Suburban Kamikaze

The war on Christmas begins in the living room

from the archives: War on Christmas brought to successful end

Traveling, unraveling: A Christmas Sweater update

The sweaters known as "Roadkill" and "First Class" are making their way south by air, as seen on the GPS-style tracking map below. Still no word on the Sweaters to Be Named Later.

The Executive, seen below admiring the sweater she has pledged to wear in first class, among other fashionable places, has not yet submitted her entry. There are rumors that Team Executive sought the time extension as a ploy to force Team Kamikaze to wear their sweaters out-of-season, in the mistaken belief that there is even such a thing in the Midwest, where the Christmas sweater is a year-round wardrobe staple.

 

Teen Executive, seen below wearing the sweater known as "Roadkill" and demonstrating the unshakeably blasé teen composure that could put her team over the top.

Follow the thread: The Christmas Sweater Throwdown, Part 1

The No-Limit, How Low Can We Go Christmas Sweater Throwdown: Holiday magic and a miracle of bad taste

When the Executive and her teenage daughter claimed they had the jingle balls to wear holiday-themed sweaters in places where they would actually be seen, the girl and I dropped everything to rise to the challenge.   

We would find the most appalling holiday sweaters the Midwest could produce; social suicide in a cable knit.

When it comes to public displays of foolishness, we run in pretty competitive circles. We aren't even 5 minutes into the throwdown when the Executive and her daughter start in on the trash talk.

"I will wear my Christmas sweater in first class," brags the frequent-flying Executive.

Her daughter, a 15-year-old with ordinarily impeccable fashion sense, claims she will wear our sweater to a Justin Bieber concert. How my daughter's eyes lit up at the thought of that!    

And so, it was on. The 2011 No-Limit, How Low Can We Go Christmas Sweater Throwdown. As it has developed so far, the rules go something like this:

1.  An exchange of sweaters shall take place between two mother-daughter teams. Team Kamikaze selects the sweaters to be worn by Team Executive and vice versa.

2. Points are awarded to team members for skill in procuring the most appalling sweater possible and for risking the greatest amount of social currency in wearing such a sweater in public.

3. We will post the pictures as we go and you, our devoted reader, can award points in the comment section. Or stars if you prefer. Whatever. Create your own system, but be sure to use decimals because that makes the judging seem more professional.  

I won't lie to you. We like our chances. Because we didn't take any. We started at Goodwill. And went downhill from there.

Girl Kamikaze's creation is just about the cruelest thing I have ever seen. She is in her third year of middle school, which is pretty much like having a Ph.D. in Social Cruelty. If she had a little more time, I am pretty sure this sweater would have a Christmas tree attached somewhere. Girl Executive may be the first teenager in Justin Bieber concert history praying that he will not notice her.   

My vision for the Executive is, by comparison, a fairly restrained little number. I can see her wearing it as she settles back into her extra wide seat among the better class of people, jingling with entitlement as she reaches for her cocktail, sending out gleaming arrows of reflected light upon the faces of the rabble as they make their way back to steerage...   

Team Kamikaze: Please. We are going to own this. 

Coming soon: A Christmas sweater throwdown so appalling you will want to pluck out your eyes...

Warmest Holiday Wishes to Our Non-Werewolf Friends

Dearest Friends and Family, 

What a year it has been! I hardly know where to begin except to warn you that there is no way I am going to be able to stick to my exclamation point limit this year!!!  

As many of you know, we finally took the plunge and became one of those ultra-chic, extravagantly beautiful vampire families this year. We'd been mulling it over for so long, it seemed like all the cool people were doing it - and so, well, here we are, glimmering, immortal and on our way to becoming obscenely rich just in time for the collapse of the newspaper industry!

And don't hate me, but it's true what they say about the undead: there is no such thing as a bad hair day.  

In hindsight, we probably should have spent a little more time considering whether the teen years were the best ages in which to preserve the children for all eternity. There is really nothing good that can be said of the combination of teenagers and a superhuman sense of smell.  And that pile of debris under my couch? Not something you really want to experience with heightened vision.

The good news is that I am pretty sure we have located the elusive Higgs Boson particle everyone has been looking for. The bad news is that it is covered covered in lint, salsa and a collection of abandoned socks no one outside of a haz-mat suit should ever have to touch.  

On a brighter note, I can't believe how much time I have now that I am no longer expected to handle the feeding habits of two impossible-to-please human teenagers!

In just the amount of time we used to spend arguing over milk, I have managed to create a young-adult series, a screenplay and a fragrance line: Whatever. (Look for it in the dairy section of your local grocer next year. Or possibly the year after that. It's not like I have a deadline.)

My point is, immortality is everything they said it would be: pale, cold and everlasting. Just like winter in Chicago!!  And you wouldn't believe our abs!! 

It goes without saying that we have no intention of letting our death-defying fabulousness come between us and any of our warm-blooded friends. Our love and and best wishes go out to each and every one of you this holiday season, with the exception of those of you who have gone werewolf. In that case we are, sadly, contractually bound to commit ourselves to your destruction, though we can, on occasion join together out of our mutual interest in reining in the teenagers.

