Yoomur

You don't often think of a humor writers' conference as the place for somber introspection. I had a fabulous time swinging from the chandeliers with a great group of fun loving and talented people at the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop last weekend, but in fact I left with a few tough bones to chew.

I learned from author Wade Rouse that really good writing - and especially the humorous kind - is often borne of heartache and comes from a place of deep vulnerability. (A place where I rarely venture.)

I learned that if you are writing something for entertainment value alone, it better be devastatingly funny. Better to write well and have a deeper message so if the humor bombs, at least the piece will not. (Ooof!)

And I was reminded that an essential element of success is daily discipline. You have to write often and copiously to hone your craft and get better and better at it. There is no such thing as writers' block. You just sit down and write, even if that means getting up at five o' clock and staring at the wall.

Finally, I witnessed firsthand how people who come to conferences prepared with business cards and armed with 30 second pitches, as well as those who network confidently with everyone they meet instead of, for example, donning a cloak of invisibility and going to bed early, end up hobnobbing with published writers. (Note to self: next time, bring business cards, stay up late, wear Louboutins.)

But don't get me wrong. I had a great time and met a lot of fabulous people, like the brilliant and multi-talented KC, Choonkooloonks, Wendi Aarons, Smacksy, and Jennifer from These Are the Days, just to name a few.

I heard New York Times columnist Gail Collins rock the house with her keynote speech, listened to hilarious USA Today columnist Craig Wilson read his work, and watched live stand-up comedy expertly executed by Late Show writer Bill Scheft.

I had the chance to stand up in front of a full auditorium and read a piece I'd written.

I was hypnotized and learned how to apply guided imagery techniques in my writing.

I was mistaken for a girl scout while earnestly trying to network one day at lunch. That was a total bummer.

I got carded at a college bar with Classy Chaos. That was fun!

And . . . one more thing. My nagging suspicion that this blog I started almost three years ago as a creative outlet and a way to pass the time while the kids napped doesn't feel quite right anymore was confirmed.

Since I had no business cards with me, I said "RimaRama" out loud a lot. And it sounded kind of stupid. I also spent about ten minutes trying to explain to one person what the suffix "rama" means. And here I always thought it was pretty self-explanatory. (She also wondered why I was wearing a crown in my header and I was like, "because this blog is my alter ego and my alter ego wears a crown." And she was like . . . "Hmmmmm." Then I thanked her and ran away.)

So I'm thinking - just thinking - about killing RimaRama off and starting anew.

But I'm not going anywhere just yet. I will keep you posted!

The Power of Lounge

It's January in Cleveland.

We have snow up to our eyeballs. (Figuratively speaking, of course, unless you're thirty inches tall.)

The rum balls and Christmas cookies have been eaten, the fat jeans have been reluctantly marshalled, and the fridge has been enthusiastically stocked full of lean meats, fruits, veggies, tofu, and Weight Watcher's yogurt.

The J-dog and V-meister are back in school (fingers crossed for no snow day tomorrow), the Christmas toys have blended into the periphery, and life begins again in ordinary time.

I've really enjoyed myself for these past two weeks I've been AWOL. Christmas was a little less hectic than it's been in past years - the P-Dawg took a week off work, we entertained, visited with family and friends we don't often get to see, and spent our mornings in pajamas playing with toys and tech gadgets.

There are many tidbits I could write about, but none of them seem to warrant an entire blog entry. Either that, or I don't have it in me to try and craft wry posts around the minutiae of our everyday lives just now. Strange, because I tend to get writer's block when I'm feeling low, not happy and content, as I've been.

I've been reading Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now and Eckhart has given me permission to "just be." In my case this apparently does not involve writing blog entries. One thing Tolle writes about which really struck me is the idea that industriousness and creativity go in cycles and that it's perfectly normal to want - and need - to "rest."

And so I'm resting. Not for long, mind you. I find that whenever I write a post about being creatively blocked, the muse does not waste much time in popping in again, the little tease.


J-Dog knows all about the Power of Now.

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"

Comfort and Joy

My favorite childhood Christmas decoration was a pair of mice - a mother and her baby - which my mom always displayed on the top of the toilet commode for the few weeks leading up to Christmas.

