Making you laugh today

My husband - who is a big supporter of my writing - has been very busy, and just caught up on a couple of weeks of blog reading. "Good stuff, really good work you've been doing lately." he told me. Then added the caveat: "You might want to post something funny soon."

In other words, it's gotten a wee bit heavy around here lately. Can't argue with that. It's true. And while I do genuinely feel the need to lighten things up on the blog, I can also only work with what I've got, and I know I just don't have a funny post in me right now.

Fortunately for you, I have friends. Funny, funny friends. And it turns out that I, too, am funny when I'm yakking with them on social media (translation for my Luddite friends - murdering time on FaceBook and Twitter).

And one of these cyber-friends (just as real as so-called "real life" friends, don't you believe otherwise) has written a hysterically funny post on "Ways to make your next IEP awesome."

Yes, this is "awesome" with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Because IEP Meetings*? Well, the term "torturesome" comes up much more often than "awesome" -- unless you take these ideas to heart, because then you too could have the funniest IEP meeting ev-ah!

So, go! Read! My friend is Lexi Sweatpants and her blog is Mostly True Stuff.

The post: "Ways to make your next IEP awesome."

And if you look down to the bottom to see the crowd of bloggers who offered up suggestions for this post, who were part of the autism brain trust, as it were, you'll see my name listed. Two of them come from me. Whoo-hoo!

There's a third one I came up with that didn't make it on to the list, and I'll share it with you here, as a little bonus: "Wear an eye patch, and every time they look away switch it to the other eye."  You're welcome.

So go, visit Lexi and read all of the rest and get your laugh on. I promise I'll be funny again here, some time soon. (But probably not tomorrow when I'm telling you about bringing my nephew Simon and his girlfriend to see Mom today.)

*Note: If you don't know what an "IEP" is? (First off, consider yourself incredibly fortunate and know I envy you.) It stands for "Individual Education Plan" - and is basically the contract between the school district and the Special Ed student that spells out what is needed for the child to receive the "free and appropriate education" to which they are entitled as citizens of this nation.

It the sets educational goals for the student - both short term and long term. It specifies the classroom setting - inclusion or specialized classrooms; number of students and/or student-teacher ratios. It outlines the teaching methodologies, accommodations and additional therapies necessary to educate your child. And? It is legally binding.

If a miracle has occurred and you live in a school district that is truly seeking to do right by its needier students, this can be a wonderful thing; written as a true collaboration between the family and knowledgeable educators, creatively coming up with a great blueprint for your kid's education.

And if you have a Special Ed kid, and have sat through an annual IEP meeting, I will pause now for the laughter and/or tears to subside.

Because in 99.9% of the cases I know of, that is not the case, and it becomes instead a battleground wherein the family tries to get what their child needs written into it while the school district tries to eliminate as many services as possible and write the thing so vaguely that you have nothing to hold their feet to the fire with, when they fail to properly educate your child.

A bad IEP meeting resembles nothing so much as negotiations between the White House and the Kremlin at the height of the Cold War. It can get ugly and mean and above all ridiculous. You walk out of a bad IEP meeting ready to go to war because people who do not know your child are planning his education, not with his best interests in mind, but hell bent on their singular goal of saving the school district some money. At the expense of your child, who is just so much collateral damage.

And then you fantasize about doing some of the things listed in Lexi's post, instead of grinding your teeth while trying to smile and appear reasonable. 

OK, I'll shut up now, because I have clearly stopped being the least bit funny, and am at risk of turning into a giant buzz-kill. Mea culpa. Go read Lexi and laugh. G'night.

Hunger

Me, pregnant in L.A., March 2002

Today is Yom Kippur, the last day of the Jewish New Year, the holiest of the holy of the Days of Awe. Also a day when adults are commanded to fast, to take in no food or drink for the entire day, from sundown to sundown (how Jewish days are measured).

There is something lovely about this tradition, and I have always enjoyed the fast, especially how it's the perfect excuse for a delicious little afternoon nap.  Also, Jews being Jews, there is always a wonderful full repast immediately afterwards, a gathering of family and friends to break the fast with, because food is truly what we do best.

But I haven't fasted since 1999.  I married in 2000, at nearly 40. So, time being of the essence, we got "to work" right away in our attempts to start a family. Thus there were two years of trying to get pregnant and then two years of being a nursing mother, and since then, just being an exhausted mom of special needs / high maintenance kids.

Now that the boys are ten, it's feeling a bit ridiculous, the never-ending excuses; so today I am semi-fasting - taking in liquids only - easing into it as it were. Plus it's still my reality that I need too much energy to look after my kids to truly fast.

So I am experiencing some hunger today, which is making me think about past hungers in my life, and an amusing story from my life, that I have yet to tell you...

When I was about four months pregnant with the twins, I took my last business trip to LA. (although I had been a frequent visitor until then, I haven't been back since). My husband, Danny, came along, both to carry on some of his own business and take care of me.

He had also accompanied me on my (similarly last) trip to the Sundance Film Festival that January, and I had truly needed his help as the "morning" sickness combined with altitude sickness to leave me in bad shape some days. (See this post for my entertaining story about nearly puking in a famous actor's lap.)

So, back to the L.A. story... we landed in the late afternoon, and it took MUCH, MUCH longer to get the rental car straightened out than we'd planned. By the time we finally arrived at our hotel, I hadn't eaten for hours. I was famished in the way that only a woman pregnant with twins in her second trimester can be famished.

And then? And then? It turned out that our lovely hotel? Had no onsite restaurant open for dinner. (Breakfast through lunch "coffee shop" only. Grrrrrrr.)

It being L.A., we were expected to retrieve our car (10 minute wait) and then drive up and down the street looking for a suitable restaurant (15 to 45 minute process). Yet I, being about to start gnawing on the desk clerk, found that idea impossible. And might have said so in less than polite terms.

We were then directed to the joint across the street, the House of Blues. Nobody's idea of fine, L.A. worthy cuisine, quite truly a tourist trap. But I didn't care. At this point I was a ravenous, crazy pregnant-with-twins starving lady.

And of course: there was a wait for a table. And once we were seated: the service was molasses slow.

At the table next to us was a couple paying their bill, clearly done with dinner. And their basket of fresh cornbread? Untouched.

Yes, I swiped it. I ate left-behind food off a stranger's table in a restaurant. I had turned all Pregnant She-Hulk: MUST. FEED. BABIES.

And my dear husband, who normally would have been mortified by such uncouth behavior didn't bat an eye. (By this point in the pregnancy, he knew better than to get between me and FOOD.)

Also? He very gallantly manhandled a waiter into taking our order pronto and putting it in as a rush.

(Possibly because he saw I was eying the uneaten half of a steak about to be left behind by a different couple at the table on our right.)

That was truly the hungriest I have ever been, or ever hope to be.

And it's good to remember that right now, today, as 5 pm rolls around and I am feeling a bit peckish, impatient in my wait to return to synagogue; eager to hear the final notes of the shofar's blast reverberate through the sanctuary, echoed by the rumbling of a thousand empty stomachs (including mine), yearning to be filled.

L'Shanah Tovah, my friends. And have a Tzom Kal (easy fast).

Monday is... Monday

I like fluffy clouds

Do you ever hit that point in your burnt-out mental and physical exhaustion where your brain goes blank and you find yourself stopping in the middle of sentences and losing your point all the time and your mate and children stand there and finally ask to please please just buy a verb or noun so they can glean some inkling of the VERY important thing you were going to tell them, before you just

stopped

in the middle for no reason, your mind gone blank or distracted by something shiny?

(No, me neither, nope, never happens to me, nuh-uh.)

Do you ever find yourself answering the simple social question of "And how are you?" with: "Hanging on to sanity by a thread, but haven't let go yet" ?

Do you post Facebook updates that read: "Ok, resolving to be less negative and count my fucking blessings. That's 1 fucking blessing... 2 fucking blessings... 3 fucking blessings..." ?

Do you find yourself getting ridiculously pissed off that Words-with-Friends doesn't recognize "scumface" as a word, because it would have given you a triple double word PLUS the all-7 bonus for a gazillion points?

Yeah.

It's been like that lately. 

And I'm not going to go into the details here because if *I'm* tired of my whining, you all are surely quite done.

