work, using a walker, or still undergoing radiation for squamous cells, you are clad in a swimsuit. The only variation comes in square inches of material. This is a horrifying prospect for a woman who has experienced three back-to-back pregnancies, the most recent birth only occurring a few months ago. My stretch marks might like to take some sun in their own bikinis, but I was certainly not prepared to don one. In a city of ‘Mamis’, I was still feeling much too Mommy.

Each woman to pass by on a walk through South Beach left me lifting my chin in false confidence while adjusting the Bjorn like it’s the must-have accessory of summer. I’d mutter self-affirming statements, like “flaunt what you’ve got, not what they bought,” until G would send the stroller into a collision with my achilles due to an open-mouth stare at a set of boobs deserving of their own postal code. Crippled, I’d fall upon the sidewalk as he rolled right over me, making direct eye-cleavage contact. I may have been wrong in believing the streets of Miami are littered with the carcasses of plastic surgery victims, but there are certainly scattered bodies of women taken down by the surgery survivors.

Back at the hotel, whilst flipping through a phone book for plastic surgeons specializing in ankle reconstruction, I looked up to see G vigorously rubbing Aloe across his sunburned skin. I chuckled and said, “I guess we’re not exactly Miami material,” seeking some matrimonial commiserating.

“Speak for yourself; I went to the bar at Fontaine Bleau after you fell asleep last night.”

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(Vacation manners?  Real or imagined?)

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The Honeymooners

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A few friends have gotten married recently and have had very humorous tales from their honeymoon.  It’s had me thinking about honeymoons in general, particularly how unpredictably disappointing ours was. One day I’ll share that tale, but in the meantime, I’d like to focus on the predictably bad honeymoons of the couples below.

Barely 18 and Probably Pregnant – Judd and Ashlee. Their Justice of the Peace ceremony is concluded with a progressive dinner in which everyone in their trailer park hosts one phase of the meal, each welcoming the tipsy couple into their fenced synthetic turf. They enjoy a raucous evening feasting on squirrel roast and fried Twinkies and playing drunken Cornhole and Seven Minutes of Heaven because that’s a completely reasonable game to play till they can afford wedding rings. Judd spells ‘Ashlee 4 Eva’ in Coors Lite cans while the glassy eyed female onlookers sniffle, “I hope I find me one like him. He was always a gentleman, asking me first if I minded him telling the Shoney’s waitress that I qualified for the Senior Discount since he was saving up for that Ford Extended Cab.” The couple heads out the next morning, belongings stowed in the bed covered by tarp, to the lake where they’ll cook hot dogs over open flame and sleep in a tent that Judd won in a card game. When Judd awakes to Ashlee vomiting for the third straight morning, he’ll whisper that he’d like to stay at the lake forever. She gently reminds him that he has to be in court to appeal a DUI and she is scheduled to take the GED. Plus, she points out, they haven’t told her parents about the wedding yet.

Middle Aged Dog Owners – Leonard and Nancy. The honeymoon is delayed 2 days since Leonard’s dog Stew swallowed a wedding band during the ring exchange despite countless practice runs in which it remained perfectly perched on his snout. They also needed to ensure the flower girl that was nipped by Nancy’s dog, Miss Lippy, tests negative for rabies since Miss Lippy is on a modified vaccine schedule. Once the ring is retrieved and power washed and the toddler deemed non-rabid, they set off in their Air Stream for their tour of dog-friendly B&Bs through the Carolinas. Leonard and Nancy sit up front in matching Golden Retriever sweatshirts that read ‘Bred For Each Other.‘ Miss Lippy and Stew exchange growls as they gnaw on rawhides from the back. Leonard and Nancy elect for takeout since most restaurants forbid canines despite their insistence that Stew and Miss Lippy are both potty and salad fork trained. Back at their hotel, the canines claim the queen beds after intensive fur brushing, leaving Nancy and Stew to make do with the pull-out sofa. Stew and Miss Lippy watch, tongues wagging, as Leonard and Nancy do the nasty. You can guess in what style.

