Taking the Long Way Home

Safe and sound at my mom and dad's

After grocery shopping I took the long way home. When I pulled out of the grocery store parking lot, I looked in my rearview mirror and noticed the car behind me. Driving down the main road a couple miles I notice the same car behind me, and I become highly suspicious. At this time, I think of the older man smiling at the kids while we walked out of the store. He looked so much like a serial killer from the movies; wearing Donahue glasses, trucker hat and a puffy vest over a dirty grey sweatshirt and jeans.

My initial thought is that the person driving the car is that smiling serial killer and he is following us so he can kill me and steal my kids. The best way to prevent this (without medication) is to not drive home, but past it; turn on the next street and back track, so long as the car does not turn on the same street as me, otherwise, I have to keep going, hoping to get home without feeling suspicious of another car. This happens more often then I’d like.

I am home alone, at the moment. It is always ok, until the sun goes down. I set the home alarm and I shut all the curtains. I sit in bed and read my book and listen to my house creak and the wind blow against the windows. My heart begins to beat faster, I get hot, but after kicking the blanket off my body, I feel exposed, and need to put the blanket back over me, covering up more, up to my neck.

Now I am not worried about that serial killer, but a home invader. I read an article about crack heads breaking into a house and torturing the family and then killing them all except just one. I start to sweat and throw the blanket off again. Is that someone at the window? I get up and turn the light on even though the bedside lamp is on. Then I get in bed, and put the blanket back on.

After a while of sheep counting, book reading and chanting, I dozed off, only to wake up to a loud creak. I check my phone and it is 2am. I must have fallen asleep around 1am. I know its windy outside, but can’t help but panic by the loud noises coming from the walls and windows. I have my escape plan devised; I’d grab the baby, then pull Kiki from bed and we run across the street to the neighbors. They seem harmless. I do find it weird that they drink beer and smoke cigarettes in the driveway all day long. But when my mom watched the kids and I was out of town, she thought the house caught on fire, and called the fire department. One of the beer drinking smoking neighbors came over with a fire extinguisher, walking through the house to see where the smoke source was coming from. This act of neighborly kindness has led me to forgive them for their dog frequently pooping in my front yard, and, I guess, make me think their home is a safe house in case of emergency.

As the sun comes up, I can fall asleep. I feel safe. Not long after I fall asleep, the baby is up, so I am up too. I start to pack our bags to go to Tahoe and stay with my parents. I don’t know if I will make it through another day of running errands. I might end up like Ray Liotta at the end of GoodFellas. With sweat beating on my forehead, looking at the helicopters over my head, worried they are packed with terrorists coming to drop a bomb on me. Or a quick mall trip entirely filled with panic that someone is going to come in, guns blazing, and another mass killing will be in the news. I might make it through the day, but certainly won’t make it through the night. I’d probably have a heart attack after hearing a branch fall from the tree and graze my window.

With my parents and sister’s family, we had a great time out at pizza. We would have gone to see the new Hard Rock Café that opened if my daughter wasn’t acting like such a little booger. She was worrying about coyotes. Over the summer I took her out to look at the stars and the coyotes were howling so loudly she nearly had an anxiety attack. I reassured her not to worry because my parents’ crazy ass dog wont let a coyote within a sniffing distance of the house, as well as, we are in a house and the coyote is out there, unable to get in unless he grows hands. She is so obsessed with these howling animals; it is the main subject she discusses when we come up to the mountains. Where do they live? What color are they? What do they eat?
I think of Grandma J and her “no soliciting” sign and strict never-leaving-after-dark policy. My mom told me she sleeps with a seven-inch flat head Phillips screwdriver under her pillow when my dad is out of town. I told her, “ I could never do something like that because I’d be worried of doing some crazy sleepwalking horror scene!” She said it was worth the risk.

We are all a bunch of scaredy cats, but luckily we know, we are just a short drive away from each other; a shorter drive than the mental institution, another place we might feel at home.

Music Class and Harsh Words

That better not be Greek...

