Elaine Ambrose

Bestselling Author, Ventriloquist, & Humorist

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A Message to My Son as He Prepares for College

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elaine adam CHS

 

Dear Son,

What do you mean you mailed a college application? Get back down on the floor and play with some Legos. Do you want me to make you a sandwich? Or, you can invite your friends over and we’ll order pizzas. You can stay up all night, if you want. I’ll just go cry in my room, but don’t let that bother you.

Yes, I know I can be obnoxious about mothering you, but don’t leave yet. I’m not done. We need to work on laundry and managing money. And we should have the talk — you know, the discussion about sex, drugs, alcohol, and how the world is full of mean people who could hurt you. Oh, you say you can handle everything? Then tell me, son, how do I handle this anxiety? How do I stop this gut-churning ache when I realize my only son, my last child, is walking out the door and will return as a visitor? Give me some laughs for that fact, will you?

Okay, I’m sorry for that lapse in composure. I’m really happy for you. Really. I want you to march into college and own the place. Let them know you have arrived and you’re ready to pursue enlightenment and knowledge so you can get a great job and support me in my old age. Oops. There I go again. It’s not about me, is it? This is about you. I must focus.

Because I’m a single parent and the two of us have shared this house for several years, I want to give you my best parenting advice before you drive off to the university. So, here goes:

1. Size matters. You already know this. Weighing in at 11 pounds, you were one of the biggest babies every born at the Gooding County Hospital. You were always the tallest, which made it easy to find you in a crowd of other children. You were sad at age 4 when He-Man underwear didn’t come in your size, and the teachers had to order an adult-sized desk for you in 5th grade. You were 6’6″ in high school, and you carried the load for others, as you continue to do today. Sometimes you didn’t like being so big, but many people, including me, see you now as a tall, strong, funny, handsome, and responsible hero. That’s a good thing.

2. Keep your sense of humor. No one can make me laugh like you do. Your personality is beyond gregarious and that’s why others enjoy being around you. I’ve seen you cheer up a dejected classmate, counsel a young child, coach and encourage a YMCA team, and cause your grandmother to grin. (Dementia made her grin all the time, but you brought a special twinkle to her eyes.)

3. Stay compassionate. As a two-year-old, you took care of other children at the child-care center. That special trait continued into your teenage years. Several others took advantage of you, and I know you used your wages to pay for a lot of meals, trips, and activities that other kids couldn’t afford. Keep that empathetic characteristic, but watch out for charlatans who will exploit your generosity. Learn from me.

4. Treat women as wonderful, complicated creatures who can make your life a living hell or a heavenly sanctuary. You will live in a fraternity and there will be raucous parties with coeds. Have fun, but keep your head clear and your pants zipped. Other college men won’t heed that advice, and their new nickname will be “father” or “college drop-out.” The woman you choose to marry will be lucky, indeed. Remember to compliment her, support her dreams, and be delighted in your partnership with her as you build dreams together. Plan great adventures and expect a successful marriage. And, if she ever asks, “How do I look?” always respond, “Wow! You look amazing?” Trust me.

5. Remember your roots. You were born into a family with a strong work ethic, a love of adventure, and an unwavering love for their children. I’m sorry your father and I lost the marriage, but we continued to make your sister and you our top priority. Take this experience to do better than we did.

6. Get ready to fly. The next five years will be the most important years of your life. You will go to college, get a job, perhaps get married, and maybe you’ll have children. Life will never be the same again. Take this time to savor every drop of life you can. Meet new people, visit new destinations, make some mistakes, and recover with gusto. But, please, know that if you move far away I know how to make airplane reservations. I’d like a guest room with teal-colored paint on the walls, a coffee maker, and a wine bar.

I think that’s the essential tidbits for now. You’ve got a job so you know about money. As for laundry, just wear all dark clothes so you don’t need to separate the loads. But, always wash your towels at least weekly. I might need to throw a few wet towels on the floor after you’re gone just for the memories.

