On Top Of Spaghetti!

We were starving for dinner. It could not start soon enough.

We follow the scent of spaghetti and meatballs through the woods to the Mess Hall. I am secretly hoping that all the bears are hard of smelling.

There is a new song of thanks to learn.
We hear it. We repeat it. We sing it. We sing it in rounds 3 times.

Minutes later we are all chowing down of sticky, steaming, clumped together pasta, rubbery meatballs, and Ragu. Broiled garlic bread. Salad drenched in bottled creamy Italian dressing. Mmm, mmm, good.

I want seconds. I never want seconds.

I stroll in (the In door) ahead of schedule. They haven't called "all the people with any other color than blue pants can go get seconds" or anything similarly segregating.

I have soooooo broken the rules. The kitchen Nazis glare at me incredulously. I am up a creek without a paddle. And no PFD, by the way.

I try charm.

"Hi there! THAT was Fab-u-lous! Would you mind if I had a smidge more? Oh! Don't get up! I can certainly help myself!"

A snarky looking kitchen witch wipes a puss from her face and offers to serve me with Stepford Wife brightness.

As I am extending my plate to receive her reluctant plop of spags and balls and garlic toast I notice a pot of something truly scrumptious siting between the chaffing dishes.

Ratatouille? Oooh! Yumm-o!

I say' "What's THAT? with terrific enthusiasm?

Mrs. Stepford loses the smile and says flatly "That's made special for the kitchen staff."

Oh.

Pardon me.

I smile fakely. "Of course it is."

The Kitchen Nazis have contraband? Like the Baldwins and their darn prohibition era Recipe! I bet they have Chianti too! There is going to be hell to pay. I am wild with disbelief.

Darn it if I can't have the Secret Sauce then I am piling on the little rubbery meatballs! I extend my plate once more. Mrs. Stepford counts out the prescribed number of meatballs and places the spoon in the dish. I keep my plate defiantly in place, unmoved, to indicate that I want more.

She's baffled. A rebel in the scouting ranks?

I don't move. Her eyes meet mine. My turn to hold a lifeless Stepford smile. She hesitates. Still I don't move. I haven't even blinked since I approached the meatball bin. She's looking nervously around for support from the ranks, but alas they are eating. The Earth could crash into the sun and they'd go on eating.

She slowly counts out another serving of meatballs and places them cautiously on my plate, as if they might explode. She looks as if she suspects I will pounce.

I actually may. I think about snatching the contraband ratatouille and running off into the woods. But I know the grey ladies will outrun me on their turf, despite my carb load.

I settle for a two-fer of meatballs and return to the table, grabbing a Dixie cup of bug juice on the way. We have a full evening ahead of us, complete with singing around the campfire.

In rounds, of course.

Over There! Over There!

I am not sure where these little old ladies get their energy from. (I am not being mean - they've all shared how very proud they are that they've been Girl Scouts for 50 years - you do the math.)

We are hiking up hills and over rocks and climbing something affectionately known as Heart Attack Hill. I am sucking down bottles of water both out of thirst and to offload the weight of them.

We are having serious discussions about real hiking gear vs. fashion hiking gear (guess which I like better?)

We are learning how to read a blazed trail.

A blaze is a big red dot painted on a tree at about eye-level. (I am not sure why the nature lovers don't call this graffiti and consider it defacing nature. It would not surprise me at all if they did.) But in any event, someone blazes a trail by marking trees along a preferred path way so that you can follow it by going toward on blaze and easily spotting the next - which calls you to go toward it - and so on and so on until you have completed your hike.

Interesting facts:

1 - a tree with two blazes indicates a turn. You should be looking more to the left and right for the next blaze.

2 - Girl Scouts get very annoyed if you habitually forget the word "blaze" and call them "red dots."

We get to Lookout Rock and the girls are encouraged to help each other climb up to the top. From there you should be able to "see" four states. (if it weren't for all the damn trees.) It is a beautiful spot for a group picture of all the girls together looking healthy and active.

And being Girl Scouts, since they are assembled and confined to the flat surface of a rock, we must teach a song about how lovely the hills are. Really.

We hear it.
We repeat it.
We sing it.
We sing it in rounds three times.

We climb to the summit and pick up jaw bones and vertebrae of dead unidentifiable varmints along the way. All picked clean except for a random whisker or hair. Eeewww. (But the girls know that Tree will just love their treasures! She will pull them out and marvel at them and identify them on the spot - this is a muskrat skull - that is a skunk pelvis. Again, eeewww.)

We are tromping through some green leafy curly-cued plants. Another counselor is suddenly very excited. She knows what they are and thinks she should scoop up a bunch in her bag (hopefully not the one with the pieces of carcass in it) to bring back for Pluto (Disney fan? Former planet sympathizer?) to saute in some butter in the mess hall kitchen. Says they are delicious.

"Delicious?" I ask. "Delicious in a general sense or delicious as compared with other things you might scrape off the forest floor and fry?"

No answer.

It is hard to know what will offend whom our here. But unless I plan to blaze my trail home on my own, I think I'd better be kind to our guide and try to fit in.

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

To be truthful, my enthusiasm improved with hers. I even did the hand gestures with Muffin when we sang Grace in rounds at lunch.

And where I had been secretly jonesing for a latte and a swing on a hammock far from the madding crowd of over-excited campers, I was actually considering getting in a Funyak for a whirl around Lake Run Amok.

We grabbed all of our water gear from the cabin and proceeded to the lake. It was a beautiful day and we all sat on our beach towels (Sit-upons, in the vernacular) soaking in the sun waiting for our water sports leaders to join us. I was just feeling warm and toasty when I spotted Jerry Mulligan from work. He's a department manager I work with at home, and here he is walking toward us! He's a great guy. One of my favorites. What's he doing here?

Oops.

Not Jerry.

