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

Night For Day

So it's ten minutes to four on a Wednesday afternoon and I just got into my pajamas.

If someone comes to the door I will tell them I am sick, but I'm not really sick. I'm just at that in-between time of the day, you know? I have been waiting to take off my jeans since I packed myself into them at 8AM. It seems excessive to put on a whole different set of clothes just to wear for a few hours until bedtime. I'm not the gingham housedress or the satin dressing gown kind of woman, and it's too cold to just throw on a pair of shorts and a tank top. If the weather were unseasonably warm, and if I lived alone in a windowless house in a community of blind people, I would consider being naked while I passed the hours until bedtime but let's be serious: I would hate a windowless house.

Still, I feel weird sitting here in my pajamas, especially since the end of Daylight's Savings (or was it the commencing of it?), the sun is nowhere near setting. It reminds me of when Karen and I were kids and our 8 o'clock bedtime during summer vacation meant we had to go to bed in a room full of sunshine. Remember how weird that felt? Kinda creepy, really.

No, wait. The creepy part was that our neighbor was a perv and used to look in our bedroom window.

I think I wrote about that neighbor family of ours back in previous blog posts. Karen and I were embroiled in a decades-long feud with the kids. If one of us had fallen in love with one of them (oh yuck. Spit three times and throw a chicken over your left shoulder), it would have been straight out of West Side Story. Only it was the San Fernando Valley. And the weapons Karen and I carried were our cunning and Van De Camps chocolate chip cookies hidden in our pockets (for sustenance). Karen was the brains of the operation which, if you recall from previous posts about the fact that she didn't even know what a hymen is until, like, five years ago, might explain why we never tasted victory. My job, if photos from that era are any clue, was to stare worshipfully into my big sister's face and pick my nose until it bled.

This all comes back to me now, sitting at my desk in my pajamas, waiting, oh, about four and half more hours for the sun to go down.

Which brings me to my point: I need new clothes.

If I Could Save Time In A Kabbalah

Philo of Alexandria said it best back in 20 BCE: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

It's like the man read my diary. I mean, you wouldn't know it just to look at me, but I have a shitload of great battles raging within me. I just cover them really well with snarky bon mots, Xanax and Revlon's Sheer Matte foundation. Sometimes I add a scarf.

Philo was awesome. Man, if I was around in 20 BCE, I'd totally go after him. I'd be all flirty, all, you know what you said at the Coliseum yesterday, about everyone fighting a battle? OMG, it was like you were speaking directly to my soul. And, being a man who can't resist a compliment, he would buy me a drink and try to get to second base. Then, being a Jewish man, he would dump me as soon as the first thin, blonde shikshe with a trust fund came catapulting over the stone wall. Jewish girls never stand a chance.

Oh, and yeah, I wrote BCE. Before the Common Era. Because Jews do not count years according to Jesus, did you know that? It's nothing personal, all you Christians, so don't go running for your white hoods and torches; it's just that we prefer a more, say, katholikos system. And if you just looked up that word, you'd learn that it is the root of the word, Catholic. Which means, "general, of the people".

I know, right? The shit can blow your mind.

I will posit, however, that we Jews might want to find a more colorful way to describe the early years. "Before the Common Era" has a nice proletarian ring to it, I'll admit, but it doesn't really paint a picture of the times. Plus, when, exactly, did that Common Era finally come to pass? Certainly not during Scott Walker's reign.

Maybe Jews should mark the year by calling it BBS  - Before Bagel & Shmear. Or BIMDT  -Before Isaac Mizrahi Designed For Target. Or how about BE - Before Electrolysis? You swarthy gals know what I'm sayin', right?

Oh wait, I know. BPHWAK. Before Paris Hilton Was A Kabbalist. When the world was young.

 

 

Carrie On

I hate your kids. Well, only if they are doing great. I'm not unreasonable.

In this economy, nobody's college graduate kid better have found meaningful and lucrative work or I am going to be very aggravated and finish the entire box of prune hamenstashn. And then Robin will suffer because we only have one bathroom upstairs. And he's been through enough, what with the cancer and all.

So all of you whose lives are going GREAT can just clear out right now. Shoo. Begone. Oh, and don't be driving around my neighborhood with one of those honor student bumper stickers. No wait, there is one exception: those of you who drive really old crappy cars with Bush or McCain bumper stickers may drive by even if your kid is an honor student. You crack me up. If you are also unemployed, homeless, no medical insurance, gay and a Katrina survivor, and still a Bush supporter, come on up the driveway and say hello. I will make you dinner just so I can study you.

