Queen of the Extra Special Mamas

I posted the above gif image once, or so I thought, but it gave me 58 of the damned things, and I had to scroll waaaaay down the page to delete 57 of them. If it's supposed to be one for every year of age, it's off by a few, and I resent the implication. I'm still not old enough for senior discounts, and if I get carded when I try to order off the senior menu, I grin sheepishly and order something else.

I have now taken the step of starting my own Red Hat Chapter. So far, I'm the only one in it, but we'll see what happens. I'm basically re-starting the special mother's group I ran for so many years. We met for coffee, breakfast or lunch once a week, depending on our kids' school schedules, and informally traded sympathy, advice and funny stories about our kids. The group kind of fell apart when a couple of key women moved away and another (my best friend) became so ill with breast cancer she seldom had the time or energy to make it. When she died two years ago, that spelled the end of the group.

It's time for a resurgence of The Extra Special Mamas of the West Valley, which is a more "Red Hat" name than "Special Parents Network of the West Valley," even if our function will be similar. We'll appeal to an older group of mothers, too. We started out with preschool-age children, and as we and our children aged, so did the membership of the group. With the Red Hat Chapter, our moms will have adult special needs kids who still depend on them.

I intend to remain active (As Chancellor of the Exchequer) in the Classy Ladies Chapter I joined last year, since its aim and purpose is entirely different from that of my new chapter. Women who join Special Mamas should also join a chapter that engages in activities that appeal to their interests, assuming they aren't already in such a chapter.

Essentially, I want a group of ladies with whom I can enjoy theater, museums and nice restaurants on a monthly basis (Classy Ladies), but I'd also like my weekly informal gatherings with other special moms. There are things special moms talk about - and laugh about - with each other that absolutely horrify parents of normies, and I miss that.

RIP Lexus ES300 1993-2008

Saturday night, Evan was fiddling with his cell phone when he should have been driving, and he took out a fire hydrant. When I arrived, the street looked like a scene of major carnage, with two fire trucks, a fire department paramedics ambulance, half a dozen police cars (all with lights flashing), the gutter flowing six feet deep in water, and a lot of people standing around. The police had the area cordoned off, so I had to park over a block away; the police officer guarding the line of flares would make no exception even for a frantic mother who had come to take her son to the hospital.

I found the remains of the Lexus easily enough, and I was glad I had already been prepared to see it totalled. It had completely laid out the fire hydrant, and even though Evan had been going east at the time, his car came to a stop facing southwest. I think his right front wheel locked up and caused him to skid, and then when he hit the hydrant, the front of the car stopped and the rear rotated. One of the police officers pointed out to me how lucky Evan had been - the hydrant is located between a lamp post and a power pole, either of which would have been much worse to hit than a hydrant. Evan and I took a tape measure along with the camera today and discovered that the two poles are only twelve feet apart. My kid must have one of the best guardian angels in the business. (Charlotte, if you'd offer a prayer of thanksgiving at your church, I'd be obliged.)

When Evan first crashed, the left side of his face went numb, which rightly concerned him (could be a sign of nerve damage). The numbness passed off pretty quickly, though, which was why he decided he could wait for me to take him to the hospital instad of use the ambulance. I found him inside the house just behind the hydrant, but I didn't have a chance to speak to him before a police officer brought him out to the entry walk and asked him if he'd had anything to drink. I immediately jumped in with both feet and said he couldn't pass a field sobriety test because he'd had a brain tumor as a child. The officer rather brusquely asked me to wait down by the curb, so I went, but Evan later told me he didn't administer the test. The officer also later apologized for his brusqueness, saying that he was an expert in DUI, and the nystagmus from brain damage is different from that of alcohol use, which he could see. Also, Evan had the disabled parking paperwork from the DMV (which I scanned and reduced to wallet size so he caould carry it with his driver's license after his previous experience). For my part, I explained that I had been so forward because Evan had spent the night in jail last February due to an officer who considered himself an expert on drug use, and I was very glad that the LAPD seemed to be better trained than the CHP.

At any rate, a tow truck driver hauled off the Lexus, explaining that I could probably cut some kind of deal with his boss where I could trade the pink slip for the cost of storage. Yeah, right. Even totaled, a Lexus is worth more than a couple of days worth of storage, and AAA paid for the tow. I told him I'd talk to my mechanic on Monday. Even if the car was totaled (and I was pretty sure not even Jerry could save this one), I wanted him to have the first crack at it for parts, or at least hook me up with a salvage yard that would give me fair value. Further, I needed to find out if he had an old clunker of a Corolla that Evan could use to get to school.

Turns out, Jerry does want to buy the Lexus for parts, and he has an old clunker of a Camry available. This car is old enough to vote, but it Runs Good and handles okay. It's also not the same color as Evan's Grandma's old Camry, which is a good thing, since it otherwise looks very similar. We may end up being out less than two thousand dollars on this deal, even including replacing Evan's brand new Treo, which got soaked.

