You Can Name Your Kid Whatever You Want, But...

A few weeks ago, I found myself chatting with the World's Cutest Young Couple who also happen to be expecting what you just know will be the World's Cutest Baby and inevitably, we meandered onto the topic of Baby Names. "Oh, we aren't really sure about that," the girl half of the WCYC said. "There are so many things to consider when you're naming your child. We need to think about it."

I didn't offer it at the time (I think a plate of food went by and I got distracted by the brownies around the edge), but after spending time working in a school, as a parent, and, let's face it, as a person with opinions, I have an abbreviated list of Things to Consider When Naming Your Kid. Here it is:

Spell the name out and take a good look at it before you sign the birth certificate. I have to believe that Mrs. Thorpe didn't take a lot of time to ponder what she was doing when she named her son Craphonso, since the first time I saw the All-American's name during a Florida State football game, I hollered, "CRAP-onso? Who names their kid that?" The men in the room quickly assured me it was pronounced Cray-fonso, but you can see where I was confused, right?  My own brother named his daughter (our goddaughter) Riane, pronounced Ryan, but everyone says Ree-ann when they see her name. Even I'm not immune. A few months ago I was at the doctor's office and the tech announced, "BRIG-ed?" I corrected her ("It's Bridge-id") she peered at my name on the chart for a few seconds and then chirped, "Are you sure?" And while we're on the spelling thing...

Avoid the Creative Spelling. This, I know all about. My own name?  Brigid?  It's the Irish spelling of Bridget, and it's been a pain in my butt ever since I can remember. I've been spelling it out and correcting people (don't get me started on telemarketers or customer service reps) my whole life. Thanks, Mom and Dad.  Our own daughter, Catharine, is named after my grandmother, and that little extra 'a' in there has caused her more than a little consternation. Those are sort of understandable. But what's with the random substitution of letters? You know what I'm saying, right? For example: "I want him to stand out," one mom who named her kid Awstyn once explained to me as I was filling out a discipline form for him after he'd taken an Exacto knife to the class photo and had bitten the teacher who was trying to stop him. I don't think she had anything to worry about, since the fact her kid is a budding serial killer makes him stand out even more than the spelling of his name. Well, wait--I guess the creative spelling will stand out on his Wanted poster on the Post Office wall, so, you know, bonus!

What's with the place names? A few years back there was an alarming flood of people naming their kids after state capitals. You know, Madison, Austin, Denver, Jackson. I once ran into someone who explained her daughter's name with, "We named her Madison because that's where we met and fell in love." My response? "We were going to name our daughter Glascott's Bar, but we thought it might be confusing for people." You know, "Where's Glascott's?" "On the corner of Halsted and Webster.... Oh, no, wait, you mean the kid.  She's down in the playroom doing quantum physics." We toyed with the idea of naming our kids Montpelier, Des Moines, or Sacramento (Sac, for short), then just decided to stick with Catharine and Joe.

Think about your kid's future, for goodness sake! Your name is the first impression people have of you, right? So think about what your poor kid's name says about him or her. Case in point: this clip from one of my favorite movies, "The Sure Thing."

Whatever happened to naming your child after a family member? Or a saint? I'm constantly amazed at the names people come up because they want to make some sort of statement or, see above, they want their kid to stand out.  Oh, please. My friend who's a teacher has lots of students with very different names with very different spellings, but the worst I've heard is Secret Box. Really, what's that poor kid going to end up becoming? Judge Secret Box Smith? Doctor Secret Box Jones? Another of our friends had a client whose first name was Bodacious, and I've always hoped I'll see him running for president someday.

Watch the rhyming thing. My oldest sister? Geri Barry. My sainted great-grandmother and favorite second cousin? Both are Mary Barry. The name Skoog offered lots of good possibilities when we were thinking of names for Joe, not the least of which were Boog and Scooter. (I also liked Skippy, because I have a thing for alliteration.)

The day the WCYC and I chatted about their new baby, the guy said, "Well, you know, the one thing about
actually naming your baby is that once you do it, nobody's going to say anything to you about it."

Sorry, kids. I can't promise anything.  But here's hoping your World's Cutest Baby has a normal name so I don't have to blurt something out that's going to make our relationship all awkward--I need all the cute friends I can get.

You Know What's Annoying?

I'm crabby. Let me rephrase that--I'm crabbier than usual. Why? Two reasons: a hot flash and a pimple.

This Getting Older Thing isn't going to be a walk in the park, is it? I mean, one second I'm sitting at my desk, checking my email and making pithy, relevant comments on my friends' Facebook statuses, and the next second I feel like I'm sitting in a pizza oven, sweating like a whore in church and completely unable to focus.  WTF? as the kids say.

Combine the hot flash with the gynormous pimple I've sprouted on my forehead, and let's just say it's a bit confusing being me these days. Hot flash = old person. Zit = adolescent.  And this isn't just a tiny zit that's slightly annoying.  This zit is so big that I'm pretty sure it ordered its own drink at breakfast yesterday, since the waitress brought an extra juice that she swore up and down she'd heard we wanted. Hmmmm.

So, you know, great.  Now I have visions of myself in the nursing home, wrapped in a badly crocheted afghan, smelling slightly of Ben-Gay and urine, my face covered with patches of unevenly applied Oxy-10 while I stuff bars of chocolate in my face and shriek about how I can't hear my stories on the television.

I'm gonna be an awesome old person.

And in the spirit of getting older, and because I'm crabby, I'm dwelling a bit on all the stuff that drives me crazy.  My pet peeves, if you will.  I could never make a complete list, of course, because I'm one of those people who gets irritated randomly by very stupid things, but here are just a couple of things (in no particular order) that are sending me over the edge a bit these days:

• Gum chewers/snappers.  I can't think of anything more annoying than listening to or watching someone chew their gum. I understand why people chew gum--hey, even I need a little breath freshening now and again and have been known to pop a piece in my mouth. But a gum-snapping receptionist or clerk? A gum chewing Eucharistic Minister? No, no, no, no.  I'm sorry you have some sort of oral fixation that didn't get worked out when you were a toddler.  But why should the rest of us suffer because of your developmental issues? It's disgusting. Stop it. Oh, and wrap your gum in something before you throw it out, please.

