I know this picture is blurry, but it’s still kind of magical. My mom was angry because I was doing dishes in her house.

-

Dear Mom,

Please don’t read this post, okay? No, no, it’s not because I talk about how crazy you are. Sheesh, mom … Yes, I know you aren’t crazy. Yes, I realize I make you out to be crazier than you actually are on the blog. The reason I don’t want you to read this post is because it’s about your Mother’s Day gift. We don’t want to ruin the surprise, right? Of course we don’t.

So go browse some other site, okay? Like Facebook! You love Facebook.

…

Is she gone?

…

Yes?

…

Good. Because, you guys, I need to tell you how crazy my mom is. I mean in conjunction with telling you about what I’m getting her for Mother’s Day, so it’s not a total lie.

Here’s the thing about my mom: she is very, very easy to shop for. This is because she doesn’t have all sorts of useful, everyday objects that normal people have in their home, and she flat-out refuses to buy them for herself (her reasoning: “They’ll just get ruined.”). I could get her a new cutting board, or a roll of tape, or a pair of pajamas, or basically anything anyone would ever need, ever, and she will just be tickled.

Last time I was over at her house, I needed to borrow a tiny pair of scissors. My mother returned with – I kid you not – one of those semi-circular metal dentist picks.

“I don’t know where my scissors are,” she replied.

Of course. Yes. When I lose something practical, I, too, like to use professional dental tools in lieu of it.

“Honey, have you seen my screwdriver? No? Well, just hand me that tank of nitrous oxide.”

When I was a kid, we never had a pencil sharpener in the house (I’d buy one for school, and it would vaporize within minutes of crossing the threshold of our home. It was like someone put a curse on our house that nothing useful would ever be able to enter it. I suspect that this might have extended to people, too). So my mother would pull out a paring knife and hack that poor pencil into some misshapen abomination of a point. The next day at school I’d rush to the sharpener in a desperate attempt to erase all evidence of the butchery that had happened the night before.

Sometimes, I’d succeed. Other days the deep grooves would remain through sharpening after sharpening, lingering evidence of my own personal shame. (Parenthetically, it amazes me the stuff that I thought was important in elementary school.)

But damn it, she tried. She’s always tried to help, even if she never, ever, EVER has anything even close to the right tools for the job. It’s easy to criticize, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to be angry about it. She’s my mom. I owe her. I mean, this is a woman who saw me EMERGE FROM HER OWN VAGINA, and she still talks to me.

And after said vagina-emerging, she let me snack on her boobs for, like, a year. And she rarely brings it up in order to win arguments.

Hell, she actually seems to enjoy my company, which is something she has in common with approximately one other person on this entire planet. That’s love, you guys. Pure and simple.

Here’s a photo of her throwing me out of her kitchen because she didn’t want me to do any more work. She’s yelling “GO.”

-

So in thanks for all of this, I am pleased to say that I know exactly what to get her for Mother’s Day.

It began with a trip to IKEA. A few months back, I took my mother there. If you haven’t been the the Swedish home megastore, it is where many relationships meet their end. Rand and I have seen some desperate times inside that windowless blue and yellow dungeon. So taking my mom there was, knowingly, a risky venture.

Nor does it help that she has the attention span of a fruit fly.

But I knew was I was in for. I’d gone there before with her in tow. On that ill-fated trip, I saw a bookshelf I wanted. IKEA keeps all of its furniture unassembled in boxes, so if you see something on display that you like, you usually have to write down the aisle number and go find it in a massive warehouse at the end of the store. (After which, you will have to spend several long years assembling it. But that is another story). I saw the bookshelf about 20 feet away from me.

“Mom, I need to go write down where that bookshelf is located.”

“Okay.”

“No, mom, I need to go over there. So I need you to stay here, okay? It’s really easy to get lost in this place.”

“Okay.”

“Stay right here with the cart. I’m going to be right back.”

“Okay.”

What happened next, as best as I can understand, is that my mother waited until I turned my back on her, and proceeded to run, frantically, in the opposite direction as quickly as she could.  I was gone a total of 30 seconds, but when I got back to our cart there was not a trace of her.

I thought for a second she might have been raptured, but then realized that was impossible because she loves leopard print and the gays waaay too much.

I frantically looked around for her (my cell phone didn’t have reception in the abyss that is IKEA, so there was no hope of calling), and after 20 long stressed out minutes during which I contemplated just leaving her there because, seriously, WHAT IN THE ACTUAL FUCK, MOM, I was gone for like 30 SECONDS AND I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO ANYWHERE, a voice came over the loudspeaker.

“Would customer Geraldine De-garble-garble please come to the Service Desk near the storeroom? Your party is waiting for you.”

That’s right: she had me paged. LIKE I WAS THE ONE WHO HAD GOTTEN LOST. So I stormed off to meet her, and when she saw me she was just gently shaking her head.

“Where did you go?” she asked.

Because, you know, I’m the crazy one.

On our next trip to the IKEA, having learned my lesson, I decided to take a different tactic. I threaded my mom’s purse to the cart, so she couldn’t run off, and told her that if she behaved, I’d buy her a present.

I know some of you are probably scandalized by this role-reversal, but whatever. It totally worked. I actually ended up buying her a crapload of stuff (all of it totaled something like $2.99 because IKEA is magical like that. Good thing, too, because my mom thinks that anyone spending any about of money on her is too much), and most of it fell into that category of practical stuff that my mother never has in her home, so we both felt quite good about it. I think she got about a half dozen toilet brushes, which is amazing, because she only has three bathrooms.

