TheMommyBlog

I somehow wound up telling two concurrent stories this morning—very unlike me—that were so far apart from each other in time and topic that I can’t even remember how we got there or what had happened when I looked back.

It started when we woke up. Phil was parched.

“I need a drink.”

“There’s Scotch in the cupboard.”

“Ha, ha, that’s exactly the drink I need. Do you want some water?”

“Sure.”

“Why are you laughing?”

“A few years ago, when I was pregnant with Daphne, or maybe Dylan, I met a friend for a drink in Saratoga—”

“You met for a drink when you were pregnant?”

“Hang on, he was visiting and staying there with his aunt so we met at a bistro near her house.”

“Who was this?”

“A guy who used to work at the foundation, and we also waited tables together in Saratoga. Stay with me.”

*goes to get water*

*comes back*

“Go on.”

“I know this is selfish, but please don’t make me move. I’m so comfortable. You can climb over me. Leap if you must.”

“There will be no leaping.”

“Leap, leap, leap. Heh.”

“What are you talking about?”

”Zoboomafoo. Children’s show. Hosted by the Kratt Brothers and a ring-tailed lemur. See, when—”

“Hold on, a leaning what?”

“A ring-tailed lemur.”

“What’s that?”

“A sort of monkey with a long tail with rings.”

“What is that, standard knowledge? Is that something I’m supposed to know?”

“Around here, it’s a building block. It’s begginner’s stuff. You have to remember where I live. It’s a warped universe.”

“And it has a coiled tail?”

“No, that’s Tigger. The tail has rings, you know, like a Dr. Suess tail.”

“Who’s Tigger?”

“From Winnie the Pooh.”

“What?”

“He bounced on his tail.”

“That’s a cartoon character.”
“Right.”

“Go on.”

“Well there’s an actual lemur, but for the close-ups he’s a puppet. And when he tells a story—see now I have to give too much background and it’s losing all its funny—when he begins a story he says, ‘I was leaping through the jungle one day…leap, leap, leap…’ See? Not that funny.”

“No, it’s funny. Right here.”

“It’s welling up.”

“It’ll be here Thursday.”

“Thank you.”

“Go on.”

“Anyway, I meet this friend at The Basin, and I’m sitting there on a stool when the bartender comes over and asks me, ‘What’ll you have?’ I lean back in my stool in my powder pink maternity twin set, look down at my eight-month-pregnant belly, and say, ‘I’ll have a boilermaker with a water back in a dirty glass.’”

“I’m suprised they would serve you, especially out here in California.”

“I was kidding. I had a Diet Coke.”

“Yeah, but you never know. ‘Boilermaker with a water back.’ See, you have all the lingo.”

“Don’t forget the dirty glass.”

“And the leaning tiger.”

*pause*

“I’m getting up to work.”

“Ok. Wake me in forty-five. And come back if there’s no email.”

But, of course, there was.