Hot Mess

Perhaps you’ve read this hilarious post about a hot yoga participant. While I’m not about to sell my yoga mat, I have Feelings about my most recent hot yoga experience.

It started, as things sometimes do, with a Groupon. This new hot yoga place opened near us and I was interested in trying it out. Now, I’ve done hot yoga ONCE with my friend R. It was a new experience for me, I admit – I’ve been doing regular yoga for six or seven years – but hot yoga? It’s Different.

Hot yoga primer: Bikram Choudhury developed his version of the class in the 70′s. Based on hatha yoga, classes run 90 minutes and consist of 26 poses and 2 breathing exercises. Everything is done in a room of 105 degrees Fahrenheit with about 40% humidity. The theory is that  you can do deeper poses, relax the muscles, release toxins, blah blah blah.

Upon my arrival a grouchy man with long stringy grey hair, beard, and glasses took my Groupon coupon and told me to sign in and sign the waiver. He sort of looks like Ted Kaczynski with longer hair. I’d read the place’s FAQ online and I knew the waiver was coming. This adorable Australian woman signed in at the same time and was told that since it was her first hot yoga class, her goal was to stay in the hot room for the whole 90 minute class. She looked at me, panic in her sparkly green eyes, and said, “Oh dear, now I’m getting nervous.”

“That’s all you have to do!” I said cheerfully. “Just stay in the room. You can do that.”

Famous….last…words.

In the changing room she asked if I’d done this before. “Just once. Just rest in child’s pose if you get dizzy.”

“He’ll yell at you if you do child’s pose,” another woman said.

“What? Everybody tells you to rest in child’s pose if you have to stop!” I said.

She shook her head. “He’ll tell you it’s not one of the Bikram poses.”

Aussie and and looked at each other. “So glad I knew that before,” I said.

Silence is strictly enforced in The Hot Room and no amount of vocal expression, save breathing and the occasional grunt or groan, is tolerated by the Yogi (the Yogabomber? Since he looks like him?). If you have friends in class, you are definitely not allowed to whisper to her, “Why did I do this, again?” or “I think my face is melting,” or “He can take this class and shove it up his Iyengar.”

Class started with some singing bowls, which was nice. Then the nice stopped and the pain started.

Since I had read the FAQ, I knew that new people were supposed to stay in the back of the room and watch more seasoned practitioners do their thing. I somehow ended up in the middle then in the front, not far from Yogi. He never introduced himself, and praised the people who had clearly been coming for a while, calling them by name. There was no general, “You’re doing great, class” or “Everyone is looking good.”

Someone DID get called out for doing a 27th unapproved pose, and while I avoided being corrected for doing child’s pose but here is a list of things I did not escape being corrected for:

• Trying to take a drink of water at a time not approved by Yogi, which prompted a lecture to the class on how he likes you to only drink when he tells you that you may because it’s just “too confusing” for the class if people drink when they feel like it.
• Trying to extend my leg during standing head-to-knee pose when my standing leg was NOT STRAIGHT ENOUGH.
• Wiping sweat out of my eyes. Yogi wants you to “let it pour off you like a river.” Right into your eyes? Got it.
• Adjusting triangle pose by moving my stability leg, not my other leg. I didn’t dare tell him my foot actually set sail by itself on a river of my sweat…
• Various other knee-straightening-related infractions, prompting several lectures about his knowledge and understanding of Knees and Knee Problems so we’d better just listen to him, because dammit he’s been to India and they know All About It.
• Moving ahead too fast – I lifted my arms before the rest of the class at one point because I’d totally spaced out. It was ten million degrees…

In the dressing room after, I was asking if there was a prize for being corrected that many times in one class. Another woman said that all Bikram instructors are like that and I should keep coming back.

WHY are they all like that? It’s true, the only other one I’ve met was bossy and grouchy, too. I know it’s hot in there, but geez. It’s like saying, “Children make me so grumpy and pissy,” and then going to be a third grade teacher, and blaming you being grumpy on the kids. YOU KNEW THERE WAS GOING TO BE HEAT IN THERE, RIGHT?

