OneSaneVoice

What you get for what you’ve got

Posted on July 30, 2007 by onesanevoice

Son graduated college in May and is living at home with us until he finds a suitable investment property. He’s been talking about buying his own home since junior year and he’s not shy in asking about our plans for the future and what we intend to do with the house he grew up in. I’ve caught him walking around inspecting the condition and structure of various rooms and I’m anticipating any day now he’ll make us an offer.

He landed a great job for himself here in New York while he was still away at school and it’s terrific to see him leave the house every morning pumped to go to work. He has a position with one of the largest Internet advertising companies and one evening at dinner Husband and I asked him some questions about his job and what it entails.

OSV: How much does it cost to advertise on a website?

SON: What’s your budget?

OSV: No, I mean if I was calling your office and just wanting information, what’s the ballpark figure you’d give me?

SON: You wouldn’t call. You’d email. We don’t really get calls. And you’d still have to tell me your budget.

HUSBAND: Budget aside, you need to effectively match advertisers with sites their potential customers visit, right?

SON: (turning away from me and looking at Husband like, at last, a real prospect) Of course ad placement is market-driven and targeted audiences are researched and monitored.

OSV: And how much is that?

SON: (changing tactics) What are you looking to spend?

All this talk of finances provided a segue to something Husband and I had been discussing since Son graduated and moved back into his childhood home.

HUSBAND: It’s great to have you here and your Mom and I have talked about how much we enjoy your company and the fact that you’re willing to pitch in with chores when we ask you. We’ve also discussed having you contribute to the household expenses.

Son looked up warily.

SON: And what did you decide?

OSV: (resisting the temptation to ask about his budget) We think $50 a week sounds reasonable.

SON: $200 a month? Really? You’d charge me $200 a month?

HUSBAND: We’ll let you slide for June and the first half of July.

Son paused a moment to take in this unexpected news.

SON: I’ll need to see a contract.

OSV: A contract? For what?

SON: For the conditions. So you don’t spring anything else on me.

HUSBAND: We can draw up a contract. Of course, there’ll be fees involved. That will bring it up to $300 a month.

Son rose from his seat looking at the clock. It was time to make a call to the west coast. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out $50 and placed it on the table.

SON: We’ll talk again next week.

It’s been overcast lately so let’s make Daughter’s Fotos about Lights

bare bulbs

headlights on the williamsburg bridge

the fire fountain in a flash, new orleans

bright lights, big city

Posted in The Kids Are Alright | Tagged charging kids rent to live at home, Internet advertising, New York, target audience, website ads | Comments Off

One Flew Over the Sonogram

Posted on July 26, 2007 by onesanevoice

If you’re squeamish about medical tests or uncomfortable reading about procedures involving a woman’s secret happy place you should turn back now and spare yourself this entry and me the negative feedback. If you’re leaving now, no hard feelings, bye bye and see you next time.

For those warriors still with me let’s start with the subject of pelvic sonograms. If you or a partner has gone through a pregnancy, you know that a pelvic sonogram is used to locate and monitor the fetus inside the womb and the procedure involves the patient needing to drink approximately a reservoir full of water. This is to help the ultrasound waves and ultimately the sonography technician locate the fetus because it is so tiny and could be hiding anywhere. I’m sure that’s oversimplified but let’s go with it.

There is another type of ultrasound called a transvaginal sonogram. If you pronounced that word in your head with a long ‘i’ as in vagina, that tells me you probably don’t have one so go back and say it over with a short ‘i’ and the accent on the second syllable instead of the third. Now you can say the word at a dinner party without fear of sounding ridiculous. This type of sonogram does not require water because it is to look at the ovaries and endometrial wall. Whereas the pregnancy sonogram uses a stethoscope-like disc that passes over the outer area, a transvaginal sonogram uses what looks like a narrow karaoke mic inserted inside and waved around to look at the ovaries. A probe cover that resembles a condom is placed over the karaoke mic before insertion for the patient’s protection and possibly for the karaoke mic who might have another date later.

