When my husband got Tivo, I winced and then glared and then was passive aggressive for a nice long time. For me, it was just another shiny new gadget that would ultimately get stuck in some orifice of the house and would do nothing to enhance our life. I was wrong, so, so wrong. There are many reasons I was wrong, but the main reason I was wrong has to do with my obscene love of the television show Scrubs.

For the last several years, Scrubs has been my “go to” show. The show itself addressed this phenomenon in one if its episodes. We get attached to the show, the characters and the way it allows us to go somewhere outside of the hectic activity or stress of our own lives for a while. I have used Tivo to its fullest and through the wonder of Tivo, I frequently have no less than 5 episodes a day that just wait for me to watch them in an insomniatic daze.

I have my favorite characters (Elliott and her neuroticism reminds me of me), my favorite lines (when J.D. tells a potential suitor that Elliott is a dude) and my favorite episodes (air banding). I think there are plenty of commentaries out there about the finale, so I won’t add to them other than to say that I think it was superb. It’s exactly what I wanted and the haters can hate. It took the show back to its roots and the die hard fans know that it was the only true way to end the show. I would have liked a little more J.D./Turk interaction, but the thing is that they have moved past that point as characters. As a viewer, I am the one who hasn’t moved past that point.

For us, as viewers, there is a grieving process as our favorite characters go on without us. I think it was keenly felt at the ending of “Friends.” I feel it more now, as these characters were always accessible to me in a way that I never felt that “Friends” were. They were realistic. They had the thoughts I had. Dr. Cox said the things I keep in my head.

From here, we give the characters the privacy to move on with their own fictional lives and we search for something else to fill the void. Or we buy the full series and watch them over and over and over again. Or watch them on Tivo. Thank you, honey, for buying tivo. I wish I could say I will never doubt you again, but we both know that’s not true. Quit buying shiny gadgets. Now that I have Tivo, I’ll never be hungry again. Or something like that.

I admit it.

I like watching my son play Little League ball.

I more than like it.

I may be addicted.

For the last week, it’s been raining cats, dogs, iguanas and banana popsicles where I live. What that means is that my poor little boy has not been able to play his baseball and his poor parents have been missing their socialization time. It’s not something the league advertises; It’s simply a perk of being the parent of a talented little player. You become part of the screaming, yelling, slowly losing their sportsmanlike behavior exhibiting pack of hyenas known as Ball parents.

We’re the ones that make the poor high school Umps wish they’d taken that job at the Baskin Robbins. We love our kids and it’s almost impossible to tone down those Mama Bear instincts. I’m not saying we don’t try, but what you have to remember is that, if our kid is in a sport, chances are that one or both of his or her parents were in a sport. It’s hard to turn off that team spirit aka the “argue button.”

I first realized this was a problem for me when AJ played basketball. Out of nowhere, the words would come flying out of my mouth. “C’mon Ref! How come you didn’t call that?” The refs at the local Y didn’t appreciate that as it’s supposed to be a place motivated by the love of Christ. I was motivated by…look, he was BLIND! Couldn’t he see it was a foul?! You get the picture.

Baseball is much better for me. I played basketball for only a year, but softball for 8. To say I love everything about the sport is an understatement and having AJ play baseball is awesome for both of us because Leon played baseball as well. We don’t care about him winning, we just want him to do his best.

I just lied. To you.

I want him to skunk the soup out of those other little boys. I want them to run after his hits and overthrow his bases. I want him to raise his hands and jump on the bases and I’ll even let him twirl on third like he did last week (please don’t ask). I am FAR too competitive and I’m aware of my fault.

Baseball has been gone for a week. Little league is better than the majors, in my opinion. I miss it so much that I was tempted to pick a fight in the grocery store tonight just so I could ask someone if they were blind. With my luck, I’d pick on the one blind person in the store.

Come back, little league. I need other parents that understand and an outlet for my aggression.

All of that changed yesterday and turned into this.

Artist rendition of the tragedy

While I sat there waiting for the stylist, AJ was hitting my last nerve. I examined my greasy hair and hugely split ends and became even more resolved to do something about my current hair state, if for no other reason than I needed a break from the constant chatter of a hyper 8-year old. Nothing exotic or large was going to happen. I just wanted the split ends removed and no layers. I’ve been growing my hair out for over a year.

