A Loose Tooth

by Tanya Ward Goodman

My Grandmother’s death has brought the family together, but my daughter’s loose tooth has given us something cheerful to do. We are united by Sadie’s tooth. When she wiggles that darned thing, we stop thinking for a moment about how hard it will be to sell the house and what a waste it would be to send that antique cameo necklace into a hole in the ground. No matter how we feel about the President, gun control or healthcare, the loose tooth brings us all together. We plot and plan for extraction when wills and accounts and phone conversations with lawyers are the dark alternative.

Sweet Sadie with her big smile and her curly hair is an eight year old in a house full of sad adults. She feeds her virtual Ipod horse and talks to the very real cat. She curls up on the wingback sofa and flips through scrapbooks hoping to find photos of someone she knows. My uncle says we should reach up behind the tooth – get a nail under the raw edge. “Move it sideways,” he says. My brother makes a lasso of dental floss and spends the better part of an hour trying to slip it around the tiny tooth. Sadie chews gum and eats the hardened caramels we find in the kitchen cupboard. She wonders if she started running fast and fell down the big hill, the tooth would get knocked out on its own. When she is tired of grown up conversation, she cries and shouts that it’s not fair to have a loose tooth. It’s painful and keeps her from eating all the things she doesn’t like, though a child at a funeral can get by on only Jell-o salad and soft white rolls. She wiggles the tooth and lets others wiggle it. Fingers yellow with nicotine have touched the pearl of this little tooth. The funeral leaves us soggy with tears and chilled to the bone in the Dakota wind, but the tooth doesn’t come out.

The tooth is wiggly on the plane and in the taxi and keeps my girl awake all through our first night at home. She rages and gnashes and I think perhaps the tight set of her jaw will push the thing right out.

At dinner on our second night home, she asks for pliers. We have guests, but they seem not to mind, so I give her a Leatherman. We watch as she grabs and slips, grabs and slips. Someone suggests a paper towel. Once again this tooth is a project. We’re in it together and Sadie is happy to be right in the middle. There is wiggling and working. There is a ten-minute bout of frustration. Tears are shed. And just when we are all feeling like it should be over, just when we’ve begun to turn back to grown up talk, she pulls it out. Her smile is broad and bloody. The tooth is white and shiny in the black metal pincers.

And then, like that, we’re back on the girl.

Lessons From Kittens

By Lisa Regula Meyer

We’re a week into the foster cat experiment and things are going well.  Our cat has finally made peace with the foster cat, Chowda seems comfortable, and the kittens are growing well.  Kenny thinks the kittens are the best thing ever, and the kittens aren’t nearly as afraid of him as they once were, in large part because he’s gotten much better at not being a scary rambunctious giant.  Having two mamas in the house for mothers’ day was interesting and gave lots of food for thought.

Possibly the most insightful bit has been looking at “mothering” and how it differs across species.  I was having a conversation with a family member about how natural being a parent is, and that everyone knows how to do it instinctively.  That sentiment right there set off some questions in my head, because we all know people for whom parenting is anything but natural- think of all the stories that make the news of parents doing utterly stupid things with their kids.  And really, parenting doesn’t really seem so natural for Chowda, either.  She frequently will lie down on top of the kittens, drop them from the bed, and do other seemingly less-than-kind things to the kittens.  But she hasn’t killed one yet, so I guess I can’t complain too much.

For us human parents, the list of things to do for our kids is even longer than “keep kids alive” and includes some extremely unnatural items, like “help with homework,” “put together toys,” “fashion coach,” and “taxi them around town.”  Sure, those are things that most of us have done ourselves, but hardly makes them come naturally to us.  Really,  almost everything above basic survival is learned and pretty impressive that we have figured all this out.

