Junkin' it up

If you want to be embarrassed about your family's spending/eating habits, just call your credit card company to report fraudulent charges. As they quote back to you a weekend's worth of expenditure to verify legitimacy, your embarrassment will grow.

"Wildflower...not sure what that is. Does that sound right?"

"We ate there Sunday after church. It's a bakery-cafe. It's fine."

"How about Smashburger?"

"Uh, yes..."

"McDonald's?"

"That's right, too, I'm afraid."

"Robert's sizzling Barbecue?"

"That's a food truck that comes to my husband's work."

"Krispy Kreme's?"

I giggled.

"Boy, I'm really beginning to feel embarrassed about my family's eating habits! We're just such a busy family, you know?"

Indeed, how far my family has fallen!. We used to be the frugal ones, visiting McDonald's only on road trips, eating out only on special and rare occasions. We were so frugal and proud of it, in fact, that we scoffed at all the families who blew their money on fancy restaurant food as we smugly ingested our frozen pizzas, chicken nuggets and canned vegetables at home!

Now most evenings find us on the run to practices, meets, classes and games. Last weekend was especially hectic. A football and soccer practice Friday night, A football practice and three soccer games on Saturday (at least I had a roast in the crock pot for supper!). Then Sunday we spent the morning and afternoon at church for the installation of our new priest in the parish and a reception with the bishop afterwards. Thus, we walked to that bakery-cafe to eat light buttery pancakes, skillet potatoes and greasy link sausage for breakfast between masses.

My scintillating conversation about junk food receipts with the credit card rep ended with him ribbing me about the outrageous amount we spent at Krispy Kreme.

"$54 on doughnuts did seem like a lot! I'm just saying..."

We both laugh as I exclaim, "It was for the soccer teams, for end of season...honestly!" A pause, and then guiltily,  "Well, I mean, we did eat the leftovers..."

I didn't mention that the "leftovers" were approximately two dozen donuts.

Home, Husband!

At some point all marriages with two or more offspring reach the point where it's mostly about the kids. “I’ll meet you at the soccer field” becomes the most romantic invitation ever!

Every morning I shave my legs with high hopes, fantasizing about a glass of port and the kids going to bed early. But by the time evening comes around with its homework, dinner prep, and sports practices – and very little quality time with my guy - I’m exhausted and feeling that the day was a waste of good makeup. Suddenly I’m cuddling my mattress, snuggling my blanket and whispering into my pillow about just how much I love my bed. And the kids are still up!

I heard that just running errands together can be beneficial for a busy couple, but I think one recent jaunt to the grocery store -  where we got into an argument about spending more time together - belies that advice.

It doesn't help that our home is so small there is no privacy from the kids. The desktop is in our bedroom, for crying out loud! Maybe we could just slide the mirrored doors closed and neck in our bedroom closet. Or at least talk about taking a dream trip far, far away for our anniversary during which we'll sleep 12 hours every night and have hanky-panky in the middle of the day when we're still feeling peppy!

If I can't have more time with my spouse - if I can't literally stand by my man more than five minutes during the day - then I think I know what I need to curb my loneliness.

I need a home husband.

People (egotistical/delusional men? weary wives relieved to foist their man off onto someone else for several hours?) coined the term "work wives" to describe intelligent, efficient, pleasant women who make the work place run smoothly. My husband has two or three of them, the filthy polygamist! 

Well, I’ve decided I need a man about this house who I see more often and speak with regularly. 

We can discuss world affairs, the latest Netflix series and talk about what we did over the weekend. I can delegate tedious tasks to him like fishing in the garbage disposal for a clog. He can make coffee, and I’ll dictate my novel to him. And he won’t balk at the occasional paint or carpentry work. 

If I get real lucky, he’ll like long walks in the country, enjoy opera and be an excellent gardener.

Yeah right! Enjoy opera?

Who am I kidding here? 

I'll just go meet my man at the soccer field. Maybe there's time for a quick kiss.

Perfume for sale! Tree Hugger or Fresh Bread

There are legends of people who don't wear deodorant, because others assure them that their natural scent is so enticing, deodorant or cologne would only corrupt it.

My dad used to say fresh alfalfa was my mom's natural smell, and his expression clearly showed that he thought it was the best scent in the world. He made rabbit fare sound romantic!

I recalled this the other morning while lying in bed. My hair smelled really bad. I had spritzed myself with perfume the evening before, and the perfume had mixed with natural oils and big city particulates in my hair, making my crowning glory malodorous. I'm surprised my husband didn't move to the couch during the night.

My husband has a good scent. I joke about finding his sweet spot, behind his ear or on his neck beneath his whiskers. I'm pretty sure he could go a good three days without a shower and not offend me.

However, my scent comes from whatever Mother Nature decides to slap on me as soon as I step out the door after my shower. If there is even the slightest breeze, heat, humidity, pollution or dirt around, I end up smelling like dust, exhaust fumes and wet, decaying leaves. My skin and hair just soak it up! I suppose it's nature's way of claiming me, but no matter how romantic being an outdoor girl sounds, it certainly reeks! Even my expensive perfumes are whipped into submission by my inherent tree-hugging wild woman.

Maybe I should only hug Eucalyptus or Cedar trees from now on?

My husband, chivalrous as he is, actually told me recently that I smelled good - late in the day, too - but I'm pretty sure that was only because I had skipped my usual make-up routine, and he was grasping for something to compliment.

Fresh alfalfa? I'd be happy just to smell like stale cheerios!  I don't smell like anything fresh unless I've just pulled a loaf of bread from the oven.

Hiding vehicles and avoiding calls

The three most irritating sounds are a doorbell, the knock, and a phone ringing. They mean someone is about to bother you, and usually uninvited.

How do we handle the strain of knowing our cellphones – an inhumane tool of intrusion that we carry around with us - could go off at any moment?  No wonder people have such short attention spans! They’re slaves to the knowledge that their dentist, child’s teacher or hair stylist could interrupt their life at any moment via a ring, buzz, beep, or annoying pop tune.

A few days ago my prehistoric cellphone was dying. Normally that would be a crisis of near apocalyptic proportions for the modern-day human enslaved to technology. I cast about halfheartedly for the charger, but all I found were the revitalizers for my kids’ tablets.

I figured my dumb phone would pass with dignity into temporary night. Instead, it kept emitting death yelps every few minutes for more than an hour, persisting like an opera tenor who keeps singing despite the improbability of drawing deep breath after stabbing himself. Eventually, I began screaming at my phone during each mournful beeping, “Just die! Die already!”, while wishing for a rubber mallet to help it along.

Thankfully, my husband’s number has its own ring on my cellphone, and it’s the only sound I truly welcome from it most of the time. But even then, when he calls from the store one too many times with a silly question, I want to remove him from my contact list.

I blame my aversion to being bothered on my dad.

On many Sundays of my childhood, Dad drove our car into a little hollow in the field behind our house to hide it. If someone unexpectedly knocked at the door on the weekend, Dad gave the silent, urgent command for us to stop in our tracks and crouch down out of sight of the windows. Then he held a finger to his lips with the intense look of a hermit. It was like freeze tag, only more tense. We dared not move or make one little squeak, no matter how our hamstrings ached, until the intruder gave up his efforts to bring us to the door.

Maybe that’s why I got into trouble with the law several years ago when my oldest son Berto called 911 by mistake as I was vacuuming. When I took the receiver from my laughing boy and hung it up, I thought it was merely a telemarketer - until a policeman banged on my door a few minutes later.

I wasn’t expecting a policeman, so I didn’t answer the door. I interrogated him through the wood, asking why I didn’t see his patrol car (around the corner, apparently) and what precinct he was from. Eventually, however, he tired of my evasive maneuvers and quite dramatically threatened to knock down the door if I didn’t answer it. At wit’s end, I called my husband at work and cried, “Honey, there’s a man at the door who says he’s a policeman! What should I do?”

“Answer it!” was my pragmatic man’s reply.

The thought had never occurred to me.

I’m this close to parking my minivan in the backyard on Sundays.

Reel Big Fun

I think I've pulled my man into my mid-thirties crisis. We've been out dancing past our bedtime several times in the past couple years; I'm starting to layer silver chains around my neck for special occasions; and just this past Saturday we went to a concert that had a mosh pit. If my guy starts painting his face with black make-up and wearing high-heeled boots like his once-favorite band Kiss, then I'll know we've gone too far.

Speaking of that Saturday concert, it was totally worth it until Matthew and I had to wake up early the next morning for church with bags under our eyes and slush in our veins. It occurred to us then that instead of going to a concert that started at 9:30 at night, we should have gone to one that ended by eight. We would have been home in time to watch our Brit-coms on PBS!

But we just couldn't miss this band. During his college days Matthew was big into Ska music, and the first concert he ever went to was Reel Big Fish, a Ska band. He still has the T-shirt, in fact.

Our cool friends, Holly and her husband Chip, who started dating in high school and attended two proms together (how many married couples can say that?), once upon a time followed Reel Big Fish (RBF) around the East Coast from one venue to another. Holly heard that RBF was playing Octoberfest in town and invited us to come along for a night filled with dark beer and deafening music.

Like a bunch of college kids, we waited in long, packed lines for beer from plastic cups and messy food served on floppy plates, and I really began to regret my wardrobe choice of skinny jeans, cowboy boots and a jacket on a very warm first night of October crowded with festival-goers.

Somewhere around nine, we found seats not far from the stage. In the spirit of Octoberfest, we procured more beer and ate warm, sticky fry bread with powdered sugar as we chatted and waited for the band to take the stage.

Being the only one in the group unfamiliar with the band, I listened as Holly and Chip recounted the concerts they had attended, then told of a handwritten note in Sharpie from the band's Hawaii-shirt-and-checkered-sunglasses-wearing lead singer and of how Chip checker boarded the hood of his car in high school with permanent marker to show his devotion to the band.

