“No” He said sadly. Not that he ever touches leftovers. I actually think he would rather starve to death than eat leftovers. He is the kind of person that needs to open a new pack of butter every time he butters a toast.  I guess the open ones, look kind of second hand, even violated, to him!

It’s quite remarkable that when he cooks, which is relatively seldom, I can remember one occasion in the last twelve months, that being three days ago, he makes a great fuss about it.

Not only does he inform us, his family, kind of announcement style like he is addressing a crowd, that he is going to cook, he also demands audience while he’s at it. And he is not exactly humble about it.

“Dad is going to make the best dinner you have ever had” “This is not going to be any restaurant shit, this is real food for real people!” ” Come here kids, and see how daddy cooks the best Spaghetti in the world”

I was fortunate enough to have caught the flu of the little transmitters, so I stayed in bed on the top floor, reading a brilliant Swedish thriller “Men that hate women”.  Even though my mind was walking the streets of Stockholm, I could not, but hear the rantings and self praise of Top Chef in the kitchen below. My teenage daughter came upstairs and sat her self on the bed giggling.

“Mom, it’s so funny how dad, makes such a big deal out of it when he cooks!”

I replied. ” I know dear, it is pathetic really, but let’s just grin and bare with it”

“Mom, I mean, you cook every day, but when he cooks he talks about it like it’s some kind of great achievement?”

“It is!”

“Well, he told me to tell you to come down, dinner is ready”

I thought about dressing up for the occasion. A skirt and a blouse, perhaps? But decided to stick with patient look as I did not want to risque that the family thought I was recovering. I had 200 pages to go, I needed a least one more day in solitary confinement to finish it. I walked down with a slight limp to emphasize my suffering and entered the kitchen. All four children were seated, quiet as mice, which is unusual, or more like unheard of, and the table was set. To please my husband I  added a lilt of anticipation to my tone of voice, which is not unlike the lilt of Hawaiian music and said: “This smells wonderful” To which he replied, sighing :”I know”. There was a strange silence. Then I dared to ask:

“Is dinner ready?”.

My husband smiled and said: ” I just put the Spaghetti in the water, it won’t be long now!”

I dipped my fingers into the boiling water (fingers of steel) to pick some up to try. It was still hard as rock. I noticed drizzles of spaghetti sauce all over the stove and nearby walls and cabinets. The kitchen looked like Jackson Pollock had paid us a visit. Bless his soul.

“This is not nearly ready!” I was really pissed that I had been called down to the kitchen far to early.

“Don’t you tell me anything about that, I know exactly how to cook the perfect Spaghetti” Why don’t you just take a seat and let me finish this?”

His mission was accomplished. We were all seated at the dinner table, watching him cook the Spaghetti to perfection. How boring! Compared to this, watching golf on TV is like joining a Circus with a handsome gypsy.

He gave each and one of us enormous portions. The kind that would suit a full grown man who’d been working in a mine, twelve hours straight.

If anything kills my appetite, it is overfilled plates. Not to mention the interrogation that followed. He sat him self, table centre and asked sternly again and again: “Isn’t this good?” Don’t you like daddy’s dinner?” To which we all replied, or those of us who talk : “Yes, very good”. It was. I mean nothing spectacular, but truly a decent meal.

The one and two year old did not do a good job of getting this down. The two year old tried to suck up the spaghetti with her nose and when that failed she tried to turn a strand of spaghetti into a bracelet. Very becoming. Her little brother an accomplice of Mr. Pollock, threw bits of meat on the floor and artistically expressed himself by smearing meat sauce over his face and hair. Also very fetching.

Husband was surprised that they didn’t seem to like to eat the food, after all this was the world’s best Spaghetti! And then he said to me: “We really need to figure out what to feed them?” Like he was raising some weird, newly discovered species.

I tried not to loose my cool,  just nodded and tried to look concerned. After all it could not be that they just didn’t like his cooking. There was obviously something wrong with the children. Seriously wrong.

The wee ones are still suffering flu and look out of the window every morning, like prisoners of war and ask me, consistently: ” Go out”? Park? and I keep saying :” No, tomorrow, tomorrow!”

Kids have no concept of time, so it is so hard to explain things to them that are  not in the present, they have no capacity for the future, or the past for that matter, well, it might just be my family’s DNA. I have very selective memory for things that happened in the past, I don’t miss anything and I shamelessly don’t regret anything. I always find it liberating to loose things and I just hope that someone finds use for the stuff that I have lost in the past. Especially when I loose something of material value.

