Not dead... just buried

by Patti


With Cathy off on a trip for work, and me off on a trip AT work, it's been difficult to mine the brain for anything that makes sense - at all.

So, this is only to say, for those that may be waiting with bated breath, that posting will resume next week. And it will be brilliant!

In the meantime, archives baby!

Flim Flanned

by Patti

My car, high-maintenance bitch that she has become, decided to spring an oil leak, and M found me a reputable mechanic who would fix it right and for cheap. My favorite combination! The only caveat? His was a Cash Only enterprise. So as M and I drove through a somewhat questionable neighborhood to pick up my car the other night, I remembered that I had no cash on me.

We hunted down an ATM and I withdrew $200. Then I remembered the bill was actually $237, and tried to withdraw $40 more. But when I did, the machine told me I had "exceeded my daily withdrawal limit". Now, I knew  I had enough money in my account, so I tried again, and got the same message. Worried, I tried withdrawing $20. Still, the same message. Concerned my account would somehow freeze up, I gave up and ran to the car where M was waiting. "The machine wouldn't let me take out more than $200! It's as if it knows I shouldn't be spending money!" I lamented. "What am I gonna do? It's cash only!"  M told me had $40 on him but that it was to buy a flan he had eaten when we had dropped off the car two nights before.
"$40 for FLAN?" 
"I want to buy the whole thing," he told me. "It's the best flan I have ever eaten in my life!"
What "the whole thing" meant, I didn't know, but for $40 it had better give a neck massage as its being eaten. Oh wow, that sounds so porny.

Anyway.

I was supremely annoyed that M was actually telling me that a) he was spending $40 on flan; and, b) he was choosing to BUY FLAN instead of forking over his cash to me so that I could remove my car from mechanic purgatory. I told him to use his debit card, but alas, the flan place was also a Cash Only enterprise. "Just write a check for the rest," he told me, as if this made perfect sense.
"BUT HE ONLY TAKES CASH! And you have the exact amount I need! What if he doesn't give me my car back?"
M just drove calmly towards the mechanic's "shop", which was actually located in a garage in the back of his house, and assured me he would take a check for the difference.

But before we got there, he actually did it: he stopped at the bakery to buy that flan! And some bread! I still could not believe he was choosing flan over saving my car. When he got in the car, all glowy with anticipation over the damned flan - which was the size of a HOUSE - he had just put in the trunk, I told him he'd better be prepared to fork over the cash from his account (Yes, we have separate accounts. One less thing to argue about!) if the mechanic refused my check. He just nodded, not really listening to me as he was already consumed with what was to come later - his precious flan quivering on a spoon - and continued on to the mechanic's.

Once we got there, M hopped out of the car and explained to the mechanic that we had the majority of the bill due in cash, and would he accept a check for the rest? I saw the mechanic shift his eyes my way, wondering if he was a fool to trust me. I wondered if I should offer him the flan as collateral? And then I saw him reluctantly shake his head in agreement.  I quickly wrote out a check for the rest, got my car, and we were on our way.

Just as we were pulling out of the mechanic's alley, my car following M's, my cell phone rang. "Hello?"
"This is Chase Bank," stated a robotic woman's voice. "We have reason to believe there is fraud with your checking account," she continued, her stilted voice attempting suspense. "Please confirm your identity by answering the following questions...."  I wasn't at all surprised, considering the amount of times I ignored the ATM's warnings to me, so I curiously listened as "the voice" asked me to select which car I was driving, to choose a street I have lived on, and finally, she asked me to pick a person I have lived with. She gave me a "Tracy", an "Amy", a "Shawn", and finally.... M. She said his name so seductively, I had to wonder if she had lived with him, too. If she only knew he spends $40 on flan. I fully expected "the voice" to ask me when was the last time I had, uh, relations with my husband, but she apparently felt satisfied with my answers, and finally agreed that it was okay to let me continue to withdraw money from my checking account.

When we got home, I told M about the Chase call, alternately impressed with its "quick response" system and freaked out by the "big brother-ness" of it all. As he listened, he cut himself a 15-foot slice of flan and set it on the counter, his eyes looking a bit like this:

It jiggled invitingly on the plate, challenging my ever having questioned M's choice to pick it over my car. I took a bite, and within seconds a Hallelujah! chorus broke out in my  mouth. This was magic flan! It was firm yet creamy, sweet yet balanced. The way it played in my mouth, I knew that it knew it was worth every damned cent. Thank God for husbands with poor judgment and mechanics who take checks! And it's a good thing my checking account is now unfrozen. You know, just in case I had to go and buy some more of that flan. Or something.

