Ready For Prime Time

The Teenager and I have discussed for years now the need for a reality show based on our unique family. As passionate and dedicated reality show viewers ourselves, we recognize our star potential. Surely we are as interesting as other families on television right now. Look at what we have:

• Self absorbed, narcissistic female protagonist who sashays around saying clever things while being fabulously dressed. Just spending time watching her go to multiple self grooming sessions would be interesting if you also are an egotistical woman of a certain age.


• Creative, moody, and sarcastic teenage boy who walks around reading "Catcher In The Rye" and is blissfully unaware of the irony of the situation. Also fabulously dressed and accessorized.


• Stoic, and mostly silent husband who takes apart cars and then puts them back together repeatedly to deal with stress caused by trying to get a word in edgewise between Wife and Teen. When not in the garage, he hides for hours in the bathroom with his PSP to get some quality alone time.


• An ever changing cast of felines that currently include: a sensitive older female, a hyperactive, borderline idiot female, and Lulu, the gender confused cat. Occasionally joined by the neighbor's cats; Hershey the needy cat and Lucky, Hershey's traumatized alternative lifestyle partner.

We had forgotten how interesting we are as a family until my husband came home for his bi-annual visit. Due to the current economy and job market, my husband works overseas with a large and wholly unpopular military contracting firm. However it is a job and we aren't about the politics of it all. Having survived several deployments when he was active duty, this is just another deployment for us. However now we are at the two year mark with no end in sight and I finally had to tell my husband "no more". We had an amazing two weeks together as a family and had forgotten how much fun we have together.

Every moment was packed for us. Doctors, taxes, banking, car shopping, and paperwork filled every day we had. But we made a point every night to sit and have dinner together just like we used to and found that the dinner table is where families are made. Not the act of eating, but of sharing our day and thoughts together. We always have music on, and we are a diverse group musically. Some nights it was Baltic or East Indian music my husband brought home on his laptop. Some nights the Teenager played Zoot Sims or opera. He's into Ivan Kozlovsky, a Ukrainian tenor from the '40's. I have of late been giving love to Toumani Diabate, a West African musician that plays the most ethereal music ever on the kora, which is a native harp/lute type instrument. We all love different types of music, so at any given time you can walk through our home and change countries, styles, and eras.

We also found a great application on the Teenager's iPhone called iTopics, which is just a fun application that gives you conversation starting questions. We would sit at dinner every night going through all the questions, learning all sorts of interesting things about each other. Here's a sample of what we found out:

• I have the special talent of having totally double jointed fingers. I can still bend them all backward over each other. I don't remember having done that since I was in middle school.


• One of the questions was "If you could live in another era, when would it be?" The Teenager and I picked the 1930's or '40's. My husband picked the Roman Empire years under Julius Caesar. We sat and debated the pros and cons of the eras and why we would choose to live in those times.


• If you could get the answer to any question what would it be? I wanted to know if God really existed, my husband was curious if there was life elsewhere in the universe.


• If we had to travel far back in time, what would we do for a living? I, realist that I am, discussed the career options available to women in the past: wife/mother, nun, or whore. I picked brothel owner, control freak that I am. There weren't many options and at least this sounded like more fun than the abbey or a short life bearing children every eleven months. I read "Pillars of the Earth", and it cured me of any longing to live in the twelfth century. I can't even read historical romance now without mentally adding my own historically correct cynical internal commentary.


• If we could witness an event in past history; what would it be? My husband wanted to go back in time to Kitty Hawk and watch the Wright brothers fly the first plane. I wouldn't have guessed that one.

We loved this application and played it to death, as we tend to do with everything. Then the Teenager found a new application called "Fuck My Life" and started reading them to us nightly. They are just sort of sad, mostly made up stories of people's most embarrassing moments...that are well.....just sort of pathetic.

