Category Mothers

The stunning rise and fall of Raltraz

I am not a cat lover, in the least. I fell madly in love with a young Persian named Permer many years ago and when he was gone, I was so broken all I could imagine was that I could never again love a cat.

For the vast majority of my life I thought cats were useless, egotistical and strange. Cats are the boorish bully of the home pet world and for that alone, I avoided them like a plague.

When I accidentally had a number of children, they seemed to attract cats like poo attracts flies. They would come and move on and no one really seemed to notice.

A couple of years ago a daughter of mine was flying out of our local airport for Christmas to some other city at the same time I was returning from somewhere else. We exchanged car keys in the airport and she told me there was a present for me in the downstairs bathroom. I only like presents that are white dress shirts or expensive cycles, neither seemed appropriate for a bathroom present.

When I got home and opened the bathroom door there was a small gray, long haired mess standing rather proudly in a brown puddle of his own making.

To say I was irate would be an abysmal understatement. I don’t like cats, even my own daughter should have known that. His only skill in life seemed to be the relentless manufacture of diarrhea, which meant he would eat, make a mess and I would stick his funky butt under the warm water in the sink, rinse him off and dry him. Within an hour or so, he would eat again and the same scene played out. I kept the cat around, naming him Foxtrot, for a few days, until my daughter returned and we brought him to the local animal shelter, where I was sure we could drop him off and forget about him and his diarrhetic ways.

There was no room at the shelter, no cage, shoe box or anything else acceptable as a short time living place for Foxtrot. They gave him some sort of kitty shot and asked if we could keep him a few more days and they would call when they had space.

We got home, the shot seemed to cure him of his ills and his digestive idiocy and the shelter, to this day, has never called.

Foxtrot soon became Foxtrot Tango, but that only lasted until he started to put on weight and gain a personality that was one part sweet heart and another part desperate crackhead.

That first summer, with temperatures always in the 100’s and Raltraz (his new name) not really understanding the concept of personal hair care, we brought him to a barber and had him shaved down to a very light coating of silky soft fur. He thought he looked like a sexy lion, we had to hold back laughing out loud. Either way, his macho stance and silly demeanor won us over.

He became as much of a friend of our family as our lesbian dog, her tormented and over sexualized lover a vicious and hate filled cat and now this, Raltraz, certainly no intellectual, but his gifts at stoner humor (he began to indulge in catnip as he grew into his teenage years) and his happy willingness to torment his housemates with surprise attacks and racing the stairs made him a rising star in the competition of favorite neurotic family member.

He owned everything. My own bed became his, which he would share, upon request, but mostly, it was his to use. This past winter, when we added a large hand woven rug to the entryway, he thought of it as his own magic carpet. He would run from the far corner of the kitchen, through the doorway and hit the carpet and everything would bunch up against the front door. A couple of these sorts of exploits and it was time for an extended nap, which he would do on the rumpled magic carpet. It was magic and it was his to enjoy.

He was a hunter, a gatherer and a show off of all things Raltraz. He thought of himself as a Jcrew model and so did we. He could strike a pose and hold it and then just disappear onto his next adventure. A little cracky, a little handsome and quickly becoming some family member we could never be without.

I recently caught Raltraz scouting the angry fish we had in my daughters bedroom. This fish was one of those carnivorous beasts that eat anything that comes near the tank. I fed him from a distance, but his slashing and spraying of water which made that endeavor seem life threatening. Imagine my surprise on recent day when I found silly Raltraz with a paw in the fish tank, dangling it in front of the ferocious fish like a furry meal. Nothing came of that interaction that day, but in my heart I knew those two would someday fight it out and I secretly was looking forward to it.

In early April of this year a fire completely destroyed our home and also burned our neighbors house. None of our pets escaped and Raltraz is buried in a mix of brick, plaster, sludge and everything else we once thought of as ours.

When you lose everything you only gain the knowledge that stuff does not define us. That is all, everything else, the photos and the videos and the paintings and the clothes, they disappear in an instant, as do the pets who had only loved us in a way they were comfortable with, which was far more than we had imagined.

Raltraz had done everything to not be part of our family and when the door was open and he joined, it was like we all had been made for one another. He is gone, our dog is gone, our over-breeding cat is gone and the dangerous fish has moved on to bigger waters.

