The best laid plans

So...there I was last night, fresh out of the shower. Ready to watch some Alcatraz. Liv goes upstairs to read in her room before bed.

I sit on the sofa in my pale pink cozy robe with my slinky white nightie on underneath. At some point in the show, I plan to flash Bing with it. Just a peek of what's to come....

She's crabby. Wants to know if I "properly" cleaned the shower. I roll my eyes, tell her that I cleaned it just fine. No worries.

During a commercial, she goes upstairs and I hear her heading towards the bathroom. I sigh. God. I am SO FUCKING SICK OF THIS. WHY is she SO obsessive about that shower? Every time Liv or I take a shower, she is either standing at the door ready to coach us on how to properly clean it afterwards to avoid buildup or will go in to "check" to make sure that we've wiped it down properly.

Liv is getting pretty good at it. I suck at it because I refuse to do this.

I AM CLEAN, for godsake. I DO NOT want to wipe down a shower and clean it. Save that shit for a Saturday morning.

I hear the water come on upstairs and know that she is carefully wiping down the shower since I didn't.

I bite my lip. Resolve to say nothing when she comes down. Nothing.

And I am steadily losing interest in having sex with her too.

Quite steadily.

She comes back downstairs and plops on the recliner, giving me a long look which I do not return. I just watch the television. She starts with:

"Honey, would it kill you to just..."

I stop her with my cop-at-a-traffic-stop hand. Ignore her.

She sighs and turns back to the television.

"What did I miss?" she asks.

I shrug. "Shh. I'm watching this. If you don't want to miss things, you should probably not clean showers during commercials."

She starts to rebut. Stops. We watch the rest of the show in silence.

Afterwards, I get up and say that I am tired, going to go to bed.

She stands up, says that she will too. I ignore her and walk up the steps, leaving her to shut off all the lights, etc.

I go in and check on Liv. Asleep with a book next to her, Socks at his perch at the end of the bed. I kiss them both and shut off her bedside lamp.

Bing is brushing her teeth in the bathroom off of our bedroom. She glances up as I take off my robe.

I stand in the white nightie and give her one long, very cool look. She just stares.

I go over to the bureau and dig out my old red man's nightshirt that I usually wear to bed. I sling the white nightie over my head and shuck the red nightshirt over my head in two quick motions.

She is in the doorway, holding her toothbrush.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I can see that you were in a pretty sexy nightie there and now it's replaced by the regular sleep shirt. Is there any way to save this? Hey, I'm sorry. I was a bitch about the shower, okay?"

I sigh. Kiss her once, softly.

"I'm just tired now, okay? It seemed like a good idea at 7:30. Now, I'm just...tired...okay? Tomorrow is our anniversary. Maybe then, yes?"

I get into bed and slide into the warmth. After a few moments, she joins me, turns off the bedside lamp. Reaches for me to hug me close.

"You have no idea how fucking sorry I am right now," she says.

I smile in the dark. We kiss a few times. But, no. Not there. Not tonight.

We roll over and sleep.

Unbelievable

Drove by the bank with that time and temp flashing.

68 degrees. On January 30.

Late January is misery time here on the prairie where you are right next door to going mad from the steady snowstorms and below zero weather. The blinding snow and the constant shivering.

Not this year. Not THIS FUCKING YEAR.

God, I could seriously get used to this. I LOVE not slogging through snow, love not walking carefully on that ice and seeing my breath puff out like mini clouds.

Nope. I just took the dog for a walk with Bing. In a sweater. A sweater. On January 30th. Boy howdy.

I can't stop smiling.

If one more person tells me that "Hey, don't be too excited. We still have two more months before Spring..." I will just keep grinning.

February is a short month. And March is right next door to Spring. Right. Next. Door.

My new favorite show is on tonight: Alcatraz. Bing is making scrambled eggs, sausage and bumble berry jam on toast.

I'm back at work and everyone said that they missed me. Well, not Nanette, but she smiled at me and said, "Well, you have some color in your cheeks again. Last week, you looked like death warmed over..."

This is GOOD from Nanette.

Smiling. Smiling. Smiling.

Nothing can harsh my mellow tonight.

I feel like watching my show, taking a long hot shower and going to bed early...and not sleeping. I feel like seducing my wife. Wearing that little white summer nightie with the spaghetti strap and having one slip down my shoulder and then crooking my finger at her. Making my eyes go wide.

SIXTY EIGHT DEGREES. IN LATE JANUARY!

Oh, it's gonna be a good night.....

The man with the child in his eyes returns; what gets you through

He's not readily accessible. I only see him in my sleeping dreams and then, not often and not regularly.

There is a pattern that I have noticed. When I am sick or when I am very, very tired, bordering on exhaustion, then...then...he shows up.

I've been ill the last week. With a cold that became worse. Due to the drugs I have to take and an illness that took me over a few years ago, I have an impaired immune system. Or as my doctor professionally puts it: "That system of yours is always running on empty." I can't fight colds, etc. Not well. I do what I can. I get a flu shot every year, am always updated on my pneumonia shots. Liv and Bing are careful around me when they have colds. (Bing, predictably, tends to go over the top. She used to wear a face mask and latex gloves when she was sick until I told her that she was scaring Liv and needed to stop.)

I can't do much at work. I see lots and lots children and as we all know, they are little germ carriers. But, after each session, I carefully douse myself in hand sanitizer and I am always very, very careful NOT to touch my face. (This is harder than it seems. Try not to touch your face for a half hour. Good luck.)

So, occasionally, I catch a cold. And when I do, I get really, really ill. This is what happened recently. It started, as they all seem to do, with a slight sore throat, a slim slice of pain every time I swallowed. A scratchiness. And then it got worse. I woke up the following morning barely able to swallow and I ached all over. Had a fever that spiked from 100 to 102 in a mornings time. I went to the doctor, did all the necessary bloodwork and yes, my white blood cell count was up there and I was put on antibiotics and told to go to bed and stay there for a few days.

Felt so guilty. I have two co-workers. Piper and Julie. Piper found out that she had cancer last month and had a hysterectomy. She won't be back at work for another few months. Julie and I decided that rather than hire someone to replace her, we would just hope that she comes back when she can. So, we have taken on her clients and it has been crazy busy. Also, Julie told me recently that she plans to leave us in July. She has fallen in love for real at the ripe old age of 53 and she and her betrothed want to move to Mexico (his home) and open a practice there. So, she has one foot out the door. We will find someone to take her place and quite possibly, Piper's too, if she can't come back to us.

It was a bad time to be sick. But, Julie, being Julie, was upbeat. ("Everything is just fine. Just take the rest of the week off. I can hold down the fort. I don't go to the gym five nights a week for nothing! I have this, Maria! No worries!") I had Nanette re-schedule everyone she could and you would think I asked her to go to the moon and back, but she did it.

Mostly, I slept. Sometimes I swam up to the surface of sleep, awakened by the coughing or the pain in my joints. Then, I watched all the shorts for Sundance or read some Poe (he calls to me when I am feeling sick, for some odd reason) or watched CNN.

I entertained myself by trying to remember favorite lines from Poe. And succeeded nicely:

Two of my favorites are from The Tell-Tale Heart.

"True! Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?"

"Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How then, am I mad? Harken! And observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story."

I said these lines poised in my dark, midnight blue nightgown with the white piping, arms outstretched beseechingly while I gazed crazily at myself in the mirror.

Socks was troubled, very troubled. He nervously looked behind him, hoping to hear Bing, Liv, anyone, even the postal carrier at the front door.

And then, of course, I had a coughing fit and my acting career ended abruptly.

But, when I slept...I slept the sleep of the dead. I went to odd places in my dreams, the sun from the slats in the hurricane blinds playing across my eyelids with my eyes in REM state, going rapidly back and forth.

I dreamed of whipped cream snow drifts in deserts, sand creatures that looked like fish with legs, creeping towards me, claws clicking like crabs. They wanted to pinch me. I could sense it.

I dreamed of being on a prairie and sitting alone with an old Indian warrior who was trying to teach me how to make a bow and arrow. I kept missing the point and he was patient.

I dreamed of being with Bing in my childhood farm, of showing her the old shed where I used to sneak away and write and of us finding, instead of the old box that I used to sit at and the bigger box that I used to write upon, a drum set with the words The Monkees emblazoned across the front of it. "This is so cool," Bing said, in my dream, "I never knew that you knew Micky Dolenz!"

I dreamed of teaching a writing class and saying, "Let's find our main character. What does she look like? What is his name? Should our novel be in first person, third or in omniscient?" And my students, all dressed up as if they were going to the opera or the ballet, raising their hands, leaning anxiously toward me.

And then...I dreamed of him.

I call him the man with the child in his eyes after an old Kate Bush song. I've been dreaming of him since I was in college and he never ages, never changes, always slightly resembles Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

As I said, I only dream of him very infrequently, maybe three times a year or so. And then only when I am at my weakest, either ill or extremely tired, too tired or sick or both to hold him back. Keep him at arm's length. My bff, Harriet believes that he is from another life of mine, long ago...and that he and I are both on to other lives, new lives now, but manage to reach out and touch each other in dreams. When I am feeling my cynical self, I laugh and tell her that she should be a screenwriter, that this is the stuff of movie making. I don't know where he comes from, but he comes. He comes.

And we are always so relieved to see each other. He always laughs and says a little breathlessly, "So...here we are again, dreaming of each other. Isn't this just so...random? So good to see you, baby, so, so good...."

The setting varies. But, we are almost always somewhere very green, very verdant. Ireland. Like Ireland. Sometimes we have a child with us, usually an infant daughter, called Ostara. (Again...Harriet maintains that this child actually existed in another life and is come back in this life as Liv.) Sometimes, it is just us. The setting is never upsetting. Always soothing. Warm. We laugh, kiss, sometimes make love or just...touch. We catch each other up with our lives. I tell him of troublesome cases involving autistic children in hard circumstances, he tells me of how he never has time to fly his airplanes, too busy trying to keep the bar afloat, support the family he has now. We never talk of our present families, really, maybe it is too hard? I don't know. I don't really want to hear of his wife and I'm sure he doesn't want to hear much about Bing. We laugh. Once we played a game of chess and I beat him, which made him pout slightly. Bad sport. Another time we were at a fair and on a ferris wheel, all the way to the top and he reached up and pulled the lip of the sky down to show me the soft blue behind it, the new day coming in a few hours. I laughed happily at his magic trick.