“Tomorrow” is now the favorite word of the two year old. 

:”Do you wanna cookie?” and she answers “Tomorrow!” Very advanced.

: “Shall we watch, Barney the purple perverted dinosaur?” and she answers somewhat mysteriously and puts one finger up in the air : ” Tomorrow!”

I think she is grasping the concept of delay, of something that is quite not here yet. The story of my life.  I find myself consistently waiting for something that is quite not there yet!

But waking up this morning was different, it was all there, and so real, I did not have to wait!  The moths were here!  I have seen a couple of them flying around, but I have been ignoring them out of fear,  like I feared the title of Erica Young’s, book, “Fear of Flying”, in my mother´s library. As a kid I thought this book was intended for hysterical frequent flyers who suffered sick-bag-o-phobia. I knew my mom didn’t like to fly, as she would sedate her self on Bloody Mary’s before entering aircrafts, and somewhat exit them like she had unknowingly been brought to foreign soil.

My mom also had a habit of throwing tantrums before she would clean the house, a trait that I have cherished and is of great use. It is very simple and anyone can do it. The method is to scare the entire family.  To cry over spilled milk, literally, dirty laundry, whatever you can think of and manipulate your family members to help you, or else risk they will have to put you in to a mental institution.

My sudden outburst this morning, when I realized that something had to be done about the moth infested kitchen cabinets, was quite a show stopper. When the older girls were out the door, running to school like refugees, from the cries of their mad mother, husband arrived like Mad Max, shaking his head, and with out a word, pulled up his sleeves, Clorox in hand, and started cleaning the pantry.

The one year old walked around with a mob in one hand, to please mommy and the two year old kept asking: ” Are you alright, mom?” To which I replied: “No!” 

She then looked at me sternly and said loudly: “Tomorrow…(and even louder) Tomorrow, mom!” And I responded: ” Yes, tomorrow!” and threw her a cloth and told her to clean her toys. Which she did!

This was a most romantic morning, husband and I, swearing loudly, attacked the kitchen cabinets and it’s inhabitants with water, soap, clorox,old toothbrushes and what not. I am not sure PETA would have agreed with our methods. We threw everything out of  the cabinets, because all was infested with pantry tenants.

How can moths enter a closed bag of rice? An unopened box of Oreo’s?  This is a mystery. These were no regular moths, these were Houdini moths!  I even found, strangely, an unopened CD in one of the cabinets, one of my favorites that I keep buying and loosing.  Academy of St. Martin in the Fields  playing Mozart’s 24th, 25th, and 26th Symphony conducted by Sir Neville Marriner. A little moth rascal had made its way under the plastic! A musical moth! And CD’s are impossible to brake into!

Talking about packaging, what’s up with the way dolls are packaged? I bought the two year old a nurse doll, as she is an aspiring health care professional and keeps putting band-aid on everything she finds. The doll was like a victim of some weird BDSM serial killer. A a wire snare a round her neck, and tightly fastened on hands, waist and feet to a piece of cardboard! Quite a sickening sight!

When the kitchen looked like nobody had ever entered it, I took husband out for a ride. We went to IKEA, where I bought new flatware, new glasses(all plastic) as a big portion of this family is not stable enough to conduct themselves around stemware. Then I begged to go to the Salvation Army. Begged! My wish was granted on the condition that I would go with him to a Golf store, first.

Going to Golf stores is a sacrifice for me, because I find nothing more exhausting than watching my husband try out the different irons and listen to him explain their qualities. My husband completely ignores the fact that I have no interest in Golf. But I have found a way of dealing with that. When we started dating, some 100 years ago, I would  try to look  interested.  I even watched golf on TV with him and pretend it was fun! Can you imagine! I never watch Golf on TV nowadays. We are married.  But now I have a way of dealing with trips to the Golf store by nodding my head in agreement, when I think it’s appropriate and he seems to be happy with that.

In the golf store a huge male mannequin caught my attention, at least eight feet tall and so muscular that it was quite hilarious. The biceps were  the size of my waist and it’s buttocks were like two humongous genetically altered watermelons, seedless of course. I asked a wimpish male staff member, if he didn’t feel intimidated or threatened by the size of the mannequin.  I wanted to show him my support.  He was quick to answer but somewhat densely: ” He’s not THAT big!” Right!  If my husband had not, at this point in time already finished trying all the clubs in the store, I would have asked to speak to the supervisor. Males have image issues too. People tend to forget that!

