Mmm, Mmm, Gross!

Two days ago I wrote a quicky about my mom’s visit. And I left out a few things because I had to race off to pick up Otto at school or wash my face or cry into a pillow sham. And, sometimes, I’d rather just post a short piece and feel like I have actually done something with my day and my life, instead of wallowing in a bathtub of self-loathing and rubber duckies. So, besides my mother reengineering my street urchin look during her stay, I wanted to mention all the other little things that she did for us that we greatly appreciated.

She spoiled David for his birthday by getting him an amazing North Face jacket to keep warm and organized when he shoots his movie. This nylon English muffin has more holes and pockets than the pool table from “The Accused.” By the way, a huge shout out to Georgia, for that brilliant, inspired and super cool idea of buying him a parka that holds everything from a monkey helper to a small chain saw, in case the natives get restless or an ingénue offers Dave a hand job for a few more lines of dialogue. That’s when the monkey will demonstrate all the tricks I have taught him and the ingénue will rip up her PETA membership card with her perfectly manicured hands and move back to Mississippi.

Mom also knit Dave a black wool beanie, which she furiously worked on at every spare moment. Every time my mother picked up her knitting needles, which occurred as often as she took in a breath, Dave said that he felt like the cell phone is the new knitting. Would that be implying that those 18^th century trolls with their stinky petticoats and petrified wooden teeth, who knitted instead of freezing their fingers off without central heat or Hammacher Schlemmer battery powered hand warmers, were just as rude as the current crop of cell phone sluts? I dare say, “Nay!” And little did Mister Buzz Kill know that my mother’s hands were furiously looping together a hat for him to wear in the jungles of Georgia while his naked and desperate actors run for their lives from a serial killer with a great work ethic and mommy issues.

After calling Dave out by simply handing him his fabulous, finished birthday cap, she continued her parade of selflessness. She outfitted Otto in terrific new dinosaur and football pajamas and read him stories and babysat him while we had a romantic dinner out and car sex and took me to Ikea. Just kidding… I took her to Ikea. She cheerfully slept on the Aerobed without complaints and bought us lunches and dinners and trinkets and treats. It was a life saving visit from a woman who holds me together with every potholder she sews and every cross-stitch she stitches.

My one and only complaint, one that I feel is truly warranted, is the following. This woman, the lady who birthed me without complaints or restraints, brought a tea with her that smelled as close to human decay as a mortician’s garbage disposal. Sealed in one of her many Ziploc Baggies she carries with her, were half a dozen mysterious teas bags I had never heard of. She boiled the water, put the bag in one of my teacups and then poured, creating a steam that stunk of an open sewage system last enjoyed in fourteenth century Prussia.

The first time she steeped her tea bag of torture I immediately went to the trashcan, assuming David had left bloody meat wrappers in the trash overnight. He tends to do this after making his famous murderer’s meatballs and being a hypoglycemic carnivore, I am wary to complain. But the smell was so abhorrent that I was fully prepared to not only blame him for the smell but to tell him how I felt with operatic hand gestures and ear shattering high notes. I stuck my face in the can, smelling nothing besides an old banana and some dryer lint, a combination popular at indoor playgrounds and convalescent homes. The stench continued to grow stronger by the second and as I turned around to make sure Otto hadn’t shit in the middle of the kitchen, I spotted my mother cradling a cup in her hand. I walked over, took a big whiff and felt as if an Olympic shot putter had just pelted me in the face with a low-grade, manure-filled sweat sock.

I gagged backward and asked what the hell kind of witches brew she was drinking. With the confidence of a varsity cheerleader and the linguistic acumen of Kofi Annan, she said, “Lapsang Souchong.” What the hoo dong? I didn’t ask her for the name of the child laborer who fired my Ikea pasta bowls. And I certainly was not interested in the potent venereal disease found on the remote island of Nusa Lembongan, off the Bali coast. I simply wanted the stink to go bye-bye.

