angrymom's Open Salon Blog

Reflections on Vacation

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:07:34 -0400

In the my family, we like to rush to the doctor 24 hours before we leave for terra incognita and hope the antibiotics we're traveling with keep the kids alive until we get home. We packed the kids into the backseat with the Shut-up Box (DVD player and 6 dozen Barbie movies), a pile of granola bars, and a bag filled to the brim with medication. We crossed ourselves twice and drove north on I-5 until I could touch the inside of my window without burning my hands a la Audrey Rose.

The two days we spent driving to our first destination--Portland, Oregon--are almost not worth mentioning. We stayed in hotels that barely deserved to start with an "h," where the rooms smelled and the pools were--I'm fairly sure--filled with human sweat and not actual water. Of course, when we got to Portland and encountered our first urban pond, the Big One immediately submerged herself--fully clothed--until all I could see of her was a small circle of her face containing only the parts necessary for breathing. Although the pond smelled strongly of chlorine and the natives were frolicking in it without hesitation, Iwas silently grateful for bubble gum-flavored Zithromax.

From Portland, we went to Bandon. In case you don't know anything about the Oregon coast, it is beautiful and rugged. Which means it is fucking polar. We stayed across the street from a walking path to the beach, and one day, as we marched toward it, a soft-spoken man in an eco-friendly car stopped and shared with us that an actual deer was grazing up the road ahead.

At this point you are probably asking yourself what my problem is, so I will provide some background. I live in the country, and my backyard is filled with deer. Once a year, they have a deer orgy, and their aggressive behavior means my dog gets her ass kicked pretty much every morning, and the kids can't play in the yard until I have cleared it, Rambo-style. The rest of the year, we erect fences and spray deer-repellent that smells exactly like ass onto the plants that we care about, and then watch the deer eat everything anyway. So while in theory deer represent the beautiful majesty of nature, in reality, I watch the flies buzz around their mangy hides as I brush my teeth, and we lock eyes in much the same way two burly drunks lock eyes just before they wrestle around on the pool table.

So back to the former hippie. He had pretty much knocked me speechless. I would have liked to explain to him how I used to be like him: a city person who had never had a chipped windshield or smelled a skunk UP CLOSE. But that got kind of complicated, and the more I stared at him blankly, the more tempted I was to use my best Joy accent, turn to AngryHusband, and tell him to go on and git his gun out the car. Finally, though, the guy just drove off, and we saw the fucking deer and went about our business.

I guess after a few days, your energy level starts to drop, and you all start to grate on one another's nerves because you're just with each other 24/7, mostly in one small space. There's also the anxiety that comes when the antibiotics run out, and ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN. When my kids get strep, they just suddenly start hurling. And they don't stop without some kind of medical intervention. I have three magical Zofran pills left, and the insurance company is stingy with it. The Little One kept screaming that her "front butt" hurt, and believe you me, when anyone in the family talks about their vagina, it usually means they have strep throat. But even so, we made it home in one piece and no one had to visit so much as the vitamin rack of the gas station convenience store during the whole ten days we were gone.

So I breathed a sigh of relief as we pulled up to the house, and it was still standing, and there were no trees down or wisps of smoke or fountains or water shooting out of anything. We had survived, or so I thought until I got the suitcases back into the bedroom and looked out the back door.

My garden was gone.

The deer had somehow broken in and ravaged it. One of them was laying out there in the pasture, which is what they do when they need to digest their food. My dreams of plentiful tomatoes, warmed by the sun--shattered. No giant pumpkins. No butternut squash. Even the zucchini looked depressed.

I thought about that deer peacefully grazing by the beach path in Bandon and wished I'd walked over and kicked it right in the nuts. Then I went to the grocery store and bought myself a bottle of wine. I got back just in time to determine that both kids needed another strep test.

It's good to be home.

Help Ken!

Mon, 14 Jun 2010 14:06:31 -0400

On the Big One's 7th birthday, she became a woman. Well, sort of. See, she'd never had a male Barbie before, and she'd been talking about it for months. Before Ken arrived, all male parts of her elaborate plays had to be acted out by a vaguely humanoid stuffed green superhero with a turban that I bought for 2 dollars at one of those stores on Clement Street in San Francisco.

