So help me, I will turn this car RIGHT around

I don't know any of the real particulars of the New York mom who got so irritated with her kids she put em outta the car, and ended up arrested.

And I really can't remember for sure if that's something my parents did to me and ChefBabyBrother.

But that's kinda the point: I don't remember.

It certainly SOUNDS like something they woulda done -- and maybe they did -- but if they did, I must not have been too irreparably scarred.

I had a fairly typical 1970s Southern childhood, which means I occasionally got spanked; my mouth got smacked on multiple occasions; and Yes, voices were raised. There were no "time outs." My Dad didn't hit us -- he was what we called "a Shaker" -- people used to get confused as to how that could've referred to his religious orientation, but we just meant he LITERALLY shook us. Luckily it was long after we were babies or he might've accidentally scrambled our brains. But there wasn't a lotta research on that back then.

We also rode without car seats and weren't even forced into seatbelts til maybe 6 or 7, which we bitterly whined about.We even ate potato salad that had been out in the sun and holiday turkey that sat on the table unrefrigerated all day. Sure, it was a kinda stupid time. But most of us survived.Maybe not everybody, but something's gotta cull the herd. That's Darwin.

I would never hit a kid today any more than I would allow a child to drink a Coke. It isn't the current style of child-raising -- and that's fine -- but the word "abuse" got way too fashionable and liberally applied sometime around the 80s and seems to continue.

People lost their minds when Alec Baldwin got caught on tape calling his daughter a Pig. Admittedly, Not Nice. But MAN, that is SO the least of what I periodically got called growing up. Everybody got in on the Act -- parents, Nuns, teachers -- whatever. It didn't end up in the News (though I'm sure I sent out MULTIPLE press releases -- to absolutely no avail). Apparently, I just needed an Agent.

There was a good amount of arguing, but there was NOT a lot of room for debate -- despite my carefully crafted pie charts and presentations artfully crafted to educate my parents as to the ignorance of their ways -- designed to PROVE I was RIGHT and they were WRONG.They were SO not interested.

It was a dictatorship. They were NOT our friends.It wasn't a flawless system, but by and large, it worked.

Nowwwww, I should also say, I was a Researcher in criminal justice for YEARS before I ended up at my current gig. So I would never, ever trivialize or minimize abuse. It's real, and it's under-prosecuted.And it's a whole other discussion for a whole different day.

But it isn't the same thing as a garden-variety parent doing a garden-variety stupid thing, in the heat of a garden-variety stupid moment.

If my parents were to be judged on their WORST moment EVER (to my way of thinking) it would be the time they made me stay home from a skating party AND sent me to bed without Chico and the Man. I'm not sure what I did to merit such a disproportionate, outrageous punishment, but I would be willing to bet it somehow related to an accusation (almost assuredly unfounded) of me "smartin' off." (If you can imagine.)

Out of all the moments of discipline I endured as a kid, THAT is the one that haunts me to this DAY. Yeah, I would even say it SCARRED me. And if I coulda somehow gotten Walter Cronkite's phone number, believe me: you woulda known ALL about it.

StayCation

A couple dozen times a day I see a status update on Twitter or Facebook that someone is counting the days, minutes, or hours til Vacation.

It makes me sad.

I haven't counted the days til Vacation since I was in Grad School.

I'm sure they would be just as sad for me, since I probably haven't been on an actual Vacation in about 10 years. I have no plans to retire -- ever -- beyond the general goal that it would be nice to spend more time teaching.

And that's fine by me.
The first thing to factor out is the fact that I hate to travel. I almost never do it. The last really long trip I took was to Montreal.(Longer than you'd think, cause I drove.) Montreal itself is pretty -- fairly European (so I'm told) and an unbelievable climate in July.But overall, I was not impressed by Canada. Except it did give me the best headline of my writing career: Les Nips du Fromage.

Generally speaking (factoring out my disdain for Planes, Trains, & Automobiles), there are two main things that keep me from being among the Vacation crew.

First, I try not to spend ANY of my life on anticipation (I wish I was that successful at avoiding its evil cousin, Dread, but I'm not). I know people who live their entire lives around an annual August pilgrimage to wherever. The remaining 50 weeks of the year, they're just putting in time.

I might spend breakfast looking forward to dinner, but beyond that, I really try not to get too far ahead of myself.

Second, I like what I do for a living. I could wax on about creative fulfillment and so on -- and I don't mean to trivialize that (it's critical) -- but the daily quality-of-life things are what make me happy.

-For example, I don't have a job where I have to wear a bra. As an adolescent, growing up, I always hoped for that in a career path. And clearly, it pays to dream big.

-I also don't have to wear pantyhose -- probably no one does anymore -- but I HAVE worked places where that was required.

-I do have a job where dogs are welcome.

-I have a parking space. (I definitely know not to take THAT for granted.)

-I work in a designated ass-kissing-free Zone. I don't kiss any ass. Nobody kisses mine.

-Profanity is permissible and even encouraged.

-It's inside work. With Air Conditioning.
About 15 years ago, I was interviewing a band and we were winding down, when, at 4 o'clock, they looked at their watches and started packing up their stuff, just like they were punching a clock.I asked if I was keeping them from something, and they looked at me like they were explaining something to a slow child, and said, "It's 4 o'clock... Andy Griffith's on."

