StormyWrites

Hampshire Hello – glad you liked the Walmart coloring book that I could ironically not purchase in Walmart itself. You bring that baby to your next chemo appt and you’ll be the envy of the room. Too bad they don’t make correlatingly inappropriate crayons where:

Peach = WT pigment

Turquoise – meth lab blue

Grey – trailer cinder block

Red – Injun

Burnt Sienna – other kind of injun

Green – NIMBY

Yellow – smoker teeth

Orange – sunscreen overrated

Pink – doggy crayon

Purple – favorite fairy color (tinkerbell and albert in row B trailer 12)

Speaking of edumucated … when did school change so much? (segway to the latest from Upscale Mayberry) …

Back to school for the kids has the same benchmarks: pick out your outfit for FDOC, ride the bus, hang friend photos in lockers and go to class. But FOR PARENTS there’s things like Curriculum Night. I went to Julian’s where all the PTOglodytes were fawning all over each other working the room like state fair princess candidates. The Fanucci’s were there: being fawned over by some, getting daggers from the Piper camp of parents. Gotta hand it to Piper – she is the skinny ass svelte mom school version of the Cheshire cat holding court and completely above caring what people think of her. And she looks so damn good that she knows they can only really hate/love her. Good people watching.

Then I went to Sydney’s curriculum night. After spending 90 minutes walking her schedule, I needed a drink having logged at least 842,000 steps. Middle school math has changed. Middle School lunch has gotten way better (it’s like Grade Q salisbury steak went the way of VHS tapes). But middle school language teachers are so wonderfully exactly the same. Totally embracing the stereotypes of their classroom language nations. Sydney takes French – Mademoiselle Bernard is lovely like Celeste if Celeste wasn’t legit french and didn’t carry carafes of wine in her backpack. Although if Bernard’s got some prosecco in her water bottle, who would I be to judge since she subjects herself to middle school hormones daily. Bernard is coifed, adorable, perky, tres Parisian. The Spanish teachers chortle on rolling their rrrrrr’s and try to sashay like J.Lo or channel the panache of Penelope Cruz (admirable efforts). And the German teacher, built like a blonde human oxen, could easily work the bier tents at Oktoberfest.

I took German in high school and loved it. 14 of us took Herr Schade (pronounced “Hair Shoddy”) for four years of grades 9-12 plus the trimester intro in grade 8. Schade had awful hair plugs, zero filter and was awesome. His dad was in the Third Reich. He came to the states as a kid and somehow ended up married to a super nice lady while teaching high school German in my very blue collar hometown. Schade did total immersion before it was en vogue. I STILL sometimes have phrases pop into my head in German before English on account of him:

Warum? Why?

Bist du krank? Are you sick?

Spucchst due nicht! (Don’t spit!)

Zeigen Sie das Fenster. Point to the window.

In the interest of full disclosure, I also sometimes think “donde esta mi bicicleta” (where is my bicycle?) total rando, so hats off to my 8th grade spanish instructor.

The 14 of us were Schade’s plebian loyalists which may be why Schade got away with what would today be deemed educational suicide. For example, sophomore year day one we asked what we would be tackling in class that year. Jenna Kaplan – the only Jew in our German class and 1 of 3 Jewish kids in the entire school sat front row in her spiral permed glory as Schade told us: “This year we will be translating the Bible. Jenna gets the old testament. Rest of you can divvy up the new.”

Junior year Schade took 10 of the kids in Grades 10-12 to Germany as part of a legit foreign exchange program. I did not go as we had vaca in the books already. Jenna did go. While there, the US kids drank beer, which is legal for minors in Germany. Mrs. Kaplan (a force of great dearth and volume) found out, raised hell with the school board, and Schade got a three week suspension without pay.

Latin got its own room because that was the language that was supposed to breed future leaders – which is ironic since I don’t know one kid from Latin that went to grad school, where as many of the 14 loyalists went onto become a dentist, lawyers and my friend Nate is producer for an internationally syndicated drag show – which Schade would have had a heyday if a crystal ball provided him with that future insight. The other three Spanish teachers and Schade all shared a room: a vaguely oversized grey-walled depressing with no character glorified broom closet. While Schade was on his suspension, the 14 of us camped out with the Latin class for three weeks and got study hall during our normal German hour.

Schade wasn’t having it and files suit against the school – AND WINS back pay, expenses, plus an extra $30K for reputational damage. I know this because Schade returns to school where we now report to a new HUGE classroom on which the entire back wall is painted to be a giant floor to ceiling German flag. He smirks at Jenna while asking everyone to follow him. Our German “field trip” is to the teacher parking lot to see Schade’s new BMW he bought with the windfall settlement.

Senior Year starts out calm until Schade has a kid. He’s gone the day Anton Schade Jr. makes his debut. But Schade is back the next day where, for reasons that still baffle me, he tells the 14 of us EVERY push screeching, taint ripping, forceps probed bloody detail of the birth. German was our last class before lunch and there were 14 untouched Grade Q Salisbury steak trays in the school cafeteria that day. It was also undoubtedly the most effective hour of high school sex ed meets birth control ever. I was still a virgin, found Schade’s vagina chalk drawings edifying and left wondering just how many holes were down there? I always knew there were at least two, maybe three, but could not help but think maybe there were still others? A few redundancy system type extra orifices. When I got home from school that day, my dad asked me what I’d learned and I could not bring myself to even make eye contact.

Schade retired a few years ago. His son is a college grad. And Jenna is a very open social media posting born again Christian. Not sure how that works being born again if that’s not how you were born to begin with. Maybe it’s like how third grade Sam born to an American Hispanic mom could be threatened to get sent back to Mexico when he had never been there before? But she wears a big cross necklace in all of her photos and seems happy. Decades of Christmas dances and hallmark movies are tough to deny so long as women of all religions like shopping and chick flicks.

Anyhow, cheers to middle school German and Jesus, too, I guess.

Hope you’re feeling on the upswing. Radiation starts by turkey day right (I’m hosting, yikes!) and chemo will be behind you. We will then need to start the very serious discussion of just how big you can go (I say big big bigger!) for your new boobs.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya, Stormy

Hello my fellow Protestant! Perhaps better fitting this week – Ciao! Arrivederci? Fuhgeddubahtit! It’s a Fugazi!

Everybody wants to be Capone. Except for the dying of syphilis in prison part. People gloss over that aspect of his life. I get why bootlegging came to be: women suffragists finally get the right to vote, and they vote out anyone that won’t agree to prohibition because aside from their newfound rights as voters, they still don’t have a whole lot of rights compared to their male counterparts. They could not have their own name on a passport or get military benefits for their service. In some states they could not wear pants, work in a bowling alley. They could have a law degree but could not serve on a jury. They didn’t know what the future would hold, but they did know that they were tired of getting whomped on by their drunk husbands. So bye bye spirits and hello speakeasy. I’ve no doubt bootlegging still goes on; I was verbally, psychologically and physically assaulted by one of its mongrels recently.

The latest from Upscale Mayberry:

My neighbor threatened my life with unbridled fury for a minor traffic violation when I rolled down the window and tried to apologize at seven in the morning in front of my child and his on our way to elementary school. This occurred the very day after his wife (a serial fauxbook poster) posted an insane amount of photos of their godly children’s first communion on every social media outlet imaginable.

He’s done it to other families we know: showed up on their doorstep and stopped them driving back to their houses. Spewed profanity interspersed with vile “you know who I am? I’m an animal. I am Made. You know what that means? I can kill you.” Scary ass shit to be on the receiving end when that first cup of coffee hasn’t kicked in; or any time of day. Everyone is one degree separated from a sordid ugly with this guy and his family because they share sidewalks and school classrooms in a small-town where we know apples don’t often roll far from trees. All of which is awful for anyone to experience. All of which beckons the same question every time:

If this is how he acts in public, how much worse it is behind closed doors?

All the praisy dad of the year social media trolls in the world won’t matter when that’s what everyone in your community thinks of you every time they see you. They may fake smile detest you, but they see through every scripted ounce of your being because in a town of good people that try to raise others up, you are the example of what not to be. They may hate you, but they pity your family more.

Oh yeah, and Pete wants an annulment.

What’s the common denominator there?

CATHOLICISM.

