Tag Archives: Humor

June 13, 2013 · 0:00

It’s Dad’s Fault

It was August of 2002 when I realized that I was, in fact, my father’s daughter.  I’m exactly like him, dammit.

It wasn’t my best moment as a parent.  I still feel guilty about it.  And Jacob, my only child, makes sure I do.  He still glares at me when he recalls that day.  But it wasn’t my fault.  Really.  I blame Dad.  The fact that he’d died nearly two years earlier did not absolve him one little bit.

John, Jacob and I had just moved back from Europe in July, and Jacob would start his new school in September.

That August afternoon, I held in my hand the most important envelope of every child’s year — the one that told us what class he would be in for the entire school year.  It had just arrived.  Each year since Jacob had been in kindergarten, we opened that envelope together the minute it arrived.

Naturally, Jacob was nervous.  He wanted more than anything to be in class with his brand new best friend ever, Joe.  Jacob wasn’t concerned that he might not like his teacher.  Or that the work would be too hard for him.  No, he worried that he’d be in a class of entirely new kids.  Ones he hadn’t known, like, for a month.

We stood at the kitchen counter and slit open the envelope.  I read it aloud:

“Jacob K has been assigned to Mrs. Smith’s 1st Grade class.”

Assigned to Mrs. Smith’s FIRST GRADE class?  Jacob was 11.  He was supposed to be going into 5th Grade, not 1st.  WTF?

Jacob looked at the letter, and looked up at me with panic in his eyes.

That’s when my late father rose up and spoke out of my mouth.

“Well,” I said to Jacob, philosophically, “I guess you’ll have to start again with 1st Grade.”

Jacob’s eyes bulged, his mouth fell open in a silent moan, and tears started forming behind his eyeballs.

Of course I couldn’t hold it for long, I burst out laughing and quickly followed up my sarcastic comment with “I’m just kidding, I’m just kidding,” and a big hug.  “They just made a mistake.  We’ll go to the school tomorrow morning when school opens and they’ll correct it.  And if you want, you can ask them to put you in Joe’s class.”

Somehow, Jacob slept that night, and the next day we went to the school, where they apologized profusely for their error and did, indeed, put Jacob into Joe’s class.  It made Jacob feel like the folks at his new school were on his side.

But what made me torture my son like that?

Dad.  He made me do it.  Because I’d bet my life that that’s exactly what Dad would have said to a terrified boy who feared he had to restart school at the beginning.  In fact, I’m sure of it.  That’s exactly what my Dad would have done.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I adored my Dad.  We were close from the moment of conception, I’m pretty sure.  I was the last of five kids, and the acknowledged favorite, well before any of my elder siblings were even born.  Dad was just waiting for me.  Because I was the one who would “get” him.  He made me laugh.  Everybody else was terrified of Dad.  And with good reason.  Most people couldn’t tell when he was joking.

My first memory of Dad is not exactly a happy one.

I was three years old, and had gotten my head caught between the legs of my horse, Lightening. And Dad laughed at me.  Seriously!  Can you believe his cruelty?

Now before you start assuming that that’s where my brain damage came from, I have to confess that Lightening was a pretty special horse.  Lightening was usually a black stallion, although sometimes, when the mood struck, he was a white one.  Lightening  was also the second fastest horse in the West.  He was regularly beaten by Thunder, my brother Fred’s horse.  Fred named our horses before he learned that lightening is faster than thunder.

To other people, what we rode on weren’t “real” horses.  They were the railings surrounding our staircase landing.  Their legs were made of pickets that were thin at the top and widened at the bottom.  I’d stuck my head through the pickets at the top, slid down, and was unable to pull it out at the bottom.

Google, of course

Google, of course.
As close as I could come, but ours were thin at the top and thick at the bottom. Really. How else would there be a story here?

I was not a happy child at that particular moment.  I was uncomfortable.  I was stuck.  I’m sure I was thinking that my whole family would be laughing at that moment for years.  I was right.

Nobody could calm me down enough to lift my head up and get me out of there.  In kid years, which are just like dog years,  I was there for days and days.  I was there forever.

When Mom couldn’t get me out, she told me that she’d get Dad who would.  I started calming immediately.  Dad could fix anything.   Absolutely anything.  He would get me out from underneath Lightening.  He’d do it like he did everything, with a cigarette hanging out of one side of his mouth, and a carpenter’s rule and pencil in his pocket.  With those three things, Dad could rule the world.

