we’ve had every year since I quit having little friends over to play on my birthday. It involves Mother recounting the entire day of my birth, from the saga of when her water broke, through the race to the hospital during which Dad’s car ran out of gas, right into the delivery room. These stories give me far more details than I ever wanted to know. I am deliriously grateful that Dad did not have the presence of mind to bring a video camera into the delivery room.
Then, as is their custom, they wandered into their own childhoods and reminisced about wax lips, Black Jack gum, drive-in movies and sodas that came in glass bottles. Sooner or later they would remember whose birthday it was and start regaling me with stories of my own life—usually the ones I’ve tried for years to forget. Like the time I wet my pants in Sunday school and tried to sneak the damply incriminating evidence home wrapped in a picture I’d colored of David and Goliath. Or the time I “borrowed” a trinket from the drugstore without paying for it and Mom made me take it back and apologize. And the Sunday school Christmas program when, in a fit of shyness, I tried to hide and got my head stuck between the spindles on the altar railing, bottom out toward the congregation. My only consolation is that I had ruffles on my panties.
My presents—always an exercise in surprise—were quite nice this year. I got a savings bond from Grandma (who hasn’t really accepted that I’m no longer in grade school), a new outfit from Mom and the traditional money folded in a card identical to the one I get every year. Mom purchased the box of cards several years ago when the local band was trying to earn enough money to go to Epcot Center. She says the cards are too ugly to give to anyone except family. No exercise equipment this year (apparently she’d found the Thighmaster I’d received for my twenty-eighth birthday unused in my garage). And thankfully there were no books by Martha Stewart on how to plan a wedding or notes indicating Mom would be willing to pay for a preliminary visit to a dating service and their introductory offer promising five dates or my money back.
I escaped with my birthday gifts in tow and more advice about how to meet a “nice single Christian man.” In my life experience—at least lately, “nice single Christian man” is an oxymoron. I don’t want to be cynical, but things are beginning to look bleak. Maybe God doesn’t have someone ready for me yet. Or perhaps I’m not ready for him. Even though I trust things will turn out right, Mother feels that I’m duty-bound to do my part in the search.
Unfortunately, she’s willing to help me. Tonight’s Bible verse:
The Lord doesn’t make decisions the way you do! People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at a person’s thoughts and intentions.
—1 Samuel 16:7
And Samuel should know, being a prophet who wanted to keep his heart pure before God. God loves me for what’s inside me. I must organize my thoughts as well as my life, set my priorities and always put Him first. If our thoughts and intentions were as visible to others as our designer jeans, what would people see in me?
Must add kindly thoughts and good deeds to my goals ASAP.
September 15
blame•storm•ing: My officemates sitting in the coffee room discussing what’s going on in the office and whose fault it is.
Day two of diet. Felt as though small animals were clawing at my insides. Two slices of dry toast and an apple helped somewhat. Must make a note to myself never to drink coffee on an empty stomach again. Good thing I had Bible study after work. It’s something to look forward to while Harry has a nervous breakdown. The trouble is, he’s a carrier, the Typhoid Mary of insanity. When he’s cracking, it spreads through the office like wildfire.
The office manager, Betty Nobel, has worked at Innova since its inception seven years ago. She’s practically attached to Harry at the hip, and whatever he feels, she feels. That must be like riding a broken roller coaster in the carnival fun house in the dark after eating junk food all day. Wretched.
The amazing part is that she’s often more unreasonable than Harry. Betty’s the one who came up with the latest guidelines for employee absences. As far as Kim and I can figure out, we’re not allowed to go to any family member’s funeral except our own, and that, of course, with several weeks’ notice so Betty and Harry can hire a replacement and we can train them ourselves. My assistant, Bryan Kellund, once brought in an emergency-room bill to prove he’d really been ill. Betty didn’t buy that either. She said if he’d gotten as far as the hospital, the office was only a couple more blocks away, and if he’d really cared about his work…
Just thinking about office politics made me want to eat my lunch early—a nice tuna salad with low-fat mayo on endive and bibb lettuce. Also some insignificant hard candies and a few M&M’s I discovered under the tissue box in my top drawer. Must work on problematic issue of depending on food to comfort me—tomorrow.
Fortunately my friend and co-worker in marketing is always calm. When things get hairy (because of Harry?), Kim does the deep-breathing technique she learned in Lamaze class before she delivered her baby last year. We’re usually hyperventilating by the time Harry’s crisis is over.
Example: I turned in the cost estimates for new marketing materials that Harry had asked to see. I was hoping to have it ready for our next show, which would be in Lost Wages…er, Las Vegas. It even surprised me a little. I’d expected double the estimate on our old booth, but apparently paper, cardboard and pressed-wood prices are volatile, and it was nearly triple the original bid. When Harry came to me with that irate grizzly-bear expression on his face, cracking his (hairy!) knuckles, I knew I had a problem. Actually, knuckle cracking is just that—a bubble of gas bursting. And Harry was a whole bunch of gas about to blow up. Nasty.
I managed to circumvent the problem for the moment, but I was about to explode by the time he returned to his own office. Fortunately, I discovered the rest of my M&M’s—a two-pound bag, wedged at the back of my office drawer. Devouring it took the edge off my nerves.
Bryan has the best crisis-management solution. He simply leaves for the rest room at the first sign of trouble and doesn’t return until it’s over. He either has great hearing or an amazing sixth sense. I’ve also speculated about the seemingly minimal capacity of his bladder. Bryan is allergic to conflict and can smell it coming a mile away. I’m convinced he knows how to dematerialize and turn up again in the spot farthest from the action. He even has an ethereal look about him with his mushroom-colored hair, pale, pasty complexion and enormous gray eyes that never look straight at me.
Mitzi, who has no known use at all in the office as far as Kim and I can figure out, delights in conflict. It stirs up her juices. It also gives her something to do—rile Harry so he’ll explode. Usually when Mitzi opens her mouth, it’s to change feet. Mitzi came to work at Innova to see how the “other half” lives. Her husband is a very wealthy podiatrist. She says he owes it all to strapless high heels. I think flat, sensible Birkenstocks make him a little nervous. Mitzi could stay home and count her glass slippers, but no, she comes in every day—sometimes early—just to torment us.
One of her most evil schemes involves chocolate. Mitzi is the only woman I’ve ever met who doesn’t like chocolate. Therefore, she brings chocolate delicacies to the office at least three times a week just to see Kim and me salivate. Kim’s still trying to get rid of baby weight. I’m trying to prevent having someone ask me when my baby is due.
Today it was éclairs with frosting a half-inch thick. Be still, my heart.
Kim’s one-year-old, Wesley, got a new tooth today, a molar. You’d have thought he’d erupted an oil well in his mouth, the way she carried on. Other than her blow-by-blow reporting of Wesley’s every grin, burp and bowel movement, Kim is a great friend—the best, actually. We have the same rather skewed