At last we were on our way to the Salvation Army. The Salvation Army is in the middle of my city’s Skid row, a truly appropriate setting where Heaven and Hell meet. I love going there scouting for junk, and have found incredible things there. Today was my lucky day. They had three new pianos in. One was already taken as an elderly drunkard sat snoring on the keyboard, contemplating how to fit it into a shopping cart, so I didn’t dare to even look at it further.

But in the middle of the “show room” was a beautiful black upright piano, a 1902 Decker and Sons, so rugged on the outside but, oh, so beautiful! It looked like an persistent old bar singer, that just won’t stop performing. I touched the keyboard and played “Mary had a little lamb” from my extended repertoire , and it sounded wonderfully. So smooth and charming and miraculously in tune. I played every note to see if it was intact and it responded beautifully. The sustain pedal was there, but the other two were lying on top of the piano. Well, that can be fixed.

I shouted my husbands name.  I love that you can shout in the Salvation Army and nobody thinks it’s strange, and shouted again, very  resonantly. In the distance, I could see, that a pair of Gary Glitter boots had absorbed my husbands attention.  He is a closet Glam Rocker. I shouted once more, so effectively that the old drunkard sitting by the already taken piano, moved his head down an octave. 

Finally my husband came along and I forced him to try the instrument. He played, and played and played, and was surprised how wonderfully it sounded. An old teary eyed hooker walked by and applauded him. The price tag was equally wonderful. $300. We talked about how we would restore it, clean up the wood, strings etc. This was a mesmerizing moment. We were both in love. This was a  passionate ménage á trois, in the making.

We are bringing it home on Friday. An endearing toothless shop assistant came to us and explained that we should not buy it until Friday because on Fridays, he whispered, everything goes half-price!  Even better. 150 bucks for a Decker and Sons 1902 upright piano with an experienced look and heart of gold. No question!

Jennifer Aniston apparently has this as a mandatory in her movie contracts and interviews.

“I will only do the movie/interview if I get to wear a buttoned down mans shirt, fucked up hair and can show off my exercised legs and my flat flat flat, (sorry Jen), concave mid-riff!”

I sometimes fall into this trap of dressing in the above mentioned attire at night when my husbands shirts just by accident happen to be there and last night was one of those evenings. I swear, I was not trying to imitate  Jennifer Aniston, it just happened!

I am not going to tell my husband that while he was a way I used his shirts mercilessly like nurses scrubs, and he has some really nice ones. I use them as nightwear, to clean the house, to tidy up in the garden and just to slip into something more comfortable, when my own clothes just seem, too old, too boring or frankly too tight!

Anyway waking up at 6 am this morning, the heat in the room was crazy, as my husband would not have the balcony doors open during the night as the two year old suffers runny nose. The husband has been away for ten weeks and he thinks I am very irresponsible having the babies sleep only in diapers in the summer heat.

I don´t remember marrying a pediatrician? He was an actor last time I checked, but actors have a thing about believing they can be anyone and everyone, right?

Male actors even think they can play women, still to this day, think Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie.  I am not saying he wasn´t good, within the world of the movie, but sincerely, Dustin Hoffman would never, ever, pass for a woman in the real world!  Maybe in The Valley of the Blind?  Ok, I take it back, in a world where everyone was blind, Dustin Hoffman could pass as a woman, women even, as he is an accomplished impersonator.

I know that where we come from, Iceland, anyone, just by sticking their nose out of a window, has a good chance of catching severe flu, but a breeze in our second floor bedroom in our house in California  is unheard of this time of year and could only be caused by poltergeists.  And needless to say they have not granted us a visit yet!

So I thought it was acceptable to let the babies sleep in their diapers and nothing else. My husband on the contrary thinks that everyone with a slight flu should wrap up in thermal cat-suits and sip cod-liver oil and sweat it out.

I reminded my husband stearnly, that if he thought I was not capable of raising our children, to make sure he would not have to go on those long work trips again. Ever.

It would be irresponsible of him to leave his children in the hands of an unfit mother. Even life threatening!

My husband did not respond to those remarks and just gave me a very strange look.  In response to his bizarre stare I hurried into the bathroom and almost vomited at the sight of my image in the mirror. Not only am I a little sunburned from the desert sun but my eyes were bulging in honor of  the late beloved Marty Feldman.

