In which "I walked into a doorknob" might not sound so funny

Why couldn't I be on the flight in that movie Airplane? Sure there would be almost deadly yet comical food poisoning but at least there would also be jive talking and a topless woman streaking across the screen.

But everything that could have gone wrong did, save a deadly nerve agent seeping through the vents. First, my swollen-spider-egg-hatchery eye. It hasn't gone away. In fact, it's to the point that I should just stand behind Mike and say, "I didn't listen the first time." (Okay, no more dropping domestic violence jokes, but come on... nothing for that? Nothing?) And how attractive is flying with an eye and a half? It's like I've become a hag with a permanent wink. I'm the Million Dollar Baby, minus a million dollars.

The flight to Phoenix was fifty minutes late because the plane had to turn back right before take-off due to the cargo door opening. A little delay, they said, turned into almost an hour of one attendant or another stumbling over the "how to calm the passengers" script, telling us we will leave shortly and there should be some time to make our connecting flight. And all I could think about was how the Phoenix rises from the ashes and on this flight we were going straight into the fire.

During the flight, there was forty minutes of turbulence and every Wayne's World vomit euphemism came to mind. The path to the lavatories in the back where blocked by the beverage cart so I walked to the bathroom in the first-class section. The moment I walked up and noticed it was occupied, the bottle-blond attendant snapped at me.

"You'll have to wait back there by the partition," she huffed. Her hair flipped up at me like little middle fingers as I shuffled three feet back to the see-through Iron Curtain where I belonged. Could my coach-ass have been that offensive? It's not like it was Jurassic Park and every heavy low-income stomp I took caused ripples in their cups of red wine. I waited patiently until I could leave the $3 Famous Amos snack pack in a toilet where the first-class shit may not smell like roses, but it's still in a higher income bracket.

We arrived in Phoenix with a sliver of time to make our connecting flight, but even that was cut in half because we had to wait for someone to bring the jetway up. We had no way to get into the terminal because some stupid US Airways idiot didn't do his/her job. It wasn't like my sister who calls me and says she and her four kids will be right over and I have only thirty minutes to hide the silverware and break out the Top Ramen. They had three hours to make sure that people could get off the plane without having to use the emergency exit. When we finally entered the terminal, we rushed to the next gate just as they were saying that all passengers had to be on board.

I walked by the flight attendant, another skanky bottle-blond who hissed at me right as I had just sat down and was scrambling to make Nathan a bottle. She said, "You'll have to put all this overhead," like I was just going to leave the Lamaze toys in the row and in the case of a crash, she'd be the one smacked with a projectile Henry the Hippo.

"Yes, I understand that," I replied, interrupting her and holding up the bottle like she had never seen one before, "BUT I HAVE TO MAKE HIS BOTTLE FIRST." She was treating me like I had lolly-gagged in the terminal, perusing the gossip mags and deciding whether I want to read about celebrity revenge plots or diet schemes till I heard the final boarding call and decided it was time to take my Spongebob Strechpants family on board.

I imagined that if this had been some dive bar instead of US Airways Flight 666, she'd be considered the "hot one" because the other bar patrons would be amputees and war vets and I'm not sure where I'm going with this one other than to say she could have been nicer.

She did teach me something, though. Shortly after we buckled in, a family of five came through, holding Pizza Hut boxes and plastic bags from the gift shop. The stewardess was walking with the mother, saying, "Well, this close to departure, you won't be able to sit together."

The conversation continued down the aisle and the mother said, "Well, if we can't sit together, we'll just find another flight."

There was a pause and the skanky stewardess said, "Is that what you want to do?" and the woman shot back, "Yeah! If you can't get us to sit together, we'll get off the plane right now!"

I'm going to use that line from now on. The next time some woman's about to diss me at Target, I'm going to say, "Is that what you want to do?" and she will cower. If that doesn't work, I'll just tell her that my eye is contagious and I might as well pee down the baby aisle because that territory is mine.

On Flight 666, the little boy next to me used the reading light so he could suck his own toe. He squiggled off his cowboy boot, brought his bare foot to his mouth and sucked on his big toe. He slurped, then looked at me as if I had. no. idea. what was going on three inches over and continued slobbing away. It's okay when Nathan gets all uncouth and eats his own feet because that only helps me change his diaper and I guess it would be okay if you were a fetish performer in the back alleys of Bangkok because, hey, we all need to make a living, but when you're an eight-year-old boy and drops of your spit fly toward me and my son, put the digits down.

