GOODBYE, HELLO

Friends,

A lot has changed here at Chez Fang. Doors were opened for me that, frankly, I simply had to walk through or perish.

Aff the Fang is closing down.

As it does, another blog and new place to romp has been created at Who's Your Mama? Over there you'll see many of the posts that first appeared here at Aff the Fang. You'll also find that Manic Monday will be revived, this time with its own page for FAQs and directories. The place is a little dusty yet, and I haven't cleared away all the boxes or hung the pictures, or even painted the walls. But the carpet is new and the furniture will be delivered soon, so we'll just camp out on the floor til I'm all settled in.

Who's Your Mama is what Aff the Fang probably would have been if I hadn't been trying to keep the peace amongst family members and friends. If I had given myself permission to feel or do certain things. If I had been a little braver, more self-confident. It is going to keep many features you have told me you enjoyed about Aff the Fang. It is also going to be a more real picture of what life for a struggling writer is like, as well as life as a struggling parent. The children are getting older, my writing is taking off, and now a whole new struggle is before me to balance the two. It is no longer just me and a pile of diapers and a dream of "someday."

"Someday" is here. Whoa.

My love and appreciation to each one of you. Your friendships, comments and participation are priceless to me. Subscribers via RSS and other venues, thank you -- your emails of support and your quiet presence have been encouraging.

Please join me at Who's Your Mama?. You gave me the strength to attempt this. I want you to be part of the push forward, as well.

Fondly,

Crystal
is still totally aff the fang

Perspective

One of my clients publishes a beautiful glossy newsletter for a hospital. This newsletter features health information on topics like allergies and vitamins, and it generally has at least one patient profile story. My assignment came in this past week: interview the parents and doctor of a 2-month old boy born with a heart defect.

I spent over an hour on the phone with the mother this morning. I had called their house yesterday and spoke to the baby's father to tell the family I'd interview them today -- I like to give about a day's heads-up so they can think about what they'd like to say. Donald offered to take the kids out the park while I was on the phone for the (we presumed) thirty minutes this call would take. He'd been planning on this all week anyway, so sure -- I took him up on it.

As soon as my crew bundled out the door, I dialed. Baby A's mom E answered. I had talked to the dad, V, yesterday, so I kicked off the interview asking if he'd told her. She laughed and said yes, and "You have one of those too?" Sure do. I refer to him as Mr. Calendar at times, and discovered just a day or so ago my friend Candy refers to her husband the same way.

The first question is easy: When was Baby A born? And when was he diagnosed?

What followed was a story of incredible determination on the part of these parents and dedication to a patient by the doctor who followed the case as it was transferred to a large university hospital that repeatedly dropped the ball.

Her three older kids were playing in the background and I could hear Baby A cooing. Donald came back in with my herd, all of them covered with mud and wound up beyond all control.

Her core story (doctors, tests, diagnoses and surgical treatments) told, I asked a further question: What would you want a reader to know about you and how you handled the situation? After five minutes, I turned off my time tracker. She cried, and I cried with her. She laughed about how V brought pre-pregnancy clothes to her while she stayed at her baby's bedside for an entire week. She couldn't fit into them so just wore her same outfit over and over and over. The huge university hospital's doctors and nurses kept telling her nothing was wrong with her baby, but she knew, and she had faith in her original pediatric cardiologist's experience. Two women, a mother and a doctor, bonded together and fought a system so that later two women, both of them mothers, could laugh about C-sections, hormones and what-the-hell-was-he-thinking.

When we hung up, I spent fifteen minutes wandering the house and feeling kind of like I've made a new friend. I've written numerous patient profiles before, some of them heartbreaking but most of them stories of courage and hope. None have affected me this way. None have been stories about people or families I identified with this strongly. This one was like talking to me. This one was giving me a picture into what my life might have been life, had Jasper not recovered quickly at birth from an anomalous heart pattern. I was sent home for 24 hours then went back to the hospital to stay with him for a further 48. What if it was me trying to wear pre-pregnancy jeans and having to leave the floor every time there was a nursing shift change? What if it was Donald having to explain to McKinley and Cordelia that "something's wrong with Jasper's heart" and having McKinley ask if the new baby was going to die?