This look along with the man-shirt made me look like a turtle with man-boobs suffering thyroid condition.

Anyway now both babies have a cold and a temperature. I am not sure if it is because of my reckless open balcony door act, which it probably is, but now I am doomed to watch re-runs of Barney as he seems to be the only “person” that can console the little sniveling ones. I hate Barney with all my heart and the producers of the show and all the adorable creepy little child actors they have on board.

I can’t work, third act  lingering in my mind, still something is brewing, somewhere. Fractions are coming alive, I play out my characters conversations in my mind, while watching Barney, something no male writer could do, and I seem to think that as soon as I get a chance to sit down I will be able to get this bloody third act going. I am calm, even though there might be a few days until I can start actually writing, because I think I know by now, how my play will resolve, sort of. That’s something!

A Duran Duran song also brought back memories. The band performing in Reykjavik and me skydiving from the balcony of the auditorium in sheer joy which resulted in a broken tailbone and a sprained shoulder. That did not stop me from going back the following night and thoroughly enjoying myself even if I refrained from further skydiving.

I love the desert, the soaring heat and the crickets singing. This 5 star resort is a gem in middle of nowhere, at this time of year nobody wants to be here because the heat is so devastating, or so I thought. I was very wrong. A group of party goers where celebrating in the hotel bar, a jolly crowd!

I hoped and prayed as I gobbled down a glass of complimentary champagne in the lobby that we would not have to share pool with them so I was both happy and insulted when we got a room in the oxygenarian wing . I might be tired and a little run down but I hadn’t realized that I looked like I was about to kick the bucket.

Our neighbors are probably close to ninety. A lovely couple. He walks cane in hand to the pool and does rejuvenating leg exercises in the water. I should probably start doing them too. She is a stunner! A black swimsuit with a red belt and  a supermodel figure. Her chest looks disturbingly juvenile and so does her face. She reads to him up loud. I wonder if they are still in love and by the looks of them, they are. As she, Bo Derek style glides out of the pool, I can see the look in his eyes, which reads: 

“My broad is still hot as hell!”

And she is! Hair in a bun, pink lipstick,gold earrings and a ninety year old body to die for!

The resort offers a variety of activities, star gazing, rock climbing and archery to name a few. All things that I have been contemplating taking up, so I’ve got to run, bow and arrow in hand and search for the stars…

“I am so sorry, get off him!  She actually has a father!”

Yesterday is most likely the longest day I have endured. The earth stood still. No birds sang. The news anchors even spoke slower than usual, they had a strange drawl in their speech.

I woke up with the thought that I should clean the entire house before husband´s return, but quickly came to my senses. I could have scattered mud around the house and he would not have noticed. I could have painted murals of seahorses riding on green waves and frolicking mermaids across the living room ceiling, and he would still not have noticed.

Still out of homecoming cleaning-guilt, I cleaned. I didn’t have the patience to prepare a homemade organic cleaning solution, a recipe from my former lovely Mexican nanny, (not to mixed with the “evil nanny”) who “Bruja” style would make these potent cleaning potions out of vinegar,lemon and lavender while chanting some ancient rites.

Instead I somewhat compromised, by using toxic Clorox wipes to touch up the house and will no doubt suffer eczema and arthritis as a result. And of course increase the likely-hood of my children getting respiratory diseases and even developing behavioral problems.

Husband preparation was exhausting. After cleaning and stuffing things out of sight, that I will greet in a few months  like lost relatives, I ran from liquor store to liquor store to find husbands favorite scotch, pushing the double stroller. My neighborhood is not the connoisseur kind of hood, so this was far from easy. Tequila in gallons, no problem!

I thought about wrapping my self in cellophane, like Kathy Bates did in the film Green Fried Tomatoes and arrange myself neatly in the driveway, but was too scared that I would resemble a roadkill so I refrained from the idea.

I just applied more mascara, again and again and again until the weight of the black was making it hard for me to keep my eyes open.  I lit some candles so I would not trip and also to give the home a romantic glow.  I have been told lighting is  everything!

I also changed clothes ten times and tried on at least five pares of shoes. As he would be staring at my feet?

:Girl, have I missed seeing you wearing those shoes!”

My eight year old acting as my stylist and making fashion fascist comments straight out of E news, I am surprised that I did not hang myself, because by the end of her relentless criticism I found myself  in a pair of white pants and a black fitted shirt, up side down waiter outfit,  with a self esteem the size of an almond.