Dad came up from the basement  and quickly sized up the situation.  I’m sure he took a drag from his cigarette when he said, “Hmmmm.”

His presence alone calmed me, stopped my crying.  I knew he’d get me out, somehow.  I knew I didn’t have to worry.  I knew that soon everything would be OK.

“Hmmmm,” said Dad again.  “I guess we’re just gonna have to cut your head off.”

“MOM!!!!”

Spoiler Alert!  He did not cut off my head.

Once I stopped screaming, Dad was able to lift my head up a bit to where the railing was thin at the top, and got my head out.

For as long as she lived, my mother shook her head whenever she thought of that day.  “I still can’t believe he said that to you,” she’d say with a laugh.  “Right after he’d calmed you down!”

Clearly, I take after my Dad.  Jacob was (and is) never quite sure whether to take something I say seriously.  (Duh! Never!)

But you know what?  I think that’s a good lesson in life.  That you have to find the humor, no matter how terrified you might be.  Even at the scariest times.

Dad taught me something important that day when I was stuck underneath Lightening.  That if you can laugh at whatever’s holding you back, you’re gonna be just fine.  Unless of course you’re stuck underneath the second fastest horse in the west.  Then screaming bloody murder is the way to go.

Thanks Dad for getting me out of that jam and a million others.  I miss you.

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June 9, 2013 · 0:00

Wedding Poo-poo

Men really don’t understand the importance women put on their wedding day.  I mean, we can’t help it.  From the moment we are born, everyone is telling us that our wedding day will be the happiest day of our lives.  And since we tend to do it at a relatively young age, well, then that means life is all down from there.

So since there really is nothing left to live for, we should be excused from being a little bit weird in the planning.

For our wedding, we tried to be low key and keep craziness to a relative minimum.   John really didn’t care about anything except for the fact that he did not, I repeat, did not want those sappy “LOVE” stamps on our wedding invitations.  So we picked stamps that we both liked:

Arctic explorer stamps

Yes, we had pictures of Arctic Explorers on our wedding invitations.  Surprisingly, I did not hear a single joke about my being or becoming frigid.  Nope, nobody, not a soul commented on it.  [Had I gotten an invitation with that stamp on it, I would still be making jokes about it, 26 years later.  Our friends and family are way nicer than I am.]

There are a few things surrounding my wedding that I do feel bad about, though.

John and I got married in 1986 in September.  I feel guilty about the fact that it was really hot out that day.  John had wanted to get married in October, but that coincided with a big work project of mine, so I said no, we’ll do it in late September.  It’ll be very cool by September 20, I assured him.  It was approximately 180 degrees “cool.”  In many of our pictures, John is sweating bullets and I’m pretty sure he was not terrified of marrying me.  I don’t think.  Although it never occurred to me to ask him.

I also feel guilty about the fact that our church and our reception hall were in different states.  You see, we got married in the church where John’s parents had been married 41 years earlier.  It seemed like a good omen.  Plus it is a beautiful stone church.  I was game.  But it was a long way in between the two places.

 

wedding map

It was a loooooonnnnnggg way from A to B

Our reception was also in a really beautiful place.  Plus we could afford to rent it out on our tight budget.  It didn’t occur to us that the fact that the two places were a zillion miles apart might be a problem.  But we have good friends and they made the trek.  Family did too, but they had to.  They were family.

If it had been up to me, I also probably would have had regular music, but, remember, John and I have different tastes, and he chose the music.

 

Yes, we had a bagpiper, although not this one.  And John, who went to college in Scotland threatened to wear a kilt.  Having a piper was OK, though.  We didn’t know anybody in the neighborhood.

But we didn’t really demand much of our guests.  We wanted them to share our day, have a good time, and enjoy themselves and each other.

Isn’t that what most people want from their wedding guests?  Isn’t that why we invite them?

It would never have occurred to me to make other, more, well, personal requests.

Today I had lunch with my old friend Keily, who was one of my bridesmaids.  Her son recently got married in Brazil and she was showing me pictures of the festivities.  So it got me thinking about weddings, naturally, and about mine.

And then I happened upon this article about a bride who is asking way more of her guests than I certainly would have asked.  She want’s them to do a three-week colon cleanse before her wedding day so that they will all look their best.

“Health guru” to the stars Rainbeau Mars will soon tie the knot with Hollywood business manager Michael Karlin, and she’s making one huge request: Each of her guests must do a three-week cleanse before her Big Day.

