May 2008 -- The Month of Living Crappily

Hi! Remember me? I used to blog here.

Then some stuff happened, and some other stuff happened, and some of it I could talk about because it happened to me, but other parts of it I couldn't talk about because they happened to someone else, and in the World According to Betsy Bird, you only have free rein to blog about it if it's your stuff. If it's someone else's, maybe not.

No one's dying, and no one's getting divorced. No one's been arrested, and no one's run away from home (although I've considered it). All I can say is that the words "New Post" at the top of my Blogger screen tonight might as well have been "Welcome Home." I've missed this space.

So if you'll indulge me, I'd like to write about what I can, a sort of "Since I've Been Gone" for the blogiverse.

1. I kept running ... for awhile.

As some of you may recall, not long ago me and my great whites began a Couch to 5K running program, with a goal of running an actual, real-live, finish-line race the end of June. Last week, a miracle occurred. I actually ran 3/4 of a mile, walked a half-mile, then ran another 3/4 of a mile. Celestial sounds poured forth from the heavens. Birds sang along. Rainbows appeared.

And then I got bronchitis.

Not to be a wimp, I decided to keep running anyway. This was a bad idea. By last Friday night, as the Memorial Day weekend began to suggest itself, I was really sick.

But I didn't take my bed. Are you kidding? I'm the mom. Instead ...

2. I packed Billy off for a trip to the beach with some friends.

How nice, you're thinking. Well, yeah.

Except for finding out 48 hours before he left that he and his friends would be staying in a place by themselves. "Don't worry," the host mother told me. "We'll be just down the beach."

Oh, and there was also the part about how, since they were renting a place FOR THE TEENAGE KIDS, MANY OF WHOM HAD JUST TWO DAYS BEFORE GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL, TO STAY WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION, we would need to contribute $150.

Billy's one of these kids who's never given us a reason not to trust him. Sometimes those are the hardest kind. In the lengthy time we had to weigh all our options and thoughtfully consider the pros and cons of letting him go on this trip, which of course had been planned for weeks -- in other words, 30 minutes -- we decided he'd earned the right to go.

Let the worrying begin.

Before we knew it, the phone rang. It was Billy, who'd insisted it was a really, really great idea to take his new, 140,000-mile Volvo, seeing as how he needed to come back earlier than the other kids they day after Memorial Day.

"Mom," he began. "We stopped at KFC, and when we got back in the car, the check engine light came on, and now it's driving sluggish, so we went to an auto parts place, because we thought they'd know how to fix it, but they don't, and now I need to know what to do."

Oh.

"Call Daddy," I said. There's a time and a place to take a feminist stand but this wasn't it.

Daddy concluded that Billy and his friends should join the other cars and leave his car. Which meant that we got to spend the first day of the Memorial Day weekend driving to a little town, which didn't have much more than a KFC and an auto parts store, to figure out why the check engine light was on.

Which it wasn't.

Meanwhile, I coughed. I coughed so much that

3. I spent Memorial Day at a Doc-in-the-Box.

Previously in this forum I have taken a stand against Z-pak abuse. Like a child raised in an alcoholic home who grows up to abstain, I was raised by people who toss back antibiotics like some folks eat M & Ms.

But there's a time and a place for everything. After a weekend of fever and coughing up stuff the same shade as this year's most fashionable paint colors (one of these days thousands of Americans will wake up and realize they painted their living room walls the color of infection), I would have robbed a pharmacy for some antibiotics.

But we don't have a gun. So instead, I went to a so-called "urgent" treatment center.

Apparently "urgent" means different things to different people. To me, it meant get there and back before the Law & Order Memorial Day Marathon ended. To the 137-year-old doctor on duty that day, it meant treat me before the end of the month.

In theory I think doctors should wait for the results of a blood test before doling out antibiotics. In practice, when the blood is drawn by a nurse who apparently hasn't seen a vein since Christmas, and when it takes two hours to get the results back, during which the nurse and the doctor and some other folks sit around and eat pizza while I wait alone in an examining room where the paper won't stay on the table, I think we should see if the Mafia would be interested in pursuing a new line of business.

