Put Your Hands in the Hands of the Magic Man

I’ve been in a bit of a spiritual quandary lately (you know, what with my upcoming unspeakable-th BD and the specter of the Grim Reaper breathing down my neck), so I had this inspirational idea of attending a function the church we periodically attend was sponsoring. They were promoting family night by showing a movie Sunday night, so I thought this would be a good substitute for our own traditionally held Friday night home movie event. I naively figured they were going to show some old Disney film or something with free popcorn and what not, so how could you go wrong?

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very sappy Christian production of some kind with the general theme of “Lets just all get along, hang all that sticky theology business and let’s just love one another,” (as long as your general theology accepted that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, who was the key character in the film, disguised as the mysterious stranger that does all kinds of miraculous things. “Ooo, who could he be?”) Anyway, there was a part in the film where one of the big-hearted, cuddly, but speech impeded characters falls several feet, presumably to his death. Interestingly, there is never any attempt at CPR or having anyone with medical expertise confirm his condition. They just expeditiously lay him out in the church and get busy with funeral arrangements. Then “Joseph,” our mysterious stranger, goes in and lays hands on the “corpse,” which, of course, immediately jumps up from his resting place sans stutter, a little bewildered, but speaking fluidly and eloquently. Evidently, the fall knocked the stutter right out of him. A note to speech therapists everywhere: Drop your patients from high elevations and see if that does the trick.

I was a little concerned about this portion of the film because Vaughn has a very sensitive disposition and anything smacking of the melancholy will trigger a black mood. The whole movie, frankly, was over the average 6-year-old’s head. Vaughn kept saying, “I know I’ll understand in the end.” Yeah, well good luck there. After this particularly disturbing scene, since they resolved it so quickly to be a happy ending, Vaughn seemed none the worse for wear. However, he leans over to me and whispers, “Can that really happen? Can a guy really make someone alive again.” I, stupidly, wanting to be completely forthright (I have no idea why I have this compulsion in religious settings for unadulterated honesty when I still firmly insist to him that there is a Santa Claus), said, “No, hon. Not in real life.” His face immediately scrunches up and he gives me his supreme death stare, angrily clutching his arms across his chest, thoroughly PO’d.

“What?”

“I’m angry at you.”

“Why?” truly not knowing what in the world I said that caused this reaction.

“Because…what you said.”

It then hit me that what I had done was the equivalent of telling him Santa’s a fraud. There is no Easter Bunny. When you wish on a star, you get jack squat, and your goldfish did not go to goldfish heaven when it died. I flushed it down the toilet.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. Sometimes a person can do that.” Specifically, in the New Testament of the King James Bible.

“Really? You could make him come back alive? Is it magic? Does he have magic hands?”

“Yep.”

Later that evening, on our way home, we made a pitstop in Safeway’s parking lot, where our family van was temporarily deceased, suffering unspecified car trouble. Dave wanted to take another shot at it (we’d made several attempts already) to see if somehow, this time, we could resuscitate the thing long enough to dash it across the street to our house. I remarked that it would take one of us performing a small miracle to get the van to move.

Dave: “Maybe Vaughn should lay hands on it,” referring, of course, to my son’s ongoing delusion that he is the second-coming (it’s going around).

Vaughn, unbuckling his seatbelt and briskly rubbing his magic hands together, pipes up: “OKAY!”

I’ve created a monster.

Does this make me the Virgin Mary?

Self-Healing

"I don't want to get baptized."

Dave: "Uh…why not?"

"I can heal myself."

Evidently, my son is still suffering from his messiah complex.

How this particular subject emerged is a mystery, frankly. This is the problem when you take a child to a church where they separate you from the child, which enables the church staff to tell them God knows what. *heh* This topic has certainly not been raised in our household. I have been enjoying the reprieve from the heavier topics of life for a few months now. I really do not want to have to tackle baptism and all its attendant trappings. I believe this would be another question I would answer with my stereotypical: "I don't know. Ask Daddy." I have absolutely no problem with Vaughn growing up wondering why his genius dad married such an ignorant woman.

