Snide Reply

Category: Suburban Life

  • It’s Always Greener

    “It doesn’t have to be this way,” the note said. “It will take time, but we can fix this.”

    I knew there were problems. Hell, everyone on our courtyard could tell there were problems.  But I really didn’t think my lawn was so bad that the TruGreen® guy needed to leave me a personalized note.

    The physical move from Oak Park to Naperville, IL covered only twenty-three miles. The cultural move, however, was more like going from a hippie commune to, well, to an All-American mom-and-apple-pie suburb in all its suburbity.

    In Oak Park, where herbicides are only slightly less maligned than Agent Orange, my “if it’s green, it’s a lawn” attitude was applauded. In fact, if you’re not green in growing your green, you’d best not come outside until the sun goes down.

    Mine was a typical Oak Park lawn. In short, I pretty much ignored it. It got mowed once a week, fertilized twice a year with an all-natural lawn food, and was watered when it rained. Sure, there was grass in my grass, but there were also some dandelions and a little crabgrass. In the shady areas, there was some Creeping Charlie and even some nut sedge. It was all green, it all mowed. It was a lawn.

    In Naperville, lawn growing is a competitive sport. It’s not enough for the lawn to be green here; it should be a particular shade of green. A “good” lawn consists primarily of a single species of grass: Kentucky Blue. It’s really more of a dark blue green, but you get the idea.  The problem is that Kentucky Blue is the Naomi Campbell of the grass world. It requires copious amounts of exactly the right kind of attention or it does the herbivorous equivalent of flinging a flip-phone at you.

    While a good Naperville lawn is a monoculture, mine is a veritable botanic garden of all that is low-growing and green. I’ve got Blue grass, of course, along with dandelions, some little creeping things, some other little creeping things, some ferny-looking creeping things, some thistles and lots and lots of clover.

    I like clover. Clover is the right color. In fact, I think white clover leaves are an even nicer shade of green than Kentucky Blue grass. Clover has really cute little flowers. When I was a little girl, I made wreathes and garlands of white clover blossoms. My daughter makes them now. Clover is even an indicator of nitrogen—the stuff that turns grass green—in the soil.

    The biggest reason I like clover, though, is the bees. Clover is perfect food for bees, especially honeybees. And honeybees are endangered. In grad school, I wrote an entire integrated lesson plan for third- through fifth-graders focusing on the importance of healthy honeybees to our food production capabilities. When I see clover, I see orchards full of fruit trees pollinated by happy little honeybees.

    My neighbors? Not real big on clover. In fact, when they see clover, I’m pretty sure they see weeds. This wouldn’t be much of a problem if clover didn’t also spread so readily. One of my neighbors did not want clover in his yard so, in a pre-emptive strike, he sprayed my clover. He did this without asking while I was standing right there in front of him. Just took out his nasty Weed-B-Gone pump and blasted away at the clover on my side of the property line. I think I said something like, “Oh, you don’t have to do that. I’ll pull the clover out before it gets to your yard,” but I was thinking something like, “You presumptuous son of a goat!”

    Well, the clover died. And left a very large dead brown spot in the middle of my front lawn. I left the spot there, hoping my neighbor would feel terrible about defacing my property. He never mentioned it. Finally, one day I began raking away the old dead foliage, preparing the soil for seed. Now, I may not be the best lawn-grower in the world, but I know how to prep a seedbed. I finished the raking, watered the soil to soften it and left the soil loosening for the next day. Imagine my surprise when I found that the bare spot had been seeded over. My neighbor had apparently felt guilty after all. He didn’t feel guilty enough to plant decent seed, however. This became abundantly clear when the new grass came in fluorescent green. He told me it would turn darker when it got older. It did not. It merely got taller. Eventually, I had a three-foot diameter circle of glow-in-the-dark grass in front of my house. Because the fluorescent grass was also stiff, after I mowed it, it looked like someone had stuck bright green toothpicks in the lawn. I lived with the toothpick lawn for an entire summer. My only consolation was that my neighbor used the same cheap, crappy seed to spot seed his own lawn. While I had a circle of fluorescence, he had little tufts of bright green toothpicks through his lawn.

    The radioactive green grass has since died off, giving way to other things greener and hardier, including clover, but I’m thinking it may have altered the genetic makeup of my horticultural haven. Recently, my daughter came running into the house squealing, “Mommy! Mommy! I found a four-leaf clover!” Well, of course I thought she had smooshed two clover stems together to make them look like one four-leaf clover. But she hadn’t. In her hands, she held a perfect four-leafed clover. She gave it to me and ran outside to find more. “That’ll keep her happy for a while,” I thought, but she was back in the house in a matter of minutes. Turns out, one particular spot in my yard is full of four-leaf clover. My daughter and her friend even found a five-leaf clover.

    I’m not a superstitious person on the whole, but I’m thinking the TruGreen® guy is going to have to find another yard to spray. In fact, the only way he’s welcome back is on his knees, looking for a six-leaf clover.

    Copyright 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • The Stupid Files

    My son grew up with better cartoons than I had. Oh, the Jetsons were ok and I really did love “Rastro,” but my son was lucky enough to be a ‘toon watcher when “Dexter’s Laboratory” was in its heyday on Cartoon Network. Dexter, the boy genius, was constantly vexed by his less intellectual sister, Dee Dee. In every episode, Dexter would tell her “Dee Dee, you are stupid. You are stupid. And don’t forget, you are stuuupid.”

    I think I love that line so much because there is so much that is stupid in this world. As evidence, I offer the following. There is a road that runs east and west through Aurora and Naperville, crossing Route 59. On the Naperville side of 59, it is called “Aurora Avenue.” On the Aurora side, it is called “New York Avenue.” If you go north on Ogden Avenue from my house and you keep going north, you have to turn right to continue onto Ogden. Continuing north, without turning, will not keep you on Ogden. You will find yourself on Raymond as if you had entered an alternate universe. And, while turning east to stay on Ogden keeps you on Ogden, turning left does not put you on the westbound part of Ogden. A left hand turn will put you on North Aurora Avenue.  The Naperville area is not alone in street naming stupidity. There is a sign in Palatine, I’m told, identifying Meacham Road that reads: “Meacham Road road.”

