David Smith Must Never Find Out Where I Live

One day last week I walked into the house and started playing back the messages on my answering machine while the little J-dog busied himself nearby, polishing the floor with the seat of his pants.

There was only one message, and it was a wrong number:

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN.* (Just do it! But maybe turn the volume down a little if you're at work. Or around small children.)

After I recovered from the shock of hearing the words, "penis," "fart," and "butthole" on my answering machine, it began to dawn on me that thanks to Mrs. Doodle-Pro's dialing mix-up, a certain delinquent named David Smith would be getting off scot-free after shouting profanities aloud in Art class and sticking an Exacto knife, which he was not allowed to touch, in someone's face.

And I began to contemplate what obligation, if any, I had as an accidental player in this tragicomedy. Should I notify Mrs. Doodle-Pro of her mistake and bust David Smith's a$$? Or pretend I never got the message and let him sweat bullets indefinitely?

I decided to consult with my husband and moral compass, the P-Dawg, before proceeding. (But not before calling up everyone I know and gleefully playing the message back to them.)

In the end, I did contact the high school and left Mrs. Doodle-Pro a very awkward voice mail explaining her mistake and thus putting David Smith out of the misery he was surely enduring while waiting for his mother to finally receive the Phone Call of Doom.

Now, if I could just get the little J-dog to stop running around the house yelling, "penis," "fart" and "butthole."


* The recording has been slightly edited for brevity, privacy, and comedic effect. Your media player should pop up automatically when you click on the link, then just press the "play" button.

Fun with Book Club

To: Book Club Members
From: Rima
Subject: Discussion Questions for March Meeting (Draft)

Here are (in no particular order) the discussion questions for our next book club meeting:

1. What do you suppose possessed Jenny to select an eight hundred page long book of scholarly historical non-fiction that is EIGHT HUNDRED PAGES LONG as our March title? Be sure to give specific examples in support of your argument.
   
   
2. Did any of you actually read it? Be honest.
   
   
3. Oh rilly? Okay, what musical instrument did Thomas Jefferson play, how many children did he father, and was he taller than Danny DeVito?
   
   
4. Life in colonial Virginia was harsh. Does anyone else think that Forbes magazine's recent ranking of Cleveland as "America's Most Miserable City?" is total bull$hit?
   
   
5. One can only assume that during the time Thomas Jefferson spent living in France, he drank a lot of wine. Do you think that people who claim to have a "red wine allergy" are full of crap? Why or why not?
   
   
6. Thomas Jefferson kept getting his wife pregnant, knowing that childbirth would eventually kill her. What kind of an insensitive, sex crazed pervert was he?
   
   
7. And speaking of childbirth, how many of us have had c-sections vs. vaginal births? What about epidural vs. natural? How much do you want to bet that Team Vagina secretly believes Team C-Section is a bunch of pansies?
   
   
8. Why do you think evolution has not yet eliminated short, nearsighted people?
   
   
9. How come our book club discussions always turn to playground gossip after ten minutes? Do you think we have ADD? In what way is our book club a microcosm of society as a whole?
   
   
10. Have you noticed that this book is 800 pages long?
    
    
11. Do you think it's OK for someone to pick a Danielle Steele novel she read while standing in the supermarket checkout line as the selection of the month?
    
    
12. Does anyone else feel that this book club could really benefit from a gay male perspective?
    
    
13. Why do you think Glenn Beck is always crying? Seriously, what is wrong with that guy?
    
    
14. How does my husband always manage to spray toothpaste scum on his side of the bathroom mirror, while mine is without fail pristine day in and day out?
    
    
15. Is it considered "uncool" to wear your hair up in a butterfly clip?
    
    
16. And finally, have you noticed that the John Locke character on the hit TV show Lost has man boobs?
    

In closing, I would like to add that I BETTER NOT TURN OUT TO BE THE ONLY SUCKER WHO IS ACTUALLY READING THIS EVERLOVIN' BOOK.

See you on the 12th, everybody!

xo
-Rima

I Love It When a Plan Comes Together

You volunteer to help out with the school Christmas pageant, and next thing you know you're onstage sweating bullets in a one-size-fits-all velour elf costume:



I am the elf on the left, "Dzingu-Lingu." Loosely translated this word means, "Jingle."

My friend V is the elf on the right. Her name is pronounced "Zhvung-Zhvung" and translated means, "Jangle." I am not making this up.

We wanted to add a little pizazz to what had become a lackluster Lithuanian Saturday school Christmas pageant, where "pizazz" equals getting roped in to act as co-masters of ceremonies dressed in full elf gear, right down to our strap-on footwear.