And unlike in the past, the pressures are not creating beautiful lyrical late-night writing, but rather rendering me useless in my insomniac stupor, cackling away at inane things on "Damn-You-Autocorrect" when I should be sleeping.

Yet I don't want to fade away silently into stressed-out oblivion.

So here I am for the moment.

(Picture waving to you. But HELL no, I'm not turning on the computer camera because then you would see the unholy mess behind me. Plus the stain from Jacob's 1/2 eaten but "all done" chocolate Rita's Ice that plopped onto my shirt in a backsplash when I threw it into the trash on the way home tonight.)

Repeat after me... "2 weeks until they're all back in school."

My mantra of the moment.

All the other things I also need to accomplish in these same two weeks, when all I want to do is enjoy this last scrap of vacation-time with my kids and catch up on some sleep? Not going there, but just imagine a 10-ton dump-truck unloading onto me and that about sums it up.

Catch you on the upside, folks.

And between now and then? Expect some more gallows humor, it's what keeps me hanging onto that last bloody thread.

If it's not one thing, it's a flat tire and 103 fever

This is going to be a fairly short one, if not a particularly sweet one...

When I went to pick Ethan up from camp on Friday morning, I was so happy. It was a beautiful day and I'd had the wonderful company of my friend Deb on the 2 hour drive hour out, as I was giving her boys a ride home, too. We have a lot in common, had a lot to talk about, and the drive-time just flew by.

I arrived to find Ethan looking tired and miserable, sitting on his duffel bag. I was expecting a happy-dance reunion, and I got a nine-mile stare instead. A mumble and a tearful hug.

I was more than a little miffed to find out that the message I had specifically asked to be delivered to him, that I would be doing the LATE pick-up time, as I wanted to take the camp tour, and thus to NOT worry that he was one of the last campers being picked up? Had NOT been communicated to him at all.

I assumed that an hour of anxiety was the source of his listlessness and clinginess, his resistance to going on the walking tour of the camp. That and the fact that he had slept poorly the night before. As he reported to me, he had woken up in the wee hours to pee, and had had trouble falling back asleep.

I really should know better. When Ethan is THAT out of sorts, something is up. My friend Amy even wrote a blog post about this phenomenon recently (called: those who cannot remember strep throat are doomed to repeat it) that I had read, and actually shaken my head thinking *I* certainly knew better. The more fool, I.

Because it wasn't until after the tour (which I dragged him on) and after lunch in town (which he only ate half of) while in the local penny candy store (that he was being surprisingly less than enthusiastic about) that I heard him complain of feeling cold. And it was actually rather warm in this store.

That's when the bells and whistles FINALLY went off in my head and I put my hand on the back of his neck... to find it burning up.

Feverish Ethan, with friends

A short trip to the local drug store for a thermometer revealed a temperature of nearly 103.

Yikes! No wonder he'd been feeling so punk. I had also picked up some tylenol (pretty sure he would need it) so boy properly dosed, we cut short our poke-about town walk and got into the car to head home.

The medicine kicked in and the ride home was going swimmingly. That is until a large chunk of debris - it looked like a piece of bumper, maybe - flew off a car diagonally in front of us and landed in the road: hard plastic, light blue and deadly to our right rear tire.

After the bump of rolling over it, I felt the sickeningly familiar chunkity-chunkity-chunk and pulled over fast, on a section of I-80 that fortunately had a decently wide breakdown lane. The boys were all thrilled, they had never been in a car that had sprouted a flat tire, let alone one on a major highway - quel excitement!

After some time on the phone with AAA and being told we'd have a long wait for a tow truck to come to our aid, we were pleasantly surprised by fast efficient service.

Of course the spare was in a well in the trunk, which had to be emptied of camp duffels, and of course it was completely flat. But I had warned the operator of this probability and the truck driver actually had a tank of air with him, and the spare, once inflated, thankfully, held.

I was nervous as a cat the whole long, long final hour of our ride home; every bump or slight shimmy making me fear my cranky old spare had given up the ghost. But it held true and got us back home to the city with narry but a good tale for the boys to tell their friends.

I might have kissed the sidewalk in relief when we finally stepped out of the car, home safe, but I know how many dogs have peed there. So I settled for a friendly pat of the old girl's roof, telling her "Good car, good car."

And I thanked the parking fairies for delivering us a spot nearly right in front of our house. Not quite rock-star, but proof they weren't pissed at us, either.

Hopefully Jake's return home tomorrow will involve less highway adventure, and no need for thermometers.

I am Aiming Low today!

Bet you didn't know I could be funny did you?

(I know, based on recent evidence you're looking at me doubtfully.)

But I am really a very funny person in my life, and when I'm not being so squashed I even bring some of that here to my blog from time to time (albeit it's often a gallows humor).

That said, I wrote a pure humor post a little while back, and when I read it over I thought: Wow, this feels like an "Aiming Low" type of post.

Apparently, they thought so too, as the wonderful and wonderfully funny folks over there accepted it as a guest post and published it!

So click on the link (or button below) and go on over to read my post: "It’s Not Cat Pee; It’s Me!"

(And please leave me a comment there so they think I'm popular, m'kay?)

And if you're newly visiting me from over there...

Hi, nice to meet you.

Welcome to my blog, which, at the moment is a wee bit focused on the old people in my life deteriorating, interspersed with a lot of chatter about autism and special needs parenting. Not the funniest stuff you've ever encountered, I know.

But, like I said, I do occasionally lighten up, and if you want to read some of my fluffier fare, here's a short tour of my best "humor" posts:

Out of the mouths of my kids:
The Conversationalist 
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Poopyhead  
Nice try, kid! 

Funny lists? Yeah I got 'em:
Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Have Done to Make a Living
Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Said I'd Never Do
Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Make Top Ten Lists

Random funny:
A Member of the (not so) Secret Grammar Police
Search Me

Remember I mentioned gallows humor? This:
13 Things to Do in the ER for 30 Hours


Thanks again to the folks at Aiming Low for giving me a space to get me funny on. Gonna try to do it again here, too (as soon as life lightens up a bit).

This Space UN-Intentionally Left Blank

Ay yi yai!

Oy Vey!

Yo Ishtenem!

Mea Culpa!

Ay Dios mio!

How do you people with full time jobs AND kids do it?

How do you have the time and energy to blog?

Because for the past 2 weeks my producing work for the Listen to Your Mother Show has been at about the level of a full time job.

And my kids are still, well, my kids, and they want their mom's attention and clean clothes and food when they're hungry and their homework (oh, god, the homework!) checked. Well actually, no, they want to be allowed to NOT do the homework, but that's not going to happen.

But still, you know what I'm saying. I am busier than ever, and with all sorts of stuff I have to take care of for my ACTUAL mother, too. (Banking! Doctor Appointments! HER Laundry! Social Security Office - AGAIN!)

And then there's always the Autism factor. (How could I forget the Autism time tax? Just estimate however long you think something is going to take, and then double or triple it. And do that again. Now you're close.)

So my blog, my writing? Suffering dearly.

Half written posts in my queue? Yup, dozens.

Anything close to being able to be actually sent out into the world with the touch of a "publish" button? Hardly.

I have written wonderful, beautiful posts... entirely in my head in the shower.  And then never gotten them to screen or paper. (Yes, I actually do sometimes write on physical paper and then transfer into digital words. Fancy that!)

One advantage of being out in the world interacting with adults: I shower daily once again (they can no longer smell me from Jersey).

Another advantage? Not only do I have no time and mental space to write, I also have no time to obsessively check my blog stats. I simply could not tell you how many people have visited my blog in the last day, or even week. And that? Is frankly a relief.

That said, however, as much as I feel expanded by all this exciting producing stuff, I also feel diminished in that my writing is clogging up inside me once again, an expressive and creative logjam.

I've had struggles with blogging before, had fallow times. But this time around, it's not so much about losing my writing mojo, as getting filled up by the words tumbling around inside me, the pressure building up with no release in sight. (And don't go where that image takes you, okay? Just. don't.)

I am suddenly understanding my friends who regularly write compact, sweet, 300 word posts. It takes less time!

So, as I can see no relief coming in the near future, and I hate how s-l-o-w-l-y my archive is filling up (it's the 6th of the month and this is only my 3rd post - and it's not much of a post), I am just going to have to try harder to get something - anything- up here. And maybe write those short, pithy posts that have eluded me in the past.

