Guest Post: Jason

Mostly-Dead Renee Says: Yeah, I'm pretty sure he's making fun of me. And you. Read anyway, because, Funny.

Renee is still on blog vacation, but while your favorite blogger is away, there's no need to give up on the written word altogether, for lo, I have come to stimulate your brains and melt your hearts within arm's reach of the degree to which you are accustomed. For those of you who don't know me (I'm betting that's all but one or two of you, my name is Jason, and I've known Renee for about ten years (that can't be right, can it?). In those ten years, I've quit writing several blogs after one or two posts, I've hung a degree in Self-Indulgent Studies on my wall, and I've moved to the suburbs of Phoenix with my partner, Matt, along with a gleeful puppy and a lethargic, middle-aged cat. It's no wonder that Renee tapped me to fill in for her at her blog on parenting and other childrenly delights. You have to admit, based on the credentials listed above, I am the best man for the job. Actually, the genius of her choice (made out of desperation, perhaps, but still a choice!) will soon become apparent.

I know that many of you out there are mommyblog connoisseurs, and I'm aware that most of you navigate to these types of blogs with certain expectations in mind. Namely, you want real stories about real parents, you want those word-for-word accounts of adorable bath-time conversations, you want validation for your sketchy parenting skills, and most of all you want to hear about the kids. That's right. You want those kids, and you want 'em cute: Dimples. Freckles. Lisps. The works. And, of course, I know what all of you out there know about yourselves; I know that none of you can go more than a couple of days without a good dump—a photo dump, that is. It's not enough to simply read about another family's trials and triumphs. We need evidence—vibrant, colorful, and hopefully high-resolution evidence. So, in the proud tradition of the eminent mommyblogger Renee, I am more than happy to oblige with a mini-dump of my own widdle darlings*:

Wicket sticks his landing. Cat is up next.

Cat and Wicket: Nuts for Nature

Wicket searching for the biggest daddy owange. His words.

*Seriously, I don't really think of my pets as children. That's for creepy old cat ladies and empty-nesters. And that's okay. They need that.

With the mini-dump out of the way, I'd like to spend a few moments speaking to you as seriously as I can (so not very seriously at all) about a subject I know next to nothing about—parenting. Matt and I have been together for several years now, and we've reached the point in our lives at which each of us has pretty much got his act together. Now we're starting to think about what might be next. Every once in a while the subject of kids comes up, and the conversation consistently goes something like this:

Matt: Do you think you might ever want to adopt or do foster care?

Me: Uh . . . Like when?

Matt: I don't know. In the future.

Me: Uh. Outlook fuzzy. Ask again later.

I added that Magic 8-Ball part to make me sound cuter and cleverer than I actually am. What really happens is that I start to say nothing in particular, and then I just trail off. That's an equally effective stalling strategy, if you're in the market for one. But seriously, OUTLOOK FUZZY. I don't know if I want kids or what sort of parent I would be. Would I be a strict dad? Lenient dad? Leather dad? I really can't say. The closest thing to parenthood I've experienced is pet ownership (remind me not to write that on an adoption application). That raises an interesting point, though. Maybe I'm better prepared than I think I am. If Cat and Wicket were kids instead of animals would our lives really be any different? Let's explore this . . .

First off, I think we should keep the ages the same, so Wicket would be about a year old, and Cat would be nine. I think I should give myself a pat on the back right off the bat because the fact that Cat would have survived to the age of nine is evidence of at least baseline parental competence on my part (Or if we're counting in kitty years, then he survived into adulthood. Bonus!). My job would be far from done, however. Parenting involves more than just keeping your kids alive, probably.

Of course, the kids wouldn't go to school; they would be home-taught. Subjects would include eating, napping, pooping, and scrapping, to name a few.

The kids would be left alone for hours at a time, often into the evening hours. Sometimes we would remember to leave a light on for the kids, but most of the time we would forget. It would be all right, though. After spending an hour or so in the dark, the kids would probably just fall asleep. If we were to find, upon returning home, that Wicket had peed on the floor or soiled a rug while we were out, affection would be withheld from the one-year-old for at least an hour.

At lunchtime, the sound of an aluminum can opening would trigger a memory deep in Cat's mind of the time eight years earlier when he was allowed to taste a small amount of tuna, and he would jump up on the countertop in search of a handout. Remembering that Cat is terrified of plastic garbage bags, I would take one out of the cabinet and chase him out of the kitchen while rustling it wildly.

