Actual Unretouched Photo

You might change your opinion of me when I tell you this.

I’ve never watched Law & Order. Or Dynasty. And I hate chicken wings.

So, tonight, I exercised (two months, every day, let’s hear it for commitment!) and then I went to the grocery story ostensibly to buy cat food. On the way, a car pulled out in front of me at an intersection–my light turned green and this oncoming car noticed that her light turned green, too, so she immediately turned left. If I’d been a little less observant and driving a cooler, hotter, faster car than my 1993 Mercury Sable (boring ice blue), perhaps I would have rammed into the side of her smallish vehicle. But I was paying attention. And my car meanders.

The SUV next to me, however, in the right lane, very nearly crashed into the inattentive driver’s car. We all paused in the middle of the intersection. I couldn’t go further because the erring driver’s car was in front of me. She couldn’t move out of my way because the SUV was blocking her way. The SUV wouldn’t get out of the way because he first had to roll down his window and rebuke the inattentive driver with great drama and extra finger-wagging and maybe even some harsh language. I’m just guessing.

I simply honked my horn in a “GET OUT OF THE WAY YOU IDIOT” sort of pleasant pattern. The light turned red and finally, the lecture ended and the SUV moved, so the inattentive car moved and then I moved.

I went for cat food and spent $96 because I remembered things here and there I must have. For instance, potato chips and Tostitos (Restaurant Style) for the Super Bowl on Sunday. And four avacados and french onion dip. The triumph of the Seahawks hinges on the adequate consumption of junk food in my house. I also decided hot dogs (with chili) would be an excellent meal on Super Bowl Sunday. I remembered to buy relish, too, for my husband. And chili, no beans.

I forgot the buns, though, because my formerly reliable, outstanding and exquisite memory is failing one bun at a time. I hate that. I still have supreme confidence in my abilities, but shaky performance. Kind of like my Mercury Sable. Only without the empty waterbottles on my floorboards and old Sunday School papers tucked in my pockets.

In real life, I prefer not to call attention to myself, so I am mystified by my recent post proclaiming my own birthday. What’s wrong with me? Perhaps it’s old age breaking down my inhibitions.

Yesterday morning, I took my daughter to the grocery store to buy essentials: milk, bread, cookies and $107 worth of groceries when it was all said and done. My little girl sat in the cart, so she was positioned perfectly to transfer everything to the conveyor belt. Which she did, by herself, no help from Mommy required. She wore a sundress, tights and hot-pink Converse Chuck Taylors . She looked ridiculous and charming, so much that every menopausal woman in the story smiled and tried to chat with her. (Her Royal Majesty of the Pink High-Tops wouldn’t answer a single question nor make eye contact.)

I spent my birthday afternoon getting my hair cut. My poor stylist. I said, “Okay, see? I don’t want to look like a cocker spaniel. You know what I mean? See this? Ears? No. Too much length. But no layers. I hate layers. Layers make me look like Little Orphan Annie. You know what I mean? And my bangs. I think I need more bangs. What do you think? They are thinning a little and can you fix that? I want a sort of a bob, but not too short. And not like a mushroom. The curl is natural, yes. See, how it’s weighed down and flat on my head, but like a cocker spaniel down here?” I went on for five incoherent minutes while she squinted at me and finally pulled out a book full of hairstyles. We settled on a style and at one point, they were straightening my hair, two of them at once, tugging and burning the curl out of my locks. I went home with super-straight, silky hair, in contrast to my normal Ronald McDonald bouffant.

I was home only an hour or two, long enough to cook dinner and tidy up a little. My mother came over half an hour late to watch the children. As we drove, I telephoned the restaurant–they won’t take reservations for parties of less than six people–and asked to be put on the waiting list. Good thing I used the telephone girl’s name (“Stephanie”), when we arrived because they had no trace of us on their list and the waiting time was up to an hour and a half. When I said, “Well, I talked to Stephanie,” she whirled around and said, “That’s me!”

