Dr. Google

by Patti

I made a startling realization the other day: Unless I Google "how to breathe in 5 easy steps", I may simply stop breathing.

I have become so reliant on Google for every answer to every question in my life, I am afraid I would not know how to survive without it. I have become the master of DIY in most every aspect of life, all thanks to Google. I taught myself how to use almost every software, how to rebuild a computer, how to zap computer viruses, how to heal a cold sore before it even happens, how to simplify fractions, how to hem pants without thread, how to rewire a chandelier, how to discipline my child....

Speaking of child, Google was just becoming its crazy, all-knowing self when I was pregnant. Do you know how dangerous Google is when you are pregnant? If you are pregnant right this very minute, don't do it. DO NOT GOOGLE. Because if you do, you will be certain your child will be born with 3 heads. You will also be certain that that tuna sandwich you just ate? Will be responsible for the 9 fingers instead of 10. I Googled myself into hysteria when I was pregnant, and Googled my unborn child into sideshow freak before I even met her. So, yes, although Google most definitely has its uses, it can also scare the ever-living crap out of you. (And yes, Google will also warn you that you will probably crap while giving birth. For this, I was glad to be prepared. Thanks, Google!)

Apart from the dangers of Google, the savior side of Google is downright awe-inducing. I am blown away by the fact that I can type in "how do people walk on fire?" and FIND AN ANSWER! Curious? Allow me: How do people walk on fire? 
I mean, really? There is NO WAY my parents would ever have known this in their day of wanting to know stuff. They would have had to drive to the library and paw through thousands of books to find the answer. And even then, it may have remained a mystery. But thanks to Google, I know this.

Google has been my know-it-all friend, time after time. Is my daughter's fever too high? Am I too fat? How do I install under-cabinet lighting? How much did my neighbor pay for his house? Are there any molesters living on my block? What are the symptoms of menopause? How do I import data from Excel into a PDF form?

Indeed, I have become a WikiPatti. I know something about everything. And if I don't know the answer, I just Google it, and then, just like that, I know it. Perhaps I am too dependent on Google and all its remedies. In fact, I might actually even be addicted; who knows? The signs of addiction can be quite elusive, so it's hard to tell.

Oh wait! Let me Google that.

Ain't Got Time for Memories

by Cathy & Patti

Our loyal readers may have noticed a trend recently in regard to our posting on this blog: it just ain't happening with as much frequency.

Aside from nurturing this blog as a way to vent and share our experiences as mothers, daughters, (working) women, wives and the million other hats we wear, we do it for posterity. How amazing is it that as our daughters get older, they can at first scoff, bristle at and be embarrassed by our posts, then later not only be able to forever cherish and relate to, but through our stories, also get to know their mothers as human - as women, pure and simple. This is something invaluable that we aim to pass down to them.

Lately, it seems, the harried pace of life doesn't allow us to revel in its memories long enough for them to be documented. Ideas for posts still come as life experiences hand them to us. Notes are taken, either physically or mentally, the latter of which can be smothered by more important to-do lists and lost forever within the confines of our overworked, overstressed minds.

Cathy
Evidence of how I'm lagging in this department became painfully evident to me recently. As we were all indulging in a rare evening of relaxation in front of the television recently - homework, baths, dishes and cleaning all done - my youngest daughter, Ari, who really can't sit still long enough to watch anything unless it's a Disney movie she hasn't seen before, enters the living room with her photo album in hand. I felt a surge of panic rise up inside of me.
"Honey, what are you doing with your album?" I asked carefully.
"Where are my baby pictures?" she answers my question with a question.
Uh oh. Did she just ignore me? Is she mad?

Well, she should be. She is the second child, which means, not everything was done with her the way it was meticulously done with my firstborn. This is universal. We all freak with our first child - make sure to wash the pacifier every single time it falls on the kitchen floor before we give it back to them; make sure to pack everything but the kitchen sink when go out for a stroll, just in case!; make sure to handle them extra gently because they may break; make sure to bathe them every night, etc.

