stories

I wailed woefully at the top of my lungs and launched into a violent secession of rapid-fire kicks to the defenseless cabinetry that had the misfortune of being in line with my right foot.

Huge crocodile tears fell from my eyes into the batter, adding more salt than the recipe called for.

With one fluid motion fueled by rage and befitting a segment of one of those dumbass reality shows where the women have major public meltdowns, I swept my right forearm along the cutting board which held the two bundt cake pans launching their recently mixed liquid contents into the air, coating the entire kitchen in one swipe, like a chocolate-chip Jackson Pollack masterpiece.

Fraidy and Teddy, my two Siamese cats who were the ever-present, blue-eyed witnesses to the hijinks that was my life, were watching the entire debacle from the other side of the kitchen atop the microwave. As they jumped down to sample the brown, gooey goodness that literally dripped from every surface, I shooed them away, remembering chocolate is bad for cats but bemoaning that fact because I needed their help.

I had a long night of clean up ahead of me.

All the while, the catalyst for the onslaught of my melt-down, the melancholy molasses voice of Karen Carpenter played on speakers from the den nearby.

“I am dreaming tonight of a place I love
Even more than I usually do
And although I know it’s a long road back
I promise you

I’ll be home for Christmas
You can count on me
Please have snow and mistletoe
And presents on the tree

Christmas Eve will find you
Where the love light gleams

I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

Christmas Eve will find me
Where the love light gleams
I’ll be home for Christmas
If only in my dreams

If only in my dreams”

Ugh. Kill me now.

If you know me at all, you know that the day after Thanksgiving the Christmas music goes into heavy rotation and I start baking.

Always have – always will.

It usually makes me stupid happy.
That year, 1999, it made me sad, with an unexpected side of mad.

It had all started when I bought my house the previous April. I should have felt such a sense of accomplishment for having the courage to put my whole life in storage, save my ass off and find the perfect little house to purchase

On. My. Own.

Just me, and my two cats.
But THAT ended up being the problem.
Huh, didn’t see THAT coming.

The day I moved in, when the last friend and family member said their goodbyes, and I stood amid the contents of my life stacked around me, along with all the empty pizza boxes—I had never felt so ALONE.

Wasn’t this a milestone you were supposed to share with that special someone?

Wasn’t there supposed to be that moment where you realize you’ve done something monumental, and you and your guy slow-dance in candlelight with your nauseatingly cute matching pajamas (him, just the bottoms, you, just the tops) to music from a portable radio?

Then don’t you drink champagne from paper cups, toasting your good fortune, christening the house by making love on a mattress on the floor surrounded by boxes, books, bicycles, and skis, while your cats have the good manners to look away?

Hey, I’m ashamed to admit it, but I wanted that!

All of the sudden at forty-one, after being divorced for fifteen years, I wanted a significant other, a partner, a mate, a beloved.

I wanted a (gasp) husband with whom to share my life.

I’d often wished, late at night, for a shoulder to cry on when things were going down the toilet, but this was different, I wanted someone with which to share my…joy.

My accomplishments, the good things in life.

Oh great.

That was a completely unexpected side effect that must have been written in the small print of the mountains of paperwork that made up my mortgage and homeowners insurance.

Damn, it shocked me. It really did.

My house echoed back its emptiness to me.
It was just me and the cats.
No matter what I did cosmetically it didn’t feel like a home.
.
Backyard lawns are there to run on, screen doors are made to be slammed, big kitchens should be hot and messy with sticky floors and the constant smell of something burning.

My friends referred to my house as “the museum.”
No noise, no chaos, no dirt. Nothing out-of-place.
Ugh. I didn’t want to live in no freaking museum—I wanted a home.

One week that June I went to Vegas for an annual jewelry trade show. I got a call about 9pm one night from one of my neighbors, the husband half of the lovely couple next door with two kids.
Steve was yelling into the phone over a loud siren. It was my house alarm, which had been going off for fifteen minutes.
It sounded like someone had escaped from Alcatraz.
Did I have a hide-a-key and code for him to go in and disarm it?
Another male voice yelled loudly in the background, “Maybe we can call her husband, do you have his number?” It was the police who had been sent by the alarm company.

“She doesn’t have a husband…she has cats!”

The alarm had gone silent. Suddenly, Steve’s voice sounded hugely amplified, as if he was yelling through a megaphone, announcing my sad predicament to everyone whithin earshot.

Thanks, Steve. I don’t think they heard you in Malibu.

