Dressed to Impress

We traipse through the mall looking for a store I won't turn to stone upon entering. Walk on by Charlotte Russe (aka Harlot Shoes) and Mandee (Candy) and some other store I didn't catch the name of but which I will simply refer to as Ho' Bags R Us.

Finally, almost in a gesture that intends to say "I'll be flexible and I will try to be open-minded, but I reserve the right to detest everything and ultimately veto your misguided choices even at the register," we walk into Wet Seal. The name even skeeves me.

I am shocked that I don't actually vaporize as I cross the threshold. My very being is opposed to this type of cheesey, cheep, poorly made, too short, too low, too tight, falls apart even as you are wearing it kind of teenaged fashion whammy.

The music is loud. (No, I am not a hundred years old, but I can only calculate 20% off of cheap so accurately with the Pussycat Dolls screeching about hating this part right heeeere.)

There is a dizzying arrangement of ensembles at varying heights up and down walls. The racks obscure other racks. You are forced to navigate a maze of rounders and other display gizmos that are meant to lead you down the road to certain ruin.

I hate almost everything. I can't see a single tree for the forest of heinous fashion before me. I am almost ready to begin my tirade when I spot something high up on a wall. It is a ( no doubt cheaply constructed) kind of cute little dress ensemble. A beige skirt with a tame little navy bow print, attached to a navy top (by elastic, natch) that has spaghetti straps and a flounce across the neckline that covers your boobs (or more importantly, Hil's boobs). I turn to Hil. "That's almost cute."

And remarkably she is sold. We look on the lower racks for her size and find the dress. I find a beige wrap that might help to make the transition from synagogue to dance floor, and we head for the (gross, dirty, poorly maintained) fitting room.

Hil gets the dress on and loves it. I am thrilled. It really is cute on her little tween body.

So I begin to preach. "This little scrappy dress is great for the dance following the Bat Mitzvah ceremony, Hil. But the ceremony is in a synagogue. It's like church. You need to be a little more covered up. She puts on the wrap. It's cute but not perfect. She'll convince Lars that morning that she doesn't need it and look like a floozy.

With a "maybe" in hand we head out with a renewed sense of purpose. We find another cute dress and head back in. It's an I'll-fitting "no" and I leave Hil to redress while I wander the racks in search of hope.

Buried on a rack of items that clearly were placed together out of desperation, I find an adorable dress. Same straps, cute neckline, full skirt, fitted bodice. Black with white little birds in flight...and so that it doesn't scream "I am wearing my mother's dress!" a hot pink zipper runs up the front of the top. Perfection. Black is easier to pair with a wrap than navy. I have a cute beaded one at home that Hil won't actually hate.

I take it to her and she loves it. Puts it on. Too big. I return to the rack with fingers crossed and get the next size smaller. And miraculously, also find a little navy (cheap, unlined...)faux linen jacket with the sleeves pushed up to the elbow hat might do the trick with the other dress.

The zipper dress is a perfect fit and a big hit with Hil who can not stop admiring herself in it. I eventuall coax her out of it asking her to put on the other dress and see how it looks with the jacket. I offer to get both, and keep the one from the other store for fun. The jacket works beautifully. I leave her to admire herself a little longer and re-dress while I return all the No's to the rack, since the gum chewing sales girl will probably never get to it.

And in my travels I find a cute pair of neutral sandals - and by devine intervention, a pair that are patent leather in the same shade of hot pink as the zipper. I hand them over the door to Hil, who would die if someone could even see her in her bra for a second.

They fit and she loves them.

We eventually make our way with all our loot to the gum chewer. $109.00 for everything.

I think I'll spring for lunch.

The Fashion Police

After a short time, Hil and I connect. She guides me as though on GPS to the department in which she has been successfully shopping.I am cautiously optimistic. I arrive at the destination and find it to be a department aimed at prom goers. And biker chicks.

Hil has found a darling dress but it is really too casual for the Bat Mitzvah. A little more casual than I would have selected for the 7th grade dance, too, but it's been a long time since I was a 7th grader, and there was no dance when I was one. But I am pleased that we have something to show for our efforts. It is a cute dress, just not what I envisioned. I can let go of my vision.

I explain, without sounding like I am a hundred years old, that what will pass for the dance will not pass for the Bat Mitzvah. It is a dressier event. Hil seems to accept the idea. Especially because it means she gets to buy another dress. And possibly shoes. Yay me.

She flits joyously about the department pulling out dresses and admiring the colors and telling me that this one looks like something on Pretty Little Liars, and this one would look great on that character from Glee. She pulls out several for preliminary hanger approval. They are indeed dressy. But for the prom, not the synagogue.

And I feel a Mom lesson coming on.

A few years ago, I was fascinated with a show called What Not To Wear. The hosts ambushed fashion victims whose complete and utter lack of style was epic and the subject of local urban legend. They were filmed. Their closets were emptied. They were transformed. They emerged from the experience with a renewed sense of what colors, shapes, lengths, cuts were flattering and age appropriate. They also got magical hair and makeup do-overs.

I had an idea for a spin-off show. I'd call it What Not To Wear Where.

What is going to be a big hit at the night club is not what you wear to the office on Friday.
What passes as stylish when you are the Mother of the Bride will not go over big at the job interview.
The same outfit will not likely make the grade if worn from the PTO meeting to the Christening to the movie premier.
Your interview suit won't wow your blind date (unless he truly is blind, of course.)
The prom dress will be a spectacle at the Bat Mitsvah.

This concept is not only lost on most men (who think you don't need more than one pair of black shoes) it is also something that needs to be taught to a 7th grader.

I honestly don't know where to begin. But I know I need to leave the prom dress section and at least begin the lesson by venturing into one of those slutty little cheapy teenaged stores.

I am going to need an exorcism when this is over, I am sure of it.

Say Yes To The Dress, Please

I had prepared for the day of shopping by sending catalogue pictures of cute dresses via iPhone to Hil for her consideration. We seemed to agree on taste. Good start.

Or so I thought.

The moment we crossed the threshold into the first department store everything changed. The dowdy, frowsy grandmotherly dresses overpowered the cute, stylish flirty ones. The sturdy, orthopedic-looking shoes outshone the dainty kitten heel slides in sassy spring colors. The practical, multi-purpose, pleather utilitarian handbags in versatile colors like beige distracted from the cutesy, beaded, frivolous little bags that would barely hold a lip gloss and a cell phone at the same time. The trip was doomed practically from the parking lot.

But I tried.

Hil vetoed most dresses without them ever leaving the rack, much less the hanger. I excessively ooohed and aaahed over a few and even held them up to myself for a convincing visual. They were met mostly with eyerolling and sighs of disbelief.

I managed to get a very reluctant Hil and two dresses into a fitting room at the same time. (No easy feat!) Between the disinterest in zipping and tying and adjusting the straps for the best fit, and the atrocious posture she adopted for full effect, and her scowling countenance, both (adorable) dresses were summarily rejected. Too old. Too cutesy. Weird bias-cut hemline. Hated the neckline. More excuses than there were dresses themselves.

There is much hushed bickering and gnashing of teeth and reminders that I don't have to spend the day dress shopping, that I could easily leave the task to Lars, who would have her wearing a chastity belt and a nun's habit. Or his fiancé Liza, with her hippy dippy commune Goodwill store repurposed sense of style, as if the word "style" applies.

Hil calms down and we decide to split up and reconnect by cell phone later, when we've separately scoured the racks for anything that is of even the remotest interest. We'll divide and conquer the mission without strangling each other and perhaps enjoy bilateral attitude adjustments somewhere between the Junior department and Misses.

Dancing Queen

Saturday comes and so does the appointed day of shopping for dresses for the Big Events.