    Massive amounts of stupidity emanate from the myriad fast food drive-thrus in our area. I just adore those disembodied voices that don’t even say “hello” or “welcome” before diving into a guess as to why I drove up there in the first place. “Would you like to try the Triple Burger Death from Hell?” they ask. I am always polite and say “No, thank you” to their gracious suggestion. Some day, though, I’m going to say “Wrong! Guess again!”

    A friend recently visited a drive through to order three two-cheeseburger meals, one cheeseburger and two shakes. Well, of course, the little video screen beneath the disembodied voice (let’s call it “DV,” shall we?) showed that my friend ordered two cheeseburgers and two shakes. My friend corrected DV; the order became three cheeseburger meals. My friend corrected DV twice more and the order was finally correct, but that is not the most egregious incidence of DV’s stupidity. No! Each burger had to be decorated with the proper condiments, so DV asked, “Do you want cheeseburger number one with everything: pickles, lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup?” “Sure,” said my friend. DV went on to cheeseburger number two. “Do you want it with everything: pickles, lettuce, tomato, mustard, mayonnaise, and ketchup?” “Sure,” said my friend. Cheeseburger number three got similar treatment. Finally all of the cheeseburgers had been decorated and accounted for. DV forgot the shakes.

    My kids can do some stunningly stupid stuff. My son, for instance, can stand within arm’s distance of the back door. Should he open it, he could step directly out onto our deck. No stairs required and he’d be outdoors. Instead, he shouts to his father, “What’s it like out?” Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I wanted nothing more than to sit in my gazebo with a cup of tea and scan the news on my iPod. I finally got my wish and was glorying in a beautiful morning when my son appeared at the patio door. He looked at me pleadingly through the glass. I got up and went into the house, hoping for a “Happy Mother’s Day, Mom.” I got, “What do we have for breakfast?” Now, this is the child who went with me to the grocery store the night before. He himself selected two boxes of cereal and a half-gallon of milk and placed them in the shopping cart.

    The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard come out of my children has probably come out of every child in the world at some point. Hell, I’ve said it. “Are we there yet?” they ask. Every time the car has been moving more than 15 minutes, one of my children will ask it. They will repeat it. I have always said the same thing: “No, not yet.” I have, in short, been patient. The last time I was asked if we were “there” yet, something broke in my good-mommy brain segment. Smart Ass Mom replied.

    “Dear child,” I asked, “what happens when we get where we are going?”

    “We’re there,” said the child.

    “Yes. And then what happens?”

    “I don’t know, Mommy. What?”

    “Well, the same thing happens every time. Mommy parks the car, I turn it off and we all get out. Now, has Mommy parked the car? Have I turned it off? Are we getting out?”

    The child was silent. A few miles later, she said, “Mommy are we getting close to being there?” No child of mine is stupid for long.

    The most consistent sources of stupidity in our lives, though, are the administrators of our children’s schools. They truly shine at registration time. Each year, for the past four years, I have been asked to complete the forms contained in a registration packet. Even though the first page of the packet is a computer-generated form, printed front and back, containing all the information that is necessary for my child’s continued presence at school, I am required to fill out five additional forms with the same information. I write my daughter’s name five times. I write my own name five times. I write my husband’s name five times. I fill out the same information on the new Emergency Card that I supplied in prior years. Ditto with the health card. One year, I pointed out that the school had all of the information on the cards I completed the prior year and that nothing had changed. Ah! But something had changed. They threw those cards away. They sent the un-completed cards back and threatened to exclude my daughter from classes until they received the completed cards.

    Now, all of that sounds pretty darn stupid, doesn’t it? But, it’s not the dumbest thing that has come out of one of my kids’ schools. Not by a long, long shot. No, the dumbest thing that has come out of their schools—maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen—came from my son’s principal. Apparently, the staff at my son’s school spent too much time delivering stuff students had forgotten to the forgetful little buggers’ classrooms. Henceforth, Mr. Principal announced, the staff would no longer deliver such items. Nay, he said, they would be reserving their efforts for “more poignant responsibilities.” Yup. He said it. All I can say is “Mr. Principal, you are stupid, you are stupid. And, don’t forget, you are stuuupid.”

    © 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • Neighbors and Naked Barbies

    I like to sit on the deck looking at my garden. Some people find gardening relaxing. I’ve found that looking at the garden is actually much more relaxing than working in the garden. I particularly like to look at the garden in the morning and especially on significant days. So, it’s no surprise that Easter morning found me sitting on the step of my deck sipping a mug of hot tea while I surveyed my yard. What was surprising was the sight of three naked Barbies playing on the neighbor’s swing set, which sits just on their side of the property line.

    My daughter’s Best Friend lives in the naked-Barbies-on-the-swing-set house. In fact, the naked Barbies are hers. I wasn’t so much surprised to see the Barbies as I was surprised to see them on the swing set. They had been lounging on the chaise in our gazebo for the past week or so. Saturday night we had celebrated Passover with friends of ours we seldom see. They have a daughter who is close in age to ours. When these two meet, they form that fast, frenetic bond that only children who rarely play together achieve, as if they need to pack years’ worth of activity into three hours or so. In the maelstrom of their interaction, the Barbies somehow went from the chaise lounge to the slide and whatever you call that thing that two kids swing on facing each other.

    I smiled when I saw the Barbies and I knew Best Friend’s mother would smile, too. We have informally vowed to leave the area between our houses fenceless so things like naked Barbies on swing sets can happen while the children flow freely from one yard to the other.

    These are the best kind of neighbors. I consider them my reward because I also live near the worst kind of neighbor. Best Friend lives directly behind us. Worst Neighbor lives next door. Worst Neighbor bought the house and moved in with his wife and son. Every couple that has lived in the house has divorced and it wasn’t long before Mrs. Worst Neighbor and their child skipped out of the country.

    So now I live next door to Mr. Single Worst Neighbor. Given the current real estate market and the fact that he lives in “The Divorce House,” I’m pretty sure we’re in it for the long haul with Worst Neighbor.

    Worst Neighbor, being single, neglects many things in his house, most notably his dog. I’m sure the dog was purchased to appease Mrs. Worst Neighbor but as the dog is the Worst Dog, the purchase was for naught.  We’ll call Worst Neighbor’s dog “Lucy,” because that is her name and I don’t care about protecting her privacy.

    Frankly, Lucy doesn’t need privacy. She’s the neighborhood tramp. One particularly difficult day, I was pouring out my troubles in a phone call with my best friend. As we dished and drank our coffee I was beginning to chipper up, until I spied Lucy on my back deck and my own dog on Lucy. “I’ve gotta go!” I said, “Pogo’s humping the bitch from next door.” I separated the dogs and returned Lucy to her home. She was out and about soon afterward. Pogo lay whining in his cage.

