I'm a 30-something mother of girls born 23 months apart. Originally hailing from the frosty throes of Northern Michigan, I now live in the humidity pit of the universe - Virginia. I recently closed my full-time consulting biz and work frantically on the e-commerce businesses every free chance I get. My blog deals with everything from surviving the SAHM life, owning a business, aging dogs and parents, and anything else that crosses my path. I attempt to stay sane, calm and interesting. I also try to keep my sense of humor on a daily basis. I used to be hip. Now I don't bother. I live in the suburbs of Richmond and so far have successfully avoided driving a mini-van. I do, however, claim responsibility for the seasonal flag in the front of the house.
Lily’s Kindergarten Chorus Concert (say it, five times fast) was today. First, I have to say that I am completely impressed with her music teacher, Mr. Brady. How he can corral 120+ 5/6 year olds, teach them 6-7 songs complete with movements and SIGN LANGUAGE and get them to perform it without going to pieces is beyond me. He’s the MAN.
Lily’s been stressing about the concert for awhile, threatening to stand there without singing, freaking out about everyone “looking” at her, and generally being spastic about not being perfect. She is so much like Mike in that way. It was interesting to watch the mixture of kids, and how they dealt with the public - some were total hams, like her friend Leah. Some looked like deer in the headlights. Some just sang and acted like it was no big deal. Lily mostly mouthed the words, scratched her neck and arms, and looked like she was in exquisite pain. She told me this afternoon that she had fun, and toward the end, she probably was. We gave her lots of praise and told her next time to just roll with it and have fun. I definitely don’t think she’s the next Britney Spears, thank god.
I’m going to bore all of you with lots of videos from today. It was very difficult to hold the camera still while leaning against a wall, so excuse the shakiness.
Walk With Me:
Yodelling!!!
Frere Rocka:
Guacamole!
Lucky Little Shamrock:
Twang That Thang:
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Now that you’ve seen some highlights, I can say that I got letter #3 from Big Bad Lawyer. The letter contained a typo and overuse of the word “sympathetic”. Having the word “sympathetic” right next to “strongly enforce” doesn’t work too well. Anyway, they *suggested* I remove a particular product from the site. I’d like to suggest something back to them, but I will behave. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve spent a miminum of 30 hours in the last week calling people, worrying, writing letters, working on the site, doing obsessive checks for the “o” word, and feeling angry and bullied. So I’m kind of done with it. I’ve done what I’m going to do. Anything else they want, like my head on a platter with a radicchio garnish, will require a court summons. So there. Pfffttt.
Oh and by the way? My number two irritation of the week is people who assume that because Mike is a lawyer, he is an expert in every kind of law there is, including laws from other states. He’s an insurance defense attorney dealing with Workers Comp in the STATE OF VIRGINIA. He knows as much about IP law as I do. Perhaps less now after the research component of my last week. If you’re interested in keeping your throat intact, please don’t tell me how I should totally counter-sue (for what???) because I have “free legal representation”.
Now that I got that out of my system, happy Tuesday!
Like, whoa. I’m seriously behind in blogging. In my defense, I think it’s safe to say that the past 2-3 weeks have been some of the top most stressful weeks of my work life. They definitely make the Top 10 list. I was explaining to a friend today about the combination that conspired to bring me to my knees. Take 2/3 cup of the economy (and wait until the sales drop, not rise) and mix with CPSIA legislation until the mixture becomes clogged and gluey. Add legal fees for a buy/sell agreement and combine that with an annual tax return bill until the mixture turns green and begins to burp and bubble excessively. Finally, add threatening, bullying letters from the fine legal folks representing Gerber Childrenswear LLC with ridiculous 10 day deadlines to change your entire work flow, and you will get finely prepared Crap Cake with Nervous Breakdown Fondant. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions and stress.
After I wrote about the first letter we got from Gerber’s attorneys, I settled down. I talked to the fabulous Rick Whittington at Rick Whittington Consulting (who has bailed us out more times than I care to recount). He told me to step back from the ledge and breathe, and made a bunch of logical, practical comments about how we would accomplish what Gerber wanted without putting ourselves out of business. He said he’d handle it. I made a bunch of calls to my lapsed corporate attorney sister, who dissected LawyerBoy’s letter with a scalpel and managed to write snarky yet professional responses to him. She may not have a license to practice law anymore, but she should. Jennifer asked a great IP attorney she knows for some advice (read: free advice), and of course, he gave it. His responses made me feel validated and most importantly, RIGHT, but it didn’t change the facts.
