Why It’s Mother’s Day, and not Mother-In-Law’s Day (Part I)

I can’t do it anymore.  I can’t hold back this story.  I apologize to anyone who will think “oh, you shouldn’t blog about that stuff” but the satisfaction of writing this down and getting it OUT OUT OUT is more important than that.  Plus, I am just not a good enough person to keep this kind of stuff in the shadows, where it belongs.  To quote my first barracks-mate at Lejeune (Cpl. Quayim, from Chicago):  “I ain’no fridge…I don’t keep stuff.”

Before I start the story I want to make it clear that I have two mothers-in-law.  My step-mother in law is a gem.  The other one is coated in crazy.  So please make sure you don’t mix them up.  Also, my husband gets the biggest kudos of them all for having to grow up under what could only have been constant duress.  He is, for all intents and purposes, quite normal. 

“Oh sure,” you might be thinking.  “All of our mothers in law are ‘crazy’.  Aren’t you being a little harsh?”

You would be incorrect.  Mine is a few bulbs short of a chandelier, the nuttiest fruitcake of them all, looney as a tune…whatever.  The crazy part really comes in to play at the end of the story.  I will also be the first to admit that writing this down has been very theraputic, as I am extremely traumatized from being in her presence for an extended period of time. 

I actually started writing the story a couple of months ago, because some things were so ridiculous that I had to write them down.  It’s going to take a few posts to get it all out…but be sure to tune in for the exciting conclusion.  Hint:  I don’t kill myself.  (It’s a surprise ending!)

MILfH = “Mother in Law From Hell”

April 4, 2008

We’re in the process of moving a household to Bozeman, MT.  Somehow I okayed my mother in law to come stay with us and help out the kids.  She doesn’t work, and we are paying her to make sure the children are supervised and fed while we do all the zillions of things it takes to move to another state.  She’s been with us two weeks now and I’m ready to burst through the wall, leaving a Maleesha-shaped hole.
 
I should have known I was doomed from the beginning.  I had a job interview in Bozeman three weeks ago.  I flew up on Thursday, and Jesse left to meet me in his vehicle so he could see the town.  This meant our kids needed to be watched Thurs-Sunday.  My step-mother in law could take them Friday through Sunday, but we had to rely on the MILfH to watch them overnight on Thursday.  This gave me incredible anxiety and worry, but it had to be done.  Why worry?  Even though we had lived near her for years, she’s never really bothered to visit, or invite us to visit her.  She chooses to focus 100% of her attention on her husband and his children.  Plus, she used to run a daycare in KCMO and lost her license due to allegations of child abuse.  Concerned?  Me?  Hell yes.  My husband insisted it would be okay.  What choice did I have? 

I asked MILfH what I should leave for dinner on Thursday night, so she wouldn’t have to cook.  Did she want me to make something beforehand?  Did she prefer to cook?  Should I leave a Stouffer’s lasagna?
 
“I could just bring some leftover pork roast from home,” she said.
“Okay,” I agreed.  “AJ likes pork roast, so that should be okay.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said.  “I forgot about AJ.”
WTF?  Did you think I was asking you what you wanted for dinner?  Did you forget the purpose of your stay?  Who cares what you eat.  You’re an adult, hell-O.  Argh!

When I called to check on them Thursday after my interview, there was much crying and screaming in the background, but maybe it was just a coincidence.

Then when I picked them up at my step-MIL’s on Sunday, step-MIL informed me that Macy, my dear tiny Macy, was not strapped into her car seat upon delivery by MILfH.  I hit the roof.  What the hell was she thinking?  My husband lectured her and she swears she “didn’t know.”  Yet AJ was buckled in.  She was buckled in.  Did it not occur to hear that those buckles in the car seat had an effing purpose?  That they weren’t some elaborate car seat decoration featuring buckles? 

If something would have happened to my kid, they would have never found her body.  So she is lucky.  I don’t believe that BS about not knowing, because as I mentioned, she ran a daycare for several years, and it was not before car seats were invented. 

Then the day of the move came, and we loaded into the multiple vehicles it would take to get us there.  I asked my friend Sharon to come with me, and she being some kind of saint, took the time off work to come help me move.  MILfH would follow us in her own vehicle.  I won’t lie.  I was not disappointed that I didn’t have to spend the next nine hundred miles with my MILfH. 