What my stylist heard, her of the 1993 Meg-Ryan-duck-butt-blonde-hair-flare that had grown to her shoulders, was that I wanted 4 INCHES OFF OF MY LENGTH AND A FULL SET OF LAYERS. I think my first inclination that something was wrong was when I asked her how much she’d need to take and how bad my split ends were was that she giggled nervously and replied, “Oh, I can’t really tell how split they are when your hair is wet. The water mends your ends so unless it’s dry, I won’t know.” She said this while cutting. I started to fidget nervously and watched a hunk of hair fall off the scissors.

Your author with the infamous hair cut

That was the end. She started cutting like a madwoman. I’ve never seen anything like it. Her already squinty eyes became irrationally beady to me. I started to sweat. She kept trying to talk to me about AJ, but all I wanted to do was leave. When she was done, I threw my hair back into a ponytail and jetted. I got home and stewed. That Delilah! How dare she cut my hair like that? It was specifically what I said I DIDN’T want. Cutting a woman’s hair is like cutting off a man’s penis. Ok, maybe not that bad.

When I finally had the courage to take it down and look at it, I winced and slowly turned to Leon. His response, “It looks great!” The response of my friends, “It’s hot. I love it! I’m sorry it’s not what you wanted, but I really like it. It brings out your natural curl.”

Hrmph. But like a petulant child, I want what I want, dang it! Don’t do what I don’t want, even if I look better. I look hot? I look great?

Ok. Maybe it’s growing on me. I might go back.

April 1, 2009
I can say with unequivocal authority that is is not good when your husband instant messages you when you are in the middle of the lecture and the following pops up on the powerpoint screen: “Illusions, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money. Or candy!”

March 31, 20009
If I could see myself the way AJ sees me, I’d never doubt myself or my capabilities ever again.

AJ often surprises me with the items he carries home in his bookbag. I have yet to find anything that was once alive, so I’ll say that I have thus far been pleasantly surprised with the things he carries. Generally, he is good about showing me the things I need to see and allowing the non-important items to sit in there for a month or so. I’m not an overly hovering mama, but I am still up in his grill, if you know what I mean.

One day, AJ brought home a piece of artwork. I didn’t immediately see it as Husband or AJ had put it on the couch to surprise me or send me into early menopause. I was walking through our always messy living room and I saw a stack of papers on the couch that I had been looking for when a bright piece of blue craft foam material caught my eye. There are no delusions of grandeur about my son’s talents. He is what he is and what he’ll be is up to him. I’ll support him and tell him he rocks and he’ll rock. I never expected him to be an artist. AJ loves art. He loves to draw and color and paint and I encourage it by getting him a new art set every couple of Christmases so he can nurture that activity. He also loves athletics and video games and I nurture those things, too. Granted, he never brought anything home from those that was quite like this.

On the back of his artwork was a little sign, which makes me believe this art may have actually been hung in his school building. At the thought, I started laughing so hard I was gasping. Not at my baby’s talent. He is so, so good. My laughing was at what those poor adults must have implied. When Adrian was asked what he was drawing, according to Husband, he simply replied, “People, Daddy. They’re people. That one is standing on his head.” We have no idea which one it was. I’ll let you judge for yourself.

AJ’s art inspired by Keith Haring

Around 9 years ago, Natalie and I were pregnant around the same time. Natalie was pregnant with one of the most gorgeous dark-haired, gypsy featured beauties I’ve ever seen in my life. Bee (as she will be known), is a precocious, tell it like it is, intelligent girl child. She’s a mini-Natalie and is amazing. I was pregnant with AJ, a sensitive, athletic, science-minded, all-american featured boy child who is currently sporting a pumpkin grin. From the time they were womb fetuses, these two were jokingly betrothed. Natalie and I greedily planned grandchildren and enjoyed the idea of not fighting over the rights to grandchildren.

When AJ and Bee met, it seemed all plans were falling into place. They were like two peas in a pod and AJ and Bee’s little brother, Mee, are best buddies. Our plans for world domination by living vicariously through our children were imminent.

