In Sickness (Scenes from a Marriage)

I

It started two weeks ago, over the weekend.  I felt like crap and my mucous membranes were itchy to I figured it was just allergies.  On Sunday I was feeling a bit dizzy and was unable to accomplish anything so the next day on Monday I called in sick.   I could have made it into work, but I was tired and had some writing I needed to finish.  On Tuesday I still needed to write and I didn’t feel any better so I threw that day in, too.

The week before J was complaining of feeling sick but it never panned out.  It never does.  He’s a carrier and when anyone is sick in the house I look at him as patient 0.  That Friday he went out and bought a bottle of whiskey, allegedly to make hot toddies.  He poured some whisky in glass and then added some lukewarm tap water.

“That’s not a hot toddy,” I told him.

“Yeah it is.”

When I succumbed to feeling bad he made me real toddies with hot water, lemon, and honey added to the whiskey.  He was even sweet enough to bring it to me in bed.  I know it was only a shot of alcohol but it knocked me out within an hour of drinking the elixir.

By Wednesday I was feeling worse but I had to go in since I worked in the evening.  The only thing that got me through the hours was Dayquil, Benadryl and coffee (to offset the Benadryl).  When I got home I asked for J to make me another hot toddy.

“You’re drinking up all my whiskey!” he whined but made me one anyway.  He made himself one, too.

II

Thursday my throat was starting to hurt but not bad enough to take off from work.  I was  willing myself to get better because my friend Tony was in town and I was determined to meet him at the clubs.  Saturday I could barely lift my head off the pillow.  When I could finally roll out of bed I was moving slow. 

“What are you making for dinner?” J asked.

“I don’t think I can make dinner,” I said and then snorted to keep the mucous from dripping down to my lip.

“Blow your nose!” J yelled.  “Blow your nose!”

“Shut up!” I rolled my eyes.  “Just order dinner tonight.  I’m going to take a nap so I can be ready to go out tonight.”

“You’re not going out,” J said with a stentorian voice.  Who is he, my daddy?

“Oh, I’m going out,” I countered.  “I haven’t seen Tone in years. I’m going out.  Do you want to come?”

“No, I’m not going and you aren’t going, either.”

I twisted my lips and raised my eyebrow.  “Oh, I’m going.”

The food came and I could barely eat it. J brought me a hot toddy and asked me to drink a little to clear my chest.   I fell asleep and woke up during the Boondocks for a few minutes only to fall asleep again.  I wondered if her drugged me.

III

Monday came and I was without my voice.  J was happy I was without my voice. 

“Pick me up at 5,” I barely whispered. 

J knitted his brows and looked puzzled.  “You heard me!” I growled but it was lower than before.

“No I didn’t,” J said.

“You did!  Stop playing!” 

He frowned and looked quizzical again.  I swear I’m going to punch him.

Now I am coughing up phlegm.  I take it as a sign that I am getting better, but J doesn’t.  By Wednesday morning J is prognosing me.

“Go to the doctor,” J said.  “You have H1N1.”

“I don’t have H1N1, it’s just a cold,” I said.  “Besides, I don’t have a primary doc anymore.  He moved.”

“Go to the doctor we all go to,” J said.  Cricket, J2 and James all go to the doctor on the square.  It’s about .2 miles away from our home. 

“I’m getting better,” I whisper.

“No you aren’t.  Do you hear yourself?  Go to the doctor.”

I’m quiet, stewing that I knew I was on an upswing.

“Did you hear me?”  J nudges me, I won’t respond.  “Okay, just make sure your insurance is paid up so I can get paid once you die.  Do you wanna die?”

“Okay, I’ll make an appointment.” I growl between my teeth.

I couldn’t get in that day so I went on Thursday.  At first I resented J for being paranoid but as the day progressed I was steadily getting worse.  I began to wonder myself if I might have H1N1 because by then I had coughed up a river of phlegm.

The next day at the doctor’s office I get checked out.  Listening to my symptoms, checking my temperature, and looking at my history she surmised I didn’t have a virus but that my allergies had gotten out of control.  She prescribed a Z-pack,  gave me an inhaler and told me to try Zyrtec D instead of Benadryl.  I kind of doubted that it was allergies but after using the inhaler once I had to admit that it helped to open my lungs. 

