#flappingfridays

Holy guacamole, this kid is five today. 

She’s big enough to get daddy’s jokes and small enough to still slip her hand into mine when we walk down the street. Tall enough to reach the chocolate hidden on top of the refrigerator (if she climbs on a chair) and small enough to fit perfectly into the crook of my arm at bedtime. Bold enough to play with the big kids and sweet enough to take care of the little ones. 

She’s a comedienne, an athlete known at the park as “cross-fit Billie” for her astonishing feats of strength on bars of any kind (monkey or other), and a born entertainer with music in her blood. She is endlessly enthusiastic and can find the good in any situation. She starts most sentences with, “good that” - as in, “Mama, good that you don’t have to go to work today because it’s raining.” Her other favorite thing to say is, “if imagine” - as in, “If imagine this book was made out of donuts,” or, “If imagine we could fly to the moon.” 

She shines bright every day and reminds me that life is really fucking good. If imagine we could all see the world through the eyes of our five year olds. Happy birthday, baby girl. 

Remember that brief horrific period epic six year battle we had with rats? I feel like I’ve done my time with these pesky little Norwegians. Imagine my horror last week when we discovered a rat on the loose in my office. 

Wednesday evening when our suite-neighbor opened the door to the warehouse a “mouse” darted past her and ran into our office. By the time I got in it the next day was nowhere to be found. My office mates chose not to mention it to me, presumably out of kindness knowing my history, i.e. rodent PTSD.

So I was totally unprepared when Janelle called in that high-pitched voice that rodents produce in everyone, “Oh I see it! I see the mouse! It’s in my office!”

While Janelle and Rebecca jumped up and scampered into the kitchen where the “mouse” disappeared behind the refrigerator, I kept my distance because a) this was the first I’d heard about it and b) see above - I’ve done my time. DONE. 

I watched from afar as they devised a plan: Open the warehouse door, block the hallway back to our office with a box, and scare it out. 

I eyed the box dubiously. 

“You know that’s not going to work, right?” I said, like a total dick. Like, I know this guy. I know exactly what he’s going to do. I’m inside his tiny head. He’s going to hurdle that box like an Olympian and go exactly where you don’t want him to go. 

“No, I think it’s going to work,” Rebecca replied, totally confident. “We just need to steer him towards the warehouse then we’ll shut the door behind him.” 

“Okay,” I said, retreating quietly into my office. 

A moment’s silence.

The scrape of furniture. 

Total pandemonium.

“Gaaaaah! It’s on the run! It’s headed your way!”

The next second a frantic rat rounds the corner (two corners, actually) at breakneck speed, beelining for my feet. MY FEET. I squeal like a pig and start dancing like James Brown and this motherfucker doesn’t change course. Not even a little bit. I’m 99.9% percent sure it ran directly in between my feet, or where my feet would have been had they not at that moment been air pedaling like the goddam Road Runner. While I levitated the rat ran directly to my corner of the office and hid under my filing cabinet. 

The nerve. 

At this point I retreated (sweaty and shaken) to the hall while Janelle and Rebecca tried again to scare the rat out of hiding, which amounted to it running laps around our office darting from one piece of furniture to the next with each sprint punctuated by more squeals. (Mine included.) At one point Janelle said to me, “Okay we’re gonna scare it out, if it runs at you just jump up and down and make a lot of noise so it will go towards the warehouse.” 

I shook my head and whispered, “I can’t. I just can’t.”

After like 20 minutes we realized this was really the landlord’s problem. During Rebecca’s conversation with him about the “mouse” on the loose I politely pointed out, “That’s not a mouse - that’s a motherfucking rat.” 

With the rat deep under my filing cabinet, I took my computer to the back office where I tried to concentrate on my work and failed miserably. When I say I have rodent PTSD I’m not kidding. I was instantly thrown back to the anxiety-ridden days of checking rooms before I step inside, constantly listening for the telltale scritch-scratching of claws and teeth on wood, and always having a knot in my stomach. If I’d been armed I totally would have shot an innocent bystander.