The New Foreplay

by Patti


I have been following a design blog that details the DIY renovation of a young couple's house. It's been surprisingly painful, the discovery of this new jealousy that has overtaken my normally "happy for others" body. It's just that... well, the light fixtures! The appliances! The new kitchen cabinets! The backsplash! THE UNDER CABINET LIGHTING! I kind of want to make out with all of it, and worse, it makes me kind of want to totally break up with my own house.

Don't get me wrong, I am grateful for my cozy little shack. And since we bought it a couple of years ago, I can even confidently say that I think I've done a pretty good job turning it from "someone else's dated ranch" to our charming, modern-with-an-antique-twist-so-that-it-looks-eclectic-and-full-of-character cozy little shack.

Still... I'M JEALOUS. I want under cabinet lighting, too! And recessed lighting, dear Lord recessed lighting! What I wouldn't do for recessed lighting.

Alas, I have a big ol' 80's florescent light fancily trimmed by "oak" smack dab in the middle of my kitchen ceiling.

(So wrong. So very, very wrong.)

At least it works, because my dishwasher? Yeah, right.  I mean, it's pretty. It's all stainless steel and looks good, but it doesn't work. And things keep coming up, like new glasses, dance classes, and co-pays, so for now I have Old Lady Hands from having to wash all of my dishes by hand 63 times a day, and it doesn't look like that condition is gonna get better anytime soon.

(Don't be fooled by this fraudulent, stainless steel bitch. She doesn't work.)

ANYWAY. The point of this all is that this envy, this deep envy and all of the fantasies that have swirled through my head in following this couple's Fantastic Journey in beautifying their home has made me question myself. Who is this person with the wrinkled dish-pan hands that gets all dreamy over brushed nickle light fixtures, crisp white crown molding, and kitchen faucets with fancy, high arcs? WHO AM I? Why do I get weak in the knees over under cabinet lighting, wide-planked hardwood, and slate bathroom floors? Why would I rather blow my Benjamins at Menard's than Barney's? Okay, scratch that. I've never shopped at Barney's. But you know what I mean.

I'll be honest: In the last year I have gotten a new refrigerator and a new oven. And the oven? Is a double oven. Yes, yes, I know! WHY AM I COMPLAINING? Let me be clear: I am not complaining so much as I am confessing that I now know something about myself that scares me: I am getting old. Like, really old. Because if Anderson Cooper (yes, I know I'm not his type, just go with it) was standing in tight jeans with a book in his hand and a smart-ass smirk on his face in front of a brand new, whisper quiet Kitchen Aid stainless steel dishwasher that just happened to be mounted under brand new granite countertops and flanked by brand new cherry - no, pine, no, cherry - no... okay, I'm not sure just yet, but anything other than 80's oak - well then, I'm afraid I might just rush forth, and as Anderson outstretched his arms, I might just push him right out of the way and start french kissing that new dishwasher.

I just might.

Lost in Translation

by Patti


When my dad first moved to this country from Argentina, he didn’t speak a word of English. But that didn’t stop him from trying to use the American “lingo”, getting a job, and snagging a wife.

When that wife, my mother, became pregnant with me, she had a few fainting spells. One morning before my dad had to go into work, he and my mom went to the grocery store, and my mom passed out. My dad immediately took her home and decided to stay with her, so he called into work. “I can’t come in today. My wife passed away."

My father’s boss gasped in horror and my father quickly assured him, “Oh it’s okay; she’s fine now!”

.............

Happy Birthday, Dad.

I miss you.

Tube Top Mystery

by Patti


The other night, I finally decided to attempt to make sense of the embarrassing disaster that is currently my closet. I folded the bunches of clothes that had somehow snowballed into one giant lump of fabric, began separating out the winter and summer clothes, and took a depressing inventory of my shoes, which, at this point, looked like rejects in the Salvation Army bin. During this process, I found an old tube top -- are they even CALLED that anymore - and my mind wandered back to what feels like a thousand years ago......

