Mountain Men

October 10, 2011 By 6 Comments

David made plans to run in the Mountain Epic at Sunday River with our cousin-in-law, Brian. Far be for me to suggest that an event that has chosen to  join the words “mountain” and “epic” sounds like glorified torture.  So I bit my tongue and along with the children, I dragged my sorry cardio-deprived body out of bed at 6:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning to trek into the northern-most woods of Maine. Okay, not really the most northern parts, but still.

Two hours later, I was standing at the base of Sunday River with Dave’s cousin Lynn and a gaggle of children as our husbands joined the mob of insane people who, for some reason, shared the belief  that running straight up an enormous mountain was a fantastic idea.

*SNORT*

Should I mention that he had his choice of courses and he chose the 8-miler? That’s 5 summits. 

Clearly, he didn’t  read the brochure that plainly stated, ”Mountain Epic will take you over a wide array of trails, obstacles, and alpine features. Highlights include winding single-track, stunning forests, sweeping vistas, and a 4ft deep mud pit at the finish.”

Basically, he ponied up thirty dollars to torture himself and later, quietly confided that, at one point, he was climbing something akin to a gravely rock-face where he was forced to use his hands to crawl to safety. From the backseat, Gwen asked him if he spotted any mountain goats up there at the top.

 *SNORT, SNORT*

An hour and 40 minutes later, our manly men came limping across the finish line mud pit. After watching approximately 25 other fools belly-flop and swan-dive into the mud pit while he waited, Joe had already decided that he’d like to cross the finish line with his daddy. Really, it was simply an excuse to hurl his scrawny fully-clothed body into a trench of muddy water. Together, my manly-man and manly-man in training, emerged soaked, filthy and triumphant.

Later, I found out that the 2011 Wife Carrying Championship was held on Saturday. That’s right. The annual WIFE CARRYING CHAMPIONSHIP went right through that very mud pit. I was pissed. Next year, I’m totally making him carry me through that thing and I’ll be sure to get it on film. I will, I tell you! Or my name is mud.

That Poor Dude

We had a good day. Filled with running (Dave not me), Beer (me not Dave) and a giant heated swimming pool with all of the cousins. Good times.

By the time we got home, it was 5:00 and we were snoring by 7:30. I have no idea what Dave was bitching about…he only ran 4 miles straight up a mountain and down again. Sheesh.

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Filed Under: A.S.S. Tagged With: , ,

The Boozy Floozy – A Memoir Essay

October 6, 2011 By 13 Comments

Her nickname was Bunny but, she was neither soft nor fuzzy. In fact, she was missing any of the traits one might associate with a meek woodland creature. Unless, of course, bunnies smoked Marlboro reds and drank like fish. In which case, then her nickname was spot-on. If bunnies screamed hateful things at little girls and attempted to beat teenage boys with two-by-fours, then sure…she was a bunny.

I privately named her Boozy Floozy or simply, “her.” Sometimes, I even referred to her as “It.” As in, Here It comes, better disappear before It attacks.

Bunny was really only called Bunny during the moments when Happy Hour was still happy, that fleeting bit of time when she and my father neared the end of their first drink and their faces bloomed with smiles, their eyes brightened and everyone became funny. Even Bunny. But happy hour could turn ugly fast.

She hated me. She told me so once with her hand wrapped around my neck while she pressed me against the wall. Bunny leaned in so close that our noses nearly touched. Her mouth was surrounded in tiny creases and fine blonde hairs. The mole above her lip moved as she breathed booze-scented hate into my face through gritted teeth. She was baiting me. Waiting for me to push back, talk back or cry. I refused to give her what she wanted. I was smarter than her. Mostly because I wasn’t drunk.

Bunny wore shiny polyester shirts and colored her short shagged hair an unnatural shade of dark brown that faded into a brassy dull yellow. She spoke with cigarettes dangling from her lip, squinting through the ribbon of white smoke that moved past her eyes. The effect of that habit, paired with her use of profanity and clipped movements, gave Bunny a masculine air.

