I would never say that a trip to an urgent care center is pleasant, either for the patient, or the harried caregiver.  We all know that, and we pack snacks and niceties and good attitudes and sick little babies and we trudge on.  HOWEVER.  I was at the (unnamed Virginia off Carlin Springs Road) Urgent Care Center tonight and had absolutely the worst experience.  It wasn’t the three hours we were there.  It wasn’t that my son was maroon-faced and feverish and impatient (he is normally stoic) and, well, SICK.  It wasn’t even the dude that was continuously listening to fart and burp noises made to sound like curse words on his cell phone thing-y and looking at me like “What, you don’t think that’s funny?”  (I might have, in eighth grade, and even then probably not in a medical waiting room.  He was about 35).

It was the pinch-faced (albeit exhausted) spindly Cee U Next Tuesday Doctor that did everything in her power to make me feel like Dreadful Mother Unlike Any Other 2009.  Follow along!

Shepherd had pneumonia about a month ago.  He took a round of antibiotics and was done with it, but never lost the boogers and I would say was never back to 100%.  Last night he didn’t sleep at all, he was babbling and incoherent and feverish, and unhappy.  This morning he had a high fever and he sounded like he did when he had the pneumonia.  We Motrin’ed him and kept him home and watched and waited.  He didn’t improve, and we were just managing a high fever with medicine.  So when we both got home, I took off with him to the UCC to see if the pneumonia was making another visit.

When we got in to see the doctor, we had been playing in the waiting room (which involved my walking/jumping/running after a now spry Shepherd) for a couple of hours and he wasn’t having any of it.  We went up his nose with a swab and into his throat with a swab and into his butt with a thermometer and into his eyes with a bright light and through all that he was a complete charmer, and I was cooperative and cheerful.  The woman just could not have been nastier.

When she first came in, she was looking at the sheet where I had written “lethargic” and “cranky” and “not himself,” and as Shepherd was bouncing off the walls, she said “Is this the same kid you filled out these forms about?”  And it wasn’t in a joking way.  It was as if she had immediately decided we were wasting her time, or that I was manufacturing symptoms.  Then she asked about the pneumonia…when was it…what did we medicate it with.  “About a month ago” and “antibiotics” were not answers that were good enough for her.  She said “About a month ago.  Was it Christmastime?”  When she wanted to know what the medication was, she barked “WHICH ONE” when I answered “antibiotics.”  Fair enough.  I fought off the urge to answer GetOffMyBacitracin or A(poxonyourfamily)icillin, and I said I could make a phone call about it and let her know.

“Who are you going to call?” she asked.  What the!?  “The pharmacy?” I squeaked.  She shrugged her shoulders (this was an actual movement!) as if to say DUH and said “Well, if you must.”  I felt like saying, “Do you need to know or not!?” but again I held my tongue.

I was about to throw up when she asked how much Motrin I had given him at 5PM (on the form I put just that…Motrin, 5PM) and I stammered…”A dropper-ful?  The appropriate amount for his weight?”  I SWEAR this woman practically threw herself on the ground she rolled her eyes so hard and she actually said “I’m not a pediatrician. (change tone to even more condescending) I’m not a mathematician. (audibly grit your teeth and appear even more whore-ish) HOW MUCH DOES HE WEIGH.”

Wait!  I know this!  28.5 pounds!!  Because we just took that weight in the hallway and it’s right in front of your evil prune-like face ON THE PIECE OF PAPER CALLED A CHART.  Do that math, Cruella.

On her way out the door, she asked through pursed lips, “Do. you. have. a. phone?”

I can hardly even finish this story.  Shepherd has a double ear infection.  They tested for strep and the flu — both negative (she almost turned inside out when I told her we hadn’t gotten him a flu shot).  The pneumonia check was…in my lay-person’s opinion, sort of LAME as she didn’t seem to be really listening to his lungs at all (I fear she could only hear the deafening roars of the crusty rotting demon inside her own chest).  This after she judged me (again. again. again.) for not demanding that the doc do a chest x-ray the last time (insert fuck-you tone…”Oh, they diagnosed him in the office?”).

