is really unfair to the rest of the world.

But I’m gonna go with title number one.

The idea was to meander up the coast, stopping when we wanted, wherever we wanted, playing it all by ear. We were going to pack snacks. We were going to play car bingo.

We were going to sing songs and have bonding family time, creating memories that Ruby would cherish for the rest of her life. Of course, that is the ideal version. The reality could have involved threats of pulling over and letting mama out of the car immediately so she could walk home. And in fact, this is likely closer to the reality, since, as luck would have it, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation chose this very weekend to close ten miles of what is arguable the busiest freeway in America, the very one we would have needed to take to get to our destination on time (and don’t believe that photo in the article for a second; the 405 rarely looks that barren).

So serious is this closure, that the DOT has, for the last six weeks, been begging people who do not live in Los Angeles, not to come and telling those that do, to stay home. The closure of this freeway will impact every other freeway in surrounding the general LA area. Which is why we ended up buying overly priced plane tickets. Although, they were less expensive than the divorce that might have resulted from any attempt to drive under these conditions. And fortunately, we’ll still have what is supposed to be a two-hour drive. Bingo, anyone?

If you’ve ever taken the I-405, then you know well the impulse to want to stab yourself in the face. And you also understand what that means for anyone needing to get anywhere this coming weekend. It means something like this:

“We’re making really great time. The weather’s been terrific, and there’s hardly any traffic. We’re in a town called—” My father-in-law paused to double check. “Uh, Lakeside? Have you heard of it?”

“Lakeside?!?” I said to Sam, when he relayed the information. “But—they’re supposed to be in Santa Fe right now! What the hell?”

“They’ll be here by lunch time,” Sam said. I blinked at him in silence. I started to hyperventilate. “But I’ll tell them to come at dinner,” he said. I was getting dizzy, seeing spots and auras and tracers. I genuinely like my inlaws, but I was dreading this visit.

“What do you think? Is 4:30 OK?” I nodded, and sat down on the couch using a hand to steady myself. I asked Sam to bring me an ice pack for my head.

And so it was that my husband’s parents—along with my sister-in-law and one cute but yappy lap dog—left blizzards and black ice in their rear view mirror and began their first winter as snowbirds. It was now only the distance between East County and the College Area separating me from a two-and-a-half month visit.

No, that’s no typo; it’s my reality. A two-and-a-half-month visit! With my in-laws!

Good Christ.

The cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Of all the peoples whom I have studied, from city dwellers to cliff dwellers, I always find that at least 50 percent would prefer to have at least one jungle between themselves and their mothers-in-law.”

Now, I don’t need a jungle between my in-laws and me. But one plane ticket is about right. I’m the Queen of the Short Visit, Master of the Three-Day Weekend. I can tolerate just about anything for 72 hours, but give me an entire season of my mother-in-law’s perfume and my furry father-in-law shirtlessly sunning himself in my back yard? Well, then. You can just consider me a wild card.

It’s worthy of mention that my husband and I haven’t lived within 1,500 miles of a parental unit for more than 20 years, a choice with which we are both very content. We visit with my mother twice a year, and she and I chat on the phone once every three or four weeks. It works for us.

My in-laws, on the other hand, would like to talk daily. And visit often. And hug and kiss and generally enjoy each other in person, all the time. This is uncomfortable territory for a girl who digs her obligation-free existence. Family dinners? What is that? It’s accurate to say I went into this whole we’re-coming-out-for-the-winter arrangement with a little bit of apprehension.

OK, so maybe that’s downplaying it. I’ve been a little bit more like a 4-year-old having a temper tantrum, complete with foot stomping and fist pounding. It’s not been graceful.

But back to their first night: Their arrival was as smooth as 17 clowns piling out of a Volkswagen Beetle right in the middle of a meditation retreat. The cosmos was disrupted with much exclaiming and fawning. There was tearful hugging. And kissing and touching and stroking of hair and multiple expressions of how exciting it was to have So! Much! Time! Together!

There was a dog-butt-sniffing frenzy and then a small territorial battle. There were the noise-making toys brought cross-country for Ruby and the excited screaming over a much-anticipated Barbie Bus.There was the kitchen takeover and general overcrowding of our little home, already overstuffed with Christmas paraphernalia. It was pandemonium. It was sensory overload. It was everything I’d imagined it would be, and I knew I couldn’t deal for another two months. I poured myself a cocktail and stretched a thin smile across my face.