I may have been raised in a WASPy silo of Christianity, and there were plenty of judgy juggernauts gracing the pews of my hometown church, but people got called out and held accountable for that shit. And our household was like a small town aviation version of the United Nations. Iranian pilots my dad instructed during his Navy days, black friends from the other high school whose parents ran in some of the same church social circles as mine. The Pakistani family that was our home town doctor whose son was in the same clubs as me. The Jewish music teacher two roads away that taught us piano lessons and came over to eat pizza and watch recorded musicals with us for shows Kelly was in.

Upnote, Pete is ring shopping!

Downside: he says he’d like me to get an annulment. As in the catholic kind. He hasn’t been to church of his own accord in decades, does not want to do any of the work to find out what that actually entails, and is hiding behind “it’s all he’s ever known” but needs to get married in clear conscience. I started looking into it. It requires a meeting with a local deacon (married church representative), sizable check (of course), essays and interviews. I’m not doing that shit until I get ring.

Can’t just be allowed to just enjoy the moment.

Impetuous? Sometimes.

Impulsive? When needed.

Decisive? Yes.

Pathetic? Rarely.

It’s like the world making you pay penance for even dating a catholic. And how is it that I have any reckoning to do with the church over relationships? I’ve slept with two men in the past thirty years: my ex-husband and my fiance. Pete’s been gallivanting aviator boy all over the earth for decades pricking lord only knows how many va-jay-jays.

People like my jagoff neighbor guy get off when they threaten your life, your children, your safety. Pete has no problem threatening your sense of dignity. The problem is that people always underestimate you. They think you’ll just take it. They don’t realize how when the long long fuse of patience is burnt, with quiet fury and deliberate fever you’ll fight back. More than anything you question. Are any of my next step options worth doing? Does it keep me safer? Does it get me closer to any goal I ever truly wanted? Or does it just make me weak. I’ve had my backbone whittled down to a toothpick before, and I’ve rebuilt it. Sure it was sometimes greased with wine and movie nights at your house. But the worst part of feeling insecure and pathetic is that you’ve somehow allowed your life to be governed by the actions of others. I won’t be treated like a puppet again.

And deep down we all know the moral good of any story regardless of religion is empathy. People become monsters because they can. People made demands on others knowing it grinds their sense of self to a halt because they can. Because nobody ever loved them enough to say: enough. Stop. You are enough. You don’t need to caveman over others to prove your worth. Because all it proves is that you’re less. If you can’t be enough in your mind; you’ll never be enough in anyone else’s.

So that’s my metaphysical dissertation on a particular denominational ilk of Christianity for the day. All that being said, I will continue to pray and would continue to do so for you even if it meant finding out God was okay with catholicism, which I’m certain he is not because deep down we all know he’s Buddhist.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy

HAIL! to the victors (dah dum … can’t remember the words, but) HAIL to the champions (dah dum) HAIL HAIL TO MICHIGAN THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST!

So the Michigan fight song is sort of My Sharona (where everyone knows the important words, but no one really knows all the words).

College football weekend. Woo Hoo! Good thing none of us went to Notre Dame or I’m not sure we could be friends; at least not until playoffs.

It’s Pete’s birthday; I’m volun-told-ing (where we volunteer for work credit to get the day off, but you only get it if you volunteer so it’s not wholly gratuitous) at a convalescent home. It’s schwank. I hope I can afford something this nice if that day ever comes. I was assigned to a 94 year old guy named Ollie. I thought he was living in the land of happy mental alternatives when he told me how he crashed his 1951 Hudson Hornet into the stands at Soldier Field. Turns out that place really was home to the early days of racing YEARS before the bears homefield legacy traded finish lines for goal posts.

The latest from Upscale Mayberry:

I’m enjoying a long weekend of adulting. I only really sleep well when Syd&Julian are under my roof, but there is an exhale factor to them going to Chase’s who is absolutely entitled to his time with them and too terrified of the judicial system to misbehave when he’s got them. They are playing putt putt and ordering pizza. Pete and I are getting massages and having sex. Handing them over feels better when I think of it as babysitting that pays me.

My neighbors had a bunch of trees taken down. Their tree guys needed to use my driveway to park their trucks and equipment. No problem. I asked if I could have the mulch from the trees; they were happy to leave it unloaded and not have to lug it to wherever it goes. My backyard is all shade, no grass and in dire need of mulch having been abandoned for years when the house sat empty before I bought it. I hate yard work. The gardening club sounds like sheer punishment. So I’m gonna make it mulch spongy for the kids to romp around and enjoy the lone (yet epic old school glide style) tree swing anchored to a high bough back there.

Yesterday I got up when the rooster crows to tackle my mulch. My neighbor said the night before that maybe SHE should get the mulch since it was her tree. Sure, the tree that the tree guys would have ruined all that spendy sod you put down to drive to get but for my driveway. So I set the alarm early to get it all moved to my backyard. 44 wheelbarrows of it. The mulch pile was bigger than my car. Hugo was flummoxed not knowing if he should climb it, eat it or pee on it.

I got ninety percent of the yard done. Looks great. There’s just one patch left. So I go to our local gardening center that has HUGE stories high mountains of mulch that look like giant piles of nutmeg and cardamom (if we were ants and the mulch were spices). I tell them I’d like 10 cubic feet of mulch which will be more than enough. They ask me what kind and I tell them I’d like the natural kind like the tree that just got pulped to be my new backyard ground floor. The clerks looked at me as if I had five tits and twelve eyes. The lady patron at the register (wearing HUNTER brand boots and a sunhat to prove she’s clearly a legit gardener compared to me in my circa 1992 sorority sweatshirt and zip off well worn cargo pants) says “you use NATURAL mulch? How quaint.” in this hyper condescending tone. And the clerk asks what my neighbors think of my natural mulch. And another patron says that most people prefer the polished look of dyed mulch.

Seriously?

I said, no thanks. I don’t need snobby mulch. I just need the tree kind. They do me the great favor of taking my order and I’m on my way.

Since when did MULCH become de rigueur? My backyard might not be “polished” but it’s a haven for a host of animals. I love to sit out on my deck with the paper or a book to feel the sunbeams filtering through the tree leaves. There’s a woodpecker and cardinals. A raccoon peters around the perimeter. Chipmunks and squirrels chase and frolic. I don’t pay the mosquito fumigators and I don’t buy probably carcinogen laden dyed mulch, which is probably why all the wildlife hangs out on my lot. It’s the one safe haven they’ve got with the pesticide riddled golf course greens on the other side of the street and the manicured everything on every other lot. I refuse to feel anything but indignant about mulch judgers. They can all look at me with green eyed envy when they’re in the home with Ollie and I’m still prancing around in my WT tank tops pushing my wheelbarrow up and down the knoll with my natural (gasp!) mulch.

Onto food – tomorrow night Pete and I are having dinner with Remy&Jess: correction, we are having LOBSTER dinner. Swoon! Bea Mensch (whose daughter is in Sydney’s class and son is in Julian’s) posted on the town social media board that their church mission group is supporting the local homeless shelter (the double whammy of religious insurance with an umbrella homeless layer dose of guilt reinsurance on top) by a fundraiser. For $27 you get a 1.5 pound flown in that morning from Maine lobster. You pick it outta the tank, they boil it right there and send you home with cooking instructions. I guess folks have moved on from sacrificial lambs to for profit crustaceans.

Now I LOVE lobster. But I’ve got a nasty breed of Scotch Irish grudge fueled blood coursing through my geneological vascular system that makes me not so fond this past year of the Mensches.

Bea manipulated herself invitations to things Sydney was kid-hosting: made Syd feel awful about not including her at her spendy per person concert tickets theater party, so I buckled and let Sydney add one more to the list because it’s awful to be excluded even though I’d set a firm invite count. THEN because Bea is not allowed to have her own phone, texting or phone access, she goes boy crazy over here trying to send messages to guys (like Tennessee Cian and other friends only of Sydney’s) she has crushes. Sydney is embarrassed but I said to let is slide since it’s tough growing up in a house with more rules than others (we were like the last people on earth to get a VCR, so I get it). THEN she invites herself to a holiday party Syd was hosting for friends. We had plenty (we midwesterners rarely run out of food); her mom was mortified, but we honestly had more than enough to go around and what’s one more to spare hurt feelings if it’s not gonna really put you out? PLUS, Bea’s brother had his own plans the next neighborhood over where they live. Our neighborhood is custom homes and people that respect their space, privacy and except for a small sect of caddy that pays to have things like professional Christmas light companies decorate their homes in December, drive mostly American or long ago paid off upscale cars. Nice but not flashy. The neighborhood next to us is much more keep up with the Jones’ who has the newest bougiest brightest SUV that they’ll get pissed off when their kids actually want to eat a chicken nugget in it or put a dirty baseball bag in the back. Much more nouvo riche. I saw five women at a school orchestra function from that hood all with the same Louis Vuitton tote bag. They all complimented each other on it; because it doesn’t count if it’s not noticed (which I’m not decrying) but ironic that not a word was made of the more subtle Gucci horsebit on my neighbors lap or my splurge Bottega Veneta on mine. If you’re gonna be a snob (I bet they ALL buy snobby mulch), at least be in the know.

