November 27, 2004
The Bird and the Word
Our little family spent a delightful holiday with my in-laws. We left Seattle Thursday morning to make the two hour drive south. So far this year, my holiday act has been really together. I had pre-made my sis-in-law's special sweet potato pie as well as my traditional cranberry sauce the night before and was ready to rock. Our estimated departure time was 9:30 am. For those of you with kids, you will realize that this is quite admirable.
The only problem was that I somehow threw my back? shoulder? neck? out while playing with the Bean just before we left, so my husband had to deal with me yelling and cursing and twisting my whole torso around to look at him during the car ride. It was like a knife was plunged and then forgotten into my left should blade. The one thing that kept me going was the knowledge that my mother-in-law has a massive pill collection and I knew that one of them would help me. Sure enough, a couple of hours and one light blue pill later, I was feeling pleasantly dreamy, pain-free and content. Better eating through chemistry!
My in-laws have different political and religious beliefs than we do and that right there is the understatement of the century. In spite of this, we enjoy each other's company, although there have been rough patches like the time I had to insist that ALL of the guns be locked in the gun safe when we visit, not just the hand guns. This particular discussion was prompted by a shotgun that was propped up next to the front door looking oh-so-much like a super fun toy in the eyes of our trigger-happy toddler.
To his credit, my father-in-law is open and up for debating any issue, and will frequently begin a conversation by saying, for example, "So, what do you think about gays getting married?", I think in part because he knows I will go into eye-rolling, inarticulate seizures. It makes me love my husband sooooo much to hear him defend the tree-huggin', queer-lovin', science-grubbin' liberal dance party that is our lives.
We had a delicious meal, drank an impressive amount of tequila, played some games, and overall had a nice visit. Then, as we were waving our goodbyes and driving up the gravel road to go home, my husband TOTALLY TAGGED a bird that ran out of the woods and directly into the path of our car. He slammed on the brakes and jumped out of the car to scoop the bird's still twitching carcass into the Bean's plastic spare diaper box. The dead bird was lying on some Pampers and an empty tube of ointment. Dignified it was not, but it was a practical use of Rubbermaid.
After a quick consultation, it was decided that we would return the dead bird to the in-laws because my husband wanted the feathers for fly-tying and he was convinced that his mom would cook and eat it, since it was apparently a grouse we hit and thus edible. "Your parents are gonna eat road kill?" I was skeptical, but my husband shrugged and said sure, why not?
When we pulled back into the driveway, everyone came out to the porch to see what was up. It turns out that it was not just any bird we hit, but a SPECIAL bird that his step-dad had befriended and named Marvin. We killed Marvin!
My husband felt bad, but by the time we got back on the road we were giggling like mad, thinking of sympathy cards we could send to my father-in-law. The one we decided on was a Photoshopped picture of a grouse with angel wings, and inside it would say "Quit your grousing, I'm in heaven now!"
RIP Marvin. May you and all the turkeys be enjoying whatever form of aviarian afterlife Christians believe you have.
Posted by Max at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 24, 2004
The Queen of Karaoke
Last night I went out with my homegirl Lu, whom I haven't seen since her lovely wedding in August. Lu and I have a long history of singing songs together, whether it be in one of our living rooms, at parties, or more often, in the warm and familiar embrace of Bush Gardens.
Lu is a "real" singer, in that she has a band and she is good. She is also wonderfully supportive and patient with her less vocally-talented friends, encouraging them to try new songs even if they are hard, and adeptly switching from low to high harmony if said tipsy friends suddenly forget exactly what they supposed to be singing while on stage.
As long time patrons of Bush Gardens, we rather fancied ourselves experts on the subject of karaoke. But until last night, we had never met its Queen.
The evening was progressing nicely, although having learned my lesson earlier in the week, I was about 75% more sober than most people at the bar. Being undrunk in a crowd of drunken people can make for some interesting times. There was the usual karaoke archetypes: the big guy singing falsetto, the hipster hamming his way through "King of the Road", and yes, the trio of blonde sorority girls wiggling and screaming their way through "Love Shack".