Plus, she only ran off once. We were near the closet section, and I turned to ask her something and found that she managed to untangle her purse from the cart and make a break for it.

“Damn it.” I muttered. Next time: bike lock.

I finally found my mother standing on one of the many raised displays throughout the store, trying on a pair of rubber rain boots.

“Honey,” she said, “I think I want to get these. I’ve been needing a pair of rain boots.”

“That great mom, but you really need to get down from there and … wait, where did you get those boots?”

“They were just sitting up here. I want them.”

“Mom, those boots are – oh, good god – THOSE ARE PART OF THE DISPLAY.”

“So?”

“So it means you can’t buy them. Please get down from there.”

“No, I think I can. They were just sitting here.”

“Mother, please get down from there and take those boots off. They are not for sale.”

“What? No. Of course they’re for sale.”

At my insistence, she finally stepped down and took the boots off. Sure enough, there was a huge sticker on the bottom that read, “FOR DISPLAY ONLY. NOT FOR SALE.”

“See?” I said, pointing to label. My mother was now pouting.

“But I wanted them.”

A lady who had seen the entire exchange chimed in. “They looked really nice.”

“STOP ENCOURAGING HER,” I hissed, and then led my mother away before she could start eating wax fruit.

Anyway, the point is, I’m going to buy my mom a pair of rubber rain boots for Mother’s Day (I’m thinking of going with these). And also a pencil sharpener. And a tiny pair of scissors. She’s going to say I spent too much. Whatever. She’s my mom and, crazy or not, she deserves it.

Also, she’s freakishly strong for her size. Despite my efforts, I could not stay in that damn kitchen.

Rand and I got back into town yesterday afternoon, and felt that peculiar brand of jetlag that so rarely afflicts those who live on the west coast of the U.S.; after nearly two weeks in Australia, our internal clocks were running behind.

After a painfully long flight from Sydney, and another two-hour hop from LAX to home, I had no idea what time it was when we landed. The numbers on the clock were meaningless, bearing no relation to me. I wandered around the house in a daze, exhausted, but too wired to actually nap. For a while, I just curled up on our bed, shivering from jetlag and somewhat delirious, and Rand started piling all manner of blankets and sweatshirts on top of me.

After unpacking (which mostly involved depositing the contents of my suitcase into the dirty laundry hamper), I made a halfhearted utterance that maybe I should go workout in an effort to get back on Seattle time. Rand, treading carefully, for he’s learned not to sound too encouraging when I suggest exercising, said simply that it might make me feel better.

So I heaved my slightly-sunburned, chronologically displaced, and thoroughly exhausted frame out into the chilly mist of a Seattle spring afternoon, and went for a run. And as much as I hate running, and as much as I hate running in the cold, particularly when I’m tired and shaky and kind of nauseated by too many hours on a plane, it was lovely.

Seattle has a particular smell to it, which I can’t detect after I’ve been here for more than a few days consecutively. But whenever I return home after being away for a few weeks, it hits: the air smells like wood and rain and, if you are in the right part of town and the wind is blowing just so, like the sea.

I ran down streets lined with old, palatial homes that loomed against the grey sky, all the way to the park. The sky was uniquely northwestern: the sun was shining through a haze of high clouds, the horizon was a dark blue-grey, and there was a faint rain – not fat drops falling from the sky, but more a haze of water that seemed to hang in the air and accumulate on your skin and clothes as you walked through it.

A squirrel saw me running along a path and stopped, abruptly, to check me out on its hind legs. I stopped, too, and stared at him. I waved at him. The squirrel’s head darted to the side to follow the movement of my arm. I waved my other hand, and the squirrel’s head darted back to the other side. I continued to wave, first with one hand, then the other, watching it slowly shake its head back and forth.

I ran up and down the muddy paths, across the wet grass, and back to our place, feeling that strange appreciation for a place that you can only get when you’ve been away from it a while.

I was, I realized, grateful to be home.

Rand and I ate dinner in, then drowsily headed to our respective computers, determined to get a bit of work done before Monday. Ready to sit in front of a monitor, but not quite ready to think, I headed to Facebook. My newsfeed revealed that an old friend of mine had passed away that morning from brain cancer.

I’d bumped into him last month at my neurologist’s office, but hadn’t really seen him since this past September, when I drove him to treatment once or twice. We talked during the drive to the hospital – mostly gallows humor – about tumors and cancer and high school and growing older. We’ve mostly lost touch since high school, reconnecting only recently. During my last few trips, I kept thinking that I should contact him when I got back into town.

I should send him an email, I thought. Or stop by. Or something.

God damn hindsight. It’s always 20-20, always so crystal clear – the things we should have done and should have said. I’m sorry I wasn’t home more. Sorry I didn’t have the presence of mind to reach out more.

Mixed in with all that regret and sadness is a feeling of incredible gratitude – that I got to know him in the first place, got to spend time with him in recent months, and that I’m back in Seattle this week, so I can say goodbye properly.

Rand, just prior to our miracle berry dinner.

-

The other day, I was lamenting to myself (and by extension, to my long-suffering husband) about the death of wonderment in my adult years. How there were now so many known variables in our lives, so many answered questions. There were very few decisions to make. Very little was new.

“I just remember high school, and thinking I had all these opportunities in front of me, and all these choices to make. And now those choices have been made. And I’m not upset how life turned out, you know? I’m happy with the decisions I’ve made. I’m just sad that I don’t have all of that in front of me anymore.”

Rand politely disagreed with me.

