But Seriously, What's It Gonna Take to Get Andrew Jackson Off of Them?

The P-Dawg and I had an opportunity to observe V-meister's Montessori pre-school class yesterday morning.

We were sitting as inconspicuously as possible in chairs towards the back of the room and taking in the work going on around us, when I overheard the following conversation between two little boys as they prepared to count out change from the pretend cash drawer:

Boy #1, picking up a five dollar bill: "Hey! Is our new president on this?"

The two of them inspected the five spot:



Boy #2: "That's not him. He's on the One."

A one dollar bill is extracted from the cash drawer and intensely scrutinized:



Boy #1: "That's not him, either. He's must be on the Twenty."

Two small heads bend studiously over a miniature twenty dollar bill for a solid minute before the following conclusion is reached:



Boy #2: "That is definitely not him."

Boy #1: "Yeah, I guess they didn't get a chance to put him on yet."


(Maybe tomorrow, kids.)

Mission

It was on the day the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated that I took the pregnancy test.

We had decided just a few weeks before that the time was as ripe as it ever would be for babymaking and I, with a green light from my psyche, the P-Dawg, and the ob/gyn, made it my personal mission to beat the estimated odds of conceiving in “six months to one year.”

P-Dawg’s input and DNA would be required, naturally, for implementation, but I took greedy ownership of the planning and strategy phases with the same singularity of purpose I had once dedicated to making the Dean’s List, getting the scholarship, scoring the interview, landing the job.

To this end, babymaking books were purchased and studied religiously. Google searches employing phrases like, “How to get pregnant super fast” were performed, and morning temperatures were charted. I was tuned into my body’s every twitch and secretion in the way that only a woman meticulously planning conception can be.

One afternoon just days after our first scheduled attempt, I was driving home from work when I noticed how uncomfortable the tug of the seat belt across my chest had become. My ta-tas, as it happened, were sore in a whole new way, and they heralded a light bulb moment the likes of which I hadn't experienced to date.

I began groping myself right there in the driver's seat of my blue Saturn sedan, cautiously at first, then with no holds barred. Does it hurt when I press here? Yes! What about here? Yes! If I mash them together? By, God, it does! And if I press myself full tilt into the steering wheel? I just might be pregnant.

It was too early to take a test, yet impossible, from that point on, to ignore the goings on: continued soreness, strange, cramplike twitches in the nether regions, and a sharp, stabbing pain that woke me up in the middle of one night to be followed by unmistakably rosier than usual cheeks the very next morning.

I endured the requisite number of days before an early pregnancy test could be taken. On the morning of that day, with the P-Dawg still on his overnight call shift at the hospital, I planned a deliberate trip to the drugstore. As I prepared to leave, the cable channels were playing and replaying the same few clips of space shuttle Columbia breaking up in blue skies over Texas.

And in the car on the way to the pharmacy, listening to a DJ announce news of the tragedy with thinly veiled excitement, before the pregnancy test had even been purchased or peed on, I knew with certainty that a catastrophic space mission would always be entwined in my memory with the day I learned that my first baby would come to be.

The test, of course, was positive: my dear little V-meister in her earliest iteration, as evidenced by a blurry pink line. Yet I was surprised at how closely my initial joy was followed by a pang of fear and the very first inkling of the buzzing, baseline anxiety that comes part and parcel with the act of bringing a child into this world.

And I've been living with the uneasy knowledge that ecstasy and despair are never more than a heartbeat away, one from the other, ever since that day when my fervent hope was confirmed as inky smoke trails, obvious evidence of human frailty and ultimate demise, arched across a Texas sky.

I Can't Get No Respect

Receptionist: "Doctor's office, may I help you?"

Rimarama: "Yes! Could you put me through to Doctor P-Dawg, please? This is his wife."

Receptionist: "Sure, Mrs. P-Dawg. One moment, please."

P-Dawg: "Hey, Rimster, what's up?"

Rimarama: "WHERE ARE THE FREAKIN' KEYS TO THE FRICKITY-FRACKIN' WINE CELLAR, P-DAWG??? You better not have them with you at work!"

P-Dawg: "It's ten o'clock in the morning. Why do you ask?"

Rimarama: "I need red wine for my crock pot beef stew, Smarty McSmartypants. There are probably forty bottles down there, AND NOT A DROP TO DRINK! I mean, 'PUT IN MY BEEF STEW'!!!" It's maddening!



P-Dawg: "Check your key ring, Rimster. I put an extra on it."