His mother was no help, either, especially when I kept waking up because her son's erratic sleep-positions brought his knee to Nathan's head. She just looked at me and Nathan and said, "It's so easy to travel when they're that age!"

Uh, yeah.

But I have to say, it's nice to be back home, in a place where if I need to empty out the contents of my stomach, there's no class divide and no one in my way.

eyes smote shut

Yesterday, my left eye started swelling in the "you should see the other guy" sort of way. I've woken up with bruises before, but that's nothing new. When we co-sleep with Nathan, I'm the one who ends up with scratches or wakes up in the pee spot.

But today, the swelling worsened. I remember reading about a girl who had a boil on her face and one day it opened and tiny spiders raced out because it had been a spider's egg all along. Dear Lord, lease let this just be a sty and not a spider's egg because the day that insects emerge from my body will also be the day that Mike banishes me from the sweet baby-making kingdom forever.

I think this is all karmic retribution because shortly before the puffing began, I had made some biting comment about a Price Is Right contestant. She was wearing a "Bob's Beauty" t-shirt and I thought, "I didn't know Hanes made tube tops." But that's not what I said. When she jumped up, all her epidermic layers giddy and giggly, I said, "Lady, it's Plinko, not a Honeybaked ham."

I think the penance is going to be more severe than tossing out all my mascara. My relationship with karma is simple--we just don't see eye to eye.

Ah, good times

2006 has been a sweet and shattering year for me. In the grand tradition of end-of-the-year lists, here's my favorite posts which coincidentally enough are the same ones that make my mother pray for me. If she asks, this blog is really an online forum for devout Catholics. Okay?

In an interminable and in no real order sort of way:

Mona's guide to football

"Sir, this is not cutting the yellow wire. This is your son. I've done all of that, with one hand and a boob hanging out. So there."

"I hope my cervix doesn't have to do that."




"...She said, "There, doesn't it feel softer?" Yeah, like my fist is softer than my knee..."

"You know Mona, you have to be very strict with your panty. You can't just leave it lying around."



"what they say about fatty-fatties and two-by-fours"

"So today I had a long talk with my last name. We took a walk on Alki and we laughed over memories, like how many times I've received credit card applications in Spanish..."

"I was too busy hating myself for wearing ridiculous, impratical, come-hither heels and praying that I would. not. fall. in front of 8,000 screaming lesbians..."

Futile positions to induce labor



"She went all Adam Smith on me, sticking her invisible hand to my face, saying, 'Talk to this!'"

"The Tell-Tale Diaper Bag"



"I don't remember the book of "I'm Better Than You" being in the Bible."



"...I want the largest kotex you can find... And I don't want anything with a frou-frou name like Serenity. I need something solid like Fort Knox. Do they sell Fort Knox?"



...the cashier can scan the receipt and announce, "You've saved forty dollars," and I can say with much hand gestures and sports-arena-level enthusiasm, "You're damn right I saved forty dollars! Who's taking the Safeway now, sucka?



"I bet you can't run up to that truck, punch the guy inside and run back without getting hurt..."

I know more about what's going on in Walnut Grove than what's happening in Seattle.

Here's a list of acts of brotherly love which I never reciprocated



This morning she vetoed my sweater because it's too tight. Of course it's too tight. I'm 38 weeks pregnant. Everything is too tight. You know what isn't too tight? Bedsheets.

"...crazy people have phenomenal memories, but it's about the cats they lost at the taxidermist and scratch tickets that were one number or coconut off from winning the big one..."



"I didn't marry my husband for a passport. I married him so I could get his 2003 Nissan Altima which I've already named 'The Silver Bullet.' Duh."

"At first, I thought, 'Naton?' But it makes sense because Nathan is half-white, half-rastafari."

"GAH!"

is what I said after reading this article on bloggers by Rebekah Schilperoort at the West Seattle Herald.

In case my sister or mother read the article and complain that I didn't pimp Saipan enough (or that I didn't use my Chamorro maiden name), here you go familia: SAIPAN SAIPAN SAIPAN.



If you're in WS, could you pick me up a copy of the paper? I can't leave my spot at the dinner table right now.

