Meany Pants

I'm having one of those days where I'm losing all faith in mankind.  Walter White has gone Heisenberg, the waitress at the restaurant was as friendly as a scorpion, and the nightly news makes me want to hide in a padlocked closet with a box of extra crispy chicken wings.  Where's the love, people?  Where. Is. The. Damn. Love?

Even the kids at our local playground have been acting like assholes lately.  I had to physically remove Amelia from the jungle gym because a little girl tried to intentionally smash her head into a metal pole.  And I'll be damned if I have a craving again for Skittles---while leaving the American Store yesterday, I accidentally opened the door into an elderly man's face.  I had to cover Amelia's ears from the horrendous French curse words he spewed at me.  I didn't even have a chance to apologize for his bloody nose or offer him a taste of the rainbow before he stormed off in the other direction.

No one holds open doors.  No one offers their seat on the train to exhausted mothers who are carrying a baby and sixteen shopping bags filled with croissants and organic foreign crap because no one in this country appreciates processed foods like I do. I think I could change the entire attitude of the people with the simple introduction of Velveeta Cheese---if it can change my life, it can surely change theirs. 

I'm not suggesting we go all Mayberry on each other, but for a country who swaps three kisses on the cheek for each and every greeting, they sure lack in the hospitality department.  If you're gonna kiss me excessively, you could at least take me to dinner, right?

I'm even having issues with the neighbor's cat, George Clooney (yes, that's real life).  He climbs through our windows uninvited and makes himself at home.  I never thought I'd live to see the day when I kicked George Clooney out of my bedroom, but lo and behold, it's happened.  If we can't even get celebrity cats to mind their manners, then is there really any hope for the rest of us? 

I'm not asking for much, folks.  Just a little more, perhaps. More kindness.  More Velveeta.  A smile here and a smile there.  A few words of good cheer in this sad, sad world.  

Like the famous philosopher Britney Spears once said, just "gimme, gimme more".

Euro-PEE-an

I've been called many things in my 27 years of life, but gym rat isn't one of them.  Though I usually align my workout schedule with that of the solar eclipse, I've learned I can tone these thunder thighs free of charge without ever stepping foot in a YMCA.   I present you the European Squat Toilet:



It also promotes weight loss from the vomiting it induces at the sheer thought of using it..

 

There are two things I am quite particular about: coffee and self-tanning lotion.  I like my coffee strong and in abundance---the same goes for my self-tanner.  On a recent road trip to Italy, my love for the two left me looking like a jaundiced zebra.

After downing two coffees between Switzerland and France, I was on the lookout for the nearest bathroom (or as they call it here, the Water Closet).  Matt pulled into a rest stop and out I hopped in my new patent leather pumps.

By now, most of my readers realize I suffer from extreme anxiety.  This anxiety is particularly heightened by raw poultry and public bathrooms.  Let me paint you all a quick scene: a chemically-imbalanced brain, a near-sterile pair of fantastic new heels, and a toilet IN which you literally stand. Now let's ponder this...

Yup, you've come to the right conclusion, folks: full on mental meltdown.  I'm in tears at this point as I've just encountered one of my biggest OCD triggers. Quite the conundrum we have here: I badly must pee and we still have three hours of driving time.  Also, if you know much about European interstates, you'll know there aren't rows and rows of fast food restaurants with available toilets at every exit.  When ya find a place to go, then ya better start your flow. 

I consider my options. I could always pee in a bush---this  worked out just fine in college.  However, I am now more fearful of  legal ramifications, and the thought of an indecent exposure ticket and an arrest record trump my fear of MRSA-laced squat toilets.  For a quick, irrational second, I consider strapping on one of Amelia's Elmo diapers, but I then remember that I am a civilized member of society and civilized members pee in toilets.

I elbow the stall door shut and peer down at the gaping hole in the ground.  My teary eyes convince me that it's winking at me; taunting the last of my frayed nerves. 

The whole process is quick and ugly.  Fortunately I am donning a skirt so at least I've got that going for me.  I close my eyes and scream through the whole ordeal, and by the time my vocal cords start aching, I realize I've peed down both of my legs and onto my fancy new shoes.

