BlogHer Part Two Kind Of

My best story from the conference, other than hanging out with old friends and meeting new ones and also MOJITOS, occurred about three hours prior to Sparklecorn. And like ALL of my best stories, this one predictably involves me going to pieces over something trivial. Basically, CAPS LOCKing all over the place, but live and in real time. 

I was trying to figure out how to get five rather large boxes from the package room at the hotel over to the party location next door. These five boxes contained about 4,000 multi-colored glow necklaces and bracelets, which are a Sparklecorn tradition, as everybody uses them for everything from jewelry to belts to tiaras to elaborate full-on glow-in-the-dark costumes. I'd shipped them to myself at the hotel, not realizing that BlogHer had outgrown its quaint days of underground hotel conference rooms and was now taking over gigantic convention centers, because blogging, apparently, is quite a thing with the kids these days.

And it turned out that the hundred yards or so of sidewalk between the two locations were guarded by an old gray wizard screaming YOU SHALL NOT PASS to anyone working at the hotel, because of unions and balrogs and shit, and no one there could help me carry the boxes. 

Now, okay, you should know that in the months and weeks leading up the the party, every year, I probably talk Tracey down off the ledge of planning-related hysteria on at least a weekly basis. It's okay! We have time! Things will get done! Even when we're down to the last-minute wire, I'm actually pretty calm. BECAUSE THIS IS WHY GOD INVENTED OVERNIGHT SHIPPING.

And then, every year, like clockwork, we arrive at BlogHer and promptly switch roles: She takes the "welp, what's done is done, we did our best" zenned-out stance...while I proceed to freaking lose my ever-loving SHIT over every possible detail that could go wrong, because now there is no time to course-correct, no room for error, the people shall not dance or eat cake or get to pose next to life-sized characters from popular young adult fiction and WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. 

You know, it's really just one of the reasons we work together so well: carefully choreographed panic attacks. 

So anyway, this minor hiccup at the hotel package room is like, EXACTLY the sort of thing that causes my brain to liquidify and leak out my tear ducts. I had less than 45 minutes before they closed to figure out a solution, and the only two I could think of were SHOCKINGLY, not working.

(Solution #1: Attempt to pick up one medium-sized box to see if maybe I could carry them myself, one at a time, back and forth, right before dropping it and nearly breaking my fool foot.)

(Solution #2: Call a couple BlogHer people who were clearly busy with 1,500,000 more important details and shriek into their voicemails, then send a text message 30 seconds later like a total asshole.)

I did finally talk to someone at BlogHer, who promised to make a call and send some BlogHims over to help me, but as the minutes ticked by I stood outside the package room and proceeded to quietly -- and with great dignity -- shrivel up and die from the stress of it all. 

Enter Tracey and Charlie, on their way to the convention center, and then enter Me, Again, with a whole heapload of bad language and over-the-top hand gestures about THESE BOXES. THAT ARE GOING TO BE THE END OF ME AND EVERYONE I LOVE. 

(Oh, and I should probably have included the detail that since I did not want to put my highly impractical and sort-of miniature party dress on yet, but neglected to pack anything well-suited for the possibility of manual labor, I was standing around in cut-off shorts and that "Born to Blog" t-shirt from the BlogHer swag bag of 2009. It's...a nightshirt. I sleep in it. So...I'm technically in my jammies, which is basically ONE LAYER AWAY FROM THE NAKED STRESS DREAM.)

Anyway, Charlie is all, "I got this." And I'm all, "No, I don't think you do." And then he hands me an alchoholic beverage that appears from thin air and marches into the package room and starts negotiating for a hand truck, which they will not give him. 

I think Charlie maybe just intended for me to hold his drink, but we all know how that turned out. I am sucking rum off the ice cubes when he suddenly shows up with one of those fancy luggage carts from the hotel lobby.

"Did they say we can borrow that?" I am delighted.

"I didn't ask," he says.

My delight turns to fear. 

Now, if you've read my blog for any length of time, you know that I live every minute of my life in dread terror of the Imaginary Authority Figures. You just...don't do shit like that, because it is MILDLY NOT RIGHT, and therefore you might get into MILD TROUBLE.

Basically: I get incredibly nervous and embarassed when Jason takes our stroller on the escalator. Which means I had absolutely no mental coping skills for what was about to happen next.

Charlie loads up the boxes and heads off, while I mew in horrified protest because SOMEONE IS GOING TO YELL AT US (while also looking for an acceptable place to deposit the empty cocktail glass, finally settling on a random table that looked like the glass might get cleared and sent to its proper home because I was not adding STEALING TABLEWARE onto our list of hotel crimes).

But then...we all realize we are kind of trapped. To get to the convention center (while avoiding the hotel lobby with our stolen cart), we needed to go down an escalator. Well, that's not going to work. 

OR IS IT.

I run around in search of an elevator -- there IS one, but there's a crazy line for it and I can't tell if it even goes down to where we need to go or just up the guest rooms and while I'm standing there trying to figure it out I realize Charlie is totally taking that motherfucking luggage cart down the escalator.

"WHAT ARE YOU OH MY GOD NO HOLY SHIT," I start shrieking. Or something like that. Maybe in tongues. Anxiety tongues.

"THIS IS HAPPENING," Tracey yells at me. 

I ride down the escalator sitting down, trying to breathe with my head between my legs because this. This Right Here. The sight of a stolen luggage cart stacked with boxes of 20-cent party favors that I was unsure if we had any right to carry ourselves in the first place, precariously and illegally riding down an escalator: This is what broke me. 

Dear readers, that man got that luggage cart down the escalator and out the door without so much as jostling a single package. 

And what's more: NOBODY YELLED AT HIM. I mean, besides me. I don't know if I ever shut the fuck up. 

We got outside and of course I continued to be a complete non-believer. "STAAAAAIRS!" I wailed. "THERE ARE STAIRS!" 

Yes, there were stairs. But there was also a windy sidewalk ramp through a decorative garden. Charlie, who by this point is pretty much my personal lord and savior, treks the cart up the ramp and into the convention center, where Tracey and I finally manage to regain some control of the situation and insist that HE TAKE THE ELEVATOR, instead of trying his hand at riding an up escalator, you know, for kicks.

At some point, I manage to chill out. Probably once I realized we'd gotten all the packages delivered to the ballroom before the Voices of the Year keynote was even over, so we had time to go hit the cocktail party and pour more liquor nerve tonic down my throat. 

And that is the story of how Tracey, Charlie and I faced challenges and overcame obstacles and saved Sparklecorn with a single stolen luggage cart and only a couple small safety violations. The end!

PS I have no earthly idea what ever happened to the luggage cart. 

Yellow & Black & Read All Over

Hidden among my father's rows and rows of books -- every book that had ever landed on the high school English curriculum list, plus a few from the banned column, for good measure -- was an impressive stash of Cliffs Notes. 

