The New Girl

Do You Like Onions In Things?

There are a few things that are absolutely GRATING ON MY FUCKING NERVES right now. Would you like to hear about them? [Too Bad.] Oh, good! Here we go.

The first thing is that every single morning for the past, oh, week or so, my son has been waking up at 4 in the morning, weeping and wailing, without stopping until I go in there, armed with a bottle, medicine and [my revenge] some saline nose spray and the nose frida. Even the time change did not disrupt his schedule and he seemed totally oblivious that the 4:00 was really 3:00. He just skipped right over that adjustment and kept on rocking the 4am wake up. As soon as the door opens and I present myself, grumbly and pissed off, the crying magically ceases and he says, 'Mama. Mama.' And then my irritation leaves and the dull resignation-slash-warm-sappiness-AKA-he's-only-little-for-a-little-while-feeling sets in and I hug him up and change his diaper and give him medicine and chuckle at how much he HATES the nose frida. I sit on that fucking exercise ball and give him a bottle and he is SO DROWSY. Then I go to put him in the crib and he twists his little bendy ass around so that he goes in STANDING UP.

Standing.

At 4:30am.

What the fuck is up with that, I ask you?

Anyhow, usually the crying part is over then and either he's up talking and laughing to himself or he is pretty quiet and falls back to sleep. I am, as you could probably guess, completely awake by that time and so, you know. I wake up grouchy and irritable and ill-prepared to handle the rigors of my days. And when I say rigors, I mean my daughter.

Which brings me to the second thing: she is making me nuts. Nuts! With the (intensified and inexplicable) baby-talking! And the (renewed after a long, lovely absence) Crazy-Ass Temper Fits! And the (brand new) Ignoring Me-Slash-Selective Mutism! Where she refuses to answer the simplest question! At all! I don't have to provide you with an illustration of how all three of these behaviors combine to create the MOST ANNOYING SITUATIONS IN HISTORY, do I? I didn't think so. You can trust that they DO. Every day, multiple times a day.

I am threadbare and due mostly to the sleep deprivation, my patience is thiiiiiiin. I find that I have an annoyed edge to my voice whenever I'm talking to my daughter and today it started at 7:03am, when she refused to say good-morning or give me our customary Morning Hug and insistently said the baby word, 'Powwnnyyyy,' over and over, to indicate, I suppose, that she wanted me to find her lost pony.

Can you hear that clicking? It's my MARBLES. I'm losing them one by one.

Anyway.

If it wasn't for my promise to myself that I was going to post more regularly, I'd be suffering in silence [and you wouldn't have had to suffer through this post.]

Before I go back to drinking coffee and breathing deeply before tackling the giant job of unloading the diswasher, I'll tell you the story behind the title of this post.

After my mom died, The Little Sister and I went back to my hometown to have Thanksgiving with my dad and my grandfather. We were making all the family favorites in our own way, really, and worked our aaaaasses off. We included my grandmother's mac and cheese. My sister, however, omitted the grated raw onion on top, since none of us liked it anyway. The crunchy texture just didn't suit us. This was our first-ever time making a Thanksgiving dinner. And we were without my mom. It was tough.

If you've never read about my grand-dad, this might not make too much sense but you have to know that he's sort of...er...difficult. Kind of obsessive and nit-picky and before and during dinner he made a series of remarks and comments that I'm SURE he thought were benign but were actually most annoying.

So.

After dinner, my grandfather was telling The Little Sister how good everything was. Then he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Huh?' And he said, 'Do you like onions in things?' And my sister was all, 'Uh. Yeah, sure.' And he said, 'You know what's good? For the Macaroni and Cheese, you take an onion and you just grraaaaate that onion right on top.'

And I had to suppress my deep, deep, laughter when my sister leaned in and muttered, 'You mean like how you're grrrraaaatting my nerves right now?'

Fun Fact Friday!!

Ho ho! You thought it was dead, didn't you?! (So did I. Totally.)

- For whatever reason, (it's totally a Mental Glitch, I know,) it kind of skeeves me when a man buys a woman clothes as a gift. I know it's crazy and if your man is tuned in enough to know [what size you wear] your taste in clothes and he buys you nice little gifts of clothes, that's awesome [but for whatever reason, a little skeevy. I don't know why. MENTAL GLITCH.]

- I was once watching an episode of Giada and her cute husband came home and brought her a present, a [tiny] pair of white pants and she was all excited and was all, 'I'm going to wear these awesome [size minus 4] pants to dinner!' and I was all, 'Hm. How...sweet [and a little ookey]!'

