Swearing

I've been talking to my dad more recently, and I am becoming aware of how much he swears. I had never noticed it much before. I knew he wasn't a guy who didn't swear, but holy cow! Maybe this is where I learned how to express myself using a variety of four letter words.

Or maybe he learned it from me? 

Oy. I am a bad influence on my son and dad? Pedro swears like a sailor and I certainly know where he gets that from.

Maybe I really need to clean up my act and drop the swearing. That would take a significant amount of discipline. I'd rather not eat sugar, get thirty minutes of cardio every day, do my pre-ski season leg blaster exercises and lose twenty pounds before I give up swearing.

I don't swear (much) at work. When Pedro was little, I told him the key to swearing is knowing your audience and intent. 

• Swearing among your friends -- okay
• Swearing at your friends -- not okay
• Swearing with your friends during class -- not okay
• Swearing in front of your mother -- okay
• Swearing at your mother -- not okay
• Swearing in front of your grandmother -- not okay

He understood right away. He managed it so well that his paternal grandfather after a week of visiting tried to teach Pedro to swear. It was delightful. 

Perhaps I need to revisit my own audience list in general. Maybe my early New Year's resolution will be to stop swearing. I wonder how long I could go, and how I could track it. I swear so much, I don't even notice it. And I'll need to find more creative ways to express myself. I don't want to say "crap" instead of "shit," or "dang" instead of "damn." I need to say "That is frustrating" or "That is annoying" instead of "Bullshit."

Bridget Jones would start each diary entry with how many calories she ate, how much she weighed and how much she drank. (Bridget is the best literary creating since Elizabeth Bennett.) Maybe I'll do a Bridget Jones where I list at the top of each post how many times I swore in a day. 

Wish me luck!

Swearing, Part 2

I like to swear and I swear a lot. I can't drive without swearing at other drivers. Is swearing a problem? At times, it can be unprofessional when used inappropriately at work. It can be hurtful when swearing at someone else. Otherwise, I am fine with it. It is like chewing gum, another vice of mine. It is kind of gross but meh.

Apparently, the US Youth Soccer League thinks swearing is bad all of the time. They have a new rule where any player who swears on the field will get a red card for three games.

Seriously.

One of the best and most fiery boys on my son's soccer team was jacked for three games because he dropped an f-bomb on the field. Their coach was subsequently jacked from three games for saying the call was bullshit. I am not sure how many people if anyone knew that was a rule besides this ref. Trying to get a group of physically aggressive teenage boys from not swearing would be one mean feat.

Today at my son's soccer game, I ran into the mom of the boy who got the red card for swearing. I told I thought her son's ejection from the game was ridiculous.

"I don't think I could go a week without swearing," I said to the mom.

"I don't think I could, either," she said.

I had to leave the game early to wait for the cable guy at the condo. As I was driving downtown, someone cut me off while they were making a right turn on red while I had a green.

"Douchebag," I said to the man in the Denali/Suburban/Mt. Everest size truck who tried to cut me off. Drivers who make a right on red directly in front of oncoming traffic with a green light should be deported. I don't care if their ancestors came over on the Mayflower. In that case, they should be deported back to England or wherever. I suppose Native Americans can stay since they were here first, but I'll still swear at them.

Okay, where was I? I dropped the thread. Swearing. I also flip people off while I drive, but I hold my low enough so they don't see it. Seattle is so polite I don't want to offend anyone, but I sure feel better knowing that I am giving them the bird while they can't see it. Also, when I swear, other drivers usually can't tell I'm swearing. When make a rude hand gesture, they know I am trying to communicate with them. Not only is Seattle polite, but it is small. I am afraid that if I flip another driver off, it might be someone I know. It has happened before and it is very embarrassing.

And so my goal of not swearing for a week didn't make it past a five mile drive. I am going to try again, starting at 11:00 p.m. before I go to bed. I likely don't swear in my sleep so I'll have a nice eight hour cushion to start the week.

I get to the condo to wait for the cable guy, whose visit was a disaster. (Insert worst story of cable guy visit, which ties with more than half of all cable guy visits on the planet.) Then I get a text from Jack:

"The Boy got a yellow card for dropping an f-bomb."

My first thought was I am glad it wasn't a red card. And then I thought I was to blame. Now I am not one of those parents who racks up tons of guilt for all of the crap their kids do. In this case, however, I think I have the right to feel a little guilt. Perhaps if I wasn't such a potty mouth, maybe my son would swear less.

When I got back home, Jack told me the story of rough play, an opposing team player down on the ground, and the parents of the other team calling for the head of one of the Boy's teammates to be served to them on a platter. Refs and coaches were called to discuss, while the parents on the other team boil to a froth.

"Shut the fuck up," said the Boy yelled to the parents on the other team, particularly one very loud and hostile parent in an orange poncho suggesting to the ref that someone on the Boy's team be kicked out of the game.

