Since it’s July 1st…and I found this old post while looking through my dusty blog book, I thought I’d resuscitate it for prosperity. Here goes nothing!

We arrived in Oslo, Norway on March 28, 1983. I remember it well because it was the day before our third anniversary…I was five months pregnant…and it was snowing.

First, let me say, I have nothing against socialized medicine. It is a beautiful thing that all people are treated the same no matter what their economic status. That being said, I have only one fairly important tidbit of advice to offer.

DO NOT GIVE BIRTH DURING THE MONTH OF JULY IN NORWAY!!!

You see, during the month of July, doctors drop their scrubs like migratory birds with a good tailwind and head to the seaside for some well-deserved and long-awaited midnight sun. I learned this trivial fact the hard way…at around 8-dialated centimeters…with one hand grasping a gas mask and the other swinging a fist in the general direction of the third midwife I’d had the pleasure to meet during the last twenty-eight minutes of a thirty-two hour delivery.

So during the months that I waited for our daughter’s appearance, I listened to Norwegian foreign language tapes, ate vats of rich chocolate ice cream, and watched my damn Laura Ashley dress pull tighter and tighter over my belly, stretching the petunia pattern into steroid-induced sunflowers. How’s that for a long-ass-run-on-sentence!

I should have read “Delivery for Dummies” and brushed up on a few birthing techniques. Instead I decided to wing it. I convinced myself that women had been doing it for years, with varied degrees of success, and I was going to grin and bear it.

I wasn’t completely naive. I’d seen a movie once about the ultimate “birthers”…those Navajo women who got off their horses to drop a 9-pound warrior-to-be onto a hand woven blanket only to remount their stallions and ride roughshod bareback into the sunset. So how bad could my Viking adventure be, right?

On July 17th, the night before our daughter’s birth, my ex took me out to dinner. Afterwards, he drag-raced back and forth on the cobblestones of Oslo in hopes that it might initiate something. I don’t know if we loosened our daughter from her vaginal moorings, but we definitely ruined the shock absorbers on his car.

Around 10PM, I started to experience the first signs. Lying there in the darkness I felt a rumbling that I could only assume was our daughter’s arrival. Each time a contraction hit, I turned on the light and jotted down the sequence. The pain was uncomfortable, much the same as cramps, but not horrible.

I became rather smug as I lay there. What were all these women bitching about? I made a decision right then and there that I was going to ace this delivery thing…only I was having a hard time escaping the visual of popping a mini-me out of a garden hose. I still couldn’t quite wrap my brain around that one. I assumed that the whole area down there opened up like the retractable roof at Wembley Stadium and then miraculously closed up again after birth.

At 4AM the next morning we drove to the nearby hospital. I wore a pair of flip flops since they were the only footwear that could remotely contain my Hindenberg feet, and of course…the same Laura Ashley dress that I had grown to hate…and vowed to burn postpartum.

A covey of nurses checked me in…and shortly after…sent me home.

Not one centimeter had I dilated. Six hours and nothing to show for it!

“But that’s impossible! I HAD contractions!” I screamed at my ex, motioning for him to translate.

The words came out of him slow and methodical, as if he were sipping wine and rating the grapes. I had no idea what he said, but the nurses gave him a sympathetic grin, as if to say “Is she always this dramatic…and clueless?”

So, we went home, and after building myself another pyramid of butter pecan, rocky road, mocha almond fudge, cheesecake swirl…I maneuvered myself back onto the couch…shovel ready.

The pains grew in intensity with a shorter span between each, so we returned to the hospital at 7:30 the next morning. The new staff checked me in, even though I had only dilated a mere two centimeters. I was starting to understand why women bitch. Actually I had turned the corner…FULL TILT… and was beginning to think they hadn’t bitched enough!

