Fashion Haiku

... nothing like the holidays to bring out questionable taste in clothing. Oy.


Older than forty?
Step away from the mini.
It is not for you.

What conspiracy
resulted in the advent
of Lycra "jeggings?"

Ugg boots, like gym clothes,
have a purpose and a place.
Not in public, please.

Yes, you may be "hot."
You should still put on more clothes
When it's cold outside.

The Way to My Heart

The way to my heart
lies not in verse nor in song
but in chocolate.

Good chocolate. And lots of it.

Boxing Day

The Day in Between
Is a Very Good Day to
Buy Me Lots of Gifts!

Guess whose birthday is December 27??? Just guess!!!

Bad, Paul!

It is most unwise
to agree to sit a dog
with your husband's name.

It seemed like such an easy thing to do - add one more Golden Retriever to our menagerie for the holidays and give a couple of dear friends (who are expecting twins, no less!) the chance to travel home for one last Christmas without car seats and diaper bags. Except that this particular dog has the same name as my husband. And a penchant for inappropriate barking and grabbing food off the kitchen counter when he thinks we aren't looking. It's not really the occasional misbehavior that is the problem - I am a very good alpha pack member and know how to correct. It's just that when I do, my husband thinks I am correcting him. And this is not good for our marriage. With advance apologies to our friends, I am going to change their dog's name to "Steve." Just until the New Year. Because I really do love my husband ... Paul.

Internal Struggle

The garbage truck comes.
I did not take out the trash -
but my bed is warm.

The Christmas Hamster

The Christmas Hamster.
There are those who don't believe;
I know it is real.

Too many pets

Fell over the dog
while I was carrying the cat,
Thus spilling the fish.

It's official; we have too many pets ... and did I mention I landed right on my knee? The one that just had surgery? Well, I did. And it really hurts.

College Acceptance

When I was 18
It wasn't THAT big a deal.
Now it's *like* ALL that.

The good news is: my oldest just got into the one college he really wants to attend. The bad news: the application process was awful and angst-ridden, and he, frankly, just got lucky. A lot of his friends who are equally talented and hardworking etc. etc. received deferrals or outright rejections. I know competetive college admissions are these days ... I don't blame the schools ... but are we parents putting wayyyyyyy too much importance on where our kids do their undergrad? Do employers really even care where potential employees spent the years between 18 and 22, so long as they didn't post anything stupid on YouTube or Facebook? I don't know ....

Farewell

Dear Ex-Favorite Blogger:
You hooked me with your great wit,
But your posts are stale.

It's happened: I've become one of those crazy people online who find a new blogger and just lovelovelove her so much I check EVERY SINGLE DAY to see what witty observations she has made. Then I write equally witty and pithy comments of my own telling her how great she is and how my every day is made brighter by her and her TOTALLY AWESOME blog. But NOW but it seems that she is now writing a book or raising a child or something and she doesn't have any more time to write for us, her loyal blogience. She hasn't posted anything new in * like* three days. So it's over. She won't have me to disappoint. I'm not going back to her sillystupid site ANY MORE. No more gushing comments from Mamaku for her. Never. Just watch!

Christmas Gift Ideas

my email inbox
full of christmas gift ideas
from folks i don't know

Every retailer from whom I have ever purchased anything on line assumes 1) I celebrate the holidays 2) I have money to buy lots of presents 3) they know what my friends and family like. I don't know why, exactly, but that bugs me.

Squishy

Mum's squishy tummy:
A source of great amusement
To those who caused it.


On a similar note, it is the one who refused to wean until she was almost in kindergarten who criticizes my breasts "because they don't go up like other ladies' do." Little ingrate.

Dog Day

Golden Retriever!
You eat everything in sight.
Why not take your pill?

A teacher's POV

Enabling parents!
I would love to help your child,
but you're in the way.

One of my teacher friends said my last post nailed the parental point of view, and she asked if I had any perspective on the Parent Conference phenomenon from the teacher's point of view. It's been a long time, but I do remember a few things ...

Parent Conference

Parent Conference:
An inordinate power
to please or dismay.

My children are their own people. I should no more feel guilty for my teenager's extreme shyness than proud of my six-year old's reading ability. In both cases, it's just a matter of genetics. But still ... what is it about those twenty-minute sessions with our kids' teachers that inspires joy, trepidation, and everything in between...?