Comatose Senior With Buxom Buddy – Milton and Sassy. They had planned to jet off to the French Riveria but Milton’s doctor advised against flying due to his risk for deep vein thrombosis. Instead they go to Wine Country where Sassy sips Pinot Noir through a straw and makes eyes at the hunky sommelier while Milton inquires after the sodium content of the soup du jour. Milton must return to the hotel room each day by 3pm to receive his B12 injections from his traveling nurse. They eat dinner at 2pm, lunch at 10:30am, and breakfast the night before. Milton assures Sassy that he’s still a Bronco in the sack while throwing back a handful of Viagra, but he has appreciated her desire to wait until their wedding night to consummate their union, a surprising preference given her history as an escort. Sassy confirms once more that she has not been duped into signing a prenuptial agreement before applying a blindfold over her eyes and preparing to do a sensual massage with Bengay.

Upwardly Mobile Urban Professionals – Chas III and Meredith. They clink glasses of bubbly from their first class airline seats before adjusting their ergonomic neck pillows and lavender scented monogrammed eye masks. Meredith startles during her slumber, distraught that she didn’t leave her 4 carat diamond ring in the family vault.  Chas assures her that Europeans are really quite dignified and that the Ritz Carlton has lock boxes for important guests. Meredith smiles reassured, and goads Chas into setting aside those legal briefs because her mother’s travel agent has issued a crowded itinerary for their two week tour of Europes’ castles and rivers. Chas agrees contingent upon Mer’s commitment to ignoring urgent pleas from her personal assistant about client portfolio concerns and the renovation of their loft. They stroll through museums, buy antiques that must be shipped, eat foods that they pronounce more eloquently than the locals. By the third night, it occurs to them that they have not had sex yet so they remove each other’s custom tailored apparel and commence with relations. While each checks their stock gains on Blackberry.

Interracial Lovers – Lamar and Amy. They board their cruise through the Caribbean, he excited to gamble and try that onboard surfing simulator and she eager to swim with dolphins and stand on the mast like Kate Winslet. They start each day with a couples massage, their hands clasped between the tables. They consume Daiquiris and Jerk Chicken and notice that everywhere they go they can’t shake the feeling that their shipmates are staring at them.  It starts to bother Amy and Lamar, but they draw comfort in the realization that while these folks wear SPF 400 and look retarded with beaded hair, their progeny will look exactly like Halle Berry. So fuck off.

The Do Overs – Mark and Stacey. Each still bearing the flesh wounds of previous marriages ended badly, they decide this partnership will need some potent magic to last. They travel to the most magical place they can think of…and can afford to bring their collective 9 children. The Magic Kingdom.  They spend the days battling lines and doing head count. They eat peanut butter sandwiches that have been sneaked into the park while Mark and Stacey wonder if the eldest, a pre-teen, can handle babysitting the other 8 kids so that they may have a solo dinner at Epcot’s Chinese restaurant that promises to be exactly like dining in Hong Kong. They settle for their own boat through It’s A Small World, but just as their lips are about to meet for the first kiss they’ve shared since the reception, they hear screams from their kids who have capsized their boat and are already cannibalizing each other. Step-siblings square off over Mickey Mouse ears while Stacey must keep reminding her son that he is now the brother of the girl he’s spent the last year drawing nudie cartoons of. They decide to stop short the vacation one night early since stomach flu has gripped half the brood and they still have to figure out how to fit 5 more kids and a parrot into Mark’s 3 bedroom condo.

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(Which are you?)

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Judas Is Not a Term of Endearment

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I really enjoy those religious thriller movies.  The ones in which a person, usually a despicable sort who gives joints to kindergartners and steals brooches from blind senior citizens, receives divine and tangible evidence of God’s omnipotence. Then Theology experts and Vatican investigators descend upon the person to appraise whether their Stigmata is sufficiently Old Testament. I’m drawn to those films likely because the only papal decree I’ve ever witnessed was to defrock the Monsignor of the church I attended as a child after it was determined he liked putting more than Holy Water and wafers in the mouths of altar boys. I find the intrigue, the mysticism of religion fascinating. I found it boring as shit when I was a kid, but I came to view it differently after I saw the Dead Sea scrolls on traveling exhibition when I was in college. These papers are a sight worth seeing, no matter your belief system. Each one a hammered copper or papyrus, believed to be written by apostles in the forgotten language of Jesus, preserved in chambers devoid of moisture and strong lighting so to prevent decay, much like the epidermis of Michael Jackson. The scrolls were interesting to marvel at, but the spectacle lay in beholding the effect they had on those who had traveled far to gaze at them. In the middle of a crowded museum, onlookers collapsed to their knees, choked on tears and breathlessness at the sight of these documents. They behaved much like an unstable Michael Jackson fan in the front row of his concert (Now that I’m thinking of all these parallels, if it’s ever determined that Jesus resurrected himself to embody Michael Jackson, I’m going to be severely disappointed, since Jermaine really needed some holy uplift). I realized that day how potent faith is, but as humans, we still seek empirical evidence that God is orchestrating this existential crisis we’re all mired in.