With all of this going on, I decided that everything was going to be okay after all. The site would be redirected, we wouldn’t lose much traffic, and although it was going to be an enormous pain in the ass, it could be done. Not in 10 days, of course, but it could be done.
In the meantime, Mike had to try a case near Abingdon, Virginia. Even though it’s in the same state, it feels like it’s in another universe. It’s Southwest Virginia, almost in Tennessee. When we stopped for gas in Wytheville, people literally turned and stared at us, mouths open, especially Mike. Apparently slicked-back hair, pinstriped suits and glossy black shoes are not the standard fare. In fact, there was a true cowboy there who bore a striking resemblance to Buffalo Bill, wearing the standard Wytheville uniform of either hunting overalls or skin tight blue jeans with denim shirts and cowboy hats. His shirt was unbuttoned to the top of his jeans, and I got to stare at his hairy, emaciated chest the whole time we ate lunch. In my head, I kept hearing him say “It places the lotion in the basket, else it gets the hose again.” Eyaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
Mom and dad agreed to stay with the girls for the night, so I roadtripped with Mike. The only reason I go is that in Abingdon, there is a fabulous old hotel called The Martha Washington Inn. I’ve been there once before with Mike, and it’s a really fun place to go. It’s in the mountains, there’s a beautiful, uncrowded and heated salt water pool, the rooms are swanky and the town reminds me of Blowing Rock, one of my all-time favorite places to visit. It couldn’t have come at a better time. I was fairly relaxed about all the legal stuff, so we left on Thursday morning early. Mike tried his case and we got to the Martha around 3.30.
I immediately went online to research local restaurants. Although the hotel has a great place to eat, we wanted to try something else. We ended up at Withers Hardware Restaurant, which is an eatery inside a renovated hardware store dating way back to the 1800s. The food was decent, even though the waiter committed my personal pet peeve of kneeling on the floor to talk with us. It’s better than sitting next to us in the booth, which has happened to Jennifer and I multiple times.
After, we hit the pool and the new hot tub. I told Mike he’d better start saving so we can build our own rock, 2-level hot tub with a flowing stream coming into it. He said he’d get right on that.
We slept in a bit on Friday (8 AM), hit the breakfast in the hotel, and got on the road back to Richmond. It was a short get away, but I was feel as relaxed as a noodle. Around Roanoke, my iPhone’s data signal began working again and I received letter #2 from LawyerBoy. It frustrated me to no end. Even though I had explicitly told him we were going to comply with the Big Bad Onesie’s request, he was still saying it needed to be done in 10 days and was pretending to be obtuse about the common usage of the word onesie (i.e., most people don’t even know there is another word for it - when is the last time you searched for “creepers” online???). It was really upsetting. A flurry of phone calls followed - to Jennifer, to Rick, to my sister. Then I got the worst email of all - a quick one from Rick, saying that there was no way for us to redirect the site according to the tech people at Yahoo, and I was going to have to rebuild, yes, rebuild the entire site from scratch. That might not sound bad to you, but when you have 500 products that must all be set up individually, you start to see the length of time needed to do this, all the while losing search engine rankings and traffic. I nearly lost it then.
I’ll skip the ensuing three hours. I managed not to kill anyone or scream outloud. I purposely went over to my neighbor’s house and let the kids play like maniacs with her kids. I went out to dinner with Mike and the girls. And when I got home, I called Yahoo myself. Finally, I got lucky. I got a tech support person named Jasper (I kept imagining he looked like Jackson Rathbone from Twilight) who had worked for Yahoo for eons. In less than an hour, he had handheld me through the process of redirecting the domain name, changing email addresses, and generally solving all of my problems.
I spent Saturday night badgering my very pregnant friend and no-longer-designer-but-super-talented-organizer Sara so she would do a new logo for me. She did. She’s not happy with it, but she can tweak it later. It’s up on the site, and everything at least on the visual side is done. I’ve still got some minor changes to make, but I’m about 80% of the way there. And I feel 100% better.