Picture Books

What do I do now?
The youngest has outgrown them;
I can't give them up.

Best Done in Private

Personal Hygiene
Like Sex and Using the John
Best Done in Private.

Ok, so Mama's been thinking about yesterday's guest post, and she figures it's time to share a little hint with ALL the public groomers out there ... not only the office nail-clippers (although that's pretty egregiuous), but also the restaurant-table appliers of makeup, those who see waiting in line at the checkout counter as a good opportunity to floss, anyone who brushes/combs their hair anywhere in public and ... wait for it ... people who PICK THEIR NOSES IN THE CAR. (As if we can't see you. We can! And we're appalled!)

Cut it out. Please.

Guest Haiku!!!

Today I am happy to share the musings of a fellow cubicle dweller - who shall remain anonymous but much appreciated. She writes:

We're not paying you
to gross out those around you.
Clip your nails at home.

mondays

unlike other folks
i relish monday mornings
new week, here i come!

too darn hot

when Bikram yoga
is cooler than the outside
it is too darn hot.

Sinus Infection

Little elves with picks
Are pounding at my eyeball.
Sinus infection!

Support Systems

Spanx and my girlfriends:
What would I do without them?
They both have my back.

Web Stalking is So Not Cool

creepy ex-boyfriend...
i know you've been searching me.
restraining order!

Camping in the Rain

Camping in the Rain
Romantic in Theory
In Fact, Cold and Wet

on the road again

in the car alone
i listen to npr
makes me feel smarter

Gender Confusion

My sweet flock of hens
Is not all it seems to be
Cock-a-Doodle Doo!

Apparently those people who "sex" chicks before you buy them are not always 100% accurate.

After the Event

It's like postpartum
Only without the stretch marks
And a lot more sleep.

one of those nights

went to bed at ten
read 'til twelve; tossed until three
finally got up

Busy brain, won't stop.
Important thoughts, jumbled with
Junk - utter nonsense.

People who say they
Love dawn have usually
Slept through the nighttime.

Six Year Old Fashion Statement

Purple tights, bright orange shirt
Thick pink socks and tiara
You make it work, Babe.

I'm just hoping her seventeen-year-old brother doesn't show up in the same outfit ...

10.30.10

October 30
I sure know where I will be!
Jon Stewart, here I come.

foggy september

santa barbara
is supposed to be hot now
global warming? Ha!

Ode to the 154

You're on your way home
When I hear the sirens pass
Half an hour of hell.

Dear casino-bound partiers, impatient truck drivers, and road warriors in general: Please cut it out. The highway over San Marcos Pass is a curving mountain road, not a freeway, and people die when you forget that fact. I live right at the base of the 154, and I hear the fire and ambulances on the way to clean up the messes you've made at least a couple times a week. It's particularly awful when I know my husband is on his commute to and from work in the Valley. Last night someone lost a loved one in a seven-car wreck allegedly caused by a drunk driver. The sirens lasted a long, long time during that one.

I'll repeat: please just cut it out.

out of the ashes

I will tell our kids

abundance can and will rise

out of the ashes.

This is my garden (yes, that's the famous chicken coop in the background.) You can't see it in this snapshot, but there are raised vegetables plots to the right and some really awesome fruit trees to the left. This year, everything has been almost embarrassingly abundant. We've collected bundles of flowers, baskets and baskets of snap peas and plums, apricots and squashes of every description ... berries galore ... and so many tomatoes even I can't figure out what to do with them all.

Yep, it's been a banner summer for produce.

The kicker is, last summer was a dud. Flowers never bloomed; the trees grudgingly dropped a few measly fruits before closing up shop way too early in the season, and the vegetables all seemed to suffer from the malaise my old baby-raising books always identified as "failure to thrive." The fact that I, like most mothers, would blame myself if my infant failed to be fat and happy is not lost on me as I make the comparison to my garden. Last year I was convinced I must have done something horribly wrong to thus wither my vines.

But the truth in both cases isn't anywhere near so clear-cut. Plants and children are affected by myriad factors, many beyond the control of even the most careful of guardians. Last year, for example, a raging brushfire - the third in as many years in our lovely little piece of the Central Coast - dumped what looked like truckloads of ash on our neighborhood, which tho' spared the actual flames that crept up to the end of our street and tragically destroyed the houses of so many of our friends didn't (thank goodness) burn our home to the ground.