However, today I hit a snag. One I never saw coming and the ton of bricks didn’t fall at once, rather one at a time they fell on that sensitive spot. Someday, AJ, Bee & even little Mee, will all GROW UP. In order for betrothed to get married, THEY HAVE TO GET MARRIED. To have grandkids, they have to…well, YOU KNOW. NO NO NONONONONONONONONONO. MY CHILD WILL NEVER YOU KNOW!!!!!

Ok. Ok. I can handle this. He may or may not you know. We aren’t Catholic, but he could decide to be a priest but then I don’t get grandchildren. This doesn’t seem fair.

So the question is, how does one of my very best friends factor into this? Well, Natalie recently had twins (Holy wow!) and she took a picture of Bee holding one of the babies. Bee is sitting in a hospital bed holding the baby and for all purposes looks like a new mother. Our babies are growing up and it’s happening sooner than we ever intended.

It occurred to me that children are doing things more quickly now. Statistics are showing that children engage in non-penetrative sexual contact as early as 12-13 years (7th grade). AJ and Bee are 8 years old. We could be forced to deal with this stuff within the next 5 years. NO. Children can be parents as early as 13. Our children will be adults in 10 years. This is all overwhelming. I know that we can handle this stuff as it comes, but that seems so FAST.

The only thing I know about all of this is that I thank God that Natalie and I will be going through all of this at the same time because there is no way that I would survive it without her. Of course I have Husband, but he’s not as sentimental about this as I am. He’s a BOY. Natalie will get it. She always does.

For the last year, I’ve been fascinated with the artwork of Kurt Halsey. Kurt rarely, if ever, does commission pieces, and, as an established artist, I think it’s awesome that he is at the level where he is comfortable establishing those boundaries. After being friends with an artist, I know commissions are not fun. The suck the creativity out of an artist faster than most anything and people are picky, finicky and, since it’s their money, they want it like Burger King: to have it their way.

It just so happened that I’d met Kurt online and had the chance to talk to him a couple of times. After I got over my initial awe of his talent, because trust me, I can’t draw stick people and you could ask anyone that knows me about that, I decided to keep an eye on his work. Eventually, as most do, I collected a piece here, and a piece there, as they related to me, AJ or Husband. None of them related to all of us, though, and the pets are our family, too.

So, when I saw that Kurt had ebayed a commission, I was miserable to have missed it. I hinted—ok, strongly suggested—to Husband that Kurt may be willing to do a second piece, with it being around the holidays and all. It turns out, I was right. And he did. We got this around the end of January/beginning of February. This is ours. This is us. This is my family. Duder is there, so is Pea. Weiner and Francis are there in their glory. AJ is playing in the leaves. And Husband and I are doing what we do best. Thank you, Kurt. This is special. This is my life through his eyes. And mine. I love it.

What made it clear that I was in trouble was the awful fatigue that settled my bones. An hour after I woke up, I wanted a nap. Three hours after I woke up, I craved a nap and nothing I did would rid me of the need. AJ lovingly told me that I looked like the Scream mask while I slept. He didn’t know it was the “scream mask,” he just made the face, scrunched up his eyes and made a large OOOOO with his mouth. Little snot. At least he didn’t comment on my snoring.

For our anniversary, one of my gifts was a Nap set. I was dubious as to the use of this item, as when I nap, I enjoy my huge, King size bed and my own pillow, but Husband does a good job with gifts and I was waiting to see how this one fared on a day like today.

When the “nappies” (not a diaper for those of you who use that terminology) came on me, it started slowly. First, my feet were freezing. Then, I slowly lay down on the couch as Husband made room for me amid all of his lawyer-ly work stuff. The blanket came out amid a case of the shivers and the pillow slowly followed. I don’t remember much beyond that point. As AJ said, “the scream” was very much in effect.

It strikes me how, when we’re sick, we lose all the facade that we put out there on a regular day. Life goes back to basic things: sleep, food, bathroom breaks, and cuddling on demand. There was no disagreement as to what we were doing over the weekend because I didn’t care what they did. I was silent on the couch. My husband probably cherished that silence, as it is rare. AJ got to go to a friend’s house without having to do chores first and stay much longer than usual. I slept the sleep of unknowing, uncaring and just wanting to feel better. What I ate was no longer important and frankly, I didn’t care if I ate. How I looked was not in the slightest important, though was funny to my 8 year old. The dogs were caring and concerned and stayed beside me, as did my Husband. He checked on me every little bit with ibuprofen and making sure I didn’t need anything.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad day, after all.

