Rain and Poop June 17, 2013

While stopped at a light on my evening commute, this happened:

The splatter sound of the bird poop was almost as bad as seeing the poop smeared down the window. I thought someone threw something at the van.

Yep, that’s bird poop. I immediately thought of all of you (no offense) and wondered how I could relate the disgusting Trenton bird poop incident to my day for your blog reading entertainment.

As I mentally drafted my post, I wallowed in word play about my “shitty” day and being “shit on” at work. I thought about possibly relating the incident to MotherJam’s post about Edith Bunker (don’t ask– just click the link and read through the pages of the post for yourself). Then guess what happened?

It rained! A downpour, in fact.

Yay! I thought. The poop will wash away! Then seeing the bigger picture, I realized that I didn’t have to wallow in thoughts of my work day! I was on my way home to my family! (Sort of. I was really on my way to M.’s occupational therapy appointment, but you get my drift). With this new rainfall chipping away at the stubborn bird poop (I couldn’t help but wonder what those Trenton birds were eating), the draft post in my head morphed into posting about how no matter how much we get shit on, something always comes along to clean us off. In this case, the rain was more useful than the sun.

But wait– is rain really a positive thing? Maybe the post I was searching for was one about degrees of shittiness. Wouldn’t the rain be less shitty than the bird poop, but still someplace on the scale of crappiness? What angle would work to turn the events of my commute into a thought-provoking post? How could I turn this incident into a metaphor on life?

Well, the answer is that I can’t. So I leave you with a picture of bird poop and these words of wisdom:

Welcome the rain– it washes away the poop.

That stinks. Okay, how about this?

The Universe will find a way to wash off the poop that was your day.

Well, at least that rhymes. I wonder if Robert Frost had these issues…

Perhaps I will leave it to you to come up with a bird poop/rain downpour metaphor for life in my comments. It would be much appreciated.

Have a nice night!

Just Checking In . . . June 14, 2013

I’ve been thinking about my 100th post for the past twenty posts, but I can’t quite seem to make it over that finish line! This is post number 98 I believe, and I haven’t posted since Saturday’s quick pic from JC’s swim lesson.

I can read your minds. You’re thinking, What is going on over there at Waiting on a Word? Or you’re wondering what you are going to have for breakfast. Or if you need a raincoat today. Okay, I’ll admit. I can’t read your mind. But whether or not you are wondering what’s going on with me, I’m gonna tell you.

First. I went to the doctor for a physical which turned into a million other appointments.  Blood work, Ob/Gyn, ultrasounds, mammos, dermatologist, eye doctors, dentist, blah blah. So far, thankfully, nothing terrible to report. But finding out nothing is wrong is time consuming. To all you twenty and thirty-somethings out there in Blogtropolis complaining about getting old (ut-hmm, Rachel), let me tell you. Once you hit 40, shit starts to fall apart. Like I said though– so far so good on my end.

Second. You know how I have those couple of hours a night plus a lunch hour for my “me” time? Well, those hours have been occupied. Fellow parents, tell me you feel my pain as the end of the school year approaches! Organizing summer camps, presents for teachers, conferences, in my case IEP meetings and therapy appointments. It feels like July will never come. Lunch hours are spent rushing to Target or Toys R Us (M. turned 8 last week and I bought his presents ON his birthday during my lunch hour!  Mom of the Year contender I am not) or the card store for the many thank you’s that are owed.

Also, my “me” time has been attacked by a combination of Netflix, the NBA Finals, and the Yankees. Last night the Yankee game went EIGHTEEN innings (they lost). I can usually post and have a game on in the background, but Netflix may be The Devil.

Third. A few weeks ago I put on my big-girl-writer pants and reached out to some editors to inquire about hiring them to edit something I wrote. After encouraging words from my husband to go for it, I found an editor who I thought I could work with and we started an email conversation and I hired her. A real editor who’s not related or otherwise connected to me! I know, I’m going cray cray here at WOAW. Anyway, she had an opening in her schedule for the end of June, so I spent the last few weeks of “me” time (the “me” time not dominated by the trials and tribulations of Upper East Side teenagers on Gossip Girl and the wonder of LeBron James) self-editing my project before sending it to be edited.

Why do that? Isn’t that a waste of precious “me” time? you wonder. To me the thought process was sort of like why we clean before the cleaning lady comes. We don’t want the cleaning lady to:  (1) think we are the slobs that we are; (2) spend her time picking up toys when she could be doing more “substantive” cleaning like dusting our moldings and stuff; or (3) walk in and take one look at the place and run out screaming.

