Mandajuice

Memorial Day Party at the ER

So I went to the ER on Monday. It was a TON of fun! Especially the part where I waited three hours to be seen and then another three hours for all my tests and then didn't get home until 2AM! That was EXACTLY how I wanted to spend the holiday.

I rode the exercise bike that afternoon (I've done 10 miles a day since I started two weeks ago!) and when I got off, I cracked open a Wyder's Pear Cider and went outside to read while Dave started the BBQ. When I went to adjust my glasses, I noticed my left hand looked trippy to me. And by trippy I mean actually psychedelic. My fingers jumped out at me oddly when they passed my face and I started messing around testing it, doing that you're going down a hallway thing my brother used to do to freak me out when we were kids. Then I went back to my book because it was no big deal.

A few minutes later, an odd gash of triangular pixels blurred the left side of my vision. It was WEIRD. Sparkly. It was just one line of sparkles, but I tried to keep reading and couldn't. I took my glasses off and on, nothing helped. My first thought was that I was having an optical migraine - my mom suffered from them when she started menopause and they were righteously freaky. The sparkles would take over her vision until she was temporarily blind. This was freaky too, but I didn't think anything of it because it went away twenty minutes later and I felt fine otherwise.

I went inside to make a salad (baby spinach, sliced mandarins, bacon, slivered almonds and champagne dressing FTW!) and my left ring finger went numb. Not tingly, not like I'd felt before from carpal tunnel syndrome, but DEAD. Within five minutes, all the fingers on my left hand were numb, even my thumb and when I told Dave, who was already freaked out by my blurred vision, he insisted on taking me to the doctor and the only doctor in town after five o'clock on Memorial Day is the one at the ER. On our way there, I noticed a metallic taste in my mouth, too, which only made Dave drive faster.

Of course by the time I got there, all my symptoms had disappeared and I felt 100% fine, but they wanted to get a CT scan to be sure my brains were still pretty. Dave was concerned (and still is) that I'd had a TIA - a mini-stroke, but once the symptoms subsided, there was really no way to be sure. All my tests came back normal, which is good, but I still have no idea what happened. I see my regular doctor tomorrow and I'm sure he'll be just as clueless.

The strange thing is that I can't seem to bring myself to worry about it. The symptoms were weird, but I felt FINE the whole time. They were just symptoms. I guess it's a good thing I married a man who worries enough for both of us -- it lets me off the hook.

This pretty much sums up my weekend

DAD I JUST DROVE AN EXCAVATOR!

You DID?  You're such a BIG GIRL!

I KNOW, RIGHT?!

I'm so proud of you!

Appropriate Sunday afternoon backyard discussion

Dave and I are chilling in the Adirondack chairs under the shade of the Birch trees trying to figure out the best place to someday put a spa in the backyard. He suggests a spot near the house and I say, "naw, not private enough; the neighbors could see us. If we get one, it has to be a bone-in spa."

Dave shakes his head and says, "No, that's not allowed.  It would scare the horses."

"Then what's the point of having a spa?" I ask. If I have to put on a bathing suit, it pretty much defeats the purpose, amiright?

"What's a bone-in spa?" Alex asks, suddenly appearing from behind the trees. "Why would it scare the horses?"

Random thoughts I probably should just Twitter, but I haven't seen the LOST finale yet, so I can't

* Is there actually a man alive who is turned on by the scent of lavender? Maybe I'm biased because I HATE that smell (I would rather stick my whole head into a diaper pail than smell it), but I recently read a romance novel in which the Hero loved the Heroine because she smelled like lavender and it made me want to gag. (I realize, BTW, that I'M the weird one and most people love the smell of lavender, but I think it must be a gene, one strikingly similar to the CILANTRO gene: you either like it or you DON'T. For me lavender + cilantro = full-body hurl.)

* Every morning Dave and I line up in front of our single-cup coffee maker and bitch at each other about who gets the first cup. If I get the first cup and I leave the milk out for him, since he puts it in his coffee too, he NEVER EVER puts the milk back away in the fridge. But when he gets it out himself, he ALWAYS puts it right back. I'm pretty sure this is subconscious, but seriously, what the hell?

* My ass has officially grown by ten whole pounds. Actually, my ass is EXACTLY the same size, but the upper tire in my dually belly has doubled. I think I finally figured it all out, too because the more I think about it, I'm actually eating LESS than I used to eat. I haven't had chips after dinner in so long I can't even remember, but I'm going to be honest here and say, I'm drinking more like 2-3 glasses of wine every night now. (Thanks to Eden Kennedy for suggesting Pinot Grigio, which is now my favorite thing to drink because I can find it at Trader Joe's for $4 a bottle!) Before the wine, I was admittedly OFTEN having a second cocktail after dinner every night and my vodka lemonades are literally something like 300 calories EACH. Which means all this extra junk in my trunk was IMBIBED.  I switched to wine because it has WAY less calories and is probably better for me than VODKA, but still, I steadfastly REFUSE to give it up because I enjoy sneaking up to the little office table in my bedroom and writing my book with a glass of wine. Among other things (cough) my SMITH & WESSON (cough), you can take my wine and my Big Macs FROM MY COLD DEAD HAND.

so...

