Leezer

Please don’t e-mail me to tell me I’ve already posted this picture.  I’m nothing if not a narcissist, and I like the photo.  More fundamentally, however, I know you are interested in Anna’s life.  Here’s the poop:  Anna is 95% lovable, adorable, little Chinese girl and 5% heinous devil child.  The scales tip so far toward the lovable part, we can accommodate the devil-part.   Of course, if she were our biological child, we’d say oh me oh my where did that 5% come from it’s certainly not from my side it must be from your side you know your mother acts like this from time-to-tim so I’m sure it’s all her fault and y ou deal with her because i’m tired now going to bed see you in the morning goodbye.  Naturally, this tendency is only exacerbated with an adopted child.  When she’s nasty, there’s this knee-jerk reaction well i don’t know where she gets this it must be from her Chinese heritage because surely she wouldn’t act this way if she was made out of our DNA we’re far above this kind of behavior we’re so dignified and well-bred. . .

But nearly a year after returning from Guangzhou with Anna, we’re completely happy.  In fact,  from time-to-time I miss the little life we had in China for the time we were there. I miss the handful of Chinese people I’d talk to every day and I even miss the food and the heat.  Seeing the aftermath of the earthquake is heart-wrenching, because looking into the faces of the victims on television is like looking into my daughter’s face. 

Anna is speaking only English now, but still has trouble with her r’s and her l’s.  A neighbor asked me if the difficulty of Chinese people to say r’s and l’s is genetic.   I don’t think it’s any more “genetic” than Germans being highly organized or Italians being impetuous.  It’s just a matter of the environment. 

Anna is also very bright.  Our biological dauther is musical, dramatic, and confident.  Anna is studious, observant, and a little sneaky.  We think she’ll be a CIA Operative or maybe an astronaut. 

Ultimately, we’d like to keep both daughters off the pole and see them graduate from college.  If we can do this and see them happy, then we’ve done our share. 

For those of you Googling “American Idol,” welcome to my blog.  As I’ve learned from my Stat Counter, there are many avenues to my blog, none of which I’m particularly proud.  Apparently, Googling, “Bleached Anus,” will get you here, as will “I ruv it asian,” as will “poop.” (No surprise there.)  I’m expiramenting a bit to see if I can win Time Magazine’s Blogger of the Year award just by using a common pop-culture term in my title.  Tune in later for the results.

In the mean time, I was tagged by Expat to complete the following exercise:

- Post the rules on your blog
- Write six random things about yourself in a blog post
- Tag six people in your post
- Let each person know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog
- Let the tagger know your entry is up

This is not going to be easy because I have no secrets to share. I’ve actually written just about everything there is to know about me, which frightens me into oblivion. 

Now, Expat indicated on her blog that we are virtual twins. This is true.  There are a few minor differences, however. First, Expat does not have the same hang-ups about religion as do I.  Second, Expat considers listening to others’ differing points of view as a challenge and a growing experience, while I consider the same experience merely annoying and a waste of precious time. Third, Expat is a true adventurer, having lived all over the world and having raised a kind, well-functioning family unit at the same time.  I could not do this.  Here’s to you, Expat!

Here are six random things, hopefully heretofore unpublished:

• Every night I wear a t-shirt to bed that says, “Ask me about my explosive diarreah.”  My husband thinks I’m irresistible.
• I scored in the thirteenth percentile in the Spatial Orientation section of the pre-college tests (this is out of 100, folks).  This is the exercise that requires you to figure out which way the wheels are turning. If you think THIS is bad, Leezerslawpartner, one of the best attorneys in the whole US of A, scored a SIX! He told me, “I didn’t even think this was possible.”  Adorable, that one.
• I secretly think I’m sort of funny-looking.
• I am so weary of telling my seven-year old, roughly seven times a day, how old our two-year old Shih Tzu is in “human years.”  Now I just tell her “Two. same age as he is in dog years.”
• My best friend Ruthie from childhood died in 1994.  She’s in nearly every dream of mine. Recently, in such a dream, I asked her,”why are you always here.” She said, “that’s our agreement. I’ll always  be here whether you need me or not.” It’s sort of comforting.  MCS reminds me a lot of Ruthie but I don’t tell her very often out of fear I’ll creep her out.
• In the fifth grade, I held two older girls hostage in the girls bathroom.  They couldn’t leave until they said the secret password, “shoes in your mouth, yeah yeah yeah.”  After the bell rang and we were discovered missing, the sixth grade teacher found us, sent the hostages back to class, and told me I would be the first female in Lake Youngs Elementary School history to receive a hack. He pounded the hack paddle into his palm, then at the last minute he let me go, sans hack. I’m sure a lawsuit from my parents was the only thing that stopped him cold.

Tagged:  Mae, Lisa, Lengli, Naynay, Pixie, Kitkat

Today as I sat in my office reading George Will in order to delay accomplishing anything of value, I ate a Combo Number 1 from Thai Castle which theoretically is supposed to contain phad thai but usually is screwed up in some manner so I get extra curry or too much sticky rice.  The lime wedge included in my meal was far too tiny to be taken seriously, even as a Corona-accompaniment.  In any event, I gripped the little nugget between my thumb and forefinger and pressed as hard as I could, aiming for the congealed glob of carbohydtrates.  Pulp and juice squirted over the front of my blouse and down my forearms, then the little bastard shot out of my hand and behind the prefabricated office shelving upon which I’ve appropriately arranged my Dwight Schrute bobblehead and photos of my children. 

“Ah screw it,” I thought, not rising to locate the renegate citrus wedge.  “I’ll smell it when it starts to rot, then it’ll be easier to find.”   I went back to my meal and unfastened the top button of my J.Crew Heritage Chinos.  If only I could belch unnoticed.

And speaking of eating too much, today is the first full day of the calendar year in which the sun is in the sign of Taurus the bull.  Taurus is the sign of good food, good drink, and material possessions.  Never give a Taurus a card that says, “I owe you ten kisses,” or “Good for a free afternoon away from the kids.”  A Taurus doesn’t want this crap. He wants a bottle of Dom Perignon or a Rolex or a cabin next to a river.  A Taurus is all about the bling, baby.

Not so with Scorpios, who generally eschew luxury to make some kind of statement.   I am a Scorpio, the sign of death, rebirth, regeneration, and reinvention.  The symbol for the sign is the Phoenix, the mythical bird that is consumed by flames then is reborn from his own ashes.   The closest I ever came to this experience was when I was eleven and my family went to see our neighbors, the Battles, on Christmas Eve.   In the downstairs guest bath was a lit Avon candle (Mrs. Battles was an Avon lady) inside of a ceramic representation of Holly Hobby.  (Holly Hobby looked a little rough - more like Janis Joplin).  I leaned over to sniff the patchouli scented wax and one of my braids caught fire.   I interrupted my Mom as she set the Triscuits and the cheese ball on the dining room table and asked her I smelled like Joan of Arc. 

My daughter is a Scorpio, also.  This doesn’t surprise me in the least because I believe in poetic justice, therefore I forsaw having a daughter exactly like me.   Granted, you’d have to be a believer in astrology to accept as truth the proposition that those born under the same sign possess similar personality traits, however, she does happen to be like me whether or not the stars have anything to do with it.   My mother thinks it’s amusing when I cojole my daughter at the dinner table as she drags her hair through her soup.  

But then there are  the Capricorns (goats).  I don’t know which I’d prefer - being born under the sign of the goat or (in the Chinese Zodiac) the cock:  “Hi! I’m a cock!  What’s your sign?”  My mother is a Capricorn.  If she’s representative of her sign, then Capricorns have no tolerance for throwing away broccoli stems and they can read the Exorcist cover-to-cover without losing a wink of sleep.  This is, obviously, entirely unfair to my mother, whose lovely attributes defy description in a silly blog such as this.

