fly the unfriendly skies

my entire adult life, when i flew, i studiously avoided interaction with my fellow passengers. hoodie. sunglasses. book. headphones. ipad. resting bitch face. sometimes all of the above. the ideal was to prevent someone from sitting next to me at all, but at the very least, to escape 4 hours of painful small talk. and yet i never failed to land the chatty cathy, or verdrunken vince, or suuuuuper friendly young military guy who obviously didn't realize i'm almost twice his age. this whole time, i was missing the one accessory guaranteed to ward off other travelers like the plague: children.

and i get that. but we just traveled cross country with our kids and they were solid. the way out was pretty painless, oh yeah, except for the part where it was 5 hours of white-knuckle rodeo, sweet mary mother of god. there was a pilot sitting next to us and he said it was the worst, most consistent turbulence he had ever experienced, including 17 years in the air force! i was putting on an-Oscar-worthy performance by not sobbing and screaming bloody murder, and the kids thought it was all fun and games, at least until little Colby jean started turning green :(

anyway. at the end of the flight, the guy behind me said to Colby: "wow! you are such a good traveler! i thought the seat in front of me was empty you were so quiet!" translation: i thought your mother was a total nutcase, animatedly reading stories, playing legos and paper dolls, and singing "let it go" to herself.

on the flight back we were delayed 2 hours - in the plane on the tarmac - for maintenance of vague origin. then a FIVE AND A HALF hour flight. SO FAR. the kids handled it though. it helped that there was a baby and a six-year-old in the row ahead of us that were pretty out of control. that kid was a piece of work. the mom's hollerin' at him to STOP EATING YOUR BOOGERS. i almost died. then he launched into a charming little ditty made up of the words fart, poop, butt, pee, and booger-snot. he was droppin' some BOMBS, too, boy. smells like that should not emanate from a six year old. yeeew. i shouldn't judge though. children who have ingested near their body weight in Persian Kotlet also make for pungent passengers.

[OMG. DM just informed me that this kid kept reaching back between the seats and grabbing stuff out of their seat-back pockets, and DM was like, okay, whatever, but then he reached back and locked his boogery little hands on to Colby's legs! WTF? if i had been sitting there, you would have seen some "community parenting" in action. i mean, really???]

i do love a good crying baby though, when it's not mine. i'm not talking nuclear meltdown. just a slow, steady, category II cry. really takes the pressure off. i tell you what, though, if my kid falls asleep, all bets are off. if that crying wakes up this sleeping, you, sir, are going to have one or two additional angry minis on your lap.

speaking of sleeping babies. we hit some turbulence and the captain illuminated the fasten-your-seatbelt sign and came over the PA and instructed us to double check to make sure our seat-belts were fastened. i checked. mine wasn't. but there was a sweet angel boy asleep on my lap, and here is the honest truth: in that moment, i would rather die in a plane than wake up my sleeping child. (don't worry. his belt was securely fastened and his seat back and tray table were in the full, upright and locked position.)

BTW, here are some observations about flying:

if it requires mixed martial arts to cram your luggage into the overhead bin, just CHECK the fucking thing.

spilled apple juice smells like pee. or maybe all apple juice does, i don't know.

question: what the f*ck us up with US Airways? does their job application read: "Are you a miserable person? Well then, we have got the career for you! As a flight attendant on US Airways, not only will you be able to wallow in your own misery, you will be able to spread that misery to hundreds of strangers every, single, day!" okay. i'm not being fair. there are probably plenty of perfectly nice flight attendants on that airline. i just have yet to encounter one. well, that's actually not true. there was a really nice guy on our flight Tuesday. aggressively friendly, i would say. he kept throwing things at Jack's head. jack would look up with his initial "what the fuck?" face, then see it was this guy pulling his leg, and smile. that in and of itself is a testament to how far this boy of mine has come. two years ago, that would have ruined 7+ hours of 157 people's lives. anyway, i guess i can't really blame the grumpy ones. held captive 30,000 above the earth with a bunch of impatient, adult-sized toddlers can't be fun.