Then Holly told us about a recent Madonna spectacle; Matthew and Chip mildly debated the merits of Def Leopard as live performers; and I said we should all go to a Tom Petty concert if we ever got the chance.

At last, with instruments held high, RBF jogged out to cheers and applause from an exuberant crowd. Ska music, combining elements of reggae and rhythm and blues, is nothing if not good for dancing, so everyone began to move as soon as the trumpet player blew that first note, and the mosh pit quickly developed into a cyclone of jumping, jostling young men - one with green and purple spiked hair at least a foot high. Soon everyone was flattening folding chairs and pushing them into piles like unruly fire wood. I shoved my suffocating jacket off one shoulder, swinging my hips. Matthew, Holly and Chip sang catchy lyrics, flashing broad smiles of nostalgia at one another, and I joined the rambunctious choruses.

Of course, as Holly promised, the members of the band were also great showmen. Several times they started to play huge radio hits from the 1990s, putting their own punk style into the arrangements, and then stopped and announced, "Oh, that wasn't us! That was so and so," purposefully naming the wrong famous group, causing the crowd to laugh and whistle. The lead singer also teased his bandmate about how many trumpet solos he was racking up.

Matthew had kept his hair natural and free for the occasion - no spray gel! - so he kept pushing his left hand through his thick mop to keep it off his forehead as he danced. I found it sexy and adorable; it made him look like that college boy I never actually got to spend time with. From my man I turned often to look at Holly and Chip jumping up and down to the beat like a couple of teenagers and dancing together virtually nonstop, obviously reliving high school days. Chip even braved the mosh pit, though Matthew warned that he wouldn't rescue him, but soon returned with this critique: "It smells in there!"

Though I thoroughly enjoyed the music, if not always the rambunctious crowd and warm weather, my favorite part of the night was watching how much fun Matthew, Holly and Chip were having together at the concert of a favorite band.

Observing my enthusiasm as I danced and sang along, especially when they covered Morrison's "Brown-eyed Girl", Matthew asked me if I still wanted him to get rid of his RBF T-shirt from college, full of holes and faded from years of faithful wearing.

I quickly shook my head and grinned.

"No," I assured him.

Mid-thirties crisis

I’m going through a mid-thirties crisis.

My youngest child left me for kindergarten, my oldest started middle school, and my husband got two promotions in as many years.

I’ve been left behind, in a special limbo that belongs to stay-at-home mothers. Here I am with only the dog, the insuperable laundry and my confused thoughts for company, my ambitions littered about the floor with the dirty socks and the junk mail.

When my son bravely left home for the tot lot, he took my excuses and, it would seem, my purpose in life with him. Since that sad day I’ve been contemplating all the basic skills I haven’t yet mastered at thirty-six years of age.

Take cooking, for instance. My family has eaten the same rotating meals for the last decade, supplemented with five-dollar pizzas and frozen chicken nuggets. If they’re lucky, I introduce a new meal (usually featuring ground beef and starch) once a year.  

As if I didn’t have enough guilt over this, my husband has taken to watching Master Chef Junior, causing me to be depressed because I can’t smoke mussels, flambé a dessert or infuse poultry like nine-year-olds. I probably couldn’t win Master Chef Baby against a bunch of cranky infants throwing pureed vegetables and cheerios together on a high chair before naptime.

And my home? It still looks like Vikings attacked and pillaged; wild animals reclaimed the land; and I hired preschoolers with ADD to decorate. 

There are more modern skills I lack, too. I don’t know how to “pin”. When I take a selfie, I look like I have a horse face: prominent nose, wide jaw, tiny ears. I can’t express myself well in 140 characters, and while on Facebook I’m overwhelmed with regrets that I didn’t take cuter pictures of my kids to garner the  likes they deserve.

Perhaps most tragic of all, I don’t even know how to zumba like all my friends. I’m not even totally clear on what “Zumba” is. Spell check seems to think it’s a cross between the rumba and a zombie, or perhaps a zombie doing the samba…

And I’d really like to say that this crisis is not one bit about aging, but more and more these past few years I’m coming face to face in the mirror with my nemesis:  unsightly girl. She shows up whenever I am sleep-deprived or having a messy cry or experiencing bad lighting. I’ve had to invest in expensive makeup, face creams, vitamins and quality shampoos just to bribe her to stay away. What’s next? Monthly manicures?  Botox? Laser vein treatment? I’m like the two-faced girl in that Seinfield episode “The Strike” who appears pretty or hideous depending on the shadows.

I mean if I could at least look like I have it together! Alas, my slender brows refuse to be groomed into lush perfection, and I can’t put my hair up without the aid of a scrunchy. I also blithely wasted years of my life not realizing that there were proper techniques for applying makeup, including such a thing as blending. Instead of a chic smoky eye with vintage red lip, I’m the wrinkly raccoon with two lazy eyes that got into the Kool-Aid.

Thankfully, my husband and four kids have been very supportive in my crisis. They assure me that I’m youngish, pretty and successful with coupons. That I might be a famous writer before I die. That I could join Pinterest and actually learn how to make Fettuccine Alfredo or smoke mussels.

I think I’ll listen to them while there’s still time.

My mid-life crisis could be just around the corner. 

My nemesis, a Smartphone

On Valentine’s Day I found my husband snuggled up in bed with his cell phone. I always knew they were having a sordid affair.

I thought he was still sleeping when I snuck back into our bedroom only to be greeted by the sight of his Smartphone cupped lovingly in his palm. On the universal day of love, that darn phone got the first expression of devotion.

He was blatantly romancing that phone, I tell you.

And I hate it. If I am ever left alone with that thing, I can’t vouch for the consequences of my jealous behavior, especially if there’s a toilet or taser gun around.  

Often of an evening, as I watch him caress its screen and stare at it in obvious appreciation, I ask myself, What does that thing have that I don't have? But too well do I know that it provides my husband with the kind of company that I cannot:

It never argues over directions. It provides them placidly, and he doesn’t even object when it redirects or gives orders
.

It doesn’t speak unless commanded, but when it does, it never nags or raises its ladylike voice in irritation.

It provides an endless array of apps and games for his amusement during those ever so long commercial breaks, plus access to all the knowledge the world has ever known whenever he’s feeling slightly bored or quizzical.

It entertains him for long stretches in the bathroom.

I simply can’t compete.

If I detest the phone, I’m certain it feels the same about me. Whenever I try to scroll across its screen with my thumb, it jumps, protests and encourages me to plagiarize websites by asking innocently if I want to copy their material, forcing me to hand it back to my husband. When I tap it with my nail, it mocks me as it bounces the icon around.

And it ignores me. My husband mysteriously doesn’t get my texts for sometimes a half hour or more after they’ve been sent. Maybe it considers messages from my flip phone beneath it.

Recently, I tried to call him at the store. He had his phone on him but though he had glanced at it only moments before, he didn’t hear the call. He only saw the notification that he had a voicemail. From me. Again.

That phone is laughing at me with a gleeful ringtone that I think I hear late at night while everyone else is asleep.

He says I should try to get along with it. Treat it nicer. Learn to use it properly. Speak to it with respect instead of calling it stupid. Maybe then it’ll give priority to my calls.

But I’m afraid the animosity is too great, and I feel the great woman-versus-technology battle brewing.

If ever my husband asks me to move over in bed, so the cell phone can rest from its hard day’s work someplace other than the floor or dresser, I’ll know it has arrived.

If ever he invites it to dinner, setting a place at the table with its charger, I’ll know the time has come to pull the plug on my rival.

If he ever tells me that he and the phone are going for a walk, just the two of them, on a moonlit night, well…

Perhaps I’m just a crazy, jealous girl who needs her own Smartphone, so I can understand the infatuation. Maybe I should hold my own fascinating conversations with Siri, share my most intimate moments with a a piece of technology, do all my best writing with the help of a tiny keyboard.

Nah.

I could never respect anyone who expects me to tell them what to do all the time, who doesn't even know how to show emotion.

I could never fall in love with a dummy.

Big Foot, Brad Paisley and an Honest Man

Love means never having to say you're sorry

My hormones ate the housework, the cheese and, possibly, the children

Messy Revenge

Someday my children will be adults or close enough, and I have no doubt that they will maintain a lovely, spotless home. This will either be because they do not yet have children, keep a maid, or run a tight shift of sanitary misery in their family.

OR it will be due to the thousands upon thousands of times in a row that I told them to clear dishes, put away shoes, and pick up toys and dirty clothes as they were growing up.

Apparently, parents must tell their children these things thousands – perhaps millions - of times for the kids to finally form good, cleanly habits. Someone should research exactly how long it takes, so we parents can better prepare for the frustration. Then we can compassionately intone, “Oh I understand, honey. I have to tell you at least 2,483,210 more times before you can finally learn to do it on your own, but I still want you to clear that cereal bowl. ”

Or perhaps, quite simply, our admonishments will only stick after they have left our homes, entered their own spaces, and finally decided that they care to live in decent, socially-acceptable conditions.

But, I assure you, all that cleanliness will go to pot when I come to visit my mature children for three weeks every year.

I will pointedly leave my dinner dishes on the table every night, deposit my stinky knee-highs wherever I please and – while visiting our sons -strongly encourage their dad to miss the toilet when he pees. Every single time.

That is called sweet revenge, and I’m looking forward to it.

Each week as I gaze upon the yellow puddles at the back and bottom of the guest commode, my gripes fester as I recall my boys’ cries of, “It wasn’t me! It’s him. Really!”, as they point toward their brother.