From my viewpoint, it’s the unnaturalness of parenting in the twenty-first century that makes it worth celebrating.  We’re in uncharted waters here as a species, and we’re doing OK.  Even well, in many cases!  We’ve managed to learn an extraordinary amount, and found ways to pass on that knowledge so other generations could build upon that base.  We do so much more than simply maintain life, but to enhance and improve it for our kids.  We have expanded the family beyond blood ties to chosen families and nurturing our friends and neighbors.  We don’t just create life, but ideas, organizations, and art.  To all those who “mother”, those who nurture, create, and sustain things other than themselves- thank you, and congratulations; you’ve made a difference in the world.

Now to make sure that the kittens are all safe and where they’re supposed to be…

My Two Moms

by Tanya Ward Goodman

Though they couldn’t be less alike, I am lucky to have two moms: the one who spent 36 hours in labor before I was cut from her belly and handed over to the nuns in the small brick hospital where I was born and the one who wore a dress the color of jacaranda blossoms when she married Dad just before my twelfth birthday. They have both been such strong influences in my life that somehow even my body reflects equal parts of these women. I have the height and lean arms of my stepmother, the woman I call “La,” and the sturdy legs and curving hips of my mother. My hands are square and rough at the knuckles like my mother’s hands, punished by years of gardening without gloves, and like La’s, whose hands ache at the joints from the effort of turning cold clay into coffee cups and cereal bowls on a wheel.
It is not just my body that bears the imprint of these women. Thanks to my mother, I have the ability to identify plants and discern a raven from a crow (the raven is bigger and looks blue in the sun). From La, I get my drive to action, my need to fix things. These forces brought me to New Mexico to care for my father when he was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s.
Sometimes these two influences are at war. The shyness and insecurity I inherited from my mother battle it out daily with La’s brave and often blind self-confidence. Guided by the force of her will she is often able to muscle through situations that would terrify my mother. She is, for example, navigating the unknown territory of my father’s illness while Mom stands at the edge of the forest and waits for someone to bring a map.
The strengths and shortcomings of my two mothers are tangled up with all that I have been given by Dad. Dad shares Mom’s reverence for the beauty and uniqueness of the world, but his intense drive to create quickened his pace, kept his hand moving over canvases and sketchpads late into the night. That pace is slowing now, which trips up La and me. I have come home to be with him and share this time, and I want to follow Dad’s meandering, but my responsibilities often lengthen my stride.
When I look in the mirror, I see Dad’s green eyes staring back through mine. I see his long torso reflected in my own. If I cut my head open right now, would I also see a faint shadow of forgetting?

Adapted from my memoir, “Leaving Tinkertown” which will be published in August of 2013

Under the Mommy Microscope.

We recently returned from a trip to Denver to visit with my sister and her family.  It was a great trip.  I completely logged off all my techie tools (ok, almost, there was a periodic post to Facebook of the cousins playing).  It was a great feeling.  The trip was just what I needed, a change of scenery especially after what felt like a very long winter.

However as I boarded the plane on Monday I couldn’t escape the feeling of being under the mommy microscope.  Or the feeling that I rely on other people too much to help with the kids.  I think about it and I was always handing off my youngest to either my mother, my step-father or my sister so I could take care of my oldest.

I noticed last night after story-time at the library, the boys and I went to a park with another family, and again I found myself passing off my youngest to take care of the oldest.  (I’m pretty lucky these people are great, and trustworthy.)  And again, last night as I laid in bed all I could think about is why I cant just do it all.

I worry about what my sister, mother, step-father and these new family friends think of my lack of multi-tasking.  I worry they say, ‘she passes off Theo way too much’.  I worry they think I expect them to help.

I feel like I fail at that part of parenting.  Not able to multi-task.

When I signed up to become a single mother by choice, I did my research.  Boy did I do my research.  But the one thing that isn’t written anywhere is how to handle multiple tasks at once.  Nowhere does it say this multi-tasking is a required trait of motherhood.

Since the three of us haven’t spent too much time together this past week and we are heading into a couple of busy weeks for us, I am completely stressed about my lack of multi-tasking and getting through these next weeks.  How am I going to handle a birthday party? How am I going to handle a garage sale? Cleaning the house? Play dates? Unfinished projects around the house? And quality time together?