The photographer hasn't been out to take pictures of this family yet. I kind of want a picture taken just for me, only of E. The other me.

The One Where Donald Plays With Fire

Not so long ago, I set the kitchen on fire while making dim sum. Many of my friends have continued to laugh about it and ask me what I'm going to burn down next.

My husband, apparently.

Last night, Donald made a late run to the grocery. He came back with the required items, but also with about 1.5 lbs of pork roast. He decided he wanted to marinate it overnight and grill it out for supper tonight. It was kind of cute, and very sweet, how excited he seemed to be doing this for us, so I let him have at it.

When he returned home from work, he darted out the back door to light the grill. Out of the fridge came his freezer bag of meat that had been soaking in spices and oils all day. I started making rice and slicing peaches. The kids split into two different directions: Mack to the office to write emails, Delia and Tapper to the back yard to play in the wee house. Donald put the meat on the grill. I didn't cut myself while working with the peaches. As dinner-making experiences go, it was almost... normal. Like other families.

A screech arose from somewhere off to the side of the kid house and DeeDee came hopping on one foot toward the back door. "A splinter OW a splin-OW-ter OW a OW splinterOW!" Donald left the meat on the grill, turned the grill itself to low, and attended to Her Royal Hedgehogness' injury as she collapsed onto the couch and said "Not the tweezers!" in the same way Spaniards once said "Not the auto de fé!" This was a little bit more like what I was used to, so I continued to work with the rice and peaches.

"Daddy," said Tapper.

"Not now, Tapper," said Donald, bending low over Hedgie's foot and threatening her with iron bands and heavy chains.

"Daddy," said Tapper. I cut my finger.

"I said wait, Tapper."

Tapper turned back toward the back door and said, sotto voce, "Damn it."

I whirled around, paper towel wadded against my cut. Donald jerked his head around, accidentally poking DeeDee with the tweezers. DeeDee levitated off the couch with a shriek Wes Craven only dreams about.

Tapper was standing, pointing out the back door. Flames. Tall flames. Flames over three feet tall. Tall flames over three feet tall over the grill. All over the grill. The grill was in flames. Tall flames.

I'm not clear on what happened next. Donald defied the space-time continuum and somehow popped from the couch to outside instantaneously. The two little ones, cussing and sore foot forgotten, stood with their noses pressed to the glass of the window only feet away. I ran in a circle in the kitchen. And bled.

I finally disrupted my panicked holding pattern and ran to the back door with the little fire extinguisher and two large mitts. He had the lid of the grill up by then and wow, those were tall flames alright. We couldn't even see the pork. "Cryssi, could you get me a plate?" he asked.

I stared at him. I offered the extinguisher. I offered the mitts. He only wanted a plate. I flew back into the kitchen to fetch one, trying to decide if this was some neat engineer trick. Something like "Hey, I can douse a fire with nothing but gas canister, a plate, and all this drought-killed grass!" and it'd work and we'd all applaud and talk about how science rawks.

Instead, the crazy SOB takes his 12" tongs, reaches into the flame, and starts pulling out chunks and strips of charcoal that looks suspiciously like exploded pork roast. Reached in, grabbed, pulled out, plopped onto plate. Over and over and over.

The flames started to die down once the briquettes^H^H^Hmeat was removed, but there was still a rather exciting amount of fire so near the gas canister. I shooed the kids back inside (they'd followed me out), and then had the following conversation with my hunter-gatherer:

"Is the rice done?"

"The what?"

"The rice. Weren't you cooking rice?"

"Uhmm-hmm. Hey, what are you doing there, with that plate and stuff?"

"I'm going back into the house."

"We still have fire. That was kind of impressive, you know? I liked the part where you flipped open the lid and the world disappeared behind a black mushroom cloud."

"Here, I can blow on that part, Cryssi. It'll go right out." Puff puff. "See?"

"Yeah, I see. So about that plate. What're you doing with it?"