Gretchen. Water sport aficionado. I mistook her graying pompadour, enormous square shoulders and Fred Flintstone mannerisms for his. Gretchen would be teaching us to paddle properly.

I will not be mentioning this to Jerry.

We all stand patiently as we are guided through the merits of wearing a PFD. ( A PFD for those not in the know, is a Personal Floatation Device - the PC way of saying life jacket.) Some jackass with a law degree probably suggested that all of our boat-owning friends would be victim to all manner of litigation for calling them "life jackets" and suggesting that they guaranteed one's life. Same guy responsible for our Styrofoam cups suggesting in print that "Contents may be hot" (I should hope so, I just spend $4 on a cup of coffee) and our shoe boxes all containing little burlap packets of God-Only-Knows-What that read "Do not eat." (As if.)

We are then taught the appropriate rowing posture and how to cleverly avoid touching the paddle to the grass (sacrilege!) when we are standing lakeside (And BTW why ARE we still standing lakeside?) by balancing it on the decorative end of our Teva rubber sandals.

And then we are finally, one by one, pushed from the beach in our Funyaks where we all commence racing toward the little island we were just told not to approach so as to not disturb the turtles who are sunning there.

I feel a Haiku assignment for 12 coming on.

But for now I'll race my daughter across the lake - play a sanctioned game of bumper boats - and splash anyone and everyone who dare tried to edge me out in a race to the dock.

By the time we change for our hike we are all wringing wet and laughing our heads off. It's the stuff camp memories are made of.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The pond excursion is what you'd expect: a few dead things, lots of pond scum, a few near fall-ins, and way too many bugs. I nearly stepped on a frog. I am happy to report that it was more afraid of me than I of it, and it hopped frantically away long before I stopped doing my little get-it-off-me dance.

My daughter unearthed a neat-o fossil. Also found a frog. Named it Fabio. I'll call it a successful outing at the pond.

What was not so successful was her trip to the latrine. Evidently camp french toast and fruit cup put quite a whammy on her bowels and while the other girls were still searching for an equally adorable frog or an equally cool fossil, she scampered up the hill with someone named Thorn to the nearest toilet (or reasonable facsimile). It was a typical outhouse with enough light shining in so you could see what you needed to see and everything you wanted to avoid seeing. My girl takes a seat and promptly notices what she calls a "big hairy Wolf Spider."

And poof! Instant constipation.

Accompanied by the usual irritability. Super. Just in time to explore the falls.

And so, what followed was an hour or two that included a lot of grousing, lack of participation, inability to see the humor in things and eventually, tears of frustration.

I was pretty sure, the tears had little to do with a clogged drain. But we'd start there.

I offered to walk with my gal through the woods (a good walk will get your motor running!) and go back to the cabin where an actual flushing toilet, however rust stained, awaited her bare bottom. I could be reasonably sure that I could rid the place of spiders, snakes, bees and other vermin before Her Highness took to the throne.

And while she sat and went about her business at her leisure, I sat on the other side of the door (guarding against all intruders of any size, shape and number of legs) and chatted with my littlest angel.

She missed her Dad. (It's an ugly job but someone has to do it.)
She missed her dog. (Probably more than she missed her Dad)
She felt guilty about not calling him the night before (He'd told her to...)
And wondered if her brother was doing alright with no one to deflect Dad's attention (My words, her thoughts...)

So once she finished what she'd come to start, I handed her my phone and told her to dial her dad. I also told her to focus on the fun things...Fabio, and the fossil. (he'd use any grim news like the toilet situation to convince her never to come back)

She brightly described the frog and the fossil and the cabin and the lake and the falls and all the other wonders of nature we were experiencing. And I think she convinced herself that she really was having a good time.

My girl practically skipped to the Mess Hall to join in a round of thankful songs before digging in to a daisy shaped chicken patty with her pals to power up for an hour of Funyaking on the lake.

Food! Glorious Food!

The cement floor.

The unfinished wooden walls.

The dim lighting. (Probably a good thing.)

It resembled a garage.

I would have run screaming through the woods to safety if not for the smell of coffee (and my full cognizance of the fact that the nearest Dunkin' Donuts was an hour away.)

It was exactly the same, except the long wooden picnic tables had been replaced by square formica tables that seat 8, the picnic tables having been eaten by termites decades ago, I'm sure.

I follow Debbie and the scent of Folgers into the kitchen. Which was a no-no 40 years ago. We waited to be called. I guess coffee etiquette is different.

I fill my cup, add the creamer, and walk out to sit and unjangle my nerve endings.

Debbie follows me - and bends to whisper to me.

"We just broke the rules. We went in AND out the IN door." She points. She is right. There a purple magic markered sign above each door indicating which direction they are to be traveled through.

I've been here 5 minutes and I am about to get my first Haiku assignment.

I lay low and let the caffeine settle into my soul while some very energetic lady in khakis and denim named Muffy or Muffin or Puffin or some camp-bestowed name teaches the girls a song of thanks to be sung before the meal.

We hear it.
We repeat it.
We sing it.
We sing it in rounds three times.

There will be a lot of this this weekend.

But for now, it's chow time.

French toast sticks! Bacon! Cereal in little boxes! Yogurts! Fruit cup!

And the best part? It is all on paper plates and in little styrofoam bowls.

NO SCRAPING!

Things are looking way up. Bring on the Pond Exploration activity!

The Kids are Brats, the Food is Hi-De-Ous!

Finally the girls settle down and snuggle into bunks and nod off.

The ladies and I tiptoe into our room and prepare for bed. I can see my breath in the moonlit room. I am wearing sweatpants, a long sleeve T-shirt, a polar fleece and socks to bed. Carmella has donned a ski cap. Debbie, the pro camper has some kind of cocoon sleeping bag that she might be able to go into outer space with. Carmella is remarking about her solar-something-or-other gear. I roll out Scott’s Coleman sleeping bag anticipating the worst.

