peevish mama

I’m at a bit of a loss. I’m finding it hard to write about the Golden Delicious Apple wedding. It’s just too big. Too complex. Too lovely. It’s like my words are shiny marbles and a big jar of them has been upended, sending them pinging all over the floor and I’m trying to gather them up with thick woolen mittens, sending them scattering ever farther, slippery, shiny and elusive. Or maybe I’m a cowboy and my words are my herd of cattle who are acting mighty peculiar. No matter how hard I try, the cows just ignore me and mill around, some of them flop on to their backs, laughing hysterically, a little group of them is dancing over the hill yonder (where did they get those maracas?), impossible to wrangle. Or maybe my words are shards of a champagne glass, exploded into a million pieces after a dramatic fling into the fireplace. Pick whichever absurd metaphor you like, but I’m at a loss. For words. For once.

This wedding is the first in our family after mine and Dash’s exactly twelve years ago, putting us in the unique and lovely position of bearing witness from what feels both up close and far removed. I remember my wedding like it was yesterday, and yet so much has happened since August 2, 1997: four moves, two law firms, graduations from med school, residency and fellowship, four homes and three children. Not to mention all the minutiae of life that piles together seamlessly and invisibly to make a day a day, an hour and hour. How many diapers, cups of coffee, baptisms, first communions, bandaids, popsicles, plane trips, glasses of wine, first days of school, baby teeth in, baby teeth out, date nights, books, broken bones, middle of the night fevers, bowls of cereal, bike rides, frogs caught, screaming matches, kisses, hugs, counters wiped down, mosquito bites, apples, paychecks, birthday cakes, new shoes, dinner parties, walks to the bus stop, dances in the kitchen, piles of snowy boots and sandy towels are behind us? How many are ahead? And what else lies down the road?

How many ways are there to measure life?

I fully expected to have a lot of fun at this wedding. But watching Golden marry his beautiful bride, Delicious Apple, had the unexpected effect of bending a page in our book, of bringing into focus where Doctor Dash and I are as a couple and where we are as a family. I feel like we are pretty early in our journey together, yet look at all that has happened already. Everything Golden and Delicious Apple have been doing since they fell for each other in high school, every last detail of their beautiful and rowdy wedding, all of it, is so that they will have what we have. It all starts here. Everything is in front of them.

And although I clearly remember the feeling of just starting out, of excitedly setting off for our honeymoon, of settling in to our first home on St. Botolph Street in Boston’s South End, I can now look in the other direction, at my parents, and feel a vague heart wringing whisper of understanding for what they must be feeling. Chuchi and Lelo are a lot further on in their journey than we are and what a rich, complicated, brave and blessed journey it is. They are in a great place. They got to watch their Golden boy marry the woman he has always loved. They got to watch their other son, El Maestro de Bife, give a masterful toast, working over the room with more humor and tenderness than I would have thought possible in a single speech. They got to watch all their children and grandchildren throw down on the dance floor and love each other up. All their work, all their worrying, all their love has propelled them to a point where they can finally watch, and smile, and breathe a huge sigh of relief.

And now I see that every single thing Dash and I do, is so that someday we will have what our parents have: children who have grown up thinking love is a given, eventually realizing love is a treasure to be held close and cared for; children who hopefully find a love big enough to spark a whole other story, a brand new journey uniquely their own.

We ended up with some adenoid wrestling this summer as I imagined we might. Saint James had his surgery this morning and it went great, although he’s sleeping the deep blue-green sleep of fairy tales right now. I have brought my laptop to Saint James’ quiet, dimly lit room because this is where I want to be. As he snores softly beside me, I can scarcely keep my eyes off him. His lips are still stained purple from the popsicle he had in post-op. But here he is. On the other side of the surgery, the anesthesia. Tanned, relaxed, sleeping soundly under his plaid sheets. The moment I’ve been longing for all summer. 

