the trials of Coconut

I finally had Coconut, the partially tamed feral cat we appear to be keeping, neutered.  I had put this off as Coconut was not tame enough to put up for adoption or be handled, but the time had come (or, according to the head of my rescue, was long overdue).   It was presented to me, by a more senior crazy cat lady in the world of crazy cats, that Coconut should be processed through Feral Fix and given back to me.

"Feral Fix" is a program whereby feral cats are neutered for free and re-released.  The tip of one ear is cut off, to signal that the cat has been neutered.  We agreed that since Coconut was not easy to handle, it made sense to neuter him through Feral Fix, where it is assumed none of the cats can be picked up, rather than through the regular neutering program."I'll tell them to make a shallow tip," said the more senior crazy cat lady.  "It won't bother you, will it, having his ear tipped?  I'll tell them to just take a little."

I was dreading the day. Since no one can pick Coconut up, cramming him into a small box seemed highly problematic.  "I need all hands on deck for this," I said gloomily.  The last time I tried to pick him up, he sank all his fangs deeply into my arm, ran away, and wasn't seen for hours.  Everyone stood at battle stations, ready to grab the cat, and I threw a large towel over him and then quickly wrapped him up in it before he could react.  I then roughly crammed the towel-wrapped cat into a waiting carrier.  "That was easier than I expected," I said wonderingly.  Cries arose from within the towel.

I couldn't face taking Coconut in myself, as he is my greatest failure and I'm embarrassed around the other crazy cat ladies.  I had negotiated with the Sober Husband to deliver him to Feral Fix, which he did on the condition that "I only have to drop the cat off, right?  I don't have to do anything more? I just say, "Here is the cat' and walk away?"

A day later it was time to pick up Coconut.  Lola and I drove over to the SPCA's clinic.  It was reported to me that Coconut "had not done well."  Evidently he had not gone gently into that anesthetized night.  The clinic attendant who returned him to me said she was not surprised he was not tamer.  "Once a meanie, always a meanie."

This offended Lola and me.  "He's not a meanie," Lola said fiercely on the way home.  "She called him a meanie!"  We knew Coconut was frightened, not vicious.

At home we reviewed our instructions.  We were supposed to "feed and care for animal in his trap for one day."

"In his trap!" We laughed.  At home, Coconut had shot out of his carrier.  We had intended for him to spend a day in Iris's room, resting away from the other cats, but he rocketed out of the door the moment it was opened and reestablished himself in the resident cat population.

I looked at the Feral Fix handout again.  It instructed me that I could return my feral to his colony in a day or two, but "the ultimate decision is up to you."

"What is 'the ultimate decision'?  It sounds like 'the Final Solution'," I said.

Coconut, meanwhile, basked on the back of the couch, unaware that he was meant to be convalescing "in his trap", subject to an "ultimate decision."

behind my back

The children made some disparaging remarks the other day, and I said, "I'd hate to hear what you say about me when I'm not around."

Iris was noncommital, but Lola forged ahead.  "We sometimes talk about your musical taste."

I drew her out more.

"Like about that stuff you play that isn't ABBA that sounds like ABBA.  What is that?  And that other song we don't like."  Lola beamed winningly.

a memory

"I remember when I was really little," reminisced Lola.  "I was tired, and you decided I needed to be more hyper, so you gave me some coffee!  And it was cinnamon coffee, and I think I would have liked it better if it wasn't cinnamon."

"When was this?" I was incredulous.

Lola explained that it was when she was just a toddler.

"And I said I wanted you to be 'more hyper?'"

not before coffee

The Sober Husband tends to ask a lot of questions, and this morning was no exception.  Lola woke me up while I was in the middle of an intense dream (evidently I had gone to war in the Middle East, but yet I was living in a luxury penthouse).  I stumbled downstairs to get some life-giving coffee, only to be intercepted by the Sober Husband, who began peppering me with questions about my plans for the day.

"Don't interrogate me until I've had some coffee!  No questions!" I snapped.   I poured a cup and leaned against the counter while I took a sip.

Meanwhile the large feral cat I have adopted caught sight of me.  He regards me as a can-opening mechanism, and he made eye contact with me and began crying noisily.  The Sober Husband looked at the squawking animal.  "Don't interrogate her until she's had some coffee!"

a bridge too far

After a good night's sleep and time to reflect, thirteen year-old Iris appeared to have recovered from watching "Silence of the Lambs."  She said to me, "Momdude, I want to watch 'Clockwork Orange.'"

I quailed.  "That's too much for me.  I can't watch that again."  I saw the X-rated version of "Clockwork Orange" my freshman year of college, at one of the popular dollar movie nights at the giant Warren Towers dorm, and found it far too intense.

"Why?  What happens?"

"Too violent!"  I didn't even want to go into details.

"Can I read the book?"

"Yes.  Go ahead."

scarred

Tonight I watched "The Silence of the Lambs" with thirteen year-old Iris.  Just before watching it, I quavered.  "It's scary," I said.

"I'm pretty much inured to horror," said the jaded Iris.

The Sober Husband refused to be in the room for it.  "This movie has something I can't stand:  sadism."

"If you're scarred for life, will you forgive me?" I asked Iris.

"Probably."

We watched the movie.  Afterward, I asked, "Are you scarred for life?"

"Yes."

Due to a cat vomiting during the film (which we had both silently decided to postpone cleaning up until after the movie), we went out in search of cleaning supplies.   We met up with little Lola, who'd stayed safely away during the film.  She took in her sister's somewhat shaken state.

 "Let's stay together; it's safer," I suggested.   I remembered how I'd felt when I was young and I saw "Blue Velvet"; I'd been so shaken that the trip home from the movie theatre was an ordeal, with me peering suspiciously at everyone and every car I walked past.

Lola flicked a switch, putting us in complete darkness.  Iris and I emitted a squawk.  Lola laughed hysterically before turning the light back on.  "Lola, for someone so cute, you really can be evil," I remarked.

We moved as a squad down into the kitchen, obtaining the necessaries, and then back upstairs.  "It's a good thing there are no moths around here," I observed.

called out

"Momdude, you are a hipster snob," sniffed a judgmental child.

a timing issue

This Friday is "Grandparents And Special Friends Day" at Lolz' school.  It is also the day after Valentine's Day.

As I pointed out to the Sober Husband, this timing means that for everyone who has family living out of town, this means that their inlaws will be in town for Valentine's Day.  He hadn't quite connected the dots between the date on the calendar and the note on the calendar to pick his mother up at the airport.  

"We'll have some romance another night," he said optimistically.  "On the bright side, my mother always puts out on Valentine's Day."

"I think you should rephrase that," I said.

It took him a few minutes to understand my objection.  "I mean she comes through.  She'll bring something for the children."

feeling French

Yesterday we visited the U.S.S. Hornet, a decommissioned aircraft carrier.  A friend of mine who volunteers there had offered to take people to areas not open to the public.   The Sober Husband loved the engine room, while I found the little zone where the nuclear bombs had been kept to be the most fascinating (the warnings were still up declaring it a classified zone of the highest level, and there was a guard station by the door, and a small group of people lived down with the bombs).

As we walked up to the Hornet, one of the children felt uneasy.  "It's scary!  I'm looking at it, and I'm feeling scared.  What am I, French?"

our dreams

In the car, today I shared some dreams I remembered.  "Last night I dreamed I had a dog.  Oh, and I dreamed I went on tour with Metallica.  They had some seats for superfans on their tour bus, and in the dream I was a superfan.  And the Sober Husband was with me, we had terrible seats, and there was this guy across from us who was vomiting all the time and just awful, and the Sober Husband held the bag for him to vomit in.  Then the Sober Husband had that bag of vomit, and I wanted to get rid of it.  Oh, and there was a bean cake, and I didn't eat any because I didn't think it would be good, but it was gone right away and everyone was saying how great it was, it was some special cake they always had, and I was sorry I didn't have any.  Then the guy who was vomiting turned out to be a wanted criminal, and I took him down!  But the Sober Husband didn't help!  He was just standing there!"

Little Lola chimed in.  "THAT'S JUST LIKE WHEN I DREAMED ABOUT THE DOUGHNUT APOCALYPSE.  He was just standing there!!"

We both turned and looked at the Sober Husband accusatorily.

scrabbling around

Ever since our holidays blow-up, the Sober Husband and I have been prioritizing our relationship.  In general we've been looking for Things We Can Do Together (Without Fighting).  One of these things is playing Facebook Scrabble.  I've been playing it for a long time and secretly revel in being the highest rated of all my friends.

Normally the Sober Husband destroys me in any game we play which is not a game of chance (and even at games of chance he will win more than he should, as his mathematical mind is better able than my whatever-you-want-to-call-it mind at figuring out odds and calculating what might happen).  But at word-based games, like Scrabble or Boggle, he can't touch me.

Or at least he couldn't, until he wrote himself his own Scrabble-cheating program.  Suddenly now he leads.  Since he wrote his program to suit himself precisely, it's extremely helpful to him.

This irks me, as I am a pristine Scrabble player, and in this household I falsely suffer from a reputation of being a Scrabble cheater.  This stems from the fact that years ago -- AT LEAST SIX YEARS AGO -- I used to pay to play Scrabble on a large website, where one was allowed to use assistance.  After I discovered Warcraft, I let online Scrabble fade away, and I don't even know if that Scrabble-for-pay site still exists.  Eventually I returned to online Scrabble via Facebook (but not "Words with Friends", which I despise as I do all Zynga products).  In Facebook Scrabble, I am a queen of verity and ethics, but the children all call me a cheater, evidently on the basis that anyone who ever used a Scrabble help site is forever tarred as a Scrabble sleaze.

