Thanksgiving Foot

In memory of American Thanksgiving, 1998. Culver City, CA:

Family gathering at home of dearest possible friends.
It's possible I might have had a drink or two.
A man enters the house and is introduced as Thurlow.
I place my hand on the knee of the older woman sitting next to me, the mother in law of my hostess.
"Oh my GOD, who looks down at a newborn boy and says 'Thurlow.' Your name will be 'THURLOW'??

She looks at me and says--of course, because this is my life we're talking about here:

"I DID."

Thank you very much, I'll be here for the rest of this excruciating evening.

For when you're bored

Sometime, go ahead and ask me for the story about how I wound up face-first in pee-soaked sheets at the bottom of the stairs at 2 am.



Actually, please don't. Just keep the Manhattans coming. 

Gift Ideas

I'm not a rich woman. Well, yes I am, "in all the ways that really matter," etc., etc., --BUT I don't have so much money that I can spend it on gifts for people I've never met but still really like. Kid keeps asking for "food," which is totally annoying.

But here are things I would buy the people in my life, whom I have never met, if I could:

Ironic_Mom:

There are many things ironic about this button. One: its price--isn't it ironic that. . . . . nope, not going to do that. That leads to Alannis and April Wine and nothing else good. Leave it at this: I would buy it in platinum and diamonds for you if I could, if only for Whiteboard Wednesdays, which have let me know that I am not alone.

For Jenny, The Bloggess:

I would like to see where these would end up: inside an alligator vagina? I'm not Neil Gaiman but one day I hope to meet you, put on some wigs, take some Xanax, and talk about taxidermy.

To Unknown Mami, I would like to present this:

Unknown maybe, Mami, but not in a brown paper bag. You. Are Fabulous.

SubWow, thanks for visiting, thanks for the comments, thanks for the laffs. You really do have a heart of gold:

Also black, crimson and looks like some pewter. All those things.

Emi, I want you to have sunshine and fruity cocktails at some point this long Swedish winter, so if I could, I would send you here for two weeks--with a nanny:

It's in Belize.

It's a big world out there; some of you are in my neighborhood, or at least on my continent, and some of you aren't. But almost every day you make me feel like we're sharing a coffee over the fence. Thanks for the gifts.

Love,
Worn Ragged

2017

So I was snuggling my darling son, recounting the many triumphs and adventures of the day (Lego! Hide and seek! Swimming!); his head was on my breast, I was ruffling his golden hair and inhaling that funky/heady/goaty little boy smell; I was remembering countless moments just like this one; I was a little blissed out. Maybe a lot blissed out. Fine. I was really blissed out.

And then Luke yelled from the kitchen.

"Sausages!"

There are burn marks on my neck and hip, Kid got up so fast. Not even a "Bye Mom."

I suppose this should prepare me for the ultimate betrayal, when he gets a girlfriend. Or the smaller betrayals of a sports team, a rock band (please please please don't let him like reggae, please God, Mon, not the reggae), some dumb TV show, the older boy up the street who has an Xbox. It's natural--it means my boy is growing up. All is as it should be.

Maybe that's the lesson I should have drawn from this delightful experience.

But mostly I am fixated on this basic equation:

Sausage 1 / Mom 0

I can imagine myself purchasing sausages again for my two carnivores sometime around 2017.

And, in summary: little brunette girl up the hill with the sausage curls and the sparkling blue eyes and the excellent collection of leggings: BACK OFF.