Anyhow, Bea and Mitchell have been here many times. Mitchell is one of my cub scouts as I run the den for Julian’s grade because no one else will and desperation requires no outdoor skills. I host those meetings in my home. And when I got divorced, Mama Mensch offered to and did me a solid and watched my kids for a few hours so I could decorate right after my closing for Christmas since we moved in two days before Santa’s debut. I am forever grateful for that.

The year right after my divorce was really tough. We didn’t complain about it, but just because we were smiling on the outside doesn’t mean we didn’t feel three seconds from drowning most minutes. The scouts are a really nice group of kids. And one really nice aspect is that the kids all invite each other to their birthday parties. I make a big deal out of birthdays, and that year those parties meant an especially lot to us. I spaced and missed a date for one of the boys and felt just awful, but I made up for it and apologized very publicly to a very empathetic mom. That same year Julian had a crap bully non stop target of all things school awfulness. So those parties were highlights.

In planning Julian’s party last Spring, I sent out eleven invites to the other scouts and all but two said they had a conflict. The conflict was Mitchell Mensch’s birthday party to which all but two Scouts, of which Julian was one of the two excluded, were invited. And they were camping in their yard. So not a space head count issue party.

I was hurt and pissed but took the high road, rescheduled and sent a (not seething) email saying that I wanted a date when more kids could go. I did NOT mention Mitchell’s party. Mama Mensch responded that she never got Julian’s invite and then had to reneg when it arrived in the mail the next day. Which I believe because our mail lady sometimes delivers the post on Sundays if she’s having too good of a day at the track on Saturday. Or Wednesdays mail on Thursday if Jose Cuervo was a little too terse with the hangover from Taco Tuesday at the local Mexican joint.

Despite all of this, there is STILL no invite to Julian. We had Julian’s party a week later. Mitchell (who is a super nice kid, never had a beef with Julian or any kid that I know of) attended and I calmed down while telling Sydney that never again was Bea gonna weasel an invitation to anything she hosts.

I told Julian I will take him on a Disney cruise next year for his birthday if it means evading this ridicudrama.

A month later, Sydney was having friends over because the force of the century Taylor Swift was releasing yet another album. I set a limit of four girls (because I only take as many kids into the house as my insurance risk crazy brain believes I can get out in case of fire or to the basement expeditiously should an errant tornado strike). Bea (NOT one of the four Syd invited) caught wind, tried the usual guilt trip, and then asked directly why she could not come when Syd didn’t buckle.

Sydney said, “You can’t come because my mom is A REALLY BAD PERSON to make mad. And nothing makes her madder than when me or Julian get hurt.” At which point even Bea realized the pure defeat futility of her efforts.

Nevertheless, I have decided I love lobster more than I love being consumed by the course of events that realistically hurt me more than either of my kids. Sure wish you guys lived close as we would have ordered dinner for six.

On an upnote, I popped into the Hotel Belvedere Bar for a drink with a swim team mom friend. Got some scoop on our favorite bartender, Saul. Not sure anyone makes a better pomegranate martini than him. Turns out he is a repeat offender as in restraining order style trouble with the law for stalking female patrons. This makes me said because:

1. I really like Saul; and,
2. Apparently I didn’t make the stalker worthy cut.

Miss you tons and hope you’re feeling better now that the mega chemo blasts are done. Next time we are together “we” should get more wigs! Channel your inner Carol Channing, or maybe the permy one we saw like Charlie from Top Gun (c’mon, we ALL had that perm in middle school! Kelly McGillis was the bomb! It took like ten years and the Rachel from Friends to top that coif).

Hang in there – xoxox love ya, Stormy

Please enjoy this correspondence coming to you live from the Lincoln Elementary School Baseball Fall Ball Fields: proof that youth sports fun needs no hiatus.

Julian is on Joe Miles’ team. His wife is about twelve months pregnant and still looks amazing. By month five of my pregnancies, I had assumed and accepted my role as Chairman of the Ass Expansion Program, convinced that caloric consumption during the last six months didn’t count and that I would walk right out of the hospital wearing clothes not purchased at Pea in the Pod or the Target maternity section.

Sydney was four pounds the day I brought her home. Still surfacing from a Pitocin haze, C-section and nicked bladder, I begged the pediatrician on call that day that I was sure sending me home with a human was not a good idea. I had never even kept a houseplant alive for more than a week. Sending me home with a real live baby was clearly a mistake of foreseeable misfortune. But Dr. Wallace – a forebodingly beautiful black woman with more swagger in her pinky than I’ll ever have in my entire life – flopped Sydney around to show me “it’s virtually impossible to break a baby”. She told me so long as I used Vaseline for diaper rash and only took Sydney to the grocery store on Tuesday mornings when fewest people shop, that I’d be just fine. The Dr. Wallace take-home book would have been the length of a pamphlet, but I’ll be damned if she wasn’t right!

How you feeling? The worse you feel now, the better you’ll feel later, right? The “it’ll feel better when it quits hurting” healthcare motto. Each week does bring you one week closer to healthy. Repeat as necessary.

The latest from Upscale Mayberry:

Rishi – a horribly unathletic Indian kid whose parents keep making him play little league – is on the other team. He prefers the bench to batting, has an adorable Indian accent, plays in his puffy winter coat if it’s less than 60 degrees out and chants over and over and over every time he steps up to plate “I pray for balls. I pray for balls. I pray for balls.”

He is in a bunch of classes with Julian. Super nice kid. Can probably tell you all about the physics of baseball, just doesn’t like to play. His dad is supposedly a really great cricket player which adds an element of familial insult to injury.

Julian is the catcher on the opposing team to Rishi’s. Last time Rishi was up to bat and his personal chanting ensued – “I pray for balls. I pray for balls” as he is holding the bat with waffling elbows like it’s a hundred pound rebar beam, Julian called time out to the ump. He stood up, dusted off the home plate area dirt from his knee pads, leans into Rishi and says “dude, you’ve already GOT balls. What you need is a hit. You got this,” before patting Rishi on the back, pulling his catcher’s mask back over his face and squatting behind the plate. Gotta love the nine year old version of testicular humor based pep talks. Rishi struck out, but at least he swung and walked back to the bench with what may have been a little more swagger.

I love the team little league sponsors. Julian’s team is Dick’s Sporting Goods. Rishi’s team is Midwest Orthodontics. Last week we played the Fun on a Bun travelling frankfurter concession stand food truck team. The last one reminds me of all those attractive nuisance cases we learned about with kids getting run over by the Good Humor ice cream trucks trying to buy rocket pops. In my blue collar home town, everyone knew the most reliable source for recreational drugs was the ice cream man. No one blinked an eye when teenagers went chasing down the street following the ice cream man. I now know the legal term for that: willful ignorance (or gross negligence if the teen gets hit by the lit driver of said truck). Fortunately Fun on a Bun is part of a default permanent structure that seems to have solidified its once mobile self by rusting into the bearings of the pavilion it was last stationed. The guy that runs it is a Rastafarian version of Shaggy and one of my favorite Hampshire peeps.

One week into school and we have already had two days consumed by standardized testing. Even though 66% of our insane property tax base goes to school, they are absolutely doing this subject kids to even more weeks of standardized testing at the expense of actual days of learning to get more funds. Our kids would do better on fewer tests and reap more fiscal district rewards if they spent that time teaching to the kids instead of teaching to tests consuming precious learning hours. It’s like tossing someone in a flight simulator over and over and over again without actual instruction and waiting until you dumb luck get a successful landing that could have been gleaned months prior had someone taken time to teach you about Bernoulli’s principle and how to fly.

