I Scream

I am still feeling like death warmed over. I'm on week three now. The antibiotics helped clear Erik's sinuses of the greenish gook bubbling from his nostrils, but he is still not quite right. At the moment, Brian is in bed napping, and I have already passed out on the couch once today in front of the television. I can only do so much around the house before I have to sit or lie down. I explained this to Brian, and he suggested that I am turning into a cat. This weekend I pretended I was not sick. While this was a horrible idea, I had a great time.

Friday I took a friend out for his birthday. We visited an expensive little Hawaiian style bar and grill, where we drank water out of porcelain glasses shaped like angry tikis and my drinks came with bright pink orchids floating on top. Our dinner was wonderful and fabulously seasoned, but the people watching was even better. We sat next to a local physician who dined with a large family and seemed to have a cellular phone permanently glued to his ear. He talked loudly, alternating between English and Spanish, and we rolled our eyes. After this continued for our entire meal, both of us wanted to leap across the table and beat him to death with his phone. We finally paid our bill and left, walking across the street to C*ld St*ne Cr**mery for dessert as the sun set.

I am a low maintenance kind of gal. I drink my coffee black, don't wear much in the way of expensive jewelry, and definitely don't need a lot of attention to thrive. I normally avoid places like C*ld St*ne. Why? The last thing ice cream should be is complicated or trendy. It's a child's dessert, right? Simple. No, this joint is where your ice cream is part of an "experience." It's placed on a frosty granite slab and beaten senseless with two metal spatulas. It's Benihana for ice cream. It's a violent Swedish massage for dairy products. It's...stupid, if you ask me. Heaven forbid you don't order a "mix in," pieces of cookies, candy, or brownies for instance, which are then violently folded into your food with the ridiculous metal implements of death they use. Personally, it makes my stomach turn. The less someone handles my food, the better, if you ask me.

We walked in, and I scanned the walls, which were covered with descriptions of complex specialty concoctions with cutesy names that failed to amuse me whatsoever. I would have had better luck reading Egyptian hieroglyphs by the light of a lantern. My head was already fuzzy with sickness, and I was less than patient to begin with. I finally gave up. The cocky teen with the carefully touseled hair behind the counter then asked what he could make us. I asked for a small butterscotch sundae. If there was a tinkling piano in the corner and we were standing in an old-timey saloon, it would have ceased playing at this point, and the patrons would have whirled around, hands on their holsters.

Okay.

What...the...f*ck?

His eyes widened. He looked at me with slight disgust and parroted what I wanted, only in the form of a sarcastic question, turning his head in the direction of his unfortunate coworker for her reaction. She just smiled. I confirmed that was what I indeed wanted, and he smugly reported that they did not have butterscotch topping, looking quite satisfied with himself.

Touche, my good man. Touche.

He then took a snotty tone and asked me if I had ever visited their restaurant before, insinuating loudly that I was a rookie in this very sophisticated establishment. I explained that I had indeed, that I still wanted a sundae, and that caramel would be just fine. I looked up at my very tall, burly companion, and I saw his lips begin to blanch as they pressed together into a thin line before sinking out of sight into his goatee. The young man behind the counter refused to help me at this point, passing the buck to the girl who was unlucky enough to work at his side. She politely inquired if I wanted French vanilla ice cream, and I gave her my approval. She then sheepishly offered me whipped cream and nuts, and I declined. I told her she could put a cherry on it if she wanted, which she did.

This is why elderly people must feel as if the world has gone mad. I am sure of it. Are we all so bored that we need to be entertained while we order freaking dessert? Really. The sundae was delicious, however, and after my friend made a call the next day to report how I had been treated, I apparently have free ice cream coming. And rightly so. I will be sure to go to that particular restaurant and ask for Mark.

However, I refuse to let him touch what I order with his steely knives.

