December 23, 2011 · 11:42 am

Cathy, the Red Head Mommy

Grey roots

I am an inherently grateful person. Every day I recognize that I’m thankful for my health, my family, my job, the roof over my head – which I know sounds like some syrupy religious freak, but it’s true.

So it surprises me that I am well enough to celebrate Christmas with my husband’s and my family, and yet I’m a little pissed off. The onset of shingles occurred over six weeks ago, and I still have low-grade constant pain and raw, sensitive skin. But I’m no longer bed-ridden, and lucky to be able to enjoy the holiday. However there’s one teensy concern – my vanity.

I apply a shiny layer of Aquaphor to my nose and forehead, which means it’s impossible to wear makeup. I tweezed my eyebrows too much in high school, so now I only have scraggly hairs attempting to cover my brow like a bald man with a bad comb-over. Eyebrow pencil won’t stick to the greasy skin. My left eye is still puffy and red and I’m afraid to put on mascara and eye shadow for fear it will hurt to take it off.

The worst part is my roots. I’ve dyed my hair red for over 20 years, so almost no one knows me as the blonde I grew up as. I started turning grey in my 30’s, and now my natural hair is almost completely grey and white. The left side of my scalp is still burning, so I can’t dye my hair and my roots are now over an inch long.

When did I get to be so vain? I’m excited to spend the holiday with my family, but I’m dreading the photos. This is the time I take photos that will be blown up into 8x10s with a frame that says “Family” on it. I’m afraid I’ll look like Lily, the mom from “The Musters.”

My plan is to wear a big Santa hat that will cover my roots and forehead and avoid cameras as much as possible.

My vanity inspired me to write a little Christmas song to the tune of “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.” If you can carry a tune, you’re welcome to sing it out loud:

Cathy, the red head mommy

Had a very harsh disease

And if you ever saw her

You would want to laugh and tease

Shingles – they covered her face

Set her head and scalp aflame

She couldn’t put on makeup

Like all them other classy dames

She was groggy from the meds

Her roots had turned to grey

Cathy with her hair so white

Got AARP’s invite

Now with the family photos

Taken throughout Christmas eve

Cathy, the red head mommy:

I’m burning every shot of me!!!

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December 21, 2011 · 4:47 pm

Murdering a Holiday Tradition

This year's Christmas tree

My husband and I murdered a holiday tradition on Sunday.

We bought an artificial Christmas tree.

Mind you, this wasn’t one of those impulsive decisions you get while strolling down the Costco aisles (I know that just like me, every one of you have some kind of massager you just couldn’t live without). We weighed the cost of one artificial tree compared to a lifetime of tree lot evergreens, as well as the carbon footprint we leave every year by assassinating an innocent living thing for our own two-week enjoyment, and decided to do the eco-friendly thing.

Here’s our typical holiday tradition:

One or two weeks before Christmas, the whole family would wander down to the local Christian church where we are not members (we’re heathens) and check out the freshly-cut trees. The criteria? – not too short, not too dry, not too bald. We always aimed for the $50 tree, but ended up with the $75 one. We contemplated if we should buy the $10 stand/water dish or try to find the one in the garage that makes every tree lopsided. Then some guy who looks like a weekend carny would tie the tree to the top of the minivan. I tipped him $5, the whole time thinking, “I was a Girl Scout. I know how to tie a bowline and a square knot. I can do a lot with the five bucks I just gave away.”

We’d drive the tree home and open the front door, hoping the dogs wouldn’t bolt for the street as my husband carried the tree inside, spraying a trail of pine needles along the way. We’d adjust the stand and pour the evergreen mixture and water into the stand dish, wondering why we always paid extra for the potion even though the tree seemed dehydrated in minutes. We also had to keep the pets from drinking it, which was an impossible task. You’d think that evergreen potion would make dogs less thirsty.

Then my husband or I would string up the colored lights. If it was him, he was done after two strands. If it was me, I wouldn’t stop until I had eight strands up and the tree glowed brighter than kryptonite. Unfortunately, at some point in the next two weeks, at least one strand would burn out, leaving a chunk of the tree in a blackened shadow for the rest of its existence.

The tree would get dryer by the minute. After a few days we would hear random kerplops as a brittle branch gave way and a heavy ornament fell to the ground. Every year we’d lose three to four of the breakable ones. Most of the time I save them in an ever-growing zip lock baggie with every intention of gluing them back together. I never do.