The 7th Grade Dance is THE event of the season for the tween set. Except if you were Pat, who could not have cared any less as a 7th grader. Dance? What dance? Why would I dance when I have Tastykakes and video games at home and don't need to shower first?

But Hil is a joiner. Will not miss out on one tasty morsel of school life. High social profile. Low resistance to invitations.

But she is madly swooning for a boy at school who she has known since the early grades. And he is darling, I must admit, but Hil is evidently an old fashioned girl. She expects him to speak to her first. And she also thinks that he is going to ask her to the dance and may just go into deep seclusion if he does not.

I have tried to recalibrate her expectations for 7th grade boys. It will be important groundwork for avoiding the inevitable disappointment with men of any age in general.

I have told her that as cute as this boy is, he is still as insecure as the pimply faced kid with the runny nose and unibrow. In many ways more so, because he probably does not have a lot of experience handling rejection. So as much as she would like the boy to talk to her, he is probably tongue tied and wishing he knew for sure that she would not giggle and point and make an ass out of him in the corridor by the gym. I tell her, she has known this boy for years, so there would be nothing weird about her saying, "Hey, how's it going?" while passing in the hall. She doesn't have to make a big production. She doesn't even have to stop and wait to hear his reply. Just be cool...as in, look his way, smile, and say, "Hey, how's it going?" That way, he knows that if he says hello the next time, she's not going to shriek and cower against the wall and act like she just saw a big hairy spider.

And as for the dance, I have told her that if she is holding out for an invitation, she will be disappointed, and unnecessarily so. Boys at that age will not ask. They know they will see you there. Why go through the potential humiliation when you can get all the dances you want once you arrive?

I tell her instead to let him know she is looking forward to seeing him there. She nearly collapses with disbelief at the very suggestion. I tell her that that is what she'll do, NOT what she'll say. After the aforementioned HELLO in the hallway, she might just say to him, while they are packing their backpacks one afternoon to go home, "Hey are you going to the dance?" and when he says he is, because duh, everyone is, then simply say, "Great. Save me a dance."Smile and walk away like it is no big deal, even if to Hil, it is.

For this she thinks I am crazy. We will do none of those things. We just have to buy a KILLER DRESS that he will not be able to resist once he gets to the dance.

I need a nerve pill.

Where Oh Where Did My Little Girl Go?

It is Spring 2012 and my 12 year old has morphed into a Young Lady.

I don't know when it happened. I must have been busy doing something else. Like folding laundry. I swear it happened that fast.

One day she was an awkward kid with baby fat and no interest in her own appearance and even less acknowledgement that her little body was on the move.

Then one day I am buying training bras, and am regularly banished from the bathroom for the duration of lengthy primping sessions, am subject to heaps of criticism for the hair products, type of straightening iron, whitening power of the toothpastes, and fat content of foods that I buy, and am on the receiving end of crying jags that rival scenes at the Wailing Wall.

Throw in a boy at a neighboring lunch table with pretty eyes and Justin Bieber locks, and we have a recipe for a cataclysmic nuclear meltdown.

Hil is not a difficult child. She can be reasoned with. So when the Beautification Sessions turned into standoffs with me and with Pat, each of us lobbying for much needed time in the bathroom, and Pat and I even saying Hil can stay for what we needed to do if she could just part with a little elbow room at the vanity, she will usually reluctantly stomp off to commandeer another mirror of equal quality and nearly comparable lighting. She will not refuse to wear the clothes already comprising her wardrobe, but she will put on and take off (and leave on the floor, thank you) many an article before securing exactly the right combination. And thankfully, she has her mother's lightness of hand with makeup. A platinum blonde with fair skin could easily look like a $5 hooker if she went with the usual preteen penchant for noticeable glam. Not Hil. She dutifully wears the lighter mascara, and goes for more a fresh faced appeal than a Ke$ha wannabe. We haven't ventured into hair color yet, though I feel a streak in some Mardi Gras color coming. Perhaps in the summer when the pressure to conform is a little relaxed.

But one morning, as we left for school, Hil came prancing into the kitchen to grab her lunch and to thrust two things into my hand from her backpack. She was prattling on and on about how great the warm weather is and how cool I was to let her get some new shorts way before the season officially starts and not make her dig through last year's collection and try on dozens of things that won't fit or won't make the grade.

And I stood there, coffee in one hand, other hand extended to accept both the announcement about the 7th Grade Dance, and the beautifully printed invitation to a friend's Bat Mitzvah, I was struck by Hil's appearance.

Her hair was freshly washed and tousled with Beach Spray (the stuff that gives you that fresh from the ocean look without the vile presence of decomposing see creatures) and gleaming in the morning light. He face was fresh and peachy with a swipe of sunkissed gloss on her rosebud lips. He Abercrombie hoodie was a perfect fit and fell just wear it should across the belt loops of her adorable white denim shorts with topstiching and cuffs. She was forcing her narrow little feet into clean white tennis shoes recently purchased in the same size as mine.

And all I could think of was,"When did her legs get so long, and when did they get that shape? And where did all the baby fat go? Her waist is so small and she is so long and slim. How did I miss the transformation? Where did my little girl go?"

She confidently put on her shoes and took her iPhone from its charger and rambled on and on about going shopping for a dress for the events mentioned on the papers in my trembling hand.

And all I could think as we drove to school was, "I am not ready for this."

Spring Is Sprung

We are enjoying an early spring.

And an early allergy season, and more palatable heating bills, and flowers before Easter, and the luxury of not having to mop the salt off the floors after many slushy treks through the house from outside.

And it is our first spring season with Trinket. At this time last year, she was an emaciated little bag of bones with a thin coat of fur and sad eyes that told you everything. I hate to think of her alone and cold and starving. I'd prefer to think that maybe she lived in a little patch of green not far from a row of store fronts. And that one of them was a restaurant. And maybe one of the staff who took the trash to the dumpster each night saw her and would give her food. And water (and maybe that is why she insists on drinking from a glass.)

But as spring has put a little spring in our steps and songs in our hearts, Trinket's reaction to spring's arrival - or maybe setting the clocks ahead - or both- is to turn into a lunatic.

Whoever said "the fog creeps in on little cat feet" clearly had never met my cat. She is forever racing around the house, bounding up and down stairs, ambushing me from behind laundry baskets, and vacuum cleaners, and bed posts and practically crashing into things in her frenzied, neck breaking dash around the interior. Now that the cold weather seems to have left us, I've started to leave the basement door open again, and the attic too. More square footage for my Tasmanian devil to zip around in.

And as it is for humans, spring is a season for love, even if, evidently, you are a cat who is confined to the house with no other animal contact (unless you count my children) (and an occasional mouse).

The object of her affection is a very large orange cat who must live in the neighborhood somewhere. Trinket, being a window-spying Mrs. Kravitz-type cat who is so consumed with the goings on outside that she leaves smeary little nose prints on all her favorite windows, knows exactly who he is and how to keep an eye on him. Like stalking.

I have a very old house with charming old ( sometimes decrepit) features. My newfangled doors are flanked between charming little mullioned windows that are pane-over-pane up and down each side. Big Orange and Trinket discovered each other through these windows. Right there at paw level. And it was love/hate at first sight.

Just like humans.

Trinket looks out the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of Big Orange. Or maybe a bird. Or bug. Or anything that isn't in the house and is therefore way more interesting. She hops down from radiator cover or mantle or some other perch to walk casually over to the door and peer outside onto the porch, looking all around for her amour. She meows. It is a longing meow.

And then at some point, Big Orange prances up onto the porch and walks right up to the window and looks into my house for Trinket. He is oblivious to me and the kids. He is just looking for Her Trinkness.

And then, as if she is offended by his forwardness, Trinket gets her tail all proofed up like a raccoon, races toward the window and screeches like a howler monkey at Big O. Bats at the glass with her paws. Gets up on her hind legs and waves her paws about. Hisses.