I learned my lesson about judging yoga teachers too soon. But I’m very curious to see how this will resolve. I have nine more visits to Yogi’s Silent Hell and I’m pretty sure I”ll be keeping you all updated. Until then, namaste, bitches.

On correspondence I have had since 1986

  I’m a little bit of a pack rat when it comes to paper. I saved all my train tickets and theater stubs from my college trip to Europe. In   my scrapbook, there are wedding invitations (from people who aren’t even married anymore) and birth announcements. There is a massive box of stationery in my office full of note cards and sheets of creamy stock paper. I save choir programs and blank notebooks, newspaper clippings and magazines. So it should be no surprise that I had two boxes of correspondence dating back 25 years.

Last week, in a fit of de-cluttering, I went through the boxes and divided everything into piles:

• Birthday cards
• Christmas cards
• Stuff from my family
• Separate piles for several friends
• Letters send to me while I was in England
• Pen-pal letters
• Other
• Pitch it

Reading my friends’ letters reminded me of how we were then. There are letters from one of my best friends D, away at debate camp in high school. My parents couldn’t afford to send me. I loved her erratic missives, written in her unmistakable scrawl, keeping me up to date on late nights of Mountain Dew and building files for upcoming debates. There are birthday cards full of inside jokes. Notes passed during classes. A record of a 20-year friendship.

There’s a stack of letters from A, sent while we were both in college in different states, but struggling with being away from home, with boys and studies. We went through a make-an-envelope-out-of-a-magazine-page phase so several letters are in slick handmade cases. I have a pile of birthday cards from A also, mostly having to do with the fact that I’m younger (by all of 6 months).

I found several notes from a high school friend who went to the same college as me for one year. Her beautiful calligraphic writing, pretty little drawings, and sticker embellishments – I don’t know what happened to her after she left college. She was Afghan and I worry about how she might’ve been treated after 9/11.

There are letters from R, one of my best friends from college, as she moved from a tiny town in Kentucky to New York City to forge a new chapter in her life. They are exuberant and desperate, beautiful and hopeful.  They span a year or two, just until R got her foothold in her new city and began to untether from her life in Kentucky.

Letters from a slew of pen pals – Pam in Alabama. Vicky in Hull, England. Erin in Pennsylvania. Paul in Ireland. Carrie in Wisconsin. Pam’s letters were when we were in junior high and were full of news of her gymnastics activities, birthday parties for friends I’d never know, and trips to the Gulf Coast. Vicky’s letters, written on delicate air mail paper, detailed her school work and introduced me to a raft of Britishisms  like hols and mad. I’ve tried to find her on Facebook to no avail but I think I did find her on MySpace. I think she’s a photographer. Haven’t tried to connect with her yet. Is that weird? Would you be weirded out if your pen pal from grade school emailed you?

I digress.

There was, of course, stuff from ex boyfriends. There’s a strange card from a guy I met in college. B was a friend of D (see above on D) and after meeting me a scant handful of times, sent me a card that read something like, “Thinking of you just being somewhere in the world makes me happy. (inside) – Thinking of you anywhere near the bedroom makes me ecstatic!” Entirely inappropriate and made me glad my dorm had a key code lock on the doors.  That went into the “Pitch it” pile.

Looking at all this paper, all this ink, I see people who love me and who shared something of themselves with me. There is so much support in those letters – words of encouragement from sometimes thousands of miles away. There is humor and fear – we laughed about the world together and at the same time, feared these new steps in our lives.

I’m not the only person in the world who mourns the loss of the written letter. Email is wonderful and useful, but there’s just no feeling exactly like getting a note in the post.  Someone cared enough to buy a card, write a letter, get a stamp, write my  name on the envelope. And I appreciate that, even now.