There is nothing more humbling, more perspective focusing, than taking your child in for a minor surgery. When Saint James was two he had to have a small dermoid cyst removed from the delicate pillow of flesh between his eyebrow and the outside corner of his eye. We knew it was benign, but it was the type of cyst that could get messy if it ever got hit and burst. (Incidentally, he’s gotten bonked in that exact spot at least three times since the surgery, and every time, I thank my lucky stars we had it removed). I was mere weeks from giving birth to Supergirl and a basket case about sending my baby off to surgery. I was boohooing in the waiting room with Dash, indulging my fears and worries, wallowing in the drama, when I noticed a big family camped out in the corner. They had a cooler with a bunch of food and the grandma was doling out sandwiches while a few of them played cards. It was clear they’d come from far away and that this wasn’t their first visit Minneapolis Children’s Hospital. They had the look of veterans – comfortable, patient, resigned. They were upbeat and gracious when the doctor came out to give them a progress report. It sounded like the child in surgery had some sort of invasive growth in his face and neck and the surgery was so extensive, they had to keep him in a coma over night. At that point the doctor was pleased with how the surgery was going. They thanked the doctor, gave each other relieved hugs and pats on the back and resumed their cards, their lunches, their very long wait. You can imagine how quickly I got my shit together after seeing that. Within ten minutes, Saint James’ surgeon came to get us and as we left, I glanced over my shoulder at the family, silently wishing them well.

Today, six years later, I found myself in the same waiting room only this time Doctor Dash had stayed home with the girls. I kept myself in check and read my book, but couldn’t help overhearing the people behind me telling some other people about their eleven year old daughter who was diagnosed with leukemia last Wednesday. “We’ve been here a week!” the dad chortled as a conversation starter. When asked how they were doing with the news, he said “Oh, you know, better . . . better. Hey, when she does better, we do better. She plays soccer. She’s a fighter!” The words on the pages before me blurred and I held my breath. 

How many stories have been shared in the hush of that waiting room? How much suffering? How much hope? I closed my book and thought about that sporty eleven year old girl whose life changed a week and a day ago and how her parents’ lives had been reduced to one simple equation, both beautiful and frightening: when she does better, we do better.

And I thought about the lessons of the waiting room: hear the stories, count your blessings, and don’t forget to look over your shoulder and send out a silent prayer for the others if you’re lucky enough to be walking out of there first.

One thing leads to another and they end up with a couple of kids that look like this.

If they hadn’t both triumphantly emerged from my very own personal cachoosha, I’d strongly suspect one of them wasn’t mine. Namely, the pasty little one on the left.

Supergirl apropos of the wedding: “Soooo, when I’m a flower girl I get to just, like, chuck flowers at people?”

This is why I’m not a gamblin’ kinda gal. It is seven a.m. and all is quiet in our backyard. Unless a pack of dingos gnawed through the back of the tent and dragged them all away, I’d say a large percentage of the original campers actually made it through the night. I cannot believe it. They picked the coldest night of the summer. There are many noises outside in the dark. My children have nothing by way of a camping pedigree. I really didn’t think they’d make it. And I’m glad I didn’t put any money on this.

Post script: The unzipping this morning revealed three bleary-eyed, tousle-headed neighbors and none of my kids. As far as I can piece it together, this is how it went down:

10:00 p.m.: Devil Baby was removed against her will. We had to pull her out by her feet while she cursed a blue streak in three-year-oldese. I hated to do it, but there was no way she was going to fall asleep or let anyone else sleep.

10:45 p.m.: Supergirl slipped in the back door while Dash and I were playing with our new iPhones, muttered something about feeling safer inside, and retired upstairs with nary another peep. Knowing Supergirl to be prideful in manners of toughness and general cojones, we thought it better to refrain from any comment whatsoever.

The wee hours a.m.: Doctor Dash heard Saint James come inside to pee and then fall into his own bed.

Maybe I should have played those odds after all.

There seems to be some law of nature that I mustn’t be allowed to sit on my laurels, wallow in any semblance of contentment, cruise along a highway of satisfaction or otherwise exist in a state devoid of neurotic self torture for too long. My last post about traveling soccer was what, two days ago? I was feeling good about sports. I was beaming at my boy’s skills. I was basking in the afterglow of a game well played by my really handsome son with great footwork and even better hair.

But along came Top Dog Hockey Camp to do me in. I was already feeling a bit sheepish and stupid about my kids’ over-scheduled lives. I try like the dickens to weed out extraneous activities and avoid chasing that elusive prize of having the most “well rounded” kid. But I have failed. Miserably. There is, quite literally, no end to all the things a kid can do these days if you have the time, money and inclination to sign’em up. There are wacky building laboratories for blossoming inventors. There are music, theater and dance programs at our top notch and beloved Children’s Theater. There are naturalist and biology classes at myriad nature centers where kids can learn to do field research, monitor and preserve ecosystems and generally muck around and take stewardship of our earth. There are rock camps, art studios, pottery studios and writers’ lofts. And that’s but a tip of the iceberg, not even touching sports!

