The One about Miss Nator

I'm so sorry to have to publish this twice but the first time something went wrong and this is the only way I can think of to fix it.

Sincerely,
Tanu

16 years and four months ago at about 6:00 in the morning I was getting ready for work and the phone rang. It was my mom."TORI'S IN LABOR! WE HAVE TO GET OVER TO HER HOUSE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!" All of a sudden I morphed in to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig all in one. (I would like to reference a very, very old cartoon where in the 3 aforementioned characters over slept and are hurrying around trying to get ready for work all at the same time...if you've seen it then you know what I looked like. If you haven't seen it because you are decades younger than me and have never watched a black and white, sketched Bug Bunny cartoon...then...I'm sorry for you because it's the funniest cartoon I've ever seen.)

I started hyperventilating and running around in circles. I was trying to get dressed but I couldn't find anything to wear even though I was standing right in front of an entire closet full of clothes. I threw a tee shirt over my head and tried to squeeze my head through the arm hole. Eventually I put my head through the proper opening and then I found my Levi's and put them on, hopping through the house with one leg in and the other leg partially stuck in the leg hole. I ran to get my purse and then decided that shoes might be a good option for someone who was anticipating being in a labor and delivery room of a hospital. I hopped back in to the bedroom and started throwing shoes out of the closet. I have 50 pairs of shoes and the only matching pair I could find were a pair of black patent leather platform heels that I had worn to my 20th high school reunion. I was almost resigned to wearing said patent leather shoes when I found something a bit more appropriate for the occasion. My Birkenstocks! Both of them! Yay! I put them on and then decided that I should probably brush my teeth since I figured that I'd be pretty much face to face with my laboring sister.

I flew in to the bathroom and started brushing my teeth as quickly as I could. In less than 15 seconds I had managed to cut my gums with the back side of my toothbrush and I splashed toothpaste in my eye and had toothpaste splattered all over my tee shirt. Perfect!

I could hear my mom's car honking in the driveway so I grabbed my purse and ran out the door. When I drive from my house to where my sister lived at the time I could make it in 4 minutes. My mom, who respects speed limits and stop signs, took 10 minutes to get there. I was so afraid that I was going to miss something that I was doing everything short of pushing down on her gas pedal leg.

When we got to Tori's house we found Tori sitting calmly on the couch waiting for her husband to finish what he was doing so that we could all get to the hospital. Tori's oldest son, Andrew, was quite put out because he wasn't allowed to go to the hospital with us. He just couldn't understand why 8 year olds were not allowed in the delivery room. (Now a days, I'll bet you couldn't PAY him to be in a delivery room.) Paul was angry because he just wanted to go anywhere the car was going.

Things were silently progressing inside my sister's body. She is very, very stealth when it comes to being in the early stages of labor so none of us knew how much time we had to get this dog and pony show on the road before it would be too late. When she finally got up and started heading to the car before her husband was ready to go it was pretty clear that we were running out of time. It took Tori a couple of minutes to make it from the couch, down the steps of the front porch to the awaiting Mommy Van. She decided that it would be easier to slide in to the back seat rather than try to climb up in to the bucket seat up front. Her husband kept trying to talk to her and she would just close her eyes and puff her cheeks up. That is Tori code for "I'm in grave amounts of pain and I do not want to talk to you or anyone else for that matter. Leave me alone or I will be forced to show you my mad Karate skillz and knock your block off. Thank you."

My mom stayed with Andrew and Paul and we headed off to Inter Community Hospital in Covina. Tori had already given birth to two babies so she knew that she had very little time before this one was going to be born. Unfortunately having a passenger in labor doesn't excuse the driver from breaking the speed limit so Tori's husband drove as fast as he could yet observed all of the posted speed limit signs. Again, if I had been the one driving we would have made it to the hospital in about an hour because that is how long it would have taken me to get pulled over, be issued a speeding ticket and then get back on my merry way.

When we got to the hospital we pulled right up to the front door. Tori barely waited until the van slowed down before she got out. Labor was hitting her harder than she thought and she had over estimated her ability to run for the hospital door. She had to sit down and luckily there was a bench just a few steps away. Her husband was getting out of the van and I was getting in to the drivers seat when I heard a small shriek from Tori. The bench she had sat down on was metal and it was freezing cold and wet with morning dew. Not conducive to a laboring woman.

Tori waddled towards the door and I went off to park the van. It only took me a couple of minutes to find a place to park and get inside the hospital. As slow as Tori was walking I was sure I'd be able to meet her in the lobby but when I got inside the hospital she was nowhere to be found. I would have asked the person at the front desk where my sister had gone however there was no one sitting at the desk that early in the morning.

