ever-fixed mark

The lease on one of our cars recently expired. Car shopping has never been my favorite activity, and my experience this round did nothing to endear me further to the sport. In the end, I didn’t get the car I set out to buy, and I paid too much for it, too. It wasn’t even like I was wowed by some slick salesperson; I was just too impatient to walk away when they refused to lower the price any more.

After the dealership screwed up the paperwork, forcing Husband to spend a full day at the insurance company and RMV to straighten it out, I was in an evil humor when I picked up the car. I almost blew a gasket when they made me wait while they regenerated the contract — then they had my address wrong so they had to do it again. By the time the sales guy was ready to give me the grand tour of my new wheels, I just grabbed the keys and drove away.

On the way home, I started warming up to the car. It is the same make as my old one, but despite being two models lower on the food chain, it actually feels more spacious, peppier, and easier to drive.

I was experimenting with the various controls, and I saw one I didn’t recognize. “What’s this?” I thought, and pushed it. The radio cut out, and a voice said, “At the beep, say a command.” The stereo display read, “Telephone.”

It took me a little while to catch on, but it turns out it’s an integrated Bluetooth-enabled hands-free phone system that works perfectly with my new Blackberry. It allows me to dial by voice command and hear conversations through the car radio. I have a talking car!

I know this is hardly new technology, but can I tell you how cool it is to hear someone’s voice coming through six speakers while I drive, without having to lift a finger? It’s exactly like “My Mother the Car.”

I have been experiencing the weirdest sensation, something like, I don’t know, a taste hallucination. I keep imagining that I am tasting something distinctive, even though I’m not eating anything. Most of the time it has been this black truffle cheese, but a few times it was asparagus and once, oddly, a flavor of Baskin-Robbins ice cream (cherry cheesecake) that I used to favor when I was a kid, which I now (having “tasted” it as an adult) realize was disgusting.

Am I having some untoward neurological event? (Dr. Google says yes.) Does this sound like the run-up to a Very Special Episode of “House”? (Although if it were “House,” and I were complaining about strange symptoms, the person next to me would probably go into renal failure, and I’d never be heard from again.)

Speaking of “House”…nothing quite announces, “This show has jumped the shark” like a doctor show in which the regular doctors are suddenly the patients of the week. Same thing with a cop show where the cops are suspected of murder, a lawyer show where the lawyers start taking the stand, etc. TV writers, you were sitting around marinating in your creative juices for the whole writers’ strike, and this is the best you can do?

Dear Wellness Week organizers,

Thank you for your recent efforts re: Wellness Week. The posters are colorful and plentiful, and nothing says fun like “Free Mammograms at Work!”

I must object, though, to your declaration of “No Elevator Fridays.” Now, I’m as big a proponent of “wellness” as the next guy (back in the day, we used to call it “health”). I ran twenty miles last week! I took two yoga classes! I ate ten apples!

But…look at me. Over here. I’m wearing high heels. I’m carrying fifteen pounds of computer and accessories. Do I look like I want to schlep up three flights of stairs to my office? No. Here’s a clue: If I were interested in engaging in activities that promote wellness (back in the day, we used to call it “exercise”), I would be wearing athletic shoes and a running bra so strong it could subdue a guerrilla insurgency.

In short: I will take the damn elevator if I want to.

Yesterday just to mix up the training a bit, I went to the MIT track to do some speed work. Although the track is only blocks away from my office, I studied Google Maps for about fifteen minutes before venturing out to find it. In Cambridge, there is no “Point A to Point B,” even on foot. I had to run through two parking lots and down a path between two fences and across train tracks and through a construction zone to find the football stadium.

The track was a very high-quality springy material, and I was grateful for the cushioning. But MIT’s football stadium in scope and grandeur was on par with the one at our local middle school. There were a few bleachers on the “home” side, nothing at all for spectators from visiting Salve Regina or whomever else the Engineers face on the gridiron. (Click the link lest you think that’s a joke. Yeah, I thought Salve Regina was a girls’ school, too.)

The whole time I was running my intervals, there was a man hanging sitting on the field. He had work clothes and equipment, so he didn’t look like a loiterer, but he wasn’t actually doing any work. It reminded me of that ’70’s movie, One on One, in which Robbie Benson is a hot-shot college basketball star who is pampered by the university alumni with money, a car, a tutor to do his homework, etc. He has a work-study “job” turning on the athletic field sprinklers, which come on automatically. Strange the things that will course through your brain when you’re in oxygen debt.

