Monthly Archives: August 2007

Friday Cat Blogging: Spiders And Snakes Edition

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This afternoon, when I was traveling between jobs and pressed for time,Miss Topaz demonstrated her displeasure with the service around Casa Complaisancy while informing me that she had a tummy ache. In other words, she looked me in the eye and pooped on the bathroom floor. I said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. This is my fault for overstuffing you with delicious tuna fish.” Yesterday, I foolishly opened a can among many left over from the apartment’s previous feline occupant, divided the can’s contents into approximate halves and presented them at great risk to myself to the kitten riot at my feet. I’m lucky to be alive; Topaz nibbled and kept nibbling. Then nibbled some more. Later, there was nibbling. I’m surprised she didn’t hork. She’s got style, that femme!

This afternoon, I’m packing up and driving. Grandpa turned 95 last weekend so much of the family is converging on Cape Cod for the annual Weekend of Happy Shouting. It’s sweetly unnerving to sit next to Grandpa and yelp about my job at the unnamed university, and asking him questions only frustrates him. It frustrates me that he asks my mother what I’m talking about and she says, “DOMENICA’S FUNNY, DAD. SHE’S MAKING A JOKE.” Then Grandpa pauses a moment and laughs, because he loves me.

Pete will stay with the kittens. They adore him and will nibble his toes. I cannot wait to come home and scritch three bellies.

Double Time With the Seduction Line

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Pete’s full of surprises. For instance, I don’t know about you but I get confused when a pastry chef says, “I don’t eat white flour.” It turns out Pete had a life-altering illness about the same time I did, lo when Gingrich roamed the earth, and now dietary elements I take for granted suddenly aren’t. I eat everything. He does not. This is not a problem. It’s a puzzle, and my brain rejoices.

When Dad was sick, I wracked my brains for simple and complicated ways to get a few calories past the bad taste cancer literally left in his mouth. On good days, when I thought of a way to trick the cancer palate, I felt like a million bucks. By comparison, lactose and white flour intolerance combined with an inability to digest seeds and nuts is a walk in the damn park.

I admit the lactose intolerance made my head spin a bit. A zillion years ago, I did a brief, embarrassing stint as a backup singer for this woman who played the women’s music circuit. Yes, there is one. Getting to sing was great fun but rehearsals kicked my ass. She was vegan and fed me gallons of coffee and soy milk, bagels and …something spread-y, I don’t recall what. Her heart was in the right place, but I spent whole afternoons in the bathroom. Thus, when Pete said, “I drink soy milk” I bit my lip and bought a box. I mean, what the hell. It’s not radioactive, right? It can’t hurt me from the inside of a cardboard box. One morning when I didn’t have to leave the house all afternoon, I poured a glooooop! of soy milk into my coffee and waited for digestive disaster.

None ensued. Emboldened by this minor triumph, I began pouring glooooops! of soy milk into my coffee every morning. Then Pete introduced into the diet soy spread, which turned out to be tasty and perfectly okay for frying. I was pleasantly surprised that we weren’t fighting lactose intolerance with saturated fat. A month ago, I would have rejected these products out of hand; now, I am perfectly okay with them. It is slow going to dismantle my assumptions about what is available and edible, but the thinking – all the thinking – excites me.

We agree to disagree: Pete says no one needs cheese. I say you can have my cheese when you pry it from my cold, dead hands. Other than that, planning meals is a blast.

My Feet Know Where They Want Me To Go

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It’s hot and I’m sweating – which is a step in the right direction. I’ve been limping around town on creaky joints since last summer. Then, last week, when I wrenched my left hip, I finally had what Dad described as a goddammit talk with myself.

Tata: I’ve had it with you!
Tata: What? Ow! What?
Tata: This is pathetic. You’ve waited more than a year to do something about this. A freaking year!
Tata: Ow! What’s your point?
Tata: I am totally done with your excuses and lollygagging. We’re taking private yoga classes now, and you’re paying for it.
Tata: Ow! I can’t afford that!
Tata: Really? Can you afford to put on another ten pounds and wait another year?
Tata: No…
Tata: Bust out that credit card, princess, we’re rehabbing those hips.

