Trauma on 7

It was a normal day. The Girl went to school, I wrote something and was so tired I gave in and took a nap, then dusted the living room while gabbing to my friend Susan for an hour about swine flu vaccinations, husbands' work, the stupid little bimbo-in-training trying to start an exclusive clique in the second grade at our daughters' school. I contemplated an afternoon gin and tonic but decided that would be a good start down a slippery slope. Normal stuff. I picked up our G's (they have the same name and oddly similar personalities, as do Susan and I. Love her. Wish she would drink with me) from school and headed with my G to meet a potential new flute teacher.
I had to stop for gas. The tank meter stood at a half, and that just isn't good enough for the Girl. She insists the tank be full at all times. One thing about my daughter: she's observant. Another thing about her: she's paranoid. She goes 'worst case scenario' in her head for any given situation. So, we stopped at a station/convenience store. I got the gas started, asked her if she wanted to come into the store with me to get a drink. I gathered my wallet and keys, noticed that a sheriff had pulled into the pumps behind us, was grateful it wasn't Friday night. (Me and my girls, New Moon private screening, yeah baby).
Heard the pump auto-feed kick off as we were about to head into the store, and decided to just get that wrapped up before leaving the car. G has never actually seen the process of gassing up a vehicle. She's always inside the car. When she was a baby, I was so paranoid about the whole "this thing could blow at any time' 6 o'clock news feature, I wouldn't get gas if I had her with me. I, despite what snopes.com says, won't use my cell phone at a pump and make sure I shock myself on the car frame before touching the gas pump. I'm careful, I think.
"How do you get that out?" asks the Girl, grasping the pump handle and peering at the hole in the car where the gas goes. She is almost exactly the same height as it is. I put my hand over hers and we pull it out of the car, just like I have done a thousand times. A thousand times I've pulled that fucking thing out, turned around and seated it in its little holster, pushed the three buttons it takes to get my receipt, and gone on my merry way.

So imagine my shock and awe when about a half-gallon of gasoline spurts out of the tank and nozzle. And hits my baby square, soaking her face, hair, shirt, and ohmygod, her eyes.

Thanks to Karma or God or Luck or Whatever, the Sheriff was still there. And now he was chatting with a guy in a SLFD sweatshirt. I yelled for help, and the sweatshirt guy turned out to be an off-duty firefighter/EMT. He very calmly took G in his arms and propelled her toward the station's water hose on the building. She's screaming, I'm freaking inside but trying to stay calm to not further traumatize my daughter, and he got her to lie down on the sidewalk and hosed her off. It's about 50 degrees today, and after a minute or two, she just couldn't take the cold water on her head and face anymore. The sheriff wrapped her in a blanket he had in his patrol car, and I tried to flap away the useless cashier who wanted me to sign a waiver. We huddled on the sidewalk, soaked and crying while the wonderful EMT made sure her eyes were okay before he sent us home with orders for a shower and to call the ER if her eyes started to burn. But, he said, she looked fine.
I think I asked him his name. I think it was Jim. Jim rocks.

So, a shower (her) and a gin and tonic (me) later, we're okay. She's downstairs playing with her other best friend, a little upset that she'll have to have another shower later and have her hair washed with lemon juice to get the rest of the smell out. Shampoo just didn't cut it. I told her it would make her more blonde, and she seemed a bit more receptive. She absolutely and unequivocally will NOT ever put gas in the car again, and doesn't want me to do it either. This little trauma on pump 7 didn't help her inborn sense of paranoia, at all.

I was really tired this morning. Now, not so much. It could have been so much worse; it was just gas on her, after all.
I don't want to think about the 'worse'.
I don't want to think about all the moms who have witnessed and lived through the 'worse'.
I'm pretty sure I'm going to let her sleep with us tonight, and I will be tired at work tomorrow and it will be okay.
Because she's okay. And this was pretty bad, but not too bad. And it could have been worse.

Not my usual post, I know...

