It is officially the first day of Summer in that there is no need to be out of bed, no bus to catch, no snack to pack or lunch money to remember and yet my kids are up with the sun and the birds and the damn waste management team, which hasn’t tailored the trash pick-up schedule to accommodate children and mothers who might like to sleep past day break if just to shorten the otherwise interminable day.

I hoped this day would have a lazy start. We were at the Red Sox game last night. The kids were over indulged. They had Cracker Jack and Italian Ice and Soft Serve ice cream and watched a little baseball in between stuffing their faces. G fell asleep in the eighth inning, just when the entire park began chanting Manny, Manny, Manny, banging arms against Fenway’s green wooden siding, clapping hopeful hands, rhythmically urging on the designated hitter, trying to will a win for the home team. She was right to give up right then and there. Manny was caught out, hopes faded and the line to get out of the parking garage rivaled the queue hopeful pilgrims encounter when trying to catch Mass with the Pope in Vatican City in July.

We were home some four hours past their usual bed time and still, still, the kids were awake this morning before sunrise.

How do you do it? You with the kids up your arse and the lawn needing mowing and the bathtub black with dirty footprints and new landscape design project added to the mix? How do you keep on blogging when taking on the neighbors backyard pool project, trying to design a garden using Zebra Grass and Japanese Lilac Trees and Weeping Maples when really you have no idea what to do with these plants since they distinctly deciduous and decidely un-sub-tropical and the entire project will require your faking Zone 6 expertise? How do you keep writing when there are latin names like Pennisetum and Miscanthus and Syringa reticulata to master?

What I’m essentially getting at is that I’m back at work as a landscape designer (it’s casual, it’s the neighbor’s project, yet it’s scary and overwhelming and complete change of pace). What I’m getting at is that my kids need me to drive them to swim team and tennis and the occasional golf lesson as that’s all I’ve got planned for them for the next ten weeks of their freedom. What I’m getting at is that I’m going to try and continue posting, I swear I’ll try, but I’m making no promises as I see my life sort of lurching away from me for the next little bit. And we all know how that worked out for me last summer, even without the pressure of design work. I think I posted once in early June, slipped off the grid and returned in September. I promise to try and do better. But I can only do what one woman can do and I bow down to those of you who somehow manage to keep up the writing energy when there are kids up your arse and the lawn needs mowing and the bathtub is black with dirty footprints and the children and the backdoor neighbors’ with their landscaping needs have high-jacked your Mom-life.

After all, what mother hasn’t cooed with pride over their infant’s first mecomium stool, that greenish black slick that is all the evidence an anxious new parent needs that their darling new baby possesses the very same digestive track as all other healthy babies the world over. There is comfort in this sameness. Expectations fulfilled. One off-colored elimination and the entire family is exhaling a collective sigh of relief.

And then there is the issue of the new mother’s own ability to defecate. Without a proper bowel movement, she is a prisoner in the maternity ward. More stool softeners are administered. Nurses talk in hushed whispers about her inability to poop as if it is a sign of this mother’s mental weakness. They have forgotten just how startlingly and scarring it is to pass a watermelon size creature from the vagina. They are focused on forcing this poor woman with the stitches to produce yet another expulsion that will surely tear her insides out, will lead to internal bleeding and the end of a perfectly good birthing experience. There is a stand-off. Armed guards stand at the bathroom door and order her performance. She will weep softly and pretend she has shat. They will rush in and insist on seeing the evidence and the new mother is forced to admit she has lied. Back to toilet for another attempt. Hours drag on before she achieves the successful void which is celebrated and admired and practically wrapped up along with the flowers and the teddy bears and the swaddled infant as souvenir of this important life changing event.

Now safely home with baby in arms, the true shit talking begins. There are long battles waged about whose turn it is to drag themselves from bed to change yet another diaper, change the whole outfit, the entire crib, in fact, because another runny infant stool has crept beyond the gathered leg pleats of even the most absorbent nappy and has stained the sheets and spoiled the cute footy-pajamas with the moons and stars.