I can imagine anyone reading this has had one of those days where you love your kid like crazy — said kid is not doing well, and in turn you are not doing well — and you just need help.  I thought by going to a doctor I was admitting that (I need help!) without having to wear it on a sandwich board.  I guess not.

So.  UCC Doctor woman?  Bite me.  Bite me again.  Draw blood.  Tear me open.  Leave me on the side of the road…with. my. phone, and I will get the EMTs to take me to VIRGINIA HOSPITAL CENTER to get it looked at.  Fuck OFF.

(Amy gathers herself).

In other, lighter news: Ruby informed Shaun and me on the ride home from school that soandso from Hill Preschool had seen her on the playground and announced that he wanted her to be his girlfriend.   I almost drove into a cherry blossom tree.  She chattered on about how he liked this girl and that girl but Ruby was his favorite and she thought it might be okay if he were her boyfriend but she wasn’t sure if she would go to Hill Preschool in the summer, etc. etc.  Shaun and I looked at each other and I said “What, did she turn 9 at recess today?”

She went on to tell us that Anya told her that she didn’t like kissing because it was way too spicey.

This is the kind of memory that you want to whip out on dates and prom nights and when Shaun and I are changing each other’s diapers.  Today was the first day that Ruby, four years old, correctly used the word boyfriend in a sentence.  I have blogged it.  It is so.

REM, It’s The End Of The World As We Know It

I feel like I need to call Lifetime Movie Network about our morning this morning. Only, the movie they would make about our experience would not have the happy ending that ours did. I can honestly say I have not been so scared in a while, and will need to do everything possible so that this does not happen again. Nothing even remotely like it (this is the point where more seasoned parents are flicking ashes into their ashtrays, leaning back and groaning, “YYyyyeaapp, you’re just gettin started.”)

I got great sleep last night — just a combo of (I’m sure) needing the rest and meds and a new mattress (finally! A queen-size!). Recognizing the great sleep I was getting, Shaun let me stay in slumber this morning and got up early to shower. Ruby was asleep with her little fan going just next door.

The first thing I was conscious of this morning is Shaun’s voice, filled with fear, screaming Ruby’s name. I shot up and immediately grabbed my robe and lumbered into the hall and down the stairs.

Ruby the Explorer? She was OUTSIDE. Our front door. On a busy Washington, DC street. In her pajamas, pacifier and all. Going, apparently, for a walk.

I shot past Shaun (well, shlubbed) and got Ruby’s little hand (by this time she was headed back to the house having heard her father) and brought her back inside. The next ten minutes are a blur of trying to scare the shit out of her without scaring the shit out of her — wondering WHAT HAPPENED? and trying not to throw up.

I can’t even let myself (all day!) think about even the next one minute of this morning if we had not gotten down there.

There are lots of factors that led to the “security breakdown.” Shaun needed a towel, or had to go downstairs for something, and when he came back up, he didn’t shut the baby gate. In order to let me sleep, he had shut my door (normally it’s open and Ruby makes a beeline for it when she wakes up). We still don’t know why she didn’t poke her head into the bathroom, or why she didn’t come and get me. I guess the open baby gate (and ROAD) were just too inviting.

If you google mapped our house? You would see MAJOR THOROUGHFARES through our capital city. Tour buses and police cars and buses from the DC jail and commuters coming in from Maryland go whizzing down our street starting in the wee hours.

See, I can’t even type about it. I’ve been pacing all day getting the image of her little flowery pajama leg being the only thing we can see of her as we run down the street towards a crowd of people. I feel like I could just lie down and wail for the rest of the afternoon.

Alas, I am on my way to Frager’s Hardware to get about twenty of these suggested items. Or maybe just a roll of this to keep her in bed.

Sweet Heaven, what a morning.

Note: We do have a deadbolt on the door, which is up higher than I would have thought her little hands can reach. We also have a security gate on the door, which is hard for a lot of adults to open. She opened both. We checked both before bed. Kids? They watch everything.

Be careful with your wiley little ones. And hug ‘em. Hard.

