Flotsam

In what may become a weekly feature, lethargy permitting, I have once again gathered my tracking data to see what sometimes-literally-burning questions have brought visitors to my humble website. Having, for the first time, a full seven days worth of results, I was able to see some patterns emerging.

For instance, In the past week, 11 people have found their way here by googling i was born in a wagon of a travelling show, my mamma use to dance for the money they throw? We covered this precise query last week, and that is an awful lot of gypsies, tramps, etc. looking at Simone’s pictures. It makes me uncomfortable. STAY AWAY FROM MY BABY, GYPSIES!

Also puzzling is the popularity of the joy of sex game. Six people were clamoring for information on the topic, and to my horror, I have discovered that there is some sort of video game by that title. I can only hope it does not feature the same hirsute hippie couple as the print edition. I am not inclined to find out for myself.

Questions about sleeping on your face continue to plague people, but I feel we covered those adequately last time.

Rather touchingly, both first thing to know about babies and everything to know about babies showed up in the data. This smacks of one of those “I didn’t know I was pregnant and now I’m crowning!” situations I’m always hearing about on the news, and the poor girl is obviously trying to make up for lost time. Either that, or the Googler is the parent of a preemie about to be discharged, and has just realized that she spent so much time hedging her bets and reading about brain bleeds that she forgot to learn a single damn thing about caring for an infant. Ahem.

Now, let’s get started:

guilty feet have got no rhythm
Three of you found your way here via this phrase, and I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you are never going to dance again. At least not the way you danced previously. But frankly, you should have known better than to cheat—and a friend, at that—so I have limited sympathy for you.

does a baby with hearing loss google and coo
Hearing loss shouldn’t affect baby’s typing skills. I can’t speak to the cooing.

do male doctors enjoy seeing nude female patients
It depends.

doctor doctor can’t you see i’m burning
This is a medical emergency, and yes, ANY COMPETENT DOCTOR should be able to see that you’re burning, if in fact you are. However, you should be prepared for the possibility that it is merely the emotion of love that you are feeling—or, if the burning comes when you urinate, its after effects.

drink girls organism
I cannot advise this. Parasitic infections are nothing to be trifled with, and if my recent Google Analytics are to be believed, infections like these are on the rise, particularly in the female population.

enema play toy
No, no, no. Read the box again.

face in literature
The face has a long and colorful history in literature. There’s The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Man Without a Face, and in fact, I am hard pressed to think of any significant literary work in which at least one face does not appear. If this is an idea for a thesis topic, I suggest you narrow your focus.

fall-a-thon try not to laugh
Oh, I hear you. It’s hard. My advice is to stop trying altogether—just let it out. My god, what do they expect us to do at a fall-a-thon? We’re not robots.

forcibly depilated
The important thing to remember is that it’s not your fault. You weren’t “asking for it,” no matter HOW hairy you might have been. Try to enjoy your newly smooth skin, and invest in some pepper spray.

girdle feeling
Pinchy? Breathless? Nauseated? This is all normal, if, as I assume, you are wearing a girdle. If you are having this “girdle feeling” in the absence of a corporeal girdle, you should call your doctor.

girdle secret
Do tell!

girl has organism
Well whatever you do, don’t drink it.

hand crank to call flipper
Dangling a fish while making a high-pitched clicking noise is just as effective as any mechanical device I have seen.

happy happy happy happy happy happy happy. i’m so happy today.
Not that I am not pleased for you, but if you’re so very happy, what are you searching for?

hokey pokey with mom
Just play the way you’d play with anyone else—right foot in, left foot in, etc. Mothers are people too!

how to give brazilian wax to spouse
Wait a minute. Are you, perchance, married to Ms. forcibly depilated?

i came back, i came back… and i’m glad i did
Me too.

infant swim bleach germ health
Infants should never be allowed to swim in bleach. You are correct in surmising that this would kill germs, but most pediatricians now agree that the adverse effects on baby’s delicate tissues of a bleach paddle pool outweigh any health benefits.

is it time to go home yet
No.

is it time to go home yet?
Still no, even with the added question mark.

my nephew got the golden ticket!
Congratulations! Look, it’s none of my business, but you might want to check in on your parents more often. They seem to spend all of their time in bed, and should at least be turned once in a while, to prevent sores.

pregnant assholes
I think what you are describing is in fact known as a “hemorrhoid.”

pudgy fucking
This really shouldn’t be any different than the slender variety. Maybe a little more chafing.

quiet child stims
I know where you’re going with this. Unfortunately, my reproductive endocrinologist tells me that there is no one variety of gonadotropin more likely to produce a quiet child.

teething, molar, hell
Yes. I’m sorry.

what does it mean if you sleep on your side with your hands by your face
You are probably tired. And afraid of bats.

what happens when a girl has her organism
By “has her organism,” I assume you mean “gives birth.” Are you the father of the organism in question? If so, I’d start referring to it as a “baby” instead of an “organism.” Referring to her child in such a clinical manner can be off-putting to your partner, and women harboring organisms are notoriously emotional, and dangerous when provoked. When the “baby” arrives, you’ll also want to substitute the phrase “sensuous, life-giving breasts” for “grossly engorged and lactating mammaries.”

