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

But There's A Hole In My Bucket

I cannot remember why I came into this room but since the computer is in here, it must have been to do something on the computer.

And now I cannot remember what it was that I needed to do on the computer so I figured I may as well write a blog post.

Only I cannot remember what it was that I wanted to write about.

I'll just sit here and wait. I need to hide out from Mom, anyway.

You know how you go along in your life thinking that you are pretty normal, doing normal shit, living a relatively normal lifestyle and then your 88 year old mother shows up and it hits you that compared to her, your life possesses all the vim and vigor of an end-stage hospice patient? Don't you just hate when that happens?

Granted, I have an injured knee right now. And granted, there's the whole "I am so tired because of Phila" thing. And my finger is still broken. But Mom is kicking my ass.

Take this morning, for instance. She has been up since 7 - after miraculously being able to fall back asleep following an unfortunate 5AM hallway run-in with Robin who was letting Phila out to pee, and Mom was going to pee, and Robin was Very Extremely Naked. Hah. There were some screams coming outta that hallway this morning that I have never heard. Mostly from Robin. I think Mom just pretended it was a Cossack pogrom, shut her eyes, hid in the basement and waited for the Russian Revolution. That's what I do when I see Robin naked.

Or maybe Mom thought there was a bear in our kitchen. The way Robin was holding his, er, flopping salmon and all. 

Anyway, Mom has been up since 7. She has showered, coiffed, dressed, eaten breakfast and is now waiting for the 417 grams of fiber in her toast to kick in. ETA of her morning poop: approximately Wednesday. Waiting for her morning poop is Mom's cross to bear.

Sadly, the ONLY area in which I am faster than Mom is my digestion.

I slogged out of bed a few minutes ago and stood in the kitchen. Nothing came to me - no plans, no ideas, no coffee - so I came here, into my office. To the computer. So when Mom comes upstairs again it will look like I had something to do. I think I am going to tell her I am working on my novel.

No, who am I kidding? NOBODY believes that anymore. 

I will tell her I am booking a Pap smear with my gyno.

Which, come to think of it, is something I need to do.

And planned to do.

This morning.

Wait.

Which is why I came into my office.

Phila and Todd and Robin and Mom

I was going to add my blah blah blah to the Todd Akin thing but, honestly, I am too tired.

Oh, wait. Maybe just this one thing:

His logic is kinda awesome. Like, I am pretty sure I legitimately ate five bagels yesterday so, according to Akins, my body will shut down and I will not gain weight.

But enough of politics. I'm too tired for any more anti-douchbag bon mots. And I don't have much time to get this post written - Mom is flying in at 2PM this afternoon (or maybe at noon. Or maybe yesterday. I have no idea. I am so fucking tired) and I still have to ready the guest room. And by "ready" I mean dust the furniture and hide Robin's pornographic magazines.

Ha ha, that's a joke. Robin's pornography is on the computer. Duh.

I have no idea what to do with Mom this weekend. She lives a very full and active life in LA - theater, dinners, parties - and when she comes to Oregon, I feel I need to keep up the level. Which is challenging because my lifestyle is less go go go than Mom's in that my lifestyle is mostly day drinking and making fun of Mom.

Plus, I am so fucking tired.

Because of Phila.

Which is Robin's fault ™.(Yup, I've trademarked it)

I am getting no sleep at night. Oh, Phila goes happily into her little playpen at night when Robin and I get into bed and turn off the light. We say, "good night, Phila".

And then it's quiet for about three minutes.

And then I say, "God DAMN it, Robin, get your hands off my boobs. No means no."

And then it's quiet for a few minutes. I begin to drift off to sleep.

And then Phila begins her remodeling.

That's what I presume she is doing. I hear shuffling, scraping, hammering, power tools. In the morning, her playpen is in a completely different shape than it was when she went to bed. They say Poodles are smart; what they don't tell you is that they are also chock full of great design ideas. I swear to God, she built a sort of loft in there last night. With a bookshelf. And a mini bar. 

Puppy training is going well, by which I mean, Robin is doing all of it. Robin's job is to get up at 5AM, take Phila out to pee, feed her, walk her, play with her and get ready for work while she hangs out with him. Then when he gets home from work, his job is to take her to the park, feed her, train her and play with her until bedtime.

My job is to remind Robin that I voted NO on getting a puppy.

It has quite revolutionized our marriage. Robin says things like, "honey, would it be okay if you watched Phila for five minutes while I pass a kidney stone?" And I answer, "umm, no, that isn't gonna work for me. Michael Kors is just about to critique Alicia's crotch."

And he crawls back downstairs to vomit and scream into a rag stuffed in his mouth.

Because I voted NO on the puppy.

The other day, just to fuck with him, when he got home from work I told Robin that Phila had taken up my whole day and I couldn't get a thing done, so he needed to take her out of the house for at least four hours. Plus, I needed to hire a cleaning crew because I couldn't get to cleaning the house. Plus, I was going to order Thai from the expensive place because, you know, I couldn't get to cooking, either. Plus, I needed to get the sleeveless linen dress on page 42 of the JJill catalogue. In "limeade". Or white. And Bee Kind lemon shampoo from Gilchrist and Soames.

Because of Phila.™

Because there was a vote.