This is not the first time the Boy has said this to parents on the opposing team. Last time this happened, the other team's parents actually did shut up. Being called out for boorish behavior by a fifteen year old can have that effect.

After the game, I asked the Boy what happened. "One of the parents was heckling our team, I heckled him back, and then he shut up."

"The guy in the orange poncho was being a total jerk. Action needed to be taken," he said. "After I yelled, the guy was ashamed and he went off and hid at the end of the field by some trees, although it is hard to hide in an orange poncho. I won that argument. What a pussy."

While I don't exactly condone my son's behavior, he did stand up to what he thought was bad behavior, albeit with bad language. The two people I feel most sorry for here are the ref and the son of the guy in the orange poncho. I would imagine the worst part of being a ref for youth sports is being harassed by parents. One ref once thanked the parents on the Boy's team for being civilized. But we are. Our kids are fired up enough. We don't need to add fuel.

And the boy of the orange poncho. Sometimes mild mannered people lose their shit when their kids play sports. Sometimes assholes have kids who play youth sports and use the soccer pitch as a venue for sharing with the world their true nature.

While in this case, swearing was unfortunately effectively, sometimes we are not so lucky. I should know better. I am going to try to go a whole week without swearing. I'll keep you posted.

The Third Wheel

Monday morning this week I woke up and I was in a bad mood. When I am grouchy, I try to do this exercise where I ask myself:

1. What am I feeling?
2. Why am I feeling this way? Is there a cause?
3. What am I going to do about it? How will I react?

I’ve had to adopt this strategy since I started working again as it is not acceptable or sufficient to haul off and tell people they are pissing me off. But don’t think I’m all zen or whatever. I’m not.

So Monday I am grouchy.  Did I watch too much Ali “being a stay-at-home mom is like being in solitary confinement” Wong and now I am hostile at the three people who put me there?

Yeah, possibly.

This past weekend was my daughter’s prom and Mother’s Day.

First, the boutonniere debacle. Claire-Adele ordered flowers to be delivered for the prom. For Winter Ball, her boyfriend wanted to get her a corsage and she did not see the point of spending an hour of money she earned on something that she’d wear for a night then it would shrivel and die. For prom, she got the point and ordered flowers without fuss. She failed to check her voicemail until Saturday afternoon when she heard a message from earlier in the week from the florist saying they couldn’t deliver her flowers because they were slammed with Mother’s Day orders. She learned Saturday around 1:00. She was leaving for dinner at 7:00.

She was stressed. Jack drilled her with questions: Did you get a confirmation? Did you call them? Did you get your money back? The Boy said he was going to call the florist and yell at them until they brought her a flower. She became more stressed.

I looked at the Boy and Jack and said, "You guys need to go buy some bike parts" as I shooed them out the door. Claire-Adele went to her room and cried.

"What do you need me to do?" I asked. "The roses are in bloom in front of the house. We can make something."

"Leave me alone for five minutes," she said through sobs.

I thought for three minutes. I yelled up the stairs, "I can call Met Market and see if they can get you a flower."

"I am texting Robby," she said. "Okay, call Met Market."

I did. The woman at the other end of the line was as cheerful as a florist could possibly be before Mother's Day. "I can get you something by six. Does that work?"

"Sure." I told Claire-Adele.

"Robby got flowers from the Safeway where he used to work," she said. "Can you cancel yours?"

After the crisis was narrowly averted, neither Robby or I were going to cancel our flowers. Better to have two boutonnieres than none. "Robby can wear two," I said.

When he arrived and flower time came, Eleanor pinned on Robby's lapel the flower Robby brought. Of course she should. He's the boyfriend. I'm just the mom. It is my job to stand back and let her stand on her own. She should take his flower.

But still. I decided to not let a good rose go to waste, so I unwrapped the flower and put it in a vase by my kitchen sink.

Then next day was Mother's Day. Jack and I decided to go for a bike ride, and I was delighted the Boy decided to join us. It was a warm, sunny day, prefect for a ride across the 520 bridge. When we got to the park on the Eastside, we admired the view for a bit and then I was ready to go back home.

"I'm hungry," said the Boy. Which means his hunger has slowly been building for a while and now he was ravenous. 

"Why don't we go back and got to lunch in Ballard?" Ballard is full of fun places to go for lunch on a Saturday. That suggestion was met with ridicule from Jack and the Boy.

"It is only three more miles to Bellevue," Jack said, not looking at the elevation gain. As we left, we rode down a giant hill. Which meant on the way back I'd have to ride up a giant hill. Fuck. And then there was the mile uphill climb. The ride to Ballard is along the water and is as flat as a any ride you can find in Seattle.

Jack and the Boy were consistently twenty yards ahead of me. Once in a while, Jack would turn around and yell "You can do it!" Just because I could do it, doesn't mean I wanted to. And this was Mother's Day. It was supposed to be my ride and it was turning into theirs. I was getting pissed and I was the weak link, holding them back. Plus, I was carrying the Boy's water.

