Putting the "Fast" Back in "Fasting"

I started the Master Cleanse today, also known in more gentle circles as the Lemonade Diet.

You've heard tell: for 10 days you live on laxative tea, brackish water (if the name doesn't sell it . . .), and a maple-syrup-lemon-juice-cayenne-pepper-water concoction. What's supposed to happen: a cleansing (as the title implies), complete with hot eliminations that results in one squeaky clean colon, babies. So clean you could eat off it, if after you opened yourself off to extract the colon you didn't bleed out first.

I started it last night with the laxative tea. I read all the horror stories, but I have a stubborn colon, so I didn't get the party that was promised.

I woke up this morning and promptly skipped the brackish water. If it's going to get buy in from me, it'll need another name. Because brackish by any other name has got to be more appealing.

But I did freshly squeeze my lemons (3 per 32 oz batch) and supercayenne my lemonade. Mama likes it spicy.

I drank that for breakfast, drank it for lunch--and then got desperately hungry, incredibly bored (so soon!) and then grossly irritable and depressed. I wasn't expecting that kind of fun until day 4. But this denial reminded me of the two days before my hysterectomy, reminded me of the 24 hours before my colonscopy, reminded me that I'm permanently scheduled for this kind of fun, and without breaking a sweat, I was out of there and in the kitchen and cooking up some Mahi Mahi Veracruzana.

Yes, my people, your math is right. My 10 day fast lasted a whopping 5 waking hours.

I am weak. But I am happy.

Viva la food.

Traveling Companion

I work at home. There is no watercooler to gossip around. The office politics can be vicious and one-sided, but they don't flare up too frequently. And although I'm a dutiful handwasher, possibly bordering on obsessive compulsive, I don't so much have to worry about rubbing up against the germs that cube-mate Sheila's first grader brought home from school and generously gifted to her, her family, and each one of her coworkers, like some kind of art-hour macramé craft project.

(Do they do macramé in first grade? Maybe not. But they should. You could demonstrate some fine motorskilling there.)

So when I get on, say, a plane or stay in, say, a hospital for two days, well, those germs just start hopping about fleas on a dog, or a toddler on a toy you've told him you're going to sell on ebay.

They're real friendly like. In fact they were so very friendly and needy that apparently I had to bundle them up and take them home with me.

Which is all just a fancified and laborious way of telling you, I feel like crap.

But even though I felt like crap, I also felt it was my duty to get a start on those resolutions that I haven't even had the time to bore you with. Because there's no better time to feel guilty and inadequate than when you're feeling sickly. (Or so it works out in my head. I tend to kick myself when I'm down.) It's a traveling show of self-deprecation and martyrdom. Book the matinée while there are still seats.

So I headed to the gym. Because that's a good idea. I started with the theory that I'd elliptical through and beyond these germies.

I ended up feeling rather dizzy and nauseous. And, you know, a whole lot crappier.

I Just Want Him to Know Love Is Beautiful . . .

Finn may not be so easy with the dropping off at school, but he's not much into the picking up either. There is no Run for Mama Rescue Hug. Nope. My child does not own that consistency of character. Instead, he takes one look at me, and runs away. He is passionate about not going to school and equally passionate about not leaving it.

We've learned to live with that. We've adjusted our expectations and we don't set ourselves up for failure. We don't show up five minutes before the chilluns head outside and we give ample warnings. Slow waves, knowing nods, finger countdowns, verbal cues, buggy eyes, stronger gestures, smouthed commands.

And then, we give up diplomacy and just strong arm him and run.

Today, though, he was playing with his Girlfriend. Yes, Finn has a Girlfriend. A steady. (We even had to create a Mii for her.) She's in another class and he doesn't get to see her often, even though the chatter about her at home is rather incessant. We just couldn't motivate ourselves to break that up. So we waited, chatted up the teachers, and commiserated with some other parents that couldn't get their kids to exit the playground.

Finally, I saw an opening. Finn was on the jungle gym. Girlfriend was triking. I went in for the grab. As we walked toward the door, I asked Finn if he wanted to say goodbye to Girlfriend, maybe give her a hug. He thought that was a good idea, but . . .

"Mama, you ask her."

So Finn and I, hand in hand, walked over to Girlfriend. She almost ran me over with the trike. (A sign of future mama-girlfriend conflict, I'm sure.) After I swallowed some juicy expletives with a smile, I asked if Finn could give her a hug. Sure, she said.

