After work we're leaving for Washington, DC. We are taking my son and my 11 year old niece, Sarah, who...is my favorite niece! It should be a lot of fun. We're staying near a metro stop and the kids are split between wanting to see the zoo and wanting to see George Washington. As soon as I figure out where he lives, I'll hop right to that one! Unfortunately, I doubt I could get them to do one of my favorite activities which is actually REALLY fun. I enjoy going to the National Gallery and looking at the pictures and trying to guess the title. Yes, I admit it, I am very boring. But I don't like golf yet so there may be hope. The last time I went to DC on the metro was with my waste-of-skin sister, he two sons (one in a wheelchair) and my son, Spud. My dad decided he really wanted Trev, the nephew in the wheelchair, to see Disney on Ice at the MCI center. And he wanted ME to be the Julie McCoy of the day - to be the cruise director. Now even thinking my sister would drive even a 10th of the way to DC is ludicrous and I certainly was NOT in the mood to be navigating an underground parking garage on Disney on Ice day so I thought it would be great fun to park at a metro and ride into town. The ride started innocently enough. If nothing else, I am practical and I was pretty sure that the two older ones would eat through $50 of nachos that evening and I wasn't in the mood. So I packed drinks and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and snacks and put them into my father's Toyota Sienna minivan and started the 2-hour trip from his house in eastern WV to downtown DC. Well, the kids all fell asleep including Trever who was trapped under the seat belt that went over his face but who continued to defy all principals of physics and snored mightily the whole way down. When they finally woke up, we were in Leesburg and through the mountains. I told them to eat. My nephew PJ was the first to throw his sandwich. He was 7 at the time. �This is NASTY!� he declared. �I want McDonald�s!� Well, once the NAME was mentioned, it wasn�t going to get un-mentioned and the battle cry started. But I was steadfast and refused. Besides, we were on the Dulles Toll road by then and there was NO stopping. Trever continued to snore. We arrived at the West Falls Church station with two hungry kids and the third stuffed into a stroller wheelchair he had outgrown about two years earlier. Both of my sister�s kids were in dirty, too small clothes but still, I pressed forward. I have a theory of negative embarrassment. Once you get SO embarrassed there isn�t anywhere you can go with it�you hit negative embarrassment and nothing seems to matter anymore. You could stroll through the Supreme Court starkers and you really wouldn�t care. You�d probably even pose for pictures. Negative embarrassment CAN work for you when you are hanging with MY family. Well, I take everyone into the station, figure out the fares and purchase the tickets. Then we have to find the elevator and get to the track. Of course, we get on the wrong side. So back up and over and finally, we�re all on the train riding into town. With about 3 million OTHER idiots who are riding into town. Needless to say, the wheelchair didn�t fit, there were NO seats so I had a 9 year old and a 7 year old flying around the poles you hang onto like seasoned strippers, and my sister just sat there and drooled a little. At Metro Center we had the joy of transferring. And naturally, as luck would have it, I had to go up and OVER the tracks to the other side for the Red Line. So off we go. As we stood by the tracks with the 3 million other idiots riding that day, the swish of the trains and the air power they generated was really scaring me to death. I was sure the two pole swingers would be sucked under the train and after that, my sister would probably miss it and I�d never know what happened to her OR to Trever. By some miracle, we actually didn�t get sucked under the train and ended up on the same car together WITH Trever. All of this because my sister wouldn�t haul her cookies one block from Metro Center to the MCI Center and wanted to go to the station right next to it. How thoughtful. The show was good�.despite the fact that my father refuses to believe that Trever is handicapped and needs handicapped seats. So after finding our way to the 18th floor and our seats and then having the usher nearly freak out trying to seat us (and seeing an extra-large rat trap behind a curtain as we entered the arena), we settled in for the show. My sister, considerate as she is, bought the kids popcorn and soda and these wild light up toys that have Mickey�s head spinning around like the Exorcist. The kids were delighted. Even Trever had the time of his life. Then came the ride home. Our tickets didn�t work in the gates to go back through! We lucked out and a metro employee had gone to see Mickey that day too and so she very nicely helped us get back in and not get busted. Back onto the tracks�my ulcer increasing in size as I imagined everyone being sucked under the train but we ALL made it. As we stood waiting for the orange line to take us back to Falls Church I heard a blind man ask a group of kids if he was waiting at the right side of the tracks to catch the orange line. Of course he wasn�t and of course they assured him he was. As the train pulled up, I grabbed his arm and told him he was on the wrong tracks and I was going back on the orange line � he was coming with me. I am sure he thought he was being abducted by some crazy woman terrorist but he came with me. He was about my age and carrying flowers that he explained were for his teacher. I thought that was kind of sweet. As my pole swingers were monkeying up and down the train, and Trever was craning his neck to enjoy one of his rare glimpses of the outside world, I chatted with my newfound friend. It was a nice way to end the day. He was getting off at Dunn Loring so we all said goodbye as we got off at West Falls Church. The kids were nearly asleep and wound up from WAY too much pole swinging and WAY too much sugar. I drove home as my sister snored next to me and Trever snored behind me. The other two were passed out in the back. As I reflect on that day, I figure if I could do it with my waste-of-skin sister, her kid in a wheelchair, the two yardapes and a blind guy I picked up at Metro Center, I can handle my niece and my son. And who knows, maybe I�ll see my friend down in the metro again. That would be a very good thing.

