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

NaCl

I'm done with supermarket sushi. It's expensive and it always makes me sick.

Of course, it could be the shitload of wasabi I put on it. Or the fact that I often eat it only hours after having my morning coffee, which does me in anyway. Strong coffee is the sharp, bold bad boy lover I cannot leave. And wasabi is hot, unprotected sex with him that leaves me sweaty and unable to breathe and wanting more.

I come from a bland cuisine people. We had to be. We are wanderers by nature, and couldn't be held back by sensitive colons needing "just ten more minutes" in the bathroom tent, or we'd never get any wandering done.

On the other hand, maybe that's why it took us forty fucking years to cross over a couple of miles of desert.

"Okay, let's go, people! Moses is getting pissed."

"Um....Aaron? Can you stall him a little longer? Hide his staff or something? Some asshole put cayenne peppers into the matzo last night and, oy, am I gefucked up."

And that's the story of how Jews wound up with a nice piece boiled chicken and a few steamed carrots as the dinner we will eat for the rest of our lives. Except at passover, when we commemorate our liberation from slavery by stinking up our houses with gefilte fish. Because, I guess, as free people, we can. Although in my opinion, eating gefilte fish is more like something Pharaoh would have forced us to do when we were his slaves. As a punishment for slacking off on the pyramid construction site or something.

Leave it my people to finally be free and what do we choose to celebrate with? Boiled fish. Party on.

My mother didn't know from spices, didn't even know that salt was used for cooking until about ten minutes ago. Growing up, we had the same blue cardboard carton of Morton's for at least eleven years, from Kindergarten to high school. My mom didn't know what to put it on. All we ever used it for was to perform horrific death experiments on slugs. Karen and I were the junior Dr. Mengele's of the slug world when we were young, something - I am certain - that is going to come back to bite me in the afterlife. My luck, in the afterlife slugs are king. And vengeful. I fully expect to be sentenced by slugs to spend the afterlife under a mountain of salt. Which will be kinda tasty at first, because I raised with such a dearth of it, and especially if I can find a baked potato or something around there. But then my blood pressure will go up and I will have no potassium with which to counteract the sodium. And I will die. Again.

Note to self: pack a banana for the afterlife.

"What makes this broccoli SO delicious?"  Mom asks me when she visits.

"Salt." I say.

Then she looks at me in a way that I imagine Prometheus' mom looked at him when the first spark of fire appeared in his hands.  

"Salt." She repeats reverently. Ah, yes. Salt.

And then she goes home to LA and forgets about it until she comes up to visit me the next time and I wow her again with my secret ingredient.

The bar is set pretty low for culinary excellence in my family. I am not a good cook; in fact, my kids are probably the only ones who went away to college and raved about the delicious food in the dorm commons.

I bet those cooks knew about salt.

Of Dead Bunnies, Facebook and Nazis. Again.

So I was listening to NPR the other day and I heard something that made me think.

Generally, it's not a good idea for me to listen to something that makes me think while I am driving because it is getting more and more difficult to focus on any one thing at a time, and if I have to choose between paying attention to the road and, say, eating, pouring EmergenC powder into my bottle of water, looking for cash or fixating on the spot of thinning hair that is showcased in my rear view mirror, well, it's pretty much a six of one kind of thing.

Still, so far (knock wood, spit three times and swing a live chicken) I've managed to arrive where I am going without much collateral damage but I know it's just a matter of time. Which should serve as a warning for those of you on the greater Portland metro roads.

Still, it's hard to keep the mind from wandering. Or maybe it's not wandering at all; maybe I am mentally on my way to something HUGE, something life-changing, a cure for cancer, and every time I start to get close I shake my head and yell, "snap out of it!" and concentrate on driving.

Hunh. Maybe it is the actual daydreaming that we are supposed to be doing, and the real life shit is the distraction. Go fill the bong and think about that for a while.

Back so soon?

Mostly, I think about what's not going right in my life. I cannot get behind the "count your blessings" movement because that kind of shit leaves me with a "so, now what?" aftertaste, like after I finish what other people consider a normal portion of food but for me is merely an amuse-bouche. I mean, fuuuuck, is ONE cup of cooked rice enough for anyone?????? I spill that much onto my clothes when I eat.