“That’s bullshit,” he said. “We’re still young. We could go back to school. Or move to another town. Not everything has been decided yet.”

And I nodded. Logically, I understood that he was right. But I still felt saddened by all of it. I missed how new and exciting everything felt the decade before.

Enter the miracle berry.

In all fairness, the name is an overstatement. The miracle berry never given sight to the blind, or cured anyone’s leprosy, or filmed a decent movie that starred John Travolta and/or Nicolas Cage.

But it reminded me that not everything in my life has been decided, which, given my stubbornness and negativity, is nothing short of miraculous. That even at the ripe old age of cough-cough, there are things left to discover. Even the stuff that you’ve done a hundred times before can seem different and fun.

Good heavens. I sound just like someone who’s had sex while high on ecstasy, don’t I? Which, for the record, I have never done, unless by “ecstasy” you mean “red velvet cake”. (And then I’d need an intervention.)

Before I go further, I should explain. But, man, the chemical process behind the whole thing is kind of complicated, you know? And chemistry, besides the natural one that I am absolutely positive would occur should I ever meet Jeff Goldblum on a rainy night, is not really my strong suit.

Simply, the miracle berries (which are entirely natural, and native to West Africa) contain “a rogue glycoprotein that tricks the tongue’s taste-bud receptors into believing a sour food is actually sweet.” The protein binds to your tongue, and is slowly washed away by your saliva over the course of about an hour.

And so you have a brief window when your sense of taste goes a little crazy. As do many of your other senses, because they can’t really reconcile what’s going on.

The berries are entirely legal, safe, and natural, but difficult to find. The FDA listed the berry as a “food additive” in the 1970s, effectively quashing the market for it (some claim that this was due to pressure from the sugar industry, who didn’t like the idea of a little berry making them obsolete). But in the recent years, the berry’s popularity has grown, achieving a weird kind of cult status among foodies. Flavor-tripping parties, where people eat the berries, and proceed to down a smorgasbord of usually-unpalatable treats (Tabasco, unripened fruits, pickles), are becoming all the rage.

We were given a pack of ten berry pills (just as effective as the berry itself, I’m told, but with a longer shelf life) as a Christmas present from our friend Nicci, who works with Rand, along with her recommendation: “Try them with citrus.”

They sat in our pantry for a few months, waiting for a special occasion.

-

When our friend Lauren popped up to visit us from San Francisco, and was game on trying the berries, we decided that was more than reason enough.

And then we had the weirdest dinner, possibly ever.

-

The tablets themselves are pretty innocuous. They taste a little like the chewable aspirin I remember taking as a kid, or like the chalky roll candy we’d get during Halloween (the one we’d eat only after we’d consumed everything good, but still needed a sugar fix). We let them dissolve on our tongues, which took a little while, but led to some delightful photo opportunities:

My beloved being … well, being my beloved.

-

Yes, that’s a Zappos box behind me. Don’t you judge me.

-

Lauren is probably going to strangle me for posting this, but I think she looks adorable.

-

Rand’s pill dissolved first, and he went straight for the limes. His reaction was thoroughly enjoyable.

“Ith madneth!”

-

Lauren and I figured he was putting us on until we tried it ourselves. And then … wowzers.

The limes and lemons tasted, as Nicci had said they would, like sunshine. They had a rich, honeyed sweetness and a hint of tartness at the end – better than the best orange I’d ever had. Ditto with the kumquats.

-

Oh, lordy, and the mangoes. They were velvetly and sweet, like creme brulee. The usually-tart apples tasted like sugary, overripe pears. Goat’s cheese became cream cheese frosting. And the spiciness of a jalapeno was gone; it was now as a mild as a bell pepper. We ate slice after slice, impervious to any heat (Note: the next day, our tongues were positively raw, and our stomachs were a little bit on the delicate side. But that night, we were invincible).

I slurped up a spoonful of balsamic vinegar, and it was reminiscent of blueberry syrup, with a slight metallic aftertaste. My unsweetened cranberry juice, usually undrinkable on its own, tasted like the sugar-laden Ocean Spray variety.

Everything was different. Everything tasted new.

But the limes remained my favorite.

-

It got a little frenzied. My understanding is that this is not uncommon at flavor-tripping parties. We frantically tried everything, dismissing some things as awful (ginger, starfruit), other things as relatively unchanged (sunflower seed butter, chocolate), and others as slightly blander (the flakes of sea salt that we let dissolve on our tongues tasted a bit like that fake salt that my grandmother used for a brief time in the 80s.)

-

We each ended up taking two pills each. The effect lasted about an hour for Rand and Lauren, and about 40 minutes for me, before it started to wear off. Afterwards, I scanned the mess of the dinner table, the plates now empty of fruit, the copious lemon and lime rinds that were everywhere.

Just as I was lamenting the fact that there were no more unknowns in my life, something came along and made the familiar unfamiliar. The old became new. I felt young and alive and-

-

Um … well, anyway … it was nothing short of a miracle.

Rand and I have a shower in our bedroom.

I mean, in our bedroom. Not in a bathroom in the bedroom. No. It is IN the room. At the end of the bed.

Pictured: the end of our bed, and our shower.

-

It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds. In the two years that we’ve lived here, we can’t really make sense of it. The doors are glass, so you have absolutely zero privacy if someone is in the room. When one of us has to wake up early for whatever reason, we’ll shower with the lights off, so that we don’t wake the other person.

Have you ever showered in the dark? It’s really weird, and yet strangely familiar. I’m pretty sure it has to do with some pre-memory of being in the womb.