The reason for this procedure is to monitor a previously discovered abnormality, let’s call it an ‘anomaly’, to make sure it doesn’t become troublesome in the future. So far I have been assured by any doctor who found one of my anomalies that it won’t be the cause of my eventual demise but the irony will not be wasted on me if it turns out it’s all the tests that ultimately kill me.

The day before my appointment, the lab called to remind me to drink lots of water. I reminded them that I was having a transvaginal sonogram and water wasn’t required. This would be my third one in as many years so I was pretty familiar with the protocol. They called back and said they don’t know what my other labs did but their technician required at least 48 ounces of water to be drunk beforehand to help locate the ovaries. I called my doctor’s office to get their opinion and was told to tell the lab that the doctor said no water was necessary for this procedure and if their technician needs help locating my ovaries I should find another lab.

Because I had already waited three weeks to get this over with I went ahead with it as scheduled after the lab said they’d do it according to my doctor’s instructions. The technician was a small woman about ten years older than me who struck me as a somewhat grim individual. The procedure took twice as long as it had the other times and I was starting to wonder if she was intentionally punishing me with the karaoke mic or if she really was having that much trouble locating my ovaries. Feeling so vulnerable both physically and emotionally tends to skew my ability to identify all the angles when I find myself in situations like this. But after it was over we came to the lecture part of our program and it all came clear.

We stood facing each other, she in her white lab coat with her arms crossed over my medical chart against her chest and me barefoot on the cold floor in a paper gown with a broken tie. “There are reasons we ask patients to follow certain rules,” she began. “This procedure took much longer than it had to because when we get old things sag. Just as the things on the outside of our body sag, so do our internal organs.” She was pointing her chin at my body as she spoke which was actually amusing since I’m 5’5″ and 115 lbs and although I’m not impervious to gravity it’s hard for things to noticeably sag that were never all that noticeable to begin with. Since her obvious intention was to insult me, I just smiled. Usually that aggravates insulting people without hurting me at all.

Then she did what professionals in a trusted position should never do: bring out the scare tactics simply because they can. “I caught two cases of bladder cancer this month that would have otherwise gone undetected and it would be a shame if there was something here that I missed because the bladder wasn’t filled.” She stared straight at me and said, “Who else is going to look at your bladder?” Normally I would say, “Anyone who buys me a drink can look at my bladder” but she didn’t deserve such a great wisecrack and all I could think was you’re just a mean little troll, aren’t you? If there was a question on the sonography final that said Are you a mean little troll? you would have to check yes, wouldn’t you?

Too annoyed now to smile, I gathered my clothes and stood facing her. “I’m sure the report sent to my doctor’s office will reflect all your extra effort and she’ll call you to discuss any questions she has. I will tell her about this test and to ask for you by name.” That would be Nurse Ratched, right?

A disturbing experience warrants disturbing pictures. Daughter took these when her Science for Teachers grad school class dissected a chicken. If you didn’t bail in the first paragraph, there’s still time.

starting the chicken dissection

look at the flexible skin

sonogram 3 check_out_that_joint_cross_section_action

check out that cross section action

help!

Posted in The Doctor Will See You Now | Tagged Nurse Ratched, sonogram, transvaginal sonogram, ultrasound | Comments Off

Giggles & Gigabytes

Posted on July 22, 2007 by onesanevoice

Sitting in front of me in one of my classes is a trio of young women who could accurately be called a gaggle of gigglers. They’re possibly 20 years old, hopefully not more, and between the hair tossing and the “like, really” and the scrutinizing of each other’s clothing and skin pores, it is more entertainment than those of us behind them can stand.

Before class one morning this week they engaged in an animated discussion of how long a dropped piece of food can remain on the ground before it is rendered uneatable. The debate was between the giggler who said it was 5 seconds and the opposing giggler who swore the rule had been revised to 30. They all agreed that 30 seconds seemed like a long time but nevertheless that was the accepted update. I closed my eyes and tried to expand my mind to encompass this absorbing discourse but I was not successful. Between you and me, I stand firmly by the 5-second rule and that only applies to my kitchen floor. If you eat it off the rug you better be a dog. And I don’t care whose God you kiss that M&M up to, if it drops in public it’s roadkill.