I tracked their flight on flight-tracker, the number one spot for in air terrorism info. I mean, anyone with a missile could easily target a plane in mid air, as they provide you with accurate logistics and everything!  This thought made me kind of nervous and almost tearful. All the planes that have gone down in recent months! I could also hear my oldest daughter´s voice in my head. She has a habit of raising really impossible questions before she boards a plane:

“Mom, do you promise that the plane won´t crash?”

What kind of question is that? If it does crash,is she then going to turn around and say:

“You were SO wrong mom!”

So I was very happy to observe on flight-tracker that the plane had landed and seconds later I got the phone call

:”We are here!”

At that moment I wished I had one of those polygamist/Little house on the prairie outfits to slip into and that the house smelled of hot chocolate and cookies and not Clorox.

Me and the two year old sat out on the porch waiting, she kind of like lunatic style chanting: “Dad is coming! Dad is coming! Dad is coming” for about 20 minutes. I thought about reaching for my ipod.

The rest is just to beautiful for words….very “Little house on the Prairie/Fatal Attraction evening. And spending the morning with five people in my bed, drinking coffee, chatting and laughing till noon. What fun!

Husband is putting the babies to sleep, something I have done night after night for ten weeks straight. I feel like I am on vacation. With my feet up on a stool and biting my Pinot stained lips, I see the lights in Tijuana across the border, where the cartels are undoubtedly chopping each other up in consumer friendly packages. A perfectly peaceful Agust evening.

I am usually a sucker for work-out outfits, but this recession has played me hard, so I am wearing old Puma T-shirts and a pair of black pants that looked equally becoming while I was nine months pregnant. It is not a lie that because of my lousy outfit I feel somewhat an outcast in those classes. People  take their outfits very seriously. I also wear my fully supporting bra to class, which is a no no, and apparently a crime against Shiva. But I have trouble enough keeping up with the teachers, so having my eyesight frequently restricted while doing the Asanas is not an option.

I usually slip my cheap yoga mat on the floor the minute the class starts, among the last to attend. My guilt-ridden heart beating nervously as I have just left my two adorable babies crying their hearts out and throwing their little arms towards me, begging me with their agonizing stare, NOT to leave them with the evil nanny. But I do every morning, five days a week.

So when the teachers start ranting about, leaving all worries, anger, fear, frustration ,pain, suffering, behind(whatever that means), it is quite a task for me.

One of the teachers is a very ethereal being that seems to be made out of very expensive fabric, she has a kind of lace curtain feel about her. She folds her self into the most extraordinary poses. It would be no task to bag her up and take her places. She also has that desirable “Yoga glow” that I am striving for.

She starts each and every class with a series of Pranayama exercises or breathing exercises. They are actually very hard and I feel light-headed and giggly, which is a bad thing, every time I do them. But I am slowly getting to know my left and right nostrils quite well which is good because I have somewhat neglected them in the past. Not given them much thought, really. The teacher flares her nostrils gloriously, it is almost as if she has wings in the middle of her fragile, doll like face.

Did I mention that she speaks fluent Sanskrit, which makes it very hard to follow her instructions as Sanskrit is a bit, well “Sanskrit” to me, still. It is truly very hard when your understanding of Sanskrit is limited, as she has a way of gliding through the room and sotto voce giving instructions in Sanskrit and not actually demonstrating! How the fuck am I supposed to understand Sanskrit! And why does everybody in the room understand Sanskrit? Where am I?

I had come to think she was Sanskritian, when I in triangle pose, imitating the person in front of me,  heard a patronizing voice saying loudly behind my back: “Where is your block!”

It was the teacher! She had mutated into an all Californian bitch. Her walk changed and she kind of military style walked across the room and picked up a block for me to use and half-threw it to me. It was very humiliating. A little later as I was trying to bind my arms in the most awkward position she came again: ” I don’t think we are quite there yet!”

She really has a touch for teaching this gal, to make her students feel comfortable and at easy.

I’ll stick it through, Puma, bra and all.  I want to gain that nostril control, whatever it takes. I might need it, if lets say, I loose one nostril accidentally.

I was wondering in my last blog entry what my “factor” was and I have come to a conclusion. Sometimes you have to get away from home to discover what your “factor” is.