According to an email from her publicist, “Rainbeau hopes that by requesting her guests try out a vegan, and subsequently live food diet for 21 days, everyone will look and feel their best for HER big day.”

So I’m going to stop feeling bad about making people drive so far and about the heat and the piper.  Because I stopped short of requiring bowel cleansing in my guests.  I was, apparently, the perfect bride.

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Filed under Childhood Traumas, Conspicuous consumption, Family, Humor, Music

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June 3, 2013 · 0:00

It’s A Cookbook!

You probably don’t know this, but at one time I was a terrific cook.  And I have the books to prove it.  I’ve bought cookbooks wherever I’ve gone — I have them from all over Europe, although following the recipes in another language and using a different measuring system can be a bit of a challenge.

I even have one with recipes from Bill and Hillary Clinton and other political notables.  It’s called the Congressional Cookbook, and it came out in the late 1980s.  It has recipes from governors, congressmen and senators and their wives.   Hillary’s chicken, by the way, is awesome and easy.  She is a damn smart lady.

A small sample

A small sample

These days, I don’t cook as much as I used to.  And so my cookbooks are mostly gathering dust instead of flour.

But today I learned that in spite of the fact that I don’t cook so much any more, there will soon be another book I’ll need to add to my collection.

You see, Ann Romney has penned a Cookbook called The Romney Family Table.

Yup, You just can't get away from Ann. Cover photo courtesy of Politico.com

Yup, You just can’t get away from Ann. Cover photo courtesy of Politico.com

 

In it, I’m sure she’ll tell us all how “To Serve the 47 Percent – a la Twilight Zone.”  Yum.

Because folks like Ann and Mitt wouldn’t want to eat with the 47 percent, now, would they?

{My thanks to The Last Of The Millenniums who first alerted me to this important news.  Well, sort of.  I think I’d sleep better not knowing about Ann’s plans for the future, but still.]

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June 1, 2013 · 0:00

A Sticky Wicket

Would you behave yourself better if you knew that when you didn’t you’d be found out and there’d be no mistaking that it was you who perpetrated the “crime”?  That someone could actually finger you in the misdeed?  If the crime had your face all over it?

Just about 30 years ago when I was so very sick with colitis-that-was-really-Crohn’s, I was also very poor.  I had some big bills that had materialized as the result of the fact that I would buy stereo equipment and televisions when I got depressed.  Oh, and there were hospital and doctor bills.  And rent and food.  Maybe you’ve had your share?

It was the last day of the month, and I had to go across the street to the bank to check my bank balance to see if my rent check would clear.  On occasion it, ummmm, didn’t.  (It was my landlady’s fault though – the money was always in the bank when I wrote the check.  She should have cashed it right away, right?  You’re with me on that one, right?)

Anyway, when I got to the bank machine, it looked like this:

Would You Like To Make Another Transaction?

Would You Like To Make Another Transaction?

The previous customer, whom I didn’t see, had left their card behind.  Their pin number was still registered with the machine.  All I had to do was press “Yes” and I could have made another transaction.  Helped myself to some bonus bucks.

Now I am basically an honest person.  I have in my lifetime told a few lies – OK, so some were whoppers.  But I don’t do that anymore.

And when I was a kid I did steal a troll doll.  I still don’t know how I didn’t get caught – I stuck it under my shirt and was the only pregnant 8-year-old in the store.  I haven’t stolen a troll since.  I haven’t been pregnant either, but that’s a different story.

I will not, however, fess up to having maimed or murdered anyone, unless you count doing so with my razor-sharp wit.  Still, I am not perfect.

Anyway, when I saw that screen in the bank, when I actually knew that my rent check was likely to bounce, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to buy food, well, I was tempted.  I stood and stared at it for the longest time.  I felt my heart race.  I felt sweat on the back of my neck.  I heard that damn devil on my left shoulder talking to me.

What's a poor girl like me to do?

What’s a poor girl like me to do?

I reached towards the buttons and pressed:

Return Card

And I walked into the bank and handed the person’s ATM card to the nearest teller.

Of course it was the right thing to do.  And, frankly, I was especially proud of myself because I really was broke.  I could have used a windfall at that moment.

It would have been great!

It would have been great!

Of course, had I succumbed to temptation, I would have gotten an altogether different card.

The way my luck was goin' anyway.

The way my luck was goin’ anyway.

That was when they were just starting to put cameras at ATMs, and the branch I was at had one. I didn’t know that, though.  So I felt honest, sanctimonious and lucky all at the same time.  And when you’re broke and sick, well, honest, sanctimonious and lucky are as good as life gets.