Kate Bush, Running Up That Hill

I’m in Atlanta visiting my brother and his family. His brand new-ish son is delicious! And, it puts a lot less stress on the pelvis to snuggle with a 15-lb. baby that coos and gurgles than it does to tackle a 35-lber running away from you at high speeds with fistfuls of cheese and sharp objects.

I do miss Miss Ruby though — I hear great little stories of pick-up time and bedtime and bathtime. My favorite from yesterday, relayed to me by Shaun, was her response to whether or not she had sung any new songs at school. “No Daddy,” she said, completely seriously, “I stood in the winter chill and froze like a popsicle.” The winter chill? You’d think we were raising Edgar Allen Poe. Come on.

I flew down here on a near-empty flight, at an off time on a Sunday morning. It was very nice to not get knocked around and have to stand for long periods of time waiting for security or check-in. I haven’t flown in a while, or at least since I was able to pay attention to anything but toddler-wrangling…

I noticed that the sign in the lavatory warned of a $2,200 fine if one was caught smoking. What an odd number. I can remember a time in my smoking life when I would have paid $50 or $60 in order to smoke on a plane, but $2,200 really does kick it up into the bad idea realm.

At “snacktime,” the flight attendants announced the many kinds of snacks you could choose from — actually a nice array of sweet versus savory — nuts, chips, cookies, granola. I went with cream cheese and chive (the powdered variety) crackers and a water. The gal next to me ordered biscotti, and the man across the aisle went with the peanuts. I got a little pack of six crackers — not unlike the ones you would buy at the checkout counter of a gas station. The flight attendant then handed three packs of biscotti to my neighbor, and five little bags of peanuts to the nut guy. ?? I don’t know if it’s the ex-fat-girl in me, but I immediately began to question my decision and wonder if I should have gone with something that would have yielded more volume.

Maybe if the airlines stopped giving away multiple bags of snacks (not crackers, mind you!), they wouldn’t have to charge for headphones anymore. I’m just saying.

Then, I couldn’t believe the timing, but I overheard a conversation between a mom and son behind me that broke my heart into little teeny pieces. I just talked about a video that was posted to my local Moms’ list that has not left my mind or heart in days. The African American pair behind me might as well have walked right out of the research room and onto my plane.

The boy had brought “animals” onto the plane with him — I can only assume the little plastic kind since I couldn’t see him. He took them all out (rustle, rustle) and was, I guess, arranging them onto his tray table. Again, I don’t know if these were all animals, or if there were some people mixed in — he was directly behind me. Then, I hear, “I don’t like the brown one.” My ears perked up.

Mom said “What?” and Son repeated, “I don’t like the brown one.” “Why not?” Mom asked. “I dunno,” he said, “I just don’t like the brown one.”

“Well, you’re brown,” the Mom said. “No I’m not,” he answered. “And I’m brown,” she said.”

“I’m white,” the boy insisted. My heart sank.

I didn’t hear a response to that from the Mom, and the kid (as kids do) moved on quickly to the buttons on the side of his chair, the light overhead, the clouds outside. I didn’t move on for a while, though, and still don’t know what to do to make sure that I add to The Solution and not The Problem in my little part of the world.

One way, sadly, seems to be not to read the Babar books to Ruby, or any other child. Yet another heartbreaking moment occurred when my brother and I were waiting to see his son’s pediatrician. I noticed that they had Babar’s Travels, and I squealed because I loved these books when I was little. I encouraged my brother to crack it open and read it to me and his son as we waited. He silently paged through and then stopped, as if he saw a train wreck, on a page depicting Babar and Celeste’s encounter with the “savages” on a desert island.

I remember that part of the story, and that it was exciting and nail-biting and I remember wondering, as a child, if Babar and Celeste would escape. Then, my brother turned the book to me, and I caught a glimpse of the illustration, for the first time in probably more than 30 years. The little “savages” were toting spears, dressed in red skirts and jewelry, and their faces were almost done in black-face. Their lips were exaggerated, their eyes were deranged. No wonder I was scared when I was little — but what else did this part of the story teach me? What is it still teaching kids?

I was surprised, honestly, and so sad at the same time. I loved this book!