And here's a picture of my boss. I'm not sure if he's pining for the dog or the case of bud light.



Edit: Angelo pointed out that a little math could calculate my age, but Rebekah made me a year older. That is my fault, though. I've never been good with numbers, even my own. This is ironic because one of my biggest flaws is also a math term: A-D-D.

In which "I don't know what you're talking about" is my only line of defense

Here's a surefire way to embarrass yourself in front of the in-laws, especially those who bestowed beautiful gifts upon your son, spent about a grand on an elaborate party and surprised you with a mini-wedding reception, complete with a small wedding cake: experiment with your Crown Royale to Diet Coke ratio.

I am typically a happy drunk and once Nathan was put to sleep, I entered a level of nirvana most people have to meditate years to achieve. All it took was a fifth of whiskey.

The kicker is that my camera battery died during the baptism, so I'll have to ask people to email me the photos and during those conversations, I'm sure someone will say, "Um, Mona, did you know you kept screaming, 'I love Charles Dickens!' and 'Rock on, late Victorian literature!" or "I didn't know you could put your feet behind your ears like that. No wonder your labor was so easy!"

I am also trying to figure out whether Nathan's borrowed Baby Einstein exersaucer is saying "rocker" or "vodka." Maybe it is the latter and I drank so much that my hangover makes me hear things.

Nathan Gone Wild

Dear Midwest: there is no "r" in Washington

Once Mike and I had shuffled through the frenetic throngs of crying kids and oblivious business travelers, we stood at the gate counter to get our seat request. A woman wearing distressed jeans and toting an oversized Prada bag walked in front of me while I was checking on Nathan. When I turned and found Miss Hands-on-Hips blocking my view, I immediately said to Mike, "Did this bitch just walk in front of me? She did!"

I fantasized about surreptiously defacing her bag with a mini-Sharpie and transforming it into a "Prado," spitting on her hair, or vexing her with an incurable case of ass-itch.

But instead of executing any revenge plot or politely tapping her on the shoulder and saying, "My good woman, surely you jest!" I waited until she turned back toward my hissing so I could give her an Oscar-worthy eye roll. Ha! I showed you with my passive-agressive ocular reflexes! I gave you a "whuteva!" with my eyes! If this had been seventh grade, her name would have been all over the bathroom stalls and there would be serious grapevine discussion on the severity of her B.O.

On the flight, Nathan did not cry at all. He was mesmerized by the two-year-old boy across the aisle who shrilled like a girl and jumped on his mom's lap so he could get a tight hair grip on the guy who sat in front. I felt like I had joined some special club called, "That Is Not My Baby Crying." And as a member of TINMBC, we would wear berets and pat ourselves on the back and take turns kicking out moms and dads whose babies broke the first rule: no effing crying. I'm sure I'd be the first one dethroned.



I wanted to nurse Nathan to protect his little ears upon take-off, but a combination of our thirty-minute taxing and the boy having no interest in eating left me with one boob in hand, like this was The Omen: Breastfeeding Unleashed and I was frantically shoving a boob into his mouth, saying, "It's all for you, Damien!"



Mike's brother and sister are going to be the godparents and yesterday we met with the priest. Nathan's going to be baptized in the same church Mike and his family attended which is across the street from the house he grew up in. Nathan's going to wear the same baptismal gown that's been used for the past fifty years. These traditions are touching, but the smart ass in me wants to break into Fiddler on the Roof.

After we had gone over the ceremony, my sister-in-law had her gift for her husband blessed. At first I was impressed because I didn't even know you could do that, but then I remembered watching the news back on Saipan and seeing the bishop blessing the fiber optic cable being installed between Saipan and Tinian. And why stop there? Why not hire a priest for a few hours and have him bless everything in your home. I would imagine a Sonicare toothbrush sprinkled with holy water trumps an untouched one.

And now I'm in St. Louis in a house that would cost at least a million dollars in Seattle proper. I can only afford a hovel in Seattle. If I save up, maybe I can afford a hovel with a view. A view of another hovel.

If I spontaneously combust, I won't get through security

Here's my New Year's Resolution: no more air travel unless it's a first-class flight and the person next to me is really interesting or asleep. And no flights in December.

