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We have an independent bookstore in town that packs a wallop in literary circles.  Over the years, they have been able to get every major author to come to Kansas City and do a book signing.  For the cost of a hardback book, you get two tickets to see the author and I’ve been to a few.

Here’s some snippets………..

Anna Quindlen (I’ve seen her twice.)
She spoke of giving a commencement address and told her audience that they wouldn’t remember anything she talked about as her speaker when she graduated was Margaret Mead, and all she wanted to do was get the ceremony over with and onto the parties afterwards.  While sitting on stage as graduates came up to receive their diplomas, a girl passed her a note written in lipstick that said, “I’ll remember everything you said.”

Kathryn Stockett
After 60 rejections for “The Help”, her publisher called to say they had a problem with the title.  She had titled it “Help” and well, they really thought “The Help” sounded better.  After a long pause she said, “I don’t give a shit what you call it just get it in a bookstore.”  She is hilariously funny.

Calvin Trillin
He is a Kansas City native, author of many books and columnist for the New Yorker.  He wrote often of his wife and when she died published a book called “About Alice.”  A young woman wrote to him thanking him for all the times he wrote about the wife he so clearly loved and said, “When my boyfriend asked me to marry him I asked him if he would love me like you loved Alice.”

John McCain
The senator came to promote and sell his book “Faith Of My Fathers.”  It was packed and at the Q & A an elderly black man shuffled his way to the microphone and told him that he served in the Navy with his father.  When the war was over he didn’t have anywhere to go and so his father brought him to his home.  “Your mother taught me how to read and helped me obtain my college degree.  Since they’re no longer alive, I’ve come here tonight to thank you.  They were the finest people I’ve ever known.”  Everyone was rather stunned and then started applauding.  John McCain began to cry, came off the stage and hugged him for a very long time. 

Anne Lamott (I’ve seen her twice, too.)
She decided that she would wing it and not read from her book.  After arriving at a mediocre turnout in New York for her latest book, she read a chapter to the audience and stumbled so much it was as if she had never seen the words before in her life.  She went back to her hotel room and ate an entire cake that was sent to her from her publicist for her birthday and vowed not to read her words aloud for the rest of the tour.

Dave Eggers
He wrote “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” which is one of my favorite books.  It is the true story of  the sudden deaths of both his parents in a very short time leaving him to raise his younger brother at the age of 19.  He made it up as he went.  He came to town shortly before an election and noted that we may be polite in Kansas City but we know how to fight when it came to the size of the political signs posted in our yards.

Jon Krakauer
I loved “Into Thin Air” and remember throwing more blankets on me because the way he writes of the bitter cold the climbers endured trying to get to the top of Everest felt so real.   He did a power point presentation that was really good, plus he’s a very smart guy.

There were a couple of talks that were bad enough to wish I’d stayed in that night……….

Gretchen Rubin
She wrote “The Happiness Project” and is native to Kansas City.  She spoke to a packed audience and gave out tidbits for happiness such as…….make your bed every day, pick up after yourself, look out the window.  It was one of the shortest talks I’d ever been to and when it was over the woman next to me said, “That’s it?  That’s what I came here for?  That was bizarre.”  Agreed.  It took me longer to find a parking space and I never read the book.

Greg Mortenson
The author of “Stones Into Schools” presented a power point presentation that was nearly identical to the one he did for “Three Cups of Tea.”  Every person that entered the talk was given an envelope to contribute to the Central Asia Institute and plenty of checks were being written for this charismatic man.  A year later, it had become very questionable whether most of it actually happened, courtesy of some digging by Jon Krakauer.

If you ever have a chance to go to one of these DO NOT turn it down.  I’ve gone when a friend has had an extra ticket and sometimes don’t even know who the author is or what the book is about, but I always learn something.

My walking has been curtailed this summer due to the heat and my walking partner being on the disabled list.  He is suffering the affliction of big dogs with bad hips causing his back legs to give out from under him often.  This is what he does most of the day.

I know where this is going.  🙁

When we adopted him from the shelter he was on his way to being a full-grown 40# sheltie.  In reality, he was on his way to being an 85# chow/retriever mix.  I felt more than a little duped, when in the confines of my small house, he kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.  Over his nearly thirteen years, I have come to accept his girth.  And he mine.  These days we spend a lot of time together and when I ask him what I should write about, he looks like he’s giving it some thought.

In the meantime, I have The Turd Brothers to keep me company.

Turd Two has taken a liking to napping here…………..

…………and even when I yell at him to get his furry ass off my table, he takes no offense.

Or no action to leave.