That ash had some caustic power of its own, though, and by coating the tender leaves and buds of my plants at a crucial point in the growing season, it pretty much nuked any chance those plants could do more than survive; in fact, the summer of '09 saw some of my favorite perennials lose the fight and die, despite all the care I could give.

The plants that did struggle through were rewarded - thanks to that same ash, now worked into the soil as a powerful nutient, abundant rainfall, and two unexpected heat waves during the following winter. Late last spring the garden in my backyard burst out anew. The aformentioned bumper crop of flowers, fruits, and vegetables has given this summer a luster of success I could never have imagined a year ago.

That's life.

One year ago my family's constellation was blown apart by personal tragedy - the kind that wakes you up with a midnight call from a police station and keeps you awake through days and weeks of unwanted outreach from reporters and the morbidly curious. There were times my own grief - and other emotions still too fragile to mention - rendered me incapable of anything more than basic survival. I know my siblings, my husband, my father and even worse all of our children were also damaged by this. There were times I questioned our individual and joint survival.

But here we are. Love and faith and the sheer demands of life - the peremptory will to live on in spite of the rain of deadly ash and worse - kept us somehow together and, somehow, I think, even improved. More attuned to the ways of others. Less preoccupied with the unimportant.

Willing to forgive.

Our family's garden is scarred and blooming.

We thrive - in spite of and perhaps even in some cases because of - the damage inflicted upon our roots and stems by powers beyond our control.

Without knowing what the future holds, I am comforted by a new understanding of nature's course, and I will make sure our children do as well, in all the harvests to come.

god and politics

god and politics:
keep them out of your email
and things will be fine

Social media are the millennial version of the dinner table; if we want to keep things civil, there are certain topics that really should excluded from the conversation.

So the next time you're about to proselytize on your FaceBook page, forward the latest political diatribe making the email rounds, or leave a grossly partisan comment on a news article ... STOP. Think about whom you might be offending.

Otherwise we're all going to end up screaming at each other, which I guess online would be in ALL CAPS with lots of EXCLAMATION POINTS and, even worse... emoticons.

Why I'm Not Mature Enough to be a Webmaster

Can't help it. The term
"Administrative Backend"
Simply cracks me up.

Talk Less; Listen More

if you stop talking
and listen for one second
you'll get your answers.

On the Road Again

Commuter's Lament

one third of my life
spent with children and deejays
no wonder i'm odd.

Road Hazard

Hey, Mercedes Girl
Texting while doing eighty -
Drafting your obit?

HWJD

That fish on your car
Must be praying really hard
Not to become scrap.

Author's note: this post originally caused quite a kafuffle; if you're interested in learning more, check out MamaKu #8 of July 27, 2010.

On Car "Decor" in General

Reducing your life
To stick-on decals and such
Strikes me as bizarre.

The Fast Lane

There's always that guy
Going sixty in the left.
I can't stand him. You?

Nasty, Brutish, and Short

i romanticized
the keeping of my own hens
they eat their own young.


Couldn't figure out why egg production in the Maison du Poulet was down until I caught one of the Chanticleers in the act. Eating eggs. Might have been one of hers, maybe the laying of another hen, but .... eeeeewwww!! I guess during the idyllic establishment of my own henhouse I blithely skipped right over the chapters about how nasty chickens can be. Not only will they on occasion peck each other to death (sometimes out of sheer boredom), but they often develop a taste for eggs.

Cannibalism is bad enough but eating your own offspring ratchets the ick factor up quite a few notches.

"Curing" this behavior is tough and sometimes impossible. You can try calcium supplements in the feed, putting golf balls in the nest (chickens are dumb enough to confuse Titleist ProVIs with the product of their own loins) and just hanging out near the coop until you catch one in the act and tell her she's a "BAD chicken!" but ....

In the end, if a certain hen just won't quit eating eggs, you have to remove her from the flock altogether, because ... let's face it ... having one of your BFFs stalking you while you're trying to have a baby so she can immediately eat it would upset even the mellowest of souls. An egg-eater can spoil the whole flock. This means a more "final solution" for the offending hen, and that, my friends, is the subject of another post altogether.

