Dr. Phil the Younger

My son has a girlfriend. He's 14.

She's great, by the way. Smart, quick smile to go with an edgy wit, doesn't put up with crap. She doesn't even do the TeenSpeak thing to excess, which, ohmygod, is like, soooo awesome? So, if my youngest of offspring must have a girlfriend (Seriously? You can't wait until you're 35, son?), I couldn't have picked a better one. Plus, she'll keep him in line.

So, my son, still fresh in the blush of Young Love, suggests that I may want to rethink my stance on relationships. Apparently, I should be dating more. Or dating period.

I'm a single mom. Three teenagers, two big dogs, mortgage, full-time job. I currently do not have the time or inclination to take on a relationship. This, of course, could instantly change, should Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, or Denzel Washington suddenly come a-knocking. Or should I win the lottery and suddenly have time to shave my legs and paint my toenails.

These scenarios could easily occur around the same time that monkeys fly out of my ass.

Dear Son: Yeah, so, I'm just saying, you maybe should think about how you look at relationships. You know, you're always saying a relationship takes work and energy, and you already work and have kids and stuff, but maybe you should think about that in a different way.

Me: Different way?

Dear Son: Yeah, you know, like it's someone to talk to and know about, plus it's fun. Maybe it would give you energy instead of using your energy, or something. Like maybe it's a good thing, not more work.

Me: ...

Dear Son: So, like maybe you're not thinking about it fairly.

Me: What are you, Doctor Phil?

Are you serious? The kid whose stretchmarks I bear dispensing advice to the lovelorn? Is he not here as a direct result of a heartily embraced relationship? Well, that and The Best of Barry White.

Scratch that.

So, it's all fresh and exciting for him. Relationships have not yet evolved to include such mundane things as Effort and Work. Good for him, I mean that. Damn, I love that kid. And he's probably right. To some extent. You, Gentle Readers, understand the many layers and phases of love, and he'll get that someday. Hopefully slowly, and weighted toward the joy end of the spectrum.

I look at his (too) handsome, earnest face, and know there's no explaining it. He'll learn it all -- good, bad and ugly -- as we all do. Young love: nothing better.

So, I've been Dr. Phil'd by this young man whose diapers I changed. WTF?

Well.

It probably wouldn't hurt to consider his thoughts. Throw off a bit of the (well-earned) cynicism. I wasn't always cynical. I was once a fresh-faced romantic. Of course, I also wore acid-washed, pleated jeans with tapered ankles. You move on. With wisdom comes a certain amount of cynicism. That's just the way of it. But, don't we all sometimes think on those days when it was just fun and your heart was close to bursting?

Go on with your bad self, Young Dr. Phil. Just not too fast.

Sunshine In a Box

This is Seattle this week:

I took this picture at work. Some people say, "Oh, look, the fog has rolled in off the Sound! It feels so cozy!"  What is wrong with these people?

Cozy my ass.

I am so sick of rain and fog and GREY I could puke. If only I had the energy. I am going through some serious sunlight deprivation here, folks. It's been going on for three years. What is this, Alaska?

Seattle has a reputation for rain. "What did she expect, moving to Seattle?" A valid question. You think I just moved here on a lark? From across the Atlantic with three kids and a rabbit?

Yeah, let's just do that without thinking it through.

I researched the hell out of locations before moving. I built a spreadsheet comparing my six finalist locations. I quizzed Seattleites online about everything, including the weather.

Especially the weather.

What I didn't realize then is that a Seattleite's perception of weather is completely different from mine. Here's how a typical chat would go, back in those halcyon days of Researching Seattle:

Me: So is the rain really as bad as they say?

Seattleite: Naw, we just say that to keep people from moving here!
Especially the Californians!
Miami's rainfall is way higher than ours!
Dude, we actually have drought conditions in July and August!

Me: Wow, I didn't know that! So ... it really doesn't rain that much?

Seattleite: Well, only in the winter.
But hey -- no snow!
And no thunder or lightening, just a light drizzle.
You don't even need an umbrella!

Me: That doesn't sound too bad. What about summers -- I really love the sun, does it get hot in the summer?

Seattleite: Dude! Summer is the best part!
Yeah, it gets hot, but not crazy hot, not like sticking to your clothes.
Never too hot, never too cold!
And the mountains and water? Seattle summer is the bomb!

So I'm thinking, wow, sounds good. I'm glad I checked with these folks. I can deal with winter drizzle if my payoff is this legendary summer! Hell, yeah! After moving, I found out the following things which had not shown up in my research:

1. "Hot" to a Seattleite is 72F - 74F. With no humidity. And a maritime breeze


2. "Winter" goes from September to April.