J comes home and asks what I was going to make for dinner.  He and J2 have been eating take out for the last several days and both were getting  of it.  It’s okay for the to sneak and eat take out when I’m not looking but too much take out is not cool.   On Wednesday night J called me up to ask me what I was going to make for dinner.

“I’m at work, J”  I said. 

“Yeah, but what about dinner?” he asked.  When I work 1-9 I make dinner before I leave but this whole week I thought it best to stay out of the kitchen because I did not want to be Typhoid Mary.

“You know what, you can make dinner.  Or you can order something.”  He groaned in the phone but then said he would make noodles with ground turkey.  When I came home he had ordered out instead of cooking. 

So after being diagnosed with just atomic allergies I figured I’d make the Js homemade Cincinnati Chili.  They were both happy.

IV

Today my throat hurts.  I figure its from the draining sinuses.  My chest is a bit tight, but other than that it’s better than before.   My voice is coming back, too, but since I can cook again J figures it’s a trade off.

To soothe my throat I gargled with salt water but an hour ago J decided to go to the store and I went with him to get some sucrets.  I never had them before and opened up the package as soon as I left the store.

They taste horrible.  With each passing minute it got worse and worse.  I sat in the passenger seat with my hands covering my face.

“Oh my God,” I said.  “Oh my God, oh my God.”

“What’s wrong?” J asked.

“These sucrets are horrible,” I said.  “They are so nasty.  I am about to spit this out and just deal with a sore throat.”

“Stop being a baby,” J said.  “Let me have one, I love sucrets.”

He really does.  He eats cough drops like candy and loves the taste of cough medicine.  When I first got sick he mistakenly brought home Hall’s Refreshers instead of regular cough drops.  He didn’t believe they weren’t cough drops until I pointed out the printed words hard candy in the corner.

“They made it for people like me, who love cough drops!” he said happy with his purchase. 

Now J took the package of sucrets, pushed one out and popped it in his mouth.  “Mmmmm,” he said.  “It’s minty cold.” he blew out some breath as if he expected icicles to for on the car’s windshield.

I was rocking back and forth, wishing the stupid thing would melt faster and not leave an after taste.  It was like robitussin in candy form.  Who would find that appealing?

Oh… yeah.

 

Blasian Babies and the Disney Family Gap

Daniel C

Euphoria Luv didn’t give a shout out on this blog but I’m going to do it for her to let everyone know they need to vote for some of the babies in this year’s baby contest which includes her son, Daniel.

To vote for Daniel click here.

Julia K

And another mom let me know that her daughter answered the casting call.   She is too adorable.  So cast your vote for Julia K.

Click the link here.

And if anyone else has a Blasian baby that’s in the contest let us know.

You have to register with Disney family to cast your vote but after that you can vote as many times as you want to.  You can vote once as day, every day through November 17.

The Bots

My daughter asked me via facebook, “ Is there a way that we can trade J2 in for the the two little kids in the group, The Bots, because 1. they could get us money, and 2. they are so much cuter than him….consider it plz. THANK YOU!”

And I considered it.  Considered it hard.  They are just as cute as J2 and the food I feed them they’d definitely earn back with their enormous talent. 

Then I’d miss all the jokes I crack on wrestling at J2’s expense so I have to decline.

But if they are ever out Natti way I’d love to set up a playdate and be a Midwest mom to them.  Hopefully, as Midwest Mom they’d let me score some free tickets to their concert.  They probably won’t be coming my way for a while, but if you are out in LA check them out on Nov 13 as part of the AfroPunk tour.

Is She the Next Big Thing?

Gabi Wilson: The next big thing?

Disney is looking for the next big tween star and Gabi Wilson is hoping it’s her.

You have probably seen her on NBC’s Today show singing a rendition of an Alicia Keys song.  She has also appeared on Maury’s Talented Kids and Showtime at the Apollo.

You probably said, damn that kid is talented!  And she is.  Along with singing and playing the piano, she plays guitar and writes poetry.

And you probably said, wow, she’s looks Blasian.  Yep, dad is black and mom is Asian.

So you now you are probably saying,  I think she’s the next big thing, let me vote for her.

Well….

The first round of voting ended in early October but we get a second chance so mark your calendar to vote for her December 2-9.  In the meantime check out her page  and listen to her music on Radio Disney.

