The Sock Puppet Factory - Twenty Funnier-than-Average Essays on Parenting: A Chipped Demitasse Book, #1

By Teece Aronin

The Sock Puppet Factory: Twenty Funnier-than-Average Essays on Parenting, is a selection of humor essays culled from author, Teece Aronin's long-running blog, Chipped Demitasse. The book moves chronologically through her children's development, starting in infancy where Aronin's distain of people who complain about babies in restaurants is succinctly summed up: "True. Who doesn't hate a laughing baby?" The essays end in the kids' late teens. Unless she is obviously pulling your leg, you can trust that these essays are based very snugly on Aronin's own experiences, so pure and perfect in their own right that no embellishment is needed. In the book's first essay, Aronin tees off with that dilemma most parents face at some point: how to discourage your child from swearing when you're shocked and struggling not to laugh. Then there's Aronin's discovery that her very young son has a morbid side. In the book's titular essay, The Sock Puppet Factory, Aronin blends sarcasm with affection as she writes about being a late-life parent with bad knees and children willing to do her laundry, much of which never makes it back up the basement stairs. The Sock Puppet Factory contains 20 essays and is approximately 55 pages long. 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Teece Aronin
• Release date: Apr 12, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386428329

Teece Aronin

Teece Aronin is a blogger and columnist. Her blog, Chipped Demitasse, has been gaining dedicated readers since its launch in 2014. Her work has appeared in the Oakland Press, and Capital Area Women's Lifestyle Magazine (CAWLM) as well as online through appearances at TrueHumor.com and The Erma Bombeck Writers Workshop in association with HumorWriters.org. Favorite topics are health and wellness, aging, loss, and her lunatic pets. Teece lives in Michigan with her teenagers, Sydney and Jon. 

Book preview

DEDICATIONS

For Syd: My first, my Scout, my pigheaded angel-face. You are braver and abler than you know. When you see that for yourself, the world will bow down at your feet. Thank you for all the times you made me laugh because you knew how much I needed to.

For Jon: My last, my philosopher, my Democrap. You are gentle, yet straightforward, a priceless combination. You are wise beyond your years, and I know you’ll use that wisdom, and your kindness, to help others.  

And for both of you: If I ever lose my mind and forget to tell you at least a thousand times a day, please know that I love you more than all the sock puppets, Pink Babies, Monkey-Doos, and Lambleys in the world.

~ Mom

January 2018

FORWARD

In the winter of 2014 , I was about to launch a blog and lived in a state of torturous anticipation waiting for its name to come to me. I knew the feeling I wanted the name to have, but the words to describe the feeling were elusive. Once the word demitasse popped up (because I collect cups), the chipped wasn’t far behind. I’d found the name: Chipped Demitasse . Then I spent years explaining it to people, so maybe I should explain it here, too.

Chipped Demitasse evokes a line from the play, The Lion in Winter: Nothing in life has any business being perfect. Behold the poor chipped demitasse. What once seemed perfect is now flawed. Then, remember Goldman’s quote. What a metaphor that tiny, injured cup is for us humans and how hopeful Goldman’s message; beautiful despite, or, because, of our flaws. The Leonard Cohen song, Anthem, says to forget your perfect offering, that there is a crack in everything; and that crack is how the light gets in.

The chipped demitasse is also the woman, once elegant, now broken and carrying herself with all the dignity she can muster. More amusingly, it is all of us when we try to be something we can’t quite pull off.

I didn’t know exactly what Chipped Demitasse was going to be about other than that some of its posts would be about raising kids and dating as an older mother of young kids. That having been said, it would have to be, at times, a humor blog. But I’m human, and like everyone else, am made up of a lot of pieces. I know about movies; I was forty when my first child was born; I’d been a healthy weight; I’d been morbidly obese; I’m an introvert who loves being onstage; I had been married to and divorced from a Jewish stand-up comic with cerebral palsy, from Long Island, New York (the opposite of my able-bodied shiksa self who’d grown up in the Midwest). I am fascinated by death and find grief awful yet beautiful. All these pieces and interests have found their way into Chipped Demitasse over the years and, in turn, will find their way into more books by me.

All the essays in The Sock Puppet Factory are humor essays, because somehow, that just seemed right in a book with sock puppet in the title, so they might be too light-hearted overall to sync with everything I just said. Consider them me on my good days.

I still write Chipped Demitasse and a new post goes up most weekends, usually on Sundays. You can find it at ChippedDemitasse.blogspot.com. Read it with a little spot of something warm to drink - in a demitasse, with a chip.

INTRODUCTIONS

The very first time I met Teece Aronin, she was talking about parenting. We were both on a public radio program, remotely, to read and comment on our This I Believe essays on this subject. She showed a sparkling sense of humor, so I got her email address and asked if she’d send me more of her writing. She did, and it displayed the same sparkling wit. In  The Sock Puppet Factory  that delightful wit is on full display. Like most of us parents, Teece tries to raise her two precocious children with what Stan Laurel called half-assed dignity, and it’s that half-assedness that caused me to LOL many times while reading about her parental exploits. For example, you must read the book to find out what getting screwed back into functionality refers to. The woman can turn a phrase! Sit back, relax, and enjoy the turns of phrase and fate that are bound to make you LOL, too.

Lawrence Kessenich

- Former editor at Houghton Mifflin, award-winning poet, and fellow half-assed parent

TEECE ARONIN IS A TREASURE! All her writing is solid, and she shines when tackling the topic of childrearing. This book is chockfull of nonstop