This morning in the car.

Jax: Mommy, today is President’s Day.

Me:  Yes, it is.

Jax: Does Kate have to go to school today?

Me: No, she’s off for President’s Day too.

Jax: I know who the president is.

Me: You do?

Jax: Yeah, he’s George Washington Obama.

Memo to self: 

• Add teach Jax American history and current events to Papa’s list of Things You Gotta Do to Prevent a Substantial Rent Increase.

• Explain to Mimi that the Tooth Fairy is on a budget and Jax has 32 teeth, which is why he only got a dollar last night.

Competing against much larger and speedier breeds, Malachy, a diminutive 11-pound Pekingese, won this year’s Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, sending out a message to the world that the Pekingese is indeed the superior species.

Hyacinth, the author of When the Monarchy Crumbles, is also a Pekingese, but unlike Malachy, she is a bitch with an eating disorder, tipping the Bean scales at 22 pounds.

The Bean family is delighted to hear that the Pekingese has thus been recognized, and we send our heartfelt congratulations to Malachy and his family.  And we pray fervently that after the hullabaloo has died down, Malachy can get a much-deserved haircut.

Two weeks ago, Mimi underwent surgery to uncross her toes.  The index toe had lapped over the middle toe.  I think they got stuck when Mimi was praying to win the lottery.  If it wasn’t bad enough that she couldn’t wear sandals without drawing undue attention to herself, Mimi was in pain.

The surgery was scheduled on a Friday, and I took the day off to go with her.  When the surgeon walked in with the purple Magic Marker to draw on her foot so that he wouldn’t uncross the wrong toes, his eyes opened wide in recognition.

I was a little sister in his fraternity when I was a college freshman.  I drank cheap beer in those days and did crazy, uninhibited things like dance on bar tops.  And here I was all grown up, wearing another 20 pounds and accompanying my mother to toe surgery.

Times change.

Now I drink moderately priced chardonnay and act like an idiot at little league basketball games when Bean 1 plays well, which is actually a frequent occurrence.

After the surgery, Sissy moved in with Mimi to take care of her.  Within the first 10 days, Mimi had read four bodice rippers (thank you, Pamelot), watched 11 movies, and learned to cheat at Whirly Word.

Aside: I taught Belle to cheat at Whirly Word, and Belle taught Mimi.  Belle showed up at Maison Bean one day.  She had won 1951 games since Christmas when Papa, who thought he was going to die, bought us all iPads.  There were two words that had Belle stumped, and she wasn’t about to relinquish her winning streak, so she came to me.

The letters were L-Z-O-Y-S-T.  I thought about it for all of three seconds and then opened Safari and did a Google search on word scramblers.  I know they exist because I play Scrabble with people who cheat.  The words were “zloty” and “zlotys.”  Then I did a Google search on zloty because I had no idea what the hell a zloty is.  But Google is good, and I learned a zloty is a Polish form of currency.

Finally bored with traditional entertainment, Mimi moved on to my blog.  Mimi knows I blog, but she’s just not a blog reader.  So I get this email while I’m at work.  “Did Moose really drink Clorox?”

“Yep,” I wrote back.

Then she called me.  “Why didn’t you tell me Moose drank Clorox?!”

“I don’t tell you everything that goes on.  It was late.  I got up at 4:00 the next morning to go to San Diego, and every time I called after I got to California, things seemed chaotic.  By the time I got home, I forgot.”

“You. Told. Me. You. Were. Going. To. A. Conference. For. Work.”

Ooops.  She was referring to BlogHer.

“No, I didn’t.  I said I was going to a conference.  You just assumed it was for work, and I didn’t disabuse you of that.”

Mimi laughed.  The oxycodone the frat boy put her on for pain made her giddy.  Then she said, “Well, you make us sound like a bunch of drunks.”

And there it is—the first signs, gentle reader, that censorship is on its way.

“Mimi, we are a bunch of drunks.”

But I’ve got bigger problems than Mimi’s censure right now.  A 37-pound Moose has taken up residence in my bed.  A rogue virus whose only symptom was a very high fever put him in my bed for a couple of nights, and now I can’t get him out.  He sleeps sideways and he kicks!

Santa was generous this year—really generous.  In fact, I’m typing on his generosity right now.  But Bean Law being what it is (the Murphys ain’t got nothing on us), there were challenges. . . .

When you’re a budding young athlete with untapped potential—at least according to your suspiciously prejudiced grandmother—the thing you need most in the world is a basketball goal… because the plastic Fisher Price hoop with the missing basket that your Papa found on the side of the road just doesn’t cut it.

Santa didn’t disappoint, although I have to say, his delivery was a little unorthodox.  The basketball goal appeared unassembled in a large box in the driveway three days before Christmas.