Same thing with the editor. I wanted to give her my project in the best condition I could possibly make it so that she didn’t feel the need to do shots of whiskey as she read it and so that she can concentrate on the big stuff like plot and character development yada yada, instead of little stuff like  to/too, your/you’re, here-he’s-named-Stan-but-here-he’s-named-Dan errors. But I found that after spending weeks on revising (you know how much I enjoy editing), and actually cleaning it up a bit–big stuff and little stuff–I got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore. I started to hate my three main characters and wanted to have them poke each other’s eyeballs out with pencil points.

That’s a problem.

So I stopped myself and sent it to the editor and now I feel free of it and ready to get back to blogging. I’m expecting the editor to return it to me within a few weeks and the thought of what I will then have to face makes me cringe (I’m cringing right now as I type this). It’s exciting to have a pro look at my stuff, but it’s also a bit nerve-wracking that she’s going to read it and suggest that maybe I should take up knitting instead of writing. Either way, it’s out of my hands now. The real test will be whether she wants to poke my characters’ eyes out.  Hopefully she won’t– not all of them, anyway.

That’s where I’ve been.

One more thing:  When I started this blog I was so wrapped up in writing, but now that I’ve gotten a feel for that I find myself wanting to read more. I haven’t been keeping up with the blogs I follow and I really want to play some catch up. So I may not be here as much as I should, but hopefully I’ll be at your blogs, commenting on posts that you wrote eons ago, ha ha. I love reading your stuff and apologize I’ve been slacking on that.

That’s it for now! I have the day off today and find myself with three bonus hours of “me” time before I have to pick up JC from school. My WordPress reader is calling me, as is the Laundry Monster. The Great Picture Project stares me down from the third floor landing (I have not touched it, by the way). There’s always the Shoprite option too. I don’t know what I’ll end up doing, but it sure is nice to have a choice!

Have a great day.

Multi-tasking June 8, 2013

Swim class, editing, morning coffee, blogging. Hey, forty-five minutes is forty-five minutes. I take what I can get.

Enjoy the minutes of your weekend!

“Yeah Blue, I’ve Got Two!” June 6, 2013

This week my soon-to-be eight-year-old son M. performed in his school play.

About a month or two ago we started getting handouts with song lyrics and dates and scripts. A quick review of the script revealed a line highlighted in blue for M. to practice.  Our M., who has autism, had a speaking part! He had to say the line that titles this post:  ”Yeah Blue, I’ve got two!” (Don’t ask.  The play was called “Oceans in Motion,” or “Commotion in the Ocean,” or something like that and M.’s line was part of a conversation with a kid who played a whale perhaps? The details are sketchy.)

My first thought was Oh no!  A speaking part to the autistic kid?  Obviously that thought isn’t going to win me any Parent of the Year awards, that’s for sure. But something as simple as this speaking line, which the typical parents wouldn’t even think twice about, can cause stress for us autism parents. We try to help our kids fit in, and a speaking line at the play seems like the perfect way to make them stand out again– on a stage in front of every parent and grandparent and student in the school.

As the days and weeks went on, we started to practice.  In the car, at bedtime, at random times during the day when that script handout would peek at us from the school folder or from our pile of paperwork on the dining room table.  ”What do you have to say for the play?” we’d ask. Sometimes M. would answer and sometimes he wouldn’t.  Sometimes his older brother would answer instead.  My husband and I must have said “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two” a hundred times in the past month or so. Almost every day M.’s school report noted, “Practiced for play today.” He’s never going to say it, I thought.

Then the big day came. Mom of the Year (me) dug up a blue shirt as instructed and even found M.’s LL Bean shorts with lobsters on them to fit in with the ocean theme. My husband took the day off and I took the morning off and we headed to the school for the play.

We sat and the curtain opened and there was M., standing on the risers with the rest of the class, smiling and looking into the audience fascinated and curious but happy.

The teachers had the good sense to give M. one of the opening sequence lines (before his attention started to wane), and he walked up to the microphone at the front of the stage with three other kids.  The whale kid asked his question as my husband fired up the iPhone video camera, and then M. answered:  ”Yeah Blue, I’ve got two!”

We clapped and cheered for M. and I started to cry. I’m sure the other parents thought I was nuts but I couldn’t help it. Not only did M. say his line, he also danced and attempted the elaborate hand movements that went along with the ocean songs. After each song, while the rest of the students stood and listened to the audience clap, M. smiled into the audience and clapped with us, so happy and so pleased with himself and his classmates. At one point he stumbled off the riser and there was a collective gasp from the audience, but he climbed right back up unaffected.