Every now and then I think both Husband and I feel like we missed something, but it never feels overwhelming that we missed those “typical experiences.” Husband had plenty of odd experiences in his teen years, which I won’t expound on as this isn’t his blog and if he ever wants to share about the time the police came after him and his friends for walking through the drive-thru at Taco-Bell, that will be his story to tell. Just like Whitney Houston, “he partied” and I don’t think he feels like he missed much. He did the dorm thing and had a group of friends.

I was the exact opposite. I lived at home, did the community college thing, spent my time with a crazy boyfriend who I went to high school with, and worked quite a bit to pay for college, my car and other expenses. I can’t understate the craziness of the boyfriend. He actually believed he had the Force. From Star Wars. And that he was from the Dark Side. Go on and laugh. I’ll wait. I still don’t know what I was thinking and neither did my friends and family at the time. They patiently waited for me to screw my head on properly.

Because of that situation, I had alienated just about everyone I knew, as it goes with obsessive, crazy, nutcase relationships. There were no parties because I worked on the weekends. I also didn’t drink. This meant that when I went to the parties, I wasn’t exactly the type of person that everyone was happy to see.

So, where am I going? Our early 20s were spent raising a child, going to school and trying to make it out of the hole and into a home. Now, I’m almost to 30 and I spend my Saturday nights hanging out at home and watching the Scrubs I’ve tivo’ed all week. I still don’t do parties like the Sex and the City 30′s singles I know, my life is comfortable. I’ve managed to get work on my class done this weekend and some minor studying for my mid-terms accomplished. I’ve written emails, responded to posts and spent a lot of time on my computer. I’ve played games with my son and napped with my husband.

No, my twenties aren’t typical. But they are mine and they are comfortable. I’ll take them.

One of the ways we accomplish this is by having one day a week that we can eat whatever we want and as much as we want. Generally, what we’ve found is that we only go about 500 calories over our restricted daily caloric intake and we more than make up for that throughout the week.

With all of that explained and out of the way, Saturday has been our beloved free day. Free day is what gets us through the rough days where we want to eat everything under the sun, but don’t. Free day is coming and we can eat all those bad for you things then. The knowledge of it is soothing. What’s funny is that, come free day, we still don’t know what we want to eat. It shows how food has taken a back seat in our lives.

Tonight was no exception. Dinner time came and we drove around the area looking for inspiration. At long last, we settled upon the Waffle House. If you have never been to the Waffle House, you have never set foot in the South. They used to be dirty, filthy pits of cigarette smoke where you could get greasy food at cheap prices in a reasonable amount of time. Now they are dirty, filthy pits minus the cigarette smoke (thank you smoke free Tennessee!) where you can get greasy, TASTY food at cheap prices in a reasonable amount of time.

As we walked in, all the tables were dirty and we sat down at one and had to ask someone to clean it for us. Husband ordered what he calls “Satan” hash browns. I can’t tell you what all is involved in this meal other than it smells pretty bad and is 100% guaranteed to give you heartburn from looking at it. The verdict from Husband is “Delicious!” AJ and I ordered our regular variety of foods and we sat quietly talking while waiting for our food.

In the middle of what seemed a fairly standard meal, the Waffle House staff erupted in drama. 2 new people showed up and immediately started telling the others they were now required to stay overnight (this was around 9pm), as 3 people had called in sick. This turned into 30 minutes of all of the staff there complaining about how people only call out on a Saturday if they are lying and how, since the 3 of them are friends, it must be A PARTY!

Of course, this turned into one using his defense mechanisms to justify his staying as to how he needed the money and would get overtime. This was until the manager burst his bubble to tell him how they would just switch his shifts later in the week and “make” those that called out tonight cover the shifts, thus demoralizing the poor guy even more with the knowledge that he was going to not only have to stay up all night to cover someone’s shift, but also was not going to get anything extra for his trouble.

Husband, AJ and I didn’t even pretend to not listen. This was fascinating stuff. As we packed up to leave, the manager called another staff member back and we heard him say, “You have to stay tonight, too. We just got another phone call.”

This is a good incentive to get a college degree, I think, to those that don’t have one. But thank you for making my meal interesting.