MEMOIRS OF A MOM ON THE EDGE
Part One - Martinis & Menopause
By Elizabeth Loan
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2012 by ELIZABETH LOAN
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, situations and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Published in Australia
Digitally by
Dare Empire eMedia Productions
ISBN: 978-0-9871750-2-1
Cover Photograph © 2012 C.Rausch
www.cherylrauschartandillustration
Cover Art © 2012 Dare Empire eMedia Productions
Prologue
This book is really the brainchild of my absolutely fabulous publisher, Justin James. Justin, being of sound mind and body (this is an assumption, as we’ve yet to meet in flesh), came to me with an interesting proposal:
He wanted to turn my blog into a book.
As astounded as I was by his generous offer, I recognize this isn’t a new idea fresh off the apple cart. Many writers, long before I hit the World Wide Web, realized that a strong blog creates a strong reader base; and readers (as we all know) are the backbone of the writer. For without the reader, the writer is nothing more than a mentally unstable individual who wanders about mumbling under his/her breath about Lord-only-knows-what to people no one else can see.
I would like to point out here that talking aloud while wandering the aisles at Wal-Mart in your bathrobe, seeking out last-minute items for a school project, doesn’t count.
So, after much nail biting and nay saying, I sat down and got my butt to work. The end result is this book. I hope these stories bring a smile to your face. I hope you can identify with my ridiculous life. I hope you send your hate mail to Justin…( the.dare.empire@gmail.com )
But seriously, take it with a grain of salt. Some lime and tequila won’t hurt either…
~*~
Memoirs of My Bohemian Childhood:You Left Your Children Where?
When I was eight years old, my parents rented out our two-story Queen Anne, packed our lives into suitcases, and dragged us off to spend a year trekking across Europe. I was in third grade. The year every American grade schooler gets his/her first real homework assignment. The year of memorizing and taking timed multiplication quizzes. The year of learning to divide, write only in cursive, and most importantly (to me) another year of being placed with the same teacher as my best friend and neighbor, Nushie King.
My parents, both teachers, gathered up our lesson plans, threw caution to the wind, and left the land of McDonald’s while promising the adventure of a lifetime.
To this day, I still haven’t memorized my multiplication tables. My fourth grader has. He’s my hero.
I give my parents a lot of credit. We survived nine months trying to figure out how to get on and off a roundabout. No small feat with five people crammed into a rented Renault (which is smaller than a Chevy Chevette, the only new car my parents ever owned) that topped out at thirty-five miles per hour downhill. No one in my family spoke a lick of French; and the French made no attempt to help us in our struggles to figure out things like why a public bathroom was merely a hole in the ground, or why beating your fish to death with a mallet at the market was a good thing. And there wasn’t a McDonald’s in the entire country.
My grandmother, God bless her soul, insisted on cramming the largest size jar of Skippy peanut butter she could find into my dad’s suitcase before we left that tarmac. My father was furious over her insistence; but she was doggedly determined and always got her way. Without that jar of Skippy, I’m certain we would have starved.
Through the European countryside we trekked. From an eight-year-old’s perspective, it was an utterly miserable experience. It is only now, that I realize my poor father, who was there because he got a sabbatical to wander and return with paintings to educate his minions about, was the most miserable of all. As a grown adult who has to hide or cram earplugs in to get some writing done, I can’t even begin to imagine the frustration of finally getting your time to do your thing and watching six months roll by while you never even pick up a brush.
To ease the pain of traveling cross-country with children, my parents did quite a bit of antique shopping. Today, I’m pulling a favorite memory from the antique memory rolodex.
~*~
You Left Your Children Where!?!?
There we were, in the middle of a foreign country. My brother was five, my sister three-and-a-half and I was eight. I think it close to April, because it was actually warm outside that day. And we must have been in France because it wasn’t raining. I will always remember England for the cold, gray, rainy weather and the amazing fish and chips and lamb chops. France I will remember for the scorpions that wandered on the front porch, chocolate breakfast croissants, and the tin bathtub that had to be filled with water from a tea kettle.
My parents spotted an antique shop—one of the eight million shops on their ‘must see’ list. They pulled over, got out, cracked a window, and locked the doors. My mother left us with these parting instructions, "We’ll be right back. Whatever you do—don’t get out of the car."
Before the doors to the mysterious shop closed behind them, my sister pooped in her pants. Not a diaper, mind you. She let loose with a colon cannonball in her pink, Strawberry Shortcake undies.
