My daughter just walked into the living room and told me about twins at her school named Libba and Elan. “Oh”, I asked, “are they identical?” “No Mom”, Polly replied in that voice that screams You’re So Dumb!, “he has brown hair and she has blond.”

I didn’t even ask which was which.

When I was a freshman in high school, before I hooked up with Alex, my now husband, I had a wonderful boyfriend. He was sweet, sexy and oh so kind. When we kissed I went weak in the knees and when I saw him or when he called me my heart did flip flops and my stomach got that delicious butterfly feeling. At the time I was attending a private Catholic all girls school with girls who had real problems, such as, “Should I have my daddy buy me a Mercedes or a BMW for my 16^th birthday? “ I was depressed and out of place. I tried very hard to hide, but this boyfriend was very intent on getting to know me, the real me. I had only one pair of pants, and they were filled with holes. I wore the button down shirts that were left over from my Dad’s career as an electrical engineer. My mom had kept everything after he died. He had a few nice cardigans, and I was sorry that his pants didn’t fit me in any way shape or form. I wore his old boxers and undershirts, as he called them, around the house. My mom really shut down after her husband’s death. Truth be told, she gave up on everything from parenting to cooking. After so many years in a hostage like situation I was free, and I had no idea what to do with that freedom.

After school my boyfriend would call me. My mom had used some delivery service to get cases of a few foods delivered. We had boxes and boxes of Wheaties and Cheerios, and the cupboards were filled with cans of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. Everyday when I got home I would heat a can of soup even though I knew then that I wanted to be a vegetarian. I couldn’t stomach another bowl of those two types of cereal, and we never had milk. After a few weeks of phone calls my boyfriend would say, “Let me guess, you’re eating chicken soup and your mom is watching Mary Poppins.” It wasn’t even a question as the TV blared Mary Poppins and when you’re talking to someone with “Spoon Full Of Sugar makes the Medicine Go Down” in the background what can you say? My mom watched that movie every single day after work and if we moaned or complained about it she turned the volume up.

I had been trying to hide the fact that I didn’t have much in the way of clothing by wearing a large long coat everyday. I wore that coat even in the summer, pretending I wasn’t hot when people in shorts and tank tops asked about it. It was my security blanket.

Once I was talking to weak in the knees maker with the beautiful eyes and he told me what he had made for dinner. It was something with artichoke hearts. I had never heard of or eaten an artichoke before, and at the time I thought that it was an animal. I imagined people eating the heart of this creature and I let out a “EWWWWWWWWWWW”.

“They’re really good; you’d like them.” he insisted. Being too embarrassed to admit that I had no idea what he was talking about and admitting that the most exotic thing that had ever graced my plate was an avocado I told him that there was just no way I would even try such a disgusting thing.

Eventually, I broke up with him. He was so nice and he seemed to be truly good at heart. I didn’t know what to do with nice, and so I hooked up with Alex, who was cold and standoffish and utterly obnoxious. Alex also didn’t appear to give any indication that he wanted to get to know my inner most self. I felt safer.

Now Alex and I are married with two kids and I eat artichoke hearts on everything from pasta to pizza to salad.

Timberline Lodge

The title is a comment that my mom made to her four teenagers frequently as she was raising us. With my dad gone I know it was very tough for her. Is it bad that I used to snicker at her comment, as I was usually high when she said it? That is the only anti-drug information we received, except for Nancy Reagan and the “Just Say No” campaign.

It occurred to me that I never wrote about my trip to find snow with my cousin Peter, who was here visiting from Australia for the first time. He had never encountered snow in his life and it was on his list of things to do before he dies, so I wanted to make it happen. I happen to have one of those lists myself. The photos had been sitting on my desktop waiting, but I’ll admit that things ended oddly with Peter. He is gone now, but I’ll still write about our trip because it was fun.

Peter, taking my photo as I took his. I just noticed he’s giving me the finger. Fucker.

