Looking Like Your Mother

Sick Snap Crap and the Reality Show Gen

"Is this going to work?" the prom date asks.
I look up at her. My middle child has a heat seeking method of discourse, along with a short stature and a tremendous pair of breasts. This means that with every dressy outfit some type of alteration is needed. It also means that high school boys ask her out a lot. It's my understanding that their ears aren't fully developed at this stage.

"I had to sew my own clothes when I was your age," I say, because god forbid I pick up a needle and someone doesn't hear that. 

"I know. I've like heard it eight times."

"Eight times? Eight times? Is that the best hyperbole you've got? You can't say 'a million' or even just 'a hundred'? What, did the kid that came up with 'sick' for 'excellent' do all the work for you guys and now you don't have to work your verbal creativity for another ten months?"

"Let me get this straight," she said. "You want me to give you a harder time?"

"Because it is inevitable, yes. But it better be done with some thought, some originality, some effort. Do you understand? 'Eight times.' What kind of response is that?"

"Sick," she says with a smile.

Yes. Much.

On Tact

If you Google "child comes home from college" you get a lot of articles about lazy graduates who want to save money and live off Mom and Dad for a while and almost as many about the kids who annoy their parents by coming home and thinking that house rules no longer apply.

None of these articles interest me.

My daughter, our first born whose most affectionate nickname earned during high school was Morning Nazi, will arrive for a two week break before moving on for some additional summer education. As much as I love her, I would be less than honest if I said I wasn't a little apprehensive. The rest of us are in for a two week crash course on how

We do not eat right.
We do not exercise as much as we should.
We do not pick up after ourselves quickly enough.
We do not pay close enough attention to the detail of our attire, our hair, and our fingernails.

We are doomed.

T.H. White, the author of The Sword and The Stone, once offered, "The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment."

The first time I saw that quote, I thought of my daughter. Tonight I realized that I have my own summer assignment. I'm going to learn to set a good example on how to bite one's tongue.

Blogging doesn't count. 

Long Week for Only Tuesday

The middle child got off the plane from a language immersion trip, kissed the ground at the airport hub in Atlanta, and professed her love of the sound of all things that sound like English. "We are rich here," she explained to me later. "We have so much more than other people." Her language skills still suck, but it sounds like she learned more than I could have hoped for.

The oldest child announced that someone is promoting her for a shot on American Princess. I told her that judging by the Internet video, the only chance she has of getting on the show is if I kick out a few of her teeth, she tells the producers her daddy is a convict, and she moves to a central square state, finds religion and begins caring for stray dogs and cats.

She's thinking about it.

An acquaintance's father recently passed. She is from Eastern Europe, and flew home in time to sit by his bedside and hold his hand while he died. As he took his last breath, he looked into her eyes. He was only in his 50's, she in her 20's. She has been here for the past few years, studying and trying to find a way to become a US citizen. Now, I suspect, she will feel too tired to continue her efforts here, and instead elect to go home and keep her mother company. Once she leaves, it is unlikely she will come back except as a tourist.

She does not believe in any afterlife and I suspect that she might have seen a bit of fear in her father's eyes. I don't know why, except that I know he was clearheaded enough to not want to die. I understand my friend's perspective and for two days now have been trying to compose something for her in my scattered brain. Tap tap tap something about how we live life more fully and more kindly when it feels finite; tap tap tap then something about how I know she will always being able to pull an image of his face to mind any time she needs support; tap tap tap maybe adding that it was better that she could be there for him, better than it is for so many who die without warning or a chance to remind loved ones how much they appreciate them. . . . But before I put my thoughts on paper, a gunman does his damage at Virginia Tech. Backspace, backspace, backspace.

If I had finished my letter and sent it out, events at VT would have proved my point to her, and given her, I don't know, maybe 1/1,000,000,000,000 of a second of resbit. Something. Anything. To say the same thing now, however, would sound too dramatic, too much like smarmy violins at the Olympics.

Death happens so fast that there must be a natural countervailing law: life must be lived with equal force.

Be Sure to Include a Straw Hole for Wine

It was another late-nighter, this time caused by an invention contest for my first grader.

The contest sounded good at first, when she brought the paper home. "I want to make a robot that can help kids who can't walk."

"That's great honey, but to do that you will need different parents. What other ideas do you have?" I asked, noting that the state-wide contest pretty much left instructions off at "No time machines or flying saucers."

"I'm the only first grader that signed up for it!" she exclaimed the next day. "Mom, you gotta get me outta this." She sounded like she meant it, or else she has been watching too much Suite Life and other Disney channel ham-n-egging sitcoms. I laughed and, calculating the dramatic increase in odds of success, didn't let her out.

