Liar, liar, pants on fire

Let me just say that this was a long grift. If you don't know what I mean, to grift is to con somebody. Sometimes this can be a short term lie or sometimes it can be a long term lie. Some lies you have to set up, prepare a mark (a.k.a. victim) with a couple of believable lies -- commiserate with them, make them feel like you're a victim of the same circumstances. A grifter is a con artist. I never knew I had skills like these. But I do. I have the gift of grift.

About 5 weeks before my husband's 40th birthday, I told Hubby that the church auction was coming up. The real auction was taking place a week before my husband's birthday, but I figured that he had heard some buzz about an auction coming up and that was enough to validate my story. When there are church events, our director of religious education, Sister Anna, will often pluck me out of the parking lot or even church, and ask me to help out. I told my husband (who rarely attends mass with me)that after mass, Sr. Anna had asked me if I would help out with the auction. I told him the auction was scheduled for his birthday so I wanted to clear it with him before I got back to her. He, being the good soul that he is, assured me that it was fine. I could help out if I wanted.

The following Thursday, I complained again to my husband. When I picked up the kids from CCD, Sister Anna saw me again and asked if I would be able to prepare some food for the auction. See, it is a money making endeavor, so to cut costs, they were asking parishioners to bring food. I said, "Can you believe that they're asking people to bring food? I mean, they're charging $75 per ticket in the first place." So he told me that it was a fund raiser. That I can't blame them for trying to raise money. He really defended the actions of Sr. Anna, even though she was being absolutely ridiculous.

Some time during the following week, I asked my mother (in front of Hubby) what she would like to prepare for the auction. We came up with lumpia and pancit. It is traditional to have noodles on your birthday for long life. And everybody loves my mom's lumpia. My husband likes having potatoes in lumpia (I know, it is totally unacceptable according to Mom) so as a birthday treat, I told him that I'd reserve some that didn't have shrimp in it (he doesn't eat bugs -- his words, not mine) and put potatoes in that batch.

About 2 weeeks before the auction I started telling my husband that people weren't buying auction tickets as well as they had hoped. "At $75 a peice, how can you blame them? I might be helping out but there is no way that I'm going to pay for tickets."

Here's the scary part. My whole plan may have fallen apart because my son's soccer team won their division championship. If they progressed through regionals, then the state championship game would be on my husband's birthday -- the day of the party. It is a very strange feeling -- the definition of conflicted -- because I wanted my son's team to succeed. Of course I did. But on the other hand, part of me wanted them to fail because my plan for the party was going so well. I had even thought to mention to another parent from our church whose kid plays with That not to talk about missing the church auction which happened on the day of the regionals. She was awesome and didn't say a word about it.

Sadly for my son, his team didn't win the regionals. Yay for me, but I didn't cheer. He took it in stride and actually had nothing but good things about playing soccer in the snow. "Mom, it was so cool because when you kicked the ball, it would grow into this huge snow ball, and when you kicked it again, snow would explode everywhere. COOL!"

We were still on for our party. Here was the clincher. I had come up with an excuse for me to be making mass quantities of food. I had come up with an excuse for my mother to come with me. But the whole deal was to get my husband to drive to our friends Steve & Sharon's house for the actual party. My mother was the weakest link of the whole thing.

Having already told my husband that tickets weren't selling well and that they were massively expensive, I had laid the groundwork. Now in for the kill. I waited until the Thursday before the party. That is the day the kids have CCD. My mom picked them up from church that day. So she had opportunity to do this act.

"Honey," I conspiratorially told my husband, "don't get upset but for your birthday, my mom bought the three of us tickets to the auction."

"She what?"

"I know. I know. I'm sorry. She didn't ask me but she thought it would be good because there will be entertainment and lots of food. She thought it would be fun for us to do."

"Oh man, I get to spend my fortieth birthday at a church auction. Are you kidding me?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Why don't you guys just go, you and your mom?"

"She bought 3 tickets."

"Well, who is going to watch the kids?"

"I talked to Sharon, and she said that she's having a holiday party for the kids from their church. She said 3 more kids wouldn't be a problem and there will be lots of fun things for them to do."

Defeated, my husband resigned himself to feign gratitude and excitement when my mother told him about the auction tickets.

I practiced with my mother over and over again. She said that maybe she should add that I'd take him out to dinner another day too. She also was trying to come up with what kind of entertainment would be at the auction. She was suggesting menus and coming up with the guest list of who would be at our table.

My mother doesn't lie. It doesn't come easy to her. In fact, I think it may cause her physical pain. But we went over it again and again, and finally she streamlined it down to, "For your birthday, I bought us tickets to the auction."

