Waiting For the Bus

It was at a party for her daughter's eighth birthday, in the midst of a whole lot of hoopla, that we had this conversation, the other mommy and I. As parents tend to do when en masse, we talked about our children - their quirks, their cleverness, the lengths to which our love for them had driven us. We each had a boy and a girl, but in my case, the girl was older, and in her case, the boy was, by just a few years.

Image: Teece Aronin

Our daughters were classmates at school, and that was how the other mommy and I first met. She was flamboyant and loud, but in good ways - extroverted, I should have said. She was tall and sexy and could make smoking look almost as glamorous as people thought it was back in the fifties. She could also drink like a fish but didn't seem to lose control from it. I could never imagine her sick on booze, cooling her face on the bathroom tiles like a lot of people do when they've drunk too much. She seemed to take everything in stride, made everything she did look easy. And she was a loving mother, a hands-on mother, the kind of mother who makes mud pies with her kids.

Since children's parties and parent-teacher conferences were our usual conversation venues, we didn't talk often, but I enjoyed her when we did. One time she listed for me all the reasons she'd preferred to work outside the home even when her kids were babies. She said the same thing as a lot of women who work, when financially they can afford to stay home; that the adult interaction made her a better parent. Then she jokingly confessed the "real reason" and laid it smack on her daughter's playhouse doorstep: "That kid always talked way - too - damned - much."

But that was a different time and not the conversation I'd started to tell you about. This other conversation, as I said, took place on the occasion of her daughter's eighth birthday. But we weren't talking about her daughter; we were talking about her son. We were at her home, a comfortable townhouse she shared with her family. Being at her place always cheered me up because it was cluttered and chaotic even when she entertained, and she made no apologies for it. It cheered me up because when I entertained, I either compulsively bulldozed the clutter out or compulsively apologized for it to my guests. How could I get as comfortable in my skin as she was in hers, I wondered.

Anyway, there we were, the other mommy and I, grazing from the veggie plate, when she told me that when she was a girl, she used to make fun of the "short bus," the smaller buses used to transport kids with special needs to and from school.

So this is how the kids who teased, the kids who bullied might turn out, I mused. I had never met an adult with the guts to admit to that kind of behavior, but this one had, and she'd grown up to be . . . well . . . good, in a lot of ways. I don't know if she made fun of the kids themselves, the kids with special needs, I mean, or if she just joked about the bus itself, telling her friends they belonged on one and that kind of thing. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

For the life of me, I can't remember how we got onto the topic of her son's first day of kindergarten or what possessed her to tell me something so personal, but she did. She said that she stood at the curb with him, waiting for the bus, and the picture of them was so clear in my head, her standing there with him, her son, born with Down syndrome.

And she said that what looped through her mind over and over were the words: "Please God, don't let it be a short bus. Please God, don't let it be a short bus. Please God, don't let it be a short bus."

I don't remember if it turned out to be a short bus or not, but maybe that doesn't matter now either.

O Don't Let Me Sext When I'm Sleezy

I'm a little like the drunk who thinks he's fine to drive except that I'm the out-of-it girlfriend who thinks she's fine to text. 

Image, copyright Teece Aronin

I have a history of this kind of thing. Let's say I'm seeing a man who's on the road a lot. Invariably I'll say something like: "Text me when you get to your hotel - even if you think I'm asleep." The next day I see the text he sent at 1 a.m. then read my reply. I am absolutely mortified. 

About a year ago I was in bed with the flu when a man I was dating texted.

"What can I do to help you?" he asked - from Duluth. 

I'd been napping, was high on over-the-counter flu meds and wasn't wearing my glasses. I wrote back: "Just come on me once in a while." 

I have no idea how that happened when what I thought I wrote was, "Just check on me once in a while." Notice that some of the accidental letters in that text aren't anywhere near the intentional letters. 

There was another time when I was sleepy and sick and trying to talk to a boyfriend on the phone. Suddenly he wasn't there so I groped for the wall socket then texted to explain. I wrote: "My O just died." 

No it hadn't. My phone had just died. I was far too out of it to have had an O at that moment, but if I had, it would have just died, too. 

I'm often struck by what lovely gentlemen I've dated as not one of them pretended to notice any of the misfires including those described above. Then again, they probably wept with laughter, waved over every guy in the bar and wheezed out the words, "Look at what my passed out girlfriend just texted!" 

