Woe Is I

Mrs. Murray, the gym teacher who won the booby prize that morning was quite sweet for being a bit of a dog with a bone on most matters. She "there, there'd" me and stroked my Dorothy Hamill haircut, waited patiently outside the locker room while I got dressed and rinsed the tears from my face. She walked with me, arm around my shoulders to my next class.

We go to the classroom and I took my seat. She went to talk to Mr. Devlin, my Algebra teacher who looked up at me once or twice as they spoke in a tone just above a whisper. He made a WTF face even though no one was really saying WTF in 1978.

So this is what it feels like to be pathetic!

Divorce was not as prevalent as it is now back then. It was the 70s. People just remained miserable and slept in separate beds. I only knew one other person whose parents had been divorced and it was because her Dad had gone to jail for fraud. I felt like a statistic. Right up there with cases of Polio in the last decade.

And in the 70sx, MOMS DIDN'T LEAVE! I may as well have told Mrs. Murray that my mother had been murdered with a chainsaw for how she looked at me.

She touched my shoulder as she left my Algebra class, her tennis shoes squeaking on the floors as she swished by in her skort and warmup jacket. We never talked about it again. She'd look at me in class and ask me how I was doing, just casually enough not to make a big production, and just directly enough to let me know exactly why she was asking.

I don't know if she spoke to any of my other teachers that day. This was long before schools had counseling staffs and took the loco parent is thing so seriously. Back then your parents were your parents, no matter how lousy. I would have welcomed a heap of parentis-ing at the time.

I sleepwalked through the remainder of the day. A complete waste of time to be there. Absolutely no academic advantage to having attended even one of my classes. And I certainly didn't feel like talking about anything with anyone. A can of worms doesn't open itself. If I didn't open it, I could attempt to ignore what was inside.

On the way home on the bus, I spotted Casey from down the street.

And suddenly I felt like talking.

Aftershock

And then of course, she didn't leave.

Not right away.

Dropped the bomb and then waited to detonate it. So we all sat with our fingers figuratively in our ears, wincing and waiting for the Big Bang. For the world to fly to bits.

The delay left plenty of room for confusion. For speculation. For hope. Hope that she had changed her mind. She'd decided to stay. She couldn't bear to leave. (Because when you're a kid, no matter how much fighting or violence or household items sailing through the air and crashing into walls, nothing is worse than someone leaving. Even if that someone leaving would neutralize the chaos and a whole load of other shit.)

But the cat was out of the bag - and was scampering around the house leaving things in shreds.

I'd gone to school. Ridden the bus. I had no idea how to even tell my seat mate Carolyn who always road with me. She was a nervous wreck on the best of days. Had I told her, the driver would have had to pull over to start chest compressions.

But it was on the bus that Reality paid a visit. THIS was happening. THIS was happening to me. THIS was happening to my sibs. THIS was happening to my Dad (In my Almost 14 year old simplistic comprehension of the complexities of marriage, he was just as rocked by the news as I was.)

My first class was gym. Volleyball. I hate volleyball. I do not have the hands or the wrists to play without hurting myself on a simple volley. I walk around all day looking like I got defensive injuries in a recent mugging.

In the locker room afterwards, reddened forearms and all, I finally began to cry as I untied my sneakers. My friend Sandy was telling an amusing family story (her family would have been a huge hit had reality TV dawned 30 years earlier). She looked around as people laughed and noticed that my head was bent. My hands were shaking.

She sat on the bench with me. Softened her voice. Listened as I choked out the reason I was coming unraveled in public (There is no more public a place to an eighth grader than the locker room. Ask anyone. Talk about being exposed!)

Sandy heard me out and was appropriately horrified. She went to get me some tissues (toilet paper) and a teacher (the only female gym teacher we were reasonably sure was not a lesbian) and returned to my side.

I choked out the tale of woe yet again. I'd have to get used to this. Maybe I could come up with a less pathetic-sounding Readers' Digest abridged version that didn't make people cry along with me.

Both of them hugged me.

I felt like I had not been hugged in years.

The Bogey Man Is Gonna Getcha

I remember being very torn when I learned Mom was leaving. Torn between "Holy crap! What is going to happen to me?" and "Well, Jesus H. Christ! Something has to change or we're all doomed."

And speaking of doom, I'd had a Doomsday revelation then, too. At the ripe old age of Almost 14, when Life seems to want to dish out all kinds booby prizes across the board. Acne. Braces. One's oh-so-fun-and fickle period. Boobs that grow or decide not to. What you get in your prepubescent gift basket is a complete crap shoot. And your parents' marriage unraveling is a big bow made of razor wire tied cheerfully to the handle.

But my A-ha moment came just then, when Mom told me she'd be leaving. For years I'd had an overpowering sense of impending doom. Something awful was just around the corner. Something wicked this way comes. It's the end of the world as we know it. Bye-bye, Love. Bye-bye, Happiness. Someone, something somewhere was going to take a hatchet to my life and hack it all to collops. The Big Whammy was afoot.

But I had no idea what it could be. What to expect. It was as if I were walking around in the pitch blackness, hands protectively out in front of me, feeling my way through a tunnel knowing that at any minute I could bump smack into the Bogey Man. He was somewhere out there. Coming toward me. God knows where. 

In my 11, 12, and 13 year old capacities to understand, I could not imagine what could be so horrible. I just knew it was coming. I conjured up the worst possible scenarios. I imagined awakening to find both of my parents dead in their bed. Both parents getting cancer from all of that incessant chain smoking. I imagined a horrible car accident in the Ford Towne and Country wood-paneled station wagon. My family dismembered and dead on the highway. Me still siting in the middle spot in the back seat with my Keds resting on the hump. 

And now, as I sat at the kitchen table, Mom chain smoking and drinking coffee, me downing Tang and an effortlessly prepared package of Tastykakes, it all made sense. 

This was the doom I could not define. This was the thing I sensed had been coming but could not imagine. This was the thing that rattled my cage but that I could not put into words.

Mom delivered her news matter of factly. Dispassionate. While I wordlessly ate my Butterscotch Krimpets, a lump forming in my throat making it hard to swallow, even with a sip of Tang. 

I knew there was no room for tears. Nothing messy, please, you have a bus to catch. 

I secretly dreamt of smacking the coffee cup out of her hand as she sat there casually sipping. Nice timing, Ma. Lower the boom and put me on the bus. And I got angry. This was her thoughtful plan to tell me she was leaving? That she was turning the world on its head?

And I was mad. Seething. And I said something pissy.

"Well it's about time." 

I stuffed the remaining bite of Krimpet in my mouth, grabbed my yellow zip-up hoodie and my book bag and walked out the door without looking back. 

