The Cleveland Airport Debacle: Still A Warrant Out For My Arrest?

At a happy hour, some fellow moms and I were contemplating the summer travel season and comparing our worst trips ever with kids. Not surprisingly, I won.

We were traveling back east for a family reunion and had a brief stopover in Cleveland. I walked Rory and Henry (then 11 and 9) around the concourse so they could burn off a little energy as they had both been getting really bored and antsy on the plane despite Game Boys and other distractions. In the most crowded part of the concourse full of summer travelers, the always-looking-for-excitement Rory suddenly falls to the ground and pretends, very convincingly, to be having a grand mal seizure.

At first, I just rolled my eyes with annoyance. This was so Rory. But people were yelling for someone to call 911 (no cell phones yet). I knew the ER would never accept a diagnosis of “kid faking grand mal seizure just to annoy mother” (the correct answer) and just let us go. But social workers would almost certainly be in my future if I refused care for him. My stingy HMO was never going to pay for an ambulance ride and extensive emergency room tests which I could easily see running into the thousands. As a divorced working mom, this trip was already a huge financial stretch. We were going to miss our connection and not be able to get another one; flights were running completely full that time of year. And worst of all, we were going to be stranded in Cleveland.

So I was hissing insistently at Rory to get up and the more upset I got, the more he was enjoying it and the more dramatic the “seizure” became. As I look back on it, we all really stayed in character. I hissed, Rory seized, and nine-year-old Henry stood there rolling his eyes and grumbling his signature line: “Why am I related to these people?”

I was terrified that the paramedics would arrive and whisk Rory away. The whole vacation was evaporating before my eyes. So—and I’m really ashamed to admit this, seriously considered leaving it out—I started kicking him. “GET UP NOW!” I demanded.* You can only imagine how aghast people were. “My god, that woman is kicking that poor child!” Finally, just as quickly as he started, Rory got tired of the whole thing and just stood up and smiled, as in “wasn’t that fun?” I can’t remember: Did he bow? Leaving a cluster of incredulous passengers behind us, I grabbed both kids and ran to our gate insisting that we required a pre-board for medical reasons. Which was technically true. I wanted to beat Rory to death and his life was in danger, which is medical if you think about it. I’ve never been so relieved as when that plane took off. But they probably still have a warrant out for me in Cleveland.

(* You should never kick your child, ever.)

**In Memoriam: My Dryer (1973-2015)

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published May 21, 2015]  © 2015 

Last week, my 42-year-old dryer gave up the ghost, mid-load. Worse, I think I killed it. I put a wet heavy blanket in it and turned it on to the high cycle, something I’ve done numerous times before. But under the strain, its aged heart, er, power relay, gave out and it tumbled its last. Services are pending.

Seriously. Major grief going on here.

Now, those who are not pathologically sentimental saps would think of this as an appliance. But this machine and I had become close, especially so during my grueling single mom years. It’s a sad commentary when for a decade, the most stable influence in your life is your dryer.

A 42-year-old dryer is 250 years old in appliance years so I knew this time was coming. Of course, I’ve been thinking that for 30 years now. Amazingly, it had only two repairs in its entire now-ex life: a new gasket around the door in ’87, a motor repair in ’96. While every other appliance in my adult life has precipitously crumped (generally at maliciously inopportune times), the dryer just kept chuntering along, year after year, decade after decade.

I even considered having it repaired, assuming one could even get parts for a 42-year-old dryer. My unsentimental husband Olof rolled his eyes. He doesn’t call me the Grim Weeper for nothing.

Over dinner, I explained to him my attachment to the machine, aside from the fact that it reliably worked. (I can become attached to anything in my house that reliably works.) But my whole adult life tumbled inside that drum: my 70’s bell-bottoms, my ex-husband’s khakis, goobery bibs and tiny socks, kids’ play clothes, filthy tennis shoes, and later on, soccer goalie shirts, grass-stained baseball pants, basketball jerseys, crew uniforms, Olof’s Dockers, tons of towels and a mountain of bedding. Literally thousands of loads. How can you not form an attachment to something that has seen your underwear at its worst?

The dryer was purchased when my ex and I bought this house in 1973 and we went for the all-the-rage new color: avocado green. None of those passé white appliances for us! Of course, we could have gone for the other hot new color, harvest gold, but we liked the way the avocado green matched the equally trendy green shag carpet that was already in the house.

Over the years, people who have seen our avocado green dryer have ridiculed it with “Geesh, that color was hideous.”  News flash, millennials: people coveted this color in 1973. In 2030, those au courant stainless steel appliances will have people cringing. Believe it.