I remember being surprised by the huge number of yellow-and-black-striped study guides one day while digging around for something to read, something more challenging than the pathetic selection of Christian young adult fiction-with-a-Jesus-message my school's library offered. I think I was on a Thomas Hardy kick, or maybe it was Vonnegut by that point. Either way, I knew I'd find something that would alternately impress and/or horrify my own English teacher, but I wasn't expecting the Cliffs Notes.

I knew exactly what they were, and how most of my peers used them: For cheating. You read the guide and not the book, and hopefully gleaned enough information to bullshit your way through class discussions and tests. They were a safer bet than renting a movie version that might have changed everything, but of course they cost a lot more, and you ran the risk of having a teacher or parent catch you with them.

And then there was my parent, who was also a teacher, who owned dozens of them. More than dozens! Right there in our house, steps away from my bedroom! Dickens, Shakespeare, Hawthorne. Books I'd enjoyed and books I'd barely been able to endure. 

I can't really explain why it blew my mind, but holy SHIT, it blew my mind. 

So I asked him about the Cliffs Notes. Why did he have them? Weren't they like, totally solely for cheating? Weren't they a sin of some kind?

Well, yes and no, he told me. He bought them to help him write tests that would weed out the cheaters. The kids who relied solely on the notes and regurgitated the sample essays and themes. Cliffs Notes left stuff out a lot, you see, so he could include questions about the left-out stuff on exams, thus quickly teaching his students a lesson: Mr. Corbett Will Not Let You Get Away With That Crap. 

But sometimes the guides were helpful, if you've read the book but need a little help understanding what you've read, or keeping characters or historical events straight, or just want to maybe read a different interpretation than what your teacher tells you.

Here he gave me A Look, since we had a bit of a private joke about my English teacher's absolute butchering of Great Expectations the year before, because every single work of literature contained Christ-figure symbolism according to him, and I'd gotten so fed up with it I'd written an entire paper arguing that Miss Havisham represented a "fallen Christ figure" just to be a pain in his ass, and he gave me an A on the goddamned nonsensical thing. 

After that, I frequently helped myself to the Cliffs Notes. Never in place of the reading the assigned text, because, well, my dad trusted me with his Cliffs Notes. He knew I wasn't a cheater. He knew I didn't need to cheat. I was smart, I was an A student, I'd been holding my own with him in discussions on Shakespeare since junior high. 

The funny thing is that I didn't really and truly know he knew all that until he trusted me with his Cliffs Notes. 

Then Heart of Darkness happened. Heart of Fucking Darkness, by Joseph Fucking Conrad. I hated that book. I simply could not get into that book. I tried, over and over again, but somehow ended up lost and frustrated only a couple chapters in. I had a lot of other projects going on so I procrastinated, figuring that I could speed read it under pressure at the final hour in time for the exam. 

The final hour came, and I was in tears. Never in my life had I been so thoroughly defeated by a book. Never in my life had I encountered a book I hated so much that I just could not get through it.

I went to my dad's study in a panic. Had he ever read Heart of Darkness? Ever taught it in class? What was I missing? What was wrong with me?  

Nothing, he said. I hate that book too. The horror! The horror! Terribly written. It's a chore to get through. 

And then: Do we have the Cliffs Notes for that one?

Yes, I said. But...I haven't read the book yet...

You tried, he said. I won't tell. 

And he never, ever did.

(And I did just fine on the test.)

Two Thousand Sixty-Seven

On Tuesday, last week, I took Ezra for a check-up at a new pediatrician. 

"Okay, family history," the doctor said cheerfully, turning to her computer. "Heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, cancer? Are all the grandparents still living?"

"My dad," I said. "Is not. He died yesterday."

"I'm so sorry," she said.

"It's okay," I said.

***

On Wednesday, last week, I took a train back up to Pennsylvania. 

As I rose to get off, my bag knocked over my seatmate's coffee cup.

"Oh!" she gasped.

"Oh shit!" I muttered. "I'm so sorry."

"It's okay," she said.

***

A very nice man asked me if I needed help with my suitcase as we boarded the elevator out on the track. I told him no thanks, my toddler weighed more than this, and HE didn't come with wheels and a handle, so I was good. He laughed.

Then he sighed. "And NOW I have to go to work."

And now I have to go help plan a funeral, I thought, but did not say.

Instead, I smiled. "That sucks. I'm so sorry."

***

A couple hours later I was ordering a cake. The baker asked if I wanted anything written on it, or a specific decoration or theme.

"It's...for a funeral," I stammered. "So...probably just plain. Right?"

He nodded. "Simple and elegant. I'm so sorry."

***

People kept stopping by my mom's house to visit -- some of them out of the blue, having come across his obituary in the paper that morning, despite not having any contact with my parents for years and years. I found some of them nice, some of them insufferable, but almost all of them exhausting. I sat on the couch and nodded nicely as they retold their own decade-old stories about loved ones who died, who died after an illness, or suddenly, or at the hospital or at home or in hospice. My favorite was the one who was convinced her dead mother and grandmother were communicating with her via an off-season-blooming of her Christmas cactus. 

I was tired and cranky and terribly sick with a cold and trying to hide the alarming number of false-labor contractions I'd been getting since my arrival from my already stressed-out-enough mom. I'd lost two pounds since my last OB visit and couldn't seem to eat anything without experiencing stomach pains afterwards, so I was generally quarantined to the couch, unable to do much without immediately regretting it. 

So I wasn't in the mood for small talk with strangers, especially small talk about strangers dying, which I couldn't even believe was actually possible, but there it was. Thanks for sharing? I'm sorry I don't remember that time you babysat me when I was five? I'm sorry for your loss? I'm sorry but it's our turn now, so shut up? 

***

My mom kept asking me to pull up my blog on my phone, so she could see the comment count climb. 1,832. 1,910. 2,014. Two thousand and sixty seven in all. We read every single one. I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. 

I told her there were hundreds more on Facebook, Twitter and email, too.

"It's so wonderful," she marveled. "What do you even say to them?

"I don't know," I said. 

***

The funeral was on Friday. He was buried with military honors for serving at Fort Knox as a sergeant during the Korean war. It was cold and raining and had even snowed for awhile. "April Fools!" barked the TV weathermen that morning. I wore a dark purple dress, a black puffy maternity parka and cream-colored rubber wellies. My sister and I sat on either side of my mom, who sobbed and sobbed, while my other siblings spread out around us, our faces all frozen in tense, non-crying states, our eyes all communicating the singular thought of OH MY GOD THIS SUCKS.

I stared at the casket and felt dull and numb. And cold. So very, very cold. I decided I just wanted to get through the day without anyone touching me. Or rubbing my belly. Oh, hell, that. And that I would ask my mother-in-law for some pantyhose before we went to the reception.

***

"I want to be cremated," I told Jason back in the car.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yes. Then go on a really nice trip and dump me there, and like, be done with it."

Jason adjusted his grip on the wheel and looked pained. "I don't know."