When it came time for her performance, it turned into this. Nervously, while my husband was in the other room, my mother said, "Oh, for your birthday, I bought us auction tickets. Is that alright? Maybe Tess can take you out for dinner another time. Is it okay?" I may have pushed her too far. It was really hard for her.

And delivering the best performance of his lifetime, my sweet husband walked back into the room where my mom was sitting and said, "You mean the church auction? That will be great. Thanks." He actually seemed to be happy. Later he asked me for his Oscar. It was maybe an Emmy. Not an Oscar.

The morning of his party, my husband woke up with a bad cough. I thought I was sunk. But instead, I quietly pressured him into going to the auction by saying, "Honey, I'll go to the church and Mom should stay home and watch the kids while you rest, and then when it is time for the auction, she can go to Sharon's and drop the kids off so you can sleep."

"But what about the tickets? Your mom paid so much money for them."

"Don't worry about that. It is your health, okay?"

"No, I'll go. It'll make your mom feel bad if I don't."

Everybody was in place, the cars were parked in the driveway, but that was explained away by the party Sharon was throwing. The guests and I were crouched behind sofas and the kitchen island waiting for Hubby to make an appearance. I was keeping a lookout. Sharon answered the door and chatted for what seemed to be at least 10 minutes in the entryway. My husband wouldn't come into the house! She finally coaxed him in with promises of bacon wrapped Ritz crackers as appetizers for the party. I saw him enter the living room and I turned to the rest of the guests, counted three, and popped up to yell, "Surprise!"

That was immediately followed by, "Where did he go?"

Turns out that my husband got to the living room and realized that he had forgotten the diaper bag. He was just about to the front door when he heard us yell, "Surprise!...Where did he go?" Bummer. But Sharon says that she could tell he was surprised because he stopped in his tracks. He came back into the living room and we all had suddenly appeared.

It was a great success. Our friend Marisa, stage name Samira, made an appearance belly dancing. That was great fun. My husband admitted to me later that he didn't know where he should look. Marisa is smoking hot and here she was dressed in a belly dancing outfit.He didn't want to look like a jerk and stare especially with me standing right there next to him, but he took it in great stride and Marisa got a few of us to try belly dancing too.

I had mistakenly ordered a carrot cake which has walnuts in it. I had forgotten to check. My husband has a sensitivity to walnuts so that was a big boo boo. But luckily, I had arranged for our friend Julia to make a Chocolate Torte Royale -- a dessert that my mother-in-law made for hubby for all of his childhood birthdays. You also should know that when I brought out the carrot cake and realized it had walnuts, the first words out of my husband's mouth were, "Well, you better make me a Chocolate Torte Royale."

It was a great party. We have awesome friends. I hope I did his 40th birthday justice.

You can call me Flo

I took my final today. I never thought I'd take another final back when I finished my degree. But here I am, another final under my belt, seriously considering taking a few more to get an advanced degree.

This has been an amazing few months. I surprised myself because I went kicking and screaming back into the arms of nursing. I didn't want to go. I liked what I was doing and was content to have nursing as the safety net I didn't have to deploy. But that all changed when my husband started a new chapter in his life -- leaving IBM. It's been a tough road, but I think it has made us stronger. I think we both had fallen into complacency, which is never a good thing career wise. I graduated the first time during a nursing surplus. There is nothing quite like society telling you that even though there was a shortage when you chose this profession, you've unluckily graduated just in time for experienced RN's being laid off and joining the labor pool. Good luck finding a job. Yeah, those were the days. But I guess that is what the profession is all about. Like rabbits and coyotes, we come in cycles. Sometimes a glut, and sometimes a shortage. But be sure to watch because the next curve is right around the corner.

Right now there is a shortage. And according to some of our lecturers, there will be a shortage for some time. One of the statistics we were told is that by 2010 there will be 200,000 RN full time positions unfilled. The silver tsunami is on its way -- baby boomers are getting older. Johnson & Johnson made a huge advertising drive to get more people to consider the nursing profession. Elsewhere in the country, the backlog for nursing students is because there aren't enough masters prepared nursing instructors. Here in Washington, we've got people on waiting lists for ADN programs not for lack of advanced degree nurses (we've got plenty of them apparently), but because hospitals here are overburdened with students.

But I wanted to show you the picture of most of my classmates. Alan was late and I didn't get him in the shot. (Sorry, Alan.) But here we are. These are amazing women, every last one of them. And I'm proud to have met them, have studied with them, led some of them to victory twice in Jeopardy (mmm... chocolate), and most importantly, made friends with them. Remember these faces. If you are ever in need of medical care, hope you see one of these people looking at you. You'll be in competent and caring hands.

