I am old, now....

A little Brownie just came to my door selling Girl Scout cookies. This is clearly some sort of metaphysical error. That is my job. I am the one who runs door to door throughout the neighborhood in my sash and beanie. I demand to know what wormhole the last twenty-one years vanished into.

Yes, all hail that most American of foods, the Girl Scout cookie, with its two vital lessons in capitalism: Pound on enough doors and your troop goes to Space Camp... or, send the sales sheet with Daddy to the office, and your troop goes to Space Camp.

God love those Thin Mints (and they do not taste the same since they took the Girl Scout silhouette symbol off the top of the cookies) but my troop barely left the I-275 beltloop of Cincinnati, let alone the atmosphere; our cookie sales funded such activities as Beauty and Makeup Night-- the marketing division hadn't yet invented the splashy cookie box photos of Scouts rope climbing or careening past boys on dirt bikes--and summer day camps along tributaries of the Ohio. There we engaged in such empowering activities as cleaning the outdoor latrines (a delicate process involving sucking down a deep breath, attacking the open seat with a toilet brush, bursting out the door for another lungful, repeat) and stitching situpons, two slabs of vinyl stuffed with newspaper and bound with yarn. When you were done, you had your very own camping cushion providing all the luxurious comfort of a slice of Astroturf.

Once you set aside latrine scrubbing and the bugs and the horrifying encounters with tree frogs (I accidentally stepped on one in the pool: I was horrified and permanently scarred squeamish; he was equally horrified, but not so much as when he was subsequently whapped by a counselor with a pool strainer) those were good times, those August mornings at day camp. I attended right up though high school, or would have, had contamination from the nearby nuclear waste plant not permanently closed the gates of Ross Trails Camping Ground. Ah, youth. Ah, the lulling chirps of radioactive crickets.

The cookie sales from my sister's troop helped to fund the purchase of the latest model of the Girl Scout handbook, which featured guidelines for earning the brand-new Computer World patch. Life was progressive there in Troop 1256, where the girls were encouraged to "learn to read a computer printout," "write a message in binary code," and "visit a large company which owns a computer." And don't forget to catch tonight's Dallas.

The feminist revolution may have landed women in executive suites across the land while Troop 1202, Three Rivers Council, was taught how to apply blusher in smooth, downward strokes, but I'd join all over again these days. Girl Scouting in the new millennium is about presenting little ones with opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have to work in girls-only situations, which, studies show, increases self-esteem, raises academic achievement, and boosts confidence. As a graduate of two women's schools, I happen to be a fan of such goings-on; and there is lovely irony, I think, in the fact that these young ladies rise there on the yeast of output from the kitchen.

"You're a little bit psychic, aren't you?"

Two different psychics have accused me of this, and I must admit that I kinda agree. For instance. Yesterday I woke up just somehow KNOWING that I would come into a feeling of immense, searing resentment as I drove to work, and... I felt very much like kicking the Florida Department of Transportation in its collective groin as I became $1.75 poorer when I passed through two toll plazas. Clearly I have The Gift.

I am, however, swept by legitimate premonitions from time to time. We INFP's, we are in tune with the world in a way that hireable people don't understand. I am also an empath--which Hallmark, at least, enjoys-- and thus this life of mine is led with either bursting joy or near-crazed fear, if not correctly solved quadratic equations.

Today was an INFP, kinda-psychic day. It is Ash Wednesday, and I have felt Jesus' pain weighing on me since I got out of bed. I've never felt this way on an Ash Wednesday before--these are Good Friday sensations-- and as I stepped out into the rain this morning in a grey top and quiet khakis, I felt leaden in a way I couldn't describe.

Then I realized: It's The Passion. Without seeing it myself, I can feel that movie changing people. I have sensed it all day long. I don't know if this film will indeed usher in a third Great Awakening, as some claim it will, but I do know that many, many lives are being touched and forever changed right now. I just know. When I came across written reflections of those who saw it today, their words all carried the same clear, luminous high note of a person who had been profoundly moved.

Of course, this did not stop me from falling into a snicker-fit at Mass as I watched a parishioner return from the ashes line with a black mark on his forehead in the exact shape of a shark. He totally looked like a walking Sea World ad. It was awesome.

