Having people visit makes me anxious: You would have never guest

I am not a gifted or gracious hostess. I am not confident in my culinary or housekeeping skills. I am awkward when it comes to small talk. 

Hospitality is an important part of my Christian faith ("For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in..." Matthew 25: 34-36) but I am TERRIBLE at it. Uncomfortable. Anxious.

But...new year so back up on the hostessing horse I go.

"What are you doing?" my daughter yelled on speaker phone as I balanced on a dining room chair, delicately unscrewing a blown-out light bulb. "Are you putting in the company light bulb?" she shouted accusingly. "Two bulbs don't illuminate the room enough," I said defensively. "You let me sit in a dark room over Thanksgiving just fine," Savannah snarled, "but the minute Katriel comes over...Let there be light!"

The light bulb was the least of my problems.

"I don't know what to make for dessert," I lamented to Brad. He paused...aware that this seemingly small matter (to him) was nearing crisis territory for me. "We like chocolate pudding..." he suggested carefully. I brightened. I had pretty dessert glasses. 

Jello had recently sent me into a tailspin by changing their packaging. Heaven forbid we stay with tried-and-
true.

The ridiculous purple packaging pulled one more punch:  It was instant. "I can't serve instant pudding to our guests," I cried, "Take it away." Brad stoically carried it outside and dumped the pot's still steaming contents in the field ("You littered?!?" our from-Toronto-visitor gasped when he heard the story recounted later. The three Wyoming County residents sitting at the table stared at him while my husband slowly asked, "We littered by dumping pudding on cow manure?").

Now there was no dessert.

Brad escaped my next melt-down by plowing the driveway.

When he returned, he complimented the stacked plate of Rice Krispie treats. "Yeah," I scoffed, "great if we were hosting ten-year-olds."

A few minutes later, he came racing back into the kitchen at my next cry of dismay.

"What?!? What's wrong?" he asked, scanning the room for the source of my distress. "Look at this," I wailed, brandishing a stalk of celery like a sword. Brad skillfully blocked my Shomen Uchi strike to see what could possibly be wrong with the sturdiest member of the parsley family. 

"Ewww..." he said, looking at the black sludged paste coating the end of the vegetable before walking it out to join the pudding. "My salad is ruined," I ruminated. At this point, we would be serving stale cereal. 

Our guests arrived and it was immediately clear that they were here for the people...not a gourmet presentation. Stale cereal, steak, spaghetti, or scrambled eggs...Katriel and Dan just wanted to hang out with us. The evening wasn't about culinary dishes...it was about conversation. We had self-consciously rolled out the welcome mat and they could care less if the rug had a few stains.

Except for my losing EVERY game of euchre, we had a lovely evening. 

We should have taken the meal and the cards as a win but no...

"How about we light a few sparklers?" I suggested, wanting a memorable ending to our visit.

Brad glanced at me...wondering if I had factored in the darkness, deep snow, wind, and cold...before
sighing, of course I hadn't.

We gamely waded through knee-high drifts, past the pudding and celery sludge, and set up our little sparklers well away from trees and the house.  Shivering, Katriel and I watched as Brad and Dan lit our little display. Let's just say, they blew us away.

Not surprisingly, Dan and Katriel left, more or less intact, pretty quickly after that.

"Well," said Brad as we watched our guests drive rapidly away, "I thought that went pretty well. You must be feeling pretty good." He paused, watching me vigorously wiping the bottom of my boot in the snow. Apparently, I had walked through sludge. "Not nece-celery," I answered.

Lord knows I tried.

 

This Advent was a little strained

Hard to believe, but on rare occasions, my ideas may sometimes be a tad irrational, unrealistic, outlandish, or improbable.

*Silence as the reader comes to grips with this shocking revelation*

"Don't worry," colleagues once assured each other, "there's no way she can arrange for an actual airplane for our four-minute vocabulary video."

"Who floats an over-ripe watermelon down a river to film it exploding over a waterfall?" a friend wondered dubiously.

"She did NOT help convince the entire elementary staff to film a choreographed Zumba video  based on one dumb remark muttered during a professional development seminar!"

"Wait. She was dressed as a...what?!?! (insert infinite possibilities here:  An owl. Marilyn Monroe. A lion. A twerking bumblebee. Elvis. A roll of toilet paper)"

I was hurt, devastated, outraged and a little impressed to learn that my grade level team had gone underground to rein in or even try to thwart the inevitable and unreasonable workload and emotional cost that accompanies my enthusiastic creative outbursts.