At the new yoga studio in town, I signed up for three private classes at a price that made me gulp and I stretched for all I was worth. Then, again on Monday, when the teacher pushed me hard. The day after a tough workout, you walk around whistling. The second day, you wish you could lie down on a runway at JFK and let Lufthansa run you over very well. This afternoon, I went back to the studio and pushed myself as hard as I could. Tonight, I drew a hot bath, perfumed it with oils and tinctures, poured a glass of chardonnay and lay down in the tub for as long as I could hold still, possibly even whole minutes.

My hip joints ache but the muscles promise a less painful Friday than they might. I let this go too far and fooled myself into thinking the pain and stiffness weren’t important, and that it’s never too late to address them. That’s idiotic. And my next class is Wednesday.

You Stepped Out Of A Stranger

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People ask me questions all the time, everything from Who told you you were funny? to Why are you sleeping on my lawn? This morning, my student worker asked if I planned to dance all the way across the building. I told him it was a long way to hula. So that was an easy one. The trickier questions involve my family and the one I hear most frequently: does that wacky Daria exist?

Yep. Our cousin Monday snuck up on us and snapped this moment for gobsmacked posterity.

Here you see me in a charming ensemble dragged from the back of Daria’s closet describing to Daria how I’d dried my hair upside down for our sister Dara’s eighties-themed sweet sixteen party. Yes, that is my butt. No, you can’t have it. What would I sit on and complain? Sheesh. Daria had just finished explaining that her hair is naturally a giant cloud of Jersey Chick curly hair but that wasn’t retro enough, so she went with a hairband with a streaked coif attached. It’s a nice touch.

Further, that purple balloon behind me was altogether familiar. I slapped it and yelled, “Masher!” which caused Daria to spit her adult beverage.

We don’t finish a lot of drinks.

Your Honesty Shine, Shine, Shine

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Tata: Do you think I can leave? It would be conspicuous.
Auntie InExcelsisDeo: It sure did matter that you arrived!
Sandy: Mom! Did you hear what Karen said?
Auntie: No. What?
Sandy: I was standing right behind Domenica when she said hello to Karen. Karen said to these other people, “This is my new husband’s ex-wife!” The people behind me were all like, “That is so cute! The groom’s ex-wife is here!”
Tata: Try as I might, I can’t avoid the paparazzi.

Yes, this afternoon, the Fabulous Ex-Husband(tm) and Karen finally got married. Years ago, I promised the man patient enough to marry and divorce me that I’d never write about him, but you should know that if I were to write about him, I would only have great things to say, like that when we met he was so painfully shy it was almost rude to stare into his poolwater-green eyes and say, “No, I can’t go do what you told me, boss, I can’t remember if I have feet.” Yes, I fell in love with him at first sight and three months later, I stood on his desk and told him he liked me, too, which came as a surprise to him – until it wasn’t. Anyway, we have a better divorce than we had a marriage, which was my fault, and he graciously forgave me. He never left the family holiday table; it took a bit of adjusting all around when he started bringing Karen, who was at first startled to receive Christmas presents from the family’s lone Jew, but l’chaim! Fast-forward a few years: here we are in an Asian restaurant on Route 1 – surely you’ve heard of Route 1 – and the Fabulous Ex-Brothers-In-Law Louis and Ronny are positively beaming.

Louis: How are you?
Tata: I’m overjoyed! Yay! I kept telling him it was time to get married already because I wanted to be somebody’s first wife.
Louis: You are his first wife.
Tata: No, sweetie, until he’s got a second, I’m just the ex.
Louis: Well, you’ve got 38 minutes, then!
Tata: EEEEEE! New nomenclature!

Thirty-six minutes later, during the brief and effective ceremony, which in a moment of inspiration was placed in the buffet line, Louis frantically cut price tags off the wedding rings. At the 39-minute mark, the officiant had finally coaxed Karen to blurt “in failure and in triumph” without barking laughter and pronounced “husband and wife.” Louis looked over at me and tapped his watch. I did the New Adjective Dance! but it was close because I almost shouted, “IT’S ABOUT TIME!”

Ronny’s second wife Jan is his high school best friend. When I met her, she and Ronny were watching a p0rn film and couldn’t figure out whose body parts were whose. She had a family emergency and missed today’s festivities, but Ronny’s two sons from his first marriage were running around with their cousins. Ronny’s first wife and I hated each other, so now Ronny never fails to mention the obvious.

Ronny: Riva’s sorry she missed you.
Tata: I can’t bear to hear her name. It’s almost as jarring as her voice.
Ronny: Make sure you rub up against your nephews. She’s sure to smell you on them.