Of course, ever decorating-forward, we also purchased the dryer’s chromatic counterpart, the avocado green washer. Alas, it succumbed in early 1980’s, widowing the dryer at the age of nine (75 in appliance years).

An incident in 1983 almost did the dryer in. My first husband and I had separated days earlier and there was no happiness in my life at the time. My older son, Rory, recently six, ever a barometer for emotional distress in the household, decided to shift the focus. While playing with the hose on the patio, Rory suddenly noticed the dryer vent on the side of the house and decided, for reasons probably best left to him, to stick the hose in it. A dryer full of water was, without saying, an eventuality not covered in my owner’s manual. I bailed it out but was still afraid to turn the dryer on. I had visions of becoming the subject of one of those consumer safety shows where they pan up to the charred remains of my house as the commentator intones in a somber voice: On July 15, a La Jolla housewife, lacking even a modicum of knowledge of electric current, or even any common sense, turned on the power to her water-filled dryer, setting off an explosion that not only incinerated her own house but most of the block as well. (Cut to cemetery where a small engraved urn surrounded by flowers reposes on a grassy hill.) So I called a neighbor who ascertained that the electrical parts of this machine were not wet and recommended running the dryer for several hours to let it dry. Which I did – standing over it with a fire extinguisher.

Despite the dryer’s brief masquerade as a washer, it valiantly tumbled on. While my thirty-something sons have often offered to buy me a new one, I couldn’t see replacing a working dryer. They saw ugly. I saw family.

Before they took my avocado green friend away, I hugged it. Well, as much as you can hug something that is 27 wide by 29 deep. I even suggested to Olof that we have a party for it. “Inga,” he kept saying, “it’s a dryer.” He suggested moving it out to the patio as a retro serving area if I truly couldn’t bear to part with it.

So the new dryer is here. We’re still bonding. And I’ve still grieving. If only I hadn’t set the dryer to High. If only I’d put the blanket through an extra spin cycle. If only…  

R.I.P. 1973-2015

Inga on national radio!

Watch YouTube tape of me on national radio!

Interview with Ric Bratton on This Week in America


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BXru8ok92oo

Fancissimo Cars

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published May 7, 2015] © 2015 

One night about a year and a half ago, some miscreants wandered up and down our street and smashed the side mirrors and tail lights of more than 50 high-end cars. They significantly damaged our neighbor’s Lexus SUV then moved to our driveway where they whacked Olof’s BMW. But like the Angel of Death, they passed over my 2005 Corolla. I couldn’t help but wonder at the time: was this a class thing? Did they consider my crappy Corolla one of their own? Or, I feared, did they just think it wasn’t worth the effort?

I fully admit that I was born without the car gene. But from time to time some phylogenous artifact of the car genome surfaces in me. This was the case when a long-time friend came to pick me up for lunch in her SUV. She has always driven SUVs but the first thing I noticed was that it was a different color, leading me to conclude that it was new. Cars rarely speak to me but this one did. Dazzled by the dashboard panel, I could only inquire, “Does the Starship Enterprise now come in an Earthling model?” (It was a Porsche Cayenne.)  This was one nice ride.

I must confess that I have been slow to master even basic Luxury Car Speak, a required language in La Jolla. I only recently learned, for example, that with really high-end cars, one only refers to it by its letter and number combination, for example, the F12 or the C7. I mentioned to a car-oriented friend that he might like to see another friend’s new Corvette C7. He emailed me back: Inga – I cannot allow you to embarrass yourself any further. Corvette owners don't call their cars Corvettes, they call them C6s or C7s. Um, okay. (For fellow ignorati, the F12 is a Ferrari with a V12 engine.)

Upon further reflection, I realized that a friend who owns several Ferraris only refers to them by number, as in “I’m taking the 458 today.” (I guess if it’s your own car, the “F” is assumed.)  Like all devoted Ferraristas, she speaks in the language of exhaust and hangs out a lot of the F-List (the Ferrari owners chat list).

There’s no fancy way to refer to my 2005 Corolla. I could call it a Corolla LE (Luxury Edition) which it is. However, I think that just means it came with a radio.

The car-noscenti, however, are never satisfied. My friend’s new Corvette is not just a run-of-the-mill C7, I’m furthered informed; it’s a C7 Z06 which I understand means it has a really souped-up engine, and should be so referred. He’s taking it to a race track that doubles as a training ground for new souped-up-car owners who want to know what their vehicle can do before they open it up on their usual raceways (La Jolla Boulevard and the Von’s parking lot).