And then I start to feel guilty for not having called my mother in a while.

So this shower sits in the middle of our bedroom, and when we show guests around, they always comment on it. Some find it sexy. Others declare it bad architectural planning.

My biggest complaint is that the glass doors mean I have to keep my shower ridiculously clean at all times. If it’s dirty, everyone will see it. So after every shower, I wipe the droplets off the doors. Every. single. time.

If you look closely at the reflection in the door, you will see I am standing in a pile of dirty laundry.

-

The other day, I was had just finished showering in that spotless glass coffin. In order to save you the mental image of me naked, let’s just pretend I was wearing an old-timey bathing suit, okay? The kind that reaches your elbows and knees.

Rand had gotten ready before me, and was now busy getting dressed. He looked over at me, through the droplets that streaked the doors like rain on a car window (parenthetically, remind me never to drive while wearing only a shower cap).

I melodramatically reached out a hand towards him. He laughed.

“I feel like something’s come between us,” he said.

I gently pushed open the glass door in response, and in the recesses of my brain, I remembered a portion of an Emily Dickinson poem that I committed to memory when I was 16. 

And I stood, in my shower cap and old-timey bathing suit, and recited it to him as he looked at me, somewhat baffled.

And were you saved,
And I condemned to be
Where you were not,
That self were hell to me.

So we must keep apart,
You there, I here,
With just the door ajar
That oceans are,
And prayer,
And that pale sustenance,
Despair!

He stared at me, incredulous, and asked, “What was that?”

In reply I merely smiled, ridiculously pleased with myself. And then I began wiping the water droplets from the glass doors, like I always do.  

OMG. This is EXACTLY what Christmas morning looks like at our house.

-

Apparently a lot of folks are currently outraged at Urban Outfitters for their most recent catalog, which is full of expletive-filled products. The hub-bub seems a bit unfounded. Let’s be fair – how can one celebrate the birth of Christ without a giant banner that reads “Merry Christmas Bitches”?

This season, they seem to be offering a wide array of “edgy” products that have people up in arms. Like these photo albums:

“I’m totally buying this for my in-laws!” – no one

-

You know what? A “BYOB” can full of gummi bears is actually a brilliant idea. I should keep several in my car in case of emergencies.

-

Or this festive little candle, which I’m sure would look great in your stepmother’s guest bathroom:

-

And what holiday season would be complete without a glass featuring Santa that reads, “Merry Christmas, Bitches”? (Seriously, I’m sensing a theme, here.)

I’m gonna get this for all the Jews in my life!

-

This stuff doesn’t really bother me. On a good day, I swear like a sailor. On a bad day, I could make Samuel L. Jackson blush.

Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m happy with Urban Outfitters – I’m fed up, though for entirely different reasons. Over the last decade, the store went from being one I adored (but could not afford in the starving years of my early 20s) to one that I am distinctly too old for. It is a indication of the relentless passing of time, much like when I realized the Olson Twins had gotten boobies.

Needless to say, I am suitably horrified.

Last time I visited Urban Outfitters (or “UO”, as I presume the kids would say, since they seem to hate spelling things out. AMIRITE?), the manager, who was easily a decade my junior, asked me if I was looking for a gift for someone. The unspoken message was that I was way, waaaay too old to be buying stuff for myself.

I mumbled something about how I had wandered away during our senior home outing, and proceeded to admire what I thought was a belt. It turned out to be a mini-skirt.

(Also, when did midriffs come back in? I thought, like the Leprechaun canon, we said goodbye to those horrors in the mid-nineties.)

Aghast, I retreated towards the door, mumbling something about how I needed to be home before Jeopardy!

I’ve pretty much stopped shopping at UO altogether, except to purchase the occasional “granny-style sweater” (worn unironically!), but I do still receive their catalog. It makes me feel positively ancient.

The worst part of it – more so than the clothing – is the scenarios that play out therein, the Lord-of-the-Flies-like vignettes that make me want to scream, “NO, CHILDREN, NO.”

Dear god, I am old. And so keep that in mind: this post contains the ramblings of an old person. If you don’t like it, simply smile and nod, and get me a glass of hot tea. The way you would when your grandmother starts yelling at TV commercials.

This is how the catalog begins: with the image of a young woman, sitting atop a phone booth in the middle of the woods.

-

Let’s ignore the obvious hair-pulling observations that one could make about this scene (“Why is there a phone booth in the woods?” “If she’s cold enough to wear a hat and gloves, WHY IS HER SHIRT SLEEVELESS?”) and instead focus on what she’s doing: she’s making a phone call on her cell. While sitting a top a phonebooth. And if you look closely, she’s apparently plugged an old-fashioned telephone receiver into her cell phone.

That is now a thing, in case you were wondering.

The phone is yellow leopard print because … because … THERE IS NO REASON.

-

Dear god, we’ve just started, and I already need to lie down.

Let’s move on … to a bunch of young people delightfully hurling presents into the water.

“ZOMG! Bourgeoisie excess is SO much fun!”

 -

Everyone knows that kids imitate stuff they see on TV, movies, and in trendy catalogs. Our rivers are now going to be FLOODED with unopened Christmas gifts, and we’re going to have indigenous wildlife choking on ribbon and lace panties.

That is no way to die. (Unless maybe you are Keith Richards.)

Seriously, who is taking care of these kids? They’re clearly neglected. In this scene, these little urchins are so hungry, so lacking in social graces, that they’ve taken to eating turkey right off the carcass.

I actually can’t judge them too harshly for this, as it’s my preferred method for eating cake.