My friend Miss Kate - who actually grew up on a real-live working farm, in Missouri - has watched with some bemusement as I've set myself up as a Suburban Lady Farmer. Like any good Daughter of the Midwest, she's taking my disillusion in stride and encouraging me to do the same. Apparently there are things even grosser than eating your own young.

I don't think I'm ready for that, yet, so ... haiku!

Early Morning Haiku

Green at 5:00 am

O, recycling truck
Must you do your good work now
Outside of my house?

The Snooze Button Controversy

You like to wake up;
Go back to sleep; wake up; sleep ...
Let's just say I don't.

Mommy Needs her Java Fix

Of course I love you
It's just I will love you more
After my coffee.

Suspicious Character

Time to cut your hair.
The Neighborhood Watch calls you
"Suspicious character."



Is it bad when you turn onto your street and note a really scruffy looking guy lurking around only to realize it's your own son?

For Better or For Worse

Let's get one thing straight:
"For better or worse" did not
Cover bad music.

Most of the time I really enjoy the tunes the Big Kahuna puts on our shared playlists. He does have a maudlin penchant for sentimental folk ballads, however, that makes me want to download the entire Andrew Lloyd Weber collection and sync it right into his iPhone. How do you like that, Big Guy? Huh? Huh!

CatKu

Thursday

Sweet little kitty!
Why are you gagging like that?
We are much concerned.

Friday

Sick cat went to vet
many tests ... all appears well.
Four hundreds bucks, please.

Saturday/Sunday

Kitty will not eat;
Lies around, looking horrid.
Children are frantic.

Monday

Yaak ... monster hairball.
Feeling better now. Meeeeooow.
No more hair band snacks.

Shout out to Guest Haiku-ist, my sister! Also to her family and their newly acquired (and, apparently, indiscriminately greedy) feline.

Product Placement

Mammary alert! To male and/or prudish readers (that means you, Dad): If the very thought of breasts and bras (mine, anyone's) makes you all flustered and uncomfortable, stop reading now.

Unless it's too late, in which case, you might as well enjoy the haiku.

Back fat in bra cups.
False advertising? Or just
Good product placement?

The back story (pun intended) on this one has to do with the age-old female practice of making one's "bosoms" (as my grandmother used to call them) look bigger and more perky than they really are. I say age-old and use my Granny as a reference here, because one of her favorite stories involved the time during their 1920s courtship when my grandfather Clifford took her up in an (unpressurized) airplane and tried not to notice when the inflatable falsies in her shirt began - literally - blowing up. Fortunately both Granny and Papa possessed a good sense of humor and were able to laugh the incident off ... at least, as Papa would inevitably assert when Granny had finished relating this saucy tale at family gatherings, he was spared the honeymoon surprise experienced by most men of his generation when the buxom women they'd just promised to love honor and cherish took off their "Lady Parts" and put them in a drawer.


Well, here it is, almost a hundred years later, and things haven't really changed. Gel inserts have replaced blow-ups, and surgical implants have added a whole new dimension to the practice, but the fact remains that many of us who are less-than-well endowed in the Lady Parts department are always on the lookout for a good enhancement opportunity.


I thought I knew every trick in the book, but this one took me by surprise ... you might even say "aback."

Ha.

As those of you who may recall all the way back to LifeKu post #3 ("Dressing for One of Those Days"), earlier this summer I experienced the sad and (literally) painful loss of My Favorite Bra. That sorry tale utimately had a happy ending; those of you who are curious can go back and look in the comments section of that post.

For me, however, it was the process as much as the outcome that proved really interesting ... even, one might say, "uplifting."

Ha AGAIN.

Anyway, a-bra-shopping I did go, and I met a very nice and very knowledgable saleswoman (or "fit consultant," as she prefers to be called) in the Nordstrom's lingerie department. According to her, the secret to really rocking a good bra lies in one's ability to incorporate the entirety of one's "torso flesh" (aka "back fat") into the cups of the aforementioned brassiere. This involves, literally, using one's hands like little fleshly backhoes to "scoop" everything forward, back to front, so that once the scooping is done and the bra is safely secured by its clever little front closure ...

Voila!

Instant cleavage.

Cheating? Maybe. But only a little. And far less alarming than having your beloved's boobies explode.

Attention Teenagers

You aced your APs.
Great! Since you're so smart, surely
You can clean your room.

Aw, you grew your boobs.
Thanks for sharing them with us.
Now put them away.