An hour later Rebecca cried, “Look out! He’s on the run! He’s coming your way!” My head snapped up to see the rat scamper into sight then turn and run underneath another filing cabinet. Directly in front of me. 

What in the actual fuck?

“It’s like you’re some kind of fucked up Pied Piper!” my friend Rebecca (different Rebecca) texted me later. Cool, thanks. Just what I always wanted to be when I grew up, the fucked up Pied Piper. 

At that point I shut my computer and went home. 

“I’m out! I can’t take it. Call me when they’re gone.” 

...As if they will ever be gone.

Billie started kindergarten last week.

Two weeks ago, everyone I know: “BV’s gonna walk in like a boss!”

This week, everyone I know: “Yeah it’s always more challenging with the second child because you expect them to adapt more quickly and also they cling to being the younger one and struggle against the inevitable tides of time and change. It’s only to be expected.”

Cool, thanks for the heads up y’all.

First clue: Total meltdown the night before school started. I mean absolute. Clearly she’s been repressing her feelings for a long time. Can’t imagine where she picked that up.

Day one (Wednesday): Pretty good! She shed a tear when we left and we did notice the class was heavily weighted with boys (”bit of a sausage-fest” as Sash said, only not quite so politely) and also almost every other kid seemed to already know the Spanish alphabet song (ruh-roh) but she seemed to take it in stride. 

Day two (Thursday): Meltdown over uniform. Also something about the cafeteria. Despite my efforts to talk her out of it (i.e. so gross) gave her money for lunch along with clear instructions for making sure she gets the main part of the meal due to prior experience with Mila who in kindergarten often reported leaving the line with only carrot sticks and a bread roll (again, where’s the oversight?). After school Billie reported having pineapple and carrot sticks for lunch. So that worked.

Day three (Friyay): Things looking up! Late start and looming weekend big help.

Weekend: Return to our blissfully learning-free life and forget all about this school nonsense, which must have been a bad dream.

Day four (Monday): Things fall apart. At approximately 6:53am after putting on and violently taking off all four uniform-compliant skirt options Billie stomps down the hall and climbs into a laundry basket, pulls blankets over her head, and proceeds to scream, cry, and rage for a solid 45 minutes. Covers everything from hating uniform to having no friends. Repeatedly. Also reeeeally hates me for making her go. (Obvs.) I try (not necessarily in this order) empathizing, sympathizing, active listening, bribing, threatening, cajoling, man-handling - wash, rinse, and repeat, punctuated with lots of attempted hugs which were thwarted with varying degrees of animosity. Also try really really hard not to lose my temper or start crying. (Never a given.) Finally at approximately 7:38 put Billie’s clothes, shoes, and a bottle of mouthwash into a bag, pick her up and load her into the car in her underwear telling her in the least bitchy voice I can manage, “You can either decide to get dressed or you can go to school in your underwear,” definitely setting her up for some therapy and/or substance abuse later in life. So feeling really good about that.    

She decided to get dressed. 

That evening my friend Elizabeth, who’s the bouncer at our drop-off gate, texted me and said, “How’s Billie doing?”

I told her. She replied, “Yeah, she looked a little shell-shocked this morning!”

Poor kid.

Educational journey off to excellent start. Really winning at this parenting thing. I should have had like five more kids - I’m doing so well with these two.

(Note: Billie apologized when I picked her up that day, so hopefully I didn’t emotionally scar her too badly. Perhaps only few therapy sessions and socially acceptable wine habit?) 

This girl is old. We’re going through it with her at the moment. Not terribly, but slowly. She’s 15, the last of our pre-kid family. Like a lot of people our age (sweet Jesus we’re middle aged - what in the actual fuck) we got pets in our early twenties, not ready for kids, then had kids in our thirties and are now dealing with old animals and young children at the same time. Not ideal. But I wouldn’t trade either.