But there are times, when the only person I really hurt is myself.

I never did Advent calendars...either growing up or while my girls were growing up. But when they moved away (Some contend that they ran away), I stumbled onto Advent calendars as a way to connect us during the days leading us to Christmas. Little tchotchkes that my daughters could receive over the course of 24 days, reminding them that their parents love them and were thinking of them. Sweet.

But, we're Mosimans. So it somehow became competitive.

And I'm Amy Mosiman. So it became time-consuming and ridiculous.

It started with bible trivia. Sprinkled in some Hanukkah with the arrival of Lisa. Ventured into holiday music and movies. Added games and puzzles. 

"What are you going to do for Advent this year?" a family member asked and I spiraled. I couldn't do it. I had nothing left. 

But then I stumbled onto an Advent Escape Room BOOK!

This was AMAZING!

It would harken back to the days where I spent HOURS reading to my children. Savannah, still a fan of Survivor, would immediately rise to the puzzled challenge following each chapter. Like Douglas's fantasy football, it would bond us further as a family.

I bought a copy of the book for each family.

I presented the idea to my daughters when they came home for Thanksgiving.

Let's just say that someone forgot to attend the pre-Mom meeting.

"A book?" They looked at it like it was going to bite them.

"We have to read a book for Advent?" It wasn't A Tale of Two Cities, for goodness sake. And this was certainly NOT turning out like the best of times. And did they miss the part where I was going to read it TO them?

My idea was not being received well so I did what any stable, rational person would do:  I threw the book away. I'm really not one to over-react.

"Remember when we were fighting over our clothes and you destroyed our underwear in a bonfire?"

"Remember when you were afraid that you were reading too many romances so you ran over your Kindle with the truck...twice?"

I am still not sure what the problem was...I was doing all the work.

"Wait...I'm going to have to film all of these?!?" my husband cut in (after digging the book out of the trash and calling an emergency secret "Mom" meeting). Seriously...three-to-four minutes each day TOPS of pointing the camera at me?!? I punished him by only letting him actually film about six of them.

"It was torture," he admitted.

No. Torture was editing. Torture was factoring in three time zones. Torture was realizing that I was too stupid to figure out a lot of the puzzles. 

Every day, I filmed a segment. Created a trailer. Solved each puzzle myself and presented a short-cut for my not-so-enthusiastic-but-pretending-to-be participants either as a still photograph or another video. Only a few days in, I hit a wall. A puzzle about electric fuses that I couldn't figure out despite the answer key. I went to my friend Eric for help. 

Yeah. "Help."

Eric patiently described the solution to me in detail.

I still didn't get it.

So, my "guest star" segments began.

My friend Katriel sensed something was up and soon became my camera-person AND possibly the only person involved in this ridiculous fiasco who actually enjoyed the puzzles. She earned a spot as a reoccurring guest star (Anyone out there remember Charo from The Love Boat?) because I would just get flummoxed with some of those darn challenges. Katriel would just curl up like a kitten in one of my classroom chairs and happily solve away.

At one point, I stomped up to the second floor to garner the assistance of my high school bff Tom who pretends to not want to be involved in any of my nonsense but secretly loves it. "What will it take to get you out of my classroom?" he growled unhappily as I chased after him, flapping my book. I gave him unnecessarily complicated stage directions (The man was born for the theater.) and we filmed a flawlessly perfect scene. "Great," he said curtly, "Get out."

"Uh-oh."

Tom glared at me. He had some sort of chemistry activity to set up...I think it was BINGO. "What?"

I chuckled. "Silly me. I forgot to hit record. No worries. We'll just consider that first one a rehearsal." 

As Providence would have it, our friend Jeff walked in (presumably, to rescue Tom). Unlike my high school bestie, Jeff is kind, patient and accommodating. He is also truthful so he couldn't lie on the witness stand when the judge asked whether Tom was the one who killed me. Jeff scored a cameo in the second video which, again, was executed flawlessly. 

Speaking of besties, one of Savannah's dear friends from high school had recently started working in my building so I snagged her as a surprise guest. Imagine Savannah's surprise when Brittney called her the next day to ask how she liked it and Savannah had NO IDEA what she was talking about...confirming what I had suspected ALL ALONG. NO ONE WAS WATCHING THESE STUPID VIDEOS!!!!

