November 30, 2005

Going Postal

Yesterday I went postal. I made such a big scene that I’m sure the story is already making its way around the Tiny Kingdom. In recognition of this fact, and in order to ensure that the tale is at least circulated correctly, I guess I better go ahead and describe exactly what happened. If nothing else, it serves as evidence that:

1) my mother’s death has left me emotionally raw; and
2) the post office can be a dangerous place.

I knew the day was going to start out a little on the heavy side, but I was prepared for that. Early yesterday I went to see a gynecologist/oncologist to talk about what precautions I should be taking in light of my mom’s ovarian cancer. Going to the office was hard– it’s the same office where my whole family went together the day before my mom’s surgery to talk about her treatment. At that time, we were concerned, but optimistic, and ready to work together to fight her disease with every ounce of our beings. We never got the chance. That office was the last place we were together as a family. Just entering the waiting room made me teary.

The meeting itself was very informative. My mom was an only child, and so was her mom, so we don’t have a huge family history to draw upon. That means my sisters and I have to be especially vigilant about screening for ovarian cancer. The doctor recommended that I get ultrasounds every six months, and start getting the CA-125 test every six months once I turn forty. He also advised that taking birth control pills would further lower my risk.

I know all too well that you can never eliminate all risks, but I felt better once I had a plan for managing this new invader in my life. Of course, I must admit that I am a little bitter at having to face another medical issue right now. I only recently declared victory over my liver, and I’m just now thinking about shaking my booty a little more in Jazzercise; my last spine surgery inhibited my butt-waggling abilities. It doesn’t seem fair that I have to think about another potential health problem just yet.

At any rate, I had decided that to make up for the expected downer morning, I would act like Isak Dinesen that afternoon and dream of traveling through Africa. For real. My parents had a trip to Africa planned in March. My dad still wants to go, and wants me to go with him. Obviously, I’ve never been, so I jumped at the chance, but there is a lot to do in a short period of time, and the most pressing is to get a new passport.

After I left the doctor’s office, I had two passport photos taken. I took the photos and the forms I had downloaded to my dad’s travel agent, hoping that I could get the passport issues resolved. The agent uses a visa service to handle the passports, and she called and talked to them while I was in the office. At the end of it all I had explicit instructions: I was to take the forms to the post office where the postal worker would sign them, collect my money, and put all the forms in an envelope that would then be sealed, not to be opened until it reached the State Department for the issuance of the passport.

The travel agent even gave me a check list of the items I’d need to make sure got in the packet: the application, the photos, proof of my name change (my old passport was under my maiden name), a permission form allowing the State Department to send the passport to the visa agency instead of directly to me, and a printed itinerary (to document the fact that the passport needed to be expedited so the visas could be obtained).

“Make sure it all gets in the sealed envelope, then bring it back to me and I’ll send it off for you,” she said cheerily. “They do this for us all the time.”

I love organization and checklists, so I braved the wall-to-wall traffic that plagues the roads between the villages in the Tiny Kingdom this time of year as I headed to the particular post office that is empowered to perform the stamping and sealing duties I required.

I arrived at the post office, and in what I now know to be a stunning piece of bad luck, got in Ms. B’s line. Ms. B surveyed all my documents, had me sign my passport photos, (which look like mug shots), collected a large amount of money from me, then selected some of my documents and put them into an official looking envelope. She got ready to seal it up.

“Wait– I think these three papers need to be included also,” I said, handing them to her.

“No, this is all I send,” she said brusquely, not glancing at the papers.

“Are you sure?” I asked. “I have a list of the items I need in the envelope and these are on the list. My name has changed since I got my last passport, and –”

“I never send anything but these,” Ms. B said. She sealed the envelope, stamped the flap three times with red seals, then put blue and white stickers over the parts of the flap that weren’t stamped. On the front she wrote “TO BE OPENED BY PASSPORT AGENT ONLY.”

I took the envelope and drove back to the travel agency. I reasoned that perhaps the agency would just add the itinerary, the permission form and the name change documents to the packet and send the whole thing off.

I was mistaken. The travel agent was quite dismayed when I returned with my mission only partially completed.

“This won’t do at all,” she said. “I can’t understand this. All those papers must be in there. It’s very straightforward. This will get you the passport, but not the visas.”

She called up the visa service again and verified that the other documents did have to be inside the sealed packet, and could not merely accompany it.

“You’re going to have to go back and ask her to make you a new envelope and add these documents,” the agent told me.