At 105 “in human years” (whose idea was that? I don’t know any 105-year-old humans who can still jump up on the couch every day without breaking a hip) it’s not surprising Stella’s having some issues. Occasionally we find her in the bathtub for no apparent reason, or the fireplace. And she’s shrinking at an alarming rate. She tore a ligament in her knee a couple months ago and recently had a seizure that nearly killed both her and Sash, who was the only one home when it happened. But for the most part she’s doing good. Still, every time I pull up to the house I hold my breath for a moment while waiting for her sweet face to appear at the window.

I’m savoring my walks with her. Last night we went for a late one and I watched her bony little body in the moonlight and let her stop and sniff for as long as she wanted to every two steps, thinking about the stars and the universe and the billions of years behind us and what lies ahead and if time is really linear and how we’re all so impossibly tiny and insignificant and destined to be stardust, when I caught my silhouette against a Keep Right sign on a roundabout we were passing. It was there for the briefest moments, a sharp shadow cast by the sweeping headlights of a passing car, clear one instant, eaten up by darkness the next. It brought to mind my grandmother’s cameo necklace - simple, clean lines, indistinct but instantly recognizable. 

I read a story on Medium this week about how if you want to blog every day but don’t know how to come up with ideas you just need to make two lists:

1. Lessons I “teach” in my writing.

2. Encounters I have every day.

The idea is you write down things that happen to you and then cross reference them against the main ideas you try to get across in your writing. Like, “That guy at Starbucks was a total douchebag but he reminded me that cargo pants really aren’t for everyone.” I’m guessing this method is geared more for “content creators” with something to sell, but could it also work when the only “lesson” is that I’m kind of a loser? 

Here’s how I “grew” this week.

I learned that the generation after Millennials, who are now old enough to buy their own shit (i.e. marketable) assuming they can actually get jobs, are called “iGen,” and 60% of them have communicated using only emojis. Which made me realize I totally have my finger on the pulse because I too prefer to communicate by emoji because they’re just so damn good at capturing my exact sentiment (i.e. ever-present sense of impending doom.) 😕

Our preschool shares a tiny parking lot with the Armenian Council on Aging (for real - their Yelp listing says it’s the “Armenian-American Council on Aging” but their sign definitely does not). As far as I can tell it’s just a bunch of old Armenian people sitting around in suits playing chess and giving us young’ns dirty looks. When I dropped Billie off yesterday I parked on their side of the parking lot because our side was full. There’s no sign that says their side and our side. It’s just one of those things. When I came back to my car a man who’d just parked next to me jabbed his key in my face and said, “This no you parking, that you parking,” then spat on the ground and shuffled off to play chess. 

This was a real dick move because there were two more empty spaces next to me, it’s not like I stole the last spot. Yes, I did take the one that’s easiest to get out of due to the size and geometry of the other spaces and the general dwarfism of the lot. But I was literally there for three minutes. If he’d waited 30 seconds longer he could’ve taken my space. However, I did learn that I’m still not old enough to not take things personally and that being scolded by a stranger makes you feel like even more like a turdburger than being called on your shit by someone you actually care about. (What’s up with that?)

Okay this one technically didn’t happen to me but I’m going to use it anyway. The other day Sash was about to get on the 2 when a cop pulled up behind him, flashed his lights and called over the loudspeaker, “Sir, pull over. Do not get on the freeway.” He pulled over under the underpass (About three feet away from the City of LA) and two cops came to either side of his car. He gave them his license, registration, etc. They asked if he had anything in the car they should know about. “Just my drums officer,” he said, cos he’s fucking metal. Then they asked him if he knew it was illegal to have your windshield tinted, to which he replied, “Ummm....” and then more police cars pulled up and they told him to get out of the car and keep his hands where they could see them while they searched the vehicle. 