At any rate, after having her organism, the girl will deliver the placenta, which is an organ that provides food and oxygen to the developing organism through the umbilical cord. After the placenta has been delivered, the uterus will shrink back to its customary size, though the organism will continue to grow for a period of about 20 years.

what should you feel 8dp3dt
Terrified, alternately hopeful and despairing, bloated.

words: pollyanna,sisterhood and freespirit
I do not know you, but I do not think I’d like you.

www.pictures of icecreem and juse
This is just a shot in the dark, but have you recently started a diet?

what happens when you sleep
Very little. Unless your husband is the one Googling how to give brazilian wax to spouse

Other queries I did not have time to address include (but are not limited to!):
male celebrities in tapered jeans, blue girdles, public bralessness pics, vaginal pelt, granny speculum, scary mouse maneuver, flickr pee skirt, rug hooking in a small apartment

I am sick with some sort of flu. Just in case it is swine related, this morning I ate a rasher of bacon as spitefully as I know how. I usually feel better each successive day of an illness—save for the first two—but this time it is quite the opposite, and I have a sinking feeling that I may have my first sinus infection. Well, it’s not so much a sinking feeling as it is an “awl-in-the-nose” sort of feeling, but I would like to avoid antibiotics, so I will give it another day. Which is how long I figure I have before death if this downward trend continues.

I am spending most of my day in bed, which gives me plenty of time to think—not ideal given that I sent my book proposal out on its maiden voyage Thursday. It’s not like I didn’t KNOW that the wait would be skin-peelingly tortuous, but oh my hell. I recall thinking that once I sent my proposal off I would take up running to pass the time until I heard something, but now that the wait is upon me I remember that hey! I HATE RUNNING.

I hadn’t planned to say anything here about the Maiden Voyage, as my usual MO in these situations is to tell nobody, so that I won’t have to suffer through others’ pity and my embarrassment when the inevitable rejection comes. But you are my beloved readers: if there ever is a book, you would be the ones (hopefully) buying it, and so in a way it is our book, and it would be rude of me not to let you experience this delightful mélange of terror and digestive illness first (well, second) hand.

SO! As I see it, things can go one of fourteen ways:

1. She likes it! The proposal needs some work, but I officially have an agent! CHAMPAGNE FOR EVERYONE!
2. She doesn’t dislike it, but it is Not For Her.
3. Meh. She gives me a thoughtful critique and encourages me to submit again later.
4. Meh. She gives me a thoughtful critique.
5. No.
6. She does not like it, and tactfully suggests I find another line of work. It is insinuated that I would make a fine bricklayer, night watchperson, or mime. Something that demands less facility with the English language.
7. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email.
8. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean.
9. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts.
10. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts. I wander the streets in housepants, selling limericks for five cents apiece.
11. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts. I wander the streets in housepants, selling limericks for five cents apiece. In the winter, having spent all of my limerick money on cheap gin, I huddle in an abandoned railway car. When it rains, I keep dry under a toadstool.
12. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts. I wander the streets in housepants, selling limericks for five cents apiece. In the winter, having spent all of my limerick money on cheap gin, I huddle in an abandoned railway car. When it rains, I keep dry under a toadstool. For company I have a pet pigeon, named Neil Patrick Harris.
13. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts. I wander the streets in housepants, selling limericks for five cents apiece. In the winter, having spent all of my limerick money on cheap gin, I huddle in an abandoned railway car. When it rains, I keep dry under a toadstool. For company I have a pet pigeon, named Neil Patrick Harris. Neil Patrick Harris dies after eating tainted birdseed.
14. She dislikes it, and sends an email detailing my many flaws to the person who introduced us in the first place, except she accidentally CCs me on the email. I become depressed and take up drinking. Take it up more strenuously, I mean. Scott leaves me, taking the baby. They move to Fiji where they live in a lavishly appointed tree house and drink the milk from coconuts. I wander the streets in housepants, selling limericks for five cents apiece. In the winter, having spent all of my limerick money on cheap gin, I huddle in an abandoned railway car. When it rains, I keep dry under a toadstool. For company I have a pet pigeon, named Neil Patrick Harris. Neil Patrick Harris dies after eating tainted birdseed. The limerick market dries up, and I freeze to death in a Target parking lot, the tips of my fingers black and peeling, like in The Little Match Girl, only with short-form rhyming poetry instead of matches, thus finally revealing that my childhood dread of that particular story was well-founded after all.

God, I hope it’s not number fourteen.

Well, I was going to post something else—a scintillating diagram of my brain, actually—but I have just heard the news about Michael Jackson.