In case you wondered, the “Pitch it” pile was for things like generic holiday or birthday cards with no good pictures or personal notes, stuff from people I don’t remember, some from people I do remember but would rather not (see story about B above).

These boxes of letters have moved with me from my parents’ house to my first apartment, to a rental home, to my in-law’s, and now to my condo. The older box was a cardboard gift box that at some point in the late 80′s I covered with wrapping paper. It’s silver with cartoonish penguins on it and “Happy Birthday” in red letters. The other is a sturdier affair, purchased from Pier One and has travel paraphernalia on the top. I consolidated and organized, and put everything in my cedar chest, where all my special things go – baby booties, first communion bible, some of my grandmother’s things, my wedding veil and tiara.

I just cannot bear to throw these things away. I like looking back at where we’ve been, my friends and I. Between the lines about chem tests and basketball games are the hopes, fears, and loves of two dozen people who mean the world to me – or very much did at one time.

Hallelujah!!!

THUG LIFE IS GONE!

Yes, Dear Readers, Thug Life, bane of my existence, scourge of Shadowood, King of the Asshats…is in jail!

Let me ‘splain.

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Thug Life’s real name is Gage. (Nope, not making that up.) Gage has been arrested and imprisoned on two counts of possession of a weapon by a felon, two counts of animal cruelty for inhabitable living conditions for their two dogs, and one count of trafficking.

Can I get an AMEN up in here???

The neighbor who shared all this also related to us that another neighbor has been unable to sell her townhome because, to get to it, you have to pass by Asshat Manor. As of three weeks ago, Asshat Manor had devolved into a Palace of Putrescence. The blinds looked like they’d been put through a garbage compacter then hung by a thread. The patio gate had become unhinged and passersby were treated to the dump crater behind the condo. Saran Wrap and screens flapped in the breeze. Apparently, the inside will most likely need to be gutted – holes in the walls, dog poo everywhere.

The woman trying to sell her townhome called Asshat Sr., a chiropractor and Gage’s daddy who apparently pays a lot of the bills, and asked if he could possibly do something to make the place less scary ghetto crack den and more simply uninhabited. He decline on account of he’s so busy. I suspect he’s busy working to pay for all the havoc his son hath wrought far and wide. BUT, Asshat Sr. allowed our other neighbor to clean up Asshat Manor herself.

The asshat doesn’t fall far from the asshat rack does it?

So she did. They boarded up the broken windows, took down the mangled blinds, touched up the paint on the front of the unit, and secured the patio.

I know you all are wondering about the animal cruelty counts. Gage had at least two dogs in residence at Asshat Manor, which by all accounts, were friendly. His various shady friends and business acquaintances brought various dogs around so it was hard to tell what dog belong to which Thug. When Metro Animal Services came to take the dogs, one of the Screamy Teenagers stepped in to take one of them. Sadly, I don’t know about the other.

The trafficking charge came when police searched Asshat Manor and found nothing, but a buyer arrived and, well, that was that.

Asshat Manor has been a veritable TOMB of silence the last week or so. A TOMB, I tell you.

Now, our only source of neighborly noise is Montel and Cherry next door whose four-year-old daughter (who has a seriously unpronounceable name…it sounds like Tylinquikitamashonda) has developed a habit of playing with her poo, thus invoking the wrath of Cherry. Montel, meanwhile, still has no job and doesn’t do anything around the house, thus invoking the wrath of Cherry.

The walls are thin here. Expect to hear more about them, since I Thug Life is no longer hanging around, being thugish.

The t-shirt…I do not think it means what you think it means

I bought the t-shirt featured in this post back in 2010 when BP’s Deepwater Horizon assploded in the Gulf of Mexico and sprayed plumes of oil far and wide. It cost something like $15 and it contributed a donation to the Gulf Restoration Network (please go there, donate something – if that picture of the oily sea turtle doesn’t have you grabbing for your credit card, then you have no heart).