Not pretty.

And when Big O retreats, Trinket is sad. Moans and scowls and walks all over looking for him. A very out-of-sorts kitty. And if she sees so much as a tip of Big O's tail in the bushes or across the street, she is racing about the house. Up and down the stairs, finding the window with the best view. Trying to follow his path from every conceivable vantage point.

And while she waits for Big O to return, she is pacing. Not even catnip can cheer her. She walks to the windows by the door to see if the object of her affection might be near.

It's like having a swooning teenager in the house. I am not sure I don't have more than one.

Hil's 7th Grade dance is a mere weeks away, and we are all in a lather about a boy she simply must go with.

We have Spring Fever and there simply is no cure.

I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

So evidently, what we are going to have to focus on, because someone else wants us to, are issues that have not been real issues for years. Abortion. Access to birth control. Health care for issues particular to women. Women in the workplace. People suggesting that women are harming their children if they work outside the home. Prenatal testing is the gateway to Hell itself. Those damn gays insisting on the right to marry the ones they love and commit to.

As if the housing market, job growth, unemployment, poverty, the threat of terror, world hunger and thirst, wars, nuclear threats, global warming, the fuel crisis (say when) aren't enough to hold our collective attention.

No, we have to bring up old settled issues as a distraction. In an appeal for the much sought after Idiot Vote, we have to bring up issues that the poorly informed tend to have opinions on. Opinions of the heart. Opinions weakly supported if supported at all, with genuine facts. You have to know a thing or two, and maybe have a 4th grade education to decide whether or not the current job growth strategy has merit. You don't have to have a PhD in Medical Ethics to assert that you think it is wrong to end the life of an unborn child. These are Common Man issues that will bring out voters in mass numbers, because suddenly someone with no real opinion on any of the candidates, will have one.

That isn't to say that if you have an opinion on these things that you are an idiot. No, not at all. There are lots of very educated, well-read, informed people with strong, weak and middle-of-the-road opinions on all of these things. But even the morons of the world tend to weigh in on these matters. These are the opinions that will swing an election when it is too close to call on the real issues. Men who want their women at home and not out prancing around some law office come out to vote with their penises. The same lunk heads who say it is wrong to kill an itty bitty unborn baby but will gladly fire their shot guns at the backs of teenagers who trespasses on their private property will come out to secure their right to bear arms. Closed minded people will assert that the Bible says it's wrong to be gay, because gay people freak them out, even if they've never met one (so they think!)and will vote to persecute them.

And this is just a cheap ploy. Trick the American public into thinking that if we get back to good old fashioned Family Values, all the rest will magically fall into place and be healed. Gas prices will drop. Jobs will be created in massive numbers. The housing market will rebound. All because women will be home baking cookies with their 17 unplanned children who never had the benefit of prenatal testing.

And it is the worst kind of insult. A smoke and mirrors magician's act to try to give people who can't begin to decide which candidate is better equipped to fix all that is going wrong in this country today a sense of control. Give them an issue or two they can understand - if only with their hearts - and they can get behind a candidate. Perhaps even one with no discernible talent for running anything larger than a Book Club, but really great hair. Put the masses in their comfort zone of comprehension and they will all come out and vote for the candidate that represents their opinions on the Non Issues.

And these people claim to love this country. What a farce.

Well, I have an assertion to make. The role women will play in all of this will be way bigger than anyone expects (so long as no one repeals the 19th Ammendment before the election) Women are a bigger, bad-ass voting demographic than any one of these guys ever conceived of. Women of all walks of life, of all educational backgrounds, and all social positions know on some level when their rights are about to be trampled on. And every woman, whether she will openly say so in polite conversation, or dare attend a rally, or bravely carry a poster at a speech, or join a movement, or feel compelled to sit quietly and defy her real feelings in conversations at Bridge Club, when she steps into that voting booth, alone with no man at her side, she will vote with her uterus. For herself. For her daughters. For her daughters' daughters.

To even raise some of these ideas as political issues is offensive and misleading. It is an attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of people who are not equipped to understand the complicated economic landscape or world politics by giving them a sense of control. And it is at the expense of women who still, to this day, will be sacrificed in favor of power.

The lionesses are awakened. Let the wise not underestimate their strength.

War, What Is It Good For?

So my little health calamity is over now, except for the lab results. I will wait for the fat lady to sing on that one, though Dr. Madre thinks I have nothing to worry about. What makes him so sure at this stage in the game, I have no idea.

But with all of the appointments I have had, and then all the trips back to the office since the blahblahblah procedure because in the course of healing, things sprang a leak or two at a couple of really inconvenient times, I have been thinking a lot about women's health. Or shall I say Women's Health, since it is now the focus of national attention and a political agenda item, everyone presumably trying to project an image of competency about something since the economy and the price of gas are clearly beyond anyone's ability to even make an educated guess at this point.

When did this election become a war on women? With the housing market still in the hopper, and the price of gas hopping, skipping and jumping back toward $4 with the intent to maybe leapfrog over it to $5, and the job market still not recovering with anything that would inspire anyone to be confidently dusting off their resume, why are we focused on something that for many of us isn't broken at all?

Roe v. Wade is on the books and will hopefully stay there. I am not a fan of abortion. Would not want one, would be ethically challenged to have one, and would suffer much if I elected to have one. I would not, however, want to be deprived of the right to elect to have one.

I have two kids. Had my husband not gone completely off the deep end, I may have stayed married long enough to have 4 kids, though thank God I chose to offload the lead shoes of marriage to a psycho before adding to the headcount under our roof.

When I became pregnant with Hil, and Pat was a mere four months old, I had somehow in the interim managed to cross the magic invisible line into Advanced Maternal Age. Which in OB/GYN-speak is the magic age when the benefits of all the risky tests are offset by all the risks you have inadvertently subjected your child to by daring to conceive as an old hag of 35 years. The things I managed to avoid with Pat were now being suggested, like an amniocentesis. Lucky me.

Lars' sister-in-law, a former Labor and Delivery Nurse and mother of two, both at Advanced Maternal Age, helped calm me for the procedure itself. She told me that the anticipation and thoughts of a really long needle piercing your enormous belly and going dangerously near your precious unborn child was really way more horrifying than the actual experience itself. I would surely angst myself into a frenzy, but I'd be surprised how simple and painless it was.

One worry down, one to go.

Having the test would mean a decision, perhaps. And that is where I'd struggle. What does the test diagnose, and what do all of those diagnoses mean to me and my child? And frankly, for the child I already have at home who needs my time and devotion and attention and doting? If I have a child who may not live to his or her first birthday, what will that mean in our house? If this child will suffer horribly and not leave the hospital for a year, or never be detached from machines at home, what impact will that have on Pat's young life? How accurate are these tests? And for me, how disabled is too disabled? I don't know if I can make a decision.

The morning of the test, the doctor, newly engaged and having participated in Pat's delivery the prior year, is as warm and sweet as you'd hope under the circumstances. But she is a physician and she wants to know that if I have this test and the results are devastating, that I am prepared to make a decision. And I am not.

I have a word with her alone. I ask her about the test itself. What things it will reveal. What kind of decisions I'll be faced with. She assures me, in no uncertain terms, that the test diagnoses a bunch of things, all of which are severe, and all of which are accompanied by profound retardation.

My decision is made. I can do this. Life is hard enough without known setbacks. A deformity I can work with. I will not bring a child into this world to be forever dependent; to never thrive. To suffer and half live a very short life.

And though I was relieved beyond words to learn weeks later that everything with my baby would be just fine, and that there were no little nicks or scrapes on chromosomes or anything, I was also relieved to know that if the results had been different, I could have made a choice.

It would not have been a joyful one. It would not have been one I'd talk about at Book Club or at work in the staff cafeteria. It would have been intensely personal and sad and haunting, but one I would have believed and would continue to believe was in the best interest of my children, the born and the unborn.

