Jolana Malkston

The Mom Car

Nov 202013

My first grandchild turned 15 today. Wow. Only yesterday, he was a cute little toddler learning to walk. I have fond memories of him staggering around like a peewee version of Boris Karloff in Frankenstein, albeit much better looking than Boris.

Walking anywhere is the last thing on his agenda these days. He passed Driver’s Ed and has a Learner’s Permit, the last obstacle in his quest for the Holy Grail of Adolescence—A Driver’s License.

He is already shopping for a car of his own, wavering between a Ford Fusion (for better gas mileage) and an extended cab pickup truck (to haul the lawn mowing equipment he is using to earn money to pay for either vehicle).

The car shopping talk brought back more memories. When Little Brother [First Grandchild’s uncle] turned 15 and became eligible for his learner’s permit, he made no bones about the fact that he wanted wheels. Not just a car, mind you. His wheels had to be serious. His wheels had to be sweet. His wheels had to fit his jock image.

Macho Guy threw our young jock a curve. He dictated that until such time as Little Brother was experienced enough and reliable enough to rate his own set of wheels, he would have to share mine. That was a low blow for Little Brother and for me.

Little Brother was appalled. Drive Mom’s car? No way. Mom’s car was practical, serviceable, ordinary looking, and desperately in need of a paint job. Everything about it screamed Mom Car. He would rather be a pedestrian than be caught behind the wheel of something so boring—so mom-like.

And so Little Brother’s campaign began in earnest to talk Mom into trading in the ugly duckling for a swan. He dragged me through every car lot in the area looking for The Perfect Car.

We each had our priorities. I wanted a small car that was easy to park, got great gas mileage, wouldn’t break down and wouldn’t cost much. Little Brother wanted a looker. I wanted power steering, power brakes, power windows, power locks, and air conditioning. Little Brother wanted a powerful AM/FM, CD stereo surround sound audio system with equalizer and front and rear speakers. I wondered at the time if he planned to live in the car and that was the reason he was hunting for one with a built-in home entertainment center.

Macho Guy and I tended to shop on the conservative side. We spoke about Tempos, Chevettes, and other economy compacts. Little Brother’s vocabulary was sprinkled with words like Tracker, Grand Am, Camaro. His vocabulary words were all spelled the same way: e-x-p-e-n-s-i-v-e.

Little Brother reasoned that car prices wouldn’t be so high if the automakers thought people couldn’t pay that much. He was sure we could afford the more expensive wheels because like most teenagers, he was convinced that his parents were made of money. Really? I guess he didn’t notice that I almost fainted the last time I paid for his tennis shoes.

Eventually, Little Brother set his heart on a Grand Am. He pleaded, he begged, he cajoled. Macho Guy and I, who live in the real world, bought a Tempo, thus retaining our title as The Meanest Parents Ever, and Little Brother awarded us the additional title of The Cheapest Parents Ever. Ha! If we were really that cheap, we would have bought him a scooter.

I decided the little ingrate needed a reality check. I asked him if he would prefer to ride the school bus since he found the Tempo so offensive. The blood drained from his complexion. All of a sudden, the Tempo started looking awfully good to him. I thought it might. After all, I was once a teenager who had to ride the bus. 🙂

No, No, NaNo!

Serious Whimsy 8 Responses »

Nov 052013

On impulse, I signed up to participate in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) Challenge this year. I am determined to complete my Work in Progress (WIP) by the end of November. I thought the challenge to write 50,000 words within a one-month deadline would be the kick in the derriere I needed to finish the damn book.

There was a slight problem with that capricious decision. I am not a linear writer. I cannot write straight through to the end of a manuscript without grinding to a halt and turning back to change something that no longer works because my story has taken a new direction. It is my ingrained writing process. I am powerless to fight the siren call to go back. Every time I try, I fail.

I circle around. I backtrack. I tinker.

Yet, despite my compulsive fixit process, I signed up for NaNo. What was I thinking?

Obviously, I wasn’t thinking—not thinking clearly, that is. If I were thinking clearly, I never would have signed up. I only began thinking clearly after the fact, fat lot of good that did.

My initial panic subsided when on the Eve of NaNo, I realized that what was done could just as easily be undone. I still had time to go back to the NaNo website and delete my account before I made a complete fool of myself or lost my mind or both.

Or not.

One unavoidable obstacle to that plan existed. I blabbed. I told all my writing buddies what I was doing. Me and my big mouth—fingers, actually.

Yes, before I came to my senses, I posted my NaNo signup on the Mid-Michigan RWA (MMRWA) list serve. The five other MMRWA writers who signed up and I formed a local NaNo email support group to post word counts and words of encouragement.