Cheers,

The Kamikaze Family 

Would it kill them to smile once a year?

archives of holiday letters past: 2010, 2009, 2008

If there is one thing we can all agree on during this holiday season, it is that Ryan deserves a puppy

The South Side girl stops by to share with me one of those holiday dilemmas in which an adorable 9-year-old boy drafts a plea to Santa, or possibly "mom," for some over the top Christmas wish that seems completely impossible - but for which the child has made a rock-solid, irrefutable case.

The South Side family already owns approximately 700 pounds of dog and has a work-sports-volunteer schedule that would destroy one of those whiny slacker families on the North Side, but one glance at the boy's letter tells me she has no grounds for appeal.

"He's got you," I tell her. "If you don't buy him a non-poodle puppy, I will be forced to publish his letter and people will send you puppies from across the world." 

It's not that I don't recognize the sheer absurdity of adding a dog to a home that the equivalent of five or six dogs already calls his own. But you can't argue with the logic of the argument that a boy needs to own a dog "from the beginning" and not just the middle and the end.  And it definitely should not be a poodle.

Also, I am inclined to believe him about those test questions if only because so many questions make no sense. If Ryan doesn't deserve a puppy, who does? And why would anyone own a small, angry dog with puffy hair?  Case closed.

Oh snap! And other inspired Christmas ideas for teens

How many times have you heard the story of the clueless parents who spend a fortune on the latest in battery-operated colored plastic for their toddlers only to find them happily playing with the packaging?

Here is a little known fact that Steve Jobs spent his entire career attempting to cover up: Teenagers do not think all that different.   

They might write "MacBook Air" in their letter to Santa - but leave a handful of 50-cent mousetraps around the house and they will occupy themselves for hours, studying the mechanism, putting an endless array of household objects to the test and trying out hundreds of ways of getting their siblings to accidentally snap their fingers or toes. Trust me, we have been wasting our breath all week repeating "please stop playing with the moustraps."  Also "what the hell happened to all the moustraps?"

And I am talking about actual mousetraps.  Not an iPhone app.  

And suddenly it all makes sense. These are the same children who spend hours swatting virtual flies on their iPods where they experience but a shallow approximation of the satisfaction that comes from real-life pest control. Can you imagine how delighted they will be to find an actual flyswatter under the Christmas tree? 

You're welcome. -SK

from the gift giving archives: Christmas shopping is easy, non-toxic

Wassailing: 2011

Having been outvoted on my tree preference (1. None. 2. Small, potted and tropical),  my choice of restaurant (1. Tapas 2. Anything but fast food) and having never been given any say at all as to family style (1. Well-mannered, tapas-eating and tropical 2. Potted),  I resign myself to the Season of Compromise and Vacuuming.

On the other hand, it is the first time in a decade that I manage to get the entire Kamikaze family in one place for a holiday photo.  And all of them smiling. Laughing even. Then slowly pulling away, leaving me standing in the drive-through lane with my camera and my holiday photo fantasies. Funny.      

from the archives of Christmas past: Happy Holidays from our Dysfunctiona! Family to Yours

Your cardigan says Merry Christmas, but your pedicure says Ho, ho, ho

The 12 Arguments of Christmas 

The Underachiever's Guide to Thanksgiving

In which we continue our quest for the perfect olive no-fuss Thanksgiving dinner and are outvoted by our family members. Just like every year...

But that doesn't mean it won't work for you! Here is a collection of the unbelievably useless savvy advice we have accumulated as the result of painstaking trial and error. By which I mean, potato fights. Which, at a certain point, become enshrined as tradition. Which is exactly what is wrong with tradition in the first place, if you think about it. Not to mention marshmallow-topped vegetables.

That is 24 kinds of wrong, but no one seems to have the power to stop them.

My point is, if Thanksgiving means anything at all, it means that we must never, ever stop trying to substitute vegetarian tapas. Or possibly just an olive bar.

So here, free of charge, is a selection of inspirational Thanksgiving ideas from all of us at Suburban Kamikaze.

You're welcome.

Inspirational Thanksgiving Ideas:

The Hot Air Turkey

Survive a Midwestern Thanksgiving

Make Your Children Appreciate You

Or not.

Get a Man to Do the Dishes

Compromise

Because somebody has to set an example for the children

Photo: Amy Winehouse, suburban housewife 

Happy Father's Day, unless it was yesterday, in which case Happy Belated Father's Day

We are pretty sure it is Father's Day, but no one has remembered to check.

It was not the kind of thing I should have delegated to teenagers probably.

Still, Mr. Kamikaze is not my father, so there's no reason for me to to feel bad about him spending the morning repairing my computer. Midmorning has him out in the driveway adjusting the basketball hoop for the girl and by late morning he is re-mowing the lawn to take back the swath of property that Boy, Esq. has been ceding to the neighbors a few inches at a time in a plot to shrink the backyard.