I found my way to the maternity ward and asked them if they knew where Tori was and of course they had never even heard of my sister. I told them that she had just, not two minutes ago, come in and was in active labor. I described what my brother in law was wearing and still...nothing. Apparently my sister and brother in law had wrapped up in their cloak of invisibility and snuck through the maternity ward. I thought it would be in poor taste to go from door to door to see if I could find them so I stood in the lobby and called my sister's name. That went over almost as well as going from door to door. The nurses told me that I would have to wait quietly and they would help me find her. "You don't understand", I told them, "my sister goes from 0 to 60 in mere moments. If I don't find her immediately I might miss the whole thing!"

After about 10 minutes my brother in law came out and found me. The maternity ward was so full that they had to put Tori in the recovery ward. Left to my own devices I would have never thought to look for her there so I'm quite thankful he came out and got me. The room had 8 beds in it and several of them had women in various states of recovery. None of them were in the mood for the child birth cheer leader and his wacky side kick. Tori looked pale and green and I could see that she was in quite a bit of pain. We did what we could to ease her pain but she didn't want to be touched. She lay there in silence, trying to do her Lamaze breathing and then I heard her mumble.....

"Iwannaush...."

I looked at brother in law and said, "What did she say?", and she repeated it but with more emphasis and a lot more volume....

"I WANT TO PUSH!"

Ok, well that wasn't good. Brother in law and I immediately morphed in to our unrehearsed 3 Stooges routine. He went up to the head of the bed and told her not to push and then tried to get her to concentrate on him. She wouldn't even look at him. She was still doing her Lamaze breathing but now it looked like she was trying to blow up an imaginary balloon that had a hole in it. I went running for the door to try to flag down a nurse. "MY SISTER WANTS TO PUSH!! WE NEED HELP IN HERE!!!" The nurse that had just shown Tori to her bed looked at me like I was making all of this up. "She's only been her for 15 minutes...she couldn't possibly be ready to push....", she said. We made it back to Tori's bed and now her Lamaze breathing was reminiscent of someone chewing who had no teeth. She was slobbering air all over the place! The nurse asked me and brother in law to go to the head of the bed while she checked the dilation situation. I can only imagine that the baby was basically waving at the nurse when she pulled back the blanket because the next thing I knew the nurse was throwing scrub suits at me and brother in law and telling us to wash up. In the time it took us to wash up and put the scrub suits over our street clothes two orderlies had shown up and were moving the bed out of the recovery room. Of course they had to connect with each and every obstacle in the room and in the hallway. It truly looked like they were driving bumper cars!

Our scrub suits included covers for our shoes and here is a word to the wise: If you are ever going to attend a child birth don't try to run down a hallway wearing Birkenstock sandals with surgical scrub coverings over them. I was slipping and sliding all the way to the delivery room. I'm very thankful my morning at the hospital didn't conclude with a head full of stitches.

We got to the very small delivery room and the orderlies parked the bed and locked the wheels. The labor nurse started to take the bed apart and put Tori's legs in the stirrups. Tori had been virtually silent up until now but then she started making this dreadful noise that came from the depths of her soul. She sounded like a wounded animal. As fascinated as I was with this whole child birth situation I was woefully unprepared for dealing with seeing my sister in such pain. It scared me to death. I panicked and thought, "I can't do this. I have to get out of here." I was getting ready to bolt for the door when brother in law thrust a video camera in my hands. This was before the cute little hand held video cameras that we are familiar with today were invented. He had a state of the art camera that was about the size of a professional news crew camera. I got a 1 minute lesson on how to operate this thing and then all hell broke loose.

Tori's usual doctor was unavailable so the the doctor on call had to fill in. How would you like to meet your obstetrician for the very first time when you are in the throes of labor and find out that his name is Dumwrong Tanksherknob?? Ol' Dumwrong was wearing a head piece that looked like a welders mask so we couldn't see his mouth. So that coupled with his very thick accent...we couldn't understand anything he was saying. He was trying to talk to my sister and her only responses were shrieks and moans. Apparently that is OB speak for, "Yes, I give my permission for everyone in the hospital to come in here and look at my uncovered nether regions.", because before the doc got down to business there were 4 med students standing elbow to elbow at the end of the bed taking it all in. To this day we don't understand what they were doing there because the hospital we were at is not a teaching hospital and we were a good 30 miles from the nearest medical school. *(*UCLA)

So as soon as we had as many strangers in the room as possible the doctor said, "POOSH". Tori pooshed twice and presto chango there was a whole new human being on this planet. I. Was. Aabsolutely. Stunned. This was simply the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my entire life. There is nothing more pure and hopeful than watching a baby come in to this world and I am truly sorry for anyone who hasn't gotten to see this happen. I feel like I could go on about this for hours and I still couldn't begin to capture and express the wonderfulness I had just witnessed. I had been sobbing from the moment the camera was put in to my hands and now I got to trade the camera for my perfectly beautiful brand new niece. She was so tiny and gorgeous. She had dark hair and lots of it. Highly unusual for our family which famous for birthing bald headed babies. She was crying that pitiful "mwat mwat" cry of a new born and I knew right then that this child would have me wrapped around her finger for the rest of my life.

