Tag Archives: Adventure

When Bloggers’ Worlds Collide! (An offbeat Meet & Greet)

IMG_0083 (1)It was finally happening!   The cleverly hilarious and wise blogger/poetess Marissa Bergen, AKA “The Rock & Roll Supermom” who blogs at Glorious Results of a Misspent Youth was coming to my town and suggested we meet at Starbucks. I don’t even drink coffee!  What would I do with myself for an hour?  How to hide my anxiety if I can’t pour cream in something and stir every five minutes? My anonymity would be shattered! She’ll find me so unfunny in real life, it won’t even be funny. I can only amuse people in writing. I better have some good one-liners and punchlines ready to go in case of emergency.

I had only met one other blogger, and that was only in my imagination right HERE. It didn’t go well!  But my biggest fear with Marissa was that she’d speak in rhymes so witty, I’d look like an idiot if I didn’t at least quote Dr. Seuss.

The Day of Our Meeting I Calmed Myself Down With the Following Reminders:

  1. She’s just a normal, down-to-earth blogger like the rest of us.
  2. She has to log in with a password (and sometimes forgets it) just like I do.
  3. She puts on her titles one word at a time.
  4. She sometimes gets tongue-tied and doesn’t know if what she’s saying even has a point.

And most importantly . . .

She can’t always End her poems with a surprise Twist and a Rhyme.

Surely she’s Penned something that must’ve Missed at one Time??

Everything would work out just fine, I told myself over and over as I played her voicemail on my cell phone which would give me the time and place to meet her. She had an adorable East Coast accent but her final sentence was :

“I look forward to meeting you, oh Stephanie

I think we’ll have lotsa fun, oh definitely!”

OMG! Did you see what she did there with Stephanie and definitely?  It’s starting already!  Nobody’s ever rhymed my name before. I need to funny myself up and FAST!

But first my daughter straightens my 80’s style hair because she always tell me I look like Fran Drescher. Besides Marissa just wrote about hair right HERE.  Next I worry that she won’t recognize me without my trademark pouf.

I drive to Starbucks fretting and meditating on Seinfeld and Shel Silverstein.

I barely got my kids fed supper. Where will I park?  I can’t be late!

Maybe I should take an upper. Will I trip in the dark? That’d be great!

Oh god, my rhythm and meter are so off! And I never use the word, “Supper.”  I say “Dinner.”  What a contrived mess!

I scramble inside Starbucks and see the most beautiful poet standing before me. She embraces me briefly before remembering one of my posts about hating hugs. She says,

Sorry I didn’t mean to hug you.

I sure hope that didn’t bug you.

What??  Such ease and natural fluidity! How can she do that?? What to say? What to do? What would I do if I were on her blog leaving a comment?

“That was terrific, Marissa.  You sure are brilliant.  Was that from the Daily Prompt?  I bet WordPress Freshly Presses this one!”  She looks at me oddly.  Oh here I go.  Putting my foot in my mouth already. I have to calm down. But wait, she’s speaking again.  Listen!

“You’re gonna think that I’m the absolute worst.

But I left our hotel without bringing my purse!”

Well she was a little off on that rhyme, but still!  Unbelievable! Thinking fast on my feet, I mumble . . .

“That’s okay. I do not like coffee in a cup, not in a mug, don’t fill ‘er up.

I do not drink Starbucks at night, so forgetting your wallet is always quite right.

No worries, Sham I am!”

That was horrible. What was I thinking with that one?  I really need to stick to my blog’s gimmick and not cross into her territory.  People begin to stare and Marissa wisely whisks us into a dark corner. We sit down and she tells me how funny my blog is and that I never fail to make her laugh. That’s my cue!  The pressure is really on now! Immediately I scrawl on a napkin:

“Did you hear about the fire in the shoe factory?”  

I hold it up for her to read. She shakes her head no, a little puzzled. I continue writing on the napkin.

“A hundred soles were lost!”

She discreetly moves her chair back a few inches. So far, so good.

We talk about kids, blogs, and everything under the sun.

We don’t mention squids or dogs, but still we’re having fun!

Whenever there’s a lull in conversation or an awkward silence, I simply hold up one of my pre-printed index cards with a riddle on it. So far I’ve stumped her on three of them. She’s not quite as brilliant as I thought because her jaw just drops and she stares helplessly, clearing her throat.  Who doesn’t know “What’s black and white and read all over?” I mean….c’mon now!

