So Far

Stella's Happy New Year

I'm on a Roll

These are for Georgia.

For the Ultimate WizOz Fan

I made these for Sadie.

The horror...the horror...

I had to go to Lo's class holiday party today.

Life with Dogs

Last night when Georgia and I left to go work out at the Y, Biggy was grilling dinner. He was supposed to save Georgia's until we got home. When she and I returned, everyone in the house had gone shopping.

Mark Knopfler & Emmylou Harris - Why Worry

There's Still Time to Order Books for Christmas

Bookstore: Snake Nation Press

MARGARITAS

Beri is the funniest girl in the world.

Kathy’s been a little depressed.

Josie’s just gotten off work

counseling rapists and pedophiles,

and because it is still the March

of my thirty-third birthday,

we’re sitting on the patio of El Toro,

drinking grande margaritas on a Tuesday night,

discussing the elusive concept of sober sex

while our waiter runs the chips-and-salsa

relay so he doesn’t miss a word.

For Josie and me, newly single after a decade,

like planets slung off our axis,

and Kathy, of ruler-strict Catholic upbringing,

sex intrigues us like a foreign language.

But Beri, married for more than four years,

is having a hard time remembering sex at all,

its permutation of limbs, its wet rock and slide,

though she pretends and doesn’t know I see

she’s counting on her fingers under the table–

best I can figure, it was Christmas,

Charles’s tired stocking stuffer

offered up like a diamond necklace.

Josie says it takes three martinis

to forget the day’s fun accounts

of rodents and rectal thermometers.

Kathy needs five beers on an empty stomach

to get past god, his son, and the holy ghost,

and I’m thinking half a bottle

of a decent dry white, I’ll relax a little

about the popped balloons of my breasts,

the post-caesarian belly battle zone

my husband traded in for a twenty-year-old

with a moon-pie face and perky ta-tas.

The waiter smiles a young Spanish smile

that tells us he understands this English perfectly,

understands our need for extra sour cream,

and suddenly we’re appreciating the fit of his apron

over tight black jeans, the neon sombrero

glow washing over our enchiladas,

the low night rumble of practical sedans

burrowing back to the suburbs

like guilty fathers, and the clear constant moon,

with its gathering of all things oozing and flowing,

that keeps us glued together. We’ve fallen

silent as the empty fishbowls

in which swim our dreams of love

in dregs of salt and citrus when Kathy says,

You have to really trust a man to have sober sex.

MY BEST FRIEND MOVED 2000 MILES AWAY

Even my dogs hate me today,

that weasel-eyed Chihuahua

and the prissy Jack Russell,

their thick middle-aged growls

when I sat too close on the sofa. 

And my three-year-old socked

me, smack in the nose. I almost

slapped her back, except it was my fault

she didn’t get her nap,

what with me lugging the vacuum

from room to room,

like something that couldn’t wait.

I don’t recognize myself anymore,

the magpie shrill of my voice,

the way the corners of my mouth

mop the floor. I can’t spare

the energy to smile, something

my husband just doesn’t get,

crooning Smile, like our sadistic

high school track coach. Apparently,

he doesn’t like me much either,

my spouse, and neither

do the two teenaged daughters,

who brandish unfeasible schedules

as I shoot daggers

at their renegade belly buttons.

It’s a civil war, alright:

Who will empty the dishwasher;

who should buy the K-Y?

And all the while, they’re,

all of them, tossing dead herrings

of socks and panties into a pile

that blocks the sun.

Evolution of Hallow's Eve Eve

I committed to attend an event on the 30th long before the neighborhood changed Halloween to Saturday, so I had to leave during the neighborhood cul-de-sac party.


This is the condition of Biggy and Lola when I left. They planned a long night of trick-or-treating after the party.

I arrived home around 11 pm, and this is how I found them.

And this is the final phase, Saturday morning.

Like the Back of Her Hand

So Biggy and I have a long-standing "issue" regarding Lo's diet. Part of the reason he's doing the grocery shopping now is that he believes he is more conscientious about buying healthy snacks and preparing wholesome meals (The other reason, of course, is that I spend too much). According to Georgia, all the two of them ever eat is steak. Yeah, just that. Nothing with. Unless you buy Reagan's ketchup-is-a-vegetable thing... But when I make the child's lunch in the morning, it's supposed to be half a lean turkey sandwich, a carrot stick, and an apple slice. Water to drink. She's supposed to have grapes for snack, 8-10. It's good if I can use the same baggie a few days in a row.

Anyway, this morning, while she was eating her cinnamon toast (He was sleeping) and I was making her lunch, she yelled at me from the sunroom:

Lo: Hey, those cheddar and sour cream potato chips on the counter are for my snack.

TR: Really?

Lo: Yeah.

TR: You must have caught your dad in a really good mood.

Lo: Buy one, get one.

New Refrain

In the grad program I'm in, we 're required to take part in group counseling. Last week, we were asked to come in with a self-affirmation to share. Very 90's-Stuart-Smalley, I know. But it can't hurt.

