While she's at Squam... (guest hosting)

Each time Amy flirts with the subject of leaving for a trip I make it a habit to respond with a cool brand of nonchalance born from the experience that she will get distracted or indifferent and circumstance will quietly slip in and make the trip become an “almost” or a “maybe later”. So I never put much stock into a newly mentioned getaway because of the sheer outsideness of the odds it will ever actually hit my credit card. Even when she graduates to serious sounding things like booking cars and tickets the entire thing still feels more like an abstraction, at best a laboratory impression of a journey and no matter how flimsy the logic, I always end up picturing myself in the car, or on the plane because it seems so much more likely that I will be the one that leaves. While this potentiality is still floating in the air like something that may soon be, in her mind she has already jumped to the inevitable conflicts and assorted technical problems that, in her mind, are inherent in her departure. Now take just a minute and locate with a mental magic marker our two disparate dispositions and plot them if you will on an imagined map. You will notice that we couldn’t be further apart.
She is the one that is actually ticketed to a faraway paradise, but due to her death fixation and fear of flying she isn’t picturing the beach or the trees, but is actually wondering what the inside of a body bag smells like, while I, the one who has a first class seat to nowhere, am already getting mad that the lady flying next to me is taking up more than her fair share of armrest and smells like tacos.












So when it came time to drop her off at the airport and power squat her incredibly
heavy bag onto the curb (seriously, anybody less good looking than Amy would earn the undying hatred of the skycap guy and the eternal love of his chiropractor).
Friggen bag was forever heavy. But as soon as I pulled away from the curb I was genuinely shocked that she had gone anywhere, almost like she had sprung it on me in an underhanded sort of way. Let’s call it a mild panic, not at all like you feel when the bank emails you and then leaves you two voicemails later that same day, but more like riding as a passenger in the car while your mom drives and talks on the phone at the same time, you know, focused concern. So as I am driving home I am thinking of all the things I should have asked Amy long before now, like where you going again? it says here the girls finish school at 3 in the afternoon, that can’t be right… who has dance and who has soccer? As I am listing the things I didn’t remember to forget, my worries melted to the background with the abrupt recollection that I don’t have to worry about any of this stuff. Darwinian evolution solved this mess a long time ago with the sister mechanism that painted poison frogs the same color as Mc. Hammer’s pants.

















Survival instincts kick in, the amygdalae glows red with activity and the little door knob- licking kids that normally can’t figure out how to butter toast without getting it on the ceiling subconsciously remember that everything they have ever witnessed lends testimony to the fact that dad doesn’t give half a crap about the details and that if they don’t watch out and captain their own ship then they’ll be late to everything and find themselves eating cereal three meals a day. And sure enough, as soon as I got home and began interacting with the girls the whole thing went without a hitch. I just put out this kinda man-confidence vibe and acted like there couldn’t be anything more normal than having them call all the shots and take care of everything while I just sat back and stayed out of their way. I kept busy with work, making calls, reading and would occasionally ask calm questions like “who’s mess is this?”, “what are you guys going to do until bed time?” and to their credit, they all just started taking care of themselves. Smooth N Easy like a home perm.

Amy vacation day 3 - The drill disrupted

We have a pretty tidy routine at home. Each family develops their own pace and decides which activities are considered normal, and soon after the cold water shock of having children registers and takes its toll, a method emerges. Things really turned the corner for us when our youngest finally started displaying some intestinal responsibility and outgrew diapers. I am worthless with dates and live in a perpetual Diet Coke flavored now, so if memory serves, it was somewhere in the child’s third year that life improved for us as suddenly as it did when electricity arrived in the suburbs. With almost no notice we were freed from the floral tether of the diaper bag and the hazmat clean-up kit that accompanied us everywhere we went while the child was constipated and unmotivated, but was nowhere to be found when she would quite literally explode, like a truck driver that just had two Spanish omelets and drank from the tap in rural India. Timing my child’s movements proved more tricky than the tides, but those days are behind us, and now we only contend with the fact that our friggin’ kids simply do not grasp how important it is to flush. Walking into my bathroom is like a scene from the Hurt Locker, complete with heavy mouth breathing, compromised visibility, and bite your nails suspense.

All of this notwithstanding, I am awfully happy where my family is at. Everybody is quasi-responsible and other than that flushing business, we pretty much stay out of one and others schee. This has allowed a routine to emerge, and I am beginning to realize that our shtick is ritualistically dependent on a near frantic sprint to get from the door to the bed as soon as possible.