I woke up early this morning due to this stress, and thought I had an idea that could work – Ergo Baby Carrier – but failed immediately once I saw the price.  In addition, my youngest is completely mobile and wouldn’t want any part of it.  I’m back to the blank slate for ideas.  And maybe there aren’t any brilliant ideas and I just need to take it one day at a time, be kind to myself and not worry what others think.

Not a Penguin

by Tanya Ward Goodman

Way back in college, when I was a theatre major, one of my class assignments was to become an animal. I went to the Lincoln Park Zoo and observed the penguins. Imagining that my feet attached directly to my hips, I cultivated the “penguin walk.” I stood contemplatively with one wing held out from my side. I blinked and turned my head. At my professor’s behest, I aspired to “be penguin.”

Now, I should say that, in college, I was a nervous person. I took small, fast steps and was prone to daydreaming. It is very possible that you might have caught me, standing with one arm held out from my side, blinking in the sun with only my thoughts to keep me company. It is very possible that I was slightly penguin-like to begin with. Perhaps we all have a little penguin inside us, but we also have a little lion or crocodile or condor.

My acting professor applauded my penguin and I was happy. For our next assignment, I was to be Blanche Du Bois from “Streetcar Named Desire.” I filled my mind with the fluttering of moth wings and silk handkerchiefs, I looked into the mirror and made my eyes into deep pools of sadness and lost hope. I wore a filmy, pink dress and carried a box of letters from my ex-boyfriend hoping that the residual regret on the page might rise up like a fine dust around my body on the stage.

“You’re still a penguin,” my professor said. “Isn’t she a penguin?”

When we transformed ourselves into characters based on inanimate objects, my “tube of oil paint” was also dubbed “penguin.” “Guest at a wedding,” was “the penguin near the punch bowl.” It seemed that when she looked at me, my professor wore black and white goggles. And, after a time, when I looked at myself, so did I. It was hard to slow my quick pace, my words came in quick bursts or not at all and on stage I retreated deeper and deeper into a kind of blinking trance.

At the end of the year, I transferred out of her class and changed my major. I had found that I enjoyed writing just as much as acting and, in my writing classes, no one ever accused me of penguin prose.

I think of all this now, because I am the parent of two growing children. My son is athletic and strong. His legs are meaty with muscle and he rarely speaks when he can shout. Other parents comment on his outsized energy and his sturdy body. He’s been compared to a bull in a china shop, the Tasmanian Devil and a force of nature. “Fearless,” these parents say. And sometimes “brute.”

My boy named our dog, “Grace.” He is afraid to go upstairs in the dark and is sometimes so filled with his own nervous energy that he chews a hole in his shirt. As much as he pounds on his sister, he always compliments her outfit when she comes to the breakfast table. He can be so quiet and light on his feet that he can observe a lizard from an inch away. He is strong and fast and wild and kind and gentle and frightened. He is cheetah and kitten.

It is almost impossible to resist categorizing people. It helps to look out across a crowded school auditorium or classroom or workplace and see “chatty,” “angry,” “friendly,” “sturdy,” “reliable.” But these simple categories don’t do justice to the whole person. In the case of my theatre professor, I saw her as “crazy” and “harsh,” but she was in the middle of a divorce and so she was also sad and disappointed and heartbroken. Under different circumstances, she might have been warm and compassionate.

I want my children to understand that they can be angry, but that doesn’t make them an angry person. They can be strong in one area and weak in another. I want them to grow without limits and without definition into their best selves.

A Pat On The Back.

By: Danny Thomas

here I am…
sitting on the end of the bed
with a pile of laundry
literally
looming
over my computer.
Everything is looming right now;
spring,
the river,
the future,
the past,
relationships,
colleagues…
Jennifer and I
are occupying the land of loom…
it seems to happen with us a lot.

oh Christ…
are we those people…

with the drama,
and the constant crises?

Probably.
Sometimes…
we are.
Probably
sometimes
all of us are.

Oh well.

sorry.