After a week of inhaling her Smog-In-A-Cup, I dropped her at the airport and blubbered like a bottle-fed infant in a breastfeeding circle. I drove home, sad that she was leaving but happy to not be walking in an apartment as fragrant and welcoming as a Port-A-Potty. A few days later, while writing about her visit, I realized I wanted to jot down the name of the tea in case I needed to fumigate for roaches or disguise my Meth-Lab fumes from the neighbors. I emailed her a short note asking for, “the name of your stinky tea.” In true librarian form, she immediately replied with the following email.

 

You want the name of the stinky tea so you can make fun of me?  Lapsang Souchong.

 

From Wikipedia:

 

Flavour

A black tea, lapsang souchong has a rich colour. Lapsang souchong's flavour is strong and smoky, similar to the smell of a campfire or of Latakia pipe tobacco. The flavour of the pine smoke is meant to complement the natural taste of the black tea, but should not overwhelm it. Tea merchants marketing to westerners note that this variety of tea generally produces a strong reaction - with most online reviews extremely positive or strongly negative. Tea connoisseurs often note that Formosan lapsang souchong typically has a stronger flavour and aroma, the most extreme being tarry souchong (smoked, as the name implies, over burning pine tar).

 

Culinary use

Lapsang souchong imparts a smoky flavour to oven roasted ribs even when the oven is kept at a temperature low enough to achieve a tender roast. Because of this quality, Chinese chefs smoke a variety of foodstuffs over smoldering black tea.

 

I rest my case.

 

 

A Visitor From Another Planet

My mother arrived from the east coast last week, bringing with her sharp knitting needles and a colossal agenda. I am eternally grateful that her agenda included notations like, “Buy my daughter new clothes to replace the ones that have breast milk stains on the front and years of residual anger ground into the cuff. ” And, “Make her relax and stop speaking to the sofa in that tone of voice!”

She dragged me shopping and made me buy things that were less homeless trendy and more showered chic. Not only did she single-handedly mold me into a girl that would not be kicked off public transportation, she bought me the most important fashion accessory for the hot, Los Angeles climate, new Ugg boots! These fuzzy, dead animal carcasses really are the cave girls’ answer to the pump. She purchased them for no other reason than to replace my old, ratty Uggs with holes in the soles and olive oil stains on the toes. One look at these expired ponies and my mother punched me toward Nordstrom’s and insisted that these be my early birthday gift. I am a Sagittarius. Early, indeed!

I now have a beautiful pair of black Uggs with silver buckles and a sole as thick as a Michelin All-Radial. And, I can say without hesitation that I no longer look like Britney Spears running through a mud puddle with a Starbucks in one paw and a pair of hair trimmers in the other. I look like a mom who wants comfort but still holds onto her youth through a furry suede boot filled with longing, denial and a murdered squirrel's winter coat.

 

To Do Today

In lieu of a post today I will be doing the following: Over baking cookies, eating a nitrate free hot dog too quickly, vacuuming up dog hair and old Cheerio dust, showering with cheap soap, shaving unwanted body hair, debating on whether or not to wash my over processed mop top, looking in the mirror and wondering if I really look like David Lee Roth after a bender, driving to Burbank airport to pick up my BFF Liza, picking Otto up at school and crossing my fingers he napped and didn’t steal toys from the other kids, bringing them both back to my apartment and apologizing for “the mess”, catching up with her while trying to put Otto down for a much needed rest, reapplying lip gloss to hide the bags under my eyes, driving with Liza to Santa Monica to attend a bobble party she is throwing, chatting with a bunch of women in cleaner, more expensive clothes, cleaning up after the uterus fest, dishing out inane Hollywood gossip I read on line, driving home late, listening to Led Zeppelin I, washing my face with anything I can find, falling into my Ikea sprinkled bed, chatting with Dave about every detail of Otto’s bath and bedtime ritual, asking what his poop looked like, putting my earplugs in so I do not hear the cacophony of car alarms, homeless tranny arguments and trucks in reverse dancing on my corner, sleeping like Larry King on air and dreaming of making it to the middle.