This said, I don’t believe in astrology.  I do, however, believe that one’s blood type should dictate the types of foods one should have in his or her diet.   O-Positive.  Steak, steak, and more steak.

My Mom’s high school principal’s name was Harry Dick.  Or Harry Balls, I can’t recall, but she reminds of this fact once a year or so.   Her point, aside from the obvious entertainment-value in the name itself, is of the importance in bringing a child into this world with a name that does its owner justice. 

We named our first daughter Georgia for a couple of reasons; first, my husband and I love the Ray Charles song, Georgia On My Mind.   The song is soulful and a bit mysterious - you don’t know if Georgia is a person or a place.  It doesn’t really matter.  Hearing the song always made me wish my name was Georgia. 

 Second, my husband  is from Virginia, and we sure as hell weren’t going to name our child Virginia.  (I once related this rationale to a stranger at a dinner party, only later to lean over with an outstretched hand, “by the way, my name is Lisa.  What’s your name?”  Her response: “Virginia.”)  Giving our precious girl the name Virginia would undoubtedly require us to console her on a regular basis when other children realized how much Virginia sounds like vagina. 

Georgia - the name and my daughter -  reminds me of a Weeping Willow -  lacy, feminine, strong, steamy, and ageless.  Somehow I knew this about her before she was born.  That, or I’ve projected onto her those traits I value.  I think it was also the only name upon which we agreed.

I’ve longed to name a daughter India, which was a common name in Victorian England.  Perhaps because England occupied India.   Upon further reflection, a British person naming a child India may be considered tasteless, like naming a child Appartheid, Harper’s Ferry, or The Killing Fields.  Some good things likely came out of the British occupation of India, but placing my child in the position of needing to justify her name seemed a tad unfair.   Our baby sitter’s name is Enola.  A few days ago my husband asked her,

 ” . . . like the WWII Enola Gay?  The one that carried the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima?” 

I was afraid he’d ask.  During this questioning I implored him with my eyes, She’s only fifteen!  She didn’t give herself the name!  Leave it alone!

Nonetheless, India, like Goergia, is a strong, steamy, yet ageless name.  

When we adopted Anna from China, the name India didn’t make the short list because the last thing we wanted to do to our child who doesn’t look a thing like us was to saddle her with an oddball name.  So we picked about the least ethnic-sounding name we could think of:  Anna.  It was the perfect choice.  She loves her name and refers to herself in the third person:  “Anna wants wa-wa; Anna go nigh-nigh; Anna go poopy!” 

Expat Princess believes - and I whole heartedly agree - that a name should look impressive when printed upon a college or law school diploma.  I question whether the Shittheads, the Shanias,  and the Fantasias really want their names printed Harvard Diplomas.  But perhaps the names won’t be printed anywhere at all, or will be printed upon state liquor control-board operators’ licenses.  Not that there’s any shame in that.  Don’t send me hate-mail telling me how bougoise I am.  I just think a child should be given as much of a head start as possible. 

Speaking of names that do their owners justice, I know a woman who named her son Justice, but I believe she spells it differently.  What a wonderful name, Justice.  Unless the child becomes an adult-film star.  In that case Harry Dick is more appropriate.

I secretly worry about the narcissistic quality of writing, that it’s the cerebral equivalent of staring at one’s reflection in the mirror for hours.   The substantiation of ephemeral mush by way of keystrokes places this quality under the light. Why study the inside of one’s head? I’ve lived inside my head now for some forty odd years and it’s still fascinating to me, although highly unlikely to anyone else.  

In college I traveled to Hawaii for a month and a woman in her thirties, for some reason I can’t recall, came along.  A friend and I were lying on the beach talking, the woman within earshot and silent except for asking me, why are you so introspective?  I didn’t respond, thinking her question rhetorical and critical.  

