I wish I had a better title, but all I can think is, "UGH!"

This is my passenger side blinker. As you can see, there is a gaping hole where there should be a continuous, unshattered piece of plastic. I wouldn't have noticed it if I hadn't popped the trunk to look for the body my gym bag.

I have concluded that this likely happened in Federal Way when I was visiting my brother and his family. That was the last time I ever looked at the trunk. I didn't hit anything. I didn't back into anything. I didn't press my mammoth body into the side until I could hear it crack under the pressure.

Granted, it could be worse, like graffitti that looks like butts or a mattress super-soaked by meddling kids. The blinker and brake light still function so this is really a cosmetic problem.

And I'm sure the bill I'll receive to get this fixed won't be pretty, either.

so does that mean I'm it?

So yesterday Nathan and I spent the morning trolling through West Seattle's various yard sales. When these domestic dealings are successful and I come away with awesome finds, it's an exhilarating experience that boosts my cheap-loving ego. When they're not as fruitful and the space is filled with rusty bundt pans and frayed and pilled Strawberry Shortcake blankets, a part of me dies. The part that could have been doing something of great social and political import, like watching the A&E channel.

And this excursion around the 'hood took about an hour and a half, which was enough time for this to happen:



So can I get an internet witness that it sucks like a vacuum to arrive at our brand-new home and find that someone had taken a sharpie to the side of it? I could handle the mattress debacle, especially since I knew the culprit and I was satisfied with how it was handled. But this.



Yes, it can be painted over but that's going to take time and money and any effort on my part would totally counter the work I'm doing for my political sect: the Poor and Lazy Party. And worse yet, this isn't art. If they were going to do it anyway, why didn't they knock and ask us for our input? I could have said, "Write something with 'Nathan' in it," or "How about one of those directional signs that tell me how many miles it is from here to Saipan or England?"

But what they did instead was draw some acid-trip math equation, some circles that look like butts and initials.

If he/she/they had been trying to mark their territory, they could have just peed around the perimeter. That's what animals do, right? If I had come home to a pee moat, I would have been esctatic that the real owner was here and was going to take over our mortgage!



And stars? Give me a break! At least put up a unicorn or liger or something with rainbows. But stars? This belongs on the front of a Trapper Keeper, not my garage.

Our neighbors called the police since they were tagged, too, though not to the same extent. And what did the police do? Shelve four murder cases, flip on the flashing cherries and zoom right over, of course! Actually, four hours later when my neighbor along with two cops knocked on the door, I was holding Nathan whom I had just fed his tomato sauce and pasta dinner.

"Sorry it took so long to answer. I was trying to put in the baby gates."

"Oh I can see why," one cop said.

I realized then what he must have seen: a toddler with a scrape on his face (thanks for not being more cushy, sidewalk!) and shirt with bright red stains on it. Nice job, Mona. Invite the cops over to witness the child you've beaten and bloodied. Why don't you fess up to the iPod you listen to in your car because you're too cheap to get your broken stereo replaced! The cops will love how you talk into your earbud wire like it's an actual phone!

The cops did take our information and also took some pictures. They said they didn't think it was gang-related, (Unless we're being attacked by the Lollipop Guild!) and pretty much chalked it up to what happens when you live in a busy district, which is what I had expected they were going to say.

One time I was attending a conference in Chicago with some female co-workers and we had gotten so hopelessly lost at night that we pulled into a 7-11 to ask a cop for directions. He was puzzled that we were in that shady neighborhood because we shouldn't have been there so late. In addition to telling us that it was okay to run any red lights if we felt unsafe, he also gave us a police escort to the freeway.

If I had been offered a police escort for the next few days, I think I wouldn't be as upset about the damages. Because arriving with the cops at Target is almost as good as a limo, right?

Relay for Strife

Today as I walked into work, I noticed a woman a few yards ahead collecting donations for Relay For Life. She donned the full-throttle anti-cancer regalia--shirt, cap and flair--though I'm not sure what pro-cancer regalia would be, maybe a big tumor, smoking a cigarette and wearing a shirt reading "ALL UR ORGANZ R BELONG TO US"?

As I neared her, I entered the zone where the petitioner has to scope out potential donations or signatures and make the move. Our eyes met and I wasn't sure if I could really say, "No, I'm in a hurry," because by saying I'm too busy for cancer is just asking for a huge cheek carbuncle to grow and stretch my facial features so much that I'll have the profile of the Jack in the Box guy. But before I could mumble an excuse, she gave me the nano-second size up and turned around like I wasn't even there.