Each evening post-bedtime and every morning after school drop-off, I survey all the littered clothing and errant dishes and sticky surfaces, and I contemplate a future reversal of roles.

I think of my children asking me sweetly, as I have surely asked of them all these years, to please clear my dishes and put my smelly footwear in a hamper and ask their father not to make such a mess of the restroom. Then I dream of the selective hearing I will have, the dumb stares of incomprehension I will turn their way, and the many tired answers – after their fifth or sixth time of asking – I will give of, “Oh, I forgot.”

Am I a bitter mother? Oh, no! I love my little Punky Pants, each and every one of them. But if it weren’t for their handmade cards and notes of appreciation, insane ability to make me laugh and smile, and the fact that they do sometimes pick up dog poop, I would have given them notice years ago for not pulling their weight around here.

As it is, I must look to my revenge.

What's been going on: a mature room and a humor competition

After more than 14 years of marriage, my husband and I finally got a bedroom set.

Yeah, yeah. Big deal.

But, really, it is.

Before last week's delivery of our new furniture, our small dresser was one from my husband's childhood home. (And we thank you for giving it to us, Mom and Dad-in-law.) Our mattress sat on a box spring on the floor with not even a wall tapestry to offer it some dignity. Having our bed that humble way saved space, and for years it gave our nursing babies a safer place to rest by their mama in case of a roll off the bed (very rare!). Our other furniture was an old desk with silver sharpie and black marker embellishments, a file cabinet, and an old TV stand that held our shoes and discarded jeans.

Now our room is all grown up, hardly recognizable. "Whose room is this anyway?" Matthew and I ask each other. Beautiful. For a whole week I have been unable to stay away from this regal furniture. I stand or sit and simply stare in blatant admiration. I stroke its smooth finish. I admire its reflection in the large dresser mirror. I brush off the insolent dust. I am in love with this dark bedroom furniture.

We had waited so long - because of our wee ones - and my expectations had grown so high in that time, I was certain we would have to get rare and unusual bedroom furniture from some renowned antiques dealer or some artist in Jerome, Arizona who constructs things out of abandoned barns and mine frames. But we did the American thing and found our set at a furniture warehouse. Since its purchase I have scoured the furniture ads and sneered at their offerings; our bedroom set is surely the most beautiful of them all, even if it is mass produced.

So, you can understand now. This was a big deal for me. Not a necessity, but a big and beautiful deal.

Moving on to important things in an entirely different sense, I have been struggling for two weeks now - perhaps more - to write a humor entry for the Erma Bombeck writing competition that accompanies the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop I'm going to attend.

It has not gone well. Things are certainly not flowing. I am stuck in the detangling stage of my writing and, for the life of me, cannot find a cohesive or funny thing in the crazy, knotted threads of my thoughts. I wish that I could enter something I have already written. There are quite a few that I like a lot, and some that came quite easily. Inspiration was my friend then! But the entry must be pristine, unseen, a newborn babe not yet known to man. So here I am. Where are you now, o inspiration? It's a slog, believe me.

But I do recognize that any challenge, even this frustrating, is good for my craft. So whether my entry is worthy of a humor competition or not, I'm going to enter something.

Meanwhile, I have to tell you that, for my own good or ruin, I have checked out the past winners of this competition. I kid you not, they are hilarious. I laughed out loud at several of the pieces. I highly recommend checking them out if you need to lighten your load today. Here are some of my favorites:

Legacy

The Kotex Kid Strikes Again

Appreciating a Depreciating State of Things

Republican Hair

And you can find all the winners of past years HERE and determine your own favorites after a couple hours of laughter or smirks.

Well, now I must leave you, because after his papa stayed home last Friday from work and his oldest sister home from school and church with an entirely different but quite nasty virus, my youngest son has been throwing up all morning. No joke.

My poor little fella. I don't think Mama's sorry humor essays would cheer him up. I'd better work on that.

Martyr of a materialistic world

I tell people I'm a frugal Non-consumer, a minimalist, a proud re-user. This is my way of explaining stuff like our ratty recliner that smells like breast milk cheese, our table that looks like its surface was featured in a horror film, and the blocky, two-ton television that for a long time commanded our living room like a time machine designed to drop you back into the 1990's.

One of my oldest son's friends, over for a sleepover, asked why we didn't get a new, sleeker television.

I'm always ready to teach the "everything-released-this-minute-is-better" generation about not being a mindless consumer, so I replied, "Well, in this house we don't believe in replacing things unless they're broken. If they still work, even if they don't look that nice anymore, we keep them around until they break."

The friend responded, "Oh, is that why you've stayed in this house?"

Grrrrrrrrr.

I have lofty ideas about living small, re-purposing and conserving, but these lofty ideas somehow have not protected me from real world derision or from my own self-doubt. Am I really against consumerism, or am I just a homebody who hates to shop? Is it really unreasonable to want a bigger house for our large family, or do I just dread moving? Do I really support re-purposing or do I stink at picking out my own furniture?

I may say that I don't believe in buying things just to have something fresh, sleek, and odorless, that I don't believe in replacing my burgundy couch just because the dog threw up on it three months after I purchased it, but living with my haphazard, used and sometimes stinky possessions gives me anxiety about judgement every time a stranger walks in my door.

Similarly, I routinely say that we're blessed to have our cramped home, that we could stay here until we keeled over from the fumes of rotting furniture and still be incredibly blessed, but the moment I walk into another person's larger, grandly furnished castle, I am ready to pass out in pure, unadulterated envy. How do they make it look so nice? How on earth do they design and maintain their large home so beautifully?

By cavorting with those alluring devils called credit and consumerism, darn it!

New furnishings, tasteful art work that actually contributes to the design as a whole, expensive photography, home remodels, constant cleaning - I have sworn off all those things; they all cost money and require accumulating things. Except the cleaning. I would love to actually pay someone to do that, but only with the currency of cranberry scones and chocolate-chip cookies. And only if they cleaned up the kitchen afterwards.

I'm not a spender. I'm a saver. Not sure exactly what I'm saving for - the apocalypse, investment in the chocolate black market once the world runs out of cacao, a backpacking trip to Ayers Rock in Australia - but it's certainly not a fancy bedroom set. My husband and I have slept on a mattress on the floor and kept our clothes in his childhood dresser for many years now, and we're getting along just fine, thank you.

Yes, I know. Is that called being a non-consumer or just plain cheap? If my therapist and I ever figure it out, I'll let you know, but I certainly love to think I'm a martyr for my cause.

If I don't visit other people's homes, I am quite content with our choices, at peace in my little home. However, my envy in others' carefully crafted, newer, and bigger spaces is such that I am thinking about drafting a questionnaire to be given out to any potential new friend of mine or unvetted mother of one of my kids' playmates. Each question will require a simple yes or no answer.

Have you recently remodeled your home? Is this a habit of yours?
On your walls do you have thousands of beautiful, professional photos of your family in a studio setting looking happier than any human family could realistically be? 
Did you purchase your own decor? Or has it been thrown together from the castoffs of friends and family?
Does your home have a design or color theme that often changes based on magazine articles or the opinions of interior designers?
Do you regularly replace fixtures of any kind in your home, merely because they are "outdated"?
Is your home immaculate? Is that a facade for guests only or does it look that way at ALL TIMES?

Too many yeses quite frankly means that I cannot patronize your home. Not ever. I am really trying NOT to be a consumer here, and you're sorely tempting me with your grand lifestyle. I will become nauseous as I tell myself that I am a faithful representative of what matters and simultaneously swear never to allow you to see my own humble home.

I know I'm supposed to be poor, not just in habit, but in spirit, too. Unfortunately, I'm no saint, so let me know when you move to that tiny house to lesson your footprint on the planet. We'll stop by!

Simple Woman

I took my Ella to a birthday party, and, though the house was in an older neighborhood built in the 1980s, I could tell right away that its interior had been artfully redesigned.

"I really like your home," I said to the mother of Ella's friend, fishing for secrets. "Is this the way it was when you moved in?"

"Oh, no, no," she said with a laugh. Then she proceeded to tell me about the dividing walls and tiny halls that her husband had knocked down to open up the space and the special touches she had added to the decor. "Of course, this island wasn't here, and the kitchen ceiling was lower," she added. "We raised all the ceilings."

"Raised the ceilings!" I cried. "Did you do all that yourself?"

"Oh, it was easy," she assured me. "My husband watches videos on YouTube."

The world has left me behind! I'm a simple woman in an era populated by new Renaissance Men and Women created by YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook. Everywhere around me ordinary individuals are raising ceilings, making cakes that look like hedgehogs, dancing the tango with steps they learned online, orchestrating elaborate games and decorations for their kid's birthday party based on others' pictures, constructing headboards from old barn doors and busts of Elvis from Styrofoam, and plaiting their daughters' hair into hairstyles so fantastic that it makes Marie Antoinette look like a street rat who never heard of Pin boards.

As for me, I never even properly learned how to paint a room or frost a cake. My daughters fix their own hair in simple braids, buns and ponytails, following the instructions of our oral tradition. My husband has to teach me dance steps he learned in college. I am scrimping and saving in hopes of hiring someone to scrape off our popcorn ceilings. My kids' birthday decorations consist of one handmade sign on plain paper done with crayon - marker if we're feeling inspired. I can only raise the ceiling while dancing, and not well.

Ah, I feel my cave woman ways! As I wait for my kids to get out of school, I spread a newspaper across the steering wheel in car line and look through grocery ads I received in the mail. Other parents are uploading digital coupons on their smarty-pants phones, checking email, reading about Bruce Jenner and researching how to apply crown molding and install outdoor showers for the pool. I still have to log on to a computer to access my email, for goodness' sake, and half the time I don't know where my flip phone is, because I forgot to turn the volume up after church! I don't even know how to show my emotions on social media with pictures of bunnies and monsters.

