Also, my in-laws had computer trouble last Sunday and everyone knows that whenever you mix technology and anyone old enough to have watched The Lawrence Welk Show hilarity ensues. And hilarity = recovery.

So there we were, my husband and I, minding our own business in our kitchen when his mother called from the RV park in Arizona where they are spending the winter. They were having computer problems and happened to sense that 750 miles away, their oldest son’s defenses were low enough to reel him into another rousing session of Let’s Buy Gadgets That Require Technical Savvy And Then Make Our Son Spend Several Hundred Hours Explaining Them To Us Over A Bad Connection.

My in-laws. The ones who think that Vista is a desktop background. My in-laws who spent six months figuring out how to switch their Garmin back to English after my husband programmed it in Russian as a joke. My in-laws, who still haven’t figured out that hitting ctl-alt-dlt twice does not result in one’s computer playing the Windows theme song. 

These are the people who were marooned somewhere in the southwestern desert in an RV and no internet and boy was my mother-in-law hopping mad over it. Especially since the only person in Arizona willing to dodge her fists long enough to help was my father-in-law and his solution to every computer-related problem from networking to gum in the keyboard is ” needs more RAM”.

Anyway, so my mother-in-law and my husband were on the phone for several minutes when it was discovered that my mother-in-law had deleted the firewall.

My husband immediately leaned on our kitchen counter and rubbed a spot between his eyes that only gets rubbed like that when Jehovah’s Witnesses are at the door or his patience is being taxed by unhousebroken animals.

It took about fifteen minutes to determine that his mother had turned her computer on and, when she failed to get the internet, began deleting items that didn’t “sound” critical to the operation of the machine. In between her exasperated outbursts about the “stupid, stupid computer being utterly retarded” my father-in-law wrestled the phone away to assure my husband that everything was under control - he would simply install more RAM.

Meanwhile I played the part of supportive spouse by keeping close and not laughing too loud as my husband struggled to convince his mother to stop fiddling with the control panel and call tech support already.

After half an hour I left to go visit my grandmother. Later that day, as I plopped into the car to make the drive home from Modesto, I received the following text from my husband:

My mom just called me again, apparently she tried to re-install Norton rather than just disable the firewall. She got some installation error & now has no idea what to do, but I did hear my dad in the background suggesting they need more RAM.

You’re cruising through life – a normal life - in which the Law of Average prevails to preclude both Uninvited Death & Dismemberment in addition to its equally extreme but polar opposite sister Daily Throes of Ecstasy.

So there you are, in your average life doing various “things”: the help-the-kids-with-homework thing, the make-dinner thing, carpool-in-the-mornings thing, the PTA thing, the send-out-Christmas-cards thing in addition to other equally mundane things. You’re getting “it” done. No grocery list or committee assignment stands a chance once it’s on your to-do list. You’ve got this normal life thing down.

…and it makes you want to run screaming to San Francisco International where you can find a one-way flight to Phnom Penh.

Except that you can’t, you see, because you have a husband and kids. And even though the husband likes to pull the covers over your head after he farts and the kids have this annoying habit of shedding trails of clothing coated in gunk that looks suspiciously like the Godiva chocolate you purchased last week, you love them.

Also, it doesn’t hurt that your mom dumped you when you were a teenager and that abandonment spurred you to swear up, down and sideways that You Would Never Do That To Your Own Children Even When Your Own Children Do Their Level Best To Make You Crazy.

Has this ever happened to you?

Have you ever been grateful for the fact that you are able to stay home with your kids and enjoy full-time motherhood while simultaneously wondering why you didn’t run like hell from these little humans that want, want, want? Have you ever wondered Just why did we sell the big house and buy the much smaller house again? and then realized Oh yeah. Because I was the one who was adamant that our children would have a stay-at-home parent. And then you call the nice lady at the pharmacy and have your prescription for Zoloft refilled. And inquire about any extra Vicodin that might happen to be lying around.  

 Anyone? Has this happened to you?

Has anyone ever wondered why having kids seems like a relatively good idea until you are faced with the cold, hard fact that your progeny are congenitally incapable of understanding that Mommy has heard their pleas for McDonald’s and yes she would very much like to see them chomping away on Happy Meals but it’s going to be a few minutes because she has just spent the last couple of hours crying in the fetal position on the floor and, well, she needs to pull herself together. And yes, she realizes that you are eight and three-years-old so you don’t really care about her problems, but the nice lady who takes your order might be provoked into calling child protective services if Mommy shows her face in public while looking like she’s a half-tank of gas away from leaping off the Golden Gate Bridge.

