Don't Mince Words

Team Honda

I was already thinking of my dad this week.  It would of been his 90th birthday.  But when I had a tire blow out, the memories flowed more.

A year before I could get my learner’s permit, my dad would take me to the Montgomery Wards parking lot to practice driving.  It gave him an excuse to get out of the house and away from my mom and it let me learn three-on-the-tree and quick clutch action.  In addition to acquiring great manual-drive skills, he taught me how to check the oil, radiator, and change a tire.  This knowledge has kept me less dependent on shifty service station guys and AAA.

While I was driving two visiting Chinese coworkers south to Los Angeles, I heard the rumble and knew I had a flat.  I put my hazards on like dad taught me and coasted off the road.  We got out of the car and the right rear was a goner.  So, I popped the trunk, pulled out the full-size spare, the wrench, and the jack and set up shop.  My coworkers marveled at my mechanical abilities.

“Mah-nah, you know how to do a lot of things,” they said.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t even throw my weight into the lug wrench to move the nuts.  I was going to have to break down and call my tow service.  As soon as I grabbed my phone, two guys in a SUV pulled up.  One loosened the lug nuts as the other began the slow twist of the jack.  Within five minutes, my 101 pit crew had silently changed my tire.  When they were off the ground, I thanked them and gave them WetOnes to clean their hands and offered them $20 for beer.

“No, no. It’s OK.  Merry Christmas,” one replied.

When we pulled back on the highway, one coworker asked if they were “Mexican.”  I told them I thought so, but as far as I was concerned, they were helpful, just like my dad.

I promise I won’t turn into a mommy blogger or a new mom who thinks she’s got the best baby on earth.  But until I date again, all I can do is sing the praises of my new rescue dog.

Dixie showed up as a stray at a SoCal shelter with pink toenail polish on.  That’s a sure sign she was living with a family or with a tweaker that wanted something to do.  She walks beside my knee on leash.  She always craps next to the curb.  She sits.  She lays.  She goes down when another dog approaches.

I knew Dixie was an alpha female the first time I took her to the beach.  I wanted to believe she was just socially awkward, but when I watched her play, she was the four-legged version of a bull-dyke field hockey player.  This was confirmed when she stopped squatting like a dainty lady to pee and backed up to telephone polls and squirted.  She enjoyed marking over the leg-cocking boys and making her own urine graffiti.

Friday I took her to get evaluated for doggie daycare.  I told them she was three, high energy, and liked to play rough, but I didn’t think she was aggressive.  She just needed to pick her playmates wisely.  After testing her two hours, she was approved to join the team.

Now I wait and see how many days before she’s fouled and put on the sidelines.  Even good babies have their bad days.

The other day I was searching on OKCupid.   There were six men between the ages of 37 and 60 that were my height or taller, held master’s degrees, and lived within 50 miles of me.  I’m serious.  Six men.  I decided I had better luck at finding love on Petfinder and adopted a three-year old american bulldog/boxer mix from my old rescue in Los Angeles.

After a Facebook dog-naming contest amongst my friends, we decided to pay homage to the late, great Tex by naming this girl after a region and getting an “X” in her name.  We settled with Dixie.  I wasn’t sure the name was the right one until I stopped in Petco with her on the way home and said “Hey Dix, come here.”  I’ve been saying “hey dicks, come here” for years now, so I kept the name.

We have spent the weekend bonding and she is settling in nicely.  At least a dozen guys have told me I have a “nice dog” this weekend.  Welcome, Dixie, you are my new dick magnet.

When Tina Fey got the head writer job at Saturday Night Live, I actually emailed a few friends with my excitement.  Comedy is a male world.  I was proud her writing was recognized and she broke through the sperm wall.  Her career continues to evolve with 30 Rock, movies, and now her new book, Bossypants.   She has a hilarious piece entitled “A mother’s prayer for her child” which you can google and read.  It made me laugh, of course, and then made me realize how absolutely easy my mother had it compared to the challenges Tina faces with her daughter today. I missed mother’s day, but I thought I’d spin Tina’s prayer, customized for my depression-era, North Carolina-raised mother.

Mom, you had me at a time when you could still drink and smoke during pregnancy.  You prayed I’d be healthy and I was.  I know parenting was different in the 70s.  ADD and ADHD were not discovered and used as an excuse for bad behavior/parenting.  Spanking was in.  You and dad opted for the Command and Control school of child rearing, a secret chapter in the Doctor Spock book.  Today, when I see kids act out in public, I give them the “you wanna get spanked” look you used to give me, hoping their real mother catches a glimpse.  Time out my ass.  Spanking works in that action:reaction way.