"I'm taking it in. I said that already."

"And...?"

"I think the kids will eat it."

I stood in stone silence for a moment, simply looking at him, unblinking and unsmiling. Finally, "No."

"No, what?"

"No, you're not giving that to my children. Should you even convince them to put a piece of it between their lips, I will not allow them to chew nor swallow that."

"Why not?"

More unblinking looks. Finally, "Donald, I'm going to go out and get everyone sandwiches. I will serve the rice tomorrow. Now tell me what you want and get rid of that plate."

And that's why at about 6:50 this evening I had a crying, laughing meltdown in the parking lot of Jack in the Box when the drive-through lady said "Have a good night!"

No money-back guarantees

It is any wonder I'm such a disillusioned woman, wife and mother? I was born in 19mumblemumble and grew up with a slew of commercials that showed me Life As It Shall Be. What I didn't know was that everybody at advertising agencies was tripping and the adults in my life who should have cautioned me to take this with a grain of salt were all out "finding themselves" and "becoming empowered" and totally dropping the ball when it came to teaching me the facts about life, the universe, and everything.

The commercial: I can frost cakes using a cut-out strip of paper plate.

The reality: I don't know how to bake, I have no idea how to spread frosting, and I need all my paper plates intact so we have something to eat off of tonight.

The commercial: Soaking my hands in dish soap will give my manicure a boost.

The reality: Dish soap eats skin.

The commercial: Pantyhose will rid me of unsightly panty lines.

The reality: This is because the crotch of pantyhose falls around your knees and takes your undies with it.

The commercial: My children will look adorable while wiping barbecue sauce over the front of their shirts, and I will shake my head and smile at them and think “Those sweet little scamps!”

The reality: The top of my head explodes and my children walk around in shirts that look blood-soaked. Also! nothing takes barbecue sauce out of cotton.

The commercial: Nairing my legs means I get to wear short-shorts.

The reality: Adult female leg hair is so coarse that Nairing my legs means I get to spend time in a burn unit.

The commercial: Owning that one doll means I'll learn how to feed, bathe and change my own future children's diapers.

The reality: You have got to be kidding. I panic and pass them over to their dad before I throw up.

The commercial: A special deodorant gives me confidence.

The reality: Deodorant and shaving gives me ingrown hairs.

The commercial: "Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce, special orders don't upset us. All we ask is you let us do it your way."

The reality: We also need you to pull ahead into that slot over there until tomorrow morning.

The commercial: “It's not nice to fool Mother Nature.”

The reality: Butter gives us heart disease and margarine gives us cancer. She wasn't kidding.

The commercial: Football players toss their jerseys to hero-worshipping boys.

The reality: Paternity suits.

The commercial: “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan, and never make you forget you're a man--cause I'm a woman.”

The reality: Now don't touch me. I'm exhausted.

The commercial: The little boy makes the nose light up when he hits the side of the Operation game. His sister gets the bone free and says “Ha ha ha!”

The reality: The sister has a PPO.

The commercial: It takes two licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop.

The reality: It takes two Tootsie Roll Pops and a slug of Nicorette to make it through church every Sunday.

Fun & Games & Lingerie

An online board I'm on has a forum called "Fun & Games," meaning this is where we put all the whacky stuff about life that doesn't fit into the board's original purpose. Lately all the women have been talking about bras and such on there, so one of the gentlemen suggested, in a new post, the forum be renamed to "Fun & Games & Lingerie." Here was my response:

You can't even begin to know how absolutely, stark-staring crazy this thread title makes me. There is nothing fun about lingerie, nothing games about lingerie, and anymore not all that much lingerie about lingerie.

Let me illustrate:

Two scraps of satin and a memory-wisp of lace were never meant to be worn as anything but a flaked-out piece of headgear. If you have any sort of curve to your body at all, not only will your boobs not fit into any known style of teddy properly, but you'll end up strangling yourself on a spaghetti strap as you chase one of your tits round and round your shoulder blades. Those expensive little bits of what-the-hell-am-I-thinking don't give where they need to, and flare out at just about the midriff point where I really ought to be wearing a foundation garment and maybe a muumuu.