Now, when I wear this shirt in public, it’s normally to the gym – this has nothing to do with the message, rather, it is the perfect gym t-shirt for reasons I don’t need to go into here.

Until today, I’d never gotten any sort of comments on it. Despite the clarity on this picture, I think that’s because in real life you actually have to look pretty close to see the oil drips and since staring at women’s chests is generally frowned upon unless she’s swinging around a pole in a g-string, I think people just assume I actually believe BP…cares… (They DO care. About money.)

I went to Zumba class today and noticed partway through the class that the guy behind me sported a full-color BP shirt, complete with the green and yellow logo. As I went to get a drink from my sports bottle which was conveniently located behind him, he said, “Are you affiliated with BP at all?”

“No…I um…I bought this after the spill. The proceeds went to clean up the Gulf.”

And he thanked me.

Like, really sincerely. No snarkiness detected at all.

So the question is… Did he get that this shirt was a satirical and snarky poke at petroleum giant BP? Or did he just glance at the shirt and assume? Was he thanking me for helping clean up the mess BP made?

My feeling is the latter is accurate. I was caught sort of off guard and I’m not sure I even replied to his thanks.

What do you think?

 

Unemployment desert: Day 10

Right. So.

People have already started asking me if I’ve heard anything about jobs.

NO. Agh. Didn’t you people read the last eleventy million posts I have written on the subject of Asking Me if I have a Job Yet?? Well go back and find them and read them. Here it is in a nutshell: Don’t ask, I’ll tell (if I want to).

Anyway, the last two weeks can be summed up like this: pajamas, head cold, lots of tea, many naps and several generous friends who have taken me for drinks or lunch.

I haven’t left my house in three days except to go to Target to get some medicine to help my head cold.

It’s all around dismal and depressing.

<pause>

Ok, this is all going a little more “Pity? Party of one? Your table is ready.” than I wanted. Suffice it to say, I feel blecchhy.

Here’s to a good night’s sleep and better Fridays.

 

Seriously, Universe? SERIOUSLY???

You all are going to think I’m just making this up. Like I’m a parody of the job market, since this is what? The fourth post I’ve written on this topic?

I got laid off yesterday.

Thank God I wasn’t wearing my pajamas.

I went to work in my jammies yesterday – purple flannel with colorful owls on them, plus my hair in pigtails and toting a stuffed frog. It was Halloween, we were encouraged to wear a costume. I went as a slumber party-goer. I thought, “Who DOESN’T want to go to work on Monday in her pajamblies?” Of course, there were only a handful who dressed up in the company and only two in my department – let’s face it, I can’t compete with a woman dressed as a whoopie cushion. So when I went home I changed into jeans and a shirt.

At three o’clock The Boss called me in and when he sat down, I let loose. I knew what was coming.

“You have GOT to be kidding me.”

Silence. Stunned. He and the HR woman shook their heads.

It’s not my first time at the rodeo, kids. When you get called in by your boss and the HR representative is there and she has a plain manila folder with a sheet or two of paper in it, mark my words: NO GOOD CAN COME OF IT.

They said they were sorry.

I glared at The Boss. “I told you, this is exactly what I didn’t want to have happen when I came here.”

He said, “I know.”

“I cannot believe this. I cannot believe this. You have got to be kidding me.”

<blah blah about the company making tough decisions, didn’t know this when they hired me fourth months ago, etc ad nauseum>

Finally I got up, got my stuff together, bid bon voyage to the co-workers and – ONCE AGAIN – set sail for the murky waters of unemployment. First port of call? Panictown.

I went home, posted on Facebook, and sat down with a Large Wine to watch Jerseyliscious until Husband arrived home. He’s good about assuaging the panic. Six hours later, around 2 am, I got up because it really started to hit me then.

Once again, I’m cast adrift from the safe anchor of a paycheck and health insurance.

Once again, we have to postpone starting a family because I can’t justify a baby without a steady paycheck and health insurance. And I’m no spring chicken so I might not get a chance at all.

