October is a happening month

Published in the Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition on Sep. 23, 2011

Wednesday, my husband took the day off to drive me into Washington, D.C. to the recording studio of WAMU 88.5 FM, http://www.wamu.org/. This station plays my favorite source of news from NPR, National Public Radio http://www.npr.org/.


I realize it’s risky to tell you what I listen to. Someone on Facebook commented that NPR stands for “Never Praise Republicans” so they prefer not to listen. For me, it’s not about the politics; it’s a window on the world with in-depth coverage. Watching the news on television, sometimes you have to wonder what got more coverage: the anchorwoman’s hair, face, and wardrobe, or the news? With radio, early in the morning, right in your kitchen or in your car, you can travel to a village halfway across the world. You can hear the voices of the locals and learn of their triumphs and travails. Granted, you have no pictures, but that’s where the reporter’s words and your mind collaborate together.


I read aloud my commentary on Halloween. It was brief. You know I’m not, by nature, brief. But they have an editor who can slash better than Freddy Krueger and Congress put together. So my humorous attempts have been limited to two-and-a-half minutes, which is a quick 150 seconds. For those seconds, my husband took a whole day off. Each minute that I’ll be on the air, he devoted an hour of driving time.


Plus, with his time management techniques, we got there with about an hour and a half to spare. It’s a good thing he accompanied me, because we don’t view time management in the same way. For me, that amount of free time could have equaled putting dinner into the slow cooker and dashing about the house to change the bed sheets, seconds before leaving in panic and disarray. Weirdly, the urge for me to do those things when there is no deadline is not as great. For him, it’s all a matter of setting priorities.


The night before, as we were finishing up with dinner and the disarray of dishes, and homework papers, my husband very coolly set up a big microphone, chair, and headset connected to the speakers in the living room for me to do a few practice runs. It was like a scene out of “The King’s Speech.” Once again, you might be horrified, but we thought it was such an exceptional movie, that all of our kids have seen it. We just had the little discussion about what words are not considered appropriate first.


In reading it aloud, I was initially slow, deliberate, and hesitant and then, as I sensed the time crunch, rushed through the delivery. (I think this is how I operate in life in general.)


“No, Mom. That doesn’t even sound like you,” my thirteen-year-old son objected. My husband suggested that our son, a natural orator, have a go at the read-through. (He is the one who used to continue his soliloquies, even when left alone in the bathroom during potty training.) I had to add that little tidbit in, just in case he’s getting too big for his boots. As Niles delivered the script, his hands developed a life of their own. They automatically twirled, outstretched, and performed all manner of gesticulations while his eyebrows danced up and down on his forehead. You could see his suppressed smile as he delivered my tongue-in-cheek words. Ordinarily, it can be a little annoying to be in the same room with someone who is obviously more gifted or talented (are they the same thing?) than you are – especially if they are younger. But not now. You cannot feel anything but pride when you are outshined by any child, and more so when it is your own. Can there be any joy greater than this?


I’ll let you know when the commentary is supposed to air and how you can hear it if you and your radio refuse to travel to WAMU, 88.5 FM. I only wish you could have heard Niles deliver it. That kid is a natural.


Two other quick notes: if you don’t have plans for next weekend, you do now. Learning Tree Farms in Delaplane is hosting its Annual Picnic on Sunday, October 2nd from 11 am until 4 pm. Everything is absolutely free: food (from 12:30 – 2:30), hayrides, kite flying, fishing, reenactments from the Civil War, artillery range, face-painting, a hay bale maze, and live music. We went last year and got to meet owner Mary Collins as she handed out t-shirts (also free). I hope to meet her other half, David Collins, this year. I can’t think of a better way to bring in the fall. Visit their website, http://www.learningtreefarms.com/ or call 540-364-0484 for more information.


Also, I’ll be speaking at the Forum for Women at Lord Fairfax Community College on Saturday, October 8th. It’s hosted by Fauquier Women. Call Marsha Melkonian at 540-270-5434, or visit their website at http://www.fauquierwomen.org/. The event runs from 8:30 am until 2:30 pm, and there will be a vendor fair concurrent with the seminars. Pre-registration is $10 including breakfast and a boxed lunch. Hope to see you there!

Words, words, words…what are a few words?

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend Edition 9/16/2011

“It’s not that I mind refilling your prescriptions,” I said to my husband as I speed-dialed the pharmacy. His medications were aligned before me like candidates hoping to be re-elected. “I just want you to see how easy it is to do. That way, if something happens to me, you can still keep up with your medications.”

