Last Thursday, Jon left right after work for St. George. You local readers know where St. George is, but for those of you readers living in far away, exotic locations, don’t be fooled by St. George’s name. It isn’t one of the quaint islands in the Bahamas. It’s a town in southern Utah known mostly for golf and old people. And some polygamy.

So like I said, Thursday Jon took off with a couple of his friends for a “mancation” in St. George… and, incidentally, it was for the golf, not so much for the old people or the polygamy. They golfed 54 holes in 2 days. And — while I like golf and all — that just doesn’t sound super fun to me. Which is why it was a “mancation” and I wasn’t invited. Plus, to be invited to “mancation”, you sort of have to be a man. And I am a pregnant woman, which is the total opposite of what you are supposed to be. But aside from being the opposite of a man, I think the main reason I wasn’t invited was because of my golfing skills… or lack thereof. Because yeah, I like golf, but I suck at golf. It would take me 2 weeks, not 2 days, to properly play 54 holes. I regularly pick up the ball and throw it towards the hole, because yes, sometimes my “awesome” shots actually give me negetive yardage. And I average about 11 balls per every 18-hole round… lost to sand traps and tall grass and water hazzards and curious pelicans and hungry deer and holes in trees and anything else that could possibly ingest or mask the whereabouts of a small white ball. Which is why I have yet to play with my really cute Disneyland balls. Because I would lose them all ($20 worth) on just an executive 9-hole course. Oh, and did I mention the time Jon actually threw me from the golf cart? That was awesome. I did a ninja-like combat roll across the fairway. Actually, I did several rolls before rolling to a complete stop with a pulled groin area and leaves in my hair. See, I am actually even horrible at riding in the cart during golf. (And if you think I am lying about that story, our friends Cory and Heidi were actually with us, and Heidi half-peed herself laughing at me. I can give you her email if you want confirmation… confirmation about the falling and rolling, not the peeing.)

Here is me golfing one day… but not the day of the golf cart incident:

(Lifting the heel is very poor form for a drive. Yet I can’t not do it.)

And so I was left at home with the kiddies. Which really is okay with me. If Jon would have gone on mancation to a spa/bakery/ice cream shop, I would have made more of a case for myself to go. But as it was, I was here with the kids, doing the usual stuff. Swim team and soccer mostly. And I held down the fort and we were just fine without daddy for a few days. ..

…Except for at night. Because have I admitted to you yet that I am a 32 year old woman who is still afraid of the dark? Yes-huh. Seriously. I am weird about it even when my husband is here, but when he is out of town? I freak out. I can’t sleep. I think every bump in the house is an intruder waiting for me to fall asleep so he can — what? — I don’t know, steal all of our left shoes before tying us up and eating all of our yogurt? No, actually, I envision much worse things. Oh, like the night of the throwdown at the mall? Somewhere in my mind, I was totally convinced  that those punk kids waited for 4 hours in the parking lot before following me home and waiting for me to fall asleep so they could break in. I know, I am insane. And I was totally going to write this post earlier, about how I was fake-mad that I wasn’t invited to go on mancation, but then I thought, “holy crap, what are you thinking? You can’t tell everyone on the internet that your husband isn’t home! That you are alone and pregnant and defenseless! Don’t you realize that ax-murderers read your blog? Sure they do! Lots of them! And several of them are within driving distance!”And so I didn’t write all weekend. Even though I had nothing better to do, especially on Friday night at 3am when the refrigerator turned on and I was convinced that it was someone in the kitchen making a sandwich before coming back the hall to break my ankles and steal my new maternity jeans.

I know, I am insane. I already know it. I’ve said it. I admit it.

And to think my husband wanted a break from all of this — wait a second…

Hmmm, maybe that’s the real reason I wasn’t invited to mancation…

There was nearly a throwdown last night. And amazing food had nothing to do with it. There were no brownies or BBQ wings. Iron Chef Bobby Flay made no appearance.

Who did make an appearance?