This week,
the last six days,
have been intense.

How many parenting and family blogs have that line in them?
How self reflective can I be in one blog?

I started my new job full time.
I haven’t had a full time job in ten years…
The whole time Jen was in grad-school
we got by with me
being a home maker
and bringing in a little extra dough for
beer and wine and whatever recreation..
and
also
of course
student loans…
and food stamps.

I am not one of those people who claims to have put my spouse through
grad school…

I have very much been in
along-for-the-ride mode.

So…

that’s a big shift.
But that is only one aspect
of our intense week…

Also,
all three children
got a stomach flu.
And it lasted for the entire week in ‘Zilla’s poor little belly…
So strange.

Another reminder how they are all unique,
not just in how they look
and interact
with the world…

but even down to their chemistry
and how their guts work…

that the same flu
can sit with one kid for 4 days
and be through the system of the other two
over the course of 36 hours.

Bananas…

But that’s a blog for a different day.

So that’s two aspects…

and a third
it’s the last week of school for Jen
which means;
extra hours…
grading,
finals,
graduation,
showcases,
stuff like that…

phew

anyway…

my point is
We. Made. It

We made it through the week,
and here we are, enjoying the weekend.

We had a great,
wonderful,
special adventure yesterday
after ballet…
celebrating free comic book day.
And we watched a movie together…
And we are
a family
who loves each other,
and who eats well…
and together…
and who
gets sick together too
and props each other up
through
these big shifts in life…
who guide each other
through the looming future.

And sometimes it takes the crucible of hard times,
or the catalyst of big changes
to see that
or be reminded of it.

We are a team
and we do well together
more often than we fail
and that’s worth noting.
It’s worth celebrating.
As a matter of fact,
as often as possible.

I have talked about this blog
being a vessel of positive
self reflection,
that when I started writing it
I made a conscious decision
to use this as a place to
be thoughtful
and positive.
Knowing that there are plenty of trolls on the internet,
enough critics,
and more than enough depressing pessimism.

I am not always jolly
and I don’t always write about easy stuff,
or good feelings…
but I think we can
lead an examined life
that is also a positive one
and that is a goal,
hope,
vision of mine…
That my better self
has a sense of humor
about being self-critical

and can be gentle about being critical of others…

and knows it’s necessary,
but also knows…
there is a way
to do it
and a way to reflect
that is helping us to know
we are okay
as much as it helping us
to be our better selves…

I was inspired and reminded of my
commitment to optimism
yesterday
when I read this blog by Steve Wiens….

I am inspired to start
patting my parent self on the back
occasionally.

I hope you join me.

Expanding the Family

By Lisa Regula Meyer

Kenny has always been a compassionate little dude, caring for all sorts of things and never holding back love.  I have plenty of pictures of him “nursing” and otherwise taking care of stuffed friends going way back, and he’s spoken for a few years now about growing up and being a parent, or getting a new pet.  Kids mimic what they see around them, and we’ve been lucky to have some very loving people surround our family since he’s been alive.

All during grad school- which is most of his life- we have avoided adding to our little clan to keep things as simple as they can be kept in our crazy house.  We have a wonderful cat to go along with a great kid, so why push our luck in those departments, right?  Our “one-child rule” was expanded to a “one pet rule” and life was good.  Until recently.

I might have lost my mind.  My biological clock might be ticking (HA! Who am I kidding?).  Kenny might be doing better with chores, listening, and generally growing up.  Maybe I’ve just gotten sick of the begging.  Or I could blame all of my friends’ Facebook posts of new additions to their families, both furred and human.

Whatever it is, we have decided to take a crack at “expanding our family.”  Not humans, that would be too much of a commitment for any of our tastes right now.  And not permanently, because- again- commitment issues run rampant in our house.  So we put in our application to a local pet shelter and are hoping to foster a cat or two.