I bow my head in shame and waddle back to the car. There are vertical stripes streaking my legs from what was once my self-tanner and vertical stripes streaking my face from what was once my mascara.  I lay a towel across the passenger seat and place my heels in a plastic grocery bag.  Because my husband thinks he's clever and  because every scenario needs a little pun, he smiles and asks, "Why the pissy mood?" 

The Ick Factor

Like the proverbial tree in the forest, I feel that if I don't share some of this insanity, then it's not really happening. If you don't hear my screams all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, then did I really see an old man's scrotum peek out of his speedos at the pool?

While I have no objection to the male genitalia, I also like to enjoy my ice cream sans nuts.  Positioned quite comfortably on my beach towel,  I simply turned my head to find another view when I locked eyes with a woman breastfeeding in the shallow end.  Yup, two massive, veiny boobs and a baby sucking away right in the middle of an intense game of water tag. 



Shocking, I know

Now Switzerland, riddle me this: it's considered rude to mow our lawns on Sundays, but we're ok with boobs and balls joining our family swim?

What's that, readers? You heard another faint scream from that seashell on your dresser? Yup, that would be me at the market, trying to comprehend why this little boy is eating the crushed ice from the raw fish display.  He is literally grabbing handfuls of blood-tinged ice and sucking each morsel with glee while his mother looks on with indifference.

Perhaps I am just an over-observant American, but I can't help but want to make a scene.  Lady, your son is feasting on bacteria-ridden ice and fish guts. I hate to break it to your free spirit, but that ain't sushi!

Ok, deep breath. Rant over for the day.  It's simply impossible not to recognize cultural differences with every European step I take.  They love their food raw and their bodies rawer.

Mama, Interrupted

I think I may be in a bit of a slump.

Not the 'can't crawl out of bed', 'fifth of whiskey on the nightstand' type slump, but more like the stay-at-home-mama blues.  Perhaps the days seem extraordinarily long since my husband is away in Romania and I have no one to talk to but the neighbor's temperamental horse.  Or may because Amelia is sick with a cold and refusing to sleep, my patience is wearing extremely thin.  

Whether I be explaining in my adorable baby voice why she can't swim alone in the deep end or counting down the minutes until Amelia takes her comically short nap, I am feeling the guilt and pressure of not being the peppy, glittery glue stick soccer mom who fist pumps at the idea of spending another day at the petting zoo. 

I was a nanny, I tell myself.  I was destined to be a natural at motherhood.  Snot and bloody noses and disobedience and that explorer chick Dora are supposed to be second nature to me. But instead I find myself tired and mentally exhausted---all the while just wanting to curl up in a bed with a smutty novel and another McFlurry for my McShitty mood.

I feel you judging me right now.  Yeah, you.  I have the most wonderful baby girl with the most beautiful set of screaming lungs, and instead of feeling blessed and grateful and proud to have the most precious gift in the world for which I so desperately prayed, I am merely feeling overwhelmed.

Matt says I need an outlet for my boredom and exhaustion.  "Write your book today," he nonchalantly tosses out as he leaves the house for work.  "Ok, sure honey! Just as soon as Amelia finishes pooping in the bathtub, I will get right to it!"

I have no words for a book at the moment.  I can hardly come up with enough letters to send out a decent tweet.  Unless self-pity books or personal essays on McFlurry binges are the new Fifty Shades of Grey, I'd say I'm a few hundred pages short of a best seller.

It's not that I am without joy.  My love for Amelia is without a doubt the most incredible, enormous emotion I will ever experience. Hands down. I would give my life for that child, yet I simultaneously struggle to read her Curious George three times before bedtime.  He will still be curious in the morning, Amelia.  I promise. 

I wish a handbook came out with the placenta explaining exactly how these supermoms do it.  How do they muster the energy to navigate the entire children's museum on four hours of sleep? How on Earth do these superhuman baby-makers do it day after day and never seem to need a break?  Ten minutes into a puppet show and I could already use an intermission. Or a martini.

I constantly find myself wondering if I am truly doing the best I can do.  I stay up late at night worrying that Amelia considers me a bad mother; that I am scarring her for life if we don't finger paint and blow bubbles and pet filthy goats everyday.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things I am a fairly good parent.  My child is happy and clean. She has never gone without, and she will always be taught right from wrong. Yet I had such grandiose ideas when that pregnancy test read positive that I was going to be the mother who never questioned her abilities because she was so busy being wonderful at everything.

