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Dalai Mama Dishes

by Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

Dalai Mama Dishes

Catherine Newman cooks for the family

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Forty

Posted October 06, 2008
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Ben

"Maybe," Ben announced, apropos of nothing, "houses should have something called a farting room. It wouldn't have to be as big as a bathroom. It could just be, like, a closet with a door. Or not even a door - just a hole cut out, like you do for a pet, and you could stick your butt in and fart. It could just be empty except for some bottles of perfume." He thinks before adding, true to his practical nature, "And there should probably be some sort of a fan." Indeed.

"Sometimes," Birdy announces, apropos of nothing, "when I'm pooping, I pretend I'm a clam." Well, sure. What's the expression? Pooping as a clam? Happy as a poop?

We were in Boston over the weekend, and, yes, we ascended all 294 steps of the Bunker Hill monument, skipped along the Freedom Trail, stood, sober, at the site of the Boston massacre, thought long and hard about life, liberty, and - as the vodka billboard put it - the pursuit of happy hour. But the highlight of our trip? The aquarium. Or, to be more specific, the aquarium's mammal tank in which we watched a seal doing what seals are at liberty to do. Which is defecate.

It was almost too good to be true. The seal dove down right in front of us, and then remained perfectly still while we watched a silver ribbon of tiny bubbles unspool between its flippers. "Wow," Ben said. "That's so cool. Where are those air bubbles coming from?" A question easily answered by leaning in close to look. A seal breaking wind! Amazing seal farts that were a mere preamble to the seal's constitutional excretory needs. We stood transfixed as the seal's bum released turd after turd, all of them floating merrily away into the tank. Relieved, the pinniped flipped over, pushed its smiling, whiskered snout out of the water, and winked at us.

We'd already enjoyed a scatological thrill or two over the weekend: finding out, for instance, that the sailors aboard the USS Constitution pooped through a hole that led directly into the ocean. Which reminded me of hearing, as a kid, that when you flushed aboard an airplane, your dung was released right into the clear blue sky. Was that true? Is it still true? After hearing it way back when, I walked around with an elbow cocked protectively over my head. To think I'd been worried about the pigeons! Speaking of which, we couldn't help singing the song from the Judy Moody Declares Independence audiobook we'd checked out of the library, the one where her brother Stink sings, to the tune of "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," "My country pooed on me / beneath the pigeon tree..." We are a patriotic bunch, I know. (And keep your eyes peeled, because I will be writing about the Freedom Trail in a future issue of FamilyFun - only now all you'll be able to think about is the pooping seal.)

I certainly don't recall my own seamlessly parental parents singing the word "poo" at any moment during my childhood - but for better and worse, Michael and I don't seem to model the grown-up dignity I always expected would emanate from the very pores of my adult self. In the car, for instance, we talk some about the vice presidential debates, sure, and then the conversation topic switches to The Lost Breakfast Cereals of Childhood. Product 19! Heartland Granola! The long-lost Buc-Wheats! Oh, we could talk about cereal all day long. And back when we were "dating" (the way one dates without leaving one's college dorm room), we did. I also remember cutting my mind-blowing "Freud and Marx" seminar because we were, you know, on a date or whatever. And then, later, we wandered out into the squinting sunlight of town only because Michael wanted to introduce me to the wonders of day-after-Easter half-price candy (Bunny Munny!) - and we ran into my lovely, neglected professor, who took in our bed head and our half-eaten bag of discount holiday chocolates, smiled, and offered us a kind hello. Freud and Marx. Sex and candy. Those were the days.

I once read something about the difference between childish (bad) and childlike (good) - and I can't help thinking that Michael and I are both. But it's not all bad. While we were waiting for the water shuttle from Charlestown, we watched a man - a man who had, insanely, been swimming in the Boston Harbor - clamber out of the water. "Mama!" Ben said. "I bet he's not wearing a swimsuit! Are you going to watch or look away?" "Watch," I said, "duh." And he laughed and said, "I kind of figured." And even though the swimmer turned out to be suit-clad after all, Ben added, admiringly, "I love that about you."

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About Catherine Newman

Catherine Newman is the author of the memoir, Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family, available online and in bookstores nationwide.

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