-

I suppose it’s just good to see them eating. But honestly, what if they had to have dinner with the Queen, or someone equally fancy, like Martha Stewart or Mr. Belvedere?

I’m sincerely worried about these kids. They seem to be out in the woods, but I’m not sure they have the skills to survive out there. Take this poor girl at the top of this snuggly scene, who appears to be freezing:

-

Did no one teach her about pants? I can almost guarantee they warm you up more than no pants.

And when, pray tell, did it become acceptable to stop matching our socks together? Do you know what my parole officer would say if she saw me running around like this?

AND AGAIN WITH THE NO PANTS.

-

(Note: At this point, I just started screaming directly at people in the catalog. Because clearly their mothers aren’t around to do it.)

Just what the hell were you thinking, missy? WE HAVE FAMILY PHOTOS IN TWENTY MINUTES. Also, you’d better not get glitter marker on the couch because you know how your father feels about glitter. Also, HIS NAME IS DAD AND NOT “ROBERT”. CUT THAT FIRST NAME CRAP OUT.

On an entirely unrelated note, your cardigan is cute.

-

While I appreciate the handiwork that went into it, this is NOT how we use frosting, young lady. We PUT THAT ON CAKES, which we then eat in a completely non-sexy way, while wearing pajamas that are oversized and equally non-sexy.

And I feel like a broken record here, but PANTS. IT IS DECEMBER. PUT THEM ON.

 -

NO NO NO YOU AREN’T EVEN ACTUALLY KISSING EACH OTHER. You are just mashing your faces together in an attempt to look cute. Which is arguably working quite well, but STILL.

Fine. This is pretty damn adorable. What product are they selling again?

-

Sigh. All this CapsLock yelling is exhausting. Can we see something a little less shout-inducing?

Aww, you look upset. Did someone take your bike? Huh, little guy?

-

Okay, you know what? This young man is adorable. He almost makes me forget my rage. Seriously, doll-face, call me in 20 years when you are old enough to grow some chest hair, okay?

Wait. Wait. WAIT. There’s something by your ear. What is that?

-

I just need a closer look. That can’t be what I think it is.

-

OH, DEAR GOD IS THAT A MULLET? ARE MULLETS BACK?

See? This is the stuff that should be worry us about the Urban Outfitters catalog. Cussing I have no problem with (here’s proof: Crap. Piss. Wiener. Hee.)

But if the children are our future, and they can’t be persuaded to put on trousers (or, hell, LEGGINGS. I will settle for leggings as pants at this point), and they keep running around in mismatched socks while throwing things into rivers and kissing mulleted boys and …

-

Sigh. Whatever. I guess the future is screwed. I need a drink.

My dear, confusing mother.

-

I’ve just returned from California. I spent several days spent in the company of my family, which is always a fascinating experience. Nothing makes me question reality more.

I’ve tried explaining to my friends that my relations see things differently than the rest of the world, but my point is often lost.

“All families are insane,” they say, nodding sympathetically. And then they’ll tell me about some aunt of theirs with an excessive collection of hat pins and no hats, and laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing is.

Hat pins! How delightfully zany!

It is all I can do not to grab them by the front of the shirt and gently hiss, ”Really, pumpkin? HAT PINS? That’s the best you can do? Because until your auntie leads a massive police chase through your hometown while wearing nothing but a nightgown, I don’t want to hear about your damn hat pins.”

Until your mom gives you and your brother copies of Twilight: The Board Game for Christmas (with the enigmatic explanation of “You know how people who work for the same company always get the same gift from their bosses?”) YOU DO NOT HAVE GROUNDS FOR COMPLAINT.

Until your uncle steers your auntie (a different one; not the police chase one) through street traffic while she’s in a wheelchair BECAUSE HE SAYS THE ROAD IS SAFER THAN THE SIDEWALK, you can just sit down and hush up.

Trust me. I win the crazy family pageant. I have sashes upon sashes which I layer upon my body like a straight-jacket.

But just in case there was any doubt, let me share with you a rather interesting exchange I had this past Thanksgiving weekend with my mom.

I don’t actually remember how it began (really, who can say how the seeds of madness are sown?), but it had something to do with Halloween. My mother was remarking that sometimes people dress up as unfavorable historical characters to make a political statement.

I disagreed with her assertion. For example, I think when Prince Harry dressed up as a Nazi several years ago, he wasn’t so much making a statement as he was making a grievous error in judgement (for which he later apologized). I said as much to my mother.

“I think dressing up as someone – even for Halloween – is a tacit endorsement of them. So you have to pick someone you are a fan of. You can make a political statement, but it has to be someone favorable,” I said, thinking of this clip from Louis C.K.’s show. “Otherwise, it’s just bad taste.”

“So then why did Rand dress up as a pedophile for Halloween?” my mother replied.

“Wait, WHAT?”

“Rand’s costume …”

“Yeah?”

“He was Jerry Sandusky.”

“Wait, WHAT?”

“The Boy Scout costume he wore.”

“Wait, WHAT?”

“Didn’t Rand dress up as Jerry Sandusky?”

“Wha … no. NO. NO. NO. Why would you think that?”

My mother sighed in frustration. BECAUSE CLEARLY I AM THE CRAZY ONE. She then explained to me that she was under the impression that this year, Rand had dressed up as former assistant football coach and convicted serial child molester Jerry Sandusky.

For the record, here is a photo of Rand and I on Halloween.

-

We dressed up as the kids from Moonrise Kingdom. On Facebook, I noted this, mentioning that Rand’s character’s name was Sam Shakusky, and that I had dressed up as Suzy Bishop.