I doubt she ever got up from her chair.

Preparing for Takeoff

It must be a matter of gender. Last year, Pat crossed this same threshold and it never crossed my mind that he was tiptoeing across an imaginary line with enormous importance.  I suppose it is significant that he is a boy.  I have no idea what my brother Joe experienced when my mother left. I have no "male child perspective."  I do know that he remained confused (and very likely developmentally arrested) for a very, very long time. But he lived with Dad, like I did, so he had his ship to steer by.

But Hil, Oh My God, Hil. I look at her and wonder what on God's green Earth she would do if I vanished. We are so close. She needs so much from me. She gets so much from me. She seeks so much from me.  I can not imagine turning and walking away and leaving her behind.  I can barely handle shared custody!  And she can walk to my house from the house she lives in with Lars so she can drop in any time. And does!  How did my mother move out and move outside our reach so casually?  With so little regard for us? How didn't she die inside?

I remember looking at a house with her before she actually boarded her broom for takeoff.  We were supposed to be "going to Mass" which was generally code for "Mom has a nefarious, secretive errand or self-serving mission to accomplish that Dad can know nothing about, so the hour that we would spend in Mass is taking on a much more interesting purpose." We drove to the house. It was adorable. A cute cape cod that was neat as a pin and beautifully decorated. The woman that lived there had been widowed young. She was a little older than Mom. She was looking to take a roommate.

I was thrilled. The woman was darling and so was the house. Rent was within Mom's meager price range and the place had everything she needed. It was also just a few blocks away. I would pass by on my way to church one those Sundays when I walked there with some of the neighborhood kids. And it was a block away from my friend Carolyn.

Of course Mom had other ideas. Came up with a variety of complaints. Chief among them was that the woman would "drive her nuts." Probably because Mom was looking to live the party life and this woman had obviously let her priorities mature as she did.

In the end, Mom chose to share a house with a whacko that she coincidentally had gone to high school with.  She was bizarre but kind and entertaining. And she had three yappy beagles with names like "Cher" who crapped all over the kitchen, which was the only room not decorated entirely in royal blue, mirrors, gilded surfaces and red roses. It was like a Vegas whore house. Probably what appealed to Mom.

But the big selling point was probably the location.  Close enough, but well beyond reasonable after school walking distance. If Mom was going to see us, it would be on her terms.

And since this was years before the advent of multiple land line phones and decades before car phones and cell phones, Mom had to share the house phone with other tenants. A fine excuse to never call and never answer.

She planned her escape. And she executed flawlessly.

Have A Birthday

But there has been an even bigger revelation. One that I reached and then couldn't step away from. A doozy.

The price of being alone in one's own head without interruption for too long at one time.

As summer rounded the corner into July, we celebrated Pat's birthday. Pat turned 15 and was quite naturally excited about being on the runway to adulthood. Discussions of working papers and learner's permits and much coveted cars and concert events he'd like to attend filled every meal time, side by side task, snuggle on the couch. It was a turning point in his young life.

And once we had birthday dinners and cake and candles and presents and other nice surprises, my mother reared her ugly little back-combed head. As Pat thrilled at the arrival of his self-designed, customized awesome new skateboard -- a skateboard he and his friends thought was the height of cool, Mom sent her birthday greeting,

As per usual, nothing more personal than a card and a check.  A check I have to put in the bank and withdraw from the ATM for it to be even remotely of value to a 15 yer old.

What ws even more disappointing, and frankly, bordering on a alarming, was her card.

As Pat opened the envelope to reveal the card, he looked quizzically at me. As if he'd opened up the wrong envelope. (A sure sign of maturity. A year or two ago, the card would have gone unnoticed and would have been dropped on the floor once a couple of bills had been discovered. It could have read" With deepest sympathy.")

He turns the card toward me to show me and makes a "WTF?" gesture.

Mom has sent my 15 year old decidedly masculine boy who loves skateboarding and rap music a card that reads, "For Someone Special" and featuring a lovely swirly blue and green and purple motif, embellished with butterflies and sparkles.

And inside there is a totally impersonal check and a note for him to text her and telling him she will text back. Oh, goodie!

As if.

I refrain from screaming. Try to put it in perspective. Just weeks before she'd sent me a check for my birthday (after expressing shock that I'd sent a gift and card for Mothers a Day the week before) and had written the check to my married name. I had not been Liza Royal for 6 years. Six very notable years.

And then when I didn't cash it right away - How could I? - she sent me a nasty text telling me to hurry up. She wanted to close the account.

Pat didn't ultimately give a hang. And he sure as shit didn't text her. The impersonal, can't-bother-to-make-it-even-seem-sincere, offhandedly, box-checking gesture rolled off of his back. And mine, too, but more slowly.

But I did not forget it, and as we passed Independence Day and I turned my attention to Hil's birthday, I realized a new brand of horror.

In a matter of days, Hil would be exactly the age I was when my mother peeled out of the driveway and out of our lives. Leaving skid marks, natch.

We're On The Road To Nowhere

And as the summer wears on, I have some big revelations. And I have some small revelations, too. Spending two to three hours a day in the woods communing with nature but otherwise alone in my head will do that.

I can say this now, though it was not so obvious as each days dripped by: My mother never once called to ask me how I was doing. How I was doing with my job search. How I was doing emotionally. How I was doing financially. How I was doing personally.

Not that I need her pity. Or her money or a pep talk or even something that resembles friendship.

But it strikes me as odd that with the year I've had --Scott vaporizing into nothingness without warning and then my abrupt departure from my job without the benefit of a soft landing in a new one
-- she never once managed to soften her heart, warm her blood, lay down her sword, (lower that voice!) and call me to check in --if only on my sanity and the safety of my children who depend on it.

No. She told Charlotte how upset she was that Scott had broken my heart. (Check the box.)

She told Charlotte that she hoped I found a smashing new job. (Check box #2.)

But she could not for even one minute extend her hand to hold mine, even figuratively, for one minute.

No call.
No note.
No card with ten bucks in it so I can take myself out for a beer.

Yet, when I spaced on Bill's birthday and did not send a card, (Why I am even obligated is beyond me - his own daughter is not held to that standard) she picked up the phone and called to say she was "sure it is in the mail" but in case I'd forgotten to get it to the mailbox, she wanted to let me know it had not arrived yet, but he'd had a great birthday.

Nice try, Mom. We all know that buying and mailing a card to Bill falls somewhere between vacuuming the closet ceilings and alphabetizing the spice cabinet in order of importance. As in not.
Not.
At.
All.