• Disrespectful kids. I was going to say kids in general, but since I'm a parent I think I'm supposed to act like I enjoy children. And I do, actually, for the most part. I like hanging out (in a non-creepy way) with my kids' friends. But mouthy little buggers who talk back to their parents or, worse yet, to other non-parental units? Uh-uh. 

• Excessively skinny people who say they're starving, order a salad, and then only eat half of it while complaining about how fat they are. How are these mammals not set upon and dispatched (I'm currently reading a novel set in medieval times, in case you were wondering) by the rest of us hungry humans?

• The odor emanating from my son's room.  What is that, exactly?  Why doesn't Febreez take care of it?  You know that commercial where the blindfolded people walk into the scary, dirty, disgusting room and they think it smells like a meadow or a fresh sea breeze?  Yeah, well, you want a real challenge, you get yourselves over to the Skoog house and try to eliminate whatever that is coming out of the room at the top of the stairs. I guarantee you no one's going to say, "Oh, it smells like I'm in a field of flowers!" because I don't care how many spray cans you use or how many candles you burn, it's still going to smell like a garbage dump mated with a boys' locker room in there.

• Mirrors that allow their owners to go out looking like that. You know what I'm saying, right? You see these total Glamour Don'ts wandering around with their ill-fitting clothing, bad hair, stuff hanging out in all the wrong places, wearing poorly matched outfits and you just know they think they look okay. My own mirror would never let that happen.  My mirror says things to me like, "Hello, you're in your late 40s!" or "Don't you dare leave the house with that on!" or "Really?!? Like you didn't think those extra brats and beers were going to catch up with you?"

• People with loud, annoying voices who are also (bonus!) either really, really boring or incredible know-it-alls.  Today, as a matter of fact, I listened to a woman drone on and on in what was quite possibly the most irritating voice I've ever heard about her countertops (she might be going with the granite, but the poured concrete is good, too, and then there's the natural stone that's not exactly granite but isn't marble...). Since I was trapped in the beauty salon, I started trying to imagine how I could  get her to shut the f up without using an actual weapon--kind of a MacGyver-type project. I finally settled on a strategy that utilized a hairbrush, a curling iron, tin foil, and the bowl with the animal crackers in it. Unfortunately, she left before I could put it to use, but if you ever find yourself in that situation let me know and I'll share my plan with you.

Those are just a few things that bother me.  Today.  And don't worry, I completely understand that I, myself, am a really annoying person.  As a matter of fact, in college, after a particularly trying time romantically and socially for both of us, my friend Sue and I devised an entire system where we could eliminate all the people who drove us crazy.  It was kind of complicated, but it boiled down to this:  Everyone got five kills. But if you didn't want to kill someone, you could maim them. Three maims equaled one kill, and if you used one maim you had to use all three or lose them. We had it all figured out where, in our world, you could check out a pocket flame thrower using just your Marquette ID (why not? you could check out a vacuum--how is that different from a flame thrower?) and take care of that one guy who blew you off or, even better, the one skanky girl who was hanging all over that one guy who blew you off.

Yeah, we drank a lot in college.  A LOT.

But you know what the problem was with our plan? No matter how we worked it out, we realized that as soon as it became operational, we had maybe a day before someone used up a maim or a kill on one of us. And, bottom line, we weren't actually homicidal.  We were just annoyed. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference when your irritation is fueled by beer and hormones, you know?

So here's what I've learned.  The older I get, the more there is to deal with--emotionally, physically, and, yes, spiritually. I sometimes think about those two college students, sitting on barstools at the Ardmore, calmly planning out the demise of a few perky blonde coeds, inept professors, and overly preppy Biffs over dollar pitchers of Miller Lite. Can you imagine if either one of us had a hot flash during one of those planning sessions, or, worse yet, during an encounter with one of those intended victims? Gives you pause, doesn't it?

But, um, on a totally unrelated note, does anyone know where you can pick up a pocket flame thrower?

The Gym

Yes, I go to the gym.

I know this shocks anyone who's ever seen me, since usually people with my physique and pallor spend their days in a dimly lit room, lying on a couch clad in an outfit with ample elastic in all the right places, consuming mass quantities of chocolate and yellow-hued snacks while watching General Hospital and endless reruns of whatever Law and Order franchise happens to be showing at that particular time. But I'm not kidding!  I do, on occasion, work out.

I mean, take a second to think about what I'd look like if I didn't.

Kinda makes you a little sick to imagine it, doesn't it?

And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm not a fitness nut or anything.  I go, do some cardio, try to work on the beer gut and 16-year-old baby weight, and get the heck out.  But on the bright side, I've met and observed some pretty interesting people, which is what keeps me going back.

Take, for example, the dozen or so ladies who used to go to the 9 a.m. water aerobics class. (I say used to because apparently they've discontinued the class and my life is much less richer for it.) This class was filled with senior citizens who I believe hailed from a nearby retirement community. And let me tell you, there's some (use vibrato voice) drama going on over there.

Let's start with Silvie.

Now, Silvie must be the, um, Retirement Community Slut.  See, those words just don't look right together, but that's the impression I got. One of the best lines I've ever overheard was about Silvie (and I'm always trying to overhear good lines).

Margie (the Retirement Home Gossip): So, I guess Silvie won't be coming for awhile.  She just had some [loud whisper] face work done. [pause] Although at her age, who's she trying to look better for, the undertaker?