3. They say May and June are"summer". They lie. May and June are just April Showers, continued.

1. Summer is actually only August and half of July. Make it count.


2. On Winter Solstice, it's dark when I arrive at work and dark when I leave. At 4pm.


3. The Emerald City moniker doesn't just mean "green all the time". It means you are not in friggin' Kansas anymore, Dorothy.

Seattleites live in a weather bubble. A snowglobe without the snow. The Seattle comfort zone ranges from say, 62F to about 72F. Below or above that is considered "freezing" or "burning up".

A day that hits 80 (no humidity, mind you) is "a real scorcher".

If it hits the low 90s (again, no humidity), people lose their gottdamn minds.

Meteorologists break into TV programs with heat advisory warnings, and folks are advised to hit the malls or theaters to avoid heat stroke. You'd think it was Armageddon. Get to the A/C, where it's safe, people! Watch those babies and old folks, too.

I have not worn shorts in three years. I can count the times I've worn short sleeves. I am the color of a corpse. I wear undershirts and socks year-round. I miss real weather. I miss thunder and lightning and snow. I especially miss people who know how to drive in snow. And snowplows. But I miss heat most of all.

Hindsight is a clear-sighted bitch.

I am now researching Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD. Go figure). This is actually a big deal, because I am basically a suck-it-up-and-drive-on type of girl. What, a crisis? Sounds like a personal problem to me, soldier. Depression? Not me. PMS? For wimps. Feeling blue? Best fit that shit in after taking care of business. This of course, only applies to me. Everyone else is allowed to feel blue or have PMS.  That's "different".

I am allowed to feel crappy, I'm just supposed to keep that shit boxed up nice and tidy. Let it out of the box, and then who's going to take care of business? So to even think I could join the Ranks of the Depressed was a huge internal battle.

Whatever. I'm over that. This endless drizzly-assed GREY is depressing as hell.

I don't think SAD covers it though, for me. I have diagnosed myself with MFD-SAD, or Manic Fucking Depressive Seasonal Affective Disorder. I don't need a medical degree to know this is true. It's the manic part that confirms it.

The sun came out two weekends ago. I was as one possessed. I cleaned and organized the garage; cleaned the yard, driveway, and street of the storm debris that had been sitting for weeks (Yes, we actually had a real live storm!); got all the Christmas decorations down, packed and organized; cleaned house; did laundry; walked the dogs; cooked dinner; and finished a big project for work.

Those are the parts I remember. I get so freaking deliriously happy when the sun comes out, it's like a drug.  I swear I get high on sunbeams. That could be a song. I Get High On Sunbeams.

Fortunately, I now have Sunshine In a Box. I arrived one morning to find it outside my office door, with a Post-it note attached. A dear friend and colleague apparently heard I was about to lose my fucking MIND, and lent me her lightbox. I could kiss her boots. I considered setting up a shrine for her, the better to worship her like Ra, the sun god. Yes, a shrine. This is how twisted and desperate a sun-whore's mind becomes in the absence of sunlight.

This is Sunshine In a Box:

(Yes, that is my G.Dubya Bush countdown calendar on the right. We have 713 days left in his reign.)

The light box is the blazing white rectangle, lower left. This sucker is bright. Either it's working, or the  incrementally longer days are having an effect.  More likely, my mind is pulling some sort of psychological trickery on my ass. The placebo effect. I don't care.

I do not care.

Beats drugs or therapy.

Rock On, Senator.

My daughter heard Barack Obama speak. Shook his hand. And, perhaps best of all, had the perverse pleasure of shoving past a FOX news reporter to do so. Go, baby. She skipped Arabic class and took the Metro to GMU in Virginia to watch history in the making.

That's pretty goddamn exciting.

She reports he is a magnificent speaker. He is also left-handed, which she promptly added to her list of things they have in common: biracial, single mother, went to school in another country with another language, left handed.  "We're practically twins", she stated. In the spirit of Senator Joe Biden's recent comments, I guess she could add "so well-spoken" to the list.

This is just one of the many Very Cool Experiences she's had since leaving the Left Coast for Howard U. in DC. She's but a stone's throw from W. and his minions. In fact, she was at the White House just last weekend for an anti-war protest. She walked with a group from the NOW headquarters, and also helped them sort through all manner of interesting hate mail from pro-lifers, which was evidently entertaining as hell, and definitely not carrying Christian messages of love. ("Jesus hates you!" Seriously?)