Over in my computer LECTURE class, our instructor has deemed the front of the room the pulpit and has morphed from teacher to preacher. She is, in fact, the wife of a preacher and has told us she travels a great deal with her husband doing missionary work. This was strange news to hear in a classroom and things got stranger (more strange? Where is Mrs. D when I need her?) when our instructor asked for a show of hands of those students who paid their bills online. About half the class responded. Then she asked who did their banking online. Again, half the class raised their hands. She surveyed the room shaking her head and clucking that she was surprised it was that many. Then she said in her articulate, melodious, perhaps gospel-trained voice, “I envy the confidence you have in providing your personal information like that for the world to see. I myself do not trust the Internet.”

She went on to warn that her nephew now wears glasses because of the many hours he spent in front of the monitor playing computer games. It was definitely the computer games because poor eyesight does not run in his family. She then distributed copies of a junk email like the ones I chatted with you about in In Forward Motion and told us our homework was to investigate the bizarre information in it online that evening and report back the next day as to whether or not it had merit. She confided to the class that she has great fears about computer technology and how it has the power to spread misinformation. She actually did a great job of that herself since several students were visibly upset by the nonsense email just handed out and those might be the students without computers at home to consult. There are about forty of us in this computer class with no computers and possibly no real instructor and there will no doubt be more about this in upcoming blog entries. Say you’ll stay with me and say amen.

On the home front, Husband and I bought Daughter her belated birthday gift which was late partly because Daughter wanted a new digital camera and needed to get a hands-on experience before deciding on a model number. She trekked crosstown to B&H Photo on 9th Avenue for a test drive of the Canons and I don’t mind giving B&H a plug here because they are so unique and so professional. Their store spans an entire block on the west side and good luck finding parking or double-parking or even triple-parking. I ordered the one she wanted online and they’ll deliver it next week so she’ll have it in plenty of time for Israel. That means you’ll see the photos she takes with it in this blog in August and it also means I still have some time to be at peace with the fact that my favorite woman is going somewhere that hasn’t been at peace ever.

Daughter’s Featured Fotos today are all about Peace. Amen.

give peace a chance

how do i spell peace? c-h-r-y-s-l-e-r-b-u-i-l-d-i-n-g

happy feet will never hurt you

hallelujah for real. the gospel tent, new orleans jazzfest

Posted in Skool Daze | Tagged B&H Photo, computer class, pay bills online, the 5 second rule | Comments Off

Necessity to Yield

Posted on July 18, 2007 by onesanevoice

Monday my new school term began and I hit the ground running. I felt like some character in a Lifetime pilot, one about a remarried mother of grown children trying to get a degree, keep her shrink appointments, resolve a painful legal matter and plan something for dinner while making sure everyone in her orbit is happy even though it really isn’t her responsibility but she won’t find that out for several episodes.

Sometimes you take a look at your life and it seems like this is what people want to see on TV because this is their life, too. Most of us aren’t getting Nip/Tucked, we don’t stumble with horror upon a dead body while we’re walking the dog, our husbands aren’t caught making out with our sister in the kitchen at Thanksgiving, etc. Rather, the lawyer calls just as you’re told to put your phones on silent and then you look around to see that you’re sitting in an Intro to Computers LECTURE because the school doesn’t have enough computers for you to actually be instructed on. Right away you think, “Oh, I don’t think so. No way am I spending a semester having someone TELL me how to export data with no data exporter anywhere in the room.” And the first thing the instructor says while looking right at YOU is, “Testing out of this class is not permitted.” All right, I know when I’m beat. Bring on your explanation of how to set up an Excel spreadsheet. In theory.

This semester we’re much more on our own as far as individual progress goes so the jury’s still out and I know better than to report a story without all the pertinent facts. My grandmother was my role model for presenting information selectively as in the time she called to say she had just seen the cardiologist because she was having heart palpitations. She was 91 at the time so it wasn’t the most unusual complaint. As it turns out, though, during the examination the doctor asked if there was a specific time she noticed these palpitations and she said yes, they seemed to happen only when she was on her way to the supermarket on her tricycle trying to cross Okeechobee Blvd. That’s six lanes of traffic. I mean, Jesus, Grandma.