My friend Janie and I had just finished a singing gig at a hotel, and we had plans to meet up with M at Crobar - yes, it was that long ago - to go dancing. We were still in our jobbing cocktail wear, and we definitely wanted to hoochify it up to the club-level, but we had left our change of clothes in the car. It was winter, and at least 938 degrees below zero, and it was kind of blizzarding, so there was no way in hell we were going to shlep to the car, grab the goods, shlep back into the hotel to change, and THEN shlep once again BACK to the car. So, once we got out to the car, we decided to just crank up the heat and change in the parking lot. We each wrestled ourselves out of our respective clothes and wriggled into the hooch-wear, and hit the road.

Once there, I had to make sure I had all of my things together since, after the club, I was going to go home with M and Janie was going to go her way. I packed the red sparkly skirt I had worn, my high heels, and... "Hey! I can't find my tube top!"I frantically lifted myself off the seat to see if I had somehow sat on it. Not there. Janie turned on the light in the car and we both searched the backseat, under our seats, INSIDE the seats. Janie checked her bag to see if she had accidentally packed it, but it wasn't there. "What the hell?"

In the distance, I could see that M was already standing in front waiting for us, looking a little purple. The wind was blowing and the snow was flying everywhere, and he was hopping from foot to foot trying to stay warm. Torn between my love for my tube top and saving my husband from frost bite, I reluctantly chose my husband and sadly decided to end the search. "When you find it, just bring it to the next gig," I sighed. We got out of the car, Janie in her super-short mini-skirt, and me in my tight pleather dress with a zipper up the front, and begged our way into the club.

Once inside, my chest immediately felt the vibration of the Saturday night bass. BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH-BOOM-CH. The 3 of us made our way up the long stairs that led up to the second floor, and as we climbed, I noticed that my dress felt kind of... tight. "Weird," I thought. "It fit last week..." I ran my hands over my hips to try and smooth it down, and immediately felt the tire around my torso. Had I gained 30 lbs in one hour? I kept running my hands over my waist and hips, alternately mystified and horrified. Finally, no longer able to take it, I stuck my hands up my dress and groped myself. Suddenly, I felt something squishy, something... fabric-like. I grabbed hold of it and yanked it down and out and, just like that, I GAVE BIRTH TO A TUBE TOP ON THE STAIRS AT CROBAR!

I immediately doubled over in laughter. Janie and M were ahead of me and turned around when they heard my hysterics. I couldn't even talk; I just held up the tube top in all its glory. M looked more stumped than usual, but Janie totally lost it.

And there we were, laughing our assess off, the bass thumping in our hearts, my recovered tube top dancing wildly in my hand.

Home

by Patti


Our family just returned from a week-long getaway to Portland, Oregon.

Oh, Portland, do you know how beautiful you are?

Portland is where I finished high school and made life-long friends.

Portland is where I smoked clove cigarettes and went dancing at Skoochie’s and listened to Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, and felt it.

Portland is where I acted and sang on stage and embraced my Thespianism to its very core.

Portland is where I met M.

And after almost 15 years of living there, I moved to Chicago with M.

We left behind the beautiful Pacific Northwest with its heaven-touched coast....



but being young and tethered only to each other, we were also excited about the prospect of nightlife and high rises and restaurants that stayed open past 10 pm.

We have now been in this crazy snow-blown city for 15 years, and we love it -- for the most part. (Because, really? SEVEN MONTHS OF WINTER?)

Yet. There is something about Portland and the way it smells like pine needles when you step out of the airport. There is something about the way Mt. Hood glitters in the distance. There is something about Portland's many looping bridges and the way they proudly cross the Willamette River.

There is something about going home.

Because that is what Portland has meant to me: home.

My family moved around like nomads practically my whole life, and it was in Portland that I finally experienced what it is to have roots, to have friends for more than one school year, to have a place that no matter where you go, you feel like when you go to that place, you are home.

I hadn’t been back to Portland in nearly 10 years when we went this time, and it was strange how the second we left the airport and hit the highway, I just knew where I was. The roads and street signs and trees and river and bridges, they were all imprinted in my brain like a perfect map. Yes, there was growth - lots of new restaurants and shops and businesses - but the heart of what I remembered was the same.