My friend V and I wrote and acted out a series of skits that were to take place between each of the childrens' performances. I was a disgruntled elf who had run away from Santa's sweatshop in the North Pole and my friend V had come to retrieve me. It was up to the children to restore my Christmas spirit and help me remember the handbell tune that would summon Santa.

There was much hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth when the night before the show, not a single parent volunteer had committed to playing Santa Claus. But it only took one passive-aggressive email to the distribution list for two Santa volunteers to come out of the woodwork and restore my faith in humankind.

We sang, we danced . . . we hammed it up in only the way that former camp counselors can. I even did a cartwheel, for Pete's sake.

And it was deemed "The best Christmas pageant . . . in about ten years."


"The Littlest Angel"

A Mid-Semester Afternoon's Nightmare

During my sophomore year in college, I started pining away for a scruffy little poet who had pursued me during the previous semester’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While we were in the play together, I'd been flattered by his attention, but it was kind of freaking me out, so I let him know in no uncertain terms that Snug the Carpenter and Mote the Fairy were not meant to be.

But a year after the production, I was boyfriendless, spending Saturday nights holed up in my dorm room playing Tetris and eating powdered Tang. The poet and I had an English class together, and he was growing more and more attractive. How could I have failed to notice his smashing good looks, humor, sensitivity, and wit?

I decided that he was The One.

My love was all consuming - I could think of nothing other than the day when we would finally be together. To this end, I positioned myself in all the right places at all the right times, the better for him to notice me on his way to class.

Nothing happened.

I made made sure to eat my cafeteria dinner at the same time my soul mate would be there with his friends.

Nada, except the occasional friendly nod in my direction.

I attended his poetry reading at the local coffee shop, but still my love did not approach me.

I did not wish to postpone our union any longer. Fate was fate, but I would have to give it a little nudge.

My best friend and I were sitting in our French for Business class, waiting for the perpetually late Madame Le Fevre to make her appearance when I decided that the time was ripe to make my move.

I donned my thrift store army coat, applied some lipstick, gathered my books and, with my best friend’s words of encouragement still ringing in my ears (“Are you sure you want to do this, Rim?”), vacated my desk and made for my beloved's dorm, carpe diem style. In this state of mind, could anyone be expected to compose, en francais, a letter inquiring as to the availability of the rental property in Cannes?

His window faced the quad and movement could be seen within. Without a moment’s hesitation, I launched a barrage of ill-constructed snowballs towards it and shouted my beloved's name until he popped his head outside.

“Oh, hey Rima. What’s up?”

“Can I come up for a second? I need to talk to you.”

My love threw down his keys and five minutes later, I arrived panting and sweating at his door with no use for small talk.

”So, I’ve been thinking a lot about last year, Midsummer Night’s Dream, all that stuff? And I think it was really stupid of me not to go out with you then, you know what I mean? So I was actually wondering, you know, if there's, like, any way you would give me a second chance?”

No sooner had the words escaped my lips than I realized the enormity of my mistake. My beloved stood before me wearing a look that was at once uncomfortable and unmistakably amused.

"Wow, that's, um . . . really sweet, Rima, but I . . . uh . . . have a girlfriend now."

"Oh! Shit. . . . .So, it's a "no," then?"

"Sorry things never worked out between us."

"Me too. Shit."

"I guess I'll see you around" he said to my quickly retreating back.

In retrospect, I'm not sure just what kind of response it was that I expected. It seems obvious that even if he wasn't already taken, no self-respecting guy would have played out the script I had written in my head. ("So glad you stopped by! I was just thinking about how I've never stopped loving you.")

But whether it's a testament to my healthy ego and spectacular naïveté or a cautionary tale about the futility of impromptu declarations of undying love, it ranks pretty high on the list of my most embarrassing moments.


"Mote, the Stalker Fairy"

This post was my contribution to Mrs. Flinger's Write-Of-Passage challenge. Today's assignment was to write about your most embarassing moment. You can read the other entries here:

I Would Like My Pellet Now, Please

I finally got my paws on some H1N1 vaccine, and all I had to do was pimp myself out for science.

I'm participating in an H1N1 vaccine study which aims to prove that a smaller dose of vaccine, when administered along with a type of protein that helps the body build up its immune system, works just as well as a full dose. I don't know if I'm in the treatment or control group, but the P-Dawg assures me that I did get some amount of FDA approved H1N1 vaccine.