Whenever I drive I am truly a lone ranger. If I get lost I am forced to roam around looking for a landmark, cursing my fate as I strain to read street signs with my astigmatic eyes. If I get too far off course, I simply pull over at a gas station and cry. Meanwhile, other drivers listen to a tiny know-it-all lady in their phones as she guides them to their destination in soothing tones.

Regardless, I'm afraid to go somewhere exciting, monumental or "hip" for fear of being clotheslined by selfie sticks in the hands of individuals under forty. As for me, I usually forget my camera, an object apart from my phone, so even if I ran into the Queen of England, I would have to ask her to hang around for a bit so I could make a quick sketch to remember the moment.

Honestly, I can't make it in this brave, ultra-connected world. Yes, there is probably an app for that, but I'm still not entirely certain what an app is, though I firmly believe it's something invented by the government to spy on us. At any rate I just can't keep up, so I have started going backwards. For Mother's Day my husband bought me several vinyl records, and I couldn't have been more thrilled as I listened to CCR's "Born on the Bayou". Dang, I wish I were on the Bayou with my old hound dog - uh, make that Yorkie - right now, or at least in the woods or mountains somewhere. I think I'll start stocking up on candles and kerosene lanterns and wait for a horse and buggy to go on sale. Maybe I can convince my city man to change careers and become a cowboy. I'll take my guitar with me to our humble, non-DIYed home with low ceilings and cramped halls, sit beneath the stars in a rocking chair on the broken-down porch, and play Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" all night long.

We'll be simple folk lost in nature, and we'll never watch a single video on YouTube.

Humble Pie Housekeeping

There was a strange man by our mailbox when we got home one Sunday. He coolly sat there watching us pull into our driveway, his white sedan near where weeds were choking the landscaping rocks. The guy kind of looked like my husband Matthew, but my husband was golfing that afternoon.

I was on to this guy - whatever he was trying to pull by resembling my husband. I told the kids, "Nobody move. Don't get out of the van until I see what he's about."

So we parked and didn't move until the man casually emerged from his vehicle, and my oldest son Berto cried, "It's Uncle Tim!"

Then the doors were pushed open, and the kids sprinted down the driveway. I had forgotten my husband said he might come by, and sirens whistled in my head as I desperately tried to think with a dumb smile on my face, WHAT DOES THE HOUSE LOOK LIKE?

Yes, what does the house look like? So many times in my life I've asked myself this sorry question. I've had my share of humble pie at the hands of unexpected visitors.

I mean, sure, when you're deadly ill, being rushed to the hospital, you can let the shame go reasonably well when your friends come to watch the kids in your smelly, disheveled home. After all, they can't judge you too harshly while your fate seems uncertain. And when the repair man comes for the AC unit, puts on his little booties so as not to mark your juice-smeared floor, and you realize you forgot to cover the duct tape that holds your couch together at the seam, you can trust you won't see him again...or you can logically explain that your couch hasn't reached its 15 years of mandatory service yet, and you're not cheap - really!- just frugal and resourceful. Then you can ask if he watches the Red Green show.

But when your brother-in-law walks into your littered home and sees St. Paddy's Day signs waving in the vented breeze, wishing him the luck of the Irish in late April, you have little option but to joke as you turbo-sweep and straighten the clutter about his feet, "Come back in July, and we'll have the Easter signs up!"

And he glibly responds with, "And by Christmas, Halloween!"

Worse is the exposure of your poor housekeeping methods at the hands of expected visitors. A dear friend comments every time she enters your door, "I'm so glad your home is cluttered like ours - stuff everywhere!", and you comfort yourself that you're a reality ambassador, spreading cheer and lowering expectations. Party guests innocently open the microwave, believing you maintain your appliances, and find what looks like a hideous laboratory from a horror film, so you try to show appropriate horror and blame it on the kids' experiments in blowing up spaghetti. Your father-in-law uses your master bath and is greeted by feminine unmentionables dangling from the doorknob (You're not overly proud of them; you just think they add that extra something to the décor.) and bits of mustache trimmings in the sink. Too late at night, you pull out the bed from the sleeper sofa to make it up for relatives, and they jump back with an, "Oh my gosh!" and then giggle and point at What Lies Beneath, awed by the magnitude of the decaying debris. You can grumble that you cleaned under there only a few weeks ago as you fetch the vacuum, but they won't believe you.

It's always something that you forgot to hide or clean. Humiliation is just a pair of thongs or a moldy, forgotten sippy cup away.

I used to be prouder of my home...before I had kids and lost a critical, maybe fatal, amount of sleep. I used to make huge, long lists, weeks before entertaining, that included such ridiculous items as these:

Mop floors

Dust ceiling fans and pictures

Polish table, chairs and hutch with olive oil/lemon juice

Mow lawn

Remove bras from bathroom doorknobs

Clear off entertainment center and book shelves

Now my list looks like this:

Try to sweep

Load dishwasher if possible

Hide laundry

Comb hair

Take a nap

Perhaps someday I'll get back to mopping floors with more than wet paper towels stuck to the bottoms of my feet, polishing furniture until I can see my haggard face in it and scrubbing bathrooms every Tuesday morning, but right now I'm tired, and sick of society telling me what the perfect house should look like. Houses come in all shapes and sizes, darnit, and different levels of disorder, decay and maltreatment by dwellers, and I'll take mine as it is, so lived in it's beautiful, with a slice of humble pie to stay.


This post was originally published on this blog in July 2013.

Happily Published Elsewhere

On this blog I have not done a very good job of sharing when my pieces are published elsewhere. I need to get better about that and start supporting more fully those who publish my work, because I appreciate their support.

So a huge shout out goes to Teri Rizvi who founded a website in honor of the late, great Erma Bombeck at the University of Dayton: Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop. Teri has accepted many of my posts for publication, and I am very grateful to have my work appear on such a wonderful, humorous, Erma-honoring site where many accomplished writers appear regularly. Sometimes I feel intimidated, because, really, I am being published alongside these talented people in a place dedicated to one of the greatest humor writers of all time, but I am supremely grateful for the opportunity to be in their company.

My latest post to be featured there actually explains how I got the title for this blog from something my dad uttered nearly every day to his kids for years while we were growing up. You can read all about it HERE. Please share!

The latest post of mine to be published is quite the opposite of a humor post. It is an exceptionally personal faith post. In fact it is so personal that sometimes I groan to think that people I don't know or barely know are reading it. Goodness, people I love madly who may have trouble understanding it, because it is from a decidedly Catholic perspective, are reading it. Nevertheless, it was such a profound experience that I needed to write about it, and my husband suggested I submit it for publication. In it I confess wholeheartedly that I am a sinner, one who often battles discouragement, and that it is by the grace of God that I stand. That post appears at CatholicMom.com and is called Jesus Always Has Our Back.

Thank you, readers and friends, for supporting my endeavors to become a better writer. I am always grateful for your readership and comments. God bless!

Oh, the Horror!

I don't like chemicals. My favorite products to clean with are vinegar, baking soda and lemons. I refuse to use herbicide on weeds instead of pulling them (when I can get to them). I combat ants with red pepper flakes around my baseboards, and crickets hop around my home in the summer and spring unmolested, because I do despise pesticides. But even I have a chemical threshold, my friends, and after 12 years in this house sans professional pest control, it's been reached. I am now ready to spray chemicals all over my home while cackling, rubbing my hands gleefully and doing a jig.

This is all because I don't believe the words, "You've got my back, right?", should ever be uttered by someone preparing to enter their kitchen at night.

I speak of roaches, enormous roaches.

In speaking about them while remembering the critters encountered during our childhoods back East, an acquaintance said to me, "The roaches are going to inherit the earth."

They can inherit it, but would they mind waiting until we're gone? Long, long gone. We don't know where they've been....but we can guess. They're hideous and huge - none smaller than a mouse, I swear. And these mothers of all cockroaches do not deserve the title of "American" Roach, even if they do have a soft spot for potato chips and bologna sandwich crumbs.

The first time I saw a roach in Arizona, I was pregnant, and it was crawling out of the drain of our apartment’s bathroom sink. Matthew thought I was going into labor when I screamed bloody murder. When we moved to this house, I didn't see one for years, not until that fateful evening. But I was prepared to live and let live, comforting myself that they only appeared when it was cold outside, or the city sprayed for them. But not long ago we started seeing one every several weeks, and then I started seeing them any time my hired assassin and husband, Matthew, was absent. Paranoia gripped me. They sensed I feared and detested them. They were after me.

It felt like a cockroach Reign of Terror. The sightings became regular, and my reactions were all the same: scream, jump back several feet and point with shaking finger. Then one traumatic night I heard them. Matthew and I were watching TV, and I heard a very strange sound indeed, a humming/hissing noise. I went to the kitchen to flip on the light, and there were two cockroaches fighting, hissing at each other. After my command for Matthew to smash the heck out of them, I researched this phenomenon on the Internet, and the information quite plainly stated that the only roaches who hiss are the Madagascar variety. Though I risk your disbelief and the boycotting of my home by dear friends, I tell you what I heard was hissing. And so, obviously, American roaches have evolved, or we have an invasion from Madagascar.

My mental health deteriorating, I had to call pest control, because if things had progressed much further Matthew and I would have been dozing outside our kitchen all night, enormous raid cans in our hands, ready to annihilate our enemies with a flick of the light, getting better at the draw until we were the fastest in the West.

As it was I became a restless sleeper who compulsively flipped on my kids’ bedroom lights late at night. Then one night I dreamed of entering the laundry room and confronting a foot-long roach. Awaking from this horror, I whimpered for Matthew to hold me.