then, finally, that feeling. after seven goddamn hours stranded on this hunk of metal hurtling through the air, when the plane starts its descent? i swear i can hear a Baptist gospel choir starting up behind me. can i get an AMEN?!

we didn't get home until midnight California time (which was 3am by our recalibrated east coast clocks). i was mentally patting us all on the back and thinking, wow, we made it, that wasn't so bad... but then mommy had a meltdown. it had dawned on me about halfway through our flight that i couldn't just crawl in bed when i got home. i had to bake birthday muffins (remember, no cupcakes allowed!), and go to walgreen's to pick up photos of The Colbs at every year of her life for the preschool birthday song and dance that was happening at 9am the next day (wtf was I thinking? i do not know.) walgreens closes at 10pm, by the way. you should have heard me in the car when i pulled up to the darkened store. ARE YOU F*CKING KIDDING ME?! EXAMINE YOUR BUSINESS MODEL, ASSHOLES!!! "Walgreens. On the corner of Happy and Healthy." MY ASS. How about on the corner of ... STUPID... AND... CLOSED, goddammit." ha. classy. thank GOD and everything holy, DM, my lord and savior, said he would put the kids to bed, bake birthday muffins, AND make the kids' lunches. talk about mom porn.

ANYWAY. thanks to my amazing husband, i felt like things were maybe going to be okay. then i walked into the garage-slash-laundry-room, and realized that an enormous ball of sheets and towels had been sitting in the dryer for a week (and were not even remotely dry), and due to some feat of physics, had tied themselves into a moldy Gordian knot of epic proportions. honestly, it would be impossible for a human to configure linens in such an inextricable cluster of fuck. i briefly contemplated getting my phone to take a picture because there is no way anything but photographic evidence would do it justice, but instead, i just sat down on the ground with an enormous, thirty-pound, mildewy pile of wet laundry on my lap, and started crying like a baby.

ah, "vacation" ;)

oh yeah, and, just to let you know, we've now been back 7 days and everyone in the family is still, apparently, recovering from jet lag and grandparent hangover. but it's totally worth it! ;)

** If you liked this post, you'll love my essay in I Still Just Want to Pee Alone, Available Now! **

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broken bikes & black eyes

"I don't feel nearly as bad about running over our son's bike with my car after you kicked our daughter in the eye."

I think that about sums up our family camping trip last week.

It was good fun, actually. I mean. You know. Considering the fact we had 7 kids 4-and-under in tow.

not a terrible view

We camped right on the beach and we were with our favorite friends and all the minis loved each other and played and played and flew kites and spent hours in the sun and sand and sea. Happy campers, literally.

little people, big kite.

One of my best friends Claire and I were pregnant with our first babies at the same time, lived a mile apart, and spent a lot of time together the first year of the kids' lives. The kiddos, Jack and Millie, were sweet little baby-BFFs. They later moved away, but we still manage to get the pipsqueaks together a couple times a year. One of DM's cousins has a PhD in child-something-or-other. She seems very wise. Recently she was talking about how children "imprint" on each other at a very young age, so even if they don't see each other often, they have these innate memories of one another.

And i feel like that must be true of these two because they get along like gangbusters when they see each other. Then there's Colby chasing after them like, "Hey guythz, wait up! Can i play too?" Poor nugget. Sadly, Jack was relegated to Millie's second fiddle when my friend DP's daughter "Button" joined the kid crew. Sorry, son. Best familiarize yourself with this feeling now. Let's revisit the issue in about ten years and talk about a little tactic called "playing hard to get" vs. "sobbing inconsolably because she doesn't want to sit next to you."