Today has not been a good day, which I hope means my travel will be the polar opposite. I went to the Westwood Post Office with my sister's 70 lb. box o' computer and not only did I have to deal with stupid people standing in front of the door while I tried to wheel the dolly in, no one helped me when I stood there like an idiot hoisting up the behemoth onto the counter scale. Because I have no upper body strength, the box was suspended in mid-air until another postal worker could help me lift. And when the woman at the counter finally saw it, she said, "Sorry, it's oversized. You'll have to break it down or use UPS."

I couldn't use UPS because it was going to SAIPAN. No effing Merry Christmas to you, stupid postal worker who didn't want to take my prepaid postage or reasoning that I already calculated the height-width-volume online and the website didn't say anything about it being oversized.

What's worse is that I cut myself shaving my legs and now I know I'll get stopped by a TSA agent and they'll quarantine me because I look like I have leg herpes. You know it's going to happen.

And someone had better call the waambulance because Nathan became sick today. Of all the hip-hop-until-you-don't-stop times to get sick, why now? Why? Because congested babies on planes are so much better than snakes! Samuel L. Jackson's tagline should've had congested babies instead of mofo-snakes. Why doesn't anyone ever consult me about these things? I have some idears, tell you what.

It's almost 1:30 A.M. and I just finished packing Nathan's things. But my luggage is empty. Maybe I'll add that to the baggage I already have, which is crammed with my dashed dreams of becoming Little Miss CNMI (My eight-year-old heart broke after hearing, "Sorry Mona, but you need all your teeth to compete in this one and your silver caps don't count.") and my failed attempts to lose weight via Carmen Electra's Striptease Aerobics. That venture fizzled after I found out that if you stand on the street you can totally see into my house.

If the neighbors moved here for the view, they're asking for refunds now.

I need positive thoughts, my internet peeps. Wish me luck.

WTF update: I can't find the 4th rechargeable battery I need for my camera. And I need all four to juice them up. Stupid Duracell. It's a battery, not the other half of the golden amulet. I just want to take pictures, not open the gate to Mordor.

I haven't matured much

Yesterday, I ran into an old classmate at Target. She had just said yes to marrying her boyfriend of three years and was rosy with the newly-engaged glow. When she flashed me her 3-carat diamond ring, I took her bling-blinged-fist and shoved it into the air, yelling, "WONDERTWIN POWERS ACTIVATE!"

The conversation didn't last much longer.

If I see a reason to summon the forces of the Justice League in Target's baby section, I'll do it. It's not a shocker that I have a big mouth and crap comes out that I just can't help. It's like when you sneeze really hard and pee a little. You can't stop that.

--

Mike has a pair of black reading glasses I am convinced are designed for a woman. Here are my reasons: the rhinestones in the corner, the cat-eye shape, the menopausal vibe I get whenever I see it. I would take a picture, but I can't find the glasses. I'd have to ask him for it and I can't think of a reason other than to get photographic evidence that he cross-dresses his eyes.

--

While I am in St. Louis, I will be dreaming of my recently acquired box of awesome: a "vintage" 16-bit Sega Genesis game console. I don't care for all the wii and xbox frenzy. What I want is to finally master Mortal Kombat. Sonya and I have some finishing to do. Best part is, I got this for free! Free! Free stuff is greater than cheap stuff. Do you need a visual? Well, here is it is, on the house: free > cheap.



Welcome back into my life, 1992. You've been missed.

powerful!

We have power!

I cannot tell you what a relief it is not to see my own breath in the shower. Mike's fish survived, but have been a bit limp since the outage. I think they're brain-dead, which wouldn't be so bad because my cats are already autistic. All we need are those mice that grow human ears on their backs and we'd be set.

One bright spot in all of this was the Christmas card we received from my mother. It had $100 inside and was addressed to, "Mike, Mona and Naton." At first, I thought, "Naton?" But it makes sense because Nathan is half-white, half-rastafari.

And now that the power's back on and I can feel my toes again, Mike wants me to help in cleaning the entire house before we go to St. Louis. Mike's secret fantasy is that I turn into some white gloved clean freak. But it's not possible. Growing up, my mom always cleaned my room and when she didn't, I slept on the floor because my bed was covered with books. So the part of the brain the develops a capacity for order and cleanliness is overrun by the other part that makes me love Gilmore Girls and enforces my attention deficit disorder and never lets me complete anyth-LET'S EAT JUNIOR MINTS.

