Road Trip

Now that the structured summer activities are behind us - camp for AD, work/release program for the RM - I've been going a little bit stir crazy. I admittedly have it pretty easy, but there are only so many hours you can ignore your children at the pool before you start feeling a little guilty, and a lot restless. Since the RM is getting better about traveling I've been talking to JHP about doing a family trip somewhere, and I've also been realizing that my parents were either incredibly unsophisticated or else were trying to kill or disable Cslos and me growing up. Mom and Dad were great about taking us on family trips but the destinations and methodology were at times terribly suspect.

One vacation that was particularly memorable is our drive out west  in our 1970's child molester Econoline. The trip itself was fantastic overall - Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, all that - but we had a couple of unplanned detours that were Sketchy McSketcherson. Dad would stop for anything, ANYTHING, including one particularly awful homemade water slide right off the highway. This thing had been clumsily carved out of the side of a hill, coated with blacktop and powered by a garden hose running from the top of it. In what I'm assuming was commensurate with the demand, the water was off when we drove up so we had to wait a few minutes while the proprietor coated it enough to make it somewhat slideable. It was terrible; scoot yourself down a driveway after a light rain and you've got the idea. Multiple abrasions. Mom wouldn't even get out of the van; she just sat there, shaking her head and talking to herself. Part of me still isn't certain this wasn't part of a never-aired hidden camera show. I guess Dad didn't think that was upsetting enough because a few days later we stopped at what I can only describe, generously, as a Soviet amusement park. It was basically a parking lot with a Scrambler that was missing several cars, a miniature merry-go-round like the ones you see in front of grocery stores, a free-standing porch swing and three tricycles on an oval track. If there had been a concession stand it would have offered a single rotten turnip. Obviously the question is why wouldn't we stop here? There was all of one employee in the whole place, so if you wanted to ride anything you'd have to follow him over to a card table to buy tickets, then accompany him back to whatever had tickled your fancy. He had to actually operate the Scrambler and the carouselish thing, but we could handle the swing and the tricycles pretty well on our own, being that they were a swing and tricycles. I think the worst part about this place is that it was in the middle of nowhere, meaning Dad actually had made an effort to find it. Thanks to our horrid van with the blacked-out windows and the permanent "someone farted" look on Mom's face, it probably looked like Dad had kidnapped this poor woman and her daughters and just wanted to give them a bit of fun before gutting them like deer.

Another time Dad got a wild hair to head to Dogpatch, USA, a C-list theme park deep in the Ozarks dedicated to the characters of relentlessly unentertaining cartoonist Al Capp. Even more random, one of their chief attractions was grass skiing, an activity that consisted of strapping miniature tank treads to your feet and shooting down a mountain. Since even Dad saw the foolishness in that we mostly hung out with Li'l Abner Yokum and the Shmoo, or goofed off in the RV we'd borrowed from one of my dad's partners. My parents were quite comfortable with this particular vehicle, having used it - no shit - on several occasions to shuttle contraband cases of Coors beer to Memphis (a la Smokey and the Bandit) where it was banned due to its lack of pasteurization, so it was a familiar home away from home. It was also a fun ride for Cslos and me since they didn't make us use seatbelts at all; we were free to roam about as we pleased. This doesn't strike me as being quite as dangerous as when they drove to Nashville with us laying prone in the hatchback of Mom's two-seater Datsun 280Z, but still, Dr. Spock won't be giving them any awards.

 



 

Offering complimentary tours of our new meth labs

Obviously, I mostly blame Dad for all this though Mom isn't totally off the hook; while he came up with 90% of the content she sat back and let it happen. It's like that Martin Niemoller quote about when the Nazis came for the communists I remained silent, etc.; Mom's quiet acquiescence bought her a tour of the Corn Palace and a couple of nights at the Sioux City Best Western, among other indignities. I'm also a little concerned that I might have inherited a bit of this from Dad because just this week I felt it would be a good idea to take AD to White Water, a water park that, while not homemade, was briefly shut down a few years ago due to a scorching e coli outbreak. I'm almost certain I saw at least three people there who were in the process of peeing, and one of them wasn't even in the water at the time.