And what I write about?  He looks at me like I’m dragging him into my drama.

When The Boy Child was a wee one, he slept in a cozy little built-in bed that he would climb into and go off to La-La Land.  It was on numerous occasions that he barfed in his cozy, little bed.  There was a gap of about an inch between his bed and the wall and that kid always managed to barf in that direction, so you would have to get a wet rag wrapped around a yardstick to try to get in there and clean it up.

Make that The Big Daddy since I get the dry heaves when I’m anywhere near barf.

When The Boy Child was about eight, he said he didn’t feel good and I had him run into the bathroom to get sick.  Our teeny, little bathroom that was made for The Seven Dwarfs and that kid stood in the middle of the room and barfed everywhere.

It. Did. Me. In.

I went Mommy Dearest on him and instead of asking him if his poor tummy was upset said, “FOR CHRISSAKES, IF YOU’D HAVE LEANED IN ANY DIRECTION, YOU WOULD HAVE HIT A SINK, A TUB OR A TOILET!!!”

He got the message and we never had to clean up barf from that kid again.

This………………

………….needs to go away.  The idea that people compete in cramming hot dogs down their throat (that are first dipped in a glass of water for easy sliding) is disgusting and I’ve never met a single person who wondered out loud who won the Annual Hot Dog Eating Contest.

This calls for an intervention, and since I’ve proven that I’m good at the bat-shit-mom-gone-crazy stuff, I elect myself.  And I’m a result getter.

Except for that time when The Big Daddy and I went to a party.  When we got home I crawled into bed but when I let go of the headboard cuz the room was spinning so bad, I puked everywhere.  That time the result wasn’t so good. 

It has been my experience that we women can be a pretty cut-throat bunch.  We judge everything all the time, and, for better or worse, there is little that escapes our scrutiny.  Maybe it is inherent in our DNA, causing us to be suspicious in nature and punishing in practice.

In the report on Penn State and the serial child rapist they employed for decades, it wasn’t much of a secret when even the janitors related stories of unspeakable things they witnessed with this coach and young boys in the locker room.   

Like the church I’ve belonged to all my life, there was an informed network of educated men who made decisions to enable the crime and the criminal in order to save the institution, and doing nothing became an acceptable solution lamb after sacrificial lamb. 

From the defensive and head coach to the parish priest and bishop, the inept and immoral leaders in power thought they had it figured out until it began unraveling, for they didn’t count on the mother who sensed that something was horribly wrong with this man who befriended her and then her child.   They didn’t count on the mother pleading with her child to tell her what happened while praying that it wasn’t what she suspected it might be.  They didn’t count on the mother, though trembling with fear, who refused to back down from the institution or the intimidation or the payoff.  They didn’t count on the mother who wasn’t about to let any of them get away with abusing the child she loved before she even knew the color of his eyes. 

They didn’t count on the mother picking up the phone and calling the police to report a crime, thus deciding that Judgement Day would be coming with or without God.

I’m here to tell you that you can score 50% on an interview math quiz and still be considered for employment.  Not only considered, but dated.  A few days after my interview, I got asked to come into the office to see if we were marriage material.

It might have been one-sided as they were a little more in love than me.  They were nice people.  Really, really nice people, but the job seemed so boring I wondered if it came with cyanide pills for when you couldn’t take another minute of entering insurance authorization codes.

I couldn’t pull the trigger.

I was telling Mallie Bee about it on the way home from driving school and she said, “So, it was one of those soul-sucking jobs?”

Yes……….that’s the perfect way to describe it.

“Yeah, Mom, I can’t see you doing something like that.”

I would be miserable eight hours a day.

“Well, it’s too bad because the pay was so decent.”

I know.  While my soul was being sucked my bank balance would go up.

“You could buy a lot of shoes with that kind of a paycheck.  That might make your soul suck less.”

I will miss driving Miss Daisy.  Immensely.

With time off for wedding planning, I am back to my job search.  I have decided that working in a doctor’s office would be a good fit for me.  The pay and hours are better than retail and you can sit.  Winning!

Specifically, I thought an eye doctor’s office would suit me because I love picking out glasses for myself and others, and I’d likely not be called upon to save somebody’s life in the waiting room.  Three hours after I responded to a Craigslist ad, I got a call to come in the following day.  It was as if the universe agreed that I was on the right path.

It wasn’t an easy interview by any means, but I felt like I was holding my own until the doctor mentioned the math test. 

I am sort of a whiz at math.  If I’m at Macy’s and shorts are $39.00 less 30% plus a 20% off coupon, I can figure out exactly what I owe with tax.  All in my head.  I’m especially gifted when it comes to the clearance rack.