I don’t think stealing money is something that people (even me) should be able to get away with.  But there are many lesser crimes that, well, maybe aren’t so bad.  That maybe, we should let slide.  That perhaps, the faces of the perpetrators of these lesser crimes are ones we don’t really need to see.

One of the little crimes that drives me crazy is people who throw chewed chewing gum on the ground.  It’s unsanitary.  It’s sticky.  Worst of all, it’s gonna end up on my shoe.

I don’t want to know whose mouth that wad came from.  Because it would be hard to not slap them for being so gross.  And Mom taught me not to hit.

But now, thanks to modern DNA technology, we can now see the faces of the culprits who transformed that gum from a dry, powdery stick into a piece of ABC gum, spit it out and let me step on it.  (For those of you without siblings, that’s ‘Already Been Chewed’ gum.)

Huh?

Yes, courtesy of the New York Times, I have this minty morsel to share with you:

While staring at the wall of her therapist’s office, the artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg noticed a strand of hair stuck in a hanging print. Walking home, she noticed that the subways and sidewalks were littered with genetic material on things like chewing gum and cigarette butts, some still moist with saliva. Curious about what she could learn, Ms. Dewey-Hagborg began to extract and sequence DNA from these discarded materials. Then — and here it gets a little eerie — she began to make computer models of their owners’ faces, using genetic clues to print 3-D masks that she concedes “might look more like a possible cousin than a spitting image.” Hanging these portraits along with the original samples, she says, is “a provocation designed to spur a cultural dialogue about genetic surveillance.”

Ewwww.  Click on the links, it gets ewwww-ier.  Here’s one perp:

Now this is just speculation on my part, but perhaps picking up wet ABC gum and cigarette butts is what Ms. Dewey-Hagborg should be talking to her therapist about.  Personally, I would make it a priority.

I was tempted to skip posting about this, but then I try not to give in to temptation.

These are all Google images. Except the last one.  That’s the artist’s rendition from her website, Stranger Visions.

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May 29, 2013 · 0:00

Mary Grace

In the summer of 2011, my friend Carol, a nurse, joined a mercy mission to Haiti to treat people still suffering from the January 2010 earthquake.  A last minute volunteer, she hadn’t had time to fundraise, but was expected to buy and bring all kinds of medical supplies – bandages, Tylenol, alcohol wipes, rubber gloves.  Everything.

To help defray the cost, Carol sent emails to some friends, and we donated to help defray her costs.

A week after she got back, Carol invited me and three women I had never met over for a glass of wine to thank us, celebrate her return and hear about her trip.

One of the women, Mary Grace, rubbed me wrong immediately.  The middle-aged bleached blond wore a tight sparkly dress that screamed “I’m still 20!” with gold glitter-encrusted flip flops.

Before we were even introduced, I heard her say,

“Now they’re going after Michelle Bachmann because she has migraines!”  I had just the day before posted this blog piece about Michelle’s migraines.  Mary Grace and I were clearly not destined to be BFFs.

Me and Mary Grace are BFFs. (Newsweek cover photo)

(Newsweek cover photo)

A minute later, she continued her political commentary:

“I’d push Nancy Pelosi under a truck.  I just wish I could keep her clothes …”

“Carol,” I said, looking at the enormous glass of Pinot Grigio she gave me and trying to lighten the mood Mary Grace had struck, “shouldn’t you just pass out the bottles and save hand-washing these glasses?”

Everybody chuckled and we made some small talk.  Drinks became dinner; Carol told us all about her trip.

Everybody but me had a few large glasses of wine, I was driving.

“Even after all the attention following the earthquake,” explained Carol, over grilled shrimp salad, “not much has been rebuilt.  People still live in tents, with cholera, typhoid, other nasty diseases that poverty and no clean water bring.”

Mary Grace didn’t seem to be at all interested; she kept trying to change the subject.  I was getting irritated because we were there, after all, to hear Carol’s story.  I certainly was.

Carol described the terrible plight of the Haitians, especially children, and how difficult it is for them.  Then Carol said the thing that set Mary Grace — and at least three large glasses of wine — off.

“The most wonderful thing about my trip,” said Carol, “was Sean Penn.  He’s my new hero.”

“Ugh!” said Mary Grace with disgust.  “No!”

(Thanks, Google)

(Thanks, Google)

Carol continued.  “Right after the earthquake, he raised millions of dollars to build a hospital.  A few months later, though, his money was still in the US.  They couldn’t get it to Haiti.”

