4.18.04: Happy Birthday To—Aah! Tostada! Call A Code Audrey!

Oh, what a blamed uncertain thing / This pesky weather is;
It blew and snew and then it thew, / And now, by jing, it’s friz!
Philander Johnson

Happy Birthday To—Aah! Tostada! Call A Code Audrey!

April 18, 2004

Yesterday was my mother’s birthday. I can’t tell you exactly how old she is, so let’s just say that she’s older than you but younger than your mom, because your mom’s an ancient hag, and I should know because I slept with her last night. But anyway.

I threw the Official Romy’s Mom’s Birthday Bash, which consisted of having my sister drive us all over town so we could buy stuff at the Bake Sales for Democracy being held around town by the few Democratic families who haven’t fled to Canada yet. Yes, this is how devoted our family is to the Kerry cause: we are willing to imbibe suspicious homemade brownie-type things that may or may not contain illegal drugs. Since most of the bake sales had closed by the time we hit the road to visit them, we ended up with two pre-packaged packs of ridiculously expensive muffins. Sad, but at least we could be assured that they hadn’t been tampered with.

After a non-hallucinogenically-enhanced ride back to our neighborhood, we stopped off at the local grocery store and bought ice cream and brownies. Then we went back to my mother’s apartment and played a prank on my sister involving some joke-prop disappearing teabags and some Oscar-worthy performances. Then we watched “Annie Hall,” which embarrassed my mom because it’s pretty much all about sex, and who wants to watch an all-about-sex movie with their kids? Mom tells me she had an “okay” birthday. “Okay” is Mom-code for “next time I want the brownies with the good stuff in ’em.” I have to say I agree with her.

Today it was thunderously rainy in the morning, then Prozacically sunny in the afternoon, and now there’s a tornado watch out for most of the state. Welcome to Minnesota, folks. I’ve lived so long with the threat of tornados that I’m no longer really afraid of them; instead of planning how to get all the animals and other vital household goods to a shelter, I’m wondering if my trademark fear-induced word-scrambling will kick in when I see that giant funnel cloud bearing down on me, and if I’ll be able to keep my wits and yell “Tornado!” instead of “Nortado!” or “Dorito!” or, even worse, “Tomato!” I don’t want to die in a tornado, but I really don’t want to die screaming “Dorito! Tomato! Tostada!”

You know how—well, if you’re American you’ll know—Wal-Mart stores have this “Code Adam” thing? It’s named for a child who was kidnapped; when a kid gets lost in a store or disappears on the Wal-Mart premises, the store workers get on the intercom and call a “Code Adam,” which basically means that everyone stops what they’re doing to look for the kid. Well, what they should have now is “Code Audrey,” for when a kid is missing but they’re probably not kidnapped or anything, they’re just playing a trick on their parents. That could come in really useful. Think of all the parents who would be able to go up to a store worker and say, “My Jimmy’s missing, but I think he’s just hiding because he wants to get my attention. Could you call a Code Audrey?” And then everyone could completely ignore this kid when they see him, or they could berate him for being such a brat. What a good idea.

Later

Weather update: Fires to the south, storms to the north, possible tornados to the east. Please excuse me while I cower.

There are a couple of spiders inside the screen. I moved them further inside so the rain wouldn’t wet them. Bugs deserve some shelter, too.

Even Later

Well, it’s about an hour after those last few lines, and everyone at the Romy House is recovering from a tostada—er, tornado scare. A tornado touched down right in our county, just a few miles south of us. The meteorologist, instead of using her time to tell the viewers what was going on, kept apologizing for breaking into the program (24; they had to move it to Sunday night because of the President’s press conference on Tuesday) and assuring us that they were keeping their weather reports as brief as possible, and that the weather team was not going to interrupt the show any more than was absolutely necessary, and blah blah blah and bleh bleh bleh. I grabbed all the animals and put them in the bathroom; three out of four animals pissed on me in the process. There is no experience in the world quite as surreal as sitting on the bathroom floor, smelling of cat/rabbit/rat piss and listening to both the storm sirens outside and the animal howls within. But the tornado went just to the south of us, so we’re all fine—well, all the animals and Tony are fine, anyway. I still smell like piss, and I had to mop up my clothes, the pet carriers, and the bathroom floor. Ah, the joys of pet parenting…