Every year at the end of school my community has it's school picnic. Coming from the south, I had NO earthly idea what this meant although for the most part I had visions of a big park, softball games, fried chicken and nasty orange koolaid out of lukewarm coolers. Much to my surprise - and pleasantly too, I might add - the reality of the school picnic is much different. The basic premise is that school is closed for the day and everyone goes to the theme park in Pittsburgh called Kennywood. Want to truly classify yourself as an outsider in southwestern Pennsylvania? Tell everyone you know that you have never been to Kennywood and then start impersonating your best James T. voice when they wax poetic about the Enterprise. Oh, the looks you'll get because, as I have come to find out, Kennywood around here is pretty much like God, the President, the flag, apple pie and Chevrolet. You just don't diss Kennywood....ever. Period. This place is like the holy of holies to someone from southwestern Pennsylvania and before you slam Kennywood, pretty much, you'd have a better chance getting away with telling them that they're grandmother and grandfather were identical twins once removed. So you get it right? It's a TRADITION. And if nothing else, we love tradition in southwestern PA! Okay...now that we're on the same page with all of this...back to our school picnic. It was Thursday and the weather was kind of cold for late May - barely in the 40's as we all huddled along the main drag in my little metropolis (pop. 10,000 and change - SALUTE!) waiting for the parade to start. My little community, Jeannette, is the queen of the parade. If there is an occassion that could possibly benefit from a parade - we'll have one. We'll line up the high school band complete with flag corp and cheerleaders, we'll call in the antique cars which come to the car cruises on Saturday nights and then, for good measure, we'll line up every emergency vehicle in the zip code to cruise down the 6 or so blocks from the top of the hill on Clay Avenue to the bottom and blare their horns and flash their lights. If that doesn't get you in the spirit for whatever the heck it is we're celebrating, nothing will. We parade for Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Oktoberfest, Veteran's Day, Hallowe'en (one of my personal favorites!), Christmas, and finally, Kennywood Day. Heck, we even had an impromptu parade to show our support for the war in Iraq - they got that one together in less than three days, a record! But the parade on Kennywood Day is a special one for all of us. After lining up on both sides of Clay Avenue, our main drag, for an hour, finally, we get to watch 20 full minutes of all out, all American parade! First, two police cars start the cruise...lights flashing as the two cops driving stop and chat with people along the way. Next comes the high school band with all the seniors in their caps and gowns and a few carrying their newborn babies with them (nice touch) ...followed by every day care and school child in the city. The little ones are in stollers pushed by their teachers, the kids in daycare are waving American flags, the school kids march in their classes, each carrying banners telling us which teacher's room it is. Mom's are videotaping like crazy, grandparents are busy waving. One preschool stops completely so the teacher can run around and mug with all the kids for each parent to run up and snap a Kodak moment. Finally, the elementary school band comes round the curve and proceeds down the street. Spud was carrying the banner! Normally he is one of many in the hellacious drumline that exists in the elementary school but my Spud is also no dummy. Faced with the prospect of carrying what appears to be a 50 lb. Civil War reinactment marching drum slung over his shoulder with a single leather strap, my son has tersely announced to his band director that he is quite sure that if he does this he will fall down and roll down the hill. Pretty good argument if I must say, given that Clay Avenue runs at probably a 6-8% grade. His band director gives in, probably more not to hear Spud's griping about rolling down Clay Avenue and maybe even a little because he thinks its a pretty good possibility and so there is my son, beaming, helping two other kids to carry the banner in front of the band. It all winds down with a flurry of decorated cars, vans and trucks that the seniors have decorated like Rose Bowl floats - a frog, a bunny, a tractor in rainbow hues of crepe paper - seniors hanging out at every angle throwing candy into the gutters for the kids NOT in the parade to scramble for and then the fire trucks and ambulances wrap it all up, making sure that we adults are completely and utterly deaf. The whole thing takes exactly 20 mintes. At the end of the parade, we figured, they had exactly 10 minutes to scurry onto waiting school buses to be bussed to the amusement park. We, however, decided to drive. Jeannette, officially, was closed...everyone was off to the school picnic! We arrived a little after 1:00 p.m. - after getting some lunch, buying tickets and finding some sunglasses. It was grey and cloudy...and positively looked like rain. Given that the tickets cost $18 per...we tried to talk Spud out of it as we drove towards the park. No dice. The kid wasn't budging. It was school picnic day and by God, we were going to go to the school picnic! I won't bore you with the details except to say I don't necessarily like to ride rides. There's a few I'll do but not many. In fact, it's hardly worth even buying an $18 ticket. The park has a no-ride ticket for those of us who just like to see and be seen...and good thing too because next year I may take them up on it. As usual we started with the Old Mill which is a "dark ride" - a tunnel of love I guess which is 101 years old. It smells exactly like a jar of pumpkin hand creme I got from Avon inside and I love it. The rule is we start with the Old Mill and end with the Old Mill. After that...it's pretty much whatever and wherever. Anthony braved it...and believe me, I admire the heck out of him for it. He took the Boy on the paratroopers (a ride I swore off when Spud was in first grade - I rode it and it scared the crap out of me when I realized all that held us on was one itsy-bitsy bolt which held the umbrella to the frame of the ride...I could see