Anyway, within the parameters of family vacations, it was pretty perfect.

a beautiful mess

Though we did spend a night at the motel 6 in Lompoc, CA, which I hope was a once in a lifetime experience. *Shudder.* Colby did barf on the winding drive there. Apparently she shares her mother's propensity for motion sickness. I did expose my latent heteronormativity by asking Claire to pick up a coloring book with "boy stuff" for Jack (i.e., super heroes and ninjas versus the puppies and princesses we had on hand). DM did run over and destroy Jack's bike with the car. And I did kick Colby in the eye. (She was roasting a marshmallow and leaned too far forward in her cheapo camp chair and tipped toward the fire pit. She was out of arm's reach so I threw up my foot to stop her from falling into the flames... aaaaand, kicked her in the "eyebowl." She had a shiner and everything ;-/)

There were ruthless seagulls and fearless bees to contend with. And a bunch of brazen raccoons ransacked our camp the first night. They got into the coolers and broke/ate/tossed four dozen eggs all over the place so, not only did we not have anything for breakfast, we essentially got egged by rodents of unusual size. They destroyed a box of graham crackers, too, so at one point Claire resorted to making s'mores with tortilla chips. Coming soon to a Pinterest board near you ;) She tried to liken it to salted caramel but I wasn't buying it. And of course it wouldn't be a real family vacation without a sick kid. Colby was a total snot faucet the whole time, poor bug. I'm not sure a kleenex was used once. "Roughing it." Oh! And I got so much grief for my headlamp! You people don't know what you're missing!

BETTER than sliced bread. y'all are crazy. it is an incomparable tool for eating pizza in the dark, and other essential activities.

In spite of all that, though, the kids were on cloud nine. I remember one of the first times we took Jack camping, and after one day he was like, "Can we go home now?" But this time they both decided they want to live in a tent forEVAH! It was so cute. And though I've never been an advocate of the family bed, it is sorta fun to wake up all together in this cozy little cocoon. (I actually wish I'd taken a pic of our crooked cocoon. It was a sad, lopsided little thing, listing dangerously to the left, probably from the gale force winds that nearly blew us off the cliff into the ocean last time we went camping.) We even had themed dinners! And of course there's nothing like drinking beers around the fire with friends (once the kids are asleep and the threat of toasted children is no longer imminent). It can't be beat.

Oh YEAH. Also the part where we taught the littles how to play beer pong. RELAX. They didn't drink the beer or anything. They were just our ping pong proxies. I swear I read about it in Parenting Magazine or something. Teaches valuable skills like teamwork and hand-eye coordination. Anyway. Jack was a natural. Pretty sure we created a monster the second he sunk that first ball. His eyes fairly gleamed in triumph. We didn't think much of it at the time, but the next day we got onto the topic of "things you can do when you're 16," like drive a car (because DM also let him "drive" the car down to the camp store - permagrin!) DP asked, "what else are you going to do when you're 16?" and J says, "DRINK BEER!" Aaaaaand, we just created an alcoholic. Wonderful. Can't wait to hear how this gets translated to his teachers. Up until now we had duped the kids into calling anything alcoholic "gwown up dwink." I felt much safer cloaked in that gauzy ambiguity. Oh well!

Anyway, the point is, (mostly) good times were had by all. But. Holy shit, man. The amount of crap we brought? Unreal. I don't even know how we fit it in our car. My parents, who could hike for ten days with nothing but what they could carry on their backs, would be appalled. Seriously. I felt like I was preparing for The End of Days. And of course, we wouldn't want to venture to the end of days without our iPads. (Again, the shame! My mom and stepdad are rolling over in their graves. Even a year ago we SWORE this was something we'd never-ever do: camping and i-anything. But really by now we should know better than to say "I never.")

provisions for a normal human to survive for 4 months,
or my family to camp for 4 days 

precious cargo! it feels like we're forgetting something though.. 