The desire to commune with the Holy is the reason people are always claiming to see the face of Jesus in the syrup poured on pancakes or the yolk of a cracked egg. It is also the reason I demand dining out for breakfast as often as possible. Every time the syrup cascades from its pitcher, I wait in hopeful suspense. The closest I ever got was a vague outline of Jerry Garcia. There was also the time that I was convinced it was His likeness emblazoned on the fuselage of an airplane, but G assured me that while Alaska Airlines may hub out of God’s country, they paint the faces of Eskimos on their Boeing fleet. Regardless of my losing streak, I continue to search in simple sugars because I know it will happen in the least likely of places.

Then one day, I was folding laundry and placing tidy stacks upon the couch in front of our bay window when a rusted and paint-chipped panel van pulled up in front of our home and parked in the grassy shoulder abutting the sidewalk. I smiled at the suburban rage this would induce in G given his white man’s burden to bemoan his trampled grass. I watched the van, figuring the driver was making a call or deciphering bad directions as most people did when they pulled over in front of our house. The door opened, though, and a man stepped out from the van. He had a lanky build covered with tanned leathery skin. His hair was brown and disheveled, grazing his shoulders. He wore tattered shorts and sandals, and most notably, no shirt. We lived in a section of town where interlopers of the shirtless, van-driving variety would draw attention. I watched with interest as he opened the side of the van and began to unload items onto our sidewalk. One by one he hoisted random and cumbersome pieces out of that van and began to assemble them into a rickety fabrication. As I strained to see what he’d fashioned from bricks and planks of wood, he dropped two dumbbells at the base. He’d built a makeshift weight bench. Right there, on the sidewalk in front of my house, he began repetitions of bicep curls and presses.

I yelled for G to come to the window so that he could see what I was seeing. He squinted, trying to make sense of the scene, and finally shrugged. I twirled him around and marched him to the front door, demanding he get to the bottom of why our front yard was being used as a Bally’s for the homeless. I resumed my post at the window, concealed by a drape, to witness the exchange. It was brief and perfunctory – a few words, head nodding, and concluded with a handshake. When G returned through the front door, his face held a sheepish expression.

“He’s just…working out. I see no problem with that.”

I studied G’s face and considered his tone. Then it occurred to me. I’d seen this face before. I’d seen the glaze that washes over dumbstruck eyes. I’d seen it in the Heard Museum of Chicago.

“You think that’s Jesus, don’t you?”

He met my eyes and his lips turned up a little at the edges.  ”I don’t know,” he started cautiously as my eyes narrowed. “It may have crossed my mind.”

I began to regale him with facts to consider, like that I was a woman with a small child to protect, alone most of the week, with a strange man prone to random acts of exercise loitering outside. Would not Jesus care a little more about healing the needy than building the B.C. version of the Bowflex? If our lawn were Eden, this could be the apple or the snake. I struggled to call forth further religious iconography. I could see that G, despite his more Pagan upbringing, was not going to ask this modern-day saint to hoist his benchpress upon his back, like a wooden cross, and carry it out of our neighborhood.  When the bearded vagabond was still there two hours later, eating a snack upon his portable YMCA and staring directly at our house, I decided to take action. I called the police. I requested, in the tone of a concerned citizen, that an officer ask our sweating stranger to move from our shoulder, which as a point of interest, is a No Parking zone. The cop on the other end of the phone said gruffly, “We’ve already had a few calls about this guy, ma’am. He’s just a caterer there for a wedding.”  I expressed my sincere doubt that this man had passed any Board of Health codes to operate a catering business out of the ramshackle van parked outside. With this the officer agreed to dispatch a squad car to usher the man off our property. As the shirtless stranger loaded his equipment, G shot me a stare reserved for sinners holding a First Class ticket to Hell.