Nothing much changes a person’s basic nature.  Only time and trauma and joy and tedium  soften rough edges and cause a person to choose A and not B, as B may have been a hot stove or a toxic person or a rut.  Eye color doesn’t change.  Nature doesn’t change.

Writing is at best cathartic and at worst narcissistic, and sometimes it is entertaining.  Eyes aren’t the window to the soul, words and sentences and paragraphs are.

Years ago during what I’ll call my “searching phase,”[1] I went to an Ayurvedic doctor. I don’t recall what made me go, although I suspect it had something to do with headaches, backaches, or general irritability as these themes tend to raise their ugly heads in my life over and over again.  Or maybe my skin was breaking out.  Anyhoo, Ayurvedic medicine, is based upon the principal that each one of us falls into one of three doshas  (personality/body types)  - Vata, Pitta, or Kapha.  The “doctor”[2] took brief look at me, administered a short medical questionnaire[3] and pronounced me a Pitta.  According to that font of veracity Wikipedia, Pittas can be described as follows:

Pitta types are generally average physically. They tend to have fine, soft, red or fair hair (though Pittas have been known to have dark hair.) Eyes tend to be blue, grey, or hazel. Their moods change slowly and they are busy people, usually achieving much in their lives. They are more intellectual and speech is clear, sharp, and precise. They are fiery, angry and judgmental.

Well duh.

Also, Pittas don’t like heat.  The theory is that the Pitta body/personality is naturally fiery, so Pittas shouldn’t make matters worse by eating spicy foods or by living in Pheonix.   Pittas also tend to be overly phlegmatic which means they should eat dry, cold foods like raw vegetables, not cold wet foods like ice cream.  I’m not a fan of ice cream.  Which brings me to my point – I hate the month September with the white hot heat of one thousand suns.

 In Washington, summer begins in July and ends in October.  In September, our homes are hot.  No one in Seattle has air conditioning because he’d only use it for a month out of each year - the month of September.  It’s too hot to wear anything but shorts and a tank top.   Vacations end.  But the rest of the world believes it’s the beginning of autumn so schools start.  September is a dollar short and a day late.  It’s the drunk at the party who lingers after everyone else has gone home.  It’s the tediously drawn out coda concluding a Tchaikovsky overture.  It’s the Diet Pepsi liter bottle opened yesterday, flat, overly sweet, and warm.

Events from my past feed this September malaise.   I went to a new school in the first grade, just like my daughter did a few days ago.   She fared better than I did; I picked the seat closest to the fire escape.  I went to a new school in the seventh grade, too.   I was a wreck.  And when I went away to college and left behind my boyfriend – now my husband – I became so homesick I couldn’t eat or sleep until the following March.  Law school always started around the last week of August.  In my third year of law school I waited until the first week of September to actually attend any classes, I was in such denial that September was imminent.  No wonder I hate this bloody month.

I wish I could find an elegant segue between my hatred of the month of September and Cathy Marples, a girl I knew in the seventh grade, but I can’t.   Each day during those first few weeks of that awful September of the seventh grade, I wandered from the bus to the locker to my classes then back to the bus each and every day without making one friend.  I feigned sickness so I could stay home.  Everyone seemed to have a pack of friends from the preceding year.   In band I sat next to Cathy, who talked incessantly and didn’t appear to care whether anyone was listening.  For some reason she attached herself to me and I didn’t object, believing that being seen in apparent camaraderie with someone – anyone – would elevate my social status one step above a single celled organism. 

While I doubt I was – at twelve years of age – a particularly deep thinker, I found Cathy’s lack of any inner dialogue extremely shallow and annoying.   Each morning, she would shuffle over to me with those short little legs of hers, usually combing her Farrah-wings with one hand and patting them with the other tiny little hand, talking of nothing at all:

oh hi Lisa did you know we don’t have band today because there’s a pep assembly does this make my butt look big [puts butt in my face] I got my period I hope my big maxi pad doesn’t show will you sit by me at the pep assembly do you think John Beu is cute I do I hope we don’t have a seating chart in English so I can sit by him if you get there first will you save me a seat have you seen my lip smackers OMIGOD I have cramps where is my purse okay remember to save me a seat okay bye!

