Getting older is hot.
Do you remember where you were the first time you felt it? Most people remember. They can tell you what they were wearing. They can sing a few verses of the song that was playing at the time.
Me? I can tell you what I was reading (Eat, Pray, Love) and what I was smelling (a woman, not three feet away from me, had obviously bathed in Estee Lauder’s Beautiful) the first time I ever experienced heartburn.
That’s right. Heartburn.
First of all, let me go out on a limb and say that I am firmly against three things in life: cruelty, self-waxing, and audible digestion. I do not enjoy, and feel prone to violent outburst, when I hear someone processing their meal.
I’m not talking about people who chew with their mouths open (read: my children.) If such people are over the age of 35 and possess a penis, then open chewing is proof the man doesn’t have a wife worth a damn. But allowing me to see food in your mouth, however gross, doesn’t fall under the category of digestion. Not to me anyway.
I’m talking about burping in all its forms: loud, silent, hiccup-like, and especially when it’s followed by a sigh or groan or fist to the sternum. A laugh and “Excuse the heavyweight champ!” just makes it worse. Why do I hate it so?
File under fun: Mom and Dad, who need help working the coffee machine, might buy a computer
We had dinner with my parents the other night. The good people who produce reality-based shows like Bounty Hunters and Man v. Food don’t know what they’re missing. Sitting down at my mother’s table is an adventure the likes of which they’ve never seen, not in the jungles of South America or the streets of Detroit.
“What’s this?” I picked a celery stalk at least six inches long out of the salad bowl. It still had branches and thorns with roots coming out of the bottom. “You could put an eye out with this thing.”
“I meant to cut that and distribute it evenly,” Mom said.
“Are you sure?” I flicked some dirt off the bottom. “It looks like it should be planted in the backyard.”
Mom’s still got it, though. God bless her, she found a way to make gluten-free, baked spaghetti taste good. So I’ll ignore the plant life sprouting in her salad bowl and just make a mental note to be extra careful before biting.
Dad even enjoyed the ravioli, despite the fact she used a healthier alternative to his usual, and beloved, pork product.
“Chicken and turkey innards,” he mumbled. “Life just ain’t the same anymore.”
“The computer is dead,” Mom announced halfway through dessert.
Childhood, adult, middle age: the journey from cute to comatose
Amber, Jackie, and I have been friends since high school. (I’m using different names and identifying characteristics, so that jail time may be avoided.) Over the years, our conversations have changed along with our hairstyles and threshold for pain.
This has never been more apparent than in the last few weeks. We used to talk about men, music, and wardrobe malfunctions. We can still remember a time when we’d drop everything for a Jane’s Addiction concert or road trip to Mardi Gras. We used to be fun. We used to be hot.
Lately, at the end of our conversations, one of us will invariably wonder,
“What have we become?”
Hell if I know. You tell me where sexy went.
How to survive youth sports
These past few months have been great. I can power-walk at the local field without suffering a concussion from random fly balls. I can shop for groceries without worrying that an entire team of ten year-olds will vote me out of the league for bringing granola bars and water for Snack Day. I’ve finally found the time on a Saturday to solve age-old questions like, “Why does this house smell like burnt toast?”
After long days at work and school, the kids play outside while Husband falls asleep in front of the television. Life is good. The American Dream realized.
Then Oldest comes into the house, dragging half the yard with him, and blows my hard-earned tranquility all to hell.
“It’s time to sign up for Little League,” he announces right before I pass out.
I heard a rumor that The Tampa Tribune has a new columnist.
Before you roll your eyes or start picturing a leftist rant that resembles something Stalin might read, hold up! This has nothing to do with religion or politics or my inability to properly fold clothes.
My new column, aptly titled “View from the Hill” is about all the funny and frustrating things that start happening to us when we reach middle age. Come laugh with me in the 4You section of Saturday’s Tampa Tribune.
Remember, he who laughs, lasts!
Would you rather sit through a root canal or family portrait?
Siblings and I were recently in the same five-mile radius for more than ten minutes. Sister thought it might be fun to commemorate the event with family portraits.
At first, I kept thinking, “It’s hard enough to get us all together, you want us to invade each other’s personal space, look in the same direction and smile?”