Wait. You know what? I didn't mean to go off on you. I apologize. The person I am really pissed off at is Carrie Fisher.

You know why, right?

Carrie, bubeleh; witty, zaftig, relatable, drug-addicted Carrie: why have you forsaken me? Do you really think that Jenny Craig - that skinny, shiksa, locked jaw millionaire bitch - is going to give you what you need? Wake up, Carrie. Smell the bagels with schmear. Pop a pill. Have a Bloody Mary. Come sit next to Dr. Strangemom.

Carrie was my last hope. I mean, I don't give two shits about Valerie Bertinelli or Jennifer Hudson losing all that weight. Val and Jen are not on my radar. God bless them, they should go forth and live happy lives in tuck-in shirts and thrice-wrapped skinny belts around their whittled waists. But Carrie?

She has it all. She has it goin' on. She's all that -brains, snark, edge, addictions, money problems, singer-songwriter ex husband, gay ex-husband, depression, spare tires, sultry speaking voice - and a bag of baked chips. Fuuuuck, if I had half of what she has I'd be happily hunkered down in Rustic Canyon, baking cinnamon rolls, rollin' joints, doctoring scripts and shutting the hell up.

I just know how this story is gonna unfold. She will lose the weight, stay off drugs, look gorgeous and commence with a gajillon commercials about her fabu new life, living happily, low-carbily, just a handful of almonds for dessert, thank you,  ever after. She will meet a man - pretty as Bryan and hetero as Paul - have a healthy marriage and, I don't know, bring peace to the Middle East. She'll share her recycled little baggie of healthy nosherai with Bini and Abbas, who will lay down the sword and pick up the crudite.

And she'll periodically return to television to exclaim her amazement at being a size 2 again.  She will speak in exclamation points! and CAPITAL LETTERS and italics to bring home the point that Jenny C rocked her world and she can rock YOUR!!!! world, too.

Frankly, I just don't need to be a witness to that kind of upbeat, smiley-face shit. My attention needs to focus on Libya and how the fuck we are now in another war.

Carrie, why don't you doctor that up first?

 

 

 

 

Duly Noted

I need a stimulus package. I am so fucking tired.

A Morning In The Life of Mom's Visit This Weekend:

8:30AM - she feels like tuna.

8:30 and a half - she opens and shuts ALL the squeaky cupboards looking for tuna, waking up everyone else in the house

8:40 - finds tuna, but notes that it's packed in water, which "has no taste". (Note: to merely note something is not the same as criticizing it. This is a very important distinction and it will be on the final).

8:41 - begins to tell me about the tuna she made at home with wasabi mayonnaise and how delish it is. Short detour about the wasabi tuna salad at Gelson's and that none of the workers in the deli knew what wasabi is. Impressive segue into the history of Yiddish.

9:24 - story ends (note the time). During this time, she has taken out of my refrigerator: scallions, fresh parsley, wasabi, mayonnaise, cucumbers, red onions, shredded carrots, bell peppers, fresh basil and lemons. Then she has put back the carrots, peppers, basil and lemons. Then she TOOK back the lemons.
I have "shushed" her about eighty times, reminding her that everyone is still trying to sleep.

9:25 - she opens a can of tuna, smells it, confirms/notes that it is not tasty like tuna in oil, and empties it into a paper cup ("why dirty a whole bowl?"). I race around in an attempt to fetch everything she is fetching because her fingers STINK with tuna and onions. She sees me with my bottle of Mrs. Meyer's Basil scented counter spray, wiping down everything she touches and when I explain why, she says, "they don't smell at all, see?" and shoves her fingers under my nose. Still partially asleep and not have had coffee yet, I retch at the smell of fish. She laughs and notes that I am "so sensitive". It is not a compliment.

9:50 - Chopping veggies, and a synopsis of the opera she saw at the Dorothy Chandler last week. Brief detour to discuss the merits of the thin flexible chopping boards she uses and how they are superior to the ones I have. Plus, why do I always have to put them in the dishwasher? What a waste. She just rinses them off in cold water and uses them again and again. (See above note about her inability to smell tuna and onions on her fingers.) I make a note to NEVER use the chopping boards when I come to her house.

