Posts from — February 2010

From Los Angeles, the flights to Africa  (3 of them in total) take very close to 24 hours.  When your teenager asks you how long it will take to get to Africa, you say: “Hey, do you want pizza tonight?”  If an hour or so later, they actually remember to ask again… you say, “I spoke to your math teacher today.”  and so on.  Don’t worry,  there is no way in hell any of them will ever, ever pick up anything that resembles an atlas and look at the actual distance.  Distract them.  Keep it to yourself.  The closest you should ever get to divulging the actual length of time is when you suggest they download about 14 to 17  full length feature films on their ipod for the trip there and back.

Only when the first plane has completely lifted off the ground and they bring up the subject again, can you laugh lightly and say, “Oh, I imagine it will take the day!”  At the end of the second flight (which should leave you in London or Amsterdam) they will be mad.  It’s disorienting for them.  They have not gotten a text in about fifteen hours, and no one has referred to them as ‘Dude.’  No amount of candy or P.C. magazines will bring them around.  Prepare for it.  Remain tirelessly cheerful.  Piss them off even more.  They’ll stop talking to you and give up.  Go to sleep.  You’re going to need your strength.

If your destination is Eastern Africa, the last leg of the trip will normally take you to Nairobi.  It’s there that you meet the rest of the people in your tour group, all of whom still have on their party manners.  No way to tell who anyone actually is yet.  The 18 or so of us in the group took a puddle jumper to Tarangire, jumped into our assigned jeeps with the other families, and began our first safari.

My son had been silent for  hours.  His final statement in Amsterdam, (“Tulips are fucked”) had been our last serious communication.  Now suddenly, here in the jeep, he was looking around.  He was making clever observations.  He was SMILING.  I was beside myself with joy.  I knew I’d made the right decision bringing him here.  I knew once we got to Africa he would come around.

I started to introduce myself to the family we were teaming up with, and as I did so, followed my son’s radiant smile across the jeep to… a fifteen year old, scantily clad, goddess.   She had smashed  herself against the back wall of the vehicle and was holding her bejeweled fingers up over her face.  She shook her beautifully coiffed head of hair back and forth, because what she had seen was too impossible for her to comprehend.  It was a bug.  ”My God it’s moving!” she shrieked, and then clearly outraged that this could be happening in the middle of Africa,  ”AND THERE’S ANOTHER ONE!!!!”

My son was intoxicated.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Five years ago, I decided I wanted to go on safari in Africa.  I wanted to see it before it was gone. I wanted to drive in a jeep, wind blowing through my hair, passing wildebeest and waving to giraffes.   My son thought it was a fantastic idea. But he was eight. At eight, Africa is cool.   At thirteen, Africa is two solid weeks of watching ‘dumb-ass animals stand around.’  I decided we’d better go soon.

Winter break, 2009, I went for it. I paid out vast amounts of money to tour companies and airlines and filled out papers for visas and passports. I made arrangements for shots  and malaria pills. I bought electric adaptors. Cameras with extra batteries. Pants that zip off into shorts. First aid, raincoats, ‘gators,’ Tamiflu just in case… It is a BIG job packing for this trip. Especially because I am accustomed to thinking, ‘well if I don’t pack it, I’ll buy it there.’ There is no ‘buy it there.’ It’s freaking Africa. There is no Target.  No CVS. There is (at best) a counter at a small airport that sells eighty year old Alka-Seltzer and santitary napkins  the size of a twin bed.

I told my son the arrangements were final. I told him all the details and he listened to me much in the same way he usually does. Which is to say, not at all. I know this because about a week before the trip he asked,
“When did you say we’re leaving?”
“The day you get out of school.”
“And when do we get back?”
“The day before school starts.”

He turned to me, furious.   “So, I get NO vacation.”

Thirty thousand dollars. Fourteen days. Business class tickets. Lions. Leopards. Hot air balloons. Tented camps.  And he doesn’t see it as a vacation.  One would think this might make me a tad upset  but folks, this is not my first rodeo.