M.’s performance was super cute. I couldn’t have been more proud.

I let myself off the hook for doubting him in the first place. Right or wrong, sometimes with M. expectations are low. Maybe it’s a defense mechanism to appreciate when he exceeds our expectations, instead of be disappointed that he’s not meeting them, if that makes sense. I remember talking with another autism mom awhile back and we joked about how the littlest thing our special kids did made us so happy– answering a question, commenting on something happening in real time, showing empathy or even simply reacting appropriately to a situation. She said that her son had told her that it was cloudy outside that morning and she practically threw a party she was so thrilled. I understood.

This week M. said, “Yeah Blue, I’ve got two” in front of a standing-room only crowd. It may not have been first place in the spelling bee or the starring role in the school musical, but to us and to his teachers (who cried with me), it was huge.

Thanks for reading and have a nice night!

Am I a Doppelgänger? June 4, 2013

This is me. (Remember:  it’s late, people. Any traces of makeup have long since disappeared and I’m in my pajamas watching the Yankee game).

(Happy me ^)

(Annoyed at how my picture is coming out me ^)

(Trying to make my eyes look bigger but coming off as creepy me ^)

(A cross between WTF me and I may be insane me ^)

At least once a month, somebody somewhere insists they know me. This is a sample conversation of how the scenario plays out:

Complete and Total Stranger:  Don’t I know you from somewhere?

Me (checking them out): No.  Don’t think so.

CaTS:  Didn’t you go to Yale/Dr. X’s office/my senior prom?

Me:  No.  I get that all the time.  People always think they know me.

CaTS:  No, no.  I’m SURE I know you.

Me: Um, but I don’t know you.

CaTS:   Are you from Boston/around the corner/Mars?  Hey!  Didn’t you work at Shoprite/the Pentagon/my dentist’s office?

Me: No, really.  You think you know me. I just have a familiar face.

This goes on and on while the person insists they know me from somewhere, they won’t be able to sleep until they figure it out, and can I please recite my entire resume and life history so that they can ease their mind? I’m not sure what it is but many people think I look familiar. It happened again to me today at my son’s karate school. I felt pressured to tell a CaTS my employment history so that  he could prove to himself that he wasn’t crazy.

As I grow older and crankier, I’ve been wondering how I can play around with this phenomenon. Maybe I should act like the other person looks familiar to me, too, and ask twenty questions? No, I don’t have an aunt in Savannah, but I do have a great uncle in Poughkeepsie!  Have you ever been to Poughkeepsie?  No?  Umm, what can it be then?

Or maybe it would be fun to answer “yes” to their questions, for example:  CaTS:  Weren’t you on American Idol?  Me:  Why YES I WAS! That Ryan Seacrest is a real jerkoff! or CaTS:  Weren’t you at the Hoffman wedding? Me:  YES! Wasn’t the food terrible!

This could be a way for me to make new friends, hear new stories, break the ice. It would definitely be more entertaining than telling someone a hundred times that they do not, in fact, know me.

That’s it. That’s all I really wanted to put out there tonight.

Have a good night!

Love . . . Exciting and New June 3, 2013

Hi Everyone!

A week or so ago I was over visiting jhubner73 where his post reviewing Daft Punk’s new album mentioned The Love Boat theme song. A comment thread about seventies television shows resulted (crazy comment threads like that happen all the time over there at J.Hub’s blog), and again The Love Boat was cited as “crappy 70′s television.”

I respectfully disagreed, voicing my strong objection in the comments. I said it there, and I’ll say it again here:  The Love Boat was genius. Pure Genius. Aaron Spelling at his finest.

The Love Boat

For all you young’uns out there who aren’t familiar, The Love Boat was an incredibly awesome show that aired from 1977 to 1986. Although The Love Boat theme song was dissed on jhubner, ut-hum, I think it’s one of the catchiest theme songs ever written in the history of television. Yep, I said it. Consider this:  How many of you out there in Blogtropolis can sing at least a portion of The Love Boat theme song? I bet many of you are thinking about it right now. . .

Love, exciting and new
Come Aboard. We’re expecting you.
Love, life’s sweetest reward.
Let it flow, it floats back to you.

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won’t hurt anymore
It’s an open smile on a friendly shore.
Yes LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! (hey-ah!)

Love Boat soon will be making another run
The Love Boat promises something for everyone
Set a course for adventure,
Your mind on a new romance.

Love won’t hurt anymore
It’s an open smile on a friendly shore.
It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE! It’s
LOOOOOOOOOOOVE!
It’s the Love Boat-ah! It’s the Love Boat-ah!