I take my kids to a music program on Wednesdays. As I spin around singing and dancing with a bunch of grown ass adults, I think to myself, “I can’t believe how much I pay to do this hippie shit.” I do the class because I want my kids to have an interest in music, laying the foundation for future music lessons and recitals. The kids love the class. Maybe it’s amusement from watching adults acting so unusual, but if it gets them excited about jamming out, then it’s worth it.

I’d say a majority of the classroom are hard working serious people, in hipsters clothing. What’s with this need to hide the fact that we are all wolves ravaging the forest to stockpile a big ol’ pile of cash so our kids can participate in these kinds of classes, which lead to even more expensive classes?  These hipsters are trying way too hard. They show up with their kids wearing all kinds of crazy shit because letting your kid dress themself seems like an innocent enough way to let them express themselves. However, these kids are a hot mess; they will be wearing striped leggings with a tutu and a sombrero. It’s like the parents are letting their love for their child cloud their judgment; they think their kid looks cute but in reality they look like a moron.

Another way the group is obnoxiously hipster is the names of the kids. One lady’s kids are named Finn and Sawyer. I think both names on their own are perfectly adorable, but together is fucking asinine. It’s so ridiculous, I’d assume their dog is named Twain and the cat is called Riverboat. Needless to say, this lady is the one who birthed them, so she can name them whatever the fuck she wants.

Last night I watched the movie, Get On Up, about James Brown. I thought it was very well done, and a good watch. James is a music powerhouse yet he had one of the most awful upbringings a person could imagine. That shitty upbringing made him ox strong, and gave him so much fire to be great. I think this is the thing I am toying with in my mind, I want my kids to be successful, but I don’t want them to think life is about throwing a sombrero on your head and being told how cute it looks, because one day someone will lay it out for you: that hat looks stupid because you aren’t in a Mariachi or in Mexico or at a Mexico themed party.

Growing up in a big family, I am used to people saying really mean things to me; things that made me cry, a lot. Maybe this type of violence is not constructive for building a leader, but it is very good at building a loyal soldier. I once tried to explain this at a job interview; I would not consider myself a leader, but the best follower you could imagine, I will do whatever you ask of me. I did not get the job. Maybe they thought I was a potential sexual harassment case.

I have certain admiration for France, it reminds me of my family. I hold it at distance because, like one of my brothers or sisters, if I say something too heartfelt they might lash out at me with a snide and demeaning remark. For a time there was this influx of self help books by French women or Ex Pats living in France writing about how French people “do it better.” Basically, they don’t get fat, and their children are not entitled mouthy little shits. What I gather from these books, is French people are not embarrassed to scream at their kids in public if their kid deserves it, and they easily tell a friend that they have gained weight when they start to pile on the pounds.

I think this is great. Most people don’t understand how a kid is a bit like a dog, and if they are given free reign of the place, they will shit all over it. A year after I had my daughter, a woman told me, “Alicia, you have lost weight every where on your body, except your stomach.” I swallowed my enormous bite of food, and pushed my plate back looking longingly at my fries.

In all my travels, bopping around like a bubbly little idiot, it was in France where someone made me cry. I was at H&M and the girl who cashed me out was, simply put, a grade A fucking bitch asshole. In retrospect, I get it. It was a reaction I would get from a family member who saw me acting self-absorbed, relishing in my elation. However, if it were a sibling who decided to bring me to tears for being too damn happy, I could at least take my hand and wrap it around their forearm, with my fingernails digging into their skin, and drag my hand down to the wrist. All I could do at H&M was throw the pen at the shop girl as I walked out of the store. Of course I never let her see me cry, I saved that for the trip back to the hotel. After a nap and some wine, I moved on, because that’s what you do.

The woman who raised a couple leaders and a couple followers

One of the offspring, showing what her mama gave her

Gone Girl Gets Ugly

Chipped nails, eating in the car… Get some self respect.