And then there was the great glow stick fiasco of 2014. One night we handed out glow sticks for the kids. Jack and Colby both got green ones, and we fashioned them into necklaces with twine. But THEN. Jack noticed that Button had a PURPLE glow stick, with a soft black lanyard. OH, the injustice. THE HORROR. Well. Button's dad, JP, overheard the ruckus and assumed that it was Colby, not Jack, who was squealing like a stuck pig over a purple glow stick. So he managed to wangle a coveted purple stick out of thin air, and gave it to Colby. Oh dear lord. You can probably imagine where things went from there. Or maybe you can't, because your children are not psycho-beastie-babies. ANYWAY. Jack starts LOSING HIS EVER LOVING MIND because Colby got a purple glow stick and he didn't. Then he tries to snatch it from her, which of course sets Colby off. Talk about end of days. World War Z erupts and I promptly fireman-carried both children to bed. Colby finally decided to be the bigger person and trade her purple for his green, but naturally, that was TOTALLY insufficient, because jack wanted a purple glow stick with a BLACK necklace, not a scwatchy, twine necklace. "Everything is terrible. What is the point of going on??? HOW CAN I BE EXPECTED TO LIVE LIKE THIS?!?" (< I'm paraphrasing.)

Poor JP felt bad for exacerbating the histrionics but I assured him he could not possibly have anticipated the depths of my children's despair over WHAT COLOR GLOW STICK they received. I mean, come the f*ck on. After I finally got the crazies to sleep I was commiserating with my friends over the fire. Are we just raising complete and total terrors? I think the answer is pretty clearly yes. But everyone made me feel a tiny bit better, reminding me that they're just kids. (Though I feel like this is the same argument people use with extremely large puppies - oh, they're little, it's fine, and then suddenly you have a 300 pound dog leaving Everest-sized piles of poop on your bed and using your head as a tiny pillow.) Claire said "Your kids are kind, which is the most important thing, right?" ("Kind" with the caveat that they occasionally torture their parents, each other, and unsuspecting State Park patrons.) Or maybe that's just what delusional, overindulgent parents of spoiled little bratwursts tell themselves. But then JW reiterated my favorite parenting mantra: compared to the vast spectrum of shitty parents, we are most likely at the high end, e.g., only very slightly shitty. And then I felt pretty okay.

good thing they're so cute.

california girl

i think i have a midwestern soul. how else can i explain my love of trees and lakes and wide-open spaces and porch sitting and back doors? my penchant for boxed wine and mayonnaise and casseroles? i mean, i'm not nice enough to actually be a midwesterner, but it's in my blood.

my mom's family lives in kalamazoo, michigan. we used to go back a couple of weeks every summer until i went to college, but it had been five years since the last time we went. that's pre-little-people. my grandma hadn't even met my kids! my littlest cousins are practically grown. it had been too long.

anyway. something about going to michigan will always feel a little bit like coming home. there are 24 of us cousins (i think?), and god knows how many offspring. a lot of them still live in the area. going back just feels like a big hug. a big sweaty, sandy hug. it's just different there. it has the niceness of the south, without the pretense. nobody has fences between their yards, but it's like they lack emotional fences, too. the family bonds are so tight, it seems. people went out of their way to make time for us, to feed us and entertain us. seeing the next generation of cousins thick as thieves like we all were twenty-thirty years ago was priceless. it also helps that we are now old enough to drink, and no one has any problem cracking open a bud light on the beach at noon.

(my mom would probably actually be flabbergasted that this is now the case. i don't think any family gatherings involved alcohol while she was alive. her upbringing was very "footloose." no dancing, no movies, no cards, no nylons, definitely no alcohol. (well, she had alcohol. but shhhh. don't tell grandma.) i remember she was blown away when my grandma got her ears pierced because that was just so totally verboten when she was growing up. and beer at a cookout? not a chance. my aunt and her husband actually own a bar and i don't think my grandma accepted that fact for a decade. but she's come a long way ;))

anyway. hanging out with the Michigan contingent really made me realize how... sort of... isolated we are in san diego. my sister lives 20 minutes away. my dad and my brother and an aunt and uncle and a couple of cousins are a short plane flight north. i have a few really good friends in san diego and a large helping of besties strewn about the state. but i don't know. it's different. the fiber of that fabric is strong, but loosely woven, if that makes any sense? i know if i really need someone, i have a long list of people who would be willing to drop what they were doing to be there for me. but it's not the same as having an enormous clan of family and friends as your default setting - people that will call before they go to the market to ask if you need anything, people who will pick your kids up from school without thinking twice, people who hang out on "school nights," who will be at your house to watch football every sunday whether you like it or not.