During the coming weeks, my in-laws settled into a little house they rented in South Park and Sam and I set a few boundaries—he, of course, being more tactful about it than I. When my mother-in-law happily chirped that they’d booked the house for next year, it was through clenched teeth that I said I wasn’t ready to talk about it just yet.

My mother-in-law ignored that and went about her business. She and my father-in-law began to get familiar with what they now call “our ’hood.” They introduced themselves to shop owners and neighbors; if you live or work in the area, I’ll bet money you already know Tommy and Marsha from Wisconsin.

My mother-in-law signed up for knitting workshops. My father-in-law walked the beaches. He’s pushed well beyond his fear of Southern California freeway driving, and just the other day, I watched him top out at 70 mph—I didn’t know he could go over 50—while talking on his cell phone. I was so proud of him.

My sister-in-law does her thing, sometimes with us, sometimes without. But what matters is that they’re all making their own life here, and the presence of a routine has made together-time more wonderful than I’d expected.

And I’m not saying this because of their willingness to babysit, any time, for free! Dear Lord, Sweet Baby Jesus in the sky, the free babysitting is glorious! Just last Thursday, they picked Ruby up after school so I could go to the gym. When I got home, the dishes were done, the floors were swept, the laundry was folded and stacked and our windows were washed. I had to point out to my mother-in-law that she’d left a streak on one of the windows, to which she said, “Oh, fuck you!” God, how I love her.

My temper tantrum is over and this is my public apology for my private bad behavior. I have decided the good far outweighs the bad when it comes to living with only a 10-mile concrete jungle between my in-laws and me. I just can’t wait until they make it permanent.

(As published in San Diego CityBeat.)

And not to rub it in (Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Paris, ahem) but there was quite a bit of this:

Which was perfect for our annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Day neighborhood clean up.

We worked in the rain last year.

For the third year in a row, we got together with our friends, put on some gloves and worked with our kids to make our community a better place.  Later in the day, I did Ruby’s hair—getting her ready to go back to school tomorrow after four weeks off—while Sam cooked a traditional southern meal of smothered chicken, rice and veggies. My in-laws came bearing corn bread and my mother-in-law baked a buttermilk pie, one of MLK’s favorites. That is, at least, according to the Internets.

When we’d finished eating and the dishes were done (courtesy of my father-in-law), we all sat together and watched Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech in all of it’s 17 minutes and 28 seconds of still-pertinent glory. Indeed, this is no time “to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism,” but rather to pay close attention and continue to work tirelessly toward the realization of his dream.

This new arrangement has not been without it’s bumps for me, but I’m trying to focus on all the good stuff, most specifically the free babysitting and the reality that everything my husband’s folks do comes from a place of love. Still. I haven’t lived in the same city as a parent in almost 20 years and I dig it that way. I talk to my mother once every few weeks. I love her but I don’t need a whole lot more than that and neither does she.

Things are a wee bit different on the Belfer side of the family, however, and the obligation this new arrangement lends is…uncomfortable for me. I’m trying to be grown-up about it but I short circuit a lot; if you see me twitching, that is why. And they love me despite these seizures, which says so, so much about them. Truly. In fact, I think it says, Oh, honey! We’re just a coupla gluttons for punishment, yah-hay-dere.

There’s my mother-in-law. Isn’t she cute??? Just hanging out in my backyard, browsing the overpriced sweaters in the Boden catalogue…WAIT!…What is?…What is that in the foreground, you wonder? Is it a wombat? Is it another Brett Favre body part?

Why, no. As we are all well aware by now, Number 4′s parts aren’t that—ahem—massive. That, my friends, would be my father-in-law’s shoulder. His very furry shoulder. Here’s the very furry rest of him:

Yup. There he is. That is my father-in-law sitting on the table on our back patio like it was a toilet, reading my New Yorker and getting a little sunlight on his body. Well. As much sunlight as can possibly reach the forest floor, anyway. Fortunately for you, I’m not posting the pictures of his hairy “nibbles,” photos Ruby begged me to take, photos that have no business existing. You can thank me in the comments after you gather your composure.

