Did you get what you wanted?

“Valentine's Day:  When the cynics criticize the romantics for the over-commercialization of the holiday and the romantics criticize the cynics for lack of belief in love and we take the time to step back and realize how lucky we are to have people we love who love us, no matter whether or not we are in a relationship. We celebrate the bonds between us that we wouldn't be able to live without.”

--Sydney Roslin

I caught an ad for a Valentine's Day special from the massage studio I like:

“Add 30 minutes of foot reflexology to your massage for only $30!”

The Professor interrupted my daydream of having my arches worked.

“So, I’m heading over to Costco.  Are flowers for Valentine’s Day okay?”

“Yes, of course.”

He brings me flowers from Costco every time he goes.  I REALLY appreciate that.  I also do not think he needs to prove anything to me on Valentine’s Day.  BUT he did ask AND my feet were already tingling in anticipation of what I really wanted.  I grabbed the ad and walked down the hall to his office.

“I hope this doesn’t come across as rude, but I actually don’t want flowers from Costco for Valentine’s Day.  I want foot reflexology.”

His eyes lit up.  God love him, all he wants to do is get it right.

“Great.  Perfect.  Give me the name of the place and I’ll handle it.”

I used to resent having to dictate what I wanted, feeling unromantic and piggish and bossy.  I prefer to think of myself as loving and generous and easy-going.

And that’s exactly how I’ll be tomorrow after my massage with 30 minutes added-on of foot reflexology.

Sweet Surprises

 

There is a mentally-disabled man, Peter, who works at the grocery store near us.  I don’t go to Vons very often anymore but used to be a regular there when the kids were younger.  Peter would always come over to our cart when I had Charming Baby with me.  He'd usually share something personal with me like, “I’m going to the Greek Festival.  I’m Greek.”  I was never sure how the conversations would go.  He didn’t make eye contact, asked a lot of questions, and sometimes followed me around while I shopped.  He seemed like a happy kid trapped in a man's body.

I saw Peter again today for the first time in over two years. I was cruising through the produce section when I heard his friendly, familiar voice.

“HI!”

“Hi, Peter.”  I didn’t think he would remember me.

“Where is your son?”

“He’s at school.” Unbelievable.  The clerks with all their faculties don’t remember me from one week to the next.

“Oh.”  He was quiet for a minute.  “How is he?”

“He’s great.  He likes school.  Thanks for asking.”

“Whitney Houston died.”

“Yes, I know.”

“It’s sad.”

“Yes, it is, but at least we have her beautiful music to remember her by," I replied, wondering if he was trying to make conversation or if he was really sad about losing Whitney Houston. 

“Okay, bye!”  He said loudly and began to walk away.

I must have turned my back to him when I reached for the bag of grapes.  I was trying to multi-task, already late to go pick up First Born Prince at the orthodontist.  I didn’t mean to cut him off.

“Good-bye, Peter!"  I yelled after him.

I thought about what a sweet soul he is and how it really was nice seeing him. Can't say that about everyone you run into.

He's a Lover

 Just when I was beginning to take myself too seriously, a Post-It note appeared on my desk, slapped there by a sticky, slightly pudgy hand with dirty fingernails:

I Love you, Mom.  P.S. Cme and tok to me.

Charming Baby had been trying to get my attention for a while and I hadn’t clued in yet.

“Sam, give me five minutes and I’ll wrap up what I’m doing.”

“Okay, I’ll be down in my room."  

"Waiting.”  He sang out.

My youngest son is the one who I thought was my fighter.  So impervious he was to cooperation as a three-year old, I took “Redirecting Children’s Behavior,” a parenting class that focuses on logical consequences instead of threats and punishments.  Twice.  I had to find a way to stop myself from pinning the child down and forcing sunscreen onto his red, defiant face.  Or, worse, avoid tackling him in public spaces and wrestling the kicking maniac into his stroller.

Up until a few years ago I was certain he would be the one who would leave me, run off to a university far away, never call or text, sleep his way through his twenties with women I’d rather not dine with, and then end up marrying some girl who had an unfortunate nickname for him like, “Sexy Sammy.”

Something happened along the way.  He blossomed into a lover.  He likes to sing.  And dance.  And cuddle.  He likes to comfort himself when he’s falling asleep by running his fingers through my hair.  When we are sitting across from each other in a crowded place, I’ll look up and catch him staring at me and he’ll mouth, I LOVE YOU.” 

The most tender part of it is that he has learned to articulate exactly what he wants and ask for it in a positive way.  He is light years ahead of me.  I still bark like a salty sea captain when I am not getting what I want.  I try to be patient and I work very hard to model polite behavior, but I am no lover.  I thought I was going to pass my hard-earned, deep-creased frown line down to my baby.  Turns out I was just waiting for him to come along and teach me how to soften it.

Time Bandits

“The following classrooms do not have anyone signed up for Teacher Relief tomorrow…” 

I scanned the e-mail sent from the school for the list.  Glaring at me like my mother catching me French kissing a boy on the porch, was my son’s teacher’s name.  I hadn’t signed up beforehand because I had scheduled myself as writing this week.  I couldn’t stand the guilt.  I immediately decided I would go in to staple flip books and sharpen pencils.

As luck would have it, I woke up this morning with a huge brainstorm and was frustrated I couldn’t sit down and explore my thoughts.  Hemmingway was able to write the great American novel because when he got out of bed with a hot idea, he could pour himself a cup of coffee, light a cigarette, and write until he had dug deep enough to feel satisfied.  I, on the other hand, had to make breakfasts, pack lunches, shuttle blood relatives to school, AND, now, kiss away a few hours of my time.  Gratis.