You know, that whole texting while sleepy thing used to embarrass me but I'm past all that. I just do my best to tap the right letter and if I happen to land anywhere within three letters of the right letter, I'm happy. 

Let men play Alan Turing to my Enigma. Let them struggle to understand me for once.

And by the way, the title of this essay is actually: Oh, Don't Let Me Text When I'm Sleepy.

I shouldn't be allowed to blog either. 

For Al-John and All the Others Like Her

For a while I did a lot of online dating. Many days as an online dater were an adventure in cat and mouse except the cats were usually VERY stupid. And most of the cats who weren't stupid were VERY creepy.

Graphic design: Teece Aronin

One day a man "liked" my profile (meaning he clicked something to indicate his interest), and when I took a closer look, he'd posted no photo of himself, listed nothing by way of personal information, and his username was AlmostNormalNow.

Then there was Seekingonereal. It took me half an hour to figure out that he was seeking one real. I couldn't imagine why he'd want to date a woman with an STD unless maybe he worked for the Health Department.

The parade continued when I spent almost a week messaging with a man before he wrote that he really wasn't ready to date someone after all. 

'Well, it was great while it never lasted,' I sighed. Two days later he texted: "Hi, Terri! How are you, gorgeous?"

"How am I?" I wrote back, "I'm not Terri, for one thing." 

There are a lot of scammers on these sites too, and most of them aren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they are tools. Case in point: the man who messaged me whose profile said he was a "guy seeking girls." At one point, he listed his name as John, and at another time he was Al. And on top of all that, his profile said, "I'd love to meet a really great guy and settle down; some man who knows how to treat a real and honest woman like me."

Our exchange went like this:

Me: "Why does your profile say your name is Al?"

Al-John: "Because that happens to be my name, sweetheart."

Me: "Then why does it also list your name as John?"

Al-John: "Oh, because my name is Al but I sometimes go by John."

Me: "And why did your profile say you're a woman?"

Al-John: "I think I typed that without my glasses. Maybe I should wear them more often."

Me: "Maybe you should, girlfriend."

To be fair, there were times I'd stretch out on the bed in ratty sweats, my hair in rollers with three or four candy bars and a party size bag of chips. I'd be tucked into bed all cozy, messaging something like this:

"Well thank you. You seem interesting, too. And yes, of course I think you're cute. Thank you for thinking I'm cute, too. Yup, I do try to take care of myself. I feel so much healthier when I eat right."

One of the online dating hopefuls messaged me one day, and when I looked at his photos, there was one of him posing in front of the Washington Monument so that it appeared to be rising out of his trouser-fronts. 

Things finally got so bad that when a ruggedly handsome guy who had two college degrees and was working on a Masters in Divinity asked me out, my friend, Tina shouted, "Praise God!" It turned out that, in addition to worshiping God, he wanted to worship me too, just not in church. 

Sometimes I'd get a little discouraged. So many men out there did not seem to be looking for what I was. I mean, I thought I knew what I was looking for. Well, let's put it this way: I knew what I wasn't looking for; I wasn't looking for a man like Al-John.

And I definitely wasn't seekingonereal. 

Cupid, Who's Your Daddy?

I just read online (where everything you read is true) that Cupid, that little fat-bottomed god of love, was the son of Venus and either Mercury or Mars. So, let me get this straight: Cupid's paternity is in doubt?  

I'm sure Venus had a good explanation - if being the goddess of love, sex, desire, and fertility weren't enough. And I'm certain she had not done the toga tussle with Mercury and Mars in such close succession that there was that much confusion over which one fathered Cupid - had she? 

Maybe the article meant the father was Mercury or Mars but exactly which is a detail lost to time. Or maybe it's a Greek versus Roman mythology mix-up?  But looking at it that way isn't nearly as fun, and frankly, I'm too lazy to google it. 

But it did start me thinking: What would conversations between Cupid and Venus have been like once Cupid started asking questions. So, imagine with me if you will . . .

. . . a lovely day in sunny Rome. Venus has descended from on high to winter with Cupid in the timeshare she owns with Mars. She summers with Cupid in the timeshare she owns with Mercury. Today mother and son are riding a float in a festival where adoring crowds toss them flowers.

