Tastes like chicken

"Oh, by the way ... I'm vegan now," the boy said with an air of nonchalance as he glided into the house after school, and made his daily afternoon pilgrimage to the fridge. "Well ... for this week, anyway."

Now, as one of his parents, and the person most likely to procure the majority of his provisions, I had to suss just what he meant by "vegan." 

I wasn't sure if he knew that meant he'd have to eat vegetables. 

"You mean, vegetarian, right? You're still going to eat cheese and pancakes and yogurt."

He shook his head. 

"I'm not eating animal products whatsoever. No meat, no dairy, no eggs, no honey. My honey oat granola? It's dead to me."

This new eating plan seemed ... well ... unwise. Especially since the kid standing before the wide-open icebox couldn't find a single thing to satisfy his mid-afternoon cravings.

"Did you know Oreos are vegan?"

It even took me longer than my usual Don't-Just-Stand-There-With-The Door-Open-Refrigerating-The-Kitchen time window to grasp that there was almost nothing in inventory to satisfy such a dare.

Bread? This one has milk!

Pasta? These have eggs!

These crackers? Have cheese! 

And, by the way, the edible is not inevitable: you can't live on Oreos alone.

Yet, despite my deeply held urge to snark at this dietary whim -- not to mention an ill-advised game of "Is it vegan?" round-robin wherein I actually asked a 12-year-old boy to gauge whether coffee made from beans that traversed the entire digestive tract of the endangered palm civet would get the coveted vegan distinction -- the truth was I wanted to support any effort on his part to eat something found in nature.

Maybe something green would finally pass through his digestive tract, and he would like it.

A part of me was overjoyed that this boy had finally accepted vegetables into his heart, if only for a seven-day challenge issued by The New Church of Experiences Based On a Dare ... more commonly referred to as YouTube.

It was contagious.

The overflow of my exuberance collected into a four-way pact that ensnared the whole family into agreeing to eat nothing but leaves, sticks, and highly processed twigs for the next seven days. 

I won't lie. It was exciting for the first three hours.

Together we planned meals and grocery shopping and meal prep. We read labels and searched the internet and shared in our collective shock and disappointment that some bananas are preserved with a spray made from shrimp and crab shells.

We started with bold choices, even using a freshly harvested stalk of "baby cabbage" as the base veg of our inaugural meal.

The reception roasted Brussels sprouts (without bacon or Parmesan) received ranged from lackluster to gag-inducing depending on who you asked.

You can probably guess who was standing over the trash spitting out the green paste.

Indeed, most of the boy's trial phase of this challenge wound up in the compost.

Carrots were still "gross."

Lettuce? Let's not.

Beans? Scmeans!

Four days the kid lived on plain bagels with peanut butter. 

During those same four days, the rest of us ate our bleak kale salads as we lusted after cheese and eggs and meat. Each day asking the boy at meal-timed intervals if we were still vegan?

And on the fifth day, we rested:

"I'm no longer vegan! He announced as he slid into my car on that delightfully snowy afternoon. It was the cafeteria chicken that turned me." 

Rabbit holes

I'm going to start.

Any minute now.

The words will come to me. They always do. The first few might be tricky. But they won't seem like an illusion for long.

To be honest, the blank page never worries me.

Something insistent will poke its head out of the tinnier of my thoughts. Soon other ideas will follow and fall in line. 

But first, let me check my email.

And then, Twitter.

Back to email.

I'm just looking for ideas to refresh.

I can't tell you how much time I've saved myself by deleting Facebook from my phone.

Whole minutes at my disposal.

This phenomenon is what some folks call falling down a rabbit hole.

That meme from four days ago has multiplied. I'll click on one, and a Jacob's ladder of related but rubbishy replicas will fall out.

I will read a few, but then I will manage to resist getting down to the lowest rung.

For now.

Right now, I have work to do. And I'll get there eventually. Until then, I'll just take one more quick tour of the old inbox.

A few emails from known retailers circle its edge. Brushing past them, I click open one from a human I know. That's it — just one.

I scroll through the folder until "yesterday" replaces the date in my timeline.

Did I look in junk mail? Most of my human, non-spammy stuff gets filtered there. Not sure how to fix it without continually swimming against an overwhelming tide.

Better hit the circle arrow to update. Watching new, bold letters flow into the column is exciting.

The excitement rarely lasts longer than a moment. Nothing warrants another automatic refresh ... but I press again just in case. 

Like pushing an already lit elevator button. The physical manifestation of a psychological impatience.

Back on the blank page, I circle my index finger over some keys. I put a few words down and backspace until they disappear.

I won't fret this stutter step, I'm not afraid of commitment. Not yet, anyway. 

Copy and Paste are my friends. 

Oh, look ... a cat video.

Maybe I'll just watch a little of it before I swim back over to the impeachment hearings. 

I want to check and see if anyone has replied to my 140-character astonishment. But that would stop the audio.

I wish it could listen to one thing and scroll to another. But my phone is not as amazing at walking and chewing gum as I'd been lead to imagine.

Another news item provides color from the Nation's Capitol … its bar scene, where DC sports fans are hunkering down with C-SPAN and a libation: a Subpoena Colatta perhaps? 

"Focus!" I shout as I stand up and roll my head ... first to the right, then to the left. I am ignoring the tiny clicks that accompany my joints through the rotation. I jump up and down, extending my arms and legs, hoping to wake up and snap out of this daze.

"Rabbit named Hocus. Rhymes with Pocus. Makes entire days disappear."

"I didn't catch that," replies my proprietary pocket assistant. Would you like me to search the internet?"

