Monthly Archives: August 2011

I have a friend with Rheumatoid Arthritis. We were diagnosed the same month. She’s afraid to take drugs. I’m afraid of not having them.

If you’re newly diagnosed with RA please look into the disease modifying drugs. Most of the day I don’t hurt. It’s unlikely that I’ll need a joint replaced, and the fatigue is almost completely gone.

I was terrified and I know you are too. It’s okay to be afraid and to keep moving forward. Don’t miss your chance to be well.

I know that I purchased The Help on January 7, 2010 because my Amazon account told me so. It was a good book. It wasn’t great. It started beautifully and everyone loves a good Southern Novel. There’s richness in the characters of south that we all love.

I wanted to love the book. I devoured the first two thirds of the book but then I was disappointed as the author dragged the ending out and had a need to package it up tidily. I saw the movie and I think it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a movie and thought, “that was better than the book.”

I know some people find the movie offensive. I guess I can see that. Historically it’s probably at least partly accurate but I sat alone in the movie theater wondering what I would do if one of my past housekeepers walked in. Would I sit with her? Would I know her children’s names?

We had help. Barbara came three times a week to our house after school and her daughter Debbie babysat us every morning before school. Debbie only missed one day of work. It was to go to the radio station and see Peter Frampton on his birthday. When I was six Debbie was a few minutes late to watch us, she was crying. Her father had just died.

I loved going to Barbara’s house. She would make us Jello recipes like the ones Bill Cosby showed on commercials. She used Cool Whip and she even had white bread. She said fuck and shit a lot. She’d taught herself English and apparently had started with the cussing. I loved Barbara and I’d like to believe that Barbara loved me back. We celebrated many Mother’s Days with Barbara and my mom. They were the women who shaped us.

When I was pregnant Barbara helped me get my house in order. Shortly after Jane was born Barbara died and I unimaginably raised a child that she never really knew.

In my teenage years there were Nellies, and Marthas, there were Letties and Mayras, but in my heart there was only Barbara. I’m not sure that The Help isn’t a movie that couldn’t be filmed today. I look at the Dream Act and those who would like to kill it, and I wonder if they were ever rocked by a Central or South American Nanny who sang them songs, and with a slip of the tongue called them by the wrong name, her own child’s name.

I don’t think The Help is our past. For a completely different (and probably better written) perspective read this. Now.

Two words: Accident Avoidance.

I spent a fun week in the Infiniti EX35. It’s a fabulous crossover SUV for a small family (one or two kids). The Infiniti seats five very comfortably and the kids loved the stadium seating in the rear. Car rides are more fun when everyone has a view, and it’s a lot easier to hand things to kids in the back seat when they’re up a little higher.

There’s a ton of storage space and a few compartments to hide your valuables. I am madly in love with the navigation system and the integrated Zagat restaurant guide. This is a good solid car. It’s not flashy, but it’s luxurious, it’s not the fastest off the line, but it’s powerful and accelerates nicely. It’s Infiniti so there’s a trim level that you’ve come to expect and this vehicle delivers.

Like I said, it’s a fun drive. The handling is very standard Japanese handling. It’s a squishy ride so you don’t feel the road like you would with a German automobile, but you aren’t totally removed from it as you could be in an oversized luxury sedan. I drove fast (the freeway) and I drove slowly (carpool line), I drove responsibly and I drove a little less responsibly and the car yelled at me.

Well, it didn’t scream Jeezus lady slow down before you kill someone, or WTF stay in your own lane. But it did beep those two things at me. The first time it happned I thought the car was falling apart.

As I was taking the kids to camp (maybe a tad bit late) I approached a car at the stop sign in front of me a little faster than I ought to have and the car started beeping at me, something lit up on the dashboard and I was jolted out of my reverie so that I could apply the brake (forward collision warning). Driving on the highway it had the same feature, as I began to drift toward one edge of the lane it would ding at me that I was drifting (lane departure warning).

Alexander and I thought the accident avoidance was incredibly cool so we spent ten miles on the 405 drifting to one edge of the lane and waiting for the beeping.

