Yes, I used the word “girl” instead of “woman.“ There’s one less syllable. One less syllable over the course of a lifetime adds up to a lot of time saved. That saved time probably isn’t anywhere near the amount of time spent justifying the use of the word “girl” over the correct word “women” or even “female.“

I can justify this time. Not only do I save time using the inappropriate word “girl,” but I get to find out exactly who in this tree-hugging town has the guts to call me on it. If they’re busy bitching about me using this word, they won’t notice all the other words I’m not using correctly. The word “whom” comes to mind.

Saturday is the day most people, if they’re intent on fixing up the dump of a house they live in, get to work. Charlie and I like to think of ourselves as fired up about fixing up the house. We like to think of ourselves this way, but we don‘t do anything much to prove it.

We are fired up about fixing the house, but we are also people who need to exercise every day. When you’re fixing a house, you have a choice. You can start out early in the morning finishing the fireplace hearth, or you can get your exercise out of the way. Since we often spend Saturday morning debating which we should do until it’s too late to do either, we’re happy if we make a decision and do either one. Our expectations aren’t too high.

We decide to bike to breakfast. Breakfast means Starbucks or Peet’s and something solid to slow down the hole-burning potential from all the espresso we’re capable of drinking. Peet’s is a particularly good place in the summer. There’s lots of people to watch downtown while washing down up to 40 ounces of hot beverage.

Charlie doesn’t notice all the girls, yes I used that word again, walking by. He’s too busy looking at their dogs. I notice the girls. There are several huge storefront windows all along the promenade near where we sit and drink, and drink. It doesn’t seem to matter what age, status, manner of dress: all girls all turn to look at their own reflection.

Some of the girls walk by and turn their heads to look at every sequential storefront window. There are at least a dozen. You can watch them walk, then look, walk, then look, all the way down to the lakefront.

Do they think after watching themselves four times, the fifth time they’ll notice toilet paper stuck to their shoe? They’ll notice, all of a sudden, their skirt is tucked up into their underwear? They forgot pants?

Everyone knows girls look at girls. We check out guys, too, but our most critical eye is focused on other girls. If there’s someone better looking than us, we need to find a flaw. This morning’s selection of girls are so busy looking at themselves, they aren’t even looking over at the other girls. They might as well have forgotten to put on pants. No girls would notice.

I didn’t even wash my face this morning. It was either get out of the house quickly, or sit in front of the TV trying to find the motivation to do something like get another cup of coffee. I’m safe. No one’s looking my direction. I’m not sitting in front of a window.

We get home and the General’s still sleeping. Good. We get a few more minutes before we have to drive her and all her fifteen year-old loud friends to someplace where money is spent.

“Mom!”

Uh-oh, time to get boundaries in place and face the General.

“My back is killing me,” Cheyenneh says, perfectly imitating my Grandmother.

“What’s wrong with your back?”

“We went on my friend’s boat yesterday,” she says. “No one else wanted a turn, so I wake boarded all afternoon. I went all the way from one end of the lake to the other. I‘m so sore. Are you ready to go to the gym?”

“Let‘s go later,” I say. I want to go later, but I know myself. We won‘t go. We never do.

“Let‘s go now.”

“But you’re sore.”

“Now. We’re going now.”

I go find Charlie to tell him his new plans for the morning. He’s trying to hid the paintbrush in his hand.

“What do you think you‘re doing?” I say as he slowly surrenders the paint brush. “That‘s my job.”

I hide the paintbrush so he can’t find it when we return. Painting is the one thing I can do. Maybe he’ll finish the fireplace if he can’t finish the touch-up.

“There’s nothing to do on the house but boring things,” Charlie says. “I don’t want to do those jobs.”

“The General says we’re going to the gym now.”

“Let’s go later,” Charlie says.

“I already tried that. She wants to go now. You know her -- she won‘t let up until she gets her way.”

I’m the one who’s always pushing people to work out. Since when did my daughter take over?

“I’m tired,” she says when we get to the gym. “I’m just running a little bit then sitting in the hot tub.”