    In an attempt to contain his canine strumpet, Worst Neighbor installed an electric fence, but did it himself and did it wrong. Lucy continued to roam the streets, looking for love. Last year, Worst Neighbor finally had her spayed and I held out some hope for a more peaceful life for us and for Lucy. It was a dark and stormy night when my hopes were dashed. Really. It was dark and stormy. It was night. And there was Lucy, whining at my back door. I called Worst Neighbor. He asked me to hold on to her while he finished having dinner with friends. We don’t call him about Lucy anymore. We call Animal Control. Maybe Worst Neighbor and Lucy will be getting divorced soon.

    Much as Worst Neighbor vexes us now, he is not the Worst Neighbor Ever. I believe that honor goes to the neighbors whose back porch rotted after years of neglect. With no safe way of getting from their back door to the garbage dumpster, they simply dropped their trash out the door into the yard where it accumulated. Eventually, of course, it attracted vermin, which were then attracted to the warmth in our house. I found them frolicking in the laundry hamper one memorable morning. Exterminators and health department officials got involved.

    My husband insists even they are not the Worst Neighbors Ever. To his mind, the Worst Neighbor Ever was the woman who lived in the apartment next door to his in graduate school. Or, I should say, “women,” as the person in question clearly suffered from multiple personality disorder. Every other night, just about 2 am, she would argue with herself, screaming and railing. Eventually, she would kick herself out of the apartment, slamming the heavy metal door on herself and waking the entire building.

    Sleep deprived, my husband called the landlord, who refused to believe him. Out of desperation and sleep-deprivation, my husband took to calling the landlord every time the women next door kicked themselves out. The landlord caught on eventually, answering the phone and immediately hanging up, but never evicted the woman/women. My husband moved out six months early but his middle-of-the-night phoning binge established a life-long habit of relieving pent-up frustration through creative, albeit hostile, retribution.

    Lately, the Best Neighbors have been dropping hints about moving, mumbling such selfish nonsense as needing a guest room for visiting grandparents. Our declining property values have forestalled what is probably inevitable, but Mrs. Best Neighbor assures me that they are taking us with them when they move. I hope this is true. I am far too old to discover what could be worse than living next to a promiscuous pooch, a vermin farm or the local psych ward.

    In the meantime, I’ll sit on my deck, survey my quarter acre of the American Dream and ponder where the naked Barbies will pop up next.

  • A Shameless Mom

    Lately, my son and I have been watching the Showtime series, “Shameless,” together. He’s not a very demonstrative kid. He hasn’t kissed me since he was eight and has to be coerced into giving me a hug. So, when he voluntarily bonds with me over something, I welcome the opportunity. We’re having a good time watching the show together, talking about the characters, loving the songs and downloading our favorites. The problem is, deep inside, I feel like I’m a bad mother for letting my son watch what is clearly a series for adults.

    I’m sure other parents wouldn’t allow their teenage children to watch “Shameless.” It’s loaded with graphic sex. The characters smoke pot. The father is an unrepentant alcoholic and a con artist. The children do whatever they need to get by, including stealing an entire truckload of meat. There is, in short, everything to which a child should not be exposed. I remind myself that my son has the digital version of girly magazines and that he regularly locks his bedroom door to, I’m sure, avail himself of them. Still, every time my son and I watch “Shameless,” I feel I’m a bad influence on my own child.

    Certain of my son’s friends’ parents would agree. I’m thinking, in particular of the parents of one of my son’s closest friends. His parents are fine, upstanding people. They would never let their children watch “Shameless.” On the contrary, I’m sure they only watch wholesome family shows. They probably have a boxed set of “The Waltons.” I’ll bet they don’t allow girly magazines, digital or otherwise, in their house. I’m pretty sure they are a little intimidating to their son. Hell, they intimidate me.

    My husband thinks I’m insane when I tell him I’m a bad influence on our son. He points out that our son has similar values to ours. We happen to think our values are pretty good ones, though they are rather to the left of many of our neighbors. Our son’s friends were amazed to hear that he sometimes—ok, often—uses the “F” word at home but he is not allowed, under any circumstances to use the “G” word. Recently, a friend of his posted, “Are you gay?” on his Facebook wall in response to something our son posted as his status. Our son responded, “Why, yes, I’m pretty happy right now.” My husband and I were pleased. His friend was confused.

    I worry about different influences with my daughter. She’s become quite sassy lately and has developed what my parents called a “smart mouth.” I never really understood that phrase. Wasn’t very smart of me to use it. It always got me in trouble.

    I’ve been trolling other mommy blogs, scoping out the competition, particularly those who’ve managed to turn their rambles into cash. On one such blog, I found moms complaining about their own children’s smart mouths. They attributed the phenomenon to “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” and its sequel, “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    As in many shows targeting children, the characters in the “Suite Life” series sass talk the largely incompetent adults. It never occurred to me that the show might be a bad influence other than to convince my daughter we should be living on a cruise ship.

    I started tracking her behavior following episodes. Damned if her mouth didn’t get smarter almost immediately after viewing a half hour of the show. I decided to follow the blog moms’ prescription and encourage exposure to a different sweet life.

    The remedy was The Food Network. According to the blogosphere, kids eat up cooking shows. So we tried Food Network for a while. My children have never watched a television show that I didn’t watch with them the first time. This means I’ve suffered through Telly Tubbies, SpongeBob, Dora, Bob the Builder, Imagination Movers and some strange thing called “Bobobo-bo Bobo-bo.” I’ve pulled the plug on a number of requested programs but what I saw on Food Network was truly frightening.

    I try to eat a healthy diet and encourage my children to as well. I buy lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grain breads, low-fat milk, yogurts. My son routinely spits them out then buys the junk he prefers with his allowance. I’ve pointed out to him that he is literally crapping his money away, but it doesn’t faze him. He won’t walk his dog, but he’ll walk ten minutes to the local Walgreen’s when he’s jonesing for a Mint Milano.

    I’m particularly interested in teaching my daughter the importance of healthy food choices. She’s got more holes in her teeth than a block of baby Swiss and a sugar habit that’ll keep Willy Wonka in top hats for the next ten years. But thanks to Food Network she now has recipes for pink lemonade layer cake, corn chowder chock full of heavy cream and brownies the size of The Hulk’s fist.