And by comparison, other people in my life were so supportive!  Charlotte - her FRIENDS! And my friends - and their MOTHERS! And my former classmates and colleagues - and their PARENTS! My cousins - their SPOUSES! It nearly made me cry.

But from Mom?

Zero.
Zip.
Zilch.
Goose eggs.

Which is about what our relationship has come to mean to me.

Just Shoot Me

The beer arrives.
Gregory arrives.
The food arrives.
The indigestion arrives.

I try to drown out the brainwave scrambling sound of Mom's yakkety yakkety yakking with chat of my own. With intense concentration on conversation at the other end of the table. With the sound of my own chewing. She is like an air horn.

I alternately wish she would shut up (Fat chance) and that her lips would swell to the point where they muffled her voice. I also pray for an act of God. A sink hole. A falling rock. An alien abduction. A hostage situation.

But lunch takes its course. Several courses, actually. Thank God for the beer. It may not have mellowed Mom but it dulled my senses sufficiently to not actually go through with jabbing a fork in anyone's eye just to get them to stop talking. Or breathing, for that matter. As appealing as the idea is, even now.

Soon enough we are leaving the pub, heading for home, discussing the directions ad nauseum. I've never met people who bicker as much as Mom and Bill over "the best way to get there" when there is no hurry, no deadline, no place to be. Who cares if we have to stop at a light or go around the park? What? We might be delayed 5 minutes in getting into our comfy pants?

I text friends the entire way back to the house. Threats to gouge my own eye out with a spoon. Pondering why anyone would ever question why I drink. Bewilderment that I am within 10 miles of normal after my upbringing.

We get to Charlotte and Jack's. We make small talk. And I realize that Mom and Bill and I have run out of things to say to each other. I see them a maximum of twice a year and I have nothing to say within hours.

Nothing I'm willing to say, it will only be repeated with disdain when I leave.

Nothing I am interested enough to ask, in spite of the morbid curiosity I have about how my mother manages to get through a day without making herself cringe. Or even slapping herself across the face.

Current events are off limits. All roads lead to a loud, violently disparaging diatribe about our President.

I warmly say my goodbyes to the boys and my sister and Jack. I half heatedly kiss my mother and Bill. I get in my car and point it in the direction of home.

As lovely as graduation had been, I find that I am unmoved - indifferent - to my mother having attended. If I were to replay the highlight reel of the day, there would not be a single frame with her in it. Her attendance was a non-event, however grating.

I doubt that I'll even care if she comes to Pat's or Hil's graduation. Or wedding. Or anything else. Something to think about.

Brew Hoo Hoo

After an hour or so of social torture and angst, we depart for lunch at a local pub.

I am a wreck. This is where poor social graces, madness and alcohol intersect. Or rather, crash into each other. Violently.

We go to the same pub we dined in following  Gray's graduation ceremony. As I walk through the door, with pronounced trepidation, I recall that luncheon. I had been so taken aback by Mom's appearance - she having "tripped on a clam" just hours before and looking like she had just been  fiercely beaten with a ring baloney, and having walked brazenly about the graduation ceremony, proud as a peacock, even as her eyes became more deeply blackened and her lip swelled like a cocktail weenie.

I remember that last year I had  ducked discreetly into the ladies room and quietly texted a few friends about the morning's events. I'd needed moral support. It had been the electronic equivalent of rolling one's eyes at one another at a party. And here we were again. God only knows what the day would bring. So far there had been mild to moderate craziness. We had not gotten into full throttle mode. I could only imagine what was yet to come.

We sit at the table. Mom immediately remarks that Gregory has disappeared (who could blame him?) having been so self absorbed with her social climbing that she failed to pick up on the fact that he has a phone interview for a job on Wall Street and would be arriving late to lunch. She over-reacts when she learns what is afoot. Loudly repeats the story as if there might be someone at a neighboring table who gives a shit. I am sure the other patrons were impressed.

There is a brief discussion that we may just want to order appetizers for now and wait for Gregory. That idea is quickly scrapped as Jack's parents can not linger over a long lunch, but Mom does not hear that decision because she is too busy reading the menu out loud to Bill and making suggestions that he can't hear because his hearing aids are in the glove compartment. She shouts various menu items at him. Apparently leaving your hearing aids in the car also means one can not see sufficiently enough to read one's own menu like a grown up.

I wave down the waitress. We need a drink order at once.

I order a beer. Jack orders a beer. Jack's brother orders a beer. Charlotte orders a Pino Grigio. The kids order sodas. The grandparents order coffee. Except for Mom. She jumps on the beer bandwagon.
I don't know what Bill ordered. He may have missed the question.

The waitress brings the soda and the Pinot. She remarks that the keg kicked as she poured my beer. She served me the half glass (obviously observing that my nerve endings were fraying) and tells me she will bring a full one shortly. She says the same thing to the others who have ordered the same beer. She'll be back with the coffees in a moment.

When she returns and cheerfully places the coffee mugs in front of the grandparents, my mother is indignant. "Excuse me! Miss! Miss! I ordered a beer!" She screeches in a most accusing tone reaching a crescendo on the word "beer."

Yes Mom, you and three other people did. Had you not been dramatically reciting the appetizer list to Bill in a voice that could peel paint, you might have heard her explain that we'd be waiting for a new keg.

The waitress explains the situation as though she were a nurse in a psychiatric facility.  Slowly. Calmly. Hoping to de-escalate the lunatic in her care. We are quickly becoming her favorite table.

I look at her with an expression that yearns for pity. Please serve my mother her beer. But please refill mine first. For the love of God, refill mine first.

Ain't No Stopping Her Now

We manage to get into the end zone of the graduation without anyone leaving in an ambulance. Though it is by a slim margin.  Some people (like Mom and Bill) have no idea that some things are to remain sacred at all costs and should not be marred by anyone's screechy bickering for any reason. Even if the reason is as huge and Earth-shattering as one's inability to properly operate his or her own camera. Perish the thought.

It is truly a lovely ceremony, Mom and Bill notwithstanding, and I am not alone beaming with pride for my Griffin.  Such a lovely young man. He's going to be fun to watch make a mark on this world.  Quietly, confidently, firmly - he will indeed leave a most indelible stamp on everything he touches. Every endeavor. Every place. Every heart. 

But for now, while Charlotte and Jack enjoy the rest of the rituals and the company of friends whose boys are friends with Grif and who are enjoying the same sense of pride on this life-changing day, I will attempt, however lamely, to curtail any social damage Mom and Bill might about to unwittingly inflict.

But there is no stopping them. 