The second we darken the door we spring into action like a caffeine fueled NASCAR pit team trying to get everything cleaned, stowed, and fed as fast as possible. Amy is especially competitive with her times, and normally begins building her case for haste

and cleanliness well before she even turns onto our street. She will start listing haste-demanding reasons like a block away, “OK now I don’t want to see anybody getting out of this car with empty hands, it’s full of your crap and we are going to bed early tonight! We have been up way too late every night this week, and that’s when kids start to get sick, if you guys don’t start getting more sleep, you’re gonna get sick! I’m serious, we are eating dinner then lights out!" The kids listen to this speech with the same indifference of a Columbian cab driver listening to El Presidente talk about economic progress, they’ve heard it before and just not having any of it.
We get in the door, and all bets are immediately off. Kids scatter to the wind and proceed to disgorge their flimsy contribution to the unloading part of the job and any attempt to focus their kinder-energy has a medically alarming effect on both their thirst and urinary mechanisms. Once you’ve asked a kid to do anything, they are simultaneously possessed with both Boris Yeltsin-grade thirst, and the bladder of a hamster. It’s like half time at the Super Bowl and everyone stampedes for the toilet farthest from the proposed chore. Amy and I are equally guilty in that we don’t give half a damn about all of the Arthurian tasks we just assigned; our real intent is to keep them busy so they will leave us alone. The oh-so-important quest we spend the last 10 minutes endowing with near religious significance now lies all but forgotten in the silky dust ruffle of our one true aim, the bed. Sleep isn’t the ultimate design per-se, it is more what it represents, the quiet, the comfort, a bit of darkened relaxation, and hopefully the only kidfree spot in the house. Our oldest child has figured this out and she gets it, if you just get away from the parents at the earliest opportunity, then the parents will leave you alone. Kind of an interfamilial urban-flight, the quiet implication being that distance will protect you from any of the unpleasantries inherent in proximity to “them” or “their kind.” Say what you want but demographics just don’t lie, have you ever been to East Saint Louis? Get real.

Call me a bad parent but my psychosomatic “mattress response” is more Pavlovian than smelling movie popcorn. As I pull into my driveway my jaw begins to drop in a tight chin-ward yawn because my reptilian brain knows the bed is near. If we attempt to do anything like read, or relax out in the open, we will be buried beneath a pile of relentless inquiry, pleas for help, and empty chatter that would draw sighs of pity from Paris Hilton’s personal assistant. It’s our only refuge, and it’s become incredibly addicting. Modern sociologists have given names to a legion of imaginary phobias and afflictions which all share the same characteristic of driving a person into their bed, which is really all they want. And take a look at what our society has done to the bedroom, with Nate Berkus owning everything east of the Mississippi, Pier 1 more convenient than Burger King, Target engaging the likes of Simon Doonan and Philippe Stark, and those damn home design shows airing 24 hours a day, the boudoir has been morphed into a den of personal luxury and indulgence previously reserved for day spa’s in Bahrain.

Despite this bedroom extravagance, all we are really gonna do is douse the lights and zone out with the TV. For me, television is more potent than the barbiturates they used to sedate Elvis. Twenty minutes of that stuff and my eyes glaze over, less with your run of the mill exhaustion that with a serious looking case of carbon-dioxide induced hemotoxy, I go cold and grey and lapse into a Pink Floyd grade coma.

I am dead to you and the world. I might as well wrap myself in a warm blanket and ask my granddad to tell me how he feels about Asian people after pounding a turkey dinner, I am out. But it works differently for my Amy. She gets all into it. Sappy dramas, empty nightly news shows, entertainment recap, and all of the reality based flatus. When it comes to television, women are like men in Vegas, suddenly there are no rules and all sense of right and wrong and taste and decency are out the window. My wife scored 31 on the ACT, studied biology, and can re-task a satellite from her cell phone, but while her I.Q. looks like a bowling score that would earn you a plaque on the wall, it might as well be the same as the digits on Bond's vanity plate when the boobtube is on. When did this happen? When did women claim the right to be as trashy as us men?

I remember as a kid and Daisy Duke would walk on screen wearing her oh so revealing jean shorts, my mom would clutch her chest and gasp like someone just belched during the national anthem. Now I go over to her house and she is Tivo-ing Real Housewives of New Jersey and is saving those yummy left-overs so she can hunker down and watch The Bachlorettes mini marathon on Bravo. And there is simply no end to the amount of CSI based shows that she and my Dad can ingest. I would think CSI Akron staring a now horrendously overweight Flavor Flav would appeal to a slightly more Afro-centric demographic, but it turns out that schee is like baby boomer crack. If your parents went to college when Lydon Johnson was running the show, forward emails about Nigerian Princes who just can’t wait to do business with them, and shout like they are trapped in the bottom of a well every time they speak on a cell phone in public, chances are they are addicted to a cop show staring an overweight rapper that spend most of their time in the 90’s urging people to “F da police”. I take my hat off to the media wizards that pulled that one off.