Fun Down Under

Brian and I planned to watch the OSU bowl game at my favorite local brewery last night. My folks came over to watch Erik, and we headed downtown through a chilly evening with snow intermittently spitting from the sky. We reached the popular hotel and pub, a quaint compound of buildings that was once our town's Catholic grade school, and headed for the building in which there is a giant movie screen, a fleet of comfortable, chunky living room furniture, and a full menu to enjoy. Unfortunately, the place was packed. After one tour around the large room, we saw that the mismatched armchairs and loveseats that did not contain football fans were draped with coats and scarves, indicating they were already occupied, so we left.

We drove through the crowded holiday mess downtown and hit the parkway before deciding to choose between one of two places: An unpopular Mexican restaurant lounge where we could easily commandeer the television remote or the Outback Steakhouse, a crowded choice on a Friday night but a place that houses a gigantic bar and at least two televisions. Going home was NOT an option. We drove to the Outback and found fairly comfy bar stools (I reminded myself that I am much less comfortable actually attending a game and having to sit on cement bleachers) and ordered cocktails, lobster/crab cakes, and grilled shrimp. The people watching was simply outstanding. I found myself more enthusiastic about that than the actual game. Across the bar sat three men in strange, flat-brimmed hats, looking like the Three Amigos. One gentleman ordered a Coors Light with a strange hillbilly twang that would have made Garth Brooks proud. Brian and I decided we found ourselves confused by their attire. I commented that the flat brim of each hat looked quite aerodynamic, and I made a soft whooshing sound when one passed by on his way to the restroom. A petite thing with a rounded bubble of blond hair sat on the stool to my right and occasionally sent items from her plate back to the kitchen. Since I am not normally much for a slab of bloody meat, and the overenthusiastic jumble of spices the restaurant rolls their food in tends to cause heart palpitations and night sweats in me, I very wisely chose the grilled chicken and vegetables. Brian chose steak, a grainy, bloody plank of fat-rimmed beef accompanied by some admittedly tasty french fries. We ate our dinners bathed in the bright light of neon kangaroos.

I thought a lot about the fact that most Americans, including myself, are horribly ignorant about other countries and the people who live in them. I also thought about how sad it was that the place innocently tends to nurture the assumption that Australians are all unusually friendly country folk who drink Fosters all day, talk funny, raise cows, and throw boomerangs in their spare time. Ironically, most of the food offered at The Outback is Creole/American, anyway, with little to no Australian influence that I could detect. I have learned much about the world in the last three years by communicating with many people in different countries. I now know for a fact that there are many people in Australia who have children who look an awful lot like my own son. I also know that these families have the same joys and heartbreak I do. They are some of the nicest people I have ever met, and they are a lot like me, no matter where they might live. Amazingly, I felt a little homesick for the people and places I have never seen.

I have learned that Williams syndrome is everywhere. Thankfully, so is Fosters. :)

We watched OSU fight its way to victory in a less than attractive manner, and in the fourth quarter we ordered coffee and a monstrous chocolate sundae with two spoons. The family dinner crowd was replaced by younger patrons, mostly in pairs, and we soon gathered our things and drove home, where a very excited boy bounced up and down on his mattress in his room and giggled, content as could be.

Little Things

She drew her legs up to her chest and firmly embraced her knees as she sat on the porch. The sharp sound of crickets began to rise from the grass--a pleasant sound that slowly gained momentum and threatened to become abrasive to her ears. As the sun crept lower in the smoky sky and cast grapefruit-colored light across the desert, she suddenly felt like she was drowning but was too tired to fight the sensation or talk herself out of the rising panic in her chest. Exhaustion had soaked into each and every bone, deep under a burning layer of her aching muscles. It took effort at this point to move at all.

The dinner she had once again gathered ingredients for and poured herself into preparing for her son sat untouched in its yellow plastic bowl at the bottom of the kitchen sink, mixing with warm tap water and gradually becoming a cloudy soup of garbage. They had instead filled their son's growling stomach full of random bits and pieces they had found in the kitchen without much thought at all. Tears had threatened to spill from her eyes when he refused to place any of the food she had prepared in his mouth. It had been months since he had eaten much of anything she had prepared for dinner. The cheese quesadilla she fixed for him earlier for lunch was lying in a rejected, hardening ruin at the bottom of the kitchen trash can. She remembered that when her son was born, her breast milk had transformed into battery acid in his tiny throat, causing him to yowl in agony and develop burns on his chin. He had not been able to consume that, either.