I emailed the Academically Talented dean that runs the program Sydney’s in asking for meaningful feedback as to why this year has even more testing than last when last year had more days than ever prior. She sent me a gobbledygook nonresponse about state standards with no application to my query. I feel like the Arlo Guthrie narrator in Alice’s Restaurant, getting every non-answer to my question. I finally get a voicemail from the school Associate Dean of Testing. He is clearly frustrated that his wisdom is being questioned and makes some remark about calls during HIS workhours clearly alluding to him thinking I’m some idiot stay at home mom with nothing but time between pilates class and bowling league. He says “without standardized test results from multiple exams, we cannot confirm the academic rigor needed to undertake more sophisticated classwork subjects like mathematics and poetics.” I bet that guy doesn’t understand new math either.

I (a writing major that took higher level mathematics at the nationally top ranked technical university I attended) have no idea what the hell that means, so I cry uncle with a response email sent in poetic Haiku:

You can try to sell (5) STANZA 1

Me on the pros of these tests (8)

Yet you don’t agree (5)

Real learning is good. (5) STANZA 2

But sometimes school makes no sense; (7)

Thank You Mr. Pence. (5)

I didn’t get a response, although had he sent back a “?” it would have made my day. The literature teacher that I cc:ed (who is sheer talent, down to earth and agrees that testing has gotten out of control) read it. I saw her at curriculum night last week. She said I should get some sort of parent extra credit for Haiku creativity, even though I failed to adequately relate to my audience reader. I said SHE was my audience, to which she replied “well played.”

Game’s over. Home for grilled cheese. Sydney had a few girls over last night for the Taylor Swift album release. Your crew was missed.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy

It was this or a puppy card. You’re welcome.

Ciao Bella!

We got invited to a wedding in … Italy! OMG, the locations and caliber of open bar really do get better with age. So, I’m working on increasing my Italiano. Grazi DuoLingo. I can already tell you that Gli Uomino mangia l’cannoli (the men eat cannoli); no place to go but up from there.

I booked the hotel – direct link from the wedding sit e- so if our villa is full of overseas nudists, that is not on me. There were two options: $300 and $3,000 a nite. We opted for the former. Let’s hope pervs opt for the latter as the opportunity for unwanted illicit mayhem overseas seems exponentially higher when we don’t know what our table mates are saying.

Pete is in charge of transpo. He is not cheap at all, but it’s an airline industry thing that those guys hate loathe icky bad all out despite paying for airline tickets. But Southwest will only get as close as the United States eastern seaboard, and that’s a loooooong swim. I can’t sit jump seat and using a buddy pass for an occasion like this is poor form when you’ve got firm dates and the amazing royal blue this season Nicole Miller formal jersey dress just purchased for this blessed event. Positive space tickets mean more dinero but also mean we get aisle/window seats sans risk of some middle seat dude with bad breath and B.O. First world problems. But if I’m gonna stink when we deplane (and we all feel a little ripe after that many hours in even a well appointed fuselage) then it will at least be from sweltering in my own glandular ilk.

The latest from upscale Mayberry.

School is back in session. We are only three days in and my kids are already asking how long until spring break. No Buono. Sydney says there is police presence every day at dismissal. Ironicalloy, thge officer drives the K-9 unit police SUV, wears the uniform shirt with the k-9 emblems but the actual K-9 died last year. Fido died just after the county budget was passed, which allots a little extra pay to the department and officer with K-9 duty, so – much like the dogwalker on the town square in Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil – o9ur local officer continues to dutifully comply with his extra duties driving the K-9 truck . I am fine with the seeming existence of a big ominous police dog (which seems even scarier if you think it’s there but can’t see it) to keep folks in check. Especially in the gunfire crazy days we are sending our kids to school in: if you’ve read A Mother’s Reckoning by the Columbine shooter mom, you’d be terrified. They were college shopping earlier that same year. WTF? So, yes, keep the police dog budget in place for as long as we can. Any deterrent – even if it’s baseline fear factor – welcome.

Pete is in Vegas preparing for an overnight hiking trip. About a year ago, he and a handful of others got permits to hike Mt. Whitney. This requires two nights of camping within the park system. Some of his fellow hikers have been women. I’ve been asked if I’m nervous or jealous of my BF going someplace out of cell service with single women as part of the group. There are other guys there, too.

My response? Ha! No. Oh, hell no!

First, I trust him. Completely. And as much as I appreciate the “it’s not that we don’t trust you, we don’t trust everyone else” parental credo oft iterated through my childhood, none of the women are sketch or given me reason to think they will do anything untoward.

Second, EVERYTHING you bring into the hike area must be brought out of the hike area. Since most folks can’t go three days without dropping deuce, and you are specifically HUGELY fined forbidden from just burying or tossing your shit in a steam or lake, you literally have to CARRY YOUR SHIT IN YOUR BACKPACK. I don’t like picking up Hugo’s poop and that only requires transport from the yard to the garbage bins. Knowing that my awesome significant other is hiking around a mountain with chics sporting their own poo bags (wonder if they come in the little clip on containers like Hugo’s dog leash has?) poses no threat to hygenically predisposed well=-Purelled me. If I ever undertake a mountain climbing feat, it will first require a severely thorough GI cleanse and bowl binding bananas regimen until I am back in the land of indoor plumbing.

The waste removal bags are sold in packs of 12 on REI.com as the “Go Anywhere Toilet Kit”. They come with biodegradable TP and moist wipes. I’m not sure if the wipes are for your hands or your other parts? Surely not both?

Even if the Go Anywhere bags are scented, we all know what their contents smell like, and it’s not anywhere close to as good as the cleanshaven Soft Soap and Armani perfume that I’m wearing. I see it an analogous to a solider returning home from war. The soldier does NOT want to see his girlfriend wearing camos and combat boots. He does want her to be wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie and to smell good. I don’t even own combat boots, so we are good on the girl front. Especially since, unlike wartime, Pete can traipse back down the mountain to me anytime he wants and is, thus not relegated to poo bag bearing only alternatives.

Gotta run. Kids get back soon and Hugo needs a boost back inside. At thirteen plus, he’s more lump than dog. He has this giant mass that sways between his hind quarter abdomen area. Since I’ve never heard of a labrador growing udders (which this closely resemble), we affectionately cal it his wiener goiter. His dink is somehow affixed to the side of this mass and still full functioning. How he whizzes in a straight stream defies physics, but he seems fine with it and is doing measurably better than our unfunded Mayberry police dog.

Hope you are feeling light years better. We will reschedule hangtime soon when the worst of the chemo beast is behind ya’. No worries about the last minute cancel; will make our next reunion ten times funner!

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy

Colorado Cowboy Country says Hello!

On a plane heading home from a last summer weekend hurrah. I hear that my 2 and your 4 were texting about their respective trip to CO and OH – proof yet again that houses with children have no secrets. I never let people know when we are going on vaca: I don’t post every plate of pasta we eat, every mountain we see or every Clark Griswold activity we engage. It’s like an invitation for someone to rob your house. We used to punish people by looking at family albums, now your nonplussed for not posting every right turn. Wish we could have coordinated on this trip though because Colorado is fun, but unfortunately your family does not live here, so O-H-I-O! (Must chap the go blue contingent in your house just a little to be that close to OSU? Call it the Big Ten Heebie Jeebies).

Bought this card at a farmer’s market art stand. I’m not sure why there is an astronaut reference to the west as we were hundreds of miles from oceanic anything. Maybe it is because most folks east of the Mississippi that I know think of anything west of Philadelphia “so far away” flyover territory that it may as well be on another planet. Glad our east coast upbringings have not acclimated to that thought process. Perhaps part of a marketing hoax to prevent the inevitable exodus of reason-minded people from moving someplace as beautiful as the ski towns we just witnessed? Next to the art stand section of the farmers market was the holistic ayurvedic healing stands. the phrase “hippie witchdoctor” was used on more than one product. Wonder if that’s effective branding?

I’m all for mindfulness and mind over matter (example: when I( was 8, my great Grandmother “bought” the wart of my hand for a penny and I’ll be damned if my psychosomatic belief didn’t make that thing vanish within days. But – not that it’s any of my business or my call – I also equally promote modern medicine and am uber glad you are opting for the wrenching but scientifically proven effective chemo over some alternative like shooting jellyfish piss into your veins hack theory. Anybody who uses phrases like “used by the Mayans” (or “hippie witchdoctor”) as a basis for modern medicine should explain just why we do not still have any Mayans around today if their medicines are so great? Civilizations with proper immunization protocols do not just go the way of the Dodo.