My hatred for her was just as big, but I was smarter than she was. I was quiet about my revenge. Once, I stood at the refrigerator lazily searching the contents for food a kid might like to eat. How long did it usually take her to get annoyed by this act? When she jumped up from her chair and began to lunge across the kitchen, I held out a jar of her pickled eggs.

“Want an egg?” I asked, “I’m not sure I’d like them.”

She eyed me suspiciously then pulled on a dry smile. “Haven’t you ever had a pickled egg?”

“No. My mother doesn’t make them.”

She turned her back to me and placed the jar on the counter, and I enjoyed watching her reach in and pluck a slippery egg from the juice. I watched her raise the egg to her mouth as she turned to face me again. She took a hearty bite, removing the top half of the egg and while she chewed, I watched her mole move up and down.

“So, what are they pickled in?” I asked.

“Vinegar and garlic,” she answered as she swallowed, “You have to let them sit for a month. I just opened this jar.”

“I like vinegar.”

“Are you going to eat one or not?” she was becoming impatient with my indecision.

“No, thank you.”

There was no way I was going to eat one of those eggs after I peed in the jar.

Bunny had a violent streak. She once locked my brother out of the house when he didn’t come home by 11:00 and, when he went into the barn to sleep in his car, Bunny attacked him in the dark with a 2×4, aiming for his head. Bunny was dangerous and mean and anything might have set her off.

One day I locked her in the pantry after she ranted about something like, I’d let the cat inside or I’d dipped a celery stalk in the mayonnaise after refusing to eat the liver and onions she cooked for dinner. She mostly ranted because my presence infuriated her. She ranted because it was nearing the hour that she’d pour herself the day’s first drink. She ranted because I was my father’s daughter.

I don’t remember now what it was that she drank, I just know that her violence gave birth to my own. Her hate fed my hate. I feared her and I wanted her dead. Or I wanted to die.

I moved in with my father in November, 1981, just hours after I’d run away and hid in a drainage pipe than ran under the Northway. As the day grew cooler and the late-autumn sun grew faint, I was forced out of hiding. I sat in the same room with my mother and father, a rare occurrence, and informed my mother that I hated her. An hour later I was in the passenger seat of my father’s State Police car with all of my worldly belongings. I chose him in the hope of finding a place where I fit or to recapture that beautiful solitary innocence that I had enjoyed on our farm. It didn’t take long to realize that Bunny had stolen all hope.

Now, Bunny stalked into the pantry with her cigarette dangling from her lips and began shuffling the mushy canned vegetables that she’d force me to eat at dinner. Suddenly, the thought of her taking pleasure in making me eat something that was purposely inedible, enraged me. Her back was turned when I shut the door and turned the lock. Nearly in unison, the lock moved into place with a loud click and Bunny quickly turned. Through the glass and a veil of smoke, she glared at me with narrowed eyes. “You’d better open that fucking door,” she spat.

My response was stony silence. Now that I’d turned that lock, I was forced to commit to my bad choice. She’d kill me if I let her out.

The cigarette was back between the fingers of her right hand and she used it to punctuate the jabbing motions she made while she growled, “Open…the…fucking…door.” Her eyes fixed on mine like an animal assessing its prey. Her upper lip began to quiver, causing the ugly mole that lived there to dance. I knew that I risked her punching through the glass to get out. She was crazy enough to throw her fist through a window in order to get me and it was a chance I was willing take for the sake of my own hatred. Knowing my chances for survival were better if she couldn’t see me, I slowly backed out of the kitchen. I returned her fury-filled stare with my own wordless challenge. If she escaped before my father returned home, she would do something to harm me. Suddenly, I realized my gamble was foolish since sometimes, my father didn’t come home at all.