Has anyone ever felt the immense guilt of looking at their lives and acknowledging on a purely logical level that their life is good, terrific even? That their needs are met? That they want for nothing? Except a little freedom? And to have their existence acknowledged? And maybe throw in a box of Godiva chocolates since their kids ate the other box while hiding in the pantry?

Has anyone ever received a call from their brother just as he is boarding a plane bound for Japan and secretly thought, Why did you have to call me right now? With this? You do realize that I would love nothing more than to get out of this country for a while, right? And that I can’t even find the time or cash to get out of Elk Grove?

Has anyone ever developed an interest in off-the-wall stuff just to shake things up? To see the world from a perspective that isn’t so damned mundane? I can’t be the only one who’s gone back to school and taken up dangerous hobbies to stave off the soul-crushing effects of ”normal”.

Anyone? Bueller?

Alright. Time to get off the computer and shake this funk. Or run away to Thailand. I haven’t decided yet.

Since I live in the non-Tahoe part of California I’ve never experienced a “white Christmas” which, thanks be to God, the holy spirit and little baby Jesus for the small favor of having been allowed to be born in an area where a light patina of frost constitutes a “hard winter” because honestly? I’ve been known to convulse in the presence of weather colder than 58 degrees.

Still, a non-snowy-definitely-above-58-degree-California-Christmas does have its drawbacks. Like the fact that I can’t get through a single holiday meal without having to hear overly liberal family members argue that Bush bakes his bread with the blood of Katrina refugees in between congratulating themselves on being so open minded.

This is why the holidays always find me staring at the Jell-O salad meaningfully because even though my political opinion basically goes something like, THOU SHALT MIND THINE OWN DAMNED BUSINESS, I find it impossible to shut off the logic center of my brain long enough to engage in conversation with people who really do believe that Obama is going to usher in a puppy-and-rainbow-filled world of universal healthcare and government freebies which is practically guaranteed to make Europe start liking us again. Because, you know, France’s opinion matters.

So I’ve spent the majority of my holidays with my face down in a plate of food and avoiding the urge to stick a fork in someone’s eye while my kids engage in an all-fudge-all-the-time diet and careen off the walls at 175 MPH.

At this point I suppose I should feel lucky that I’m not in prison or a rubber room.

Anyway, onto business. For those of you who were 2008 death pool participants, I plan on announcing the winner on January 1st. At this point I am opening up registration for the 2009 death pool, so if you plan on joining us for next year’s gaggle of grim guessers – and you can withstand the awesome force of my awful aliteration – feel free to e-mail me at elkgroverunner-at-gmail-dot-com to find out how to pay your $5 and submit your lists.

…but also because they never pass up the opportunity to serve up humor on a capitalist platter. Like last night. My father sent Christmas gifts to all of us from Afghanistan which arrived in large wooden trunks sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. My sister Bethany was subsequently enticed to wrap said gifts and present them to us under the tree. For instance, my daughter Sophie starting to unwrap her gift:

…and my daughter wearing the burqa my father sent to her:

The burqa in the intentionally incongruent packaging, just in case you didn’t catch on to my sister’s awesome sense of humor:

My future sister-in-law-even-if-she-and-my-brother-don’t-realize-it-because-I’m-keeping-her-no-matter-what posing in our new burqas. (Also, her blog is here.)

My husband, looking very much like an extra in Charlie Wilson’s War:

My brother posing in my burqa because he’s never been one to be left out:

Merry Christmas!

For the rest of you – who are by now bowing your heads and thanking the good Lord above that you weren’t on my list – here is The Matulich Family Newsletter that I threw into the mix. I’d plead laziness for reprinting the dreadful update here instead of a regular post except that the hundreds of empties on my desk and at my feet tell a different story. Anyway. Here goes:

Well what can I say? 2008 has been most awesome! And fabulous! So super-duper, in fact that I would like to exhaust my supply of superlatives and exclamation points just to convey how this! Was! The! Bestest! Year! Ever! Because that is what one is supposed to do when one sets about to write a “family newsletter”!

Charlie turned 8 this year and entered the 3^rd grade. He has become a real champion speller, which I totally counted on since – duh! – I have a degree in English and everyone knows that grammar and spelling skills are capable of crossing the placental barrier. But you know what I didn’t count on? His precocious nature and nascent verbal skills turning him into a font of useless corporate jargon.

Do you have any idea how disconcerting it is to ask your 8-year-old how his day at school was and receive an answer like, “Dude, mom, my teacher was totally impressed that I’ve made great strides to elaborate in a solution-oriented manner so as to more adequately harness third grade platitudes that aren’t necessarily mission critical.”

