Cords and Fleece

  “Can you drive this morning? I have a headache.” Michael sniffs and rubs his sinuses. Usually, he drives in the morning and I drive in the afternoon. But today his sinuses are bothering him and his head hurts too much to concentrate. “Sure, I’ll drive. Want some Excedrin?” And so our weekday morning begins. Samantha is wearing her new birthday dress -- crushed black velvet with red trim. She looks like an angel. Despite his throbbing head, Michael grabs the camera and conducts a photo session with Samantha in the front yard. Lizzy joins them. We’re going to be late, but hopefully we’ll remember the pictures and not the tension that follows as we all scramble to get into the car. 15 minutes later we drive along the 52 on the way to school and work. The girls are eating Froot Loops and bagels and Michael leans back in his seat, closing his eyes. Lizzy suddenly bursts out singing. Michael jolts awake. “Can you sing lower?” he asks, holding his head. As usual, Lizzy interprets him li...

  And on the 6th day, God created the Portable DVD Player... For ages we traveled in darkness -- three long years; 90 minutes on good days, two hours or more when it stormed or the traffic was particularly foul. It was a dark time; a time of screeching hell-hounds, ghastly music, and arguments about who could sing Mary Had a Little Lamb the loudest. It was the Age of Commuting with Toddlers. And then a miracle occurred. One the day of the miracle, I fetched my bridegroom upon our small ebony steed whom we affectionately christened The Toyota Matrix. Then, to my great surprise, mine husband withdrew a small, metallic box from his rucksack and proceeded to affix thine unusual instrument betwixt our saddles. After much fussing about, he winkethed at me and bid our horse anon. Onward we rode until we came upon the Dwelling of Small and Smelly children. From among the great screaming brood, we extracted two flaxen haired nymphs who lay claim upon us. With much hugging and tweaking of ch...

  Don’t let the following exchange fool you. Valuable lessons were learned about personal respect and appreciation for one another and what we have. Oh, yes. I’m almost sure of it. Elizabeth: “Mommy, I’m going to have a party and you’re invited.” Me: “Great, thanks.” Elizabeth: “And Samantha, too.” I brake as I come to a stop light. Samantha: “Mommeee! You made my breakfast baggy fall to the floor!!” Me: “I did not.” Samantha: “Yes you did!” Me: “Samantha, I braked normally and it flew off your lap,” I say while reaching behind the front seat to retrieve the breakfast baggy. Samantha: “You made it fall!” Me: “I did not!” We pull away. Elizabeth: “I want a party at school so everyone can come.” Me: “Sounds good.” I brake again for another stop light. Samantha’s baggy falls to the floor. Samantha: “Mommeeee! You did it again!” Me: “No I didn’t!” Samantha: “Yes you did!” Me: “Samantha, you can’t blame people every time something goes wrong. Stuff just happens -- it’s an accident.” I ...

The girls and I are on the highway headed to school and work. Up ahead, it’s dark on the other side of the mountain. I get a phone call from Michael. “UCSD is closed, so you should turn around and come home.” “Really? OK, I’ll see soon.” I hang up the phone. “OK girls, see how ‘foggy’ it is up ahead? That’s smoke. Remember all the fires we saw on TV? Well, because of all the smoke, school and work are closed today.” “Are they on fire?” “No, but the air quality is bad -- it’s hard to breath. So we’re going back home.” “Mommy, why don’t you turn around now?” “Well, we’re on the highway, so I have to look for a road so I can turn around safely.” I find the road and turn around safely. “Mommy, why are we turning around?” “Because we’re going back home.” “Mommy, why are you driving us in circles?” Oh, I don’t know. To burn off some of this cheap gasoline? To make Samantha car sick? Because I’m bored? “We’re going back home, honey.” And we do. In San Diego, we don’t have snow days, we have ...

You can take the girl out of the trailer park... Or can you? After all these years I’m back in the trailer park again. I lived in one for a while when I was a kid and now, more than twenty-five years later, I’m back again. Only this time I work in one. It’s not too bad, actually. Believe it or not, I don’t mind going outside, across a parking lot, down a small hill, and past neighboring trailers just to go to the bathroom, wash my hands, or do anything involving water. Really, I don’t. This modular park (i.e. trailer park) where I work is for Extension employees at the University. It’s nicely landscaped with tall Eucalyptus trees and rose bushes. Outside our trailer is a nest of wildly-growing trees that house rabbits and hummingbirds. Occasionally our receptionist feeds a black cat who lives beneath our building. Instead of breeding wife beaters and welfare recipients, our trailer park is inhabited by intellectuals and ESL students and resembles a cluster of friendly little cabins in ...