* I've started exercising. I KNOW! It's crazy, but I felt like it was either that or give up booze and the very IDEA of giving up 100% of ANYTHING feels like a diet to me and that mentality is a dangerous road. The second I start thinking I'm not allowed to have something is the second I begin to crave and hoard it like I'm Elaine Benes with a Costco-sized box of Today Sponges. Telling myself to stop drinking would basically just be a shiny golden ticket to my first AA meeting. So today will be my fourth day riding Dave's exercise bike. I do it for a half hour or ten miles, whichever takes longer. It's not perfect, but it's SOMETHING.

* My house is a pig sty. I just thought I'd put that out there. And I'm not AT ALL exaggerating. If you came to my door right now, I'd turn you away.

* Book is coming along, as usual. I had a touch of writer's block recently because I'm butting up against word count. A single title romance is usually 90-100,000 words and I'm at 82k with about 40k of scenes to get through. I took the dilemma to my writing group and they gave me great advice: write it now, cut it down later. So that's what I'm doing.

* And while we're on the topic: thanks for all the excellent Motown song titles! I used them as fodder for what may be the cheesiest, most ridiculous series of text messages between grow-ups ever in the history of fiction, but WHATEV. They're in there and I love them.

PS - Does anyone have a reference for punctuation of TEXT MESSAGES in a novel? I'm totally flying by the seat of my pants here.

Not a bad week at all

On Wednesday, Alex's class hosted a Mother's Tea, to which I showed up un-bathed and wearing yesterday's sweater because it honestly didn't occur to me to dress up for it (like he was gonna notice?), but I let him take a picture of me anyway and it turned out sweet...
...and mercifully blurry.

The tea started off with my heart quietly breaking for the only little boy in Alex's class whose mother didn't show up. He sat next to Alex pretending not to look at the door every thirty seconds with this painfully stoic look on his face like it didn't matter that she wasn't coming. Then my heart broke even more when the principal noticed she was missing and called her and when the mom showed up ten minutes later, her kid smiled so wide that his face almost split in half, but she didn't notice because she was too cracked out to make eye contact with anyone, not even her own son.

God, I'm lucky.

Alex got up and served me some goodies and he was so adorably proud to have me there in his classroom that my heart recovered a little and did that pitter-patter thing every time I looked at him. Then I took a sip of the punch and it was like drinking frosted syrup and I leaned over to one of the other moms and whispered, "The only way I could drink something this sweet is if it had a shot of vodka in it." And this joke? DID NOT GO OVER WELL.  She gave me a look like I'd just suggested we blow off the whole preschool thing to go snort cocaine off a stripper's ass. Or something.

The good news is that are some great moms in Alex's class who I really like and who apparently love GOATS! (Sorry, inside joke for my friend Kristie, whose daughter randomly answered GOAT! when asked what her mother's favorite animal was) I'm going to miss them when school gets out. I have Alex signed up for camp all summer long and we'll do T-ball again, but it won't be the same.

* * *
On Tuesday, my dad had his second hip replacement surgery. This time it was the whole titanium she-bang. He seems to be doing well and recovering much faster in spite of being ten years older than he was when he had his other hip replaced. My parents are both in their sixties now and I marvel at their good health. I mean, have you SEEN them? I hope to be so lucky. (NOTE TO SELF: less with the vodka (and stupid vodka-related jokes), more with the sunscreen!)

On Friday I finally planted my garden, which still seems crazy because I'm sitting here in a cashmere hoodie, fleece pants and a pair of wool socks and I'm still cold. Summer is the only season here that actually bums me out - it never gets hot enough.

Yes, that's my daughter. Yes, she likes to dig with an ice-cream scooper and wear mis-matched boots. Why do you ask? She also turns three in two weeks and I haven't planned her party yet.

Yesterday Dave and I did the switcheroo again and I got the day off to sit in his quiet office and write and he stayed home with the munchkins. I stopped at Fred Meyer on the way home and he made me the best dinner I've had in months (fresh-cut BBQ'd filet mignon with baked potatoes and asparagus) and it was a lovely day all around. What did you guys do for mother's day?

Yesterday I...

• Finally figured out how to use those automated parking meters in downtown Portland. "Hello, My name is Amanda and I never leave the suburbs." But when I got back to my car, I realized I'd affixed the ticket to my windshield backwards. GOOD ONE.
• Pulled my SUV into the bike lane so I could scramble wildly for a pen and the back of my gas bill and scribble down some dialogue for my book. I'm pretty sure it's a prologue.
• Completely LOST myself in said city, eventually becoming so desperate for a freeway sign that I hopped onto I-5 going the wrong direction just so I could turn around and find my way back.
• Wore those damn blue strappy wedges again. How drunk was I when I said they were comfortable? Apparently quite.
• Biffed the left heel of said shoe on a wayward cobblestone outside The Old Church and came this close to throwing myself headlong into the deathly silent path of a passing Prius. That wasn't embarrassing at all, mind you, especially considering that I was, in fact, 100% sober. On cinco de mayo, natch.
• BONUS: Right outside that old church, someone has a wireless network called: Mike Hunt. When it popped up on the screen of my iPhone, "Would you like to join Mike Hunt?" I wanted to find this Mr. Hunt and shake his hand for making me laugh so hard.
• Slaved all day making a pot roast (okay, so it was 30 minutes tops) only to find out I'm the only one who likes it. I was also the only one not home for dinner last night.