And that is why Roe v. Wade remains something I'll defend. Because it would be for any woman, an intensely personal and ethical and moral decision to have or not to have an abortion, under any circumstances that might inspire one to make a choice. But it would and should be her decision. I don't believe that God is mean (as Charlotte is quick to remind me). So I don't think He intended for some law maker to look into the eyes of an eleven year old who was raped by her twice convicted of armed robbery uncle and became pregnant, that she must carry that unborn, unwanted child because abortion is wrong. Lots of things are wrong in such a case, and any outcome is adding to the list of wrongs for that eleven year old girl. Let her have a say in which outcome feels less horrifying to her. It's the right thing to do.

And now, not only are we peeling back the plastic on that decision, we are questioning the very birth control that would prevent the decision in the first place. And women in the workplace, and a whole slew of other advances up the ladder of equality that women have achieved.

And these people want to get elected?

Open Wide and Say Nothing

Ok so maybe it was a little over the top to think that there would be any chance at all that Dr. Madre would be so careless that he'd mistakenly have a live wire anywhere near my delicate girly parts and not know that it had fired up and was toasting me from the inside out. It's not like it is his first day on the job. I am not his guinnea pig.

Or am I?

As he revs up the little wire with the foot pedal he tells me that this procedure is usually done in the OR under anesthesia. Really? So why do I get the special treat? He explains that he knows I am a calm patient (at least on the outside) and will not scootch away and scramble off the table while he's trying to do his evidently very delicate procedure.

Lucky me. This is where my misleading calm demeanor gets me. The home remedy with the tools found around the house as opposed to the high tech equipment in the sterile environment. Although I am thankful just to have Dr. Madre and Robin in the room as opposed to the cast of thousands that usually pack the OR suite. People I'd get to bump into in the hallowed halls of the hospital who will be thinking "I saw her naughties" as we make our way around the salad bar together in the cafeteria. Only I'd be none the wiser given the gloves and gowns and goggles.

Dr. Madre is about to begin. He tells me to hold still. As if. I am barely breathing and have been clutching the sides of the table to the point of white knuckles.

I don't say anything (because of the barely breathing thing) and he peers up from between my knees to see if I am OK.

I assure him I am. Just nervous.

"You have nothing to be nervous about so long as you don't move." This is where being dead from the waist down would have been handy.

And he elaborates. "Do you know the voltage on this wire?" I don't dare shake my head. I tell him I do not with a one syllable grunt.

"It's (insert some meaningless number here) volts! Do you know how powerful that is?"

No, not really, but enough to give me the vapors, I assure you.

"It could fry your liver."

"Really?" I say.

"Imagine what it could do to your vagina?!"

I am a wreck and have to speak up.

"I am imagining what it could do to my vagina, and frankly, not that I don't find all of this fascinating and not that I don't enjoy chatting with you, but I would feel a thousand times better if you would focus all of your attention on not frying my liver or my vagina. If you don't mind, of course."

And the games begin. Truth be told, it is not horrible. I feel nothing thanks to the pinch and a sting that put my girly parts soundly asleep. Though I could have lived without some of the sounds and most of the smells, and almost all of the talk about what instruments were coming and going throughout. And of course I will never recover from the sight of the lab samples. Some things are just burned onto the surface of your brain forever.

When he's nearly finished, he peers up at me, again, from between my knees. "Do you have sex, dear?"

Haven't we established that I do? Hence the pregnancy test? "Yes...."

"Not today you don't. And not for 2 weeks. Better if it is closer to three."

Better text Scott to let him know the fun house is boarded up for renovations.

But in less than an hour, I was on my feet and on my way. Not home to recover. To a meeting. I wasn't even late.

And in retrospect, I've had so little down time, I am thinking Dr. Madre is a miracle worker. Sparing me the recovery (and the potential for humiliation) from an OR experience, because he knows I can do it, and my life style doesn't have a lot of time for down time.

That is what I call Healthcare Reform.

Red Light, Green Light

Game time. Too late to get a do-over on the coin toss.

And I am remembering suddenly how much I like this doc. And Robin. They are both so nice and Dr. Madre is a character. More talkative than most people would be in his position. You know, peering back at me from my crotch to have a chat.

He is explaining what he's about to do as I am scootching. Bigger speculum this time because he needs a little more visibility. Didn't need to know that. Big or small, it is what it is. And what it is starts with the word "uncomfortable."

There is going to be the proverbial "pinch and then a sting" when he gives me the much appreciated lidocaine. What I am not expecting is the little shot of epinephrine that makes me cold and shakey and sends my heart racing.

This is not the time and place you want to be involuntarily quaking. Precision is the name of the game, here. We are talking about my delicate girly parts, after all.

Robin pats my hand and gives it a squeeze. Asks if I am okay. I tell her about the shaking and she helps me stay still. Gets me a warmed blanket.

But then it is time to kick off the procedure and Dr. Madre has her attention. They are about to fire up the toaster and get to toasting. Evidently , quite literally. The purpose of this procedure as Dr. Madre so eloquently explains, is to run an electrified wire over some problem parts - as in his esteemed medical opinion, that will forever eliminate my need to worry about these problem cells. All I can think of is "Out, out, damn spot."

So he and Robin are hovering over the toaster and turning knobs and talking about how high up they have to turn the thing. Light, medium or dark on the toaster scale. And then he is poised to start. He and the little wire loop disappear behind the sheet draped over my wobbly knees.

But there is a problem. The toaster won't fire up. They turn it on and off and the little red light doesn't light. They try another outlet. Nope.

And I chime in from my place in the Anxiety Suite at The Little Shop of Horrors. "Uummm, any chance that the gizmo is working but the light is not? The bulb's not working? We have lift off but no dashboard light?" All I need is for the thing to be fired up and doing damage while they are playing around with the buttons and knobs.

They are not listening. They are unplugging and replugging the brave little toaster in every available outlet. Including the one on the bed. I do not take my eyes off the little red indicator light.

Suddenly there is a little red gleaming beam of light.

I make sure they know. "Hello. Red light. It's on. Game time. Anyone listening?

They both look at me like I'm nuts. I don't care. It's my crotch that's about to get torched.

Tools of the Trade

Re-entry to work the next day is painful. Such things are always a challenge. The only plus is that I get to prance into the office in the gloom of February with a savage tan and sun kissed highlights.

And as if work isn't fun enough, I also have my blahblahblah procedure scheduled with Dr. Madre. Talk about a total buzz kill.

I go to the office at the appointed hour and strip from the waist down, hop up on the table and cover myself with the sheet. I look around. I examine the socks I'd worn with my boots to make sure they won't inspire a negative repulsed reaction by their sight in the stirrups. Good to go. I take fleeting notice of all the alarmingly sharp and lengthy instruments on the cart, but quickly avert my eyes. Don't need to see all that and imagine what it will all be doing.

Next to the cart there is an ancient looking piece of equipment to the left of all the other gizmos. Frankly, it looks like a toaster with a couple of additional knobs. But from the 60s. Or Lost In Space. Danger! Danger! I am praying that it is just a decorative antique and will not be pressed into service in my appointment.

But it is a curious little thing - with long cords. One of which is attached to a little pedal thing sitting on the floor. Like a sewing machine pedal.

I am wigging now. I am sure this ancient decrepit machine is meant for me. And it will require exceptional hand/eye/foot coordination. Like sewing. And I am recalling my first attempt at curtains.

O.
M.
G.

I am wondering if it is too late to change my mind. Can I still choose the every three month exam deal, Carol Merrill? Is there a door number three? I am tempted to run away and call from the elevator.

I am about to hop off the table and run out into the street with my pants and shoes in my arms. And at that moment Dr. Madre arrives.

