The Infinite Hallway

I imagine my life as an infinite hallway.  On the left side are doors that are unlocked.  These doors contain the things that are always with me as I travel.  Things like family, friends and experiences.  The doors on the left are always unlocked so when I need to access a memory or support from my family or friends they are always there.

On the right side is a blank wall.  On this wall I draw doors of opportunity.  I draw these doors with a pen of intention.  The ink in this pen is always flowing and never fades.  This ink comes from my thoughts and actions and imagination.  The door is drawn only when I give of myself without expectation of reciprocity. No strings attached.  Doors that may remain locked for a while haven't ripened.  It's not time to reveal what's behind it.  This part is hard for me.  I'm impatient. 

I am grateful for this infinite hallway.  I am grateful that I have the ability to create my life exactly as I want it to be.  I am grateful that I have the ability to deal with unexpected results. I am grateful...

Let's talk about sex...

So it happened.  Emma asked where babies come from.  This is how it went:

Emma: "Mommy, where do babies come from?"

Me: "Well, the daddy gives the mommy a special seed.  The seed grows in her belly and makes a baby."

Emma: "Like a nut?"

Me: {stammering} "Well...ummm...no. It's like...ummm."

Emma: "And how does it get in there? Do you swallow it?"

Ty chimes in with, "Go ahead Mommy, explain how it works." I knew at this point that the questions wouldn't stop.

Me: "Okay Emma. I'm gonna tell you exactly how this works.  But there are some rules.  One, you don't talk about this to anyone except Daddy or me.  Two, this is very private and only for grown-ups. Three, if you have any questions about this you don't ask anyone but Daddy or me. Okay?"

Emma: "Okay."

Me: {inhales deeply} "Okay.  So you know how a boy has a penis and a girl has a vagina?"

Emma: "Yes."

Me: "Okay, well...The man has a seed and it's called sperm.  It lives in his testicles."

Emma: "You mean his nuts?"

Me: {stifling laughter} "Yes, his nuts, but they are called testicles.  He uses his penis to put the semen into the woman's vagina.  This is called sex. Connected to the vagina on the inside is the uterus. Inside the uterus, the woman has an egg."

Emma: "WOW! Like a chicken egg?"

Me: {still giggling} "Well...no, not like a chicken egg.  It's a tiny little egg.  You can only see it with a microscope."

Emma: "Oh, like my pinky fingernail?"

Me: "No, even smaller than that. You can't see it without a microscope."

Emma: "Oh ok."

Me: "Ok so, the sperm goes into the uterus and meets up with the egg.  There is a chemical reaction and the sperm and the egg together make a baby.  The baby grows in the mommy's uterus for 9 months and then the baby is born."

Emma: "Do they always cut the baby out of your tummy?"

Me: "No, mommy couldn't have you the natural way.  Normally the woman pushes the baby out through her vagina."

Emma: {audible gasp}"Does it hurt?"

Me: "Well, I've heard it does hurt but they can give the woman medicine so it doesn't hurt."

Emma: "Oh."

Me: "Do you have any questions?"

Emma: "No. Hey Daddy! Can we go to McDonald's tomorrow?"

The next day I wanted to be sure that she had properly absorbed the information.  I pulled her aside after dinner and asked her if she remembered what we had talked about the day before.

Emma: "Yeah. I didn't talk to anyone about it."

Me: "Good. Do you have any questions?"

Emma: "Mommy? If you're a grown-up and you're married, {whispers} can you do it on the couch when nobody's home?"

Me: {trying desperately not to laugh} "Well when you're a grown-up and YOU'RE MARRIED and no one is home, you can do it where ever you want."

Emma: {giggles} "Cool."

And that is how I had the sex talk with my 7 year old.  It was actually a lot less painful than I thought it would be. 

Common Phrases in the Haus of Schaeffer...

Here is a top 10 list of phrases that have been spoken, or perhaps yelled, in my house on more than one occasion.

10. "Stop touching your penis!"

9. "Don't jump on the bed!"

8. "That is not a toy!"

7. "Stop running in the house!"

6. "Don't throw your toys!"

5. "Stop jumping off the couch!"

4. "Get your hand out of your milk!"

3. "No, you cannot pee in the bathtub!"

2. "Stop splashing in the bathtub!"

And finally...drumroll please...

1. "I LOVE YOU!"

Sorry for the mush. I couldn't help myself.

We're off to see the wizard...

...the wonderful wizard of...WTF?!?