Once again, I feel so much angry!! At the ex-friend who could’ve eased this panic, had she helped Husband two years ago into a better paying and more stable job instead of stabbing him in the back; and serious resentment toward my in-laws who could easily afford to HELP – to help with bills, to help Husband finish his nursing education sooner rather than later, instead of having to wait for classes to open up at the community college where he goes, anything, instead of asking why we can’t get our shit together.

Once again, I’m looking at long days of doing nothing, of feeling restless, of the company only from the anxiety of the situation.

And once again, I feel pathetic. Thirty-five years old and haven’t had a job for more than three years since 2003. I might miss my chance to have a family because my job situation has been so unstable. Husband is in nursing school, and sure, he’ll eventually finish and get a job but how long with that be from now? Classes are full at the community college, we can’t really afford the larger university or the private schools.

I usually am one to believe in signs from God, the Universe and Everything, but I just don’t know what the hell it’s trying to tell me.

This is NUTS

I adore peanut butter. Until my dermatologist suggested I lay off foods with nickel in them on account of my crazy skin allergies, I ate peanut butter every. Single. Day. About the time I hit high school, we’d switch from Jif (Choosy moms choose Jif!) to our grocery store’s natural peanut butter. Actually, the health food section of the grocery had a fresh orange juice squeezer and a peanut smoosher so you could get fresh juice and peanut butter made for you ON THE SPOT, but my dad got into the Kroger brand natural peanut butter. Ingredients? Peanuts and salt. Now, I really can’t eat stuff like Jif or Peter Pan because it tastes like sugar and chemicals to me.

Now, I know you’re like, “OMG, Writing Spider, but the natural stuff is all like…oily on top and sludgy on the bottom!” Right. Store the jar upside down, k? It works.  

A few weeks ago (in possibly August), I bought a jar of Meijer Organics Crunchy Peanut Butter. It was the cheapest natural peanut butter. Ingredients? DRY-ROASTED ORGANIC PEANUTS, ORGANIC PALM OIL, PURE CANE SUGAR, SEA SALT.

The jar is almost empty though the whole time I’ve been working on it, I’ve thought, “This tastes sort of weird…” but I couldn’t put a finger on why.

Two weeks ago, I happened to notice that it’s expired. How expired? BEST BY JAN 30 11. Ok, whatever. How can this be bad?

So fast-forward to today. I’m zoning out, staring at the peanut butter and I read this:

THIS PEANUT BUTTER IS PRODUCED IN A FACILITY THAT CONTAINS: TREE NUTS (ALL VARIETIES), SEEDS (SUNFLOWER SEEDS, PUMPKIN SEEDS), SULFITES (DRIED FRUITS), AND DAIRY (SMARTIES USED AS AN INGREDIENT IN TRAIL MIXES.”

 REFRIGERATE AFTER OPENING

 So many questions….

1. Who the heck puts Smarties in their trail mix??
2. Smarties have dairy in them??
3. Why am I refrigerating it?
4. Will eating expired nonrefrigerated peanut butter kill you? My guess is no…
5. DAIRY in SMARTIES in TRAIL MIX? What the WHAT??

Jill-of-all-trades

I’ll never be able to get a tattoo.  Not because I’m afraid of the pain. It’s because I can’t settle on the message. Do I want a fleur de lis? A sunflower? A frog? An owl? A quote? Each of these has a different message it projects to people who see it. I met a girl once who had a shamrock tattooed on her inner thigh with the words “Lucky you” inscribed underneath. Cheeky! But…could I commit to that level of cheekiness for all time? I can’t even commit to cheeky for a week – it dissolves into introspection or malaise. Or I just get hungry for a cookie.

I’ve worked in advertising and media for a while and I suspect a Consultant would say my brand is not defined enough.

Look at my bookshelves – the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Pablo Neruda, fantasy by Gaiman and Tolkien, essays by David Foster Wallace and the Dalai Lama. I can’t stick to a single genre!