Great. Now we were stuck in a clown mobile with Poopy Pants McGee stinking up the convection oven, and no way out, while my parents shopped for things to add to the massive trunk that would end up costing them a mint to ship back to the States.
I ask you, who does that to their kids? Who goes to a foreign country on a teacher’s salary without any background in the language and leaves their children on a curb, locked in a rented, stinky cracker box?
My parents, that’s who. The bohemian, non-drug-abusing hippies who painted their entire bodies and posed for the Chicago Tribune on the front steps of The Art Institute. The same people who wore bell bottoms until 1982 and grew a garden that could have fed half the homeless in the United States. The same people who spent hundreds of dollars on big gold fish for their hand dug pond and thousands of dollars on pure bred dogs because they believed that breeding either species might be the key to financial success, only to turn around and give up the plans once they discovered it really was just way too much work and they’d rather be drawing.
I survived on that curbside in Europe. We all did. And in middle-age, I have come to believe that that experience (as nuts as it was) is part of the fabric that makes me the charming, talented individual I am today.
I am grateful for the insanity. Not knowing my multiplication tables by heart is far from important. Knowing how to wander into any situation and survive is necessary; and knowing how to handle life’s curveballs, pick up on a whim and change everything...is priceless.
Thanks mom and dad. Love you guys.
~*~
My Life in Real Time
Son: My egocentric self says I deserve an ice cream cone.
Me: Interesting. Too bad your egocentric self doesn’t have a job to pay for said cone.
~*~
Generic and Proud of It
Generic. Definition: a) Being or having a nonproprietary name (generic drugs) b) Having no particularly distinctive quality or application (generic restaurants).
My parents have always shopped at the Jewel Food stores. I don’t think they’ve ever stepped foot in a Dominick’s or Trader Joe’s—although I hear Costco has recently piqued their interest. Just what a retired couple needs: food in bulk.
Back in the day, when they were shopping for their growing family, there was one lonely aisle dedicated to generic items. At that time my parents, God love them, bought as many items as they could from that dreadful spot. I would cringe as they loaded up the cart with items wrapped in plain white plastic; nothing to discern one thing from the next except bold black letters nestled in the broad army-green stripe: CAT FOOD, BREAD, TORTILLA CHIPS.
Ugh.
As a child growing up in the center of middle-class suburbia, it was the pinnacle of embarrassing, usurped only by the fact that they drove a Chevy Chevette and my mother, if the need arose, would grace the store with a head full of curlers wrapped in a long silk scarf. Never mind that I, in my infinite adult parenting wisdom, have been known to waltz into the local 7-11 at six a.m. in my pajamas, red velour robe guiding my trek with no less aplomb than Rudolph himself, seeking hot coffee and other assorted necessities I neglected to purchase when fully clothed. I am cool. My snowflake pajama pants concur.
In the prime of my youth (the decade when The Incredible Hulk was in its first run and Shaun Cassidy was voted sexiest man alive by girls under the age of twelve) the stigma surrounding generic food was at an all-time high. I didn’t want ‘tortilla chips’ I wanted DORITOS (they only came in one flavor back then, remember? Ah, the crunchy, cheesy chip that graces my childhood memories. My first true love…). My best girlfriend lived across the street. Her parents not only drove a Lincoln Town Car with a built-in cellular phone ala Sixteen Candles, they also bought all brand name food, had an endless supply of soda, took annual vacations, watched a projection TV with a screen as big as the one in the local theater, and (best of all) they let me hang out there pretty much all the time. It was in that custom built model home that I filled my belly—and my brain, thanks to their National Enquirer weekly subscription—during my grammar school days. Today it would be the equivalent of having the Beckham’s as your best friends. They had it made in the shade; and I, as the tagalong child they could not shake, lapped up as many Hostess-filled crumbs as my belly could handle.
When I became a young adult, I vowed my family would never eat a ‘cheese puff’. As long as Frito Lay remained in business, it would be nothing but Cheetos, Fritos, and Doritos for my brood. How was I to know that when I grew up I would spawn five eating machines who could rival Mean Joe Greene in an all-you-can-eat contest? No amount of Salerno Butter cookies quelled their hunger. I had to purchase a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk for each day of the week. I needed an extra refrigerator to hold the overflow. My entire salary went to the Jewel. And Whole Foods, the grocery store of my fantasy life? Forget it.