the pieces of my life

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I freakin’ hate Halloween. That said, I’ve been suckered in. Candy has been purchased. Mummy dogs, monster fingers, and witches brew with bloody wormy ice cubes are being made for dinner. And I helped Pie carve her pumpkin. Correction: she designed her pumpkin, I carved it.

The drawing was a little elaborate with strands of hair. Most of the hair came out well, but some had a big chunk that fell out, so I changed it to ears.

Me: Pie, I’m sorry this didn’t quite work.

Pie: Do you think it still looks spooky?

Me: Uh… well, as spooky as this pumpkin was going to look.

Pie evaluates it for a moment. Then she declares, “I like it better this way!” As she turns to go up the stairs, she turns and looks at me and says, “I’m Sweetie Pie Medros and I approve this message!”

Thank goodness.

Our part of our part of the world (meaning our corner of town) faired quite well in the mess that Hurricane Sandy left on the East Coast. Unlike parts of our town, we lost power for a mere hour. No damage to the trees at our house. The surrounding streets are a bit ugly. But we’re good. I had some gum surgery in the morning, but once I got past that we spent the day watching movies (I introduced my kids to Fiddler on the Roof), eating junk food (cider apple donuts, anyone?), and for those over 21, drinking whiskey sours to numb the mouth pain. Not a bad day! There’s no school today as the town cleans up the various streets, although the boy does have Hebrew school later.

So we are unscathed. Or so I thought. Until I walked into the girl’s room. Apparently the hurricane struck. Just her room.

Sigh. I won’t bother FEMA for this, but it’s time to start my clean-up.

You all know that I’m extremely liberal in my political views, and politics isn’t something I like to discuss on this blog. However, I’ve been amused by the mailings I’ve been getting lately, so I thought I’d share.

The national election isn’t getting much play–we are a blue state through and through when it comes to the presidential election. (Conversation: Me: Do you think it’s fair to say that for Massachusetts, it’s obvious it’s going to go to Obama? Adam: Um, sure. Doodles: But Mitt Romney was governor here. Me: Exactly.) Even in our own household, we tend to be more or less in agreement on the presidential election.

The senatorial race, however, is another story. Both in our house and in the state, the election is up for grabs. Now, I’ve committed myself as an Elizabeth Warren supporter. To be honest, at this point, I find her the lesser of two evils, but she’s got my vote. But I need to say, the Republican Scott Brown campaign has done a truly excellent job marketing to me. Yes, me. The registered Democrat.

I have noticed, amongst my almost-solely Democratic friends, that I alone am getting mailings from Scott Brown (addressed to me and me alone) touting him as the independent voter, the one that many Democrats are supporting. After polling folks in the school yard and discovering that only a handful are getting these mailings, we’ve realized that we all have one thing in common: we are all registered Democrats living in a house with a registered Republican or independent. The marketing is genius. Truly. Okay, so it hasn’t swayed me in the least, but I’ve been impressed with the thought behind it.

Until the mailings I received yesterday. I received a very colorful glossy mailing that proclaims, “Scott supports a woman’s right to choose.” “Scott broke with his own party to support funding for Planned Parenthood.” “Scot voted for and supports requiring coverage by healthcare providers.” All excellent points that could possibly make a voter like me consider changing my vote.

And then, in the very same mailbox on the very same day, I received a second postcard. Not quite as glossy, but a bright eye-catching red-and-white print. From the National Right to Life committee. And this mailing, in my box the same day as the pro-choice Scott Brown mailing, is promising me that “Scott Brown opposes using your tax dollars to pay for abortion.” “Scott Brown opposes partial-birth abortion, and supports requiring parental notice before an abortion is performed on a minor daughter.” “Scott Brown…voted to keep groups…from being forced to provide insurance coverage for drugs and procedures that violate their religious or moral convictions.” The same mailing also tells me that Elizabeth Warren supports Obamacare. That she supports the current policy of abortion on demand. That she’s supported by radical “pro-abortion” groups.

Brilliance in marketing. To be fair that second mailing didn’t come from the Scott Brown campaign itself. Adam and I were trying to parse why I’d be on the Right to Life mailing list (in the past year I’ve donated to both NOW and Planned Parenthood) and the only thing I can come up with is we have donated to a Catholic organization that provides housing, work training, and, oh yes, support for people with AIDS.