(Source: http://www.lyricsondemand.com/tvthemes/theloveboatlyrics.html)

Obviously taking place on a cruise ship, the “crew” stayed the same every week, but the genius of the show (besides the catchy opening theme song) was that each episode featured new guest stars.

As for the crew, we had Captain Stubing (Gavin MacLeod) (dashing and formal), our peppy cruise director Julie (Lauren Tewes) (who I wanted to be and sometimes still do), bartender Isaac (Ted Lange) and “Yeoman Purser” Gopher (Fred Grandy) (who were always getting into snafus), the ship’s doctor “Doc” Bricker (Bernie Kopell) (I never understood how he got all the ladies), and Vicky (Jill Whelan) (the Captain’s annoying daughter). As years went on the crew changed slightly (remember “Ace” the ship’s photographer?), but for hard core fans like myself, these crew members were the heart of the show.

Onto the genius. Nothing beat watching those opening credits when the guest stars of the week were revealed:  Mary Ingalls (Melissa Sue Anderson), Loni Anderson, Scott Baio, Linda Blair, David Cassidy, ahh the list goes on and on. Then there were those special guest stars who kept coming back for more adventure, my favorite being Charo (remember, “cuchi cuchi”?).

“Cuchi cuchi, Captain Stubing!”

Each episode featured our regular crew doing their thing, in addition to three stories involving the guest stars of the week.  We always started at the boarding, then moved on to shenanigans by the pool, the Captain’s special dinner table, and onto “porto-vyarta” (actually Puerto Vallarta) and “okko-poco” (Acapulco) as I called them back in the day (I was a kid, remember?).  The guest stars were always joining each other for “nightcaps,” which my parents told me meant that they were having drinks in the room, and kisses mostly happened on the Lido Deck.  Everyone disembarked happy and changed and in love or at least sexually satisfied (it was the 70′s).

The Love Boat had it all. Romance, drama, comedy, scenery, celebrity, and sunshine, all wrapped up in a neat little one-hour episode.

I got to wondering why this show was canceled. Was it because it was too seventies and we all became serious yuppies in the mid to late eighties and lost our sense of humor and adventure? Was it because our crew got old, Aaron Spelling moved into the 90210 area code, or they just got tired of recycling love-centered storylines?

It seems to me that this show needs to be remade. Come on, Hollywood!  Get on the ball.

I’ve taken the liberty of mapping out the pilot for The Love Boat 2.0:

Our Crew:

Captain George Clooney.  He’s charming and handsome and debonair, and what else does he really have to do?

Our cruise director, Beyonce. This would be a great career move for B. She’ll have plenty of time to hang with the family and tour and do all the other stuff you do when you’re Beyonce, and she could make her uniform incredibly sassy and awesome.

Doc John Stamos.  Now there’s a doctor I can get on board with!

Gopher:  James Franco.  He’s nutty enough to play the part of the goofy Purser with his sidekick . . .

Isaac:  who actually I think should be a female named “Isa” and let’s recruit Sarah Silverman for that role.

Vicky:  How about an Olsen twin?  They could pass for Clooney’s daughters, no?  They can even alternate episodes like they did on Full House, and Uncle Jesse’s right there if they need him.

Now that we have the crew cast, here’s what I would do with the first episode.  Now tell me that you aren’t excited to see who my guest stars are?  I know you are, which just proves my point about the show’s genius.  Here we go:

Storyline 1:  Britney Spears stars as a washed up pop star with an attitude on the ship to perform her latest single.  She boards the ship in a diva-like fashion (snubbing Beyonce the Cruise Director) and falls instantly in love with Doc.  As Brit and Doc lounge poolside and have nightcaps, Gopher accidentally unlocks Britney’s toy poodle’s crate!  Gopher and Isa spend the hour trying to find the poodle before Brit realizes it’s gone.  Of course, Gopher and Isa have to involve Doc in this, jeopardizing his budding relationship with Brit, but at the end it all turns out for the best.  The dog is found and Brit (a changed person thanks to Doc), leaves to revitalize her career and her life, thanking Doc for a lovely time and hoping they meet again sometime.  She even gives a wave to Beyonce as she disembarks, poodle in hand.  Gopher and Isa wipe their brows as she leaves–disaster averted!

