Dr. Strangemom (or, how I learned to stop worrying and love the blog)

Hello From Clusterfuckistan, Part 3

Hi, remember me?

I haven't blogged much since The Horrible, Terrible, No Good, Very Bad Election. I've mostly been eating. You know, doing my part. 

But the other day, after mailing in my ballot for the midterms, I decided I'd check in with you. Because when everything goes to shit and people are so much worse than you could ever believe and the mean fuck in the White House is only the face of the problem, just the tip of the iceberg, and your vote isn't even going to count because of gerrymandering and voter suppression, well, it's time to circle the wagons and say howdy to your old friends.

So. Hi. How are you?

Yeah, me too. Sorry.

Nothing much new has happened other than, you know. Life in Clusterfuckistan.

Well, I turned 64 since our country fell to the GOP. I hardly celebrated my birthday because shit is so fucked up. Plus, I pretty much eat cake and look Death in the eye every day of the year so what's the point. 

I'm older than everyone else now. That's so weird. I'm the oldest person everywhere I go.

Wait, that's not true. I was the youngest person in the recovery room after my cataract surgery. The nurses came down the row of beds to check on us and asked us our names and dates of birth.  I was the only one with a birth date later than 1935. When I called out my answer - "1954" - the lady in the next bed whispered, "So young."

That was nice. 

And get this: I am now bumped down from "once a year" to "every 3-5 year" on the Pap smear guideline, which means my cervix isn't on anyone's front burner anymore. Can't even get a Pap and a shmear these days. 

Oh, and I am finally over wearing bras. Well, ha ha, not so much "over" them. "Under" them is more accurate. My poor boobs. These days I think of them as the sweet old couple who lives downstairs from my neck. They're quiet, keep to themselves. No loud parties. They smell kinda musty, but nice. They're all  squished and cattywampus by mid afternoon like they've been napping on the couch watching their stories.

I now wear those newfangled bralettes that are all the rage. It's about as effective as walking around wearing my old bras around my knees, but I am all about comfort in the Age Of Trump. Because just waking up and remembering that the GOP is still in power makes it hard to breathe. Add a snug underwire bra to the mix and I'd be dead in under an hour. Every morning.

The thing that I wanted to say is, I have no Plan B if the midterms fuck us. Maybe Big Pharma should get on that pill before Tuesday. Midterm Plan B. Erase all trace of the election and minimal cramping. Not, of course, covered by insurance. 

Okay, so, see you after Tuesday.

Or in 3 years. 

Or in 7 years.

Fuck.

 

Oy Vein

Well, it looks like Robin is going to live. And I guess I'm okay with it.

Hahaha, I mean, I am very happy about it.

I know, I know, about five years ago I blogged about how I thought our marriage was in such great shape because I wished he were dead only about 50% of the time, and everyone got all worked up about my mean sense of humor and my cold heart and blah blah blahbbaty blah.

I still stand by my belief that if one is married for 37 years and wishes one's spouse dead only 50% of the time, that is a good marriage, but I'll debate that with you another time.  We cannot afford to fight each other on the small issues these days.

Robin has been very sick. The part you need to know is that I told him to go back to the doctor about a million times but he did not respect my degree in Ethnomusicology enough to heed my medical advice. You can see why I get aggravated with him and wish him dead.

Ha ha, just kidding. I kid.

The home health care infusion nurse came to our house to teach me how to do Robin's IV antibiotics. I paid close attention because, you know, I don't want him to die by my hand even though, from what I've researched, it wouldn't be Murder One if I merely didn't see that air bubble in the syringe because (I think)m my cataracts are growing back. Shit looks a little blurry lately and I'm concerned.

The nurse said to me, "Do you have any questions? You look confused."

I said, "Yes. Can cataracts grow back?"

Robin gave me that look. The one that says, can you not make this all about you for three seconds?

I said to the nurse, "So, tell me again...where do I insert the needle?"

She said, "As I explained already, the needle stays in his arm. It's a PICC line. You don't take it out."

I said, "And I put it in the red biohazard box afterwards, right?"

She said, "No. You do not take it out of his arm."

I said, "Then how do I get the medicine in him?"

Robin said, "Please admit me to the hospital."

Hahaha, no he didn't. At least, not out loud.