“Huh?”

“Well, that’s lunch. Gotta go. Headin’ out for a hit-and-run with Mrs. Woods vis-à-vis the ‘tetherball situation’ on the playground at recess. You know, brainstorm. Develop a new paradigm. Engage in a little out-of-the-box thinking.”

Well at least I still have one normal child in Sophie. Or at least I think she’s normal At 3 years of age she has yet to develop a strong enough grasp of English to convince me otherwise although I’ll conced that she has a worrisome habit of licking windows.

Speaking of Sophie, 2008 has been a banner year for our girl, who has developed quite the fearless streak: she talks readily to strangers (particularly those with candy), jumps off tall objects and will try anything once provided it appears adequately dangerous and will give Kris and I a heart attack.

Side note: my dad has made a habit of pointing at my daughter and saying to me, “See? That’s what you get for jumping out of planes and swimming with sharks.” Then he giggles maniacally.

Anyway, Sophie has learned how to use a toilet, count to twenty and can even distinguish most colors if the color is “red” and I prompt her sixty-seven times. We plan to spend 2009 working on shapes. Specifically shapes that involve hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs. Also, we’re hoping this is the year she finally gets the hang of online poker.

Kris has remained loyal to his years-long endeavor to Stay Indoors And Never Leave The House Again. To this end, my dearly beloved has managed to add roughly 1,600 more hours of programming to our TiVo. Of course, this does not count the episodes of Dr. G that I managed to sneak onto the season pass between Battlestar Galactica and every UFC pay-per-view since the sport was invented.

When my hunka-hunka burnin’ love is not watching nearly-naked men make each other bleed or serenading me from the shower he has been filling in for  his boss, who had a double-lung transplant several months ago

(I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a single lung transplant. I just like to throw in the word “double” because I am horribly insecure and I have a habit of trying too hard to sound smart.)

I guess it’s only fair to include myself in here.

In my constant quest to disprove the theory that really messed up people do, in fact, seem fairly normal until we open our mouths to speak, I have spent 2008 steadily increasing my Zoloft dosage. This is partly because my offspring resemble howler monkeys and partly because I secretly like it when Kris rolls the pills in peanut butter and then holds my mouth closed until I swallow them.

When I’m not pulling carpool duty or helping kids with homework I can be found working out or in school where – just this semester – I received the opportunity to participate in my first embalming.

So yes, the hands that touched this newsletter have been all over dead people.

…and if that doesn’t bother you then you are probably my brother Matthew.

…and since I’m already several doses in to my self-prescribed treatments I feel it only fair to spare you my drunken misspellings and horrible grammar and ply the interweb with photos of my offspring instead.

Like this photo, taken of my son when he ran into the living room yelling himself blue so that I would take a photo of him. Then he started showing off. Then he executed what I can only assume was supposed to be some suave, ninja-like move before falling flat on his back.

Good times. You know what kiddo? The only thing your prom date’s doing to like more than this is are all the photos I took when you were two and couldn’t keep your clothes on.

Had enough of my kids? Too bad. Here’s a photo of my daughter glaring at me as she digests roughly three times her body weight in turkey after Thanksgiving dinner.

She better hope she has my metabolism lest those eating habits drive her to Jenny Craig. Or bulimia.

Here is a Christmas tree. But it’s not my Christmas tree. You want to know how I know? It’s a real tree in real dirt with real pine needles that fall off when you shake it. My tree is some polymer job that never turns brown and requires frequenting dusting.

Also, this Christmas tree is now decorated, packaged and on its way to Afghanistan. Since my dad always took us up to Mokelumne Hill to cut down our own tree when I was a kid I felt it only fair that I make sure he has his own fresh tree over there in the land of goat herders and burqas.

It wouldn’t be Christmas without tamales, and this year kicked ass because this gringa was invited to help make several dozen of these heavenly pork-filled bodies.

Masa, which – after gobs of lard had been added – was most definitely Not Kosher.

One of the many piles of tamales which – after the pork had been added – was even less kosher. Dude, these tamales are so good that someone is most definitely getting deported.

Or at least that’s what I say to myself after the second and sometimes third bottle of wine.

So anyway, I have two kids; a male and a female. Not a breeding pair, thankfully, unless you’re into the linear family tree thing. No, they’re a sibling pair, which is worse sometimes when, like right now, I watch them beating the hell out of each other with a couple of very unstable-looking Lego swords while swinging from the ceiling fan and think, Note to self: swallow the cyanide tablet before these people get the opportunity to pick out your rest home.