Tori was crying and shivering uncontrollably. Apparently there is a rush of hormones that flood the body after you give birth and it makes some women shiver. I thought Tori was going to shiver herself right off the table. "Smell her head", Tori told me. As I was still sobbing there was no way I was going to be able to smell anything so I tried to fake her out by doing what most 2 year olds do when you tell to smell something...I made a loud attempt at breathing out. I could smell the tiniest hint of what Tori wanted me to smell. I had no idea that newborns smell just like Johnson's baby products. I'm guessing that is what heaven smells like.

I got my act together enough to quietly sing the Jackson Browne song, "The Pretender" to her because that is the most beautiful song in the world and I wanted it to be the very first song she ever heard. I could only get through a few lines of the song because I was going to start sobbing again so instead I talked to her. I told her that I loved her more than life itself. I told her to always ask for big diamonds. I told her I would always be there for her no matter what. And..because I've seen every episode of "Friends"...I told her that I would always have gum.

Watching that birth was the most exciting moment of my life and I can't remember anything that happened after that baby arrived. The next day we got to bring the baby home and we all sat down to watch my cinematic efforts from the jumbo video camera. Imagine my surprise when it was revealed that my sobbing was the sound track of the entire birth. I'm sorry to say that the customized sound track paled in comparison to the approximately 5 minute long stretch where I thought I had put the camera on pause and had it resting at my side. The camera was not on pause and thus we were treated to several minutes of the camera just staring at the wall...however...my favorite part was the couple of times I was walking down the hall way and I was swinging the camera. UUUUUUppppp and dddddooooowwwnnn. UUUUPPPP and dooowwnn. It looked like bad special effects from a B movie of 1935. We laugh at it now but I was mortified when it happened.

Now that 16 years have passed I've watched that baby grow up. What was her name? Hannah Maureen? Kimberly Rebekah? Bethany Grace? We wouldn't know the answer for a couple of days. *(Interesting side note to the naming of this child: At the time of her birth her father was working on the TV show "ER", which starred Anthony Edwards. One of the names in the running for this new baby was Bethany. Paul confused "Bethany" with "Anthony" and for weeks after the birth he told everyone that he had a new sister named "Bethany Edwards".) She wound up with the name of Rebekah Maureen. "Rebekah" because it is a biblical name and "Maureen" because it was our grandmothers name. We hardly ever called her Rebekah. We called her BekahMo for the most part and then she was called "The Bekahnator". (We called her that so much that Paul thought her last name was "Nator"!) Now I just call her Bek.

Bek has always been as tough as nails which I'm sure is the result of being the first sister to two brothers. But no matter how tough she appears to be it is very hard to just sit back and watch when some stupid boy comes in to her life and says that he loves her and then changes his mind a few weeks later. It would be bad/sad enough if he'd only done it once but she's fallen for it 3 times now. She shed a few tears in front of the family but I'm sure there were a whole lot more that we didn't see. It has taken everything I have not to go to her city of residence and hunt down the idiot foolish*, (*title made up by Bek when she was about 2 years old), who did this and slap him silly. I have always been a firm believer in "an eye for an eye" and so I can only hope that when someone breaks his tender heart in half that I'm there to take pictures.

The one about Ms. Nator

16 years and four months ago at about 6:30 in the morning I was getting ready for work and the phone rang. It was my mom."TORI'S IN LABOR! WE HAVE TO GET OVER TO HER HOUSE AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!" All of a sudden I morphed in to Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck and Porky Pig all in one. (I would like to reference a very, very old cartoon where in the 3 aforementioned characters over slept and are hurrying around trying to get ready for work all at the same time...if you've seen it then you know what I looked like. If you haven't seen it because you are decades younger than me and and have never watched a black and white, sketched Bug Bunny cartoon...then...I'm sorry for you because it's the funniest cartoon I've ever seen.)

I started hyperventilating and running around in circles. I was trying to get dressed but I couldn't find anything to wear even though I was standing right in front of an entire closet full of clothes. I threw a tee shirt over my head and tried to squeeze my head through the arm hole. Eventually I put my head through the proper opening and then I found my Levi's and put them on, hopping through the house with one leg in and the other leg partially stuck in the leg hole. I ran to get my purse and then decided that shoes might be a good option for someone who was anticipating being in a labor and delivery room of a hospital. I hopped back in to the bedroom and started throwing shoes out of the closet. I have 50 pairs of shoes and the only matching pair I could find were a pair of black patent leather platform heels that I had worn to my 20th high school reunion. I was almost resigned to wearing said patent leather shoes when I found something a bit more appropriate for the occasion. My Birkenstocks! Both of them! Yay! I put them on and then decided that I should probably brush my teeth since I figured that I'd be pretty much face to face with my laboring sister.

I flew in to the bathroom and started brushing my teeth as quickly as I could. In less than 15 seconds I had managed to cut my gums with the back side of my toothbrush and I splashed toothpaste in my eye and had toothpaste splattered all over my tee shirt. Perfect!

I could hear my mom's car honking in the driveway so I grabbed my purse and ran out the door.