As of this writing, we've successfully gotten through his first three doses of antibiotics. I am in charge of the  cringing and gagging and taking to the couch with a cold compress on my forehead part of the deal, while Robin does the sterilizing everything, administering the medicine to himself, disposing of the detritus and fixing us both a sandwich afterwards. He lost faith in my ability to take care of him that first day when I grabbed the little bottle of Yacult probiotic instead of the little bottle of his antibiotic in the fridge and insisted it was all the same.

He told me to go into the bedroom and rest my cataracts. His tone was little bit bitchy but I chose not to mention it. He finished up his infusion, cleaned up and made us tuna sandwiches. He got winded and had to sit down on his way back to the kitchen.

The sandwich was a bit dry, truth be told.

I would have asked for a little piece of lettuce to juice it up but he was already asleep.

 

 

 

 

The Little Lord Cheeses

In the winter of 1965, the year I turned eleven, I turned my back on the Jewish people.

My sister and I were bored. Mom said to go for a walk, surely counting on the fact that we wouldn't. But it was the last days of winter break and we had nothing to do, so we put on our sneakers and hit the streets to check out the goings-on in North Hollywood. 

We walked without talking. Suddenly, Karen stopped dead in her tracks.

“Look,” she whispered, and pointed to a long driveway in front of us.

I squinted but didn’t see anything, which is not surprising since my eyesight is, like, twenty/five billion, and I refused to wear my glasses back then.

Karen pulled us both down into the bushes.

I held my breath. I was a hand-wringer by nature, and crouching down in a stranger’s pink oleander bush was almost more danger than I could bear. I felt a sharp elbow in my side.

“Look!” She whispered.

A blonde man in gray pajamas and a short blue robe was walking barefoot towards us, down his long brick driveway. He was carrying two paper bags of trash in one hand and a small blue-flocked Christmas tree in the other.

“Do you see who that is?” my sister whispered. I squinted harder as he came closer.

James Franciscus!

Blonde, dreamy, goyische, Mr. Novack from TV!

I felt all watery and jittery and nauseous as a hormonal revolution awakened within me. I was still a few years away from the mortifying self-consciousness of adolescence that would plummet me into insecure paralysis, so as I crouched in the bushes that afternoon feeling the first stirrings of infatuation, I was blissfully oblivious to the weird gap between my front teeth, my hairy legs and thick unibrow, and the fact that at eleven years old I was already five foot five and had more than a slight mustache.

I was staring into the blue eyes of James Franciscus!

I ovulated on the spot.

He tossed his garbage bags into a tall metal trashcan, leaned the Christmas tree against the curb and turned back up the driveway.

Karen flashed me a smile that sent my radar to high alert. Oh good God, she had an idea. I felt a pain in the place that would soon be my first ulcer.

"Help me carry it.” 

The Christmas tree?  No, no, no, dear God, no. No.

“Okay,” I said.

Such is the power of a big sister.

We schlepped the tree home and hid it in our backyard, deep in the yellow and red flowers of the lantana bushes that grew thick in the Los Angeles sunshine. 

Mom was starting to make latkes for the family Chanukah party that night, and the smell of fried onions and potatoes filled me with hunger and guilt and fear. The Jewish holy trinity.

 

Karen and I went into our bedroom to collect treasures that seemed Christmassy. Beads, buttons, our party shoes. We had no idea, really. We brought it all outside to the tree.

I was kind of sketchy on the actual Christmas story but I knew the main characters. I draped Barbie, Ken and Midge – the three wise men - in tin foil and gave them gifts of gold-wrapped chocolate Chanukah gelt for their baby. I set out ivy and juniper leaves for straw, and placed my pink sponge hair curlers on the leaves for their beds. Karen put out a walnut shell for the baby Jesus, an idea from the Thumbelina story we loved.

The family Chanukah party began at sundown when the grandparents and cousins and aunts and uncles arrived.

When the grownups were settled around the Schnapps and latkes, I tapped my cousin Andrea on the shoulder and motioned for her to come with me.

"Don't tell the babies," I told her, referring to the other cousins who are, like, seven months younger than I am. Karen opened the back door and we brought Andrea into the yard.

The other cousins, smelling danger and exclusion, followed Andrea. They filed out into the dark yard one by one, and stood with us. I ceremoniously parted the lantera bush and unveiled our tree.