I was on my way home from seeing the Wise Man this week and the parkway was jammed and everyone was shifting lanes going way too fast and before I knew it a guy on a motorcycle wearing a Hell’s Angels jacket zoomed by my window with just inches to spare and gave me the finger. If my window was open he could have poked me in the eye. It struck me so odd. Like what could I have possibly done to piss him off that badly? An innocent woman returning from therapy. Talking on the phone to her lawyer.

Daughter’s Featured Fotos today depict street art that either ask or answer the question WHAT?

we will be forever fitschen

these teeth go out to the man i stole them from. he shouldn’t have turned around on B. . .

haile selassie

time is a bastard

Posted in Join me on the couch, or How did that make you feel? | Tagged Hell's Angels, Lifetime, Okeechobee Blvd, shrink appointments | Comments Off

The Pipeman Cometh

Posted on July 14, 2007 by onesanevoice

The smell under the kitchen sink lived on so I called the plumber and he came back yesterday. He said it wasn’t so unusual for this to happen, not the smell but the customer noticing some weird odor and thinking it was due to the pipes being worked on. He said it usually turns out to be a dead mouse (oh, goody!) or some cleaning product that leaked under the sink (oops) that the customer thought would go away on its own but it doesn’t so they call him to come back and have a look.

We sniffed all around and just like when your tooth aches right up to the minute the receptionist says the dentist will see you now and then it goes away, the smell was elusive until I stood in a certain spot where it was intense and I called him over. We stood there breathing deeply and he said he smelled something but it wasn’t unpleasant and then I caught it too and realized it was my body lotion and I shook my head and said, “Shalimar.” And he said, “You’re right! I bought some for my wife!” and I don’t know what it is with guys and Shalimar because I personally was done with it by 1980 but Husband is over the moon for the stuff. I once asked him to tell me a fantasy of his and I was waiting to hear something involving a French maid outfit and spike heels, and I won’t say whether or not that eventually happened anyway, but he surprised me by saying he’d like me to wear Shalimar. I said, “Shalimar? That scent reminds me of Joni Mitchell and macramé belts.” He got all dreamy and said, “Yeah, me too.” So I went out and bought some and whenever I wear it he smiles like he’s in a field of hippies waiting for the music to start.

I slathered it on that morning to try and cheer Husband up since we had just returned from visiting his parents in south Florida and it was tough because they’re struggling with the health issues people struggle with when they reach their mid-eighties. South Florida never makes me feel my perkiest because of the humidity and lurking mold and the eleven Walgreens you pass for every mile you travel. We used to visit my grandmother in West Palm Beach until she died at 100 and she just loved living there. I’ve heard the whole south Florida retirement area referred to by people who live somewhere else as ‘God’s waiting room’ and my Dad used to call it ‘life in the last lane’. He also called the crowded planes transporting the New York snowbirds back and forth ‘kosher canoes’. My parents even had a condo down there but my father always called it as he saw it. I wrote at length about my departed family members in Ghosts In My Head but if you’re looking to laugh that would not be the link to click.

So back to the plumber, finally he suggested the nasty smell was a result of some product stored under the sink that had leaked, especially when he noticed the two boxes of baking soda I had dumped over a giant stain. He said forget the baking soda, spread some ground coffee on it right out of the can but don’t waste your Starbucks since the cheap brands work just the same. Now it’s a day later and it seems to have helped so make a note of it on your list of household hints. I’m ashamed to say I never told the plumber about the rotting aerosol can of insect repellent I removed prior to his arrival but this omission is just one of many I have committed in my life and none of them are juicy enough to keep me out of Heaven. I don’t think Hell takes anyone wearing Shalimar anyway. It’s moody but too angelic. Even in the spike heels.