As I’ve written before, I am always fascinated by learning about people who live very different lives from mine, whether it be people from other countries, or people who just seem like they’re from different countries but actually live close by.

I have it on good authority, for example, that you will see no fat people at the local Ferrari dealership receptions. Just like Nordstrom sticking their fat department on the third floor behind the rest rooms, do they fear their image tainted by the unsvelte?

Probably, but after riding several times in my friends 458, the more obvious reason became apparent: fat people need a fork lift to get out of them.

Luxury sports cars really intimidate me because there are just too many egregious mistakes you can make. The first time I rode in a Ferrari, I got fingerprints on the roof trying to leverage my bulk out of the seat. I also closed the door pushing on the window when my friend let me out down the street (the unsatisfactory condition of our street’s paving was making her a wreck). This Ferrari (maybe all Ferraris?) does not have a frame around the window so it is bad for the window if you close the door pushing on the window. (All that money and they can’t spring for a window frame?) “This is what the door handle is for, Inga,” she admonished me in a follow-up email once she’d calmed down. (Ferrari people are very excitable.)

My 2005 Corolla knows what it feels like to be disdained, to be looked down upon by all its compatriot vehicles on the street. And still, it holds its hood up high. However, it has also not been lost on it (or me) that Olof pays more for a single “maintenance” visit at BMW of San Diego than I have spent on my car in 10 years.

 

AND I don’t need a crane.

 

Which one is not Inga's car?

 

 

 

 

*Walking On The Wild(life) Side

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published April 23, 2015] © 2015 

I was walking on a fairly deserted section of beach on a weekend day morning recently when I came upon what looked like a dead sea lion pup lying on the sand. But a few moments later, he half-opened his eyes and lifted his head toward me in an unspoken but absolutely clear message:  Please help me.

Local papers, including the La Jolla Light, have written a number of stories this year about the puzzling increase in beached sea lions: according to the L.A. Times, more than 2,000 along the California coast in the first three months of this year. But the sickly little guy I was looking at didn’t care about statistics; he couldn’t move another inch.

A recent Light article had advised people not to call 911 if they encountered a beached pinniped and instead listed the number of the Sea World Rescue Hotline (800-541-7325) which I had added to my phone. A few months ago, I had come across a large injured shore bird on the beach and didn’t have a number to call. A serious bird lover, I vowed that wouldn’t happen again.

Our home, with all its hanging feeders, has long been a bird sanctuary (or depending on how you look at it, a cat feeding ground.) Some of the wild jays who frequent our property would eat right out of Olof’s hand at our patio table. We’d also been bequeathed Rory’s outdoor aviary of cockatiels when he went to college. So it probably wasn’t too much of a stretch some years back when I talked Olof into becoming a volunteer with me for the songbird team of a local wildlife agency, taking care of batches of orphaned baby finches, sparrows, blue jays, etc. most of whom had had ended up on the ground after tree trimmers cut down their branches. People had been bringing us injured birds for years, so we figured we might as well know what we were doing.

We were put through our paces by the wildlife agency trainers (or the “bird nazis”, as Olof  affectionately called them, due to the intensity of their commitment and what he perceived as their inability to impart 20 minutes of information in less than two hours, which drove him completely nuts.)  But we graduated (I had to whack Olof a few times with the syllabus to get him to behave) and were now an official Dept. of Fish and Game Substation. 

We soon got our first group of week-old baby birds, who had to have a goopy mixture of cat food (the irony) and Gerber’s beef baby food syringed into their ever-gaping gullets every 30 minutes from sunup to sunset. Later they got worms (yuck) and assorted fruits and veggies. They’d stand on each others’ heads trying to beat their siblings out for food and sometimes even hoard it in the corner just so the other guys couldn't have it. I kept asking myself, “where have I seen this behavior before? Oh, yes – the kids!”

Per regulations, a room in our home (absent a garage, Henry’s room since he was away at college) became a (posted!) Department of Fish and Game Satellite Facility requiring a yearly inspection of the facilities.  As I told the inspector, the room had been previously occupied by wildlife for some 20 years, although not always with the level of cleanliness that it now boasted.

Fortunately, I had a job where I could bring baby birds to work. My co-workers helped feed them if I had to attend a meeting, noting that all the chirping made for a soothing sylvan atmosphere. (Callers asked, “Are you in a forest?”) My boss, however, an avid hunter, referred to them as “the finch tacos” and said it was a good thing they didn’t have much meat on them.  Well, I said, I could always switch to the Raccoon Team…   By about seven weeks, the birds were ready for Birdie Graduate School, a huge flight cage where they’d hone their flying and worm excavation skills for two weeks before being released back into the wild.  We’d always try to give them an appropriately enthusiastic send-off. (“Watch out for cats!  Go for the tall trees!  Don’t call home collect!”) 