Now we appreciate the GPD, especially with that whole crazy neighbor situation and having heard horror stories about how long it takes LAPD to show up (or not show up) but this seemed a bit aggressive. Sash sat on the curb knowing he didn’t have anything to hide and wondering what the fuck was going on while a young officer who was probably named Chip bounced around asking him about his tattoos and his drums and his favorite bands. A drug-sniffing dog appeared on the scene and a minute later Sash heard one of the cops say, “There’s a white baggie under the accelerator.” 

Wait, what?

Turns out the whole thing was a practice exercise. For the dog. They pulled him over because of his windshield - not because they give a shit but because they need a legal reason to pull someone over - and because he wasn’t a dick decided he’d make a good guinea pig. I guess they don’t legally have to inform you they’re doing this?  

This was a dick move because this was right down the street from where we live andit would have really embarrassing if, say, his daughter’s preschool teacher (who probably suspects he’s a criminal anyway) happened to drive past on her way to stock up on dinosaur nuggets and saw him sitting in the homeless encampment surrounded by five police cars and an excited drug dog. Also he could have had somewhere important to be. (Srsly. We grown ups.) 

So I learned that it doesn’t pay to not be a dick to the Glendale Police. 

All in all a pretty insightful week.

Time is such a slippery fish. Sometimes you can grab it in both arms and hold on tight and other times it slides right through your fingers like water. Days, weeks, moments when waves of change wash over each other feel like you’re in a whirlpool. Time stands still around you and spirals away from you all at once. 

Seasons. Birthdays. Milestones. Tragedies. Visitors. Road trips. Late nights. Old friends. Grey mornings. Deep breaths. I suppose it’s significant that we’re reaching the mid-point of the year (holy fuck - better start those resolutions), it somehow balances out with the end of year madness and emotional overload. I think I got an email about something in the stars, or maybe it was planetary alignment, in any case I haven’t had time to read it but maybe that explains it. Maybe it’s because my parents just visited and now that my girls are older their visits remind me so much of my own childhood and my own grandparents. Maybe it’s because my baby is “graduating” from preschool. Maybe it’s because I escaped from LA and returned to the ocean for a couple of days. (Actually the heated pool, if I’m being completely honest. But it was like, right next to the ocean.) Maybe I’ve just  been to one too many end of year events and had one too many late nights. Maybe it’s because life sometimes pokes you in the ribs and reminds you that tomorrow is never a given.   

Whatever it is I’m feeling the urgency of time right now, the need to let go of worry and suck the marrow out of every moment, even the mundane ones. Especially the mundane ones. 

Maybe I’m just rambling. 

Anyway, I read this poem this week and loved it. Maybe you will too. (Or maybe it’s dark and depressing and will totally ruin your day. I wouldn’t know. I love that shit. I eat it up like a hungry bear.) 

Happy Friday!

When Death Comes

by Mary Oliver

When death comes 

like the hungry bear in autumn; 

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse 

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; 

when death comes like the measle-pox

  when death comes 

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

  I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: 

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

  And therefore I look upon everything 

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 

and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

  and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

  and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

  and each body a lion of courage, and something 

precious to the earth. 

When it's over, I want to say all my life 

I was a bride married to amazement. 

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

  When it's over, I don't want to wonder 

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

  I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument.

This has been a weird week. But as we’re launching into the holiday weekend (woo-to-the-hoo) I’m not going to get all emotional club/dark side on you today. Come on, it’s happy hour (even on sad days). Instead, please enjoy these saved up moments of my failure to thrive awesome life. 

No hope

While were watching America Ninja Warriors, Mila asked me what I would do if I won the million dollar prize. Before I could explain that I would buy a house on a hill near on a beach somewhere, take her & Billie to see as many countries as we could, and put some away for college, she added, “Pay me back, first. Again.”

Oh yes. Of course. Pay you back. Because at almost 40 I’m really winning at life, constantly borrowing money from my almost eight year old.

