Mommy's Hurt!

Over the weekend, Wondertwin took an unfortunate tumble on her surfboard and ended up with over 15 stitches in her left ankle. Luckily for her, Beloved happened to be surfing with her and her kids that morning and was able to come to the rescue. Not only did he help her from the water and administer emergency first aid on the beach (while the teenage lifeguard stood there helplessly trying not to puke), he picked her up "Officer and a Gentleman" style and carried her to the emergency room. That's where I caught up with them.

I found Beloved in the emergency room waiting area soaking wet, covered in sand with Wondertwin's two kids Thing 1 and Thing 2, also soaking wet, wrapped in beach towels and hospital blankets. Thing 1, a girl aged 13, was holding up quite well. Thing 2, a charming boy of 11 and the more sensitive of the two, started to cry when I walked through the door. So as I held Thing 2 and assured him mommy would be ok, Thing 1 was all questions. 

"What happens when you get stitches? How do they get the stitches in you? Do they use a big needle? Is it regular sewing thread or special person thread? Have you ever had stitches? Does it hurt? How do they get the stitches out?

Beloved was patiently and animatedly answering all her questions. Her wonderment and enthusiasm at the entire process leads me to think she's got a future as an emergency room doctor. Or a coroner. Or maybe one of those special effects movie masters.

Thing 2 meanwhile has a future as a world class cuddlebunny.

Wondertwin has a future as a tough as nails surfer chick . . .oh wait, she already is. 

Stimulating the economy

In an effort to stimulate our local economy and squeeze every last bit of fun out of summer, Wondertwin and I have  been trying to organize a stay at a local non-chain beachside hotel for the last weekend before school starts. Sure, it might be just a few miles from the house, but this way we get to enjoy someone else's place, not have to clean up after ourselves, and the kids have both an indoor pool and an outdoor pool, so afternoon thunderstorms be damned! And did I forget to mention they have a tiki bar? 

Only thing is, our friend Capt. Gin Girl is not cooperating. She's on a "no spending" plan, meaning unless it involves food or living necessities, she's not spending money. And considering she is the most disciplined person I know, she means business. Capt. Gin Girl gets up every morning before dawn to work out. She watches her diet religiously and enforces time for herself every week on Wednesdays when she goes bowling on a league that does not involve her husband or kids. She assigns chores to her kids every week,  which they actually complete. She's really a model of living for me. 

But how to convince her that she should spend the money to stay in the hotel with us for the last weekend of summer? I mean we could go without her, but what fun would that be? Who would plan all the activities? Who would keep the kids in line? 

I think Wondertwin and I are going to have to dig up a coupon or something to ensure her participation. 

Mom On Strike - No SCABS allowed!

I'm keeping a very close eye on a social experiment VOR is conducting this week. If it works, I may begin to put it in practice here at Casa NativeMom. But I'm hoping I won't have to. 

My friend VOR (Voice of Reason) is on strike. Mom Strike. She has two "kids" at home. I use the term "kids" loosely because one is age 20 and one is a teenage girl. Enuf said.

Seems the "kids" haven't been pulling their weight at Casa VOR. So she decided if the kids weren't going to do their chores around the house (clean their room, put laundry in the hamper, take out the trash, etc) then she wasn't going to do her "mom chores" either. And just like that, faster than you can say Norma Rae, she went on strike. I checked in with her yesterday, day 5 of her refusing to make dinner for the family every evening when she got home from a long day of work. By the way, VOR is a single mom, working full time and going to school part-time to get her master's degree. She's SuperWoman. 

So I asked "How's the strike going?"

VOR: Well, I'm on my way home from work. It's been 5 days now and I'm still not making dinner.

NM: Five days?!? So by now, the "kids" have worked their way through all the easy stuff like cereal, pop tarts, and microwave popcorn to eat for dinner.

VOR: Yep, all the fruit is gone and the soup. They're down to eating p-nut butter sandwiches and eating tuna straight from the can.

NM: How much longer do you think they will last?