Part of this for me was keeping photo albums journaling Bella's (my older daughter) growth, milestones, etc. In fact, I think I have three neatly arranged, chronologically ordered, beautiful photo albums for Bella. But for Ari? The one she was holding in her hands was it. I got as far as stamping her cute 'lil hand and foot on the cover and filling up the first few pages. That's it.

Overshadowed

"Um...why do you ask?" I tested her.
"Because I want to put them in my album. Bella has all of hers in her books and I want mine in my book."

 Knife...meet heart. I don't think I possibly could have felt more awful as a mother. (Well, there are other scenarios but this one loomed large at the moment.)

"Here," I offered, getting my ass up off the couch and heading towards our hallway closet, the keeper of the memories. "I'll get them for you and help you."
"No, that's okay. I can do it myself."
I felt that knife twisting.
"But you have to put them in order, like from when you are a baby and up. I can help you do that."
My stubborn Leo zodiac of a child insisted. "No, I'll just do it, okay?"
So I threw my guilty mom hands up and let her have at it.

In my defense, the technological revolution between when my two children were born (they have a five-year age difference) was extreme. I used a regular Cyber-shot camera while Bella was growing up, but with Ari, I've been using my smartphone for the most part. And who develops those? I sure haven't. But it's now something I have put at the top of my priority list, because who wants their child getting gypped of their memories simply because we don't find the time to document them? We need to find time to document those memories.

by Patti
My butt has been burning for months. This burning sends electrical shooting pains down my legs and into my feet. Various Dr. Google searches have allowed me to diagnose myself with a really, really bad case of Piriformis syndrome or maybe even a slipped disc. Either way, I know I need to have a non-Dr. Google officially diagnose me, but the thing is: I haven't had time to make an appointment. And even if I did - I don't have the time to actually honor an appointment. Between a full-time job, traveling for work, and ballet lessons coming out of my burning ass, I am time-starved.

Time starvation means certain things have to give. This blog has been one of them. It's not as if though there are millions of people waiting in line with bated breath for my next post - this I know - it's just that the day-after-day of blank space where a by Patti should be serves to remind me that, despite the time starvation, I need to find a way to carve out a few minutes a day to observe, absorb, and reflect.

Not too long ago, S had to do a school project that required family pictures. Although I am pretty good at taking pictures with my phone, and keeping my Instagram account fat with photos, what I am not good at is taking family pictures. The three of us are rarely in one place at one time in a photo-ready mode, and, well, pictures of my dog's flat-faced, shadowy profile or of my backyard heaped with snow then treated with Instagram's "Amaro" effect don't exactly make for school-ready photos. I scoured my photo drawer for pictures from the "olden" days - the days when, like Cathy, I used a real camera and actually had photos developed - but none of them seemed apropos. And even the few pictures I had saved on my computer that could be deemed as worthy of this school project were held hostage on my hard drive by the fact my printer had run out of ink and I hadn't time to buy ink. My butt is on fire and you expect me to have time for INK? So, yeah....no. No pictures. "I ain't got time for no memories!" I lamented to Cathy over the phone.  And it's true. And sadly so.

This weekend we head out on our annual Michigan trip with four moms, seven daughters, and two dogs. The snow will probably have melted, making sledding impossible; the tubing park will have closed; the ice skating rink a degree too warm. With seven screaming tweens and two pouncing dogs, it will be chaotic, no doubt. But I will be unplugged from "harried", and plugged into the present, and damn it: I'm gonna make some memories.

Sleepless in Chicago

by Patti and Cathy

We are years out of babyhood with our kids now, and this means alot more sleep.

Or does it?

See, the thing is: we are also years into our lives, and with these years comes plenty of changes. Some of them, such as a sharper, more confident sense of "who gives a crap?", are welcome changes. Some of them? Not.

One of those unwelcome changes includes the cray-cray that has become of our respective hormonal makeups. I mean, yes - we are older, but we can still recall with crippling clarity the days of awkward coming-of-age that brought pimples and cramps and mood swings that normally belong to serial killers.

Awkward

Thankfully, we made our way out of that hellstorm, but then slid right into postpartum madness and years of sleeplessness as new mothers. And now? NOW? We're ba-ack. Except this time? We have managed to combine puberty with the glory days of postpartum cuckoo when we are neither 13 years old nor nursing a newborn. And as we muddle through this madness, we drag into the sludge of insanity our husbands....