And since this has all been so much something about pretty much nothing; a self-referential rumination; a curved, tail-biting snake, circling itself round and round - I will leave you with a little actual something... the song that's been playing in my head these days, my personal soundtrack.

And yes, I HAVE been feeling like a Muppet of a (wo)Man lately.

See you back here tomorrow folks, hopefully with a little something something.


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Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Said I'd Never Do

Another Monday, another Stasha’s Monday Listicles. And today's topic came from... Greta of Not Enough Patience and Never Enough Jewelry. 

She said: So, your topic (should you choose to accept it) is: "I'll Never...": The Top Ten Things You Said You Would NEVER Do And Have Caught Yourself Doing.

I don't know why she thinks parenthood would cause us to frequently eat our words. Oh, wait, I so do.  So here it is:

Ten Things I Said I Would NEVER Do (as a parent) And Have Caught Myself Doing:

#1.  Feed my kids junky "kid food." HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! If you've been reading this blog for any length of time you will know that Ethan rarely eats anything but. He is going to turn INTO an organic hot dog someday, because he eats so many of them. And? He considers the color green in a food to be indicative of it being POISON. At least he eats. I've got a friend whose son hates just about everything, including pizza.

#2.  Make separate meals for everyone, be a short order cook in my own home. I even once said "I will make one family meal and if the kids don't like it they have a choice of a peanut butter sandwich as an alternative or nothing. And once they are old enough they can fix it themselves."  Wow, was that a lifetime ago! I thought things would run so orderly in my house. That was before autism and special diets and THESE particular children landed in my home (and heart). Because letting your (nonexistent) children go hungry in theory? Not at all the same as watching your already too skinny actual child eat nothing and be fine with that.

#3.  Lose my evening time to the kids, every night.  I have a very organized, disciplined friend who had kids long before me. I thought she did a great job with them, and asked for lots of advice, thought I could just copy her parenting tricks and all would go as smoothly in my house. She had told me: "9 PM is when kid-time is over in my house. They can stay up later if they want, but in their rooms and quietly. After 9 PM is grown-up time in the common spaces." What a lovely philosophy. And COMPLETELY impossible in our situation. The boys share a TINY room and Jake crashes at 7, while Ethan can not ever fall asleep before 10, often later.

#4.  Ask my kid the soul-killing question "What is WRONG with you?" OK, I am REALLY not proud that I crossed this line once. It was Ethan (of course) getting on my very last nerve, doing something completely ridiculous over and over and ignoring my request to stop. Something I thought he REALLY knows better, and aught not to do at all. Before we had identified ADD and poor impulse control were just a part of his makeup. Sigh.

#5.  Let my body go to hell. Yes, B.C. (before children) I had looked at a formerly skinny friend of mine who'd had a kid and thought: "Geez, it's been 3 years, shouldn't that gut be gone by now?" HA! It's been over NINE years now that I have been resembling a Weeble, with no end in sight.

#6.  Yell.  HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! (Wiping the tears from my eyes and picking myself up off the floor from laughing so hard.)

#7.  Let my kids watch too much TV. This is a REALLY hard one. I HATE how much the TV is on, in our home. It goes against everything I believe in, how the kids should be doing REAL things, engaged in the world and with other people. However, with this particular set of kids? "Engaged" with each other? 99% of the time that means fighting. Yelling, screaming, hurting each other. It's the autism. And it sucks. But they will both sit peacefully together in the living room if the TV is on. And sometimes (OK, a lot of the time) I really, really need peaceful.

#8.  Completely lose touch with the culture that I love - movies, theater, art, music, avant-garde performance. When I was a young woman in New York City's Off-Off Broadway, Performance Art, and Independent Cinema world, I had older friends with kids who brought them along to all sorts of unusual and avant-garde events and I thought: "Yes, that's how I'm going to parent! No Disney dreck, "kid-culture" drivel for my offspring! I will open and expand their minds at a young age." HA HA HA! I wasn't counting on autism rendering one of my kids perpetually much less mature than his biological age. Nor his brother's insistence that all this culture stuff is BORING. Sigh. I haven't been to an art opening in 9 years.

#9.  Tell my kid: "I'm cold, you need to put on a sweater." Yup. Well, I did expand on that and add: "and it's really, really cold out and I know you don't feel cold yet, but you will soon, and I don't want you to catch a chill." And it WAS really, really cold out! But still...

#10.  Spit on a napkin and wipe my kid's face with it. Well, in my defense, his face was REALLY, really dirty! (Hangs head in shame.)

aaaand that's all folks! What's on YOUR list of backpedaling?


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Monday Listicles: 10 Things I Have Done to Make a Living

Well, it's Monday, so it must be time for Stasha’s Monday Listicles again. And today's topic came from... ME!

And, it seems, I'm being late to my own party. (And not for the first time, I must admit.) You would think with my having known the topic for, oh, two weeks, I would have had this post written long ago and ready to pop up at one minute past midnight, be at the top of the link-up over at Stasha's.

Well, think again.

It's been a rough beginning to the new year is all I can say. And my ADD is acting up something fierce. So anyway, it's still Monday here (barely) and will be for a few more hours in at least some parts of the world, so let's proceed shall we?

Today's topic (as chosen by moi) is:

Top Ten Strange (odd/unusual/funny/interesting) Jobs you have held in your life.

#1.  Well, to start with, when I was a baby my father was an advertising photographer and sometimes he needed a baby for a shoot or for his portfolio. So, for a very short time, I was a baby model. He also was a fine art/documentary "street photographer" (with work in Life magazine, etc.) and took loads of pictures of me for that, too.  Wanna see?

Jim Steinhardt: "Girl with Balloon (ME!) at Central Park Zoo" 1963

#2. Then my Dad realized he hated advertising and got out of that business, bought an art gallery and frame shop on Long Island and it grew into an international and American crafts gallery of some renown. And I grew up in the family business, spending Saturdays and many of my summer days at the gallery.

I couldn't even tell you exactly when playing there became working there, but I distinctly remember setting up and helping to serve drinks at show openings from about the age of six on. And I know that from the time I was twelve I was selling in the store and working as a buyers assistant, accompanying my parents to big national craft fairs like Rhinebeck and the wholesale showrooms in the city.

Holiday time was always busy, and as a teenager I worked full long days every Saturday in November and December, and then when the "blue laws" were repealed (yes, I'm old enough to have lived when NO businesses outside of restaurants were open on Sundays) Sundays in December, too.

When I was 15, I ran the gift wrap "department" (me & a friend of mine) on the weekends for the holiday season. To this day I can eyeball any unusually sized or shaped object, instantly figure out what size box it will or won't fit in, and wrap it neatly with nice ribbon bows to boot.

My most memorable sales interaction with a customer? It was the day before Christmas, when the desperate men who hadn't a clue would arrive, and you could sell them practically anything. He was buying jewelry. Three nice pieces. One for his wife, and one each for his two "girlfriends." He wanted to spend about the same for each. Wrote lovey notes on gift cards to be included inside the boxes. Had us put a little code on the bottom of the wrapped boxes so he could know which was which.

How much did we want to "accidentally" mess up the code for him? The whole staff was abuzz with wicked plans to do this while his gifts were being wrapped. In the end of course, we didn't. A customer is a customer, and he was a good spender. (Times 3!) But we talked about him for years to come.

#3. Away at college, through friends I fell into a summer job as a founding member of the Sunflour Bakery Collective in Bar Harbor, Maine. Of course, first I had to learn how to bake bread, which I did in a hurry that spring.

This was not a typical "job." We all lived together, communally on the uppermost floor of the building which was not in any way set up or zoned for habitation, while the landlord conveniently looked the other way. We each made little nests for ourselves using odd materials found on the second floor of the building, in what had been a woodworking shop at one point. My "chair" was an ornate antique toilet stuffed with my sleeping bag to make a cushion.

We often took in like-minded (i.e. hippie) folks who were passing through town and let then "camp out" on the second floor and share meals with us for a few hours of work in the bakery.  It was all very whole grain and natural (naturally), and actually quite delicious. I think I ate better that summer that at any time in my life before or since.

#4. The following year, I spent my summer in Cambridge / Boston with a combination of 2 jobs to keep me afloat: showing up at 5 AM on the weekends to be the breakfast chef at the very vegan Golden Temple Emporium Cafe (yes, run by people with big white turbans on their heads). Can you say "scrambled tofu" anyone?