A carload of obnoxious, obsenity-yelling, middle-finger-giving teenagers. In the mall parking lot. Because I guess I took the parking space that they assumed was theirs. Even though I left them a space that was actually two spaces closer to the building entrance. But no, they didn’t take that space. Maybe it had cooties. They wanted the space I had taken. And so there was much tire squealing and bird-flipping and cuss word yelling out of their car window, by one idiot guy in particular. I mean, really, it was a spectacle. People all across the parking lot were staring.

And the family loading themselves into the minivan next to us? They were equally as puzzled as I. I got out of my car and walked to the other side of their van (into the aforementioned empty and close-to-the-entrance parking spot) and said, “Um, did they not see this spot?” And the dad of the minivan said, “Yeah, that was obnoxious.” And then the little girl buckling herself into her seat in the minivan said something and the mom said to her, “Yes, sweetie, he did say lots of bad words. His mommy should spank him.”

And then my sister, Sam, who already had a tough day and was just looking for someone to hit (especially if he resembled her ex), and my brother, Paul, who was out for his birthday dinner and all hopped up on caffeine from 5 Hour Energy… well, they were all ready to rumble. They were ready to go fisticuffs with the carload of punk kids.  Me? I was 7 months pregnant and not so ready to endanger the life of my fetus over a parking space and being called a name that I didn’t even hear through my closed car window. But could I talk my siblings down?

Um, nope.

We walk through the doors of the mall and I start walking to the revolving door into Red Robin. And I go around and into Red Robin. And then my sister, who notices that the punk teenagers are walking into the mall behind us, flashes the punk teenagers a nasty look and then goes through the door and into Red Robin. And then my brother, who is looking to defend the honor of his pregnant sister, stands inside the revolving door, blocking the punk teengers from gaining entrance to the eating establishment, and proceeds to give them a tongue-lashing. Something along the lines of “Hey idiot, did you not notice the empty space right next to us?” Except he possibly threw in some cuss words for intimidation. I’m not sure. I couldn’t tell what he was saying… because me (and my fetus) and my sister were safely on the other side of the closed revolving door, watching to see if our brother was going to get hit in the face for his birthday dinner. And my brother? Not huge in stature. But scrappy. And — as I mentioned before — had some courage and energy to burn from the 5 Hour Energy drink.

But the punk kids? Totally backed down. I think maybe because my brother can also look a little psycho when the occasion calls for it. And the girls who were with the male punk teenagers? I’m pretty sure they wanted to date my brother… because I saw them giggling as the cussing, bird-giving guy squirmed. But then they all skulked away. Maybe because my brother was still blocking the door. And then he came in and the three of us got a table and ordered drinks and sang that Peter Cetera song from the Karate Kid.  You know, the one about I am the man who will fight for your honor? And then we had dinner and saw Batman again (because there’s not much else out right now). And much later as we walked to the car, I half expected to see it graffitied and defaced by the same group of kids, who are no doubt the passive-aggressive type to do such a thing. But the car was fine, and no one got hit that night, and my fetus is none-the-wiser.

But if you look like my sister’s ex? You should probably still steer clear of here for a little while. Because I think she was a little upset that my brother got the bulk of the action and she didn’t get to smack anyone.

Zoe came home from church with a worksheet she’d done in her Primary class. Apparently it was a lesson on telling the truth.

More important to note, though, was the picture she’d drawn on the back of this worksheet:

So the truth? She must have been having a rough day.

Not really.

Several years ago my hubby was on a business trip in California. One morning while he was gone, I got a phone call. Jon’s boss was on the other line.

“Suzette?”

That’s what he thought my name was. For five years. After a while it became too awkward to correct him. So I let him call me Suzette. Anyway…

“Suzette?”

“Yeah….?”

“Have you spoken with Jon yet today?”