Which suggests a theme for Daughter’s Featured Fotos: DANGER!

drugs kill

busted

cigarette machine and street art, or two monsters, new orleans

car on fire, nyc

Posted in 'Til Death Do Us Part | Tagged Florida, God's waiting room, Joni Mitchell, Shalimar, snowbirds, Starbucks | Comments Off

Beginning with a Beat

Posted on July 10, 2007 by onesanevoice

Today is Daughter’s 26th birthday, July 10, 2007. This is the last year she will be eligible for a Birthright Trip to Israel, the educational and cultural opportunity offered by Israel at no charge to Jewish young people here in the U.S. who have never visited their Holy Land. Since Daughter passes up no chance to leave her zip code, she has scheduled this tour for later in the summer when she has a break from grad school and teaching. Of course she is unbelievably excited and also of course my emotions run along a different edge but all that is for another time and entry. This one is about the actual birth day.

On December 8, 1980, my ex-husband and I were living in a studio apartment on West 57th Street in Manhattan and I was two months pregnant with our first child. We planned on moving to Brooklyn near his medical practice in the future but the studio was located perfectly for the time being since St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital was right behind our building and that was where my obstetrician was on staff. We had just gone to bed that night a little after eleven when we heard a chorus of sirens out our back window. The noise went on for half an hour unabated. Hearing sirens was not out of the ordinary for us being next door to a major NYC hospital but this was unusual even for 57th Street. After a while the sound died down and we fell asleep.

The next morning as I got ready for work I turned on the Today Show and Jane Pauley looked like she had been crying. Tom Brokaw was visibly upset. John Lennon had been murdered. He had been shot by an obsessed fan outside his home at The Dakota on the upper west side about 11:00 the night before and rushed to St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital where he died shortly afterward. Like everyone else that day I was stunned and saddened at the loss of such a boundless talent to an act of madness.

Seven months and two days later I was whisked down the halls of that same hospital, past the “John Lennon Lives!” graffiti on the wall and the memory still raw in music’s heart to a delivery room where Daughter entered the world with her huge eyes and dark hair and unbridled joy for living. After her C-section grand entrance and my visit to the recovery area I was taken to my room where I met my roommate for the next several days, a young first-time mother like me who we’ll call Diana.

Diana was married to James and they were yuppie New Yorkers like us except maybe a little more so we’ll call him James William Familymoney, Jr. and that would make the little boy they had just delivered James William Familymoney III. Except that in the throes of labor Diana had an epiphany, one only she could explain but which her husband would support, and from the other side of the drawn curtain between us I listened to her and James tell their families that their son’s name was predestined to be John Lennon. John Lennon Familymoney. The first.

Little J.L. Familymoney had aspirated some amniotic fluid on his way into what was probably predestined to be a circus and he was kept for the time being in the infant ICU until his lungs cleared. Diana had delivered naturally and felt good but her baby couldn’t be brought to our room. I had a baby who was brought to our room but I wasn’t mobile yet after my surgical delivery. So Diana would carry Daughter to me from her bassinet and note the nursing procedure for future use. We both examined her fingers and toes and her little rosebud mouth. When I couldn’t manage the diaper change Diana lent a hand. And all the while her phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing about that name.

Daughter says she has a famous-name twin somewhere, a boy exactly her age whose mother helped change her first diaper. A family we never saw again after her first week of life but who retain the mythic status of present but unaccounted for. Lucky for me I got to bring the little traveler home with us and watch her beautiful rosebud mouth smile and talk and turn 26 today. Happy, happy birthday. For both of us.

Here are some of my favorite Daughter Fotos for everyone.

fuzzy dimensional

kissing trees, madison sq park sculpture

very cool houston street sculpture

clocktower

Posted in The Kids Are Alright | Tagged 59th Street, John Lennon death, Manhattan, St. Lukes Roosevelt Hospital | Comments Off

I Smell It, Too

Posted on July 6, 2007 by onesanevoice

Last week we had a plumber come to snake out some pipes and now there is a dreadful odor under the kitchen sink. In preparation for the plumbing service, I cleared out the stuff under the sink and discovered a leaking can of insect repellent which I immediately discarded. So now although the pipes seem fine we are struggling with this bad thing in the kitchen which is either a result of the rotting aerosol can or something the plumbers did. Husband says it’s the plumbers and he may be right since they had to keep going back to the truck for a longer snake and I don’t know where they were trying to reach but I think they hit Middle Earth and God knows what they released. Husband wants me to call them but the pipes are fine and what do I say on the phone? “Hi, you guys cleared our clog but would you please come back and pick up your stink?” Last night Husband and I were talking about it and it brought us back to another smell in our joint memory so I’ll tell you about Algodones.

