This Saturday I stayed at Lisa’s house waiting for the cable guy.

Finally, around 3, the cable guy arrives. But just as he’s arriving my cell phone rings. It’s Troy, so I say hello and wave to the cable guy through the screen, telling him to come inside. I talk with Troy for like – 20 seconds and then spend another 20 seconds trying to extricate myself from the phone call.

Finally, I hit End and look up at the cable guy – because I’m wondering why he’s just standing there in the living room. I mean – get to work, you know?

But then I see that it’s not the cable guy. It’s the mailman. And the mailman is wondering why I have brought him inside.

I tell him, “Oh! You aren’t the cable guy. And you don’t want to be in the living room”.

He was probably replaying ever porn he’s ever seen and thinking how lucky he was that it was actually happening to HIM.

Bow Chicka Bow Bow

He says he just wanted to know if this mail was for this address. I say it probably is and tell him that he is free to leave the house go about his business now. He didn’t leave immediately. He rambled nervously and overshared about his route. I acted interested.

Coffee Will Stunt Your Esteem

I am out of any sort of coffee that I’d actually want to drink, so after I brought the girls to school, I went into the coffee shop up the street.

And maybe caffeine won’t kill me or stunt my growth, but it will make me look like a jerk.

The girl behind the counter is so cute. She’s like this tiny little thing, but with jet black hair in this super cool style. Awesome tattoos. Great make-up. She has a ton of style and I am acutely aware that I am wearing Cedric’s jacket from last season and the wrong shoes for these pants.

She is helping a woman in front of me, and the other girl behind the counter took my order (regular coffee, 16oz, room for cream). But she passed the order on to the cute girl and then the cute girl asked me if I wanted anything else. The woman in front of me answered – and that makes sense that she would. She was digging in her vast purse and didn’t see that the girl was talking to me. The woman makes some comment about answering other peoples’ questions and that was that.

That was that until I started to talk. And talk. I set off on a tear that – though I willed it to end – just wouldn’t. It started out with how one time this guy told my friend he liked her dress, but I thought he was talking to me so I said ‘thank you’ and then he looked blankly at me and said, ‘ok, I like your dress too’. That was enough to garner empty stares but I didn’t let them stop me. I kept going. About all sorts of things, including – but not limited to – high school and graduation.

I stopped talking and it appeared that I had avoided any more shame. But what actually happened, was that I just put it on hold while I walked a few feet to the table with the cream.

I was thrown off initially by not knowing which container was milk and which was half & half. I grabbed one and decided whatever it was, it would be fine. I started to pour slowly, but nothing but a few drops would come out. I turned it upside down. A few drops. I adjusted the lid, thinking maybe it wasn’t opened enough. I did the slow pour followed by the upside down pour again. A couple more times. Finally, I just took the lid off and hello – there is no cream in this container.

On to the next one: I start to pour slowly, then upside down. I remove the lid entirely again – not going to fool around with trying to adjust the lid to make the opening bigger. And it’s full. I could have just adjusted the lid.

Now the cool thing here, is that the shop is full. It’s very small. Everyone is there with someone and they are talking and having fun. Even the people in the line behind me, waiting for me to get out of the shop are with a friend. I just really want to get out of there, but first, I need to put the travel lid on my cup.

Of course, this poses a problem for me, as I am very awkward. I get the lid, very aware that I need to hurry. And I can’t do it. I try. I really do. I try all sorts of different approaches. I try making faces while I slowly slide the lid over the rim. I move one shoulder up and squint. Nothing works. Finally, I just have to get out of there, so I shove the lid down and by the grace of God, it went on. It could have just as easily made the cup slip out from the bottom and scalded my onlookers with some very hot – and delicious – coffee. Thank you Jesus for not letting that happen.

I think that if I’d just said Thank You at the cash register, none of the other things would have happened. So when I teach my kids the importance of Please and Thank You, I will tell them that if they don’t have manners, they will look like crazy people.

Handicap Accessible

Here’s what I did.

I was driving down near Julliard Park and was about to turn right on to a side street off of a busy street. I was just waiting for a woman in an electric wheelchair to cross the street. When she got to the curb right next to my truck, her wheelchair came to an abrupt stop but she kept going forward and landed on the ground.

I pulled over onto the side street and walked back to help her up. She says she just fell off her chair and I tell her I know! I heard the chair stop and then I saw you fly out! It was crazy!

What I’m working with: Really sweet woman with one arm, and that one doesn’t work very well. Unable to walk. Much too heavy for me to pick up by myself.

Oh, and she’s not wearing any pants. A nightshirt and a black, leather jacket with puffy shoulders, but no pants. Nothing – and I mean nothing – below the waist except for socks and shoes.

I ask how I can help and she asks if I would mind getting her chair off the street first. I try, but the knob to make it go forward isn’t working. I tell her I am going to try to get it on the curb without running her over with it. She smiles and says that would be nice.