I am completely surprised. Of the three of us, I sleep the best. That isn’t to suggest that anyone slept well on the 3 inch flea bags we called mattresses. But I wasn’t cold. In fact I was a little overheated. (Thank God for peri-menopause. I could fry an egg on my abs.)

I was up to watch the sun rise over the lake and texted Scott to thank him for the toasty sleeping gear. He sent me a text that he hoped the big hairy spider picked someone else’s bunk.

First things first. I need coffee. When does the Mess Hall open, where is it, and can I go early??? And if I can’t go early, how do we rouse the troops and begin the hike to wherever it is that the food lives?

The girls begin to shuffle about in their quarters and the games begin…All the questions about what should be worn for what activity and what will get wet and how long until I get to change out of it. It is like schizophrenia Pee Wee Herman-style.

Most entertaining was the modesty. While Carmella and Debbie and I just get up and change, the girls are willing to wait patiently to go one by one into our filthy bathroom to privately change from pajamas to clothes without anyone getting a peek. No one dare exposed a training bra, a panty or a bare naked anything. I can only imagine what the swimming activity is like in the summer. It must take ages.

But soon enough we are hiking down the trail and across the creek toward the Mess Hall.

And in the light of day (barely) I can see that it is exactly the same rustic structure in which I “dined” nearly 40 years ago – and I’m kind of in a flop sweat.

When I was 8, the Mess Hall was filled with long tables where 10 or so people could sit together. At the end of each meal we sang some cheerful little campfire ditty with little breaks in it. What the counselors did was a campfire version of Follow the Bouncing Ball or Duck Duck Goose…and tapped each campers head around the table on each syllable of the song we were all gleefully singing. When the pause came in the song, if the counselor’s hand was upon your head, you were assigned one of the jobs.

And this is where the horror began. For what seemed like every meal, I got picked for a job…and most often I was the Scraper.

The Scraper had the dubious honor of taking all the plates and cups that had been collected by the Clearer, which had been thrown willy-nilly into a gray tub, and scraping the ewey gooey remains of the meals into the trash bin. Mashed potatoes mixed with grape juice. Corn blended with coleslaw. Spaghetti mashed with fruit cup.

I gagged through the entire experience. I was sure being a POW was better.

What would be the routine now, 40 years later? And what if my child is the scraper? I will surely have a heart attack and die.

I am figuratively breathing into a paper bag as we cross the threshold into the Mess Hall and are greeted warmly by the Kitchen Nazis.

Give me strength.

We Are the CITs so Pity Us...

It exceeds my worst teen horror flick expectations.

Dead bees on every sill of every smeary window.

Plastic mattresses with eleven varieties of stains of unknown origin.

Creative little poems carved into the paneling by the bedsides and scrawled with a marker on the plywood undersides of the top bunks.

But our plucky and evidently fearless leader is picking up a broom and opening doors and letting in the fresh (albeit freezing) air. A spoonful of sugar...

Carmella and I are on bed duty – and by that I mean, finding a way to cram all the girls into one bedroom so we have the other one all to ourselves.

We are carrying the three-inch filthy mattresses two at a time from our spare bunks to the room where all the girls are lobbying for top bunks or other forms of prime real estate. We wedge the mattresses in like Tetris-masters and smile as though the girls are supposed to be thrilled at the coziness. They are really not unhappy about it. They want no parts of us either.

My daughter has claimed her bunk and she’s not moving from it until she is sure it will not be claim-jumped by a more senior scout. Smart girl. She has a bottom bunk with close proximity to the bathroom. She’s claimed a spot in the hall “closet” for her back pack so her stuff is not all over the filthy floor (which has more to do with spiders than an innate sense of tidiness she was born without).

The girls spend the next few hours playing hilarious games known among the girl scout set. Games with uncomplicated rules and an and inclusiveness about them. Simple. Need no props. Can be played around an impromptu campfire. Easy for a newcomer to learn.

Except evidently if you are in your 40s. I could no m ore get the hang of Alibi than I could land a DC-10 on the beach by the lake. Thankfully my daughter wasn’t mortally horrified at my performance. At least I played and didn’t do as poorly as my peer leaders.

Eventually the girls took their prepubescent loudness outside to frighten the local wildlife. Carmella, Debbie and I played Dominoes and some Italian card game with Italian cards with no numbers but number values and odd little pictures. It made us all concentrate on the cards and not the fact that we were miles from home, deep in the woods, in a filthy cabin in iffy weather and in charge of nearly a dozen children – and their fears, varying abilities, bad dreams, asthma medication, allergies, insecurities and home sickness. And no Chardonnay, BTW.

I pushed scenes from Outer Limits from my head and gamely played along. My insides turning to mush.

Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah

I can not believe I am heading to Camp Hari Kari. Again.

That would account for the pit stains and generalized anxiety, me thinks.

I am a volunteer driver for this adventure. I may live to regret all the decisions I have made regarding this trip.

The other two mothers are in the minivan I'll be following. My navigator is my eleven-year old. Scott lends me Betty, his GPS. My daughter can no more interpret the rambling prose directions provided by the Girl Scouts than I can. They reference things like political billboards and signs for establishments that may or may not still be open now that the economy has gone belly up all over. We are doomed.

As Betty directs and redirects and I whiz over hill and dale to an address she does not recognize and is constantly repositioning to find, I make a mental note to market my own verson of Betty. It should be a GPS that has a raking voice not unlike that of Mrs. Costanza (WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITH ALL THIS PAELLA????) or one's own mother, natch. Instead of very calmly recalculating directions once you've missed the turn she warned you about with plenty of time to change lanes and slow down, this GPS will be the typical co-pilot and chastise you:

"Great! Now you've missed it! I guess I'll get out the map and get us out of the bowels of Hell myself."

