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The other half of my brain

"I've got a bone to pick with you"

The voice of my best friend wanders out of the phone and pierces my spine.


Oh Shit. Did I do something? Its true that I can be incredibly oblivious to things that normal humans with normal social aptitude pick up on, so in reality I most likely DIDN'T do something, or forgot or just missed the cue completely.

Now the Other Mrs B and I have been friends since 1994, when we appraised each other through a screen door on the lake and decided that the person we saw was OUR kind of people.

We have seen each other get married...she was the first person at whom I waved my positive pregnancy stick (all the while not-so-secretly skeeving her out by the idea of my urine very near her face) and had me greet her after the premature birth of her now 4 year old son after her consultation with the lactation consultant and the industrial breast pump. To characterize her face as "stricken" at that moment would be understatement - and not because of her sons early arrival. She had just been hooked up to a milking machine by a stranger and her expression conveyed JUST that emotion.

She is lovely Chanel Makeup and a person who DOES her hair, and knows how to whip up meals and boil lobsters. I am her best friend, who walks out in the green rocket dog sneakers, black skirt and a Zombie T-shirt, no makeup, thank you very much. She always looks great - and once decried "How do you people beautify yourselves?" when she discovered that I own ONE mirror, which is in the bathroom...which has no outlets for hair dryers which I never noticed because I don't dry my hair with a dryer.

These things aside, we fit side by side in a completely comfortable way. We have spent weekends and vacations together, lounging in the living room or hotel room together, not talking - doing our things, occasionally cracking up in laughter as we push the limits of being in the same room and yet still using chat boxes to talk about our husbands.... This habit is an offshoot of when we lived next to each other and would stand on our porches, looking at each other, talking on the phone.

The idea that I have upset her is so foreign to me that the words "bone to pick with you" actually make me sweat a bit.

"Okay, What is it?"

"When you visit my house and I leave beautiful towels out for you, in a lovely display in the bathroom, Will you PLEASE not dig out the funky old towels from under the sink to use after your shower?

My laughter rushes up to wash relief over me.

"I thought those were the Good towels", I said. "I thought those were, you know, the Show towels."

"Dawn - I put those towels out FOR YOU to use. Do not get the old towels from under the sink..."

I pause "In my defense, I am a Mom. I don't assume that the nice towels are for me at this juncture in my life."

She laughs. "Listen next time you are here, I am going to make a large towel arrangement on your bed to indicate that these are for YOU to USE..."

"You know what you need to do? Take a class to make towel animals. Then I will know they are really for Me."

The problem of friends

Its been a tough week at our house - and No, not just because we are all stuffy and overtired. Although that certainly hasn't helped.

No - most of the drama is about Emily and her "friends". Or who isn't her friend. Or who is, but shouldn't be...or who will be if she gives them XYZ, OR who she wishes would be her friend, but doesn't like her.

I remember this part of puberty, of growing up. And it frankly sucked. There is no starry eyed romanticism in my head about the years of my own puberty and the negotiation of what having and being a friend meant. While I, like most humans, was able to find a couple of real friends to connect with during this time of turmoil, it makes it no easier to watch my beloved sweet daughter go through the same awful process.

As Adults, we aren't generally very helpful. We have ridiculous sayings - "To HAVE a Friend - BE a FRIEND!" . To offer this and the other inane non-helpful, exclamation ridden pablum is to implicitly convey to our children that this is easier than we KNOW it to be. Added into this festering pit of human frailty is Hormones. And Body Changes. To my daughter, I suspect it feels like the world truly is conspiring to get her. I mean, I know how funky I can get with PMS, and I have a detailed and thorough knowledge about what is going on with me.

Most nights, I try to get in a little cuddle time with her. She is nearly has tall as me, so it isn't as easy to scoop her into my arms as when she was three. My intent, however, remains the same. To remind her that she is MY baby girl and that I will always be her friend - even when she is at her most unlikeable.

No sympathy

It's been a week.

Last Sunday, Terrance made some moaning noises about not feeling well. But honestly what is new about that? The man is perpetually either sick or tired, and frequently both sick AND tired. After nearly 2 decades, I simply tune it out to the background noise of the house.