The thing is, it has always been my safe place. My soft reckoning. My memory that doesn't really exist.

This time was different. I dreamed that I was standing in front of my mirror, spouting lines from Poe and he suddenly appeared in the mirror. He smiled at me, but there was something fearful about his eyes.

"I can't come through right now, but I just really, really wanted to see your eyes," he said. "It's been so long, Siobhan." (He calls me that sometimes, sometimes, Meggie, sometimes Caledonia.)

I reach out and touch his hand through the mirror. It feels real. He pulls back.

"Don't do that. I can't come there, no time. And god...I don't want you to be here right now," he says, snatching his hand away before I can touch it again.

I say I don't care. I need to see him. Doesn't he miss me? He looks behind him, worried and then turns back to me, softening.

"Okay," he says. "Take my hand. But, just for a quick minute. One kiss, yes?"

I take his hand and am pulled through the mirror.

I am surprised. I look around. It isn't green here. It is dark. A bar, I think. Smells like a bar. And then, yes...I see bar stools. Before I can talk, I am pulled in close to his chest and I let my head sink into him, curling my hands around his waist, as I love to do. We kiss slowly and it is very soft, very warm. A yearning. An aching. A missing.

And suddenly there are bright lights and noise and he is pulling my hand and running, yanking me through a door and outside into a rainy day. We dodge around cars and almost slam into a moving car but dodge it and go into some sort of warehouse. We are running up steps, our feet slamming against the metal and I can hear shouting behind us. I fearfully look over my shoulder and see three large men with some sort of billy clubs careening in the door just below us. One points to us and they hit the steps.

"Don't look, just move with me," he says. "I'll get you back. Just...C'MON. MOVE, SIOBHAN! Please, baby. I'll get you out, I swear. Trust me."

We are curling around boxes now, in and out and around in a dizzying way. I am struggling to keep up but he holds my hand tightly, looking around once to smile encouragingly.

I am terrified. Those men. They will hurt us. Him.

We finally make it down a long corridor and we hurl towards a wall. When we get to the wall, he suddenly pulls down a small door, like a coal chute that I hadn't seen there before. He tells me to get in. Just get in. Now.

I am trying to hurry, hindered by my long blue nightgown, but he lifts me up and pushes me in.

"I love you," he says. "Next time, it will be better. I should have never gotten you into this. So sorry, baby. So sorry. Now, go. Be safe!"

I slide down and as I am slipping down a wet greasy tunnel, I look back in time to see that he hasn't made it after me. They've got him and he is yanked back and then the chute is gone and all is black.

I am slipping and sliding towards some sort of bleached whiteness.

And then, wow...there I am, sitting on the floor of my bedroom, next to my little dressing chair by the mirror.

I try to get up but my legs are aching badly and I can barely move. I manage to slowly get to my feet and then I see it. His hand print on the mirror. Fingers slightly splayed. I quickly put my hand up to his but as soon as I do, the print fades away.

And then I woke up.

In my bed, a violent coughing spell. I cough and cough but it is fruitless, nothing wants to come up. Not enough mucinex in the world to unloosen that from my lungs.

The bed was bouncing up and down. Socks sat at the end of the bed, looking irritated. As soon as the coughing abated, he sighed and slipped off, deciding to go see if there was any more food in his dog dish.

And so I was left with the dream.

My man with the child in his eyes. The first time I ever dreamed of him where it wasn't full of love and happiness, but danger and pain.

I closed my eyes, praying for his safety. Wondering why I was praying for someone who was a dream figure and not really real, just a figment of a tenacious nightmare. A slip left over.

I got up on shaky legs to go to the bathroom for a long cool drink of water and then headed back to bed.

Then I thought of it. What the dream reminded me of. That song...that song from so long ago. What was it? A-Ha? Hmmm. Decided to look it up later.

I shuffled back to bed, letting myself sink into the softness of the sheets.

My aqua blue sheets that I love. The ones that my sister bought for me the last time that I was sick, about a year ago. Shimmery, watery blue ones that were so incredibly soft that they just begged you to relax, to close your sleepy eyes.

Sheets can get you through a lot of things. So can many other things.

A good book.

A random radio show in the middle of the night where the crazy ones come out to talk about alien invasions and weird lights in the sky.

A perfect granny smith apple cut into perfect orbs on a white plate.

A glass of orange juice shimmering with Vitamin C. You swallow it and can feel goodness slaking down your throat and sluicing all the crud off your insides and replacing it with sun and cool heat.

The sound of a back door slamming and feet on the steps up to your bedroom when you know it is your daughter coming to sit on the edge of the bed and tell you about the spelling bee and that word that almost tripped her up: paradigm.

Bing's smiling face, cold from the outside, tipping into yours for a soft kiss.

Sun shining through the blinds,making straight patterns on a soft brown wooden floor.

That depression era glass that you like, filled to the brim with seven up. You can look over and see the bubbles sliding up and down the glass, ready to skim down your hot, parched throat.

Looking out the window at 11:00 a.m. The house is quiet. The street outside is quiet, except for a lone postal worker who comes sauntering up the hill to your house, stopping at all the ones before yours. He is whistling something, a tune you can't really hear, just sense.

The way your rings shine on your fingers against the aqua blue pillow case. The yellow one from Africa, the purple amethyst, the silver claddagh ring perched jauntily on your thumb.

The man with the child in his eyes who saved you from the bad guys in a very bad dream.....

Sundance shorts 2012

Entertaining myself by watching the Sundance 2012 shorts.

Watch this one: Una Hora Por Favora.

I kid you not, I sat up in my bed laughing until I started crying. Hilarious. And in English.

But, Wilmer Valderrama is incredible. And here I thought he could never escape Fez.

Check it out.

screen.yahoo.com/Sundance/

Please excuse Maria from Blogville again

She's sick as a dog and crabby as hell.

Believe me, you don't want to read anything she would write right now.

Bing is contemplating moving out until she is better. Especially when she wants to watch political shows and Maria pulls the I'm-sickkkkk-I-get-to-watch-whatever-I-want-and-that's-American-Idollllll.

The dog is doing long shifts of cuddle duty.

Bed is calling....

the anniversary gift

Our anniversary is January 31. No, we aren't married. Of course not. We don't get that marriage date that heterosexuals get to celebrate: the date of our legal marriage.

Nope. Not us. It isn't easy being green and all that shit.

So, like most same sex couples, we celebrate our anniversary on one of four dates: the day we met, the date we first kissed, the day we said I love you or the day we fucked made love for the first time.

I'll just let you guess which one ours is.

But it is January 31st.

We usually don't make a huge deal of it. Neither one of us are particularly romantic and to be honest, we usually just exchange cards and try to get away sometime near that date for a dinner, just us. Even our cards aren't very gooey. My card to her this year says:

it's our anniversary
and i'm so happy i'm not
bored or tired of you.
i thought for sure by
now i would be.

So, yes...we veer toward funny and slightly sarcastic. Just the way we roll.

Sometimes, usually in the bedroom in talk before sleep or before or after particularly satisfying sex, we can get pretty mushy. But, in general, no.

So, I was surprised when she texted me at work last Friday with this message:

I just bought the perfect anniversary gift for us to share this year. I'll show you when I get home. I'm too ecstatic to wait.

Well, my mind raced all afternoon. This sounded...big.

Did she finally come around to buying us a new car?

Tickets to the ballet? She loves Tchaikovsky. I love ballet. Swan Lake is coming to our city in the Spring with a national company and I'd mentioned that it might be a good fit for us to go.

A trip back to Louisiana? She and I often talk about when we can go back there for a visit. But time and scheduling is always a problem.

I tried to think of anything else that would be for both of us. Hm. Stuck. I decided to just be patient and wait.

So, when I got home from work she was grinning like the Cheshire cat. I raised an eyebrow and smiled. Told her to TELL ME.

She was holding up two tickets in her hand. I smiled. The ballet. Perfect.

I got closer.

Not the ballet.

The tickets were to.....a Barry Manilow concert in late February.

Um...excuse moi? BARRY MANILOW???

What the hell?

She started gushing on right away.

Ok! I know they're expensive seats. But I got a really good deal on Craig's List and can you believe this??? We are in row 12!! And they were only 50 bucks apiece! Aren't you excited??!! This is going to be perfect! I saw them and knew it was the perfect gift...I just..um...honey?

I mustered up a smile. Managed to say something like...okay...kind of a tepid WOW.

She faltered. Frowned.

"Maria? I thought you'd be excited too. Aren't you? I mean...c'mon...he is only the Bach of our era. The man is a brilliant composer! He makes it look so easy but his pieces are so incredibly intricate, so exuberantly perfect!....."

I tried to regain my footing. I smiled and just nodded.

"Wow, Bing. This was....so....thoughtful...of you. Thank you. Yes. I know we'll have a great time..."

She looked relieved and went on.

"Hey, we'll make it a real fancy pants date night, okay? Let's get reservations somewhere special. Maybe that French place in the old market that you love so much. I'll wear my velvet blazer and you can wear that little black dress and high heels. SPIKY heels. Carry that shiny black clutch that you say you never get to use. And then we will go have our ears treated to the work of a real genius. Doesn't this sound fun?"

I said, yes...of course.

And then Liv came in with news of her spelling bee and gratefully, I didn't have to keep that fake smile plastered on my face anymore.

Because.

Seriously.

BARRY MANILOW???

Ok, I'm not dissing the guy. I think some of his stuff is pretty good. I loved Mandy when it first came out. Now, I have no idea why, but I remember just loving that song. I like Weekend In New England.

But, Barry has never been a stand out in my ipod. And I have no desire whatsoever to see him in concert. I mean, okay...if someone had free tickets, sure. But, pay money to see him? No.