The heel of my right foot met the threshold of the kitchen doorway and slowly, I closed the door on her rage-filled stare. I’d vowed I wouldn’t show fear in her presence but, when the silence was broken by the sharp click of another door closing, I jumped. Her spell was broken. I whirled and ran through the woodshed into the yard. Without slowing, I ran into the tall grass of the field and didn’t look back. I didn’t want to know if she was watching me. For hours I wandered the woods behind my father’s new house, waiting for the sun to dip low enough in the sky to tell me that he might be home.

It seemed running had become my most effective method of escape. I ran, hoping to block it all out and outrun Bunny. I was still holding out hope for a magical doorway to appear and some beautiful, loving creature to invite me to the other side. On the day that I locked that evil woman in the pantry, my innocence was waning. In less than one year my life had irrevocably changed. I’d come to understand that the people who were my parents were not the people I thought they were.

If you could have peered into the house on Coon Hill Road, you might have seen her sitting alone. A girl with long brown hair, too thin and serious and always holding a book in her lap. She had lived most of her short life that way, trying to feed her insatiable curiosity with words. The things she knew weren’t taught to her by her family, but by the characters in the books she read. She was surviving. If she thought too hard about the number of years she had to endure before she’d be able to leave, she cried. She didn’t know where she would go.

Filed Under: alcohol, ass-kicking, memories, MFA, writers Tagged With:

Woman of a Certain Age

October 3, 2011 By 7 Comments

A certain birthday is creeping up on me. No…actually, it’s about to punch me in the face. It’s cocked and loaded and ready to shoot but I’m cool with it. Really, I am.

Last week I was killing time by perusing Ebay and Etsy for vintage clothes when I stumbled upon this:

Not me. Not. At. All.

I had that dress. I wore it in the early 90′s when I still wasn’t legally allowed to be in bars but went anyway. In fact, I rocked that dress back when Kurt Cobain was still breathing and astonishing the world with his rebuttal to 80′s hairbands. I wore the hell out of that tight little number and sang …can’t find a better man! at the top of my lungs while I drove into the city to hit CBGB’s. I smoked skinny little Capri cigarettes when I drank because those weren’t like smoking a real cigarrette…therefore, by technicality, I was not a smoker. I loved Eddie Vedder and imagined that, in a perfect world, we’d meet and get married and I’d be his cool wife who wore tight little black dresses and lovingly mopped the sweat from his forehead after particularly grueling sets.

I wore that dress with cowboy boots and black high heels and drank shots out of test tubes. I might have worn it while dancing on the bar at a place called Roxeanne’s with my best friends, Debbie and Corinne. I probably puked on it. Either way, my ass hadn’t fallen yet and my boobs were still perky. My hair was long and cut like Brenda Walsh’s and I exuded a major Don’t-Even-Bother-Talking-To-Me-Fella kind of vibe.

I was dork.

Last night, Dave and I were driving home from our date night when Guns n’ Roses came on the radio. There we were, two cool, aging hotties hurtling down I-95 with Paradise City and Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door blaring from the Saab’s speakers. Momentarily, we felt cool. The songs of our youth filled my ears and made me young again. I mean really young. I felt good and happy and…then the stupid DJ went and called those songs classics. CLASSICS, I say!

My dress is vintage and my music is classic. Bitch is gettin’ old…

Filed Under: beauty, big fat ass, boobs, cocktails, suck it up Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Lady’s Story

October 2, 2011 By 10 Comments

It’s been a while since I’ve had the opporunity to write something for that fantastic writer’s community known as The Lightening and The Lightening Bug. Surely, you’ve visited and read the varied and talented contributions of the writers who link up each Sunday, right?

The prompt this week suggested that we write about “Objects in the Mirror”  – you were supposed to write about something seen in a mirror. It could have been yourself, someone else, a ghost, a car, your evil twin from another universe – the looking glass, as Alice might have said, was wide open. Oddly enough, I was recently experimenting with a fiction piece about the ghost in my childhood farmhouse and used the very words, “looking glass” in my character’s inner dialogue.