Then, I was thrown a bone.   The Professor offered to take the boys to the basketball game this afternoon.  (Our public high school was playing the top team in the county.)  Instead of homework, play dates and doling out snacks, I suddenly found myself with two free (quiet) hours.

I was at a crossroad.  Sort of like when bathing suit season is around the corner and every fucking corn chip is a crossroad.  I had an empty afternoon in the middle of the week.  What was I going to do with it?  Straighten up the house.  Catch up on e-mail. Return phone calls.  Schedule the handyman.  File Aetna claims.  No.  No.  No.  No.  And hell no.  Pour myself a glass of wine and write.  Now we’re getting somewhere.

It was pure chance that I got my two hours back today.  I realize novels aren’t written by being squeezed in on a to-do list.  Time to beef up my watch dog skills and guard myself against the time bandits!

School for Cavemen

“Dad says we would have made a really good caveman family,” First Born Prince tells me.

“Because of how big and strong we all are, we would never worry about anything.  We’d have plenty of food from hunting and we’d be able to defend our cave.”

I know this caveman fantasy.  He was dreaming about how simple life would be if all he had to do was bring home meat and hit me over the head with a club once in a while. 

Except, wherever you go, even in time travel, there you are.

The Professor would constantly be in discussion with tribe elders, trying to figure out how to build better weapons and make fire.  Word would get out about this large man in a well-heated cave and he would be asked to travel to other cave tribes and teach them what he’s learned.

I could see myself in a fashionable animal hide explaining to the other cavewomen how I enjoyed having a warm cave and lots of meat but that I was exhausted from how the Professor was constantly analyzing the way we did things.  I’d confide that although the basket he gave me was helpful, I liked to gather berries my own damn way.

He’d be gone for weeks at a time, taking his sack of new tools with him.  The other cave people would ask me if I missed him and I would say yes but really I would be happy for the break to live on ill-gathered berries and soak in the hot springs with the other cave women who had successful hunters who were gone a lot.

When he’d return, he’d be full of tales of other tribes who inspired him, young cavemen with good ideas of their own and I would show him the new boulders I found for us to sit on while we ate our meat.

At the end of the day, when we were all tucked safely into our warm cave corners, bellies full, I’d look over at my big, exhausted caveman and be very proud.

Making a Leap

2011 was a doozy for most and I am no exception.  At the start of the year, I felt like I was going to lose my mind, stressed out to the max about whether we should stay in Ithaca or move back to La Jolla.  Mid-game changes are not my forte.  The Professor seems to thrive on them.  After much struggling, we came back to southern California last July and have been trying to settle back in to an old place with a new attitude.

The problem is I haven’t found the right set of new tools.  It’s very challenging to reinvent your lifestyle when you have the same old approach to doing things.  It’s like my wine habit.  Reading in a magazine how I can replace the wine with herbal tea or a bath in the evenings as a wind down method doesn’t help me.  I have my own style and I’m not really interested in boiling a kettle of water or filling up a tub when it’s 5:00pm and I want to uncork something to go with my dinner.  I am motivated to change in bigger ways. 

We are trying out new roles as teacher and writer instead of CEO and volunteer/housewife.  In order to make it work, we have to adjust the spending of our energy, time and money.  My habits are deeply ingrained and I find it difficult to stop behaving the way I used to. Last month I mindlessly bought a pair of $200 grey suede clogs (online because I gave up the mall), wore them around the house for 15 minutes, then got a hold of myself, put them back in their box and printed out the return label faster than I could say, “Please credit my account.”  After 20 years of making and spending money as a way to survive, I find myself slipping left and right as I try to reduce expenses and keep myself on the word document in front of me.  I end up jumping over to Firefox to shop, chat or spy, or worse, jumping out of my chair and heading out the door to waste energy, time and money on the avenues of La Jolla.

My best friend reminded me that change is not a perfect upward curve on a growth chart, but rather jagged, with ups and downs, set backs and if you’re lucky, big leaps forward.  I am going to keep at it, every which way but hopefully not loose...Here’s to making 2012 the best leap year ever!

Comfort and Jews

We spend every Christmas in the desert.  Palm Desert.  Home to movie stars, great restaurants and lots and lots of Jews.  It’s like New York City except with palm trees and golf carts.  The Professor and I have been going out there for a week at Christmastime with our same friends since before we were married.  What started as a vacation for four single working professionals escaping L.A. grew into a 16-year tradition with a family that we all created.

Exhausted from work, we used to show up and sleep for a week, taking conference calls in between dinners and movies.  Then when the kids were little, we'd spend the week on death-prevention patrol.  There is nothing relaxing about a two-year-old near a pool.  Now we have kids that feed themselves and schedules that we have slightly more control over.  Our Christmas week has become a resort vacation with everyone hiking, swimming, playing tennis, and new this year, horseback riding.

I go back and forth about being sad that we don’t observe Christmas the way I grew up— with traditional food, by a fire, awaiting Santa and all of our relatives, dressed to kill.  Instead we wear bathing suits, drink margaritas and play Scrabble.  We order Chinese take-out and watch movies.  So what I have is not what I dreamed it would be.  I always imagined myself cooking big dinners at home and filling stockings in the middle of the night while my children were nestled all snug in their beds.  I never thought I'd be tossing it all in the trunk of my car before driving the Pines-to-Palms Highway where I put my children to sleep in a condo on a golf course.  My 12-year-old asks Santa for cash and my eight-year-old knows more about Hanukah than the birth of Christ. 

Letting go of Norman Rockwell and embracing Woody Allen is not the magic I would have guessed, but what fun is Christmas if you already know what you’re getting?