Playground police

I took the kids to the park this afternoon for a play date with some preschool friends. It was crazy windy and a little cold, but whatever, it wasn't raining! For a couple days now, Alex has been enamored with one of those simple metal whistles, the kind the PE teachers used to wear around their necks when I was in Junior High. Of course, being mostly human and lacking the ability to turn off my sense of hearing at will, I haven't let him blow this whistle in the house. It's for outside only.

So when he started blowing it at the park, I LET him. We're outside. It's annoying, for sure, but whatever. Kids are annoying. He was being too loud at first, so I did actually ask him to blow it more quietly not to bug the parents who were sitting on the benches (namely, me).  Anyway, twenty minutes into our time at the park, another parent approaches me with her face all scrunched up and says, "You need to take that whistle away. He's blowing it in other kids faces and it's really annoying. I mean, haven't you SEEN him."

It wasn't so much WHAT she was saying, because honestly, if my kid is bugging your kid, I wanna know about it and I will absolutely intervene and punish my kid for it. It was just the WAY she said it. Like I'd committed some horrible dereliction of duty! How could I sit on the bench and talk to my friends? I should've been hovering not more than five feet from my child at all times! (Isn't that the proper ratio: one foot for each year of life?)

She basically accused me of not paying attention to what my kid was doing. And let's be honest? I WASN'T.  My basic park philosophy is to sit on the bench taking a perpetual head count of my children - 1...2.  1....2. THAT'S IT.  So if my kid is blowing a whistle in some other kid's face and that kid keeps FOLLOWING HIM AROUND THE PARK, then I'm pretty sure that kid is okay. I'll basically get up and deal with the situation when A) Someone's crying or B) Someone's bleeding or C) my child is actively doing something that will lead to A) or B). Otherwise, I feel VERY VERY STRONGLY that kids need to work it out on their own. Mommy ain't gonna be there when the bullies at school give you a wedgie either.

So anyway, just to play nice, I turn my face away from Mrs. Helicopter Parent, roll my eyes and immediately confiscate the whistle, whispering to Alex that that lady was being crabby about it and not to worry about it. I'm not AT ALL saying my kid wasn't being annoying because I'm 100% sure HE WAS. I'm just saying, I DIDN'T CARE, and frankly she shouldn't have cared either. It wasn't even HER kid who Alex was blowing the whistle at.  Yes let's repeat that: another mother approached me at the park to complain that MY child was bothering some other RANDOM child that wasn't hers.

HELLO RED FLAG.

And it gets better! About a half hour later, Alex's friend Arnav gets to the park with his mom and little brother. Alex and Arnav go to school together four days a week and we've had play dates before and this is how the two boys play together:

Arnav chases Alex and grabs him.
Alex chases Arnav and grabs him back.
Alex/Arnav punches/kicks/knocks down Alex/Arnav.
They wrestle is out.
Rinse, repeat, complain when it's time to go home and beg for another play date as soon as possible.

They play ROUGH is what I'm saying and fortunately Arnav's mother comes from the same ARE YOU BLEEDING? THEN I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT parenting camp that I come from and we literally ignore their rough play as much as we possibly can. The park itself is safe and contained and as long as I keep up with my constant head counts, everything is fine.

So anyway Arnav gets there and within three minutes of his arrival, Alex has a big red blotch next to his eye and Arnav has a kicked shin. His mother and I don't catch it because again - WE DON'T CARE. These are OUR boys and they play ROUGH and we both expect them to figure it out on their own.

BUT... it turns out this is NOT. OKAY. with Mrs. Helicopter, who immediately stomps over to me to point out how terrible my parenting skills are AGAIN.

"Are you even LOOKING at what your son is doing? He just KICKED that boy!" She points at Arnav. "Aren't you going to DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT?!"

She's YELLING this at me and waving her hands and acting indignant. So I just roll my eyes at her and say, "He kicked that kid in the red shirt?" and I point to Arnav, who is standing there next to Alex completely fine and ruffled only by the blowing wind, and she nods emphatically and taps her foot waiting for my response.

But all I do is shrug at her, shake the hair out of my face and say, "Nope. They're fine."

So she scoops up her (much younger) kid in a huff and chastises me under her breath ("I just. can't. BELIEVE...") all the way to her car where she concludes her hissy fit by driving off. Meanwhile, I'm sitting one foot away from the ACTUAL mother of the purported victim and she is HORRIFIED that some random park lady is trying to rush to her son's defense when honestly? There is something like a 90% chance that her son clocked my son first and it doesn't even matter because NEITHER OF US care and why is this crazy lady getting all up in our business?

In hindsight, I wish I'd been quick-thinking enough to dig my hand into my pocket, rip out Alex's confiscated whistle and blow it as loudly as possible RIGHT IN HER FACE.