...but they're giving away a kickass bike. I need a kickass bike. I need something in my life that kicks ass. (My apologies to the TodaysMama person who had to read the word 'ass' there three times. Welcome to my blog.)

Mama’s Holiday Wish List Meme (And hey; what the eff is a 'meme'? Is that a pseudo-intellectual word for 'list of questions and answers?')
TodaysMama and Provo Craft are giving away a sleigh full (Sorry, TodaysMama, I can't let the word 'sleighful' onto my blog. It's not a word and I didn't make it up) of gifts this holiday season and to enter I’m sharing this meme (whatever the eff that is) with you.

1. What 5 items are on your holiday wish list this year?
~Case of Hendrick's gin and a cucumber plant.
~An account at the local plastic surgeon's. I'm getting on in years. Things have begun the sag.
~Cabana boy. With a cabana.
~Whirled peas.
~My daughter being thrilled with all her gifts, which I have already begun to stress over.

2. What is your favorite handmade gift you have received?
A scratchy afghan someone's great grandma crocheted for my wedding. I keep it on the dirty, smelly, squashy old chair under the patio by the garage. It's a good cat blanket. Keeps me warm when I sneak out for a smoke.

3. What handmade gift have you always wanted to tackle?
If by 'tackle' you mean throw to the ground and stomp on? I'm going to say all of them.

4. What was the best Christmas gift you received as a child?
Atari, dude. 1983 or so. Original Atari. I wasted SO many brain cells on Asteroid. That, or the time my brother spent the day puking on Christmas. That was pretty nice of Santa too.

5. What items are on your kid’s wish list this year?

~Nintendo DS (She hates video games, but can't stand the fact that her best friend has one and she doesn't.)
~Moxie girl. (The new brainless, anorexic, hair-styling whore on the street. Look out Barbie; she comes with markers).
~Littlest Pet shop cow, porky pine (sic because Awww, how cute she spells!) and bunny. (Because you can NEVER have too many small plastic animals whose heads bob and can break an adult's foot arch when stepped on).
~a Toy Chinchilla (not a real one because her evil mother has said that three rabbits is plenty of caged rodents in one house, thank you)
~Something called a "paper roonys"? I have no frigging idea. Suggestions are welcome.



6. What is your favorite holiday food?
Candy canes. In my peppermintinis, spiked hot chocolate, and just to suck on to cover the booze on my breath so I can survive the holidays with my mother-in-law.

7. What will you be hand-crafting for the holidays?
I very lovingly and carefully pour, shake and garnish some kickass peppermintinis. I put my heart and soul into every one. They'll put a twinkle in Santa's eye. Yes sir.

8. What is your favorite holiday movie?
Christmas Story, duh. That or the old "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" with the horrible stop-action animation and cheesy hippie-free-lovin' song they snuck into the middle.

9. Favorite holiday song?
"The 12 Things At Christmas That Are a Pain to Me".
Okay, and even though it pains me to admit it in public, I mist up every time I hear "Do They Know It's Christmas?". Young Bono, George Michael and all those other yummy British 80's Pop icons on one song. Sigh. It's inspirational.

10. Favorite holiday pastime?
Did you read the bit about the peppermintinis?

Man, I am SO going to win this contest! Kickass bike, come to Momma!

Stuff I noticed today

~If you own a hair studio and you're going to hire someone to stand on the corner and wave a sign at passing cars, it might be prudent to not hire a homeless dude with dredlocks and a ZZtop beard.

~ If you are a grown-ass adult and the samples at Costco get you so excited that you find yourself crammed into the corner between two seafood cases ramming a ravioli down your throat and grunting, or so enraptured by the fudge bar samples that you wander into oncoming cart traffic, it might be time to reevaluate where you are in life.

~ People call them "Weird Cat Lady" for a reason. Buying four tubs of litter and a case of K-Y, holding up the line by showing people pictures of your pwecious beeboo keekees and not making eye contact is not helping the image.

