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lucky girl …. no, really really lucky

To have a husband who doesn’t instantly dial a divorce lawyer when she turns to him — interrupting a peaceful squat on the couch — and starts screeching operatically, without warning, and with a right proper British accent:

Strength doesn’t lie in numbers!
Strength doesn’t lie in wealth!
Strength lies in nights of peaceful slumbers …
When you wake up — WAKE UP!

It tells me all I trust I leave my heart to
All I trust becomes my own
I have confidence in confidence alone
(Oh help!)

I have confidence in confidence alonnnne …..
Besides which you see I have connn-fiii-dennnce in meeeeeee!

Clearly.

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double comfort pie

(I’m trying to clear out my drafts, pippa. I have so many unfinished drafts; it’s upsetting, really. I may just start posting them as-is, such is my desperation to get them outta there. Yes, I could finish them, but some of them have lost the moment, you know? This is a post I almost finished back at the end of October, in the midst of the wildfires here. I’ve gone ahead and finished it and, well, here it is. Outta the “drafts” section! Just know the context is, oh, six months ago? When I talk about “limbo,” I’m talking about the weird limbo the whole of SD county was in back then. There was nothing else on our minds. Anyway …. the belated BElated post.)

_______________________________________

Two nights ago, in the midst of the limbo, something suddenly happened. We’d been slouched for two whole days in front of the TV, watching fire coverage — literally, the only thing on TV — and out of the blue, we realized we had to have pie. We had to. It was more than mere want. It was an itch. A hankerin’. A low psychic moan of desire. We were stir-crazy and sad and overwrought and only pie would fix it. But I didn’t want to just eat pie. No. I wanted to make out with pie. Wildly fornicate with pie. Have my pappy wave a shotgun and force it to marry me, naughty pie. So this was my mission, you see. MB had no such fantasies; he just wanted a piece of pie.

We made haste to the nearest Marie Callender’s. Turns out, Jesus was totally on board with my pie fornication because — Hallelujah! — Marie Callender’s was having its famous Semi-Annual Pie Sale. MB, still in his flannel pajama bottoms such was our pie-mania, hid in the car. I jumped out, dashed inside, and didn’t remember til later that just before the pie-mania struck, out of desperation, I’d slathered my dry, smoke-crackled face with a thick layer of extra virgin olive oil. Does anyone have a problem with this? No? Okay. Good. We proceed.

As I approached the entrance, a giant banner slung over the doorway welcomed me: “Any whole pie, 5.99.”

Such a deal. Like divine permission. Woo-hoo!

But then I saw the line. The line that proved everyone else in a 63-mile radius had been struck with pie-mania too. The line that proved everyone else was overwrought too. Or else the line that proved I had completely failed to live out my life’s mantra of: Hurry up and get there before all the selfish people!

Uncharacteristically, before I’d jumped out of the car, I’d asked MB what kind of pie he wanted.

“Pumpkin,” he said firmly. In my heart, I made a face. I like my pumpkin pie homemade.

“Okay. Uhm, what if they’re out?”

“I dunno. The raspberry or the chocolate or something?”

“Okay.”

Now lost in the line, I craned my neck to see the display case. They really were out of a lot of pies. And, sadly, with each person’s order, another pie listed on their Family-Feud-like pie board flipped over and disappeared forever. It was a weird, ominous little ceremony of denial. I felt even more desperate. Beyond that, I started to worry about stupid stuff like: Was Richard Dawson gonna appear, chat me up, then try to smooch me? And if I requested a pie they didn’t have, would I hear that obnoxious buzzer and see that giant ‘X’ that means you’re an idiot? These thoughts buzzed through me to the point of distraction, so I didn’t notice the tall black fellow staring at me from behind the counter.

“Ma’am?”

“Wuh? Oh, uhm, sorry.”

The tall fellow was doing this thing: He would stare at me, look away really fast, then stare at me again. What was his problem? I decided he must be a weirdo.

“Do you have any pumpkin?” I tried to rally my enthusiasm.

The fellow just kept doing the thing. Okay. This guy was a serious weirdo. Or a trainee. Or a serious weirdo trainee.

“Pumpkin?” I repeated.

“Ohh … uh, yeah. Lemme check.”

He disappeared into the back and returned seconds later with a pie.

“Yep. Last one.” He stared again. Just rude, you know? Maybe I should tell the manager that the new dude is socially marginal, I thought.

“Uhmm, okay. Well … I’ll take that, please.”

I didn’t really want pumpkin; MB wanted pumpkin. But he was in the car all comfy in his pajama bottoms. He wasn’t here, you know, getting all kerfuffled from the stares of the Serious Weirdo Trainee.

