It’s Giving Me Nightmares

Okay, fine. I’m one of those people who’s all jaded about Valentine’s Day. No need for justifications and rationalizations; you’ve heard them all already from everyone else. I’m just not a fan.

But when you have kids, you’re not allowed to not celebrate the holiday.

My parents always gave my sister and I each a card and a little box of chocolates for Valentine’s Day. Some years, my mom made a heart-shaped cake (we had a special pan) with pink frosting and candy hearts pressed into it.

This year I thought, why be all bah-humbug to cupid? I decided to make heart-shaped chocolate crackers for everyone at work, homemade bath sachets with eucalyptus for my writers group, and a heart-shaped cake with pink frosting and candy hearts pressed into the edges for the kids, even if I don’t have a special pan.

Then I remembered who I am.

There were lots of doctors appointments, significant snow, and a shitload of paperwork that had to get done right now. Instead of staying up late to bake, I stayed up late watching Iron Maiden’s Flight 666 and Rush Beyond the Lighted Stage.

Because they’re awesome. And I didn’t want to do my paperwork.

I had a work call and two shows the day before Valentine’s Day. The florist shop was out of eucalyptus. There was no baking. There was no crafting.

Let’s be honest: there never is any crafting.

Two days before Valentine’s day, I was in the city and went to the drug store for gifts and cards.

Doesn’t two days before Valentine’ Day seem like a good head start? You’d be shocked at how few cards the average drug store in New York carries for such a commercial holiday. You’d be even more shocked at how few are left by February 12.

You’re standing there with all the other poor bastards who also think that two days is a good head start, maneuvering for leverage in front of the two and a half feet of shelf space where the last twelve cards are.

I needed exactly half of them.

I found two semi-sappy cards that didn’t make me want to strangle kittens and set those aside for #2 and #3. I found three cards that were supposed to be funny but weren’t that I thought could be salvaged with written modifications.

(I was remembering a birthday card my assistant had given to me years ago. It was a truly awful rhyming birthday card that was supposed to be from a husband to a wife, and everywhere it said “wife” he just crossed it out and wrote “boss”. I die laughing every time I remember it.)

I still needed a card for CC. I had one in my hands made of thick black paper with red metallic script. Gorgeous. And hands-down, the single worst godawful rhyming card I’ve come across in a long time. It had real potential. In fact it was so bad and so long that I couldn’t even finish reading it. I got him a Chinese New Year card instead. Which I then lost.

The card that referenced chocolates I gave to the kid that hates chocolate (#4). The one that was made for a toddler with a picture of a bee and the obligatory Bee Mine! we gave to #1 (the 19-year-old), with hand-written references to VD. Because that’s the kind of thing you can write in a 19-year-old’s Valentine.

#5 got this one:

Inside I wrote: Dear god, I hope that cat doesn’t eat you. Because I love you! Happy Valentine’s Day!

His father wrote: Dear Son, She’s Nuts. Love, Dad.

#5 woke up before everyone else (as usual) on Valentine’s Day and opened his card. Then he texted me: Dad’s right. You’re nuts.

When I tucked him in he informed me that the cat’s smile was big enough and bright enough that when he wakes up in the middle of the night, he can see it in the darkness even without his glasses.

#5: It’s creepy.

Me: Excellent!

On the way home from work Saturday night he sent me the above picture with the accompanying text It’s giving me nightmares.

I believe my work here is done. Clearly I have a future career in greeting card modification.

***

There’s Nothing to Eat!

Along with the recently-issued mandate in our house that the kids make their own school lunches, we’ve also started buying less junk food.

It’s amazing how much damage junk food has caused to their eyesight. They look in the pantry and can’t see that there is any food left.

One kid, who shall remain unnumbered, attempted to offer helpful suggestions to all the other kids who couldn’t see any food for lunch snacks. A different kid, who shall also remain unnumbered, said “This is gross! There’s nothing to eat in this house!” and went to her ~~cave~~ room and slammed the door, it is rumored.

Three remaining kids banded together and made snacks for lunch, which just thrilled my heart to no end.

In the pantry were an unopened package of graham crackers and six unopened boxes of table water cracker of varying flavors. In the fridge were grapes, baby carrots, a pear, apples, an orange, cheese and eggs. We had bananas, peanut butter, celery, jello and dried and canned fruit. There was bacon. Not that it all counts as health food, but they couldn’t see any of that because of the junk food disease.