There is still a small part of me that is angry I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, fight. There’s no money in winning the rights to use the term “onesie” in court. It would cost lots to take on a big company like Gerber, and knowing that I’m right, and probably could win, bugs me endlessly. However, when you have a credit line to pay and even just that is challenging, you have to let go. So I’m letting go.
Below are pictures from Abingdon. There is a random one in there of Lily on picture day at her school. Arden’s picture day isn’t until April, so that’s why there are no pictures of her in the exact same dress. Please tell me they will want to stop dressing like each other very, very soon.
i’ve watched all my old videos from high school. the killer shoes in pat’s house, the videos of paul in kalkaska, the biblical gardens, the all-area dance that we filmed from outside, the tour around downtown, the omelette shoppe burning down. the glass breaking, the beauty of the 8th street cemetery during a snow storm, the trees glittering with ice.
all of those things are so familiar to me, but i feel like i’m a million years away from them. traverse city was a dream, a time in my life that has passed away gracelessly. there remain slight ties, and important things still there. my dog’s body, out on the lake paul showed me, colleen’s tiny messy room, the tattoo parlor in sutton’s bay, keith’s stomping grounds with me at the schiller factory, which he probably doesn’t even remember anymore. really, i had forgotten too, until i read one of his letters and figured out what he was alluding to.
speaking of, he called about 40 minutes ago and told me he’d be here by four. i know the only reason he’s coming to the dinner party is because he could sense the utter frustration in my voice. earlier in the conversation, he was critiquing a story i wrote. i said, “i take it since you are explaining my story over the phone to me, you aren’t coming.” he said, “correct.” then not 5 minutes later, he changed his mind and and said he’d be here in an hour. i wonder how many lies he told to be able to leave birmingham unnoticed.
I’m facing the reality that the last year of my business life has not been, well, fabulous. I’ve dealt with the reality that my beloved business partner now works for someone else, and the days of giggling and plotting and scheming and making money together are over. I’ve also dealt with the humungo (yes, I know it’s not a word) impact that CPSIA is having and will have going forward. I’ve dealt with the reality of our shite economy, but just barely. I’m certainly not sitting on a pile of cash, cackling maniacally over my world domination of the onesie snapsuit world.
I was having one of those great days, today, though. I’ve been managing to pay cash for all of the nap mat inventory as I ramp up toward the infamous nap mat season. I’ve been able to pay down our debt, even though I haven’t been able to pay me. And all in all, things can only get better. Or so I thought.
About two years ago, we received a standard cease and desist letter from an agency on behalf of baby behemoth Gerber(tm). It wasn’t even from a lawyer. Neither Jennifer or I was too upset about it - we knew it was coming based on things we’d heard through the baby apparel grapevine. Did you know that Gerber(tm) invented the onesie(tm)? Yep, they did. Some of our manufacturers are in the know and call them snappy terms like “snapsuit” or my personal unfavorite, “creeper”. If you use the word onesie (TM!!! TM!!!) you must be sure that you are talking about a design on a genuine (TM) Gerber (TM) onesie (TMx140). Unfortunately, when we started the company, we thought like marketers and not lawyers. In other words, people searching online don’t usually search for “funny creepers” or “infant snapsuits”. So, we named our company SassyOnesies.com.
During the first round of worrying about the cease and desist letter, Jennifer called up an IP attorney she’d worked with at a local law firm. He saw the letter and told us to remove the word “onesie (TM!!! this is getting old!)” from our site as a description. We did. We have over 500 products on there - it took QUITE a while. His other advice, since all we were really worried about was them making us change the domain name, was to start stocking Gerber (TM) onesies (TM). We did. The theory being, if we actually carry GerberOnesiesTMTMTMTMTM we can theoretically call our site SassyOnesies.com. Or so he thought.
Fast forward to today, and my cease and desist letter from Gerber. (You can read it here: Letter.pdf)
Now they are specifically stating we must change our domain name. Good times! The virtual cherry on my shit sundae!
I wrote back, but it won’t do anything. I’m married to a lawyer; they laugh at emotion or pleading.