Tell Me a Story…

Gather around kids, let’s hear a story.

How to Explain Duality to a Mixed Child

I just read this excellent article over on Racialicious about the Gosselins and race.  Okay, it was mostly about that one episode where Jon outs himself as Korean but to make sure folks knew he was white, too, he basically dissed his own culture.

My favorite part of the article was this paragraph:

While race is a complicated issue for children to grasp, numerous studies indicate that children as young as have an understanding of it. This means that Jon and Kate could have at least pulled out a map, pointed to Korea and and explained that Koreans are people from that country. There’s no reason why they should go around believing that inanimate objects can be Korean. Moreover, it’s also important for them to understand that each child in their household is both Korean and white, lest the children deemed non-Asian develop some sort of complex. Kate already notes that some of the children get angry when told they are not Asian, so why not nip this issue in the bud?

After reading this paragraph I have decided that when my little one (whenever I have that little one) is old enough to ask, I too will pull out a map and show my child the strange land his/her father hails from: Cleveland. 

I will tell the child that the city was settled by space aliens who assumed the shape of all races and colors.  Their mission in life is to move to other cities and towns so they can tell everyone why Cleveland is so superior to eveyplace else although they don’t want to move back there.  I will explain that when Daddy is barking upon seeing someone wearing a brown t-shirt that it’s a type of an odd greeting that do there.  I will explain to my child that although Daddy is a Clevelander, they are fully Cincinnatian because Mommy had the good sense to stay here and no, you don’t have to make a chopping motion everytime you see a baseball game on television. 

I will definitely say that although Dad and brother are from the Northeast side of the state we won’t hold it against them.

And definitely don’t listen to Daddy when he pronounces the name of our team; it’s the Bengals pronounced bing-GULLS, not bing-GALS.

In case you didn’t gather it’s football season.  And if the Bengals can only win 2 games this season they both better be against Cleveland ’cause I can’t take it.  If they can win four I wish they’d take down Pittsburgh because they are getting on my nerves, too.

Sophomore Year: What do you know?

The beginning of the sophomore year puts both Cricket and J2 at a disadvantage.

Cricket: after a stellar start to the first two quarters of college her third quarter GPA dropped and her scholarship was suspended.  Now she has to find a job to help pay tuition and, much to her sadness, she can’t row crew in the fall.

Yeah, boo-hoo.   

J2 is on home house arrest, which he hates. We’re hoping he’ll take this time to focus on his studies and become a solid C student instead of always being on the verge of retention.   It’s not like he’s in jail so I don’t expect him to come out spouting the koran and loving bean pies, but with a limited amount of activity maybe some spark will hit his brain and he’ll want to, dare I say, pick up a book.

The saddest part about being a parent is everything seems to be on fast forward x4 whereas your kids think they are in slow mo.  So you can say do this, do that but they say oh, I’ll do it later.  I have time.  Time?  You think so?  Yesterday I was changing your diapers and now you’re talking about finding an apartment near campus.  For them life is a long winding road where the end is a kabillion miles away.  You are almost nearing the peak, knowing you can’t go back and redo the journey so you tell those coming behind about the pitfalls you’ve encountered and what to do.  You want their way to be easier but the hard way seems more enticing.

“Spending too much time on activities and not enough on studies puts you at an imbalance,” I tell them.  “You need to work on the grades and try to learn.”

Yeah, okay, they say.  Then they do things their own way.

It’s the point of youth to make mistakes.  But it’s the role of the parent to guide and keep them on the right track.  They don’t learn morals and discipline through osmosis.  Hopefully by the time they are juniors we’ll have this thing down pat.

It Wasn’t This Hard the First Time

I mentioned a few weeks ago that J and I finally decided to add to the family.  Well, it seems like he’s getting cold feet again.

First it was, my daughter was born in April so we should make sure the next child doesn’t share the same birthday month.  Now, mind you Cricket is 19 and will be 2o next spring so I don’t think she’s going to be upset if she even happens to share the same birthdate with a younger sibling. 

Maybe it’s too much pressure on him.  I have my ovulation ticker in my email signature and a friend wrote on my Facebook wall if I was knocked up yet.

Then other friends are questioning our sanity to start all over again.  After all Cricket is in college and J2 is in high school.  The finish line is nigh, why do it?