Since we’ve entered that month devoted to pagan holidays, I decided to link up my tale about the Lady, my nearly constant childhood companion. If you recall, my stories were all true…this one is not. It is merely my imagination at work, attempting to explain who the Lady was and why she stayed with me for so many years. I removed drafts of my true ghost stories from Narragansett No. 7 because I’m working on the in my graduate program…I suppose that if anyone wants to see them again, I could post in honor of Halloween.

This story is nothing more than an experiment.

THE LADY’S STORY

How long have I been waiting in this silent house? I have no way of knowing. I wander from room to room searching for my daughter, worrying that she’ll never come home. Time seems to stand still, as if years have passed while I was sleeping but, I never recall going to sleep. Forever waiting and searching, my thoughts drift, returning me to the hours I spent pacing the length of the hall, waiting for my girl’s fever to break.  Throughout those nights, I crept into her room to check her, to make sure she was still breathing. There were times when I couldn’t help but lean over her tiny bed and nearly place my ear against her frail chest, listening for her wheezing exhalations.  How many times during those long nights had I hovered over her as she slept? Filled with helplessness and worry, I waited for her father to return with the doctor.

Now neither of them is here and I didn’t remember them leaving. So I wait, sure that he has taken her away for treatment. But how long ago had they departed and left me with no word of their whereabouts? I’ve become frightened that the influenza has infected my body; it’s the only explanation for this strange mixture confusion and isolation. Certainly, high fever is known to cause odd visions and perhaps the sense of timelessness I have been experiencing. Fever would explain the sense that I’ve slept for days when I come to in a room, one of my own, that suddenly appears foreign.

More than once, I have been sure that I heard voices and hurried to peer from the windows, hoping to see them below in the dooryard. I have scanned the windows of each barn, hoping to see the light of a lantern. So far, I haven’t seen any sign of life and the landscape looks peculiar – askew, as if something has changed and I can’t bear to look for too long. When I do, it seems as though the world has been reversed. An image sent back through a looking glass. Everything is off, as if the trees themselves are different.

Once, I stood before the window in my daughter’s room and forced myself study the world outside. I quickly backed away when the feverish hallucinations began to set in. I was studying the yard in the front of the house and the lane beyond when the very air seemed to quiver, much like the wavering air above a roaring fire. Most disturbing to me was what I saw in that quivering vision. For the briefest moment, I saw a great and brightly colored metal machine moving into the dooryard. The lane in front had transformed to a flat grey stretch as far as the eye could see. It was then that I began to grow dizzy and my body became weightless but, it wasn’t until my eyes moved to my new beautiful marble walk and the young maple tree that I nearly fainted with terror. Somehow, the great heavy lengths of white marble had been lifted and warped by the roots of a tree that could only have lived for years beyond my own existence.

To the right of the giant maple, the row of new lilacs had grown so large as to obscure the lower fields. I stepped away from window, feeling too light and afraid of becoming faint. I turned to fall into the chair at my daughter’s bedside and instead saw a room coated in dust. The plaster was crumbling and the furniture that remained was not our own.

I expected that weightless feeling to consume me and drag me to the floor but I did not faint. Instead I remained quite still and listened. Strange voices traveled up to my ears. Someone was speaking on the floor below. When had I last gone down the stairs to the first floor? I could not remember. When had I last gone outside and walked in my gardens? I grew alarmed and felt as though I was moving through a thick fog that wiped away recent memory.

In my state of distress, I nearly ran from the room that should have been my daughter’s and hurried toward the staircase of the center hall. I was sure that fever was affecting my thoughts and causing these disturbing visions. I was suddenly quite sure that the voices were those of my dear husband and daughter. With an air of determination, I stood at the top of the stairs and willed myself steady enough to descend. Certainly the familiar faces of my family would break this spell and make my world right again.