Then several things happened at once:

The Serious Weirdo Trainee kept doing his thing, all OCD or something.

I kept my head down because he was scaring me with his obvious psychosis.

Meanwhile, some blonde girl boxed up my pie.

And I saw another, prettier pie in the display case: Double Cream Blueberry, God help me.

Then this junior high girl behind me chirped, “Uhm, do you guys have any more pumpkin pies?”

A-HA! Pie salvation! I turned to the precious child.

“Well, if you want, you can have my pumpkin. They’re boxing it up. It’s the last one.”

I am Mother Teresa.

“Oh, wow. Are you sure?”

Oh, yes, dear girl. I am sure.

I told her so.

“Wow. Thanks.”

“Suuure.”

Weird thing: She didn’t look directly at me either. What is with these people?

So Junior High Girl took the pumpkin. I was forced to take the Double Cream Blueberry, God help me.

pie_menu2.jpg

I strolled back out to the car with my box of divine intervention, feeling pretty good about myself, really. I’d helped a child, for pity’s sake. As I slid into the car, I handed MB the box.

“What is it?” he said.

“Oh … it’s the Double Cream Blueberry.” (God help me.)

“Oh.”

I felt a strange sudden urge to explain it all. This, my act of beneficence. I started talking very fast, speaking my sentences as questions.

“Yeah. Well, I had the pumpkin? But it was the last one? And this kid, she wanted pumpkin? So I said she could have mine, you know?

“Uh-huh.” He stared at me. Wasn’t buying it. There was an icky pause.

“You have olive oil all over your face.”

Touche.

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wrassling

We wrassle a lot around here. I don’t know why. Pent-up hostility? Rage-aholism? Who knows? Given our size difference, though, the whole dealio is probably a bad idea. Ah, well. Some people give flowers. Some people give chocolates. Some people have candlelight dinners. Suckas — a good wrasslin’ is a lot less expensive.

Although, sometimes things do go a bit south.

Right now, all I’m gonna say is that someone in this house attacked someone else in the house who was lying half-asleep on the couch. Moments later, someone knocked someone else onto the floor — a truly terrifying 16-inch freefall. At this point I feel I must tell you that someone’s neck was almost cricked and someone’s body was almost bruised and there are now chalk lines dividing the house in half and restraining orders in place for some poor someone’s protection.

If someone is found cold and blue at the foot of the ottoman someday, someone else done it.

Is all I’m saying.

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weekend stuff ‘n’ thangs

MB: Now, shhh! It’s not often that I’m inspirational, so you’d better just drink it up!

SELF: Oh. You know I’m taking a big ol’ swiggy.

******

Listening to “She’s Like the Wind” on the 80’s radio station we had playing at Boheme:

MB: Is that Swayze?? (beat) Well … turn it UP, man!

******

Randomly picking on the amiable silence in the car …

“Man! We just don’t connect anymore! We used to be like this: (Hands flying toward each other, fingertips touching) Now were just: (Hands flying toward each other, missing wildly) It’s awful!! It’s like you’re Napolean and I’m — Juliet!”

Eye rolls from the driver’s seat.

“It’s like you’re Cookie Monster and I’m — ice cream!!”

Sighs …

“It’s like you’re Michael Jackson and I’m — a WOMAN!!”

“Oh, brother.”

We both start howling. We are sick.

******

I fell in love with someone else’s puppy. If all goes according to plan, I will be kidnapping her next weekend. Shhh.

Her name is Fern and she is an 8-week-old Chocolate Lab and Mastiff mix. She is fubsy and rolly, with extremely chocolate fur and green green eyes. Some undeserving Little Dude was her owner. He showed me how she already knew the commands to “Sit” and “Lie Down” and then I loved her even more, because she wasn’t just fubsy and rolly, she was a smartypants, too. In my mind’s eye, I saw myself shoving Little Dude over, really HARD, because he was wispy and maybe hungover, and grabbing what was rightfully mine: Fern.

FERN.

FERRRRNNNNN!

I love you, Fern!! Run away from that wispy Little Dude! Follow the secret trail of pig ears that leads to meeeeeee!!

******

Also: We saw a little kid getting spanked on the side of the road, old school. Dad had clearly pulled the car over — it was all catawumpus against the curb — taken the little cherub over his knee — this while Dad was standing with one leg braced against the car — and swatted the unruly peep hard on his naughty little bum. The boy’s legs were kicking wildly behind him and his face, turned toward us, was completely squinched in pain and protest.

I’m sorry.

But it was hilarious.

A half-block past the scene, we pulled a U-ey just to drive past it again.

It cannot be overstated: We are sick.