That one little mailing undid any hesitation that I may have had about supporting Elizabeth Warren. Elizabeth Warren doesn’t need to do a thing; Scott Brown is doing all the work for her!

Adam leaves the light on in our closet all the time. All. The. Time. It annoys me. Adam is a very green person when he feels like it, but that doesn’t include turning off the lights or simply putting on a jacket instead of cranking up the fireplace. But today, we were both getting dressed at the same time, and I pointed out how easy it is to turn out the closet light after I got dressed.

Me: Did you see how I did that? I walked out of the closet AND I turned out the light.

Adam: No, I missed it.

Me: It was simple. I turned out the light as I walked out.

Adam: I didn’t see it. Could you do it again? In fact, could you make me a YouTube video of it so I can watch it over and over at my leisure?

Me [yelling out the bedroom door]: Hey, kids! Do you want a new daddy?

Pie: Why? Is he voting for Mitt Romney?

Adam makes coffee every morning, which I appreciate. What I don’t appreciate is that he never gets the amount right. Some mornings, there’s almost a full pot sitting there at the end of the day. Other days–like this morning–I’m drinking up the dregs trying to eke that third cup out of the pot. The man saw me for a FULL 3.24 minutes this morning. Couldn’t he glean in that time that it was clearly a mega-coffee day? Are you telling me that man can’t read my mind! What’s the point of marriage if he can’t simply intuit how much coffee I require on any given day?

Sigh. Today is a novel day. Not in the “new” sense, but in the “I’m going to finish this damn thing” sense. In the past week, I’ve survived a crying drop-off, two Sukkot parties at our sukkah in the rain (one of which was for Pie’s entire 2nd grade class), my father visiting (yes, Peter, you do require “surviving”; doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy having you), our first Brownie meeting of the year (18 girls!), orthodontists, periodontists (why, yes, I DO have gum surgery in my future, thank you very much), eye doctors, curriculum night, and very little writing. This week will be a little better but I plan on tuning much of the world out while I edit my novel. I took a class at Grub Street on Microediting, and one of the great takeaways is to read your writing out loud because you can hear a lot of problems you can’t see. It’s working beautifully, but I have to tell you, it takes a lot of time–and a lot of tea!–to read a 75,000 word novel aloud. I’m about 1/3 of the way through.

Maybe I need to put another pot of coffee on. If you see my shaking later, know that it’s simply an overdose of caffeine.

My husband’s all-time favorite restaurant is Yardbird in Miami. It’s got bacon. It’s got fried chicken. It’s got bourbon. We were waiting for our three-month window so we could make our holiday reservation. Done!

When we were last there, Adam bemoaned the fact that they didn’t have T-shirts for sale. He’s been hounding the site looking for them and was thrilled when he found them.

The box came today. Adam was at work. Pie saw it. “What’s in there?”

“It’s Daddy’s T-shirt, I’m guessing, from Yardbird,” I told her.

“Are you sure?” she asked.

“Pretty sure. What else would he be getting from Yardbird?”

Pie shrugged and said matter-of-factly, “Bourbon.”

Oops.

Tonight there is a $75,000 a person dinner with Mitt Romney at the home of the president of the New England Patriots, Jonathan Kraft. How do I know this? Because my still registered-as-a-Republican husband got an e-mail invite from a former coworker.

Just $75,000? Let check the change in the couch and see what we can come up with. Oh! Only $74,999.99 short! Maybe we should raid the kids’ piggy banks.

I suggested we send my sister, the uber feminist, bleeding heart liberal poli sci professor (she may dispute that description, but I’m letting it stand as poetic license).

Adam one-upped me. He suggested sending the Tweedle Twirp. In a Miami Dolphins jersey.

Brilliant. I called the Tweedle Twirp to let her in on our plan. If I could find $74,999.99 more dollars, would she go? Yes! But the catch is she had a meeting at her school–in New York–until 3:30, so we’d have to hire her a private plane.

Sigh. It was such a good idea.

Of course, Adam pointed out, “I can’t imagine, ever, in life, spending $75k for a dinner.”

I asked, “But 50k would be okay?”

He said, “50k only if it’s a unicorn BBQ. Because those are pretty rare.”

Yet, when I pointed out that the Tweedle Twirp, in a Dolphins jersey, at a Mitt Romney fundraiser was also pretty rare, he hemmed and hawed.

Hey! I just found a quarter! Just $74,999.74 to go!