I wave down a childhood friend that I'd spoken to at the graduation party the week before. We'd laughed about the old neighborhood and our antics at the swim club.  I'd mentioned the conversation to Mom. She'd remembered him as well.  I want to let her see what a fine man the little bad ass has become and introduce them to one another again.

And Mom, true to form has to act like a kook.  Gushes on and on about his mother for reasons that can't be explained.  After an embarrassingly long one-sided conversation, he tells Mom that his mother has died. Mom immediately begins to cry. In public. About a person she has not seen in about 40 years. (Yep, that was an uncommonly close relationship. So close you have not seen each other in decades. Who wouldn't come completely unglued?)

I drag her away from that social crisis to find Bill who is wandering aimlessly like Moses in the desert.  I think for a moment that it might solve a multitude of issues if I just let him wander in the general direction of oncoming traffic. Let nature take its course. Let the herd thin itself. But Mom wants to get pictures so we can all pretend we like each other and offer up photographic evidence (Again, the damn camera...) and yells (Yells!) to him to come over.

And while everyone poses with Griffin - his brothers, his buddies, his parents, his girlfriend, his adoring aunt (yours truly) and the dreaded grandparents, Mom finds every opportunity to name drop and posture with the other parents and grandparents. She is so insistent on convincing people that she is "one of them" that she sacrifices every shred of decency and self-possession to make sure everyone knows she is one of the "monied set."  And it becomes appallingly clear that whether she has money or does not, she is not of this ilk. 

All of it makes me wish I'd remembered to put a flask of Jack Daniels in my clutch.  Alas, we'll have to wait for lunch. Or Round Two of Social Grace Roulette.

That's Not Funny, That's Sick

We manage to get out of the house without any punches being thrown.  Estelle is speaking in deafening tones. Bill is pontificating about something no one has a shred of interest in. More eye rolling. Where is the vodka?

We arrive at graduation and park.  I refrain from locking Estelle in the car. I know not how.

We make our way to our reserved seats.  Jack's family is already there. Jack and Charlotte's older boys sit in their row. Jack and Charlotte and I take our booby seats next to Estelle and Bill. I am next to Bill. I may not be able to keep my hands off of his throat.

But we have perfect seats. Perfect view of Griff and a perfect view for people watching.

There is a lady in a bright pink Easter suit and hat with sequins. And a corsage to match.

There is a lady who has tied her hair into a bun with a men's dark sock.  Gold Toe, to be specific.

There is the student vocalist who makes angry homicidal faces while signing hymns.

There are the parents who graduated with me from college who were once married but are now divorced. He looks like he needs a new iron. She doesn't seem to know how awry the back of her hairdo has gone.  They are seated in opposite sections of the crowd.  How nice for their graduation child.

It gives me an excuse to keep my head turned toward Charlotte, who is on my right, and avoid any inadvertent conversation with Bill and Estelle who are on my left. 

Charlotte and I are having a ripping good time snarking in hushed tones. She draws my attention to a particularly bizarrely groomed woman off to my left, and I laugh out loud against my better judgment.

My mother is certain that Charlotte and I have made a joke at her expense and gives me her famous hairy eyeball. Not that it is outside the realm of possibility that we'd have a few yukks on her dime. But we hadn't. Not this time (We'd get to that later).  Estelle adopts a pissy posture for the remainder of Mass. Shares a hushed snarky comment or two with Bill just to let me know my ass is in the ringer.

And maybe it was that moodiness that led to the exchange of unpleasantness - quite audible, I might add - when neither of them could read any of the dials or screens on their new camera and Mom kept letting the screen go to sleep while she tried to figure out how to take a picture, the opportunities for which kept passing them by.  Her big complaint was they the operating guide that explains all the bells and whistles is not a booklet. It's on line.  A travesty.

It's like watching Lucy and Desi.  Only dark and disturbed. Full of comedy but absent any real levity or charm. Or cleverness. It's just annoying. They are a spectacle.

I can see my nephews shoulders shaking as they try to stifle their laughter. I am sure they are not the only ones to have noticed.  I am also sure that they are in the minority that they find it funny and not disgraceful.

An overwhelming desire to vanish overtakes me.

I Knew You Were Trouble When You Walked In

And so what do I do about the loneliness?  The boredom? The isolation?

I look for trouble, natch.  Trouble is not hard to find if you know where to look.

I know where to look, I assure you.

First there is Charlotte's son Griffin's graduation.  Be advised, people. Charlotte and I should never be seated next to one another at Mass. Or any other solemn occasion. It is a recipe for disaster.

She's actually made me laugh out loud at a funeral. At the grave site. No kidding.

There was a time once, when Charlotte and I took my kids to church on a weekend visit to her cottage. Small town - everyone is related to or has known each other for years. As the vocalist approaches the podium we stand with our hymnals. And then she opens her mouth to sing.

Loud and clear. And flat and profoundly tone deaf.

I glance at Charlotte. She does not take her eyes off of the hymnal but raises one arched eyebrow in recognition of my glance, smirking as she reverently sings.

And to my everlasting horror I laugh out loud. OUT LOUD! Disturbing the peace! Creating a disturbance! My children look up at me. I try to pretend that I'm coughing. I. Can. Not. Stop. Laughing.

I have to excuse myself and leave the church, passing completely aghast people as I pass them in the aisle. I get a drink of water at the fountain in the vestibule. It is a full ten minutes before I can sufficiently collect myself to return to the congregation.

It will not be the first or the last time for such antics.

Griffin's graduation is on a glorious sun-soaked day. I get to Charlotte's early enough to ride along with her and Jack. We are going to need some time to rehash a few events from the morning.

Estelle has not fallen and broken her face like she had this time last year, but does look like she picked out her outfit in the dark.  It is a mishmash of pieces that don't coordinate especially well (schizophrenically, to be honest) but seem to have been chosen for their ability to conceal her evolving figure flaws.  (She's 75 for God's sake. I'd expect a few uncooperative body parts.) Her hair has taken on the size and texture of a squirrel's nest. She'd wearing suntan pantyhose (gasp!) with open-toed sandals (Say it ain't so!).

But I greet her warmly and tell her she looks smashing. Bill is dressed like an aging member of a bowling league who doesn't have a prayer of concealing the figure flaws.  He hugs me hello (I avoid the gross kiss) and the only thing he can think to say to me is "You are wasting away to nothing."

No Bill. I am not.

I can hear the eyes rolling in Jack and Charlotte's heads.

And In The Meantime

And for all this activity, there is a surprising amount of nothingness. Loneliness, even. I am alone with my own thoughts for hours, even days sometimes. And although I find myself to be wildly entertaining, funny thoughts and stories are meant to be shared.

