Top Ten Reasons I Should Not Have Broken My Right-Hand Ring Finger

10. Every time I make a right turn, I turn on my windshield wipers with my splint.

9. I have to eat Asian food with a fork.

8. Darn it! Darn it! I won’t be able to cut out 18 sets of skeletons, pumpkins, turkeys, pilgrims, cornucopias, etc. for Laura’s teacher. (Just kidding Ms. S!)

7. After using the restroom, wiping is . . . er, never mind this one!

6. It’s only enough of an injury to make folding laundry a nuisance, not an impossibility.

5. When people at church kept asking me how I hurt my finger, I kept saying “pole dancing lessons” and now I probably will go to Hell because that was a lie, although I wish it were true because the truth is not filled with nearly the same prospects as pole dancing lessons might have to offer.

4. I’ve had to admit to everyone outside of church that I actually jammed my finger while cleaning my kitchen sink.

3. I also had to admit to Tom that now he really can work the remote control better.

2. I have to type my blog entries and emails with eight digits, and it hurts, but I can’t go for long stretches of time without my keyboard.

1. Having my fingers splinted together makes it harder to “communicate” effectively with rude drivers on the road, but on the bright side I can still make the “Live Long and Prosper” sign.

One in a Hole

It had been a long day on Saturday, during which we attended a birthday party at LEGOLAND® followed by dinner at Ruby’s Diner for Laura’s buddy Patrick. Laura had a small meltdown (oxymoron?) on the Fairy Tale Brook ride and throughout the day there were complaints, whining, and attempts at asserting views opposing the parental units peppered in. By the end of the day-long celebration, Laura had dark circles under her little bloodshot eyes. When I refused her request for a second piece of cake (read: frosting serving device), under the influence of Pixy Stix® and icing, she used some unkind words in front of the fourteen people in attendance, words that took me back in time to when Laura’s older sisters were adolescents. Yes, it had been a long, long day for everyone.

On the way home, Laura began expressing remorse for her behavior. She profusely professed that she hadn’t meant what she’d said. Laura told me that she loved me over and over again. She apologized, apologized sincerely, and then apologized some more. She said that she didn’t know why her brain made her use the words that came out of her mouth. By the time that we arrived at our house, she was fully repentant. She told me that I was the best mother in the world. She didn’t bat an eyelash when I told her it was time to get ready for bed. She was cooperative. She didn’t fuss about taking a bath. She helpfully got out her towel. She climbed into the tub and proclaimed the water temperature perfect. She chattered amiably during. As she was finishing her bath, the following conversation ensued:

Laura: [Voice sweet and tender.] “Mommy, I love you.”

Mommy: “I love you too.”

Laura: “I really, really love you.”

Mommy: “I really, really love you too.”

Laura: “Mommy, you’re skinny.”

Mommy: [Listening.]

Laura: “You’re skinny for a woman.”

Mommy: [Growing amused.]

Laura: “If you run a lot you’ll get even skinnier.”

Mommy: [Suppressing giggles.]

Laura: “At least you never have to worry about falling down a hole.”

Mommy: “Time to get out of the tub.”

My Favorite Flavor Is Grape Berry Splash

One day after posting a story about my rather negative view of the San Diego Union-Tribune, the most important part (to Tom) of our newspaper was delivered with several blank pages. Coincidence? Maybe . . . So, now, at the risk of having my blog be the cause of our family’s internets getting cut off permanently, can I just take a moment to complain about Time Warner?

Someone told me yesterday that the Union-Tribune ran a recent story about the problems that former Adelphia customers have been having with their service since the switch to Time Warner was imposed. I personally didn’t see the story, but it may simply be that those pages were excluded from our paper. ;) Anyway, our “high-speed online” service spent most of the weekend being anything but that. I was able to post to my blog early Sunday morning, but lucky for me that I did it then because our online service was out again later. Even when our online service was online, emails were coming in hours after being sent (in one case eleven hours) and most were being received out of the order in which they were originally sent. In attempting to telephone Time Warner’s service lines numerous times over the weekend, my calls were met with the “All Circuits Are Busy” message, and so I figured everyone else was having the same trouble.