It’s very heavy, but I manage to lift up the back of it and swing it onto the curb. It’s in a good position, since it’s facing her. Now I only have to get her up and one step forward.

I try to help her up, but I can’t manage it. She asks me to hand her the blanket she had next to her in the chair (not on her lap covering all THAT up). She says that will save her knees, as she’s planning to kneel on the blanket as she uses the wheelchair to hoist herself up.

I grab the blanket, and reach over the wheelchair to give it to her and as I do, the wheelchair launches forward and runs into her at full speed. Right into her shins! It doesn’t stop once it hits her – it just keeps going full blast. She is making noises that suggest pain, while I repeat: Oh no! Oh no! A minute ago it won’t go and now I can’t make it stop! And in between her noises that suggest pain she manages to get some words out. One at a time in between the noises:

Ohhh! Ow! You…. Oh! Oof! You…You….Ugh! You are…Ohhh! You are pushing….Ugh! …the lever!

Awesome. The blanket hooked the knob and it kicked into gear and I ran into the woman with her own wheelchair. What an awesome helper I am!

I fix it and ask her if she’s glad I came by to help. She is laughing a little and says that I have to admit, it’s all a little funny. I tell her I will laugh more once the memory of trying to take her out with her own chair isn’t so fresh.

At this time, the men who have been watching not 15 feet away decide that maybe they’ll help phyisically, instead of just willing her to move with their intense powers of the mind.

She gets back into her chair – but not without the MOST awkward and pornographic hoisting that’s ever been seen outside a hospital ward – and I return her blanket to her chair. Spread it out over her lap.

I went around the block back out to the main road that I was turning off of to begin with and guess who I saw coming up towards the crosswalk? But this time, I still had half a block until she reached the curb to cross, so I just waved to her from my car while David asked: Why isn’t she wearing any pants??

Carnival

Yesterday was the carnival at the girls’ school. I signed up to volunteer. I am a grown up, confident in my abilities. I can handle masses of elementary school children. I can collect tickets. I can stamp hands. I can be friendly to the parents, even if they only tolerate me.

They assigned me to the popcorn machine (of doom). I get to my booth and the two people who were manning it leave, and then it’s just me. I listen carefully as the woman gives me instructions. I also note that her instructions don’t match with the instructions written on the glass door of the popcorn machine. No matter. I’ve noted it. I’m mature and capable.

I dole out – very carefully and cordially – little baggies of popped corn. I did feel strange when they didn’t have food service gloves for me to wear. I asked the girl about it and she would tell me, “oh, if your hands get dirty, you can just use these baby wipes”. I don’t think she’s very outwardly focused.

Anyway – I’m doling. And being cordial. And then the popcorn runs out so I am left to make more. No problem. I am 35 years old. I have given birth to six children. I can manage concession rentals.

I dutifully add the popcorn/buttery flavored oil/seasoning packet. I sit back and wait 60 seconds (how long I was told it would take). Instead of getting 28 cups of popcorn, I get maybe two. Maybe. And it takes about three minutes to get that. Also, at this time, popcorn seeds are shooting out of the machine. Like, painfully shooting out. Even though the door is closed. I am splattered with hot, yellow oil. I have burns. I am laughing so hard.

On both sides of me are booths. Not really booths, just tables. Caramel apples to the right; cotton candy to the left. They are pretending not to notice me, while still casually trying to shield themselves from the buttery onslaught. I am dying.

Finally, after the second wave of terror passes and I’m considering putting in another packet, I turn to Cotton Candy (who is now HEAD TO TOE pink cotton) and ask, did you see the people that were here before me? Did this (gesturing to the corn shrapnel) happen to them too? I laugh – inwardly this time – because when I first spoke to him, he acted like he had just that second noticed I was there. “oh! when did you arrive! i didn’t notice you getting pelted with unpopped corn just a few seconds ago!”

He says he has no idea how it worked before.

I put in another packet of corn/oil/powder because the line is forming. People with their orange tickets. And people trying to pass off their green tickets for food and who are you trying to fool. But then again, what do I care and just keep your damn ticket so you don’t get me in trouble. No, really, get the ticket out of the bowl, jackass.

This next round of corn proved to be particularly nasty. It started to smoke. Popcorn = burnt. Burnt popcorn is one of the most hated smells. Even outdoors, you will not escape it’s fury. At this point, I am watching in horror (still laughing, though) at the smoke eminating from the rental. I am wondering if I should just give it away for free or shut down entirely. I decide it’s time for some intervention. Because while I am all about volunteering, and want dearly to be of assistance, my right hand is one big blister from the spurting and from the dripping and from the container that is clearly made of molten lava that hovers right in the center of the case (and who needs skin anyway) and my clothes are oily. Then there’s the state of the machine – the glass is completely covered (from the inside) with oil. And honestly, I’m not just thinking of myself here – popcorn seeds shooting out with such force as to be able to embed themselves into your severely styled hair are no laughing matter (practically doubled over at this point) and should be taken very seriously.