But today is Father's Day, possibly, and so we are here to pay tribute to Mr. Kamikaze as the sovereign of a small, volatile and highly demanding kingdom in the Midwestern suburbs. But first, the upstairs air conditioner is on the fritz and he will have to take a look.

We are a high-maintenance family, it's true. But would he have it any other way? We prefer to think not.

That does not mean his day will go unacknowledged. As part of a longstanding tradition, I offer to make one of his favorite meals, which I will reinterpret as a vegetarian dish, or tapas, or possibly by substituting wine and olives for all of the ingredients on whichever one of his mother's tattered old recipe cards he has pulled out in a rare outburst of hope.

You can hardly read them anymore. It looks like it says "spare ribs" but it could be tahini.

April Fool's Day fun with teenagers

Replace acne cream with furniture polish.

Pretend to have just discovered a $20 bill in the laundry you asked them to fold two hours ago. 

Ask, "Who left the pile of dirty dishes and a $5 bill on the counter in the basement?"

Announce that you are raising their allowance by $1 a week for every chore they successfully completed last week. Do the math.

Hide the television remote under the pile of wet towels on the bathroom floor and demand that they pick them up immediately.

Hide their cell phones in plain sight on the kitchen table. Repeat the rule about not eating anywhere except at the kitchen table.

Pretend to have run into a group of their friends at the grocery store. Say, "such nice kids."

Set their alarm clocks for morning.

Download episodes of Schoolhouse Rock onto their iPods.

Create a fake press release announcing the switch to a year-round school schedule.

Change their Facebook status to "Hanging out with my Mom."

Pretend to read from a newspaper story describing a recall of Axe products after it is discovered that the popular line of men's grooming supplies contains a chemical compound that actually repels sexual attraction in teenage girls. 

Leave a fake grocery list out on the counter that includes every variety of Pop-Tart.

Call them from the grocery store and say, "tell me again what kind of Pop-Tarts you like?"

Pretend to have just volunteered to speak to their Health class.

Imply that you have hidden Pop-Tarts in the garage.

License to spill: We indulge our fetish for secret agents and compose Christmas greetings on a cocktail napkin

Dearest Friends and Family:

The palm trees are decorated, the limes and tequila are stocked and glossy color photos of the Bulova diamond sport watch have been taped to the walls. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

It goes without saying that I will be celebrating each and every one of you when we finally crack open the bottle of Key Lime wine we have been saving for the holidays. Key Lime wine is a vintage so searingly awful it can only be tolerated in the company of friends. With the right people, you can actually start to enjoy it. 2010 was a little like that.  Also, Wisconsin.

The ongoing home renovations would have been intolerable if not for the fact that I spent most of them on the beach in South Florida handsome home improvement guy who made every plumbing project into a labor of love.

The exact exchange rate of labor for love, however, is not one I can divulge here without succumbing to home improvement double entendres involving spackle or perhaps joint compound, which I think we can all agree have no place in a Christmas letter.

Speaking of low moments in good company, there were few as masochistically fun as the piety epic Eat, Pray, Love during Margarita Tour 2010's extended Fort Lauderdale run.

If there was a worse movie in 2010, we were lucky enough not to have seen it. And yet, like Key Lime wine, the experience is one we are still savoring, and only partly for the pleasure of talking other people into seeing it and imagining their pain.

Sadly for the four of us who plotted against her, the Suburban Executive's long investigation into pension fund chicanery had pretty much destroyed her faith in human beings and she was able to see through our faux enthusiasm for Julia Roberts' spiritual journey. We are planning to make her watch it over the Christmas break when she and her family will be joining us for an old-fashioned Chicago/Key Lime Christmas with Four Teenagers and Not Enough Liquor in the World. The ham ball will be spectacular.

Speaking of liquor, it was a very good year for Margaritas. Even when our recipe was off, the company was pretty much perfect. I uncovered a secret cabal of Margarita drinking playgroup moms in the suburban Midwest and even my Bud Light drinking sister-in-law learned to love the Cointreau. We had to put it in a can to get her to taste it, but still, we are so proud of her. 

There were other millstones milestones. Though they said it couldn't be done, the crust of dried egg adhering to every surface of the kitchen says otherwise: Boy, Esq. has learned to make scrambled eggs.

It seems like only yesterday he was building a working violin from scratch for a school project while insisting that his sister operate the toaster for him at home.

The girl continues to be a beacon of hope and optimism in an otherwise grimly cynical family. She and her middle school posse can really light up a room. And we have learned our lesson about storing matches where they can reach them.

Cheers!

-SK 

Cast Announcements:

The part of Handsome Home Improvement Guy is being played by James Bond, except that Mr. Kamikaze insists it has to be announced as "Bond, James Bond." Also, he feels compelled to point out that spackle and joint compound are the same thing. Which makes no difference whatsoever in this context. The surly teenager is portrayed by Olympian Michael Phelps. The girl and I, of course, do all our own stunts. 

 

Archive Christmas greetings: Season's Gratings

You know how to make a turkey, don't you Steve?

