If you know me, you know that weird shit happens to me all the time. Like today, for instance. I was interviewing a renowned researcher and clinician for a very serious piece I am writing about stress and happiness for a national health magazine. And then all of a sudden I was bawling my eyes out and ordering this off the internet:

Here’s what happened just before that:

“Clients pay me to give them happiness makeovers,” the doctor was explaining. “If you give me three months, I can guarantee you happiness for the rest of your life or you get your money back.”

“What about if someone is terminally ill or totally broke or living with an abusive partner or weighs five hundred pounds?” I countered.

“Bring it on,” Doc quipped. “I love a challenge.”

“Okay, my dad died nine years ago, and I miss him every day,” I told her. “Make me happy about that.”

She explained the process that she would take me through and I agreed to give it a whirl. First, I had to verbally acknowledge that his dying was out of my control (which might sound blazingly obvious but holy crap is that hard to say out loud), and then I had to say–again, out loud–that I accepted that it had happened. I could barely choke out the words.

Snot was dripping down my chin by this point.

“I don’t typically ofter this, but… would you like to talk to your dad?” she asked me. “Because I can do that.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said between sobs. (Yes, I said shut the fuck up to a PhD, during an interview in which I was sobbing.)

“I’m also a Reiki master, and I think you need to do this to be healed,” Doc informed me.

So I lit a candle and got a glass of water like she told me to do while she got my dad on the phone.

“Your dad wants you to talk to him more,” she said. Which totally freaked me out because shortly after he died I had this crazy-real dream where he said to me, “I hear you talking about me but I want you to talk to me,” so I proceeded to drive around and talk to him where nobody could see or hear me and if they did they might think I was just talking on the Bluetooth that I don’t technically have.

“He wants you to get an angel statue to put on your desk, and talk to him through that,” she added. “A male angel.”

Now I am sobbing and chatting with my dead dad and also Googling for angel statues, so you can imagine how totally professional I felt.

Turns out there are a shit-ton of male angel statues to choose from. But most of them were just… wrong.

This one was too holy. (Dad might be the only person I’ve ever met who liked the word fuck more than I do.)

This one was too garden-y.

This one was WAY too naked.

But then I saw Black Angel and I started cracking up. Doc couldn’t see what I was looking at (shit, maybe she could!), and she couldn’t have known how funny my dad was (or maybe she did!), but my cackle was all she needed to hear. “You just found your angel,” she told me.

So now I feel good because Black Angel is on its way, and Doc also told me that I should totally get a new car because it will make me happy on a daily basis. (Just so you know, a new car only makes most people happy for 30 days before they go back to being just as miserable as they were before the purchase–even if the new car smell is still there and everything–but because I want a new car so I can take my kids and their friends places, it will lead to legitimate, ongoing, sustainable happiness. Or something like that.)

Joe is going to be so on board when I tell him that the Reiki master who talks to dead people says we should get a Mercedes! (Fine, she didn’t say we should get a Mercedes. But she didn’t say we shouldn’t get one either, and I’m pretty sure my dad would want me to drive a Benz. Damn it, I should have asked him when I had him on the phone.)

When Black Angel arrives, I will vlog one of our conversations if you guys want.

p.s. I absolutely am not mocking the good Doctor in this post. Just so we’re clear. She’s brilliant and fabulous (and not because of the Mercedes car thing, honest) and she thanked me for “opening up to her so willingly” (i.e. hysterically sobbing) and if I wanted to grow up I’d want to be her when I did it.

p.p.s. I’m adding these pix for Joy Meredith, who would like to be able to picture my fantastic dad without espresso-colored skin and fluffy wings, not that there’s anything wrong with that.

p.p.p.s. Yes, I used to dye my hair dark brown. Obviously.

p.p.p.p.s. Can you BELIEVE that bitch Debra?

*totally those kind of balls

This weekend I took my daughters to Ben & Jerry’s, because I’m a kick-ass mom despite what that bitch Debra said. (Yes, I’m going to milk that one for the rest of ever.) My six-year-old asked me to read the flavor menu, which normally I wouldn’t do because these are teachable moments, and plus she can read. But the menu was sort of high up and all tricked out in fancy fonts so I indulged.

“Banana Split, Brownie Batter, Boston Cream Pie,” I recited, “Milk and Cookies, Mint Chocolate Chunk, Mud Pie…”

Thoughtful stares.

Jesus, kids, it’s ice cream, not your fucking burial plots.

“Phish Food, Strawberry Cheesecake, Schweddy Balls…”

Shit.

“Sweaty balls! They have sweaty balls? I want sweaty balls!”

Raucous laughter.

