Ginger Snaps

Every Family Inherits a Psycho

            My former sister-in-law has enviable hair, nails and halter top collection. She is a walking billboard for the local tattoo parlor and has smoked enough weed to ensure the poor sap cremating her will get a hell of a contact high when the grim reaper stakes his claim. Some days I wonder what’s taking him so long.

            The jettisoned psycho ex is one of those people who has an adorable mouth, nose, eyes and flawless skin, but somehow all those features put together aren’t terribly attractive. I think the CQ (cute quotient) diminishes every time she opens her mouth, too. Some people can wear a Hefty sack and look smashing. Others – like Psycho Ex - look like a heap of trash in an otherwise glamorous evening gown. I thought the tattoo on her arm was a giant bruise until I got a better look at it. It is difficult to look classy with a smattering of unrelated caricatures carved onto your body. Not impossible, just difficult. The daisy duke cutoffs and braless tube tops don’t help.

            For the record, I have two tattoos. Most people never see either one because they are in very discreet locations. Their visibility is actually decreasing as I gain more weight and pretty soon the dragons on the small of my back will disappear into the crack of my ass.

            But I digress. The CQ of Psycho Ex is actually quite appealing when compared to her personality. Misspent the household allotment for utilities? Not a problem. Lean on extended families to pony up the money to turn the lights back on. When that stopped working, she had a kid. “The baby is cold,” she would say, “and we’ve no money for oil. We just need one shipment, and she is so cold…” Who doesn’t have a heart and wouldn’t pony up a few sheckles for that? And when the fuel truck was on its way over to deliver an emergency shipment (with a $50 fee on top, of course) she would ring someone up to come wait for it. “There is a peace protest in

Woodstock

and I promised I would bring the filet mignon to feed the marchers.” The next time fuel ran short, her answer would be “They stiffed us fifty bucks’ worth. Can you float us…?”

Credit was a dangerous way to live with her. “Oops!” She will say. “No one ever taught me how credit works.” She claimed not to know that credit cards weren’t preloaded cash, and was under the impression that once one was “used up,” well, you just moved on to the next one. Repayment was a thorn in her side and I heard her get mouthy with bill collectors on a regular basis. “You knew when you gave us that card what kind of money we had. You’re an idiot if you thought we had enough money to pay all that back.” Student loans were not so much for funding education as they were for financing vacations, leather coats, designer pants and nights on the town. There wasn’t a karaoke bar she wasn’t well acquainted with.

The worst part, though, was how she could turn on you like a rabid dog. Life with Psycho Ex was great unless you stopped agreeing with her. Then her claws came out and that pretty little mouth morphed into a megaphone, broadcasting all sorts of charming belittling sentiments. Whipping the unsuspecting into submission, she would finish the tirade by calling everyone she knew and telling them what an idiot you are. My gosh, according to her, I did hard time in prison, stole money from my father and scammed an entire community out of ticket money for an event that never happened. Funny thing, though, is that I haven’t been to prison, my father borrowed heavily from me since he hadn’t worked in years and this nonevent resulted in a large donation to my alma mater.

We all know a person who preys upon the good-hearted, hard-working among us. Time is unkind to those people, and that may be the only solace my brother has as he digs out from years of oppression by the tattooed wunderspender. Our mom finally doesn’t fall for her cries of her cold baby needing heat. She cuts Psycho Ex off when she starts degrading my brother now. That is progress for mom.

            Now, if only Psycho Ex could get a job, well, that would be progress. I’ll keep you posted.

Should Mom Get a Mini Cooper for Cancer?

My mom has been living with cancer for almost 7 years now. It is a very unusual cancer called Carcinoid Syndrome – less than 400 people are diagnosed with it every year. Lots more people walk around with it who don’t even know it. They are treated for Irritable Bowel Syndrome or some other gastric malady – often for years – and the cancer lies undetected for some time.

There is not a standard treatment for it since it is so uncommon. Basically, it is a crapshoot when an oncologist selects a chemotherapy agent to fight the tumors. It isn’t like breast cancer where we know a certain type of tumor at a particular stage is likely to respond to a particular regimen. No one really knows how long carcinoid patients can expect to live, either. My siblings and I all lost the first pool we had going over when our mom would keel over.

So the best gift our mom has given us is one of normalcy. She doesn’t feel sorry for herself. Even when she hurts, she will just say “it pinches a little.” It is accented with a wince or a sharp breath, and then she continues whatever it is she is doing. Mom has gone to work – even through multiple runs of chemo – and won’t let us pick up any of her slack.

Until now. These days she seldom lugs her laundry up and down the stairs herself, and I almost always take her to the market for groceries. I haul them up the stairs and put them away so she can avoid the stooping and bending that goes with putting her food in the cabinets. It seems like such a small thing. Putting away groceries can be such a chore. I often leave the non-perishables in the bag they came in for at least a week. But I have a choice. It isn’t as though the energy allocated to putting away the groceries detracts from my ability to do something else. It is tough to fathom that putting your own food in the fridge all by yourself signifies a good day. But that is how she lives. When she was on one particularly grueling round of chemo, she had to work herself up to open the mayonnaise jar. She simply didn’t have the energy to prepare the simplest meal for herself. But she just started eating pretzels out of the bag and it got her through the crisis.