It was a truly awesome moment. Karen and I, already reputed to be the naughtiest of all the cousins, ascended to Jewish sainthood at that moment. A Christmas tree! 

Feeling the spirit, we started singing “Away In A Manger”, which was a song we all knew from public school, but when we got to the words “the little Lord Jesus”, I stopped. Were we even allowed to say Jesus' name???

“Cheeses.” I said. 

"What?"

“Cheeses. We’ll say cheeses instead of Jesus. It sounds the same.”

My sister nodded approvingly.

“Away in a manger no place for a bed….” All the cousins sang softly, our young voices filling the night, “the little Lord Cheeses lay down his sweet head…”

After a while, I looked up into the living room window of my house. Our menorah sat on the sill, its candles burning brightly. In the glow I saw my mom standing in the living room, playing her guitar.  Those were the years when my mother’s guitar playing and Jewish folk singing were a source of mortification for me and I distanced myself from anything my mom did. Those were the years when I was careful in public not to use the Yiddish words we used at home, like lokshen and kepele, the years when I begged my mother not to give me tuna fish on matzo during Passover. Those were the years I wanted to fit in, to be a part of a smiling, blonde family from a Christmas card. That was long before I grew up to borrow my mom’s colorful ethnic earrings, use Yiddish words in public and – to my own children’s mortification - embark upon my own career as a guitar-playing Jewish folksinger.

We stood in the darkness of the backyard, shivering in the chilly December night. I covered the walnut shell with a Chanukah napkin, wishing Baby Cheeses a good night. Barbie and Midge and Ken hunkered down into their sponge curler beds and went to sleep.

The cousins, cold and tired, went back into the house to finish off the latkes but my sister and I sat for a little while longer, adoring the scene, eating the chocolate Chanukah gelt and gazing up at the stars, breathing in the thick, spicy aroma of the lantara flowers around us.

My Inner Maccabee

The best Chanukah gift I ever got was when I was twenty-two years old: I was sprung from prison.

I was on tour to promote my first album - Jewish folk music that was going to catapult me to the top of the pop charts. I was the girl singer, a last minute replacement for the original singer, who, as I see it now, got out just in the nick of time.

Our trio, Serenade, sang in synagogues and Jewish Community Centers, places where the audiences were thrilled to see anyone under the age of ninety singing Jewish music, and they showered us with appreciation and, occasionally, payment of cheek pinches and cinnamon rugelech.

One evening, as we were finishing up a rehearsal, Rick, the violin player called me over.

“Don’t say no right off the bat. Just hear me out.” He said.

 Ron, the guitar player, gave me a big smile and a thumbs up.

“We have a gig next week.” Rick said slowly. “It’s at a prison – but wait! I spoke to the chaplain, and he assured me that this is one of those places that’s like a summer camp for businessmen.”

He looked into my eyes.

"Just say yes."

Many of my life stories with bad outcomes begin with the word, "yes". This is one of them.

Monday morning, the first day of Chanukah, Rick and Ron came to my house to pick me up for the concert. They were dressed in their finest gig outfits: matching blue and silver vests and berets. Ron added a pair of suspenders to complete his ensemble. I was wearing huge cloisonné dreidl earrings and a silver sash around my hips. We looked about as sharp as a trio of weenie Jewish folksingers in 1976 ever did. Even I would want to beat us up if I saw us today.

I climbed into the back of Ron’s ’64 VW Bug and settled into the folding lawn chair that served as a back seat. Ron handed me a cowbell on a rope.“Here. You’re horn monitor.” 

I was a little bit nervous but I am always a little bit nervous. I am a hand wringer by nature, living on bravado and Pepto Bismol.

Three hours later, we came to a sign that read “State Prison. Lock Your Doors.”   Then, another sign: “Do Not Stop For Hitchhikers.” That seemed a tad harsh for a businessman's summer camp . I held tightly to the cowbell horn, ready to ring it in an emergency.

A guard stopped our car, and motioned for us to roll down the window. This took the collective effort of all four of us, as the car had no interior handles.

Surely we were at the wrong place. The prison we were looking for had chaise lounges and picnic tables and, in my fantasies, a couple of William Morris agents who would offer us a record deal right on the spot.