I believe you can’t do it all. I believe you shouldn’t do it all. I believe kids need time to be bored so they are forced to seek out neighborhood friends, crack a book, climb a tree, color all over their bodies with face paint, make potions in buckets out of mud and sticks. I spent an entire summer concocting perfumes with my friend using petals from her mother’s garden. I believe in idle time, lazy time. I love myself a bit of leisure. I do.

Then how to explain the hour of cringing guilt I spent on the top bleacher of the Augsburg Ice Arena yesterday?

We didn’t put Saint James into “BIG HOCKEY” because that particular year, Devil Baby was a squawling, colicky newborn who had us on the run. As a couple, Dash and I were in total survival mode and taking on what we perceived to be a huge lifestyle commitment just wasn’t in the cards. Doctor Dash had played hockey and loved hockey, so we thoroughly tortured ourselves, but ultimately decided against it. Eventually we found out about  neighborhood park hockey where the kids play for a much shorter season, splitting their games between indoors and out. It seemed a perfect fit for us. Saint James would still learn how to skate and we liked the “pond hockey” vibe of the whole thing. This year Supergirl played too and we had a blast. They’re cute, they look like they’re skating underwater, they score sometimes and when you don’t think about the kids in real hockey, they actually seem pretty good.

Last summer I signed Saint James up for Top Dog Hockey Camp because his buddies were doing it. As luck would have it, he broke his pinky and couldn’t go. So this year, I was determined to use our credit and signed him up again. On the first day I was a little shocked to see how small all the other players were, but it was on the last day, when we got to watch a scrimmage, that I realized what we were dealing with. A self selecting group of campers, these puny babies were skating circles around Saint James. I sat in the bleachers thinking he looked like a retarded giant compared to the rest of them. (Hush now, I said retarded giant, not giant retard – big dif). Saint James never looks like the retarded giant. But he did yesterday. These much younger kids possessed that fluidity and ease that comes from lots and lots of hockey. Beautiful to watch. As opposed to Saint James tripping onto the ice holding the bottom of his stick. Who holds their stick from the bottom?

As I watched with increasing dismay, I felt myself shrinking. Oh God, it’s my fault for being so lazy that I didn’t sign him up for hockey and now he sucks and it’s too late and he must feel so bad being lapped by midgets and why do I even care, this isn’t his sport, but I love hockey, I got the hots for Dash watching him play hockey and now Saint James will always be awkward on the ice which is blasphemous for a Minnesota boy and no one will get the hots for him and it’s all my fault and Devil Baby’s fault and I suck and he sucks and we all suck and oh God get me out of here. 

Sigh. Yes, I know. Psychotic much?

And after it ended Saint James did feel bad. He’s no fool. I didn’t even get to take a shot on goal, he grumped while I helped him get his gear off. I really didn’t know what to say – the kid was right. But as it tends to go with him, the clouds eventually lifted and in the quiet minutes before he went to sleep, he told Doctor Dash that he liked the camp, that it was good overall. Oh, my dear sweet little retarded giant, way to be a trooper.

So I guess I just need to chill out. Lesson learned: it’s OK to suck and play anyway. It’s OK to play for – dare I say it? FUN! As much as I fancy myself to be mellow about my kids “performance,” I suppose I’m not all that far removed from the mothers frantically rouging their daughters’ smooth cheeks for beauty pageants. I want to be mellow, but I am not mellow. I need to chill. The hell. Out.

I had to drive to St. Croix last night for Saint James’ final soccer game of the season, and oh sweet patron saint of traveling soccer players, it was FAR! I know I’m spoiled by the fact that I don’t typically have to drive more than five or ten minutes for anything, but getting to this soccer field felt like an odyssey. And like Odysseus, I saw many things in the waning glow of the mid-summer sun.