Literally.

We were the sweatiest people Bellevue Square has ever seen. Truckloads of people were dressed up and at the mall on the nicest weekend day of spring so far this year. It was weird. I didn't bring my saddle bags, so I couldn't shop--for much! I did manage to get a little "treat yourself" Mother's Day goodies in my fanny pack from Lego and Lush. The boy got Jamba Juice.

I was in need of some powerful feminine energy after riding with the Boys. And lip gloss.

The ride from Bellevue Square back to the 520 bridge wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. When I got to the bottom of the steep part, I found a mantra--In two months, I'll be in London. London is flat. There are no hills in London. Magically, the hill I was terrified about wasn't nearly as killer as I thought it would be. Evan, my physical therapist, would have been proud.

At the end of the day, I had fun slogging to Bellevue Square, even though I was swearing under my breath for the second half of the ride. I had 16 miles to add to my "Bike Everywhere" log for May.

So why was I so grumpy on Monday? Did I watch too much Ali Wong over the weekend and I was deeply pondering the inequity women face in the world?

Perhaps it is the realization that for so long, my world revolved around them, and that there never will be a day where their world revolves around me--not that it should. Still--I'd like a weekend where I am not the third wheel in my family events.

Jury Duty

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from a random cell phone number with a (206) area code. I typically answer these calls in case they are my kids calling from a friend's cell phone or something like that. I was less than a month out from my surgery, when the man called and said he was a deputy marshall and there were two changes against me for missing jury duty. One of the charges was for missing jury duty, and the other was for contempt of court. I asked the man how I was notified that I was on jury duty, and he said I should have gotten a letter in the mail. I was kind of freaked out because before my surgery I was super busy and might have missed the letter. After my surgery, I was completely out of it and might have missed it.

"It is possible I missed this," I said. "I just had surgery and might not have seen the letter. What do I need to do about this?"

"You can come down to the eighth floor of the courthouse and..." the man said.

I was beginning to think this was crazy.

"What?" I said. "Hold on. I just had surgery and you want me to come downtown?"

"Well ma'am..."

"I am going to call the courthouse and find out what the real plan is," I said.

"You will not be able to contact the right people if you call the courthouse," he said. By now I was guessing this was scam. He kept giving me his cell phone as the number to call to find out the plan.

"If this is legitimate, then I will be talking to you in ten minutes," I said and hung up.

I contacted the U.S. District Court, and they had no record that I was scheduled for jury duty.

Yesterday, I got a letter in the mail for jury duty. My daughter brought in the mail and had read the outside of the envelope which had in big, bold print "JURY DUTY SUMMONS" written on the outside.

"Fuck," I said. (My daughter later reported that I said the f-word about fifty times. I think it was closer to three.) "Maybe I can get out of it because of my knee."

"Jury duty is an important responsibility," Claire Adele said. "You should do it. I had to write an essay for my social studies class on why this is so important."

I think I dropped another f-bomb. I've never done jury duty before. I was called when I lived in Chicago, but got out of it because we moved to St. Louis. My mom has been a juror, and was on some large and long cases, including a murder trial. She was on a federal grand jury for a financial scandal that lasted months. I used to joke that she was a professional juror.

"If you can't get out of it, you should get into it!" Claire Adele said in a super perky voice. When did my daughter become such a Pollyanna? "I learned this at the YMCA. This is what the counselors say to kids who don't want to participate in activity. I am going to be using this a lot this summer." She is going to be a CIT, Counselor in Training, this year and now she is using the techniques she would use on an obstinate ten year olds on me. Hopefully, my daughter won't apply this cheerful aphorism to situations like date rape and whatnot.

I am going to talk to Evan, my physical therapist, to see if I can use my temporary disability to get out of jury duty. While I could do the work of a juror, it would be a big problem if I got on a case where I had to be sequestered and didn't have access to exercise equipment to do my physical therapy.

Could this be the only silver lining to my accident? Getting out of jury duty? Or might this not be enough to get me out of it? Oy.

Leaving the Nest, Boredom and Torture

First, the good news: I am going out to lunch tomorrow. Yay! I am going to the Wellspring annual luncheon where one of my good friend's daughter has previously been honored as a young philanthropist. Last year during my campaign for School Board, I went to more than dozen of these charity events. (I just finished my taxes today and I counted up the deductions.) This is the first luncheon I am doing this year. I had booked this event several weeks before the surgery. I was hesitant, not knowing if I'd be up for it. Now, I am not even three weeks out of the surgery and I am going out of my mind in my little Seattle nest.* I am so grateful that I have something to do tomorrow, someplace to be.