and hey. we had a fun-filled-family week and i'm still riding high off that. and who knows. maybe they only do it when we're in town! but there's an ease, a familiarity, that really gave voice to the notion of "it takes a village." my cousins and aunts and uncles traded kids and grandkids like they were their own. we ate and drank and planned and played like one giant, tardy organism :) it just felt very.... comforting.

DM would take this opportunity to point out that I've actively avoided this sense of community and belonging for most of my life. and he would be right. i like my space. my quiet. my solitude. i'm not really cut out for unexpected guests or standing plans on Friday nights. i stress out for weeks beforehand whenever i entertain. and i am reeling from exhaustion and overstimulation after a stint of family-time, all-the-time like the week we just had. but still. it's nice. it's nice to know it still exists and that, if we wanted, we could pretty seamlessly become a part of it. at least for a week every summer :)

and of course, i'm sure a large part of it is because this is one of the last real connections i have to my mom.

i still think it's interesting though, the different "feel" of the place. geography certainly plays a part. most of my mom's family lives within 30 miles of where she grew up. and that takes a kind of familial commitment that i wasn't willing to make. i couldn't WAIT to get out of dodge after high school, and i had (and still have) no intention of returning to my "home town." at this point, i've spent almost as much time away as i spent there, and honestly, there isn't much left that feels like "home" anymore.

and California is different than Michigan. at least, the parts i know. we have fences. i have more of a relationship with the UPS guy than i do with any of my neighbors. we don't sit on the front porch and watch life go by. we stay in our little bubbles. our garages suck us in and spit us out morning and night - from the house to the car to the office and back again, sometimes without even seeing the light of day. we use the front door. (and when someone knocks on it, i hide.) kids don't "go outside and play," they have scheduled play dates at Gymboree. schools don't allow PB&J or super heroes. we talk about farm shares and recipes for quinoa. meanwhile, Michiganders are out on the actual farm detassling (sweet) corn.

i don't mean to sound like i'm down on California, by the way. it's my home. i love it here. it is, in my humble opinion, far and away the best state. i have no intention of leaving, ever. and Michigan isn't all corn rows and kumbayah, i'm sure. (for example, during a 6-month polar vortex.) but i would be lying if i couldn't admit that certain aspects of California are a little... inauthentic. (maybe that is partly because California consists primarily of transplants - people who left "home" in search of something, including but not limited to, themselves?)

anyway, it's not just the midwest, per se. DM is always agitating to move somewhere like Michigan, Delaware, north Carolina, or fresno. somewhere that, in his mind, involves block parties and barbecues, poker night, wiring the baby monitors between your house and your neighbors on either side. but i think it's less about where you are, and more about who you're with. i think maybe you just have to make your own community wherever you end up.

who wants to come over for some casserooooollllle?! extra-gluten-y! ;)

p.s. - i should really stop talking shit about gluten- and dairy-free. it is coming home to roost. my doctor just told me that foregoing dairy may alleviate many of my health woes. "is there cheese in it?" "NO. no there is NOT, A-hole. thanks for reminding me!!!" i just know they're coming after my bread next. hold me.

leavin on a jet pwane

what are the chances of making a connection with two small children and a 15 minute layover?

the answer is zero. zero percent.