The wheels on my minivan turned so many times that I saw a billboard of Rush Limbaugh’s gigantic porcine face. I saw silos. I saw signs for towns that I know to be in another state. I saw truck stops with huge semis lined up like hulking, sighing beasts. I saw two motorcycle dealerships, side by side, one for Harleys one for Indians. I saw the soft green hills that mark the terrain where Minnesota and Wisconsin melt into one another, never ceasing to remind me of the first time I drove here in 1995 with my friend Dave K – clueless, nervous, about to start my first job in a law firm, ready or not.

I also saw a group of kids who didn’t know each other a few months ago, play like a team. Individually they have improved beyond measure; as a team they have gelled almost to the point of poetry.

They are eight and nine years old. Magically suspended in that blink-of-an-eye between little boy and big boy, their bodies are starting to respond to the commands of their ambitious minds. They have shed all traces of baby fat and with it, the clumsiness, the hesitation, the pudding-like confusion of those first years of sports. Their skinny legs and knobby knees bely their speed, their finesse, their sense of space, position, strategy and fair play. Yet every once in a while, the little boys bubble to the surface in tears, tumbles, inelegant hiccups in an otherwise smooth stride. 

I also saw boys who played their hearts out and still lost. But they lost like gentlemen, already absorbing one of the great unsung lessons of sports: you can’t win everything in life. It is the game itself, the boys seem to understand implicitly, that is so worth it.

And, so I drive.

Today, at the random hour of eleven o’clock a.m., Devil Baby demanded a shower.

Devil Baby: I wanta shower.

Me: No, you don’t need a shower.

DB: I wanta shower!

Me: No, it’s not time for a shower.

DB: I WANTA SHOWER! I WANTA SHOWER!

Me: No, we’re going swimming later. You don’t need a shower right now.

DB: I WANTA SHOWER! I’M STINKY!

Me: No, you don’t need a shower. You are not stinky.

DB: OH YA? SMELL MY BOOTY!*

*curiously, she pronounces it Bootay, with the accent on the tay.

We’ve been plagued by death. The second and final guppy has moved on to fresher waters and while the exact cause of death cannot be determined at this time, let’s just say Devil Baby played a role. She started the chain of events that led to his demise. Coincidence? I think not. Here’s how it went down.

8:30ish – I hear a huge crash in the kitchen and run in to find Devil Baby sprawled on her back, covered in fish food, mouth agape working up to the big waaaaaaah. Pingo’s tub is practically opaque from all the food in there and he’s going nuts trying to eat it all. I have to work fast. I quickly dechlorinate some water in the green bowl I use to make crepes, scoop him into it, clean out his bowl, fill it with water, dechlorinate it and run to check on Devil Baby, who is still wailing her head off. (I know, I should have checked on her first, right? This fish thing has made me a bit crazy.)

9:00ish – I go back to the kitchen to put Pingo back in his tub and am fiddling with the pump when he pulls a total Tale of Despereaux move and leaps out of the bowl, brushes my arm, and lands with an inaudible splat on the tile floor. I yelp and try to pick him up, but the wriggling makes that too disgusting, so I scream for Saint James while I frantically try to get him to hop onto a spoon. Just as Saint James and Supergirl slide panting into the kitchen, I slip Pingo into his water with a sigh. Phew. Disaster averted. Again. 

9:05ish – we watch him swim around for a while, wondering how, why he should have taken such a death defying leap and slowly it begins to dawn on me. Ohhhhhh, good sweet baby Cupid, can it be? Why am I always so obtuse when it comes to matters of the heart? Pingo is in love with me. After the loss of Pearl, he transferred all his affections to the next best thing – me. The combination of watching my heroic efforts to save him and sheer piscine gratitude so overwhelmed him that he found himself with no choice but to risk everything, for just a touch. When he saw me hovering near the crepe bowl, he saw his chance and took his leap of love. 

10:30ish – Doctor Dash comes home from call and sits on the edge of the bed, rapt, as I regale him with the hair raising events of the night and my cool-under-fire heroics. He seems dubious about my theory about Pingo’s fish crush, but then, Dash is prone to a bit of jealousy in such matters and probably doesn’t want to fan the fire.

10:35ish – Doctor Dash, having gone downstairs to decompress from work, comes back to the bedroom and announces that Pingo has died. We both sigh. I find sleep elusive, my mind racing to figure out what killed him. Was it the food, the fall, the water temperature or did he simply, quietly, die of a broken heart?

Thump thump thump. Be still my beating heart.