And then, admittedly, I pick it off my clothes and eat it. I do it as an act of solidarity with those who have no rice. Or clothes.

I have recently, however, come across a plan to help me be more appreciative and less negative:

The bar is now set at, "there are no dead bunnies in my yard."

Go ahead. Say it to yourself. Don't you feel better about your life already?

I didn't just pull this declaration out of a hat, so to speak. My friend Rich wrote on my Facebook wall that his summer was going okay, save for the dead bunnies in his yard.

That might be the most awesome thing anyone has ever written on a Facebook wall.

I mean, if one can set the bar there, if dead bunnies in your yard don't even stop you from saying your summer is going, all things considered, OKAY, then pretty much nothing is going to harsh your mellow.

It's like Anne Frank writing on her Facebook wall, "well, other than the Nazis finding us behind the bookcase and sending us to the death camp, it was a pretty kickass autumn." And maybe she'd add an "LOL" .  And we'd want to click "like" but we'd worry that she'd think we liked that the Nazi's found her, not that we liked her status update.

God, Facebook would have been so complicated during the Holocaust. Can you imagine?

I am going to get in my car and drive to the market so I can really think about it.

Seek (not) And Ye Shall Find (not)

Fuuuuuck. I lost my blue Mephisto sandal. And my Tacos Del Mar punch card. And the piece of paper onto which I wrote the answer to the secret question that Facebook will ask me in the event that I forget my password.

I cannot find a damn thing in my house.

I'm not going to blame losing these things on menopause or being over-scheduled or El Nino; I do not blame Robin or my dead dog or Dick Cheney, although it doesn't take even six degrees of separation to blame Dick for everything wrong in the universe. I so deeply fucking hate the Dick.

Of course, the real reason I can't find anything is that I have too many things and not enough drawers in  which to put them but that's not my point.

My point is, I can't find anything because I have lost the will to look for it.

I have done the math and there just isn't enough time left in life to spend it looking for misplaced shit. Well, I have done the math as well as I can do math, having not made it past Geometry. Wait, I didn't even make it to Geometry. I was one of the lucky few who came through the public school system in the 60's- the age of academic alternatives, bucking the system, the age that offered remedial math classes with names like, "Outtasite Adventures With Numbers" which were euphemisms for "Still Counts On Her Fingers In High School".

As I recall, we spent a lotta time in Outtasite Adventures wrapping rubber bands around nails on a board and breaking mirrors while feigning revelatory mathematical conclusions about what we had done. I don't even remember a teacher being in the room, come to think of it, although - and hand to God this is true - there was a parrot. Hunh. Is it possible that alternative education had come to the point where classes were being taught by birds? Or did the Los Angeles Unified School System not even deem us teachable enough to give us an actual human teacher?

"Oh, just stick a fucking parrot in the class," I imagine the principal saying to the Girls' VP as they passed the bong. "They'll never know the difference. Those kids couldn't identify an isosceles triangle from my anus." 

And then the two of them pocketed the money not used to pay a teacher and laughed and slapped their knees and had clumsy sex on the xylophone whose so -mi -do notes announced the beginning of school and led The Pledge of Allegiance each morning.

At least, that's how I imagine it. 

Which might explain why I need to use my beak for simple addition and subtraction.

According to my calculations, I may have only, roughly, fifty more years of life in me. This is based on the presumption that I will die at the age of 106, which is based on the fact that I can mentally add 50 to my age, which means that I don't have to get up off my chair and look for a pencil right now.

With only 50 more years to live, I do not want to waste even two of them looking for the receipts, and keys and cash and Immodium and pieces of sushi (which really announce themselves after a few days anyway) and slips of paper onto which I have written important phone numbers and blog ideas and online passwords and lyrics to songs that keep me up at night trying to remember them.