Then, a few weeks later, the locker room was all abuzz because apparently Silvie is having an affair with Mike, who's actually Daisy's husband.  Daisy's also an aqua-sizer, but she wasn't there that day because she had a doctor's appointment and then she was going to lunch with her daughter, maybe at Coco's since they have a good senior citizen menu but the pie just isn't what it used to be. (You get a lot of information from the seniors.) Anyway, Daisy had no idea about Mike's infidelity, but Margie was convinced that she'd find out because Silvie and Mike weren't exactly, you know, discreet.

I'm not even kidding, these women are all at least 80 years old. I can't decide if I'm excited to get older and retire or if I dread it since it seems a lot like high school, except with softer food, removable teeth, and lots more polyester. And there's the ewwwwwwwwww factor with all of it.

But the fun doesn't stop with the senior citizens.

Quite possibly the most gorgeous man I've ever seen (and that's saying a lot, since I'm married to a trophy husband and all) is part of a same sex couple who comes to the gym pretty regularly, and they are, in a word, hilarious. A few weeks ago, Gorgeous Guy was chatting with another gym goer, talking about how his boyfriend didn't like veal, and the two Senior Citizens next to me had a field day with it.

SC1 [loudly]: Did he say BOYFRIEND? He's GAY?

SC2 [just as loudly]: He did. He said boyfriend. Will you look at that? He's so, so, so....attractive!

SC1: He's just the type I would've gone for back in the day. But he would've broken my heart.

[GG, by this time, is smiling and waving at them, since he--and everyone else in the cardio area--can hear them]

SC2: And he's so polite!

The Gorgeous Guy and his partner were working out right in front of me one day last week, and the partner was complaining about the people he worked with. "I mean, they think I'm gay because I keep my office clean and always have everything just so."

Gorgeous Guy reassured him: "But that's not why you're gay.  You're gay because you like men. Duh."

The two of them, if they're working out together, have a running commentary going about our fellow gym-goers.  Like me, they tend to dislike too much plastic surgery on a woman ("Like you can't tell those aren't real."), they're alarmed by the really short shorts on larger women ("If something drops out of those shorts, I hope someone's held responsible."), they think big bellies should be covered ("Congrats, sweetie, you have stretch marks. Now put 'em away."), and people who grunt while they're working out are "just beyond help." It always makes me happy when they're there, since usually they're saying exactly what I'm thinking.

If it wasn't excessively creepy, I'd start following them around and asking them what they think of other gym characters like The Jolly Numbers Boys, The Wannabe Muscleheads, and The Medicated Mommies. But I do my best to be invisible at the gym, because I'm afraid someone's going to take my gym membership away after they notice that I've been coming for what? almost 20 years and I still look like this. So for now I'll just be content to watch everyone, keep my ears open, and try to figure out what The Former Stripper tries to prove by wandering completely naked through the locker room every day. If she's trying to make us feel bad, it's not working.  As one of the senior citizens put it so beautifully: "If I slip her a dollar, do you think she could cover that stuff up?"

Dropping The Kid Off at College: Helpful Hints

Update: I wrote this two years ago, and now, as I prepare to take Kid #2 to college, I feel like an old pro at this. Except I'm not. Joe's going to a different college on the other side of the country (Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington), and the fact he's headed to unfamiliar territory kind of freaks me out. Stay tuned for updates. But for now, I think this is still pretty relevant.

In the interest of full disclosure, I have to say this: I only dropped my kid off at college once. Does this make me an expert on this subject?  No.  But in this day and age, when total closet cases call themselves Life Coaches and people pay actual money to grab hold of a metal bar and have someone tell them why they're sick, I figure I'm as good a source for information as any, right?  Plus there's the whole Me Being A Service Person Thing, so, you know, I'm here to help.

Okay, for my friends who are getting ready to drop their kids off at college, here's what I figured out.