We came to another barbed- wired gate. It was surrounded by uniformed, gun-toting guards. One of them took one look at Rick’s carrot-orange frizzy hair, Ron’s rainbow suspenders and my terrified face, and nearly cracked a smile.

I reached in my pocket and fondled my last two Pepto Bismol tablets nervously as a man in a blue work shirt and jeans, the scariest man I had ever seen in my life, took a step towards me. The guards did nothing about it. Help, Oh sweet Jesus, what was this?

Ron said, “Hi.”

Scary Guy laughed as hard as a guy with two lit cigarettes in his mouth could laugh.

We were led to a small, glassed-in room. A guard pointed to the sign above him and read it out loud to us. Do not move unless instructed to do so.

No one instructed us to move so we just stood there, sweating, for, like, three hours. Finally, an electric door opened and an alarmingly happy man in a blue suit approached us.

We were led to the prison gymnasium, where the concert was to be held. A makeshift stage, consisting of three large platforms and a white sheet for a curtain, had been set up for us. A ring of armed guards standing shoulder to shoulder circled our stage. I was starting to hyperventilate.

We were introduced to an extremely intense looking man named Teejay, a prisoner who had been assigned to help us backstage.

“What are you going to sing?” Teejay asked me.

“Uh, some Hanukah songs” I said. I felt it was best to leave out the hard “ch” on Chanukah. Keep a low profile.

The gym door suddenly buzzed open, and endless rows of blue work -shirted prisoners filed in. I was supposed to open with “Dreidle, Dreidle” to this crowd?

I prayed for a miracle, anything that would save me from having to do this. Please, please, please.

Rick picked up his violin and nodded to Ron. 

They began the introduction to “Dreidl, Dreidl”.

The booing and hissing started before I even started singing. We were going to die there, I just knew it. Ron played my entrance cue on the guitar.

I couldn't move.

Rick shot me a look of desperation. His facial tics were out of control, like he had stuck his wet finger into an electrical socket. I couldn’t keep him there playing that same violin line forever. I walked to the front of the stage and took the microphone in my hand. The prisoners grew quiet for a moment. I heard guitar and violins playing somewhere above my head, as if the angels were calling to me. Run away, they called, run like the fucking wind.

I put my hand on the microphone stand to steady myself, but I knocked the microphone to the floor. I bent down to pick it up and instantly, wild clapping and hooting filled the gym. As I stood up I heard a low chant rising up from the bleachers.

I started singing about the lovely dreidl with legs so short and thin. The chanting was getting louder.

I looked around the gym and I thought about all the protests I had been to in my life, all the petitions I had signed to tear down prisons. I had imagined myself quite the activist, having stood outside the courthouse one warm summer Santa Cruz evening holding my hand-lettered sign that read build people not prisons. I had brought my guitar that evening and led the twenty or so people there in chorus after chorus of “I Shall Be Released” and everyone had cheered. Why weren’t these men cheering?

I changed my mind about prisons right then and there. Build more! Build them bigger! Lock them up! Fuck.

I stopped singing. What was that chant? I turned to Ron.

“Bend over.” He mouthed the words to me.

What?

“They’re saying ‘bend over”, he repeated. "They've been saying it ever since you picked up your mic. "

Suddenly, an alarm went off and the doors buzzed open. A voice came over the loudspeaker. “Concert’s over. Units A and B proceed to roll call.” The prisoners filed out of the gym as quickly as they had come in. They chanted, “bend over”, as they passed in front of me - very softly, very creepy.

The concert, which was supposed to have lasted one hour, had lasted only eight minutes.

It was a Chanukah miracle.

We stood on the stage and watched the enormous room empty out. “What just happened?” I asked Teejay.

“Nothing. The usual. We don’t go for this shit much. Except they liked it when you bent down.”

Clouds filled the sky and rain pounded on Ron’s little VW Beetle as we drove home that night. The car had no windshield wipers so we had to roll the windows down and hand-wipe the windshield every few minutes. I sat in the back, holding on to my lawn chair, bundled up in my down jacket. I was freezing and exhausted. But I was victorious. I had stood on that stage and faced my fear, faced death; as sure as Judah Maccabee had faced the army of Antiochus Epiphanes.

I turned to the open window, letting the rain soak my sweaty face, and threw my last two Pepto Bismol tablets out into the dark night.