The kids and I spent the last four days in the beautiful house of a friend. The house which is a architectural maze is set in a kind of Jurassic park like setting. I woke up every morning ready to fight dinosaurs or to have an intimate chat with Tarzan about leopard thongs.

In the few stolen moments that I spent some alone time in her garden I discovered my “factor”. My “factor” is the “Gnome Factor”.

I would think that living life as a garden gnome is a desirable one. To be positioned in a garden among exotic plants and not have a care in the world. Just stoically watch the world go by. Flies skydiving in the air, birds singing and the gentle breeze sliding over your big ears and your red hat. What bliss! And I possess the some of the most prominent qualities of a gnome. I am not tall. I am friendly. I like hats.

Did you know there is a Gnome outlet on the world wide web? And that they offer free shipping?

We came back home to be greeted by the evil nanny. The kids burst into tears the minute they saw her. Persistent and honest little buggers. I think her time is up, she compares me to much to her former employer, (lover? , I am not quite sure) Mrs. X. I have come to accept that I will never be like Mrs. X even if I try. There is never going to be another Mrs. X. She is one of a kind!

Even if I am sure that she has no idea what her “factor” is.

But as I slowly but surely can feel that I am becoming a person again as opposed to a reverberating conveyor-belt. The factory has been closed down indefinantly.

Anyway who would have believed that a shady door next to my Starbucks would hide a Flamenco Academy! I was walking past the other day with the horrible industrial double stroller, when I heard a rusty male voice singing Sevillanas! I was suddenly pulled into a film by Carlos Saura.

I abandoned the babies with the eight-year old on the pavement and kind of half flew towards the door and smashed my face up against the window. Inside, through lace curtains I could see a group of people seated in a circle. Four men and two ladies. The men all looked like slightly matured Joaquin Cortes’s, slightly, is an understatement, they were old, but very cute like old people can be cute, in a petrifying way! Anyway they were so into their singing and clapping and stamping their feet, that knocking on the door would have been very rude and possibly life threatening, and I have nothing against old people. Nothing.

I actually like old people and babies more than my peers. Old people have the “been there done that” feel about them and babies have the ” been nowhere” factor. “Factor” being a word I learned watching American Idol. I wonder what my factor is?” Back to subject. We adults that claim we “are living life”, we are just such lost souls. Our life is a mess. And that German fraud, Achschmert Tolle, that claims we should all live in the “Now”…I mean, Please!

So  yesterday I walked past the Flamenco Academy again along with the babies.

I had been having vivid dreams about me dancing Flamenco on La Plaza de las Naranjas in Marbella, Spain. Where I spent a most mercurial holiday with my better half many years ago. Isn’t it creepy to call somebody your better half? On the plaza de las Naranjas people were cheering for me. Encouraged me to dance even more! Gathered around and threw me coins, and of course oranges.

We stopped at Starbucks were I bought a triple latte for my self and cold chocolate milk for the kiddos.The two year old girl drank half of my iced-latte while I cleaned up the one year old who spilled his drink all over himself and the stroller. Not to mention the awe-inspiring stream of chocolate milk that he created on the sidewalk. He was very proud.

His two year old sister was a very active and alert little girl for the rest of the day. With it 100%!

So I kind of hung around Starbucks for a while to see if anybody  would come in or out of the door that led to the Flamenco Academy. I was sick with anticipation, and finally a strawling senorita with a humongous Bougainvillea draped over her left ear, came walking .  A Gardenia might have been more fitting as the Senorita was relatively small headed. I rushed to her and introduced my self. “From Iceland?, I hear they do Flamenco there!”  What?  I ignored this remark and smiled and all the babies smiled to. Lovely parrots. She asked if I wanted my eight year old daughter to take classes and I was kind of taken back. Did she consider it Utopian that I might be considering a career move? I put my shoulders back,crossed my arms, breast out and in a kind of a buffalo stance uttered: “No I want to come and study at your academy and I want to start NOW!”

“Come tomorrow at six in the evening, look forward to have you in my class!”

“Do I…”?

“No, I have shoes and skirts here, see you tomorrow”.

She spoke Haiku style, so lovely.  Then she closed the door to train her students that all had arrived from nowhere at the same moment. She left with a flair. Not a smile or a stir, just like a  bottle of Jerez.

The small headed Senorita is now my new BFF!