Then on New Year’s Day we’d throw a large bag over the tree and my husband would carry the condom-covered carcass to the street where it might sit for weeks. The sanitation workers only haul it away if we shove it in the green bin, which we are only able to after the tree completely turns to kindling.

And that’s our annual Christmas tree tradition.

No longer.

I looked online at artificial trees to see what kind of cost we were looking at. Target sells them in the range of $80 to $800, which made me want to immediately rethink my plan since there’s no way in hell I’m going to spend twice as much on a tree as we do for our whole Christmas.

We decided to check out Sears, for the simple reason that it happened to be the anchor department store at the mall we were at. They had two trees available – the $200 tree that was on sale for $125, or the $300 that was marked down to the low price of $150. I like a good deal, so you can guess which one I chose. My bet is that Sears never sells that tree for $300. They just say they do to persuade suckers like me to buy it.

We bought the 7.5 Foot Just-cut Blue Noble Fir Pre-lit Tree. It has multi-colored lights that never burn out, and apparently is so easy to put together that even our 5-year old could do it if he had the ability to read the instructions. The tree is called “slim,” which is usually a word I like very much, especially if someone calls me “slim,” but on a Christmas tree it sounds more like an insult. However, we have a smallish living room, and a slim tree would probably be a smart choice.

Mary and Emily were gone when we bought the tree, and Jake seemed to take a greater interest in the box rather than the tree itself. When the girls returned home and saw the tree, Mary was horrified. How could we choose a tree without her? How could we get a fake tree? It didn’t even smell like a tree.

Mary was outnumbered. Emily didn’t want to murder another tree. So instead, we murdered our holiday tradition.

Merry Christmas to y’all and I hope you celebrate wonderful old and new traditions this holiday season.

I can't get a photo of the lights without it looking blurry. Sorry.

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December 17, 2011 · 1:01 pm

Forbidden Fashion

My daughter Emily

I’ve been hospital and house-bound for over a month, so it was a real treat for my first night out to see my 15-year old daughter Emily modeling in a fashion show.

This was no ordinary fashion show. The event was curated by my friend Ann Closs-Farley, whose long list of credits include designing costumes for The Pee Wee Herman Show, Disney’s Toy Story: The Musical and An Evening Without Monty Python. Ann doesn’t just think outside the box. With her, there is no box. She is the most creative person I have ever met, and her show was expectantly outlandish.

Ribbon Hoop Dress made from ribboms and hula hoops

Criminal Couture: Forbidden Fashion is an event to fund projects for the Bootleg Theatre, a 1930’s warehouse and former bra factory that produces boundary-pushing and highly collaborative new work. Located in a funky area west of Echo Park, it’s the home of creative theatre, music, dance, film and art – often interwoven with a mix of the five.

For the past three weeks on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, Emily has joined dozens of other models to show 60 gowns, all made from stolen, found or recycled materials by 27 different designers. The outfits are available for sale on ebay.

Take a look at some of these outrageous costumes. All photos are by Ashley West Leonard, except for Emily in the card dress, which was taken by her stepmom Julie.

The bad news is the show closes Saturday, December 17, but you can still bid on the dresses – that is unless Lady Gaga beats you to it.

Emily modeling Peep Show Cocktail Dress made from googly eyes

Emily modeling Pick a Card

Rubber Circles made from found inner tubes

Palm Bride Dress made from palm frongs

Dress made of mylar balloons

Drunk Dixie in her cups

Bubble Dress made from packing materials

X Men Suit

Dress made out of rum candy

Hoverdisc Dress

Dress made from found inner tubes

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December 14, 2011 · 10:52 am

Shingle Bells

My shingles are actually healing now

It’s been two and a half weeks since my last new post and I’ve been busy sitting on my pity pot. It’s actually somewhat justified since I’ve been recuperating from shingles to my eye, face and head, and the pain has been excruciating. I felt a little better when I was released from the hospital and was well enough to blog about how I was hibernating, but a few days later the pain returned full force.

I started drafting a blog that was paragraph after paragraph of pain and sleep and missed events and how my world had gotten very small.

Boo Hoo. Poor me. Poor me. Pour me another painkiller.