The best singer of the evening by far was a Rubenesque redhead who had a deep, booming voice that filled the room. Even the guys in the back of the bar stopped their drug dealing and cell phoning to listen when she took the stage. However, like many great talents, she had an ego to match her voice. When the trio of sorority girls went up for a second song, for some reason the redhead felt compelled, mid-way through, to jump onstage and take over singing lead vocals.
It was like listening to a bunch of sick dogs howling and then suddenly Aretha Franklin joins in. She truly sang the crap out of the song. But the sorority girls were (understandably) offended. This was karaoke, people are supposed to suck. They left the stage in a huff, but not before the leader of the sorority girls shouted to the redhead "Oh sure, everyone knows that YOU are the QUEEN of karaoke!" The Queen of Karaoke (QofK) wielded her microphone like a weapon. Not only did she proceed to belt out another song ("Natural Woman"), but she peppered her performance with insults and challenges, asking did the girls want a piece of her? Would the girls care to take it outside? At this point, I was practically hyperventilating because the whole scene was unfolding like one of my favorite movies Bring it On but with singing instead of cheerleading and everyone was white.
The song was sung, ice and insults were thrown, tempers escalated until finally, when the Q of K left the stage, she headed straight to where the lead sorority girl was standing with her posse and GRABBED HER BY THE THROAT! A full-on girl fight ensued, and then even boyfriends got involved. At one point, a guy "hulked out" and took off his shirt I guess so that he could fight better, or at least look better fighting.
A barroom brawl with a catfight nucleus while people sing karaoke. I ask you, what could be more entertaining on a Saturday night?
Posted by Max at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)
November 18, 2004
I drink because I am thirsty
This week I took a trip to Boozetown and found out that I am no longer welcome. Out out, ancient interloper! Apparently, as you get older, it is much harder for the body to bounce back from various overindulgences. Whereas fifteen thousand cosmopolitans consumed in one evening might seem like a wonderful idea, in actuality it is not (however delicious they may be.) You end up forgetting you have a meeting with your boss and your boss's boss at 9am the next morning, then eating saltines and whimpering at your desk for the entire day. The other bad thing is that it was a work party, I am a manager, and there are cute boys at work. Combine these elements and you have a recipe for danger - shaken, not stirred!
At times I find it very hard to reconcile my former party party party self with the new, responsible person that being a parent forces you to be. It can also be isolating, since you stop having as much in common with your childless friends, and plus who has the time anymore to see anyone. The fact that the Texaco down the street has a fairly impressive wine selection led to my recent hypothesis that there must be many of us newish parents, confined to our homes by strict meal and bedtimes, a little exhausted army led by foot-high generals. I find this somehow comforting.
There's a restaurant/pub that opened a few blocks away that parents just sort of...took over. Every time we went (and it was often) there would be other parents and their babies having dinner, enjoying delicious microbrews and cocktails, and clearly reveling in the fact that they were out of the house! Having a drink! Like grown-ups! Then one day, the place simply REMOVED ALL THE HIGHCHAIRS except for one. Clearly, the House of Baby is not what they had intended to be. Assholes. We shall all take our business to the Texaco henceforth.
Posted by Max at 12:46 AM | Comments (0)
November 11, 2004
Working it, at work
The photo shoot was rather anti-climatic, Rolling Stone photographer or no Rolling Stone photographer. The lamest part was that we had to pretend to be playing with various balls that are going to be Photoshopped in later. Wacky! Corporate! Grimness!
A woman I work with and I did our photos together, since it was taking a long time and we needed to get back to our office. This other woman is petite, fashionable, and kind of bitchy in a way I find somewhat admirable. At first, the foxy photo assistants were yelling, "You're taking a jump shot! You're passing the ball to each other!" and we had to act it out with our invisible balls. I was getting pretty into it, because the Bean enjoys playing basketball and I was thinking of him. But then the petite fashionable woman, who was NOT getting into it, muttered "Oh my god, you are really cheesy", through her tight-lipped, glossy smile because somehow she had not noticed this before even though she sits right next to me. I cheerfully agreed, "I am! I'm totally cheesy!", which made me laugh and screw everything up.