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notes from a wedding

Saturday night. MB and I at his friend’s wedding. I know only the groom and two other people. I haven’t been to a wedding in a long time and I’d forgotten, really, how — if it’s not your wedding — they are pretty much torture. All that forced socializing with strangers at your assigned table. That long long wait for a piece of cake, the only thing you really want. No margaritas to be found. Torture.

Listen up, engaged people: You must go faster. Get married FASTER. FASTER. FASTER. I know what I’m talking about. I was once engaged people — a dozen plus years ago. Our engagement was long and hideous and the worst part of our relationship. Our wedding day was long and hideous and the second-worst part of our relationship. I’ll tell you about it all sometime. Just know this: People hate long and hideous weddings. I mean, does that even need to be stated here?

Okay. So — my scribbled notes on M and A’s wedding, complete with random wedding tips.

— The wedding is outside. It is cold, windy. There is the poofy green grass and then there is the poofy white aisle runner sitting atop the poofy green grass. The harp (yuck) music begins. The bridesmaid starts her walk down the poofy white aisle runner but she has to literally mince along. One step takes eons and eons and eons. People are whispering urgently at her to just take her shoes off. I cannot even watch as the mincing eons go by. It is too much for me, that leaden discomfort, the forced smile. The bride and her dad are next. Mincey, mincey, wincey, wincey. I glance only once at her as she passes. She looks ill and unsure, like she wants to scream or cry at this cruel joke some bitter old wedding planner has played on her. TIP: No poofy white runners on poofy green grass. Trust me, girls. You will actually look physically challenged in what should be your most triumphant perfect moment. No mincey. No wincey. Please.

— Harp music is lame. LAME, I TELLS YA! Save it for heaven. But keep it on your acre of paradise, please. Amen.

— The pastor starts the ceremony. Says he has “things to say about marriage.” Oh, Lord. He has “things to say.” The pastor who married us had “things to say” as well and had cloudy day not turned to blessed night, he might have had no end of these very important things to say. Later on at the reception when he approached me to express concern over how paper white my face had gone at one point during his nuptial filibuster, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that, well, I nearly passed out, you annoyingly nice blowhard, from having to stand for so damn long. But back to M and A and their problems here. So the preacherino gets going. He’s being homey. Hammy. Kinda icky. Then suddenly, he’s preaching a 3-point sermon complete with a heavy evangelistic message. Things like “You all got an invitation to this wedding and you RSVP’d. Well, Jesus is sending you an invitation, too, and you’re the only one who can RSVP to it.” “Someone’s paid the price for this wedding and Jesus paid the price for you. Remember, it’s Easter, etc.” Gross. So gross. I’m sorry. As a Christian, I protest on so many levels here, but mainly, let’s go with: It’s unfair. Rude, even. Look. People who accept an invitation to church go knowing, most likely, that they’re going to hear about Jesus. The Gospel. Salvation. They make that choice. On some level, they are interested in hearing it or they wouldn’t go. People who accept an invitation to a wedding go to see a WEDDING. The vows, the I do’s, the rings, the kiss, the whole glorious ritual. They don’t go to be preached at or evangelized. So TIP: Stop it, pastors, with your egotistical get-off at the expense of other people’s time and money. Don’t exploit this captive audience to make nice with God or ratchet up your righteous points. Shut up and cut to the chase. Really. Save that particular message for Sunday. At church. On YOUR time.

— Okaaay. Then, after that, I breathe real deep and calm my wild ass down.

— Oh, they’re married. But, alas, no one raises their hand to indicate they’ve just accepted Jesus.

— The reception. Our assigned table. We sit with the only two people we know here, G and his wife A. I don’t know them well at all; MB knows them better through work and such. I, therefore, have this pre-existing deal with MB: I will try to be good and social and non-anxious with strangers until a mutually-agreed-upon X o’clock. Then, if the perfect pretty cake has not yet morphed into a sliced and easily portable form, I will decamp hastily to our car where I will do one of these three lovely things: 1) read, 2) work on a crossword, or 3) fall into a deep deep stupor of sleep. G and A, though, are kinda fun and I’m having a relatively anxiety-free time so far. The four people across the table, howevah, are one big giant scowl. Particularly BAWB and his scrunchy wife MARRTHA. She scowls at me the entire night. When we meet and everyone is shaking hands all willy-nilly, left and right, and I just throw my seat assignment card into the fray and say, “Oh, here’s my card,” MARRTHA scowls. When we rhapsodize over the meatballs, she scowls. When the four of us take the table camera and start photographing weird tabletop tableaus, she scowls. When we memorialize our fabulous shoes on camera, she scowls. When we dance freakishly to Mambo No. 5, she scowls. But really, deep inside, she is a big butterball of sunshine and we all love her.