If I were to back out before even attempting the NaNo challenge, I would be reviled as a wimp, a wuss, a quitter before the fact humiliated in the eyes of the local NaNo support group and the rest of my chapter mates. There was no dignified way out and no reprieve in sight.

I was stuck. I was trapped. I was doomed.

There are times when I am my own worst enemy. This is definitely one of those times. My only recourse is to soldier on and try not to embarrass myself by posting a puny word count, so I had better cut this sob story short and get back to my WIP.

Yipes! My iPhone just pinged at me, and I cleared my chair, dang it. That new email ping can be extremely unnerving when I’m concentrating.

Whoa. This is so eerie. I’m writing about NaNoWriMo and NaNoWriMo is the sender. What are the odds?

Let’s see what’s up. Oh, it’s NaNo Week One Breaking News—NaNo has a writing marathon planned for Saturday, November 9 for added motivation. Seriously? A thirty-day diet of extended daily writing time is not challenging enough? Give me a break! Please say it isn’t so, NaNo, because I have the sinking feeling that my local NaNo support group will be gung ho to participate in that marathon. [Gulp!] I would weep, but I’m afraid the torrent of tears might short-circuit my MacBook Pro.

If you are participating or have participated in NaNo, please post with your experience—good or bad. Despite the whimpering and whining above, I can handle the truth—I think. 🙂

Brace Yourself

Serious Whimsy 6 Responses »

Oct 082013

Jolana Malkston 2 See that semi-smile in my photo? All lips. No toothy grin. A bit Mona Lisa-ish. There’s an excellent reason for that.

At the time that portrait photo was taken, I had unphotogenic braces cemented on my teeth, and they were exceedingly camera shy. Frankly, I wasn’t anxious to have my picture taken either, and wouldn’t have but for my RWA National Conference roommate. She had an appointment to have her professional portrait taken by Studio 16 and was nervous about it. She didn’t want to go alone and pleaded with me to go with her and hold her hand. (Oddly enough, my hand did not show up in any of her photos.)

When I saw how well her portraits turned out, I was a bit envious. I whined about my braces keeping me from having a photo taken too. The photographer said it shouldn’t be a problem. He used digital cameras and he had photo-editing software. Translation: no matter how unphotogenic you look in the actual photo, you will look so glamorous in the edited photo that your own mother won’t recognize you and will ask for your autograph. Oh? Okay . . .

The next thing I knew, I was posing for the camera. The photographer got me to grin once—only once. We both agreed on immediate deletion of that pose. I was not about to pay to have my metal-mouth grin immortalized in that photo, and he didn’t want his professional reputation destroyed. We wisely stuck to the Mona Lisa smile.

I wish that I could have had my teeth straightened when I was a youngster. Orthodontia for adults is a seriously inconvenient business. Seriously regimented business. Seriously painful business.

Yes, my teeth needed straightening, but I resisted the idea of braces. I reasoned that I could get my dentist to camouflage the crooked teeth with veneers. My dentist did a thorough job of pointing out all the holes in my logic. I will spare you his lengthy explanation of why it wouldn’t work and wouldn’t look attractive. He assured me that I would keep all my teeth longer if they were straightened because I would be able to do a better job of brushing and flossing. And they would look much nicer straightened of course. They sure couldn’t look any worse.

My first appointment was with an orthodontist who took impressions of my bite that tried the patience of my gag reflex. My second was with the oral surgeon she sent me to. Huh? An oral surgeon? Now wait just a minute. Wasn’t orthodontia supposed to help me keep all my teeth? The teeth my orthodontist wanted the oral surgeon to pull were perfectly healthy—no cavities or chips or anything. Who pulls perfectly healthy teeth? The sadist who pulled four of my healthy cavity-free teeth, that’s who.

The orthodontist said it was necessary. My teeth were crooked because they were crowded; I had too many teeth and some would have to go. She pronounced the death sentence on all four first bicuspids. She said they were unnecessary and were expendable. Her heartless words brought forth a chilling revelation. I was having my teeth straightened by The Tooth Nazi.

Mere days after the four hapless healthy bicuspids were forced to make the supreme sacrifice, the rest of my teeth selfishly spread into the vacated spaces and began to straighten themselves out. I, on the other hand, appreciated the sacrifice. I was thankful. I was relieved. I was under the impression that I wouldn’t suffer as much as I initially feared. All right! Piece of cake!

Not so fast. Once my gums healed, I went in on a Friday afternoon for my next appointment with The Tooth Nazi. She said we needed to move the molars forward and she jammed spacers between them. The spacers introduced me to nerve endings I never met before.