I still believe in the magic of love, even love that has failed in some way, when you open your heart and you love someone, that special bond, maybe broken, still exists in your heart.

My complicated dog

I believe my dog came from the womb with some serious issues. First, I should say she was a brilliant Harvard educated lawyer, that’s a fact. She mocked her profession by seemingly only taking on the worst of the worst with gusto and pride, all the while garnering millions in fees for representing drug lords, gangsters and former republican presidents of the United States. Her client list at one time included three of the FBI’s most wanted international criminals. She was well paid and disrespected in the legal profession on a world wide level.
She was a racist. From the time we met her to the last time we saw her if she saw a black person, she was filled with a deep rage and singular hatred that was remarkable in its passion. I am almost positive that she never had a single bad experience with an African American, at any time in her life. But I could promise you this, if a young black man walked by our house, minding his own business, ear buds in his ears and a slight dance in his step, my dog would run from the farthest recesses of our house, throw her nose against the front door window and bark like she was intent on stopping the second coming of Hitler.
Speaking of Hitler, my dog was the most anti-Semitic creature I have ever encountered and I know and love many Jews and they can be the most anti-Semitic people you can every imagine. We did not know of her deep seated hatred for all things kosher until one simple, quite evening as the kids and I gathered for a typical night celebrating one of the nights of Hanukkah. At one point one of my daughters just started to sing the dreidel song and our dog went ballistic. She howled like a police siren was blasting in her ear. She would have none of that Jewish singing in her house. From that moment until her very last, if she heard the opening words of the dreidel song, she would bark, yelp, jump and completely tea-bagger crazy on us with relentless carping until we would stop singing. In the last 6 years we have been completely unable to sing the dreidel song in its entirety. That was the power she had over us.
She was also an out and proud lesbian. Now, I personally know way too many gay people, almost all of them are in one sense or another out and proud, but I am not sure if they are really proud of be gay, or that they are at peace with it and could care less if anyone else has an issue with it. Proud or confident in their position in life, it is not really important. My dog, on the other hand, she was proud. When you looked at her, a little chubby sometimes, her hair uncombed, her attitude relaxed and confident and beautiful, she was the epitome of proud. She had a long term lover, a lazy and inconsiderate cat named Momma Kitty, a strong black woman that always made us wonder how such a racist like our dog could be so madly in love with an African American cat.
At a young age Momma Kitty began to be sexually active and as it always is with the irresponsible youth, she got herself pregnant and had some babies. A few months later this moronic bag of horniness and abject desire did it again, pregnant a second time within a three month span. In a short month she spewed out another eight unwanted children. It could not have been two months later that her belly swelled, she moaned and grew even more unpleasant and she gave birth to six more babies. This time it took a surgeon to end her misbegotten ways.
Through all this sex and baby making, Beth seemed to fall deeper and deeper in love. I, of course, lost almost all respect for Momma Kitty, who was a prolific baby making machine, but kind and everything, but uneducated and disrespectful in almost all other aspects of our personal interactions.
We were not friends, but since she soon became Beths longterm partner, I learned to tolerate her, as she did me. I believe in my heart that she thought I was truly a sloth and a bore. Her look alone made me anorexic and neurotic. Beth continued a devotion only available in fantasy relationship rom-com movies.
A week ago Beth and Momma Kitty passed away, at exactly the same time. So maybe I should be kind of happy that the souls of a racist over educated anti semite and a lustful, irresponsible bisexual hater have moved on,but I have to say, I wake every morning and I miss them with a broken heart and a yearning I can’t even explain. Beth Libitard

I ask

I used to have a part of my bucket list that had me laying strapped to a gurney, a broken bone in my spine, pushed into a well lit closet in a trauma unit of a major city hospital, with my eyes fixated on a clock hanging on a blank wall just within my sight, as unknown doctors patrolled the aisles outside of the room. I could see the minutes roll by until 20 had passed, laying in excruciating pain, no medical personal in the same room, and as my mouth dried from recent smoke damage and my back screaming in vile pain and as per my bucket list posting, I would begin screaming out “help” in hopes than any medical professional within earshot would respond. But because my bucket list is a little S and M project, I would lay there for another 15 minutes periodically screaming help, but the busy white coated doctors and their assorted staffs would fail to respond.