VOR: They're already starting to break. But I told them, in order for me to come off strike, they had to show me two consecutive days of complying with the chore list. The youngest cleaned her room yesterday, so we'll see if she's done her chores today. If so, that would be 2 days in a row so I might cook dinner for her and I tomorrow night. 

NM: You know, I may try this.

VOR: I'll let you know if it works.

NM: Knowing my wily bunch, they'd probably bring in SCABS to do their chores or cook if I went on strike.

VOR: Yea, I already thought of that. No SCABS allowed. 

The St. Augustine Affect

"Everywhere we go when we come to this town, you know somebody. Usually more than one someone. It's uncanny," said Beloved on Saturday when we ran across the first of many old friends in St. Augustine this weekend. We had gone back to my hometown (born and raised in St Aug dontcha know) to pick up MiniMe. She was the lucky duck who got to spend the night with her Mimi and Pappaw on Friday. 

But before we picked her up, we stopped by a little festival and took a walk through the historic downtown area. Ran into several people I knew from my childhood/high school days at the festival. No big surprise with a crowd that big in one place. But it was when we stopped for a drink at A1A Ale Works that that my native girl karma really kicked in. 

I saw several friends from high school including one I had not seen since we graduated. He was only in town for a quick visit. I wouldn't have recognized him, nor did he recognize me, except that I had already taken a seat next to his older sister, who I see frequently. Shane and I last saw each other more than 20 years ago. While enthralled in coversation with him, I happened to glance over my shoulder and who do I see? My best friend from college, Gene, who I've recently chatted with over Facebook. Haven't seen Gene in 10 years, and yet the stars somehow aligned that we ended up sitting practically next to each other on a Saturday afternoon in a crowded bar & restaurant in St. Augustine.

Funny the things you remember. Gene mentioned that he had just come from the MillTop bar on St. George Street. I asked him if he had requested the song "Rawhide," since once, many moons ago, Gene and I spent an evening in St. Augustine and he drove the poor guitar player at the Milltop that night crazy requesting "Rawhide" over and over again. 

When I introduced Gene to Beloved, Gene quickly told him that I once broke the windshield of his car, a 1964 VW bug. 

"Well now I have heard that she used to overheat the car by driving too fast when you would drive back from college on weekends," said Beloved, "but I hadn't heard that she cost you a windshield." 

Honestly, Gene. You gotta stop telling people that was me. It wasn't. It was you. I was the designated driver who had to drive your car home for you one weekend because you and your buddy had overbeveraged. You accidently broke the windshield swatting at an imaginary bug and then decided to tell your dad that I broke it so that you wouldn't get in trouble. It was a harebrained plan then and I can't believe you are still blaming that on me!

"We've got to move you back to St. Augustine," Beloved finally said to my not-so-long-lost friends that night. "You just light up when you're here. It's your place."

Wasn't that sweet?!?

Gin Night

Tonight is Gin Night!!! One of my favorite nights of the week. Most Wednesdays, Wondertwin hosts all us girls for a game of gin at her place after work. Only we don't play cards, we drink gin. And sometimes wine. But mostly we talk and laugh. Good medicine.

It's only a happy hour thing. Everyone brings a snack or a bottle of wine to share. After about an hour, we all return to our regular lives, but for that hour, we're a happy, girly bunch! 

MiniMe experienced a little Florida girl version of Gin Night herself this week. Since it's the dreaded FCAT week (I know, I won't mention FCAT in my blogs anymore, it's getting tiresome), she and the other neighborhood kids haven't had homework. So Monday night, she and the little girl who lives next door were playing together while I cooked dinner. We refer to MiniMe and Neighbor Girl as the Sparkle Sisters, because they're just like sisters and leave sparkles (and other messes) where ever they go. 

In come the Sparkle Sisters and ask if they can sit in the hot tub after dinner. We're having some very pleasant spring like weather right now, and so I agreed to let them take a dip in the hot tub if they ate all their dinner. So after dinner, they hop into their bathing suits and pester Beloved until he stops what he's doing to get the hot tub bubbling for them. A half hour later, I find them sitting in the hot tub wearing snorkle masks and eating fudgesicles. 

A March evening in the hot tub eating fundgesicles with your best friend. That's what Florida Girl childhoods are made of. 