And as we drove past the little burger shack where M and I used to eat The Best Veggie Burger on Earth slathered with melted Tilamook Cheese, and the bus stop where my mom used to wait for the bus that would take her downtown to work, and the bridge I used to cross with butterflies in my stomach to get to M’s house, and the path I used to jog on Sunday mornings, and the store that my best friend in high school and I dropped off our collected cans to for weekend cash, and my old house with its big kitchen window that faced the street, and the hill where I learned to drive stick shift, and the condo my family lived in when we first moved to Portland that had that awesome pool where my best friend and I scorched ourselves into oblivion all summer, and the bagel store where I always ordered extra cream cheese and two chocolate chip cookies, and the exit off the highway that led to my first “real job”… as I passed all of these places, the memories of each one vividly danced up before my eyes, and I was transported back to a time of innocence and freedom, and for a minute, I felt nostalgic and a little sad for that time now gone.

But then, with my daughter by my side and M’s profile against the window, I realized: Yes, Portland is beautiful, and it holds many memories for me, but my home is no longer a place, it is people. And no matter where I go now, if it doesn’t include them, it’s just not home.

Yeah, It's Probably the Cramps

I don't know, maybe it's the cramps. Maybe it's the fact that my right brain is stuck working on the most left-brain project ever in the history of the universe at work. Maybe it's the fact that it is for once NOT 115 degrees outside; instead, it is a glorious just-under-80 and, while I can SEE the gloriousness, I am stuck inside, unable to FEEL the gloriousness.

Whatever it is, I'm in A Mood.

And because I'm in A Mood, I am more irritated than usual by stuff that normally irritates me only a just little. I find I have low tolerance for lots of stuff - and maybe that puts me in the Perpetually Cranky category. Though, most that know me would say I seem to spit sunshine, so who knows. AT ANY RATE, today, I am annoyed.

By what, you ask?

Okay, I'll play.

1. What the hell is up with Subway's One Napkin Policy? I mean, seriously? I order a sandwich with 348 types of things on it, PLUS barbeque sauce - yes, SAUCE being the operative word, here - and the Subway guy only gives me ONE napkin. When I politely ask for "extra napkins, please", he hands me ONE more. Yeah, that oughtta do it. If any of you are Curb Your Enthusiasm fans, you may remember the episode where Larry asks for more napkins, and the Napkin Natzi won't cave, so when Napkin Natzi is not looking, Larry swipes a few more. A bit later, as he is driving home, he is pulled over the police - FOR STEALING NAPKINS. So yeah, when you are driving home today, and you see a very bitchy looking lady pulled over by the police, that might be me. Me and my extra napkins.

2. Why do people insist on parking crooked? WHY? Can you just take the extra 3.5 seconds to back out and pull back in again in order to ensure you are NOT parked crooked? The world is full of cars circling parking lots over and freakin' over again, looking for a parking spot. And when we finally find one, when it is rendered unusable by some selfish, inconsiderate parking hog, well - IT PISSES US OFF. And well, when we are feeling pissed off, we may be inclined to squeeze our pissed off selves into that spot ANYWAY, and when you find you have to crawl across the passenger seat to get behind your steering wheel, your skirt hiking clear up to your head, or your tie strangling you as you do so, well...

3. Hey! I'm feeling better already. I'm out of things that annoy me!

For now.

~Patti

April Fresh

Yesterday I pulled down my pants to pee (how do you like that for an opener?) and discovered why I felt a little "fluffy" down there: Safely bunched up in my underwear was a Downy dryer sheet.

How it had gone undiscovered in the HOURS since I had gotten dressed, I don't know. But there it was, and there I was, April Fresh.

~Patti

Eavesdropped: Failed Negotiations

(Scene: Parking lot, parked mini-van)

Mom: Hannah! Get in NOW!

Kid: Noooooo, I don’t wanna go!

Mom: Hannah! You are gonna get a time-out!

Kid: NOOOOO!

Mom: I’m gonna count to three! One...

Kid: ...

Mom: One...

Kid: ...

Mom: ONE...

Kid: ...

Mom: If you get in I will get you ice cream.

Kid: With sprinkles?


~Patti

Unidentified Flying Objects

by Patti

When I was a kid, I went through a period where I was pretty sure I was going to get sucked up by a U.F.O. I didn’t fear the “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” kind of encounter where these adorable little aliens would waddle down a ramp and shyly shake my hand upon meeting me; I was more concerned about the type of encounter where I would be walking down the street, minding my own business, and then suddenly get zapped up into a flying saucer without warning and find myself lying on a table with 3-foot needles in my body and creepy, hollow-eyed aliens hovering over me. Because of this, I will admit I didn’t ride my bike outside by myself for, oh, at least a year. Somehow I felt that if I was with somebody else, the aliens might feel outnumbered and leave me alone.