Honestly, I'm surprised horror movies haven't been written about them. If we have outrageous movies about man-eating ants, a plague of grasshoppers, the Blob, surprisingly agile giant spiders, created monsters, Amazon snakes, and zombies, I think we should address the very real horror already among us. Before anyone thought of zombies, I'm betting cockroaches had already been around millions of years, waiting to terrorize humans once they evolved. Roaches are far worse than imagined zombies, anyway, because we know they really would eat our brains if they got a fair chance.

Of course, if the hideous creatures did find their way into cinema, I fear I would not survive the screening - especially if any 3D technology were involved. They'd find me keeled over with those silly paper glasses eschew on my already nerdy, four-eyed face. However, I did happen to think of some ideas. If they get made and you see them, remember: keep your popcorn close, but keep your Raid closer.

The Roach Bride or ROUSes: Watch Out! This Bride is a Bridezilla of immense, hideous proportions. We hope she fries in the Fire Swamp.

Sleeping With the Enemy: In a tiny, rent-controlled New York apartment, a woman routinely eats on her bed/couch for lack of seating. There's only one place for the roaches to go for their crumbs, someplace dark and warm: beneath the sheets.

The Hunt For Raid October: In a world overrun by cockroaches, can a Russian submarine with the world's last known supply of bug spray spark the next World War??

Night of the Living Dead: A mainstream American city sprays its sewers with a fancy new pesticide designed to eliminate the scourge of humanity, and it seems to do a very satisfactory job if its piney scent is any indication. The townspeople believe the buggers are all gone, but as night descends, the whole neighborhood must rally to combat something not quite roach, not quite dead. They're baaaaaack!

As for my personal horror story? Pest control came. I am now considering sending my exterminator flowers every Valentine’s Day, enormous chocolate bunnies each Easter, and a nice gift card at Christmas. You cannot underestimate the power of a few chemicals to buy peace of mind.

 

Colds, Batteries and Bunky Boards - Isn't It Romantic?

On Friday my husband came home from a business trip, and, deprived of my fair company for far too long, he rushed home to my arms - after getting his oil changed. While waiting he was actually going to buy me overpriced chocolates, but the line was long with hapless men who had no clue what they were getting. So my man came home, and I offered him my cheek, because I had a nasty cold, passed on from our rotten children. He then sprawled on the recliner, having gotten up at 4:30 am, and watched a MeTV marathon. I languished on the couch, giving him a watery look of longing every half hour or so.

On Saturday morning - Valentine's Day at last! - the battery died in our van as we were leaving for Matthew and the kids' soccer game; Matthew flexed his muscles and jumpstarted it with his manly cables and SUV. The game went well, except for the fact that we tied an old nemesis again and some moms from the other team, upset over perceived fouling on our part and probably high on milk chocolate kisses, challenged a few of our dads to a fight, one of them throwing her fancy phone down as a sort of dueling gesture. (I missed all this.) Leaving the field of goodwill, the van wouldn't go again, so we begged friends to aid us. Matthew, afraid to stop the van, very authoritatively and romantically demanded, "Get out!" as we passed the house, kicking the kids and me out of the vehicle on his way to the dealership to replace the battery. He spent a few hours there, contemplating how he was coming down with our cold x 10 because of his plane-weakened immune system and his reentrance into a house of germs.

Meanwhile I was home yelling at the kids, having inherited the BeEverAngryandRagewhileSick Syndrome, otherwise known as BEARS, from my dad. In between my bouts of extreme irritability I cleaned the house, told my kids to stop being bums and searched for the illusive lasagna recipe I was supposed to make for V-Day dinner.

Matthew came home, and not intimidated in the least by my out-of-control BEARS, shuttled the family back out of the house to shop for bunk beds. After hastily navigating several stores and eager salespeople, we finally realized the first store had a far better price then anyone, so in conclusion to weeks of waffling, we decided to purchase it. We really liked the sticker price until the salesman said casually, "Now, you know about bunky boards, right?"

I might have said, "No, is it some kind of torture device?"

He then showed us how without bunky boards the so-called "bunk beds" could not actually support the mattress, something which any reasonable person would assume they had been designed to do. But no, as I understand it, without bunky boards we risked our top kid falling on our bottom kid or we risked mattresses that could turn into hospital beds without all the fancy controls, folding our kids up slowly into precious upside down caterpillars.

Then we had to choose a mattress, but because the board shock had gotten to us first, we settled on a mattress that could possibly be viewed as a torture device by sensitive adults. Matthew, always the pragmatist, said it wasn't that bad. I comforted myself with the fact that the young uns' backs would surely recover someday, at least when they left home for college, and we could always buy a foam topper in the future.

The salesman cordially invited us to sit for the final total. He graciously told us delivery would cost us another $69. We then told him we would pick up the bed, board and mattress ourselves at which point he informed us that they didn't keep the merchandise in store. No! They kept it in a warehouse so far out west in the virtual wilds of this metropolis, that it could only be delivered to the store for a price.

Weary, ill, and stripped of all romance, we were about to drop out of the deal until he said he could waive the charge.

At home, our pockets whistling with the breeze as the money blew out of them, I told Matthew flatly, "I can't find my recipe, so I have no clue what's for dinner."

Not about to splurge on even the most economical take-out, he began a frantic search for it. I then finally remembered where I put it, and he insisted on helping to make it until I realized I didn't pick up fresh basil. We had bean, green chili and cheese burritos for supper, because the romance had so far removed itself from us that we no longer worried about gassiness.

The next morning our main sewer pipe backed up. I prayed the plumber would come in time for all of us to shower and leave for church. He did, and we bid a fond adieu to more of our money, took hasty showers, and made it to church on time. Then Matthew took a long nap in hopes of recovery from the weekend while I read the paper. Sadly, I had to wake him rather abruptly, so he could climb a ladder with a long, heavy, dangerous pole to poke some kid's football out of the high branches of our gargantuan eucalyptus tree.

Needless to say, there were no amorous interludes this weekend. The most romantic moment happened when we were watching episode 7 of Downton Abbey, and I cried because Robert's dog Isis is dying. Matthew glanced at me for a moment, his big brown eyes shining with something between sympathy and humor, before going back to his phone.

Then I exclaimed, "That was the best episode ever, don't you think?"

He responded a little too exuberantly, "Oh, it was!"

I think he was being sarcastic, the sexy devil. Isn't it romantic?

Identity Crisis....On Paper

Signature rehab. That is what I need, and I need it now.

By that strange statement I do not mean I need to go to an extra-fancy, personally-tailored rehab for some well-researched issue. I mean I need to seriously go to signature rehabilitation where I figure out how to properly sign my own name in a hurry...with style. After all, if I haven't worked out how to write my name nicely by 35 years of age, it's time to call in the professionals. Perhaps I need some tough-love boot camp where they make you do manual labor, take cold showers and eat nothing but stale grilled-cheese sandwiches until you straighten your cursive alphabet out.

Every time I sign my kids' agendas in the morning, I stare in horror at my handiwork, dreading what the teachers must be saying in the break room about how my kids can't get their mother to sign their agenda but have to enlist their little brother's help instead.

I'm so paranoid that I've asked my daughter Ana, "Has your teacher mentioned my signature? Does she know it's mine? What did she say?"

"Nothing, Mama...really. You're fine."

Yeah right.

I'd like to own my own signature, be proud of its "uniqueness", but as it is I really don't know who I am. I just can't figure out what it says. It could be my name - at least a couple letters from it (like the H and a...uh....hmmmmm) - or it could be some lost orc-speak from Middle Earth that could pull the whole world under the power of the one ring.

Scratch that. It's not pretty enough. Even an orc, twisted elves as they are, would be repulsed by it.

Every time I scrawl my X on the line of our tax forms or a check, my husband grunts in pure disgust. Each and every time. Yes, that is very ungallant of him, I agree, and you would think he had gotten used to its illegibility by now. I really can't call him on it, though, because "to love for beautiful cursive or for chicken scratch" wasn't in the vows. I probably shouldn't provoke him, either, because if he sees my signature too many more times, it could be bad.

I recently applied for a passport, and the forms asked for my "legal signature". I froze, started to sweat and stared blankly at the Postal Lady. Honestly I don't think my signature is real or "legal" in any language. Even if the US government accepts it, I could be dragged to the basements of foreign airports, detained by strange men with funny accents as they slam the table in front of me and shout ominously, "Our patience has run out! Now who are you really? Tell us what this says!" Covering my face with my hands and sobbing, "I don't know! I haven't known for years!" probably won't cut it.

If I'm to be brutally honest with myself, it's not just about the signature. My handwriting is atrocious in general. When I was in high school, I'm certain my teachers couldn't read my writing more than half the time and only gave me As because I did well on multiple choice tests.

As I persevered in writing a paper in my excruciatingly hideous scrawl one day in History, the pretty boy in the desk behind scolded me with, "Your handwriting looks like a man's!"

I didn't see what was so wrong with that at the time. It wasn't beautiful or feminine with soft curved letters or artistic curlicues, but what's wrong with writing like a man? Of course, judging by the tone in which he said it, what I think he meant to say was, "You write like a Neanderthal man, and not one who reproduced with modern humans!"

And that brings me to the love letters I wrote to my husband before we lived in the same state. He asked me to send them to his grandmother's address, because he was too embarrassed for his roommates to think he had an ape for a pen pal. His grandma opened a letter from me by mistake one day, and she apologized profusely. Matthew laughed and told her not to worry one bit. Then he held up the missive to show her.

"You wouldn't be able to read this anyway," he insisted.

She agreed, shaking her head and no doubt bemoaning the type of unruly girls her grandson insisted on courting.

But you have to give my man props for that. He spent a good deal of time deciphering each letter before he wrote back....or at least I assume so. Maybe that's why I received far fewer letters than I wrote; he couldn't quite make out my words or my feelings.

