the shit show, part deux

continued from "the shit show, part I."

friday morning. headed to the airport. as we're on the shuttle from parking lot, i say to DM, "crap! i didn't get a ticket with our parking space on it, did you?" he replies, "no. but it's fine. i'll remember where we parked. it's not that big a lot, anyway." (for those of you who were english majors, you may recognize this as a literary device called foreshadowing.)

the flight to mexico is dicey. i mean, i guess it could have been worse. but i would rather undergo a two-hour bikini wax or minor oral surgery. we had decided to save a few hundred bucks by having colby fly as a lap baby, but i would have paid in gold for an extra seat at the time. then there is the joy that is the mexican car-rental experience. let's just say that "air conditioner" is a term loosely defined, and i am shocked that the vehicle did not spontaneously combust for the duration of our trip.

we finally arrive at the condo, and are happily surprised by the place. however, it seems to be an expat retirement community. it is very serene and quiet. or, it was. resulting from a dangerous combination of hunger, exhaustion, travel, and sickness, both of our children lose their muther-luvin minds that evening. as DM said, "good thing we're in a catholic country. we should be able to find a decent exorcist." seriously. they were possessed. it was OUT of control. i am shocked that mexico's version of CPS did not come knocking on our door. i cannot convey in words how painful it was. i am prone to hyperbole, and say at least once a week that i am having the worst day of my life, so the phrase has lost some of its impact coming from me. but happy-go-lucky DM is generally mr. positivity, and by the time we belly-crawled our bruised and battered selves back to our room after the epic bedtime battle, he said, "barring death and life-threatening illness and injury, i think that may have been the worst day of my entire life. top five, easy. at the very least, that was the absolute worst valentine's day in history. but, i'm glad i got to spend it with you." *swoon.* don't be jealous of our love ;)

the next day was sort of alright, except we had to get groceries and set up shop, so we did not get to take full advantage of our locale. naptime and bedtime again were harrowing experiences that drove us to the brink, and to the drink. i can happily report, however, that after 33 years and 23 months, i have turned the corner with respect to the consumption of beer. after bonding over MGD's with step-grams and my bro a couple of weeks ago, i've seen this pee-drink in a new light. i think DM fell in love with me all over again. he said, "if i had a blog, i would write a post about how, just when i thought i really knew you, you walk out onto the porch, sit down, and crack open a tecate at 2pm." (doesn't sound like the most interesting blog post, but hey, at least he'd have brevity on his side ;))

trying to find my happy place

sunday was pretty perfect. it was exactly as we had envisioned our "vacation" to be. i think we still had a hard time fully enjoying ourselves though. we were both suffering from a mild-to-moderate case of PTSD from friday, and were just waiting for the other shoe to drop. we had also caught "the crud" from the kiddos, and found little joy in tequila, which is quite out of character. still. the whole trip might have been worth it. if it weren't for...

(to be continued . . . )

you can't see it in this picture, but there were approximately 700,320 birds on this beach.
i don't know if it's always like that or they were just hovering there because it was turtle-hatching season
and they wanted a piece of the turtle baby buffet. in any event. birds f*cking terrify me.
not only were there hordes of seagulls, there were actual vultures circling in the sky.
it was downright hitchcockian.
the worst part was that there was not a square foot of beach without bird shit on it.
i'm surprised we didn't contract avian poop flu.
now see? what if i just posted this to facebook with a caption like, "live your bliss?"
that would be "choosing joy," i guess ;)

the shit show, part I

ah, vacation. sun. sand. sea. sipping a big, icy cold margarita in a frosted glass while the children frolic happily on the beach, gentle ocean waves lapping at their adorable little sausage toes.

hahahahahahahahaha. good one, eh?

i've talked before about the trials and tribulations of family "vacations," flying with children, and DM's and my misguided aspirations to expose our children to culture and travel while maintaining the adventurous spirit upon which our relationship was founded. and i have to admit, i was starting to get a little cocky. ever since jack was 11 months old, traveling with the kids seems to have become progressively easier. not without its challenges, mind you. but, not the absolute worst thing in the world (which is probably the strongest endorsement i could give) and, arguably, worth the benefits it brings.

