Throwing in the Towel

Today, after six years of sobriety I almost had a drink because my daughter wouldn't fold the towels in her bathroom the way I wanted her to. I was trying to show her the way everybody with good taste should fold their towels when she told me she didn't want them that way. What??? So I told her to shut up and then she told me to shut up and then I told her no, you shut up and then I yelled at her for not cleaning the litter box and she said she didn't know how and I said that was ridiculous because I had shown her a million times and then I decided I needed vodka. I told my husband I wanted to go to an AA meeting but when I got in the car I seriously debated going to a bar instead. But, I had sweat pants on and I didn't want to go to a bar because I never drank in bars so I decided to go to the meeting and then if I still wanted a drink I would get a bottle on the way home. Good choice. When I arrived at the meeting Veronica* asked me if I would give her a cake for 27 years sober. It made me feel better, but I still thought I was pretty justified in my desire to drink. I was imaging the conversation my friends would have tomorrow:

Karen: Did you hear DeAnne was drinking again?

Peggy: Oh no, what happened?

Karen: Sofie wouldn't fold the towels the way she wanted her to.

Other Karen (with Tennessee accent): Well, can you blame her?

Then they would all shake their heads and feel sorry for me that I have to put up with such insubordination in my own home. About that time I was awakened from my day dream as someone began to share about just getting out of rehab and having to use a walker for a month while she detoxed and that she couldn't hold her head still to wash her hair. She had been sober nine years before she went out. Went out is the term we drunks use to describe drinking again. I started to think that maybe Sofie wasn't so horrible and that it would be pretty unglamorous to begin drinking again over towels. The truth is Sofie wants to do things her own way now and it pisses me off. Teenage girls are difficult, sober Mom's entering menopause are difficult, but not as difficult as drinking Mom's entering menopause. So no vodka for me.

It was so easy to parent my son. If I had told him to fold the towels a certain way he would have said, "What towels?" Exactly. Just the way I like it. He never yelled back at me and he always did what I said. I can't believe I wasted all my drinking years while parenting him. He was so easy. Wait, maybe he was easy because I was drinking.....shit now I am confused.

Alcoholic or not parenting a teen age girl seems to be about knowing when to give up control. She is a good kid and I guess if she wants to live with poorly folded towels that should be her choice. Perhaps someday when she is an adult on her own she will call me and say," Mom you were right! Your method is a much better way to fold towels!" Or maybe not. But, I might sneak into her house and refold every towel in every bathroom and even the ones in her kitchen. Ha! that'll show her.

*Not her real name.**

** Yes it is.

A Very Scary Halloween

Halloween in our new neighborhood is fabulous. We live on a dark hill, so we only had one trick or treater. Compared to the 2,000 or so that demanded candy or "else" from us in Toluca Lake, it is a most welcome change. The other good part is, a few blocks away there is a street blocked off to traffic where everyone who is anyone trick or treats. Sofie decided she wanted to go back to the Toluca Lake madness for the night, so we sent her off in her borderline slutty Red Queen costume to join her old friends. Don and I took the cutest witch in the world down to the big Halloween street for some free stuff. Addie was a little shy at first, but when I told her we would go home and not get candy if she didn't say thank you, she suddenly became the Chinese embassador to the U.N. She asked if they had Halloween in China, and when we told her no she chalked that up to one more in the plus column for the US. It was such a great time. I felt like I was really a part of a neighborhood. It felt safe, wholesome, fun and I was proud we brought Addie here and that she was an American citizen. Then something really scary happened. It was in a front yard about half way down the street, semi-hidden in the light. I couldn't make it out at first. It was a sign with some words on it... and then it came into focus: TAKE OUR COUNTRY BACK 2010. Usually a sign like that would make me angry, or I would ignore it, but then I actually started to cry. Take our country back from whom? Me? Others who believe like me? Anyone who doesn't believe like you? Does that mean when you get it back, and you probably will make great strides in that direction today, it isn't mine anymore? You see, even when people were in control of our government that I didn't agree with, in fact loathed and dispised, I never though it wasn't my country, I didn't assume it belonged to those in power. I thought that through the democratic process those people had been elected and were doing their jobs to the best of their ability, even if I thought they sucked. So stop it, please. I am so tired of this divisiveness, of this hate and fear and name calling. This country belongs to all of us and if we can't find a way to work together we do not deserve to live here. I do think this is the greatest country in the world. When our plane touched down on the tarmac at LAX from China, Addie instantly became an American citizen. I'm proud of that. I was not so happy that George Bush was president at the time and it's his signature on the citizenship papers, but nevertheless, it doesn't matter who signed the papers, the outcome is the same. Get it?

So, I am off to vote now. Yes, I still get to vote and I will even still be able to vote if you GET YOUR COUNTRY BACK. Because that is how we do it here. Now let's try to play nice with each other no matter what the outcome. o.k? If not, I may have to take my family and move to China.