us flying across the park and believe me, as soon as that ride ended, I never went back) and the Flying Carpet. They rode the Kangaroo which is ride which has been questionable for me and Alison for a few years. Let me explain. The Kangaroo is a track ride...it just goes round and round but the key is a small "hump" that you go over and makes the car hop into the air. The problem comes in because of that hop - they want you barricaded in. The bar that goes across you would hold Kate Moss in firmly...if you know what I mean. The year we rode we got into the car and slammed the bar down....it almost didn't shut....YIKES! We sucked it in and rode and tried to look carefree and comfortable when deep down we were in some serious pain. Ever since we go and sit on the benches just outside the ride and watch the unsuspecting fat people try to ride it or even those, like us, who try to fake it WHILE riding it. You can always tell who they are by their red faces...as the fat is squished and squeezed or slung over the bar...while they pray for the ride to just END! Then Spud rode the swings and we got on the antique Whip - even I will ride that one, the Gold Rusher, the old cars near Kiddieland...well, pretty much we did it all. As darkness fell and the lights came up (and the freaky Goth kids came out), all of us adults were too tired and/or sick to event hink about another round of "round and round" but still we felt badly since if we didn't ride, who would ride with Spud? Well, leave it to my son...he didn't need ANY of us. He decided if we wouldn't ride, he would just ride alone and that's what he did. The swings again, the Wipeout, and the Pirate Ship (which ALMOST did him in). Alison and I even had a go at the Kangaroo, figuring, between us, we had lost about 50 pounds and it HAD to be better than we remembered (it was, SLIGHTLY, but still hurt like hell when we went over the hump!). Finally, we took our nightcap through the Old Mill and as the park was closing, we walked through the tunnel to our van. We got home at 11:30. The next morning as I drove to work, Jeannette was a ghost town. School picnic day is always held the Thursday before Memorial Day - we all seem to need that long weekend just to sleep it all off! And while it's hokey and small-town, in a way, it's the best time you'll ever have. You walk through the park that you go to every year, see people you only see on school picnic day and say hi, eat corndogs and Potato Patch fries and have Sierra Mists in yellow Kennywood cups. This year we even tried deep fried Oreos. It's a day which becomes an oasis in our year....and one which is worthy of a day off work, getting up early and standing on the sunny side of the street for an hour waiting for the parade to start. It's a day that, for people who have lived here their whole lives, connects their childhood to their adulthood...and for those of us who are newcomers, it is the day that connects us to each other. It's a TRADITION and one my appreciation for deepens more each year.

Today I went to the anual Athena Awards luncheon. In my area, this is a Who's Who of the movers and shakers in our county. The event is mostly attended by women as it basically honors women who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in our community. Today three wonderful women were honored. One is a lawyer who just won the primary election nod for a judgeship, another is CEO of the Girl Scouts and the third publishes a paper which provides direction and advice to budding entrepreneurs. Great nominees, great winners. Last year I was so impressed that I signed up to be on the committee....okay, okay, I am a world class procrastinator and I finally sent it in about 4 months ago, which was pretty much at the end of their planning year. Still, the Chamber of Commerce found room for me on the judging committee. I was busy taking my Introduction to Judaism class on Thursday nights so when they had a committee meeting on a Thursday I had to decline. Eventually though, I made it to the last one. What a great time! It was at my alma mater and I made friends quickly. The women on this committee are so friendly and welcoming, it really shocked me. Soon, my inner-stand-up-comedian came out and before I knew it I was busy sharing the story of when Sr. Maurice was laid out in the chapel one hot summer while I worked in the admissions office as a tour guide. It's quite an interesting story actually. Poor Sr. Maurice was a Sister of Charity along with two of her blood-related sisters and they all lived in the convent which was right across the courtyard from our two room suite over the archway on Canevin and Lowe halls. One fateful spring evening, she decided to make hot chocolate for her sister. Apparantly nuns like to wear sleazy, nylong nighties and a terrible thing happened. Her nightgown caught fire. We sat in our windows and watched the fire trucks and ambulances rush up the hill to the college and whisk Sr. Maurice away. Her sisters were devastated. She wasn't a teaching sister anymore...she had retired as professor emeritus of the psychology department and was thought of in great distinction by the sisterhood, the students and alumnae alike. It was a terrible tragedy which was compounded even more so when Sr. Maurice succumbed to her severe burns just after the college dismissed for summer break. This was where the scandal apparantly begins. Because at our college, the chapel which is 100 years old and absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous, is shared by the student body AND the convent. So, naturally, Sr. Maurice was laid out in state in the middle of the chapel. It's also important to note that western Pennsylvania springs and summers can be unbelievably hot and the college's Admin building was, at that time, NOT air conditioned in any way, shape or form. When we would come back from summer break, we would lie in our dorm rooms at night, sweltering in the tropical air with little relief other than the small table fans we brought back with us. The chapel was even worse since the stained glass windows only had small vents and even the big, stand up fans the Sisters would put in there to move the air around did little to alleviate the wet blanket of hot air which wrapped itself around you whenever you'd venture in. It didn't help that the sun rose against that side of the Admin