Studies Show...

Over the years, I have made a few observations:

1. Having intercourse with your significant other somehow miraculously blinds you to the fact that they constantly leave DVDs laying around without putting them in their proper cases, turn the light off after they leave a room (while you’re still in it), have explosive sneezes that shake the walls and send you leaping several feet up in the air from being so rudely startled, and other annoying foibles. (Studies have shown that there is a chemical reaction between a male’s sperm and a female’s uh-hum that actually causes this loving blindness in women.)

2. Eating a spinach salad always puts me in a better mood. I know it’s loaded with B vitamins, but I figured that would be a cumulative thing, not an immediate reaction. (Studies now show that, indeed, something in spinach gives one an immediate mood elevation, sort of like turkey relaxing you…and sex.)

3. Chewing gum helps me concentrate, makes me more alert and less nervous, and puts me in a good mood. (Studies have shown that the process of chewing gum triggers some kind of chemical reaction in the brain that indeed induces all of the above…and sex.)

4. The more often and the longer I exercise, the better I feel. I know exercise produces endorphins, but I feel so much better after a vigorous several mile skate than a 30 minute walk. (Studies have now shown that the longer you exercise the more endorphins are produced and the longer they stay in your system, basically confirming the whole runner’s high theory…Sex also produces endorphins.)

5. Tea always seems to give me a better buzz than coffee. I just thought it was because there was less caffeine in it. (Studies show that tea does contain a chemical in it that makes the caffeine buzz more mellow and produces a feeling of well-being. So, it’s not the sushi making you zen.)

I think grant writers should call me first before writing a check to any up and coming research studies. They could call it the T. factor. "What? You want to conduct a study to to see if licking hamsters makes mothers feel more contented? Well, what's the T. factor?"

No More Eye Candy

We went to Vaughn’s back-to-school picnic today. I discovered that, sadly, Teacher Hottie doesn’t appear to be returning this fall. *sigh* Dave expressed his condolences.

The Joy of Movement through Humiliation

I enrolled Vaughn in one of many summer classes at the local community center. The class only lasts about an hour and a half. I figured rather than driving home and then basically turning around and driving back again I could continue on my get-fit quest by enrolling in one of the community center's exercise classes that was happening simultaneously. This is how I came to find myself participating in a drop-in Nia class. Nia is one of the newer (within the last 15 years, anyway) fashionable phases of fitness classes that incorporates some martial arts moves, some yoga, some world dance, but largely involves just moving around looking as ridiculous as is physically possible by, in this particular case, the over-30 female set. I've decided to continue with the class in an effort to connect with my inner woman (not my inner child, which has been far too prominent in my life of late and needs a severe time-out for reasons best only known to me). I spend the majority of the class with my eyes clenched so I don't have to witness my grotesque gyrations displayed accusingly in the floor to ceiling, room-length dance mirror placed strategically in front of me. Right now, they are doing construction on the community center where the class is held, so on the neighboring wall not inhabited by the gargantuan mirror is a room length window looking out over the construction area through which the manly construction workers can be treated to a site befitting a gynecologist's exam room, minus the stirrups. To give you a general idea, there are portions of the class where you “free dance,” and the motto of this particular exhibition is self-expression: "Remember, it’s your dance. Be yourself. Free yourself. Just let yourself go. Do whatever, however. Just MOVE," on the floor, off the floor, on the wall, off the wall. It doesn't matter, just make it BIG and as SENSUOUS as possible, which is a little disturbing considering three-quarters of the class is over the age of 70, but like I said, I keep my eyes wide shut.

Cat Assassin

The only creature in our household that is not almost constantly vying for our attention is our cat Pyewackit. This was not always so. My theory is that he has been burned and has put up a protective emotional barrier against us, remaining aloof to protect his delicately sensitive emotional temperament.