It’s as if she’s never seen such a peculiar thing. Maybe if she stares at it long enough, she’ll agree to eat it someday.

I never fail to underestimate the joy of an ice cold sprinkler on a hot summer night.

That is a quote. From Doctor Dash about Devil Baby. Yes, he actually said it. And after he said it, I gasped, then nodded, then added “Yes, yes, we must. She’s out of control. She’s a total wild child.”

At this moment she is standing next to me demanding mac and cheese. It is three o’clock in the afternoon. Here’s a peek at her food diary for today and you tell me whether I need to make her mac and cheese right now, which, incidentally, she will not eat. Not one bite. My making mac and cheese for her is nothing more than a symbolic gesture to prove that she rules me. It is an offering to an angry and cantankerous god who eats out of plastic bowls and sippy cups.  

8:40 pancakes, peach slices

9:10 bagel with strawberry cream cheese (ordered by herself at club snackbar) – ate one half.

9:40 box of Lucky Charms (ordered by herself at club snackbar) – ate the marshmallows. 

12:00 grilled cheese and french fries (ordered by me at club snackbar) – took zero bites of grilled cheese and ate a handful of fries.

12:40 vanilla frozen yogurt – took a bite, saw Saint James’ ice cream sandwich and demanded one causing us to leave the pool in a ball of flames because I wouldn’t let her get a second desert. Seriously, I had to carry her out of there, kicking and screaming bloody murder, everyone staring at our little parade of chaos and destruction. The towel around my waist came loose from all her writhing so the last look all the club ladies and lifeguards got was of my bathing suited wedgied ass and Devil Baby’s pale, chubby, thrashing legs. Lovely. 

2:20 peach slices – she only agreed to these after harassing me for a popsicle for fifteen minutes. I finally left the kitchen and went upstairs, only to turn around and find her stalking me, her chubby mug saying “peaches” in a deceptively sweet voice.

3:00 I’m not doing it. I’m not making mac and cheese right now. I’m not going to do it.

Any hopes I had for her third birthday ushering in an era of peace and cooperation have been smacked around, hogtied and thrown in the Mississippi tied to a bucket of cement. I cannot even believe I was hopeful, nay, naive enough to change her name to Angel Baby a mere few months ago. What a rube I was. She is naughty with a capital N. She is spitting and pinching and doing all sorts of devious and downright mean things. Today she threw Supergirl’s cheeseburger in the garbage when she got up to get water. Then when we came home she broke the little purple cross Supergirl had gotten at her kindergarten graduation. I’m not even going to begin to entertain the symbolism of that gesture. I gave her a huge time-out (the third one of the day), but not only is she showing no remorse, she’s haranguing me for mac and cheese.

I’m not going to make it. I won’t. I won’t.

postscript: reading over this, I can see my mistakes. Why, you may be asking, would you let her get frozen yogurt when she didn’t eat her lunch? And you would be right to ask. I have no answer aside from the worn out nub excuse, and I know that’s not a good answer. I need to get Circus Lady over here to put the smack down. She has this rule which always impressed me: if you get up from the table, you are done. Like DONE, done. As in, don’t come asking for food. And she meant it. But for how long? If they come back for food in an hour do you give in? Two hours? I need to figure this shit out asap, before she drives me to drink . . . more.

So on Saturday, I surprised Supergirl after her muddy soccer game and took her to Hair Police in Uptown for some colored extensions. She’s been begging since last summer when one of her swim coaches showed up with purple and green streaks and I promised her she could get them for her kindergarten graduation. (I was pretty sure they wouldn’t be considered kosher uniform policy). As we scurried through the rain, up the stairs to the destroyed, warehousy salon, I had to chuckle at Supergirl for being so excited about doing something that she perceives to be edgy and subversive. But I was also chuckling at myself, for taking my camera, and for so predictably playing the part of the quote unquote cool mom, who is so hip that she honors her girl’s wishes for colored hair and surprises her with an appointment the day after school ends. As I watched Supergirl chat with the beautiful, dread-locked Satya, I rifled through a magazine and put it down, sighing to myself: I am a walking cliché.

I am a grup. I am a grown up who is pretending she is not grown up. I am in love with youth culture because that’s where all the color and emotion and good seem to live. My take away from the state of the world right now: at best, adults are boring; at worst, they are corrupt or inept. I don’t dress my age. I don’t act my age. But somehow, I feel like I can get away with it because I am aware of my little charade, my little schtick. I’m totally on to myself. Self-awareness excuses anything, right?