I don’t know if I have told you this, but at one time…oh, about 25 years ago, it was my intent to marry him. I had a Michael Jackson doll (Barbie VASTLY preferred him to the insipid Ken), and the day I received him we danced around the room together, all romantic-like. I also had the Thriller picture disk, and it, along with my Jackson 5 45, were the most-played records I owned, and the first. I couldn’t have been more than four or so when I got them. I remember seeing the Thriller video, allowed to watch MTV for that specific purpose, and my sense memory of that day is unusually strong. I was home sick, an afghan on my lap, eating a spoonful of sugar (it turns out it does not, in fact, help the medicine go down), alternately terrified and exhilarated by what I was watching. Thriller is still among my favorite albums, and being a Halloween baby, I listen to the title song every year on my birthday. Listening to Beat It in my room as a six year old made me feel pleasantly hardcore, I won many a birthday party dance contest with my moonwalk, and Billie Jean is on nearly every mix tape and CD I have made. If you can listen to that song without dancing, well, you should probably have that checked out by a professional.

We grew apart, Michael and I, and I froze him in my mind somewhere not long after Thriller, when he still seemed impish and vital. When I picture him, I picture him as he appeared on my beloved picture disk, or in the video for Don’t Stop Til you Get Enough, and I never owned any of his albums after the Bad era (though there was one song off Invincible, now that I think of it, that was a feature of the late night dance parties my roommates and I used to have alone in our apartment).

His music was the first that was my OWN—not something my parents listened to, something just for me, and there is no artist I have listened to for longer. I know what I am mourning is something from a long time ago, in a way, but I am truly sorry he is gone.

Tonight I put Billie Jean on for Simone, and you have never seen a more enraptured, head-shaking baby. She kept turning to grin at me, like “Are you hearing this??” Naturally, I shimmied my shoulders in reply.

This past weekend I added Google Analytics to this site, and I must say the results have been fascinating. People find their way here through such an enchanting variety of search queries, but often they leave with their concerns unaddressed.
Well, no longer! I live to serve, you see.

can baby be a boy even after seeing labia in gender scan
Generally the presence of labia is a strong indicator that you are dealing with a female baby.

do male doctors ever get a hardon when he has to feel his patients hardon during a physical?
I think I need some more information, here. Why must he “feel his patient’s hardon” during a physical? Did he tell you that this is standard practice? My husband assures me it is not. Or are you the doctor in question? If so, I think you may have misunderstood some part of your training.
Either way, I think you ought to get yourself a good attorney.

exit hospital apocalypse weekend
Hmmm. Obviously you are a forward-thinking hospital administrator, and I admire your attention to detail and the thoroughness with which you draw up contingency plans. How WOULD one exit the hospital during the apocalypse, assuming, of course, that the apocalypse falls on a weekend?

fretting babies what to do when newborns aren’t happy
Drink heavily.

girls making organism pics
Are you looking for pictures of girls making organisms, or girls making pictures of organisms, drawing protozoa and such? I assume the latter, unless you are referring to female embryologists?

how to revirginize yourself in spirit
Oh, bless your heart.

how to sleep on your face
1. Lay on face
2. Keep still
3. Breathe deeply

i can see veins in my chest
I am terribly sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you might want to start putting your affairs in order.

i was born in a wagon of a travelling show, my mamma use to dance for the money they throw?
I think you may be a gypsy, a tramp, a thief, or quite possibly all three. Tell me about your father—did he preach and/or sell bottles of health tonic?

men who stare at women
That would be all of them. Take your pick.

molar pain in 10 year old
Please tell me this is a joke. I was led to believe that Satan’s Kernels will be fully emerged by age two.

sitting in wheelchair inflamed scrotom
Are you wearing briefs? Could you switch to boxers? What if you fashion a little scrotum rest out of gauze and some cooling salve?

sleeping the wrong way waking up with indent on face
I don’t think it is that you are sleeping the wrong way, exactly. It’s more likely to be the pile of bottle caps you’ve passed out upon.

tapered jeans out?
Yes. Decidedly.

the only thing that can make this day worst is while i am opening the front door, smoking and drink in hand, a baby pops out my mail order uterus.
Well. You have had quite a time of it, haven’t you?

what happens when a girl has an organism
Excellent question. It depends upon what type of organism she has. If it’s a tapeworm, it is likely that she won’t show any symptoms at all, though she may notice segments of the worm in her stool. Some parasites can cause B-12 deficiency and abdominal pain. Others, like a human fetus, cause nausea and a distended midsection.

she is fun
Good for you! Off you go, then.

No day in which you have already been to the emergency room and back by eleven a.m. can be said to be a pleasant one, unless, I suppose, someone later appears on your doorstep with a gift-wrapped box of money, a plate of lobster ravioli in saffron cream sauce, and a magnum of fine champagne. Unfortunately for me, no such person has yet appeared, though I suppose there is still time.