I exposed the Sober Husband's cheating ways to Lola, thinking she would denounce him.  But she thought he was clever and made a ruling that he should be allowed to use his program.  I guess she was thinking that if I were smarter, I could make myself a cheating program as well.

So thanks, Sober Husband!  Now one of my zones of feeling intellectually superior has vanished.  So far he hasn't driven my ratings down measurably, but that day will no doubt come... AND MY SCRABBLE ENEMIES WILL REJOICE.

educating the hipsters

Little Lola is enrolled in another session of the 826 Valencia St. youth newspaper.  On the way over to her first meeting, we discussed what she might write about, and her thinking seemed to be to cover "hugs:  heartfelt or horrible?"

Lolz was very tense about getting to 826 on time and kept ostentatiously checking her watch.  We had actually arrived very early and I took her to a nearby art gallery to kill time while enjoying art, but Lolz's mind was on nothing but punctuality and 826.  "You promise not to make me late?" she hissed at me.

I gave up and took Lola over early.  "Welcome back," said the hipster at the desk to Lola.

"Lola!" said the hipster behind the chain which keeps out hoi polloi like me while admitting the elite, such as Lola.  "We missed you last time!  How was your break?"

A few hours later I returned.  Lola told me that she had decided to write about "different kinds of popular music."

"Kids always write about music," I said.  "I thought hugs was a good topic."

Lolz got a bit haughty.  "As far as I could tell, no other kids were writing about music.  And the tutors, they don't know about music, different genres and things.  So it's educational."   Lolz continued in that vein for a bit, explaining how she could enlighten these poor, ignorant tutors about popular music.

I let the subject drop, but I was secretly amused.  These hipsters who help the kids write look like they are straight outta Coachella, but yet their musical ignorance appalls little Lola, who views it as her responsibility to educate them.

living the noir life

The Sober Husband and I scored a couple of seats at a showing at the Film Noir festival, which is based at the Castro theatre this year, and we stumbled out onto the streets after being fully immersed in the smoky and treacherous world of noir.  We wandered up the streets past homeless people and inebriates, up the hill, discussing the plot.

When I walked into our house, there were no lights on downstairs.  A steely little voice came from the shadows.  "I was waiting for you here, watching for you."  I jumped, taken by surprise.

Little Lolz emerged from the darkness, having successfully startled her mother.  "It's like living in a film noir, living with you," I said.

"I was waiting here in the dark, watching for you," Lolz reiterated, giving me a hardboiled stare.  All she needed was a cigarette.

the horror, the horror of a hug

Today Lola started a new evening writing class.  After I picked her up at school, I suggested she might like to brainstorm ideas for her new writing project.

First Lola loftily informed me that the purpose of the first class, "after we spend a bunch of time saying "oh I am Lordwhatever from Blabbledom", was brainstorming and that the people who lead the class would have a list of suggested writing topics.

Clearly her mother was not needed, but indefatigable for once, I persevered.  "It might be a good idea to go in with some ideas of your own, though.  I know how picky you can be."  On a prior occasion, Lola had despaired of ever coming up with a good idea to write about and shared that she thought she had shot her bolt with her hit article on urban chickens.  "I'll never have a good idea like chickens again."

Lola accepted this point and told me that one of her friends had given her a suggestion.  This friend said Lola should write about "hugs:  heartfelt or HORROR-FILLED?"  It turns out that the friend's little brother had suffered a dislocated arm from a hug.

"Lola, that's awful!  What monster hugged him?"

"It was one of his little friends, not a monster."

I shared with Lola that I had suffered some horrible hugs myself.  Lola wanted details.  The first memorable Hug of Horror occurred when my first husband and I traveled to the Saline Valley.  We shared a love of natural hot springs and camping in the desert, and we had learned that there were some beautiful natural hot springs located near Death Valley, where some hippies and hippy-adjacent people had created a clothing-optional community.  When we arrived at the Saline Valley enclave, we were greeted by a tiny older naked man, with lots of flowing gray hair, who was of questionable cleanliness.  This man was very friendly and welcoming to us, talking to us about the hot springs, the people, what we could expect, what we might like to do, and so on.  Then he asked me  for a hug, explaining that he had to be faithful to his wife but she let him hug other women.  I was at the time a cute, trim twenty-something, and I noticed our new friend only wanted to hug me, not my husband.  The last thing I wanted was for this dingy, naked stranger to hug me, but he had been very kind to us, and I felt stuck.  I let him hug me, pressing his unclean and naked parts up against me, for as short a time as I judged polite and then disengaged.  It was not enjoyed.

The other horrible hug Lola had herself witnessed, but she'd forgotten it.  There used to be some benches by the subway station in the Castro, which have been cut apart and taken away because homeless people used to spend time on them.  I myself thought the particular homeless people who congregated there added color to the neighborhood and didn't detract from it; they never panhandled me or hassled me, but other people in the community wanted them gone.  When the homeless people still had a place to sit or lie down, one day one of them called out to me as I was walking through with my family.  He asked me for a hug, saying he was unhappy and really, really needed a hug.  Without hesitation I hugged him, although in the back of my mind I was wondering whether he would stab me; he was definitely troubled.  After the hug, he called out to me sincerely, "Thank you! Thank you!"  The Sober Husband told me, "You were very brave.  I thought he was going to stab you", which called into question why he didn't intervene if he thought his wife was in danger.  Did he want his wife to get stabbed?

Lola pondered these hugs.  She now had three Hugs of Horror she could write about.  Hugs, she felt, were a far scarier thing than one would think.

Coney and Notconey

Over the holidays we catsat for a friend of ours who has wonderfully taken in two cats with feline HIV.  These cats were unadoptable and could not be kept at the city shelter, but the city employees didn't want to euthanize them as they were very attractive cats with warm, friendly personalities.  Thankfully my friend M. stepped up and took them home, where she has taken painstaking care of them.  A local cat lady has donated a life subscription to her raw foods for these cats, and M. can take them in to get veterinary care for free, which relieves the financial burden on her of taking two cats with a serious condition.

These cats don't look sick.  They are beautiful, fluffy, and energetic, but they must be kept indoors and can't mingle with other cats.  Their raw food diet is kept refrigerated and needs to be served to them twice a day.  Although M's temporary housemate was willing to feed them, he is not a cat person and was not about to provide the hours of attention these cats normally receive from their doting owner.  So we were enlisted, to come by and play with the cats and give them some love (and also check on their litterbox).

M's housemate obviously fed the cats, but he didn't tend to their litterbox noticeably.  He also didn't play with them very much.  Every time I arrived, always with the stalwart Lola at my side and normally with Iris as well, the cats were ready for endless playtime.

One of them had a rash on her chin which she picked at, so she had to wear a cone of shame.  The children dubbed them "Coney and NotConey."  They loved ridiculing Coney when she tried to groom herself with her cone on, licking the inside of her cone and putting her paw up to it.

The children devoted themselves to photography of Coney and Notconey, trying to get pictures of them airborne as the children whipped them up to a frenzy with the cat toys.  The frustrations of nature photography were all too apparent, as the best shots seemed elusive.  They filled my iPhone up with over a hundred pictures of those cats in no time.

Driving over to M's place one day, we passed near her place of employment.  I had a thought.  "Hey, wouldn't it be funny if we went to M's salon?  You know she is always showing everyone all these pictures of her cats on her phone.  Now they have a break from looking at pictures of those cats, and we could take my phone in and make them look at pictures of M's cats on my phone while she's away!"  The children thought this was hilarious and were definitely up for it, but I was too lazy to inflict this prank on M's colleagues.

Since M's return, Coney's skin has recovered to the point where she no longer needs to wear the cone of shame.  I shared this with the children, who were disapproving.

"Coney isn't that cute; she needs to wear the cone to be cute!"

"What will we call them now, if they can't be Coney and Notconey?"

The sentiment among the children was that if M. expects any more high quality catsitting, she'd better put that cone back on.  The children's love is not unconditional.

not the lilies of the field but the feral cats of the alleys

The most recent feral kittens I have fostered were the subject of an inquiry from a gay couple, who were interested in possibly adopting them.  I invited them to come to my home and meet the kittens, two calicos who were recovering from a terrible cold and becoming socialized.

One of the men was blind, but as I had a very close friend in college who was blind, I know how to host blind people (speak directly to them, describe the room to them, narrate anything happening).  That wasn't newsworthy.  What was interesting was that this man was extremely Christian, in a way you don't normally run across in San Francisco.  I know many devout people here, I know people who have strong faiths, but I had not run across anyone who lives here who speaks in this way of witnessing, with little gaps left where it seems what is being called for is a "Praise Him!" as the only response.   I didn't think I'd ever met a blind, gay Christian before, definitely a small segment of our population.

It turned out God had indicated to these men that they adopt these particular kittens, which was fine by me and seemed fine by the kittens as well.  The kittens took a long time to recover from their ailment, and I invited the men back to visit again on another occasion.  This time the kittens were in no mood to be friendly and chose to have almost nothing to do with their potential adopters.  I was a little worried that a good placement might fall apart, and I voiced that to the Sober Husband.  "But didn't God tell them to take these kittens?" he asked.

"God says lots of things," I said darkly.

But I shouldn't have worried.  Today the adoption is going through, but as I'm ill, it's being handled by another cat lady (a more senior and important cat lady than me, who gave me the kittens to foster to begin with).  She was a little worried that the placement might fall apart and wanted to know what the men were like, and I told her that God had told them to adopt these kittens.