This ritual grows tiresome, like Ground Hog day with diaper genies and Huggies’ wipes and changing table pads.

And somehow, in all its shit-filled sameness, life just sort of flies by until a person finds themselves suddenly parenting a child capable of crapping their pants at a zoo-themed birthday party even though they’ve been ‘potty trained’ for months. Just as quickly, they are Mom to an eight year old little boy who is crying as he clutches the porcelain, ‘It hurts Mommy, it hurts. Make it stop.” And without reaching up there to extract the compacted stool herself, she is powerless to help the child experiencing the distinct pain of his first anal fissure. Apricots are administered. A Sids bath is drawn. There is hand holding and supportive cheers while the boulder of poop is finally excreted. It is a monumental turd that refuses to be flushed away. It threatens to remain their as evidence of the ill effects of too many chicken finger/french fry combos for time eternal until someone gags their way through the process of breaking it up into flushable sized portions.

Because this defecation thing is something we all must do on a regular basis and because we parents have become sort of inured to the relative disgustingness of such discussions, 225,000 copies of What’s Your Poo Telling You? have been sold and the Poo Quality Index has become a popular topic at dinner parties, on episodes of Oprah and at play groups alike.

(I am happy to report that I have yet to discuss the PQI with anyone over tapas and dirty martinis or while standing attentively just to the right of the monkey bars. I’m not sure the suburban town in which I reside is ready for discussions about feces. But have no fear, I will probably make this social blunder very soon as I have a compulsive need to bring up shocking matters at regular intervals just to ensure that I am not too well liked in this town of 30,000 judgmental mom-types.)

Perhaps I am so comfortable with discussions of colon performance because I endured months and months of undignified testing in order for doctor’s to determine that my intestines are truly unique and mysterious and that no matter how many colonoscopies are conducted or stool samples collected and placed into small vials and stirred with little plastic spoons in preparation for lab analysis, no one is going to be able to determine the exact reason for my inner turmoil. The ability to sit in a room with a male doctor and exchange colorful commentary about one’s recent performance on the seat-of-ease is definitely an acquired skill. No matter how professional and gravely serious this doctor is about the topic, initially, there is that awkward silence that is you trying to determine just how much is too much information. I mean he’s asking but does he really, really want to know?

There is a distinct feeling that anything you say or do in regard to your bowel movements can and will be used against you in a future episode of Candid Camera. Such is the nature of the topic. But the success of the book and my ability to discuss poop for an entire and lengthy blog posting is evidence that we’re all in this together. To void or not to void has never been at question.

I need your help today – on two counts.

One: You all seemed to have enjoyed the bit of fiction I shared yesterday and because I’m not sure where to go with it next, I’m interested to hear what my fair readers might propose as possible plot trajectory for my character and her love interest. Remember I’m not trying to write a romance novel so feel free to get all dark and moody with your suggestions. I prefer disappointment and distress but I promise to entertain ideas of love’s fulfillment if the circumstances are interesting. Please, discuss: How would you like to see the story resolved?

Two: I have heard this one song on the radio occasionally over the course of the past few years and I never seem to catch the name or the recording artist. I’ve searched iTunes with every possible title option I can think of and no results. So I’m going to sing it for you (please excuse the humiliating vocals) and hopefully one of you holds the information I seek.

The chorus goes, “All I want is to hold you in my armmmmms/All I want is to (pause) hollllddddd you in myyyy arms….

See and that’s all I can remember so it’s no surprise that vague iTunes searches using the words Hold You, Hold Me, In My Arms, etc. aren’t generating the results I need. It sounds like the song is performed by a Brit band but it’s not The Killers or Oasis. I’m stumped but intent on getting this one, so please, someone, put me out of my misery.

And lastly, can anyone tell me what the deal is with Idol’s David Cook. I really like him, he rocked the Lionel Richie this week and he’s by far my favorite male contestant. But then someone had to come along and tell me that he’s worked as an exotic dancer at a gay club. Is there truth to this rumor? Does it matter? I’m really only judging him on the vocals? Should I care whose lap he prefers to dance in? Since My Better Half refuses to watch Idol with me, I am forced to blog about it. I apologize.