“Vin,” my husband began in that way that always leaves me wondering, even after 25 years, how serious he’s being, “if something happens to you, I will just crawl into the coffin, right next to you.” At the risk of sounding morbid, that is the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.

He’s telling me that, despite his efficiency and time management techniques (which are very noble except when he tries to apply them to me), in spite of his extensive reading and numerous hobbies, his wizardry with computers, and his unequivocally superior intellect, he doesn’t feel qualified to handle life without me. Just a few words - sometimes, that’s all it takes to make a sad and silly person happy. (I do accept flowers and candy too, of course.)


I was elated for days. I waste time. I procrastinate. I live in clutter. I’m not a great housekeeper or cook. Of course, I have my good points, but they happen to be buried in the clutter at the moment.


My husband is not a man of flowery speech. He has a Ph.D. in physics. Need I say more? If he wants to tell you something directly, he just does.

Many readers have asked about him since his massive heart attack in November. He is doing really, really well. Thank you for your concern and prayers. My husband’s cholesterol levels are superb and he has lost 45 pounds. But nowadays my husband constantly mentions how easy it is to lose weight – not in a bad, hinting sort of way. You have to remember that as a scientist, he is simply making observations and stating facts. Repeatedly.

Scientists love to repeat things. They are all about doing experiments and repeated trials. Listening to him repeat himself is becoming a trial for me. While he has been shedding pounds, I have been finding them and trying them on for size: A bigger size.

But don’t feel bad. He’s talking about calories consumed versus calories expended – it’s so beautifully simple, you see. He usually does this when we are walking up the hill together, which is a good thing, because don’t expect me to be walking and talking. I guess, when it comes to calories, I’m just a conservative spender. I’m banking them away in case times (or I) ever get too lean. He claims I don’t need to lose any weight, even though the weight charts say differently. He likes my plumpness, but I’m not sure if I want to be mistaken for a prime roaster hen. But I’m not afraid; if I thought he wanted me to lose pounds, he’d just say so, directly.

Sometimes I think he’s too direct.

When we lived in California, we had an unmarried couple for neighbors. With them lived the man’s teenaged daughter, because her mother – I can’t say if she had ever been his wife - had been killed in a car accident when the girl was just four years old. On alternate weekends, his elementary-school-aged son would visit. That boy’s mother – I’m not sure if she was the man’s wife, ex-wife, or had never been his wife – lived in another town nearby. I hope you were able to follow that. I’m sorry; it’s a little complicated without names.

Let me make clear that despite the complications, we liked our neighbors. I would often help the teen with her math homework. She would often help me out by “playing” with our young daughters and managed to get them to clean their room in the process. We had dinner together.

The woman who was our neighbor was beautiful and kind. She sewed matching sunflower outfits for my girls and made me a maternity dress when I was expecting my first son. Whenever she saw me looking frazzled, she would invite my daughters over. Upon their return, they always sported something new that she had “thrown together” – in duplicate, of course. Maybe it was a tiara with a veil. Once it was a long tutu. You know the kind? You have to beg and bargain with your daughters to remove these before bathing, bedtime, and public excursions. Otherwise, they wore those tutus so much they might as well have been tattoos. How could you not like this woman?

Anyway, as the teen grew older, she moved away to live with her mother’s relatives, and then ended up cohabiting with some unsavory character. At least, that’s what I gathered from the lamentations of our neighbors that day as they stood outside wringing their hands. “Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, sympathizing.
My husband was more direct – too direct. “Well, where do you think she learned this from?” Ouch.

Now you see why his few words thrilled me so much the other day.

Remembering our lives one decade ago

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat, Weekend on September 9, 2011


Is there any question whatsoever of what is on the collective mind of our nation this week? Is there any doubt where our hearts linger and lie? The anguish and dismay, and for many, the bitterness and anger are as fresh as if it had happened yesterday.


In a moment, in several long, slow motion moments on that sobering morning of September 11, 2001, our lives and our iconic landscape were utterly devastated. That was a decade ago: ten long years, gone in a flash. Where have they gone, and what have we done?


Don’t we all remember that stunned silence? The watching in horror as the events unfolded and as one was foiled. Whether or not we were there or lost a loved one or feared losing a loved one, we were all affected. Our hearts were one in grief and in courage. We were united as a nation. We were not Anything-Americans then. We were under attack. We were hurting. We were helping each other. We were one.