I was presented with four problems.  Four. Word. Problems.

Help me Jesus.

If Patient X has an eye exam that costs $92.00 and there is a co-pay of $20.00 and $40.00 of that is a contact lens exam that insurance does not cover but allows a 15% discount less an annual deductible of $50.00, how much does Patient X owe at checkout?

No worries.  Add this column, carry the one.  No, no, carry two.  Or should I double that and subtract four?  82………82…….82……….246.

I read the problems over and over and over which didn’t result in any answers, but more of a pre-diarrhea feeling settling in.  I scored a below average 50% on my employment quiz.

The doctor asked me to explain how I arrived at my answers.

My what?

Your answers, she said.  Explain your logic.

Here’s my logic.  I  kept throwing shit against a wall and waited for something to stick, and lookie, here, half of it did.  You should hire me for your relief pitcher.

She’s going to do a background check on me and will be in touch in a few days.  There’s a 50% chance that it will reveal to her that I am deficient in logic.  Math and otherwise.

After some freedom in her schedule and consistent nagging of her parents, Mallie Bee is finally enrolled in a driving school.  If you’ve done this before………..twice but who’s counting………..you know that it costs an arm and a leg to get somebody else to agree to teach your kid what the pioneers did long ago with the horse and buggy.

Day One’s lesson ended in the Scare The Shit Out Of The Kids movie which parents were invited to. I only saw the last few minutes of it as I scare the shit out of myself all the time.  I can do without the reenactment.

The 2nd day, we arrived a few minutes early so I got to see all the soon-to-be drivers getting dropped off by Mom or Dad.  In walked a prepubescent kid, just over the five foot mark, working a whole lot of swag with his driver’s ed folder of pertinent information.

The age in which you can get a permit in Kansas is fourteen.  Yep, fourteen.  That Bad Ass likely just finished the 8th grade and is anxiously awaiting the deets of his high school locker and combination, some pubic hair and a driver’s permit.

Oh, Lordy.

Sometimes when The Big Daddy and I are sitting on the porch with our adult beverages, we discuss what we’d do if we won the lotto.  That we never play until the odds are ridiculously stacked against us.  Without exception, we first decide who we would help out.  That’s not because we’re stellar citizens, but because we can’t help but notice the number of people affected by a shitty economy or ongoing health problems.  With a lump sum payout in the millions, we could make things easier for them.

After that, we decide what to bank, what to use to blow out the back of the house, what to set aside for a dream vacation for everybody we like/love/just met.

It’s pretty much a pipe dream, but we do it often.

When Maggie and Nathan married, we had the perfect day as parents.  This hard, hard work of raising people all came together, and a dozen times that day I looked at this guy I married 29 years ago and thought…………..Look what we did.  Look at our family who traveled from all over to be with us.  Look at the friends we’ve made over the years who were so happy to share this celebration with us.  Look at these kids of ours who love and laugh and dance and make us oh so proud.  Look.

If I ever come into a pile of money I’d share it with everyone I know who needs help, but I am very aware these days that I have already won the Lotto.

For at least ten years, I spent nearly every summer afternoon at the community pool with the kids.  It was the cheapest entertainment in town with an annual pass for the entire family a whopping $120.00.  The kids loved to go and while they played shark and Marco Polo, I’d have some desperately needed adult conversation with other moms.

At the time, there was a baby/toddler pool, the main pool, a diving pool and adult pool.  The baby pool sat up higher with steps that went down to the toddler pool.  Wet steps that water constantly ran down.  And what does a toddler like to do more than anything?  Climb steps.  And what happens when a wobbly toddler climbs up and down wet steps?  They smack their face.

For most of those years, I was with one toddler or another on those steps and even if you were mere inches away, if you took your eye off of them for a second, they’d do a face plant onto the concrete stairs.  Some face plants required lifeguard intervention when the screaming wee one was bleeding from a fat lip.

It. Was. A. Design. Cluster. Of. The. Greatest. Magnitude.

A fence separated that pool from the main pool, and I’d look through the chain link with such envy.  One time, I saw a kid go up to his mom who was laying on her chaise lounge smoking a cigarette and she yelled, “WHADDYA WANT????” when he was still ten feet away.  Snack bar, he said, and she threw some dollars his way and told him to leave her alone.

Sigh.

One more summer and I could join those lazy slackers who actually relaxed at the pool and left it up to God and the lifeguards to make sure their kid didn’t drown.

That fall I got pregnant.  It would be four more years before I finally had my Shawshank Redemption.