    I should have known better than to flip the channel to Food Network. I once witnessed Paula Deen cook a juicy hamburger, top it with cheese and a fried egg then place the whole works between Krispy Kreme donuts. Paula says she doesn’t eat that way every day, but geez, eating that way once is bad enough.

    Paula’s not the only bad influence on FN. The Neely’s lay on the sugar and fat in ways that make their corpulence make sense. And have you seen Ina Garten lately? I’m loath to say it, but she is morbidly obese. I’m loath to say it for two reasons. First, I realize obesity is a complex problem. Second, Ina is apparently a very nice lady and has lots of fans that flame anyone who criticizes her weight. But Ina’s health and temperament are not my concern. My daughter is back to watching “The Suite Life on Deck.”

    I feel a little bit better about my parenting lately. My son’s friend had dinner at our house. The dinner conversation ranged wildly from my son’s condom sandwich caper at school to the shows the boys watched when they were younger. The friend was gob smacked to learn that I not only knew the names of the shows my son watched, but I actually watched them. When I said, “What was up with the hair on that Bobobo guy?” his friend said, “Wow. My parents never watched anything I watched.”

    “Woooo hoooo,” I thought and gave myself a mental pat on the back. Finally, something I can be parentally smug about. My son may make sandwiches with condoms in them. My daughter may clap her hands together and say, “Breakfast! Now!” But I’ve approved every bit of media they’ve consumed. It is definitely something to feel gay about.

     

  • Of Bacon, Breasts and BPD

    When I started this blogging thing, I had two goals. I needed something to occupy the time between caring for children and filling out job applications. I also thought I’d keep digital dinosaur status at bay by learning some of the new fangled social media. Apparently, I am under-ambitious. People are making money at this blogging thing.

    In fact, people are making freaking boatloads of money at this blogging thing. Heather Armstrong, according to the New York Times, is the queen of the “mommy bloggers,” those women who blog about their kids, their husbands, their tract houses. Sound familiar? What doesn’t sound familiar is that Heather is on the Forbes list of the most influential women in media. Heather’s blog brings in as much as $50,000 per month. I, on the other hand, make about $80 a week tutoring.

    I may be under-ambitious, but I am not stupid. Though I didn’t start blogging thinking I would make money at it, I also didn’t become a teacher thinking I wouldn’t. The blogging thing is going better than the teaching thing, so why not look into making money blogging, I thought.

    I did some research. I’ve discovered that you can make money blogging if you are willing to be infamous or odd, reveal intimate details of the misfortunes in your life or endorse products. For what I hope are obvious reasons, I explored endorsing products first.

    I use lots of products. I use products all over my house. Problem is, the products I use don’t really excite me. Except for bacon. I love bacon. Bacon is like a kiss on a boo-boo. It won’t fix anything, but it makes me feel better just thinking about it. Endorsing bacon is a problem, though. I don’t have a favorite bacon brand. It’s bacon, for crying out loud. All bacon is good. Bacon is the little black dress of the food world. Doesn’t matter who made it, it goes with everything.

    So bacon’s out. I used to endorse the hell out of Prescriptives makeup. They folded. I loved the restaurant, L’Escargot. It went. Finding products to endorse was starting to make me feel very old and very out of touch. Then I remembered mayonnaise. I could live without dark chocolate. I cannot live without mayonnaise, specifically Hellman’s. My love of Hellman’s comes from being raised by a Southern woman. As a child, I believed that all sandwiches were made with Hellman’s, just as I believed that anyone who wasn’t Catholic or Republican would go to hell.

    My mother put Hellman’s on every sandwich she ever made. Once, at our house, my dad’s mother was making him a sandwich. She buttered the bread. “Ewwww!” I thought. “Grandma, Dad likes his sandwiches with mayonnaise,” I said. “Oh, no, he likes them with butter,” she said confidently. Now, at this point in my life, my father had been eating sandwiches with mayonnaise for nearly 30 years. “Hey, Dad,” I said, “do you like your sandwiches with butter or mayonnaise?” My grandmother was generally a humble person, but I could have sworn I saw a smug little smile cross her lips as he said, “Butter.” My father’s sandwich lunacy aside, I can say without pause that I thoroughly and heartily endorse Hellman’s Mayonnaise. I also endorse therapy to resolve conflict avoidance issues, but my dad is making his own sandwiches these days so it’s a little late for that.

    Unfortunately for me, endorsing Hellman’s is only going to pay off if I have more than a handful of visitors every day. Heather, the Mom Blog Queen, gets about 100,000 every day. Clearly, I’ve got some subscriber base building to do. That’s where being infamous or odd or willing to reveal intimate details of your life come in.

    Heather built her base through infamy. She, famously, was fired for doing a very naughty thing: posting rotten things about the people she works with on her personal blog. The story went viral. (That’s what the kids call it when something gets very popular on the Internet and millions of people are clicking on it, sharing it, posting it. Going viral is not to be confused with going postal.) With no co-workers to malign, Heather turned to blogging the intimate details of her life. When Heather got pregnant, her subscriber base soared. I hope she didn’t blog the details of how she got pregnant. Now, Heather blogs about everything that happens to her, including getting her washer fixed.

    My appliances all seem to be in working order. The motherboard on the dishwasher went wacky a few weeks ago, but so far my biggest dishwasher problem is worry that the dog is too heavy to stand on the open door while he licks the plates clean. If he climbs in and accidentally gets washed, then I’ll probably have to call the appliance repair guy. But I’ll be able to cancel the grooming appointment.

    Unlike Heather, I feel my everyday life is just a little boring. I could do odd, I thought. There is a woman who calls herself “Pioneer Woman.” She got picked up by a cowboy in a bar, they got married and she traded her “high heels for cowboy boots.” Now she blogs about her life as a city slicker on the ranch with four kids and a cowboy.

    I thought about being odd for a while. Oh, OK, I thought about being more odd. Yes, I could be more odd, so shut up! Problem here is that you have to be really odd to cut through the clutter. So, I decided that it would be really odd to blog about having a third breast installed. I could write about my struggles to find a doctor who would install said breast. I could blog about where on my body I would put said breast. Would it go in the middle? To the side of one of the existing girls? If so, which side? There are so many possible tangents to the third breast avenue. Of course, the problem with writing about installing a third breast is actually having to go through with it. Maybe if I learn Photoshop®, I’ll start the “and booby makes three” blog. Until then, I’ll be buying my bras off the rack.

