Something's Been Going Around

I’ve officially declared Friday as my writing day. Ain’t no laundry pile high enough. Ain’t no sink of dishes wide enough, Ain’t no PR campaign urgent enough to lure my fingers from the laptop. I challenge a team of wild horses to just try and drag me away.

I’m sitting at Blackbird in my usual Brady Bunch era wicker bucket chair with the rust-colored cushion. The back and sides are the same height, making a perfect “U.” There is no way to comfortably use the sides as arm-rests, unless you have arms the length of Shaquille O’Neil's. But, I’m not here to rest my arms. I’m here to write, darnit!

I can’t help but eavesdrop on an intimidatingly pretty mom sitting near me, chatting on her phone. She keeps saying “that’s AWFUL!” louder and louder, upgrading her tone and body language to higher alarm with each delivery. I’m afraid if the conversation continues; she’ll begin shrieking and have a seizure. I wonder if what she’s talking about is really so “AWFUL.” Is she discussing a relative’s late stage colon cancer (which really would be awful) or simply evaluating the style of another mom in her circle whose shoe selection isn’t up to Vogue Magazine standards.

I know this mom well enough to say “hi.” She’s very nice, but we’ve never become more than cordial acquaintances, mainly because of the intimidation factor. I’ve been told that she spends more on a haircut than most parents spend putting their children through private universities. Okay, I’m exaggerating. If we were friends, I’d feel like she was always judging me, my unkempt hair, my bitten nails, my Wal-Mart flip-flops. Clearly my neurosis is getting the best of me. I’m glad I have enough girl friends with their own cosmetic maladies.

At another table sit a Hispanic man and woman. He’s very handsome with a Rod Blagojevich hairstyle that seems to work better for him than for Rod. The woman is sniffling, blowing her nose and coughing a hacky sort of cough that sounds like she’s trying to crank a car with a dead battery. She apologizes, saying “I have a cold.” The man comes back with a pat and predictable response.

“Well, ya know something’s been going around.”

I’ve always been fascinated by the compulsion to say “something’s been going around” when a person tells you they’re sick, as if they need that justification. I’ve caught myself saying it, even when I didn’t know of “something going around.” Are we subconsciously afraid that if we don’t say “something’s going around” the other person will feel like an outcast or would lose sleep at night, wandering around aimlessly, pondering how the Hell they came down with the sniffles?

My mom is the type who needs an explanation for every illness, mannerism, speech pattern, hair color, character defect, mole or personal problem one might be having. She literally is the type to pace the floor thin trying to figure out where in our lineage my large facial pores or the birthmark on Rob’s foot or Pamela’s tendency to slam doors in anger came from. EVERYTHING is genetic.

If I were to get a speeding ticket, it’s because back in the 1800’s, Uncle Beauregard Jackson was locked up for reckless horse and buggy driving and I clearly got the renegade gene from him.

Last week over dinner at our house my dad began complaining about the weather. I’ll point out that it was 103 degrees, 100-percent humidity, and had been that way for two months. Satan himself was wearing an ice pack and sitting next to the AC. Anyway, my dad says “I don’t think I can take another day of this heat.” My mom turns away from him and in a hushed voice explains, “You know the Halls were always complainers. He gets it honestly.”

Maybe more people than I realize are like my mom and need that sense of relativity. Maybe people suffering from colds or the flu are comforted to hear “it’s been going around.”

Still, though, the next time someone tells me they have a cold, just for fun, I might try saying “Well, I guess that makes you a freak, because I don’t know a soul who’s been sick in a long time. Now, keep your germs away from me, you Pariah!”

Overjoyed with my Droid

My husband and I now both have Droids. No, not British, homosexual robot servants like C3PO in Star Wars. Motorola Droids. I would call them phones, but that would be like labeling Pope Benedict XXXIJWKL as a Catholic guy.

