Airatarian

My mother doesn't eat.

I mean, she eats, ok? Everyone eats. But she doesn't really eat food.

Yesterday morning it was coffee and I made her try a HobNob. She didn't really like it and ate a graham cracker. I think that was breakfast.

Then as I was leaving to go to the mall she called after me, "Here! take some lunch with you!" and ran down the driveway with a banana.

Now, she's never eaten dinner as long as I have known her. I guess that would be all my life. She was a working mother and would leave notes like, "Dinner is in the fridge" where my siblings and I would find three apples and a bag of cheese curds.

I spoke with my sister yesterday about mom and her ability to live, not just live but thrive on just coffee, fruit, cheese and wine.

"It's freaky" my sister said "It's like she's an...airatarian" .

Peacocks

My parent's next door neighbor dropped by last night and mentioned there had been some break-ins last year. Is break-ins hyphenated? I think so. Who cares.

So yes, my mother said to me this morning that she thinks she should get an outside dog, just for protection.

"It would be hard fro me to leave it outside though, just standing there in the cold why the rest of us were inside. That's cruel".

I agreed.

"What you need mom, like a guard...."

"Peacock! Yes! What a great idea"

I wasn't going to say peacock. I'm not sure what I was going to say, but it wasn't "guard peacock".

It's all Greek to me

There was a marble serving plate on the counter at work yesterday, so I spun it and asked my colleague what she saw. She smiled and looked at me blankly like she always does when I ask her something and she either does not understand, or can't hear me.

"Chocolat" I said, "I guess you haven't seen it".

"I've seen it" she said "It's the French one with words on the bottom".

"No, no subtitles, it's in English".

"Right, the one about how life used to be in Italy".

"Well no, it takes place in France".

"'Like Water for Chocolate'" she frowned, "I didn't like it".

"Yeah..that's a Mexican film".

"Whatever".

Clumsy Anacronym

I've got to quit making fun of my manager. Really, I can't keep doing this.

Today she and a co-worker of mine were folding sweaters. "You can't describe a sweater as 'clumsy'" she said "clumsy isn't an adjective, it's an adverb".

Knowing I did not want to get involved in this conversation, I tried to leave the room.

"Sara!" She shouts. "Clumsy is an adverb, right? It can't be an adjective".

"Er well...I suppose it could be an adjective, if you were describing a noun...like..um, a person. The person was clumsy".

"Yeah but, it's really an adverb, right?"

Well, if you were to say, "He stumbled along, clumsily" You'd be in adverb territory.

"What about a sweater. Can a sweater be clumsy?".

I suppose it could be.

"Hee Haw! Right!" she snorts. "You need to have a long talk with your ex-husband, because you are WRONG baby! So wrong.."

Yes, tonight I will consult my ex-husband who teaches High School English about Adverbs. Maybe I'll call my English professor father and brother as well for a second and third opinion because , GASP-I don't know the English language.

Earlier that day she was decribing her daughter coming up with some anaconyms. "You know, like Happy for Sad, or Hot and Cold.."

I think she's FUBAR.

Jeroboam of 1947 Pommery

What have you been drinking?

I have six boxes of empty wine bottles in my basement. They aren't mine, they belong to my former employer. My ex-husband moved them up from New Jersey.

A few months ago I wanted to rent a u-haul and empty out our storage. My ex-husband volunteered to fly down, pack everything up and drive it back. I know you're thinking "How nice of him", but it was because he was paranoid that I would take something that belonged to him. You know like an old high school notebook or his collection of concert ticket stubs from the 70's and 80's. Anyhoo. I had some boxes that I had been storing at the warehouse at work, so I asked if he'd pick those up on the way back as well.

"How will I know what boxes are yours?" he asked

"They'll say SARA on them, in big, red letters."

Years ago when I was married to my first husband, I used to throw my clothes in a big garbage bag and toss them on the U-haul. One move my ex-husband saw the big garbage bag on the u-haul, and threw it in a dumpster somewhere in Texas. Now my family will always tie a ribbon on anything packed in a garbage bag, and I will always mark anything packed in a box with my name on it. REALLY REALLY BIG.

So it worked. I did end up with all my boxes. Plus six boxes of empty wine bottles. These aren't ordinary wine bottles either. They are the empties from the 'Top 100 wines of the Century' dinner my boss puts on every year. If you are interested in attending, you can for the mere $17,500.

So now, if they don't want the bottles back, I'll need to take them down to the recycling center in town where I'll unload a month's worth of the Rangeley "Highlander", milk jugs from the IGA, and a Jeroboam of 1947 Pommery.

What's up with your hair?

My youngest child Isobel called me into the living room this evening to show me something on television she found interesting.

First off, let me state that she is seven. She has never known a world where you couldn't pause live TV. This has nothing to do with the story really, it just makes me laugh when she wants me to see something on television and states "Hold on, let me rewind it".

So Isobel was showing me a Mom and her daughter, standing in a hallway.

"Do you like her outfit mom?" she asks, pointing to the TV mother.

"Sure, it's cute".

She starts the commercial up again, the TV daughter looking at her TV mother and telling her how young she looks.

Isobel turned to me with a concerned look and said:

"Mom, you have such a pretty face, I just wish you dressed better".

Yeah yeah..let me slip into a cute, little Spring dress to shovel the foot of wet snow that fell last night, after that I'll throw on some strappy sandals to wear to the IGA.

Oh, now this has nothing to do with anything, but the snow reminded me. DO NOT knock the foot of snow off your car using an old, metal snow shovel. If you do this you run the risk of cracking your windshield, which I happened to do this morning. A broom would be better.

A Grouchy German is a Sour Kraut!

So we're now into day nine of our cross-country to the Northwest extravaganza and so far it's been wonderful. Wonderful up until yesterday.

We drove over to Bellevue Square to browse the Apple store. Ok, I don't want comments like: "why didn't you just go to the one by the University? It's closer". I know it is, I like Bellevue. No comments David.

We're hungry so we stroll into the Cheesecake Factory for lunch. I chose the Cheesecake Factory because I find it's everything both right and wrong about the United States all rolled into one. The shear, creative genius of this obscene menu and the absolute gluttony of it. Plus they have beer.

While chowing down on Cuban sandwiches, we're discussing his job situation in Germany and his plans to start looking elsewhere. I casually say "How about Seattle?" Where he looks me right in the eye and says:

"I'm too old to move here".

I'm not quite sure of what happened next as everything seemed to slow down and get very quiet around me. I do remember saying half laughing and half choking "You're too...old?".

We ate our sandwiches, he continued talking about his work as I struggled to breathe. Damnit. He did it in one of my favorite malls too. Asshole.

Three years we've been doing this. Three fucking years. New Jersey was too ugly, Boston was to cold, Maine was too remote. Now, had he just said "Seattle is too rainy" or "I don't like their recycling program" I probably would have fell for it, again, and continued this bizarre long-distance whatever it is we have for another three years. But, "I'm too old to move to Seattle"??? It's a jackass way to say "I don't want to live with you. Ever."

We drove home in silence. He tousled my hair and asked me why I was so quiet, if something was wrong, I seemed sad. A mature person would have taken that opportunity to discuss what was he just said, however, we're talking about me here. So, I smiled and said I was just tired.

Friday I'll put him on a plane back to Munich. I'll give myself the weekend to drink too much wine, cry a lot and eat Ben and Jerry's. Then Monday morning I'll start over again.