Poor Papa had to put the damn thing together amid the gleeful raucous of little Beans. In typical Bean fashion Papa began the project by ignoring the instructions.  And in typical Bean fashion, Papa was, a few hours later, screaming at the little Beans, opening a beer, and sitting down at the picnic table to read the instructions.  That’s when he had his come apart.

“It says right here on the box, ‘no tools required,’ in large block letters, but if you bother to take out a magnifying glass to read the skinny script underneath, you realize that there are no tools required to adjust the goal height.  It turns out I’m gonna need 43 tools to put together the 4,000 pieces, but, by golly, I can adjust the goal height by hand!”

And so muttering under his breath and armed with instructions in three languages and 43 tools, Papa went back to work.

The Spanish instructions were actually the most helpful, not that Papa can read Spanish. He just liked the pictures better.

By the time Papa finished, the sun had begun to set, and it had become chilly.  It was a good-looking basketball goal as far as basketball goals go, and there were only six pieces left over, and Papa threw them in the trash as he made his way inside to make up a pitcher of martinis with extra olives.

As difficult as it was, I refrained from asking if it was just a Spanish thing or had Super Glue and duct tape recently become standard tools in the assembly of basketball goals.

While Jax shot hoops, Moose rode his tricycle and Papa and Mimi sat bundled up like a couple of geriatric alcoholics slugging down their cocktails.

Unfortunately, the assembly wasn’t the only problem with the basket.  Jax became as relentless as Hyacinth on Thanksgiving about the sport and no member of the family—except Belle, who has a gimp leg—was spared the unending pleas to “play just one game.”

Poor Mimi busted up her knee when she went for a lay up—whatever the hell that is—and was hobbling around with a knee brace.  I have gotten more exercise on our driveway—uh, I mean, court—than I have in years, and Buzz and Sissy have put in their fair share of time on the court too.  We’ve played two-on-two and HORSE for hours—whatever the hell those are.

It never occurred to any of us that you could wear out a basketball, but Jax has put it in the realm of possibility.  Things have started to get ugly—the constant bouncing of the ball on the drive is interrupting Papa’s naps… but I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

At least we’ll have fodder for blogs in weeks to come.

Is it just me?  Who kicked up the throttle?  There’s school, there’s basketball, there’s Mt. Jenny (17 loads of laundry on the dining room table that needs to be sorted, folded and put away), there’s doctors’ appointments, grocery shopping, and work.  Then there’s cancer and the occasional bad day, there’s the days we run out of wine and don’t have time to make a trip to Total Wine, and there’s Mimi, who’s having her toes uncrossed tomorrow.

And then there’s my poor little blog has been suffering.  I’m sorry.  I started a post last night, but it just isn’t ready, and I can’t even blame Hyacinth for it this time.

This morning I watched the news about the Navy Seals rescuing Jessica Buchanan in Somalia, and I was proud to be an American.  It also reminded me of another blog post that I wrote after bin Laden was killed, God Bless the USA and the Navy Seals, and I’ve posted the link so that if you haven’t read it, you can go back and read a decent post.

Next Wednesday:  a proper post.  Promise.

XOXO, Jenny

Note: it was only moments after posting this that Papa began writing a wise-ass comment. I always know he’s up to no good when he asks me how to spell my name.

Vodka: Papa recently discovered a high-end vodka that’s $20 cheaper than Grey Goose and reputed to be just as good.  Never one to pass up a deal, Papa was convinced after the first martini that it was just as good as the Grey Goose.

“You only like it because it’s cheap,” I told him.

So Papa decided to let Mimi, who knows good Goose, decide if the cheap brand was just as good.  In a blind taste test, Mimi nailed the Grey Goose on the first taste test… and in the 13 subsequent taste tests that Papa subjected her to.  Finally, I drove Mimi home.  I returned and found Papa pouring the cheap stuff into a Grey Goose bottle.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “I’m going to add a little water to take the burn out.”

Santa:  Santa brought Jax and Moose a very large giraffe and a very large zebra.  When Papa, who had consumed his fair share of eggnog, discovered them, he almost went into cardiac arrest.  And then there was poor, poor Rooster, who stays confused, and whom we caught making sexual advances to the zebra’s leg.

Fric and Frac:  On Wednesday, Papa rode his bike to the cancer center for his infusion.  Later that day, Belle came to sit with him, and realized upon arrival that she’d locked her keys in her car, so she called Sissy to bring her an extra key.  Because Sissy was driving Papa’s SUV, they decided that she would go ahead and carry the bike home and Belle would chauffeur Papa.