well, ladies and gentlemen, i can assure you, my ego is now in check. may i please have an extra large scoop of ice cream with my humble pie?

you may have heard/read, but, just to set the tone, a week prior, my grandpa died. we figured we were going to need to cancel our mexican vacation to attend the service. but, as "luck" would have it, the memorial was postponed a couple of weeks and our vacation plans remained intact.

then, the kids got sick. the entire week was an exercise in sleep deprivation, with long days juggling snotty babes and laptops and distracted conference calls and long nights where one or both sicky littles woke up needing tylenol and TLC. we were scheduled to leave for mexico friday morning. at 11:30 pm on thusday night, DM and i are sitting on the couch, trying to catch up with work. it is eerily quiet. he looks over at me and says, "i'm not even going to say anything...." let me translate our marital ESP: "i can't believe no one has woken up yet. that's a good sign. but i'm not going to say it out loud, because i am a notorious jinx-er, and if i say it out loud, someone will wake up." me: "DON'T EVEN THINK IT. GET THAT THOUGHT OUT OF YOUR HEAD. RIGHT. NOW."

as if on cue, the baby monitor emits an animal-like wail. but, we realize, it's jack's monitor. we were not expecting that, because he is the one who got sick first, and seemed mostly fine at this point. he's also three and a half, rarely wakes up in the night anymore, and when he does, it's usually pretty easy to get him back down. [*KNOCK ON WOOD*] DM goes back and tries to settle him, to no avail. it escalates. i go back there and attempt to exude my most nurturing, motherly presence. he screams at me: DON'T TOUCH ME! GET OFF MY BED! GET OUT OF MY ROOM RIGHT NOW!!! then he screams when i leave. at this point, he is utterly inconsolable. DM and I are both in there, trying to do and say anything we can to get him to calm down. NOTHING works. he can't tell us what is wrong or why he is crying or how we can make it better. it's a lose-lose situation. the only consistent thing is that he is periodically grabbing his left ear and saying "OWIIIIIE." we are finally able to get him to take some motrin, but it doesn't help a bit. this goes on for three hours. i have never, ever seen him this upset for this long, at least not since the "dark days" of colic over three years ago. DM and i are staring at each other, wide-eyed with panic, like, what in the fuck is going on??? and i am on the verge of tears, too. not only because i feel bad that he is so miserable, but because, honestly, and i know this sounds sort of silly, i know he's sick and just a kid, but he hurt my feelings. (incidentally, i read this post recently and it really resonated with me: "Forgive and forget? I wish I could" on Motherhood, WTF?)

i finally called the kaiser "help" line. all i really wanted was the physical address of an urgent care clinic, but i had to sit through their spectacularly unhelpful triage process, e.g., "Is your son afraid of clowns? Does he prefer broccoli or asparagus? Is he awake and responsive right now? Okay. Have him pick a number, any number, between 1 and 99...." once i had hacked my way through the ridiculous bureaucratic BS, i was informed that they don't have urgent care, only the ER, and "god only knows how long that'll take." the nurse recommended that i just bring him in to his pediatrician first thing in the morning. i informed her that that wasn't going to work because we had a flight at 10am. i asked if i should just take him to the ER instead. she was a total arschloch and was like, "Ma'am, you don't need MY permission to do whatever you want to do for your son. I cannot give you medical advice. I'm just giving you my suggestion as a trained medical professional. But you just go on ahead and do whatever your little heart desires with regards to your son's health and well being." i hung up, savored a few choice words for the "trained medical professional," and got dressed to take my son to the ER. then we conveniently remembered that my father-in-law is a doctor, so we called him and asked him to just call in a prescription for antibiotics. i went to CVS at 3:30 in the morning and got the prescription and an entire bag of crappy clearance stuff for valentine's. by the time i got home, though, jack was sound asleep on the couch. when he woke up in the morning, he was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. we were like, wtf? but hey, i'll take that over sick psycho baby any day.