The Lieutenant's Alter Ego

What I Gave Myself

What I Want to Give Jack for Christmas

Alas,  Ginger Williams's nesting dolls are not for sale.

90 Minutes I Will Never Get Back

Every once in a while, Biggy will talk me into watching a movie with him against my better judgment--either a high-number sequel to a good movie (Saw) that was never equalled the second time, much less the sixth, or a terrible movie (Jackass) whose sequels cannot even be ranked against the original, or a movie that was so bad (The Waterboy, Team America: World Police), a sequel was never considered. I watch to be a good sport, to be his buddy, so he knows he can count on me even when things get unpleasant. And does he return the favor? No, he doesn't. He wouldn't go with me to watch Sex and the City, one or two; he refuses to watch Heartburn on TV, and he fell asleep during The Deer Hunter, which isn't even a chick flick.

So why did I let him talk me into THIS last night? Showers don't help; prayers don't work. My soul has been permanently damaged.

Never Goin' Back

Six years sober today, this from Karaoke Funeral:

THE NEW LOVER

I’m sitting on him in my living room chair,

his lap like a table where my bills pile up,

his lap a glossy stage I dance across,

and from it rises his big carpenter’s hand,

then down and into my shirt, he’s asking

if I’d have his child. Fat fucking chance,

I’m thinking. “I know all I need to know,”

he soothes as we’re watching PBS on the widespread

use of antidepressants; I’d rather pay a shrink

the hundred-plus dollars to whine about

my father’s floating penis, about that straw

perched on the lip of that tall drink, that olive

trembling in the bottom of a glass, and zombie dreams

starring my dead sister, grave-tight until twilight

when she appears, post-autopsy, offering up

odd pieces of herself. Here’s what Big Guy Lover

doesn’t know: Alcoholics take hostages.

He pulls my face up to his, his eyes deep

as disco, says, “Sweetie, I know you could never

be depressed, you smile too much.” I just grin

and shimmy over the hardwood, an unransomed

history aimed at his head.

...the sense god gave a chihuahua...

Do click.

First Day, Fifth Grade

Biggy, pretty much boohooing about how this was the last first day of elementary school, the first day of fifth grade, the first day of the last grade before middle school...got up extra early to make the instant pancakes, as always, which were not appreciated as much as they once were. Nor were the perfunctory snapshots for our cranky youngest child. The dogs, however, were as excited as ever to get to the bus stop.

New Sheriff in Town

So Lola spent yesterday afternoon at her Safety Patrol training session and came home sporting her new flair--cap, belt, giant binder (she's been upgraded from last year's clipboard). That's not all, though; they'll be getting their rain ponchos next week. Bright orange. She was just an ordinary patrol officer in fourth grade, but for fifth she's been promoted to Lieutenant; hence the binder.

Now she can issue warnings, citations, and detention hall slips, and she needs the larger ledger to keep track of the offending masses. She also has command over the lower officers, of course, and MUST hand out demerits if they forget any part of uniform or badge. She watched every episode of Mall Cops this summer, taking notes. School starts tomorrow, and we can all feel a little safer.

Convo with Georgia

Miss George is back in school, in Photography, let's just say VERY close to where I work, so she has occasion to pop into my office here and there to share what's on her mind. Yesterday, for instance:

Georgia: I really wish I didn't have to work tonight. I still have to shoot fruit--I'm thinking pomegranate, cut open all sloppy and gross looking, like awful lips-- sometime between when I get off tonight and six in the morning, when I'm meeting A to get sunrise shots.

TR: Rough schedule.

George (Brightening a bit): I did have time to get a Fit Shake, though.

TR(Obligatory question): How was it?

George: That GIRL made it. She's SUCH a bitch. They were out of big straws, only had little ones, which, of course, would sink down and get as lost as I am in Photoshop, and what good would that do me, so I asked if they had any more of the big ones, and she gave me a look like I was asking her to be my Maid of Honor. PLUS, she didn't fill the cup up. Terrible customer service. She should NOT be working with the public. I mean, neither should I, but if I'm not nice to people, I don't get tipped, and she's probably making about eight dollars an hour whether she's nice or not, and that inch in my cup that she didn't fill is the biggest part of the cup and that's significant. Fit Shakes cost over six bucks, and it should be mashed up against the lid. Oozing out even. It's not like she buys the acai herself.

TR: It's better when the guys make it. They usually blend too much and put the leftovers in a little cup for you to take with.

George: Exactly! And then I got out to my car and took a sip, and it wasn't even a Fit Shake. I don't know what it was, but I wasn't going to drink it. So I had to go BACK in and tell her. Then she screamed at the guy taking orders that he had PUT IT IN WRONG and glared at me while she made it again. NOW I have to go work the patio, and it's a hundred and twenty degrees out, so I'll be sweating like Fat Elvis.

TR: Come get a hug.