They made me stop in my tracks.  The moment I saw them, I was drawn into the gravitational pull of their awesomness.  That's when it started...

Right Brain: "Oh my gosh. Aren't these beauuuutiful?!"

Left Brain: "Yeah, yeah...they're shiny and red and pretty. Keep walking."

Right Brain: "No, I have to touch them."

Left Brain: "No, keep walking."

Right Brain: "Come on, I just wanna get a closer look."

Left Brain: "You need another pair of red shoes like you need a hole in the head."

Right Brain: "Oh, but these are so much more shiny and sparkly than the ones I have."

Left Brain: "You don't NEED red shoes.  You need brown or beige ones.  For the wedding that you are going to next weekend...remember?"

Right Brain: "But these are so much more exciting than BORING brown or BLAND beige. Besides, you wouldn't let me get the RED dress that I wanted for the wedding."

Left Brain: "Remember what happened last time you wore a RED dress to a friends wedding?"

Right Brain: {sigh} "I know, I know...that's why I let you talk me in to the dreary, lifeless thing on the hanger in the closet."

Left Brain: "Seeeee...now let's go. I'm hungry."

Right Brain: "Shut up, I'm just looking." {turns shoe over to look at the price}

Left Brain: {audible gasp} "$300?!?"

Right Brain: "Yeah but it's Stuie."

Left Brain: "Who?"

Right Brain: "Stuart Weitzman."

Left Brain: "Stuart Who? Who is that?"

Right Brain: "You know, Stuart Weitzman. The shoe designer that has a magical ability to make the shoes that we, {scoff} I mean...I dream about at night!"

Left Brain: "You don't need to spend $300 on shoes that will make you look like the second coming of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. You have nothing to wear them with anyway."

Right Brain: "So what, they're beauuuutiful."

Left Brain: "Put the shoe down. What would Ty say?"

Right Brain: "Who?"

Left Brain: "Ty, you know...YOUR HUSBAND, the father of your children. What do you think he would say if you spent $300 on red shoes that go with nothing in your closet."

Right Brain: {sigh of defeat}"Oh...yeah. Gosh, don't you have anything better to do than crushing my dreams?"

Left Brain: "When's the last time you wore heels anyway? Like what...a year ago? Forget it. Just put the shoe down and walk away."

Right Brain:  {puts the shoe down}"Ugh...fine."

Left Brain: "You'll thank me later."

Right Brain: "Whatever."

Schaeffer Sh*t-Chat

Ty and I have some very strange and interesting conversations.  I wanted to start a section on my blog with transcripts of these conversations.  I knew I wanted to name this section 'Schaeffer (word that starts with 'S')".  So I started the recorder and asked him, knowing that it would be good blog material. 

Me: "What is another word for talking that starts with 'S'?"

Ty: "Soliloquy?"

Me: "Isn't that some sort of poem? Or some kind of like way of writing, or..."

Ty: "It's when an actor talks to himself."

Me: "No wait, lemme rephrase the question. What's another word for a conversation that starts with 'S'?"

Ty: "What's another word for conversation? Dialogue? Is that what you're talking about?"

Me: "No like another word for talking, conversation, chit-chat...but something that starts with 'S'."

Ty: "Ummm repartee?"

Me: "Yeah, that's an 'R'."

Ty: "Ok...shit-chat?"

Me: {laughing} "That's actually pretty good. Shit-chat?"

Ty: {using his new found word in a sentence} "He wasn't saying anything, he just wanted to shit-chat with me."

Me: {starting to laugh hysterically} "Thats actually really good."

Ty: "Ty's made up words of the day!"

Me: "Uhhh, it's not really a word. Well, you didn't make up the word shit."

Ty: "I did make up the word shit-chat."

Me: "No you didn't, it's not a word its a phrase."

Ty: "It's not a phrase its a word there is a hyphen. Its one word."

Me: {scoff, sigh}

Ty: "Hyphens don't separate words they combine words."

Me: "Ok but, you didn't make up the word shit..."

Ty: "No."

Me: "...and you didn't make up the word chat."

Ty: "No, no."

Me: "You married the words."

Ty: "Chefs don't like, make up spaghetti..."

Me: {giggling again}

Ty: "...ok? They use it in a special way. {imitating someone arguing with a chef?} 'This is just spaghetti...'"

Me: {speaking through laughter} "So you made a word recipe???"