building and then lingered overtop at noon before it passed into the west on it's way to setting for the day. It was just plain hotter than hell in that chapel. And there laid Sr. Maurice in front of God and everybody else, probably wondering if she'd made a wrong turn on her way to the Pearly Gates and where exactly WAS she? Well, my job was to greet prospective students and take them for tours of the campus. I did this all summer. I actually really liked it because at least, in all that heat, you could move around and SOME of the college buildings had air conditioning and of course, in those, we'd linger a bit longer. The routine was pretty simple. Around one side of Admin, through the adjoining buildings of Maura and Canevin and Lowe then out to the library and Havey Hall and back around through Sullivan Hall, Bailey Hall then onto the chapel. And this was where the problem presented itself. Sr. Jean was director of admissions at the time and a pretty intense nun. One day she had white hair, the next it was black. I am not saying she dyed it...I am sure you can make your own assumptions about that. Anyway, her goal was to recruit to build our school. And she did it with the efficiency of George Patton. Apparently she had an issue with Sr. Maurice hanging out in the chapel on her way to the Hereafter. "How can we take tours through there when there's a BODY lying in the middle of the chapel??" she freaked. "Couldn't they take it somewhere more APPROPRIATE?" Okay...that makes sense. Take a dead body someplace more appropriate than the chapel of the convent to which the dead body when it used to be Sr. Maurice was a member. Riiiigggggggghhhhhhhhhtttttttt. Well, to make a long story short, they never moved the body until they took her out in style and buried her up the hill in the Sisters' cemetary about six days later. And Sr. Jean? She still has black hair and she lives up at the new Motherhouse now where I understand they understand me completely when I say she was one wild and crazy nun. And me? Well, I graduated and actually still live within earshot of the Motherhouse and my alma mater. Today, one of the awards was sponsored by them...and now that they're a university instead of just a rinky-dink college, well, those nuns are hell on wheels. I realized that today marked a milestone in my own life. I was asked the dumbest question I ever heard. In fact, I could have given the woman an award for it. As I stood there surrounded by 547 name tags at the reception table - all lined up in alphabetical order and me and the rest of the committee trying desperately to read them upside down and hand them out quickly and to the right person - a lady strolls up and asks...."Are these in any type of order?" No, hon, I thought. They're in RANDOM order. We thought it would be more fun. Well, maybe Sr. Jean would find the humor in that before she squashed the woman like a bug. In any event, there's always next year.

Sometimes I just don't understand my family. Maybe it's because I am a private person and don't feel the need to extol the virtues and accomplishments of my husband and son over the internet at every opportunity I get. I suppose basically, I just don't understand why my brother in law and my sister in law (my husband's sibs) feel this need. And maybe I am just a bit too sensitive about the special needs of my own son. Today, the email came through from my husband's brother and his wife that they were proudly announcing that our youngest niece had passed her karate test and would be getting her orange belt. She is 5 years old and yes, she's cute. But as her sister has said to me, she is not THAT cute. Don't tell her parents that of course because they think she's all that AND a bag of whole wheat bread. So much so that I even believe that they neglect to see how wonderful and accomplished her older sister is. And when it's not an email telling me how fantastic and intelligent and cute and wonderful and talented and brilliant and just so undeserving of even being thought of as an ordinary kid this kid IS, it's an email from my husband's SISTER telling me how fantastic and intelligent and cute and wonderful and talented and brilliant and just so undeserving of even being thought of as an ordinary kid HER kid is. Maybe it's just a family trait and Anthony DOES reassure me that ALL families are like this. Maybe what I need to do is blow Spud's horn a bit more. Send everyone on my mail list an email that with a LOT of hard work and study, he got an A+ on his test on 20 states and capitols and how AMAZING this is given his auditory processing disorder! Or how he started swimming lessons again two weeks ago and can now do the "reach and pulls" better and more consistently than he ever did - and with a severe motor planning disorder, this is more than just an extraordinary accomplishment! Or how he played with the neighborhood kids for the first time in his life a week and a half ago and had the time of his life. Or better yet, how this Tuesday is his first band concert where he'll demonstrate for his adoring family how he has learned to play the drums in the school band over the last several months and then to cap it off, on Thursday he will march in the band carrying the school banner!!! These are all such wonderful things and accomplishments I dare not have even considered when we realized we had a "problem" when he was just 10 months old. To be the parent of a child that is different, whether physically or intellectually, is a difficult road. I am sure Anth would agree that we wouldn't trade our experiences with our very special child for anything. Like today, when his wish to see the attic was finally fulfilled. Yes, it was filthy, dirty work getting to the entrance to the attic which is actually in his closet where we have stored everything from old glassware to a dismantled changing table. But watching him cautiously climb the ladder-like steps to finally SEE what he had imagined all these years was priceless. He was shaking with what was probably excitement and apprehension but he braved it alone....since Daddy couldn't fit in the stairwell with him. He came down and immediately took a shower which made us laugh even more. Or like the day when he was playing floor hockey at the YMCA and got his first goal. All the mothers on the sidelines looked at me and said, "He has finally found