"Of course they're watching them," my husband assured me, "How else could they be solving the puzzles?"

"They're CHEATING," I told him bluntly.

"I watched you rip out the answer keys from their books," he protested.

"There is a QR code at the end of each chapter that provides hints and answers," I explained.

"No!" he gasped, "Savannah said it just gave hints."

"She is a LIAR," I bellowed.

"I'm polar-bearing the next chapter," I told Brad.

"No, don't do it," he begged, "It'll tear the family apart."

Polar-bearing was a well-known and devious tradition during Savannah's high school days where students would insert a random paragraph about polar bears in the middle of an assigned essay because everyone knew that that particular teacher never read them.

So, in the middle of the next chapter, I veered seamlessly into The Three Billy Goats Gruff. "Who's that trip-trapping over my bridge?" roared the Troll. "Oh, it is only I, wee little Billy Goat Gruff, wondering why no one is appreciating that their mother is expending a lot of time, energy, and effort to make this Advent special and you all are a bunch of poos."

Of course, a secret, emergency-Mom meeting had been called to thwart my diabolical plan.

This had been a terrible mistake.

What a stupid idea.

I limped to the end. Chapter 24. Christmas Eve. 

That landed us with my mother.

We had filmed several with her, explaining each time that it was for her granddaughters for Christmas. My sweet mom...burdened by bad eyesight, balance, and betrayed by her memory...would sit agreeably while we filmed, not understanding what I read (to be fair, NONE of us understood the convoluted plot) but enjoying the experience. 

But Chapter 24. On Christmas Eve...I sat on the floor, book-ended between Brad and Mom in their recliners. I hit record. Brad started clowning around in a very un-Brad-Mosiman-like way, tossing tickle fingers my way, waving at the camera, bunny ears...getting Mom to giggle and join in. I pretended to be exasperated which delighted my Mom all the more. We reached the end of the chapter, all three of us pausing to wave at the camera while I said "I love you," my Mom echoing my words. 

Merry Christmas, Amy. 

My gift arrived on the final day of Advent. Not gold, frankincense and myrrh. God granted me my mom's smile...soft and gentle. Her sweet laughter...a rare and treasured sound. He found a way to include my Mom as an active, productive, and meaningful member of our silly little scenario. At 89, tucked away alone in her small apartment, surrounded by strangers, my Mom might sometimes feel that she's been forcibly retired from the stage that was her life...relegated to watching a foreign film where she doesn't understand the language and can't follow the plot. But this night...Mom owned the spotlight. She was the star.

So in the end, because we implemented my Dad's ridiculous "for all the marbles" tradition, Douglas won. To be fair, he was the ONLY participant who had refrained from complaining directly to me AND rose to impressive heights of competitive game-play...Douglas wasn't going to half-ass this Half Dome of Advent Escape Rooms...the boy came equipped to play. And like any good math teacher, also showed his work. 

If the goal was togetherness, we achieved it. Together, we dreaded (almost) every single chapter and together, we waited, with bated breath, for this Advent to be over.  "Advent" in the Christian sense means "Arrival." To look at the word, you might think of "adventure." That worked for us this year. Not all adventures are good. Ever seen "Deliverance?" "Advent" could also resemble "adversity." Yup. And how about "adverse?" 

The best I can say is that the Mosimans survived Advent this year. There is a lot to be said for those little cardboard calendars with the little windows. I guess I could step up my game a little and give everyone a spaghetti strainer on December 1st. Nothing's easier than an Advent colander.

The Mosiman Crafty Christmas was snow joke

It began, as all great ideas do, with over-idealized notions of stream-lined simplicity and cost-cutting which would result, of course, in a love-inspired, meaningful gift destined to be a treasured family heirloom passed down through the generations. What would be created from an enthusiastic suggestion in Austin in August would be the answer to that question:  If you could save only one item from your burning house, what would it be?

"Crafty Christmas?" my husband said, scowling as he rolled my luggage to the van. "What does that mean, exactly?" 

"It means," our daughter Savannah told him, later on the phone, "that Mom and Lisa finally found a way to ruin Christmas."

Not true.

Sure, Lisa and I aren't exactly fond of receiving presents and tend to get very over-whelmed when facing the flood of festive bowed bestowed blessings beneath the tree, each one labeled with our name and ticking like a time-bomb. Even in August, we could feel the pressure building.