Ty: "Yes...yes, trademark Ty. {imitating the person arguing with the chef again} '...all you did was season tomato sauce.' {imitating the chef} 'Yes, that's what I do.'"

Me: {still laughing}

Ty: {imitating the person arguing with the chef again} "'Its not like you made a tomato.'"

Me: {hysteria} "I love you"

Ty: "I love you too."





Some time goes by where I think I'm actually going to have the opportunity to go to sleep.  Then he starts again.





 Ty: "I need another word for...laxative...that starts with an 'R'."

Me: {laughing again} "What???"

Ty: "You don't have the patent on making rules." {pause} "Pantalones."

Me: "Wait...pantalones is a word that starts with 'R' that also means laxative?"

Ty: "This is my game and my rules."

Me: {giggling again} "Ok..."

Ty: {sighs} "Secrets."

Me: "That's pretty good actually, that might work...I think I still like shit-chat though. It's hard to say shit-chat without it sounding like shit-shat. Ya know?"

Ty: {laughing}

Me: {speaking through laughter} "Like shit in preset tense and shit in past tense." {laughing again}

Ty: "Brittany, it doesn't just talk about all types of content, it transcends time. Present and past."

Me: {still laughing} "Ok..."

Ty: "Shit-shat."

Me: "Shit-shat."

Ty: {imitating} "'We were just sitting around shit-chatting.' No you can say it, I can't say it, but you can say it. I bet Nancy can say it."

Me: "Say what?"

Ty: "F*cking shit-chat. Say it like that."

Me: "Oh like from my class?"

Ty: "Mmm hmm."

Me: "What??? That doesn't work. I guess I woul...{sigh}"

Ty: "Sharing, sharing can be..."

Me: "No, no it's like an action, it needs to be a noun."

Ty: "Talking is not a noun, it's a verb."

Me: "That's what I mean." {laughing again}

Ty: {laughing}

Me: {laughing}

Ty: {imitating me} "'Wait, wait, wait it doesn't have to begin with 'S'...that not what I mean. It just has to be a color.'"

Me: {hysteria}

Ty: {laughing}

Me: "Ok...I love you. Goodnight."

Ty: "Sharing is a verb too, by the way."

Me: "But that's not the kinda verb I meant.  I meant like a..."

Ty: "Do you want an adverb?"

Me: {laughing again} "I meant like, uh...I don't know." {yawn}

 
 


At this point I've given up my argument and have finally decided to succumb to slumber.  Or so I thought...
 
 
 


Ty: {the sheets are rustling as he tosses and turns}
 
Me: "What are you doing?"
 
Ty: "Getting under the covers for a few minutes before..."
 
Me: "Oh, stop whining."
 
Ty: "...you steal them."
 
Me: "I don't steal the covers. I lay very still all night long. You toss and turn and flip and flop and kick your feet all night long. And I wake up in the same position that I fell asleep in. Almost. I am perfect. Sort of."
 
 
 
There is silence for a little while, but that's just the sound of the delirium kicking in.  This is where things stop making sense.
 
 
 
Ty: "Sorbet. Sorbet is a word that starts with 'S' and is a noun that can't be a verb."
 
Me: {laughing} "Stop it! I have to go to sleep."
 
Ty: "It could be a color too."
 
Me: "Sorbet is a color?"
 
Ty: "Could be. Pudding is a color."
 
Me: "Really? But, what if it's like pistachio pudding?  How could pudding, all by itself, be a color?"
 
Ty: "Red."
 
Me: "Red pudding?! What???"
 
Ty: "Red's a color...could be red pistachio pudding."
 
Me: {laughing} "I've never heard of...OK! Shut up because I have to go to sleep. I love you."
 
Ty: "Now I'm hungry."
 
Me: {giggling}
 
Ty: "You know what you never have in pistachio flavored ice cream?"
 
Me: "No Ty, what do you never have in pistachio flavored ice cream."
 
Ty: "Nuts."
 
Me: "Sure you do."
 
Ty: "No, there's never pistachio nuts."
 
Me: "Oh my god, I am going to go to the store and buy pistachio ice cream and show you that there are pistachio nuts in pistachio ice cream."
 
Ty: "Maybe I'm thinking yogurt."
 
Me: "Ewww, nuts in yogurt?"
 
Ty: "Is that what the problem is? It's just the flavor huh? That's what it is. Yogurt."
 
Me: "I guess they have nuts in granola."
 
Ty: "Not in yogurt."
 
Me: "And granola goes good with yogurt."
 