That was combined with my weekday job of slinging the greasiest of burgers and fries (while wearing hot pants!) to a lunch crowd of finance guys at The Saint, which happened to also be the local lesbian bar at night, which I frequented... frequently. And the irony of all this was not lost on me, I laughed about it constantly.

#5. Then I landed in California for a few years. You may have heard me mention this one before, but yes, in 1981 I actually WAS a Bean Sprout farmer in the wilds of Mendocino county.

We were a womens collective on 160 acres on a ridge with a number of odd buildings on the flat land at the top, and among them 3 geodesic domes. One of these was given over to the business of hydroponically growing bean sprouts that were sold to restaurants and in health food stores in Northern California.

My tasks included washing the sprouts daily, cutting them when they were the right length, bagging them, and assembling the "mixed sprout" salads. Also driving up & down the coast for delivery. And yes, we had to remember to put shirts on when driving off the property.

Looking back, I don't think we had a license and can't ever remember a health inspection. But those were different, looser, freer times. And I don't THINK we ever gave anyone salmonella poisoning.

#6. Also in California, now living more conventionally in Santa Cruz, I became the assistant manager of the Polar Bear ice cream shop in Capitola. And my right (scooping) arm became twice as strong as my left. I was living with a woman who had a 6 year old daughter who was THRILLED to be able to come in and order anything she wanted for free.

And no, I wasn't stealing. The owners wisely gave us a monthly allotment of free ice cream, which kept us all honest about what we ate or took home or gave away. And made us very popular with our friends.

#7. Back on the East coast and back in college, I found occasional work as an artists model. Yes, nude. And people this is HARD work. Holding a pose that seems just dandy at 2 minutes will feel like torture by minute 10 with your muscles screaming for release. And, totally exposed, if you twitch, they will see. And yell at you to keep steady.

#8. My main job while in college was at the local pottery gallery (using my family business talents at last) but on the summers, to not lose me during them, the gallery owners - who were 3 potters themselves - had me come out to their studio to do odd jobs for the seven potters who worked there and shared kilns.

I was not a potter, and it quickly became clear that my natural talents did not lie in this direction, but everyone found things for me to do to help out that did not require actual potting, including wedging clay (great anger release), packing orders for shipping (I still have nightmares about plastic peanuts), and, most terrifyingly, carrying precious fragile pieces to and from the gas kiln which was outdoors, out back, DOWN a little hill. No, I never dropped anything, but did have daily palpitations, thank you.

#9. 1988. Out of school and back in New York City, while working my way into jobs in the film and television industry and also directing and stage managing plays and performance art off-off Broadway, I landed a regular gig with the brand spanking new World Financial Center as an assistant stage manager for their arts and events program, including a month of opening galas.

As I was a bit more mature and put together than a lot of the kids they had working for them, I was usually assigned to babysit the talent, including escorting them to the "stage," which was always rigged in different places and often far, far from the holding areas.

This also meant that I would be seen in the "front of the house" and had to work evening events in formal wear and heels. On miles of marble floors. (Ouch!) Highlights included: a frantic search for one of the coconuts of Kid Creole & the Coconuts who had decided to go look for a friend in the audience, minutes before their call and watching Grace Jones go into makeup and be transformed into... Grace Jones.

Best of all was escorting Cab Calloway up onto the stage itself because he was rather elderly and unsteady on his feet and the steps didn't have a handrail.

This was also the first time I was given a newfangled "cell phone" thingy - about 8 pounds of equipment with a handset connected to a rectangular box that hung from a shoulder strap - this was 1988, people!

1988 Cell Phone. Really.

#10. Fast forward many, many years (see the calendar pages whirl by) and come to my current occupation: Autism Mom. I am an amateur neurobiologist, behaviorist, teacher, translator, pharmacologist, allergist, gluten & casein-free chef, and deep hug giver. In my 9th year of an ongoing experiment in radical sleep deprivation.

Definitely the strangest "job" I have ever had. But the most fulfilling. Worth every minute of it.

And, believe it or not, (believe!) I could go on and on. But I'll stop here at ten.

See y'all next week!


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Go (the F) to sleep, Ethan.

Ethan was talky, talky, talky tonight at bedtime.

Again.

Sigh.

The gems:

E: You know what, Mom?

Me: Ethan, it's very late, you're going to be tired and cranky in the morning. Go to sleep now.

E: Know what I love the most? Life! Being alive!

Me: That's great! I'm glad you feel that way.

E: Know what the best thing in the world is?

Me: Go to sleep, Ethan.

E: Getting to be alive.

Me: OK, Ethan that's a great feeling, now stop talking and go to sleep.

E: Want to hear a great tongue tickler word?

Me: No, I want...

E: Zucchini! Isn't that a great word? I love tongue ticklers.

Me: Ethan, talking is keeping you awake. Stop talking, lie still and you will fall asleep.

E: But what would happen if someone tried to REALLY tickle your tongue, like stick their hand in your mouth and...

Me: Tongues aren't actually ticklish, Ethan they're... STOP we are not having a discussion, you are going to sleep.

E: But what about...

Me: No but. Stop. Go to sleep.

E: So is Tigerclaw really all bad or is there still some good in him?

(Yes, he's just started reading the Warriors series. Months of confusing, similar sounding cat-character names lie in my future.)

Me: You'll find out yourself, as you read. You're not roping me into book talk. Shhh. Sleep.

E: But do you think...

Me: Shhhhh.

E: Mooooom, I was in the middle of saying something!

Me: Yes, and that's the problem. You cannot talk and sleep at the same time.

E: But I'm not sleepy, and I WANT to talk!

(lightbulb going on over the mother's head)

Me: You miss Dad, don't you? 

E: Yes, I do, I really do! (big sniffle) I just feel so sad that he's not here and it's going to be days and days before he comes back home. I wish we could just instantaneously transport ourselves to Seattle so he could kiss me goodnight.

Me: Me too, honey, me too. I keep thinking he's about to walk in the door at any minute, then I remember he's on a trip. We'll call him tomorrow, OK?

E: OK, Mom.

(forehead kiss)

Me: Sleep now, babe.

E: I love you, you're the best mom in the whole world. For me that is. I'm sure everyone else thinks their mom is the best, too.

Me: I love you, too, kid. Now, no more words, REALLY. Time. For. Sleep.

(2 minutes later, cue light snoring)


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Monday Listicles: Impossible New Years Resolutions

Well, it's time for Stasha’s first Monday Listicles of the new year, which is reflected in the theme... Today's topic came from Theresa, the Mountain Momma, who said we should write a list of ten New Years resolutions we will never keep. Softball, I tell ya; could do this one in my sleep (and I kind of did).

You can probably guess what these are all going to be. But I will go ahead and spell them out for you anyway. And in an annotated list, because simple & easy are just not in my vocabulary. And then at the end a wee surprise for you. So...

10 New Years Resolutions I Will NEVER Keep:

1. Stop Procrastinating. Also probably nearly every other resolution on this list would be moot if I could keep to this one. Chance of that happening? The proverbial snowball in hell. I am ADD-rific, remember?

2. Exercise more. Well, I better say exercise regularly. Because I am likely to exercise at least a tiny bit this year, and that would mean I would be keeping this resolution... since ANYTHING is more than the absolute nothing I did this past year.

3. Stop eating sugar. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

4. Get to bed early & get enough sleep. OK folks, I have two sons and one is a natural early-to-bed-early-riser, while the other is a classic night owl (like me & their father). The early riser catches a 6:40 school bus, which means I am up at 5:45 on school days, while the other one doesn't have to walk out the door until much later, can roll out of bed at 7:30, so often stays up until 10pm. Can you do math and see how impossible this resolution is? Yes, doomed before I even start.

5. Get off  the computer when the kids are home. I'm going to really TRY to keep this one. Because I really don't want my son to declare once again: "Mom, you love the internet more than you love us!" But? Realistically? Too addicted to my blog and FaceBook and Twitter and other people's blogs to keep it. I WILL cut down though, and only when they are on their screens, too.

6. Cook more. I make this resolution every year and never keep it. The fact that there are so many limits to what Ethan WILL eat and to what Jacob CAN eat, and all of the above is mostly what Dan and I do not WANT to eat... means cooking = making 3 separate meals. Not happening. Someday... someday... but that day will not likely fall into this year.