• It's not as bad as you think it's going to be.  As anyone who was around me at this time last year can tell you, I was a wreck just anticipating taking Catharine to school.  It almost made it worse that she was going to my alma mater (Marquette University), because every time I closed my eyes I pictured her sitting in the Ardmore with a bottle of beer in her hand, or, even worse, wasting time by watching pro wrestling on Sunday mornings with the World's Smelliest Humans.  Then there was the small, insignificant fact that somehow, over the previous 18 years, I actually started liking this kid, and I was truly going to miss her.  But you know what?  Once we got her settled, met her awesome roommate and her family, and figured out that all the old bars were gone and they have cable so they don't have to watch wrestling on Sunday mornings, I felt better about leaving her.  As I told my friends, it was like I thought I was going to get cancer, but only ended up with a bad cold.  I was sad, but I didn't come completely unglued.  You'll survive!
• There are other kids besides yours going to school there. There is nothing--and I mean NOTHING--more annoying than the mom who seems to think her child is the center of the universe.  Well, except the progeny of the aforementioned parental unit.  When we went for orientation, we were sitting in a classroom with a bunch of other parents, and one mom started in on how her son was in this class, but he should've been in that class, and he really wanted to take blah, blah, blah... The head of the program finally cut her off, saying, "Well, we'll have time to get more specific after while. Right now this is an overview."  Did that shut her up? Nooooo.  She kept going.  Now, normally I would've been very tolerant of this, but it was starting to look like we were going to be late for lunch and I didn't want to miss the salad.  I was thisclose to standing up and shrieking, "Clearly your kid didn't inherit his brains from you! Take a social cue, you idiot! Shut the f up, willya? Did you miss the part about them giving us food?  I need to eat, dammit!" And, on a related note...
• Yeah, yeah, yeah, your kid's a genius.  Now will you just shaddup? This is not necessarily the same person mentioned above, but it certainly can be.  Okay, here's the thing.  They're already in college, the playing field's basically been leveled, so now you can just can it about the test scores and whatever honors your kid got in high school. One mom actually said to me, "Well, Timmy's a golden boy and if he goes after something, he gets it.  That's a little heads-up in case your daughter's competing with him for something."  No, really, she said that. What are we, Texas cheerleading moms?  Was that a threat? I looked around for a camera, thinking I was being punked, but she wasn't kidding.  They actually make people like that!
• If your son's being a jerk, it's because he's nervous, too.  I mean, I don't know your kid, it's very possible he's a full-time jerk, but this is a nerve-wracking time for some of these students and things can get a little tense. I can't count the number of times I got snapped at, witnessed the just-short-of-a-seizure eye roll, or got the silent treatment just because I didn't move fast enough or anticipate a need or was standing in the wrong spot in the room during move-in.  Get a thick skin, and kill the little idiot with kindness.
• Don't eat Real Chili with beans before helping her move into the dorm room.  It's a small space.  That's all I have to say about that.
• The rules DO apply to you. If the school has a policy about things like elevator usage or time allotted with a dolly or bunking beds, follow it!  There are about a million other parents trying to do the exact same thing you are and as much as you think the procedure the school follows doesn't make sense, they've been doing this a lot longer than you have, so just be patient. Nothing worse than the person who overloads the elevator or the person who takes up all the room in the hallway with all their crap so no one can get by. And don't stand by the elevators and complain endlessly about how messed up the process is and how you're being inconvenienced.  Because no one else's time is as valuable as yours, you selfish lout. In short, don't be a jerk.  And if you are a jerk, trust me on this, the rest of us parents are going to judge you and talk about you endlessly.
• Be nice to the school staff people.  For the most part, these are just college students, maybe a couple of years older than your own child, and they're just doing their jobs.  Don't start lecturing them on how things can be done better (see above) and for goodness sake, don't start yelling at them when something goes wrong.  The worst thing I saw was a mom shrieking at a staffer about how her daughter was not going to take a top bunk and these rooms are too small and, my favorite part, "What do you know, anyway?  You're just standing there like an idiot, staring at me.  Why are you even working here?" She stormed off, and the poor little RA stood all hunched over her clipboard, looking like someone just kicked her.  Thank goodness for my fellow parents--about five of them rushed over to her to comfort her.  So, yeah, be nice.
• Dress and act like someone's parent, not someone's buddy or a scary, Mrs. Havisham-ish college student. I only mention this because there was this one woman who wore extremely high heels, short shorts, and a top that revealed a little too much, if you know what I mean, and she caused quite the stir among her fellow parents. My favorite part was when she was waiting for an elevator and she flashed a big smile at one of the dads and said, completely out of the blue, like she was a mind reader or something,"I know, it's hard to believe we're old enough to have kids in college, isn't it?" His wife answered for him, after looking her up and down: "Oh, we're not having any problem believing it, dear."
• It's okay to cry, but just don't make a mess.  Going down in the elevator with another mom who looked a little shaky, I said, "So, how're you doing?" and she burst into tears.  I couldn't make everything out, what with the sobbing and all, but it seems as though little Mary wasn't even supposed to go to college and (something something something)... Anyway, I put my arm around her, and she buried her face in my shirt and got tears and boogers all over my shoulder. Thank goodness I had tissues, but come on! If you know you're a blubberer, the least you can do is carry around a handkerchief.
• Leave when they tell you to leave. Honestly, these people at the institutions of higher learning know what they're talking about.  If they say you should leave before a convocation or after a dinner, just do it. Nothing worse than being the Parents Who Wouldn't Leave.  It's creepy!  These kids need to get to know each other, they need to figure out what their new normal looks like, and they have to work out on their own how to balance all the new demands on their lives.  Oh, and so do you!  So say goodbye, don't make a scene (unless your kid's being a pain and deserves it), and get the heck out.

In short, be nice, be patient, and (I almost forgot the most important part!) responsibly administered liquor, in reasonable doses, will help you get through the tense times. But don't carry a flask around--it's too tempting.  If I'd had unfettered access to vodka during the actual move-in, I would've ended up either falling asleep in the hallway at around noon and having my large unconscious body contribute to the chaos, or picking up a closet rod and beating the crap out of a couple of my fellow parents.  So, restraint!

For the past three years, Catharine has gone up to school all by herself, set up her room all by herself, and is now happily training for her year ahead as a facilities manager in a residence hall (if some parent starts shrieking at her during move-in, I'll get names, you mark my words).  So, see?  They do grow up, and they start living their own lives.  Without us.

Sigh

I need to find some vodka.

Whalegate

I have a thing about whales.

I can't help it, I just do.  I think they're cool, I'm fascinated by them, etc., etc.  And my poor family indulges me in this, sort of.  We actually went on a cruise to Alaska a few summers back, under the guise of a post-eighth grade graduation trip for Joe (like it's a big deal to make it past eighth grade--pssshhh), so I could see whales and bald eagles. Oh, and so we could enjoy nature and marvel at the natural beauty of our 49th state.  Blah, blah, blah. But on said cruise we didn't take the whale watching excursions, so I had to be content to view said whales from the deck of the ship, 10 stories above the water.  It was good, but not good enough.

So when Mark announced that he wanted Skoog Family Vacation 2011 to take place in Santa Barbara, I got on santabarbara.com to see what sort of stuff we could do during our stay.  And there it was, right in the lower left hand corner: Whale Watching.

I was all excited.  The family, not so much.  But on Day 2, after carefully reading all the Whale Watching Literature we had available (a pamphlet from the company and info on their website) we dressed up in layers, ate a light breakfast, and then went to the dock.  As we stood there waiting (me, eagerly; the other Skoogs, not so much) with about 50 other people, most of them speaking different languages (and I'm pretty sure saying that my green jacket washed me out and made me look fat), the captain of the boat came up the gangplank and started talking.