I hardly ever find the shit I was looking for, anyway. And the shit I do find - for which I was not even  looking - then has no place to go except in a pile on the kitchen counter where it will languish for days, which will cause me great aggravation and force me to pick an unprovoked fight with Robin, which will result in all sorts of old issues coming up, including the whole fight about why I didn't change my last name when we got married (30 years ago this September) and how this means I never accepted his family as mine.

And then Robin will stomp downstairs and sleep in the guest room for a week or so.

But at least I'll know where to find him.

My Single Payer Plan

I have health insurance, thanks to God and the IBEW, but I don't have a health plan, per se; you know, an actual plan for maintaining my health. Suntanning season upon us, I devote a great deal of time in the sun these days, worrying about melanoma. It's funny, in a fucked up way, that something I love doing so much, something to which I am officially addicted, gives me very little pleasure. I bet I get more pleasure out of doing shit I don't love, like laundry, because at least I know I am getting the laundry done.

Uh-oh. This train of thought has mindfuck written all over it.

Let me think this through: I spend ten months out of the year waiting for the sun. When the sun comes out, I hie myself to the backyard and commence sunbathing (I love that word, sunbathing). The first ten minutes outside are devoted to setting up and adjusting, arranging my iced tea and my cell phone (not that I am going to answer it; just so I can see what time it is), pushing my fat back up through the vinyl strips of the chaise lounge, making sure I am one hundred percent facing the sun absolutely head-on, etc. By this time, I am often out of breath. Not having fun yet.

Adjustment period over, the next twenty to thirty minutes run the SPF debate going on in my head.

Me: You need to use SPF 45, at least.

Me: Nuh-uh.

Me: Yes, you do. That one-digit SPF crap you have is useless. You may as well just rub chicken fat on your skin and stretch out in the cast iron frying pan.

Me:  That's clever. I should remember that for the blog.

Me: Don't change the subject. You are going to get skin cancer.

Me: Anyone want lunch?

Me: Okay.

Soon, the heat of the sun starts to bother me. I think the sun is hotter than it used to be when I was a young teenage sunbather because I used to be able to hold a prone position at the beach or pool for, like four or five hours at a time. Of course, I was distracted from the heat by listening to the Beatles on the radio and fantasizing that George and I were married.  Nowadays, after fifteen minutes or so in the sun I get all squirrelly and shit.  I have to wiggle my legs or gnash my teeth to the rhythm of a song or run my hands over the stray hairs on my legs or make pretend braille out of the raised moles on my arms or something. I cannot stay still anymore. Which is ironic, really, because I also have no energy.

Plus, my fantasies are mostly about food and my house being clean. And that's just not racy enough to keep me engaged for hours. Although, I once spent almost 45 minutes in the sun, mentally going through the shit in my closet and organizing it according to fabric. Pretty lame, I know. But I did have an orgasm.

This afternoon, however, the minutes flew by while I baked in the sun because I had a lot on my mind. Catching a glimpse of myself in the window, I had to come to grips with the fact that even though a tanned body might make one appear a bit slimmer, in order for me to look okay in my bathing suit, I'd have to spend, approximately, one thousand hours on the direct surface of the sun. In a hat made of mirrors.

I was utterly chastised by my reflection and vowed right there on the spot to stop looking at myself in windows when I am in a bathing suit. 

Repositioning myself on the chaise, I once again mulled over the SPF issue, which carried me through to the end of my sunbathing hour.

You know, what the fuck. Heart disease will surely get me before the melanoma does.

Excellent. A health plan.

Road Trip 2010: Tale #2 - In Which I Am Egregiously Maimed

I was injured in Isla Vista and it was all Robin's fault. That's my version, of course, but this is my blog. Be advised that you are expected to side with me because I was your friend first.

To fully understand my complaint we need to go back to the morning of The Incident. I was in deep despair, having awakened in our obscenely expensive luxury beachfront room in Pismo Beach to cloudy morning skies. As you can imagine, this turned the entire morning, day, trip, world, to  utter shit, and I had no ability to do anything other than rock and keen and moan about the tragedy of my life and to pick irrational fights with Robin. I am sure you can understand. 