Yesterday, I discovered that I was not receiving any emails at all. At all. No communication. No love. I felt isolated. I was out of sorts. I was cut off. I got twitchy. So I called Time Warner again, but this time I called the sales number with the intention of pretending that I wanted to ask about their services, but I would first inquire about what was going on with the busy technical support lines. I was given another telephone number to call. A special number. Probably the number that the original Time Warner customers had, but that was conspiratorially being kept secret from us former Adelphia users. And so I called it. All I wanted to know was whether or not everyone else was having email troubles too. Or, was I having email troubles because I was the only person who used Time Warner’s Activation Wizard to change my email account over from the Adelphia server to Roadrunner (which Adelphia customers have one year to do, but I never wait until the last minute). After I was on hold listening to whatever it was that made my mind go numb and forget what I was listening to for fifteen minutes, a technical support gentleman named Dan got on the line. I said, “Dan! I’m so happy to hear your voice!” Dan was silent. “Dan, are you there?” He said he was. “Dan, I’m guessing that everyone is having trouble receiving emails, but I thought I’d call to check just in case.” Dan checked the “logs” and said that nobody else was reporting any trouble. My heart was seized with anguish and despair. It was only me! It was something I'd done wrong! Because I was so hooked in by the irrational -- but nonetheless agonizing -- fear of what might happen if my emails were permanently inaccessible, I proceeded to stay on the phone with Dan for an hour and a half. I talked to Dan longer than I did my former husband in the six years that I was married to him. I spent an hour and a half frolicking with Dan through numerous instructions, checks and operations. At one point Dan even took over my computer remotely. Dan finally ended the call by giving me a reference number and telling me that he would refer it up the Time Warner food chain as he could not find any answers. I was devastated, frustrated, and exhausted, but I didn’t hang up without making a valiant effort at trying to get connected right then and there to someone, anyone in that division that Dan elusively referred to as “Networks.” Denied. See if I ever talk to Dan again.

After Dan and I finished our marathon call, I had to rush out the door to meet friends. Real live people with whom I could speak in person, relieving me for a time from the isolated existence that I was suffering at the hands of Time Warner. I told my friend Heather how I’d stayed on the phone with Dan for an hour and a half hoping to get my emails going. She said, “You really drank the Kool-Aid, didn’t you?” Leave it to good friends to provide much-needed perspective! After our gathering, I picked up Laura and we went about our afternoon activities. When we arrived home in the evening, I headed straight for my computer even though I really had to pee. Lo’ and behold, there before my eyes was a day’s worth of emails. I felt so much happier than I knew it was emotionally healthy for me to feel. The Kool-Aid was delicious.

In celebration of my ability to have a two-way email exchange I sent Nancy this message:

To: Nancy
From: Cheri
Sent: Wed 10/18/06 10:19 PM
Receiving email today was almost as good as receiving the Holy Spirit.

And she replied:

To: Cheri
From: Nancy
Sent: Wed 10/18/06 11:53 PM
Yeah, you’re definitely going to hell.

Nancy is probably right, although that email message might be the least of what I've done to earn me my place. I think that Hell is probably just like Heaven, but with no high-speed online service. I’m going to have to try to be a better person.

And The Saga Continues . . .

I read the news today, oh boy. Or not.

Well, at least the San Diego Union-Tribune is consistent. Consistently awful, but consistent nonetheless. And timing is everything. Just yesterday, I posted a story about how lame the U-T is all around, and I listed a few (admittedly weak) reasons why we continue to subscribe. To wit: I wrote and posted these exact words, “. . . and Tom finds that there is something about reading the sports section in print.” Except that today there was no print in the sports section. "Blog This Mom!" readers, I’m not making this up. The irony astounds. Here is a picture of Tom “reading” the paper that was delivered to us this morning -- pages E7 through E10 of the sports section were blank.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