So they made Cinnamon Toast Crunch muffins from a mix that one of them got for Christmas, and popcorn.

#4 made the muffins. She thought they seemed a little plain and never voluntarily eats anything without added sugar, so she gave them Christmas sprinkles. Then she found the packet of Cinnamon Toast Crunch crumble in the box. So she put that on too.

There’s always something to eat here. You just need to know where to look.

Collecting

It started with my grandmas.

One of them gave me the birthday angels every year. You know, these ones:

An angel for every year, with your new age and ever-increasing height. They each sent me other beautiful things that I collected and put on shelves. Glass animals, music boxes, tiny figurines; fifty white thimbles, each with a different state flower painted on. On my shelf, a green glass frog with white eyes and black dots for pupils sat next to a crystal kitten with pink-tipped ears.

My own collecting bug took hold: a pink plastic elephant that had topped my hamburger at a roadside diner took up residence next to an exquisitely painted doll from my grandma. To me they were both beautiful; I couldn’t tell the difference.

When I was very young I somehow broke a ceramic teddy bear music box that my mother had made. I never knew what I did that broke it- I was at that age of disconnection between my thoughts and my actions where I didn’t even notice that I had caused it to fall from the top of my dresser. But my mom was mad. I saved two little blue birds from the dustpan and put them on the shelf next to a newborn baby doll with a bisque glass face I had bought with my birthday money. It played Brahm’s lullabye when you turned a key in its back and I thought the blue birds looked nice against its white gown.

There were other collections. Most of the girls I knew collected cosmetic samples and miniature soaps. The tiny tubes of fragrance were the most coveted, and god forbid the girl that actually used a sample. She would never live it down.

I collected books, which probably could have gone without saying. And records. Later, I saved every issue of Guitar Player and Guitar for the Practicing Musician that I ever bought.

I hauled everything I owned, including my collections, with me when I moved out of my mom’s house.

When the time came for me to move to Dallas for an internship, I’d been living with a boyfriend for a while. He couldn’t decide if he was going to come with me to Dallas or not. I lived in this stressful state of limbo for months, unable to make plans because getting an apartment with another person is a completely different thing than affording an apartment all by yourself.

Until I finally realized that I wasn’t willing to put my life on hold for anyone.

I set up an apartment sight unseen, over the phone. I mailed my deposit. I bought a map.

I ended up leaving with just what I could fit into my car, which wasn’t a whole lot, being that it was a Dodge Dynasty. He promised that no matter what, he’d bring me all the rest of my stuff, soon.

And that’s the story of how I let go of every sentimental keepsake and collection that I owned up until age 24. Every yearbook, each baby book, all the birthday dolls, the clear green glass frog with the black and white eyes, my journals, a biography of Zappa that I was only halfway though, my winter clothes.

It’s also the story of how I realized that stuff is just stuff. Though it took a while to come to this point, I know my burden is far lighter with all of that gone and I am even grateful for it. The only thing I am genuinely sorry I lost is the white ceramic Nativity set that my mom had made and that she gave to me after I moved out.

Which is why, after all of that so many years ago, I find myself baffled to be compulsively collecting my used train tickets.

WTF?

On New Jersey Transit when the conductor takes your ticket, they punch it, and at certain stations (like mine) they give your ticket back to you because you have to put it in the turnstile to exit the station.

I started noticing that the holes weren’t the same every time. They’re like clouds; I’m always trying to figure out what they are. I’ll smack CC on the arm and go, Hey look! It’s a rabbit! {smack} Hey look! It’s Stonehenge! One of the conductors told me they’re issued their own specific hole punch and it’s like their ID. Everything can be traced through the shape of their punch.

I found myself digging them out of the wastebasket in my bedroom if I accidentally threw them away. They got their own box. Then they outgrew their box.

That’s when I was all like, why the hell am I keeping my used train tickets?

Today I’m letting them go. No matter how many I keep, they won’t ever magically transform into my mom’s nativity set. But I’m still going to be looking at the punches each night on the way home from work, guessing what they are. Maybe one day I’ll get a hole punch that looks like the Virgin Mary. I mean , it’s no Jesus in a tortilla but, hey.

Do you collect anything weird? Ever found yourself collecting something without realizing you were doing it?