Go to college, son, and remember that life can’t be one big party unless someone pays the bills and provides the clean-up committee. Be the one in charge of your own celebration of young adulthood. I’ll miss you every day, but soon I can visit you on campus. I’ll bring your favorite cookies! And a pizza. It will be just like old times.

Most of all, I will miss your laugh, so please record it for me. Remember, your first laugh was with me when you were four months old. It could have been caused by gas bubbles, but oh my, how you could laugh! Please don’t ever stop.
Love,
Mama (all alone in a big, quiet, empty house)

 

 

(Featured on The Huffington Post Fifty, August 29, 2015)

(I wrote this letter several years ago, and now the college student is a successful man with a family, a career, and a mortgage.)

 

When Living Large isn’t a Compliment

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chubby lady belly

 

(Featuring on The Huffington Post, August 27, 2015)

It started as a fun golf game with another couple we enjoy. It ended with me wanting to stab myself with a knife. Life is like that sometimes.

We finished our round with a good score and returned to the club house for dinner. As we waited for the food, the man casually mentioned that his wife and my husband were lucky because they didn’t need to lose weight. I know it was an innocent remark by a good, middle-aged man but my ears heard this:

“You are a gross, undisciplined whale and so incredibly fat that you should put a sack over your body and hide in the women’s lounge. Too bad you don’t look like my beautiful, fit wife.”

My first reaction was to pick up my butter knife and slash my gums because 30 years ago I lost 12 pounds in one week after my wisdom teeth were removed. I thought that maybe I could duplicate that instant weight loss if I hurt myself. Obviously, this was a red flag warning that I should immediately leave the club and seek a counselor.

Truth: You never need to tell a woman that she has gained weight. She knows it. She avoids mirrors, hates photographs of herself, and loses the urge to shop for clothes. She doesn’t want to be reminded that her hips, belly, and back are padded with enough layers of protective fat to shelter a family of ten through the winter. She wants to be appreciated for her charm, wit, altruism, and talent. Tell her she’s fat and she’ll write about you.

I languish in good excuses. I was injured almost a year ago, ironically doing a high-impact exercise. My leg bone cracked and the meniscus tore on my knee. The pain was debilitating.  As a result, my exercise routine vanished as the extra pounds appeared. The only physical activity I got was when I ambled to the wine rack for medication. But, I still want and need to lose the weight I gained after the injury. I really do, but it’s not as easy any more, and my body seems to like living large.

The day after the golf humiliation, I wiggled into my workout clothes and plodded to the gym. I started with the exercise bike, plugged my earphones into the TV outlet, and found the news. Donald Trump was criticizing Megyn Kelly, an attractive newscaster I admire. I left the gym and drove to a coffee shop that offered fresh maple bars, and I used the butter knife to smear around the gooey frosting. I licked the knife and promised to hit the gym another day.

 

 

 

For Peace and Clarity, Go Hang a Banana

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(Featured on The Huffington Post Fifty on August 18, 2015.)

peace

The world is smoldering toward catastrophic self-destruction, so it’s only sensible that I take a brief moment of clarity to offer this lovely tidbit of advice before the final tragic calamity ignites the end of civilization.

If you want to appreciate form and function, escape chaos and crisis, and experience inner peace, you should hang a banana.

I’ve survived more than half a century on this magnificent planet and only yesterday purchased a banana holder. This is not just any ordinary device; it’s a 3-piece banana hook with fruit basket! And, it came with illustrated instructions! Heaven forbid a confused consumer would tote it home and not know how to assemble the complicated design.

“Help me, Walter. Does the bowl go over or under the hook?”

“Lemme study the picture on the box, Marge. I hope this contraption came with directions.”

The 3-piece banana hook wasn’t on my Costco list, but who could resist? I wanted it.

On my way to the back of the store to get my quarterly supply of 50 rolls of toilet paper, I noticed the box on the end of the aisle. The photo displayed ripe, firm bananas perfectly poised over a bowl of tempting green apples supported and enhanced with a gleaming silver hook and coordinated basket. I spontaneously added it to the cart, along with the tub of chocolate-covered almonds (also not on the list.)