I ignored him, as per my wifely duty. I went about my day, tired from Halloween and getting Em de-toxed from her sugar high without resorting to specific threats of bodily harm. Add into my mix the rabbits. I've not yammered on about the rabbits too much here...but they are a lot of work. No, they don't need to be walked rain or shine, but great googley moogley - I spend more time than you can imagine cleaning litter, chopping salad, washing floors - only to be patently ignored by both rabbits who then act as if the second coming of the Rabbit savior has appeared when Terrance walks into the room.

Um, yeah. I am a little bitter about that.

Because Terrance is a perpetually sick person, moaning and whinging about the state of everything from his sinuses to his lower back, I have naturally developed a resistance to paying attention. Add into my callous nature the fact that my Mother, as a pediatric nurse, had to view an organ or other disturbing shows of bodily fluids to agree that we were actually sick and you get a pretty hardened judge of illness.

On Monday morning, Terrance and I begin the dance:

Terrance: "I don't feel good"
Dawn: "Mmmmm"
Terrance: "I think I have a fever"
Dawn: "Hmmm"
Terrance: "I didn't sleep at all last night"
Dawn: "Oh. Mmmmm"

With each non committal murmur emerging from me, he feels the need to amp up the symptoms:

Terrance: "I think my sinuses are bleeding."
Dawn: "Oh. Did you take any sudafed?"
Terrance: "No, but they are bleeding"
Dawn: "You might be dehydrated..."

*************************************************************************************

By the time I get home, he is ensconced on the couch.

Terrance: "I think I have a fever"
Dawn: "Why do you think that?"
Terrance: "I can't get warm and then I get the chills"
Dawn: (pause - looking at Terrance from across the room) Did you take your temperature today?
Terrance: "No"
Dawn: (Sigh) "Ok, let me feel your forehead..."

This is a crucial moment. When I give in and agree to feel foreheads, I May be on the road to acknowledging that he May indeed be sick. Since I live with a grade A hypochondriac ( the man had his glasses autoclaved when Emily had conjunctivitis as an infant), Terrance assumes he has whatever might be in the news. In this case it is, of course, H1N1.

Dawn: "Oh. Well. You do feel a bit hot. Let me go get the thermometer..."

I pop the thermometer in and wait for the beep. I wait quite awhile.

Terrance: "well?"
Dawn: "You seem to have a fever...."
Terrance: "what is it?"
Dawn: "103.7 - I think you need some ibuprofen, let me get that for you"
Terrance: "Should I go to a hotel so as not to infect you and Emily?"
Dawn: "What?!?!"
Terrance: "Well, Its probably H1N1, so maybe I should go to a hotel room for the next week..."
Dawn: "Why don't we wait a day or so to make sure it isn't a random virus before you go all Bio-Hazard on us, Ok? It could resolve by the morning..."

*************************************************************************************

Its been a week. A week of shivering and dry cough and fevers that spike to 103.8, then drop to 95.5. We knew he felt better yesterday when he got up and started bossing us around - pointing at rooms that needed to be cleaned. The doctor remains amazed that neither Em nor I have contracted it as of yet, although I chalk it up to years in childcare in which we most likely had strains of similar things that give us some vague immunity.

Although, I must admit, I have one hell of a headache tonight.

A sucker for Holidays

I seem to have gotten talked into purchasing not one, not two, not three but SIX pumpkins today for carving.

While certain eleven year olds promise to help carve said pumpkins by at least scooping the guts out, I know in my heart that this is bullshit said specifically to lure me into the hell of carving all these pumpkins.

One would think I had learned from the apple picking situation a few weeks ago when someone ended up with 12 pounds of apples that are in a bag in the kitchen.

Today I announced that I was thinking about making and canning applesauce in order to use the apples up, only to be met with the heartfelt please of Terrance to NOT can applesauce. He then cited a canning episode circa 1996 whose proceeds were thrown out when we moved in 2006 after having lived in the darkness of the basement for years.

I am however remaining firm in my boycott of the Gingerbread House, which last graced our household in 2002, when I flipped out after attempting to get the walls to stick together and having the icing harden and then the child I was doing this "for" abandoned me, leaving me alone at the table until 11:30 p.m. and filling my heart with unreasonable holiday hatred.

While purchasing our pumpkin bonanza, the clerk asked "Wow - How many kids do you have?"

The assumption, I suppose was that I must be the mother of Six to have purchased Six pumpkins.

I stared at her. "One", I answered and then indicated towards the door where Emily could be seen peeking in. "She's out there guarding our chosen pumpkins. Apparently she is concerned that some pumpkin thief is going to run down the street and grab our pumpkins between the time we chose them and the time I purchased them."