I'm not sure why I loved those little rodents so, or why they were perpetually relegated to the bathroom. I seem to recall that they reminded me of characters in my favorite Lithuanian childrens' book series, and I must have admired the minuscule candy canes and holly berries that adorned their necks. Every year the setting of the mice atop the commode was, for me, the highlight of the family's Christmas decorating tradition.

I revisited the mice statuettes recently when sorting through ornaments at my parents' house. They were much less interesting than I'd remembered them - The velvet tufts of fur were threadbare in places, one mouse's ear was missing, and the paint on the holly berries around the other one's neck was chipped to reveal a plain old Styrofoam craft ball underneath. It was hard to believe those two tattered little mice had once represented for me the very pinnacle of comfort and joy.

Last night I hauled out all our Christmas decorations (except the tree and banister garland - those go up next weekend), put on some holiday music, and while the P-Dawg made us a dinner of steak with roasted asparagus and mashed potatoes and the children played quietly afoot, I busted my decorating moves.

I put the time honored garland up on the fireplace, spending a healthy chunk of time positioning fake holly berries equidistantly from one another:



I fashioned a string of wire lights and two bendable berry garlands into a nest, and placed it at the foot of my fireplace:



I hung the festive, but migraine inducing jingle bells on the front doorknob:



Then I painstakingly set up the nativity scene, triangulating the three kings and the shepherd with his flock around the holy family in a tasteful and aesthetically pleasing manner:



Fifteen minutes and one visit from the little J-dog later, the statues looked like this:



Which is only right.

Finally, I reluctantly draped my old frenemy, the button-eyed reindeer quilt, over the back of the family room couch.



The quilt, which begs that a crystal candy dish full of Werther's Originals be placed next to it, was a wedding gift from a distant relative, who had lovingly sewn it herself. It's cute, but not my style, and this year as I sorted through the boxes in our basement, I had decided to leave the quilt behind.

Except that after I had turned my back on the quilt in favor of a box of funky Crate and Barrel ornaments, I could feel those insipid little button eyes boring into me.


"Don't do it, bish."

And so I didn't. I brought the quilt upstairs and while the kids played with Legos in the corner, I draped it over the back of the couch.

After dinner, we retired to the family room to relax and admire my handiwork. J-dog and V-meister were miraculously well-behaved and no quarreling or couch diving occurred. If there had been a fire in the grate and snow falling softly outside the windows, we would have been a scene straight out of a Thomas Kincaid painting.

It took only a few moments for the kids to notice that the reindeer quilt was up.

"REINDEER BUTTON QUILT, YAY!!!!!", they squealed while holding hands and jumping up and down.

The joy was palpable.

There was couch diving.

An angel choir began singing Handel's Messiah, and the spirit of Christmas alighted on my shoulder in the shape of a small red bird.

I'll never be able to diss the beady-eyed reindeer quilt - it might as well be a threadbare pair of Christmas mice.

A Fairytale

Once upon a time, in a kingdom called, "Ohio," there lived a little girl named V-meister who wanted nothing so much as a goldfish and for all girls to dress up as princesses on her sixth birthday.

On the birthday morning, she woke up and . . . there was an empty aquarium on her dresser.

Later, her mama took her to Petc0, where she picked out two fish:


"Valentine and Clementine" (Someone is going to have to remind us to change that filter in a couple of weeks.)

The princess's second wish came true the next day, when her grandparents, two uncles, brother, cousin and closest friends gathered for a birthday feast at Chateau Rama.



It was the V-meister's heart's desire that her mother, Queen Rima de la Rama, wear her wedding gown to the ball.

The Queen negotiated down to an old bridesmaid's dress and a tiara:


Princess V-Meister and Queen Rima de la Rama

Queen Rima de la Rama was a "beta mom" who normally snubbed themed birthday parties that would require her to lift a finger and only spoil the children more, but the idea of a princess party was somehow appealing.

Even Grandma M. and Uncle M. came in all their finery:



While there were no bouncy castles, red carpets, or hired court jesters, the princesses did do a craft and played several party games.


It was a foam craft.


(Some princess identities have been protected.)

Queen Rima de la Rama's friend, the Duchess of V, (wearing a black turtleneck and jeans) regaled the assembled princesses with super scary L1thuanian fairy tales featuring nine-headed fire breathing dragons and an assortment of cats, foxes, and roosters:


She was the hit of the party.