My game plan is to call in a couple of favors to attorneys. I know I have a leg to stand on - you can make a case for terms that have become common vernacular language. Most people don’t even know that there are other words for onesies (TM!) until you point it out to them. And after years and years of owning the word, can we just all get along? Can we share nicely? Menacing Pickle (possibly the best name EVER) suggested that I’m possibly adding value to the onesie (TM) name by having high quality versions. I’m not afraid to say that the majority of the SNAPSUITS we sell are thicker and softer than you-know-whos. In that case, we’re giving them a GOOD name. Fidget suggested one better - we change our logo, and name, to “Sass Yonesies”. I’m pretty sure they would see through that one, but man did it make me giggle thinking about people trying to pronounce it! My Michigan friend Christina suggested kicking Gerber’s butt. My Minnesota friend Kristin suggested boycotting them, and snapsuit (no TM) manufacturer Mary Carter of Gifts of Wit suggested starting a “I hate Gerber” Facebook group. She volunteered to be my first member. I’m so glad I have all of their support because if nothing else, they made me laugh.
If I cannot fight this, then the future is fairly clear. I cannot afford to start up again under a new name and lose all of the search engine work we’ve done to this point. It’s cost us literally thousands (some of which we have yet to pay back) to get to the point we’re at. I have a room full of inventory. If we are forced to change domain names, SassyOnesies.com (TM!) will be closed. I’ll be on the street, naked with a raincoat, whispering in a sultry voice, “Hey, WANNA BUY A CREEPER?” Don’t laugh. It could happen.
In the meantime, I am shaking my fist at the sky, at karma, at everything, and saying, “What the heck did I DO TO YOU??? COME ON!!!!”
** Update: Menacing Pickle, being a huge dork, found out that these phrases used to be TMd: yo-yo, mimeograph, crockpot, kerosene, heroin, linoleum, trampoline, dry ice, pilates, cellophane nylon, thermos, escalator and aspirin.
Whoa, I am way behind posting photos. Ooops! Some of these are going on my 365 blog so my uncle gets off my case. In this set, we have the SINGLE picture I took on our date night out with Bill and Eileen (we had so much fun, I completely forgot to take pictures), Sally’s visit to Richmond, her family’s visit to Richmond to pick her up, and Hayden’s 7th birthday. There are some random and weird shots in the mix that have nothing to do with anything else, too. Fun stuff!
circa 1983. First month of Junior High. I’m wearing a pair of gray corduroy pants, gray and pink argyle socks, and a matching gray and pink argyle sweater. My hair is too short for my face, and it has the remnants of a bad perm hanging on to it. I haven’t rocked my braces yet, so I’ve got a mouthful of teeth and a too-big smile. I walk to the end of the bus ramp and see my friend from elementary and middle school, standing with a group of girls I recognize, but don’t know.
My friend, E, has long blond hair, bright blue eyes and is wearing acid-washed jeans and a tight, neon-colored sweater. She has a scarf draped casually around her neck, but no coat, because only nerds and dweebs wear coats, even in Northern Michigan, even in October.
I walk up to her, anxious to catch up. Since we started here, I rarely see E. She’s got a new group of friends. They all chew a lot of gum, have large, teased bangs, and need lubrication to slide into their jeans every morning. They are my age, but they look like they are 10 years older. They’re a little mean, too. Even the one that needs a nose job was sneering at a nerdy girl earlier that week in the bathroom for not wearing lipstick.
E sees me out of the corner of her eye, and she starts to panic. I nearly stop walking. I can see her breathing increasing, her eyes darting around the group of gum-snapping girls. I say hello, and she recoils like I slapped her. She moves out of the circle and talks briefly with me, tells me she’ll call me, tell me she’s been busy. If it wouldn’t be too obvious, she’d be making those shooing hand motions my mom makes at the dog when she’s underfoot. I nod my head, my big, toothy smile way out of whack with my eyes. Before I know it, E is back in the fold, and like a wave, the circle of Juicy Fruit-scented girls closes peacefully in front of me.