We like to travel and the Southwest is a favorite destination, especially for Husband who loves Native American culture and relics from the past like petroglyphs and rock formations. We try to visit new places and experiment with different accommodations so on one trip to New Mexico we booked a night in the town of Algodones at a restored stage coach stop converted into a bed and breakfast. The hacienda was comprised of lovely attached villas surrounding a courtyard with French doors on each villa opening out onto the courtyard. Since it was late summer and just a beautiful evening, we went to sleep with one of the French doors half open to let in the New Mexico breeze.

Now I will share with you that I never pee in the dark. Husband prides himself on not needing lights to conduct his business but I’m a huge fan of illumination. He’s always encouraging me to give it a try because he has this pioneer thing and also because the light disturbs him when I get up in the middle of the night and go into the bathroom. So I figured I’d give him a treat at this hacienda and not turn the light on at all when I went for my middle of the night pee.

I felt my way into the bathroom and closed the door silently behind me. Then I groped around until I could feel I was near the toilet and as I pulled down my pants and prepared to sit I heard a noise like a delicate scratching. I froze in place and waited. There it was again louder. I’m not alone. OH MY GOD, I thought, there’s a spider in here, a really BIG spider because that is my most horrific fear that I will sit on a big hairy spider in the dark and feel its legs brush against my bare butt and OH MY GOD! But wait, spiders don’t make noise and I’m in New Mexico so IT’S A LIZARD that’s what it is because lizards have little claws that would make that kind of noise on a tile floor and I’M IN THE BATHROOM BUTT NAKED WITH A LIZARD but lizards don’t smell and WHAT IS that smell?

I was afraid to bend over and pick up my pants so I shuffled toward the wall and with each shuffle I could hear the scratching get more frantic and the smell get stronger. My hand reached the light switch and as I flipped it on I turned to face the stinking scary lizard. Except it wasn’t a lizard. It was a skunk.

What? I’m in a closed bathroom with a skunk? We stood there staring at each other, him in his black and white fur coat and me with my Victoria Secret leggings around my ankles. Now what? I’ll tell you now what, he was starting to turn around and raise his tail. OH NO! I don’t know why I did this because he was a skunk but I said, “Easy there, it’s okay.” The sound of my voice seemed to calm him and although he was still skittering from side to side across the tile at least he wasn’t giving me his back and raising his tail. Glancing around I could see he was between me and the door so I began taking tiny shuffles forward and talking in a soft voice so as not to panic him. We sort of danced around like this until we had changed places and I could open the bathroom door.

Now I have to tell you that Husband sleeps in a mask. He has sleep apnea so he wears an apparatus that fits over his face like a gas mask and it’s attached to a hose which is in turn attached to a C-PAP machine. So now I’m shuffling past the bed with the skunk a few paces ahead of me trying to aim him for the courtyard door and cooing encouragement as we go when suddenly Husband sits bolt upright and in a voice like Darth Vader on meth he rasps out, “WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?” which makes the skunk bolt for the door and skitter into the courtyard with me stumbling after him to slam the door.

The upshot is I never get asked to pee in the dark anymore and in fact I make sure there is a frigging aurora borealis in every bathroom I go into and I swear to God that’s the way it is and no one can change it.

My plan was a Wildlife theme for Daughter’s Fotos but let’s mix it up and go Underwater instead.

whale with school, atlanta aquarium

jellyfish, vegas

jellyfish, atlanta

sleeps with the fishes

Posted in 'Til Death Do Us Part | Tagged Algodones, hacienda, New Mexico, restored stage coast stop, vacation adventure | Comments Off

Making Memories

Posted on July 2, 2007 by onesanevoice

Husband, Son and I went out to dinner over the weekend and got into a conversation about family vacations. Husband said he used to take his boys camping when they were young and I said we never went camping but we did go to the dude ranch once and had a great time horseback riding with another family from our neighborhood. At which point I found out someone else on that trip had a different recollection.