I don't know yet if Senator Obama is the best person for president, and I don't know if America is ready yet to finally cross race and/or gender lines in the White House. What I do know is that Barack Obama, while surely inspirational to a great many people, is especially and critically inspirational to my daughter, in a way that John Kerry or Wesley Clark could never be for her. Barack Obama means it's possible.

For her.

For people of color. For people from single-parent households who went to public schools. Barack Obama means that maybe important qualifications are things like activism, principles, integrity, and vision, and not things like privilege, or your great-greats coming over on the right ship, or a family legacy at some fancy-ass academy with a brick wall around it where boys will be boys and the headmaster golfs with Grandfather.

Barack Obama in this election means another barrier knocked down. A big one.

Senator Obama is fighting to squeeze through a pinhole in that glass ceiling, and better yet, he's got company. With Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson throwing their hats in the ring, we could see the nation's first Black, female, or Latino president. What do you know, we've got a diverse hiring pool for the job of commander in chief! About time. I hope they smash the fuck out of that glass ceiling.

Batman's Amazing Gastro-Adventure

Speaking of dogs...

Mason, our recently adopted, eight-year-old, previously abused, and therefore slightly neurotic chocolate Labramutt has separation anxiety issues. Every once in a while, if there is some paper, cardboard, or something interesting left laying around, he'll shred it a bit.

Evidently this allows him to focus on something other than the fact that his MOMDOG IS GONE.

He apparently grabbed a container of blue plastic toothpicks -- I'd left them on the coffee table, disturbing the norm, and therefore, his comfort level -- and destroyed the container, scattering hundreds of toothpicks all over his dog bed. For Mason, that's enough. Just a moment of frenzied distraction. (ohmygod, where is she, when is she coming back, ohmygod my mom is gone, holyshit where the fuck are my people ... look ... toothpicks ...)

Batman, however, must've thought Mason had unearthed some tasty treat. I found several slimy toothpicks, bent into strange shapes and flattened with toothmarks. Batman slunk over to a corner with the whites of his eyes showing.

Great.

Batman eats anything. He's not a chewer; our shoes and other belongings are safe. He eats any vegetable or fruit, things most dogs would not touch. He'd make a great vegetarian. The dog eats lettuce for Pete's sake. (No, my dogs do not share my vegetarian diet. Dogs need meat.) He also loves candy. That's the downside.

There is one other thing he likes.

For those of you unfamiliar with Batman's sordid past, he got into the bathroom trash not long after we adopted him. Evidently, tampons are pretty much like candy for dogs. Yeah. Cost me $1,700 (plus vacation days and some sleepless nights) to rid my dog of three intestinal blockages.

Anyway, fast-foward back to the toothpicks. It took me about five seconds to assess the scene. I should join the CSI crew. I can not deal with the cost of another dog-surgery right now!

Shitshitshitshit!

I hope against hope that he hasn't actually SWALLOWED any of the dangerously pointed toothpicks. They look like miniature javelins spread out on the dog bed. I hope that if he has, in fact, swallowed them, he will have chewed them into a soggy soft mess, blunting the ends. I hope that canine stomach acid is as strong as it's reputed to be. Strong enough to digest plastic before it perforates tender intestinal walls.

He's not talking.

Later, Batman found my daughter's two-pound bag of jellybeans. She had eaten less than 1/3 of the bag. He left only a small piece of the bag itself. Great. What are the odds? The last time he ate something like that was ... well, you know. Now, twice in one day!

He didn't want his dinner. NOT normal. Even during the Great Tampon Escapade, he ate his dinner. Wolfed it, actually. True, he puked it up immediately afterward, but he damn well tried to eat it. I hope against hope that the jellybeans have just made him lose his appetite. Like a two-year-old with too much cake.

He pukes up the little bit of dinner he did eat. And an assload of jellybeans. And half a dozen toothpicks. He manages to place this mess so that it spreads over the edge of the dog bed and both dog blankets onto the floor. He's nothing if not thorough.

Shitshitshit. He did swallow them. I spend the next two days following him out in the yard with an umbrella and a flashlight, waiting for evidence that his poop routes are open. He finally gave the all clear. No dog surgery.

Thankyouthankyouthankyou, Saint Francis of Assisi.

Why Do They Call Them Thin Mints?

Apparently it's Girl Scout cookie season. I heard it on the Today Show. These cookies have their own season. Hunting season, the holiday season, football season, Girl Scout cookie season.