I know how hot and bothered Mike gets when he comes home and finds me scrubbing the kitchen floor. Once he told me I didn't need to do that, but I said, "Of course I have to get on my knees! It's the only way to get the place clean!" His eyes glazed over at me with a look I've only seen on geeks opening up limited-edition boxes of Magic the Gathering cards. But here's my secret: most times, I just wait until I hear his car, then I scurry to find a rag and the bottle of Simple Green.

That is something I will probably keep out of the Christmas card.

powerless

I am writing this at my husband's work, charging up the laptop and cell phone whilst blogging. I am one of the 533,000 people in Seattle still without power. The neighbors a few blocks down have power, enough to juice up their five-foot Christmas Around The World globe.

Some people have said stupid things like, "It's just like camping!" or "I know how the homeless people feel!" The only time I've ever slept outdoors was when I fell asleep in my car during finals week because I was too tired to make it up the steps. And this is nothing like that because I had a warm home welcoming me in.

Mike was ready to fire up the bbq and make a 36-egg omelette, but it was time to toss it out along with cheese, milk and frozen food (you're in a better place now, organic blueberries). All this waste is breaking my heart.

Mike turned to me last night and said, "I don't know what's crazier, this storm or you asking, 'Is it the End Times?'"

Here's something you should know

I don't know how to exit a conversation gracefully, especially if it's with a crazy person. I lack whatever prowess that allows someone to leave a situation without sounding like a jerkface. And it's no surprise, I always sound like a jerkface.

So when neighbor A. asked me to check up on neighbor B. because she had just had surgery and none of her children had visited her, I went over with some delusion that it would be like Fried Green Tomatoes and this woman would appreciate my company. When I arrived, that little daydream was shattered. There was no southern charm or a tale about a whistle-stop cafe in the '20s. I was stuck in an LSD trip and it wasn't mine.

You know those evolution illustrations that show how man transformed from a monkey into a human? I wish there was one for crazy people, only it showed how man changed from a functioning, sane human being into that guy who said that if I paid him $10 he would stare into the sun. I think this woman would be right up there, somewhere between the woman at the bus stop who made a mini wall of Jericho with Dollar Store shopping bags and my grandmother, who insisted we pay respects to the mirror because my uncle was somewhere inside.

It happened very quickly, which I've found to be true with most crazy people I encounter. It never happens at a pace at which I'm ready for the next moment. It's never, "Okay, Mona brace yourself," but more like, "Hey Mona [INSERT PSYCHO TALK ABOUT NAM]."

I knocked on the door and I could hear her voice inside telling me to come in. I found her in her bedroom, on her stomach and under layers of blankets with Lifetime flickering on the corner TV. I asked her how she had been doing and she said that it was hard, that she hadn't really eaten at all. Then she told me her big plan to sue. She kicked some of the blankets off and I could see the huge bandages along her spine.

First I thought, "Big girdle panties? Okay, that's age appropriate." But then that mutated into, "I just met you. I am not ready to see your cooch!"

She pointed to a bag of screws that she said came from her back. She alleged that the first surgeon who worked on her years ago left screws in her body and the new surgeon gave her the bag as evidence to help her build her case. And all of this was shocking but then she started on how she had many male friends, her son was a famous rapper, she liked Turkish coffee, her daughter took in homeless children and everyone asks her for money because she's loaded.

She continued with several stories on how much she's doled out thousands to neighbors, even though she said in the same breath that she only gets SSI.

And just when I thought maybe she's not crazy, she's just egocentric (she never asked me about myself, but crazy people never do), she returned to her rant on how she's going to sue and how everyone will ask her for money and she and neighbor A. are so close, she's sure she'll get a plant for Christmas.

She was on her stomach the whole time and she said, referring to her back, "I haven't even seen it!"

She only had a wardrobe mirror on the back of the door and since she was too weak to get up, I offered to take a picture with my camera and she could see it in the viewfinder. In retrospect, what I just said then was so crazy that I should've have been sent off to the looney bin, straight-jacketed with a wallet stuffed into my mouth so I wouldn't eat my own tongue.