After all the insurance and police issues were taken care of Saturday night, I took Evan to the emergency room, and we had been there for some time before it occurred to me I ought to go home and get him some dry clothes. I had him wrapped in a fleece blanket I always carry in my car, so he wasn't shivering anymore, but he was soaked. By the time I returned with a whole new outfit, the doctor had just gotten to him. Evan's left eyelid was slightly split, but the doctor didn't think there was any damage to the cheek bone. He ordered a tetanus shot and told us to watch for various neurological signs before he went on to the next patient.

Perhaps the Lexus will be this year's fatality, and none of my friends or family will die this year. Wouldn't that be nice?

Granny

When I was twelve, my dad's mother lived with us for awhile. She took over my room, relegating me to a sleeping bag on the floor of my sisters' bedroom. My private space was the top shelf of the closet, since my sisters were too short to reach, even standing on the step stool I used. And any adult would have been taking life in hands wading through the mulch of dirty clothes and old school papers that covered the floor to get that far. I used to stand on the step stool for hours, my elbows braced against the edge of the shelf, hand-sewing doll clothes out of rags and cheap remnants from the dime store.

My granny was not a nice person, even if she was, at that time, "on the wagon." Before she came to live with us, my parents went through the house emptying out bottles of aftershave and cooking vanilla and giving away the half-full fifth of Smirnoff they used for their very infrequent screwdrivers. Granny still smoked, and she rolled her own. She even had a cigarette-rolling machine that looked like a rectangular makeup compact. She's put a paper in, sprinkle the tobacco on top, close the lid and then open it to reveal a perfect rollup. All she needed to do was lick the edge to seal it. Sometimes as a special treat, she let us make cigarettes for her.

Unfortunately, she didn't like me very much. She preferred boys, so my brother was her favorite, and my sisters were little and cute and no particular threat. I, on the other hand, was a very mature-looking almost-thirteen, with lovely skin and a pert young hourglass figure. She would have been about 55, and the smoking, drinking and sun exposure had taken their toll. Her skin resembled soggy crepe paper, most of the weight in her upper body had sagged to her hips, and her voice had a raspy, grainy quality that made her sound as if she was always on the verge of a cough.

As a young woman, her very slender, babyish looks had been perfect for the day. She had been quite a beauty in the late twenties and early thirties, and she could also turn on the charm when she wanted to. Even people who didn't like her claimed she could sell iceboxes to eskimos. In her heydey, she was a popular beauty married to one of the leading citizens of town. She and my granddaddy had in fact eloped on Christmas Eve 1930. (I ought to ask Great Aunt Lucille what kind of flap there was in the family about the marriage, because I bet there was one. If nothing else, Granny's grandfather was a Methodist Episcopal minister, and Granddaddy was a Jew.)

I don't know when her alcoholism got out of control, but she and Granddaddy divorced after he got back from his service in the Pacific during World War II. My dad might have preferred to stay with his father, but the judge asked if he would go with his mom to look after his little brother Johnny, who had expressed a decided preference for his mother. These days, the judge wouldn't even have asked the kids. If Mother was an alcoholic and Father was an upstanding businessman and honorable war veteran, Father would have gotten custody whatever the kids thought they wanted.

Granny doesn't seem to have been physically abusive, but she was abusive in other ways. She had a very vinegary tongue; I have forgotten anything specific she said to me (proctective amnesia, I expect), but I do recall having my feelings hurt regularly. My father had to put up with her much longer, and he never quite lived up to her expectations, unlike his brother Johnny, who was a good student, polite, and well-spoken. Unfortunately, John also became an alcoholic, and even if he was a better lawyer drunk than anyone else in the county sober, just think what he could have done had he abstained.

I wonder if some of my dad's overreaction when I make suggestions or seem to criticize him stems from his previous experience with his mother. Did she call him dumb? or stupid? Because he will sometimes shake with anger and grind out, "I must just be stupid, then," when I dare to question any of his unthinking assumptions or broad generalizations, for example. He used to be able to take suggestions, though, and consider other people's ideas without taking them as personal affronts even when they don't exactly agree with his own. Perhaps his mental deterioration is responsible for the loss of flexibility of thought, but the way he reacts could reflect his early upbringing.

Granny's mother had Alzheimer's Disease, or some form of dementia. I recall going to visit the home where she lived, but we kids stayed in the waiting room. The place smelled like Old People. At one point, my dad brought my brother in, but my sister Charlotte and I stayed behind. Many years later, Charlotte regretted missing this chance to see Great-Grandmother Iva, since Charlotte greatly resembled her, but I was able to reassure her she hadn't missed much. By that time, Great Grandmother was living in the past; she thought my father was his father, and my brother was him. A couple of extra daughters would have confused her. I hope my dad's heart carries him off before he gets to that point, if that's what's in store for him.

Next blog, I need to write about something totally frivolous and try to cheer myself up. Maybe about how Granny used Oil of Olay (which I thought of as "Oil of Old Lady"), and now I use Olay. Lots of Olay.