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I will take off the socks

10/18/2011 By Rima Tessman 9 Comments

Now that I have to dye my hair every six weeks to keep the gray out, I’ve been thinking about my own mortality. Specifically, what it might be like to have grandchildren.

Of course, I’m still up to my eyeballs in children of my own, but earlier today I had a sudden vision of my daughter, grown and happily married, coming over to drop her firstborn off for me to babysit. (I’m not saying that I don’t expect my son to get married and have kids, only that I’m placing all the pressure squarely on the V-meister.)

In my imagination, my firstborn comes over with an adorable baby who looks just like me. She’s toting an enormous bag containing a year’s supply of diapers, three changes of clothing, diaper creme, cloth wipes, toys (3), bibs (2), pacifiers (2), a laminated index card with emergency phone numbers and instructions, and one measly little baby bottle with like three (3) ounces of breastmilk in it.

Like I used to.

I immediately grab my grandchild and take off her socks.

And my daughter is like, “Mom, I just put those socks on her!”

And I’m like, “Nonsense! Babies don’t need socks. And when is the last time you fed her? She looks like she’s about to gnaw off her own hand.”

“I just fed her ten minutes ago, so she probably won’t even need to eat until I get back. There’s a bottle of breast milk in the bag, but don’t give it to her unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“You don’t have to worry, I know when a baby’s hungry.”

“You can just give it to her at room temperature, you don’t even need to heat it up.”

(Me, examining the bottle.) “Where’s the rest of it? This isn’t even enough to feed a hamster.”

“Mom!”

“Okay.”

“Remember not to microwave it.”

“Of course not.”

“And when you change her diaper, make sure the fringy little elastic thingies are flipped outwards because last time her clothes got wet.”

“Really? I don’t remember that. But don’t worry, sweetie, I got it. Hey, P-Dawg! (yelling in direction of home office where my retired husband is in his underwear, playing poker online) HOW MANY KIDS DID WE RAISE?”

(Husband, from office) “Two.”

“Your father and I raised two children. We know what we’re doing.”

“Okay, Mom. Thanks so much for watching her for me. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Don’t rush sweetie. It’s my pleasure.”

“Okay. Don’t put her carrier on the kitchen table.”

“She will be safe in my arms the whole time.”

“Well. I guess that’s it. Did I forget anything?”

“I doubt it. Just go! (pushing daughter out the door) Enjoy yourself!”

“Ok, Mama. Bye. And don’t forget – only use the breast milk in case of emergency!”

“No worries, sweetie! Bye-bye!”

As soon as my daughter takes off in her solar powered SUV, I’ll go ahead and warm up that breast milk in the microwave. I’ll probably add a little goat’s milk into the mix, too.  The poor baby’s starving, for cryin’ out loud.

Next, I’ll remove about three extra layers of clothing (from the baby), and then my husband and I will go outside and sit with her on a blanket under a tree. We will let her go diaperless and eat some dirt.  And I’m going to be really honest with you: we’ll probably give her a penny and let her stay outside for 20 minutes with no sunblock on.

It’s going to be great.

Read more from Rima on her personal website, Rimarama.com.

Filed Under: Humor, Parenting Tagged With: , , , ,

Saint Peter, a Priest, And a College Student Are in a Boat . . .

09/15/2011 By Rima Tessman 4 Comments

One summer during college, I went on a retreat with my Catholic youth group. And not just any retreat, but a canoeing retreat. It took place at Canada’s stunningly beautiful Algonquin Provincial Park and I regretted it from the moment I realized I’d have to row a canoe and occasionally even carry that canoe, plus my worldly belongings, over my own head.

It was hot, there were swarms of bees, and you couldn’t even catch a break when we stopped to rest because that was scripture reading time. The campground, when we reached it, wasn’t so much a campground as a small secluded island with no plumbing or electrical outlets to plug your curling iron in. We cooked by fire, put iodine tablets in the river water to cleanse it, and slept on the forest floor in tents.

Despite all that, Algonquin was pretty impressive. I was with my closest friends, had my eye on a handsome Quebecois, and was appreciating the beauty of creation despite myself. You can’t help but feel closer to God when you paddle by a single moose standing in shallow waters with mountains and the setting sun as backdrop. Or when you’re kicking back by the fire with a brewski and some chips.

On the last day of the retreat, after we’d packed up the campsite and put out the fires, we had the opportunity to receive the sacrament of confession. The prospect of dragging out your sins without the benefit of a confessional window to hide behind was daunting to say the least, but our chaplain – Father Sunshine – was a stand-up priest who had good rapport with young people and was always quick with a kind word or joke. Besides, after three days in the woods, we felt humble and changed. One by one, we took the plunge.

I was the last to go and when my turn came, I went to town. There was no end to my transgressions, no sin left behind. Big ones, small ones, I lifted each one individually and cast it off like refuse into the abyss. In the past I’d questioned the necessity of confession as a sacrament, believing that no mediator was needed between me and God. But there is something about laying your faults bare, about lifting them up and giving them away, that is spectacularly liberating. At least, it was very good for me.

Afterward I felt like a new person. My backpack was suddenly lighter, there was a bounce in my step. But even more importantly, I knew that in just six short hours, I’d be showering and sleeping in a real bed. What I didn’t know was that while I was going through my litany, everyone else in the group had paired up. One by one, the canoes and their occupants set off towards home base as the wind picked up and a steady rain began to pour.