But at least I signed them.

Ghost of Behavior Past by Daniel Hylton

Throughout the late '70s and into the early '80s, while my marriage was new and my children were young, I worked for a large Southeastern construction company.

I was good at my job and I made a lot of money.  A lot of money - especially for those years. There were times when I would have two or three thousand dollars worth of un-cashed checks in my wallet.

By 1984, however, I had apparently tired of being successful and making prodigious sums of money.  I wanted something less.

I decided to leave my high-paying job constructing transcontinental power lines and try my hand at - of all things - songwriting.  So, I moved to rural Tennessee, about an hour west of Nashville.  Now, because one needs free time to pursue songwriting, it is very difficult to maintain steady employment.  As a consequence of this fact, I odd-jobbed, taking temporary work where I could find it, gradually descending into poverty, dragging my young wife and children with me.  (Why Karen did not leave me for a man with a job and a fully functioning brain, taking the children with her, I will never fully understand.)

Desperate to combine my inexplicable need to be creative with my obviously explicable need for cash, I began to enter the various songwriting contests hosted by the nightspots around Nashville.

And I won a few, sometimes winning ten or twenty dollars, enough for milk, bread, and maybe a pair of shoes for one of the little ones.  Usually, though, the prize was something insubstantial, such as getting your name written on the wall in magic marker, or a free bottle of beer.

Then I heard about this contest on Music Row itself, at a more upscale joint called The Dive.

The winner would get one hundred dollars.

One Hundred Dollars!

Now, I know that doesn't sound like much now, but back then a hundred bucks paid for most of a month's rent or bought groceries for the family for a whole week.  And the contest, at the time, was being held weekly, so there would be a continuing chance to win.

On the appointed night, I put on my best pair of dark blue Levis, my crispest white shirt, tuned up my guitar, and headed into town to The Dive.

There were a lot of really good songwriters present that night, and I heard many tunes that made me think I might be way out of my league.  I was so nervous that my bladder sent me scurrying to the men's room again and again.  Nonetheless, when they called my name, I screwed up my courage and went up on stage which was occupied by just a stool and a mike.  I sat down with my guitar on my knee and spun to face the crowd.  For a moment, I thought they'd all left the building.  You see, though the stage was fully lit, the patrons sat in the dimness beyond the footlights - and the lights shining on me were so bright that I could barely make out the room, let alone individuals in the crowd, which was the largest group of people that I had ever confronted when armed only with a musical instrument.

I mumbled something by way of introduction and immediately swung into my first song, briskly setting pick to guitar string.

I looked out, opened my mouth -

- and forgot the words to the song.  A song which I wrote.

There followed then a long - way too long - awkward pause while, like the proverbial deer, I gazed into the headlights of oncoming disaster and frantically searched the dark recesses of my skull for phrases that I recognized and might possibly utter in tune-like fashion while strumming a guitar.

And then, as the disapproving silence thickened, the words finally came.

"Alrighty, folks," I stated brightly, affecting what I hoped would be a magnificent recovery, and once again put pick to string.  "Here we go....."

One strum, and - Boing! - the pick slipped from my fingers, ricocheted underneath the strings, and disappeared through the sound hole into the dark interior of my guitar.  I looked down, stunned.

And my brain froze.

Forgetting in that terrible moment that there were two or three spare picks in my pocket, and sadly forgetting that there were also a couple of hundred people immediately to my front, I upended the guitar, holding it aloft, shaking it above my head while I desperately tried to dislodge the pick from the black hole whence it had gone.

Sporadic chuckles arose here and there from among the crowd as I continued to wildly agitate the instrument over my head, willing the pick to appear.  Then, as my struggles continued unabated and my hope for a rescued pick remained unrealized, more chuckles, giggles, and outright laughter swelled from the shadowed gathering.

That awful collection of sound caused my brain to lurch forward for one brief moment.  And in that moment, I remembered the extra picks in my pants pocket.  Turning a deaf ear to the scattered giggles and the occasional rude suggestion, I thought bravely - I can still salvage this.

Lowering the guitar to one side, holding it by the neck, I stood, reaching into my pocket.

And the room erupted.

Gales of laughter beat upon me like the waves of a storm-wracked ocean.

Puzzled by the reason for this obvious - and horrifying escalation - of my humiliation, I stared dumbly out at the shadowy crowd for a long moment; and then I looked down.

And the reason for the raucous shouts of laughter became immediately obvious.

Evidently, on my last trip to the men's room, I had neglected to zip up the fly in my blue jeans.

Protruding from that most private of all clothing apertures, extending stiffly outward for five or six inches, was the crisply starched tail of my best white shirt.

The crowd, by that time, had decided that I was not in fact a contestant, but rather the comedic relief.

I, in that same moment, decided that I was done, finished, my short-lived "career" over.

Turning, I fairly leapt from the stage and ran for it, pausing in the artists' room just long enough to sling my guitar into its case, and then I bounded for the side door.  I was running like a rabbit by the time I reached the parking lot.

Three-quarters of an hour later, utterly dejected, having had forty-five long, miserable minutes to ponder one of the most embarrassing evenings of my life, I pulled into the driveway of our modest home.  Karen met me at the door.  I could do nothing but stand there, head down, guitar case in hand, my heart and my dreams squashed like insects upon the walkways of life.

"How did it go?"  She asked - and then I managed lift my head and she saw my face.  "Honey - what happened?"

The kids were in bed, so I put my guitar away while she made us a cup of cocoa; then we went into the living room and sat down on the couch, where I stared down at the carpet and glumly related to her the events of the evening.

It was about the time that I was telling of the unzipped fly and protruding shirt-tail that I heard the stifled guffaw emanating from the general direction of the love of my life.

Startled, I looked over at her.

You know how it is when you want to laugh but know that you shouldn't?  Like when you're at a wedding, or at a funeral, or in church, or like when your beloved husband is laying out the sad details of his recent and raw humiliation, and something just strikes you as too funny?  And the eruption of good humor is abruptly way too urgent to contain or suppress?

You get a terrible case of the internal giggles, your shoulders shake, the corners of your mouth decide that they simply must turn upward despite your best efforts at maintaining decorum, and your eyes water.  Yeah, we all know what that is like.  It has happened to us all.

Well, that was my gentle and genteel wife as I told my tale of woe.

Apparently, she could see the whole thing very clearly with her mind's eye.

She tried to be sympathetic, God bless her; she really did try.

Alas, the droll aspect of the whole sordid affair was too much for her, and eventually she had to gain release.  To this day, however, I am not convinced that it was absolutely necessary it devolve into her lying back against the cushions, gasping for breath as she pointed at me and giggled uncontrollably.  The only consolation I have is that - though she won't admit it - I'm pretty sure she wet herself.

Oh, well.

There is an epilogue to this sorry tale.  Two, actually.

A week later, I tapped a reservoir of courage, went back to The Dive, sang my three songs - and won.  And they had raised the stakes.  First prize was now one hundred and fifty bucks.  The next day, to celebrate, we took the kids to McDonalds for Happy Meals.

The second epilogue is not quite so uplifting as the first, at least for me.  You see, every now and then - as recently as just the other day, in fact - I will find Karen leaning over a counter or sprawled over the back of a chair, fairly convulsing with good humor.  Looking up at me with streaming eyes, she will tender the question between eruptions of giggles.

"Remember that time you went into Nashville to sing in that contest?"

Yes.  Yes, I do.

And it's still not funny.

One doesn't require ghosts, I guess, when one is haunted by his past.



Daniel Hylton is the author of the recently completed Kelven's Riddle series.

Ella Belle, Birthday Girl, and the Grandma Thingy (how her Mama needed it!)

A roller skating rink is where people go to experience all the joys of by-gone, dangerous childhood. You know, the childhood their grandparents told them about right after the old folks got done snickering at their grandkids for wearing knee pads and helmets to ride a trike on the sidewalk. Where else in this modern world can a kid go and speed around on wheels with clearly terrified or insane peers without a parent shoving a helmet on their heads? Where else can big kids and adults go to take out smaller people without so much as a by your leave or a why aren't you wearing pads then? All the roller rink needs to be really nostalgic fun is a few rusted tin cans with sharp lids for a match of kick/roll the can and a selection of spinning hub caps to throw in ultimate, take-out-a-sibling roller blade Frisbee.

Gabriella requested that we go to a rink for her birthday. I was a bit surprised, because she has never truly skated in her life. Santa brought her skates a couple years ago, but it turned out being hard work for the rest of us. We had to pull her around the living room between us as if she were a mobile queen; it was the only way she'd use them.

She wrote a letter before we went out for her birthday activity. The gist of it was something like this:

Dear Mama and Dada, Thanks for letting me go to Skate---- for my birthday, and thank you for not making me use the grandma thingy. Love, Gabriella

Oh, you're using the grandma thingy, alright, I thought as I smiled at her lovely little face. That was what I thought until we got to the rink and saw how much they charged people to have an illusion of safety. It was $5 a skate buddy to "help you balance" and increase your chances of survival, and that after a whopping $6 a person just to walk in the deathtrap! Add the skate rentals for a family of six, and Matthew and I had decided that no one needed a skate buddy; we'd probably survive with barely a broken tailbone, busted kneecap and couple fractured wrists between the lot of us.

It didn't take long for me to feel disillusioned and bitter, however, as I crawled along the concrete wall with Ella at .01 miles an hour, watching Matthew attempt to pull along four-year-old Daniel who very much resembled a terrified, floppy-limbed rag doll with no control over its fate. Ana and Berto, on roller blades, were the only ones having a decent time.