~I'm becoming more and more convinced there is a secret Grocery Store Baggers society that has a multi-level plan to circumvent the attempts of well-meaning shoppers who bring reusable bags. That or they are ALL fucking morons.

~If you work in a consignment store, you have no room to be snotty. You sell used shit. You give people money for their old shoes and then sell them for two dollars. Don't talk to me like that. Snot.

~There's a chance I'm in sort of a bad mood and don't like people today.

Thank the Gods for Girls Night Out.

We've all heard the story: Stay-at-home-mom dutifully makes sure her flock gets their flu shots, even if she has to elbow old ladies out of line to get the last dose for her child. In the chaos her busy daily existence, she forgets to get her own flu shot. (Her dr.'s office is too far away and is out of vaccine, the grocery store clinic is also out, the other grocery store only offers shot clinics at the same time as the Girl's soccer game, the wondrousness of Costco overwhelms her and she forgets to get one when she's there...etc.) So, she gets flu. She fights it, she does not succumb, she faithfully and dutifully arises early in the morning, sees her beloveds off to work and school with fresh homemade lunches, does all her regular chores to keep the household running smoothly, has a hot homemade dinner ready when the family returns in the evening. (And if she's a working mom, let's just add 'goes to work' on top of all that, mmmkay?) She then collapses into bed at the end of the evening, melting into a sore sniffling puddle of goo. But she makes sure to set the alarm and feed the cat first.

Yeah.

That's SO not happening here this week.

I did forget to get my flu shot, again, this year. That part is true. The rest of it, for me anyway, is a cruel joke that society has decided to play on us Domestic Goddesses. It has told us that the very fabric of our family's existence will fray and decay if we take a day off. That chaos will reign if the laundry doesn't remain on schedule. That husbands will implode if asked to make dinner and help with homework. That children will be irreparably scarred if they see their mum prone on the sofa with a cup of tea in smelly frayed sweats for three days. Nay; we must soldier on, there are things more important than our minor discomforts.

Well, I'm calling bullshit on that. Okay, maybe it's just me; maybe I'm a huge whiny baby when I get sick, I won't deny that. But I'm putting out the call to all moms who didn't get their shots or who end up with the creeping gamboo that their kids bring home from the germ-factories we call "school":

Be sick. Lay on the couch all day. Ask for help. Eat crappy comfort food and drink hot chocolate and watch reruns of the Office online. Read a no-brainer novel; maybe something from James Patterson or Nora Roberts. Don't shower, wear your most comfy sweats, don't put on makeup or do your hair. Order Chinese delivered. Watch your husband bond with your kids as he tries not to go crazy helping them learn fractions and write a book report about a book about fairies and/or magical ponies.

If the world cannot deal without us, the world will have to hold on and just fucking wait.

I'm going to go get a cupcake and lie down now.

Oh, Pluck.

Editor's note: This is a fairly long and somewhat boring account of my recent adventures. Please be aware before reading that I am a housewife and nothing exciting ever happens, so this was a Big Damn Deal for me. I'm sorry. I wrote this mostly for me.