You ever notice that Andy Rooney is a total and complete asshat?

I really don't want to get in the middle of the whole Passion thing, given that I don't plan to see it. My friend Michelle just offered me a ticket. I turned her down with great Christian kindness.

"Hell, no," I said. "I plan to sleep again."

Film violence and I do not get along tremendously well. This is a person who views the Star Wars universe as a life-changing entity, Jar Jar Binks excepted, and has not yet seen the entirety of The Empire Strikes Back because she cannot bear to watch Luke Skywalker's fake hand get fake cut off. I lasted through precisely four seconds of Pulp Fiction. "But it's a work of art!" people kept telling me. Noooooo... Audrey Hepburn in a big hat screaming "COME ON, DOVER, MOVE YOUR BLOOMIN' ASS!!!!" is art. Pulp Fiction is Greased Lightnin' spattering random people's brain tissue on every available surface. There's a difference.

Bottom line, I just don't see myself settling down in a theatre with a big ol' tub of popcorn and an Icee, all, "Let's see some crucifyin'!"

However. Sometimes the assiness out there about this movie is just so jaw-dropping that I have to bust out a siddown. And I don't believe I've ever administered such a heartily felt siddown as the one I'm about to fling at Scary Eyebrows.

Here's what Rooney adorably announced that God said to him-- "Mel is a real nut case. What in the world was I thinking when I created him?"

Okay: Wow. Just-- wow. If you have a problem with the movie, Adorable Andy--which, by the way, you have not seen-- then attack the movie. But to blithely assert that God made a mistake in creating another human being? Um, no. Maybe God is wondering what He was thinking when He created you.

Scary Eyebrows also wants to know "how many millions of dollars" Mel plans to make "off the crucifixion of Jesus." You know what, Andy? If you're going to play that game, then let's bitch about how Spielberg "made millions of dollars off the murder of six million Jewish people" or Tom Hanks "made millions of dollars off the death of thousands on D-Day" or James Cameron "made millions of dollars off the death of the passengers of the Titanic, not to mention inflicting further Celine Dion on the world in the process."

Also? Get your damn facts straight, Andy. Nobody in Hollywood wanted to touch The Passion. If this were about money, Universal would have been all over it from the get-go and McDonald's would be selling Crown of Thorns Happy Meals. Mel had to finance this movie alone. He had to distribute it alone. The "millions of dollars" are going to come from people who have made the independent decision to see the movie, whether moved by faith or by art or the fact that the actor portraying Jesus, I am disturbed to report, is really quite hot.

Granted, I'm sitting here looking at a website that sells Passion-licensed nail necklaces. You can get them in two sizes! Small, and Railroad Spike!

Andy? Sit. Down.

Oh, didn't God tell you to when you had your cute little "conversation"? You must have heard Him wrong.

Boarding Pass

I don't get this whole "oversold flight" business. If there are eighty seats on a plane, you sell eighty tickets. Not fourteen thousand. I'm a dyscalculaic BLONDE and I understand this.

Delta (did I say Delta? Oh, I'm sorry, Delta. I didn't mean to reflect poorly upon your nasty evil moneygrubbing company) did this when I flew from Cincinnati back to Champagneville last weekend. You know you're in for it when you get to the gate and the cast of The Ten Commandments is camped around the ticket counter.

Perhaps you remember this flight. You were there. Everybody in the WORLD was there, everybody and their small screeching children. My fourth-grade gym school teacher? There. Fidel Castro? There. Your mama, your great-uncle, and the Pope, with full hat wardrobe-- they were all on this plane. And they all had to go to the bathroom.

I briefly seriously considered taking the "let us bump you in exchange for a free flight" offer, but at this point I trust Delta approximately as far as I could throw one of their planes, which, for some reason, all seem to have a finite number of seat assignments. Nope, I sat there, arms folded, amongst the teeming mass of humanity. You got yourself into this, Delta, and you can get yourself out.

Please check in with a ticketing agent at: blondechampagne@hotmail.com

Taufling Pending

I left you guys hanging for a week, there. Sorry about that. I have a really good reason, though. It’s because I suck.