And there are scant few people to sare them with. At least in the moment.

Yes, it's Summer and lots of people are inclined to sit outside and be social rather than squirrel themselves away like they do in Winter, but people's lives have truly kept going at the customary clip, while mine has more or less ground to a halt.

People are working. Or taking vacations. Or spending days at the beach or an amusement park. Or doing things with their kids who are home for the summer. Or doing all of that last minute college send-off stuff. They are not sitting around waiting for me to come walking up the street with a bottle or Chardonnay and two glasses.

My lifeline is Facebook, but even then, no one wants to be the kook who posts something every hour, regardless of how interesting or funny. It's bad enough that my walking achievements are posted every day. Zzzzzzzzzz. No one cares if I have declared myself to be the next Forest Gump. I am in grave danger of becoming the White Noise of the Facebook community.

I could call my mother.

OK just stop right there. No one is that desperate for conversation. Not while Obamacare is still a boiling hot cauldron of political animosity.

So when I get an interview, I am not only grateful for the opportunity, I am grateful for the break in the monotony. The social contact. A smiling voice on the end of the phone who is not going to talk to me simply out of pity. A live grown up on the phone! Yay me!

But the interview ups and down are truly murder.

Like the final interview in a process that stopped dead for no explainable reason. All smiles, all buying signs, all positive vibes, and then a resounding NO. And then the hiring manager called me just as I was walking into a jewelry party and totally wrecked my rare evening of fun. Asshole.

The interview process that moved at great speed and involved no fewer than four executive level interviews, all conducted on the phone, before the job was awarded to a candidate that was already affiliated with the company. How could they have been sure? They never even saw me! Couldn't pick me out of a lineup! How can they be so sure I am not The One?

And as they had been before, my friends and family are remarkable support.  Charlotte keeps track of my job search like her own child's college selection process. Wishes me luck. Gets upset with me. Tom roots for me every chance he gets and helps pick me up off the ground when I am crushed by another declination. Ted sends me his fiery Irish mojo from the West Coast and reminds me that I am better than most. Craig believes in me. Suffers my losses. Reminds me that I am wonderful and that "it will happen." That my death march sjob earch is not over because the right job has not materialized.  Encourages me not to settle for any old job. Be patient, it's out there and it will make all of this crap look like just an exercise. It's my time. It's coming.

But when I sit down to pay my bills, or look at the furniture that needs desperately to be replaced, or the bathroom that needs updating, or Gidget yowling in heat because I can't spend the money to get her fixed, patience escapes me.

And let's face it. I was never blessed with a saintly amount of patience to begin with.

To Arms!

I estimate it will take the Baseball Gents about 10 minutes to reach me. They are after all, old people.

I think about how to answer The Kook's question safely and benignly. I certainly don't want to invite a rant, the likes of which my mother has made famous. I don't want to escalate this dude's emotions; they seem to be only tenuously tethered to reality.

Well, Carol Merrill, tell us what's behind Door #1!

An admission to being unemployed and the risk of The Kook ranting against lazy welfare mothers who sponge off of hard working people and are a parasite on the system that John Fitzgerald Kennedy created, God rest his soul, as a safety net, not a lifestyle.

No.

And Door #2, Carol Merrill? Do tell!

A complete lie. I work but have the day off. Which would beget a laundry list of additional invasive questions and lies on my part, which I sense would eventually hang me.

Too much work. And I am a terrible liar.

End the mystery, Carol Merrill! Reveal the prize behind Door #3!

A hybrid of fact and myth, wherein I say I have been displaced from my job but have found a new one and start in a few days. I will decline to discuss it any further as it is still a matter of confidentiality within the organization.

We have a winner.

The Kook seems to like that answer but seems a little disappointed all the same.

What?

You see, he has this Big Idea (Don't we all?) that he's been pitching to all manner of Government and Military officials for years. He admits to getting hundreds (Hundreds!) of rejection letters and verbal declinations from all manner of high ranking officials (The Pope, perhaps?) but he still believes it is a viable and necessary solution (To what he has not adequately explained. Yet).

It is an Outreach Military. (That explains the Sharpee writing on the shirt) A militia. A highly trained and organized underground army. Trained by The Kook himself. He estimates it takes 20 years to properly train one soldier. He has the time and the motivation (but probably not the longevity...) to get it formed and operational.

And he'd like me to join.

An idiot says what?

He continues and goes on the admit that  while he doesn't believe women should vote or work outside the home (I audibly gasp, I know it) he thinks I look like a "real firecracker" and he pegged me right from the start as a Major General. Too bad I'm already working.

Yeah, a real shame.

I see that the Baseball Gents are getting close so I gesture and say that my friends have caught up and I need to join them.

The Kook makes a face like I am dissing him for another lover, but doesn't give up. Natch.

He is reaching back toward his right hip and I am certain he's drawing a concealed weapon. But in under a second he reveals only a plastic sandwich bag containing a bunch of folded papers.

He says he'd like me to read his book (Book.? I don't see a book. I am pretty sure I know what books look like). He hands me a little packet that appears to be about 12 pages origamied into a neat little packet and says it is a collection of letters to the government about the concept of a militia. His number is in there if I change my mind after reading it.

I am afraid to touch it. I am sure it is a letter bomb. Or laced with Anthrax.  I hold it like one might hold a dead mouse en route to flushing it down the toilet. 

I thank him and tell him I look forward to reading it,  and then greet the Baseball Gents, who are somewhat baffled initially by my overly friendly approach. The Kook sneers ever so slightly as he shuffles off in the opposite direction.

I thank the Baseball Gents for the save without elaborating, and break the land speed record hotfooting it out of the park to call Charlotte and find my canister of pepper spray. And a trash can for the "book."

Crazy Is As Crazy Does

Older man, white hair, about 6 feet tall. Caucasian. No visible tattoos. Completely and totally nondescript.

I avoid eye-contact and make mental notes. He's wearing khakis and white tennis shoes. He is wearing a long sleeved white shirt under a thread-bare T-shirt that was once white at some point in the past. Now it looks like it may have taken its turn washing the car once or twice. It also has little rectangular shapes razored out in odd places along seems. I can't imagine why but it screams of craziness.

He's also handwritten a message on the front of the shirt. And not very neatly. Scrawled in black Sharpee ink is something about being President of Outreach blah blah blah - can't read the rest as it is disheveled and clinging oddly to the undershirt with sweat. Just as we'll. I don't want him thinking I am admiring his physique.

He repeats the question about a man in my life. He's not about to let me dodge it.

I want to rant about needing a man to take care of me like a giraffe needs a wetsuit, but I think better of it. This is a man whose buttons I need not push.