When I drive from my house to where my sister lived at the time I could make it in 4 minutes. My mom, who respects speed limits and stop signs, took 10 minutes to get there. I was so afraid that I was going to miss something that I was doing everything short of pushing down on her gas pedal leg.


When we got to Tori's house we found Tori sitting calmly on the couch waiting for her husband to finish what he was doing so that we could all get to the hospital. Tori's oldest son, Andrew, was quite put out because he wasn't allowed to go to the hospital. He just couldn't understand why 8 year olds were not allowed in the delivery room. (Now a days, I'll bet you couldn't PAY him to be in a delivery room.) Paul was angry because he just wanted to go anywhere the car was going.

Things were silently progressing inside my sister's body. She is very, very stealth when it comes to being in the early stages of labor so none of us knew how much time we had to get this dog and pony show on the road before it would be too late. When she finally got up and started heading to the car before her husband was ready to go it was pretty clear that we were running out of time.
It took Tori a couple of minutes to make it from the couch, down the steps of the front porch to the awaiting Mommy Van. She decided that it would be easier to slide in to the back seat rather than try to climb up to the front seat. Her husband kept trying to talk to her and she would just close her eyes and puff her cheeks up. That is Tori code for "I'm in grave amounts of pain and I do not want to talk to you or anyone else for that matter. Leave me alone or I will be forced to show you my mad Karate skillz and knock your block off. Thank you." My mom stayed with Andrew and Paul and we headed off to Inter Community Hospital in Covina.


Tori had already had two babies so she knew that she had very little time before this one was going to be born. Unfortunately being in labor doesn't excuse a driver from breaking the speed limit so Tori's husband drove as fast as he could yet observed all of the posted speed limit signs. Again, if I had been the one driving we would have made it to the hospital in about an hour because that is how long it would have taken me to get pulled over, be issued a speeding ticket and then get back on my merry way.

When we got to the hospital we pulled right up to the front door. Tori barely waited until the van slowed down before she got out. Labor was hitting her harder than she thought and she had over estimated her ability to run for the hospital door. She had to sit down and luckily there was a bench just a few steps away. Her husband was getting out of the van and I was getting in to the drivers seat when I heard a small shriek from Tori. The bench she had sad down on was metal and it was freezing cold and wet. Not conducive to a laboring woman.

Tori and hubby waddled towards the door and I went off to park the van. It only took me a couple of minutes to find a place to park and get inside the hospital. As slow as Tori was walking I was sure I'd be able to meet her in the lobby but when I got in there she was no where to be found. I would have asked the person at the front desk where my sister had gone however there was no one sitting at the desk that early in the morning.

I found my way to the maternity ward and asked the people at that front desk and of course they had never even heard of my sister. I told them that she had just, not two minutes ago, come in. I described what my brother in law was wearing and still...nothing. Apparently my sister and brother in law had wrapped up in their cloak of darkness and snuck through the maternity ward.

I thought it would be in poor taste to go from door to door to see if I could find them so I stood in the lobby and called my sister's name. That went over almost as well as going from door to door. The nurses told me that I would have to wait quietly and they would help me find her. "You don't understand", I told them, "my sister goes from 0 to 60 in mere moments. If I don't find her immediately I might miss the whole thing!"



After about 10 minutes my brother in law came out and found me. The maternity ward was so full that they had to put Tori in a recovery ward. Left to my own devices I would have never thought to look for her there so I'm quite thankful he came out and got me. The room had 8 beds in it and several of them had women in various states of recovery. None of them were in the mood for the child birth cheer leader and her whacky side kick. Tori looked pale and green and I could see that she was in quite a bit of pain. We did what we could to ease her pain but she didn't want to be touched. She layed there in silence, trying to do her Lamaze breathing and then I heard her mumble.....

"Iwannaush...."


I looked at brother in law and said, "What did she say?", and she repeated it but with more emphasis and a lot more volume....

"I WANT TO PUSH!"

Ok, well that wasn't good. Brother in law and I immediately morphed in to our unrehearsed 3 Stooges routine. He went up to the head of the bed and told her not to push and then tried to get her to concentrate on him. She wouldn't even look at him. She was still doing her Lamaze breathing but now it looked like she was trying to blow up an imaginary balloon that had a hole in it. I went running for the door to try to flag down a nurse. "MY SISTER WANTS TO PUSH!! WE NEED HELP IN HERE!!!" The nurse that had just shown Tori to her bed looked at me like I was making all of this up. "She's only been her for 15 minutes...she couldn't possible be ready to push....", she said. We made it back to Tori's bed and now her Lamaze breathing was reminiscent of someone chewing who had no teeth. She was slobbering air all over the place! The nurse asked me and brother in law to go to the head of the bed while she checked the dilation situation. I can only imagine that the baby was basically waving at the nurse when she pulled back the blanket because the next thing I knew the nurse was throwing scrub suits at me and brother in law and telling us to wash up. In the time it took us to wash up and put the scrub suits over our street clothes two orderlies had come up and were moving the bed out of the recovery room. Of course they had to connect with each and every obstacle in the room and then in the hallway. It truly looked like they were driving bumper cars. We had to put covers over our shoes and here is a word to the wise: If you are ever going to attend a child birth don't try to run down a hallway wearing Birkenstock sandals with surgical scrub coverings on them. I was slipping and sliding all the way to the delivery room. I'm very thankful my morning at the hospital didn't conclude with a head full of stitches.