“They’re not talking about those kind of balls, dear,” I tried to say, but it’s kind of hard to talk when you just peed your pants in Ben & Jerry’s. “It’s Schweddy, named after a very famous–”

“Sweaty balls! Sweaty balls! We want sweaty balls!”

We got Cookie Dough cones (the chocolate-dipped kind covered with fucking rainbow sprinkles because I didn’t have the energy to breathe, no less say no to anything) and the subject was dropped.

Or so I thought.

Tonight, I was bitching at asking the girls nicely to get ready for dinner when my savvy six-year-old stopped in mid-tracks, put her hands on her hips, cocked her head to one side and stared me right in the eye.

“Why aren’t you doing what I asked?” I hollered inquired sweetly.

“Sweaty balls,” she said.

I tried not to laugh but I suck at that, so instead I collapsed into hysterical fits.

“Sweaty balls, sweaty balls, sweaty balls!” she sang.

I may have been chanting “sweaty balls” with her, I’m not entirely sure. You know, because of the hysteria.

“I’m going to say that every time you’re mad at me, because I like it when you laugh,” she announced.

So now my six-year-old a) likes to chant sweaty balls, and b) is officially smarter than me.

You totally wish you were me.

(No really, you do. It’s really fucking fun at my house. It’s just too bad we’re all going to hell.)

The other night at dinner we were happily practicing math facts with our eight-year-old, because we are good parents despite what that bitch Debra said. Also, “math facts” are just basic addition/subtraction/multiplication tables, but for some reason since we got old the math-bosses decided they needed a new name for them. Like you don’t “carry the one” any more, either. You “regroup”. I guess the word tables is sort of confusing in that context.

Anyway. I threw out NINE TIMES NINE pretty much straight away because that’s my calculator tester and everything. When she couldn’t get the answer, I was like “You have to know nine times nine! That’s the best calculator tester ever!” And everyone looked at me and I got the weirdest feeling that maybe everyone used a different calculator tester. Or no calculator tester at all.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” my husband asked. (Oh fine, he didn’t say fuck because we were at the table–see? confusing!–with the kids but you and I both know when it’s there even silently.)

“My calculator tester?” I sasked. (I just made that word up and I love it! It’s said-and-asked all smushed together. Works, right?) “You know, like before you balance your checkbook or add up all of the Girl Scout cookie orders and you have to make sure the calculator works? Or when you see one in the store and the little screen isn’t lit up because it’s solar and you can’t keep going until you wake it up, so you need your calculator tester?”

They all just stared at me.

“Mine’s nine-times-nine,” I added stupidly.

Silence.

“You don’t have one, do you?” I asked, looking at Joe.

“Of course I don’t have one,” he said.

“So how do you know if your calculator is working?” I needed to know this.

His response? “Calculators always work.”

Is he right? Am I crazy? Actually you’re probably super busy, so just the first question will suffice.

For an article I’m writing for a parenting magazine, I’m assembling a list I’m affectionately dubbing “the must-have new mom posse”. (That does NOT say pussy, you pervs.)

I need real women to weigh in on the specific sorts of peeps they had (or wished they had) around after bringing home baby. NOTE: You can say you dreamed of having a wet nurse, but I probably won’t include that in the piece. Because, you know, ewwwww.

My list might look something like this:

The totally together friend with kids. She’s already read all of the books and done all of that tedious vaccine research. When she tells you what to do, you can do it without second-guessing yourself.

The helpful hubby. Just because you have a hubby doesn’t mean he’s necessarily helpful–at least without your guidance. (This one would include training tips for the new dad.)

The single friend. Because she’s not burdened with soccer games and buried under mountains of laundry, she’ll have more time for you than your married friends–and she’ll likely never tire of holding the baby.

The thorough but mellow pediatrician. Well, there has to be somebody who doesn’t freak out when the baby gets a pea stuck in her nose (and it won’t be the mom).

The trusted babysitter. If you’re lucky, there are people in your zip code who share your DNA who can fill this role; if you’re not, you need to start trolling. You need this person, big-time.

The friend who’s a kick-ass cook. (Obvious)

The enterprising sister (or sister-in-law). Mine spent the first week of my daughter’s life painstakingly organizing thirty-plus years of photos into matching albums. You cannot put a price tag on this.

The rule-bending friend. You don’t necessarily want to follow her every example, but having a pal who isn’t afraid to do it her way will make you feel infinitely better about your own approach.

Get the idea? Please respond with your list, your stories, your advice. You can include examples of people you had around you whom you very much wished would go away. The more detail, the better!

BEST RESPONSE GETS A SURPRISE! (I promise not to jump naked out of your birthday cake.)

Much obliged, you guys.