It’s a testament to the gullibility of the 1970’s moviegoing public that we would ever accept Robbie Benson as a college-level athlete. Or, for that matter, a straight man.

The other day, Minor asked me for a fruit cup. That’s right, fruit cup: Single-serving, individually-packaged, environment-killing, high-fructose drenched death snack. Get DSS on speed dial and conference in Al Gore, because I’m the worst mother in the world. I opened it and placed it on the kitchen table for him. “TV room?” he asked hopefully.

I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule about eating in the TV room or anywhere else in the house; it’s just not something I can get too exercised about. I usually ask myself two questions: How much of a mess would it be if they spilled it? And, how likely is the dog to eat it off the couch and, subsequently, throw it up? If the answer to either of those questions is, “Ewwwww,” then the answer is no, it must be eaten in the kitchen.

“No, honey, you have to eat it in the kitchen,” I said.

He looked at me thoughtfully. “Daddy yes fruit cup in TV room,” he said.

“Well, I don’t care if Daddy lets you eat fruit cup in the TV room. I’m saying you have to eat it in the kitchen.”

He took a minute to parse that. “Daddy yes, Mommy no.”

If that’s not a concise summation of the difference in our parenting styles, I don’t know what is. It’s also a convenient shorthand for Minor to rat out his father’s overly permissive decisions.

“No, you can’t play with that electrical cord.”

“Daddy yes, Mommy no.”

“Honey! What the hell?”

“Gee thanks, Minor.”

Husband and I took the kids to my sister-in-law’s wedding last weekend. The bridegroom is called “Slammer”; this probably gives you a better mental picture of the nuptials than any word-portrait I could produce. (Me: “Why is he called ‘Slammer’? Was he in prison?” Husband: “His real nickname is ‘Slam-Bam.’ Slammer is just sort of…a diminutive of his nickname.”)

It was actually a really fun wedding, being sort of boozy and informal. The children were in their element, particularly Aitch. I barely saw him the whole evening, he was so busy partying, but at one point he asked me to escort him to the bathroom. As we walked through the crowd, he was hailed by children and adults alike: “Aitch! What’s up, buddy! Give me five!” I felt like I was on the arm of the fraternity social chair during Rush Week.

Before the fun reception, though, we were forced to endure a full-court Mass, and I was a bit worried that the boys’ behavior would give away the fact that it was their first appearance at a church service. As I was fretting about that, another worry occurred to me: Would it be better, under the circumstances, to take Communion, or to refuse it?

If it were only a matter of politeness vs. principles, I would definitely vote for taking Communion, both to be sociable and to avoid offense to my mother-in-law, who would be distressed by having our apostasy on display. This was the course that Husband advocated. Catholics, however, have very strict requirements for Communion, and I was concerned that if my mother-in-law was aware of the rules she would be even more offended by our taking Communion when we were not in a state of grace, particularly since neither of us have gone to Confession since contracting our invalid marriage, a mortal sin.

(By the way, how lame is it that our marrying outside the church is an offense on par with murder? What a pathetic cautionary tale we are: “Sin is a slippery slope, kids, and once you stray from the church you could end up like them — hard-working, tax-paying degenerates with two illegitimate but yet legally adopted children, a mortgage, and a dog!”)

About ten years ago, I was in a wedding party where the Communion question came up. All the bridesmaids were Catholic, so I determined that I would take Communion just so I wouldn’t cause any comment by refusing. Before the sacrament, though, the priest specifically disinvited all the non-Catholics and the non-practicing Catholics from Communion. As it happened, the bridegroom and his family were Protestant, and they were pretty offended by the priest’s words. I’ve never heard any other priest lay down the law for Communion since then, though.

What was the right thing to do, in your opinion?

The use of “brick wall” iconography in band photos is a phenomenon well-documented on the Internets.

The photo above is just the sort of poor-quality, oddly-cropped snapshot that might adorn Minor’s self-produced record of “Four Freshmen” covers.

I was sitting in a meeting the other day (I have lots of meetings now; when I die I expect the newspaper will publish minutes in lieu of an obituary), and I found myself absentmindedly playing with my wedding ring. I had moved it back and forth over my knuckle a few times when it suddenly hit me: “My God, it’s been a long time since I’ve been able to do that!”

My finger is thinner. For years I’ve barely been able to fit that ring on my hand. I’ve hardly worn it the last year or two — shocking! A female misrepresenting herself to the general public by refusing to don her culturally-accepted signifier of marital status! Now it slides on and off, not exactly with ease, but at least without bacon grease.