Simone has gotten quite adept at getting down from beds and couches by turning around and lowering herself feet-first, and she was in the process of descending the couch around nine a.m. today when…I don’t know, exactly, but she landed on her head with such a forceful THWUHK! that my blood ran cold. Her blood, when I picked her up, ran right into my cleavage, as she did that terrible pause-before-the-scream-thing that babies do when wounded. Incidentally, the fall and the scream in these situations have a relationship similar but opposite to that between lighting and thunder. You know how the length of the pause between flash and boom indicates the distance of the lighting strike? Longer pause, less danger? Well inversely, after a fall, the longer the pause before the scream, the louder said scream will be, and the graver the injury. It’s science!

So, Simone screamed, I groped around to find the source of the blood, found a drop hanging from her nose and wiped it away, waited tensely to see if more would follow (No, thank heavens), hushed and rocked and swayed, and a minute or two later, it was all over. A red, slightly raised circle appeared high on her forehead. Simone rubbed her eyes several times, but her pupils were equal and reactive—I checked. I’ve seen Grey’s Anatomy.

I set her down and she resumed playing with a plastic cup and babbling sternly to herself, scooting along as if nothing had happened. I wondered if I should call the pediatrician, because of the THWUHK!, but this wasn’t exactly the first time Simone had smacked her head. The pediatrician had assured me that babies’ skulls are thicker in the front and back for precisely this reason, and Simone hit herself right where the forehead becomes the regular-old-head, nowhere near the temporal bone/epidural hematoma danger zone (I like to think of the middle meningeal artery as the highway to the danger zone—a little neurology humor, there!).

I just wrote an article about delayed-bleeding head injuries; I know what to look for, and Simone was fine. I twittered a hypothetical, and my instincts were confirmed.

After a little bit I picked her up and held her, and she fell asleep. Huh. Well, I told myself, she didn’t sleep much last night, because of Satan’s Kernels (what we call molars, in this house), so she’s probably tired. She’d already been up for three hours. Still, she didn’t usually fall asleep so easily! I pried open her eyelids to check her pupils again. {Ed. Note: The fact that she didn’t stir when I did this should have been my first clue that something was wrong}. Pupils looked good!

I didn’t feel comfortable putting her down to nap in the bedroom, so instead I spread a blanket on the floor and laid her on that. {Ed. Note: The fact that THIS didn’t wake her should have been clue number two}. I typed for a few minutes, and then gazed at Simone pensively. I dialed the pediatrician’s nurse triage line.
“This is probably silly…” I began.

The nurse seemed prepared to agree with me, but then asked whether the patient could be woken easily from her little cat nap. I scooped Simone up and sat her on my lap. She sort of flopped around, opened her eyes, then fell back asleep sitting up. Now, Simone DOES NOT go back to sleep once she has been woken, even if you stay very very still afterward, crouching outside the door, cursing the squeaky floorboards and hoping to god that she will. I jostled her. She opened her eyes part-way, then slumped back asleep, as if she were drugged. I said something to the nurse, who told us to go the ER, and after that everything happened so quickly that it wasn’t until I was offering Simone’s leg for a blood pressure cuff that I noticed she was barefoot.

I will draw a veil over what ensued. ER visits are unbearably tedious, and Simone was so obviously FINE once we were in an exam room (SHE IS ALWAYS FINE ONCE WE ARE IN AN EXAM ROOM). She most likely has a very mild concussion, and while her nose may possibly be broken, they don’t do anything for nasal breaks unless they are severe. Simone’s nose is almost back to normal, so all is well.

A few notes from the morning, however:

• It wasn’t until the doctor asked whether her nose was always swollen, lumpy, and blue at the bridge, that I noticed anything was wrong with it at all. I would like to think this was because I was so intently focused on her head (looking at the lump, checking her pupils, feeling her soft spot for signs of increased intracranial pressure, like some sort of mad, groping phrenologist), but in truth the phone nurse asked whether her nose was swollen and I cheerfully assured her that it wasn’t. Maybe it got swelled on the way to the hospital?

• In the course of two hours, Simone was called “Simon,” “SEEmone” “See-mon,” “Seemohn” (”Simone” pronounced with a fancy French accent), and, bafflingly, “Seymour.” No one called her by her actual given name without being corrected. I am used to this, but I still don’t get it. First, the French accent—why? Yes, the name “Simone” is French in origin. The name “Patrick” is Irish, and yet I would imagine that the little Patricks of the world are not perpetually addressed in a brogue, am I wrong? “Simon” I sort of get, because everyone thinks my poor baby is a boy (the attending, despite being told differently THREE TIMES, referred to my pink-shirted moppet as “he” throughout). Most common, though, is “See-mon,” which I just find bizarre, because who would give their child a name that sounds so much like “Semen?”

• Simone’s blood pressure was terrifyingly high the first two times they took it, but the third time, it was normal. They assure me the first two readings are thus rendered meaningless, but this seems fishy to me, especially given Simone’s kidney issues. Is there some sort of blood pressure GPA system?

• I am seriously considering investing in one of these.

…a long, ascending wail, say about 7:30 a.m. False European Time, perhaps followed by the sound of mournful, furious typing, don’t be alarmed. It’s just my mother, realizing I don’t keep my promises.