10:05 - I take out the garbage even though it is only one quarter full because the tuna can is making me nauseous. Evidently, I am VERY sensitive to smell. This observation is still not a compliment. Also, why am I not wearing shoes and a camisole under my sweatshirt? It is very cold in my house. Not a criticism, just a notation.

10:25 - Maybe fresh cilantro will help make the tuna taste the way she makes it. I go to the market. As I am getting into my car, she stage whispers from the front door (which is directly above the sleeping people's bedroom windows) "Wait! See if they have the good kind of parsley!" I raise my finger to my lips in the "shush" gesture and she blows me a kiss back.

11:00 - Still not quite right. Maybe more lemon. Oy! Too much lemon now. I didn't have the Trader Joe's wasabi mayo that she uses and maybe that's the reason. Maybe add more of the wasabi I have. OY. Too much wasabi! Maybe a little more mayonnaise. But we are not really mayonnaise kind of folks, so even just dipping the fork into the mayo and then spreading it around the tuna seems excessive. Short detour back to why my house is so cold.

11:20 - More lemon. And then, why do I put the knife in the dishwasher when I only used it to slice the lemon? You just rinse it off. Plus, my dishwasher is always so full (this is a criticism, but I am still not quite sure why)

Noon- The tuna salad is okay, just okay. Not great. The leftover is spooned into MANY paper cups, each cup secured with a paper towel and a rubber band ("why dirty the Tupperware?") Oh, and she finally figured out what is missing from the tuna salad. I buy the wrong kind of tuna.

Before she leaves, she packs up the leftover food she brought with her from LA last week - the steamed broccoli, dried fruit compote, assorted half-eaten apples that she was not able to finish while she was here - into various used ziplock bags and shards of aluminum foil, to be returned, I am sure, to her refrigerator at home. Until, I don't know, she comes back up here for Passover.

God help me, I miss her already.

SWF ISO Lifestyle

Lunaea is seeking housing. She said to me, "I need to find a place that fits my lifestyle."

And then she said, "and then I need to find a lifestyle."

I said, "What sort of lifestyle appeals to you?"

She said, "I don't know. Maybe I should just find a house first and then adopt the lifestyle it dictates."

Which got me to thinking.

What is my lifestyle? I mean, other than just being derisive and envious of other people's lifestyles. Which, come to think of it, is a lifestyle in of itself. Yes, a contrarian lifestyle.

Are you wondering if you, too, might be a Contrarian? Then answer this simple question:

Do most people prefer to be with a person who is a) snarky  b) a wiseass c) covetous, or d) gracious?

Oh, so sorry. That's wrong. The correct answer is: what the fuck do I care what other people think?

The architectural style of my house is Early 1970's Charm-free Split Level. Does that describe me? Well, kinda.

Early 1970's. I was born in the 50's, but the early 70's definitely shaped who I am today. Why, just this morning I didn't shave my pits. That makes, oh, eighty thousand mornings in a row.

Charm-free? Check.

Split-level. Now, that's an interesting one. I don't have multiple personalities or anything - fuck, I barely have one personality - but I guess I could be described as split -level. I mean, my boobs cantilever over my stomach. Almost. With a good brassiere. Standing on my head. Forty years ago.

Yup. Our house dictates who we are. Think about it. Are you a Craftsman? A detached single? Do you see yourself as a Classic but people call you an A-frame behind your back? Are you flat? Roundhouse?

Next week, Lunaea is going to check out a sweet little Victorian house in North East. I hope she brings her calling card and fainting couch.

 

 

Unfurling The Freak Flag

BIG NEWS.

We are one step closer to realizing The Commune. The universe has shifted. There were THREE signs in the past week and as far as I am concerned, three signs means business. Like when you get the third notice to pay your phone bill, or when the the third date is coming up - you don't have to pay, but you are probably gonna wind up showing your boobs. It's go time.

Sign #1: The Old Age Jewish home here has plans to build retirement/aging care community houses instead of the usual dormitory or apartment models most places offer. These houses will have around 8 private bedroom and bath suites, with a big great room, communal kitchen, yard, and other homey amenities.

And when old Jews take up the cause for communal living, change is in the air. I mean, these are the people who brought us the bagel and schmear, Sweet and Low, unions, and diverticulitis  - the movers and shakers of our cultural oeuvre. If they are planning communes, then communes are a comin'.