"We should keep it simple this year," someone said and the starter pistol went off before Savannah could get ahead of the pack. 

The rules were easy.

Make. A. Present.

Reluctantly...begrudgingly...resignedly...sacrificially...Brad asked what I had in mind.

Excitedly...short-sightedly...stupidly...I happily told him. "Remember when Sydney was kicking around
doing engraved wine bottle bottom coasters for the guest gifts for her wedding and we science-experimented it out for her and realized the logistics were too time-consuming and complicated?"

Brad nodded slowly before adding, "And dangerous."

I brushed his comment off.

"So, anyway, we are going to make an engraved wine bottle bottom ornament of everyone's dogs!"

"Interesting," my husband said quietly. He kept mum on the subject, hoping that I would forget this ridiculous idea, until one grim day in October, he watched me lug a half dozen empty wine bottles into the house.

We watched several Youtube tutorials. Made do with the wrong equipment. Improvised. Failed. Failed. Drew blood. Failed. Got burned. Failed. Discussed the short-comings in our relationship. Failed. Cast blame. Called each other names. And eventually ended up with three semi-workable wine bottle bottoms with edges so sharp they could double as those ninja throwing stars.

Brad ordered a special sander so that no one would accidentally die as a result of hanging up their ornament.

He also donned a special filtered mask designed to keep him from inhaling mircoscopic glass shards into his lungs. It didn't help his poor arms. "Maybe you should have worn a long-sleeved shirt," I observed helpfully. "Maybe you should have just left Christmas alone," he snapped, unnecessarily, at me.

We observed the final products.

Fire-scorched black. Misshapen. Hideous.

"You're going to etch the features of their dogs on these?" Brad asked.

I was beginning to have some doubts about the viability of my project.

"Ya think?" Brad said. "Now? NOW you are having doubts?" He paused to re-group. "Maybe we could tell them that these are artifacts that we recovered from our secret trip to Pompeii."

Funny.

But that idea led to our second ornament idea where we used resin to encase sea shells collected with our girls as well as some other special artifacts from our lives.

Oh. And, of course, for our second crafty gift: fabric paint.

Hypervigilant as the manager of the Mosiman sweatshop, Brad watched as I cranked out custom-made shirts over the course of three days. "This is SO much easier than buying gifts," Brad admitted as I bemoaned every little imperfection.

Finally finished, I could stop focusing on my own frustration long enough to feel bad about what I had done to my daughters. This was a nightmare. Crafty Christmas was a catastrophe. It wasn't simple. It wasn't stream-lined. What we might have saved in money had cost us in time and frustration (as well as physical and emotional injury).

Christmas arrived.

Sydney and Douglas had put together a wonderfully whimsical calendar of family photographs. Sydney, to let her true feelings about Crafty Christmas be known, exploited my penchant of taking sleepy-time pictures of my precious angels and made that the theme of the gift...kick-starting the year with me sprawled out on a lounge chair at Disney, konked out from heat and exhaustion. Very flattering.

Savannah and Lisa also went with my love of family pictures...magically personalizing the board game "Guess Who?" to include dozens of familiar faces. We played a ruckus round...virtually...that evening. Our version definitely veered from the conventional questions posed in the original game. Instead of "Is the person a girl?" we went with more passive-aggressive tactics such as "Is this person psychologically unstable?" or oddly-specific inquiries such as "Has this person ever kept Twizzlers or Tootsie Rolls in her backpack to keep Mom from giving up while hiking?"

We debriefed after Christmas was over and ultimately decided that, while well-intended, Crafty Christmas was ultimately more trouble than it was worth. Some of us (me and Lisa) still liked the idea of a theme and are brainstorming possible ideas for next year. A color? Travel/Around the world? First letter of name? Gift basket?

Not everyone is quite on board...yet. 

Some people like to wait until the holidays are right upon us before making a plan.

Not us! When it comes to concocting a Christmas gift-giving strategy, we feel that there is Noel time like the present.

 

A Holiday Script with Razor Sharp Wit

 "Do you shave your legs upward, in only one direction," I asked Erin as we watched our friend Tyler, dressed as a train conductor, battle his way heroically across the stage, fighting his way through imaginary, hurricane-forced Arctic winds while dodging an avalanched onslaught of very real cotton snowballs thrown with a school-year's worth of pent-up rage and frustration by behind-the-scenes staff members, "or," I continued, lobbing another snowball at Tyler's head, "do you shave up AND down in one continuous movement?" 