“No…”

“Well, I don’t want to alarm you, but he is in the ER here in Santa Cruz. He had some severe abdominal pain this morning…”

And then I stopped hearing most of what he was saying.  My poor sweetie was in the ER in Santa Cruz, California. Which, have you ever been to Santa Cruz? Cool place to visit. Hippies riding bikes everywhere. A really great ice cream shop called Marianne’s. A great seafood place called Stagnaro’s on the end of the wharf. Oh, and homeless people sleeping on the beach under your hotel balcony, making you feel really guilty about having both a house AND money to go on vacation. It’s a cool little place. But it’s not a place you want to entrust with your health care. I imagine the Santa Cruz ER to be only a half-step up from, say, a free clinic in Guatemala. Only recently did Jon tell me that his ER doctor had a Grizzly Adams beard and the posters on the walls of the ER were all about psychedelic mushrooms. Anyhoo, several ex-rays, a bottle of Lortab, and a hideous flight later, my husband was back home… writhing in agony, waiting for several  kidney stones to pass. I’ll skip the details of the few days that followed, but suffice it to say that it’s the worst pain I’ve ever seen him in. I felt horrible for him, and there wasn’t anything I could do.

So fast forward to last week. I woke up Thursday morning with some signs of a UTI. That would be urinary tract infection, for those of you fortunate enough to not get them and therefore don’t know the cool anagram associated with them.  (And don’t worry, I’ll try not to give TMI about this whole thing.) So I call the doctor — my baby doctor — and ask them what I should do. They tell me to come in and do a pee test. So I do that… but again, for those of you who have ever had a UTI, you know it’s almost impossible to pee more than three drops at a time, especially on demand… you’re sitting there holding a tiny cup, imagining the nurse standing outside the door with her arms folded, tapping her foot impatiently. But I do what I can under the circumstances. Then the nurse comes out to me and pulls me aside and says some stuff, and uses the phrase “there was a ton of blood”.Then she asks me, “Have you been contracting?” And I thought that was a little weird, because indeed I had. I’d been having between three and four an hour. And she says, “If you start having pain in your back, or if you start contracting 6 or 8 times an hour, you need to go to the ER. The doctor thinks it may be a kidney stone.”

So I get my antibiotic and go about my day, not feeling great, but not feeling too bad. But as the afternoon progressed, I started feeling really, really, REALLY not good. My back started aching like my kidney was going to explode. And I was contracting more. So I tried to call Jon, but he was in a meeting. Imagine that… working at work. The nerve, right?!? So I start kind of panicking. I called my mother-in-law (who lives one street over) on her cell and asked her if she was home from work yet. And I was trying to sound all casual, but I couldn’t NOT cry while I talked, and she was like, “Are you okay?” And I just said, “No.” But she wasn’t quite home yet. But she hung up and called my father-in-law, who squealed into my driveway 3 minutes later. Bless him. So I call Jon’s cell again and leave a message, telling him what was going on, and all the while still trying to sound casual. (A playback of my message later allowed me to hear just how un-casual I actually sounded.) And I walked outside and tried to not cry because Zoe was playing with a neighbor kid in the front yard and I didn’t want to freak them out. But again, try as I may, I couldn’t NOT CRY, because with every step I took, it felt like my kidney would explode. And Zoe was all, “What’s wrong?” And I just said, “Grandpa is going to take me to the doctor.” And then Jon’s sister pulled up in front of the house to watch the kids while I went. Have I mentioned how much I appreciate that several of Jon’s family members live literally around the corner?  So we get to the ER and check in and Jon gets there and he and his dad go back to the little room with me. And a chick comes up from Labor and Delivery (just called “L&D”around the hospital) and hooks me up to the fetal monitor to watch the baby. And they ask me a million medical questions, including a few personal, kinda-sexy ones, and I answered honestly, hoping my father-in-law wasn’t paying attention. And a guy-nurse came in and asked me if I wanted some pain medication. I said, “That would be great”, and always said please and thank-you to the people coming and going, because my mother always taught me that even if it feels like you are half-dying, you should still be polite. But I felt very impolite when the ER doctor was rapping on my kidney to see if I had any visible reaction to it. My first reaction was to kick him in the head, but I didn’t. Then I felt impolite again when the shot of morphine went in and I immediately felt like I was falling through the bed and through the floor and the nurse was still asking me questions in rapid succession, and I just wanted to yell “Give me a damn minute!” And then I felt bad for having a morphine shot because I imagined the baby feeling like he was falling out my back and through the bed and through the floor… and was I making him stupid?? It was a lot of things to feel in just a few short minutes. But as the morphine took the edge off and people left the room I felt much better.