Father Sunshine and I were the only two left.

He looked at me, I looked at him.

“I guess we’re buddies” he said.

Next thing you know, I’m in a boat with my confessor. It’s driving rain and I’m doing my best to keep the canoe moving forward in a straight line. Father Sunshine is patient and gives gentle advice, but in his heart of hearts I know he’s marveling at my sins. It’s a predicament to say the least, only made worse by the fact that we’re drifting farther away from the other canoes in the middle of a storm.

The only redeeming thing about the situation is that I’m about to die a saint.

After awhile, even father Sunshine starts looking worried and suggests we ask Saint Peter to keep an eye on us and give us faith. Saint Peter, of course, is the apostle who with God’s help rowed his boat safely ashore in the raging sea of Galilee while Jesus slept.

Even in my terror, I couldn’t help but notice the poetry of the situation. Especially when, after dispensing his advice, Father Sunshine put down his oars and lit up a Marlboro Light.

“Keep rowing,” he told me, “I have faith in you.”

I don’t know how we made it out alive, but it was the best penance I ever did.

Filed Under: Humor, Spirituality

To Catch a Thief

06/27/2011 By Rima Tessman 5 Comments

"Will Work for Outback Red Sweater"

As a high school junior, I realized my three-bucks-an-hour babysitting gigs were no longer cutting it to procure the things that really mattered, like sweaters from the Limited, Wet-n-Wild lipstick, and used cassette tapes from Repeat the Beat.

I was tired of sitting around on my neighbors’ couches eating ice cream from their freezers and flipping through their cable channels for R-rated movies while their children bounced off the walls upstairs. It was time to get a job – a real job! where I could stand behind a counter reading Tiger Beat magazine and filing my nails.

Landing a gig was almost effortless, thanks to my strong Eastern European work ethic and dress code which dictated nothing less than a suit and briefcase for my interview at Baskin Robbins Express. But that wasn’t where I ended up getting my first part-time job – it was at a classy discount department store, where I was assigned to back cash register duty three nights a week.

As with most things in my life, I was petrified. There were just too many ways people could pay for their purchases and it was nearly impossible to keep the various procedures straight.  The constant stream of sales and promotions further confused me, and I lived in perpetual fear of returns and people who required that I count back their change.

But I was cute and friendly, so they kept me around.

Every evening around six-thirty, the undercover security guard would stop by my register for a chat. Rob was a burly man who always wore suspenders with a black T-shirt and fedora, and he pursued shoplifters with the zeal of a convert. Everyone was a potential thief, no one could be trusted – not even old lady Byer in the ladies’ fitting room.

“See that broad over there, red purse, bad perm? I’m keeping an eye on her,” Rob would say, leaning into my counter and nodding conspiratorially toward the unsuspecting shopper. “Ten bucks says she’s wearing five bathing suits underneath that dress.”

Rob took it upon himself during these chats to school me in the ways of criminal detection. He warned me never to trust a person who was walking too fast and taught me how to recognize bands of marauding gypsies. Sometimes he would give me pop quizzes about potential thieves.

“Okay, quick! Who’s the crook, the lady in the sundress or the dude with the bandanna wrapped around his head?”

“Uh . . . bandanna dude? I guess?”

“Wrong, grasshopper!” Rob would say, smiling with glee. “It’s sundress lady, and I’ll tell you why…”

Even as he ran down shoplifting facts and figures, Rob’s eyes would be darting around in his head, always on the lookout for someone making off with a pair of leg warmers or a pretty scarf. I even witnessed a few momentous occasions when he stopped mid-sentence to chase down a criminal in plain sight. On those nights when he hit the jackpot, he’d always come by later to give me a recap, play-by-play. I imagined he had a wall in his basement with names of petty thieves engraved in blood.

One Saturday I was scheduled for the busy afternoon shift and Rob was not around. There was a big sale going on, and even my usually quiet back register had a line of customers snaking down the aisle. I was pretty frazzled – what with all the coupons and promotional codes being bandied about -  and therefore not on top of my game when an attractive middle-aged man walked up wearing a camel hair coat.

“I’m just buying this coat, and I’d like to wear it out of the store,” he said, holding up the price tag, which I promptly scanned in. After he’d left (in a hurry), I realized with horror that I’d sold him the coat for $9.99.  He’d clearly switched the tag on purpose and left with a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise on his back.

I broke out in a cold, nervous sweat, prepared to be in the worst trouble of my life. I had been face-to-face with the enemy, and I had let him get away. Surely I would be fired from Stein Mart and could never work in town again. My permanent record would be irreparably tarnished and my hopes of attending college dashed. I’d end up a blogger housewife in Cleveland, sporadically posting Lithuanian recipes and cute things my kids have said.

But even worse than this, I had disappointed Rob. He would never forgive me for letting that shoplifter go, especially since the scenario was one he’d drilled me on many times before. It was probably the easiest case study in Rent-A-Cop school, and I had failed it royally. I could just picture my mentor, sadly shaking his fedora-clad head.

I was never found out, but lived with the shame of my mistake for years, beating in secret like the tell-tale heart. And I avoided Rob for the rest of my time at the store, though I did eventually confess my error to our parish priest.