Ow. Ow. OwieWowWow.

Macho Guy and I didn’t realize the amount of discomfort—no, make that pain—which the spacers caused. He always liked going out to dinner at the end of the workweek, so that Friday evening we went out to dinner as usual. He thought it would be a great idea to take me to a steakhouse for what he figured would be my last steak dinner for a while before the braces went on. Once the braces were on, it would hurt too much for me to chew steak until I got used to them, or so he figured.

My mouth tried to tell me that Macho Guy figured wrong. My mouth hurt when I swallowed. My mouth hurt when I smiled. My mouth hurt when I spoke. I hadn’t tried chewing yet. I was afraid to open my mouth that wide, so I chickened out and had applesauce for lunch.

I was leery of ordering steak, and I almost didn’t. Oh well. No guts, no glory. I suppose I should have ordered a nice, tender filet mignon, but being the frugal hausfrau that I was, I ordered the less expensive—and less tender—New York Strip, medium rare. I cut a very small piece and bit down on it.

ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-owie-wow-wow!!!

Taking that first bite of steak was a profile in courage for me. I did not scream. I did not cry. I did not swear. Well, not aloud. I did whimper a tiny bit. I may have whined some. Maybe I moaned a little. Oh, all right. I was not courageous. I was a wimp. I acted like a big baby. So there.

Macho Guy finished his steak in record time and then for an hour watched with an expression of pity as I cut tiny pieces from mine and minced each one with my front teeth to lessen pressure on the molars. My favorite part of the meal was the iced tea. It was the only thing I didn’t have to chew. In hindsight, I should have asked for a box to take my steak dinner home so I could put it in my food processor, liquefy it and drink it.

That steak dinner had to be the low point for me in the orthodontia process. Chewing steak with those spacers between my molars hurt worse than anything else. I know that for a fact because I remember that dinner in excruciating detail, but I remember very little about having the bicuspids extracted or having the braces cemented on.

In spite of the two years of aggravation and discomfort wearing braces caused, I have to say the suffering was worth it in the end. Once the braces came off, I was able to smile without feeling self-conscious. My dentist assures me that I’m doing such a good job of taking care of my new smile that I won’t lose the teeth I have now and there’s no need to worry about having to eat baby food one day—or drink steak.

Mr. Kiss Of Death To Computers

Serious Whimsy 10 Responses »

Oct 022013

Jolana Malkston 2 When Macho Guy met his first computer, there was no love at first sight. There was no grudging respect at first sight. There was no resigned tolerance at first sight. Heck no. When Macho Guy got his first gander at the computer his company foisted on him, it was loathing at first sight. He used it grudgingly, the engineer in him fiercely clinging to his trusty slide rule.

On the other hand, I had a different emotional reaction to that first computer. I broke out in a cold sweat. The thought of using it terrified me. All I had to do was place one finger on the wrong key and the computer would explode or implode or shout, “Warning! Warning, Will Robinson!” So, I gave the computer a wide berth. I didn’t want to be the one who dispatched it to cyber-heaven.

One day soon afterward, Macho Guy brought home a word processing application to load onto the computer. Firstborn was writing basic computer programs in school by then, so of course he already knew how to operate the application.

Firstborn showed me the word processing ropes. After he showed me how to launch the application and how to use the menus, he began ticking off the time and work saving features. First, he told me I could move blocks of text around until they were where I wanted them to be without having to retype, and then he demonstrated how to do it.

I was agog. Really? I can do that? Today must be Christmas.

Typing and spelling errors didn’t matter, he said. Spellcheck fixes them. No erasing of copies necessary. No retyping necessary.

Seriously? No matter how badly I type? Oh, thank you, Santa.

No more messy carbon copies, he said. Just save the completed document, send it to the printer and print as many copies as I want.

Oh, wondrous marvel! I must be dreaming. Somebody pinch me.

Ouch! Must children take their parents so literally?

Everything changed from the moment I discovered the existence of word processing. As the world’s slowest and most inaccurate typist, I suddenly saw the computer as my new best friend. It was a defining moment for me. It motivated me to overcome my anxiety and learn how to compute.

I rushed to sign up for computer classes at our local community college. My boys were thrilled. Now they would get to see how well Mom did in school and nag her to get good grades. They hovered like baby vultures when I brought home my first test paper. An A, of course. I didn’t dare get anything less. I would never have heard the end of it.

To cut to the chase, I took to the computer like Garfield to lasagna. It was love at second sight. I adored the computer and couldn’t wait to get one of my own. I became computer literate, but more intuitive than expert. I feel my way around computer apps. I discover hidden features by accident. I’m curious. I’m adventurous. I’m fearless.