I wanted to die. Kill me now, I’m the fucking cat lady of Studio City.

This sudden urge to marry has a name. It is the taxi cab analogy. Single men are like taxi cabs, roaming the dark streets of the big city, light off, ignoring a real fare, out looking for action.

Then suddenly one day, their light goes on. Just like that.

These rogue cabs are ready to go legit. A man’s light has to go on, then he’ll settle down, until then….good luck.
Once a man’s light goes on, he marries the next girl he meets.

It’s all timing.

That was me. Suddenly, my light was on.

I wanted a husband and whatever that meant at that age.

I yearned for complicated, noisy and messy. No more order and no more museum. So hearing that song about love and home and Christmas had sent this Spinster Auntie (as I jokingly referred to myself) over the edge.

Isn’t life crazy? Just when you think you have things all figured out…..

Sometimes you don’t know until you know.
Oh, brother, we’re back to that again.

But it’s true, some seemingly innocent accomplishment, tragedy or happenstance can suddenly become the catalyst for change in your life. It happens quite by surprise when you’re not even looking.

It’s all about timing.
BAM!
Your light goes on and that changes EVERYTHING.

Tell me about the time this happened to you because I KNOW it has!
I’d love to hear your stories too!

Carry on,
Xox

ul·ti·ma·tum
ˌəltəˈmādəm/
noun: ultimatum; plural noun: ultimata; plural noun: ultimatums
1. a final demand or statement of terms, the rejection of which will result in retaliation or a breakdown in relation — final offer, final demand, take-it-or-leave-it deal; threat

Recently, I was asked to write some examples for the Huffington Post on a story they were doing on ultimatums.

Oh, that’s an easy one, I thought, I’m the Queen of Ultimatums, but upon reflection I realize I was the Queen-of-Setting-Boundaries, not delivering ultimatums.

Boundaries define your borders. Ultimatums are final. They have lasting consequences.
Big difference.

In my world, communication begins when you cross my imaginary line in the sand. When my boundary is breeched—detente begins.

For example, when my husband is out on a motorcycle without me, he is required, as set by the rules of our marriage and basic common decency, to let me know when he’s off the bike for the day. Even though I’m not a big worrier, that is the moment I can take a deep breath and relax knowing he’s safe and sound, his ass on a bar stool somewhere in the world.
Recently, when I hadn’t heard from him due to a text malfunction—he had some splainin’ to do.

Communication starts when a boundary is crossed.

Ultimatums, on the other hand, are where the talking stops.

Men love that. “I love a good ultimatum”, said NO man—EVER.

Or woman for that matter.

It smells like take-it-or-leave-it. I hate choices like that. Don’t you?

That being said…there was one ultimatum I did level at my husband right after we got engaged and here’s why.
Soon after we met we decided on full disclosure, you know, who had the higher FICO score, how our astrological charts lined up, showing each other old passport photos and admitting that we had each maintained a platonic friendship with a significant other. Once it was out in the open it was no big, hairy, deal and neither of us felt the least bit threatened, but when my husband went to tell his ex of our engagement, he chickened out.
“It was gonna get emotional”, he explained.
“Tough shit” I replied. “And if you care more about hurting her feelings than you do mine—you guys aren’t over each other yet and this engagement is off.”

He immediately picked up the phone, arranged another meeting and told her the next day.

Was that a threat? You bet your ass it was.

…And that concludes today’s essay on the difference between a boundary and an ultimatum.

Carry on,
xox

“When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level.
No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

I freakin’ LOVE this! It is my new motto too. Who’s with me?

“The greatest warrior does not draw his sword.” ~Seven Samurai

Biting my tongue and always aspiring to do better, your faithful, sassy-pants writer/friend, me.

xox

I’m someone who advocates taking a front row seat in your own life, however…

A friend sent this to me yesterday.

“I’m generally a positive person and I don’t believe in worrying about something that hasn’t happened. That makes no sense to me. Last night I went to a movie, for the first hour I lived in fear that someone would come in to do terrible things. I noted all the exits and although we were in the front row (which was not ideal for my mental state) I was ready to run or get down. To calm myself, I began wishing that some random person came up to this troubled person earlier in the day and said something kind that made him rethink how wonderful the world is and change his evil plan. Sometimes that is all it takes.

That’s a horrible way to live. No one should have to live in fear.”