At least I didn't drive her there in the back of this thing. Good times.

Serial Killer

All this hoopla over the royal baby has made me remember how strange it felt as we waited for our own much-anticipated arrival, the Red Menace. It should go without saying that we also very much looked forward to AD's birth, but since she was our first child we were incredibly naive about the reality of it all. We were also incredibly naive in that we figured we could just have another kid anytime we wanted one. Getting pregnant with AD was a piece of cake and cost to the penny the price of a nice dinner at Floataway Cafe, whereas the RM turned out to be more of a college tuition. One of them fancy ones, too, not that two year baloney. After a year of trying to get pregnant again, my doctor put me through a really fun battery of tests (please note: when someone as clinical and detached as an endocrinologist advises you to take a painkiller before a procedure, you're better off shoving a bottle of Advil up your ass than actually swallowing it because that shit is going to HURT. Your best bet is to head downtown at midnight with a fat roll of twenties or make friends with someone who has a back injury; you'll want the good stuff.) and a heavy dose of Clomid. Clomid is a medical irony - it's supposed to chemically increase your chances of getting pregnant while at the same time turning you into such an irrational heifer that no one you want getting you there can actually stand to be around you. I say "supposed" to, because neither happened to me. I didn't get pregnant, and I experienced zero mood swings, which we might owe to the fact that I'm kind of a hormonal bitch already.

So. We moved on to IUI, commonly known as artificial insemination. JHP came with me to a few of those, but I went on my own for the last several tries simply because I liked the idea of saying "oh, I got pregnant while my husband was in New York on business..." We tried that move seven times before our doctor said we either needed to get a store-bought kid or bring out the big guns and go in vitro. We've always planned on adopting at some point, but we figured at this point let's dance with who brung ya and see how this plays out, no big deal. Are you laughing at how dumb we are? Because you should be. Here is what most people who have gone through in vitro will share with you about what it's really like: nothing. You will just see the beautiful end result and not realize that getting there was a full-time job of suckiness. I would rather be dipped in gasoline and work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory than to have that job again. For one thing: there are shots. Lots of them, and I don't mean the fun kind off of a rando 18 year old's abs in St. Barths. Furthermore if you have the kind of husband who, during your injection training class, breaks the needle off inside the orange that is serving as your body's stunt double, you have to give them to yourself. A couple of times in the beginning I drank so much before I could inject myself that it did cross my mind that any baby resulting from this venture would come out looking like a hammerhead shark. Because I can rationalize anything - especially whilst working up enough liquid courage to pummel my stomach and ass with needles on a thrice-daily basis - I figured FAS, schmeffAS, at least my kid will be all the better able to detect predators who approach from the periphery.

Another thing was the wand. Dear God, the wand! Once you start producing the 8 million extra eggs that in vitro requires, they check you daily with this thing. It's aptly named because just like magic it will have you feeling like you're a gym bag that someone's rummaging through for their lost sneaker. I felt that since we were so intimately acquainted that it deserved a more personal name, so I called it Santonio Holmes. Santonio rogered me so roundly, so often, that I still gag a little bit every time I see a Terrible Towel.

 

 

Don't even try to act like you didn't see those shower pictures on the internet. And no, it helped not at all that he's hot.

Ooooff. It was around this point in the process that JHP told me that providing sperm samples made him "uncomfortable!"; it was also around this point that I decided that I will one day write a book called Fools I Have Known And Been Married To. And sneak up on him and Santonio the shit out of him.

Oh and let's not forget the cost. I won't get into specifics, but go out and buy a new Ford Fiesta, drive it off a cliff and see how financially responsible you feel. Then do it over and over. At the end of the day we had 30 embryos down the (faulty fallopian) tubes and one last gasp of a batch on ice, and that's our little Red Menace. By the time I finally managed to get pregnant with her, JHP and I had almost completely lost sight of the fact that the end result of all this was an actual tiny person. I kept thinking that maybe I'd have a puppy, or one of those giant cardboard golf tournament checks - I knew I was going to get a neat prize at the end, but I just kind of forgot what that entailed. You can definitely tell from the pictures in the days following her birth that we were both a little confused by what the hell kind of bait and switch we'd just fallen prey to. It was a Nigerian royalty internet baby scam, I guess.