We get a few minutes into the bedtime groove and I just couldn’t be happier. As I slide into the cool sheets I let go with a deep Tibetan monk back of the throat groan of satisfaction. I adore our mattress. My single challenge with the nighttime groove is that as soon as I get settled I become possessed with a hunger that could only be duplicated by chaining Kirsty Alley to a radiator. This is particularly frustrating because during the non-vampire hours I can control my diet with only a mild amount of discipline. All day long I can eat whole grain, vegetable grilled bowel stiffening whatever you want, with no afternoon snacking or top drawer stash of Hostess SnoBalls or any of that stuff. But come about ten in the P.M. and I display the self-control of Adam Lambert in the front row at Thunder Down Under and lose all composure.

I once got out of bed and decimated an entire roast chicken, left the bones on the counter, went back to bed, and then accused Amy and the kids first thing in the morning. So whether I resist the carbo-urge, or succumb, we still have yet to deal with the dilemma of our programming choices. Most nights I just click on the Tivoed Modern Marvels , she enthusiasticall counters with a plug for the latest installment of Survivor. I offer only flimsy resistance because we both know I’m going to be drooling into my pillow before the first tribal whatever you call it. I get into position just in time to see three willowy white chicks standing on what appear to be bamboo stilts while a handful of clubby looking guys wrestle with the winner getting an entire box of oreos. And that’s as far as I ever get. But having Amy gone these last few days makes me miss our routine and the team participation of the whole thing.

Amy Vacation Day 2 - Adam guest blogs

o it seems only natural that I would seize the opportunity to do a stint guest blogging while my wife is taking a vacation from spending upwards of 8 hours a day alone in a 4,000 sq. ft. house with three computers and four monitors. You gotta think that would wear on even the toughest of candidates (I like to grab my audience right from the start, you know, get them on my side). I should mention that she not only left the house on the cleaner side of the scale, but also gifted me the new Kings of Leon album, “Come around Sundown”, which seems like a rather riskily titled album to be throwing around as you leave your husband unsupervised for better than a week, at least from a Freudian standpoint. But I couldn't recommend the CD with any more enthusiasm; it’s a strong buy if you don’t normally corrupt your senses with the likes of Taylor Swift, Shakira, or anything endorsed by the cast of Glee.

This whole trip to the Carolinas is something I really support. From a talent perspective, I think Amy has mad skills and never gives herself enough credit, so the opportunity to see other people's work and receive instruction should not only advance her as an artist, but also help her see just how good she is. I am a big believer that passion gets us where we go in life, for the better or the worse, and the biggest disasters are when we seriously jack up our chi by doing the safe thing, and in a classic over-correction, we end up putting off what we really want in life so long that when we least expect it we finally make some knee jerk reaction and explode into a phenomenally ill-advised career move.

So there is nothing more laudable than taking time out of life, which let’s face it, there is never really a good time, and getting some distance from the disquietude of domesticity, the endless whining of husband and kids, and reorient yourself by the compass hands of what really lights you up. For my Amy it is photography, creativity and self-expression. For me it is old architecture, interior design, dark beautiful woods, and anything involving Sofia Vergara. What?? Too soon?

And on the seventh day she rested.... by Adam

So the recovery process hasn't gone as smoothly as one would hope. The pills they prescribed have wiped her out. After coming home on Monday Amy slept like Nick Nolte after a hard weekend.

There must be a hormonal reaction to the antibiotics or the Joaquin Phoenix-strength narcotics they gave her, because each night around 9pm Amy starts to loose it. By 9:30 she could teach the ladies on "The View" a thing or two about crazy. Tuesday night she started talking about how something was horribly wrong and that her swelling, which was nothing, was freakishly abnormal. She insisted that her eyebrows wouldn't move and she kept staring at me and doing a Groucho Marx style eyebrow raise to prove her point. Later she insisted that her ear was lopsided as if it had been taken off and sewn back on, and I had to remind her they hadn't removed the ear Mr. PotatoeHead-style, but only made an incision. It has been heart-breaking to see her so nauseous and so weak, but I have to remind myself that it was full blown surgery. I bet she hasn't been able to stay awake for more than 3 hours since returning home.

Thursday we went to the hospital for the follow up and the poor girl could hardly walk. As soon as the doctor saw her he told her she looked like she was two weeks post-operative and the wound was healing wonderfully. He confirmed the pathology results were benign, barely acknowledged my terrified report of the 5 day "dry spell" and was gone as soon as he arrived. I got some great footage of the nurse pulling out the stint, but I will spare the home viewers.


