Attacked by quarters

I awoke this morning to my wife beaning me with quarters from the doorway of our bedroom. She laughed at my protests shouting that it couldn't hurt "through all those blankets." I reminded her that The Princess and the Pea was more historical fiction than fable, and if I was all bruised up I would not hesitate to write about it in the blog.

She said: "Yes. Write! Exactly. Get up and write!" She has some kind of charming fantasy that if only I follow my dreams and start producing actual essays or more, that the universe will be kind in its reward of my art. That's brave of her to prescribe and her confidence is inspiring on some level, but I say there has got to be a better way. I think Justin Timberlake said it best when he crooned with the Peas: WHERE IS THE LOVE?!? There has got to be a better way of feeling the love of a fine woman on a rainy Saturday morning, than hearing her cackle as she hurls an arsenal of quarters at you from across the room.

Fucking marriage.

(I'm serious. This woman is about as predictable as a superball on a gravel road. And sometimes I'm convinced that keeping me in a constant state of confusion is nothing for her but sport or folly.)

Changing the subject: Thursday was my Grandma's 82nd birthday. I proudly told her in infantile phraseology: "Hoy es el cumpleanos de mi abuela" at the restaurant. Thirty seconds after butchering their language, I realized there was a bi-lingual, bi-ethnic Spanish-speaking family sharing our hibachi grill that night. (Doh! Stupid Gringa!)

Thursday was also the 2 week anniversary of my sister's c-section (a.k.a. Mac's birth). It was the new family's first night out to dinner and baby girl was content to sleep through the entire event. (Side Bar: Mac is a great name to make a reservation under, if you're ever sick of using your own name.)

Halfway through dinner, Web realized that Mac had been sleeping too long. Perhaps it was all the shrimp pieces that were flying over her head, or the sweet smell of greasy grill, or that she's already instinctively sick of hearing the same old jokes from the Japanese hibachi chef, but the girl wanted no part of awake. My sister started undressing her little tyke, blowing in her face, rocking her rapidly, picking up her arms- nothing, nada.

Kids are usually so annoying at a restaurant: screaming, crying, coughing all over the food... You can imagine we all got a little panicky at how soundly she was sleeping. Well now writing this, it does seem silly that we got panicky about that, but at the time it did seem disconcerting.

But, let me point out- this is a child whose father woke up at six am in the first few days of his daughter's life telling my sister, "That's pretty good that she slept from12 to 6." Teri's bloodshot eyes glared and her head bobbed in an incredulous, involuntary shake, "No. No, you slept from 12 to 6."

But Web has no room to talk. My sister is the only person I know who graduated from college in four years after sleeping through not one, not two, but THREE final exams. It is the stuff of family mythology that she talked her way into make up tests in three separate classes with no excuse but, "I overslept."

What can i say, we are sleepers... I've seen my father take a snooze during a Broadway musical tap dancing show, and i can practically sleep standing up if necessary- don't even put me in the passenger seat of a moving vehicle and expect me to stay awake.

In the end, shoving a bottle in Mac's mouth is what woke her. She drained three ounces so fast that Teri, Bill, and I started chanting: "drink. drink. drink. drink..." for the last third of the bottle. When it was gone, she opened her eyes, and the chanting stopped, her proud Daddy beamed, "It looks like she's headed for state school!"