 

As to rumors that I will spend Halloween sitting on the front steps dressed as Pussy Galore and handing out candy cigarettes to the neighborhood children...

That is ridiculous. It has always been my practice to walk around. I will leave the cigarettes in a bowl outside.

 

Holiday weekend Rorschach

The correct answer is: your hopes and dreams, with barbecue sauce

From the archives: Saturday morning Rorschach

One Peep over the line, sweet Jesus

To everyone who warned that the Easter festivities had grown a little too Peeps intensive in recent years I will say this: Peeps coffee was a mistake, I admit that.  Not as far off the culinary mark as last year's Peeps guacamole, but still.

Yes, the Peeps-eating hula hoop contest got a little out of hand.  But that is to be expected when your guest list includes 15-year-old boys.  Even so, I did not see the food fight coming.

Incidentally, here is a fun fact: A teen-age boy is capable of hurling what is essentially a poultry-shaped marshmallow with enough force to leave a welt. And we let them have jelly beans?

For the record: I was opposed to the burning of the Peeps, but was overruled by fathers, who are under the impression that fire is perfectly safe in the hands of 15-year-old boys, as long as they claim it is an experiment.  Science or vandalism? It is such a fine line.

And what does the MIT class of 2017 conclude? Peeps burn.

By the end of the evening, everyone is pretty much Peeped out. It is inevitable, perhaps, that the vicious, trash-talking, smackdown billiards tournament would come to this:  Losers eat the Peeps.

It is a new low in a game that at our house, has always been a dangerous combination of marital tension and stick handling.

If you think sex, money and children are the fuel of domestic dispute, you have never watched a roomful of men trying to coach their wives through the intricacies of the combination shot. 

Normally Mr. Kamikaze and I are an unstoppable combination. And by unstoppable, I am talking mostly about the bickering.

At his most patronizing, he will refer to the balls by their colors: "Do you think you could manage to hit the shiny yellow ball?"

This is meant to convey that I am not holding up my end.  Translation: He's been missing easy shots all night. 

The stakes are too high and everyone is feeling the sticky, artificially-flavored pressure.

When it is over, we find ourselves holding the Peeps, despite the fact that I manage to sink pretty much the same number of balls as I always do. You can draw your own conclusions about what went wrong. --SK

There will be Peeps

It is not easy being the keeper of tradition in a house full of iconoclasts. 

The first person to complain about my plans for Easter brunch is the carpenter. He and his wife are our restaurant and dining BFFs.  

"Bagels and lox?" he says.  "Are we having Jewish Easter?" he asks.

"I am pretty sure Jesus was a Jew," I say, rolling my eyes. "Do you have any idea how hard it was to find real bagels around here?" 

Mr. Kamikaze is next. He spies the mini Margherita pizzas. "Pizza"? he says.  "We're having Italian Easter?"

"The Romans had something to do with Easter too, you dolt," I remind him. Am I the only one around here who knows anything?

Thankfully, no one says anything about the goat cheese and baguette because I am not exactly sure where the French come in. But I do know this: traditions are important and that is why I go to the trouble year after year of making up entirely new ones. Also, I do not like ham.   

The teen-ager has a suggestion for tweaking tradition.  "I don't really want an Easter basket," he says. "How about just giving me cash instead?" 

"What would Jesus do?" I ask him. He rolls his eyes.

"Fine," he says. "But no Peeps. Nobody eats them."

This is a ridiculous idea. Peeps martinis are an Easter tradition in our house ever since last year, or possibly the year before. How are we supposed to make Peeps martinis without the Peeps?

He has no answer for this. There will be Peeps.

Season's Gratings

Dearest Friends and Family:

Another year has come and gone and we are, as always, counting our pennies blessings in the Kamikaze family.  

These are lofty days for all of us in the Adult Literacy industries. And I am not just talking about the newspaper executives weighing their options from the rooftops! I am talking about the entire publishing world as it continues the exciting transition to fulltime social networking. Some days it seems as if every newspaper and magazine in the country aspires to be as good as Ashton Kutcher's Twitter feed!  As if!!

Meanwhile, Mr. Kamikaze still doesn't even have a Facebook page!

He is such a dinosaur, still wedded to his little pens, notebooks and labor-intensive fact gathering. It's as if he had never even heard of Google! We don't even have the heart to tell him about Arianna Huffington...

Luckily, my forays into the new media world help keep the family on the brink of bankruptcy cutting edge. While not yet as popular as tampon arts and crafts or kittens, as one of the Internet's most popular grammatically correct useful Websites, Suburban Kamikaze is inundated with offers of dental floss and laundry additives. Which, when you think about the enormous amount of laundry produced in this house, is almost like money!

And speaking of laundry, who keeps putting clean towels into the dirty pile? Do you think I have  nothing better to do all day but rewash your f*&%ing laundry? I swear to god I am going to make another empty threat here the children are growing like bougainvillea and continue to astound us with their cost of upkeep accomplishments. 

The boy, who built a working violin from scratch for a middle school project, has only recently learned to make toast at home, but it was a milestone nonetheless.