A week ago, for whatever reason, I was able to mark that particular adventure off my bucket list, thanks in large part of the careless and moronic staff at Allegheny General Hospital. For those moments of sublime torture, I thank them for their inaction. One more thing I can remove from my list.

I believe that was God

I met God the other day.
At least I believe I met god the other day. I was standing in the line at my local pharmacy and this long gray haired Jewish man, with a bad back, was standing in front of me. At no point in particular he turned and with a wry smile on his wrinkled and weathered face he asked, “how ya doing?”
I smiled, because quite honestly, I could not remember the last time anyone had asked me such a caring question, and I replied, “could not be better, how about you?”
“Oye, my back hurts,” God said, “that’s why I’m here. I don’t like to take the pain medication, but it’s the only thing I can do to get any rest.”
“How old are you,” I asked.
“Today? Today I feel like I am a thousand years old.”
“Well, then, you should take all the pain medication you need.”
“Oh I will, but as I said, I don’t like taking it. I have much to do and the medication slows me down.”
“How can you have so much to do, you are obviously quite old.”
“Being old does not preclude you from accomplishment,” God said.
“Well, good luck to you,” I said, without any hint of sarcasm.
“So we are done here?” God asked, almost seeking sympathy.
“Well, I was getting the idea you needed to move on.”
“Not at all, I am enjoying our conversation. You seem like a friendly sort.”
“Oh I am.”
“You do know who I am, yes?”
“An old Jewish man waiting in line at the pharmacy?”

“That is true, but I am more than an old man.”
“Arn’t we all,” I said, that time sarcastically.
“I am a father, and I am more than a father,” God said, with all sorts of intonations that seemed to reveal he was speaking in metaphor. My ears seemed to perk up just a bit and my focus was sharper than I can recall it being in years.
It was right after he said that little poetic mystery that a cashier opened up and waved him over. He walked away from me, in obvious discomfort. I was waiting in line when it dawned on me, that old man was God. I sensed it more than anything, but it was a clear give away when I realized that not only was he in great personal pain (probably from the sins of all humanity) but he was also still finding the time to comfort a stranger and offer sage advice. For a second I closed my eyes and basked in the beauty of my conversation with God.
Another cashier was waving and so I walked up and gave her my name and she turned to get my medication. I looked to my right and God was gone. Just like that. A small miracle because an elderly Jewish man who grimaces when he walks could not just disappear so quickly, unless, of course, he was God.
When the pharmacist assistant came back with my medication, she looked at me and said, “you look blissful, as you sure you even need this medication?”
“Well, I was talking to God a minute ago and now I feel a sense of peace I have never quite experienced,” I said, with a beatific smile on my face.
“Yeah,” she said, “ you totally need your meds.”

As a protest, I will not compete in the Winter Olympics

To- Vladimir Putin
Internet tough guy, gay icon, president of Bosnia (Google that one and find out which province he is actual prime minster of and then come back and fill that in).