“Didn’t he have some crap Hollywood movie to make?”  slurred Mary Grace.  The rest of us rolled our eyes.

“Well,” Carol continued. “Sean managed to get the money, architects and skilled workmen there – he brought them over.  They designed a hospital, hired a whole lot of previously unskilled unemployed Haitians, and taught them the skills to build it.  They did it!  They built the hospital! It’s not done, but I treated patients there!”

Mary Grace rudely burst out “Sean Penn is scum,” she said.  “What good’s he ever done?  He just trades on his Hollywood connections.  Hero, my ass.”

Now I am not a huge Sean Penn fan.  But we weren’t talking about that; we were talking about Haiti.  We were talking about someone who’d helped over there.  We were talking about Carol and her incredible experience.  And we were doing it in Carol’s house.

“He’s an alcoholic, drug abuser,” she said, holding up her enormous glass for a fourth refill.

“Drink up,” I said to her to stifled laughter from everybody else at the table.

I couldn’t believe her rudeness.  Still, I was thinking I am a guest here,  so I clenched my teeth, bit my tongue.  But my heart raced and my blood pressure skyrocketed.  I didn’t want to offend Carol, but I did want to throttle Mary Grace.  Clearly, she didn’t care about offending Carol.

Kelly, one of the other women, said “Ooh, Carol, where did you get that sculpture?” in a transparent effort to change the subject.

But Mary Grace wouldn’t drop it.

“He just trades on his celebrity.  Those liberals in Hollywood, they just trade on their names.  What does he really do?  People like Carol do the real work.”

“Carol did a great job.  As a nurse, she has a skill that she can use to help people.  It is great.” I said with more reserve than I felt.  “But other people have different skills, abilities.  If Sean Penn can manage to build a hospital, why are you putting him down?  What’s wrong with using what you can to help people?”

“He does nothing good.  Sean Penn hasn’t done anything good.  Other people do good things.”

“Well,” I said, “you’re a person.  What good things have you done lately?”

Without hesitation she told me:

She held up one finger.  “I am a nice person.  I don’t flip people off in traffic.  I am always polite when I drive.”

She had me there.  I have been known to raise a finger now and then.

Holding up her middle finger, she went on, “When somebody asks me how they look, I always tell them that they look nice.  Even if they don’t.” 

The rest of us sat in stunned silence, mouths gaping.

She held up a third finger:  “And I was in Chipotle yesterday.  Behind me in line were three soldiers.  And I said to the cashier ‘their dinner is on me.‘”

For a minute, I expected her to continue.  But she didn’t.

“Let me see,” I said, holding out my hands.  I held up my right hand, palm up, weighing things:  “On the right:  Lunch at Chipotle.”  I held up my left:  “On the left:  building a hospital for the poor people of Haiti.  Yes, Mary Grace, you’re by far the better person.”

The table was silent.  Everybody, including me, was watching Mary Grace to see what she would say.

She said nothing.

“Carol,” I said, rising from the table and fearing I’d just lost a friend, “I think it’s time for me to leave.”  I grabbed my purse and headed for the door.   Carol was mortified.

“I’m so sorry,” I told her as she walked me out to my car.  “I tried to not be rude, but it was your trip and your hero!”

“You know,” Carol said in her lovely British accent, “Mary Grace wasn’t even invited tonight.  She’s always crashing along with Kelly and Kate.”  She grabbed my arm to make sure I heard the next part.  “When I sent that email asking for donations? I got an email back from Mary Grace telling me ‘no’ and saying ‘Charity begins at home.’”

I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one to think Mary Grace a rude bore.

“Mary Grace has been rude to me every time I’ve seen her.  She’s not my friend, yet she always just shows up.” she said, laughing.  “But until tonight, nobody has ever managed to shut her up.”

Carol told me the next day that Mary Grace was insulting Bono along with Penn when she got back in.

“Apparently,” Mary Grace sneered as Carol sat back down, “your friend just couldn’t take it.”-.

Carol closed her eyes.  “Mary Grace, please leave.  You’re no longer welcome here.”

*     *     *

This piece is from my memoir class.  I had to recount a memorable argument.  I thought I’d post it tonight to celebrate two things:

  1. Michelle Bachmann’s Retirement!
  2. My 2nd Blogging Anniversary!  Thanks, everybody.  It’s been a blast!

This is long but it is taken from just about the view I have from my office!

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