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

Mary's Birth Plan

I've been thinking about Mary, as I am wont to do on Christmas eve.

Mother Mary and I are of the same generation in that we had our babies between 1 BC and 1982, before epidurals were invented. Or maybe they were invented but I guess Mary and I both had Kaiser insurance and they weren't springing for it. Mothers of our generation  - Mary's and mine - we had our babies the real way, like real men. Only the actual real men were by our sides, telling us to breathe, telling us they loved us, offering us ice chips and complaining to the nurses that TV in the labor room didn't get cable and it was possible that today's game would decide the Super Bowl. Also, real men didn't want to make a whole deal out of it, but, could they mention that yes, we might be in a bit of discomfort squeezing a baby through us and they totally get that, but they were quite hungry, only having eaten a chicken burrito when they drove us through El Pollo Loco on the way to the hospital that night. 

Around this time of the night, so many years ago, Mary was in hard labor. HARD labor - when everyone loses patience with you because you clearly are not buying their horseshit not to think of contractions as pain. Mary probably didn't use naughty language but I bet she was thinking, oh sweet Jesus, fuck this excruciating pain. Hey, maybe that's how she came up with the name.

Hah. That means my kids should have been named Give me drugs and Get away from me.

I was not a fan of having my husband in on the labor. Poor Robin. He wanted so badly to help. He even prepared for my labor by having casual hippie VW van sex with a bunch of midwives in Santa Cruz and Humboldt back in the 70's. Just so he could know what he was doing ten years later when his own child was being born. What a guy. These days, frankly, I kinda wish he had been having sex with endodontists and orthopedic surgeons back then. I could really use that kind of expertise now.

Still, say what you will, at least Robin had on his birth coach resume that he is a human. Who was there for Mother Mary? A donkey? Like she was gonna believe anything a donkey would tell her about labor. Endodontics, maybe. I mean, donkeys seem to keep all their teeth and I never saw one cringing in pain when it bit down on a piece of roasted butternut squash hot from the oven.

And frankly, constant braying would have been preferable to constant soothing voices telling me to breathe. BREATHE? Really? That's the best they can come up? Don't die? 

Poor Mary. And all that damp hay smell, to boot, just when any kind of smell at all makes you want to barf. And the three male interns, all fucked up from smoking frankincense on their journey, poking around all Mary's wrong places, trying to measure her cervix and cracking each other up by saying the word "fundus" over and over again.

Wise Men, my ass. Someone had a good publicist. It was surely their first labor. Probably the first time they ever even saw a lady's bare legs, much less her cervix. Let's be honest about who, exactly, the virgins were in that manger.

Mary, I feel your pain, sister. Plus we both know what it's like to raise a Jewish son. The pressure.

Speaking of which, mazel tov on your son's accomplishments. Walking on water is great.

My two sons went to Reed and Georgetown, however. Just saying.

Judah Was A Tool. Get It?

The bloom is off the rose. 

Well, more accurately, the, um, grease is off the latke. The flame is off the candle. The wrapper is off the chocolate gelt. No wait, that would be a good thing.

What I am trying to say is that Chanukah is dead to me. At least, Chanukah as I knew it, as the story of the brave Macabees fighting for freedom, blah blah blah. Because my sons educated me about the real story. And now that I know it, and cannot UNknow it, I can barely choke down my second jelly donut.

This is not the first year my sons have brought up the issue of who, exactly, the Maccabees were. I mean, it's not like they decided to wait until I was fifty-eight years old, ready to hear the truth. They have been talking about it since they were, like, five years old but I don't really pay full attention to them. Evidently. 

When one of my kids was in high school, he said to me one day, "if you are going to Target, will you get me some poster boards?" And I asked why he needed them.

He said, "for my campaign signs." I asked him what campaign signs.

He said, "For school president."  

"You are running for president? How great. Good luck on the election!"

He looked at me the way I imagine Jesus would look at the Westboro Baptist Church people.

"I am running for RE-election, Mom," he said. "I have been president all year." 

I may be a wee bit self-absorbed.

And so it has taken me a few years to finally take in The Maccabee Dilemna. Here's the deal:

The Maccabees were reactionary, fundamentalist Jews. They were the Taliban of the Jews. The considered any Jew that wouldn't join them to be The Enemy.

Well, you can imagine where I'd be on their list.

Will you join us?

'Oh, I'd love to, but it's impossible. I have book club Monday nights. And I did not go to college to wind up a cave dweller, you know what I mean? Even though my degree was in Ethnomusicology of The Balkans, yes, I know. But still.

"Also, I notice that you wear belted tunics. And I am an Apple shape; I have to avoid belts or I'd look like, well, Antiochus, wouldn't I? You men are so lucky, what with your banana shapes. No, that was not a prurient statement. Put that hammer back in your holster, Judah. For fuck's sake.

"Oh, also? I believe in freedom of religious expression. And gay marriage. So I don't think I'll be signing up for your team."

I bet that Judah Maccabee was a total hothead a-hole, right? The Sonny Corleone of the Macabees, going off apeshit, hitting everyone on the head with his big,long, strong, throbbing hammer. Uh-huh. I swear, if had been getting laid regularly, I bet he wouldn't even give a shit about how we chose to express our Judaism. Give a man a blow job and a then a nice bowl of treyf clam chowder and let peace reign on Earth.

Amen.

 

Stripping To My Socks

Are the winter Olympics coming soon? Or did we already have them? What with my grueling training schedule for Bedroom Sock Skating, I lose track of the year. Also, what with my day drinking and loose interpretation of Xanax dosage.

You wouldn't know it to look at me but I am an athlete. I am. I am an athlete wrapped in a snarky intellectual, covered in risk adverse nervous stomach, dipped in slothitude, smothered in brisket and rolled in pita chips.

Which reminds me:  Robin and Karen and Craig I went out for Pho the other night. And one of the descriptions of their Pho offerings was "with fatty brisket." Which I decided is going to be my stripper name. Fatty Brisket. I know, right? I am all about truth in advertising. Although can you imagine the twisted subsect of Jewish men I will attract? Yikes. 

Anyway, back to my Olympic dream.... I have a secret weapon: Tonya Harding lives in my town. Well, I live in her town, to be accurate because she was here first. Also because I don't want her to hurt me. But I am thinking of asking her to train me.

How awesome would that be? Me and La Tone cutting it up on my fake wood laminate floors in our BeDazzled  socks. I smell a webisode mega hit in the making. 

I would like to think that I am the kind of athlete who can be friends with Michelle Kwan and Tonya. Maybe I could even bring La Tone back into the fold. Clean up her act. I could be The Figure Skater Whisperer. Oh wait, I can't be The Figure Skater Whisperer. I am already Fatty Brisket. 

I guess I could be The Fatty Figure Brisket Whisperer. It might be too long name to tattoo on my butt, however. 

Hah. No it isn't. Who am I kidding? I've seen my butt.

So anyway, I ran into Tonya a while back. Well, not so much "ran into her" as "nervously walked quickly away from her."

I had smiled at her and there was something in the way she looked at me that made me feel as if.....if....she had seen directly into my figure skating soul. Like she was saying, "you and I are one." Or maybe she was saying, "stop following me, you weird old person wearing two pairs of glasses on your nose." (I refuse to wear bifocals). 

Anyway, I think we had a moment. And the next time I run into her I am definitely going to ask her to train me in sock skating.

Or stripping.