Vladimir-

Thank you for hating the gays, I have been in-training for the Winter Olympics for weeks now and all of a sudden you hate on the gays and for whatever reason, I am just going to boycott you now. Thanks. To be honest, I’m not that good of an ice dancer anyway. As you probably know, my family has been an integral part of the Olympics for over 100 years now.
A little history.
In 1972 my mother, god rest her soul, decided that in good conscience she could not attend the Albanian Winter Olympiad because of the great Mouse Massacre, as I’m sure you are well aware. The so-called Mouse Massacre was indeed a kGB enterprise, using a Disney movie set in a plastic kingdom in Luxembourg to kill and maim thousands of innocent chocolatiers, or something. It got lost in her drunken storytelling, but the bottom line, my mothers destiny to be a gold medal winner was stolen from her.
As you may have heard, my dear father was in training for the summer Olympics of 1968, but of course tragically he lost both legs on the slalom course. Ironically, he was not even on the slalom course at the time, but that’s a whole other mystery that no one seems to want to talk about.
Of course my older brother famously held his arm up in defiance at the summer Olympics in Mexico City to protest the over use of avocado and corn tortillas at Olympic Village housing breakfast and lunches.
He came in seventh in the 100. No one says anything to him, he is a medicare commodities trader in New York City, imagine the family shame.
My first sister began ice skating when she was one year old and everyone knew she would someday win a gold medal. Of course former president Clinton ruined that when he “Lewinskied” the Olympics in ’96. She recovered, but only after a year in rehab and three years on skid row (in that order, sadly).
My oldest sister missed the Winter and Summer Gay Games of 2000, boycotting because of some sort of misunderstanding as to what sort of “objects” she was allowed in her carry-on luggage.
I wish it all ended there, but in 1936 my grandfather was the designer of the Azerbaijan Olympic uniforms, which consisted mostly of a garish pink belt and some well worn Nazi leather vests. His insane designs caused my family so much shame that it would be another four years before any family member would take part in the Olympics.
My great grandfather was a long distance runner in the ’40 Olympiad, held in Switzerland. Of course, during those Olympics there was also some war going on and my great grandfather ended up being the only athlete who took part in those Switzerland Olympic Games. Obviously he never actually received a gold medal for the race he won (alone, I might add) but for the longest time he would show off his empty bottle of Switzerland’s best ale, “Smoldenbergen” and declare that this was indeed his gold medal. No one ever believed him, tragically.
Strangely, my great great grandmother was one of the first competitors in the 1896 Olympics in Greece. She was not an athlete, per se, but more of a massage expert, if you catch my drift. Great Great Grandma was quite famous in the Olympic training room and while she did not take home a gold medal, she did leave Greece pregnant with a child who would someday become my great grandfather, born 17 months after those games ended, a long and painful pregnancy if ever there was one. 
Luckily that son of her’s would go on to compete at the first no-Olympic games, an absurd sporting event held for the first (and last) time in Paris in the late summer of 1922. If you know anything about history, you will remember that during the summer of 1922 Paris was boiling in the hottest and most humid time in that once great cities history. Great grandpa competed in the three man wheelbarrow and mascara race. He won the plum colored medal, which still hangs obscenely on my own wall as I write this. I say obscenely because those non-Olympic game medals were all created in the image of a vagina, a design from the unknown artist Pablina Pacasso.
So Great Communist Dictator and Unbelievably Gay Icon Putin, I am sorry to say I will not be making it to Sochi anytime soon to compete in what is already being called “The Worst Olympics in History” which by the way, will be surprising because the actual Worst Olympics in History is, of course, the Budweiser Poodle Olympics of 1986, but I won’t bore you with those details.

It takes a village to ruin my breakfast

I was in Portland a few hours ago and my husband and I sat down for breakfast at one of those popular and trendy breakfast restaurants and almost immediately felt that dread that can ruin any meal, a single parent with three kids.
I was once a single parent with three children, so I know the glare that adults give to single parents and now that I am an adult who travels without children, I have mastered the glare that adults give to other adults who happen into restaurants with their out of control children.
See, adults don’t want to share meals with children, especially meals we are paying for. Sure, if you invite me over to your toy cluttered house and offer me some luke warm pizza and a beer and your out of control children are running around and screaming, I love it. On the other hand, if I am paying for a fine meal and a decent bottle of wine (yes I drink wine at breakfast, I’m an adult) I do not want your screaming children walking up to my table and pointing at my blueberry pancakes and pointing and saying “whats that?”
So, there we were, reading over the beautiful and trendy menu of the sophisticated and well designed boutique eatery and within seconds a father sat at the table across from us, with his three young sons and I rolled my eyes in such a dramatic way that my ankle was immediately kicked by my ever polite husband. “What?” I said in some sort of shocked way, as if three young boys and a sleep deprived father was an obvious ticket to torture of our cultured and quiet meal time.
We ordered and for the first five minutes I waited for these young boys to explode or act out or so something that would ruin my meal. Because the restaurant was busy, it took a little longer for the plates to show at our table, but when they did, I had begun to notice that the table closest to ours, the one with the three boys had remained under control, and noticeably quiet.
As our plates were settled in front of us I glanced at the table and all three young boys were reading books, their father working his way through the editorial pages of the Sunday paper and sipping a coffee. It was quiet and peaceful. They as a table could care less about us.
So, while I was all prepared to complain and cry because parents today are terrible and their children are out of control, irresponsible mongrels with no sense of decorum, there I sat, mere inches away from a table of well mannered and sophisticated young men and a father who cared and role modeled behavior that his sons appreciated.
When we were leaving I thanked the father for having children who could be in public without being obnoxious. He looked at me like I might be insane.