I can personally attest that the holistic alternative does NOT work as a surgical alternative. About 7 years ago, I had bursts of debilitating fetal position on the floor for thirty seconds episodic type pain, followed by hours of feeling okay. Which was AWESOME because the pain only lasted long enough for me to question reality if I was really dying, think I was absolutely dying when it did happen, and wonder if my mom was right: watching MTV all those years ago maybe did fry parts of my brain leaving with me with a one way ticket to Certifiable, USA.

Turns out, I had been unwittingly collecting marble sized gallstones for decades. So my gallbladder was retaliating and fitzing out. I saw my internist on Friday. She scheduled my surgery with the specialist the following week. Except first she got a pretty good doctor dig in by saying I fit the stereotype while sharing the “typical gallbladder surgery 4Fs”:

1. Fat (c’mon now – I take a pass on that one; skinny fat and not signing up for any decathalons, but no muumuus yet for this chic);
2. Fertile (despite having my tubes cauterized when Julian was born, so that one’s a biological technicality);
3. Forty (ies); and,
4. Female (which seemed unduly redundant to point 2 of “fertile” unless I slept through that part of health class).

Ironically, Nisha (our beloved nanny of nearly a decade that I think of like a holistic sister) had her gallbladder out a few years prior. Her family is WAY into eastern medicine, and I’m terrified to get surgery next week, which created the perfect storm for Hurricane Gullible. Nisha’s mom is 60 but looks 35, which I (wrongly) attributed to lifestyle and medicinal savvy over genetics. We Earnhardt women rely heavily on comedic timing as we do NOT age gracefully: so we have to be funny or we get relegated to the crabby old Grimm’s fairy tale part of the nursing home.

When Nisha says she wishes she knew of “the cure” before her surgery, I’m all ears. The ayurvedic gallbladder surgery stone cure requires you to drink a cup of olive oil and 1/4 cup of lemon juice every hour for four consecutive hours while lying on your left side. It’s all over the internet, so it must be true. I guess the promise is that gravity will just eek out your olive oil lubed digestive tract plumbing while zapping the stones to extinction with the acidic lemon juice.

Let me tell you. I did it. I watched two movies while lying on my left side and drank that awfulness. I went to bed feeling like a wrongly inverted piece of focaccia bread. But I slept all night and woke up feeling GREAT! For the first five minutes of my morning. UNTIL I found myself hurtling my body to the bathroom praying that I would make it to the water closet without erupting. By the time I got to the john, I swear to god that even my actual flesh buttcheeks were full motion gurgle quivering. I sat down, certain that the sheer force of olive oil propulsion being jettisoned out of my backside was gonna lift me off of the commode and send me flying like an Apollo missing into the ceiling. I’m not sure how long I was in there, but it was a LONG WHILE and I was EXHAUSTED by the time I felt safe enough to stand. Somehow it seems like a lot more olive oil came out of me that morning than I’d ever ingested in my entire 40+ years, but my skinned looked RADIANT for weeks.

Moral of the story, it is acceptable to sell your minor health maladies to elderly relatives for chump change, but stick to the MDs for the big stuff (defined as anything requiring more than a bottle of peroxide, tube of Neosporin, Preparation H or Compound W. All else = See. A. Doctor.).

Hang in there. xoxox love ya’, Stormy

[INSERT ZEBRA CARD COVER]

Hampshire Hollow Hello to you from this Saturday haven of midwest awesomeness!

How you feelin? Hopefully more upright than the poor dude on the cover of this card. I thought for sure that the inside punchline would have something to do with a drunk zebra. Bummer that it is instead far more silly predictable. It was not in the Get Well section; but it would go well if there were a section of cards for people in rehab; especially if the inside said something about outrunning one’s metaphorical lions? Not that recovery is funny. But, speaking from divorceland experience, difficult souls that refuse to acknowledge the issue are subject to their own form of self-induced commercial fodder.

All I know is that if I were a zebra getting chased by a real lion, my epic fail of needed speed would prove that I was sadly definitely, if stereotypes of the fair skinned western European descendants as myself being painfully genetically historically slow, a white zebra with black stripes. Ironically, Julian is really fast; enough to almost stake claim to being a black zebra with white stripes. I used to tick off my ex-MIL (a generational bastion of unabashed racism who taught public school for many years and was offended by skin tones darker than ecru) by saying her boys were clearly of middle eastern descent. After all, they get yanked from every line in every airport for a random security check. We can all agree: racial profiling is bad; until it inconveniences a nuisance ex. Then it’s kind of funny because it’s personal. Maybe Mark Twain was right: there’s an element of truth in all humor.

Just in case you nor the zebra are back on your feet (and assuming the blasphemous rumors I hear of chemo patients being told to lay off the hooch are unfounded), thought you could use the “If you can read this” “Bring me more wine” socks enclosed.

The latest from my back deck in upscale Mayberry:

School class schedules came out and Heather wants to compare Addy’s to everyone else from the gifted program, just in case “test bomber Addy” suddenly decides that academic challenges are important. She’s already proven she can run with the smart kids, but is smart enough herself not to take on their workload: probably gonna end up running a board room someday. As for the rest of us, scenarios like are proof that we could all benefit from some Xanax, or at least gummies. I know I could. Although I’m not sure I should be trusted with much medicinal: the other day I accidentally gave golden retriever Lenny my UTI pill and took his for joint pain. Both looked pretty damn identical, both in those caramel colored tube pill containers. Far as I can tell, Lenny hasn’t sprouted a uterus and I haven’t atrophied, so no harm no foul.

So Pete and I have been dating and I keep fielding questions about where things are going. I want a ring. I’ve made it clear. I loved being married. I just didn’t love the person I was married to at the end of it. Pete’s gotta look way ahead for vacation time. I’ve got the kids for Thanksgiving this year. Pete wants to invite his dad. I said he’s welcome to come if I’ve got a ring. If not, then no. I’m not going to sit there with the red letter A emblazoned on my forehead in my own home without some fire power. And if he doesn’t want to marry me, then it’s better to know now. Mark Evans Katz is this awesome podcaster matchmaker that I follow and his advice is pretty spot on. If you’re not getting what you want, you’ve made it clearly known (none of the mind guessing games) and you’re at the three year mark, then it’s go or no time. I don’t doubt his commitment or loyalty to me, but I want to make it more official. Right now I’m like the middle aged version of an Avril LaVigne song chortling on about my “booooooooyfriend”.

Pete thought I was kidding. But I reiterated it again a week later. And then the week after that. I said I will be hosting for my crew: I love a houseful of fun and food and people. It’s up to him where and with whom he wants to spend his holidays. It’s the man up or step down moment. So now he’s calling his friends looking for ring guys. Remember when you got engaged: everyone had “a guy”. Felt like pyramid scheme version of jewelers claiming to be Opus Dei caliber exclusive, if only you could somehow make that connection. They all claimed to get the best deal when in reality no one probably even got a good deal, so you may as well just support local.

Chase bought me a gorgeous ring. And we got two gorgeous human beings out of that mess of a marriage. This time I will only stand at the far end of the aisle if I am unequivocally no cold feet certain that this is the person that will be my true til death partner.

That was not the case when I stood at the far end of the aisle from Chase. And, to his credit, he probably deserved more than that. I’d found out the week prior that the promise that he would be out of debt wasn’t met. The momentum of the wedding wheels were underway: thousands had been spent, guest airline tickets and room reservations made.

We got married in this beautiful protestant cathedral in the city on this picture perfect summer day. The church is incredible: one of the lone surviving structures from the Chicago fire; gargantuan stone arches with woodwork, stained glass and euro-worthy tapestried pulpits. It holds 5000 on Easter and Christmas Eve. Because it is so big and echoey, I had to get special permission from the music director for our 4 bagpipes and 2 drummers to lead the processional.