his sport!" The kid was running on air with a smile that will last forever. Or when he became a second year Webelo in Cubs...and was so proud to finally be one of the "big" boys in the pack. Or even the little things like when he FINALLY took his first step at 21 months...or when he finally started to form words and talk instead of sounds we couldn't understand. Or when we took him to the Sports Friendship Day at St. Vincent College and there he was - surrounded by mostly adults with some pretty intense handicaps - and even though he was one of the youngest at the event, he joined right in and had the time of his life. Or better yet, the day when he stopped having to wear Goodnights to bed and could finally (and very proudly) say he really WAS dry in the morning! These are all the moments of triumph that parents of special kids get to experience. Our highs are higher because the achievement was hard won and very well deserved. Our lows are lower because we feel even more intensely the disappointment when our children fail and the loneliness and isolation they feel because they are different. I see Spud looking at groups of kids and longing to play and be "one of the gang" and I see those kids tease him or bully him or make him look stupid and then wander away and leave him behind. And I see his little heart break. Even though we try to fill that void with swim class and cub scouts, we never really can. And it hurts. And I have to wonder why I don't feel that these things are significant enough to announce to the world. Because truly these achievements that my son has made so far are remarkable and only a glimpse of what there is to come. I know our family doesn't truly understand our son's challenges and this is because they don't live with him and admittedly, his challenges are hard to understand. And maybe I think that this lack of understanding would trivialize the wonderful things he really can do - the magic that happens everyday in his life. But some things you don't really have to broadcast I guess. Some things you just have to let people see for themselves. Because to single Spud out, even to his family, emphasizes that even we think that he is different and that we want others to think he's the same. Yesterday, I bought him a tshirt that, I thought, pretty much summed up my son's young life. "You laugh because I am different. I laugh because you are all the same." And to me, this is better than any orange belt could ever be.

This morning I had the pleasure of waking up to the sight of my best friend Alison's face. She had come over to whine about going to the mall. She wants to and I don't. For Alison, this means she must launch a few hours of psychological pressure on me until I finally relent. At the time she walked in, I was busy watching "Muriel's Wedding" which is rapidly turning into a must-see, must-have DVD for my collection. Before that, I had watched "Hannah and her Sisters" which, contrary to how I usually feel about Woody Allen films, I found to be absolutely hilarious. Particularly the part where he wants to convert to Catholicism to "find proof of God." I find this especially funny since I am converting to Judaism for exactly the same reasons. But, again, I digress. Alison has what I like to call a "Cradle to Grave" hairstyle or a "C2G" for short. Similar to a mullet, I believe that Alison is onto something. For years I have told her how unattractive it is, how unflattering to her figure and bone structure...to no avail. She insists on the beauty and simplicity of it. Her hair is typical ethnic...wiry, fuzzy and grows naturally in the shape of a giant portabella mushroom. To enhance the lovliness of the thing her hair does naturally, which, of course, is what all the Cosmo girls do, she goes bi-annually to a "stylist" who takes a tub of lye and first straightens it and then, I think, perms it. I have witnessed this since, when she was living with us when Spud was a little Spudlet, her hairdresser would come to our house and do whatever it is she did to Alison and in the meantime, give me a quickie perm. One evening, Spud was wandering around and grabbed the brush that she was using to spread the lye onto Alison's skull, and licked it. Yes, licked it. Being a young mother, and having almost a direct line to poison control since he had also sucked on a sponge full of Resolve once, I freaked and called. Surprisingly, they didn't advise any immediate action and Spud survived. In fact, his speech became somewhat clearer so there may be something there. In the meantime, Alison, half-covered with lye and wrapped in a few towels was oblivious and clearly worried that if we spent TOO much time worrying about the baby, her hair might actually fry off of her head. She needn't have worried though. Alison's hair feels like a pillow. If you touch it, while there are strands you can identify on the top, there is a distinct feeling of fluff on the underside....which of course, is what gives the portabella-like quality to the finished product. The whole process requires Alison to take a full day from work. And of course, the stylist she has now will not cut it. After spending 6 hours straightening and curling what probably amounts to some 50 feet and 100 pounds of 6-month grown hair, I daresay she has the energy but most likely just wants Alison to get the hell out of there. The aftercare is the most important, she has stressed on me during the twenty years I have known her. Ethnic hair is notoriously porous and so she must apply gallons of oily chemicals to it to make it just stay down. Otherwise, within a few days, she looks like a walking, inverted umbrella. She refuses to call it ethnic but I have experience in this. I am a junior, amateur beautician. Once, when she was hanging at JC Penneys and had found someone who would take her calls when she tried to schedule appointments (you will find that hairdressers LIKE you to maintain your 'do...if you don't and let it grow like Georgia kudzu they tend not to want to get anywhere near you). Anyway, we were there one night and it was taking just short of forever to get her hair done. Finally, the stylist, whose name I can't remember told me to dig in and start unrolling Kudzu-Head's hair. While I did this, she explained the structural differences between African-American hair and my own Northern European locks. Thus, I became