Eventually, and with considerable help from me ("Well let's see, what could we try?" "I've done well on Zithromax in the past." "Say ... now there's an idea."), the doctor "treated" me and went back to his pizza.

Did I mention he never listened to my chest? Isn't that Bronchitis 101? Maybe that's why I'm still sick.

But I have to get well, because

4. I scheduled my shoulder surgery for next Thursday, June 5.

I still haven't 100% committed to a surgeon. As you may recall, I had issues with the first surgeon. So last week I went to see Shoulder Guy.

I liked Shoulder Guy. Yes, he had on cowboy boots, which seemed a little "I'm so cool that I wear cowboy boots in a seven-story medical office building 10 miles from the closest horse," but he was nice, and he explained lots of things, and best of all was he said that actually what needs fixing is not my rotator cuff but my cartilage. This may not sound important, but apparently cartilage heals a lot faster, which means my shoulder won't hurt as much or as long, and my summer won't suck nearly as much as it was sounding like it might a couple of weeks ago. Besides, Shoulder Guy has had his own shoulder cartilage fixed. He didn't do it himself, of course, and I didn't feel comfortable asking who did. But it certainly didn't sour him on the procedure. "I LOVE doing these," Shoulder Guy said.

Of course, I love doing crosswords. That doesn't mean I'm any good at them.

Stay tuned ...

Mom Is The Man

So much for posting every day in April.

I started the month with such good intentions. Since I begin my new job tomorrow, I thought I'd be able to cut myself some slack toward the end of the month if if I already had 13 posts under my belt before Tax Day.

So I was going to post every day last week, and then I was going to get my life TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in order so that from this point forward I'd never have to do ANYTHING else but go to work and blog and give my kids good advice. This was probably not a realistic goal, given that fresh produce is perishable and clothes get dirty and that there are only like, umm, maybe 713 piles of papers around here that need going through, which would take a whole lot longer than a week.

But that was the plan. Unfortunately, things did not go according to it.

Instead, life happened. My husband's car died (as in, forever) and my son's car was totaled. And so I spent practically every minute this past week shopping for two cars.

There are people out there for whom buying two cars is a matter of running by the Lexus dealership, pointing their index finger, and saying "I'll taking this one and that one." There are other people for whom even one totally unreliable deathtrap is way more than they can afford. The Bird family is somewhere in between.

My goal was to buy two safe, reliable, not embarrassingly ugly cars for less than $15,000.

Now listen. You're going to have to stop rolling on the floor laughing if you intend to finish reading this.

Yes, that was a ridiculously optimistic goal. But I didn't know that Monday when I started this quest.

I figured it out pretty quick, though.

Here's the thing. There are two kinds of cars in this world -- those that depreciate quickly and those that don't. The ones that depreciate really fast do that because they really aren't very good. The ones that hold their value do so because they had a whole lot of value to start with.

So if you want a certified Honda Civic with 40,000 miles and an incredible warranty, you're only going to pay a couple of thousand less than you would pay for a brand new one. But if you want a Pontiac that's so unreliable Consumer Reports sends a woman in sensible shoes over to lock you in your house so you won't buy it, you can get that for chicken feed.

And another thing. If you want the absolute best in airbags and stability control, you've got to buy new.

And if you want really good gas mileage, you've got to buy little. And little + old = not really what I want my kids driving.

Along about Thursday, I decided that if I was going to get two cars of any price by sunset Friday -- my goal -- I was going to have to get a lot less choosy. I'd take safe over low maintenance costs. I'd take up-front price over great gas mileage. And I decided not to worry much about how many miles these cars had.

Even with those concessions, by lunch Friday I still had no cars. But by 1:30, I'd bought a 10-year-old Volvo with incredibly high miles for a fabulous price. Actually, it was only the parts of the car you could see that were 10 years old. I bought it from a Volvo mechanic, who'd replaced pretty much all of its innards. And even 10 years ago, Volvo was putting bunches of airbags in its cars. That took care of Billy's automotive needs.

