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

In Which I Embark Upon A Fitness Regime, part one

Somebody hold up my arms so I can type this. Ow.

I accompanied Robin to Tai Chi on Sunday. How hard could it be, I asked myself. I mean, Robin does it, and Robin is not exactly an activity freak. I have seen him eat dinner - sitting -  over the garbage can just so he can save a few steps later. I'm pretty sure I can keep up with Robin. 

Tai Chi?  Bring it.

Well. If I ever had any notion that beneath my layers of couch-sitting, TV watching, bagel-eating flab there lies in wait a layer of muscles, I am fully disabused of it now. Under my flab is, evidently, runner-up flab. Exceedingly lazy runner-up flab. And then comes a layer of bagels. And then anxiety. And then the roach I swallowed in 1969 when my mom came into my room without knocking. And finally, red hot vitriol for Dick Cheney.

I don't care what they say - 1,331,460,000 Chinese people can be wrong. Anyone can NOT do Tai Chi.

First of all - and here's where I suffered the most - there is no talking during the two-hour class. None. Not a word. Even if you see a hole in the crotch of Robin's pants when he lifts his leg. Even if you imagine how funny it would be - when everyone else gives a little bow and nod hello - if you (me), there for the first time, did that slick, Vegas, shooting with your finger and clicking your tongue hello at everyone instead. EVEN if when your 25 year old male partner is doing the pushing on your shoulders exercise, you suddenly think how fucking hilarious it would be if you were to move his hand onto your boob and wink at him. Or squeeze his nipple and you'd honk like a goose.

My plan was to hang at the back wall and pretty much be invisible. But then I got into it - as much as a person can get into it when the person has no idea what she is doing - and from my perch against the back wall, I tried my best to mirror what the teacher was doing. Then it got harder and I couldn't follow him. Then it occurred to me that maybe I have some moves that might be even better than the 700 year old traditional ones and I put in snippets of choreography I remembered from when I saw "In The Heights" last summer in New York. And the rumble scene from "West  Side Story". And that IN THE BOX deal everyone learns in mime class. I did The Swim. I did The Twist. I did The Mashed Potato. I was on fire. I Tai Chi'd my ass off. Albeit silently.

And then, the teacher began the movement that featured two quarter-turns to the right and suddenly, I was in the front. Only I was so into my hot shit dancing self that I didn't notice everyone was now facing me. I struck a big jazz hands pose and opened my eyes.

It was very quiet all of a sudden. Even for a normally silent situation.

Poor Robin. Standing there with his Tai Chi peeps, people who respect him, people he sees every week end, and he brings this person with him, his wife, who has clearly eaten one peyote button over her limit. I was like that Jodie Foster character, NELL, dancing about "the wind, the wind". Only I was  sweatier and super out of breath.

Get away, guys, I bet he wanted to say, she's all mine.

I saw a look cross his face that I haven't seen since I sent a congregant in our synagogue an RSVP card for their child's Bar Mitzvah, on which I had written on the back: Robin, the doctor wants to know if there is blood in your urine.

 

He was very quiet on the drive home. Preserving the spirit, I guess. Luckily, I always have a lot to say so we didn't need to vie for time.

Yesterday, I saw on his Google history that he has been searching for Tai Chi classes that meet on weeknights (when he knows I won't go). And he has been unusually tight-lipped about that Tai Chi class and BBQ next weekend. He keeps saying he'll get me the address, but so far, nothing.

Also, I think he joined JDates.

 

 

Let's Make A Deal

My salad days are over.*

No, wait. That's not what I meant. Well, my salad days are over, but that - lost and misspent youth - is a post for another time.

So, what I mean to say is that my frugal days are over. I am going to be rolling in dough.

(Note to self: Are all my expressions about food? Is that ALL I think about? Must add this to next week's therapy agenda. Also, note to self: we are out of Wheat Thins.)

And I have The Situation to thank for my future prosperity.

Have you read the news? Do you know that Abercrombie and Fitch has offered to PAY that guy, to PAY him good money to NOT WEAR THEIR CLOTHES.

I know, right? And just like that, my future unfolds before me.