I'd be exhausted before I got on the board

. . .but WonderTwin handles it with ease. Watching her climb into her wetsuit before surfing a couple of weeks ago was not only funny and entertaining, it wore me out just watching her. After struggling into the suit, she then spent an hour in the water on her surfboard - paddling around, catching waves, eating surf and paddling around some more. Then she had to get out of that thing. And I thought my leather riding chaps were tough to get in and out of.

Closest I'll Get to Lottery Win

The first time I ever had a friend from school come home to spend the night with me was in the third grade. It was my friend Maria, we were 8-years-old. 

Flash forward some 30 years later and Maria and I are still friends. In fact, she was one of the Florida Moms Gone Wild in the post about my trip to Epcot for the Food and Wine Festival. We attended school together from elementary through high school. We made fake IDs together before going off to college. She was a bridesmaid at my wedding.  We get together twice a year at least but keep in touch in the meantime. 

And yesterday, I found out that her mom won the lottery. So I figure this is the closest I'll ever get to lottery winnings. 

Good for them!!! 

Not So Scary Bikers

48 hours, 28 gallons of gas, 500 plus miles, 3 states, 11 people, 6 motorcycles. The weekend motorcycle trip can't necessarily be measured in miles or minutes, because there's no real way to quantify some of the experience. New friendships were made, old stories were told, fresh memories were created in the midst of lots of laughter, driving rain, freezing cold and spates of glorious and much appreciated sunshine.

It was a picturesque ride from Florida through Georgia into South Carolina as six couples and one very entertaining single rider braved I-95 and a Saturday morning under driving rain on motorcycle. Beloved and I were the only riders not on a Harley, but our Honda ST1300 held its own. We were on a mission of sorts to make it to South Carolina in time for the start of a charity poker run to benefit a fellow rider and friend of my cousin who is battling cancer. Biker folk are nothing if not generous and we love to rally around a cause, especially if it involves food, fun and some foilage-lined back country roads.

We started at the RBar just outside of Hilton Head, SC. Then we traveled en masse to a few local bars and restaurants in and around the area. Each stop gave us all a chance to get to know each other better. A typical stop would find the men sauntering around in small groups checking out each other's bikes while the ladies clustered together laughing, sipping light beer and mostly talking about the men. Although there were some jokes and even a few tap dances tossed in for good measure.

The highlight of the day was a stop at a little place called Pepper's Porch in Blufton. It was the last stop of the night and we were all ready for a good old-fashioned porch sit. The men collected their final hand in poker and my cousin Troy was awarded "Biggest Loser" status for drawing the worst hand. Good thing he donated his "loser" winnings back to our charity ride beneficiary because we were all scheming to stick him with the bill for dinner if he hadn't donated his winnings.

Pepper's Porch was a great country place with a unique back bar area under the stars and the boughs of an iconic old moss-draped oak tree. Our group grabbed a table on the porch and warmed up with some SheCrab soup, fried green tomatoes, oysters and such. Plans were made to take a ride to another part of Hilton Head to enjoy some late night entertainment. And those plans were quickly forgotten once the food had been eaten and the weather turned colder and wetter. Instead we had a good old-fashioned hotel party that was one for the books.

That's when we learned about the complicated love life of our single-rider Dave, who was a good enough sport to share his life lessons with our less than sympathetic group. He wasn't the only one telling tales. Unfortuntely Scott and Troy decided to bring up a video they had once seen of Indonesians feasting on monkey brains a la Indian Jones. An unfortunate tale for the monkey of course, but even more so for our story tellers who were then teased endlessly by our group for their bizarre story - one monkey mallet coming up.

Scott's wife Cathy impressed us with her determination to capture all the hijinks with her digital camera. She even took photos of each of the riders in our group while crusing down the highway from her perch on back of her husband's Screamin' Eagle Harley Davidson. Can't wait to see the photos.