The Other Secret Healthcare Plan

Hello again. It's been a while.

I apologize for my long absences and spotty communication. Fucking GOP. They owe me my humor-writing career. And a good night's sleep. And about seven refills of Xanax.

They can have the dozen or so pounds I've gained since Inauguration Day. As it turns out, protest marching isn't quite the calorie-burner I had hoped it would be. Particularly when I do most of my marching from my couch. On Facebook. With snacks.

Bringing down The Man one Wheat Thin at a time.

And I've had nothing to say. The right-wing clusterfuck in DC is all I can think about.

Until. Until.

Good news!

When a horrible asshole is questionably elected to be President of the United States, and the Republican party is filled with immoral, indecent, cowardly, cold-blooded asslickers, and far too many Americans are so stupid and mean that they don't know the difference between a Tweet and a fact, well, the good news is that we haven't yet died alone in our houses and have our pets eat our faces.

I'm not just reaching for anything here. I have an article. That I read on Facebook.

It's real.

An article in National Geographic magazine, called, "Would Your Dog Eat You If You Died?" caught my eye because, well, because death and eating. My two top issues in therapy. And in life.

So, get this: it is a proven fact that pets - mostly dogs and cats but, surprisingly, even hamsters and birds - have been known to EAT their owners. Hand to God. Read the article.

They do wait until we're dead to feast upon us. If that is any comfort to you at all.

This article has given me a lot to think about. First of all, upon reading it, I went right into the kitchen and gave my two Poodles an extra scoop of kibble. Each. And I left them instructions how to defrost the chicken from the freezer. And how to start the Traeger grill outside. That should buy me a day or two.

Also? I left them a blank check. Signed. They can order out for weeks before my account is drained. Hopefully, by then, some human, ideally, a vegan, will discover my dead body and keep me out of harm's way. So to speak.

This news has changed the way I look at Phila and Louie. 

And I could be projecting, but I think it's also changed the way they look at me. It's like the way I look at fresh bread. While you are still warm, I am going to tear into you and devour your innards. Then, after a brief nap, I will and barf and then eat your skin.

I never should have left my computer open. Or taught those damn dogs to read. Knowledge leads to freedom, my ass. I'm a captive here. I think I saw Louie marking days off of the calendar. And adding butter to my steamed broccoli. And they both totally encourage me to lay out in the sun now. They even lick the sunscreen off of me - that's how determined they are to have me die. 

"Here," they say to me, "have ice cream, scientists now say that fat is good for you. Look, I'll even open the freezer for you. Eat, eat."

"In fact," they continue, "you know what would be a hoot? Eat it OUTSIDE in the blazing sun! Here's a magazine, go relax. Oh wait, that's 'National Geographic', oops. Never mind. Take this one, instead - 'Food Network Favorite Desserts'. Go, go, enjoy the sun! Don't forget your ice cream!"

"Also," they call out to me as I settle myself onto the chaise lounge, "stop exercising. We like you...soft."

One theory the scientists have about this phenomenon  is that when our pets find us dead, they try to lick us back to life. And when licking doesn't revive us, they try a wee nibble, a bite, a nudge with their sharp canines. Wake up! 

But we don't wake up.

And - as we all well know from the potato chip commercial - one bite leads to another and before you know it, Phila and Louie have put the house on Zillow and are combing Craig's List for a suitable (fat) new buyer. When people come to see me, they tell them that I am in Europe researching my next novel.

And no one's the wiser. 

I'm just not sure how I feel about this.

On the one hand, it's an efficient way to do things. 

On the other hand, my cemetery plot is paid for. And I sure as fuck don't want Phila and Louie eating me and then cashing in on the resale of the plot. God, they are insufferably self-congratulatory already when they bark and it turns out someone is actually at the door. Imagine the hubris.

The article ends with helpful advice. It reads:

The best way for pet owners to reduce the odds is to make sure you have people who will stop by if they don’t hear from you.

Uh-oh.

I have spent most of my adult life trying to condition people to not call me or come over to visit. I make a point of saying that I do not answer my phone or my door, that I value solitude and I eschew drop in visitors. The only phone calls I've made in the past year have been to Senators and Congresspeople, and even then, I read from my prepared script. No chatting. No making sure I am alive.