Now, I haven’t really been able to follow my mom’s logic (because I’m pretty sure there isn’t any) but here’s how it went:

• She has not seen Moonrise Kingdom, so she obviously didn’t get the reference. That’s totally reasonable, actually. I asked her why she didn’t simply think we were characters from a movie that she hadn’t seen. After all, my posts on Facebook mentioned the film title. She said she “didn’t see the movie mentioned”. She just saw the photo and figured we were making a political statement.
  - 
• She claimed Jerry Sandusky was involved with the Boy Scouts, so Rand’s scouting costume was pretty self-explanatory. (Incidentally, Sandusky was never involved with the Scouts.)
  -
• I asked her why she assumed that Rand was dressed as Jerry Sandusky, and not, say, a generic Boy Scout, and she said once again, that she thought it was part of the political statement we were so obviously making.
  - 
• When asked about my costume, she said she thought that I was Jerry Sandusky’s wife, Rose. And that I had worn pink as a reference to her name.
  -
• I feel it pertinent to note that Jerry Sandusky’s wife’s name is not Rose. It’s Dottie. And she doesn’t wear pink, nor does she have long brown hair. She also stood by her husband during all of his molestation charges. Ick.
  - 
• My mother also noted that she saw a lot of photos online of people dressed similarly to us. When I asked her about this, reasoning that it seemed strange that everyone else would have the same vague costume that we did (and also the same horrific taste as to think dressing up as a pedophile and his doting wife would SOMEHOW BE A GOOD IDEA), she did note that she thought it a little weird. But then she just figured we were all making the exact same political statement.
  - 
• When I asked (assuming that we had somehow thought it would be a good idea to dress as Jerry Sandusky and his wife) why we wouldn’t have gone with more obvious costumes, my mother remarked that she simply thought we were “being artistic.”
  - 
• I asked her if she thought it was strange that all our friends noted how cute we looked when I posted the pictures on Facebook. She admitted that had alarmed her a bit, but not enough to rethink the situation.

And that’s it. That’s my mom’s reasoning behind why she thought that this rather sweet scene …

-

… was actually us recreating a pedophile and his twisted, enabling wife.

Although in hindsight, it does explain the confusing phone conversation my mom and I had shortly after Halloween.

Me: Did you see our costumes?

Mom: I did.

Me: Weren’t they adorable?

Mom: Um …

Me: You didn’t think the costumes were cute?

Mom: Well … you know, you made a statement. Which is what you wanted to do.

After I explained to my mom what our costumes actually were, I think she felt a little guilty about her assumption that we would dress up as people as reprehensible as Jerry and Dottie Sandusky. After she and I had cleared the air (which took the better part of an hour, mind you), she posted a picture of me and Rand to her Facebook wall. Note my brother’s reply.

-

I thought his comment was hilarious. Mom didn’t appreciate it all that much. But I’ve learned that she and I? We see things differently.

-

Sometimes, I suck.

I mean, big time. Several of you are reading those lines and thinking, “Oh, yes, I know. I was just about to leave a comment on your blog expressing that EXACT same sentiment.”

Others of you are thinking, “Well, sure, you suck, but who among us does not?” And for your gracious understanding, I thank you.

But believe me when I say, I suck slightly more than most people (I do recycle though. So I have that going for me.)

How do I maintain my title as Asshole of the Week for 755 weeks running? Because I prioritize things terribly. I am always on the road, and I am constantly missing important events in the lives of those closest to me. Weddings. Birthdays. Baby showers. 7,000 mile oil changes.

You name it, I’ve missed it.

And thus far, I’ve missed the first four months of my nephew’s life. I wanted to be there when he was born, but that coincided rather nicely with my brain surgery, so that didn’t quite happen. I was supposed to visit last month, before Halloween, but a miserable cold knocked me on my ass.

I made a few haphazard attempts to reschedule my flight, but they didn’t pan out. One week I was in Milwaukee. Another week I was in Boston. Then New Hampshire. I figured I’d just see my nephew on Thanksgiving Day.

But as the weeks passed, my brother’s missives have changed in tone from begrudgingly acknowledging my visit (“I guess you can come stay with us.”) to bemoaning my absence. (“Come soon. We are drowning. Also, bring food.”)

And I realized that I had literally gone to Europe and back, and then across the country TWICE, before even visiting my little nephew.

Like any good Catholic, I have been overcome with guilt over this. And like any good Catholic, I am going to use food to get myself out of trouble. I will be meeting my nephew this Wednesday. But last week, I sent my brother a box of goodies.

-

I filled it with stuff I figured he and my sister-in-law would like. Fancy little flavored nuts (heh). Expensive salami. A pack of Minstrels which I had to gently coax away from my husband.

For the uninitiated, Minstrels are the British equivalent of M&Ms, but worlds better than their U.S. counterparts. I am not saying that to be pedantic or urbane (I’ve given up on that YEARS ago). They are just BETTER. I would cut someone for a Minstrel. I have never cut anyone for an M&M.

Unless we’re talking mint M&Ms, which are an entirely different matter. They are awesome. I also included a bag of those.

And I grabbed some chocolate sprinkles that literally had our last name printed on the box. Plus a couple of extra “j”s. But hjey – there’s nothjing wrong with superfljuous ljetters, rjight?

-

And then I found these, which are hilarious for obvious reasons.

-

I also included a note. Here is the post-script:

And then I texted my brother, to see if my gift basket got me out of trouble. To see if things were back to normal.