It was then, with my foot poised above the step, that I was startled by the little girl coming out of the parlor. On first sight, I saw my own girl and I began to open my mouth to call to her, but then she turned. This girl was not mine at all. She was dressed strangely, with her bare legs showing and odd shoes on her feet. Her hair was long and loose, obscuring her face while she stood at the bottom of the stairs inspecting a toy boat. Startled, I moved back and watched her climb the stairs and sit in the alcove. Shocked and unable to speak, I quietly moved toward her and the floor creaked under my foot. The girl jumped, startled by my noise and I began to speak…

Filed Under: Ghost, Hallway, haunted Tagged With: , , ,

It’s Official. I’m a Freak.

September 27, 2011 By 19 Comments

I’ve finally figured it all out.

I am a freak. Seriously. I’m a genuine freak and I saw definitive proof yesterday morning.

All it took was a routine dental exam and a new-fangled panoramic x-ray machine to uncover the evidence.

Living right there in my gums above my two front teeth is an extra tooth. It’s true. And it has gone undetected for more years than I care to share with you.

Of course, my twisted (freaky) mind immediately latched onto Stephen King’s, The Dark Half. I was so excited I almost started a manic plot description for the hygienist and dentist recounting Thad Beaumont and his pen-name turned alter-ego-psycho-killer, George Stark. Instead, I wisely chose to silently recall Thad Beaumont and the twin he absorbed in utero. The twin was discovered after Thad suffered debilitating headaches as a child. Initially, the headaches were blamed on a mass in Thad’s brain but, when the surgeon opened Thad’s skull, he found (GASP!) a nostril, fingernails, part of an eye and…wait for it…TEETH!

Purdy, ain't I?

Okay, so I’ll admit that my weird extra tooth wasn’t causing the dentist any visible alarm. It was merely my over-active writer’s imagination at work, but I was momentarily placed in a state of awe while I mentally reviewed the plot of The Dark Half. I might have a partially absorbed psycho-killer twin living in my head at this very moment! Think about it. It explains a lot. Like that time when I was eight and I cornered my brother and sister in the kitchen with a butter knife and threatened to kill them. They shouldn’t have teased me because evidently, they angered my toothy twin.

Anywho…

It turns out the dentist was more worried about the two wisdom teeth I need to have yanked. One grew when I was in my twenties and never really caused me any problems…until now. It seems my rogue tooth has, indeed, gone rogue. Sad to say, but it’s time to say goodbye to my beloved tooth and it’s impacted friend. They will be extracted by an oral surgeon at some yet-to-be-determined date in the near future.

Whatever. I always have time for oral surgery, graduate school, three children and a husband as long as I’m offered a hearty dose of anesthesia and a couple of Percocet for my trouble.  Also, my absorbed twin likes things like Percocet and booze. I find that keeping it medicated alleviates the anger it feels because I absorbed it in utero. Who the hell wants to share the spotlight with a twin? Sheesh. I’m way too selfish for all that business!

Filed Under: psychotic, teasing, tumor Tagged With: , , , , ,

*Freaky Friday*

September 23, 2011 By 19 Comments

I figured that if I gave my post a title like FREAKY FRIDAY, it might lighten up the subject matter. Lately, it seems Friday has become the day for tragic posts involving my son’s development. As I often do, I’ve entered that stage of acceptance where I begin viewing his newly diagnosed syndrome with humor. Laughter is the best medicine, right?

My little guy and I spent a considerable amount of time in the pediatrician’s office yesterday. Have I told you how much I love our pediatrician? So does Joe.

Yes, he still has ADHD and we’re adjusting his medication to help those symptoms.

It also seems that he has Aspberger Syndrome…which is what I have suspected for quite some time. My gut was right.