When he was the only other living being in our household besides Dave and me, he was doted upon and loved like a child. Well, you can imagine what happened to that when Vaughn came along. I can remember the defining moment was when I was sitting in my "milking" chair, nursing a 2-day-old Vaughn, gazing upon him adoringly, when my "first baby" spotted my stationary-seated position and proceeded to leap onto my comfy lap with attendant infant pillow. I recall my postpartum hormone saturated reaction was "Get the *#@(*($)_ off, you, @@#)(%&&*$%!!!!" suddenly seeing Pyewackit for what he truly was—a dirty, parasite infected, excrement caked, shedding hairy bomb about to land on my most precious new pristine creation. Pyewackit, having been thrown almost to the other side of the room, gave me this hurt, dazed and confused expression (he's very emotionally complex), walked back over to me, took a quick sniff at the offensive little bundle at my breast, stuck his tail proudly up into the air and stalked away, never to be affectionate again.

I now theorize that he has developed such contempt for us that he is secretly plotting our deaths. His only obstacle is he hasn't found a new food source and he'll be damned if he's going to stoop to that distasteful hunting business. Dave says he escapes the house every opportunity he gets in a desperate attempt to find a new patron, so he can be rid of us once and for all. In the meantime, he passive-aggressively leaves little turd traps and hairball mines throughout the house, clawing his little wet nose at us, waiting patiently for one of us to mistake him for a shadow on one of the many stairs that reside in our house, plunging us to our deaths, knocking us off, one by one.

Skibble...er...Skabble...er...Skamble...Oh, the Heck With It

A few months ago (I don't know, maybe it's been over a year. My sense of time is increasingly deteriorating), they changed my job description from "medical transcriptionist" to "medical language specialist" due to the new editing software/voice recognition we now use. (I still do plenty of transcribing, so I'm not sure why we need the job title change.) I have yet to fully embrace this job title. For one thing, I already get blank looks when I tell people I'm a medical transcriptionist by profession. I have yet to decipher what is going through people's minds as they smile at me blandly, nodding their heads, eyes glazed over. I have concluded that it can only be one of 3 things: (a) "You're a whatist?" (b) "Oh, like those late night TV commercials where you can work at home," (c) "Oh, you're a typist." Furthermore, the whole title of medical language specialist is a bit presumptive, in my opinion. I am hardly a language specialist, much less a medical language specialist. Many is the time that I have mangled a word so unrecognizably that the Spellchecker won't even help me out. (Scarily often it is not a medical term.) It's like I have just sooooo misspelled a word that Spellchecker is questioning my IQ, and even more humiliating is just how helpless I feel at that point. I frantically start spelling and respelling, trying every imaginable variation on a word, desperately trying to get just one hit on Spellchecker, a simple hint, suggestion, blip, to prove to it I am not the complete imbecile it so evidently thinks I am, but with each failed attempt, Spellchecker stubbornly sits there staring at me, completely empty. At any moment, I'm expecting the little Microsoft Word office assistant Einstein character to pop up and say, "It looks like you're an idiot. Would you like help? *blink* *blink* I'm sorry. The help you need is beyond my capability…AND I'M EINSTEIN!!!!" It is then I turn to the true medical language specialist—Google. It's accustomed to morons.

Rotten Apple

Love Ipod. Loathe Mac—a company that holds the philosophy of world peace and everyone to gather on a hill, holding hands, singing Kumbaya (or something more PC. Ha! PC), but is so proprietary it makes ME (a typically peaceful, loving, nonviolent individual) want to grab up the nearest Uzi, storm down to my local Apple kiosk and start screaming "WHY THE HELL CAN'T I TRANSFER MY %$^$#%$^@ PLAYLIST!!!!! SOMEONE, TELL ME NOW OR SAY YOUR PRAYERS!" I now understand why there are individuals that walk into places like McDonald's and start mowing people down—probably because they can't have it "their way."