All of us, those who are old enough to remember, know just where we were and what we were doing when we got the news. Those images are indelibly etched in our minds.


When I visit the elementary school to have lunch with my youngest children, I look at our bustling and chatty young population. Very few of these children were born on September 11, 2001. Yet, they have all been touched in some way or the other.


A classmate of my son tells me his dad is in the military and that he will have to go far, far away in just a few days. This child is in second grade. It makes me wonder about the children a world away. What have their lives been? What has the entirety of their existence and experience been? And what will they grow up thinking and believing?


An innocence has been lost. Once gone, it can never be reclaimed. Just longed for, and wept over. We are older and wiser and more cautious. We are more guarded. Do we love as easily and trust as much? Or do we do more so now, knowing that life is but moments linked together. At any point, those links can be broken. So we hang on to each moment, and we live life fully.


Ten years ago, we were newcomers to a suburb of Columbus, Ohio. It was September 11th, and the only significance it had for me then, early that morning, was that the next day was my birthday.


I had only the four children then, and the thought of turning 35 made me feel old. After the day’s tragedies unfolded, there was no thought of silly birthdays. There was the eeriness of those silent skies for days afterward. There were the scenes of plumes of dust and ash and terrified people running through the streets.


There was only the sudden and sobering realization that we have no guarantee of anything. We ought to embrace the day – today is the only day we have, and even that, we don’t know fully.


I look back ten years ago, and wonder how I was so foolish as to feel that old age, parading as the number 35, was encroaching upon me. Even though it’s trite, it’s true: Today is the youngest we’re ever going to be. For the young people who can’t wait to grow up, it’s a consolation. For those of us trying to cling to our former figures and fresher faces, it should make us joyful. Today, we are younger than we will ever be. Today we are alive. Today. That’s what we have. That’s all we have. Let us make the most of it.

Let us not forget, but let us forgive, and move forward. Let us bring healing to those with hurting hearts. Let us honor the memories of all who lost their lives on that horrifying day and in those days that followed, and in the many years since.


Tomorrow, should our Maker allow us to dwell here on His footstool for another day, will be new and fresh and bright with hope and promise. Let us be a part of that. Lord, let us be peacemakers.

A Rough and Rocky Start to the School Year

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, September 2, 2011

Yesterday, I earned a dollar. It was from my own child. He is six years old.

I have offered to drive any children who miss the morning bus – specifically, my own offspring - to school. Just because I’m posing as a writer, doesn’t mean I can afford to work for nothing. I have to charge something. When you don’t want a behavior to be repeated, you have to inflict some form of pain or discomfort on the offending party. This pain varies from person to person. For some, it is being deprived of the next good thing, whether it is a social activity, some form of junk food, or just plain old money.

I have threatened to charge a dollar per ride. So far, I have earned three dollars. Two are from a repeat customer. You guessed it; the little guy is my big spender.

The first week of school was rough, by anyone’s standards. There were some unsettling things, like an earthquake on the second day of school, leading to an evacuation that brought students home without their backpacks or belongings. Midweek was a day off for students so officials could ensure facilities were safe. By the weekend, there was the threat of a hurricane. Not your typical first week.

In light of this, I should be a little patient with my children and make allowances, but look where patience got me. I don’t even get an allowance either.

The first week concluded with me driving the two youngest to school, and me with $ 2 more in my pocket. It served as an effective deterrent for the one child. The next morning, she was dressed and ready, had her backpack on, with the loaded lunch bag clamped to her bag, and breakfast well settled into her belly, all with about 35 minutes to spare. Could she just go ahead and walk up the hill, now, she wanted to know. She didn’t want to run the risk of running late. Meanwhile, the little brother was stumbling about in his pajamas, claiming he just needed to stretch out on the sofa for a few more minutes.

She, on the other hand, was not going to engage in this sort of risky behavior. She was not going to endanger her dollar. She was giving herself enough time, half an hour, to cover the space of five houses. I believe that even if she were suddenly transformed into a mollusk along the way, she would have had enough time to snail up the hill and make it back for a quick goodbye hug. But still, it’s noble. She learned. Unfortunately, the other child did not.

The whole problem with the other child is that I don’t understand his psychology. He would rather pay the dollar and have the extra time with Mom. Huh?

As flattering as it is to have people I don’t yet know come up and introduce themselves to me and tell me how much they love reading this column (thank you, Ginger Schrank for your sweet, kind words!), it is far more flattering when it comes from someone who actually has to live with you and put up with all of your shortcomings. See that picture of mine? It’s always smiling. See me? I’m not.