Whenever the topic of religion comes up between us, I swear I see that same look cross his face. If I become really quiet, I think I even hear him whisper Judas when asking me what I’d like for dinner. I feel guilt over it from time to time, but then I remind myself that some people think Charles Manson bears a resemblance to Jesus. I did take away one lesson, though. Whenever I feel really disinterested in going to work out, I remember this man and think Don’t go to the gym, my child.  God will bring the gym to you.

And then I pour some extra syrup on my pancakes and hope the Vatican will be calling soon.

—

(WWHD?  What would your husband do?)

—

The Great Race, Hospital Edition

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I find driving 26 miles with my husband to be an arduous, sweat-inducing task. Then I met a couple who ran 26 miles together. They had trained in tandem for a year, preparing for the big race they endeavored to do together. I stared at them both with wonder, pondering over what they talked about for 26 miles and which parts of their bodies must have chafed severely. Rather than inquire after something important to marathoners, like the time elapsed from start to finish, or the brand of energy gel they consume, or their stance on shaving their surface area to cut down drag, I asked if they wore matching fanny packs. They did, in fact, but they assured me it was only because their sporting goods store ran a two-for-one deal.

Their Herculean feat reminded me of the time my husband and I undertook our own cardiovascular experiment. Unlike this couple, we did not wear matching fanny packs as I would never deign to don twin apparel even if it were buy-one-get-one-free. We were living in New York City, and it was early in our marriage. We both had bodies that still resembled those photographed at our wedding and running shoes that were used for their intended purpose rather than something slipped into before venturing outside to pick up dog poop. We determined to start running together in Central Park. He sat on the edge of our bed, fully dressed in wicking fabrics and listening to music certain to cause nightmares, waiting for me to finish getting ready. I padded by him in my bare feet. The pinky toe of my left foot caught upon his Nike and was pulled in dramatic fashion in a right angle to the rest of my toes. My reaction was stoic, bold, Academy Award winning. Like Jodie Foster in Nell. As I moaned, ‘Chicopee’ like a mantra, my toe began to swell and pulse with heat. By the evening, a maroon bruise had crept up my foot, which I conservatively diagnosed as gangrene. I needed to be MedEvac’d to the emergency room for an immediate amputation.

G delivered the news bluntly that I’d have to settle for a taxi. It was, however, one of those nights in Manhattan when a helicopter would have been easier to procure than a cab, which were inexplicably unavailable, as though every driver in Manhattan decided to pick up Chicken Vindaloo in unison.

My foot throbbed in pain as G disappeared around the block in search of transport. I sat on the curb, despairing over the pain and the fact that I’d crumpled to the sidewalk on the exact spot every dog residing in the neighborhood chooses to urinate upon. Just as a street cleaner was about to send my body down the grate, G yelled to me. I looked up in exhilaration, expecting to see him holding open a taxi door. Instead he was sitting in the back of a rickshaw. The Manhattan rickshaw is the only form of transportation considered by locals more degrading than horse-drawn carriage. I once saw a grown woman wearing only a T-shirt and shoes pushing a cumbersome Barbie Dream House up Broadway. I guarantee you she couldn’t find a cab and considered a rickshaw – and undergarments – a completely ludicrous proposition.

G directed the driver to take us to the closest hospital. Once en route, horrific tales of New York City hospitals sprang to mind – overcrowding, lethal strains of bacteria, 14 year old physicians from Hong Kong. I remembered the photos splashed across every magazine cover of Sarah Jessica Parker emerging from Lennox Hill hospital with her newborn son. “To Lenox Hill!” I screeched suddenly. G looked at me, confused, and countered, “That’s on the other side of town; Why would we go there?” I looked at him defiantly, settled into the soiled seat of our rickshaw, and explained my belief that my gangrenous leg should be treated at the same facility that ushered a celebrity child into the world.

After paying our cyclist the contents of our 401Ks, we arrived. I hobbled into the emergency room, fully expecting it to look like a Restoration Hardware showroom with the likes of Mayor Giuliani and Kevin Bacon flipping through magazines and ordering lattes. It was drab and dated. There were no Mayors. There were not even Congressman disgraced by loose-lipped hookers. By the look of it, their hookers may have very well been there, though. I asked a security guard, in vain, if there was a separate wing for high-profile clientele. He signaled to the woman who would take my medical history with a slow nod, as if to say, Potential Psychiatric Admit. G ushered me to a seat to wait our turn with the rest of the hoi polloi. “Would you like some Combos from the celebrity vending machine?” he goaded. “I hear Matthew Broderick actually put his own quarters in there.”