"So, the whales have moved farther west and it's going to take longer to get to where they're feeding.  Plus the sea is rough and we'll be headed right into the wind. So if you have Dramamine, you should probably take it now.  But if you don't like rough seas and you don't like rocking boats, you should get a refund and come back another day.  Okay, who's ready?"

How bad could it be?  I thought.  I don't mind rocking boats.  Let's DO IT!

I scampered aboard the boat, the family followed, we sat through the Naturalist Volunteer's spiel about whales and their feeding habits, and soon we were on our way.

Then the fun started.

Now, I have to say, we met some delightful people on deck.  There was the honeymooning couple from Ireland who were both woefully under-dressed in shorts and t-shirts (they didn't read the literature, obviously) who told us all about their wedding and all the fun stuff they'd been doing since they got to America.  I loved how they said things were "brilliant" when they meant cool.  And there was my friend Oscar and his sister Olivia and their parents.  Oscar is four, Olivia's going into second grade, and it turns out that Oscar's daddy is some sort of Hollywood director.  It was Oscar's first whale watching expedition, and he was a little shocked it was my first, given my advanced age, until he learned I lived in Arizona and "don't they just have desert stuff out there? You don't have an ocean.  What do you do for fun?"  (Ah, if only my dad was a Hollywood director--then I would've grown up on a beach in Montecito like Oscar.) I told him I drank and gambled.  He seemed cool with it.

Now, I stayed glued to my seat on the top deck because I'm a complete idiot and I thought whales were just going to start jumping out of the water at random. (They don't tend to do that, btw.)  Apparently there were all sorts of hijinks going on below deck that I completely missed, but the kids and Mark witnessed first hand.

Yes, it got really, really bumpy.  And the wind was incredible.  Then there were the waves. At first, the people down below sounded like they were on a roller coaster, hollering "Eeeeeeee!" every time we hit a big wave.  Then, not so much, you know, due to the danger of being swept overboard by an errant wall of water and all.  One highlight for me came when the 300+ lb. heavily tattooed woman wearing a sundress and flip flops (again, people, read the literature!) tipped over and ended up in my lap. "My daughter's not feeling well," she said, like that explained...well, there was lots to explain but I don't think her daughter had anything to do with it. (After she got up and weaved her way to her seat, Oscar leaned over to me and said, "That looked very uncomfortable for you. Did it hurt?")

Mark came up to me a long way into the trip and said, "There's a family of Japanese Olympians downstairs.  I'm pretty sure they're gold medalists in synchronized puking."  Catharine and Joe tried to seek shelter down in the covered cabin but were greeted by a woman throwing up in her hand.  They turned around to make a speedy exit, only to come face-to-face with two Japanese people throwing up in the blue garbage cans on deck.  "And it was too late," Joe said, shaking his head. "I wanted to tell them that vomit isn't recyclable, but the damage had already been done. They're ruining the environment."

There was the Communist Snowman, a Polish boy all dressed in red and soaked from head to toe, who kept wandering around the boat, getting thrown back and forth like a pinball, munching on some foul-smelling sandwich.  He'd walk by a group of people, they'd get a whiff of him, and the sickness bags would come out.  It was like a scene straight out of a (bad) sitcom.

There was Plastic Surgery Lady who sat next to me, rubbing the recent scars behind her ears while mumbling, "I can't remember if they say it's a bad idea to mix Dramamine with Xanax, but I wonder when they're turning the boat around." Pause, eyes at half staff, then snapping open. "Can you walk?  Because I don't think I can.  I think the boat is moving."

There were lots of other people, too, most of them non-literature-reading Europeans who all looked like they were going to first freeze to death and then die from seasickness.  In that order.  But guess what?

We saw whales!

Actual, living, breathing whales!  We saw humpbacks and blue whales, along with sea lions and dolphins.  At one point a humpback whale started playing with our boat, swimming back and forth underneath it and breaching--our Naturalist Volunteer said that was unusual, and this whale obviously liked us.  It was awesome, and as I shared my unbounded enthusiasm with the other members of my family, Joe leaned over to me and said, "Mom, you know what this trip is going to be known as?  Whalegate."

Oh, no, I said, it hasn't been that bad, has it?

Catharine said, "Well, getting to see the whales this close is pretty cool. I think it's fun." (She's a trooper.)

Then I looked over at Mark, who was sitting on the bench, arms folded, with a big smile on his face. I was about to share my joy with him when I noticed his left hand.  His smile never wavered, but his middle finger, saluting me, told me that he was not nearly as enthusiastic as I was about the whale sighting.

The trip back was much smoother and way more uneventful.

The rest of the vacation was great, but suffice it to say, I was not allowed to suggest any more activities for the rest of the week.  Or, possibly, the rest of the decade.

But did I mention I got to see whales?

Our Trip to The Gap

Mark needed new shorts.  We went to The Gap, because they were having a buy two, get one free sale.  Easy, right?

Wrong.

First off, I don't claim to be cool, and I do follow advertising enough to know that there are lots of hipsters on Gap commercials.  But I guess we labored under the misconception that we could find some nice, conservative shorts there with a minimum of effort, and there'd be a lot of fellow shoppers like us there.  Uh-uh.

We walked into the store to find one painfully skinny girl holding up a pair of those new legging jeans to her equally painfully skinny friend saying, "I don't think you'd look fat in these."  Honestly, these girls would've looked anorexic in a burkha, so they're lucky I didn't go crazy and start shrieking at them about how their body images were all screwed up, how there's more to life than how you look, etc., etc.  I also fantasized about beating them about the head and shoulders with the headless mannequin modeling said legging jeans, but I didn't.  I'm working on my rage issues.

Anyway, we probably should've packed it up right there and walked out, but alas, it was a sale after all, and we did spot a rack of relatively normal shorts in very conservative colors toward the back of the store.  So we ventured in and picked out three pairs in Mark's size.

Then he had to try them on.