The other night, those feelings all came back to me. I was on my back deck folding some pool towels and emptying out the recycling bin when suddenly, something caught my eye. I looked toward the sky and saw this amazing glowing, flame-like light floating by. It was unmistakably ethereal; it looked like a fireball with angel wings. I can’t even begin to describe it; I only know that I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It was pretty high up in the sky, as high as a plane might be, but it was very obviously NOT a plane. In the back of my mind I heard the voices of countless farmers-gone-by, “It was this big, I swear! And it just floated there, I tell ya, it did! And then, dag-nabbit, if it didn’t just land right thar in front of me!”

I felt myself wanting to call M out onto the porch, but I was sort of just stuck there, unable to move, unable to form words. I just knew I was about to finally get zapped up, those long-ago childhood fears finally confirmed. Yet, I couldn’t save my own life. I watched it float over the neighbor’s house and behind a tree, and I finally realized I had to have M see this, too. I snapped awake and flung open the sliding glass door to call him off of the couch. “Come! Hurry! You HAVE to see this!” He must have sensed the urgency in my voice, because rather than continue to wallow in his ManCold, he jumped off the couch and ran outside. By the time he got there, I was already around to the front of the house, chasing the floating flame-light. He caught up to me and saw it just in time. The light seemed to hover for a moment, as if to give both of us the opportunity to take it in, to believe it was real. And then it started moving again, away from us.

At that moment, I heard M exclaim, “Look! There are two more!” and sure enough, coming from the same direction as the first flame-light had come, two more were indeed floating our way. The first one has been a fiery red-orange; these were white and pure red. They both danced the same way as the first, and had that ethereal appearance. “What IS that?” I wondered out loud to M, full-well knowing what they were. “They have to be balloons or something,” he said, satisfied with that reasoning.

But I knew: They weren’t balloons. Or airplanes. Or anything else that could be reasonably explained. We stood there for a while, watching the lights flicker and float and dance, until they finally drifted out of sight. As we walked back into the house, I looked back up to the sky and silently thanked the aliens for sparing me yet again.

He Works Hard for the Muscle

Dear Gym Dude:

We get it. You have muscles. We can see them. And you can, too. It is easy to do when you keep staring at yourself in the mirror. And I know why you keep lifting your shirt. You want to make sure your 12-pack is still there, right? That it hasn’t somehow been horrifying reduced to a mere 6-pack in the past five seconds, or worse yet: a zilch-pack. Oh God, NO.

Gym Dude, I know you work hard. We all know, because we can hear your grunts and your loud, sweaty exhales as you do your millionth crunch. It is obvious you keep breaking your own personal records with that bench press, Gym Dude. Good for you. But is it really necessary to HACK WORK-OUT INDUCED PHLEGM INTO THE GARBAGE CAN? Gym Dude, that is just really unacceptable. I mean, once, okay. It happens. You get overworked, and it’s got to go somewhere, right? But Gym Dude, SIX TIMES?

And also, as you are admiring yourself once more in the mirror, can you please keep in mind that if you are going to keep lifting up your shirt we don’t want to see your treasure trail, Gym Dude. You might consider, I don’t know, waxing it or something because… just… no. I mean, I can see you’ve waxed your eyebrows so why not your treasure trail? Consider it, okay?

Please know that this all said with the utmost respect. After all, you are a manly, treasure-trailed Gym Dude God, WE ALL KNOW THIS, so why wouldn’t I respect you? You command it, damn it, you deserve it. You have worked hours upon hours upon hours on yourself, sculpting each muscle within an inch of its life, single-handedly creating mountains and valleys on your own body. Oh, you are so magical, Gym Dude, aren’t you? Because of this, why shouldn’t you get to hack your gold-flecked phlegm wherever you feel like it? Why shouldn’t you inspirationally grace us more flabby folks with your fur-trimmed rock-hard abs over and over again (we are so lucky!)? Why shouldn’t you get to hog the mirror for a full hour to ensure your precious 12-pack is still intact (even though I just need it for a few minutes to make sure I don’t have camel toe)?

What was I thinking, Gym Dude? Carry on. I will be the one with the camel toe, over here on the stair climber. Yes, you will see me shoving my earphones even further into my ears, to the point they might have to be surgically removed later, but I am having trouble hearing my music over the Hallelujah Chorus that plays in your head every time you look at yourself.