- Once, when I was dating The Tool, he bought me an *outfit* for Christmas. I'm saying that he went to The Limited, [flirted his ass off with the first woman he could find, I'm absolutely sure] approached the sales girl and asked her to pick out an entire outfit for me. She basically pointed him to a manikin and he purchased every single thing that manikin was wearing, down to the crazy bracelet with a million little balls on it. (The bracelet was the only thing I kept. Swear.)

- Do you guys remember those? The days of Pearls on Steroids? An over-crowded strand of whatever with all kinds of jingling and jangling?

It kind of looked like this, only mine was shades of bronze, copper and brown:

 

- When I was a surly pre-teen, my mom got me 'The Sweater' one year for Christmas. Jazzed as I was to get clothes for gifts back then, this sweater...it was..tragic. It was black and its front was host to a bazillion strawberries.  The strawberries were connected by a vine. On each cuff was a detail, two little berries. The sweater was expensive and well made and my mother looooved this sweater and her disappointment with my, uh, [incredibly rude and ungrateful contempt for it] reaction ensured this story remained one of the Golden Oldies in our family. You know, as in,  'It was like a STRAWBERRY SWEATER...' for any situation in which you were disappointed or disappointed someone else or when you badly misjudged another person's likes. So, it wasn't a total loss. That [horrible] sweater.

- Later in my teen years, a guy who *liked* me bought me a coat. A fucking fox fur coat. I have no desire to flip this into a judgmental, paint flinging, FUR IS MURDER, comment clusterfuck. I don't really care if you like fur, if you wear fur, if you sleep with a fur comforter, if you have fur lined gloves or undies. Whatever you do is your business and I could not be honester when I tell you I don't care. I just, you know, don't wear fur. And although I knew this guy, and he knew me, this gift was nothing short of Crop Circle Sized Sign that we were Never Ever Going To Be BFFs and that omg, he was a little, er, craaazy (not because it was fur but because it cost so fucking much and what the hell, dude?) (He actually DID turn out to be crazy, too, so.)

- He dropped the present off or had it delivered or something, because he wasn't there when I opened it. I was in the living room with my mom, my sister and my friend, I think.  When I moved the paper back and the soft, silky, silver fox fur became visible, my mother sucked her teeth and blew out a low whistle and chuckled. I swear, as she walked back into the kitchen, I heard her murmur under her breath, 'That poor sucker.'

- I never wore that coat but neither could I figure out what to do with it. It sat in my closet for years and years. And years. AND YEARS. When we went to clean out my dad's house (so weird to call it my dad's house. It was my mom's house, too. And mine and my sister's. So, the family house, then.) I found that coat in the closet, along with a GREEN MINI SKIRT. Made of SUEDE. omfg. Whaaat? I put them both into a bag and donated them to The Goodwill.

- I hope the same person buys them both. And rocks them OUT. At a costume party.

 

 

All Right, Already. Manson.

I crack up every time you guys talk about Manson.

Oh, if only Manson knew how popular his ass is on the interweb.

It would, I'm sure, trigger an episode of paranoid ramblings, complete with crumpled grubby lists and squinting at every traffic helicopter while talking of a government conspiracy to earn money by telling his life story. Screwing him out of his identity or his inheritance or WHATEVERthefuck.

Anyway.

I love you guys for 1) remembering about Manson and for 2) loving on the Crazy.  Though I hate to say it, this might be the last, full-length Manson Story to be had.  There are a finite number of these gems, really, as I don't live there anymore (whoo hoo!) 

So, if you haven't ever heard of Manson, and you have absolutely no effing clue what I'm talking about, you should probably read to catch up.  (There are three separate links there. You're welcome.) Otherwise, I'll go ahead and tell you of the time that Manson turned his ENTIRE DOWNSTAIRS INTO A DOG KENNEL. FOR BREEDING DOGS.

Yes, yes, my friends. Yes he did.

But we'll back up and talk a little bit about Manson's dog.  His [little fuckwad of a yapper] dog was a Boston Terrier.  It liked to [torment the shit out of my dog] run up and down the length of the fence, barking a hearty 'HALLO!' to anyone, anyone at all. For hours on end.

[Bonus TFS in a story: One time, Manson left pictures of his dog in our mailbox. I've looked for them, but I can't find them. One of the views was the back of the dog's head, hanging out the driver's side window, as Mason took a picture of the FRONT OF OUR HOUSE. One other time, Manson left his dog in his car when he went inside to get [high] something and just, er, forgot to come back out. It was hot as balls and The Man and I did a little Rock/Paper/Scissors to see who was going to have to go and knock on the door, so that little fucker wouldn't roast to death. I lost. Damned rock.]

Anyway.

Manson approached the fence one day, gripping the squirming pooch in his hands.  He had a couple [guys just out of rehab] friends over, lugging cinder-blocks into his downstairs and mixing cement in the driveway. I didn't think too much of this, as there were always cinder-blocks and rehab guys around and, well, let's be honest: I didn't really want to know.