educated. Ethnic hair is bone dry and sucks up moisture like Barnabas Collins sucked up blood. If you don't feed it a steady stream of some sort of oily product to make it just stay wet ALL of the time, it will start to break off and frizz up and eventually, like Alison, you will be in danger of looking more like Roseanne Rosannadanna than you ever really wanted to. The part I don't get is why she gets so angry with me when I can't tell she just had it done the day after. She'll say "How does my hair look?" To which I reply "It looks the same." She gets this horrendously offended look. "Fine," she passive-aggressives at me. This is my cue to get all sympathetic and guilt-ridden and say "Oh Roo," (I call her Roo.) "I'm sorry. I forgot you got your hair done." "She snarks back..."I haven't put any CHEMICALS on it yet...." I then ask (and probably should just shut up...) "When do you ever????" I honestly really want to know. Her hair looks like Angela Davis when its first done, when its been done for three months and just before she goes back. It always looks the same. And this brings me to the C2G. She has decided to combat this wet-frizzed-Qtip look by going to places like Claire's and KidsRUs and stocking up on all kinds of cutesy barettes and scrunchies in particular. Her favorite is a bright orange one she got at the NASCAR store for, yep, you guessed it...Tony Stewart. A passive-aggressive's kind of man. So she pulls it all up and back. It dries out. Then she braids it into dreads while she sits and watches wrestling at night. At first I was really critical of the 'do. Like I said, it didn't do much for her figure or her facial structure but then, once I saw her roommate has adopted pretty much the same style, and I mean Chrissy, not Jack....I realized the method behind her madness. The sheer brilliance of it all - a hairdo that can go from cradle to grave! She can be 85 years old and in a wheelchair wondering who the hell I am and her hair can still be the same. In fact, this is pretty much a gift from her to me. When I am 85 years old and wondering who the hell I am, I will always know who she is simply because she never changed. She will always be the Alison of my youth. With her 'do, there is no thought process involved, no endless hours poring over volumes and volumes of 'do's, no paying attention when your stylist wants to just "try this!"....she has removed all creativity and objectivity from her 'do! How many women would envy the no-thought, no-care, no-maintenance 'do??? You go twice a year to the hairdresser and that's it! You put it in a pony tail and go...whether you're 12 or 73! It's sheer genius. So my days of snarking Alison's 'do are over. As I trudge monthly to my hairdresser to get clipped and dipped, and spend untold amounts of money just to keep my style current...Alison can smugly revel in the fact that once her 'do catches on...she will ALWAYS be current. And even if it doesn't catch on, let's face it, once we hit a certain age, we can wear PIGTAILS for crying out loud and no one would really care! After all, we could always swap the rubber bands we use to tie them up with with the ones holding up our support hose couldn't we????

About a week ago, I got my very first manicure. Oh boy, was I excited! Although it was a bit like being at the dentist...that is, someone filing away at parts of you which had never been filed before and thus allowing for the genesis of goose bumps in places where I had never even imagined they could erupt...it turned out really nice. I begged my nail technician who has moonlighted as my hairstylist for the past five or so years not to do anything TOO drastic. After all, if we went wild...I may not be able to stand my newly-manicured self and it may just be too much for me. With a smile, and realizing how weird I truly am, Angela (my nail tech slash hair stylist), Angela set about to file down my gnarly nails and to give me a beautiful french manicure. I guess maybe I should be calling that a freedom manicure now, huh? Anyway, while she extolled the beauty of my nails, there were two which I had recently gnawed to nothing. "No prob," says Ange. And then proceeds to put a "tip" on each of them, one being my right thumb and the other being my left pinkie. Now, in the meantime, my husband is sitting next to me helping to supervise this groundbreaking experience. My husband, Anth, is a social worker and works for the PACT program. PACT stands for Pregnant Adolescent Childcare Training. And Anth's job is to work with the teenaged fathers. His basic observation is that while they are capable of impregnating some Pretty Young Thing...something which boggles his mind because for the most part these children are usually slovenly, fat and just plain dumb...they are completely incapable of obtaining a job let alone HOLDING the job, managing to get anywhere for any reason on time or even in the right month and pretty much have no clue about anything you may want to ask them except for when they get out of school early to attend the prom. But I digress.... So...it's fair enough to say Anth's co-workers are all women and they like to get their nails done on their lunch hour and last summer, if he was out with them when it was Nail Time, he got the distinct pleasure of accompanying them to their appointments. Thus, my husband is quite the nail afficianado. And being such a connoisseur of all that is polished, he picked out the perfect color pink for my base coat. After a week and a half, it's getting kind of funky but kudos to Anthony for a good choice. Well, back to this tip on my right thumb. After it was all over, I paid Angela and we left. I couldn't stop looking at my lovely new nails and that new thumb nail was a looker!! I wouldn't even touch anything for the rest of the night! That is, until it was bedtime and the realization slowly dawned on me that I had to figure out how to take out my contacts. I am not that great with them on a good day. Usually I am terrified of making a small tear or worse yet, like last year, taking it out and thinking I didn't and then pulling on that clear membrane that surrounds your eyeball until I completely panicked, convinced I had to go to the emergency room to have it surgically extracted, and then realizing and SO grossing out that I was pulling on my eyeball the whole time and the contact was actually