These are the only cookies that people will drop $40 for and not bat an eye. What are they, like $6 a box or something? And we order in advance, too. Then, before our "real" order arrives, we buy from the little girls stationed outside Safeway to hold us over until the real order arrives. After the $40 order arrives, we hit the grocery store station again, because now we've only got eight boxes left, and the season is almost over!

People get possessive of Girl Scout cookies. Seriously, people claim boxes.

Back off my Tag-a-Longs, bitch, you should've slowed down on your Thin Mints!

Oh, please. You know you've thought it, if not said it outright.

It's not quite that rough in my house, but last year my daughter did cover "her" box with threats in bold Sharpie, aimed at potential cookie thieves. I thought this was intended for her little brother until I saw "This means you, Anyu!" in fierce Sharpie strokes. Complete strangers think nothing of approaching each other over Girl Scout cookies. "Hold up ... dude, hey, where'd you get those Girl Scout cookies? Do they have any Samoas left? Thanks!"

What is there, crack in these things?

Girl Scout cookies have become part of the fabric of American society. Even when I lived in Germany, Girl Scouts were there, swarming through the US housing areas and camping out at the PX. You think it's bad here? Girl Scout cookies in Germany were the ultimate Taste of Home.

When I lived in Hungary, there were no Girl Scouts, thus, no cookies. Sometimes we'd get lucky, and someone would go visit the States during Girl Scout cookie season. I actually felt sorry for those guys. It went without saying that anyone traveling across The Pond came back with a cooler of various requested items: Arby's Beef & Cheddar, Taco Bell, KFC, whatever. It didn't matter that it sat 15 or 20 hours in the cooler; people would inhale that stuff like it was manna from heaven. Anyway, it sucked to go back during Girl Scout cookie season. You had to take an empty bag to bring the cookies back, in addition to the cooler.

Amazing how much that taste of home comes to mean. You tend to hoard items that you can't get easily. Like cake mixes or cheddar cheese. I once hoarded some Jiffy corn muffin mix so long that little moths got in the boxes. We were devastated. Jiffy corn muffin mix in and of itself sucks, actually, but it -- along with creamed corn -- is necessary to make corn pudding/spoon bread. The cans of creamed corn survived, but the Jiffy mix was toast. No spoon bread for Christmas that year.

I think those years without have lead to some hoarding behavior of Girl Scout cookies, even now that I'm back in the Land of Obesity. Last year I bought way too many cookies. Yes, I claimed boxes, as did everyone else in my house. I hoarded so much that several boxes went stale.

I was like Gollum with the friggin' ring.

I mean, the hoarded cookies were too stale to eat, but throw out Girl Scout cookies? Bitch, please! Every once in a while I'd try one, like maybe it wouldn't taste stale if I dipped it in coffee first or something. My son finally discovered a stale box in my desk at work.

Dear Son: Score! Girl Scout cookies!
Me: Son, you don't want those -- they're so stale ...
Dear Son: They're Girl Scout cookies. They're fine.

He would not be dissuaded by a bit of staleness. At least they didn't go to waste.

So, this year, I'll try to remember that I'm back in the land of Girl Scouts and it's not necessary to lay up a store for the next six years.

Crafty in a Good Way

Today we had the annual Holiday Craft Fair here at the college. I don't get crafters. My mom and sister can craft the hell out of anything. My sister quilts. By hand. My mom has a whole room devoted to crafts and sewing.  

A room.

My mom once made a series of these dolls -- nuns, actually -- that were friggin' hilarious. Sister Mary Garcia is the one I remember.  She had a tie-dyed habit and a peace symbol for a crucifix. The other nuns were suitably scandalous.  People bought those dolls. Paid money.

Then there's my Aunt Nelly. She used to crochet vests, scarves, and toilet paper covers that looked like dolls. (the TP goes under the skirt.)  When I was a kid, I was stylin' in my crocheted vests over my turtlenecks.

The craft gene completely skipped me.

My younger daughter got the craft gene. She got the cooking gene as well, courtesy of my mom and sister. Even better, the gene has mutated in her -- she turns out these crazy twisted things. Like the time she made Christmas cookie cut-out dolls complete with cookie underwear, among other accoutrements.  

I don't know why all this domesticity skipped me. Not that I want to be a crafter. But it would be cool to cook up a gourmet meal. For fun.

We're doing our holiday potluck at work this Friday. I am already stressing -- ohmygod, I have to cook! Crap. I'll probably just get something from Trader Joe's and call it a day.

I may not be a crafter, but I am pretty crafty. In a good way, not a craft way.