finslippy

A good morning.

He ate both waffles.
He examined his sticky fingers and said, "I need to wash up."
He wanted to brush his teeth and wash without me, as a surprise.
"When I come out, you say, 'How did your teeth get so white?' and 'How did your hands get so clean'?"
He forgot that he needs my help squeezing the toothpaste. I came in, for a second. I had to pretend I didn't do that.
He jumped out of the bathroom and did jazz hands at me.
He stood on my bed, carefully brushing his hair, while I got dressed, and explained to me how he likes his hair done.
"You have to have your hair off your forehead, so you can look beautiful," he explained.
He brushed my hair. "You have a big forehead so it's easy for you to look beautiful."
Then he said he was going to show his Dad how beautiful he looked, and he ran downstairs.

Bully for you!

My new Wonderland column is up, and it's about bullying. Read it if you know what's good for you.

And wow, may I just say, now that I've done all this reading about school bullies, I am looking forward to Henry's entry into kindergarten a little bit less. Would it send the wrong message if I sent him to school in a helmet? Or a bubble?

I'm also realizing how easy I got off, bully-wise, in school. I regularly received threatening notes in junior high, but no matter how many times I learned that I would soon get the beating of my life, I never did. Perhaps the sniveling dissuaded my enemies. No one likes to get their fists wet.

The worst that happened is that the girls who wanted to beat me instead grabbed my LeSportsSac, mocked its contents, and broke my frosted blue eyeliner against the outside of the school. The sight of glittery light-blue smudged on brick can still move me to tears. Oh, Wet 'n' Wild Azure Dreams! You never had a chance!

MANNERS!

Every week at Henry's school they do a different letter, and a few weeks ago it was M week. One of the M words they discussed was Manners.

I learned this during dinner, when Henry asked, "May… I…please have more pasta, please?" He said it like he had just learned to ask for food in Portuguese. It was a distinct change from his usual way of requesting more food, which is to throw his spoon at me and point at his bowl, barking. "So polite!" we exclaimed, and that's when he told us about Manners. Manners is apparently important stuff for peoples to learn, else we become savage-like. Or so he learned us about. It.

"Can you pass the salt?" asked Scott, and Henry raised his spoon and declared, "Manners! You should say may you please pass the salt?"
"Pardon me," said Scott, "Madam, please, would you—"
"MAY YOU."
"May you please pass the salt? Please?"
"I certainly would, sir," I replied, and did so.
"Manners!" Henry cried out in approval.
"Henry, would you like more milk?" I asked him.
"May…I…ask…you—"
"Okay, I don't think that we need to say may I when I'm doing you the—"
"MANNERS!"
"Henry. May I please give you more milk?"
"No, thank you, Mother. You may not give me more milk."
"So 'manners' just means using the word 'may' a lot?"
"Yes. Manners is when you are fancy."
"Okay, are you all done with—"
"MANNERS."
We tried to explain how we use manners all the time, without saying "May I" in every sentence, and how maybe using manners doesn't involve bullying your family, but he wasn't having it.

The next week was N, during which we learned about Napkins and how one is supposed to use them with one's meal. Wha? We explained to him that we already have things to wipe our chins on, and we call them our Shirts. I suppose he'll learn that at S week.

The Internet can help in many ways but not in every way.

So first I was thinking of this news story I remembered from when Henry was a baby. He had this Fisher-Price Aquarium thingy that strapped onto his crib. It had fish bobbing around and various interactive doodads and it played music and he loved it. But that's not the news story! Can you imagine what a terrible story that would make? "Fisher-Price Aquarium Has Doodads, Music." No no no. No, the story I was trying to recall is how Walmart made a knockoff of the item, and alarmed families discovered that underneath the music, in a barely perceptible whisper, you could hear the words I hate you. But did this really happen? I was so tired then. I also remember exposing myself to the UPS guy, but I couldn't have done that, right?

But the story really did happen. ("A Vancouver, Wash., family discovered the toy they unsuspectingly attached to their 6-month-old son's crib utters the words "I hate you" amid the rhythmic ocean sounds designed to lull the baby asleep.") And I really did flash the UPS guy. Thank you, Internet!

Then I was trying to remember this movie that I saw probably 30 years ago. (And at this point you're thinking, Alice, don't you have anything better to do with your time? But I don't want to do those things, you silly goose; I want to look up obscure news stories and movies I half-remember. It helps me get through the day.) The movie was about a modern gal living in modern times who has these vivid dreams or flashbacks of living in Ye Olde Pilgrim Times, where she's being called Goody whatever-her-name-is and men in pilgrim hats are judging her sternly. And then she's put in a shallow grave and giant stones are placed on top of her so that she can't breathe. Then (SPOILER ALERT!) she's with her husband or friend or SOMEONE, driving in a car, and she turns away and turns back and he or she is wearing Ye Olde Pilgrime Costume! SHRIEK! And he or she drives our protagonist to some secluded wooded area and the shallow grave is waiting for her and AIIIEEE! Anyway, this movie scared the crap out of me. Where were my parents? Probably going to key parties or taking Valium. Oh, the seventies.

Anyway, searching for Stoning Pilgrim Movie or Pilgrim Nightmare or Movie I Saw in the Seventies hasn't gotten me anywhere. If you know of this movie, don't be shy. I'm beginning to think I made it all up. It wouldn't be the first time.