"Would you like me to drive, Ponce De Leon?"

"Thank God for Sacagawea. Pull over while I figure out how to get us out of this mess."

"Go left. YOUR OTHER LEFT, DUMB ASS! Now you've done it. Pull into South of the Border and we'll ask Poncho if he can direct us. Let's hope your fledgling Spanish skills are better than your driving."

"Hello, the speed limit on this road is 65. We'll never get there if you are going to drive like a little old lady."

I could make a fortune.

But for now, I am going the speed limit across mountainous roads and through quaint little towns while 3 overly excited tweens complete and recite Mad Libs and laugh hysterically at nonsense references to Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber and tweenish names for body parts we don't generally talk about in polite company, and use vocabulary words like "haberdashery," and words like"turdball" because their mothers aren't in the car but instead are at home having a Chardonnay and watching a rated R movie because they can.

At last we get to Camp Hari Kari. We are greeted by a collection of earthy grey haired ladies in patchwork jeans, LL Bean shoes and lots of denim. They are so disappointed. There is a running water problem at the camp site. They are weighing our options. Would we be terribly disappointed if we had to stay in a cabin?

Disappointed? Ummm, no. I am privately thanking whatever nameless partron saint of Campers. And sending one to Francis of Assissi (Ecologists) and Patrick, (Fear of Snakes) just for good measure. They have smiled upon us.

We get to the cabin. Cute, quaint, rustic, faces the lake. So far so good. At least on the outside.

The girls are very excited and are all piling out of the cars to get inside. Debbie, the leader, stops us. She wants to prepare the girls. "Girls we got lucky with this cabin tonight, but I doubt that it is as luxurious as you are expecting. Don't expect it to look like your mom cleaned it, or your grandmom."

Like they care about clean. Please.

We go inside. It doesn't even look like Helen Keller cleaned it. The sink, for starters, is filled with rust and the smell of rotting God-knows-what wafts from the drain. Leaves blow across the wooden floor and collect in a corner below the windows draped with stained gauze curtains.

I am seriously thinking that my daughter and I will be sleeping in the car.

Hail to the Queen

But before the Scouts, there are the Royals.

Not the Kansas City Royals.

Not the Royal Tenenbaums.

The Royal Wedding. As in Prince William and Waity Katie, adorable couple that they are.

I had set my DVR to record hours of pageantry. I'd resist the urge to get up at the crack of dawn to watch what I could while primping for a day at the office. (I know, I know. Why bother? I could show up in my bathrobe and still not win the Worst Dressed contest.)

I woke on the morning of the wedding when my radio alarm went off, and the morning news person said "Kate Middleton and her father have just arrived at Westminster Abbey..."

And I was out of bed - just as I had been the summer Di and Charles were wed - only then I was running down the street to Scott's parents' shore house from the one where I was staying.

This time I tiptoed into my daughter's room - deftly avoiding the nail polish collection. the array of Polly Pockets, and the 6 or 7 stuffed animals assembled for a tea party- and touched her golden hair.

Her eyes opened ever so slightly - and I whispered "The bride and her father have just arrived at Westminster Abbey. Do you want to go watch?"

And she was out of bed and down the stairs before I could give her the option of video playback with popcorn at a more reasonable hour.

It was lovely.

The Queen Mum in a lovely shade of buttercup yellow. Prince Philip looking regal.

Charles looking constipated as usual and Camilla's lovely outfit distracting attention from her hound dog face.

Handsome David Beckham with his miserable botoxed wife bearing their fourth child in an impossibly skinny torso.

Elton John and his husband must have gotten a babysitter for the big event because Junior was nowhere in sight.

Horse-faced daughters of former Duchess Fergie - one in an ill-advised bubble skirt ensemble and the other in a Lady Gaga-inspired hat, both very enthusiastic as royals go, inspite of their equine appearance.

And then Waity Katie. Or shall we say Easy Breezy Katie. A wisp of a thing in a gorgeous gown that reminded us all of a regal Princess Grace of Monaco. A demure tiara and veil, gorgeous in their simplicity. Nothing could compete with her radiance. Composed. Relaxed. Smiling. Wore the dress instead of the dress wearing her. Perfection.

Though I am sure, had I been her, I might have been having murderous thoughts the minute sister Pippa arrived threatening to become the breakout star in the fabulous creamy dress skimming an unbelievably smacked together bod - which had surely never touched anything by Spanx. Beyotch.

God Save the Queen.

Way Down Yonder in the Paw Paw Patch

As the camping trip draws near, my daughter is full of advice.

The latrines being the big fascination of the trip, the first piece of advice is about their use.

Don't drop your Glow Stick in the latrine.

Not far off from the advice my father had given me about dropping my flashlight in the outhouse. Lovely. You know this is going to happen to me. Or to the person who uses the latrine just ahead of me.

The other advice she gave me came straight from the camp itself. We should store all food items in sealed plastic in the car. Because of bears.

What?

On my first and last trip to Camp Hari Kari, Mom sent me with a stash of goodies in my orange patent plastic smiley face suitcase. No bear came and ate it. Just a raccoon who clawed at it until the zipper ripped and he could siphon out every last Fun Size Snickers bar.

I'm hoping that is the worst of the rules.

When I was there as an eight-year-old, we walked through the woods in single file on the path. No running. Walked. Single file.

This is camp???

I ran.
I ate the blackberries from the bushes.
I waded into the water we weren't supposed to go in. In my shoes.
I climbed a tree.

I got into a lot of trouble.

Trouble in Girl Scouts is more shame than punishment. At least it was in the 70s. I was told to leave the gathering (of evidently more compliant girls) and go sit in a tent alone (The Time Out Tent? Solitary confinement? ) until I could compose a Haiku or a poem or write a story or illustrate some adventure we'd had at camp (I can draw a procession of girls in pig tails being led slowly down a path in single file to the Mess Hall...woo hoo!) or some other meaningful task with pencil and paper.