And then me, my hubby, and my father-in-law all sat there for four hours.

The prognosis there at the ER was that the baby was probably sitting on things he wasn’t supposed to be sitting on, and it was blocking both of my kidneys. But I was to see a urologist the next day.

So I did. And I didn’t like that man very much. Jon liked him, but I did not. He was a know-it-all… which you would actually think you’d want your doctor to know-it-all, but really he just came across as a jerk. He was condescending. And he said he wanted to slap his nurse. And the fact that he probably did know a lot about kindeys and bladders and their connecting tubes, it didn’t matter to me. Being a girl, it is far more important that the doctor be nice as opposed to smart. Which is dumb, but the truth.

So the know-it-all urologist said that I “probably” had a kidney stone. But there was no real way to tell, except for me to take this big bowl home and hang it on the toilet seat and then take this strainer and make like I was panning for gold. And if in four weeks I hadn’t struck gold, maybe it wasn’t a kidney stone and I should come back in and he’d do some surgery. So I thanked him (always be polite), and kicked him in the knee cap, and left the office with my big toilet bucket and strainer.  Actually, I waited until after he gave me a prescription for Percocet before I kicked him in the knee cap. Then I left the office, holding on to Jon, crying as I thought about living through the miserable pain for four frickin weeks. And then Jon cried as he thought about taking care of me for four frickin weeks. But seriously? He was the best nurse ever. And I’m not just saying that. He was a sweetheart. He took the kids to all of their activities, brought me food in bed, and hooked up the hacked X-Box in our bedroom so I could play games and watch downloaded movies and TV shows. (Completely unrelated: I watched all of the back episodes of “Burn Notice” and really like it.) And after all of that worrying, I was only sick for about 3 1/2 days. Not four weeks.

Saturday I struck gold. Well, not really “gold” so much as “sand”. Which was odd, because I was expecting a huge, jagged rock to appear… what with all the pain like I was dying. But no, it was sand. Which apparently still makes you feel like you’re dying when you pee it.

Now ask me how many times my mother and grandmother have told me to stop drinking Diet Coke. Because they are convinced that Diet Coke is the culprit. Even though kidney stones are made of calcium. And unless Coke has recently undergone a healthy recipe change, it still pretty much has zero calcium. Nope, I think we may have the actual culprit: Extra Strength Tums. I eat them by the handfuls before bed each night to fend off my nasty heartburn. And as I was shaking them out of the 40 pound Costco jug into my hand the other night, Jon looked over at me and his eyes got all wide and he smacked my hand and the calcium-filled Tums flew across the room, clattering against the wall. And he said, “Dude, it’s those things!” And I hugged him for saving me. And then we turned out the light and went to sleep… well, I couldn’t sleep because of the heartburn. But Jon slept like a baby knowing he had possibly saved me from future kidney ails.

Okay, I just read this a minute ago on Fandango (and Fandango is a pretty credible source for all things movies):

Do you remember the TV show V from the early 80’s? I was just a kid, but I loved this show! Reptile-like aliens come to Earth and disguise themselves in waxy-looking human skin, all the while trying to take over the planet! And — ewww — when they would peel off that fake skin and you could see their creepy faces… well, as a 7 year old, I was completely freaked out. (BTW, Mom? Why was I allowed to watch V at 7 years old? Or was that something you weren’t aware of?)

Anyhoo, according to the Fandango Movie Blog, the V Movie is in the works. And I’m kinda excited.

But I probably won’t be taking either of my kids.

And here’s hoping Marc Singer is still starring, and that he’s just as dreamy as I remember.

Sadly, it’s not a bad likeness…

… when one has no idea of how to actually go about writing a novel.

So as everyone knows, I’m trying to finish my book. My Great American YA Novel. Originally my time table ended in September, giving me the whole summer to finish it. Well, with kids home 24/7 all summer, doing any serious writing over the summer break just wasn’t realistic. So now I have a new plan: this book must be finished before the baby comes. I have almost 4 whole kid-free months (thanks to school) until the baby arrives … because then I will have zero time. This new time table also coincides with this contest. So that’s the new plan. And I’m running with it.