Rimarama: "Really?"

P-Dawg: "Really."

Rimarama: "Oh, OK. Good! Because for a minute, I thought I was going to have to bust in there all Miami Vice style, you know? Or pick the lock, at the very least, for the sake of the stew."

P-Dawg: "What were you going to use? . . . a Q-Tip????????"


Then, the P-Dawg broke into riotous, guffawing laughter and I hung up on his a$$.

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In case anyone is interested in a vertigo update, the early verdict is that the earwax/rogue Q-Tip fiber extraction really helped. I have felt better today than I have in a long time - even my sinuses are clearer and I don't have my usual daily headache. So I'm hoping it does the trick. Now, I still have to do daily exercises to help my balance system right itself after being wonked out for so long, but I am definitely doing much better. In fact, I think everyone should get their ears cleaned out and their heads checked.

The only negative, really, is the fact that P-Dawg won't stop making fun of me, and my new nickname is "Q-Tip."

Watch for Me on the Next Episode of House, M.D.

One of my greatest pleasures/neuroses in life is cleaning out my ears with Q-Tips after showering each morning.

Not only do I find this practice immensely satisfying, but if I don't clean both ears simultaneously, I'll feel "off" all day long and something bad might happen.

I did hear that you should never stick anything smaller than an elbow inside your ear, but I figured this didn't really apply to me and the Q-Tips. Because while I do sometimes really go to town in there, I never, uh . . . stick it very far in.

Well, I went to the ear, nose, and throat specialist today on account of my chronic vertigo, and he extracted a ball of wax and cotton the size of a golf ball (give or take) from my left ear.

In fact, not two seconds after poking around with a flashlight, the good doctor pronounced, "You're a big fan of the Q-Tip, I see . . ."

The telltale signs, of course, were the pieces of cotton lodged deep inside my ear canal, as well as - and this is true - the Q-tip shaped imprints on the ear wax that I had managed to shove clear up into my head. You can't pull anything over on these guys.

The ball of wax and cotton had been in there for so long, that it was really more of a space rock. And I'll tell you something else: it hurt like a motherf$cker on the way out. So much so that, if you didn't have a gigantic ball of wax and cotton in your ear, you could probably hear me swearing all the way out in the waiting room.

While the doctor was out in the hall, looking for, I can only assume, an appropriately sized fish hook/vacuum cleaner attachment to use for the cleaning process, I asked his medical resident sidekick, "What the hell is a Q-Tip for, if not poking around inside of one's eustachian tubes?"

("concealer application and small craft projects")

It's going to be mighty hard for me to give up the old Q-Tip habit, but I'm pleased to announce that my head feels ten pounds lighter already.

Well, as my grandmother always said, "Live and learn, and you still die stupid."

(What she really should have told me was not to stick a goddamn Q-Tip in my ear.)

Sharing the Bounty

Despite all the blog comments I've read to the contrary, I never believed that anyone *actually* rolled around on the floor laughing (ROFL) at a post until I started reading Halushki.

I've never met a more eloquent or witty kapusta head. Which is saying a lot, since the rivalry between Poles and Lithuanians goes all the way back to the middle ages.

I like Jozet so much, that I defeated my award/meme/linking phobia to give her a ROLF Award for this post, which had me ROFLMAO, spewing coffee on my monitor, and peeing in my pants all at once.

Please now, go forth and read Jozet at Halushki.

Swimming In the Deep End

Turns out, I like yapping about adventure, but when push comes to shove, it's all I can do to tear myself away from my comfort zone and the soul-deadening daily routine.

Take, for example, last night.

I didn't want to go to that French gig I was telling you about. I had a headache, it was snowing out. I'd have to put together an "outfit," schlep across town during rush hour, and converse in a foreign language with a group of strangers.

Why, I asked myself, would a person put herself in such a position when she could just as easily don pants with an elastic waistband, take a Ty1eno1, and stretch out on her couch for a night of Internet and TV?

Well . . . because I fear that changing things up every now and again is the only thing that stands between me and a house dress, rollers, and plastic furniture slipcovers at some point down the line.

Because it's time to start chipping away at the shell I've spent the last decade or so building around myself, afraid and unwilling to forge new, true, and honest friendships. Because I want to invite more beauty and nuance into my life, and because I've read one too many new age self help books.

Just as my repressed inner optimist suspected, breaking out was a good thing. At the very least, it didn't kill me, and I got an opportunity to crank up neural synapses that hadn't seen action in years.