I ask Caramel Apples to watch my shit and I walk over to the volunteer booth and tell them that while I am a functioning adult, raising a family and running a business, I have realized that I cannot master the popcorn machine. I’m simply no match.

They assure me that it’s fine. I offer my services elsewhere, they foolishly take me up on it. Thank me, even! I am ushered over to the giant slide and jump house. Just stamp the tops of their hands for slide (five tickets), backs of their wrists for jump (three tickets).

And had they also said, be sure to lose the cap for the stamp and don’t forget to stamp their foreheads, I would have done really, really well there.

Later, as I was walking to my van hours and hours after I was scheduled to leave since nobody ever came to relieve me (and save me from Walt, who made me wish I’d never told him my name. Jeney! Oh Jeney! Could you stamp this one? Jeney! Could you put these tickets in the box? Oh Jeney! Please tell me why I am such a tool!”), I saw the girl in charge of the volunteers. She tells me, “Oh guess what? The popcorn machine is working again!” I ask what was wrong with it and she says, “It was just the lid! That’s all! Just the lid!”

And I think to myself: There was a lid?

mystery meat

Troy took me out to dinner last night, so naturally I chose Taqueria Santa Rosa because if you are hankering for a burrito, there is no other choice.

He ordered the pollo asado burrito, I ordered the carnitas burrito. I hate how they make you say “macho” if you want the red sauce and onions on it.

We sit down and they bring us our food. We are talking about things you’d never expect us to be talking about and I am absent-mindedly eating my dinner.

But then I tune in a little and it dawns on me that I may be eating a bacon burrito. If such a thing even exists. Now I’m paying closer attention and I am not happy to find that it was not a carnitas burrito and even less happy to find out that I have no idea what it actually *is*.

I call the waitress over and poke at a tube of crispy meat and ask what it is. She says something that sounds like Lupitas and I say I actually was hoping for carnitas. Since that is what I ordered. She says she is sorry (at least I think that is what she said). I am curious still, so I ask her what it was that I was eating.

This is when I learned that the face one makes when they don’t know how to say something in english is the same face one would make when they are afraid to tell you what you just ate. I asked hopefully, “Is it pork?” and she smiles and says yes in an overly excited way.

I tell her I want the carnitas and then I pray it’s not carnitas and spit.

There are no cars on Saturn

A couple weeks ago, I picked up my mom for her last pre-surgery visit. As we left her house and were walking to my car, she asked me why I parked in the street instead of the driveway. I told her I didn’t love backing out of her driveway – there are fences to contend with, a blind turn and the driveway is curved.

She called me last week to tell me that I should feel free to park in her driveway when I drop off/pick up the kids from school (the house was a block from the kids’ school parking is an issue when dropping them off). Then she says, “Oh, but you don’t like to back out” and I say, “Hey, it’s better than the time I backed IN and ended up on the landscaping”.

In typical mom fashion, she starts to solve my problem. She says, “Don’t worry if you drive on the rocks! (the front yard is all red rock)” And the more I say, “No, really – I’m fine just pulling in and backing out”, the more she solves the problem.

“Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll move the piece of driftwood that in the rocks, that way, you can just back right on to the rocks. Then you can just pull out without having to worry”. I mean, please. I’ll just pull in and back out. I didn’t mean to say I wasn’t ABLE to back out, just that if I can avoid it, I will. I half expect her to offer to have her house leveled and turned into a parking lot for my convenience.

So this morning is the first day of school. I say hello to my mom after I pull into her driveway. I take the kids to school. I ring her doorbell to say goodbye as I’m leaving. I say to Troy, “I feel really nervous because she knows I hate backing out and she’s standing right in front of me”. And not a second after I say that, I wreck that pig.

I am backing up and a car is waiting to let me out. I begin to back into traffic and I hit the fence with the front of my Suburban. The entire length of fence – real estate sign and all – comes down. The sign hits one of the cars that is parked in front of the house. I tell Troy that he has to get out and take care of this. I am so embarrassed. I am laughing and wishing I could die, both at the same time.

Of course, being the first day of school, the parent population is in full effect. One family walked by and said, “Wow someone was leaning on THAT fence”. None of us corrected him.

I left a note on the car whose tail light I busted out. Luckily, that’s all it was. Luckily, it’s a Honda and not a Mercedes. Hopefully, they’ll just let me pay for it. As for the damage to my car – well – luckily it’s a Chevrolet and not a Mercedes.

