TheMommyBlog

Wednesday, July 30, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Travel Fun

Let me just state for the record that there’s nothing quite like being called out as the train wreck in the crowd. I know! So surprising.

One of the introductory talks was at the Pampers Parenting Institute at P&G headquarters, in the archive room. I wanted to stay there the whole day–the place was full of memorabilia from decades of advertisements and collectibles, from Norman Rockwell’s original painting for the “Look, Mom, no cavities!” campaign to a tiny envelope holding a lock of John Wayne’s hair from back when a division of the company (or one of the principals) used to create wigs for Hollywood stars. They also had a lock of Elizabeth Taylor’s hair, but that stayed in the back. We were fascinated by the descriptions of how they would use tracings of hair patterns that were placed on wooden heads so that most of the wig making could take place before the stars came in for fittings to confirm the hairlines and color. We all gasped when the archivist casually opened JW’s envelope and spilled the hair out for us to see. “Nobody sneeze!” was the first thing I thought.

After a tour of the archives, which ended with a peek at the carve-it-yourself kits they used to sell (two bars of Ivory Soap, with carving knives) to kids along with instructions on how to turn that bar of soap into a Schnauzer. I love it. Try selling an awl and a knife today along with a bar of soap and see how long before you’re vacationing at Gitmo.

When Jane Wildman, Global Vice-President, Pampers, introduced herself, she asked, “Who was it that fell in the rose bush?” I held my hand at half-mast. Thank you. But! It did show that they read our blogs before meeting us! At another talk, the first question was, “Who was the one running through the Chicago Airport to get on a last minute plane?” “That would be me.” Gah. Can someone else have a story? I was the Train Wreck du jour. But then there was a much deserved round of applause for the PR wunderkind who managed to get me on another plane in time to join everyone for the tour. We had a lovely dinner across the river in Kentucky ("We’re goin’ to Kentucky; we’re goin’ to the fair!"), after which I checked into my room and passed out from sheer exhaustion.

It was up again at seven to get ready for the first meeting–although I’d been awake since six (three my time) for some cruel reason after only five hours of sleep. I brewed coffee in the room, showered, dressed, packed, and checked out. And left my coffee in the room. In the lobby, I met with another blogger on the way to get coffee in the lobby, and she asked about the mishaps as I put cream and sugar in my cup. “Oh, yes, we have a running joke about a family curse,” I said, “Someone always has a mishap near a holiday and it’s my son’s and brother’s birthday on Friday.”

“But you’re the only one here.”

Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you, we now have the common denominator, I thought, as I picked up my coffee, popping the lid off on one side and scalding my hand. This was a little too much revelation for one morning.

I’m not even sure how to go about describing what we saw and heard today. I wasn’t really sure what it would be – a product pitch, a focus group setting, mommy blogger brain-picking–but it wasn’t any of those things. (Although we DID get to see someone make a diaper from scratch. People, I will never toss one of those little wonders into the bin quite so casually ever again. Those puppies are engineered.) Kailani at An Island Life wrote a wonderful post (and I’m pleased that she got the same vibe as I did) and posted lots of photos. I brought my camera, but alas, the battery was dead. Of course.

They just wanted to show us who they were. And they were, to a person, extremely passionate about their mission their work, and what they could do to help moms and babies. Help a mom, help a child. Make a mom healthy and make a healthy child. An educated mom gives a child a leg up. Every single one of them believed it; each of them was building the cathedral. I was blown away.

For one thing, you have no idea the range of brands collected under the Proctor & Gamble name. When I saw the scatter gram of brands, I identified at least seventeen that were in my house this minute. Wipes, Swiffers, soap, you name it.

And since I haven’t had occasion to buy diapers in a while, I wasn’t aware of something else Pampers was doing: the One Pack = One Vaccine Program. For each marked package of Pampers diapers people purchase, they will buy one tetanus vaccine for a mother or child at extreme risk of developing tetanus during birth or shortly thereafter. Last year, 140,000 babies and 30,000 mothers died of this highly morbid disease, which can be prevented with a five-cent vaccination.

Five cents. Good God.

They are working in partnership with UNICEF USA, and we had the privilege of meeting with the CEO herself, Caryl Stern-La Rosa. After hearing abut their efforts and what people were so passionately trying to accomplish ("I believe in zero” as in, zero deaths from tetanus, someday, hopefully soon) and were well on the right trajectory.