No escaping now.

Fly Away Home

Scott and I stand at the flight board staring in dismayed disbelief. Such a perfect trip. How can this be its ending? All flights north delayed.

I text Charlotte. "Flights to Philly and NYC all delayed. What gives?"

She writes back "A few flakes of snow."

Nothing like Mother Nature to put my life into a tailspin. Beyotch that she is.

We start to walk away and I have a flashback to the end of the flight. As the plane inched toward the gate on the Tarmac we had been trying to collect our stuff to make our way from plane to food court to gate to plane again.our cheerful flight attendant was telling us about gate changes and where such-and-such passenger could meet their party, and blah blah blah when suddenly she'd said, "And the gentleman in row 16 who had asked about his connecting flight to Philadelphia, the good news is that you have not missed your connection. The bad news is, your flight is delayed."

It was Pretty Boy and Tries Too Hard. Scott had audibly snickered.

I stopped in my tracks. Scott thought I might be losing my mind. I asked if we could go back to the board.

"Why? The flights are all delayed."

I insist. "But those jerks next to us whose flight was delayed thought they were going to miss their flight. It must have been earlier than ours."

Scott is a quick study. "Oh, delayed but earlier than ours!" a glimmer of hope.

We run back, check the board and scramble to the desk at the gate from which that flight is scheduled to depart. We ask how we might get on it.

A lovely woman takes our boarding passes and enters our information. Then she carefully explains how we have a better chance at an audience with the Pope than getting on this friggin' flight.

Priority will be given to frequent flier program members. (I should hope so,but that doesn't help us)
Flight insurance counts.
People holding higher priced tickets will be given first dibs?
And about a dozen other little discriminations.

We are told to look at the TV screen and wait for our first initial and last name to turn green on the "confirmed list."

I can barely see the TV much less the confirmed list. Or make out the letters on it. The color green is the only thing that doesn't present a problem.

Resigned to an evening of torturous confinement In the airport, Scott and I drag ourselves to the nearest restaurant. It is full. Every table. There is another one half a mile down the corridor by the watch kiosk and the Overpriced Gum Candy Magazine and Cheap Souvenir Depot, but Scott doesn't want to wander too far from the confirmed list. He actually wants to stay near enough to feel the warmth and radiation from the monitor itself, but I am about to have a full on low blood sugar moment of public bitchiness.

He knows the signs and compromises. We'll stand looking starved and miserable and pathetic on the periphery of the dining are and pressure the table of one monopolizing the table for four into taking that last bite of burger to go.

It works. We are seated within minutes.

Burgers, fries and one last vacation beer. With a side of anxiety.

I text Hil and Pat. Scott texts his girls. He still has a 90 mile drive after we get home. Whenever that is.

We return to bask in the glow of the TV monitor. It is like watching a horse race. The available seats, the upgrades, the names being matched, and turning green. It is a race to the finish.

But finally, moments before boarding is to start and our hopes will be dashed or prayers answered, the airline decides that the remaining seats need not be held for potential frequent fliers or high priced buyers, and the rest of us are moved to the confirmed list.

Scott and I are not seated together but are one row apart. We sweetly ask if our row-mates would mind switching. Scott refers to me as his wife when he makes his request. How cute.

Finally we are on our way-and will actually arrive earlier than expected.life is good.

But I am blue that the trip is really and truly over. And I miss the kids. And the cat. And Scott. Already.

Flight of Fancy

With my vanity woes sorted out, I settled in for a long pair of flights. The Keys to Atlanta, Atlanta to home. For such short distances, the rides seem endless. Both flights are full and people are defiantly ignoring the bag size and number limitations. If they are lucky enough to board early, they hog the overhead space and will only gate check or place a bag at their feet if forced. I am forever amazed by the rudeness of people in such situations. We are all on this plane together, people. Show some courtesy. If you were so friggin' important you'd be on a chartered flight, not on a commercial flight in steerage next to the chemical toilet.

I refuse to read my book. Well, after 6 pages when I realize it will be a slow read and I won't have plowed through it by the time we touch down at home. The Sky Mall mag has not changed since our flight on Saturday and I am no more intrigued by San Antonio's dining out scene than I was 5 days ago. What do I care if Tinto makes the best darn gazpacho in the Lone Star State? I will never dine there.

I begin to fiddle with the electronic screen in front of me - conveniently embedded in the back of the chair of the passenger in front of me. There are loads of games and entertainment features to choose from. Most of them at a per game or per view cost. I can see how someone would be so stir crazy that they'd just swipe a credit card and run up a huge tab out of desperation. But there are a few free games, most notably the plane-wide, passenger vs. passenger trivia game that pits people on the flight against each other in a trivia game.

The best part is, you are identified by your name and row/seat information. You get to decide who around you is an idiot!

I join the game late and only get a few answers in before the game ends. But it seems kind of fun, so I join the next game.

In between the answers and the next questions, when they offer little tidbits of factual information related to the question, I scope out where my opponents are on the plane. The couple across the aisle from me and Scott who hogged up all the overhead compartment space are two of the contestants. She is a sort of pretty blond who is trying too hard and flirting too much and really exerting herself to impress the man she is traveling with. They seem like a couple where she is more invested than he is. And he's a marginally handsome, overly groomed self important pompous ass. She is giggling away and making lamely witty remarks and he is ignoring her. He has a game to win.

Movie trivia, geography, a few astronomy questions later, Mel 6 rows ahead of Scott stops playing. A couple of U.S. Government and world history questions go by, and Flirtatious across the aisle bails, too. It is just me and Pretty Boy and he is going toe to toe with me. The speed of your answer determines your points for each question...so long as you get it right. And it will tell you when the question is over how you did against your competitor.

Brad, 30 points. Liza, 50 points.
Brad, no answer, zero points. Liza, 60 points.
Brad, 45 points. Liza, 50 points.

And as the game progresses and I top the leader board, the point spread gets wider and wider.

And Scott is watching Pretty Boy overreact while I maintain laser focus on the game.Pretty Boy is jabbing at answers on the screen, guessing randomly just to get the highest number of points before they tick away with the seconds. (Jeopardy theme, please...) Grimacing and grunting when I best him. He must know I am his opponent, but he never even glances our way.

Finally, the 21st question has been asked and answered and the screen flashes in big, bold howler monkey font:

CONGRATULATIONS, LIZA in seat 16B. You are our winner!

There is no prize for this little victory, except the look of humility on Pretty Boy's puss.Tries Too Hard is patting his arm to console him. He's sulking.

It is a nice little victory over the rude and self centered.

But small consolation for the news that our connecting flight is delayed for three hours. Our plans to be home before the 10 o'clock news just turned into an arrival in the wee hours.

To Sir With Love, Always

Today is my Dad's birthday. Or would be. He'd be 84. It's hard to imagine.

He's on my mind. As he should be. And I need to tell you a little story. Forgive me if it is e repeat. Dad is always alive in my thoughts, and I am never sure what thoughts I've actually shared.

Last November marked the sixth anniversary of the sad but merciful day that my Dad passed away. It was just before Thanksgiving and each year as the holidays approach (and so does my mother's pilgrimage North to put the whammy on all of us) my thoughts very naturally become dominated by him. Not that he's long out of mind ever.

This year, a few days before the anniversary, I turned to YouTube to help with a little tribute to him. I've mentioned before the special significance of the song To Sir With Love by Lulu. I searched the title and viewed the videos and chose one that I'd post to Facebook that day. And of course was composing all the while something special to say within the word limit, that could hope to impart my thoughts about such a special man. Once I was sure what I had to say, and once I was sure I'd found the write clip, I tabled the whole thing until the day itself.

A day or so later, or shall I say a night or so later, Hil and I were talking and indulging in girly things lounging on a pile of pillows on my bed.