Happy Birthday, David

My better half, other side and split screen turns forty-one today. He does not look a day over 34 and lives in a perpetual state of collegiate bliss as he skips down memory lane in the same Levi’s and black t-shirt day everyday. I have been on his ride for nineteen years now and of those nineteen, the birthdays that I recall with the most fondness are as follows. Dave’s surprise 40^th celebration was perfection sprinkled with an electric guitar group gift and a 24-hour babysitter. His 26^th year brew ha-ha consisted of the consumption of a case of cheap beer in Hawaii with a movie crew while I stayed home with two feral cats and a bad haircut. We spent his 30^th birthday bash in New York City drinking stiff cocktails with our farthest and dearest and watching the Yankees win game three of the World Series against a team I cannot recall in a bar that slips my mind. 2004 saw his 36^th and an acoustic Gibson just like the one Jimmy Page played in Song Remains The Same.

 

The 29^th time someone sang him Happy Birthday, he sang karaoke for a crowd of hipster Koreans with hot tempers and sub-par musical training. After knocking back ten shots of the devil juice, Dave proceeded to be forcibly removed from the premises by two ill humored men who looked like under paid extras from M*A*S*H*. In the cool night of a Los Angeles October I drove home to the sounds of my lovely husband ralphing out the front passenger window of a brand New Mercedes while the new owner, Dave’s B.F.F. screamed between torrents of half digested Kim Chee he could not keep down his throat.

 

The rest of his birthdays melt into one another with a cast of characters changing here and there, with the exception of the solid Gold dancer he calls his brother. Emile, of puking Mercedes fame, has been his best friend since Dave was twelve. This is a guy who claims the title of Godfather to our Otto and keeper of all things sacred and embarrassing. He has been there for every birthday since Dave first saw his secret stash of pubes creeping up through his OP corduroy shorts. And, God willing will be there to hand Dave a set of motorized dentures and a Titanium walker with built-in toilet bowl when the time comes. No birthday is complete without him. He is our third leg.

 

But tonight, as my wonderful mother baby-sits the gremlin, Dave and I will spend a quiet, romantic dinner out, just the two of us, as requested by the birthday boy himself. Will this go on the favorite birthday list? After watching Otto squeal with delight as Dave opened a box filled with everything a first time director could need to shoot his first movie I would say yes. The only thing missing is Emile and maybe, just maybe he will pop out of a cake before the night is through. 

Driving In The Slow Lane

The past two and half years of motherhood have been hard, like boot camp without boots or driving a Porsche without hands. It could also be viewed as a close second to climbing Everest in high heels with only one Pashmina and generic bottled water. You can do it, but depending on the tools and the temperament you possess, it could very well be, one huge, shit sandwich, a collection of days that look and smell like the bargain bin at St. Vincent DePaul’s annual sidewalk sale.

 

Do not misunderstand me. There have been wondrous moments of joy I never knew I could experience. Otto’s first night sleeping more than three hours comes to mind. As does the day he gave my knockers the Heisman and weaned himself after taking half my nipple with him in his newly cut teeth. When he uttered his first word, “Duck” at nine months and decided to wait another year until saying anything again. That was hilarious and fun, especially when our douche doctor insinuated that his lack of verbal skills could be something terrible, without even examining him or remembering his name. O-T-T-O, a palindrome you idiot! Same forwards as backwards, dick stick! Not hard.

 

But these sparkling gems were always sandwiched between two stale pieces of sprouted wheat bread, the kind that have the texture and taste of a discarded, recyclable shoebox. I always thought it was sleep deprivation, lack of short-term memory and overall frumpiness that caused this time to be so trying for me. But after a long, holiday weekend, peppered with a mild anxiety attack, a lethal margarita and a perfect score in Olympic vomiting, I realized what the problem was.