Now, on the other hand, Bing has always maintained that Barry Manilow is a musical genius. She is a musician and probably understands this kind of shit more than I do. I just know if I like a song or not, if it speaks to my heart. Bing notices EVERYTHING in a song, how it is composed, what instruments are used where, cadence, mixing. So, she probably is much more equipped to recognize good music than I am.

But, here's the rub.

Bing has this nasty habit of thinking that if she likes something, I automatically will as well. If I do, it's nice...but we are two different people and our personalities are not very closely aligned. We seldom love the same things.

Okay. Goat cheese. We both love goat cheese. And goat milk. Thai food. Dexter. True Blood. Spring. Danish modern furniture. Bill Clinton. Cherry chapstick. Tina Fey.

But, our differences are marked. She likes action movies, I like documentaries, serious films. She likes fish. I like meat. She likes to watch caucuses, I don't really get into politics until things get really, really interesting in the last few months. She likes how-to books or books about how to invest money wisely or how to go completely green. I like fiction. Literature.

Why in the WORLD would she think that tickets to a Barry Manilow concert would be something that would knock my socks off? That is like me assuming that since I love Lee DeWyze's album, Slumberland (and dudes...it is fantastic), that she will too. (For the record, she did listen to it for ten minutes during a car ride once and then said that she could not stand it any longer, that he was just a run of the mill coffee house singer.)

She tends to do this with other things too. Sometimes, she will come home with a "surprise" gift of ice cream for me. This is invariably something that she loves, like rum raisin or Ben and Jerry's Chubby Hubby. I don't mind those flavors, but I would never buy them if I got to choose. I would choose Ben and Jerry's Americone Dream or butter brickle. Peach. Even lime sherbet. And she has seen me order these flavors over and over. Yet...she assumes.

She came into the bathroom while I was taking a bath last night and said, "Hey, it looks like a new episode of Southland is up tonight on On Demand, wanna watch it when you get out?"

Every single time we have watched Southland, I have told her that it is OKAY, but not that great. But, she just assumes.

I feel like she doesn't really listen. Not really.

Now, I'm not a perfect spouse either. But, I do listen and I do know her favorites. And I would NEVER come home all excited with tickets to go see Snow Patrol and think that she would swoon. Adele, yes. She would love those. But, she thinks Snow Patrol is a "table tune" band.

When I order pizza, I know that she likes her half to be vegetarian. Or..she sometimes doesn't mind pineapple and canadian bacon topping. But, she ALWAYS has to check with me about MY half. I like hamburger with black olives and extra cheese.

We would lose big time on The Newleywed Game. And it would be HER fault.

Now, she would argue that sometimes she is right about things. She bought the first Harry Potter book for us to read to Liv when she was in 1st grade. I rolled my eyes when I saw it. I had heard the hoopla and had no intention of reading some book about a boy (and they are ALWAYS boys) who was a wizard. I thought it sounded stupid. But, one day when I was completely out of books to read and there was a snowstorm raging outside, I picked it up. I figured that I would read the first two chapters to make sure that it was appropriate to read to Liv.

I was hooked by page seven. And subsequently read every single book to Liv, finishing the last with her when she was in sixth grade.

Bing brought home The Hunger Games and said that she thought I would like the character of Katniss, that it was my kind of girl. I glanced at the cover and read the inside cover and did the same thing that I did with Harry Potter: set it up on a shelf and forgot about it. Until, another snowy day. And then I fell in love with Katniss from the get go.

So, she does know me. Sort of. Most of the time.

But, then Barry Manilow happens and I am left looking at her and thinking, How can she have known me since I was 18 and STILL get me wrong so often?

But...I couldn't stand to hurt her feelings. If I had been honest, I would have told her that Barry Manilow just didn't do much for me, sorry. That maybe she could find someone else to go with her?

But, I couldn't. I saw the way she looked at me, so excited about our upcoming big fancy date.

And for the record...I don't like that French restaurant, she does. I like the Bohemian one across the street. Or the Italian one. And that little black dress? She thinks I look yummy in it, it isn't one of my favorites. It has this weird material around the waist that doesn't lay properly and that bugs me. And the shiny black clutch purse? It can hold like...a kleenex and a credit card. A tube of lipstick? No.

She was spot on about the high heels, though. I ADORE wearing high heels. I just can't do it much any more. I pay for it with leg pain the next day and sometimes they make my ankles swell up.

So...I play nice.

I try to remember all the times she gets it right. And hey...I am so lucky in so many ways. Not everyone has a spouse who stops to pick up ice cream for them when they've had a bad day. Even if it is rum raisin instead of butter brickle.

And she does remember that I like cadbury eggs.

She puts up with that goat milk shampoo and body wash that I adore even though she swears it turns the shower floor into a slippery ice skating rink.

It will be fun. I just may end up loving Barry's show. Okay, not Copacabana. I can't stand that song. And of course, she says it is a masterpiece of our generation's equivalent of Mozart.

What do I know? In two hundred years, I suppose people will regard Copacabana as a work of art and Lee's Predicament won't even make a listen-to list.

So...tell me this? How well does your partner know you? And if, like mine, they think they know you better than they actually do...do you have a really, really funny story to tell me?

Typical trip through McDonald's

Liv had an 8 a.m. basketball game today (they won!) so okay...we snuck to McDonald's for breakfast afterwards.

This is all pretty much on the sly. Bing HATES McDonald's and I am not really a fan either, but I do like their sausage egg biscuits. Whenever Liv has a game and we are in a separate car from Bing, though we ALWAYS stop for breakfast on the way home or if it is an afternoon game, we stop to get her fries on the way home. It's an unspoken rule with us that if Bing is along, we skip it. Don't even talk about it.

Well, today Bing was going off to school after the game to do some last minute fixing up for their open house tomorrow, so we knew we could go through the drive thru and not have to eat there. (And yes, this is terrible, I KNOW...but I confess that I throw our take out bags into my briefcase afterwards and then throw them away at work on Monday to hide the evidence....yes, I feel guilty. Yes...it is very wrong to keep things from one's spouse. No, I am not going to stop. I just really, really don't need to hear the lecture for the 100th time that this food is so bad for us. Bad mother. So be it.)

So. Time to head through the drive thru. The line looks really, really long, even at 9:30. And there are two lanes. Probably would be faster to just send Liv in for the food, but it is cold and she is shivery from going from being all sweaty to being in the frigid outdoors and I'm lazy and don't want to go in. So, I think, how long can fast food take?

Long. Very long. As soon as I am ensconced in line, I realize that this is taking WAY too long and unfortunately there is no way to get out now. So, we prepare to wait. We talk about the game, visit a little bit about our plans for the rest of the day (she is studying spelling words with a friend since they both made the spelling bee team at school, I'm going to go see The Artist with my sister.) We are not moving. Well, okay. A little bit. But, it has been TEN minutes and we are only two cars closer.

The car in front of me honks it's horn. Wow. That helped. Then another one. Another one. So, the guy at the speaker phone steps out of his car and shouts, "The girl taking my order can't hear because of the honking, just chill, dudes!" and jumps back in. The honking stops, but the natives are restless. You can feel it.

I start seething. For godsakes, how fucking hard is THIS?

I calm down, tell myself to listen to my daughter's voice, the cadence. I do this.

In 15 minutes we are finally at the speaker. A woman with a heavy Hispanic accent asks to take my order. I tell her two number four value breakfasts with one orange juice, one coffee. She seems to sputter. I wait.

"Um..repeat? Please do the repeat!"

I carefully repeat, enunciating carefully. There is a pause.

"So sorry. I cannot do the understanding. Please do the repeat?"

I repeat, but inside I am starting to see what the problem is. They have someone taking orders whose English is not advanced enough to take care of this. This is unfair to everyone involved. Because now there are a few racist people in this line who assume that this girl is a dumbass when she simply does not know the language that well yet.

I try to think what it would be like for me if I were in Mexico working at a McDonald's with my minimal knowledge of Spanish.

It would be a bad situation. But, I am so very angry at the manager here. He/she surely knew that this was a bad fit.

We eventually get the order in. She says, "Please to do to second window to do the money."

Of course. No one is doing the money window. So everything is also being done at the second window, further slowing things down.

The car limps around. Liv says quietly, "God, I'm not even that hungry now. I feel really bad for that girl. She must be so scared."

I agree. We pass the first window where a young Hispanic woman is sitting with her arms across her chest talking into her headset, she keeps looking down at a menu in large letters in front of her and then she tries to enter it into a computer and obviously makes a mistake, giggles nervously and tries again.

At least she isn't sobbing. I would have been crying if I were a teenager who didn't speak the language trying to work a drive thru window.

Two cars in front of us suddenly decide to hell with it and veer off into the exit. Great. Now our order will be mixed up.

We get to the window and I have to explain to the girl at the window that no, we did not order three big breakfasts, that was the car two places in front of us and no, we did not order a breakfast burrito and two griddle breakfasts with four orange juices and two mocha coffees, that was the car in front of us.

The girl is slack jawed with either boredom or lack of intelligence. She gives me a long look and says, "So, you don't want your big breakfast? You need to change your order now?"

I repeat that I do not need to change my order, that we are the TWO NUMBER FOUR VALUE BREAKFASTS WITH AN ORANGE JUICE AND A COFFEE!

She stares at me vacuously and then shrugs. Calls loudly behind her.

"This lady is changing up her order now. Can I get two number four value breakfasts and two orange juices with a mocha coffee?"

God, help me.

I tell her that she took the order incorrectly.

She rolls her eyes and mutters something about the fact that SHE isn't the one who decided to change her order at the last minute.

I should ask for the manager. But, I am angry and there is a crowd behind me probably wondering who the hell that lady is who ordered 100 big breakfasts or something.

I will write a complaint letter when I get home. But, will that help? They'll probably send me a coupon for a breakfast burrito like they did the last one. Neither Liv nor I like those.

I hold out my hand with the money and double check my change. She has shorted me 20 cents. I say nothing. I take the bag and the two orange juices and the coffee that I am very sure is not black as I ordered, but a mocha double caramel latte which I can't touch unless I want my blood sugar to go through the roof.

I tell Liv, "Well, let's get home and see what our surprise breakfast is today!"