The photo shoot took place at University of Tampa. Minarets, stately oaks, and ornate doorways should have provided a beautiful backdrop for our smiling faces. Who knew Tampa Bay would experience a record cold spell that weekend? We all arrived looking like Russian peasants ready for a road trip to Siberia.
“I like how your parka matches your eyes,” I told Sister-in-law through two scarves and a dickey.
At first, we only knew what we didn’t want: No beach pictures. I can’t possibly smile with sand up my ass and Husband is convinced those seagulls are out to get him. I also didn’t want matching outfits. Then Youngest begged to wear his favorite basketball jersey with two holes in the elbows.
“Blue shirts with jeans,” I announced.
I’m a sap.
Fifteen years ago, I was a tough business woman and political activist living in Boston. I refused to wear pantyhose or listen to love songs on the radio. Now I get weepy at Wal-Mart commercials.
What happened to me?
I’ll tell you what happened to me. The doctors removed two children from my uterus and accidentally took my steely resolve with them.
Oldest and Youngest will tell you I’m tough, but I know the truth. They think I’m tough because I make them eat all their broccoli before they get dessert. I guess I’m tough in other ways, too. I can function on less than two hours of sleep and once got physical with an aggressive vacuum cleaner. I have also been known to respond with an eye-roll when my boys complain about a video game they broke after falling on it while wrestling in the house.
“No, I will not buy you a new one,” I’d say, handing them a broom. “And if you’re looking for sympathy, it’s in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”
But most of the time, when they are upset, I offer hugs and kisses and we work on a solution together.
I know. I’m not proud of it either.
I know what kind of day I’m going to have before 7am
My children are genuine harbingers. How they behave in the morning tells me what kind of day to expect. I’d book them on talk shows or sell them to NBC executives, but my mom would never speak to me or make Eggplant Parmesan again.
I’m better off thinking positive thoughts and hoping for at least one “A” day a month. Here’s my rubric:
A – Kids wake up on time and appear fully dressed with beds made and hair combed. Pull into carpool lane without causing traffic jam. Attend luncheon and talk without food in my teeth. No hate mail. Family does not threaten to sue over Kalamata olives on pizza. Husband asks about day and listens without checking iPhone. Parents invite us for dinner and Dad too busy playing online poker to complain about politics. No need for cocktails or reality television. Enough energy to finish yoga. Loving life.
Immunize me or you’ll catch it too
Aren’t new parents funny? They finally get their beautiful and fresh-smelling bundle of joy to sleep, go online to brag about Apgar scores with 500 of their closest Facebook friends, and advocate some of the most bizarre and mind-baffling ideas since the womb song.
Believe me, I’m only a drunken evening and missed period away from being a new parent myself, so I understand the craziness. I’m not so far removed from the frightening first baby cry that I don’t remember some of my own bizarre ideas about how my boys would be raised.
For example, at one point, I declared my house Kosher and made Catholic relatives eat oyster stew out of paper bowls when they needed to borrow my house for a Christmas Eve meal. Not only did I embarrass myself, I got kicked out of three different wills.
But I never invaded my children’s personal space by blowing in their ears and trying to get them to urinate in a sink. I never thought it was appropriate to nurse my children once their teeth came in and they started quoting Shakespeare. I never chose cloth diapers and blamed absorption issues on faulty assembly and I never let my kids listen to The Wiggles.
Even I have some standards.
But such crazy ideas pale in comparison to the latest trend – forgoing immunizations in favor of the “let’s see” approach to liver failure in the form of Hep B.
Happiness is having a large and loving family that lives in another town
Mom always said she wanted her kids to live nearby, even on the same street. Several times this past week, with my siblings under her roof with their own children, I looked at her and yelled, above the deafening hum of Dad’s toy train speeding around the track, Champagne Supernova at full volume on someone’s iPod and three simultaneous arguments about what should be done in Haiti,
“How you like us now, Ma?”
I do believe I heard her mumble something about a trial separation, but that damn train whistle…
My parents are changing as they get older. I’m not talking about how Dad snores when awake or how Mom’s stories repeat on people like her meatloaf.
My parents are getting *opinionated.*
Catherine Durkin Robinson
-
she’s crafty