“I tell you what,” I said. “Ms. B was not rude, but she wasn’t Miss Merry Sunshine, either. She’s not going to like this, so why don’t we call her and let her know what we need so we can put her on the phone with the visa service or someone to straighten it out before I go back up there. I can just tell she’s not going to like being asked to do it a different way, no matter how polite I am.”

So we opened the envelope and found out her name and the phone number of the post office. We called and called, but the line was busy. After a while, I decided to go back and take my chances.

Once again I dodged the achingly slow little old ladies in their big Cadillacs inching from one village to the other. I walked back in the post office and stood in line. Ms. B frowned when she saw me.

When it was my turn, I approached her and started to say something, but she said, “You opened that envelope. You are not supposed to open the envelope.” She sounded like I had done something very, very bad.

“I realize that,” I said. “I’ll be needing a new envelope. But I’m back because I went back to the travel agent and she talked to the visa service and I do need to have these other documents added to the envelope before it’s sealed. Could you do that for me?”

“I can’t do that,” she said.

“Look, I just need a little help with this,” I said. “You’ve never even looked to see what these other documents are. I believe there’s a good reason that they need to be in there.”

“I never put any papers in the envelope other than the ones I put in there.” She peered at me. “Why does this have to be expedited?” she asked.

That’s when I lost complete control of myself, there at the post office counter. I felt big tears forming in my eyes, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep them from rolling down my face. I opened my mouth to explain, and a big sob escaped. The next thing I knew, I was laying my head on my arms on the counter, crying as hard as I could.

Eventually I choked out, “I wasn’t planning on needing this passport. I wasn’t supposed to be going on this trip. My mom was going to go, and she has a passport, but she just died, so now I’m going and I just need to get this settled and I guess I’m not in very good shape to be dealing with this now.”

Ms. B was unmoved.

“I have the number of the visa service,” I sniffed. “You can call them.”

“I’ll be calling the passport agency directly,” she said. She turned abruptly and went to the other side of the office and got on the phone, keeping her back to me the entire time.

I stood at the counter, alternating between being slightly composed and wracked with sobs, for fifteen minutes. The line behind me grew, as there was only one other worker in the office. She was shooting furtive looks at Ms. B and offered me several tissues, all of which I used.

Finally Ms. B returned. “I have talked with the agency and they do not need those documents,” she announced.

Her argument would have been more solid if she had ever looked at the documents to see what they were, but I wasn’t going to point that out.

“Look,” I said, “can’t we just get a new envelope and add the other papers in there? They really are necessary for the visas. You can write a note and say I made you put the stuff in the packet. ”

“No, I’m not losing my job over this,” she said.

“Then I guess I’ll have to take these somewhere else,” I said, and I reached down to pick up the papers.

Quickly, Ms. B grabbed the envelope and papers. “You can’t have these,” she declared. “They have my signature on them.”

I couldn’t help it. I started weeping again.

“I don’t care what you do,” I said. “Just give me the photos and the check and let me get out of here. I can’t stand it anymore. I’d rather cry at home.”

“No,” she said. She stood there a minute, then she grabbed all the documents and stuffed them in an envelope.

“Wait– I’m going to need those,” I protested.

She ignored me, and grabbed a bright pink sheet paper and wrote a long note on it and shoved that in the envelope, too. Then she sealed up the envelope, stamped the flap three times with red seals, then put blue and
white stickers over the parts of the flap that weren’t stamped. On the
front she wrote “TO BE OPENED BY PASSPORT AGENT ONLY.”

“What did you write on that pink note?” I asked. I could just see her writing: “Insane applicant– extra documents included under duress, please send FBI to investigate subject ASAP.”

“That is between me and the passport agency,” she said haughtily.

“Well, I would like to know what it said,” I persisted. Tears were still rolling down my face, and I wiped them away with a used tissue.

“It says that I put the papers in there because you insisted,” she said.

“Fine,” I said. “That is completely true. I’d have been happy to sign on there that I agreed with that statement if it would help you out.”

“I do not need your signature or your help,” she said stubbornly.

“Okay,” I said. “I was just making the point that I was willing to cooperate with you.”

She handed me the envelope. I was shaking as I grabbed it, and I was so overcome with anger and sadness I thought my legs were going to buckle. Without meaning to, I let another cry escape, and it sounded like the kind of yelp a hurt dog makes. I ran out of the building and climbed in my van and sat, heaving with sobs, until I could steady myself enough to drive. I dumped the envelope at the travel agency, then drove home, weeping and cursing Ms. B all the way.