Somehow I managed to leave without changing the soaked, bloody bandage like she had asked (double effing ewwww!). I stumbled out with some apology about needing to get back to the babysitter, even though I had originally said Nathan was with my husband, but it doesn't matter because crazy people don't have good memories. On second thought, crazy people have phenomenal memories, but it's about the cats they lost at the taxidermist and scratch tickets that were one number or coconut off from winning the big one.

So the woman calls me last night, asking for the pictures I took. I told her I didn't have them anymore because I deleted them and why would I keep photos of an old woman's back? Yeah, I totally uploaded them to flickr and it was the most interesting photo of the day! Rock on!

"You disposed of the pictures?"

"Yes."

I could hear her mumbling to the other people in the room. "Yeah, she got rid of them! I don't know why!"

She said, "You want to know why I need them? I'm suing them, that's why! I got some infection, Mona. I need you to come on over and take some pictures so I can give them to the lawyer."

"You're suing your doctor?"

"I'm suing the nurses for infecting me! They didn't do their job!"

"Um. Neighbor B., how exactly would you get the pictures to the lawyer?" A lie! I could print them or take the card to Walgreen's. But that would involve me doing something.

"Uh, I don't know. I guess you would have to develop them and I would pay you."

"You could just get a disposable camera and take pictures that way. After all, you'll still have to develop them."

"Oh okay then." She laughed. "I guess I didn't have to call you!"

That's how I exited, stage left. I said no to her because I knew it would be complicated and it would open myself up to a woman who needs more help than I can and am willing to give. And should I feel like a jerkface for protecting myself? I know she's off-kilter, but she's human and healing, talking to herself in that room, beginning each strategy with, "Okay, this is what we're going to do..."

RIP Leslie Harpold

Before the meta world of blogs, when websites were still called that and the internet felt like a novelty, I stumbled upon Hoopla, Leslie Harpold's website (before the domain name was snatched by some girl in Germany). We briefly emailed each other once when she asked if anyone had any copies of a post in his/her cache because she accidentally deleted it and I did. And that little exchange made me feel like the cool kid for so long.

This is sad.

The countdown begins

My in-laws asked me what kind of "Catholic" gift to get Nathan for his baptism. My immediate answer was, "Cash." Really, what is he going to do with candles or a Precious Moments Bible? He can't eat it. I can understand one Bible, but really, the best Catholic gift would be an envelope with a few Benjamins inside. You can't tell me Catholics have never dealt with money.

You know they don't make baptismal gowns for big babies? Nathan's now 25 lbs and there's no way he'll fit into those shrinky-drink 0-3 month deals. I think I'm going to buy a communion dress and shear off the bottom. It's a dress, right? If I get desperate, I'll have to swipe my sister-in-law's fancy lace placemat, secure it onto the boy with a clothespin and it'll be the first baptismal cape. They've never seen that in the Midwest.

--

I'm nervous about seeing my in-laws again. I think it's the flight that's making me worried. But they're all excited to see the baby. I know St. Louis hasn't had that kind of reception since the Pope came through in 1994. And with all the womenfolk doting on Nathan, it'll free up my hands for more productive things, like holding my Lady of Guadalupe flask and getting drunk in the basement.

But I lucked out in the in-law department. The first guy who gave me a ring brought me to meet his family and the aunt who had a lobotomy in the '60's hugged me and hollered, "You're bootiful!" I'll have to remember that when I see the cousin who last time spent the entire conversation speaking three inches from my face.

I am the daughter of Jesus

Last week marked the 13th anniversary of my father's death and I've been thinking how to say it. This could get very sad and uncomfortable. I thought of sharing a poem I wrote about him. It's not terrible and rhyming, but it's maudlin enough to warrant heavy rotation of The Cure, clove smoking and a legal name change to Azrael Abyss.

So no victim poems, deal?

My father's name was Jesus. Some people knew to say hey-soos, but most blurted out the full-on Christ Almighty pronunciation. He was 59.

My memories of my father, the ones before the hospital stays and surgeries and sickness, are the ones I want to share here.

I am very much like him. I inherited his large flat feet. My mother would point at my ham hocks and say, "They're just like your father's! Like irons!" I also inherited his voracious love for reading. I read my Babysitters Club books in the bathroom even if I didn't need to go, just because that was his routine every morning of my life, scouring the paper and drinking his black coffee. He taught me that french fries are tasty when dipped in sweet and sour sauce and that long division is tricky, not impossible.