I’m including a window sticker for the 2011 EX35 Journey that I drove. The base price is just over $36,000 and the one I was in was quite well equipped.

This morning we got up at 5am to get Jane off to the airport. Her flight left out of United at LAX which is a dismal dated terminal on the far South end of the airport. It’s the terminal left over for the puddle jumpers that are flown by kids straight out of the airforce and flight attendants who are decidedly unglamorous. United Terminal 7 is the ugly stepchild at LAX, and we had to find our way to gate 88. I want to know what happens at gates one through 87.

Last night I’d checked Jane in online and then called to pay the $99 fee for an unaccompanied minor. I was told that because she’d been checked in I’d have to wait in line at the airport. A lot of us had to wait in lines this morning.

Jane hugged her Dad about eight thousand times and I looked at the two of them and felt left out. It’s not an uncommon feeling, it’s not a bad feeling either. It’s just this otherworldly sense that two of the people you love most in the world are absolutely and totally devoted to one another and they’re busy being in each other’s space that there’s this force field around them that keeps you out but also draws you in. It’s not bad, it’s the same way I sometimes feel when Jane and Alexander share a joke and his laughter rings through the air.

Unlike other airlines United only allows for one adult to escort a minor to the gate. Since Mr G has an office job I was the one who got to walk her to the gate. We went through security and a jovial TSA agent explained to us that someone had put an animal through the Xray. I didn’t believe him.

After maneuvering through security I bought Jane an orange juice and three magazines. We then went to Starbucks and waited in line behind a woman with excessive amounts of restalyne in her top lip and her micro mini dog. She was calling everyone she knew to ask about radiation poisoning and eventually asked two pilots in line if the xray is considered dangerous. Apparently Lola the purse puppy was accidentally placed on the conveyor belt and then passed through the xray machine.

Darwin, I think. Jane snickers, she is my daughter.

We get to the gate and they call Gottlieb, before the plane boards a flight attendant takes my daughter away. We hug. We kiss. We hug again. This is not the way we say goodbye, but this isn’t a goodbye we’ve ever said before. I ask her to text me when the plane lands and I remind that if anyone bothers her she should make a scene. I whisper to her that I’m proud and excited for her, we kiss and she walks away. She doesn’t look back.

As my daughter disappears onto her flight I sit at the window and cry. I don’t pull on sunglasses, I don’t care. I just cry. Mostly because I’m so happy for her.

I’m waiting for Jane to wake up, in fact I may wake her shortly, and we need to pack her for Outward Bound. 

She leaves tomorrow and I think I might just roll over and die. It’s like someone is sitting on my chest as I click to do the web check in for her flight. Her flight. Alone, without us. Without even her brother.

I’m much more worried about her flight than I am about the canoeing or the rock climbing. Maybe I’m worried about the wrong things, and that worries me.

I went to sleep last night without tucking in my son and didn’t sleep soundly, tomorrow night we’ll go to sleep without talking to either child or tucking them in.

If summer camp convinces them that they no longer need tucking in someone’s going to get hurt and it’s not going to be me.

Yesterday we dropped Alexander off at camp. I’ve dropped him off at camp every morning this summer, but yesterday I dropped him off at sleep away camp.

Two weeks ago when my friends asked me how I felt about it I snickered and said, “He’ll have the time of his life.” A week ago I gave the same response. Three days ago at ten o’clock at night I asked my husband if we weren’t making the worst mistake of our lives.

Dropping him off was uneventful, we filled out forms, they checked the boys for headlice, bruises, and made them do a few jumping jacks. Some moms tied their boy’s shoes and I used every ounce of restraint I had to not push the hair out of my son’s eyes.

I looked at every man at the camp and sized up his propensity to be a child molester. Two worried me. I am insane.

So now, 24 hours later I’m walking around the house looking at the sky and wondering what my son is doing right now. I turn to Jane about a thousand times an hour and ask her, “What do you think Alexander is doing right now?” She puts her hand on my shoulder and says, “Mom, he’s having the time of his life.”