Hi. Sorry for the silence in my blog, but yesterday was bend-over and take-it-up-the-ass day. (And I don’t mean in a good way, if you’re into that...) Oh, that Melissa. She exaggerates. OK, sure. But this weekend, someone hacked into one of the web sites that I maintain, overwrote the data, and then redirected all visitors to another site. And, well, that left me feeling a little... dirty. It’s been an interesting learning experience, though. (I’m “Ms. Silver Lining.") Most people’s first reaction was one of gathering the troops, lighting their torches and going after the MF’ers. That’s sweet and all, but when the victim is still bleeding, the first priority is to get her to the hospital, which is what I did yesterday. I tended her wounds and made her safe from other hackers. Of course, like all victims, she will need time to recover. While my site is safe now, it lives inside a virtual fortress and can’t really grow . Therapy will involve reprogramming the web pages to make them...

Well, that didn’t take long. It has been 4 months since either of the girls vomited in the car. In that time, we’ve lulled into vomit-free complacency. While we didn’t dare utter these thoughts out loud, we hoped that perhaps the weekly (sometimes twice weekly, sometimes thrice weekly) moments of stripping down and cleaning one of the girls in the closest parking lot were over. With renewed optimism, my husband came home Sunday afternoon with two shiny new black car seats for our ever-growing girls. They played hide and seek inside the enormous boxes while he assembled and wrestled the seats into the car. On Monday morning, we happily strapped the girls into their “big-girl” seats, and demonstrated their new cup holders and padded headrests. I can only blame too much homemade lemonade for what happened that afternoon. 10 minutes into the car ride home, Elizabeth complained that she had a tummy ache. She then proceeded to complain that she had a toe ache, a nose ache, and a finger ache,...

Most days I smile at the male custodian at the University where I work. He smiles back and occasionally we chat. He’s a friendly fellow. People know him and like him. But I can’t ask him his name. Because if I do, I’m afraid he’ll misunderstand my question as an invitation for sex. So I don’t ask. The custodian is a nice, normal human being as far as I can tell. He’s never pinched my ass or placed a lascivious love note on the windshield of my car. He’s never leered at me from behind a bush or even glanced at my boobs (at least not when I was looking). Our relationship is based on weather talk and waiting for him to reopen the bathrooms. But still, I can’t ask his name because he’ll think I want to have sex. I know it sounds crazy. But for some of us girls, this is what it means to be raised without a dad (or brother, or any male influence). I just don’t know how to react around most men. My ignorance of them, combined with what I’ve learned from television and Hooters ads, tells me ...

By Elizabeth Gail Weber, Age 4 Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She had nails in her back. But they didn’t hurt. She found some mice who were her friends. She tied a rope around the mice, and then tied the rope to the nails on her back. The mice walked behind her when she walked. One day she found bunnies trapped in cages. She dragged the cages back to her house. She had doggies and kitties at her house, too. The cats were tied to the dogs with ropes. The little girl won all of the animals playing a game called Animada . The little girl’s name was spelled: i-i-l-d-d-e. The little girl lived with her family who looked liked bears. But they weren’t bears. The End. ----------------- Was she a nice girl or a mean girl? Oh, she was a nice girl. Of course. I am dizzy trying to understand this strange world of bondage, where nails naturally extend out of little girls' backs, and animals are rewards for a mysterious game of Animada . Meanwhile, I'm having a hard time concentr...

I need to sit myself down and have a long talk with myself. I was shopping at Trader Joe’s, hoping to find something quirky and interesting for a party at Elizabeth’s school. But I forgot -- I’m not used to "interesting". I’m used to tubes of potato chips and cheese-flavored goldfish, so I decided to go to Ralph’s where I can find Cheetos and Teddy Grahams. However, a container of cocoa-covered almonds caught my eye and was too tempting to resist. The lines were long, but a nice older woman asked if I would like to go before her. “I just hate it when you’re standing there with one item, and people won’t let you go first. Don’t you?” “Oh, well thank you. That’s very sweet,” I said and stepped in front. “Have you ever let someone go in front of you?” she asked. Clearly this was an important issue for her. “Yes, I have,” I said smiling, pleased with myself because it was true. “It gives you a good feeling, doesn’t it?” “Yes. Yes it does.” We smiled. It was nice. Soon I departed ...