Once I got home, I cried and cried some more. Then I just sat. I felt like I had run a million miles. My eyes were shriveled and red, and my head hurt. It’s the hardest I have cried since my mom died.

The post office at holiday season is a busy place, and several people witnessed my hysteria. I’ve already had a couple of calls from friends concerned about my well-being. News travels fast.

I always thought that only the people who work at the post office are at risk for going postal, but apparently it can happen to anyone, especially someone dealing with the potent combination of extreme grief and a passive-aggressive government employee.

Please learn from my experience and exercise caution while mailing your holiday packages.

November 29, 2005

Can I Ask You A Question About Sex?

We gave Finn “The Talk” last summer, and every once in a while I’ll go in his room and see evidence that he’s been studying the books we gave him: It’s So Amazing! and Who Am I? Where Did I Come From?. (The latter book is really geared for kids younger than he is, but I figured I better have it ready in case he had loose lips and started dropping hints about the process to the twins.)

So far, he hasn’t. But every once in a while, Finn will have a followup question. Surprisingly, after the great amount of knowledge and detail I displayed during our initial talk, (and Bill’s completely losing his shit for the duration of the conversation) he has chosen to go to Bill for extra information.

The other night I was reading Grieving the Loss of Someone You Love** when Bill came rushing into the bedroom, red-faced.

“It happened again,” he whispered, panting. “Finn said, ‘Can I ask you a question about sex?’ and I said ‘go ahead’ and he asked me if you neuter a dog, whether the dog goes through puberty. Now, how the hell am I supposed to answer that?”

“Honey,” I said, “there’s nothing wrong with admitting that you don’t know. You’re not a veterinarian. I’d say you can either ask a vet or google it. The ball’s in your court. Literally,” I giggled.

Bill sighed and went back downstairs.

Thirty minutes later Bill came back. “I told him we could call the vet when they opened and ask about the dog. Then he said, ‘Can I ask you another question about sex?’ and this time I said ‘I guess so’ because I was afraid of what he was going to ask, and so I prepared myself. Do you know what he asked?”

“Not a clue, honey,” I said.

“He said that he read that it takes a month for the sperm to reach the egg, and he wanted to know if that means you have to have sex for an entire month to make a baby.”

“Obviously, he’s confused,” I said. “What did you tell him?”

“Well, of course I told him that you do not have to have sex for a month to have a baby, but he was pretty insistent on the idea that that’s how long it takes for the sperm to reach the egg.”

“Honey, he’s getting mixed up with the fact that a woman makes an egg every month. You need to clear that up.”

Just then, Finn came upstairs. “Hey,” he said nonchalantly. “I think I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Hey Finn,” I said, “Will you go in the kitchen and get me some water? When you come back, I’ll give you a tip.”

“What kind of tip?” he asked.

“A tip that will serve you well in life,” I answered.

“Sure, Mom,” he said, and he left.

Bill turned toward me furiously. “You’re not going to say anything about it, are you?” he asked.

“Of course I am,” I said. “He can’t go around thinking people lay around stuck together for a month to make a baby. They’d miss work. How would they eat? Or go to the bathroom? It’s a preposterous thought.”

“If you tell him, he’ll know I told you he asked, and that will be so uncool that I ratted him out to his mom,” Bill pointed out.

I considered his argument. It was a good one. I certainly did not want to do anything to prevent Finn from asking us questions about sex in the future, even if we were less than skilled at answering them.

“You’re right,” I whispered, as we heard Finn approaching. “Grab some change off the dresser so I can tip him.”

Bill threw me some quarters and dove back into the bed just as Finn entered, bearing a glass of cold water. He handed it to me.

“Thanks, honey,” I said, and I gave him fifty-seven cents.

“Cool,” Finn said. He walked over to Bill’s side of the bed and lingered there a minute.

“Hey, Dad,” he said, “I think I was wrong earlier when we were talking about babies.”

“Oh?” Bill said, lifting an eyebrow and glancing at me.

“Yeah, I was thinking that it took a month for the sperm to travel through the fallopian tubes, but really it’s that the mom makes an egg every month. So how long does it take for the sperm to reach the egg?”

Bill looked at me helplessly.

“It varies from sperm to sperm,” I said authoritatively. “Some are fast swimmers and some are slow and steady. But it does not take a month. And once the sperm gets into the mom, it can keep swimming toward the egg long after the man has gotten out of the bed and gone off to do something else.”

“Oh,” Finn said slowly. “That’s where I was getting confused. I didn’t know the sperms could keep swimming after the mom and dad are finished… you know.”