I get it that certain companies do not want their brand being marketed by people who are not good ambassadors. In fact, I wholly support it. And to that end, I would like to offer my (non) services to the following:

1. Victoria's Secret. For two million dollars a year, I will NOT walk around Portland in an unbuttoned Oxford shirt that features a turquoise Miracle Bra underneath. In fact, I will not even wear a Miracle Bra. In fact, I will not even walk around Portland. In fact, for three million dollars I will not leave my home for a year. Other than to get the mail. And go to get my moustache removed. And even then, I will wear my Playtex 18 hour all cotton, underwire, old lady brassiere. On the outside of my blouse. Just to make it perfectly clear to everyone.

2. Spanx. It can't be good for your business to have my fat ass walking around wearing a Spanx label. What's it worth to you, however, is the real question. Fifty grand? Forty-five grand? I've got an event to go to next month so you might want to get back to me asap. Labels can be worn on the OUTSIDE of the garment, too. I'm just saying.

3. Special K cereal. I'm not what you'd call a motivating force for eating your shit. I'm thinking half a mil could persuade me to fill my shopping cart with, say, Jimmie Dean breakfast sandwiches. We can post photos on youtube. Juxtapose them with photos of Karen Carpenter filling her shopping cart with your products. I think we both know who will win.

4. The makers of Prozac.

5. Judaism.

6. My sons. Although they have been wont to say that the worse Robin and I present, the better it makes them look because they have, you know, risen above the circumstances of their births.  The circumstances being that their parents are devil-may-care, live-for-today,-be-here-now, bong-toting, bee-raising, therapy-going, college-dropoutting, war-protesting, can't-figure-out-Tevo using, incense-burning, Tai Chi practicing, ain't-got-no-savings financial planning, ain't-got-no-boundaries blogging hippies who live by the toilet flushing credo: if it's brown, flush it down; if it's yellow, leave it mellow.

Oh, and I am going to offer myself - for free - to the Tea Party. Please. Let me represent you to the public. I will give it my all. Trust me.

*salad days - youth. As in, "green", new. As opposed to, I guess, the stir fry days, when you throw all the wilted shit in a wok after cleaning out the crisper.

The Runaway Mommy - second in a series

(this story follows "The Very Hungry Menopausal Woman" from an earlier blog post)

Once there was a Mommy who said to her little bunny, "You are bugging the fuck outta me. I am going to run away to the bathroom and lock the door."

And the little bunny said, "if you run away and lock the door, I will use the wine bottle opener you keep hidden in your nightstand to jimmy the lock and get you!"

And the Mommy said, "if you use the wine bottle opener to jimmy the lock and get me, I will pretend to hug you but really I will run to the white couch in the living room where you are not allowed."

The bunny said, "if you run to the white couch in the living room where I am not allowed, I will put grape juice in my Battle Blaster water gun and stand at the baby gate and spray the untreated couch - and you- with juice. Which will stain. Game on."

The Mommy betrayed a flicker of horror in her eyes before answering, "if you blast me with grape juice when I am on the white couch which, just btw, is the ONLY thing in this house that lets me feel like I am an adult, then I will grab my keys and lock myself in the minivan."

The bunny giggled and then grew serious. "If you lock yourself in the minivan, I will use the remote opener in the kitchen and get in there with you. I mean, really? You don't remember we have a remote for the minivan? It's a fucking minivan, for God's sake. The whole point was so people cannot get locked in there. At least make this interesting, Mommy."

The Mommy put her hand in the pocket of her JJill linen cargo pants to feel the comforting outline of the pack of Virginia Slims she hid in there. Good. A full pack. She let out a slow breath and smiled. "Please.  Good luck. I took the batteries out of that remote months ago."

"For my vibrator", she added silently.

"Why are you smiling?" demanded the Bunny.

"No reason," his Mommy said, thinking about the vibrator and a full pack of cigs waiting for her after Bunny went to bed tonight. She remembered that she had a half a bottle of raspberry vodka in the freezer, as well. Oh, and THE GOOD WIFE was on tonight. Sweet.

"Keep playing this game with me!" The Bunny stomped his foot.

"Okay," said the Mommy, counting the hours until his bedtime, "where were we?"

"I just found you in the minivan." Bunny said.