Here's the thing about my husband: he's kind of particular about what he wears.  Which is a little surprising, considering he's been wearing basically the same stuff since I've known him.  I'm guessing a typical guy trying on a pair of shorts takes what?  Three minutes?  "Yeah, they fit.  I'll take them."  Not Mark.  Oh, no.  He not only tries on the shorts, but then he has to tuck in his shirt, put his belt back on, put his shoes back on, and then come out of the dressing room to show me how they look.

Once for each pair of shorts.

I felt like I was in a low-budget version of "Project Runway."

I finally gave up walking around the store and shopping while he was in the dressing room, mostly because I feared mayhem would ensue if I ran into any other body-image-challenged youths. So I sat myself in the chair they have sitting outside the dressing room and waited, keeping myself amused by watching and listening to the people around me.

One of the salesgirls was pregnant, and she was running around the store like a trooper, hustling in and out of the dressing rooms, doing all that stuff that salesgirls do, except she did it with a smile on her face while lugging around at least 20 extra lbs.  Her, I liked.

Then there was the woman who was holding an infant I thought might be hers until I saw the actual mother come out of the dressing room in tears because she couldn't fit into the same size jeans she wore before.

New Mom: "I can't believe this.  These are twos.  TWOS.  I'll never be a zero again." Sniff.  "Did you feed her? Make sure you don't get formula on that outfit. It's new."

Old Mom: "Yes, I fed her.  And honey, you just need to do more sit-ups.  Get those jeans for now and they'll tide you over until you can get back into your zeros.  You gotta have goals, sweetie!"

During all this, I'm sitting in the chair looking--and feeling--like Jabba the Hutt.  It took everything I had not to say, while scratching my belly, "Yeah, I had me some o' them goals once.  But then I discovered they made Snickers Ice Cream bars, and it was all over."

But I didn't say that.  I'm working on my impulsivity while I'm working on my rage issues.  I'm busy.

Then Old Mom spotted the pregnant salesgirl, and the fun really began.

OM: "When are you due?"

PSG: "In two months."

OM: "Are you sure of the date?  Because you don't want to have a scheduled C-section if you're not.  My daughter had hers scheduled, and it was great, but there was another woman in the maternity ward who almost lost her baby because the dates were off.  You should have that checked."

PSG: (Nodding, wearing fake smile) "Thanks."

OM: "How much weight have you gained?"

PSG: (something unintelligible)

OM: "Are you exercising?  It's really hard to get your body back in shape after a baby.  Look at my daughter.  She's been wearing those shapeless dresses all summer, and she works out like a fiend.  It's sad."

Pause while OM flipped through a rack of sales shirts.

OM: "I was in labor with her for almost two days.  It was horrible.  I'm telling you, pain like you can't believe.   Then there's the added worry about what could be happening to your baby.  Do you have these in a small?  Oh, sure they have those ultrasounds and tests, but there are all kinds of things that could be going on that you'll never know until you see your baby.  Do these come in any other colors?"

Now, I was lucky enough to be pregnant twice, and, while it was a long time ago, I'm pretty sure that the last thing I wanted to hear, especially the first time, was the story of how horrible someone else's labor was.  And I didn't need any help imagining what sort of mayhem was taking place inside my womb. (cf: Joe Skoog) PSG handled it like a trooper, smiling and checking on sizes and finally extracting herself to go help some hapless guy who had to be told that the plaid shirt he picked out wasn't the same plaid as the shorts he saw on the other side of the store.  Fashion crisis averted.

In the meantime, NM was still in the midst of her own fashion crisis, trying to struggle into a pair of those horrible legging jeans and making these awful grunting noises that sounded like she was being beaten inside the dressing room.

Thank goodness Mark picked this moment to finally emerge in his original outfit (all tucked in and in perfect order, btw), so I didn't have to listen to or see the results of the gymnastics going on in NM's room.  Phew.

That night, while I made dinner, I imagined NM sitting at her table, nibbling on her meal of lettuce leaves and ice water, outlining her new Life Plan for Getting Back Into A Size Zero.  And her mother, glowing with the knowledge that she was able to share her vast knowledge with that poor, less fortunate pregnant woman.

Me? I was just happy there were brownies for dessert.

All You Can Eat? Really?

I've always had a problem with my weight.  As in, I have too much of it.

Oh, sure, I lost about 50 lbs. six years ago, and since then I've kept most of it off, but just because I dropped a few sizes doesn't mean I've gotten rid of the Chubby Girl mentality.  I still struggle every day with the voices I hear coming out of the pantry and the refrigerator: "In here! In here! I'm delicious! You need me, even though I have 30 grams of fat per serving, more sodium than an entire bottle of soy sauce, and have been known to cause cancer in lab rats." (No, I'm not on medication.  I've been assured that this sometimes happens to food-obsessed people.  I was told to eat a carrot or an apple when it happens.  This hasn't quieted the voices, but I am getting more fiber in my diet.)

Oh, and I hate to exercise, even though I'm usually in the gym locker room right around the same time the over-70s aquasize babes are gathering for their MWF sessions, and I've learned tons about the goings-on at the nearby retirement community. Even though these ladies are older, there's still lots of, shall we say, interpersonal relationship drama happening.  As in, "That Silvie's a slut."  Silvie's about 85, I'm not even kidding.

Anyway, I tell you all that to set the stage for the nightmare I encountered last Friday, when Mark took his whole department to the Diamondbacks-Dodgers game and we sat in the All You Can Eat section.

No, really, they have that.

And not only do they have that, but you have to ride a special elevator to get there, and once you're in, you have access to this nice area with unlimited hot dogs, chips, peanuts, popcorn, soda, and really pleasant helpful people who take really good care of you.  As they like to point out, it says right on your ticket "All You Can Eat."  It's above the doors in the corridor when you get off the elevator.  Plus (and this was my favorite part) right above our heads as we watched the game was the big sign, advertising to the entire stadium that yes, the spectators with mustard stains on their cheeks and peanut shell dust on their black shirts were indeed able to consume unlimited mass quantities, all for the price of their ticket to the ballpark.