Afterwards, it was time for refreshments. Some princesses announced that they do not like pizza, turkey roll-ups, hummus, carrots, grapes, pretzels, or chocolate cake with ice cream.

Queen Rima de la Rama suggested that those princesses drink water. Does she look like the sort of queen who makes grilled cheese sandwiches on demand?

Then there was much present opening, wand waving, shrieking, and prancing throughout the kingdom as the princesses oohhed and ahhhed over gifts and began burning off their sugar highs.





Throughout the proceedings, the little Prince J-Dog (who refused to wear his knightly helmet for any length of time), was quite a trooper.

. . .Until the assembled princesses began chasing him all over the kingdom and calling him names, at which point he flipped out and had to be redirected.

He cannot be held accountable for his actions.



After the princesses partook of a delicious C0stc0 cake and some ice cream, they beat the living crap out of a pinata and stuffed their little pink polyester princess purses full of party spoils.

And they lived happily ever after, forever and ever,

THE END.

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+."

Rimarama Recommends: The Outdoors

My kids are Outdoor Kids but I am an Indoor Mom, which can be problematic.

In grade school, one of the worst punishments you could impose upon me was to send me outdoors until dinnertime.  If Chrissy Long was not available to play Mary Lou Retton with, I'd just roller skate around and around the cul-de-sac, hoping for the salvation a wipeout could bring.  Once back in the comfort and safety of my bedroom lair, I could rejoin Ramona, Beezus, and Nancy Drew OR resume the work of molding Barbie-sized wedding cakes out of wads of wet toilet paper if I so desired, AND I DID.

But like I said, J-dog and V-meister?  Outdoor kids.  They love dirt and sunshine.  And back when I was pregnant for the first time and busy planning my stay-at-home-motherhood fantasy, frolicking outside was not accounted for in my short-sighted daily itinerary of: nurse baby and read books until dinnertime.  So it was kind of a shock when all of a sudden I had these two kids for whom I was expected to provide, you know . . . fresh air.

Well, I don't know what happened - maybe it's the fact that I actually like our new backyard, maybe it's old age - but I'm slowly coming around to this Spending Time Outdoors concept.  On more than one occasion last week I daresay I experienced an intense desire to go on a hike.  (Has anyone else had this happen to them?)

I even put on sneakers and packed a picnic lunch, for crying out loud.  And you know what?  It was lovely. There are some really nice things outdoors, readers.

And do you know what else?

Nothing beats meandering down a mossy trail on a cool summer's day with walking stick in hand and two wonderstruck little human beings tripping along beside you.

Blessed

The P-Dawg turned another year older yesterday. It was the coldest and most overcast August 30th either of us can remember.



But it was very good.

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!

I Took a Vacation

I've been on vacation, my peeps. As you may have surmised, I went AWOL on the blog, but I also took a couple of trips, including one with family and a group of good friends on Lake Michigan:


The blue house is where we stayed.


V-meister on the beach where we played.


J-dog reveling in the feeling of wet sand between his toes.


Rima and P-Dawg Jolie-Pitt-Rama


Rima "Baywatch" Rama.



My friend Vida at the dinner table, eagerly anticipating the evening's repas of wagyu steaks, lemon chive smashed potatoes and fresh greens. Her husband, Chef V, cooked our fabulous dinners. While the men gathered 'round the kitchen island to keep him company, we ladies sipped adult beverages out on the deck:


"We don't cook, but we do chill."

One day we went cherry picking, and V baked this pie:

It was the best pie I ever put in my pie hole.

Evenings, we'd sing by the fire pit while Derek played guitar:





We made wreaths out of wildflowers.


And danced ancient Lithuanian folk dances by twilight.

It was the kind of vacation I've wanted to take ever since V-meister and J-dog were born: a large house, a beach, good friends, good food, good drink, and sunkissed children scampering about. Bliss!

In short, I've simply been enjoying myself and seeing to it that my kids have the lazy, unregimented kind of summer I remember from my own childhood - full of slow as molasses mornings, picnics, sprinklers, sandboxes, sidewalk chalk, afternoons at the pool, ice cream, and morning cartoons.

It's been good. But I've been thinking . . .

"Perhaps I should dust off the old blog."

Some photos in this post were unabashedly pilfered from the Facebook pages of my friends.