I agree. No one should have to live in fear…or exacerbate it by sitting in the front row of a megaplex just inches away from a jumbo screen. That is cruel and abusive behavior and I’ve always believed there should be a front-row intervention. Seriously. Those people cannot actually want that level of sensory stimulation! It’s inhumane.

To my friend: The world is a wonderful place fifteen rows behind you. Trust me on this. If you suffer from anxiety for an hour, you should get up and leave. Or buy tickets for another time when you can get a proper seat.

Another friend called to tell me about a birthday party gone awry while I drove to pick up glitter for my magic wands (because I sit in the very last row, where the world truly IS a wonderful place.)

It went something like this: Her sister and several other birthday party moms were standing around a local park late last Saturday afternoon debating the GOP convention, terrorist threats, police killings, white dresses with puffy sleeves and self-tanning tragedies while watching a dozen twelve-year-old boys systematically destroy every inch of flora and fauna in the immediate vicinity—when the sound of rapid fire gunshots filled the air.

Four of the moms hit the deck. Two peed their pants. Literally.

Turns out the gunfire was only bubble pack from a pile of discarded gift wrapping. It was being stepped on by two of their sons who got in big, big, trouble.
Wait.  
We’ve all done that. Twisting or stomping on bubble packing is a twelve-years old’s right of passage. It’s up there with inhaling helium and singing Bohemian Rhapsody (although I’m sure the song choice has changed and that makes me sad because today’s twelve-year old’s will never know the sheer perfection of singing “Scaramouche, scaramouch, will you do the Fandango?” with lungs full of helium. It is a laugh like no other. Even though I was actually in high-school my first time, I will never forget it.)

Mistaking bubble wrap for gunfire would be funny if it weren’t so sad. Okay, it’s still a little funny.

Anyway, all this to say, everybody seems a bit edgy these days.

Fear has replaced oxygen in the air supply and we all just need to hold our breath chill.

Maybe we need less stimulation right now.
Less loud music and violent movies played at full volume.
Less front row.
Less talk of guns and terrorists and how we’re not safe in our country anymore.

I grew up as a kid practicing “duck and cover” drills which were a very clever way to dodge the effects of a nuclear bomb blast because as everyone knows, radiation doesn’t go under school desks. In the 1960’s the possibility of a nuclear war seemed imminent. The end of the world really WAS at hand and even at six years old we figured out how to cope—we still played at recess and swam and built a fort and went to the movies and waited for bubble wrap to be invented so we could pop it obnoxiously in each other faces. We had fun.

It’s gonna be okay you guys. There’s no need to be so scared. You have control over your environment and what you watch.

No one should have to live in fear. That’s a horrible way to live. And a terrible waste of time.

Carry on,
xox

“When there’s nothing left to burn, you have to set yourself on fire.”

My hike-nazi friend and I talk about this ALL. THE. TIME.

Taking responsibility for your own shit.

It is a fucking Jedi-Yoda-Mother Theresa-Dalai Lama type of acquired skill that makes finger pointing, blame and victimhood obsolete.

Sound hard?
As hard as you think it is—it’s harder.

Sometimes the problem is YOU. Ouch.

Imagine how our legal system would shift, not to mention our politics!

When you begin to practice looking at yourself through this unfiltered lens, I can’t tell you how incredibly good you get at apologising—I can’t even! And mostly to yourself—in the mirror.

“I’m sorry you’re a dick today” I’ll say. Then the reflection answers back “You’re human, it’s okay. Try to do better.

Then I open some Nutella and spread it all over anything I can find and lament how my mom made me this way.  Bahahaha! Snort-laugh! Just kidding mom!

Carry on,
xox

“I don’t have to settle. I don’t have to tolerate the life I have, even if it’s good. I want great, magnificent, and outstanding.”

Take the time to watch this.
SO good.
It’s summer. You have time.
I’m not kidding!

PS. There’s naughty language used, wear your headphones if kids are around.

Carry on,
xox

I’m just going to come right out and say it: my husband’s ex-wife died on Saturday of meanness exacerbated by crazy cancer.

It should have a certain amount of…what?…What emotion am I searching for? Sadness? Closure? Relief? attached to it if it weren’t for the fact that she was in prison…for murder. First-degree murder.

Good. I have your attention.

Late last year we heard through the grapevine (because a story like this is just too juicy and implausible to stay geographically contained), that his ex of nearly twenty years had shot a young man dead in her kitchen. The exact details are still pretty sketchy, and due to the fact that he was clearly a victim of bad choices, one of them being wrong place/wrong time, and the other—finding himself on the shot-gun end of her bad side—I will leave this stranger-than-fiction story of cold-blooded murder at that.