Yes, a little creepy on the mothering there. I know. I was playing wingman. To my son.

Later, sensing my "liberal nature," Finn asks if he can sleep with Girlfriend. Bear chokes down a laugh and tosses me a mock see-what-you've-done-now look.

"Maybe you should date first," I say.

How Do You Hold a Moonbeam in Your Hand?

I thought we started the morning well. We watched some morning cartoons, Finn had first and second breakfasts (the kid believes in breakfast), we headed off to school, and spent the car ride talking about the humorous implications of farce done well (or, what a thigh-slapper that Willy Wonka is. "'Member the turnover, mama?" "The somersault?" "The sobersalt! Now that was funny!")

We got to school, handed over a brand new, dayglo orange toothbrush to the teacher. Hugged. Kissed.

And then came the rain. The complete torrent: tears, crying, clinging.

Now, Finn's been going to preschool, and quite uneventfully, for about two years. So this isn't in his standard portfolio of morning behaviors. Sure, he's had school melts before (my child ain't perfect) but to the tune of, like, once a year (I guess we're due) and in the presence of teachers who quickly swoop in and solve the crisis for me.

But today, no such rescue. I was left to PARENT MY CHILD ON MY OWN.

It's difficult to comfort your child and back out of the door at the same time. Because, when it comes down to it, your leaving is the problem. So we talked about what he could. We read. We bargained. But still the rain came.

So I did what any parent would do. I ran for it. I walked him over to his teacher, with big, pleaful eyes--imagine Antonio Banderas' puss-in-boots--and I ran. Out the door. Into the car.

Yes. I feel incredibly guilty, rather useless, extremely ineffectual. You get the idea. I understand the manipulative powers of Four and a Half, but still, crying child is crying child and that don't get no easier.

So I sat in the car for a good 15. Thought about going into to rescue him and then thought about Finn as a 12 year old, excusing himself from school with a "tummy ache." And yet I still entertained the idea.

I called a couple of hours later and learned that Finn was in good hands. One of his classmates patted his head, reassured him, and read him a story. One of his Four and a Half classmates.

Dear Four and a Half: How I love you. In all your faces, in all your moods, in all your wonder. You are magic. You are beautiful.

See These Glasses?

We registered for these glasses when we got married. In 1993. We loved, loved them. We were gifted maybe five of them.

And then they were discontinued. In 1994.

As of the morning of November 22, 2007, we still had all five.

On that very same Thursday afternoon, we decanted a fine rose, poured it into our glasses, and enjoyed its chilled mild flavor with our Indian-spiced turkey and panko spinach casserole.

In the early evening, we poured out the fine rose, deciding it harkened too much of white wine for our liking, and replaced it with red wine. We drank the replacement. And then another.

And then we descended to the basement, beautiful crystal filled with yet another dose of red wine. To play of the Wii.

And then Sarah, in the midst of Mario Party 8 passion, biffed Wii-mote to cherished crystal in a fit of Wii-indulgence and competition and the attempt to steal coins with the throw of a virtual dart. And she shattered said glass (but not remote or hand).

Thus ended the reign of crystal.

And thus began Sarah's despair.

Whimper. And sob. (Sarah consoled herself with yet another glass of culpable wine, but this time sipped from Target's special line of relatively disposable glasswares that were not harmed during the further adventures of Mario Party 8 or Resident Evil 4.)

Driving to School: Our Morning Monologue

[Note to readers: This is a 3-minute excerpt. The drive to school, and ergo the full monologue, takes 20 minutes.]

The rescue truck. The rescue truck. Duh rescue truck. Duh rest q trook.

That's funny.

Duh rest q trook. Duh rest q trook. That's still funny. Duh resk u truk. Diego! Duh resk u truk.

La, la, la, la, la. This is Halloween. Today is Halloween. I am the shadow that creeps over the moon. I'm the one that hides under your bed. This is Halloween. La, la, la. La, la, la. Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh. Hey. Jingle. Jingle. Jingle.

Mama, can you play Higgley Town Heroes?

Jingle bells. Jingle bells. Jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to ride in a horse sleigh.

Mama, can you play Flash Gordon. I like that song. I really like that song. I like that song. Can you play it? I like it.

Boop-e-doopy-doo. La. La. Fa-tra-la. Moon-ah. Bump. Bump. La.

Mama, candy calms me down. Can I have some more candy? I've only had two. Can I have some more candy? Candy calms me down. Can I have some more candy? Just one more. Puhleease? Can I have some more candy? It calms me down.