We got to the very small delivery room and the orderlies parked the bed and locked the wheels. The labor nurse started to take the bed apart and put Tori's legs in the stirrups. Tori had been virtually silent up until now but then she started making this dreadful noise that came from the depth of her soul. She sounded like a wounded animal. As fascinated as I was with this whole child birth situation I was woefully unprepared for dealing with seeing my sister in such pain. It scared me to death. I panicked and thought, "I can't do this. I have to get out of here." I was getting ready to bolt for the door when brother in law thrust a video camera in my hands. This was before the cute little hand held video cameras that we are familiar with today were invented. He had a state of the art camera that was about the size of a professional camera that you would see a news crew carry. I got a 1 minute lesson on how to operate this thing and then all hell broke loose.

Tori's usual doctor was unavailable so the the doctor on call had to fill in. How would you like to suddenly meet your obstetrician and find out his name is Dumwrong Tanksherknob?? Ol' Dumwrong had a head piece that looked like a welders mask over his face so we couldn't see his mouth. So that coupled with his very think accent...we couldn't understand anything he was saying. He was trying to talk to my sister and her only responses were shrieks and moans. Apparently that is OB speak for, "Yes, I give my permission for everyone in the hospital to come in here and look at my uncovered nether regions.", because before the doc got down to business there were 4 med students standing elbow to elbow at the end of the bed taking it all in. To this day we don't understand what they were doing there because the hospital we were at is not a teaching hospital and we were a good 30 miles from the nearest medical school. *(UCLA)

So as soon as we had as many strangers in the room as possible the doctor said, "POOSH". Tori pooshed twice and presto chango there was a whole new human being on this planet. I was absolutely stunned. This was simply the most amazing thing I had ever seen in my entire life. There is nothing more pure and hopeful than watching a baby come in to this world and I am truly sorry for anyone who hasn't gotten to see this happen. I feel like I could go on about this for hours and I couldn't begin to capture and express the wonderfulness I had just experienced. I had been sobbing from the moment the camera was put in to my hands and now I got to trade the camera for my perfectly beautiful brand new niece. She was so tiny and gorgeous. She had dark hair and lots of it. Highly unusual for our family which famous for birthing bald headed babies. She was crying that pitiful "mwat mwat" cry of a new born and I knew right then that this child would have me wrapped around her finger for the rest of my life.

Tori was crying and shivering. Apparently there is a rush of hormones that flood the body after you give birth and it makes some women shiver. I thought Tori was going to shiver right off the table. "Smell her head", Tori told me. As I was still sobbing there was no way I was going to be able to smell anything so I tried to fake her out by doing what most 2 year olds do when you tell to smell something...I made a loud attempt at breathing out. I could smell the tiniest hint of what Tori wanted me to smell. I had no idea that newborns smell just like Johnson's baby products. I'm guessing that is what heaven smells like.

I got my act together enough to sing the Jackson Browne song, "The Pretender" to her because that is the most beautiful song in the world and I wanted it to be the very first song she ever heard. I could only get through a few lines of the song because I was going to start sobbing again so instead I talked to her. I told her that I loved her more than life itself. I told her to always ask for big diamonds. I told her I would always be there for her no matter what. And..because I've seen every episode of "Friends"...I told her that I would always have gum. What was her name....Hannah Maureen? Kimberly Rebekah? Bethany Grace? We wouldn't know the answer for a couple of days.

It was the most exciting day of my life and I can't remember anything that happened after that moment. The next day we got to bring the baby home and we all sat down to watch my cinematic efforts. Imagine my surprise when it was revealed that my sobbing was the sound track of the entire birth. I'm sorry to say that the customized sound track paled in comparison to the approximately 5 minute long stretch where I thought I had put the camera on pause and had it resting at my side. My favorite part was the couple of times I was walking down the hall way and I was swinging the camera. UUUUUUppppp and dddddooooowwwnnn. UUUUPPPP and dooowwnn. It looked like bad special effects from a B movie of 1935. We laugh at it now but I was mortified when it happened.

Now that 16 years have passed I've watched that baby grow up. She wound up with the name of Rebekah Maureen. We hardly ever called her Rebekah. We called her BekahMo for the most part and then she was called The Bekahnator. (We called her that so much that Paul thought her last name was "Nator"!) Now I just call her Bek.