There are things I have done that I know he would have been proud of, like volunteering for two summers at a bereavement camp for children, graduating class salutatorian in high school (which means more if I don't tell you that there were only seven people in my senior class and four of us shared that title. Thanks indecisive parochial school!) and smarty pants things like Phi Beta Kappa and English Honors. The period in seventh grade when I skipped school and smoked Benson and Hedges with the judge's daughter? I don't think he would have approved.

Once at a beach gathering, we took a walk, hand in hand. As we trudged on, he told me to be careful of the small holes where little crabs made their homes. He said something about the beach, the way it protected for everything and how we had to be apart of that.

When I think of my father, I go back to that moment, to the time when we towered over the sand, powerful enough to care for all the small things that lived beneath our feet.

In which many will unsubscribe

So I'm changing Nathan at my sister's house and my five-year-old nephew comes up and says, "Why is his ching-ching so small?" Only, the sentence is so odd that it booms through the room and all the adults pause, including me. As I'm repeating, "Why is his ching-ching so small?" like I'm begging my sister to save me from explaining to the child what a circumcision is, Mike chimes in, "Because he's half-white!" I feel uncomfortable about coming to my son's defense, but what would Nathan want me to say? No, it's not small, it just retracts, like a poked sea anemone. Nathan's all about marine life! Don't you care about marine life?!? Tangent: ching-ching is Chamorro slang for penis. (So we I giggle when I hear the onomatopoeia for cash: chi-ching!) And FYI, when we say bebe (pronounced beh-beh), we're talking about a lady's vertical taco, not the overpriced clothing store. -- Nathan's Leapfrog Discovery Ball is so low on battery, the lights cut out and the female voice is garbled. There is nothing really to say about that, other than it has become less educational and more like it came out of Satan's workshop. -- I usually refrain from writing about Nathan's bodily functions because it's gross and it isolates the readers who do not have children or don't care to read about what goes on south of the border. But today... I have to tell you, his poop looked like clay and I immediately thought, "If Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze had used this in Ghost, it would be an entirely different movie."

A question from my son

Nathan asks, "Vould you like to touch my monkey? Touch him! Love him! Liebe meine abst-monkey!"

my no-gag reflex: the gift that keeps on giving

At the moms group yesterday, one of the moms asked me what I'm getting Mike for Christmas. My big low-income mouth said, "I don't know!" In my perfect smart-ass world, I would have answered, "Knee-pads," and when they furrowed their brows in confusion, I would add, "They're for me. You know. For slobbing the knob. Get it? GET IT?"

One gift I'm particularly proud of was the birthday present I gave during the hazy dating period. I knew he loved Flannery O'Connor so I asked him slyly what his favorite story was. Taking that information to Ebay, I won the June 1955 copy of Harper's Bazaar with "Good Country People" appearing for the first time in print. Woot, woot!

Mike keeps asking me what I want and I always tell him, "Nothing," which is a cheap way to get him to say that he doesn't want anything either. Reverse psychology's in my budget. So is a guilt trip-vacation to the time he filmed my college graduation and missed my whole on-stage curtsy and instead caught my friend Anna-Beth walking behind me, but I'm saving that for our two-year anniversary.

I also have to buy two $10 gifts for the trip to St. Louis, where my in-laws will entertain themselves with a round of "Rob Your Neighbor," which is also called, "White Elephant," and which is what I call, "This is what white people do for fun."

In addition to the gift frenzy, I'm also worried about traveling with Nathan. Everything will be amplified 30,000 feet in the air--the cries, the poop, the huffs in our direction. In Victorian times, parents would sedate their children with opium before leaving to work. I guess this was before they could handcuff their young to the radiator. Unfortunately, there aren't any quality opium dens around. I only want the best to drug my son! I don't think my insurance covers baby valium. We'll just have to deal.

Here's hoping we don't get thrown off the plane for breast-feeding, Nathan holds all his bowel movements until we've landed, and Mike enjoys tube socks and a gas gift card and I finally find a dress for Nathan's baptism.

What will your holidays look like?

my spoiled rotten baby

Hey moneybags, feeling fancy this Christmas? Why not buy a "Perfectly Plaid Hat & Bootie Set" for $165.83? Check out the rest of my spoiled rotten baby, especially the front page, where my baby models another outfit too rich for his bum.