she spent 73 years raising children

"Hey Mom," said my son, Sandy, on the phone this morning. "Guess what. If you add together all the years that Nick and I have been alive, that's, like, over half a century. You've been raising boys for over half a century! And if you add in Katie, it totals 73 years. If you laid it out flat, that's 73 years of child raising for you. Does that make you feel old?"

"Yes. Yes, it does. Old and creaky. Thank you, dear."

"Just doin' my job."

This is the child that called me at 3:00 a.m. this morning to be the first to wish me a happy birthday. I woke up, saw his name on the Caller ID and panicked, knowing that last night he was going rock climbing and he'd said it was more rock jumping than climbing, to practice for when he goes cliff jumping or building jumping or something in some kind of squirrel suit. So I panicked: Oh my god, he fell, he hit his head on a rock, he's in the hospital, he died, what happened, oh my god!

But no.

"Hi Mom, it's 12:01 out here in Santa Monica so that means... IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY! Just wanted to be the first to wish you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

"What?! And you're calling me... because..."

"It's your birthday! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!"

Silence on my end. He's done this kind of thing before. There is a history here. Back when he was a kid, about 6 or 7, he used to troop over to his father's house but leave my alarm set for some twisted hour of the morning - 2:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m. - and when I finally figured out that it wasn't a faulty alarm clock that was repeatedly going off, that one of my own children was actually planning this diabolical middle-of-the-night rousing, I said, "Sandy, why are you doing this?"

"I do it so you'll think of me."

"Dear, I do think of you, but when my alarm goes off at 3:00 o'clock in the morning, I'm not thinking good thoughts of you."

"Mom, any thought of me is a good thought, you know that."

That was back when he was a kid, yet I suppose I should still expect a middle-of-the-night rousing now and then, and I shouldn't have been so surprised when the phone rang at 3:00 o'clock this morning. And if you add up all the years I've been raising up children, it is, indeed, 73 child years, and what a nice, new measurement tool for one's life. Today I am 53 years old, and I have spent 73 years raising children. Go me!

Welcome to the Lugubrium

Being a writer is like being in charge of your own personal insane asylum. ~ Graycie Harmon

Writing is like this: wonderfully wonderful and wretchedly wretched. Example: a chart of last year's NaNoWriMo novel writing efforts, tracking both my word count and writing mood.

Yes, my little pollyanna word-counterettes, the word count does go up and up, but just look at the bing-bong writing mood. To write, must one be a human trampoline? And didn't Paul Simon write something about being a human trampoline:

"...and sometimes when I'm falling, flying
or tumbling in turmoil, I say
oh, so this is what she means..."

Writing is like that: up and down. Characters are characters every which way you go - in life, in novel, in utero, in absentia... And not only do the characters in "My Brother's Keeper" (working title of my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel) make me feel like I am in some sort of crazy place - I call it THE LUGUBRIUM, because I love the word lugubrious; it's such a lovely word - but real life does too. Take, for example, the continuing saga of my recent encounter with LensCrafters.

Yesterday, I called the LensCrafters General Manager to express my frustration with their lack of responsiveness when I tried to return a new and very expensive pair of glasses this past weekend, when the sales associate had not only accused me of breaking the frames in the short 46 hours I'd had them in my possession, but had dismissed me with no refund, in spite of the 30-day "no questions asked" guarantee. "You'll have to talk to the General Manager," she said.

So when I called to talk General Manager, she said - SHE ACTUALLY SAID - "If I take those back, I would have to eat the cost on them." Now, she could have said any number of things, including: Gosh, I'm so sorry you're having a problem; bring the glasses back in and let's see what we can do. But no. Without having even seen the glasses, she said: "If I take those back, I would have to eat the cost on them."

"What?!" I said. "What do you mean, eat the cost. There's no eating the cost. You have a 30-day guarantee."

After much back-and-forthing on the phone, during which time she actually said "eat the cost" half a dozen times, and I actually started to feel my decidedly cold blood boil, she finally said, "Look, here's what I can do for you. I will eat the cost of the frames, and put the lenses into another pair of the same frames."

So then I'm like: "Wha? I'm returning them because I don't like them; why on earth would I want another pair of the same damn things?"

Fast forward to yesterday evening when I went back to the stupid friggin' LensCrafters at the stupid friggin' mall to give it another stupid friggin' go-round, and it turned out that the stupid friggin' Prada frames weren't stupid friggin' busted at all. The stupid friggin' little screws were too stupid friggin' tight and the stupid friggin' little certified sales associate who declared them stupid friggin' broken didn't know what the hell she was stupid friggin' talkin' about.