Bek has always been as tough as nails which I'm sure is the result of being the first sister to two brothers. But no matter how tough she appears to be it is very hard to just sit back and watch when some stupid boy comes in to her life and says that he loves her and then changes his mind a few weeks later. It would be bad/sad enough if he'd only done it once but she's fallen for it 3 times now. She shed a few tears in front of the family but I'm sure there were a whole lot more that we didn't see. It has taken everything I have not to go to her city of residence and hunt down the idiot foolish*, (title made up by Bek when she was about 2 years old), who did this and poke him in the eye. I have always been a firm believer in "an eye for an eye" and so I can only hope that when someone breaks his tender heart in half that I'm there to take pictures.

I look JUST like Bekah!

And this is what happens when you have a teenaged sister who thinks every picture taking ordeal is a photo op for "MySpace":

Happy Birthday to me, my twin sister, my brother in law and the key board player from My Chemical Romance

Last Saturday was my birthday. That would obviously make it Tori's birthday, too. Her husband's birthday is the day after ours. To celebrate our birthdays we had dinner with family and friends at The Spaghetti Factory. Fun and spaghetti was had by all. Tori and I ordered chocolate martini's. Unfortunately when they were delivered to us they were clear. I have had this trick pulled on me before and I don't appreciate it. For some reason there is an unwritten joke in the universe that if you pour a glass full of iced frangelico and call it a chocolate martini no one will notice there there is not a drop of chocolate in the glass. A couple of times I have accepted this act of maleficence but I was not about to do so on my birthday. Tori and I marched up to the bar and we were promptly ignored by the bartenders. Did they not SEE the ribbons dangling from our shirts declaring that we were birthday girls? It took us about 10 minutes but we finally got a drink with chocolate involved. In my, & Tori's, quest to find the perfect chocolate martini...The Spaghetti Factory, along with Princess Cruises, are both out of the running. Not even an honorable mention. Anyway...I digress...the salad and spaghetti were wonderful. I stopped just short of licking my plate and was shocked to see that most of my neighbors had to request "to go" boxes for their spaghetti. Amateurs.

I got a lot of beautiful gifts...an outdoor solar lamp with kitties on it, a trip to San Diego, flamingo pajamas, lounge wear, an outfit including SHOES, a picture frame, bathroom accouterments, and a gift certificate for See's Candy with a warning that I was not to share this box of candy with Ashleigh and Lorenzo! (new post about them to follow, but after the way they've been acting it will not be difficult to not share my box of candy with them.)

The day after our birthday dinner I took Rebekah to see "My Chemical Romance" at the Anaheim Convention Center. As per usual we had to park in the east 40 which is basically in Garden Grove.
We had to pass many doors before we could find the proper door that would allow us access to the "pit". I knew we had finally found it when I saw this sign posted, "MOSH AREA. ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK." This was one of those moments where the question, "Am I too old for this?", crossed my mind. The opening band was playing when we got there and unfortunately for Bek we got there just in time to hear them play the very last note to their very last song. When the lights came up the crowd kind of burped as people headed for the restrooms and the bar. Bek and I were salmon swimming up stream as we weaseled our way toward the front of the stage. We were about 5 rows back at first but after a very few minutes enough people had crowded in front of us and that put us about 10 rows back. Of course "Fatzilla" wound up standing in front of Rebekah, and I was next to a bunch of squirrely, shrieking girly girls. Psycho Mike from KROQ came out and got the crowd pumped up before the band came out and that was all it took for me. It instantly got too hot and too crowded. I told Bek to ring my phone so that we were sure we could find each other. It worked like a charm, and with that I told her that I would be standing in the back of the pit where there was sure to be more air and less people. Once I found a nice spot right next to the sound board I text messaged her so that she would know where I was in case the crowd got to be too much for her. She didn't respond to my text. I texted her again. No response. I thought about trying to go back into the mob and finding her and just then the music started. There was no way the crowd was going to let me back in, and plus there was no way of knowing that Rebek would be exactly where I left her. She had sworn to me that she would make it up to the front of the stage and I really didn't doubt that she would.
The music was loud and wonderful. The band was amazing. Their last album is called, "Welcome to the Black Parade", and apparently they fancy them selves as members of a marching band in the black parade. They were all wearing black band uniforms. It was amazing to me how they could rock like maniacs, jump and sing and dance while wearing long sleeve jackets all buttoned up to their chins. I was wearing a tank top and I was not standing under the lights or near the pyrotechnics and I was too hot. I could feel the sound reverberating off of my stomach. There were strobe lights flashing and fire pots bursting. Each song was an audience sing-a-long. There was dancing, there was moshing, there was "floating", (this is when the crowd picks someone up over their heads, horizontally, and people keep him suspended over their heads and move him all over the room by moving him from hand to hand,etc.) There were several people doing fast and furious punk versions of swing dancing. The band sang "Happy Birthday" to their key board player and of course as I sang along I put my name in there, too.

I saw kids as young as 5 years old out there with their parents. That never ceases to blow me away. It is amazing to me that they can tolerate such loud music but I guess some people are just born to rock and roll. And at the price of tickets I just can't help but think that a baby sitter would have been much, much cheaper.