We waited only fifteen minutes, then sat in a corner table where we could see the sky darken from gray to black before our dinners arrived. We gazed at the lit-up ferry as it slid up to the dock nearby and I said, “We need to take the kids on a ferry this summer.” Two tables were full of high school kids in formal gowns and tuxedos. I only wish we’d been right next to them so I could have eavesdropped successfully.

Dinner was excellent and my husband was in fine form, making me laugh. We really ought to go out more often.

Last night, I watched “The Beach” on DVD. I’d recently read the book and wanted to see the movie in its entirety. (I’ve seen bits of it on the Oxygen network.) I was most fascinated by the special features, specifically the director’s commentary about deleted scenes. Of course, the book was better than the movie. Books are always better than the movies.

This morning, my daughter insisted on wearing a Barbie ballerina costume to church, which I allowed. I simply dressed her in a black turtleneck and black pants and her pink Chuck Taylors. She looked endearing in a crazy sort of way. Sadly, I didn’t get a photograph. She reminded me of that guy who dressed like the tooth fairy on some television commerical. Only smaller and more adorable and with blond curls.

We napped together, she and I, for two glorious hours, during which time I had an insane dream involving Mexican guys keying my car and two baby alligators in my garage and my daughter wandering the street due to my carelessness and my husband scolding me for driving in a dangerous residential area in Houston.

When we woke, she informed me we’d be going around the block and I knew better than to argue. I pointed out that she’d have to get dressed and that it was cold and rainy. We made it only halfway around, she on her tricycle, me walking, when she decided to turn back. She parked her trike, then we started off again, splashing through puddles and veritable streams on the side of the road. It’s rained thirty-eight out of the last forty days and half our driveway is a pond large enough to cover the tops of yellow rubber boots.

Can you believe this recitation of my weekend? I feel like I should be writing it on notebook paper and turning it in for a grade to my creative writing teacher who would then ask me to please rewrite and use more interesting details and embellishments. Have you learned nothing from James Frey? she’d say.

I watched the Screen Actor’s Guild Awards tonight. My favorite moment just might be Jamie Lee Curtis stumbling and then regaining her balance while she came down the stairs. And I was pleased that “Crash” won for Best Film Ensemble. And Reese Witherspoon won, which is perfect.

Then I sobbed during the end of Grey’s Anatomy, which can mean only one thing.

I’m not menopausal yet, despite being fortysomething.

(Thank you, everyone, for the birthday greetings. I appreciate it.)

The rain falls today on my 41st birthday, also known as The Day the Challenger Space Shuttle Exploded and National De-Lurk on Mel’s Blog Day.

Later, after I’ve had my hair styled and blown straight, only to become frizzy again before dinner’s over, and I’ve feasted on seafood while gazing at a gray Puget Sound view, I will be back. To contemplate my journey, my recollections, my oldness.

Meanwhile, won’t you please, please, please delurk and say hello? (Pick a post–it doesn’t even have to be this one–and share your thoughts.) I know you’re out there–my handy-dandy stat counter tells me so!

And if you prefer not to delurk and wish me happy birthday? Well, then send cash.

While you’re at it, go over to Dave’s blog and wish him happy birthday, too. He was born today, too, thirty-six years ago.

Have a great day (in my honor)!

Oh boy, do I love the fury of Oprah–directed at someone else, of course. I think I would shrivel up and melt into a green puddle on the floor just like that wicked witch on the Wizard of Oz who was splashed with water if Oprah ever directed that grim-faced look at me.

I hardly ever watch Oprah because her show comes on at 4:00 p.m. when my house is usually full of children and I’m trying to think up and cook dinner while juggling an assortment of flaming children. Oh wait, no flames. Just kids and juggling. But today, I made a point of turning on the show to watch James Frey look at her with dead eyes and a dry mouth while she demanded to know what was truth and what was false.

Poor James Frey. I mean, sure, he lied and capitalized on his lies, but I felt sorry for him anyway, even though I like the ticked off version of Oprah. I like a person who does not tolerate nonsense. I admire that in a person.