-

Yup.

We take Halloween rather seriously in our house. My mother is to blame. I don’t quite know when she learned about the tradition of dressing up for the holiday (I seriously doubt it had been exported to Europe back in the late 70s, when my brother was wee, so it must have been after she moved to the states and I was born), but I can imagine her hearing the word “costume” and getting that charmingly crazy look on her face that I know too well.

And so, on one October that I was too small to remember, a brilliant madness began, and continued throughout my childhood. My mother would make elaborate costumes, and do my hair, and wonderful things like this would happen:

My brother and I, circa 1984.

-

As I got older, my enthusiasm for Halloween started to wane. I briefly became one of those gals who wore tight dresses and animal ears and declared myself a cat or a bat or something else equally unimaginative. I feel shame admitting it now, though I suspect that it’s a phase we all go through: we have to tell ourselves that we are above dressing up and pretending. That we’ve somehow outgrown eating candy we pilfered from strangers.

For a while, I lost the spirit of Halloween. Which for me, a gal with a long legacy of elaborate costumes and candy-eating, was somehow far sadder than if I had lost the Christmas spirit. (I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because candy canes never have, and never will, trump a Reese’s peanut butter cup).

Then I met Rand. And things started to change.

This was a boy who was willing to sweetly request I make him a Fred Flintstone costume, and then bravely walk to work while wearing it.

I’d spent years pretending that I was too cool for Halloween, when, really, I should have been asking: Am I cool enough for Halloween?

Was I brave enough to, as a full-grown adult, wear a ridiculous costume out in public? Did I have the strength of character to be able to wander down the street, knowing that people would stare and point and occasionally ask to take our photo? Could I handle being ugly, or scary, or strange?

Turns out that I most certainly could. In Rand’s company, I could do all of those things. And a tradition started of the two of us dressing up on October 31st.

There was one catch, though. Rand loves Halloween, and he loves costumes, but he was and is staunchly opposed to wearing makeup, masks, and wigs (I, thankfully, am not). So whatever costume I make for him must be simply that – a costume. These parameters have made things slightly more challenging, but no less fun.

Two years ago I made us Star Trek uniforms (from the original series). Rand was supposed to be Scotty, but he ended up as a red-shirted ensign (because I ran out of gold ric-rac). Fear not: he made it through the night.

-

Last year, he finally went as Steve Zissou from Life Aquatic, a costume he’d been contemplating for years. Indeed, that was why he grew out a beard in the first place, on an October day many years ago. He was considering a costume; the beard stuck.

I was Margot Tenenbaum, from The Royal Tenenbaums.

-

And while we hadn’t planned on paying homage to Wes Anderson on two consecutive Halloweens, after we went to Moonrise Kingdom, and saw that the main character, Sam, looked remarkably like Rand did as a little boy, we couldn’t resist. Heck, Sam even had a little brown-haired girlfriend.

Since I am unemployed and endowed with plenty of free time, I started working on Rand’s costume. My goal this year was not to dye any clothing (since I’ve stained my hands blue for two consecutive Halloweens doing just that).

I’m happy to say I succeeded. I found a shirt and shorts at the thrift store that were miraculously the same shade of olive green, and set about adding trim and merit badges to them for Rand’s costume.

I remained faithful to the film for some of the badges …

-

And took some artistic liberty with others. (This is Roger Mozbot, the mascot for Rand’s company.)

-

I bought him a raccoon tail hat, and some knee-high socks, and a canteen …

-

Oh yeah, and also? RAND SHAVED OFF HIS BEARD FOR THE COSTUME.

Here we are in character (i.e., overcome with ennui) as Sam and Suzy.

-

For only the second time in seven years, Rand is sans-beard. So now it’s basically like I’m making out with a stranger.

-

Which is just a weensy bit spooky. But I’m sure I’ll get over it.

That, I suppose, was most significant at all. Sunday was the four-month anniversary of my surgery.

At some point, I’d stopped counting the days since my brain surgery, and then the weeks, and now, it seems, the months. Rand had left town the day before, so I mostly sat around, working on our Halloween costumes, and yelling at the football game that was playing on the T.V. in a vain attempt to pretend that he was still home.

It almost worked. Turns out, I’m nearly as adept at taunting Tony Romo as my husband is.

I only realized my surgery-versary had passed when I saw that I had an MRI scheduled a few days later. Yesterday morning, I drove to the hospital, and the news was nothing new, and therefore all good: what is left of my tumor, Steve, is hardly worth mentioning. He’s a wee little nub. This coincided with official report that we received a few weeks after my surgery, which we found somewhat amusing:

Don’t worry: my intracranial gas has dissipated.

-

Never have I been so happy to be labeled “unremarkable”. Just as delightful is the realization that I’ve got me a burr hole.

My neurosurgeon asked me how I felt, and I replied that besides my headaches (which were and are unrelated to Steve), I’m doing great. I noted that the fogginess that had followed my surgery was now pretty much gone. And until I had put that thought to words, the significance of it hadn’t quite hit me.

That was the most difficult thing to deal with after removing Steve. My internal monologue had remained the same as it always was. I knew precisely what I wanted to say, but the words often came out slowly. Sometimes they refused to come out at all.

That is no longer a problem. I’m sure not everyone in my life is as excited as I am about that.

My surgeon calmly noted that if my tumor did grow back, they could cut it right back down again. We’ve known that from the start.

And so I remain wary. I realize that Steve could return (Brain Tumor Part II: Electric Boogaloo), and we might have to, at some unspecified date in the future, go through all of this again.