I was too tired to look at Facebook, so I missed a message posted a couple of weeks ago by my friend Amy: “Tonight Gary asked me if you were going to write a song called Shingle Bells for your next blog.”

You can thank Amy & Gary for sparing you my dismal ramblings of recuperation. Instead, here’s a song to the tune of Jingle Bells:

          Shingle Bells

  • Shingle Bells! Shingle Bells!
  • Shingles! Go away!
  • It’s no fun, I have to hide
  • The blisters on my face
  • Shingle Bells! Shingle Bells!
  • Shingles make me pray
  • Take a gun and shoot my eye
  • To take the pain away
  • Gnashing like Van Gogh
  • With a full force of a plague
  • This time to heal is slow
  • I’m crying all the way
  • Yelling from the stings
  • Shaking from my plight
  • It’s no fun to writhe and fling
  • From shingles in my eye

(Repeat)

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December 5, 2011 · 2:06 pm

Worrying is (not) for the birds

This shingles virus is really kicking my butt, so I’m still not really well enough to write a new post, so here’s one I did for Patch earlier this year. Not that funny (I always try to be funny), but kind of sweet. Hopefully I’ll be back to my old self by next week.

We have a ladder leaning against our house outside the back door. We probably should have found a better home for it. But this month, someone else found a home in it.

A few weeks ago, a dove suddenly appeared with twigs and leaves and built a nest on the top rung of the ladder.

She picked a most unfortunate spot to lay her eggs. Not only do we have two large dogs, a bird-loving cat (as in a meal, not a playdate), and two rat-laden fruit trees, but my four-year old was bumping the ladder every day in an effort to check out his new pet. The little birdlings didn’t have a chance in hell for survival. The final nail in the coffin was that we were getting a new roof for our house, and surely the nest would be destroyed by workers, falling tiles, wood and nails or the abandonment of their mother to escape the sheer cacophony of pounding eight hours each day.

The dove was so still most days, I was certain she had already died and was just waiting to decompose. I considered bringing it water and bugs, but I was afraid I would spook her and do more harm than good.

Then about two weeks ago, I realized that the bird was probably not deceased, since it was now facing the opposite direction than it had been for the past week. The reason? There were two baby doves next to it, and they were all taking up the tiny 5×12 inch space.

The birds were no longer protected inside their little shells, safely tucked underneath their mama. They had hatched and were completely vulnerable to all the urban (ok… suburban) dangers that had been a reality before they broke free from their eggs, but now those threats were big, fat, in-you-face dangers.

But something amazing happened: absolutely nothing.

The cat ignored the birds. The dogs almost seemed to protect it, with even more vigor as they chased rats up the trees. The roofers were careful not to topple the nest, and my son steered away from the ladder as he stood on top of the patio chair to get a good look.

A few days ago the mother dove starting flying off for hours at a time to join another bird, and my husband reminded me that doves mate for life. I had been so busy looking at the mother and babies that I didn’t notice that there must have been a fourth bird spying at them too. The mommy bird would return to the nest to feed her babies whatever regurgitation mother birds feed their babies (which makes human breastfeeding seem so much more palatable in comparison), then fly back to the phone lines to perch next to soulmate.

Yesterday the babies flew away. We watched them throughout the day as they fluttered into the shrubs, and for the first night in a month the ladder propped up against our house was empty of life.

So often people live their lives full of fear – fear of financial insecurity, fear of being embarrassed, fear of earthquakes, fear of death, fear of the unknown… fill in the blank with anything. Yet this little mama dove defied dogs, cats, rats, roofers, and a curious four-year old, sat tight on her eggs for a couple of weeks and raised her babies long enough for them to fly off and become independent birds.

Even if it seems that danger lurks around every corner, it’s often best to just trust that everything’s going to be ok. It’s a simple life lesson that’s valuable for humans, as well as for the birds.

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December 2, 2011 · 2:42 pm

Dude Looks Like a Lady – in Reverse

I’m still recovering from shingles, so I wasn’t able to draft a new post, but I wrote this one for Patch last June before I had Very VERY busy mom up & running. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to upload something new by next week.

Mary Belle, with her goofy brother Jake

My 10-year old daughter Mary Belle is as cute as a button – that is if you consider a button to be vastly more adorable than any other clothing fastener. She has a face full of freckles, an eternal smile, and an animated personality that can start anyone’s day over on a better foot.