He launched into one of his famous 'discussions.'  These generally started half-way through whatever the hell was running on and on through his head, and so it took me a few minutes to jump in mid-stream and figure out what he was trying to say.

'Do you like bulldogs?' he asked.

'Um. Yeah. Sure. I like bulldogs,' I said (while the inside-my-head voice was all eye-rolling and heavy-sighing, 'Whaaaat?  What'sThisNow?!')

'I'm making a kennel! I'm going to breed bulldogs!'

'Uhhh. Oh--uhhhm..'

'And Boston Terriers! (Lifts the dog up for emphasis.) I just ordered all the puppies and I'm making a kennel!'

I should say at this point, that the houses in my neighborhood had no basements. Manson's house was just like mine, only with a monster addition on the back/top, which gave his house a second floor.  The year before, [the rehab guys] his friends had sectioned off the front of his house and made it into an apartment that he used to rent out. So, the area in which the guys were working was like, The Kitchen and The Laundry Room.

???

'Sooooo,' I hazard a guess, 'you're turning your kitchen? and your laundry room? Into a...kennel?'

'YEAH! It's gonna be great! State of the art!'

???

So, a couple weeks go by and you can hear the yipping and the yapping and you can, every once in a while, see some puppies frolicking in the backyard.  I don't need to describe the smell of urine, right? If I tell you that it smelled like The Vet outside my house, you'd know what I'm saying, yes?  So, it would appear that Manson made good on his [insane] plan and is living above, his, um, dog kennel.  The sliding glass door was always covered and so, I had no idea what it actually LOOKED like in there.

Me and my other next-door neighbor [Gladys Kravitz] were DYING to know what's going on in there. How has a guy turned his Kitchen? And his Laundry Room? Into a...kennel?

And then, one day out of the blue, Manson sees me in the back yard and asks me if I want to come inside to see the kennel.

I'm going to give you a minute, so you can let that shit sink in.

Go ahead and take your time. I'll wait.

Yes. Yeeessss.

He asked me if I wanted to GO INSIDE his house and LOOK AT HIS DOG KENNEL. That was IN HIS KITCHEN.

I was thoroughly and completely torn.

On one hand, I NEEDED to go inside there to see a Kitchen Dog Kennel, first hand. But on the other hand, [as I looked and looked for another living soul who could witness me walking into Manson's house, in case I never came out] I was, er, a little skerrd. I mean, really, there were no Potential Witnesses to my disappearance. Manson lived with a [boyish looking heroin addict] his [air-quote] cousin, who was a tall, quiet [creepy fucking lurker] guy, who had nearly given me cardiac arrest, several times, when he suddenly spoke to me after minutes of standing stock-still, unnoticed.

Anyway.

You know my nosy ass wasn't going to turn down his invitation, just on account of the crazy. And so, although my dog was less than thrilled with the idea, I left the sanctity of my yard and entered The Kennel Kitchen.

The first thing I noticed was how...authentic...the smell of the urine/veterinarian's office was up close. Along with the yipping and yapping, it felt like I was walking through the SPCA. Seriously. I looked around and saw...kennels. They were built of the cinder-block and each had a gate for a door. The linoleum had been stripped and the dogs were kept in a room on a cement slab (with blankets/bedding for each dog.) If you didn't look at the sides of the room, you might have believed that you were in an actual kennel.

But that impression, friends, came to a screeching fucking halt the second you looked at the perimeter of the room. For the perimeter of the room was more or less, intact.  There were shelves and then, you know, the kitchen. A stove and a fridge and the door to the upstairs, all streaked and rusty looking and smelling very strongly of puppy pee. As I was walking through, I was completely preoccupied with two things. The first was the 29475084573 puppies who, free from their cages, came to mob me and for some reason were, ALL of them, trying to chew the bows off my slippers and the second was that every single inch (every. single. inch. EVERYSINGLEINCH) of available surface--wall or otherwise--was filled with a cheap, dollar store nick-knacks. Of a bulldog. Or a Boston Terrier. There were HUNDREDS of little figurines, bobble-heads, cups, ashtrays, plaques, doo-dads, you name it. They were e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e.

I was completely visually overwhelmed and as I wandered through the living/laundry room kennel, disoriented, into the kitchen kennel, the [creepy fucking lurker] cousin materialized out of nowhere and was leaning against the door-jam, standing there mute. Watching me. It was like a dash of cold water to the face and I was roused from my dream-like overwhelm state and tried to pick up the pace, wading through puppies, to get to the side door and out into the [real world] yard. It was like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together. Through six inches of peanut butter.

Anyway. (You still here?)