Buying a car is a heady thing. It makes you want to go out and buy another. Which is exactly what I did.

At 3:30, Billy and I met an old guy in a Sam's Club parking lot and bought his Mercury Grand Marquis right out from under him. It's not a particularly sexy car, but my parents have had two of them, and I know they hang in there for the long haul. Plus they have a trunk the size of my kitchen. I felt confident that this one was in good shape as the seller assured me he'd been having the oil changed every 4,000 miles at "the Wal-Mark."

And for Bob, a Grand Marquis is a step up. He's been driving a 1986 BMW with about 165,000 miles on it whose interior thermometer constantly registered -22 degrees despite the fact that it overheated every time he drove it. (It's hard to be punctual when you're never sure how much time to factor in for standing next to the road waiting for your car to cool off.)

Friday night, I was the man as far as the men around here were concerned. And I was exhausted. Like lights-out-and-sound-asleep-at-9 wiped out.

Not surprisingly, I was unable to get my life TOTALLY and COMPLETELY in order over the weekend.

Maybe after work tomorrow.

Brother, Can You Spare a Toyota?

Betsy Bird is unavailable for posting tonight and asked that I send her regrets.

She has spent the entire day trying to buy two cars and is too tired to do anything on the computer other than continue to search in vain for two safe and reliable vehicles available immediately at fire-sale prices.

Yes, two cars does sound like a lot. But less than 48 hours after the rear-ending of her son's decrepit van, which was only worth a couple of thousand at best, her husband's car expired of natural causes. The nerve! It was only 22 years old and had a mere 165,000 miles, which obviously means it was a wimpy, lily-livered thing.

Betsy will be back tomorrow, when (we should all hope) she is in a better frame of mind.

Yours sincerely,
Betsy's Keyboard

Two-and-a-Half Songs With Diana Krall

One of the perks of Bob's job is the occasional chance to fill out a corporate table at a black-tie event. Last night we were on the list for An Evening with Diana Krall, which was a combination cocktail reception, concert, and fancy-schmancy dinner dance to benefit a concert hall in our city. (If you have been stalking Diana Krall, now's your chance to figure out where I live.)

Sometimes I can think of about 50 things I'd rather do than try to make conversation with people I don't know across a 60-inch round table in a noisy ballroom while wearing a dress that requires me to hold in my stomach. But this was one I was really looking forward to. We had a fun table; for once I was able to wear something I already owned; and it was the first time in weeks that Bob and I had anything more exciting planned for Saturday night than Law & Order reruns.

The concert began at 7, and, due to an unfortunate mascara accident shortly before we had planned to leave home, we were running late. We only had time for a few sips of wine before we worked our way with the crowd to our seats.

Bob and I and our crew had, oh, only about the best seats imaginable!!!!! We were smack dab in the middle of the second row, ideally located to watch Diana play and sing.

Now I'm going to make a confession here: I'm not much of a music fan. Say that to people, and you get the same sort of response I imagine greets statements like "I don't like kids" or "no thanks -- I don't care for chocolate." But this is MY blog, and I'm just being honest. I'd rather listen to All Things Considered than the latest CD.

So it's saying something that I know who Diana Krall is, and that I was actually excited to see her.

And what a treat it was.

Sure, she sings smooth like butter, and really, the only word you could use to describe what she was doing to that piano was tickling its ivories.

But she was also loads of fun to watch. She had on an adorable black cocktail dress (Diana, if you read this, could you please tell me where you got it? Because we have another of these corporate events in a couple of weeks and I'd really love to wear that dress.), black-and-white stilettos, and a gorgeous diamond bracelet that danced on her wrist. She also wore her hair, which is just so enthralling that it's really not fair to the rest of us who ended up with plain vanilla, just-a-head-covering hair. Diana Krall's hair is an accessory. It's long and blonde and very, very shiny, and if her grandmother were around she'd keep pushing it out of Diana's eyes and saying "Why won't your mother buy you a barette?"