Thankfully one of the foxy photo assistants rescued us and said that since we were young (!), fashionable (!!) career women, we should do something sexier. Um, like what? I pretended to hold an invisible ball to my belly and turn sideways as though I was pregnant and said "Like this?" but this was not found to be amusing. Dance music was pumped up, invisible balls were re-positioned, and next thing I knew we were attempting to be sexy, in a photo-studio-in-a-conference-room kinda way.
For some, this would have posed a real modeling challenge. But I was lucky to have a secret weapon at my disposal: dance face. My friend Michael says that I have the most stoic face he has ever seen on the dance floor. It is true; I am pretty serious about getting down. When a photographer from Rolling Stone wants attitude, it turns out that I give him dance face.
At one point, they had us turn our backs to the camera and look over our shoulders while holding invisible balls aloft. How this was going to look sexy with my big butt and the fact that I am about twelve feet taller than the other woman, I have no idea. Maybe in the way that Mothra and Mothra's fairies are sexy.
When we were done, one of the foxy photo assistants asked "So did you have fun?" and I told her that I always enjoyed having my ass photographed. Between the physical comedy, dance face, and the ass comments, I'm convinced that they will just Photoshop me out of the pictures altogether.
Posted by Max at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2004
Que es mas macho, head injuries or network outages?
Today, in preparation for tomorrow's photo shoot: Eyebrows waxed? Check. Manicure? Check. Shopping? Check, though unsuccessful. Drop child off at daycare even though you have the day off from work so you can enjoy your oh maybe third day to yourself since child was born? Check. Pick child up and discover he has a giant head injury from falling into a bookshelf? Roger, dodger.
Poor Bean. He's been getting pretty battered since joining good old Toddler 1 a couple of months ago. He took four bites to the arm before he finally got up off his butt and said screw it, I'm walking. He's also had a couple minor scrapes and scratches, but today was the most grevious of injuries.
The most disconcerting thing is how none of the teachers will look you in the eye when you come in, that is your tip-off. Then the lead teacher hustles over mumbling "sorry, sorry" while waving an official My Kid Got Injured form you gotta sign and THEN you notice as you bend over to pick your child up that said child has
a. bite mark on arm
b. fingernail scratch on cheek
c. head wound
d. missing limb
e. all of the above
Now we've got to wake him up every four hours, and just when he was sleeping through the night like a drunken teenage rock star. He's fine and acting like his usual 1-year old self (I called the pediatric nurse on the drive home to see if we needed to do anything and she asked me a bunch of questions including "Is he moving his head normally?" I glanced back at him just as he started head-banging furiously to Elizabeth Mitchell's cover of Hey Bo Diddley and said "Um, yeah..."
Meanwhile, during all of this, my boss is calling my cell phone because our frick fricking website has been down for the past two days and this is Not Good. So even though today is a holiday and I have Fridays off, my presence is required on various conference calls and my brain will be needed to think about Work-Related Things after the big photo shoot (if I can even go now) instead of rocking out with my kid.
Sometimes, having a full-time job and a baby makes me feel like I'm playing a schitzo game of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots whereby I'm receiving repeated blows to the face but am unable to fall down.
Posted by Max at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2004
Going to a go-go
I am being photographed by a Rolling Stone photographer on Friday. Not for Rolling Stone, sadly (I am still working on my alt-country dance sensation), but for work. I work at a very large company that spends a fair amount of money on Hoopla and Fanfare. Apparently, they want portraits of real live employees this year to showcase at our Main Corporate Event. The event planner clicked into our office in her Blahniks last week and recruited a bunch of us, targeting our group because we are techies and writerly and therefore, one would assume, sort of "funky" and "cool". Ha ha ha. I am thinking, it's a good thing I didn't show up wearing the sweater that I put on last week and didn't notice until I was walking out the door that it had BREASTMILK on it. Right over my boob! I breastfed the Bean until he was just over four months. He's fifteen months now. Do the math on that. Don't worry, the sweater is now in the pile to go the drycleaners.