The San Diego Union-Tribune is not my favorite newspaper. It is replete with spelling, grammar, and layout errors on a regular basis. Moreover, mostly what is printed I’ve already read online two days before. I suspect that there are many small-town newspapers of a higher quality out there than our major-city one. A while back, we finally decided to cancel our subscription. When I got the U-T representative on the telephone to cancel, she tried to press me for my reasons for canceling, and I asserted my right to cancel our subscription without need of providing a reason. She kept at it. “You know, sometimes I don’t agree with everything that is written, but I don’t cancel the paper because of it,” she admonished. Well, if I only had a brain, I too could sort the wheat from the chaff. As it is, I’ll just have to cancel. That’s what I wanted to say. But taking the high road, I said something to the effect of, “Really, there is nothing you can say on the telephone today that will change my mind. Just cancel my subscription please.”

Some months later, we decided there were certain parts of the paper we missed. Mostly, Laura enjoys the weekly Mini Page, I like the Sunday puzzles, and Tom finds that there is something about reading the sports section in print. So I went to the U-T website and started up our subscription again.

A few months later the phone rang. Caller ID showed only an unidentified 800 number. I answered anyway, and a young woman’s voice said she was calling from the Union-Tribune. Then in a highly haughty tone, she said, “I’m calling as a courtesy to make arrangements with you to make payment on your long-overdue account.” Overdue account? And why was she being so nasty? I told her I was surprised to hear that my bill was unpaid, and asked when the bill was due. Not bothering to disguise her utter disgust with me she said, “Your paper has been delivered for several months now with no payment.” Now this really wasn’t making any sense to me. Why would they not have sent a bill? Why would they keep delivering it if they hadn’t been paid? And as far as her snippy behavior, I surmised that she thought she was entitled to be rude because she thought I was a deadbeat. She continued, “If you’ll just give me a credit card number, we can clear up this whole matter right now.” So I choked out that while I was sure she was a very nice and honest young woman, it would be unwise to give my credit card number to an unknown person since my Caller ID did not indicate that the origin of the call was the U-T. Without missing a beat she said, “Well, you have to pay this immediately.” I told her that I had not received a single bill in the mail. Again, summoning her snootiest tone, she replied, “Well, my computer shows that you signed up for the paper online, and if you signed up for the paper online, then you automatically get your bills via email.” So I told her that I had not received a single bill via email. In a manner implying that I must be an idiot she said, “Well, of course you couldn’t have received your bill by email, we don’t have your email address in our computer. You must not have provided it when you signed up.” Okay then, silly me. That would explain it. So I asked the silly question: If you don’t have my email address and my bill is overdue, why not mail it to the address at which the paper is delivered? “We don’t do that when you sign up online.” Okaaaaaay. Then she said she’d need my email address. I told her that going by the same policy as not giving my credit card number out to someone whose identity I could not confirm, neither would I give out my email address. She said that she’d have to cancel my newspaper and refer the account for collection. I countered by telling her that I would call the newspaper back and speak with someone in customer service to straighten out the alleged billing issues. So I called back, and when customer service looked up my account they found that they had my credit card number on file all along, but that the U-T had mistakenly neglected to charge it when I signed up. They had no idea why that happened or why a bill had not been mailed thereafter. Then the nice gentleman who took that call gave me a nice discount on my subscription for my trouble.

The quality of the newspaper has not improved with time. A case in point is the headline from the front page of the October 3, 2006 paper.


I don’t think a “sandal” rocked the GOP house leadership. I mean if anything is going to rock the GOP house leadership, it would be a stiletto-heeled pump, or perhaps a thigh-high boot. Not a sandal. I guess I don’t agree with everything I read and maybe I should cancel again.

Just Call Me Angel of the Morning

Caffeine Advisory:
It is wise to get at least one cup of coffee in your belly early in the morning in case a conversation like the one that came my way over breakfast happens to you.

Laura: “I’m going to wear my pink-and-white top with the hood today.”

Mom: “Okay.”

Laura: “What do angels do with their halos when it’s raining and they wear hoods?”

