Fireworks are pretty, but also loud.
July 4, 2005I can’t take this long between posts. I’ve forgotten how to do this. It’s taken me at least an hour to figure out that punching the keyboard was wrong and only resulted in gbhj hgh fg som m m bnmbbv gh.
(Once, on a job interview, I took a typing test and I was so nervous that I didn’t look at the paper as I typed (this was back when we typed on “typewriters.” I’m old!), and when the interviewer took the paper out of the typewriter , he looked at it, then at me, then at the paper, and handed it to me and said, “I don’t know what to say about this.” Turned out I had placed my hands incorrectly on the keyboard and everything I had typed was gibberish. I responded, “What, that’s not right?” and laughed maniacally, which he apparently found more alarming than amusing. And that’s why I’m not working for the William Morris Agency today. True story!)
I’ve been at my parents’ house, eating their food and enjoying their clean and pretty home, with its lovely flowers and relative absence of mouse urine. On Friday night my mother went out dancing—did I not tell you that my mother is a ballroom dancer? And dances in competitions in which she wears spangly outfits down to there and up to here?—so it was just me and my dad. And Henry, duh. But then I put him down for the night, and my dad and I were hanging out, and we decided to watch a movie.
The movie, by the way, was “The Life of Brian,” rented by my mom, whose motives I can only guess at. I was uneasy at the prospect of watching this with my dad, as he is a holy man, the Catholic-est of Catholics, with his “Liturgy of the Hours” right there on the coffee table and his rosary beads invariably at the ready, and there we were, about to watch a movie that makes light of crucifixion. And I was pretty sure there was a blow job, somewhere in there.
The sacri-larity of it turned out to be less of a problem than the DVD’s audibility; we had to turn it waaay up in order to make sense of the dialogue, and then when the music surged we were deafened. Anyway, I was having a hard time paying attention because I kept hearing… something. A faint something or other. A high-pitched squeak somewhere off in the distance. There had been some fireworks earlier, so I figured the sounds were bottle rockets. But I couldn’t relax. Well, I thought, I’ll just check the child. I’m sure it’s nothing, but, you know, can’t hurt to check.
So I walked over to the stairs and OH MY GOD THE SCREAMING. THERE WAS SO MUCH SCREAMING. I tore ass up the stairs and there was my child, still lying down (it never occurs to him to stand up, he is so good and I am so bad), his face red and mottled, his head and the surrounding environs utterly soaked in tears. He must have been crying for a half an hour, at least. I never did figure out why he was so upset, because when I threw myself at him and scooped him up, all he could tell me was, and I quote, “I was crying so much and you didn’t come.” Wow. For the next half hour or so he snuffled into my neck while I read him stories and considered ritual disembowelment as a way to alleviate my guilt. Surely a little seppuku would convince Henry that I didn’t mean to ignore him! Surely!
The end! How dramatic that story seemed, before I wrote it. “I didn’t hear my son and so he cried.” Thank you, World Wide Webs, for showing me how silly I am. How negligent, yes, but also how silly.
I have so much more to write about but I’m so tired. Next: my near-death (or near-ankle fracture) experience on the subway and my interview on Bravo. Anticipate!
Reader Comments (50)
But what I hear is "Mami, you are so selfish and evil and I am scarred for life and shall run away with my driver's ed instructor when I am sixteen right before I become a scientologist."
I've decided to save my ritual disembowelment for a time when it will have the maximum effect--maybe her wedding night?
So...anticipating...please don't make it too long, OK?
oh gosh, the guilt. I even feel guilty that I laughed. Poor Henry. Poor you.
And how did your dad cope with LOB?
And I am pretty sure that disembowelment would be counter-productive in the calming down dept!
Actually I wrote this post to make Julie feel better. I mean, we all know she's the bad mother. Right? We know that?
Oh! Sorry ... just finished my blog on the crap on Julia's blog ...*sigh*
See, I can totally relate. My Boy, age 3, has devised a system of working paint-peeling SCREAMS into his cries so as to be heard (very large, rambly farmhouse - can't hear from one end to the other).
-Blue
Also, your template looks really weird in Safari, but it's good in Firefox.
But that only happened one time and it's been a long time since I've even thought about it. Despite that dramatically traumatic event, we've all recovered perfectly.
So, the good news is that even though it was horrible at the time and you may think of it and cringe from time to time over the next month or two... a year or so from now you won't even remember it happened. Either of you. (And, I'm sure you already know that!)
But that only happened one time and it's been a long time since I've even thought about it. Despite that dramatically traumatic event, we've all recovered perfectly.
So, the good news is that even though it was horrible at the time and you may think of it and cringe from time to time over the next month or two... a year or so from now you won't even remember it happened. Either of you. (And, I'm sure you already know that!)
bravo? you're a tease!
But now? All better?
Bravo? What? Don't wait so long next time. I don't think I can take the suspense.
My kids would also lie in the bed and cry until I explained to them that when they woke up they could get up, quietly and come find me. The exact same thing happened to us at my sisters house. Once I gave them permission to get out of the bed and told them what to do, they were fine, and we never went through that kind of trauma again.