we went to michigan last week. on the flight out the kids were angels. i know this has very little to do with me. (as one of my cousins quotes, when it comes to kids, don't take too much credit for the good or the bad.) but still. when people say to you after a painless 4.5 hour flight, "wow, your kids are SO GOOD," it's hard not to feel a tiny bit proud. of course i say thank you and laugh it off and chalk it up to luck and divine intervention. but in my head i'm thinking, yeah, man. dragging these nuggets on airplanes ten times a year since they were born, spending a small fortune on exciting new travel toys every single time, hours spent perfectly packing nutritious snacks and "busy bags" that will fit under the seats in front of us... yeah. i am getting pretty darn good at this.

as they say. pride go-eth before the fall.

on the day of our return, we get to the airport and find out our flight is delayed. if we miss our connection in minneapolis/st. paul, we'll have a five hour layover, and not get back to san diego until after midnight (which is 3am michigan time). we're watching the flight delay tick up by the minute, and our layover time sliced down sliver by sliver - 40 minutes, 30 minutes, 20 minutes, 18 minutes... the alternative is to take a later flight out of kalamazoo, connect in detroit, and get home around 9:45. when we realized we would have less than 20 minutes to make our connection, we bit the bullet and made the switch. i'm really glad we did because we would 100% have missed the flight and been stuck at MSP for 5 hours with two angry babies which sounds like the ninth rung of hell. 

so we wait. (2 hours, not 5, thank you lord). the kids are already pretty tetchy at this point - it's been almost a week in strange hotel rooms, sleeping on weird schedules, and spending all day every day with lots and lots and lots of loved ones. they're just kinda loved-out. they were mostly super great, by the way, especially my mister "don't touch me." and i think they were just exhausted and maybe felt like they could finally let down their "best behavior" guard. it was just bad timing, as we were in a teeny tiny airport with great acoustics and every single person there was privy to the kids' theatrics. and of course, we still had over 6 hours of travel time ahead of us.

because we switched flights last minute, the seating arrangements were dicey. they were able to get us 2 and 2 for the quick hop over to detroit, which went fine. of course the girl fell asleep on my lap 3 minutes before we landed, but what can you do?

then from detroit to san diego, we had a row of 3, and then a middle seat seven rows up. middle seats make me homicidal so i chose to sit with the kids. it was supposed to be a full flight, but as they closed the doors of the airplane, the aisle seat across from us was open! "FATE," i thought. just as i reached up to press my call button to get DM into that seat, the guy who was in the middle scootched over and buckled himself into the aisle seat. i made my best sad-sack mom face and gave him the elevator version of our story, saying i was really hoping my husband could sit there and help out! otherwise this was going to be a long flight! pretty please??? [insert batting eyelashes here.] no dice. he said, "sorry, but i sat in the middle the entire way here and if i have a choice, i am not doing it again." i stopped batting my eyelashes and said, "well then, my husband will be taking that middle seat with a grumpy toddler on his lap." of course, i had two grumpy toddlers on my lap and no way to signal the seat subterfuge to DM so it was an empty threat.

before we even took off, a baby behind us started to cry. colby puts her hands over her ears and says, "DAT'S TOO LOUD." i said yes but sometimes babies cry and she should probably try to be a little more understanding as she was just pulling some ear-piercing mariah carey-pitched BS in the airport. the baby continued to shriek and colby pipes up, "dat baby is CWABBY.... diss is not a cwying ting!!...we don't hass to whine 'bout it."

and someone in front of us definitely has SARS.

then as we take off, jack's like, "DISS PWANE IS GOING TO AFWICA!!! Wait! No! we are going to CHINA! Wait! No! We are going to PWUTO!!! Pwuto is dah farzest away as awfica!!" the ascent was a little bumpy and he continues to narrate, loud enough for deaf people to hear, "OH NO! we are getting shotted by Ironing Man's REPOSTER BWASTS! oh no! we are going to CWASH into dah OCEAN! Pew Pew Pew!!! Aaaaahhhhh!"

the first couple of hours were less than enjoyable but definitely not the worst thing in the world. they were just grumpy and tired and hungry (but didn't want to eat anything i had to offer) and uncomfortable and bored of my bag o' tricks and super squirrelly. then they both wanted to go to the bathroom at the same time but there was no way i was going to try to pull that off so i walked them up to DM and said, "help." then i tapped out, trading seats with DM for the last 2 hours of the flight. i imagine it supremely sucked for him because they were already on a one-way train to crazy town, but i couldn't hear the kids from 7 aisles away, so it could have been worse, right?