Oh, except to say that she held the sheriff’s and SWAT at bay for nine hours by shooting at them while barricaded inside of the house with the dead body.

That explains the five counts of attempted murder.

After her decision to surrender was helped along by a canister of tear-gas, she was hauled off to jail where they found out she was extremely ill (in every way imaginable. Their words, not mine), so arraignment was delayed because it looked like she wouldn’t live long enough to stand trial.

She went into remission long enough to cause trouble in prison. Seriously? Cause trouble in prison?
If I have a head cold I’m too uncomfortable to stand up for myself at the DMV, yet she’s rowdy enough to have all of her priveledges revoked. What?

Here’s why I’m telling you all of this.

When I met my husband for the first time on a blind date he said his ex-wife was crazy.
I rolled my eyes.
He said she tried to kill him.
I sighed and looked at my watch.
He explained how he had left their ranch one night with basically the clothes on his back.
Yawwwwwwwn.

If you date long enough this kind of ex-bashing plays like a broken record. I’d say ninety percent of the men I dated, by their account, had certifiable ex-wives.

I can be fairly certain that’s one of the nicest things my ex says about me!

I pegged him as a wolf-cryer, that is until a few friends corroborated his stories—and I saw Gone Girl.

So, on Monday when we heard that she had died, my husband contacted her brother. The sane one.
The one who knew that husband had been forced to cut and run and never looked back—and he totally understood why (actually she told everyone Raphael was dead. Are you creeped out yet?)

“You’re welcome to come by the ranch on Friday to see if there’s anything you want”, her brother, now the executor, offered graciously.

He was seriously considering it. Looking at his calendar to see how easy it would be to clear his schedule.

“I’m coming with you!”, I volunteered. I was curious. I wanted to see where this woman lived and the big log house my husband had built with his own two hands—and then been pushed far enough to just walk away from.

Almost the moment I said it I wanted to suck the words back in like they do in the cartoons. I got an enormous sinking feeling in my gut and not the good kind that gives you a flat stomach—the sickening kind.

What was my motivation?

To be supportive? To be helpful? To end my week with a road trip?

Sure. All of those things. But when I dug deeper I had to admit—my main motivation was morbid curiosity.

It has been my experience, learned in hindsight, that nothing good can come when the motivation is MORBID curiosity.

How does this add to my life?
How does this drive my life forward?

Those are the questions we ask ourselves now. Finally!

We are both trying to have less and less of those Shit, I shouldn’t have done that, gone there, said that, moments.

In order to do that, we have to ask ourselves those two questions over and over again, sometimes twenty times a day. (Well, I do, I’m a slow learner).

How does this add to my life?
How does this drive my life forward?

Morbid curiosity can’t stand up to cross-examination.
What was I thinking? What were WE thinking?

That ranch is not a feel-good place. In fact, it’s worse than just the bad juju his ex spread all over the place, and her lousy choice in drapes—it’s the scene of a murder.

The other feeling, the ‘I want my stuff! The stuff I left behind but I haven’t thought about it in twenty years’ feeling—that’s not great motivation either.

You have to ask yourself why you suddenly care so goddamn much.

One percent sentimentality.
One percent nostalgia.
One percent schadenfruede.
Ninety-seven percent morbid curiosity.

We not going to the ranch. Neither of us.

We both decided that a trip up there would add absolutely ZERO to our quality of life, not to mention the fact that there’s not enough sage in the world to cleanse the bad juju off anything we might bring back.

We both felt lighter. Better. Closure.

Damn this conscious living thing takes a lot of consciousness! Who knew!

Carry on,
xox

Carry on,
xox

Oh hello, friends.

Many out there are exhibiting very bad behavior. Have you noticed?

It has been my observation in recent weeks that tempers are as flared as the bottom of my high school jeans.

It is hot, hot, hot out there. Like surface-of-the-sun hot (again like my low-rise, bell bottom, teenage jeans!)

I’m making light of it because, really, what else can we do? I mean besides be kind, chant, eat, pray, love… and vote.

Other times you just have to ignore it. Pay it no mind. Diffuse it by your lack of attention to it.

Case in point:

Fratty, I’m calling him that because that is the nicest thing I could think of to call him. The same goes for his friend/date who we will call…Bougie.

Listen, I’m not usually a name caller, you know that. But that day not only did I have to bite my tongue in order not to add fuel to the catastrofuck, I literally shoved my fist in my mouth to keep from going full Tourettes on these two.