When Nurse Brenda saw Belle scurrying away, she asked Papa just how many daughters he had.  “Well, there’s Jenny,” he said, “and then there’s Fric and Frac.”

“Fric and Frac?” Nurse Brenda asked.

About that time, they heard a cacophony of blaring horns and a police siren.  When Nurse Brenda looked out the window to see what was going on, she saw Lucy and Ethel, aka Belle and Sissy, aka Fric and Frac, blocking both lanes of traffic as they tried unsuccessfully to put the bike on the bike rack.  Traffic was gridlocked, and two university campus officers with blue lights flashing were on the scene trying unsuccessfully not to laugh.

Bandaids:  I followed the Portia rule—no Bandaids unless you’re bleeding—until pushover Mimi mucked everything up, and then I decided that Bandaids are a lot cheaper than tantrums.  So Moose has this Bandaid fetish and he climbs up on the toilet, opens the medicine cabinet and grabs a Bandaid and goes in search of someone to affix said Bandaid to various body parts…. Oftentimes he wants his big toe bandaged, and after it’s on, he limps away very convincingly.

Prelude
When Portia and I were teenagers, we used to babysit for Mrs. Borden.  Mrs. Borden had born three hoodlums (all male) to a crazy man.  Mr. and Mrs. Borden liked to go out and have fun and then she and Mr. Borden, who was crazy (did I mention that?), would come home all soused up, and he would tell jokes that we would pretend to understand.

Mrs. Borden was a terrible, terrible housekeeper, and Portia and I talked about her unmercifully.

Last Monday

Me:  Portia, I am absolutely exhausted.  I’ve cleaned the house all day long.  I’ve done 10 loads of laundry.  I’ve just taken down the Christmas tree.  I’ve vacuumed.  I’ve gone to the grocery store with both little Beans in tow.  I’ve cleaned bathrooms, polished silver, given Hyacinth a bath, and I’ve composed a letter in my head to Melissa and Doug telling them how much I like their toys, but that I don’t know why they can’t be a little more mommy friendly, i.e., storage problems with one-dimensional magnetic people and magnetic clothes that come in box with no lid.  And now I’m scrubbing walls while I talk to you, but my house still looks like a disaster zone because Moose can create a big mess a lot faster than I can pick things up.

Portia:  You have to take a break.  You cannot catch up.  I won’t ever forget finding a half-eaten sandwich under Mrs. Borden’s couch and thinking that she had to be the worst housekeeper ever.  And now I’m scared to look under my own couch.

After Portia said that, I looked under my own couch.  Suffice it to say, that I’m still reeling from the shock, and I have not had time to compose a post.

In the interest of maintaining the blog, I’m going to post a few pictures I took over the holidays.  If I can ever get my house cleaned, I will return with a proper blog post.

XOXO, Jenny

By Papa

Jenny did an excellent job describing the Moose Stink, not to mention pulling off a great scam on Papa for free diaper changing.

Now let me take a crack at that smell.

It’s like you buy a bottle of Grey Goose and hide it under your bed so those deadbeats you’re related to won’t drink it all up. When you crawl under the bed to get the bottle, you get stuck and find amid the dust bunnies a passle of very large, pissed-off skunks who have taken up residence.  Light cannot penetrate that stink.  You scream out for help but the stink blanket muffles sound. In other words, some heavy siht.

Now the bad part—when you come to, you discover those damn skunks ran off with the Grey Goose.

My diet and supplement advisor JJ Lilly is a registered dietitian who went off the reservation when she picketed the hospital where she worked.  Her picket sign said, “Eat the crap in our cafeteria AND you’ll never get well.”

My kind of girl.

JJ Lilly recommended a few thousand dollars worth of supplements, which I purchased and piled in a big box high up in closet beyond Moose reach.  I call it the Blind Ass Luck Grab Bag Program… just pull a supplement out of the box every few hours at random and take it.  Makes me feel better thinking about it.

I’d like to write about the great doctors and nurses at the hospital, but every time I try, I tear up.  It’s the same thing with friends, family and all those people I don’t know saying prayers for me…. Go Methodists!

I hope they all know I love them.

A.E. Voodoo, my holistic medicine man is strange.   He makes his moves late at night.  He’s a climb-over-the-fence-and-come-in-the-back-door guy.

Very weird.

Sometimes we say the Lord’s Prayer.  Sometimes we do Buddhist chants or yoga.  And sometimes we just sit and meditate.  He also loves to play hide and seek with Jax and Moose.

Voodoo has a four-hour tape of a Rockford Files car chase in which Rockford starts in a brown car and ends in a blue car and can’t seem to outrun an old Mac truck—mind altering stuff that is absolutely guaranteed to put you to sleep and make you forget you have cancer.

Then there is my motivation man—a man I never met.