If I skip the teddy and try instead for something like a merry widow or a corset, all bets are off. Someone's gonna lose an eye and Donald might as well get on the phone right away to hire a guy to come fix the drywall, because when the snaps come undone on that tight puppy the elastic is gonna slingshot the whole contraption against the wall and leave a hole the size of a VW Bug. The only foreplay that gets accomplished when a garment of this type is worn is his donning protective eyewear and my learning how to inhale through my skin.

Thongs are completely out of the question. Have you ever seen a thong for a big gal? My advice is don't seek such a thing out, but if you ignore my caution and do so anyway, take a snake wrangler and a garden hose spool to help you reel all the strappy bits in so you can look at it without it getting away from you and whipping about like a rabid anaconda.

Hipster panties are fine, but in order to get a good fit they either have to be Grandma's cotton or some kind of lycra mix that makes each cheek of my ample ass look like independently-operating planets rubbing up against one another cozy.

Tap pants are another sin against nature altogether, as they are too baggy in the crotch and too high on the sides once I get them settled on the hips properly. If Donald's idea of sexy is seeing me do a spraddle-legged waddle around the bedroom so my inner knees don't chafe on the crotch, I got sexy in spades. Meanwhile, the sides have ridden up to the point I could stick my arms out them and make my best come-hither motion.

Body suits are something Satan himself thought up as a way to make you sweat in the wrong places and squish yourself up like a sausage. Any man who thinks a woman looks naturally beautiful in a proper body suit obviously hasn't worn a body suit himself and therefore doesn't understand the structure of the garment and how all the panels were created by NASA and maybe the Empire State Building engineering teams combined to tuck, lift and constrict-the-all-hell-out-of the natural woman's form.

Lingerie is a nightmare, no matter your size, and I really think the title of this thread should be changed to "Male Fantasy Torture Devices And Why Can't You Just Let Me Read My Book In Peace, You Perv."

I'm gonna hang a sign

Any given week, I get between 2 and 4 people knocking at my front door during worktime hours. I already ignore the house phone during the day, but the door has proven difficult until now. I've finally hit upon the solution.

I'm gonna hang a sign. It will read:

No Soliciting.

I do not need a new water filtration system.

I do not need a new security system.

I have all the cleaning products I need, and I never use them anyway.

I'm A-OK with God, and I don't reckon He's much concerned about little old me. Keep your magazine to yourself, and I'll keep myself acting civil.

At any given time, 3/5 of the people on this property are in time out. Your being a stranger does not exclude you from the math. If you're here, don't be surprised if I make you sit down and shut up for five minutes til I can catch my breath.

I can load and fire several types of firearms, and my best shooting is done with a tight-patterned .410. I suggest you run in a zig-zag pattern, but only because it's more fun for me.

If you're here before 9:00 a.m., I will be in my pajamas and will not have had enough coffee.

If you're here between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m., you've just woken me up from nap and I'm going to be angry.

My husband has hidden the keys to the gun cabinet from me, but it's nothing the proper attitude and a heavy book can't fix. Glass smashes easily.

You may stay if, and only if:

You are selling chocolate to support your band/team/den.

You are a male under the age of 30 and mow grass with your shirt off.

You know what my nickname was in high school, you know how I got the scar down my ribcage, or you know how to make a mean pot of coffee and don't chatter too much at me whilst you're going about it.

Now you just watch and see if I don't do it. I'm telling you, I've about had enough.

Happy birthday, Gramma!

So aside from being our anniversary, it's my mom's birthday. I gave her a call once Donald started tucking kids into bed, but sure enough Cordelia came down and tiptoed into my bedroom and stood quietly. I tried to ignore her and hoped she'd give up and go back upstairs, but she was so cute with her messed up hair and long tee shirt and big blue eyes that I finally asked "What is it, honey?"

"Mama, I think I'm probably hungry." All three kids are in the middle of growth spurts right now and after eating a full meal and a dessert (tonight was a frozen fruit bar), it's not unusual to have at least one of them announce they'd like something to snack on.