"I have a wonderful man in my life. We're all very happy together." 

"But you're not married."

I am not sure why he'd ask, but I struggle with how to answer without offending his obviously tightly-wound sensibilities. He could be one of those kooks who thinks he's doing the world a favor by eliminating bad people from the population. Hookers. Drug dealers. Gays. Democrats. Women who thumb their noses at the sacred institution of marriage.

I want to say it is none of his GD business.
I want to say I'd sooner set myself on fire than marry anyone again.
I want to say I won't get married simply to avoid the trouble of having to divorce or murder the next spouse.
I want to say my marriage was the worst mistake, the biggest travesty, the most colossal disaster in recorded history and I cringe at the slightest memory.

But I don't. I simply say, "Not yet." 

That answer is apparently satisfactory enough to allow him to change subjects.

"Why are you here? Do you work?

As if it weren't humiliating enough to actually not be working, now I have perfect strangers asking about it.

I glance up the hill. The three baseball-talking gents are about a half mike away and coming in my direction. I need to send an SOS.

There Is One In Every Crowd

Since I spend some portion of nearly every day walking through the State Park, I've come to know a few faces. Not names, just faces. I regularly exchange pleasantries with the lady who helped me rescue the cat. She is forever removing moss from her patio.  I stop and talk to the couple in the whimsical purple cottage with the three enormous dogs and the chihuahua and who adopted the cat. There is a painfully skinny, miserable-looking woman with perfect red lipstick who passes me going the other direction who smiles at me now that we've bumped into each other 100 times. There are the three retired men who walk and talk baseball every day, each one wearing a different baseball team's shirt. The one in the Phillies gear always says has something nice to say. There is a man with a walking stick who has a comb-over and moon-shaped face so similar to those belonging to my old boss that I think about asking him his name each time I see him.

And there are other familiar people and dogs who simply smile as they pass, or ask a question about a trail closure or downed tree or whatnot. It is a fairly friendly crowd. What's not to be happy about? We're all out in a gorgeous park, surrounded by the best nature has to offer and getting a good workout.

So one day, on my second lap around the loop, an older gentleman stopped me by waving his hand and speaking. Nothing unusual.

I can't hear with tunes cranking on my iPod, so I pluck out an earbud and smile, asking him to repeat himself.

Since a section of the trail I was on had recently been closed for a time, and I was coming from that direction, I assumed he had a question about passage through that area.

Wrong.

It starts out benignly enough.

"I passed you a while ago, are you doing two laps?"

I answer that I was about to finish my second lap. I should have just kept moving.

He begins to tell me a long story about his weight loss journey and how walking saved his life by strengthening his heart. He used to walk 365 days a year in a nearby National Park until he fell down and embankment and injured his back and nearly drowned in the creek because he couldn't move.

I am immediately wishing I hadn't stopped and taken out the earbud. I can't decide whether he is just a desperately lonely old windbag or a weirdo with no social graces.

I am distracted by my own thoughts enough that I miss a few run-on sentences and he moves on to the topic of his wife, God rest her soul. They'd be married some outrageous number of years if she hadn't up and died one day.

And somehow the tale of his suffering wife and her life of hard work (and boring conversation) morphs into one of his military career, the details of which are nebulous enough to make me think he did something kooky, landed in the brig, and was dishonorably booted into civilian life involuntarily.

At one point he must have realized that he was doing all of the talking, (and that I was glazing over...and backing up) or maybe he decided he'd charmed me enough, but he stops, takes a breath (his first in 5 while minutes) and asks a question.

"So what's your situation?"

"My SITUATION?" I inquire, somewhat shocked by the question.

"Yes. Are you married? Is there a man taking care of you?"

And immediately I am making mental notes for my description to the police.

My Dance With Mother Nature

And walking has become rather an adventure. And an obsession.

If I can't get to the State Park, I take to the high school track. If the track is closed for some dumb school event (What? I'm a tax payer! I own this place!) I have a neighborhood loop that gets the job done. If there is a soaking rain, I manage a few miles on the treadmill, albeit swearing like a sailor the entire time. Even a great playlist on my iPod won't cure the sheer boredom that comes from running in place. And does nothing to clear my head of murderous thoughts, if that is the case.

I have had many an adventure along the trails.

I have helped a lady rescue a cat living in a tree after having been dumped there by a family. (You need a license to fish but anyone can own a cat. Some people are just born assholes.) The fishermen and local park dwellers were feeding and caring for her, but she was too scared most of the time to come out of a tree that extended over the creek, where she perched herself, fortunately with a significant amount of fat, in the crotch of the tree. I worried myself sick the night there was a storm with gale-force winds imagining her clinging to the branches for dear life and wondering where her People were. Hil and I made frequent trips to feed and brush her, give her fresh water and dose her with flea treatment. She purred and rubbed her face on our hands each time in appreciation. She's since been taken in by the couple that lives in the whimsical, moss-covered purple cottage by the park gates. They call her Momma. She'll come to the window to see us if we tap on the glass.

I have ventured onto the creek beach to take a photo only to inadvertently step on a snake who turned out to be just as unhappy about it as I was. That line our mothers tell us about it being more afraid of you? Total crap. I screamed my head off and went into a flop sweat. It hissed and picked a fight. Then I ran like a girl. (Yes, ran. Breaking my own rules. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Grossly underperforming sports bra be damned.)

I have found that if you do have to walk in the soaking rain, because perhaps you are at a point in the woods where you are just as far in as you are out and turning back does not help, a State Park provided doggy doo bag will protect your precious iPhone from the elements while you dodge lightning bolts and falling trees. And I have found that the next day, when your good sneaks are still drying (and smelling putrid) and you have to wear those gimmicky sneaks with the curved bottoms that women across America were convinced would tone all of our butts and we'd all be prancing around with Jennifer Aniston's ass in no time, that is not the day to go for broke and attain your first eleven mile day on the hills and trails. Unless you have a masseuse on stand-by.

I have seen turkey vultures, fawns, ground hogs, bullfrogs, chipmunks, blue herons, woodpeckers, and an occasional fox on my adventures, most of which have been kind enough to pose for pictures, some of which have been brave enough to come close enough to touch, and all of which have been fascinating to see alive and in their own element as opposed to on the BBC Earth channel. Did you know how big woodpeckers are? No wonder you can hear them pecking for miles. Bigger than a breadbox, I assure you.

I have learned that a frog taking refuge in a public restroom can be a very scary thing when you are vulnerably seated on the throne. I have learned that a port-o-potty in the woods remains fit for public use for less than one full calendar day. I can't explain how things get the way they do. Bears have a better option.