I really need a housekeeper. I mean, one that doesn't suck. I have someone who comes in for two hours a week and sort of moves things around. Yet when I come back from whatever errand I've fabricated to keep me from being all nervous and weird about someone else touching my stuff, she generally hasn't done much actual cleaning. And yet, you hate to point things like fist-sized dust bunnies under your kid's crib out because she is IN your HOUSE and could put her butt on your pillow or something while you were gone and you would never know! How creepy is that! Or insert dead fly wings in between your toothbrush bristles like I did once to my brother. Sorry about that Rob!
One thing she does do every week is arrange the Bean's stuffed animals in little mise-en-scenes around his room. At first it was cute, but now I am like, listen lady I get that the monkey is friends with the giraffe, he had his arms draped around it LAST week. Can you please not spend so much time re-creating friendly forest scenes and focus on CLEANING MY FRICKING HOUSE? Thanks.
So, a photographer from Rolling Stone is doing my portrait and all I wear these days are giant woolen mu-mus to hide the twenty pounds I can't seem to shed from Viva La Bean. My dream outfit would be the pirate shirt from Seinfeld, a red push-up bra and a pair of chocolate leather pants, but I am afraid that wouldn't go over so well with the Executive Committees. Must contemplate what to wear and possibly, shop.
Posted by Max at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2004
Fancy music-making
When I was a kid, learning how to make and play music meant sitting in a closet-sized room with a piano and an ancient, pee-smelling teacher whom you were afraid was going to die at any second. So much so, in fact, that you could barely concentrate on your scales and your Fur Elise because you knew you had to be prepared, at the first sign of gakking, throat-clutching, or bug-eyed distress, to climb over the teacher to get to the door. Certain angles of the woman's potential collapse would render escape impossible and THEN YOU WOULD BE TRAPPED with the dead teacher, the pee-smell, the much-feared, standard-issue, upright piano.
So distracting was this concept to my developing brain that, although I logged a number of years taking lessons, now all I can play is "The Rose" and that is because I liked the song and taught myself how to play it. My brother also took piano lessons from Pee Pee Corpse, and his remaining tune is the theme from "The Greatest American Hero", which he still plays with much feeling and fairly decent technique.
Our crowning performance was what would prove to be our swan song: a much-anticipated brother/sister duet to be given at a holiday recitial in our massive, tangerine-shagged living room. The room was so big that it comfortably held a grand piano and about fifty parents of fellow students, curious neighbors, and various other grown-ups who liked to drink with and/or suck up to my mother and father.
My brother and I were the last to play, and as we settled next to each other on the gold-cushioned piano bench, I knew it was not going to go well. As we raised our hands over the keyboard, my brother on the lower section of the piece and I on the upper, I was suddenly struck with a fit of giggles. I couldn't play. My brother started on his own and played resolutely on, bumping out a little chord here and there, playing the bass line for a melody that was locked inside me and buried in ten thousand giggles. I think, when he finished the piece, he even stood and bowed. I was a proud of him in that moment, even though I spent the next two hours sobbing in my canopy bed.
So, although I was exposed with the best intentions to the art of music-making, I can't say I have had a great experience of it. Until now. My new computer has a program on it called Garage Band, and holy freaking jesus you have about a billion sampled instruments to choose from. You can also lay down your own vocal tracks and mix them right on in. It is like I died and went to karaoke heaven.
Last night I spent about four hours working on my first song, which is kind of a dancey alt country piece. I believe I may be inventing a new genre(and perhaps there is a reason it hasn't been invented yet). I'm actually singing a song that a friend of mine wrote, so I guess I better clear it with her before I remix the crap out of it with claves, house beats and cowbell. I prefer to keep my ass-grilling to a minimum, and I'm at my quota.