circa 2009. Junior High has followed me into my late 30’s. The groups are different, the jeans are much the same. The teased bangs have given way to coiffed blonde bobs and cute exercise gear. There is a lot of Vera Wang instead of Gasoline. There is 7 instead of Gloria Vanderbilt. The legs are longer, the lips fuller, the jewelry much better, more expensive. The big diamonds have a glittering fist-fight with each other whenever the sun comes out on the street. And even now, sometimes there is still rapid eye-movement, hair-flicking, and nervous breathing when I approach the “popular girls”. Sometimes the look in their eyes makes me feel like speaking to me is painful. I pull out my big grin again and act completely clueless about it. I ask how their kids are, by name. I remember who had a game last week, and what the name of her team was. I ask for the results. Someone asks about weekend weather, I whip out my iPhone and look it up for them. On the days when even their most basic manners are not functioning, and they stand across the street from me in a big gaggle of Popular Girl Version 2.0, I still smile. I read my mail and I wait for my task to be completed. I wait, and refuse to be cowed like I was in Junior High. There is no bathroom to hide during breaks, there is no uncool table of people in the cafeteria. There is just me, at 37, really quite irritated that these old feelings still can be brought up. Could I still be wearing the wrong thing, asking the wrong questions, and could I still really even give a shit?
It is a grand testimony to the meanness of girls, and the trauma that we all do to each other growing up, that years later we are still chafing under that uncomfortable stare. I think back at my past - I try to see clearly - and I can remember all the mean things I did to girls that were my friends, and the mean things I did to those that weren’t. For me, it was justified. It was vindication. To finally have my own gum-snapping posse of like-minded individuals, well, that was just too good to pass up. After years of mental beatings from girls wearing too much Love’s Baby Soft, I was ready to beat back. Shifting BFFs every other Monday, isolating or ridiculing the person in the group that had fallen out of favor - hoping that this month, the falling-out-of-favor would happen to someone else. Usually it did.
It’s the Chicken or the Egg. Was I mean to other girls because so many had been mean to me prior? How can groups of women do two totally different things to me? First thought, my groups of friends now are the warm landing spot in my life, the place I go when I need laughter or support or a drink. Second thought, those “other” women, who are just as bad (if not worse, because they should SO know better by now) who flick their moods off and on like a light switch, say mean things, posture and strut, and laugh when you fall down.
There is one difference. I handle the big bad girls differently. I chirp cheerfully in the street, or the hallways of the Y. I smile even when I feel like kicking them in their bobbed heads. I ask polite questions even if I don’t care to hear the answers. And I politely ignore their discomfort at my close proximity to them, as if by standing near me, they will end up with my body, or my fashion sense, or god forbid, my non-Vera-Wang purse-carrying hand.
“So, Sally. How was your visit with Mike and Cristina?”
“Oh, good, good. Yep. Fun.”
“What did you do?”
“Well, one night we watched a two week old SNL episode and I brushed Arden’s Alexander Girl doll’s hair for over an hour - it was pretty snarled.”
“Hmmm. And?”
“Another night, we got The Dark Knight on Video on Demand. Cristina and I totally didn’t get it and then spent the next day trying to figure it out.”
“Wow, sounds exciting. How were the girls?”
“They were great. They spent a lot of time fighting and yelling ‘NO!’ at their mom. They also like to make every word end in ‘-doodie’. For example, Boston is in the great Commonwealth of Massadoodie.”
“Oh.”
“Yep. But the good news is, by Day 2 they stop calling me “Her” - as in “I wanna sit by HER” and started calling me Sally. So it was all good.”
Sally is here. She’s my cousin. She’s been entertaining the girls, suffering through Delilah’s doggy breath, and going through the very boring motions of an average day in my life. Today we braved the Children’s Museum. It was oddly empty considering Henrico County Schools had a half day. We had lunch, we skipped the gym (but we went yesterday!), and we gabbed. I made Sally call someone about a job even though she didn’t want to. I nagged her into it. She made me sick by showing me pictures of potential houses she and Hansel may buy. One of them is a gorgeous Victorian and if they buy it, I’m moving in with them. It’s in Jamaica Plain MA. JEALOUS MUCH IS ME!!!!
I miss my family. Wish they were all a lot closer.
i’ve been out all morning with genevieve. i’m driving her to grosse pointe today and hopefully she’ll be a little more relaxed when we get there. it’s actually my depression that is getting me out onto the road again, more than devotion to genevieve. either way, she gets a free ride there and that’s what matters. on another note, i saw zack a couple of nights ago. i wanted to hurt him. he was not-so-directly trying to tell me it was my fault he started drinking again - that he started the night i left him - all this bull as if he had really cared for me. i left him again, quickly, because i didn’t want him to see how bitter i was. he was covertly kicking me in the stomach when he didn’t even know it, telling me what my flaws were and that they were inherent parts of my personality and there was no recovering from them. so i flipped him off when he wasn’t looking, and left watching him watch me sullenly from the porch, like i was some lost love. i was none of the above. i’m me - cristina - and i know what’s wrong with me but i haven’t the energy to fix it.