I never read A Million Little Pieces. I probably won’t, either, now that I know it’s basically false. I read an excerpt and I found his writing style unimpressive anyway. And I have twenty dozen books stacked up to read. (I am not lying. Twenty dozen, at least. No exaggeration.)

Right now, I’m almost finished with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and although it makes me feel about as old as a Pet Rock, I like it. No, I don’t like feeling as old as a Pet Rock, but I like this book, even though I’m really really really far outside of Dave Eggers’ demographic.

In other news . . . there is no other news.

Setting: My desk
Time: 10:45 a.m.
Characters:
Middle-aged mother–(cocker-spaniel hairstyle, old blue Eddie Bauer sweatshirt, well-worn Eddie Bauer jeans, Minnetonka suede slippers, no make-up)
Pre-teen son–(reluctant student, hand-me-down Army long-sleeved t-shirt, gray sweatpants, bare feet, bed-head hairstyle)

Mother: Okay, let’s review. Who was the founder of Maryland?

Son: I can’t do this! It’s too hard! (Wail, shout, stomp.)

Mother: Cecil Calvert. Remember this: Mmmmmmm-Maryland, Cee-cee. Get it? Cee-cee, mmmmm, Cecil Calvert, Cee-cee, Mmmmm-Maryland. Okay? Now, write this down.

Son: I hate writing! I hate this! Okay, whatever! Are we almost done?

Mother: No. Now, who was the founder of Georgia?

Son, shrieking: I don’t know! Mom, I feel weird, so weird. (Begin rocking back and forth. Clutch stomach.) I can’t do this. I’m sick, my head hurts!

Mother: Remember, James Oglethorpe, see the “O” and the “G”? Oh-glethorpe? Oh and Gee. Okay? Oglethorpe. James Oglethorpe. And why did he found Georgia? Do you remember? Georgia has an “o” and a “g”, just like Oglethorpe. Get it?

Son: No! No! I can’t do this! It’s too hard!

Mother: Okay. Write it down. He founded Georgia so debtors from England had a place to go. Remember? Debtors. Write it. James O-G-L-E-T-H-O-R-P-E. Okay.

Son: I want to hurt myself! (Slaps his own face.) I’m going to stab myself with the pencil. Arrrrrrrrrg!

Mother: What about Roger Williams? Remember him? Rhode Island? Roger Williams? Both starting with “r”. Okay? Roger Williams, founded Rhode Island.

Son: (Sways side to side.) Are we almost done? I’m hungry. Hungry! I hate writing. Okay. Rhode Island.

[Continue for forty-five minutes or until the Mother blows a vein in her head and collapses on the keyboard.]
—————————————

He finished the review. I insisted he immediately take the assessment. He dictated the answers to me.

Sigh. Why was that so hard? He passed easily.

I want to talk about having a point of view and about how we come to see the world through our own unique set of eyeglasses. But I just can’t tonight. I have sudden onset of adult attention deficit disorder which scrambled my brain like a half dozen eggs.

I can’t think straight. That’s what will happen to you if seventy-five percent of your children are ill, but only vaguely under the weather so that they merely behave like hooligans, shrieking and chasing and then whining and crying when they fall and whack their heads on the couch. And then you start to regret keeping the 7-year old home from school with his sore throat because, really, he seems fine, though sniffling and coughing from time to time, usually in the direction of a baby’s bottle.

And my cat seems ill. I need to make an appointment for her to see the vet tomorrow. I also need to make an appointment to have my mop hair cut and I want an appointment on Saturday, but I can’t make the appointment because I have some kind of mental disorder which makes me pathologically reluctant to dial the number and make an appointment for any reason, no matter how important or mundane. But my colorist is coming on Friday night and surely, surely the planets will align and my stylist (I can’t remember her name, it’s been so long) will have an appointment just for me on Saturday. At one-ish, so I will look tremendously stunning for my birthday dinner.