After being plucked and feathered (I will not elaborate,) a nurse waddled me toward a scale. I stepped onto the girth gage triggering radical convulsions from the kilo meter. It finally slowed…and eventually landed on a horrifying number. No queston…I should have lightened up a little on the industrial strength ice cream tubs, but did I mention that it was HOT!…VERY HOT! I was in a foreign country with no knowledge of how to take care of a baby…and there were midwives…young women resembling Victoria Secret models who were going to pull that child out of me whether I liked their methods or not. Trust me, it was an “out of body” experience. Don’t you think you’d power down a tub or two of ice cream?

We followed a pubescent-looking midwife to a delivery room that looked out over a graveyard. The realization hit me that this is a country of convenience.

I glanced around the room and quickly assessed that those pale green walls and pink striped curtains were literally begging for an IKEA makeover. Even more surprising was how vacuous it seemed. The room echoed. I tried not to panic and instead decided to focus on the gurney, which I assumed was for me….and a miniature crib…for whatever was coming out of me. On a bed stand was a glass of water and a small wooden instrument that looked like a horn. I had no idea when or why I was going to need to play a bugle…but after a day of charting contractions, I would have considered learning a Sousa march if it jump-started that baby’s coming out parade!

But then reality slapped me upside the head. Considering a human being was going to pass through my body into this 8’ X 10’ room with only the help of a pretty midwife, a gurney, a crib, and a horn… I cursed myself for not brushing up on the subject, or at the very least talking to a few mothers. I mean, I’d spent more time listening to the flight attendant’s safety spiel than the miraculous birth of our child. I believe this is when I began cursing (repeatedly) the overachieving Navajo women for setting the bar too high.

The pain elevated to a new pitch and I soon learned that those stunning midwives who wandered in to smile every few hours could only speak four words of English. “How-are-you-doing?” Then they were gone, moving like Stepford goddesses to the next room before I could answer. This was somewhat of a dark revelation since the ex had promised that communication would be the least of my worries.

Finally at around 9PM I hit five centimeters and they rolled in a gas mask. I immediately suction-cupped it to my face. Waves of nausea swept over me and I hurled a few times in pursuit of equilibrium, but what did I care, right? Hell, I would have swallowed it again if it meant I could keep the gas flowing.

My thoughts bounced off those chartreuse walls until the vapors kicked in and I began seeing misty visions of my Grandma Tillie. A woman slow on the uptake…who hadn’t a clue how babies were conceived. In the midst of labor with her only child, she screamed at the doctor, “How did THIS happen to me?” He confirmed her worst fears… It DID have something to do with all those late night All Star Wrestling take-down reenactments with her husband Sophus. From that day forward she cut him off. No more falderal.

Meanwhile, there were screams coming from down the hall so the midwife raced from my room to follow the sound. A short while later a new nurse entered. I asked if I could have an epidural. I watched her perfect lips move and then stop, which the ex translated. I needed to wait a little longer. At midnight, that midwife’s shift was over and a third candy striper entered the room. As one might imagine, I was in no mood for a changing of the guard. Again, I asked for an epidural, and when her lips stopped moving my ex gingerly informed me that it was NOW… too late.

At 12:28AM our daughter was born. It was lovely to be introduced to the child who had been kicking the hell out of my ribcage and giving me indigestion and heartburn for months. But our intro was short as the midwife handed our baby over to her dad and the two of them trotted off to another room to congratulate themselves.

This is when the real fun began. I was told I needed to clean up, which didn’t seem like an unreasonable request, although soon after I learned that they didn’t mean a sponge bath while reclining on my gurney.

A midwife pointed down a long corridor to where the showers were located. I set off walking…leaning against the walls as I inched my way down the endless passageway that led to the bathroom. Once I was able to get my hospital gown free, I let the water run over my body. A red chord dangled from the stall which supposedly I was to pull if I felt faint. By the time I finished and got back to the room, I was exhausted. My ex and I had a photo-op minute to hold our daughter, but then I told him to go home and get some rest. I was fairly confident that all the excitement was over.