Unlike the Hell's Angels, our group of mostly middle-aged, white, urban riders seemed to draw a friendly crowd wherever we went. Stop at the gas station and every car rider, passenger and gas station attendant had to come ask us where we were from, where we were going and wish us a safe journey. Stop at the Subway sandwich shop and the other diners happily strike up conversations. Breakfast at the local pancake house and we're the object of every child's fascination - real bikers up close! I guess that's a secret only us bikers know. Riding attracts friendly people. No matter what age, race or background, we made friends where ever we traveled this past weekend. I guess you could say we're the "not so scary" bikers. That is until we break out our monkey mallets.

Scary but Good

The only thing scarier than a fully heterosexual man in a dress is one in a bathing suit.

A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless to protect, well, you know, agreed to completely embarrass himself for charity this week by taking part in an event called the Womanless Beauty Pageant. The guys involved all took turns doing the runway walk in evening gown and bathing suit to raise money for children and adults with autism, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome, and other disabilities. My friend, dressed as Marilyn Monroe in the black bikini above, came in first runner up. I'm so proud!! Although he wasn't crowned "queen," I think it's safe to say he - and all the other er, "lovelies," were winners!

Go Boy Go!

Window Weather Stings

On the way home from dropping MiniMe off at school this morning, I had the windows down in the truck to enjoy the fall weather. Fall weather in Florida is the best! Clear, sunny, no rain, low humidity and pleasant temperatures.

I've been reading the book by Mark Lane, Sandspurs: Notes from a Coastal Columnist, and he had a chapter expounding on the pleasures of riding with the windows down in Florida, a lost art.

So I was reviving the lost art of driving with the windows down, enjoying the morning, when it happened. Something stung me right in the middle of the back. Damn, that hurt! I almost ran off the road. I don't know what it was, but suffice to say it was some sort of evil stinging flying creature. I guess it serves me right trying to take a few moments to "stop and smell the flowers" metaphorically speaking. Getting stung between the shoulder blades, a place I can't even reach, is just how my life is going right now. I haven't even been able to post on this blog in a week because I've been so busy and nothing's been going right for me.

When I finally made it home, wincing in pain all the way, I had a moment to examine the bite and it was definitely a sting. Not an ant bite. I needed to get some medicine on it to stop the pain and disinfect, but dammit, I couldn't reach it. I started mentally going through the list of any friends or neighbors I could ask to medicate my back for me and came up with nothing. I mean what am I supposed to do, knock on my neighbor's door with a bottle of bactine in hand, pull my shirt up and ask for help with the ugly red welt in the middle of my back?!? A visit like that would make someone long for the good old days when the doorbell would ring and it would just be a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Florida Moms Gone Wild!

This is what happens when you mix three life-long friends, who happen to be busy professional moms, with a day-full of kid-free fun, fueled by wine and other fizzy libations brought to them by their devoted husbands who stood in line so they didn't have to.

The Epcot Food & Wine Fest was mucho, mucho fun. We ate, we drank, we talked, we walked, we drank some more. We stood in the shade and giggled while our devoted hubbies stood in line to buy us more yummy International food samples and cool sips of wine. We shopped, we drank, we ate, we took the free shuttle home at the end of the night and slept the peaceful sleep of no-kids-in-the-next-room-because-we're-on-an-adult-weekend, sleep.

It was heaven! Hey, who's up for doing it all over again this weekend?!?

Shopping. For Charity. Really.

“What are your plans for this weekend?” Beloved asked as he packed up his motorcycle for a weekend trip with the boys.

Wondertwin and I are going shopping for charity.

“Shopping for charity? How in the hell do you shop for charity? You're making this up.”

Actually, Wondertwin sits on the board of a local charity and bought passes that get you a special discount at a certain department store in town on Saturday. She purchased the passes from the charity. The charity keeps the proceeds from selling the special discount pass. Wondertwin and I get to shop and get a tax deduction at the same time. Bonus!

“Now I’ve heard everything. You sure are getting more creative in finding an excuse to go shopping.What’s next, Spa Day for Charity?”

Great idea!

Florida Fashion Trends

Wondertwin, who shares my love of shoes, sent the following new Florida fashion trend my way.

I think I'm going to have to take one of every color!