I watched Gone Girl the other night. It was a good movie, although I feel like I was fed some misinformation by the media before watching it. I remember being told the movie ends differently than the book: FALSE, and I remember hearing that Ben Affleck’s penis makes a special appearance: FALSE. Perhaps the penis part happened, and I missed it. It wasn’t till the credits rolled when I remembered; “shouldn’t there have been some dick?” So I wasn’t looking for it. But really, should they be advertising Ben Affleck’s peen if it so brief and hidden, one actually never notices it? NO. That is some ridiculous dangling carrot marketing. I assume it was a tactic used to lure in 50 Shades groupies. Hopefully the 50 Shades fanatics were underwhelmed, and pounded out some long blogs on the empty promises of Gone Girl. Ummm, lets move on.

The best part of the movie is when we see Amy in her beat up car, driving away. The “Real” Amy is revealed, and after admitting to only being pretty in order to keep her man, she transforms from beautiful to ugly. The movie didn’t go full Monster with her, but they used the usual tricks of big glasses, baggy clothes and unkempt hair. To emphasize her sliding into trash ball mode, Amy is shown eating Kit Kats and drinking Mountain Dew, she also eats in her car.

When the movie ended, I didn’t think, oh damn, what a twist because I read the book. But I did think, fuck, I need to clean up my diet. If the difference between a glamorous socialite’s look and a herpes lipped trailer park girl is a dye job and a clean diet, then I think I can manage a couple minor changes to improve myself. Pretty Amy should have held onto at least one of her bad habits, like eating in the car. Her butt was so small; it looked like a child’s. If she had kept up on her Kit Kat habit, she could have maintained a plumper booty while being a glamourous murderer.

Talking to my mom the day after watching the movie, I was going on about my new found motivation to stop eating like shit. My mom said, “Alicia, you don’t want to get too thin!” as if I had already dropped more weight than a long exhale. I agreed, “Oh, of course mother! That’s why I think I should still be able to eat drive thru breakfast sandwiches.”

Even though I read the book, so the story was familiar, the movie did reveal something new to me: the road to self improvement is lined with drive thrus, and if you don’t stop off and treat yourself once in a while then you will get a flat butt and possibly be driven to kill.

Combatting flat butt one Hash brown & Ketchup McMuffin at a time.

Sketchy Bedtime stories

Are the German lessons leading to her nudist behavior?

Last night when I put my daughter in the bath I noticed a bruise on her back. I asked her, "when did you get that boo boo?"
She said, "tomorrow."

I replied, "No. that can't be right since tomorrow has not happened yet."

She said, "tomorrow!"

I thought about tomorrow already existing, and how an impression from then could appear now, and how life is if tomorrow already had been. After a minute, I picked up my phone and read Twitter while singing a song about 4 little ducks while frequently telling my kids to not splash so much.

Per usual routine, after baths and getting the baby in bed, I read to my daughter from a book of stories by Hans Christian Andersen. She really likes reading The Ugly Duckling. The first few times reading it I was skeptical since the ugly duckling has a dreadful start filled with terrible abuse; hunger, death and sadness, but the ending is so beautifully endearing I am a sucker for it as well.
Even though this story reads rather violently, it is the least offensive racially. Two other stories we read often, The Sheperdess and The Chimney sweep as well as The nightingale use the word Chinamen so frequently I am dumbfounded. I replace the word with Chinese man, but still that seems awkward, as it is othering a particular culture. My favorite part of The Nightengale is when the emperor threatens to punch everyone in the stomach after eating their supper if they don't find the bird. Thats hilarious, so worth doing some word swapping for. There also seems to be a fascination with Chinese people nodding. It is referenced once in The Nightingale, and frequently in The Sheperdess and The Chimney Sweep. The book really demonstrates how much more global we have become. The Far East is not foreign anymore, and I would have never associated excessive head nodding with Chinese culture, but an 1800's children's writer from Denmark, would see things much differently.
My daughter is not allowed to watch her TV show this week because she acted absolutely diabolical when I drove her to school on Thursday morning. In times where she isn't under punishment I will let her watch some Youtube videos when I am cooking dinner. I like to play her German nursery rhymes because it is good to start her on another language. I hear her singing these German songs in her car seat and it makes me laugh to myself because we both don't have any idea what she is saying. At the end of each video the screen populates with videos of similar liking, and she chooses another one. What I think is rather uncommon, but her absolute favorite youtube video, is bound to pop up after just a couple 2 minute nursery rhymes.
The video is a Disney Reviewer, and she insists I click on it every time. These videos bug me because they are 10 minutes long. The reviewer is anonymous, and apparently has the most hits on YouTube. This reeks of conspiracy theory. I thought that the reviewer was someone in China because she seems to have a Chinese accent, but since her hands are all thats seen, I was unable to get a sense of how often she nods (just kidding! its a great mystery to everyone, as the article says, which really only adds to the conspiracy theory).
All my daughter's Christmas presents from Santa were products that she watched on Disney Reviewers videos. She makes dresses out of play doh for little Disney dolls, and my daughter can watch this for hours! I have to stop the madness after 10 minutes though because it seems like a bizarre source of entertainment. Then again, we are reading a bedtime story about a swan whose life begins in the most dreary way imaginable; runs away from home after enduring horrific bullying, watches wild geese get shot dead in front of him, freezes in a lake, and finds himself getting kicked and chased by humans.