When you are in agony, the little things bring you to your knees.

The top arch of the sun finally sank behind the dark wall of mountains, and she drew in a deep, greedy breath of evening air, clearing her head again. The crickets were practically screaming now, and her head felt like it was going to explode like a rotten pumpkin. She rose from her chair and went inside to lie on the bed to await dark, numbing waves of sleep and the hope of one more morning. To her, awakening to a brand new day was like opening a Christmas gift. Every day.

When you are in agony, the little things keep you going.

Drive Through Giggles

Yesterday was an amazing day. The sun was shining, and the mountains gleamed. The only time I put on a coat was early in the day when Erik and I ventured outside. I sat on the front porch to dry my hair in the sun and enjoyed my coffee while I blew sparkling bubbles for Erik.

After work, Brian and I decided that we would make a rare, admittedly naughty after-dinner run to Dairy Queen for Blizzards. The three of us piled into Brian's truck and enjoyed the orange glow of the sunset above the mountains on our drive. This extra hour of daylight means I no longer have to miss this beautiful sight while I sit in my office working.

The drive-through was clogged with cars filled with people with the same idea. We craned our necks to read the sign and decide what we would choose. Brian suddenly looked at me with a hint of panic in his eyes and announced, "My window doesn't roll down!" You see, it has been at least a year since Brian's window has operated correctly in his truck for some mysterious reason. It is quite obvious to me that men have a different set of priorities than women. I consider myself a completely sane, middle-of-the-road feminist, but it is pretty darn apparent to me that no matter how you slice it, men and women are entirely different in a thousand different ways, this one being a prime example. In the past year I have overheard him mumble something about borrowing some sort of special wrench from the neighbor, but nothing ever seemed to come of it. Understandably, he had much bigger fish to fry, and this little annoyance was soon forgotten. The last year has been a little difficult, to say the least.

Brian drives a double cab, four-door Dodge pickup truck. We purchased it after Erik was born because it seemed to be a safer family vehicle to drive than my tiny Toyota pickup ever was. To my complete amusement, when we pulled up in front of the drive-through speaker, Brian quickly reclined his seat so that the top of his head was just at the level of the window behind him. He then began confidently shouting his order from the region of the back seat. Erik looked down at his father, who was suddenly lying beside him, with a completely blank, slack-jawed expression. That did it. I burst into a uncontrollable giggle fit, which quickly spread to Brian, and he had to fight to contain himself long enough to get our order out. I was curious to see how he would pay for our order and retrieve our food. I was disappointed to see that he did not pay using that same method but drove a little past the window and simply opened his door. We drove home before our treats melted, and Erik was pleasantly surprised to find this bizarre oddysey yielded a little bowl of Oreo ice cream for him to savor.

There are many things in life that make it worth living. I have to say that, in my opinion, laughter is as close to heaven as we get at this point. Equally delicious is hearing my husband's rare giggles. I love that. At the risk of embarassing my very stoic, serious, professional, normally very dignified husband, which was certainly not my intention, I had to share this story.

Deep Fried Country Fun

Before you say anything, I am fully aware it's nearly three in the morning. I have been fighting an unenthusiastic but persistent migraine curled up deep behind my left eye since yesterday, and it seems that a lot of the medications I have tried contain caffeine. I now have a headache and am completely awake. Between that and the snoring coming from my husband downstairs, I was forced to give up. I even tried to relax on the couch, but it just made me more frustrated.

The good news is that despite feeling like a steaming bowl of Gravy Train, I enjoyed yesterday immensely. I worked out in the morning, which was undoubtedly a mistake, and then spent a lot of the day on the couch watching crime shows while Erik slept. Erik and I did get a nice session of Play Doh time in at the kitchen table, and he spent a lot of time outside with his father. It was nearly 70 degrees yesterday. In the afternoon, I got up, did my hair and makeup, and painted my fingernails to prepare for a birthday barbecue for one of Brian's coworkers. The people at this party rarely see me, as their functions usually involve football games out of town or parties in the evening and I usually am home caring for Erik. I confess I am also slightly allergic to social functions, being on the pathologically shy side. I had to force myself to go to this event, but I imagine that Brian's friends are questioning if I exist at all at this point and I decided to make an appearance.