And while this post is turning into something of a rant, I’ll also fill you in on the tooth fairy’s latest visit to the Madmarriage household. While O has become a doubter, he held true and steadfast in the face of temptation and didn’t spoil things for his little sister who happened to loose a tooth yesterday at school and came home all flush-faced excitement, anticipating the tooth fairy’s visit. O had a huge shit-eating grin on his face but several severe looks in his direction and he got all tight-lipped and serious, fully anticipating the extent of his mother’s wrath should he spill the beans.

While it’s a day of meanderings and mental wandering, I’ll share the best bit of trivia I unearthed today:

The Book of Lists’ 12 Most Unusual Items Sold on eBay as of 2001 all of which underscore the fact that there’s no accounting for taste, old food from fallen from a famous mouth is not just regurgitated spittle and, well, I’ll let number 12 speak for itself because it’s just better than fiction.

1. Pierre Omidyar (eBay’s founder) broken laser pointer (sold for $14)
2. Honus Wagner “T206″ baseball card (rarest, most valuable trading card in the world; sold for $1.3 million)
3. Gulfstream private jet (sold for $4.9 million which was, at printing time in 2001, the most expensive item ever sold on eBay)
4. Oldest known pair of Levi’s jeans (sold for $46,432)
5. Man’s entire life possessions (still for sale at time of printing)
6. Justin Timberlake’s partially eaten French toast (sold for $1025)
7. Britney Spear’s chewed bubble gum (sold for $511.04)
8. Grilled cheese sandwich with purported image of the Virgin Mary (sold for $28,000)
9. Woman’s deceased father’s walking cane – his ghost included (sold for $65,100)
10. Three tablespoons of water from a cup used by Elvis Presley (sold for $455)
11. Texas snowball – fell on X-mas day, the first time snow had fallen in Texas in 109 years (sold for $92)
12. Man’s forehead for advertising space (sold for $37,375)

I just love a happy coincidence and, today, I learned of one that makes me inordinately glad. Last night My Better Half and I watched Once on our DVD player and both fell in love with this simple, sweet and beautiful story told almost entirely in song. This morning I received an e-mail from My Better Half’s uncle saying he had sent me the very same film for X-mas and, in the shuffle of the holidays, the gift had gone to the wrong address. It will be here soon. And though I can’t quite break it to him that we’ve already watched the film, just last night, because I know how much he wants to be the one who gives us the gift of this movie and its music, my heart still bounded just a little upon learning that I would soon own a copy. Placing the Netflix version in our mailbox this morning felt like a sorrowful parting. I will be overjoyed when it crosses our threshold again.

Without giving too much away, I need to mention that most of the film is a sort of music video. I guess one could call it a musical. But I loathe most musicals and found this one completely worthwhile, from start to finish. If your heart doesn’t just brim and over flow to the poignant strains of Falling Slowly as the two main leads play together for the first time in the back of an abandoned music shop then you are dead to me, someone I can share nothing with in the future.

I have already downloaded the MP3 version of the song released by The Frames, an Irish band whose lead-man Glen Hasard plays the main character in the film, and have been looping it non-stop all morning. Damn it makes me want to be a musician, to pick up the guitar and strum a sorrowful ballad. Fortunately, for my immediate family, we have no stringed instruments in near proximity. Otherwise I’d be fully engaged in making an complete asshole of myself right now.

Instead I urge you all to go get this movie or, at the very least, watch this clip of the two leads performing the song as part of the film’s promotional tour. Though story doesn’t end the way I really, really hoped it would, it’s the best thing I’ve seen in a few years. I shed a few tears at the end but that’s the way I like ‘em, with a slow poignant burn.