No offense, k?

~Patti

Cleavage Construction

Saturday I hugged my kid goodbye and put her on a plane with M so they could jet off to Argentina to visit his family.

I felt, I don’t know, empty. I’m used to waving goodbye to M, but to my kid? It was the strangest feeling. It didn’t help that she was sobbing her little heart out, her eyes all puffy and misery-ringed, her little arms wrapped tightly around me, not wanting to let go.

But she let go, and they made it safely across the ocean, leaving me here alone FOR TEN DAYS, TEN WHOLE DAYS.

And because I am alone for TEN DAYS, TEN WHOLE DAYS, I of course immediately raced out to Ikea and bought a bed. And even though we really only need 2 beds in our house, we now have 4. But Craigslist is my friend and I intend to recoup the cost of my apparent bed obsession, okay? So stop staring at me.

Anyway, my visit to Ikea was accompanied by Hoops, who coincidentally and quite gloriously conveniently is also single and kid-free this week, as her own husband and daughters jetted off to another country to see his family. PARALLEL LIVES!

After we got our Ikea sufficiently on, she not only transported the long-assed thousand pound box back to my house in her car, she also offered to help me assemble it. Who freakin’ does that? Only Friend of the Century types of friends that's who, and after last night, she is so totally the winner of that award, hands down.

Before coming back to my house, we made a pit-stop at Hoops’ house so she could unload her Ikea loot. She also changed her clothes and came out wearing saggy paint-stained shorts, but curiously left on her cute, low cut top, big blingy earrings, and was still carrying her snakeskin clutch. Total Polish Housekeeper Outfit.

We got back to my pad, and Hoops got to disassembling the kid’s current bed, while I slaved over opening a box of frozen pizza and pre-heating the oven. And, oh yeah, pouring glasses of wine. Once the bed was taken apart, we carried it out piece by piece to the garage, all the while cussing and stabbing ourselves a thousand times in the legs. The neighbor’s giant, grown son sat idly on the porch, watching us groan and sweat and drop F-bombs. He was really helpful with his watching.

After we snarfed the pizza and downed the wine, we got down to the business of building a bed.

Do you know what it takes to build a bed? DO YOU? Three and one half hours. That’s what.

Three and one half hours of lifting, and bending, and twisting and turning and leaning and holding and sweating.

And I was laughing my ass off the whole time because Hoop’s boobs were spilling out of her cute, low cut top, and Hoops was laughing at me because I was still wearing my tight mini-skirt with slits on each side, which kept riding up with every squat, and we were both wearing huge earrings and lip gloss. And as I watched us bring this bed to life, the idea came to me: Cleavage Construction! Beeyotch Builders! We will assemble your furniture in mini-skirts and heels and low cut shirts, and let you watch us bend and sweat as your furniture comes to life!

Tell me that’s not solid gold.

~Patti

I Might Take Up Hunting After All

The Pyschotic Birds from Hell began screeching at my window at 4 am this morning. What kind of bird finds it enjoyable to SING at 4 in the morning?!? The sun is even smart enough to be asleep at that hour. But these aptly named bird-brained freaks began their day with a quick crap on somebody’s car and a full-blown neurotic symphony at what seemed to be just my window. All 1,567,892 of them. And maybe it was just my sleep-deprived imaginings, but I could swear they were shrieking Katy Perry’s “Firework”.

~Patti

The Finger is So 80's

So this morning I was pulling out of a parking lot into the street, and the nose of my car jutted a little farther out into the street than I guess noses of cars are supposed to jut, because this woman in a sweet little powder blue Mercedes acted as if she thought I was going to crash into her. I say “thought” because I totally saw her and had no intention of crashing into her at all. I was clearly stopped and politely waiting for her to pass by, but she felt like creating a movie in her mind, and had to throw in a dramatic swerve and a hysterical horn symphony accompaniment for full effect. And then, THEN, she had to do that thing that annoys the ever lovin’ crap out of me, and that is when offended drivers – often offended not because the perceived offender actually did anything truly offensive, but because the offended hadn’t gotten laid in too many days, or their husband is a jerk, or their kid had just made them go all exorcist 5 minutes before – anyway, the offended drivers sloooooow down their car, and, in some freakish mime-like way, begin to shout obscenities though the glass, their faces twisting up into a jacked-up Marcel Marceau frenzy, their fists wildly declaring war, all while continuing to drive in that scary, slow-mo, drive-by shooting kind of way, and you – the supposed offender –sit there and alternate between wondering if you should duck and wondering when the hell they are going to just GO already so you can get on with your day.