And so it would go each and every day until I couldn’t take any more of those short legs and little hands patting at her Farrah-wings while she babbled on and on about nothing so I dumped her.   By then I had reached outside of myself just enough to work into some other pack.  I don’t remember ever talking to Cathy again, and I have no idea what happened to her.  This lonely cycle would repeat itself six years later when I would leave college to attend a small private university forty-five minutes away.  Without cell phones, the internet, or even a car, I may as well have been forty-five hours away.  I didn’t meet any Cathy Marples-types in college, though.  My pain, though acute, was eased by Katyess, Sherry, Krista, Connie, and Annie – good friends who I still see to this day.    

Although September officially sucks, I seemed to have survived forty or so of them and hopefully I’ll survive a few more.   But maybe next year I’ll get an air conditioner.

[1] I wasn’t looking for a shoe or a new neighborhood.  I was searching for the meaning of life.  I studied reincarnation, Buddhism, Taoism, Judaism, and Elton Johnism.  All this searching hurt my head too much so I decided to stay a Lutheran.  Lutherans like quiet, simple things.  We like Jesus, but we open our hearts to Catholics, Jews, and all other religions with a silent acceptance.  When  Lutherans have a problem, they believe hard work will make it go away.  I’m down with that.

[2] I didn’t ask this person for his curriculum vitae.   A “doctor” from Bangladesh may be a person who brushes his teeth or wears socks when it rains.  I really don’t know.  For ease of this narrative, I will refer to the person before me during my Ayurvedic examination as a “doctor.”

[3] Doctor: “How do you react if you’re trying to concentrate and someone interrupts you?”  Me “I get irritated.”  Doctor: “How would you describe your mood when you’re very, very hungry?”  Me: “Irritated.”  Doctor: “If you have trouble achieving your goals, what happens?”  Me:  “I get irritated.”  Doctor, “How do you feel now?”  Me: “Irritated.”

If you’re too lazy to read this list, then you and I have a lot in common:

1. In the past three days, I’ve met two people named Lollie.

2. I like the smell of my cat’s breath.

3. A friend of mine in high school pooped his pants at band practice.

4. George Clooney irritates me.

5. Blood type – O+.

6. Scorpio, Aries rising.

7. Most of my friends are Virgos or Geminis.

8. I wish I could live in a tree house.

9. My arms are freakishly long.

10. If I could eat only one fruit the rest of my life – strawberries.

11. People waiting at bus stops make me sad.

12. Sometimes when I’m bored I think of males I know and try to figure out what our kids would look like.

13. People tell me I look like Lisa Kudrow.

14. I hope my husband dies first - I wouldn’t want him to be so sad if I died first.   

15. When I was 17 I brought home a boyfriend who wouldn’t take off his aviator sunglasses in the house.

16. A boyfriend once came to get me on his motorcycle and my Dad wouldn’t let me ride it.  That boy died on the same motorcycle a few years later.