"Really," she said.  There was a pause.  "I'm an atheist, you know," she said in her thick European accent.  Another pause.  "I'm glad you told me this.  I wouldn't have known how to handle it.  I'm not used to that kind of thing."  I could tell this was a moment of culture shock for her.

"In my ten years of doing this, this is the first time I've had God tell someone to take one of my kittens," I shared.

"I"m so glad you told me about this," she said again.  

describe me

The little paragraph describing this blog is woefully out of date.  I virtually never drink any more, certainly not "too much."  I exercise more than three regular middle-aged people combined (hell, maybe more than ten regular middle-aged people).   I'm more fit than the Sober Husband these days, always eager to point out when he is out of breath and I'm not.

Fabulous prizes await if someone writes me a pleasing yet roughly accurate soundbite for this blog!

intricate, high level planning

I ran across a discussion of Burning Man preparation by chance on line, and one person urged others to send him their email address, as he's been going for years and has an Excel spreadsheet for a packing list which he enjoys sharing with others.

Spreadsheets?  Lists?  Here's how my friend N. and I planned last year:

I arrive at N.'s home.  Before we start planning, she suggests we have a cigarette in the backyard.  After her smoke break, we go indoors to get serious.  I pull out a notebook and a pen.

N.:  "What do you want to drink this year?"

A discussion follows of cocktail options, which is pretty much pointless because it was completely predictable that we'd want to drink the same things we drank the two years before:  shandies (N.) and sparkling wine (the D.H.), and maybe we'd do something with tequila, and it might be good to have some vodka just in case.

After I note that I will buy sparkling wine and tequila and that N. will bring beer, soda for making the shandies, and some vodka, the conversation stalls.

N.:  "So, will you bring everything you brought last year?  I'll bring everything I brought last year."

Me:  "Yes.  Oh, can you bring a dishpan?"

I make a note:  "N:  dishpan."

N.:  "Was there anything else we needed to plan?"

Me:  "I don't think so.  I don't know why we thought we needed to have a meeting."

unsatisfying

At my "lit club", the reading class I lead at Iris's school, a fifth grader said with a passion, "I want to complain about this book.  There weren't enough murders."

the healthy lifestyle doesn't pay off

I.  Feeling like crap:  Lately I've been suffering from headaches, pounding headaches every day.  This is particularly maddening because I'm exercising, eating healthily, staying hydrated, getting lots of sleep, and avoiding alcohol.  The other day I woke up with a horrific headache, worse than a hangover, and this irked me more when I pondered that I hadn't had a single sip of alcohol in over three days.

II.  Looking like crap:  As part of his "Pacifying The Hostile, Crazy Wife" program, the Sober Husband bought us tickets to an annual event I'd long wanted to attend, the Edwardian Ball.  I'd never tried to attend as the tickets are expensive, it tends to sell out, and it requires buying new clothes, a thing normally despised and avoided by the Sober Husband.  But!  I had complained bitterly that he never arranges for us to do fun things as a couple, and he was hellbent on proving that wrong, and he even initiated some shopping expeditions to get us outfitted.

I visited Dark Gardens, San Francisco's famous corset store, as part of the planning for the Edwardian ball.  There I tried on a corset and was appalled.  Somehow I looked fatter in it than out. Practically every fat San Franciscan woman I know relies upon corsets to make herself look amazing and desirable, but yet when I, who has lost fifty friggin' pounds, put one on, I looked significantly heavier.  

Even odder than that was that I appeared relatively flat-chested in the corset.  Somehow my natural DDs looked like Bs.  This made no sense to me, as usually women with small breasts look amazingly buxom once they are hoisted up by a corset.

I was so depressed by what I saw in the mirror at the Dark Gardens' fitting room that I felt like taking to my bed and never appearing in public again.  A supportive friend shared that she, too, had tried on a corset, thinking it would work the same magic for her it does for every chubby woman she knows, and she had also ended up looking both fatter and flatter.  "My D cups looked like someone with B cups trying to look wenchy",  she said, and, as misery adores company,  this cheered me up.  Also, I was cheered up by the thought of saving the over $500 that the Dark Gardens corset would have cost.

But still, after all this freaking healthy living, I should feel divine and look like a goddess in a corset.  "That just goes to show that all that health stuff is stupid," opined a child.

another "how not to take a compliment" lesson, courtesy of the DH

Recently I was talking to a man, someone significantly younger than me, and I noticed he was fidgeting a lot.  "Why are you twitching like that?" I asked.

"I feel nervous talking to you, because you're so hot."

I gave him an incredulous look.  "I am forty-eight years old!"

another expensive, faux British possession

As many people know, I've been locked in a struggle with the Sober Husband over whether to trade in my Volvo.  I'd been driving the Volvo for over five years without complaining until it suddenly lost power while I was driving in heavy traffic.  Then it did it again.  Both times there was no error code, and three different mechanics could not find any plausible cause.  My favorite of these mechanics told me earnestly to get rid of the car as soon as possible and didn't charge me a cent.

However, the Sober Husband saw this differently.  After all, the Volvo was practically paid off, and it was perhaps a better car than I deserved.  He himself had driven an ancient rusty Monte Carlo for part of our marriage (remembered fondly as "the Garbage Car" by the children).  "There's a value in driving unreliable cars," he said.  "Poor people would make that decision differently."

"Just because someone will risk their life in an unsafe car because they can't afford another one means I should?"

"I just think I have a higher tolerance for unreliable cars than you do."

He ended up having to live by those words, as I said, "That car is dead to me" and refused to drive it any more.  So the Sober Husband took the Volvo (which maddeningly never failed him) and gave me his Prius, which had two strange and upsetting failures during my brief tenure as its primary driver.  Some people recommended to me that I find some sort of new age healer to cleanse my chakras of the evil car-killing emanations I must be sending forth, but I refrained.

After some time went by, the Sober Husband began to carp about driving the Volvo.  "It costs me ten more dollars a day in gas than the Prius."

"Trade in the Volvo for something else, and I'll give you back the Prius," I said.  "That car is still dead to me."  This inevitably got the Sober Husband to make remarks about my economic policies and unrealistic expectations for cars.   These discussions never went anywhere, but at least I was able to wrap them up more efficiently once my psychiatrist supplied me with a great line.  "My psychiatrist says you do not value my life highly enough," I would say when the Sober Husband direly discussed the economic foolhardiness of getting a younger, more reliable car.  The Sober Husband never figured out a good response to this line, and it was always an argument-killer, but we were no closer to a resolution.

Then in late December, following a rather large spat between us over a variety of other causes, the Sober Husband said one morning, "Today I'm going to take you to get a car!  Whatever car you want!"  Later that day as we were filling out the papers to purchase a slightly used Mini Cooper Countryman, he said to me, "I guess now is the time I should tell you there's a recall out on the Prius.  The driver can lose control of the steering at any time, with no warning."

"When were you planning on telling me?"

"You weren't speaking to me."

As I drove the Mini home, I realized that now my Aga is not my most expensive possession any more.  I also pondered that my two beloved and extravagant-for-my-station-in-life possessions both have British brand names but are not actually British (the Mini was made in Graz, Austria; the Aga came from France).  Evidently I fall into a certain consumer niche, the faux British category:  someone who seeks out things which look like they are vintage English but demands non-English engineering.  Undoubtedly there is a marketing term for this, and probably it's not flattering.

walking through a winter wonderland

The other night we walked down through the Castro, as I was meeting a friend for drinks and the Sober Husband and children felt like going for a walk.

The walk was particularly enjoyable for me, because I was trying out some new performance socks I'd ordered at a holiday sale.  These particular socks are so advanced that a catalogue I'd received in the mail referred to them as "systems" and had a diagram pointing out the various features.  I had enjoyed ridiculing that diagram, but it was an effective sales technique, getting me to order them, and they are the best socks of my life.  As we walked, I kept reveling in my "systems."  "I am never wearing socks again!  I am only wearing systems from now on," I shared.

A particular child found this annoying and requested that I stop referring to my new footwear as "systems" as it was "dorky" and potentially embarrassing.

"You're not the boss of me," I said maturely.

"I should be the boss of you.  I'd do a better job managing you than you do."

We walked on, me reveling in the joy of my systems.  One particular bar with a balcony was full of festive drinkers, who were shouting at pedestrians trying to egg them into jaywalking.  They shouted and shouted at one particular pedestrian next to us.  "Don't be a little bitch!"  Then one festive gay drunk shamed the others:  "There are little kids down there!"  Much gay drunken guilt followed until I shouted up to them, "Don't worry!  She hears worse at home!", gesturing towards little Lola.  This met with a lot of loud, inebriated approval, and as we walked away, when the lights finally changed, one drunk screamed out, "I wish you were my mother!"

I turned and waved in acknowledgment.  "Are you flipping them off?" asked Iris.

"No, I'm waving!  He said he wishes I was his mother."

"Well, I don't wish that," said Iris fiercely.

"WHAT?" I squawked.  "You don't wish I were your mother?"  I knew she wants to go away to boarding school, but unwishing the very biological bonds that tie us together is another matter.

"No!  I don't wish you were his mother!"

After this misunderstanding was cleared up, mother-child love was restored, and we all parted ways:  the Sober Husband and offspring off to eat cake, and me to have cocktails.

this isn't disturbing; no, not at all

The Sober Husband has been bored at work lately, and he calls me from time to time.  The other day we were chatting, and he shared, "Yesterday I was so bored I watched your dot."  He clarified that he has a program which monitors where my cellphone is.  "I watched you drive up Masonic, then wait on Waller, then drive off.  I was so bored, I just sat there watching for a really long time."