Suddenly she says, "Mom, I'm kind of sad."

Who doesn't just about faint at those words from their child? And really, hasn't my little sprite had more than her fair share of sadness in her barely 12 years? I am suddenly preparing myself for anything. God only knows what will come out from between those rosebud lips next. Is it Mean Girls? Is Lars being a cosmically supercharged asswipe again? Is there a boy at school twisting her little tween heart into a Twizzler? Is she getting the Holiday Gloomies that I used to get when I was a kid, when the sadness about my parents divorce made me realize that the holidays were not going to be anything they were cracked up to be?

I asked what was making her sad. And frankly, held my breath.

"I am sad, Mom, because I've been praying really, really hard that Pop Pop would come here and let you know that he's happy and in Heaven and that he loves us all. And I don't think it's going to happen. But I really want you to see him again."

I am overwhelmed with love for this child. She truly knows my heart. What a sweet selfless prayer.

I assure her that in little ways Pop Pop always let's me know he's near. With songs and other signs. Like Aunt Charlotte says, he's always tapping me on the shoulder.

She seems satisfied, but still a little bummed that her prayers were not specifically answered. Hil's a little demanding.

A few days later, on the anniversary itself, I turn off my alarm in the morning and take to Facebook on my iPhone. I go to attach the You Tube video to what I've written as my status and realize I can't. I can only Tweet. But I am not on Twitter. When did this get so friggin' complicated?

In disgust, I realize I will have to go to my laptop, and have to cancel my beautifully articulated post. I put my head back on my pillow, face down for a moment or two more of peace before I have to actually be upright for the day.

And I feel something press on the small of my back. Thinking it is Trinket coming to greet me (and beg for food) I reach back for her.

She's not there. And in fact, she never was. I can hear her in the spare bedroom scratching at her post.

I am sure it is Dad. I actually say hello and tell him Hil hasdasked him to come to us. Well, in my head I do. But it is quiet and still.

A few minutes later when I am convinced there are no more signs of Dad, I get out of bed to pee. I ascertain that Trinket is in the spare bedroom snoozing in her bed basking in the dawn's early light.

And not really ready to get out of bed for good just yet, I return to the bed and get under the covers warmed by the heating blanket I'd left on all night. As I lie there on my side, half curled and facing the center of the bed I wished Scott were in with me, I felt the same pressing I'd felt before. Only this time it was twice, and against my side, as though I were being tucked in.

Again, I reach back for the cat.

No kitty. No kitty anywhere in the room.

And I am calm. I am comforted. It was too parental a gesture to be anyone but Dad having come to greet me. It was untroubled and not at all frightening.

Hil had gotten the answer to her sweet prayers for me. Dad had come to see us. And I knew he was okay. He'd simply come to tuck me in.

Happy birthday, Dad. Not a day goes by without a memory of you in it. Thank you for being the moon in my sky when I was a child. And for the gift of life and your myriad lessons on how to live it. XOXO

It's Your Thang, Do What You Wanna Do

And with hours on the plane with myself and with Scott I have time to let my mind wander back to my ladies' room epiphany. The one where Mirror Mirror on the Wall tipped me off that I was no longer the fairest of them all. Beyotch that she is.

If you recall, I'd boarded the plane with pin-straight, parched, flyaway hair, bags under my bloodshot, sleep-deprived eyes, and skin that needed to visit the spa. At some point, perhaps suspecting that I was suffering from The Uglies, perhaps just coincidentally, Scott says something that makes me think I've Been Doing It All Wrong. While pushing aside my hair to kiss my neck, he says, "Whatever happened to all your curls?"

I brushed it off saying, "Wait 'till we get to the Keys. They'll be back." There isn't an idiot in the world who would try to straighten wavy hair in the tropical heat of Key West.

But it got me thinking. As I spent the last year growing my hair and Bringing Sexy Back, I've loved that my pounds of hair (I admittedly have more than my fair share of follicles. I will never go bald) were growing heavier and heavier and making the usual chore of blowing out the unruly curls to a sleek straight do a much simpler, less arduous task. But maybe the look I loved was not loving me back.

And suddenly I am thinking about just that. What works for Sandra Bullock and Demi Whatever-name-she-goes-by-now may not work for yours truly. And I am thinking about the lady at work that I recently spoke with who's been trying to hold on to her youth with both hands and had the hair do to prove it. While we talked I had been distracted by how her long straight locks had made her face seem elongated and cartoonishly narrow. It dragged down her features. She has very pretty eyes. But I'd barely noticed them for the hair.

Oh. My. God. I was her. She was me. H-A-G spells hag.

So I decided to use the trip to start the transition. I did not want to appear to over react, but let's be honest. I have a handsome man in my life who loves me for all the right reasons. I certainly want to do what I can to remain attractive to him. He's said he'd love me even if I were 600 pounds, but why not make it easy for him by inspiring him to chase me around the bedroom with my dazzling appearance?

So I let the Keys remind my hair what it is like to Do It's Own Thing. A few days of beach weather brought my curls back to life. Restored them to their bouncy selves. They were doing a little dance of joy all over my head.

And the sun on my face and glowing minimalist makeup made me feel youthful and fresh. I chucked the lipstick in favor of tinted gloss in a pretty peach. Used gleaming golden tones on my face. Put me on the cover of Seventeen Magazine.

So now as we headed for home, and back to the gloom of work and other harsh realities, I am wondering how I will maintain the look. With showers on the fly, and the rush to prepare for work, and after work obligations that keep me from my treadmill, and little time to pamper myself, what exactly will I do?

I'll figure it out. That's what I'll do. The Old Age Fairy better think twice about putting a whammy on me. That beyotch has a fight on her hands.

A Few Days in Paradise

Against all sour puss weather predictions, the weather for the next few days is spectacular. Scott and I do everything we can to soak up the unique flavor of Key West, its locals, and their sensibilities.

We soak up the sun at the beach and the pool. Natch.

We walk around town ogling architecture and admiring art and eating and drinking lots of new beers -like my new favorite, Rebel Rye - usually one in the bar and one in a To Go cup. It is not only allowed in Key West, roadies are the norm. People walk around with drinks in plastic cups of all shapes and sizes all the time. People of all ages. Drinks of all kinds. It is odd to see a senior citizen staggering around town with a mojito in a Solo cup, but I have to admit that the ability to leave with one's drink certainly makes it easy to scram from a bar where you aren't feeling the vibe. But that doesn't happen much to me and Scott in Key West.

Scott and I shop. Throw money around like sailors. On jewelry. For souvenirs for all the kids. For a neat-o military special ops knife that will have to be shipped home. (The airport people will have a little problem with the hair trigger, ambidextrous, switchblade. ) In black. So no one can see it in the dark. Cool. Very covert and 007.

We eat shamelessly. Most notably amazing Mexican food with fresh ingredients and blistering esophagus-searing hot jalapenos in a non-descript store front no-name place that we would have walked right by without a glance had it not been for the recommendation from some ladies at our hotel pool who told us how to get there by way of Sloppy Joe's. (Those are directions I could follow...) And pastry. Every pastry shop we pass gets a visit.

We listen to music. Everywhere. Even as we walk by open store fronts. My favorite being the woman at The Schooner who sounds (and looks)a lot like Janis Joplin who takes requests, including those for duets. She deftly does the part of June Carter Cash and Johnny Cash. "Jackson" never sounded so good.

We are nearly lured into two separate bars with competing drag shows, both by tall, buxom, well-heeled, handsome, beautifully made up "women" with larger than life personalities. (As opposed to the drag queen who was dressed like a librarian in tweed and tragic footwear who was angrily stomping off to work along side us on Duval one day. I guess I never imagined drag queens actually working except on stage. Color me enlightened.) But we skip both, vowing we'd come back again and see them both when Charlotte can join us, since it would be more fun that way.