The girl, on the other hand, has learned to make crepes and creme brulée, but still believes her brother is going to pay her the $5 he promised for "showing him" how to make toast and scrambled eggs.  Four times.

Meanwhile, we continue to adjust to the Midwestern "lifestyle," where the people are so wholesome and uncomplaining that they do not even seem to notice that winter lasts for nine months and the food is terrible. Believe me, if you tried to serve that stuff up at a party in Miami, you would be finding sausages and white bread in the bookshelves for months! (I am just kidding, of course. I had a lovely time.)

Anyway, my point is this:  Nobody is ever going to change the empty roll of toilet paper so you might as well do it yourself.  Your clever little pyramid of empty rolls on the ledge? It could be 15-feet high, but the point is lost on them. Which is the same thing as having no point at all.

Happy Holidays!

The Kamikaze Family Players

Archive of Dysfunctional Holidays Past: 2008

Happy Ho!idays from Our Dysfunctiona! Fami!y to Yours

Christmas 2008

Dear Friends and Family: 

It has certainly been a busy year for the Kamikaze family! I hardly know where to begin, there have been so many high points and achievements!!

Some of them were darn near miraculous really, like the fact that after more than two decades in the business and a boxful of prestigious awards, Mr. Kamikaze has managed to keep his job in the horse and buggy industry - at least through New Year's.

Thankfully, I have been able to supplement the family income with my efforts in the lucrative world of freelance editing, where there are no awards, just the satisfaction that comes from crisp clean punctuation and copy flow! If there is anything more professionally satisfying than excising superfluous unnecessary words I just don't know what it is!

Our children, as always, represented the peak of our achievements in the Kamikaze family.

The girl is growing up so fast, we can hardly keep up with her cosmetic needs!  She has recently developed the cutest little vampire crush, spawned by her obsession with that crazy-popular series of books about the 15-year-old virgin and the 108-year-old vampire in a 17-year-old  boy's body who impregnates her with a baby demon. We don't like to brag, but she seems to be the only 10-year-old in her class reading at this level of maturity.

Her leadership qualities continue to amaze us. She recently organized the neighborhood's first Teen Vampire Fan Club, with a membership contract that is positively Sicilian. "Rule 1. Do not complain to any parents or legal guardian or you will be kicked out..."

What could they possibly have to complain about?  It's adorable really.

Boy, Esq. continues to amaze us with his technological skills. Schoolwork has taken a backseat in recent weeks, but it is hard to quibble over in light of the fact that he recently beat his own high score in the iPod Touch "Bubble Wrap" game, popping over 293 virtual plastic bubbles in the allotted time! We are popping with pride!!! What will those ingenious folks at Apple come up with next? A hand-held game that simulates the swatting of flies? Nope. That's already available - and at no additional cost! I tell you, if this is not the smartest generation of kids since those geniuses who thought up the Apollo mission, I don't know who is!

And speaking of bubbles, we could not be happier in our new Chicago home, despite the fact that it is currently 12 degrees and the 1940's era furnace requires near-constant maintenance. At least it's real estate, worth almost as much as it cost, not counting the renovations, which are coming along at a pace expected to precede the foreclosure sale.

Speaking of sales, from the looks of all the for sale signs popping up, we are living in one "hot" market for depressed residential real estate. (Not literally, of course! Literally it is cold enough to freeze the tears in your eyes! Not that we have anything to cry about.) 

We did quite a bit of traveling this year, despite our busy, successful lives. We visited South Florida 11 times out of crushing homesickness, enjoying the occasionally lavish and completely unpredictable hospitality of our closest friends, some of whom took the opportunity to take their own little vacations, since we were there to watch their children.

There were mints on the pillow at Janette's, soft pink slippers at Dianne's, little spinach strudels and good red wine at Dr. Liz's , something good always baking in the home of the Queen's Own Jane and wet towels on the floor at the Executive's, where it is always BYO toilet paper.  The boys almost managed to make a pot of coffee!

Dianne and I managed to sneak off for a Thelma and Louise-style road trip, where a decade's worth of friendship nearly collapsed in a series of arguments over rest stops and fast food. Of course I was only kidding when I threatened to drive our Pontiac rental car over a cliff - there is nothing even approaching that kind of landscape between Miami and the postcard-perfect landscape of Lower North Florida's dog fighting region.

Later in the summer, the Executive's daughter paid us a visit, during which the girls managed to flood the pool table with their crazy bathtub antics. How we all laughed over that one!

On a personal note, I did manage to overcome a raging crush on the furnace repairman and my bitter unhappiness over the family's move long enough to have sex with Mr. Kamikaze a total of 16.75 times - a number I can share with you because Mr. Kamikaze is such a sentimental fool that he has begun keeping track! Though I still do not completely understand his scoring system. It is more complicated than figure skating!

Which brings us to another personal milestone: after a half dozen years and untold thousands of dollars in private lessons, I had the honor of performing in the Frozen Oaks Ice Rink annual Christmas show with my edge class this year, where many people in the audience said my performance was among the tallest they had seen.