We both end up laughing as she pulls out a big breakfast, a burrito, two number four value breakfasts and yes, two, count 'em, TWO mocha lattes out. No orange juice.

I drive home and uh oh.

Bing's car is in the driveway. Liv and I look at each other guiltily.

I take a breath. "Time to face the music," I tell her.

We troop in. Bing is getting ready to go. "I stopped home because I forgot my keys and then I checked my e-mail while I was waiting for you," she says.

She looks at our McDonald's bags. Looks at me. Doesn't say a word.

I open up the bags on the kitchen table.

"Is that a breakfast burrito?" she asks.

I say yes. That I guess there was a mix up.

"And a mocha caramel latte?"

I nod again. Another mix up.

Suddenly, she throws her head back and laughs.

"Good thing I love burritos and mocha lattes," she says.

We all sit down and divvy up the food.

All's well that ends well.

And no wrappers smelling up my briefcase.

But, I am STILL gonna write to that manager.

Any one have any good fast food stories to share?

Any suggestions?

I'm all out of a certain type of book and I am seriously hungry for one.

I like a lot of genres, but I am in the mood for some Elizabeth Berg, Anne Tyler or Jill McCorkle. THOSE kinds of books. Smart, funny, great women characters, no murder or science fiction. (I like murder and sci fi, but have to be in a certain mood.)

Trouble is I've read everything the above wrote.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'd much appreciate it......

Random early morning thoughts

My hands are freezing. I need Bing to come let me warm them under her sweatshirt.

So tired of coughing.

God, that yogurt I just ate was expired. How long can one eat yogurt that is expired? I check with Bing who rolls her eyes and says, "It's ONE freakin' day, sugar."

It's only 7 degrees outside. Fuck.

I can hear Liv sneezing. Shit.

Why does that dog always look at me like I've forgotten something important?

The poinsettia is blooming. A little late, kiddo.

I hate the beginning of American Idol. All those idiotic first auditions. But, who knows? Maybe they'll be a new Lee DeWyze. I said this to Bing, who was sitting on the sofa pretending to play on her ipad, but she was really watching. She laughed and said, "WOW! Another coffee house singer. We need some more of those...."

I really like Snow Patrol's new album.

I wonder if I can get away with making oatmeal tonight since it's my night to cook?

What if God was one of us?

If Mitt takes the republican nomination, Obama could slice him up and dice him with one arm behind his back. I hate it when I hear someone dissing Obama at work and then when I asked him what he's specifically done to piss him off, the woman next to him with the god awful ringlets said, "Well, look at the job rate." So, I told them that Bush left him a house in ruins and he's doing pretty well considering the house and senate aren't backing anything he does. The woman looked away uncomfortably and broke eye contact. She did"t know jack shit anyway and was just trying to impress that dumb ass guy in the elevator. I think the Goldilocks ringlets did that anyway. He looked like the type that can be done in by ringlets. I had this terrible urge to tell her that those Spanks she had on really help with that jiggling ass, but I just listened to Muzak kill a John Lennon song. Who am I to disturb the universe?

Do I dare to eat a peach?

I've never liked wrestling. It makes me feel like I want to frown and look away.

Wouldn't it be fun to be in Tuscany right now?

Why do my rings keep falling off of my fingers? Should probably see if I'm losing weight.

Is the Cherries in the Snow lipstick too bright on me? Maybe I should stop thinking mean thoughts in elevators. Maybe people are looking at me and thinking, "A woman of her age should really be in a nice quiet pink instead of that whorish red."

I love that photo of Bing. She looks like she just rolled out of bed.

Why do drivers think that if they are in their cars and pick their noses, no one will see them?

I haven't called my sister in almost two weeks. I should probably call her.

Or text. Texting is better.

Why will Liv always answer a text, but lets phone calls go to voice mail?

I've been craving a steak lately. Maybe I can Bing to take us out for dinner tonight so I won't have to cook.

The dog really needs a bath. Groomers or save money and do it at home?

My skin feels like rice paper this time of year.

I miss Thanksgiving and Christmas. Pretty stupid considering I couldn't wait until all that hoopla was over while I was living it.

Time for work. Must remember my lunch today so I don't have to eat in the cafeteria. Reminder to self to see that Liv has mittens today. And a hat. A scarf. Good hell, she's 12. Stop hovering.

But still....do we still have those hand warmers in the closet?

Woke up mad

I woke up furious with Bing this morning. I dreamed that she was hiding a large dog in our basement. Apparently, she had promised a neighbor that we would keep it and then she had hidden it away and had neglected to feed it or take it outside. In my dream, I was almost crazed with anger.

How could she do this to a poor animal?

I was yelling about it in my dream and then noticed picnic baskets all over the house filled to the brim with junk. She had been hoarding apparently.

When I screamed at her about all of this, she looked me square in the eye and said, "Shut your fat mouth."

This whole dream is unheard of. In the first place, Bing is not a pet person and would never volunteer to care for someone's pet and of course, if we somehow did, she would be the one getting up to let it outside at 2 in the morning.

The junky picnic baskets? Possible, to a lesser degree. She saves everything and I have a lot to say about that.

But what infuriated me the most was that she had called me....FAT.

Okay, my mouth. She called my mouth fat. In my dream. Not in real life.

And I was seeing red, dudes.

She came in to kiss me goodbye as I readied to take my morning shower, took one look at my face and said, "God, I did something in one of your dreams, didn't I?

I told her that yes, in fact, she had. She had boarded a dog and not taken care of him, hoarded junky picnic baskets and told me to shut my FAT mouth.

I continued making the bed and then heard a sound and looked up.

She was standing there....LAUGHING.

"I'm sorry, honey...but GOOD LORD, it was a DREAM!" she said, shaking her head.

I knew that, I told her, rolling my eyes. But...GOD...did she HAVE to call my mouth FAT?

She burst out laughing.

"I nearly kill a dog with neglect, trash up our house and what you are most angry about is that I said you had a FAT MOUTH??? Oh, sweetie....."

She came and tried to hug me and I stiffened. This seemed to make her laugh harder.

Finally, she said, "I'll bring pizza home for dinner, okay? To redeem myself for my bad behavior in your dreams, okay?"

I nodded. "Hamburger with extra cheese on my half!"

She came over to me again and I allowed her to kiss me goodbye.

She paused at the door. And then said, "God, I sure do love you and your big fat mouth...."

My slipper missed her head.

Here lies madness

I'm currently reading a book that has me thinking about our choices in life. Regrets. Good choices. Bad ones. Ones that maybe are good and turn bad and vice versa.

I think about all the steps that I've taken to get me where I am now. All the turns that I almost made, but didn't. Turns that either evolved from gut instinct (rarely) or logic (frequently) and twists that didn't seem to matter at the time, but proved long lasting.

If I'd never gone to that Halloween party (and I very nearly didn't), I would never have met Liv's father. If I'd gone to a different college (and I very nearly did), I would never have met Bing.

And all those times of pure grace. Saved when I had set myself up neatly for pandemonium and pain. All that drinking. All those drugs. All those mornings of waking up swearing that I was done with it. All of it. The cleaning of the apartment, the pouring Grey Goose down the drain, flushing hash down the toilet. And then coming home from a long day of heartbreaking work, stopping at the liquor store and then sitting in front of the phone unsuccessfully trying not to call my dealer.

All those freaking men and women who I slept with but didn't really care about. The ones who I let in as far as I could until they began to be needy and wanted more from me than I was prepared to give. And then quickly slapping them away from me before they found their way too deeply into my heart.

Some things were deliberate choices. The way that I innately knew that education was my way to protect myself so that I would never have to depend on someone else to care for me. All of my sisters married with an eye for finding a man who could take care of them. I knew what a sorry choice that would be for me. I knew enough of myself to know that I would come to resent the chains that would be around my ankles if I made that choice.

The way that I was scrupulous (usually, but okay...not when I was totally fucked up on drugs or drink) about using birth control when I was in my twenties and thirties, knowing that I was not in any shape to be anyone's parent. But luck came into play there too. I was sometimes lazy with it when I was high and could have ended up with a child whom I was unequipped to deal with.

But, then? What? What if I had gotten pregnant? I would have found a way to deal just as almost everyone does.

And therein lies the madness.

What in my life was delegated by choice and what by happenstance?

And could I have been happy some way if I had become pregnant at twenty two and dropped out of school, became that woman who stacks books in the library? Could I have been happy?

I hope so.

I'll never know, though. Not really.

I'm famous for being the pot who refused a lid. But, in truth? Bing has saved me on so many levels that I have to acknowledge the fact that her sheer love of my flawed self has been, in many ways, my salvation. She would argue because that is how she is. She would say that I saved her from a life of being with someone who doesn't um...challenge her. That we are each other's safety nets. I think it is sort of sad testament to my lack of confidence in my nurturing capabilities that I have a very hard time seeing myself as anyone's safety net.

Except, possibly, my own.

I have so much and on my best days, I acknowledge that.

I've been feeling poorly lately. I have a cold that has now settled in my chest. This always alarms me because I have had a premonition since my teens that this is how I will die eventually, struggling to breathe. I had asthma as a child, grew out of it in adolescence but I remember vividly long days on the sofa, sitting upright because it was so hard to breathe when I laid down. To this day, I become panicky when I feel closed in by either circumstance or anxiety and become an air gulper.

So, the last few days have been unsettling. When I lay in bed at night, it takes about two hours before I wake up struggling to breathe, feeling that heaviness in my chest, hearing my lungs wheezing out air. Each time, I woke up choking, there was Bing's steadying hand on my back, rubbing in circles. Her murmurings of "It's okay, babe. Right here. I'm here," even as she felt sleep pulling her back in.

My secretary at work is recovering from pneumonia. And yes, because it is Nanette, she has milked this for everything she can. She has coughed with vigor, making a show of putting on latex gloves when she had to carry a birthday cake in (we take turns buying cake on each other's birthdays) and walking with an exaggerated limp when she feels anyone looking. (This has nothing to do with pneumonia, but the limp comes out whenever she feels she is not getting sufficient attention.) I have rolled my eyes privately at co-workers over this and shook my head in a desultory manner at her attempts to steal the oscar from Meryl Streep.