What I didn't know while I was racking up hours in the Bad Girl Tent was that all of what was written or drawn by me or the handful of other bad girls, was being reproduced on a local mimeograph machine and bound into a booklet to be presented to the parents on Pick Up Day!

I am sure this little gesture was intended to make us little Brownie Bandits squirm. Surely it would prompt questions and compel little prisoners to explain why some people wrote poems and so many others did not and then under the pressure of guilt and shame cough up a full confession.

But I knew better. My mother took the book and began to page through it clucking and marveling about all the works of literary genius I 'd produced. "Liza, you practically wrote the whole thing! I am so proud!"

And with my wet shoes and uncombed hair I turned toward the car with my parents and sibs and ran like a rebel to hop in the car and head for home.

If You're Happy And You Know It

I am going on a camping trip.

I am not exactly sure how I got roped into this. I have long believed that hotels were invented to prevent the spread of camping. Specifically so camping does not touch my life. So no one has to cope with the devastating effects of camping.

Worse, I have to put on a happy happy joy joy face (turn my frown upside down!) because I am one of three chaperones on the Girl Scout camping trip with twelve eleven year olds all the way out in Camp Hari Kari. Kill me now.

My daughter actually volunteered me to to go. Mainly because she touts me as the expert. This is the same camp I attended as an eight-year-old Girl Scout myself (an astonishing number of years ago). Clearly I'd be an old hand at finding the latrine in the woods in the dark with a flashlight in the middle of the night in a thunderstorm.

To make matters worse, Camp Hari Kari is in a very remote location. Far far from cell towers, and liquor stores and spas of any kind. Is it poor form to take a flask on a camping trip with minors? Nevermind.

And making matters worse still, I am one of the drivers and will have four girls with me in my car. With all of their gum and lip gloss and shrillness. All singing 17,000 verses of John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt at the tops of their lungs. And discussing Selena's breakup with the Biebs. Or Lindsay Lohan's latest escapades. Or some other matter of global importance.

Truthfully, I am curious about how things at Camp Hari Kari may have changed since I last dashed from the woods to my parents' car like a fugitive. Judging from my daughter's description of the tents and their accessibility by wild life, it is safe to say that they are the same.

But nonetheless, my duffel is packed, my sleeping bag rolled, my 47 outfits to replace the ones that get wet, all assembled and sitting along side my allergy medicine, my sunscreen, my bug spray, my epi-pen, my hand sanitizer, my bandaids and my emergency self contained toothbrushing assembly (camping with Invisalign should make the camp fire cooking ritual an extra special treat.)

I am prepared to go.

Prepared, but hardly ready.

If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands...

You Say Potayto and I Say Potahto

Man-friend?
Mon amour?
Husband-elect?
What the hell?

I need to buy a French-English dictionary. I can assemble a few meaningful syllables and even if I don’t get the meaning exactly right it would have to sound more sophisticated in the form of a French inflected bon mot.

I look at the online French translation tool (there is something for everyone on the internet!) and I put in the word “boyfriend.” Then “lover.” Then “partner.”

Squat-tah.

This was going to be harder than I thought.

Is there a Sniglet dictionary? There ought to be.

I am wondering if there is a useful word in the urban lingo dictionary app that Scott’s daughter has on her Smartphone.

I have to get my hands on that app. I should have asked her about it that night at dinner when she looked up something for us. But I was too stunned to make any competent observations.

We’d been sitting at the table at a restaurant Scott selected for dinner. I’d offered to take him and his girls and a tagalong steady boyfriend to dinner for his birthday. We were chatting all at once and making quite a lot of noise for such a small group, when I distinctly heard someone utter the word “wenis.”

The table fell silent. Scott and I leading the way in the speechlessness department.

Wenis?

Could that be what it sounds like? It sounds like a Sniglet-esque word combining the formality of “penis” with the playfulness of “weenie.” So maybe a tween would tell someone to stop acting like a wenis and be completely appropriate (in certain middle school lunch study hall circles…)

I am sure I am blushing. I look at Scott. He is struggling to form words. Did his daughter really just remark to her boyfriend, while she abruptly pulled her hand away, “Eeew I accidently touched your wenis!”

Girls! We are in public! And at the table!

All three kids are looking at us like we’ve gone mad. Not an ounce of guilt. No reddened faces. Not on the boyfriend or the one purported to have touched his wenis.

I am having a moment of oldness.

Scott says, “Did you just say “wenis?” What is that?”

His younger daughter rolls her eyes and says, ‘Dad, everyone knows what your wenis is. It is the skin on your elbow that hangs loose when you straighten your arm!”

Oh everyone knows, do they? Everyone under 21 perhaps, but I have the arrhythmia to prove that not everyone knows that your wenis can be completely and legally exposed in a public place.

We must have looked flabbergasted because while one daughter argued the other pulled out her phone, clicked on the urban dictionary and produced a selection of definitions, all in support of the elbow skin connection.

There was one that admits that the word sounds really funny and sort of dirty. Nice to know I was not imagining things.

I am going to download that app and search for a word for boyfriend…that perhaps some teenager has made up to describe the fogey currently fulfilling the role for his or her
own divorced mother .

You Say Tomayto, I Say Tomahto

The list goes on. I am not encouraged. I have a feeling I am on my own here.

The next term on the list is “Follower.”

What?

Why not Groupie? Fan Club Member? Disciple?

Or are we tweeting?

Please.

Friend – A good start but let’s not confuse matters. I have friends (AND YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!) who I would never date. Not even under duress.

Intimate – Is he an undergarment? The definition reads that it is someone with whom you are intimate, and part B, characterized by sexual relations. Why not just say that this is the guy you are sleeping naked with? You’d sound less ridiculous, and it is no less revealing.