A short while later two women entered the room and pointed at the baby in my arms, my belongings, and me. The hand gestures lasted for some time before discovering that I was to follow them. I picked up our newborn, grabbed my backpack, purse, and whatever else I’d brought and followed the ladies down the elevator and out the front doors of the hospital onto the street. Two other new mothers were curbside with babies and belongings. We stood in a straight little line, pale and lifeless, waiting for our ride. When the van finally arrived, I stepped up into the bus and moved toward an empty bench. I don’t know what was left inside of me to lose but it felt like I’d dropped my remaining innards somewhere between the driver and the seat.

From there we were transported to an old army barracks set up by the Germans during World War II. It was rustic, minimal, and overcrowded. We waited patiently while they readied a room and rolled in a few beds. Forging a common bond, those two other mothers and I traded “in the trenches” delivery battle stories. In sweltering heat we ate bread and goat cheese for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but what I remember most was the way we laughed. Great bouts of C-section busting hysteria.

Obviously things have changed since then. I can only imagine health care has improved and the army barracks are gone, although July is still the month Norsemen close up shop to frolic in the fjords. That fact alone should make one cross their legs.

So the next time you find yourself in Norway, remember my little story…especially if your partner is in the mood for an ice-breaking romp during the cold, dark month of October.

You’ll recognize the signs. 1.) When foreplay is moving faster than a Norwegian summer 2.) If one eyebrow is raised, he’s drinking beer and singing love songs while channeling Tom Jones in Vegas 3.) If he starts acting like a Hemingway bull in Pamplona…chasing you around the granite kitchen table, horns locked and loaded… that’s a pretty good indication that the fish balls and moose jerky have skyrocketed his testosterone levels into a frat-boy frenzy.

Good luck out there…watch the ice!

When my parents asked if the car was coming with them to assisted living, initially I thought it was the perfect time to get rid of it. I soon learned they weren’t ready to lose all their freedom. It was the illusion of escape they wanted to hold onto. It made sense. God knows I’d want to do the same.

People always say you have to pick your battles. I’ve learned that’s true, but it seemed every time I let down my defenses, they not only noticed…they pounced. In the next breath, my mom mentioned driving in daylight as her eyes plagued by macular appeared to work well enough in sunlight and my dad thought he could cover the night shift.

I always wonder why some families wait for days before notifying police of a missing relative. Don’t they know within a couple hours? Surely, by morning. But as my parents aged, I came to a new understanding.

In their prime, it was hard to keep track of them. They were constantly on the go. Often in peril, but somehow they managed to turn up without a scratch.

I remember one time trying to reach them without luck. I started to worry after a few days and a multitude of messages, and then one day they called. Supposedly they’d lost interest in the dreary Seattle weather and driven south in pursuit of sun. They ended up in Morro Bay, way down the coast of California, sitting at an outdoor cafe listening to a washboard band while watching fisherman unload the catch of the day.

Another adventure involved their 30-year-old Cadillac and a road trip from Palm Springs to Seattle. I can imagine when that tuna boat rolled off the assembly line it was quite something. Now I questioned the reliability of the car for such a journey, but my mom told me not to worry…they’d given her one of those quick and dirty lube jobs.

For its’ years, the car was in mint condition. The only noticeable flaw was the felt headliner, which had come loose. When we were kids, my parents kept it in place with thousands of silver thumbtacks. “Think of them as stars” they told us. I was working with the idea until the sun started baking those black seats, so I rolled down the window and the tacks took off like a meteor shower.

Somehow the headliner was back in place and they were rolling down the highway. A few days later my phone rang.

“Your father and I are lucky to be alive.”

“Mom, we’re all lucky. These are trying times.” I said.

“No, I mean we are REALLY lucky. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the intensity of that heat or the sound of the windows popping out.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, “Are you guys talking about the Caddy?”

“Yep. The old girl’s kaput.” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Oh sure, just a little shaken up is all.”

That’s when she told me how the car exploded…literally burst into a ball of flames on Interstate 5 outside Sacramento. They were driving along and without warning there was a pop…then a bang…followed by some loud hissing noise, and the next thing they knew the entire car was engulfed in flames.

My parents desperately tried to pull themselves from the burning wreckage while BMW’s and Land Rovers continued to whiz by, some slowing slightly to look for casualties before speeding up again.