And all I had to do was sign a fifteen page release form, obtain a physical, take a pregnancy test, disclose what form of birth control I'm using, promise not to get knocked up in the next year, have three vials of blood drawn and swear to return every month for the next six months to have it drawn again, take my temperature every night for the next week, and agree to keep a "flu journal" in the event I get sick.

Plus, I get paid three hundred smackers for my trouble. Which won't help me when I'm dead, but will buy me several dinners out.

I got vaccinated yesterday morning, and last night I started worrying that I might die felt slightly achy.

"P-Dawg, I feel kind of crappy. How soon would a person know if she was coming down with Guillain-Barré Syndrome?"

"About two to six weeks, I guess. Are you planning on getting Guillain-Barré?"

I made him promise that if I didn't wake up the next morning, he'd burn my diaries and go through my blog to delete any swear words or references to my mother, and then I went up to bed.

This morning I feel fine. You can thank me next year, when there's enough vaccine to go around as a direct result of my selfless dedication to medical research.

(That, or lay flowers on my grave. No carnations, please.)

Golden Sneakers vs. Silver Fins

I am in the race of my life against an elderly woman at the local YMCA.

We have a family membership there, and I work out every Monday afternoon while the kids are at their art/music/play/doesitreallymatter? class.  I have just enough time to sweat out about thirty minutes on the elliptical before grabbing a shower and returning to pick J-dog and V-meister up. Generally speaking, my Monday afternoon drop-off/workout/pickup regimen is a well oiled machine.

Now it seems there is a senior aquatics class  - the Silver Fins - wrapping up right about the same time as I'm heading for the showers, of which there are only three.  And for the past few Mondays, I have had to wait in line for twenty minutes - sometimes more! - while the Silver Fins slooooooooooooowly rinse off.  It puts quite a wrench into my Monday afternoon schedule.

"This week," I told myself, "the game is gonna change."  So on Monday I cut my workout short by five minutes and, with the Chariots of Fire theme song playing in my head,  made my way towards the shower room like a bat out of hell.

Readers, I arrived in the nick of time, just as the first of the Silver Fins posse was inching around the corner.  Breathless and red-faced, I hopped into the center stall, did a quick victory shuffle, and turned the water on. 

But, soft! What hand through yonder shower curtain breaks?

"THAT YOU IN THERE, KAREN?" (One of the heftier, tattoed Silver Fins has violently ripped the curtain open and poked her permed head inside.)

Me, scrambling to draw curtain shut: "Nope! Not Karen! I'll be done in a minute, though, and thank you for respecting my privacy while I finish up!"

Silver Fin: "Oh, I didn't see you sneak in there, hon!  You know, I always take this stall because it's the roomiest.  The gals call it 'Gertie's* stall', heh heh, because it's mine.  You snuck in on me pretty good, there! Well, I guess I'll just sit here for a spell until you're done.  "

The remaining two showers in the room were empty, but Gertie pulled up a stool, planted herself directly in front of the stall I was in, and started humming.

Now, usually I'm in and out in five minutes, but you know I took a forty-five minute shower that day.

(Actually, I just stood under the stream doing a whole lotta nothin' since in my haste, I had forgotten to bring soap and shampoo.)

When, in my estimation an appropriate amount of time had elapsed, I turned the water off and, taking great pains to adjust my towel just so before exiting, waltzed out with head held high and never looked back.

Next week I'll have to truncate my workout by another five minutes to ensure that I cut Gertie off at the pass.  But it's a wash (a WASH!) in the end, on account of all the extra calories I plan to burn in the race.

*Probably her real name

When Science And Life Collide

I came home from choir rehearsal last night to find the P-Dawg beside himself with glee.

"WE ARE NOT CHIMPANZEES!!!!" he announced as I knuckle-walked through the door.

I immediately put down my banana, stood upright, and joined him in the family room, where P-Dawg breathlessly informed me of the discovery of Ardipithecus Ramdus or "Ardi", the fossil that has usurped Lucy's claim to fame as mother of humankind. It's the sort of news that has many scientists drooling over their pocket protectors, and the P-Dawg even more so because one of the members of the research team that discovered Ardi just happens to be a former professor of his.

I immediately went online and read all about this long lost biped cousin. It turns out she stood about five feet tall, weighed 110 pounds, and was in desperate need of a properly fitting bra.

In other words, she's me, only furrier.

I Love a Good Grosgrain

I went to the secret wholesale design warehouse with The Decorators yesterday to start picking out furniture and fabrics.

The Decorators are my new best friends, though they know it not. Always impeccably dressed and trailing a faint scent of Gucci in their elegant wake, their very presence compels me to flaunt every piece of design lingo I've ever gleaned from reading Flutter's Shared Items shelter magazines.