Because of Wicket's penchant for strewing toilet paper all over the house, bathrooms would be off-limits to him. All pees and poops would be made in the backyard and sometimes during walks to the park. Cat would have no interest in the bathroom. Observing a habit developed early in life, Cat would take all of his ones and twos in a box in the corner. I might forget to clean the box for a couple of days, so the smell of Cat's business might linger longer than Wicket's.

After nine years of living with Cat, I would have developed the desire for him to like me, thus I would allow him to sleep at the foot of our bed every night. Having not developed the desire to be liked by Wicket in the year since his birth, he would not be allowed to sleep in the bed. Despite his best efforts to nuzzle lovingly between Matt and I, Wicket would be thrown, pushed, or kicked off of the bed repeatedly until he finally resigned himself to sleeping on the floor.

Matt and I are not nudists, but our children would be. Cat and Wicket would have never shown the desire to wear clothes, and they would not be forced. At Christmas, Wicket might wear a tiny sweater with a snowman on it but still no pants. Cat would resist any attempt to place plush reindeer antlers on his head for a family photo and would eventually scratch one of us with the claw-like nails that he would never allow us to trim.

Cat would refuse to speak, and it would be unclear as to whether or not he actually could. Wicket would show no signs of acquiring language either, although he would occasionally bark at Cat or strangers.

Wicket would rarely bathe. He would have to turn a different color entirely before a bath would be warranted. Cat would continuously refuse baths throughout his childhood, but would meet us halfway by agreeing to lick himself all over until slightly less grubby.

Finally, we would occasionally cave in to Wicket's whimpering under the dinner table and slip him what Matt and I would jokingly refer to as “people” food. Wicket would quickly devour it, and why not? It wouldn't be every day that he would have the opportunity to enjoy food that wasn't 5 percent ash.

Well, this was a fun exercise, but I'm no closer to figuring out whether or not I'd be a decent dad. Maybe I can keep stalling for a couple more years. Or perhaps I can talk Matt into just getting a turtle or a bird. Are there any old spinsters reading this? A bird is a decent substitute for a child, right? Right? If my stalling fails, and if it turns out that Matt doesn't like my pet suggestions, don't be surprised if the next time you see me out and about I've got a naked child strapped to my back. And should you choose to approach us, do take care to keep your arms close to your person at all times. He'll probably be a biter.

Guest Post: Tessy

I'm still on "leave" from blogging. Right now it feels like I'm speaking to you from beyond the grave. WoooooOOOOOH. Guess what? When I die, I won't speak to you from beyond the grave, even if you're sure it's me. I promise, it's not me. Unless it is. In which case, WooooooOOOOOOH.

I asked Tessy to post something in my stead. Do you know Tessy? Tessy doesn't have a blog, but I wish she did. I would post the funniest comments on it. Here's what Tessy had to say. It's all funny and all true:

Renee and I have been friends for what seems like forever. Good forever. Not burning in hell for eternity forever. We never had the typical 80's montage of best friend moments. No shared BFF necklaces, or braiding of hair, or makeover-giving or talking on the phone for hours. We were never those kind of friends. And I would not have it any other way.

I met Renee in junior high and don't remember too much about it. I vaguely recall we both wore glasses and loved Beck and all things British. Then in high school we were always together. Shine or shine. ( Bad attempt at emulating Renee's brand of humor. Get it- Arizona? It never rains?) Here is a short list of my favorite memories of Renee:


Chex Mix- I cannot walk by chex mix in a store without thinking about Renee. Senior year she had a pepsi and a small bag of chex mix every single day as a snack. We would go to a student store on campus that I have no idea who ran or who made a profit or whatever. For all I know we were funding Iraqis in weapons acquisition. The students who " worked" there might have even gotten credit.  Not sure. The whole thing is confusing. Definitely the most frustrating part of her light snack of hundreds of calories is that she did not gain any weight. Ever!