She made something, and she worked hard at it, from conception to design to production of component parts, and I said I would offer to package it up for her, which seemed so ministerial at the time and involved the use of a finger taking off tool, but arts and crafts mon dieu, the whole dining room is covered with slivers of paper and typos.  I helped her carry the project into school this morning and I asked her homeroom teacher if next year couldn't they just make bad birdhouses as everyone else. The teacher began to explain the need to use creative thought. I felt the need to explain the concept of weak humor.

And fine if the six-year-old gets a lot of attention today but does anyone know how much not getting enough sleep does to my face. I swear, the entire inner structure - from malar to beneath the nasolabial folds - seems to melt like a living version of The Scream.  I wonder why that is. I can see it. I can add or lose 5 years depending on how much sleep I have had the week before, which usually means that when I am working on something intense that requires an accompanying live presentation, damn if I'm not dreaming of anti-gravity boots.

It would be easier to get enough sleep, to plan ahead, to be organized, but that would have required me to have had different parents. I think my daughter and I are going to simply have to spend some time this year inventing a face brace that I can wear when I have to stay vertical all night. Now that would be one second-grade presentation I would pay money to see, followed, no doubt, by a totally free parent-teacher consultation.

And it Lands on the Face

The most difficult part about being an American, two-job holding, workaholic married to a Swede is the constant vacation planning.

See, first Swedes are European, so they expect a solid six weeks off per year, regardless of good behavior. Second, Swedes are Swedes and although they somehow managed to put the murder and most of the Viking mayhem behind them several centuries ago, the need to get way out of the house for long periods of time seems to still be stuck in their blood. These two factors mean that I can pretty much set my calendar to the Call of the Wild. If he is asking about Summer vacationing, it is January. If he is asking about Spring skiing, it is October. My throat tightens and anxiety rises in my chest when these subjects are raised, but I have learned that the same thing happens to him if I ignore the question for too long.

We have for many years quite satisfactorily handled Spring break by spending a week in the Italian Alps. It works for him because it is technically a vacation and ostensibly exercise. It works for the rest of us because it is warm, not really exercise, and filled with plenty of Italian food and wine bars every 10 feet down the slopes.

When global warming made its ugly presence quite known this year in our favorite places, I figured that skiing - and hence a week off - was off. But no, he announced from his overseas office one day. "I have great news. There is plenty of snow in Jackson Hole in a state called 'Wy-o-ming' and plenty of things to do there. We are all set."

What he didn't know was that I had already been there when I was a thick waisted ten-year-old in saddle shoes and pig tails. Up until then, my most exciting adventure had been my best friend's new Mystery Date board game. In the great State of Wyoming, in the middle of summer, I was frozen cold. Teton Lake was frigid and pebbly. Then, the moment I started to relax and behave like a kid, I jumped over the high end of a culvert only to land, turn around and find the enormous head of a bear filling up the opening I had just passed over. Did I mention I was cold? This is a ski resort for black diamond extreme skiers.  We weren't going to sunny, fur coat-lined, smoke cigarettes while you ski and kiss Italy. We were going to Hell Hole.

Of course now I am not so afraid. I am resigned to my death. Especially since my shoulder was so much worse than the doctor thought and I will not have his permission to ski and I will have to tell my husband that I do have the doc's permission because I screwed up last year's trip with someone's tonsillectomy. I spent a few hours tonight looking for a special shoulder brace. I haven't found one yet that comes with a holster. I want one with a holster for a pistol just in case that bear is still there. Is that what one uses for bears? Pistols? Oh, I haven't even considered what I am going to wear yet. Have I mentioned that the whole area is a huge volcano that is ready to blow at any moment. Yes, just ask Bill Bryson or John McPhee. Or go to Google Earth and try to find the Yellowstone caldera. It blows every 600,000 years and the last time it went was 660,000 years ago. This is going to be dreadful. On the other hand, maybe not so cold.

To convince you that I am not exaggerating about how much more advanced this place is than our family's skill level, my husband - a man - has already apologized. He thinks he may have made a mistake.

That, of course, changes things. That he came to this conclusion on his own and fessed up puts me on his side and will turn this whole thing into an adventure. So, first the brace, then the clothes. I suppose I have to hit the gym. I flight of stairs wipes me out. And of course I have to get down to the business of stressing about the high altitude sun damage to my melatonin-challenged face.

Maybe I should have started on this last October.

Stop Paying Attention

“You are left handed,” the dental hygienist told me.

“Noh, I’ng a whytie,” I replied

“That’s odd,” she responded. “You brush like a lefty. The teeth on the right side of your mouth are cleaner than on the left.”

“She said I spend more time brushing my teeth on the right side,” I told my daughter that evening.

“I noticed that,” my daughter replied.

