The Perv Next Door

Our first house together was located on a charming, old tree-lined street. It was there Rick and I experienced a street cleaning event. Once a year, you could put anything out on the street in front of your house. On your appointed day, large dump trucks would come down the street, followed by an army of people equipped with shovels and brooms. To get ready for the big day, Rick and I tackled the garage. He climbed up in the the rafters and threw junk down to me. While up there, Rick yelled “Hey, what kind of doctor was the guy we bought the house from? Was he a gynecologist?”. Then, he dropped his find down to me - a padded, flesh-colored torso that could be bolted onto a wall. It had no arms, and partial thighs. It was truly horrific, and definitely pervy. I couldn’t put this item out on the street until the last minute, due to the fact that people in pickup trucks would peruse the street cleaning items as soon as they were deposited. Our neighbor, a not-too-bright woman we called The Airhead, regularly checked out everyone’s junk piles. She had at least two toilets sitting on her front porch, in addition to other street cleaning treasures. The last thing she needed was a life-sized sex toy. By the morning of the street cleaning event, I was anxious to get rid of The Torso. At the crack of dawn, I took it out to the street, and buried it under some ugly decorative rocks and other assorted junk. Then, I scurried back to my house to await the dump trucks. At one point, I saw The Airhead poking around our pile. Fortunately, The Torso was buried deep enough to avoid ending up on her front porch. After an eternity, there was a rumbling, announcing the arrival of the trucks and sanitation workers. I was lurking in the shadows of my living room, awaiting the unveiling of The Torso. Finally, the shovel on the front of a dump truck picked it up. I was horrified when I saw The Torso dangling from the corner of the scooper. In my mind, or possibly in reality, all the shovel handlers turned and looked at my house. I saw the silent scream of “Pervs Live There!” emanating from their lips. Then, they were gone. I never did find out what kind of doctor sold us our house. No doubt a sexy one... or maybe just a really, really lonely one.

Born To Breed

Today is my son Ben’s 27th birthday. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown. Still seems like yesterday... OK a few years ago, that I gave birth to him. When I was pregnant that first time, I decided to go the natural route and enrolled in Lamaze classes. I have a phobia of needles, and the one used to manage childbirth pain is pretty much harpoon-sized. I would rather bite on a bullet or maybe eat a bug. Lamaze is basically a diversion tactic. You concentrate on a focal point, and perform breathing exercises. Hopefully, you don’t notice the football-sized object you are trying to expel from your nether regions. I grew more terrified after each Lamaze class. The whole childbirth experience became more daunting instead of less. As the last class ended, I had decided the baby should stay put. No way in hell was I going through ALL THAT. By then, though, there was only one way out. I performed admirably when the time came. I never once called anyone names or screamed for drugs. I concentrated on my focal point like I was trained to do. Except for a banana-shaped head, Ben came out perfect. I was convinced I was born to breed. My second childbirth experience wasn’t quite as smooth. Perhaps I had beginner’s luck the first time. I figured I could do it again, no sweat. Once the pain started in earnest, though, my first childbirth experience came flooding back. I started to consider an epidural. Having a harpoon shoved into my back was actually starting to sound not so bad. I had waited too long to scream for drugs, though, and had to do the natural thing again. This time, it was the baby’s idea to stay put. My daughter apparently had a death grip on my tonsils, and wouldn’t come out. Or at least that was the scene playing in my head. Had I known then what I know now, I would have had my doctor wave a Coach bag, fabulous pair of shoes, or state-of-the-art cell phone to lure Molly out. Retail therapy beats drugs any day.