Ignoring the hundreds of screaming elementary students in the audience behind us, Erin paused, her arm raised, fist clenched around another snowball. Before she launched her missile, she stared off into space, considering my question as the Sugar-Plum Fairies tiptoed out on cue to further terrorize Tyler. "I just shave UP," she admitted, suppressing a giggle as our friend Eric leaped by, narrating each movement prior to execution. "I'm leaping," he shouted before vaulting off across the stage. "Leaping!" he'd yell again. Bounce. Bounce. 

"Why do you ask?" she wondered as we watched Dave, gamely trot onto the stage, clad from head to hoof in a reindeer outfit. "According to the manufacturer's directions," I informed her, as Dave lay prone on the floor, rigor-mortised legs rigidly pointing due north, "the razors were ergonomically designed to be pushed down the leg and then pulled up again in a continuous motion." Tyler was now pulling the blind, lame reindeer off the stage using his train car. I realized, in that moment, that Erin and I had inadvertently written a LOT of gratuitous violence and injury in our up-lifting holiday play. "Dave is only temporarily blinded," Erin reassured me when I whispered my concern. But we'd also cast him as an out-of-work, down-on-his-luck, missing person, uh, I mean reindeer, who gets yelled at when he's eventually discovered, when he's not pulling Santa's sleigh, he's cleaning bathrooms, and...at the triumphant end of the play, he's sent home to wash Santa's laundry.

Erin waved off my concern as she quickly researched her razor brand on her phone as Santa arrived on stage to the delight of the screaming students behind us. "By George, you're right!" Erin was heard to exclaim as Tyler balanced pulling his rail car past with his hands juggling the millions of props he needed ("A train conductor needs a whistle and a lantern," we'd insisted, "Plus it will hide the thousands of pages of witty dialog we wrote for you!")! Dave sidled by as Santa ho-ho-ho-ed his way across the stage. "How did those two get this job, anyway?" he asked Tyler, who glared at us before answering. "Who else is going to write and direct these things?" he muttered, before rolling his cart glumly away. 

Erin and I let out sighs of relief as our actors ambled away. No one could EVER know that it is the most fun EVER writing and directing plays that force our friends into uncomfortable and humiliating situations. Alone now, we high-five-ed. "Whew! That was a close shave," Erin grinned. "I wonder," she said with a wink when we were done laughing, "if the manufacturer's technique is meant for other body parts as well." I was busy picking up the littered stage floor at this point and stuffing the cotton orbs back in their holiday box. "I don't think anyone has the snow balls necessary to test it out," I teased. 

Weight for it: Feeling Spencer's "pane" over a broken window

 Obviously...when you find yourself in the midst of an emergency, the first name that pops into your head should be mine...as the person NOT to call should you find yourself in the midst of an emergency.

To be fair, Spencer did not exactly call me...I just happen to be a member of the group chat to whom she directed her Bat Signal. 

Nevertheless...I sprang into action, immediately grabbing a pair of my never-been-used (until now) pink, one-pound-weight dumbbells. I wonder why they're called that?

A little back story:

So...as it's told...the hero of our story was fueling up...nutritionally, energetically & motivationally...at her favorite morning drive-thru. Powering her window down to bravely extend her bare hand to accept the caffeine of the cosmos...the beverage that would bevy her courage, calm her nerves, kick-start her creativity, drown her sorrows, and push-start her patience...Spencer was stymied when the window...in the face of near-negative outdoor numbers...responded to her plea to push up with a resounding "NO!"

Faced (an icy, open-handed frozen slap) with a forty minute drive with a gaping driver's-side window, Spencer made some minute adjustments to her wardrobe (Apparently only her eyes were visible during the torturous journey) and put in a text to the 4th grade team. Oddly enough, it was not the first text that we've received requesting a tarp and some rope.

Little back story concluded:

After receiving Spencer's text, Katriel held one of our infamously-abbreviated, one-syllably-worded phone conversations.

Amy:  Tarp?

Katriel:  Got it.

Amy: Rope?

Katriel: You?

Amy: See ya in a minute.

Tossing duct tape and the weights in my bag, I rushed out the door, driving carefully through snowy conditions, to Katriel's house to pick her up for our long commute. She looked dubiously at the dumbbells. 

Soon enough, we rendez-vous-ed with Spencer. 