Now what? Do I trade in solitude for not being eaten?

I've thought this through as I've been writing this post.

I am going to tell the staffers for GOP Congresspeople that if they don't hear from me for 24 hours, to assume I am dead and about to be eaten, and to alert the proper authorities. 

I'm fairly certain they'll agree to do this.

In fact, I bet they'll pitch it to their bosses as a health care plan.

 

 

 

 

When I'm 63

As I approach my 63rd birthday, I feel a need to account for the passing time.

But I am coming up blank.

It is concerning, and not just a little bit mortifying, I must say. I mean, sixty-three years. You'd think I'd have more to show for it than a blog about myself, five pairs of Dansko clogs, and a new cluster of liver spots on my chest that rivals Gorbachov's head.

I should have kept a diary. Although if family photos from 1954 to 1957 are any credible indication, my first  major accomplishments were smiling at food, pretending to play the piano, and picking my nose until it bled. 

Not helpful.

So, with time and North Korea's missiles nipping at my heels, I have decided to pay closer attention to what I do with my time. And then I will extrapolate my data. And then I will know if my visit here on Earth has been worth the time I've spent looking for a parking spot at Trader Joe's.

Adjusting for illness, napping, embarrassing memories I've blocked out, tweezing, weekends I've blacked out, revisionist history to paint myself in a more favorable light, outright lies, embellishments, Quaaludes, and global warming, I am looking at, roughly, forty-six years I've had available for accomplishing something. Anything.

Yikes. 

At this point I'd like to mention that I have a nervous stomach and in the interest of factual data, I have also spent a lot of time in the bathroom. So there's that. 

But now. It's time to see where my time has gone.

How I've Spent My Life So Far:

1954  - 2015

Getting born, learning cursive, seeing a live taping of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" (where Laura gets her toe stuck in the bathtub spigot), henna-ing my hair, getting married, raising kids, standing in line at the ATM, waiting all day for the mail on a national holiday, worrying about death and going through menopause.

 

2015-2016

Looking for my reading glasses. 

 

2016 - 2017

Reeling from the election.

 

Yesterday

Can't remember.

 

Today

Opening the back door for Louie, letting Louie back in the house.

 

And there you have it. 

Oh wait! Daily phone calls to my legislators since January. How can I forget that? Dedication to subvert the current dominant political paradigm. Resolving to fight to restore the Constitution from the money-grubbing, freedom-fearing, warmongering theocratics who are shitting on it.

Okay, never mind. I'm good. 

#resist

 

 

 

 

Adventures in Clusterfuckistan, part 3

I officially put my bra on like an old lady this morning.

Sitting on the bed. Hooking the bra. Then stepping into it. Pulling it up. Shaking it all in.

God. I have aged, like, fifty years since the election. I should start calculating my age in trumpyears. Fifty to one. I'm 112 since January. And not a spry 112. 

My current fitness goal is simply to be able to step into my underpants without falling over. I have, so far, achieved very limited success in this endeavor. To see me in silhouette through the curtains - as my neighbors can - it must look as if I am wrestling a lion in my bedroom every morning. And losing.

This administration is going to kill me. Literally, perhaps. Or, at the very least, throw me in jail.

I have a feeling my lifelong dreams of building our commune, Yurtopia, are going to be realized. Only, in GTMO instead of Mendocino. 

I'll need to alter my paradigm a bit. Pass the bong.

Okay, now dig it:

All of us on one big piece of land, sharing communal meals, doing each other's laundry, sitting in the sun out on the big yard, working in the library, showering together like in the old days. And just last summer we all actually discussed taking a trip to Cuba together. We hadn't thought about traveling by  bus, but I'm cool. Not a fan of flying, anyway. I hope we can stop at the National Parks. Badlands, specifically. I want to kiss my heroes.

Oh wait. They'll already be at GTMO. Awesome!

I intend to take advantage of my time in prison to finally commit to a diet and exercise program. Finally, no distractions from my job, political activism, online shopping or freedom. Instead of fighting for justice, I'm going to fight for my abs. I've seen the orange jumpsuits. They nip in at the waist. It's not a good look for us apple-shaped political prisoners. 