The Droid, developed to rival Apple’s iPhone, boasts a higher number of uses than the Earth has mosquitoes. In addition to calling, texting, web surfing, picture taking, video shooting, navigating my way around snarled Cleveland rush hour traffic (if I were to ever visit Cleveland) scanning bar codes for comparison shopping, identifying that Duran Duran song on the radio from 1983, and allowing me to pitch computerized wads of paper into a cartoon waste basket, my Droid also functions as a human liver….assuming your liver has a USB port. It also acts as a superb paper weight when I decide to fill out home refinance applications in a wind tunnel.

Being notably low tech kind of people, it still surprises me that James and I now carry around these gadgets, that seem to have replaced a beating heart at the top of the “Things I Can’t Live Without” list. Before our Droids, James and I didn’t realize that we were stuck in the Dark Ages, while civilization advancement zoomed right past us. I mean just a couple of weeks ago, we used to actually converse with each other……. using our mouths and voices. Sometimes, we’d even make eye contact. I know that to many, verbal conversation is akin to churning one’s own butter. So, we’re a little slow to get to the party. Now, conveniently, we never have to look up from our 3 x 2-inch screens.

James and I used to rely a lot on nonverbal communication….smiles, winks, a hurled flower vase at the other’s head. Now, with the Droid’s myriad of emoticons, I can simply press a touch screen selection and a little monster face will appear on James’ phone telling him whether I’m happy, indifferent, unmediated, or in the throes of PMS. With an unlimited texting plan, we’ll have completely forgotten what the other looks like a couple of weeks from now. But, thanks to our Droids’ 5 mega pixel cameras, we can take photos of ourselves and send them to each other.

Mockingbirds, Diamond Rings and Other Insane Things

I survived another week at Camp Lair… a feat deserving of a medal. Those of you who know me are aware that every year, same month, same week, the Weight family, complete with aunts, uncles, cousins, ex-wife, ex-in-laws, ex-cons, ex-cetera, travel to a remote region of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to a seven day family recreation camp run by the University of California Berkeley Alumni Association. Camp Lair is something I grin and bear every year…..like a pap smear. But everyone else loves it. Hence the grinning and bearing part.

The entire camp is situated precariously at a 90 degree angle on the side of a mountain, sort of like a flea circus on the hind leg of a Great Dane. The area is covered in pine trees that reach up to Heaven. It’s prime territory for Smoky the Bear and the Unibomber (if he were in the market for a new residence). We sleep in tent cabins, reminiscent of adventure-loving pioneers, or refugees. The bath houses are up hill from every cabin. When you’re finished in the bathroom, the cabins become uphill. Come to think of it, everything is uphill. By the end of the week, my legs look like Lou Ferrigno’s.

Camp Lair attracts the same visitors each year. Berkeley alumni looking to reminisce about the good old days of fighting for liberal causes, chaining themselves to trees, roaming naked around campus, and chanting Cal football fight songs. I’ve made a few friends along the way, Denise, Megan and Sharon, who are always good for drinks, laughs and ample commiserations. They’re Jewish…and laugh at my jokes about the Holocaust being a History Channel publicity stunt. (I don’t really believe that for those of you about to phone my mother.)

We all have that one friend who’s perpetually in crisis, always on the verge of a breakdown and has access to every high-rise building ledge in their town. Gina, a beautiful former Miss Arkansas, bank executive and nine time ex-wife is Camp Lair’s representative Week Eight train wreck. Occasionally she’ll wander up from her cabin to have a drink with us. Or three drinks, or ten, or enough to improve her position on the national liver transplant waiting list. When Gina drinks, she cries. She gurgles, spills, spits and recounts all of life’s injustices….namely men. Through Patron fueled tears, Gina weaves tales of one night stands, broken promises, unmet expectations and cosmetic surgeries paid for by Cal, the idiot, Reid the pedophile, and a guy affectionately referred to as Fuck Face Fowler. Then she stumbles back down the hill and passes out. Unbelievably, she ALWAYS makes it to 8 am breakfast each morning.