But, last night as I sat up in bed, feeling Bing's hand rubbing circles on my back, it occurred to me that Nanette has no one to rub hers. Maybe this is just her way of seeking what she feels is lacking her life. She has a cat. A cat so cherished that it is the one photo that she has as wallpaper on her computer.

Now, I don't know her background really. I know that she never married. I know that she speaks in an odious manner to her co-workers way too often. But, she is a product of her life and choices and...welll.....happenstance.

And I don't imagine the cat gives back rubs when she awakens alone and scared in the night.

I have this life and it would be folly to wonder if I took all the right paths to get here. I did what I thought best at the time and other times, like a Mary Chapin Carpenter song about the moon and St. Christopher, I have just not known which way to go, so simply...ran.

Instead, I think that on dark nights, it is best to look at some of the better paths we took, and yes, some of the sorrier ones too and just accept that they made up a workable life. Regret will eat you alive but so will pride.

So many different people have bettered my life, even those who hurt me. My Da. My first teacher and greatest influence even though I wasn't even a decade old when he died. My mother, who kept me fed, dry and warm even though she also was the one who probably hurt me the most by not being able to love me unconditionally. My sisters, who disappointed me many times but who are also my first phone call after Bing and my best friend, Harriet. The high school teacher who handed back my English papers with big A's sprawled across them and who told my mother (when I was in ear shot) that she believed that I was the most gifted student she had ever taught.

The deep black eyes of a man I met at a stray Halloween party who refused to laugh when I told him that okay, maybe I wasn't old enough to be his mother, but certainly old enough to be his babysitter and why didn't he go flirt with that vacuous eyed blonde at the end of the sofa who kept flinging her hair around like a deranged kewpie doll? The man who said, "You are the most interesting woman in this room. I don't care how old you are and I don't care if we sleep together, I just want to talk about anything with you all night long." The man who fathered Liv.

My first teaching resident who told me that I worked way too hard to be clever and not nearly enough on being smart about patients. The one who sternly took me into the men's room on the ninth floor and stood me in front of the mirror and said, "You will NEVER be of use in a hospital when you come in every morning with bloodshot eyes and looking like you are jonesin' for Jack Daniels at nine a.m. God, get a CLUE!"

The face of my daughter the first time I looked at her. The way I felt like I had come home when she took my index finger in her fist and held on for life. The way she made me understand for the first time what it felt like to know that I would give up my life in a split second if it meant saving hers. And the astonishment that I actually had it in me to feel that way. The way I felt my Da's blood sliding around in her and shining out of her ancient Lakota eyes.

And always Bing, waiting in the wings ready to take me home when I'm done showing off on stage, an extra pair of mittens for my always cold hands and assurances that I am not always a likeable person, but a very lovable one still. I'm old enough now to finally know that love like this is a luxury, that not everyone gets a Bing. Not everyone gets a soft place to land at the day's end. And for all those times when I've railed against the bonds of commitment, I'm so sorry.

Places and things and saved me too.

The way that an area can reach out and hold you tenderly. When my family went on a trip to Louisiana to visit Bing's kin,I loved that place from day one. Just the feel of it, the way it rolled over me and let that old bourbon air feather on my skin. Lake Pontchartrain. Lake Borgne. The soft accents of everyone around me and the knowledge that lagniappe is available always. A fais do do always awaits for someone who can find it.

Books have always been a bridge that crossed me over. I've been closer to characters than to real people many, many times. Ellen Foster has never left my side. Francie Nolan. Holden Caulfield. Huckleberry Finn. Severus Snape. Katniss Everdeen. Jo March. Samwise. Lisbeth Salander. I don't get people who don't fall in love with characters in books.

Music. Ventura Highway. Don't Fear The Reaper. Layla. Jumpin'Jack Flash. Caledonia.'Til There Was You. The Man With The Child In His Eyes. I Drove All Night. That's The Way I've Always Heard It Should Be. And for just maybe twenty minutes in junior high: Crazy Horses by The Osmond Brothers. Yes. The Osmonds.

I'm a complicated person who has made incredibly sane choices and totally whacked out ones. But, they all led to here. And so I can't regret any of them. Or take too much pride in them either. So much was due to happenstance, just as much as the decisions that were carefully thought through and executed smartly.

If I take away one, I might as well take away all.

And therein lies the madness. And the bridges that carried me over. What bridges carried you?

"I fucked up, Mama!"

It startled me. She's never even said the word damn in front of me.

Today, Liv's basketball team played their arch rivals. The St. John's Monarchs. They'd played them before and lost by 4 points. St. John's has a hot shot player, let's just call her number 54. She's a sneak and a bully. An elbower. A stealthy clawer. And she guards Liv.

She is about as big as two Liv's and a head taller. She's the type of player who steps hard on one's instep when she is attempting to steal a ball. And the team parents love her, shouting encouragement and ignoring the fact that she has a tendency to travel and rarely gets caught. In private, Bing and I call her moose.

Liv and her teammates played their hearts out, but lost by two points. Two points that were achieved in the last ten seconds of the game because Liv threw a pass to a team player and moose number 54 leaped for the ball and stole it away, running down the court and swishing that ball in for two points.

After the game, Liv was holding back tears although neither her coach nor her teammates seemed to hold anything against her. She endured a "good game" hand slap from moose number 54, who I swear to god was smirking.

We got into the car, just the two of us. Bing had come from working at her school all morning, so was driving her own car. I patted Liv's arm, turned the heat up high when I saw her shivering as her sweaty body met the cold winter air outside.

And then she looked at me glumly and said, "I fucked up, Mama! I threw a bad pass and it was intercepted. I'm an idiot."

I was quiet for a second and then told her that it was NOT her fault, that part of the game was to try to steal the ball and how could she have seen that moose number 54 was going to come flying through the air like an airborne Dumbo an um...very large bird. It was just part of the game.

She nodded, stricken, I think, at letting that word slip. We didn't say anything until we pulled up into McDonalds for her after game french fries (Shhh! Don't tell Bing!) Then I said as calmly as I could, "Liv, I don't want to hear you say that word again, deal?"

She nodded once, relieved that I wasn't going to make a federal case out of it.

"Sure, Mama. Sorry. Really sorry."

I made a mental note to myself to make sure that I keep that word out of my conversation as well. Role model and all that fucking shit stuff.

So, what do you think? Did I handle that parental fast ball okay? Any suggestions? What would you have done in my place?

Kelsey

I don't often talk about my work here. For one, I have an obligation to my clients not to do that, but also because I just like to leave those packages at my blog door.

But Kelsey deserves a post. I met him two weeks ago. He was born to a crack addicted mother who had no idea who his father was. He was removed from her home at the age of two and lived with his grandmother in Washington for two years. She died and it was not discovered until he had been living in her home for several days alone with her dead body. Then social services stepped in and he was sent to live with his aunt. He was removed from her home when a caseworker noticed drug paraphernalia. His only living relatives remaining were his great uncle and aunt here on the prairie. His dead grandmother's brother and his wife.

This is where I come into the picture. His great uncle and aunt brought Kelsey to see me after they determined from his behavior that he was quite likely sexually abused. They also wondered if he could be autistic since his pediatrician felt that he displayed symptoms of this. (And my opinion of pediatricians who think they can diagnose autism will go unsaid. Let's just say that autism seems to be a great catchphrase for them when they are not sure what to do.)

I met privately with the uncle and aunt and was less than impressed. They seemed angry that they were "saddled" with this child but were not inclined to give him up to foster care as they believed it was their duty to care for him now. I did sympathize with them as they are in their fifties and their only child is grown. And to be honest, the foster care system is a crap shoot. Some foster parents are incredible, some do it for a living and some are just plain scary. The uncle and aunt shared that Kelsey inappropriately tried to touch them and asked them to touch him too. The aunt, in particular, seemed horrified by this and was inclined to shrink away from Kelsey if he was in the same room. The uncle showed more warmth, but it was clear that they expected me to fix this child and then give him back good as new. A spanking new child to replace the flawed one that they had received. They also were concerned because he had an imaginary playmate named Bosco who told him to do "naughty" things.

"How long will it take you to cure him?" they asked me.

I told them that we would speak again after I met Kelsey, that I would only be able to take him on if he was autistic, that they would need to take him to a child psychiatrist as well, who specialized in sexual abuse.

Kelsey is nearly five years old, an angelic looking child with long, thick black eyelashes and pale skin. A head of straight brown hair that was cut in a silly bowl cut. His eyes cut to me when they brought him into my office and then quickly sized me up, deemed me non threatening and then he quickly found the box of toys and books in the corner of my office. The aunt and uncle stayed for a few moments and then told him that they would be in the waiting room. He showed no attachment to them, shrugged and went on throwing bright colored bean bags up into the air, catching them perfectly.

I sat on a chair a few feet away from him. I introduced myself to him and he smiled. "I already know who you are," he said. "Bosco says that you're my new friend. Do you want to ask me what color these bags are?"

I said that would be fine. He deftly named all the colors, throwing each bag to me as he called out the color. Brown. Green. Red. Yellow. Blue. Pink. Black. White. He hesitated over the purple bag and then proudly remembered it, tossed it to me.

He moved on to the flash cards which showed children performing different activities. Washing dishes. Setting a table with plates. Brushing teeth. Laying in a bed, eyes closed. He easily named each activity, slightly bored, but showing off his knowledge.

Then he found the Clifford books and pounced on them.

"I know these!" he said, excitedly. "This is a big red dog and he is like...gigantic! As big as a house! I wish I were that big!"

He sidled up to me, leaning against my knee easily. We read the books, one by one. I asked him what he would do if he were as big as Clifford.

"I would stomp on bad people," he said, without hesitation. "Bosco says that it is all right to kill people if they do bad things."

Our time was up, so I didn't pursue it. I spoke to his Aunt and Uncle briefly and said that I would need to see Kelsey one more time to determine if he qualified for our program. They agreed.

The next week, Kelsey was not nearly as cheerful. He slumped in his chair, kicking at the toy box.