The next two hours I was either laughing at the absurdity, or sobbing uncontrollably – thinking how much I wish I’d done one thing differently so that I could have avoided this. I called my sister to tell her and she told me that she’d been watching the science channel, and that the good news is that there likely exists alternate universes in which none of this has happened.

Oceanside Spectacle.

We bought this big canopy to bring with us to the beach yesterday (when we still thought it was going to be sunny). We set it up and were ready and waiting for the sun to come up so that it would be useful and not ridiculous.

At one point, Troy and Ced went back to the truck to get the cooler and I waited at the beach with the kids. I was sitting on a log while the kids dug a hole deep enough to completely encase Frank, when out of the corner of my eye, I sense movement. Specifically, I sense the movement of the giant canopy tumbling away from our site.

It’s a huge movement as it tumbles pole over pole over canopy over pole down the beach. I am running after it, but each time I almost reach it, it tumbles further away. I am laughing so hard at this monsterous sight. I am laughing at myself because “runs like a girl” was initially uttered in reference to me. Add some sand into the equation and it’s like I am Running Like A Girl in slow motion.

I don’t know how many tumbles later, my kids noted me running, flailing and laughing away from their canyon and they ran along with me. Eventually, Jasmine caught up with me and we held the canopy down while deciding the best way to get back to our spot.

And while everyone at the beach watched this happening, none of them were secure enough to be identified with me.

The oldest remaining kids and myself each took a pole and carried it back to our spot. Frank told us, “come on, guys! come on! over here!”. Give him a short skirt and some pigtails and he’s one Hoorah away from dating the captain of the football team.

Coming In Late Too Early

The other morning, on the way to take the kids to school, Hannah asked me what it meant to beatbox. So I showed her. I was at a red light, so I had a couple minutes.

Looking back, I wish I had waited until we were home to show her. Or maybe I could have just peered around at the other cars to see if anyone was looking. But instead, I put my hand up to my mouth and did my best. I had my head moving just like you’re supposed to. The inside of my hand was full of my own spit.

In the thick of all those mad beats, I glance up at my neighbor traveling the other direction on the same street as I am on – also at a red light. I glance up just as he looks away quickly. But not quick enough because for a second we lock eyes.

I stop beatboxing. Ashamed.

I think it’s really kind of him to try to make me believe he didn’t see me. But we both know it’s just a kindness. Sympathy, even. Really, I should be the one who is making it up to him, because nobody should have to see a 36 year old woman beatboxing with that sort of determination at 7:55 in the morning.

hi, I just posted a wanted ad in craigslist for christmas decorations for a homeless mother and her 6 kids, I just got them a tree from my neighbor and they are in need of decorations. I live just 5 minutes from your house, In fact I am leaving now, see y;a soon.

I received this as a response to an ad I put on Craigslist offering some free Christmas decorations (how I got these decorations is a whole other post).

Her reply is ridiculous. I wanted to point out to her all the ways in which her reply was crazy. Like, if she’s homeless, where is she going to put this tree? She has lots of trees already! All the trees in the universe are hers. She has more trees than she knows what to do with. She can’t possibly manage the ones she has and we want to give her more? On the other hand, with all these trees she has, I can see wanting to give her some decorations. I’m sure the park will never look more festive. But if she’s lugging around six kids – trust me when I say this – she does not need to be hauling around a Blue Spruce as well.

The obvious conclusion is that she doesn’t know anyone who is homeless (she whispered “homeless” to me when she came to pick it all up). She either wants it for herself or is going to sell it.

(But if she does exist, I have an area rug and some shelf liners she may want to add to her cart.)

And speaking of the pick-up: The stuff was on the porch. It’s Craigslist. You don’t need to knock on my door. I don’t care to chat with you and whisper about the down-and-out friend that may or may not exist. Pick it up, put it in your car and leave the chairs on the porch. Those are mine.

Natural Fibers

I answered an ad on Craigslist for some free fabric. Four boxes and a Hefty bag.

I only found a few items that I’m going to keep. And I am not even going to donate the rest of the fabric, as it’s all double-knit, polyester.

Also, it’s filthy, and here’s how I know:

I was going through each piece, being careful not to grab anything that still contained a straight pin, when I came across a bit of tissue. I could feel there was something inside the tissue, and I was thinking maybe some handmade lace or something.

Imagine my horror when I opened the tissue to find a wad of hair. And hand to God, I think it was pubic hair. Like, 95% sure. A big, dark wad of pubic hair.

Needless to say I dry heaved.

I just don’t understand – why? Why the pubes? Did the woman need to match her garments to EVERYTHING? Was she going to spin it into yarn and make a sweater? It’s good to use renewable resources, and God knows everyone around here is doing their best, but there is a line that I feel should not be crossed, and I’m pretty sure knitting with yarn made with your own short hairs is on the other side of the chalk.

Thinking about it now, I’m tossing that dark grey, “wool” remnant.