Lola's wacky drug experience

Yesterday Lola went to the dentist, always an ordeal for dentist and patient alike (Lola, who has a huge dental phobia, has been known to vomit and cry during procedures).  One of her baby teeth had broken in half, but the jagged remains remained firmly rooted.  Normally I am the dental parent, but the Sober Husband decided to take Lola this time.  He was sure that the dentist would airily say, "Oh, everything's fine, just let it come out in its own time."  I, on the other hand, was sure that the dentist would remove the rest of the tooth.

Indeed the dentist did want to pull the wretched stump, and it didn't go easily.  After a rough beginning to the proceedings wherein Lola cried and the Sober Husband ordered all of the dental personnel out of the room, Lola took some time to compose herself, and the Sober Husband allowed the dentist and his assistant back in.   (When I heard this story, I winced and became nervous that our family would get blacklisted from this dental practice.  The Sober Husband was quite militant in describing this to me, and I had flashbacks to when we used to go to a particular vet who was afraid of him and would have to visibly brace herself to enter the room if he were with me).

Perhaps understandably the dentist chose to give fragile Lola plenty of nitrous, in addition to numbing gel and a novocaine injection.  As Lola described it later, "It was like I wasn't alive, but I wasn't dead."  After she was done at the dentist, Lola went to school.  She told me later that she was working on a project with one of her best friends, "but I got all giggly.  My teeth were shivering and I couldn't stop giggling, and A. didn't know what to do with me, so she had to take me to Ms. B.  And she didn't know what to do with me either!  So she told me to color or do whatever, and I was giggling and crying at the same time and my teeth were shivering."  Eventually Lola returned to normal.

"Well, Lola, that was quite a day you had today," I said, contemplating it all.  I imagined that the dentist could have used a few hits of nitrous after getting the wrath of the Sober Husband turned on him.

the embarrassment

This year I'm co-teaching a class at Iris's school, where we read and discuss books.  Today the students were trying to guess the age of a character, a rather raddled and frizzled alcoholic who is described as wearing gold stiletto shoes.  This sparked a lively debate, as the description of the character's face, with its wrinkles, made the kids think she might be in her sixties, at least forties, but those gold stilettos... she had to be in her twenties to wear shoes like that.  Maaaaybe thirties at most, but then how would she be wrinkled?

I pointed out gently to the children that I am in my late forties, but I wear stiletto shoes.  They were bemused but soon thought they had me.  "Not gold ones!"

But I was not to be caught out that fast.  "I do have gold ones."

They were nonplussed.  I promised to bring the shoes to our next meeting to prove that a woman in her late forties could wear gold stilettos.

At home I shared this story.  Iris interrupted me at the point where I said, "I told them I wore stilettos."  Moaning, she said sadly, "You had to.  You had to say that.  When did you say that?  So embarrassing."

When I got to where I promised to bring my gold stilettos, Iris erupted.  "When you come into my place of residence, you have a responsibility!"

Perhaps not surprisingly the conversation turned to Iris's obsession, going away to a prestigious boarding school.

"Can I come visit you when you're at boarding school?" I asked.

Evasively Iris answered, "I don't think you'll want to come."

"Well, you'll come home for the summer."

Pensively Iris mused, "I wonder what I'll do for the summers, whether I'll want to come home."

the life of a Debbie Downer

After perking up and feeling happy and energetic for a while, so perky indeed that I was back in the kitchen trying new things (like a homemade caramel and chocolate ganache tarte with a sablé crust and like pasta with baby spinach, fried chickpeas, and fresh mozzarella), I'm back in a slump.

Yesterday I not only went out to a party, but I talked the Sober Husband into coming with.  It's rare he'll socialize with my friends, as he views them as his inferiors.  At the party, there was only one person he enjoyed speaking to, and he was disparaging of my other friends after we left.  The disparagement didn't stop with my friends -- it continued to me.  He referred to "your suicidal bullshit."  I would have jumped out of the car and stalked off right then had we not been driving on an elevated freeway.

Obviously it must be difficult to be married to a suicidal person, but referring to it as "bullshit" seems completely wrong on so many different levels, so trivializing and so apt to provoke the very behavior being criticized.

This argument put me right back where I was, in that dark, deep hole.  I don't even want to look at him or hear the sound of his voice.

how not to take a compliment

After losing over fifty pounds, I've been enjoying wearing smaller, form-fitting clothes.  Not long ago I indulged in a little retail therapy and acquired a dress which I call "my mid-range hooker dress."  It shows a lot of lace-obscured cleavage and is tight all over, and it is one hell of  a dress.  You could go a lifetime without finding such a rewarding dress, just the right amount of sleaziness.

Recently I had the right occasion to wear this dress in public:  a friend had a private party at a wine bar.  After I'd had a glass of wine, a former Marine sergeant I know made his way over to greet me.  "You look great," he said, hugging me.

"Thanks!" I said.  I turned this way and that.  "I call this 'my midrange hooker dress.'"

"That's exactly what it is," he agreed.  "It's good enough that you can go into a hotel or restaurant in it," but we both agreed a call girl would do well wearing it.

"Sexy!" was his final judgment.

"Thanks," I blurted out sincerely.  "That means a lot, because I know you don't like me."

Then came the awkwardness.

fear the judgment of the children

Today was a rainy day, and Lola's thoughts when I picked her up were on another rainy day spent waiting for me at dismissal time.  She and her friend "were sitting in one of the only dry spots on the stairs, you know, it was all wet.  And we had one of the only dry spots.  And then this car came tearing down, it was going so fast, and we all gasped.  And I said, 'You shouldn't drive that way down here, because it is full of judgmental children, AND WE WILL JUDGE YOU. ' And we did."

a very deep thought

"On the outside, I may appear to be an emotionless, sarcastic jerk, but like an onion, as you peel back each layer, you find exactly the same thing.  And then you start crying."  (Courtesy of one of my Burning Man campmates).

insults and metaphor

Today as I was driving Lola to school, she asked me what a metaphor was.  It was especially pleasing for me to get a question I could actually answer, and I delved into metaphors and similes, making up some and quoting famous ones.  "The fog crept in on little cat feet" went over well, but Lolz balked at "Shall I compare thee to a summer day."

"Summer days are hot," said Lola disapprovingly.  She and her sister, native San Franciscans, prefer a cool, foggy day.  For Lola, Shakespeare was an idiot.

"NEWSFLASH, LOLA:  you and Iris are not normal.  YOU ARE NOT TYPICAL."

Lola did not take the point.   A new insult has been found:  comparing someone to a summer day.  Those are fighting words, all right!

sorry

I'm really sorry for all my failures.

the crazy man and the mystery of his shoe size

Act I.

The Sober Husband needs new slippers and new sneakers, but somehow over the nearly five decades of his life, he has avoided learning his shoe size.  I buy his clothes for him, but he's on his own foot-wise.  "If you only managed to learn your shoe size, you'd live in a wonderland," I nagged him the other day, "where I'd keep a stack of slippers for you.  Like when you said you needed new pants, and I told you to look in your dresser, and there was a pile of them I bought when they were on sale."  

We were walking through the Castro when we had this conversation, and the Sober Husband suggested that he walk up a block to visit a store which sells garish sneakers as well as campy t-shirts to get his feet sized.   I vetoed that suggestion.  "Stores like that don't measure your feet," I explained.  "They rely on you to know your size when you go in.  Normal people know what size their feet are.   Iris and I know what size our feet are."   We sneered superiorly.  

The Sober Husband was unconvinced. 

Act II.

The following day, while Iris and I were taking in a matinee of "Seven Psychopaths", the Sober Husband and Lola stopped by that same store in the Castro in an attempt to get his feet sized.  "You were right," he admitted; the store didn't even possess a shoe sizing board.  "They treated me like I was a crazy man.  I think they thought I was insane."  

It was a double victory for me, as the Sober Husband had predicted that "Seven Psychopaths" would be too gory and upsetting for Iris, but in the end she had, as I'd known, enjoyed the movie.  

Epilogue:  

The sad part is this was probably the highlight of my entire year: having a laugh at the expense of my usually better-than-me spouse due to my superior knowledge of how to buy shoes.  It's all downhill from here.

the things we ate

People think Thanksgiving is all about the turkey, but here in this vegetarian household, I bring the feast.  Yesterday we had nine dishes, none prepared ahead of time (due to the chef being in a funk), all made Thanksgiving morning.

- Asian marinated cucumber salad (to give us something light and crunchy),

- garlicky mashed Yukon Gold potatoes (Lola's favorite),

- turnip gratin (so simple but so pleasing),

- lantulaatiko (a Scandinavian rutabaga pudding which has become the Sober Husband and my holiday tradition, served every Thanksgiving and Christmas like clockwork ever since we were
dating and first discovered this food together),

- Tofurkey! marinated and roasted with little potatoes and carrots (mock if you must, but it tastes fantastic),

- homemade cranberry sauce (this year's had cherries, Cointreau, apricot preserves, and ginger, and it was a disappointing recipe which will not be seen next year, the one underperforming dish of the year.  Last year's cranberries with sugar and orange zest were much better),

- green beans cooked in vodka (seen every year),

- mustard-chive monkey bread (the only really time consuming and tricky thing which was made), and

- sour cream pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream.