It’s unacceptable that children die of preventable causes. Join UNICEF’s fight for child survival

It didn’t make me want to run out and buy diapers. It made me want to work there, to be a part of it. And you all know what a cynical little snot I am, so that’s really saying something. Caryl’s words and palpable dedication to her work was a staggering close to the event, and we all drifted out of the building and into the waiting cars on a wave of promises to be in touch with ideas for outreach, cards changing hands and suggestions that it not end there.

Oh, and as I was picking up a copy of Caryl’s new book, Hate Hurts, she glanced at my proffered card and said, “I read your book.” Bug Eyes. “You did? How on earth did you stumble on a copy of my book?” “I’m not sure - but I recognize the tagline on your card: Mommy Confidential: Adventures from the Wonderbelly of Motherhood.” I couldn’t believe it. But she read it! I should have asked if she liked it, but I was too stunned to get past the fact that she sat through all five hundred pages.

Thank you, Jane and all your colleagues, for having us.

Anyway, I was looking forward to getting online at the airport and then SLEEPING the entire way home. We were about five hundred yards away from the hotel when WonderGirl called. She misses me! Already! No. “Mindy, I can’t believe I’m saying this, but your flight’s been canceled.”

“No.”

“But we got you on another one that leaves in four hours.”

“Fuck me.” Heads turned for a moment in the van. “Thank you so much for getting me on another flight. I can’t believe the hustling you’re doing to make this smooth.”

Know what was REALLY smooth, though? My connecting flight was not in Houston anymore, oh no, it was in CHICAGO, and the connecting gate? Was ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE DAMN AIRPORT again.

At least this time I could walk. And when I got on the plane, I sipped a very nice glass of cabernet while the flight attendant hoped for more paying customers so she could break my twenty. Finally, she tried to give me back the money because she couldn’t get change, and I said, “Oh, hell, just give me a couple more bottles and I’ll take them home.” You would have loved the looks when she handed me three more bottles and whispered, “Now it just looks like you drink too much,” as I tried to stuff them into my bag without them clinking.

Tuesday, July 29, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude

You know what’s worse than being offline for twenty-one hours? Being offline AND unable to access your parental shrine of self-absorption.

Sixteen hours ago, I rose at 4 a.m. to catch a car to the airport, where I would fly to Cincinnati for the Pampers Parenting Institute. So exciting!–and a small group, manageable, intimate, we can all hang out and get to know each other.

Enter me, stage right.

First thing I did was trip over a sprinkler getting to the car, and then spill powder on myself trying to put on makeup in the back seat. Then, we found that the airport traffic was re-rerouted in a crazy-eight such that you couldn’t get there from here without first going over there and back here. We still got there in time. JUST in time, but in time.

And that was when I exited the car and did a full-on Miss Congeniality pratfall on the sidewalk, dropping my two novels (who brings two novels on an overnight?) on the floor of the car and schmushing my glasses. Gaaarrghh. I popped right back up again a la Sandra Bullock and marched right up to a check in machine and collected my boarding pass. And then? In band camp? I tried to bend my eyeglasses back in shape, popped out a lens and snapped off one of the stems. Jesus H. Ebeneezer Christ in a sidecar eating a donut.

We all shuffled toward security, past where the food court used to be, and all the way to the first baggage carousel to get to the end of the line, which then snaked back around past one, then two, then three baggage carousels, back past the food court, to the first of three amusement park cattle courses and then finally to one of the six (six!) lines to go through the metal detector. Where the woman in front of me was in a wheelchair.

I thought, oh, she’ll go right through the little gate. No, she was going to stand. She got up, shakily, while half of us readied to catch her or jump away and the other half winced. She baby stepped all the way up to the gate where she stood, flapping her hands, terrified of stepping up and over the little rise of the metal detector’s frame. Her attendant, an airline employee, stood at the ready, watching the woman inch her way across the threshold and not setting off any alarms to our collective relief.

But then the attendant had trouble getting the wheelchair through, and then seemed confused about going through the detector herself. Presumably, being an airline employee pushing a wheelchair for a passenger, she had permission to cross the threshold as well. But she wasn’t entirely sure. Perhaps she was surer before her charge nearly fainted negotiating the thing. Finally, she grasped her employee badge and held it up in front of her like an amulet and I SWEAR TO GOD closed her eyes before ducking through. These are the crackerjack security folks keeping America safe? I’m sorry, but standing there, barefoot and juggling two bags, a laptop, my shoes and three bins, it felt like the terrorists were winning.