"Do you ever get new toys?" he asked. "I've already seen these."

I found a few new things for him to look at, a book about a train. And then we found several box cars that fit neatly together to make a train like the one in the book. We talked as we worked together.

I asked him how he was feeling today.

"I'm mad because aunt Ann didn't let me make snow angels when it snowed last week," he said. "We don't hardly ever get snow at my grandma's house. She said she had a headache. She's prolly going to die soon. And then I'll go back to grandma. She's nice. She taught me how to do this to feel better."

At this point, he cupped his genitals and rubbed himself briskly. I found the box of pop beads and held them out to him. Asked him if he wanted to make something with me. Maybe a big chain? He agreed and was diverted.

I watched him ponder which beads to use. The red ones first or the green? I thought about what his life had been up to this point. In a home with a drug addled mother and then moved to his grandmother's home where he was subjected to fondling lessons. And now, his uncle and aunt who didn't really want him. Even at his age, he had figured that much out.

I knew he didn't qualify for our program. He showed no autistic tendencies. Survival instincts, yes. Autism. No. My heart hurt just looking at him. Some of them you can't really save, you know? You just have to hope that his uncle and aunt would keep him warm and safe and get him the help that he needed.

Our time was nearly up. I told Kelsey that it was time to start putting the toys away. He held up a semi circle of bright pop beads.

"Look," he said. "I made a smile!"

I made one too and we both held up our pop bead smiles and faced each other. I told him that I really enjoyed playing with him. He dropped the beads on the floor and jumped into my lap.

"Do you think that I could go home and live with you?" he asked. "We could make snow angels."

No, I told him. He already had a home with his aunt and his uncle. He sighed and leaned down to pick up his pop bead smile and turned it upside down and pressed it against his lips, showing me a downturned smile, a sad face.

I felt my throat get tight. He wasn't even five yet and was already so smart, so aware of the true pain that life threw at us.

I stood up and held out my hand. He took it, dry eyed and uncomplaining. He was very, very good at not getting too attached.

I spoke with his aunt and uncle while one of the secretaries took him to go pick out a book to take home with him from our book box. I told them that he did not qualify for our program, was not autistic. I handed them several sheaves of paper with names of good child psychiatrists in the area. Ones who were specially trained to handle his sort of pain.

They took the referrals and called to Kelsey to come now like a good boy and then they said goodbye and went to the door. He left without looking back at me.

That night I would dream of a little boy standing by my bed. He said his name was Bosco and he was sick of hanging around with Kelsey, could he come live with me? In my dream, I saw Clifford the big red dog sitting calmly outside my window. When I turned back, Bosco was gone.

Breaking down on the drive home.

Everything was fine. The day had started in a difficult way, had to go to the doctor to get blood tests. I have to do this every several months to make sure that I am in remission and that my liver and kidneys aren't being damaged by the medications I have to take. But, that went well. The nurse got me on the first stick, which is a feat since I not only have "tricky" veins but they also roll.

The rest of the day had went well too. No surprises, no cancellations, nothing very difficult. So, I was driving home and okay, it was spitting snow and I detest snow, but I was dealing, people.

I noticed a cd that Nirand had left for me before he and Tinton went back to Colorado after visiting us over Christmas and the New Year. He often does this, compiles songs that he thinks I would enjoy and he astonishes me by almost always choosing perfectly.

So, I was inching along in rush hour traffic, listening to Nirvana talk about smelling like teen spirit and Springsteen commenting about the screen door slamming ad Mary's dress waving. The Beatles reminded me that the love you take is equal to the love you make. Janis waxed on about freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose. CCR was no senator's son. And then I heard a quiet piano begin.

I was pulled in instantly by Adele. And then her voice sort of imploded inside of me. The pain in her voice swiveled around my heart, melting all around it. I felt a wave of emotion take over my soul and my throat was suddenly aching with heartache. Her heartache. Mine. Yours. All of ours. Because no one gets skipped, you know?

I pulled into a cemetery and just sat quietly, listening, tears gathering and falling. I put my head on the steering wheel and just let it all out.

And then I picked myself up and dusted myself off and headed back into traffic.

For Bing, because she asked so prettily....

Question on meme that was never asked and she thought that sucked:

1) What kind of MUSIC do you both like?

I like almost anything that isn't jazz or polka.

Jazz rocks. So does reggae, classical, country or rock. God spare me from that bouncy pop shit, though.

Ok. Done. I do get the last word, though, because it is MY blog.

Jazz sounds like snapping rubber bands. So there.

Maria somehow talks Bing into joining her in a meme....

I've seen several versions of this meme, the last one from one of my favorite bloggers: Earth Muffin..

Relationship blog (Maria is in soft, Bing in bold)

1) What are your middle names?

Marie and Ann.

Mutt and Jeff.

2) How long have you been together?

Ok, this is a tough one. We met during our freshman year in college and were dorm mates all through college. We didn't become lovers until Liv was about 6 months old and it was all a terrible mistake. So, let's see I was 18 when we met and 41 when we hooked up officially. Then....yes, I decided that I didn't want to be in the relationship after just 5 months. So, she moved back to New Orleans (with a crushed heart, she says..) and I went on to only date on rare occasions until Liv was in kindergarten. Then, Bing was offered a great job in my city and she moved back and stayed in my basement while she house hunted. After just a few weeks, I decided that I was really truly in love for good this time and we got back together, she with much trepidation and me with a hopeful heart. So, far...it has stuck. We have been together over seven years now. I think I finally grew up, plain and simple.

As far as I'm concerned we've been together since the day I fell in love with her: August 22, 1976. And yes, she not only broke my heart, she smashed it to smithereens. Under the bridge, though, under the bridge.

3) How long did you know each other before dating?

So, well...that would be um...22 years.

I count the first time she let me buy her dinner, which was probably in early September of 1976. After that, she "let" me buy her dinner many, many times.

4) Who asked who out?

Another hard one because I don't remember going on any dates, I just remember that one night we started kissing and she spent the night. So, yes...it was mutual. And yes, I am a floozy.

I always did all the asking ALL the time. But, I honestly don't remember the first time. I just know I had to ask her because she NEVER asked me.

5) Do you have children together?

I thought this meme looked simple, but now...not so much. I have a 12 year old daughter. Bing is her step parent.

We have a twelve year old daughter. Maria is the biological mother, I am second string, or as George Clooney put it in THE DESCENDANTS: the stand in parent.

6) What about pets?

If Bing had her druthers, we would not have any. When Liv was little, she had a pet goldfish that died a horrible accidental death in our garbage disposal. The only good part of that story is that I had been close to putting my HAND in there, but did not. (Liv was cleaning the fish bowl, the fish slipped down the garbage disposal. I asked Liv to turn on the overhead kitchen light so that I could see better to help her and she accidentally turned on the garbage disposal. I was seconds away from putting my HAND in there to try to get the goldfish out. It was a traumatic day in our house, let me tell you, boy howdy.) We bought a Scottish terrior when Liv was in kindergarten. His name is Socks and he is a huge part of our family. He blogs occasionally.

We have a dog named Socks who loves Liv first, then Maria, then me. So, third string dog parent. Is it just me or is Maria kind of wordy?

7) Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple?

Easy. Money. Money. Money. I always thought of myself as a saver. I've had investments, an IRA, and a savings account ever since I've made a decent wage. I always knew that Bing was frugal, but I had NO idea just how frugal she really was until we started sharing money. She can squeeze a LOT out of a dollar. And she is a rabid recycler as well. She makes me look like a spendthrift and truly, I'm not..

Truly, you are. Ferragamo. Chanel. Enough said.

8) Did you go to the same school?

Just for our first four years of college. Then she moved back to New Orleans to go to Tulane for her masters and I stayed on the prairie and went to med school.

I grew up near New Orleans, but received my teaching degree in Iowa. That is where we met and the only school we shared.

9) Are you from the same home town?

Nope. She is a true rebel from the south, born and raised in Louisiana. I was born in a tiny town in Iowa.

We were both raised in small towns, but I am southern and she is midwestern.

10) Who is smarter?

Well, I have a higher IQ...I know this because she INSISTED that we both take the test at the same time. She was THAT SURE that she would beat me. Nope. I beat her..well...ok...not by a landslide, but by a um....considerable margin. We don't speak of it now! But, the truth is that we are both smart in different ways. I am really good at literature and she excels in math. I am good at gardening, she is good at anything involving a computer. She has something called "fire walls" all over our computer and several analytics on my blog to let us know when my blog stalker rears her putrid head. Truthfully? I think we come out about even.

We're smart about different things. She can quote Shakespeare, I do the taxes. And that IQ test was faulty. I want a rematch.

11) Who is more sensitive?

I am. But, neither one of us are overly so. I tend to swallow my emotions and she is extremely logical and practical. We aren't big on PDAs or having knock-down-drag-out arguments. Neither one of us is mushy at all. But, I have forgotten BOTH of our birthdays more than once and our anniversary three times out of the seven years we have celebrated it. I tend to be very sensitive on the inside but seldom show it on the outside and while she is more demonstrative, she seldom holds grudges or stays angry for long. I can carry a grudge for MONTHS and it takes a lot to make me lose my temper, but once I do...I stay mad for hours and hours. Even if we make up (and thanks to her, we always do), I am a little cold for a few days until I warm up to her again. So, yes. Me.

Maria is, although she has a brilliant poker face.

12) Where do you eat out most as a couple?

We have a few favorite places. We like to go to a place called La Peep for pancakes. We like another place called Bohemian Cafe for schnitzel She ADORES sushi. I like fajitas. We eat out quite often at an all natural cafe called Blue Planet. The only places she flat out refuses to go to are fast food hamburger joints. When I crave a big Mac, I take Liv with me.

If Maria had her way, we would eat steak every night. Bloody rare. Excuse me, I'm gagging.

13) Where is the furthest you have traveled as a couple?

Hmmm. Really hard. I think probably Mexico.

Maria can't travel too far now with her RA. I wish we had gone on more adventures early on when we were together. I'd love to go to Paris with her. Or Rome. She wants to go to Ireland. No thanks. Not enough SUN and everyone from Scotland, Ireland and England are so white faced. They don't get enough SUN.