7. No more dinners in front of the TV. Sigh. I wish I could say this one was do-able. I grew up with lively dinner table discussions, truly enjoyable conversations with my parents, nearly every night.  But the way Jacob's autism manifests is that if the TV isn't on? He will talk non-stop loudly about his own topics and ask the same questions over and over and over again, making dinner table conversation nearly impossible. So the TV goes on and the boys eat separately from my husband and I (who rarely eat together on weeknights anyway).

8. Keep the house clean and tidy. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

9. Keep my car clean and tidy. See above.

10. NOT pick up my iPhone when I am interacting with actual human beings, even when my "new stuff" alerts ding. Wow, when did I become one of those rude people looking at the screen in my hand instead of the people at the table I am sitting and drinking coffee with? (Answer: when I got my first smart phone.) Will try hard to keep this partially, only picking it up for important DMs from people I am waiting to hear from. Wish me luck!

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And now, here's the surprise: I get to be responsible for next week's Monday Listicles theme!

As I have lately been obsessed with plans for getting back into the working game this year and trying to figure out how I can morph all the skills I've acquired in all my old career(s) and jobs into something I can currently earn a living at, I have been thinking of all the many odd and various jobs I have held and skills I've amassed in my long life. And I thought it would be fun to make you all do that too.

So Next Monday's Listicle topic is: Top Ten Strange (odd/unusual/funny/interesting) Jobs you have held in your life.

And if you are young or have had a much less varied life than I have and haven't had 10 jobs yet, then make it 10 interesting things you have done / tasks you have been responsible for as PART of a job.  And I am totally willing to define "Job" loosely here... as in parenting is clearly a job, and so is being a student, or volunteer positions including things like PTA President.

I can't wait to see what you come up with! See y'all next week!


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Monday Listicles: 2011 Firsts

Well, it's time for the last of Stasha’s Monday Listicles for the year, so fittingly it's a year's end theme. Today's topic came from Bridget at Twinisms: 

Top Ten things we've done for the FIRST time in 2011.

Hmmm I'm pretty old so there's not a lot of "firsts" left for me, but I'm sure I can come up with something... or rather, 10 things, right?

1. Well I started out the year with a first. In December 2010 my gall bladder went rogue, so on January 5th, 2011 I had it removed. And that was the first non-pregnancy related surgery of my life; the first time I have been separated from any of the original parts my body came with.

2. I had my first triple-month-skip: getting only one period from August through the year's end so I am clearly moving into the endgame of my shift from peri- into full blown menopause.

3. I began better living through chemistry and went on anti-depressant medication for the first time in my life to deal with the on and off depression brought about by wonky biochemistry from the above 2 items.

4. OK, I'm hating to sound like too much of a downer here, wracking brain to come up with a cheerful & happy first... how's this: Jake & Ethan both went to sleep-away camps (for the first time!) for about a week this summer, at partially overlapping times, so Dan & I had the apartment to ourselves for 4 whole nights for the first time since the boys were born. We're talking 9 years here people! We were spontaneously going out at night without the babysitter tax, we were sleeping naked, we were sleeping in, we were... well I'm not telling you about THAT.

5. Related to #4 above: I drove through a hurricane for the first time in my life. Well it wasn't quite a hurricane yet, but rather the leading edge of one, and believe me that was enough. What happened was that Jake's camp in Massachusetts was directly in the projected path of Hurricane Irene. I had just picked up Ethan at his Pennsylvania camp & spent the night with friends there. So instead of bringing him home and having a night's rest before heading up to pick up Jake, Ethan & I drove through the outer bands of the storm to get him and then the 3 of us high-tailed it home like bats out of hell, racing the full-on storm, trying to make it into Manhattan before the bridges & tunnels got closed down (which never actually happened but there were rumors of its certainty). And that kind of excitement? Happy to have my first also be my last.

6. I finally started to write from memes and prompts and ended up going to surprising and wonderful places in my writing and blog.

7. As related to #6 above, I wrote FICTION for the first time in... oh, about 25 years. It came out of the blue as I was mulling over a prompt. And I really enjoyed having strange people talking away inside my head, even when they were yelling at me.

8. When I went out to San Diego for BlogHer11, I spent 4 nights away from my husband and kids for the first time since the twins were born. It was glorious. And may I confess? Until the last day... I barely missed them at all. Having 4 days in a row in which my time was all about ME was simply amazing after 9 years of full time, day-in & day-out care taking of young and old people.

9. Due to the lovely synergy between menopausal metabolism changes and stress eating (have I mentioned it's been a fairly shit year overall?) I topped 180 for the first time in my life, non-pregnant. Oops. Really need to do something about THAT in 2012.

10. I wrote my first "Top Ten" list post. Something I swore I'd never do. And I liked it, I really liked it. Stasha, you've created a monster... I can't stop. Lists, lists, lists, I love lists now!!!

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Monday Listicles: Inside my Brain

 
Yes, I know today is Tuesday. But since I fell asleep on the sofa (upright and lightly drooling, yes) before I could finish my Sunday evening post and had to put it up on Monday, this one has had to move on down the line. Welcome to my life.

I guess that could be another YouMightBeAnAutismParentIf tweet: "#YouMightBeAnAutismParentIf you put up all your blog posts a day late so it's SOC Sundays on Monday and Monday Listicles on Tuesday" (And Wordless Wednesdays on Thursday and Alphabe-Thursdays on Friday and Special Needs Sibling Saturdays on Sunday... and yes I've been guilty of ALL of these late postings!)

Anyway, I'm posting this just after midnight, on American East Coast time, which means it's certainly still Monday somewhere... California, for example. So, on a technicality, I'm not REALLY late.

OK, enough meta-jabber. I rest my case. On to the actual post...

This week’s Listicle assignment (from Bridget of Twinisms via Stasha at The Good Life) is based on the show "Inside The Actor’s Studio With James Lipton."

You’ve seen this program, yes? Every celebrity interview ends with the same 10 questions, which I will attempt to answer, now:

1. What is your favorite word?
You're kidding right? ONE favorite word? Ain't gonna happen from wordy, word-loving me. Like I tell my kids: I don't have just one favorite. (And yeah, I'm gonna start this list being all contrary, oppositional and rule-bashing again. Wanna make something of it?) But on my short list, you'd find: smorgasbord, chartreuse, ungepatchket, and fractious.

2. What is your least favorite word?
Retard or Retarded. And if you don't know why I hate this, the "R-word," you're probably at the wrong blog, here by accident. If you want a refresher, read my friend Ellen's posts all about it. Start with this one: If you ask people not to use the word "retard" then plug in the R-word into her search box and read everything that comes up.  

3. What turns you on?
Intelligence, humor, kindness.

4. What turns you off? 
Willful ignorance and cold-heartedness. Also black socks and white sneakers with Bermuda shorts.

5. What sound do you love?
An ocean beach. Also? Truthfully? My own voice. (Hangs head.)

6. What sound do you hate?
Metal scraping on metal. If you use a metal fork to eat out of a metal bowl I will be forced to make you stop by any and all means necessary. It's like nails on a chalkboard to me. Also, not coincidentally, nails on a chalkboard.

7. What is your favorite curse word?
Really, it's a toss up between motherfucker and bullshit. I guess I like compound words. Ethan is studying them in school right now. But never fear, I'm not going to suggest THESE for his "Write 10 juicy sentences using compound words" assignment.

8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt? 
Brain surgeon. *Kidding!* But seriously, neuroscience interests me greatly, the biology of how we think and feel. I could have gone into medicine, have a great affinity for it. In other words, my mother was right - I shoulda been a doctor!

9. What profession would you not like to do?
The thought of accountancy fills me with dread. And I like numbers. I just hate paperwork.

10. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
A variation of what my husband quipped when first we met: "Oh, sorry, I got you confused with (renowned French filmmaker) Agnès Varda... Your number's not up yet, back you go!"


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Skipping

Hey, it's DECEMBER first today...

NaBloPoMo is over, FINALLY over, and so I don't have to post today! I can skip it, skip a day, yes! Skippity, skip, skip.

Watch me skipping. Nothing up on the old blog today, nope not me.

But wait...

if I hit publish on this...

then I AM posting.

THIS will go up on my blog...

and it's a post...

so I'm not skipping a day.