Mom's German lesson: Bier ist gut

Big mistake... Huge

Last night I made a big mistake, huge! Baby George started crying around 2:30am. Usually he is a baby I can brag about; sleeps like a champ and always happy. For the last week he has been a real son of a ... Wait, never mind, a real pain in the neck, and has not taken a nap. He walks around his crib, throws all his toys, shouts and talks to himself for an hour and a half. 

Attempting to move his nap time to 30 minutes later kind of worked, except he fell asleep when I'd usually go get him up, and was sitting up with his head nodding to the side every couple minutes rousing him enough to have his eyes pop open but then shut back to sleep again.

Last night he started crying at 2:30, and usually I'd just let him cry for a minute and he drifts back to sleep. Since we have awful colds right now, I became worried about him crying. Also, before bedtime he was playing in a laundry basket and fell over onto his head, so I was paranoid he needed extra TLC.

I went into his room, which likely surprised him more than anything.  He came in my arms and snuggled, such a nice moment, for about 5 minutes, then he thought it was party time.

He sits up and with his eyes twinkling, gives me this huge smile. I swallowed hard and thought, oh fuck, I've been bamboozled by this baby!"

For the next 3 hours I worked on getting him back to sleep. My daughter woke up around 4 and joined in on the shit show. When evey one was back to sleep a little after 5, I was hopeful we'd get to sleep in; a fruitless expectation.

Today my lungs feel like they're full of spider webs. My kids must feel awful because, even though it's much less than they'd drink when healthy, they are drinking milk in this horrible flem state.

Yesterday, I thought I had a pimple on my jawline. I figured it was caused by reading books with the kids in my lap, their heads resting on my chin, or from all the yogurt I have been eating lately. I'm supposed to be nondairy since it gives me monster zits, but each day I'm eating their leftover yogurt. They open a yogurt and take one bite, and then I'm forced to eat it in order to avoid wasting $2. Thriftiness trumping vanity.

I was pinching this horrid pimple hoping to pop it, but it didn't do anything but make it hurt. All night as I was trying to get George to fall asleep he kept smashing his head into it. Now it is purple and hurts so badly to the touch.

Presently, I don't think it is a pimple at all, but a swollen gland from my cold, and pinching it was way more stupid than pinching a pimple. I have spent all morning worried that pinching a gland will lead to thyroid issues and I'm going to gain 200 pounds. 

Luckily, because George had the worst night sleep ever last night (no joke, it really was because even as a newborn he slept through the night; perfect baby) he finally took a nap today. Hopefully this is going to ripple us back onto our normal schedule that went to shit from 3 weeks of travel for the holidays. Not worth blowing a gland over, but a welcome backlash to being up all night.

Hair Care and the Memories

Hugging through hair brushing!

Convincing my daughter to brush her hair is so much trouble, I often find myself letting her get her own way, and not brushing it. This only makes her hair 100 times worse to brush out when it is the tangled rat’s nest she so enjoys to fashion. Presently, I am brushing her hair daily, putting up with the tears because I am hopeful, as each day passes she will get more used to it, and enjoy it. I try my best to not pull on her tangles, and I brush her hair as gently as I would brush a really old persons hair, hair so fine it would pull from the scalp with a light tug.