When she was 8 years old, Mary Belle had long golden locks that I kept in check with daily shampooing, detangler and buckets of clips, hair ties and pins that resembled everything from Hello Kitty to the cast of High School Musical. But at the 2009 Colfax World Fair Silent Auction I won a gift certificate for a free haircut from Serenity Hair Salon in Sherman Oaks, and Mary Belle decided that she wanted those locks chopped.

Bryan Gee, owner of Serenity, was hesitant. He probably felt the wrath of buyer’s remorse (or rather haircut remorse) from customers who thought that having a haircut like Halle Berry would be cute on them too (probably not). Bryan cut Mary Belle’s tresses into an attractive shoulder-length style, but Mary Belle told him to keep going. And like the Energizer Bunny, he kept going. And going… and going.

Mary Belle with Bryan Gee, owner of Serenity Hair Salon

Now, two years later, Mary Belle refuses to go to any other hairdresser than Bryan – an excellent return on your money for any business considering making silent auction donations. Her golden locks don’t see the sun long enough to become golden, and her hair doesn’t ever grow long enough to become locks. It’s reminiscent of Mia Farrow’s famous doo from Rosemary’s Baby, or more recently, Harry Potter’s Emma Watson’s newest close-cropped haircut.

If she was just a few years older and wore a bit of makeup and a perky little pushup bra, Mary Belle might be considered to be as sexy and womanly as Halle, Emma or Mia. But at just 10 and a half years and a currently pre-pubescent stage, she is often mistaken for a boy.

This was Mary Belle’s second year of Cotillion – a kind of debutante ball for 9 to 13-year olds in which the boys outnumber the girls nearly two to one. Basically it allows short boys to dance with girls whose bosoms are sprouting at their eye level, and teaches kids how to eat a cookie without looking like it’s their last meal on earth. Mary Belle spent the first five classes of the six-week session aglow in her dress, low heels, white gloves and cute little headbands. For the sixth session, Cotillion had a Cruise Ship theme and the children were allowed to have their choice of costume. Mary Belle wore her standard summer fare – water shoes, swim trunks and a UV swim shirt.

Mary Belle approached the hostess who told her, “You need to check in at the boys’ line.”

I stealthfully pursued one of the Cotillion helpers, passed him a twenty, and whispered, “My daughter’s the one who looks like a boy. I know you’re short on young men, but can you make sure the host doesn’t make her ask a girl to dance?”

It’s true.

Well, not the part about the twenty, but the rest of it is true.

Ruby & Mary Belle

Mary Belle’s friend Ruby, who resembles Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird, encounters the same experiences on a daily basis. Ruby’s mom Pam tells me how strangers call Ruby “Son” or “Buddy,” and give her disapproving looks whenever she enters the ladies room. Mary Belle tends to get “Fella” or “Dude,” and is usually so busy checking herself out in the bathroom mirror that she doesn’t notice the disapproving looks.

Today a substitute janitor at school mistook them for boys, and when Mary Belle told him that they were indeed girls, the janitor walked away, chuckling, “You’re just pulling my leg.”

A week ago, I took Mary Belle and Ruby, as well as their girly-girl friends Violet and Joelle dress shopping for 5th grade graduation at Forever 21. The four girls pranced into the dressing room with their frocks in hand. The sales gal gave Violet and Joelle their rooms, then turned to Mary Belle and Ruby and asked, “You’re trying on dresses?”

I think she suspected that they were on some kind of pre-teen double date and the kids with the short hairdos were just holding the selections for their girlfriends who were training their mates early to be sherpas and valets.

Mary Belle, who already possesses more self-esteem than people six times her age, could care less if strangers mistake her for a boy. She just likes her hair short.

There is nothing more entertaining than watching the faces of adults as they realize their mistake. It begins with a haughty sneer, followed by surprised disbelief, a slow, stunned state of confusion, and ends with utter embarrassment and shame. It’s kind of a gender identity shock and awe. But it’s also frequently accompanied by the look, “I wouldn’t being going through all this humiliation if you would just keep your hair long like a normal girl.”

Perhaps it’s payback for all the times I’ve seen adorable girls with long flowing hair on the playground and commented to their parents how beautiful their daughters were, only to have them curtly inform me, “He’s a boy!”

Well if they wanted people to think he was a boy, they should cut his hair.