It's like I'm transported to another dimension where potty training and housework do not exist. I catch myself saying things like, "I am loving the way this grosgrain picks up the blues in the ikat! Did you know I'm a flexitarian?" when just a half an hour earlier found me yelling, "IF I CATCH YOU JUMPING ON THE COUCH OR LICKING THAT DOORKNOB AGAIN, I WILL PERSONALLY HAND OVER YOUR LEGOS TO THE GARBAGE MAN, SO HELP ME GOD" at the top of my lungs.

("Grosgrain" is a new word I learned. And did you know that "damask" is pronounced with the accent on the first syllable?)

The design center was a bit overwhelming and I felt completely out of my element (Le Target), but in the end I managed to get several photos of myself posing with various pieces of furniture, select an assortment of fabrics, a sofa, sideboard, chair AND coffee table, and to stuff my purse full of complementary chocolates.

I now wear a knotted scarf and take my breakfast in the morning room.


"Girl With Knotted Scarf, Borderline Personality Disorder"

A few of the fabrics I liked:

The Lowdown on the Wrapup

P-Dawg and I went on a weekend spa getaway to celebrate our anniversary.  Timid spa virgins no longer, we signed ourselves up for massages and seaweed wraps.  I thought they'd roll me up in some wet leaves and twenty minutes later I'd be skinny, but that's not how it went down.

First I almost kicked the massage therapist's teeth out when he tried to exfoliate my feet (I'm very sensitive), and then a smelly, wet paste made out of ground up seaweed was smeared all over my bod-day - kind of a shocker when you're expecting to be swaddled in something more akin to a fig leaf.  (I am from Ohio.)

Next, the P-Dawg and I were individually folded, burritolike, in some butcher block paper and a layer of warm thermal foil.  Then we were left alone in our respective mud cocoons for about twenty minutes to dwell on the various itches that developed the minute our arms were incapacitated. 


"P-Dawg?"

"Yep."

"I have a facial twitch."

"A new one?"

"No. Will I die?"

"Someday."

(Time passes.)

"P-Dawg?"

"Right here."

"I really have to see a man about a horse."

"Me too."

"We oughtn't have pounded that mineral water."

(A few minutes are spent staring at the ceiling and listening to Enya.)

"P-Dawg?"

"Yep."

"I actually didn't realize it was going to be mud."

"Me neither."


"Do you think our bod-days are really being detoxified?"

"Nope."

"Well, crap. I was sort of counting on being a dress size smaller after this."

When all was said and done, I may have lost a pound or two of water weight and my skin was as smooth as a baby's butt for a solid week, but I'm not sure it was worth it on account of the ick factor.  Plus, I gained it all back when we went out to dinner that night, so it was kind of a wash.

And therefore I give seaweed wraps, as a general category, a solid "C" rating.  But I give our anniversary getaway weekend an "A+."

It's Not a Cult

I have been to L1thuan1an camp and back!

There is no air conditioning at L1thuan1an camp. There is no Internet and no cell phone service. You share a bathroom with ten other families, you sleep in a bunk bed, and you let your children run rampant sporting Kool-Aid mustaches. All in all, it's a jolly good time.

I've told you a little bit about my family's cultural background, yes? But I can't recall whether I mentioned that V-meister and J-dog are bilingual. I've been speaking L1thuan1an with them since they were babies, so they are both fluent. And, see, there's this total immersion sleepaway camp in Michigan that I used to attend as a child where we conversed in our mother tongue, drank Tang, sang ballads, folk danced, and occasionally re-enacted ancient pagan solstice rituals. It was always the highlight of my year.

I loved it so much that I used to be inconsolable for weeks after returning home. When I became too old to attend as a camper, I signed up to be a counselor. So, when the opportunity presented itself to attend a weeklong family camp, the Ramas were among the first in line to attend - even the P-Dawg who has not a lick of L1thuan1an in him, went with us.

He was quite a trooper, eating cold beet soup and kugelis (potato and egg casserole) with the best of them, teaching a childrens' juggling class, participating in a campfire skit, and learning a few choice L1thuan1an phrases ("Let us drink ale.")

Now we're back, fighting off a summer sickness and digging out from underneath a mountain of laundry. But it was definitely worth it.


Me, running an obstacle course - and moving very quickly, I might add.


Obstacle course, leg two: pile diving off a picnic table


The V-meister and I performing in front of the campfire.


The V-meister and her cousin dressed up for L1thuan1a's one thousandth birthday party. (Can I get a what? what!) It is actually older than that, but was first mentioned by name in the annals of history about a thousand years ago.