The band sang every song I wanted to hear and yet when the concert was over I thought that it was over too soon. They ended with "I'm Not OK" and "Helena". Even though I was standing among a couple thousand of my closest friends I danced and sang, "I'm Not OK" as if I were in front of my bedroom mirror with a hair brush for a microphone. I was awesome and I will be waiting for the call from the band asking me to join them on the road.

When the concert was truly over I stood at the only door and waited for Rebekah to emerge. My phone rang and I heard her ask me where I was...I told her I was standing at the door and we stayed on the line until I saw her tiny figure emerge from the crowd. I was not prepared to see what I saw next. The bright eyed, hair straightened, meticulously made up, neat and tidy little daisy now resembled something along the line of a banshee. Her hair was standing on end. Her cheeks were so pink that I thought she had been slapped. Her shirt was completely soaked and her mascara was running down her face. "OH MY GOD AUNTIE!!!!", she said. A total wave of panic washed over my body. What in the hell was I thinking leaving this little girl out in a mosh pit all by herself. She'd obviously been tattered and torn and it was all my fault because I was not there to protect her. She continued to talk in a voice that only dogs could hear and was showing me her shaking hands. I am the worst aunt in the world. She will never recover. Once we got a couple of steps outside of the arena I realized what she was telling me. Apparently as soon as I left her she managed to weasel her way to the front of the stage where she proceeded to rock her socks off. "Gerard spit on me!!!", she said with glee. "HE SPIT ON ME." (Uh, yay?) "And did you see when he threw his arm band out to the crowd?" (yes, I did.) "I caught it. I had it in my hands and then this old lady, who looked like Sue from Survivor, ripped it out of my hands. I grabbed it back and we were FIGHTING over it. Her boyfriend grabbed my arm and pulled me backwards the woman's arm was in front of my face so I BIT HER! She pulled my hair and the only reason I let go of the arm band was because there was an open safety pin on it and it was cutting my hand." I was so excited for Rebek that she actually caught such a coveted item but I was instantly incensed that someone would have the nerve to snatch it out of her hand. I wanted to find that woman and climb up her back and beat her until she gave the arm band back to Rebek. Why are some people so selfish and thoughtless? As we walked through the halls of the arena Bek pulled WADs of hair off of her arm and shirt. I was hoping that it belonged to the woman but Bek was pretty sure that she was the original owner.

We had no idea how to get back to the car as the crowd was being ushered in one direction. Oddly enough everyone had to walk past the souvenir stands before they went out of the building. Bek wanted a tee shirt. We stood in line for about 45 minutes. (yay, more standing!) I told her that this was her birthday present so she could have whatever she wanted. I honestly thought she'd pick 2 tee shirts and a jacket and a flag and her very OWN arm band, but she decided on one jacket. Everything else had skulls on it and she was certain that she wouldn't be allowed to wear them, but it still surprised me when she decided on one item.

A good time was had by all but I don't think I will buy general admission pit passed for myself again. In fact I think I will start a petition that they should now implement a "Lazy Boy" section. Cuz that's just how I roll.

Bek and her boys of the weekend. First picture is with Tom Delong of Angels & Airwaves. Second picture is with Michael Gotto of "Sanctified". Third picture is with Daryl Gotto, also of "Sanctified".

On Saturday Bek and I went to The Universal Hilton and checked in. Our room was very nice and we had a lovely view of the roof of the floors below us. After we got un-packed we took the hotel shuttle across the way to Universal Studios City Walk. We walked around and shopped. We stopped in a chocolate store and had chocolate fudge with cayenne pepper in it and it was muy bueno. We found the stage where "Sanctified" was going to be playing and we staked out a place where we would have something to lean against. After much waiting the band finally showed up and did a sound check. Rebek was pretty much instantly in love. I'm not sure who she liked the best...Daryl, Michael or Nation. They are all 3 talented, good looking guys. The sound check went really well but pretty much as soon as they were finished the skies opened up. Bek and I searched for dryer ground and we wound up sitting with Michael and Daryl's dad and grandma. I was very shocked to find out that Mr. Gotto actually remembered me and welcomed us to squeeze in under the heaters with his family.

"Sanctified" put on a wonderful show. They sing, they rock, they jam. When the show was over one of the band members, Gabe, brought his girl friend up on stage and then proceeded to get down on bended knee and propose to her. It was so sweet.