Katriel wielded the tarp like a matador's cape. The cavernous hole in Spencer's door was covered in no time. Spencer used the rope to lasso one of the side-view mirrors and the task was almost complete. I stood quietly to the side...watching the show with unmasked admiration. Glancing at me, Katriel shook her head before declaring wistfully, "If only we had something to weigh down the top of the tarp on the roof of Spencer's car." 

Brightening, I scurried off to get my bag,

Soon, my contribution to this little project was added like the cherry to a hot fudge sundae. Or the star to the top of a magnificently-decorated-to-resemble-the-corpse-of-someone-who'd-snitched-on-the mob Christmas tree.

I was just so proud to have been able to pull my weight.

Job done, three figures moved across the icy parking lot to enter the school:  Two trained professionals, competent in all areas and one dumbbell.

Fantasy Football is more of a nightmare

 For me, when one mentions the word "fantasy," football does not immediately spring to mind. And I am certainly NOT a league type of girl...not bowling, not under the sea, and not of their own. 

When it comes to Fantasy Football, I am OUT of my league.

I admired the intent.

My son-in-law...seeking a way to bypass the three thousand miles that separates his wife from her parents...attempting to provide a common thread to link families who live on opposite coasts but now share kids in common...organized a Fantasy Football League for his family and our's. Brad and Savannah, students of statistics, sailed confidently into these strange seas. Wary, Sydney and I strapped on our water-wings and waded nervously into these unfamiliar waters. 

I quickly personalized my and Brad's game icons on the site...giving the very false impression that I was well-versed and comfortable with the platform. 

I wasn't.

And The Draft was looming. Complete with count-down clock.

I received a lot of well-intended advice (spoken in a language I did not understand). WR? White ring? West-side runner? I thought BN was a position. Well...technically it is. A player sits ON a bench. I was told, again and again, to not select a quarterback until later in the draft. 

Sure, sure.

I snagged Josh Allen first thing.

I picked players like I pick ponies for the Kentucky Derby:  Poetic names and personality.

That's how I ended up with George Kittle even though he's been on injured reserve since we started. Great smile. Fun hair. Makes me laugh.

Travis had been snatched up by Sydney's sister-in-law and then, out of nowhere, set adrift. Although the Mosiman household has no personal knowledge of this particular phenomenon, I have heard that (almost 😏) every man experiences a poor performance now and then. I would not hold one or two disappointing moves against my players. Welcome to the team, Travis.

Skattebo. Egbuka. Chubb. 

"Chubb?" Savannah asked.

"I was worried he'd been bullied as a child," I confessed.

I obviously wasn't well-versed in football but I fluently spoke the language of trash-talk. Douglas's brother, Gary, obviously astounded by my picks, offered some gentle commentary on the group chat until he was shut down by our league commissioner. 

Rarely am I put off by some good-humored banter but, boy, I was not ready for the Fantasy Football platform algorithm to go so relentlessly for the jugular. 

"Amy Armchair QB Xtraordinaire languishes in the depths of despair with a 2-5-0 record, clinging to ninth place like a life raft in a sea of mediocrity."

"A little advice for Amy Armchair QB Xtraordinaire: maybe focus on players who can actually score points instead of those who seem to think they're auditioning for a role in a fantasy football horror movie."

I was quickly ejected from my seventh place seat...the gravity of my choices pulling me down. 

Concerned (about me embarrassing the good Mosiman name), Brad and Savannah monitored my line-up constantly and provided unsolicited advice. Annoyed by their pity and (understandable) lack of faith in my abilities, I secretly sought the help of seasoned professionals.

Naively, I did not anticipate their relentless review of every update. 

Savannah:  Mom is refusing to set up her football team.

Brad:  She made a few changes about a half hour ago.

Savannah:  She wants to draft Travis. And get rid of Chubb. We can do better.

For the record...I did NOT want to get rid of Chubb but my consultants were adamant that some adjustments were necessary for my survival. 

So, in spite of my best efforts, my secret was out as my family questioned my making key moves during school hours. Poor Tyler had to miss church for weeks because he didn't want to have to lie in the House of the Lord after Brad threatened that he was going to ask Tyler if he was helping me. Little did my husband know that my other benefactor, Aaron, a three-time Fantasy Football grand champion, was sitting unobtrusively in front of us this Sunday morning, safe from lightning strikes or a hail storm of brimstone and fire, because he was safely off my Brad's hunting radar. 