"Okay, well, how about if I go first, you do whatever makes you feel better? If having a grave to visit helps, do that. Otherwise..." I waved my hand dismissively out the window.

"I really hate this GPS," he said, poking his finger at the map, which informed us we were on private roads with no data. 

***

The reception was lovely. Family friends hosted it at their sprawling old farmhouse, and there was a train table upstairs for the boys to play with and a piano downstairs for them to bang on. And then there was the cake. The simple, elegant cake with plain white icing and no writing.

After each and every bite, Ezra scrunched up his fists and his face and yelled "YUMMMMMEEEEEE." And he greeted everyone he met with hugs and kisses. Noah was shyer, but was on his most perfect behavior, except when he told Ezra there was a bear in the basement and accidentally made him cry. I hadn't seen them since Tuesday, and I couldn't get enough of them. 

All the televisions in the house were tuned to the Phillies' season opener. Ezra wore a little red Phillies t-shirt I'd bought at Old Navy ages before. The Phils came from behind to win in the ninth inning, and everybody cheered. My dad's home (and eventually, hospice) nurse was there, and his general physician and his entire office staff came, after seeing their last patient for the day. 

"I so sorry," people said to me, over and over. But then they also told me how beautiful my children were, and how funny, and how wonderful I looked, and how exciting a new baby would be, and how they promised to help cheer up my mom the next week, and the week after that, once I went home and was grounded from travel. 

"Thank you, " I learned to say, simply, finally. And I meant it. I mean it. Thank you. 

The How

When we got there on Friday, it was March 25th, and he was reading the Kindle I’d gotten him for Christmas. He was in a hospital bed in the living room and looked thin and pale and waxy, but he was reading his Kindle. He told me I looked good, referring to my super-pronounced-looking pregnant belly, and I think I said something dumb, like "you too!" that I immediately regretted. 

But honestly, compared to how he'd look in just a matter of hours, it was true. 

Noah walked in and surveyed the room. “PopPop, you sure are sick, aren’t you,” he observed matter-of-factly.

Ezra, thankfully, did not parrot my pre-visit explanations, but merely stuck his finger in his mouth and requested PopPop make his trademark popping sound with his finger and cheek. He obliged, laughing. Ezra giggled, as delighted with the trick as I’d been as a kid.

We hugged, we talked, we gossiped. He teased me about my hair, which he has not particularly liked since I dyed it red. “It’s looking better!” he said earnestly, referring to the neglected, washed-out, two-inches-of-dingy-blond-roots state it’s currently in.

Jason and the boys left to stay at his parents’ house; I stayed behind to keep my mom company. She slept on a recliner in the living room. I went upstairs to sleep in their room, where I was randomly unnerved by the sight of my dad's verse-a-day calendar, still stuck on the Friday from the week before -- the day he agreed to stop, to in-home hospice, the last time he'd been upstairs in his own house. 

By the time I woke up on Saturday, it had already begun.

***

Death is ultimately cold, but his started out hot. A fever. Sleeping more and more. Confusion. Disorientation. He was saying things that didn’t make sense, reaching for medications he’d already taken minutes before. We thought, at first, that he'd simply taken an extra Benadryl. Yes, that was what was happening. That explained it. Move the medications away from his bedside, problem solved, here's your Kindle. 

His nurse visited and floated the idea of moving him to their full-time hospice facility. He said no.

He asked for a drink but spilled juice all over the place. We blamed the cup. Probably better off with a lid and a straw anyway, right? That's the problem, surely. I went to the store to find some kind of grown-up sippy cup, eventually stumbling upon some plastic sports cups with obnoxious, cheesy sayings on them.

This was the first one I picked up off the shelf:

That bit of gallows humor was too much for even me, so I dug around until I found one with an ugly but inoffensive fishing pier design on it instead.

He never really woke up enough to use it. 

***

I went over to my in-laws to spend some time with the boys. I packed up dinner for my mom and I (Julia Child’s beef bourguignon, courtesy of Jason), but was interrupted by a text message. Come, hurry, something’s wrong, bad, nurse is here again, etc.

I jumped in the car and floored it, called my mom to tell her I was on my way and she asked if I could stop somewhere and buy some liquid Tylenol for my dad’s fever -- he wasn’t awake enough for a pill and his fever was scary high.

“I PACKED THAT. HANG ON,” I shrieked and made a u-turn back to my in-laws and our luggage, where I dug out some generic children’s acetaminophen from the stash of medicines we drag everywhere now and promptly dashed out again.

The nurse tried. He gagged and choked after barely an Ezra-sized dose of a teaspoon. He was on fire, the hottest fever I’ve ever felt from human skin.

She mentioned the hospice pavilion again, gently hinting that it was simply not going to be possible for my mom and I -- neither of us with any nursing backgrounds, nor clearly especially level-headed in the face of a medical crisis -- to keep him comfortable and pain-free at home from this point on. He was so out of it, she said, it was unlikely he’d ever really even figure out that he’d been moved at all.

My mom worried about money because their insurance would only cover a five-day stay. The nurse assured her that arrangements could be made, that no one was ever turned away from their facility for an inability to pay, etc. 

But I could tell she knew already. It wouldn’t be more than five days.

I hid in a coat closet and called my sister, crying because we didn’t want to go against his wishes, but oh. Oh. Oh. We can’t do this. I can’t do this. Mom can’t do this. It’s happening so fast.

Finally, I rationalized that Dad’s wishes to “die at home” were more about not being alone and having us there than the actual physical spot on the map. Hospice meant my mom could stay by his side as his wife and not his caretaker or nurse, for the first time in years. Other people could handle the ugly, more indelicate parts of the dying process. He would understand, if we could fully explain it to him. Which of course, we couldn't.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay,” my mom said.

Everybody got on the phone except for me. I sat next to him and held his burning-hot hand. I pressed his thumb into some molding compound so I could get a necklace made with the print, but his skin seemed melt right through without leaving much of an impression.

 

***

Jason rushed over so we could follow behind the ambulance to hospice. I remembered to put the stew in the refrigerator but would later realize I left two entire containers of milk on the counter. 

The hospice facility had TVs, a library, DVDs, CDs, a kitchen stocked to the gills with drinks and snacks and comfort foods for families. I saw a small playground outside. I drank some coffee and ate a chocolate pudding cup. Jason asked my mom if he could buy her dinner and she wanted fast-food hamburgers and French fries. He went to Wendy’s and brought us both back exactly that, plus Frostys.

It was exceedingly quiet. Carpet instead of tile, couches and recliners instead of vinyl waiting-room chairs. No machines save for oxygen, no drapes or beeps or boops or needles or vital sign checks. The nurses didn’t wear scrubs. They all looked like people I’d be friends with in real life, and I loved them immediately. They also did not administer any more Tylenol, explaining that the usual ways of administering it to an unconscious patient were too risky for my father and would only cause more bleeding. They turned up the air conditioning, took off his socks and put ice packs under his arms instead, which eventually brought the fever down enough for my dad’s eyes to open and for him to nod a bit when offered pain medication, which was rubbed directly onto his gums.