There was a ton of snow the morning we moved, and we didn’t make it very far before we had to stop.  We went into a gas station/sandwich shop and ordered food for lunch.  Macy needed a diaper, so I said that I would run out to the car to get one.  Sharon was feeding Macy and I told AJ to stay with MILfH.  MILfH nodded that she would watch him.  I went outside and started digging through my car. 

The next thing I know, I hear the voice of a lady saying “Little one?  Little one?  Are you supposed to be out here?  Where’s your mommy?”

Then I heard a familiar voice say “I don’t know.”

I ran out into the parking lot and there was AJ, standing there behind a Ford F-250, in the middle of a busy gas station.  Cars were everywhere.  I dashed to him and grabbed him up and yelled “AJ!  What are you doing out here?!”  I yanked him back to the gas station.  I stormed inside.  Sharon was still feeding Macy, she was turned toward the sandwich shop. 

But the keeper of AJ, MILfH, was shopping for gas station souvenirs.  “AJ was in the effing parking lot,” I shouted.  People turned to stare.  Sharon, who was already taking care of a kid, apologized profusely.  “It’s not your fault,” I said.  I turned to MILfH, who said “Oh my gosh, that’s terrible.”  She looked mildly concerned, and then held up a bag of potato chips.  “Have you ever tried these?” 

Did I mention I had to pay for her gas the entire trip?  And food?  And probably somehow I am paying for those stupid trinkets too.

It was several hundred miles before I calmed down.

Later on we stopped in Sheridan, Wyoming.  Jesse sprang for a really nice suite for Sharon, myself, MILfH and the kiddos.  I had a million things to do to manage the kids.  I asked MILfH, very directly, if she would be in charge of AJ for the hotel experience.  After all, we were paying her well to HELP us take care of the kids. Sharon was already helping a ton with Macy, and I was overseeing the total kid health experience as well as the entire caravan’s care and feeding.  MILfH nodded and said “AJ, you are my kid this weekend.” 

Great.  Finally.

After dinner in the hotel restaurant, kids needed to be fed and washed and put to bed.  I was preparing food for the crying children when MILfH walked into the suite and declared that she was going to take a pill and go to bed.  Sharon and I got the kids to sleep eventually. 

The next morning, MILfH woke up (last, I might mention) and said she was going to look for some coffee.  She offered to bring back some coffee for us, “as long as she could find free coffee.”

AJ asked if he could go with MILfH.  “Okay,” I said.  “But stay with Gramma.”  MILfH said “Don’t worry.  He will.”

About half an hour later, MILfH comes back to the hotel room.  Without my son. 

The adrenaline kicked in.  “Where’s AJ?”  I asked. 

“Oh, he found his Uncle Mike and decided to go with him,” she said.

“You left him with his Uncle Mike?”  I said in an increasingly pissed off tone.  “Does Uncle Mike realize you left AJ with him?  Does he know you left?”

“I think so,” she said. 

Holy fuckballs.  I ran down to the lobby, the last known location of my three-year-old son.  No where to be found.  I sprinted through the halls back to the elevator, muttering “I’m going to kill you” under my breath.  “And I’m going to make it painful,” I added.  Apparently we were paying her to be on effing vacation. 

No AJ in the room.  No Gramma, either.  Apparently she realized the error of her ways and went to go look for him.  I called my husband in his hotel room, where Uncle Mike was staying.  “Please tell me AJ is with you,” I pleaded.

“WHAT?” He shouted.  “He’s supposed to be with YOU.”

Eff.

Finally MILfH returns.  AJ is with her, red-faced and tear streaked.  Kind of like a lost child would look.  “He was in the video game room,” she said.  “Was he with Uncle Mike?” I asked.  She didn’t give me an answer, and changed the subject.  “I couldn’t find any free coffee,” she said.  “Sorry.”  She was carrying a cup of delicious smelling coffee.

Strike two, I thought.  First you let him dart into a busy parking lot.  Then you lose him in a hotel in Wyoming.  Why are you still alive?  Why have I not squeezed your neck until your head popped off?  These were some of the various thoughts that were passing through my head. 

Sharon and I had an agreement that we would take care of the children the rest of the way.  I told Sharon that if I ever struck it rich, I would owe her a million dollars.

Coming soon…Part 2

 

I quit my job today

No, really!  I did.  I’ve never quit a job before.  I guess that I did quit my grocery bagging job when I was 17, but somehow it didn’t seem as monumental a thing.  This is the only job I’ve had since I got out of the military.  I’ve been there 8 years, which is an eternity in the IT industry. 