So as the first song begins, I'm sitting there in satin and sequins, watching this great-looking woman play this great-sounding music, and my handsome husband is on my left and one of our dearest friends is on my right, and I'm feeling fine. It was going to be a great night.

Diana finished, and started another song. And then Bob leaned over in his seat, as if he was searching for something he'd dropped on the floor.

In a moment, he was back up. "That was Ben," he whispered. "I just missed a call from him."

"Don't worry," I whispered back. "If it's an emergency, he'll call back."

Immediately, Bob bent over again. This time, he was down a bit longer, before he was back with the whispering.

"It's an emergency. They're okay, but he and Billy were in a wreck."

This did not come as a surprise to me. Every time the phone has rung for the last 22 months -- in other words, since Billy got his drivers license -- I have known he had been in a wreck. Finally, I was right.

Considering he was sitting in the middle of a concert, Bob couldn't give me elaborate detail, but he managed to relate the following:

1) They'd been rear-ended.

2) The rear-ender in question was an 85-year-old woman who was refusing to get out of her car.

3) The two cars (plus another I'll write about tomorrow) were in the middle of three lanes on one side of the busiest highway in town.

4) The police were on their way.

This was all from a message Ben had left. I knew my boys would want to talk directly to a parent, and I wanted that parent to be me. So as Diana finished the second song, I got up from my choice seat and, stabbing only a couple of insteps with my stilettos, made my way out of the concert hall.

I called Ben from my cell phone (Billy was busy being the responsible "adult"). He actually sounded fine. The car in front of them had stopped suddenly for a light, which caused Billy to stop just inches from the front car, which caused the little old lady to drive her Olds '88 under the rear of the hand-me-down van Billy drives. Ben reported that Billy couldn't get the van to start.

Which meant that, though the kids were fine, a parent was going to have to go pick them up and talk to the tow truck driver.

And the parent on the phone, having wanted to avoid bringing a purse, had left her car keys at home.

Which meant that the other parent, who was still listening to Diana Krall with a set of car keys and his wife's lipstick in his pocket, was going to have to go get them.

I called Bob. (By this point I'm sure most of the people sitting around him thought he was feeling awfully faint, but they probably thought it was Diana's mesmerizing hair.) He met me out in the lobby, where it was completely impossible to hear the concert, and I told him where he would find the kids.

Now, if I'd been an incredible music fan, I probably would have gone back in. But I wasn't sure exactly what was going to happen. The kids might need to call again, or Bob might have a question. I just felt a psychic need to stay where I could easily answer my phone. So as Diana sang and played and (I heard later) told charming stories, I sat in the lobby, sipping a glass of wine that the sympathetic house manager had brought me.

Sitting in the lobby outside a Diana Krall concert is, in its own way, entertaining. And educational.

Here is what I learned.

1) Spanx are not necessarily a girls' best friend.

I'll grant you that the area actually encased in Spanx beneath your clinging, satiny ball gown will look firm and reasonably fat-free. Unfortunately, too many women (and I fear that heretofore I have been one of them) have failed to think critically about Spanx and ask the obvious next question: Just where did that fat go? Based on an informal visual survey I conducted while waiting for phone calls in the lobby, it generally gets shoved up or pushed down, which means that the back view in many a form-fitting dress looks a bit like an upright dumbell. Ladies, do what I now plan to do: NEVER leave the house again without giving your back half a careful and well-lit review in a full-length mirror. Better yet, find yourself a velvet caftan in a flattering color and leave the silky backless dresses to the prom girls.

2) Ice sculptures are heavy.

During the five minutes we got to spend at the cocktail reception, I hadn't noticed the four-foot ice thingy in the center of the lobby. But it was hard to miss once six male members of the catering staff started to take it home (wherever home was).

The ice was wrapped in a blanket, and three men were on either side. Maybe it was because I was in a concert hall, but I thought to myself that it appeared the corpse of Luciano Pavarotti was being escorted outside the building.

But it is good that it wasn't Pavarotti, because just as the pallbearers stepped over the threshhold, the front end of the sculpture started to tip, and the men started shuffling faster, and the next thing everyone knew the ice Pavarotti had fallen on the sidewalk and shattered.