That will probably be okay, though. Now that I know what brain surgery is like, I think I could do it again. I’m not exactly looking forward to it, necessarily, but like a bad horror movie, it’s less scary the second time around. You know exactly what it is you’re up against.

As for now, I keep thinking about what my friend Mindy told me when I first found out that I would have to forcefully evict Steve.

“One day,” she said, “this will be just some weird story you tell people.”

So I guess that’s that. It’s four months behind me now – so far that I’ve stopped keeping track. My wonderful life is back to what it was. Traveling and writing, eating cakes and lamenting the existence of skinny jeans.

But I can’t say that things are exactly the same. I feel like I appreciate things a little bit more. I think I have a slightly better understanding of how stupidly lucky and charmed my life is.

That the good decisions I’ve made have far outweighed the bad.

I give you Exhibit A: one of the better choices I’ve made.

-

And let’s not forget that I now have one more weird story to tell – about the time I had brain surgery.

Carving out some quality time in Dublin.

-

After the fussing and fueding that accompanied our Ireland trip, Rand and I decided to institute something we call “date night”. I know some of you are reading that and wondering why the hell a childless, petless, gardenless (I threw gardens in there because they sound like a lot of work) married couple would need a date night.

Or, in the words of my dear friend Sarah …

“Screw you. You don’t have kids. Every night is date night.”

(It was said with love, I swear.)

But after Rand worked entirely through our Ireland trip (which was supposed to have been a vacation for my perpetually stressed-out husband), I gently voiced my displeasure to him about the toll his professional life was taking on his health.

It might have sounded a lot like screaming and crying and sobs of “You don’t even have time to go to the d-d-doctor,” but that was me gently voicing my displeasure.

So, more as a means to give his poor, overworked brain and body a break than anything else, Rand has set aside one weeknight where he doesn’t do any work after 7 pm.

What kind of madman regularly works after 7pm, anyway? I give you exhibit A:

The same sort of madman who thinks you can learn to drive stick-shift while watching YouTube videos. For the record: you cannot.

-

On a regular evening, Rand usually comes home,  has dinner with me, and we’ll hang out for a bit (or not, depending on how busy he is), after which he’ll go upstairs and proceed to toil on his computer until the wee hours of the morning. Then he wakes up, goes to work, and does it all again. Every day. Weekends, too. He doesn’t get much sleep, if he gets a cold it will last for weeks, and his back is constantly bugging him.

So now that we have date night, we’ll have dinner, sit around lazily in front of the TV, and go to bed at a shockingly reasonable hour. I suspect it’s the opposite of most other people’s date nights, where they stay out late, have a few cocktails, and feed each other dainty bites of fancy desserts.

Instead, we get to act like The Golden Girls: we’ll put on pjs, complain about how cold it is, or that the TV is too noisy. Then we’ll eat an entire pan of brownies (cheesecake is overrated) while insisting that 9:30pm is an acceptable bedtime.

It’s really great. Or, theoretically it is. Because since we’ve started it, “date night” has become “violently ill” night.

On our first date night, we were so excited about the free time we had together (for, as you might recall, we are still huge dorks for each other) that we decided to go out to a semi-fancy dinner at a local restaurant we both love … and proceeded to get food poisoning. The evening was spent on the couch, curled up over our stomachs and sweating, while periodically disappearing to the bathroom for long stretches.

We’d occasionally hypothesize, through our cramping, what it might have been.

“Was it the appetizer?”

“I don’t know. Maybe the pasta?”

“How could it have been the pasta?”

“I don’t know. Possibly the desser-”

“DON’T YOU DARE BLAME THE DESSERT.”

Romantic, no? We swore the next week would be better.

It was not. I was hit with a vicious cold (that I initially thought was the flu), and spent it on the couch, huddled under blankets, shivering, while trying to eat ramen. Rand did not fare much better: his back was killing him, and so he spent much of the night lying on the floor, twitching. In hindsight, we looked like two addicts being weaned.

Oh, date night! Will your gifts never cease?

No, apparently not.

Last night was the date night to end them all. (No, seriously. I’m strongly considering suspending date night after yesterday, because if trends continue, one of us is going to end up in the ER).

I had been nursing a headache that had started the night before, and as the 7 o’clock hour was nearing, I decided I needed to knock that sucker out of the park. No way I was going to spend a third consecutive date night sick. So I dug through the medicine cabinet and found my uber-strong post-surgery headache meds. My doc had mentioned that I could take them in the event of a stubborn headache. Sure, they made me a bit loopy, but that was fine. I could handle being loopy. I could not handle a two-day long migraine.

So I took one – One! Half the recommended dosage – and figured I’d be fine. And for twenty minutes or so, I was. Then, halfway through dinner, I politely informed my husband that I might be falling ill.

“Good sir, I do believe I might barf,” I said, delicately wiping my mouth.

And we retired to the couch, where I lay down in hopes the room would stop spinning. It did not. Apparently I still had so much stuff in my system after my surgery, I was able to somehow stave off the nausea the pills normally induce. But not so this time. This time was date night.

So I spent the evening emptying out the contents of my stomach until there was nothing left, after which I was merely dry heaving into the toilet bowl, my head gently nestled against the seat.

“Baby, you okay?” Rand asked from the doorway of the bathroom.

“Kill me,” I whispered. “Kill me now.”

He laughed. Then he did the dishes, and helped me up to bed.

And as I closed my eyes to the wave of nausea that was once again about to hit me, only one thought entered my head …

Date night is trying to kill me.