I’m middle-aged. This didn’t used to bother me, but then again, I didn’t used to be middle-aged. When I turned twenty-six, I was despondent, but that was because I wanted a fetus in my uterus and my uterus was uncooperative, to say the least. So, I was working at an insurance company in the correpondence department, earning a fairly decent salary, enjoying flex-time, excellent healthcare benefits, including dental and eyecare . . . and yet, I couldn’t stop crying in the bathroom because all I wanted was to be a Mom with a capital “M.” I thought all my dreams would come true if only I were parenting an impressionable infant who adored me.

And then we adopted twins who had the temerity to throw fits in my general direction and to poop on the carpet when I had my back turned and to disregard my preference for sleeping past 7 a.m. I turned out to still have issues, financial issues, identity crisis issues, loneliness issues, and bad-hair issues. I know. How can anyone be so short-sighted? But I was. I pinned all my hopes and dreams on a drooling human being who would be dependent on me for its twenty-four hour entertainment needs.

Ha.

Where was I? Oh, so when I turned twenty-six, two years after my dad died, two years into the black hole of infertility, two years into a job that bored me silly, I was a mite depressed. No other birthday has bothered me. But as I mentioned, back then I wasn’t middle-aged. And now I am.

My mother is only twenty-two years older than me, which sounds like a lot, right? Two decades and a little more . . . yet, I can remember twenty-two years ago and I’m scared because it doesn’t seem so distant. Twenty-two years ago, I was in my first year of college. I remember the weather (brittle cold, windy, trees starkly naked), the clothes I wore (a blue dress with a ruffled neckline that I constantly tugged up), the status of my hair (permed and shoulder length), the weird taste of the chocolate shakes in the Student Union. I remember my shoes (black low heels with interlocking circles of leather that were slightly too big and slipped off if I walked too fast), my friend’s braces (Wilma*joy, only seventeen and overly enthusiastic), the round moon at night whose beauty made me want to weep while I strolled back to my dorm from the library.

Twenty-two years is not that long. And my mother? She just got a cane. A cane! Her lifetime of avoiding physical exertion and neglecting her body while buying yet another pair of lime green ballet flats with matching purse has caught up with her. She winces when she walks. She unbends slowly when she stands, taking as long as a drawbridge to stretch upright.

I do not want to be her. I want to be energetic and physically fit and able to run up the stairs and stoop down to pick up a fork off the floor. I know I can’t do much about the crepepaper state of my eyelids or the age spots (age spots!)on my hands. Age is inevitable–preferable, really, when you consider the alternative–but I’m a little irritated by the physical changes which are happening without my permission. (Yes, I’m talking about you spider veins!)

I wished today that I could see myself side by side, standing next to the sixteen year old me and the twenty-five year old me. I judged myself so harshly then, measured myself against impossible standards and then berated myself for not meeting them. I’d like to apologize to the me of the past.

Now? Now I try to be gentle. I try not to criticize myself for things I cannot control. I stand up straight and welcome another birthday and I would be extremely pleased if only I could once and for all settle on a grown-up hairstyle which would take into account both my natural curls, my unruly cowlicks, my desire for straight hair and which would eliminate my default look, which we liked to call “Weary Cocker Spaniel.”

On the other hand, my grandmother is ninety-nine and if I live that long, I’m not even half-way there.

But I still need a hairstyle.

Monday again. Well, almost Tuesday now, actually. The sun shone today, perhaps in celebration of yesterday’s Seattle Seahawks victory over the Carolina Panthers. (Sorry, MaryKay!) For once, I’ll have a reason to watch the Superbowl, other than the commercials. What’s sad is that my husband, the true Sports Fan in our house, didn’t get to watch the game at all. He preached yesterday, then had a meeting, then did a funeral, then had another meeting. I watched it in his stead, however, and thus had a messy house to clean up this morning.

But good news! We have a fancy new car in our driveway tonight.

But bad news! It’s a rental car, providing us transportion since our pathetic little 1993 Mercury Sable abruptly stopped running this afternoon while my husband drove home from a lunch meeting.