I take that back. I’m never fearless when Macho Guy goes anywhere near my computer. The awful truth is that it wasn’t long before Firstborn, Little Brother and I discovered that Macho Guy is Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers. His touch—his mere presence in the same room—is devastating and sometimes lethal to computers. We never discovered how or why. To employ an overused phrase, it is what it is, and it can be very, very scary to be away from home and learn that Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers has your computer in his crosshairs.

For instance, there was the time I went to Atlanta, Georgia for an RWA^® National Conference. I couldn’t very well cart my mini-tower computer onto the jet with me. It had to remain behind in my home office where it was unfortunately vulnerable to unforeseen circumstances.

As usual, my writer buds and I were hanging out in the lounge after dinner. We parked ourselves on the floor in a corner of the room (all the chairs and tables were occupied) with adult beverages in hand. We were dishing about the conference and our editor/agent appointments when my cellphone rang. It was Macho Guy.

We could barely hear each other over the din in the lounge, most of it coming from my buds. I thought I heard him say something about a storm and lightening. With a finger in one ear and my cellphone pressed against the other, I asked him to repeat what he said.

He said there was a thunderstorm the previous night. Fortunately, the lightening missed our house. It struck a tall and beautiful blue spruce tree in our front yard leaving a vertical scar on its bark the full length of its trunk, and the energy from the strike blew the nearby newly planted young plum tree right out of the ground. Macho Guy had to replant it come morning.

I almost spilled my merlot down the front of my suit. We both had top of the line UPS devices protecting our computers from power outages and surges, but the huge power surge a lightening strike would create could take out those UPS devices, the computers and everything electronic in the vicinity. Fearing the worst, I asked if the UPS devices managed to protect our computers.

Yes, they had. It looked to him as if both UPS devices died in the line of duty, and the computers they protected lived to compute another day. Whew! I asked if we lost power. No, he said we didn’t lose power, only our Internet connection but said he was taking care of it.

ME: What do you mean, you’re taking care of it?

MACHO GUY: I’m on the other phone with the cable guy.

ME: You mean tech support?

MACHO GUY: Yeah, the cable guy is going to help me get us back online, but he says we need your computer’s password.

ME: My computer password? Why do you—Oh. My. God! Are you in my office?

MACHO GUY: Yep. The cable guy made me do that power down and power up thing, and the modem is in your office, so—

ME: [I take a huge swig of merlot as visions of all my manuscripts being accidentally deleted flash before my eyes.] Um, Sweetheart? You haven’t touched my computer, have you?

MACHO GUY: Uh-huh, the cable guy had me turn it on. He says we might need to change some of the settings.

ME: No! No changing settings. Do not touch my computer again. Stop what you’re doing this instant and get the [expletive deleted] away from my computer! Now. Right now. Tell the tech support guy I’ll take care of it when I get home and hang up!!

MACHO GUY: But—

ME: No buts! Hang up on him and leave my office. I mean it. I want you out of there now. Don’t touch anything. Don’t look at anything. Don’t even breathe on anything. You know you’re the kiss of death to computers.

MACHO GUY: I am not the kiss of death to computers. I hate it when you say that. It’s not true.

ME: Three dead computers would disagree with you and so would my laptop. Every time I let you use my laptop to read your email when we’re traveling, it doesn’t work right afterward and I have to fix it. So don’t tell me you’re not the kiss of death.

MACHO GUY; [He grumbled something unintelligible that I assumed was swearing.]

ME: Are you out of my office yet?

I had grown so pale and was shaking so hard that after I hung up with Macho Guy, my buds signaled the waitress for me to order another glass of merlot ASAP. I sort of lost it, I guess. I ranted about lightening and power surges and that Macho Guy probably killed my computer because I wasn’t there to protect it from him. I couldn’t stop thinking of the possibility that all the data on my hard drive no longer existed. I believe I may have had more than one additional glass of merlot.

I assessed the lightening damage when I returned home. There was a large starburst pattern in the soil surrounding the base of the blue spruce where the lightening’s energy penetrated the ground. The blue spruce was once the most beautiful tree on our property, but I could see by the large gaping scar left by the lightening that the poor tree was doomed. I learned that the lightening’s energy had also travelled under our driveway and zapped our next-door neighbor’s brand new widescreen TV, but didn’t touch their old TV. That just wasn’t fair.

I discovered to my dismay that the lightening strike did a rather thorough job on our home office equipment. The modem was a goner, but the cable company would replace that. The UPS devices were goners and would need replacing. [Cha-ching!] Our all-in-one printer was a goner and had to be replaced. [Cha-ching!] Even the Ethernet cards in both of our computers were fried and we would have to buy replacements. [Cha-ching!] Ouch, ouch and ouch!