{Confidential to you-know-who: Scott is working late; I’m on solo baby duty and typing this very very quickly while she wails, neglected, in the background. You wouldn’t want your only grandchild to be neglected any longer, would you? WOULD YOU?}

P.S. How long do molars take to finish erupting, exactly? Do they normally dawdle in this excruciating fashion? Simone’s gums look like they’re stuffed with marbles, and I miss that thing I used to do at night, with the closed eyes and slow breathing. Could I just dig them out on my own?

Inspired by the inimitable Jaywalker, and also by my need to post something, anything for my ungrateful mother, I have decided to reveal to you the contents of Pearl, my handbag.

Roughly clockwise-ish, from left to right:

1. Passport, which has remained in outside pocket since my trip last month. You know, in case I need to leave the country in a hurry.
2. Bag of clippy strappy things to attach handbag to stroller handle
3. Cell phone, seldom used except as child-distracting device, encrusted with baby spittle
4. Small pouch (gift from mother), contents of which comprise 5 through 8
5. Enclosure from bouquet of flowers from first Valentine’s day with Scott, reading “Love you like a dragon in a hurricane.” Marks last occasion husband purchased flowers, due to cat’s tendency to bite off rose tops
6. Pin (purchased by mother at museum gift shop) made from bottle cap, resin, glitter, and picture of androgynous, rosy-cheeked, mischievous old woman in large black hat, which I have carried around for ten years, thinking of androgynous, rosy-cheeked, mischievous old woman in large black hat as a sort of guardian angel
7. Bright orange shell from first trip to The Breakers
8. Lake Superior stone chosen for me by Scott long ago, after I asked him to find one that reminded him of me (plain and round?)
9. Credit cards, loose
10. Sunglasses in case
11. Collapsible hanger to suspend handbag safely from tabletop
12. Change, loose
13. Four $1 bills
14. iPod, uncharged
15. Gum
16. Pile of receipts, one used tissue, half-sucked cough drop in wrapper, chewed gum, also in wrapper
17. Stray cough drops from last month’s illness
18. Blister prevention gummy Band-Aid patches, from Switzerland trip
19. Lady Products
20. Stray tissues from from last month’s illness
21. Magnetic Picasso bookmark
22. Mirror compact
23. Lavender scented blotting papers
24. Toothpick and tweezers, snatched away from daughter who had removed them from Swiss Army knife keychain
25. Complimentary mini lip balm from dentist, delectably almond scented
26. Tin of mints, unopenable due to daughter using said tin as teething toy
27. Smooth piece of carnelian purchased in Luzern
28. Wallet (gift from mother, purchased in Venice) (wallet, not mother) containing picture of Simone, D’amico Pasta Stamp Card, sheaf of Swiss francs, seldom used gym ID card, etc.
29. Rattle belonging to Simone’s Cabbage Patch Kid doll, Cankle
30. Zofran, used on flight to Amsterdam in paranoid anticipation of illness

There! That wasn’t bad, actually. Practically spartan. Feel free to share in the comments the most intriguing item currently to be found in your own handbag.

1.

It is actually much worse than it looks. No one burns more easily and through higher SPFs than I.

2. This morning my mother informed me that she HASN’T BEEN READING MY POSTS for the last few days. Surely, you are thinking, there has been a terrible accident—perhaps the crazy Italian who ran her down returned to finish the job?

No. She’s on VACATION in FRANCE. My mother, the one for whom I am slaving over a hot laptop, day in and day out, is too busy slinking in and out of wine caves to visit. It certainly does take the air out of one’s sails.

3. I have just taught myself to play Private Eyes on the xylophone, and I need to practice.

4. One of the cats scratched my hand. My best typing hand.

5. Simone would like me to read Are You My Mother? for the 17th consecutive time. (NO. I AM NOT YOUR MOTHER. MAYBE WHEN YOU FIND HER, SHE WILL READ TO YOU).

6. It is the sabbath, I think. For someone.

MONDAY:

It was grey and drizzly when we arrived in Luzern. Our first stop was the lion pictured in the picture portion, rather depressingly called “THE DYING LION OF LUZERN.” Mark Twain called it “the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world,” a memorial to Swiss mercenaries who died at the Tuileries in 1792. As if the stabbed, dying lion in a hole weren’t melancholy enough, listen to this: the Swiss guard had been hired to protect the family of Louis XVI, but what the 1000 Swiss soldiers—mostly rural young men with limited economic options—did not know as they refused to step aside for an angry mob of 30,000, was that the royal family? Had already fled.
760 of the 1000 soldiers were killed, protecting nothing. The inscription “HELVETIORUM FIDEI AC VIRTUTI” means “To the loyalty and courage of the Swiss.”

On that immensely cheering note, we went for lunch. It was SPARGEL FEST! while I was in Switzerland—in other words, asparagus was in season, and virtually every restaurant was supplementing their regular menu with a special SPARGEL KARTE! (asparagus menu) featuring dishes featuring The Verdant Spear, as it is called. Or will be, if I have anything to do with it. There is something so charming about the verve and excitement with which various foodstuffs are greeted as they come into season in Switzerland. Spargel is not the only vegetable to garner such fanfare. (I believe there is some sort of mushroom brouhaha? Mother?)