Psycho

My friend Lliba called me yesterday afternoon and although she didn't know it at the time, her call brought me great relief. You see she was calling me because she'd had an especially bad morning at work, had gotten into a disagreement and as a result was escaping the office to "run some errands" just to clear her head and get away from the aggravation long enough to calm down. I TOTALLY felt her pain and what a relief to know that someone else was having a bad day, too!

In my book VENT stands for Vitally Essential Negativity Talk. That's when your friends really come in handy. I'm so glad she called to vent to me. We all need to vent once in a while. I know when I get mad or frustrated at someone or something, I just don't feel better until I let it out.

What frustrated Lliba most was that the situation at work was so bad that she lost her cool a little bit. I get it. The same thing happened to me at the college on Monday when I was so angry that it took every ounce of emotional control I had not to turn use my "Mean Mommy" face on people that aren't even related to me.

I think Lliba feels the same way I do. In a professional setting, or any setting really, when a woman loses her cool she's branded a "Bitch." Even if we have every right to be angry or upset. How F'd up is that? Knowing that showing "extreme displeasure" with someone will brand you a bitch is sometimes even more upsetting than the situation that made you angry in the first place.

Fortunately, as I've gotten older, I've learned to control it much better (at least I think so but you'd have to ask my family to be sure). I mean let's face it, the saying "you get more flies with honey than vinegar" is just too true. Getting all Pyscho on someone, even when they're standing in that shower acting all Janet Leigh and just begging for a slashin' (metaphorically speaking of course), it isn't going to help the situation to pull a female-version of Anthony Perkins. In fact, you're just going to come out looking even worse.

But I have to tell you, the folks at my college really deserved some Hitchcock action on Monday. While I didn't raise my voice or snap at anyone, I did get my point across and they knew I was pissed. That became increasingly evident as several people at the college got involved in solving the situation and sent me very carefully worded one-line e-mails to assure me the situation was corrected. I think they were a little scared (cue Psycho music). Good!

It's also good that I had someone to vent to on Monday. And even better than Lliba had someone to vent to yesterday who totally had her back (so she didn't have to stick the knife in someone).

Ladies Weekend

I recently had the privilege of spending a long weekend in Delray Beach with several ladies and had my faith restored in humankind.

Wondertwin invited me to take part in the girls trip. It was just us girls. No husbands, kids or significant others. No chores. No work. Just relaxing, shopping, and talking. Lots of talking.

There were six of us all together and I only knew two, but you would never have known we weren't all lifelong friends. In fact, the way we got along so well was not only refreshing, it restored my faith in adults a wee bit. Between road rage, the daily news, bad behavior in a stressful workplace and the summer hijinks of my husband's ex wife, I had begun to think that adults could no longer behave rationally. Not only did all of us get along great and have fun, we managed to discuss everything from family, kids and hobbies to the state of the economy, how to make a Mohito and bikini waxes. Let's just say everything was open for discussion. And no one argued or got their feelings hurt. Imagine!


Wondertwin had warned me in advance that there were no rules for the weekend. The trip was all about doing what you want, when you want and how you want. There was no pressure to hang with the rest of the group the entire time and you didn't have to go along with every plan made. The understanding was that everyone was invited but no one had to come as plans were formed each day.

We came from different parts of the state and were of varying ages. One was a musician, one a designer, one a computer programmer, three were in public relations. Two were married, the rest were single. Some had kids. Some had pets.

One thing we all had in common is that we all were listeners of NPR. I noticed throughout the weekend that one by one each woman referred to NPR in recounting a story or in discussing an issue. Not that it means anything. Note to NPR executives, if you're reading this, you would do well to cover more "women's issues." We seem to be a strong demographic for your marketers. How about exploring issues like why women's bathing suits cost so much when there's so little fabric and start a movement banning pantyhose.

This trip provided an opportunity to discover something new about myself. It seems that I may be the only women left on earth who has never taken a "girlfriend trip," much less taken a trip like this on an annual basis. I took a trip with my sister and mother on a cruise once, but apparently traveling with family doesn't count as a girlfriend trip. This revelation was like discovering self-tanner spray for the first time. You mean you don't have to lay out in the hot Florida sun, sweltering in the humidity until you're nothing but a giant sweat puddle and incur skin cancer to get a tan? You can just spray it on and go? Who'd have thunk?