On the contrary:
I do not exist solely
To embarrass you.

The fact you called me
"Mommy" makes me wonder if
You need more money.

Ode to Joe

the hinge and fulcrum
of my oft imbalanced life
are your frozen foods.



I complain about the parking lots as much as anyone, but - as God is my witness - but for Trader Joe's I would have no social life and my family would go hungry six days out seven. Im just sayin' ...

People of Walmart

People of Walmart
Never fail to make me smile
Just like the icon.




Betcha thought I was going to follow up with some snarky comment about Middle America, clinical obesity, and chronic bad taste. WRONG! Actually, what's makes me happiest about http://www.peopleofwalmart.com/ is the knowledge that there are people out there who are secure enough in ther own skins to wear whatever the hell they want to go grocery shopping. Some of them even bring livestock!

I love a good dose of chutzpah, I really do.

Mad Cat

Asked to wash the dog,
Kids went for extra credit;
Shampooed the cat, too.

...and now he's sitting in the corner, staring balefully at me. As if it was my idea. It's kind of scaring me. If I don't write any haiku for a couple of days, would someone please check on my welfare?

poorly written

it's just possible
my horrible penmanship
caused the recession.



My husband just spent forty-five minutes on the phone explaining to Jim at the West Coast Wells Fargo Call Center that the check they just cashed for two hundred and fifty dollars was in fact a check for two dollars and fifty cents. (Well, I lost my water bottle; it was hot, and all I had in my yoga bag was my checkbook.)


They figured it all out, but the Big Kahuna reports that at one point while they were looking at the online .pdf of the check, Jim said "Sir, I got my supervisor right here, and we both agree this is the most illegible instrument we've ever seen."

Kahuna just texted me the image. They were right. My handwriting sucks.

I'm not allowed to write any more checks.

iPain

you got an iPad.
Good for you! Now put it down
and get back to work.

Of a Certain Age

"Of a Certain Age"
Nothing says it better than
A pair of duck lips.

Gather 'round, girls. Boys, you come too. Mama wants to talk to you.

Actually, what I have in mind is more of an intervention. Because I'm worried about you. About all of us, really. There's something very personal we have to discuss before things get any further out of hand.

No, don't try to hide that Peet's cup behind your back. I'm not about to deliver a lecture about the dangers of consuming too much caffeine. And don't worry about your diet, either, because Mama would be last one to point fingers in that direction. The secret of your daily visits to Crushcakes is safe with me.

But you ... yes, you with the big sunglasses you've been refusing to take off ever since you "went to San Diego for a wedding" ... of a friend none of us has ever heard of before ... You stop trying to sneak away and sit yourself down right next to me.

And don't look so smug, Mr. Former-Wearer-of-Baseball-Hats-At-All-Times. Your hair plugs may have grown in a little since you proudly started showing us your fuzzy new dome, but you're still a victim and you still need to hear this:

We're not fooling anyone.

I'll say it again, because the feigned looks of innocent surprise peeking through the otherwise blank expanse of your collective Botox-brows indicates a certain degree of denial is still at work here:

We ...are...not...fooling...anyone.

In fact, not only are we not fooling anyone, but we are making ourselves foolish. Those sunburned tourists in the socks and speedos that we make fun of at the beach? They are laughing at us. The slacker kids who hang out in front of de la Guerra Plaza asking for money snicker when we walk past not because they are stoned but because they can see very well what we are trying so pathetically to hide:

Our age.

Dammit, people, we are middle-aged. What in the name of Don Draper is wrong with that? When our parents were in their forties and fifties, they accepted the fact and still had fabulous cocktail parties and even (although it grossed us out when we were teenagers and forced to think about it on those occasions when things got a little loud) fabulous sex. With each other. Wrinkles, bald spots, laugh lines, and all.

Yet here we are, reaching the same confident, sexy stage of our lives and instead embracing that - "Hey! the kids can drive themselves to the movies; let's make martinis and go skinny-dipping while they're not home!" - we're trying desperately to recreate the physical attributes of a youth we should be proud to have moved past. A s if preternaturally smooth skin, inflato-lips, and strange-looking Rogaine hair will make us look younger and more appealing... instead of the opposite.

Don't make me say it. You know where this is heading.