Hello. My name is Cristina. Not sure if you noticed me, but I was the one impaled on the Expresso bike sweating torrents and glaring at you through the glass pane. You probably didn’t, but I sure noticed you. I noticed you in your really tight work out pants (by the way, next time please do us all a favor and wear UNDERWEAR - cuz that was NASTY), your $1M dollar sales t-shirt, your extra-poofy hair, your weight lifting gloves and your cell phone. Yeah, I saw you. I saw more of you than I ever wanted to see.
It would have been hard to miss you. Generally when people go to the Y, they don’t spend their entire time in the hallway between the weight lifting room and the gym shouting into their cell phone, talking with their hands, and making lots of silly hand gestures (if you did the two thumbs up sign one more time while balancing the phone on your shoulder, I was going to whip a courtesy copy of Cosmo at your head. Are you aware that the person on the other end of the phone CAN’T SEE YOU?). I guess I don’t get it. Did you need the weight lifting gloves to get better traction on your cell phone? Are you that important that you must spend the entire 48 minutes I was on the bike chatting with 6, count ‘em, 6 different people? (I counted, buddy.)
And because you bugged me THAT much, I actually timed how many minutes you were actually lifting weights. I hate to break it to you: it was 4 1/2. Seriously. 4 1/2 minutes of weight lifting and 43 1/2 minutes of verbal diarrhea on the cell phone while strutting in front of me with your tight pants and little soldier at half mast. Are you aware how difficult the Expresso bikes are, and how irritating it is to see your big poofy head bobbing around on your neck right outside the glass that separated us? Every time I focused on the monitor, another phone call came in, and you were there - sometimes not even noticing my hairy eyeball as you stared vacantly through the glass, less than 2 feet from me. I know your momma taught you not to adjust yourself publicly.
Mr. Cell Phone guy, working out does not come naturally to all of us. And while you followed Y protocol by not taking calls while actually on the weight machines, you irritated the living crap out of me. I was trying to stay focused on my course and my heart rate, and your stupid strutting walk was only missing the chest pounding. Having a cell phone was cool in, like, 1993. Everyone has them now - not sure if you’ve noticed, but no one gives a crap if you closed a big deal this week or how important you are that you must take calls during your “workout”.
As a fellow fatty, I also might suggest you would get more mileage out of your membership if you spent less time exercising your jaws and strutting and more time actually working on that gut of yours. Do us all a favor next time and sit in your car on your phone feeling important. Perhaps you are even the guy who had a personalized license plate that said “Shlong” (those on Facebook have seen it, so they know I’m not lying), because that’s exactly the type of guy I think you are. Leave the rest of us to sweat and grunt and have near-death experiences trying to beat our prior time in peace.
Best of luck in your future workout endeavors.
Yours truly,
Cristina
An illustration of how close this guy was to me:
And proof that someone at the Y actually drives a car with “Shlong” on the license plate:
I recently won a free Jazz DV151 Digital Camcorder. Here’s what it looks like, but mine is pink:
It’s pretty cute and I thought I might remember to bring it with me more often. It was easy to use, easy to set up, and has a surprisingly sensitive mic - the only thing I don’t love is the image quality. However, for around $50 you really can’t beat the price. It’s thicker than my iPhone but about the same length, so it fits easily in my purse.
My mom was griping that I hadn’t shared any videos recently of the girls dancing, so I decided to test it out yesterday. I then used Windows Movie Maker to put them all together into one streaming video. Voila. Digital cuteness.
It was an exciting day in Momland. Yesterday, I noticed that Lily’s right ear was swollen near the back of her earring. I could tell her ear was infected, but little miss dirty hands has had lots of minor ear infections. By the way, not that you asked, but I kind of regret piercing their ears, hers in particular. Kid paws are bacteria-laden surfaces, and she’s always futzing around with her earrings. We have least one bloody draining earlobe a month. Add my squeamishness about blood to the mix and you’ve got an annoyed momma.