 

I have spent Otto’s entire life sweating the small stuff, the tiniest of troubles that have spun me into a sailor’s knot of psychosis. Does he like me? Do I like him? Did he just shit? Did his hand touch his shit? Did his hand touch the floor or did the floor molest his hand? What’s that fart noise? Oh shit, was that a shit or a shart? Shit, was that me? Am I incontinent? What if he shits on my new Target t-shirt or sharts on the ugly green/brown sofa we bought at Crate and Barrel in a fit of panic, stupidity and mediocrity? Can shit kill? Is there a three-second rule with shit? What’s that in his mouth? Shit, that’s his tongue! What if he chokes on his tongue or his gums or his thumbs? What if he chokes on a Cheerio? What if a Cheerio lodges in throat and causes him to sound like Mike Tyson for the remainder of his life? What if Mike Tyson is his real father and I have no recollection of that fateful encounter with that face tattoo at the Burger King on West Adams and Pico? What’s that noise? Is that someone at the door? What if Otto wakes up? Who’s breathing so loud? What if I murder the neighbor for breathing? Will I be charged with manslaughter or be found innocent due to the psycho mother insanity clause? Will the prison guards make me wake up in the middle of the night to feed Otto? Wait, will he even be in prison with me or will he be at school lying to the kids that his mommy is in heaven, not in the Big House? If so, will I quickly acclimate to prison life and get that much needed vacation, reading long passages of the New Testament while being forcible broom raped by a women whose first name is Doug?

 

And that’s just before leaving the house. When I felt brave and bold, I would step outside with Otto and hear neighbors whisper,  “Look, there’s that noise Nazi, Dotty and cute, little Otto and… four mismatched tote bags of used, macho baby clothes, seven toy cars, four trains, a case of bottled water, a satchel of snacks worthy of the Costco cereal aisle and enough diaper cream to cover every asshole from here to Missoula. And that outfit! Oh right. I forgot. She played Junior Varsity softball in 1985 and hates primping.

 

For two and half years I have fought an enemy I thought I recognized. I always seemed to think it was Otto’s crap-filled pants or his nap schedule or his feeding time or his play dating. If I left the house with dishes in the sink, I was a failure, laundry in the hamper, a loser and no hand sanitizer, an abomination of a mother. I complained I had no help while those who did have it, complained to me. I craved a dramatic, CNN.com, murder-suicide, killing the complainers and then shooting myself with the same loaded rifle. I wanted what I did not have and wanted no part of what they did have. I ran from one appointment to another, a crazy ball of tension, worried that the world of feigned importance I had so carefully created would implode into a pile of soggy, soiled diaper wipes if I were five minutes off schedule.

 

The enemy, it turns out, was simply time. Time I spent running and racing and seething instead of stopping and sitting and breathing. I want to not worry about being late while I walk slowly down the street and watch Otto dig his little mitts into a pile of worm-infested dirt and not hose him down like a Selma, Alabama fire marshal. I want to sit in my awesome, old apartment, the one so many people told me that I could not possibly have a child in, and read a sticky, yogurt-covered book to Otto while a car alarm farts a song that I do not hear. I want to remember how wonderful it was when Otto took his first steps, smashed his first Agassi forehand into my forehead, told his first knock-knock joke and first cooked pancakes with his ever-present, Wonderdad. I want the memories to be invigorating, not exhausting. I want to remember the laughing, not the crying. I want less anger and more patience. I want less judgment and more juvenile behavior. I want to put my left foot in and put my left foot out and put my left foot in and shake it all about. And do the Hokey Pokey and turn myself around. Isn’t that what it’s all about?

 

 

Someone's Got A Case Of The Angries

Today’s squawking comes from a special place, a place called my apartment, a place where I live and work and write and bake and clean and sleep and spend almost all of my waking hours. I suppose I have plenty of other places I could go but I hate shopping, dislike lunching and abhor the indoor gym culture of sweaty stationary bike seats and crinkled dudes in Spandex flexing their power pubes. I want to be here. I like being here. There are a few places I go, but all in all, I want to be home. Home is where the heart is. Home is where the refrigerator is always filled with amazing food I do not cook. Home is where I have two toilets to choose from and really great toilet paper, like wiping with a marshmallow. Home is where there is always laundry to do and I LOVE doing laundry. Seriously love it. It is a weakness I have much like dark chocolate before noon and seeing how long I can go without getting a pedicure or a haircut.

 

It is clear that I not only enjoy being home but that I am home a lot. Shut in may be too harsh a term but I stick close to my epicenter and that is the way I like it. So, I really do not like it when something or someone disturbs the homestead, the workplace, the napping station, the place where the magic happens, the spot in which I rest my eyes and where Otto enjoys Curious George on a loop.