There was only the one pie, due to the chef's health kick and huge weight loss, and not coincidentally it was a pie which the squash and pumpkin-hating chef does not eat herself.   Another non-coincidence was some complaining by the minors over the relative lack of pies, which was met by the spirited rebuttal that they could eat the leftover tres leches cake in the refrigerator if they needed to stuff their yaps with sugar.

hate reading

It's terrible, it just is, yet I have no shame over my newest filthy, unforgivable habit.  I'm hate-reading,  I'm reveling in schadenfreude over the last election.  I don't feel bad about this, as I was on the losing side for virtually every election during my voting lifetime and have sadly bucked up every four years.

Sadly my supply is running dry as more time goes on past the election.  But here's a toothsome gem, one which doesn't age:  http://dailywitness.com/sifting-the-numbers-for-a-winner-by-karl-rove/

surcharge, shmurcharge

In the aftermath of the election, some CEOs of chain restaurants are spitting mad that healthcare may be in their employees' future.  The head of Papa John is charging 10 cents more per pizza, which frankly strikes me as a bargain. I'm happy to pay an extra dime if it means a struggling, hardworking pizza chain employee can go to the doctor.

As Wonkette reports with delicious snark, another CEO is trying to egg customers into stiffing waiters on their tips to punish them for wanting healthcare and Obama:

 John Metz is nobody’s fool, so John Metz, CEO and owner of Hurricane Grill and Wings as well as some Denny’s and Dairy Queen franchises, is going to pass the cost of Obamacare onto the employees AND the customer. “If I leave the prices the same, but, say on the menu that there is a five-percent surcharge for Obamacare, customers have two choices. They can either pay it, and tip 15 or 20 percent, or if they really feel so inclined, they can reduce the amount of tip they give to the server, who is the primary beneficiary of Obamacare,” Metz told The Huffington Post. Metz is a WINNER, you guys, and WINNERS do not pay for the health care coverage costs of others. They make you, the customer pay for it (SUCKER) and if you don’t want to, then YOU get to be a winner and make the waitress pay for it.

Frankly I'm all for him doing that.   We've done that already in San Francisco, and restaurants, waiters, and diners all seem to be fine after adjusting to a new reality.  When a new law called "Healthy San Francisco" was passed, restaurants of a certain size had to start providing healthcare to their employees.  Many restaurants decided to put a surcharge on the checks labeled "Healthy San Francisco", to make it clear to the consumer that she was having to pay out of her own pocket extra for her meal in order to give the doctor-craving waiters and cooks health insurance.  And you know what?  All the doom that was forecast didn't happen.  Restaurants are still opening at a crazy rate (our economy has perked up here, thanks to Silicon Valley); people are still eating out.

Just yesterday I took little Lolz and a pal of hers out to lunch, and we paid our "Healthy San Francisco" surcharge on top of our tab.  The heavily tattooed staff who waited on us and bussed our table looked healthy, and the surcharge was modest enough.   Funnily enough I didn't have any sort of class rage against my waiter, the way that John Metz seems to think I should.  We all of us get sick, and we all of us need some medical care from time to time.

it's that special time of year

It's that magical time of year, when I am constantly reminded that I am unlovable (the only person in the world who has ever genuinely loved me after getting to really know me is the Sober Husband, and that's probably because by then he was stuck with me), unloved, unlikeable, and mostly unliked.  Also, I've lost the one advantage life gave me, which was that for a while I was pretty damn good-looking.  I was an ugly child, a hideous adolescent, and then I blossomed into a hot chick, but that didn't last long enough.  I have lived too long past my sell-by date.

Yes, it's birthday season!  Happy fucking another year older to me.  I can't wait until it's over.  The actual day is Tuesday, but the dread and funk arrive ahead of time.

a very special genre

I'm co-teaching a "lit club" class at Iris uber Alles's school.  It's like a tiny little foray into the working world, and I love the children.

Not long ago I asked them to tell me about what they like to read, and one shared, "I like books where mermaids commit suicide."

detente pictured

There are a lot of gray animals around here lately, and there is only a fragile detente at best, with your humble narrator at high risk for small bodily injuries.

not appropriate

Iris and I went to a clothing exchange over the weekend, where we each scored some great finds.  Most notably Iris got a beautiful leather jacket and I got a Michael Kors dress; I also ended up with an extremely ornate, bead-encrusted wedding gown.

"I don't understand why you took that wedding gown," said Iris.

"I've always wanted to go to this event called 'Brides of March,' where everyone runs around bars all day in wedding gowns, both the men and the women."  (Indeed several people at the clothing exchange had lit up at the sight of the wedding gown, all thinking of the Brides of March, but it was me that the gown fit perfectly.  Although I've been married twice, I have never owned a real wedding gown.  I have lots of friends who have had inordinate amounts of fun at the Brides of March pub crawl, and I've always intended to get a wedding gown for it, but I've never managed to find one in my size at a thrift store).

Iris made a derisive sound.  "You are a forty seven year-old mother of two!  THERE IS SO MUCH WRONG WITH THAT, I CAN'T EVEN BEGIN."  She shook her head.

so very cute

This morning I was tired, from insomnia-caused sleep deprivation and from far too much exercise over the past several days.  The Sober Husband called my attention to the fact that one of my foster kittens had diarrhea (in the litterbox, good kitten, and which I had already realized and arranged to get some medications).  I had a realization and shared it with him.

"I feel that almost everything you say to me is conveying a piece of negative information.  Like that almost everything you talk about is either damage or disgustingness caused by animals or [perennial topic of anomie and worry not appropriate for the public].  It's making me fear you opening your mouth.  I'm dreading talking to you.  We need to fix that."

The Sober Husband feistily argued the point with me for a while, which caused me to further stiffen in my views.  Then he broke off and stared at the latest foster kitten.  "That orange one is over there.... "  He paused.  "Being cute."

I walked over and saw the kitten, bent over vomiting heartily.  I turned to the Sober Husband and ran my hand through his hair affectionately.  "Well said!"

a mystery

Tonight I had the Sober Husband drop me off at the gym.  He proceeded on to a cocktail party, while I had a good, long, strenuous workout.  By the time I was out of the shower, he was waiting to drive me home.

I felt like exercising, not drinking.  WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO ME?  I used to be so much fun.

the fashion police

Since I became so obsessed with working out and lost a huge amount of weight, I've taken up dressing like a skank.  One member of the family (the Sober Husband) not only enjoys this trend but strongly encourages it.  Another apparently has no opinion or perhaps has not even paid attention.  However, a third member is disapproving.

Yesterday I was having a stressful time (a little foster kitten had a health crisis, which was quite disgusting, and when I bathed him, he sank his fangs deep into my wrist; the kitchen sink clogged up and then when the Sober Husband attempted to fix the clog, a pipe burst;  we were running late to get to the polls), and little Lola took that time to raise an issue with my clothes.  I was wearing a form-fitting silky t-shirt and a faux wrap skirt which was designed, as the catalogue had said, to "occasionally reveal a tempting slice of leg."  Lolz, seeing the slice of leg, was tempted to point out to her mother that some thigh was on display, and the crabby old mother hissed, "Do not say anything critical to me.  There is nothing wrong with my clothes."

Other outfits have met with disapproving attempts at censorship, including a lace t-shirt ("From this angle, I can see your bra in that shirt."  "Lolz, that is kind of the point of this shirt") and a  retro low cut cocktail dress ("It's so wide here", gesturing at the cleavage and trying to pull the sides of the neckline together).

I'm just dreading Lolz's reaction when I sport my newest acquisition, a tight dress with a lace bodice.  Yes, the dress looks vaguely like something a mid-priced hooker might wear, but I'm okay with that.  It's a truly great dress.  A person can go decades without acquiring such a fabulous dress.

I have tried to explain to Lolz that her mother has not spent so much time slaving at the gym and broken her recreational ice cream habit in order to wear caftans and burqas, but still, the remarks, the looks, and the tugging at the necklines go on.

it's just that easy

"I don't want to argue," I said.

"No, you don't have to argue," said the Sober Husband strenuously.  "You can just concede that I am right!"

areas of expertise

Over sandwiches Lola asked me thoughtfully, "What is the fourth dimension?"  After I finished chewing, I called the Sober Husband in.  He has a Ph.D. in physics, after all, and I, moronically enough, was not sure about what the fourth dimension was.  This was the right thing to do, as the Sober Husband lit up when Lola repeated her question and said, "Ah!  Now, what is a dimension?"

Later I had my moment in the sun.  "What is the Antichrist?" Iris asked her father.  He was blank, and I intervened.  "Leave this one to me,"  I said.  I didn't have a born-again Christian childhood for nothing.

annoying coworker

Lately I've been thinking that perhaps it's time for me to get a job.  However, in one of my volunteer positions, I have been working closely with someone who irritates me profoundly, and this is making me remember all of the annoying coworkers I've ever had.  I realized I had been  remembering all the paychecks and happy hours and nicest clients, not thinking about the psycho bosses, insane deadlines, and other unpleasantnesses.

Today my annoying co-volunteer was especially annoying, and I thought perhaps instead of vowing to get a job,  I should instead vow to never work in any office again.  I shared some of my thinking with the Sober Husband and Lola.

"I was romanticizing the work world.  I was just thinking, 'Oh, there's always someone to go to lunch with or out for drinks.'"

"I feel like I live in the movie 'Office Space'", the Sober Husband shared.

Little Lola, who has never actually held a job, for inscrutable reasons of her own found what I had to say hilarious.  Between guffaws, she asked, "You thought that?  Lunch?  Drinks?"  She slapped her leg in amusement.

even kittens

Even kittens can't cheer me up.

survivor's guilt and Tom Sawyer's funeral

On Sunday I had a wonderful day, a fabulous day of sneaking (pre-authorizedly, of course) away from my family for a day of fun, but I returned at night to discover, via Facebook, that someone I knew had killed himself the night before by throwing himself in front of a BART train.