The poor high school gal doesn't know what to say, so she simply stares at me.

"If you don't have enough carved pumpkins at Halloween, a puppy dies", I say.

Then I walk out to herd my pumpkins into the back seat of my car, leaving the silent clerk watching me exit.

Not a receptive audience

When crossing the border to come back to your home - which is not in the country in which you are a citizen - do not, under any circumstances, decide to be funny and answer the question: "Are you bringing back anything with you to Canada?"

With this response: "(Giggle) A hangover?"

Because the border guard will not find it funny and then you will subject to a great deal of questioning AND lecturing about why it isn't funny to say that.

Where My Wild Things Are

I was six years old when I first saw the book.

My surroundings are what I imprint upon. I was on the floor which had your standard issue industrial school carpeting. The cubbies were to my left and formed the wall that ran the length of the room. The bathrooms were behind me.

The teacher whose name could have been Mrs Walker (?) was sitting on a blue chair in front of us.

Now, books and I have always been friends. There are pictures of a sleeping three year old Dawn, hiding in her closet with the lamp, surrounded by books. I remember being in those closets - small, dark, tight spaces of safety. Me and My Books. Later on in life when I felt stress or anxiety, diving into a book was my first reaction. My college room mate would laugh as I would bring home a massive stack of fiction to read in between studying for other exams. "They relax me", I would explain.

This book, however, was different. From the moment Mrs Walker held the book up I knew that this was special - something I maybe shouldn't be seeing - and so I held my breath throughout the reading and when she had finished, I stood up and asked if I could hold this book. I needed to absorb this book. I needed to possess this book.

In fact, the next library day found me at the librarians desk asking about where I could find this book to borrow and my first memory of ordering from a book club was my amazement seeing that this prized book was one of the ones offered and begging for the 50 cents to order it.

The book was, of course, Where the Wild Things Are.

Now, psychologically, the adult Dawn could deconstruct why the book was so important to First Grade Me. A tale of the Wild Things who were both menacing and loving - terrible and fierce and Max - the boy who tamed them with a magic trick - this tale was not so far off from my life in the world of Adults. I navigated some pretty Wild Things in my day to day life, and while this was perhaps the most stable time in my remembrance of my family life, it was still business as usual.

It was in 1976 that my father threatened to kill Santa if he came into the house on Christmas Eve.

Now, I had seen my father shoot things. Our Dogs when they wouldn't stop barking. Rabbits. At the car as my mother pulled out of the driveway...with his child(ren)in the car. His unpredictable behavior made him the undisputed King of the Wild Things.

My mother, while a bit more stable in her overall demeanor, had her own role in the kingdom of my Wild Things. A role which would become the feature role once my parents divorced. As long as I did was she wanted, she was a benevolent ruler in the Kingdom. Benign neglect, I have called it - feral childhood. Yes, we were fed and clothed. But there were conditions - always conditions.

My mother was not Max's mother. There would be no hot dinner waiting for me when I woke. No, more likely I would be told that I was ungrateful and didn't deserve to have dinner - but if I insisted than I could make it myself since she was not my slave and furthermore since I had the audacity to complain, I should really start saving up to buy my own food.

First Grade Dawn didn't know all of this. She only knew that there was a book that whispered to her in a way she had never experienced. It was a book that told her that it Knew Adults were not what they seemed, and revealed them for what they were. Odd monsters with feathers and fur, feet and beaks, human noses on animal faces.

The book knew that the Wild Things Roared and Gnashed and Stomped as they pleased. However, when Max saw the Wild Things he was not afraid. No. Max was in charge of the Wild Things. He was the Adult in the world of Wild Things, the voice of reason.

And Like Max, First Grade Dawn wanted to be in control, to tame her Wild Things with her magic tricks. And also like Max, First Grade Dawn wanted to go home and be someones child, somewhere where he was loved best of all. Loved Unconditionally.

It was the first time I heard a book speak to me in the secret language of the best stories. Maurice Sendak winked at me from behind the pages of the book - He knew what adults were and had hidden the truth in those pages, right in front of them. They read the pages to us, and I felt delightfully subversive as his critique of the Big People in charge of our lives was laid out in front of them.

A door was opened for me as Mrs Walker read Where the Wild Things Are to me - and 18 other children - in 1976. I sailed over and across weeks and years and a day - and have never looked back.