    So, I’m left with sharing intimate details of the misfortunes in my life. There are women who’ve built loyal followings writing about deaths of husbands and children, about battles with cancer, about living with mental health issues. My husband isn’t dead and I’m not planning on killing him this week. If one of my children dies, I don’t think I’ll be in a writing mood. I could write about living with bipolar disorder, which I do on a daily basis—the living with it part, not the writing about it part. The thing about writing about my chemically imbalanced life is that then I’m “the bipolar blogging mom” when really, I’m just a mommy blogger who happens to be bipolar. Did I mention that generic lamotrigine is really crappy? If you can, get Lamictal® brand. Otherwise, take the generic stuff with bacon.

    Copyright© 2011 by Janice Lindegard. All rights reserved.

  • Little Tract House on the Prairie

    I had an interview with a creative talent agent recently. She was young. She was hip. She was urban; definitely a City Chick. “All of your work is really old,” she said. Ever cheerful, I said, “Ah, but I have a blog. I write and publish every week. It’s funny and lots of people like it.” She seemed impressed that I had been doing it for months.

    She asked to see my blog. Her eyes shone when she pointed to the computer in the room and said, “Well, let’s take a look at it!” I pulled my blog up on the computer. “So, what is your blog about?” said City Chick. “It’s a humorous take on life in the suburbs,” I said. City Chick’s eyes glazed over like she’d taken a trip on a Krispy Kreme conveyor belt. Her mouth fell slack. You could hear the pigeons in the park thirty floors down.

    City Chick didn’t read one word of my blog. That week’s post has one of my best lines in it but City Chick didn’t care; my blog is about suburban life, therefore it is of no interest to City Chick,

    I used to be a City Chick. I lived in Chicago for years, both as a single and a married chick. My husband and I had a terrific apartment. We both worked downtown and took public transportation. Everything we wanted was within walking distance, including the beach. Like all proper City Chicks, I disdained the suburbs as a cultural wasteland. Then, my husband lost his job. Doing a little accounting, which is about how much accounting I can tolerate, revealed that we’d be better off owning a home. After a brief detour, we bought a house in Oak Park.

    Oak Park is the suburbs for people who don’t want to think they live in the suburbs. There are nice parks, beautiful old homes and plenty of public transportation. Oak Park served us well for many years, though my husband might disagree. We had a beautiful old home. He would tell you that we had a mouse-infested old money pit. Oh, and the roof leaked. The roof leaked almost the entire nine years the house owned us. At one point, the roof leaked into the living room, the dining room and the family room. Many thousands of dollars later, the roof only leaked in the family room above the fireplace and only if it rained really hard. It wasn’t raining the day we sold the house.

    A number of circumstances lead to our move from Oak Park. Finances played a role, as did the school needs of our son and the societal needs of our daughter. I made a list of our wants and needs. I wanted a big yard. My husband wanted a new house. Our son needed school programs for gifted children. Our daughter needed to live near other Chinese people. One location fit all our needs: Naperville.

    Naperville. I was barely able to hide my derision. Surely, there must be some mistake. I, former City Chick, could not possibly move to Naperville. If any suburb were to me the epitome of suburban-ness, it was Naperville. Still, my research couldn’t be denied. The schools were good, my research said. The houses were affordable, my research said. The Chinese community is the largest outside of Chinatown, my research said. I will check it out, I thought. Surely it will be hideous.

    So, I checked out Naperville. I found that a river runs through it, quite literally, giving the downtown area a quaint charm. I found houses I could afford that my husband would want to own. I found good schools. I found lots and lots of Chinese people. My research wasn’t flawed. We moved to Naperville in 2005.

    I have a love/hate relationship with Naperville. Our house is relatively new but lacks in character. Still, there are no mice in the basement, the roof doesn’t leak and there are no carpenter ants, probably because there was no real wood used in the construction. Maybe some day a genetically mutated ant will emerge that grows to gargantuan proportions living on a diet of engineered wood. Until then, my windowsills will continue to act like pop-up sponges, growing larger with every heavy downpour.

    The schools are terrific. There are good parks, though a shade structure or two would be nice in the newer ones. You can practically hear the children sizzle as they clamber over the play equipment. The downtown area is cute and we even have an Apple Store. Now, if they could just solve the parking problem.

    Before I moved to Naperville, my image of the Naperville woman was a white lady in mom jeans, driving her silver minivan full of children to swim meets, piano lessons and soccer practice. While there are lots of minivans, the women and men behind the wheel are every color of the ethnic rainbow and speak every language imaginable. At one point, the families on our cul de sac (of course I live on a cul de sac . . .it’s Naperville!) included Taiwanese, Indian, Guatemalan and us. I worked at a preschool where I taught Spanish to Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, Mexican and Korean children. I think there were four white kids.

    What I love most about Naperville, though, is the wildlife. City Chick may have it over us with nightlife, but it really gets wild out in Naperville. Chicago has its pigeons, Oak Park has its rats, Naperville has nature. One evening, early on in our life here, I overheard my daughter making coyote noises on the deck. When she got an answer, I hustled her into the house. In the city, people walk their pocket dogs because they have no yard. In Naperville, people walk their pocket dogs to keep the hawks from turning them into lunch.

    When I lived in the city, I rode my bike along the lake and cursed the runners on the bike path. In Naperville, I run in the prairie preserve where I curse the cyclists and horse riders. But I can’t stay vexed for long. I fell in love with Naperville on the prairie trails. At the end of a long run last fall, I rounded a curve then struggled up a hill. Before me lay acres of burnished copper grass, swaying in the wind. The sky was clear, the sun was gentle. I was hot and sweaty and utterly alone with nothing but the land the way it was hundreds of years ago.

    City Chick may look down her nose at my suburban life and maybe some day I’ll move back to Chicago. But, right now I’ll trade the Crobar (people still go to the Crobar, right?) for my little tract house on the prairie.

  • Talk The Talk

    When I signed on to be a parent, I knew that sooner or later I would need to have “the talk” with my child. I figured it would be later—much later—say, in high school or college, maybe even grad school. Yeah, grad school would be good. No such luck.