I see ghosts on my daily commute. Near my home there’s a man who walks with his dog. He’s an older man who wears a green army T-shirt. His dog wears a red bandana around his neck and an American flag juts up from his collar. They walk slowly. He’s a retired vet, I imagine, parading his dog and his patriotism throughout the neighborhood each day. He worries me. More than once he’s crossed a busy intersection without checking to see if cars were coming. I’d hate to drive along one day to see the old man and his dog lying in a pool of red, white and blue blood. Next on my way to work, my husband and I see the Longhair Couple. They’ve been walking towards campus for at least 7 years. We’re fond of them. This heterosexual couple wears their dark blonde hair in long ponytails down their backs. She’s a little taller, so her thin hand takes lead position. He mostly wears cargo shorts, even on brisk winter mornings. They remind us of Iowa City, circa 1990, which is the time and place of our cou...

I hate crying in the parking lot in the morning; especially before work and especially before a meeting -- not to mention it’s hell on my makeup (well, what little I wear, anyway). But as a working mother, that’s how it goes sometimes. Elizabeth and I have parted hundreds of times when I take her to daycare. On good days, she runs to the window and I run to the other side, trampling grass and flowers. I breathe hot fog onto the window and write the letters she silently mouths; usually an “E” (for Elizabeth) and an “S” (for Samantha). I add a heart and she smiles. Then we laugh and wave goodbye. It’s a good start to the day. Most days we part with a bearable ache that slowly dissipates with our daily distractions. Generally we leave one another smiling, except when she was very small and just starting daycare. I expected it to be tough at the beginning and toughened myself as much as I could against her tears, and mine. But last Thursday was dreadful -- mostly because I was not prepared...

The girl at the cafeteria where I work has no love for serving. I should know -- I’ve served. I waited tables for two years, and I’m currently working pro-bono in my home for two demanding little regulars. Ok, maybe I don’t have “love” for serving, either, but I certainly have respect for the position, since I myself enjoy being served very much. But this girl’s shoulders drop a notch when I walk up to her counter. We’ve met before. Granted, I’m particular. I like a certain amount of pasta and a certain amount of sauce. Sometimes I like to mix sauces which really throws her. “I can’t do that,” she says. I stare blankly. “You can’t put a little of one sauce on top and then a little of the other on top of that?” “I can’t do that.” I sigh. I take a deep breath. For now I assume there must be some cafeteria regulation that forbids the mixing of sauces. Perhaps it’s simple sauce discrimination. I’m tempted to leave the counter and then come back and ask for the second sauce on the side. But...

I drove to work today all by myself -- like a big girl! My husband took the girls to daycare so I could take a class tonight. (Did I mention he's wonderful?) I didn’t even care that I had to drive the “Granny Car” (our ‘97 Civic), or listen to music on our broken-down radio that suddenly drops to nothing and then bursts to ear-crushing volumes. I listened to music. Sweet, uninterrupted (sometimes soft... sometimes LOUD) music. Ten minutes into the drive (with the heat warming my toes, a bagel sitting next to me, and a plastic Dora cup of Pepsi), Punkrocker came on the radio. It’s a new song by the Teddybears featuring Iggy Pop. Yes! So, not only do I get to drive alone and listen to music, I get to indulge in one of my domestic survival fantasies. A DSF, for those of you who don’t know, is something domestics do to survive domesticity. I fantasize about “whatever blows my skirt up” (as my neighbor Ida May used to say.) It’s like taking a long drag on a smooth cigarette. Or taking...

I want to be the first one to drive the bubble-dome car. Remember the bubble-dome car? It’s the car Homer Simpson invented when his half-brother owned the auto-manufacturing plant. For some strange reason, it popped into my brain the other day while driving home after work with the kids. Dubbed “The Homer”, it had lots of crazy features, but my favorite has to be the “bubble dome”. It may seem a bit extreme, but hear me out. While the dome may separate parents from kids, it brings parents closer to sanity. It also reduces the number of times a child has to hear “No!” or “Stop That!” or “Don’t ever make that noise again!” In short, it restores peace where chaos and stress normally reigns. We commute with our girls between one hour to 90 minutes each day. That’s a lot of family time, and it’s not always pleasant. In the “olden days” when Daddy went to work, he could take his time and drive home alone, shaking off the work day, listening to his own music and “bucking up” for the family. M...