The problem: since this is my first novel, I am still discovering what my “creative process” is… I’m still trying to figure out how I best go about putting together a book. I’ve found out — through process of trial and error — that I can’t just sit down and write from start to finish. Which at first seemed very strange to me… because a book, traditionally, reads from start to finish. So it never occurred to me before now that that wouldn’t necessarily be how I would write it.  Instead? I have vivid, scattered chapters and paragraphs… snapshots, really. Lots of them. And while in my mind I see how I want them to all come together into one cohesive storyline, physically putting them into order and making them all smooth is proving to be difficult.

So I did this:

I started creating (with colored note cards) sort of a storyboard that puts all of the events in order. Orange cards are “flashbacks”, or parts of the “back-story” that need to be revealed slowly as the book progresses. Green are the linear present events as they occur. And so on… I know, if you think it sounds confusing, try putting it into order in your mind without the aid of colorful index cards.

The cards each have an event (most of which I already have a chapter or several paragraphs written) that say things like this:

Some other things written on the cards? “Mom’s seduction of the Fed-Ex guy”, and “Sophie’s episode at the funeral”… I know, you are totally dying to know what it’s about, right?? The hilarious thing was when Jachin came home from school yesterday and wandered into the family room where the cards were strewn across the floor and he started reading them out loud. “Sophie makes out with the tutor??” he blurted out. “What is this?” When I explained that it was for my book, he said, “I don’t think you’re allowed to use the real ‘Fed-Ex’ name in a book. You might have to change that to a fake delivery company name.” And I hired him on the spot as my editor and fact checker.

Also, a thing I’ve been doing for weeks: keeping a journal and writing in it exclusively as my main character. I chose a really tacky spiral notebook in the dollar bin at the store.

I’m not sure why I chose such a tacky one, because I carry it around and write in it all the time and people must think I’m deranged… and under the impression that I think I am still 14 years old. Much of what goes into this notebook won’t actually make it into the book itself, but it’s really given me a clear picture into the mind of my main character.

And then there’s this:

The thumb-drive that holds all of my super-secret finished chapters and paragraphs and visions of genius. I keep it locked in a safe under the foundation of the house… because I am a perfectionist and want no one reading what I have until I have a completed rough draft. Which — knock on wood — should actually be before too long.

But again… all of this from a person who has no frickin idea how to actually write a novel…

Diana came back into town for three days. I got to hang out with her for one of them. They came to town for a wedding, which really took up most of her time… what with the coordinating of the dress colors (she had to find one in either “blueberry”, “pineapple”, or “lime”) and the finding of clothes for her kid, and the rehearsals, and dinners, etc. But Sunday she and her family squeezed in some time to come over and hang out with our family. Jachin and Zoe were excited to see Byron again, and they played like they always do. Like before Byron moved far, far away. And Porter and Jon talked all about WoW (if you know what that is, then you, too, are a gaming widow and I feel for you), and Diana and I chatted about everything under the sun and made peach cobbler together. And the four of us all played Rock Band… and Diana found out that she stinks at the drums. Which is okay, because everyone stinks at the drums. The drums are hard! But my vocals impressed, as always. (That was a joke. No one was impressed. Especially during “When You Were Young” by The Killers, because — seriously — there isn’t really a recognizable melody line to that song. At least not one that I can sing. Kinda like when I tried to sing along with The Cure in high school.)

And then before we knew it, it was time for them to leave. Rehearsal dinner. And I was sad because it was such a short visit.  And we hugged and then they drove away. And then five minutes later she called me to see if she had left her purse at our house. And sure enough, she had. Which was good because I realized that I hadn’t gotten a picture of us together. So they came back and I gave her her purse, and there was more hugging, and Porter snapped a picture of us.