We decided to leave Pismo and move on to sunnier southern climes. Well, "we" decided inasmuch as I stood on the misty beach like a lover waiting for her man to return from the sea, and told everyone around me about my life in this veil of tears while Robin packed the car and, most likely, wondered why people like me so damn much when, in reality, I am a pain in the ass.

Keeping with my spring/summer policy to dress according to the calendar and not according to the thermometer, I wore a tank top and shorts. By the time we got to Isla Vista, my teeth were chattering and when we stopped for lunch, I went around to open the back of the car to get a jacket.

(cue music from "Jaws")

My million pound suitcase came careening out of the back of the car like a fucking scud missile, tearing into my shin, crashing into my leg and knocking me down. I was very very very brave as I crawled, Lamaze-breathing, up to the sidewalk and found my way back into the car. Whimpering, I reclined the seat so I was flat on my back with my legs elevated on the dashboard and then I was very very very brave while I cried inconsolable, bitter tears of pain and injustice. 

And I was very very very brave when I started to feel all woozy and light-headed and wondered if I was going to die and I closed my eyes and wouldn't answer Robin's questions ("are you alright?" "Ann? Ann?") because I needed to conserve my energy in case my organs shut down.

I cried and fought death and refused to look at my leg, which now (according to Robin) has a "nice sized goose egg" on its shin because I needed my strength to carry on. I dug deep into my being, as I learned  from watching "Alaska Experiment" and "Dual Survival" on the Discovery Channel. I searched my soul for stoicism and calm.

And it came to me. Through an epiphany that sent waves of velvety bliss spreading through my body as warming as a slow hit of Peppermint Schnapps on a winter afternoon, I found my strength. I was going to survive. I had a raison d'etre, my story needed to be told:

This was Robin's fault.

I could actually feel the universe breathing life back into me, filling me with the mental acuity I would need to make my case. 

Robin had packed the car while I was on the beach that morning. Robin carelessly, haphazardly - negligently! - arranged the suitcases in such a way that an egregious injury was inevitable. Of course, Robin was to blame!  Negligence was the least of his transgressions, in fact; this might have been premeditated! Aha! Robin had been a little bit too solicitous of me that morning, come to think of it. His long-awaited plans for a beachfront room, Jacuzzi tub big enough for the both of us, porn on the cable, hotel sex and mini bar debauchery had been cut from the agenda due to the lack of sun sending me into the fetal position with the covers over my head, and yet, and yet, he never complained. He offered me spa services; I refused, due to the lack of sun, of course, and he just nodded. He offered room service breakfast on the private balcony and I refused, due to the lack of sun, of course, and he shrugged. He finally offered me the brass ring, the Door Number 3 of life's best things - sex with him - and I snorted but he never got upset.

Verrry suspicious, indeed. Clearly, instead of getting pissed off at my ridiculousness, he arranged to have my suitcase fly out at me three hours later in Isla Vista when I suggested we stop at this incredible restaurant we found last year that serves the most delicious salad Nicoise with fresh ahi tuna, and he arranged for the weather to turn nippy (or, as my friend Erika calls it, "tit-nipply") so I would need to get a jacket from the back of the car.

And his nefarious plan worked exactly according to plan. Except, except, I figured out that it was no accident. Other than the one alternate theory that this was yet again another recently discovered design flaw on Toyota Highlanders, it had to be Robin's doing.

Because of the not having sex in Pismo.

I rest my case.

Road Trip 2010: Tale #1 -In Which Robin Inadvertently Makes An Untoward Advance And We Leave Town Quickly

The first argument of the trip was about whistling.

Robin whistled along to the Bob Marley CD, tapping the rhythm on the steering wheel and, every few measures, on my leg. I smiled at him and joined in on the whistling. Now, you know me; I don't indulge in insincere gratuitous self-congratulation, preferring, instead, to indulge in insincere gratuitous self-deprecation but I must mention that my whistling skills, specifically my harmony whistling skills, might be considered reason enough to invite me along on a two week road trip to California. That, and my skill of guessing to the penny exactly how much fuel the car will take at every gas station stop. Which is not so much a skill, I've been told, as much as meaningless and a pain in the ass and something people really wish I would stop doing.