And when I get out - thanks to a pardon by President Kamala Harris - I'm going to be all cut and ripped and shit. I'll go home, kiss Robin (who has been taking care of the dogs because he pulled the short straw between one of us going to prison and one of us trying get Louie on a leash), and continue to work for justice. Because even with President Harris and co-VP's Samantha Bee and Justin Trudeau, there will still be work to be done.

But first, I will put on my bra the youthful twist-around way and literally jump into my underpants. 

#resist 

#persisterhood

 

 

 

 

Sleeping With The Enemy For Four Nights

I woke up this morning with a dog butt in my face and dried yak cheese in my hair.

I slept fitfully on a corner of 1/4000th of my King size bed while the dogs mounted imperialistic campaigns throughout the night and finally, took over the rest of the bed. Including the TV remote.

I'm wearing the same leggings I put on twenty-nine hours ago. I cannot remember if I peed today or not. I cry all the time and wipe my nose on my sweatshirt sleeve.

Robin is out of town and I'm a single parent with two dogs. It's been one day.

Seriously, I might kill myself by Monday night. I hate Louie so much. So fucking much.

I slept with the door wide open last night because Louie might not let me know that he needs to go out to poop in the early morning, and since menopause, I have been stricken with a condition in which I barf at everything that has to do with poop. Picking it up. And worrying about picking it up. Hearing stories about it. Blogging about it.

Hold on. I need to take a deep breath.

I decided to take the dogs on a walk this morning. At 7:30 we geared up and set out for the park. At 8:52 I was in the street, still trying to get the leash on Louie, whose PTSD seems to have been activated by Robin's absence. I went through a handful of treats, slipped twice trying to grab his collar, sat on my neighbor's porch and cursed Robin while my neighbor tried to coax the leash on him (Louie. Not Robin). We cajoled with Louie, reasoned with him, offered him cash and squirrels; we were sternloving, aloof, enthusiastic and, ultimately, defeated. My neighbor went back into her house and I went home (Louie followed, confused and unleashed) and promised Phila that I will take her to the park without her stupid brother later today. Which I won't, but hopefully, Phila will understand. She likes cash.

To make my point, I gave Phila a piece of beef jerky and did not give one to Louie. To make his point, Louie stole the jerky from Phila's mouth, gobbled it, choked and barfed it up. Which made me barf.

Did I mention that Robin is out of town for four days? Drove to California in his new car. Alone. He better fucking be having a great time there. This better be the best fucking funeral he's ever attended.

If you follow the blog, you know that I did not want a second dog. I didn't want a first dog. After the kids were grown and gone, and the family dogs went over the Rainbow Bridge, I was done. I love dogs but - to paraphrase Joni Mitchell - not like I love my freedom.

So we wrote out and signed a contract - stating that Robin is in charge of everything, and I can choose to involve myself in the dogs' lives according to my whimsy. I am not involved in baths or vaccinations or expressing anal glands. You know,  pretty much what our marriage contract says.

But the contract doesn't lay out what to do in the case of Robin needing to go to a funeral in California. And I hate to be the kind of wife who makes her husband take two large Poodles to the funeral of a dear friend just because she loves freedom. Also - and you married gals will surely get this - for me to do this for Robin is money in the bank, guilt-wise. I have given Robin a gift. A big gift.

And now he owes me.

I'm gonna sit on this one for a while. Take my time. Consider my options. 

Then, one day, I will come to him with a favor.  And he will not refuse me.

In the meantime, I'm gonna slip Phila a Benjamin. She probably actually hates going on walks and is playing me like I'm playing Robin, pretending to be all put-out and shit at having to stay home.

The student has learned well from the master. Well played, Phila. Well played.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working For The Man

Dear "Liberals Only" employment agency,

I really hate to bring this up again. I know you are very busy, but things are pretty tight with me right now, too. Four visits a day to Starbucks to tell the barrister to write "He's Not My President" on my cup is taking a big bite out of my budget.

I really need my paycheck.

My hours:

I made two trips to the airport this week to hold up a "You Are Welcome Here" sign for the Muslims who had been sent back last week. True, I waited at the wrong end of the airport and a nice man arriving from Vegas thought the sign was for him and he bought me a fancy cocktail at Beaches, but still. My intention was to protest.

I would never gouge my own political party, but I also drove two other protesters home from the airport and they lived in Sandy, which is the exact opposite of where I live. Just saying. 