After languishing long enough to be eligible for Medicare, they began my examination. Each time a practitioner would enter the room, G would mock my foolishness. “Is that the celebrity X-Ray Machine?” When an orderly swept through the room with a mop, G wondered aloud, “Could there be any strands of Julia Robert’s hair in that bucket?” I listened, red-faced and purple-footed, as the ER doctor elucidated the bone scans and explained the treatment for foot fractures, which incidentally boils down to wearing some athletic tape. As he completed my discharge papers, G paced the floor anxiously. He raked his fingers through his hair and said,

“Doctor, I just have one question.”

I winced for I knew G was plugging in the coordinates for the nuclear bomb of public humiliation. “Does this sort of thing happen to…celebrities?”

I snatched my paperwork, called out something about making a large donation to the ‘Sarah Jessica Parker Maternity Ward’, and hobbled as rapidly as my foot could bear out of that hospital. G followed behind me, smirking triumphantly. Once we were tucked into a taxi headed for home, he produced from his jacket a token stolen from the exam room, to commemorate our time there. A powder blue plastic bed pan. “Donald Trump used this.”

That was the last of our running days. And the last of our bicycling days, as well. I swear on Sarah Jessica Parker’s baby that I feel a dull ache in my left foot every time I pass by a hospital or see a couple in matching fanny packs and jogging pants.

Mother Nature Is a Mother…

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It’s difficult to overcome the perception that you’re the drunk mom when you pull into the school parking lot and hit a fence. Particularly if you’ve done it twice and emerge from your car with the LAX of Lego airports ensnared in your hair. While the principal doesn’t keep a breathalyzer in her office, most parents have accepted that I’m not hitting the bottle at seven in the morning. Winter has me behaving this way. Normally capable of juggling all 27 of my children on my own, the cold season impairs me. It strains my independence and chips away at my ability to manage a household singlehandedly when G is away on business.

The first culprit to herald the season of comfort eating and eczema is an obvious one: Snow. I realize – unlike my parents sunburning in Tucson – that winter is an annual event that coincides with the rotation of the earth, signaling a dramatic downturn in temperature and the arrival of snow. Despite its predictable entry, I fail each year to acclimate to it. It doesn’t occur to me until Christmas that I should have a few more sweaters or a pair of snow boots. When G hands me a festively wrapped digital key finder instead I realize grimly that I’ll be plodding through another winter looking like a retiree in Boca, gray hair and sandals to boot.

While lacking in the personal effects of winter that most possess, the tools and implements that a household should have on hand are a different story. G has stocked our garage with a bevy of appliances a savvy winterer would be able to identify and use in a sentence or, perhaps more usefully, in a snowstorm. I, on the other hand, can be found standing barefoot in the snow, gazing helplessly at a showroom of tools, screaming to my toddler, “Is this the snowblower or the lawnmower?” Most people underestimate the intelligence of toddlers, but I entrust all machinery identification to mine. If there is one more storm this season, he will also be found operating them. Real word application is an important building block in their education, particularly when missing digits and blackened epidermis are the consequences.

Until then, I’ve relied upon the pity of men in my neighborhood. It’s amazing how generous people will be when they witness you fall down a flight of stairs with a baby in a Bjorn. I’m always careful to fall face-down so the baby hits the snow instead of striking the back of my skull on the steps. As they run to my aid, snowblowers and shovels in tow, I impress them with my infant First Aid by doing a finger swoop to clear her mouth of the packed snow before stringing together a sequence of back blows and chest compressions in no particular order since I was reading VC Andrews under the table during my 4H Club class for babysitting hopefuls. By the time vital signs have returned, the driveway is cleared of ice!