Upon being forced to look at what could very well be Sam’s and therefore my reality someday, I asked my father-in-law: “So, did you get all this extra body hair as you got older or…have you always been…like…this?”

He nodded his head and said quietly, “I’ve always been like this.”

“Whew!” I let there be no mystery as to the scope of my relief.

Then he looked up at me from behind his glasses, and gave me the Holy Fuck You Are So On My Last Nerve intimidation glare he used to give his high school students when they got out of line. He claims it always stopped them in their tracks.

But if he really wanted to scare the shit out of them, he should have just taken off his shirt.

Our neighbors down the block have had their tree up since before Thanksgiving, and a house just a few steps from there has had lights twisted through their porch hand railing since 1274 AD.  Ruby knows this habit of displaying holiday accoutrements of any kind, outside of the month in which the holiday they celebrate takes place, is against my by-laws.  She therefore screams as we drive down the street, “A CHRIS! MUS! TREE!?! IT’S NOT CHRISMUS YET, STINKY!”  Someday, she’ll swear like I do—something more like, “IT’S! NOT! FUCKING! CHRISTMAS! YET! DIPSHITS!”—and I will applaud her.  It’s comforting to know my neurosis is being successfully embedded.

So patiently did my child wait through that long last week of November—excited and yet, forlorn that other people were breaking the rules and she couldn’t—that we broke down and went for the gold last night, on December 1st, about two weeks before we normally procure our Noble Fir (and, as it happens this year, on the first day of Hannukah, which consequently took a back seat for these Jews. Or perhaps I should say, “Jews”.)

To set the mood, I put on a little Sufjan Stevens holiday music, Ruby had some hot spiced cider, Sam and I enjoyed hot toddys and then we went to work. I always seem to forget during the other 11 months of the year, that putting up a tree is a lot of work.  And with a five-year-old assistant, things tend to be a little skeewompus:  Beads don’t gently droop like dew drops, but strangle like string around a brisket; many branches remain empty, while others bend with the weight of six precariously hung ornaments; and all 40 candy canes are positioned within arms reach of a 47-inch person.  This type of disorganization drives me batty, as I like my tree to be Just. So.  But dang if it doesn’t look pretty when I’ve taken out my contacts.

Thank the sweet baby Jesus that this only happens once a year.  And believe me when I say, come New Years Day? That thing will be naked and curbside while our neighbors cling to their decorations through Valentines Day.

Ruby had her orientation last Friday. We visited her new classroom, met her new teacher and some of her new friends. She was one cool cucumber. ,I on the other hand, was not. Sam told me as we walked down the street toward her school, to pull it together at least while she’s around. Then he went for the jugular: “Don’t be my mom.” (Hey, Marsha! ) Suffice it to say, I wore my very big, very dark sunglasses, which I will be wearing again on Tuesday. Ruby was none the wiser.

I’m a writer, but I cannot formulate the words right now. So photos will have to do for the moment….

This picture was taken when Ruby was three weeks old, during my second week of mothering. It was early in the triathlon of late night feedings, diaper changes, and the seemingly endless shooshing of a crying baby, and already Sam and I were exhausted. We’d had 36 hours—not 9 months—to prep ourselves for parenthood (the last minute crash course in swaddling proved to be clutch). But this isn’t a competition.

Regardless of allotted nesting time, I think what we were experiencing when my cousin snapped this photo is universal among new parents: While we were nothing short of elated, there was a sense that we’d been hit and flattened like silly cartoon characters, by an 18-wheeler that missed a hairpin turn after careening down an 11% grade slicked with black ice.  The impact on our lives was so stunning, I didn’t even hear the warning screech of air brakes. One minute, I wasn’t a mother, the next minute I was. And this photo, which I’ve posted before, exemplifies that for me.

And it reminds me, every time, of a conversation I had with a representative from my HR department two months before it was taken. I had called to find out whether I would qualify for maternity leave once we were matched with our baby, and was told that I would not. “You’re not really a mother,” the representative told me.  “Maternity leave is for women who have babies. Because they have to heal. You’re not healing from anything.” I hung up in disbelief and anger.