It’s not much, and it’s probably temporary, but I guess it seemed like a good way to see how it goes.  Kenny understands the concept of fostering, we explained it as akin to being a “cat-surrogate-family” and he says he’s fine with this first step.  I’m fine with seeing where this new journey takes us.  Dwight’s just happy to feed his crazy-cat-guy genetics.  We were all getting a little too comfortable in our post-graduate lives, anyway, and needed to mix things up a bit.

First things first, our interview and home visit is this week, so we’re hoping that goes well and we can move on to the next step.  Who knew that fostering a pet would be such an involved process?  It definitely gives me a new respect for our local foster and adoption groups who help find critters find a home, and the dedication they have to their mostly volunteer jobs.  Whoever first said that the only constant in life is change sure wasn’t kidding…

40 Pound Weight Loss in 6 Months

By Susan Howard

Instead of my usual blog about health and fitness, I wanted to take this moment to honor one of my clients who in the past 6 months has melted away over 40 pounds.  My clients are constantly inspiring me to do better and I thought it would be nice to highlight her journey.  She is, I must let you know a busy mom of 2, a full time doctor, as well as a women that goes out on girls weekends and dinner dates with her husband.  I’ve heard about these profound weight losses and have watched the shows where someone drops half their body weight, but I want to give the regular busy Joe or Jane an insight to how it’s really done.  She asked to remain anonymous, but here it is in her words.

 

Me: “What is the most significant thing you’ve changed?”

 

Her: It is impossible to isolate one, single change.  So, I will take a minute to ramble on about a few key differences in my attitude towards food and exercise, and in my daily habits.

 

1) I think I’ve had significant weight loss success because I made important changes to both my eating habits and exercise routine.  I know people who go to the gym religiously, but do not change what or how much they are eating, and then act surprised when they don’t lose weight.  Conversely, some people calorie restrict but remain completely sedentary, again without achieving significant results.  I felt it was important for me to approach this as a complete lifestyle overhaul and to make healthy changes both in my eating AND exercise habits simultaneously.

 

2) I did not immediately over-restrict, but gradually decreased my food intake over time.  I started out by cutting back to 1700 kcal/day, which is actually still quite a bit of food, and was able to loose a good deal of weight without feeling deprived or hungry.  After a few months of eating 1700 calories and feeling quite satisfied with this regimen, I cut back to 1500 kcal/day by making just a few small changes (dropped 1 yogurt and 1 serving of almonds), easy.  A few months later, I dropped down to 1200 kcal/day on most days, and 1500 kcal/day on days when I exercise, which is the routine that I maintain today.  I like the variation and the idea of a little reward for exercising (a frozen yogurt and a serving of rosemary and sea salt marcona almonds.)

 

3) I found ways to keep eating my favorite foods, just in smaller portions.  For instance, having a large latte with low fat milk (not skim!) is something that I enjoy immensely and look forward to each morning.  I have easily incorporated it into my diet such that I have one every single day.  Likewise, I have a 150 kcal dessert every day – Cadbury cream egg? Why not?  Handful of goldfish (55 to be exact)? Of course!  Small wedge of decadent cheese?  Absolutely.   I’ve come to a place in my thinking about food where I am satisfied having 1 cream egg, and no longer feel a compulsion to eat 5 or 6.  I can have 3 bites of Trader Joe’s chocolate pudding and feel content.  I never thought I would be the person who could stop eating after 1 or 2 bites, but that is exactly who I’ve become.  I have complete control over my intake of food now.  I’m not sure how I was able to make this profound attitude change it just came gradually over time with lots and lots of practice.

 

4) I threw out the “must do a solid 45 minutes of cardio” mentality, and replaced it with a love for and understanding of the importance of strength training. This is where you, Susan Howard, have been an invaluable and completely integral part of my weight loss journey.  My body feels and looks different because for the first time in my life, I have lost weight by routinely engaging in light to moderate strength/resistance training in combination with moderate cardiovascular exercise.  My husband has commented several times on how I seem more fit and look different/better than I have after previous weight losses.  He maintains that my overall body composition is different/more toned/healthier looking than it has been in the past, even when I weighed less than I do now.