But all too soon, the fun must end. Scott and I soothe our souls by talking about a 5 year plan to figure out a way to own a home here. It may be a pipe dream but maybe not. It is nice to think about.

We think about it because it makes us less sad, when on the last afternoon in Key West, we are standing in sandals and shorts (but not Hawaiian shirts) grimly waiting to trade places with the happy travelers that have just stepped off the plane we have to board.

The people walking toward us on the tarmac look so familiar. We were them just a few days ago.

Houston, We Have a Problem

I look around frantically for a plunger. Like the hotel is actually going to put a plunger in each room. Shower cap, yes. Plunger, no.

I am envisioning Scott returning to the room. Whistling like in the movies where the poor unsuspecting boob is about to inadvertently walk in on the robbery or the wife in bed with the mobster or the bears eating the contents of his kitchen.

I decide to try to flush once more. I am a pro at clogged toilets, after all. Hil is a career, card-carrying toilet clogger. I have put my plumber's kids through college with house calls from the the self-anointed Toilet Doctor. I know all the tricks. I have all the tools. Hil has clogged more toilets than Carters has little liver pills. When her little choo choo pulls out of Constipation Station, you'd better have some Liquid Plumr and an arsenal of plungers on hand. Girlfriend can turn a toilet bowl into the Hoover Dam. She's that good.

The water goes down. The other "contents" don't. Nifty. I decide to send up a flare.

I text Scott. "Problem..."

He thinks I'm asking. "Nope."

I write, "No...here. Toily won't flush."

And then, to prepare him for the horror of it all. "Well, not completely..."

"Is it going to overflow?"

I think about how I should answer. "No. The water has gone down but "the item" hasn't."

"Oh" he writes. I am imagining that he is running toward the road to begin hitchhiking home.

And then he writes, "Should I bring the Navy?"

I smile but I am still sweating. This will be my darkest hour. I may as well have grown a wart on my chin with a big black hair long enough to tether a yacht with.

"I think the Coast Guard can handle it," I attempt to joke, however weakly.

And I wait. But while I wait I text my childhood friend Kelli. She will appreciate my predicament like no other. Her father-in-law has just died and she could use the humor. I take to instant messaging on Facebook and deadpan, "On a lighter note, I am on vacation with Scott and have just completely clogged the toilet in our hotel room."

She immediately writes back "Way to go! How romantic!"

And I hear Scott coming down the veranda. And yes, he's whistling. I've locked the door so he has to knock. When he does, I leave the bathroom where I've been keeping vigil and open the door just enough to stick my face out. He says, "Is Hil here?"

And I am immediately hysterical laughing as hard as I have ever laughed in my entire life. I open the door so he can step into the room and then panic and run back to the bathroom and slam the lid closed and sit on it so no one can see "the item" without moving me first. As if that would be so hard to do.

Scott begins to laugh. And by now I am laughing to the point of tears at the absurdity. He is calling me a Gus and I am crying laughing about how funny this would look to an outside observer.

But still. I don't want him to see it. And I certainly don't want him to smell it either. I would seriously sell myself into slavery to avoid that particularly acute form of shame. It would give new meaning to Eau du Toilet.

I hop up from the seat still laughing and wave him back a few steps so he can't peer into the bowl. And out of sniffing range. I tell him I'm going to flush one more time for good luck. He is white with panic but I am a woman possessed. I can see his MacGyver wheels turning like he's going to take a hanger from the closet, bend it into a figure eight, and fasten the toothpaste lid to the end with some bubblegum...

By some act of God, (is there a patron saint of BM?) it all goes down. The whole shootin' match. No sign of the horrors that once were.

I am weak with laughter and so is Scott. Another corner turned in our ever evolving life together. It's cute that we have this one last Politeness between us. Even if it is just an illusion. One of Love's little kindnesses.

I'll Have the Pu Pu Platter, Please

The next morning is hazy. We are hazy. We go to our restaurant to soothe our souls with breakfast.

And so I have to admit something. Scott and I have a ritual.

I am sharing here, people. No laughing.

Scott and I have known each other for what amounts to dog years. I was 15 when I met him. We are as close and have shared as much as any couple who has been together for decades. We are on the accelerated program. I think dating in middle age does that to you. You speed date through and discard the Throw Away Mates, and when you find a Keeper, you go from zero to sixty in three dates. There isn't much of a Getting To Know You stage. No honeymoon. Practicality (and presumably the notion that you have to pack a whole happy life into what remains of your actual chronological life compels you to waste very little time tap dancing around things like the fact that you have to sleep on the right side of the bed with one foot outside of the covers or that you get Very Loud Hiccups if you eat ice cream.)

But Scott and I have one reserved Politeness. After breakfast, or more specifically, after coffee, we both have to retreat to a bathroom to let Mother Nature do her little dance of joy. And our unspoken ritual is always the same. At home, Scott takes one one bathroom and I to the other. At his house, it is understood that he and his Droid will be spending quality time in his girls' bathroom and I will be taking my iPhone into the master bath for a few moments of solitude.

At my house, I commandeer the hall bath on the second floor, while Scott retreats to the hideous little almost-an-outhouse affair in my dank basement. He refers to it as the Executive Washroom. Which is hilarious, because it is so elementary that it does not even have a sink to wash one's hands in...afterward. Eeeww.

When we travel, which is admittedly not that often, we have to figure out the routine. Here in Key West, we've been keeping it simple. We eat breakfast each morning at the hotel's outdoor waterfront restaurant. And once the coffee has percolated through our systems, we pay the bill, and Scott goes to the restaurant men's room and I return to the hotel room to use the one there.

This morning, like so many before it, I Do My Business, and feeling quite satisfied, turn to flush. The water rises. And then nothing. Just some slow, umm, swirling.

OMG. I have clogged the toilet in the hotel room that I share with my dashing boyfriend.

And suddenly I am in a flopsweat. My cover is blown. Scott will know I actually poop. I may as well fart too. I am doomed.

Super Dooper Bowl Sunday

Key West is the most social place I have ever been. I'd forgotten how much I had loved it as a co-ed.

Scott and I make our way about town meeting other visitors, bar tenders, waiters, locals, shop owners, and anyone else who crosses our path.

The older man at the burger place who recommends the pizza at Finnegan's Wake against all logic.

The lady at the Butterfly Museum with the lizard jewelry and the knee length hair who gives us the locals discount to the Observatory just because. (The older man at the burger place also having recommended the Butterfly Museum as the perfect, peaceful rainy day activity, and it is pouring.)

Jack, the bar tender at the other Irish bar who recommends the Smithwicks pints and the Irish nachos that we find to be a wicked good combination. Something about the corned beef and Irish cheddar and the way it blends with the silky smoothness of the Smithwicks at noon on Super Bowl Sunday in the rain. Makes us forget that walking around in ankle deep rain water barefoot on Duval is probably extending a warm invitation to disease and infection in their most potent forms.

The cool guy at Paradise Tattoo who deftly gives Scott a 50th birthday tattoo on his well formed shoulder in thirty minutes while great 80's music plays on the radio, and who allows me to step close enough to the art in progress to take photos to text to the kids at home. And who offers to tattoo my hip again with something meaningful to me and Scott. Even though we do not return to get it. Mostly because I do not want to remove myself from social circulation long enough to get it. A lotus flower would have been pretty, though.

Rob, the bar tender at The Mad Rooster who recommends the Rebel Rye to Scott while I am in the restroom and Scott asks what they have that his girlfriend with the hankering for a hoppy beer would like. A good strong rye hopped beer is just the thing on Super Bowl Sunday. For me and for Scott, whose shoulder is raw and stinging.