And I looked at it and I said, “Wow, I look rough.” And then Porter said, “Do you want me to take another one?” And I said, “No, it won’t help. Rough is just my look now.” Which is kind of sad, but true. But Diana looks fresh as a daisy and super-cute. And, you know, taller than me. And she was even standing down-hill from me…

Zoe asked me that day why I called Diana my “BFF”. I told her it means “best friends forever”, which is cheesy and funny. Zoe said, “You should call her your ‘BFE’… ‘best friend ever’.” And then I told her that “BFE” already means something else. And she asked me what… and I told her “It means ‘out in the middle of nowhere’.” And she asked me how “BFE” could mean “out in the middle of nowhere”. And I didn’t want to introduce a new word into her vocabulary that day… plus I didn’t have a map to show her where Egypt is… so I changed the subject.

But man, I miss you already, BFE.

On the fourth day of school, Zoe came pedaling down the sidewalk towards home. I was standing there, getting the mail, waving to her and Jachin as they came closer to the house. She pedaled up to me and I said, “Hey, sweetie. How was your day?”

The first words out of her mouth:

“There is a cute boy in my class that I like.”

No “hi”, no “hey mom, I have a big bomb to drop on you”. Nothing like that. And I’m thinking, sheesh, four days in public school and she already has the hots for someone. That must be some kind of record.

Though I was not ready for any of it, I asked probing questions… while trying not to sound too probing, or too much like a mom.

“What’s his name?” She told me, but to protect the poor boy’s identity I will just call him Hottie McFirst-Grader.

“What does he look like?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, gazing into the sky, “he’s kind of hard to describe.”

All the really hot ones are.

So I told her that was great, or something… maybe I told her I was having a heart attack, I can’t remember exactly. Then I ran inside and called Jon on his cell and blabbed the whole thing to him. Totally betraying my daughter’s trust, sure. But I was totally freaking out, mind you. Jon was all like, “Sheesh, tell her we’re not ready for all of that.”

But I didn’t tell her anything of the sort. I let her sit in her room, humming a tune, making him a card from her Card-Maker kit. She decorated the envelope with stickers that ranged in sayings from “Best Wishes” to “Love You”. She brought it to me to show me.

“Wow,” I said. “What does the card say?”

“You can carefully open it,” she said.

So I did. The card said: Dear Hottie McFirst-Grader, I want to marry you. Love, Mistery Girl  And that’s really how she spelled “mystery” and it was precious.

Still, like any irrational mom, I completely over-reacted. I was a little worried about the boy getting a card from someone unknown (she could be a psycho) telling him that she wants to marry him. So I told her that maybe it wasn’t super-appropriate to tell him right off the bat that she wanted to marry him. I thought about giving her the talk about playing hard-to-get, but ultimately decided it wasn’t age-appropriate. Because she’s frickin 6. And in her mind she’s already chosen a mate. I told her that if she told every cute boy in the world that she wanted to marry them, she would have thousands of husbands. She said that was fine. But I explained that I only have one husband and, wow, some days that is hard enough. So she sighed, but then started whining because she had used her last orange card, and in their “get to know you game” at school, Hottie McFirst-Grader said that his favorite color was orange, so what was she supposed to do?!? So I dusted off my scrapbooking stuff and cut her a new piece of orange card stock down to the right size to fit into the “Best Wishes, Love You” envelope and she trotted back to her room to write a new card.

The new card said: Dear Hottie McFirst-Grader, I think you are cute. Love, Mistery Girl

Much better, I assured her. So she stuck it in her backpack and began thinking of the best way to sneak it to him the next day. In the end, she enlisted the help of her teacher, who seemed happy enough to stick it in Hottie McFirst-Grader’s backpack while he was at lunch… eating his Mac ‘n Cheese like a dreamboat.

And while at first I was freaked out that she “likes” someone, I suddenly remembered that I had my first boyfriend in kindergarten. (I was ho’in even younger than my daughter…) His name was Dougie Menser and he used to steal hair clips from his older sister to give to me as gifts, and we used to swing on the swings together at recess singing “Get on Down the Road” from The Wiz. And it was innocent. We never smooched or anything. We were just good friends. In fact, he was my best friend in kindergarten. I never saw him after second grade, because we moved to another town, but someone told me that he had blue and green hair in high school. I’m just happy that I remember him as a precious 5 year old, with freckles, holding out to me a jewelry box with pretty hair clips that my mom would always make me give back.

But we can’t marry every cute boy in the world. And I really love the one I ended up with…