Thanks to the experience, I now have a freakishly accurate theft detection radar when I’m out and about. Once I saw a dude try to leave Drug Mart with an unpaid bottle of Snapple and the strength of my judgmental gaze alone caused him to retreat. I’m always on the lookout for people walking too quickly through Nordstroms and am prepared to tackle them should the need arise.

If I find out that post-it pad on your kitchen counter is from the stock room at work, I will report you in two seconds flat.

I’m doing it for Rob.

Read more of Rima’s writing at RimaRama.com.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia

No Tornadoes, Please

04/18/2011 By Rima Tessman 11 Comments

I almost drove right past the showroom. Because it was less of a showroom and more of a hut attached to what looked like a combination auto repair shop/scrap yard down by the train tracks. It was exactly the kind of place my mother had warned me never to step foot inside, but there were two RVs parked out front. I hedged my bets and made my way to the front door.

It was like walking into a saloon, except instead of spurs I was wearing red patent leather Dansko clogs and instead of a pistol I was packing a gigantic Vera Bradley purse.

And instead of a horse, I had my four-year-old son and instead of tying him to a post, I was holding his hand.

The piano music stopped abruptly as we walked through the door. Flecks of sunlight-filtered dust swirled in ominous eddies before settling on the hardwood floor, and three toothless cowboys in blue mechanic jumpsuits turned away from their Cokes to face us down.

“Can I help you?” their leader asked, sizing me up.

“I’m looking for the RV rental office?” I stated in my former Taco Bell drive-thru employee voice, my inflection rising perilously on the last syllable.

“Well, you found it,” he answered with a glimmer in his eye.  If I didn’t know any better, I would have said he was mocking me gently in plain sight. “What can I do for you today?”

I had agreed to an RV road trip for our summer vacation this year while under the influence of some yerba root tea. But before signing on the dotted line, I wanted to see just exactly what I was getting myself into. Would the RV bed accommodate my goose down comforter and 500 thread-count Egyptian sheets? Was there a place to plug in an espresso maker? A flat iron? A white noise machine? Were there any recreational vehicles on the premises that Cowboy Dan could walk me through today?

“Follow me” said Cowboy Dan as he walked out to the lot which housed a formidable fleet of two RVs.

The first one was completely unacceptable, no bigger than an ice cream truck. I gave it a perfunctory once-over before waving it off and moving on.

“Take me to the mothership” I said to Cowboy Dan.

The second RV was bigger, thirty feet long.

“That’s what I’m talking about” I nodded.

It was nice enough and clean, but it lacked the basic necessities one expects from a house on wheels. Necessities like Pottery Barn rugs and a flat screen TV. If the truth be told, the RV was nothing more than a gigantic upholstered bus with a table, benches, club chair, sleeping loft, kitchenette, toilet, and double-bed.

“Do you offer any upgrade packages on this particular model?” I turned to Cowboy Dan. “Marble countertops, for instance, or some nice pleather upholstery for the pull out couch?”

“The toilet flushes,” is what he said.

Cowboy Dan wanted to know where I planned to drive the rig.

“Oh, I’m not driving it,” I said, unsure of whether my foot would even reach the gas.  “My husband is.”

“Eh,” said Cowboy Dan. “We’ll put your name on the contract just in case something happens and you need to drive back home.

“Like what?” I gasped.

“Nothing” said Cowboy Dan, punching me in the arm. “You’re gonna have a blast!”

I continued to inspect the vehicle, running my fingers up and down the interior searching for rat feces and traces of dust. My son dangled upside-down from the overhead loft and Cowboy Dan continued to interrogate me about my summer plans.

“How long you goin’ for?”

“Just a week.”

“Pshht.” he said. “Where to?”

“Michigan. Up to Mackinac Island.”

“Mackinac is nice.”

“It’s our first time in an RV,” I explained. “Maybe next year, we’ll do Death Valley.” I didn’t want Cowboy Dan to think I was a chump.

I visualized my husband and me bouncing along on the open road and sipping lattes, the kids strapped safely in the back with their eyes glued to a Disney DVD.

I saw us sharing a bottle of Cabernet on our camp chairs under the stars, enjoying the vast expanse of land that is America just a couple feet away from the retirees in the next lot over.

I pictured us eating popcorn and watching outdoor movies while a person in a life sized Yogi Bear outfit entertained the kids. Having a cup of coffee outside while the grass is still wet with dew, slate blue fog tendrils enveloping lush green fir trees illuminated by the dim light of my MacBook in the morning.

And I decided that with a few enhancements – some area rugs, throw pillows, a slipcover, accent lighting, three cases of wine – I could make the RV my home.

“Okay” I said. “I’ll take it.”

We followed Cowboy Dan back to his auto repair saloon, where I signed paperwork while my son emptied the vinyl bar stools of their last chunks of yellow foam.  After tipping our hats to the cowboy, we unlocked our mid sized SUV using remote keyless entry and rode off into the sunset, kicking up dust in our wake.

When you’re out and about on the nation’s highways this summer, you might see a pimped out camper weaving in and out of lanes.

Stay back 100 feet.

Visit Rima’s personal site here.

(Photo courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.)

Filed Under: Humor

How many English majors does it take to change a light bulb?

02/18/2011 By Rima Tessman 14 Comments

I suspected from an early age that I wasn’t cut out for “work,” yet the summer after my junior year of college, I found myself sitting in the plant-studded grayscale office of a temp agency talking up my “skill set,” desperate for a job.