Of course, there was no acknowledgement of my being put out, no rescinding calling me a liar, no apology. No. there was nothing, nada, nunca.

Except I got my money back.

Ahhhh, as the wise Albert Einstein once said: "Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."

Someone wants attention. Meow.

Spent a large chunkerooni of the weekend tap-tap-tapping out words on the keyboard for my NaNoWriMo novel. Up to almost 15,000 words - right on target for 50,000 words in the month of November. Yes! I am Word Queen!

This weekend: laundry got washed, orchids got watered, wine got drunken, words got written, but obviously SOMEONE (hint: meow) thinks they didn't get enough attention.

Note to self: spend more time with cat.

A Misanthrope and her Glasses

LensCrafters! In about an hour! Not!

About 334 hours later, I picked up my two new and expensive, très chic pairs of glasses at LensCrafters. And I was sitting at the little counter across from the cheery sales woman in her white lab coat. I had on my swanky new Superview Complete Progressive lenses ($445) with EZ Clean Premium AR MF Coating ($135) set in the Prada frames ($240). I looked side to side, up and down, and noted the strange sense of disequilibrium they produced. Because, you know, if I wanted that, I could be doing drugs.

“Um, I’m not sure about these,” I said. “It’s all, like, strange looking.”

“There’s a sweet spot,” said the cheery sales woman in the white lab coat. “You have to find that sweet spot! You have to remember to point your nose at what you’re looking at!”

“I don’t know,” I said. “That’s a lot of head turning. All I want to do is see.”

“Take them home! Try them out! If you have any problem – any problem at all! – come on back within 30 days and we’ll either replace them or refund your money!”

“Really?” I said.

“Absolutely!” she said with enthusiasm.

I took them home. I tried them out. I didn’t like them. The expensive Prada frames slid down my nose. They felt cheap, like something you’d buy for $10 on Canal Street in NYC. And they didn’t close correctly. The world looked wobbly through them. If I moved my head from left to right, right to left, it made me feel dizzy, like space wasn’t where it should be.

Nope, I decided. Not gonna work.

And the sunglasses, even though they looked good, kept sliding down my nose. The earpieces were so thick that I couldn’t see out the sides. No peripheral vision. Which translates into potential car crashes. Which almost happened, when I wore them while driving and didn’t see another car because I had no peripheral vision.

Nope, I decided. Not gonna work.

So, 46 hours later, I was back at Lenscrafters to return the glasses. Which I could do, because of the LensCrafters 30-Day Unconditional Guarantee. Right?

Whatever your reason, if you don't completely love your eyeglasses or prescription sunglasses, you can exchange or return them for a full refund at LensCrafters - no excuses, no explanations. That's what our 30-Day Unconditional Guarantee is all about - giving you peace of mind with every pair... Why do we do it? Because LensCrafters stands behind each and every pair of our glasses.

“We can’t take these back,” said the young woman in the white lab coat behind the counter.

“What?” I said.

“It’s broken,” she said. “The spring on the earpiece is broken.”

“Where.”

“Here, on the spring.”

“I’ve had them less than 48 hours. I’ve barely worn them. If it’s broken then you sold it to me like that.”

She shrugged and set them down. “We can’t take them back.”

“That’s ridiculous. When I picked them up, your person said I could bring them back for any reason.”

“Only in their original condition.”

“They are in their original condition. You sold them to me like this.”

“We can’t take them back, because they’re broken. We can’t refund your money.”

“So that’s it?”

“Well, we can switch the lenses into another pair for you, if you’d like.”

I just stared at her. Oh, I see how it is. You’re in the power position. You’ve already got my cash. Screw the customer. So this is how Lenscrafters makes its money.

“Fine,” I said, lingering on the F-f-f-f-f. “F-f-f-fine. Go ahead. Switch them into another pair. Then I’ll just return that pair for a refund.”

She stared back at me. I don’t know what she was thinking. I don’t care what she was thinking. It is irrelevant. But you want to know what I was thinking?

It puts the glasses in the bag.

I was thinking this, because one of my sons was recently Buffalo Bill for Halloween. Not the Wild West Buffalo Bill. You know, The Silence of the Lambs? Buffalo Bill? It puts the lotion in the basket? My son wore a mask fashioned of thin, flesh-colored faux-skin pleather, with black embroidery thread for stitches. The caption under his facebook photo: It puts the lotion in the basket. Which is highly ironic, this son being one of the most peaceful of creatures, an eco-bike-riding-vegan-composting kind of person,who would never hurt a fly. Unlike Buffalo Bill, an angry serial killer who murdered young women.