After shock, my next reaction was being pissed off at the people who were piously mourning the deceased, most of whom I knew very well wouldn't have given the deceased the time of day if they'd run into him.  It seemed like they were being vultures, grabbing for attention and for emotional thrills.  But of course the suicide had worn through almost everyone's love and esteem.  He was an unmedicated sufferer of bipolar disorder, a grandiose and annoying person, and the worst part, I think, about mental illness is that it makes everyone stop loving you long before you die.

I myself had a complicated relationship with the deceased.  I got a job he wanted, back when he was stable and ambitious, and to add insult to injury, afterwards I wouldn't bring him on to work with me.  Of course I was right in that decision; back then, it wasn't common knowledge that he had bipolar disorder, but I did think he was too intense and unreliable to be a good attorney, and in retrospect, I was righter than right.  I know he held a grudge against me for years, and he was also right.  If it weren't for me, his life would have taken a different direction.  I didn't have any hard feelings against him; it wasn't personal from my point of view, but what could be more personal from his?

It wasn't until today that my feelings reared up and hit me.  I feel absolutely terrible that this man is dead, that he killed himself, that the BART operator and everyone who had to clean up after him had to deal with the horrors of it all.

On top of that, the situation makes me think of how carrion-feeding and attention-seeking most people are.  People (including me due to my writing here; believe me, there are no good feelings for me about myself in this) are mourning publicly, when we avoided the deceased in the last part of his life.  Lots of people less connected to the man are attention-seeking, name-checking the glamorous corpse.

As a lot of people know, the suicidal urge is strong with me.  And seeing someone who was my age roughly, who was in my profession, who was in my social group, who did give in to that dark urge, gives me an experience like Tom Sawyer had going to his own funeral.  And I don't like it.  It makes me think of how many of the friends who knew how rough a time I had last year in particular were more concerned about themselves than me, how they felt bad for themselves that they had a close friend who was on the edge.  The biggest example of that was someone who told me that if there was anything I needed, to please call, that it was so upsetting that I was in crisis and that if anything would help, I only had to say the word... and then when I did call and ask for a minor favor, the person said, "Sorry, that would involve moving my car, and it might take me up to forty minutes to find a parking space."   It was all I could do not to say, "You know, my funeral might have been today.  Would you have given up your parking space for THAT?"

It's a horrible, cruel, awful world we live in, a world with so little love and joy in it.  People will feel sorry for themselves and seek out all kinds of attention as the bereaved survivors if you die, but if you live, they don't want to spend forty minutes looking for a parking space.  And I'm not claiming any moral high ground here, either.  It's a bleak, bleak world.

crazy and crazy-making

I spent a rare, relaxing day with a friend today, away from the domestic madness of children, cats, parrots, and my intense husband.  "It's like a mini-vacation," I said to my friend.  When I came home, after greeting everyone, catching up on the news, and cleaning up after some tiny foster kittens, I logged on to Facebook for the first time that day... just as a lot statuses were exploding with teasers about a suicide in our social circle.  That put a close to my vacation-ish feeling.

As anyone who knows me well should realize, I have a complex relationship with suicide, and it is maddening to me when people are acting like vultures around it, acting like there's some personal tragedy unique to them when someone they wouldn't give the time of day to has passed on in this dark way.

This was not my tragedy.  I knew this man, I spent time with him, I joked with him, I flirted with him, I pissed him off thoroughly by refusing to hire him at one point (and I don't think he ever forgave me for that).  But it's not my tragedy.  It's the tragedy of my friend, who was engaged to him for a while back in the nineties.  It's the tragedy of another friend, an old drinking buddy of mine, whom he was actually staying with just before his death.  It's the tragedy of his mother, who survives him, and who he left his suicide note for.

And it's a tragedy similar to ones so many other people share.  This smart, talented and handsome man had bipolar disorder, which he did not medicate because, as his former fiancee and I discussed just a week before he died, he loved the highs of mania.  Bipolar disorder is linked to suicide; the NIH says 25-50% of people with bipolar disorder attempt suicide at least once.

What is the right way to honor the memory of someone who lost his life to bipolar disorder?  I'd like to do something nice for the BART driver who had no choice but to run my acquaintance over (that poor bastard must be having nightmares); I'd like to do something for a random suicidal person with bipolar disorder.  Donating to a foundation working on treatment for bipolar disorder is something else which seems appropriate.  But don't feel sorry for me; it wasn't my tragedy.   I'm lucky to be on the far periphery of this one, and I'm not a vulture who'll circle over the corpse, looking for pity.

I'm reminded of how not that long I nearly died myself, and how strange and alienating the reactions were to that, people making it about themselves that I had a close call with mortality.  When I go, people, for the love of all that is both holy and unholy, don't post a Facebook status namechecking me as a glamorous corpse.

your reading list

I've had some luck with my reading choices lately, books so good that reading alone makes living worthwhile.   In case any of you are bookless at the moment and needing direction, here you are!

"Joseph Anton" by Salman Rushdie:  Rushdie writes about his life after the fatwa, and as a memoir, it's deeply satisfying.  Who knew that the worst part of being in hiding wasn't the loneliness; it was the lack of solitude?  With police officers always lumbering around and frying sausages, Rushdie couldn't get any peace and quiet to write.  

Beyond an account of the thorough strangeness of being anointed Islam's top enemy, this book is a lyrical and profound examination of what it means to write, what a book is (was "The Satanic Verses" a novel or an insult? ), and the value of dissent and expression.  Bonus: lots of literary gossip!  The PEN meetings will never be the same again now the dirt is out.  

"Out of the Ordinary:  True Tales of Everyday Craziness" and "What I Do:  More Tales of Everyday Craziness" by Jon Ronson:  I've been reading Jon Ronson since before "Men Who Stare At Goats" was made into a movie.  He is amazingly witty, and he's not afraid to skewer himself (such as his piece about a new neighbor he meets, who won't ask Ronson what he does for a living, no matter what tempting little conversational morsels Ronson lays out for him).  These books are worth the price alone for the accounts of his marital spats alone, never mind the chapter on the strange cult which pressures its members into donating kidneys to strangers.  

"The Vanishers" by Heidi Julavits:  I thought Julavits' prior novel, "The Uses of Enchantment", was hugely overrated, and so I was skeptical.  But "The Vanishers" lured me in, and I will say without reservations that it is one of the best books I have ever read.  A washed up, physically ill psychic is hired to use her now pathetic powers to sense the truth about a bizarre feminist film maker.  The characters and plot are original and thought-provoking, but more than that, the prose is so luscious, so crisp.  Reading these gorgeous sentences is like receiving an almost endless series of odd little surprises.  

"The Collective" by Don Lee:  Three disaffected, unhappy Asian American college students form a lifelong friendship and devote their lives to art.  The most successful of them commits suicide, leaving his friends to try to make sense out of their lives, as well as the tragedy.  A dense and engaging novel with very real characters, whose flaws and gifts are carefully mapped out.  

"Some Kind of Fairy Tale" by Graham Joyce:  I've been hugely taken with Graham Joyce lately, and "Some Kind of Fairy Tale" was a joy.  He takes an ancient, hackneyed premise (a woman is taken away to live with the fairies and returns, thinking only a few months have passed, to discover that decades have gone by) and does something deeply moving and thought-provoking with it.  

"True Believers" by Kurt Andersen:  A law school dean decides to write a memoir about her long-covered up past as a college radical.  I love how Andersen conveys the passion of political thought and  the carelessness and purity of youth.  However, there were some bits which I found hard to swallow that broke up the mood for me (for example, his protagonist during her first year of law school has a memorable encounter with a charming third year student, President Clinton in a cute cameo, during a class they are taking together, never mind that a third year student would NOT be taking one of the basic, introductory classes everyone else takes during first year.  I cannot tell you how much this bothered me).  

Meanwhile Lola enjoyed "The One And Only Ivan" by Katherine Applegate, a lonely gorilla's account of his captivity at a peculiar shopping mall attraction, and Iris is reading "Murder On The Orient Express" by Agatha Christie.  The Sober Husband, upon my recommendation, is reading "Joseph Anton", but he's being driven crazy by wondering whether he should put it aside and read "The Satanic Verses" first.  "I feel like I'm missing so much," he frets.  

I get no buy-in

The other night I saw "7 Psychopaths" with the Sober Husband, a movie I thoroughly enjoyed, and the desert scenes left me feeling nostalgic for the days when I went camping in the desert.  (Burning Man doesn't really count as "desert camping", as it is its own peculiar thing).

Before I procreated, I used to love to go on road trips to the desert and camp far from anyone else.  My ex-husband and I developed a Thanksgiving tradition of driving down to Death Valley and exploring that wonderful, strange, huge desert.

I dragged along husband 2.0, the Sober Husband, on just one such trip, to the wilds of Utah, when we were first dating.  We'd only known each other a few months, and we drove until we found majestic places with amazing views, where we didn't see anyone else for days.  One day it snowed, and we holed up in our tent with a bottle of wine.  On other days the weather was more typical for a desert camping trip, where it's hot enough that, if one chose to do so, one could comfortably hike naked but for sensible socks and boots, but at night, you want to huddle around a fire and snuggle up to a companion.

Coincidentally the children in Lola's class are studying California's ecosystems, and Lola has been assigned to study and report upon California's deserts, much to her dismay.  She had wanted either the coast or the mountains, and she was disgusted to get stuck with the desert.  Lola, an urban child, doesn't even like to look at pictures of deserts.  "I like cityscapes," she says firmly.