 

5) I gave up my gym membership!  Susan told me,  “The best gym is the one that you use.”  Well, I wasn’t using mine at all, due to a serious time crunch with a full time job and 2 kids.  So, for the first time in 25 years, I gave up my gym membership and started working out at home, this was the best fitness change I’ve ever made.  I now know that I can achieve better results at home with a spin bike (for 10-30 minutes of cardio) plus a mat, a set of 5, 8, 10 and 12 pound weights, a 4 pound medicine ball and a resistance band than I ever achieved pounding away for 45 minutes on an elliptical machine at the gym. By working out at home I am able to take advantage of golden opportunities for exercise (do it while the baby is napping!  Or while the kids are gardening with dad), prefect for a 30-60 minute home workout, but would not have allowed for a time-sucking trip to the gym. I also vary my workout every time I exercise, so as to avoid boredom and to be challenging different muscle groups.  This is where having a regular meeting with Susan has been invaluable, because it allows me to constantly be adding new exercises and to be tweaking old ones as I grow stronger.  My years of extreme gym boredom and monotony are forever gone!

 

The factoids:

 

Summary:  Eat 1200-1500 kcal/day

Exercise 30-60 min, 3-4 times per week

20 min cardio + 30 min strength

 

Typical day’s food:

 

Morning:  Large low fat latte

200 kcal breakfast muffin/bar

 

Lunch:     250 kcal Lean Cuisine

1 string cheese

1 fruit

 

Afternoon snack:  110 kcal Fiber one bar  + 1 fruit

Late afternoon snack:  Carrots + Light Laughing Cow cheese (35 kcal)

 

Dinner:  250 kcal Lean Cuisine

Spinach/Arugula Salad with 1 Tbl Girard’s Light Champagne Dressing

 

Dessert:  100 kcal Trader Joe’s milk chocolate bar

 

Optional (if exercised):  130 kcal yogurt (frozen or regular) OR 1 oz goat cheese on salad and 10 almonds

 

That’s all folks, not too confusing.  That was her trail and she travels on to this day.  Right on!

Work and play. Play and work…

 

By: Danny ThomasI think it’s interesting
and not insignificant
that Jennifer and I
both seem to use the words
“work” and “play”
interchangeably.

we are both students of theatre
so that has to be a factor
because
theatre
on some levels,
like many arts,
if you’re doing it right
I think,
is a vocation
largely devoted
to playing.

in my music
and my writing
I work at playing too
and I play at working…

I was in the kitchen…
cleaning the thing
which we can’t decide
whether to call
a griddle or a skillet
so we call it a skiddle…

anyway,
I was cleaning that
and I heard Jennifer say to the girls.
“You guys are working really well together…
you are playing nice.”
to the older girls
who were playing some math games
on the iPad.

I guess
I am just grateful that
I have partnered with
and get to co-parent
with someone
who, like me,
sees these things; “work” and “play”
as intertwined or symbiotic, if not actually one and the same…
who takes playing seriously and sees the fun in work.

Not long after Maya was born
I was talking with an acquaintance,
a guy who modeled at the art gallery where I worked.
(I got to meet some interesting characters in that job!)
I was talking about the idea that as much as I had wanted to be a dad
for nigh on 10 years
and that as much as we had prepared
by reading books
and watching movies
and talking to parents
our minds were still blown…
by becoming parents

and the responsibility…
the work of parenting
was particularly mind-blowing
in that it is work… it is Work.
but it is different than any other kind of work
i’ll ever do.
and the difference is ineffable
again,
here I am trying to eff the ineffable…
but these are the places
my mind occupies
when I sit down
to write…
or maybe I should say
these are the things
that occupy my mind…
whatever…