When he was two and we were living in Boston, Joe went to an amazing preschool run by an amazing teacher. Her name was Siobhan. Siobhan and I both remarked that he had trouble making eye contact. It was then that I became aware that he didn’t play with the other children. He was just never fully socially engaged. From the age of two, Joe preferred building extremely complex structures with Magnetix. So much so, that one day, Siobhan saved one of his structures to show me. It was two feet tall and perfectly symmetrical in design and color. That structure presented a troubling mixture of amazement and alarm.

That summer, we went to Martha’s Vineyard and I bought Joe a wooden box filled with complicated Curious George puzzles. He sat in a restaurant and completed all four puzzles in less than thirty minutes and without any help.

When he was three, he became obsessed with two DVDs from a NOVA series called The Elegant Universe. He watched it every day, choosing theoretical physics, string theory and Michio Kaku over shows like Sesame Street or Thomas.

My guy has never really made a best friend. He’s not like the other guys. Group situations either cause him to find a solitary task or behave awkwardly.

In New Hampshire, Joe went to the Exeter Day School. It was there that a boy punched our four year old son in the stomach on the playground. Later, at summer camp, I watched a boy push and kick him while I sat in the carpool line. He was yelling at the boy to stop and the teachers leading the camp were nearby, but no one helped him. When we brought the situation to the staff’s attention, the woman said, “Well, Joe tends to go off by himself. He doesn’t play with the other kids…” as if was Joe’s fault that he was being hurt. That woman never apologized or explained why Joe’s behavior was never brought to our attention. We pulled Joe from that camp and cancelled Gwen’s planned preschool attendance.

Kindergarten began and Joe’s issues became more evident. Carpet time proved to be one of the biggest areas of difficulty. Joe wanted to lay down. Joe invaded the space of other children. Joe wasn’t picking up on social cues.

We moved to Maine that year and Joe finished Kindergarten here but his troubles have continued. Trouble with carpet time and coordination and bullying and tears.

Last year, Joe didn’t qualify for the 504 because he is too “academically advanced.” In the meantime, he struggles socially and his self-esteem has plummeted. At bedtime the other night, Joe said, “It’s easier for me to bad than it is for the other kids. For them, it’s easy to be good.” I assured him that he’s a good boy. A smart boy. A kind boy. A loved boy.

His diagnosis doesn’t change the way I view my son. Not at all. However, it makes me more aware of the way he is treated by people who don’t know. Strangers, teachers, family and friends who don’t know or understand that he is not purposely being naughty. I don’t want him to feel labeled, but I do want to empower him. Mostly, I want him to know that he is loved. I want him to go school and enjoy his time there without feeling like a bad boy, or a different boy or a boy who will be picked on.

And so, we begin the journey to give our son what he needs.

Filed Under: ADHD Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

I Believe!

September 20, 2011 By 11 Comments

I’ve come to the conclusion that reincarnation is a fact. It has to be. There is simply no other explanation for the two year old that lives in our house. There is no way that this child isn’t fresh off a past life that included a stint in some kind of correctional facility…or a long career in the navy. There must be some explanation for her alarming combination of salty mouth and street smarts.

Two weekends ago, Kate tripped in the basement and hit her face on a barbell. Both of her front teeth both broke and she needed to be rushed into town for an emergency visit to the dentist. A half hour after she’d broken her two front teeth, she spit out some blood and wiped her swollen lip with the back of her hand. “I feel bettew, Mommy!” Strapped into her car seat and waiting to drive off to her first dentist visit, she looked like she just came off a month-long bender, all bloody and swollen, hair unkempt and wearing remnants of her breakfast on her dress. It was so disturbing that once we knew she was okay, we laughed. The image of Brad Pitt in Fight Club – post knock-down-drag-out – flashed through my mind.

Yesterday morning I was putting the finishing touches on the spackle that conceals my dark under-eye circles when Gwen began screaming at me from downstairs.

“Mom, Kate just stabbed me with a knife!”

