"Ouchie-ooh-la-loobie-ding-dat"



After a particularly hardcore session of Webkinz, during which he mined for precious gems, tackled fairies in the Charm Forest, and added a new trellis to his platypus' yard, Wee Niblet stood up and staggered away from the computer.

Leaning uncomfortably against the bed, he groused, "My legs fell asleep."

"Eep opp ork ahah, scoobie-shoo-doo, boopity ba-ba-ba," I hummed in response as I folded the laundry, unable to find a caring bone in me. Rather, deeply immersed in my non-mommy headspace, I considered the possibility that my life, even though I'm 40, might not yet be completely set. If I could toss out scat like that with no rehearsal to speak of, the distinct possibility existed that I might be featured as JocelyNummy on Fergilicious' next album.

"No, rewwy, Mommy. My feet have all prickles in them. It's like I'm getting my shots for my five-year-old check-up again, all at once, 'cept only in my feet, a million times over. I need for it to stop now."

"Well, keep on keepin' on, kid--try kickin' it Pre School, for reals--and it'll go away," I counseled, folding another towel.

"It's so bad, though, I won't ever be able to sleep because it won't ever go away," Niblet moaned, launching the Increased Desperation Triggers Sympathy strategy.

"Dude, you have a computer to play games on and a bunch of Webkinz and a new trellis, and your platypus ate a big plate of noodles tonight and stuff. I don't really feel for you here. Take your pain and your pout and stomp them around the room a little bit; that'll get the blood flowing again," I recommended, wondering if Craig Ferguson would wear a blue or a yellow tie during his monologue that night and if he might ever need me to come on to work the audience into a frenzy with my scatting virtuosity.

"But Mommy, it's so bad. You need to feel my feet. They are so prickly you will shriek when you touch them because it will hurt you too. You should feel them to see how much they hurt."


So I did. I bent down and touched his paws. And those prickles of his felt like rays of burning sunlight had been taken and jammed into shards of ice which were then packaged inside diamonds and scratched along a blackboard covered with jalapeno juice that squirted into an eyeball that was being held open with toothpicks coated in barbed wire that had been heated in molten lava for six minutes. Jehosephat, but Whinebot was right. How he managed to contemplate which jammies to wear at the same time that kind of torment was roiling around inside his body--well, I'd never admired him more. Letting go of his feet, I fell to the ground, paralyzed.

"Um, Mommy?"

Croaking from the floor, weakly, whimpering, I whispered a, "Booooy? Get your father. That's right. Get Daddy. Mommy's dying from touching your prickles. She may need a lemontini to restore a regular heartbeat."

"Hey, Mommy. Get up now. I have to use the potty and am going to need a wiper-suhviper. You can do your scat thing while I do mine."

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Despite my willingness to mess with his head and play along, I'm pretty sure Niblet will soon outgrow his certainty that interior pain can be felt by those outside of his body.

Until his first acid trip in college, of course. Then I'll have to be all "Wow, babes, but the walls ARE melting. Yea, your hand is totally bigger than that chair. Ooh, yea, that scab on your leg is on fire."

What?

Like I'm not going to be there?

What else I got to do? Wait for Fergie and Craig Ferguson to call?

"Flaking and Cursing"



Thanks to Jesus and his lot--and Lot's Wife--I need some new swears.

If it weren't for them and all their high-fallutin' "Biblical history," I probably would never have heard of the Dead Sea and its abrasive salts.

Which means I wouldn't use sea salt in my homemade olive oil/cedar essence/sea salt body scrub that I daub on during Almighty Showertime Exfoliation. Instead, I would use pine needles and lentils softened with sap.

And if I'd never heard of Dead Sea salt and therefore didn't use it in my sacred exfoliation process, then I would be a nicer person with a cleaner vocabulary.

You see, I have a little trouble with the order of my shower agenda; I get wet, add shampoo, slather on the soap, shave, rinse, add conditioner, and then scrub up with saltishness. But Sweet Maria von Trapp, if there's one thing on the planet that scourges the body with an evil necromancy, it's salt applied with great vigor to freshly-shaved legs.

To make things worse, this morning I managed to nick one my legs as I shaved. Then, a mere 74 seconds later, having forgotten all about the recently-inflicted Nick (I did that one hungover morning in college, too! But that Nick had blue eyes, little endurance, and lacked the depth of the one on my leg today), I massaged on a hefty palmful of my sea salt scrub, making sure to grind and rasp it into every crevice of my newly-minted nick.

As it turns out, the sins of the razor do not wash away. Instead, they fester and protest, as did my mouth at that moment.

Easily, I came up with a "Frick!"

Thoughtlessly, I shouted out a "Tarnation, you wascally wabbit!"

Off the tip of my tongue tripped a "SHEEE-IT" and a quick "Hell would be a mercy right now!"

But, frankly, all my efforts at verbal expressiveness fell flat compared to the stinging, briery pain that shot through my stubble-free gam as salt met blood.

Thus, I curse--ineffectively--the salt that buoyed the Lamb of God.

Damn it, Jesus. Just damn it.