Paramour – A little formal, but depending on the setting would be okay if its most common use were not “the lover of a married person.” If you want to really lay it all out there I suppose that is your business, but I am thinking “TMI.”

Partner – Tennis anyone? Is this my doubles partner? My partner in the 3-legged race? It sounds arranged. And sterile.

Soul mate – a little too hippy-dippy for my taste. Maybe we’ll have a love child together and name him Moonbeam and sing Joan Baez songs in the commune together. Peace, brother.

Steady – Sure, Fonz.

Suitor – By definition, one who courts or woos a woman. So far, not too offbase. But part B is “petitioner.” Sounds like one of us is trying too hard. See Admirer. Get enough signatures and I might let you be my boyfriend.

Swain – Aside from the fact that no one would know what the hell you were talking about if you introduced your boyfriend as your swain, it is a term for “male lover” that also is used to refer to a male servant. I am not saying that there isn’t any overlap there, folks, but who introduces someone like that and gets another date?

Sweetheart – A little girlish…what about Sweet Babboo? Or Wooby? And besides, what if he’s not sweet? What if what you like about him is that he is not sweet? What if you like him because he is dark and brooding and mysterious like that kid in the vampire movies?

Young man – My Young Man as opposed to My Old Man? Really? And I think we’ve been over this…we are not that young…which is the reason boyfriend sounds so ridiculous.

Time to put on my thinking cap. I have a word to invent. I may need to rally the girls for a night of cocktails.

Worn Out Phrases and Longing Gazes

I think we have established that I have a love affair with words.

I am always so pleased to find just the right obscure, white elephant word that conveys just the right meaning. Exactly the right spin. Where the accompanying facial expression can be visualized. For instance, to dislike something is a mundane thing. To loathe something comes with a grimace and a curled lip.

Could it be that the English language has the perfect word, and I am just incognizant of it? (Visual: Me clutching the pearls in abject horror, mouth agape, brow furrowed. Charlotte has seen it a thousand times.)

This is the kind of thing that keeps me awake at night. Really.

So to lay to rest the notion that the perfect word could be waiting out there for me to take notice and relieve the guilt of perhaps having left a stone unturned, I take to my Word of the Day Application on my Smartphone. It is my grown up wordsmith version of crack.

I carefully type in the word “boyfriend.” Place my thumb on the thesaurus key. And without a second’s hesitation it spews forth a laundry list of suggested replacement words. Some familiar, some not so much. And here they are:

Admirer – I should hope so! But doesn’t that sound a little one sided? My admirer. As in he likes me, but my jury is still in deliberations.

Beau – Not totally offensive in the scheme of things. It means “frequent or attentive male companion.” It also means “fop, or dandy.” I can say with the utmost certainty that if you are a fop and you pay more attention to your hair than I do, you will most definitely not be my boyfriend.

Companion – It sounds like something an old person has. It also can mean someone who is paid to assist. Images of Lassie come to mind. And I don’t want anyone thinking my mother pays Scott to hold my hand and make sure I get home in one piece.

Confidant – “Someone with whom secrets are shared and discussed.” No, that would be my therapist, and we most definitely are not dating.

Date – This word doesn’t feel right to me. It seems bound to an event. Your boyfriend can be your date, and your date can be your boyfriend, but the words are not interchangeable.

Escort – No. It suggests that one is paid. Or armed. And not there on his own terms. Next!

Fiance – Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Most boyfriends, if introduced as one’s fiancé would leave skid marks exiting the party.

Flame – “an object of one’s passionate love.” I don’t see it. “Hi, Grandpa. I’d like to introduce you to my flame, Scott.” Grandpa would suggest that you might both be committed.

I am not even half way through the conveniently alphabetized list and I am already very discouraged.

Words Of Love

I am on a mission.

I need to find a word. Or make one up. Or spatchcock a few meaningful syllables together to convey just the right meaning.

I need to replace the word “boyfriend.”

Don’t panic. I don’t want it removed from the lexicon altogether. Merriam and Webster can stop breathing into paper bags. I think it is perfectly appropriate for example, for Scott’s seventeen-year-old daughter to have a boyfriend.

It’s just that calling Scott my boyfriend makes me feel girlishly simple and coquettish.

I need a new word. I have a friend who passed along a new word of sheer brilliance. I was calling Lars my ex-husband. My ex. My first husband. My former husband. The kids’ father (and a few things not so acceptable to say in polite company…) The word I use now is “wasband.” As in “He was my husband.” Perfect. No one misunderstands and it does not completely giveaway all the acrimony. All it says is that he was my husband and is not now and I am not exactly crying about it, so let’s leave it at that, shall we?

It’s the first word of its kind that I’ve liked. Most words say too much. Too much about your business, your intentions. Even if you are very proud and quite excited about them. Who you are to another person is a relatively private matter in most cases. Does the car dealer need to know that person is going to be your spouse? Can’t he just be the guy who is helping you with all the red tape because he can?

I remember having to remind myself to call Lars my fiancé. I didn’t care for the word at all. We had wedding plans and I wore a diamond on my left hand…shouldn’t those clues and the way we treated each other be enough? Couldn’t I have just introduced him as “This is Lars?” and skip the labels?

Maybe that had more to do with Lars than labels. Who knows.

I remember my company president at an old job finding the love of his life, finally. He was a great guy and clearly in love. He’d had a few wives but he’d found himself a keeper. The real deal. He called her his “squeeze.” Cheeky, Chief. Very cheeky. Couldn’t we just use her first name? We’d probably piece the story together from the content and she’d still have a little dignity.

No disrespect to the guy, though. All the traditional words are all wrong. If not boyfriend or finace, what? Partner? Business partner? Same sex partner? Partner in the egg toss? You’d always end up explaining. And why?