Thanks for signing the permission slips for me to learn about sex education at school.  I know it was hard for you to do it.  I think girls still learn from the source:  friends’ older sisters.  But your most memorable piece of advice came when I was home freshman year from college.  “One day a man is going to ask you to suck his penis and I’m here to tell you that’s not what you are built for.”  I smiled in that too-late kind of way, but I have to say, even today when I guy makes a request like that, I tell him, “you first.”

Crystal meth wasn’t around when I grew up, but coke was.  High school in the late ‘70s – it was everywhere – but I never tried it.  I was raised by the Cocktail Generation and I stand fast to my commitment to beer, wine, and spirits.  I did eventually attempt smoking pot in college, but decided an extra-large pizza later that it could never be my drug of choice.  I washed it down with beer.

Thanks for encouraging me to be a business major.  I certainly wanted to do something profitable, but you know I struggled with accounting.  My switch to English nearly killed you and dad, I know, but I made it up with age and experience.  Getting a B in financial accounting in grad school was the highlight of my matriculation.  I know, in the end, you wanted me to be self-sufficient so that I’d never have to economically depend on a man.  Despite numerous layoffs, I manage quite well, don’t I?

Tina encourages her daughter to learn to play drums instead of dating drummers.  I was 36 when I dated my first musician.  He left me to join the circus band.  But thank you for guitar, piano, and clarinet lessons.  I gained an appreciation of music without the Julliard price tag.

Remember when I got my right ear pierced four times?  You freaked out, but it was the end of the punk era and I wanted to be cool.  Today moms have to worry about tattoos and eyebrow piercings.  I didn’t get my tattoo until I was in my 30s.  I had my right ear holes re-opened last year.  In terms of self-mutilation, you really caught a break.

I grew up with a couple of over-air TV channels.  Can you imagine if the internet was around?  When I was 14 I got a work permit and earned enough money to buy my own clothes and pay for my entertainment.  Thank you for signing that permit.  I quickly learned what work ethic and responsibility was.  If I’d been home playing video games, who knows how I would of turned out.  I was on the road to being independent, not dependent on a man.

While I do not talk to you now, I recognize the lessons I learned under your tenure.  Most of all, I will never forget our Saturday nights watching Chase, Ackroyd, Belushi, and the other Saturday Night Live Players.  It inspired me to write and you, in the long run, taught me to never compromise my standards in men.  It’s much better to stay in on a Saturday night alone than be with a man you cannot love.

Worry no more.  I turned out fine.

Tex, Spring 2008*

When I was very, very young, my parents has a fabulous farting Dalmatian named Zip.  From what I remember, she was your typical stupid, fence jumping Dalmatian.  But she was also known as my nanny.  Urban tale has it that she slept under my crib and woke my parents up one night when my puke overflowith.  I was still a single-digit age when my parents shipped Zip off to a “farm” in Great Falls, Virginia, where she could “retire” and chase squirrels.  It took many, many years before I realized that was my parents’ way of giving me the easy let down.  I never forgave them.  Until now.

I’ve never had to put a dog down until today.  Tex was recently diagnosed with severe heart disease (all ventricles clogged) as well as tumors on his heart and spleen.  While I have blamed his hip dysplasia on a lot, this diagnosis actually explained his monolithic slow down.  I knew fostering and eventually adopting a senior dog was going to be a short-term tragedy.  But Tex was seriously a gentle giant and so fucking cool.  I want to believe dogs like that deserve to live a very long life.

Everyone that has come into contact with Tex has been touched by his mellowness.  He also picked up where Zip left off.  Six months into our “relationship,” I had outpatient foot surgery.  When I came home, my girlfriend deposited me on the couch loaded on painkillers and she made sure my foot was elevated.  Hours later, the dog walker came in only to find Tex on top of me, like a hen protecting her chick.  That night, after I wobbled on crutches to go to bed, Tex snuck into my bed and watched me all night.

He’s slept with me every night since until recently when he took up residence by the front door.  His all-time favorite thing was a car ride where he could hang his head out of the window and woof air.  Now he’d just lay in the back seat, not even getting up to look out during stop signs.  Even food, his primary motivation, barely interested him.

And this is when I had to make the same decision my parents had to make decades ago    – where the zest and love of life has left the beast and the shell remains.  Tex left this world with me rubbing his pumpkin head and paws.  We’ve had a charmed 2.5 years together.  For better or worse, Tex has been the best date/relationship I’ve had in Los Angeles, and I’ve dated some real dogs.

There is never a good time to end an animal’s life.  I understand that, finally.  I feel Tex’ time was now and I can only hope, in his retirement, he gets to meet Zip, and those that followed, to talk about me over a few good bones and squirrels. Tex, you will be missed.  My walks and hikes will never be the same, but when I see a squirrel, I’ll think of you and your alert, squared off ears, looking up the trunk of the tree.

Marna and Tex, September 2010

*Photo courtesy of LA Woman Photography