This weekend we were visiting my parents for Easter and as Henry crammed his maw with Chocolate Bunny, my mom and a family friend were discussing this incident when we were all on vacation together, in this cabin in Vermont. There was a propane gas leak and we had to evacuate the house in the middle of the night. I was maybe five. My mom was busy congratulating herself for being the first to notice the smell, when I realized something. Something important!
"Was this house on a hill?" I asked my mom, who said yes.
"And the driveway was steep? " Very steep, said the family friend. And it led right down onto a busy road.
And poof, years of recurrent nightmares—running out of a house in the middle of the night in footie pajamas, trying to make it down a steep icy driveway, cars below, terrified of falling—EXPLAINED! All that therapy for nothing!

Truly, sometimes one's family is better than the Internet. Then again, they couldn't help me with that damn movie, either. So it's pretty much a tie.

I know what you people want.

You want to see me in pigtails, jumping up and down, sporting a bizarre lisp!

Fine, then.

You can thank my brilliant husband and his friends for this video, which was made approximately 90 years ago.

Happy Easter!

Signs that I need to get out more

Actual dreams that I had in the last few days:

1. I was at the supermarket.
2. I put shampoo on my hair before wetting it. Weird!
3. That dream above, about the supermarket? That was it. The whole thing. I bought chicken.
4. And salad.
5. I was writing an email. I can't remember to whom.
6. I was sitting around with Scott, and we both realized we were in a dream, and I said we should do something crazy. We couldn't come up with anything. And then I fell asleep. In my dream.

Topics that I've considered addressing in my next post:

1. My kitty cat sure is getting fat!
2. Uh…
3. Really. She's fat.
4. Uh, Easter?
5. Well, Scott told me his work might dry up soon, and I was hyperventilating into paper bags for a while, but then he started a new project. So. Never mind.
6. If there's a cheese I dislike out there, I'll tell you, I haven't yet found it. Go, cheese.

Wake me when it's April. What are you people doing? Anything good?

Now she's writing to a month. Oh dear me.

Dear March,

I'm just going to come right out and say it: you annoy me. You're sort of cold but not really cold but not warm enough to not wear a jacket but not the heavy jacket. Take a stand, March! Figure out what you want to be! You want to be winter, fine; I won't like it but at least I'd respect your choice. Or how about spring? You could be spring! Think of how much everyone would like you then! You'd be stealing the glory from April, but then, we all know what April can be like. Frankly I like her only a little more than I care for you. At least with April we get some flowers. Some budding on the trees. Something. What do we do have to look forward to from March? Shamrock Shakes? You can do better than that. Work on it, March!

I'm just looking out for you,
Alice

Hey Alice,

DANG, that is harsh. I guess you're right, though. I am super super lame. Dang. (Did I say that already? Duh, March, there it is.)

I want to make me better for you but I don't want to mess things up, you know? I was thinking, maybe I should warm up, like you said, but then I thought, uh, is that a good idea? Because of like global warming and stuff? See, I can't tell! I need like an advice-or or something like that. Someone who gives me advice? Advicor? That’s the word? I don't even know. I should have a dictionary or read a dictionary.

I wish I had never been created. By those Romans or whatever. Everyone's all talking trash about me, wishing I was April or May or even February. At least then you get chocolate.

But hey, I do have the first day of spring, even if I can't get it as warm as a princess like you would like. And what about Easter, which I got this year? That's chocolate-bunny day! Because Christ was born and he gave the Wise Men bunnies, and the bunnies turned to chocolate! Was that the story? Yeah! And don't knock St. Patrick's Day which is pretty much the Number One Holy Day for the Irish. You're going to piss off a whole race with your Shamrock-Shake talk. I got things going for me! Now that I think about it!

Suck on that!

--MARCH!

Day of Sicknesse.

Thank the good Lord, the miracle elixir has worked its magic upon our boy's dreaded Scarlette Feverre! Junior was his usual sprightly self this morning, jumping about upon his bedsheets, calling for breakfast and for his relieved mother to "smell [his] butt." With pleasure, my son! Okay, not really.

Mercifully, I seem to have escaped the foul pestilence that sickened my son. Father, I am sorry to say, has not fared as well. His eyes are rheumy and red-rimmed; he is racked with aches; there is much coughing and horking and cries of despair, bless him. The medicines still have not taken effect on his person. O! Why has he, among all of us, been so forsaken? I suspected it is his Jewisness, but the man won't convert, stubborn fool!

Tomorrow, I strap on my rucksack and venture forth to find medicinal herbs. I have heard there are some to be found in the Meadowlands.

Sick Day #3

Well, it seems my son has SCARLET FEVER. Actually the doctor put "scarlet fever" in quotes, like that, air quotes with her fingers, because it's really just strep throat with a rash, blar de blar, no one get panicky. Of course I did anyway; I was all, SCARLET FEVER! All caps! What shall we do next, doctor of physick? Do we procure for him a bloodletting? Retire him to his bedchamber for a fortnight?

I knew something was going on when he entered our bedroom this morning looking like someone had beaten him up. You can't get anything past me, nossir. His face is all angry and blotchy and he has the puffy watery eyes of an allergic basset hound. It's the saddest thing I've ever seen.

And now we have some antibiotics and we're watching some television. Once again, medicine and technology join forces to save the day!

Sick day.

- My eyes are burning. Water is coming from them.
- That's because you have a fever, sweetie.
- Look. TEARS.
- Yep, I can see that.
- My throat really hurts when I drink. Hurts and stings.
- Oh boy.
- My nose won't stop sniffling. I'm using a million hundred tissues.
- You're one sick kid, all right.
- My ears are crackling. And when I close my eyes and release the power of my ears, it feels black.
- Wha--?
- It feels black. When I release the power.
- Uh, let's check that temperature again.