It was 1994 and my liberal arts education hadn’t taught me how to turn on a computer, type, or answer a multi-line phone, but I cleaned up good and could file things more or less alphabetically. Plus, having just returned from a year abroad, I had excellent oral and written intercultural communication skills, which I was sure to mention anytime you turned around.

Somehow I managed to land an assignment with an Italian builder who worked out of a trailer on the edge of the forest he was razing.  But don’t let the visual connotations associated with “trailer” fool you – old Mr. Roma had some tricked out digs, complete with cherry wood furnishings, granite countertops, and state-of-the-art office equipment. It was just he and his daughter running the biz, and he needed a girl to answer phones, make photocopies, and cater to his every beck and call.

That girl was me.

I showed up for work bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and full of anxiety that my utter and complete lack of practical life skills was about to be exposed.  And sure enough, Roma’s office was equipped with a computer, a fax machine/copier, and a multi-line phone. Which is to say that if I was talking to a person on line one and another line rang, I would have to somehow pick up the second line without hanging up the first. There was also a remote possibility that a third or fourth line would ring while one and two were tied up, in which case I would have no choice but to cut and run. Not only that, but I was expected, using instinct alone, to know which calls to take a message for and which calls to put through.

Soon it became apparent that though I had no problems hunting and pecking my way to a 4.0 grade point average on my Brother word processor at school, I was not mentally capable of formatting a Word Perfect document or keeping two phone calls in the air at once.  I also had a knack for putting disgruntled customers through to Mr. Roma but hanging up on his wife.  So you might say I was “on notice” from the very start.

On the second morning of my tenure as I sat composing poetry at my desk, old man Roma started bellowing at me from the inner sanctum.

“Rini!” he hollered, because he thought that was my name, “Get in here right now!”

When I materialized at his side, he made a grand yet vague gesture toward the picture window behind him and said, “What, is this?”

To venture a guess would have been suicide, like the time in fourth grade when Sister Carmella tricked me into fathoming the place where my perpetually misplaced milk ticket should be stored. After burning through three wrong answers in a row (lunch box? pencil case? leg warmer?) she released me from my misery by revealing the answer I could never have hoped to guess. (“Inside your front uniform pocket.”)

Clearly, if I’d known where I was supposed to keep my milk ticket or what was up Mister Roma’s ass, neither of us would have been there in the first place. But being all too familiar with the way grade school teachers and members of organized crime families like to assert their authority, I was prepared to play along.

My error, as it turned out, was that I’d slanted the vertical blinds in the wrong direction when I’d opened them that morning – a grievous mistake that old man Roma was sure I would never make again. From that point forward, my time in the office was spent alternating between boredom and the sheer terror of being asked to do work of any kind.

Later that day, I had to “put a fax through.” It was like being asked to program a SCUD missile. I waited until Mister Roma had retreated into his lair before circling the FASCIMILE MACHINE to look for clues as to how it might work.  What I found was all manner of blinking controls and no clear way to pinpoint the vacuum powered chute that would propel my document out of the trailer and to its final destination in space.

After a time, I went ahead and crammed the sheaf of papers – staples and all – through a vice-like orifice which promptly sucked them in, causing the whole FASCIMILE MACHINE to make an awful choking sound, sputter and die. Though common sense dictated that I come clean to old man Roma about the demise of his apparatus at once, I chose to shield him from the knowledge for as long as I possibly could (less than one day.)

Coincidentally, the temp agency called that evening to inform me with regret that Roma Builders no longer required my services.  It was a crushing blow, and proof that my mother had been on to something when she said, “How can a person go to college and not even learn how to type?”

I did eventually learn to operate not only office equipment, but also factory automation software and later got a job (this is the truth) writing technical manuals for oil refineries and nuclear power plants.

I live in fear of the phone call I’ll get the day one of them blows up, but at least I’ll know how to photocopy and laminate a fake passport so I could get the hell out of Dodge.

You can read more from Rima on her personal website, Rimarama.com.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia, Tech

Snowmageddon Kills Groundhog

02/03/2011 By Rima Tessman 6 Comments

PUNXSUTAWNEY, PA – Punxsutawney Phil passed away yesterday from a massive heart attack upon emerging from his hole for the 125th year in a row.

According to his agent, Phil had been pushing for a rain check on the Groundhog Day festivities because of the impending blizzard, the brunt of which was due to hit Punxsutawney early February 2nd.

“Look,” said Phil’s agent about his late client, “Phil was older than dirt, and he and Phyllis had been living in a climate controlled tank at the Punxsutawney Public Library for the past twenty years.  Only way he’d come out on February second anymore was if we agreed to set him up in a heated burrow underneath a fake tree stump.”

Phil, who suffered from diabetes and high blood pressure, had been under an incredible amount of strain this year to forecast an early spring. “He had access to newspapers and free Internet over at the library,” said his agent, “So he knew it was going to be bad out there pretty early on. I think the stress and cold just did him in.”

Witnesses report mass confusion on the scene in Punxsutawney Wednesday when Phil collapsed. “Evrathing seemed normal at first,” noted Chuck Wagner of Scranton. “He crawled on out and looked around. And I sez to my wife Dottie, I sez ‘Dottie, I bet he done seen his shadow.’”