    I had the first “talk” with my son in pre-school. He was a cute little guy and was being pursued by little girls on the playground. Little boys are physical. They push, they shove, they wrestle. Little girls don’t, but they aren’t any less physical. Little girls love to steal kisses. The problem for my son was that he was being told to keep his hands to himself but no one was telling the girls to keep their lips to themselves. So we had a talk about touch, as in, “No one should touch you if you don’t want to be touched,” followed by, “No, you may not hit the girls if they try to kiss you.” I concluded with “Yes, I will tell the teacher it isn’t fair for the girls to kiss you if you can’t push them.”

    Several years later, my son went with his class to a place where they would learn about “health.” I was glad. I figured it got me off the talk hook for at least another year or two. The day he went, I had some anxiety. When I was his age, we had a similar special class. They called it “sex education” then. I don’t recall a word of it. At this point, it is important for you to know that I have two siblings. My mother told me I came home from school that day and said, “Mommy! Dad had three erections!” She also told me she said, “He had more than that!” My son came home without a single comment. I sighed with relief. My son knew what he needed to know about sex—sorry—health.

    Perhaps three years later, I discovered he did not know what he needed to know about sex, I mean, health. My son knew about erections and eggs and sperm and embryos and fetuses and how to make them. He knew that sex felt good and that sex was something two people who loved each other would want to do. In short, he had all the information necessary to make a baby and no information on how to not make a baby. This, to me, was a problem.

    “So,” I said, “they told you how to have sex.”
    “Yeah,” he said.
    “Did they tell you about birth control?”
    “Yeah. They said it doesn’t work.”
    “Really? They said it doesn’t work at all?”
    “Yeah. Basically.”
    “Son,” I said. “How many children do dad and I have?”
    “Two,” he said.
    “And how many times do you think dad and I have had sex?”
    He said nothing. We were in the car so he could stare straight ahead while his mother embarrassed the crap out of him.
    “All of our friends have only the exact number of children that they wanted to have. Use your brain. Do you still think birth control doesn’t work?”
    “MOM!” he said.

    Eager to fill the holes in his health education, I bought a package of condoms. I didn’t feel this was premature. He had a girlfriend, for crying out loud. I asked his father to show him the condoms. He declined. I asked his father if he wanted to talk to his son about condoms. He said, “No.” I asked his father if he ever wanted to talk to his son about anything related to sex. He said, “No.”

    So, there I was with a package of condoms and a son with a girlfriend. I told my son that I had a package of condoms. He looked at me with horror in his eyes. I told him I would leave them in his room and he could check them out when he was comfortable. I left his room, patting myself on the back for being a great, open-minded mom. When I went to my own room later that night, the package of condoms was on my bed, unopened. The next day, I placed the package of condoms on my son’s desk chair before he came home from school. That night, the unopened package was on my bed. I took it to my son and placed it on his desk. He threw it at me. I threw it back at him. For about a week, we lobbed the package of condoms back and forth. The condoms are stashed away for now, but the next time he has a girlfriend, I’m tossing them his way.

    I have realized that sex isn’t the only thing that warrants a talk. Drugs get a talk, too. I like the method reported by one of my son’s friends. This girl, we’ll call her “Anna,” was sitting in her room, reading magazines, and listening to music. Her mother came in the room, picked up a magazine and started flipping through the pages. Anna thought her mother’s behavior a little odd, but welcomed it. They exchanged a little small talk, but mostly just flipped through magazines together. Finally, Anna’s mother closed the magazine, tossed it on Anna’s bed and said, “You never do drugs!” then left the room.

    Most talks are uncomfortable for my son and me, but we usually get through them. I have developed a set of rules. Keep it as impersonal as possible. Keep an open mind. Remember that “Hmph” is a legitimate teenage response.
    I had a talk with my son recently that had me blowing all of my rules. I discovered clean, folded laundry in my son’s dirty laundry hamper. When I tell other mothers that I discovered clean, folded laundry, they invariably have the same response. Their eyes narrow, their lips harden, their brows furrow. “Clean and folded?” they growl.

    I asked my son, “Do you know what I found in your hamper?” He said, “Hmph.” I said, “Clean . . .folded . . .laundry.” He said, “Hmph.” “You’ll be doing your own laundry after today.” He said, “Hmph.” I said, “Do you understand?!” “I get it!” he shouted back and stomped up to his room.

    He’ll cool off. I’ll cool off. Eventually, we’ll be able to be in the same room together and then we’ll have another talk. It’s the one where I say, “I love you and I’m sorry I lost my cool.” And he’ll say, “Hmph.”

  • Bring It Up Again, Sam

    I’ve told my children lots of stories since they were little. Some of the stories came from books. Some I made up myself. I remember telling my son a story about a blue frog that got separated from the other blue frogs and had to find his way back to blue frog land. I was planning on having the blue frog go through many adventures, with my son rapt. He would love this story so much, I thought, that it would become his favorite and every night he would ask me to tell him the story of the blue frog. He hated the story of the blue frog. He was so upset about the frog being separated from the other frogs that he began wailing, “No! No!” He didn’t stop wailing until I said, “The frog turned around, saw millions of other blue frogs and they all lived happily ever after. The end. Good night.”

    I do know some stories that my children like to hear again and again. Unfortunately, they all involve puke. For some reason, my kids think puking and stories involving puking are just hilarious. I’m pretty sure my kids aren’t unique in this. My daughter’s best friend is frequently at our house, so has heard at least one or two of our family puke stories and has laughed along with the rest of us.

    More of these stories feature my son because he seems to have the weakest stomach in our house. I would think that the person who the stories are about would not find these stories at all amusing. I know I don’t get a big kick out of recounting the times I’ve lost my lunch. But, my kids laugh hardest at the stories about them. My son, for instance, regularly tells friends about the time he vomited all over the Legos at aftercare. “Yeah, I was just sitting there, playing with the Legos and, all of a sudden I horked all over them. It was a mess!” My son and his friends laugh. I just roll my eyes.

    My son’s favorite stories involve him being sick on or near his parents. He recalls being sick once and allowed to sleep in our bed. After sleeping for some time, he awoke. “How are you feeling?” we asked. “I feel much better,” he said sincerely. One second later, he was sick all over the bed. I remember a similar incident when he had been sleeping off an illness on the couch. He came into the bathroom where I was washing my hands or brushing my teeth or something. I asked how he felt. He said, “I really feel ok” and immediately retched on the bathroom floor.