 

Look what we found in the couch cushions. I was actually looking for a Cartier watch.

 

Fortunately for us, we had time to get our sea legs back because that baby slept a LOT. We were kind of concerned (in a happy, rested way) until we realized she was probably just exhausted from killing all those other babies. There's no doubt that kid clawed her way to the top of the petri dish to get here. That hypothesis always amused me a bit until her personality began to develop to the point that we now realize we might seriously be on to something; she is psychotic. Just today we were at Moe's enjoying a nice Moo Moo Mr. Cow meal when I accidentally dropped her juice box; her response was to slap me on the boob and scream at the top of her lungs "DAMMIT WOMAN!" I don't know how Kate Middleton would react to her kid doing something like that, but you can be sure that I'm pretty freaking jealous of her staff right about now, not to mention the family and friends rate that kid will get at the Tower of London cells. I wish nothing but the best of luck to them and to all new parents, as well as those trying to get there. I may have a critter you can borrow in the meantime; just keep a tight grip on the juice box.



Back That Shit Up

JHP travels for work a lot. As in, usually every week, and usually to places that require relatively long plane rides, like Seattle or Los Angeles. Since I am in possession of both a healthy dose of airplane paranoia and what my therapist likes to call "an active inner life", I'm pretty sure he's going to die any day now. Preparations are therefore in order.

I wasn't always nervous about airplanes; until I was in my mid-twenties in fact I didn't really give flying a second thought. That changed when I was flying home to D.C. and was involved in something that wasn't actually a plane crash, but that was definitely plane-crashy. We were taking off at the Savannah airport when a tire blew and got sucked into the left engine, which then caught fire. All of this was conveniently located right by my seat so I saw the whole shitstorm unfold. We were told later that the plane was too heavy and too far into the takeoff process to stop so we had to lift off as best we could, dump the fuel and then come back to the airport for an emergency landing. It was the longest fifteen minutes of my life, longer even than AD's Christmas recital and I swear I came out of that thing with longer hair. In the end (and in spite of the terribly unhelpful flight attendant who ran up and down the aisle sobbing) everything turned out fine; my seatmate didn't even get anything on me when she shat herself, which I appreciated. So, yes, since then I've not been the biggest fan of air travel. Part of me knows that the odds are ridiculously on my side when it comes to something like that happening again, but a bigger part just wishes that planes only reached an altitude of ten feet.

The first thing I did to prepare for my impending widowhood was to consider a potential career. This is a thorny one, since I am almost unemployable in the state of Georgia by virtue of the fact that I worked in the U.S. Congress for 12+ years. For Democrats. Job-wise I would have more luck had I focused on the Congress of the Cow instead. I could probably get a job in retail or in the service industry, but that would involve having to actually make an effort, so I stuck with things I could accomplish from my desk because you can't teach that kind of gumption. After much reflection, preparation and study, I was eventually ordained as a minister.

I hereby pronounce me Mrs. Henry Cavill

 

And by "eventually", I mean five minutes after I got on the internet. It was a rigorous process; I was required to provide my shipping information and click on a box that said I was submitting my application under my real name and not using an alias. I guess they don't want an unsanctioned Reverend Sheriff Roy Mucus of Scrotum County running around out there, calling the legitimacy of the church into question. All of this for only $25 - extra if you want a "Clergy" parking placard. I also became a notary, something that was quite a bit more involved in that I had to actually mail something in. It was exhausting. Since it's always a good idea to advance your education I also decided to look into some online classes, but this went off the rails pretty quickly. For one thing, the first step in applying to any of the prestigious Kaplan University programs involved consulting with a representative, and I don't do that. Secondly the classes were either things that actively terrify me - Medical Terminology, Public Speaking - or things that are probably actively terrified of me - Fire Science, Criminological Theory. Nope.