 

The Peeping Tom was an unpleasant problem for a while. Finding a pile of cigarette butts next to the cat door did not elicit warm and fuzzy feelings in my happy go lucky cabbage patch, especially when it was not my cat door. Knowing that he was pleasuring himself while staring at some hottie neighbor watching Dancing With The Stars, instead of me, reading The New Yorker in my Old Navy pajamas only made me hate myself more and Tom Bergeron less. But after being chased down by a few of the manly men around here, namely my better half, he has moved on to greener pastures, four blocks east and three blocks north, where his victims own, instead of rent and wonder why they paid 1.7 million dollars for a three bedroom, two bath with dated appliances and a bald, paunchy dude ogling their wives through the guest bathroom window.

 

No, the new vaginal wart on our neighborhood is a scrawny, straw-haired, crabutante with a face like a thrice-sucked lemon drop and barely enough brainpower to fuel an incomplete sentence. This diminutive dildo, fecal stained Lanvin legging cannot seem to get out of bed long enough to turn her car alarm off. She must find it far too difficult to locate her car keys deep down inside her lavender Birken bag, a salacious sack overcrowded with expired prescription pill bottles and unpaid parking tickets. I mean, carrying around a $12,000, leather Easter egg is exhausting, especially when it attracts young children and feral bunny rabbits, sweet and innocent creatures that want nothing more than the kind of unconditional love she clearly did not receive growing up.

 

No, your trendy, overpriced SUV alarm farts all week long as you lie on your Porthault bed linens and pontificate on which pair of Elizabeth and James flats you plan on wearing to your 3 p.m. breakfast of champions. Do your bored, nosey, older than the sun, make-up shunning neighbor, a favor. Drive your belching, black behemoth over to Beverly Hills Range Rover and tell them that your car has too many empty opinions and no audience. Then ask them what a lease would be on a 2010 Silver model with grey interior and burp me an answer.

Old Is The New Young

I am driving home yesterday with Otto chirping in the backseat about his paint splattered day and snot covered snacks. While trying to hit the preset buttons on the radio I hit the scan button instead. Yes, I listen to the radio, that old timey thingy with knobs and buttons that plays random music, randomly. I do not have an iPod in my car. I still have a CD player. But, even that feels too staged and calculated for my taste. When I drive I want a feeling of shock and awe, much like the troops in a firefight or an old person crossing the street against the light. The rush from an unexpected song is like my first hit off of a Grafix bong or when my virgin lips touched the open Jack Daniels bottle behind the gymnasium before the first 8^th grade dance. There is nothing wrong with the element of surprise. Just ask a type A rapist or a stripper who does birthday parties and bar mitzvahs.

Back to the point. So, I hit a button that I think will give me classic rock, the only station left in the greater Los Angeles area that doesn’t sound like a Mariachi band mowing my lawn with a dying Chupacabra. I am a Led Zeppelin purist, AC/DC hose bag and avid Scorpions slut. I make no apologies. I just make love.

Again, back to the point. When I hit the scan button the local oldies station comes on accidentally with an over zealous D.J. yelping about how he is going to take me back to the good old days, one orthopedic step at a time. Just as I reach for the scan button to shut this set of dentures up, I hear Borderline by Madonna. What the fuck? This is not an oldie; you wrinkled old sack of 45’s. How can anyone in his Alzheimer riddled mind consider a number one hit from 1983 an oldie? I clutch my youthful heart. I swab my wrinkle free forehead head and I turn to Otto and tell him that yes, I did indeed lip sync this song on stage during the senior class talent show while lifting up my shirt and thrusting around like a trollop.

I may be f-f-f-thirty-ish. I may have a few arrant gray hairs that I feverish pluck in private. But motherfucker, the oldies are not for a girl who prided herself on her stonewashed pegged jeans, rubber bracelet collection and BMW blow jobs. Not yet, anyway.