Mom: “Well, the halo hovers above the angel’s head, outside of the hood.”

Laura: “They can’t do that.”

Mom: “Why not?”

Laura: “The halo would get wet.”

Mom: “Halos are waterproof.”

Laura: “No they aren’t. If halos get wet the magic gets soaked out.”

Mom: “Halos are magical?”

Laura: “Angels are magical.”

Mom: “They are?”

Laura: “Magic is how they are able to leave Heaven to come to Earth.”

Mom: “Oh. How do you know that?”

Laura: “I just do.”

Mom: “Oh.”

Laura: “I think angels carefully tuck their halos inside their hoods when it rains.”

Mom: “That’s what I’d do if my halo wasn’t waterproof.”

Miss November

Each year Tom’s company holds a calendar contest in which employees’ children are eligible to enter safety-themed drawings. Twelve winning drawings are selected each year to be included in the company calendar. Guess whose drawing was selected for the November slot in the 2007 company calendar? Yes, that would be Laura! Word. Check it. Oh yeah! Here is her winning drawing:


The seasoned “Blog This Mom!” reader may sense a theme here. But the point is this: Laura has delivered an important message vis-à-vis a winning drawing!

Yeah, yeah, my heart’s in a whirl
I love, I love, I love my little calendar girl
Every day, every day of the year!

It's My Party

On the morning of my forty-sixth birthday, I woke up and decided that I was on the downhill side of the slope that was headed for fifty, and that fifty would mark the time at which there would be no denying that at least half of my life was over. At forty, I could indulge myself with the notion that I still had more than half of my life left to live. I could even imagine my eighty-year-old self still living independently and still sporting my own teeth and still able to pluck my own chin hairs. Not so at forty-six. In the manner that that time begins to fly by faster and faster the older you get, fifty is really only twenty-four minutes away from forty-six. And for almost all of us fifty means that life is more than half over because how many people do you know who’ve made it to one hundred? (We're not counting Willard Scott’s Smuckers people because we don’t know them personally and they could be fudging just to get on TV.) And of those who’ve had a centennial birthday celebration, how many live independently, with teeth, and without chin hairs the likes of which you only see in church, nursing homes, or on Billy goats?

So on the day I turned forty-six, with my fiftieth birthday looming before me, I came to a conclusion that seemed obvious to me at the time. From forty-six on, birthdays are celebrated for the same reason that funerals are held: To fulfill a sense of obligation on the part of family members. At some point during her birthday party, the forty-six-year-old will inevitably think of her imminent death, not much fun in that for her. And at the funeral, the dearly departed doesn’t care one bit what flowers grace the casket lid or which song was chosen for the soloist. So, a forty-six-year-old birthday girl and a corpse have at least one thing in common: Family members are going to make a fuss, like it or not, living or not.

This conclusion caused me to spend few minutes pondering what the second half of my life might be like if I hadn’t acquired a husband and children during the first half of my life. With no family, I could just skip the whole darned birthday thing. Think of the possibilities! Not celebrating would be one thing, but with years of practice, the day might even go by without my noticing. Back in the real world, however, I do have a husband and children. So with them in mind, my thoughts wandered over to the possibility that I might be able to convince Tom to collude with me on the skipping-my-birthday plan. And as far as the college girls were concerned, I could just not answer my phone or open my mailbox, thus avoiding any imminent-death reminders disguised as birthday wishes coming from them. But, alas, there would be no escaping the celebration that my resident six-year-old was expecting to give me. Laura had been excitedly reminding me about my impending birthday for weeks. She had signed a card. She had wrapped presents to bestow upon me. In fact, everyone in our family has had years and years of personal training in ways to make a birthday special. Thus, they would each necessarily feel some degree of angst and personal loss if we couldn’t celebrate my birthday too, starting with breakfast and ending with dinner, which is our family tradition.