But I feel like celebrating having made it through the whole month of November, the posting every day whether I "felt it" or not, the discipline of the daily writing.

And while that felt great? It's also a relief that it's over.

And I want to commemorate my accomplishment by skipping a day.

But I also want to TELL you I'm doing it.

And so by telling you that I'm skipping, here on my blog, I'm writing a post... and therefore NOT skipping.

So I'll just not post anything.

But I WANT to tell you that I'm skipping.
 
But if I DO tell you, then I'm not skipping.

AAAAAGH!

My head is going to explode.

Wait, this is sounding familiar... very familiar...

Yes, I believe that's it.

A classic logic paradox.

You're welcome and goodnight.


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A Member of the (not so) Secret Grammar Police

You may or may not know this about me: like a lot of other dorky writers, I'm a bit of a language and grammar nut. I know in this blog I don't always use 100% proper grammar 100% of the time. But I can assure you that 99.9% of the time, if I don't? It's on purpose, for reasons of literary integrity, cadence, emphasis, etc.

A blog is not a formal paper, after all. Sometimes I want it to sound like we're having an intimate conversation, like I'm sitting beside you, whispering my thoughts, inches from your ear. And friends? I don't always speak in complete sentences, with proper grammar, it's true.

But some stuff? The really egregious stuff? Drives me completely batty. Like using the wrong "there, their or they're." Really, people, didn't you learn that in second grade?

See? I instantly become a member of the secret grammar police, schoolmarmish, clucking my tongue and rolling my eyes and generally taking everything you say 50% less seriously if you use certain words wrong. I'm sorry. I know it's elitist. But I can't help myself.

But also, like (I think) all grammarians, I have my favorite, pet non-grammatical phrases. I know they're dead wrong but love them anyway. Like this one: "needs done."

And? "Y''all." Because there is NO plural for you in "proper" English. And it needs one, doesn't it? "Y'all" will suffice. 

And then there's punctuation. My blog voice is halfway between literary & conversational, making it sometimes hard to find just the right balance between "proper" and functional.

So often I literally hear the words in my head as I write, and then am scrambling to find a way to make the punctuation work just right so that you will hear them EXACTLY the way that I heard them, too - or as close as you can since you will likely be hearing your own voice reading my words to you.

Unless you are my friend in real life, then you might hear my actual voice talking to you. Or not.

Maybe you hear Katharine Hepburn or Carol Kane or your Aunt Matilda (or Tweetie Bird for that matter) reading my words in your head. I have no control over that. We never really know what is going on inside other people's heads anyway, do we? (OK, digression over, back on topic now...)

But, even though I have no REAL control, I do what I can to clone my voice into your brain. Trying to parse things like: What sort of pause is a dash verses a comma, a comma verses a semi-colon? What level of emphasis is ALL CAPS verses bold verses being set off with *apostrophes*? How much of a shout is *ALL THREE AT ONCE*? (And is that ever justified?)

Also? Correct pronunciation counts. Sorry but it does.

I was raised by New Yorkers who had no New York accents, who were literate and believed that sounding intelligent was a good thing. (Did this get me shunned on the playground from time to time, left as the cheese who stands alone in the games of Farmer in the Dell? Probably, but it was worth it.)

If you said "axe" instead of "ask" around my mother? She would literally turn green, ask who you were planning to chop up. And our next door neighbor kids, who I played with every summer? Their Mom was from South Carolina. Axe, axe, axe away how they pronounced THAT one.

I've learned in the wisdom of my old age to keep my damn mouth shut, to not actually roll my eyes, to keep my polite on; because I really don't need to get into silly altercations about such trivial things after all, do I?

But in my mind? The schoolmarm is quite alive.

Take "nuke-u-lar."  Pronounce nuclear that way, and I immediately shave approximately 30 IQ points right off you. Which is why if I ever hear any of this come out of Ethan's mouth? (And I do.)  I get on his case like a tiger.  He pushes back: "It's not fair, Mom, Jake says stuff wrong all the time." And that's true.

But Jacob has an excuse. He has autism, and furthermore, his particular flavor of autism is heavy on the language processing deficit stuff. Ethan knows this, knows if he goes on I will ask him the up-shutting question: "Do you really want to trade places with your brother? Because you know, life has actually been very not fair to him. But if you'd really prefer to be the twin with autism..."

And yes, I know this seems like nitpicking. But remember, in the animal kingdom actual nitpicking is an act of friendship and camaraderie. An important part of the social contract among our primate ancestors: you pick my bugs off and and I'll pick yours.

Speaking of which, since no one is proofreading my stuff but me, and sometimes I'll miss things that are obviously a mistake - like dropped apostrophes on "it's" and missing prepositions - if you DO catch something in my blog that needs fixing and isn't a clear style choice? Would you let me know?

I know it's not in the official spirit of blogging - write it and move on - but I *WILL* go back in and correct things in my posts. Sometimes multiple times (but not on Stream of Consciousness Sundays which are supposed to have all mistakes left intact, YIKES).

Because those occasional stray commas? Make me twitch if I find them in my blog. Oh, yeah, it's, fun, being, me. (Twitch.)

Note: This post is one from the Zombie Files. Since yesterday I said that they were "coming soon," I figured I had better make good on that promise, and sooner rather than later.


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Coming Soon: Posts from the Zombie Files

Tonight when I sat down, way late, to post - short people finally asleep, me awake, house as picked-up-after as it's probably ever going to be tonight (read: not very; but the small-toy-booby-traps have been stowed away, so you probably won't trip over stray crap and kill yourself, either) - I realized, once again... I got nothing.

It had been a busy day: rushing to Jake's school way downtown for our Parent/Teacher conference immediately after dropping Ethan off at his, a half-day for Jacob, Hebrew School after school for Ethan; the kind that leaves me hollowed out by the end.

So I figured it was time to do what I had previously said I would do when this situation arose this month (in which I am foolishly committed to posting every day whether inspiration has visited or not): mine my not-quite-dead draft post archives for gems.

So I opened up my Blog's command center and found this:

That's right, for approximately every three posts I've published there is one unpublished post: poor orphaned child, sitting unfinished, forlorn and abandoned in my queue.

Now some of these are mere wisps of things, half thoughts, hastily jotted down, ideas for posts that I planned to write at some nebulous time in my future. Others are half done things: neither beast nor fowl, full of egregious typos and devoid of form, starting to go somewhere and then stopping, all out of steam.

And then there are the jewels I'm looking for: nearly done posts, just in need of a little polish before they are ready to be sent out into the world. Well, maybe a bit of rewriting and a new ending, but still, close enough to done that its worth the effort to march them to completion.

So, from these 113 draft posts languishing in their not-quite-dead-not-quite-live state, I thought I was going to simply pluck one out to share today. I thought I would just click and find a perfect small near Insta-Post. Just add a little extra verbiage and it's ready to go! Voila!

But then I found that even the "nearly done?" Still take a ridiculous lot of work to bring into a place where I'm willing to let them out of their hidey hole. There's a reason I didn't get these particular bunch finished. They were not easy to wrestle into shape. Damn.

And the ones that were the closest to ready? Were the best of the bunch, those I want to spend the most careful time with, make sure I am bringing them to the height of their potential shiny brilliance (to drag the "polishing up gems" metaphor possibly beyond where it should reasonably go). ADD and perfectionism, it's a heady mix in my brain, I tell you.

So tonight folks, I leave you with this: a post telling you about more posts soon to come. So all those papers I wrote in college about deconstructionism and the such were not in vain, they were preparing me to talk about talking about talking about things. Which just goes to prove that I can prattle on about anything. Yay, me!

And tomorrow? REAL CONTENT, I promise.

(Hey, I'm getting really good at using a lot of words to circle round and round a topic but never really saying anything of consequence - maybe I should go into politics?)


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Top Ten Reasons Why I Don't Make Top Ten Lists

Well, it's now exactly halfway through November, NaBloPoMo month, and so far I am still blogging every day. (Yay, me!) Fellow blogging friends have reminded me that two of the "easy" ways to get a post written when I'm in a hurry and have to toss one out are photo posts (Check! I do those on Wednesdays) and list posts. Hmmmm.

The "List Post" is supposed to be a handy tool in the Bloggers arsenal. (I know I've mixed my metaphors there - so what? It's *my* blog, I can do what I want.)