But shortly thereafter with microphones and cameras from all the major new outlets trained on him, Punxsutawney Phil keeled over and didn’t get up again. “At first we thought it was just another publicity stunt,” Wagner noted. “Some folks started booing and I heard a fella behind me yell for him to “man up.”

Phil was rushed by ambulance to Punxsutawney Area Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Punxsutawney Phil is survived by his wife, Phyllis, and one nephew – Pittsburgh Pete, who has no plans to take over his late great uncle’s responsibilities upon graduation from meteorology school this spring. “I have interviews lined up with CNN and the Weather Channel,” Pittsburgh Pete stated. “No way am I going to spend my career doing hit and miss forecasting from a g-damned hole.”

A public memorial service is planned next Saturday at Gobbler’s Knob. In lieu of flowers, mourners are asked to give donations to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund.)

To read more by Rima, visit her personal site here.

Filed Under: Humor

Fine, I Admit It. Twitter is Making Me Dumb.

01/14/2011 By Rima Tessman 11 Comments

A friend and I were chilling around the kitchen island gossiping one night when she threw me a curve ball and said:

“So, how much do you think you live through your online persona?”

Because I have the attention span of a gnat, I was able to quickly switch gears and say:

“What?”

“You know,” my friend continued. “How much do you think the Internet influences how you act in real life? Can you still be present in a moment without thinking about blogging, Tweeting, or Facebooking it?”

“Of course!” I lied.

But she wasn’t done with me yet. “I have started monitoring your online activities,” my friend continued, “To make sure you don’t confuse your online presence with your actual life.”

“What do you mean, ‘monitoring my online activities’? You have a tap on my computer?”

“I’ve been checking in on your Twitter stream,” my non-tweeting friend explained. “I’m watching you.”

Great, I thought, drawing my iPhone protectively towards my chest. The last thing I need is my oldest friend calling me out on my illustrious, imagined, and carefully crafted online existence.

“Well, I’m going to have to ask you to stop that.” I said. “How am I supposed to post pictures of myself in the J. Crew dressing room if I know Big Brother is judging me on the other side?”

“That’s exactly my point.”

“I’m gonna block you,” I said.

But my friend continued as though I hadn’t spoken. “You’re in danger of viewing yourself as the reality star of your own cyber world. I just want to make sure you are living in the moment, and not through a digital lens.”

I was loath to admit that she had a point. As much as I believe that my life has been enriched by social media, I recognize the danger in immersing myself too much in the online world. I see the irony of isolation through interconnectedness. I’d rather text or email you than call you up to chat. I’m guilty of being half-present during compelling moments because I’m already thinking about how they will translate in print. And sometimes I wonder if my personality has changed to match the one I have online.

My friend droned on about how, through time immemorial, great moments of innovation have been borne out of solitary reflection, a stilling of the mind. “But no one is having eureka moments anymore,” she said. “Because they’re too busy Facebooking, Tweeting, and watching YouTube videos to have an original thought. It’s a sad state of affairs, and it’s only going to get worse.”

At first I argued that social networking can – and does – ignite the creative spark. That I engage in quiet reflection when I’m in the shower, and that I’m often bored out of my gourd.

“As a matter of fact,” I told my friend, “I totally zoned out during the last five minutes of your speech. Can you repeat it for me, please?”

Later, I reluctantly asked myself: Have I really had any true epiphanies on Facebook or Twitter? Has anything I’ve read there prompted contemplative thought? When is the last time I did absolutely nothing at all? Is my chronic writer’s block related to the amount of time I spend online?

The answers were bothersome, so I quickly directed my attention somewhere else.

It’s good have a friend who isn’t afraid of telling me things I don’t always want to hear. Because she had a point, of course. And I will be sure to remind her of it the next time I catch her playing with her Blackberry during choir practice. She sits right next to me in the soprano section, so I’ll probably just send her a text.

Read more from Rima at her personal site here.

Filed Under: Humor, Opinion, Tech

Friends Don’t Give Friends Fruitcake (But Family Does)

12/11/2010 By Rima Tessman 6 Comments

A few years ago, in the spirit of simplification, my extended family decided to do a “Secret Santa” style Christmas gift exchange.

I was all for it. After all, who wouldn’t rather receive a single, high quality Soap-on-a-Rope than an assortment of seasonal appliqué dish towels, a pair of foot gloves, a pocket book of inspirational quotes, and a fruitcake? (For instance.)

Problem was, the clan was clueless when it came to the rules of the game. While sitting around the table digesting turkey and finishing off the wine on Thanksgiving night, we set to the task of drawing names. It’s possible that Middle East peace accords have been negotiated more swiftly and efficiently than our gift exchange procedures:

“Do couples count as one person?”

“Hell, no. Couples gifts su-uh-uck! Do you really want another coffee table book?”

“Seriously, you guys. I’d rather go giftless than get another throw rug.”

“You didn’t like the throw rug?”

“Bygones! Let’s calm down and focus, everybody!”

“Are we supposed to keep our person secret?”

“It’s called ‘SECRET Santa.’ Gawd.”

“But how will the people who aren’t here today know who to buy for?”

“Someone will give them their slip.”

“What slip?”

“The SECRET SANTA SLIP.”

“But who? Who can we trust?”

“I don’t know.”