OSV: Remember that first horse I was given was so mean?

SON: They were all mean. All the horses were mean. And crazy. I would never take anyone I love to a dude ranch. Whose idea was that anyway?

OSV: Come on, you were so adorable sitting on top of that horse and he wouldn’t follow the other horses and you yelled out, “Hey, mine’s broken!” We laughed so hard. I have the pictures.

SON: Am I in the picture? Am I laughing?

OSV: Well, I’d have to look again but no, I guess you weren’t laughing.

SON: There you go. What kind of vacation is that, taking pictures of your kids looking miserable? And the family we went with was nuts. They had that little kid who kept dropping his pucky under the table and started screaming and we all had to go under there and look for it so he’d shut up. I didn’t even know what a pucky was.

OSV: That’s what they called his pacifier. You were too old for a pucky.

SON: I wasn’t old enough to make you get me out of there.

Well, what a lovely sprint down memory lane. When I mentioned this conversation to Daughter and shared with her how surprised I was at Son’s recollection of our Hallmark Family Vacation she threw in her handful of bliss.

DTR: What are you talking about? It was horrible. You abandoned me. I didn’t think I’d ever find you again. I was in tears and you were all lined up laughing outside the dining room like I didn’t even exist.

OSV: All right, I said I was sorry we left the room without you. Nobody saw you go into the bathroom. It was a zoo with all those kids. We just wanted to go to dinner before that pucky got lost again and we were all on our knees banging heads looking for it.

DTR: You shut the lights. I came out and said, “Hello?” and the room was dark and you were all gone. I didn’t know where the dining room was. I started running down the halls crying and then I found you all just standing there laughing, like “Hey, where were you?” I was in hell, that’s where I was.

It wasn’t the moment to ask if she saw her brother there.

Here are some of Daughter’s (happy) vacation photos:

montreal

steamboat springs, co

road trip

vienna

Posted in The Kids Are Alright | Tagged family vacation, vacation memories | Comments Off

In Forward Motion

Posted on June 29, 2007 by onesanevoice

Along with digital photos, forwards are perhaps the most pervasive aspect of electronic mass communication. They can be anything from jokes to warnings to outright lies, but the chances they’ll be worth reading depends a lot on who sent them and in what disguise that person has been visiting our planet. I recently received a forward from a former coworker on the subject of Being Jewish and it cracked me up:

What is the technical term for a divorced Jewish woman?
Plaintiff.

Define “genius.”
An average child with a Jewish mother.

Everybody gets to laugh at these, but being a Jewish mother once divorced I get to relate also which is a nice bonus. And you don’t have to be Jewish to love a bonus.

Being Jewish comes with a lot of stuff aside from the actual religious beliefs. Along with the stereotypes and mandatory guilt (Catholics can jump right in here), being Jewish comes with the expectation that we can see humor in who we are and how we’re perceived by others. We can’t be offended by hearing Jewish jokes because we tell them. And part of what we laugh at is that we think we can mold our religion to fit us. We may keep Kosher but we eat at the diner. We say we follow our religion but we go to temple twice a year. We write our own script like no other minority. Maybe because we’re nomads at heart we need some wiggle room.

I get forwards every day. For each one I enjoy and even pass along there are a dozen that annoy me and a dozen more I don’t even read. Sending forwards is thought by some to be actually communicating only it’s not. It’s hitting a key and calling it correspondence. Sometimes when I get in touch with someone and remark how long it’s been they get offended and say, “Don’t you get my forwards?” Well, yes, but I don’t read them. There is very little to attract me in a subject line that says, TOXIC TAMPONS! SEND THIS TO EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW!! If you want to alert me that the government is putting biological deathdust in my sanitary products, you’ll need to send one of Ralph Nader’s kids to my front door.