DM warned me that i really wasn't going to like the other seat, but i didn't think it could be as bad as the seat i just came from. and i'm sure it wasn't. but it was not ideal. it was between an older couple who had seats on the window and aisle, and they were not slim, and they kept wanting to have conversations and pass reading materials and hot coffee and snacks across my lap, and i had a nearly uncontrollable urge to punch a couple of elderly folks in the "eye-bowls" (as Colby likes to say).

it was so hot and sweaty and uncomfortable and i was crawling out of my skin and i was just thinking to myself, there is NO WAY ON EARTH i could possibly fly to someplace like fiji or anywhere in afwica. and definitely not pwuto. which somehow made me feel even MORE claustrophobic because that basically means i am stranded on this continent for the rest of my life. (i did fly to europe by myself when i was 9 which completely boggles my mind. but that was before my complete set of neuroses was fully developed.)

i had no choice but to eavesdrop on the kids behind me, which at least took my mind off the all-encompassing sense of anxiety:

girl to boy: my birthday is march 28 and your birthday is august 28. six months apart!
nope.
girl: well a year and six months apart.
nope.
girl: once you turn 17 your are closer to 20 than 15.
nope.
girl: well, once you are 17 and a day.
nope. this is not giving me a great deal of hope with respect to san diego's public school system.

i tried to distract myself by watching a movie but then discovered it was going to cost $6 to watch cameron diaz in "the other woman," and while i'll spend more than that on red bull in a single day, i couldn't bring myself to do it. (okay actually it was just because i didn't have a credit card on me.) someone in front of me was watching that animated movie "9," with Japanese subtitles and frankly it was scaring the CRAP out of me. maybe it's less ominous when you can watch it with sound but that shit gave me nightmares. finally i discovered i could watch older/crappier movies for free so i settled for eminem in 8 mile. i fast-forwarded all the way until the final "battle," which is still one of my favorite movie scenes of all time.

and i have to say, i sort of identified with eminem in that movie - except instead of using rap skills to overcome socioeconomic adversity, i'm using humor and glitter glue to overcome parenting adversity, and while these paths are accompanied by nausea and black eyes, in the end we both win ;)

what time is the midnight buffet?

this is me approximately 3 hours into my first cruise:

OHMIGOD, WTF WAS THAT?! DID WE JUST HIT AN ICEBERG????

DM: um, we're off the coast of mexico. don't think there are too many icebergs 'round these parts.

me: iceberg, lochness monster, wtf ever, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE!!!

DM: did you bring any xanax? for me, not you.

the following is a non-exhaustive list of things that cause me major anxiety: small spaces, large crowds, public restrooms, hot tubs and swimming pools, large dark bodies of water, buffets, "organized fun" and mandatory camaraderie, etc.... add to that a nasty case of motion sickness and, at first blush, a week-long cruise with my in-laws on an enormous ship crowded with 3,000 hungry strangers determined to have a good time so-help-them-god might not seem like the best fit.