We ate outside on the patio of a lovely hotel, watching pedestrians go by. My mother and I pointed people out to each other and discussed their outfits, and whether those outfits would look good on us. This is something of a hobby of ours, and it gives us an opportunity to nip any bad ideas in the bud. Ideas like “Maybe skinny jeans aren’t so awful after all!” (me) or “Scarves! More scarves!” (her).

We shared an order of the spargel ravioli to start (also pictured in the picture portion) and then we each ordered fish, ultimately trading plates because we each preferred the other. The fish was lovely, perfectly cooked, accompanied by perfectly salted potatoes. But the highlight of the meal came at the end, when we ordered what we thought was iced coffee and received instead dishes of the lightest, richest, fluffiest coffee ice cream you have tasted, and there was nothing Swiss about the exclamations that escaped my lips after that first bite. I am pretty sure the Swiss don’t make noises like that in even the most intimate of circumstances.

{Next up was shopping, but I will save that part, because I really should take a picture of the much-contested shoes to show you first.}

My mother took a picture of me by the water, water I nearly backed into in the process, and we looked at the swans before walking across a wooden bridge rimmed with flower boxes and decorated with paintings. The bridge was built in 1333. Websites point out that much of the bridge was destroyed in a fire in 1993, and so some of it is in fact a reproduction. But that “some of it” means that some of it is not.

Have you ever heard anything so preposterous? THIRTEEN THIRTY THREE. It is a WOODEN BRIDGE. Shouldn’t it have rotted under my feet, spilling me precipitously into the murky (that’s called poetic license—Swiss lakes are not murky) depths? Women may once have crossed that same bridge wearing those cone-with-a-scarf-fluttering-from-it medieval hats.

I live in America. The Midwest, in fact, where nothing dates earlier than the mid 1800s. You Europeans may be used to spires and parapets and things that existed before Queen Victoria was even a glimmer in her great great great great great grandfather’s eye, but to me, it all seems impossible. So many of the buildings in Luzern are embellished—painted with murals, adorned with intricate gilt scrollwork. The views of the mountains across the lake are spectacular. When I look at my pictures, it is hard to believe they were taken in a real place, not on a stage set somewhere.

The next time I am there, I plan to take one of the boat rides around Lake Luzern. I will drink wine and play cards with my mother as we are ferried scenically along, and I am told there are french fries, on these boats.

You see what I mean? Impossible.

TO BE CONTINUED…

I am having technical difficulties with my Luzern photos, so I thought I would give you an update on the baby-with-glasses situation.

Many of you wondered how they calculated Simone’s prescription in the first place, and I don’t blame you. Babies can’t read, and they’re wiggly, and they are terrible at following instructions. This seems to suggest that eye charts would be a poor choice. And in fact, there were no eye charts involved. Instead, they put dilating drops in Simone’s eyes (which she just LOVED, as you can imagine) and then we spent 20 minutes alone in a small windowless exam room full of intriguing equipment that Simone was not allowed to touch (ALMOST AS MUCH FUN AS THE EYEDROPS!), waiting for the doctor.
For the exam itself, the ophthalmologist shone a light in Simone’s eyes, a light with a little plastic monster perched on the top, and then held a sequence of lenses in front of each eye to shine the light through them. Apparently, the dilation keeps her eyes from compensating and allows the doctor to see the pupils…focus? Or something? I don’t know. All I know is that the pediatric eye gypsy waved her lenses before Simone and pronounced her +6.00 in each eye. The prescription itself is only +4.50, because all babies are somewhat farsighted.

So we ordered the glasses, and picked them up, and strapped them on, and suddenly it was very, very obvious that Simone had not been able to see, before. This is one of those things that makes me feel like I should win some sort of Bad Mother trophy. A heavy one, studded with jewels. Jewels shaped like tears. I would never have suspected that Simone had any trouble seeing—in fact, the ophthalmologist asked me about it before she began the testing, and I cheerily said “Nope! No problems at all!”
But once the glasses were on…well. How had we been so blind?

Simone never showed any interest in television. I was pleased, because it meant I didn’t have to worry about having it on around her. Of course it also meant I was unable to induce to her sit through the Baby Signs DVD I bought, but whatever.
You can see where this is going.
With the glasses on, this disinterest has mostly evaporated. She doesn’t always notice it, but certain commercials, cartoons, and Sesame Street sketches captivate her. Our first evening home with the lenses, Scott put on the Cartoon Network as an experiment, and it was hilarious and humiliating to see her reaction.

We had expected to have difficulty getting Simone to wear the glasses, but that has not been the case. Sure, she whips them off from time to time, but in general, she seems to like them. And this is just a shot in the dark, but I am pretty sure it is because SHE CAN’T SEE WITHOUT THEM ON.