"Right. If you find me in the minivan, I will throw your blue Binky out the window and when you jump out to get it, I will drive away and go to my Yoga class. Where little bunnies are not allowed." Hah, she thought.

"If you go to your Yoga class, I will follow you there and pretend I am a grownup and put my mat right next to yours!" Hah, Bunny thought.

"Then I will switch to the Bikram class where the temperature in the room is 110 degrees," Mommy said, "you won't like that. Because of your thick fur and all. You will be so hot, you will run out of there and never come back."

"Well, duh, so will you!" Bunny couldn't believe what a boob his Mommy was. He wondered briefly if Daddy and Mommy were first cousins.

The Mommy looked at her little Bunny and spoke clearly. "No I won't," she said, "because I am a human being. You are a bunny. Not a real person. Not even a real rabbit. You are just a story. You don't exist."

The Bunny touched his Mommy's arm gently. "Or do I?"

Mommy hung her head. "I know. Okay. Yes. You are real.  You are my bunny. I just needed to fantasize getting the hell outta my life for a minute."

Bunny hugged his Mommy and buried his head in her hair.

"Gross," he said, "your hair smells like boogers."

Mommy sighed her long-suffering sigh and reminded herself that he was just a little Bunny, after all, and hadn't yet learned the niceties of conversation. She held him close.

"Also," he said, "your tummy is really fat."

Pants On Fire, Part Four

I miss the old days when I could lie to my kids and they'd believe me. Actually, I miss the days when I could lie to anyone and they'd believe me. The world is on to me. Maybe because I announce that I lie all the time.

OR do I?

For years, I convinced my kids that McDonald's was an attraction you drove through, you know, like Autotopia, just for the experience of driving. On special days, I told them, they'd give you a cup of milk or orange juice at the end of the ride.

"Oh, this? This is some food for the dog," I'd tell them, shoving my McNuggets into the diaper bag.

And then one day when Robin was taking care of them, he took them out to lunch. Inside McDonald's. Where they saw tables and chairs and you could order food. When I came home, my four-year-old looked at me like he was Chef Ramsey and I just served salmonella-laden undercooked pork to his customers.

"Mommy!"

And just like that, I knew the gig was up.

That was the last time I had Robin watch the kids. I couldn't afford to have his fastidiously honest ass privy to the shit I say all day.

Here's what else I used to lie to my kids about:

1. The cookies in the Chips Ahoy bag are NOT whole grain carob chip fiber bars from Whole Foods.

2.  There is no gas in the car so we cannot go to your friend's pool party. That is SO the reason we can't go; no, the real reason is NOT that you don't know how to swim so I will have to get in the pool with you and that means I'll have to put on a bathing suit, which means I will have to poke everyone's eyes out with an icepick so they cannot see my fatitude (on which I blame Ronald Reagan. For trickle -down economics that began the ruination of the middle class and resulted in Robin not making enough money for me to hire a 24 hour personal trainer and a full-time shaming Nazi guard at the refrigerator. Also, I blame Dick Cheney because hating him took so much out of me I had no spirit left to plan healthy meals and honestly, after eight years of Dubya and his minions I pretty much wanted to die, anyway) And there is no gas at the gas station. Yes, even at the gas station near Grandma's house. I said there is NO gas anywhere. Of course I am telling the truth. Now, who wants a yummy Chips Ahoy?

Now that the kids are grown it's much harder to lie to them. Especially since, as it turns out, even when I think I am telling the truth, I am lying. I know - it was a shock to me, as well.

For instance, I am wont to say shit like, "everything went to hell when we started using parenting as a verb". I say that all the time and I get all righteous and up on my soapbox over it.

Well.

This summer, one of my kids pointed out that the word "parenting" is not, in fact, a verb. It is an adjective or a noun.

"What you mean to say," my son told me, enjoying the fuck out of this turnaround since it is usually I who heads the Vocabulary and Grammar Police force in our family, having been known to interrupt my children's stories, questions, hopes, dreams, the swearing-in ceremony to the Oregon State Bar and graduation from Georgetown University to helpfully illuminate the complexities of correct syntax and that the plural of auditorium is, in fact, auditoria.