It’s so BIG I don’t even know what to do with it, you know? Where does one even start to weed out images like this that you never even knew, as a child, were there?

Any thoughts about how to still incorporate classic children’s literature into our repertoire if it has these hidden messages? Any way to explain them away, and still enjoy the (positive) memories I have of these stories as a child? Or am I fooling myself?

Note: Here’s amazon.com’s editorial review of Babar’s Travels…

Babar and Queen Celeste have just been married in this early story from the most famous of elephantine chronicles. They depart for their honeymoon in a hot-air balloon, and at first all seems wonderful as they glide over a charming coastal town that might be St. Tropez before the advent of tourism. Alas, a storm takes them out to sea and then dumps them on a desert island. The fierce, spear-carrying “savages” who subsequently attack them will remind you that this book was written and illustrated in 1934: they are as far from politically correct as you can get. And the war between the elephants and the rhinoceroses, which ends the story, is also problematic for a modern audience. But the travels and adventures in between show all the excitement and charm that has made the Babar series an enduring hit. (Ages 2 to 6) –Richard Farr

Sorry for the long post. Off to goo-goo at the baby some more.

Presidents of the United States of America, Peaches

Dear Man at Safeway Running the Buffing Machine:

Why must you torment me so? I realize that the cereal aisle must be cleaned, at approximately the same moment that I am reaching for my husband’s brand (on sale, even). Did you notice, though? I can hardly walk, much less maneuver around your crazed path. I thought it was enough that I stepped out of the aisle entirely for you to make your first pass. Hey, look now! Are you chasing me? Did the spice aisle have to be the next on your list? I thought I had gone two aisles over, just to get out of your way.

Oh, and you know that part where my hand-held basket hit the corner of the display (because I was trying so desperately to turn the corner quickly?) and it caused me to trip and have to catch myself? That really hurt. See, my pelvis is as soft as the tip of my nose right now, and it’s all jangly and skewed. Walking, turning in bed, carrying a gallon of milk, and running from buffers are high on the list of things that are…mmm….difficult these days. I would appreciate it if you, perhaps, PAUSED a moment to let me pass. I do appreciate your buffing work — perhaps you were too busy to notice the limping woman that you almost flattened more than once in your path. And, NO, I am not just fat. I’m heavily pregnant, with a hormonal condition that’s causing the limping, and I’m in no mood to play tag with you today.

If you had actually knocked me down and permanently separated my pelvis? I could have sued you. You, Safeway, whoever. Just to be hormonal and bitchy. Because THAT I could do from my bed. While sippin’ a mocha. No big whoop.

Look out, Buffer Man.

Oh, and the deodorant? It’s in aisle 2. On the left. I’m just sayin’.

R. B. Greaves, Take a Letter Maria

…and then I think he got shot in our alley.

People! Shots again last night! What the?!

Shaun and I were making sandwiches in the kitchen and I heard a shot (ring out? Why does that sound too pleasant?) I looked out the window to the alley (as I was heading to turn out the light in my office) and saw flashes of light that corresponded with each shot (as if from a gun). I was actually scared this time…it was no less than 100 feet from me behind our back gate. By the time I called 311 they had already received a handful of calls and patrol cars were on the way. We never saw a patrol car, although I can’t say I spent much time at the window after that.

Sigh. I am, at some level, so tired of living here. It is awful to be afraid…not only of what happens around me, but then afraid of the way(s) I feel about it. I don’t want fear to define me as a person.

Shaun and I were talking recently about The Wire, a show that we have really gotten into over the last couple of years. Great comments and reviews of it here, here, and here. It’s set in Baltimore, which is close enough to DC that we can draw certain parallels. I am definitely more aware, since watching this show, of drug activity that goes on on my block. And, I am more afraid. Of my African American neighbors. There, I said it. Damnit! Not of Willa at the Safeway, or Eddie next door, but of the late-teen, early-twenties groups of black guys (and gals! Don’t kid yourself, watch The Wire!) that hang out at the corners and flash hand signs to each other and then walk, quickly, with their folded newspapers to passing cars for hand-offs.

