So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

Today was my last day working at the airports on the weekend. The boyfriend will be here next Friday, and I'm taking an entire week off.

I spent the morning getting yelled at by Air Tran's passengers, because they only had four people working at the ticket counter and the line was at least an hour and a half long to get to the front. My advice - never, ever, ever fly Air Tran. There it is. I said it. Let's move on.

I also spent the morning looking for a passenger with Alzheimer's who got separated from his wife in the wrong terminal. That sucked. The wife managed to hold it together for a while, but by the time we got someone from the Sheriff's office, she had tears streaming down her face. I felt terrible. I walked through the entire terminal, shouting his name, then outside on the curb, then back through the building again. He was finally found in the correct terminal. My voice was scratchy for the rest of the afternoon.

The Kid is sleeping, it's beautiful outside, and I have an ENTIRE DAY OFF TOMORROW!!!

Off to do the Happy Dance...

Valentine's Day

Tonight the Kid and I were almost home, stopped at a red light. An older man was on the side of the road with a sign asking for spare change. It was so sad to see someone his age standing on the side of the road. He should have been in a retirement home somewhere, watching TV, and waiting for someone to bring him a bowl of hot soup.

I rolled down my window and passed him a dollar bill that I had in my spare change tray. His hand was dry, and rough. He said, "Thank you. God bless you. Happy Valentine's Day".

How absolutely sad is it that someone can be living on the street and remember to wish me a Happy Valentine's Day?

It seems to me that there is a huge number of homeless in south Florida. I guess if you have to be living on the street somewhere, it's better where it's 70 degrees almost year-round, but I can understand how someone could easily lose everything here. Most people move down here to escape something somewhere else, but then they get here and realize the rent is a lot higher than they thought it was going to be, the salaries are crap, and the social service lines are long. And for some reason, beating homeless people to death seems to be a sport in Broward County.

And yet, with all this, he wished me a Happy Valentine's Day.

There's nothing like the human heart.

Sunday

Umbrella with Feet, A Study in Color. 2007.

I finally got hit by a passenger today. She was on the Spirit line, and was angry that she had waited on line for an hour. She yelled at me while her kid sobbed uncontrollably, and, then yelled that she was "Going in!" and shoved me in the chest. I had to walk away from her.

I came home and sang duets with the Kid, me on her Magic Microphone, and she on a paper towel tube. We did "Islands in the Stream", and I was fantastic.

I've been recovering from a cold, so I rested for a while, and we went for a late walk in the evening, just as it started to rain. Nothing makes the Kid happier than a road full of puddles. Or, apparently, yoga.

Cage-free, tree hugger blueberries

It's 1 o'clock in the morning, and I'm eating a bowl of cereal with some organic milk. I also poured in a $5 box of blueberries that I bought at Whole Foods. I think there were about 18 blueberries in the box. Cage-free.

If you're saying to yourself, "Wow, Mary, I can't figure out why you're broke and can't lose weight!", please flick yourself in the forehead for me.

As I munch on my antibiotic-free blueberries that were caressed by Franciscan monks, I'm reading an article "How Green Was My Wedding" in the New York Times, about couples having weddings with recycled wedding dresses and rings and vegan menus and potato-based biodegradable forks. That's fantastic. If and when me and the next Mr. Me decide to settle down, I'm going to feed my guests compost and not have toilets. You're welcome, Earth.

I could be more ecologically concerned, I just wish I didn't hate Whole Foods so much. They sell all kinds of foofy and overpriced organic stuff for the benefit of the environment and human health, and the people that shop there are such ASSHOLES. Every time I pull into their parking lot, I'm nearly sideswiped by a Mercedes or a BMW. No one puts shopping carts back in the shopping cart corral -- they just let them drift into the side of my car. People storm through the aisles without making eye contact, and then practically shove you out of the way when headed for the cash register. Hello, we're all here to love the Earth through grocery consumption, not crush my Veggie Booty, you displaced metrosexual bastards.

In six fleeting hours, I need to be back at the airport, sharing my head cold germs, love of the environment, and any other psychological garbage I'm dealing with at the moment, with Fort Lauderdale's tourists.

I'm like a giant, phlegmy hug.

A mother's hands

My mother does not have healing hands.