So the boy-child is now eight years old and can’t seem to get into much of anything. Thus far we’ve tried basketball, swimming, art, running and I’ve even smeared lard all over him and dangled him over the head of the neighbor’s dogs to see if I could inspire his inner Steve Irwin. Nada. The only thing the boy wants to do is play video games.

Which would be fine but for the addition of the girl-child to the bunch. Since she came along I am finding that boy-child’s video games are interfering with his ability to babysit girl-child while I lock myself in our home office to drink white russians and look up old boyfriends on myspace.

Still, video games are what he likes and since I’m the first one to try earning my mother of the year badge by supporting my offspring’s pursuit of their dreams – which apparently involve ending up pasty white and dateless in some video game tournament – I have decided to sacrifice surfing the net long enough to pick up a few requested titles from our local Toys R Us.

Which brings me to my point: have you seen some of the crap that video game makers are passing off for, like, actual cash these days? For instance, Petz! Hamsterz! which involves watching animated hamsters that are slightly less exciting than real hamsters in between pushing buttons that feed and care for them. And, just in case caring for non-existent hamsters wasn’t enough, there’s other versions too in which you can take care of a cats, dogs and birds.

What the hell are we doing to our kids? What ever happened to the glorious gore and blood-soaked violence of a Duke Nuke’em or Call of Duty? Because I’m going to be pretty pissed if one of these days my son shoots up his school and – when asked by some bubble-headed “investigative reporter” what would make him do such a thing he answers – “The depersonalized nature of modern society left me bereft and incapable of feeling empathy toward my fellow man. Also, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reach the Elite Chew Toy level on Petz! Hamsterz! and that really pissed me off.”

Somehow that’s just not the same as being able to blame the influence of death metal. Or rap. Or some awful first-person shooter game that shows bloodied limbs and entrails and human heads exploding in the wake of a 50-cal round with the type of clarity that only HD can offer.

How am I supposed to blame my childrens’ maladjusted world view on the video game industry if they keep throwing inoffensive tripe such as Petz! Hamsterz! at us?

Now for something completely different…

I was at my local grocery store today buying liquor and other assorted implements of impairment to help smooth the flight to Orlando tomorrow. Not so much for my sake, but for the sake of my fellow passengers who would no doubt prefer a passed out sasquatch to one that rocks nervously in her seat while mumbling about defective jackscrews and fuel vapor explosions.

At any rate, I was being checked out when the kid behind the register asks for my ID. So perplexed was I by this request that I stared at him blankly for a few moments before diving for my wallet while muttering something incomprehensible.

“Come again?” The kid asked.

“Uh… nothing. My english is not so good.” I joked before handing over my ID to prove that I am, in fact, 34 over 21.

“Really? I think you speak English pretty good.”

I gave the kid a half smile and narrowed my eyes. He looked back at me with the kind of bright-eyed innocence that told me that 1) he didn’t catch the joke, and 2) he really thought that English was my second language.

Which reminds me of when I was in college and working at the IHOP on Florin Road (and my readers from Sacramento will read “IHOP on Florin Road” and their eyes will cross because nothing good ever happens after midnight. Or on Florin Road.)

Anyway, after I started working at IHOP on Florin Road it was only a matter of days before it became apparent that many of South Sac’s residents had little regard for a white waitress. Or rather, a white waitress who was blonde, blue-eyed and six feet tall. In fact, so deep ran their disregard for me that many customers derived great joy from plying me with their rather colorful collection of racial slights.

Good times!

The matter was not helped by the fact that my primary advocate was a manager who was a warm and wonderful human being and spoke the king’s English but – being fresh out of Pakistan – had not yet mastered the blighted vernacular of his customer base. This led to frustration when I would try to explain to him why, exactly, a customer’s exclamation of “DIE HONKY BITCH DIE! DIE! DIE!” did not sit particularly well with me.

Another employee and I finally took matters into our own hands.

Aaron was a fellow server who, having noticed my difficulties, devised a plan by which I would be more readily accepted by the community: he made me a nametag that said “Olga” and started telling everyone that I was a Russian immigrant.

Though I concluded the plan was completely retarded I went along with it. It would work something like this: if a customer started giving me the third degree Aaron would sidle up to me, eyebrows raised.

“Her English isn’t bad huh?” My co-worker would then take advantage of the baffled silence to explain my status as a Russian refugee.