“If someone draws for another person, that person will know who they got!!!”

“You put the names in an envelope, numchuck.”

“Is there a price range?”

“Fifty bucks? Are you kidding me?”

“Well, it has to be more than five. I draw the line at five.”

“Okay, but can we each go around and say what we want so nobody gets an umbrella this year?”

“What if I pick myself?”

And so it went.

A few hours later, after the UN representatives had left, the following conclusions were reached:

•    Each person receives a present. No couples gifts!
•    It’s a secret.
•    Those not present for the drawing will receive their giftee’s name in a sealed envelope.
•    It will be delivered by armored vehicle.
•    Price range is $20-$50.
•    No one is allowed to go to Big Lots or the Dollar Store.
•    If you pick yourself, Merry Christmas.
•    Oh yeah, and for God’s sake, don’t open your envelopes here in front of everyone.

Five minutes later:

“What are these envelopes for?”  (My Dad.)

“Can someone read mine out to me, I’m not wearing my bifocals.” (Grandma, passing her opened slip of paper around the table.)

“Darn it, this person is impossible to shop for, do you want to trade?” (Mom, showing her name to Grandma.)

“I don’t care, honey, but how will the person I picked know they’re supposed to buy me a gift if I’m not allowed to tell?” (Grandma to Mom.)

A few days later, my mom called me up. She couldn’t remember who her person was and had misplaced the envelope. She’d already contacted all the other family members to ask who they got, she just needed to know who my husband and I were buying for in order to glean the name by process of elimination.

“You called everybody?”

“What else could I do?” she said. “Don’t worry, it will all work out in the end.”

And it did.  Somehow, on Christmas Day everyone went home with their sanity and a gift. Including my jubilant husband, who had picked himself.

It was a Christmas miracle.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia

Waxing Poetic on the Beauty of Youth

11/10/2010 By Rima Tessman 6 Comments

At the ripe old age of six-and-a-half, my daughter took her first ice skating lesson. It was more difficult than Disney on Ice would have her believe, but she inched steadily along the rink’s periphery in her Velcro snap rental skates with one mittened hand glued to the wall while her peers zipped past in a blur of pink fleece.  Her legs were like two little matchsticks tethered to clunky weights and I feared that one good tailwind from someone’s figure eight would knock them right out from beneath her.

She was careful and earnest, unfazed by the flashing blades around her. By the time class ended that first day, she had easily propelled herself forward by ten or twelve feet.  I greeted her at the gate prepared to give the standard, “quitter never wins” speech, but she left the ice flushed with excitement and eager to return again.

Every week I watched her make her slow progress from the sidelines while my four-year-old son ricocheted off the bleachers and begged for a snack.  Soon, she began to venture onto the open ice and shimmy incrementally forward. Eventually, gaining confidence, she started gliding oh so carefully, with arms floating at her sides like the limbs of a marionette.  It was undeniable progress, although she was still last in the herd as they did drills across the rink.

One day I looked up from my iPhone to see that my daughter was one of the pack.  Though she wasn’t as fast or daring as her more experienced peers, I glimpsed veiled beneath her caution, the silhouette of a pro. She was delicate and deliberate; doing little turns that ended in first ballet position. And when she fell, she went down gracefully, not like those helmeted kamikaze toddlers you see biting the dust like cartoons.  I had birthed a star!

A strange feeling crept across my chest, a tightening and expansion.  Suddenly, my eyes were stinging and shortly thereafter, the organ I’d always suspected was my heart swelled up and threatened to pop. I was grinning like a fool, and in that moment, I understand why Apollo Ono’s father used to drive him across national borders to train, why Mary Lou Retton’s family moved to Houston for the sake of gymnastics, why people dip into their 401Ks for the sake of Suzuki violin camp. I had always believed that parents who ferry their children from ballet to soccer to piano do it for the glory, but I had been wrong.

During my moment, I saw my daughter for everything she might one day be and I wanted to do all I possibly could to take her as far as she could go in this glimmer of a life.  How could I not?  I recognized the bare beauty of youth and wanted to see it unfurl ribbon-like into the world.

It wasn’t about skating as much as it was about the secrets of her soul, all the things that would sparkle and shine if coaxed to the surface and kindled. Wasn’t it my obligation to unlock the door and set them free before time began to taunt her with his smug and sorry sneer?

I can’t lie. In my moment of epiphany, I also had a vision – a fleeting glimpse of my husband and me in our wizened salt and pepper glory, sitting in the Olympic stands. We were clutching trembling hands as our daughter skated onto the ice for the Short Singles Program and Bob Kostas waxed poetic about the humble beginnings of a star.  And despite all my previous vows to claim my life as my own, I was prepared to sacrifice time, money, and sanity for the sake of my daughter’s fledgling skating career.

The next week, she told me she was through.

“What? Don’t you like it anymore?”

She liked it all right. But all her friends play soccer. She’d rather play soccer, too.

We agreed that she’d finish the session and then decide.

My daughter’s soul could totally do a Triple Lutz, but apparently it wants only to kick a ball precisely between two posts.

And that’s OK by me.