Anyway, the flight to Chicago… was a flight to Chicago. What can I say? I hate flying into O’Hare. I lived there for fifteen years and am no longer charmed by the flashy lights and New Age music in the tunnel connecting the United terminals. On the flight, I bought one of those mini meals to stop the growling in my stomach (and to help keep my internal organs down), and as soon as I ripped open the box, I dropped the little plastic knife. No matter, I’d eat the applesauce first. And that was when I discovered that I could neither find the knife, move anything out of the way to look for it, nor open a single bloody packet without it. The peel-off lid on the Rondele? Would not peel. I tried pressing and then jabbing lightly on the foil with the spoon. The spoon broke. At that point it was either start crying or go to sleep. I slept.

To my great joy, we landed at Concourse B! No tunnel! I could hardly believe my luck. I still had about fifteen minutes to board my connection but, alas, it was cancelled. They had put me on standby in three hours.

PR WonderGirl to the rescue! I phoned my contact and agreed I’d started walking toward the later flight’s gate (in Concourse C! Newman!) while she checked to see if she could get me on another airline. I cursed the entire way through the tunnel, refusing to look up and go oooohooh, and hoofed it all the way Back to C. At which point WonderGirl called to say I was confirmed on another flight! Woohoo! Oh, but it was boarding in five minutes On Delta Fucking Airlines, in Concourse L. For Loser.

Does anyone know how far that is? I made a map of my journey. See for yourself.

I jogged over to the nearest information kiosk to confirm L’s location, where I had a small heart attack, took off my shoes, and pelted the mile or so across the airport. I OJ’d my way through seven concourses, skirting every single security line in the place. People stepped quickly out of my way. Children clung to their mothers’ skirts. I was going to make that flight.

One the way, clutching the phone to my ear, I scrambled for something to write the flight number on. How can I not have a pen? Who goes out of town without a PEN? What kind of a writer AM I? Jeebus.

I found a pale blue colored pencil deep in my bag, whipped it out, and asked WonderGirl to repeat the information. That was when the pencil flew our of my grasp, landed exactly on the point, and then the tip snapped off and did a full gainer with a twist before rolling under a door marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

There was nothing to do but dig out my DS and pictochat with myself to retain the gate and flight number. Yeah, I know.

Five minutes later, sweat pouring down my forehead, back, and arms, I was still only halfway there. I was that guy in the Olympics who could only make it to the finish line in bare feet. Shoes couldn’t help me now. Actually, if my heart gave out it wouldn’t matter.

Finally, I skidded to a halt and collapsed at the counter at the gate, heaving and gasping. “My flight was cancelled… GASP… and they put me on…GASP…this flight…GASP… and I should have a boarding…GASP… pass!”

“Let me see.” Her nails clacked over the keyboard. Back and forth. Typity type, ENTER. Tyyyyypity typeeeee ENTER. Was she playing Tetris? “Yes, you’re confirmed. Let me just print your boarding pass and then you can have a seat until we begin boarding.”

WHAT?

They were supposed to be in the air already, I lost seventy percent of my lung capacity in the sprint over, the rose thorn lacerations all up my leg were on fire, and the plane was late taking off. I had like ten minutes to relax. WHICH I COULDN’T because my heart rate was through the roof and my knees were giving out but wouldn’t bend so that I could sit. Not that anyone really wanted me sitting there.

It must have all been for a reason, because my seatmate in the emergency row was a scream, and we talked and laughed all the way to Cincinnati. I didn’t even know we’d been in the air until the beverage cart came and he bought me a glass of wine for breakfast and a Jack and Coke for himself. We traded kid stories, talked about work, and realized that we knew a whole slew of the same people in Chicago, Colorado Springs, and California. We even knew some of the same places in Tijuana. You don’t even want to know. And then he said he’d once played for the A’s, The baseball team Logan idolizes! If he’s not wearing a Shark’s jersey, he’s decked out in green and gold, head to toe. I got an autograph. He said, “There won’t be a baseball card.”

“Just sign it. To Logan.”

“ I was only on for like five minutes, and then I got cut.”

“The point is that you were THERE. You wore the uniform. Logan is going to love this.”