Watching my mother interact with my daughter is giving me a very strange and frank glimpse into my own childhood. It makes me uncomfortable, and yet, I can't stop watching and evaluating and remembering.

I grew up with a persistent need to have every object in its place, and have often been taunted by friends for being a clean freak. However, as a single mother with minimal free time, I sometimes can only get to cleaning every two weeks or so, and it doesn't really bother me as it used to. My focus has shifted to the smile on my daughter's face as my top priority, and all else falls by the wayside. Walking into my parents' oceanview apartment, I realize that my mother has trained my daughter to keep all of her toys together, and to grow accustomed to the bedroom doors remaining closed. My mother will often retreat to her own bedroom to read or call friends, and my father will sit and watch Sesame Street with the Kid.

I now remember my own parents' bedroom door constantly shut, and all of my toys being limited to my bedroom. I remember my mother's hissy fits upon finding toys in the living room. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and calling out for my dad, because calling out for my mom never resulted in her waking up.

As a grandmother, and mother of a single mother, my mother is fantastic. She takes the Kid when she's too sick to go to school and I'm too sick to do anything but sleep, and then she makes soup for everyone. She reads and sings to my daughter. She falls in love with toddler clothes and brings them home. She gets up early to take the Kid so I can still get to work on time. But I've never had the urge to go home to my mom and lay my head in her lap and cry over a crappy boyfriend. If I've ever needed a cool hand on my forehead in the middle of a fever, hers would be the last hand I expected. In fact, as a kid, when I was home sick from school on the sofa, she resented the intrusion and yelled at me to go lay in my own bed. Everything in its place.

I'm not the greatest mother in the world, but I am different. At 35, I now wonder what her childhood was like, and if she felt like her own mother kept her at an arm's distance. She has estranged herself from her sisters (no big loss there), and just last week, admitted to me that she just doesn't like people. At least she's finally being honest. I spent my childhood explaining to my friends before bringing them home that she would probably be incredibly nice to them, but not too be fooled, as she was out of her mind. She would be warm and welcoming when meeting new friends. People looked at me with a raised eyebrow and wondered why I had an intricate defense system, complete with sarcasm and a razor-sharp tongue. Eventually, they would finally have an opportunity to watch her snap, and then I would get invited to go and live at their house indefinitely.

One childhood friend whose mother beat the crap out of her once told me that she preferred her own mother over mine, because at least her mother was consistent.

With limited financial resources and very little time to take care of myself, I wonder how much of this I am passing on to the Kid. My mother always tried to be nice. She always worked very hard to do the right thing and be gracious and warm, but eventually, something would get to her and her head would start rotating on its axis and a flaming pitchfork would appear in her fist. It was the inconsistency that made me nuts, because you never knew what kind of mood she was going to be in. I spent years tiptoeing around her and trying to maintain the serenity of her environment. Then I turned 15 and found scary boyfriends and started crawling out the bedroom window and screaming back when provoked, and it's taken another 10 years to flush that all out of my system.

I want to have healing hands.

I want my daughter to want to do nothing else but come home when the world kicks her in the butt. I want her to feel safe, and loved, and know that I would lay down on railroad tracks for her. I want to be all the good things my mother has shown me, in addition to all of the good things I feel are inside me.

This really is the hardest job.

My cat is big boned.

I was going to go to bed early, but I've had really bad insomnia lately. And the world's fattest orange cat keeps trying to headbutt me. And I have several unrelated issues on my mind.

1) Anna Nicole Smith is dead. I already emailed everyone I know as soon as I heard. I have no idea why.

2) One of the guys at work joined Weight Watchers about 2 weeks ago. Four days ago, I had a tooth pulled, and since then, I have eaten one of these, and nothing else:

I lost 1.7 lbs.

Weight Watchers guy lost 15 lbs. I keep giving him the finger and telling him he's "Number One".

This is my new favorite commercial:


I HAVEN'T HAD BREAD IN TWO YEARS!!

3) Doctor's offices. Absolutely sick, of them. No pun intended.