Patti
I'm so tired. I get up at ridiculous-o'clock five days a week for work, and I tend to be a night owl who gets her second wind at 11 pm, so that alone should make me tired. But no - I'm tired because no matter what time I hit the hay, I simply cannot sleep. No matter how exhausted I am from the exhausting day I may have had, my eyes are open, staring up at the ceiling, my thoughts lighting my brain on fire, my body....sweating?
Wait a minute. Unless I'm running my fourth mile in a row without stopping, I don't sweat. But lately? To borrow from Da Bruce, at night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet, and a freight running through the middle of my head...

I'm a-comin'!

The other night I woke up at 3 a.m., once again soaking wet, that damned freight train doing its thing to jar me even further awake, and surprise! There was M beside me, just as he has been for over two decades, but he, too, apparently had a freight train running through the middle of his head, because I could hear his eyes blinking with each thought that ate away at his brain as he stared up, comatose, at the ceiling.
"Are you okay?" I asked him as I attempted to undo the sheets that were twisted around my body.
"Are YOU? You woke me up because you won't stop moving."
"I know. I can't get comfortable. And I'm so HOT." I flapped my nightgown against my damp skin.
As if to further cement my lunacy, he snuggled deeper into the covers.
"You're not HOT?"
"It's freezing."
"I"m soaking wet; how are you not hot?" I threw the twisted sheets off my body.
"What's going on with you? The sheets are wet!"
"I'M HOT!"

And that has been our romantic middle-of-the-night banter for the past several months. I'm sure M, who has always been my constant companion in the hatred of over-the-top air conditioning, feels a tad betrayed. After all, he has recently lost his temperature buddy. A strong marriage is based on mutual respect, love, and a shared loathing of air conditioning. I get it, I do. And I ain't happy about it.

In fact, I feel the slide into Old Ladyville more than ever, and M,with his aching bones, his 2 a.m. trips to the bathroom, and his weary thoughts, seems to be making that journey with me.

15 years ago, M and I made vows to each other: For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, 'til death do us part, we promised to love and honor one another. They forgot something: For better or for worse, in sickness and in health, in sleeplesness and in slumber, 'til death do us part.

At this rate, we may be partin' sooner than we think.

Cathy
Unlike Patti's situation with M, my husband seems to be the only one snoring to the heavens here. In fact, he is so completely overcome with slumber stupor, that when I purposely wake him (yes, purposely because he is either snoring so loud that I have to flip him on his side or annoying the crap out of me because he's sleeping so soundly and deeply, whereas I am spinning like a top in place, causing the sheets to mummify me in my own insomniac-induced psychosis) he can't even muster up the strength to form one. word. It's as if sleep has drugged him. And I need to get me some of that drug.

If you've already read up on my hormone stitch, you'll know that I have been battling the effects of their absence for quite some time now. I've gone through every possible pre-menopausal symptom out there, including what Suzanne Somers, the self-proclaimed hormone queen, listed in one of her books as the "Seven Dwarfs of Menopause": Itchy, Bitchy, Sweaty, Sleepy, Bloated, Forgetful and All-Dried-Up. Sorry, guys. The truth hurts.

Yes, "All-Dried-Up" will make you Psycho.

The other day I woke up and felt itchy sparks all over my body for no apparent reason. I hadn't felt this in quite some time. Despite the suggestions by Patti (a.k.a Dr. Google) that "itchiness is a sign of liver problems...have you looked into that?" I knew in my hormonally deprived heart that it was NOT a liver problem. This has been going on for two days now and I am so irritated, walking around slapping my itchy skin to make it stop - not a pretty picture. I am hoping it subsides with this month's flow cycle, otherwise my God help my family.