I look at the blank pages of my calendar with dread. I fear the openness. Carl my carpenter and Evan my physical therapist both warned me of the post-surgery boredom. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the deja vu of the post-accident boredom that I experienced about three months prior. Evan, the sweet, naive, optimist,** tells me I should spend this time focusing on my wellness. Ack! Walking Green Lake with friends or going to a yoga or barre class would be great for my wellness. I'd rather be spending a sunny Wednesday afternoon skipping out and skiing at Snoqualmie. That would be awesome for my wellness. If the snow is good, skiing during the week is awesome. It is mostly a handful of middle aged women, there are no lift lines, and cougar bait mans the lifts.

Instead, I am reading voraciously, which I will write about in my next post. I am doing jigsaw puzzles galore. I am finishing quilting projects, which I will also write about. I filed my taxes today. I am watching Netflix. People bring me lunch and dinner, for which I am eternally grateful, but then they go about their normal lives, walking Green Lake, going to yoga and running errands in their free time. I am doing lots of physical therapy exercises and vexing on my knee: I am going to get it to maximum extension and flexion without massive amounts of pain? Evan made a joke about the PT being the center of my social life, but it is.

When I am not bored, I am getting bent and pushed and pulled. Yesterday for the first time, I swore during my session. I didn't drop any f-bombs; nevertheless, I felt like I violated this Sanctuary for Healing and Torture. Last week, I was starting to think of Evan as my nemesis. I initially liked him because he caused me the least amount of discomfort of anyone on my PT team by a wide margin. That margin has now closed and he has taken a sizable lead. Argh.

The other day I was at home doing my leg lifts and I said to Jack, "Evan will be mad at me if I don't come in with my leg at 110 degrees of flexion."

"He won't be mad," Jack said. "He gets to go home at the end of the day and you will still have an unbent leg." True, I thought. Yesterday when I was at PT, Evan said the goal is to get my leg to 120 degrees of flexion by four weeks after surgery. All legs need to bend that much in order to be functional as 120 degrees is the minimum amount of flexion required to climb and descend stairs. (The stuff I learn...) Evan told to me to keep working on bending my leg or else he would really have to work it again next time I saw him. "You don't like it and I don't like it either." Interesting. I almost wanted to say if you don't like making people suffer, perhaps you should find a new line of work. But I didn't. I think he likes the intellectual aspect of studying muscles and ligaments, and he seems to like exercise and sports. He might not have the same level of sangfroid as some of the other folks there. Not that an empathic physical therapist is a bad thing...

I know I am suppose to hate my PT, but Evan is a sweet guy, too sweet to be anyone's nemesis. He tells me stories of how he used to hit on women in bars with orthopedic problems when he started his PT program. I laughed when he told this story, which distracted me from my agony for about ten seconds. "Why not hit on orthopedically healthy women?" I asked.

"Because I couldn't impress them with my limited knowledge," he said. I imagined his lines:

"Nice limp!"
"That is a beautiful scar."
"That's a great leg brace. You wear it well. Where did you get it?"

I am not sure what kind of bar would have such a collection of injured women. I recall from my days of bar hopping not seeing very many injured people out and about at one a.m. tossing back gin and tonics. Jack asked if Evan's fiance was 63 years old with a double knee replacement. I'll have to ask.

Today, I am looking forward to going back to physical therapy on Friday, not because it is the center of my social life or because I enjoy my swollen knee feeling like a balloon that is about to burst. I am looking forward to it because I want to get better. I want to meet the goals of getting my leg to extend and bend. I want to be able to unlock my brace and sleep without it. I want to get out of the nest.

______
* I am calling my house the nest or aerie. Our house is above the street and our first floor is elevated. We have trees off of our front porch. I feel like I am in a bird's nest or an eagle's aerie. With the 23 steps, I am loathe to leave the nest unless it is necessary.

** I think Evan was trained to tell patients to focus on their wellness. One of my friend's had previously trained to be a physical therapist and then bailed because the results were painfully slow. There must be some psychology taught to PT students to help them relate to the boredom suffered by their patients.

Mileposts (Yawn), Small Steps, and the Recovery Job

My life is so fucking boring.

I went to lunch today with my friend Sangita and had almost nothing to say because a vast majority of my time is spent getting ready to exercise, exercising, and resting from exercising. Here are some new highlights and mileposts I've made with my ACL injury:

• I took a shower for the first time since my skiing accident on Dec. 19. Since the accident, I've mostly taken baths. I was afraid of slipping. This is a great topic of conversation. (Not.)
• I noticed I am limping, and I told Evan, my physical therapist, that I thought I was taking shorter strides with my left leg. I told him I hate to limp and he said not limping is a good thing. He said I could a) increase the extension of my left leg (not gonna happen soon) or b) shorten the stride of my right leg. I choose b. While I don't limp anymore (yay!), I am taking freakishly small steps. Small steps seems to be the name of the game here.
• I wore jeans for the first time today since the accident. Prior to today, I wore exercise clothes, a pair of wide legged corduroy pants, or a pair of pants I made for myself. I went to lunch with a friend and decided to "dress up." Yay jeans!
• I did my knee extension exercise with the large rubber band right for the first time last night.  Both Jason and Evan from my PT team explained to me that I needed to flex my quadricep as I pull back the rubber band. I understood the concept, but my thigh did not. It was like trying to explain physics to a dog. No matter how well they described it, my thigh didn't get it. Last night, I did it! I felt how Anne Sullivan (me) must have felt when Helen Keller (my thigh) understood the symbol for "water." In that moment, Keller was able to communicate with other people. My thigh can now work with the rest of my body.
• I realize my favorite standing posture is similar to Michelangelo's David: standing straight on my right leg, bending the left. I wonder if David had a torn ACL?
• I went without crutches or a brace this weekend! My dear husband Jack and I have a mutual friend Daphne who tore her ACL a week after I tore mine. "Daphne isn't wearing a brace or using crutches..." he said two weeks ago. Fuck that. I like Daphne, but really Jack? Do you need to compare me to someone else? My friend Sangita tore her ACL years ago and she said I would carry a crutch when I am out in public so I can keep people away from me. After lunch today, she shooed a woman with a toddler away from me. Yay Sangita!

I felt better after my lunch with Sangita. She has a friend with MS who spends a decent part of her week in treatments and therapy. I guess having an illness or injury is a mini-job. I am lucky my injury recovery is a boring job-no chemotherapy or anything too complex--but it is a job nonetheless.

Bullshit

I got back last Tuesday from Ohio where I visited my dad and my mom.  I now list them separately, in a sad way. My dad and I visited my mom in her new home in the Memory Care Unit, which is a nursing home for people with dementia. The staff there are very nice, and seem genuinely concerned about taking care of these people who are struggling. They are also trained to support people with dementia.

I last saw my mom a year and a half ago. At our first visit this time, her verbal exchanges were limited to

• 25% introductory clauses (e.g., "You know what I think...")
• 25% Blah Blah Blah.  Literally.  "You know what I think, blah blah blah." There is a little singsongy cadence to this.
• 25% Raspberry noises.  I am assuming this means she is lost or doesn't know what to say.
• 25% Singing the Mexican Hat Dance. I am assuming this means she is happy.  My dad asked if I could teach her another tune.

My mother seemed to be in a reasonably good mood on the first visit--not so much on the second and third. Belligerent is the best word I can describe use to describe her mood on the second and third days. She wasn't belligerent the whole time, but enough that I was walking on eggshells, worried that I would set her off. On the first visit, my dad brought a photo album with my kids.  She enjoyed looking at that, and would carry the book around. When I picked it up to return it to her room, she stared at me and said, "That's my book," as if I were taking it away from her.

The next day, my dad brought a photo album I had assembled for her years ago of Michael's and my childhood birthday parties. I showed her pictures of my brother and I as babies, along with many of our relatives when they were young.  She started to cry, so I turned the page.  She continued to cry, so I put the book aside. The television was on in the background. A commercial for the ASPCA came on with the most forlorn looking animals ever assembled, all of them in wire cages. This did not help her crying. This commercial was followed by a commercial for St. Jude's Children's Hospital.  Even with her memory loss, my mother understood that children without hair have cancer. She was now in a mode of unstoppable sadness.

I decided to see if I could further distract her. My father bought a coloring book of Christmas drawings, and I brought it along. I got out the colored pencils she had bought a few months ago, and started to draw. I asked her if she wanted to draw, too, and this filled her with anger.

"What are we doing here? What are we doing?" I put the coloring book away, and went and sat beside her.

"This is bullshit. This is bullshit," she said, her belligerence building. "What are we doing? Why am I here? Bullshit."

"Laurie thought you might want to color," my dad said.

"Bullshit," she said, glaring at me.

"She loves you," he said.

"Bullshit," she said. I had no idea what to do. I was afraid to say anything for fear for further making her angry. At the same time, it is really hard to love someone when they are screaming "Bullshit" in your face.

I like to swear, but I avoid swearing at people. My son likes to swear, and we've had conversations about the appropriate audiences for swearing. Having my mother swear at me was highly unsettling, and there was little we could do to reason with her. Ester on the other side of the room looked over to me and made a patting motion with her hand. I reached out and patted my mom on the arm.  Ester nodded.

"Give her a kiss," Ester said looking at my father. My dad leaned over and kissed my mom.  The swearing stopped. Ester seemed to know how to cope with my mother better than my father and I.

The next day was rough, too.  My father and I walked in and the group was in the middle of an activity. It was the Martine Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, and five college were students hanging out with the group. We apparently interrupted my mother, because before we even made it down the hall she started yelling at my father and I.  She interrupted the circle with numerous "Bullshits."

The students kept the residents busy, so I didn't get a chance to talk to my mom.  When it was time for lunch, I walked her down the hall, holding her and singing the Mexican Hat Dance. I was wearing my leg brace and left my crutches in the closet outside of the Memory Care Unit.  I was leaving at noon to join my friend Beth from high school for lunch.  I figured if I walked off with my crutches, she would see I was leaving and that would upset her.  The staff says a stealthy departure is best, because the person with dementia will forget three minutes later that you were even there.

