Cheating who?

The "Mom Group" I belong to just posted about a "Biggest Loser" style competition that they are holding. Grand prize looks to be about $100-$150. I briefly considered signing up... but I don't think that wouldn't be fair. Kinda like a recovered GAVegas style card counter joining the neighborhood poker night. That, and the prize money isn't big enough for that kinda effort. But man... add a zero and I'd go all in...

But... why does the unicorn have antlers?

I know everyone has weird dreams... but sometimes mine really take the cake. Like the time I dreamt I nearly got Julie and me and our friends, Christy and Bob, killed for mistakenly booking a vacation with a tour group of outspoken MtF transexuals that was bound for Saudi Arabia (they didn't TELL anybody they were MtF until we got there!!) or the one about my mother-in buying an abandoned hotel for me, Julie and my in-laws, Roy and Rachel, to fix up as her personal vacation destination-- complete with a murderous Russian bel-hop and toxic mold. I'm not sure quite what my brain was trying to sort out in these dreams (at least they weren't nightmares?)... and I'm not sure I want to know.

After 2 days of barely sleeping, I slept like a rock last night and my mind took this opportunity to spin another doozy. Apparently, my paternal grandfather had a hunting lodge in the catskills that no one knew about. Not a ramshackle, wooden board, "NO TRESPASSING" sign kinda shack... the real deal. Stone walls, an epically huge stone fireplace with a bearskin run in front of it... the kind of thing you see advertised at fancy ski resorts or depicted in high-end "ski encounter" pornos (so I hear... ). But no one in the family knew about it. No one but my cousin Mark. Because my grandfather had, for some reason, left the hunting lodge to Mark and Mark just forgot to tell everyone. And even Mark didn't know where it was... he just had a black and white notebook full of GPS coordinates left by my grandfather and one of the thousands of coordinates was the one for the house. So, in my dream, Mark set off in search of the appropriate coordinates with my cousins Patrick, Krista and Megan. They didn't tell anyone else where they were going or why.... they just packed up two unicorns and a camel (to carry their gear, of course) and left. And eventually they found the place... somewhere in the middle of the woods. By the time they find it it has started snowing and there's a few inches of snow on the ground, and Krista and Megan are riding the unicorns. Not surprisingly, it is clear that the shack is booby trapped-- however they are surprised to find that there are fresh footprints all around the area. Which, of course, leads to the logical conclusion (if you are familiar with our family) that my grandfather elaborately faked his own death and is hiding out in the hunting lodge-- probably living off the meat of elk that he strangles with his own two hands and beverages brought in by unmarked Amazon-style delivery drones. So my cousins do the logical thing and disarm the booby traps, hide the camel and the unicorns in the woods, and crawl through the snow, commando style, to peek in the windows. And this is the point in the dream where Julie and I show up... because we just happened to be hiking in the same woods at the same time that all of this is going on.

So Julie and I come walking up around the corner of the lodge and find my cousin Patrick on the roof of the lodge, dressed in a Santa costume with the two unicorns and the camel dressed as reindeer (how'd they get on the roof? I dunno... gonna go with magic) in order to go down the chimney in a ruse to see if it is indeed my grandfather living in the lodge or not, in hopes that, if it is Grandpa, he wouldn't actually shoot Santa. Mark and Krista are hiding under separate windows, crouched down, armed with snowballs (and each snowball has 2 eyes, a carrot nose and a mouth made out of buttons), and Megan is perched very calmly in a tree nearby holding a camera and a mug of hot chocolate.

As we stumble upon this scene, the only thing that seems out of place to me and Julie are the remarkably detailed faces on the snowballs. The plan falls apart when Patrick realizes that there is a fire in the fireplace. Instead he suggests we try the trap door under the house, which just happened to have an illuminated "Entrance" sign hanging over it. After we all got the unicorns and the camel off the roof we regrouped and Mark volunteered to go down into the trap door- but Krista pointed out that all of the footprints around the house had disappeared, so logically, had anyone who was living in it. And it turned out that she was right. So we all went into the hunting lodge and were surprised to find that there was one of those gigantic "Incredible Edibles" bouquets of chocolate covered strawberries waiting for us on the table. We didn't dare touch it for fear it was laced with rat poison.