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November 27, 2011 · 7:18 pm

Hibernating

I'm in here somewhere

I’m hibernating.

It’s not my natural state of being, so I am completely out of my comfort zone.

I’m typically the whirling dervish Mama Bear nabbing a teddy for Jakey Bear, collecting warm fur blankets for Mary Beary and gathering wheat and dairy-free nuts and berries for Emily Bear so the den will be sweeter smelling for all of us during our long winter’s nap.

But somewhere in the midst of my busy-ness I hear Papa Tom Bear pathetically pleading:

“Sweetie, just stop. You’re sick. Go to bed.”

My husband normally doesn’t have a pathetic bone in his body, and he don’t beg fo’ no one. But he’s worried about me.

After two ER visits, a 9-day stay in the hospital and a diagnosis of shingles to my eye and left side of my head, I am finally home with strict orders to rest.

The sad thing is, rest is the only thing that makes me feel better. The pain in my head ranges between 1 and 4 on a scale of 1 to 10, it looks like I’m wearing a Star Trek Klingon mask over half my head, and the IV on my left hand gave me phlebitis, a blood clot that made my hand and arm bruised, swollen and unable to move without a boatload of pain.

phlebitis

My husband tells me that the phlebitis is God doing for me what I can’t do for myself. It forces me to stay away from work, typing, and chores. It also teaches me humility as I ask for help with simple tasks like tying my pants, fastening buttons, and opening lids. My mother-in-law drove me home from the hospital and took care of me my first day home. In the middle of my first hot bath in forever, I had to call her in to ask if she would shave my right armpit. I’m not sure if I was more grateful or embarrassed.

I am tired all the time. I stumble out of bed around 9:00, eat a couple of bites of something and park myself on the sofa. By noon I’m back to bed. I get up again around dinner time, then return to bed a few hours later.

I don’t always sleep. At 3:00 in the morning they call that insomnia, but at 3:00 in the afternoon it’s called… I don’t know what. During the wee hours I grab my iPad, which doesn’t seem to know if it should be horizontal or vertical while I’m lying down, so the screen often resembles a prop plane in a tailspin. I post my progress on Facebook and I’m amazed at the outpouring of well wishes. My friend Gabe responded that Facebook saved him while he was recuperating from back surgery. I read about everyone’s Thanksgiving dinner, their Black Friday shopping experiences and how they’re now setting up their Christmas trees. I press the “Like” button often. It’s comforting to virtually experience their lives, even if it is only in a sentence or a photo.

The afternoons I lie in bed in and out of sleep and listen to the sounds of my family going on with their lives without me: Emily chatting and giggling on the phone with her friend; Mary singing Adele’s Rolling in the Deep at the top of her lungs; Jake dragging his 3×3 foot plastic waffles across the living room floor, building an elaborate house; Tom yelling at the dogs for snagging his lunch. Even though I’m not participating, I love being home to experience it, even if it is just audibly.

The phone rings a lot, mostly with people offering to help. We’ve received two roasted chickens, baguettes, a variety of salads, tuna salad, two turkey roll ups, a dozen deviled eggs and a pumpkin pie. I tell people we’re fine with meals, but when my friend Sam offered to bring baked ziti for dinner tomorrow night, I caved. I love a good ziti. We’re still accepting rides to and from school, and it’ll probably take me all spring to make up the car pool commitment.

My friend Lisa offered to spend a couple of hours cleaning my house. It is a testament to a very good friendship for her to not only sincerely make such and offer, but for me to actually take her up on it.

Mary gave me a hug the day I came home from the hospital. “You’re so skinny, Mommy!” she remarked. I’m embarrassed to say that I was thrilled by that comment. I lost 10 lbs., and I still don’t have much of an appetite. But I would definitely trade the reduction of two dress sizes to get my old life back.

About a week ago, I started to become a little more lucid and asked my husband to bring my laptop to the hospital. I spent about two days drafting my blog Shingles! – More Painful Than Childbirth and somehow thought that it would magically transpose itself from my brainwaves to the Internet. I didn’t really factor in the effort of actually typing the thing – especially with one hand.

I typed a little. Slept a little. Typed some more. Slept longer. I finally finished it and was just checking the typos when my body shut down.

