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Varmint and Critter are leaving the age of cuteness and innocence, and it’s killing me.

Every year since they were little amoebas, we’ve taken them to Funland at Rehoboth, a place of zippy kiddie rides, imaginative whimsy, and rip-off carnival games, while vacationing at Pop-pop’s cottage at the beach.  This place was around when I was a kid…same rides and everything.  Same boardwalk fries, same saltwater taffy, same frozen custard, same scary creepers sitting on the benches ogling passersby.  It’s a family tradition, and one I could never imagine stopping.

This year the kids want to stop.

“Mom, the rides are boring!” Critter explains to me with the patience of a Special Ed Teacher.  “You have to understand, they might have been fun when we were little, but now we need entertainment for bigger people.”

Understand Critter is all of 10 years of age.

“Well, Okay then,” I answered back with the sass of a 6th grader. “Let’s just go ahead and hit the bars in Dewey Beach.”

“Think you could get us in?”

Oh for the love of God.

Obviously I don’t transition well.

I’m not ready to hand in my little ones to exchange for some sassy bigger ones.  I can easily imagine dragging them by the hand to Funland late into their 30’s.  And by then they’ll be popping out little ones, so they’ll have to go anyways.

It’s not a bad plan.

We are using a rental car these days instead of my trusty Chevy Equinox, because this past Father’s Day a church van decided to try to parallel park ON TOP OF US.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe…….

Happy Place.  Happy Place.  Clouds, Cotton Candy, Teddy Bears…..Ok, I’m calm.

My Equinox!  My beautiful Equinox got well and truly squished, and will be at the car hospital, Zamoras, in Buckeyestown, for a good long time.

So the church that owned the van, being a kind and benevolent entity that knows we were more than prepared to lawyer up if need be, thoughtfully had their insurance pay for a rental car for us to use while our Equinox gets super-glued back together.

It’s a 2013 GMC Terrain.  Ugly color, but basically it’s my Equinox in every other way.

EXCEPT for the back-up camera.

You see, my Equinox has a back-up system so intelligent, it almost backs itself up.  On the dashboard camera screen, it shows me red lines as to where I’m going, where I need to be, where I shouldn’t be, and it gives me little sound signals during the process so I could be blind while doing it.

And I’ve kind of gotten used to it.

So now when I back up, I tend to look forward, at the camera screen, instead of backwards, where I’m actually moving.

And if I’m driving a car that doesn’t have the back-up system…..

….well, we’ll see if in a few days I don’t need another rental car…….

Look, I’m not a raving idiot.   I mean, not raving.   And I really do have a fairly good driving record.  But I’m distracted,  you see.  As a Type A mom, and general Spaz, I’ve got all kinds of thoughts and issues going on in my head at any given moment; and sometimes taking the time to actually turn my head while I’m backing up just isn’t realistic, you know?

You don’t know?

Well never mind then.

I left the oven on a few nights ago.  Didn’t mean to, but it happens when your brain has gone down the crapper the way mine has.  I’m forgetting everything these days.  I chalk it up to being too daggum busy….. and that would be the end of that….but the alarmed look I get from old friends is too damn entertaining.  I’m starting to enjoy appearing feeble-minded to people.  I get all sorts of passes for it.

But sometimes, SOMETIMES, the result of my absent-mindedness is not so funny.

We were rudely awakened by our smoke and carbon monoxide detectors early Sunday morning…..like way, way, WAY too early.  We’re not talking the crack of dawn, but, rather, to be crude, the butt-crack of dawn.   And the alarm is a none-too-sexy woman’s voice calling out “Warning! Carbon Monoxide! Warning! Carbon Monoxide!”

I bolted up, My Captain slowly sat up, and we could hear Varmint from her bedroom yelling, “Mom!  Mom! Mom!”

“I’m coming!” I called out and rushed to her.  She was already grabbing sleepy-eyed Critter from his bed and pulling him to the deck outside.

“TROY!” I yelled up to My Captain!

“Mumble mumble mumble” was all I heard as he slowly meandered down the stairs.  He wasn’t even TRYING, I tell you!  It’s so hard to have an emergency with someone who DOES emergencies for a living.

I had whooshed open all the doors, turned on the oven fan, realized the oven was on, and turned it off, then made a bee-line for the deck, and all the while hearing “Warning!  Carbon Monoxide!” over and over and over again.

My Captain eventually got outside on the deck with us. I made a wisecrack about ‘why didn’t he go ahead, take his sweet time, and make us coffee while he was in there?’, which earned me an eye-roll.

“The detectors go off at 35 parts per million.  You’ve got plenty of time before you’re in danger,” he yawned as he plopped down on one of the chaise lounges.

Varmint, well and truly upset, was mothering Critter, and praising him for coming outside right away.

“But that is what the alarm was telling us to do.” he said, rather matter of factly.

The alarm had stopped at that point, and we looked at each other quizzically.  “What do you mean, love?”

“She kept saying, ‘Warning! Go On Outside! Warning! Go On Outside!”

Dagummit, he’s right.  Carbon Monoxide does rather sound like ‘Go On Outside’ if you’re sleepy and slightly Oxygen deprived.

The story ends well.  No one was hurt.  The alarms did their job.  Varmint survived the drama surge.  I survived Varmint’s survival of the drama surge. And Critter, in his inimitable way, has once again shown us a different perspective of the world.

And I doubt that I’ll forget to turn the oven off ever again.