I cannot get “I noticed that” out of my head. Why would a teenage anything pay attention to a parent’s tedious, hardly consistent oral moment, and do it enough to detect a pattern that was oblivious even to the parent? Was I being studied? That would be a bad idea. I justify my missteps with “I did this so you don’t have to” and dismiss transgressions with “Do as I say, not as I do.” I have done my very best, mind you, but there are land mines at Mommy’s Role Model University. Even more troublesome is the fact that if the kids know that I am prone to give the right side of my mouth 16 passes with the brush and the left only 12, then the overall gig had to be up. I could say good-bye to any continued use of reverse psychology, passive aggressive conditioning, guilt fostering, and my own peculiar variation on scream therapy. I had become transparent.

But it still didn’t make sense. No one has ever really paid that kind of attention to me. No one hears me when I say, “Laundry is not my strong suit. Please fold this.” When stranded in the kitchen and I begin muttering, “Now why doesn’t this look like the picture in the cookbook?” nobody rescues me with, “Dad, let’s take Mom out to dinner.” When it takes me 37 seconds to straighten my back after an hour with the weed-puller, I have yet to feel another pair of hands gently realign my shoulders. Who says, “You look tired, Mom. Let me fill the dishwasher, empty the garbage, feed the dog, pour you more wine, pick up the coats, and run to the grocery store for you”? No one who isn’t grounded for three months and pushing for early parole. No one who isn’t desirous of The Biggest Present Ever, that’s for sure.

No, I don’t think I was being studied. They were, however, paying attention.

I remember how my mom was when I was young. Her skies were always blue, her clouds were inevitable cumulous, and she overcame basketloads of ironing during the afternoon soaps. Calm stuff. Mom was always dressed nicely, with her hair in place and lipstick applied. There may have been a pair of white knee-high boots in the early 70’s, but for the most part she held back. Her manner was similarly reserved and filtered. I don’t remember her raising her voice much or using words indelicately. This is not to say she didn’t; she just didn’t do it enough for me to remember. And I have no idea how she brushed her teeth. I can’t even say I recall her ever setting foot in our bathroom. It’s quite possible she never did, but instead, as with all good mothers - you know, that group of self-sacrificing women who gave birth to their last child way before the 1990’s, she waited until she could get to her own mom’s house and use that facility so as to not tie up ours.

No, the vanity part never caught my attention. My grandmother had wafted through life on the scent of Ponds and breezy cotton sheers, so it wasn’t as if as a child I was completely oblivious to all things powder room. I was more captured by something else Mom would do. Once a week she would sit with the newspaper and read Erma Bombeck’s column and laugh until she cried. Then she would pick up the phone, call her sister, and the laugh-until-she-cried part would start again.

I would stop what I was doing and listen to a mother transformed. I liked the sound of it, this uncontrolled laughter that was brought on by nothing more than a reference to widening hips, grocery carts, and teenage kids. When I got a little older, I would pick up the paper and investigate the source of the commotion. I could read the column and remember seeing things like teenagers and piles of laundry and a husband, but it did not have the same magic for me, things like:

“My husband’s infatuation with Angie Dickinson had wound down and I noted the same ecstasy he used to reserve for her pictures now appeared in his face whenever his soup was hot.” (Erma Bombeck, 1979.)

Now, I get it. Now, I think that is one funny line. But before I get sidetracked by vague recollections of Police Women and Burt Bacharach songs, I need to get back to my concern. If my grandmother left her lasting imprint with scent, and my mother in sound, how would my own children remember me? Certainly not with perfume. Most days the best I can hope for is clean. I would not likely be anything associated with listening, either. I talk so much at my kids that to them my voice must sound either like the “Wop, wop, wop” of Charlie Brown’s teacher or the “Blah, blah, blah, of Larson’s “What dogs hear” cartoon. The only thing left for the senses would be imagery, and my theory that they were at least paying attention with their eyes did have some support. I have had a fair amount of feedback over the years:

“Mom, when your face rests on the side, on the pillow like that, you look like a dog.”

“Seeing you standing by that other mother made you look almost normal, Mom”

“What do you mean you are careful? On your last trip, Mom, I watched you throw all your products loose into the suitcase. I can't believe your clothes aren't covered in eye makeup remover."

"You and I have the same hair," I said.

"Yes, we are twins!" my daughter replied.

"'Except that I am older and you are younger," I added.

"You can tell that you are older," she said.

Then there was the one that made me think that the next time I decide to invest in an overhaul, I should choose a doctor who arranges for recuperation at a far-away bed and breakfast. One night, the house was dark and quiet. The kids and I had gone to bed. As if suddenly transported to Walton’s mountain, a voice called out from the farthest bedroom,

“Mom, remember when you did that thing to your face (transl. chemical peel) and you looked so, so, bad (transl. cherry red blowfish scary bad)?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“Don’t ever do that again. Promise?”