Well, there was no point being the birthday buzzkiller around here. And so I prepared to feign delight. I would don a false grin and bear it. I’d paint a smile on my face for the celebration, much in the manner of a mortician preparing the deceased for the viewing – there’s that birthday party/funeral parallel again. I planned to fake birthday mirth for the good of my family. I woke up on the morning of my birthday, took a shower in an attempt to wash away the external negativity, and was drying my hair when Tom appeared with a cup of hot coffee and a smile. Next, what I found waiting for me downstairs was simultaneously endearing and mouth-watering. Tom had secretly left the house at 6:30 AM to go to a local bakery to bring me back a warm brioche fresh from the oven. I’ll never forget that touch for as long as I live, or at least for as long as I'm able to pluck my own chin hairs. While we ate breakfast, I opened the most amazingly thoughtful gifts from my family.

Purple Crocs® to match Laura’s:


Gone With the Wind on DVD:


And a video iPod®:


The remainder of the day was sprinkled with telephone calls, emails, kindnesses, and sweet wishes from family and friends given with such good cheer that it made me feel warm inside despite myself. My forty-sixth birthday celebration concluded with a romantic dinner, complete with a view of the sun setting over the ocean, leaving me no option but to feel awed and fortunate to be in that moment. Notwithstanding my best efforts to focus on the dark side of aging, I was gently guided to the bright side of letting the good times roll. My husband rocks my world, my kids are sparkling little gems who light up my life every single day, and my girlfriends keep me spinning properly on my axis. The verdict is resoundingly in: I truly, fully, entirely, wholly, honestly, absolutely, really, utterly, completely, totally, genuinely, sincerely, thoroughly, and most unexpectedly, enjoyed my birthday. Heck, if my funeral is this good, maybe I’ll show up to hear “Amazing Grace,” which I really hope someone chooses for the soloist because I like it a lot. Oh, and these lilies are my favorites, just in case there is a question as to what should go in the floral tribute:

Dear Laura

I’m so proud of you, little reader. I love that you love to read as much as your daddy and I do. Daddy and I loved reading books to you when you were “little,” and we loved how you memorized all of them, word for word, so that you could “read” them by yourself. Back in the day, we especially loved reading you Maisy’s Bedtime, by Lucy Cousins. When we’d read, “Maisy takes a drink of water,” you’d take a swig from your sippy cup and say, “Two drinkings.” Overnight you became a big girl, reading all by yourself. We didn’t teach you to read. You just did it. Now you are so cute at night with your itty bitty book light, reading into the wee hours just as long as you can keep your little brown eyes open.

Charlotte’s Web taught you about miracles. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory taught you that being a good person has its rewards, and not just in the end. It was tremendously endearing that you got afraid while reading Harry Potter, not because of Voldemort or the three-headed dog, but when you cried because you were worried that Harry and friends would get in trouble if they got caught sneaking around Gryffindor at night. The Magician’s Nephew gave us the opportunity to talk about character and loyalty and having faith in things you cannot see. Stuart Little taught you that no matter how small your size you can still have big adventures. And I’m rather pleased that you didn’t particularly care for the antics of Junie B. Jones, and that you’d pause the reading to correct her grammar.

Congratulations, little reader, on winning your award at school for participating in the summer reading program.

(By the way, you look splendid in your “reading glasses.”)

I’m posting a list with some of your favorite books so far, so that Joy, Jarrah, and Ruby will know what you liked to read when they are ready for chapter books, which will be about a half an hour from now.

Charlotte’s Web
Stuart Little
The Trumpet of the Swan
Harriet the Spy
James and the Giant Peach
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory
Charlie & the Great Glass Elevator
The Borrowers
Bedknob & Broomstick
The Mouse & the Motorcycle
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy
The Magician’s Nephew
The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe
Katie Kazoo Switcheroo
The Doll People
Flat Stanley
Tiger (The Five Ancestors)
Every book by Daisy Meadows

I love the poem on the bookmark that your school gave to the summer reading program participants. Remember it always, little reader.

The more you read,
the more you know.

The more you know,
the smarter you grow.

The smarter you grow,
the stronger your voice,
when speaking your mind
or making your choice.

Love, Mom