Cupid, now 40 in mortal years, is an adult version of the plump cherub he once was, meaning pudgy, baby-faced, spoiled, and prone to tantrums. Atop his fattish head rests an unruly mop of graying curls. He leans toward his mother and speaks, teeth clenched in an artificial smile for the benefit of the crowds. 

"Mummy, I ask you again: Is my father Mercury or Mars?"

"Oh, darling, and I tell you again, it doesn't matter." Venus waves the cup-handed wave of a Disney Princess. "You spend plenty of time with each of them, both help support you financially, and neither one complains . . . much. Really, I don't know what the problem is.

"The problem, Mummy, is that I don't like it."

"Cupid, I am trying to be patient, really I am. But honestly, two strong, handsome, generous benefactors who, with me, provide you a fabulous lifestyle with two luxury timeshares; what's not to like?"

"Well for starters," Cupid replies, "I don't like having to call them Uncle Daddy."

Venus sighs. "Cupid, as you know, that was my idea, and I think it's the perfect compromise."

More waves, more smiles, more clenched teeth. 

"The only compromise, Mummy, is my peace of mind. And besides, neither of them likes me."

"Cupid, how could you possibly even think that?"

"Because they've each tried to kill me, that's why. Last week they took me hunting, the two of them, which believe you me, I found suspicious from the get-go. Then Uncle Daddy Mercury tricked me into walking into a clearing alone where Uncle Daddy Mars shot me with an arrow - and not one of my love arrows, if you get my drift!" 

"Oh, that's just silly, darling. "Mars said he mistook you for a deer, and I believe him."

"What he said, Mummy, was that he took me for a buffalo, which, by the way, wasn't very nice. He's always poking me about my weight."

"Cupid, sweetheart, you really must stop taking every innocent little comment as a remark about your size. You look grand, darling; you really do."

"Grand, Mummy? Really?"

Venus finally snaps. "I meant grand as in wonderful, not grand as in large, Cupid!"

The crowds are still pitching flowers, and whenever one lands in Venus' lap, she lifts it to her nose and inhales dramatically. Suddenly someone pitches the contents of a bucketful of flowers straight at Venus. They smack her in the face and tangle in her hair. Seconds later, more flowers come flying at Cupid, also hitting home. Venus and Cupid look to see that the first load was pitched by Mercury and the second by Mars, both of whom are glowering at them from the crowd.

Sputtering and picking petals off her tongue, Venus confides to her son, "Cupid, darling, Mummy might need to unload those timeshares."

  

Time Damagement

Someone once said, "When you're early, nobody notices. When you're late, everybody notices." For years, everybody noticed me. 

Time Damagement
Copyright, Teece Aronin

I had a terribly hard time getting where I needed to be especially if that "where" was work and the time was anything prior to noon. Now I have a unique system of time management that works like this:

The first thing I do every morning after shutting off the alarm is pour myself a cup of coffee. Then I sip the coffee as I'm going about my morning routine. Brush my teeth, take a sip of coffee. Put on make-up, take a sip of coffee. Chew out a kid, take a sip of coffee.

As long as any coffee remains in the cup, I'm still on time. The concept is similar to that of an hour-glass; the lower the coffee level, the sooner I have to leave for work.

This system has the side benefit of reassuring me every time I think I might need to step it up a little. I just peek into my cup and if there's coffee, all is well. If I need a little more time, I just sip more slowly and a little less often.

Another way to finesse this system is to use a jumbo mug instead of a cup. Say the alarm didn't go off; by filling an over-sized mug with coffee, I've automatically added time, just as if I'd poured more sand into the hour glass; perfect in its simplicity.

Upon my arrival at work, the system automatically adjusts to work in reverse. The more coffee I consume and the faster I consume it, the faster the day flies until before I know it, I'm home in the bosom of my family with enough residual buzz to throw dinner on the table in under 10 minutes. With a little too much residual buzz, I sometimes throw the dinner and miss the table, but messy mishaps are what children and dogs are for.

I had such faith in this system that I decided to toss it out to my friends to see what they thought. So one day on Face Book I posed the question: "In the morning, if there's still coffee in my cup, does it not follow that I'm not yet late?"

After some very tight competition for the title of Most Obnoxious Commenter, the award went to my friend, Prickly Pete who wrote: "Yes, it does not follow."

I'd like to see Prickly manage his morning routine using nothing but coffee.