As we got in the dining area, my mother stumbled. I realized that me and my weak leg were not the best person to support her as she ambled down the hall. I feared I would have dropped her and landed on the floor myself. I was lucky my brace held both of us up.

I left Columbus on Tuesday.  I said goodbye to my dad at the baggage check-in. I remembered my carpenter Carl said he had his best airport experience when he was in a leg brace and in a wheelchair. I would say that was true for my time at Seatac. I got a wheelchair and the Delta guide wheeled me to security. I told the TSA staff I was wearing a leg brace. I forgot to tell the TSA folks in Seattle, and they were surprised when I set off the metal detector.  The woman in Seattle was kind when she saw I was wearing a leg brace.  I went through the body scanner and had a pat down.

"Can you take the brace off?" asked one of the TSA guys in the Port Columbus Airport.

"I can, but it takes ten minutes to readjust," I said.

"Okay, we'll send you through the body scanner and then you'll get a pat down," he said.

"That's fine with me," I said, trying to be agreeable. I went through the body scanner and they did a pat down. The woman who did the pat down wanted to look at my brace. Fine again. I complied.

"I need someone to scan this brace," she said.  In the meantime, another woman starts yelling at me about sending my laptop through without putting it in a separate box.

"Is this your laptop? You are supposed to pull it out..." she said. I know, I thought. I am in a wheelchair, and my helper put my bag through security. I didn't have to do this is Seattle.

The woman with the metal detector wand scanned my leg while the laptop lady continued to yell at me. The metal detector lady said, "You need to take the brace off."

What? I thought, This is absurd. I didn't argue. I took off the brace. I know the job of TSA is to make sure we are safe, but what about showing kindness to the people they are supposed to protect? Like an obedient child doing something against their own will, I hiked my yoga pant leg cuff up to my thigh, and removed the brace. I asked my helper for my crutches. I was so frustrated. In Seattle, I had worn corduroy pants and the only way to take off the brace would have been to pull my pants down.  What I had just had surgery and couldn't take my brace off for six weeks but needed to travel? Seriously. What if I were permanently disabled, and not temporarily? How are we supposed to manage? Have these people ever spent time on crutches or in a wheelchair? Is there empathy training for these folks?

By time I got my brace back on and wheeled to the gate, I was in tears. I wanted to scream "This is bullshit!" I wanted to be like my mother and not have a filter and express whatever emotion came to the surface. Logic, patience and rationality be damned!

The women at the gate were lovely and nice, but empathy after the fact doesn't negate an awful experience. One of the women had a knee replacement, and was regularly harassed by TSA, even though she has a card from her doctor. Not everyone travels for happy reasons, either. Not everyone is going to Disneyland. Some of us are traveling not because we want to, but because we have to visit our ill or dying or dead relatives.

When I got home, I told my daughter I wished she were there to videotape this event with her phone and we could post it online. She smiled with glee at the thought of her video going viral of me being abused by TSA agents. I was right there with her, even if it meant me standing in the middle of airport security in my underpants.

Like my mother who would rather have her memory back, who would rather be busy and be able to participate in regular life, I'd rather not be in this spot, needing extra support. But here we both are, needing help because of loss of independence.

The M word and Random Thoughts on Swearing

My son missed the bus today, so I had to drive him to school.  I normally walk the dog after I drop the boy off, and I am dressed in dog walking clothes.  These clothes tend to be comfortable and almost sloppy--fleece pants, hiking shoes and the like--not what I would wear to my children's school, if only because they would be embarrassed by my extreme casualness.  The odds of me running into several people I know at school are high, thereby exacerbating my embarrassment at being dressed like I just rolled out of bed.  When I am walking the dog, I have sartorial immunity.  Making sure my dog doesn't pee on my rug is far more important than how I am dressed.  The immunity is gone when I am alone.

As expected, I ran into one of my friends at my son's school.  Let's call this friend Jane.  You've met Jane before.  She was the mom at the coffee shop back in the "Swearing" post who said "We need to kill this mother f---er."  This morning, Jane and I decided to out for coffee, and I apologized for my attire.

"Middle-aged women really shouldn't wear yoga pants outside of yoga class," I said, glancing down at my blue and gray yoga pants.

"Don't say the m-word," Jane replied.

"Wha...?"

"The m-word.  Middle-aged."

I laughed.  The woman who casually drops f-bombs refuses to say middle aged.  At coffee, we were talking about a group she is working with.  "They are mostly older men, whereas I am..." pause  pause pause "...younger."  She was trying to think of another term for the m-word that wasn't the m-word.

Jane was going to meet with this group after coffee, and explained that was why she was dressed up, meaning dressed significantly better the typical mom who is dropping their kids off at school.  I joked that if I had known she was dressing up, I would have worn the new jacket I got the day before from Anthropologie.  I got a great deal from the sales closet.*

"I thought that store was for teenagers,"  Jane said.