I continue to spend at least three days a week on the ice, a commitment that, despite its toll on my job search, my unfinished novel and the family's income, has left me with what has been described as one of the nicest asses of any 46-year-old suburban mommy in the neighborhood. Teenagers say the darndest things!

As for the job search, I have been innundated with offers to write for almost nothing, which will certainly leave us sitting pretty on April 15! 

But despite our full and hectic lives, we are thinking of each and every one of you this holiday season with only a trace of the bitterness to which we are fully entitled.  And that is nothing that a glass or two of cheap wine won't deaden somewhat.

Cheers!

The Kamikaze Family

The Twelve Arguments of Christmas

The girl peeks around the shower curtain cautiously. She is wearing light-up reindeer antlers and using her Cindy-Lou Who voice.

"Mommy?" she coos. "Can we bring some of the Christmas boxes up from the basement now?"

I can't see through the shampoo in my eyes, but I can see through their plotting.

They sent her, knowing she had the best chance, the only chance really, of safely confronting the Grinch in her cave.

They've been after me for weeks to launch into the annual festival of clutter.

"It's too early," I say at Thanksgiving.  A week later I begin outlining conditions.  "When the entire house is clean and sparkling and looks like a spread from Architectural Digest, then we can start decorating," I say. "There are six pairs of shoes and a pile of dirty dishes in the living room. You can't tinsel over that."

This morning the negotiations begin in earnest.  She promises to clean the living room. He promises to help.  I promise to think about it. Daddy tells them I hate Christmas. "I don't hate Christmas," I say. "I just don't think clutter is festive. Can we just keep it simple for once?" 

The next thing I know, he has three ladders perched against the side of the house and is taunting the neighbors.  The family from down the street stops by in their minivan to challenge him. "You've got a long way to go," says Mr. Minivan. "Hah," says Mr. Kamikaze, scaling the highest peak on the roof with his hands full of lights.  "I haven't even started."

"For God's sake, you're going to kill yourself," I shout up at him.  He laughs. "Spend the insurance money wisely," he says. We both know I will spend the money on shoes. 

Later, I will return outside to find that he has lit every peak of the house and is running lights along the gutters, the chimney, the windows and an old bird's nest.

"Enough,"  I will say. He will laugh and ask the children if they think it's enough. I cannot win this argument. But I can't imagine how far things would go if I put up no fight at all. I am the only thing standing between my family and holiday madness. 

Now Cindy-Lou wants to bring up "some" of the boxes from the basement. She has her charm set to maximum. "I cleaned the whole living room," she says, smiling and batting her eyes.

I want to finish my shower. "Fine," I say. "Just a few."

The downstairs is in chaos before I am even dressed. Heavy boxes are dragged up the stairs in a steady percussion of thumping and bumping.  The cartons and bins are opened as quickly as they arrive, the contents strewn across the room.

It is a scene for the Christmas cards, the 10-year-old in her antlers, the 13-year-old in his Santa hat, pawing through the garland, rediscovering and claiming their favored objects. Their eyes shine like the decade's worth of glitter embedding itself in the rugs.  

Look! There is the little light-up Christmas tree with the gold stand!  Just like the other one, except one has a little star on the top and belongs to ... wait, which is which?

"That one is mine," says the boy emphatically. He is not using any kind of Who voice. "That tree has been in my room every year for the past four years."

By the time I come downstairs, Daddy thinks he has resolved the issue by decree: Nobody will get the little light-up Christmas tree in their room. He goes back outside with another box of lights. Oh yeah, that settles it.

The children are on me before my feet hit the bottom step:  "Mom," says the teenager. "You need to settle this. Take a side," he demands. 

"Whoa," I say. "I don't even know what the argument is."  We come to terms after several rounds of protracted litigation. He will get the light-up Christmas tree with the star on top, she will get first pick of the stuffed animals. She chooses his Mouse King, which briefly threatens to scuttle the deal.

Meanwhile, Daddy has shoveled Edward off the walkway to make room for his vision of a ribbon of tiny lighted pine treees leading to the front door.  

"You destroyed her snowman?" I say.  "I had no choice," he says.

On our way to the Christmas tree lot we argue over the definition of "hypothermia."  This is settled more quickly than a debate over whether the teenager should have an iPod touch.

"It's my money," he says sourly.

The teenager likes the Douglas fir. The 10-year-old wants the Frasier fir.  I weigh in with my preference for a smaller tree, paving the way for them to agree on the tallest one, a balsam fir.

Mr. K wants to stop at the lighting aisle. "We can't possibly need any more lights," I say.  But no one is listening to me anymore.

At home, Mr. Kamikaze has to shave six inches off the top of the tree.

Even so, it touches the ceiling.

A perfect fit.

Hannah Montana won't ever be gray and other things my daughter taught me

We are working out our plans for Halloween when a little flash of the brilliance for which I am completely unrecognized comes to me.

I will be middle-aged Hannah Montana. Didn't I already shell out some ridiculous amount of money for the wig that my 10-year-old daughter wouldn't be caught dead in today? She is so over that.  "Oh my God," she says with an eye roll when passing the racks of sparkly Hannah-wear she once coveted. 

