9-3-01 M 1:07 PM Labor Day

The Phillies are trying to hold off the Mets at the Vet. I’m on the couch watching TV. I typed fifteen minutes on the toilet yesterday. Ho-hum. I don’t remember where I left off, but I know I’m behind. Nica had an asthma attack. He had been up having a water fight with the other kids. His dad hooked him up to an atomizer or vaporizer or something from which he inhaled some medicinal steam. The kid passed out. I was afraid he passed out because he was asphyxiating, but now I guess he was just tired. We left around five. I had told my mom that we were going to her house, but we went to mother-in-law Marilyn’s. I had been looking forward to lying on the couch at my mom’s, working the crossword puzzle, and keeping tabs on UCLA/’Bama and Oregon/Wisconsin. Instead, we went to Marilyn’s where I sat out back on a wood bench beneath the bougainvillea, because the cat dander isn’t as bad out there. My mom had already thought we had snubbed her by letting Marilyn come up to babysit instead of bringing the baby down to Orange County on Friday; then Saturday morning got bungled and figured she’d stress—as had been the theme of the week: women stress over little things meant I had to stress out about them, too. So, I said we needed to take the baby to my mom’s, but when we got there, no one was home, and we were locked out. I called my mom on the cel phone. She said she thought we were meeting at Marilyn’s!? Apparently, the plan had been changed, but no one told me. Whatever. The baby had shit in her diaper. I took it off and cleaned her up and let her crawl around naked on the grass while we waited for my mom and Josh. I needed a nap but didn’t get one. We had to meet Rochelle’s friends at the Orange Circle Street Fair. Weh we were just getting into the car to leave, Lulu jumped into Rochelle’s lap and spilled bloody Mary all over her clothes. Augh.

Bumpass Hell ‘01