Mom Flu

Early on, in my blogging days, I wrote a piece about Man Flu. In the past couple of days, I’ve (unfortunately) been inspired to write about another illness – “Mom Flu.” Let me tell ya, it AIN’T pretty. I woke up with my husband that fateful morning, somewhere around 3AM. While preparing his lunch, I started to feel really nauseous. I knew it had nothing to do with handling food in the middle of the freakin’ night. I actually like a good ham sandwich, every now and again, so I wasn’t bothered by the smell or anything of the sort…. but I do object to watching said sandwich dance across the countertop! It certainly made hitting the bread with the queasy… sorry… squeezy mustard a bit like target practice. I diligently kept at it, trying to ignore my stomach, but it clearly had other ideas. It decided to team up with my head. Did you ever play that little game as a child where you had to pat your head and rub your tummy at the same time?? Well, without my permission, someone or something was hitting my head with a brick while simultaneously rubbing my stomach with a floor buffer! I’m sort of stubborn (wait! listen! did you just hear a couple of girls scream, “SORT OF?!?!?!”). Anyway… refusing to acknowledge Ms. Brick and Mr. Floor Buffer, I decided that my whole problem could be resolved by one simple miracle cure: ginger ale. I mean, didn’t Mom, Grandma, and every other female in the family ALWAYS start pouring ginger ale the moment someone so much as sniffled? Thinking it wise to hold on to the edge of the counter… since the damn thing seemed determined to swim right through to the diningroom… I called out to my husband to bring me the soda bottle. Unwisely, he started to question my early morning choice of beverage. Poor soul. After firmly reattaching his head, he not only brought the bottle but got me ice and poured my drink. He must have been in the middle of something when I called because he sure left the room quickly. Taking “tiny sips,” per the Family Females Rule Book, I managed to get the lunch bag packed. As I passed my husband in the hallway, I muttered something about needing to lay down... LIKE RIGHT NOW. If he hadn’t stepped out of my way, I would have blindly walked over him or plunked myself down on the floor. I think I might have said goodbye. Propping myself up on both his pillow and mine, I resurrected my Lamaze breathing techniques, praying to my internal organs to stay put. I’m a Mom. I can’t be sick. I had to get up again in only three hours to wake the girls and get them out the door for school. Blissfully, I slept. Less blissfully, I was awakened by a blinding punch in the stomach. Thinking that was a REALLY horrible thing to do to a sleeping mother, I started to sit up. OH HELL NO. That wasn’t happening. I started to quickly take inventory of what my body had decided to do to me… burning abdomen, throbbing headache, and …hold on! … why in the WORLD was my dresser dancing around like the armoire in “Beauty and the Beast”???? That just couldn’t be good. I lay back down, thinking this ridiculous little production needed to be concluded before 6AM. I’m on a schedule dammit! I lifted my head to focus on the clock radio… CRAP! 5:53AM!!! I had exactly seven minutes to make a full recovery. That seemed reasonable in “Mom time.” Then, the unthinkable happened. I don’t know how I got there but I literally flew to the bathroom with a serious case of what I’ve dubbed “HugorSititis.” If you are unfamiliar with this ailment, you’re one of the lucky ones. HugorSititis is the panic-inducing condition of not knowing whether to get on your knees and hug the porcelain goddess or to sit yourself right down on her head. I grabbed a bottle of Pepto® on the way down and could only hope I had made the right choice. I poured myself a dose of that lovely, disturbingly thick, pink liquid and couldn’t help but wonder if I would be doing just as well with Ipecac Syrup! Taking “tiny sips” (hey, if it keeps the ginger ale down…...) I managed to swallow it all. By this time, six of my seven allotted sick minutes had expired. I was doomed! Running (as best as one can run when your brain thinks your skull makes a NEAT hula hoop) and aiming for the general vicinity of my bed, I called out to the closest daughter that she needed to wake up. “Mom’s really sick and I need your help.” To her credit, she was up so quick you’d have thought someone lit a firecracker under her Winnie the Pooh clad behind. From the pillow, I did the only thing I could do… I became Maniacal Mom! If only I’d had a groovy costume. Looking back on it now, I wish someone had filmed us. We must have looked like Laurel and Hardy… uh… and Hardy. The girls were running in all directions, bumping into each other, trying frantically to keep up with all the orders I was barking. “Eat your cereal!” “Put the dishes in the dishwasher!” “Pull out the food I made for your lunches… you’re going to have to pack your own!” “I NEED TO BE BETTER NOW!” “For heaven’s sake, get washed and dressed!” “Oh! and I need my laptop!” That’s the thing about Mom Flu. Most of us refuse to accept it. Moms don’t know HOW to be sick and we plain don’t have the TIME to be sick. Some aren’t “allowed” to be sick. Others are given 3.4632 hours and then a full recovery – and dinner – must be made. It really depends on the rest of the family. I’m lucky that way - the girls got out the door right on time, lunch bags full and, since I work from home, I was able to drag myself up high enough in bed to see my monitor. When my husband got home from work, he brought cans of chicken soup and heated some up for me. I admit it – I suck at Mom Flu. I’m thankful that my recent episode only lasted about a day and a half. Prior to that, the last one that I can recall was about 8 years ago. I guess I can live with that. Gives me plenty of time to sew me a costume!