in the OTHER eye! That was pretty intense. So naturally, even though I have had these things since I was pregnant with Spud, I still respect them a great deal. So there I am, freshly manicured and standing in front of the bathroom mirror. My lens case beside of me, the solution bottle open. And it is at that precise moment that I realize that my right thumbnail is the size of the Eiffel Tower (it's a french manicure - I'm developing a theme here!) YIKES! I am fortunate enough to be double jointed and much to the disgust of friends and family alike, I can actually grab my thumb and bend it backward and touch my wrist. Not forwards. Backwards. It's pretty nasty. But even that didn't prepare me to take my new talons and extract this little piece of film from my eyeball. But...somehow, I was able to nearly bend it at a 90 degree angle and grab the contact with my thumbjoint and take it out. From my right eye. Somehow, I am not quite so nimble with the left...but before panic completely set in, I did manage to grab it, remove it and not rip it to shreds. The next thing I did was call Angela and tell her I had an emergency ... this thumbnail HAD to come off. Our executive assistant at work, my friend Donna, told me not to even consider cutting it since that would make it rip off my nail bed. YIKES squared. I cannot handle three kinds of pain. Kidney pain, eye pain and thumbnail-ripping-off-the-nailbed pain. I decided to wait for Angela. So I did. I wore my glasses and waited. Last night was the night. After work, I had a meeting at 5:30 and I figured I'd roll into Angela's right before and get this thing taken off. I entered the spa (she calls it a spa now, not a salon) and walked over to her, where she was scrubbing some poor woman's head, with my thumb in the air - looking probably a bit too much like Picasso than I wanted but it got the point across. She laughed at me - doesn't everyone? - and led me over to where about six old ladies were sitting in a semi-circle getting THEIR nails done. They, of course, pretty much considered me a big wuss for making Angela fix it. One of them remarked "I have contacts and I just take them out! What's the problem???" The problem is...sweetie...this thing is the size of a redwood...and for some reason when it scrapes across my baby blues, it actually hurts and even if it didn't hurt, the thought of it hurts and I want it gone!!!! Angela started with a manual file...my goosebumps were starting to remember the first time she had done that....but then she brought out this thing that looked like a Dremel - the same kind Anth uses on Spud's Pinewood Derby car. I immediately thought it best not to look. Have you ever seen "Dumb and Dumber", which happens to be one of my favorite movies, where Jim Carrey is getting the pedicure and they bring out the big saw for his toenails? It went something like that. Once the smoke had cleared though...I am happy to report, I am back to normal. My contact extraction was a piece of cake last night. But still, somehow I am gonna miss my Eiffel Tower thumbnail. I guess in this case though, size really DOES matter.

I am busy planning a trip to Washington, DC for me, my 11 y/o niece and my 10 y/o son while Anth is at a convention there. My niece I am not worried about. Sarah is a very thoughtful, quiet, interesting kid. It is my own hellion that is freaking me out. We are staying in Arlington and since I am quite skilled at and love riding the Metro, I was thrilled to learn that we can get all-day passes for Saturday for $5 each! Now just to figure out where else we'll go. I am DYING to get to the Holocaust Museum but somehow I don't think this will appeal to the Boy. Plus, he really begins to whine when we walk longer than, oh, say, 2 minutes. So this will take some careful planning. I think the Boy would enjoy parking himself on one of the trains and just riding it mindlessly from sunrise to sunset. The trick will be finding something that appeals to him which doesn't directly lead to whining. So I figured I would try the direct approach. "Hey Boy, what do you want to do when we go to Washington, DC?" I figured that he'd have some interest in SOME thing since he had learned about the congress and the president and knew the capitals of the New England and Mountain states this year. And what does my son say? "I want to talk to George Bush." Quite definitively too I might add. "But Spud," I say. "Since the bad man knocked down the buildings..." (Our explanation for 9/11) "...they won't let you within 3 nautical miles of the inside of the White House." He just looked at me with his big, grey eyes. "I need to talk to George Bush. I have some things I want to tell him." This is scary for more than one reason. First of all, my son who is the most adorable, cute kid I know also has a raging learning disability which causes him, while bright, to not make sense a lot of the time. Scratch that...he makes sense...you just have to let it develop for a while and if you're still with him after about 20 minutes, it begins to gell and you can pretty much figure out where he is getting to. After living with him for 10 years....4 of it which was spent while you couldn't understand a word he said...I have learned the Zen of Spud and just let it flow. But the President of the United States? I have heard things about him which would lead me to believe they would either a) really understand one another or 2) W wouldn't have a clue. My son, fortunately or unfortunately, isn't afraid of anyone and pretty much considers himself an equal to anyone and everyone he sees. Last spring, for example, he came into my office and went to my boss's office and told him he would like to speak to him. I was blissfully unaware that he was even here. My boss, who is WAY to accomodating, figured it was a GREAT way to embarass ME, and so invited him in and showed him to a seat at his conference table which my son immediately sat in and crossed his legs. "My mommie needs some time off," he told my boss. Containing his laughter, my boss raised his eyebrows and said, "Oh, really?" To which my son replied, "Yes, she needs the summer off so she can spend time with me." Aware that this had the potential to get REALLY good, REALLY fast, my boss asked him to go on. "That way," my progeny continued. "She can stay home and clean the house." I haven't lived that one down yet.