14) Who has the worst temper?

She will say me. I say her. She tends to have a very "flare uppy" temper. She has a short fuse, but then she gets it out and it is over. I, on the other hand, tend to nurse grievances until they come bursting out of me. She calls this "going off like a devil in a crowded church." When we argue, as I already said...it is over right away for her when she gets it out. I hold on to my anger for a long, long time. She almost ALWAYS is the first to want to make up. I am a baby and usually make her work to get back into my good graces.

She gets mad at me when I do something mean in her DREAMS at night. How fucking fair is THAT?

15) How old are each of you?

I'm 53.

She robbed the cradle. I'm 52.

16) Whose siblings do you see the most?

Mine. I have a sister who lives just a few miles away from us in the same city. I also have a niece in college here and all of my sister's children live here too. Bing has a few uncles, cousins who came here to work in the packing plants but we only see them occasionally. We see my sister often.

Hers. She and I have equally whacked out families, just in different directions. Her sisters and their children are all pretty much insanely Catholic and/or insanely Republican. We are talking not just the right, but the far right. My family? I don't even think they vote. There is a "crazy thread" in my family that's right out of a Flannery O'Connor novel. I'm used to it but Maria still has problems with it. My family will invite you in for pie and coffee and then steal your car while you are eating. They'll return it, but it may have some bumper damage...

17) Who does the cooking?

Mostly Bing. She is kind of a lazy vegetarian. She eats meat occasionally. Plus, she doesn't trust the food I cook. She says that over salt and over butter. I don't. My food just tastes more like food. To be honest, neither one of us are more than passable cooks.

I do most of the cooking. Maria is a meat eater. I've been trying to get her to eat a more vegetarian diet since we met. She's stubborn, though. I make a meat dinner about twice a week. If I don't, she rebels and refuses to eat my cooking. So, I make it so that she will eat five days of vegetarian. It's a trade off. I am insistent about no preservatives, though. She LOVES things like boxed au gratin potatoes and mashed potatoes. I tell her that fresh is best ALWAYS. It's a little more work, but worth it. She will thank me when she is in good health when she's 80 because I singlehandedly saved her arteries.

18) Who is more social?

Bing. She knows ALL of our neighbors in a two block radius. I like to be friendly acquaintances with them, not know their life stories. But, at parties, I do better. I'm better at banal social conversation with strangers. And at family gatherings, I'm the one sitting in the kitchen holding someone's new baby. She's the one holed up by herself in a room checking her e-mail.

I am. When I go away on trips, I have to remind Maria what our neighbor's names are because she tends to forget. And I have all of them on speed dial. I also like to stop and visit with neighbors when we take Socks on walks. Maria stands there with this frozen friendly look on her face and when we start walking again, she asks me why I have to stop and talk to EVERYONE. Because it is the RIGHT thing to do. Because these people borrow my lawn mower and I borrow theirs. It is good to know one's neighbors. She's right about parties, etc., though. The truth is that she is good at that kind of conversation and I'm not. Unless we have something in common or they are a good network connection, I don't really like talking much. And I have been warned many times that when family is at our home, I am NOT to wander off to the office to play video games. ESPECIALLY when it is MY family. This pisses her off royally.

19) Who is the neat freak?

Me. Although, I am not really a neat freak. But compared to Bing, I am. I like things nice and tidy. Bing feels that if she makes a space to walk through a room, that is good enough.

She is. BUT...she is not that great of a housekeeper either. I like to keep the house dusted and vacuumed, like the floors to be clean and when I dust, I really dust. I do baseboards and BEHIND the sofa and clean the ceiling fans/lights. She just gives things a swipe and a promise with the dust cloth. She hates it when I DO clean because I do a thorough job and it takes a long time. She says that I turn a little job into a big one, but if I'm going to clean, I CLEAN.

20) Who is more stubborn?

She is. If she really, really wants to see a movie, she can wear me down. She also only makes meat twice a week, so that is extremely stubborn....

She is. That gal can hold a grudge for DAYS. When she is very mad, she has this icy look that could freeze a bonfire in seconds. And I always end up apologizing first. Always. So, she is more stubborn.

21) Who hogs the bed?

Neither of us. We only have a full sized bed, so we have learned to sleep nicely together. She does have restless leg syndrome, though, so sometimes she kicks.

I probably do more than she does. I don't mind sleeping all over her and have been told several times that I am not her blanket. But, she appreciates my closeness in the winter.

22) Who wakes up earlier?

She does. She beats me by at least an hour on the weekends.

I do. I have never known anyone who loves sleeping as much as Maria does. She sleeps until at least 10 a.m. on weekends.

23) Where was your first date?

I honestly don't remember.

That's because we didn't really "date." We hung out a lot. The first time we really sort of hooked up was when I took her to a James Bond movie and kissed her in the car when she stopped at a drugstore to buy movie candy.

24) Who has the bigger family?

She does. She has this HUGE family network in Louisiana. And no matter where we go on business trips or vacation, she always has a third cousin or someone's brother in law that we can stay with. This annoys me because I DETEST staying at people's houses when I don't know them.

I do. And I don't get why she gets so irritated at staying at people's houses. It is no big deal! And we save hundreds of dollars PER NIGHT if we stay at someone's home. Plus, they usually insist on making us dinner and breakfast, so more money saved.

25) Do you get flowers often?

No. Neither one of us believe in buying flowers at a florist. I don't want to put flowers in a vase and then watch them die. I like planting them. She often buys me flowers to plant in the summer and I LOVE that.

Whew! Thank god she isn't into flowers or candy. She isn't all concerned with getting gifts either. Neither one of us are. If I see something that she'd like, I pick it up for her and vice versa. Much nicer than forced occasions.

26) How do you spend the holidays?

We have Thanksgiving at my sister's home every year. Christmas is fluid. We are expected to attend Christmas brunch at my sister's home as well, but there is no giving of gifts with them. We have an agreement in my family that we do not buy Christmas or birthday gifts. Our friends, Vince and Thuan usually spend a couple of weeks in late December and early January with us as does Liv's father and his assistant who is from India and has no family here in the states.

Her family. I wish we could skip Thanksgiving dinner at her sister's house, though. I swear the whole table is full of carbs. Her sister can't make a simple veggie dish, no. She puts everything in cream sauces. And her other sisters come for Thanksgiving too, so we end up with a houseful too. This would be fine except that her family has a few very verbal racists in it and they spoil it for the rest of us. I think that it might be a fun change of pace for us to travel every Christmas, go somewhere different. Somewhere WARM. But, Maria thinks it is important that Liv see her father and we'd rather have him come to us then send her there, so I'm good with it, I suppose. Maybe when Liv is older and on her own.....Just an idea, honey. Just something to chew on.

27) How long did it take to get serious?

Um. Okay. It took me about 28 years. I'm a slow bloomer and not naturally domesticated.

WAY too long. I was ready to hook up within minutes of meeting her. But, she had to sew some wild oats first, I suppose. As long as she's here now. That's what matters.

28) Who does the laundry?

Bing usually does. The washer/dryer are in the basement and stairs are really hard on my knees. But, I do it occasionally.

It is just best if I do it. Maria throws everything in together. She doesn't get that a red shirt can't be washed with white underpants. She also is way too heavy handed with the fabric softener. Towels DO NOT need fabric softener. PLEASE just stay away from the laundry. I am HAPPY to do it. This way, I don't have to go running with pale pink socks instead of white ones.

29) Who is better with the computer?

She is. Computers hate me. They like to fuck with my head.

I am. Computers are just logical. They make perfect sense. Maria astonishes me. She is so BAD with them. She has to ask me EVERY SINGLE TIME how to eject her ipod when she downloads songs. She doesn't call anything by it's correct name, refers to almost everything as "that thingee that blinks" or "that whatchamajigger." Liv has to put new phone numbers in her cell phone and she has no idea how to play a DVD. I can't figure out how someone as intelligent as she is gets so bewildered and angry at a simple computer.

30) Who drives when you go somewhere by car?

If it's my car, I drive. If it's her car, she does. Or if I don't know how to get somewhere....she drives.

Another thing I don't understand. She's lived in this city for decades and STILL gets lost easily. If it isn't somewhere she goes a lot (grocery store), it takes her FOREVER to figure out how to get there. And you can't say "east" or "west" with her, it has to be right or left. She also prefers landmark driving as in "go to the McDonald's on 84th ST and take a left and then you'll see that funny house with the ugly pink shutters. Turn right there..." It's maddening to drive with her. Plus, she drives under the speed limit. What's up with THAT? But ask her to recite every single sonnet that Shakespeare wrote and she does it verbatim.

31) Who is funnier?

She is. All of my friends and family say she is "just like" Ellen Degeneres. She is. But, funnier.

I'm funnier looking....

32) Who works hardest for the money?

She does. She's a high school teacher. Enough said.

She does. She works with mostly underprivileged children with autism. Or kids who have been traumatized. She has nightmares. I'm the one who holds her in the middle of the night when she wakes up crying. I try not to mind the time she spends on the blog because I think it saves her sanity on some days. Enough said.

33) Who laughs more?

We both laugh equally, I think. We joke around a lot.

Agreed. But, she has the most beautiful laugh in the world. I mean it. She could seduce anyone with that laugh.

34) Who is a better parent?

I am. She does plenty of parenting as a teacher. She doesn't want to come home and do it too.

She is. She is an incredible mother. Liv won't know this until she is a grown up, but she lucked out. She has the best mother on the planet. I never wanted kids. I spend my day with high school kids and when I get home, I am frankly just sick of them. Luckily, Liv is a very, very easy child. I don't know if this is a result of Maria's superb parenting or if she was just born practically perfect.

35) Who is a better flirt?

I am. Bing doesn't really flirt. I don't think I've ever seen her flirt.