I stood in the large narthex as the pipes and drums roiled down the aisle and circled back where they would hang ten until the end of the ceremony. They play and return, the pipe organ starts bellowing Jesu to Man’s Desire (what Sydney calls the Wedding Death March Song), my first three bridesmaids start their stroll down the very long aisle, and I am frozen. Sheer panic stricken cannot move. I see the exit door in my peripheral vision: it’s dark in the shadowed narthex and super sunny outside in a “stay away from the light” way. Part of me just wants to bolt.

My uncle is giving me away; an honored stand in for my dad who died when I was in high school. He is trying to step forward and has an Uncle Buck build and demeanor, but I cannot bring myself to budge.

He stops pulling, leans over to me. I turn my head to face him and he says, “Honey, you do not have to do this if you don’t want to.”

He liked Chase, but he loved me more.

Kelly is my MOH standing within earshot of him and senses the panic. Not knowing what to say, she snags my best friend Katie before Katie steps down the aisle to join the other bridesmaids. Katie was the first person I met on my first day of law school. We were roomies for years and chances are she recalls more about me in my 20s than I do as she was witness to most of the escapades. She is super tiny like you, which makes the visual of her stepping out of the processional, past Kelly and into a spot next to me as I’m dressed like a bright white cupcake, all that much better. Katie tells Kelly, “I got this”, looks at me and says “Stormy, remember the monkey underpants story?”

I shake my head but start to feel the panic thaw slightly. Then it dawns on me. She must be talking about this spectacular pair of purple skivvies I had with emoji precursor monkey face print that I thought were hilarious. “Yep, I still got those.”

“My uncle and Kelly shake their heads in disbelief, the bagpipers step in a little closer and Katie continues. “No, not those. NOT the monkey underpants. I’m talking about the UNDERPANTS THEORY. You know, the theory that racist idiot I dated (now a plaintiff’s attorney on billboards in Florida) in law school had to justify why his white ass felt inferior to every black man? The theory. The most offensive racist theory uttered by a lawyer in the history of ever.”

I feel myself melting more as one of the pipers asks, “What’s the theory?”

The organ music is still playing, half the procession is already in place, yet int he narthex all (thankfully white male and female) eyes and ears ar e on Katie who explains, “Well, according to my very well endowed yet super racist ex-boyfriend Jack Mooney, black men have bigger penises than white men because Darwin’s theory has them more evolutionarily closely related to the monkey. And since monkeys don’t wear underpants, gravity does its work to give monkeys and by evolutionary totally racist Jack Mooney jealous standards default black men big penises. Ergo, black men have big penises because monkeys don’t wear underpants.”

Kelly’s jaw drops.

My uncle again says, “you don’t have to do this.”

And one of the bagpiper says, “this is by far the best wedding we’ve ever done!”

I exhale, motion for Katie and Kelly to go ahead, walk down the aisle with my uncle and the rest is history.

My uncle refused to speak about that until I was divorced ten years later. Even though I’m guessing that convo was the most titillating to be heard by the hallowed walls of that particular cathedral that day, Katie wishes she had told me to run. Then I would have needed the Pete starts to align to have Syd and Julian in my life now; very existential. In the end, I guess it all really can end well. Plus, I’ve got awesome examples of married friends like you and Colin to keep my faith in that particular institution alive.

Gotta run – the household natives are getting hangry. At least I’m writing this from my desk and not a pool or baseball bleacher. So enjoy what may be the only letter I send that’s not dust-laden or smells like chlorine.

Hang in there – school starts soon – will get another date for me to come your way on the books once that mayhem settles! xoxox love ya’, Stormy

Sunny San Jose Salutations!

California is AWESOME! Shame it’s all gonna fall into the ocean – which makes Vegas more appealing since it has potential to be oceanfront property if Nostradamus and the San Andreas fault play out.

We are pre-boarding and have that refugee look assumed by everyone on the last day of even the most successful vacations. Talk about a missed revenue opportunity. Sure, folks with crutches and infants should board early, but there’s a whole sect of us coming off of a week of Americana in close hotel and rental car quarters that would gladly pay extra to board early and enjoy a cocktail. Growing up, my kid sis Kelly and I got “airplane juice” before each flight. In case you’ve never had “airplane juice” it’s also known as “grape flavored Benadryl”. An absolute fact my mother denies vehemently. Funny we could get away with it as a kid but now, rules rules rules. And I take my airplane juice more in the form of Maker’s Mark and coke or Hendricks and tonic since I’d just look ridiculous chugging a bottle of Benadryl on the jetway. We don’t have high standards. But we don’t have “no” standards either. Some downtime facing four hours of flight time and a return to reality would be nice – just sayin’.

How you feeling now that you’ve got the chemo hell and damnation raining on your parade? Full steam recovery ahead! So, back to this coma induced stuff – did you have crazy dreams? I know some people that would take that just to get more than 4 hours solid sleep. During residency, Kelly and her friends would go to work early, hook up an IV and fast track that hangover cure medicinally. Which seemed extreme and ingenious. So hopefully the upside to the coma was that you caught up on all the sleep lost having four children over the past decade.

The latest (as I head back to) upscale Mayberry:

So, this card was originally chosen in the spirit of our upcoming tbd girls trip UNTIL I realized that of the two dogs, I was clearly the yeti blonde Oscar oaffy dog to your little perfectly coifed petite brunette Felix dog. Hence, I know see the big manly significant other dog of our better halves Colin/Pete to their well-heeled you/me.

Pete says you get “full say” over the girls trip. I said:

1. I was certain you wanted my travel savvy cosmopolitan input;
2. We both like to drink the same stuff, so agreeing on local will be a non-issue; and,
3. Comments like THAT are why he doesn’t get to go (okay, I didn’t really say this 3d part, but I thought it VERY LOUDLY).

He tried to chastise my comments with “the serious look”. My m om was “the look champene: woman could turn you, your foreseeable future, hopes and dreams to stone while relaying that all privileges north of food and shelter would be revoked. I wish I had that power over my kids. Thing is, Pete’s look is more John Belushi Animal House than Glenn Close Fatal Attraction. So the effect feels a little ambushed.

Having spent a lot of “close enough to see my phone screen because is not blind nor being snoopy” time by me this past week, Pete noticed I spend more time surfing male parenting blogs than mom blog subscriptions. As a single parent, it’s incumbent to balance both sides of the gender influence fence – especially since I’ve got a son that I am raising to be an empathetic strong man and a daughter that I want to be in healthy versus toxic relationships (unlike her mother’s supposedly “play it safe choice” – look how that turned out). So I subscribe to maternal and paternal sites.

Best internet move ever!

Dad blogs are so much better than mom blogs. The one I like best is Fatherly.com. It’s like a mental internet oasis of blog parenting porn.

Momsadvice.com and workingmom blogs sample headlines:

• Best party cake flavors to overcome working mom guilt;
• Most mom approved swimsuits for your tween;
• Get your kids to celebrate you with gifts that give back;
• How to make him (hubby) appreciate you like you deserve;
• Best way to spruce up an old suit

VERSUS

Fatherly.com sample headlines:

• Six fun sex positions for flexible couples;
• What men see when they look at boobs, according to science (so it MUST be true, especially since I’m reading it on the internet);
• Best last minute amazon prime day deals;
• Raise your son to be a backbone, not a bully;
• 5 best bourbon cocktails and the secret to great sex after the kids go to bed;
• Yes, sometimes your wife needs more sleep than you. Here’s why

If given a choice between mom versus dad blog, anyone that says they prefer reading mom blogs IS A LIAR! You know how Playboy used to truly publish really intuitively thought-provoking articles, but most people thought it was a farce? Dad blogs are the next gen inverse publication version of that: they start out seeming super legit but then shock ya’ with a little spicy. They highlight just enough articles about beer to divert the judgmental (and, let’s fact it, largely female) naysayers off their scent. Literary camouflage.

Speaking of genius, we toured Stanford while in NorCal. 4% admission, $68K A YEAR (as in each and every year you go there you have to pay that), and Syd loved it. I say dream big. She says that her getting into Stanford would mean I’d be too poor to visit often. Pete next beat countered saying that I can live for free with him in Vegas which is DRIVING distance any California campus. 97% of Stanford students live on campus. The guide said this is to instill school pride. Melarchy! We all know it is really because a craphole she-shed in Palo Alto without reliable plumbing costs north of $1M there. Fiscally on campus is not “an option”; it’s “the only” option.

The school was incredible. I totally get it. They’ve got groups for every interest. The student union post for a cultural book club caught my eye. This month’s focus was Indian literature. They are reading books on Sacagawea and the Trail of Tears, whereas I am currently reading “Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows.”