But you know what? I don't like them, hardly ever do them.

In general, they don't work for me.

Why? (you may ask)

Well, why don't I just make a list for you of my reasons? (Grammar police? Back off - I constructed the sentence that way for a reason. The reason? it pleases me.)

There are a myriad. That's a big number. But we don't have all day, so maybe I'll cut it down to size. Bite size, perhaps - how about 10, a nice even number (and the basis of our numeric system, to boot).

1. Have I mentioned I have ADD? We don't do lists. They're just so... orderly. And my brain is anything but. I'm allergic to lists. How do I get everything done in my life without them, you ask? Good question! (Hint: I don't.)

2. There is a very specific form and structure to "Top 10" list posts and for some reason (*cough* immaturity *cough*) highly structured brings up an oppositional, "you can't tell me what to do" voice in my head and I go into resistance mode. (Hey, I didn't promise these were 10 rational reasons now, did I?)

3.  There is no number three. Move on. (Told you these make me oppositional.)

4. I am not a short-form, bullet points kind of gal. I write long, am long-form, not direct and to the point (although the wonderful Elissa did once call me "pithy" and I so teased her about that), I am Queen of the Run-on-Sentence (with parenthetical clauses) after all. And those? Don't make for nice short punchy "top ten" items, you know what I mean?

5. OverdoneOverdoneOverdone. And can I add: overdone? I don't do overdone.

6. That the list post is supposed to be an "easy out"? Feels like cheating, like a short cut. And, unfortunately, I don't do those. I try, but they end up being long-way-rounds, not short cuts, every freaking time.  Take guest posts. These are supposed to be easy - hey, someone else is writing them!  But then I write these long essay-like intros and linky wraps that involve research and take hours. Also? I promise these are not the first 10 things that popped into my head as I sat down to write this here list. I went back and looked them all over thought "Are they good enough?" And changed them made them better. Because I just can't take the easy way out without somehow making it the hard way. (Fun being me - no?)

7. Tangents. I'm all about the tangents, and lists don't make space for them, you need to proceed right to the next item. Stay on topic. No time for delicious tangents, like the time I...

8. By this point? It feels like homework. I hate homework. I am already doing 4th grade homework every night with Ethan and the same damn 1st grade homework for the third year running with Jacob. Did I mention I hate homework?

9. I never put things in the right order, always think of the really important one after I'm all done.

10. I know I had more reasons. I just can't think of them right now. But I have to come up with one more, make it to 10 item for this damn "Top 10" list because only having 9 is just awkward and feels incomplete. So I'm just going to have to pull something out of my ass, to make up some stupid thing to add in to fill this space up and make it come out to ten. Oh, yeah, that's another reason - I hate "space filler" items. Passionately.

@@@@@@@

TEN! Yeah, I did it! OK, maybe this wasn't so bad after all. Maybe it's kind of fun. Maybe I should start doing Stasha's Monday Listicles linky. Maybe I should start doing ALL of the other list sort of memes on the interwebs.

Maybe that's ALL I'm going to do from now on! No need to try to create that magic "flow" or worry about that other writerly stuff, I'll now just list things in the random order they pop out of my brain in, and move on... Whoo hoo! I've been liberated from this "crafting" thing! I'm free! I'm free! I've been set free!

(The authorities have now been called to peel Varda off the ceiling. Don't worry, they will slap her around until she calms down, and her blog and writing will return to it's normal state by tomorrow.)

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Twenty Two Things

I am 51 years old.

I have done a lot in my life.

But there are things I haven't done.

(Some, thankfully, some, regretfully.)

Here are 22 of them...

(Why 22? No idea. Ask Ree, The Pioneer Woman, who Mama Kat nicked this idea from.)

I have never: 

1.  Sung Karaoke. 

2.  Ridden a camel.

3.  Broken a bone (pinkie toes don’t count).

4.  Been to Australia.

5.  Seen Mount Rushmore.

6.  Gone to Disney (working a conference at the Swan doesn’t count).

7.  Flown to the moon and swung among the stars.

8.  Taken the coast to coast train across Canada.

9.  Taken a photograph of a celebrity.

10.  Faked an orgasm.

11.  Fired a gun.

12.  Eaten Fugu.

13.  Been able to walk in heels without falling on my face.

14.  Seen a purple cow.

15.  Straightened my hair.

16.  Gotten a bikini wax (ouch).

17.  Been on time to any significant event in my life.

18.  Had a “regular” job with benefits.

19.  Dug a ditch.

20.  Seen the green flash of a sunrise on the open sea.

21.  Been as deeply sleep-deprived as I am right now.

22.  Regretted having children, in spite of the above.

I'm linking up with Mama Kat who prompted us to write a post listing 22 things we’ve never done.


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Shoot Me Now (singing the health insurance idiocy blues)

Me? I am not by nature a brawler, a fight-picker; someone fond of my own angry self. I'm a conciliator, a peacekeeper. I really dislike confrontation, have been accused of avoiding it by sidling away, like a smiling crab doing the side-step.

But somehow, as I sit down to write a lovely "just write" post tonight? I can't do it. I have no lyrical in me. I find myself steaming and gunning the throttle. Again.

Maybe I need to start a theme day...  Cranky Rant Tuesdays.

My tag line? "Come visit my blog on Tuesdays when you want to feel better about YOUR life by reading about all that's gone pear shaped in MINE!"

Think it will catch on? Hmmm.

So, you may be asking yourself (those who aren't backing away slowly, that is)... What has my knickers all in a bunch? My panties in a twist? My... well, you get the picture....

Health Insurance idiocy. Also Big Pharma greed. And Chain Pharmacy stupidity and incompetence.

OK, now it's time for my Canadian/English/Irish/Australian/Norwegian/etc.etc. friends and readers to snicker and gloat. Yes, all of you who live in those godforsakencommunist countries that have - GASP! - socialized medicine.... go ahead, I'll wait.

OK, done now? Good, let's get on with it.

First the set up: My son Jacob takes a number of psychoactive medications. He's on a "cocktail."  Sounds fancy, but it's not. He's just... complicated in his neuro-biological differences. And so the help needs to be complex, too. Really.

And with a very intelligent intelligence at the wheel, prescribing and tinkering. We (very luckily) have that.

And the 3 different medications he's currently on (very low doses, all, don't worry)? Are keeping him rolling along beautifully right now. Calm, happy; NOT riddled with anxiety and gnashing his teeth; NOT crumpling into a sodden weepy heap over a dropped pencil. And also WITH increased concentration and attention; able to really listen and learn better than ever. (Spitting over left shoulder 3 times and warding off the evil eye.)

So, we recently needed to change health insurance policies (due to an expiring COBRA situation). My husband and I are both freelance / self-employed. We pay for our insurance ourselves. You can see where I'm going here, yes? There really are only lousy overpriced policies available for people like us. And we picked the best of that bad bunch. But still...

We are now in the situation where the medicines that Jacob has been prescribed and HAS BEEN TAKING, the ones that are demonstrably working for him, are needing to be "pre-approved" by the insurance company.

Yeah, that's as much fun as that sounds.

And the approval process? So NOT what was described to me by the pharmacist: "Have your doctor call this number and explain why it needs to be, and they'll approve the medication." As if.

When the doctor called me back after my frantic message, I could hear the stress, the weariness in his voice. He told me that it's not just "a phone call" that's required, but rather it's TEN phone calls. And being transferred from department to department, and being put on hold, and hung up on. And then calling back, and being transferred again.

"They make it hard on us doctors on PURPOSE, to discourage us from prescribing certain medications -- the newer, still patented ones. They think we'll give up and pick something older and cheaper -- even if it's inappropriate for the patient -- just to avoid the hassle and time drain. It's harassment and coercion, pure and simple."

And then this time it wasn't just a conversation, but FIVE full pages of paperwork he had to fill out - questionnaires and ESSAYS to write to justify giving this medication over others which are in the same CATEGORY as the one the doctor had prescribed but are truly DIFFERENT medicines.

Because a bunch of accountants' opinions about what medicines my autistic son needs to be taking count SO MUCH more than those of his highly regarded pediatric psycho-pharmacologist who has been practicing for a bazillion years and regularly lunches with and picks the brains of the guys who literally WROTE THE BOOKS on most childhood psychiatric & developmental issues and are at the forefront of all the cutting edge research.