I got off the rink with Daniel and tried to teach him to skate on the carpeted area where he fell on his bum with less fear, and Berto came over to encourage and help. Ella was soon off the rink, too, complaining that she was already tired, but the pinched, anxious look in her eyes and frowning mouth gave her away. Meanwhile, I was nervously contemplating getting back on the rink with all the crazies, picturing myself falling forward and skidding wildly into some unsuspecting kid as I took at least one of my own poor children down with me. I paled and cowered at the thought. Then I got angry. Who were these people to charge $5 for the right to keep all your limbs intact, to keep your children safe during a daredevil activity for which you had already paid more than you deemed reasonable? It would be like the county fair charging you to lock the metal lap bar on the roller coaster!

So I charged up (well, carefully rolled) to the skate-rental desk and told them flatly that we were there for our sweet girl's 7th birthday and meant to have a good time if it killed us, but we thought it would be the demise of at least three of us if we did not get a Skate Buddy grandma thingy right away! Then I offered to turn in my skates and pay the difference to get the limb-saving contraption constructed of PVC pipes. The nice young girl looked in my eyes and saw the desperation that could quickly boil over into full-blown hysteria, and she offered me a skate buddy, no charge.

Aha! I went over to Ella, triumphant, only to discover that she far preferred the assistance of her 10-year-old sis, Ana, who had already taken her round the rink and shown her how to safely slow down by crouching gently without using your fingers to scrape the wall in terror as Mama had done.

So Matthew took Danny Sam out with the Buddy, and I went out to try my feet at freedom. Instead of going .01 mph, I went a terrifying .015 mph, and the horrible realization struck me that I was a total wimp who began to hyperventilate when she couldn't touch the wall. I tried to slow down and help some poor kids who biffed it, but I could only choke out an, "Are you alright...alright...alright?" as I skidded slowly away backwards, forgetting my skates had brakes.

When Berto, developing blisters from his blades, sat out with Daniel, my man Matthew came to claim me for a slow dance on the skate floor. No doubt he hoped to recreate one of our first dates when he took me skating and held my hand the whole time, pulling me towards him and being rewarded with a big smile. Fat chance! He tried to make it a modestly-paced dance, but he went too fast for me, who had to swallow multiple butterflies that were flittering up from her stomach. Though it pained me to see him skate away - a little too rapidly and gratefully, if you ask me - I released the love of my life in a panic and hurriedly flung myself at the one I was really longing for: the sweet, sweet wall.

No one wanted to skate with Mama anymore. Daniel didn't even want to go out with me and the "buddy", so he took it out with Papa, and then I took turns taking it out alone when he was resting. Apparently, my hunchbacked form was embarrassing, but though my Ella was too mortified to be seen with the grandma thingy, I certainly was not. I saw Berto shake his head at me as I passed him, so I smiled broadly, pointed a finger at my boy as if to say, This lap's for you, son, and waved exuberantly.

In the end everything worked out. Ella skated sometimes with Papa but more often with Ana. Daniel skated with Berto but more often with Papa. And I was free to be a complete coward. At the end of our little family outing, the only injuries sustained were a couple nasty blisters on Berto's feet.

I don't know what Ella will remember about her 7th birthday excursion, but I'll remember how she skated with her big sister several times and how Ana was so patient with her, going slowly when she wished to go fast, her brown hair whipping out behind her. I'll remember Berto being the great big brother he always is to Ella and Daniel on such occasions even though his feet marred the experience for him. I'll remember how we all skated together for the first time on Ella Boo's birthday and how my kids learned not to trust Mama when death/skating is on the line!

And though it made me lonely for our younger years, I'll think often of how darn sexy my tall, lean man looked zipping around the rink with his million-dollar smile, sometimes pushing Ella or Daniel and sometimes racing Ana or Berto as they tried their best to keep up with him.

Losing It In Tandem

Guest post by Daniel T Hylton

I am shocked - shocked! - to know that I am sixty years old. And my lovely wife, though she doesn't look it, is fifty-nine, for crying out loud.

Wasn't it just last week that we were teen-aged lovers, standing beneath the lilacs in front of her father's house, stealing kisses as her brothers made the porch light flicker?

Alas - no, we are no longer so young.  But, really; how did sixty get here so fast?

This year, I was made to know my age, like it or not.  Back in March, three days before my sixtieth birthday, I was squatting down, watching my grandson play a game on his bedroom floor.  My legs began to ache, so I stood up - too quickly.  I blacked out and over I went, performing an exquisite face-plant on the carpet, breaking my nose, three teeth, my jaw in two places, and my skull in one.  These fractures, though of a hairline nature and consequently inoperable, nonetheless allowed an infection in which temporarily ruined my health and destroyed nearly all of 2014 for me.  I have never been so sick for so long in the whole course of my life.  Sixty, apparently, for me, anyway, arrived like an out-of-control locomotive.

Now, my lovely wife has never had a good memory, nor an ability to manage time.  These aren't new developments, no product of age; they were true when I met her - and she was seventeen at the time.  So, I always figured that if she started to slip mentally, I might not notice, at least for a while.  What concerns me now is that I might not notice her starting to lose it because I'm beginning to slip.

I have always possessed a great, precise, and wonderfully dependable memory.  Don't take my word for it; ask anyone that knows me.  It's been a blessing throughout my life.  Now, however, I'm a bit concerned.  Here; allow me to illustrate with a story which is, sadly, true.  A few months ago.....

In July, we went to a family reunion which was held at a large hotel in Nevada.  Karen and I stayed in the "new part" of the hotel, a section that had recently been added on to the main building.  Because of this we were required to take two different elevators in order to get to our room which was on the fourth floor, one from the lobby in the "old part" up to the second floor where we would then angle around a corner and board a second elevator to go on up to our room.

In my defense, it must be noted that both hallways - the one on the second floor, and ours, up on the fourth, look exactly alike, same carpet, same mirrors, same paintings, same everything.  Bear that in mind, if you would.  Besides that, remember, I had just busted my head on the bedroom floor a scant four months earlier.

One morning, Dad and Mom wanted to meet their children in the coffee shop by the lobby for donuts and hot beverages.  Karen, who had worked very hard right up to the moment we left on the trip, was given leave to sleep in while I went down to join my parents, brothers, and sisters.

We visited, laughed, and talked while consuming way too many donuts and enjoying cappuccinos, lattes, and the like.  Finally, after a couple of hours, I decided to go up and retrieve my lovely wife so that we might begin the day's festivities.

I got on the elevator, went up to the second floor and, still chuckling at my older brother's anecdotes, slipped off the elevator and went down the hall to "our" room.

Now, we were in room 4017.  Leaving the elevator, forgetting to angle around the corner, I went straight down the look-alike hall to the look-alike door of 2017, pulled out my room card and then stared in disbelief at the key slot to our room.

There was a blue "guest has checked out, please clean" tab stuck into it.

Well, more than a bit annoyed, I indignantly yanked that sucker out and slid in my room card. 

Nothing happened.  No green light telling me to go on in.  Nothing but red. 

Even more annoyed, I knocked, calling for Karen to answer.

Nothing.

Knocked again.  Harder.  Yelled again.  Louder.

Tried the key card again.

Nothing.  

Knocked again.  Yelled again.  No answer.

I was really annoyed now - and a bit worried.  The whole situation was beginning to get me rattled.  

I mean, locked out of my room, sign says we've checked out, my wife won't answer.  

What's Going On?

I was rapidly climbing the emotional scale toward high dudgeon.  I looked around.  Two doors away, one of the ladies that do housekeeping was standing by her cart, frowning at my display of distress.

"My wife is in there - we haven't checked out!"  I told her, too loudly.  In my irritation, I waved the blue tab at her.  "This thing is wrong!  We have not checked out!"

Her frown deepened.  She tried to explain to me that such matters weren't really in her purview - and that I needed to go down to the front desk to straighten it out.

This only heightened my sense of confusion and worry.

"No!"  I yelled.  "Listen to me!  My wife is in that room!  We have not checked out!"  

Way too loud.

Her eyes widened and she slipped back into the room she had been cleaning.  And shut the door.  And threw the safety bolt.

Just then, I remembered my cell phone.  I whipped it out and dialed Karen's cell.  And - thank God - she answered.

"Honey - open the door!"  I told her.  "I'm right outside and my key card won't work."

"Okay," she replied.  "I'll be right out."

Relieved, I hung up and waited expectantly by the door.

Nothing.

Minutes passed.  Where was she?  What in the world could she be doing?

What in Heaven's name is going on?

While once more rapping my by-now severely bruised knuckles yet again upon the door, yelling for Karen to Open Up, For Crying Out Loud - my eye fell upon the number, and, at last, my brain flipped over and slid into its proper slot.  

Crap, I thought, crap.  What an idiot - and an obnoxious one, to boot.

Glancing guiltily toward the room that sheltered the terrified housekeeper, I skulked down the hall, slunk around the corner, and took the elevator up to the fourth floor.

Where my key card, unsurprisingly, worked.

Karen was safely inside, sitting on the bed, looking up at me as I came in with what can only be described as an exceedingly puzzled expression on her pretty face.  I swear, at that moment, she looked like she was hearing the Twilight Zone theme song blaring loudly and insistently in her head. 

"I opened the door," she said.  "Where did you go?"

"I was in the wrong hallway," I explained.  "Why didn't you call me back on my cell?"

She blinked.  "The wrong hallway?"

"Yeah, I got off the elevator on 2 and, you know how the halls all look the same, and I forgot that I had to get on another to come up to 4, and, anyway - why didn't you call me back?"

She stared at me for a moment longer, still trying to process my explanation, and then frowned down at the cellphone in her hand.

"Because I couldn't remember Nevada's area code," she said.