Anyway, this morning her ear lump had doubled in size. The thing looked like it was consuming the backside of her head. It was a lovely evening sunset of colors - purple, yellow, green. She also has this funky spider-looking spot on her left cheek, and I’ve been meaning to call her doctor, so I did. After she got off the bus, I shoved them into their leotards and trucked off to the doctor’s office.
Lily’s spidery spot is, and i quote, a telangiectatasia. This, following Arden’s chalazion. Can my kids please get health or skin issues I can pronounce??? It’s basically not a big deal. It’s kind of ugly, but usually they clear up within a year. I was thrilled that issue #1 was a non-issue. Issue #2, however, was. After the initial doctor looked at the back of Lily’s ear, she called our regular doc in for a second opinion. She was about to send us to an ENT doc, but thankfully my wonderful regular pediatrician said that they could take care of it right there, and right now. Keep in mind I promised Lily there would be no needles. Well, a lance isn’t a needle, right? WRONG.
Poor Lily realized what was happening. She sat on my lap for a minute, clutching me and whimpering. Then she stretched out on her stomach and the doctor came back with a swab and the biggest looking thumbtack thing I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I was at Lily’s head, holding her hands above it, so I had a clear view of the actual moment of lancing. What nearly did me in, however, was not the soft squishy *pop* sound. It was the blood than began to drain not just from the lanced spot, but from the front and back of her earring. Lily was crying by this time and shaking all over, so I sternly said, “Get it together woman. You WILL NOT PASS OUT.” Arden was the only one thrilled by the excitement. She kept pushing me out of the way and shouting, “LEMME SEE! Oooh, GREEN STUFF!”
Lily was a trooper and suffered through the repetitive squeezing (they wanted some extra pus for a lab test, oh yay!). When I told her how brave she was, she pointed her finger at me and said, “I was NOT brave. I CRIED!” If only she’d known her mom would have just passed out during the same procedure, she would have seen my point of view.
Here’s a picture of Lily’s ear after it was “drained”. Sorry for the blurriness but I took this at night and the lighting was crap. Besides, you’ll be glad I didn’t get a clearer picture of it. It is big and G.R.O.S.S.
And another one of the Telangiectatasia.
If anyone ever deserved ice cream, it was Lily today. She didn’t get any, but I will make it up to her this weekend.
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Briefly, a few people asked me if I was going to continue to pepper this blog with my high school and college persona. I plan to do it on Wednesdays. Some people do “Wordless Wednesdays” where they just post pictures. I’m going to make mine “Whiny Wednesdays” and post embarassing things about myself. I can’t wait!
Lots has been going on this week. Usually when things aren’t going well I sort of clam up. This time, things are a-okay, but there are so many topics off-limits on the old blog that I just have been unmotivated to write about anything. A family member’s mom is very sick. I’m irritated with another family member. My kids still have voice immodulation syndrome, and their speaking volume, always at notch 11 on the amplifier, is making me prematurely deaf.
Plus, I’ve spent far too much time troubleshooting my Skype issues - turns out it was pretty simple. Here’s today’s technology tip: when trying to do video conferencing, and no one you call can hear you, instead of spending 4 hours trying to make your mic work, stop. Find out if you actually HAVE a mic on your computer. In my case, I didn’t, so all the troubleshooting in the world didn’t make a mic magically appear. $15 and one Best Buy trip later, Skype works just fine.
That was embarassing to write, by the way. Usually I’m the tech support of my family. Over the past 48 hours, I’ve been the person who calls tech support just to find out the power was turned off to my computer and THAT’S why the screen was black.
One of the newer blogs I read, this one, does something I’ve been toying with for a while. Cardiogirl’s husband actually graduated from the same high school I did, and so did his sisters, which is just so weird because I come from a smallish town. A recent blog entry quoted from her early childhood journals, and that’s where I come in.
For the past month I’ve had my high school and college journals stashed under my regular chair where I do all my writing. I’ve even pulled them out a few times and looked at the cover. The binder they are in, by the way, has a big Kalamazoo College logo on it, which dates it to 1989. That was, ummm, a long time ago. One night I even tried to read some of it, because I know there are some pithy and mostly humiliating entries in there. My writing milk teeth were lost there, and if I can suck it up and suffer through the carnage that was me back then, I might even find a gem or two. And if Cardiogirl can do it, and live to tell the tale, why can’t I?