    While my kids are laughing so hard they cry when I tell these stories, I tell them completely straight-faced. See, I don’t think they are particularly funny because I am the person who has had to clean up. These puke fests never seem to happen when it’s just my husband with the children. My husband has never been puked on from head to toe so that he had to shower before he could take his clothes off. No, the puke patrol is my personal responsibility.

    Though my husband hasn’t been barfed on, he has been victim of an exploding diaper. When our son was very tiny, we lived in a house with a basement family room. The kitchen was at the top of the stairs. Frequently, my husband would watch TV with our son, no more than three months old, sitting on his lap. One evening, as I prepared dinner, I heard my husband shout, “Oh, holy mother of god!” followed by “Oh, my god!” followed by “Jesus Christ!” The litany repeated as I heard my husband’s feet plod up the staircase. The baby came around the corner first, held stiff-armed away from my husband’s body, then came my husband. He handed me the baby. While my husband changed his pants, I cleaned the baby. I had the baby cleaned and changed long before my husband stopped calling on the Virgin.

    After I’ve been coaxed into telling my son’s puke stories, my daughter begs to hear a story of her own gastric misadventures. Problem is, there aren’t many. My daughter is always on the alert for anything wrong with her body. Every scratch must be inspected, every sneeze investigated and every slight rumble of her interior workings must be respected so she makes it to a safe vomitorium on time. She is, however, the child who covered me from the top of my turtleneck to the bottom of my blue jeans. I was an experienced mother by that point, though. I didn’t miss a beat. It happened in the bathroom so I turned on the shower, then stepped in fully clothed. I set the baby on the shower floor. Baby, clothes and I all got clean quickly and easily. I believe I actually thought, “Thank God, she only puked on me.”

    My daughter doesn’t remember the most spectacular spewing involving her. It happened just minutes after she entered the United States for the first time. When we went to China to bring her home, we were warned again and again about drinking the water, eating the food, etc. So we took great care throughout our trip. The last night in China, though, I got sick. I got really sick. And then I got sicker. The hotel doctor came to our room with a nurse and syringes. He injected me with a magic potion that stopped the vomiting and the nurse injected me with fluids to counter the dehydration.

    I felt better. We got on the plane. I felt fine the whole trip. I felt fine until I stopped feeling fine while we waited to go through Customs. I got that unmistakable feeling and began frantically looking for a receptacle of some sort, any sort. Nothing. Nothing, that is, except my new daughter’s lovey, a soft piece of blankie with a bunny head sewn to it. A mother does what a mother has to do.

    I didn’t tell my daughter this story until after she’d outgrown her lovey. She never begged to have the story told, preferring to hear one of her brother’s. Recently, though, she included the story in her “all about me” presentation at school. I understand it was a big hit. You can’t beat a good puke story.

  • Dogs, Cats and Other Demons

    The portal to hell is right outside my front door. Just ask my dog, Pogo. Every time the doorbell rings, he begins barking, “Satan is here! Satan is here! Don’t answer the door! Satan is here.” He will bark at Satan while I answer the door, while I allow the demon to enter, while I take the demon’s coat, while I usher the demon into our home. He will even bark should I hug the demon. He will bark, in fact, until the demon nears him, then he will lie down on the ground, roll onto his back, tongue lolling, waiting to be petted.

    Satan may be able to get into our home with just a quick tummy rub, but he won’t want to stay. Immediately after being tummied, Pogo will bring him a saliva-covered tennis ball and drop it at his feet. He does this to everyone who enters our home. If you are seated, Pogo will drop his saliva ball in your lap. If you are standing, Pogo will drop the saliva ball at your feet. If you are sitting or standing near the kitchen table, Pogo will drop the saliva ball on the table. Then, he will stare at you with Charles Manson eyes, eagerly and maniacally waiting. You will pick up the ball using as little finger surface area as possible and toss it to the beast.

    This is your biggest mistake. You are trying to be nice. He’s a cute doggie. He’s so eager. What harm can it do to play a little fetch? And this is where he has you. There is no “little fetch” with Pogo. There is fetch until you bleed, but there is no little fetch. Once you toss the ball, you are his. Ignoring him doesn’t work. He will drop the saliva ball in your lap and if you don’t toss it, he will take it from you then drop it back in your lap. You will toss it just to get the gloppy thing away from you.

    We have devised ways of having fun at Pogo’s expense. We invented a sort of indoor dog hockey that involves tossing the saliva ball into the kitchen. It is impossible for Pogo to get a good grip on the vinyl floor. He skitters and slides after the ball, legs pumping like a cartoon character. Finally, he catches up to the ball then slides sideways into the stove. I feel a little guilty laughing at him, but then I remember he’s ruined our family room carpet and feel a lot better about myself.

    My son gets the worst of the saliva ball games. Pogo’s domain is the kitchen and family room, which run the entire back of the house. My son’s drum kit also happens to be in the family room. The first time he played the drums in the family room, Pogo dropped the saliva ball on a drum. My son threw it to get it out of the way and set about drumming. Pogo fetched it and brought the ball back. My son tried to ignore the ball. Pogo barked. My son ignored. Pogo barked louder. My son tossed the ball. There was a Sunday at our house when my son was playing the drums, my daughter was playing the piano and Pogo was barking to the beat.

    Pogo is not our only pet and, while he may believe he keeps the devil out of our home, he is wrong. The devil is very much among us and his name is “Oliver.”

    Oliver is our cat. We routinely say that he is the worst cat in the world. People laugh, thinking that we are exaggerating our cat’s misdeeds. All cats are a little rotten, aren’t they, they will say. We just nod our heads. We know. Oliver is Beelzebub’s acolyte.

    When our children were little, we had safety devices installed in cabinets, on select doors, even on the stove and the toilet. Then, our children grew up and could be trusted not to flush wash cloths or eat an entire bottle of vitamins. We have had to reinstall cabinet locks, though, on cabinets that no three-year-old could ever reach. Our cat, you see, likes to open cabinets and empty them of their contents. One cabinet is a particular favorite, the one we use to store glasses. Oliver loves to sneak his evil kitty paw into the cabinet and swipe a few glasses onto the floor. We installed the cabinet lock and breathed easy for a while.

    Oliver’s chaos cravings were not so easily thwarted. He discovered the pantry where many things are stored including his and Pogo’s foods as well as bottles of various substances. With a few quick swipes, the contents of the first two shelves rattle onto the floor with a cat-satisfying clatter. Now, we place the kitchen trashcan in front of the cabinet. If we forget, Oliver reminds us.