[okay. so. i was recently reading some "blog tips" and the lady was saying, "it doesn't really matter how long your blog post is. if it takes you 1,000 words to passionately discuss how you feel, so be it. but keep in mind, most people don't have the time or the inclination to read 1,000 words." (so, in other words, it totally does matter how long your blog post is.) hmmm. so, then, how do we feel about 3,042 words? too much? ;) alright. in light of this recent discovery, i'm splitting this post into three installments that are still well beyond the attention span of the average american, which is slightly longer than that of a fruit fly. that's the best i can do :)]

to be continued . . .


kaiser "i can't give you advice" nurse, i will cut you.
source: http://www.sasstown.com/blog/tag/airlines

domesticated animal

i am not very "domestic." a few years ago i was visiting my mom's family in kalamazoo (yes, there really is a kalamazoo ;)) after a day or two, my grandma said to me from the kitchen: "i keep waiting for you to jump in and take charge here! your mom would've stepped in and started running the show the minute she arrived." my aunts concurred. i was like, ummmm, yeah, no. don't hold your breath ladies!

i have friends and family who can whip up a three course meal for an impromptu gathering of twenty. who can toss together a breakfast casserole without a recipe while juggling babies and deftly distributing educational toddler crafts. that is so not me. i don't want anyone to come over, ever, without like 48 hours notice. if you do, you will likely survey my messy kitchen, piles of laundry, unmade beds, and a family in their PJs past noon while i sit in silent mortification. and cooking for a crowd on the fly? fuhgeddaboutit. i'd be like, um, may i offer you some alphabits? you can have your choice of cow or almond milk. of course we usually have gold fish and baby carrots and an assortment of other orange-colored snack products. i just don't do impromptu. i am not a great cook. i mean, i "cook" for my family five nights a week. but, it does not come naturally. i can't just throw things together, adding a pinch of this and a dash of that and ending up with an edible meal. wanna know what DM refers to as my "secret spices?" crushed red pepper and garlic salt. i put that shit on everything. the other 67 jars in my spice rack are just there for decoration. (incidentally, is it bad that half the time my toddler is pretending to talk on the phone, she's "ordering pizza?" the other half she's having in-depth conversations with the dog.)

further, and this is really sad for my kids and my husband, but, i would not serve most of what i cook at home to anyone other than those who are legally obligated to love me. not that it's terrible or anything (i hope). i am just not confident enough in my creations to serve them to a crowd. when i do cook for guests, it is a carefully planned affair with detailed recipes and at least three trips to the grocery store. (i also rely heavily on whomever's around - my brother, sister-in-law, etc. - anyone who does know their way around a kitchen. in fact, when my mother-in-law comes to visit, she just takes over the kitchen altogether. i have no business there.) i have about 3.5 recipes that i know people legitimately like, and i follow them to a T. even then, i get major anxiety about entertaining or potlucks or the like because i don't want to food poison anyone. also because i have always been, even before the era of pinterest, freakishly compelled to give any social gathering a theme and matching tableware. but i can happily report that the past three years, six months and fifteen days have been an exercise in lowering my standards. i mean, honestly, ain't nobody got time for that!

i was thinking about all of this in the context of friends and family going through hard times lately. i want to help them. to be there. but then i'm like, well, what can i even do to actually be of help? make some freezer meal they will politely accept and then promptly toss in the trash, because my reputation in the kitchen has preceded me?