But nothing beats the kook I met just recently who scared the bejeezus out of me. Even more so than the snake.

Walk Like an Egyptian (With Big Boobs)

I walk. I walk a lot. At first not every day. And then every day. And then more each and every day. I become the Forest Gump of walking.

And I learn a lot. Mostly about myself. Like when I dwell on a topic for 4 miles and get so immersed in thought that I have no idea where I've been for the last hour. It's then that I learn a couple of things.  The power of concentration. How to use the GPS feature on my phone. And, just how much I have to really, really think about.

And I learn other cool things. Like where all the port-o-potties are in the State Park, and where, deeply hidden in the woods, are the actual public restrooms, with running water and toilet paper and real live cleaning people who maintain toilet paper and paper towel levels and keep the joint smelling more like an actual restroom instead of a pot to piss in.

And I learn that walking, though good for the soul, and admittedly good for the body, and capable of working a body into a good, full on sweat, is not the most efficient way to burn a calorie. Even moving at an admirable pace and keeping between 13 and 14 minutes per mile, it still takes half the damn day to get in any really meaningful workout. Think of the time I'd save if I were running at 6 miles an hour?

But I am not a runner. And for more than one reason.

First, I'll say what no runner likes to hear: I hate running. Avoid it at all costs.  (I thought everyone did really, but I have friends that claim to love it. WTF?) If the building were on fire, I might only reach the level of briskly walking to safety.

And there is no bra on God's green Earth that I am confident would contain m'Ladies securely and reliably enough to sufficiently control the swinging, jiggling, bouncing and otherwise bad behavior m'Ladies would surely engage in if I were to endeavor to run.

And even if there were, I'd still decline the invitation for such fun. Because I am not built for it (putting the issue with m'Ladies aside for just a moment). My feet have the tensile strength of a piece of dry linguini, and are similarly brittle. I have had more stress fractures than most people have had a common cold and do not want any more, especially at this age. Watching a colleague with a stress fracture go wheeling about the office for three months on what could most charitably be described as a shopping cart with a knee rest opened my eyes to the risks of injuries to those who are no longe r20-something, even if we try hard to fool everyone.

So for now, thank you, I'll walk.

On The Road Again

So my job searching activities tie up no more than two hours a day, all in.

My lawn had at one point consumed most of a week but is on a maintenance plan that only drives me to distraction a few hours a week.

Keeping the house from looking and smelling like Grey Gardens is an ongoing chore but I have managed to get my reluctant, grousing children to help, if not voluntarily, by force.

Which leaves me with all the time in the world to whip my ass into kickboxer's shape. Most people would love to have the time. I am not so sure I am grateful.

I am not joining a gym. I am not taking a fitness class. I've purchased no workout videos. I am not buying any equipment to sit idly between the  treadmill and the kitty litter box in a room only the cats dare venture into.

No. I walk.

The truth of the matter is that I have always walked. For a lot of reasons. To stay in shape. To think and make decisions. To clear my head of murderous thoughts. Yes, walking has always kept me on the right side of the locked doors to the loony bin. And when I was getting divorced, walking kept me on the right side of the prison bars. I quite literally walked until I felt like I could go home and not murder Lars. Either out of exhaustion or indifference.

Scott and I would walk for hours on weekend together. On the beach. On the boardwalk. On a road connecting a bunch of marshy islands near his home. And when we were at my house, I'd ask him to join me on the trails in the State Park near my home. The exercise, the nature. It was all good for us.

And when Scott vaporized without a trace in the Fall, I had taken to the track and the trails again. For many reasons.

I had so much nervous energy I could not sleep. I went out to walk to exhaustion.

And since I'd not slept, I'd gotten sick. I needed to rebuild my strength. Walking would do that without actually killing me first.

And I wanted to get in great shape. Dating shape. I was already thin. And getting thinner. I had Scott to thank for that. I am a good one to drop and easy 5 pounds at the first sign of trouble, and his unique variety of trouble was loaded for bear. I was suddenly super skinny but not necessarily looking good. Nobody likes a skinny flabby chick. I needed to tighten all the nuts and bolts and eliminate all rattling and jiggling.

And now, when I needed time to think about my job and sort out some other pieces of my life, I took to the track and trails again.

I downloaded an app on my phone that tracks miles and calories and speed and a whole lot of other nifty motivating little things.

I bought new cross training shoes and began a daily habit of walking. And walking far.

Weed Whacko

Does anyone else have to mow their patio? How about the sidewalk? Any mowing going on there?

I have the world's largest privately held collection of chemical-resistant, nuclear-strength, fast-growing, rampantly aggressive weeds in the little slice of heaven I call my yard.

Forget for a moment that I had actual trees growing in my gutters last year. Scott, in a final act of kindness before defecting, climbed onto the roof and cleared them all. I will sell the house before I do any such thing myself.

My patio is merely stone squares all placed in an orderly fashion to form a flat surface. And evidently a fertile breeding ground for all manner of weeds and trees which grow in nice neat rows from between the cracks. They greet me each morning, defiantly waving to me, daring me to try to get rid of them.

And the cracks between the sidewalk and along the curbs? Rampant space-age bio-dome farms of indestructible weeds that grow up to my thigh.

And my lovely neighbors with the big fence? A few years ago they got the bright idea to plant Morning Glory. Presumably to hide the fact that they'd erected an uncommonly ugly fence to surround their little fortress. And whatever nuclear waste was dumped in my yard back in the day has given the Morning Glory super human strength and magic powers.

I know, I know. Morning Glory only live for a year. Not in this case. The seeds that have been dropped all over my yard and shrubs have started new and more determined growth for each of the last eight years, and the predatory, choking vines have taken over all of the mature plantings in my yard, killing many of them (and in an ironic twist of Fate, killing off most of the dreaded Deadly Night Shade that had been the crowd favorite before) and blanketing every surface with twisting, spiraling, clinging vines that cheerfully bloom as they squeeze the life from everything they touch.

So now, every time I mow the lawn, I also have to rescue the holly trees, and the Shamrock hollies, and the peonies, and everything else, from certain death by raking high up into their limbs and pulling down as much vine as I can, yanking it to a point where I can reach it, and then using all of my arm strength and body weight, tug-o-warring with it until it let's go of its prey. I want to scream. I also want to set fire to the yard of the neighbor who planted it to adorn their otherwise ugly fence.

So I have made peace with the weed whacker and have done my neighbors a solid a few times this year by whacking the s*** out of all the unwanted guests in my yard. I have put on the goggles and long pants to protect my child-sized shins from flying shrapnel, and have attacked the little bastards. I have hated every minute of it, but it is darkly satisfying to see them flying to bits.