But good news! This happened in town, nor far from the church. If the car stalled on I-5, he might have been in a terrible crash. We hope it’s something simple and cheap to repair. We’re trying to hold off another year before we buy a new car. The Deathtrap (aka our 1991 Chevy Astro van) has already died. Now we just have to figure out what to do with the corpse. We’re down to one feeble car.

For the past seven minutes, my eyes have wandered this red-striped family room while I half-listen to the news and try to pin down some of the thoughts that drifted through my brain today. I usually contemplate at least one (seemingly) profound thought in the shower each morning and often watch as clouds of ideas breeze through during the day, but alas, this is a day in which my brain has been swept clean, possibly by too many cans of Diet Coke with Lime, too little sleep, too much laundry and chilly fingers and toes.

I got nothing. But have no fear! I’ll be back tomorrow.

[Disclaimer: This is one of my rare politically charged posts. Please skip this is my anti-abortion stance will cause your brain to explode and/or make you want to slap me for being insensitive. I have a point of view and sometimes, I throw caution to the wind and express it. You are free to express your opposing point of view, too, of course, but please, be gentle.]

I clipped this newspaper article by George Will last April. Mr. Will cites the case of a fetus in Britain who was aborted at 28 weeks gestation because it was prenatally diagnosed with a cleft lip and palate. Apparently, this fit the British law that abortion is permitted only when “there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.”

I wonder what Bobby Martin, a boy who was born without arms or legs, but who ended up playing high school football (and appearing on Oprah) would think about that? What is his parents took a look at an ultrasound picture and gasped, “Oh no! We don’t want a boy without limbs.”

No one would blame them. Right? Why bring a child into the world only to suffer?

The case I saw on television the other night would certainly fit the criteria for abortion in Britain. The doctors can’t even diagnose this child, a now-twelve year old girl who hasn’t grown beyond the physical size and mental capacity of a six-month old baby. What purpose does such a life serve? Wouldn’t she (and her long-suffering family) be better off if she hadn’t been born?

Then I turned the channel and saw the amazing story of these children and young adults who communicate almost entirely through music. Though their cognitive and communicative skills are impaired, they all display an amazing aptitude and passion for music, specifically the piano. These children with different abilities face difficulties in their lives most of us cannot even imagine. Would we choose to let them live, if the choice were ours to make?

Not all women take advantage of prenatal testing. What happens when a devastatingly imperfect baby is born? Well, in the Netherlands (land of my ancestry, I might point out) “the Groningen Protocol, as the hospital’s guidelines have come to be known, would create a legal framework for permitting doctors to actively end the life of newborns deemed to be in similar pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities.”

Child euthanasia remains illegal everywhere else. Unless, of course, the child is still a fetus, in which case, in the United States, abortion laws which essentially allow abortion at any time. Did you know that “U.S. abortion law, in terms of how late an abortion may take place, is far more permissive than that of other nations such as France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, for example.”?

The Associated Press article by Linda A. Johnson published on March 10, 2005, concludes, “Experts said the Dutch report [of newborn "mercy killings"] will generate discussion but won’t change American opinion or practices.”

I’m sure that’s true. After all, almost ninety-two percent of American abortions aren’t done because a baby is imperfect. They are done for the following reasons:

25.5% Want to postpone childbearing
21.3% Cannot afford a baby
14.1% Has relationship problem or partner does not want pregnancy
12.2% Too young; parent(s) or other(s) object to pregnancy
10.8% Having a child will disrupt education or job
7.9% Want no (more) children

Not because the fetus has no arms and legs. Not because the fetus is missing a chromosome or has an extra one. Not because the fetus is doomed to die of a birth defect at birth anyway. Not even because the mother’s life is in danger.

No. Most abortions are done because of convenience, not the “health” and “life” of the mother, but for her convenience. While our laws bend over backwards to give women the right to abort a baby which might endanger her life–you know the rhetoric, the heart-tugging stories–almost a million conceived human beings are aborted per year. Dramatic stories (like the boy with no arms and legs and his triumph in life) are matched by dramatic stories of women in terrible, disturbing, horrific circumstances. And I’ll agree that there are ethically challenging cases where difficult choices must be made.