"They have the middle-aged stuff in back of the store," I replied, thinking of my new jacket.

"Not the m-word again!" Jane screeched.  I burst out laughing.

Should I or should I not embrace the middle-age?  My daughter starts high school next year, which is a milestone for me just as much as it is for her.  I feel like as she moves definitively from tween to teen, so must I move from "...younger" to middle-aged.  I feel like I've earned it, even if it means I shouldn't wear yoga pants outside of yoga class and I shop at the back on Anthropologie.

* Shopping Secret:  The Anthropologie at U Village has a Sales Closet on the wall behind the cash registers.  I had no idea it was there.  From the outside, the closet looks like a mini-store room for the clerks.  Nope.  Inside, there were a bunch of women digging through the racks.  The previous time I was in the store, very few items were on sale on the main floor.  Now I know why -- they place all of the sales stuff in one spot.

Random Thoughts on Swearing

• My swearing habit has one good effect.  My daughter doesn't swear, probably because she doesn't want to be like me.  She says stuff like "Holy goodness!" which makes her sound like a nun.  The boy is a different story.
• Here is a great video from Harry Potter Puppet Pals called "Wizard Swears."  I love the Elder Swear.

The C Word

As I have discussed in a previous post, I love swearing.  I think there are many places where it can be used appropriately, but like anything else that is dangerous, swearing needs to be used sparingly.

One of my son's friend's family has a swear jar.  We used to have a swear jar, and it was useful for eliminating certain words I didn't like being used around the house.  The usual suspects -- the f-bomb, shit, damn, etc. -- all cost the user a small fee.*  "Idiot" and "shut up" were being used more frequently than I liked by my kids, so I added them to the fee list.  I am happy to report the swear jar got rid of both those words.  The swear jar went away when I was the only one making contributions.

One day, the friend was discussing how often his dad swore and how much money he owed the swear jar.  This dad is one of the most mild mannered and quiet men I know.  I was shocked to hear his son say that he used the "c word" almost twenty five times while he was driving to Portland.  And I thought I had a potty mouth.  I like to swear, but I have my limits.  I never use the c word.  Ever.  The dad turned a little pink, looked up, and clarified.

"Yes, I used c-r-a-p word many times."

Oh.

"Crap" is barely a swear word in my house.  I am happy when I say it instead of "shit."

* The money was supposed to be given to charity, but then we ended up using it as an emergency fund for coffee and snacks when I was out of cash.  Isn't that the story of most swear jars?

Swearing

I love to swear.  I don't drink excessively, smoke or use drugs, even caffeine.  Cussing is my vice.  I was at a meeting yesterday morning with three women from my volunteer day job.  We sat in a corner in a coffee shop and an elderly couple sat next to our table.  I am sure we looked innocent enough, like a couple of stay-at-home moms enjoying a cup of tea after dropping the kids off at school.  We were having a lively debate, and more than a few expletives were dropped.  The best when was when one of my more articulate friends said, "We need to kill this motherf--er."  (Note: This "motherf--er" was an idea, not a person or animal.)  I was shocked.  I don't think I had ever heard her swear.  It was epic.  In the 1970's, we would have been smoking.  Today, we drop f-bombs.  I felt bad for the couple next to us.  I am sure their ears hurt by time we left.  I bet they wished there was a swearing ordinance in Seattle that where people can only swear outside and more than 30 feet from the front door of businesses.

Last night, swearing continued, though this time as the topic  of conversation.  I went to an event at the children's theater where we met the playwright for the upcoming production of James and the Giant Peach.  After dinner, the playwright was sitting with the director.  I sat down at an empty seat at their table and asked the writer, "Is there swearing in this play?"  I was kind of hoping there would be.  My son P.J. has read the book several times, and he exploded with laughter when the centipede yells, "Ass!" to the other characters that are annoying him.  He laughed so hard that he stopped making sound, and then made a whoop as he came back up for air.   It was his favorite part of the book.

The writer looked delighted that I had asked him this meaty question.  He must have pondered this while writing.  In his talk, the writer said Roald Dahl broke several barriers with his children's books -- dead parents in the first page, being one.  (Dickens killed off all of Pip's relatives in Great Expectations, but that wasn't aimed at young children.  I digress.)  I wondered if the Children's Theater would break this barrier.

"We have to consider the audience and where the show is playing when we decide what kind of language to use," the writer said.

The director seemed a bit more alarmed at my question.  The playwright lives in New York.  This play is not opening in his hometown.  The director, on the other hand, is an icon in Seattle.  This theater is considered the best of its kind in the U.S., and much of the organization's success is due to her work over the years.  She has way more to lose.

"What do you mean by swearing?" she asked, eying me skeptically.

"You know," I said, "the centipede is rude and calls the other characters 'ass' and 'nincompoop.'"