I am pathologically previous and insist on reaching the airport several hours in advance of every flight in case I am asked to strip at security. All goes well in this arena. I am congratulated by TSA employees for having successfully grouped and zip-locked all my 3 oz. bottles of cosmetics and toiletries. I wear slip on shoes. I leave the pistol at home in the night stand. I am not asked to remove my clothes save for my belt that turns out to be innocent.

All this lead up and thoughtful preparation -the departure, the arrival, the connection, the departure, the arrival AND just 38 hours later the same routine performed all over again -and I feel qualified to pass on some useful tips to the folks over at the Transportation Security Administration.

First, please advise the Atlanta airport management not to play Christmas carols on a constant loop while increasingly anxious passengers watch the departure time of their outgoing flight rolled back by the hour. “Sorry folks, it’s weather in the Midwest,” said the nice man with the microphone. And we all snarled. A collective growl went up as we settled in to endure another round of Sleigh bells ring/Are you listening? Yes, we ARE listening. Still.

Second, and I realize this totally flies in the face of the TSA civil rights policy statement, but shouldn’t there be a sort of fixed size in regard to passengers? While carry-on baggage is required to fit some sort of template at the gate, each suitcase, duffel bag and knapsack must fit comfortably within the little box set out by each airline, Delta’s template is 45″ total, while AirTran accepts a whopping 55″ bag, no such parameters exist for people. And, trust me, people come in ALL shapes and sizes, some of which do not fit comfortably in the coach section of a commercial airliner.

The woman who sat in the center seat of our three-seat aisle was, how do I put it politely – extremely large; the man who sat in the seat next to her was, ahem, cough, not quite as big but still morbidly obese. Which forced me, the window seat passenger, up against the cold plastic porthole of the airplane window, wedged sideways, shoulders facing away from beverage cart for the entire three hour leg of my journey. The kind and ‘extremely large’ woman next to me kept saying, “Lordy, Lordy, I should have paid for the upgrade and gone business class because I can no longer feel my left thigh.” And I grimaced, just managing to nod my agreement, nose pressed firmly to the window, arms pinned tightly to my sides.

Third, there is a startling omission from the prohibited carry-on items list. While firearms and Roman candles, normal sized toothpaste and cigar cutters all made the No-Go list, highlighter markers are still allowed on board. And a highlighter marker in the hands of a over-zealous twenty something feverishly reading Personal Finance for Dummies is a dangerous thing. First there is the chemical smell of the marker that permeates the cabin and lingers there in the foul fog of bad breath and gas and the burrito being eaten in Row 15 and then there is the incessant squeak, squeak of the marker tip as it is passed over each and every line of every page in the 500-page book. Like nails on a chalkboard, the sound of enthusiastic learning can be heard over the dull roar of the engines. The adjacent passenger is forced to disagree with the earnest student’s method, pointing out that marking every word in fluorescent pink is sort of beside the point. Suggesting that rather than marking every line, maybe she should leave all the gems unmarked and only highlight the really unimportant. She shrugged, remained unconvinced and went back to marking up the text in its entirety.

Fourth, all passengers who have spent an entire weekend boozing and closing down bars in the Delray Beach area, all individuals who are depleted, over-tired and emotionally too fragile for the poignant tragedy that unfolds within the novel, should be required to forfeit their copy of The Road by Cormac McCarthy before completing their journey home. TSA personnel should be on the look out for a certain type in order to avert the weepy scene that unfolds on board that includes nose wiping on seat-backs and the complimentary pillow. “All artificially blonde, Mom-ish women with blood shot eyes and trembling hands and not a bit of Kleenex on their person, please step aside and surrender the post-apocalyptic story of journey made by a father and son through the hellish landscape of a world populated by desperate thieving, cannibalistic gangs.”

Just a suggestion.

And all would be well (despite the yawning and the overwhelming urge to curl up on the cool linoleum of the dairy isle and take a nap), if it weren’t for G’s announcement that she thinks she’ll marry Manny Ramirez. Don’t get me wrong, I like Manny. Manny is a curiosity, a sort of goofy and unlikely sports hero who, if nothing else, is the source of great entertainment. But Manny, with his suspicious trips behind the left field wall between pitching changes and his baggy trousers and his shimmering blue hair net that harnesses the ropey dreads beneath his batting helmet is not exactly who I had in mind when I conjure my future son-in-law.