But I let it go and when Ruby was born,  I took 12-weeks off without pay so I could not really be a mother. My husband and I borrowed 3-months’ worth of salary from my generous in-laws so that I could not really make and wash bottles, not really change diapers, not really attend doctor visits, not really pace around my dining room table for hours and hours with a crying baby in my arms, so I could not really rock her to sleep. I had support—certainly not from my employer—that allowed me the luxury to not really bond with my new child, to not really sit in my rocker with her or lie in my bed with her naked body curled like a ribbon against mine, to not really have her perfect ear pressed as close as possible to the beating of my heart, a sound I hoped was something close to the white noise she’d known in her birth-mother’s belly.

Today, a court ruled that the Massachusettes Maternity Leave Act, a law from the dark age of 1972, affords a woman 8-weeks of maternity leave following the birth or adoption of a child. After that time, she is not protected by the law and can be fired from her job. An excellent policy for children and parents as far as I can tell.

Apparently, I was lucky to have absconded with an entire 12-weeks of unpaid leave without fear of being fired from a place that clearly undervalues me to begin with.

]]> http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2010/08/2337.html/feed 11 http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2010/07/one-love.html http://www.aarynbelfer.com/2010/07/one-love.html#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 06:46:46 +0000 Aaryn http://www.aarynbelfer.com/?p=2213

I never really understand why people are hesitant to take their kids to the Gay Pride Parade. Over the weekend, I had several different conversations about it—since I’d planned to take Ruby—and got several interesting reactions. One couple I met at breakfast this morning said that they’d always wanted to go, but motioned toward their six-year old and whispered that they’d heard it’s “basically a porn show.” Another friend dismissed it because all the “cocks” aren’t appropriate for her daughters.

Now, the porn thing is off by astronomical distances: This is a public event with participants from all across the city. The Mayor was in this past Saturday’s Pride parade, as was Republican Ron Roberts from the County Board of Supervisors, and believe me, there isn’t anything remotely titillating or even vaguely pornographic about either of these guys. Even the public defender’s office represented with a float bearing the slogan “Getting people off since 19[something or other]!”

However, while nobody was whipping out their cocks along University Avenue during this weekend’s party, I have to admit that my friend’s concern was wholly legitimate.

I stand corrected because I did indeed see Cox at the parade. As did my daughter and my bestie’s daughter and all the many children and grown-ups and families who sat on the curb in the heat, beneath a sky the color of swimming pools, sharing sun screen and snacks and spray bottles, celebrating our gay brothers and sisters.

Ruby was very excited about all the swag, the horses ridden by the Wells Fargo people (I suppose it could be argued that bankers are pornographic), and the stilt walker.

I was excited about my friend Barbarella‘s piglet, Carnitas—who may have cured me of my bacon habit forever—and the Gay Men’s Chorus, since my friends Skip and Andy were marching.

I didn’t find Skip and Andy but they were out there and they were proud, I know.

Oh, and speaking of excitement, Ruby just about peed her pants at the sight of the man with the RAINBOW! HAIR!

Who’s not tickled by RAINBOW! HAIR!?

Personally, I was tickled by the message on his shirt because the message is the reason I bring my daughter to the parade. Love, not hate, is what I wish to instill in her.

I guess this could be considered Jesus porn because I was practically orgasmic at the sight of these folks. Standing there in the street watching groups of people march beneath such signs is encouraging. They make you believe in humanity and remind you that The Rock church doesn’t represent all Christians. Just too many of them.

Of course, I’d be lying if I represented the parade as all Hail Marys and Holy Water. There was a little bit of shaking, jangling flesh out there, too. And God Bless it!

So she has pasties on her nibbles. Still: Not porn. Just a little edgy. And, I’m guessing, much cooler than my flesh-toned padded bra that’s so old it has dimples. Anyway, have you been to the beach lately? Right. Moving along…

Every parade is better with queens:

In fact, pretty much every situation in life is improved by the presence of a drag queen.

However, the people you really want on your side when the chips are down (or up, no matter) is your family. Which is why PFLAG is the greatest part of the Parade every single year. PFLAG is, hands down, the very best group, float or no float.

I challenge anyone to remain stony when these people walk by. I wanted to run up and hug them. Instead I took their blurry picture with my phone.

I don’t know who Ruby will love when she grows up. And I don’t care. I just want her to love, to be loved and to be happy. I hope that’s what she is learning from me.