We drove up to Mt. Hood the day after a blizzard. I was expecting him to be excited, but I guess I underestimated that excitement due to the fact that he is 29. As soon as we could park somewhere where there was snow he wanted to jump out of the car and play. I was ready to be hit by a snowball or two, but holy shit, 29 years of waiting for a snowball fight came flying in my direction. I ended up turning my back to him because I was worried he would ruin my camera which was hanging around my neck. He finally jumped back into the car, ready to drive further up to Mt. Hood. I stood outside stomping my shoes and trying to shake the snow out of my hair and brush it off my coat. Also, to be honest, it had filled my bra and gone down the back of my neck and I wanted to shake off as much as I could before we got back into the heated car and it melted. The silly guy, he was watching me through the car window, and he jumped out and put his arm around me, asking if I was OK. I laughed and said that I was just brushing myself off a bit. He said that he thought I was angry with him and I was having some kind of tantrum. You know the foot stomping kind?

Polly was along for the trip, and she seemed utterly bored until I mentioned that The Shining had been filmed up at the lodge. She perked right up and asked why I hadn’t mentioned it sooner. When we went in and looked around there was a restaurant (two, I think) so they wanted to eat. We went and sat down and the waitress took forever bringing water and our menus. I saw that the food was pricey and before I had the time to say to myself, “You are about to spend $20. on a salad.”, Peter had declared the menu ridiculous. He said he’d rather eat at a Subway on the drive back home and I didn’t care, because I was wet and tired, not hungry, and if he’d asked if we could get a couple of rooms and stay the night I probably would have shrugged and said, “Sure.” Sometimes the meds work a little too well, methinks, but I figured it was his trip. I’ve been to Mt. Hood countless times. I must admit that if I spend any amount of time in a bar, restaurant or store I always feel as if I should drop some money. We ordered cocoa and Peter grabbed the check before I could and then I tried to argue with him about who would pay until he finally relented and told me to leave the tip because they don’t tip much in Australia and he didn’t know how to do it. We then went to the gift shop and I really wanted to buy myself a stuffed St. Bernard because we had one when I was a little girl but I was good and I kept my purse closed.

After we left the lodge we walked around for awhile before getting back in the car. More snowballs, more photos, except I actually hit him a few times. I thing he let me though because my arm? I’ve been told by my husband that “I throw like a girl”. Whatever! I am a girl. And, I’ll never play catch with my husband again.

We stopped at Subway for sandwiches that we ate in the car because Peter can’t have anyone look at him while he eats. This guy, he is related to me! I don’t like eating in front of others either.

Next we headed off to Hood River and then on to Multnomah Falls. I used to have a friend from NY who used to laugh at our little Multnomah Falls because he grew up next to Niagara Falls and I never felt like I had a witty comment but hell, at least we don’t have to suffer through the winters they have in Buffalo.

No one was interested in hiking to the top of the waterfalls, and once again I didn’t care. Been there, done that. My Dad always dictated what we did on every family outing and if he had told us to hike to the top of the falls on hands and knees over hot rocks or broken glass we would have done so without so much as a whimper. Now? I’m pretty calm about things 99% of the time and the rest? I am hoping that no one will notice my anxiety before the Klonopin kicks in.

On the drive back Peter seemed elated to have experienced the snow and I was happy that I had gone along for the ride. A few years back I was afraid to leave the house. Look at me now, taking road trips and all!

Peter let it slip while driving; there was something else he wanted to do while here in America. He wanted to see a bear. I thought that I had heard him wrong at first; then I did the next thing. I promised to take him to the Zoo the following weekend. That is a story for another day. I’ll upload some photos and call this finished.