"You Finish My Post"

Here are some photos from the big race this past weekend (I'm in the blue shirt, #2409). Because I was in a state of severe oxygen debt, I have no recollection of a single thought in my head.

So you tell me: what was I thinking, as I tripped through the trails?

I'll give you a little starter:

"As Jocelyn ran the Trailmix..."

"The Wisdom Is Not Actually in the Teeth"

A couple of weeks ago, Groom, at age 36, had two wisdom teeth extracted. Since he'd had the bottom teeth taken out during college, he had only the top two with which to contend. One of his top buckers had emerged from the gum and, with no wisdom tooth on the lower jaw beneath it to grind against, this tooth had then continued to grow, unchecked. Basically, he had an inside-the-mouth fang, which, luckily, is just how all the Red Carpet Hollywood celebs are wearing their fangs this year. On the other side of his skull, Groom had an impacted wisdom tooth; the lily-livered thing was afraid to peer out into the light of day. Or the light of soft palate.

Except soft palates aren't really renowned for their light.

So the tooth was afraid to peer out into the, er, moist, soft darkness of the mouth cave. Now *that's* lily-livered, eh? I mean, what's so scary about a moist, dark place, ya big Tooth Wussy?

Well, bats, for one. They're found in moist, dark places (not so much mouths, though), and they're scary. If you fall asleep in a cave, after a long day of spelunking, bats will crawl down your throat and suffocate you.

You maybe didn't know that. I'm a regular font of little-known facts like that. If you ever need to know what to do with a shoelace and a bottle of lotion, just ask me. I've got the knowledge locked up.

So, to summarize this post so far: Groom had one too-big tooth that hurt and one no-show tooth that hurt, and bats are possessed of a rare evil.

On the day of his tooth extraction, Groomeo was nervous, fidgety even, which is a rarity. Normally, Groom is Walking Zen, all contented fluid control (he's like the fog...everywhere at once so subtly that you can breathe him but not touch him). But that day, he was a little twitchy, scratchy, jerky.

To assuage his nerves, I tried making a dramatic show of complimenting him: "What a Big Boy you are! If it hurts when you wake up, I'll have a Tootsie Pop and a Harry Potter sticker waiting for you, sweetie!!!! And you're such a strong, fine lad that I'm sure you'll be back on your skateboard, doing tricks outside the public library, in no time."

Oddly, his twitching gained momentum.

The surgery went well--he didn't have any psychological breaks due to the anaesthesia or provide me with any new material by waking up sobbing, "Beethoven...Beethoven...bound through the meadow towards me, my love! Embrace me!"--and a few hours later, we headed home where he began the long, slow process of recovery.

I was ready for the bloody gauze, the swollen chipmunk cheeks, and the unfocused Lortab pupils. But I hadn't realized he would also need to rinse his mouth every half hour, for, well, let's see how long it's been now--um, TWO WEEKS. Basically, he's been carrying around a Nalgene bottle full of a salt/baking soda potion, and no matter where we're at, he faithfully does the swish and spit. Parking meters, the kids' hair, tree trunks, and people waiting at the bus stop...all have felt the spray of his rinse.

Once or twice, when we've all been out somewhere together, I've forgotten about the All-Important Rinse Bottle and tried to give the kids a drink from it. As a result, my son has a new love for "savory water" and will no doubt dip a cup into the Pacific Ocean one day, when he visits the West Coast, raising his salty drink in a toast to Good Ole Pappy.

As the healing has progressed, there have been a few setbacks; for example, a stitch popped well before the date when it should have. After that, like the pearls falling off my heirloom choker when I snagged it on Laura Bush's brooch at a State Dinner, the stitches began a steady plink, plink, plink of unraveling. And then, well, the smell began. (No, not at the State Dinner. The White House actually has a reasonably talented chef, one who uses shallots to great effect and who keeps bad smells to a minimum. Keep up with me here.)

The smell began inside Groom's mouth. Personally, I stayed far enough away that I could just take his word for it--we wouldn't want The Lurve to suffer, after all. But he spent several days shaking his head, noting, "Man, my mouth reeks." Then he'd pick up his Nalgene bottle and do the swish 'n rinse.

Shortly thereafter, The Flap became an issue. What with the stitches gone (and, er, our phone out of order so that he couldn't call the oral surgeon's office for aid), a flap of unhealed skin hung down. I envisioned it as a stage curtain that could be drawn when the bits of trapped rice and ham were ready to perform and then closed again after they took their bows. I considered buying tickets to see The Flap.

But then, one afternoon, Groom approached me rather tentatively and admitted, "I just swallowed The Flap. It sort of, well, fell off right when I was drinking, and down the hatch it went."

R.I.P, Flap.

A consequence of The Flap's demise was that there is now even less protection between Groom's upper gum and his sinuses, where the impacted tooth was extracted. Only the thinnest of partitions separates these areas now, until new tissue grows to fill things in.

All of this leads me to the question that now occupies me most: Since the reek has gone away, and, thus, I now feel like getting near The Groom again, is it possible that I might try to lay a passionate kiss on him some night, only to have my tongue come out his nostril?