It is a unique work, and a work that relates to art making
in that it is creative
and compelling
and born out of love,
at least under the best circumstances.
it is a work that most of us who do it
do because
we feel obliged to or inspired to
or both.
It is a unique kind of
responsibility
not free of resentment
but an commitment that comes with a tender reward
that can only marginally be expressed by the joy I feel watching the flicker of an eyelash and last final sigh before the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep settles in… or the ecstasy on the face of a mudcovered child… or the profound fear of watching a ball roll down the driveway, child in tow… knowing that I can’t get there in time and hoping that my voice does the trick… and the relief I feel when it does.

back to the story…

I was talking to this guy
who was not a parent…
But definitely was a dude
with an interesting perspective
and outlook.
a model, working on a degree
in ecology… sustainability in particular…
our previous conversations had ranged from
Carlos Castaneda, to Kurt Vonnegut…
and Pink Floyd to Complexity Theory…
This was in Eugene, Oregon, mind you,
a place where chances are high that your bartender has a PhD in Physics…
or is high on psilocybin…
or both.

So this shaggy, brainy male model and I were having a conversation on parenting and he recommended a book to me… the book was The Continuum Concept by Jean Liedloff…

A book not originally intended as a parenting book… but over time was adopted as one…

Many, many ideas from the book resonated with me, and as I have mentioned in the past, I don’t believe any book or author is a panacea, there is no magic recipe for any family, relationship or person… however… there are certainly lessons to be gleaned and important ideas to share and think about in so much of what is floating around…

So, of the many ideas that struck a chord with me – one of the prominent ones that applies to the ideas bouncing around in my brain today – is the notion that these indigenous tribes that Jean Liedloff spent time with had no concept of a distinction between work and play… they all just did what they could, with the faith that everyone was making a valid and significant contribution…

I should probably go look up that section of the book,
I may be characterizing it incorrectly
but it was something along the lines of they had no separate words for work or play…

We don’t live among the tribes of the Yequana Indians in the jungles of South America, so the reality is we can’t exactly mirror their lifestyle… but there certainly are lessons to be learned, and that knowledge can inform how we approach our work, and our play, and the work/play of raising kids.

Driving Miss Robin

By: Ann Brown

So, what’s new? Not much.

Oh wait. Right. Robin got his driver’s license suspended.

It’s not what you think, and I know that you are thinking DUI.

Robin was nabbed for speeding. And running a red light. And for totally being a dick to me when I was in a bad mood a few months ago and just needed to be left alone. Well, okay, he wasn’t pulled over for that, specifically, but I felt the police officer who gave him the speeding ticket should know what I go through. So I told him.

You’d think that a person who had his license taken away would be the contrite one in the car, right? And you’d think that person would refrain from giving helpful driving tips to the person who is giving up her valuable time to schlep him around town, and who has pretty much made her way in the driving world for, oh, forty years without his helpful tips and suggestions such as, “when you accelerate, you want to blah blah blah…”.

I can’t tell you how his sentences end because by then I am usually looking for the closest bridge from which to launch us both into the Willamette. The man cannot shut the fuck up about my driving.

The other week, after I did not accept his helpful suggestions on parallel parking, and after he pointed out that he is pretty much an expert in parallel parking and really, in all aspects of driving, possibly all aspects of life, and I pointed out that one of us who is not an expert still has a valid driver’s license and one of us who is an expert needs to have me drive him to Safeway because he is out of Preparation H wipes, and he pointed out that speeding and running red lights are not evidence of being a bad driver whereas my acceleration technique is a major red flag about my road skills, and, really, about my ability to navigate the world at all, and then I pointed out that I hate him and I have been faking my orgasms, he said indignantly to me, “I am going to get a new driver!”

And he looked at me as though he had just told me he was going to get a new wife. Which shook me about as much as if he said he was going to get a new driver.

And then I slammed on the brakes because I was about to run a red light and we both stopped fighting due to our instantaneous commitment to whiplashes while saving the Trenta iced tea I had just gotten from Starbucks, which was the topic of the helpful tip Robin had been giving me (“TWO dollars? For iced tea??? This is why we have no retirement savings”) right before the parallel parking thing happened.

Only there wasn’t really a red light. I just wanted to slam on the brakes. I like to fuck with him.

Next Page »