Since I switched to Gmail I don’t get any junk, but with AOL my box would be filled with nonsense every morning. I was usually greeted first thing by that Saudi Arabian prince who couldn’t get his money out of the country. So if I would just spot him two thousand, he’d double it and put it right in my bank account faster than I could say Screw Me. Someone somewhere no doubt falls into this scam, which is a heartwarming sign that there is still money to be made online by an enterprising 10th grader with broadband. If the CIA doesn’t recruit him first.

All of this bullshitting has now cut into my day’s schoolz-out leisure activity. Look at the clock. It’s almost time for QVC’s Summer Sale on Gold Jewelry Not Just for Shiksas.* Forward this to every woman you know.

*non-Jewish females, usually with noses so small you don’t know how they breathe (ex: George telling Elaine she has shiksappeal)

Forward illustrations from Daughter’s Gallery

forward thinker. our 16th prez

forward teller. greenwich village halloween 2006

eternally forward style. the chrysler bldg

daria? animated angst-ridden mtv teen. step forward (you’re standing on my neck)

Posted in Random Thoughts and Adventures | Tagged Catholic guilt, Jewish guilt, Jewish jokes, junk emails, shiksa | Comments Off

Secret Powers

Posted on June 26, 2007 by onesanevoice

Daughter called to see how my final exams were going and to tell me that some friends gave her an action figure of the edgy new Superwoman who happens to bear a striking resemblance to her:

Superdaughter’s hair even used to be blue in college, but those are the thighs of ice-skating saboteur Tonya Harding, I’d bet the rent. On the subject of resemblances, Daughter and I are frequently told how much alike we look, and you can see for yourself from my graphically manipulated picture somewhere on this blog.

Superpowers have always played a role in our family history, from Daughter’s unwavering lifelong devotion to Superman to Son’s fascination with strength and power in every form it was marketed be it Batman, Michael Jordan or Scarface. My part in the family urban legend is that I sometimes get a feeling about something. One night two years ago when Son was home on a college break, I was watching the 11:00 news and there was a newswoman broadcasting from the site of a devastating traffic accident in which a car had been hit from behind and burst into flames. The woman driver perished despite the efforts of several young men who attempted to free her from the burning car.

Parked behind the reporter was a car like Son’s. It wasn’t damaged and it wasn’t the same make as Son’s but it was the same size and color and the connective jolt made me reach for the phone despite the fact that this was all happening miles away. When Son answered his cell I could hear loud noise in the background. I could also hear a woman’s voice strangely in sync with the reporter on TV. “Where are you,” I asked, “and what is that noise?” It was the reporter and crew I was watching on television. Son was standing just out of camera range. He was one of the young men who had tried to save the driver.

The other day I walked into one of my Final Exams and took my usual seat at the long, lab-like table next to my two tablemates. Part of our Final would be one of the cases from our text — we didn’t know which one — and my tablemates had about five of them laid out in front of them doing last minute studying. I told them I had concentrated on the one on page 107 because I had a feeling that was the one we’d see on the test. They asked me why and I said I looked at all of them the night before and that one spoke to me. That was the one I really studied.

The tablemate who sits right next to me said, “It spoke to you? Like with a voice?” I promised her I don’t hear voices and I don’t see dead people; sometimes I just have a feeling. “Like in one of those movies where a person knows things other people don’t?” she asked me, making me wonder if she was thinking Sixth Sense or Rain Man and either way it wasn’t something I’d put on a resume. “Just really look at 107 is all I’m saying.”

We spent the remaining time fixed on that page and then the proctor called out to close our books and started walking around with the tests. She slapped one down in front of each of us and we all turned them over together.

Somebody bought me lunch that day.

More superfotos by Daughter:

lunchbox museum, columbus, georgia

powers on parade, greenwich village, halloween 2006

childhood anti-heroes, the village, halloween 2006

ready for that close-up

Posted in Skool Daze | Tagged sixth sense, super powers, Superwoman action figure | Comments Off

OneSaneVoice

What you get for what you’ve got

One Flew Over the Sonogram

Giggles & Gigabytes

Necessity to Yield

The Pipeman Cometh

Beginning with a Beat

I Smell It, Too

Making Memories

In Forward Motion

Secret Powers

Recent Posts

Archives

Categories

Recent Comments

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Meta