"You think you're probably hungry, huh?"

Nod nod nod. Bigblueeyedblink.

"Okay. I'll get you a small bowl of crackers. Here, you take the phone and tell Grandma happy birthday."

So Dee Dee took the phone and started in:

"Hi Gramma, happy birthday. Today Xavier who's my friend at school played with Tapper who I don't play with because he's my brother..." and so forth. If you've ever heard a self-assured four year old (almost five now! wow!) talk, you know how the conversation flows.

Meanwhile, I was standing in the kitchen and wrestling with a bag of goldfish-shaped graham crackers. No matter what I tried, I could *not* get the new bag of them open. I was just reaching for the scissors when I heard:

"... and Gramma, I think you're really, really old but I think you're bee-yooooo-tee-full. And Samwise is silly because he's sitting in a box and sleeping..."

I lost it. I couldn't even hold the scissors at that point, doubled over and doing the pee-pee dance because I had been holding it during the phone call. (I always forget to go before I call my mom, and I ought to know better. The woman can talk like nothing!)

I eventually settled myself down enough to open the bag and pour some crackers into a bowl, then rescued the phone from Dee Dee. She warbled "Goodnight, Gramma" as she walked back to the stairs. I put the phone back up to my ear and heard nothing.

"Mom, are you there?"

Squeak. Sniffle sniffle squeak. Oh my God, my kid made my mother cry... ?

"Yeah, I'm here. I'm just now allowing myself to laugh. I wanted her to keep talking forever, so I didn't dare laugh!"

Mom said that one comment was the best present she's received since I presented her with Donald as a son-in-law.

A Saturday Evening Rant

My rant this evening is on the topic of bras.

Thursday, I met with a friend of mine who is also now a subordinate of my husband's. Knowing I'd probably be invited back to the office, I decided to dress up a little instead of looking like just another mom out for a bite of lunch. Skirt, blouse, and sexy lacy bra that lifts the ladies up ever so nicely. I figured I'd do the "oops, dropped something" thing in front of Donald and give him a peek down my blouse and sashay back out of there with him fully aware of what he's got at home.

Yeah, what I'd forgotten was that sexy lacy bras are also full of WIRES. By the time lunch was over my eyes were watering and my mamas were hurting.

My friend invited me back to the office and I declined. I wanted to come home and get my comfy cotton, wireless bra on. She shot me down so off to the office I toddled. Donald smiled when he saw me (she texted him to leave a meeting so this could have been why -- pure thankfulness) and I had the sudden, hilarious vision of myself ripping my bra off and handing it to him. It would accomplish my original purpose in wearing the @#$%! thing in the first place and give me some relief.

Nope. It looked like a shark feeding frenzy. Every man in the place gathered up 'round us to chat and meet Mrs. Boss. Every time I extended my arm to shake someone's hand, the wire under my right arm would shift and poke the underside of my arm. Every time I breathed, I could hear the contraption squeaking from the strain. My left boob started to write its will. My right boob was confessing to killing JFK, just for the love of God make the torture stop.

When I finally got out of there, I practically peeled rubber down the street. Before I even got to the tollway I had my hand up the back of my shirt and was wrestling with the clips. By the time I had maneuvered my way across 3 lanes of traffic going 70 mph, the last clip was undone and I was breathing. I spent the rest of the way home trying to work the straps down my arms under the sleeves of my blouse. When I got to the driveway, it was entirely off and shoved into my purse. And when I got out of the car ... it dropped out and lay like a dead bird with white lacy wings outspread, just as the neighbor guy and good friend of ours stepped out of his front door.

I'm wearing nothing but leisure bras from now on, and Donald better know what he's got waiting here at home WITHOUT my having to torture myself to remind him.

The one thing we can't train out of a dog...

is the one thing Floyd does. Startled/waking aggression and biting. If anything is nearby and he awakes, he'll lunge and snap.