After the show was over we took the hotel shuttle from Universal City Walk back to the Sheraton. It had rained a little bit but had since stopped. I was the first one to get off of the bus and little did I know that that's when my flight was cleared for take off. Oddly enough I was holding on to the hand rail, which is very, very rare for me being the germ-o-phobe that I am. I took about a half of a step and my feet just flew out from underneath me. I dangled in mid air for about 5 minutes before my butt hit the stair steps and then I bounced down each and every one of them on my spine. I hit my head on the last step and my first thought at that moment was, "MY HAIR IS IN THIS ICKY WATER THAT EVERYONE HAS BEEN STEPPING IN!" I never let go of the hand rail until my body hit the road so I landed with my arms above my head and my jacket, shirt and sweater up around my neck. Now THAT is a good look. My flying Walenda routine took place in slow motion and I have relived it in my mind over and over since it happened. Even when it was happening I was so embarrassed I could hardly stand it. I know that I was never going to see any of those people again but I feel like I made such a spectacle of myself. Of course it only took 1 second after landing on the wet ground for me to jump up and insist that I was ok, I meant to do that, leave me alone I'm going to my room There was a lady who got off of the shuttle when we did and she strongly encouraged me to make an accident report. At first I didn't want to because I was not yet in any pain and I just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge. While waiting for the elevator I had Rebek look at my back and assess my wounds. I was so cold and so full of adrenaline that I couldn't even tell if I was bleeding or not. My spine was scraped but fortunately there was no blood. After thinking for another minute I realized that I could very well wake up paralyzed the next morning and I'd have no way of proving that I had sustained my injury during my stay at the Sheraton so I relented and went to fill out an accident report. This turned out to be a total joke and pretty much just made me mad. Can you believe a corporation as large as the Sheraton Hotel does NOT have an accident report form? A person from the securityoffice came down from his lofty tower with a clip board and a blank sheet of paper. By his demeanor and actions I would easily say he'd never taken an accident report before in his entire life. And judging by how long it took him to find me he must have been reading a tutorial before he came down stairs. The first thing he asked me was, "Do you have a picture ID?" He didn't ask me what happened or if I was in pain or what I thought of the war in Iraq. No sympathy or apology was offered. I gave him my drivers license and he wrote down all of my information and then asked me if this was my current address. THEN he asked me what happened. I had to repeat myself several times and this was not a difficult story. "I was getting off ofthe Sheraton shuttle bus, the steps were wet and I slipped and slid down the steps on my spine until I hit the ground. I hit my head and I scraped my back." That's when he finally asked if I needed to see a doctor and I said that I didn't think so. Then this yayhoo asked me why I was requesting an accident report???? I told him that if I woke up paralyzed the next morning I wanted something in writing showing how it happened. He said,"ok" and that was that. He walked away and we walked away, then I saw him at the elevator and he said, "When did this happened?" I thought that was a foolish question, when did he think it happened? Last May? I told him that it happened just a couple of minutes ago and he said, "No, you were talking to me a few minutes ago." I wanted to tell him that at point of impact I didn't bother to look at my watch, but instead I told him that it happened roughly 10 minutes ago. That was the end of our conversation.

During this whole situation he displayed not one bit of sympathy or compassionor true concern for me or the safety of others. He wasn't even matter of fact, he was completely disinterested in the whole situation. I think I will sue them because now that I have a huge bruise on my fanny my bikini modeling career is ruined. I don't think I will be going to the doctor. I'm stiff and I'm sore and hopefully this will be as bad as it gets. I think I pulled the muscles in my right bicep and chest area .n to, and never let go of the hand rail. Also for reasons I can't quit figure out...my ankles hurt, too.

Takes a bow and then shows rather large bruise on right rear end and another on lower spine to the crowd. (The one on my butt hurt enough that it woke me up in the middle of the night Saturday night before I even knew it was there.) The whole event was very pretty and impressive and I'm sorry that you were not there to witness it in person.

Since it was raining and I had just tried to kill myself...we were pretty much going to stay in our room for the rest of the night. I had no problem entertaining myself with the television and my library book. Rebek on the other hand found much folly in creating a new hair do which she dubbed "Glass Head". She took a small drinking glass and put it on top of her head and then pinned her hair all up over the glass. She took pictures and in the pictures she simply looks like someone from a scary movie who's hair is standing up on end.

We got up Sunday morning and packed out bags. We checked out of our hotel room and took the killer shuttle back to City Walk. We had a nutritious breakfast of Cinnabons and coffee. We had a few hours to kill so we went to the movies and saw "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3-D. I do so love Jack Skellington.

After the movie we made our way back to the VIP entrance of the concert. It was pretty cool walking past all of the other poor suckers who had to stand in line. Once we went through the gate we saw a patio that was all decorated for Christmas. There was a huge food tent and then a long hallway with pictures of all of the bands that were scheduled to play. The pictures were all made to look like family Christmas pictures. It was pretty funny.
We had to hang out and mingle. It was freezing cold and it was hard to stand still but Bek was certain that if Brandon Flowers from the Killers was anywhere around she was going to see him. We never got to see Brandon but she did get to see Tom Delong. He used to sing with Blink 182 but he's now with Angeles & Airwaves. She was so afraid to go up and ask to take a picture with him but I convinced her that THAT was what he was there for. She walked up to him and she was so giddy I could hardly understand what she was saying but he agreed to take a picture. He is very tall and Rebek is very short...so he pretty much folded himself in half so that his face would be in the same area as hers....they stood there smiling and...my...camera...wouldn't....work.