this isn't the most apt analogy, but for some reason i keep seeing the parallels. when i was planning our wedding, a wise girlfriend of mine who had just gotten married told me, "nobody remembers the details. worry about what matters." and in retrospect, i know that that is so true. good music. good people. that's all i ever remember. i don't even really care about the food. as a vegetarian who doesn't like vegetables, i don't think i've had a single wedding meal i actually enjoyed. not even my own! (except one friend who served It's-It's and grilled cheese at midnight, yeehaw! ;)) but ANYWAY. my friend gave me this sage advice. and of course i completely disregarded it. i spent so much time and money on inane details that nobody but me and my wedding planner gave a single thought. DM always uses one particular example of my insanity in this regard: napkin rings. i insisted that we make 142 napkin rings by hand. as we sat there, night after night, stabbing ourselves with floral wire and sustaining second-degree hot glue gun burns, DM fumed. he thought it was probably the single dumbest idea that i had ever had in my entire life. he said in order to make it worth our time, twenty-seven people needed to comment favorably on the napkin rings at the wedding. you know how many people did? three. okay. i'm lying. zero. but you know how many people told us they had an amazing time at our wedding? 142.

the point being... don't stress the small stuff. nobody remembers the napkin rings or the inedible pie. (okay. that's not actually true. to this day, my dad still gives me shit about the time in high school i made a pumpkin pie for my boyfriend and forgot to put the sugar in.) but anyway. you get my gist.

you know what i am good at, though? bossing. which makes me a good handler of things. and, when needed, i can clean like a mo-fo. laundry is my biatch. i can order take-out. i can organize the shit out of stuff. i am really good at doctoring boxed cake mix and making cute cupcakes. i make a mean "get well" gift basket. oh oh oh, and OREO POPS! i am the QUEEN of oreo pops. okay. maybe just like, a lady-in-waiting. but still. if you ever need oreo pops, i'm your gal. while i do love to hear myself talk, i can also be a really great listener when the situation calls. and even though i pretend i don't know how to even open a bottle of screw-top wine when my husband is around, i'm not a terrible bartender. if you are in need of a margarita, holler. and you know what i'm starting to realize? THAT IS ENOUGH. what people need is whatever you have to give them. they need YOU. that's it. that's all. nobody cares about anything else. they really don't.

(i'm practicing in case Oprah ever needs a stand-in. what do you think? ;))

they were pretty cute though, right? ;)



sorry not sorry

i read this article on slate a week or two ago. it was titled "'my life is a waking nightmare' - why do parents make parenting sound so godawful?" in case you can't tell from the title, the author ruth graham is complaining about the "uterus-shriveling posts" of "mommy bloggers" that she feels compelled to read while luxuriating in long, quiet bubble baths. and i get where she's coming from. i really do. before i had kids, the only thing i found more annoying than people gushing about the wonder of pregnancy, child birth and motherhood was people bitching about how hard it is to be a parent. i was like, hey, there's a pill for that! it's called birth control! (editor's note: said pill doesn't work unless you take it as instructed.)

graham also makes a decent point toward the end about the way that the faux "worst mom ever/parenting sucks/my kids are a-holes" genre, written primarily by "good" middle class moms, skews the public perception and draws attention away from real parenting problems. which kind of reminds me of an ex-boyfriend who would tell me, whenever i complained about anything, that i should be thankful i didn't have cancer and or lose my arms in a freak accident. and again. i get it. i've said it myself. we should "choose joy" when we can. but a gal can only step on so many legos before she snaps, you know? and the internet is kind of like your local indulgent late-night bartender, serving you another cold one, pretending to give a shit about your problems, and calling you an uber.

anyway, nobody is holding a gun to your head and making you read this crap. (the same can be said of me reading her post, i guess, or facebook arguments about how global warming is fake and obama is a knyan terrorist... and i know sometimes it's like watching a train wreck, you can't NOT read the stuff. but if it bothers you THAT much, maybe try? i know i do, for the sake of my own mental and physical health.) we'll leave for another day and/or professional therapy the issue of why any of us feel the need to write about our joys or sorrows at length in such a public forum.