As we walked out of "7 Psychopaths",  filled with love and longing for the desert I proposed to the Sober Husband that we take the children camping in the desert for spring break.  He gave me a look.  "That sounds like a great idea, forcing something on them that you love and you know they are going to hate.  That's going to lead to some therapy."

"Hey!  I just went to Disneyland for them, and I didn't want to do that!"

He had to note that I had a point.  It is payback time.

Today I raised the idea to the children, who were aghast.  Lola pointed out that she barely escaped Hollywood with her life, as it was far too hot and the tap water was undrinkable, and cannot be expected to survive a night in a desert.

"And would you expect us to camp?" Iris said with disgust.

"Why can't you have open minds and a sense of adventure?"

Lola buried her head in her hands.  "I expect to be unhappy."

no exit strategy

Like an army that has invaded Afghanistan, I find myself in a difficult situation with no good exit strategy.

Several months ago I returned my foster cats, ready to go up for adoption, and the head of my rescue asked me, as a favor, to take a cat home for a weekend.  "He just needs a little work."  The cat in question was gorgeous, a large kitten, but not friendly.  It was very difficult to get him into a carrier, but since he'd already been in foster care and had been returned as being deemed ready for adoption, I assumed he just needed a few days.

The days, weeks, and months have gone on, and the cat still isn't ready to go up for adoption.  When he arrived, he was never seen by anyone, spending all his energy on avoiding any encounters with people.  But "Coconut", as the children re-named him (he was previously referred to as "Bandit"), has slowly adapted to life in our house and has become very happy.  He loves our other kitten, Zorro, and he enjoys watching the parrots.  He even loves our company, following us from room to room.  He'll sleep at the foot of our bed or with Lola; he'll follow me into the bathroom and watch me put on my make-up.  He has absolutely no interest in going outdoors and is a happy, playful indoor cat.

So what's the problem?  You can't handle him.  He'll happily sit or lie near you, but if you reach out and touch him, no matter how stealthily or gently you do, he'll tear off.  Recently, after he asked me for food, seeking me out, making eye contact with me, meowing, and leading me to the dish,  I looked down at him as he trustingly ate from a freshly-opened can.  "Our relationship has come so far," I thought to myself.  "It's time to pick him up."   I bent down and grabbed him.  Coconut struggled.  I held on.  He whipped his head around and sank his fangs deep into my right hand.  I let go.  Coconut was not seen for most of the rest of the day, and my hand hurt like hell.

After that, I gave in and confessed to the rescue that I have failed with this cat.

The head of the cat rescue found a solution of sorts:  the woman who owns the yard in which Coconut was trapped is willing to have Coconut put back in her yard.  He'd be fed then and expected to become a feral cat again.

I can't bear to do that.  Coconut has no interest in going back outdoors.  He is truly happy and healthy as a pet, so long as no one touches him.  And he is a very attractive, decorative cat.

The Sober Husband is bitterly opposed to Coconut remaining on the premises.  "That would make two cats adopted this year.  If you kept rescuing cats for ten years, then we'd have twenty cats!"

I easily countered that argument.  "I HAVE been doing this for ten years, and we don't have twenty cats!  We just have three, and one visiting cat."

"Visiting cat with no plans to leave!"  The Sober Husband returned to his prior point, even after I'd debunked it.  "Imagine a house with ten cats in it," he said sarcastically.

"It would be like heaven," I said sincerely.  "Cats everywhere!  All the cats you'd want."

wastewater.... and a treatment plant!!! (Guest post by Lola)

These are Lola's complaints about the wastewater treatment plant she visited. It sucked.

Hi narrator dude.

The script, Lola...

Oh. Today, my class went on a field trip to the nearest wastewater treatment plant. You had to cover your wrists, so I had to wear my jacket the whole time. I got very hot. When we got there, we went to this room and sat down. They ranted and showed us a video, none of which stood out except for a small rant about how quote and quote "Flushable" wipes were often flushed down the toilet while, when you can physically flush it, it does not break up and cause a problem at the wastewater treatment plant. We were told to put on a hard hat liner and a hard hat (blah blah blah Federal law) and these gloves, so we wouldn't get as many germs. Oh, those gloves sucked. They were the plastic-ey latex kind, and in the beginning they were uncomfortable and through the tour it started to get sweaty, crumpled, and yeah. We were not allowed to take it off until we finished the tour. I will always remember the purple of those gloves.

We then we walked to the place where they drag a metal.... thingy through the water to get the big things out. It smelled absolutely horrible, and one girl got nauseous. After that was dealt with, we went into the next part, where they...... do something. All I remember is complaining to my friend about the gloves and smell. Then they have this whole mess of tubes called the tube gallery, and then....... well, at some point they let the water sit there for a few hours so the organisms eat up the leftover solids, and also at some point it gets so smelly they have to clean the air to breathe. They have a few tubes labeled"CONTAMINATED AIR". After that, the water is clean and it goes 4,000 feet (1,219.2 meters, and I also found 2.54 centimeters makes exactly one inch) into the bay. Also by then, my gloves were sweaty and wrinkled, and my hard hat was falling off (not really, they have a nifty thing on the hard helmets to make it the right size). When I finally took my gloves off, the inside of it was literally covered with a thin layer of sweat, and my hair was tangled from the hard hat.

So yes, it sucked. Bye. May kittens make you happy.

the cursed pencil

Little Lola loves pencils.  Once she cried for ages after one of the parrots chewed up a pencil... which Lola herself had given the parrot.  "Lola," I said exasperatedly, "why did you give the pencil to the bird if you didn't want the bird to chew it up?"

Sobbing, she said, "I didn't realize how much I would love him."  The pencil was mourned for days.

Each pencil lost at school is like a little death.  Days when no pencils are lost, we celebrate.

So naturally when I noticed a pencil rolling around in the driver's footwell of the Prius, I offered it to Lola.  It seemed a handsome pencil, with hearts on it.

"Lola, would you like this pencil?" I asked, extending it.

Lola drew herself back.  "Why, NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!"

"What? Is it a cursed pencil?  Is it the pencil of the devil?"

Lola recoiled.

"Does it have bad mojo?  I thought you loved pencils!"

Lola shuddered.  "Not THAT pencil."

am I proposing a dinner date or the Bataan death march?

A male friend of mind suggested that he and his wife have dinner with the Sober Husband and me.  I've met his wife, but the Sober Husband remains a figure of mystery and legend to them.  It sounded fine to me, but the Sober Husband is warier than I am.  He took a jaundiced view when I raised the subject.

"Sure, you love him, he loves you..."

I cut him off.  "I don't 'love' him!"

"Just because you guys 'love' each other doesn't mean I have to like him and his wife."  He sighed.  According to the Sober Husband, going out to dinner with my friend and his wife was one of the most daunting yet boring prospects imaginable.

"Maybe we could go to the theatre instead and get a drink afterwards," I said.  "Then we wouldn't have to talk so much, and we could talk about the play."

The S.H.'s response was visceral.  "No no no, that would ruin the performance!"  Evidently the dread of having to later discuss a show with these friends of mine would completely suck any pleasure from it.

"I could invite them over for dinner," I said.

That prospect was also horrifying.  "Please, for the love of God, make it short.  Make it in a public place, so we can leave if we need to."

I'm used to getting this reaction from the children when I'm scheduling them to have their teeth cleaned or to get shots, but from my husband over dining out with other middle-aged people?  It's no wonder my social life is often conducted in a different zipcode from him.

conversations with children

"I know what I'm going to do when I grow up.  I'm going to be like Mitt Romney!  I'm going to make a lot of money, and then go into politics," one of my children said to me.

"Don't talk like that," I said.

"Yes!  I'm going to be just like Mitt Romney," the child continued.

Covering my ears with my hands, I said, "LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR YOU."

The child went on, ignoring me, sensibly enough.  "Once I have a lot of money, I'll run for senator.  Or governor."

"That didn't work out so well for Meg Whitman," I said.

"I'll be a better politician than that."

Talking to the other child is a bit cheerier, but also can be draining.  This second child ran up the stairs and burst into the room. "I just realized what I just said, and it was weird," the child marveled, a propos of nothing.

out and about with the better half, Gangnam style

For a longish time the Sober Husband and I didn't have a date night, as I enrolled Lola in a writing class which met on the night our babysitter had given us (technically we shouldn't be needing babysitting now that Iris is thirteen, and our lives should be one big date night,  but we have made a parenting decision not to leave Lolz under her big sister's supervision for extended periods of time.  The babysitter is in charge of Lola only, and Iris is free to do as she wishes without real supervision).    

Last night we went out together for the first time in recent memory.  We were a little rusty at it.  The Sober Husband wanted us to walk to the restaurant; I wanted to wear my new Fluevog high heels, which are not meant for walking down steep hills.  Our conversation faltered.  We seemed rife with misinterpretations and misunderstandings.  Over at Bar Agricole we failed to get cocktails at the bar from the slow moving bartenders while we waited for our reserved table, and when the table was produced, it was a wretched little table inside.  I wanted to sit outside in the herb garden; it was one of the few warm evenings of the year in San Francisco, and this table was truly depressing, hot, stuffy.

I was disappointed, but given how long it had taken for us to get a table (despite having a reservation) and our failure at getting a drink, I didn't want to wait for an outside table.  The Sober Husband, though, took command, whizzing off and imperiously directing that we be reseated outside.   Once ensconced in my outdoors table, so airy and with a view of the herb garden, I was happy.