I can almost hear them around somebody’s Thanksgiving table in 2046:

“How about the time Mom took us to the department store for shoes, and her face was all wrapped in white bandages. As she put on a big floppy hat, she said, ‘This will be fun. Wait ‘till you see how fast people move away from us and give us room to shop.’”

I wish Erma were still with us. For my kids’ sake, I need to work on my laugh.

Chestnuts Won't Roast

We have three fireplaces in our old house, but some time in the past century they were converted into a device designed only for holding chunks of burning coal.  We just look at them and wonder, que?  Until we win the lottery and have enough to redo them all into functioning units and, of course, give birth to a lumberjack, we will get by with the virtual fireplace for our tv. Don't laugh. It works I guess because we have a nice screen and because, who knew, the sound a crackling fire makes is a big part of the comfort.  If I am at my desk by myself, the noise is comforting. 

Grief is a Crowded Place

"You guys are going to kill me. I won't make it to 60," I complain to my middle child.
"You will outlive us all," she responds. "I have this feeling that you will be the last one standing."

I froze.   I had never considered the prospect of losing them all in my lifetime.

Joan Didion wrote recently that grief is a place that no one knows until they are there, that it washes over you in waves. It leaves you choking and nauseous and paralyzed. 

I disagree.  For the past seventeen years, I have experienced these physical manifestations at only the slightest thought that one of my children might die and I could no longer hold or watch or console. Such abject desolation could be triggered by news of another child's death or by the act of the sun setting in the West. This sensitivity has made it difficult for me to fly, and I am a lousy disciplinarian. My best intentions in work or parenting are crippled by the thought of a temporary act having forever consequences. This condition I suffer has also, I suspect, made it practically impossible to accept my own mortality. I cannot fathom life in a world without them anymore than I could image not being the world with them. 

I mentioned this once when I was in a salon.  The assistants working with me on a project were talking about some spiritual text they were passing between them.  Consistent with instructions to not discuss religion or politics at work, they were confiding to each other in abbreviations, keeping me from knowing the exact subject matter. I volunteered that part of the reason that I challenge the ravages of aging so much is my simple fault that I am afraid of dying. I like my life very much, thank you, and never want to leave. They looked at me and shook their heads in disappointment. The twenty-something said that she was not fearful of death, that it was a very acceptable part of life. The one closer to my age said that she would enjoy the prospect of exploring life on the other side. Tough luck for me, I guess, that I am no longer young enough to deny death's severity and scientific enough to doubt any probability of crossing over.

Now, thanks to my child's prediction, I have to make doubly sure that the kids all get with the program and hang about with sufficiency so that I am the first to go, as it should be. Starting today it is B12 shots for all, and a couple of Flintstones to boot.

C is not for Cesarian

Anyone who has peeked at the About Me page, can get a glimpse of what motivates me.  Vanity, fear of mortality, anger.  My mom has had a pretty rough deal, and she called last night to say that cancer has appeared in her remaining breast. "I am going to have a pretty mannish figure," she said with a sad giggle. 

"We all do, eventually, Mom." 

This time the cancer was caught much earlier.  She does not feel pain yet.  She does not feel pain and despite that pain told not to come back for four months for further evaluation, like the first time. She has a female doctor and feels good about that. She made a joke about a tummy tuck.  Still, she must be so afraid.  Her mother had a long remission too, but did not beat the second bout. Times are much better now.  Treatment is more advanced, more thorough.  She will still be afraid.  She wants me to call her doctor. I will.

I fell asleep last night wondering if her insurance would offer to give her two new breasts, or only one.  I have a feeling I know the answer.   

I want to be a moving target, keep the bad cells from ever catching up with me.  I want to pretend that I have retroactive control over my system.  I know it is only a matter of time, that I am in denial.  It is only a matter of time for all of us anyway.  Somehow it just helps me to keep moving. 

Closer to the sun

I am taking the family to the Italian Alps. They will learn to ski, learn to live in quaint quarters, learn to yell at each other in Italian.  I will get extremely sunburned, as the atmosphere is thin and we will be many more feet closer to the sun.  I have tried all sorts of numbers in the past, 60 to 100 - this time I am back to my Neutragena Ultra Sheer 45.  It feels silky smooth,   The active ingrediant is Parsol 1789.  The other product I brought, Total Block from Fallene is rated at 60, at color tinted a thickish beige.  Its active ingredient is titanium dioxide.  There was another thick-paste coverup foundation rated only at 20 spf, but I dont see how the sun could get through the near mason-quality spackle.  I cannot find it. I think I left it at home.  I cannot wait to try all these and watch my skin break out.

Or just give up and enjoy my malasma-lovely tan.