I was still a little shaken when I crossed into my yard. I was accosted by my own dog, who was hyper-smelling me all over, like, 'What the fuck is all this I'm smelling?! You were only gone a few minutes, jeeezuz!'

I went into my own back door, awash in relief that I made it back out into the light, hooked off both slippers, stepped into my own kitchen and dumped them, unceremoniously, directly into the trash can.

The End.

 

It Gets Better. Special Mom's Edition.

When I dropped off my son at the gym's Kids' Club, (REFUSING TO SPELL CLUB WITH A 'K',) there was a very upset little girl, being held by the worker. "She's new," I heard her say to another mom. About 20(ish) minutes later, as I went in to change my [gym-pooper, WTF?] son's diaper, I saw the little girl, still being held, still crying--looking much, much worse for the wear.

"I called once and the mom said she was going to leave her because she needs to get used to it but I think she needs to come and get her," said the sweet, 19 year old girl who works there.

I had a series of flash-backs. Waiting until my daughter was 15 months old to even ATTEMPT going back to the gym, knowing that she'd be a screaming mess. Going every single day for a MONTH, staying for only 10 minutes because she'd be crying her face off. Feeling hopeless and trapped and like I'd never, ever be able to resume a normal life. Crying on the way home out of frustration and depression, aching to have one thing be easy. Just one.

When the mother came in, she reached for her baby and while soothing her said, "Well, I got 15 minutes. I guess that's a good first day. Should we come for 15 minutes tomorrow, too?"

I wanted to say something encouraging. My impulse was to reach out and relate. And then I thought, "This is probably her third kid and you're going to look like a know-it-all-idiot-assvice-giver."

But there was something about her. About her voice. I held my breath and jumped in.

"Is she your first?" I asked.

"Yes, she is," she said.

I told her how she reminded me of my daughter. About how my girl had colic and was touchy anyway, ("Her TOO, oh my lord!") and how I waited to bring her and how I would bring her every day for only 10 minutes, knowing ahead of time I'd be called and how I'd cry on the way home.

"But, you know," I said, "it gets better."

I told her how my girl adjusted and then, one day, it was like a switch was flipped. That once she was a little older and had a little more practice, things like going to the gym became much easier.

"How long did it take her?" the mom asked.

We are sensitive, I think. Sensitive to parenting differences or child temperament differences that look like they might be caused by parenting differences. Sensitive to others' comments or questions or suggestions or, let's face it, assvice. Feeling (or actually being) criticized for doing this job that is exceptionally difficult most of the time. We make judgment calls every day, in charge of these dependent little people and we hope, most of us, that we are choosing Right most of the time.

But being called to the carpet, so often by people who have no business doing the calling, can and does chafe, I think. It scrapes us up. Makes us a little raw. So that even a slight breeze can sting. It also makes me reluctant to try to comfort or connect, lest I step on a nerve or a feeling. Lest I unknowingly take a loofah to an already exfoliated, or maybe thin, skin.

It can be a fine line between, "Oh, man, I've been there and it really DOES suck," (i.e. I understand and empathize) and "I've been there, done that and got over it," (i.e. Yeah, yeah, they all go through it, suck it up.)

It makes me think of this issue that I had with The Man. Every once in a while, he would observe or be subjected to something that usually only happens to me, the primary care-giver. Like, TLNG would become hysterically unhinged because he put the wrong number of raisins on her plate, for instance.

"Wow," he'd say, "what's up with THAT?!"

"Welcome to *MY* world," I'd say.

He'd get angry and upset and it had to happen a few times before my sleep-deprived mind was sharp enough to inquire-slash-figure out what the fuck was happening.

In welcoming my husband to *my* world, I was offering what I *thought* was a humorous kind of empathy. I was trying to say, 'RIGHT?! Who knew that having exactly EIGHT RAISINS was the KEY TO HAPPINESS? Today?'

But what he heard was more like, "Yeah, WHATEVER. I deal with this shit like EVERY FUCKING DAY, dude. You're not telling me anything I DON'T ALREADY KNOW. BETTER THAN YOU."

Since we're married and we like each other, we worked that out and it's all good, now. The mother wrestling her kid into a cart in the produce section, or the mother whose kid is standing still in the middle of the sidewalk I'm trying to walk on, or the mother whose toddler is face-down, screaming in the aisle of CVS isn't likely to give me a second chance, though.

 I don't know where I'm going with this, really.

Except that like gay teenagers, I think that sometimes moms of newborns or toddlers or multiple children in challenging phases need to hear it, too.

It gets better.

"And you know, this one here," I said, pointing to my son, "he walks right in and never looks back, so there's always hope for the next one."

She sighed and chuckled and looked at me, "Thank you," she said, "thank you, so much."