all about it.
I’m sitting at Persy’s lacrosse game musing about this because, well, times like these I miss Rusty the most, and a good muse always benefits the column. Rusty would be so proud of Persy just because he’s Persy. He wouldn’t get all over Persy because he fails to run as fast as the other boys. He wouldn’t sit here a bundle of nerves. He’d be encouraging and fatherly and good. That God gave him such a phenomenal tenor voice is a blessing as well as a curse. Perhaps I should gladly share him with the world, but man oh man, I just wish the world would share him with us.
I can think of no other activity I’d less rather attend at eight thirty on a Saturday morning—except maybe a recital of first-yearviolinists or a full-body wax. I thought about stopping at Starbucks on the way, but the sports complex has no Porta Potti toilets, and I knew my bladder wouldn’t last through the game. You know little things like this bug me about womanhood. Here I’ve gifted the world with three beautiful citizens (and every single one of them weighed in at over eleven pounds) to redeem some bad things over to the good side, and what reward do I get for carrying them to term? The lovely ability to pee when I laugh and the privilege of using the bathroom twice as often as I did at twenty-two. No coffee at soccer games. No sodas on trips. No water before bed. Life is not fair. Didn’t God know mothers need coffee to manage early morning rec council games? I comfort myself with a handful of Dove chocolate candies.
Lou walks toward me. “Hey Ive-O.”
Her nickname for me since we were three. She put
o’s
on the end of everything. “Lou!” Her name is actually Jean-Louise, like the girl in
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Her father, a high-school literature teacher, named her after that character. He actually wanted to call her Scout, but Mrs. Lybeck refused. It took the likes of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis to have the guts for that. And I applaud them. Besides, Bruce is a Republican.
She
plonks
open a folding chair. A gorgeous one, of course, displaying a classy floral pattern. “Lyra told me I’d find you here.” She folds her body into a fluid, dark line, leaning back like a bored actress. The eyes, bright and curious, convey a different narrative, though.
“Where else would I be? Thank goodness Lyra hates sports and Trixie’s still too little. What are you up to today?”
“Just running around looking for fabric for my living-room and dining-room curtains.”
“Again?”
“I just didn’t take to the cortez gold like I thought I would. I had the walls repainted blackberry wine.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. I’ll do some texturing next week.” Lou solves interior-design dilemmas all over the county. My patriotic kitchen, a design predicament if there ever was one, makes her all but retch.
“Want a Dove?”
“No, thanks.”
What willpower. “More for me.”
“Well, you have the luck of a racecar metabolism. Us regular women have to starve.”
Like I feel so sorry for her! “So when are you going to come help me with my house?”
“When you tell me I have free rein. I’m not going to make the dramatic change of painting your white walls cream. You can do that on your own.”
She tells me I possess no creative imagination. And she’s right. I mean, white walls complement everything, don’t they? It matches all my furniture, and while we’re not exactly poor, some things you can’t justify—like buying a new couch just because you’re sick of the old one. Hardly good money management. But didn’t Persy say he felt a sharp spring the other day? I definitely can’t endanger my children, and the couch is older than my marriage.
“Well, okay then. I’m tired of fighting it. Have your way. I need a new couch, so pick that out for me, and go from there.”
“A new couch?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s beginning to poke.” Or at least I think so.
“I’m on it, mama.”
Well, then,
I’m sitting at Persy’s lacrosse game musing about this because, well, times like these I miss Rusty the most, and a good muse always benefits the column. Rusty would be so proud of Persy just because he’s Persy. He wouldn’t get all over Persy because he fails to run as fast as the other boys. He wouldn’t sit here a bundle of nerves. He’d be encouraging and fatherly and good. That God gave him such a phenomenal tenor voice is a blessing as well as a curse. Perhaps I should gladly share him with the world, but man oh man, I just wish the world would share him with us.
I can think of no other activity I’d less rather attend at eight thirty on a Saturday morning—except maybe a recital of first-yearviolinists or a full-body wax. I thought about stopping at Starbucks on the way, but the sports complex has no Porta Potti toilets, and I knew my bladder wouldn’t last through the game. You know little things like this bug me about womanhood. Here I’ve gifted the world with three beautiful citizens (and every single one of them weighed in at over eleven pounds) to redeem some bad things over to the good side, and what reward do I get for carrying them to term? The lovely ability to pee when I laugh and the privilege of using the bathroom twice as often as I did at twenty-two. No coffee at soccer games. No sodas on trips. No water before bed. Life is not fair. Didn’t God know mothers need coffee to manage early morning rec council games? I comfort myself with a handful of Dove chocolate candies.
Lou walks toward me. “Hey Ive-O.”
Her nickname for me since we were three. She put
o’s
on the end of everything. “Lou!” Her name is actually Jean-Louise, like the girl in
To Kill a Mockingbird
. Her father, a high-school literature teacher, named her after that character. He actually wanted to call her Scout, but Mrs. Lybeck refused. It took the likes of Demi Moore and Bruce Willis to have the guts for that. And I applaud them. Besides, Bruce is a Republican.
She
plonks
open a folding chair. A gorgeous one, of course, displaying a classy floral pattern. “Lyra told me I’d find you here.” She folds her body into a fluid, dark line, leaning back like a bored actress. The eyes, bright and curious, convey a different narrative, though.
“Where else would I be? Thank goodness Lyra hates sports and Trixie’s still too little. What are you up to today?”
“Just running around looking for fabric for my living-room and dining-room curtains.”
“Again?”
“I just didn’t take to the cortez gold like I thought I would. I had the walls repainted blackberry wine.”
“When?”
“Yesterday. I’ll do some texturing next week.” Lou solves interior-design dilemmas all over the county. My patriotic kitchen, a design predicament if there ever was one, makes her all but retch.
“Want a Dove?”
“No, thanks.”
What willpower. “More for me.”
“Well, you have the luck of a racecar metabolism. Us regular women have to starve.”
Like I feel so sorry for her! “So when are you going to come help me with my house?”
“When you tell me I have free rein. I’m not going to make the dramatic change of painting your white walls cream. You can do that on your own.”
She tells me I possess no creative imagination. And she’s right. I mean, white walls complement everything, don’t they? It matches all my furniture, and while we’re not exactly poor, some things you can’t justify—like buying a new couch just because you’re sick of the old one. Hardly good money management. But didn’t Persy say he felt a sharp spring the other day? I definitely can’t endanger my children, and the couch is older than my marriage.
“Well, okay then. I’m tired of fighting it. Have your way. I need a new couch, so pick that out for me, and go from there.”
“A new couch?”
“Yeah, I guess so. It’s beginning to poke.” Or at least I think so.
“I’m on it, mama.”
Well, then,
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