Ty: "Well, frozen yogurt, I should have said."
 
Me: "I don't know...No, I like granola in my yogurt yogurt. Not frozen yogurt."
 
Ty: "As a topping?"
 
Me: "Yeah."
 
Ty: "But, it doesn't come in it."
 
Me: "Right, yeah...that would be weird if it like sat on the shelf for a really long time with the nuts and the..."
 
Ty: "It's not on a shelf, it's in a machine."
 
Me: "No, I'm talking about the yogurt that you buy at the grocery store on the shelf."
 
Ty: "I'm talking about frozen yogurt. I said ice cream but I meant frozen yogurt."
 
Me: "Oh. No, there's never any nuts in pistachio flavored frozen yogurt. You are correct. Where do you get this stuff?"
 
Ty: "You're the one that brought up pistachios."
 
Me: "No I didn't! Did I? How did I bring up pistachios?"
 
Ty: "The pudding."
 
Me: "Oh, right. That's right. Ok."
 
 
Then we both fell fast asleep.

Spam Wars: Part 2

From: Brittany Schaeffer
To: Raught Legassie
Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: Your wife photos attached


Dear Mr. Legassie,


It seems as though I've received your message in error. I do not have a wife, as I am female and heterosexual. I'm not sure who's wife is in the photos you have attached. She is quite beautiful. Did you take them? If so, I'd like to inquire about hiring you to photograph my husband. Is it a requirement that he be naked? I'm not sure if he'll be up for that. I'll make it a point to ask him when I get home from work.

I'm not sure why your email ended up in my spam folder. It is quite clear that you are trying send proofs of the photos you took of someones wife.  You may want to check to make sure that the intended recipient got what he needed.  How serendipitous is it that I receive your email at the same time I need a photographer?! Thank goodness I check my spam folder regularly to make sure I don't miss anything important.
I look forward to hearing from you about your pricing and availability.
 
Sincerely,
 
Notstupid Enough
 
______________________________________________________

From: Raught Legassie
To: Brittany Schaeffer
Date: Fri, Sep 10, 2010 at 8:08 AM
Subject: Your wife photos attached


Your wife photos


divulsion.zip

11K Download

Things I've learned and some I have not

NOT LEARNED: Be careful when standing up after sitting indian style, oh wait, criss cross applesauce (stupid political correctness). Apparently, after the age of thirty, you are not so easily able to recover from sitting in this position. Both of your feet fall asleep and when you stand up, you inevitably...fall down. And at age 31, falling down is not graceful. Gravity is the enemy in more ways than just this one.

LEARNED: Children under the age of 4 should not play with scissors for 2 reasons. Reason #1: IT'S DANGEROUS. Reason #2: If the child playing with the scissors also has paper, they will probably make a HUGE mess cutting the paper into tiny little pieces resembling confetti that will somehow end up all over the place making it look like you just celebrated New Year's eve even though it's May and you will continue to find said pieces throughout the house for the next few months.

NOT LEARNED: Pull up's don't work. Despite this profound knowledge, I continue to use them.

LEARNED: Do not send sexy messages to your husband via text message. See example here

NOT LEARNED: You cannot have a reasonable conversation with a person that has an altered sense of reality.  The moral of the story 'The Little Engine That Could' doesn't apply to this situation.  No matter how many times you say "I think I can!", it just won't happen.  I don't know why I still bother.

LEARNED:  Walking into a child's bedroom in the dark will result in some sort of foot injury.  This will wake up the sleeping child which you were trying to avoid disturbing by not turning on the light in the first place.


NOT LEARNED: Asking Ty questions is like having dental work without Novocaine.  Ty only gives me the precise answer to the question I ask.  He does not infer. Example in BOLD PRINT below:

Ty: "Hey, remember how you said you wanted to go camping?"

Me: "Yeah."

Ty: "Well, it looks like we are gonna go camping, but the house is gonna stay in the tent."

Me: "Huh?"

Ty: "The house is going to be in the tent."

Me: "Yeah, I heard you but what are you talking about?"

Ty: "It's worse than we thought."

Me: "What do you mean?"

Ty: "Well, we thought it was bad, but it ended up being worse than we thought initially."

Me: {audible sigh} "Yes, Ty, I understand that. But, what do you mean about the camping thing?"

Ty: "Oh, yeah the house."

Me: "Mmmm hmmm."

Ty: "Remember how I said we have termites?"

Me: "Ohhhh, the house has to be tented."

Ty: "Yeah."