17. My first concert was Styx.

18. Arrested Development was perhaps the funniest show series ever made.

19. If  I’m not alone for at least an hour a day I feel extremely hostile.

20. I was considered one of the “least changed” classmates at my 20 year reunion.

21. Favorite City – London, although I’ve never been there.

22. I make a mean chicken pot pie.

23.  Ditto Chicken Marsala.

24. When I was 11 I caught my hair on fire burning out a candle.  The smell was horrendous.

25. I met Scott Baio at a car show at the Kingdome in 1977.

26. When in a public restroom, I always choose the first open stall closest to the door.

27.  I don’t really understand why people like ice cream so much.

28. In junior high I knew a girl named Corvette Gunwall.

29. The following words gross me out:  nub, bud, supple, suckle, succulent.

30. In the seventh grade the highlight of my day was coming home and watching Gilligan’s Island.

31. My husband is the great (add five more greats) grand-nephew of John Marshall.

32. I will not wear a bathing suit unless it is unavoidably, absolutely, necessary. 

33. Favorite nut: cashew.

34. My parents will celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary on June 14, 2008.

35. They married four months to the day after the day they met.

36. Walnuts give me cancer sores.

37. I can’t understand why David Sedaris hasn’t written anything lately.

38. I’ve never tried street drugs.

39. Bob Costas should branch out and do stuff besides sports.

40. Kayne West is a big bratty spoiled baby.

41. There were 650 people in my high school graduating class.

42. Not enough attention is paid to Swedish interior decorating styles.

43.  think Sarah Silverman is funny but in a mean way so I can’t watch her.

44. Pie not cake.

45. Digital not analog.

46. Turf not surf.

47. American League not National.

48. The Who not The Beatles.

49. Granny panties not thongs.

50. When someone describes an injury I get a weak achy/roller-coaster feeling in my butt.

51. I’ve never broken a bone.

52. When I hear my voice recorded it sounds nasally to me.

53. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my all-time favorite movies.

54. I weighed 10 pounds half an ounce at birth.

55. My daughter swallowed a penny.  After it came out the other end I washed it, wrote a poem about it, and saved it to mortify her when she’s a teenager.

56. I love bag pipes.

57. Whenever my dreams take place in a house, it’s always the house I grew up in.

58. I stopped believing in Santa at age 7. 

59. I once knew a police officer who had a phobia about cotton balls.

60. Once I saw a naked man in a parking lot.  The only thing I remember about his appearance was his red hair and freckles BELOW the waist.

61. People probably don’t need to drink as much water as everyone thinks.

62. My friend Nate had a pet turkey named Theophilus.

63. The same friend Nate drove a station wagon in high school that had mushrooms growing in the trunk.

64. As a kid I was afraid of Santa Claus and Jesus.

65. In 1992 I was home alone when my apartment was broken into; I escaped by climbing down three stories of balconies.

66. I knew a woman in law school who – years earlier – had been approached in a UW parking lot by a handsome man on crutches who asked her to carry his books to his VW Van.  She said no called the police who told her the man was Ted Bundy.

67. I want to be on Crank Yankers.

68. Favorite Campbells Soup:  Beef Barley.

69. I’d rather ski than swim;

70. rather ride a roller-coaster than a motor cycle;

71. rather eat bacon than chocolate;

72. rather listen to a symphony than watch a ballet.

73. My daughter seems to have inherited my inability to suffer fools.

74. My grandmother gave me a petrified dinosaur tooth when I was little; it was found at an excavation site about 100 years ago when some dam in Montana was being built.

75. In 1974, my family went to the World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington. The only thing I remember about it was it was hot, and we stayed in the basement of the home of someone my folks knew.  The basement was cool and felt good in the hot weather.  That and I got an Expo ‘74 belt buckle.

76. Favorite sports moment from history:  Carlton Fisk’s home run in the sixth game of the 1975 World Series. 

77. I hate magic and magicians. 

78. Ditto for clowns.

79. If I could do anything over again, I wouldn’t.

80. I wish I didn’t have to carry a purse.

81. The song, Somewhere Over the Rainbow always makes me cry. 

82. When I was five months pregnant some cartilage tore away from one of my ribs. It still hurts sometimes.

83. I had a poster of Billy Carter (President Jimmy Carter’s brother) in my room when I was in high school.

84. Autumn not summer;

85. Wine not tequila;

86. Snow not sand;

87. I’ve had braces twice.

88. In college my friends asked me not to become a nurse when I flirted with the idea          for a few days.

89. Favorite color: orange.

90. I’m a sucker for military bands and military ceremonies.

91. My first date with my husband was fishing.

92. Farm-raised salmon sucks.

93. The other day I asked my husband if he’d seen my mortar and pestle. He thought I was kidding.  I wasn’t.  I really couldn’t find them.