    We used to leave coffee cups on the counter, back when we had twelve matching coffee cups. We no longer have twelve matching coffee cups. Oliver’s favorite pastime is pushing breakable items, like coffee cups, over the edge of the counter. I might understand this behavior if he waited around for the crash and splash. But he doesn’t. Surveying the wreckage takes too much of his valuable time. There are other items waiting to be broken, like soup bowls and antique teapots.

    I believe Oliver’s issues stem from his traumatic childhood. Oliver was one of a litter of kittens that was being fostered by my best friend. My friend and I sing together. We were rehearsing at her house, in the basement. Our children, three of them supposedly at a responsible age, were upstairs amusing themselves responsibly, we thought. Also upstairs were the kittens. Upon finishing rehearsal, we adults went upstairs where we found the children in the kitchen with the kittens . . . in their pants. Each child had partially unzipped his or her pants and stuffed a kitten in them. The kittens’ adorable little faces peaked out at us as I uttered words I hope never to repeat: “Get the kittens out of your pants NOW!” Oliver was one of those kittens.

    We do have a pet that is much more to my liking. It is a fish. It lives in a tank that has achieved perfect fish tank balance. There is a fish, a plant and a bunch of snails. I add water now and then. I feed the fish now and then. While Oliver and Pogo are technically my son’s pets, the fish is my daughter’s. She complains that she should have a pet with fur because it’s impossible to hug a fish. “No,” I think, “You can’t really hug a fish.” But a fish has got it all over a furry pet. You can flush a fish.

  • Green Eyed Lady

    I wasn’t particularly well liked as a child. I was a geek. While other children were outside playing, I was inside reading the encyclopedia. I particularly liked the entries on dogs and flowers, but I read just about every page. I didn’t leave it at that though. I assumed all of the children were reading the encyclopedia when they weren’t outside. I actually told other children that I read the encyclopedia and then I told them what I had learned. I quickly discovered that the other children were not reading the encyclopedia. Every time I cried on my mother’s shoulder about the other children’s derision, my mother would say the same thing. “Oh, honey. They’re just jealous.” Jealous? Of me? The encyclopedia-reading know-it-all? “Could it possibly be true?” I thought.

    Well, of course it wasn’t true. The children were unkind to me because I was an insufferable know-it-all. By the time I was a tween, I had learned how to pretend to like frosted lip gloss and Carly Simon songs, but the jealousy seed was sewn. Other girls took to bell-bottoms and blush like ducklings to water. I never managed to feel as comfortable in the teen uniform of my time as I did sitting in the family room, reading the encyclopedia, imagining all of the other girls jealous of my set of World Books.

    Perhaps my parents’ insistence on treating each of their children equally fed the jealous monster within me. Every year at Christmas, my mother would carefully add up how much money she had spent on each of us, then would buy more presents for whoever had been slighted. When she was sure she had spent equal amounts of money on each of us, she would lay the booty out and make sure that the equality was evident. If it looked like one of us was getting more than the others, the present parity process would begin anew.

    We became accustomed to things being equal at our house. If one of us got something, all of us got something. This extended to privileges, too. It started to breakdown as we got older though. I remember my sister being incensed when I was allowed to wear pantyhose in fifth grade. Technically, the hose in question were sheer pale-pink tights, but my sister saw “pantyhose.” Since she wasn’t allowed to wear hose in fifth grade, she was not going to put up with me wearing hose in fifth grade.

    Many years later, as an adult, I recall asking for a Cuisinart for Christmas and being told that it was too expensive. Just months later, my parents bought my sister and her husband a dishwasher for their new home. I was not gracious. I believe I yelled something like, “She gets a dishwasher? I can’t have a Cuisinart and she gets a dishwasher?” in the middle of the Polk Brothers sales floor. I got a Cuisinart for Christmas the following year. I still have it and it still works and I’m still kind of ashamed of how I got it.

    Though I’m older, I have retained my jealous ways. It’s a good thing, then, that my best friend claims not to envy others. She says she is truly happy for other people when good fortune smiles upon them. Of course, I hate her for it. She knows I hate her for having a lake cottage, too. When she and her husband bought the cottage, I said something like, “Wow, that’s so great!” but I was thinking, “Where’s my lake cottage? Why does she get a lake cottage?” I realize that I should have been thinking, “Cool! My best friend owns a lake cottage! That’s so great for her,” immediately followed by “Maybe I can stay there for free some day!”

    I think my friend sometimes pretends she’s jealous of me so that I won’t feel so bad. When we moved to Naperville, we knew only one other family here. She would call me and, if she got the answering machine, accuse me of being out having fun with my new best friends. When I tell her that my son has called me a really nasty name and I have taken away his wireless mouse for a month, she’ll tell me that her daughter has called her a really nasty name and she has taken away her laptop for a month. She’s a good friend.

    There is some evidence that I may be getting better at handling my jealous nature. I used to be so jealous of some celebrity that I couldn’t stand to look at her. I can’t remember who it was now. My sister, I recall though, can’t stand Demi Moore. I understand her animosity. You’ve had three kids, Demi, and you want me to believe you haven’t had any work done? Honey, you’ve had more work done than a Chicago tollway in the summer.

    Lots of people hate Angelina Jolie because she’s beautiful, she has a beautiful lover, they adopted beautiful kids and made some beautiful ones, too. I can’t hate her, though. Look at me, people! I married an older man. I have a gorgeous daughter adopted from China. My husband and I made a beautiful boy together. Ok, so I’m not the most beautiful woman in the world and my husband isn’t Brad Pitt. Still, Angie and I have a lot in common. She hates Jennifer Aniston, too.

    Throughout my life, jealousy has been my constant companion. Sometimes, she’s just hanging around the edges and I’ll get a little wistful over someone’s good fortune. Other times, she’s pulled up a rocking chair and is goading me into a great green funk. I’ve come to accept it.

    Things have been pretty quiet on the Green Line of my life lately, but I see a storm on the horizon. Just the other day, a friend chatted me up on Facebook and let it drop that she was typing on her laptop poolside in Mexico. I’m shivering in Chicago and she’s lapping up the sunshine south of the border. The last emerald straw just may be the email I got from my best friend the same day, though. “Do you hate me?” it was titled. What, I thought, could she have done to make me hate her? The message was signed, “sent from my iPad.”