“No,” I responded. “You get no vacation at all.”

He avoided all the preparations. He showed no interest whatsoever in the packing of the supplies. He was in complete denial.  When friends would try and engage him, (“Wow! I heard you’re going to Africa!”) he’d turn and stare bleeding holes through my head,  literally willing me to stop the senseless cruelty of all this.  ”Yes,” he’d say very slowly as though still trying to believe it himself.  ”Yes we are.”  A long pause, still unblinking.  ”And we just can’t wait.”

As the departure date got closer and closer, and he could no longer tune out the growing stacks of khaki clothing, he became hysterical at the concept that I was going to make him go through with this.

I… (and this is how I eventually won the war)… totally ignored him. For once, I took a page out of my parents book and just made up my mind that he had no say in anything.  I turned and floated out of the room as he screamed… “Where are we staying? Mom? Mom? Please answer me.  They have internet there, right?”

Well, no.  Where we were going, they politely suggest you might want to bring your own toilet paper…

TO BE CONTINUED…

I was very proud of myself when I bought my house. Single woman. Nice house. Way to go, huh?

I furnished it with things that were comfortable and fun. I had a kid. Got a couple dogs. Hired a housekeeper. Things went well for several years. Everybody got along.

Now it seems, I’m going to have to leave.  There’s no room for me here anymore. Certainly not in the den where my voice is just an unwanted interruption to my son’s video  games and homework – (in that order).    Not in the kitchen which is maintained by the housekeeper and jealously guarded by the dogs who, by the way,  have recently had a  change of heart and now like the housekeeper MUCH better than they like me.  (Note to self: tell the housekeeper I will feed the dogs from now on. )

The closet space has all been used up by toys and basketball shoes and leashes. The backyard contains trampolines, chewy toys, footballs, bicycles, and tents. At times I try to  sleep in the area that used to be my room, but this depends on whether or not the dogs need the bed.  The living room is large, but at the present time is occupied by all the rugs from the rest of the  house that we’ve had to roll up so nobody (and you know who you are)  chews them.

My son will pull out his own fingernails rather than throw away an old PC or X-Box magazine. He has every video game ever developed and every stupid plastic party favor ever bestowed on him. He has twenty seven hundred colored pencils and a color printer.  Clothes that fit him, clothes that don’t fit him and clothes that will fit him. Boxes of old schoolwork.  Vitamins, Uggs, air rifles, board games.  Portable DVD players, Guitar Hero guitars and a 75 Sunkist orange-soda can pyramid.   I have a tube of mascara and the car key.

It’s not the disorganization so much as the fact that it’s not my house anymore.  When I hired our housekeeper, I decided to empower her. Let her know that she was to do what she thought was best. So she does. This, for some reason includes a need to write on everything I own. Like we couldn’t possibly remember that in the plastic pitcher in the refrigerator, we keep water. No. She’s decided to write the word “WATER” on it in huge letters. And then, I guess for those who can’t read, draw little black drops of water around the word “water.”

In the box in the cabinet where we keep old batteries for recycling, the word “Badereez” has appeared… Once again, accompanied by some kind of drawing that appears to be…. lightning bolts?? I don’t know. I think it’s lightning bolts. In my opinion, not really the best icon for dead ‘badereez,” but whatever.

She has also decided that my house is safer than hers (and yes, this is true), so she hides packages of money and papers everywhere. In my bread drawer there are birth certificates. Copies of green cards in the linen closet. Photographs are tucked away lovingly in what appears to be random CD cases. You thought you’d play some Lyle Lovett? Not so fast. This case contains little Jorge’s first day of school. When I try to throw out old rugs or appliances, she gasps, alarmed that something so precious might be discarded and says, “No, no. I will take.” Then she takes it… and  puts it in my garage.  The garage (along with everything I’ve ever tried to throw out) is also where we store her suitcases and her son’s skateboards. And some books that my girlfriend doesn’t have room for. And the gardeners tools. And someone’s couch. I can’t remember who.