I have been spending countless hours trying to out mastermind the sadistic genieks (that's genius geeks) at Macintosh figuring out how to transfer a practice playlist from my computer to Dave's Ipod without wiping everything out on his Ipod that he has "synced" with a different computer. This involved several hours of neglecting Vaughn, who's wanting help with his latest obsession—fishing and inventing a better “fish trap.” (What is it with all his inventions involving catchers, bait, traps…hmmmm…I see a pattern.)

"Go into your room and invent a way around Mac's insane licensing protections."

I'll be 90: "Ah-Ha! He's done it! I knew Vaughn's handmade fishing lures would come in handy! TAKE THAT APPLE!"

I've always thought of myself as a rather lazy person, but I have now come to realize that I am stubbornly tenacious when it comes to what I perceive as gross injustice. The more challenging it becomes, the more willing I am to spend countless hours of my life trying to conquer the Evil Empire. Dave, on the other hand, logically weighs the pros and cons, decides whether or not it's convenient or not to waste any more time on it, and knows when to cut bait. I, however, take it as a personal insult and will fight to the death to defend my God given rights to pirate MY PERSONAL PROPERTY. To this reasoning, Dave just looks at me, shaking his head sadly, recognizing the crazed obsessed lunatic glow in my eyes, and knows when to wisely walk away, leaving me to my machinations.

I am now working on a life-size cutout of the Mac dude in the Apple commercials so I can throw darts at it—smug little capitalistic emo—while I continue to conjure ways to circumvent MacEmpire's mind muddling music protections.

Pernicious Poop

Something inside has died. To be more specific, according to Dave, something inside the entryway closet smelled like it had died. He had been trying to solve this aromatic enigma on his own for the past several days and finally decided to resort to the chief sniffer of the family—me. My superior olfactory faculties are renowned in our home (although my abilities may soon be eclipsed by Vaughn's genetically refined senses). After a quick perusal with my proboscis, I quickly narrowed the odor down to the area where the dog’s walking paraphernalia is kept, leash, treat bag, poop scoops…Poop scoops…hmmm. I was trying to recall the last time I had actually taken the dog for an official walk and was quickly ruling this out, but nonetheless, thought to rule out all the possibilities…I pulled out the treat bag, which is where I keep the necessary waste removing instruments. I remembered that I had run out of my handy dandy pooper scooper bags that literally scoop the poop up into the attached bag, fold over into a little baggy and then you can, theoretically, shut the bag by just pushing down on the cardboard handle, never having to touch the warm squishy coprolite. I say theoretically because half the time they do not entirely shut, so you have to walk around whiffing the fragrant feculence until you can find a final resting place for it. However…I had run out of my handy little poop scoopers and had to resort to the good old Glad bag. I usually use a sandwich bag for the poop and neatly double wrap it in a double strength freezer bag for the actual scoop. This then enables me to stuff it into the treat bag until we reach the nearest dumpsite, which brings us to how the closet started smelling to such a degree that it was disturbing even Dave. Triple wrapped and forgotten, the offending canine byproduct had been sitting in the treat bag in the closet for well over a week, permeating everything within an arm’s length radius.

Dave: "No wonder her poots are so powerful if her poop can do that.”

I told Dave we needed to harness this singular power, and when we're ready to paint the house, we'll just feed her an unusual diet and let her methane byproduct peel the paint, just hold her hind end up to the sides of the house and let 'er loose.

PS: Why did it take Dave to recognize the closet smelled? Because I have become so accustomed to the tang stemming from the H. feet in this family (yes, Vaughn inherited this from his dad), any odd odors emanating from the closet I chalk up to fetid footwear. Evidently, Dave can differentiate the difference.

Oprah Stern

“Have you ever pinched your boob?”

Okay…where is this going? Not something I expected as a conversation starter after a swim lesson. As always, I prudently feint with a question…

“Why do you ask?”

“Because.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Because!”

“No, really, why do you ask?” Obviously stalling for time.

“Because I want to know more about your life.”

Wow, my 6-year-old is turning into the next Oprah, with a Howard Stern twist. I hope this has nothing to do with seeing me naked.