I stared at myself in the mirror and whispered, “Are you fucking kidding me?” After taking 1.26 nanoseconds to digest the horror of what I’d just been told, I ran from the bathroom, down the stairs and into the kitchen. (By the way, it’s really amazing how quickly the human mind is able to construct an epic-length scenario filled with blood and mayhem.) As I neared the kitchen, I had already imagined Kate grasping one of my super sharp chef knives, dripping with blood and reflecting one quick blinding glint of silvery light. Gwen would be staggering around the kitchen pressing her hand to the wound and wheezing, Why? Why?

In a nutshell, I was freaking out and my imagination lent my blood and guts scenario a spaghetti western kind of vibe…which is weird. (*Note to self: Discuss with therapist.)

In reality, I sprinted into the kitchen and saw Kate holding one of her dull Gerber toddler knives. No blood, no guts, and no kid staggering around the room in leather chaps and a Stetson. Gwen saw my face relax and decided that was NOT the reaction she was looking for.

“Mom, Kate stabbed me with that knife on my arm like this,” she said, demonstrating a sawing motion against her bicep.

“Gwen, that’s ridiculous,” I stated, “First of all, that isn’t a stab that’s a cut. Secondly, this knife can barely cut through a piece of Play-Doh.”  I turned and whisked the knife out of Kate’s hand. “Kate, we don’t play with knives. Ever.” She angrily crossed her arms and shouted her latest mantra, “I hate it! Never! Never Ever EVER!”

“Katie, that makes no sense and knives are dangerous. Very dangerous.”

“You an ahhhshole, mommy,” she called over her shoulder as she left the kitchen.

“What did you say?”

She stopped and turned. “I do love you, mommy,” she assured me, “I do.”

I stood in the kitchen holding the tiny knife – the one Kate had just tried to shank her sister with -and digested the fact that my two year old just calmly announced that, despite my being a complete asshole, she loves me anyway.

I put the incident out of my mind. I even had a good chuckle after we dropped Gwen off at preschool and got stuck behind a dump truck that was spewing a cloud of black exhaust into the air. For approximately one mile, Kate called that hard working construction vehicle a “smelly cock”.

“Say truck, Kate,” I tried, “Teh…Teh..TRR-uck.”

“Cock.”

“Nevermind.”

Last night, Dave and I talked about these things after we’d tucked the kids into bed and said our goodnights. We were making our way down the stairs when Gwen called, “Goodnight! Don’t let the bedbugs bite!”

“Stop it, Gen…I gonna kill you,” Kate growled.

I turned to Dave and said, “I hope she didn’t stash that shank under her mattress.”

Filed Under: Uncategorized

What Ifs and Maybe

September 16, 2011 By 11 Comments

Maybe I’m just run down from this unrelenting cold. Maybe that is why my heart broke a little bit this morning. Maybe that is why I feel so utterly helpless. Like a failure.

Joe’s still dealing with ADHD issues, second grade and frustration. He needs to be directed through transition times. He needs constant reminders to stay on track. He is so hyper-focused on reading books, that he’s slowing his table mates down. He is costing them the handsome reward that would come if they were the first table to be cleaned up and ready. His table mates are growing frustrated and resentful. Frustrated 7 and 8 year olds aren’t fun table mates and they don’t want to be friends.

He told me that his table mates aren’t very friendly to him. One ripped a book from his hands. Another took away the dice he was using.

He’s missing a bit of recess today because he got two warnings yesterday.

I dropped him off this morning. Standing on the sunny playground, I quietly spoke with his new teacher and I watched my beautiful boy.

He wandered the perimeter of the playground with his hands in his pockets. No running. No laughing. No playing. Just quiet, lonely wandering while he looked at the ground.

No eye contact.

As I left, I hugged him and told him a loved him. I encouraged him to be his best. I said goodbye but I didn’t really leave. Back in the car, I spied on him. I sat there and watched, hopeful that once I had left, he would join the other children. I told myself that he had merely been self-conscious because I was there, talking to the teacher. He might have thought he was in trouble.