“Six Mexicans saved us,” my mom said. “They jumped out of their truck and came running, pulling out all of our belongings and even pried open the trunk to get your dad’s accordion. It was incredible! Unfortunately they didn’t speak English, but everyone was smiling and hugging just the same.”

I told myself that I wasn’t going to get political, but there seems to be a lot of hoopla over immigration nowadays. We hear politicians talk of walls and guards, even fanged dogs. I can’t say that this incident encouraged my parents to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with more gusto, but when they needed help, the last thing on their minds was whether or not those six brave men had crossed the border and overstayed their welcome.

This is the way I always thought life would be. My parents, a couple of reincarnated stuntmen crushing life. The next thing I knew they were old and I could no more gauge who I would encounter at our next meeting than predict the Second Coming.

After the move to assisted living I assumed their road warrior shenanigans would have to be curbed, but my dad had other ideas. Somehow he’d forgotten his altercation with a few parked cars…or was it a tree? Anyway, we thought that was the end of it and the keys were on lockdown, but he was ready to burn more rubber.

One of the last times I visited them was during a particularly warm summer. One of those few days each year that people curse their decision to save a few bucks and forego installing air-conditioning. My parent’s apartment turned into a frickin’ sweat lodge in the Mojave, so I could hardly blame my ninety-two-year-old dad when he informed us he was going to sit in the car and “turn on the air.” He shuffled out the door, dressed in his flannel pajamas, sheepskin slippers and terrycloth robe.

About an hour later, my mom let out a heavy sigh and said, “I worry about your dad in the car. You always hear of people dying of exhaust fumes.”

“Mom, the car’s not in the garage. It’s outside in your parking space.” I said, remembering that’s where I saw the old Lexus when the Uber driver dropped me off.

She hurried to the window. Just like she suspected, the car was gone.

We started calling his usual haunts, but no one had seen him. Just as we decided to alert the police, in walked my dad, sporting a smile the size of a quarter moon. He had driven to the university, down the narrow streets of Greek Row, and pulled to a stop in front of his old fraternity, a place that held his best memories.

As it was Friday night around party time, there were a few young frat brothers on the roof drinking beer. I can only imagine what the guys must have thought, staring down at an old man dragging his walker to the front door, his hair disheveled, in his flannels and sheepskin.

They hustled down from their lookout and met him in mid-knock. As they opened the door, there stood my dad, his hand expended to give them the official fraternity handshake…that no one seemed to know.

“How about a tour of the old place?” He asked, and the upperclassmen pointed to a freshmen pledge, who was left to shuffle him around the first floor, like they were knee-deep in quicksand.

“Ever heard of a dust mop?” Dad asked the pledge.

“Obviously not,” the young boy said, looking around as if for the first time.

Once they realized my dad was not one of the stuffy alums who wanted to see if they were treating the remodeled place with care, the other drunken lads joined the tour. For a few hours they swapped stories and drank beer. My dad’s Class of ’48 antics paled in comparison to their Animal House sexcapades and my dad admitted to the guys that he wanted a “do over.”

By the time he got home, still holding fast to his red Solo cup, we were a wreck…but he couldn’t have been happier, determined to return the next day with a mop and a pony keg of beer.

It has been truly gut-wrenching waiting to find out if Kavanaugh will be given the distinct honor to serve on the supreme court. I, like so many others, oppose his nomination.

I think what bothers me the most is that we seem to have lost basic values…truth and decency. The GOP thinks Dems have slandered a “good family man.” Dems feel he lied under oath and that during his job interview full of angry outbursts, he did not demonstrate the temperament or bipartisan beliefs to be a supreme court judge.

Then there is Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. What she must be feeling right now is beyond my scope of comprehension. It has been said that she is “confused” about her recollections and if she can’t come up with the exact date, address of the assault, and people at the party willing to testify, than it obviously didn’t happen and her story has no base in which to move forward. My heart goes out to her because she has been shamed for being a woman with a memory that haunts. She has become someone the good ol’ boys in the GOP can laugh and mock behind Senate doors. She is all of us, and those who choose to ignore her distinct memories and 100% certainty of Kavanaugh’s actions, will be keeping this mockery alive. We have sacrificed a woman for the sake of a man who believes he deserves to be a member of the highest court. We have sent out a communal denial that this sort of behavior is even remotely possible in the human experience…and if it is…we hope that it slithers away quietly without jeopardizing the chance of winning another seat on the bench.