She is. She is a HUGE flirt. Example: Our cable was out and the cable guy was an arrogant ass. I tried to help him out by telling him what I thought was the problem but he wouldn't listen to me. So, Maria comes in the living room and she smiles at him and starts asking him questions about what is his favorite brand of television, etc. and suddenly he is bending over backwards to please her. If she had asked him to please climb up on the roof to check and see if each cable wire was secure, he would have done it. The whole time, she keeps doing this amazing thing like ducking her head and looking up at him and then smiling. He was BESOTTED with her. When he left, Maria shut the door, shook her head and then rubbed her hands together like she was so glad he was gone. I said, "I thought you liked him!" and she laughed and said, "Him? God, no. He was an asshat. But, I really want to see that movie on HBO tonight..." She's a shameless flirt. I've also seen her get out of two speeding tickets. I'm not an idiot. I'm pretty sure she works me like a puppet and then sits around snorting with laughter about it with Harriet.

36) Who handles family members better?

I do. Bing is always honest. That doesn't work in diplomatic family matters.

She does. She will sit and listen to my Uncle LZ talk about this fish that he almost caught for an hour. I just can't do that. Life's too short.

37) Who is better at sports?

She is! I am a total dork.

I am. She IS kind of a dork.

38) Who is in better health?

She is. Healthy as a horse.

I am. But, I WORK at it. I eat well and exercise regularly. She does neither. But, she also has diabetes, RA, Meniere's Syndrome and migraines. So, she has lots of bad genes courtesy of her father. I come from Southern trash stock. I'm built to last.

39) Are you sexually compatible?

I have a pretty low libido. But, it has nothing to do with her. I've been like this all of my life. I can easily go without sex for months or even years (and have) and be just fine. But, once I'm turned on, I think I give just as good as I get.

Not sharing bed stories. We're just fine.

40) Better singer?

Her. I sing and dance like Elaine Benes.

I do. But, she has a lovely set of pipes. And she is a pretty good dancer. We aren't going to win any contests, but I love dancing with her. Slow dancing. Hey, is this thing almost done? JESUS, you said it was a "little ditty." This is like a book report.

41) Better dancer?

Nearing the finish line, honey. She is the better dancer.

I am. But, see above.

42) Last movie seen? What did you think?

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. I thought it was fun. But, I will see anything with Jeremy Renner in it. Anything.

I thought it was good. And I think Tom Cruise gets bashed a lot. The guy knows what he excels at: action movies. It's only when he tries to do artsy movies that he starts to limp. And thank you, sugar for not making me sit through "My Week With Marilyn."

43) Who handles thank you notes, etc.?

I do. And frankly, I resent it.

She does. And frankly, she resents it but I'm not good at that shit. She is. She is an amazing writer, even at thank you notes. Our families talk about how incredible her little thank you notes are. So, see? You need to be the designated note writer in this family.

44) Who kills the spiders?

She does.

I DO NOT KILL BUGS. I relocate them. I am more zen than she is. She just points and screams.

45) Who helps with homework more?

I help with everything except math. Bing does math.

I do math. She does the rest. And she is very patient. I tend to be impatient. I know this and end up apologizing to Liv. At the end of the day, I am so tired of being patient.

46)Who takes work home more often?

She does. She's a TEACHER. Enough said. It is a disgrace how hard teachers work for so little pay in this country.

I do. What she said.

47) Favorite television shows that you watch together?

We both like Fringe, True Blood and The Amazing Race.

We also watch Breaking Bad and Modern Family. But,she likes Survivor and I can't figure out what she sees in that show. ARE WE DONE YET!!!???

Yes, we are done. And don't let her fool you. We did this quiz over FIVE days. She did a few at a time and it was like pulling teeth. NEVER AGAIN. PROMISE!

Thank you. Because I swear my butt cheeks are numb.

Maria shakes her head. Rolls her eyes. When Bing leaves the room, she laughs.

I GOT HER TO DO IT. DIDN'T I????

Yeah, I'm the boss of you.....

So..how would you and/or your partner fare on this one? And why don't you try it? I think it says a lot in general. I mean, can't you pretty much picture our relationship now? I'm the conniving, manipulative flirt and she is um...the better dancer....

Thoughts while reading an insipid women's magazine in a Dr's waiting room.

The title of the piece was A Year Of Living LARGE!!!!! 12 New Year's Eve Resolutions!!

1) Place celery and carrot chunks in brown paper cups in a Russell Stover's candy box. Refrigerate. Snacking will feel like cheating!!!!

Well, fuck me. You are such an asshat. Come here, wanna be-writer-of-this-slop. I would like to knock your teeth out. Because...are you THAT stupid? Do you REALLY think this would work. What sort of fantasy world do YOU live in, dumb ass?

2) On February 1st, have a florist send yourself one perfect rose with this message: "Thanks. It was wonderful!" Smile and shrug when your Beloved asks who sent it. Watch your Valentine's Day haul increase exponentially.

Wow. Getting attention through lying and manipulation. Who'da thunk it?

That's it. Not reading one more word of this drivel. But, I will copy down that recipe for tomato basil soup, thank you.

I paged through to the circulation information.

Fuck me twice.

Over 500,000 subscribers.

Huh????

And then there were three...

Sorry to see my company go. Truly. But, yes...ready for our lives to go back to normal. I'm even ready to go back to work tomorrow. Ankle is doing better, still aches like a mother fucker, but at least I can bear weight on it.

We have so much food in the fridge. Nirand left chicken marsala and vegan chocolate peppermint mousse. Thuan, in a crazed American cooking spree, made enough ham and bean soup to feed us for a week. And these little caramels, rolled in confectioner's sugar. I saw a brown bag with the words Maria's lunch on it. Checked it out. A ham and cream cheese sandwich. Homemade potato chips. One perfect red delicious apple. A small chocolate cookie laced with almonds. And a thermos of green tea. Also, a small note with a heart on it saying, With love, Nirand, Thuan, Vince and Tinton.

Spoiled rotten.

Both Liv and Bing go back to school tomorrow and I will be off to work again. Poor Socks. He has been heartily loved up. Now it will be back to an empty house all day.

I always feel like crying when the Christmas tree comes down and the guests leave. As I pack away the ornaments, I look at each one and wonder what it will be like next year? What do I want to see happen?

I guess just more of the same. Good love from a sweet partner, a daughter who is so perfect that I have to pinch myself and good friends who swear that they love me, warts and all.

I DID make it up to midnight on New Year's Eve. We toasted 2012, went outside to watch the house a few doors down put on a fireworks display, and then came back in and went to bed, gratefully.

All of my clothes feel tight. I think I have eaten enough for four Marias. Make that five.

I have new books to read, many bottles of lotion, shower cream and bath oil and a handmade rosary from Liv, who sheepishly said that she knew that I wasn't really a Catholic anymore, but that she thought I might want to hang it up somewhere since she hand carved it for me in art class. Bing jokingly offered to go into business with her. She could carve the rosaries, Bing could sell them for a nifty price down in the 'hood where she teaches and wearing rosaries is all the rage now.

Liv also made me hand stitched napkins and a gorgeous new bird house for our back yard.

My days were spent lazing around like a lady of leisure and talking politics with a room full of Democrats as opposed to me usually being the only orphan Democrat at the table with my fiercely intense Republican family.

I imbibed a perfect buttery chardonnay (2005) from Mer Soleil Winery and thought that maybe I had died and gone to heaven.

Saw LOTS of films:

HUGO...Simply beautiful. We all sat silently at the end, willing it to go on and on.

We Bought A Zoo...Just as awful as I feared it would be. I figured that Matt Damon could make anything great, but even he couldn't save this truly awful film.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo ...I still think that Lisbeth is probably one of the most beautifully written characters in fiction and now...the most beautifully acted in a film.

The Descendants....God, brilliant. Sheer shine from start to finish. And watching George Clooney run like an aging man was icing. Alexander Payne just keeps hitting it on the head, over and over and over again.

We also watched Invictus on the television one night and I thought that Matt Damon saved a pretty weak movie. We saw The Town too, and I had to endure all the guys talking with bad Bostonian accents for days afterwards.

Each night, we spent one hour on what Bing called "musical entertainment." This meant that we ALL were expected to perform and participate. I am used to this, as this seems to happen EVERY time this group is together.

Liv sang me this song on Christmas Eve as her father accompanied her on the piano and made me cry:



And then Bing and I practiced for an afternoon and I brought my courage out and she and I sang this in FRONT OF EVERYONE and I only messed up slightly when I forgot a lyric and she had to sing it with me...what can I say, I am a soprano, but I am NOT Linda Ronstadt.



I was applauded for bravery, if not talent...

The guys, my four wild and crazy guys, sang this:



....and by the end, we were all crazily leaping around, even me with my big fat ankle. It felt wonderful to be able to be so free. Can I just say that my republican family gatherings would profit SO much if we all became as silly as we did during this song?

Even Socks joined the fun, allowing Liv to dance with him. He refused to wear the red Huskers poncho that Vince and Thuan brought for him, but that's okay. He has to have some semblance of dignity. God knows the rest of us seemed to have none.

We watched our Huskers lose their bowl game and no one said the obvious: that they just played badly. Instead, we all agreed that Rex Burkhead is one engaging male. Or as Vince put it: "I would love to slow dance with him to some Tony Bennett..." which made me laugh and choke on my cracker with cheese.

I ate three square meals a day and then some. LOTS of nibbling.

I napped each and every day.

And then the guys packed up and we drove them to the airport today. Vince and Thuan back to Chicago and Tinton and Nirand back to Denver.

The house seemed eerily quiet when we returned.

It still does. But, you know...it can't always be fun packed. And it will be kind of nice to not worry about making sure that I have my towel wrapped tightly around me as I go from my shower to the bedroom.

Not that they did. And one of them who shall remain nameless (name kind of rhymes with cinch) was very adept at smelling up the bathroom every single morning. There is regular and then there is WAY TOO regular....

So, now back to appointments for me and classes for Liv and Bing.

And an empty house for Socks.

We will miss you guys. Next year, fellas, next year.

So...how the hell have all of YOU been? Did I miss anything? What do you think of the Iowa caucus? Any blizzards in your neck of the woods? Any coal for Christmas?

Good to be back in the driver's seat again.

And guess what? Some truly long odious memes are coming your way........