“Do you want to do this?” I asked J.  “If you don’t I can just go get my tubes tied and we can be done with it.”

“No,” J says.  “I want to have a baby.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not getting younger, I’m getting older.”

“I know you’re old.”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Like Methusaleh old.”

“You know…”

“What are you?  50?”

So I end up slapping him upside his head which reduces him to giggling like a little girl.  I’m  wondering if being a widow might be better than 2nd time momhood.

This is not off to a good start.  A goofy start:  yes;  good– not so much.

Black is as Black Does

“Ma, there’s a police officer at the door.”

I’m a night owl.  If I’m asleep before 11 then I’m most likely sick.  A few weeks before it was after 1am on a Tuesday morning.  I had just told my daughter good night and told her I was about to settle in and watch a rerun of Lost.  I’m a light sleeper, too.  Years of being a single mom living in a rough area conditioned me to awake at the slightest noise. 

J was already asleep but J2 wasn’t home.  J told J2 he could come home at one but one had come and past and J2 wasn’t home yet.  So I was going to stay up to document what time he got home.  I was going to talk to J about it in the morning because it’s impossible to rouse when he’s asleep.

But then Cricket came into the room around 1:15.  She was visibly shaken, her voice small when she said, “Ma, there’s a police officer at the door.” 

J immediately sat straight up and bolted down the stairs with me following close behind.  In those few seconds that it took to make it down the stairs all kinds of thoughts raced through my mind: J2 was in a car accident, J2 was in the hospital, J2 was dead.  But then he was only supposed to be two blocks away at a friend’s house whose parent we knew so how could any of that have happened and I hadn’t heard any sirens and oh, please God let him be alright.

When we made it to the door the officer immediately pacified us.  J2 was okay but he had been arrested which would all be explained when we picked him up at the police station a village over.  They had been trying to get in touch with us but the phone kept ringing (thanks to J’s broken cellphone which he has recently replaced with an iPhone, but that’s a different story). 

The police officer leaves and all the fear and worry I had been feeling immediately turned to anger.  “I’m going to kill him.”  I said to J.  “He needs to die.”  I could envision grounding him until his own kids were old enough to ask if he could come out to play.  But then I decide to be the calm one and suggest to J that we don’t hand down any punishments until the next day.

So we get to the station where J2 is sitting in a small room the size of a closet.  The arresting officer allows J2 to tell his side of the story and says he wants to see if it jibes with his own.  J2’s story was sparse, he was in a car with a friend who was driving, the police officer stops them and they got arrested.

“That’s your story?” the officer asks.

J2 continues to look down at the table, “Yeah,” he said.  The officer then proceeds to tell us his side of things: he was sitting in a patrol car when the car J2 was riding in nearly hits him.  He pulls it over and smells marijuana on the driver.  The kid in the backseat sitting next to J2 had marijuana and drug paraphanelia on him (probably papers) andboth the guys were over 18.  The friend J2 had went to visit was in the passenger seat; being 17 with no remnants of drugs on him or the appearance of drug use he was already released into the custody of his parents. 

We talked to the officer for 30-45 minutes, with the officer letting us know of what could have happened: J2 was out past curfew which could have landed him in 20/20 (what we call juvenile hall) alone.  The low grades, the fact that he is in summer school, and this being his 2nd run in with the law. Last summer J2 took a bike from the local library when a friend said it was their bike for J2 and it turns out it belonged to someone neither of them knew; the police charged him with theft and he had three months of probation.  It all adds up to J2 being on the road to… well maybe not perdition but perhaps some place just as hot.

The officer also mentions that he is not going to be avidly looking for J2 but he will remember him.  There’s not much to overtly remember; in between the two communities there are only a handful of black families and J2 is the only blasiankid in the vicinity.  He can’t blend in with anyone and a lot of the neighbors know him as the Wrestling star. 

We finally get home and J lights into him before we are even in the house.  J2 is put on punishment for 3 months (I would have gone for 6) and the loss of his laptop, cellphone and iTouch during that period. 

“Uuugggh,” J groans when we are alone.  “You know what is the worst thing about it?  It’s that this incident happened with Black kids and it just helps to reinforce the stereotype of bad black kids.”   We live in a predominantly white area and we know that the white teens J2’s age are no angels, but we also know that those things can be forgotten and just chalked up to individual actions whereas when someone of color does something it’s taken as indication of the actions/motivations on the whole.