It’s intensive schooling, in a confined environment. I strap him down in his little green chair (I picked green because it’s supposedly calming) and then sit my self opposite him and with my index fingers pointing to my mouth, as to help him not loose focus, I steadily repeat the word mom along with the variation ma-ma-ma-ma-ma. I speak softly and at times I raise my voice and even put on a German accent for variation and fun!  Not to mention a little cultural impact… who knows, I might die or join a nunnery ,and his dad might remarry a German strudel baking blond.

As of now August 5th, there are no signs of him grasping any of it. Weeks have gone by, no progress. He has other words in his tiny dictionary, one worth mentioning, the word “asses”. Plural form of the word ass. Me thinks?  Have I put on weight? Does it  look like I have more than one ass?  He walks around the house and rhetorically recites the word “asses” over and over again. It’s most bizarre.

It took me a while to figure out what he was trying to express. But it came to me as he was marching around the bedroom floor this morning, while trying to plug his toothbrush into a wall socket, mumbling his mantra; “Asses, asses, asses,asses!” very loudly.

I was kind of half awake ,half a sleep when his sister the two year old who habitually wakes up singing, burst into a song : ” Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies “Ashes,Ashes” We all fall down”!

Duh! The one year old is saying “ashes”, what a relieve! I don’t have a rude baby!

The lyrics  apparently have origin in the great plague of London or the all too familiar Bubonic plague. I have not informed the siblings about this fact yet , even if the lyrics according to some tell a story about symptoms  of the plague and me being a responsible parent I really should inform them,  swine flue and all!

Anyways, symptoms are described so; (ring around the rosy…red rash with circle pattern), possible protection (a pocketful of poises, stuff your pockets with bad smelling herbs), and of course  the inevitable death (“Ashes, Ashes” We all fall down!”  i.e. cremations of dead bodies followed by a decent burial, if you were lucky. )

I am not sure that the producers of Baby Einstein sing-a-long CD are fully aware of the meaning of the  lyrics.  The singers perform this song in a cheerful and almost euphoric manner.  Very inappropriate and disturbing, if you bear in mind that in 1603, the plague killed some 30.000 Londoners according to Wikipedia.

I made eggs and bacon for the babies, because they like to start the day with a hearty English breakfast. The two year old asked for orange juice and toast.

The eight year old came down looking  pale, fangs intact, from staying up late reading Twilight book Three. ” Bella’s wedding was incredible, mom”. She had no appetite, understandably, still full from the wedding reception.

I rushed to clean the kitchen before my new housecleaner/nanny would arrive at nine o’clock. She is sixty three and I can´t tell her to scrub the floors while I suffer from writers block and  am not getting anywhere with act three in my play.  I even skipped Yoga to relive her from her duties.

Talking about escapism…act three is going so badly that I chose to clean the kitchen rather than doing, what I am though being paid to do, to write a play.  I scrubbed the floor, the walls, the cabinets, washed three loads of laundry, made coffee, ate shit loads of vitamins, packed sandwiches and snacks for the kids, poured juice into non drooling sippy cups, stuffed the diaper bag with chlorine laced diapers and wipes, undressed and dressed the kids, applied toxic sunscreen on their little faces, hands and legs and sent the nanny to the park after stuffing the kids into her 20 year old car that has no air condition and runs on pure luck. I even forced the eight year old to go along to help the nanny for added staff support.

I don’t know why I hired her. I am not even sure that I like her that much, she keeps commenting on my parenting methods, complaining and comparing me to her former employers.

” The X family were such wonderful people, they never let their children get away with anything”,  “You have to tell her not to shout like this all the time”, “I can’t use this double stroller it is so heavy”.

“Tell me about it… I have the biceps of Hulk, from pushing this crappy industrial stroller around my neighborhood every day!”

She also has her ideas about how I should set my work pace and where.

“Do you never work in the evening?” as opposed to the mornings when I actually  like to work. ” No, at night I am so tearfully tired that I can’t work” .

In the evening, my time, I like waking up my hard working husband  in the middle of the night, his time, for long, meaningful Skype conversations.

” You should try working in the evening, Mrs. X always worked in the evening!” ” Have you tried working in the library?” ” Mrs. X really liked to work in the library”

” No, for fuck sake, the closest library is full of smelly homeless literary critics and my laptop is broken and I can’t afford to buy a new one because I am paying you all the  money I have left in the world so you can take my children to the park and give me some peace to write!”

” If you shout like this, they will also learn to shout” ” They learn from their parents you know”