All the people we meet who hail from all over God's green Earth who want to get to know us, who asks out our lives and kids and hobbies, who want to know what brought us here, and who assume we were husband and wife. All of these folks who have distinct opinions and desires about the teams and the outcome of the Super Bowl but who have absolutely no interest at all in politics. Mitt who? President o' what? What's a Gingrich? It's a nice breather from the constant barrage of attacks and opinions we'd been subject to Up North.

The folks at the hotel restaurant who treat us like royalty for patronizing their establishment. It's good to be where everybody knows your name. Even if its because you assume the waitresses are swooning over Scott and hoping to poison my food to get me out of the way.

Scott and I eventually head back to the hotel after hours and hours on Duval in the rain. We shower and take a nap and rise for the game. It is a rowdy crowd with a mixed fan base and lots of alcohol flowing in brimming bloodstreams. Madonna is a real crowd pleaser.

But in the end, Scott and I finish the game with roadies in Styrofoam cups in or jammies snuggled in our bed.

As it should be. That is what vacation is for.

The Key to My Heart

Scott and I land in Key West and I am surprised to learn that it is sunny. My weather app on my phone had been far less encouraging. It is 11 am and we are in Paradise.

 We walk across the tarmac. Only little planes land here, so there is no such thing as taxiing to the gate. We pile out like clowns from a Funny Car and stagger blinking in the sunshine toward an entrance welcoming us to The Conch Republic. I turn to say something to Scott to find him walking along the runway effortlessly removing layers of clothes without breaking stride. He could not be more handsome. And I, by contrast, am still in my Mr. Rogers cardigan and stinging from my suspicion that I've morphed into a hausfrau. I am acutely aware of the pimple above my eyebrow. It is like a twin growing from the corner of my face. Pretty.

Just inside the door we encounter people in sandals and shorts and Hawaiian shirts who are grimly waiting to trade places with us. I know they are bummed about leaving but they look constipated. Also just inside the door we encounter our first bar.

Only in Key West.

Our courtesy van is waiting and there is nary a minute between boarding the vehicle and it's departure. We get our car immediately and drive to our quirky little hotel 400 yards away. There is a giant metal cow on the porch and jet skis parked all along the side of the waterfront restaraunt. Ibises walk about like they own the place. We can't check in but we can change.

Scott and I are on the beach by noon. Perfection. Well except that I drop my famous green baseball hat in a puddle. But at least it wasn't my phone. We have parked our cheap little rental with the manual locks and windows in the same lot that my college friends and I used on our visits on Spring Breaks of the past. (Also in a cheap little rental with manual locks and windows) We are seated on the same beach we stretched out on as co-eds. I can 't help but think that this was the beach where my Dad would have come when he was a Navy enlisted man stationed here (lucky duck!)

After a while, since we are without the benefit of sun screen (we've not sought out the CVS just yet, so strong was the gravitational pull of Smathers Beach) we depart the beach and go for a drive to get acclimated. It's an 8 square mile island with a lot packed into tiny spaces, to say nothing of the astonishing number of bars right on Duvall Street. We have a lot of ground to cover.

First stop, Willie T's, where the Margaritas are strong and the music is fabulous for a lunch time crowd. The tradition here (because every Key West bar is known for something) is to take one of the one dollar bills you get with your change, write on it with a Sharpee, and staple it to some part of the bar itself. Well not the bar you belly up to, necessarily, but somewhere on the building --- a pillar, a rafter, a wall, a table, the ceiling. There must be millions in genuine U.S. currency tacked, glued or stapled to this place. It rivals the U.S. Mint.

But after just one drink we are on our way. We have shoes to shop for, jewelry to ogle, a sunset to enjoy and a decent tattoo parlor to find.

Yes, a tattoo parlor.

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall

I am staring, blinking in disbelief. The lady next to me, who frankly, had nothing to be proud of, was looking at me like she suspected I was from another planet. I felt like Tom Hanks when he wakes up Big.

I will admit that airport bathroom lighting is not the most flattering a girl could be photographed in, but I was being realistic. It wasn't all lighting.
And it wasn't all 3 and a half hours of sleep at the end of a hellish week, either.

It was me.

I had to admit it. Loathe as I was to do so.

My hair suddenly no longer looked smooth and gleaming and silky. It looked parched and fly-away and drab and dull. A head full of raffia might have looked as good.

My skin was not only sallow and dull looking, it was hanging and skinny. Suddenly I was beginning to understand when Zsa Zsa Gabor, or was it Ava. I don't know, one of the Gabors, presumably the fatter one, said something about reaching an age where you have to choose between having a beautiful face or a nice ass.

I suppose I have reached that age.

Oh my God. I am that age when the Gabors begin to make sense.

I have relatively few issues with my ass but the flip side of that situation was now staring me in the face. Dull,flat hair. Hanging, drab skin.

Oh, and a zit above my eyebrow, glaring like a traffic flare. bright red. I swear I could see it throbbing.

I had to hurry back to Scott so as to not miss our flight (the boarding for which was interrupted by a spot check of random passengers' bags, the manifesto for which included yours truly) and had no tool kit to address the issues with. I scurry back to the gate pretending to be engrossed in my iPhone apps on the go. While Scott runs to the lavatory on his own, I discreetly open my tiny little travel makeup bag with the few essentials one needs for a beach vacation. I mange to find the miracle powder I wear and cover the zit. I dab a little blush on my cheeks and gloss my lips. I also run a little smoother over my hair and fluff it to life with a little beach spray. OK maybe not so discreet, but who is watching? The old couple asleep hunched over their luggage? The grungy surfer dude nodding to whatever jam was playing on iTunes? Flo the attendant trying to calm the nerves of the middle aged couple who keep thinking they needed to let her know they were there to ride on the plane she is in charge of?

Scott comes striding back from the men's room looking as handsome as ever. Eyes sparkling. Radiant smile. Why am I suddenly worried he doesn't see me the same way?

Because suddenly I don't?

What's in the Bag, Hag?

And with all the waiting and fretting and wringing of hands, somehow the days have passed and the time has come for Scott and I to take our trip to Key West. Oh thank God --- it could not have come at a more perfect time.

Friday after work I race home to get some waxing accomplished and treat myself to a spa quality pedi. I love the feeling of stepping out with new feet, especially to the beach. Oh my God, the beach! I can hardly wait.

Scott arrives and I have already packed. Truth be told, I've been packed for two weeks. It isn't hard to take your flip flops, sandals, bikinis, white jeans and shorts out of circulation for a few weeks in February. I have two neatly packed carry-on bags. And room for souvenirs. Scott and I don't plan to check a thing, just breeze onto and off of the plane in record time. Maximize the sunshine.

We step out for beers at a local pub and turn in early. The alarm is set for 3:30 a.m. Our flight is at 5:30. We want to be on the road at 4.

I am awake and brushing my teeth at 3:20. Having showered the night before, my hair is gleaming and blown out straight. I am moisturized and self-tanned to perfection. My outfit laid out already. Loose jeans and a light cardulemaer a short sleeved shirt. A scarf and spring jacket will sustain me enroute to the airport even in this weather. Scott is warming up the car by 3:45.

We are on our way.

The lady at Security who checked our documents was lovely and jovial. I could tell she liked our couple-i-ness. The guy checking our belongings was as miserable as a Death Row inmate. Barking out orders about shoe removal and toiletry bags. Making me remove my belt, sweater, jacket, scarf, and watch, and still making me get into the futuristic Death Chamber to x-ray view my bra and panties for suspicious packages and other contraband. He was much nicer to Scott. I suspect he suspected I was his hag.

And now I know why.

While waiting at the gate for boarding to begin, I decide to use the ladies room and avoid the unpleasant Death Chamber at 36,000 feet. And naturally, I used the lovely facilities there to wash my hands afterwards. And looking up to admire my Florida-bound fabulousness once more before parting, I am stunned at my appearance.

In the car ride here, I have turned into a hag.