He walked across the playground, seemingly invisible to any other children.

He didn’t speak anyone. He didn’t play. He didn’t even look at anyone longingly, as if wishing he could join in. When he sat on the sidewalk, I wanted to run to him and pick him up. I wanted to take him home and love him.

I want to fix him but I can’t.

He has cognitive therapy this afternoon. I’m afraid I might cry while we’re in that session and I don’t want him to see.

My gut is telling me that this might be more than ADHD.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Hallucinations or Fatigue?

September 14, 2011 By 8 Comments

The most interesting things happen when you’ve slept for just one and half hours and fueled yourself with a second round Sudafed and Ibuprofin.

For example, while innocently strolling through the kitchen, things like stuffed monkeys lying on the floor can result in intense startle reflexes. Suddenly, that innocent stuffed ape with it’s brown fur and flesh colored appendages morphes into a weird looking dead baby thing. As you round the kitchen island and encounter that horrifying creature, you will recoil and emit a raspy shriek. After you’ve resumed the involuntary act of mouth-breathing (because the nose is closed for repairs), and the image of that terrible thing  has rearranged itself into a plain old stuffed monkey, you will kick it.

Hard.

But that kick won’t be satisfying because the stuffed monkey is soft. Plush, even. It will soar into the next room and land on the dining room table where it will lie in wait. You might tell yourself, Self…let’s remember that monkey is on the dining room table so we don’t experience that particular 3 seconds of horror again today, okay?

You might also walk by the playroom and see that your toddler is drawing on the walls with a black magic marker. From deep within, a lucid voice screams at you, insisting that what she is doing is wrong, very wrong. That inner voice, the one that isn’t sick and tired, will encourage you to stop that toddler! Stop her this instant!  But your feet won’t move. Instead, you will wordlessly stand there mouth-breathing and dabbing at your nose with a tissue. You will watch.

Somehow, that detached balloon-head feeling that accompanies illness and lack of sleep enables you to take a step back. You might wonder if you’ve reached a higher state of conciousness because those thickly drawn black scribbles juxtaposed against the bright yellow wall are breathtaking. Or maybe you’re just short of breath. Either way, you will think, Yes! Yes, scribble away my dear talented child! For I am moving on now and I will deal with that tomorrow.

You will then sit down at your laptop, write a shitload of meaningless drivel and worry that you’re going to get kicked out of graduate school for submitting a less than stellar writing packet on September 23rd. You will stare blankly at the wall for several minutes then hopefully look at the clock and realize that you have 8 more hours to get through.

I’m not sure, but maybe the combination of Sudafed, Ibuprofin and coffee causes weird hallucinations. Maybe it’s a combination of each of those things plus staying up all night long…Maybe I should just hit the beer fridge and call it a day. It’s fine, trust me. Between our babysitter, Dora, and the playroom walls-turned-art canvas, we’re all set.

Now…about that monkey.

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Where I Was

September 11, 2011 By 5 Comments

I was freshly relocated from New York to Boston and sitting at Putnam Investments waiting for an interview.

It never happened.

I sat unaware in the lobby as those airplanes struck the Twin Towers. It wasn’t until the second plane hit that I found out what was happening. The receptionist gossiped about it on the telephone, clearly unaware of the tragic events that were unfolding. My interviewer never emerged and I’ve since wondered if she ever bothered to look at my resume. Did she ever notice where I had come from? Where I had worked?

I got up and left without saying a word, feeling confused and panicky. I wondered what was happening and thought of our family, friends and co-workers that would be in or near the World Trade Center. Driving through Boston to our new apartment, I wished I could go home – to New York – and prayed that our friends and family were safe. 

At home, David and I watched the city on television, thinking of the firefighters and city cops who were friends, and wondered where they were. 

I’ve said my bit about this day and where I was when it happened…now I will say a prayer for the lives lost and go on, thankful and proud to be an American.

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