"Dreams, inconsistent angel things.
Horses bred with star-laced wings.
But it's so hard to make them fly, fly, fly..."
                                -Sixpence None The Richer

Yup. This image would have fit right in...

Why do you think she ran away?

On Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays my little person is supposed to have rest time after lunch. Rest time is NOT nap time. It is merely an hour where she is banished to her room to play with her toys, read her books, stare at the ceiling and scream down the stairs every 4 and a half minutes, "Is rest time over yet?" It is an hour where I can get a few extra things done and convince myself that resting is almost as good for her as napping. Because why would a 3 year old need more than 8 1/2 hours of sleep a day, right? 

For the last 15 minutes we have been having a conversation that involves screaming from floor to floor... it's gone something like this:

"Mama! Mama! Potty!"

"Then GO!" (pop upstairs to see if she can get get jeans off herself. Check bathroom. She's not there) "Where are you?"

"Under my bed."

"Get out from under your bed and use the bathroom." (afterthought) "What are you doing under your bed?"

"Klakky (the cat) is under there. Why is Klakky under there?"

"Probably to get away from you. Now pee." Send her back into her room. Go back downstairs.

"Mama!!! My book is stuck." Ignore. 

"MAMA!! My book is stuck." Ignore

"MAMA!!! MY BOOK IS STUCK!"

"Where? Where is it stuck?"

"Under my bed." 

Go upstairs. Free book from under the mattress but above the wooden slats (how did she get it there?) and it falls on the cat's head. Cat looks annoyed. They are both still under the bed. 

"Mama! Klakky ran away." Ignore. 

"MAMA!! Klakky ran away." Ignore

"MAMA!!! KLAKKY RAN AWAY." 

"OK! Klakky ran away. I heard you."

"Why?"

"Why? Why do you think she ran away? Because you're under there bugging her."

"No. Because I covered her with a blanket and tried to tuck her in." 

"Ok. There you go. That's why she ran away. It's rest time. So rest."

"Hey Mama?" Ignore. 

"HEY MAMA?"

"What? What do you want from me?"

"Is rest time over?"

AAAAARRRRRRRHHHHHH

English Muffins!!!

On the surface I'm blaming this week's baking binge on having neglected and abused my sourdough starter this summer. In an attempt to bring it back from the brink of death I've had to use it-- a lot. Hence the blueberry muffins, English muffins and gigantic sourdough loaf. In reality, I think I'm beginning to meltdown and try to cope with the fact that Julie is going back to work next week and I'm facing another school year out of the classroom. I never, ever, EVER intended to stop working and stay home with a kid. There was no part of me that was ever even remotely tantalized by the idea of being a stay-at-home-mom (I believe that even has its own abbreviation, no? SAHM?), so finding myself at home 24/7... driving my little numlet to and from nursery school; doing laundry and dishes and housekeeping; grocery shopping; and arranging playtime with friends... was a huge shock to the system a year and a half ago. And the tingling still hasn't worn off. 

And so I've been baking. And I had NO IDEA that ordinary humans could make real English muffins. I mean... I've always assumed that they were only made by British versions of the Keebler elves in giant orange factories. After feeding my sourdough breakfast yesterday morning I couldn't bring myself to throw away the discard cup before feeding it lunch. So I put the cup in the fridge and decided that I'd find a use for it. By midmorning today I had painstakingly cut out 24 individual muffins and set to rise the dough for a large sourdough boule. 

Fun Fact: English Muffins have to be individually cooked on a griddle or in a heavy frying pan for about 15 minutes! Who knew? You can't just toss 'em all in the oven...

Happily, my muffins came out pretty damn near perfect on the first try... even though I forgot to add the 4 tablespoons of butter. 

I mean... check out those nooks and crannies! 