Today I called eleven Senators to urge them not to allow Bannon a seat on the NSC. I also signed approximately twelve hundred online petitions. I didn't keep exact tabs on my hours, but I had to recharge my i-phone twice.

As per your original offer that came by secret liberal code, I am owed $599.00 for my protest work this week. 

Also?

And, again, I really do hate to bug you - I never received my paycheck from when I participated in the Women's March On Washington last month. I understand that those of us in Portland worked at a lower hourly rate than the marchers in DC since the president doesn't care what Portland thinks, but you didn't expect us to protest for free, did you? Please. You want free protesters, go non-Union.

I get it that now that the president has found us out, now that he busted you for paying us to protest, you are trying to keep a low profile. But a deal is a deal. Poster board and Sharpies do not come cheap.

Plus, I am saving up as fast as I can so I can fulfill my promise to buy an Audi. They really drove a hard bargain to agree to air that Super Bowl commercial. And I took the deal with Nordstrom that if they'd drop Ivanka's ass, I'd spend a grand there before Easter.

Please send me my money today. I don't want to have to take this to the 9th circuit. 

Thanking you in advance for your prompt remuneration, I remain,

A liberal protester

 

No Dryer, No Peace!

Finally. I have a sign for the march this week.

"No Dryer, No Peace!"

Yes, it will confuse people. But the message will go to the heart of the true enemy: Sears Appliance Repair. They're gonna feel me. 

Two weeks. Two weeks without a working dryer. Five cancellations. Two actual visits where the dryer died, literally, hours after the technician left. Monies paid. Fourteen phone calls, eleven without my saying "fuck", and you know how much that had to take out of me. 

The phone conversations were very problematic. I had to ask everyone to repeat their names, sometimes twice and three times. Now, if you are a progressive liberal like I am who believes strongly in the words on the Statue of Liberty, it is very uncomfortable to have to ask a person with a heavy accent to repeat what they are saying. I really wish Emma Lazarus had added a clarification in The New Colossus:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses who clearly enunciate consonants yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these - the homeless, tempest-tossed to me and please ask them to speak slowly. I raise my lamp and the volume of my phone beside the golden door.

I felt compelled to justify my liberal cred each time I asked someone to repeat their name.

"Um, I swear to God, you are welcome in this country and I will fight for immigration rights for you and your people. I went door-to-door with my mom in 1964 for California's Fair Housing Act and I can recite the words on the Statue of Liberty by heart; in fact, I can sing you the song with the lyrics that I learned in the Jewish Secular Progressive school my parents sent me to - yeah, I'm Jewish - so, really, you and I are the same because my grandparents were immigrants, just like you. And, believe me, talk about not being able to understand their English! Oh my God, my fucking God, my grandfather was all, "vait a meenoot, chust a secont, it's only tree-tirty in deh o'cloock". 

"But could you please spell out what you just told me because - and I am really sorry - I don't understand anything you are saying. Go Hillary!"

God. It is really hard to be a sensitive liberal.

And I still do not have a working dryer.

It is really hard to be a sensitive, globally-aware, entitlement-aware, Jewish-guiltridden, liberal who knows that much of the world doesn't even have a dryer and that people with accents are working harder than anyone to be understood and they are probably subjected to hearing all sorts of insults, and that all efforts truly need to be focussed on Trump and his flying monkeys and the asshole Republican Congresspeople who are dismantling democracy.

But.

We are out of towels.

And all I have left to wear after two weeks of snow and dogs and ice and no power and BBQing outside in the snow and soot are button-fly jeans. And if there is anything to make me feel like life is not worth living, it's wearing button-fly jeans when I am housebound. God. I am too fat to wear these. Right now, they are unbuttoned and held up by an old guitar strap because fuck me.

So, yeah.

Come Saturday, I am going to pull up my unbuttoned guitar-strap jeans and I will go to the march and I will hold up my "No Dryer, No Peace!" sign. And the world will rise to the level of kindness and justice for all, and we will have single payer health insurance and women's reproductive rights and PoC will never fear for their lives again and we will have equality for every single person in the universe.

Saturday!

Oh, shit. Wait.

Saturday. That's the day Sears said they can send a repairperson. I'm not leaving my house.