Sometimes I yell. I have to, because I live with children, and I don’t have that effortless philosophy of people who can get children to do whatever they need them to do by speaking in hushed tones all the time. The only times I used hushed tones are when I have gone hoarse with yelling. Frankly, this hissing-whisper-control seems like the skill set possessed by a snake charmer. The other reason that I have to yell is because no one has purchased me that bullhorn or even the megaphone yet. (My husband keeps threatening to buy one for me to improve the efficiency of our household.)

So, I am overall terribly flattered that this child is having some separation anxiety. It’s sick and selfish, I know. But he’s my baby. Who else is going to be interested in sticking by my side? And how long will it last, anyway?

It’s young children who actually like the company of their parents. I don’t want to paint older children out to be some sort of evil villains. If you have them, then you will already know that for yourselves. Just kidding. Older children are the ones who have discovered other things and other people who are more entertaining than we are, which is a little bruising to our egos.

And I guess his separation anxiety is understandable. It’s a long day to be away. We spent the last two years traveling and going to school together – the first year in Reston, and last year to Vint Hill. No wonder this waving goodbye to board the giant yellow school bus is a strange model for him.
 He’s still small and he’s still young. If I blink my eyes, it will be gone. And so will he.

Then, I will be the one peeling out the dollars to try to get in a little bonding time. I think I’ll stop charging a fee for now.

Remembrances from the other earthquake zone

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, Aug. 26, 2011

I have recently met more readers than I dared to suspect I had. Thank you for stopping me. I love meeting you, because our dialogue is so often one-sided. When you stop me at the post office, pool, grocery store, school, or even at the polling station, it leaves me ebullient. The only time I ask that you don’t stop me is if you are an officer of the law - in the line of duty.

Who can forget our earthquake last week? We lived in Northern California for nine years, and I don’t recall one. But when I was sent on a weeklong business trip from Long Island, New York, to Los Angeles, we experienced one then.


My husband, being a creature of higher intelligence, always accompanied me on business trips. We had a single toddler in tow. When he had business trips to exquisite destinations, I was always the idiot who felt compelled to stay at work. Then, I would suffer pangs of jealousy and regret as he described sunken tubs of black marble in posh hotels. I know. You didn’t think they let scientists out of the lab, right? He was serving as an expert DNA witness in court.


When I started my life of stay-at-home-dom (which equates to martyrdom for some), I longed for another such opportunity to escape, but it never seemed to appear. Or perhaps, my husband, being the creature of higher intelligence, never let on to such opportunities.


There was the one trip to Santa Barbara when the three kids and I tagged along. It was a gorgeous holiday, despite my being newly pregnant, and the youngest, a two-year-old boy, insisting on wearing a girl’s bathing suit to the beach. He was having none of this trunk exposure stuff. We acquiesced, realizing we couldn’t get to the beach otherwise. We coached our girls, then five and seven, not to hint as to gender of their sibling. We didn’t know anyone there. What would it matter?


It is the same liberating anonymity as when you go camping, know no one, and feel fine walking around with Einstein’s hairdo. Who will know? Who will care? Perhaps this is also the danger with out interactions online. It is easy to become too friendly with people we have never met – “e-quaintances,” I believe they are called. Who will know? Who will care? Trust me, someone or Someone knows and cares.


We had barely set foot on the beach, when our second daughter squealed, “Hey! Why is he wearing a girl’s bathing suit? He’s a boy!” She then dashed about, delightedly repeating this to random, arbitrary strangers. It was the nineties’ version of sending out a public tweet. She’s in college now, and surprisingly, she isn’t pursuing journalism.


When we went to rent the quadricycle, the girls were thrilled. Each child had to be helmeted, which seemed a simple enough business. The two girls donned their headgear. The man went through his entire inventory of children’s helmets, but our little XY shrieked the moment any helmet approached his head. We couldn’t get that thing near him. It was like an invisible force field around his body that inflicted pain or an electric shock every time the helmet approached him. So, he retaliated by inflicting pain on us, in the form of piercing screams and embarrassing public tantrums.


This is why I avoid any joining in of eye rolling at stores when someone’s child is having a fit. I realize that we all think we are smarter and more astute than the inept parent who doesn’t understand proper parenting techniques the way we do or did, whether we have children or not. But some kids are just different. Way different, and we need to be as thankful for them as we are for the ones who help us believe we are sane and competent.