I balanced my new treasures with the massive supply of toilet paper, a calf-sized pack of paper towels, and a year’s supply of detergent while I maneuvered my way through the aisles, stopping periodically to sample the bland but free samples of food. I avoided the book section because I have been known to spend hours reading through selections while family-reunion-size boxes of frozen appetizers melt in the aisle.

After paying the zombie checkout guy, I toured the vast parking lot looking for my car. I finally resorted to clicking my key alarm and eventually found it. I scurried home to assemble my new banana holder and proudly placed it on the kitchen counter. I carefully hung my bananas at the angle shown in the photograph. They seemed to be happy and perky in their appropriate position. Today, I’ll visit the local farmer’s market and buy some green apples.

For a brief but delightful moment in time, I won’t watch or read the news, and I won’t worry about all the crap happening throughout the world.

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Instead, I’ll make a cup of tea in the morning and open a bottle of wine in the afternoon and stare at my banana holder. That’s about all I can control right now. And if other stressed people come to my door, I’ll welcome them inside and we will gaze at the wonderful invention and smile at the balance, order, and symmetry of the simple design. Then, only after we feel at peace, we’ll eat the bananas, apples and chocolate almonds, open another bottle of wine, and sing songs of courage and glory. All will be well, thanks to my new banana hook. With a fruit basket.

It’s That Hysterical Time of the Month

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aunt flo 1

 

It didn’t take 28 days for the political circus to get bloody awful. Two days after a televised debate, a male candidate insulted a feisty female news reporter by subtly remarking that she must be on her period. If our Founding Fathers had foreseen such ugly stains on their fertile new country, they would have grabbed the first protective vessel back to the motherland of England.

Men can get away with belching contests, lighting farts, and peeing on the golf course. Women bleed every month for 40 years and suffer from moodiness, cramps, bloating, and pain. Now their professionalism is questioned if they dare to be assertive. Personally, I’d rather trade activities with the men.

Polite and proper society never discusses menstruation, even though millions of women are having their periods right now. It’s rarely portrayed in books, movies, or television shows, as if the natural phenomenon is too bloody awful to handle. Can you imagine if the character of a brave female astronaut or an intrepid pioneer woman or a sexy cabernet singer had to stop and fumble in her purse for a tampon? That would add a new meaning to the term “Ragtime.”

Consider the word hysterical. Female hysteria  was a once-common medical diagnosis, and its treatment was routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. In the medical literature of the nineteenth century, women considered to have it exhibited a wide array of symptoms and “a tendency to cause trouble.” In extreme cases, the woman might be forced to enter an insane asylum or to undergo a surgical hysterectomy. That left plenty of time for the men to go camping, drink beer, and hunt animals. Or run for political office.

Many of us middle-aged women never received adequate information about having periods. Our bashful mothers handed us the blue Kotex box, an elastic belt, and a pamphlet with serious phrases such as:

“You’re going to be a woman now, even though you’re only 10.”

“You will bleed every month for several decades from the Don’t-Touch Area.”

“There could be intense cramping, debilitating pain, and personal embarrassment, but no one wants to talk about it. Especially boys.”

Nothing to fear, right? Our mother also worried about our ability to remain fresh and clean “down there.” Ads from the fifties warned a woman that feminine odor could end their marriage! So, get out the Lysol and douche “the vaginal canal” if you want domestic bliss. Then you could use Lysol to clean the bathroom and really please your man.

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At least we were better prepared with our daughters, and we gave them Judy Blume’s wonderful 1970 book titled Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret. Our daughters could identify with the excellent fictional account of a young girl having her first period. Of course, the book was banned in several schools and libraries because it was “sexually offensive and immoral.” We’ve not progressed too far from medieval times when it comes to discussing periods.

In researching various websites including the Museum of Menstruation and Mental History, and a witty blog at Period Fairy, I discovered some interesting facts about menstruation. I’ve added my own irreverent interpretation.