So I have cats. I used to like cats, but over the last few years just...don't anymore. My cats are indoor/outdoor versions, and I was really grateful for them when we first moved to this house, because the garden and shed and garages were infested with mice. There was also a lovely family of rats inhabiting our neighbor's dilapidated shed and the "compost heap" she kept in her back yard. The cats very nicely and very quickly disposed of the diseased chew-partiers, lining them up in rows on the back porch. Ew. So that was good. No more rodentates.
But now the cats are bored. And well fed. So what do they turn to for entertainment? Birds, of course. We've always fed birds and love watching them at the feeders. We get swarms of finches and sparrows, and this summer had a visit from a beautiful yellow warbler and some juncoes. I likes the birdies. So do the cats. But they don't just kill them, of course. No; they go Guantanamo on their asses. I hate it. Several times I've had to put a bird out of its misery with a blow from a shovel, and I feel so awful every time. But I can't stand to see a creature in pain. We bury them under the pine tree and say nice things.
Last week while out in the yard, I heard the unmistakable angry chirp/squawk of a bird being tortured and found one of the cats with a mouthful of feathers. The bird appeared near the end, so I left the scene hoping the cat would do the honorable thing soon. An hour later, I heard the squawk again and looked out to see the wiener dog had joined the game and that the little bird, a House Finch, was not only still alive but was trying to fight. The feathers of one wing were upright, bent,all her tail feathers had been pulled out and there was a nasty puncture wound under her eye, but this little bird was still hanging in there. So I stepped in. I know you're never supposed to handle wildlife, but I couldn't stand it anymore. I scooped her up and took her inside and put her in a basket with a cup of water and a towel, hoping she would just pass in peace and quiet. I kicked the cat and admonished the dog and went back to my writing, keeping an ear out for the finch.
An hour later, I heard a rustling and found her sitting on the edge of the basket, alert but a little wobbly. She was still pretty willing to let me handle her, so I snapped this:

and called my husband to tell him to get a cage on his way home.
I spent the next two days frantically trying to figure out what to do. Googling "wild bird rehab" only sent me to bird chat forums, and I was desperate enough to register on one and post a "Help Please!" message. I got some good advice, but nothing on where I could take this bird. My vet friend doesn't do birds and had no idea. So. I figured as long as the bird was healthy, eating, drinking, pooping and hopping around I'd just keep her until she molted and grew her tail feathers back. She spent the days hunkered in my ficus tree:


And in her cage.



She seemed healthy, alert, and smart enough to hop from the ficus into the cage when I held it up in front of her. She no longer wanted to be handled, and I had to respect that even when the Girl got upset that she never got to hold her.
I started to admire this little being. For her courage, her personality and her naked bum, I named her "Pluck".

Then it was Saturday.

I woke up to find her puffed up and panting. I know from the little experience I had working as a pet store clerk in college that this is a bad bad sign. She was still drinking water, but not eating or pooping. Bad bad. Frantic, I made more phone calls. My vet friend could only suggest humane euthanasia, which I was not ready to do. Out of sheer desperation (Google was really disappointing in this area), I looked up the Great Salt Lake Audubon Society and called them, leaving a message. As a last resort, I called Backyard Birds, a little kitzchy shop that sells bird feeders and windchimes not far from my house. I told them the situation and they finally gave me a person to call.
This person was very knowledgeable and helpful, but not encouraging. See, not only do cats like to pretend to be furry little Dick Cheneys, they also harbor a gram negative bacteria in their saliva that is highly toxic to birds. She told me to keep her warm, make her comfortable and bury her in the morning. We cried, I resisted kicking the cat again and went to bed that night disappointed and sad.

Sunday morning. I postponed going into the living room where her cage was for an hour. I needed coffee and snuggling with The Girl before I could face the still little body that had harbored such a fierce big spirit. But I took a breath and went in.

She was fine. She'd beaten it. I took her cage out into the warm autumn sun and let her sit where she could see and hear her flock eating at the backyard feeder. I emailed the bird expert lady to ask her what to do now, with this now healthy and not dead bird. I think I smiled a lot.

Monday morning the Audubon guy finally called me, leaving me the number for a wildlife rehab center about an hour from my house, in Ogden. I called them and they informed me that it's illegal for me to keep her, that I should bring her to them for rehabilitation. "But she's just a little finch," I said, "do you really rehab finches?" They promised me they did.
So between that and losing her for a while when she went exploring out of the ficus and ended up behind the bookcase (she couldn't fly, remember), having escaped the now inside cats, I decided I probably wasn't the best person to be in charge of her if she was going to make it to be released. I didn't know what I was doing, and was afraid I would kill her with a stew of kindness and incompetence. And I really wanted her to be able to return to a normal finch life, not live in a cage with cats yowling below it and flutes being played in the next room and little girls screaming during a sleepover. She needed professional help.