As luck would have it, on the other side of my friend Patti/Dr. Google, stands my Husband/Mother, Joe. Every morning, out of courtesy, he asks how I've slept that night, even though he can tell just by looking at my face. Are the black wells under my eyes dead giveaways? So after I casually mention that I didn't sleep so well -- because of your snoring, because you were sound asleep and therefore mocking my insomnia and being insensitive to my inability to sleep by sleeping  -- he THEN, goes on to offer me any of the following reasons why:

"It's 'cause you're up Facebooking until all hours," and makes a hungry, desperate looking face while pretending to swipe through an imaginary iPhone.
"It's 'cause you are staying up waaaaaay too late. You gotta go to bed earlier."
"It's 'cause you're reading before bed. That stimulates your mind too much."
"It's 'cause you're up watching television before bed. That stimulates your mind too much."

Little does he know that while I'm laying there, desperately beckoning the slumber gods to come and whisk me away, my body is buzzing with energy and electricity that I can almost hear and I can't shut my mind off - even when I am supposedly asleep. I hear every. little. sound. I think about every. little. thing I have to do. And one of those things on my to-do list? Buy some Nyquil Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

by Patti


So, my car misses the mechanic, apparently. The bitch has started whining again - literally. Now, whenever I drive her, a high-pitched "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" accompanies my every mile. "MOM! That is so ANNOYING!" Sofia shrieks from the backseat. As if THAT isn't annoying.

But, yes, it is annoying, this "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". I told M about it, since he is my husband and "the man" and responsible for car stuff. But can I be frank for a moment? I have single-handedly diagnosed and fixed car troubles in the past. I put my Dr. Google skills to work, and once again am totally amazed at the information I can find online. Try it: Google ANY symptom - car or human - and somebody else in the world has already searched it, experienced it, or found the answer to the problem. But this time around, I just wanted "the man" to handle it. I don't know, I was busy baking brownies, or washing the dishes, or shuttling the kid, or checking her homework, or having cramps, but I just couldn't do it this time.

He immediately denied I was hearing an "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE", even though HE WASN'T EVER IN THE CAR TO HAVE NOT HEARD IT. But you know, I guess his "man ears" are bionic or psychic, or something, because he just knew I hadn't heard it. Like any good mother does, I put the kid in the middle as my witness. "YES!" she confirmed. "There is this HORRIBLE sound; I can barely stand it!" Apparently, she hadn't heard it, either. Look at us two crazy girls, hearing things for the fun of it. Such women.

The other night I picked up M and S to go out to dinner. "Where is 'the noise'?", M asked, his voice tinged with an annoying "I told you so" delight.  I had completely forgotten about the "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". You see, it has this weird way of only happening when it wants to, and for some reason, at this very moment, it was apparently otherwise occupied, because it wasn't there. OF COURSE.
"It happens, I swear!"
"Yes!" Sofia piped in. "It does, Papi!"
M just smiled his Ricky Ricardo "Oh Lucy" smile, smug in his absolute certainty we were just crazy.
We ate dinner, and then on the way home, my car finally decided to take my side. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she cried, almost more loudly than ever. Even she was annoyed by my husband's macho certainty. "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" she added, for good measure.
"SEE!" S and I shouted in unison.

My car continued to "EEEEEEEEEEE", "EEEEEEEEEEE", "EEEEEEEEEEE", all the way home, and M finally jumped out and had me pop the hood. "It looks like the timing belt". His voice was muffled as he poked around underneath the hood. "We can just spray it with a special oil and it will be fine. It's no big deal."
He got back in the car, satisfied with his genius. "AND?" I demanded. "Aren't you going to apologize?"
"For what?"
"For not believing me!"
"It'll be fine."
???

My car did the "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" again this weekend, and I called M from the road to ask him about that "special oil". "It's not a big deal," he said. "Nothing will happen if you don't fix it."
"Yeah, but I want to fix it 'cuz it's annoying as hell."
"Okay, I'll fix it. But it might also be the alternator."
I knew that word from all of my Googling, and  knew it meant trouble. "And if it's the alternator?"
"Then the car will die and never start again."

So hard to choose between these choices, "No Big Deal", or "Will Die and Never Start Again"!

So as M apologizes to me under his macho breath while he is spraying the crap out of that timing belt, I'm gonna cross the crap out of my fingers and pray for "No Big Deal".