Storyline 2:  Jennifer Aniston and Brad Pitt star as exes who happen to be taking the same cruise vacation! Imagine the coincidence! Jen’s also Captain George’s niece and has a special seat at his dinner table.  Jen and Brad spend the first half of the cruise bickering and trying to make each other jealous, with Captain George valiantly protecting Jen from her evil ex, but then as Brit sings her single (see above) the cruise ship shifts (probably because the Captain isn’t driving the boat) and Jen and Brad actually stumble into each other’s arms! Sparks fly and they look into each other’s eyes, dance to Brit’s single, and decide they are still in love. They kiss on the Lido Deck (where Brit’s toy poodle runs by, Gopher and Isa following), have their nightcaps, and declare their love for each other. As they leave the ship, they show off Jen’s engagement ring and thank the crew for bringing them together again. The Olsen twin agrees to be a bridesmaid for their second wedding.

Storyline 3:  Adam Levine stars as a lonely man– maybe a yoga instructor– unlucky in love. He won his ticket for the cruise in a sweepstakes and climbs aboard all mopey and cranky. He talks to Beyonce and tells her his troubles– he can’t find a woman who takes him seriously. Leggy, twenty-something blondes just aren’t doing it for him anymore. Beyonce suggests shuffleboard, but Adam just wants to hang in his room and mope. As he’s walking to his room on the Fiesta Deck, he literally runs into a 42-year old mom from New Jersey (oh wait . . . sorry . . .), I mean, Kerry Washington. Sure, she’s gorgeous, but she’s also smart. SMART! A girl!  A pretty girl who is smart too! Imagine that! Kerry thinks Adam’s a tad obtuse, but meets him for drinks at the Starlite Bar (where Isa is serving but nervously searching for Brit’s dog and Brad and Jen are throwing drinks at each other) and they fall in love within minutes. They too decide to make out on the Promenade Deck and have nightcaps, and when they disembark they’re engaged and Adam is a changed man.

There you have it. I’d be happy to write the script– anything to make this happen!

Thanks for reading and have a good night.

Signs June 1, 2013

The Daily Post Weekly Photo Challenge this week is to share a sign and explain why you chose it to share.

This “No Weapons Allowed” sign made its appearance on the door of my local AMC movie theater after the Aurora, Colorado shooting during the midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises on July 20, 2012.

I hate this sign.

Obviously, I hate the sign because it’s there and I hate what happened in Aurora almost a year ago. I hate that the joy of going to see a new movie is instantly diminished before I even walk through the door. I hate that we live in a world where people would bring weapons to a movie theater.

Maybe you’ve been able to tell from my excitement during awards season that I love going to the movies. It wasn’t always like that. In fact, when I was a kid I experienced two very traumatic movie theater incidents.

The first incident occurred when I was at the movies with my family and a stranger sat next to my brother and tried to molest him. No joke. My dad freaked and chased the guy out. I didn’t even know what happened until I saw my dad running out of the theater. It wasn’t until years later that I was told the details. Even now the incident is a blur, like I dreamt it.

The second incident I remember more clearly. My father, brother, and I were at an old local theater watching Beverly Hills Cop (I think the sequel) and a fire broke out. My dad, being a fireman, took charge and the theater was evacuated. We got a coupon for a free movie but Dad wouldn’t let us go back to that “death trap” theater.

Needless to say, whenever I go into a movie theater I recall these events. I always look for the emergency exits and check out the people around me. Still, I’ve learned to love the movies again– going to the movies is always my first choice for date night (although somehow I married a man who hates going to the theater).

Then Aurora happened and this sign went up and now there’s a third incident, that gratefully I wasn’t directly involved in, that also dims the event.

The sign also annoys me for another reason though:  it’s stupid. If people have plans to commit shootings in a movie theater, is this sign going to be the thing that stops them? As if they’ll get to the door and change their mind, thinking, “Hey, there’s a SIGN that says I CAN’T do this!  I’ll just turn around and go home now!”I doubt it.

My guess is that the sign only speaks to the regular, non-violent patrons and the only purpose it serves is to make us nervous. Maybe these days though, it’s good to be nervous– you know– the whole “be alert and report suspicious activity” directive after 9/11, Boston, and various other terrorist attacks. My dilemma though is that the movies are supposed to be an escape from reality. I love getting lost in a story for a couple of hours. I don’t want to worry about whether or not the person next to me has a concealed weapon.

I certainly don’t want to see this sign every time I walk into the theater. It’s really a shame that this sign even exists.

Sorry if I bummed you out. I’m going to go catch up on reading some of your (hopefully cheerier) blog posts now and maybe work on my Love Boat post! Fun stuff ahead, Blogtropolis, fun stuff ahead.

Have a nice night. Thanks for reading.