“Does he know where he is?” my sister worried and texted from afar.

“I really don’t think so,” I responded, at a loss to adequately explain the waking-sleep state he was in.

I made another run back to the house around 11 pm to get my mom her toothbrush and a change of clothes. When I returned the nurses had set up a bed for her on a cushy recliner, but told her she could climb in bed next to him if she wanted. “We’ll be here if you need us. But not if you don’t.”

***

I went back with Jason to his parents’ house and slept like shit. My mom texted in the morning that Dad was asking for me, which seemed beyond belief, and frankly, honestly, exhausting. Was last night a fluke? Did we overreact? Move him too soon?

Was this rollercoaster never, ever going to end? 

And was I actually admitting that I kind of hoped it would? 

I arrived and he was awake. He couldn’t talk, but was mouthing a few words and trying anyway. He recognized my face and voice. I called him Daddy and told him I loved him, and he struggled to say it back so I said it for him. I know. I knew. I always knew. He squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. I promised we’d take care of my mom and Jason would take care of me and we’d all take care of the babies and everything was fine. Everything was fine.

He clutched my hands. He rubbed my arms. He touched my face. It was the most desperately perfect moment ever.

***

His eyes weren't open much longer after that. His legs twitched and his arms pulled at blankets and clothes and his oxygen cannula, which he’s worn for three full years now. He was breathing through his mouth -- a noisy, harrowing-sounding breath, full of blood and secretions -- and the nurse said we could probably go ahead and turn the oxygen off if he kept pulling at it, because he wasn’t getting anything anyway.

We pulled it off. There was no difference. I reached over and hit the power on the machine, plunging the room into silence, except for the sound of that terrible, death-rattle breathing.

***

My sister called in the afternoon and I held the phone next to his ear. At the sound of her voice, his face twitched into an unmistakable smile of joy. For just a second, then back to peace.

***

We had to leave. We HAD to. I’d gone through every possibility I could think of, but the fact was we had the final day of Noah’s evaluation on Tuesday morning and rescheduling meant we went back on a months-long waiting list for another open spot.  His IEP meeting was in a week and we wanted the results. We couldn’t miss it. Jason couldn’t get many more days off, I didn’t have childcare for the afternoons, it would take time to make arrangements for later in the week. A hospice nurse whispered that she could babysit the next day, on her day off, but the boys were clearly struggling with the situation and the lack of routine and I flapped my hands around helplessly until my mom grabbed my shoulders and told me to go home, it’s okay, she understood, and hell, he’d understand. Go take care of your babies.

I asked for a few minutes alone to say goodbye. I repeated everything I’d already said that morning. I kissed his head and shrunken cheek and tried to ignore his open mouth, which was seeping with blood from his gums, tongue and cheeks. It was hard to see, but hard not to as well. 

This time, he didn’t respond. His body was still holding on to a vital function or two, but honestly, he was already gone.

I left the room and immediately started sobbing like never before, as the not-exactly-earth-shattering realization that I wasn’t going to see him ever again hit me with the force of rush-hour traffic, oh my God, oh my God, it's not fair, it's not fair.

***

We got home in under three hours. I didn’t unpack. I took a bath and went straight to bed.

The phone rang at 3:10 am. It was March 28th. And it was over.

***

I cried for awhile. And then I didn't. And then I did, again.

Then I added a dark-colored maternity dress to my still-packed suitcase and bought a train ticket to go back up to my mom's house, again. 

And How Was YOUR Day?

It was on this exact day in history when I realized that I needed to make a change. That the working-outside-the-home thing and I were not a good fit. That my poor already-meager brainpower reserves were overextended to the breaking point, making each and every venture into the outside world fraught with danger and the potential to snowball into a comedy of errors, or at least a story that could only be told with at least a dozen "...AND THEN!" transitions into the next circle of absent-minded hell. That being required to walk out the door remembering my keys AND my lunch AND the daycare bag AND the work I'd brought home the night before AND my shoes AND where I'd parked the car AND the baby, omg the baby was just too much. Something had to give. 

Five years and a whole extra kid-and-a-half later, this remains probably one of the most self-aware things I have ever realized about myself. Five years later, and it still holds true that the simple decision to "get out of my pajamas" is usually the exact point where my day goes completely haywire.

For the record, I am only required to Leave The House once a week, other than the weekends, but that doesn't count because Jason is there so he can supervise. I mean, so it's a team effort. Yes. That. On Thursdays, however, I alone am responsible for getting everybody up and fed and dressed and out the door for Noah's weekly OT appointment.

Yesterday, AS YOU MAY ALREADY HAVE BEEN AWARE, was a Thursday. So up and out we went, and I was feeling pretty good, considering I'd managed to shower and dry my hair AND find one whole hat for one whole child, so I only had to remember to repeatedly yank up one coat hood over one head, while muttering old-lady threats about colds and catching death. 

In fact, the only snafu was when I remembered that I'd never brought in my travel mug from my car, so I needed to run out and grab it and wash it out really quick so I could take my coffee with us. (NOTE: In my lifetime, I have personally purchased a good four dozen high-quality travel mugs, every single one of which is sitting in a desk drawer or under a car seat somewhere belong to my husband, so the travel mug featured in this story is my very last mug, a cheap promotional one that Tracey and I received when Mamapop won Best Pop Culture Blog from The Baltimore Sun. Tracey said I could keep our major award, which was very nice of her, except that it leaks all the time.) 

ANYWAY. BUT THEN! I retrieved the mug from the car, only to realize there was a very gross, very frozen chunk of last Thursday's coffee still in the bottom. We were already running late, the car was already running (in a very FORESHADOWINGLY-like manner, by the way) and the kids were already buckled into their seats and there I was, waiting for some warm-ish water to flow from the sink faucet in the kitchen so I could melt a week-old expired coffee ice cube or at least break it out with a knife handle or something. 

After a few desperate minutes, I put the mug in the microwave -- expressly disobeying the printed instructions on the bottom -- but then changed my mind after 10 seconds because you know, it would be SO LIKE ME to have to call Jason and tell him that I blew up the microwave for just this exact precise reason. 

Finally, I had a nice, cleanish cup of new coffee and we were back in the car. Which is when I noticed that the gas light was on.

Just like it had been on last Thursday, when I had consciously decided to NOT get gas, because 1) the gas light comes on in my car almost laughably early, like with more than 30 miles to go (according to some display thing on the GPS screen that I can check to more accurately gauge my gas-tank recklessness), and 2) as long as I made it home and then never left the house again, odds were good that Jason would drive the car next and would stop for gas. 

But we were all terribly sick last weekend, so nobody drove it anywhere, so I was now stuck knowing that I'd already cashed in my free early-gas-light trip and was probably close to fumes at this point. But we were late! Because...well, I'd spent all that time trying to melt that thing out of my travel mug.