“Well, they can,” I said briskly. “So that’s all cleared up. It’s late. Head to bed or you’ll owe me fifty-seven cents for being late.”

“No way. I’m outta here!” he exclaimed, and he ran down the hall.

Bill looked at me. “Did you hear him say ‘fallopian tubes’?” he asked. “That kid knows his biology. I think he gets it from me. I was good in science.”

(Not so good, however, that he knows whether our dog is going to go through puberty. I refrained from pointing this out, in the interests of maintaining marital harmony. If there is a veterinarian out there reading this, feel free to help us out.)

_______________________________________________

** My counselor gave me this book after my mom died. It looked like one of those geeky Chicken Soupy books, but actually it’s helpful. According to the book, I’m not crazy when I think for a moment that I’ve seen my mom in the grocery store parking lot, and I’m not just being mean when I wake up and feel angry at everyone in the world. The depth of my anger has scared the hell out of The Voice of Reason, but she’s holding up well so far. And that’s what good friends are for.

November 23, 2005

Decorate Like A First-Grader

Many women start hyperventilating around the holidays, and it’s no wonder. There’s an enormous amount of pressure to produce succulent meals and exquisite decorations while pretending that you are not only sane, but serene.

The problem is exacerbated by the magazines set up in the checkout lines at the grocery, which feature beautifully set tables with flowery centerpieces, place cards, candles and gobs of crystal, silver and linen. Even the publications that profess to make things “simple” are too much for me.

This year, I have invented a new approach to decorating for the holidays, called “Decorate Like A First-Grader.” In short, I’ve delegated the decorating duties to the twins, who were all fired up about their new responsibilities. It’s proven to be so successful I thought I should share my strategy with you.

My first project was to decorate the mantel. I enlisted Porter to help me with this, as Drew was at a friend’s house and Finn was at Bible Club. We spent a pleasant afternoon bonding and decorating.

It would be easy for me to describe how Porter decorated the mantel, but despite my reputation for veracity, down deep you would be doubting that Porter had in fact performed all the work himself. Thus, I photographed every step of the process, both to show you how to do it, and to prove that I am a woman who can be trusted.

Here’s how it went.

PROJECT 1: WINTER BRANCH ACCENTED WITH COLORFUL ORNAMENTS
as created by Porter Glamore

Here is a picture of our mantel before we decorated it. I bought that star thing at a garage sale years ago and it stays up all year.

Have your first-grader get a stick with lots of branches on it. Some decorators may have to forage in the woods for these; Porter happens to keep a good supply in his
bedroom. No, you aren’t drunk (or maybe you are); I let Porter do some of the
photography for this project. He has trouble focusing.

Get a sturdy container for the branch. Stick the branch in the container and fill it with rocks or marbles so the branch stays upright. (I got this HEAVY vase as a wedding present. Interestingly, the surgeon who performed my first spine surgery gave it to me. I love the vase, but I always thought it was ironic that he gave me a gift that weighed 1000 pounds. He wasn’t jonesing for more business; he was retired when I got married. But I digress.)

Gather a bunch of colorful ornaments. I got these at Target. My Friend With Artistic Flair says that when you display things in various sizes they are more “interesting” visually; thus some of the balls are bigger than others. Don’t forget the wire hangy things! If you have an older child, a third-grader perhaps, I suppose you could get all fancy and hang the ornaments using ribbon, but Porter couldn’t master the tying of the ribbons so we stuck with the wire hangers (Joan Crawford be damned.)

Hang the balls on the branches.

Lift the whole thing onto the mantel. (I had to do this– Porter wasn’t tall enough).

Oops. It would have been smarter if we had measured the branch before we put it in the vase and decorated it. We should have made sure the branch was no taller than the distance from the mantel to the ceiling.
Duh. It was too tall, so we had some ornamental roadkill. Learn from our mistake.

But overall, the project was a huge success. Isn’t this beautiful?

It looks so good I think I’m going to send Porter back to his room to retrieve more branches so we can do another one for the other side of the mantel.

That’s all there is to it: a branch, a container, rocks or marbles, ornaments and hangers, and a willing seven-year-old.

November 21, 2005

Let’s Flickr!

You might have thought that I was trying to be sexy in my last post. I was– just not in the way you probably imagine. You see, anyone can put on a pair of pink leopard print pajama bottoms and a well-padded black camisole and look “stunning” and “incredible” (your words). The compliments were certainly gratifying.