We’ve even said we need to stop watching this show. My fears build and become more irrational every week. Will we get caught in a shoot-out over some deal-gone-bad? Will a junkie needing money shove me into my house and beat me up for money or stuff when I’m getting the mail? Will someone need my car to get away one day as I am pulling in with groceries and my daughter!? I can’t even think about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are scary people everywhere. And, we are moving to Colorado! Home of Columbine and this other recent debacle involving a school shooting. So, that takes care of it! Instead of being shot by a black hoodlum in our alley, Ruby can get shot by a white nut-job at her school. Or, we could escape it all and move to Amish country. Aaaaaaahhh!

Today is definitely one of those days when I will not be watching the news.

And, if I were an African American person, I wonder how I would feel about The Wire? Anyone? Before you write that it’s “just a television show,” the producers have said that they have had to water down some of the violence they observed in the few years they researched and prepared for the show, to be fit for TV.

I think I need to find that big box of Little House on the Prairie videos and heat me up some apple cider. All, of course, done far from the back windows this morning.

Before we went to bed last night, Shaun decided he wasn’t going to take the garbage out after dark anymore. He added “The good thing about this time is that if there are bodies scattered in the alley, they’re in a good spot for trash pick-up.”

Be safe, people.

Rod Stewart, Young Turks (I have no explanation for this other than it won’t stop looping around in my head)

I really need the DC Kinko’s people to step up. Seriously.

When I first saw this this training video by Dave Chappelle, I had yet to really experience the customer service he was talking about. My father worked at a Kinko’s when he was laid off from a job years ago, and I knew of people who would come in specifically when they knew he was working. I just thought this was because Kinko’s rocked — it couldn’t possibly be because my Dad rocked, right?

In hindsight, Dad rocked because Kinko’s is a nightmare. Every now and then you’ll run into a fairly pleasant person — but even in those circumstances, said rep is severely limited by Kinko’s (“The Man”) as to what they can do to help you. Case in point, last weekend I was the co-hostess of a baby shower. I needed some labels to stick on goodie bags. Simple enough, yes? But, the Kinko’s near me (and the next closest was in…Atlanta?) didn’t have the label paper, and even if they did, they don’t print labels in color. Something about the ink having to go through a roller? The paper? Something. I just remember thinking “This is a copy shop. Perhaps they should get machines that can Overcome. Copy. Challenges.”

My sister ended up running the labels for me on her dinky inkjet at home. On paper we bought, oh I dunno, at CVS!?

Should I talk about how great the people at the Kinko’s in Colorado were when I went there? Or are y’all sick of my midwestern love affair? What. Ever. All I can say is that the project I took in there (weeks earlier, when the invitations to said shower needed to be printed) was done, perfectly, while I waited.

Sweet Lord. I promise to pick this up a bit on Love Thursday tomorrow.

REM, Finest Worksong

News from our DC Office this morning: the Firehook Bakery right next-door was held up by a couple of wild-eyed city dwellers using tasers as weapons. What the!? “I Need Some Lunchtime Crack” meets “Star Wars.”

This is what I am afraid of people. The Re-entry. Into a place where this is normal!

Monday morning thoughts in DC:

“I wonder if there will be a taser-toting ass-clown in the Firehook Bakery this morning.”

“Another shooting on the Hill? Well, it was three blocks away…we’re completely cool over here.”

“How many of my [trash] Super Cans need to be stolen before I just start whinging trash into the alley from the upstairs window?”

Monday morning thoughts in Colorado:

“How is it that Moose eats the same thing every day, and only occasionally has mind-numbing gas?”

“Do I have time (read: 4.5 minutes) to pick up a coffee on my way to work? (additional note: coffee pick-ups happen at one of three places — none of which have ever catered to a wild-eyed anyone).

“Would I be more comfortable in this outfit with or without underpants? You know, more jiggle, but less wriggle.”

Tasers. Come On!

Last night, Ruby started crying at about midnight. I leapt up from my desk and went zipping upstairs, because something certainly had to be wrong. We’ve been so lucky — for two years we have put her in bed between 7 and 8 and she has slept like a soft little log until 7 or 8. So, of course, when she cried, I went up there!