We made it to OT on time, though I knew there was NO WAY we would make it home without filling up. But no matter, there were about three gas stations super-close to the therapist's office...I could stop and still get Noah home for a quick sandwich and catching the school bus in plenty of time. 

Except...for some reason, instead of just -- I DON'T KNOW -- driving to one of the actual gas stations that I was already familiar with, I decided to head towards the one that the GPS said was the closest. Huh! I thought. I had no idea there was a Shell station right there! That's really convenient, actually!

And it really would have been convenient, if it existed. Which it didn't. It was an office building. So I changed course and headed towards ANOTHER gas station, right around the time the stupid computer screen thing started yelling at me like, SERIOUSLY, YOU HAVE NO GAS, WHY DON'T YOU STOP AT A GAS STATION. YOU WERE LIKE, FIVE FEET FROM ONE A MINUTE AGO, MORON.

Oh, and did I mention it was snowing? Because it was snowing. What started as flurries around the time we arrived for OT was now a full-on snow "event," as the local weather people like to call it anytime we start seeing ACCUMULATION! Of UP TO TWO INCHES! YOU ARE ALL GOING TO DIE IN YOUR CARS! YOU ARE PROBABLY ALSO ON FIRE!

So there was a crazy amount of traffic, as the lines on the road were already more or less covered up, and as you know, when the lines on the road get covered up, everybody forgets where the lines ever even were to begin with. 

So I'm driving, all white-knuckled and over-caffeinated, with both kids in the car, and I can't even figure out which thing on the dashboard to freak out more over: the now below-E gas tank indicator or the clock, which says I have all of 15 minutes to get Noah home in time to catch the bus.

But I make it to the gas station. I pull up to the pump and reach into the diaper bag for my wallet.

No wallet.

No wallet.

NO WALLET.

No wallet, all of 10 cents in the coin tray, no secret $5 bill or credit card in the glove compartment, zero gas. Oh, and a cell phone with a red battery-charge indicator and yes, I have a car charger for my phone but no, I had no idea where it was at the moment.

I did the only thing I could think to do. I drove away from the gas station, back towards the snow-covered highway. 

See? Brain. Thinking. Not good at it. Obviously I'd hit max capacity for problem solving sometime that morning, probably during the thing with the mold-flecked coffee ice cube.

I called Jason and told him to like, omg, pray or something. He -- in a typical lack of faith and/or confidence in my coping skills -- ordered me to get the fuck to a gas station and wait for him there. I mewed sadly about the bus! The bus! I have to get Noah home for the bus!

"Yes, which you will most certainly NOT be able to do while stranded on the side of the highway."

(Right around this time, I drove directly by my old office building. Or more like...coasted, as I tried to use the snow to my advantage instead of the gas pedal. I'm beginning to think that general business park area has it in for me, for real.)

10 minutes later, Jason called back. He was still looking for my wallet. I told him to look in my black purse, which I'd carried last week to a BlogHer Meet-Up in Bethesda, which NOW that I think about it, was the other last time I left the house by myself. (I drove Jason's car. So he could have the carseats in case of an emergency. Also, because I knew my car needed gas.) He said he already checked that bag, and it wasn't there.

So. To recap. Things Amy Was Currently Freaking Out About:

1) No gas. Still sitting in traffic trying to get somewhere close to Gas Station Number Three, AKA the one every single driver in the area seemed to be flocking to, because OH MY GOD SNOW SNOW SNOW PANIC ALSO I NEED BREAD.

2) The bus. Even though that was pretty much a done-and-missed deal by now and I was going to have to drive Noah directly to school, I was upset because I didn't call the bus depot ahead of time to tell them Noah wouldn't be on the bus like I'm supposed to and what if I get in trouble for that? Or the bus skids on the ice right outside our house and everybody dies and it was ALL MY FAULT because I DIDN'T CALL, or maybe the bus driver will just be generally kind of MAD AT ME from now on?

3) My wallet. Where the hell was it? Did I lose it? Drop it? Get pick-pocketed? What happens if I got into a fender bender or something without my license right now because the road is slippery and you know, there are all these IDIOTS out there who don't know how to drive in the snow? I may be an idiot who spends 15 minutes melting coffee backwash from promotional travel mugs before driving her children miles and miles away in the snow with no gas and no wallet, but AS GOD IS MY WITNESS, I know how to drive in inclement weather. Kind of. Pretty much.

4) Phone battery. Seriously, where the fuck did my car charger go? Ohhhh, that's right, last week I met HeatherB for lunch and she texted to say she desperately needed an iPhone charger and all I could find in the house was the plug part but not the cable part so I yanked the cable from the car charger and then I guess I took the whole inside the house or something and see? All my problems in life stem from unsupervised outings. 

5) Starvation. We were almost out of the only snack option I had on hand: A bag of cheese-pretzel sandwich things that I desperately needed to believe was counting as a nutritious, pre-school-day lunch for Noah.

EPILOGUE

I made it to the gas station. We sat there for awhile until Jason showed up with a credit card and I racked up the single-most-expensive fill-up in my entire car-owning life. I drove Noah directly to school and got there before his bus, because the snow delayed everything by a million billion minutes or so, and when he got back home I fed him the entire contents of our pantry, because the poor kid was starving and I am mother of the fucking year.

EPILOGUE TWO

My wallet was totally in my black purse. Jason said, "Oh, THAT black purse." I have not yet asked him which black purse he thought I was talking about, because the only other black purse I own is a crystal-encrusted black satin evening clutch that is smaller than my actual wallet, and for the sake and safety of our family I need to keep on believing that that's NOT the purse he looked in, because ONE OF US HAS TO BE SMART, AT LEAST A LITTLE BIT. 

Why We Probably Never Get Invited Places

This story requires some background. In fact, I'd say this story is probably a good 95% background. This is the kind of story I would submit to my creative writing professor in college and get back with the words YES, AND....???? scrawled after the ending because the denouement was basically me running out of time at library that morning and then pretending that the unsatisfying, abrupt ending was ON PURPOSE, like even the WHOLE POINT, god, nobody GETS ME, it was DEEP and SOCIALLY-COMMENTATING-Y.

Anyway! It is true, I was very misunderstood. Now let's all move on and pretend that this is a vaguely accurate rendering of the great state of Pennsylvania:

If you believe the original boundary-deciding people all had raging meth habits, I think it kind of works.

Now, I spent the first 19 years or so of my life in this general part of Pennsylvania:

Basically, if you picture New Jersey as the head and shoulders of some old dude in profile (AND I BET YOU DO NOW), I grew up tucked directly under his chin. Jason also spent a good chunk of his adolescence in the same area, only in the town where M. Night Shyamalan filmed Signs instead of the my neighborhood's claim to fame, which was the largest used car dealership in the state. Neither of these accomplishments have held up very well in recent years, what with the economy and The Happening. 