The shrieking and body writhing never stopped until I walked, defeated, back to the hotel room with the creature still struggling, and got out his sister’s bright pink bike helmet (odd, why HAD we packed that for the trip?), and put it on him. Putting that helmet on him was like the tranquilizer dart hitting home on a charging rogue elephant. Ah, peace. All was well with the world. I trudged back to the quadricycle, fatigued and annoyed. If this was peace, it was a disgusted sort of peace.


If I recall, my husband had to do all the pedaling for the whole family. He fixed me with accusatory glares. Me, the mother of the contented boy who could finally be calmed by that glaring pink helmet. The girls were oblivious to our tension. (It’s so nice when they are young.) They gleefully enjoyed the fruits of their father’s labor and delighted in everything the beach had to offer.

Maybe that’s why this was the only business trip I was invited on as a stay-at-home mom. And maybe that’s why we never experienced earthquakes as Californians. We always seemed to have our own built-in version, right at home.

V-A-C-A-T-I-O-N at the end of summertime

Published in the Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend on August 19, 2011

Who said summer could be over? I’ve barely nicked our list of summer projects. True, we can walk through the garage now, and there have been sightings of our basement floor, but where did the time go?

Sunday night we returned from a quick, three-day getaway into the mountains. We’ve barely begun our summer fun. How can it be time for school?


We had relatives visit for eleven days, made a single day trip to New Jersey for my nephew’s graduation and my cousin’s 50th birthday, took the kids to the swimming pool at the WARF several times, drove into DC to the Natural History Museum, and saw Luray Caverns again, but did I ever play a game of chess with my sons? Did I get around to a simple sewing project with my youngest daughter? Have I read a book?

This year, I did things backwards. Since I normally do things so slowly or late that it may as well be backwards, this should have approached the domain of the double negative and set me straight, but it hasn’t. I took the children school supply shopping early. (Of course, you read that column.) With that out of the way, I could start thinking about planning a vacation.

With the threat of summer ebbing and school washing in, we had only one weekend available. Unfortunately, our eldest daughter had signed up for the GRE on that one magical weekend, so it was going to be a lonely trip: just the seven of us and our shelter dog.

I realized then that planning a vacation actually takes a little time, effort, and of course, planning. I’ve even heard about businesses that do this for you! You’d have to wonder about our sense of family vacations. We have a few preferences: It needs to be within driving distance. Please don’t make it too physically taxing. I’m in no shape to be hiking up some mountain, and I’m a little nervous of water, so don’t expect me to be snorkeling around somewhere. It should have some educational value beyond learning that I’m in no shape to be hiking or snorkeling. It should include museum and/or zoo visits. If I get to be the driver to our lovely, life-long learning vacation resort, we will also intensify the experience by listening to an audio book in the car.

Think of normal life as the ant that is outdoors enjoying the sunshine, and vacation as being the ant enjoying the sunshine under a magnifying glass. Perhaps there is a reason we keep our vacations short. Maybe standardized testing is less painful than a vacation with the Ribeiro Family.

I’m thinking that our vacations worked better when the children were closer to one age group, instead of being sprawled across the decades from entering elementary school to legal adults. Isn’t it irritating how children insist upon growing up? The true beauty of childhood is that it takes so very little to please a child. A young child can be happy with the smallest things: kicking pebbles together, rolling around and laughing on the carpet, or trying to catch toads and butterflies. These things can delight the heart of a small child.

We traveled with three teenagers.

These teens had wanted to go to the beach. Or was it everyone that was in a rebellious mood? They had already seen and remembered, in excruciating detail, our visit several years ago to the Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, Virginia. I tried to remind them about our compressed, 40-hour vacation to Virginia Beach last year, which, incidentally, is perhaps the best vacation we’ve taken. If we applied the same logic, they had already “been there, done that” with the sand and the waves. Why should they want to go again (and again)? Apparently, the flavor of the beach does not wear out the way the flavor of a museum does. The older, more sophisticated, and more jaded hearts are a little harder to delight.

Some of the more mutinous of our group awoke late on the morning of departure, and hadn’t packed a single thing for themselves. By contrast, the two youngest had been packed up for a week. (We will not hold it against the six-year-old that he forgot to pack any shirts. After all, he had packed everything else that mattered: a toothbrush, underwear, shorts, pajamas, and his stuffed dinosaur and a pocket-sized fighter jet.)