Life sure is a lot easier with my caffeinated time management system. The only downfall as far as I can tell is that the earlier I run in the mornings, the shakier my hands get. That having been said, my self-esteem is much higher now; so much so that I'm considering becoming a consultant and marketing my system to physicians. 

And maybe I can barter out a deal with one of them: my consulting services for free treatment of my hand tremor. 

Besmirch Research

According to an article I found online (where everything you read is true) up to 68% of kids may be more likely to exercise when their friends do.

Image source: stockadobe.com

This conclusion was based on research conducted by experts who may be more likely to conduct studies of things that may be more likely to be common sense. Or it might have been the fault of the article's writer. But why anyone would deem it necessary to couch these findings with "may" and "likely," as though they represent radical thinking and careful wording is essential for avoiding a lawsuit, is beyond me. 

How could such a statement not be true? Imagine with me if you will:

It's a beautiful June afternoon. Little Billy Bumponalog is sitting under a tree finishing off an all-day sucker and two toaster pastries. His best friend, Joey trots over. Joey says, "Hey, Billy! Let's play tag!"

Billy Bumponalog slowly stirs from a stupor induced by a plunge in his glucose levels. He gazes up at Joey through slitted eyes. 

"Is that you, Joey?" Billy asks weakly.

Joey is annoyed. This has happened before, just yesterday, as a matter of fact. "Sure it's me. Who'd you think it was?"

"For a minute there, you looked a little like my Aunt Babs," says Billy. "She always brings me candy when she visits. Man, I'm kinda bummed you're not her."

"You know, I think you may be over-indulging your sweet tooth," Joey advises. "That might make health-endangering conditions such as obesity and diabetes at least somewhat more likely."

Joey has a bright future writing about medical research. "Now, c'mon," he says. "Let's play tag!" Then he bops Billy lightly on the head. "You're it!"

Because of Billy's blood sugar levels, that playful little tap knocks him cold. He slumps onto his side for a long summer's nap. Joey shrugs and runs off, playing tag with himself, thumping himself on alternating cheeks, right and left, right and left until he too falls to the ground, unconscious.

Gosh, maybe it is plausible.

Kay-Baby

I have an older sister named Kay. We don't speak, we never exchange gifts, and we've never borrowed each other's clothes. There are no fading, curling black and white photos of her, age eight, awkwardly cradling a newborn me just home from the hospital.

Image by Teece Aronin

There never was any of that, but for one day there was Kay, a tiny train that barely left the station. And for more than fifty years there has been me, the train that left years later to travel miles beyond her.

Kay was born at full-term but breathed too soon, and with that over-eager breath, ingested amniotic fluid. She was cleaned up by the nurses and placed in a bassinette where whatever could be done for her back then was done. On the other side of the nursery window my father stood, murmuring over and over, "The more I see her, the more I want her."

From that day on, when my father spoke of Kay, he called her "Kay-Baby."

When Kay died, my father got back to his job, and my mother returned to the full-time care of their toddler son. That's how the Greatest Generation grieved, by blowing their noses, wiping their tears, and getting back to the tasks at hand. Not long after that, my parents had another child, a boy who thrived. They considered their family complete and once again, got on with things.

Almost seven years later, I was born, an oops baby if ever there had been. My mother was 32 when her doctor broke the news, my father, 47.

My mother wasn't thrilled to learn of her pregnancy. In those days, even at her age, she was considered a bit old to be pregnant, and her boys had long since stopped draining her with the demands of babies. Then, my aunt said something that turned my mother around: "Maybe this one will be a girl."

My father was delighted from the get-go.

Like my brothers and unlike my sister, I was born without complications, and I knew from early on that a baby girl had come before me but died. I stood on a kitchen chair one day, helping my mother bake cookies. I asked her if I was Kay. To me it made perfect sense that if a little girl was born and died, the sister born after would be the kind of do-over that God would permit Himself under special circumstances. 

My mother's reaction to my question, along with her response, are lost to me now. 

I pictured Kay's soul as a beautiful piece of cloth blowing in the breeze and hovering over the world. With my birth, it floated back down, became my soul and helped me become me, Kay-Baby restored.

The idea that I might be Kay, that the universe can recycle a soul taken out of circulation too soon, still appeals to me somehow.

Today Kay-Baby's remains lie in a cemetery next to my parents'. But maybe, just maybe, the bigger part of her is sitting here writing these words.