The penny drops

When you realize at 11:37pm on a Monday beginning the fifth straight week of sleeping on the pullout sofa/day bed you bought second hand from a friend eight years ago (which came from Ikea to begin with so, you know, really top quality) that the reason you’ve been sleeping in a hole causing your back to periodically spasm uncontrollably and requiring multiple visits to the chiropractor/acupuncturist, is that you’re supposed to turn the two single mattresses sideways, so each sleeper’s spine is supported by an entire mattress, rather than two halves each with a (painful) gap in the middle.

OH. Right. That’s much better.

No shame

When, mid-mammogram, the technician pauses to compliment your tattoo of a chihuahua… Which is actually a deer. 

Thanks! Carry on. Please.

Happy Friday everybody! Here’s hoping the sun comes out tomorrow. Or not. Either way you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be sipping margaritas somewhere.

PARENTS. Bring it in.

Here we are again - so close to the end of the school year, we can taste it. Or smell it. Or wait, no, that’s not summer, that’s the decomposed string cheese I found under my driver’s seat this morning. Anyway - come on you guys, we can do this. Come on. (Did I already say that? I stopped paying attention to anything 17.3 days ago.) Yes, we’re all at the point where we basically don’t give a fuck if our kids learn a single goddam thing between now when that final bell rings and they come marching home carrying a year’s worth of “art” that we have to figure out how to discreetly dispose of - I mean cherish forever. Normally I tell Mila to avoid the cafeteria like the plague, except on the occasional Friday when, after another grueling week, I simple cannot manage to slap together a PBJ and they usually featured grilled cheese anyway (which seems much harder to fuck up than, say, sweet & sour chicken, or even tacos - I remember the tacos at my elementary school and let me assure you, they were no bueno), this week I checked the menu Sunday night and decided with zero guilt (none!) that she could eat pizza on Tuesday and grilled cheese Friday, which means I had exactly three lunches to make this week. So manageable! 

While we’re on the subject, does every school now give kids an open cafeteria account or is it just ours? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? Let’s stock the shelves with Apple Jacks, chocolate milk, and cinnamon rolls and then let the under-ten-year-olds self regulate. Where’s the oversight? Every few months I get an email notice that Mila’s cafeteria balance is -$0.11 and I have to interrogate her about what she’s been eating on top of the delicious (well ok, palatable) and nutritious (inasmuch as I can manage given everything else I have to do - cook, clean, walk the dog, work, listen to Harry Potter, etc.) lunches I lovingly/sleepily pack for her each morning. Which always turns out to be something un-food-like that she argues is totally okay because one or more friends of her “always get it,” or pancakes and bacon for breakfast: the sequel, “because it just smells soooo good.” What happened to begging, borrowing, or stealing? She just charges it. To me. Are the credit card companies behind this, or is it the sugar lobbyists? Are they working together to destroy our future? 

While we’re still on the subject, one of the rotating items on our cafeteria menu is (I shit you not), “Mac & Cheese w/Goldfish Crackers.” I mean... Thank God our “president” is taking on Michelle Obama’s crazy idea to get healthy food into our schools. Imagine if they had to eat processed pasta and processed cheese without a side of processed crackers. What in the actual fuck?

Listen, I know you’ve had a busy week. So have I. We all have, and we’re not in the clear yet. But just remember, with each end of year concert/carnival/pot-luck/fundraiser/gift-contribution/dress-rehearsal/raffle/silent-auction/butterfly-release/whatever else they’re throwing at us, we are one step closer to that glorious day when we don’t have to have the tiniest members of our household fed, dressed, brushed, slathered, and buckled in by 7:26 am. When we can say, “You know what? Yeah. Yeah, you can have ten more minutes. Fuckit. Take 20.” When we throw all caution to the wind and trust that if we let them watch “Some Assembly Required” (last sidenote: when can we address the abominable children’s programming available on Netflix/Hulu/Amazon? which generation will put an end to canned laughter?) until midnight and we’ll still be able to make it to work on time. When we let them survive on popsicles and sunshine and completely forget how to separate the unidades from the decenas and maybe even how to write a sentence. Not to worry, it will all come back.