Which is only to say that I was very angry at the moment that I was thinking: It puts the glasses in the bag.

It is a terrible thing to be in the right, and be wronged.

Way to lose a customer, LensCrafters.

King SandyPants

25 years ago, Wee King SandyPants entered this world and made it a decidedly better place to be.

25 years later, and he's still at it: Sand the Man.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SANDY!

Wretchedly wretched

Argh! The death-squad word monkey swooped in and stole my words! Evil monkey. Writing today sucked. The lowly 193 words that I managed to tap out were wretchedly wretched and awfully awful.

Oh, I know there will be days like this, but I prefer the other kind of days, when words spring from my fingertips like summer blossoms on steroids.

But here's all I got:

In Arabel’s opinion, bogeymen should be relegated to the darker corners of life. They should remain in hiding under the dingy stairwell of a dank basement, or behind overflowing garbage cans down trashy alleys, back with the used needles and discarded condoms, or off and away in peat bogs or unkempt cemeteries. It would be so much better if they did.

And they should look like the wretched bogeymen they are: all hobbled by time, hunch-backed and crusty-skinned with cracked, drooling lips, broken teeth and rats-ass hair, and with some sort of tell-tale limp or dragging, shuffling feet so you could hear them coming. How much better that would be! Because then you would know when you saw one. You could point and say, “There! Over there! See? There goes a bogeyman!” And you’d know not to go anywhere near it and certainly not to let the children play with it, for god’s sake.

Instead, the bogeyman looks like you and me, talks like you and me, and acts like you and me.

Except for when they don’t.

But by that time, it’s too late.

Egads, it's a friggin' turkey shoot

Day 4 of NaNoWriMo - and I am up to 6,288 words out of 50,000. Huzzah! Too bad I have to go work every day; that surely takes a bite out of good writing time.

Anyway, hot off the laptop, another sizzlin' bit of text from my 2009 NaNoWriMo novel: My Brother's Keeper.

Giving Thanks

Picture this: a skinny kid with rumpled dark hair and mismatched pajamas too short in the legs, sitting at the end of a long dining table, waiting for the feast to begin. Thanksgiving fare is laid out before him: a huge roast turkey, steaming mashed potatoes, pearl onions in cream, stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy boat, wine glasses, monogrammed linen napkins and the good silver set just so. The kid, sitting at the end of plenty, has a metal patch taped over his right eye, where his eye got shot out two weeks ago at the Cub Scout turkey shoot.

Seriously. He got his eye shot out. With an arrow.

It happened like this.

The Cub Scout turkey shoot was coming up. The kid’s cub scout pack was practicing shooting arrows in someone’s back yard, under the pine trees. The boys were all whooping it up, as boys do, using a make-shift target tied to a bale of hay.

Where were the den mothers, you ask? Hmmm. One might wonder.

No, there they are, see? In the house, drinking coffee and eating coffee cake and chatting.

Meanwhile, out back, one kid said to another kid, “I dare you to run around the target.”

So that kid ran behind the target, just as another kid positioned an arrow in the string of his bow, pulled back, elbow bent, tension just right, squinted one eye. Arrow hurtled through air, feathers spinning. The tip of the arrow punctured the bull’s-eye, pierced the bale of hay, came out the other side, and sliced the running kid’s right eyeball, spilling out his sight.

Somebody screamed.

Somebody’s husband was called.

Somebody applied pressure with a dishtowel.

Somebody got a car. Somebody held the dishtowel over the kid’s bleeding-wet eye, in the backseat of the car somebody drove to the hospital two towns over.

The next time Arabel saw her little brother was when she came home from boarding school for the holiday; he’d been lying dead still in the darkened room of intensive care for two weeks already, with thirty-plus teeny-tiny stitches in his eyeball. Until then, Arabel hadn’t even known they could stitch an eyeball like that.

Amazingly, underneath the metal eye patch taped across his cheek and forehead with white hospital tape, her brother retained his eyeball. Everybody said it was a miracle. From then on, a white lightning scar zig-zagged diagonally across the kid’s dark iris and pupil, marking him as a boy with a past, or at least some kind of story.

He came home in time for Thanksgiving with the family.

And on Thanksgiving Day, that skinny little kid sat down, with all the turkey and mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce laid out aplenty before him. Before anybody else sat down, the father took a photo of the kid with the pajamas and eyepatch at the end of the table, so that the child would never ever, ever forget what he had done. As if he could; he was now marked with white lightning in his eye.