They scheduled us to come back Tuesday to remove the stitches. We walked out of the doctors office and Amy started to dry heave as soon as we reached the elevators. The poor girl just dropped to the floor and ralphed into a plant. One has to admire her instincts, she found the only receptacle available and managed to use the native foliage as a screen at the same time (she can even make hallway puking look good!) Unfortunately the garbage can you see in the picture arrived ex post facto and played only a supporting role. As she was dumpin' her breakfast into the palm tree, I ran down the hall and scared the hell out of some admin gal as I threw the door open and grabbed her garbage can without a word of explanation.

We took her back to the car in a wheelchair because she was so groggy and in such pain. Luckily she reversed tact on the drive home and instead of rolling down the windows she went with sweltering heat.

One thing that kind of surprised me was the K-flex Fiber Powder the doctor prescribed to help with "the situation". I think we are all accustomed to the disturbing list of possible side effects that accompany modern pharmaceutical advertising. But nothing could have prepared me for the Tolstoy-like directions that were bolted to the back of the K-flex Fiber bottle. Check this out.

All I wanted to do was find out the size of an adult dose. Instead I had to read 5 pages of terrifying possible results that made me feel dirtier than if I had just read the original V. C. Andrews manuscript. Lets be honest, if there is anything that is self explanatory or "point and shoot" it should be a laxative. You take it, and then IT happens. I think we all remember the wonderful scene in Ghost Town when Ricky Gervais takes the turbo laxative. But this was just scary.

The one thing that has really cheered her is all of the cards, flowers and gifts that had been arriving. On behalf of Amy I want to thank everyone for their thoughtfulness. It brightened her day to see all of her friends thinking of her.
I don't know what Amy is going to do when she reads this, but its just too good not to share.

Personal Growth....but its coming out the side of her neck -by Adam

I have more than a little guilt about how this whole surgery thing has come about. For the fourteen years I have been with Amy she has been hyper-sensitive to the potential presence of tumors, growths and illness of all kinds. So when she mentioned a small growth in her neck a few months back, my first thought was that she might be crying wolf. After she visited the doctor and had the scan done, I felt the sting of guilt...and then the more disquieting feeling of dread. As she prepared for Monday's surgery, I was impressed at how much strength she exhibited, and how all of the thoughts and prayers her friends and family buoyed her.

When we arrived at the hospital, we were greeted by the panic stricken voice of the mall cop turned hospital security guard warning us to stand back and make way for the bomb sniffing dogs. Serious. The waiting room full of people with real problems was treated to a brief imaginary one for a change as Chuckie led his German Shepard "Bo" to a large box that had been left in the hallway. As it turned out, it was just a box of "fluids", and Chuckie and Bo left as suddenly as they arrived. I couldn't help but think some of the people in the room were a bit let down, but Amy and I, being optimists, were happy with the explosionlessness of our check-in.

We had a good time hanging out in the waiting room for an hour or so. I rubbed Amy's legs while we both talked about how it was all going to be OK. I have felt calm all along, but afterwards I had to wonder if other people have come in feeling confident, and left feeling lost.
Once she went back, I was taken to an awfully posh private waiting room that would have put most of the hotels in Canada to shame. A generous room with a couch, a desk, DVD, TV, a recliner and a fridge. As it turned out the fridge was full of Pepsi. Friggin Obamacare, we knew it wouldn't work.

I spent most of the 2 hours by drawing this card for Amy. I didn't have time to ink it, or to write the text, but when I am done it will be like all my cards, trashy and thoughtful at the same time. When the doctor came in he told me the operation was very smooth, and that the growth looked like the kind of tumor that is always benign. Huge relief. As I said, I had been pretty peaceful, but I can only imagine how it would have felt if it had gone the other way. The doctor said he was confident enough to complete the operation with a fat graft. If the growth was cancerous, they would leave the cavity unfilled so they could check it later. To fill the void he had to go find some fat to harvest, which is why the surgery took as long as it did. Finding chub on that girl is like finding a Jean Claude Van Damme flick where he doesn't do the splits. They made an incision deep in the territory my mom taught me was the"bad touch" area.

They cut in front and behind her ear, and inserted a lovely blood/puss drain and stitched that to her neck. Between the three incisions and a load of Demoral, she was really out of it when she was brought into the recovery area.

By the time we got to the car, it was late afternoon. Somehow the 2 hour operation had taken all day. On the drive home we had a delightful role swap as Amy asked me to roll down all the windows. I was freezing my toots off while my drugged up wife seemed oblivious to the 30 degree air. This must be what its like to date Linday Lohan. I carried her from the car to the bed, but she felt more than her real weight because she was as limp as a noodle.

She has slept all but a few hours since getting home. We've had tons of friends bring over food and flowers and chocolate. It has been touching to see how many people have given of themselves. The outpouring has encouraged me to suggest that Amy get a few more procedures a la Heidi Montag just so we can keep this lovely feeling.