Filed Under: Parenting

What I did for love

10/11/2010 By Rima Tessman 13 Comments

I started wearing maternity jeans the day after learning that I was expecting my first child. I stopped sleeping on my stomach and went off caffeine, wine, Tylenol, hot baths, lunchmeat, sushi and hair dye. If What to Expect When Expecting had instructed me to sequester myself in an oxygen chamber and drink nothing but wheat grass smoothies for the next nine months, I would have gladly done it.  Anything that posed a remote possibility of causing harm to my baby was to be avoided at all costs.

Soon after receiving the happy news, I had to fly cross-country on business without Xanax. But that wasn’t my main worry – it was the metal detector. I just didn’t trust it.

“Excuse me!” I said to the Homeland Security Officer when I arrived at the front of the screening line. “I’m six weeks pregnant, and I really don’t think I should go under the metal detector. My baby is the size of a lima bean right now, and her heart is being formed as we speak.“

The security officer, Chuck, gave me a weary once over while I tried to pooch out my first trimester belly.  I could have fit the entire contents of my luggage inside the wrinkled demi-panel of my maternity jeans, but he didn’t need to know that.

“The metal detector detects metal, ma’am,” he said.

“I understand that. Still, I would feel a lot better if I didn’t have to go underneath.”

“Lady, I guarantee you that walking under the metal detector won’t harm your baby, but if you want, you can have a manual search over there,” he sighed heavily, indicating a rotund female security officer standing a few feet away.  “Tell her Chuck sent you.”

“Thank you so much!” I gushed, and shuffled over to present myself.

“I’m six weeks pregnant and would like a manual weapons search, please.”

The female officer gave me a look that had, “Girl, please” written all over it.  “I’m six months pregnant, honey,” she said, “And I’ve been going under that thing fifty times a day.”

“Really?” I was aghast. Hadn’t she tried to get a desk job?

I raised one eyebrow and gave her a look that plainly said, “Good luck with your three-headed baby.”

I wanted that manual weapons search, and I wanted it now.

We had a staring contest. Eventually she gave in, and I had the distinct pleasure of being frisked by a hugely pregnant, hormonal, and supremely irritated airport security officer.

In retrospect, my daughter might have been better off under the metal detector. But I like to think that at the very least I saved her from being born with an extra toe.

Please visit Rima Tessman’s personal site here.

Filed Under: Humor, Nostalgia, Parenting

Local Woman Caught Sleeping With iPhone

09/03/2010 By Rima Tessman 10 Comments

A Cleveland woman was caught by her husband Tuesday morning sleeping with her iPhone. “I went to kiss her goodbye before leaving for work and noticed an object sticking out from underneath her pillow” Dr. P-Dawg stated. “It was her iPhone.”

When confronted, the woman, Rima Rama, 37, admitted she had fallen asleep waiting for new Facebook updates.

“My friends never update their status anymore. I refresh, like, every five minutes and I’m lucky to get some kind of lame YouTube link or Farmville update” a frustrated Mrs. Rama said. “But I have to keep checking, because the alternative is being alone with my thoughts.”

Dr. P-Dawg has advised his wife on numerous occasions to go offline at least an hour before bedtime to help avoid insomnia. “Here is a woman who depends on her white noise machine and Tylenol PM to fall asleep every night, yet she is up until the wee hours of the morning checking her Twitter stream with eyes bugged out in opposite directions.”

“I don’t want to miss any Shit My Dad Says,” Mrs. Rama confided. “Plus, my internet friends are like real people to me. I depend on them to tell me what I should think, feel, and buy.”

Dr. P-Dawg, who recently joined Twitter in a list ditch effort to communicate with his wife, stated that he’s had it up to here with this crap. He reportedly put the iPhone on top of the refrigerator where the diminutive Mrs. Rama could not reach it, but she quickly retrieved it by standing on a chair. “I’m addicted, not stupid,” she said.

An intervention is planned for sometime next week.

Please visit Rima Tessman’s personal site here.

Filed Under: Humor, MISC, Tech

To B or not to B(&B)

08/09/2010 By Rima Tessman 20 Comments

The first thing I noticed about the bed and breakfast was that there was no valet and no bellhop. We had to park our car on the gravel driveway apron and carry our own luggage up, like cavemen. A middle aged woman with a matching German shepherd greeted us at the door.

It wasn’t Frau Muckenfuss’s fault that she didn’t resemble Bob Newhart or John Cleese. She was just a different breed of bed and breakfast owner, the kind whose approval you have to work very hard to win. I tried to show goodwill by commenting on her landscaping, but she was unfazed. She led us through a living area where a TV and a baby were engaged in a dramatic voice projection contest before showing us to our room in the back of the house.

“Dis ist my private space,” she gestured towards the living room. “No guest allowed.  If you are coming home late, do not be waking the baby. Breakfast is at eight o’clock, here is your key.”

“Excuse me!” I piped up as she was turning her back to go. “Where might I find the fitness center?”

Frau Muckenfuss just looked at me and shook her head.

As soon as we entered our garden view room, my husband started flipping through TV channels looking for the stock report, while I canvassed the area for shampoo and lotion samples, bath robes, and the ever elusive blow-drier-in-a-bag. There were no amenities to speak of, but the bathroom featured an old fashioned commode with a pull string and a sign above it that said, “ATTENTION! WAIT FIVE MINUTES BETWEEN FLUSHES.”

After lining up my toiletries on the vanity, I went back out to the room and plopped down on the bed. “P-Dawg?” I said to my husband. “I think we just checked ourselves into a person’s house.”