By noon I had finished cooking all 24 muffins (4 of which we devoured before they were even cool enough to handle) and had pulled my slightly-too-sour sourdough out of the oven. 

My starter is tucked safely back in the fridge, refreshed and bolstered by two days of love and feedings. When the school year begins it will be happy to get more regular attention as Friday night will once again be pizza night and its weekly services will be required. If you need me before then, I'll probably be in the kitchen. I think there are some chicken carcasses that could be turned into broth... 

There's only so much...

Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed might be the book that I think about most often. I've read it many times and it comes to mind every time I walk into a hotel, restaurant or Wal*Mart or see a nursing home, maid service, or an ad for a food pantry. I've done my fair share of "unskilled" labor- I worked in a CVS, a Dunkin' Donuts, a book warehouse, and a corporate day care chain. I had coworkers who lived with family because they couldn't pay rent, who walked miles because they couldn't afford gas for their cars, who were illegal immigrants all sharing the same SSN and living in a flop house owned by the manager, who were tending to rich people's kids all day while theirs stayed home with a marginally competent grandmother, who blew their entire paychecks on beer and strippers every other Friday while their baby-mama paged them (yep. dating myself) repeatedly for diaper money, who hid the unsellable donuts/bagels behind the "clean" dumpster in a plastic bag, who left their older child in the car parked in view of the business for an entire shift because there was no available child care (the kid was 11 and playing a gameboy the whole time- it wasn't summer and he could have come out to get help if he needed it). I was a high school/college kid working as many hours as my schedule would possibly allow. At times I made more than they did despite being 10, 20 or 30 years younger. I'm an amazingly amendable customer. I take rude customer service with a grain of salt because I figure there is a lot going on behind it. I rarely make a fuss about mistakes in restaurants or hotels and I can't bring myself to hire a cleaning lady/maid in 99% of situations. I'm usually conscious of my privilege to a fault. 

But there's only so much... 

It has been a difficult two weeks. Ramona (as she is now usually calling herself) turned 3 at the end of June and the floodgates just burst. She is a beautiful, wonderful, smart, amazing, inquisitive, imaginative, loving, endearing, miraculous pain in the ass. She melts down at the drop of a hat. She negotiates every moment of the day. She began having bathroom accidents more frequently. She screams-- red faced, sweating, fists clenched, eyes bulging out of her head. She wakes up raring and ready to go and fights sleep the as I imagine god fighting the fallen angles- fiery sword-weilding cherub and all. We tackled the bathroom accidents first because they were the most physically messy and they were interfering with our gym time. Pulling a card from my days teaching 1st grade inclusion in the Bronx, we decided to use a tangible incentive system. Each morning we would give her an object of her heart's desire-- with a catch. If she had an accident, we would take it away until the following day. (One year I had a student who purposefully peed on my rug every day. No one believed she could control it, but I knew she could. And this kid loved bling. So I decided on plastic bracelets. She got one every day when she entered the room. If she didn't pee on anything, she could keep it. Cost me about 100 plastic bracelets, but she never peed on my rug again.) Ramona love tiny objects. It started with a little black Christmas tree ornament when she was 1 1/2. Then Calico Critters toys, a tiny pencil topper from the 80's, a box of Littlest Pet Shop toys from a friend, a few packets of tiny puzzle erasers and then, our latest discovery, Zinkies. Zinkies are so tiny that you can comfortably sit 3 of them on a penny. They come with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass. They are sold in packs of 12 and are on clearance for only $4.50 right now at Wal*Mart. 

We started with one pack. Every time we were going to leave the house for more than an hour or so, we would give Ramona a Zinkie and remind her that if she had an accident, we would take it away. Miraculously, the accidents dried up. Two weeks, 12 Zinkies, no accidents. One of them even made it down the MetroNorth, on subways to the Museum of Natural History, through the museum, out to lunch, to a playground, back on the subways, into, out of and back into Grand Central Station and back home on the MetroNorth, clutched in her fist. 3 day music festival. Only porta potties. No accidents. On the heels of this success, we decided to up the ante. "No Temper Tantrums." As of tomorrow, if she has an accident OR an avoidable temper tantrum, the Zinkie is ours. 