Thank god my kids are smarter than me.

Back at the hotel pool, other largely very intense Asian and Indian families were discussing college tours to Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard and the like. Behind them sat Julian in the hot tub making a hair mohawk and bubbled ‘stache and beard out of the jet foam. Reassurance that at least my crew of round eyes is well-humored.

Miss ya tons.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya, Stormy

Buongiorno from da burgh!

Went to my old stomping grounds of Pittsburgh with Pete for his dad’s 80th birthday pavilion party. I love Pittsburgh. Home to some of the best novelties:

• Home to the rustbelt version of “ya’ll” known to locals as “da yinzer” as in “yinz guyz gunnah go dahntahn to ketch da Stillers game on Sunday?”
• Home to Da Buccos (tough love being a loyal Pirates fan, but we do exist).
• A place where people respect the superiority of Heinz ketchup above all others;
• And Primanti sammiches: a hole in the wall culinary masterpiece that is so delectable it cannot be described: a blue collar version of the French trying to explain crepes to someone that had only ever eaten Eggo pancakes.

Not sure if I ever told you, but (brace yourself), I actually no joke lived in Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. My freshman dorm was located down the hill about two buildings away from Fred Roger’s apartment building. There were routine Mr. Roger’s sightings at our university pool where he would swim; which might have been childhood cool except for the fact that he was rumored to always wear a not loose track suit under which he sported – with the demurrer confidence only Mr. Rogers could pull off – a muted royal blue sporty snug swimsuit. I am not saying it was full out banana hammock, but – let’s face it – when it comes to THE actual Mr. Roger’s, anything less conservative than a red cardigan may as well be a thong.

Speaking of good behavior, have your WBCs decided to step up to the plate and play nice long enough to let the MD folks give you the chemo juice to get that hell behind ya? Not that I want you to feel icky (I’ve heard it obliterates some; others claim to have had worse hangovers – which leaves me to wonder if the former have ever truly felt the inner skull monkey knock of dehydration meets hangover?), but the sooner you are done the sooner we can book flights for our next girls trip!

The latest from upscale Mayberry:

Addy won. Having (supposedly purposefully) bombed the gifted program geek central entrance exam, it has been pronounced with great social media pomp and circumstance that she has “decided” not to do the project class. But that was ONLY after Heather made sure EVERYONE knew she had been accepted. We all want the best for our kids, she’s a helluva nice person, and it’s damn near impossible not to buy into the onslaught of faux facebook perfection. A slew of us got the same shameless email, none of which makes her a less fun happy hour partner. Our first toast at the next one will be to you. She often bails after about 25 minutes which kind of stinks but it’s also kind of a good moderator. Take what I can get these days.

My company is trying to go international. Super cool. They bought a company with ops in the UK and middle east (oh! to get to stay in that super cool hotel in Dubai that looks like a giant white sail!) and Austria (move over, Maria, a new nanny cougar’s hitting the slopes). I would LOVE to go to a mediation in London in September on a case we inherited. But my boss, who is an avid links course fan, is going over there for a well timed with the Ryder Cup board meeting. So, I fully expect to get trumped on that one. All of the overseas counsel have been great in acclimating me to their legalese. My biggest challenge is to discern which Graham I’m speaking with: apparently everyone in the UK from 1965 to 1979 named their son Graham. There’s like 12 of them on each call.

I’ve learned that “statement of application” is their version of our summary judgement. They don’t have “status calls” instead they “parlay” (which is way more pirate talk cool). The evidentiary procedures are a lot like ours. Apparently barristers are known for being overpriced status wankers (maybe the wigs?).

Ironically, one of the exec newbees to the company that I suspect also loves golf and is trying to get invited to that Ryder Cup timed board meeting, is making the lawyers squirm with statements like “we certainly want to pick good judiciaries.” I don’t think that’s a word even the UK guys use . He tells us – a team with a century of combined legal expertise – that “it’s important we follow legal procedure”.

WTF?

Telling a team of seasoned counsel to mind their court filing protocols is like telling me to wipe front to back. There are a lot of pregnant pauses on these calls. Good thing the it’s not facetime as even the super polite Brits may struggle with decorum. On the upside, I’m learning tons about foreign financial regulations (which fuels my inner geek) and am 1000% confident that I could completely violate all EU privacy laws without even realizing my folly but for the extremely talented (and pleasant, because in the UK it’s important to be pleasant at all times) counsel we have on retainer in London. I’m solid on the US front, but when it comes to overseas stuff, I kinda feel like Bush: he knew he didn’t know much but was smart enough to surround himself with an excellent cabinet. (Oh, if Condy and her golfball sized pearls would run for President that would be a-ma-zing!)

FINALLY done with tournament baseball for the month; we get a hiatus which should really be called a mental health stay. I thought just the dads were loco, but after hearing the other team moms discuss the pros to eating sunflower seeds because it inhibits their ability to urinate, I now know the baseline normal factor is not gender specific. Why one would go to dire measures to NOT miss 45 seconds of little league play baffles me – especially since there’s only 19 minutes of actual movement in a lot of the games. Your odds of space traveling back in time and dying on the Titanic are higher than missing a good play.

I think the Hampshire Baseball Board (because small town politics infuse itself everywhere) decommissioned my ex as Julian says his dad is no longer the Bantam level commissioner. I was psyched when Chase took a position on the volunteer baseball board: they always need folks.

He believes he could have been a major league player had he not overslept the college walk on try-outs on account of a massive hangover and is totally trying to live that dream to fruition with Julian (ie he’s vested or is hoping to follow suit to his moocher dad and live off of Julian’s successes. Sometimes I think men of our generation look at their beautiful boys and find themselves already disappointed in their athletic careers prior to leaving the nursery.

He really does understand the game.

And it gives him something to do besides haranguing us.

All (mostly) positives.

Getting kicked off of a board where they beg folks to participate is impressive. Rumor circulates quickly out here in Mayberry and he is rumored to have gone apeshit when told to plan a game Julian didn’t get to play in. I guess yelling at the other board members and their wives when Julian didn’t get voted onto the local All Star team and the board refused to change the rules didn’t sit well. Which even I gotta admit is pimpy; especially since Chase still had to plan, orchestrate and attend the All Star game populated by kids voted in by other parents in what was the little league version of a parent popularity contest. Julian is one of the best players in the league – even idiot ballmom me can see that. All of which is a knock on the process, not on the kids. I had been told MONTHS prior that Julian would be part of this honor to play. When that (clearly) didn’t happen, the kids, my mom and I went into the city to see Cirque du Soleil and had a great time playing in parks on the lakefront.

As you know, Celebrity A and his D-lister wife bought a house in the plan behind your old McMansion. He-A is supposed to be awesome: goes to the HOA meetings, super nice guy, and a kid at heart. She-D requires a private room at local restaurants to keep the paparazzi (ie local middle agers with cell phone cameras) at bay. My friend Dina lives a block from them, was out getting the mail and helped He-A push his gokart back to his garage. Maybe his wife is just an introvert, maybe she’s not into gokarts (no judgment), but it’s hard not to love a dude that’s on major tv syndicates tooling around in his spare time in suburbia without a seeming care in the world on an oversized RC car.

Lastly, the Pittsburgh trip (going full circle) went well. Pete’s dad kept sheepishly introducing me as his son’s “[pause] friend” despite three plus years of dating (sin. sinner. sinnest!). As a result of the awkward intro, a number of Pete’s cousins that had not met me before thought I was birthday boy SENIOR Peter’s girlfriend and that he’d gone cradle robber. Glad we got that cleared up. His sister, who is sweet and really tries but like many has a little failure to launch aspect, said she would like to throw me a wedding shower. I think this was an attempt at subtle interrogation. Little does she know, we Midwesterners are THE ALL TIME MASTERS. We are the ginzu knives meets Apple meets Nike Jordans of passive aggressive behavior. So I responded, without missing a beat (because comedic timing is part of the mastery) that I’d like to throw HER (never married) a wedding shower and clearly I couldn’t have one because I’m not engaged. (Point of contention, grrrrrrrr….). And fortunately end of discussion.

Landing soon back in Chi-town.

Hang in there – xoxox love ya’, Stormy

Bonjour!