Christmas spirit all year long

Everyday I have to go to class, I need to take a bus from downtown to the college. There are always tons of people walking busily here and there. And much of the time, they try to avoid eye contact or contact of any kind with the homeless. They populate the streets. When the weather gets colder, their plight gets more dire. There is one man who lives out of a shopping cart under the overpass. I walk by there on my way to the bus stop. I've never seen him approach people but instead he puts a coffee can out in front of his lawn chair in silent appeal for spare change. Every now and then I've noticed fresh fruits or vegetables on his shopping cart. I remember thinking about how he must use his meager means to try to buy good food for himself. But today, I got to see a the real deal (Christmas spirit I mean)in action.

While all of us raced to get to our various jobs, bus stops, offices, we each keep our heads down and walk/jog as quickly as possible. I walked behind this one guy, probably middle aged. He wore blue pants, a blue windbreaker with no discernible brand name emblazoned on the back, carried a lunch pail and thermos in one hand with a messenger bag slung across his other shoulder. Without breaking stride, without even saying hello to the sleeping figure sitting in the lawn chair, this man placed a banana on top of the shopping cart which was piled with all the worldly possessions of that sleeping man. I noticed that he didn't break stride. He didn't slow down and fiddle in his bag looking for something to hand the homeless person. He knew what he was doing. He did it in a practiced quiet way. And he thought no one was looking.

But this time somebody was. Me.

And now I'm thinking about what I can do to help lessen the hardships of the homeless. I've thought about putting together some care packages. Or maybe I can convince my Brownie troop to do so.

But I suppose this is how it starts. Just one random act of kindness. Unheralded. Uncelebrated. But not uninspiring.

Buahahahahaha

I'm Catholic. To be more specific, I'm a cradle Catholic. This means that I was born and raised in the faith. This has brought with it a bunch of bummers. I remember thinking when I was a kid that it was unfair because some people don't become Catholic until they're really old, like 20 or 30. And those people get to live all that time not worrying about sinning or going to confession or worst of all, sitting in mass every Sunday -- for all those years! And then they still get to go to heaven. Where is the justice in that? But the upside of having gone to mass all those years is that you know all the words by heart -- somethings change every week, like announcements, homily and the readings of course -- but knowing what comes next allows you the freedom to notice other little things.

Kids are always sources of amusement, easy targets that way. There have been a lot of Altar Server trainings recently, so every week there are at least 4 (if not more) novice Altar Servers. They're always sitting right up front behind the altar behaving like little kids behave. Yes, I enjoy watching them fidget, make faces, and pick their noses then wipe the mess on their robes. I enjoy watching them bicker over who gets to ring the bells. I especially enjoy watching Father Emmett trying to discretely cue them on what they're supposed to do next. Sometimes he makes a movement with his hands to direct them and sometimes he whispers instructions to the kids. (That would work a little better if he remembered to turn off his microphone when he did it.) He's a sweet and patient man -- and let me tell you, those kids need it. I am particularly thankful, every time I watch these antics, that my son has no interest in taking the Altar Server training. I just don't want to sit there, staring at my kid picking his nose, sleeping or bickering behind the altar. It's bad enough that he does that in the pew.

Even better than watching kids are watching adults. You think you know what you're supposed to do because you've been to mass a gazillion times during your life. But then, when they ask you to bring up the offertory or maybe read the announcements before and after, you are all of a sudden on center stage. You realize that you've not been paying attention very well and you don't know where you're supposed to walk. Or are you supposed to bow? Or are you supposed to walk away the way you came or by a different route? Details, details. Those are the moments I treasure, when the adults, with all the eyes of the congregation on them, desperately try to recall what they've seen performed countless times, and come up blank. Priceless.

Today I witnessed, quite possibly, the most hysterical moment in church of my entire life. And sadly, I'm the only one who laughed.

Before mass started, the lector (reader) went to the podium to make announcements. People rarely start listening then but I perked up. He thanked people in advance for getting Giving Tree Christmas presents for those less fortunate. He thanked people for all the help with the auction and that the tickets were almost all sold. And lastly he thanked us for participation in the recent blood drive.

"Thank you to those who gave blood in our blood drive as our need for blood continues to grow." And then he added, "Uh... in our community."

After he said the word "grow," there were a couple of ways he could have gone with it. Like he could have just walked away and not have noticed the fairly macabre sentence he had just uttered. "Our need for blood continues to grow..." Because he added, "in our community," it suggests his brain heard what he said and realized that it came off oddly. If he hadn't noticed it himself, it wouldn't have been funny. But part of me wishes, deep down, that instead of adding "in our community," he would have just ended with, "BUAHAHAHAHAHA..." Now that would have been funny.