Her motor skills improved virtually overnight:

She can stand on her own now indefinitely, though she has yet to take her first steps, and even her language skills have exploded. For the first time, she knows a word: “Kitty.”

Of course when I say she knows it, I do not mean she can say it recognizably. It usually comes out “GEEGEEH!” or some variation thereof. But when I say “kitty” she looks at one, and repeats the word gleefully before crawling over to lick its fur.

Most dramatic has been her sudden infatuation with books. Sure, she liked them okay before (at least Louise, Adventures of a Chicken), but now?
Now this is what I see, ALL DAY LONG:


She has her favorites (markedly distinct from MY favorites, it should be noted), and after I finish reading one and set it down, she picks it up again and thrusts it at me, saying “BUH?” (her all purpose exclamation).

I read it again—recite it from memory, really, letting her turn each fat cardboard page—and this time set it discreetly behind me, picking up another book, one I haven’t read 357 times by 8:00 in the morning. Guess what happens next?

Sigh.

A few days after she got her glasses I made an emergency run to the children’s bookstore down the street for more books, my god, MORE AND DIFFERENT BOOKS. It is obvious from the way she points to the pictures now and turns each page and understands the act of reading, that before she got her glasses, these were just big blurry squares of nothing to her.

Her discovery of books has been one of my favorite moments of parenthood so far, one I had imagined for years, but it was made a tiny bit bittersweet by just how glaring was the evidence it provided that she hadn’t been able see, and I missed it.

When you have a preemie, it’s easy to chalk up missed milestones or clumsiness or, well, ANY idiosyncrasy of your child to her prematurity. There were so many things Simone wasn’t doing that she “should” have been—stacking blocks, finding hidden objects, pointing to things—that could have been clues to her poor vision. To be fair, Early Intervention made all the same assumptions I did, but I can’t help but feel bad that she hadn’t been seeing the world, and I can’t help but wonder how much potential progress—toward that mythical goal of “catching up” with her full-term peers—we lost.

But mostly, I’m just enjoying seeing her SEE things. Even if it does mean I am about to read Goodnight Gorilla for the 4,998,563rd time.

Simone is getting a molar, either that or she has a form of the mumps in which there is only one mump present, located in the mouth along the gum. This development, along with the fact that the Internet hates me (as evidenced by my Facebook and Twitter accounts being hacked within days of each other and my blog crashing twice in a week) is responsible for the lack of updates around here.

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday, the big 2-1! Alas, I was unable to spend it with her, on account of the large body of water separating us. For those of you who asked, my mother lives in Switzerland for “work.” I put it in quotes like that because nothing is actually produced, over there. The actual production of actual product is done over here, and the Swiss office is all high-level types, having meetings and making PowerPoint presentations about Windfall Improvement Negotiation Enhancement (WINE) and Growth Initiative Networks (GIN). I call it Executive Camp. She is there for two more years. However to answer another reader question, we are indeed Swiss—from Graubunden, a different canton entirely than the one in which my mother resides.

But none of that has anything to do with anything. The point is, yesterday was my mother’s birthday, and as her present, I am going to post EVERY SINGLE DAY for the rest of the month.

Now, I know what you are thinking: “Rather presumptuous, to assume that her customary mishmash of rambling commentary and baby pictures is so enticing as to constitute an appropriate birthday gift.” And I would agree…if I hadn’t seen my inbox over the past year and a half.

For your edification, I present a selection of ACTUAL, HONEST TO GOD email messages received from my mother:

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: so after one of those mornings getting breakfast,
milk boiling over in microwave, yogurt i made last night didn’t yog, things falling out of the fridge….i sit down to eat and think—at least i have alexa’s post to read…….but no.

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: no post again? after i told you my sad story?

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: thought you were blogging….
been almost a week again. and me with my kidney stone….

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: what’s going on with your blog? no twitters either?

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: no post? no post?
home sick again today. nobody to make me tea. no post.

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: still no post
how depressed do you want me to get anyway? What with still being home sick and all.

TO: alexaflotsam@gmail.com
FROM: alexasmother@alexasmother.com
SUBJECT: no post no post no phone calls or email
and i have to go back to work this morning….sigh

My mother is my greatest champion. When Simone’s pulmonologist nixed daycare and it became obvious that I would not be returning to work, it was my mother who urged me to use the time to make a go of freelancing, to turn my writing into more than a dream and a hobby, and offered her financial support to back that urging up. “This is your chance,” she told me, and she cheered me on while I took it.

When, defeated, I wondered whether I ought to butch up and find some more reliable way of making money, embarrassed to be nearly 30 and still requiring help to pay my bills, she is the one who insisted I keep writing and working and failing and trying. She believes in me when I do not believe in myself. And it’s not blind support. I know, because we suffer from the same inability to praise bad writing (”I really didn’t like it,” she has said to me, even though I CAME FROM HER WOMB). When I need someone to read something I have written, she and my brother are my toughest critics and my biggest fans.