Oh, he’s serious. Before I left, Ronny pointed to his older son:

Ronny: There he is.
Tata: Hold still, cute boy.

I rubbed my forearm all up and down his.

Tata: Share that with your brother! She’s gonna scrub you with Drano.

Louis, three feet away, stopped breathing. Louis’s wife, who has never approved of me, suddenly smiled. So, everyone triumphed.

It must be noted that Miss Sasha made the wedding cake and it was gorgeous. With any luck, we’ll see photos pretty soon. In fact, Miss Sasha was the talk of the party. Everyone wanted to talk about the baby. Baby this. Baby that. Baby some other thing. I was more interested in other things.

Tata: So. Who are your new siblings?
Miss Sasha: That’s my new brother. He is totally cute.
Tata: He is cute.
Miss Sasha: That one in the purple is my new sister. The girl in the cream halter top is her girlfriend.
Tata: Your new sister is a lesbian? I’m so jealous!
Miss Sasha: Ha ha!
Tata: Do the dogs and cats get along?
Miss Sasha: It’s like a petting zoo with a kitchen island.

There was sushi, too.

Friday Music Blogging: It Could Be You Edition

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There are about a thousand fascinating things to talk about – later. This morning, a gentle rain is falling, the air off the river hits the wide college lawns and picks up the sweetness of recently cut grass. Nothing hurts much and I have yoga class after work. I am nibbling grapes at my desk. For this moment: a reminder from the Guillemots to savor the little joys. I forget this sometimes.

Okay, that’s enough gravity. I can’t fight it without a sports bra.

Never Gonna Fall For

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The old laptop turned an antique two and began slowing waaaay, way down. The browser quit whenever I opened Haloscan. I was having a tough time being a belle of the Blog Ball, doing my own work and working on the family store’s website. If it’s possible, at this time two weeks ago I was even testier than usual. When I turned to trusty Siobhan for help wrangling a new laptop, things went side saddle.

Siobhan: I can’t! I’ve got errands until ten every night until I leave Friday morning at 4 a.m.
Tata: Your selfishness is unbelievable! Think of the poor salesdude in the Apple store confronted with me, an overheating G3 with Miss Sasha’s wedding video stuck in the disk drive, and a freshly minted credit card for this purpose alone. Imagine that psyche in terrible crisis!
Siobhan: Sob!

I promised her misery when she returns this Saturday but it made no difference. Siobhan’s been on blood thinners since the pulmonary embolism in February. Perhaps you recall this golden moment in Poor Impulse Control.

(Dreamy woo woo music. Enter careening clown car.)

Tata: Wait, when should I panic?
Siobhan: When I stopped breathing in the ER and sliding toward the floor, twelve years of voice training and fright combined in a potent cocktail of pride and self-preservation. I screamed, “I CAN’T BREATHE!” annnnnd – curtain! That would have been the moment to panic. My doctor keeps saying, “You nearly bought the farm!” and laughing. I’m thinking of killing him.
Tata: Can I panic when we’re the darlings of CourtTV?
Siobhan: Yes. It’s natural to shiver in the presence of Nancy Grace.

(End dreamy woo woo music. Even clowns fear Nancy Grace.)

Drinking while on blood thinners makes you either a cheap date or a patient with ER frequent flyer miles, so Siobhan’s been sober since before the last snowfall. Liquor manufacturers begged her to reconsider but rejoiced when she declared that for the first three days of her summer vacation everyone would have to raise their own hell, she was diving into a martini and swimming the channel. And while I am aware that she’s probably just sobered up today and started issuing apologies, that didn’t help me last week. So: fine! If she couldn’t go shopping with me, the least she could do was write flashcards for when I tried talking to the other humans in my funny Moonman language, which she did. It took all afternoon. Finally, I was prepared and growling; I went. The experience was in retrospect disappointing. The stuck disk remains stuck. The recalled and overheating battery remains in place. I bought a firewire cable and moved my own data, and for the first time in my computer-owning history, Apple can fucking bite me. But I have this ginchy new laptop that actually does what I need it to do. My brother-in-law Dan, recipient of the erstwhile fantabulous thermoMac if he ever returns my calls, can prise that disk from the bitey drive with a monkey wrench if he chooses. We fear no warrantee!