As an interesting side note, I always knew that my grandmother (who died before I was born) earned a Ph.D. in zoology in 1910. What I learned from a relative during my volunteer tenure was that her specialty had been ornithology, and particularly, song birds.

Olof and I were well into our second six-month baby bird season when my career as a savior of sparrows came to a precipitous end. Someone at work complained about my birds (my boss?) and the administration nixed animals in the workplace. But I have fond memories of that time.

As for my sea lion, I was amazed and delighted to get a call from Sea World several hours after they’d retrieved my moribund pinni-pup, reporting that he had indeed made it, and was responding well to treatment. So keep this number handy, folks. And people who want to write to me and say this is just the cycle of nature and I should have left him there to die, save yourself the trouble. It made my whole week.

My starving sea lion lifts his head

Orphaned baby blue jays, spring, 2001

 

** Revenge Of The Yellow Reading Group

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published April 9, 2015] © 2015 

When my friend’s 31- and 29-year-old sons want to disparage their 21-year-old sister’s intelligence, they’ll note, “Well, you were, after all, in the yellow reading group.” The brothers are quick to remind her that they were both in the blue reading group in grade school, the best readers. 
 

Honestly, the reading group you’re assigned to in first grade can haunt you for life. I’m 67 and I don’t remember what reading group I was in but I do know it wasn’t the bluebirds, the top one. Which brings us to ask: What is it about the color blue that they’re always the good readers?

True to form, when my sons were in first grade, the advanced readers basked in the blue group, middle readers were relegated to the yellow group, the sucky readers sentenced to red. Suffice to say the kids were clear which group was which (Brilliant/Average/Braindead), and more to the point, by day two of school, the parents were too. Much gnashing of teeth and calls to the teacher ensued with entreaties to move little Quentin to the blue reading group where he clearly belonged. Unsaid: Do we look like people who breed yellow reading group children??? A child of Quentin’s obvious talents needed to be challenged!  It was beneath his dignity to be associated with yellow – or God forbid red  - readers who would only pull him down to their level. (They probably didn’t wash either.)

 

 It was not like this just impacted the kid. You could already see the blue reading group parents getting chummy with each other and next thing you know they’ll have dinner parties and not invite you, and your child will be black, er, blue-listed from play dates. Day 2 of school and the wheat’s already been separated from the chaff.
 

I confess that I did have my moments of blue reading group angst. But I also reminded myself that neither Olof nor I were academic balls of fire in our early years. Olof, in fact, was labeled an “accelerated non-achiever” in grade school, a label that puzzled his parents for years. Did this mean he was gifted but not achieving? Or gifted AT non-achieving?  Regardless, he was not achieving. But somewhere along the way, he managed to up his game and ultimately achieved a degree in nuclear physics from Cal Tech. Sighed his mother (age 93) recently, “If only we could have known.”
 

I wasn’t exactly an academic barn burner either. I was the blond sheep in a family of brunette geniuses. My family has never let me forget coming home from the public library after researching my first term paper in seventh grade and announcing sagely, “Ibid sure wrote a lot of stuff!” My voraciously-reading siblings were definitely bluebirds. (I think I may have been a puffin.)

While I was never identified as having learning disabilities, I learned only recently that I had one. I wasn’t  good at learning things by hearing them; I always had to see it to remember it. In college, I would leave lectures without being able to tell you virtually a single thing the professor said but would then transcribe the notes I’d frantically scribbled and know the material cold. A few months ago, a friend was telling me that her granddaughter had been diagnosed with Auditory Processing Disorder: she was poor at processing what she heard. Lo these many years later, did I finally have an excuse for not being in the blue reading group?  OK, probably not, but it was worth a try.
 

For the record, my older son was in the red group, and my younger son was in the yellow. Despite concerns that failure to be in the blue reading group in first grade dooms a child’s adult options to a career in coal mining (or worse, a lesser state university)  both have been completely self-supporting (and not in coal mining) since graduating from college. Where was the crystal ball when you needed it?