I stared back at her and felt my residual frustration evaporate and a grin take possession and spread out over my features.  "Honey," I replied gently, "our phones are not from Nevada.  They're from Texas - like us.  Besides, all you have to do is activate the one that says 'Daniel'."

"Oh," she said, then.  "Yeah."

When it finally dawned on the both of us what had just happened, well, we laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and.....

"We can never tell anyone," she giggled, wiping her eyes.

"I know."

She grew serious then.  "No - I mean you can never tell anyone - okay?"

"Okay," I agreed.

And I won't, either, as long as my memory holds.

Birthday Attitude, Spoiled and Sweet Romance

This month I turned 35, and I decided at last to become a diva. It's a late start, I know. It's also a little challenging, because I have never dyed my hair, use a blow dryer and curling iron only on Sundays, am too cowardly to use liquid eyeliner, don't buy designer clothes (not even at reduced prices), and have never in my whole life - brace for this! - gotten a manicure or pedicure.

But true divas know that you can keep your naturally flat, boring hair, eclectic style, smeary eyes, and uncured nails and still knock the town sideways with your attitude. And I've got that in spades - especially at certain times of the month. Ask my husband.

So I prepared for my diva birthday by throwing out my previous down-to-earth plans for hiking and picnicking with my family and instead demanding that Matthew take me out to an ultra fancy restaurant, one like we have never known in all our married life. Though previously my frugal tendencies might have gotten in the way, I was about to turn 35, an age known for reckless enjoyment of surf and turf dinners.

I threatened to get my hair professionally done for the occasion. Matthew didn't flinch. He said I could get a mani/pedi, too - maybe even take a friend for moral support if I had a fear of uppity strangers filing my nails and exfoliating my feet with sharp utensils. So, as any true diva would, I demanded, "Why? Do you want me to get a manicure? Do you think I need one?"

"No, I don't think you need anything. I just thought it would be nice."

"Well, I hate fake nails!"

"You don't have to get fake nails. They can do stuff with the nails you have, you know."

"Like what?" I asked suspiciously.

"Paint them."

"Oh...well, I can do that myself."

I skipped the forbidding mani/pedi and began devious diva plans by dragging my clan to the mall a week before my birthday, so that my entourage could help me pick out a new, enticing perfume for the date night (having just discovered that my man was so-so about the one I had been wearing). Inexperienced as I am in this, I caved in to sentimentality when I spied Elizabeth Arden Sunflowers in a perfume boutique. I jumped, clapped my hands like a simple girl, and exclaimed, "Ooh, you have Sunflowers?!" It wasn't even expensive, yet I had to have it. My brother Nate and sister Annie had bought it for my birthday when I was a teenager, and one spritz of that bright perfume took me straight back to Tennessee. Named as it is after big, yellow, happy flowers, its whole essence warmed me.

I knew a different, more expensive perfume was Matthew's favorite, so I asked with puppy-dog eyes and clasped hands, "Do you mind, Honey?"

He didn't. He understands I'm a sucker for nostalgia. I almost suggested we get both, but I wouldn't be greedy. So I dropped a hint about Christmas.

Afterward, I forced my peeps to shop for a pair of curvy jeans (because real divas have curves), and we spent in excess of $40 on the dark-washed, long-legged pair which made me feel quite naughty.

To top off a truly lovely, successful shopping trip, Matthew bought me a box of chocolates, all dark, and I stuffed some in my mouth before we even got home, as any self-respecting diva would.

***********************************

There was something about this birthday. I don't fully understand myself what slapped me silly over this number. 30 barely got a nod from me, but 35 felt important. I would like to say my desire for a special evening was because I wanted to celebrate years of continuous blessings, because my life has been just that, but it wasn't that pure. Insecurity pinched my brain, too.

With a recent promotion at work, Matthew has been traveling more and has attended some very nice work dinners with his fellow professionals in town and out of it. Those fancy dinners made me jealous, I'm sorry to admit. Were all of Matthew's decadent meals to be eaten with coworkers? Was I destined to become the boring, homebody wife, not quite a bona-fide writer, with whom he ate take-out pizza on the occasional Friday night?

That was why I requested the fancy restaurant, and I wanted him to choose it for me. I wanted pampering; I wanted romance; and I wanted to make memories together over our own delicious entrees. Plus, I had a little black dress, purchased on a whim months before, that I had yet to wear. It would be perfect.

My 35th was on a Saturday, and we were going out on Sunday night. Though there was a small misunderstanding about who was supposed to find the restaurant, by Friday afternoon Matthew had it all planned.

My husband snuck out of our bedroom Saturday morning and kept shushing the kids, but I had trouble sleeping in; I was too excited. Some minutes after I heard my family leave for the store, I went out to see the birthday sign my children had made for me. I picked out each contribution to the banner easily; they all have their own distinct artistic styles and color preferences. The sign was so beautiful that I sent my husband a praising text.

I was cleaning our house for the new babysitter when Matthew and the children walked in with flowers, balloons, and a very tall salted-caramel mocha, my favorite. As I sipped my skinny, decaf mocha with whipped cream, slowly getting the jitters, Matthew told one of the kids to retrieve a small bag for him from their toy cupboard. Inside was a bottle of J'adore, that other expensive, sensual perfume.

"You shouldn't have," I told him bashfully. "We're going out for that fancy dinner."

That afternoon he made my cake while I watched an old movie with the kids, and later I painted my nails a deep coral color and became so mesmerized by them that I held my hands out in front of me like a sleepwalker, admiring them wherever I went. Having been years since I last painted them, I forgot how pretty they could look.

That day I was joyful, and there could not have been a better finale to it than to eat the pumpkin-chocolate cake that is my forever birthday cake. It has veggies, chocolate and spices without yucky frosting to mess the glorious combination up. The recipe is HERE.

***************************

Matthew advised me to bring a shawl on our date. That was confusing. October in Phoenix is like June in other places. But I grabbed a fiery orange-red pashmina.

I had curled my hair, and for once it really turned out. It must have had something to do with that Freeze Hold hairspray I borrowed from my son. My new black dress, turquoise jewelry and older but sexy black heels complimented each other nicely. I did a smoky eye that didn't look like it'd been applied with a crayon and wore red lipstick.

We drove to Scottsdale and pulled up in front of Ruth's Chris Steakhouse. That was completely unexpected. Birthday confetti was thrown on our table. We had a veal ravioli appetizer that elicited sighs of satisfaction. We drank wine, and after one glass I was ready to sleep in that circular booth for a couple hours (it was already 8:30pm, after all), but then I ordered onion rings with my crab cakes - yes, onion rings - and they were the most delicious breaded onion slices I have ever had. Matthew and I both devoured them, and their wonderful seasoning perked me right up. The steamed mushrooms also were heaven, but the desert they brought with my name written beautifully in chocolate - in chocolate! - was truly divine.

Matthew took me on a short drive after the restaurant, and my anticipation and confusion grew as we slowly made our way up a manicured road to a golf club. It was deserted. As Matthew bent over his phone anxiously, I realized we weren't quite where we were supposed to be for the second act of our evening.

He soon found the place off a winding side street. It was a Hyatt Regency resort, hidden by gigantic palm trees, like sentinels in the darkness. Holding Matthew's hand as we threaded our way through the immaculate grounds and pristine lobby, I wondered why we were there. Were we going to see a jazz concert? Go dancing? Have another decadent chocolate desert? Were we getting a room?

Matthew asked the ladies at the concierge desk, "Where are the gondola rides?"

"You're taking me on a gondola ride?"

I felt a little weak in the knees.

The rides were in the small man-made lake behind the ridiculously ornate adult pool. Matthew had to jimmy the pool gate to gain access. Here more gorgeous, skyscraper palms marched beside the sparkling water. We turned a corner and spied the gondolier in his tell-tale striped shirt, black pants and mustache. Two couples were there before us, so we sat on the broad lip of a fire pit that sparked our clothes and smoked our hair, but its warmth was welcoming and romantic. I was grateful for it and the shawl and Matthew's encircling arm, despite the fact that he kept pinching my bum.

The enchantment increased when we heard the gondolier's powerful voice singing Italian somewhere over the water.

I was excited when out turn came, giggling over my difficulty in stepping down into the gondola with those shoes and that dress. We faced away from the gondolier who said after a minute, "So, obviously we're dating..."

I laughed. "We're married."

He asked if it was our anniversary. My birthday, I told him.

"I knew it must be special occasion. Both dressed to the nines."

He sang Happy Birthday to me, but I didn't recognize it - despite the fact that my name was mentioned - because it was sung slowly in Italian. We then told him we had been married 13 years, had two girls and two boys, and he told us of his own five boys and one daughter, the one his wife had been waiting for.

"Now, Hillary, where are you from?" he asked. He said I had an accent. Matthew and I laughed. I have been accused of having an accent all my life, but people are at a loss to place it. Am I French? Irish? Spanish? English? I've heard them all. I usually tell them Tennessee, and they respond skeptically, "Well, maybe that's it..."

Next he serenaded us with a charming Neapolitan song about kissing, explaining that in it a man was describing his girl's sweet little mouth with its cute pucker and how he couldn't resist it. It was performed so well in his clear tenor as we slid through that dark water beneath a crescent moon and stars, I was inspired and would have passionately kissed Matthew, but the gondolier was watching and seemed a little nervous we might get amorous.

As we stepped out at the end, he told us we didn't look old enough to be married 13 years with four kids, and I thanked him profusely, assuring him that we don't hear that often. Then Matthew and I strolled past the magnificent pool once more and through the rest of that grand resort, holding hands, headed home.

It was such a wonderful, unexpected gift from Matthew, the memory of how he surprised me with an idyllic gondola ride on my birthday. My 35th was really special, more so than this diva could have dreamed, thanks to my romantic man.