"What you mean to say," he said, "is that everything went to hell when the word PARENT became a verb."

"Actually," I replied, "it works both ways."

"No it doesn't," he said confidently.

"I'm sure I'm right," I countered, "I read it...somewhere. On an online grammar site."

"No you didn't," he said gently, the way you'd tell someone they'd lost a limb during surgery.

"Wait!" I do not go gently into that good night. "It wasn't online. It was...on NPR!"

"No it wasn't." He took his phone out of his jeans pocket and texted something to someone. I tried not to be paranoid that minutes later I heard a police siren coming down our street.

Maybe it's time for me to get a new dog. But a stupid one this time. One who will accompany me as I drive through McDonald's and believe me when I tell him they are out of McNuggets.

 

 

Girlz In The Hood

The first time she saw me, my sister told Mom, "take it back". When I was seven months old, she tried to frame me for drawing the letters "m" and "n" all over the den walls in black crayon.

Our partnership is going on 58 years next spring.

There were a few rocky years in the beginning, like when Karen paid me a nickel to pull my pants down in the middle of our street, promising me that no one was looking, and then paying me my nickel from the piles of money she collected from the neighborhood kids WHO WERE LOOKING.

I might have been a wee bit dense.

In my defense, however, I made almost a dollar that summer I was four years old. And a dollar bought a  LOT of candy back then. Karen - years ahead of Heidi Fleiss - made twelve dollars. I think she bought a condo in Santa Monica or something.

But the tables began to turn when I realized that my big sister didn't necessarily know everything. For one thing, she insisted that mommies and daddies make babies in the shower. I said they do it in bed. She said I was wrong. I said she was wrong. Mom said stop talking and go to sleep. Dad, I don't know - Dad couldn't handle any kind of sex talk with his daughters - he probably stuffed his mouth with dry Saltines and prayed to pass out.

The funny this is that from the years I was about 8 -18, I told this as an "Aha! My Big Sister Is So Stupid She Thought People Had Sex In The SHOWER!!" story. And I laughed and laughed and laughed at my stupid sister.

And then, around 18 or so, I realized that, oh. People do have sex in the shower. Joke on me.

Although I am pretty certain Karen did not know that at age 6. I mean, this is the sister who only four years or so ago admitted that she didn't know what a hymen is.

Yeah. Go back and read THAT blog post. She thought it was like a sort of shrink-wrap covering down there. She thought her baby girl was born without one.

I had to explain it to her while her 35 year old daughter reached for the Riesling and desperately searched for evidence of inbreeding in our family.

Other things Karen was wrong about:

1.

Hmm. I got nothing.

The rest of the family thinks Karen and I are in constant cahoots with each other, or, as Robin likes to put it, "one lies and the other swears to it", and therefore our credibility is instantly challenged when we agree with something the other has said or done. This is so fucking frustrating. And true.

Last night on the phone, we decided that maybe we are in cahoots with each other. And maybe that's fine with us. We agreed that we show all the signs of being under each others spell: we can't go more than a few hours without either talking to each other or thinking about talking to each other; when anyone else talks to us about anything, we think, "I can't wait to tell my sister about this"; we honestly, truly, genuinely believe that any plan the two of us come up with is BRILLIANT, even the one about putting Mom on J-Dates which was not only a bust, it landed me on their Permanent Red Flagged list and now if Robin and I ever get divorced I will not be able to find my next nice Jewish mate on J-Dates and will have to rely on, like, e-harmony or some other homophobic, reactionary dating site and I'll wind up married to, I don't know, one of the Duggar sons and that will be the end of my wearing short shorts because all the Duggar women wear skirts, long ones, and frankly, the only thing left on my body that is worth looking at are my gams so what the fuck good are the denim midis gonna do me?

Oh. Also, Karen and I each think that the other is just the right amount of tan despite the rest of the world telling us we are deeply fucked up and we will die of melanoma.

Also, we plan to grow old together and live in a little cottage and the TV will always be set to "Sister Wives" and "The Wonderful World Of Disney". We will live on Halloween candy and the mirth of our own personalities.

And when money gets tight, I will pull my pants down for a dollar. You know, inflation. Of both the economy and my ass.