i admit, i basically spent the entire time suffering from a constant, low-grade panic attack. i kept having to suppress this feeling that i wanted to, like, scrabble up the walls, railings, or even a crowd of people, like a cat climbing curtains, just to get above the press of humanity, industrial carpet, and formica that was constantly coming at me from all sides. except for the few times that i've been inadvertently caught in an impromptu mosh pit, and a little incident on a junior high field trip involving some amateur spelunking, this is probably the worst my claustrophobia and social anxiety have ever been. i'm getting the feeling again just writing about it. i felt like i was one of those tightly coiled joke snakes that come in a can - like at any moment i might just spring violently open. it was better on deck and sort of okay when i was lying down in our bed, but other than that it was pretty intense, particularly in our room (four humans, three beds, and a shit-ton of stuff in 200 square feet (aka, "thirteen size-eleven Keds long by twelve Keds wide,")) and in the loooooong windowless corridors that were like hallways to hell. one night, DM cornered me in our stateroom to give me a kiss and i started to have heart palpitations and my whole self got itchy, like i just wanted to bowl him over in search of the nearest breath of fresh air. luckily he sensed my animal-in-captivity vibe before i had to resort to fisticuffs, and carefully backed away. ah, love ;)

photo credit: word info (not shockingly, the entry for agoraphobia, though it kind of looks like a flash mob)

my anxiety was also particularly pronounced when we attempted to take Super Why and Squirmy McShrieky Pants to the nightly high school musicals and other "so far off broadway we're in the middle of the ocean" Princess Cruise productions. actually it wasn't really so bad. there was usually enough volume and commotion to distract from the personal noisemakers i had in tow. but one night there was this "hypnotist," and as we walked in (late) he was giving a straight-faced spiel about how complete and utter silence was absolutely crucial in order for him to put the volunteers "under." this was me:

(if you're wondering why we would even consider taking two wildly volatile critter babies to grown-up entertainment that required total silence, ask DM.) needless to say, we failed to comply. which might explain why none of this guy's victims were even good at pretending to be hypnotized. actually, it seems that he may have inadvertently hypnotized Colby. he was trying to get some of his volunteers to "forget the number 6," and while it was a total bust on stage, she's been counting "one two free foy fie seben" ever since. or maybe she just never knew six in the first place ;)

sorry. didn't really intend to go on a stroll down mental health lane but there ya have it.

anyway, beyond (or perhaps, in part, because of) the anxiety, my overall impression was a bunch of happily sedate and dangerously overfed tourists, peering through their peepholes at the "natives" when we came to port. experience all the "culture" you can find within the immediate five block radius! it was pretty surreal, actually. it was like a zoo in reverse, with the same slight but pungent undercurrent of desperation. "we are going to have FUN, dammit!"

another impression: people who say that you can't feel the boat moving and/or you won't get seasick on a cruise ship = BIG FAT LIARS.

however, once i ascertained the proper mix of alcohol, dramamine, and cheesecake to assuage my psychic and physical ailments, it was pretty alright. though perhaps not my preferred method of travel, i think all in all the cruise goes down as a win. the kiddos got a huge kick out of the whole thing, and were able to put in some serious quality time with their grandparents and cousins (and aunt and uncle, too). i also got to do a lot of nothing (my favorite thing), stare at the ocean, sunbathe, read in bed, and love on my munchkins 24/7 for a week straight, which is a rare treat (or trick, depending on the hour ;)) and the littles made friends with the staff everywhere we went so we now have a lifetime supply of pillow mints ;) i also got pregnant. with a giant food baby. seriously. my waistline survived thanksgiving and christmas unscathed, but i think i packed on a pound a day at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

okay, so, i was going to add this tangential part at the end, serving to sort of counteract my snobbery, and, in my humble opinion, it was going to be the funniest part, but then i remembered how my husband says each of my blog posts is like reading a faulkner novel, so you'll just have to wait with bated breath until next time. (not that he's ever actually read faulkner. (or, for that matter, an entire blog post.) my man's "wicked smaht," but literature isn't really his thing. nor is vocabulary. the other day he used "verklempt" in a sentence (correctly) and i reacted as though my 3 year old had said it. (love you, mister cheese! ;))

until then - i'll leave you with this little slice of sweetness:

about to "bark"

*recommended reading:

Shipping Out: On the (nearly lethal) comforts of a luxury cruise, by David Foster Wallace (excerpt in Harper's Magazine, included in the larger collection A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. < Yes. This. All of it.