Lover? Eeewww. Must everyone know you are sleeping together? Betrothed? No thank you, Your Highness.

Does “friend” do it? Aren’t we at least that? Who needs to know more?

Charlotte evidently committed the social crime of the decade last year when she’d bumped into J. while out with some folks. She’d introduce him as her “sister’s friend.”

Fightin’ words! J. expected to be described as someone with more clout. More social status. More inside track. A position of distinction.

Kiss my ass in Gimbel’s window! You are in a pretty distinct position now, aren’t you, J.?

So now, as I skid toward my 50s and so does Scott, I am, as I’ve said, on a mission. I need to find the word that says Scott is important. We belong to each other. We mean the world to one another and that’s all that matters. Whether we have plans to get married or not – we count, take precedence, have dibs. It’s no one’s business if we are sleeping together or what our future plans are. And darn it, we are old enough to have plans and keep them to ourselves if we want.

How can the English language lack such and important word?

I will take matters into my own hands. And onto my own lips.

Beer Goggles

There is a scene in the movie PS I Love You that defines the spirit of the couple in the story, one of whom has just been cremated.

It is the Fairytale of New York by the Pogues and it is a raucous irreverent song that even the priest joins in singing and turns the memorial scene into more of a rugby party.

That is the scene that Scott and I walked into that night - at a Pub called Murphy's and with an Irish vocalist who appeared to be the reason most of the patrons came calling.

We got a table near the stage with a great view of the crowd. It was the only one available at the time and we had no idea what good fortune it was until the singer took the stage.

The people watching was spectacular especially once the audience participation rugby songs began with all the drinking penalties and heckling.

There were exactly three brides-to-be celebrating last hurrahs with girl friends. Each one was fatter and sloppier than the bride preceding her. Each showed too much thigh, too much cleavage, and too much bra strap for my taste - and I have to say I have pretty liberal sensibilities about these things, especially when it comes to young people. I just think that bachelorette parties are more to go out and have a few laughs with your best girlfriends before your priorities shift forever more. Not to rock your inner ho-bag and parade around like a trollop with your forbidden fruit on display. And getting staggering drunk and potty-mouthed in the process. Just sayin'.

There was a fascinating Kardashian Wannabe (They must be selling Kardashian wigs now). This girl had the whole ensemble: Wig, fake eyelashes, over dressed for the venue with a black belted dress with her cleavage spilling out and sky-high heels when Levis, a Flogging Mollys T and a pair of Chucks would have been more the order of the day). And she had an overly assertive over-the-top personality to validate my general sense of wariness about her. She arrived alone and quickly glommed on to lots of little groups and infiltrated them, so long as there was a guy to flirt with and bat her eyes at. I secretly suspected that she was a pickpocket.

There was a pitiful drunk at the next table who could just not get the clapping thing down, couldn't figure out how to stay in sync with the other audience participants, but gamely played along when he wasn't busy picking his nose.

And speaking of picking -----

I am the first to admit that I have picked a bathing suit, a pair of panties or even a whole leg of my shorts out of my ass a time or two in my life. But I will follow that admission with a footnote that every time it was done in private, with discretion, and sometimes without the use of my hands (placing one's hand in one's back pocket and timing an artful stride will do the trick in some cases without having to duck into a phone booth) In any event, it is never going to be caught on tape and become a YouTube sensation.

The most flagrant Party Foul of the night came from an oaf who was so plastered, so completely unaware, that when faced with the fact that his high-waisted jeans had indeed become wedged a good way up between his considerable butt cheeks, stood in the middle of the bar, in a clearing by the stage, bent his leg and lifted it off the ground and did a full-fisted wrenching free of the shorts from his ass crack in full view of 100s of pairs of leering eyes.

Bar tender, I'll have another Guinness!

People Are People

The ride from the Mall to the hotel puts us in an even better mood. People can be so funny.

The couple sitting across from us was evidently expecting a baby. From the absence of other baby gear and an actual live child, I guessed this would be their first. From the looks of things she was about 6 months into the game.

And had waived the white flag. Given up on anything not expressly required by law to be done before going out into public. Hair in a sloppy knot on top of her head. Not a crumb of makeup (which made her “woe is me” grimace that much more appealing.) Hubby’s college fraternity sweatshirt. Oversized sweatpants (assumed to also belong to hubby). Bedroom slippers.

And hubby had taken this opportunity to relax his mojo as well. Attire from the same collection. Instead of hair in a knot, he was sporting a two day beard and a couple of stains.

I looked around half expecting the fashion police to be surrounding the car with weapons drawn. I can only imagine the depths they’ll reach by Junior’s full gestational maturity. Ain’t gonna be pretty.

We schlepped through the rain sharing an umbrella that strained not to invert. We were soaked to our knees and laughing our heads off and decided to stop for a drink and a few minutes of playoff hockey at the hotel bar. Maybe stay long enough to enjoy the Maitre D’s Happy Hour.

This may just be my opinion, but if you are in a position where your guests’ satisfaction depends almost entirely on your ability to understand and respond to their requests, you should have a fairly decent grasp on the language most of them are anticipated to communicate in.

Whoever hired the bar tender must feel otherwise.

When Scott and I sat down we were approached by Janet who placed cocktail napkins in front of us in anticipation of our bar order.

Which she evidently had enormous difficulty interpreting.

Scott ordered a “strong Tanqueray and tonic.” Not complicated. Janet looked at us quizzically.

Scott clarified. Double the gin, half the tonic.

A tentative nod. I was not inspired to be confident that Janet would whip up a drink where Scott could a) smell the juniper berries from an arm’s length or b) expect to have his nose hairs burned off with the first sip.

I was right to doubt.

Scott’s drink was watery. My chardonnay was warm enough to poach an egg.

Janet couldn’t find the hockey game. She refused to part with the clicker so we could.