I was going to be the mother who hosted play dates all week since the other moms would be too tired to entertain.  I was going to make blanket forts and costumes and spend hours in an over sized toy box filled with educational games and anatomically correct baby dolls so Amelia could get a head start on her medical degree. 

I wasn't supposed to be this blasé.  I wasn't supposed to be this mediocre.

Jet Lag Ramblings

"Would you like to make that a medium?" the Swiss McDonald's employee asked me of my Big Mac meal.  "Actually, just make it a large," I sighed, knowing that an extra handful of fries would go a long way tonight after seeing my favorite Swiss family off to the airport. 

"Mademoiselle, we no do large. Medium is biggest size," she responded in broken English. 

Seriously, Switzerland?!?

You don't do large?!?

 You actually thought I wanted to downsize my meal?!?

Can this country get any weirder?!?

Just eight short hours before this preposterous incident, I bid farewell to  my dearest friends Jake, Kate, and Fynn Beaverson as they moved back to the United States after nearly five years of living in Switzerland. Just like that ridiculous medium fry I consumed in three bites---they were gone.  And I was feeling pretty salty.

The hardest part of this whole ex-pat life is the difficulty of starting over in a foreign culture that just doesn't seem to get you.  Kate got me.  For fourteen months, she was my confidant and tour guide, and without her here to ease the transition into Swiss life, I think I may have floundered. 




Until we meet again...
 

I heard the heartbreaking news of their departure while I was back in Illinois for the summer.  Agreeing I could no longer go without my family, hometown friends, or air conditioning, Matt sent me home for a glorious 36 days. Nostalgia hit me as soon at that 747 landed on Midwest soil. 

I wanted to do the things I had always done, so I drank cheap wine out of the bottle, played Scattegories with my hot headed friends, and took my mom's vintage bicycle for a long ride on the Fairview bike trails.  About four miles in, I gave myself a figurative pat on the back for being in such great shape after a full weekend of nachos and ice cream cake.  Ninety-two degrees Fahrenheit and I had hardly broken a sweat.  Actually, I was not perspiring at all...I paused to ponder this. Before I had time to come to a reasonable conclusion, I fell to the blacktop as nausea and dry heaves overtook me. I tried to call out for help, but the trail was eerily empty.  I could tell I was beginning to lose consciousness as I mapped out a plan in my head as how to call an ambulance, meanwhile cursing myself for leaving home without a telephone or blow horn.  I then realized that my entire body was now saturated in sweat as the sweltering black top burned against my skin.  "Roll to the grass," I told my gargantuan frame.  "Just roll to the shade." 

Spoiler alert: I survived.

It took me around ten minutes to fully catch my breath and gain the strength to stand back up.  I was shaking and terrified, certain I had just stared down death.  Once home and after a very dramatic reenactment for my family, I googled heat exhaustion and realized that certain medications can contribute greatly to this condition.  There it was: Prozac and heat intolerance. 

And this crazy biatch is on the maximum dose.

After stopping and giving my life a long hard look, I've decided I can no longer take unwarranted risks like vintage bicycle rides.  Since my medicated body obviously cannot tolerate rigorous exercise, it may be best to stick to my usual cardio routine of climbing mall escalators and lifting fudge pops.  We only get so many second chances.

Now back to the present: I am currently in Switzerland and am counting down the days until this heat wave is finished; that, or until the day the Swiss realize it is 2013 and air conditioning has already been discovered (along with the size LARGE).

I apologize that this blog post has no real focus.  I am going on day five of little sleep and a jet lagged toddler.  Throw some melancholy into the mix over the absence of Kate, and there you have it: a lonely, heat intolerant, unable-to-get-a-damn-supersize, Mademoiselle.

And There You Are

Sometimes I feel as if that car kept driving through the midnight hour and took you both with it; a seamless transition to the other side. 

Over 4,000 miles and a boundless ocean separate me from the loss that devoured our lives four years ago, yet I now find your memory in the newest of places. Although you've never climbed the Swiss Alps or admired its sunrise, I can't help but think that you can now feel its warmth; that you are familiar with all its beauty. I've often thought that this land must be unquestionably close to the Heavens.