But what I was really proud of was not the content of the photo, but the fact that the photo made it onto the blog at all. It proves that I lucked out have mastered Flickr, the program that allowed me to post the picture in the first place. I’d been noticing bloggers near and far posting pictures to their sites using the service, and I decided it was time I availed myself of the new technology.

There was a time, not long ago, when my husband Bill would have been like you, and would have focused more on what was in the picture, rather than the existence of the picture. He thought those pajamas were pretty sexy, and he thoroughly enjoyed
watching me parade around in them during the show.
(I didn’t get to keep the pants, but I did find a reasonable facsimile called Snugglebutts. I love them. They are thicker and softer than the ones I modeled, but they have that undeniable jungle quality.)

Then one morning, I came into the kitchen wearing my leopard print Snugglebutts. Bill saw them and made that lecherous leopard purr that men make when they like what they see.

“Get a load of your mama in her leopard pants, boys!” he hollered.

Finn came over and peered at my pants closely.

“Actually, Dad, those look much more like jaguar spots than leopard spots. See how there’s sort of a spot within a spot? Leopards just have the one big spot. And jaguars don’t make that sound you just did. They make a distinct coughing sound.”

“They do?” I asked, pouring some coffee.

“Yep. Also, even though jaguars are part of the cat family, they actually like to swim,” he continued, as he opened the pantry and stared at the contents. “They don’t chase their prey, like cheetahs. They stalk their prey at night,” he added.

Bill and I looked at each other. I certainly didn’t want Bill playing grab-ass while making distinct coughing sounds. Suddenly the Snugglebutts didn’t seem so hot anymore. After Finn “Discovery Channel” Glamore ruined the allure of the pajamas, it didn’t take long for Bill to identify something else he found arousing.

As I spent more time blogging, I started using exotic words and phrases that hadn’t been heard in the Glamore house before. At first it was small things: “I’ve got to figure out how to link other URLs,” I’d mutter, or “Damn, the stat counter is disabled!”

Bill, whose computer knowledge is limited to the ability to get email, check the weather and surf to SI.com, would just look at me funny or ignore me completely.

Then I got serious about the blog, and so did my vocabulary.

“Honey, when I saved my post, TypePad only saved it in HTML, not in regular words, so I can’t read it,” I complained one night.

“I’m upgrading to a Plus account,” I announced later. “I can customize my colors and template.”

And then the Flickr talk started. I’d get into bed at night and say to Bill, “You know, honey, I think it’s time to get a Flickr account for my blog.”

The first time I said this, Bill got a funny look on his face like I was considering linking to a porn service to increase my traffic. Incredibly, once I explained the concept of Flickr to him, he still had that look on his face.

“What?” I asked.

“It’s just so damn sexy the way you can do stuff on the computer. I don’t know my hard drive from my ass. And you’re just spouting off all these terms like it’s nothing. What was that code you were talking about the other night?” he asked.

“HTML?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “And you talked about a platform–”

“Moveable Type?” I asked.

“That’s it,” he said. “Say all those words again.”

“HTML, Moveable Type,” I repeated.

“And you know what all that stuff is and how it works?” he asked.

“Not really, but I use them everyday,” I answered. Then I leaned over and whispered in his ear,”Moveable Type, HTML, Flickr.”

“Man, that is hot,” he said. And then he made a jaguar-like move.

So you see, while all of you were admiring my “kicky” hairstyle (thanks!) and fake breasts (hooray for NuBra!), Bill and I were over here making googly eyes at each other over the fact that I’d finally Flickred.

Was it good for you?

November 19, 2005

Anne Glamore: Supermodel!

Some of you may recall that last spring I had an exciting experience– I modeled in a fashion show for one of my friends who owns a chic boutique in town. Let me make it very clear that I am not a model, I have never been a model, and I was tickled to death to get to play one for a day.

Last week, a local magazine came out, and there was a picture of me in it. It is the only known picture of Anne Glamore modeling (sleepwear, no less!) and I felt I had a duty to share it.

Before you view the exciting photo, you should read the story about when Dee called to ask me to participate in the show, and my resulting frantic preparations (or freak-out, as Bill would describe it) and then the story of the fashion show itself, which was quite amusing, except for the tornadic winds which interfered with my lip gloss.

I was not a completely nice person that day; someone like Amalah, for example, who shares my love of beauty products, and was in a situation like Mrs. Preggers, might have found my behavior at Meditation to have been despicable, and I would have a hard time disagreeing. But wow! the makeup was fabulous!

Once you’re up to date on the whole event, this picture will be a whole lot more meaningful…