this post was shared over 6000 times on facebook and has almost 1000 comments. it induced shock waves of "mom guilt" throughout the mommy blogger scene. (see, e.g., "you know it happens at your house too," whose author felt so bad after reading graham's article, she wrote a post of her own titled "parenting is," detailing the joys and challenges of parenting and attempting justify/explain the "inappropriate parenting humor and foul language" of the (anti)mommy-blog set.) and i get that too. one of my "child-free" friends once said that sometimes he wants kids but then he reads my emails and changes his mind. i felt sooooooo awful. my husband is always telling me to keep my yap shut around people who have yet to experience the "joys" of parenthood: "yeah, it's hard as f*ck, and they'll find that out soon enough. just let them live out these last halcyon days in ignorant bliss." i emailed all my friends who didn't have kids at the time, apologizing and trying to explain the simultaneous heaven-and-hell that is parenthood. (i discuss it at length in another post - the biggest mistake you will never regret.) one of my friends wrote back and said, "you are on crack. get off your high horse if you think your crazy ass ramblings have any actual bearing on our decision whether or not to have children." my other friend wrote, "have you always been this insane? or did the kids do this to you? i will add your points to my list of the pros and cons of procreation." ha. okay. point taken.

however, at the end of the day, you can take bubble baths and naps and buy pretty things with your expendable income and sit on the toilet without someone providing a running commentary of your bodily emissions and the "furriness" of your vagina, so i am unable to muster a whole hell of a lot of sympathy at this exact moment in time.

anyway. sometimes parenting can be difficult:

or disastrous:

or just plain shitty:

but it's not all bad. just look at the potential:

photo source: awkwardfamilyphotos.com

heaven-ish

my grandpa just died.

i mean, not just just. but. quite recently.

it was not unexpected.

but that doesn't make it any less sad.

this isn't my first rodeo. death is not a foreign concept to me. i've done the tragic, sudden-death, freak-accident, gone-before-their-time thing. i've also done the not-exactly-expected, but not-exactly-shocking, either, thing. in any event. it always happened quickly. there was no "saying goodbye." and in my mind, i always thought it would be nice to be able to say goodbye.

i didn't really think about the reality of being able to say goodbye, though. that somebody has to be slowly dying. that you know they're going to die but you don't know when. that you are basically waiting for them to die. that they are waiting to die. that dying really isn't all that enjoyable of an experience, and dragging it out over an extended period of time is not necessarily ideal.

i'm still glad i got to say goodbye. but i'm just saying. it didn't go down like it does in the movies, or at least, the movie in my mind.

another thing i didn't realize: even when you know it's just around the corner, even when you're waiting for the call, even though you're actually hoping it happens sooner than later, it hurts. it really hurts. no matter which way you cut it, death is a sucker punch to the gut. it takes the wind out of you. it's like an emotional brain freeze. it sucks.

he was my step-dad's dad. i didn't call him "grandpa," but he was mine. some people have said things along the lines of, oh, i know he was "just" your step-grandfather, but i'm sure it still hurts. thank you, captain obvious. for me, "step" is just semantic. i love words. but sometimes, a lot of the time, they don't really mean anything. or rather, they mean what you want them to mean. you know?

step-gramps and step-grams met my sister and me before they met their own grandchildren. i was 7 and she was 3. if you keep up with this blog, you may remember that on my mom's first date with step-dad, they went naked hot-tubbing with step-grams and step-gramps. i think she fell in love with them as much as she did with step-dad. "the stepdadders" were and are a kick-ass crew. i have never met anyone quite like them. we won the modern-family lotto, for sure.

i keep starting sentences and stopping them. i feel like there is nothing i could write that would adequately sum up this man and his legacy. he was a teacher. he was a spy. he was afraid of heights. he loved happy hour. he introduced me to crinkle cut salt and pepper kettle chips. along with his wife and three sons, and learning on the fly, he built a cabin in lake tahoe that three generations have enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy for years and years to come.

i started this post days ago and left it open on my computer. i had written "he was a" ... and never finished my thought. DM was using my computer and filled in the blank with "a-freaking-mazing." it's sweet. and true. DM loves their family, their dynamic, their 'french-word-for-that-certain-something.' he wishes he was a stepdadder. i'm glad he isn't though, because that would have made for a very strange situation. but the stepdadders, they are the genuine article. they actually consist mainly of step-grams' family. step-gramps was a "non-blood," as they're so lovingly called. an interloper. but he was the perfect complement. he was such a good man. a great man. one of the best men.