In 2002, I ran the Clarence DeMar Marathon in New Hampshire.  Clarence died of cancer.  On the day he died, he worked in his garden in the morning before lying down in the afternoon for his final sleep. So now when if I’m feeling a little tired and sorry for myself, I put on my Clarence DeMar Marathon sweatshirt and go for a bike ride.

Note from Jenny (because she always has something to say)
Papa, I take umbrage.  There was no “great scam.” Stink has amazing medicinal properties of which you are the propitious beneficiary.  The stink and the Methodists—not that they are related in any way—are responsible for the cancer eradication.

“Jenny, I’m not going to do it.  Listen to me—I AM NOT GOING TO DO IT.”

“Papa, it can’t hurt anything, and there’s a good chance it might be your miracle cure.”

“I don’t know, Jenny….”

At Maison Bean, we don’t do things in moderation.  If we’re going to do something, we commit to it, pull out all the stops, and eat, live and breathe  the obsession du jour.

So it was with cancer.  Papa signed up for a clinical trial testing of a new cancer drug nasty wharf rat protein.  And between treatments at the cancer center, he made the acquaintance of a New Age voodoo-talking holistic medicine man who prescribed a regimen of strange herbs and antioxidants, including a daily dose of asparagus and some odd meditation techniques.

There were also the super-connected Methodists who had added Papa to their prayer list.  And I had just come up with a brainstorm:  stink therapy.

Moose was on an antibiotic, and the diaper changes were UNBEARABLE.  It was a stench that would make Rambo cry.  A stench that could replace chemical warfare.  A stench, I was convinced, that would send lymphoma so far into remission that no one would ever get it again, and in 20 years from now, no one would even know what it was.

Papa and I were having a nightcap and watching a rerun of Raising Hope upstairs in his garret when I finally convinced him…. Okay, so we’d had several nightcaps, but the point is that I convinced him to give it a try, and so for the last two weeks, Papa has been changing Moose’s diapers.

Something is working.  I think it’s the stink therapy.  The voodoo man thinks it’s the holistic regimen.  The doc thinks it’s the wharf rat protein, and the Methodists are taking credit for a miracle.

The PET scan results yesterday showed that all of the cancer is gone from the lymph nodes.  The cancer in the bones has shrunk, and we’re going to beat this thing.   We still have three more months, but the outlook is good.

Happy New Year!

Notes
*For you cancer neophytes, PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography—an x-ray type thing that shows up cancer.
*For anyone who has ever suggested that the Beans have their own sitcom, you must watch Raising Hope.  It’s whacky, zany, and you will laugh.

In the year 2005 BLB (before little Beans), Hyacinth and I made a road trip to visit Lillianna in Florida.  It was December and Lilli’s big hound followed Hyacinth around like a love-struck puppy, and Hyacinth, who was demure in comparison and who couldn’t as much tinkle without the big doofus underfoot, finally told him about himself, but the hound, who was a few French fries short of a Happy Meal (that was for you, Irene), did not get the hint, and Hyacinth had to be a bitch to him for the entire weekend.  Luckily, she is well versed in bitchiness.  Hell, she even wrote a post on it.

Anyway, Lilli and I saw two storks, and I took that as a sign that my upcoming IVF would result in twins.  Luckily, I had just one baby at a time, which is a good thing because I was shell-shocked with one colicky baby, and two babies simultaneously would have had me running for the funny farm.

On the way home from Lilli’s house, I stopped at one of those souvenir gas stations off the interstate in St. Augustine.  Among the tacky made-in-China crap were citrus trees, and I bought a Meyer lemon for $9.99.  It was a little more than 2 feet tall, and I planted it on the sunny side of the house, and I babied it.  In the cold months during the occasional freeze, I draped sheets and blankets over it, and when spring came, I shoveled compost on it and later Papa started shoveling compost on it too, and when the bees came, I celebrated the pollination, and when the aphids came, I sprayed it with soapy water.  In the beginning it produced a few lemons, and in the last few years we’ve had bumper crops.

Meyer lemons are a cross between a conventional lemon and a mandarin orange.  They’re very large, like an orange, and they’re not quite as tart as a regular lemon, and you can even peel them like you would an orange.

The lemons start getting ripe in November and we usually have them through January.  If we get a freeze before then, we pick the fruit and keep it in the garage.

And what you ask, gentle reader, does one do with that many lemons?  We have hot toddies, lemon margaritas, tea with lemon, salmon and lemon, lots of lemon water, and for my birthday, I made a lemon curd cake that we dusted with fresh coconut.

And one of these days–maybe even this weekend, I’ll finally make lemonade–but just so you know, when life gives you lemons, you don’t always have to make lemonade.