“I want some water,” she said, as I went into her room.

“That I can do,” I thought, and gave her a little Dixie cup of water.

“Wanna see Dennis,” was next. Dennis had visited us earlier in the evening and helped me pack some things up in the basement. He brought her a groovy jacket for her birthday (and an equally groovy hat), which she then wanted to find, try on, ask about and ask about and ask about.

Then, Popcorn! An entirely original thought at midnight — she wanted some popcorn. And…to know where Daddy was and Moose was and Nonnie was and Grandpops was and Grandpa Lynn was and Grandma was and Aunt Carrie was and Fred was and Aunt Jenny was and Andrew was and Uncle Roger was and Aunt Keren was and oh, she sure would like some more water too. And to watch some TV. And paint.

So last night I caved (because even if I could have handled The Screaming, I figured our neighbor Eddie could not) and brought her downstairs. Before I knew it we were eating popcorn and watching TV. Granted, we were watching “SuperNanny” and I was pointing out all the bad behaviors of the children and saying “See, they all have to go to bed now.” Finally, we both turned in again at about 2AM !! in the same bed. Every time I started to do the dip into the crib, The Screaming started again. So I just curled up with her in my bed and called it a night.

Tonight, I figured that had just been an isolated event. I ran out while Monica was here to treat myself to a mocha, and when I came back, there sat Ruby, next to Monica on the couch (she went down at 730 and it was now 10), watching TV and probably asking where I was, a lot. Monica sort of shrugged when I came in, then we said our goodbyes for the rest of the summer.

I didn’t do the popcorn and the water water water thing tonight. Instead, I thought I would do the rock rock rock thing and the sing sing sing thing. I whizzed through “Tell Me Why” and “The City and the Traveller.” Not asleep. “On Top of Old Smokey” came to mind, so I sang that. I was whisper-singing, too, the kind which is supposedly guaranteed to put all kinds of people to sleep. I wished, for a moment, that I could remember the words to “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald,” for no other reason than it is a damn long song.

Then, in a desperate attempt to sap her to sleep, I started to channel Judy Collins. When I was 12 or 13, I knew every Judy Collins song ever written, and I could hit the high notes too. I used to listen to them on my parents’ victrola for God’s sake, wearing grooves in every 33″.

I did “Send in the Clowns,” “Marie,” and “Dorothy.” My big finish (my arms were about to fall off at this point) was “Starmaker,” which I sang with great feeling. Rock, rock, rock, sing, sing, sing. I imagined being Ms. Collins at Wolf Trap (the place I first saw her), climbing higher and higher into the rafters with my voice, drawing people in, feeling every note. Crushing. My. Heart.

I realized in the background that instead of cheering, the sound I heard was actually Ruby wailing. In my Elvis-drop-to-one-knee swoop during verse three I had actually just thrown Ruby on the floor (the crowd went wild!) and completely lost track of what I was trying to accomplish. Not only was my performance ruined, but her Almost Asleep state had returned to The Screaming.

At this point, I gave up. I apologized for tossing her to the floor in a sappy-love-song-crescendo, and, defeated, placed her gingerly back in her crib. Still Screaming.

“At least,” I thought, as I crumbled down the stairs to put my headphones on in the basement, “I did what any self respecting child of a 70s-mother would do. I gave her something to cry about.”

So we’re packing to leave for a couple of months. Well, packing to leave for three weeks (two here, one at the beach) and then two months (Colorado). And packing Shaun and Moose up to leave even earlier than Ruby and me — for three weeks. And, leaving the house in some semblance of order, with stuff to use and live in/around, for the family coming in after us. I hope I remember to take Ruby. Sadly, if she’s not in a Rubbermaid bin, she may be left behind.

I saw The Inimitable Grace tonight and spent the first couple of minutes telling her about my complete inertia surrounding this process. The tens and tens of minutes I spent just standing in my room thinking “Sweet Mother of God, let’s just torch the place.” She laughed as I was thinking, “No, really.”