While Jacoby Ellsbury or Dustin Pedroia would make fine additions to the Madmarriage family, all hustle and earnestness and clean cut good looks, I am tad concerned about G’s affections for Manny. She has his mug taped to the back of her little girl door, his dread locks swinging around thick shoulders, his gaze off to right field as he watches the ball he just hit arc up and away, his signature finish, arms extended, fingers splayed as he forgets to run to first base. It strikes such a dissonant chord, that photo of the notoriously flaky, suspiciously sloppy ball player, who has been called a ‘crazy motherfucker’ by his own teammates, among the Webkinz and the unicorns and the collection of kitty cats on the windowsill. There he is, Manny being Manny, in my six year old daughter’s room. I am disturbed.

While Ramirez has been called the “greatest right hand hitter of his generation,” he has also been called: affably apathetic, a sloppy wayward teenager, a space ranger, a holy fool and an idiot savant. (See The New Yorker article, Waiting for Manny for additional accolades.) G’s affections for the baggy pants wearing, thuggish, distracted Ramirez is frightening in that it is a harbinger of creeps to come.

So if she’s going to love the bad boys then there will have to be strict rules.

We, as parents, must start laying the ground work early, “G, you will date no one who, reportedly, has multiple licenses and social security numbers, an arrest record, has failed to graduate from high school or drives a 1967 Lincoln Continentals with illegal tints, ostrich upholstered seats and a pimped out sound system, unless, he also sports a $160 million dollar baseball contract. And that’s that.”

(Manny driver’s license courtesy of The Onion. So sue me.)

I feel I owe you fine readers an explanation for my silence. I can report no hardship or devastating loss. I was afflicted by only the most basic of ailments, the innervating effects of too much sunshine. In short, summer sapped my drive and dedication.

Now that the chill of autumn is in the air, my normal brain function has returned and I’ve reviewed my last few posts dating back to May. And I can’t help but wonder my desperately addled brain devising plans to run an evil summer camp where children dodge mosquitoes infected with West Nile Virus in order to keep perennial gardens free from weeds and lawns devoid of crabgrass. I conclude that over the course of the past three months I have morphed into a much nicer person, one who shed a few dramatic tears of longing for a summer past while packing school lunches this morning.

Don’t get me wrong, I had plenty of sarcastic things to say during the twelve weeks of summer, but having spent June, July and August in country club whites, frolicking on clay courts and swinging golf clubs on brilliantly verdant greens, I have learned to temper my tendency towards judgmental bitchiness. After all, I had willingly joined the country club ranks, thankful to be shepherding my O and G from golf lessons to swim team to tennis. So grateful to have schedule and purpose and some place to go once the crows began jeering at dawn. Golf lessons start early, people. Seize the day and the early bird gets the worm and enjoy the sunrise are all terms I imagine were originally uttered by golfers. My O and G with their tendency to rise with the sun were apparently born golfers.

It would have been all too easy to entertain you with tales of swim meets attended by plump mothers wearing pastel frocks patterned with elephants and sea horses and sporting large straw hats, pacing frantically poolside, screaming their child’s name, names like Chip and Grant and Cody. “Pull, Cody. Pull!” Blood vessels popping and vocal chords straining to be heard above the cacophony of sixty other mothers mopping the sweat of maternal good intentions from regularly botoxed brows.

But I think you all would have found it unbearably disgusting to hear me whine about being the country club pariah having clumsily taken up defense for the good intentioned clubhouse chef who had made the doomed decision to make a gourmet version of lobster salad, using a basil vinaigrette rather than the usual gobs of mayonnaise. I was promptly informed that club food should not be, culinarily speaking, avant garde and the traditional mayonnaise based variety of lobster salad quickly returned to the menu. This was an important controversy that consumed the Lilly Pulitzer set until they found fresher topics to discuss, like whether or not spraying the six year old swimmers with cooking spray before swim meets violates league swim meet rules.