Obviously, per the article on grups linked above, clinging to the stuff of youth – music, cool clothes, cool toys – is a bit of an epidemic among thirty and forty somethings. But maybe this is the new age appropriate way to act. Forty is the new thirty and so on. Maybe we stay current with music and fashion because, in and of themselves, they are beautiful things. Why would we give up our claim to the things we have always loved just because we may be getting a bit long in the tooth? Whoever says we should is just bullshit. And if you’re going to look oldish, isn’t it better to look good oldish than simply old oldish? That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I may be a walking cliché, but my daughter looks kick-ass. And judging from the bevy of girls and mamas crowding around her at the pool today, I think we may just have started something. Satya’s not going to know what hit her when they all start showing up for their little piece of cool summer color. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

If a girl can’t rock a purple jumpsuit and purple boots on her third birthday, what hope is there for any of us? I love you, Devil Baby. You exhaust me. But I love you. And I totally understand the logic behind your wardrobe choice today. Totally.

You see? THIS is why I don’t want pets. Pearl is dead. After four days in our care. She simply stopped eating, oblivious to all our machinations to keep Pingo away from her food. Last night she got stuck against the filter, overcome with exhaustion. Not a good sign.

Now she is lying on a paper towel, her tiny body a parenthesis. I am drinking my coffee with a sense of foreboding. How will the kids react when they stumble down, the soft webs of sleep dropping from their faces?

I’m sad.

And I don’t even like fish. 

I knew this was going to happen.

Poor Pearl.

I would wager that there exists a non-negligible percentage of the population who come to pet ownership as a direct result of end-of-the-year class room pet cast offs. Our family was just “gifted” with room 201’s guppies – unnamed at the time of acquisition because of the fact that their predecessors had met an untimely demise. I am not a pet kind of gal – allergies, squeamishness, etc. – and I felt slightly queasy as I got a hasty tutorial from Supergirl’s kindergarten teacher on how best not to kill them. I’m not sure if I felt better or worse about the fact that the two deceased fish were drying out nicely on a tray in the nature corner for all to examine and enjoy. I hear they have a lot of nitrogen in their bodies and will soon be introduced into the teacher’s garden – circle of life and all that. At least Supergirl will know what to do when Pearl and Pingo inevitably move on to fresher waters. As I drove home with them sloshing around in a ziplock bag in the front seat of my minivan, I found myself closing the sunroof so they wouldn’t get sunstroke, turning down the air conditioner so they wouldn’t get chilled, turning down the music so they wouldn’t get overstimulated. I felt less nervous bringing my eight pound first born child home from the hospital. 

We must have done the water temperature and dechlorination thing moderately well because they lived through the night. Pearl has been swimming around with a long piece of poo sticking out of her abdomen, much to everyone’s delight. At least she is passing her bowels – a sign of good health to be certain. I’m not sure how I feel about these creatures. Their tenous hold on life does little to endear them to me. And their poo, well, I don’t find that attractive at all.

We have now paid thirty dollars for a filter to keep 54 cents-worth of fish alive and the fish nerd who made a big show of slapping it together for me as a favor fucked it up because it leaks. Now I need to go back and endure his condescending pimple face again to get him to fix it. As he was screwing it together with his eyes closed, he assured me that I could use the same pump “when I get an aquarium.”

Heh, AS IF, I’ll be getting an aquarium, jerk.  

Except, except . . . I’ll probably be getting an aquarium. Shit.

Postscript: Last night before I went to bed, I noticed that Pearl was looking lethargic and much smaller than she had even a few hours before. Shrewd scientist that he is, Doctor Dash kept exclaiming: but how do you shrink? I don’t understand how you shrink! When I tried to give her a little extra food, Pingo swooped over in all his robust guppy glory and gobbled it all up. Even when I tried to be sneaky, he still managed to beat her to it (apparently fish can smell food – who knew?)  So I took a square plastic tupperware lid and separated them so that Pearl could eat her food in peace. I thought for certain her failure to thrive was a sign of imminent death but this morning she is not only looking a little bigger, she had managed to sneak over onto Pingo’s side, the saucy minx.