But they keep coming back. Thankfully, so does my sanity.

The Longest Yard

And then of course, there is my yard.

Or rather, my labor camp. The endless, thankless, sweatshop of a responsibility that never relents in its quest to wear me down to a calloused, blistered, sunburned, exhausted little nub.

The shape of the yard is irregular, which makes for creative mowing on the best of days. There is no orderly back and forth with right angles and straight lines. No, mine is a pie-wedge shaped corner, surrounded in part by hedges and trees, made more "interesting" by sloping hills, and steeply-graded drops, uneven terrain, patches of dirt, predatory weeds and oddly-placed plantings between which a standard mower can not be forcibly jammed.

I also have a behemoth hedge that grows several feet a week, that protrudes out over the sidewalk to scrape the arms and gouge eyeballs of passing school children, and which matures at an alarming rate, so that cutting it back requires a hedge trimmer, a saw, a tree saw, and a chain saw. All of which scare me just a little.

When Lars and I had bought the house, (the house with two addresses because it has a street on both sides) the yard had been open and exposed on all sides. Our only neighbor erected a 6 foot fence separating the properties (Thank God for small miracles; their property sometimes looks like the set of Sanford and Son).  But we needed a little more separation from the world. We could have gotten a permit for a fence, but Lars and I wanted to take a greener measure and plant a hedge.

I wanted more of an impression of privacy ---- something that suggested that our yard was not the one to cut through, or let your dog take a crap on, or to sit in at night and drink your underage, contraband beer, even though the little clump of trees at the point on the end of the property was an ideal place to do so. Lars had other ideas. He wanted a hedge that provided actual privacy. A hedge so tall and dense I could sit in Pat's sandbox stark naked. A hedge that could be seen from the moon like the Great Wall of China.

He insisted. I caved. I had a four month old and was newly pregnant. I had bigger fish to fry than to argue needlessly over the merits of a privet versus a Chinese Elm hedge.

Should have made a Federal case out of it. Because now, I do have the Great Wall of China to maintain, and it stands 4 feet above my head in places, and I can barely lift the chainsaw let alone use it properly. And I have a strange fear that I will hack off a limb one day, and because the hedge provides such privacy, no one would find me but the squirrels.

And we haven't even begun to talk about the weeds.

To Clean Or Not To Clean

You'd have thought I'd asked for a kidney.

"It's summer!"

"We're OFF!"

"We'll never see our friends if we are always working like slaves!"

Really? Tell me about always working. Try having an actual job (OK, now might not be the best time to be making this argument...) and cleaning the entire house, and cooking everyday, and keeping two kids alive, not to mention two seriously ungrateful cats!

I tell them I am sticking to my guns. They can win or they can lose. And lose big. Because if they don't do these things, and I have to, not only do they not get paid, they have to wait around for me to finish doing them before we go out and have fun, or I drive them to see the friends they could barely tolerate during the school year but now must see everyday or cease to breathe.

Hil's wheels are churning. Somehow she can spin this to her advantage. Do Pat's chores. Collect his dough.

Pat is considering his options. He is wondering if I'd give him money even if he did nothing, simply to  give him the means and a reason to turn off the video games and leave the house.

They look over their lists. You'd have thought they included things like taxidermy and sewage treatment. Would it kill Hil to have to swish a little bleach around in the toilet once a week? Will Pat turn to stone for having to empty and refill the kitty litter boxes on deadline for trash day?

Perhaps.

"Eeewww. I'm not doing that. Pat poops in that toilet," argues Hil, who is well aware of our one-bathroom house situation.

"So do you," I say. "And I have always cleaned it. And let's be honest. No one but me seems to be even remotely concerned with accuracy."

Pat is not grossed out, though smells are rarely a boy's worst problem. "But Mooooooooooommmmm!" There's TWO kitty litters! And one of them is aaaaaaallllll the way upstairs."

"How about I move it into your room? Will that make it more convenient?"

We have a philosophical difference of opinion regarding bed making.

"Why make the bed? We just get back in and mess it up later."

And my favorite, "Dad doesn't make his bed."

I'd like to argue that Dad grew up in squalor and slept on a couch purchased from the Salvation Army for the first 8 years of his life and couldn't properly make a bed if his soul's salvation depended upon it. But I don't. "Beds get made or you don't get paid. And if I get to them first, there's no excuse. Better make them while they're still warm."

We are only a few items into the list.  It's going to be a long meal.

Hazel, Alice, and Mr. French

I begin with my house.

Let's just say for the record that being out of the house all day at work and at school makes it a whole lot easier to keep one's house neat and orderly, not to mention squeaky clean, and free of smeary fingerprints, stray wrappers, used drinking glasses, blobs of goo in unexpected places, clogged drains and bathrooms that look and smell like Port-O-Potties.

I try to engage the kids for help.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I find it bizarre and unnatural to get out of bed and walk away from the disheveled sheets. My children evidently did not get that gene. They got the genes that bears have. Get, up, scratch, and go eat. Worry about sleeping accommodations when it's time to hibernate.

This is something I do not feel needs to be placed on a To Do List. But my children apparently lack the basic ability to look around a room and identify situations that need to be rectified. My kids will look around a room and so long as nothing is irretrievably broken and lying in smithereens on the carpet, and nothing is actively burning (smoldering does not count), they will not be able to identify a single thing that needs to be done.  Their eyes do not see the pile of Jolly Rancher wrappers covering the end table. Or the collection of soda cans and glasses, in various stages of emptiness, crowding flat surfaces across the room. They do not see the sneakers, flip flops, boots and backpacks randomly strewn like a minefield throughout the first floor while the hooks designated for the backpacks and the space reserved for shoes without feet remain untouched by human hands. (I also don't see them and trip at least a half dozen times a week.) They draw little smiley faces in the dust on the table, never once thinking, "Hmmmmm, that shouldn't be there..." They sometimes, when feeling especially industrious, manage to transport a cereal bowl, or pizza plate, or an ice cream bowl into the kitchen, but rarely will the item be rinsed, or relieved of its uneaten contents. And it would take a chorus of angels to inspire them to place any of these things into the gaping dishwasher next to the sink where they typically have been laid to rest.

So I set up a system. I have a list of items - exactly two - for each child to accomplish each day, plus a daily task of bed making and making sure all of their possessions have found homes.

A perfect score will be worth a certain amount of allowance. Anything left undone results in a debit from the amount. Additional chores result in a bonus.

I type the list and print it in multiples. And I sit down for dinner that night and present it to my Not So Merry Maids.

Game on.