Peace be with you. Buahahahahaha....

***Update: I drove by the church today. There is a sign up that they're having ANOTHER blood drive this Wednesday. (12/12) Our NEED for BLOOD continues to grow...

A whole lotto nuthin'

Today my mother asked me, "Can we go to the store to buy lotto tickets?"

Seemed like a strange request, but I said that we were low on milk, so why not? We could got get some Lotto tickets.

Then she told me the really cool part of why she wanted to get the tickets. See, she had a dream last night. I totally believe in prescient dreams. I really think they are true.

Like this one time, I dreamed that my brother Norm took me and my friend Charlotte to visit some waterfalls. I was lying down in the back seat of his car on the way there. Charlotte lived in Hawaii; Norm & I were going to the UW in Seattle. Chances were slim this would ever happen. When I woke up, I thought it was a bizarre dream. But a few months later, Charlotte came to visit for a weekend, Norm offered to drive us to the falls, and I laid down in the back seat of his car because of some heavy partying the night before. So it came true! Doesn't that give you chicken skin?

While I was pregnant with Lil'T, I had another one of these dreams that just felt prescient to me. I was walking in the back yard of our house, which was a big yellow house, and the kids and my husband walked out. They were followed by a 18 month old toddler boy. He was wearing a yellow and gray striped play suit and little baby work boots. I thought, "Huh, I guess I'm having a boy after all. It's not a girl." And then out popped Lil'T from the house. She looked about 3 - 4 years old. She was dressed in lavender coveralls wearing heart or strawberry shaped sunglasses. Her hair was done up in 2 ponytails. She told me she loved me and then gave me a kiss, then followed her brothers and sister out to the yard. We don't live in a yellow house, but paint is cheap. If I do get pregnant again, I'll paint the house.

Anyway, back to my mom. She didn't dream about a winning lotto ticket exactly. She actually dreamed about buying a used Volvo from her friend's daughter. It was only 5 years old but it had 17,246 miles on it. That was what she remembered. So she figured, it might be a sign, right? Well, we went to the store and while I was checking out with our milk, she went to the counter where they sell the lottery tickets. There was a line building up behind her and it turned out that she was having the guy punch in the numbers individually, instead of filling out one of those scantron forms so you can do it yourself. When I approached the counter, she asked me for a number off the top of my head. She said she didn't have enough numbers. As we left the store, she said that she had only used the mileage from the dream so she was short 2 numbers. She used the 17, 2, 4 & 6. She didn't even use the 5 (from the age of the car).Well, I certainly couldn't have that, right? So we put the groceries in the car and the nice young (incredibly patient) man behind the counter gave us the forms to fill out her numbers. We still had to pick out an extra number, because you need 6 numbers.

As we were leaving the store, we started chatting about the dream again. Mom said, "I remember thinking, why does Phyllis's daughter's car have this sign on it?"

"What did the sign say, Mom?"

"Oh, it said $26,000. But it's kind of a high price, because it was a used car, after all."

Seriously, I think if you could have seen me at that exact second, I would have had my jaw on the floor. I told her that I couldn't believe she didn't mention the 26 before. And if we were off on the lotto ticket by the number 26, I'd have to eat my hat!

The nice young man behind the counter saw us coming, and without even greeting us, handed us the forms to fill out. Who knew that buying Lotto tickets could be such an ordeal?

Mom promised that after she buys her Volvo with her winnings, she'll pay off the mortgage on our house and those of my brothers.

And can you believe, as we were walking out of the store the very last time, she said, "Well, it was a lot to ask for a car from 2002."

Aaaaggghhh!!!

***Update: (12/11) We checked all of Mom's Lotto tickets and not a single one produced a winner. I know you're all shocked. But in her defense, she said that she didn't dream about a lottery ticket, but a car.

Help me

Ever since my youngest was an infant (okay, it wasn't that long ago) I've used a Sleep Sack. I love these things. They're endorsed by the people who fight Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). Loose blankets around a baby's face have been associated with SIDS. In one terrible post-partum freak out, I googled SIDS and read absolutely heart wrenching stories from people who have lost their kids that way. I went out and bought a few of these sacks like they were manna from Heaven. Anything that would keep my baby safe from that bogey man was welcome.