This attitude has taught us all so much, and in return I wanted to buy her a little gift. She loves mini coopers, and so I was thinking about buying her one. Sure, with a new kid, a new mortgage on the horizon and the life of a freelance, that couple hundred bucks a month could be a college fund or retirement savings. But the little mini could bring her so much joy for whatever time she has left.

My brother met me at a local used car lot with a mini cooper in the first row of available cars. The Middle Eastern man with the handlebar mustache had already quoted me the princely sum of $14,500 before my brother arrived. “Only 84,000 miles,” he smirked. The car was four years old and the seats looked it. Todd took one look at the bumper and could see the bondo. The middle eastern man retreated into the little shed housing the dealership to retrieve the key.

“It’s been hit. Pretty bad, too, I’d say. See the swirl marks?” He ran his hand along the edge of the bumper. “The whole ass end has been worked on. Not too well, either.” The Middle Eastern man returned. Todd asked for a Car Fax report. Suddenly, the dealership was closing. He’d have to come back Monday for more information on the car.

Every day behind the wheel is a good day. If we can get mom behind the wheel of a mini Cooper sooner rather than later, maybe she will have a few more good days. She will want to get as much time in on the open road as she can, or so I would hope, as the twilight gradually gives way to the night of her life. That is the gift I would like to give back. Just one more trip would make it worthwhile.

We may not know what to expect from her cancer, other than how cancer inevitably ends. When that happens, it would be great to know we helped get her there in style. :-).

Messy Life, Clean Floors

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, I had a clean house. Sparkling hardwood floors and carefully coordinated fabrics dominated the home front. My laundry was cleaned in a luxuriously appointed room with travertine floors and soapstone counters topping the custom cabinetry. Even with a Golden Lab (big) Greater Swiss Mountain Dog (bigger) and a long-haired cat, everything in the house was hair free and clean. Shirley was my cleaning lady and my eyes mist whenever I think of her wrinkly face and hunched over body wiping those baseboards clean.

Not too long after Shirley’s stroke my favorite ex and I parted ways. In a way it was good she had the stroke when she did since it would’ve been tough to fight over who got her in the breakup. Now, my ex was an interesting fellow. Quite accomplished after a rough start in life and as an American, well, I just loved the under dog component to his life story. All good stories have endings, and mine occurred on a rainy Friday night when I was tossed out on my tookus. I didn’t have more than $3 in my pocket, the gas tank was just about empty and I didn’t have shoes. Stuck describes the situation fairly well. Most importantly, I didn’t really know where I was headed anyway. Sometimes we curse the emptiness – whether it be the gas tank, the bank account or something within us. An empty gas tank could’ve taken me far enough to get away, but what would I have done when I got there? Staying in a hotel for $3 wasn’t an option, so I got a little cozy in the car. It was so uncomfortable I couldn’t sleep. It made me think.

Once I sorted through a few things and got off a friend’s couch, I found another house. It wasn’t in the neighborhood I liked. It was kinda small and the window boxes across the front were screaming for pansies. But it wasn’t the car and I could sleep in a bed again. The fenced backyard was big enough for the dogs to play in. The flooring, like my refreshed attitude, was entirely new. My latest home was affordable, clean and only the mortgage company could kick me out. What more could a girl ask for?

I have vague recollections of my former life with the neatly placed flower arrangements and polished furniture. Right now I am sitting on a $10 couch I picked up when a neighbor moved. It is green and highly customized by Elmo, her cat, on the corners. Abu has kind of added to the original feel by scraping the fabric off all along the bottom, and Sand’s hair lends a fluffy white glow to the whole ensemble. The mocha colored curtains are a $6 yard sale splurge, and there is nothing about this room screaming “Better Homes and Gardens.” There are newspaper clippings, a baby bouncy seat, an exersaucer and all sorts of projects in varying stages of completion covering the floor. It helps to hide the dirt so I really don’t mind. I am happy to have this little place.

I was so busy sweeping my dirt under the carpet to keep the illusion of perfection. It felt good to have people over who complemented my impeccable home. But life was so messy it was tough to enjoy the overpriced Kirby in the closet. It couldn’t clean up everything that needed cleaning, starting with the years of crap piling up under the rug. The unpaid credit card bills, the $100,000 of financed cars, the flower pots custom made to fit on the stoop – none of it was necessary, but we sure looked good.

Ginger 2000 meet Ginger 2006. She weighs more. She has a kid. She has a dog and a cat and love handles to match the love for all she has gained since then. It is a good thing I am comfortable in my skin since there is a hell of a lot more of it these days. Even if it happens to be situated in the middle of a fur encrusted couch atop a dusty floor – I wouldn’t change a thing. Ginger 2000 certainly has cleaned up.