So Not The Fonz

When I was in elementary school, I had an enormous poster of The Fonz on my wall. I actually liked Pottsie better, but I don't think there were any Pottsie posters for sale at the time. So my homage to the show "Happy Days" was Fonzie giving a big thumb's up, long before upward facing thumbs were co-opted by pre-school teachers to indicate a child had used the potty correctly.

The fact that I preferred Pottsie to the ultra cool Arthur Fonzarelli was already an early sign that I was not going to be one of the "cool" crowd. Maybe briefly in college, when I did a pretty spot-on impression of a tortured intellectual. But, hey, Henry Winkler was a Yale graduate, so it makes sense that Ivy League angst would be channeling the King of Cool himself.

My oldest child is at the age where he is kind of getting that his mom is a little dorky. I use the word "awesome" a lot, and not just when I am describing weighty philosophical matters. And not just in private when I am trying to build family self-esteem. I showcase my unhipness by yelling out awkward phrases at Little League games, usually incorporating the apparently humiliating "A" word. "Awesome cut!" I bellow when a player takes a big swing, but misses. "Awesome D!" I have been known to shriek after a competent catch of a fly ball. I think I have one more season before I am banished from games.

To make matters worse, at work I meet teenagers who are in street gangs, have elaborate tattoos, and are savvy to the ways of the world. I am a Clinical Psychologist at a large, urban Juvenile Hall. That means jail for kids. Yes, kids end up in jail. I read a court report for a teen from a part of town where very few kids end up in juvey, and her mother had told the judge that she called the police on her daughter so they could take her to juvenile hall, which the mom apparently thought was some sort of dormitory with kindly counselors. Sorry, mom, if LAPD is involved, your child is not being taken to a slumber party. So I guess I am not the only mom who is uncool.

The kids--called "minors" by probation, and "clients" by mental health--tell me about a lot of talents and interests they have. Some write poetry, paint, play sports, do hair. There are a lot of terrific, smart kids in juvey, who were born into really sad circumstances. I learn a lot from them and generally they tolerate my inability to use the right lingo to describe their interests and vices. The first time I assessed a teen for "pot" use and got a blank stare, although this kid had a pretty intense marijuana habit, I knew it was better not to even try to be hip.

One 16-year-old boy I interviewed had been a gang member for a number of years, and had a slew of gang related "tats." He was soft-spoken and a kid of few words. He wasn't giving too much away. I asked him what he liked to do for fun. He lit up and said what sounded to me like "beads." I asked him what he made. The light in his eye flickered and he sort of grunted, "huh?" Necklaces, bracelets, keychains? I was getting excited because I have dabbled in jewelry making myself. "Uh, what?" he asked, staring at me. Beads, what did he make with the beads, I continued to probe, desperate at this point not to lose the momentum. "Beads? I said Beets," he informed me, the brightness in his face now completely overshadowed by confusion and scorn. "Oh, you garden?" I queried hopefully. "Beats. Like drums. I drum," he said exasperatedly. "Oh, cool," I said, defeated.

 

Portion Control

For the past few months, I have had the good fortune to have my weekday take-out lunch assembled by a particularly heavy-handed worker at the assembly-line style restaurant, Chipotle. This has meant my daily salad has included more than the average dollops of roasted chili-corn salsa, shredded vegetable-based rennet cheese, and sustainably raised chicken. A coworker who frequents a different Chipotle branch (and, hence, has never experienced the topping-overload from my unselfish server), informed that her location normally charges extra for especially hearty helpings. I’ve hit the jackpot with this plastic-gloved altruist who the manager has entrusted with doling out the cubes of pepper adobo steak, naturally raised pork carnitas, slowly braised barbacoa (no idea what that is), and fajita vegetable toppings. Too bad he doesn’t wear his Chipotle-issued nametag so I could properly credit him for his largesse.

I actually didn’t pay too much attention to the heft of my salad toppings until a few weeks back, when I opened my salad at my desk to find it to be limp and concave, as though its very soul of chicken chunks had been extracted and replaced with a mere spattering of foul morsels. I had grown accustomed to mounds of marinated chicken, smoky pinto beans, and tomatillo-green chili salsa; now, a sad pothole of romaine lettuce mocked me from the take-out container.

Last week, my salad savior was still not at his station, causing me great pains, hungerwise. One day he was at the cashier station, which did me no good at all. Later in the week, not anywhere to be seen. I considered specifically requesting his ingredient-scooping services, to see if maybe he had been relegated to pork-chopping or lettuce-shredding duty. But not only was I intimidated by the fast assembly-line pace of the environmentally sensitive fastfood chain, I couldn’t quite figure out what to ask and whom to ask. I rehearsed various scenarios in my head: “Excuse me,” I would ask the tortilla warmer/rice scooper (first in the assembly line), “Is the guy who sometimes works the chicken/cheese/salsa shift available to service my order?” The Chipotle I habituate has workers from all over the world, so my internal rehearsals usually involve me repeating the same request several times, getting louder and making more dramatic hand-gestures with each attempt, while the restaurant goes silent, E.F Hutton-style.

Probably if I had never experienced the glory of a salad that weighs more than a newborn, I wouldn’t have thought the more recent version of my $6.42 salad to be deficient in any way. But, knowing that it has indeed been possible to make virtuous salad-eating into an extreme sport, I just wish I could experience that roughage high just one more time…..

Type A Ebay

It happened again. 1) Job and 2) kids got in the way of the important work of Ebay bidding. I miscalculated my schedule and when I got home I was dismayed to see that the Sandy Koufax/Don Drysdale autograph set had ended and the winning bid was less than even I was going to shell out. I purposely didn't put in my higher bid before leaving 1) work to pick up 2) kids because I didn't want to drive the price up. But now  I will have to continue to monitor until a similar gem comes up. Of course, the irony of 1) job and 2) kids preventing me from scoring on ebay is that the items I am bidding for are actually for 1) job and 2) kids. Earlier in the week I stalked used keyboards for my work computer because apparently pretzel salt from a midmorning-carbo-craving snack can get wedged in the keyboard and render the space key utterly useless. Who would have thought? And the aforementioned Koufax/Drysdale find is me channeling my inner Santa way too early to get holiday gifts for my son. I hope once he figures out that his dear mom is behind all these awesome and stressful-to-obtain gifts, he will be appropriately appreciative. If not this year, by next year?

By the way, it is a minor miracle that this blog is even registered at all (is it??). Typing in those pesky verification codes over and over and having them summarily rejected is not only time-consuming, but not so great for the self-esteem, I must say. But here it is, and if I am ever able to find this website again to post, it will be another minor miracle... in a nondenominational way, of course.