The first book I wrote probably won’t get published because it includes the following: steampunk, Greek mythology, Shakespeare, gothic ghosts, demons, talking animals, and Joan of Arc’s sword.

So many different styles of clothing appeal to me. I could just as easily rock a 1960’s A-line dress with black eyeliner as I could a velvet frock coat and bustle, a flapper-style dropwaist, or a ball gown. I see these people who really commit to that preppy 1980’s look with the madras shorts and polo shirts with popped collars or women with long long Crystal Gale hair and flowy Pyramid Collection clothes. Again, I like them all. Let’s do them all!

I like to do some crafts – I like sewing and gluing things together, scrapbooking, anything with glitter involved. But I’m not like THE person you go to for collage help because it’s not THE ONLY thing I do, right?

There are always those people who fit into that slot they’ve either cultivated or fallen into. “Oh, Liza is a poet.” And she’s always “Liza the poet.” She’s always doing poetry, never short stories or newspaper articles. She’s never NOT Liza the poet because somehow she has BECOME poetry. Or it’s “Dave, the guy who loves beagles.” And then it’s forever Davethebeagleguy.

I just have my fingers in too many pies. (I like making pie, too.) A Jill of all trades and mistress of none.

Gift horses and mouths

There are three pieces of advice I’ve been given that have recently been the subject of some object lessons. Rather, one is a piece of advice, the second is a sort of handy attitude adjuster, and the third is a kind of a philosophy.

First, the attitude adjuster.

I worked with a woman who talked about her gift from the universe. “I went to get a coke and there was already money in the machine,” I’d say. She’d reply, “Must be your gift from the universe.”

Every day you get a gift from the Universe. Gifts from the Universe (GftU) are little and big things – you didn’t get a parking ticket even though you were parked there for 18 hours on street cleaning day. You find $5 on the sidewalk just before someone invites you to go to lunch with her to the $4.99 buffet special. You locate the earring you thought was lost during your junior year of college. You missed the movie but that means you can go home and take a nap.

GftU are sometimes so tiny that you might not recognize them that day. Or even the next day. But there’s one every single day of your life. I think GftU come through other people sometimes. Things you didn’t ask for but you got anyway. Like the little felt frog basket someone gave me because he was moving and wondered if I’d like it. Or the compliment I got on a day I didn’t feel particularly pretty or fabulous.

Which brings me to the philosophy: when you ask for something with your heart and soul, every little thing in the Universe conspires to give it to you.

I love that idea that you whisper your wishes and dreams over the speaker system of the Universe and you are heard. That said, I’m not sure it’s best if you’re very conscious of the process. Sometimes if you want something too hard you crush it before you get a chance to love it.

And the piece of advice. “Never make someone sorry they tried to help you.”

When I was in college and grad school, I made the odd buck here and there by doing the calligraphy addresses on wedding invitations. Later, I addressed my friends’ invitations as wedding gifts. “Jane” was a friend from childhood and she was marrying right out of college two states away. I immediately offered to do her envelopes. Over Christmas holidays, I brought samples to her mother’s house and her mom, sister, aunts, and she exclaimed in delight – what a nice present! The invitations will be so pretty!

I called her a month or so later to ask about the envelopes and guest list. “Oh. Um. Well, my fiancé ‘Jack’ says he wants to do the addresses on the computer.” She went on to explain that he just really didn’t want me to address the envelopes and thanks, but he’ll just do it. What about the place cards, I asked. “Oh, we’ll do those on the computer, too.”

And two months later the invitation arrived with a crookedly printed out laser-printered address. The place cards had been hastily scrawled by a person using a calligraphy marker. I shook my head. They’d spent so much on the wedding, it was a shame to leave such details to electronic fingers.

But the real issue was that my gift had been rejected. To my face. With no apology. I was sorry I tried to help Jane. I was sorry I offered a gift at all.