Greeting inspired by Celeste. Who, like the rest of you traitorous defectors, has moved away leaving me to my lone divorcee devices. I’m surprised they stayed this long: after all, three years here is a mission when she was told she was moving from Paris to Chicago and landed here. Way. Not. Chicago. I’m guessing the equestrian farms and Olive Garden on the way into town gave it away.

So now my adorable French friend and her beautiful family have moved leaving me on the hunt for new fun neighbors with nice kids. So as not to set unrealistic expectations, I have lowered my kinship requirements:

• day drinking panache negotiable (baby has a bottle, I have a bottle best delivered with the inimitable “do not judge, it has been a long morning”).
• French accent preferred but not required.

She is the only one I know who routinely brought carafes of rose to school picnics. Speaking of pickling ourselves from the inside out, how’s chemo going? Sure wish I could take a couple of those hits for ya’ (now THAT would catapult me to a stratospheric level of friend).

I should not have brought a white card today as – shocker – I’m writing this from the little league baseball field sidelines on a windy hot day where nine year old uniformed versions of the Tasmanian Devil conjure Grapes of Wrath caliber dustbowls every half inning. The other team is chalk full of puny kids, which seems a little unfair as the strike zone is about the size of an ant egg.

The latest from upscale Mayberry:

Moving onto composite notebook paper because I used the end of the legal pad in my bag for legit work call notes this week. This is what we had left over from Julian’s third grade school supplies. I also just sent you a text. Da X is wearing the same shirt as me. The other parent couples are wearing kind of matching shirts today too. Maybe it was planned – even though I weasled my way onto the team chat (since that’s where they post practice changes too, really guys!?) and suggested eons ago that we all buy the same shirt for away games to find the field easier. with no response. Not like anyone would share the memo with me; I’m just a default twin with doofus. Maybe it will make Julian feel like we have some sort of concert support. We don’t like each other but we are all team kids (at least I am; I’m not ready to give that level of unguarded and not wholly proven kudos yet). Sydney was the first to notice and fortunately stopped laughing by the time we reached the field. He owns all ten versions of the team shirt; I own one. Really?! At least I wear it better. And since he neither speaks nor acknowledges me, no one will realize Julian belongs to these two random individuals.

PLUS, even though the town of Wilton where this modern day red stitched leather sphere gladiator call is transpiring is dry, they’ve got a bar in the middle of the little league fields where you can get your iced tea spiked or unspiked. No more hiding the vanilla rum sweet tea concoctions in Chik-Fil-A cups for this crew!

Other traitor escapees (that we love and miss sorely like you guys) were in town. Alexa – who you may recall recently moved to Tennessee with the rest of Illinois – stopped by with Cian who used to stop by the house Kramer style nightly knocking on the back door looking like a lost dog in need of food and the company of Sydney and the other defectors that moved. Alexa just kept asking “why the hell are you still here?” as they love the lower cost of living and temperate winter. I reminded her that I am the gorilla chained to a houseplant. This town is a noose and Chase is the rope tied to the legal system tree. Seven more years til that rope gets dwindled to a dry-rotted twine. Unless Chase bites it beforehand. Which, if it’s gonna happen, let’s hope it happens before we start high school. Chase effing up is the one thing I’ve been able to consistently rely on when it comes to that man. So here I sit, literally in the spectator seats, waiting to see how the show plays out. Sure, Hampton’s nice in a bubble way: we all sit in the bubble and we are presumably safe in the bubble but there’s bullies in the bubble and people still fart in the bubble. Which is why every now and then we go osmosis ourselves away to the anonymity of the city or some little mountain town to escape for a few days. It looks real nice. But is it? All of it?

We head to NorCal next week. Gonna channel our inner Clark Griswold gone west coastal. Pete has made me send him our hotel confirmation THREE TIMES. After our last California trip (kidless to Calistoga wine country) I’m kind of surprised he trusted me at all with the accommodations.

Jess – who grew up near wine country and has far better taste than me – recommended we stay at the heartburn inducing $980 a night Solange Resort. I checked the travel sites and found a much more palatable $500 a night Larkwood Inn, but thought I’d better run it past the big guy 1st. Pete said book it, so I go back online for the contact info and type “Calistoga Lark” and up pops “MeadowLARK Country Inn”. Which sounds A LOT alliteratively like LARKwood, so I booked it. Both included breakfast, were on the town outskirts with beautiful grounds, both adult only and identical top notch reviews. Notably, NOT a single one of those Tripadvisor reviews mentioned ANYTHING about either being a nudist haven. Plus, MeadowLARK was $385 a night when I pulled it up, so I figured the price had dropped in a good travel timing karma way. I mean, how many places in a three mile radius are gonna be named “lark”-anything, right?

We fly into Sacramento, drive to the Inn where I notice A LOT of masculine (as in huge plaster bust to torso sculptures of dudes with mongo dongs abutting the clothing optional pool and hot tub, and inside there are framed photos of men sporting ascots standing next to Great Danes abutting large wooden garden figures with huge mammary type art). The few folks we see are absolutely clothed. We have a nice night in town and the gorgeous room. The next morning we go to breakfast where Klaus is holding court. Klaus owns the Meadowlark with Leon, works very hard at maintaining his Austrian accent despite having lived stateside for 50+ years (he is about 75 y/o). He sits at the head of the table where we are welcomed and learn quickly that we are the only ones NOT repeat customers. Three other couples join us. While Pete is talking about hot air balloon rides with folks at HIS end:

[insert breakfast diagram]

A tall Chinese American guy named Phil asks me “Have you two always been nudists” in the same way I would ask you to please pass the salt. I say “we’re not nudists.” Phil, Mrs. Phil and Klaus are stunned trying not to drop their utensils.

“Vell, how ont ert did you vind us?,” asks Klaus.

“TripAdvisor, you guys get great reviews. Lots of compliments about the great breakfasts,” says I, loud enough for Leon who I suspect may be Klaus’ gimp, to hear.

“Well, we’d sure love to see you two at the hot tub for happy hour,” says Phil.

“Best convos happen in the hot tub,” chirps Mrs. Phil.

Pete is all the while still enthralled talking about ballooning with the Xs and Ys.”

Back in the room, I tell Pete about MY convo. He says his first thought was concern about all of them wanting to see ME naked, until he realizes his bigger concern is all of them wanting to see HIM naked.

After a great day of cycling through vineyard wine tastings, we don our swimsuits back at the resort with hopes that taking a 3 p.m. hot tub dip is early enough to shirk the elusive 5 p.m. happy hour. However a ballooner breakfast guest was already there and even with the jets on high, we could see he was clearly naked unless you count what appeared to be a large grey poodle morphed with Hemingway’s beard pubefest anchored to his crotch as clothing. No hot tub for us. On the walk back to the room, Pete’s only comment was, “Honey, I love you, but you’re on travel planning probation.” He is an awfully good sport!

Wish I could say that was the end of our questionably fun Calistoga adventures. But on our last day I booked us two non-refundable reservations for “world famous mud baths” at a place in town called Dr. Wilkinson’s Med Spa & Resort. I envisioned milky mud water, lukewarm, offset by lavender infused rain showers. Au contraire. The “mud” is a thick mossy peat tub and is NOT changed between guest clients. It is super hot by your feet and they use shovels to mix it up. You quicksand style sink in and are told to “just relax.” I was anal wink puckered the entire 20 minutes for fear something awful might seep into an orifice reserved for my exit only functions. Someone could have dropped dookie in there and between the putrid wet woody stench and texture, NO ONE would EVER know. I went in my birthday suit (since nudity was clearly this trip’s call to arms). Pete wore his swim trunks to no avail as there was nothing capable of containing the ilk. You climb out and take a normal shower head shower. I have never done such a thorough deep dive of my kaslopis in my life. The sandiest of loose suits on beaches got nothing on the after math cleanse factor of this place. After the shower, you sit in an old school bath tub with clean water and bubbles infused from a circa 1842 contraption one can only imagine is a repurposed iron lung machine.

Not to sound snotty, but next time we are sticking with the more predicable Sonoma.

Gotta run – game over (onto round 3 tomorrow). Syd and Julian are excited to get home and play flashlight tag with the neighbor kids. There was even talk of catching fireflies.

Swooooooon! Gotta love those Midwest summer kid moments. Counters the tainted bubble factor in the best best best way!

Hang in there – xoxox, Stormy