— A piece of hair at the side of my face keeps brazenly poking out of the lineup there. I cannot fix it, so it becomes, somehow in the course of the evening, after a little bit of wine, and quite stupidly, too, “The Hair Mic” and we all practice wishing the newlyweds heartfelt greetings into it. I mean, it’s so convenient. It’s right there. We also photograph this hair phenomenon, for the bride and groom, of course. Whilst we do this, MARRTHA spreads MORE joy!

— A little boy in a dapper suit stuffs himself continuously with food. Literally, food is hanging out of his mouth whenever I see him. It’s hilarious to me. I take a picture for M and A.

— G and I discuss why vegans don’t eat honey. Rather, he is trying to explain this to me. Finally, he admits, “Well, it’s something to do with the way the honey is gathered. It’s unnatural.” “Okay. Hm. So if the bees could all just get together and jar their own honey, would you eat it then?”

— Did I mention I drank a little bit of wine?

— The toasts are long and arduous and spontaneously read from large sheets of paper. The 75-year-old DJ then opens the floor to RANDOM toasting. Open mic toasting! Ack! ACK! Where is the cake? WHERE is the cake? We are approaching X-o’clock and the hasty cakeless decampment and I sense a gathering tizzy! ACK! A girl gets up and reads her rhyming toast to the bride and groom. It’s a tradition, she says. The toast is lonnng, but doesn’t actually rhyme, at least as far as I can hear. Maybe if she spoke into The Hair Mic.

— TIP: To expedite matters, brides should walk down the aisle, not with a frou-frou bouquet, but with wedding cake and booze. Flower girls should pass these out. This is a revelation from God, I’m pretty sure, because it’s clearly freakin’ brilliant.

— It is X-o’clock. (TIP: Always have an X o’clock) I hastily decamp, as planned. Sadly, sans cake, and in my gathering tizzy! I dash out to the car in the darkness, checking over my shoulder for rapists and bums and feral dogs and MARRTHA. In the car, I do three crosswords, start to doze. Finally, a knock on the window. It’s MB! With CAKE! Blessed, happy cake!! He climbs in the car with me and we eat cake in momentary silence under the lights of the parking lot. Finally:

“This cake ….. isn’t very good.”

“I know. I’m so bummed. It’s …. just not good.”

“All that waiting.”

“Let’s go home, okay?”

“Okay.”

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we were very busy this weekend!

I mean, look:

I raged about ‘Nilla Wafers:

“I hate how they really really need you to know they’re ‘Nilla.”

He raged about, uhm, the homeless:

“I won’t have any smelly ass bums on my patio screaming at the wind!”

We raged against Cameron Diaz:

“I really do NOT like her. I don’t know why.”

“It’s because she just seems kinda diseased.”

I raged against myself:

“I’m like the Canadian coin of people — totally completely useless!”

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whatcha’ doin’?

Me? I’m just sittin’ around, a sleep-deprived nutter, creating an elaborate pantomine to “Rocky Mountain High” and acting it out for MB.

The best part, really, if I do say so myself, is when I sing

Rocky Mountain High, Colorad-ohhh

and I make a “C” with my hand and then an “O” on ohhhh.

C-O, Colorado. Sheer genius. Don’t be jealous, now. It’s a gift.

But all did not go swimmingly. If I’m being honest, I did hurt myself when I went all crazy and tried to touch the sun.

Although my hobo joe character on the “I know he’d be a poorer man if he never saw an eagle fly” lyric was truly poignant and the disfiguring burns were quickly forgotten in the sheer swelling joy of that seeing that damn eagle fly.

I wonder: Am I asleep now? Maybe I’m stressed?

I mean, I sent an email out yesterday that was more about persimmons than anything else.

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sometimes you’re bored on saturdays

You know, sometimes your husband is out on a video shoot all day of a Saturday. And sometimes you’re kinda bored. And maybe there are piles and piles of baskets and cups and coffee and sweeteners and every possible whatnot shoved in every corner of your teeny little townhouse. So maybe you go a little stir crazy from crawling over and around and through the crushing, visible evidence of your utter insanity. And maybe you’ve drunk a bit too much coffee because God knows you’ve got a lot of THAT now. So maybe — just maybe — the boredom and the lonely and the caffeine and the crazy all combine to make you — oh, I don’t know — push a heavy rattan chair off its wobbly stack and up a flight of narrow and sharp flagstone stairs. And maybe, later that same day, your husband comes home asking about your day and you are vague and blase. Then maybe he stands at the bottom of the stairs and gazes up at the landing where the giant rattan chair is now stuck and looks down at you and says …. slowly …. drily:

“Uhm, is there anything else you want to tell me about your day?”

You know, maybe.

diedrchair.jpg

Guess I can’t be left alone, either.