My 21-year-old yellow reading group neighbor is slated to graduate from college in June. Both of her older brothers, despite being blue reading groupers, managed not to graduate on time due to some unfortunate miscalculation of required credits – information that both of them failed to determine until their folks were literally in their car en route to commencement ceremonies. Folks were not pleased. But the impending graduate swears to them that she is not going to follow in her brothers’ footsteps in this regard. The sibs may have been early readers, she notes, but she can actually add. The folks will not be driving to her graduation and getting the same phone call that they got two previous times. At this point, it’s personal, she said, and she’s already made it the theme of her graduation weekend: 
 

The Revenge of the Yellow Group Reader.

 

 

Winston Writes Home

["Let Inga Tell You," La Jolla Light, published March 26, 2015] © 2015 

Dear Mom and Dad –

As your first and most beloved child (OK, I realize the next three are actual humans), I wanted to update you on how I’m doing here at Camp Grammy and Grampy. Grandma has noted aloud that my sojourns here keep getting longer and longer. A kennel, however, would be unthinkable for a canine of my sensitive nature and exacting requirements.   

There's been plenty of sunshine here in La Jolla so I'm usually out baking somewhere - on the grass, on the bricks, or even my new favorite place, the nice warm dirt by the orange tree. Then I like to come in and rub my filthy body on the cream-colored leather sofa in the living room. Grandma thinks the leather cleaning people have me on their payroll.

Keeping grandma and grandpa’s house safe for democracy has, as always, been a full time job. It’s pretty much always DEFCON 3 here with the garbage trucks on Mondays, the lawn mowing guys on Wednesday, and the pool guy with that big scary pole on Thursdays. I exhaust myself with frenzied hysterical barking but still they persist in coming.
 

Now there are new threats to the household. Who knew that the toilet plunger in the guest bath could have been taken over by malevolent forces?  I snarl viciously at it to let it know that its behavior will not be tolerated. Grandma will finally come in and hide the plunger in a closet (vanquished!) I am sorry to report that grandma and grandpa continue to be clueless as to the dangers in their midst.

When I arrived this time, grandma had acquired a new feeding station with high sides. However, I still manage to hurl the occasional piece of kibble out on to the floor and then drag it into the carpet in grandma and grandpa's bedroom where they step on it in their bare feet and say bad words. But it's not nearly as easy as the old feeding tray where I could usually fling 30 pieces of kibble a day out onto the floor, never mind create a minor tsunami of water.
 

If there is one thing I don’t like about La Jolla, it is that it is the allergy capital of the world, infinitely worse than our house in L.A. I am constantly fighting infections. The folds in my face, never mind the inside of my silky ears, need to be cleaned daily, a process I cannot abide. Grandma and grandpa’s La Jolla doggie doc says they had a slogan when she was doing her training: Buy a bulldog: Support a vet. Worse, I overheard Grandpa muttering that for what they’ve spent on my care, they could buy a whole new dog.

 

A reader of grandma’s told her that there is a new miracle drug called Apoquel that works wonders for bulldogs of my allergic persuasion. Unfortunately, it is more expensive and harder to get than heroin. I’m on a waiting list for it (hopefully October?) which cannot come too soon. Grandma has been fantasizing about breaking into a local veterinary office that is rumored to have some.
 

The number of pills they stuff into me daily is positively ridiculous. I do NOT like taking pills – Benedryl, assorted antibiotics  - which don’t seem to work anyway. I no longer accept pills hidden in pet store pill treats, cheese, salami, tuna, and even hamburger. They’ve still been able to get me to take them wrapped in fresh sliced deli turkey breast. But don’t even think of trying the packaged stuff. I do NOT do cheap cold cuts.

 

I have developed a cunning system of swallowing the piece of turkey then spitting the pill out on the kitchen floor. I always leave it in a prominent place just to make a point.

 

 One of my favorite activities here is to stuff toys under the sofa and carry on until grandpa or grandma fetch them for me. (They are so trainable.) I also enjoy lying on their feet so they can’t get up. This is not an activity I get to do at your house since, with three kids under six, you never sit down.
 

Grandma and grandpa continue to be under the spell of my charms. I'm getting lots of rubs, toy tosses, and attention, which is, of course, my due. I'm an insanely attractive animal (regardless of the cruel things people say about my underbite), and have perfected all my laughingly adorable faces on them. When I tilt my head to one side and lift my paw, they are powerless against me. When I flatten my ears to my head and look up at them piteously, they think I am genuinely sorry for puking on the rug.

 

 Missing you and my “sibs,”

Yours in perpetual slobber,

Winston

 

 

Winston demonstrates his technique of swallowing the turkey slice but spitting out the pill

 

 

Winston shows the toilet plunger who's boss