Speaking of which, Todd Akins is a douchebag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cart Ache

As of this morning, I am a Very Valued Customer at Safeway Market. An assistant manager came out of her cubicle to tell me so. She congratulated me and gave me her work cell phone number and her business card. Which has only her first name and her work cell phone number on it.

"This is so you can reach me any time," she told me.

"Really?" I asked, "any time?"  Sweet. I could use someone to take Phila to the vet next week.

She could not have been more earnest when she said, "Yes. Anytime I am in the store."

Oh.

So I waited a few minutes and then called her from the baking aisle.

"Hello," I said, "this is Very Valued Customer Ann Brown. I was wondering if you had any turbinado sugar."

I didn't need turbinado sugar. I mostly use Splenda. I was just fucking with her, of course. But also, I wanted her to think that I was the kind of wholesome eating person who - if compelled to use sugar at all, say, if I was all out of organic agave - would chose turbinado. These kinds of things are very important to me. I define myself by the contents of my shopping cart.

Which is why I either send Robin to the market or I shop outside my 'hood when I want to buy cookie dough or Fritos. Or Monistat Ultra.

I really don't know why I bother, however. I mean, have you taken a good look at what people buy? You know, all of us whose carts are filled with coconut probiotic water and shade-grown no pesticide yam sprouts and quinoa? We do not look so hot. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, but it's true. We look kinda wan. And jiggly. And our hair just sort of sits there. And we are always tired and complaining.

And the gorgeous, thin, energetic, white-toothed, luxuriously- maned specimens of health? They are guzzling a Trenta quadruple caffeine mocha while piling mini marshmallows and bologna in their carts. What the fuck.

The answer, of course, is that all the preservatives are keeping them young and beautiful. Duh. Man, were the rest of us hippie Birkenstock crunch eaters all sold a bag of horseshit or what? Paying forty dollars for cold pressed pomegranate juice at the wood-paneled, hemp basketed foode shoppe, and my lifeless hair is falling out. I may as well shop the shit at Walmart.

As you may recall, I recently wrote about a Walmart going up in my neighborhood. And, as promised, I have not stepped foot inside of it. Although I was tempted two weeks ago when I was alone and out of ice and my broken finger made it impossible for me to hook the hooks of my bra so I had to just wear it unhooked; you know, straps draped over my shoulders and cups hanging in front of my boobs like a thin, greying lace curtain ill-containing a pair of unruly ferrets behind it.

I was prime Walmart material.

But I am defined by my grandiose token acts of political rebellion (and my shopping cart) so I did not go. I stayed home and carried on without the bag of ice. I had a rum and coke NEAT. What I will not do for the Revolution.

It's too bad I was not a Very Valued Customer two weeks ago. I could have called the assistant manager and asked her to deliver a bag of ice to me.

And when she got here, I would make her hook my bra.

 

 

Phila, part two

 I am so fucking sleep-deprived.

I swear to God, I almost gave that puppy a hundred dollar bill this morning just so she'd sleep until 6. The only thing that stopped me is that I was so fucking tired I took a twenty out of my wallet instead of a hundred. And Phila - being a Poodle - just laughed disdainfully at it. And resumed chewing on the drawstring of my pajama shorts. Which pulled the shorts super tight on me. Which is Phila's way of telling me to lay off the snacks because, as you know from that bestselling book, French Poodles don't snack.

You know what? I kinda hate Phila. Poodles are so judgmental.

All my other dogs have been rescue mutts. Grateful. Low self-esteem. Insecure. I was like a god to them. Phila knows that she could have done better than winding up in a 1970's split-level in suburban Oregon.  

Yeah, Phila, tell me about it. That line forms behind ME.

I like to tell people that although she is a Poodle, we are going to raise her as a German Shepherd.  But I've been thinking...French Poodle and German Shepherd is a lot of anti-Semitism in one dog. You take your run-of-the-mill French anti-Semitism and then you add German strategic anti-Semitism and you know what you've got? One scary puppy, that's what. She'll degrade your cuisine at dinner AND turn you in to the Nazis the next morning.

We got a Poodle because a lot of the kids we have and love are allergic to dogs and, contrary to what one of our kids may mutter under his breath, we do love our children more than we love our rescue mutts. Although - and I'm just saying - none of my rescue mutts ever totaled my Volvo or roll their eyes in disgust when I do Tae Bo in my underwear in the den.

I bet Phila will totally judge me in my ratty Lollipop underwear. Guess I better go to La Perle and get some decent bras with good uplift. Damn Poodle. You know what? Let's take a look at Phila's nipples in 58 years. Then we'll see who has the last laugh.

Also? She is completely disinterested in the people food I cook. My old rescue mutts would practically throw me a parade when I boiled some chicken in water and let them eat the innards. They thought I was an amazing cook, able to provide for them such gastronomic wonders as old avocado on stale bread heels and hard-as-a-brick banana bread straight from the freezer. Phila, on the other hand, doesn't even pay attention to the food that falls to the floor while we are eating. She just sits there and shakes her head with disgust like she's one of the judges on CHOPPED. I think she is coming to grips with the fact that her Purina - domestic! - puppy kibble is, in fact, what she's gonna be eating and is not - as she hoped - merely an ironic amuse bouche. Purina! Quel droll!

Wait until she finds out we drink Oregon wine.