Squeaky Beans!

Recently, I started asking people “What makes you shiver?” … and got such enlightened responses as, “You mean like a pee shiver???” Ummmmmm. No. There are the amazing kinds of shivers that hit you when you’re listening to a sad song or when the person you love most in the world looks deep into your eyes and tells you they love you too. Those are nifty. But the ones I was asking about are those quirky little things that make your blood run cold, your scalp tingle, the hair on the back of your neck stand on end… THOSE shivers. My “research” actually began thanks to my brother-in-law. Having invited him and my sister to a family dinner, I wanted to be sure that I served foods that everyone enjoys. So, in a phone call to my sister, I asked if he eats green beans. To which she replied, “Yes – but not squeaky beans.” Beg your pardon? Thinking my cooking skills were perhaps not what I had previously believed, I politely inquired, “What the HELL are squeaky beans?” She laughed and explained that, since our family prefers to steam most of our vegetables, he doesn’t like beans that “squeak” when you bite into them… as lightly steamed beans have a tendency to do. That apparently drives him crazy! After laughing to the point of the aforementioned pee shiver, I decided we’d have broccoli instead. But, truth be told, we ALL have our “cringes.” Can you relate to any of these? - Lots of people said the old standby, nails on a blackboard. I have a different “nail shiver.” When I was growing up, my mother would come into my room after I had gone to bed and put away clean laundry. Unfortunately, she wouldn’t just place the clean items on top of what was in the drawer. She would rearrange everything and, in the process, would scraaaaaaaape her nails, and her wedding ring, along the wood drawer bottom. To this day, I can hear that scraping sound in my head and still want to curl up into a fetal position, plug my ears and go “la la la la la…” - As a teen, Wrigley’s chewing gum was very popular with my friends and classmates. I used to watch people pull the stick of gum from the pack with their teeth. One day I decided to try it … and promptly discovered the “set your teeth on edge” sensation of biting into tin foil! I only have to think of it today and a bolt of “cold” races through me! - My daughter reminded me of the wholly unpleasant reaction of eating a frozen treat of any kind then, accidentally and unexpectedly, biting into the wooden stick… ugh! - The last one on my poll results is, I think, the most universal. Stand outside your house in the early morning hours. Watch your neighbor leave their front door, walk to their car… and promptly start… what IS that?!?!?! DANCING???? Nooooooo… 75-year-old Mr. Smith, across the way, is NOT practicing for a hip-hop dance class. He just walked straight through a huge cobweb. I’ve never yet met a person, in this same situation, who doesn’t (a) do some version of the Hokey Pokey, the Stomp, the Macarena or the Boot Scootin’ Boogie or (b) spend the rest of the day scratching, rubbing, obsessively shaking their arms and legs, checking their hair in the mirror or asking people, “Is there something on my BACK?!?!?” Over the years, I’ve heard (and used) a lot of different names to describe these very human, very uncontrollable reactions: the shivers, shakes, quivers, or even “the heebie jeebies.” Problem is, those terms mean different things to different people. To some, they actually convey fear… anxiety… even illness… and that is all just far too serious for my liking. Henceforth, my reactions to these silly situations have a new name: They are my SQUEAKY BEANS. Every person I’ve said it to nods their head, laughs and knows EXACTLY what I’m talking about.