But time flies when you’re away from your bratty kids (mine, not hers!) and before we know it, we must part ways. I walk her out to her car because that’s the polite thing to do with out-of-town guests.

When she opens her driver’s door, that’s when I see it!  A brown leather purse sitting in plain sight on her passenger seat. This is her surprise twist ending!  She had money all along!

She turns to me and recites . . .

I thought I’d be nervous, trip over my words and fall

Or say the wrong thing, or not be able to rhyme at all.

So I decided to intentionally forget my ugly purse,

Giving me lotsa opportunities to speak in verse.

But it was just so perfect, so great, so cool….

As the night unfolded, it was plain you were the bigger fool!

Then we took our photo, gave a final hug and agreed to never speak of this again.

So of course we both went home and blogged about it.

Thank you for the fun, Marissa!

Signed,

Little Miss Menopause (and you thought you’d get “Little Miss Sunshine??”)

There’s No Place Like Home! (Especially Your Old One)

red-shoesSometimes a walk down memory lane will lead you straight to the front porch of the home you grew up in, or raised your own family. It’s a great “field trip” to teach children about their roots and it may be cathartic for you as well. I have six kids and decided to show each of them the apartment or house where they spent their childhood days. We were able to recapture a lot of nostalgia, get good photos, and even release some emotional baggage from visiting our environments of yesteryear. So would you dare go back?? I say yes!

8 Of My Best Tips On Implementing This Unusual Endeavor:

  1. Mystery and Adventure: Approach this in an impromptu fashion. Don’t tell children in advance where you’re going and why. It could lead to disappointment if the new owners aren’t home or worse, uncooperative. The house could be torn down or surrounded with one of those charming huge termite tents. I made the mistake of enticing my 6-year-old son with viewing his old bedroom and when the new owners refused, he pounded on the door shouting, “Let me in or I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down.”
  2. Be reassuring! When you ring the bell of your old home, remember everything is familiar to you, but you’re complete strangers to the people answering the door! Set the new owner’s mind at ease that you’re not a realtor or soliciting magazines. Say something like, “Oh look Darling, there’s the same threshold you carried me over after our wedding, you tiger!” Be prepared for them to mentally calculate how much you weigh and scrutinize the size of your husband’s arms. Also, upon departing, resist the urge to place an “Open House!” sign on their lawn.
  3. Offer evidence. Say something very specific that will prove you really lived there. In the case of the home where I was pregnant with twins, we had written a little term of endearment on the floor tile where my water broke. “Little Fishies Started Here!” When I marched the current residents over to the exact spot to show them this cute piece of trivia, they had constructed an aquarium on top of it. Hmmm. I shudder to think what they would’ve built had we scrawled, “Conception took place here.”
  4. Stay a short time. You’re not arriving with your wedding china and recreating a family dinner. Ten minutes is the maximum you should stay if they’re willing to give you a brief tour.
  5. Don’t Be Nosy. It’s not a good idea to ask if your neighbor across the street ever got that much needed nose job. And for goodness sake, don’t critique their decorating skills. The last thing they’ll want to hear is that you can’t believe they put their bed against the same wall you used to keep the diaper pail.
  6. No Bad News. Try not to walk through their kitchen reminiscing about the time little Sarah choked on a chicken bone. Or confess your dog peed all over the master bedroom carpeting. One time I was thrown out because I took a little creative license (from the Poltergeist movie) and announced the home was built on top of old Indian burial grounds. Sheesh. No sense of humor.
  7. Don’t Get Emotional. If you’re prone to sentimentality when you look through old photos or watch home movies, prepare yourself in advance. I learned the hard way when we visited the home my beloved architect father designed for us. I burst into tears as soon as I saw the lovely stained glass windows in my bedroom had been replaced with bricks, the pink walls were painted gray and my white shag carpeting turned into concrete. The only thing missing was a hole in the ground for a toilet and it could’ve been Cellblock 9.
  8. Leave on a high note. Thank them profusely for their hospitality and give them a joyful parting tidbit like, “We hope you’ll have many happy occasions here just like our Christmas family reunions!” Clamp your hand over your kid’s mouth if he starts to say things like “Yeah, and Santa Clause NEVER delivers the good toys that need assembly to this house. And the tooth fairy always leaves “IOU” notes under the pillow!”