“Yeah,” I agree.  “But then why does J2 keep choosing to hang out with badass black kids?  There are some good black kids around here.  What about Arthur Ashe?”  I don’t know what Arthur Ashe’s real name is but I redubbedhim because he’s skinny with glasses and plays tennis. 

“It’s Arthur Ashe’s cousin that tricked J2 into taking the bike last year, remember?”

“Oh yeah,”  I think of the other black kid that lives around the corner  that J2 kind of shuns.  His name is Colson; J2 would never be friends with Colson because 1)they are the same age and 2) Colson is so uncool.  The reason for Colson’s uncoolness is he can be kind of babyish.  I haven’t seen him since 8th grade but the last time I saw him he was crying and whimping out at a wrestling meet.  I don’t know if things have changed since they are now entering 10thgrade but once someone is deemed as being a punk it’s hard to get that rep back.  J2 is a social climber at school.  He’s the one the girls want to get with and he has a lot of friends, but he’s not a trendsetter or the leader who can set the tone among his friends because he’s younger. 

I think about the article I read last fall by that Freakonomics writer that seemed to give a new spin on the tragic mulatto story. Steven Leavitt writes:

There are some bad adolescent behaviors that whites do more than blacks (like drinking and smoking), and there are other bad adolescent behaviors that blacks do more than whites (watching TV, fighting, getting sexually transmitted diseases). Mixed-race kids manage to be as bad as whites on the white behaviors and as bad as blacks on the black behaviors. Mixed-race kids act out in almost every way measured in the data set.

I dismissed it back then because I hate generalities and like to deal with individual actions and responsibilities.  But then I have come to acknowledge I have  a son that likes to run with the pack.   I want him to run with a better pack, so what can I do?

And is this even applicable to him since he J2 isn’t black/white but Black/Korean.  But then we don’t have a Korean base that J2 can compare himself to and what would be the worst behavior he can exhibit there, something like out of “Better Luck Tomorrow“?

But then I don’t have time to worry about it  now, my husband and I have 3 years to impress upon J2 why his actions now could be a set back for him later which is a hard thing to impart to those who are so young but think they know all the answers.  But we have to try.

Dreams and False Starts

I called up my friend Lonnie two weeks ago to see where she was on the budget cuts and the possibility we could lose our jobs.  She was all off tangent.

“I just had a dream about you last night!” she gushed.  “You were pregnant and you were glowing; you looked so beautiful.  Are you pregnant yet?”

I laughed.  No, I’m not pregnant.  I thought I was, but it turns out I wasn’t.  I went to see my doctor who said he thought I was a few pounds overweight and told me to lose it but although I’m 40 he didn’t see why I should have problems conceiving.   Was I trying?  No, not intentionally, not really.  Then try and after a few months of trying then come back and see him.  And lose weight, he re-emphasized.

Lonnie is definite in her dreams, though, and believes it’s an omen of things to come.  I’m to call her as soon as I know.  She hopes it’s a girl, she has two boys who are half black, half South American Indian.  One of us needs to have a girl baby.

I have to admit I am afraid.  It’s been almost 20 years since I’ve given birth; to do it again would be like doing it for the first time.  Cricket is almost 20 which is exactly the age I was when I conceived her.  It’s just going to be weird to have one child the age I was when I was pregnant with her as I’m trying to have another child.  Its like being an elephant.  Or Michelle Duggar.

And J2 is 15.  He’s still at home and in high school.  I don’t know how he will feel about it and I have to sit down with him to make sure there won’t be any feelings of jealousy or feeling left out. 

So I ask myself againk do I really want to do this?

Hmmmmm….

Yes.  But I have to admit that I would rather be 40 with a toddler instead of the projected 41 with newborn.

As for J he doesn’t understand why my age is factoring into it in the first place.  He wants to have a child but would rather push it off for 2 or 3 more years.  Didn’t I say before the man was meecheenan?

So I will write about how this process is going, the good and the bad of it.  I will keep my fingers crossed that there is more good than bad.  Hopefully sometime next year there will be a baby RenTec, but I’m not making any promises.

Especially not to Lonnie, but she probably dreamt that anyway.