Stranded

I was stranded at home once for two days while my car was in the shop. As my husband was leaving for work on the second day, he gave me an assignment - to find the source of the bad smell in the refrigerator. It was bad enough to waste two vacation days sitting at home waiting to get my car back. Now I had to empty my fridge, hopefully NOT finding anything too gross. My goal was to discover the bad something before it had grown fur or changed color. I started out by making a pile of anything that could be expired. The pile got pretty big before I hit pay dirt. Lurking on the bottom shelf, way in the back, was a bag of sausages that had expired six months ago. I did not look very close, or open the bag for a smell test, but was relatively sure that six month-old meat was not a good thing. In my perusal of the refrigerator door, I found seven bottles of salad dressing and barbecue sauce that had also outlived their freshness date. One bottle was three years past its expiration. A new world’s record? Not by a long shot. I believe my own personal best (or worst) record is a nineteen year-old package of yeast, discovered last Thanksgiving. Technically that was hanging out in the cupboard, not the fridge, but it’s an awesome record just the same. I was in high hopes that the smell would go away with the sausages, but that didn’t happen. I tackled the freezer next, whereupon I discovered a new personal fridge best - a 7 year old roast. If it was in school, the Mystery Meat would be a first grader. I filled up four tall kitchen garbage bags with frozen meat. The next day was garbage day and I was lucky that my neighbors had room for two of the bags in their can. The bags o’ meat were extremely heavy. I worried the whole next day that the garbage men would think a dead body was in my can. What if the meat had thawed out overnight, and disgusting liquid leaked out from that little hole in the bottom of the can? I wouldn’t have been surprised if Seattle Homicide showed up at my door. The bad odor still wasn’t gone, but I probably wouldn’t be able to smell it from jail. Maybe things were looking up.

Smile!

I am definitely not confident in my mothering skills. I have two great kids who have grown into interesting adults. Boring was not an option. Still, I doubt my abilities. Even when I watch TV ads, I compare myself to the actors. Case in point - I saw a TV commercial showing a mother, three kids and a dog baking together (Seriously, who does that?). One of the children was holding an electric mixer up in the air, and turned it on. Chocolate cake batter went flying everywhere. Then they all laughed... even the mother. OMG! What was wrong with her? Was she seriously demented??? Had she been smacked on the head, prompting her to bake with the kiddies? I can’t imagine someone’s first reaction to a monumental mess being laughter. Anger, yes. Disbelief, sure. But not giggles, guffaws, or even snickers. No way! A similar commercial had two adorable little girls in school uniforms (white blouses) bringing a tray into their parent’s bedroom (white decor). The parents were propped up in bed (wearing white jammies, in front of a white headboard). Oh, and did I mention there was a little white dog? Can you predict what happened next? A glass with purple liquid on the tray spilled onto the white dog, who then shook his fur. This hurled purple dots onto EVERYTHING white. And then... everybody smiled. Even the purple dog. Later, the mother was seen putting the stained clothes into her washing machine... still smiling. What could explain these people calmly yucking it up while the world around them turns into cake batter and purple liquid? I believe these commercials were for high-efficiency washing machines, but would have been better suited selling tranquilizers, or perhaps tasers. I’m nor sure if the average citizen can purchase a taser, but I’d recommend one for baking with the kids. Now THAT makes me smile! (Note: In spite of what I just said, my kids really are OK.)

Rituals

As I drove past a Lutheran church in my neighborhood, I saw a banner reading “Blessing of the Backpacks”. It’s still unclear to me whether one’s backpack will be blessed against bad things, or so good things will happen to its contents. I’m considering showing up at the backpack blessing ceremony with my wallet (my debit card needs all the help it can get). It’s worth a shot, however I don’t know if you need to be a Lutheran for it to work. As a recovering Catholic, I’d have to lie, which probably wouldn’t be a good thing to do inside a church. I am intrigued by all these blessing ceremonies and am anxious to see what’s on the next banner. My childhood was chock full of Catholic rituals. Mass every Sunday and on Holy Days, Confession on Fridays, and various ceremonies throughout the year took up a major chunk of my life. “High” Mass included incense, which always made my first grade friend Allison faint. Thunk... It added a little mystery and suspense to the whole thing. During a really special Mass, the bishop would walk down the center aisle and fling holy water from a little bucket. Sometimes, we tried to get hit and other times we ducked. It was like an encounter with a Holy super-soaker. After a while, the bishop’s tall pointy hat and ornate vestments seemed ordinary. Dude in a dress... so what? Sometime in February came the feast of St. Blaise. On that day, you could get your throat blessed. The priest would put crossed candles against your throat while chanting a blessing. Perhaps this ritual was bogus, or maybe Someone Important knew I was skeptical. Needless to say, I had many a sore throat for much of my childhood. Nowadays I could really get into a a ritual to stave off obesity and arthritis. If that would mean attending church again, though, I may have to just limp off into the sunset.