I remember my husband telling me a story of how he was watching a women’s triathlon with his ex wife, and there were two contestants running neck and neck more than a mile ahead of any other runner, when only a matter of yards away from the finish line, both their bodies shut down. My husband imitates something that looks like a headless chicken flailing, rolling, and flapping its limbs helplessly as the other participants ran past them to win.

This is how I felt on the last few typos:

Small i. Need capital I. Where’s shift? Hold shift. Keep holding. Where’s I? Hold shift. Tap I. Almost. Almost… got it.

I uploaded the blog around midnight, then slept through the night and most of the next day. The day after that I was released from the hospital, and I slept most of that day as well.

So now I sit here, my first time typing longer than a few answered emails. I’ll upload it, have a few bites of dinner, then go back to bed.

This post is longer than I would have liked, but I just don’t have the energy to go back and edit it.

It might be a while before I post another blog.

I’ll be busy hibernating.

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November 22, 2011 · 12:00 am

Shingles! – More Painful Than Childbirth

My boss is kind enough to be one of my regular blog readers, so he took pity on me two weeks ago when I posted 10 Luxuries I Can Now Afford Since Once Upon a Time Got Picked Up for a Full Season and threw me another bone: four days of extra work on the TNT series Perception, starring Eric McCormick from Will & Grace, premiering summer 2012, but dubbing this week.

I could really use the cash and immediately started canceling some commitments, rearranging others and basically increasing my mega dose of caffeine. I had already written and was ready to post my next blog My Ex Husband is Getting Married Today for Friday 11-11-11. I threw on my cape, readied myself for a good night’s sleep sometime the next week, and started forging ahead. I’ve pulled this kind of task off many times before. But I was suddenly lambasted by a foe I had never before encountered.

Shingles.

I’ve had my share of pain in my life. I’ve broken my leg, cracked my coccyx, champed out stitches and suffered three experiences of childbirth ranging from all natural, to give me the epidural now!, to what the hell do you mean it’s too late for the f#%*ing epidural?

But nothing so far has prepared me for the sheer agony of shingles.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this ailment (myself included), it’s a painful rash caused by the same virus that causes chickenpox and is usually initiated by stress or a weakened immune system – which I guess is proof that I was unable to retain my Super-working-volunteer-mom status solely on a diet of Zipfizz and zero carb Monster energy drinks.

The Shingles started in my eye, and after being diagnosed with a migraine, a lacerated cornea and an ulcerated eyeball, the unbearable pain swirled through my eye and entire left side of my head, screaming for doctors to just murder me, because even though they wanted me to rate my pain level between 0 and 10, it had already zoomed past 12 on the agony Richter scale.

This cacophony of torment kept me incapacitated and hospitalized for a week and a half. I floated in and out of pain, sleep, and delusional pain meds for nearly a week, with an oozing eye covered in blisters and too swollen to see through. I resembled Sylvester Stallone in the first Rocky film when he begs his trainer to “Cut me, Mick!”

Still in a lot of pain, but definitely on the mend, it looks like I’ll be released from the hospital sometime tomorrow. I’ve got some vein bruising from my IV, so I can’t use my left hand. But my husband brought my laptop and reading glasses to the hospital today, so as I groggily hunt and peck the keyboard with one hand, I have composed:

10 Things I Learned From Having Shingles:
1. I am capable of lying in my own urine all night without realizing it. That’s how out-of-it I can be.

2. I can go 10 days without a bowel movement. My record was broken today after just five minutes experiencing my first-ever enema.

3. Hospital food isn’t that bad, particularly when you have no appetite. However, I realize that I actually like Jell-O.

4. I am eternally grateful for having good medical insurance. I don’t know yet what my out-of-pocket bills will ultimately be, but without insurance, that fear of living in an IKEA box could be a reality.

5. Without paying for Weight Watchers or Jenny Craig (both wonderful weight loss systems from what I hear) I managed to lose 8 lbs. in a week. This shingles weight loss method however is not recommended.

6. My lily-white mind-altering-chemical-free head makes me a very bad candidate for pain meds. I’ve never been into recreational drugs and haven’t had any alcohol in over 16 years (I seem to have more than made up for it with my insane caffeine intake), so Demerol, Dilaudid and Vicodin all gave me the dry heaves, and narcotics that helped the pain gave me weird and vividly real nightmares where cats and rats were chasing me, or that I was the star of my own Fellini film.