Dissed! Again! Then I realized why she didn't want to ask me for a donation. She saw me and figured, she's too fat. How could she even walk in the Relay for Life when just thinking about walking makes her tired. She probably has to iron her clothes on a hot boat.

But am I really too fat to help fight against cancer?

I'll probably have to get signatures for my own cause: Race for a Cured Ham.

big fat lie

I once dated a pathological liar and for years after we broke up, I was pissed at the time I wasted with a guy who claimed to be a quasi-famous Northwest artist, a college graduate and also promised me a website (which never came into fruition). But maybe I should have focused my energies on learning about lying instead of wishing I had burned his Magic the Gathering card collection.

I have never been a good liar. When I do try to embellish or fabricate scenes to make myself look fabulous, the words feel heavy in my mouth, like I'm spitting out marbles. Yesterday at the gym, Nathan and I were in the women's locker room. We had finished our swimming for the day. The very svelte brunette next to me had an infant carrier at her feet, her baby girl nestled inside.

"Oh you have a new baby!" I said. Any baby who can still fit into an infant carrier and is not an seasoned 27-lb enormity like Nathan is to me still new.

"Yeah..." her voice trailed off. "She's four months now."

"Four months?" This woman looked like she could be my "after" picture. Her legs were so small, in my "Mona was such a fatty" campaign, I'd imagine she would stand in my jeans, her whole body fitting into one of my pant legs and she'd stretch the blanket of denim out to her right.

"You look great!" I added.

"Yeah, it's really hard to lose weight."

"You're telling me." She didn't have to tell me really. I was still standing in my one-piece Costco bathing suit, my flubs weren't exactly incognito.

"It's especially hard when you have two kids. I have another girl at home." She then looked at Nathan and said, "Do you only have one?"

And this was the moment I should have used the year with Mr. Pants on Fire to generate something other than, "Yeah, he's my only one." After she left, all the right answers came to mind like, "Yeah, but he was 27 pounds when he was born," or "No, I have six more at home." Because I tell you, I have an okay body for the mother of one, but a banging set of legs for a mother of seven.

In which Krispy Kreme is exonerated

I haven't been blogging lately because for the past two days I've been playing a game called, "Vomit: Pregnancy or stale doughnut?" It started Saturday morning when I woke up and I found a Krispy Kreme sitting on the counter. I went all Homer Simpson and forgot to ask how long it had been there, thinking only, "I want to eat you, Forbidden Doughnut."

And I didn't hold onto it long, which was the story of all the food I tried to eat this weekend.

Since morning sickness was how I knew I was pregnant the last time, I panicked at the idea of another baby so soon. I was pissed at my cousin-in-law who urged me to have a baby right away. She probably jinxed me or impregnated me with her sperm and egg tango ideas! Could I really be pregnant, I wondered. I guess it's possible, what with my big floppy vagina hanging down to my ankles. I'm surprised I haven't been fertilized by a strong wind yet.

We have enough clothes for another baby. If I had a girl, she'd just have to deal with pictures of her rocking the blue "BOYS LOVE BASEBALL" and "FUTURE QUARTERBACK" gear. You can get away with a girl in blue. I don't think Nathan could handle wearing anything that said, "DADDY'S LITTLE PRINCESS."

It was scary worrying about two babies in diapers (and when Mike fits into his Depends next year, I'll have three babies on my hands!). I told Mike, "I've been throwing up. I can't eat any food. And you know how I love food! This is serious!"

I have never seen anyone run to the drugstore so fast. The last time I ran that quickly was in the first grade. I was half a block away from my house when I had to pee with such fury that if I didn't jet home, I'd have to explain to my mom that it was just a fluke and there was no need for vinyl pants.

Anyway, once I had completed the test, Mike said through the door, "Do I need to get my glasses?"

"No, I'll read it out to you. Let's see. Horizontal line plus vertical line equals, 'We're not pregnant, stupid.'"

I tried to tell all of this to my friend who has no children. It's hard to illustrate that kind of potential chaos of juggling two babies to someone who heard me say, "Yeah it was just the stomach flu, not a doughnut baby, ha ha!" and in turn responded with, "Dude, that sucks," because I know that the whole time I was talking she was really thinking, "Oh you pretty Chitty Bang Bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, we love you. And, in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, what we'll do."

I don't blame her though. I hope I'm over this dreadful thing because I heard that Krispy Kreme has a New York Cheesecake-filled doughnut and who wouldn't want a belly full of that?

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.

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.

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?'"