If the snow accumulates while the kids and I are out for the day, the block is made aware of our return by the sound of slamming metal and spinning tires. I’ve originated a move dubbed ‘The Trojan Horse’, in which I use our Jeep as a battering ram until the wall of packed snow blocking my driveway topples and the little warriors I carry within come spilling out into the night. After a friend witnessed this ill-fated maneuver, he set about, bright and early, plowing my driveway into neat lines. D, my three year old, watched through the window with panicked eyes. “We have to make him stop so I can go to school,” he pleaded. I assured him we would never make him stop and that, if necessary, I have the credentials to home-school him, at least the Peace Corps seemed to think so. Whatever skills I lack in math and physics could be compensated for by liberal use of the word ‘Parallelogram.”

Beyond corroding my mental equilibrium, winter brings about the demise of my vehicle, which I blame on my husband since he has instilled in my mind a fear of black ice that is allayed only by driving exclusively in 4 Wheel Drive from Halloween till Memorial Day. Inevitably, my car breaks down as it only does in winter, sending me to the place I dread more than Purgatory or the return line at WalMart.

The auto body shop.

G equipped me with a comprehensive repair plan when we bought the Jeep. I breeze in there like I’m the CEO of Chrysler, toss my paperwork on the desk and say, “I’m covered so do what you must,” with a disinterested flip of my hair. I like to be armed with a few ‘vehicular expressions’ so they won’t take advantage of me, like Diane Sawyer warned all women of in the early 90s. A typical monologue sounds like this, “I was cruising along when I noticed the ESP light illuminated on the dash. I pulled over to check under the hood. I could tell my spark plugs were fine because, you know, they weren’t sparking. I know the tranny is in good shape since I changed the fluids and flushed the system myself last week. For fun. See what you find.” The man barely glances at me from behind his grease-smeared computer. “Oh, and carburetor.” He raises his eyebrows in a way that begs for more information.  ”That’s it.  Just…carburetor,” I mutter. Then I saunter off to the waiting room with all of my kids where, “I’ll be reading some Motor Trend,” I call over my shoulder. The waiting room is packed with men, most of whom are actually reading auto magazines or are gazing through the window, acting as if they possess X-ray vision to bore into the garage so that they know exactly what the mechanics are doing to their car. They know what a carburetor is. They also know that ESP has something to do with steering correction rather than the ability to bend a fork, which incidentally, I’d be able to do sooner than find a wrench.

They beckon to me to settle the bill. Not surprisingly my service plan has covered nothing. If G were here, the fact that he has a law degree, a penis, and can conjure a Maine accent on demand would reduce the charges by half. I meekly attempt to negotiate, but the kids have released the contents of the Poland Spring water tank onto the waiting room floor. I curse under my breath as I carry three water-logged children to the vehicle that has bankrupted us.

As I drive away I notice that it has begun to snow again. I massage my temples and summon the serenity prayer that the alcoholic the school administrators believe me to be would utter:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference…between a goddman snowblower and a lawnmower.

–

Three Little Words: You’re Under Arrest

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I have a deep-seated fear of policemen. If I didn’t also have a crippling fear of therapists, one would probably lie me supine on a couch and subject my feeble mind to a heady mix of hypnotherapy, Freudian analysis, and Hostess products to point to high school as the genesis of my angst. The culprit was my prom date. A tall, gangly basketball player who looked unfortunately like Bull from Night Court. He asked me to prom and I accepted out of the misguided adolescent notion that prom ‘means something’ even if I’d have elected for another semester of AP Physics than spend an evening surrounded by the prominently displayed cleavage and monogrammed flasks of my graduating class. When he arrived to my house, I consented to a few awkwardly posed photographs in the driveway. As he turned to walk to his Altima, I chucked the corsage in the bushes, shot my brother a pained expression through the living room window, and flopped into the passenger seat.

We were headed along the route I’d driven countless times when my date turned unexpectedly and violently on to a side road. He apologized and explained he preferred traveling by quieter passes. If this guy has a horse-drawn carriage waiting ahead, I will throw myself under their manure-encrusted hooves, I thought. A few miles later he turned suddenly again, parked his car in front of a foreign house, and switched off the headlights. Great, I ruminated, this is the crack den my body, denuded of all essential organs, will be found in a heap on a soiled mattress. Newspaper headline screams, “Poll: Parents Prefer Murder Over Pregnancy on Prom Night”. As we sat there in silence, I strained to recall survival skills gleaned from Angelina Jolie movies. Could the fumes from my hairsprayed updo cause him to black out? Could I use lipstick to scrawl a message on the window?  Do I run in a zigzag or climb up a tree? He turned to me with a hard expression as I waited breathlessly to hear that a van of Mexican drug lords would be pulling up any moment. He stammered, “Sorry, I have a thing with cops. They make me nervous.” He went on to explain that when he was not making a reputation for himself shooting a basketball, he was making a buck buying used cars, fixing them up by highly dubious means, and selling them for a neat profit. After checking the trunk to be sure he didn’t have a toddler beauty queen in duct tape, I breathed easy. I wasn’t going to prom with a teen killer; He was just your run-of-the-mill corrupt car dealer.