The bizarre appearance of faux-youth is as much a part of our cultural consciousness as the combover, yet, just as that hairy practice inexplicably persists, here in good old SB altogether too many of us continue to believe that we may be the one exception to the national joke. We believe against all reason and even People Magazine that we may be the one person on the planet on whom cheap, artificial procedures don't look ... well ... cheap and artificial.

Now, please don't get me wrong. The purpose of this intervention is not to self-righteously unload on cosmetic surgery in general. If going to a licensed, qualified professional and shelling out the big bucks it takes to address a physical flaw or fault that really, really bugs you is going to make your life happier and more fulfilling, then by all means go for it. (Mama would do this in a heartbeat, if the joint spectres of a Santa Barbara mortgage and college tuitions didn't haunt her far more than her incipient jowls.)

But please, for the love of all that is right and beautiful about being "of a certain age," quit going out and injecting yourself full of weird stuff that just makes you look weird. The next time you are invited to a Botox Party, think of Kenny Rogers. If your facialist suggests you do something about those laugh lines, remember how cute Meg Ryan used to be. If someone with a syringe says she can "fix" your lips, sum up a mental image of Janice Dickinson, and run for the foothills.

If all else fails, think of Mickey Rourke.

Well, I guess that's it. Thanks for this time together. I think we've accomplished a lot today, and Mama's got a few other things she'd like to do before the kids get home from the Airport Drive-in.

Skinny-dipping, anyone?

New Party Game!

Oxy, Vi, Per, Hi!
add to dro, co, con or li;
tin, set, done or dine ...

Multitasking Mama

Tell me that YOU can
Wield crutches and the plunger
Both at the same time.

Public Bathroom Haiku

Hygiene Horror

Your failure to wash
Makes me see you and your hands
In a whole new light.

Note to the next stall over

Potty Etiquette
Suggests you end your cell call
Before you pee.

Disappointment Strikes

Disappointment strikes
Deep in the heart of she who
Finds the roll deplete.

Brain Freeze

Ow. Ow, ow owow.
So it's not on my diet.
Did I deserve that?

Changes Afoot

Parts of me are flawed

Fixing what I can

Cannot stress the rest.

Yep, these are my feet. Heinous, aren’t they?

My parents left me some very nice genetic legacies, but taking the bad along with the good I got the infamous family “Skank Toes,” a condition in which not one but two of my secondary toes are longer than my big toe, which is itself (as you will have observed) uniquely large and ugly. The result is that my feet kind of look like monkey hands, but they’re nowhere near as useful.

Even better, the odd conformation of my toes makes wearing most shoes uncomfortable, so when I’m not at work I tend to live in flip-flops. Therefore (unlike the golden glow that graces the sun-kissed backsides of my more shapely Californian sisters) my “thong tan” is on my feet. Unfortunately this tends to make my feet look dirty (they’re really not … usually) and more like hippie feet than the appendages of a 40-something-year old professional.

True, I could make more of an effort to prettify my hooves, and I do indulge in the occasional pedicure … but more often than not I have much more important things to do with $40. So there you have it. I’ve got ugly feet, and one of the best things about being my current age is being able to accept my flaws and admit some things just can’t be changed.

But that doesn’t hold true in every case. Change is indeed at work in my world, both physically and metaphysically.

First: the bod. In addition to Skank Toes, Mom and Dad passed on a tricky spine and a couple of obstreperous knees, all of which seem to require surgery on a depressingly regular basis. Tomorrow it’s knee #2, the right one, which made a funny popping sound about a month ago and has, like a challenging teenager, been refusing to do its chores ever since. So Dr. E. (“Hey, it’s you again!") is kindly going to go in with his little mini-vacuum and clean things up. I am not that nervous about this procedure as:

1) Dr. E is very good at his job and even takes little internal pictures of my joints while he’s at work to prove his mad meniscus-mending skills;

and

2) According to my father, a diabetic cancer survivor with more health problems he can shake his walker at, what I am having doesn’t even really count as surgery. He says – and he’s right – that you can’t call it “going under the knife” if all they do is stick little micro-tubey things into you.

Who can argue with that?