Hannah Montana, it seems, is so last week.  So I am free to use the wig.  My children, who are going way out on a creative limb this Halloween as a dark angel and a teenager in a rubber skeleton mask, cannot get their brains around my inspired idea.

"I need bifocals," I say to them in the costume shop. "Help me find a pair a fake bifocals."

"Mom," says my daughter, who has agreed to act as my Hannah Montana consultant. "I am pretty sure that Hannah Montana would get contacts."

"Yes," I say. "But I've already explained this to you. I am going as middle-aged Hannah Montana. I need to be visibly middle aged."

"Um, Mom," says my son. "You already are visibly middle aged."   

Funny. Now I am the one rolling my eyes. How did I raise such irony-challenged children?

"Let me explain this again," I say. "If I just dressed up as Hannah Montana, I would be a middle-aged woman dressed as Hannah Montana. Silly, maybe, but not inspired. I am a middle-aged woman but I am going to be dressed as middle-aged Hannah Montana. Do you see the difference?"

They still don't get it. But they argue with me as if I am the one who is confused.

"Hannah Montana is never going to look middle-aged," says my daughter knowingly. "She has, like, billions of dollars."

"Yes, but I am going to portray her as she would look if she suddenly lost all her money and had to go into middle age the usual way," I say. "With varicose veins and gray streaks in her hair."

"But why?" they want to know.

"Because it's funny," I say in exasperation. At least it seemed like it was before I had to explain it five times.  Is it me?

"No one is going to get it," says the eighth grader.   

I give up. I head to the register with my sparkly fake eyelashes and a can of gray hairspray.  My daughter looks at the hairspray in my hand and tries to set me straight on one last point.

"It's a wig Mom," she says. "Hannah Montana's hair is a wig, so it can't ever turn gray."

Photo: SK as HM; the best of both worlds.

We the family,

in order to survive the holiday weekend, for which some of us have endured interminable flights and are sleeping on couches, to establish a new record for the continuous consumption of snack food, provide for the equitable distribution of bathroom time and promote the falsehood that it is a good idea to pack 27 family members under one roof, do ordain and establish this Constitution:

Article I

The family shall make no law abridging the freedom of other family members to shoot their mouths off, spill family secrets and otherwise embarrass themselves and others in ways that can be retold at future family gatherings. This includes the right of uppity Miami women to make Midwestern jokes in a room full of her brother's Iowan in-laws. She should not, however, expect anyone to come rushing to her defense should they turn on her in one corn-fed mass.

Article II

A well-lubricated family being necessary to the sanity of any gathering that includes more than four people who still remember the name of your ninth-grade crush and are not afraid to use it, the right of the adults to keep and bear drinks shall not be infringed at any hour. 

Article III

The quartering of more than 27 family members under one roof shall be discouraged, even if you do have a tent in the back yard. 

Article IV

The right of the little sisters to be secure in their suitcases against the unreasonable searches and seizures of their belongings by their brothers and cousins shall not be violated, except when no one is looking.

Article V

No family member shall be forced to give evidence against themselves with regard to who drank the last lime-flavored Bud Light. No person shall be held to answer for having consumed the last lime-flavored Bud Light except on a presentment or indictment by a Grand Jury consisting of whoever made the last beer run.  

Article VI

In all family disagreements, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public airing of the most embarrassing things they have said or done since high school.  Photographic evidence is encouraged.

Article VII

Shopping by Jury: When the value in controversy shall exceed $25, a jury of your sisters-in-law shall be called to answer the question of How Many Purses are Too Many. The opinion of brothers, husbands and other male family members shall be inadmissible.

Article VIII

It shall be considered cruel and unusual punishment to impose upon the adult women of the family the obligation to undergo continuous "makeovers" at the hands of the 10-year-old girls. Uncle Mike, however, is fair game as he seems to enjoy it and looks good in a tiara. 

Article IX

The enumeration of these rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the family. Also, the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Championship does not constitute a real sport  for the purposes of monopolizing the television.

Article X

The secret ingredient of Grandma Saul's potato salad is pototoes.* 

Photo: Dibs on the air mattress.

*Aunt Cindy gave it up. Next we are sending her in for Bob's prize-winning barbecue sauce.

The Corn Whisperer

They grew up in towns with names like "Normal" and "Hometown."

I came from a place people went to escape indictment normal, hometown-type places. Where thongs and tequila flew off the shelves like underwear and hard liquor. Where you could not step out for a latté without tripping over the players in some international intrigue involving suitcases full of cash, or body parts. Where the word "exotic" had lost its meaning.

Where were the tattooed, Margarita-swilling, motorcycle driving mommies like the ones who ran the PTA meetings back home?

Everywhere I turned I was subjected to stories extolling the character of the hard-working, unvarnished Midwestern people. 

It was cloying, annoying, but taken as truth: these were the best people in the entire country.

It was going to be a long winter.

And so, though I knew it would not be easy, I had to learn to communicate with these wholesome, sincere, incorruptible people.   