Sign #2: In a few months, my old comrades from high school - those of us who spent our lunch hour on the Freak Lawn- are gathering for a forty year reunion. One simply cannot overestimate the enormity of this upcoming event.

It was on the Freak Lawn, in 1970, that the idea of a commune was first planned. Well, not so much planned as one day Kathy and I took too many Vivarin pills and were afraid to go home so we slept over at Debbie's, which was so much fun that we wanted to do it forever.

Now if you've been following the blog, you know that after the Revolution when I am in charge of the Department of Communes, we will live in yurts. But I'm rethinking the whole yurt thing now. Maybe the old Jews are onto something with their big house idea. I mean, a yurt - even a topnotch yurt - doesn't offer a lot of flat wall space on which to hang my WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR CHILDREN AND OTHER LIVING THINGS poster and my ALLAN WACHS album cover. And the letter I got from a woman who heard me sing a Bulgarian folk song once and wrote me that my pronunciation was offensive and I had no business singing that song, anyway. I framed the letter. You know, just in case I ever start to think I am hot shit or something. Which, so far, hasn't really been a problem.

Sign #3: Mike revealed that behind his place in Montana, there are hundreds of acres of BLM land. I am thinking we might have found our home. Don't tell Mike yet, tho. I haven't seen him in forty years and I will need to warm him to the idea first. I'm thinking pot brownies. And, failing that, cleavage. The part that isn't wrinkled. Oh wait, too late. Fuck.

Oh, and I am reposting the Don photo. Just to get you back in the mood.

 Keep the faith.

The Nuclear Mom Option

Fuck, it's been a hard week.

I don't know about you, but I am consumed with vitriol. And simply changing my Facebook profile photo to Sally Field as Norma Rae holding up the UNION sign isn't taking the edge off of my anger. Or my hunger, for that matter. I hold Scott Walker and the Wisconsin Republicans responsible for my three pound weight gain in the past two days. Let my stomach be on their heads. Remember my battle cry: We Shall Overcome; But First, We Shall Overeat.

You know the feeling you have when you are wearing jeans all day that are too tight? And at some point in the day you forget that it's your tight jeans that are making you uncomfortable and bitchy, and you just settle into a shitty mood? And instead of the usual mirth and merriment you spread everywhere you go, you give babies dirty looks when their parents aren't watching and you pinch old people right before they step off the curb? You know that feeling?

That's what Wisconsin has done to me. Oh, also my jeans are too tight. Only even when I finally take them off at night I still want to bitch slap a Republican.

My fantasy is that Scott Walker will come to me in dire need of some service that only I can offer and I will send him packing. I will stand at my front door and hiss, "BEGONE!" And I will spit three times and swing a chicken or something to make sure he knows how pissed off I am at him. And he will totally have a moral epiphany and see things my way.

I have no idea what kind of skills and talents I possess that he might need but that part can be filled in later. Maybe he wants some parenting advice, or my killer recipe for eggplant guacamole. Perhaps he needs a lesson in conversational Yiddish. YES. That would be perfect because no matter what I did - shut the door in his stupid face, or send my Mom over to his house for a Yiddish lesson - he'd be fucked. Totally. Send Mom over there.

First thing, she'd tell him his house is too cold. And that's why he gets sick so often.

Then she'd take all the dirty dishes out of his dishwasher and wash them by hand because then the dishwasher would be "nice and empty and ready for the next time."

And does he want to do something about those liver spots on his hands? No? Really? He is okay with having them? Because she will pay for the dermatologist.

She will watch him make dinner and make helpful suggestions such as letting him know that he wastes all the asparagus the way he trims the stems, and that a piece of tin foil can be used up to four bazillion times before washing it with Clorox and using it again. She will also wear six sweaters and ask if she can put the electic tea kettle down her pants since no one wants to turn up the thermostat.

By nightfall, he'd cave. She'd have him singing all the verses to UNION MAID. In Yiddish.

 

The Morning After. No Biggie.

I drove my drunk neighbor home last night. She told me that she knew she could count on me. This is so depressing.