• A week ago I was sitting on the couch and Floyd was sleeping on the floor. One of the cats was walking through the room to get to the sunny spot by the back door. Floyd just happened to wake up at that point and barked and snapped. Luckily, the cat went untouched because he was just far enough away.
• Saturday night I was out to the grocery but my husband was here. He says that Floyd was sleeping on the couch with his head up on the arm. Our son Jasper went toward the couch to pet the dog but hadn't made contact yet. The dog woke up and snapped, biting Jasper on the face. Jap's lip was cut in two places and there were scratch marks on his upper cheek by his eye. At this point I decided that the dog had to be attended at all times by me where I could keep a vigilant eye on things.
  
• About an hour ago, my husband was just climbing in the shower and he was letting me sleep in a bit. (Obviously, being asleep, I had no idea that the dog was unattended.) I heard a bark and leapt up just as my son came into the room with blood on his face. He said "Pet boy" over and over, I think trying to let me know that he was trying to pet the dog when he got bitten. This was so much like Saturday's incident that I can't help but think that once again Floyd was dozing and got woken up, probably the same situation with Floyd on the couch and Jasper just being the right height. Donald said he forgot the dog was on the couch and Jasper had been upstairs playing with his sisters. This time the bite was a tear on the lip and two scratches just on the lower eyelid. I asked "Was puppy asleep?" and he shook his head, but this could be a toddler doing a CYA maneuver, or he could have mistaken the inner eyelid for being the eye. He's two. I'm not expecting him to understand the finer points of my question.
  

I've seen dogs have to be put to sleep over this before. This is a result of being terrorized or constantly startled previously, and since it's unconcious it can't really be trained out. I can make an attempt at desensitization by doing twice-daily grooming until he falls asleep and continuing to brush and groom him so he wakes up to positive, non-threatening touches, but he could still wake up and attack me, and meanwhile he could kill a cat or severely hurt one of my children who are just walking by. Dogs sleep 12+ hours a day and at any time, so crating him only while he sleeps is not possible. I could quarantine him to a room and disallow him to sleep anywhere by there, but this is impractical on several levels, not the least of which is simply the layout of my house and the fact that one of the cats could make their way into the secluded area at any time over baby gates or by other means.

With even 100% attended time, there is no guarantee this isn't going to happen again, no guarantees as to anyone's safety (mine, my husband's, my children's and my other pets'), and no guarantee of training this out of him because, frankly, you cannot.

This is breaking my heart. I'm technically still a foster home since he's undergoing heartworm treatments (he had the 1st one 2 weeks ago). Logically, I know that the burden of decision falls to me, and the decision is simply do we return him to the shelter and say we are unable to foster him because of sleep aggression. Emotionally, I know this is a death knell. I can just imagine what the shelter's reaction is going to be when Floyd is returned to them for this. His only possible placement home would require no children, no other pets, and to be left absolutely alone unless he's completely awake. These are not stipulations that make him an attraction adoption. They're not even stipulations that make it onto the normal papers accompanying the dog. What if this information did NOT go with him and he's adopted out to a family with small children or a pet and he does incredible harm? I would be ethically, morally responsible although I may never hear of the incident.

The short answer is: Floyd is an unsafe dog. Not aggressive, simply unsafe. And unsafe dogs are best put to sleep before great harm comes to others.

I could (padon my French) simply kick the ASS of his previous owners. They, a pet of theirs, or one of their children most likely made Floyd's sleep difficult to achieve and/or terrorizing to be awoken from.

I'll be calling the shelter today and tell him them we are unable to foster Floyd because of safety issues.

I really want to go throw up now.

Floyd thinks he's a turtle

Floyd thinks he's a turtle
Originally uploaded by crredwards

I don't know what to make of this dog. He's a huge clown, but also sleeps a lot right now because of his heartworm treatment. A little bit ago he was sitting here on the couch with me and decided he was tired of laying atop the pillow and began to do this wiggling grunting thing. Wiggle grunt wiggle grunt, sneeze, wiggle wiggle grunt. When he was done, this was the result.

After five or ten minutes I snapped this picture, at which point he realized he could clown down a bit. He jumped off the couch and now he's dozing on the fireplace tiles.

I love this goofball.