For Better or for Worse

by Patti


I have a confession to make: I complain about my husband more than I should. Truth of the matter is, he is actually a pretty good guy. Yes, he is a Grinch during the holidays, he acts like snow freezes his very soul, he is quick with a judgment and slow with a compliment, he is a perfectionist, and he can quite easily be a total pain in the ass.

He also takes care of his family, he makes me laugh, he loves our daughter fiercely, he is responsible and smart and resourceful; he is highly independent and confident and without a doubt follows his own rules and nobody else's. For all these reasons, I love him.

I also love the fact that, as masculine and macho as he is, he can iron the shit out of a shirt, he knows how to sew, he cleans better than I do times a thousand, and, whenever he is from off work and I am not, I come home to something like this:

Why am I saying all of this? Because, having been with M for 22 (Twenty! Two!) years -- 12 of those married -- I can easily fall into a state of forgetting to appreciate. Yes, he may be guilty of the same, but I can only speak for myself here -- and I will.

This weekend, after M and S had already gone to bed, I was relishing my late-night alone time, watching bad television all by myself, when suddenly my left foot started acting possessed. My toes started doing that crazy, uncontrolled "spread out" kind of thing, where they get really straight and start moving apart, and, if it wasn't so damned painful, you might just simply stare at those toes and enjoy the show. This has happened before; it usually happens after a particularly intense workout and not enough water, and, having worked out that day, I figured that's what it was.

But then I saw this giant lump form on the top of my foot, and no matter how I stretched that foot, or bent my toes backward and forward, my foot felt more and more stuck and painful, and that lump started looking kind of... black. That's when I accepted that I was probably thisclose to death; that that lump was a blood clot that was moments from dislodging and making its speedy journey towards my lungs, or better yet! My brain! And I hastily limped my way to our bedroom, snapped on the light and woke M from a deep slumber to make him promise that, if I died, he was to celebrate Christmas with our daughter in a non-Grinchy way.

M sat up in bed and humored me. He studied the offending black lump, he poked at it, massaged it, and made me put my feet up on the wall and stretch my calves. He also reminded me I hadn't worked out in a couple of weeks and had probably overdone it at the gym. He also pointed out that I always sat in my special "deformed" manner that meant my foot was suffocated by my ass for far longer than was appropriate for a foot be suffocated by an ass, and that, like it or not, that ugly black lump was actually on both of my feet... see? Right there! I studied my feet and saw that he was right: I had some pretty ugly feet. My toes started to calm down and the lump relaxed. For the moment, I was spared.

Relieved, I kissed him good night and headed back for the living room to turn off the lights and the television and Dr. Google The Lump, and I thought about it: For 22 years this man has been by my side. He's made my cry, he's made me laugh, he's disappointed me, he's surprised me, he's taken care of me and I've taken care of him. I've loved him, I've hated him, I've needed him, I couldn't stand him. Because of it, despite it, we made a family, we are a family, and no matter how often I kind of want to kill him, this remains the one constant: We're in it together, for better or for worse.

My Week with Maryland

by Patti

For the past two months, S has had to learn everything about Maryland. She had never even given that tiny state a second thought, but thanks to a year-end school project that would be a huge part of her final grade (If I fail, I won't go to middle school, MOM!), she and Maryland had no choice but to become best friends forever.  It hasn't been easy. FOR ME. Because all I've heard for the past two months is "I HATE MARYLAND." But thanks to this never-ending school project, we now know that Frank Zappa was born in Maryland; that Billie Holiday grew up in Maryland; that there is an historical, crumbling zoo in Maryland; that blue crab abounds in Maryland; that the Black-Eyed Susan is Maryland's flower; that Maryland's manufacturing revolves around soda and soap; that Maryland's flag is red and yellow and black and really, really hard to draw..... Oh, yes! The things we have learned, all in the name of getting an A!