Having learned my lesson, I did not weigh in on pre-swim meet greasing nor did I even lift an eyebrow when a fully clothed mother dove into the pool in order to stop her eight year old from completing a full lap during a free-style false start. I demurely placed my hand over my growing smirk when I heard her explain, great rivulets of pool water running out from beneath her pink and green skort, “I couldn’t watch him expend all his energy on a false start, ruining his chances of winning first place in the heat. He was an All Star last year. He NEEDS to be an All Star again.”

I managed to keep the lips zipped until, late summer, when I heard the vicious growl of rumor starting. The eighteen year golf pro had, rather embarrassingly, been caught streaking through the center of town after consuming the better half of a twelve pack at a local party. There were parents who imagined this handsome collegiate athlete just seconds away from becoming a sexual predator, apparently having forgotten that public nudity and excessive alcohol consumption are typical summer pastimes for the heterosexual male adolescent. I politely pointed out that I couldn’t be less concerned about his intentions towards my children seeing as there were quite probably six or seven beautiful, blonde co-eds he was desperate to impress with his beer swilling abilities. I was quick to add that nude sprinting down Main Street on a balmy August night was an altogether acceptable punishment for having lost the keg-stand contest.

After that outburst I received very little attention beyond a few hard stares and some less than subtle whispering in my vicinity.

In the echoes of silence, I did plenty of mental calisthenics, agonizing over having endorsed the privilege and excess of a country club summer. Eventually I came to terms with having spent a year’s college tuition on our club membership. The moment of epiphany and sweet existential relief came when another young mother leaned over and whispered a term that I had never heard before. She delivered the new phrase in a polished tone that dismissed objections outright. She said, “You know, we’re doing our children such a great service, giving them early instruction in the essential “life sports”. I nodded, indicating that I concurred. My chin dipped towards my chest in the universal sign of, “Why yes, ‘life sports’ are gravely important and the key to the normal development of the American child.” And, I quietly watched my O hit yet another forehand over the fence and into the lake.

Do not exit in Darien and ask the 40-something Jerry Garcia look alike who owns the liquor store at exit 9 how to get to Brooklyn because he will look at you as if you’d just ask for driving directions to Bangladesh . And then, rather than say, I’ve never been to Brooklyn even though it’s only 20 miles south of here, he’ll point vaguely to the horizon and say, “Just keep going that-away, it’s somewhere down there.” Ending with a “Happy Trails” and a “It’s all good.”

Do not try to make witty commentary with the gas station attendant in North Haven, Connecticut about the evident cognitive dissidence that must plague the place given the long stretch of ball caps in the window (Red Sox hats and Yankees hats alternating across the front of the store), unless you absolutely want to talk baseball for 30 minutes with said attendant while he reviews each team’s performance both this year and over the course of the past decade. And especially don’t make baseball small talk if the last baseball game you can remember attending ends kind of vaguely given the amount of beer you drank as antidote to the most boring three hours of your life.

Do not decide after a night out drinking that you need a take-out cheeseburger because, at 1:30 in the morning, a person who has had five too many cocktails can put away a serious amount of diner food while watching Animal House on cable and “Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life.”

Do not take Tylenol PM and expect to string together a coherent sentence much before noon the following day because that stuff will throw you for a very serious narcotic loop especially if you’re getting soft in your old age. (Whoopee, fun with cold medicine!) Never mind that you’ll drag the trash cans to the curb early the next morning slightly under dressed for public consumption. Pants? Who needs pants? Pants are overrated.

Do not spread mulch with your bare hands after having your annual manicure while in NYC and expect there to be salvageable remains.

Do not pick up the ‘dead’ duck by the side of the garage with a shovel unless you’re pretty sure it’s dead and not just sleeping the sleep that precedes death because a duck on death’s door is vicious with desperation and the end of days.