And now, a few words about somebody who does not suck: Taufling. Taufling, who clearly loves me already, is indulging his/her aunt, who is the most impatient person in the whole entire world, by arriving TEN WHOLE DAYS sooner than originally announced.

My sister and brother-in-law accepted the news with the wild joy one might expect from an accountant and a financial negotiator:

OB/GYN: Well, it looks like your due date will be March 27 rather than April 7.

JULIE AND BRITTON:

OB/GYN: Um. Usually couples are really happy to hear news like this.

JULIE AND BRITTON:

OB/GYN: Are you okay?

JULIE: But—but that’s a whole other month!

BRITTON: This wasn’t in the schedule!

I got to visit with Taufling over the weekend, when I hostessed a baby shower for my sister. By “hostessed” I mean “sat on my ass five states away while two cousins with small children drew up the guest list, sent the invitations, planned the games, prepared the food, and did the decorating while I undertook the vital hostessing task of arriving on the scene an entire half-hour before the guest of honor did.” Man, did I earn that “given by” mention on the invitation.

The baby shower was so well-planned that it featured the ultimate baby shower accessory: actual babies. My five-month-old cousin Tyler put in a cameo appearance, and was sweet and fretful and slept with his arms all splayed out, and then my other baby cousin, Kaitlyn, showed up and reminded me why I set a lifetime’s goal of aunthood over motherhood in the first place.

“Hi, Kaitlyn!” I said as she toddled in the door. “I’m so glad you’re here. I miss you while I’m away in Florida.”

“I’m wet,” she announced.

After the shower my family gathered for our new favorite sport, Staring At Julie’s Stomach Waiting For Taufling To Kick.

Taufling has been extremely unaccommodating with the kicking. He’ll hammer away, and then if you put your hand on Julie’s stomach, there is total womb silence. “Kicking? That wasn’t me. I wasn’t kicking anybody.” Taufling is shy like her mommy. There was no movement at all during the shower, as Julie kept getting up and sitting down and was forced to be the center of attention, which tends to stress her out and probably made Taufling roll up in a ball.

Once home, though, and out of the Chair of Everybody Looking At Her, Julie sat at the kitchen table and shoved at Taufling every now and then, and I rested my chin on my arm and waited. It was not unlike watching a meteor shower—a great deal of sitting around, a great deal of squinting, a great deal of wondering if one had actually caught sight of some heavenly action and not a low-flying 747 bound for Pittsburgh.

And then! I saw a ripple across Julie’s maternity top, a streak of light on the nighttime sky. She grinned and pointed to her stomach. “Did you see that?” she said. “That was a big one.”

I stretched my hand out to touch her stomach. “It’ll stop,” she warned.

I rested my palm over where the ripple had been anyway. The OB/GYN told Julie that Taufling is head-down, in the Launch Position, and my mother tapped Julie on the side. “This feels like a foot,” she said.

I wonder how Taufling fills the day when he isn’t greeting his aunt. What does she do in there, besides swim around and kick? Isn’t that boring? I think fetuses should gestate a copy of Reader’s Digest every month. The double issue.

Julie took me to see the nursery, where there is a little bed and a tiny changing table and a very big sense of expectation. I looked down into the crib and pictured my godchild sleeping there. My sister stood beside me, extremely pregnant, and I thought of her in here, folding teeny clothes, filling drawers with newborn diapers and tubs of Vaseline, sterilizing the world, waiting waiting waiting. I wondered what her dreams for Taufling were. I wondered if she was scared. I wondered why anybody hasn’t shoved Tina Fey off a great big cliff yet. Aunts ponder these things.

When I left I realized that this would be the very last time I saw my sister as a woman without a child. Something very little will cause a very big change in her life. After Taufling arrives, she will be a mother for the rest of her life. I thought of candy bars and My Little Ponies and sleepless Christmas Eves–- the ones we shared and the ones she will now share with Taufling. Julie is once again passing through a gate separating childhood from adulthood, and once she closes it behind her, there will be no going back. And she’ll be going without me.

She will be forever changed.

So that she and Taufling wouldn’t become upset by the tears filling my eyes, I bent down to hug her stomach. “I love you very much,” I said, “and can’t wait to meet you.” Or your mother.