When the Big One opened up the Ken doll, the high-pitched, very excited girl screams began, and I think they lasted for about 30 minutes. Dogs around the neighborhood were howling as the Big One ripped open the box to liberate Ken. Her grandmother was thoughtful enough to provide a few outfits for Ken to enact various scenes: pink tuxedo for their wedding day, surfer outfit for days relaxing beside the Barbie pool, powder blue v-neck for dance numbers. As the costume changes began, I turned my back on the scene to start the dishes.

"Settle down, Ken."

I decided not to turn around right away.

"Ken! You have very big....."

Agony.

"...feet."

The sound of a pod of dolphins coming up for air told me--without even looking--that my husband's drink had been ejected from his mouth. I heard it hit the floor, which had just been cleaned.

At this point I had to turn around, because I just wanted to see Ken's crotch and how it had changed over the years. When I was a girl, it was a vaguely penis-shaped bulge. Benign, but with enough definition to allow some kind of pretend intercourse to occur in the privacy of my own bedroom when we girls were sure no parental figures were around.

WARNING: the image you are about to see may be disturbing for some viewers.

They have sexually hobbled Ken past the point I thought possible.

A Simple Plan

Wed, 2 Jun 2010 23:06:05 -0400

I'm just going to come clean right away and tell you: this is one of those posts that my kid is going to hate me for in no more than two years. I guarantee that by the time you get to the bottom of this, you'll feel like I do. Embarrassment is a currency, and I have put in the necessary work to earn the right to tell this tale.

Summer vacation is the new New Year's. Do you really think you're going to wake up on January 1 and finally change your life? I'm guessing January 1 is a pretty unpleasant morning for many of you. A one-day turnaround is unrealistic. So, many have jumped the summer vacation bandwagon. You chomp your donuts at the bus stop while the kids run around getting their school clothes dirty before school even starts, and you dream of the 6-8 weeks of your life where you don't wake up every morning and sprint to 9 pm. I'm going to learn Greek, get rock hard abs, and read Proust this summer! Well, not me, but I'm sure one of you bitches thought it.

I had set lower expectations for myself. I was going to get the Big One to Number 2 promptly, without delay, the success of which could cause some kind of worldwide glut in size 7 Disney Princess underwear when I stopped having to buy replacements.

When this problem first began, I tried negotiating and mentoring first. I explained in painful detail the medical and social reasons why you cannot fight the body's urge to eliminate waste. After about a year of that, I switched to nagging. Then I tried ignoring. Then one day, I thought up some bullshit story about how I knew she had to poo because I could see it in her face. The first time I said it, she turned pale and ran to the bathroom. I was a genius. But then a couple of days later she called my bluff, and more underwear ended up in the garbage can.

I was pretty down in the dumps with the whole routine, and summer vacation seemed full of hope. Like when I had her full attention, and she wasn't doing whatever it is first graders do to prepare for entry into Harvard, she would listen to reason and put "Defecate" into the Number 1 slot of her list of priorities.

To make matters worse, we were also failing miserably in another one of my summer projects: Table Manners.

Backstory: the girls have been on a kick devising hand signals in order to communicate. Unfortunately, they're still young enough to want me to participate in this sort of thing, so I have to learn all the hand signals for Pee, Poo, Alert!, Un-alert, etc., etc. I always felt my horrible memory was the only thing that stood in my way of learning to write in Chinese, but after this week, I feel like maybe it's no big woop.

Last night at dinner, as I was busily trying to fill the plates of my children with food they would refuse to eat, I stupidly asked the Little One if she would care for some chicken. She calmly looks up at me and gives me The Finger.

"Mommy, this means I don't want chicken."

Indeed.

So back to the underwear. I think I had this brilliant idea on the last day of school, which was one week ago today. You'll forgive me if this is already hazy. It FEELS like a lot longer than one week. But I had this idea almost immediately after dropping the Big One off for her last day of the first grade that I should go crazy with the carrot and forget the stick with this poop thing. When she got home, I told her that everytime she showed me a poop, she would get one dollar. I saw her turn it over in her mind, and then I walked away.