I remember visiting my grandma shortly before she died. I was with my sisters and we were all chatting. My grandma was always a vibrant woman, but by the end of her life she was one foot out the door. She became confused, and not very good at communicating. She asked me to tweeze hairs from her chin, and I did it. I think I took the job too seriously, and went at it full speed ahead. I noticed her wincing in pain, but I figured it was a natural pain, like what I feel when I tweeze.

My sister told me to stop, and when I looked at my Grandma she had a terribly angry expression on her face, like she was ready to slap me. I am not sure if she wanted to tell me to stop, and couldn’t manage to do it, or if she forgot that she asked me to begin tweezing in the first place, but she was vehemently angry towards me, and I felt awful.

The last years of her life I was remember receiving a couple looks of disdain from her. Once we went out to a big family dinner the night before a funeral for my aunt who unexpectedly died. I was talking about a summer internship I was working on, and perhaps I sounded conceited, or trying to be overly impressive. I remember talking about how I felt fat (I know, at this point in my life, it was a stupid thing for me to say and not because I was much slimmer then I am currently) but I felt her eye roll and her amusement with the conversation extinguish. 

I don’t want these memories to have a strong impression on me because they make me feel like I had failed to be remarkable to her. She had 25 grandkids, so there really are only a few slots for the people who she considered to be kindred.

My life was rocky last year at this time, and I dreamt about her twice. In one dream, I was on a kayak and came up to the back of her house, which is on water, and I saw her sitting on the couch through the living room windows, her face was in her hands and she was crying. She came to the dock and looked young, her hair was beautiful and she was wearing a gorgeous dress. In the other dream, I was standing in my kitchen, trying to decide how much rice to make. I was staring at the back of the package and she came around the corner, and I just hugged her and started crying so hard into her shoulder. She was a very short woman, not even 5 foot, so my face came down into her shoulder like a child held in their mother’s arms. The dream was comforting maybe because I cried all the sadness that had built up in me. I woke up sobbing, and soaked from tears, but the hug from my grandma was as if she was saying, “everything is going to be ok.”

When my mom brushed my hair as a child it was always torturous. She would put my hair in a ponytail every day and I would complete the look by accessorizing it with a headband. I don’t remember ever recoiling in pain, or making a fit with tears and screaming, but I still recall the dissatisfaction I had with the job. I remember thinking, why can’t she figure out how to do a French braid? During a sick day, probably around 2^nd grade, my mom put my hair in curlers. As I looked in the mirror, bouncing a curl, my mom came in from behind and brushed the curls out. I didn’t want her to brush them out, but she told me it is how hair should be. Begrudgingly, my romantic Shirley Temple curls when to a poufy wavy fro, eighties hair.

I probably gave her a look similar to a look my grandma gave me, and let her carryon with the way she wanted to style my hair. And now, almost 30 years later, I think about why she wouldn’t style my hair the way I wanted her to.

She survived!

Rise and Shine

I was up most the night last night, laying next to my daughter who has a cold. She rarely gets sick, but when she does it is like I'm dealing with a terminally ill patient. She wakes up frequently and the discomfort from congestion leads her to scream at the top of her lungs then roll over and fall back to sleep. So every hour or so last night I violently awoke to my daughter yelling. The jarring and sporadic bursts of short sleep made me especially irritable this morning. 

At 7, Kiki's usual wake up time, she was surprisingly spry and jumped out of bed and began playing with her toys. I laid there paralyzed from exhaustion and she started to decorate me like she would a Christmas tree. Placing the crown on my head she said, "Princess mommy is trapped in the tallest tower." Too groggy to talk, I thought, "I wish!" 

After 10 minutes of unsuccessfully trying to enact some untapped magic within so I could make myself disappear I relinquished to the present forces and engaged in the make believe game of trapped princess. I asked my daughter to make me imaginary coffee and cook me an imaginary breakfast burrito. She happily toiled away at her little kitchen. After a strong cup of fake coffee I was ready to get up and make a pot of real coffee.