We have passed this particular house many times on our way over the mountains, as it is on the highway. It's a newer, modest home nestled in the sage and grass among a seemingly haphazardly placed mix of older manufactured homes and newer ranch-style homes with the mountains looming nearby. We definitely enjoy the view of the mountains from our back porch, but the view from this place was spectacular. I alleviated my jealousy by telling Brian we are due for a volcanic eruption any day now and that I could sleep more soundly knowing we are further away from any potentially deadly, suffocating blankets of scalding ash falling from the sky in such an event (there's a bulge in the earth nearby that is 100 square miles and grows 1.4 inches a year that is thought to be caused by a one-mile wide, 65-foot deep molten pool of magma). I'm still jealous. I'm usually too busy backseat driving on our way by to truly appreciate how gorgeous it is on that stretch of road. I noticed the mountains gleamed all day long like a row of giant incisors in the painfully bright sunshine.

At the house, I unloaded Erik and his paraphernalia from the truck, and he immediately started running towards two ATVs parked in the front yard. He ran his hands over the tires and expressed his amazement with his body language and comments (Tires! Wheels!). Once we detached him from the knobby tires, we entered the home, greeted people in the kitchen, and walked through the back door into a generous back yard, where there seemed like there were a thousand kids at play, crawling up into a playhouse equipped with a slide. I found a seat at a picnic table by a man I recognized from poker night at our house and chatted with him while Erik was content sitting in my lap watching the kids play. Several times I put him down to explore, but he came right back to me. As soon as he would get the courage to wander a few feet away, a child would screech, and he would attach himself to me again. Once my own shyness began to fade, I began to enjoy the group of friendly partygoers. My favorite, though, was Jamie, the wife of one of Brian's coworkers. She had met me once and only vaguely remembered me but sat down next to me like I was an old friend. I don't know heaps about her, but I do know she is some sort of engineer. She formerly worked on a nuclear submarine. She mentioned something about drawing up vectors and threatened to give a lecture on heat transfer as the boys lowered the massive rump of a turkey into a deep fat fryer much too close to the home's siding for my comfort. Her husband, also completely adorable and equally brilliant, invited Erik to sit on a porch-type swing in a log frame between him and another partygoer. Erik actually took his suggestion and wandered over, where the guys plucked him up and placed him between them. He sat there happy as could be for quite some time. I enjoy watching adults marvel at how friendly he is. He's great at parties!

Soon the heavy lid of the barbecue was opened, revealing a mountain of glistening ribs. We loaded our plates and began eating dinner. Erik would only eat potato chips and the granola bar I brought along. He spat everything else out into his hand. The turkey soon emerged from its hot Crisco bath. I admit that I was excited about that, as I had never tasted a deep fried turkey (delicious). Erik somehow knew there would be cake after dinner. He apparently heard someone mention that particular word with his incredible hearing. He sat on my lap, saying, "Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake, cake..." Sure enough, we were called in to sing happy birthday and watch sparklers anchored in chocolate frosting sputter to life and do their thing. Jamie carved out a generous piece of cake and a scoop of vanilla ice cream for me and Erik, and we devoured it as sun sunk behind the mountains and the air began to chill. It wasn't long before we heard the rude, farty roar of the ATVs firing up, and Erik expressed extreme interest in them, noise and all. In fact, Brian and Erik both stood very close to one as it was repeatedly revved up for Erik. Instead of rocking back and forth like he usually does, he only trembled like an excited poodle and bounced up and down, saying, "Again!" and "Quads!" The expression on his face made me laugh out loud. He was excited, terrified, and euphoric all at the same time. We watched the adults take the kids on dusty rides before we called it an evening, loaded up into the truck, and began the drive home.

If I had felt more like myself, it would have been a perfect day. As it turns out, it was close enough for me.