I knew then I could only fantasize about a job where I could someday say "it's time for Andy Griffith" and have that be a perfectly plausible, acceptable reason for walking out of a room.
And now I have one.

Like any office, of course, there's always too much work and never enough time -- but I try to never lose sight of the fact that life is just exponentially harder if you have to get through it in restrictive undergarments.And by the sheer grace of God, long hours, a $50,000 education (which used to be s lot of money) and decades of hard work,at the moment, I don't have to.

But for now, you'll have to excuse me. Bonanza's on.

Using Protection

As you may have noticed, the Twitter feeds for this blog are now "protected." At some point, the blog may be too. As long as you're a signed-in "follower," you should be able to read them just fine.

Anyone already on Twitter, but not yet on this Twitter, just has to sign in and click on Follow, and then I'll get a little note that says "accept" or "decline." (Sometimes it takes me a day or two to get to the clickies.)

Broke the Dog

Man, Louis has only been here a couple days and it's gonna be pretty bad to have to hand him back and admit I might have broken him.

First, we apparently walked him thru some glass or something, because he got a little limp in his front right paw (plus there was all the blood).

Fixed that up, and now he's limping on his left back leg.

And it looks a lot like hip dysplasia.

Hoping it's just the 24-hour kind. Had Rob check to see if it was ok to give him aspirin, glucosamine, and steroids. (You can't just DRUG someone else's dog. Or someone else's kid for that matter. Found THAT out the hard way but they DO call it BABY Benadryl. Though they SHOULD call it Baby Ambien. And somebody SHOULD totally make Baby Ambien.)

Then I watched Rob try to pill the dog -- which was a lot like watching Tina Fey unsuccessfully pill Amy Poehler with pre-natal vitamins in Baby Mama.

Another good reason for not drugging other people's dogs is that it's a good way to get bit.

Luckily Louis is a good sport. Still have all my appendages.

Just another shout-out for the concept of rescuing dogs from somewhere other than the Kennedy compound.

Katie would be proud...

Four colonoscopies in four weeks in my family.

Mine: two polyps removed.

Mom's today: clean as a whistle.

Great Aunt Hazel (my grandmother's last living sibling - the baby, at 80 something) -- diagnosis, Cancer. Successfully recovering now from surgery last week.

My first cousin David, 55, finally nagged by his wife into having the test last week -- diagnosis cancer. Cancer so invasive and aggressive that they couldn't even complete the test.Surgery was yesterday and they're optimistic for a full recovery.

So as many jokes as I've made in recent weeks -- I really just wanted to take a second and tell anybody who thinks they CAN't go thru this test that they really, really can.

NO one is a bigger baby than I am -- trust me on this; I'll provide references -- and I can HONESTLY tell you it was fine.

If you need the name of a great doctor, I know three.

Maybe I'll even make up little certificates like Dave Barry did for his readers.

I blogged a dog, and I liked it!

Meet Louis.

He's "guarding" our office this week.

He's Rob's nephew -- a Dane/Lab mix -- and I kinda had to beg to get him here. (First, we were supposed to dog-sit, but then his brother's travel plans changed or something.)

So now we're not really dog-sitting, so much as Louis is just "visiting" us. (I wanted to give some more blog-time to another successful RESCUE -- he doesn't have a Kennedy pedigree but he does happily live with kids. Take that stoooopid Sherri Shepherd.)

Normally, Rob wouldn't listen to me if he knew he was goin' deaf tomorrow, but he does agree with me on this: a doggie office is a happy office.

Now I'm gonna go roll on the floor for awhile in between deadlines.

My "drinking" problem

I was crushed a few weeks ago when it looked like Voss Water had switched to plastic bottles.

I'm a creature of habit; I don't like changes; AND I'm picky, so it takes me awhile to form attachments and find favorites. I used to buy Voss Water at Good Foods til they stopped carrying it. I grieved. THEN Fresh Market opened, and they carried it, and I started to take it for granted again.

Until a few weeks ago when they inexplicably switched to Voss in plastic bottles (it has a red label, and between me and you, tastes vaguely like condoms).

I asked around. Friends in other cities said they'd been stuck with the plastic red label version for awhile.

Slowly, I resigned myself to finding something new to drink.

Today I woke up to a happy day of rain and the prospect of non-stop movies, all day -- with one tiny glitch: I'd forgotten to lay in provisions. No food in the house. And my elaborate movie plans didn't include cooking.

I threw on a hoodie over my PJs and trekked into Mouse Trap with a loooong shopping list (Greek Salad, Waldorf Salad,dill dip, and a variety of seafood -- shrimp, salmon, etc -- they skewer a lotta stuff there and I just love fish on a stick).

But when I got there, their compressor had gone out and the cold cases were empty.

Dejected and drenched, I trudged down to fresh market to drown my sorrows in some almond pillow cookies. Which I found. But were stale.The day was goin' South by the minute.

Then, on my way to the emergency backup stash of watermelon Sour Patch kids, I found the Voss. In GLASS bottles. And piled enough of it into my cart that I think the cashier took me for some crazy survivalist.

And now I'm curled up with 42 inches of HD goodness, hydrating, and gazing at Helen Hunt's irresponsible expanse of forehead, possessed by a profound incredulity that she coulda ever had the chutzpah to cast herself as a 39-year-old. (She's also cast herself as Jewish.)