Fortunately the computers survived without any additional damage and so did my manuscripts and other vital data, no thanks to Macho Guy, but please don’t tell him that. Mr. Kiss of Death to Computers really hates to hear it.

Confessions Of A Former Soccer Mom

Serious Whimsy 6 Responses »

Sep 252013

This past weekend, my nine-year-old granddaughter’s team participated in an area-wide soccer tournament for girls. The soccer complex was huge with at least a half dozen soccer fields; several games were going on at the same time, whistles blowing from every direction.

It was cold and overcast on the first day and windy. Very windy. The wind whipped across that wide-open space and chilled all of us to the bone—except for the players who kept warm so long as they were moving.

Along the sidelines, parents either sat or stood watching their girls and cheering them on. Oh, not so much cheering them on as nagging them on, actually. Occasionally, there was a “Yay, team!” or a “Nice try!” but most of their shouts sounded a lot like this:

“Don’t just stand there, move! Move!”

“Get after that ball! Don’t let her take it away from you!”

“Don’t jog, run! Run faster! Keep going!”

“Hustle! Come on, girls, hustle! Show some team spirit!”

I cringed when I heard them because it brought back embarrassing memories. The “parental prodding” I heard this past weekend reminded me of Macho Guy and me years ago—the two of us plus the parents of Baby Brother’s other soccer team members.

We also assumed our kids were slacking off and not putting forth their best efforts, and we scolded at them from the sidelines to do better. I suppose we considered ourselves honorary coaches.

Close to mid-season, Baby Brother’s soccer coach sent home a flyer announcing a potluck picnic for the team members and their families. We were surprised because the teams normally had a picnic or banquet at the end of soccer season and distributed trophies or other prizes at that time.

It turned out to be a gorgeous day for a picnic, sunny and warm, not hot and humid. We socialized, grilled hot dogs and pigged out on the potluck dishes and desserts. Afterward, the coach announced a surprise special activity for the afternoon—a soccer game, the kids on the team versus their parents (their mostly out-of-shape parents, to be accurate) that he would referee.

Macho Guy, thinking fast, volunteered to be our goalie so he wouldn’t have to run all over the field. My, but he thought he was clever. We’ll see about that.

I was assigned the right wing position. I never played soccer before in my life. What I knew about it I learned from watching Firstborn and Baby Brother play. I was totally green, totally clueless. I hadn’t played a sport other than golf since high school, and golf doesn’t require one to run after a ball and kick it. If you do, you’re disqualified—unfortunately.

At the kickoff, the soccer ball headed in my direction. I ran toward it as fast as I could, which wasn’t fast enough because a forty-pound Lilliputian beat me to it and kicked it really, really hard. He kicked that soccer ball right in my face and it struck me in the eye. Eee-yow! I saw so many stars that I thought I was part of the Milky Way. The ref blew his whistle, signaling time out and that my soccer career was over before it started. I was in the game for approximately thirty seconds before being helped off the field with an icepack over an already swollen right eye that was tearing like Niagara Falls. I spent the rest of the game on the bench, the envy of the other parents, watching the game with my one good eye and cheering my teammates on.

As the other parents went on and off the field, I heard them grumble about leg cramps and stomach cramps, about their lungs being on fire, about being tired and thirsty and wanting to lie down somewhere. The parents were shocked that their kids were able to run rings around them. After all, they were bigger and stronger than the kids and should have prevailed.

As for Macho Guy, some goalie he was. The kids used him for target practice. They didn’t just aim at the goal; they aimed at him. After a while, Macho Guy gave up protecting the goal and protected himself instead. He would have been better off running around the field because it would have been harder for a kid to hit a moving target—unless the kid happened to be a forty-pound Lilliputian.

The game was never a contest; it was a rout from the start. The kids humiliated the parents. They massacred the parents. They annihilated the parents. The parents slinked off the field completely mortified, but with newfound respect for what it took to play soccer for an entire game—and what it felt like to be injured during a soccer game—no doubt the object lessons the team’s clever coach had in mind.

After that eye-opening (well, not for me) game at the picnic, only positive cheers rang out from the sidelines during the rest of soccer season. We parents learned our lesson the hard way but we learned it well.

Are there any soccer moms out there with confessions of their own? I’d love to read about them. 🙂

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The Mom Car

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No, No, NaNo!

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Brace Yourself

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Mr. Kiss Of Death To Computers

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Confessions Of A Former Soccer Mom

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