 

With such limited career options I decided the best course would be for me to remarry as quickly as possible. Since I couldn't come up with any good JHP2.0 candidates on my own, I figured I'd get with the times and look online. Match.com was more than happy to help; within a few hours they'd found quite a few potential soulmates for me, including

"CANTBBROK". I CANTDISAGREE with that sentiment, but I also wonder if he's issuing a threat rather than expressing a desire. He looks as if he's mid-heist. Possibly not the best father figure for my girls. Then there was this fellow who went by "THENIGHTRANGER"

I don't know what he means by that, but I don't like it. Not at all. This guy looks like he'd sneak around in your backyard wearing nothing but a diaper and oven mitts. One of my "Premium Matches!" was this guy, a gentleman who clearly plays fast and loose with the truth

"IMNOTOAD". Sir, we need to discuss a few things.

 

Screw this noise. I'm just going to have to get JHP to go Greyhound and buy a much bigger life insurance policy.



Scare Tactics

Things have been a little slow over here for the last few days, and in my anhedonia I've had no choice but to turn to scaring my children for entertainment. At first it was softball kind of stuff, like hollering "there's a giant spider on your head!" or telling bedtime stories about a President Rick Perry Supreme Court, but all the rain started to really depress me so I had to go bigger. Lately my favorite thing to do is to hide somewhere and yell for the girls, then jump out and scare the living shit out of them. AD has 8 years of living with me under her belt so she just usually squeals and runs away, but the RM, being relatively new to the scene, positively freaks out. It's excellent. She tends to lock up and fall over, like one of those fainting goats you see on YouTube. Sure, she's subsequently developed a pretty oversized phobia of blind corners and draperies, but I'm sure she'll be fine. This sort of behavior - both the need to scare as well as the hair-trigger startle reflex - runs in my family like a Hapsburg jaw.

I mostly blame my dad. He never missed a chance to scare Cslos and me when we were growing up, and as a physician and therefore the owner of an endless supply of terrifying medical journals and magazines, his arsenal was mighty indeed. To be fair, it was usually in the name of safety and/or discipline; he'd show us a picture of a morbidly obese earless man covered in pustular acne, for example, and very solemnly tell us "....and look what happened to THIS poor little girl when she decided she wanted a skateboard...". He was not, however, averse to revulsion as sport, and for that reason we knew that when a new "Lancet" or JAMA arrived in the mail it would be prudent to steel ourselves for photos of Thalidomide babies or battlefield amputations hidden under our pillows or in coat pockets.

don't say the word "motorcycle" three times 



 

I think I took it all better than Cslos did. She emerged from childhood a relatively nervous person and being the loving big sister I was, I hopped on that like a duck on a junebug. She was so high-strung that at times you could just be sitting across the table from her and say "boo" in a totally normal tone of voice, and she'd jump like you'd taken a cattle prod to her. One time I pulled a pair of pantyhose over my head, snuck outside, pressed my face against her window and promptly shaved ten years off of her life. When she saw me she turned milk white and did her best Fred Sanford "Elizabeth I'm coming to join you" chest-clutching before collapsing against the wall; it was a while before she spoke to me again.

 

When AD was four I had a window into what it must be like to have a hysterical temperament; Carol, my mother-in-law, sent her a walking Elmo mylar balloon for Valentine's Day that made me as jumpy as a virgin at a prison rodeo. Let me just say that I was not too shocked to hear about the allegations against Kevin Clash because this Elmo was a serious asshole. He would wait until my guard was completely down (usually in the evenings after a glass of wine. Very opportunistic, this Muppet), shuffle noiselessly up from behind and have me blindly lunging for a butcher knife. It was as if we were constantly being burgled in a Fellini film.

 

 

the original Red Menace of Birchwood Drive.  It really needs to wipe that fucking smile off its face.

 

I had no choice but to use Elmo's powers for my purposes, so I started hiding it from JHP. One morning he found it in the shower, another time he opened his closet to find a tie and instead, out ambles Elmo. I always knew when he'd been discovered because JHP screams like a falsetto child. Quite distinctive. I really got him when I belted Elmo into the driver's seat of his car one night - I think he peed a tiny bit. Shortly after that, Elmo was somehow mysteriously flattened which I was okay with because my hair had started coming in gray from the lifestyle.

 

The girls better hope this weather clears up soon, because I know where to get an Elmo balloon, and a "Lancet". Not to mention a pair of pantyhose.