Today I had to drive downtown from the airport to deliver some documents. I took the department's new Blazer. I almost couldn't reach the pedals. It was beautiful outside. On the way back, I was stuck at a drawbridge, and started singing along with the radio. It was "We've Got Tonight", and the song is so bad that I was singing and laughing so hard I almost couldn't get the words out. I think I was laughing because I'm so overtired, but mostly because I was so shocked that I knew all the words. And because all the windows were open. My musical gift was meant to be shared with the people.

4) The Kid. Very best thing, ever. She's nuts. And I love her.

The world's fattest orange cat is about to get a manicure.... I just got up to get his nail clippers and he broke into a run, thinking I was getting him some food. The only time this feline cow runs is when he thinks food is involved.

Oh, Fatboy, are you in for a cruel surprise.

Souperbowl Sunday

I called in sick to work today. I absolutely hated doing it, as it is Superbowl Sunday, and my weekend supervisor was a little worried that we weren't enough people this weekend, but I slept like crap and my jaw looks like Jay Leno's. I quickly went from martyrdom to pity party, as I realized I never have an entire day to myself unless I feel like crap and it's an emergency.

My parents cheerfully took the Kid last night, but they get tired easily, and I'm not sure how long I have before I have to go and rescue them. My dad's best friend died yesterday and dad's sad, so I hope the Kid is cheering him up a little. Dad's best friend was a beautiful man, and a super cute dad and grandfather, like my dad, and I'm sad too.

I'm watching the Barefoot Contessa, trying to get inspired to eat something, but she's making salmon today, and I don't eat fish. The good news is that I just saw that Nigella Lawson is on after this. I love Nigella Lawson. I have a total girl crush on her. She makes absolutely beautiful food, and never apologizes for the calorie content. I have one of her books, "How to Be a Domestic Goddess", filled with all these goopy, chocolately fluffy yummy dessert recipes.

One day, I may actually get to use that book.

Mmmph.

I had a tooth extracted on Friday.

On Saturday, I developed a fondness for Vicodin.

It's Sunday, and I am living through the pain to get away from the Vicodin.

Who needs Intervention when you have me?

I also had a bottle of Darvocet from an earlier appointment this week, but that stuff was making me nod off. And considering my schedule (2 year old, job, need to drive), probably not the best treatment plan for me.

The Vicodin was making me really bitchy as it started to wear off. I had to plaster a smile on my face all day and force myself to be ultra-kind to passengers at the airport. I got a few hugs and a few screamed "Thanks, Mary!"'s throughout the day, so I must have been helpful... It also helped that US Airways was doing such a crappy job of taking care of their passengers - I absolutely glowed in comparison.

The Kid failed to nap this afternoon and then ran through the house, trying to either drink or smear on herself every chemical in the house. She was seriously tired, falling all over, and crying hysterically. And yelling at me. We went to my parents' and they gave her dinner while I slept on the sofa, clutching my face. I haven't eaten since Thursday, but I'm sure I'll gain five pounds regardless, as my body switches into "fear of starvation" mode.

I wonder how much my tooth weighed?

I got an email today from an old friend who was worried about us, after the news of the tornado in FL. It was about three hours north of here. The sky has been really strange for a couple of days, but we weren't touched at all.

Is it just me, or is Mother Nature working really, really hard to get rid of the Sunshine State?

Insomniac

I have lost the ability to sleep.

The Kid has had a cough for about two weeks, which wakes her up in the middle of the night. Then she cries. Then she wants to sleep in my bed. Where she enjoys kicking me in the back. Sometimes, she puts her face really close to my face while I'm completely asleep and loudly whispers, "Whatchu doing, mommy?"

I'm also trying to keep us in clean clothes, which isn't easy, working through the weekends. I do a lot of laundry at 11pm. Of course, I have to stay up to put it in the dryer, due to a shared laundry room and a deep sense of social responsibility. By the time I put my laundry in the dryer, I'm awake again. By morning, I'm just crazy. At work, I'm useless.

The funny thing, though, is that it's all manageable. I have reached the point where I can do it all on my own. Ta-da. It's no longer a strain to get up by myself in the morning and get us both ready. Sure, sometimes she just stands outside the shower and cries and screams, and it does disrupt my serenity, but I don't notice it as much. OK, so my hair is ... frightening, but there's no one at work I need to impress, so I stopped caring.

The bills are paid, there's food in the fridge, and we get everywhere we need to be.

(Yay.)