While on my deathbed, my cold settling into my chest, the doorbell rang. It was Lilith. Delivering treats.

Oh. My. God. Would they live up to the hype?

Only one way to find out.

Yes! Yes they do!!

The kids concur, which is sad because that is exactly the first and only cookies they’ll be eating from this package.

And I think they’re a miracle cure because I already feel like I have more energy and I’m SURE it has nothing to do with the sugar rush.

Thank you, Lilith!!!

Hey, guys, how do you like my new iPhone 5? What? You can’t see it? That’s because my freak of a husband left for a business trip last week and FORGOT TO ORDER MY PHONE! Of course, I’m probably one of those morons who would have fallen for this:

But really I’m just cranky because my smoke alarm system HATES me (yes, it’s an all-caps kind of day). Adam was–again–on a business trip (who knew someone working for a travel company would have to travel so much?) and the smoke alarms decided to f*ck with me right at bedtime. One of them would beep. Which one? I couldn’t tell. Because when I ran to look, nothing would happen. So I’d leave. And it would beep again. Sometimes it beeped at 15 minute intervals. Sometimes at 3. Once it was about 25 minutes, luring me into believing it had stopped. So I frantically chased beeps. I finally figured it was the hall smoke alarm, so I took it down. I went to replace the batteries, only to discover we are out of batteries. So I took the old batteries out and left it on the table, and finally went back to sleep. Ah, sweet sleep. BEEP! @@%$##@! It was the wrong detector. It was the one not one foot away from the hall detector in the guest room. Back out, put one on table back up, take out new one. Back to bed. Ah, sweet sleep. “Mommy, my throat hurts!” And in crawls the little one.

This morning was the eternal debate: Is my child healthy enough to go to school? Do we factor in that her class picture is being taken at 8:30 a.m.? But… But… Ah, but what if it’s strep? My guilt gets the better of me, and I make Adam swear he won’t let Doodles out of the house on picture day with crazy hair and I run Pie to the doctor for the 8 a.m. walk-in hours, making sure we’re 5 minutes early so we’re first, and I get her a strep test, and we find out she’s fine, and I haul her butt to school, arriving 3 minutes before it’s class picture time and before I’m on duty volunteering for picture day. Yes, that was a run-on sentence. Because it is a run-on sentence kind of day. I guess I’ve moved on from all caps.

But now Pie is chipper and fine and running around the playground last I saw her. Doodles’s hair was almost laying flat. I got to work with a photographer who really didn’t seem to like kids very much. And now I’ve got one hour to figure out our back-to-school picnic dinner, what we’ll be bringing to tomorrow’s block party, finish up the work I’m supposed to get done for a committee meeting on Sunday, and, oh, write a novel.

People wonder why I eat so much sugar. Thank goodness it’s Halloween time! I wonder if the Switch Witch will bring me an iPhone 5 this year. Damn, I want an iPhone 5!

Apropos of truly nothing, as we’re walking out the door to head to school, my daughter says to my son: “You know, Doodles, if you cut off your p*enis, you’d have a v*agina.” Clearly it’s time to revisit It’s So Amazing!: A Book about Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families.

I am truly incapable of getting offline. I just shut down mail so I could get out a blog post and then return to novel writing. Yet, while waiting for WordPress to load, I compulsively yet unconsciously hit my mail button, thus relaunching the mail I had just closed. Damn you Internet and your siren call! This is why I need programs like Freedom. Because I have no self-control.

Did you know that apparently there are people out there who don’t like candy corn? And people who aren’t out running madly from store to store searching for the new Candy Corn Oreos (no, I did NOT go to a different grocery store one town over to see if they had it because my local Stop N’ Shop didn’t! I went to the other store because… um… well… And no, they didn’t have it, either). The only thing I can POSSIBLY think of that would be better would be Peeps Oreos. Oooh, deep fried! Deep fried Peeps Oreos! Hey, a girl needs to have her dreams.

I’ve had a bunch of volunteer activities at the kids’ school this past week. Every time I see the girl, she insists that everything be dropped and I give her a hug. “Mommy, the rule is every time I see you, you need to give me a hug.” Yes, I’m sure the teachers love that. Yet, we get home and I say, “Hug time!” she said, “Not now!” When I remind her of the rule, she looks at me exasperated, “Mom! That’s only a rule for school!”

Okay, time in enact Freedom and to get some novelin’ done! Till next time!