I don't think it had a long life ahead of it, unless maybe it was headed home to a freezer to wait until the next Saturday night someone needed an ice sculpture. Still, it was kind of sad.

3) Catering work is exhausting.

I know this because, as I sat sipping my wine and pondering Spanx, a woman wearing a shirt labeled "Catering Staff" walked through the lobby and announced, "I'm too tired to have sex tonight."

I'm not sure who she was talking to. Perhaps she was speaking into a Bluetooth phone, or was just finishing a conversation she'd begun as she walked through an adjoining room. Maybe she just wanted the world -- particularly her fellow catering staffers -- to know she was headed home to a hot bath, a good book, and some sweat socks. (Frankly, she needn't have worried. The guys who'd been wrestling Pavarotti were probably pretty well wiped out themselves.)

I wanted to suggest that perhaps she'd experience an energy boost if she put down the three-foot long, armload-sized roll of Saran wrap she was carrying, but she buzzed through pretty quickly and I didn't get the chance.

Anyway, the time passed fairly rapidly, and I'd heard from Bob that he'd picked up the kids and would be taking them home as soon as he got them some dinner (which was where they'd been headed when the little old lady drove into them). So I decided I could finally go back in.

I found a seat in a folding chair against the back wall and, peeking over the sound board, began to watch and listen. It was wonderful.

And then, that song was over. As was the concert.

Two-and-a-half songs into my evening, Diana and her band stood up, took a bow, and left the stage.

Oh sure, there was an encore. But just as that started, my phone vibrated, and I had to go back to the lobby. It was Bob, calling to find out if the concert was over yet.

It was for me.

The evening wasn't a total loss. My kids were fine, for one thing, and actually kind of excited that maybe the van would be totaled and we could finally replace it with something that wasn't quite so embarrassing. The dinner was absolutely delicious, and due to the fact that I'd had an unfortunate evening, there was not a single calorie nor gram of saturated fat in my tenderloin with leek mashed potatoes and crab Bearnaise sauce. Plus, Bob and I had certainly gotten out of the house.

And we went home with two Diana Krall CDs, which were party favors for the guests at the benefit.

I'm going to listen to them tomorrow. Just as soon as All Things Considered is over.

How Not to Lose a Car

It's Works for Me Wednesday over at Rocks in My Dryer, and have I got a tip for you. I have so little good advice that I can't participate every Wednesday, or else I'd exhaust my supply. But I'm so excited about this one that I couldn't wait any longer.

I am a Momnesiac. Once upon a time, I had a fabulous memory -- at least that's the way I remember it. But then my children were born, and my to-do lists got much longer, and my attention got pulled 32,019 different ways, and the next thing I knew every last gigabyte in my personal hard drive was full. My files began to be corrupted, and I couldn't remember whatshisname's name or what happened in the movie I saw last weekend or whether it was All the King's Men or All the President's Men I had read back in high school.

Or where I'd parked my car.

This last one was particularly vexing. I've come to depend on my car quite a lot, actually -- not as much as my lungs, perhaps, but way more than my vacuum. Leaving a store and spending the next 18 minutes traipsing back in forth through a parking lot pushing the panic button on my key chain was starting to really get me down.

And then one day I pulled into the parking lot at our brand-new Publix. Because I'm a poor planner, I go to the grocery several times each week. Every single one of those times I park. And on that auspicious day, a thought came to me: What If I Always Parked on the Same Row?

What a beautifully simple idea! I know now that no matter what -- summer, winter, rain, shine, just-a-gallon-of-milk or Thanksgiving-dinner-for-12 -- my car will be parked at the back end of the center row in Publix's parking lot. I don't even have to think about it, and as if it were on auto-pilot, my cart and I find my car instantly.

If I insisted on parking right next to the building, this plan might not work. But I don't. I'd much rather settle for a distant spot on the same row each visit than an up-close one on any random row. Besides, it's exercise.

If you've spent more time than you care to admit wandering around looking for a lost car, try this idea. It Works for Me!