(Sorry, I shout a lot in ALL CAPS when I'm truly peeved. And I'm truly peeved, in case you hadn't noticed.)

This was all today.

Yesterday it was me showing up the local D-R pharmacy counter at 6:15 to pick up a medication we had run out of, that Jake needed THAT NIGHT to find a long line of unhappy people, EVERY ONE having trouble with their prescriptions being filled properly.

And I was only AT the motherfucking D-R because they (and other big chains like them) had effectively closed down all the small family run pharmacies in the nearby neighborhood where the pharmacist KNOWS you and gives a rat's ass about your family.

Now, being all sensible-like, I had called at 5 PM and spoken with the pharmacist there to make SURE they had gotten the script called in and that I could pick it up right away. I was told yes, definitely in. He had me hold on while he checked to make sure it was in stock (it was), told me they were busy and to come for it after 6. Took Jake's birth date info.

But when  I get to the front of the line? No filled bottle waiting for me, no prescription sitting in the in-box waiting to be filled. Seemingly no record of it being called in at all. Questions of my sanity ensued... am I CERTAIN it was THIS D-R and not the one up the road? YES!

And not only had they no record of my doctor calling in the prescription, but they had no record of my son Jacob in their computer. Which is quite odd since we've been having prescriptions filled there since the boys were BORN, 9 years ago.

Oh, what was that? Since they merged with another Pharmacy Giant and put in a new computer system a few weeks ago it WIPED OUT all their patient and medication data and now EVERY patient is considered a new patient and they have no history on anyone. Nice going, guys. Well done!

Would I please step aside and wait while they try to find Jimmy Hoffa my son's prescription.

Finally the pharmacist that had taken my call and gone off shift at 5:30 returned the page and straightened it out... the prescription (unfilled) was sitting on the back counter, face DOWN. Because it couldn't be entered into the computer, because they didn't have Jake's info in the computer, because he's a "new patient."  Riiiight.

So it's going to take ANOTHER HALF HOUR to get him into the computer and get the prescription filled. And can I stand over there with the growing crowd of fuming customers to wait, please.

And then? After that fun-filled 1/2 hour?

THAT'S when I find out that it's not automatically covered on our new, stinky plan. That it needs to be "pre-approved" with a call from my now-closed doctor's office to the insurance company's bean counting gate-keepers. 

Or? I can pay retail... $266.

Motherfuckers.

And do you know? It's really not a new medication at all. It's a new formulation of an OLD one that has been around for years. But someone figured out how to make a really good time release delivery method for it. So THAT'S the part that's patented. That's why it's so much $$.

And if my son is going to take this medication, he really needs a steady supply in his blood stream, I really can't give him 6 pills a day at four hour intervals, waking him up in the middle of the night for meds now, can I?

So, yes, he NEEDS this expensive time release formulation. Which is THIS expensive because... they think can get away with it.

AND THEY DO.

My son needs his evening and morning dose.

I get them to break up the prescription and sell me 2 pills at retail.

I go home, crisis averted.

And yes, I may have exploded a few times in the drug store. Especially when they pretty much accused me of hallucinating the 5 pm conversation with their other pharmacist.

And, yes, some of this is my own damn fault for waiting until the very last minute to get the refill, turning something that should have been an annoyance into a crisis. That's ADD's calling card there, folks.

And did I mention that during all of this the kids were being watched by the upstairs neighbors, because Jake was still finishing his dinner and they really didn't want to come out to the store with me, and I was only going to be gone 15 minutes?

Yeah. I owe them. Big time.

OK, rant essentially over. Jets cooling now....

And that concludes today's edition of Cranky Rant Tuesdays at The Squashed Bologna.

Tune in next week folks, to hear all about the "check engine light" in our 1997 Toyota that just won't stay off.

(Don't you just wish you were me, now?)


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...and that's why I'm a Twit

(as in some fool who likes to tweet on Twitter, not an upper-crust British nitwit a la Monty Python.)

Hello, my name is Varda and I am a Twitter addict.

OK, I've been cutting down some lately, as I have recognized that it can get in the way of, well, that (highly over-rated) "real life" stuff. When your son complains that you "Love your computer more than you love us!" you know it's time to scale back a wee bit.

A year and a half ago I didn't know even know what Twitter was. Well, I mean I'd heard of it, but hadn't given it much thought other than as that "wacky thing" some folks do.

Now I can't imagine how I wasted my time before Twitter. It's so efficient, so effective at sucking all the "spare time" out of my day.

But also, truth to tell, useful.

Sometimes I just want to shout into the cave and hear a voice back that is other than my own, echoing. Sometimes I have important things to say to the universe (well, to the approximately 1800 souls in it who follow me, that is), while other times I just want to share my momentary thoughts with at least the illusion that someone is listening.

Like today.

I was sitting in the car waiting for the clock to strike 11 so I could leave (following the arcane rules of the NYC Alternate Side Shuffle... if you live here -- and especially if you own and street-park a car - you understand; and if you don't, be glad you don't have to) my brain just bouncing around in the void.

So I sent out this tweet:

And got this back:

And that's it. Just what I needed. To know I'm not alone.

And then when I got home (car legal, good 'til Monday at 9:30), just checking in, I read this:

and decided to click on over to read her post. It was about aggravation vs. thankfulness and contained this poster:

A timely reminder if ever there was one, as I have been uber-cranky lately. Forgetting to feel grateful. Forgetting all that I am always hammering home to Ethan the complainer, reminding him how lucky he is.

I can hear my own voice yakking away at him, telling him: "The key to happiness is not how MUCH you have but how GRATEFUL you are for whatever you do have" in response to his whining for this or that toy he has seen advertised on TV and MUST HAVE or he will be miserable forever.

I remember when he was little, maybe four, and was being all fussy about his clothes, wanting to wear a very specific something that was dirty in the hamper, declaring every other possible item terrible, I just lost it with him. I was yelling about how spoiled he is, about how in so much of the world kids have only one or two sets of clothing that they own and THAT IS IT. And if they want them clean they have to wash them by hand, every day, maybe even in a river miles from home.

And he got a quivering lip and I thought "OK, maybe I'm laying it on a little thick" but he then said to me with so much compassion: "Oh, Mommy, that is just SO sad. Can I send them some of my clothes?"

And we hugged for a bit, and talked about what we could do to help those less fortunate than ourselves.

And that sweet memory of my son, and remembering to be grateful for all that I have in my life? Thanks to Twitter and the random moment I popped on to read.

That's one of the things I love about it, how it increases the serendipity quotient in my life.

Other things I love: That it is teaching me brevity, how to be more concise, I, who am so in love with words, who easily earns my reputation as "Queen of the run on sentence (with parenthetic clauses)". But Twitter? 140 characters, baby, or you're toast.

Also, I am by nature an eavesdropper, and Twitter was MADE for that, I can listen in on other people's conversations all day to my heart's content, no one the wiser.

I would like to call myself the Queen of Twitter, but really I'm not. I go through phases, I'm in and out. Sometimes I just read and lurk a lot. Mostly that's fun (see above paragraph) but other days I'm feeling down, vulnerable. And then I feel all left out, wonder why no one is @ing me. (Duh, dorkus, you have to jump into the conversation and @ others to be included, REMEMBER?)

The real Queen of Twitter right now (in my humble opinion) is, quite fittingly, my friend Alexandra aka The Empress who tweets as @GDRPempress and writes the blog Good Day, Regular People. She was on of my two wonderful BlogHer11 roommates, and it would be hard to find a lovelier, more gracious woman on all the planet, let alone the interwebs.

Any delightful or vital conversation going on - there she is! She re-tweets like crazy, offers tweets of support and encouragement constantly. Her stream looks like this, all day long: 

Also Alexandra is first on the spot with important messages and alerts. (And yes, it was she who clued me in to Anna See's tragic loss of her son last week.)

So if you're looking to pick up ONE new follow on Twitter - make it Alexandra. (After ME, of course. Do follow me, please! @Squashedmom, of course.)

So yes, when it's not leading me to fritter away my time, I can truly say that Twitter has embiggened my life (is TOO a word, coined on the Simpsons).

So that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I'm (proud to be) a Twit.

(And you can Tweet me, and we can talk all about it, or anything else you want to, in 140 character bursts.)


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