Worth the wait

I'm at the end of a line of cars when my cellphone dings.

I don't even have to look at the screen to know what it says:

"Are you here yet?"

I try to quiet my seething irritability that she's not already outside at the ready, though I know from experience that she wouldn't be.

I wait until my rattletrap station wagon comes to a complete stop before I answer in the affirmative. Then I take deep, cleansing breaths as the minutes tick past without sight of her. When she strolls into view, I fear I will start to hyperventilate.

She seems to be moving toward the car by a magnetic force as she looks in every direction but mine.

I wonder if I roll forward will she end up at the car behind me?

Inhale.

Exhale.

Let go of vengeful thoughts.

Inhale.

Exhale.

The car door opens and then slams shut. The girl buckles up. She slumps in the passenger seat as she pushes her backpack to the floor. 

She turns her head away from the line of cars jockeying to be next in line and keeps her gaze trained on my shoulder blade.

I think about asking her if not being seen is the same as not seeing?

"Just go."

The meter is running. Switched to its ON position with the teen's simultaneous commandeering of the FM airwaves.

She has a schedule, a part-time job, and a life that, as her mother, I couldn't possibly understand. Though, currently, she also needs me to connect these particular dots, beginning at 2:19 every other weekday afternoon. She, in turn, must pony up something in the way of compensation.

"Thanks."

A kind word can be quite costly.

"Can we go now?"

Of course, she'd expect change.

Self-sacrifice is personal like that. We can't expect adoration for acts volunteered like weed flowers. 

It's not as if I expect undying praise for selecting only the Laffy Taffy out of the leftover Halloween candy basket and leaving the Baby Ruths and Snickers bars isn't the kind of selflessness that registers.

Nor does a parental shuttle service.

It would be nice to feel like I know where we're headed.

Not that I'm not glad to do it.

Although "glad" isn't the right word.

My happiness doesn't figure into this equation. It can't even be counted among the commodities on this index. This phase in my existence is measured in hopes, anxiety ... 

And, increasingly, anger.

Which exists in much the same way that a pothole exists at mile two of this now routine afternoon commute. It's easier on everyone if I can manage to avoid this particular crater, but a mid-ride jolt isn't likely to end in calamity.

Unless politics are involved.

Or parental advice.

Or any manner of momentary glances that's intention could be misinterpreted.

I don't know why we're always on edge. Maybe it's familiarity breeding contempt. Or the comfort of safety and the lack of concern for appearances. 

I don't take it personally.

Especially since I know the day will come – not long from now – when the idea of needing her mother to give her a ride will be as horrifying as noticing a streamer of toilet paper on one's shoe.

I also don't take it personally because such affronts as fleeting as childhood.

"Let's go. I'm gonna be late."

"Ok … then. Where to?"

"Map says "Old Town Road."

"Where 'I'm going to ride 'till I can't no more'."

The laughter at that moment as we traded song lyrics line for line turned out to be worth the wait.

Lightening the load

It wasn't a made for Instagram kind of moment.

A child of mine had asked me to "clean up a little" because some friends were coming over.

Evidently, she didn't want them to see how we lived.

I knew a time would come when my teacup humans no longer fit into their dainty saucers. I knew their spiral from cheeky child to tenterhooks teen could be jarring. I imagined that while they might still extend a finger as they converse with me over tea, it would not always be the pinky.

I was ready.

Or so I thought.

At least I knew when that time arrived; I could blame hormones.

I also thought, mistakenly, as it turns out, that by the time we put away those mountains of childish things with their tiny, primary-colored parts, a different sort of order would settle over the house.

A neutral-colored peace and quiet.

But now that my kids are starting to mature into their super-sized selves, I am beginning to understand that they will be leaving those earth-toned oversized mugs - along with their food wrappers and the adult-sized clothes they wore from 3:30 to 5:30 as they hung out in the living room waiting for a friend to Snapchat or whatnot - everywhere.

Mountains and mountains of adult-sized stuff.

And none of it where it should be.

"Why is there a plate on the toilet?"

"Is there a reason we are carpeting the floor with blankets?"

"Oh my god, what is that smell?"

"I didn't think it was possible to use every pot in the kitchen to make two servings of macaroni and cheese."

At the risk of my sanity, I have stopped cleaning up after people directly, but to protect my voice, I have begun to harangue them using only clipped sentences.

Points to candy wrappers all over the couch:

"Garbage can."

Sees kid dragging a week's worth of laundry down to the washing machine at 9:30 on a Sunday night then retreats to a darkened lair.

*walks detergent up to aforementioned lair*

"Missed a step."

*Picks up barely worn sweatshirt from the floor using thumb and forefinger*

"Put. This. Away. ..."

"And not in the laundry hamper. ..."

"The stink of detergent hasn't even worn off."

Silence.

I might as well be standing there holding the white, fluffy hooded flag of surrender.

The shirt will go away. It will drape on a chair for a while until it appears again, in the same unsoiled state but hidden in a full load of rumpled, half-clean clothes.

My only recourse seemed to be to lighten my own load: offsetting the planet-killing water-wasting ways of my can't-be-seen wearing-the-same-clothes-twice teens by refolding their try-em-ons myself and secretly putting them away unwashed.

That and buying two merino wool shirts to wear unashamedly like daily, natural antibacterial skin (or so the marketing has convinced me) in protest.

Laundering, as the directions instruct, only when soiled.

Of course, teens think this is the height of grossness.

"You'll thank me when the sheep of Instagram save the planet."

Until then, the place is going to be a mess. Advise your friends accordingly.