"Don't whistle, okay?" Robin asked gently.

"Why? You are whistling." 

"Your whistling hurts my ears," Robin said.

"Seriously?" I really tried to make my voice sound sincere, like I wanted to know, like I cared.

"Yeah. The high pitch or something. Please stop."

I remember the exact moment he said that. It was in the last moments of daylight, the bonus moments of the Summer Solstice that allowed us front row, awesome views of snowy Mt. Shasta against a purple night sky in which Venus' light guided us east. Or north. Or south. I have no idea.

I was ready to get into the fight, ready to draw upon my rapier wit for a sharp retort that would not only vindicate my whistling but also feature Robin's wish to have me stop whistling  a serious character flaw that, really, only analysis (and the subsequent blame on his mother) could address. I am pretty good at bringing a lot of unnecessary shit into an argument, a shock and awe barrage of oblique references and ancient issues presumed dormant, until the original point is obscured and the reigning point is that, well, that I am a saint, and Robin - exhausted and defeated - develops a kidney stone.

This time, however, I took it like a champ. I stopped whistling (well, I didn't actually stop but I did whistle an octave lower than I was, which seemed to fix the problem) and, instead, focused on the mind-blowing sight of Mt. Shasta outside my car window.

We were leaving Klamath Falls after deciding not to stay the night after all, to push on for a few more hours. I was relatively mellow - for me - mulling over the random shit that life reveals when you least expect it, like eating dinner at a restaurant in Klamath, chilling, schmoozing with the guys at the table next to you who, as it turns out, recognize you from three hours earlier when you made Robin pull the car over on the highway so you could spread out a towel to lay  down on the side of the road and get some sun because it had been raining for, like, 46 days in a row and even Oregonians who aren't tanorexic like you are were going out of their minds and fuck if you were going to let fifteen minutes of blue skies go to waste sitting inside your car even though we were only a few hours into our two-week trip to sunny Southern California and no matter that Robin had that look on his face that I have come to realize means he is mentally researching residential facilities for when he finally has collected enough evidence to have me committed.

"We saw you back on Highway 23, in the sun," Rick said as we sat down at the table next to his. "Pretty damn funny."

The mildly interesting coincidence that we wound up eating dinner at the table next to Rick was quickly eclipsed by what came next: The Itinerant Locals, a husband/wife, tuba/accordion duo (check them out: www.polkayoureyeout.com), with their two young children, stepped off the train (the station serendipitously situated next to the restaurant) and proceeded to set up right in front of us.

Now, this kind of shit usually only happens when you are too stoned to know if it's real or not. But there they were, a Mick Jagger lookalike tuba player in red plaid polyester pants and top hat, and his beautiful redheaded accordion playing wife, rocking the shit out of a polka-tempo Michael Jackson's "Beat It".

Sitting back and digging it is all you can do because nothing can make a moment like that better than it already is.

Except when Robin turns to Rick's wife and yells over the music, "would you like to polka?" and she thinks he said, "would you like to pole dance?" and there is a huge awkward pause during which - I bet -  Rick rethought the whole thing, starting with his now regrettable friendly "hello" when we walked into the restaurant.

And the only thing that can make the moment even more awkward is if I - who heard Robin correctly - turn to Rick's wife and say, "Go ahead. Robin is a great partner!"  Robin's wingman, as it were, as if we are touring swingers who get off on luring small town high school French teachers innocently having dinner with their husbands on a Monday evening into straddling patio support beams and hanging upside down while the animal beat of polka music whips us into sexual frenzy.

After something like that, the budding friendship was pretty much shot to hell. Rick and his wife scooted their chairs to the far end of their table and Robin and I decided to keep driving on through the night instead of asking them if they could recommend a motel.

And thus, three hours later, we wound up in Redding. In a Best Western motel room overlooking the pool and hot tub. In which a sweet young couple, perhaps newlyweds, lolled amid the bubbles, enjoying the midnight stars of the night of the Summer Solstice. And softly whistling along to the music from the motel bar.

No, not really. But that would have been a kickass ending to this story.