The “problem” customers totally bought it. In fact, most of them became downright civil with me.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, so I’m leaving for a funeral director’s conference in Orlando tomorrow and the guy at the grocery store now thinks I’m a lush who speaks English as a second language and while I’m gone I really do think you should check out the best political blog entry I’ve ever read, my brother’s squibbles on the occupational risks of being an archaeologist, and my future sister-in-law’s thoughts on, well, everything*.

* Oh yeah. That little tidbit there will most definitely get me a stern talking-to by my brother, probably right around the time I’ve finished the third screwdriver at the airport tomorrow and have been rendered incapable of speech. You’re welcome Matt.

I find myself grateful for the fact that the chief mourners are so young; anyone more sophisticated would be quick to recognize that I’m playing fast and loose with the term “wake”.

“Mom, what’s Bailey’s and why are you drinking it by the gallon?”

“Shut up kids, we’re in mourning.”

Anyway. I was prepared for the Find-A-Box-Small-Enough-To-Bury-A-Small-Rodent-In Thing, the When-Can-I-Get-Another-Hamster Thing and No-Mom-YOU-Pick-It-Up-Because-My-Eight-Year-Old-Brain-Can’t-Quite-Wrap-Itself-Around-Eating-Brussel-Sprouts-Much-Less-Touching-Dead-Things Thing.

What I was not prepared for, however, was the overwhelming show of grief by my eight-year-old, who has spent much of the last year catering to the needs of what had to have been the most spoiled hamster in the continental U.S.

For a solid hour after discovering her lifeless little carcass my son sobbed inconsolably in my lap. His pajamas were sopping, my sweatshirt was soaked and the bedding – if it were to have been wrung out – could have yielded several gallons more of “wet”. This wasn’t just a polite shedding of a few tears… this was the real deal.

So I did what any self-respecting mother would do: I told him to suck it up and stop crying like some damned pansy.

Ok, I kid. I rubbed his back and hugged him and tried to refrain from saying something stupid like “Dude, it’s just a hamster.” But honestly? It is just a hamster and when we brought the critter home I – like a million parents before me – figured that there would come a day when it would die and my son would be allowed to experience death firsthand in a way that didn’t overwhelm him. Kind of like death with training wheels.

After about an hour, the boy stopped crying quite as much and that’s when I told him I was sorry his hamster had died.

“Don’t say that.”

“Don’t say what?”

“That she’s dead. Don’t say that.”

“But she is dead sweetie. That’s the word we use when we describe what happened to Isabelle.”

“Can’t we say she’s asleep?”

“No because that would be lying. Isabelle is dead.”

This of course touched off another round of sobbing. Was this cruel? I thought about it briefly and decided that it was not. Death was real. Eternal sleep was just a bit of brain-play used to avoid that fact. The hamster is dead and my son is better off for having to cope with that reality. Even if by forcing the issue I have now qualified myself as the meanest mother in the history of humankind.

No problem, let’s go buy you another car. And a helmet.

*****

Honey, I have this vague notion that, I don’t know… maybe I wasn’t cut out to be an admin assistant.

No problem, let’s find a way to get you back into school until you figure out what it is that you are cut out for. Even though I suspect that this is going to be a process that takes, oh, roughly forty-seven years.

*****

Honey, I’d really prefer to quit my job and stay home when the baby is born.

No problem, let’s sell our really big house in the golf course community and buy a smaller one while simultaneously decimating our vacation, golf, clothing and beer budgets. And I promise not to openly weep whenever I gaze at my dust-covered clubs.

*****

Honey, I’d like to train for a marathon.

No problem. Wait, you don’t expect me to run with you, right? No? Ok then, no problem.

*****

Honey, I’d like to go to Savannah with my girlfriends.

No problem.

*****

Honey, I’d like to go to San Diego with my girlfriends.

No problem.

*****

Honey, I’d like to go to Switzerland with my personal trainer, Hans.

What the fuck?

Just kidding.

*****

Honey, this whole “housework” thing is cutting into my “training for a triathlon” thing way too much.

No problem, let’s get a housekeeper.

*****

Honey, I spilled the strawberry flavored oil all over the mattress before I finished wrapping it in plastic.

Again?

*****

Honey? I’ve been thinking… once I’m finished with the funeral service program I’d really like to take on a masters in microbiology.

No problem.

Really?

Why not? You enjoy school and I’ll just kick back and continue to rack up crazy amounts of blow job karma.

Right on, high five!

*****

Happy anniversary you big nerd. Maybe next year I’ll start to lobby congress for the “Being Married To Steph Tax Credit” that you so rightfully deserve.