The right kind, with clean sheets. The ones with the cat walking across the newspaper while you are trying to read the book reviews.
And it’s just rained, so the air is transparent and fresh. You can wear your shiny, knee-hi rubber boots without appearing mentally ill, and the puddles quake with your impending splash.
The chores are done and the fridge is full, so you can walk, just walk, instead of buying milk and eggs.
There is already a plan for dinner, and everyone is old enough—but not too old—to feed themselves.
Thought I would share an essay I wrote for another site with the larger world:
Puberty is a wild ride; I must have forgotten. Or maybe–despite the hideously awkward classroom discussions and cheesy pamphlets–I just experienced puberty as my own ri…
I’m in a bit of a funk. I know you don’t care, but I’m telling you anyway. After the letter I received from city public works today, I thought we should get better acquainted.
I got laryngitis right in time for my college reunion, so I got to stand around drinking seltzer, smiling and nodding like an idiot, while everyone else had the time of their lives. Then I got much, much worse.
I was dismally ill through the entirety of my family’s big awesome vacation to Hawaii, including one memorable day at the Kaiser Permanente clinic there, because that’s fun. I enjoyed reading last September’s Better Homes and Gardens cover to cover as well as a thoughtful booklet about advance health care directives. That was such an informative way to squander a day in paradise.
I flew home and was sick some more. A month later, despite giving up coffee, alcohol, talking, sleeping, and–especially today–joy, I’m still sick.
A couple of hours ago, I had another visit with my doctor. He assures me that I will probably be feeling better by the end of July…which will be right after a big family trip across country to visit my mother. Here’s hoping the recovery comes before my husband abandons his hacking, sleepless wife.
No big deal, right? Just a pesky virus. Things could obviously be much worse.
Did I mention that my big, fabulous book deal just disintegrated? No?
Well. My big, fabulous book deal just disintegrated. Maybe it’s for the best, you may be thinking. After all, the publisher had a penchant for the playful caveman font. Still.
Add to this the fact that my best friend is apparently breaking up with me…via email. Ouch.
But instead of crying in a heap about my broken heart and broken dreams, or going to bed in order to finally, actually, maybe start feeling better, I have been copyediting and photo editing and cleaning out the closets, taking small people to the eye doctor and dentist and piano lessons, and grocery shopping and saying goodbye to friends who are moving 3,000 miles away, and labeling every goddamn pair of my kids’ underpants with a Sharpie for camp.
Imagine my surprise then, when I was reminded–after living in this house for almost eleven years–that I happened to forget to bring my garbage cans in. Once. I left them out there for one day.
AND YOU TOOK A PICTURE AND SENT IT TO THE GODDAMN CITY so they would start harassing me.
Really?
Have you nothing better to do?
I’m sorry you were so overwhelmed by the incrediblemonstrosity of my tidy row of bins that you were completely unable to walk over and knock on the door like a reasonable human being and were instead forced to take a photo and print it out and mail it to the goddamn city.
Guess what? I’m going to sneak over there today to cough on your mail. And maybe lick your door knob.
Lest you think I am a crazy cat lady, I have written a 100-word lament to my nemeses this week: Morse, Diamond, and Sapphire.
***
Dear Kittens,
It’s lucky you filthy pigs are adorable, because your explosive deposits up the wall are not appreciated.
Please do not fall into your own steaming pool of poo and then climb my leg–I do not wish to share your intestinal parasite. Also, I’m running low on bleach. Please aim for the box with your leaky hindquarters–and the gullet with your malodorous wet food–before wandering off to destroy the couch or wedge yourself irretrievably behind the credenza. I do love you like a bad boyfriend, but I may need to break up to save my sanity.
***
P.S. I’ve run out of fecalyzers. Let’s nip this bug in the bud so I do not have to continue taking your stool samples with chopsticks and Ziploc baggies. The middle school carpool and I feel a little weird driving around with fecal matter on coldpacks in the trunk. Thanks.
I’m not super pro-tattoo or anti-tattoo. I’ve debated getting one in the past but never that seriously. But my mother is vehemently anti-tattoo. Listed below are the reasons my mother has always given me for why I shouldn’t get a tattoo.
And I understand that she’s from a different generation. And I love my mother very much. She’s a really wonderful person and I’m not saying none of them is a legitimate reason, but I’m saying that after having a child, I find it really hard to take any of them seriously.
And so in case you were headed out to the tattoo parlor as we speak, here are:
10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD NEVER, EVER, EVER GET A TATTOO ACCORDING TO MY MOTHER (but having a baby is fine)
1. “A Tattoo is Forever”
Yes, a tattoo is forever. Totally forever! Except that a tattoo can, if needed, be erased with a laser.
Apologies, apologies. I should have posted something eons ago.
I know there are people out there with a laser-like focus–the kind who are raising the next president all while working full-time, serving up leek tarts, volunteering regularly, going to school on the side, and writing a novel in their spare time.
It’s not like that over here.
Now that summer vacation is underway for the two smallest people in my house, it has become nigh impossible to coax a coherent paragraph or two out of the day.
Instead, I’m sending warm greetings from Camp Beret.
Bad Parenting 101 