I feel pretty good about it. 

 

Ten Year Reunion

I never did write about my ten year high school reunion.  Not sure why I didn’t.  Perhaps I have just finished analyzing it two years later.  Two!  I can’t believe two years have already passed since the reunion.  That means only eight more until the 20th.  Freaky. 

Carli and I had a deal that we would both have to go to the reunion.  We both dreaded the idea for a long time.  Coming from a town with one school district, we had known the people we graduated with since we were all playing hopscotch in kindergarten.  Why on earth would we want to go back?  Wasn’t eighteen years in the same town enough, already?  So we planned to boycott the reunion for years.  But then the invitations went out.  We changed our mind.  It could be fun to go to the reunion.  We could see if the cheerleaders got fat? (Nope, at least none that showed up, darn it all)  We could see who went to jail (G. did.  Not sure for what.)  Who had four kids?  (Becky S.) Who got rich? (Nick K. did…though he didn’t make the reunion) 

We had grand plans to show up Romy and Michelle style, but those plans went away since we realized we’re actually far better off than Romy and Michelle ever were.  No need to claim Post-Its.  Anyway, Carli came really close to not being able to go, because she was still in the iron jaws of medical residency, but she got a ticket at the last minute and met me in Butte, Montana.

So the first thing on the reunion’s agenda was to meet at the Met Tavern.  That’s just what you do at high school reunions in Butte.  I had a strange sense of….strangeness walking in.  I saw many people I recognized but they were the adult versions of themselves instead of the same people I remembered.  I only kept in touch with one person from high school (Carli) so the sense of time-warping was stronger than if I had seen these people age.  “Age” isn’t really an appropriate term, since ten years seemed to improve everyone.  Maybe “clean up” is the phrase I am looking for.  These people could have looked at home in suits and UPS uniforms and behind office desks, etc. 

So as soon as I spotted certain people I had funny memories come back.  Erin M. was the first person I saw in the Met, and I immediately remembered sitting by her on the chair lift at Discovery Basin on a third-grade field trip.  Then I spotted Dawn C., who was always the tallest, and I remembered an elementary school sleepover.  Later during the weekend, someone conned Pauline G. into showing up (they had to lie to get her there…ha! but since she lives there she could) and it was great to see her too.  My very first sleepover, ever, was at Pauline G.’s house.  I still have a scar on my knee from that sleepover.  There was a park across the street from her house, and I was on the merry-go-round holding on for dear life as Pauline’s older brother pushed it as fast as he could…G-forces threw me off the merry-go-round and into the gravel.  Pauline’s mom dumped some iodine into it and put a band-aid on.  I wanted to go home. 

Keli H. was there too and I remembered the 6th grade “Pentathlon” and as the top Whittier Elementary athletes, I thought of our race to the finish…it was neck and neck.  I won’t tell you who won.  Eric R. was there too, and I thought of the time he rode his bike past my house the year we were in 5th grade.  He’s a detective in Idaho nowadays. 

Another person that I enjoyed talking to was Jenn F., who is one of the funniest people on earth.  And I can’t forget Jesse G. who brought his big-city dancing skills back to Butte.  Or Christian M., who is in the Army now, and either in Germany or Iraq, but wherever it is it isn’t home.  Freddy K. was there, and I have to mention him because I spent most of my school years placed alphabetically next to him.  I also had a good time sitting with Erin S. and Cartie at the Met.  I know I’m going to forget to mention someone I should mention.     

Lori C. was there, and she is married to another person we graduated with, Clayton M.  They live an adventurous life overseas as highly educated teachers.  Someone (initial M.) was there and he showed up really drunk at the dinner and made a huge, high-schoolesque scene, to include a very dramatic walkout.  I was actually surprised there weren’t more drunken scenes.  We did have a pit bull fight though, outside the Met that first night.  The always wonderful and beguiling Mitzi had a lot to do with that.  But I guess if you can’t have a lot of drunken scenes, a pit bill fight will do nicely.

Some of the people who didn’t make it I later Googled and gathered data on.  The big jock from high school, who all the girls swooned over, recently got married.  He went on to play baseball for the minor leagues, not sure if he still does.  I will tell you though, from his wedding photos, that he is prematurely bald.  Still lookin’ good though.