Charlie and I do weights and since the treadmills are on the other side of the gym, we’re free of demands until Cheyenneh stops running. If history is any indication, she’ll be off and playing basketball with the high school boys in about five minutes.

The peace of a preoccupied fifteen year-old is wonderful. After about a half an hour, I feel guilty not enduring her commands. I figure I ought to be a good Mom and at least find the General. She’s still on the treadmill, pounding pretty fast.

“Can you believe she’s still running?” I tell Charlie. “I thought she was tired.”

“She did threaten to get eating disorders if we didn’t renew our gym membership,” he says. “I thought she saw the gym as a place to hang out with sweaty boys. I didn’t know she knew how to use the equipment.”

“Me, neither,” I say. “But if she’s working out, so am I. Nobody in my family outsweats me. I’m doing abs.”

I pride myself on my strong abs. I’m on these machines a lot and I look strong. Girls look at girls, you know. Girls walk by and I see them looking at me. I push it because I know they’re looking.

Some strong looking girl walks over to one of the ab machines not so close. I’m in the middle of a set so I don’t look up. I watch her out of the corner of my eye. All I can see is she’s wearing headphones and damn if she isn’t working harder than me. She must be doing at least fifty crunches a set. I’m only doing thirty. Everyone else is doing ten.

I don’t pay attention to her. Now it’s war. I flip over, stretch quickly, then pound down another set. By forty good crunches I have to stop. Let the perfect bitch our crunch me. She’s probably half my age. Everyone else in here is.

I flip over to stretch again and the ab-bitch gets up and walks toward me.

“Are you going to be here a while longer?” she says. I look up. It’s my own daughter, the General.

“That was you, crunching like a wild woman?”

“I want to make sure I have time to sit in the hot tub,” she says. “I’m so sore.”

“I can’t believe that was you.”

She ignores me and does another killer set of crunches. If I never sit up straight again, it’s worth it. I’m not going to let her beat me. I do another set, too. Fifty this time. Barely.

Charlie and I finish up. I walk over toward the hot tub to give Cheyenneh the five minute warning. There’s no one in the hot tub, only someone swimming in the lap pool. It looks like a guy since he isn’t splashing and moving so quickly.

I think to myself, why didn’t I go look for Cheyenneh on the basketball courts? That’s where she always is.

The swimmer gets to the end of the pool and stops. “Ten minutes more?“ she says. Who is this and what did she do with my daughter?

Even if my abs will never recover, I couldn’t be more proud. I thought she was only driven to make us do work. Who knew she could use that drive on herself?

Instead of starting right on in tackling the jobs he doesn’t want to do, Charlie calls his daughter. She lives with his X in another state.  He decides talking on the phone is better than working on the fireplace mantel. He‘s seen me use this excuse, so I can‘t say anything.

I go upstairs and take an extremely long time to put on my painting clothes. I even wash my face. Somebody might see me.

Charlie’s off the phone when I’m ready to work. He looks kind of green, greener than the beautiful green wall I painted behind him.

“She said, ‘Boy, do I have news for you.’”

“Yeah?”

“She’s pregnant and she’s thinking about moving to Oregon,” he says.

“You’re going to be a grandfather?”

“She says, ‘My Mom doesn’t like my boyfriend because he just got out of jail.’ I didn’t know what to say. Who am I to judge her choice of boyfriends? After all, I married her mother. What do I know?”

“I’m not one to judge, either,” I say. “I picked a pedophile for my first husband. Her boyfriend can’t be worse than that.”

“I want to work on these dumb jobs even less,” Charlie says. “What should I do now?”

“What should you do on the house, or what should you do about your daughter?”

“Either one.”

“Your daughter will be fine. She’s never asked for anything, unlike a certain fifteen year-old upstairs.”

“I’m too traumatized to do dumb jobs. What would you do?”

“I’m a girl. When we’re stressed, we shop. You could use a little mall therapy,” I say. “Let’s go to Home Depot. Maybe our Mill‘s Pride kitchen is in.”

Now you see why we never finish anything. We’ve got boxes of a new kitchen ready to install. Who wants to finish dumb stuff in the living room when you can assemble cabinets?

I’m guessing the power tools will be in the living room a while longer.