Then there was what could only be referred to as "The Bad Seder". My husband was home during Passover, which is a major holiday on our calendar. One more Jewish holiday that we manage to completely mangle in our own special way. This year took the cake as I broke from tradition and served rolls. Sister Schubert's Dinner Yeast Rolls to be exact. You can't sop up gravy from my leg of lamb with a damn matzoh ,and it's not like we are really trekking through the desert and don't have leavened bread. The Israelites didn't have a Publix near by and I luckily do.

Breaking real leavened bread with my family during Passover was only made more special by the fact that I had purchased the rolls with sausage in them. That was bad. Very bad.

But delicious. Perhaps next year I can sprinkle bacon bits on our salad and maybe even add cheese. The possibilities are endless, because no one can screw up a major holiday more than our little clan. During Hanukkah, my husband likes to arrange our sort of Christmasy reindeer in obscene positions on our front yard. Luckily I get up early enough to fix them before the kids get to the bus stop. We do have a Hanukkah bush/Christmas tree/Ramadan shrub/Diwali plant as well. We love other cultures and embrace their differences because we are so weird that way. From his time in the military. plus now being a contractor, my husband has picked up so many languages. But only the dirty words. We can all say "motherfucker" or describe a sex act in at least five differant languages. The Teenager is learning Russian now, but so far doesn't know any dirty words. You have no idea how comforting it is to know that my family can travel the world and be able to order food, get the lowest price, ask for help, or call someone a prick in so many languages.

Worse was when the Teenager "remembered" to tell me that Lulu (the gender confused cat) had taken a massive shit earlier that day in the corner of our living room. He sprayed Febreeze on it so that he could continue to play Fallout 3 without being bothered by the hideous smell, as picking up cat poop makes him sick to his stomach but blowing imaginary people's heads off does not. My husband and I think it's a terrible shame that we can't enlist him in a branch of the service now. To comfort myself I look at military school websites and picture my child in those happy, yet serious pictures of young cadets. The mommies they show on the "Parent's Day" pictures look so relaxed and carefree.

I think though that our best moment as a family came at the end of my husband's trip home. My husband missed his plane from Valdosta by two minutes. It was still at the gate, but the agent would not allow him to board even though he knew my husband would connect in Atlanta for his flight to Dubai. Asshole. The plane was still there (we only get two a day), plus it was not even a full flight. However, the agent refused to allow my husband on, even though he could have done it. I promise you that Delta Airlines will get tired of me after a while and do something nice for us, allowing me to magnanimously forgive them. We had to drive him to Atlanta to catch the 9:50 flight. As it was 5:00 when we left Valdosta and had a four hour (at least) trip to Atlanta, we were pretty much screwed. We got on the phone with Delta and they told us that he had to be checked in by 7:00 pm. I managed to get us to the airport in a little over three hours and yes, he was allowed to check in. No big deal, for some reason we were all totally calm about the whole situation. There wasn't a flight again to Dubai until Saturday, and my husband could have lost his job. We had a fantastic three more hours together and the agents in Atlanta were wonderful, even issuing us a pass so that we could sit with my husband at the gate. Then the Teenager and I drove back to Valdosta that night, talking and sharing music all the way home.

We had forgotten what it was like to be a family of three. For many years the Teenager and I were a family unit by ourselves and that was good. Then I remarried and we accommodated a new person. We never realized how vital we were to each other was until we were forced to be apart like this. When people find out what my husband does, the first thing they usually say is "Oh wow, that's good money."

True. But not worth the cost of our family and that's how I had to explain it to my husband. We are all priceless together. Weird, funny, non-traditional family that we are.

I hope thing shape up here soon and I can bring my husband home for good. As much as the Teenager and I laugh together, it's not the same without my husband here to share our weird humor. Perhaps if I can cut us a deal as a reality show family, it will pay us enough until I get my big book deal and he can find a job locally. I should see if I can become Ryan Seacrest's friend on Twitter. I can already count Ashton Kutcher as a friend, maybe he knows him. I promise you that we are probably more entertaining that say.....the Kardashians or Dina Lohan. I don't think we can compete with Ozzie or Gene yet, but we would give it our best.

Love and kisses,

Cult Diva