7. Commercials ultimately pay my salary, but I am oh so grateful to Dish TV for not forcing me to watch them. Because St. Joseph’s Hospital doesn’t have the luxury of Dish or TiVo, I was bombarded by not only the worst choices of daytime programming, but I was also forced to sit through the identical dozen or so lame commercials every 15 minutes. On the plus side, I was usually too incoherent to pay much attention.

8. I am officially burnt out on Law & Order SVU. I used to be a fan, but after finally getting some of my mind back, I was treated to an entire Sunday with SVU marathons on two different channels so I could switch back and forth whenever there was a commercial. I happened to catch a long stream of episodes where chest-beating outsiders came in for pissing contests with the regulars. And frankly, you can only see so many rapes in one day before you start feeling like Malcolm McDowell being sickened by ultra-violence in A Clockwork Orange. I finally turned it off for good with a bad case of the heebie jeebies and the uneasy feeling that no woman is ever completely safe.

9. No, the clock hasn’t stopped. It just feels that way because pain time moves so much slower than real time.

10. No one is indispensable – even me. I enjoy being a very VERY busy mom, and have a certain amount of narcissist pride that I can pull off anything if I set my mind to it. After my shingles experience, I know I can’t always do that. I missed my kids’ nighttime prayers and school activities, yet another one of my son Jake’s basketball practices, my daughter Mary Belle’s 11th birthday, and whatever teen angst my daughter Emily was going through this week. I dropped volunteer commitments that I take very seriously and social engagements with friends who may never be reunited again. I bailed on my husband, just as he was turning in the comps for his Ph.D., which was incredibly bad timing. My ego might tell me that I’m the best dang dialogue editor in the whole freakin’ universe, but when it came time for me to abruptly bail on not one but two shows, my boss found a couple of equally talented freakin’ great dialogue editors to step in at a moment’s notice to make sure they didn’t miss their dub date.

Yes, I can disappear for a week and a half (and I may still be out of commission for a few weeks) but the world keeps spinning on its axis. Others pitch in and save the day.

It will take me a long time to thank them all.

But I’m going to try.

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November 11, 2011 · 12:00 am

My Ex Husband is Getting Married Today

Should I buy him a present on his big day, or is my lack of presence the gift he really wants?

Today is 11-11-11 and at 11:00 am by ex husband is getting remarried. The ceremony will be outdoors in the mountains, so there’s a chance he’ll be extending that theme and it will be 11 degrees.

I am not invited.

This is not surprising since our breakup was my idea. I remember very clearly rehearsing my short speech for months, and then on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend in 2004 I spit it out:

“I think you know what I’m about to say. We should get a divorce.”

During my months of rehearsing, I imagined that my husband would agree. “Let’s stay friends,” he would say. We would celebrate birthdays together, occasionally go out to a family dinner, and continue to raise our two young daughters as a team.

It didn’t happen that way.

Apparently as absolutely certain I was that he would also want the split, he was just as absolutely shocked that I wanted to leave him. It blindsided him. And he was angry.

To make matters worse, I remarried only 18 short months later. “Tom’s such a nice guy,” I used to say. “It’s too bad he can’t find a nice girl to go out with him.” It never in a million years occurred to me that I might end up being that nice girl. He wasn’t my type, even if I didn’t know what my type was.

It was a scandalously short courtship. And if I was my ex, I would have been angry too, even though Tom and I didn’t have our first date until 6 months after the break up. Our son Jake was born three weeks before our one-year anniversary. We’ve trudged on, building a busy life together with our kids.

My ex went on to have three different long-term relationships. Emily & Mary Belle liked them all. But he really hit the jackpot with his bride today.

She is beautiful. Smart. She has a great job. And she is really sweet. She never had kids of her own, but she loves our girls. This is the most important thing to me, so I am not just pleased – I feel like I won the lottery.

This is her first (and hopefully only) wedding so it’s a very big deal. And this is (again – hopefully) my ex’s last wedding. They’ve been planning the big event for some time, and from what I can gather that the girls have told me, it’s going to be very special. I truly want it to be beautiful and memorable and something far far from freezing.

My ex doesn’t read my blogs. He’s not my Facebook friend. He doesn’t recommend me on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter. Although I see his Christmas card hanging on the walls of our few mutual friends, I’m not one of his recipients. The only connection we have is through our two beautiful daughters. If we didn’t have them, I wouldn’t even have a clue that he was remarrying today.