Your death awakened in all of us the fear we so desperately keep at bay---that one day our doubts, questions, and hopes of the afterlife will be fully recognized. Since that cruel November night, I've retold story after story and cried over your pictures.  Once in a while I will even happen upon a certain smell in the air and I am instantly taken back to your college apartment in DeKalb, where the thought of an abbreviated future never crossed our blissful minds. How often we look behind us for what used to be.

For so many years you have been frozen in time at twenty-four.  I couldn't quite seem to look past the date on your headstone.  It was Switzerland that brought me back to the present. 

Something about beauty in its most natural form brings out the spirituality in even the dimmest of us.  I have never felt so absolutely sure that Heaven exists as I do when I'm gazing toward the Swiss skies.  There is a peacefulness here I could not obtain elsewhere; a sense of endlessness that most certainly reminds me of you. 

I will be walking along a quiet brook when I notice the way the sunlight polishes the peaks of the mountains, and there you are in that moment.  My mind can be going in a billion different tangled directions, yet the chaos seems to halt and I can only think of you.  I thank God for those instants.  I thank Him for giving me such hope.

It may be true that grief never ceases in this lifetime; but it is also true that it changes.  The sadness once felt over your death is and will always be a dense fog in our lives, but it slowly lifts when I'm reminded of how infinitely happy you now are---not the type of happy from a successful round of golf and certainly not the type of happy from a late night college party, but true and genuine joy that this life can never give us. 

I think of you now in the present tense, though I will still hang on to these memories for awhile. I don't catch myself looking at your pictures quite as often, nor do I replay stories over and over in my mind.  There is no longer really the need. All I have to do is look around me. It is there that you are.

 

Star

My sister tried to rock over my tiny baby head when I was only five weeks old.  Fortunately for myself and the rest of mankind,  my mom grabbed her right before the wooden rocker crushed my adorable mug.  If you ask my mom for her side of the story, she will lace it with words like "accidental" and "unpremeditated," but I always knew exactly what was going through little Kelli Jo's advanced mind.

Unbeknownst to the family, I was imposing on Kelli's destiny of remaining an only child. From the moment they placed a Fisher Price microphone in her grabby hands, she became the star. For the next decade, she would write, direct, and perform as lead in all of her own theatrical works. Some sisters pull hair.  Others slap and claw.  Mine always made me play a dude in her bossy garage productions.  

Kelli and I probably never would have picked each other as friends had we not been born sisters first.  We've had over twenty years of difference and dysfunction to realize that we aren't really all that alike.  She was always the graceful, rhythmic one; I once knocked myself out by running into a parking meter.  She had the lovely, soprano voice for the high school musicals; I had the loud, obnoxious cackle that landed me the part of the Wicked Witch.

While Kelli always strove for perfection and order, I loved a life of disarray and improv. We never really saw eye to eye (perhaps because I was blessed with an extra six inches) on just about anything.  My friends soon became like sisters to me, and Kelli and I went our separate ways. Though we both thrived in the spotlight, there can only be one star to every show.

Eventually, Kelli and I missed out on knowing each other.  I never knew her favorite book or her first heartbreak; she never knew where I went on the weekends or my most beloved Britney album (it's Blackout, obvi).  We allowed ourselves to become strangers, and assumed we would always be so. 

It's 9:30 pm in Switzerland as I write this, and I am trying to finish this blog post while waiting for the guest bedroom sheets to dry.  I have a friend arriving on Sunday.  She also happens to be my sister.

If you told the childhood Steffo that people do change and that Kelli and I would one day get over all our stupid drama, I would have told you, "Right. And I'll end up living next to goats in Switzerland."

Kelli still rolls her eyes when I have one too many drinks and embarrass her; I still hit ignore on her sixteen phone calls when I don't want to hear about her drastic new hair trim.  I have yet to ask her favorite book (although I would guess it has yet to be written since I am sure it will be her autobiography), and she still doesn't know that I eat whip cream directly out of the can when I'm feeling a tad blue.

We will never be the Kardashians or Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen, but we've finally made room for each other; we respect each other.  Dare I say we even admire the other. 

In a few short days, Kelli will arrive (in style, no doubt) with her Godsend of a boyfriend, Craig, and we will spend an entire week learning to share the spotlight.  Oh, and she says she's bringing a gift for Amelia. 

Here's hoping it's not a Fisher Price mic.