The Bean has woken from his nap and all I've managed to get done is make another ten seconds of my song and enjoy this little walk down musical memory lane. People of Seattle, prepare to greet slightly surly, unshowered, really frigging hungry beat master Max.
Posted by Max at 12:48 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2004
Shriek owl, with teeth
Hello. Do you know anyone who opens their mouth as wide as possible, scwinches their eyes all tightly shut, then arches their back and throws the entire weight of their body toward their head? I do. He is my son, the Bean.
This evening, after mutual work days frought with High Highs and Low Lows, my husband and I thought we would try and outwit the nightly shriekfest that has become our commute home. Currently, our twenty-five minute drives consist of my husband driving, the Bean screaming or about to scream, and me frantically handing the Bean organic, wheat-free cookies while singing songs about nothing and pointing out things as we drive by "Look! A light! A sidewalk! Some homeless guys!"
He will stop screaming for certain things. Dogs, yes. Ballooons, yes. Trains, usually. Pieces of lint on the ground? No. We thought that tonight we would be clever and, before we drove home, enjoy some fine Japanese cuisine as a nice, shriek-free family but someone forgot the shriek-free part. I was so frigging tense the whole time, especially because although the restaurant was not very crowded, there was a woman eating alone right behind us. She was writing in a notebook and I can just imagine what she was saying: "Dear Diary, I am so glad I chose not to have children. Why the hell do people think they can bring their kids into fine restaraunts such as this to shriek and throw rice on the floor? BTW, really looking forward to my month-long trip to Greece."
The pumpkins are rotting on our front porch and we have been too busy rushing around to deal with them. A guy named Mike hauled away some trash for us a few days ago and called me to say he was coming by to pick up his check. When he asked where I would leave it, I said that I would put it inside the pumpkin that was carved to look like a monkey.
That night, I noticed he had indeed picked up the check but that he had left a little something behind. Apparently, he had stepped in some dog poo that our dog the Craphound had conveniently left in the path. Mike choose to rid himself of it by scraping it all over our Welcome mat. Welcome home, family! Here is some dog crap for you to step in as you enter your house. I guess that is what you get when you ask a man to fish money out of a rotten monkey pumpkin.
Posted by Max at 12:49 AM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2004
W is for wince
As I am writing this inaugral entry of my brand new blog, I'm watching W beat Kerry in the presidential race. Well, actually right now I am watching the Real World, but I WAS watching the poll results come in, for a really long time. Mostly our house watches NBC because I regard Tom Brokaw as sort of a surrogate father figure in a drunken, Republican, two-dimensional way. Our friends called at one point to report that Dan Rather was saying things like "John Kerry has got his back up the wall, a short stumpy tail, and the bill collector is at his door." This seemed like my kind of reporting, but I didn't hear him say anything as interesting. Actually, I haven't been paying enough attention to what everyone was saying even on NBC due to the um, giant ice sculpture? Of the United States? Has it really come to that? Even Tom seemed embarrased, as high on bourbon as he was.
Also and perhaps more important to my immediate situation: I got a lovely new iBook, which is my best best friend in the whole world. Please, if you are reading this, go out and buy one because they are so fun. It's like scrapbooking but not as so godawfully dorky. Don't get me wrong, I'm a committed scrapbooker but really what is going to get you more street cred with the kids, a shiny new feather-weight computer or a bunch of glue sticks and a tube of glitter?
(The Bean just threw his binky on the ground in an act of sleep-defiance. Man, that kid is getting sassy in his old age. In some future entry, we will explore the physics of the c-shaped body and how it almost ended in tragedy in the mean streets of Ballard.)
So. I really don't know how we could have elected that man again. The only (admittedly small) ray of hope is Hillary in 2008. Let's just hope we can keep it together until then.
Posted by Max at 12:50 AM | Comments (0)