As I hiked over to Sharon’s cabin Wednesday night after the camp talent show, I could already hear Gina in high gear, cursing someone named Kyle. Upon my arrival, Denise and Sharon appeared shell shocked as if Gina had just dropped a soap opera bombshell that might cause them to never be able to look her in the eye again. Something to do with her fourth husband and a wood chipper, or maybe her seventh husband’s teenage lover, paint thinner and a lighter, but I’m just speculating. I didn’t want to know. Different day….different bull*&^% drama. Same insane chick.
As Gina wept and attempted to rock back and forth in her camp chair, Megan began to sing “hush little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…(I’d have probably chosen a different tune, perhaps, Girl, don’t’ go away mad, Just go away, by Motley Crue.)

I tried to think of something poignant and wise to say, something sort of funny that might salvage the night’s mood. As Megan sang, I pondered. Not about relationships, or marriages or middle aged Cougar jokes but “what kind of mom bribes her kid to stop crying by purchasing a loud, squawking, pooping, lice ridden bird?" Forget the pacifier, the blankie, the bottle, the rocking chair. Let’s buy the kid something that will loudly mimic his cries all night long for the whole neighborhood to hear. I mean, there are probably appropriate recipients of a pet mockingbird, but a colicky baby wouldn’t top the list. Perhaps, the Bird Man of Alcatraz, Alfred Hitchcock, or Michael Jackson….were they still alive, would cherish an avian friend. But I seriously doubt that Dr. Spock or even Dr. Kevorkian would recommend one to settle a baby to sleep. However, I know how hard it can be to shop for certain people. Why a mockingbird? Why not a falcon, a bald eagle? That would surely impress. Or a $1,000 white cockatiel?

The song continued….if that mockingbird don’t sing, Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring. It’s always a good idea to keep receipts just in case the product doesn’t live up to expectations. But why would you buy a diamond ring instead of simply replacing the mockingbird with one more willing to participate in sing alongs?

Which brings me to the next point. What would a crying baby want with a diamond ring? Again, lets refer back to the list of crying baby supplies: pacifier, blankie, bottle, rocking chair, lullabies, Benadry, Bourbon (for mom, of course). No one ever recommends buying highly expensive jewels for babies. Not even Marilyn Monroe or Tom Shane, everyone’s friend in the diamond business. They could be quite the choking or swallowing hazard. And I, for one, don’t want to have to go searching through a used diaper for a digested ring.

Now crying women are a different story. Husbands, if you should be faced with a blubbering wife who’s just been snooping through your cell phone records, then skip the mockingbird step and go straight for the diamond ring. The bigger, the better. Your phone’s delete button is also quite handy.

The song continues. At this point Sharon and Denise begin arguing about whether the words are “if that diamond ring don’t shine” or “if that diamond ring turns brass.” My own mother used to prefer the “don’t shine” version and then she’d follow it up with “mama’s gonna buy you some turpentine.” Yeah, I know. That just might be what’s been wrong with me all these years. Turpentine poisoning. I can see her now saying “Well we got her a mockingbird and that didn’t make her stop crying. So we bought her a diamond ring and that turned out to be a cubic zirconium and she wailed even louder. Hell, Robert, let’s just poison the kid and then maybe we’ll get some sleep.” Perhaps she could’ve gotten me a porcupine. It makes as much sense as a mockingbird, really. Or maybe a vat of red wine. Now we’re talking.

According to Google, the correct version is “if that diamond ring turns brass, mama’s gonna buy you a looking glass.” A looking glass. Is that a mirror?” Forget the diamond and bird, Kid. Just stare at yourself with this.” Why not a kick in the ass, a large-mouthed bass, some bermuda grass. I seriously hope the songwriter, found another career after penning this little ditty. Even Carly Simon and James Taylor couldn’t make sense of it. Perhaps it was the downfall of their marriage. Just a thought.