All these years - my entire life- I've only ever vacationed with my family or my husband. Well, now that the scales have fallen from my eyes, it's going to be a whole different game. Have spray tan and girlfriends will travel!

Friendspeak

Did you ever notice how friends have a way of talking all their own. Kind of like a system of code. When I was a "tween" (we didn't call that age group tween back then, we just called it awkward), my best friend Zalia and I developed a code and even aliases. Our aliases were rats we had drawn and named Looc and Rellik, which is Cool and Killer spelled backwards. Cool and Killer being typical adjectives used by teens in the 80s. Our code involved backwards talk, too. Of course, we could only speak this code in writing since talking backwards all the time was much too confusing, even for two smart 13-year-old blondes.

My friendspeak today is not that complicated and it varies from friend to friend. With Wondertwin, our friendspeak often involves making things up and discussing them as if they are real. For instance, Wondertwin just called to ask if she could swing by my place to change clothes between work and an event tonight. This wasn't presented in the form of a question, rather it was told to me as if it was her plan and that changing involved more than clothes, but a transformation into a glamazon. My response was of course to approve said stopover but with the condition that she provide a turn on the runway before she left. It was agreed.

My oldest friend Libba (oldest as in friends for the longest time not geriatric) and I don't find it unusual at all just to breathe at each other on line. No need to fill the time actually speaking, just being in touch with each other is all that's necessary. Our conversations also usually involve ranting in spectacular fashion about everyday annoyances. Listening in on our conversations would sound a little like heavy breathing crazy women.

I've noticed young women today also seem to have friendspeak. Only its called texting. Anyone else over 40 annoyed by this whole new "non-language?" I'm actually proud of the level of my verbal skills and the broad range of my vocabulary. Now its cool to speak to each other in abbreviations. Maybe that's my problem, while I'm not overly talkative, I do believe in being well spoken, witty and sharp. What's witty about LOL? What's interesting about BFF? In addition be being annoyed with today's friendspeak, I'm really afraid the younger generation will all be aflicted with carpal tunnel by the time they're 40 and will be unable to work and support my generation's social security needs.

As if! Social security probably won't even be in the cultural vernacular by the time I'm 70. Bummer!

The older they are, the harder they fall

Wondertwin and I have started tracking our clumsiness lately. Wondertwin is a good friend of mine whom I, from time to time with the right diet and a good hair day, resemble. In the last year, we've both been falling down a lot. And no, our falls do not correlate with the opening of 3 new wine bars in our neighborhood in the same time period.

"Do you remember how, when we were kids, we would fall down all the time and just get back up. No bruises. Nothing." Wondertwin wistfully reminisced over wine at said wine bar one afternoon. "Now, when I fall down, I end up with bruises, scars, scrapes, perhaps even a lingering injury. Could it be that the older we get, the harder we fall?"

"Maybe," I suggested, "We're just more top heavy now that we're adults." Wishful thinking. Sadly, the likelihood of this being true is nil since neither of us wear much more than a training bra. Top heavy, I wish.

"I think we just don't bounce so well anymore."

This has been a year of bounces gone wrong for Wondertwin and me. It started about a year ago when Wondertwin broke her foot casually walking through a parking garage. Then, at the beginning of the year, I fell off a motorcycle I was test riding. Ouch! That left a big mark! At Easter, I did a face plant in a "Mom vs. Kids" kickball game. Then Wondertwin took a tumble the following month while running a 5K. This month, we both are bruised and battered. Me from slipping on water tracked through the house by kids after swimming in the backyard pool. Bruised face and knee. She, bruise and scabby rash down one leg, resulting from a surfing incident.

I've decided we're looking at this all wrong by labeling ourselves as clumsy. I mean, how many women our age are riding motorcycles and surf boards? Perhaps, instead of trying to hide our hideous bruises with fake tan spray, we should celebrate our "war wounds." That's what they are after all, war wounds. We're fighting aging through risky and adventurous pursuits. We should be proud and wear our bruises, scrapes and casts with pride.

Black and blue could be the new Black!