Point is, we like to think we know our way around that area pretty well. 

So when my dear long-time friend Temerity Jane sent us an invitation to her PA-based wedding -- complete with assurances that it was SO OKAY if we didn't feel like making the trek -- I waved off her protests and insisted that it was no big thang at all. I love weddings! And this wedding was like, 30 minutes from our parents' homes, because everything is 30 minutes from our parents' homes. Philly. The neck-hole parts of New Jersey. Malls. Amish people.

I thought the wedding was 30 minutes away because the invitation said: South Abington. Abington! I know Abington! I had friends who lived in Abington. The high school was in Jason's tennis league; they'd played them all the time. 30 or 45 minutes away, tops. 

Well, technically the invitation said South Abington Township. But Pennsylvania is literally crawling with random areas that like to declare themselves townships, much like Pennsylvania is not technically a state so much as a commonwealth and I STILL don't understand what that's all about, even after having to take a Pennsylvania history course in high school. And the south part, well, sure. Abington must have a...south...type...part. Right? So we'll give ourselves the full 45 minutes, then.  

See. EASY. We just had to go...down and to the left a little.

Oh, ho ho ho. And a ha ha ha.

The day of the wedding started off badly for us. I forgot the invitation on our fridge, thus leaving behind the actual address, thus having to be the complete asshole who sends desperate Twitter DMs to a BRIDE on her WEDDING DAY, mere HOURS before the CEREMONY.

(Jason suggested we just drive to Abington and see if any church or hotel names sounded familiar, because you know, how many weddings could there be?) 

Luckily, I managed to get the address before we arrived at Jason's parents house, where we quickly ditched the kids and changed our clothes and hopped back into the car. Abington, ho! We had exactly an hour before the ceremony would begin. We were good. As was my hair, for a brief few seconds in time.

I entered the address into our GPS and...

"Why is this thing saying Abington is 120 miles away?" 

"Uh. That's not right."

"Two hours? What the?"

Suddenly, it all became perfectly, horribly clear. Abington and South Abington Township had absolutely nothing to do with each other, besides some really fucking uncreative place-naming at some point. 

Now, don't get me wrong. That part of Pennsylvania is absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous. The views from the mountains roads -- especially this time of year -- are like stepping into every picture-perfect postcard of idealized autumn colors you have ever seen. It's a perfect spot for a wedding or weekend away.

But unfortunately, once you realize that you are suddenly TWO HOURS AWAY from a wedding ceremony that is due to begin in ONE HOUR, and that nothing -- short of rocket-jet-packs or some sort of PA Turnpike Wormhole -- is going to help you make that wedding on time...well, the beautiful fall scenery can go fuck itself, you know? 

Particularly if, on your way to the PA Turnpike, you hit every single construction detour or accident along the way. (One major road was closed completely because someone hit a deer, and the only way around the mess involved a ONE-LANE DIRT ROAD.) By the time we hit the seventeenth or fortieth detour because one quaint little town was having a craft fair on the ONLY ACTUAL THROUGH STREET THERE WAS, I was pretty much ready to kill the entire wiggly jagged side of Pennsylvania with my bare hands. 

The GPS told us it would be a two-hour drive. It took us two-and-a-half. We did indeed miss the ceremony by a good 50 miles, and by the time we finally arrived 1) my hair looked like total ass, and 2) I was completely and utterly paranoid that we would inadvertently walk into the reception at the PRECISE MOMENT the DJ or whoever was doing the whole, "And now, presenting for the very first time! Mr. and Mrs....wait, who the hell are those assholes?"

We crept in, literally peeking timidly around corners before stepping out, and did successfully manage to join the other guests with a minimum of OH HI WE'RE INSANELY LATE AND DUMB fanfare. 

I completely owned up to our dumbassity, though, rather than bullshit my way through conversations like, "The ceremony was beautiful! I especially liked the part where you...uh, walked in! And then said I do!" I understood why our attendance had taken several other guests by surprise, you know, being willing to drive ALL THAT WAY AND STUFF. Because...yeah. Okay. I see what you're saying now. 

The reception was awesome and there were all-you-can-eat mashed potatoes with cheese and crumbled bacon toppings. I ate a lot of mashed potatoes and two pieces of cake. I even got Jason out on the dance floor for a slow dance and TJ had ever-so-helpfully stocked the ladies' room with a basket of toiletry essentials, including a package of bobby pins that allowed me to salvage at least a little dignity out of my hair. 

And then we got in the car. And drove back. And everybody learned something very important about maps, but nothing about finishing up stories with any sort of actual point. 

THE END!

Area Woman Demands Medal For Heroic Rescue of Disgusting Thing She Totally Hates

Jason Storch, Mouse Trapper M.D., caught himself another one this morning. He was quite proud of himself. The dog and the cat, on the other hand, were all nonchalantly hanging around the trap, waiting for me to put their kibble down, COMPLETELY UNFAZED by the live mouse SITTING RIGHT THERE in a clear plastic box, and did not seem to be all ashamed of themselves and their utter uselessness. 

Also! This: 

 
Is EVEN MORE BULLSHIT.

That's a dishtowel covering up today's Gladware-encased rodent offering, on the front seat of my car, as the whole "release" bit of Jason's catch-and-release plan fell to me this time. ME! 

Technically, Jason offered to take care of the mouse...later. Like, "I have to go somewhere around 4 p.m. so I'll do it then" later. I pointed out that while it's fine and great that he's so determined to trap the mice humanely and all, there's something about keeping the things trapped in cheap plastic containers all day --wallowing in piss and shit and probably terrified out of their feeble stupid tiny poop-pellet-sized disgusting brains -- that strikes me as kind of cruel. 

(Also cruel: My suspicion that he likes keeping the mice around because he thinks the look on my face and the involuntary creeped-out shoulder-spasms I get each and every time I walk into the kitchen and see the container on the counter are really funny.)

And so that's why I -- the sole non-lunatic in a household of males that have all been completely brainwashed by the Disney animation establishment -- ended up taking responsibility for freeing the awful creature in a field near Noah's school. 

(The whole drive there, Noah kept trying to understand WHY I don't like mice, mostly by asking me if I liked mice or not over and over and over again, trying to wear me down and get me to say that I did. And wear me down he did, because I finally gave up and told him that yes, I like mice just fine when they are OUTSIDE, but that I don't like mice in my HOUSE. Or CAR. Or FOOD STORAGE CONTAINERS.)

(This half-truth is still probably better than the colossal outright lie we tell him about "sending the mouse back to his family" when we talk about setting them free, because I know full well that the mouse's family [and likely a litter of blind naked mole-rat dependents] are totally back at our house, inside of our wall.)

So after dropping Noah off at his classroom I snuck over to the edge of the parking lot with my dishrag-covered offering and set the mouse free. I watched it sit there for awhile before bounding (BOUNDING, HE HONESTLY BOUNDED, IT WAS GROSS YET ADORABLE) over to a tree to clean itself off. 