94. At thirteen or fourteen I knew I wanted to be an attorney.

95. At thirteen or fourteen I thought I could also be CIA agent.

96. I drove my 1974 Corolla Mark II station wagon for a week with the oil light on.

97. If I could visit one single moment in history, it would be the Gettysburg address.

98. I was stung by a wasp when I was a kid; it hurt more than childbirth.

99. For some reason, I know that there is a pink Barbie shoe under my dryer right now.

100. In high school I was voted Best Sense of Humor.

9/11/2001

When I was 17 my cousin Mike, two years my senior, came to live in Seattle with me and my family.  He had a fast car and girls liked him, so I assumed that my reputation might be enhanced if I followed him around.  One hot summer day I went to Alki Beach with him in his smokin’ Camero.   He, a narrow-shouldered nineteen year-old accompanied by a flat-chested seventeen year-old.  We were the bevies of the Beach.  After that day, I vowed that someday I would make Alki Beach my home.

I forgot about that day until 1998 when, due to problems that seemed looming and disasterous at the time but not so enormous now, I started to experience a lingering malaise which turned to angst which turned to despair which made my seratonin levels dive which made me lose too much weight and caused me to believe My Heart Will Go On  was a melodic masterpiece.   A friend of mine lived at Alki Beach, and I discovered that sitting on his balcony within the salty, misty air was good for my soul.  At the time, we lived in the the town in which I grew up, but it had become a little seedy.   Our neighbors weren’t setting their couches on fire out in the street, but almost.

 So one day, I turned to my husband and said, “Why do we live here?”

“I don’t know.  I thought you liked it here,” was his response.

“I hate it here,” I replied.  So we sold that house, put all our belongings into storage, and moved into an apartment next door to my Alki Beach-dwelling friend.   A year later we bought a charming 100 year old Craftsman across the street from the beach.  We were very happy.

Within six months of buying the little house at the Beach with one bathroom I was pregnant with our daughter.  Four years after that we adopted Anna from China.  I have not gone to the bathroom by myself in seven years.  (Admittedly, during the first six months of this seven year-period I was sharing in-utero, but still).    Sharing the bathroom sucks.  In fact, in twenty years of marriage I still have yet to observe my husband’s - ahem - uriner, nor do I wish to.

So we bought a bigger house here.   

I began packing last week; following is an accounting of my findings:

• three Polly Pocket shoes, unmatching;
• one snickerdoodle, aged and inedible;
• two unwrapped throat lozenges;
• one pair BBQ tongs;
• ennui;
• The Elephant Man’s skeleton;
• box of IRS forms from 1987;
• Skeet Ulrich;
• pottery shards;
• all the hope in Christendom.

Whew.  I’m tired. 

When I was little I used to love scavenger hunts. Usually we did them at birthday parties or slumber parties, and the participants were given a list of ten or twelve things to collect and bring back to the party.  The first person or team to arrive with a collection of all the items was the winner. 

While I loved the game itself, I usually thought the items we were supposed to collect were a little too easy, which made the game go too fast.   What eleven year old can’t quickly find a coat hanger, a pine cone, or an empty milk carton?

I’m going to give my daughter the best scavenger hunt ever for her eleventh birthday.  The mother of all  scavenger hunts.  The kids will have to bring back the following, in forty-five minutes or less:

• Spit-valve from Herb Alpert’s cornet; 
• Scaffolding;
• A lactating woman;
• A Dider Comes autograph (I’ll provide the hint that Dider Comes is a Belgian comic book illustrator);
• A cat-o-nine-tails;
• Ennui;
• An uncircumcised octogenarian;
• One smoothbore cannon from the USS Nyack;
• Apathy;
• A human head;
• A pinecone.  

 This seems a little hard.  Maybe I’ll wait until her twelfth birthday.