ThAy R Jst Boobz

While my mother was pregnant with me, my parents were convinced I was a boy and had already named me Gabriel after the manliest of all the angels. But when I came out with a vagina instead of the requisite Vienna sausage dangling between my chubby little legs, they randomly called me Laura. That is, until my mother settled on the old fashioned, hard to pronounce, impossible to spell, Dorothea. Having been mistaken for a boy in utero I must have clung to a Y chromosomal swimming by, as it took me a good ten years to be seen as anything other than a male heir. Back then there was nothing as wonderful as an obscure, Victorian surname and a distinct masculine appearance to make any social situation confusing and terrifying.

This was not helped by the fact that boobs did not come into my life early on. My appearance throughout elementary school was that of a hungry, below average, dwarf boy pick pocket, someone Fagan would have walked over and kicked in the ribs with someone else’s boot. I had short, mousy hair that swerved unevenly to one side and a set of pearly whites only a garden tool could mimic. Sports were my life, as was pining over the soundtrack to Grease, reading at a toddler level and disappointing predators who mistook me for a little boy while I rode my bike home, a house key dangling from my freckled neck.

Years went by as grocery clerks, crossing guards and close relatives mistakenly referred to me as young man. Anytime a parent saw me on the soccer field they immediately assumed by my deft ball handling, lopsided bowl cut and concave chest cavity that I would go on to have a very successful career in the fields of physical education, university administration, dog grooming or the clergy. When sixth grade finally arrived I was blessed with a budding set of tater tots, two little friends that I knew would change my lunar landscape. They were nothing much to look at in the beginning. Just two puffy saucers that seemed lost on a journey outward. The moment they sprang up my mother dragged me to our local Sears to outfit them in the latest in pre-teen apparel. I settled on a Playtex training bra no bigger than a shoelace that promised to hold up my breasts for an entire eighteen hour workday, something I knew nothing of then and have yet to experience, due to my inherent laziness and well-honed napping skills.

But, by the beginning of high school, my hair was a bit longer and my knockers had grown into, what I saw as, two handfuls of ripened fruit, ready for the picking. No longer mistaken for a youthful janitor or a paperboy, I wore clingy sweaters and tight t-shirts, hoping to get attention from the hot boys with surfer shirts and low ambitions. One day, I was walking with Dalia Weinstein near the bike racks, enjoying an in-depth conversation about designer jeans and marijuana. Suddenly, I felt eyes on both of us. I turned around with misguided confidence to find Buddy and Barry, the most popular boys in our class, getting eye boners over Dalia’s healthy D cups. I was still struggling for a C, much like my grade point average and felt naked and invisible all at the same time.

Ignoring me the entire time, the three of them had a heartfelt chat about the science midterm while the horny twins leered at Dalia’s massive jugs and not at my sad, little juice glasses. They then turned and left, leaving me feeling as deflated as a beach ball in a hot garage. I knew then that size mattered in all things sexual and secretly wished that the boys would pull down their pants and try to discuss the periodic table while I took copious notes on the length and width of their one eyed wonder snakes. It was, at that moment, that I decided to never again put stock in my breasts, pledging to simply enjoy whatever the universe decided to stuff into my bra.

That is, until last week when I found a lump in my left breast and proceeded to have a shit fit, a cow and a bottle of Xanax with a salty tear chaser. Whatever my parents gave me, they gave to me in spades and hypochondria was their most generous and plentiful of all the gifts. The moment anyone is my family suspect they may have a serious medical condition they drive straight through multiple red lights to the doctor’s office and dramatically whimper in the waiting room until they are seen. If the news is bad, they have the comfort of knowing that they already alerted all the family, friends and local shopkeepers that, indeed, they have cancer, Lupus or a rare form of ADD. They are ahead of the game and now get to retell the harrowing experience while eliciting massive amounts of sympathy from people that they would normally never call back. On the other hand, if the news is good, they are secretly disappointed that they have to go back on their very dramatic and unnerving word to tell everyone in the surrounding county and beyond that they indeed, will survive this near miss of nothingness and live to see another eight thousand days of good health.

After five appointments, a fourth opinion, three ultra sounds and a very long, hot drive to get a biopsy, I was told that, in fact, I simply had a lumpy mass of breast tissue and nothing more. The doctor said he could not insert a needle because he would have no guarantee of retrieving anything and that that anything was nothing. He showed me the ultrasound screen and described how my lump was a blurry, grey bump of hormones, while a worrisome lump would look like a black marble with hair on it.