"Nincompoop isn't swearing," she replied, annoyed at my inability to tell profane words from gibberish.

"Yeah," I said stalling.  "What about 'ass'?"

"There is no swearing," she said in the same tone of voice as if I asked if there were live animal sacrifices on the stage.  "We have two 'idiots' and three 'stupids,' but in the audience discussion we will talk about how inappropriate those words are.  The aunts use them and we had a hard time not using those words considering the aunts are horrible people."

"Dahl used colorful language and I was wondering if the show would have it," I said, trying to explain myself.

"We are going to have florid language more than profanity," writer said.  "Plus, British swear words have different meanings than American swear words.  'Bloody' is a serious word in England, but over here it doesn't mean anything.  'Ass' in England means donkey or jackass whereas 'asshole'..." He continued on for a few more minutes on the meaning of certain words to the British and Americans.

I was loving this conversation.  The director was not.

"So how do you decide which word to keep and which ones go?" I asked.  The director must think I am demented for wanting to introduce swearing to children.  I imagine her going back to the development office and asking them not to hit us up for a donation next year.

"We didn't want to risk losing the audience with swearing," the writer says.  I can accept that.  You don't want families losing interest in the plot and songs and dance, pulled out of the reverie by one bad word.  Writers have more luxury than actors.  Readers can put the book down for a minute to ponder or laugh.  Actors have a different task to keep people's attention.  Swearing might break that.  Half of the audience might burst into a laughter so deep and profound it stops the show.  The other half might get up a leave the theater.

The director likely has the ability to forecast the disaster that swearing could create that I previously did not.  I imagine she does not want all of the Puget Sound area school districts writing the theater off their field trip docket over a few poorly chosen words.  She also probably does not want angry letters from parents when Billy calls his pal at preschool an ass.  Having been on the receiving end of hate mail from my volunteer job, I know that would be bad.  What may be fine for 80% of the folks is not worth the wrath of the other 20%.

Which brings me to my final point, swearing around children.  I usually reserve my swearing vent my frustration about the absurdities in my day job when I am in a confidential and safe setting with friends.  I also swear when I drive.  I swear when I stub my toe or lose something or burn dinner.  Let's say I swear a lot, just less when my kids are around.  My daughter never swears and says things like "poopersons" when something doesn't work.  My son, on the other hand, picked up my bad habit.   When he was two, we were reading Richard Scary's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go" for the 14,000th time.  We came to the page near the end with the big crash and he proudly pointed at the picture, smiled and said, "F---!  F---!"  Oh dear, I thought.  I didn't remember using the word in front of him.  Did he remember it from the womb?  Nevertheless, I cut back my swearing.  For me, it was like a two pack a day smoker going down to one cigarette in the morning and one before bed.  (My grandmother had told everyone she had quit smoking, but every night after dinner, she would "take the garbage out" for five minutes.  Everyone knew.)

There was withdrawl.  I know there are more creative ways to express oneself, but sometimes "bullsh-" beats "I disagree with that idea." "Crazy" doesn't have the same emotional punch as the f-word.  I also understand the difference between swearing about a situation and swearing at someone, and I avoid the latter.  (People driving cars don't count.)  I know there is a time and place for swearing, and there are numerous people who are unaware of my foul mouth.  I suppose that is part of the appeal of swearing -- only a select few are privy to my rants.  I tried switching to "poopersons," but I sounded ridiculous when I caught myself saying it in front of a friend while driving.  And I don't want my kids to grow up in a bubble.  And how much is swearing part of our grown-up culture?  I love Macklemore (see previous post) and the Violent Femmes.  Is listening to songs with swear words a rite of passage?

After I got back from the preview at the children's theater, the kids asked me to read aloud from Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh.  Her book is a illustrated memoir with everything from hilarious stories about her dog and childhood to serious discussions about her battle with depression.  As a child, she had a toy parrot that would record her voice.  She made it say "poop" about 400 times.  Poop is the favorite swear word for the under eight crowd.  At what point does "poop" turn to "shit"?  Would we wonder about the 15 year old who says "poop" in an non-ironic way?  When Allie talks of her adult life, she isn't afraid to sprinkle in the f-bombs.  As I was reading aloud, I came across a few of them.  The conversation with the playwright and the children's theater director came back to me.  I thought of the director and just because the writer put those words there didn't mean I had to read them.  I skipped the f-bombs, and my kids noticed.

"Read them," my daughter said.  "You have to read the whole thing."  And I didn't.  Was I afraid of the hate mail I'd get from school if my kids started casually dropping f-bombs?  Does my daughter really swear, but not in front of me?  Or, god forbid, am I growing up?  Am I trying to teach my kids civility? The greater truth lies in the power of control.  I can swear when I want to, and I can choose when I don't.

Footnote:  After I wrote this, I asked my daughter why she doesn't swear.  "It isn't polite," she replied.  I think she doesn't swear as an act of rebellion against me.