  1. In fertile females, their body prepares for pregnancy every month. When that doesn’t happen, the uterus sheds its lining through blood and tissue. Missing a period can bring joy or fear, depending upon how much the woman wants to be pregnant.
  2. During Biblical times, menstruating women were considered ritually impure and were required to be physically separated from men for the entire time they were bleeding. The men, meanwhile, continued to get drunk and kill each other.
  3. In England during the 1800s, The British Medical Journal published an article stating that menstruating women were medically unable to pickle meat, and in France, women on their periods couldn’t work in sugar refineries because they would spoil the food. (And men wonder why we get moody! Go pickle your own damn meat.)

aunt flo 34. The first commercial sanitary pads were produced in the early 1900s, and an advertisement in 1921 showed women caring for a wounded soldier because in World War I, French nurses noted that cellulose bandages used to treat wounds absorbed blood better than plain cotton. The Kotex ad rationalized that if the product was good enough for the military, it was good enough for mere women.

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  1. Twenty years later in 1941, Kotex tossed the dutiful caretaker message and went straight for the gossiping women in swimsuits, and the caption, in discreet parentheses of course, said “The girls are talking about Tampons.” Those scamps not only removed their humble nurse’s outfits, they showed legs! Just imagine the fun times women had back then as they lolled around secretly chatting about tampons.

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It only took another 21 years in 1962 for Pursettes brand of tampons to assure women that unmarried girls could safely and morally use their product. Apparently, there was fear that tampons would remove the virgin status of women, and as everyone knew, all unmarried women were virgins.

  1. Some cultures continue to penalize women. In the mountains of Nepal, menstruation is regarded as unclean so women are banished to small, bare huts. They should just accept their fate and plan a relaxing staycation.
  2. In sharp contrast, several Native American cultures consider a woman in menses to be at the height of her natural powers, and the Lakota tribe wouldn’t allow a menstrual woman to come near the warriors because they feared her power would weaken their strength. Well played, Lakota women.
  3. Menstruation will end if a woman reaches a certain age or has a complete hysterectomy. A hysterectomy that removed the ovaries can also result in immediate menopause, which brings a whole new collection of maladies, including moodiness, night sweats, exhaustion, forgetfulness, weight gain, and hair loss. But, look on the bright side. The money saved by not buying feminine products can go for therapy and/or wine.

Call it a visit from Aunt Flo or The Curse or being On the Rag, women have survived their time of the month for thousands of years. They will continue to do so, because they’re so tough and powerful. And, they can shine on prime time television during a political debate. Just ask the Lakota. Being fierce is admirable, but every now and then I secretly imagine what it would be like to have belching contests and light farts.

 

Your Own Personal Circus

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circus clown
Remember that crazed clown at the circus? She was the one spinning a dozen flaming torches while peddling a unicycle on a high wire as the out-of-tune calliope wheezed out a medley of manic music. Young women today probably aren’t impressed with frenetic clown tricks because that vision represents their daily life – a never-ending juggle of family, job, home, community, and self.

In fact, the clown has an easier reality because her show ends at 10:00 pm and women still have two loads of laundry, a sink full of dirty dishes, The Spawn needs cupcakes for school in the morning, and Romeo wants to score tonight.

I’m here to remind you that all the dishes and laundry will never be done until you’re well into your fifties, and way too soon The Spawn will have a tart of his own and won’t need your culinary skills. That leaves Romeo. So turn off the lights (to add romance and hide the dust bunnies,) don something flimsy, and go for it while you’re still awake. Batteries optional.

I was a working mother back in the olden days when women were supposed to stay home, wear pearls with aprons, and make casseroles that included canned soup and frozen peas. I should have added crescent rolls but I could never get those damn cans to pop at the seams. They always exploded onto the ceiling so I just left the dough to hang and harden in mysterious clumps and called it art.

My kids would be positively giddy if I cooked the pasta first before serving their favorite macaroni and cheese dinner. But, I usually didn’t have time to boil water so I encouraged them to chew slowly and enjoy all the roughage. That was back during the early 1980s, before computers, cell phones, and Oprah. I had to find enlightenment and empowerment on my own while fighting the urge to run away and join the circus.