After throwing up in my throat, I left the building a little softer from my pain go bye bye pill and drove straight to Reseda to eat a hot dog, even though I had just eaten breakfast. When I had swallowed the last bite of my $3.50 rolled mystery meat, I proceeded to text everyone that knew of my condition and assured them in trendy teenage text speak that I was totalee fin, the lump was nutin and I wuz gr8t. I am only half way through my address book and my thumbs are killing me. I suspect it may be the early signs of Carpel Texting Syndrome.

 

 

 

You Are Getting Sleepy

We are in the second week of nursery school and my transition has been great. I can now exercise without having to stop eleven times up the mountain to make sure Otto has the right color combination of cars in each cup holder. I no longer have to insure that the water to Cheerio ratio is exactly what Otto feels he needs, as I push him up a treacherous incline with no safety rail and a $99 dollar jogging stroller. There is no more sweat and sunscreen combo dripping in my eyes and temporarily blinding me while I try to magically place the sunshade in the exact position needed so Otto does not scream and feel molested by the piercing rays of the Southern California sun.

I can do the dishes while listening to the droning of erudite NPR analysts who make me feel stupid AND unaccomplished, yet oddly attractive. I can fold the laundry without an errant dump truck destroying my color- coordinated piles of Ikea towels that pill and smell sour, even fresh out of the dryer. I can grocery shop without my head trying to sever itself from my body and run into the arms of another because of irrational toddler demands and a forgotten grocery list. Miscellaneous errands now get done in a more reasonable time frame, weeks instead if months, for instance. The abundant toy factory that has been our main living quarters for the last two and half years is now relegated to the dining room and needs only to be picked up on the weekends when Otto decides to reenact horrific train derailments and ten car, interstate pileups, complete with unhelpful bystanders and a toxic oil spill.

The only hiccup, the one singular chink in the armor, is that Otto, little man of my dreams and cream puff of my loins, refuses to nap at school. He is the one hold out, the lone wolf, the last man standing and it is killing his teachers and wrecking his youthful good looks. When I pick him up in the afternoon the staff appears to have been put through a Cuisinart while Otto sports circles under his eyes that look like two little eclipses sitting on his face. Initially, he is all hugs and smiles but by the time I get him to the car his head is listing off to the one side and he seems to be totally defeated as if his incomplete hail Mary pass just lost his team the big game.

We climb into the car and I feed him whatever is left in his snack bag, hoping to sustain him for the seven-minute car ride home. But, within a few minutes he is rubbing his eyes with paint covered fists and dry-weeping onto a Matchbox car I find under a pile of old raisins and Gold Fish crumbs I wouldn’t feed to Bin Laden’s back up donkey. My only hope is that we see a bulldozer, a flat bed tow truck or a broken down city bus engulfed in flames. If that lucky event occurs his mood changes immediately causing just enough temporary euphoria to get him home without a Amy Winehouse meltdown and a stint in nappy time rehab.

Today, we got home with only two tears, one argument and three leg rubs. After I handed him some milk in a responsible, trendy BPA-free cup, Otto casually headed upstairs, all the while insisting that no nap was necessary. I went along with his drastically misguided conclusion and told him that we were simply going to read a book about displaced monkeys and a creepy man-child and “chill out.” I distracted him with questions about his paint splattered hair, offered to show him his poopy diaper and his booger filled Kleenex and then slipped on pajamas while he stared at the ceiling looking for noises and spiders. After a story and seven songs about doughnuts covered in monkey hair and a green truck that crashed into a large, deserving crowd at a boat show, he lay down in his crib, flipped over like a perfectly cooked pancake and fell asleep buried in his monkey pillow.

The teachers assure me that he will crack soon and sleep on the cot provided like all the other children. They promise me that he will not come home as worn out as a forty-seven year old second string quarter back clutching onto the glory days with three broken fingers, a trail of breast-implanted broken hearts and an Oxycodone habit. I cannot wait for that day…that day in the spring of 2012.