But most unborn human beings are simply obliterated for other reasons. Ninety-two percent of aborted fetuses, gone. Over thirty-three million human beings since abortion was legalized.

And if you are a black fetus in America, you have an even higher chance of being aborted before birth. “In the 41 areas for which race was adequately reported, approximately 55% of women who obtained legal induced abortions were known to be white, 35% were black, and 7% were of other races; for 3% of the women, race was unknown. The abortion ratio for black women (503 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (167 per 1,000 live births). Additionally, the abortion ratio for women of other races (329 per 1,000 live births) was 2.0 times the ratio for white women. The abortion rate for black women (30 per 1,000 women) was 3.1 times the rate for white women (10 per 1,000 women), whereas the abortion rate for women of other races (22 per 1,000 women) was 2.2 times the rate for white women.”

Only 12.9% of our population is black, yet 35% of the women who obtained abortions in 2000 were black.

Why isn’t Ray Nagin outraged by that? Where is Kanye West’s outcry?

Thirty-three years ago, abortion became legal in the United States. Happy anniversary. Aren’t we all so much happier now?

[Check out Barbara Curtis' post on this topic over at Mommylife. She's the mother of 12, including childen with Down Syndrome, and a former abortion-rights crusader.

[Edited to remove reference to Ann Coulter from the post, but you can check out her radical viewpoint here.] I hate for the point of my post to be lost in the distaste many have for Ann Coulter.]

Doing this.

And while I’m inordinately proud of my 22/33 score, I loathe myself for being unable to get all 33.

The rain still falls, but at least this month is nearly over.

Update: Man, you guys are smart! I am mightily impressed! (The answers can be found, by the way, if you click on “FAQ” at the bottom of the page and look awhile on the next page. I was able to get up to 25/33, but gave up . . . there are some I’ve never even heard of, some I was close. It’s always fun to think that you’re really smart, though, at least for an hour or two.)

The notice hanging on the bulletin board of my dormitory caught my eye. Someone wanted to hire a live-in nanny for the summer. I did not want to go home for the summer. So, I called the number.

The woman and her friend came to interview me at my college student union. I can’t remember anything of the interview, but afterwards, I was desperately hoping for the job, sure I wouldn’t get it. And then she called and said, “I just felt like God was telling me to take you under my wing. So, you’re hired.” I must have sounded pathetic with my tale of divorced parents and not wanting to go home for the summer. Whatever the reason, I was thrilled.

I’m sure it broke my dad’s heart, but at the time, that never occurred to me. I was determined not to return to my suburban home, to a job at a fast-food restaurant or worse. A job as a nanny sounded exciting.

The first day, the 10-year old boy called me “fat,” and nicknamed me “Mamabahama.” I was not amused. In addition to the 10-year old, I was in charge of a 7-year old girl, a 5-year old boy and a 6-week old baby. Their mother didn’t have a job outside the house, but her husband was a doctor and she wanted help over the summer. I was the help. I was the playmate, the idea-gal, the errand-runner. I was the relief pitcher, the back-up mom, the one who walked that fussy baby for miles back and forth on the hardwood floors until she slept. I grocery-shopped, took kids to amusement parks, drove the car on long trips.

I lived next door in an apartment attached to the neighbor’s house. Goldie, the wrinkled and tan landlord, was said to be an alcoholic, but I never saw evidence of that. The apartment was furnished with the same kind of gold fake-Americana furniture I’d left behind in my suburb. A few Reader’s Digest condensed novels lined a shelf. I had practically nothing, hardly any clothes, even.

One night, I opened the door and flipped on the overhead light to see a scattering of cockroaches on the floor. I sprang into action, terrified, inexperienced, but fierce. I grabbed juice glasses from the cupboard and trapped a cockroach under each one. I’m sure I squealed like a girl during this battle, freaked out completely. I’d never seen a cockroach before in my young, sheltered life.