I’ve offered help and support, stuff and time, ideas and advice, and when it is turned down, thrown away, or just thrown back at me, it’s hurtful. Sometimes, I know it isn’t personal. Still hurts.

I can think of several people to whom I have given gifts of various value and meaning and from whom I have received no word of thanks. Even if they reported liking the gift to someone else.

Most people have gotten gifts they didn’t want or couldn’t use. We’ve all re-gifted (QVC shiny-metallic-snowman-Christmas-ornament cookie jar, anyone?). But how often do you open that box, see what’s inside, and say, to the giver’s face, “HOLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT IN THE NAME OF ALL THAT IS HOLY WERE YOU THINKING BUYING ME THIS PIECE OF %$#@?????”

When someone offers you something, you must be clear about what they’re really offering. Want a piece of gum? Maybe she’s offering you the chance to not offend your officemates with your breath. Can I buy you lunch? Maybe he knows you can’t afford it. I’ll do your wedding invitations. You’re old friends and it’s a tiny gesture of kindness toward you.

People like to feel wanted and included, like they have good ideas.

Most of the time it doesn’t hurt you to accept the help or gift offered. Most of the time it helps them more than you, I think. Sometimes the Universe sends you a gift and it’s not up to you weather to accept it or not. Sometimes it is and I hope you’re careful about which of the Universe’s gifts you turn down because you might be someone else’s gift from the Universe.

What, exactly, IS in a name?

When I was about twelve, I complained to my dad. “My name is so short! It’s only got four letters and two of them are the same letter!”

My dad, ever the smartass, said, “Well, do you want me to give you one of those long African tribal names?”

“YES!”

“Fine. We’ll call you Zoomabalagadooga!”

Which I spell like this: Zooomahbahlahgahdooogah because it has more letters.

On one of our trips toMainefromKentucky, I decided we should all, like, totally play 20 Questions. Not to sound like an Old Person, but back in my day, car trips weren’t roving movie theaters meant to distract one from the actual traveling part. We entertained ourselves, dangit, and we LIKED it.

My sister just was not feeling 20 Questions. She resisted.

This becomes important in a minute.

Visiting family inPortland, I decided that I wanted to go to the Moxie Festival. Because it was my birthday.

Part of the Moxie Festival included a parade featuring none other than the famous traveling L.L. Bean duck boot. It’s probably 15 feet tall and they pull it behind a truck through the parade.

My sister goes, “LOOK AT THAT. THAT IS A BIG BOOT.”

You know how a word is suddenly just funny when you say it? That’s sort of what happened.

This is the same trip that we purchased a small plush stuffed lobster as a gift for the dog sitter, which my sister had christened “Larry.” She consulted Larry like one might consult a Magic 8 Ball.

On the way home, 20 Questions went like this.

ME: Ok, I’m ready.

SISTER: What do you think Larry? (Pause to listen. Then to me:) Are you…A BOOT?

ME: Ha ha. Ok, guess, for real.

SISTER: Ummmm….are you….A BOOT??

She wasn’t resisting 20 Questions anymore.

And that is why we call her Boot. It’s blossomed even beyond a nickname. She’s “little Boot” (though she’s been taller than me for the last twenty years) and I’m sometimes “big Boot.”  There are boot-shaped items purchased as gifts. And Little Boot started this thing where we’ll call each other and if I/she don’t/doesn’t answer, the caller will take the voicemail opportunity to, using a variety of inflection and vocal modulation, repeat the words, ‘boot’ and ‘booty’ in a manner designed to reduce the listener to a tear-filled giggle-fit. Actually, the speaker usually has to hang up when she gets the giggles, too.

My parents haven’t escaped this naming. At some point, my sister started calling my mother “Mudra” and my father “Pudra.” People keep asking if we speak Spanish. A ‘mudra’ is a gesture usually made with the hands in Hinduism and Buddhism. And ‘pudra’…well, there’s this.