When I first came to be among them it was nearly Halloween.  The best of the holidays. At what other time of year can you count cobwebs and dustballs as decor? Go door to door trick-or-treating for cocktails? Dig a grave in the backyard without arousing suspicion? 

But alas, such traditions had not spread to this little corner of the suburban Midwest. As the day of haunting drew near, pyramids of tastefully arranged hay bales tied with orange satin bows sprouted on lawn after lawn.  Does Martha Stewart have to ruin everything? 

I still had my wig in my hand when the first trick-or-treaters showed up. It was 3 p.m.

"What are you doing?" I asked, squinting into the sunlight. "It's not even dark."

"There is a curfew," one of them answered politely.

"A curfew?" I said. "It's  Halloween. You are teenagers.  Show some self-respect."

They looked at me blankly.  "Oh for the love of Satan," I  said. "Do you even have any eggs?"

They did not.  I sighed.  It was almost certainly a hopeless case.

But, as they say, it takes a village.   So I explained to them what was expected and sent them on their way with a package of toilet paper and a dozen extra-large.

It wasn't just the children who needed my help.  Their mothers had knitted themselves into lives of corn-fed desperation. Their social lives were built around product parties and school fundraisers. Married to men who had their hair cut every three weeks, they avoided liquor, tattoos and high-heeled footwear as impractical, unnecessary and dangerous. Especially on ice.

They were dying on the inside, even if they didn't know it. 

The first woman to confide in me said she'd stopped ordering wine in restaurants after her husband had complained about the expense.

She ran herself ragged to be the perfect mom.  But she had no idea how to play the Game of Wife.   

"You are doing it exactly backwards," I told her.  "Order a second glass of wine.  But leave it mostly untouched."

She took my advice and improved upon it; fingering the stem of her glass, sighing deeply and gazing into its overpriced depths. "The thing about a really nice Bordeaux?" she told her husband,  "one is not enough and two is too many..." 

But she was from the South Side, so it didn't really count.  Those women take to bad like a Midwesterner to green bean casserole.

If I was going to do any good at all, I had to reach the PTA members, the tea drinkers, the Women Who Mulch Too Much.

In hindsight, the tattoo party was probably too much, too soon.

And I blew it with the Tupperware clique when I asked them what they did for fun. They were having fun, apparently, right there, surrounded by the latest in jewel-toned plastic food storage. "I mean, other than this," I said quickly.  But it was too little, too late.

But I am this close to talking the book club into a two-drink minimum. 

And X-rated scrapbooking?  This could be my best idea yet.  On paper at least.

 

Photo:  Pssst. Over here. You know you want to...

www.oznet.ksu.edu/fieldday/kids/crops/corn.htm

R.S.V.P.: My Lesbian Pool Party

To My New Friends and Neighbors in the Suburban Midwest: 

Please don’t take this personally.

But your social gatherings? They make me want to kill myself.

At first I thought it was really clever how all of your invitations arrived with their themes ironically concealed beneath irreproachable Hallmark card sentiments.

But then I showed up for the "Ladies Ornament Exchange" with my resin penis Christmas ornament and realized you were completely serious: it was a party where grown women exchanged Christmas ornaments. And not a single one was shaped like a dildo.

I swear to God.

And the "adults only" gingerbread house party? Not one person got naked. At a gingerbread house party.

It was as if someone had secretly replaced all of the women in the suburbs with their great-great grandmothers. From the boring side of the family.

(Before I forget, Dear Wondering If I Am Free for Tea: I am checking my calendar for the year 2052 and it is completely open. I hope to see you at my 90^th birthday bash later that same year! Yours, SK)

Still, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. What have I added to the local social circuit other than a few bottles of very good wine and a heaping casserole of disdain?

That is why I have decided to host the Midwest edition of my now famous Lesbian Pool Party. I know what you are thinking: "But Suburban, you don’t even have a swimming pool."

Really? Is that what you were thinking? Because I am wondering where the hell I am going to find lesbians in this neighborhood.

Just kidding. There is no way I am going to find lesbians in this neighborhood. But that is not the point.

As an experienced party hostess, I can tell you that a successful lesbian pool party requires neither lesbians nor a pool. Actual lesbians, in fact, do not always appreciate being used simply to liven up a guest list. This puts a lot of pressure on them that is, frankly, a little unfair. I recognize this and I apologize.

But the party must come first.

And there is nothing like a good lesbian pool party to separate the tea drinkers from the people who will, if invited to a pool party in Chicago in the middle of February, leave their sensible shoes at home and arrive wearing a thong and bearing fruit-flavored Caribbean rum.

These are the people you want to know in the cold, bleak days of the Midwestern winter where 80 percent of the conversations you will have with anyone over the age of 11 will be about the weather and the other 20 percent you will not be able to remember.

I hope you can make it.

 

Sincerely,

The Suburban Kamikaze

photo by Rick McCawley: Please leave your sensible shoes at home.

© 2007 P.M. Dunnigan/Suburban Kamikaze