So today, with a sad but hopeful heart, I took her to the rehab center and handed her over to people who work tirelessly and on no money to rehabilitate and release native birds back into the wild. They were positive about her prognosis, were pretty sure she injured at least one bone in her wing, but since she was flapping and getting around thought she'll heal. She now gets to spend the winter with four other rescued finches in rehab, with the goal that they'll all be better and be released in the spring.

Yes, I drove an hour and donated $20 to the WRC for a teeny little finch, of which there are hundreds in my neighborhood alone. It's just a little bird, why would I go to all this trouble?

Why? Because she was Pluck. My little Pluck. She put my pathetic life, the one I've been internally whining about, right the fuck in perspective. And I'll miss her.

This Bothers Me.

A lot. It has for a long time. And I need help understanding it. Please.

I generally, in my blogs, try to stay away from controversial things and from things about which people might have an opinion (not that it stops some people from giving me theirs anyway), but I think it's time I got some input on this. Mostly because I look around at society in terms of this issue and ask WTF? But also because I have a daughter who is beginning to process input more personally and who is being exposed to more and more pop culture happenings every day, despite my best attempts at keeping her sheltered to a ridiculous degree, and I want to know why my opinion on this subject might come across as retarded.

So here's the thing:

Why is it that violence is okay and sex is not?

Let me explain. In college, I worked in a video store. One evening, a woman approached the counter with three or four movies and asked me about them. Specifically, she wanted to know why they were rated "R". I told her they had adult content in them (Duh). As I remember it, they were all movies along the lines of "Die Hard" and some sort of killer-robot sci-fi things.
"Yeah," she says, "but is it sex stuff, or is it just violence? I don't want my boys to see sex stuff."
Just violence? So, she's telling me she's all right with her "boys" (who were running around the store yelling and hitting each other with various items and knocking over displays) seeing the hero punch someone in the neck or rip their still-beating heart out , but it's not okay if the hero goes ahead and plants one on his damsel-in-distress? Is an over-the-blouse boob-squeeze really going to warp their little minds more than seeing people get shot, impaled, blown up, decapitated, etc?

When talking to several people about the Twilight books, a woman I don't know very well mentioned that she enjoyed the first three books, but didn't like the fourth one "because of all the sex. I liked that they didn't have any sex in the other ones, but the fourth one was just too raunchy and explicit." UmmmmKay. But Edward ripping out James' throat and dismembering him in the first one was just peachy.

Yesterday I took The Girl to the dentist. Yay! An hour in which I'm forced to sit on a comfy sofa in the waiting room and read. The dentist wanders in and asks what I'm reading.
"Hunger Games," I tell him, trying not to be rude, but obviously returning my attention back to the book. (Great book, btw. I cheered, I cried, I flipped it over and started again right after reading "the end".)
"Oh," he says, "that's a great book. I just listened to the audio version." I nod politely and turn the page. "I really like that there was no sex in it." Freeze mid-turn.
What there is in Hunger Games is a group of starving teenagers forced to play a gladiator/Survivor type game in which the last person alive wins. The heroine and main character shoots a guy in the neck with an arrow, watches the big bad competitor break another competitors neck with his hands, has her face slashed by a crazy chick with a coat full of knives, has to help her love interest recover from having his leg almost hacked off with a sword, watches her best friend get impaled by a spear...you get the idea, right?
"Yeah," I say, "but there's a lot of...kissing." I do my best not to roll my eyes and return to my chapter, perturbed.

So. I think you can probably glean which way I lean on this issue. I'm not a fan of violence. I don't like DickFlicks with people dying in horrible bloody painful ways. I don't want my daughter watching (or reading) that kind of thing. I hate HATE watching little boys play. But I would be okay with her seeing someone kiss someone else. Not that I want her to see anything sexually explicit, but if it came right down to me having to choose between her watching a movie rated R for violence and one rated R for sex, I'm going to have to go for the one with nookie in it, as long as it has a story and the people like each other while they're doin' it.