During the work week, I existed on five hours of sleep, fed the kids, took them to child care, worked nine hours, retrieved the little darlings, concocted something edible for dinner, gave them baths, read stories, and tucked them into bed. Then I did the housework while some clueless zealot chortled on television about bringing home the bacon, frying it in a pan, and then pleasing my man. Hell, in reality I wanted to throw some bologna in the microwave, serve it on paper plates, snuggle into my worn t-shirt, and tell the man of the house to bring me some wine and then take a rain check.

I want young mothers to know that the merry-go-round eventually stops and you can get off, maybe with the help of a sturdy cane. Age brings a certain freedom and wisdom that is elusive when you’re under age 40. My kids now are grown, married, and creating their own personal circuses at home. I enjoy grabbing some popcorn, taking my place in the bleachers, and cheering from the sidelines. And, by now I don’t have to clean up after the elephants.

How to Tell an Enchanting Story

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storyteller

“Please tell me a made-up story, Tutu,” my wee granddaughter begs as I close her picture book and tuck her into bed. I mentally scramble for an image and suddenly a little old lady pops into my imagination.

“Here’s one,” I say, much to her delight. Then I begin the spontaneous tale of a sad older lady who needs an adventure. I toss in the ability to fly and to find magical meadows full of talking birds. It always helps to include at least one princess, a nasty troll, and a few immature bodily noises. For a successful story that pleases the most discerning child, I rely upon past experience: A flying princess, yes. Dead puppies, no.

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I have a small collection of ceramic storytellers crafted in Peru and New Mexico. They represent the South American and Native American Indian tradition of using oral stories as a teaching tool for younger generations. The figurines depict a centered, nurturing, and powerful woman who inspires children with lessons and stories about their culture. Back before the intrusion of electronics, women told stories to their children, and it was a privilege to do the same for my children and now my grandkids. Sometimes I need to think fast to create the story, but it works best if I make it enchanting.

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For the novice entertainer, here are eight tips for how to tell an enchanting story.

  1. Begin with a provocative set-up. One day a (pick one) little girl, puppy, mother, King woke up and discovered that no one was home.
  2. Explain how something happens, either to the main character or the environment. She searched in all the rooms but no one was there. On the kitchen table, she saw a bright red arrow pointing to the back yard.
  3. In one or two sentences, tell how the plot thickens. The stakes are raised when tension appears: She peeked out the window and saw a (pick one) fairy, pony, rainbow, salesman, monster.
  4. Mentally analyze the reaction of the audience and adjust accordingly. If the listeners aren’t engaged by this time, strengthen the narrative. She was (pick one) afraid, surprised, happy, shy, vomiting.
  5. Build a vision of a scene that involves the senses: sight, sound, taste, vision, and touch. The door creaked as she opened it and tiptoed barefoot in her calico gown into the cool grass. She felt a gentle breeze toss her red hair, and the air smelled of mint and oranges.
  6. Weave a climax that produces an “aha” moment for the audience. Suddenly her family appeared with gifts for her surprise party. Or, if you’re feeling more creative, she followed a cluster of chaotic clowns as they scampered over a rainbow into a secret castle full of toys and sugar cookies.
  7. End when the story is resolved. It was the perfect surprise party. Or, she loved her imaginary friends and promised to join them again another day. Or, she scurried home to read adventure books and plan her next excursion.
  8. Record your story. To improve your storytelling abilities, record yourself reciting an original fable. You may notice you speak too quickly or say “um” too many times. Also, a recording creates a fun gift to present to your children or grandchildren.

Some people are born to be storytellers, and their yarns and tall tales aren’t limited to children. They often regale adults with their creative narrations, and a friendly bar or boisterous camping trip only intensifies the renditions. Well-told accounts can enrich the imagination of children and entertain adults. As an added benefit, the regular practice keeps the brain energized so you’re ready any time a small voice begs, “Please, tell me a story.”