Channel Surfing

If you’re at all familiar with my writing, you’ve read about my Mom. She passed away in November 2004 and life since then has never been quite the same. Everyone knows that you go on… you just do it differently somehow. Since losing both of my parents, I have to admit that I have wondered a lot about psychics, seers, clairvoyants, mediums… any and all who proclaim to have the ability to communicate with “the other side.” I stop and watch the TV shows, from time to time, and I’m never sure whether to be impressed or to sniff haughtily at the “believers.” Each time, as I change the channel, I realize that a part of me really wants to believe. Then, I remember that most of my parts would be SCARED SENSELESS at seeing, hearing or being contacted in any way by someone who has “crossed over.” Hell, I can’t even watch a scary movie! So, I’d like you to imagine how I felt when, upon returning home from a new friend’s house the other night, my younger daughter told me she had something she had to tell me. Let me preface this by saying that I’m always leery of sending my kids off to the homes of people that I don’t know or have never met. We’ve had some… experiences… with this in the past. For example, Daughter #1 was invited to visit a school friend and spent an entire day being told how she needed to attend church on a regular basis. She was made to sit attentively and listen to the father playing hymns on the piano. She came home, utterly confused, bearing the gift of a rather funky beaded cross. You know what? I have no issues with anyone’s beliefs… just please don’t force them on my child under the guise of inviting her over for fun and pizza! Then, on a lighter note, there was the time that Daughter #2 was invited to spend the night at a house that ended up being so dirty, she wouldn’t even place her toiletries bag on their bathroom counter – not to mention that, when having to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, she nearly had a heart attack when she stepped on something small and FURRY in the hallway. After several minutes of serious, body-shaking heebie-jeebies, she put on the bathroom light and glanced back to see a cat toy on the floor. Well, she tells herself it was a cat toy, anyway. So, given our history, I braced myself for what my daughter had to say. Apparently, at dinner, the topic of discussion had been small dogs. My daughter mentioned that her Grandma had owned a runt-of-the-litter Shih-Tzu that weighed maybe five pounds soaking wet. The conversation continued, uninterrupted, until dinner was over. At that point, my daughter and her friend went off to the girl’s bedroom to play on the computer. While in there, her mother appeared at the door. Here is the conversation that took place: Mother: Who do you know named Helen… or Elaine? My Daughter: Elaine is my Mom. Mother: Oh ok! So then who is Doris? My Daughter (becoming bewildered): Ummm… Doris was my Grandma. Mother: Well, Doris has a message for Elaine. She says to tell her that she is fine and everything is ok. My Daughter (stunned and slightly weirded-out): Ok… ummm… I…. I’ll give her the message. As if this wasn’t sufficiently freaky, the mother returned a little while later, having “read the tarot cards.” She told my daughter that her Grandma was always around the family and “she’s always supportive of everything you do.” Oh – and she said we should pray. Well, not “pray” in the sense that I interpret the word but, basically, speak to Doris since she’s around (I’m sorry but this is taking the motherly “You never call!!” to extremes!). She also said that, by speaking about her Grandma at the dinner table, my daughter “let her in” so the mother could receive her message. ALLLLLLLLLL RIGHTY THEN! Picture me, having gone from comfortably prone to bolt upright on the couch, apparently trying to determine if I could physically open my eyes any wider. I half-expected my daughter to extend her hands to catch my falling eyeballs. WHAT was I supposed to say to this?? Well, the skeptic in me answered first. Naturally. I said, “Has this woman seen your website?” For those of you who don’t know, my daughter recently decided to make it her goal to raise funds for cancer research… and she is doing it in the name of her Grandma. She calls her project “DorisDollars.” So, I figured this mother had seen her website. Then I realized – even if she HAD, my name isn’t on there. Anywhere. I asked, “Has she seen the school newspaper???” because my daughter was interviewed about “DorisDollars” for the current issue. She said, “No Mom… mine was an advanced copy. Everyone else gets them next week.” She proceeded to tell me that she asked her friend about it all and was told, “Oh… don’t worry about it… this happens all the time around here. My mom is a channeler. She even predicted one time that someone was going to die – and they did.” SUPER DUPER! I’ve had some time to think about it, since that initial returning home. As strange as it seems, I do think it’s pretty neat. I mean, what if… just by some small chance… it was true? My Mom, more than anyone, would know that I’d be terrified if she tried to “give me a message” directly! She had a lot of “feelings” and premonitions in her day – and most of them materialized. I always told her to keep them to herself, not because I wasn’t interested, but mostly because I was scared! My mind keeps itself busy processing the present… I’ll deal with the future when it gets to me. So, now, I’m left wondering and waiting and watching over my shoulder. I don’t think I’ll change this channel though… because part of me really wants to believe.

Thanks for the award!

I'd like to take a moment to thank a Blogger neighbor, "Blog of the Day Awards," for their tip of the hat on Sunday, October 1st. I appreciate the award for "Thoughts2Page" very much! A big welcome, as well, to the new readers who are visiting by way of their site -- please pull up a chair and stay awhile! :)