So we had a birthday party. The kids dressed up all medieval-like, ate pizza and cake, and later watched Shrek II dubbed over in L1thuan1an. And while they did, we adults drank mead and ate whole chickens with our bare hands in the next room over.

Okay, not really, but we had a beer pairing dinner featuring everything from maple cured ham, to Lithuanian garlic bread with Havarti dip, to cured salmon finger sandwiches, to shrimp gumbo, split pea soup, black bean chili, and sour cherry pie. It was a pretty sweet birthday party.











Some other scenes from our trip:


The P-Dawg posing in front of some nature and a couple of SUVs.


The P-Dawg, preparing to juggle raw eggs over my mother's head as part of a campfire stunt.


Thorn Lake ("Spyglys")


The beach at dusk.


A cross. L1thuan1ans were one of the last in Europe to convert, but now they're as Catholic as they get.


That's all for now. I hope to be back on a fairly regular posting schedule soon!

The Tooth Fairy is an Irresponsible Slacker

After weeks of persistent nudging, the V-meister finally wiggled her first tooth free very early one morning last week. Very early.

Because the ragged little pearl was presented to me in bed a mere four hours after I had finally fallen asleep for the night, it was difficult to muster up the enthusiasm I'd always planned to display upon such a momentous occasion. My morning breath and I congratulated V-meister as heartily as we could, advised her to keep the tooth safe for the Fairy, and gave a brief lecture on the importance of going back to sleep.

The V-meister and her tooth climbed in beside me.

"Are you sure you don't want to put that tooth on the nightstand?" I urged, eyeing the impossibly tiny specimen my daughter held precariously between two fingers. No. The tooth would remain in V-meister's possession, and she would hand it off to the Fairy herself.

Soon it became apparent that the V-meister, who was trying to be as quiet and unobtrusive as possible, was expecting the Tooth Fairy momentarily. Unfortunately, T.F. is union and her shift was over for the night. Also, she'd had a few glasses of wine with dinner and stayed up late watching the Colbert Report. The tooth fairy, I explained, would not be making her appearance just yet, but she would love it if the V-meister tried to lie in bed quietly until the alarm went off.

I rolled over and feigned a deep sleep. Moments later, there was a great rustling of sheets, followed by some scrabbling which robbed me of my covers. Irritated, I drew those covers back over my body in a rough, impatient manner, causing the tooth V-meister had inadvertently dropped somewhere in our king sized bed - and had been desperately trying to locate - to become airborne and land in an undisclosed location. And thus an earnest, yet futile early morning tooth search and recovery mission was launched while a hapless, grief-stricken V-meister looked on.

That evening, the V-meister went to bed toothless on several levels. We assured her that the Tooth Fairy, with her X-Ray vision, would be able to find V-meister's tooth wherever it may be. It was only after she had fallen asleep that P-Dawg finally located the renegade incisor on our bedroom floor. It was too late for V-meister to put it under her pillow, so P-Dawg placed it for safekeeping on top of our dresser, where it was accidentally disposed of during a vigorous dusting session the very next day.

Luckily, we were granted a chance at a do-over when a another tooth jumped ship three days later under our babysitter's watch. She had the foresight to immediately put it in a ziplock baggie and place it directly under V-meister's pillow at bedtime, where it was later spirited away without incident by Alert and Responsive Tooth Fairy.

P-Dawg says that in ten years time V-meister won't give a crap whether I saved her first tooth or not, but I still mourn the one that got away.

Everyone Else Is Doing It

Every once in awhile, you'll see a blogger post examples of Google searches that bring readers to their site.

Today I am that blogger.

• "pictures of girls with no shirts on and you can see there boobees"
  
  No b00bee$ 4U until you learnt how to speell, mister.
  
  
• "small yellow tablet with the word rima on it"
  
  You found it!!! I'm going to need that back.

• "I pooped in my snowsuit"
  
  I'm sorry, why don't you go change out of it now? And next time, remember: you don't need to wear your snowsuit to surf the web.
  
  
• "Does the pope have a regular bathroom?"
  
  Let's find out.
  
  
• "My hygienist stabbed me"
  
  So did mine.
  
  
• "flush myself down the toilet"
  
  Go for it, man.
  
  
• "Why faint while exercising?"
  
  Why not?
  
  
• "How to sculpt a falcon"
  
  Very, very carefully.
  
  
• "Rima sucks"
  
  I know you don't mean that.
  
  
• "Rimas feel good"
  
  And they write good, too.