What I’m not looking forward to is the whole anesthesia thing. It’s bad enough when the smiling guy-or-gal in the green surgical mask saunters up and asks you to sign a piece of paper giving him-or-her permission to load you up with the same stuff that killed Michael Jackson … (“Propo-what???!!!” ). Recognizing the possibility of your own demise is unnerving at the best of times; it’s worse when you’re in a public place strapped to a gurney wearing one of those lame hospital gowns and a stranger wants you to promise that your survivors won’t sue if you don’t have enough stamina to make it through your minor little operation.

But then they actually give you the anesthetic, and next thing you know …

Well, you don’t know, and I hate that part. Being a bit of a control freak, I have a hard time letting other people load the dishwasher if I’m not supervising. Far less do I like the notion of others messing around with my body parts while I’m unconscious. Given my druthers, I would rather have my knee fixed with only a local anesthetic, so I could observe and offer constructive criticism to Dr. E. and Co. while they’re at work. (And I’m sure this is one of the many reasons my request to not go all the way under was politely declined.)

So heigh-ho, tomorrow off I go, and when I awake to the gentle sounds of the recovery-room nurse screaming at me and slapping me in the face (Why do they do that, anyway?) I will be fixed, altered, forever changed … for the better, I assume. That’s the physical part of my evolution.

Other good changes in my life include this blog, LifeKu. I started it just a month ago, and like all worthwhile endeavors it’s a work-in-progress. Thanks to some good advice, I’ve made some changes to the format and the way I post. Most notable is the fact that, going forward, if I have explanation (like this) to share with my haiku, then I will place it in the “comments” section rather than the body of the post in question. I do this on the advice of my BFF Babs, who is wicked smart and has known me since I was nine. As only a dear friend who is much more intelligent and web-savvy than I can do, Babs gently took me aside after reviewing my initial efforts and suggested I clean things up a bit.

“You do tend to go on, you know,” she said with infinite gentility and care.

Yes I do.

I love Babs.

I’m also going public, which is not something I expected to do, as LifeKu is really something I only intended to inflict on friends and family. However, as another good friend pointed out, someone as opinionated as I am really should spread the joy (pain?) around beyond my immediate circle. Hence I’m linking to one of my very own favorite local website, EdHat, which will (I am assured) open me and my seventeen-syllable takes on life up to a whole new world of readership and (I am also assured) really mean commentary called “trolling.” I actually had to look that up (as again, I am not that web-savvy) in order to realize that from now on, complete strangers can anonymously say anything they want about me with equally complete alacrity. (Dear Mama: you have the ugliest feet I have ever seen. You should be ashamed and go someplace far away where women are not allowed to write OR show their feet in public so the rest of us can live without the nightmare-inducing memories of your Skank Toes OR your horrible poetry!!!! LOL!!!!)

But that’s change for you; you take the bad along with the good and hope for the best. In the end, I guess I’m not going to worry too much because – for a good part of the next 24-hours at least – I'll be too out of it to care.

Please take care, and thanks for reading - MamaKu

giving Mommy space

"giving Mommy space"
does not mean yelling at her
from farther away.

FaceBook Haiku

To My Assistant

Your latest update
Was posted during work hours.
Where are my letters?

To My Stalker

No! We were never
Friends in the real world. So why
Would I friend you now?

To My Former Classmate

Congratulations!
You've clearly gotten in shape.
Now put your shirt on.


Frequent Flier

Your status updates
Twelve times a day make me think
You have a problem.

To My Son

Thanks for friending me!
Now please just tell me one thing:
Who are all those girls?

About that photo of you doing body shots?

These things, like tattoos
May seem like a good idea
At the time. They're not.

Appreciation

Appreciation
Dormant, can be awakened
By coincidence.

New and Not Improved

Botox, Juvederm
Invisalign and Implants ...
Have we ever met?

I had a little bit of a crush on this guy in high school; he was good-looking then and I imagine he stayed that way until some plastic surgeon got ahold of him. Now he has a big, immobile forehead, Joe Biden eyes and weird pouty lips over teeth so big and white they look like headlights. I just ran into him and at first I didn't recognize him ... then I just felt sad.

Why?

Why???

How would Jesus drive?

That fish on your car

must be praying really hard

not to become scrap.

This is one of those haiku that probably requires a little backstory:

Between chauffering the kids, my commute, and client meetings all over the place, I do a lot of driving on the 101 freeway, and I've had ample opportunity to observe the culture of SoCal asphalt. Say what you will about Californians being laid-back and mellow ... they can be as insane as any Jerseyite once they hit the road.