I have seen friends struggle to explain their unprofitable but impassioned career choices to their families, and am so grateful to have been spared that particular fight. And when I think about what I want to be for Simone, my mother is my model—a pillar of support, a wind at my back, a wise and practical voice. An ardent appreciator of puns, and always ready with a warm gin toddy when I need it.
So, if you have a glass (and if not, why?) please raise it with me:

To my mother! Happy Birthday, and many many many many many more, pursuant to our binding contractual agreement that you remain alive indefinitely.

I couldn’t decide what to post today—more Alexa Abroad! or something about Simone’s first encounter with other children, an encounter that resulted in tears. Some might suggest that ten days after my return is too late to continue a series of posts about my travels, but I have not, er, finished unpacking yet, and I maintain that a person can’t be expected to wrap up the story of her trip before her suitcases are empty. That seems like rushing things, don’t you agree?
So it was between goat pictures and toddler comedy, and then the California Supreme Court went and made the decision for me.

Two years ago today, Scott and I got married. The picture at the beginning of this post is of our cake toppers, and from those cheery felted birds to the mashed potatoes and impromptu outdoor hobo theater, everything about the day was perfect. I had never been much of a wedding girl, and was surprised by how much I enjoyed it, but more surprising, to both me and my new husband, was how transforming it felt.

Scott and I had lived together for years by the time we got married. In fact, a week from now will mark five years since we began dating, and we were looking at apartments less than three months after that. We hadn’t planned on marriage—not that we were against it, mind you, it just seemed like a low priority. We already knew that this was capital-”I” IT: we were trying to have kids, our book collections had mingled, and I had long since abandoned the pretense that I always wore makeup. Or contacts. Or brushed my hair.

One afternoon, however, I had a migraine, and Scott was lounging on the bed next to me when he asked hey, did I want to get married next spring? I said yes. It seemed unlikely that a ceremony would make much difference, beyond a legal standpoint.

But it did. I don’t know how, exactly, but it made everything different.

The idea that two adults in love can be banned from standing, as we did, in front of a judge to be declared married, banned because their genitals happen to match, is repugnant. That they would be forced to use another word for their union, in the name of protecting the sanctity of mine, is ridiculous and offensive.
I respect the right of the religious to believe in virgin birth, and to decide that marriage in their church is reserved for heterosexuals, but there is absolutely no justification for the legal system to enshrine this discrimination. If anything makes my marriage feel smaller or less meaningful, it is the meaningless borders set upon it as an institution.

In a few hours, Scott and I are going out to dinner to celebrate our arbitrarily legal union. Perhaps we’ll toast to the hope that one day, the presence of exactly one penis per couple will not be considered a prerequisite for a wedding.

Gruezi!

That is how you greet someone in Switzerland (well, it ought to have an umlaut, but I can’t get one to appear). It is what people chirp at you when you enter a shop or a restaurant, and I got quite good at chirping it back, if I do say so myself. You roll the “r” a bit, which is a particular talent of mine. I became so proficient with my Gruezi, shop people often mistook me for a native and followed it with a rapid-fire stream of Swiss German, but their mistake was swiftly corrected by my glazed look and obvious lack of comprehension.

While we are on the subject, the German language has some serious problems with boundaries. Why have three words when you could mangle them infuriatingly into one? it asks, and an answer comes there none. Perhaps a teutonic desire to streamline simply got out of hand, but for heaven’s sake, it is not a CRIME to allow an adjective to have a little SPACE, now and then. I remember reading Being and Time my first year at Sarah Mawr, and because it was translated from the German, there were all these hyphenates, meant to stand in for an entire concept that in the original was one long, consonant-heavy word.

But never mind that.

SUNDAY:
I woke up feeling physically confused. No longer on Minnesota time, not yet fully acclimated to False European Time, and frankly I had probably walked more the day before in Zurich than I had during the whole of the recently ended six months of RSV season. We decided a relaxy day was in order, and after a leisurely breakfast of coffee, soft-boiled eggs, and toast with quark—a delectable dairy product somewhere between cream cheese and sour cream, to which I could easily devote an entire entry—I took a bath in my mother’s sinfully long tub.

For lunch we walked down the block to a restaurant the name of which I cannot remember, possibly because it was always referred to simply as “The Fish Place.” It is right on the water, and we sat outside overlooking the Zuger See.

I had the fish.
I also witnessed a Swiss woman eating a hamburger with a knife and fork, and my mother informs me that many people, over there, eat their FRENCH FRIES with a fork as well. I suppose this should not surprise me.

The fries in Switzerland are uniformly excellent—by which I do not mean only that they are excellent everywhere, though they are, but that each is uniformly crisp, uniformly salted, uniformly uniform in every way.
Which brings me, of course, to The Potato Council.

{Or would, if my writing time weren’t up. Like one of those sailboats-in-a-bottle, the only way to get this story out is in pieces. Many, tiny pieces. I think you all know who to blame for that.}

{Hint: Bald, stands about two feet tall, bites}