The older children approached my amazing vacation plans with the enthusiasm of criminals heading to the gallows. Come to think of it, they were acting like criminals that should have been heading to the gallows. One thoughtful soul helpfully offered, an hour before departure, to stay at home and finish summer assignments. This new plan could lighten the load on the car, open up more space for baggage, alleviate concerns about pet care, and reduce our carbon footprint.

I offered my carbon footprint.

Remind me on our next vacation to the mountains to bring along a bucket of sand and a pail of water for those who are missing the beach.

Doing the dirty deed

Published in The Fauquier Times-Democrat Weekend, August 12th, 2011

Someone once said, “You haven’t really lived until you’ve had to collect your child’s stool sample.” Okay, no one said that, but this thought occurred to me once when I was amidst this unsavory act. Rest assured, it was for medical purposes. I don’t have the time, energy, space, or desire to be a hobby collector. Besides, saving up potential coprolite (literally, “dung stone”) would not be on my list.


Indeed, the sordid act is stomach turning. While engaged in the deed, this single-sentence complaint wafted through my mind. It could be the kernel of a column, because writing a weekly column is like being a professional complainer, except you don’t derive a living off of this exceptional ability. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.


Do you know what happens whenever I complain about things, even mentally? The things I complain about get worse. I know I sound like a superstitious scaredy-cat. Perhaps it is a weakness in my faith, but it happens often enough to be uncanny. I feel like that Skinnerian rat (or cat) that has developed the habit of turning around thrice before pressing the food lever because that’s how it worked the first twelve times.


I once had to take a child’s specimen. It’s one thing to keep your child’s medals and trophies – maybe the refrigerator artwork, or even those obnoxious yarn and Popsicle stick crafts they produce. But collecting stool samples is something else entirely. Poised with one of those scientific, tubular containers with the tiny spoon conveniently attached in the lid, you try desperately to disassociate this astute little medical device to its kin, the tiny ice cream sample spoon. Ew. This was not what you wanted to collect from your darling. The thought of samples has been forever tainted.


The moment I thought what a disgusting endeavor it was, how relieved I was (stop hunting for puns) that it was over, and how happy I should be if I never had to do this again, I found myself conscripted for the task of collecting, not a single specimen, but an entire supply for a general, 72-hour study.


Mathematical translation: “Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any stools? Yes, Mom, yes, Mom: Three days’ full.”


Notice how this task once again falls into the maternal domain? The maternal domain continues to expand like an unwilling oil slick: traditionally confined to the home to cook, clean, and train the children, we are now bringing in incomes, chauffeuring, managing finances, networking, arranging (or doing) car maintenance, and, yes, collecting medical samples.


So it was that events conspired against me. I would need to keep the child’s dietary log for three days, and then continue logging for another three days, during which time I was collecting that child’s…well, logs.


Excuse my crudeness. Since I debased myself and wrote about finding boogers on the walls of my home like an archaeologist discovering cave paintings, I find stooping to the topic of stools fairly tolerable. Next week, I might describe myself in a bathing suit.


Hence, I have collected everything for three days. EVERYTHING. I’m not going to name the child involved, because a little embarrassment, my children can tolerate. After all, they live with me. But this would be asking too much. It would also be telling too much.


Those with children in diapers might be rolling their eyes. They might be thinking they have already collected many months’ worth. True, you might be exposed to this on a daily basis. You might be disposing of it, but you aren’t collecting it. No one has told you to keep those nasty diapers refrigerated. As repulsive as I find the term “ew” to be, I will have to use it again. Ew. My refrigerator has been violated. I could complain, but I’m not going there. Instead, I’ll be glad we live in the era of modern medicine, refrigerators, and plastic. Especially plastic.


I used to think my husband’s refrigerating worms left over from a fishing trip was a little nasty and disturbing. I would dodge that shelf with the bagged, Styrofoam container of dirt and its nearly dormant wriggling contents. Now, finding worms in the fridge would be, comparatively, very desirable.


This morning, as soon as I click “SEND” to my editor, I am headed down to the UVA Hospital with this cargo, because their lab is one of the few that sends samples to the Mayo Clinic.


Should I keep the samples on ice for the 70-mile drive to Charlottesville? I could compensate for all the shopping trips when I’ve reused canvas bags: I’d go with a disposable cooler.

If I skip the cooler, I might have to speed. What would I say if I got pulled over? “Officer, I’m on an urgent medical mission, and with all due respect, I can’t take this crap from you.” Because, despite my exasperated pleas to my children that I can’t take any more crap from them, apparently, I can. And I do.