The next day, I reminded her about it twice. I told her dad about it while she was in earshot. I waited, rubbing my hands together both nervously AND diabolically. And then, I saw it. That look on her face that she makes when she has to go poo? It isn't really a bullshit story. I knew she did have to go. I always know when she does. We looked at each other, and I sunk the meaning and significance relayed into a dozen therapy sessions into that one glance. In her mind, she was probably calculating the probability that I would have cash in my wallet to make good on my promise. And then, she went into the bathroom and ejected pay dirt.

One week later, I have paid out $3, and I realize that while I have so far found more success in 7 days than I have in 3 years in this area, I am also one bout of diarrhea away from bankruptcy.

I'm OK!

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 14:03:15 -0400

So if I had to paint a picture of me right this second, I would paint a picture of myself laying on the ground wrapped in a parachute (see this) in intense mother-fucking pain, but all in all good, seeing as how I could be flat and dead in the middle of a Maine cornfield.

I am sick. I've been sick for about 10 days. The germs are giving the antibiotics the finger. I am not sleeping. I live in a fog punctuated by coughing and throwing up. Early into the misery, I got a phone call. From a certain university. Saying that I got into their grad school program.

With a scholarship.

So, while things are looking a little dim and blurry around the edges, I know as soon as I feel better I am going to be very excited. And very, very busy.

This, people, is our year.

Undercover Mother: Me at a Tea Party Meeting

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:03:40 -0400

There was just one rule I gave myself before I went: no lying. Of course, disguising my normal appearance in any way counts as lying. So I just wore what I had on that morning, which could count as some kind of liberal uniform: ancient Chuck Taylors, a head wrap made in Tibet, and a hemp purse with an ohm sign on it.

Let's make this clear: I am not a native to this land. I am an invasive species. This county is solidly red, and as an outsider I've learned to be
careful with what I say.* I didn't know what to expect from this meeting, and from the reporting I'd seen about the Tea Party, it seemed possible that I would be thrown out cold. Still, embarrassment I am used to. I couldn't stay away.

The week before I attended, Bob Cesca posted “The Tea Party Is All About Race” on The Huffington Post. I know Cesca and I are on the same team, technically, but the article really bothered me. For example, he says, “When you strip away all of the rage, all of the nonsensical loud noises and all of the contradictions, all that's left is race.” Cesca doesn't explain what's behind the rage or what kind of contradictions he's talking about in that article, but I fear it's because, like a lot of us, he's dismissed the Tea Party movement without really listening. This is a colossal mistake. Imagine saying that about Kurt Cobain's opus. Isn't the rage and the seeming contradictions exactly the thing you should be listening to?

By the time I got within sight of the middle school where the meeting was being held, I knew I could relax, because the place was mobbed. I had to park around the corner and walk to the school, and if you think nobody walks in LA, well, it's even more so out in the country. People streamed into the gymnasium from every direction, and I blended in as well as I could with the flag pins and camo jackets, entering into what my husband had joked was “enemy territory.”

The local Tea Party movement started in May 2009 with about twenty people meeting at someone's house. The numbers have grown every month, and a reported 557 other people attended this meeting with me. There were simply not enough chairs, and the organizers requested that everyone under 20 find a space on the floor.

Let's pause for a moment to think about those numbers. At the Tea Party Meeting held In Mill Valley (north of San Francisco) on Sunday, March 7, around 500 people showed up. In my rural county halfway between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe, 535 people showed up on a Tuesday night. Now I know we're supposed to bemoan the fact that we live in a country where civic participation means voting for your favorite American Idol contestant each and every week. But here, in front of our very noses are people exercising their rights to free speech and the right to assemble, and they aren't just doing it in firmly red areas, like my town, but they are doing it in Marin County. Sean Penn lives in Marin County. It doesn't get any bluer than that.

When I read the Cesca article, part of the reason it didn't ring true to me was probably geographical. It would be naïve to claim that racism does not exist in California, but still, my spidey senses are telling me that this premise is bullshit. No doubt your mileage may vary depending on where in the country you attend one of these meetings, but I'm here to tell you that I heard no racist statements about President Obama. His name was hardly mentioned, because around these parts people enjoy throwing tomatoes at homegrown Democrats like Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi.