Once I got over the fantasy of just walking out the door with my hands up and never looking back, I started in little bitty steps to make piles. What we need at the beach. What can be thrown away (liberating, isn’t it?). Given away. What will I need to make Colorado feel like home? What will Ruby need?

And there’s where I lost what seemed like cavernous hours. Ruby has a box of toys that simply would not all fit in the car (next to the dog and the computer and the clothes and the car seat and the craaaaaaaap). It’s a big box, full of lots of tiny things. Two of my favorite things (which I will now call the evil time-sucking devil-toys), are her “My Little Alphabet” soft toy collection, and her collection of little tiny (they were so cute when I bought them) books, 26-in-all, representing the alphabet as well.

At some point, someone (read: not me!) just chucked all the little teeny plush toys and alphabet books into the very big box for someone (read: me!) to eventually sort out. My brain made a sort of “frying egg” noise when I saw the detritus that was once a neat collection of alphabetania.

And the sorting began. Weeks ago, I realized that we were missing the little “E” book. It really did take me a number of hours to get past this emotionally, and “We’ll find it someday” worked as a band-aid for the time being. I felt, however, that same anxiety start to overtake me as I neared the inevitable closing of the (see-through! As if to say “I taunt you, letter loser!”) box with only 25 letter-books in it. I hate it every time.

And then! I was deftly tucking little plush toys into their letter pockets (Ball, Queen, Lion, Nail ??, Kite) and realizing I was reaching the bottom of the box. Wait! Where is the Tree? The Pencil? The Fucking Fish? This would not end well. Not the “E” again!

Shaun sensed my approaching mania and started digging in the box and peeking under cabinets to find the tiny treasures. The Fish, Tree and Pencil all came forward, and marched into their fuzzy pockets. My task was almost complete, when I felt the emptiness of the V pocket. I had already worked through the loss of the “E” book. How could I deal with this “V” thing? The Violin, no less (note: yes, I do spend a lot of time feeling frightened that I know the content of each of these pockets! Go ahead…ask me one! Dog! Moon! Jam!).

Finally, with a complete relocation of the couch, Shaun unearthed the Violin. And, BY GOD, the long-lost “E” book as well. E is for Elephant! Egg! Eyes! EUREKA!

“Tonight,” I whispered to Shaun, “E is for Blow Job!” but we both knew that our collective satisfaction had just peaked for the evening. Momma Can Get No Higher.

As Shaun wandered off to bed alone, I daydreamed about the tiny violin, playing a lone, beautiful note…. “Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

So we just heard gunshots. More gunshots. It seems to happen every few months — I like to think less often than it did when I first moved in, but I can’t be sure. It’s strange to become numb to things like that, or at least more numb. This time I tried to lower the blinds at my desk, and when that didn’t work I just sat back down and hoped that whoever it was wouldn’t bother shooting through the wooden gate, and that the Japanese maple would block their shot a bit if they did.

Shaun is still a bit more concerned than me (I almost typed hysterical! Lord, I have really hardened up!). He hopped up and said “What was that?”

“I think it was gunshots,” I said, “although I guess I don’t really know what a gunshot sounds like (probably a lot like those other ones those other times).”

“I heard a truck go by…do you think it was a backfire?” he asked.

Bless his heart. Perhaps that’s a West Virginia thing. Jed Clampett’s truck backfires, I think. And, I saw it in a movie once. The last, sad scene of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” where they are clacking along a dirt road with chickens and pigs (and backfires) and lots of love and hope. I loved Shaun real hard when he hoped the shots were a backfire. Perhaps I’ll go with that in my mind too. I’m even leaving it up to the neighbors to call 3-1-1. It’s not like the police are going to send someone right away to check it out. We’ve made that call before — as I recall we were on our bellies on the floor of a dark house when we made it too. Not this time.

This time I thought to myself, “Boy, I hope the errant bullet doesn’t hit me in the face because I probably won’t end up looking like my passport picture when I head for Ireland tomorrow.”

“Go ahead and shoot me, you sack of shit,” I thought, “I am still getting on that plane.”

Why not? Keifer Sutherland does it all the time.