My question for you, oh patient reader, is: Why is violence in media considered more acceptable than sex?

Thanks.

Radiohead

That's me. I'm one of those people, have been as long as I can remember, who always ALWAYS a song in their head. Even in my sleep. Sometimes it's the last song I heard (like right now, for instance, it's the chirpy little tune from the Farmville game on Facebook. I just harvested my squash and milked two cows. Cha-ching!) Sometimes it's a song that I have just latched on to and can't get enough of and will listen to over and over both on the iPod and in my head. And when I say over and over, I'm not kidding. It's a continuous loop in the neuron net of my sad little brain. It's just stuck. But more about that in a moment.
Sometimes it's embarrassing. I'll unconsciously do the head-bob to whatever beat is bashing around up there. When I was a personal trainer I had a client who was a local DJ on a popular morning show. When I'd work out with him he'd ask me at the beginning, "So what's playing today?" Luckily, most of the time it was something his station played. Sometimes not, and he'd give me endless crap about it.
I think my daughter might have the same issue. She's taking flute lessons, and has started whistling. Incessantly. Sometimes it's the song she's working on for flute, sometimes it's something from her playlist on the iPod, sometimes it's a tv show theme. So now I don't just have a song running over and over and over through my noggin; I have to hear the one in hers. Luckily, she's got pretty good tone. But usually, at some point at the end of the day I can't take it anymore and have to, with teeth clenched, say "Sweetie, let's give the whistler a rest, shall we?" And pour some more wine.

I've always had a somewhat eclectic music taste. I like a little bit of everything. The only exception is Heavy Metal and it's spawn (Speed Metal, Death Metal, those happy little sub-genres), which make me want to grab the nearest spoon and gouge my own eardrums out just to escape the screech-fest monotony of three cords and cheerful death, maiming and rape lyrics. Other than that, if a song is catchy, has a good beat and lyrics that make some sort of sense, I'll listen to it gladly.
I've mostly been a BritPop or Techno gal. In high school, I was one of the freaks not listening much to Poison or Def Leppard (although I must say that "Animal" is one of my all time favorite sexy songs), but instead combed the import bins at the record store when we ventured to Salt Lake. Give me some Roxy Music, Depeche Mode, Bow-Wow-Wow, UB40, English Beat, Dead or Alive, etc. They went well with the black clothes and pierced nose.
And, of course, there has always been Erasure. But that's another blog. Just suffice it to say, for this blog, that there have been hours-nay--DAYS worth of Andy Bell in my brain. Here's my favorite:



You're welcome. That particular diddy went round my brain for about six months. Non stop. Not exaggerating. I sort-of got over it after I met Mr. Bell.

I've always been a little snotty-proud of my eschewing Pop music in general. I've never heard, for example, a Miley Cyrus song. Or Britney Spears, at least on purpose. Who is Justin Timberlake, again? What's this Limp Bizkit everyone talks about? Why is it limp and could some Viagra help them?
So, I'm a little alarmed at the current track that is so entrenched in my head right now. She was another of the pop divas whom I had managed to avoid. But now, sigh, I not only spent $1.29 to get the song on my iPod, I even read her Wiki page. I watch the video over and over and over. I suddenly break out into step-ball-change while folding the laundry. It's in there and it's not budging.
I give you:
Beyonce.

Single Ladies

(Mrs. Jay-Z doesn't let her youtube videos embed. So click the link, then come back.)

I can't look away. How the hell does she do that with her hips without throwing her whole spine across the room? In those heels? And what does this say about my taste in music now? Am I going bubblegum in my old age?
Dunno.
But I likes this song. I'm going to go dance around the living room and try not to hurt myself. If you see me later in Costco doing the head bob, you'll know what's spinning in the radiohead.
*humming Uh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh!*