Nick K., who I already mentioned, went on to become a New York City lawyer.  This was a surprise.  I’ll always remember him in semi-hippie attire, with long, mussed hair.  He was brilliant though so it’s not surprising that he could become a lawyer, I’m just shocked he did.  Joslyn H. also became a lawyer but she wasn’t at the reunion.  I would have liked to talk to her and see where she ended up.   

Some of the people I wanted to see the most didn’t show up.  My favorite person from high school, Theresa M., is still rumored to be in Butte but I never seem to make the time or effort to call when I am back in town.  I really should.  I don’t know why I haven’t yet.  Renee B. didn’t make it.  I hear she lives in North Dakota.  I am dying to know why this is.  Becky H., who I am pretty sure peruses this blog every now and then, needs to be at the 20th.  We played the leads in the female version of The Odd Couple senior year.  We were on more than one cover of Time Out! together.  So if you are hesistant about going to your reunion, just do it.  It will be more fun than you think.  Even if you hated high school. 

Which I did. 

Honest. 

 

Will Poop For Video Games

(No, not me.  Gross!)

We’ve been struggling with the dreaded potty training for a while.  Number One has been going smoothly for a long time, but there was no way son was going Number Two.  It seemed to scare the bejesus out of him.   

We tried the “gold star” chart, which really helped the process for Number One become ingrained in his head.  This worked after attempting the failed Cheerios method (using them as targets was supposed to work well), the Elmo Potty Video, and everything else.  The closest we came was the “Pee on a Tree” method which works well in a rural area but feels an awful like housebreaking.  Housebreaking a dog is way easier than teaching a kid to use the potty, actually.

But still, nothing worked for Number Two.  Until we noticed that our three-year-and-two-month old really, really loves video games.  So much so, that we bought him a V-Tech V-Smile or whatever they are called.  We placed it nicely up over the living room armoire, where he could wistfully stare at it but not reach it. 

Well finally, finally he went yesterday, in the potty, though it was a very small, er…deposit.  We let him play the new video game system for 30 minutes.  We then put it back up to unreachable spaces and said he could play more next time he…made a deposit.

So today…today!  Success!  He sat up suddenly, looked at us, and proudly announced he “had to poop.”  And he did!  Right where he was supposed to!  My goodness, I wanted to take a photograph of his creation (no, I didn’t) because this is a momentous occasion!  (We’re really, really sick of diapers…what makes it worse is that he is as tall as a four or five year old, so we get strange looks when we have to change him in public places, ala ‘why isn’t your kid potty trained yet’)  And we are going to let him play another 30 minutes of his video games. 

Call it bribing if you want…I call it a major accomplishment!  Let’s just hope he takes to Number Two as well as he did Number One…

 

Toilet Seat Protection

Republicans and Democrats.  Yanks and Southerners.  Divide America up as many ways as you want, but we all know when it comes down to it, there are only two groups that truly separate us: those who use paper toilet seat covers, and those who don’t.

I fall into the category of “don’t.”  Until I hear about some widespread epidemic of butt-to-butt transmitted disease (rather, butt-to-seat-to-seat-to-butt…that other kind already exists I think), I feel quite safe sitting on the average toilet seat.  Now I have seen some in New York City clubs that I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole; I’m talking the kind of mess that wouldn’t be fixed with a millimeter-thick piece of crepe paper anyway. 

I think that the person or entity that came up with the idea of paper toilet seat covers is probably smiling from their beachfront property right now.

Why did I think to write about this today?  I was in a bathroom in Santa Maria, CA and there were toilet seat covers that had “Life Guard” emblazoned on the package.  Life Guard.  Can you imagine?  The name suggests that I am somehow in danger if I sit on this particular throne without placing a toilet seat cover down first. 

I decided to try one.  Mostly because I heard another lady come into the bathroom and she was definitely a toilet-seat cover user (you can always tell by the crunching sound).  I thought, heck, why not?  Besides, I imagine that many toilet seat cover users listen for the crunch coming from other stalls.  If they don’t hear it, they probably think Ew.  I’ll never use stall #4 in this bathroom again. 

Let me tell you why not!  As an inexperienced seat cover user, I found that I wasted three seat covers trying to get them out of the dispenser.  The first one ripped, so it no longer had the proper bowl shape–protection powers destroyed!  The second one came out similarly to the first, except the rip was more vertical up one side of the seat, rendering the entire thing flushable.  The third one I finally got to cover the seat, but the middle wouldn’t fold down and I was afraid to use it, I mean, wouldn’t it kind of melt away as I was sitting on it?  I mean, what kind of absorption does this kind of paper have?  I was confused and found the whole thing a terrible waste.  So I flushed all the seat covers away and remembered my roots.  I do not use seat covers! 