To do this, of course, we needed more Zinkies. After a day of epic tantrums we finally got her to nap (a rare occurrence) and I hopped, exhausted and with a migraine, into the car to go to Wal*Mart-- where I wandered in circles for a ridiculously long time trying to remember why I was there. When I pulled myself together and found the Zinkies I was happy to see that they were still on Clearance and there were 4 packages (48 Zinkes!!!) that we didn't have yet for only $4.50 each. A small price to pay for what should last us several months. I snatched them up, along with a $1.00 pack of Squinkies (the Zinkies' big brother toy) and headed for the checkout. Express... as I had under 12 items. 

My cashier fit the general demographic of who you would expect your cashier to be in a somewhat Urban Northeastern Wal*Mart. I was her last customer before she had to close her register for a 15 minute break at 3:30. I was aware of this and wanted to just make it all quick and easy so I could go home and she could "enjoy" her break. The first Zinkie rang up at $4.50 and had a sticker that said $4.50. The second one had a sticker that said $4.50 and rang up at $7.00. Neither of the other packs had a sticker, and they both rang up at $9.00. The shelf they were on had all said $4.50. They are all, essentially, the same damn thing. I pointed out that the second one rang up different from the sticker price, and she said there was nothing she could do. I pointed out that the other two were supposed to be $4.50 and had rung up at $9, and she said there was nothing she could do. I asked if there was a way to overide it. You would have thought I had asked her to push a boulder up a mountain for all of eternity. She couldn't. Sorry. Someone would have to price check them. Could someone price check them, I asked. No. No one could price check them now. She put them under the register. I bought the one that had rung up correctly and went back to price check it myself. Sure enough, I found two more with the appropriate stickers and brought them with me to the same register where the cashier was counting out her drawer. She did not look pleased to see me. Could I please have back the one shaped like a birthday cake? I'd like to take them to another register. 

No. 

No? No, I can't have them back? 

No. I'm closed. 

Yes. I see that you're closed. That's why I'm not asking you to ring them up. I'd like to take them to another register. Please. 

She looked at me like I had spit on her mother's grave and pulled 3 half eaten pretzels out of her shirt pocket and laid them down on the counter and began to eat them. Nickel and Dimed came to mind again. This was terrible. This was her break and here was her snack? Couldn't she at least go to the break room or bathroom or something? Abandon her post so I could grab the damn Zinkies and go to another register? 

I explained that I found another item with a $4.50 sticker on it- so I just needed the birthday cake one and I would go to another register and see if they could get someone to figure out why they weren't ringing up right. I didn't want to bother her. 

She said that no one would fix it because the computer was ringing it up different. I explaiend that it was marked in the back and that it was on a clearance shelf and that there were stickers on them and that it must be a mistake in the system. Could. I. Please. Have. It. Now?

She pulled it out and took the other two from me and rang them through her register. Two rang up at $9 and one at $7. "See?" she said. "They ain't $4.50." But... but the sticker... the shelf... could I just take it to an open register? Maybe they could get a manager to look into it? 

She told me, again, that no one was going to change it. She told me it came to $26 something. I said I didn't want her to ring it up, I just wanted her to give it to me. 

"Then what am I ringing it up for?" she asked. 

Beats the fuck outta me.

She voided the whole order and then stood there staring at me, holding all 3 of them in her hand. 

Could I have them back? 

She kept holding them. 

Could I just....

She started scanning them again. A flurry of activity on the keypad and they all suddenly rang up at $4.50. 

WTF? 

Well, he looks harmless...

I'm kind of proud to be part of the last "generation" to go through college without the widespread use of cell phones. There was no Facebook... no checking in when you got someplace, no knowing when all of your friends were meeting up without you, no worrying about how you looked as you dash next door to the dining room at 10:30 PM for mozzarella sticks because you might run into a friend who might snap a picture of you waiting on line and post it for all the world to see, no fidgeting fingers or lack of eye contact (though I think, at times, too much eye contact might have gotten me in trouble as well...). I didn't text or tweet or poke... I called people on a landline, sent them instant messages and... well... ok. Maybe there was a bit of poking. But it was done in real life. I was aware of cell phones and the rapidly changing technology, but I enjoyed not being accessible at all times and I seriously wish I could go back without putting myself at a social, or even financial, disadvantage.