when i saw him last weekend, physically, he was a shell of the man he once was. but he still knew what was up. my brother and uncle and grams and i were sitting on the bed, going through old photos. we came upon a few photos of a pet parakeet that they'd had 40-some-odd years ago. apparently it had just been hanging out in the backyard and they brought it inside and there it stayed, sometimes perched on their german shepherd's back. we all thought step-gramps was sleeping, but suddenly, he hoarsely whispered something. "what was that?" we asked. "e." ... "a."... "nevermore." step-grams barked out a laugh. that was the parakeet's name! after edgar allen poe. he was still sharp as a tack ;)

when i was getting ready to leave at the end of the weekend, i wondered if i should just say goodbye, or say goodbye. i knew this was the last time i would see him. i flew up precisely because i wanted to see him again before he left this world. we had plans to come up in March, to celebrate Colby's 2nd birthday, because we knew he wasn't going to be around too much longer. but my brother, who has been staying with and helping take care of step-gramps for months, said he didn't think he would last even that long. so basically, i was there to say goodbye. but i wasn't sure if i was willing, or able, to make it a "thing."

a girlfriend of mine said she had read some literature that people in this sort of limbo state often pass in their sleep after saying goodbye to their family. she had watched a documentary about it. of course, then she added, "i also cried for like three days after watching that documentary, so maybe the concept is not totally ideal." ha. thanks for the helpful insight, friend ;)

i still didn't know what i was going to do as i walked into his room. i sat down next to him and held his hand. he opened his eyes and looked up at me. i said, "hey." after a few seconds he said, "how 'bout them niners?" i laughed out loud. i don't know if he noticed or not, but i was wearing a 49ers sweatshirt. it was superbowl sunday. we had asked him the day before if he might be interested in watching the game. he hadn't been out of bed in almost a week at this point so it was a long shot. also, he doesn't even like football. or, didn't. which just made it that much funnier. i talked with him a little bit. he asked about DM, my sister, my dad, and the kids. each and every word took so much effort. it meant so much to me that he would expend what precious little breath he had left asking about the well-being of my family. he told me he really appreciated that i came all the way up to see him. i said of course. he was closing his eyes after every sentence so i knew i needed to wrap it up. i said, "well, we'll all be up here next month for Colby's birthday, but......... if you're not around..... i'll catch you on the flip side, okay?" (that's the best i could do.) he mumbled something. i couldn't understand, so i asked him to repeat it. he said, "cold hands." i smiled and said, "yep. it's cold outside. california's finally getting some rain." (of course i felt it was an opportune time to talk about the weather.) then he whispered, "cold hands. warm heart." it's funny, because it's not even something i would ever picture him saying. but it pierced my soul. and my eyeballs. which promptly started leaking. i managed to get out the words "love you." but he had already closed his eyes.

it's weird. i'm weird. i don't think i've told anyone that story, not word-for-word. and yet i'm putting it out there on the world wide web for a million seven other people to see ;) just thinking about telling it, out loud, makes me so exhausted. and i feel simultaneously embarrassed and protective about sharing such a personal moment. but it also makes me feel better to write it down, like i don't have to hold on so tight. i can let go of it now. so. there you go.

this weekend i was looking at photo albums with the kids. i pointed out a picture of us with the step-grands in tahoe last summer and said, "step-gramps is in heaven now." DM looked at me quizzically and said, "heaven? really? wow. i would not have called that one in a million years." and i guess that's fair. i'm a notorious scrooge when it comes to organized religion and the bible and "god-with-a-capital-G." but, though i may not buy in to angels and harps and pearly gates, per se, "heaven" is shorthand for what i believe. step-gramps is reunited, somewhere, with his son, with my mom, with all of the friends and loved ones who went before him. heaven is a naked hot tub party in the sky. margaritas are mandatory.

"Melvin Rumplethorpe"
(Amazing art by my little bro)