When Lil'T turned 1 1/2 years old, she got too big for even the largest Sleep Sack. Then Halo, the company who makes these wearable blankets, psychically felt my angst. They realized how we mothers and fathers had come to make the Sleep Sack an essential part of our night routines and we were loathe to get rid of them. They designed the Sleep Sack for toddlers. I ordered 3 of them, and now I've discovered that they make them in 4T/5T size, so we'll be okay for a few more years.

When she was very little, Lil'T could not express her displeasure at being exiled nightly to her crib. Sure, she cried or fussed, but like magic, within minutes of her back lying on the crib mattress, she would fall asleep. Now that she's 2, she's very verbal. After her bath, she'll happily pick out her own sleeper, but the second she sees that Sleep Sack, she objects mightily.

"Don't want it!" She'll shake her head and run for the arms of any adult who isn't carrying the dreaded Sleep Sack. My mother has decided that because Lil'T's love for her father is so boundless, he can wrap her up in it nightly. This only works for a short time, because my husband is such a soft touch, it kills him to have her fuss. Then the task usually falls to me.

The other night, I was at a meeting for the Christmas Pageant, so it was just Mom & my hubby with the baby. I didn't actually witness this scene, but I hope I'll do it justice.

My husband had retrieved the Sleep Sack and put it over his shoulder before he went into the living room to fetch Lil'T. When she saw the Sleep Sack, she knew instantly what was about to happen. Her fears were confirmed when my husband picked her up and said, "Tell Lola good-night."

Instead, she reached out her little pudgy hands towards my mother and begged, "Mom! Help! Mom!" It was desperate, futile, but at the same time, pretty funny.

The kids don't understand "bum-bye"

My mother called out to my kids -- "Eh, stop jumping on the bed, bum-bye you katonk your head."

This is a sentence that I grew up with. And you know what, I distinctly remember jumping on my parents' bed while both of them were out of the room because I knew that I would get that warning yelled at me. I also knew that I had jumped on their bed countless times without katonking my head. I knew what I was doing. And yet, I remember the day that I did fall. And I wish I could say that I remember my mother coming in and hugging me and kissing my boo-boo away. All I really can remember is her saying, "See. I tole you that you would katonk your head."

I figure that most people can relate to this sentence, even if I didn't explain what katonk or bum-bye means. But I suppose that I might translate a little.

I don't know if "katonk" is meant to be an onomatopoeia but I think it must be. I don't even know if it has its roots in Tagalog, Ilocano, Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Portugese, or just plain old pidgin English -- but I always took it to be the sound of my head hitting the floor. It also can be used as an active verb. As in the sentence, "I'm gonna katonk your head if you don't knock it off." Or the one that was often heard around my house growing up, "I'm gonna katonk your heads together if you don't knock it off." So it might also be the sound of two heads being knocked together by an irate mother. I don't know what that sounds like, really. I don't think she ever hit our heads together, but if she did, she knocked them together so hard that I don't remember.

"Bum-bye" is the word I think probably needs more explanation. My father said that it was the corruption of the phrase, "by and by," which does seem to ring true to me. I mean, who ever says that? There is an old Hawaiian song that suggested, "bum-bye, bum-bye, means 'later on' okay..." I think that was not completely accurate. Sure I've heard it used that way as in, "First we go Sam's Club, bum-bye we go Longs."

But in the context of how it was used all my life, I think the more accurate translation is, "a possible consequence may be..." Just look at the sentence my mother shouted at my kids today. "(Hey), stop jumping on the bed, (a possible consequence may be) you (loudly hitting your)head (on the floor)."

The reason I wrote this explanation was because there is a little bit of a culture shock going on here between my mother and my kids. We all speak English here. My mother has lived in this country for 50 years and is a proud citizen of the USA. Having spent those 50 years in Hawaii, where the English language got mixed in with dozens of other languages, some of the English that she speaks is a little different from here.

My dad used to always tell about when he joined the Army and got stationed in Arkansas. After his commanding officer had spoken to him, the CO turned to a friend of my dad's and asked, "What language is he speaking?" My dad's pidgin accent was so strong, you could barely hear the English in the Pidgin English. And my mom probably has spent most of her life learning her English from that man. But my dad's time in the service cleaned up his accent really well. He could always turn it on and off like a spigot.

When my mom scolded my kids today, I didn't even think that what she said needed explanation. I understood it to my core. That was until my husband piped up and said, "The kids don't understand 'bum-bye.'" That was an eye-opener. I kind of think I only channel my Waipahu roots when I'm really irate or PMSing. It is then that the tita buried deep inside me erupts out of my mouth.

A stern warning. "Don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry."

Or if Tita Tess were to say it, "Eh, knock it off! Bum-bye I katonk your head."