Multnomah Falls

For the first time this year, I had two children who didn’t want to celebrate Halloween with me. Last year Nathan and I were moving my Mom out of the house she had sold and into her new apartment and so my sister Monica took Polly trick or treating. This year Polly wanted to go to a friend’s house to pass out candy and Nathan wanted to go with his girlfriend to help her take her little brothers trick or treating. I had always heard how fast it would go, those years with the little kids, and to cherish those moments while they lasted, but I don’t believe it really hit home until this year when I knew they would rather be with their friends. So I let them go.  I stayed home with the puppy Maggie and the cats. Alex had to work so we had the whole house to ourselves. I baked an apple rhubarb crisp. Maggie waited for me to drop peels as I worked on the apples, the way way she waits when I peel potatoes. We played fetch in the backyard in the dark, with nothing but the back porch light to go by. I thought of my kids over the years in their different costumes. Nathan was a clown, Barney,a clown again, Batman, a skeleton, Superman, Darth Maul, Zorro, Darth Vader, Scream, Leatherface and an assortment of masks that could only be described as yucky, or scary. Polly was Pooh Bear, A Bunny, a Princess and then came years of different variations of the princess theme. She was a ballerina princess, an ice skater princess, a fairy princess, a Glinda the good witch princess. Every year a princess, and I let her just go with it. Alex would wail,”A princess again?” and I would just shake my head at him to be silent. Then one year she announced she wanted to be a cheerleader. A dead cheerleader. That was a fun year because I got to go back to the way I wore my makeup in the 80s when I created her face. Most of those years Alex was unable to go with me to take the kids trick or treating because he had to work. Two of those years I was unable to go because I had to work, and for a baker, Halloween spells the beginning of the hell that is the holiday season. The first time Alex took the kids trick or treating while I was working I cried while I loaded sweets in and out of the oven. By my third year at that job I said to my supervisor before Halloween, “I’ll be in late Halloween night!” and she wasn’t even bothered by that.

Two groups of kids in costume were all that showed up at our door. When Nathan came home he said that there weren’t many kids out in the neighborhood he was in and predicted that Halloween as he used to know it would be dead within three years. Polly had a good time passing out candy, but she seemed to miss having some to eat ,because she wanted to go to the store to buy some. No one wanted apple rhubarb crisp. Maybe next year I’ll have made a friend or two and I’ll have someone to hang out with.

I have been sick again. Not the kind of sickness that comes from a virus, but the kind that comes from not having the medication I swallow to make it possible for me to face life. There was some misunderstanding between my doctor’s office and my pharmacy regarding the refill of my Klonopin. I have been on this medication for over a decade. It enables me to risk daring feats such as leaving my house. My doctor’s office blamed my pharmacy and they in turn blamed the office. It was all a jumble of miscommunication through fax and phone calls that eventually led to me calling the doctor on call for my doctor and begging him to help me out by calling me in a refill. He coldly refused, stating that he didn’t “deal in controlled substances over the phone.” It was all that I could do to keep it together, to not explode and tell him off. Being treated like a junkie is something that happens to me from time to time. I know that when I pick up my prescriptions sometimes the people behind the counter glare at me and ask me for two pieces of picture ID and insist that I have a consult with the pharmacist (who happens to be busy right now but won’t you have a seat?) even though this medication and I go way back, to the 90s even.

I know that this will be the case if I switch doctors. I have finally realized that the doctors work for me and if they won’t give me the pills to help me function I will find another doctor who will, and don’t you tell me about yoga and exercising and breathing and cognitive behavioral therapy because I have tried all of those things. Exercising while having a panic attack? Good one.

My doctor was out of town for a week and now she’s back. She apologized for the confusion, refilled my Klonopin immediately and I scribbled a swirl on the signature line when I picked it up; I flashed my ID and nodded to the pharmacist when he asked me if I’d had this before because I was sick and I was tired of trying to explain it to everyone so I just grabbed the bottle and walked away to take it. I feel better now.

Once, years ago, I ended up in the ER because my refill wasn’t ready and after waiting for 11 days I checked myself into the hospital because it was the only thing I could think of to stop the panic attacks that kept coming. This time I didn’t want to do that so I tried other things, like Tylenol PM to help me sleep and alcohol to help me calm down. I tried breathing exercises and placing a rubber band around my wrist and snapping it. I tried. My Mom says that I should be proud of myself and I can’t imagine why. I can’t help but think that this wasn’t the dream my parents had for me as they whispered in bed about what I would be like when I grew up. It wasn’t the grandiose idea I had for myself either.