Fratty and Bougie arrived together. I’m guessing to have some food, although, starting a street brawl may have been on their agenda too, judging by their horrible dispositions.

Fratty, who’s real name was Todd, (too pedestrian for this story), looked like he just got off the train to Hogwarts. Or Harvard. In the 1950’s. Think Dead Poet’s Society.

Like I always say, ‘there’s nothing more dangerous than a frat boy looking for a fight.’

All of that testosterone and repressed sexuality are shaken up to form a cocktail of rude insecurity, stirred with entitlement.

He waited while Bougie decided to redecorate the cafe, moving tables and chairs into the aisle and then dragging them over to a large bank of windows for a better view.
Nice idea.
Wish I would have though to do it.
Just one small caveat. They were blocking a door.

“I’m sorry you can’t sit there”, said the waitress with a funny look on her face as she realized it was no mistake, they were seriously sitting in front of a door to the patio.

“I’m sorry you’re ugly”, remarked Fratty, his face buried in the menu. Bougie didn’t hear him, she was talking loudly on her phone as she pulled bag after tiny yellow bag of Splenda out of her Louis Vuitton purse.

“Oh waitress!” she bellowed, “Ice tea! Pronto! Por favor!”

I have no idea why she tacked the Spanish onto her demand—it felt like an insult.

My friend and I just looked at each other in awe. Then things got worse.

Bougie threw off her skin-tone, five-inch high, patent leather pumps and put her feet up on the table, oblivious, while her fingers texted so fast they were invisible to the naked eye.

An older gentleman walked by and spoke in a low voice “Young lady, you should never put your feet where you eat”.

“Chill out, grandpa” snarked Fratty.
“Yeah, mind your own Goddamn business old man!” and with that Bougie lifted her designer skirt and plopped her bare ass on the table.

You could hear a pin drop.

The old mad shuffled away, appalled.

I was appalled. I think we all were. (I have to say, sadly, that feeling appalled by what someone says or does is feeling more and more familiar these days.)

Several people were standing on the other side of the glass door to the patio trying to figure out why a table and two people were blocking their exit.

Fratty and Bougie pretended not to notice.
The stranded people knocked and yelled. Then they found another way out.

People started to get up and leave.

I leaned forward, “Let’s get outta here”, I whispered to my friend. Right that minute our food showed up. The waitresses gaze was glued to the shitshow next to the patio, her eyes filled with fear. “We called the manager”, she confided.

Fratty started to yell, startling everyone within earshot. “Where’s our fucking waiter? I want a beer! The service here SUCKS!”

A mother gathered her two grade-school age kids and started toward the exit but was forced to run/walk past the shitshow on her way out.

“BOO!!!” yelled Bougie at the top of her lungs, causing one of the kids to jump out of her skin.

“Should I call the police?”, the terrified waitress asked us like we would know the right answer.

I’m telling you, it’s the gray hair. Apparently, gray hair denotes wisdom—I’ll have to get on that.
I’m not sure how wise I looked wth my own fist shoved halfway down my throat to keep myself quiet. I knew it was no use confronting them. It would only escalate things.

A couple of guys in their early thirties went over and said something on their way out. Fratty cursed a blue streak and Bougie threw her shoe at the guys as they left.

Those two guys could have beaten Fratty to a pulp. I was secretly hoping they would. The restraint they showed was remarkable.

Everyone who decided to stay eventually blocked them out like you do when a child throws a tantrum on an airplane.

Soon, the shock value wore off and nobody was paying them any attention.

When the manager showed up, a dignified man in his mid-to-late fifties, he unceremoniously kicked them out.

He pulled the table away from the door, flatware jumping in every direction. He propped the door open, pulled Bougie’s chair out from under her all the while calmly telling them to leave.
Refusing them service.

“But we’re hungry! We want some food!”, whined Bougie.
“I’m going to fuck you on Yelp”, screamed Fratty. (That’s why I hate Yelp reviews.)

“You didn’t come here to eat. You came in here to make trouble. Get out!”

With that, the entire room erupted into applause and with a minimum of fanfare… the shitshow left the building.

I think these days we’re all learning to navigate a “new normal”. Tempers are frayed. Frustration reigns supreme. People are killing each other for no reason (not that there was ever a good enough reason for me), so we have to exercise restraint.

Stay peaceful amid the chaos.
Okay? (I’m talking to myself here as much as you guys!)

Carry on,
xox