So before I treat you lucky readers to the insight of my 17 year old mind, I’m going to tell you the honest truth. Years 16 through 21 were quite miserable. A lot of bad things happened. My eating disorder kicked into high gear, I dated a lot of jerks, I fell in love at least three times, lived with various roommates, some good, some bad, some anorexic, and moved a lot. I worked in college radio while still in high school, which meant that all the people who shaped my idea of what cool was smoked a lot of pot, were a lot older than me, and considered themselves artists (later I learned to run from anyone who self-described their person as “artistic”). Even though I hated cliques, I had one in high school, and although we loved each other, we were mean girls and said mean things and hurt each other a lot. I cut 99% of my ties to high school people when I went to college. I was probably really mean about it then too. Because I transferred after my freshman year in college, I never had that close knit group of friends people who stay for four years in one place do, so a lot of my writing explores the icky loneliness I felt, not to mention my ridiculous struggle to find my place in the world. It took me until my 30’s to realize that most people felt exactly the same way I did. If we’d figured out that none of us “belonged”, a lot of people would have had a better high school or college experience. C’est la vie.
I do find it ironic that I can laugh at every part of me since 1993. It’s all fair game. If I’m an idiot, rude, mean, insecure, bitchy, or silly, I make fun of myself. Yet it’s nearly impossible to even crack the cover of the pale green K-College binder and look at that person, let alone laugh about it. As it’s almost 20 years and I’m staring down the barrel of my high school reunion, I figured it was time to break into it. The only bummer is that some of the really funny things I won’t be able to share since certain family members read this. Or I could - but my mom would have a heart attack, and she has enough on her plate right now.
For those of you who write, I encourage you to look back. Take out the critical eyepiece permanently affixed to your vision of the past, and enjoy who you were, and how you got to where you are. All that ugliness had moments of pure joy in it - I just have to dig a little more deeply than I want to.
circa June 1988. I was about to leave for a extended study trip to Greece:
growing up is a difficult thing to deal with, watching circles drawn around in the sand, trying desperately to listen intently to others while at the same time trying to understand (and fix) your own defects. it’s not the growing up that is especially painful, merely the thought of breaking, pulling and tearing that goes through me so often. i’m scared right now. i’ll be leaving. what if everyone’s gone when i get back? if not physically, mentally? what about me, what about them, what about us? friendship, to me, has always been a mutual thing in idea and a daydream in reality, because one almost always cares more than the other, even if it is not so at the beginning. i was thinking, who do i care more about? tim? yes, i guess so. keith, pat, all the ones that are older and have other things to practice with. but meg - so much time we have spent together, and still i feel irritated and arrogant when she tries to pry. i want to wear a sign that says, “you are getting too close”. i’ve never felt anyone was getting too close before. yet, here i am, shoving her away time after time and i really honestly don’t want her any closer, thank you.
for me, love is something i can’t experience. i feel too isolated, too alone, and too cold. no one knows i feel this way. i just do not discuss boy/girl relationships with my friends since it does no good. ever since meeting keith i’ve avoided the subject. i think back on going out with dave and the football games and beer we had together, and know deep down it was nothing. i was nothing to him and he was even less to me. it angers me to think that i wasted my time on that whole thing, just to have my hand held in the hallway and my lips kissed on the beach by a popular boy.
Annie’s bridal shower was today, and though it took Lorna making a trip for batteries, we were able to get some pictures. Annie’s babysitter didn’t show, but Georgia was a very good girl, and it was hard to stop taking pictures of her delicious sweet baby girl and photograph the blushing bride instead. I tried!
Marnie hosted the shower at Cuppa Tea near VCU in Richmond. I’d never been there, but it was fabulous. A.) I love tea and B.) the place brought together all the things I love about tea combined with frou frou things that weren’t too over the top. It’s also locally owned, though on the way out the owner remarked that they probably were going to have to close due to lagging sales. So many local businesses have already closed. It’s very sad.
Annie looked beautiful and Marnie made her usual tear-jerking speech (at Annie’s baby shower, Marnie made all of us bawl, the wench). I also got to spend some time with Jennifer. I haven’t seen her much lately and we were able to catch up and have a fun necessary business meeting after the shower.
I also need to mention that it was nearly 80 degrees today. Last week we were having snow - this week I was sweating. How can that be? Virginia is bizarre.
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