It's not so much that she and her husband got shit-faced at a school auction, and that they spent over five grand on all sorts of lucre that I won't even be able to borrow (backstage passes to concerts, artwork). And it's not even that she was an adorable drunk - happy (" I think I am very drunk"), self-effacing ("I think I am very drunk"), introspective ("I think I am very drunk") and a sparkling conversationalist ("Am I very drunk?"). I mean, God bless the young drinkers.  They are funding our locals schools, waving their auction paddles in the air, thinking they are ordering another round for the table when they are actually bidding fourteen hundred dollars for a one-day zoo pass and pizza lunch.

Someone at my table offered two grand for my unfinished salad. There's just nothing wrong with heavy drinking at school auctions. In fact, the NEA might want to take note of this post when PBS funding is up for a vote again. Cheap booze, readily available. The paddles practically raise themselves.  I'm just saying.

My issue is that Heather called me at 8 fucking thirty this morning to thank me for driving her home. 

I was asleep, of course, drooling into my bite guard and dreaming about strong coffee and hip replacement surgery. I squinted at the Caller ID, saw it was Heather and picked up because I was worried she and her husband were too sick or something to care for their kids. Instead, I hear this chipper, "good morning!" and that same adorable laughter that rang out of my car window all the way down the 205 freeway last night, singing out, "I was only supposed to spent two HUNDRED dollars tonight!"

I croaked to her, "you sound good this morning. How are you feeling?"

She didn't even understand the question. Evidently, drinking your weight in alcohol and falling asleep on the living room floor does not necessarily preclude a restful sleep and the ability to pop up at seven o'clock with your kids, make them breakfast and then go for a run.

And that just pisses me the fuck off.

I drank very little last night, got eight hours of sleep and I am the one dragging my fat old ass around the house this morning - limping (I have no idea why), burping, headache and no recollection of how a dollar bill got into my bra. I am sitting at my desk this morning, rubbing my forehead and trying to decide whether I should take my nap before or after lunch.

Heather just went jogging by. If she waves to me I will give her the finger. Just for being young.

So, with my 57th birthday just around the corner, I am making a resolution. Starting today, I am not going to go gently into this good morning. No reason that I should be shuffling around, popping Advil, watching the world go jogging by. I am not going to be the old biddy who has one champagne cocktail, wears sensible shoes and drives the life of the party home.

The world is my (kosher) oyster. I can whip myself up into shape; exercise, lay off the hooch and the carbs, shower regularly and not try to pretend the blood dried to my toes from last week's toenail accident is red nail polish.

Or I can stop answering my phone at 8:30 on a Sunday morning and carry on as before.

I'll let you know after my nap.

Good Clean Porn

Poor Douglas. He cannot understand why my friends and I do not enjoy porn.

He tries to entice us by sending us photos of scantily-clad men, thinking that looking at their six-pack abs and brooding facial expressions will whip us up into some middle-aged apoplexy, I guess. So he can, uh, study us, perhaps, and publish a thesis. I have no idea. I think it's his way of trying to bond with us. Why a beautiful, successful 30-something gay man is dying to get in with us 40 and 50-somethings of the Ladies Writing and Artistic Endeavors Salon is a mystery to me, but that's a post for another day.

He does not want to believe that we just don't care for photos of naked men as much as he does. Or at all. You'd think he'd be happy to hear it; more naked men for him to look at, is how I figure it. Still, he ruminates.

It's not that I don't appreciate a smoking hot photo. It's just that it better be of a brisket. Or a pair of shoes. Or a clean bathroom. Or pie. Or you know what is beautiful and hot?

A house that is clean in every single room at the same time. Simultaneous multiple cleanings. Oh yeah.

Now, you give me a few issues of House Beautiful or Sunset or the Food Channel magazine? I will happily lock myself into the bedroom for hours. And emerge flushed, jonesing for a cig. But porn? Unless those naked men are posing behind an all-white kitchen with pine butcher block counters and Mexican tile backsplash and drawer pulls, I'm keeping my pants on.

Yeah, yeah, the human body is beautiful, blah blah blah. Save your breath. Someday you will be 56. And you will thank the Lord above that your spouse is also old because then neither one of you has eyesight  worth shit anymore which is the true blessing of old age when it comes to naked activities. When I stand naked in front of Robin, he surely thinks I am wearing a large, horribly wrinkled, beige pup tent that has fallen on its side. Bless his macular degeneration. And when he stands naked in front of me, I think he's wearing a bear suit. Holding a floppy salmon.

The key is that the one thing I never clean is my contact lenses.