Trying For A Green Thumb

I spent part of my Labor Day pruning a pink dogwood tree in my front yard. I planted this tree about 10 years ago, and still haven’t seen even one of the fabulous pink flowers it’s supposed to have. Its leaves were starting to look spotted and dried out, so I took a cutting to the nearest nursery. The experts told me my tree probably had a fungus. To help the tree’s recovery, I was told to prune it and clean any leaves beneath it. I was also told to clean my tools afterwards, in order not to spread the fungus to another plant. Great... this was NOT going to be fun. I got all my tools out, including the giant clippers-on-a-really-really-long-pole. This pole came to my attention when I was in line at Home Depot several years ago. Someone was buying one, and I was fascinated. I decided right then I needed to own one. The first time I used the pole, I was pruning a 30’ cedar tree. I hadn’t realized when I bought the pole, that it had clippers at the end. I had just thought it was an extremely long hook. I climbed my crappy 5’ aluminum ladder, and used the big hook to pull branches within reach. Then I tied the long rope from the pole to my ladder, whereupon I would use my clippers to trim the branches. Looking back on it now, this procedure was awkward and silly. At the time, though, I thought I was a genius gardener. At one point, as I was standing on the top of the ladder, I lost my balance. I grabbed the pole and rope, and guess what happened? The hook actually cut the branch it was hanging on. Who knew? (besides everyone else in the gardening world) I felt like the biggest damn doofus, and hoped nobody had been watching my gardening acrobatics. Today, I used the clipper pole properly. I did giggle to myself the entire time, though. Good thing nobody knows about my mistaken use of the big giant clipper pole... until now.

What's In A Name?

Last month we changed our safe deposit box to a different bank. As I looked through all our treasures, I came across my birth certificate and a document from when I had my name legally changed at age 13. All my sisters had “Ann” for their middle name. I was christened “Martha Kim”. While I was named after my great-grandmother, my sisters weren’t named after anyone. They were just given names my parents liked. I had always felt like I was different and didn’t fit in. This name thing was concrete proof that my fears were true. How else do you explain it? It didn’t matter that I was always called Kim. I had let it slip to some classmates what my given name was. Bad idea! I came home every day whining that the mean boys were calling me Martha. They usually called me “Board” because my chest was as flat as one. You’d think Martha would have been a nice change from that. Unfortunately, there was a girl in our class named Martha and she was not my favorite person. She was tall, quiet, and kind of dorky. When the nun would leave the class unattended, Martha would pull out a book and read. Without being told to. Just read on her own. OMG! Something about the way Martha walked was strange too. She kind of walked without moving any part of her body except her feet. For some inexplicable reason, she reminded me of Natasha from the Bullwinkle cartoons. I can’t figure out why. Martha definitely didn’t wear a strapless blue dress or heels. She didn’t have a Russian accent either. In my brain, though, she was the spitting image of an evil cartoon character. My parents eventually relented and had my name legally changed to Kimberly Ann. Sigh... What a relief. Funny thing though, I lost the name I detested but still didn’t feel like I fit in. Oh well, I appreciated that my parents had tried. As I was looking over the papers in my safe deposit box, I noticed an interesting item on the legal document. The clerk who signed the document was named Martha. What are the odds? I truly hope I didn’t spout off about how much I hated that name. Knowing me, though, I probably did. Sorry to all the Marthas out there. All you cartoon characters too.