Parent Coping Skills With No School Days

Friday was just a weird day. The kids were out of school, again. I think they get a day off for every two they are in school. In a now characteristic masochism, I let each of the girls invite a friend over, upping my child to adult ratio 5:1. In theory, the friends keep my children occupied, but it just never works out that way. Someone is usually reduced to tears and there is almost always a wounding before dusk. The four girls schemed for over an hour how to create a “Day Spa” in my bathroom. I was terrified to see what chaos they wreaked in there. This all started when I helped the younger girls, inherently curious myself, stab open some icy gel pack things with micro-beads inside. “These would make excellent soaking salts!” It all went to hell after that. Every thing they did accumulated laundry. It’s the trade-off you make weighing whether you want them to dull their brains with T.V. or create hurricane laundry debris.

I hid in my office while they mixed all my nail polish into one container and smeared their faces with my expensive Bobbie Brown cosmetics. I barricaded myself behind the office door and was surrounded by about 27 sticky notes with different projects and follow-up items scattered over my desk. One of my sticky notes reminded me to locate a salon that offers eyelash extensions, a splurge for the wedding in May I am sure I need.

One of the spas also offered “vajazzling”. Afraid to investigate further but not being able to stop myself, I fell down the internet wormhole to confirm what I thought that to be. It never occurred to me that I should liven my lady parts with some glued-on bling. Huh. Then, I stumbled upon “vatoing”, for when you need some special vagina tattoos. These are not to be confused with “clitter”, glitter on your, well, you’ll have to figure it out, or a “vajacial”, a “facial” for your vagina. OMG. Have I been living under a rock? Did everyone in the world but me know that   ({})    is keyboard speak for Vagina? Who are all these women getting their hoo-ha’s vajazzled? Are they walking around among us and we just can’t spot them?

Following the afternoon of reading about clitter and such, with my fingers covering my eyes, Kevin and I escaped to see RADIOHEAD in concert. They were unreal, like beings from another planet. The crowd was largely male in their 30’s and 40’s. Everyone was polite and well-behaved. The sound was incredible and layered and complex and surreal. Kevin put it # 2 on his all-time favorite concerts. They stood in front of a 30 ft. tall curtain of lights that changed constantly. The coolest visual was that they had a dozen 5 ft.square flat screens suspended from the ceiling which they projected close-up images of things on the stage and reconfigured constantly. It reminded me of the glass prisms the villains from Superman II were trapped for eternity to roam the universe as punishment for their evil deeds. During the encore, we counted about 15 “vintage” lighters fans were holding in the audience among the hundreds of cell phone screens. As much as things change, they don’t change at all.