Meanwhile, the offended driver? Has created another offended driver. Because the person behind their slow-mo drive-by ass is now pissed that they have had to slam on their brakes so the driver in front can have his conniption fit over some imagined offense. And thus begins the whole domino effect of pissed off, offended drivers, and really? I was just minding my own business, sipping on my ‘bucks, waiting for my turn to go. IS THAT SO WRONG?

~Patti

Temporary Life

by Patti


Have you ever been so relaxed, but SO relaxed, even the drool sliding down the side of your face takes it time?

That was me this weekend.

Hoops and I took a little 3-day Girls’ Escape this weekend to a well-known, luxurious, out-of-this-world spa, and literally got buffed, scrubbed and rubbed from head to toe. The luxury and pampering were straight out of a movie. But it wasn’t a movie -- IT REALLY DOES HAPPEN AND HOW DID I NOT EVER KNOW THIS?

After all the Chardonnaying and Champagning, and gourmet food shoveling, and having doors opened and closed for us, and hearing “It’s all been taken care of” in soothing tones over and over again, the drive home was a bit of a letdown. It wasn’t that I didn’t miss my family, but honestly? I kind of didn’t.

I love them to death and God forbid anything should ever happen to them, but life? Can be stressful. And to have your only worry be choosing between a Lavender Rain Treatment or a Body Harmony Bath is intoxicating. So of course to go back to having your worries be your mortgage, your child’s grades, your husband’s needs, your job’s demands, your parents’ ailments, your neighbor’s dog, the clunking sound from your car’s front end whenever you hit a bump and wait – didn’t I just pay $1,000 to have that fixed? To have all of that be your worries is not nearly as intoxicating. Instead, it’s just, well, toxic-ating.

At the spa one morning we were enjoying breakfast, these crazy perma-grins covering our faces, and two women across from us were just finishing up their breakfast. As they rose to leave, one of the women began gathering the coffee cups while the other swiftly swept crumbs off the table, and the coffee cup gatherer stopped her gathering and said, “Wait a minute! What are we doing? We don’t have to clean anything!” The other laughed and said, “Oh my God, I know! I was ready to load the dishwasher!” They laughed at the sheer lunacy of not having to clean up, and as they turned to leave, the coffee cup gatherer looked at us, her hair disheveled and her face ruddy from probably never having had a facial in her life, and, as if offering an explanation, said, “It’s just that this is not my life.”

And although I chuckled, it also made me just a little sad. Here we were, Hoops and I, wrapped in fluffy 5 million thread count robes, feeling giddy and tingly from the anticipation of the full day of being totally spoiled that stretched before us, and it hit me: This is not my life. And it probably never will be.

And you know what? Because of that, I can honestly say that I think I appreciated and enjoyed and savored Every. Single. Moment. of our weekend even more. Every scrub, buff and rub, every morsel of every meal, every sip of every glass of lemony water, every hand smoothing of every crisp white sheet, every scent of every oil, cream, perfume, every drop of every warm water, every jet of every hot tub, every bubble of every glass of champagne, every stretch of every muscle of every yoga pose, every inhale of every lavender-scented air, every word of every menu, every melody of every song, just....everything.

And I realized: it is not the actual luxuries of life that make for a great life, it is simply appreciating them. For even in our real lives, and not in the magic bubble of a temporary life, there are luxuries. They may be little luxuries, but they are just as real.

Oh, Mother

by Patti

I grew up surrounded by accents.

I married an accent.

And Spanish still flies around me almost daily.

One day, I was lamenting to my mom how I feel like nobody in my family gets my humor. Spanish humor tends to be slapsticky and on the naughty side, at least the Spanish I grew up with and the Spanish I married, and I am a sucker for anything wry or dry.

My mom, always trying to "understand" her only daughter, said, "Das not true! Gib me an eh-sample!"

"Well..." I said, my mind reaching for the countless times my sides ached at the Woody Allen-ness of it all, "..for example, I love sarcasm!"

My mom put her hand on her chin and twisted her mouth in thought. "Hmmm," she said,clearly disappointed that she couldn't be more helpful, "I don't know that comedian."