Maybe by the time our girls have kids of their own, my ex will become more comfortable and want to share birthdays and occasionally go out to a family dinner. I hope by now he realizes that I radically changed from the quiet little insecure mouse who married him into the gal you can’t shut up, and that we were no longer a good fit. He should have already been convinced that I’m a difficult person to live with, and his life must be much more peaceful not having to pick up the pieces of my daily over-commitments. I was merely a 13-year pit stop on the way to true happiness.

My wedding gift for ex husband is this wish: Let this girl be your soul mate, the one you were destined to be with for the rest of your lives. Please be happy, find the best in each other, grow together, and be a shining example to our daughters of the kind of marriage they would aspire to have one day.

What’s the nice thing about my gift? It’s something that you can keep – and re-gift over and over to every bride and groom.

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November 6, 2011 · 12:01 am

10 Luxuries I Can Now Afford Since “Once Upon a Time” Got Picked Up for a Full Season

A couple of weeks ago, on the night of its premiere, I wrote the blog Please, Fairy Godmother… Please Make “Once Upon a Time” a Mega Hit!

I got my wish.

On Thursday, ABC announced that it was ordering a full season pick up of the new fairy tale drama, which means 9 additional episodes to their original order of 13.

Why do I care so much? As the dialogue editor for the show, that means 9 more paychecks. And if it truly is a mega hit, I may have 22 weeks of pay for years to come.

Since my last show Brothers & Sisters was cancelled last May, my mind has been going to some very dark places. Unemployment is only available for 26 weeks, and if I didn’t get another show, those dark places could quickly become a reality.

Foreclosure.

No medical insurance.

Food stamps.

Selling my kids into slavery.

But now I can count on some regular paychecks. Well, as long as I keep turning my show in on time and well edited. And also as long as the higher-ups on Once Upon a Time (basically everyone higher than I am) don’t get annoyed that a lacky like myself is incessantly chatting about their hit show on her mommy blog.

So now that I can count on a regular income (about as regular as you can get in the entertainment industry), here are the 10 Luxuries I Can Now Afford Since Once Upon a Time Got Picked Up for a Full Season:

  1. I can stop calling peanut butter the other white meat. We can finally add some lovely Spam to our dinner. Not every night. But some nights.
  2. Feed my dogs instead of eat my dogs. Their growling stomachs were really bugging me, and frankly, these mutts don’t have a lot of meat on their bones to nibble on.
  3. My 2012 wardrobe will not completely consist of my 10-year old’s rejected hand-me-downs from her classmate. I’m so glad Mary Belle’s friend is out of the High School Musical phase. I was feeling like one of those pathetic moms that dresses like her teenage daughter and truly believes it when people tell her they look like sisters.
  4. I can stop filling my Arrowhead water bottles from my neighbor’s hose. I dodged a bullet by never getting caught. Maybe I should make them a quiche to ease my guilty thieving conscience. A Spam quiche.
  5. I’ll donate blood for free. Platelets, however are too lucrative to give away.
  6. I can stop making my kids reuse their dental floss (no wonder they hate to floss).
  7. We won’t be living in a cardboard box on an off ramp. Actually my plan was to create a home out of cardboard boxes from IKEA. I figured that it would be easier to put together than their furniture.
  8. I can start buying my kids’ friends real birthday presents instead of just recycling the gifts they gave to my kids. It’s really embarrassing when I find out the hard way that there’s a personalized message in the book that was given.
  9. I can stop googling “earn money” “black market” and “kidney” together in advanced search mode. But shoot… I could have made a bundle of money. But my kidneys are getting a little old and tired. Too bad my daughter Emily’s got type 1 diabetes. They probably don’t want hers either.
  10. I can keep posting blogs on Sundays (those are the days that public libraries – and hence computers and the internet – are closed). Otherwise, it would take me about two days to text these ramblings via cell phone. Also, Verizon would have cut my service by then anyway for lack of payment.

Ok… so I’m exaggerating a little. But in my head, I really was living in a box on an off ramp, filtering leftover German Shepherd with my single kidney.

A girl can dream, can’t she?

Next – The 10 Luxuries I Can Afford When I Win Lotto.

#1 – Spam every day!

Episode #3 of Once Upon a Time airs tonight at 8:00 pm on ABC. Please watch.

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