Best of all, he and his son had just returned from Beijing, where Phil and I are going in two weeks! It was a great trip except for the cough that lasted ten days after he landed. The air’s a little thick over there.

There was sooo much more to this day, but I’m beat and have to check out at 08:30 tomorrow. My dogs are barking and my head’s telling me that the second martini at dinner really wasn’t all that necessary

Nite, all.

Saturday, July 26, 2008 Me, Me, Me, Bad Mood Dude

So there I was (in the Congo), washing the car in my driveway, ponytail high and swimsuit rockin’, when I leaned over to get the font fender… and fell right into the rosebush.

This isn’t any ordinary rosebush; no one knows how old it is or who planted it. Suffice to say that when in full bloom it completely obscures my car from the neighbor’s view. Daphne was dancing around me, begging to use the long-handled brush or spray something, anything, so I asked her to squeeze into the space in front of the car and get the fender and license plate. I may as well have asked her to pick up a dead squirrel. Peasant work.

So I edged around, leaned over, grateful for this wonderful brush that let me get into spaces that, well, would really not be a problem had I just backed the damn car up two feet. Just as I swiped the license plate from the passenger side fender, I started to wobble. And then I fell. It was the slowest descent ever. I saw where I missed a spot under the bumper. I noticed that there were a lot of very big rocks between the rosebush and its diminutive, hardly-worth-mentioning neighboring bush. I wasn’t sure if I would continue to pitch forward and crack my elbow on the rocks or fall back into the barbed wire masquerading as foliage.

Into the barbed wire I went.

That wasn’t even the worst part. It was being stuck, not knowing how I was going to get the leverage to get up, feeling thorns tearing into my skin and my new swimsuit (damn!) and white surf shorts (double damn!) and lodging there while I hesitated between sinking further and lunging out of there. Of course, getting up did nearly as much damage as falling.

My daughter came running out at that moment so ask if she could spray some more, and skidded to a stop when she saw me wincing as I rinsed the last of the soap off the hood before going into the house for what I was sure would be a long, painful shower.

“Mama?”

“I fell, hon.”

“Are you okay?”

“No, I’m really not. Can you call Phil for me and ask him to come help?”

She ran inside to tell Dylan to come look, and I asked her to take photos of the side and back of me so I would know where all the bits of thorns were. I wasn’t sure where Phil was and I might be doing the search and retrieval myself. I was dripping blood from my forearms and my leg was on fire.

Luckily, Phil was already on his way and arrived just as I was drying off (gingerly) and finding something loose-fitting to wear.

“What happened??”

“I fell in the rosebush. We’re going to need tweezers. Oh, and could you please get the thorns on the bathroom sink? I was pulling them out in the shower and I don’t want the kids getting them.”

“Nice. You could make a necklace,” he suggested. He’d brought Logan a strand of shark teeth the week before in South Carolina.

I stood in the kitchen wiping away tears as he pulled thorn bits out of my skin, cleaned everything with antiseptic, and applied Neosporin everywhere. I took a handful of Tylenol and passed out on the couch, putting down a blanket first in case I started bleeding again.

Daphne patted me and said she was so sorry, and that she would take care of me, just as she’s always said she would. Between Phil and the kids, I was completely safe. It’s a nice feeling.

I’ll have whole day to rest before I pack for the Pampers Parenting Institute in Cincinnati on Monday.

Thursday, July 24, 2008 Familybits

I got in a little trouble this morning for painting without calling my friend to come and help…

Her: don’t tell me you finished painting D’s room !.....
Me: I did the walls in the corner and the one over the closet! I had to! I had to get the room back together before the cleaners came or I would have shot myself
Me: BUT
Me: I got a call from Daph this morning
Me: “Mama?”
Me: “I was at the park, and I fell on this… um, brick wall?”
Her: oh no ....
Me: “and I got seven stitches in my chin!”

Wednesday, July 23, 2008 Me, Me, Me

In my twenties, I painted many a room to perfection, applying up to six coats to get coverage (especially if there is a thin sheen of nicotine on everything), making sure the trim is clean and the edges straight, only to put down the brush and spend the next several years never looking up there again.

This year, I painted Daphne’s room without a drop cloth (well, there was one in the room, I could just never find it to stand on), quart-sized mug-o-paint in hand, squinting at edges and corners to see if I’ll ever care about later.

And then? I took a shower, shaved my legs, and cleaned the dried paint out of my razor.