Over the years, I've noticed certain trends, and one of these is the fact that some of the most aggro drivers out there are:

1) women (which is just funny because it's testosterone, not estrogen, that's supposed to make you all feisty)

and

2) a surprisingly large percentage have those little metal Christian fish symbols on their bumpers.

(DISCLAIMER TO THE DEFENSIVE: I am not about to bash Christians! I am a Christian, for heaven's sake. I just also happen to have a rich sense of the ironic. If what I just wrote makes you want to hunt me down and shoot me, then please ask your minister for a reference to a good anger-management counselor. And pray for a sense of humor, because it really does help.)

So there it is: a disproportionate number of the road-raging, steering-wheel-pounding, middle-finger-flipping tailgaters I've observed proudly identify themselves as members of The Flock with these little fishes, and ... let's be honest here ... THAT'S FUNNY. Like these folks figure they don't have to worry about dying in a fiery rollover collision because the Big JC has their back ... bumper, that is.

Driving my son to baseball practice yesterday, though, I came across an all-time Best (or Worst?) in this particular category. Not only was this intense-looking blond pushing her honkin' big Yukon over the Summerland hill harder than a stock car, tailgating, passing on the left, and cutting off other drivers all over the freeway, but her little fish symbols were arrayed all over her back window in such a way as to represent what must have been her family - Big Daddy Fish, Medium Mommy Fish, and a whole school of little fishies. (These my-family-as-window-stickers thing is another road oddity I just don't get, but that is the subject of another haiku, I think.)

I have to wonder if KidzMom (according to her vanity plate), good Christian woman that she must be, was shooting to get herself and the offspring buckled into her back rows into Paradise on an accelerated schedule, 'coz she was - and I am not exagerrating here - driving like a woman possessed. It was scary to watch.

I dunno. Maybe they were late to VBS or something.

Anyway, to all my fellow Christians out there, and especially to those of you who proclaim your faith on your car - please note I AM NOT MAKING FUN OF YOU. Or our faith. Or anybody's faith. I am just poking fun at hypocrisy ...

and how better than to Haiku?

High School Redux

High school reunion
Friends and Happy Memories!
Why are you so drunk?

This one speaks for itself, I think. What about you, Gentle Readers? Do you go to reunions? Or do you figure you've kept in touch with the people who matter to you, and the rest should just stay where they are - as memories in your yearbook.

Bad Mother Haiku

Death in a Bowl

I killed my child's fish
Changing its guppy water
Right down the drain ... oops.

Tournament

Watching you play ball
It's hot. Pray your team loses ...
So I can go home.

Adolescencia

I liked you better
When you were small and still thought
I was really cool.

Summer Camp Blues

Pickup is at three?
I don't get off until four.
Won't you keep my kid?


I love my children more than anything in the universe, up to and including chocolate. My seventeen-year-old son is one of the kindest, most moral people I know. He also happens to be tall and handsome and a great student. My fourteen-year-old is a philosopher, wise beyond his years, and so athletic he already has various coaches bickering over where he should "take his talents." (He did not get this from me, BTW) Their little sister, AKA "The Littlest" was a true surprise gift from God, and not a day goes by that her smiles and never-ending stream of consciousness don't bring immense joy to us all.

Having said that ... there are times when the kids drive me crazy, and when motherhood (especially when juggled with the financial necessity of employment) really makes me question my better self. When that happens, what else to do but Haiku?

What about you, gentle readers? How do you cope with the dichotomy that is parenthood?

Road Hazard

Hey, Mercedes Girl
Texting at the traffic light -
Can't you see it's green?

What is it with all the people texting behind the road these days? Don't they watch the same horrible news reports I do?

Dressing for one of those days

Stabbed in the left breast
By the errant underwire
Of my favorite bra.

This felt like a betrayal. I love this bra!! Now what am I going to do? (Besides Haiku, that is.)

To my yoga instructor

I've been doing this
Since you were an embryo
So get off my back.

Is it just me, or is it really hard to take direction from someone young enough to be my daughter? Especially when she weighs half as much as I do?

When disaster strikes

When disaster strikes
And my shrink is out of town
Haiku never fails.

Welcome, friends. I hope your life and loves are generally happy, but when you need an extra smile, there will always be Haiku.

(And yes, the eggs in the picture are from my hens.)