Now if I could just find my dagnab car keys.

And my reading glasses.

And did I already take my medicine today?

I’ve spent the last few days working by myself on Pop-pop’s cottage while My Captain works 48 hours straight over the holiday.   I’ve been tearing down wallpaper from the ’80’s; I’ve been sanding, cussing, scraping, painting, cussing, re-painting, and ruining my favorite clothes.

Because wearing your favorite pink LLBean t-shirt makes  sense when you are painting a blue room.

Quick side note:  Painting floor and ceiling trim while hopped up on caffeine is not a good plan.

I’d bought enough McDonald’s sausage burritos to last me through the long weekend, and stuck them in the fridge so I wouldn’t have to leave the cottage and interrupt my work.  I never thought I would get sick of McDonald’s sausage burritos.  Not in a million years.

Apparently I’ve been working on this project for over a million years.

So this morning, because I couldn’t look at another burrito, and because I am starting to get really dagnab lonely, I decided to walk into the Town of Bethany and get myself a well-earned Ruthie’s Bakery Jelly-Filled Doughnut and maybe make some conversation.

Let me draw you a picture:  Dressed in my pepto-bismol pink, paint-splattered LL Bean t-shirt, comfort waist, Just-My-Size paint-splattered Bermuda jean shorts, olive-green smartwool ankle socks, and brown, Croc brand, Teva-styled hiking sandals, I rocked that sidewalk like only a woman who simply doesn’t give a crap about what image she projects, could.

Oh, and my arthritic knee is acting up because I’ve been on it non-stop this weekend, so I limped significantly the whole way.  I was a sight to behold.

People were grabbing their children and moving to the other side of the street, I tell you.

I didn’t care, though.  In fact, I tried to make eye contact with everyone I passed and grin at them as if to say, “I know, I right?”

Eventually I arrived at Ruthie’s Bakery, only to find a sign that read: “Closed due to Sandy and (Town of Bethany) Construction.”

My heart plummeted.  I’ve been going to that Bakery every summer since I was a toddler.  Pop-pop and I used to go and get all sticky with jelly and powdered sugar together on the boardwalk.  It was a traumatic moment for me.

Plus, I was hungry, which adds significant drama to anything.

Sadly,  I limped a couple of doors up the sidewalk and arrived at a Tex-Mex restaurant where I ordered a chorizio and cheddar omelet, and coffee.  When it came, I realized this wasn’t breakfast; this was a challenge.  Nutritionally, this was WAY worse than any Ruthie’s doughnut might have been.

This dingdang omelet was bigger than 4 McDonald’s sausage burritos, and I would never eat that many burritos in one sitting.  And it was served with whole grain toast and seasoned breakfast taters and onions.

Here’s the problem: I have always been a member of the clean plate club; I refuse to throw out food; and I didn’t feel like adding a doggie bag of omelet to my walk home.  I had to eat what was put before me.  The way I saw it, I had no choice.  I felt like I was in my own version of Man Vs Food, only it was Mama Vs Food.

I ate everything but the potatoes.  I. Just. Couldn’t. Eat. All. Of. It.

I tried!

I wanted to cry as I threw away the potatoes.

Limping home, I tried to shake off the sense of gastronomic defeat.  But the sun was shining on the ocean, the wood on the boardwalk was warm, and I was surrounded by cheerful early morning joggers.  In fact, I think every spandex-sporting, super health-conscious soccer mom in Bethany was jogging.  And none of them had my sense of style, I assure you.  Some of them had on more make-up for their run then I put on for….well, for anything I ever do.  But I have to tell you, I was so full that merely watching them jog made me want to puke.

But at least they could work off a 15,000 calorie omelet.  I certainly have no business eating that much when my swollen, arthritic knee barely allows me to walk into town.

My sense of gastronomic defeat morphed into frustration.   How cruel it is that I should be given such crappy joints but have such a true passionate love for food?

I got home and flopped on the 1930’s glider, wishing I could change the situation.   Because I can’t change the arthritis, and I can’t change my love of food.

Oh sure, you COULD make an argument for self-discipline, but that omelet was damn tasty, and life is short.

Or, should I say, after that 15,000 calorie omelet, life is shorter.

Do me a favor and put “Damn, that was tasty!” on my gravestone, will ya?

Humility will never be a weak trait of mine.   My beloved family keeps me humble daily.

Yesterday Varmint shared that her social studies class was covering Buddha, and all of the cultural implications surrounding him.

Critter then asked who Buddha was.

Varmint attempted to explain the concept of ‘The Enlightened One’ or ‘The Awakened One,’ using all the formal language her 6th grade vocabulary could muster.

Critter rolled his eyes and asked me for a more simplified answer.

I asked him if he had ever seen a statue of a grossly fat, laughing bald man with enormous ears.

He said he had.  I told him that that was imagery of the laughing Buddha, and that people rub laughing Buddha’s belly for good luck.

“OH!” Critter claimed in his own enlightenment.  “Like when we like to rub your squishy belly!”

Varmint, snickered and agreed wholeheartedly, thus cementing Critter’s current understanding of that entire faith.

I figure I can look at this one of two ways.  Either it was a slam, intended to mock their dear corpulent mother, or it means I have now been exalted to the level of a God.

Either way, it doesn’t diminish the benefits of a good belly rub.  Am I right, or am I right?

Of course I’m right.

Love,

Buddha-Boe