The bill was $20.

We listened to her talk some other hockey fan patrons out of ordering the hummus (“People don’t like it enough to finish it.” What???) and into ordering the Blue Cheese Chips at a few dollars more.

We decided we’d try our luck at the Happy Hour. Declined a second round.

She protested claiming that the hotel “serves only bottom shelf drinks at Happy Hour.” How nice of her to give her employer such a ringing endorsement.

We’d take our chances. The $10 drinks were nearing the “unfit for human consumption” range. And besides we had plans for the night.

People...People Who Need People

We check into the hotel. Uneventful.

We park the car. We schlep our stuff into the hotel room. We get coffee. We head to the Metro.

Good grief. Idiots on parade.

Who gets to the bottom of a mile long escalator and just stops to get their bearings while countless people young and old with varying degrees of agility and sometimes using walkers or pushing strollers run into each other in some kind of cartoonish pile up not unlike a playground game called Squeeze the Lemon?

It is the train platform, ladies and gentlemen! The train only goes one way! It stops. You get on. There is not a lot to get a handle on.

Scott and I get on the next train and are headed for the National Museum for the History of Crime and Punishment. I can hardly wait. It is a fascinating place.

Medieval punishment - thumb screws, iron masks. Yikes.

Bonnie and Clyde. A lovely, however grisly, love story. Though the real Clyde looked nothing like Warren Beatty.

Unsolved crimes. It's astonishing how much better at this criminals have gotten since the hamhanded ways of the the mob have proven not to be very effective.

We sit down and are immediately struck by the antics of a family nearby. The matriarch had the most enormous pair of front teeth I have ever seen protruding from a human head. Made more noticeable by the fact that the two that are supposed to be on either side of them were long gone. And the fact that she had a nervous tick where she made a repetitious gnawing gesture that reminded me of Charlotte’s gerbil Daisy from when we were kids.

An the guy at the pub that I noticed while I was obediently following the very informative signs which read “This way to the Toilets.” He had on a regular T-shirt. Athletic shoes. Had a camera around his neck .

Was wearing a kilt.

Not other kilt-wearers milling about.

No telltale bagpipes.

I wondered if he was just a regular guy having some curiosity about cross dressing and was giving it a test drive.


Or the man who approached the Security line at the Old Post Office (it is DC – all your bags have to be checked and metal detectors make sure that gun-toting, belt-wearing, jewelry-laden folks are all appropriately detained).

When seeing the line of us fifteen deep seeking entrance and waiting to be called in in groups of 5, he walked up to the heavy wooden door, pushed it open and walked right in.

Only to be shouted at by the scanning, metal-detecting, bag-searching people whose idea it was to keep the door shut in the first place. They were mighty upset.

Did he think we were all waiting there secretly chanting “Open sesame?” Did he really think we’d all missed the clues? “Oh Right! I can open the door myself! Duh!”

But they all paled in comparison to the high comedy that was the lively little pub we patronized later that night.

I'm Late! I'm Late! For A Very Important Date!

A Dinner Afare was fabulous. Gourmet kitchen – simple instructions, lots of anticipation. The meals I’d selected were sure to please the kids and were interesting enough to break up what had become our routine.

The thing I liked best was that I’d get to try some new dishes with some pretty obscure ingredients without having to invest in an entire tub of Chinese Plums for the roast or without having to scramble to make the tuna steak recipe before my fresh cilantro became not so fresh.

And the wine and the company were of course quite good also.

I rave to Scott all about it that night on the phone when I get home, and although I was dying to make him one of my fancy new meals, he insisted that he keep his promise and drive 90 miles toward the setting sun to walk to our pub holding my hand, and enjoy dinner together.

We order beers. (I’ve had enough wine this week, thank you.)

We order our favorites.

Our waitress remembers us and calls us “lovebirds.”

My phone begins to buzz.

Once I’ve returned from the loo where I’ve done a juggling act trying to remove and rinse and stow my Invisalign plates with out anything touching anything in the public domain (eeeewww!) I open my purse to read a text from Charlotte.

“You are coming to CAbi, aren’t you?”

Of course. Has she gone mad?

I text back. “Yes, of course.”

And then “Can’t wait!”

Scott and I hold hands across the table and wait for our food. I can hear my phone buzzing.
I am reminded of J. and his incessant phone nagging and refuse to acknowledge. Scott drove 90 miles after work. I owe him the benefit of my full attention.

He leaves to go to the men’s room eventually and I peek at my phone.

Charlotte.

When?

“After work. Was my earlier message not clear?” I was baffled. I’d told her I’d be changing at work and coming to her house immediately after work tomorrow to help her set up. Have a warm up drink. And in the mean time, seeing Scott for dinner tonight.

And then I am alarmed.

I text again. “It is tomorrow isn’t it?”

She replies. “It’s right now!”

And then, “I just read your earlier text…”

Uh-oh.

Dinner has just arrived. And I am supposed to be at Charlotte’s.

I explain to Scott as my phone continues to heat up the interior of my purse that I have made a grave mistake. He says I should go. I hate to leave him for even a minute. He’s been in the car for hours. I am torn.

We're eating. I am fretting. Kate’s calling. Joy’s calling. Then Charlotte texts.

“Bring Scott. We have tons of food.”

I show it to him and like a sport, he pays the check and we head out to Charlotte’s while I text “Idiot sister and handsome boyfriend on the way.”

More wine and lots of shopping later, Scott has made fast friends with my two teenaged nephews while all the girls cluck about in various articles of clothing with tags attached and inspect each other’s choices. I’ve gotten a jumpstart on a Spring wardrobe and Scott has gotten a full report on my escapades from the boys’ point of view. They were not exactly kind about J.

And I don’t exactly care. I have the sweetest guy in the world holding my hand and forgiving me my space cadet planning SNAFU. All is right with the world.