Approximately three hours later, we arrived to the prom. And a fear of cops was born.

The paranoia flared again in college when I borrowed a friend’s car one night. I was headed down a hill when the dreaded flashing lights appeared in the mirror. As I rolled down my window, straining to emanate an angelic aura, I wondered if my cafeteria meal plan credits could be applied to this citation. I’d once seen a crime show in which a child molester offered a large cheese pizza to his arresting officer as a peace treaty.

He asked for the requisite items. However, my license was an out of state one. The registration was in another’s name because it was not my car. The license plate was also from another state. The trifecta of offenses induced the officer to treat me as though he’d caught Charlie Sheen blowing rails off the dashboard with an unbuckled and underage hooker. He narrowed his eyes, “Have you been drinking, ma’am?”

A probing question from a man with a badge and a weapon holstered at his hip signals the purging of past indiscretions, family secrets, and every wayward impulse I’ve ever had. It’s as though I’m a fallen sheep laying bare my soul to Jesus. I shared that I did have a Bailey’s cut with milk – skim milk, to be precise – about a month ago – wait, 3 weeks and 4 days ago because it was the date of a rugby party I attended with friends, all of whom are mostly law-abiding except for the fact that the one who plays rugby did run nude in front of throngs of party-goers and that is why I never picked up a big drinking habit. You know, because I didn’t want to run naked in front of peers since bad judgement begets more bad judgment and then I’ll wake up one day with a hangover and an indecipherable tattoo in the meeting room of the Campus Crusade for Christ house. I revealed that I hadn’t actually been to church in a long time because the Monsignor from my childhood parish was recently accused of liking the boys a little too much, or precisely, watching another priest who liked the boys through a peephole. The whole notion of my church being not unlike a Nevada brothel had turned me away even though I’d heard that the Newman Center on campus was a pretty good ministry, run by a Father who was a recovered alcoholic. So, no officer, I haven’t been drinking tonight but, perhaps, Father O’Conner has. That said, I haven’t used a turn signal since 1997. Deep inhalation.

I was blowing into a breathalyzer as soon as I was finished with my soliloquy. I walked the center line while calling over my shoulder that inferior balance and disproportionately long limbs are the reasons I’d never excelled at gymnastics. I waited for the cavity check and cuffs to clamp down on my wrists. Fortunately, a clean record and his growing concern I needed an exorcism, not a raise in insurance premiums, spared me incarceration.

Now that we live in Maine, my fear has amplified again. The highway patrolmen in this state have upped the ante on unmarked vehicles. They drive Ford trucks or Jeeps that suddenly – horrifyingly – illuminate with red flashing lights once on your tail. My husband, G, knows how deep my terror runs and he exploits it liberally for a laugh. He yells “Cop!” so to see me react exactly as my prom date had so many years ago. I swerve into a lot, park the car, and pull out a newspaper, pretending to search for soup kitchens I could donate meatballs to.

During a recent road trip, G had a hankering for Dunkin Donuts. Shortly after our saturated fat stop, we were pulled over by a policeman assisted by a German Shepherd. As I sweetly talked to the officer, his dog behaved as if the carseats were lined with narcotics and atom bomb ingredients. The aroma of Munchkins had sent the dog into a Pavlovian fever. The officer eyed me suspiciously.

“We have donuts in here,” I offered as explanation.

“Is that a cop joke?” The officer demanded loudly. My jaw dropped. My eyes widened. My seat was wet. G let me wriggle and stammer for an eternity until the officer released us with a warning that our inspection sticker was overdue but not without shooting me a stern look of disapproval. G shook his head in dumbfounded amazement the duration of the trip. His favorite cocktail party story to share is the time I cracked a donut joke to a cop.

At least I wasn’t operating an illicit used car ring.