The Nile- Way too many stories about our favorite hangout spot. The Nile was a place in downtown Mesa where for 8 dollars there would be a guarantee of hours of entertainment. Renee and I liked to say that we went for the music. But honestly it was mostly for the boys. Boys that we would stare at and see twice a week for months and never even get the courage to say "hi" to or maybe "cool band tonight." My favorite concert experience there with Renee would have to be sitting together in the basement area, covered in sweat, listening to who knows what band, depressed, at least 95 degrees of heat and BO wafting through the air and a pipe dripping some sort of liquid that neither of us could determine on top of our heads. We just looked at each other in that moment and laughed and laughed and laughed. It was a "How did we get to this point in our lives?" kind of moment. One I will never forget.

Oh and we also dreamed of living in some apartments right next to the Nile. We thought it would be so rock and roll to walk the 5 feet from the apartment to the venue. Later we found out the "apartments" were a half-way house. Sadness. I think a little part of me died that day.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead- We went our separate ways for college and had not seen each other in a while when we got in touch during a Christmas break. We exchanged gifts without expecting anything from the other person. And out of the thousands of books out there and millions of gifts out there, we had each gotten the other person the play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead! Seriously, that was some ESP-type stuff right there.

Laughter- I have never met anyone funnier than Renee. Everything she does is funny. I blame my weight gain on not hanging out with Renee for 5 hours a day, excluding weekends. If that makes no sense, what I mean is that laughing burns calories and Renee makes me laugh.

So now its going to get really awkward for me. I love you Renee. I don't say it enough. I value our friendship, the times you got me through and all of our memories. I hope our children marry each other and we can become family.

I love you too Tessy. Let's skip the kid part and let's just you and me get hitched.

Guest Post:

Renee's not here right now.  Don't come steal her stuff though, because Cody is.  Who is Cody?  This is Cody.  Also, This is Cody.  Enjoy (I mean, really, enjoy, because my friend is, in my opinion, brilliant):  

What did Kindergarten smell like? It’s hard to say. We all know, as reasoning adults, what Kindergarten is supposed to smell like. Maybe we know Kindergarteners and can determine how it smells to us now. But what did it smell like to you, age six? It hadn’t even occurred to me to wonder until I stepped into that elevator.

I was at a hospital, visiting an injured friend. I’d never been to this hospital before, as it was on the other side of town, but I found myself there, looking for my friend’s room. It was on the third floor, so I tracked down the elevator and stepped inside. My mind was off somewhere else, thinking about my to-do list or the last song I heard on the radio. But as soon as the elevator doors closed behind me, I was involuntarily yanked back to Kindergarten.

It was the smell. Some particular combination of cleaning solution, mildew and old carpet. A barrage of scattered memories came down on me. A kaleidoscopic rug; a blonde girl named Naomi; my teacher, Mrs. Schumacher, and her shiny plastic earrings. I remembered crayons and naptime and the fact that Class Picture Day happened on Wild West Day, so in the group photo we’d all look like little cowboys and cowgirls. I remembered falling off a jungle gym into the sand, finding an old thumbtack in my knee, earning me a tetanus shot. I remembered a lot of standing in line, waiting for I’m not sure what. The bus? Recess? Lunch?

I remembered my brother, a year older than me, waiting with me. We fought like savages at home, but I remembered him standing with me to make sure I got where I was going. Later, after telling him about my freshly revived Kindergarten memories, he told me he used to hug me everyday. He used to wait with me until my line of students filed into the classroom, and then he gave me a hug. I was floored. I wanted to say I remembered that, too, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. I suppose I have enough other sensory hotkeys for my childhood that the hospital elevator smell just focused on my Kindergarten experience. Or maybe he just remembers things differently and likes to think we were nice to each other at least once in a while.

Neurologists have agreed that, of our five senses, smell is the one most linked to memory. I believe it, too. I suppose if you can tell something is close to you because you can see it, that’s not quite as intimate as if it’s because you can smell it. Smell is fused with memory and memory is a seat of emotion, so it stands to reason that certain smells can create a pretty emotional experience. The smell of some old hospital elevator made me relive being five years old for just a few seconds, which is a rare gift, and ultimately led to resurrecting a thread of peace through an otherwise fierce sibling rivalry.

Off the top of my head, I don’t remember much about high school graduation or my first Communion or junior high dances or puberty, but I now know what Kindergarten smelled like. You’ve probably had a baking pie or some old person’s cologne take you back to something you didn’t know you’d forgotten. I’m convinced that out there somewhere is a waiting room or a gas station that can bring back other periods for me. I just have to find it. And that’s fine. I’m patient.