The guest speaker that night was Chuck DeVore, who is running against Barbara Boxer in this year's Senate race. DeVore is a Republican, and although he talks the Tea Party talk, he's not completely accepted by the local group yet, no matter what you might have read in the papers. I know this based on the amount of heckling during his speech. I actually felt like DeVore and I were in a similar position. Both of us were outsiders not exactly sure what we were dealing with. The difference? He was at the front of the crowd with the microphone putting his ass on the line with his insane jibber-jabber. I was hiding in the corner taking notes and clapping at the wrong moments. It kind of felt like the odd times I'm forced to go to church and can't even cross myself correctly. But I digress.

DeVore started with a slanted history lesson in which the founding fathers constructed the constitution in order to protect the individual rights of its citizens. This made me want to be sick, but it's probably a common side effect of reading Zinn's A People's History of the United States. Suck it, Jefferson, is what I was thinking. DeVore made sure that everyone knew what Democrats were. They are people who believe the rights of the state are more important than the rights of the individual. Hm. That doesn't sound like me.

I have to assume that at least some of the information DeVore let loose that night was accepted by the people at face value. Now before you start tsk tsking others for not educating themselves on the issues, think of the amount of information that you and I, in the course of a week, take at face value if for no other reason then just because there's no time to check it all and still tend to our basic needs. American history, economics, current events, the political system? This is really complicated stuff. The really successful presidents have been the ones who can communicate their message in effective ways to the masses (this was just covered by George Packer in The New Yorker in “Obama's Lost Year”).

For a short time I sat next to a woman who attended with her high-school-aged son. This whole area is in an uproar about more budget cuts to education, and the very next night, I'd be back here (but in a much smaller room) attending a school board meeting to discuss just that. What does a Tea Party mother think about cuts to education? Like me, this mother was pissed. But she wanted to know how the money had been managed. And where is the lotto money that was supposed to fund education in the first place? She firmly believed the money was there but was not being handled properly.

At this point, the donation can came by. The woman and her son looked at me critically as I passed it along without putting anything in there. I couldn't bring myself to do it, even in the name of research. So instead I decided to change my seat. I didn't realize I'd moved ringside for the question and answer portion of the evening. I must have missed the sign saying that the section was reserved for the hecklers and the very angry. But this was the best place for me to be, because sitting where I could hear the sidebars is where it finally clicked. Well, another reason it clicked is because earlier that day I was searching for a bumper sticker that really should exist:

Did you know, that when you go to cafepress.com and search on “Obama” what you actually find is more anti-Obama than pro-Obama? Here's a sample of what you could place on your auto:

Honk if I'm paying your mortgage
Honk if I'm buying you healthcare
A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.
The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those willing to work and give to those who would not.

At Q&A, people told stories of unemployment, illness, and the loss of their health insurance. They yelled insults at Bush. One woman bravely yelled at DeVore for not working with the other side and actually accomplishing something. In short, a lot of these people sounded like they ought to vote Democrat. But they wouldn't do that even if you subjected them to waterboarding. And although I can't claim to have all the answers after two hours at a Tea Party meeting, I think I'm starting to understand.

Picture this. You've worked your entire life at a job you might not even like for not a lot of money. Your body is probably breaking down on you, but you're used to putting up. You pay your taxes and try to stay out of financial trouble, but right now times are really hard. And you know what you see? You see the government spending money like there's no tomorrow, and you have this distinct feeling that you are going to be asked to pay for it. And you know who they are helping with your money? Illegal immigrants and deadbeats on welfare. You're the one who needs help, but you can't even get a job. You have sacrificed a lot of creature comforts to pay for a family health insurance policy, and now the government is just going to give it to everyone? And I'm going to have to pay more taxes for somebody else's Viagra? No fucking way. Not me.

Rant all you want about how this point of view isn't correct and doesn't make sense. The way I see it, it's the left's own damned fault for not communicating effectively. We've done such a horrible job at getting our message across that liberals are seen as overeducated jerks who think less of the rest of the country. There are plenty of people effectively creating a Tea Party narrative above. And they're selling a lot of bumper stickers.

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*Learned it the hard way, as a matter of fact. Shortly after delivering my eldest child, I invited a bunch of moms from my birthing class over to my house far up in the foorhills. The conversation had taken a confessional tone, and without thinking, I complained about my neighborhood and the fact that I was surrounded by conservative Christians. The yawning silence reminded me that everyone in the room, except for me, was a conservative Christian.