The last time I checked the Diamondbacks were only 3.5  games out of first place in their division, and they're playing some pretty solid baseball.  But this is Phoenix in the summer, so attendance at the games is pretty spotty, and the people responsible for putting butts in the seats at these games offer good deals to fill up the stadium.  Not that I expected a classy group of my fellow citizens in the All You Can Eat section, but, just to give you a picture, this is what I overheard in the bathroom:

"My husband was two hours late for our first date.  And he showed up hammered."

"That's nothing.  Mine was an hour and a half late for our wedding.  But I cut him some slack because he had to pick up the keg."

I wanted to offer some relationship advice to Woman 1--you know, about how maybe after 30 minutes you should've found something else to do, maybe that's not a good sign for a first date--but my daughter tells me I'm too chatty in public places.  So I just washed my hands and got out of there.  When I got back to our seats, there was W1, taking her husband a plateful of (free) hot dogs and three boxes of popcorn.  Her very large spousal unit was wearing a Dodger's shirt (traitor! enjoying our All You Can Eat section!) that was so large and so blue that for a second I got all disoriented when he stood up because I thought I was looking at the sky.

But back to the food.

Now, I love hot dogs.  I know, I know, they aren't real meat, they have tons of bad stuff in them, they're all fat, etc., etc.  I walked into the AYCE section that evening telling myself I could have one hot dog.  Just one. (I ended up having two, but they were small.  And spaced at least four innings apart.) And I'd go easy on the other stuff, like chips and popcorn. But peanuts, well, that's a whole different story.  Peanuts in the shell, you have to work to get those bad boys out, so that's exercise, right?  By the time the rest of Mark's crew showed up, right before the National Anthem, I'd laid down a pretty good carpet of shells around my seat, even throwing some over towards Catharine's so it didn't look like I was having all the fun.  After we were introduced, Liam, who's 6, took a look around my feet, checked out the whitish debris on my shirt and shorts, and said, in a monotone, "You like peanuts, huh?"

Chubby Girl gets busted.

All in all, it was a really fun night.  Well, except the Diamondbacks lost (their 7th inning rally fell short).  But I got to meet a bunch of Mark's nice coworkers and their families, and it was fun to watch W1's husband tip over when cheering for a Dodger home run.  (serves him right)  But the All You Can Eat section?  It's too much for a girl like me to handle.  Girls like me need $6 hot dogs and $5 bags of peanuts, if only to make us think twice about what we're consuming. Having all that there for the taking?  It's just not healthy.

At least I wasn't that high-heeled, platinum blonde woman, who, after mincing her way around the buffet table three times, whined, "You'd think they'd put out some fruit or something."  Really?  You'd think that?  It's a BASEBALL GAME, you moron.  You come to watch the game and eat hot dogs and peanuts and yell at the umps.  Geesh.  After that, I kept an eye on her.  Not that I was keeping close track, but on my watch she ate three hot dogs, two boxes of popcorn, and had as much or more peanut dust on her sparkly t-shirt when she was leaving as I did.

I went home well fed and happy.

On (Horrible) Bosses

Catharine (the daughter) and I went to go see Horrible Bosses yesterday.  Funny movie, kind of raunchy, I love Jason Bateman and Jason Sudekis, and I've almost gotten over getting all freaked out sitting next to my daughter during sex scenes and f-word-riddled dialogue.  My review: go see it.

You know the premise of the movie, right?  Three guys have these absolutely horrible bosses (hence the title) and the movie is all about how they try (ineptly) to kill off these bad bosses.  Naturally, after it was over, I started thinking about the bosses I've had during my career, and was stopped short by one thing: Every single job I've had since I got out of college has been with some sort of Catholic church-related institution.

In other words, I've only worked for priests.

My first boss out of college was a priest, and since then even if my immediate boss wasn't a priest, his or her boss was a priest.  Priests. Seriously.  Priests. Isn't that nuts?  I got a job out of college working as an associate editor for a magazine in Chicago, a dream job for any journalism major graduating in 1985, when jobs were scarce and lots of my fellow grads ended up waiting tables, working as secretaries in offices, or relegated to places like North Platte, Nebraska, where they were stuck writing obituaries and covering the collapse of the family farm.  Me, I'm single, living in Chicago surrounded by a whole crew of my buddies, learning everything there is to know about magazine production--but here's the problem: because the magazine I'm working for is put out by the Jesuits, I'm surrounded by celibate men. Men who, if I'm to believe anything about the faith I grew up with, all have a direct line to God.

So much for dating opportunities at the office.

While my friends would regale me with stories about flirting with cute co-workers, I spent my days with a boss who collected mannequin heads, typed memos and manuscripts all in lowercase on scrap paper with an epileptic typewriter, and, at one point, turned the bathtub in his room into a duck pond. He lived in a primo house at Loyola University, right on the Chicago lakefront, and he'd invite me to dinner there occasionally, where I'd get to eat a good meal surrounded by a bunch of incredibly intelligent, interesting men.  Awesome, right?  Except because he was a Jesuit, he lived with a bunch of other Jesuits, and, well...let's just say it wasn't exactly Single Girl's Heaven.

My single friends and I would go out to the bars in Lincoln Park, striking up conversations with other singles and inevitably it would come up.

"What do you do?"

"I'm a magazine editor."

"What magazine?"

"It's called Company. You've probably never heard of it.  It's put out by the Jesuits, they're an order of priests."

"Priests?  Are you a nun?  A religious fanatic?"

...and we're off.