Take the time a group of us cut class and went swimming out in the Wallkill River. First, we never thought to Google (Alta Vista? Netscape?) a water quality report-- because now that I know what is in the Wallkill, I'll never swim in it again. It was hot. How hot? I dunno. I didn't have a TV or a handheld device to tell me, and my car didn't have a built in thermometer. It was hot enough that we had to put our clothes back on to leave our dorm room and walk to the car. Hot enough that not all of us wore shirts while we drove out. It wasn't hot enough for my car to overheat. I'm guessing mid 90s. Next, no one knew where we had gone. We didn't show up in our appointed classes and we didn't post on any social media website "Fuck this. Too hot. Going swimming. Hit us up at the rope swing."We didn't run into anyone on our way out to the van or see anyone we knew at the swimming hole. If one of us had drowned, we were a good 10 minutes from the nearest phone- we wouldn't have been able to call for help or look up how to do CPR. On the way back-- we stayed as long as we wanted since I don't think anyone was wearing a watch-- we picked up a hitchhiker. He looked ok. A little scruffy. There were 3 or 4 of us in the car and at least one of us was a burly, hairy chested guy. Again- no phone... no posting, "About 2 pick up a hitchhiker. Call 4 help if I don't post again," with a location tag on the end of it to help them find the bodies. 4 college kids in a car with a hitchhiker. We kinda liked the guy and went out to dinner with him afterwards, arriving back in our dorm rooms tired, sunburned, full and ready to strip back down to next to nothing and wait out another long night without A/C, NetFlix or YouPorn. Feels like the StoneAge. 

Or the night I went to a... ummm... a gathering... with a bunch of friends and ran into a much older acquaintance from class and decided to go back to her place (with her 7 year old son) to hang out for awhile. My friends knew who I had left with... her first name at least... though I had no idea where she lived or how long I was gonna be gone. We talked and ate and played with tarot cards until about 1 in the morning and then she loaded her sleeping kid into the back seat and we decided to drive off into the mountains to look at the full moon. I've spent years trying to figure out where the hell she took me and, while I've narrowed it down to a few spots, I'm still not completely sure. Sadly I didn't have an iPhone (or, you know, an instant Kodak camera) with me, so I only have memories to go on.  I got dropped back off at my dorm by 3 and, without anywhere to post the photos that I didn't take, I went to bed. Woke up the next morning and decided to keep most of it to myself. Not for any particular reason. Maybe just because I could. 

While I know cell phones would have been hella convenient in some cases (might have saved us a 4 hour round trip drive that time our dear Cx missed her bus to Saratoga Springs...) I can't even begin to imagine how much more tangled my webs would have been if I had to worry about living in both the physical plane and the interweb plane simultaneously. I loved having my space to disappear  when I wanted to (and yes, I know that I could still disappear if I wanted to, but not in the same way), my space to fudge the truth a little bit without having to worry about an online footprint giving me away, my space to fuck up royally and have time to smooth things over before they went viral. As much as I enjoy keeping in touch with distant friends and family through Facebook-- seeing their photos and statuses, keeping our communication open through snippets and "likes"-- I miss sitting with people for hours on end and filling each other in on all of the stuff that we now just post about. I miss being able to read their tone of voice, their body language, catching fleeting expressions as they talk. I wonder how much of that has been lost on the newest generations of college kids-- and even in the adult relationships I form now. How many chances to connect in person are missed because my attention is divided between the conversation I'm having in person and the conversation I'm having on Facebook... how many sidewards glances, slow deep breaths, rolled eyes or gentle shifts towards or away from someone. How many impromptu swims have I missed because I was too busy checking the EPA's website?