 

Freedom! Terrible, blinding freedom!
 
I drove off and then found myself worrying about the mouse -- God, maybe I should've walked over to those bushes so it wouldn't be left so far out in the open? Or over there, where it wouldn't be so close to the street? Quick, scan the sky for hawks! Should I go back and try to like, corral it someplace else? 

The mental image of myself, running (OR BOUNDING) through a field by the side of the road, trying to ensure the relative safety of a MOUSE, possibly while banging the lid and bowl of a thoroughly befouled Gladware container together, snapped me right back to curmudgeonly reality, which was: That thing should count its goddamn blessings already. 

 

FUCK YOU, MICKEY. GOOD LUCK NOT BEING EATEN.
 

AND THEN!

My weekend got EVEN BETTER, if you can believe it. 

After staggering downstairs in search of coffee on Saturday morning, I was greeted by the usual sight of Jason making pancakes for the boys. 

Oh, and this, sitting on our kitchen counter:

BELIEVE IT.

I took one look at that tiny pointy seizing rodent poop monster -- on my COUNTER, in my GLADWARE, which once held CHRISTMAS COOKIES -- and turned around and marched right back out.

Noah climbed down from his stool -- and his breakfast, which was also on the COUNTER, just INCHES away the scratchy disease-ridden furball -- and chased after me, imploring me to come look! Come look, Mommy! He's our FRIEND, Mommy! Don't worry, Mommy, it's just a little mouse, and he's a friendly mouse, Mommy. 

He took my hand and pulled me back into the kitchen, where Jason was practically on the floor laughing at Noah's earnest reassurances (the very same patch of floor where this very same blinky jumpy dwarf rat thing had been brazenly skittering around at all hours of the night for weeks, BY THE WAY).

I indulged Noah and looked directly into the big bulging eyes of the furry helldemon and said yes, he seemed like a very nice mouse.

"His name is Any," Noah said. "I love him."

I glared at Jason and asked him what kind of trap had finally caught the vile bald-footed sewer-dweller and he showed me a collection of humane traps he'd picked up at the hardware store. "I've had to put new bait in them a couple times because he kept going in there and then getting back out. Last night he finally got stuck." 

He added, "He REALLY likes peanut butter."

I poured a cup of coffee and eyeballed the pocket-sized ball of plague, who was up on its hind legs, trying to nibble on the airholes Jason had punched in the lid. The container already had a unbelievable amount of mouse shit in the bottom.

The plan was to drive out to the deep 'burbs that day to take the boys to a splash park, and release the skittering itchy shifty-eyed beastrat in the fields nearby. It took us a bit longer to get ready than we thought, and when I went back into the kitchen to pack up some water and snacks, I noticed it was sitting completely still, curled up in the corner.

"OH SHIT," I thought, and poked the container. It jumped up in a panic and started racing around so hard the container moved and I did an involuntary girlscream and jumped back about four feet. It stared at me through the festive red plastic lid. I stared back. 

I noticed it had eaten all the dog food Jason had so kindly provided for it a few hours earlier. 

I went to the pantry and pulled out a box of Cheerios, and God help me, I peeled back the Gladware lid and quickly tossed a couple bites of cereal inside. I debated putting a little water in the container too but thought that might just scare it more than anything. It stared at me some more.

"I still DON'T LIKE YOU," I hissed at it. "Just so we understand each other."

I think maybe it nodded. Or else it was just the beginning stages of some rodent-bourne palsy that will one day wipe out humanity. Either way, I think it got my point.

***

We drove a good 20 miles away and released Any the Mouse in a park, near a dumpster by a soccer field. The Gladware went directly into the dumpster. Now let us never speak of this again. 

TIMELINE OF DOOM

Two weeks ago: 

I accidentally hit a curb in my car, apparently hard enough to damage the sidewall of the tire. An ominous-looking bump appeared, rendering the car undriveable until we got a replacement tire. We had a spare but for some reason there was something wrong with the spare that Jason explained and I don't know I wasn't listening zzzzzzzzzboring, look, you're going to need to accept that I am a Classic Awful Girl when it comes to car stuff and move on, okay?

One week ago: 

Jason finally made up his mind about the tire, because you know how he is about tires. He ordered a "slightly used" tired off eBay to save us from having to replace multiple tires, because the other tires were fine, at least according to the highly scientific tread-measurements we conducted using various coin of U.S. currency and also zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzboring.

In the meantime: 

Jason worked from home most days, other days we haggled and juggled and chauffeured everybody around in the other car, like pilgrims or whoever it was who lived in the days of everybody only having one car.

Last Tuesday:

Jason mentions that it's probably time to maybe start thinking about replacing the clutch on the other car, our now semi-only car. The car is only seven years old, but apparently the clutch on this particular car wears out much sooner because it was a poor match for the car's power according to the guys on the forums, at which point I mime passing out and drooling, because our car has a FORUM, haaaaaaazzzzzzzzzzzzzboring, I only watch Top Gear for the parts where shit gets blown up and Captain Slow gets lost.

Last Thursday:

I noticed the car is revving a bit more than usual in first gear. I blame the air conditioning. I do not turn off the air conditioning, I just glare at it real pointedly-like.

Last Friday:

FedEx claims our new-old tire is out for delivery and should arrive any minute. FedEx is a filthy liar. I leave to pick Noah up from school in the other car. It's...revving a lot, in the lower gears. It's...wow, that's really embarrassing sounding, you know? It sounds like I have no idea how to drive a stick shift and am burning out the clutch at every stoplight and...wow, I AM burning out the clutch at every stoplight, if that awful smell is any indication.

I attempt to solve the problem by turning off the air conditioning and lowering the windows. I should really apply for The Amazing Race or something.

By the time I get to Noah's school, however, it's clear that the air conditioning has nothing to do with it, like NO SHIT SHERLOCK, and I ponder my options:

1) Call Jason, get instructed to turn the air conditioning off, get into a snippy fight about that because SHERLOCK, NO SHIT, ask him to put the baby and himself in a car with an about-to-blow tire to come get Noah and I, have him arrive only for the car to magically fix itself and drive totally fine because THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT WOULD HAPPEN AND YOU KNOW IT.

2) Risk it and drive home.

I go with option 2 because:

1) The car is driving fine in the higher gears, if I can just get to the highway without having to stop too many times I'll be okay, and

2) It's not like a clutch just up and dies completely in the span of 24 hours, right?*

*I fully admit that I have NO IDEA what the actual accepted answer to this question is, but it sounded good at the time.

Of course, I hit every. Single. Red light. Between his school and the highway. The on-ramp is backed up and we slow to a crawl. I beg the car to stay in second. BEG. Out loud, alternating between soothing little-engine-that-could pep talks and profanity-laden threats of selling it for scrap. Shit, I lose second. First is completely fucked. Rev rev REV! We're still moving and I bash the shifter around trying to get the car to go into any gear. Pick a gear! Come on! You can do it! Or I will set you on fire! Yay!