The problem, of course, occurred when I finished catching cockroaches beneath glasses. I couldn’t crunch a bug skeleton. I still can’t. I had no bug spray. What’s a nineteen year old girl to do? I lived alone, remember, with a mostly invisible alcoholic landlord. And I’ve never been one to ask for help.

So I did what any clever girl would do. I slid paper under the glasses and carried the whole contraption to the toilet where I dumped the cockroaches one by one into the toilet bowl. My system broke down, however, when a particularly boisterous cockroach–the last one– scrambled on the thin paper, causing me to panic, screech and fling my hands up in a girlish display of fear. When I did so, the glass somersaulted and landed in the toilet, broken upon impact. The cockroach crawl stroked past the jagged edge, laughing.

Not to be outdone despite my racing pulse, I ran for the kitchen and grabbed the Dawn dish-washing liquid and squirted until the cockroach passed out from laughing or smothered in the bubbles. I’m not sure which. Then I gingerly extracted the broken glass from the toilet, flushed and shuddered.

I didn’t have a television, so I read those condensed novels and part of Mario Puzo’s The Godfather. But mostly, I worked.

And those kids hated me, especially the 10-year old boy. I cut them no slack. One day, I’d taken them to Silver Dollar City and the boy purchased a plastic comb fashioned to look like a switchblade. He tormented his siblings on the way home, continually flicking them. I told him, “If you do that again, I will take that from you.” And he did. And I did. And then the parents questioned me and as I recall, very reluctantly backed me up.

He was a trial, that boy. His sister was 7, easy as pie. The 5-year old boy was dreamy, distracted, adorable. I remember him with his feet on the breakfast table, a sticky cereal spoon in his hair. The baby was a girl, too, and a fussy thing. My job involved walking up the gravel road, cradling that baby in my arms until she slept. Blackberry vines reached out with thorny arms to scratch me, the mosquitoes and their loud-Missouri bug cousins shrieked in my ears. We in the Pacific Northwest might have too much rain, but we do not have bugs that whistle and click and holler and shout like those southern bugs do. I never got used to that outdoor noise at Tablerock Lake.

Nor did I ever grow comfortable with the idea that cottonmouth snakes lurked under the dock. We do not have poisonous swimming snakes, either, in my home state. But the kids swam, and so I had to swim, too. The back yard sloped down to the shores of Tablerock Lake and the view was pretty (for the Ozark so-called Mountains). Sometimes we went for boat rides, but mostly, we sat on the dock, sometimes catching tiny fish with kernels of corn on our hooks.

I hated that summer. I liked the mother quite well. Aside from the 10-year old, I grew fond of the children. But I was lonely, desperately lonely for my new college friends, and far from my home in Washington state. I hated the hot humid weather. Friends came to visit a few times and my sisters and stepmother stopped by for a couple of days. I received letters from friends, which helped sate my loneliness some, but I was a giant black hole of loneliness. I was unfillable at the point in my life and pretty much everything good leaked out the bottom of my broken heart.

And so I wasn’t a very good nanny.

That summer, we drove to Cedar Park for vacation, then on to West Virginia to stay with grandparents. Another time, we went to New Orleans, but I stayed in a round hotel with the baby the entire time we were there. Once, the father had a car accident (a race car accident, if I recall correctly) and the mother had to rush out of town and the housekeeper and I were in charge of all the children for a few scary days.

We went to a cultish little Pentecostal church which freaked me out almost as much as the cockroaches, even though I’d been raised in a Pentecostal church my whole life. We had season’s passes to Silver Dollar City and a water-park, which was the scene of the worst sunburn of my life. We rode bikes, did crafts, went to the library.

I earned five hundred dollars a month. Plus room and board. And when I started, she took me to Wal-Mart and bought me frumpy culottes, a horrifying sort of uniform.

But I was grateful. I earned my own way for a whole summer and I triumphed over cockroaches. And when I returned to school, things went from bad to worse, but that’s a story for another day.

So what was your worst summer job?