I met my friend in the museum lobby, where the francophiles had already begun gathering. Sure, there were a few impeccably knotted Hermes scarves and imperial Gallic profiles, but no one was putting a gun to my head, demanding a certain death conjugation showdown.

Alas, starting up a French conversation with a person you are accustomed to speaking with only in English is both awkward and terrifying, like diving into the deep end wearing a bikini that's one size too big. There's no way around it except to pinch your nose, jump, and hope your thong stays put.

We dove in. The water wasn't nearly as cold as I'd expected, and I immediately remembered how to tread. Once I realized that my friend's french skills were as rudimentary as my own, well, I daresay I began straight up doggy paddling.

There were, of course, a lot of frenzied hand gestures, elaborate commentary about the weather, and the odd English word with a French ending tacked on mid-sentence, but we made do. The important thing was that we understood each other and no native speakers approached us.

The group received a private tour of the special exhibit featuring turn-of-the-century decadence in the House of Faberge, Tiffany, and Lalique. Before you knew it, I was flipping around like a veritable Shamu and offering total strangers my opinion of Princess Kelly's never-before-seen Faberge egg: "C'est cool, ca."

One thing I didn't do was try to purposefully strike up actual conversation with other attendees. I may be looking for adventure, but I don't have a death wish. During the dinner portion of the evening, my companion and I sat with a chap whose language skills were very much on par with our own. The three of us concluded that it was snowing out, poulet frites are pleasing to us, and there's a train station nearby.

Also, I might have offered him a job at my friend's restaurant, to which I'm pretty sure he replied "I, too, enjoy skiiing."

Anyway, it's a start. I am going to try to attend next month's event if I can, maybe even work up the courage to bust out some freestyle moves.

Welcome to my year of swimming in the deep end.

The Haps Chez Rama

Readers, I have been crossing items off my New Years Rez list with wild abandon.

I made a new friend recently (see Rez # 9), and she invited me to attend a dinner/lecture at the art museum with her later this week (see Rez #10).

The only catch is that it's all part of some sort of french language "circle" where I'll bet everyone wears fetching scarves and stands around speaking only en francais all night long.

It's what I get for running my mouth about spending that junior year abroad every chance I have. People assume I'm still a francophone, but the sad fact of the matter is that my once solid language skills have been reduced to a single phrase: "Je ne comprends pas."

Normally, I have no problems with meeting new people and engaging in small talk. I have a litany of foolproof conversation starters, ranging from my year abroad, of course, to my thoughts on communism and the incident of the skin tag on the operating table. Unfortunately, my vocabulary skills on these topics are limited to English and Lithuanian.

Well, if you need me, I'll be at the local library, boning up on the past imperfect and putting myself into a tizzy over what to wear.

A bien-tot, chers liseurs!
-Rima de la Rama

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P.S. Remember the episode when I thought the chick from Jazzercise was trying to pick a fight with me?

Well, thanks to lovely Loralee of the Looney Tunes, that post is being re-published at BlogNosh Magazine today! It is the apex of my blogging career.

You should go over there and check the place out. I hear they have an excellent wine list, good ambiance, and something for every palate. (Although I fear my post might fall under the "How Did This One Get Past the Radar?" category.)

I'm Going to Become an Optimist, Even if it Kills Me

Happy New Year, my peeps.

Here's the laundry list of stuff I'd like to get done this year. Don't hold me to it.

1. Obtain more positive attitude
   
2. Defeat my stupid chronic vertigo once and for all
   
3. Be more engaged with my children
   
4. Update my look
   
5. Write mo' better
   
6. Redo my living room/dining room
7. Develop an assortment of my digital photos, frame them, and put in family albums already. While I'm at it, I'll put together J-dog and V-meister's baby albums, too.
   
8. Update my Flickr page regularly
   
9. Make new friends
10. Do girls' night out monthly and drink something besides red wine
    
11. Stop sweating the small stuff, for crying out loud
    
12. Get prescription sunglasses
13. Revive basil plant
14. Become "handy"
    
15. Take active interest in family finances and investments
    
16. Read news from an assortment of world outlets weekly
    
17. Have professional family photo taken
    
18. Take better care of my nails and get an occasional manicure
    
19. Lose 3-4 more pounds
20. Keep in better touch with far away family and friends (hint: use phone, email)
    
21. Replace all window treatments in house
22. Finish guest bedroom
    
23. Paint family room
    
24. Be patient and kind
    
25. Cut down on whining