We get on the highway and away from the traffic and I'm in fifth gear and the car is revving up close to the red band and we're going...40 miles an hour. And dropping. The car's essentially in neutral and I realize that okay, OKAY. This isn't going to happen, time to cry uncle and pull over.

The second my brain finally makes this brilliant, belated decision, there's a loud BANG, like a tire blowout, and a puff of smoke. I make it to the side of the road and stop the car, where my OH SHIT NOW WHAT problem-solving session is immediately interrupted by Noah. 

(Aside: Of course this would happen right when Noah is in that stage where he's just fully realized that cars get into accidents and people get hurt and ambulances and fire trucks are more than just fun sirens. The other car's "bumpy tire" has been a point of constant obsession with him, especially since he overheard me take responsibility for hitting the curb, which meant Mommy was in a Car Accident, which is a Big Scary Deal.)

He's terrified. "Did someone hit us? Did we have a car accident?" he asks, over and over again. I try to reassure him that we're okay, that something just broke on the car but we're okay! We'll be okay! PLEASE ALLOW THE CONSTANT HOLLOW PROMISES COMING FROM MY MOUTH TO SERVE AS YOUR PERSONAL 'EVERYTHING IS OKAY ALARM'.

Next, I call Jason and freak out all over the place at him. The clutch! The car! There was a bang! And smoke! Shit just got REAL, MAN.

Jason asks if I'd tried turning off the air conditioning. I temporarily pixelate myself into invisible radio wave particles that travel through my phone to go murder him on the other end. Then I say yes.

Miraculously, I discover that I have a AAA card in my wallet. Even more miraculously, it has not expired. 

Last Friday Until Like, RIGHT NOW, Oh My God, Is What It Felt Like:

AAA promises a tow, escalates my case because there's a child in the car and other cars are flying by at high speeds, and I watch them from my side mirror in a total panic because a truly SHOCKING number of people have serious issues STAYING ON THEIR SIDE OF THE WHITE LINE. 

A cop arrives and sets out some flares and promises to check back soon to make sure the tow truck arrives, and I think back to the only other time I was ever stranded on the side of the road after a tire blew out on this very same car, on this very same stretch of highway. 

(That blow out was fully and wholly Jason's fault because he took the car to some kind of crazy rally racing thing, where he wore all the tread off the tires in a single day, and then got all caught up in further endless comparison shopping about finding the perfect tires.) 

(Apparently there are all sorts of options besides "round.")

I call Jason back just to point out that hey, are you noticing a pattern here? You put off some kind of important general maintenance thing and yet I'm the one who nearly dies in a fiery blaze of horror on I-270? 

We also agree that he should probably risk driving the other car and come get poor Noah, who greets this news not with relief, but SHEER UNADULTERATED PANIC, because of the BUMPY TIRE! We can't drive with the BUMPY TIRE! We will have a CAR ACCIDENT! The compliceman will YELL AT US! And every other assorted car safety lesson I have ever spouted at him suddenly came back and bit me in the ass. And here I didn't even think he'd been listening.

Jason arrives and offers to stay with the Bad Car while I drive the boys home in the Not Quite As Bad Car. I eye the other car and decide that you know what? I'd really rather stay with the one that's a bit further along in the broke-down-towing process. Thanks though!

I get to ride in a tow truck for the first time ever! It's not really as fun as you'd think.

 

(I pretended like I wasn't taking this picture because OMG, who takes pictures while in a tow truck? Me? Noooooo. Except yes.) 

I take a cab home from the auto repair shop, since Jason broke out in a case of post-bumpy-tire-traumatic stress once he got the boys safely home and didn't want to drive it again. He sends me a text message, though, while I'm waiting for the cab to arrive:

new tire just came.

Today: 

New tire installed on the one car, still sitting around in the zero sum game of Everything Going To Shit All At Once, waiting to hear back from the auto shop about whether the clutch went peacefully or if that bang sound managed to take out the entire transmission in a glorious flaming act of automotive murder-suicide. The guys on the forums said it might be the flywheel or half shaft or clutch hub or maybe the shaftyshaftzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzboring.

Patience is an ocean

On the first day of our vacation, I took Noah to the beach. Just us. Jason was putting out one last work fire. Ezra was...well, he was eating, having already figured out that 1) all the food here was delicious, and 2) he could get into the kitchen via an always-open back door, and that there was ALWAYS someone in there cooking something, and they were ALWAYS happy to give him a taste, like an over-eager puppy begging for scraps.

So Noah and I went to the beach. I might as well have taken him to the dentist, because he did not want to go to the beach, because of the ocean. He did not want to go near the ocean. He did not want to look at the ocean or hear the ocean. NO OCEAN. He stood as far back on the sand as he possibly could, practically climbing up a wall of rocks in his bare feet, adamant about the NO OCEAN part.

The ocean in Jamaica is not like the ocean here, which knocked Noah over two summers ago and he has refused to go near since. (He holds a mean grudge, I've learned.) It's calm, shallow. There's no undertow and the breakers barely come above your knees. But he didn't care. NO OCEAN. I went in the water without him. I waved and cajoled and explained. I tried to talk him into sticking just a toe in, or to just come a little closer where we could build a sandcastle.

NO OCEAN. He said he wanted to go back to the house.

And I felt that familiar feeling. I was frustrated and annoyed, even though technically I understood. Technically. But still. COME ON. It was like the end of every birthday party or disastrous outing, the miserable ultimate conclusion of something that was supposed to be fun. I felt that tired old instinct to throw up my hands and say FINE. WHATEVER. WE'LL LEAVE. To give up.

Most of the time at home, I admit: I just give up.

I sat down next to Noah and tried to think of what else I could say. He was throwing sand, something we're always scolding him about at the crowded Maryland beaches, where there's wind and other people to annoy. He looked at me, waiting for the rebuke. Instead, I picked up a clump of sand and hurled at the water's edge.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER." I shouted.

Noah looked at me like I'd lost my mind. But he smiled. I did it again.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

Another smile, this time with dimple. He picked up some sand and threw it at the ocean, repeating my challenge.

We did this for awhile. Then I crept closer and stomped on a wave as it lapped up the beach. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER." I kicked at it, sending a spray upward. Noah laughed.

And he came over and kicked the next wave. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME EITHER, WATER," he shouted.

After awhile, I picked him up and took the plunge. We waded in. He clung to my neck and howled. The water touched his feet and he screamed.

I smacked at the water, making another huge splash. "YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

Noah raised his head from where he'd buried it in my shoulder and watched me splash again. I walked in a little deeper and he hesitantly reached his hand out to hit the water's surface. It splashed back over both of us...and he laughed.

"YOU DON'T SCARE ME, WATER."

And from that moment on, it didn't.