This has been much too stressful.

At this point, I'd call 5th place a win. And a miracle.

"Not last" would be a blessing.

Not included next year would be the dream.

Please hold the line...your call will be ignored in the order it was received

 Worry always lurks, like an unblinking black spider, in the cob-webbed recesses of my mind. I am always conscious of it but can ignore its presence on occasion. And that's when Guilt, also ever-present, unsheathes its claws, catching me when I've ventured too far from the safety of my den.

I was having dinner with my friends, Allison and Katriel, before we were to attend a performance showcasing the talents of our acting buddy, Spencer. My cell phone alarm, reminding me to call my mother, went off at its usual time:  6 pm. I ignored it because I was in the middle of ordering creme brulee. As three spoons did battle, spearing one another to attain territorial control over the dessert, we could hear, as though from across a vast field, my name being called. "Amy Mosiman! Amy Mosiman!" 

Scanning the restaurant in confusion, our attention finally landed on my phone, housing the incessant shouting of my daughter, Sydney. She'd apparently been privy to our conversation of the last ten minutes until she finally demanded to be included in our social circle. To the best I can figure, when I had hit ignore on the alarm, it must have coincided with Sydney's incoming call. We were delighted for Sydney to join us. The girls demanded  that Sydney verify my story of killing my Kindle and my daughter did not disappoint...launching into a blow-by-blow description of how I tried to exorcise the demons from the device.

It was now nearly a half hour since I had ignored my mother.

Stepping out of the restaurant into the rain, I called her. The phone rang seven times. 

I always count the rings.

Finally, there was a clunky rattle like the phone had been knocked off the table.

The phone had been pulled off the table by its cord.

My heart sank as I could hear my mother crying.

For the record, I cry when my mother cries.

"Mom? Are you okay?"

"No," she gasped, "I fell."

How long had she laid there, alone, scared, helpless...while I ignored her and enjoyed my creme brulee?

Katriel and then, later, my husband, would argue that she very well could've fallen AFTER 6 and, if I had called her as scheduled, she would not have been discovered until bed-check.

But we'll never know, will we?

Those claws are sharp. And dig deep.

I told my mother that I needed to hang up to call the front desk but she begged me not to go. "I'm scared," she cried. I assured her that I would call her back. That help would be coming immediately. And that I loved her.

And I hung up on my mother.

I returned, shaken, to my table.

Allison and Katriel were ready to bound into action but I wanted to wait for word.

Word came.

It had been decided, that, since she was mobile, to wait until the morning to take her for medical treatment.

I hung up and sat there quietly, the spider in my mind, spinning frantically.

Allsion and Katriel had already gathered up our things and swept me up with them, out the door.

In the darkness, on the drive, I cried, most of the way to my mother's.

Katriel quietly pointed out what a blessing it was that we were only 25 minutes away rather than my usual hour and a half.

We arrived to my mother, curled up, lost in my Dad's big chair, groaning. 

We inspected the damage:  Bruised wrist, elbow, and hip.

"We need ice," I said, Katriel immediately disappearing to retrieve some. I made my mom some tea. Hugged her. Held her hands.

We applied the ice compress and sat quietly with my mom. My friend Cathy had made me some cookies that day and I watched as my mom nibbled at one...hating myself for ignoring my mother.

Katriel wondered about the ice on the hour and a half ride home in the dark.

"The facility will not administer ice or pain reliever without a doctor's consent," I told her...fully understanding her shock and confusion at this news. At our elementary school, ice is administered for slivers, sinus infections, and slips of the truth. In our world, ice makes everything better. Had Katriel and I not driven up...my mother, curled up in a little ball in Dad's chair...would have been alone...feeling helpless, embarrassed, frustrated, confused and in pain. This is not a criticism of Mom's facility. I am indebted to many of the staff members who care for my mother. It is an indictment of the healthcare system of America...that leaves its most vulnerable citizens without respect, dignity, or the care they need. 

And do I need to remind you...I ignored my mother. 

As I drove, away from my mother (gasping as the claws dug in again), I was grateful for my friends who knew, immediately, that nothing upstages my mother. Grateful for Spencer, who hurried to my classroom the next morning to ask how Mom was. I thanked God that Mom's injuries were not catastrophic. 

I didn't sleep that night...mind spinning...pulling claws out of my gut. 

I vowed that I would do better.

And then cried...because it would never be enough.

I'm sorry, Mom.