I’m sorry.  I just don’t buy into the usefulness of paper toilet seat protection. 

 

The Coffee Machine Works

It only took three and a half years, but the coffee machine in the Plaza Deli works!  I can go to the first floor for coffee now, instead of down the block to Starbucks.  Bonus - the latte is about a dollar cheaper, too.  I’m pretty excited about this, especially now that winter is setting in and who wants to go outside and walk when it is -5?

 

I Held a Hummingbird Today

I left the garage open because I was only going to be gone for a minute. During that time a tiny jade-colored hummingbird flew in and got stuck behind a curtain (we have two small windows in the garage). I didn’t realize that there was a bird behind the curtain until a few hours after I returned home. I took a bag of trash out to the garage and there was a desperate fluttering and chirping behind the curtain. I peeked in to see the hummingbird trying hard to fly through the glass.

I opened all of the garage doors but the bird did not get the picture. My presence must have been terrifying even though I was holding the curtain open, trying to help. I went into the house to get a small toy fishing net that A.J. plays with in the tub. I caught the bird in the little mesh net and it quit flying. It probably thought it was the end. He became tangled and I had to gently unravel the mesh from around the tiny, tiny bird. I was now holding a hummingbird in my hand! I could feel its heart beating. I walked to the garage door and stood outside. The bird perched on my hand for about two seconds, then it realized I was going to let it go. It took off like a rocket, straight up into the air.

I hope that he is okay. I will probably never get to hold a hummingbird again.

 

Unreal

It has been a very long night and day.  The National Red Cross Chapter sent some of us to assist at the Arlington Chapter since they are the ones getting hit the hardest.  The first thing that happened was a quick briefing of what needed to be done and possible actions that we would have to take.  There were phone calls streaming in with questions from the general public - ranging from “How can I donate blood and where?” to “I need to find out if my son is alive in the Pentagon…how?”  Then as the night progressed I found myself in a Red Cross vehicle headed to the Pentagon.  It is the worst destruction I have ever seen that hasn’t been on TV.  On TV, this stuff looks like it could be a Steven Spielberg movie.  In real life, it doesn’t look real.  I got a close-up look of the carnage.  Twisted metal and concrete heaps lay all around in front of a huge, gaping hole in the side of the Pentagon.  All along the southwestern side of the building, black smoke stains are burned into the side of the building - which I couldn’t really see on the TV screen earlier in the day.  More ambulances and rescue personnel than I have ever seen in one place were assembled there - but unfortunately there wasn’t a lot of rescuing going on.  The building was still on fire, and there were dangers of collapse which prevented any kind of search and rescue.  Huge cranes were positioned with water hoses, spraying into the top of the building.  The whole scene was lit up with eerie green-yellow lights.  

 

World Trade Center

I thought that it was a sick joke.  My favorite radio show on DC 101 had declared that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center.  Then, a second plane had done the same thing a few moments later. Surely this was a joke - how could something so unimaginable be real?  The next thing I did was try to pull up the CNN web page - it wouldn’t open which led me to think that perhaps this WAS really happening…there was too much web traffic to open the page.

Finally the CNN  page did open.  There was the picture of the World Trade Center in New York City, with a gaping hole in it, black smoke billowing out.  This was the same building that I had stood in front of and looked up to the top, wondering how people could build such an amazingly huge structure.  Now I am wondering how people could knock it down so easily. 

I can’t stop thinking about what it must have been like to be a passenger on one of the hijacked planes.  Or what it must have been like to be casually glancing out the window of your cushy Wall Street office to see a plane about to enter without being so kind as to knock first - surreal.  

After the second NYC hit, I wondered if D.C. was next.  Then the radio station began to receive phone calls that the Pentagon was hit.  The next hour was surreal as well - no one knew what to believe as rumors that the Capitol had exploded, as well as car bombs going off in other key places in the city.  

Several people I work with now or had worked with in the past were in the Pentagon.  I was crazy worried.  I still haven’t heard from all of them.  

I spent the rest of the day working with the Red Cross.  It is nearly 10 PM and I am getting ready to go back for the graveyard shift.  Driving by the Pentagon earlier, I saw that white smoke was still rising to the sky.  It smells strange out there, and D.C. streets are emptier than they have probably ever been.