Even though "parental participation" was "highly encouraged", for the most part, S has been pretty independent on this project. Aside from the constant whines of "I HATE MARYLAND", she has handled it quite well. She is a wiz on the computer, and a Dr. Google just like me, so she hasn't needed much assistance.
Until... the landmark. The last assignment of this project has lived in our house for the past week, swallowing up our entire dining room, all of our evenings, and even appearing in our dreams.  For the final leg of this "Celebrate America!" journey, S had to choose a landmark from her assigned state - Maryland - and recreate it. We scoured the Internet for something landmark-y, but nothing jumped out as particularly interesting. S began to panic. "I'm going to FAIL!" She remembered a website her teacher had suggested that detailed the many landmarks across the United States, and jumped around excitedly when she saw the furniture store with the 16-foot rocking chair on its roof. Yes, I said furniture store. Since when is a furniture store a landmark?
"Are you sure you can use this as a landmark?"
"Yes! My teacher even recommeded this website!"
"But... it's a furniture store."
"SO? It's on the website!"
And furniture store it was.

Now, I'll admit this: I'm good at a lot of things. Not to sound braggy, but I kind of am. I can cook, I can draw, I can sing a song, I can find anything you could ever hope to find on the Internet, I can make a person laugh.... What I can't do? Is build. For realz. Don't ever ask me to build your house, because it will come crumbling down around you the second you sneeze. My hands are impatient, and impatience does not suit structure well. M, on the other hand? Is a bit of a genius when it comes to that stuff. His hands are steady and careful and very detail-oriented. In short: The dude is anal as hell. And while Mister Cuts All the Carrots the Same Shape and Size When He is Making a Salad makes me insane with his anal-ness, it certainly comes in handy from time to time. Even knowing all of this, I , being my competitive and hard-headed self, still wanted to be able to find a way to be the Project Master. So I decided M would handle the rocking chair, and I would do the building. Because, you know, I CAN'T BUILD.

In a few short hours, M built that rocking chair. One that actually rocks (both literally and figuratively). The hardest part out of the way, S and I got to work on the actual building - the part I had delusionally assumed I'd be able to handle with ease and flair. We had gone to the Dollar Store and Michael's, and were armed with a zillion popsicle sticks, cardboard gift boxes, poster board, and pipe cleaners. The pipe cleaners were a total "just in case"; it just seems a school project is not a school project until there are pipe cleaners involved. So, as M's expertly crafted rocking chair sat there in the corner, drying, and S stood over me, I stared at the popsicle sticks and cardboard and poster board and pipe cleaners. "What can I do?" she asked. I fumbled with the cardboard, attempting to fashion it into some semblance of a building. The laptop sat open in front of me, a picture of the real building mocking me. "Mom? Maybe we need those building bricks we saw at Michael's?"
"No - we don't need those things. They're waaaay too expensive. What we have will work great!"
"But... how are we going to build the parts that stick out?"
"Like this!" I quickly folded up a piece of posterboard, attempting to create some sort of 3-D structure. I placed it over the flat area of the cardboard, silently worried by how uneven and amateurish it appeared.
"That doesn't look good."
"Shhh! It'll be fine once it's done and painted!"

We fumbled with the popsicle sticks and cardboard and poster board and pipe cleaners for three days. All the while, M hovered over me, micromanaging my incomptence, as I stubbornly continued to try to - in the words of Tim Gunn - "make it work". But it wasn't working. At all. And that is when M elbowed his way into the project, taking over. He grabbed the piece of foam board I had bought to use as the base, and swiftly folded it, instantly creating the building's facade and base.
"OH MY GOD!" S screamed. "IT LOOKS SO REAL NOW!"
I hung my head in defeat. "What do we need from the store?"
M rattled off a list of items, and I drove to Michael's at 7:30 pm on a Monday night to buy my "start all a-freaking-over" supplies. While there, I saw a few other harried parents buying foam board and popsicle sticks, and wondered if they, too, were starting all over.

When I got home, S excitedly greeted me at the door. "Look what Papi did!" There was M at the dining room table, holding the magically crafted front of the building, windows already cut out, the swinging doors covered in wood, complete with tiny little handmade handles.
I took the building bricks out of the Michael's bag and S whooped with glee. "This is going to be the best landmark EVER!"

The project, now coming together beautifully, is still underway, and Supervisor M has delegated the remaining tasks to us. But not before he managed to MAKE TINY FURNITURE for the inside of the furniture store.

I hate Maryland.