If someone is reading this and finds my argument offensive, I ask you to give me a minute of your time to read a little about my life and what happened to me as a young girl. Maybe then you will understand why I am so upset.

What Dr. Ford described during her testimony made me feel like I did so many years ago. I, too, remember vividly…and with 100% certainty. Several occasions have changed my life forever. Three times I had my innocence compromised by perverts and no one came to my rescue. The system and the adults failed me. First when I was five, a boy who was babysitting me asked if I would sit on his lap. His hands roamed freely until they were inside me and although I told those I trusted what had happened, nothing was done. I was told he was such a nice guy, I must have been mistaken. Second, when I was eleven, I took surfing lessons. Two instructors employed by the hotel took me out and padded far enough out of sight that I suppose no one could witness them feeling under my bikini to see if I was sore “down there.” Then they told me to straddle the board and wait for a wave. The probing continued until I shyly asked if I could paddle in. The third incident took place at one of my parent’s cocktail parties. While the rest of the crew enjoyed themselves downstairs, a good friend of the family climbed in bed with me. His hands groped around for a long while, but unable to find something of particular interest, he got up to use the toilet…leaving me to try and make sense out of his unwanted fondling. I was forced to see him over and over through the years as I seethed inside.

As I grew older I learned that if a woman has a few drinks, then she is responsible for any sexual attack. The man is not held accountable for his behavior, but the woman, in a vulnerable state, is fair game.

Why am I telling you this? Why not just get some therapy? Because this shit happens all the time. Maybe it has already happened to your child and they have not felt comfortable enough to tell you. Maybe they feel that it is awkward, inconvenient, and worse yet, NOTHING will be done, or too much will be done, so why make a scene? After all, it’s not rape when you are finger-fucked, right? If the man says he didn’t do it, who do you believe? The child? When you won’t even believe the credibility of a woman who is a professor of psychology and a research psychologist from Stanford University with two master’s degrees and a PhD from USC? No, the GOP believes she is confused. A woman who wrote her dissertation in 1995 entitled Measuring Young Children’s Coping Responses to Interpersonal Conflict.” As she stated in her testimony, “I do not get confused.” And yet, many do not believe her. They claim that she probably was abused, but not by their Golden Boy.

The “animal” hides in all of us. We like to think that our moral compass is tightly tuned to the pulse of righteousness, but sometimes our carnal urges triumph over goodness. We attempt to brush these base desires under the civilized societal rug, but what we are ultimately left with is the chilling reality that the range of human behavior is far greater than most people find comfortable. The proof of how strongly these animalistic traits dwell in us lies in the fact that people are willing to risk their lives, their families, and their reputations, to entertain and follow through with these desires. I believe Brett Kavanaugh felt invincible when he was a young man…top student, a jock, and the only child in a privileged family. He drank in excess and felt entitled to do what he wanted. That’s what is not written in his calendars.

This country is the biggest ongoing experiment of human freedom in the world. With these liberties we must expect behavior that is objectionable to some, but acceptable to others as THEIR expression of independence. We must acknowledge that there will be those who do not believe Dr. Ford’s account…and those who believe her with every fiber of their being. But there is a sliver of darkness that is becoming a growing light. A fragment of justice and a call to arms coming from the voices of outrage and prayer. Does it mean that our hearts have opened a little wider to support women who have been sexually abused? To honestly listen and care about their feelings…believing that they are not coming forth for fame or fortune, but to be heard and acknowledged that these terrible things have and are happening around us. One can only hope.

I just received an alert that Kavanaugh was confirmed while our downstairs neighbor blasts Kanye’s “You’re such a fuckin’ ho, I love it.” Jesus, what a world!