The editor job morphed into another Jesuit-related job, and then...well, you get the general idea.  Now, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for anyone who's ever been dim enough to give me a job, and I can truly say that the majority of priests I've met have been wonderful, grace-filled men who have enriched my life and the life of my family. The direct line to God thing?  As one of my best Jesuit buddies said, "Just because I'm a priest doesn't mean I'm not an a**hole. I just spend more time in church than the average guy." That's an understatement, to say the least, but as I started thinking about my work history in light of the movie we saw yesterday, I started to get a bit panicky.  What if I am destined for eternal damnation, just because of the bad thoughts I've had about my former bosses and/or their bosses?

A quick phone call to my favorite Jesuit calmed my fears.  He patiently explained, "Um, did you not take philosophy?  Theology?  Don't you go to church?  Weren't you paying attention?  You're not supposed to wish anyone dead, you idiot. Just because they're priests doesn't make it any worse.  What's wrong with you? What kind of a person has a big moral quandary after seeing a cheesy R-rated movie?  It's what, noon there?  Have you been drinking?"

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm an idiot. But at least I'm an idiot who's made some good friends during the past 25+ years.

Thank God for that.

Brigid Goes to Her High School Reunion

First off, let's get this straight--I was not popular in high school.  I had friends, I participated in extracurricular activities, I was generally happy, but I was, quite simply, not one of the cool kids.  And that's all fine and good, really, especially since I left immediately after graduation and continued my streak of un-coolness in college.  I only state this so you get right off that I wasn't returning to beautiful Iowa (insert livestock or corn joke here) to prove anything or to relive old glories. So why did I go back for my 30th high school reunion?

Story value.

Our flight going to Iowa was over seven hours late, so we didn't even show up at the bar where everyone was gathering on Friday night until around midnight.  Bad thing about this: everyone had been drinking since 8 p.m. and there was catching up to do.  Good thing about this: everyone had been drinking since 8 p.m. and let's face it, I look much better (particularly after 30 years) when everyone's got four hours worth of serious drinking under their belts.

During the two hours at the bar that Friday night, here's what I learned:

• You really, really don't want to hear, "You look exactly the same!" when you're shown your senior picture in the yearbook and in it you bear a very strong resemblance to David Cassidy. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful that I inherited decent skin and I never got into the sun worshipping thing, but I think I would've rather heard, "You look a little better than you did in high school."  (I did have the refrain of "I Think I Love You" in my head for most of the next day.)
• It's never, never a good idea to load up on mood-enhancing pharmaceuticals and then mix them with liquor before showing up for a reunion, although it does provide cheap entertainment for the others in the class.
• If you're at your reunion and you see someone at the bar you think is someone's dad, it's not.  It's the guy from your class and yes, he has actually morphed into his father during the past 30 years.
• Remember that one bully, the guy who would torture the nerdy kids and who did all those terrible things but never got caught?  Yeah, he's pretty much the same 30 years later, but now he drinks too much and you almost (almost!) have to feel sorry for him because, after all, a liver can only take so much abuse before it gives up completely.
• It's good to bring a Trophy Husband to stuff like this.  One idiot said to me, "I can't believe you married someone good-looking!"  Yes, indeed, we're all stunned.
• You don't need to ask someone you went to high school with how old they are, since last time I checked everyone ages at the same rate, and we were all roughly the same age when we graduated.
• Although it may sound harmless at the time, it's never ever a good idea to plan a breakfast with old friends of your parents' for the morning after you've been up drinking beer until 2 a.m.  Just trust me on this one.

There's more, but I think that'll do for now.  Let's call this Part I.  Still to come: Touring the Old High School, Going to Mass at the Old Parish, and Getting Arrested on Saturday Night.  (I made that last one up. No one got arrested, not because they didn't deserve it, but mostly because we have classmates who grew up and became law enforcement professionals and they kept a lid on things.)

Just Getting Started

Well, here we are.  My first attempt at blogging.  So far I haven't gotten a rash or anything.  That's a good sign, right?

In case you're wondering about the title, I arrived at it through a painstaking series of focus groups (I asked my friends on facebook), opinion surveys (I texted my clever friend Wendy), and reading thousands (okay, 15) of newspapers, magazines, and other blogs.  After all that, the title came when I went whining to The Current Husband (Mark) that I couldn't think of anything and he looked up from his computer and announced: "What about Brain Surgery on a Budget?" Then he went back to whatever it was he was doing, maybe forecasting for Q4, checking the stock portfolio, or catching up on Chicago Bears Daily (he's in total denial about the lockout).  Who knew I was married to such a genius?

Confession: I'm not really all savvy about the blogsphere.  Here's what I do know, just from the small amount of noodling I've done.

• There are a lot of folks out there who think they're writers but who seem to have skipped the whole Grammar 101 stuff in school.  Someday we'll go over all my pet peeves about the Common Mistakes of Bad Writing, but not today.  (My friends know what I'm talking about, because I'm pretty annoying about pointing it out.)
• I'm also alarmed at the plethora of periods outside of quotation marks.  STOP IT.  NOW!
• I love the people who use lots of photos to illustrate their point.  I fear I'll not have the time or talent to do this, and that makes me a bit sad.
• There are bloggers who can mine the rich depths of their family life for material.  I, however, may be a bit handcuffed by my dear children (Catharine and Joe, particularly Catharine) who are both more than a little embarrassed by me.  However, if I can't use this blog to help people Avoid The Mistakes I've Made in Parenting, then why, I ask, was I put here in the first place?
• I have no particular talent or interest I'm trying to write about or sell.  Well, unless someone wants to hire me as a writer--I do actually do that for fun and profit occasionally.  But I feel a little inadequate when I see my friend Cathy Wall's blog (Room RX) and Maria Andrew's babyKAMP blog, because they're actually adding some value to the world.  I fear I'm just white noise.

Well, kids, here we go.  I blame every one of you knuckleheads who came up to me at a Mothers' Guild meeting or a football game or a cocktail party and said, "You should write a blog."  Now, I'm sorry to say, you'll have to read it.

That'll show you.