"Now we'll be eating in style," said the S.H. admiring our new, superior table.

"Gangnam style!"  I agreed.

He furrowed his brow.  "What is 'Gangnam style?'"

I was appalled.  We really hadn't been spending much time together.  How could he have missed my fascination for the K-pop sensation, not to mention Iris über Alles's much-vaunted superiority?Having been a fan of Korean pop music for over a year before PSY had a break-out hit with "Gangnam Style", Iris can be quite vocal and quite condescending on the topic.  The K-pop scene is an oddly ubiquitous subject in our home, but evidently only when the Sober Husband is at work.

Could these misfits get along?  By the time we'd shared a bowl of white onion soup with barhi dates,  shallots, chives, and vadouvan oil, as well as a glass of vinho verde, the conversation began to flow.  By the end of our roasted jimmy nardello peppers with corno di toro, nepitella, and tonnato sauce, we were cozying up to one another.  We shared a Eureka lemon and ricotta tart with a lavender meringue, and we got a delightful Armagnac cocktail made with absinthe and hibiscus bitters as a gesture from the management to make up for the delays in getting our table and our drinks.  Far from my prior feeling, while we were waiting for a table and giving up on getting a cocktail, that I was over Bar Agricole, the magnificence of the soup and the Armagnac cocktail left me wanting to eat there every day of my life.  The Sober Husband was admiring the results of my fitness regime; my new Fluevogs were delighting me.  We were on to the Cat Club, where we danced and drank far later than we normally ever stay out on a weeknight.  It was an epic date night, positively Gangnam style.

space exploration news

Teenaged Iris über Alles has an eccentric teacher.  Today's update:  "He doesn't believe in the moon landing!"

"Well, you must have so much in common, then."  I remembered all the debates we'd had in this home and on this blog over whether the moon landing was a hoax.

Iris was dismissive.  "Oh, I believe in the moon landing now.  I've believed in it for years."

This was news to me.

She went on.  "He believes in the Mars landing, he thinks the robots went to Mars, but he thinks the moon landing was a fake."  She shook her head in disbelief over this obstinacy, this tinfoil hat thinking.

the legend was unveiled

This blog has made me some enemies, but it's made me some great friends as well.  I tend to value the friends more highly, because they really understand me, and also it's likely that the people who learned to hate me through this blog would have gotten around to hating me eventually.  The blog just speeded things up.

Whenever I've had the chance to meet a commenter, someone who has commented here more than a few times but instead has commented enough to let their personality shine, it's always been a rollicking good time.  Today I finally got to meet the esteemed Hughman, who has always been the alpha commenter here, and my fellow judge in the photo contest (which we should do again one of these days; your DH is lazy and disorganized as ever).   Hugh has always been a large figure here; one of my real life friends once asked me, "Who is this Hugh?"

Our planned meeting was a bit in jeopardy when I found myself derailed by an AIDS march.  In San Francisco, whenever anyone marches anywhere for any reason, the police allow cross traffic to go through from time to time.  West Hollywood, though, is a different story, and I had committed the fatal tourist error of not allocating enough driving time.  (This reminded me of how often I've scoffed at people visiting me who make the classic San Francisco tourist error of underdressing for the weather.  Poor commenter 2AMsomewhere showed up in a Hawaiian shirt and shorts on a summer evening when it was only about 45 degrees outside, and he was a good sport about both the cold and the ridicule).  I bailed out of the rental car and called Hugh as I clipped along.  Of course I was dressed like a prostitute from the fifties, complete with retro-looking high heels, and I cursed my decision to wear cute shoes, opposed to the Tevas I'd sported at Disneyland.  "You're a long way away," said Hugh sadly after I was finally able to accurately describe my location.   But I hung up, hung on, and power-walked a mile up La Cienaga in my shaky heels, with only a little abrasion from an ankle strap to show for this silliness.  Someone asked me directions as I raced up the street, and I looked at her as though she were crazy.  Wasn't it obvious that I was a moronic tourist?

Finally I got there, and we had a delightful time.  At the end, Hugh also got to meet the Sober Husband, Iris über Alles, and an uncharacteristically subdued Lola, who was greatly affected by the SoCal heat.  (Earlier Lola had confided in me, "I liked L.A. until I drank the tapwater."  She shuddered dramatically).   After all these years of reading about them, suddenly they had come to life and were walking about, talking, complaining of the heat, and petting Polly.  And for me, I got to see Polly disregarding her owner to scrounge about outside a dumpster (Polly's attitude was clear: if only her owner were to become enlightened, he'd understand how important and enjoyable a bit of dumpster diving can be) and to enjoy sitting outside at Hugh's favorite restaurant, where the handsome waiter treated me like royalty after learning I was Hugh's friend.  The internet comes alive at times, and it's delightful.

automotive hell

A couple of months ago I was driving my Volvo merrily down O'Shaughnessy, just about to turn onto the freeway, when suddenly the car lost power, including its power steering.  I maneuvered it across a lane of heavy traffic, wrestling with the wheel, and let it drift to a halt.  After a short moment of contemplation, I cancelled the appointment I was headed to down the peninsula, as my car did not feel highway-ready.  I gingerly turned the car back on.  Surprisingly, it drove me back home without doing anything else amiss, and there were no error codes.

We took the car to the Sober Husband's chosen mechanic, who did a variety of things, charging a variety of amounts, and who ominously told us to replace the transmission.  "They tell you," he intoned, "that transmissions last a long time, but that's not for San Francisco. That's for ideal driving conditions, you know, freeways."  He positively spat with contempt for the lazy driving ways of the non-San Franciscan.  "Here in San Francisco, you're driving up hills.  You're in traffic.  You're stopping and going.  You can't have a transmission last like that."

The Sober Husband and I paid him a large amount of money but weren't ready to fund a new transmission.  "I'd rather get a new car," I said bitterly.  I kept driving the Volvo.  

On one day I had some time to spare, while I waited for Iris über Alles and some privileged friends of hers to take a sewing class in scenic Hillsborough, and I found a pleasant garage in Burlingame where I had my oil changed.  I asked the mechanic to change the air filter as well, but he refused.  "This one's still good!" he said.  I found this refreshing, as at my last oil change, a less honest mechanic had tried to bully me into getting a new air filter, and this one was that same, unchanged one.  "You could make a passenger sick with this filter," lectured the sleazy mechanic at me, but this good one held it up and said, "I'm putting it back in."  

This pleasant fellow replaced my serpentine belt for me and changed out my transmission fluid, after I saw for myself how murky it was.  He shook his head when I told him that the car had just been at another mechanic's a week or two before, who hadn't noticed that the serpentine belt was about to break (I verified this with my own eyes) or changed the transmission fluid.  

The Volvo drove me to Burning Man and drove my friend N. back (I felt like a heel giving it to her, but she had to leave early for reasons of child custody, and I wasn't going to be able to cram all of our camp into the Volvo, so she left me her spacious minivan).  But then I was rushing down O'Shaughnessy yet again, with the intentions of speeding merrily all the way to Iris's school for an important meeting, and the car died yet again.  Once again I managed to get across a couple of lanes of busy traffic, and I was shaken.  If that had happened just a few minutes later, I would have been driving 70 or 75 miles per hour in heavy traffic on 280, and it could have caused a horrific accident.  

I had the car towed to my favorite mechanic, the mechanic of my heart, who spent some serious time with it.  "My advice to you," he said, looking me in the eye more seriously than anyone has who wasn't proposing marriage, "is to sell this car immediately.  And I'm not charging you for today."  According to this mechanic, the car hadn't thrown an error code in months, and he could not find anything to cause this intermittent failure.  I got him to tell the Sober Husband all this on the phone.

Gingerly I drove home.  The Sober Husband and I began a debate which has raged on through today, the debate about whether I should get a replacement car and if so, what the hell should it be.  I refuse to drive the Volvo, no matter what pressure I may get from the S.H., who complains that "I spend ten more dollars a day on gas now that you're driving my Prius."  "Well then," I retort, "get me that Mini Cooper I want."  

"Why don't you drive the Volvo?"

"That car is dead to me."  

"Lots of people drive unreliable cars.  Poor people do every day.  I did when I had the Monte Carlo."

It took me a while to develop a proper retort for that argument, but my psychiatrist handed it to me on a plate.  Now I can hiss superiorly, "My psychiatrist thinks you do not value my life highly enough!"  This tends to lead to a silence, a satisfying one on my end.

While all this has been raging on, I've been driving the Prius.  Today the Prius failed as I was attempting to drive to the gym from Lola's school.  It turns out that the dealership had found a problem with the accessory battery, and the skeptical Sober Husband, thinking he was being ripped off, felt that he would prefer to wait until it actually failed before replacing it.  

"I hate this car now, too," I said.  The poor Sober Husband was apologetic over the phone.  "You can take a cab to a dealership and buy a new car," he cajoled me, but I wasn't falling for that.  "I'm not buying any car unless you're right there to agree it's acceptable," I said.  After all, our marriage, unlike the typical one, is largely based upon an unending competition for the moral upper hand.  The failure to replace the accessory battery had put me in a powerful position, and I was not about to throw that advantage away.  But these cars, yes.  I am prepared to throw them away.

fears

A troubled Lola: "I saw something about 'meningitis epidemic' on the TV screen at the gas station, and I asked Iris, 'What is meningitis?' And she said, 'It's a deadly disease that runs in the family that you're most likely going to get in this epidemic.'" 

Me: "DO NOT ASK IRIS QUESTIONS EVER AGAIN."