He was busy  fiddling with the rabbit ears on our 19 inch TV.

“Shhhh! I can get NBC if I stand on one foot and keep a finger on the left antennae.”

“What about Pay Per View?” I asked. “Is there a services menu on that thing?”

We unpacked our stuff and I plugged in my white noise machine, setting it to “Summer Night.”

“You could try leaving the windows open and listening to live crickets,” my husband suggested.

“What do you think I am, some kind of savage?” I said.

We had a fitful sleep that night, heaped into the trench-like center of our groaning double bed, the sound of mechanical insects buzzing in our ears.

In the morning, while I was washing my hair with a bar of soap in the shower, my husband flushed the toilet and we are still in couples counseling because of it. We arrived in the dining room, bleary eyed and irritable, at 8:30, sharp. My naturally wavy hair had air dried into a perfect lampshade sillouette.

“Good morning!” I pulled it together for Frau Muckenfuss. “A table with a view, please. I’ll have a double latte skim, dash of cinnamon, dash of nutmeg, hold the whipped cream. And an egg white omelet, mushrooms, tomatoes, cheddar, no onions unless they are clarified. If they are not clarified, then add a sprig of rosemary but hold the cheese, please.”

“I have Eggs Benedict and fresh Michigan cherry turnovers today,” Frau Muckenfuss stared me down. “Coffee is with cream or sugar.”

I noticed then that the restaurant was less of a restaurant and more Frau Muckenfuss’s dining room.  There was no individual seating, but a long refectory style table with chairs lined up and down the sides.  It was full of people who halted their conversations to to look up at us over their plates full of food.  I’m pretty sure someone checked his watch.

My husband and I squeezed in, and the other patrons resumed their conversations.  Clearly, chugging my coffee in silence over a copy of USA Today (where was my copy of USA today?) was going to be out of the question.

“So, where are you guys from?” a preppy couple to my right wanted to know.

“Cleveland,” I answered. “You?”

After that I ran out of things to say.

Not having clicked with any of our neighbors, my husband and I ate quickly and skedaddled after thanking our hostess profusely for the meal. Later we would learn that the other guests stayed at the table for several hours, shooting the shit with Frau Muckenfuss. It’s an unwritten rule of B&B etiquette, and one of which we were completely unaware.

“Could I have a cup of coffee to go?” my husband asked as we were leaving.  Frau Muckenfuss’s nostrils flared slightly, but she brought him a mug with “Michigan! Great Lakes, Great Times!” emblazoned across the side.

“We might have to go with room service tomorrow morning,” I whispered in my husband’s ear. “Do you think Muckenfuss could accomodate us?”

We went back to our room, lay down on the bed and watched the ceiling fan go round and round.

“Did you happen to notice a gift shop?” I asked.

“Nope,” my husband said.

We toughed it out at the bed and breakfast for two nights. Later, when I told a friend about the experience, she gave me a look that plainly said, Don’t even get me started! “At least you didn’t have a progressive dinner party tour your room while you were in it,” she said, shuddering at the memory.

But I have no regrets about staying at the B&B. It was a necessary evil, a test we had to endure in order to learn an essential truth about ourselves – We are not “Bed and Breakfast” people, but mollycoddled misanthropes.

What about you?

Filed Under: Humor

Days of runny noses

07/12/2010 By Rima Tessman 10 Comments

My high school French teacher had a special couch in the sunny back corner of her classroom where you were allowed to lie down if you were having a bad day. It was burnt orange and upholstered in a nubby synthetic fabric. There was a big, leafy indoor tree next to it, and a magazine bin full of French glossies rumored to contain ads with half naked women in them.

All you had to do was start crying in the middle of class, run a temperature, or complain of cramps, and you’d earn yourself a free ticket to the orange couch with its forty-five minute reprieve from having to answer any questions – en français! – about the weather, your hobbies, or where the train station was located.

“Oh, ma pauvre petite Rima! Vous-êtes déprimé aujourd’hui?”  Madam Bethoux would ask. “Allez! Asseyez-vous sur le divan de la tristesse!” she would insist, gesturing flamboyantly with one sleeveless arm towards the back of the room and briefly exposing a dark brown tuft of unlandscaped hair.

The old divan de la tristesse was never at a loss for occupants. In high school, someone was always having her period or breaking down in the middle of class. Back in the heyday, I cried at least three, maybe four days out of any given week. I could cry at the drop of a hat, and I was an equal opportunity crier, too: blubbering it up in a bathroom stall during lunch break, sniffling quietly in front of my opened locker, or flat out weeping evenings at home in the privacy of my bedroom, face down into my lemon yellow chiffon bedspread while listening to the Cure.

There were so many things to be melancholy about: unrequited love, a failed Trigonometry test, the senseless slaughter of baby seals. My emotions bubbled effortlessly to the surface at every angsty turn and it never occurred to me to suppress them.

I hardly ever cry anymore – it seems so self-indulgent, and rarely warranted. Where once I might have suffered a five alarm meltdown over a misunderstanding with a friend or family member, I’m now more likely to become irritated or angry instead.  When did my tears become dour recluses, chain smoking silently behind drawn shades? And how can I coax them back outside?

I don’t want to be sixteen again, but I miss heady peaks of emotion, sick days, and my old capacity for tears.

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Filed Under: Nostalgia