Well, it DOES indeed look like this is working :) First off, congrats to my favourite Blogger, Jennifer Weiner and her husband Adam, on the birth of their lovely daughter Lucy :) That said...on with the show, as it were. The topic of the day is diabetes. We whisper that (DIABETES) because it is one of those awful diseases that people find it too horrible to even utter like (CANCER) or (MENOPAUSE) which isn't really a disease but just try bringing it up in mixed company! HA! Okay, okay, you wonder, just where am I going with this. Well, my beloved husband of 17 years (we married WAY too young) has a raging, screaming case of (DIABETES) which pretty much makes him psycho. My Anthony...when his blood sugar is up and I mean just a LITTLE bit up becomes a raging maniac. Sigh. He always was sensitive! Well, this has gone on for about 10 years now. At first I was pretty sure I had married a maniac of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde variety. You know, looks good on the shelf but when you get it home it is like that little doll in "Trilogy of Terror"? He was pretty good for the first half of our marriage but once the kid came along - well, things went to hell pretty quickly. To be honest, it was pretty bad. I was pretty sure I'd have to cut my losses and after experiencing his rages, pretty sure the only refuge I could have was the witness protection program. Well, thank goodness I am too cheap for divorce....its expensive to live in two separate homes!!! I almost ditched it and moved in with his mother - figuring, hey, she brought him into this world, she could suffer for the way he acted! Fortunately for both of us, that didn't happen...mostly because she lives in East PIttsburgh and I live one county over and I am too lazy to drive that distance to get to work. But...the bright side is that after a while it became evident that his maniacy (is that even a word???) was cyclical and somehow I figured out it had to do with the fluctuations of his blood sugar. Thus ensued about three years of me telling him he was a psycho maniac and needed to check his sugar and three years of him flipping out, ranting and raving and then finally checking his blood sugar and finding out I was right. As time has worn on, I have worn him down. I am tenacious if nothing else! So what brings up this subject now you ask? Has he become Ted Bundy??? Has he turned into some docile, Frankenstein-like creature and mutated finally??? No! Last night he got his insulin pump!!! WOOHOO! Happy??? You bet I am! When Anth's sugar is under control he is a wonderful person...just love him! When it isn't? I think I could say I'd probably be acquitted by a jury of my peers and you'd get the point. Unfortunately, it's been a LONG, hard road to get to this point because like a lot of people, Anth doesn't give (DIABETES) the significance it deserves. And...to give him credit, he has a load of other health issues - most importantly a congenital heart condition - that seem to overshadow everything else. But, to cut to the chase, the pump is installed and his blood sugar has pretty much been normal ever since. It's a (GLORIOUS) day!!!! Back on the ranch though, is my waste-of-skin sister, Tami who is 35 years old and lives in a trailer in West Virginia, not that there's anything WRONG with that. Except of course, in her case, and then there's EVERYTHING wrong with that. My sister is a piece of work that pisses me off on pretty much a daily basis. She is on disability for being bi-polar/manic depressive and possibly paranoid schizophrenic. A mouthful. Now she is (DIABETIC) too. This, naturally, has taken precedence over her useless, pothead husband and her two children, one of whom is significantly handicapped. Usually she is forever running to the 7-11 at 5:00 am because Joe needs ciggies or watching Cartoon Network at a decibel level that pretty much competed with the Concorde to break the sound barrier simply because she didn't want to tell her oldest no. The youngest? Well, unfortunately, she doesn't think he understands anything anyway - despite the fact that I am pretty much convinced he has her by at LEAST 20 IQ points - so the only thing she does for him is to let him do whatever he wants which usually involves eating whatever has fallen to the floor that the cat hasn't taken from his mouth. The state of West Virginia, by the way, for those keeping score at home, finds nothing wrong with this. I was told, and not too politely, it's a "lifestyle choice." And...asked to mind my own beeswax. Anyway, now instead of spending her day trying to convince our father and me that she really IS cleaning the house (Tami, can you please explain the half sheet cake which is on your kitchen floor and is half eaten?) even though it's pretty much a given that we're waking her up when we call at 2 in the afternoon - she can spend her day calling Anth and asking him what she should have for lunch "cuz she's staying away from butter." Even though we try to tell her butter doesn't have carbs and it's really that dozen Krispy Kremes she needs to lose the relationship with, it's to no avail. Thank God my father takes dinner over everyday, otherwise my nephews who are 8 and 6 would probably be addicted to Meow Mix. She's pretty sure though that it's just going to get worse but she has her Diet Dr. Pepper by her side so she's ready. Makes a strong case for birth control doesn't it?

Well, let's see if this thing is working. Either I am a complete idiot or this is way too technologically advanced for me...something I doubt.